Further: Beyond the Threshold

by Chris Roberson

  “You send it to…” I stopped, trying to puzzle it out. “How do you coordinate something like that over such vast distances? Are your ships equipped with faster-than-light drives?”

  “Superluminal? Ha! That’s a myth. No, each houseship of the Iron Mass carries its own microscopic threshold, too small to allow matter to pass, but sufficient to allow communication back to the Temple.”

  I wanted to ask more to try to draw him out. Like any good James Bond villain, now that he had me trussed up, he seemed more than willing to share all sorts of secrets. But before I was able to speak, a sound chimed, and Radon’s attention was turned back to the hatch.

  “Commander-of-the-Faithful,” said the Iron Mass whose head appeared in the open hatchway. “There’s a communication for you from the homeship.”

  Radon sighed and started toward the door. Before he reached it, he looked back over his shoulder. “I am truly sorry for you, you know. If I could somehow make you see the truth, I would do it in an instant.”

  He paused at the hatchway, a sad expression on his face, and then closed the hatch behind him.

  ::OK,:: said the voice of Amelia, sounding closer than ever, ::I think we’re in business.::

  SEVENTY-ONE

  While I’d been trussed up, beaten, and lectured by a proselytizing zealot, Jida Shuliang had been going through a crisis of her own.

  I don’t think I realized how difficult it was for her, being cut off from the rest of her being. It’s impossible for someone who lives only in one brain to imagine what it must be like to be part of a distributed consciousness but isolated from the rest of your mind. It must be something like being lobotomized, but rather than being spared the pain of all you’ve lost through the expediency of imbecility, you’d be completely aware of everything you could no longer touch, think, and feel.

  It must have been difficult when the Jida emissary first came on board the Further. I’d never given it a second thought. Jida was a charming, even effervescent, fixture of Entelechy life, and the trio of Jida Shuliang bodies that boarded the Further above the Ouroboros shipyards seemed every bit the same woman as the one who I’d met at the Further fundraiser only days before. Except she wasn’t. Not really. She was part of the same woman. A subset that shared the same general features of the whole, that seemed identical at a distance, but on closer examination, she lacked detail, like a fragment of a broken hologram, a reflection of the whole at a lower degree of resolution.

  It was harder still, then, for a single body of the Jida emissary to come down to the pulsar planet with me, cut off from the rest of her mind back on the Further. She knew it would only be for eighty minutes at a time and must have thought it a small price to pay to set foot on a virgin world. But that was before we knew about the Iron Mass and what would come after.

  So Jida, the five-millennia-old memories of her last death at the hands of the Iron Mass still fresh in her mind, sat alone in her jail cell with Bin-Ney and her memories, disoriented to be alone in her head for so long a time.

  Then Amelia gained control of the security systems, and with the communication systems at her command, she’d created our own encrypted interlink network, connecting me in my torture chamber to Jida and Bin-Ney in their cell. And then Amelia told us where our weapons and mantles were being kept. And then Amelia opened the door to the cell.

  ::All right, then.:: The voice of Jida in my head sounded like a fist of iron gloved in velvet. ::We’re getting our gear. Then we’re coming to get you, RJ. And then we’re getting the hell out of here.::

  :: W-what about the guards?:: I heard Bin-Ney ask.

  ::What about them?:: Jida asked, fire beneath her words. ::These sons of bitches aren’t killing me again.::

  Suddenly, Jida didn’t seem so disoriented anymore.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  Shackled to the wall, I felt more helpless and anxious than I had in all the time I’d hung there, knowing that Jida and Bin-Ney were free, sneaking through the cramped corridors of the habitat dome, trying to avoid running into any Iron Mass—at least until they retrieved our weapons and defenses. So close to freedom, the thought that I’d not live to see it was suddenly inescapable.

  So when the hatch started to move, accompanied by the squeal of metal on metal, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  ::It’s about time you showed up, Jida,:: I subvocalized, smiling slightly. ::I was beginning to worry.::

  The hatch started to swing open.

  ::Um, RJ?:: came Jida’s reply. ::We just reached the stores where our gear’s being held. We’re not there yet.::

  The hatch swung all the way open on its hinges, and a pair of Iron Mass stood on the far side, a man and a women, each armed with their long-bladed weapons, the handles collapsed.

  “The commander-of-the-faithful regrets that he has not been able to lead you onto the path of destiny,” said the woman, stepping into the center of the room, the lines of her skull marked out by lines of thin scarlet horns. I recognized her as the leader of the group that had captured us in the cairn forest and brought us to the mining platform.

  “He has conferred with the Temple and has been instructed to abandon the attempt,” the man beside her said, his blue eyes narrowed.

  The pair of Iron Mass drew closer and shifted their weapons in their hands. At some unseen signal from them, some hidden motion, the handles extended so that they now resembled long-bladed spears instead of swords, naginata instead of scimitars.

  “Look,” I said, trying to sound as calm as possible, “there’s no need to give up hope yet, is there? I still could be made to see reason.”

  The pair lifted their weapons, pointing the blades’ tips toward my chest.

  “Would that it were true,” the woman said sadly.

  A faint humming filled the air, and their weapons began to glow faintly, the light emanating from the place where the blade met the haft.

  ::Jida?:: I subvocalized.

  “Those who don’t serve the purpose of the Divine Ideal hinder its coming,” the man said. “And obstacles must be cleared aside.”

  The humming escalated, swelling in pitch and volume, and the glow from the weapons grew brighter.

  ::Guys?::

  There was no answer on the interlink. Had something gone wrong? Had the others run into opposition?

  “Your blind faith has made murderers of you all,” I said hotly, abandoning any attempt to sway them. It went against the precepts of Interdiction Negotiation, but they’d served me not at all the last few hours, so there was little reason to continue backing a losing horse. “Will you just keep on killing and destroying until there’s nothing left of the galaxy but you lunatics?”

  The woman scowled, and the man’s mouth drew into a tight line.

  The thrumming hum of the weapons grew to a fever pitch, and the glow was almost blinding. Whatever they were about to do, they would do soon.

  “I pity you,” the woman said, bitter but sincere. “Your life, and death, will have no meaning.”

  “That depends entirely on your perspective,” came the voice of Jida from the doorway.

  Toroids of plasma leapt from the projector cuff on Jida’s wrist, slamming into the back of the male Iron Mass, and a split-second later, Bin-Ney fired a stream that caught the woman in the back of the head.

  The Iron Mass collapsed, plasma wounds blossoming on their backs as they spun around, and their weapons suddenly discharged, torrents of white light gouting out. One struck the ceiling, harmlessly, but the other intersected the wall only centimeters from my left hand. I could feel the singeing heat of the blast on my skin, and the small hairs on my forearm and the back of my hand were burned away in an eyeblink.

  Stepping over the lifeless bodies of the Iron Mass, Jida hefted a mantle belt, a projector cuff, and my holstered cap gun. She and Bin-Ney wore their mantles completely covering their bodies from head to toe, entirely opaque except for a transparent faceplate.

  “Well,” Jida said, “what are you hanging aro
und for, RJ? Let’s get out of here.”

  SEVENTY-THREE

  When they’d got me down from the wall and I stood on my own feet for the first time in what seemed an eternity, it took me a moment to recover my equilibrium.

  “Are you going to be able to travel, sir?” Bin-Ney asked, reaching out a hand to steady me.

  “Well, I don’t see that we have much choice, do you?” I said, trying to sound good natured.

  “Here,” Jida said, reaching out and wrapping the mantle around my waist. “You get suited up, and then we’ll go.” I signaled to the mantle with my interlink, and it began to flow up and down, covering my body. “These two were the first Iron Mass we’ve run into, so there’s a chance they don’t yet know we’re free.”

  Jida snapped the projector cuff onto my left forearm, and then I strapped my cap gun’s holster around my waist. Unbuckling the strap securing it into place, I slid the cap gun out, the weight of it reassuring in my grip.

  “With any luck, then,” I said, “we’ll be able to make it out of the platform without running into any interference. Then we make for the Compass Rose, pick up the chimp and robot, and get out of here. But first, we need to get Amelia back out of the network.”

  ::What do you mean you aren’t coming?:: I subvocalized as we hustled through the corridors heading toward the dome’s center, trying to make as little noise as possible.

  My plan was to find a computer interface on the way to the central elevator, yank Amelia out of the network, then hop the lift down to the surface. I had a stitch in my side, and my legs were already aching, but I plowed ahead, knowing that I’d have time to rest and recover if we managed to make it off the pulsar planet alive.

  ::I’m the only thing keeping the Iron Mass off your back at the moment,:: Amelia answered. ::I’m futzing with their security monitoring systems and suppressing some automated alarm systems. If I left the network, the entire mining complex would be at your throats in a matter of moments.::

  ::So we’ll just take you out right before we get to the lift, and then we hightail it out of here.::

  ::No good, mate,:: Amelia answered, her tone resolute. ::The security systems will shut down the lift as soon as the alarms hit, and you won’t be able to get down. Besides, with me here running interference, I’ll be able to keep the platform from using its stationary weapons systems against you while you’re heading for the ship. Otherwise, they’d just pick you off with a couple of well-placed particle beams.::

  I kept hustling through the corridors, but my heart had sunk in my chest and my legs felt like they were made of lead.

  ::But…:: I began. ::I can’t just leave you.::

  ::RJ, you big sook,:: she said, using the tone of voice she employed only when she thought I was being particularly oblivious. ::I’m a digital incarnation of a woman who’s been dead and revived once already.:: She paused, and then added in a voice that was not as brave as I knew she’d hoped, ::What’s the worst that can happen to me?::

  We reached the lift, and I tried once more to convince Amelia to come with us, but she refused. As the doors of the lift cage slid shut, her voice became faint and laced with static.

  ::Be careful out there, RJ,:: Amelia said, sounding distant and small. ::And for God’s sake, hurry!::

  The lift stopped moving, and the doors slowly slid open.

  ::We’ve made it!:: Bin-Ney said before the energy blast from the Iron Mass spear sent him falling back to the floor, his mantle completely immobile.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  A quartet of Iron Mass stood directly in our way. They seemed as surprised to see us as we were them, only faster than us on the draw.

  “Damn it!” I swore. My cap gun was already in my right fist, and I aimed it at one of the Iron Mass and the projector cuff on my left arm at another, and as I leaped to one side, I opened up with both.

  Jida jumped to the other side, firing off rounds of plasma toroids, catching one of the Iron Mass squarely in the chest.

  Bin-Ney still lay on the ground, immobilized by the first blast, and while Jida and I plugged away at the Iron Mass before us, one of them lurched forward, driving the tip of his spear toward Bin-Ney’s chest. Before I could react, the spear struck home, the blow stopped by Bin-Ney’s mantle, but the force of the impact keeping him pinned to the ground.

  One of the Iron Mass collapsed in a heap, a hole blown in his black insect pressure suit. Though the stuff was armored, the projectors were able to penetrate it, but it was taking repeated shots in the same general location to pierce the surface.

  I took a shot to the knee, freezing my leg from the hip down, and Jida was spun momentarily by a shot that connected with her shoulder, but both of us were able to continue firing.

  The Iron Mass continued to hammer at Bin-Ney’s mantle with his spear, and while he hadn’t broken through yet, I didn’t like the idea of waiting to see how much abuse a mantle could take. Continuing to fire with my cap gun at one of the standing Iron Mass, I had my projector emit a cutting arc, which shot half a dozen centimeters from my wrist like a knife of flame. Lurching to Bin-Ney’s side gracelessly, my leg frozen like a cast beneath me, I sliced down through the handle of the Iron Mass’s spear, cutting it in two, and then backhanded the projector up and across the Iron Mass’s chest and neck, opening up the armor and depressurizing the suit.

  The other two Iron Mass finally fell, irregular holes blown in their carapaces, and only Jida and I were left standing.

  We helped Bin-Ney to his feet and instructed our mantles to go flexible again. Then we headed for the canyon wall as fast as we could.

  The climb was long and difficult, scrambling over the scree, but at length, we finally reached the top. Ahead of us in the distance, we could see the edges of the cairn forest and knew that the Compass Rose lay just beyond.

  ::Ha!:: Bin-Ney shouted in triumph. He turned and looked back toward the mining platform below. ::You thought you could stop us, but you—::

  His words were cut off as a gout of blinding white light slammed into his chest, cutting through his mantle and the body beneath, blazing up and out his back into the twilit sky.

  I grabbed Jida’s arm and dragged her to the ground beside me. Peering over the edge of the canyon, we could see a number of Iron Mass pouring from the door of the lift beneath the platform, those in the lead hefting the large cannon that had ended Zaslow’s life only a short while before.

  ::Come on,:: I said, scuttling back away from the edge, dragging Jida with me. ::We need to get out of here.::

  When we’d gone beyond the line of sight of our pursuers far below, Jida paused just long enough to cast a glance back at the lifeless body of Bin-Ney on the ground. ::Assuming we get back to the Further and Bin-Ney is restored from backup, I need to make a point of telling him to keep his damned mouth shut when escaping from overwhelming odds. He’s just tempting fate, and clearly fate can’t resist the challenge.::

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  We hauled across the lifeless wastes of the pulsar planet as fast as we could go. Though we had a head start on our pursuers, they vastly outnumbered us, and we’d nearly exhausted our projectors’ reserves of plasma and the capacitor charges of my cap gun. If it came to another firefight, we wouldn’t last long.

  On we raced under the gray sky, the dead star circling slowly high overhead. Somewhere up there the Further drifted in her orbit. Had she come under attack by the Iron Mass’s “houseship” yet, or did they still keep their menacing distance?

  Ahead of us loomed the cairn forest, the orderly rows of towers wider at the tops than at their bases. Just to the other side of the cairn rose a high ridge, and beyond that we’d find the Compass Rose, nestled in a low valley.

  ::…ptain! Can you hear me?:: crackled a voice in my ear.

  My pace not slacking, I answered, glancing to Jida to see if she was getting the signal, too, and her nod indicated that she was. ::Maruti?:: ::Oh, glorious!:: the chimpanzee answered. ::Xerxes, whose vision is considerably better
than mine, for all that ey has no eyes, just caught sight of you.:: Jida and I raced on. I realized a considerable advantage of communicating by subvocalization was that one need never try to talk when out of breath. It was a good thing, because with my aching lungs and the stitch in my side, I doubted I’d be able to string together more than a few words, if spoken.

  ::Where are you?:: I asked.

  ::Just inside the edge of the cairn forest, Captain,:: Xerxes answered.

  ::Can you get to the ship? We need to get out of here.::

  ::Not quite yet, Captain,:: Maruti said.

  ::What?:: Jida snapped.

  ::We’ve made a surprising but profoundly disappointing discovery,:: Maruti said.

  ::I told you so,:: Xerxes put in.

  ::Never mind the cross talk, just tell me what it is,:: I said.

  ::Well, in the cave system, we found the remains of a downed ship. It’s millennia old, almost entirely cannibalized, with only fragments remaining.:: Maruti’s tone was strange, an odd mix of disappointment and excitement.

  ::A terrestrial ship?:: Jida asked.

  ::Sadly, yes,:: Xerxes answered, with a nonvocal sigh. ::Just another bit of flotsam from the Diaspora, it appears, and no sign of extraterrestrial intelligence.:: ::So why can’t you get to the ship?:: I asked. ::What’s the delay?:: ::Do you recall the unicellular organisms responsible for the cairns?:: Xerxes asked.

  ::No, I’ve forgotten all about them,:: I answered hotly. ::Yes, of course I remember them. What about it?:: ::They’re terrestrial in origin, too,:: Maruti said. ::We’ve worked out their genetic sequencing, and it’s clear they were derived from terrestrial strains of radiation-resistant anaerobic bacteria. They were engineered to survive in this environment by the survivors of the crashed ship.:: ::Whyever for?:: Jida asked.

  ::Xerxes was right about the autoinducers. The bacteria has been designed as a kind of biological distributed computing system, with the individual organisms acting in tandem, using signal molecules to pass information back and forth.:: ::What information?:: I asked.