by T. R. Harris
When the mutant activated a gravity-well this close to the surface, weird things began to happen. The heavy trucks firing at them became airborne, only to fall away a moment later as J’nae changed course, taking a slow track over the field and toward the huge building visible in the distance. Some of the smaller ships in the field also lifted off the surface, only to fall back and explode upon impact. Larger vessels didn’t break contact with the surface, yet many did tip over or slide into neighboring ships, resulting in more damage.
Their stolen vessel picked up speed and was soon above the recently-completely Grand Arena. J’nae took a leisurely loop of the complex, causing huge sections of the superstructure to peel off and swirl into the air like in a tornado. A moment later, the entire upper half of the building was gone, with the rest being rained on by huge chunks of stone and metal, along with thousands of alien bodies.
Adam’s stomach turned, thinking about the prisoners who had been waiting in the cells below. There was a chance some would survive the bombardment, yet many wouldn’t. He gained some solace knowing that the destruction of the Grand Arena would delay further challenge matches until it could be rebuilt, affording those in the holding compound a few more weeks of life before the games began anew.
To his surprise, J’nae steered the ship toward the compound, five miles away. She didn’t fly directly over, rather just along the periphery, demolishing the boundary wall and sending panicking guards scrambling for cover. On a close-in view screen, Adam could see hundreds of ant-like creatures swarming over the other individual dots as the gravity influence subsided, igniting a riot and rush for freedom far below.
The Nuorean ship then turned tip-up and headed for the stars.
Adam looked over at J’nae. She didn’t have to help the prisoners, but she did it out of concern for their welfare. Maybe—just maybe—she did have a little compassion hiding deep in that evil soul of hers.
“You’re welcome,” the mutant said without turning.
Damn! She can read my mind!
Chapter 14
There were hundreds of ships in orbit around the planet. Most had been alerted to the escaping starship but they didn’t seem too concerned, even in spite of the damage caused on the surface. One of the three-mile-long motherships was maneuvering for an intercept. In moments the electrical kill-switch would be activated and the comparatively tiny craft would be dead in the water, ready for recovery.
“Will the weapons hold their charges with the power off?” Adam asked the mutants unexpectedly. J’nae had read all the specs, so she knew every nuance of the ship.
“There are capacitors to store accumulated energy,” she replied. “They will retain their charges for up to eight hours before degradation.”
“Good, I have an idea.”
Five minutes later the impulse came through that would shut off all electrical power in the stolen ship. J’nae had already deactivated the switch, but when the signal was detected, she shut all the systems down manually. Two smaller ships emerged from the mothership, setting a course for their helpless vessel. Magnetic grapples latched on, and the ship was towed to the aft end of the battle-carrier.
Adam and Sherri sat ready at weapons control.
No shields were raised on either the tow-vessels or the huge carrier since the captive ship was without power for any of its systems. The lead ships entered the huge hangar and released the grapples. Internal magnetic lines would place the recovered ship within the bay.
With a brilliant flash, a barrage of powerful plasma bolts flared out from the smaller ship, aimed directly at the soft inner skin of the mothership. The bolts penetrated deep into the belly of the craft, igniting a series of massive explosions that rippled forward within the long hull. More bolts were released—a total of thirty in all—before J’nae fired up the Nuorean ship and sent it screaming from the landing bay, and just ahead of a massive wave of escaping gas and other debris blown out the back.
As they watched the image of the huge ship on the bridge screens, more breaks appeared in the shiny metal hull, spewing out brief flares of gas that were quickly extinguished in the vacuum of space. But the explosive force remained. The snake-like ripples reached the midpoint along the ship’s length, where a critical mass was reached. The behemoth split in two, with each half exploding almost in unison.
Those aboard the commandeered Nuorean ship gasped when the mothership blew up, the results far better than anyone expected. They were just looking to disable the ship and cause a little havoc along the way. Now it was splash one three-mile-long Nuorean battle-carrier. There were five more carriers in the original fleet, plus an unknown number in the two thousand reinforcements the late Daric (611) had mentioned. Even with that, it was a good start….
The huge explosion—along with the inability of the smaller Nuorean ship to respond to the kill order—gave J’nae the opportunity to enter a deep gravity-well and bolt out of the cluster. But she didn’t steer inward, toward the heart of the galaxy. Instead she sent the craft farther out along the Radis Spur.
Adam was too wrapped up in the celebration taking place on the bridge to notice the course direction. They were free, and they’d made quite the exit before leaving. And it was all thanks to Sherri, Riyad and Trimen—as well as the two mutants.
Panur made for a comical figure, dressed in an shredded and oversized wife-beater shirt and baggy cut-offs, both accentuating his slight build and light gray skin. Adam knew it was an illusion. Even without transforming into some powerful and deadly beast, the mutant was unstoppable, in spite of his diminutive build.
So was J’nae. She had reverted to her true form and was sitting at the main controls naked as the day Panur created her, displaying all the features that made her a female. Sure, she was an alien, but it still made the Humans on the bridge uncomfortable.
Sherri rummaged around the back compartments of the ship until she located a medical gown in the small sickbay that was blousy enough to cover most of the alien’s seven-foot stature. J’nae took the garment without too much grumbling, knowing it would keep her from having to maintain an energy-sapping transformation into a more modestly-covered creature.
Adam began a short speech. All twelve passengers were on the bridge, a room designed to hold maybe six at tops. The smell was beyond tolerance, but he had something to say. “We—all of us—want to thank you for getting us out of that hellhole. I was at my wit’s end. We were going to die there, I was sure.” He looked at Panur and nodded. “There was a chance I could have taken Daric, but after that, who knows?”
“It would not have been possible, my friend,” Panur said. “Your sword was poisoned, as was the Nuorean’s blade. You would have succumbed, appearing at first to grow weary from the Nuorean’s relentless attack, after which he would have struck you down with much fanfare and ceremony. Adam Cain, you were destined to die this day in the arena.”
Adam smiled. “Well screw destiny…and screw Daric. He couldn’t even face me man-to-…alien without rigging the game. Thanks again.”
The Juireans and Adam’s three prisoner friends now offered their gratitude as well, before most of them sought better air in other parts of the ship. J’nae remained at the controls, as Panur pulled Adam aside, with Sherri, Riyad and Trimen tagging along uninvited.
Adam knew what was coming.
“Now my friend, you have already surmised my true intent. Although I’m glad you’re safe, tell me where Lila was taken.”
Adam needed the mutants if he was to have any chance of saving his daughter. It would be impossible otherwise. Hell, even with them, it may be impossible. The Aris had taken Lila without so much as batting an eye—and she was the most-powerful being in the galaxy—when not counting the Aris, of course. He would cooperate, even if it meant losing her at the end to Panur and his contention that she needed to be with her own kind.
“I don’t know exactly. All I can tell you is what Zee told me.”
“That’s fine; I’ll extrapolate
from there,” said Panur.
“According to Zee, the Aris are long-term thinkers, and I mean really long-term, like in the billions of years. With their world about to be destroyed, they sought another place where they could past the time. It couldn’t be on a planet, because the parent star would continue to wander throughout the galaxy, taking them into regions where other beings might discover them. Planets are also subject to natural forces, with even the possibility of collisions with other objects. So according to Zee, they built an artificial world, one that they could control to maintain a somewhat stationary position, even as the galaxy changed around them.”
Panur frowned. “I don’t understand their reasoning. They could travel to any world at will, avoiding contact, if that’s what they wanted. And even then, as they evolved, contact with other species would have been a cause for study and experimentation, if not complete dismissal. Unless….”
Adam nodded. “They didn’t continue to evolve.”
J’nae came over to where the small group was huddled. “They have not evolved over these past three billion years?” She appeared almost in a panic.
“Will you stop reading my mind,” Adam pleaded.
“I cannot read your mind; I told you that. Yet I can anticipate your thoughts—and I have exceptional hearing. Explain more about the Aris.”
“There’s not much more. Zee said they began a lot of experiments way back when and they wanted to see them come to fruition. They thought that if they continued to evolve, they would lose interest in the results, making their efforts a waste of time and energy. So they found a way to suspend their evolution, at least until a trigger was reached. According to Zee, Lila was the trigger.”
“But they could have achieved so much more,” J’nae protested.
“Perhaps not,” Panur countered. “Once a civilization has survived for a million years, boredom is sure to set in. Things that once seemed important are not so much any longer. J’nae, you and I have only just begun our journey and already we are desperate for new stimulation, new challenges. Imagine what we will be like in a million years? There wouldn’t be much more to do except evolve. And into what, more cerebral beings who do nothing but think? We are creatures of action, of touch, feel and stimulation. Imagine life without such things.”
“I would like to.”
“You are still young, with so much life ahead of you. Use your mind to imagine being detached from all things you can now experience. It would be like…death.”
J’nae’s eyes turned emotionless as she stared at Panur, ignoring the penetrating glare from Sherri. Death was what J’nae was seeking, according to what Sherri had told Adam. Perhaps an eternity of evolution would allow a being to achieve a type of living death, another plane of existence detached from this world by billions of years. The Aris had that opportunity, yet they chose not to take it.
“I know now why the Aris chose the path they did,” Panur said softly. “They didn’t want to die.”
********
“You refer to death as we define it,” J’nae continued to protest. “The Aris definition could be different. Why would this existence even matter if we evolve beyond it?”
Panur considered his creation for a moment, studying her face and her words. “Because, J’nae, we have no choice but to live within this existence. For us, evolution is not an option.”
Adam was surprised by the statement. “You mean for you and J’nae…and Lila?”
“Yes, my friend, that is exactly who I refer to. Mortal beings continue to evolve through the ages. It’s a process that cannot be stopped, unless you possess the intellect of the Aris. This force of nature—of existence—is what that has brought us to this point in time.”
“I did not evolve; I was created,” said J’nae with defiance, even anger.
“You were created…to be immortal. Consider what immortally is: It is the continuation of a system without change, while evolution creates immortally through change.”
“Damn, that’s heavy?” Sherri said, intrigued by the discussion.
Panur continued. “An immortal being has no need for evolution. The system will continue without the need for life-sustaining modification. Mortal creatures require evolution to create more durable, stronger and intelligent individuals to guarantee the system’s overall survival. Evolution is nature’s answer to immortality. It allows for the continuation of the system, while sacrificing the individual. What would an immortal creature be who continues to evolve? At that point, evolution becomes like a cancer, allowing the immortal to evolve into something else, possibly negating the immortality. J’nae, you and I do not need to evolve. As individuals, we have already achieved the objective of all life in the universe, a self-sustaining system for all eternity.”
“So for all the advancement of the Aris, they are not immortal?” Trimen asked.
“Exactly,” Panur said. “They’re still mortal beings who must evolve to ever-higher levels to assure survival of the system. It may appear as though they’ve achieved immortality, but that’s only an illusion. They could have developed incredibly long life-spans, long enough to where even evolution might play a part in their demise, but it would not be true immortality, not like we have achieved.” He turned sad eyes on J’nae.
“So in a billion years—”
“We will be exactly as we are today.”
At that moment, Adam sincerely hoped J’nae couldn’t read his mind, because he just came to a startling revelation. A person who could live forever without changing— without ever moving on to bigger and better things—would eventually go insane, and maybe sooner rather than later.
********
Panur smiled. “Let us move beyond all these philosophical musings and get on to the matter at hand. Where is this artificial world built by the Aris?”
“Zee said it was in the same area of space as their homeworld—or where it had been three billion years ago.”
“And where is that?”
“He didn’t say.”
There was a long moment of silence until broken by Trimen. “Then there is no hope of finding Lila,” the Formilian said. His tanned face was a shade or two darker, reflecting the anger and frustration he felt. “I thought we would learn and then begin a journey of rescue. What have we achieved for all our efforts and intellectual exercises?”
“I’m sorry, Trimen. This is all I know. Remember, I want to find her as much as you do.”
Adam caught notice of Panur’s intense, steady stare…at nothing.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked the mutant.
“The Aris home planet was destroyed three billions years ago,” Panur began. “In that time, the galaxy has continued to swirl and the stars migrate, yet we should be able to reverse time by following star tracks backwards and place them in their positions at the time the Aris star consumed the planet. Then we simply look for cosmic events that would destroy a system.”
“Where do we begin looking?” Riyad asked. “I’m sure you and J’nae can backtrack the stars—probably in your heads—and then we’d have the galaxy as it looked three billion years ago. But I can imagine there would be a lot of supernovas occurring at any given time. Which one would be the Aris star?”
“But the Aris star didn’t die as a supernova,” Panur countered. “For the Aris to evolve to the point where a civilization could exist for a million years, their planet had to be located in very a stable system, and not within one containing a massive star whose life would be measuring in millions of years, not billions. Contrary to your statement, Riyad, such supernova events are rare in the galaxy. The Aris star would have died in a much smaller event.”
“And more common,” Sherri pointed out, “which would make the search even harder.”
“Wait!” Adam exclaimed, catching everyone’s attention. “I have it.” It was so simple. He glanced at the anxious faces and smiled.
“Any time, Adam, we’re waiting,” Sherri said.
“Zee!”
“What about her?”
“We know where she was found—”
“That’s correct,” interrupted Panur. “We simply project back using fragments of the Aris home planet in which the orb was found, eventually reaching the point of origin. From there we search the region for an artificial structure.” Panur said, stealing some—all—of Adam’s thunder.
“That’s right,” Adam grumbled.
“Using even a minimal movement track of the fragments we can extrapolate from there.” Panur placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Very good, my friend, there’s hope for you after all.”
“So where was the object found?” J’nae asked.
“I don’t really know,” Adam admitted, “but the Incus do! They’re the ones who found it—her.”
“Please set course for Incus, J’nae,” Panur ordered.
“Difficult,” J’nae replied. “I have no navigational charts for the galaxy aboard this vessel.”
“It’s in the Kidis Frontier, near where we—I had my palace.”
“Recall, Panur, this is my first venture into this galaxy.”
“I will guide you.”
“Aren’t you forgetting about something…like the damn Nuoreans?” Riyad pointed out. “We have to let the galaxy know about them, where they’re located and that more ships have arrived. Besides, do you think it’s wise to go up against the Aris with just us, even if we do have our two mutant friends with us? Having superpowers didn’t help Lila.”
“He’s right,” said Adam. “Also, with more ships we can search the area faster. And it wouldn’t hurt to have more firepower should the Aris not give up Lila voluntarily.”
“We don’t have time,” Panur stated. “We’re going straight there.”
“Now look who has the death wish,” Sherri said.
