Sufficiently Advanced Technology (Inverse Shadows)

by Nuttall, Christopher

  And what had he done to the building while Dacron had been stunned?

  A handful of guardsmen noticed him and he tensed, but they did nothing. Maybe they hadn’t known that Master Faye had blown up the building, or maybe they’d realised that Dacron had killed their Pillar and that meant he was too powerful to be touched by the law. Absurdly, Dacron wondered if he was expected to take Master Faye’s place, before he pushed the thought aside. He had other priorities right now, starting with finding out if anyone else was still alive. What if Master Faye had been able to touch the Hamilton?

  It should have been impossible. But too much about Darius was impossible.

  Shaking his head, he walked away and started to head back to the market. He had to find the bookseller, because there was nothing else he could do. No matter how hard he tried to use his implants, they refused to work. He was completely cut off from the Hamilton, assuming that the ship was still intact...

  ... And, as far as he knew, he was completely alone.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The market seemed to be in disarray when Dacron entered, with shoppers exchanging nervous whispers while stocking up on food and drink. Several people looked at him and headed away from him at speed, while a number of stalls promptly pulled down their shutters and closed for the day. Dacron would have found it depressing if he hadn’t had too much else to worry about; the weight of the books was making him stagger and yet he didn’t dare put them down. He’d just have to hope that the bookseller would be able to help him.

  He stumbled up to the cart and tapped on the door. There was a long pause and then it opened, inviting him inside. The bookseller was lying on the floor, quivering in pain, his hands clutching the side of his head. It was difficult to tell, but the magic in the cart seemed to be twisting somehow, as if it was adapting to a new reality. A world without Master Faye.

  Dacron put the books on the nearest stool and knelt down beside the bookseller, reaching out to take his pulse. He seemed to be having a fit of some kind, something that Confederation technology could have cured... and magic wouldn’t be able to cure. Dacron hesitated, unsure of what to do, just as the bookseller gave one final jerk and looked upwards.

  “What...” He broke off and coughed violently, sweat running down his face. “What happened?”

  “You were having a fit,” Dacron said, carefully. It couldn’t be a coincidence; the Pillar had died at the same time as the nearest magician – the nearest native magician – had had a fit. Master Faye’s death would have sent shockwaves through the magical ether. “Do you know what happened?”

  “Only through legends,” the bookseller said. “A Pillar is such a fixture in the local magic field that his death affects everyone with even a hint of magical sensitivity. His apprentice may be dead by now.”

  Dacron shrugged. Young Joshua had been meant to return to the planet’s surface to carry out more experiments, but who knew what might have happened while he’d been stunned? Maybe he was still in orbit, safe and well, or maybe he’d been at the base when – if – it had been attacked. There was no way to know.

  “I see,” Dacron said, instead. “What happens now?”

  The bookseller gave him an odd look. “What happened to you?”

  Dacron explained, starting with his capture and ending with the death of Master Faye. “He didn’t seem like himself at all,” he concluded. “I think something else was influencing him.”

  He paused. “It is possible that the madness your records speak of was caused by the same entity,” he added. “Darius lost a great deal of technology very quickly. Even if your founders intended to create a low-tech culture, there should still be traces of your colony ship and early technology. Instead, it all seems to be missing.”

  The bookseller rubbed his head. “You killed Master Faye,” he said, grimly. “Do you know what this means for Warlock’s Bane? The city is completely unprotected!”

  Dacron frowned, puzzled. “I thought you wanted to overcome the endless struggling between magicians,” he said. “You might have a chance to create a city without a Pillar...”

  “Except that any Scion who fancies a city can just walk right in, right now,” the bookseller snapped. “There wouldn’t even be a fight for the city. He could just take over and start issuing orders. It isn’t what we wanted.”

  “I see,” Dacron said, after a moment. Was it their problem? A moment’s thought suggested that it was; he’d killed Master Faye, upsetting the local balance of power. The Confederation had caused the problem, so it had a certain responsibility to fix the problem. “What do we do about it?”

  The bookseller snorted. “Declare yourself the new Pillar,” he said. “You killed the last one, so that makes you the new Pillar by right.”

  Dacron shook his head. “I can’t do that,” he said. It might suit the research program to end up with one of their own in a position of power, but he wasn’t designed to rule humans. “What else can we do?”

  “There isn’t anything else,” the bookseller said. “Without a Pillar, every Scion in the area will come and try his luck. And everyone with the money to leave will go elsewhere, because without a Pillar there will be no true stability. Warlock’s Bane will fade away into nothingness.”

  “We can deal with it later,” Dacron said. “I have to go back to the base, to see what survived. Beside, Master Faye’s allies might attack me...”

  “Depends on who he recruited to serve as allies,” the bookseller pointed out. He held up a hand. “Look, this city needs you, right now. I can go find your people; you have to save the population. Because if Scions start uncontrolled fighting over who gets the city, they’ll reduce it to rubble.”

  Dacron scowled. “I will inform the city that there is a new Pillar,” he said. At least he had Master Faye’s collection of books. The money wasn’t a great concern to a Confederation citizen. “And then we go to the base. We have to know what happened to the people there.”

  “Understood,” the bookseller said. He stood up, rubbing the side of his head. “I’ll take you to face your loyal subjects.”

  ***

  A sane human society would have greeted the arrival of the person who had killed their previous leader with a degree of concern, Dacron was sure. Very few societies allowed promotion through assassination, if only because it was hardly conducive to long-term stability – as Darius amply demonstrated. Warlock’s Bane had a council, appointed by Master Faye, and they greeted his arrival with obvious relief. They’d known, even if he hadn’t, the implications of Master Faye’s death.

  The whole concept revolted him. Among the Confederation, issues were settled by democratic vote; the AIs, being a Gestalt, simply considered every possible issue and then harmonised their thoughts. To have someone put into power because he had murdered the previous leader seemed absurd; a skilled assassin might not be very good at actually running the city, let alone the world. Darius was definitely in desperate need of an intervention, Dacron decided, as he listened to the council’s speech of welcome. They were relieved to see him and yet they were also terrified. Master Faye could have overturned their laws with a word.

  It was nearly four hours before he was able to break free and head out of the city, accompanied by the bookseller. The City Guard had wanted to send an escort, but Dacron had declined, even though it was probably too late to prevent further contamination of Darius’s society by showing them signs of a more advanced culture. Besides, a Pillar was meant to be his own, all-powerful protector. It was just another sign that Darius, far from being stable, had actually been designed to be inherently unstable. Dacron was still considering the issues as they reached the borderline and stopped, dead.

  “Master Faye had no authority beyond this point,” the bookseller warned. “A Scion who enters your territory is throwing down a challenge; you entering their territory can be seen as a challenge in itself.”

  Dacron nodded. The borderline was magical, barely enough to be visib
le to a normal magician, but easy to detect. Carefully, he stepped into it and felt the magic crackling around him, just before he was on the other side. He had the impression that magic was less controlled outside the borderline, as if Master Faye had done far more to keep his city safe than anyone had realised. At least the borderline hadn’t collapsed completely when he’d died.

  “Some Pillars can never leave their territory,” the bookseller said. “I’d suggest that you do what you want to do and then head back to the city. Right now, a Scion might think that you had decided to leave forever.”

  Dacron shook his head as he remounted the horse and rode onwards, up the road towards the clearing. He saw the pillar of smoke from a distance and spurred the horse on, already knowing that it was far too late. The clearing had been devastated by something – balefire, part of his mind whispered – and the buried shuttle was a blackened ruin. He scrambled off the horse and ran forward, jumping down into the pit the diggers had excavated. Up close, he could sense the magic still crackling over the metal shuttle. They’d done far more than simply lay waste to the base; they’d left a surprise behind for any unwary visitor who might have blundered into their trap.

  A human would have sworn. Dacron cast a spell he thought would dispel the magic, and then stepped into the shuttle. Fire had swept through the interior, consuming everything that could burn and wiping out all traces of human existence. The control systems, hardened against all kinds of rough treatment, remained undamaged, but Dacron doubted that the shuttle would ever fly again. They’d not only damaged the hull, a remarkable feat in itself; they’d managed to cripple the normal drives and the replacements the AIs had devised for use on Darius. The magicians might not have realised, but they had been incredibly lucky. If they’d managed to ignite the rocket fuel, a crude method for boosting the shuttle into orbit, they would have blown themselves into little pieces.

  There were no bodies. Dacron checked each of the compartments and found nothing, apart from ashes. A test would reveal if the bodies had been completely consumed, but he doubted that any of the equipment would work on Darius. Both his implants and the shuttle’s hardened control systems were refusing to work. Considering the matter, Dacron wondered if the intelligence behind the magic had simply amplified its effects on technology. It might well be a simpler way of dealing with the outsiders than trying to deny Dacron access to magic...

  He stopped dead. It made no sense to allow him to use magic, not when denying it to him would have ensured that Master Faye killed him. If the objective had been to wipe out all traces of Confederation influence, it had failed spectacularly. And if the intelligence was a maddened AI, it had remained remarkably stable so far. A mad AI was hardly subtle...

  ... Unless it was doing something subtle. Dacron had deduced that the hidden source of magic interacted with the brains of human magicians, slowly warping them to take their place in the world it maintained. And every time Dacron used magic, he was allowing it a chance to influence his own mind. That ability, combined with the patience of an AI, would allow it to gradually bring him under its control. Eventually, he would do its bidding and he’d never realise the truth.

  The thought was sickening. A human would be completely defenceless against a process of gradual conditioning. Dacron knew of plenty of case studies where humans had steadily been brainwashed, eventually reaching the point where they justified their own actions to themselves without needing to be prompted. A human mind could justify anything, given time, and if the conditioning worked properly, the victim would never think to question the slow moral inversion. And eventually it would be too late. A standard subversion implant – banned, with very good reason – would be kinder.

  He heard a shout from outside and headed back into the blackened remains of the base. The bookseller was standing beside something that had fallen out of the sky on a long parachute. Dacron allowed himself a grin – magic wouldn’t interfere with a parachute – and climbed back up to stand behind the bookseller. The heat from the object was considerable, but it was already cooling rapidly.

  “Basic clockwork,” he said. The early astronauts had used a similar trick to get back to Earth after they’d left orbit. Hamilton’s fabricators would have no trouble producing something intended to make it through the atmosphere without power. They’d done it for the shuttles; doing it for something smaller would be easy. “And I guess they know what we’re doing.”

  The bookseller looked over at him. “How do they know?”

  “Eyes in the sky,” Dacron said. Joshua had demonstrated magical viewing to the Confederation, but it seemed to have curious limitations. The satellites orbiting the world wouldn’t have so many problems. “We’ll have to wait until it cools down before we try to open it.”

  “Or you could use magic,” the bookseller pointed out, dryly. He looked back at the remains of the shuttle. “What was that like, before it was destroyed?”

  “They reengineered it for Darius,” Dacron said. “They gave it wings that could allow it to glide, even without engines; the control system was modified not to need power. A skilled pilot could have landed it if everything had just gone dead. And then we buried it and your people found it anyway.”

  “And destroyed it,” the bookseller said. He looked around, nervously. “You know they could be watching us now?”

  “Yes,” Dacron said. He knew that the Confederation was watching them, but he suspected that the bookseller meant the people who had attacked the shuttle. “Do they normally kill their captives?”

  “Depends,” the bookseller admitted. “Scions sometimes want slaves – young attractive female slaves. Or they want hostages for ransom. But here... keeping your people alive would be dangerous. They determined to destroy you completely.”

  “But if that was the case,” Dacron asked, “why didn’t Master Faye kill me while I was stunned?”

  “You progressed rapidly with your magic lessons,” the bookseller reminded him. “Maybe he thought that you could teach him something.”

  Or maybe there were limits to how far he could be pushed, Dacron wondered. That might explain why some Pillars went insane and turned into monsters. Maybe they were just pushed too far and their minds snapped.

  He stood up and walked over to the package. The heat had faded away, allowing him to tear open the covering with only minor difficulty. It was wrapped in insulation that had cracked and broken under the stresses of re-entry, but had protected the box inside. Dacron pulled it out and cracked it open, revealing a set of swords, knives and bows – and a large quiver of arrows. A quick check revealed that the swords had been given a monofilament edge. They’d be able to cut through anything, without using a hint of technology. Someone had clearly been thinking ahead.

  “Take the weapons to the horses,” he ordered, absently. Under the swords, there was a large sheet of paper and a handful of emergency devices. “I’ll be along in a moment.”

  He unfolded the sheet of paper and read it quickly.

  Dacron

  The Dead Zones appear to have expanded; we have been unable to raise anyone on the surface or control the snoops. Orbital observation appears to be the only method of observation still operational, although the station has suffered a number of odd glitches that have convinced Captain Thor to withdraw all personnel to Hamilton. He is currently engaged in emergency discussions with the CSC.

  We monitored the attacks on the bases in both Warlock’s Bane and the mountains. As far as we can tell, there were no survivors from either. However, the shuttle carrying Elyria and Joshua crashed twenty kilometres from your position on the other side of the mountain and they are apparently still alive, if captive. (See attached map.) If possible, please attempt to free them, if Master Faye will agree to assist. We will attempt to continue updating you through laser signals.

  Worryingly, we have picked up faint gravity pulses emanating from Darius and radiating out into space, without any discernible origin. These do not pose any threat to Hamilton,
but it is possible that they represent an attempt to target the starship. At the moment, we are unable to devise a way to rescue you or the others without risking the ship. We are currently considering other options.

  Please use the enclosed items to signal us and report your status.

  We of Calculus.

  They don’t know about Master Faye, Dacron realised. Of course they wouldn’t know; they wouldn’t have seen any of the fighting that had left Master Faye dead and Dacron stepping into his shoes. There would be no help from Master Faye and, no matter how willing they were, no help from the rest of Warlock’s Bane. They couldn’t help fight Scions.

  And the gravity pulses were worrying. On their own, they posed no threat to a ship with basic drive field technology, let alone a Peacekeeper starship. It was possible that they were intended to create a singularity that would rip Hamilton apart, but it would be futile, unless they had a way to break through the ship’s drive fields. An outside possibility was that they intended to open a rift into hyperspace, rather like a destabilised core tap, yet that would produce a surge of radiation that would sterilise half of Darius. It would be rather like noticing an insect on one’s foot and dropping a hammer on it.

  And unless they managed to open the rupture right on top of the starship, it would be useless.

  He pulled out the map and glanced at it, comparing the detailed imagery from orbit to the maps he’d glanced at in the Council Chamber. The prisoners were being taken some distance from the city, right into the heart of the Dead Zone. Dacron doubted that was an accident. The Confederation might be able to watch them, but they couldn’t do much else...

  Shaking his head, he walked back to the horses and outlined the situation. “We need to save them,” he said. “How many of your guild can you call upon in need?”