by Johan Kalsi
Viddo handed his tools back to the young man and resumed his stooped octogenarian's pace down the opposite staircase. Next, leaders and scholars each took turns, often in groups, following the original “important“ individual men, taking a whack at the smooth stone and its etchings. As the line of men representing all variety of vocations and responsibilities, all of whom played some part in the establishment of the Canon Archive, Moy spotted Bram. She lost him again for awhile and then found him again while he was midway up the stairs. By the time he had reached the top, the faint etchings had begun to be chopped through for the most part. Although a master carver would bring his team in later that afternoon and would work all night under spotlights to smooth and finish the lettering, when Bram finally grasped the chisel and hammer, the message could be read with ease:
WISDOM HATH BUILDED HER HOUSE
SHE HATH HEWN OUT HER SEVEN PILLARS
AND NO SECRET SHALL GO UNSEEN
NO TRUTH SHALL GO UNSPOKEN
Chapter 7: Dead to Life
Universal 149
The Zuvembi Plague (aka Zuvembi Solution, Standing Death) was the most devastating planetary pandemics caused by biogenetic algodecay in galactic history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 2.2 to 3.5 billion Holocronians and peaking in the Eastern Holocronian Hemisphere during the years 130-210 Universal
—Infogalactic Entry: The Decline of the Holocronian Technocracy (Zuvembi Plague)
Poor Dumb Toby was in such bad brain shape that not even he could remember his zuvembi-name, but only the one given him by the cruel man at the shooting range. His rescue had come at the hands of the Arfoot Marauders. Before that morning's batch of healthy Holocronians had their fun launching stinging, small-caliber beads at Toby's head, the back wall of the range broke open.
When that happened he knew enough to run with the mob of armed, moaning zuvembi.
Mistake, probably. The Marauders had made it to the attention of the Federal Zuvembi Control in a now infamous daylight ambush. The FZC wasn't bothering with cures or detention camps anymore, but had instead issued an order to shoot zuvembi on sight.
The range rescuees now found themselves running, night and day, with their maniacal saviors, to an almost certain doom. The nation had turned its eye to their kind, and the gaze would not be broken.
Arfoot's regulars gathered the rescuees--several of whom were still in bulky, splintered ankle monitors--at the abandoned gates of the ancient enclosed compound. The old Imperial computer security system had rusted solid on the twenty-foot bonds of the gate, so there'd be no delicate code-hacking of the lock.
That was well enough: from what Toby had gathered, Arfoot's only computer literate member had died during the breach of the shooting range in an accidental keyboard fire.
Besides, this computer had the faded marks of the old Continexal Empire of Excetor, before the Accamians took it over. It was now a dead tongue in the galaxy. Toby knew this fact, but did not know why he knew it. He also knew that he was one of the few zuvembi to retain any memories at all from his formerly human life, so he kept this random memory to himself.
“What that say?” said Arfoot to Poor Dumb Toby.
Toby had just enough intelligence to know that his remaining brains would be smashed to pulp if he answered with the truth. The truth was that he didn’t know what the words said at all.
“I think it says ‘Computer Broken.’” Toby hoped that everyone else was at least as illiterate as he was. He could no longer even write his own name in the language of his birth, a language he had nearly completely forgotten since he had become zuvembi.
“Tonight, we eat in peace,” croaked Arfoot, his broad, bullet-pocked shoulders flanked by his savage trio of bodyguards. The Marauders had been eyeing the rescuees hungrily all night, maintaining the discipline of the stomach only out of fear of Arfoot's imagination. The zuvembi grumbled their doubts, regarding the gates with suspicion. “New recruits? You might eat too.”
A grossly obese zuvembi with one arm and a rusted shortsword held by the impromptu scabbard of a ripped pocket in the back of his pants hunched on the ground, with his ear to it.
He hissed. “The machines! The men! They are tramping. Just beyond the hill we came down. We need ambush.”
“Coward!” shouted Arfoot. He went to the gate and snapped two rusted bars off of it. He threw them at the heads of the rescuees, one of whom had the reflexes enough to duck. Poor Dumb Toby picked up one of the rusted shards for a weapon. Arfoot shooed his first bodyguard through the opening, and then ordered the rest through. He followed the dregs in, not wanting to lose a single prize to the FZC. Toby was at the rear, just ahead of Arfoot.
He had made it into the opening just as shadows of the men and machines of the FZC crested the hill in the dusk.
Arfoot ordered his mix of soldiers and rescuees to the basin of the enclosed old campus, where there was a small brackish lake - little more than a pond . At its center was a very small island about a hundred feet off its northern shore Half-dead trees lined the lake. The water stank.
Lining the sheer rockface around the pond were ancient carved rooms and monoliths. Toby had two old human words come to mind: ‘college’ or ‘cemetery.’ He wasn’t sure which one was right, or if they even meant different things.
There were a few more recent signs, although based on their corrosion, they could not possibly be considered “new.” They were Accamian Orange.
Toby could read the words on them but he did not mention this.
They said: "WARNING: Catastrophic Algorythmic Failure Area - No Trespassing."
Other than the newer, still corroding signs, the high temples honoring…something…appeared to have been left untouched by either pilgrim, robot or thief, for many many many lives of zuvembi.
The whine of machines filled the air. An ordered tramping of feet approached just outside the gate. Arfoot’s men had already taken to the lake, and noodled the water for fish. The distance between the lake and gate was not too far for man-bullets, but probably too far for the men to kill too many zuvembi. Toby had paid the hot bullet game frequently at the shooting range, since his first day of capture. Toby did not like it, but he had survived it many times. Of course, the range master always put a helmet on him. Toby wished he had a helmet.
Arfoot barked and gripped a pair of throwing knives. He carried a man gun but had wasted all the bullets yesterday in the rearguard defense of the rescue.
His soldiers assembled. Toby looked up, gape-mouthed. The men beyond the gate did not move.
Arfoot cocked his head, straining at the language of men. Toby and a few of his fellows from the range cupped their ears. The clipped, high, whining words of the leader man would have been hard to follow in closer quarters. Toby had already forgotten some of the basic words they had taught him at the shooting range.
"What is that thing saying?" said Arfoot.
Stiff-Leg, one of Toby’s target companions from the range game “pin-man-peg” snorted.
"He cry for them. He tell them not to shoot."
"Why not?"
"Something about honor. Something about the dead. Maybe they not hungry, don't know. He just keep cry for them to 'Don't shoot!"
Although Toby didn’t have as much human vocabulary as Stiff-Leg, he had understood a few other words that Stiff-Leg had not spoken of: “off-limits” and “patient.”
Arfoot stared down the shadows at the gate, dangling his knives casually, as a taunt.
"Shoot! Shoot you cowards!" He roared in a tongue he knew was foreign to the men.
The zuvembi laughed, although a few also ducked back behind a friend or two, just in case.
They slowly backed up on the bank and took shelter among the spindly trees with large drooping leaves. They continued to taunt the men, daring them to break ranks and pour through the bars of the gate.
A tang echoed across the pond as a wobbling crossbow arrow sailed high into the air. Just as it appeared to stall, high above the pond, it
turned, pointed down, and struck leaves and branches. The arrow plummeted and struck the upturned eye of Bloodaxe, the veteran who had yesterday stove in the skull of the range manager with a brick.
The shot was, by any measure, a miracle, if a particularly grisly one.
Bloodaxe’s mouth popped open in surprise. Not a single sound came out. His back bent. His skull struck earth. Toby took a few steps back toward the trees. If Arfoot ordered a charge, Toby wanted to make sure he was heading the other way.
The human leader man screamed and flailed his arms, waving a small glowing wand. The wand moved erratically in conjunction with slapping sounds that came from beyond the gates. Toby presumed it to be the sound of what passed for mankind's softer version of corporal punishment.
Arfoot slowly assessed the motionless body of Bloodaxe for a moment. He scratched his belly.
"Well," said Arfoot, rubbing his mouth, and eyeing the gate. "That takes care of dinner!"
The zuvembi moaned loudly in delight. From behind the gate, the sound of feet, tramping off, could be heard. Shortly, shadows of men and machines appeared atop the bluish dark of the hill beyond the gate.
A crippled zuvembi called Regret was ordered to set a fire on the far side of the grove, and Cooker enlisted, with the back of his hand, two more to drag the big body near the pile of kindling. Cooker had earned his name by virtue of being the only one in the gang who had proven able to heat meat without burning it to cinders. Stomachs growling, the trio stripped the body and Cooker drew his razored-edge axe.
Arfoot sent Poor Dumb Toby to the noxious-smelling water's edge.
"What do you see?" called Arfoot, from a distance.
"Water," said Poor Dumb Toby.
"No, idiot. Do you see poison in the water? Have the men shot you with their guns?"
"No."
Toby could see the shadows more clearly now as the evening darkened. The smooth and able movement of a man walking the ridge, rifle slung over a shoulder, triggered more memories of himself as a man. It was like a dream to him, and as far as he could tell, his fellow zuvembi did not dream, if they ever slept at all. Toby still slept sometimes, once a week or so. Perhaps he was special. Perhaps he wasn’t so much zuvembi that he couldn’t go back.
“Ha!” shouted Arfoot. “Stupid men. This place is taboo!”
Daylight came too soon. A nearly blind zuvembi named Carcrash stripped and swam to the tiny island where a scraggly tree bearing withered fruit stood. He snapped the branches of the tree and once a branch hit the ground, he attacked it like it was prey. He ate his fill of fruit and, drunk on the juices and fell asleep near the roots. Toby was fascinated to watch this. He’d never seen Carcrash with such purpose, and had certainly never seen him sleep.
Sludge and No-Finger wandered down to the water's edge and began the noodling that had been interrupted the night before. They recoiled at the water that Carcrash had swum through naked. “Cold!” they said. “Cold! Cold!”
Toby thought they were making a joke. Zuvembi senses were dull to cold temperature. Heat caused pain, cold numbed it. After taking many insults, the pair waded back out and waited. They plunged their hands into the water several times, and then No-Finger drew up a writhing dark purple fish in his good hand. Sludge thrust another half-dozen times before clasping an even larger one.
The pair waded down the shore, away from the shaded camp and hid themselves in the shadow of a large broken stone across the way. There they tore like gluttons into their respective catches.
Toby was not hungry. He did not know why. That had never happened to him for as long as he could remember. Other warriors and several rescuees tentatively went into the water, and most of them reacted to the cold as well. In the daylight, Toby could not see the ridge from here, but he wondered if the men could hear the droning laughter of his mates.
One of the rescuees wandered up against the face of the carved buildings set into the walls of the cliffs. Toby followed him.
He crawled among the crags. There, a pair of floating flutterdamsels, dancing in black swirls and orange splotches caught the zuvembi’s attention. The damsels chased one another high beyond his reach. He shielded his eyes with his hand to block the sun. He climbed a stone, and then a taller one. The damsels were gone, but the wandering zuvembi snuffed at the air.
Toby, following at a distance, sniffed, too, but smelled nothing but the disgusting lake.
The escapee climbed a pile of rocks to the peak and disappeared over to a side that Toby could not see. Toby waited a moment, and then followed the rescue to the peak. The escapee had leaped a crevasse like an ape and continued to climb a tall stone spire, sniffing all the way. Still Toby smelled nothing but the pond. The zuvembi struck his leg against the rock. Blood streaked down. The mad fellow climbed. Toby wanted to go back, but he could not stop spying.
The zuvembi seemed to swoon in the sun, his body going slack for a moment. He pushed himself to his knees at the peak and he saw something, because he clapped his hands. Then the escapee disappeared. Toby slid down from his position on the rock and returned to the lake.
The first zuvembi Toby found when he returned were Sludge and No-Finger. They were still gorging themselves on fish when Toby rejoined them. They lay, naked bellies distended, half-dozing on their watch as the cool water lapped their heels.
Again! Sleep!
Behind Toby, in the distance, something large splatted and crunched against the ground.
Toby jolted upright. Sludge and No-Finger did not budge, even as the unmistakable scent of fresh corpseflesh wafted through the air.
Arfoot wailed an order for assembly, and Toby ran to him so as not to be passed through fire. A number of zuvembi did not wake up, including Sludge and No-Finger. Sludge didn’t move at all. No-Finger snorted and rolled, like a human, and turned his back to the sun.
Arfoot sent his guards to kick awake any sleepers. Some got up and obeyed. Others did not move. One on the far shore threw dust into the bodyguard’s eyes. The bodyguard went for the throat. The other guard ran down the slope and cracked both their heads together hard enough that everyone could hear the crunch.
Once most of the conscious zuvembi were gathered, Arfoot barked at them in a deep rasp.
“Night time has gone. The day burns your brains. But day is when the door opens! We go now to the door of the Manmaker!”
Toby had no idea what Arfoot was talking about.
Just then, Sludge awoke with a start, moved to the lake and hunched over at the water's edge. He vomited a glowing powder. The ghostly dust billowed against the ground and over his hands. A few rescuees also keeled over, white plumes erupting from their mouths. They all gripped their stomachs. They fell on the ground, shuddering. In minutes, the last one lay completely motionless. Their bodies were frozen in odd contortions.
Arfoot scanned the bodies. He pointed at the charred, stripped bones of Bloodaxe. “Food of landflesh is always better. That’s why I not eat fish.”
The zuvembi may not have understood the Manmaker door, but they moved quickly enough to get away from the unlucky lake. Toby looked back to see the lone zuvembi on the island, his hands folded on his belly, fast asleep, in the shade of the withered tree.
"Old steps don't like armies. You six test them out. The rest of us will go through that arch. If you find food or treasure, cry out. We will do the same."
Toby ascended in the group of ten – seven rescuees and three soldiers. The soldier at the rear watched his feet. The soldier stepped badly, tumbled backward and slid down until the stairs curved, and the soldier kept tumbling straight, off into a tall drop. His noises were loud, chilling and brief.
Toby looked down and saw two bodies; that of the clumsy soldier and that of the zuvembi rescuee he had followed earlier that morning. The rescuee had something like a long dart sticking out of the center of his back.
At the top of the steps was a corroded door. Fancy letters were carved over it, but Toby couldn’t read them. One word might have bee
n “TRUTH” but he wasn’t sure about the “R” and “H” because the letters were carved in a fancy style, and only the U and two “T’s” looked like normal letters.
The carving in stone was fresh. There were chips of rock still piled in front of the door.
A sweet scent filled the air here, a comforting perfume. Toby smelled a sickly tone underneath it.
The two soldiers made the rescuees tear at narrow hole in the base of the door until their hands bled.
One soldier struck another. “Arfoot says the Manmaker want them whole and wriggling! Not bleed them out! Hole big enough.”
Toby crawled through, the skin of his bare back, thick with electric-whip scars, felt hot and trickly as he scraped against the edges.
The chamber was not a soothing tar black, but faintly illuminated with ghostly light that traced the corners and highlighted ghastly markings on the floor and far wall. The light streamed in from a group of tiny triangular windows at the top of the high vault. It scattered in many directions, as if deflected by mirrors. A raised altar with a casket atop it stood in the center of the room, its faces dark, its edges white.
The casket was a computer. It had the same ancient markings as the one at the gate.
The other rescuees crawled in.
The soldiers came next.
The computer lit up and its light shone against a silver interior door. That door opened with a terrific grinding, squealing sound. As Toby’s eyes adjusted to the many lights coming on, he could see that there were several chambers that glowed dimly. They appeared to be full of ice, like the freezing chambers at the shooting range where humans kept dead cats and dogs for feeding the zuvembi.
From that, a very old-style robot emerged, as style that Toby only recognized from a vague memory of having seen it in a holoplay as a child, in History Lessons at school.
