Black Shift (The Consilience War Book 1)

by Ben Sheffield

  Wake took a pneumatic elevator through to Konotouri-Beta, the second spinning habitat wheel of the station.

  The entry door required sign ins, a twenty-second medical diagnostic, and a quick hand-clean with a sonic exfoliator. Then, he was through, into a labyrinth of laboratories and research facilities.

  Konotouri-Beta was the colony’s research center. Normally frontier outposts were geared towards exploration, discovery, and reconnaisance – evicting all the dragons from the blank spaces of the map.

  That was impossible for Caitanya-9. The dragons would be there forever. Analysis of rocks. Documentation of mundane peturbations in the planet’s orbit. Reams and reams of busywork data that nobody would look at. The only thing that station was accomplishing was keeping several dozen scientists on the public teat.

  Wake was shaken by events on the ground. All he had was a piece of bone, but he commandeered a DNA analysis station, and got busy.

  Zelity, Zordrak, Calypso, and Yath were dead. The thought that they’d died for no reason churned his guts, gave him new resolve.

  Within half an hour, the machine had extracted and aggregated several excellent samples of DNA. Soon, it was plotting the base pairs on a electropherogram.

  “Can I help you?” A bespectacled older gentleman asked, looking miffed at how rudely Wake had thrown him off the machine.

  “I’ll be out of your hair in just a second. Do we have a DNA database for Konotouri personnel?”

  The man showed him how to cross-check the database. He watched the base pairs flash in sequence against hundreds of names and hundreds of samples. Now there was just grunt work – fitting keys into locks until they had a match.

  Then, words flashed in front of them.

  97% POSITIVE OBTAINED – OMAI NYPHUR (PG)

  What?

  “Is there any chance it’s making a mistake?” The bad thing about computers was that you couldn’t accuse them of lying to you.

  “Could be.” The man said, his politeness near its end. “I’m sorry, but you’ve thrown me badly off schedule. May I have the computer back?”

  “Fuck your schedule.” Wake swallowed, with a dry clicking sound. How could that piece of skull be from Nyphur? He’s alive. He’s the one who goddamn found it! “There’s dead bodies down on the planet, and I need answers.”

  He ran more samples through the computer, obtained similar matches each time. All between 95% and 98% probability.

  Improbably, impossibly…the broken skull piece belonged to the man who had ridden in a shuttle with him barely an hour ago.

  “There’s got to be an explanation for this,” he muttered to an increasingly alarmed scientist.

  Then, something clicked in Wake’s head.

  Various things, in fact, all coming together in a storm of understanding.

  He started walking. Then pacing. Then running.

  Everything’s fucked. He thought. And it’s been staring us in the face since we came here.

  The man I know as Nyphur died long ago, and the person on this station is a facsimile of him.

  How? I don’t know, but the Spheres must have some sort of cloning or replicator technology. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. When he died, a piece of his skull landing among the rocks. Golestani put out a distress call before he himself was killed. Then they cloned Nyphur, and used him to muddy the waters as much as possible. They didn’t want their attack to come to light, and they almost succeeded.

  He felt his stomach plunge.

  How long has fake Nyphur been on the ship? How long has he been sabotaging things? What else does he know? What else has he done?

  Was he the reason the Spheres attacked today? Does he have some way of communicating with them? Is he the reason four of my team got buried in the rock today?

  Rage swung through him like a wrecking ball. He ran through the lab, leaving gaggles of terrified looking scientists in his wake…

  When the Spheres attacked, they didn’t attack my shuttle! Because it had Nyphur on it!

  …And then he was face to face with Nyphur.

  The man had a data pad in his hand, and a scholarly smile.

  “You murdering, motherfucking bastard,” whispered Wake.

  The smile immediately vanished, as if it had been ripped away by a cord.

  Wake punched him, a hard right that knocked Nyphur to the ground. Blood flew from his nose in a brilliant ribbon of red.

  “No, I’m wrong,” Wake stood over him. “I shouldn’t humanize you. You’re not a murderer, you probably can’t fuck, and you definitely didn’t have a mother. You’re not even a human being.”

  Then he kicked him, hard, over and over, his polymetal-booted foot a punishing piston. It broke ribs. Nyphur screamed.

  “I went down there for what should have been a fucking search party.” Wake yelled, picking the man up by his lapels and pinning him against the wall. A snail trail of blood and snot was pouring from his broken nose. “Three people died. Was that your doing? A little tip off for your fellow Spheres down on the rock?”

  Then he slammed his fist against Golestani’s temple, hurling him like a ragdoll against a bank of computers. One of them flashed an optimistic message: EXPERIMENT COMPLETE!

  He pummeled Golestani with his fists, possessed by a cold, intractable rage. He wanted answers. He wanted information.

  Most of all, he wanted blood.

  “God, if you’re one of them, the things we could learn!” A hard left snapped Golestani’s head back. “You’ll be able to tell us everything…where the Spheres are from, what the fuck they want with that beacon, how to talk to them, how to kill them…”

  He drew back his hand for another punishing blow, when he heard a voice. “Konotouri Security! Stand down!”

  He turned his head, feeling the limp and semi-conscious scientist struggling in his grasp.

  Four guards were coming through the doorway. At the forefront was Sabrok. They had the Konitouri logo on their raglans.

  They stared into the silence.

  Wake grinned, feeling half-dried blood crack and split on his face. “Took your time, boys. Arrest this scientist, and arraign him for treason. He’s responsible for several deaths. I’ll be happy to witness and sign off on the paperwork.”

  The security detail completely ignored the bleeding and whimpering Nyphur.

  Instead, they surrounded him.

  “We will now be placing you under protection.” Sabrok said. “Please come with us.”

  “Hey, do you know who I am?”

  “I don’t know who you are, but I know very well what you are.” He said. “You’re an EDP – an Emotionally Disturbed Person. And based on what I see here,” he gestured at the blood-splattered lab, “you’ve committed assault. Come with me. You can either go on your feet or on your ass. Your call.”

  What? “You don’t understand!” Shouted Wake. “There’s a skull sample! Human remains with a positive ID! It’s impossible that he’s alive! Just impossible! He’s a clone, a doppleganger! Don’t trust him! Don’t let him out of your sight! He’s going to…”

  The surrounding net of guards drew tighter. “Please come with us.” Sabrok said. He felt breath on the back of his neck, and heard the rattle of handcuffs.

  Trying to capture me, are you?

  God, if they can do it to Nyphur, they can do it to anyone! How many of you have secretly been killed and replaced, I wonder?

  He gave a roar of rage, then he grabbed Sabrok’s lapel and pulled him down. His knee cannoned into the big man’s chin, and he fell as if poleaxed. The guard behind him grabbed him, trying to pin his arms behind his back. He threw his tailbone into the guard’s stomach. He heard a woman gasp in pain, and then she lost her grip.

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Wake protested, unconvincingly. “Just fucking listen…”

  A guard on each side rushed towards him. He heard tasers sizzling in their hands. He ducked under one swipe, grabbed the guy’s wrist, and jammed the taser int
o the fourth guard’s neck, triggering it with his spare finger. The guy screamed and fell, his body jumping and spasming. He kicked the legs out from under the remaining guard, and started running.

  By the time he saw the fifth guard at the doorway, it was too late.

  The woman aimed and fired a sonic cannon, and Wake was caught by the blast.

  FWOOOOOOOM!

  Instantly, he lost all sense of sound. He no longer lived in a world were there was sound, where such a thing could exist. A hollow ringing filled his ears, the sound of metal in a vast and discordant space.

  He tried to control his limbs, and failed.

  Forward momentum carried him forward into a stack of lab equipment. He landed with a crash. Beakers and pipettes flew. He struggled and fought against the paralysis, spit flying liberally from his mouth.

  In his head, memories stirred.

  Like rats, living in holes. They’d been there for a long time, and they’d dug themselves deep. The terrain of his memory had been graded flat, concreted over, all details erased…but the rats lived still. And now they were breaking out.

  A spaceport…

  …The asteroid belt...

  …I was trying to get off…

  …They were trying to catch me…

  …Why…what did I do?

  His vision righted itself, and he realized that the men were dragging him upright. He had no sensation anywhere, except in his head, which was now a madhouse.

  He foamed and gibbered, barely aware of the handcuffs going on his wrists. They let him sag in their arms like a sag of potatoes, and they started dragging him towards the elevators.

  Just then, he caught sight of Ubra Zolot, staring at him.

  Help me he tried to say, but his mouth wouldn’t work. More froth sprayed out uselessly.

  She didn’t look shocked, or outraged.

  After all, she didn’t know him.

  Konotouri Alpha – March 14, 2136 - 1450 hours

  “Second Minister Amnon has docked and requests an audience with you, Warrant Officer.”

  When Kai had heard this, he just nodded, feeling rocked by the events of the past hour. It wasn’t that every new piece of news was bad, it was that they were all exponentially bad. Soon, he’d be graphing disaster on a log scale.

  Kazmer opening fire on the planet.

  Kazmer getting half his team killed.

  Kazmer attempting murder, right under his nose.

  Now, a surprise visit from Sarkoth Amnon.

  “Admit him,” Kai said. His secretary nodded, and buzzed open the door.

  The man who entered the room had brutish, sluglike features. His suit was tailored to make him look heavyset, rather than distinctly fat. He smiled affably, and sat down in front of Kai.

  “I didn’t tell you I was coming,” Amnon said. “I don’t apologise for the deception. There was a risk the space station had fallen, and that the message would be intercepted by a conquering enemy. Better to have the element of surprise.”

  Kai didn’t answer.

  “So, first things first,” Amnon said, reaching for a jar of synthetic glucose globules on the desk. Most people took one, or two, out of politeness. Amnon took a handful. “How did my little experiment with Andrei Kazmer pan out?”

  “He’s under arrest,” Kai said. “He attacked one of my geologists. Just a few minutes ago, actually. He’s apparently convinced that said geologist is a replicant sent by the Spheres to infiltrate the station.”

  Surprisingly, Amnon laughed. “Well, now, why on earth would he think that?”

  “Why do you ask? Clearly a psychotic episode.”

  “As a great philosopher once observed, just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t really out to get you.” The chuckles continued, even as he shoveled twenty glucose balls into his mouth at once and started to chew. There were crunches that sounded like breaking bones.

  Kai wanted to scream.

  He wanted this to all be over. Not just this meeting. His career.

  “But let’s put that aside,” Amnon said. “I’ve heard some disturbing things that have nothing to do with Kazmer. We are now at war with the Spheres, and I will be commencing military operations against them.”

  War with the Spheres? That didn’t make sense to Kai. “We’re not at war, as far as I know.”

  “Shots were fired. That’s cassus belli anywhere.”

  “Yes, but we fired the first shot. Or Kazmer did. Either way, it’s a war of human initiation.”

  “No matter who started it, someone will have to finish it.”

  Kai didn’t understand. “They’re not really an entity you can really wage war against. They don’t have any cities, they don’t have any civilization. They might not even be sentient.”

  “This is your conjecture, Enoki. Maybe they do have cities, and we just haven’t found them. I have nearly two thousand men ready to land, and that kind of manpower can achieve a lot of recon.”

  “But we also lack a way to communicate with them. They can’t negotiate with us, and they can’t surrender to us.”

  “Then it will be war to their extinction.” Amnon said. “Or ours.”

  “But why even do that at all? Why don’t we just stay up here and see what happens? Maybe it’ll all blow over. And even if it doesn’t…they’re Spheres. They have no ability to travel into space. Their transport abilities are limited to a few hundred meters of lithostatic levitation. What will happen if we just ignore them?”

  “We’d miss out on so much fun.” Amnon replied.

  “What? Fun? What are you talking about?” Kai was gobsmacked. Had interstellar transport destroyed Amnon’s brain? “If we stay up here, nobody will get hurt. If you go down there, potentially thousands will. And what’s the best case scenario? We wipe them out…and inherit a useless ball of rock orbited by two killer moons?”

  “I think you’re missing something here, Kai.” Amnon said. “If only I could explain it to you.”

  “I wish you could.”

  There was an even bigger question looming in Kai’s mind, one that he hadn’t yet gotten the courage to ask.

  What are you even doing out here, Amnon?

  An emergency situation requires an emergency response, not an army, and certainly not the second command of the entire Solar Arm! Kai thought. Why lose ten years and risk political suicide over this stupid backwater? Especially since the emergency situation didn’t really exist in the first place?

  “Suffice to say, the transmission that was sent to me makes Caitanya-9 sound…interesting as a strategic target.” Amnon said.

  “You mean Golestani’s original report. About how he found a countdown, ticking away in the ground.”

  “Yes, just so!” Amnon laughed. “By my own calculations, if ten years have passed, then there is now just a matter of days until the countdown reaches zero. Wouldn’t you like to know what happens when it does?”

  Kai sighed.

  “Are you aware, Amnon,” he said, “that the original report was false? That Golestani crashed his dune buggy, and hallucinated? There’s nothing there. You’re wasting your time.”

  “Interesting that Mr Kazmer is now convinced that Nyphur was been replaced by a clone with a goal of sabotaging the Solar Arm. Let’s humor him for a moment. That’s exactly the testimony one would expect in such a scenario.”

  “That’s utterly absurd.”

  “Well, I’ve already brought an army out here, so I aim to milk that absurdity for all it’s worth. We’ll go down to the planet, locate and secure the beacon with all due pomp, and destroy anything that gets in our way.” Amnon said. “Incidentally…what are your plans for Mr Kazmer?”

  “He’s in Konotouri Delta now, the storage and prison wheel. I suppose we can bring a court martial against him. After that, well…we have no use for him. He’ll go back to Terrus and continue his prison sentence.”

  “Can I have him? I’d love to perform more experiments on him and his memory. Perhaps make hi
m think his only purpose in life is to eat his own fingers and toes.”

  Kai shuddered. “You’ve flagrantly broken Section 10-7 of the constitution, Sarkoth. I can only cover for you for so long.”

  Amnon sighed, and stood up from the table. “I once heard a story. There was a civilization on Terrus, millennia ago, called ‘China.’ It was ruled by a very harsh emperor, who ordered cruel infractions for the slightest wrongdoings. One day, their army was delayed by a flash flood, and missed a critical rendezvous. The general asked his second-in-command, ‘what is the penalty for being late?’ ‘Death’ the second-in-command replied. ‘And what is the penalty for rebelling against the emperor?’ ‘Also death.’ There is no difference between treason writ small and treason writ large, and what I’ve started, I will carry to completion. No, the Terran laws are not truly for me. This is a slope I’ll ride straight to the bottom.”

  He turned to go.

  “I will deploy my troops now, Kai. Please do not get in my way or try to stop me. That would be bad for you.”

  Caitanya-9 – March 14, 2136 - 1700 hours

  When Zelity woke up, he was staring at the sky.

  For a while, this was enough. Him and the sky, a symbiotic union, like two dancers swinging on each others arms.

  His mind went to happy places. A childhood on earth, a schooling on the moon, military school on Mars, and so forth, his distance from the core of the Solar Arm rising with each promotion. And now…

  Unfortunately, thinking of now restored him to sanity. Like a flash of burning gas.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  His entire body hurt. He thought his body would snap him along a myriad of fault lines if he tried to move.

  The only reason he could see the sky was that he was staring through a hole in a solid sheet of metal. He was still inside the downed Adagio.

  He tried to remember exactly what had happened. We were getting off the planet. Spheres…a fortress in the clouds....they were shooting at us…

  Daring himself to break, he sat up, and looked around.

  The Adagio would never fly again. It was hard to imagine a single function it could now perform. If it rained on Caitanya-9, it wouldn’t even keep him dry.