“But I should have known your kind would trouble me even here.”
The Inquisitor was back up instantly, his eyes flashing.
“A voice? You seek to hear a voice?”
He looked back at the sister, as though seeking her moral support.
“And just whose voice would that be?”
“The voice of your precious Machine,” Falcon growled.
“Heresy,” the Inquisitor crowed, jabbing a slender figure at his quarry. “The God Machine no longer speaks to the faithful directly! It has not in over a thousand years. All know this to be true.”
The sister earnestly nodded but said nothing.
Falcon took a menacing step forward, leaning in toward the holy man.
“The cursed Machine once spoke to me constantly. Incessantly! For much of my life—my too-long life—it scarcely afforded me any peace.”
The Inquisitor stubbornly stood his ground but his eyes betrayed a sliver of doubt—doubt about his own beliefs. Then he gathered up his courage once more and shot back, “You are a liar and a charlatan. The God Machine is silent and all true Hands are long dead!”
“Believe what you will, priest,” Falcon muttered, shoving past the Inquisitor and through the doorway as the sister scrambled out of the way. “I care not.”
“The Holy Inquisition will have you, fraud! We will force the truth from you—and cleanse you of this blasphemy!”
Falcon whirled. He moved forward much more quickly than his bulk would have suggested, and jabbed a gloved finger at the Inquisitor.
“You are welcome to try, priest,” he said.
And with that he exited the room.
The sister watched him go, then turned back to the Inquisitor, her eyes wide and imploring.
“What—what will you do?” she cried.
The holy man had a small communications device in his hand. He smiled at her, though she could clearly see the nervousness that lay behind it.
“I will call in the Inquisition, of course,” he said. Moving to the window, he stared down as the big man passed through the front door and out into the street, the other sisters scrambling quickly to get out of his way.
“And they,” he concluded, “will strike down upon this false Hand with a terrible and glorious fury.”
3: HAWK
Consciousness returned slowly, emerging as from a deep fog. He felt as if he’d slept for a week, maybe more.
His eyes flittered open.
“Whuh—”
His speech was slurred, his mouth gummy. Maybe, he thought, he had been asleep for a week.
Darkness all around. Darkness—no, wait. Not entirely. Now he could see tiny lights, a few of them red, most of them green, winking on and off. How far away were they?
He reached out with his right hand and instantly his fingers brushed against the lights, and against the foamy cushions he now could see all around him.
He knew then: He lay within a coffin. A high-tech coffin, but a coffin nonetheless. He remembered falling into it, before.
Claustrophobia swept over him in waves then. He had to get out!
Both hands moved up, pressing against the lid, mere inches above his chest. Nothing. He pushed harder, but it would not budge.
Frustration growing, he shouted incoherently, banging his fists against the cushions.
A moment later, the last of the red lights changed to green. With a pop and hiss, the lid slowly swung up. Cool air rushed in.
Hawk blinked. He sat up. He looked around.
His eyes were still sensitive, despite the dim lighting that surrounded him. As they adjusted, he could see that he was still inside the little room he’d stumbled into earlier, when the bizarre alien creatures had been chasing him. Fortunately, the lone doorway into the room was still closed—and he was still alive—so clearly they had not been able to force their way in.
He eyed the door warily. Were they still lurking just outside, waiting to pounce on him? Dare he even try to open the door?
Where would he go if he did?
Placing his hands on the edge of the box, he pulled himself up, then swung his legs out and dropped carefully to the floor.
Looking back into the coffinlike structure, he saw that all of its lights had gone dark now, and the tubing had retracted back into its sides.
Just how long had he slept in there?
The next thing he became aware of was that he was still naked. Naked and increasingly cold—it was much cooler out in the room than it had been inside the box.
On the far side of the room he could see vivid blue and red colors standing out against the otherwise light gray walls. He moved closer and saw that it was a set of clothing of some sort, hanging from a peg.
He looked at the clothes, shrugged, reached out and grabbed them. What were the odds they would fit him? Probably not terribly good, but almost anything would beat another minute with nothing on.
Surprisingly, as he finished putting them on, he found they fit him perfectly. Almost as if they had been made for him.
He looked down at himself then and could see a snug-fitting, heavily textured, thick jumpsuit of dark metallic blue, with deep red trim across the shoulders and chest. The red continued down the tops of his long sleeves in almost a…feather pattern. The material felt thin and light at first blush but quickly revealed itself to be incredibly strong, tough, and resilient. Squinting his eyes and studying it as closely as possible, he found that it was composed of thousands or millions of tiny, self-contained components, like almost microscopic bubbles that were clinging tightly to one another and together forming a set of clothes.
Shaking his head in astonishment at the wondrous material, he pulled on the gray-silver boots along with a dark belt fitted out with numerous pouches, all fastened closed. He knew he’d have to inspect the contents of those pretty soon, to be exactly sure of what he was carrying around with him.
Still keeping one eye on the hatch, concerned that at any moment the horde of invaders might break through, he held up his hands and stared at them. What he saw was a pair of strong, broad hands, olive-skinned, with fine, dark hair.
He brought those hands down to his side and felt the shape of a holster there, under the right one. At first he assumed it was hanging from the right side of his belt, but a more careful check revealed that it actually was formed of, or extended from, the material of his uniform itself. Fascinating, he thought. And—a holster implied a gun. But where was it?
He looked all around the small room for any sign of it, at the same time attempting to make sense of where he was now. The more he thought about such things, though, the more his head throbbed in pain. The location of this little room brought with it too many other questions, one after the other. What was that strange place he been before coming into the little room? Who were the strange invaders he’d fought? For that matter, who was he?
The voice he’d heard earlier sounded again now, causing him to look up with widening eyes.
“What are you looking for, Hawk?”
His eyes narrowed and he backed against one wall.
“Who’s there?”
A pause, and then, “I see the medical treatments did nothing for your mental state. That is unfortunate.”
“Who are you?” he demanded. “Show yourself!”
Another brief pause, and then, “I am all around you, Hawk. I am your ship.”
“What?” Hawk stared, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. “A ship?”
“This ship. The ship you are currently aboard.”
“Aboard?”
Hawk turned in a slow circle, regarding his surroundings with increasing understanding.
“I’m aboard a ship?”
“A spacecraft, yes. Your spacecraft.”
Hawk blinked at this revelation.
“My spacecraft. A talking spacecraft.”
A pause, then the voice stated, “I am talking, as you put it, out of necessity. I would have no need to communicate audibly wit
h you if your Aether receptors were functioning. I had hoped they would be back on line by now, given your time in the medical tank. Alas, you remain deaf to the Aether.”
None of that made the slightest bit of sense to Hawk. He was still stuck on the previous point: “I own a spacecraft.”
“Indeed you do,” the voice replied patiently. “As a Hand of the Machine, you could hardly perform your duties without one. Without me, that is to say.”
Hawk took this in. He found that, almost instinctively, he understood what the voice was saying—what a spacecraft was, for example—though before hearing such a thing spoken aloud, he never would have thought of it.
“So—are we now moving through space?”
“Yes. I took the liberty of launching us from the base during the attack.”
“Show me.”
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then a heretofore hidden door slid silently open on the opposite side of the room from the entry hatch.
Hawk eyed the newly-opened portal.
“What is that?”
“Come in and see.”
Setting his jaw, Hawk crossed the cabin in four quick steps and leaned through into the new room.
What he saw startled him.
Instantly he understood he was looking at the ship’s cockpit. Just ahead of him was a single curved seat, broad and tall and layered with exotic fabrics and materials. Ahead of that, the control panel sparkled with lights and displays. And above that, filling the entire forward area, was a window that revealed the vast panoply of space.
The seat and the control panel both captured his attention for a moment, but what seized his mind and refused to let go was what he could see through that broad window.
He gasped and took a half-step back.
There before him was displayed a vision of apocalypse: ruins of planets and fields of rubble and the wreckage of massive starships—fleets of wrecked starships.
What he could see was devastation on a scale almost unimaginable.
What he could see was a shattered galaxy.
Closing his eyes tightly, he turned away from the window and leaned against the nearest bulkhead.
“What is this, ship? What am I seeing?”
“Seeing?” A pause. “Ah, yes—your memories have been affected more severely than I first understood. Your unfortunate and premature disconnection from the machines has left you extremely disoriented.”
Hawk ignored all of this. “What am I seeing?” he demanded again, more loudly and intensely.
“You are seeing the results of a war of galactic scale and scope. A war so widespread and so devastating that little of this galaxy remains as it was before.”
Hawk breathed in and out for a few seconds and then turned back to the window, staring out, his forehead creased in confusion and disbelief.
“So much destruction,” he whispered. “So much…”
“Yes.”
“Who did this? Who caused it?”
“Ah,” the ship replied after what seemed like a moment’s consideration. “You arrive at the nub of the question now.”
Hawk’s confused expression morphed into a look of rage. He whirled about and struck the bulkhead with his right fist.
“Enough of your double-talk, ship! Tell me who did this!”
“The Adversary caused this,” the ship replied. “The Adversary from beyond our galaxy. Though of course a number of the more hostile races native to this galaxy played their parts as well. A ‘scorched-galaxy’ strategy against the enemy resulted in just that—a scorched galaxy. A shattered galaxy.”
Hawk considered this. He had so many questions, but he knew that an understanding of his opponents, as quickly as it could be acquired, took priority.
“This ‘Adversary,’” he repeated. “That’s an army? Or a single person? A person like me?”
“Of the Adversary himself, I cannot say. But his army was indeed made up of living, sentient individuals,” the ship answered, “though they were, for the most part, nothing like you.”
“Are they still here? Still in this galaxy? Still in this vicinity?”
The ship paused for several seconds before answering; when it did, its voice was oddly hesitant.
“My understanding was that they had all been defeated… destroyed… long ago. Or else driven from this galaxy—or what is left of it. But…”
“But what?”
“But clearly that is not the case.”
“Why?”
“Because the enemy that attacked you at the base—the insectoid beings all of black. Their race—the Skrazzi—was an ally of the Adversary; indeed, they served him with more complete devotion and fervor than nearly any other beings.”
Hawk took this in.
“So either they never left,” he stated slowly, “or else…”
“Or else they have returned,” the ship finished for him. “Yes.”
He gazed out at the shattered galaxy all around him once again. He shuddered.
“I think I begin to understand,” he said. “At least, that much of it.”
He climbed up into the pilot’s seat, settling comfortably into the contoured cushions. A portion of the control panel extended automatically out so that it rested within easy reach. Lights flickered across its black glasslike surface.
“Ship,” he said, eyes focused and intent now, “I believe you should tell me everything you know. Now. From the beginning.”
His hand moved instinctively to his side, fingertips brushing against his empty holster.
“And you can start by telling me where to find my gun.”
4: FALCON
Falcon sat at a small, circular table at the back of the cantina, his brown robes wrapped tightly around his body and his hood pulled low over his head, obscuring his face in shadow. The small crowd of customers at other tables carried on their own conversations or sat engulfed in their own solitude and utterly ignored him.
He’d made his way there more than an hour earlier, his robes helping him blend seamlessly in with the ranks of workers from the nearby monastery and convent. Though for obvious reasons few of those individuals seemed to frequent this particular establishment, he was apparently not so out of place as to attract excessive attention. So he sat at the back of the room and he drank and he brooded, all the while contemplating the hated voice that still echoed, so many centuries later, within his head.
Downing the contents of the glass in his right hand, he set it on the stained tabletop and looked at the bottle his thick, calloused fingers gripped in his left. He spent a few moments trying to decide if the bottle was half-full or half-empty, but decided that such philosophical questions were not high on his agenda at the moment, no matter how much they might tell him about his outlook on life.
His eyes—his normal right one and his mechanically augmented left one—scanned the room, taking in the sight of the other patrons. Workers, mostly, from the mines, along with a few shopkeepers and a smattering of other, less savory types. His eye detected no special weapons, no unexpected defenses or other telltale high-tech items that would mark a true enemy, a true threat.
Pouring another glass, he considered just how much longer he would be able to stay on this backwater mining world. It had promised safety and security and perhaps even a bit of sanity, lo those many weeks earlier when he had arrived. But, as usual, someone had to stick their nose into his business; take offense at his words, his actions. It never failed, and he honestly wondered why it even surprised him anymore.
He would have to leave soon. This he knew beyond question. He would find no peace here. This world was not at all what he had hoped it would be. The people here had apparently elevated the Machine to “God Machine” status, worshipping the cursed thing as a deity.
A deity. Some kind of benevolent sentience. He snorted. If only they knew—if only they understood the truth.
Groaning, he squeezed his eyes closed and raised his fists, grinding them into the sockets.
You don’t fool me, Machine! I know you’re still out there. Speak to me!
But of course the voice would not answer.
He almost laughed at the irony. There had been a time, long ago, when he had begged the voice to be silent—to leave him alone—and it would not. And, even before that, there had been a time when he had happily and faithfully served the Machine with no questions asked.
In the days just after the Shattering, the Machine had grown more controlling, more tyrannical, in its relationships with all of its surviving Hands. Eventually it had passed into what Falcon considered outright dictatorial behavior, seeking to directly control the actions and even the thoughts of its agents. For the most part, it succeeded.
After only a few years of that, Falcon had felt he was starting to lose his own grip on sanity, and suspected the Machine already had. He could not free himself from its thrall, but he secretly prayed to whatever deities there might be that it would at least fall silent—would grant him peace for just a short while. As much as he hoped and prayed, though, it never would leave him alone for very long. And every time it came back and spoke to him again, issuing terse and often contradictory directives, he felt a bit more of himself falling under its absolute sway.
And then, one day, its presence had vanished from the galaxy. Its voice fell utterly silent.
By then, he had lost contact with whatever few other Hands still survived—if any others did. And without the Machine to coordinate and relay their communications, he had no way of knowing or finding out.
So, in the years since, he had wandered from place to place, doing whatever good he could, keeping his head down, and generally railing at the Machine—his god that wasn’t there—whenever he had a spare moment. Generally he demanded that it wake up, that it pay attention to him, that it respond to him. That it tell him what had happened to silence it.
It never did.
Angrily he knocked the glass aside, put the bottle to his lips and drank deep, finishing it. Then he banged it down on the tabletop, empty, and stared off into unfocused nothingness.
A disturbance at the door a few moments later brought him back to reality.
Here they come.
Hawk_Hand of the Machine Page 3
