by James Murdo
[Why us then?]
~Why us?~
[Why our universe?]
~Our universe? Our galaxy? I don’t–~
[Why are we infected?]
~I don’t know… really. Maybe I’m an accident, something that was never meant to survive… to outlive my species. I just know that things have… changed, I’m remembering more than any of my people ever did…~
[How?]
~The questions you ask, they are unpleasant… but they seem to… remind me…~
[They remind you of information you never had?]
~That’s how it seems.~
[You may have been conditioned to forget.]
~All of my people? No.~
[There are many ways it could have happened, even while you were dormant, following the attack against your base in the Lenbit Orbital.]
~That is a possibility, but I don’t think it’s correct.~
[Well–]
~But it’s… confusing. It’s hard to order… to make sense of. And believe me, I know no more about the origins of the sensespace, or the Deliverer…~
[When you do remember, or piece it together, let me know.]
~If I do, I will.~
…
[Fine. Now, tell me – what type of body would you like?]
7
GIL
She was lost, wandering within the vast network of interlinked cavernous recesses, engulfed in its silent, gentle winds and the sounds she made as she moved.
“Hello?” Her voice echoed, before dwindling away.
It was the same dream-scenario that she had found herself immersed in many times already since the craft-lect had regained control over its ship, or possibly since before then – she could not be sure. What she was certain of, however, was that she only remembered her visits to this place when she returned. Never in between, when she was awake. She was no closer to discerning the meaning of it than before.
“Is anyone here?”
The secrets of the dim vaults were unyielding, although she felt they were there for the taking, if only she could understand what was there, or at least how to go about comprehending it. The grey walls, the streaking mycelial patterns that adorned them – it all meant something.
All around her, within every cavern she entered, were the same imposing, dark grey walls. They towered over her, rising higher than she was able to see. The surfaces of the walls were riddled with the illuminated streaks. Up close, the light from the patterns was a stark contrast to the dark walls – although oddly, their brightness dimmed significantly from only a short distance away. On taking a few steps back, only an indistinct impression of the streaks was left, and the caverns retained their gloom.
“Hello?”
The silent winds that filled the air told her it was not just the walls, it was everything. The differential breezes of warmth and cold represented information – the caverns were filled with knowledge. Invisible understandings of who she was, what she could do. Thoughts flowed with the winds, reminding her of past insights. The sparks of creativity of which she had always been capable. The sower, understanding the Beast-men, usurping Teacher from her mind – it was all there, here.
“Is anyone there?”
The gentle rhythm of her deep breathing filled her ears as she explored. While the towering walls with their mycelial riddles were incomprehensible to her for the moment, she was certain that the level of mental dislocation was unsteady – ready to break, to yield information. This was all hers, contained within her mind, working in the background of her consciousness. Everything around her was a part of her. If she could remain in this place it would all become familiar. The knowledge would diffuse into her as she was lightly touched by the winds. Despite the muted glow of the patterns, she could know it all. She just needed time.
She stumbled around, pressing her hands against the solid walls, hammering at them with her fists and running her fingers delicately along their crevices. Trying anything and everything she could think of. Something was certain to happen, it had to. There was a point in all of this. She was tantalisingly close.
She was always close. That was the problem. That was why she was becoming frantic. She needed to figure this out before the opportunity was taken from her again and she awoke. The issue was that she had no idea what to do. She had no special abilities here, she was simply Gil. All the caverns she had entered were similarly awe-inspiring, but they were also completely indifferent to her efforts to understand them.
In frustration, she stepped back, away from the wall she had just been pounding, and fell to her knees. Rocking forwards, so that her hands were placed on the floor in front of her, she tried to control the increased pace of her breathing. The air smelt stale, despite the winds. She realised how ridiculous this all was, considering she was asleep and her breathing was only an aspect of the scenario her mind had conjured up, yet regaining control was the only thing she could think of to do.
Collecting herself by taking long steady breaths, her mind became more focused. Once she was satisfied with her level of calm, she tentatively lifted her head to look around, hoping this change in her mood would enable a new perspective.
The mycelial bands glowed with their attenuated, faint white light. As she lifted her head further, she could just about trace them a little way up with her eyes as she tried to resolve them higher, before they became indistinct from the darkness. She knew they carried on.
So close. She could sense the sheer volume of information that was there, but it was closed to her. She was not yet ready. Hopeless, still. Aware that panicking would not help, she calmly clasped her arms around her knees and watched.
The white stratifications glowed constantly on the cavern walls, paying her no attention, and the wind draped its folds across her skin. Whatever was occurring, was happening whether she understood what she was doing or not. It did not require her conscious thought.
The whispers had been quiet, although they came back to her now. She was disappointed, having wanted this to be something else. Something separate, for her to figure out and potentially even use against the sensespace. Still, she was ready to accept it, anything to help her understand this place.
She closed her eyes, trying to focus more intently on the whispers. It was confusing. Memories and experiences she did not recognise were forced upon her in quick succession. She was barely able to understand what she was being shown before it skipped to the next, leaving the last one forgotten. Glimpses of connections became apparent, before being lost. It was like carrying water with shaky hands towards the commune from one of the nearby rivers, only to look down and see it all gone.
*
Gil was dismayed when 998 woke her, although she could not be certain why. She frowned but did not say anything. She also did not ask the c-autom where it was leading her, assuming the information would be volunteered. None was. 998 had been quieter since learning the technosystem c-automs were gone, and she was wary of pressing it, respecting the right to grieve.
The silence continued along the way. The embodied c-automs were all reeling from the loss of their fellow technosystem c-automs. A few floated slowly past as she walked, but none greeted her. She wondered if 112 had been one of them.
They arrived, after walking down a corridor that she was sure had not been there before. Entering the chamber, she looked around, still none-the-wiser. There was a circular table in the middle of the room with two seats around it, facing each other, and nothing else. Only a transparent wall that overlooked the expanse of the galaxy. Admittedly beautiful, but there were plenty of other observation platforms within the ship.
“This place is new… a table-chamber?” Gil said.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I did not construct it.”
“Oh.”
Gil should have realised that immediately. There was nothing particularly striking about the room, it was plain and functional. Elegant, although with minimal
features. Not something 998 would have designed by choice.
“Do you know how long we wait?”
“I do not.”
998’s orb-body flashed its orange-yellow glow a couple of times before moving to explore the room. It moved right up to the walls, the edges where they intersected the ceiling. There was nothing interesting about it that Gil could make out, but 998 had access to a wealth of analytical tools and sensors that she did not. The more she thought about it, the more the chamber looked like a larger, simpler version of her personal room, the chamber she slept in.
She had not spoken to the craft-lect properly since recent events, where a fragment of the original Granthan-lect had attempted to seize control of the ship, apparently manipulated into its actions by One-oh. 998 explained what had happened, but she knew she would still need to discuss it with the craft-lect once it decided the time was appropriate. She was in no hurry.
“Well, perhaps–”
Before she had finished speaking, 998 deftly moved to settle in front of the entrance as a visitor walked in.
“Hello, Gil, 998.” He smiled, nodding to them both.
Gil was shocked. He could have passed for one of the male communers. Not quite the age of an elder, but old enough to command more respect than a man who had just reached his prime.
Standing there, Gil stared blankly until 998 broke the silence.
“One-oh.”
“998, pleasure to meet you in… on the physical ship.”
One-oh turned to Gil and smiled. The white teeth matched the neatly trimmed white beard, and she realised this was precisely the same form he had taken within the simulated reality, if not a little younger.
“One-oh! You’re… you’re real! Not real… I mean, you’re here!”
“Yes, yes I am.”
He looked down at his hands as he clenched and unclenched them, before turning them around so that his palms faced the floor, and back again.
“But… how? The craft-lect…”
“It has made a body for me… one that is sufficient to let me retain my… memories.”
“The craft-lect can do that?”
“It can.”
One-oh nodded and smiled.
“You look similar to my… the people from my commune.”
“My own species were already phenotypically similar, and the craft-lect smoothed out some other differences. I hope this does not make you uncomfortable? It was done with the opposite intention.”
“You… no, it doesn’t. Is it… strange.”
“It’s… different, entering into a new body that is… not quite my original. It’s certainly not a typical life I’ve led.” He frowned as he said this.
“It is different,” 998 said.
Gil was still rooted to the spot she had been standing in when One-oh first entered, and as he moved to her she flinched on impulse, before relaxing. He stopped and squeezed her shoulder with his hand. It was the first time she had been touched by another living biological since leaving the commune, and a wave of nostalgia washed over her.
One-oh smiled knowingly, before walking over to the table. He took the seat with the transparent wall to his left, still smiling, and gestured to them.
“Come, join us. Please.”
[Yes, Gil, 998, both of you are welcome to take a position.]
Gil looked up out of habit, before nodding to One-oh and moving to take the seat opposite, with the transparent wall to her right. 998 drifted slowly towards the table after her and settled above the empty space directly opposite the spacescape.
“What’s going on?” Gil said.
“Good question,” One-oh said. “After what’s happened, the craft-lect thought it would be good to have a discussion... with all of us.”
“About?” 998 said.
“All that has happened…”
[And where we’re going.]
“What’s happened?” 998 asked, rhetorically. “Millions of c-autom lives were extinguished.”
“998…” One-oh’s smile had completely disappeared and his head dipped down. He spoke more quietly than before. “I understand your pain, I am–”
“Do you? Because you are the cause of their deaths, One-oh. You are responsible. You enacted your schemes and plotted to destroy them all, without the craft-lect’s permission, without–”
“I did,” One-oh said, almost in a whisper.
Silence settled. Gil watched as One-oh stared silently at 998. He looked sad. The c-autom flashed wildly and vibrated angrily.
“I understand what you did, and why you did it. Gil is important, I understand that and I believe in her. But the way you acted was wrong. It was wrong. There would have been other methods available,” 998 said.
“I know. I know it was wrong, but there was little else I could do, believe me. The presence of the axe-codings on the ship was problematic, as was the presence of their axe-haven. I’m so sorry, 998. They were a glaring hole in the–”
“You committed an atrocity to rid the craft-lect’s ship of them.”
“I–”
“You murdered all of them, through the Granthan-lect.”
“Yes, it weighs heavily on me. I know how precious life is... all of it.”
[998, be assured, it will not happen again.]
“That is not enough. It is already done. The culling was supposed to have ended, the–”
[I am equally uncomfortable with the meddling, of which I was unaware. However, extrapolating forwards, had One-oh not taken the actions he did, the axe-codings would have become increasingly dangerous variables. Their origins and objectives are still unknown to us.]
“A different route to their neutralisation could have been taken. Destroying the entire technosystem reality was disordered, disorganised. It was unjust–”
[The axe-codings may not even be of Wanderer design. This is my ship, remember that 998. Gil is too important. One-oh did what was necessary. He also engineered the sequestering of a segment of the c-autom population into embodiment to protect them.]
998 did not reply.
“I’m sorry,” Gil blurted out, tears coming to her eyes. “I’m so… so sorry, 998. I truly am. This… this…”
998’s anger, evident in its pulsing lights and haphazard movement, began to subside.
“Thank you, Gil.”
One-oh looked sad, and despite the spectacular spacescape visible through the transparent wall, he only looked at 998. Gil knew he felt guilt at what he had done. It was almost unfair that he had been the one forced to make such a terrible choice. Being the cause of so much death, while being the sole known survivor of his species, must have been hard to reconcile.
[We are also back on our original course. In a matter of days we will be within range of the Maspero sentinel structures.]
“Structures?” Gil said. “More than…”
[Yes, multiple sentinel structures. Three have been detected.]
8
APALU
The Wanderer ship was near one-twentieth of a light year from its destination. An automated program responded to the data, judging the pre-defined displacement threshold to be crossed, and Apalu was woken.
Apalu had decided to awaken some weeks out from the Lenbit Orbital as a precaution. Its sibling had relayed the importance of its mission and Apalu would not let it down. Not when so much might rely on both their successes.
It had not woken its c-automs – they were all still dormant, safely stowed in their berths. It would be the sole alert sentient aboard the ship until they were a matter of days from their destination. There was no point in its crew being active for now. There were no trove items, and the ship had been perfectly maintained during its time docked at the data exchange portal.
It regretted not having confided completely in its sibling about their other shared sibling, but without definitive proof of any nefarious doings, it would have been foolish. When a craft-lect knew a sibling had been destroyed, it was unpleasant. That was why the typical Wanderer
eulogy stated that a craft-lect had been lost. A story was fabricated, Apalu believed in more cases than not, disseminated to the relevant Wanderers, and accepted. That had been the case with Ciqalo, although the story had been too unrealistic to be accepted by Apalu.
Ciqalo had become the most un-craft-lect-like of the three. Sociable, gregarious, the extrovert. Apalu knew this, more so than the average craft-lect would of any of its siblings, because of its uncommonly close work with Ciqalo. Relatively early into their lifetimes, before Ciqalo had given up normal craft-lect duties in favour of working closely with the secretive Enclave, it had noted from one of Apalu’s messages on the data exchange network that they were both working on overtly similar trove items. The trove items had been found tens of light years apart, pilfered from different civilisations, yet possessed surprisingly comparable characteristics.
The initial intrigue was now unimportant, aside from how it had fuelled a deeper and more detailed communication between the two than either could have foreseen. The communications were still sequential, separated by significant stretches of time as one-way data caches waiting patiently within the data exchange, but they were substantial.
Through this rare bond, which neither of them professed to sharing with their third sibling, Apalu knew that the Enclave’s explanation for Ciqalo’s disappearance was incorrect. Mistaken or erroneous, not necessarily malicious, but wrong. The disappearance of Ciqalo was unanswered.
Ciqalo was curious but not thoughtless, and by no means anywhere near the lower end of the scale of craft-lect intelligence. Quite the opposite. Ciqalo would not have suddenly resumed typical craft-lect duties and set off to traverse the galaxy without conveying its intentions, at least to Apalu. It was also unlikely to have been overzealous with regards to isolated trove item examination, being far too loquacious for that. It would have wanted to share even its most preliminary findings.
Apalu had held off from sharing its thoughts with the Enclave because Ciqalo had been involved in certain Enclave governance activities which it had hinted at, but never described in great detail. Activities that related to the ABs. Apalu decided that if Ciqalo’s disappearance was related to its work in this regard, it would not be wise to ask directly. The Enclave was a suspect in Ciqalo’s disappearance until proven otherwise, to Apalu.
