The Orphaned Worlds

by Michael Cobley

  Rosa leaped ahead, taking the steps two, sometimes three at a time. Robert tried to keep up and was gasping for breath by the time he reached the bottom. Dark ichor splattered the floor around the smashed Achorga corpse – he spared it the briefest of glances before dashing after Rosa, who had ducked through a wide exit. Beyond it he almost stumbled when he saw what awaited there.

  There was some light, faint glows coming from strange narrow panels that looked vaguely like stained glass. There were columns of similar panels all around the walls, which went up at least two hundred metres. This huge hall had straight sides and semicircular ends and was perhaps three hundred metres in length. But what caught his attention from the moment he entered were the big circular platforms, one at either end. He recalled the chamber under Giant’s Shoulder, back on Darien.

  ‘Forerunners,’ he said. ‘Are these … warpwells?’

  THESE ARE TRANSFER PLATFORMS WARPWELLS UNDERTAKE TRANSFER FUNCTIONS IN ADDITION TO THEIR OWN VERY SPECIAL NATURE

  ‘I suspected as much,’ Rosa said. ‘Which one?’

  TO THE RIGHT

  ‘And naturally I’m the last one to know,’ Robert said, running after her. ‘I think I can guess how we’re getting out.’

  Drawing near he could see the same swirling, interlocking patterns he had noticed at Giant’s Shoulder, except that this platform was at least twice as big. Also, it had a tenuous yet perceptible aura about it, as if energies slumbered within, waiting to be awakened. By contrast, the other looked grey, dusty and lifeless.

  PLACE ME UPON THE CONTROL PEDESTAL

  Steps led up and at the edge of the platform was a waist-high plinth of pale, featureless stone. Rosa carefully set the cylinder on its flat top then stood back. A shifting blue radiance appeared around the container and suddenly glowing symbols flickered up and down the plinth. At that moment, Achorga began streaming in through the entrance.

  SENTINEL PRESENCE IS ONLY RESIDUAL OUR DESTINATION IS SET RETRIEVE ME THEN STAND ON THE BRIGHT EMBLEM

  Rosa grabbed the container while Robert darted over to where a large symbol like an embellished filigree letter O glowed brightly. All the time horribly aware of the clicking, clattering sound of Achorga limbs as they scrambled towards the warp-well. Then Rosa was standing next to him and dazzling curtains of light sprang up around them, completely obscuring the huge Forerunner hall …

  For a long, drawn-out moment he felt as if the light was pouring through him, its brightness invigorating his mind and senses, an exhilarating cataract of cold fire filling his head …

  Then abruptly it was gone and he staggered, eyes blinking at a sudden dimness.

  ‘Father, are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, I’m … I am fine. That was quite an astonishing experience,’ he said. ‘I don’t recall the transfer from Giant’s Shoulder being quite as visceral as that …’

  He paused, eyes adapting to normal light levels as he became aware of his surroundings, then amazed.

  The Forerunner chamber beneath the Achorga hive had been imposing, but this edifice was built on an altogether more stupendous scale. They were now standing on another big circular platform, like the others made of stone but this was a pale material and the grooves of the intricate convoluted patterns were sharp and clean, as if freshly cut. Dark, glassy walls rose straight up to a dome with a silvery octagonal pattern. Curved ramps led down to a side avenue which ran straight for perhaps half a kilometre to a similar dome and platform. On one side was a steep-sloped wall from which immense empty plinths protruded at regular intervals, interspersed with huge square frames filled with blank silvery surfaces that offered no reflection. Along the top of the wall, itself about two hundred metres high, were more of the silvery frames and behind them pillars supported a long balcony provided with numerous small buildings and structures. Nowhere was there any sign of life.

  The other side of the huge avenue consisted of a single unbroken and transparent wall which rose up to curve over the high balcony and meet a dark, shiny wall that formed a backdrop. But there, beyond the transparent wall, was a sight fit to render insignificant anything devised by mortal or transient sentience. Above them, vast and beautiful, was the galaxy.

  THIS IS THE SEAT OF REGARD

  ‘All references I have ever seen discount it as a myth,’ said Rosa, cradling the Zyradin container in her arms.

  Robert stared up at the stellar lens. They were seeing it from the side and perhaps ten degrees off the ecliptic, so he was able to make out the spiral arms, the clumped densities of stars and hot gas, the darker swirls and patches, and the brightness at the hub.

  ‘It’s breathtaking and magnificent,’ he said. ‘But I thought we were going to Darien.’

  THE SEAT OF REGARD IS NOT A MERE OBSERVATION POINT IT ALSO SERVES AS A TRAP THE SILVER APERTURES DEPLOY COUNTERMEASURES AGAINST ANY AGGRESSORS WHO ENTER I BROUGHT US HERE AS A PRECAUTION TO CONTINUE OUR JOURNEY WE MUST TRAVEL TO THE PLATFORM AT THE FAR END

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Rosa. ‘We can afford no more delays.’

  At ground level they found a couple of passenger floaters parked in a booth set into the stairway. The controls were simple and intuitive and moments later they were gliding leisurely along the avenue. As they did so, colossal holoprojections appeared on the jutting plinths, opaque, full-colour representations of many different species which shifted their stances and looked down as the newcomers passed by. Robert recognised a Kiskashin, a Vusark, and a Makhori, but the others were a mystery to him.

  One hundred millennia separates us from the peoples of the Forerunner alliance, he thought. But compared to the thirteen billion-plus years of the galaxy’s existence, that’s almost recent history. Who knows what primordial eras and conflicts the Forerunners looked back at and drew inspiration or caution from?

  Halfway along the broad avenue, Robert spotted something sitting off to the side not far ahead. As they drew closer he saw that it was another floater vehicle, abandoned and deactivated. Further on was another, and a third.

  Rosa looked grim. ‘Zyradin, are you seeing this?’

  THE SITUATION APPEARS ANOMALOUS MY ATTEMPTS AT ESTABLISHING EXCHANGE PROTOCOLS WITH THE SEAT OF REGARD’S WARDENS ARE BEING IGNORED PERHAPS THE PASSAGE OF TIME HAS ALLOWED DYSFUNCTIONS TO OCCUR AND PERSIST

  Without warning, the floater started to slow, losing height.

  ‘Father,’ said Rosa. ‘Arm yourself and be ready to run when we come to a halt.’

  The moment the floater finally scraped to a stop, she leaped to the floor and took off in a full-pelt headlong dash. Taken by surprise, Robert charged after her, straining to catch up. At the same time, the lighting dimmed and a harsh voice boomed throughout the interior, uttering incomprehensible words.

  ‘What’s … it saying … ?’ he shouted as he ran.

  ‘That we are a violation … and we must be erased.’

  ‘At least they’re … taking us … seriously … What’s that?’

  The silver frames spaced along the avenue were starting to distort. Their silver faces warped, pointed shapes pushing forward against metallic yet elastic membranes.

  ‘Trouble,’ Rosa yelled, slowing to push the Zyradin cylinder into his grasp. ‘Take it and go on ahead – quick. I’m right behind you.’

  Even as she gave him the container, a shape broke free from one of the frames. On five limber legs it fell to the floor, a fist-sized, chrome spiderlike thing, creature or mechanism, he couldn’t tell. But it was like a signal because now every silver frame began spilling them into the avenue. With the cylinder tucked firmly under one arm, he aimed the beam pistol and fired as he ran.

  THERE HAS BEEN A SERIOUS BREACH OF THE SEAT OF REGARD’S DEFENCES THESE THINGS ARE THE LESSER XEZRI, AND THEY COULD NOT HAVE INFILTRATED THE OVERSYSTEM BY THEMSELVES ANOTHER AGENCY IS AT WORK HERE

  Robert felt too gripped by fearful determination to answer, too focused on burning aside any of the spiders that scuttled too near, as well as ducking and dodging the ones that sprang into the
air. Behind him he heard the whining hiss of Rosa’s flechette carbine. Ahead the steps to another platform were less than a hundred metres away.

  Then a grabbing silvery shape flew at him from the side. He cried out as it scrabbled at his neck and he flailed with his pistol, trying to knock it loose and succeeding. But another group of them were rushing to intercept, the front runners suddenly launching themselves towards him. Somehow he managed to cut them into burning, melting fragments with a single sweep of the beam pistol. Then he executed a tight turn, sprang past the remainder and found himself with a clear run at the steps. But when he glanced back he saw Rosa surrounded by a surging, glittering horde that reached her legs and began to climb.

  ‘Rosa! No!’

  YOU CANNOT SAVE HER CLIMB TO THE PLATFORM

  ‘Run, Father!’ she cried out as she fought, kicked and lashed out. ‘Save the Zyradin and get away …’

  Robert cursed in helpless fury, wavered, then turned back towards the platform. But a line of the spider things had flanked him and were advancing across the steps. He fired, shrieked, stamped and jumped over them, lunging up towards the top. He was nearly there when several of them landed on his back, knocking him forward. Panicking, he pushed himself back up but then something needle-sharp lanced into his back, between the shoulder blades, into his spine. Cold and hot at the same time, it made him think that he was almost reliving the fight aboard the Plausible Response, in that pocket universe.

  His sight split, seeing double, and he staggered up onto the platform. Then another spike drove into his neck. He gasped and fell to his knees, hands numb and releasing their burdens. He didn’t remember falling over …

  … but his next conscious thought found him lying on his side on the carved, heavily patterned surface of the Forerunner platform. His outflung hand was empty and as it came into focus so did the horde of silver spider things waiting in a surrounding mass just metres away.

  In reflex he quickly retracted his arm then levered himself into a sitting position.

  MOVE WARILY ROBERT HORST MY CONTAINMENT VESSEL IS AT YOUR BACK

  Carefully he retrieved it, regarding the enclosing circle of silver enemies. His breathing was shallow and there was a wheeze in his chest, and his muscles seemed weak and quivering.

  ‘What did you say these things are?’ he said.

  THE LESSER XEZRI A DEADLY PARASITE LONG THOUGHT EXTINCT A BILLION YEARS AGO THE GREATER XEZRI RULED HALF THE GALAXY AND MADE THE OTHER HALF TREMBLE IN FEAR LISTEN ROBERT HORST YOU ARE DYING THE XEZRI INJECTED YOU WITH A NEURAL DISASSEMBLER IT IS SLOWLY EATING AWAY YOUR BRAIN AND REPLACING IT WITH THEIR OWN STRUCTURES YOU MUST GET UP AND CARRY ME ACROSS TO THE CONTROL PEDESTAL I AM EXERTING MY OWN ENERGIES TO KEEP THE XEZRI AT BAY THEY DARE NOT COME ANY NEARER SO ROBERT HORST TIME TO COMPLETE YOUR MISSION

  But no time for any more living, he thought, a certain despair tingeing his woozy thoughts.

  Tucking the cylinder inside a chest pocket, he got to his feet, somehow. Then he faced the control pedestal and strode forward, got a few paces, yawned, blinked a slow blink which on opening showed a sideways view of the platform, from where his head lay upon it. So heavy, his head, but he managed to lift it, imagining that he was carrying it under one arm with the Zyradin under the other. He laughed, a weak, throaty sound.

  No walking this time. On all fours he crawled for an eternity across the cold stone patterns, which drew his eyes to them, their fabulous complexity, grace of line and intertwining enigmas. At one point he thought he was talking with Rosa, with the older, more mature version, discussing her mother and the previous younger Rosa-sim, almost as if she were a younger sister. And with every shuffle and drag of the way, the waiting myriad xezri paced him, the eerie, restless swaying of a forest of deadly silver blades over which he towered like a dying giant …

  SLEEP NOW ROBERT HORST DIE NOW WITH HONOUR

  And he was lying slumped against the control pedestal, now alive with glowing symbols. He’d made it somehow, and as for dying, well, he wasn’t ready for that but to sleep, to lay down his head and rest after all of that terrible effort, ah yes, what a rest that would be …

  Beautiful veils of light burst up out of the stone platform, out of the patterns, wrapped him in radiance, and he knew no more.

  CHEL

  After days of stealth and nights of guile in the shadows, he came to a rocky hillside overlooking a deep, densely forested valley some distance north of the Kentigerns, and roughly two days’ walk from the coast. He knew that the enemy machine was down there, now, and with all that he had gleaned it was imperative to find out what it was planning. His new eyes, Segrana’s gift, had shown him visions, glimpses of what had been, of oddly different events with different outcomes or involving different people. He also saw fragmentary scenes of the now, Greg on a devastated mountainside, directing construction and helping with refugees while sunset approached; Kao Chih aboard a small spaceship with two others, his face appearing oddly distorted; Catriona looking ill and distressed as she sat on a high branch with heavy rain falling through the gloom.

  Then his eyes had shown him chains of strangely grey images – Greg dead and buried at the heart of a mountain, Catriona dead and buried at the foot of a tree, and himself, face-down in a river flowing down to the sea while indistinct, enslaving machines marched across the hills towards Giant’s Shoulder. Was he being warned about actual futures, or were these symbols of some other kind of conflict?

  He stared calmly at the darkening forest. His task was clear – find out all he could about the bizarre tentacled machine-creature, track its course, determine its destination, then lead Greg and others there to destroy it. The consequences of failure looked to be full of dread.

  By now the sun had set so he stood and started down to the valley below.

  Tonight, Umara’s sky unfolded a plentiful display of purple and orange swirls while the points and glows of the forest seemed especially lustrous. Chel smiled, half-imagining a conspiracy between ground and sky to illuminate matters as he stole through the trees. Yet he had his own ploys and stratagems by which he intended to avoid detection and slip past the eyes and ears of the enemy’s machine servants.

  Which had taken up sentry posts, proof of a kind that the enemy itself had come to a halt. One of the advantages conferred by his new eyes was the ability to vary certain aspects of his body’s inner workings, like heartbeat and skin temperature. Adjusting his external presence to merge with the susurrus of the forest, he crept past the gleaming lenses and pickups of war machines standing guard. He could have used the altered-air shell to be sure of complete concealment but it would have left him exhausted and vulnerable in the middle of the enemy camp.

  With steady, deliberate movements he crept past the inner and outer circles of sentries, using every scrap of bush and foliage as cover. An after-dusk misty haze drifted over the undergrowth, haloing the soft glows of ineka beetles and clusters of ulby roots. Finally he reached the enemy’s lair, a sharp dip sheltered beneath a stand of larger, mature trees. Hidden by a dense, prickly syldu bush, he peered down at a great dark shadow, then gazed upon it with the eyes of Segrana …

  Within the long blocky form of the factory machine rested the enemy – its shape was like a creature with a flattened carapace and a number of tentacles protruding from one end. But Chel had seen their like before, during the visions of his husking at Tapiola daughter-forest, visions of the deep past, of the great war against the Legion of Avatars. Twisted minds bound lifelong within armoured shells, beings who embraced what they called convergence, a union with machines, a cold pain and a mechanised anger that faced outwards, directed at all and any who would dare defy them …

  And now he changed the intensity and focus of those eyes, shifting from the images of now to the images of after. This was a Knight of the Legion of Avatars, whose only conceivable purpose had to be the release of the Legion survivors, imprisoned in the deepest levels of hyperspace, then unrestrained retribution. But he had to know the
very darkest of the consequences gathering beyond the limits of the now, he had to see …

  Night’s gloom lay upon the forest, speckled with creature-glows and overlaid with an ominous hush. All six of his eyes gazed at its shadows, which trembled like a membrane, like a skin. Which dissolved into cold, black devastation, the land and the hills and ridges to the north merging into the mountains to the south, except that it was all burnt. All the forests, the meadows, the wildlife, all around for as far as he could see was incinerated to ash, black and grey wastes congealing in a steady, heavy downpour, cold, black and dead …

  The vision melted back into the now, into Chel crouching behind a leafy bush, drawing a deep, shaky breath. The horror of it, even just as a potential envisaging, was almost overpowering. A part of him wanted to run far and fast and find a deep cave to hide in. But that was only the youngling in him, whereas resolve led him to start climbing down the foliage-curtained slope towards the enemy’s machine lair.

  He was near the bottom when he paused, sure for a moment that he’d heard voices. Keeping motionless he listened, got nothing, then heard it, one voice, a man’s. Chel finished the descent cautiously and slowly while the voice came nearer through the trees. The man was alternately yelling for help, virulently cursing his captors, and trying to cajole them into releasing him. Worst of all, Chel knew who it was – it was Gregory’s friend Rory.

  ‘… aye, ye better let me go ’cos if I get ma hands on one o’ they plasma cannon I’m gonnae stick it where the sun don’t shine and let rip! … aaaagh! – right, I’ll no’ need a gun, just a hammer’ll dae!’

  Chel could see metallic forms emerging from shadowy curtains of creeper. Rory had been bound hand and foot then strapped to the back of one of the big combat droids. The sight was disturbing – for all the days of this long, taxing pursuit, not once had Chel seen any evidence of the Knight or its servants taking prisoners. Rory, still shouting and swearing, was being carried towards the rear of the huge factory machine where a hatch had folded open. It was easily wide enough to admit a Human lying prone, and as he watched a thick shelf with a Human-shaped recess slid out lengthways.