by T. R. Harris
“That is also true yet place yourself within the minds of the Aris. Maintaining such a long life term requires almost constant upkeep of the body. One such as us aged five thousand years requires the bulk of his time to be spent undergoing operations and improvements, as well as a careful balance of a specific energy which only we can produce. A life such as that is hardly living, and the older the Aris, the less time was available for learning and exploration.”
“So you seek authentic immortality,” Trimen concluded.
Nunki stepped up to the Formilian, his eyes bright and his chest expanded. “Forgive me as I continue to marvel at your presence—and that of the Human. I am still in awe of the final results of our grand experiment.” He glanced at Lila. “Zee only sent the signal that the Apex Being existed a little over a year ago. It was at that time that the Aris began to be revived.”
He stood back and held out his hands. “Observe my perspective. One moment I am being encased in the nitrogen device. My eyes close…and a moment later they open again. In that brief interval—of which I had no awareness—three billion years have passed. Our delicate manipulations of primitive life on Earth and Formil—as well as thousands of others—have already journeyed along the long and dangerous path of evolution to become what you are today. Some of the lines survived, some didn’t. Some mutated beyond what we had anticipated, while other lines did not produce the results we planned for. Yet in what was a blink of an eye to me and the other Aris, the entire galaxy blossomed with life—our life—and with a singular purpose of producing the Apex Being.”
“How could you have calculated all the variables, all the uncertainties that would occur over such an extended time period?” Panur asked.
Adam had never seen the mutant like this before. He had finally met beings smarter than he, and it was showing. Adam got the impression that if the Aris wore rings and wished Panur to kiss them, he would. The prospect of escape was looking dimmer by the moment.
“We experimented over a vast range of worlds and methods, knowing that a small percentage of them would produce results. The Formilians, for example, were cast with a particular gene, which over time, produced the pheromones that would make them attractive to off-world species. That was the key to producing the Apex Being.”
“So any alien mating with a Formilian would produce—Lila?” Adam asked.
The Aris smiled at Adam. “No…that is not how it works. Contrary to your belief, there are multiple races joining with Formilians at this very moment and have for many generations. It was designed that way. However, it is an exceedingly rare genetic combination—down to the individual level—that produced…Lila. What she is today is not only immortal, but other things, that being the result of her Human heritage. If her immortality had come about from a different paring, she would have other mutations.”
“But why me?”
“That is unknown, and irrelevant. The fact that your chemistry was able to overcome the differences in species—and that the Apex Being was created as a result—is what matters. We only need one.”
“One immortal?”
“That is true, however, we are fortunate that now we have three such beings. It will make our transition that much easier.”
“What transition?” J’nae asked.
“To becoming immortal ourselves.”
74
The tour continued for another three hours, as their Aris guide showed them control centers, energy generators and scientific laboratories. None of the prisoners broached the subject of the transition to immortality again, probably because they knew they wouldn’t like the answer. At least that would be Adam’s reaction—although he had nothing to fear from that subject. Yet the mutants—all of them, including Lila—seemed excited about what the Aris were showing them, oblivious to the threat hanging over their heads. How the Aris expected to transfer immortality from one being to another was a mystery that didn’t seem to bother them.
After a while, Adam begged the tour to stop. He was tired, hungry and needed to take a piss. It took a moment for the Aris to understand his concern; the mutants could care less, and neither did the Aris. Eventually they capitulated and led the group to a large room with a rectangular table made of stone. Finding a bathroom in the place was another problem, requiring an army of robots to construct one over the course of five minutes. It was something to see, as they scurried about installing plumbing, walls and a makeshift toilet. Only Adam and Trimen took advantage of the newest addition to the Aris space station.
The non-Aris sat on one side of the long table, with everyone else on the other. Four of the tiny service orbs rested next to the Aris, with faint lines of blue energy streaming through the air and into the chests of the aliens. Adam knew they fed directly on energy, so this was their meal, while Adam and Trimen were served processed food based on their particular body chemistry. Lila, Panur and J’nae declined both food and energy. They could sustain themselves fine without any new infusion.
“You mentioned only one hundred twenty four Aris participated in the encasement program,” Trimen began. “What happened to the others?”
Nunki continued in his role as host. Adam had learned that it was he, and he alone, who had visited Earth and Formil, so the Apex Being—Lila—was his pet project and the crowning achievement of the Aris to date. This gave him a type of elevated status among his people.
The alien now reached out a hand and touched a finger to his service module—Zee. “They succumbed to the ravages of time.”
“I am confused,” Trimen continued. “Could they not have continued as before? Your civilization was a million years old at the time you began this grand experiment. You had the means to move to other worlds.”
“Your basic assumptions are correct, yet not your perspective. You ask what became of the Aris who did not participate in the encasing? They simply allowed their various organs and implants to fail. Once the process began, they died most conventional deaths.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because they had grown tired. Our race had very shortsightedly eliminated conventional reproduction abilities thousands of years before, and as detailed before, had elected to sustain our population through artificial means. This process—the constant need for more operations and enhancements—is quite wearisome and time-consuming. Some Aris did not see the value in existence under these conditions. And being the curious creatures that we are, many chose instead to explore existence on a different plane—if indeed that plane existed.”
“Yet you and your followers chose a different path,” J’nae said softly.
Nunki studied her for a moment before continuing. “Yes. Some of us believed there was a form of natural immortality, one which did not require the replacements and enhancements. At the time, we could not find any such immortals in the galaxy, so we set out to create them.” He looked at Lila. “Lila is the end result.”
“One hundred twenty-four of you exist?” Trimen asked.
“Unfortunately, no,” Nunki replied. “Even the Aris are not perfect. Over time, some of our encasement units failed, killing the occupants. Others were revived early and decided not to participate any longer in the experiment. In the end, only eighteen of us remain to this day.”
“I still find it amazing how you were able to do this, and over such a long timescale.” Adam said.
“The calculations were extensive, even for us, yet the number of primitive worlds in the galaxy gave us hope that a few of our seeds would flower. Three billion years ago there was only the most-primitive life on Earth—and on Formil—and thousands of other worlds we visited. We extrapolated the results of our minor manipulations of genes and hereditary markers and found that it would take billions of years to produce the results we sought. And so we further extrapolated from there, seeing two paths we could take. One: We could initiate our experiments and then leave them to their own devices. In the meantime, the existing Aris would die off or evolve into other creatures, of which
we could only speculate. This is what concerned those like me. Think back to your own evolution, Adam Cain. A million years ago, your race was locked in an evolutionary arm of semi-intelligent simians, without speech, tools or extended social structures. Look how you have changed over that time. Now imagine if your civilization continued for another million years and you had extensive records reaching back that long, to a time where—relatively—the first of your kind were like the primitive apes. The Aris of a million years ago—before the encasing and the time interval involved—were as primitive to us as your ape-like ancestors. We could see the change we went through in only a million years. Now multiply that three thousand times. If allowed to evolve, the Aris of today would be unrecognizable from the Aris sitting before you today.
“The other path we could take involved suspending our evolution while our experiments came to fruition. Some of us saw this not so much as an alternate course, but rather a postponement of the inevitable. If our experiments failed, then we would simply start anew, evolving into what we would eventually become.” He looked at Lila. “I still vividly recall everything about the universe of the far distance past. And now I am here, sitting at a table with not only the end product of our Human and Formilian experiments, but with the immortal being herself. The Aris may be ancient, yet we still retain emotions. This is a very exciting time for us.”
“Forgive me, Nunki,” J’nae said, “but I am still confused about the decision you made. Even though you could not foresee the outcome of continued evolution, surely you were excited about the prospect of changing, as you had over the million years of your civilization? During that time, you became more advanced, smarter and more powerful, than when your civilization was first founded. You would have become even more had you continued along your normal path.”
The Aris let out a very Human-like laugh. “You would imagine such,” Nunki said. “In fact, because we could look back over our evolution, we saw times when our race was stronger, more resourceful and more powerful than later generations. Intelligence doesn’t always mean progress, not unless that intelligence is focused in the right direction, which is impossible to do in hindsight.”
He looked back at Adam. “Many of you have wondered why the Human race has been able to accomplish what they have in such a short time? It is because we sped up the evolutionary process, while at the same time restricting some of the more traditional changes that take place. A normal species would require an additional hundred thousand years to reach the mental capacity of a modern Human. In the meantime, the physicality of that creature would diminish, as they modify their environment to become more accommodating. Humans reached their level of mental acuity sooner, even as their planet remained a very dangerous place to live. This has allowed Humans to become extremely intelligent—relatively—while retaining their animal instincts and advantage over their physical environment. It has made them both strong and smart, which in traditional species is often mutually exclusive. In truth, you were programmed to become such, just as the Formilians were endowed with a particularly strong and omnipresence sexual scent. As a result, we have produced the Apex Being, the first naturally-born immortal in the galaxy.”
“Yet Panur is also immortal,” Lila said, speaking for the first time.
“Which is a surprise—and a joy—to us.”
“And what of me?” J’nae asked. There was concern—almost fear—in her voice.
He looked to Panur. “First, I must give my compliments to you, Panur. In a blink of time you created what it has taken the Aris three billion years to achieve. However, you did have the advantage of a prototype to work from—yourself. And now with three immortals, we have more options.”
“Such as?” Adam asked. “What are you going to do to Lila?” To Adam, this was the sixty-four thousand dollar question. He could care less what happened to the other mutants.
“The Aris are very patient creatures, so we have been studying her, attempting to discover the best way to utilize her special abilities to our advantage. Just as Panur had a prototype for his creation of J’nae, we now have…Lila. Yet we also have a dilemma. Whereas what Panur created was a near clone of himself, the Aris do not wish to create more Lila’s. Instead, we wish to transfer her immortality to us. Call us selfish, but the entire purpose for the experiment was so that we—the eighteen remaining Aris—can live forever, without need of the aforementioned procedures, which only mimic immortality.”
“And how do you expect to do that, to transfer Lila’s immortality to you?” Adam asked. He wasn’t comfortable with where the conversation was headed.
“That is what we have been contemplating. We have been studying the Apex Being since her apprehension and have developed procedures which—theoretically—could work. It conforms to the conservation of energy law within nature. Lila’s essence cannot be destroyed, yet it could be divided up and transferred, thereby retaining the balance of energy inherent with her unique existence. The models show this to be a viable course of action.”
“You’re going to kill her!”
“Did you not hear me, Adam Cain? She cannot be killed, yet her cells can live on…in a symbiotic relationship with the Aris.”
“And does she have a say it this?”
“The Apex Being was bred for a purpose; she is fulfilling that purpose.”
“She is a living, thinking being, with a mind of her own. Maybe she doesn’t want to be cut up into little pieces and transplanted into the Aris. Did you ever think of that?”
“This is much more important than a single being. At this time, there are only three true immortals in this galaxy. If we are successful, there will be eighteen.”
Adam turned to Lila. “You can’t let them do this to you.”
“I have attempted resistance since my arrival, yet we are under constant surveillance and others can place us into interphase status at a moment’s notice.”
“She is correct,” said Nunki. “I said before that we wish you no harm, meaning you and the Formilian. The mutants, however, we will retain for study and eventual assimilation.”
“So you’re going to let me and Trimen go free?”
“Of course not. You will be placed in a secure location on the station where you will remain until you naturally expire—or become too much of a burden to house.”
Before anyone could react, all the non-Aris in the room were encased in interphase spheres. They stood up and were coaxed by the moving balls of blue light down an adjoining corridor, to be placed in secure rooms with shimmering blue light dancing on the exterior walls, Trimen and Adam were put in one with a recently added bathroom, Panur and J’nae in another. The Apex Being—Lila Bol—was taken to another location. Adam hoped it wasn’t a laboratory where her assimilation would begin.
Father.
Lila! Adam cried out in his mind. Are you all right?
Yes.
Can the Aris hear us?
No, they are only able to read thoughts through artificial devices, such as your Formilian Gift. I am contacting you through true telepathy.
Adam was relieved and saddened at the same time. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to help more. It seems our rescue plan has been a failure.
To the contrary, the rescue is proceeding exactly as planned.
What do you mean? He was surprised he was able to contain the mental link and not blurt the sentence out loud. He was sure the room was being monitored.
He felt Lila smile as she continued. Panur anticipated that his jamming device would be good for only one use, after which the Aris would confiscate the controllers.
Which they did.
But what he did beyond that was make the units so they would act as a different kind of device once placed in close proximity to one another. By making them each only one fourth of this new device, it has been impossible for the Aris to detect their true purpose.
Which is?
To create an illusion of the interphase effect.
Adam looked over at
Trimen. He was lying on the second cot, staring at the ceiling, oblivious to the mental conversation taking place. With all the startling revelations Lila was telling him, Adam hoped he could maintain his calm, exterior demeanor.
Remember, sweetheart, I’m just a dumb Human. You’re going to have to explain more.
When the Aris activated the shields a few minutes ago, all that was created was a blue halo around us. There was no true shifting of dimensions.
So we could have attacked them? Why wasn’t I told?
Because that is not the immediate goal; instead, we must secure a way for all of us to escape and not allow the Aris to follow or conduct a second abduction at a future date. Busting a few heads, as you would say, would not have achieved that goal.
Yeah…but it would have made me feel a lot better.
The mental smile of his daughter widened. Spoken as a true warrior, but now you must embark on a new mission, one which will hopefully be more stealthy than violent.
That’s fine, just so long as we can save the violent part for later. What do you want me to do?
We need you and Trimen to slip from your chamber and proceed to the control room for the Aris energy source. Do you recall the location from the tour?
I think so. But we’re locked in this room, with a blue light—oh…it’s just a light, and not a real interphase effect.
You are learning, father. The belief in the nature of the light is the only thing keeping you there.
It’s the same for you, right?
Yes, but we are under closer surveillance; you are not. To the Aris, they are done with you and Trimen. It is now time to make them pay for their indifference.
Okay, once we get to the control room, what then?
Follow this sequence. It will disable their energy supply and initiate the next phase of the plan. Once you are in the room….
