by Simon Kewin
*
Mackenzie set the walls, floor and ceiling of the conference room to transparent, so that it seemed as if the simple, wooden table and chairs were floating freely in space. It was what he usually did. He found it tended to disconcert visitors, especially those used to living on planets. It was a small advantage but he needed all he could get. He stood and waited for the delegation from the Million Star Council to arrive. The ship stood next to him in avatar, still in the punk persona. Behind him, the Armageddon ship and its surrounding flotilla continued their progress. There had been no more sudden course changes.
The Council had sent a delegation of three. The ship introduced each as they entered the room.
The first he already knew: a Shivan like himself, basically humanoid but a third bigger and stronger than the average and with four arms. Her name was Galen Jones, a full Council member now but once a starshipper like him. But the connections between them weren’t going to give him any advantages. She was well-known for her demands that immediate military action be taken against Isiur.
The second delegate was better news. The ship introduced him as Qarim Abdul-Jabaar. He was another humanoid, an average-sized man with a bald head and a long, grey beard. His crescent ear-ring showed he was from one of the Orthodox Islamic worlds. A member of the benign and peaceable Church should prove to be an ally of some sorts in the forthcoming debate.
The third was a Chine called Speed Metal. It also wore a humanoid body: a tall, willowy, low-g form, as if to fit in with everyone else. That might be good news too; a Chine was unlikely to make wild, irrational demands. Or maybe that was just a stereotype.
They sat down. Galen spoke first.
‘We are here to relay to you the thinking of the Million Star Council. I trust you will not feel at all ... undermined. Whilst your fleet is in control of the immediate situation out here, the rest of us do have a clear interest in what takes place.’
‘Of course,’ he replied, as neutrally as possible. ‘As do all the civilisations outside the Concordat. They are equally affected. I have not forgotten any of that.’
‘Very well. Perhaps you could tell us what action you have taken so far?’
He knew she was trying to goad him. He answered as flatly as he could.
‘We have followed the machine and monitored its activities closely.’
‘But no actual ... action?’
‘Given the risks I have erred on the side of caution, yes.’
‘A wise policy I’m sure,’ said Abdul-Jabaar. ‘And what have you been able to observe?’
‘That the device appears to be making random course changes at random intervals. That there are no discernible changes in its condition which might suggest it is about to ... do anything.’
‘Have you tried to destroy it?’ asked Galen. ‘You have rather a lot of firepower available to you.’
‘I have not. As you will know I was there when we first encountered the machine, during the final battle with the Draconians. An entire phalanx of warships attacked it and were obliterated. The machine has planetary-class defensive systems. Nor do we know what its trigger conditions are. Now the Draconians are defeated, it may perceive even the commencement of an attack as enough reason to detonate. I may have treaded carefully so far, but at least we are all still here to debate the fact.’
‘Quite so.’ Abdul-Jabaar pressed his hands together and touched them repeatedly to his lips, frowning in concentration. ‘And the surviving Draconian you have on board. Well guarded, I am sure. Have you been able to learn anything from it?’
‘Nothing. It refuses to cooperate. I don’t think it even occurs to it that it could cooperate.’
‘Then mind-ream it,’ said Galen. ‘Surely we can suspend the rules given the circumstances.’
‘We can?’ asked Mackenzie. ‘Even if that’s true, how do we know the machine is not somehow aware of the remaining Draconian? How do we know that killing it or destroying its mind won’t cause the device to detonate?’
‘Very unlikely. How could the machine be monitoring the creature? Have you found any evidence of this?’ She looked genuinely angry now.
‘None whatsoever. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Do we want to take the risk?’
‘Also,’ said Abdul-Jabaar, ‘We can’t be sure that what the creature knows is reliable. It may be part of a trap. It may have had ... false knowledge implanted into its brain that leads us to do exactly the wrong thing and set off the device.’
‘Exactly,’ said Mackenzie. ‘For all these reasons I have taken no positive action. The risks are too great.’
‘There again,’ continued Abdul-Jabaar, staring out into space at the machine, ‘there is the possibility of a burning fuse. Perhaps the device is merely counting down to detonation and by doing nothing we are condemning ourselves.’ He sighed. ‘It is a difficult situation.’
‘Then we need more information.’ Asking questions was better than answering them. ‘Have you been able to find out anything more from the Draconians’ records? Have you been able to ascertain whether it is even possible for this device to work?’
The Chine spoke now. Its voice was thin and reedy and very rapid. It spoke in a rush of quiet sounds, slowing down repeatedly as if having to concentrate on talking at their pace. ‘They destroyed all their records most effectively. We know only what the device is supposed to do and very little about how it is supposed to do it. We have devoted much effort to trying to find a genuine mechanism for the cascading collapse of space-time they threatened us with. But our Cosmologists have been unable to either prove or disprove the possibility of such an effect, although they speculate that it could be related to the so-called missing matter problem.’
‘The Missing Matter problem? Please ... remind me,’ said Mackenzie.
‘It is an old conundrum, supposedly solved many times over the centuries. We can only account for about 99.9% of the mass of the universe. The remaining amount, which must be there from what we observe, appears to be missing. Or at least invisible. These are complex issues, but they have clear implications for how a device might be able to reverse the Big Bang.’
‘Have the Xin offered any help?’ asked Mackenzie.
‘No,’ replied the Chine. ‘We did ask them whether they thought the device could function. And also whether the missing matter might be a part of the equation, as it is known they have knowledge in this area. But they have remained silent.’
Galen spoke again, then, clearly impatient to return the conversation to practicalities.
‘So, Mackenzie, you propose that we essentially do nothing. With this hanging over us?’ She waved one of her four hands in the direction of the Draconian ship.
‘For now, yes. I ...’
He was interrupted by the ship, the punk avatar speaking over him.
‘Isiur has just vanished.’
There was silence for a moment and then uproar as each of the delegates, Galen’s voice the most strident, demanded to know what was going on. He ignored them all, turning to look at the place where the ship had previously been.
‘It jumped into Grey Space?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that answers our questions over its FTL capabilities at least. Can you track it?’
‘No. It used multiple chaotic jumps to encrypt its trajectory. It could have gone anywhere.’
‘Damn.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Show me the Draconian.’
The image on the wall changed. There was the giant, glinting creature, apparently unaware what was happening.
‘Show me what it was doing at the precise moment the ship disappeared.’
The ship replayed the scene. The Draconian didn’t move.
‘Was there any change in its metabolism, anything out of the ordinary at all at that moment?’
‘No. It appears to be unaware of what has happened,’ replied the ship.
‘We should have taken action,’ said Galen, quite furious now. ‘The device could be anywhe
re. We must act now, Mackenzie.’ She’d stood up as if preparing to physically attack him.
He sat for a moment, trying to think clearly.
‘Very well. I agree. We must assume the device is fully-functional and that it has been following some deliberate plan all along. I think we also have to believe it has been programmed to detonate if it discovers there are no Draconians left alive. It will now, I think, be en route for Draco, attempting to determine whether its master race still survives. That is where we must go.’
‘But Draco is little more than a cooling cinder,’ said Galen.
‘True. We must attempt to get there ahead of it.’
‘And then?’
‘Engage it. Attempt to destroy it. There is little left to lose.’
He turned to the avatar. ‘Move the fleet into Grey Space and head for Draco. Be ready for battle. We have to hope we can outrun it.’
Even before he had finished the sentence, space outside the ship changed. The soft blackness switched to a uniform grey, the stars disappearing.
He turned back to the delegates. He was about to tell them they would be at Draco within the hour, that they should prepare themselves. Before he could, a sixth voice spoke.
‘No. Do not head for Draco, Mackenzie. Isiur has not gone there.’
They all turned to look at a figure standing at the far end of the room. For a moment Mackenzie thought someone had placed a statue there. A stone-grey humanoid figure, half his height, stood near the wall. Its head was relatively large, hairless and with very delicate, carved features. Its eyes were wide and round. It appeared not to be wearing any clothes, but its entire body was covered with an intricate patterning of silver lines: whorls and swirls and interlaced geometric patterns that looked like inlaid filigree.
He had never met one of the Xin before although, of course, their images were reproduced everywhere. Despite the situation they were in he felt a thrill of excitement. This was a private dream come true. He wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but he had become a starshipper largely to satisfy a childhood fascination with the wise and benign Xin. He glanced at the ship’s avatar. Even she had a look of surprise on her face.
‘My apologies for interrupting. But Isiur has jumped out of the galaxy. We must hurry now.’
The Xin waved a hand over the wall behind it, and the blank scene of Grey Space changed to a star-chart. It wasn’t supposed to be possible for an outsider to do that. The avatar simply shrugged when he looked at her.
The scale of the map zoomed out so the entire galaxy filled the frame, then out further and further still, the spiral swirls collapsing inwards until there was just a star-like dot in a vast, dark field. The Xin indicated a point three hundred million light-years from the edges of the galaxy. Deep in the intergalactic void: the true, empty space that made up most of the universe.
‘Here.’
‘You don’t really expect us to disappear off into the middle of nowhere do you?’ Galen still sounded angry but she was also, Mackenzie could tell, a little unnerved, a little awed by the presence of the Xin. ‘We need to defend ourselves, not leave ourselves wide open.’
‘Of course,’ replied the Xin. ‘But I assure you this is where Isiur has gone. It intends to rendezvous with the seventeenth Draconian fleet and then resume the war knowing you dare not fight back.’ The voice of the ancient was quiet, gentle, almost child-like.
‘The seventeenth fleet? There is no seventeenth fleet,’ Mackenzie said. The last battle, when they first encountered the machine, had been against the sixteenth and final Draconian flotilla.
‘No, there is a seventeenth. The Draconians have been assembling it in secret as the war has progressed, bolstering it from the remnants of the other sixteen. Isiur is a part of that fleet, the heart of it.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell us this before?’ said Galen. ‘You expect us to just drop everything and engage a new Draconian fleet? You expect us to even believe you?’
Her full anger had returned. Abdul-Jabaar next to her was frowning. Speed Metal looked impassive, deep in thought.
The Xin was unperturbed.
‘I am sorry, Galen Jones. It is the truth. You must understand we are not gods, we are only people. We are not at war with the Draconians. We are criticised when we do not intervene and criticised when we do. We are at a significant turning point in the time-line. Many futures are possible and in many the universe will die. We believe we are acting for the good.’
‘Whose good: yours, ours or the Draconians?’
‘A very good question. The answer is unclear at this point. Possibly everyone’s.’
‘This fleet,’ said Speed Metal. ‘What can you tell us about it? What are its capabilities? Are you suggesting we attempt to destroy it or that we allow ourselves to be destroyed by it? Also, I am intrigued by its location. There must be some considerable supply of resources there: a rogue intergalactic mass of some sort that the Draconians are using to construct their fleet. How did they know about this body?’
The Xin crossed to the table and stood in the circle with the rest of them. The light glinted off the silver lines decorating its body as it moved, tiny sparks flashing backwards and forwards across its skin.
‘The fleet has the standard Draconian configuration although it is fifty percent larger than usual even without Isiur. And no, I do not propose that you attempt to destroy it. As I’m sure you have surmised, Isiur is well aware the fleet constitutes the remains of Draconian culture. It has been awaiting the fleet’s readiness all this time. Its baffling manoeuvres have just been to keep you distracted and intrigued. Now it is fully active and ready to detonate. We must be careful. If we eliminate the fleet, or attack Isiur itself, it will set itself off for sure. It will have no reason not to.’
‘So you expect us to allow ourselves to be destroyed?’ said Galen. ‘To placate the Draconian military machine. And where do we stop? Do we allow every planet in Million Star space to be destroyed because we’re so afraid of this one ship and what it might - might - do?’
‘It is understandable that you would see this as undesirable. You must also understand that from a wider cosmological perspective, from the viewpoint of all the other beings in all the other galaxies, this might be a price worth paying. Galen Jones, they might find your attitude not so far removed from the Draconians’.’
‘That’s an insult! We’ve spent years fighting them, billions of lives lost and you have done nothing to help. Now you turn up and expect us to just roll over. We will not! We will defend ourselves and attack the Draconians. Or are you going to try and stop us? Are you allies with them now?’
The Xin remained completely calm. It - she or he, Mackenzie didn’t even know if they had genders - even smiled a little, although sadly.
‘We knew this would be your attitude. Of course, you must do as you see fit. As for the Xin, I am here now and I have to come to address the question of Isiur. Whilst you are engaging the fleet, hopefully before you engage the fleet, I will attempt to ... deal with it. With your help if you are willing. Now the machine is active it is also open to being disarmed permanently.’
Galen turned away from the Ancient and spoke to the rest of them.
‘I do not trust this course of action. We do not know what we are getting into or what game is being played here. Why are the Xin intervening now? Why won’t they answer our questions about the formation of the Draconian fleet?’ She turned to look directly at Mackenzie. ‘We must continue on to Draco. That is where we must be ready to fight.’
Mackenzie looked at the other two delegates. ‘Is that everyone’s opinion?’
‘I do not believe we can ignore this new information,’ said Abdul-Jabaar. ‘If it is true, and I do not see why it would not be, then we must act upon it. Of course we must inform the Million Star Council of what we have learned but I believe we should move with all speed to this point in intergalactic space and be prepared to keep this new Draconian fleet busy for as long as possible.’
/>
‘We could divide our forces,’ said Speed Metal, ‘Send half to Draco, half out there.’ He indicated the star map with one, stick-thin arm. ‘I tend to concur with Qarim Abdul-Jabaar but perhaps we should cover all the options, leave nothing to chance.’
‘So you propose we throw away half our force before attacking Isiur?’ asked Galen. ‘This is madness. Mackenzie, I demand you continue to Draco.’
He wasn’t really listening. He had a clear enough idea now about the delegates’ views. He looked at the Xin, who was listening impassively to the debate.
He remembered being a young boy on Shiva, remembered his desperate and burning desire to escape the planet. To travel space, to meet the Ancients. He had been given a flashlight for one of his birthdays. It had a bright, focused beam he could shine high into the night-sky, a column of white light hundreds of metres tall. He had spent a whole month of nights using it to send signals up into space - or so he liked to imagine - methodically covering every quadrant of the sky with a deliberate series of flashes that said I’m here, rescue me! He’d imagined the Xin receiving his messages and coming for him, or at least watching over him thereafter.
He couldn’t believe these ancient inhabitants of the galaxy were malicious. To himself he admitted he probably hadn’t fully lost his romantic, boyhood notions of the fantastical, semi-mythical Xin, of their benign shepherding of the galaxy and its peoples. Maybe this was a bad thing and maybe it wasn’t. But that was how he was.
He turned to the ship and nodded.
‘Change course.’
‘Our course has changed,’ said the avatar after a moment.
There was no discernible difference in the movement of the ship or in the grey blankness outside. He turned back to Galen and the others.
‘Once we are away from the galactic mass we will be able to pick up relative speed. We should be there within a day.’
Galen looked thunder-struck. He ignored her.
‘Now, if you will all excuse me I have a battle to plan. Please make yourselves as comfortable as you can.’
He turned to the Xin standing quietly next to him. The Ancient’s expression had still not changed.
‘I need to know exactly what your plans and your requirements are,’ he said. ‘I need to know everything about this new fleet. Will you accompany me?’
He turned to leave the conference room. The Ancient and the avatar followed behind him.
