by T. R. Harris
Firming his resolve, Adam knew there was one thing he could do to honor his fallen comrade, and that was not to leave his body on this godforsaken space station. He scooped up the lifeless body—light in the gravity of the Aris artificial world—and carried him back to where the last robotic head lay on the floor, the eyes still alert and following his movements. Adam bent down and picked up the laser weapon that had been used to kill Trimen. He looked down at the metal head watching him.
The laser would be too clean, too surgical. So Adam lifted his foot and smashed his boot onto what remained of the killer robot. The metal collapsed easily, and the dark eyes went still. It was a start.
78
Adam carried Trimen’s body into the hallway outside the control room and turned left. He hurried down the passageway before coming to an intersection. He remembered from the tour that the robot maintenance room was down the adjoining corridor. He didn’t give it a second thought.
Outside the portal to the robot room, Adam set Trimen on the floor. After taking a moment to look at the body of his friend, he gripped the laser weapon in his right hand, turned and entered the room.
There had to be over fifty robots in the room, both of the two-legged and four-wheeled variety. Since very few were programmed for security, none of the ones who saw him enter registered him as a threat, at least not initially. He walked calmly to a workbench and picked up a heavy metal rod—part of the framework of the wheeled robots. With the rod in his left hand and the laser in his right, he approached the first cluster of automatons.
The red beam shot out, slicing easily through three metal frameworks with ease. The rod then swung in, crushing more metal bodies in the process.
The other robots now took notice. Without fear or anxiety, they came at Adam in a slow, yet deliberate manner, allowing the Human to key up on individuals with deadly efficiency. The sound was deafening, not from the robots, but from the crashing and clanging of metal parts as the machines were broken, sliced or otherwise shattered by the crazed living being in their midst. Two minutes later, nearly all the Aris maintenance bots in the room were destroyed.
None ran away, however, and were now being joined by re-enforcements from outside. Adam met them straight on continuing with only the metal rod once the battery in the laser weapon went dry.
Adam, what are you doing? The panicked voice inside his head was that of Lila.
They killed Trimen, he thought back.
There was a moment’s pause in his mind, as the telepathic link allowed a wave of incredible grief to fill his brain. I am beyond words. I loved him on the level of you and my mother.
So to answer your question, I’m getting some payback.
The Aris are aware of your activities. You must stop and meet me in the dome room. You remember how to get there?
Yeah, but just a few more—
No, go now! There are other ways to reconcile Trimen’s death without sacrificing your own.
There were very few robots left to demolish. Okay, I’m on my way, but I’m not leaving his body here. I’m taking him with me.
I understand. But please hurry!
A few of the smashed robots had laser weapons; Adam now rummaged through the wreckage until he found one. Then he rushed out into the hallway and lifted Trimen’s body into his arms once again, the laser weapon aimed outward in his right hand.
He met a number of other bots on the way, dispatching them with the energy weapon. Then he heard a rapid clicking on the metal deck, coming up behind him. He turned, just as one of the mechanical dogs with the four-inch long needle-teeth leapt into the air.
Adam ducked, while lifting Trimen’s body above him. The metal dog sank its teeth into the corpse—rather than Adam—and began tearing at the dead flesh. Adam tossed both body and dog off him and to the floor. Realizing its mistake, the beast focused its red eyes on Adam…and jumped again.
Unable to bring the laser weapon the bear, Adam dropped it and crouched down, grabbing the dog by the neck with his right hand on its belly. He squeezed with his left hand and felt metal mesh collapse. Then he rose up and ran toward the nearest wall, slamming the dog against the surface. The body bent inward, causing internal mechanisms to jamb up or cease operating. Next, Adam slammed the security bot to the floor, producing a deafening clang as metal met metal. The body deformed even more. Then as before, Adam set about smashing the robot to pulp with his booted foot. Moments later, only the twitching of a back leg was left moving.
Out the corner of his right eye, Adam saw three other figures further down the hallway. It was the Aris, and they were raising their palms toward him.
He dove for the deck, sliding in behind Trimen’s narrow body, looking for any cover he could find against the incoming sonic wave. The wave hit, pushing Adam and Trimen along the smooth metal floor, but otherwise protecting him from the physical effects of the wave. The laser weapon slid along with him. Adam reached out for the flashlight-like device and then shoved it under Trimen’s body, pointing down the hallway at the Aris.
The beam appeared, but he was off target, aiming high above the aliens. But then he swept the red beam down—until it sliced in half the head of the middle Aris.
An ear-shattering screech echoed off the metal walls. Adam grimaced from the agonizing sound before looking down the corridor. The flanking Aris were staring aghast at their fallen companion, shock and disbelief on their pale faces. Adam figured they’d seen dead Aris before, but never one killed.
Adam grinned. If it was up to him, it wouldn’t be the last Aris killed this day in their tidy, artificial world. He triggered the weapon again, and soon the population of three-billion-year-old Aris was reduced from eighteen to fifteen. It was a start.
With calm returning to the hall way, Adam lifted Trimen’s body again and set off for the dome room, the chamber with the astronomical projection for a ceiling. It wasn’t far, and he arrived without incident just as Lila, Panur and J’nae entered from the opposite side.
Lila rushed up to him, her eyes filled with tears as she stared down at the body of Trimen O’lac. She placed her hands on his face.
“Oh, Trimen, I am so sorry you sacrificed yourself for me. If I had the power, I would gladly trade my life for yours.”
Adam set the body on the floor and Lila knelt next to it. He walked over to Panur. “How much time do we have before the energy room explodes?”
“Plenty to make our escape—”
“I am afraid you are wrong, my creator,” said J’nae from behind them.
Adam and Panur turned, only to find four more Aris in the room, including the one called Nunki. Adam’s face turned red and his heart set to racing. He was going to kill these bastards with his bare hands.
Suddenly, everyone in the room was encased in halos of soft blue. Adam knew the truth of the interphase effect, so he stepped toward the aliens. But his movement was stopped. He lifted his arms and pushed. There was a tingling, but that was it. He couldn’t move beyond the shimmering wall. These were a real interphase shields.
“I did it, Adam Cain,” said J’nae.
“Did what?” was his natural reply.
“I have restored the interphase effect to full force. I have also reversed all the damage you did to the energy supply. There will be no catastrophic explosion destroying the station.”
Panur turned toward his mutant creation, he, too trapped within the blue time-shift prison. “Why would you do that?”
“For my own ends, Panur. I constructed another device as you worked on yours. Now I control the shields.”
“Again, I ask why?”
“Because I wish to negotiate a bargain with the Aris.”
“What bargain?” Nunki asked.
J’nae looked at the alien with intensity. “I know how to give you the immortality you seek.”
“And how is that?”
“Through a direct mind meld.”
“Don’t, J’nae,” Panur commanded.
She ignored the
mutant and continued to address the Aris. “I can blend my cells with those of the Aris—”
“And in the process transfer your cells to our bodies,” said Nunki, finishing the sentence for her.
“Precisely. I have seen the process done, although at that time there was an un-melding of the cells. I will purposefully designate a portion of my brain cells to be transferred to each of the remaining Aris.”
“The process has been discussed, yet it could only be done with the cooperation of the immortal. You say you will agree to this?”
“Yes, with conditions.”
“Again, J’nae, don’t do this. It will mean the end of your existence,” said Panur.
“What conditions?” Nunki pressed.
“That you allow Panur and the others to leave, unharmed and to never pursue them in the future.”
“Bullshit!” Adam yelled. “You make them truly immortal and they’ll be all over us—all over the entire galaxy—like stink on shit.”
“To the contrary,” Nunki said. “We care nothing for the activities in which your galaxy engages. The only reason we interfered in the beginning was to produce the Apex Being.”
“You’re lying.”
“The Aris do not lie; we have no reason to lie to such primitive beings.”
“Hey, this primitive being just killed three of your buddies.”
The comment caused Nunki to pause and his mouth fall open slightly. He quickly regained his composure. “Yes, I am aware of that. Yet the ability to kill that which is superior to does not make you superior. You, too, can fall prey to any number of deadly threats, including mindless diseases and bacteria. The ability to kill instinctively is a trait of…animals.”
“Stop your bickering!” J’nae commanded. “I have made my offer. What say you?”
“J’nae, why do you want to give up something that the Aris have spent billions of years seeking?” Lila asked. “You are immortal, and now you wish not to be?”
“I did not ask to be immortal,” J’nae snapped back. “I was created this way, fully developed and with a purpose of which I had no say.”
“You were to save the Sol-Kor,” Panur countered. “You were to give them a different path that would not be so destructive of other lifeforms. Was that not a noble cause?”
“I was reviled by universes of creatures, simply for my status as Queen of the Sol-Kor. But that is not the only issue. It is also the lack of change I fear, the lack of evolution. I will remain as such for all eternity, with no prospect for advancement or transition to other levels of existence. Have not others like the Aris existed before? Where are they now? And where are the last of the Aris who stayed behind? Not all died. A few are somewhere, experiencing another plane of awareness which I will never see.”
“Merging with the Aris will not give you that new awareness, will it Nunki?” Panur asked. “Once absorbed, her cells will have no individual identity.”
“That is correct. The dominate cells will reign.”
“Although I cannot argue against the will of the individual,” Panur said, “I wish you would reconsider.” He looked at Nunki. “You do not have to sacrifice yourself to save us.”
“It is not a sacrifice, rather liberation. Either I continue within an existence that will make me only more frustrated and angrier through time, or I will have it come to an end, here and now. Yet with my way, I help the Aris achieve their goal, while saving you, Lila and…even Adam Cain.”
Nunki moved toward J’nae. The blue halo moved with him even though neither being could physically contact the other. “Of course the Aris agree. We have calculated that only a single immortal is needed for our transition. Be it the Apex Being—or you—it makes no difference.”
The halos disappeared from around Adam, Lila and Panur. They remained around the others, protecting them from harm—which Adam so desperately wished to inflict.
“Go now, Panur,” said J’nae. “You have fulfilled your mission and saved Lila. She has always been your priority, while I was only an experiment.”
“That’s not true,” said Panur. “Yes, you began as an experiment yet you developed a soul and a personality. You became a person to me.”
“I appreciate that, but now go. The Aris and I have work to do.”
Lila lifted Trimen’s body in one arm while leading Adam from the room. Panur joined them a moment later. “Nunki has shown me a quicker way to the surface,” he said. “We shall be away in minutes.”
79
The trip back to the Najmah Fayd was quicker than the journey to the interior of the space station. The trio quickly entered the ship, and with a fair amount of reverence, placed Trimen’s body in the aft service bay. Then they rushed to the pilothouse and lifted off, Panur at the controls.
Adam slouched at the weapons console, his head resting in his right hand. He had lost another of his good friends; not the level of an Andy Tobias, but close enough. This was becoming commonplace, possibly a consequence of his reckless lifestyle, as well as the passage of years. The odds were stacking up quickly against him and his friends.
The mutants left him alone, but after a few minutes, Adam noticed Panur hadn’t entered a light-speed gravity-well. Instead, he was blasting through space in a shallow well until even letting that evaporate. The ship was coming to a stop.
Adam turned to Panur and Lila. They were in the pilot and co-pilot seats, respectively. He was about to ask them what was going on when a bright light began to filter in through the forward viewport.
Adam left his seat and went to investigate. Through the viewport he saw one of the glowing Aris starships heading for a rendezvous with the Najmah Fayd. With having been left out of so many plans and strategies recently, Adam saw this as just one more surprise he wasn’t going to like.
“What the hell’s going on?” he asked the mutants, in no uncertain terms.
Lila came up to him. “I am sorry father, but Panur and I will be leaving you here.”
“What does that mean? Where are you going, or more correctly, what are you going to do with me?”
“You are to stay here, aboard the trans-dimensional starship, while Panur and I take the Aris ship.”
“To where?”
“That I cannot tell you.”
Adam looked past his daughter to the grey mutant in the pilot seat. “This is all your doing, isn’t it? You’re trying to take her away from me again.”
“It was my choice, father,” Lila countered.
“Why? You were in charge of a galaxy, respected and admired. Not only that, but we need you, more now than ever. You can’t just run off again, especially not when we’re fighting the Nuoreans. I’m counting on you—and Panur—to help get us through this mess.”
“The mess is yours to solve, Adam,” Panur chimed in, which only made Adam more upset.
“How can you be so callous? You know what a serious situation this is, and the two of you are vital to helping us save the galaxy from the Nuor.”
“It’s not our problem,” Panur snapped back.
Adam looked at Lila. She was born in the Milky Way, and the two bloodlines she shared were in serious danger from the invaders from Andromeda.
“We need you, Lila. We need your strength, your stability and your intelligence.”
“The galaxy has all it needs to defeat the Nuor,” she stated. “And as far as the galaxy needing me, they do not. Even in the short time I reigned, I was taken for granted. As an immortal, my counsel was institutionalized, a crutch for all to use. That may have been what you wanted, but it wasn’t what I wanted. Imagine how mundane my life had become dealing with the trivial concerns of the bickering races? The challenge was far below my capacities, definitely below my level of interest.”
“You’re the one who assumed that position. You insisted.”
“I was needed at the time to bring peace to the galaxy and a new level of cooperation. That has changed now with the introduction of the Nuor. The galaxy is united against a common enemy
and united you will defeat them. What happens after that will be up to you.”
“But you could rule again. The galaxy will follow you.”
“The galaxy only followed me because of fear. They knew of my powers and the futility of direct action against me. That is no way to lead. It is a false type of leadership.”
Adam knew Lila had made up her mind, and if there was one thing he knew about mutant geniuses, you couldn’t win an argument with them.
“What will you do?” he asked. “Go on to start your race of immortals? I think the Aris have a head start on you.”
Panur answered. “The Aris have been driven mad by their obsession. Every race survives through evolution, through growth. It’s called progress. They are setting themselves on a path of stagnation and even more insanity.”
“By becoming just like you—and Lila. Does that mean you, too, will stagnate, become insane?”
“Possibly, yet natural-born immortals better understand the realities of our existence. We can be patient, whereas the Aris are not, contrary to what they say. Yet even true immortals need projects. I chose to help the Sol-Kor, and it filled my time for the first five thousand years of my immortality. Lila and J’nae are both relatively new to immortality. J’nae couldn’t cope with the possibility of never changing. Lila…she has me to help guide and comfort her. Together we will find our path. Granted, it will be only temporary within the overall scheme of things, after which we will seek other challenges. Who knows, eventually we may choose a destiny similar to J’nae. But that is tens of thousands, possibly millions of years in the future.”
“And father, that is another reason I must go. All I know now will eventually wither and die before my eyes. My mother and you—even the world of Formil—will eventually die. For my own sanity, I cannot be around to experience such loss.”
“But that’s in the future. Don’t you want to enjoy life while you can?”
“It is inviting, however, my memories—and sorrows—last forever. To involve myself even more with the affairs of the galaxy—and with the loves I know or will know—would be counterproductive. I would only have those sorrows to carry with me…forever.”
