‘I’ll ask Aleq,’ Ellie said.
However, there was a problem.
‘I can’t raise a response from him,’ she said. ‘There’s something wrong with the Ether.’
Whilst she was speaking yet another automated announcement echoed around the darkened corridors.
‘Danger. Hull breach. Venting atmosphere. Total de-pressurisation in sixty minutes.’
Whether this was Vitcha’s handiwork, or the result of letting a maniacal fungus rampage through the ship, I didn’t know.
I had no sooner tried to say that the bulkhead door behind us looked sealed well enough, than there was a loud thumping noise, like a battering ram repeatedly hitting it squarely in the middle, and the door began to buckle.
*
By now, Aleq and Tukarra had arrived on the bridge of the Kesinko, and locked themselves in there. I became aware of this because my Tukarra was sharing her experience with Cerrina Tukarra, who told Cerrina Rhett verbally what she was doing, who in turn was sharing what he knew with me. Thank goodness Vitcha would not be able to disable this back door communication mechanism, even if he had known it existed.
In front of my Tukarra, there was a wide and impressive control desk, covered with many meter needles, knobs, dials, levers, and flashing lights. She was not used to seeing such a mechanical user interface.
‘This is so analogue,’ she thought.
Yet Aleq seemed to be in his element: checking settings, taking readings, making sure everything was still in working order, but not actually touching anything.
Then Tukarra found herself staring in amazement at one particular instrument panel that was set into the desktop. She was fairly certain the panel had been added as an afterthought. Her mouth opened wide when she read the hand written lettering on its fascia.
A general heading spelled out, ‘Emergency Use Only’. Underneath that, there was a large red push-button associated with the words, ‘Terminate Experiment’ and another big red button labelled, ‘Self Destruct’.
Tukarra could clearly see that both of these buttons required special keys to be inserted, into the control panel, before they could be activated; and surprisingly, both keys were already in position.
‘What’s this?’ Tukarra asked Aleq, taking care not to poke anything as she pointed at the buttons.
Aleq explained, ‘This is not the first time I have been on the brink of ending Vitcha’s life. I fitted that panel myself, when I connected Vitcha’s brain into the ship’s computer, as a kind of insurance policy - in case anything went seriously wrong.’
‘The first button was intended to inject poison into his brain - to kill him instantly, whilst the second was intended to overload the fusion reactor and completely destroy the ship.’
‘Of course something did go wrong; he turned me into the walking, thinking, machine I am today but not before he had established himself as the human race’s only chance to be reborn from the ashes of destruction he alone was responsible for.’
‘Many years ago, I discovered he was trying to take over more and more of my own cognitive functions, slowly, by stealth. So I told him to back off and I inserted the keys in position, as a warning. If Vitcha ever tried to invade my mind again then either his precious brain would be terminated, or else I would blow the entire ship to smithereens along with him.’
‘But if I was human, I would be wasting my breath telling you all this,’ he said.
Then he made both of his hands into fists and thumped them down hard on the buttons. Tukarra’s heart leapt into her mouth.
Nothing happened.
‘Sometime in the last thousand years, Vitcha has found a way to stop these buttons from working,’ Aleq tardily admitted.
Despite feeling as though she had just been pushed off a cliff, Tukarra asked, ‘But why did you not finish him off before he was able to sabotage them?’
Aleq continued, ‘The problem is, I couldn’t kill him then and I am not that certain I can kill him now. I am simply not sure what course of action is in humankind’s best interest.’
‘You see, so many of the ship’s systems have now been replaced by biological components that are an integral part of his extended brain. Killing Vitcha would almost certainly have resulted in the slow death of all the passengers from a loss of power, atmosphere, and food. The starship would have been plunged into darkness, people would have been trapped in their rooms, and it would have only been days before the living hull perished, causing the whole structure to de-pressurise.’
Tukarra pointed out the scenario he was describing, was almost exactly the same nightmare they were currently faced with.
Aleq had to agree.
‘That is true,’ he said. ‘The difference is we now know the true fate he had in store for all the passengers. If we let him live then the passengers aboard the Paricianne are doomed anyway. They will effectively be eaten while they sleep!’
Then Aleq went on to explain how he had at least one major reservation when it came to ending Vitcha’s pathetic life as a tyrannical disembodied brain.
‘On the other hand,’ Aleq reasoned. ‘If we let him live and Vitcha makes it to New Earth, then he will start over and grow a new breed of Elite and humans from the Archive. And that could well be the best chance for the long term survival of the human race. We have to consider that absorbing a few passengers to feed Vitcha and keep the star liner operational is quite possibly a price worth paying.’
Tukarra had been listening intently, hanging onto every word Aleq had been saying.
She reflected on what he had told her, ‘He’s a parasite, a classic example of a necrotrophic parasite - if he has to consume us all to survive.’
Aleq agreed once again. ‘If you say so,’ he said.
Now, the gist of this conversation was relayed to me via Cerrina, using the back door mechanism I described previously. As he passed on the information to me, Cerrina Rhett remembered, just before I did myself, what the revised mission of Quatinus 1 was supposed to be. So he asked his Tukarra, to ask my Tukarra, to pose Aleq the following question.
‘But Aleq, why does it matter if the Paricianne fails to arrive at New Earth? Back on Earth, in your laboratory, Dave your old house robot told us, using your own voice, that Quatinus 1 is already there, and your transporter system was holding many VIP lifeforms in some kind of electronic memory. They should have been reconstructed and building a new life for themselves by now.’
‘I can’t tell you how relieved I am, to know I am not the only living soul who knows that,’ said Aleq. ‘However, just prior to Quatinus 1 leaving our Solar System, Vitcha managed to reprogram the on-board computers. He introduced the requirement for a physical button to be pressed, inside the lander stage, before the revival process can be started. In this way, he can be certain his own children, the Elite, will be the first to set foot there - if or when the Paricianne were to arrive at the very same final destination.’
If it were possible for a robot to sigh, Aleq would have sighed at this point. As it was, he just shrugged his shoulders and went on to declare, ‘Quite apart from our fate, as I am sure Vitcha must have told you by now, he seems to be in control of everything connected to the Ether cloud, not just on this starship but on Earth and Cerrina as well. There is nobody left alive who understands how to reconfigure the Ether to function without Vitcha’s centralised intervention. So if we kill Vitcha, then we could inadvertently cause the deaths of every last Elite, and every last human, when life support systems begin to fail everywhere.’
Aleq realised he had been talking too much and suddenly snapped to attention saying, ‘Ellie should have reached Vitcha by now. There must be a problem, but I am only getting garbled messages. I think she is asking for a combination.’
Aleq then raised a hand to his mouth.
‘It’s the combination to the computer room door they need,’ he suddenly realised - thinking out loud.
‘What is it? What’s the combination?’ asked Tukarra.
> ‘It’s Ellie’s birth date,’ he replied.
*
‘Ellie when were you born?’ I asked.
There was a slight pause while she puzzled why I might ask such a random question.
‘The twenty sixth of March twenty five forty two,’ she said, no doubt humouring me. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just a hunch,’ I replied whilst fiddling with the lock.
*
Whether he was listening to us directly, or lip reading from television cameras, somehow, Vitcha cottoned on to what was happening here - how messages were being passed by word of mouth from the Kesinko’s bridge, to the corridor outside the computer room, via conversations on Cerrina.
In a fit of rage, he forced Khonen to make Eric tighten the grip on his victims. Around the circular enclosure, one prisoner at a time, ribs and necks were broken, and before long all the sobbing ceased.
*
The computer room door clicked open and Ellie’s jaw almost dislocated in amazement. Nevertheless, any thoughts of celebration were quashed as a mass of writhing eel-like tentacles suddenly forced the door wide open and wrapped themselves tightly around my legs, waist and arms. Within seconds, I was held fast in a vice like grip; the blue glow from my costume flaring brighter where my body was being crushed.
It was clear Ellie would not have to suffer the same fate as myself. As soon as the sensitive pointed tips of those slithering tentacles touched her they backed away, leaving her completely unscathed.
The deep voice of Vitcha Kesinko wafted through the air once more, ‘Come inside,’ he boomed and the sea of tentacles that filled the darkened room gradually parted to allow Ellie to walk between them.
My living bonds pulled me into the doorway, blocking Ellie’s exit. I could see the room was crammed with computing equipment, hot and noisy, filled with the sound of fans and the wheezing of a personal life support system. Rust coloured tentacles, roots, and creepers had invaded every panel. They seemed to be more animal like than any I had seen before. As well as pulsing with a faint orange glow, whenever they conducted electronic signals, the creepers twitched slightly as though they were a little irritated by each message they conveyed.
Ellie had been ushered into the middle of the room where, at chest height directly in front of her, there was a partly glazed module containing Vitcha’s brain.
The brain was immersed in a bath of bubbling clear syrupy liquid and illuminated by a spotlight. It looked enormous; magnified by the curvature of the glass. In addition, I could see the frontal and parietal lobes had grown significantly over the millennia. I guessed the increase in size was partly due to the low gravity and partly due to the intrusive nanite technology constantly adding new connectivity and capacity.
Ancient television cameras, mounted high in the corners of the room, swung around almost certainly to observe how Ellie reacted when confronted with her father. But she was incapable of any subtle physical expression. Instead, the lens on one of the cameras, zoomed in to focus on Ellie’s utility belt and the hand-gun it still contained.
My ears popped as the air pressure fell suddenly. Across the corridor, just behind me, the robot mob had found a way to peel back a corner of the now bruised and battered bulkhead door. Sleek, but extremely powerful, grey clad robot fingers were oozing through the widening gap. Then a second wave of fingers and hands slid over the first, applying increasing pressure, and bending the tortured metal further still.
However, directing trillions of nanites to fight off the relentless advance of the fungus, was taking its toll on Vitcha’s brain. On every other subject, his mind controls were literally loosing their grip.
Chapter 32 – Death Throws
On Cerrina, Khonen now found himself in control of Eric, and whether through Vitcha being so distracted (by the events taking place on the starship), or by the strength of his new-found love for Suran, he managed to cause the roots, that were wrapped around her, to slacken, uncoil and fall to the floor.
Suran quickly searched around the pile of roots at her feet for the axe she had brought with her, but couldn’t find it. Then she remembered where Khonen had thrown his own axe.
Without any further hesitation, she ran over to the damaged leaf, thrust her arm between its barbed teeth and pulled the axe out from the slimy, pink, blood stained, inner flesh.
The jaws of the injured leaf snapped shut, a little too late. Suran had managed to withdraw her hand, and had already reached the central trunk of the plant. She started to hack into it with every ounce of force she could muster.
Just then, all the roots lost their grip and an arc of limp bodies, including Tukarra’s, fell to the ground.
I had also escaped being crushed by the plant, but as I leant over Tukarra I saw that her head lay awkwardly to one side, her beautiful blonde hair splayed onto the dirt. She was clearly dead, her neck broken. I was grief stricken but my thoughts were still entwined with events on the starship. Tukarra number two was still there, very much alive and well. That helped me to get over the pain of seeing her die before me. I let out a sigh of relief knowing we could still be together somewhere in this strange universe of ours.
I stood up and rushed across to Suran, to stop her attack on the plant. I found that she had made little impression on its tough trunk anyway.
I pulled her towards me, put an arm around her, pointed up at the huge orange flower pod and said, ‘No matter what it may look like, Khonen is not dead, he is very much alive in there. He is fighting a mental battle to save you, to save us all on Cerrina.’
The telepathic connection, I had with my doppelgänger on the starship, was definitely fading with time. Even so, I was able to use what I had learned to explain to Suran how Khonen had inherited the top job on Cerrina.
‘Khonen may soon be able to restore some kind of normality to the Ether cloud, to work with the Elite, and to steer Cerrina on its intended course to Neptune - but that can happen only if Vitcha Kesinko will give up his mental control of Eric, and let Khonen take over.’
Unfortunately, Vitcha Kesinko had no such intention.
*
Back on the Starship Kesinko, there was even more movement behind me. One android had managed to get a whole arm through the slowly widening gap in the bulkhead door. The arm was urgently thrashing around, trying to reach the mechanism that would retract the bolts pinning the door into its frame. But was it thrashing around still in pursuit of Ellie? Or was that more an act of desperation?
Just then, the area around the gap in the door turned frost-white, as a web of fungal filaments spread out in all directions from the opening. They were closely followed by the cap of a large toadstool expanding like bubblegum, forcing its way around the now highly agitated android fingers, hands, and arm. The hunters had become the hunted. The whole door was soon smothered by the merciless growth. It would only be a matter of seconds before the first fibres had crossed the corridor.
Yet time was up for the fungal army. Vitcha had found a solution to the problem. Throughout both ships, he had reprogrammed all remaining nanites to synthesise and deliver a working fungicide. They came in vast numbers, reassigned from maintaining the hull of the Paricianne, along the now dormant arteries, through the air ducts, and out of every nook and cranny to attack the all consuming infestation simultaneously and from every direction.
The swelling fungal flow behind me was suddenly transformed into soppy wet foam, popping and dribbling down onto the floor: revealing the partially breached bulkhead door once again. With nothing left to seal the breach, what remained of the growth was violently sucked back from whence it came; dragging the now lifeless android hands and arms with it. Disturbingly, the precious air remaining in this corner of the ship, started howling through the gap after them into the blackness beyond.
*
Vitcha began to rant again, making his cold deep voice heard on both the bridge and in the computer room.
‘Aleq, see how I have dispensed with your simple minded blob. It wa
s an interesting challenge, but I got there in the end. Once again your ideas have missed the mark.’
‘And don’t think I haven’t worked out what you are up to by now. In fact, because you have all but destroyed my luxury star cruiser, I was about to adopt your own plan of escape. It would be easy for us to shed what is left of the Paricianne and let you fly the Kesinko back to Cerrina for me.’
‘But no. I have a better idea. I’ll take Cerrina for myself. I’ll fly her to the stars. Goodbye Aleq. Goodbye Ellie. I’m out of here.’
No sooner had those words stopped ringing in my ears than Ellie called out, ‘What’s happening?’
The clear liquid surrounding Vitcha’s brain began to fog as millions of new microscopic nerve endings weaved their way down into the glass container.
*
On Cerrina, Khonen had begun to understand the totality of his new universe. He could feel the presence of every door, every gadget, every member of the Elite. He thought he had won the battle against the will of Vitcha Kesinko, but he was wrong.
He had no idea whether he still had a head or not, all he could see was a dull orange glow. Nevertheless, there was a strong sensation, a pain in his head. Something was physically invading his brain.
He was sure he could hear a voice over the Ether saying to him, ‘I am sorry my deputy but I, Vicha Kesinko, need you to make the ultimate sacrifice for me. Just relax. Soon the configuration of your neurons will be made to match my own. To all intents and purposes you will become me!’
Khonen felt like he wanted to laugh heartily, and so he knew he had little time left to act. He really was turning into someone else; a madman who cared for nothing other than his own survival and to bask in his own glory.
He quickly located and accessed every television camera and very monitor screen everywhere he could find them: those on the Earth, on Cerrina, even the few that were still functioning on the starship Kesinko.
He cycled through scenes of all three locations and showed them on every screen.
With superhuman effort, fighting off Vitcha’s mental and and now physical intrusions whilst still trying to learn the ropes, Khonen managed to cause some words to be typed over the pictures. ‘Y-o-u n-o l-o-n-g-e-r h-a-v-e t-o b-e s-l-a-v-e-s t-o t-h-e E-t-h-e-r. My name is Khonen. I am not a god. I was an engineer on Cerrina. Wherever you are, if you can stop the Ether from killing me I can help you all.’
Escaping the Sun Page 26
