by Rick Partlow
He regarded her with respect. She was far more discerning than her farmgirl exterior let on.
"Coming up on twelve times now," he told her. She nodded, seemingly unsurprised by the answer. "Now, please, Captain Mitchell. Proceed."
Cal turned and crossed the remaining ten meters to the sphere, then paused before it, looking for any clue as to where the entrance might be. After a moment, he shrugged and reached out to touch the surface just in front of him. Then he stepped back in shock as the entire massive structure began to spin in place, rotating another section towards him before it came to an abrupt halt and a round opening appeared in front of him as if it had always been there.
"Jeez," Deke hissed behind them. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that."
"The rest of you should wait here," Cal told them, stepping inside. Cutter followed him, excepting himself from the pronouncement, and for some reason so did Trint.
Chang shot the cyborg an annoyed glance. There was something going on with Trint, but he couldn't decide what. Oh well, the machine was entirely devoted to the Mitchell family: he wouldn't make a move as long as Rachel and Pete could be hurt by it.
As with the Predecessor ship, the step into the raised entry to the sphere was effortless, aided by an invisible gravitational boost.
Such power to use it on something so trivial, Chang thought, not for the first time.
He hadn't been sure what to expect from the inside of the structure, and he'd avoided speculating for fear that he'd build up his expectations too high and be disappointed. Stepping into the sphere, he decided he shouldn't have worried.
The interior of the globe was a tornado of what he assumed were holographic images swirling around the eye of the storm, a point occupied by Caleb Mitchell and Trint. Chang nearly stumbled as he made his way towards them: the tempest of light and sound made it hard to keep his balance, made it seem as if the inside of the building was infinite in scope. He tried to make sense of the images, and caught a flash here and there of a planet viewed from orbit, or something that could have been one of the Rescharr, but most of it was too jumbled to be anything but visual white noise.
Finally he made it to where Caleb Mitchell and Trint were standing, catching his balance as he entered the oasis of stability, and he immediately noticed that Mitchell didn't seem to be watching the images but rather staring at nothing. The place was talking to him, showing him its secrets.
"I want to talk to it," he told Cal urgently, hissing into the man's ear to make sure it penetrated the neurolink connection haze. "Connect me with the computer and I'll deactivate the nanite poison and let you all leave immediately."
There was a moment's hesitation, and then Caleb Mitchell's blue-grey eyes focused on his face. "It won't link to you," he said, shaking his head. "It doesn't trust you."
"Well, that shows remarkable insight for a 20,000 year old alien computer," Chang commented dryly.
"It doesn't trust you because it trusts me," Cal elaborated in a chill voice. "And it knows I don't trust you." He cocked his head in a hint of a shrug. "It's not as if I can lie to it."
"That's unfortunate for everyone involved," Chang said with a tsk. "But it will do as you ask, won't it?"
"Yes," Cal told him. "It tells me that I am the representative of the Rescharr's wishes for their progeny."
"How nice for you. The first thing you need to do is deactivate this planet's defenses and allow my ships to land here."
"It's done," Cal said after a moment. "The defenses were deactivated when I first boarded the ship."
"Excellent," Chang said, clapping his hands together. "To our next order of business, then."
"Open the Northwest Passage," Cal presumed, his voice grim with certainty.
"Mr. Chang," Trint spoke for the first time since they'd entered the structure. Cutter turned to stare up into those dark, synthetic eyes, still feeling a tinge of the alien after so many years of dealing with Tahni. "There is a reason the Rescharr closed off this Cluster. Have you considered the risk?"
"Of course he hasn't," Cal answered for him, voice heavy with scorn. "He thinks he's immortal."
"What would you call it if not immortality, Captain Mitchell?" Chang wanted to know, frankly curious. "What would you call someone who doesn't have to worry about dying?"
The former farmer, former commando, former constable regarded him coolly.
"Not human."
Cutter laughed hard at that, genuinely amused. "Oh my God," he chortled. "How incredibly quaint."
"Be that as it may," Trint interrupted, "I am not merely speaking of the danger to you and your people, Mr. Chang." He jerked a nod towards the outside of the sphere. "This thing controls a network of artificially created singularities arranged in a precise pattern to seal off the Transition Lines away from this place. To open it will require that several of these black holes be fed enough matter to swallow up the others. Once the Passage is open, it can't be closed again...not by us and not from here. You are asking Caleb to open all of human and Tahni civilization to whatever lies in wait for us out there."
"No, I'm not asking him," Chang contradicted, beginning to lose patience. "I'm telling him to do it, if doesn't want his wife and brother to die out here."
"You know me, Cutter," Caleb Mitchell said quietly, a chill in the tone of his voice that even made it through Chang's jaded exterior coating. "You know who I am, what I am, and what I've done. And you know that I'm not lying or exaggerating when I tell you that, if anything happens to Rachel or Pete, not only will I kill this incarnation of you before their bodies are cold; but I will just as surely hunt down and find every single backup copy of your DNA and your memories and wipe your very existence from this universe."
"Yes, I do know that, Captain Mitchell," Chang assured him, being honest both with the other man and himself. "But I had to have you here. Good men aren't that common in this world, much less good men with a neurolink and headcomp sophisticated enough to let a Predecessor AI access it..."
"And that you knew how to manipulate into coming out here," Caleb interjected bitterly.
"It was the biggest risk of all this, yet I had to take it." Chang laughed softly, not a manic or derisive laugh but a genuine one full of real wonder. "The reward is the whole Goddamned universe. What risk is that not worth?"
Caleb Mitchell considered that for a long moment, then his eyes slitted and his attention went back to the neurolink connection to the computer.
"What are you doing, Caleb?" Trint asked in a tone that might have reflected concern.
"Cutter wants the universe," Mitchell murmured. "I'm giving it to him."
Chang noticed a difference in the images projected around them, gradual at first but intensifying even as he watched. The tint reddened, the tone of the amorphous sounds behind the sights shifted up several octaves, and the speed of the shifting views increased until they were bouncing back and forth from one to another and he couldn't make out any coherent images. The speed of change increased and Cutter had to squeeze his eyes shut as the deluge of images nearly sent him stumbling backwards.
Chang finally sensed that the storm had abated; when he looked again, he could make out a mass of glowing plasma that was spiraling inward toward a circle of darkness, a hole in the stars that he assumed was meant to represent one of the singularities that Trint had mentioned. The image was repeated three more times in a series of layered projections all around them, and he thought that each was a different black hole.
"Incredible," he breathed, awed at the power on display. "How long will it take?"
"In normal space?" Caleb replied with a clinical detachment. "Months. Years, maybe. In Transition Space, it's already done. The barriers are gone. Time works differently there...if it works there at all."
"There's only one more thing I need from you, then," Chang told him. "I want that ship outside, the one we flew here in. I know it can be reconfigured to allow anyone to fly it: the Corporates did it on Petra, and they didn't even have
the benefit of being connected to the ship's AI."
"It's done," Mitchell informed him after a moment. "The ship's interior has been reconstructed to resemble a human vessel and it will respond to your neurolink and headcomp. Now," he speared Cutter with a glare, "when are you going to disable the nanite poison?"
"Just as soon as my people arrive," Chang assured him. "And I make sure you haven't tried anything tricky."
"I don't need to," Caleb Mitchell said with far too much certainty for Chang's liking. "I'm giving you exactly what you wanted, Cutter."
The expression that crossed the man's face might have technically been a grin, but Chang thought of it more as the last thing a prey species saw just before it was devoured by a predator.
"Be careful what you wish for."
Interlude:
Four Years Ago
"You all know who I am," Damiani went on, "so I won't bother introducing myself. This," he waved a hand back at the cyborg, "is my personal bodyguard, Trint. Trint has been most useful to me over the last few years, for which I am most thankful to Monsieur West, who brought him to me. And now he has brought you before me, who may even prove more useful.
"I am not a wasteful man, nor am I a spiteful one. You have all cost me much in the way of time and inconvenience, not to mention," he eyed me significantly, "the destruction of property. Yet I seek no revenge. Revenge is for small minds."
He paced closer to us, looking Mat and I over. "Yet I know that you perceive us to be on opposite sides. You may even cling to archaic notions that I and those I represent are..." he chuckled pleasantly, "evil. Let me assure you, our motives are economical rather than diabolical."
"Tell that to those colonists on Grenada," Mat said quietly.
"Oh, Colonel M’voba," Damiani said with a pleasant laugh, "you don't believe we really expended the time and energy to actually destroy that colony, do you? As I said, I'm not a wasteful man. It was much easier to simply synthesize a holo for the news and restrict all traffic in and out of the system."
"If that's so," I said, slowly mulling all this over, "then the President's in on the whole thing, right?"
"Jameson's a halfway talented actor, Mr. Mitchell," Damiani sniffed disdainfully. "He's such an automaton, I'm surprised he can perform bodily functions without guidance. You are standing before the only true president the Commonwealth has had for the last thirty years."
"Is that supposed to make us trust you?" Kara asked him.
"Nothing so maudlin, my dear Captain," he replied. "If you're half as intelligent as my experience has led me to believe, it will convince you of how futile it is to oppose my efforts. My father ran this government before me, and when I choose to lay down the reins of command..." He paused, chuckling to himself. "Well, my tastes run differently; but perhaps I'll use the technology we've acquired to make a genetic duplicate of myself...for posterity, as it were. In any case, even if you were fortunate enough to dispose of me, what I've built would continue in my absence. If you join me, however, we could, together, build something greater than the sum of our parts."
"Mr. Damiani," I interrupted, "This is all very persuasive, but, if you don't mind, I'd like to see my wife."
"Your wife is a charming woman, Mr. Mitchell. I would say that you were a fortunate man, but from what you've managed to survive in the last few weeks, it's obvious you're absolutely blessed." He smiled. "She's fine, I assure you. We'll be visiting her in just a while. But first, I think it would help impress upon all of you just what you're up against if we were to take you on a tour of our little facility. If you would lead the way, Roger..."
"Yeah, sure," Cowboy jerked his head toward the door, looking a bit unhappy at being our tour guide. He led us out of the room, with Damiani behind and the Executive Guards bringing up the rear to assure our good behavior.
We passed through another section of unfinished corridors before we came to what appeared to be a large lift station. West hit a control and the door to one of the cars opened for us.
"Where's this supposed to take us?" I wanted to know. "This whole place is floating on a lake of hydrochloric acid, right?"
"Right," Cowboy allowed as we filed into the car. "This takes us under the lake."
"Oh, good." I rolled my eyes, wishing I hadn't asked.
The door closed, and I felt the car begin to move downward.
"The dome is a recent addition," Damiani explained. "Built more for comfort than anything else. The main part of this base was constructed before the war, beneath the lake, away from the prying sensors of Trint's former employers. It became a handy location for us to continue our research into genetic reconstruction.
"Now, however, we no longer have to worry about drawing attention to our activities, and our priority has changed to creating a viable base of operations for the next stage of our little venture."
"Just what is the next stage?" Mat asked him. "We've figured out that you mean to use the contrived threat of the Skrela to put Corporate Security Forces in control of the colonies, but just how do you plan to explain to the public when their Fleet disappears?"
"People are sheep, Colonel M’voba," Damiani declared. "You, if anyone, should know that. You give them a well-produced ViRfeed and a convincing story, and they'll believe just about anything. It's been the same for all recorded history." The Corporate executive seemed to be winding up for a boardroom speech, and he continued as the lift came to a halt. "The Egyptians believed their pharaohs were living gods. The citizens of Rome were convinced that their empire was eternal, right up to the point the Goths and Vandals stormed the Eternal City. Good Lord, the people of the old United States actually believed that John F. Kennedy was killed by a lone sociopath!" We trailed West out of the car, following him through hallways tinted an antiseptic white, technicians drifting by us dressed in labcoats of a similar color.
"But we have no plans of 'disappearing' the Fleet, Colonel M’voba...we never did. This base, aside from its other, obvious functions, was a Judas goat. We knew once Cowboy revealed its location to you, that you would be drawn to it inexorably. Your abortive raid has effectively exposed all the disloyal elements in the upper echelons of the military, and given our puppets an excuse to depose them without undue public outcry." Our little tour group went through a wagon-wheel intersection, curving to the right past a row of large laboratories, exposed to the hallway through thick transplas. I glanced into one of them, saw the bodies of adult Resscharr floating in clear chambers of biotic fluid. An involuntary shudder ran up my back.
"No," Damiani went on, every pore emanating satisfaction, "our fleet will achieve an impressive victory with the aid of our new allies. Not without losses, to be sure, but they will return as heroes."
"How do you expect to pull that off?" Kara demanded. "If you mean to maintain control, you'll have to maintain the threat. Do you think you can do that indefinitely with no real enemies to show the public?"
"Oh, we'll have enemies for them, Captain McIntire," Damiani assured her. "Enemies you'll have to see to believe."
Cowboy paused before the door into the suite of labs, letting its security seal scan his retina. The heavy portal slid aside with a hermetic hiss, and he looked back at the rest of us.
"In here."
"Mother of God," Kara muttered. I didn't agree. Whatever force had spawned the creature before us, it was nothing so benevolent.
The Skrela warrior had looked formidable on the holo we had seen, but in person it scared the living shit out of me, even contained in the transplas vat. It was a mass of chitinous armor plates and oversized pincers, bobbing thoughtlessly in the pink biotic fluid. The vat was at least three times the size of the ones in which we had seen them growing the Resscharr, and it seemed to fill the room, barely leaving enough space for us and the banks of equipment that monitored it.
"How?" Secarius asked, speaking for the first time since we'd landed on the planet. "How could you create that without at least a DNA sample?"
"What?" Dami
ani cocked an eyebrow. "You assumed the Skrela were merely an invention we created to aid our cause? Not that I blame you, mind...the things are almost too nightmarish to be real. But they were. The history that our biological creations gave on the NewsNet was essentially correct up till the contrived return of both the Ancients and their enemies. This," he gestured at the construct, "was produced from the remains of one of the creatures that the Resscharr kept preserved for study on their outpost."
"There's the answer to your question," Cowboy told Kara, who was still staring at the thing. "The public will believe us because we'll have an enemy they can see. Hell, they'll have an enemy that'll haunt their fucking dreams."
Chapter Twenty Three
Mitchell:
I couldn't remember a time when I'd wanted to kill someone quite this bad and with this much justification and had refrained from doing it. I tried not to look at Cutter as we dropped back down out of the control building and onto the pavement that surrounded it; I knew if I looked at him, it would be even harder not to take his head off.
It was almost worse looking at Rachel and Pete. They both were afraid and angry, and it made my gut clench to know that there was nothing I could do to make things right for them...other than do what Cutter told me. And God help me, I'd done it, even knowing just what it was that I was doing, and the potential price for it.
"It's going to be okay," I told Rachel and Pete, taking each of them by the hand. "You're both going to be fine."
I saw faith in their eyes and I hoped it wasn't misplaced.
"Did you do it?" Kara asked me, her voice challenging, as if she'd expected me not to. Deke looked at her askance, as if he was embarrassed she'd asked the question.
"Of course he did," Chang answered for me. "What choice did he have?"
I was spared further conversation on the subject by the whine of turbines splitting the thick, humid air as two missile cutters and a pair of assault shuttles appeared over the horizon, heading our way. Chang watched their approach eagerly, childlike in his impatience as he shifted from one foot to another. I couldn't believe I hadn't spotted how far over the edge he'd gone.
