by Barry Kirwan
Micah clamped his lips shut, tried not to get angry, the soft option given the broiling cocktail of emotions lurking just beneath his skin. His close connection with the ship mind left him even less privacy than the rest of the crew. Before leaving Esperia, he’d been told that Shiva was designed to anticipate its captain’s wishes. He figured Shiva wanted to know his priorities, especially in case not all of the captives could be rescued, and a choice had to be made. But Micah didn’t want to answer, and wasn’t sure he knew anyway.
“It’s a dynamic variable, Shiva. If that decision comes up, I will decide at the time.”
Micah almost laughed. I doubt it. He nudged the images of the two women out of his mind and got down to work.
Ash stood in his quarters, holding the cloaking device in his hand, a small yellow rod the size of a cigar. He had asked Shiva how it worked, its scientific principles, but the ship’s mind had replied by asking how good his hyper-math was, at which point Ash had shrugged. It had practically no weight. Attaching it to his belt, he activated it and felt absolutely nothing, no change, no tingling on his body. Walking up to the mirror he used each day for shaving and brushing his teeth, he saw, instead of his face, the opposite wall and the archway to his room. After moving left and right to check that he was definitely in front of the mirror, he laughed aloud. He tweaked the control to attenuate any further sounds he might make: his breathing, footsteps, even disturbance of the air around him. Then, with an almost mischievous grin, he set off.
The first cabin he came to was occupied by Vashta, the Level Eight Ossyrian doctor, sitting on her hind legs at a small console, mercurial eyes in her dog-like face dancing over an alien script Ash didn’t recognise. He’d only met Vashta a week ago, but had been impressed by her complete and selfless concentration on whatever task she was set. She had a mane of jet-black fur. Her Pharaoh-like headdress made up of horizontal bars of gold, red and blue, was propped up on a chair next to her cot; he’d not seen her without it before. Her pointed ears remained back, not detecting him, not even his scent. With a shock Ash realised she was naked; never mind that she was an entirely different species and covered head-to-paw with fur. Feeling his face flush, he backed out of the room. At least the cloak-field worked. But he needed to test it on more subjects.
Next he headed to the cabin of the brunette Aramisk, the stocky, not unattractive but somewhat abrasive female Mannekhi, the only other humanoid race any of them had encountered. He shared one thing in common with her and all other Mannekhi: all-black eyes, including the irises. But he was surprised to find Kat in the room, and intrigued to find the two of them standing very close, Aramisk’s hands on Kat’s slender waist.
“Aramisk,” Kat was saying, “I told you before. It was just once. You know I’m here to rescue Antonia, to bring her back so we can be together again.”
Aramisk’s firm hands glided up Kat’s thin, almost boyish torso, then one hand reached up and stroked her face and black, short-cropped hair. Kat didn’t pull away.
“And I will help you find her. But we Mannekhi work differently, we separate the present from the future. Here, let me show you.” Aramisk pulled Kat towards her and kissed her full on the mouth. Kat resisted at first, but Ash could see it was only half-hearted, and soon Kat had her hands locked around Aramisk’s neck, kissing her back.
Ash found himself outside the cabin, his head reeling. He recalled that two days earlier Vashta had made a seemingly innocuous remark over crew dinner, that Mannekhi pheromones were far stronger than humans were used to. Now he understood, though he had no idea how Vashta had put it together so quickly. He wondered if he should tell Micah; it could affect the mission. But he knew he wouldn’t.
Composing himself, he found his way to Ramires’ cabin, where the last-surviving, grey-moustached Sentinel was dressed only in shorts, performing a martial arts kata with a metal staff, a thin sheen of sweat over his muscled torso. Abruptly, eight metallic holospheres appeared, surrounding Ramires, each with a single blue meridian running around them. They flew towards the warrior. Ash was mesmerised. Ramires dodged and struck them exactly on their equatorial lines, with two ice blue, ultra-thin foot-long blades that flashed out from each end of his staff. Ramires’ feet left the ground, and he twisted through the air. The only sounds were sharp, ringing clangs as he guillotined the spheres one by one. Ramires landed in a semi-kneeling position, head down, one arm stretched outwards, the other gripping the staff, its nano-blades retracted. The last of the hemispheres rolled to a stop on the floor and vanished. Ash, trained in martial arts himself, but nowhere near Ramires’ level, resisted a strong urge to applaud. Then he reminded himself that on Savange, if it came to hand-to-hand combat, Ramires would be surrounded by an entire population of Alicians, all faster and tougher than humans; he wondered how many Ramires could fight off it if came to it. An image formed in his head of a battle scene with a lone Sentinel defending himself against appalling odds. Ash shook himself; it felt too much like a premonition.
Ramires hadn’t moved, and his breathing didn’t seem laboured. The only sign of effort during the exercise had been his greying ponytail flinging out behind him as he’d spun through the air. But Ramires’ head jerked upwards suddenly, and he glared toward the archway where Ash stood. Without warning, he flung the staff at the doorway. Ash ducked, the bar brushing the hair on the top of his head before clanking against the corridor wall. Ramires’ eyes glared at the entrance, as Ash slowly moved to one side. Then Ramires seemed to relax. “I must be getting twitchy in my old age,” he said. He walked over to retrieve the staff. Ash decided not to push his luck, and departed.
His last port of call was back at the bridge, where he found Micah poring over a luminous console, an array of images of all sixty captives decorating its surface. Ash’s brow creased, and he felt the heaviness in his shoulders that he supposed Micah carried all the time. Added into the mix was the risk factor: they might simply fail in their mission, or lose some of the people in the extraction. But at least the captives were alive for now. Micah’s fingers touched one of the images softly, a woman’s face; Ash was surprised to see who it was. Then the images vanished and Micah spun around.
“It works, then,” he said, looking straight into Ash’s eyes.
Ash was nonplussed. He disabled the field, then he got it. “Shiva, yes?”
Micah tapped his temple. “When you entered the bridge she patched your image through to my resident. Now go get some rest, Ash, and keep it turned it off. Shiva says if you use it for more than a couple of hours you’ll begin to fade.”
Ash nodded; he disliked subterfuge. “That must be a joke, yes?”
Micah shrugged. “You think Shiva, Level Fifteen sentient tech, has a sense of humour?” He shook his head. “Something to do with cellular fatigue.”
Ash jiggled his head, and decided a few hours’ sleep might be a good thing.
“Oh, and Ash… The image I was looking at, just now. Don’t tell Ramires. He’s got enough on his mind already, and –”
Ash held up a hand, and smiled. “What image?”
Micah nodded. “Right. See you soon.”
Micah turned around again, summoning tactical holo-displays and maps of Savange’s only city, where they believed the captives were being held. As Micah was engulfed by translucent displays, Ash took one last look, remembering what an uncle had once told him, that if you wall off your heart and deny its feelings, it turns in on itself, and eventually seeks its own destruction. The Buddhist solution was to let go, but few could, and he doubted Micah knew how. Ash left the bridge.
Back in his room, he recalled some of the things he’d seen on his travels with Jen, Dimitri and Kalaran: the birth of a new star, the rainbow planets of the Hasrian galaxy, and the heart-wrenching death-song of the Daphnaea males, to name but a few. He’d witnessed horrors, too, and now they had one in their own galaxy: Qorall. Ash wished this business on Savange could be over soon; there were larger stakes to
consider. He hadn’t been entirely truthful when Micah had asked him what had affected him the most. It had been something that had left an indelible imprint on his mind, one that would be with him until his end.
Kalaran had taken them to the Jannahi galaxy, the place where the Kalarash had evolved two billion years earlier, where Qorall had last waged war. Ash had witnessed the utter desolation of a dead galaxy. There had been no light, all the galaxy’s suns long since extinguished in the death-throes of the war. Kalaran’s ship had lit up space around it like a lonely flare as they coursed through fields of asteroid-sized debris that stretched across thousands of light years, occasionally finding blackened chunks of unknowable technology drifting amongst the space-dust. They’d spent two weeks there, during which time Kalaran refused any contact. Jen had become distraught, worried about Kalaran, but Ash had understood: it had been a lesson, a vision of what could happen if they lost the current fray with Qorall.
After they left, he asked the others to call him Ash from then on. Asha, meaning ‘hope’, had been his middle name, he told them, and they bought it. The truth was different, however; he never wanted to forget what could happen if they failed, that an entire galaxy could be reduced to ash.
Kat interrupted his thoughts, knocking on the entrance to his quarters, looking a little sheepish. As usual she tried to brazen it out.
“Hi Ash. Can’t sleep either?”
He ignored her dishevelled and wary look, and beamed at her. “I was just about to make some herb tea, would you like some?”
She nodded, wandered over to a large orange cushion and plonked herself down on it.
“Ah, not there,” he said, “I was about to meditate. Take the bed.”
Kat didn’t hesitate, and flopped onto it, the way a child might: face down, arms spread wide. By the time he’d brewed the tea she was fast asleep. He sat in a lotus position on the cushion, setting the cracked china cup on the floor before him, staring into the steam, inhaling the smell of cinnamon and cloves, letting it cleanse his mind.
What had also affected him on his travels was the sheer, incomprehensible vastness of the universe. People, and most aliens too, rushed around as if anything they did really mattered in the larger – or longer – scheme of things. But Qorall had to be stopped, and it seemed humanity had a role to play. His gaze drifted to Kat’s inert form. She had met Qorall, after a fashion, though she would give few details. Only one other human – that is, he corrected himself, Alician – had had that dubious privilege: Louise, the new Alician leader, just returned to Savange.
He picked up his cup, closed his eyes and inhaled the aroma, then sipped the spiced tea, letting the cup’s heat warm his hands, and considered their situation. Qorall knew about humanity now, they had moved out of obscurity into the foreground, either because they were the guardians of the Spider-race on Esperia, or due to their association with Kalaran; probably both. He sipped some more tea, then set down the cup. He thought of his long dead wife and two daughters, the love they had all shared, and the more recent affair with Zack’s wife – now widow – Sonja. The hollowness he’d been running away from for the past year took root once more. This time he held back from closing it off, didn’t deny it; he refrained from walling off his own heart. How easily we see our own faults in others. Ash had had little to live for in recent years, but plenty of others did. He let his grief and anger wash through him, he let them have their voice. His lip trembled, but he maintained his upright posture. After a while his inner storm abated, but it left behind a residue of conviction. He chastised himself for having been aloof and self-centred; it honoured neither his family nor his ancestors. Quietly he rose from the cushion and stole from his room.
He met Aramisk in the corridor coming out of her quarters, the unruly state of her hair and half-fastened clothing suggesting she had just woken. He barred her way.
She looked a little flustered. “Have you seen Kat, she’s not in her –”
“Kat is asleep in my room. If you truly care for her, leave her wits in one piece before we engage the Alicians.”
Aramisk’s mouth fell open, but Ash walked on before she could reply. He heard her retreat back towards her quarters.
At least Ramires and Vashta were asleep in their chambers.
He entered the bridge and walked straight through the holograms swamping the command chair and its lone occupant.
Micah looked up, surprised. “Ash, I thought I told you to get some rest?”
“When I am dead, I will rest. Now, show me your plans, Micah, all of them, including those for the Spider Louise captured, whom I assume you intend to destroy rather than rescue.”
Micah folded his arms, and cast Ash a quizzical look. “First, a question.” Micah paused. “I know you used to be a commando back in the war on Earth, but, well… Look, there’s no easy way to say it. While you and Jen and Dimitri were travelling outside the galaxy with Kalaran, for you a year passed, for us it was eighteen. But you seem to have changed more than us, you seem more, I don’t know… philosophical?” Micah pushed himself up straighter in his chair. “Ash, it comes down to this. Are you willing to kill if necessary? Because if not, I’ll send someone –”
“I will kill if required, Micah. Now, please, the plans.”
Micah nodded, and began rearranging holos so Ash could see them in the right sequence.
As Ash studied them, he realised close-quarters combat was almost inevitable, and he knew the Alicians would fight to the death to retain the captives, as their very existence depended upon it. Now that he saw the scenarios right in front of him, including some where they might have to kill guards in cold blood, he wondered if he had just lied to Micah.
Louise didn’t like surprises; life already had enough of them. She entered the glass booth replete with monitors on each side of a bay window looking over a darkened arena.
“Why am I here exactly?”
Lexa, one of her new Achillia, the six-strong elite personal guard inherited from Sister Esma, gave a faint smile. “Sister Esma kept this secret from almost everyone, Your Eminence –”
“Don’t call me that. Louise will do fine.”
Lexa nodded slowly, then continued. “Sister Esma called this her insurance policy, in case she didn’t make it back.” She cleared her throat. “You will see.” She touched a pad and the lights in the booth dimmed, while those in the arena came on, lighting it up as if it was in daylight.
They both stared through the glass to the sim-floor below, a reconstruction of a section of the human’s sprawling city, Esperantia. Single storey buildings with white walls and zinc roofs lined a dusty unpaved street beneath a hazy orange sky. Louise was a little surprised at the basic amenities, compared to the beauty and technological complexity of the Alician metropolis on Savange; she’d assumed humanity would have done better. You’ve disappointed me again, Micah.
Human figures stood motionless, lifelike automatons she presumed had been fabricated from a Q’Roth training ship: expensive to fashion, easily damaged and usually non-repairable. Whatever this insurance was, it wasn’t cheap.
Lexa activated a holo-field and donned a black sense-glove. She clicked her finger and thumb, and as one the people began to move. The noises of day-to-day humdrum lives flooded Louise’s ears through the monitors. She watched them; none of the automatons were alive in any real sense. But Louise recognised a few faces, and guessed the function of the simulation. She held up a hand, and Lexa paused the simulation.
“Show me the principal targets.”
Lexa’s fingers danced and twisted in the holo-field. The sky dimmed. Five stalactites of light shone down on four men and one woman in different locations in the town. Louise glanced from one to the other as Lexa used focusers to zoom in: Blake, Vasquez, Ramires, Jennifer, and Micah. Louise understood. The first and last were the leaders, the priority targets. Vasquez and Ramires were military, the first a colonel, the second a Sentinel, the last left alive. There was a readout next to each figure,
and this particular automaton, Ramires, had been programmed with a very high level of fighting skills, as much as human muscles, tendons and skeletal structure could handle – which was less than an Alician. Louise didn’t know why the woman Jennifer was there.
Lexa took a breath. “A man is about to enter. He is a clone who has been kept in stasis for some time, and doesn’t know this is a simulation. Once he enters, I cannot pause the simulation. You will see why.”
Louise eyed Lexa, who busied herself with her monitors. “Continue,” she said.
The five lights shut off and the scene resumed. A man with goat-black hair and a taut body walked onto the scene. Louise stood up, and uttered his name. “Gabriel!”
Lexa spoke. “Sister Esma said you met him once, back on Earth. As I said, he is a clone, not the original. Before Sister Esma had the real Gabriel killed, she cut off one of his fingers so as to have enough DNA, and downloaded his memories using a Q’Roth extractor. But he has been grown here, and is Alician in his mind, though he has the reflexes, knowledge and partial memory patterns of the original. The danger, however, is that his memories overwhelm his Alician conditioning, hence the simulation. But if he succeeds –”
“We send him to Esperia. He would be the perfect assassin.” Louise knew about this process, being herself a clone. If you tried to partition the memories, the process usually failed, and you ended up with a walking vegetable. But the risk was that he reverted to the original Gabriel’s morals and loyalties. Then he would be very dangerous to Alicians, especially Louise.
“Yes, but to be clear, he is not an automaton, he is real flesh and blood. The simulation below is real, and they can kill him.”
Louise smiled. Insurance policy indeed, Sister Esma had considered all the risks, all the outcomes, as ever. She regained her seat, then leaned forward as Lexa zoomed in to the action.
Blake and Vasquez were discussing something as the clone – Louise decided to think of him as Gabriel for now – approached them.
