by Nick Webb
He hissed his approval. “I will come. But I was promised weapons.”
Krull raised her sparse eyebrows, and Sepulveda wondered if that was her trying to approximate a human expression or if the Skiohra did that too. “Either way, she played along. “Of course—we will discuss that as well.” Oh god, she’s a politician too. Perfect noncommittal answer that the recipient could interpret however they wanted.
The screen returned to the image of Wellington shipyards and the gas giant Calais, and he turned to his secret service chief. “Tom, minimal escort. Just you. No, I can see what you’re going to say. It’s dangerous, sure, but it’s also my final word, so lets get moving.”
The flight over to the Benevolence was short and uneventful, and soon they were met on the flight deck by Krull, Proctor, a fighter pilot he didn’t recognize, and a few IDF marines. Krull gave Kharsa a half-bow followed by a fist to her chest, and then held a hand out to him—she was a perfect diplomat, using the appropriate greeting for each species.
“If you’ll follow us, Mr. President, Vishgane Kharsa. To access the weapons, we need to enter a room.”
“They’re stored in a room? Weapons powerful enough to destroy the Swarm are stored in a room?” hissed Kharsa.
“We shall see whether it’s powerful enough to take out the Swarm. But yes. Please follow me.”
Krull led them through the door from the flight deck, down a long corridor and boarded a lift. All along the way Sepulveda noticed blood smears on walls, the floor, sometimes spattered up on the ceiling. Even a dead body right near the lift that no one had cleared yet.
When the lift started moving, Sepulveda asked, “Did you have trouble here, Matriarch? Were you invaded?”
“We fought among ourselves.”
“The Skiohra?” He was dumbfounded. “I saw evidence that you were fighting another ship over what looked to be your homeworld,” he noticed her cringe at the mentioned of the homeworld, which he noted, “but I never would have guessed you would fight hand to hand with such—” the lift door opened, revealing a hallway strewn with bodies, “—savagery.”
The hallway extended on for what seemed like forever into the distance. It was the epicenter of the signs of violence. Blood still pooled wet in some places. Bodies were stacked three or four high in others. “When one ceases to be governed by logic and reason and begins to fight for mere belief, that is when the savagery is the worst. Many succumbed to their rage, and I was not innocent either.”
He decided to end the questioning there as they advanced down the hallway, the rank smell of death all around.
At the end he a saw a door. Above the door, writing in the Skiohra language, which he did not know. And below the writing, etched symbols of four figures.
“We’ve arrived. I can go no further. Everything within me prevents it. It is difficult for me to even contemplate what action to take next.”
She sounded genuinely rattled.
“Has this room been entered before?” said Proctor.
“Once. By my sister, Jarum Krull.”
Everyone turned to look at her in surprise. “Really?” said Proctor. “Why didn’t you just ask her what was in there?”
“Because she never came out.”
The fighter pilot shrugged. “Sounds dangerous.”
Proctor was studying the symbols above the door. “Well one clearly looks human. The other, perhaps Skiohra? And the third, Dolmasi? It looks vaguely reptilian. And the fourth? Another figure who’s shape most closely matches the Skiohra and the human, but … different. And these rays coming from the head. I don’t understand.” She pointed at the writing. “What does it say?”
“Open at the end. And the end is the beginning.”
Proctor clutched a black box in her hands that Sepulveda only now noticed. “The end. Well if there were ever a time in either our history or yours that I would call the end, now is it. The Swarm will exterminate us within days if nothing is done.”
Kharsa hissed. “Just like you did to the Valarisi, Companion to the Hero.”
She closed her eyes. “Maybe not, Vishgane.” She opened them again, wide, fixed upon the fourth figure. “Oh my god. Matriarch, the proto-Ligature you’re feeling. You think one cause of it might be a single unit of the Valarisi people returning to consciousness. Or a few. Could it be…?” She pointed at the fourth figure, rays extending from its head.
“Could it be that some amount of Valarisi fluid has found a host? I suppose that’s a possibility, yes.”
Proctor reached out and touched her arm. “Couldn’t you … reach out to them?”
Krull looked mortified. “Through a proto-Ligature that I did not have a hand in creating or maintaining? That is a terrible risk, Shelby Proctor. When the Swarm controlled the Ligature, it was their way of controlling us. I have no idea what would happen to me if I did so, if this proto-Ligature was created by one with bad intentions.”
“Matriarch, how badly do you want to know what’s in that room?”
“That’s the problem, Shelby Proctor, the Unthinkable Thought forbids me from wanting to know what’s in that room.”
“And yet here we all are,” insisted Proctor, verging on impatience. “You may not want to get in there, but you know, logically, using reason, that it may be our only hope against the Swarm.”
“Yes.”
“And logically, you know that reaching out to what may be the fourth figure above that door might be the final key to enter safely. Your sister died. Perhaps because she entered alone. Why not try it with the proper four?” She glanced back at the marines who both hefted assault rifles. “With a proper escort this time, I’d think.”
“How can I know I won’t fall under the sway of the Swarm again? How can I know this being has good intentions?”
Proctor shook her head. “You don’t. Sometimes you just have to … have faith. Trust. Take that giant leap when you can’t see the bottom.”
Krull breathed deeply and closed her eyes. “Very well, Shelby Proctor. Very well. You have saved us before. Perhaps with your words you will save us again.”
Vishgane Kharsa interjected with a hiss. “And with your ships.” He followed with a bouncing growl. “I expect a glorious fight after all this.” More bouncing growl with some hissing.
Proctor grinned at him, and Sepulveda finally figured out that Kharsa had been laughing.
Krull’s eyes were still closed, and she reached out to the wall to steady her as she squeezed them shut even further, until her forehead was wrinkled and it looked like she was in intense pain.
Proctor reached out to her again. “Matriarch? Are you ok?”
“Yes. It’s difficult. Much … concentration. Energy. Silence please.”
A full minute passed as she leaned against the wall, eyes wrenched shut, breathing long, slow breaths.
Finally, she stood fully upright and opened her eyes. “They’re coming. In fact, they’re almost here.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Bridge
Sword of Justice
Gas giant Calais
Britannia system
Danny Proctor, at the helm of a ship much, much smaller than his beloved Magdalena Issachar but far faster and with mag-rail guns, guided them into orbit around Calais, just a few dozen kilometers from Wellington Station. Liu was at the tactical station searching through the ship registries and transponders.
“Found it. The Defiance. It’s unstealthed, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s right next to the Independence, and you won’t believe this, Interstellar One. The President of United Earth is here. And all three ships are right over there by the Skiohra generation ship.”
Danny had closed his eyes. Searching inward. Feeling the thoughts of his new friend. “I think we’re supposed to go on board. On board the Benevolence. Is that its name?”
Liu nodded. “It is. And yes. I feel the same way.” She searched through some sensor data, closed her eyes, and when she opened them pointed to a spot on a schematic
layout of the Benevolence. “Here. Dock here.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The forbidden hallway
Skiohra generation ship Benevolence
Gas giant Calais
Britannia System
Krull had no sooner said “They’re almost here,” than when the lift doors opened behind them, back down the hallway.
“Oh my god,” said Proctor. She almost dropped the box. “Danny.” Her eyes were wet. A hand covered her mouth.
And then she started running.
The two embraced. “Hi, Aunt Shelby.” He pulled back for a moment and eyed the hallway. “Nice new digs you’ve got here.”
“Oh Danny.” She pulled him in again, her face buried in his chest, as he was almost a full foot taller. “Do you know? About Britannia?”
He only nodded.
“I’m so sorry, Danny.” The two cried. She’d both dreamed of this moment, and, ever since Britannia, dreaded it. But now that she was finally holding him, the tears were released. And she didn’t even try holding them back. But only for half a minute.
There was a civilization to save, after all. Four of them.
Four, not three.
She sobbed once more as she realized it. She could save four civilizations. The Valarisi were not dead.
She composed herself. Admirals do not cry. Especially not in battle, even when your brother dies. Even when eight billion of your brothers die.
“Delivered as promised, ma’am,” said Liu, finally catching up to Danny halfway down the hallway.
“You.” Proctor eyed her. Her facial burns were fading. Of course. The reason why she was able to withstand so much physical punishment. The explosion on Bolivar. The deadly radiation in the Defiance engineering room. She remembered how Tim Granger, when he was taken captive by the Swarm controlled Russians, was injected with Swarm matter, and it saved his life. Cured his cancer. Essentially brought him back to life. “You were carrying a Valarisi in you. The whole time. It all makes sense now.”
Liu shook her head. “No, ma’am. I wasn’t. Well, I am now. But that’s only in the last few hours.” She turned to Danny. “He infected me. Willingly. With my permission. And ma’am … it’s remarkable. They’re a race so advanced, so enlightened, so … beautiful….” She looked down and chuckled. “Look at me. Calling something beautiful. Never thought I’d see the day.”
Proctor, still holding Danny at arms length, looked back at him. Searching his face. Trying to find signs of an alien intelligence. “Danny? Is it true?”
“I’ve felt him … her … it … inside me now for two weeks. Small at first. Hardly anything there at all. But within a few hours it was a real presence, and I could hear its voice. Feel what it felt. I had thoughts that weren’t mine, but I knew which thoughts were mine and which weren’t. It doesn’t control me. All I feel is … benevolence.” A smile spread over his still-healing face. “And it’s incredibly happy, excited, to rebuild its race. It already reproduced. Fiona there hosts its offspring.”
Proctor felt as sense of profound awe wash over her. And at the same time, the realization of the crimes of the Swarm were made even more apparent. That they’d hijacked a benevolent, enlightened, beautiful race of beings, and corrupted them, bastardized them into something so ruthless and evil. Becoming just another tool in the Swarm’s arsenal to conquer all. To rule all. Not just rule. Enslave.
“I think it’s time we go kick the Swarm’s ass. Don’t you? Anyone disagree?” She spoke to the crowd of people around her.
Kharsa hissed and bounced a growl in a Dolmasi style laugh. “Let’s go drink their blood. The Companion is ready to fight, and so am I.”
“Then let’s go see what’s in there.”
They assembled in front of the door. Proctor. Kharsa to her left. Danny to her right. “Matriarch? We need you too.”
“I cannot.”
“Matriarch, if this is going to happen, you must come with us,” said Proctor.
“You misunderstand me, Shelby Proctor. I mean that I physically cannot move my body to enter this room.”
“But then—”
“That does not mean that I can’t be carried, however.”
The near absurdity of it almost caught Proctor by surprise. But that day was full of absurdities and surprises, that, set against the backdrop of the death of Britannia, seemed to pale into bland banality. “Fine. Kharsa?”
The Dolmasi reached over and with what looked like very little effort, picked Krull up. The Matriarch struggle, no doubt an automatic reaction of her deep-seeded, primal urge to stay away from this place. But Kharsa’s grip was tight.
Proctor grabbed the ancient handle. It turned, the door opened, and the four stepped into the room.
Chapter Sixty
The forbidden room
Skiohra generation ship Benevolence
Gas giant Calais
Britannia System
The room was surprisingly empty, but that was before Proctor noticed the black curtain drawn in front of them. From the air flow and acoustics, the room felt much larger than the empty five by four meter space in front of them.
Not quite empty.
A set of Skiohra clothing, crusted with old, brown blood, lay neatly folded next to the wall by the door. Proctor shook her arm. “Krull. Are those your sister’s?”
Polrum Krull, still held tightly by Kharsa, hesitantly opened her eyes and looked down. “Yes.” She immediately closed her eyes again.
“Then I’m sorry,” said Proctor. A bloody set of clothing was not an encouraging sign that they’d find the sister alive.
But how the hell had the clothes been folded?
“Matriarch. Are you one hundred percent certain that no one else has been in here besides your sister?”
Krull shook her head. “No one. The hallway had a guard set on it after her disappearance and the ship’s locator tracked her here.”
“Then you either have a very stealthy maid, or someone lives in this room.”
Proctor walked forward and parted the curtain.
And gasped.
“Is that … a robot?”
A humanoid-looking contraption stood in the center of the room, facing them. Its head was clearly plastic or ceramic, with some vaguely human features and other distinctly Skiohra features such as the faint blue tinge. And others bore striking resemblance to Kharsa, such as the scaling down the neck and the somewhat flat vertical pupils.
But it was unmistakably artificial. It looked to have flesh-like hands, but the rest of its arms were exposed metal, servos, actuators and wires. Same with the legs. It was not clothed, and its torso was a mix of androgynous features and more obvious machinery such as an abdomen that was similarly composed of various electronics.
It was holding a sword.
And it’s voice was vaguely mechanical too. A synthetic noise. Too perfect. Too uncanny. But it had placed the sword on a shelf hanging off the wall. “Welcome, friends. I apologize for the fate of your friend that entered earlier, but now that the appropriate number and type of beings have entered, I can stand down. I’ve waiting for you a long, long, long time.”
“How long?” Proctor studied the robot’s other, less noticeable features. It had lips, but they seemed to be shiny plastic rather than anything resembling flesh. It was bald. Just a smooth, shiny plastic head. But its eyebrows moved when it talked, though they seemed to be painted on rather than being composed of actual hair.
“More than a million years,” it said. “Fortunately I was not programmed to be impatient.”
Krull’s eyes were still closed, but she managed to speak. “Who are you? What are you doing aboard my ship? How did you get here? Who let you in?”
“I’m the caretaker of this place. I’m here because it’s my place. I was here from the very beginning. I may well have been built in this room, for all I know. And as for who let me in—” It cocked its head in a decidedly human fashion. “I’m not allowed to say. Similar to Polrum Krull’s biolog
ical mandate to not think about this place. That was also … programmed, if you will.”
“But why did so many of my sisters lose their respect for the Unthinkable Thought?” said Krull.
“Because it was time,” it replied, as if that explained everything.
“Time for what?”
“Time for the end.”
The words sent a chill up Proctor’s spine. Kharsa growled low in his throat.
“But maybe I can help you, Polrum Krull. Will you allow me to touch your cranium?”
Eyes still closed, she seemed to consider this. Finally, she nodded. “I consent.”
The robot stepped forward with perfect grace like the entertainment robots on Britannia or Earth or New Dublin that populated the taverns and brothels. It reached a hand out to Krull head, its servos and actuators whirring and clicking. When contact was made, it only took a few seconds before Krull opened her eyes. “It is not permanent nor complete. I can’t remove such a deeply engrained biological and psychological response. But I’ve magnetically stimulated an appropriate area of your amygdala that will permit you to disregard it, with some effort.
“Thank you. Vishgane, please set me down.”
Kharsa lowered her to the ground. Proctor studied the rest of the room. Large chambers lined the walls, each with indicators, tubes, wiring, and controls. The walls were full of monitors and screens showing technical diagrams, and, occasionally, what looked like maps of solar systems, clusters of stars, whole quadrants of the galaxy, and even one that looked it might be the local group of galaxies. Certain colors shaded various areas of space demarcating different areas of space that Proctor did not see the logic of.
“You said it was time for the end. What do you mean?”
“Admiral Shelby Proctor. There will be all the time in the world to explain everything later. I will place myself at your disposal for years, if need be, to answer all your questions. But now is the time for action. The Swarm is upon us. Earth only has a few hours. Verdra Dol less than a day. San Martin may fall today as well, along with New Dublin, Bolivar, and Mao Prime. Tomorrow, based on the Swarm’s patterns, it will likely be the Irigoyen sector and all the planets there. Within the week? We’ll all be terminated, except for a scattered few ships and stations too small to attract notice. But the Swarm will be through. Their hatred for humanity is especially hot. And for the Skiohra. And the Dolmasi. And the Valarisi.”
