Well of Furies

by Craig Delancey

  He composed letters to his mother, and then, with too much time on his hands, he wrote to his uncles, and then cousins. He couldn’t send the letters until the mission was over, but writing made him feel that he’d given some effort to reaching out to his family.

  One day, he searched for what information the ship records had on Pala Eydis, the woman they sought on the Well of Furies. The ship’s records were thin, and conveyed only that she was a human woman, Earth’s only expert on Ulltrian technological history, 36 years old. In the one available picture, she looked slight but athletic, with piercing blue eyes set far apart, thin lips inclined in a thoughtful frown, and thick blond hair cut short. The paper that had caught Preeajitala’s attention had been published in the Earth journal Galactic History : “The World Hammer: Analysis of a Pre-Contact Ulltrian Astronomical Record of a Free Planetary Pair.” Tarkos read the article, and saw both what had intrigued and frustrated Preeajitala. The paper described the relevant records made by the ancient Ulltrian scientists, and the great upheavals in early science and in politics that the passing worlds had caused. But the article did not copy the Ulltrian records, nor give specific scientific data from them. Eydis’s interest had been with the influence of the passing worlds on the development of pre-contact Ulltrian scientific history. She had spent no effort, nor shared any information, on the worlds’ path.

  Tarkos stared at the woman’s picture. He expanded it to focus on her face. She stared at the camera as if challenging it. He liked the look of her. She appeared serious. Determined.

  “Well, Dr. Eydis,” he said to the image, “is all this, as the OnUnAns said, a waste of our time? Or are you going to help us find the living nightmares?”

  _____

  The next ship day, coming to relieve Bria, Tarkos found the robot standing in the corner of the bridge, its black form pressed against one wall. It startled him a little when he suddenly noticed it there, behind him when he passed through the door. Tarkos looked to the Commander, but Bria ignored both him and the robot as she climbed out of the captain seat and went to her cabin.

  Tarkos shook his head. Bria had never been talkative, but when they were on their way to a mission she usually drilled him—and herself—mercilessly. But now she avoided everyone, and her posture conveyed a barely contained fury. This wasn’t like her, to not talk to him about their mission, and to let days pass while she locked herself in her cabin. He imagined Bria pacing in there, not sleeping or resting.

  She doesn’t trust me, Tarkos thought. She doesn’t trust human beings, and she’s got one human for a partner and she’s on a mission to beg help off another human—all during the most important mission of her life.

  “Tough luck,” he said aloud in English.

  Tarkos logged into the hard control systems, and then turned his seat to face the robot. When he had been a small child, he had collected robots, and loved to dream about having a truly intelligent robot as a friend. Adulthood, and then joining the Galactic Alliance, had erased the last of this sentiment from him. The majority of the Alliance members considered AIs a dangerous necessity, remembering the catastrophes of machine intelligence that had resulted in the loss of hundreds of worlds, creating what was now called The Lost Zone. To a Harmonizer like himself, AIs were a necessary evil; required for space travel, but antithetical to his mission to serve biological life in the Galaxy.

  Still, Tarkos told himself, this AI is a citizen. I am required to treat it as such.

  “You are the only passenger who leaves its quarters,” Tarkos said. The robot had a disconcerting habit of creeping very, very slowly around the ship. Tarkos suspected the robot moved in slow time now, but he spoke hoping it could speed up to his rate of flow. “I’m surprised the others don’t feel a little cramped for space.”

  “There is a volume of space fourteen billion light years in diameter surrounding this ship,” Tiklik said.

  Tarkos sighed. “You don’t say,” he muttered in English. So much for conversation on this trip, he thought. A taciturn and rage-stifling Sussurat, a Kirt and OnUnAn that won’t leave quarters, and a crazy AI.

  He loaded systems reports up into his visual implants, so he could work while still facing the robot. Diaphanous logic diagrams filled his view, but through them he could see the probe standing there, slim and dark, inscrutable.

  And then, surprisingly, the AI seemed to want conversation. “The OnUnAn is high in germanium for a life form of the carbon order.”

  “Really?” Tarkos said. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “The center of mass for the OnUnAn moves only at 47% of the average speed of each member.”

  “You’re sure it isn’t 48%?”

  “Margin of error 2.46%,” the robot said, immune to his humor. “Each organism portion of the OnUnAn thus orbits the whole, around a center of motion. There is an inverse power law to their average distance. But the second traveler moves the farthest.”

  Tarkos frowned. He wondered if the AI were trying to tell him something. The second traveller would be the part that spat at him, presumably. Or was the AI calling the part that had clung to Bria, and then him, the second traveller?

  Well, if the AI were in a talkative mood, he might as well take advantage.

  “You have general galactic survey data, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What can you tell me about the Well of Furies?”

  “Given name Dâk-Ull, which in the Ulltrian language means world of the life leaders . Home system of the Ulltrian and Kriani species. Star system is dual. Primary star is 1.9 times the mass of Kirtsal.”

  Tarkos did the math in his head. If the star massed at twice the mass of the Kirt’s home star, that meant the primary was near the upper limit of mass for g-class.

  “The secondary star,” the probe continued, “is a neutron star on a comet-like eccentric orbit vertical to the plane of the system’s planets. Dâk-Ull itself is a moon, orbiting a blue gas giant with large rings. The Ulltrians called the gas giant Dâk-Kir, which reportedly means world host . The core of Dâk-Ull is unusually dense and large, 90 percent solid iron sheathed in rare earth elements. This creates a strong magnetic field, bending away the radiation of the gas giant and enabling life as a result. The carbon content is—”

  “What you’re telling me is,” Tarkos interrupted, “the Ulltrians evolved on a hell of an unlikely world.”

  “Each life is an extremely unlikely event,” the AI said. “Were I an accidentally evolved biological being, I would be terrified by the improbability of my own existence.”

  “No less likely than yours,” he said.

  “Correct, but I cannot know terror.”

  Tarkos opened his mouth to ask more about the Well of Furies, but the AI turned and started for the door. “Ki’Ki’Tilish summons me,” it said.

  _____

  Another week passed, with Bria offering him no more than an occasional grunt. Finally, Tarkos would accept it no longer. He went to the door to Bria’s quarters and he banged on the door. He knew it to be a neanderthal act, to actually strike his fist on the metal, but he was fed up.

  After a long while Bria opened the door. Her fur stood erect, her top eyes were half closed.

  “You have to talk to me,” Tarkos said. “I don’t know why you are so upset. I don’t know if it’s something I’ve done. But we’re heading toward some kind of legendary nightmare planet and we’ve not talked strategy once.”

  Bria blinked, and Tarkos saw the slightest softening around her mouth, as if a suppressed snarl now relaxed.

  “Summarize enemy,” she growled.

  Tarkos frowned. When Bria made demands, even when they were meant for his benefit, she expected him to hop to it. “They evolved in a clade not unlike Earth’s arthropods. They’re parasites in their youth. They are a highly modified species—they meddled in their own genes a great deal. Modifications include muscle enhancements. So, in hand-to-hand combat, they were very fierce opponents. None of the Galactic species active in
the last war could alone match them one-on-one.” Tarkos did not add that Sussurats were not active combat members of the Alliance at that time. Whether Bria could fight an Ulltrian was a question he hoped not to see answered.

  “Not greatest danger,” Bria said.

  “No,” Tarkos agreed. “That’s incidental. Most Ulltrians had—maybe I should say have, but who knows now if they take the same modifications?—most had a quantum computer implanted, with some kind of gene sequencer like we have,” he pointed at Bria and then himself, referring to their own ability to sequence genes in real time, “only the Ulltrians had something more: a technology that lets them also generate genemod viruses and even some bacteria in nearly real time. So they were like walking biological weapons factories. A single Ulltrian….”

  “Can destroy a world,” Bria finished.

  Tarkos opened his mouth to protest, but then stopped. Viruses and bacteria had the potential to replicate. And that meant a single Ulltrian could do catastrophic damage to a world, if the Ulltrian produced the right biological weapon and let it loose in an ecosystem.

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  Bria blinked.

  “So, shouldn’t we be planning, discussing options?”

  Bria just stared at him. Her fur seemed to be standing at all times—an involuntary reflex caused by anger in Sussurats. Her hair standing up like that, for all this time, was the equivalent of a terrified sweat lasting days for a human. Something ate at her soul, hour after hour.

  Tarkos knew that Bria’s home planet, Sussurat, had almost been destroyed by the Ulltrians. The Ulltrians had dropped a KunPaTel, a biological weapon, on the Sussurat homeworld, just out of spite, because the Sussurats would not join their cause. And the diseases carried by that biological weapon still killed Sussurats, all these centuries later.

  Is that why she’s furious? Tarkos wondered. But that seems so abstract a thing—a harm done thousands of years ago to one’s distant ancestors. It had to be something else, something personal.

  “You know,” Tarkos added, “maybe these Ulltrians are just running.”

  Bria huffed loudly.

  “But really,” Tarkos said, “it has been five thousand years. Maybe these Ulltrians who are left are uninterested in war.”

  Bria closed her top eyes and slapped the switch by the door. As it closed in Tarkos’s face, Bria growled, “Most stupid thing any human ever said.”

  _____

  “Tarkos, we enter space,” Bria’s voice sounded from the walls of his cabin. Tarkos leapt from his bunk, glad that he had fallen asleep in his pilot suit, and hurried to the bridge to be present for the disengagement of the probability drive. Bria sat there, leaning forward, not sparing another word. She smelled strongly, a heavy musk that Tarkos did not find unpleasant but which he knew meant that Bria had spent too much time on the bridge or pacing her room, and too little time sleeping.

  He strapped in. The smears of stars shrank into dots as they throttled the probability drive down to a stop. There, below them, a huge blue world seemed to rush forward and then stop: the gas giant that the Well of Furies orbited. And, in the distance, a bright sun, and a harsh pinpoint of light above it, shone on the starsleeve, the twin stars sharply illuminating the probability flanges.

  Bria let the ship coast down on a slingshot trajectory around the gas giant. The turquoise swirling clouds swallowed their view as they swung under its southern pole. Then a bright blue moon, spotted with pale clouds and land masses, loomed in their way.

  “Locate stable position to park starsleeve,” Bria instructed.

  Tarkos slowed the ship and brought it into a high orbit in one of the system’s Lagrange points. They floated up out of their seats and bounced against the straps as they drifted into microgravity.

  “This L-point is not too stable,” Tarkos said. “I’ll set the sleeve’s thrusters to compensate, but still, I don’t like it. This gas giant’s system is so complicated, with ten massive moons and with the thick rings. It all generates a lot of gravitational noise.”

  “Then must be quick,” Bria hissed. She issued the order for the mission members to assemble on the cruiser.

  _____

  In an hour, Ki’Ki’Tilish, Tiklik, and Gowgoroup joined Tarkos and Bria. The Kirt pointed her long legs in every direction to manage the weightlessness, and as a result seemed huge, filling much of the cruiser’s main hall. The robot walked as if under normal gee, presumably using some kind of grippers in its feet. The slugs of Gowgoroup followed, sticking to the walls with their mucus covered pseudopods, and finally gathered in a heap on a wide acceleration couch that the cruiser had manufactured for them. The slugs shifted the couch to the back of the bridge, making an elaborate demonstration of getting as far as possible from Tarkos and Bria.

  The cruiser disengaged from the starsleeve, sliding free, and then with gentle acceleration approached a high orbit over the moon that had been home to the Ulltrians. The arc of the world filled the wide bridge screen as Bria tipped the cruiser to point its nose at the planet.

  “Well of Furies,” Bria said. “Partially quarantined since war. Home now to Kriani, once slaves of Ulltrians.”

  At first glance, Tarkos thought it a beautiful world. A green continent passed below them, the sky above it spotted with white clouds casting long shadows on thick forests. The clouds moved quickly. A sea slipped under the ship next, its dark blue water spotted white in places where high waves churned. Two round storms were forming over the ocean. Then as the world rolled on, another continent, this one black and brown, passed. Plumes of dust swirled across the land, so huge they were visible from orbit. “What happened there?” he wondered aloud. He pulled up a camera view, and magnified it. Tall black spires that looked like burnt trees covered the landscape below. Black wind whipped between them. Had there been a fire there, spanning a continent? Or, he wondered, could those be some kind of black life? A fungus?

  “The Ulltrians destroyed all worlds they touched,” Ki’Ki’Tilish said. “Including their own. That is some catastrophe of ecosystem collapse. Such will be the fate of all the galaxy now that the Ulltrians return.”

  Bria blinked all four of her eyes in agreement.

  “Well,” Tarkos said. “It’s the Kriani’s world now. And they are not Galactic citizens. They don’t have to cooperate with the Harmonizer Corp. We need to find this Pala Eydis and get her off world as soon as possible, and do it with a minimum of official debate, and while keeping out of their way.”

  “Look,” Bria said, pointing a gray claw at the view before them. Another continent rolled into view, a triangular land mass isolated in a blue sea. Huge black plumes rose from gray mountains near the coast.

  “Smoke,” Tarkos said. “There are fires down there.”

  “May I interface with the cruiser’s exterior sensors?” Tiklik asked.

  “Passive only, please,” Tarkos said. He sent the permissions to the ship.

  The nose of the cruiser went dark as they slipped into the shadow of the planet. Below them, city lights set aglow. But not so many as Tarkos expected, given that a billion technological beings dwelled here.

  Bria turned on their communications broadband. The cruiser automatically sent their request for communication. Only static came back.

  “No answer,” Tarkos observed. They stared out at the black plumes spreading below.

  “The cruiser detects a significant gamma ray emission signature,” the robot said.

  Tarkos looked at Bria. They both knew what gamma bursts meant: nuclear weapons. Or, worst case, anti-matter weapons.

  A bright flash blinked on the dark continent below.

  “What was that?” Tarkos asked. “Did you see that?”

  “Lights of war,” Bria said.

  The cruiser’s control board suddenly turned red.

  “Incoming projectile,” the ship said in a soft, officious voice.

  “Into acceleration couches!” Tarkos ordered. Bria leaned far over the controls.

&
nbsp; “Second, third missile fired,” the cruiser said. A tactical display appeared before them. Three angry red dots blinked across the mapped space, bending toward the cruiser.

  “They’re fired from satellites,” Tarkos said. “Likely these are planetary defenses.”

  Bria blinked in agreement. She began to plot a quick trajectory straight over the pole and back toward a higher orbit of the gas giant.

  “No,” Tarkos said, staying her hand. “These are planetary defenses, right? So, let’s get on the planet they defend.”

  Bria squinted at him. After a moment of thought, she showed her teeth and blinked agreement. Tarkos took the controls and made the cruiser dive.

  _____

  It was a rough ride. The gravity of the planet pulled them down in their seats and they bumped and jostled at hypersonic speed through uneven pockets of air. The cruiser did not like a high speed atmospheric entry. They set the cruiser’s skin to quantum cooling to ease some of the heat, but alarms still sounded in painfully loud protest at the thermal stress.

  “The missiles are tumbling,” Tarkos said, watching their radar signal. “They can’t handle the atmosphere at these speeds. They must have been meant for space attack. Probably not aerodynamic at all.”

  “Lay course for location of Eydis,” Bria said.

  “Negation!” several of the voices of Gowgoroup called. Tarkos turned in his seat to watch the OnUnAn pulse in its acceleration couch. Its many eye stalks drooped in the bouncing ride, waving erratically. “I will not set my five feet down without permission.”

  “No permissions in war,” Bria said.