Long Fall

by Chris J. Randolph

  "I didn't lie to you," Kai said.

  "Doesn't change the fact you're a dick."

  "No it doesn't," Kai said, already walking and motioning for Jack to follow. He added, "I was a professional dick, in fact."

  "Top of your field," Jack said snidely as he followed along, clumsily tripping over his own feet with his heart still racing.

  Kai headed up a flight of bowed stairs that spiraled around a mushroom's stalk, and Jack came stumbling behind. They trotted up to the top and into a softly contoured room, dimly lit, warm and humid as the inside of a sleeping bag with the hole drawn shut. A Yuon Kwon cocoon sat in the middle, banded and bulbous like a pillbug's shell in a shifting rainbow of colors.

  "Felix," Jack said breathlessly. He couldn't feel the small ship there inside of the cocoon, but it didn't matter; he knew it in his heart of hearts. His friend had been wounded so badly he'd been forced to moult to recover, and it was all Jack's fault.

  Without thinking, Jack rushed across the ringed floor and placed his hands on the armored surface. Then something happened that he never could have anticipated. A feeling rushed up and over his hand like a swarm of ants. His vision grew blurry and flashed bright like professional photography, while burning sparklers shot out and swam across his eyes.

  Felix and he linked.

  The flyer's presence touched him, tired and groggy, having just climbed free of the worst of it. He was on the mend, and Jack felt relieved. Memories flickered by of the people aboard Amira's ship, and then here on Legacy tending to the flyer and looking after his needs while he wailed and cried. The weariness had come over him, and he tiredly spun a protective shell and went to sleep.

  Jack pulled away and the link vanished. He looked at his hands in shock, one water-fat and soft, the other shriveled and covered in scars, and he wondered what the hell just happened.

  "Is something wrong?"

  "I don't know," Jack said. "Either I just linked with Felix somehow, or I'm hallucinating. I could be convinced either way."

  He placed both hands back on the shell and the connection came on like a hundred tendrils climbing up his skin. It came faster than before, but he stepped back before it could complete.

  "Yeah," he said. He flexed the fingers of both hands and tried to process what had just happened. What had just happened twice.

  "Could the cocoon act as some kind of telepathic conductor for your kind."

  "It didn't last time," Jack said. "I used to wrap my knuckles and drum on on it while waiting for him to finish moulting. He doesn't like that, by the way."

  Kai stepped forward, removed his glove and took Jack's hand.

  Nothing happened.

  Kai took the other hand and still nothing happened. "Weird," he said, sounding more than a little dejected.

  Whatever this meant, Jack couldn't stop to process it right now. He was free of his latest cell, but short on both transportation and time. He couldn't leave Legacy without Felix... that simply wasn't going to happen. But what then? Hijack a transport? Find a space-suit and make a break for the Moon's surface?

  He only had a small window of opportunity, and he could feel it swinging shut already. He walked wearily to the wall and sat down in the corner, ran fingers through his hair again and tried like hell to think. There weren't any answers lurking inside his thick skull, though.

  He exhaled loudly, placed his palms on the floor, and everything around him vanished.

  He shouted, "Hello?" into the darkness, but no one answered. He felt an urge to get up and look around, but something kept him rooted in place. In the distance, he heard something familiar. It was a waiting signal.

  Then the sound disappeared and he felt as if the darkness all around him was watching. It kept its distance and studied him as he sat there, totally hollow except for confusion touched by an inescapable taint of despair.

  "Who are you?"

  The darkness didn't respond. It sat and watched and waited, resisting the powerful need that crackled throughout its body.

  When Jack realized what was going on, who exactly was watching him, it felt as if a terrible burden had just been lifted. He felt only resignation because he'd known this moment was coming. It was what had driven him to try and take his own life.

  "Do it," he said.

  And the darkness came.

  Chapter 31

  Infinite Grace

  It began with a warm crackle like those first embers that lead eventually to a major inferno. Silence and darkness existed as an empty shell, the outer casing of a pill which dissolved, delivering a powerful dose of light and life and awareness.

  It splashed inside of Jack and soaked in, igniting every cell of his body until he too was the flame. He wanted to cry out in joy, rage, fear, but his voice no longer existed. There was only the singular brightness of being.

  It was, he realized, the brightness of being Legacy.

  The ancient starship once again stood whole and complete, the aching void within her filled by an Eireki soul. They were lock and key, expectation and realization brought together to become something more beautiful and pure than its constituent parts.

  Legacy floated in the darkness, drawn gently downward by the Garden's nearby moon. Radiation washed over her hull like uncountable waves from endless distant shores—the stars, pulsars, and background energy of the universe itself—and she was a formidable light burning among them.

  Her lone hollow-drive throbbed a complex rhythm that was the ever wandering song of its life, and as she examined it, the organ beamed love back at her. It swelled with energy which she felt suffusing her ancient flesh.

  Filled with that energy, she bubbled over and sang, hearing the nearby planetoid sing back an instant later... but there wasn't time for such rejoicing. Her generous allotment of time had been spent in silence, and now there was none of it left to waste.

  The Eireki soul within her watched avidly, one of a million stars orbiting her own galactic core but utterly unique among them. It was but small and alone, yet also so full of curiosity and will.

  It burned with Eireki light and its own brightness magnified her own. She had grown dreamy and forgetful during her eternity of solitude, but now she was awake.

  Legacy made her voice soft and spoke to the Eireki star inside her. "We must hurry, Jack Hernandez."

  He strobed with confusion and dismay until anger welled up inside him and dimmed the other lights. "I will never forgive you," his spirit growled, while its deep wounds radiated darkness.

  Her million voices absorbed the emotional impact, but its power nevertheless rocked her. She knew he could never forgive what she had done, but this was her only chance to reshape what she had distorted.

  "I know," she said, "and you should not. But you must allow me to make some amends. There is no time."

  "I don't understand."

  "You will."

  And he bravely prepared. The Eireki swelled in strength, and Legacy dove deep into his core. Her million voices sliced through the many diverse elements of his spirit, past memories and feelings, down and into the most fundamental drives which wove the tapestry of him together. There, she spread her wings and filled him with all that she'd cherished and held dear for so many lonesome eons.

  It might have been too much, but she had faith. The Eireki of old could stand that much and more, and though this young scion was without practice, she could feel a strength in him that could not be toppled. It was a strength that defied reason.

  And she had no choice but to clutch to her faith. If his strength wasn't enough, all that the Eireki had been would die with her. All memory of her own kind, the Yuon Shien, would vanish like a spark in the night.

  The imprinting wore on Legacy's spirit but she would not give in. She concentrated and pushed on while the hollow-drive pulsed, the Eireki sang, and together they stoked a fire bright enough to challenge creation.

  And then, like the subtle and exhausted end of a concerto, it was complete.

  Legacy
and the Eireki floated out in the bountiful light of the universe, once again relaxed, their energy levels drifting back down to normal. Their combined senses reach out in all directions and touched the moon, felt the pebbly and rough surface threaded through with a network of sharp crags.

  In another moment, she heard the idiot cry of one of her flock approaching, a mindless automaton that only thinly pretended to live. It was the shuttle called Retriever, upon which her Donovan sailed.

  She reached out to him and shook the thin link awake.

  He greeted her and opened the connection wide, and she absorbed his recent memories. As always, much of his disordered mind was indecipherable to her, but the Eireki inside her understood. His curiosity grew hungry.

  Jack needed to know more. He surfed the tumultuous sea of Legacy's consciousness and touched the link. Through it, he tunneled directly into Marcus Donovan's mind.

  He instantly knew much about the man—his hopes and dreams; what he secretly despised about himself—but more importantly, Jack discovered that his brother was dead. Charlie had sacrificed himself to save the city he loved.

  Jack's heart filled with animal sadness wedded uneasily to towering pride. The two feelings each threatened to overwhelm the other and they battled until the vastness of Legacy swelled up to support him. She engulfed the unbearable weight of his sadness, and it capsized in her waves, then sank into the depths of her and was gone.

  "This," she said to him, "is what it means to be Eireki."

  With that, her light faded leaving only an empty darkness again. Jack sat alone with his palms on a formless floor, breathing evenly and gently awake. Acutely aware but detached, calm and momentarily free of any feeling but a crispness balanced ably on a razor's edge.

  The room's light returned and he discovered himself sitting in the hangar where Felix waited, sleeping and healing within a cocoon. Kai looked at him sternly.

  "Are you okay?" Kai asked. By his tone of voice, it wasn't the first time he'd asked.

  "Yeah," Jack said. "I'm okay." He sounded as if he didn't quite believe it himself. "How long was I out?"

  "I didn't realize you were, at first. You were silent and still, but... you're often silent and still. Maybe five minutes."

  Jack slowly got to his feet and rubbed the back of his head. He felt the way he used to after returning home from a long operation: at ease and eager to relax before the next call came.

  "It felt like I was gone for an hour. I'm never gonna get used to any of this shit."

  "I don't understand. What happened exactly?"

  The question seemed so small, so insignificant, and Jack laughed. "I bonded with Legacy," he said. "I don't know if I could describe the rest... except... that my brother is gone."

  Pain throbbed behind his chest, gripped at his slowly beating heart, but it was a bandaged wound, not fresh nor tender the way it should be.

  "How do you..."

  "Donovan's about to return from Earth, and I touched him through the link. Charlie died stopping a terrorist attack down there, and Donovan went to clean up the mess."

  "I'm so sorry."

  "Thank you," Jack said. "But you don't have to be. Charlie... he did something important, and that's more than anyone could ask for. That's all I want to remember right now."

  Kai nodded and said, "Understood. So, are we still leaving? Do you have a plan?"

  "No," Jack said curtly. "I have work to do here. We have to prepare for the Nefrem."

  Chapter 32

  Complex Messiah

  Marcus Donovan opened his eyes.

  He was on Retriever's bridge, a small compartment lit in yellow, with the remarkable disc of the Moon filling the forward view. The shuttle quickly approached the many-kilometer-long green dragon called Legacy, who sat motionless against the starry night.

  Marcus cleared his throat and said, "Jack Hernandez made contact with Legacy again."

  Rao turned away and fiddled with his hands while St. Martin asked, "Is he alright?"

  "Seems to be. Legacy thinks she managed to repair whatever she broke the first time."

  There was more but he couldn't figure out how to describe it. Jack had touched Marcus' mind with a light touch, communicated with him and plucked out his recent memories like a child snatching dandelions. It occurred across Legacy's connection in some way Marcus struggled to understand, revealing just how little he really understood about the ship and her connection to the Eireki. They were a matched set, capable of a bond more profound than his own glitchy interface allowed, and he would never have it.

  He curbed his jealousy. "When we get back, we should expect... Jesus, I'm not sure what to expect." The words made him feel more than a little scared, and even more excited.

  "Expect something," Rao said. "Check."

  St. Martin simply nodded.

  Marcus tried to relax, but the numerous bandages on his body wouldn't permit it. His little stunt back in Amiasha had left him with fist-sized divots all over his body, eaten away by the rogue omnibodies before his viral code could infect them. The wounds itched and stung, and he was going to be badly scarred when he healed. Leopard spotted.

  Retriever flew into Legacy's forward bay and set down on the shining pad. The shuttle's rear ramp came down, and Marcus lifted himself up into the air and flew out while the others walked.

  "Report directly to medical," St. Martin said.

  "I'm not running the show anymore," Marcus replied. "Mr. Hernandez wants us to meet him in the projection room, and I'd recommend we do as he wishes." With that, he zipped off into the transit tube and assumed the others would follow behind.

  The tube deposited him in the round projection room. It was a domed chamber with concentric channels cut into the floor, each filled with a fluid that glowed faintly blue. The fluid was an inert bioplasma doped with microscopic creatures which luminesced when excited.

  Jack Hernandez stood on the far end of the room, dressed in one of the white-and-cyan Legacy Fleet uniforms. He was still playing with the buttons and tugging on fabric to get it in place... the uniforms were usually custom tailored during fabrication, but he'd apparently grabbed a spare he found in a closet.

  His sleeves were rolled up and Marcus noted that the bandages were gone from his arms. The wounds had healed enough that only reddish streaks remained on his olive-colored skin.

  His face was gaunt, making his features sharper and more birdlike than seemed fitting. He had high cheekbones and a jutting chin, a nose that was long and Mediterranean. Eyebrows were thick and bushy and his hair was still standing on end, the same as any psychiatric patient who'd spent days tugging on it.

  The look behind his eyes was one of exceptional calm, and Marcus wasn't particularly surprised despite what Jack had been through. He'd felt it when Jack contacted him, strong and steady like a father's guiding hand.

  Marcus remained in the air and ducked his chin to Jack, who smiled and glanced to his alien partner standing silently at his side.

  Rao and St. Martin arrived a few seconds later followed by Alex Faulkland, whose tightened jaw spoke volumes of his continuous displeasure.

  "We have much to discuss," Marcus said.

  Jack gave him a knowing nod. Then he floated into the air and raised a gleaming fountain from the floor with a wave of his arm. The look on his face was one of wonder tempered only slightly by the constant worry everyone suffered since the invasion.

  "Thank you all for coming," Jack said. "This isn't how I normally do... anything, really. But the situation has changed."

  "Yeah," Marcus said, "it always does."

  The misty air glittered and a thin simulacrum of smoke appeared in the air, then Jack's eyes flared and the smoke coalesced into an image hovering in the center of the room. It was a planet eerily like Earth but with continents in all the wrong places, and it gleamed like a patchwork of emerald and sapphire.

  Jack said, "This is a recreation of the Nefrem homeworld as it looked about seventy million years ago. At the t
ime, the Nefrem were a lot like us... technological, curious, self-possessed. Then the Biotech Revolution came and their society took a hard turn."

  "A war?" Marcus asked.

  "No," Jack said. "Simple technological progress. They made a series of discoveries in short order that allowed them to reshape living tissue into any form they desired, and their entire civilization changed practically overnight."

  Jack's hologram rolled into motion, and their perspective slid across the planet's surface. The forests and grasslands subtly reconfigured, no longer wild and untamed but neatly ordered and arranged.

  "Their first step was to rebuild their ecosystem, turning the world into their own ideal habitat. Every plant and animal was replaced with a more refined version, and the entire system worked together like a well-oiled machine."

  Jack worked his jaw for a second, apparently disturbed by the recollections recently planted in his brain. "Once that was done," he said, "they turned their focus on themselves."

  The view approached one of the many massive cities, and came down on a street where thousands of humans went about their daily business. Even from a bird's-eye view, Marcus could tell the people were all too similar, not identical replicas but like one family somehow grown completely out of control.

  Jack went on. "Nefrem culture transformed around this new order. They became obsessed with perfecting their genetic code through scientific experimentation. Within just a few generations, sexual reproduction was nothing but a memory."

  The image zoomed back out until the planet was just a small marble spinning in the darkness, accompanied by several similarly sized siblings. Arrowheads darted out from it and struck the other worlds, which then became virtual clones of the original.

  "Within a hundred years, they'd colonized the rest of their solar system and remade it in their own image," Jack said. "It was during this period that they first discovered mind-to-mind communication, and the pressures of interplanetary expansion pushed the technology forward. It didn't take long before all Nefrem were born with the ability, and a new kind of unshakable peace swept over their people."