Eternal Frontier (The Eternal Frontier Book 1)

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  Tag went on. “It wasn’t truly my original design. I used biology.” While keeping the finer details to himself, he summarized his initial hypotheses on the self-maturing AI of synth-bio technologies and his work with creating an artificial brain. Coren leaned forward, visibly impressed.

  Sofia, in contrast, pursed her lips. “It sounds feasible. But I think we both know how unreliable biology can be. You might design the perfect system, but tissue differentiation, epigenetics, or the normal learning process can drastically affect your expected outcomes.”

  The truth in that statement stung, stitching doubt through Tag’s mind. Even in simple cellular experiments, he had often observed his synth-neuro networks took unexpected growth pathways and made connections he couldn’t have predicted. The development of synth-bio truly had been difficult to manage, and his memories of his last encounter with Alpha One were all too supportive of Sofia’s conjecture.

  “How about this?” Sofia asked. “Coren goes with us. If your synth-bio AI works, then he comes back here. No questions asked. If we still need a little help, he stays and does just that.”

  “You’re really going to trust him?” Tag asked.

  “I’ve learned to since the Forinths welcomed them into the forest. I have had no choice but to trust them, and they’ve done nothing to abuse that trust.”

  Tag wanted to say no. Letting the enemy aboard the Argo was a surefire way to ensure he didn’t make it to the Montenegro. And since the Mechanics already knew about the ship, he had little time to waste. A plan started to hatch in his mind. It was crude, almost philistine, but it would have to do. He’d let Coren fix the ship—and if Coren didn’t repair the AI systems or proved treacherous in any way, he’d hold the Mechanic prisoner. He prayed it didn’t come to that, but it gave him some insurance against failure.

  “Fine, come with us to the Argo,” Tag said. “Get us back into space.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “I promise,” Coren said. “I will repair the damage the Drone-Mechs inflicted.” He held out a six-fingered hand.

  Tag grasped the Mechanic’s fingers. The alien didn’t shake with the same gusto Tag was used to from other humans. Coren’s grip barely clasped Tag’s, feeling more light and delicate than Tag had expected. Truly, this was a species that needed its technology. Tag realized he would not have any problem overpowering the Mechanic as long as the alien didn’t don his power suit. He felt a slight sense of ease knowing this. And if worse came to worst, he’d already dispatched three of them in armor. He could handle this one. He stood straighter, ready to lead them back to his ship.

  They just needed transportation to get there.

  “My air car’s a wreck now,” Tag said. “Do you have any vehicles we can take?”

  “We have a few transports,” Coren said. “But we won’t need them.”

  “There’s no way we’re getting to the Argo by foot.”

  “Don’t worry. I plan on having the air car repaired and ready to go.” Coren ducked out the door and departed without another word before Tag could respond.

  “How long’s that going to take? The car was leaking atmosphere when I left it.”

  “My guess is not long,” Sofia said. “There’s a reason I call them the Mechanics.”

  Tag couldn’t stand leaving their fate to an alien species he still distrusted. “So what do we do in the meantime?”

  “If I’m leaving this planet, I’ve got to say goodbye to the Forinths,” she said. “They’ll want to know of my departure, along with yours and Coren’s. Want to come with?”

  Tag gave her a noncommittal shrug. “They won’t be hoisting me over a live volcano again, will they?”

  “No. That’s a one-time treat.”

  She led him from her hut and into the forest. Humidity hung thick in the air, reminding Tag of the suffocating midday heat in his native Houston, Old USA, in the SRE. Only instead of towering structures of glass and steel, the evanescent glow of the plants, enormous trees, and other lifeforms surrounded him. Sofia’s and his boots slapped the damp earth on a sodden trail. After a while, Tag forced thoughts of Coren from his mind, and the haunting images of the damaged Argo and her dead crew faded away for a brief moment. The short reprieve proved long enough for him to find himself wishing he could revel in this new world. It was a landscape built from the seeds of dreams and grown in the garden of an artist’s mind.

  But the faraway thump of the massive drum prevented any revelry from taking hold.

  “Do they ever turn that thing off?” Tag asked.

  “No,” Sofia said. “You get used to it.”

  Tag cringed as they drew nearer to the waterfall and the enormous drumhead again, retracing their path from earlier. “I can’t imagine spending much time near it.”

  “That’s the idea,” Sofia said. “Wouldn’t ward off the ice gods if it wasn’t loud.”

  “So that’s the myth, huh? The drum keeps the cold outside.”

  “Not exactly,” Sofia said. “The Forinths know the volcanoes bring in the warmth. But they tell me it’s not the temperatures they’re worried about. The ice gods supposedly would be perfectly happy in a sauna if you’d let them in. But the Forinths say the drums keep the gods in the cold. So the icy world outside is their prison.”

  “You ever seen an ice god?” Tag ducked under a low-hanging branch. He expected Sofia to laugh, but her face remained serious.

  “No, and from what the Forinths tell me, I pray I never do.”

  “Think the ice gods are as dangerous as the Mechanics?”

  “The Mechanics aren’t dangerous.” Sofia paused in the middle of the path. “Not these ones. Far from it. They’re on our side, or rather, they want to be on our side. You must believe me. You’ve got to believe Coren.”

  Sofia turned around, and they carried on in silence. Was her assessment of the Mechanics at all true? Maybe her lack of human interaction had left her wanting in the social relations department, and it had been easy for Coren to manipulate her to believe his story.

  Tag wasn’t sure what to make of the woman. Her hair, though long, appeared brushed and untangled. Flecks of paint still clung to her skin as she strode over a rotting log. She might have spent years in this strange, expansive cave ecosystem, but if she scrubbed the paint off, she could fit right in aboard an SRE ship. She hadn’t adopted any exotic accent or foreign mannerisms. For all Tag knew, she’d communicated only with aliens since her arrival on Eta-Five. He’d heard fleet-wide stories of extraterrestrial anthropologists who became so engrossed in the cultures they studied that they’d refused to reintegrate into human society.

  But Sofia didn’t seem to be one of them. She seemed well adjusted, resilient. His initial suspicions that she might be easy prey for Coren’s manipulations were contradicted by Sofia’s professional demeanor.

  He found himself wanting to understand her better, see if setting her at ease with him would prove more fruitful. Breaking the silence, he tried a new tack. “Will you miss Eta-Five?”

  “This planet, no,” she said, “and as much as I enjoyed learning about the Forinths and spending my days talking to the Mechanics, I’m ready for human interaction again. Plus, I’ve got about a billion books I could write on these people now.”

  “Will you?”

  Her brow furrowed, and some of the remaining white paint flaked off with the deep creases. “I suppose I really should. Who knows what the SRE plans to do with this planet once I submit my reports.”

  “And after they find out about the Mechanics,” Tag said.

  “Yeah,” Sofia replied, almost dreamily. Her eyes glazed over as if she were lost in introspection. A soft melody drifting from the trees seemed to break the spell.

  Tag watched her lips press together, and she hummed three long, haunting notes. An equally eerie song whispered back, and a nearby tree trunk appeared to flicker as a Forinth’s chameleon-like skin shed its camouflage coloring. It took a step forward and reached out four of its arms. A m
elodic song flowed from its beaked mouth as two large sacs under its head billowed and shrank with the ephemeral music. Sofia stretched her arms to meet the Forinth, and her voice rose in chorus with it. Several more appeared, gleaming into existence, and their songs joined in with each other, producing truly otherworldly music.

  Something tickled in Tag’s chest. Reverence, nostalgia, and other strange feelings flooded him. The music overcame him, trickling past all his defenses, and he cursed himself at once for succumbing to the tune. He tried to remain stolid and unmoving but found it almost impossible. His thoughts and emotions were like computer software, and the song of these people provided the programming. Finally, their voices quieted, and all but one melded into the woods, once again unseen and unheard. The remaining Forinth glided forward over its multitude of tentacled legs, holding out a leather hide.

  A perplexed expression crossed Sofia’s face. She took the hide, clutching it close to her chest, and the Forinth disappeared. Her face retained a shell-shocked look as she spun and walked next to Tag. Birdlike chatter sounded overhead, the distant pulse of the giant drum continued, and water gurgled nearby, but Sofia said nothing.

  “What just happened?” Tag asked. “That music ... it ...”

  “It affected you, didn’t it?” It wasn’t really a question, and Tag didn’t need to provide an answer. She knew. “Their language is unlike any we’ve documented in other species. Instead of letters or syllables, they use rhythms and notes and tones.”

  “Music,” Tag offered.

  “Yeah,” Sofia said, a half grin on her face. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Sure. Also a bit disconcerting.”

  “It took me a while to get accustomed to it. But you were probably feeling the same emotions the Forinth conveyed when we spoke.”

  They reached her makeshift home. She ushered him inside and draped the hide over the table.

  “So what did he say?”

  “He wished me well on my journey. He warned me the planet’s spirits were getting restless.” She nodded toward the leathery fabric. “And he gave me an incredible gift.”

  Tag pinched a small fold of it between his thumb and forefinger. The hide changed colors to a bright blue, and he let it go in shock. “What is it?”

  “The hide of what the Forinths call a spirit ox. Eating the animals is what gives the Forinths their color-changing abilities. There’s some enzyme in the flesh that—”

  The door to the hut opened, and Coren burst through. This time his face no longer looked so stern and statue-like. His eyes were wide, and he seemed to be panting. “We need to leave. Now.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Tag’s heart jumped at the Mechanic’s earnestness, but he couldn’t help the skepticism pouring through him. What if this was a trap? A ploy by Coren to throw him off guard? “What’s going on?”

  “One of our scouting teams’ sensor arrays caught the grav signature of a small vessel.”

  “You mean a ship slipped through the stratosphere?” Sofia asked.

  “Exactly,” Coren said. “If I had to guess, they’re looking for you.” He pointed an accusing finger at Tag.

  “You’re sure about this?” Tag asked.

  “Absolutely. The signature matches that of one of our exploratory vessels. Similar in size to your Argo.”

  The implications rang clear in Tag’s mind. A small cutter had blasted the Argo from space. A Mechanic ship as large as the Argo would ensure the Argo never returned to space. “Would it be safer waiting for the ship to get bored and leave? We’re safe underground, and the Argo’s probably buried deep enough to escape a sensor read.”

  “Maybe your ship would escape human technology,” Coren said derisively, “but the same can’t be said for Mechanic tech.”

  Tag wanted to glare. But everything he’d experienced told him Coren probably wasn’t bluffing. “Fine. What’s their location?”

  “They’re about two thousand klicks south of here. If we leave now, we might be able to return to your ship undetected. I’ll restore your AI, and we can get the repair bots functioning. Then we’ll return to your people and send a rescue fleet back here for mine.”

  “I can’t make any promises about a rescue fleet. I don’t speak for the rest of the SRE,” Tag said.

  Coren nodded, twisting his fingers together. “I understand. But we won’t be able to find out for sure until we get off this planet. With luck, we’ll be in the air within the day.”

  Coren’s words lingered in Tag’s mind. With luck. Luck had barely been on his side so far, and he wasn’t sure how much longer even that would last. “Then let’s not waste any time. Sofia, are you ready?”

  Sofia grabbed a small bag and scooped several data cubes into it along with the spirit ox hide. “Let’s go!”

  Coren raced from the hut, taking long, loping strides. Tag struggled to keep pace. They reached the Mechanics’ makeshift village, and the gleaming metal of the air car caught his eyes. The damaged rear quarter panel had been replaced with silver sheet metal. It looked almost seamless, blending in with the rest of the car except for its color. “It’s repaired already?”

  “Told you.” Sofia leapt into the open side door of the car. “Mechanics, through and through.”

  Tag settled into the driver’s seat, his EVA suit crinkling as he did. He placed his helmet at his side, and Coren hopped into the front passenger seat. The Mechanic had already stowed his suit and several weapons beside him. The sight of those guns made Tag nervous.

  “You really need those?” Tag asked.

  “You don’t know what we’ll run into out there,” Coren replied.

  “Maybe not, but at least I’ll know what I’m dealing with in here,” Tag said, his voice short. “I don’t trust you bringing weapons aboard the ship. The last Mechanics who did that massacred the crew.”

  “I get it,” Coren said, “but—”

  “We don’t have time for this!” Sofia said, her cheeks flushing red. “Let’s go, Tag!”

  Tag stared at her for a second, wondering how she could let Coren endanger them so easily. All the same, he relented to keeping an eye on Coren. “Where’s my pulse pistol your men took?”

  “In the back with your rifle,” Coren said, nodding back to the weapons rack within the car.

  As he’d said, the mini-Gauss and pulse pistol were secured in pegs on the rack.

  Coren grabbed the pistol and thrust it at Tag. “Take it.”

  Tag snagged it from the Mechanic’s hand and stowed it.

  “Happy now, boys?” Sofia asked.

  Neither Coren nor Tag said a word.

  “Let’s get going then, shall we?” she asked, irritation clear in her tone.

  Tag pumped the accelerator for the air car. It pushed off from the ground, and the Mechanics watching it stepped back, clearing space for the vehicle. He unleashed the throttle and rocketed forward, careening toward the exit of the forest. Tree branches and dangling vines scratched over the roof of the car, and bright fluorescent organisms blurred by. The air car flew through the tunnel, and Tag gritted his teeth, steering with deftness. His shoulder still throbbed slightly from his injury, but it was only a small distraction now. The car soon burst from the tunnel, and the glowing purple, blue, green, and pink lights of the forest were replaced with blinding white and gray. Snow and ice swirled everywhere. They blew past the frigid, towering structures of the tundra, kicking up a snowy wake. Tag stole a sideways glance. Coren stared straight ahead, his lips pinched. He seemed frightened at Tag’s speed and frantic maneuvers over the perilous terrain.

  Good, Tag thought. Let him be scared.

  The mountains grew before them, and they drew nearer to the site of the avalanche that had almost crushed Tag. Green lightning zigzagged through the sky, and winds tugged against the air car.

  An echoing rumble shook the car. What in the three hells? Tag’s fingers wrapped tighter around the wheel. Coren gripped the armrests of his seat, and Sofia grabbed an
overhead handhold. He focused on closing the distance between them and the canyon. A little rolling thunder wouldn’t frighten him. He’d survived worse.

  But the rumbling continued, even when the violent electricity cutting through the sky ceased.

  “What is that?” Coren asked.

  Tag said nothing, facing forward. A drop of sweat trickled over his brow and across his cheek. “Doesn’t sound like a storm. Sofia?”

  “I have no idea,” Sofia said.

  “None?” Tag asked. “You’ve been here for five years.”

  “Underground. In that jungle. I haven’t been rolling around on the surface making snow angels!”

  The rumbling growled louder until the air car shuddered under its power. Vibrations traveled up from the wheel and into Tag’s arms. He eyed the top of the canyon, studying the cliffs and peaks overlooking it. His palms grew clammy, and worry bubbled through him.

  “Another avalanche?” he offered weakly.

  But he saw no falling snow, no tumbling ice, no crashing rocks. Fear wrapped its frigid fingers around his heart, squeezing it until it felt as cold as Eta-Five.

  “It’s the Mechanics, isn’t it?” Tag asked from the corner of his mouth.

  Coren shook his head vehemently. His single golden eye portrayed an uncannily human-like terror. As much as Tag distrusted the man, nothing but sincere, unadulterated fear showed in his expression. “No, we would’ve seen a Mechanic ship by now. This sounds nothing like—”

  The rumbling and shaking became deafening. An explosion of ice shards and broken rocks spewed in front of them, and Tag swerved to avoid the exploding debris. A roar broke across the landscape more frightening, more menacing than the charged fire of a battlecruiser’s energy cannons.

  They all saw it. The source of the din, and the almost-assured imminent cause of their deaths.

  Sofia answered the unspoken question on all their minds. “An ice god.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  An enormous creature burst through the cloud of snow, ice, and earth, baring a drill-shaped maw full of gnashing teeth and fangs thick as tree trunks. Sharp edges and fierce lines along its jaw and snout gave it a shark-like appearance, but instead of two beady black eyes, it had clusters of them around its head. Snaking tendrils, maybe antennae, hung from its pointed skull like a mane. The rest of its long, snake-like body slithered from the tunnel it had been digging, revealing blue and white fur covering the length of its torso, making the behemoth blend in with the stark terrain of Eta-Five.