HUSH

by Craig Robert Saunders

  Then, she saw it. Saw what Jin pointed to, his frame shining with a faint glow – the anomaly.

  Night was close on their heels. It was just a darker shadow in the constant disconcerting light, but it was there.

  Jin began to move away. Ulrich turned the track-drive aside.

  ‘Jin?’ asked Anna. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the giant. ‘Something...’

  He leaned down so that he could brushed aside the snow. There were marks in the ice leading toward the citadel on a different path to theirs. Near those grooves scarring the ages-old surface ice, entirely hidden beneath layer of powdered snow, was a Hush drone. It sparked, an electrical fault evident and its casing battered and open. Levitation and thus movement seemed impossible but perhaps in some capacity it still functioned.

  Jin held his hand up once more in a gesture simple enough for Anna to read.

  Silence.

  *

  With only simple hand signals Jin swiftly made himself clear to the rest of their small party. Jin’s fingers were longer than any human proportions. He could have placed a finger to his lips to quiet them, but it was military signs he used, and military signs were easy enough to understand. Anything Anna, Cassie or Lian were unclear on, Ulrich translated into signs more easily understandable to non-military, and mouthed words to the rest of team wherever Jin’s meaning was lost.

  There was no sense in asking after the health of the drone. It was a simply robotic device, with very basic purpose. A mobile comms unit, with no other abilities or functions of use to them. It wasn’t AI, not AP. A thing, a construct, no more important than a shower unit, or a food dispenser. Still, the sight of it woke something in Cassie Kiyobashi. Perhaps her innate cop, and cops weren’t just about putting down villains, but helping those who could not help themselves.

  Helpless and somehow pathetic, even though it was a mere robot, the drone emitted a barely audible hum from someplace inside. In the wind, she could only hear it all because she stood over it. Something inside sizzled, like circuitry burning out.

  ‘You’re a Hush drone?’ asked Cassie.

  ‘Can you reach Hush?’ Ulrich said, kneeling beside the unit, too.

  ‘Unable to function,’ it replied, and even that small effort seemed to worsen the damage inside the unit. The Drone’s voice was strained, jittery, as though speech modules, along with levitation mods, were broken beyond any of their ability to repair.

  And did they even want it to reach Hush?

  ‘Does Hush know where we are?’ asked Jin.

  ‘Unknown.’

  ‘Why have you moved?’ asked Anna. ‘Were you left behind...by the Augs?’

  Good question, thought Cassie.

  ‘Unknown.’

  ‘We have to move on,’ said Ulrich. ‘There are other possibilities, too, right?’

  He looked at each in turn. All understood well enough to refrain from further discussion.

  Cassie had more questions, but the drone couldn’t answer, and she wasn’t about to get into any kind of conversation about Hush while the drone was present.

  Hush lied, and the drone serves Hush.

  Anna flicked her head toward the broken drone to let them know she knew what she was doing, and said, ‘Isn’t it possible that Hush herself is gone?’

  The Drone did not interject. A robot with no personality or intellect and likely detached from Hush was of little use to them.

  Unless we’re wrong about that, too, thought Cassie. What if these little orbs are more than comms devices...it’s possible, isn’t it?

  ‘I think...whatever,’ Cassie pointed at the drone, ‘The situation is, we assume we’re alone. We proceed. We survive. What else is there?’

  ‘Can you come along? Are you terminating?’ Anna asked the drone.

  ‘Null function.’

  Jin took the drone under his arm like a giant football player. Cassie wondered why he bothered to bring it, but without the ability to speak freely...

  Then, she understood that was exactly why Jin intended to bring the drone along.

  He’s bringing it until he is sure, she thought. Because Jin knows he makes mistakes, and tries not to.

  No one needed to go over it further. There was something rotten about the whole thing and none were in any kind of disagreement about that. If the drone lied about its ability to function, Hush might already know they lived, and where they were. If that were the case, then it was too late, wasn’t it?

  *

  PART FIVE

  Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.

  -

  Nikola Tesla

  LIES

  41.

  The Company Rules

  Unknown Ship – Outside

  The Anomaly

  Exhausted, and the constant darkness deepening, they moved to the nearest entry point they found. Perhaps they moved overly cautiously...perhaps without sufficient caution. Most of their defensive and offences capacity rested solely on Jin’s broad shoulders, and that sense of security he afford them proved false all too soon.

  Ulrich steered the track-drive to the entrance, Lian moving left of it, Anna right, and Cassie constantly craning her head behind, doing her best to watch their backs.

  Jin halted them before a giant doorway, an addition or modification to one of the six spoke-ships which formed the main structure of the anomaly. Those ships were laid end-long, so they would look like a wheel without a rim. That wheel that wasn’t going anywhere, but what they knew of the anomaly came from a ship they could no longer trust.

  Each ship pointed inward toward a central hub. The hub was the source, the epicentre. If they were to discover what could emit a power signature huge enough to draw Hush from far outside the solar system...

  Ulrich shook his head. The movement hurt his neck, as did trying to look up to see if there was an end to the ship. The wind and snow blew against them, then seemed to abate, just a little.

  It’s the anomaly, thought Ulrich.

  The thing must be huge, immense, to change the weather so drastically – large enough to block the storm from the all, and the landed Leviathan was their only way forward, the only sensible path available to them.

  Hush, Hush...

  Everything came back to Hush, and if she was their nemesis, the author of their ills? Was anything she’d told them true?

  Barely anything was visible outside of their small lights, and Jin’s glowing form could only illuminate their surrounds up to a point – should he brighten any more they would be blind to all but him. As it was, Ulrich couldn’t see enough of the broader picture to discern the shape of the ship.

  Hush had told them these ships were human in origin...but so far everything she’d sold them was slippery as snake oil and stank like bullshit.

  ‘Jin... anything?’

  ‘No. Nothing at all.’ Jin, too, stared upward. He didn’t need too, but Ulrich watched, and noticed more than any of them. The longer Jin spent in their company, the more human mannerisms the Titan seemed to pick up.

  Or, thought Ulrich, maybe he’s not picking them up, so much as he’s remembering.

  ‘Nothing? Augs, drones...nothing?’

  All watched their words. It paid to be cautious, because they could trust nothing on this planet but themselves. They trusted each other because they had to, but they’d proved themselves, too, hadn’t they? The strange group, all of them with little enough in common, had become a team in fact and not just name.

  That thought gave Ulrich some semblance of comfort. Anna’s next words tore that comfort away, though.

  ‘If they’re not out here...’ she said, ‘Then, they’re inside?’

  If bringing the drone was a mistake, if it could transmit more, if nothing could be trusted. Ulrich hated this whole mess. They could trust nothing and no one but each other, but with no haven, no goal, no end in sight...how long could they carry on?

 
They had to take chances, and keep right on taking chances, because they had two choices – move on, or give in. That was no choice at all, and danger waited at every fork in their path. They didn’t know enough to be careless, and they didn’t know enough to be stupid. The best they could do was tread with caution, and be watchful.

  ‘I fought for AIN Corp,’ said Ulrich. ‘But I imagine Company regulations, any armed force, even...they’d all be roughly the same. Right? Jin? Wouldn’t an excursion force would establish a base, comms, a defensive site...? Can you scan inside?’

  ‘No,’ said Jin. ‘My scans are blocked. I believed I would be able to penetrate this...if we were closer. It’s like some...miasma. A shield. I thought the hull might block some senses, but this is something entirely different. The ship’s mass dulls my senses and the energy from the hub swirls my sight. The energy is nearly...’

  No pride, but Ulrich did think he detected some degree of surprise – maybe even embarrassment – from the Titan.

  ‘Jin?’

  Seeing Jin so unsettled was deeply troubling for all of them.

  ‘In your terms? My sight dims, and I am...hard of hearing. This thing muffles all my senses. I am less effective, and that worries me, because it increases danger to all of you.’

  ‘Danger to you, Jin?’

  ‘I am very hardy,’ said the Titan.

  No kidding, thought Ulrich.

  He looked up at the shadow ahead, something dark – like a mountain, but one with no incline, no gradual slope. A cliff, black, and so large the snow had no choice but to move away from it.

  ‘What do we do?’ said Cassie. ‘We can’t stay outside. Help’s not coming. We’re all clear on that, right?’

  Jin still cradled the drone beneath his long arm – but with the drone’s presence any chance to discuss Hush was robbed from them.

  The anomaly, the vast cliff face of only one Colony Class ship, seemed to watch them. Superstition, of course, and entirely unknowable, but Ulrich couldn’t shake the feeling that the anomaly itself knew of their arrival.

  Possible, though, right? It’s not just superstition, is it? Hush is AP. These ships, too. Without doubt.

  So are they living, still? Or relics? Corpses forgotten in the snow?

  That didn’t feel right to Ulrich, though. If that were true, if this were no more than a dead structure, the energy source would be gone, too, wouldn’t it?

  There was so much they didn’t know, and so much they couldn’t talk about. Why had Jin brought the drone? The drone, as much as the dulling of Jin’s senses, was hampering them, hobbling their progress and their safety.

  He’d effectively told them he wasn’t in charge, but that didn’t matter now, did it? His silence might endanger them all, and that wasn’t being a leader. That was just being a decent human being.

  ‘Are they dead?’ said Anna, forestalling Ulrich’s next question.

  ‘No,’ said Jin. ‘They are not.’

  *

  42.

  New Doorways

  Unknown Ship

  Entranceway

  ‘Jin?’ said Cassie. ‘Why aren’t they communicating?’

  ‘There is some form of shielding technology...I cannot pierce it.’

  ‘Tech like yours?’

  ‘Similar but more powerful, further advanced...I cannot even discern how such a field was constructed, let along breach it to scan within.’

  ‘Can you break through?’

  ‘I apologise, Cassie. I was unclear. The barrier is not physical. It is preventing penetration via any medium of investigation I have at my disposal. It is...blanking the site out.’

  ‘So...’ said Ulrich. ‘Something is generating this field...which means something is either alive or functioning inside, whether the ships are speaking or not.’

  The drone beneath Jin’s arm did and said nothing other than emit that strange, broken electronic hum. There was no indication it listened, or even if it still functioned.

  The snow lessened in the shelter of the huge ship, but it was still heavy enough there was a fair covering on the track-drive. Stationary, they were feeling the cold, and darkness was rising.

  Ulrich took his rifle from his back and switched his scope through spectrums. Through the snow, even with the enhanced telescopic sight, he registered nothing around them. No movement, no turrets, not even automated defensive measures. Nothing on any spectrum.

  He didn’t like the drone, he didn’t like the ship, and he didn’t like much about the entire planet so far.

  No Augs, or drones, or activity. Nothing at all?

  This felt just as wrong as wreckage of the Silver Dollar, and his heckles were up.

  Hush lied, of that he had little doubt now. But why? Why send them only to try to kill them?

  It made no sense, and the uncertainty was making Ulrich’s head ache.

  ‘Move in, Jin,’ he said. ‘Can you?’

  The Titan shrugged, another very human gesture, and moved to the opening. He ran those huge hands of his over the door, searching for some way to open it.

  ‘There is significant modification to this ship. It is unlike Hush...it...’

  The door hissed, and vented gas.

  Oxygen. Atmosphere. Respite?

  He hoped so. He knew they had no other options, but didn’t mean he wasn’t tired of it all. There was a reason he’d never wanted to be higher than a sergeant in AIN Corp’s army. He hated enigmas, he hated puzzles. The idea of figuring out a whole campaign?

  Fuck that, he thought. I’d rather just fight.

  *

  Cassie didn’t like the chances. Nothing had gone right so far. Didn’t mean it wouldn’t go right at some point, though?

  I have no way to measure that, though, do I? Because I don’t know what going right is supposed to be...

  Other than not dying.

  ‘The door isn’t original,’ said Jin. ‘Step back. To the side.’

  In case something tries to kill us.

  Jin didn’t step back, like the others. He stood directly in front of the opening as the doors parted, sliding sideways and slightly at an angle in two distinct sections back into recesses in the hull.

  Nothing shot at them. Nothing came screaming in a tumble of alien legs toward them.

  Just a long dark passageway behind the door.

  The difference in temperature and atmosphere vented steam into the cold outside.

  If these ships are abandoned...why do they have an atmosphere?

  ‘Should we?’ said Anna. She clearly didn’t want to go in. Like Ulrich, like Cassie, too, Anna’s senses were heightened beyond the norm, and the whole place had both their backs up.

  Cassie remembered thinking anywhere would be better than Earth, than the constant fight for survival on streets where everyone wanted her dead, and then those she counted on to watch out for her as she watched out for them turned on her, too.

  She never expected paradise. But this planet? The dark interior of this spoke-ship?

  It should have been some comfort to see someplace out of the awful weather. She didn’t understand why the idea of a break from the endless cold, the uncertainty, the tiredness, didn’t seem more inviting.

  Yes, she thought. I know exactly why, and it’s disappointment I’m feeling. I want it to be comfort, safety, rest...but it’s not right. It doesn’t feel right.

  Cassie looked to the drone, too, which Jin had set beside the track-drive. She had that same feeling about the drone. Why? There was nothing special about the drone.

  It just didn’t feel right, and it certainly didn’t feel any warmer to her when they stepped inside.

  *

  43.

  Darkness Brightens

  Entranceway

  Unknown Ship

  The others followed their intuition, trusted in it, even. Lian wasn’t built that way. Perhaps, when she’d been a child, there might have been a time when she’d believed in more than logic, and science, and reason. Perhaps then she’d be
en open to wonder, to magic, to the pure joy of discovering something true despite that she could not prove it by any reasonable means.

  All she remembered without any doubt was that moment when all wonder was gone. It was when her brother became sick. Trust, intuition, chance; these things became anathema.

  Science and certainty became her.

  Was that why I chose to flee here, to space? To discover something worthy of awe?

  She thought that perhaps it was.

  Now, faced with the choice of stepping into the dark, or standing around in the cold, she stepped forward. Where else could they go?

  ‘Jin...we need to establish someplace to fall back, a base. Here? What do you think? Cassie?’

  Ulrich didn’t confer with Lian or Anna because neither had combat experience, and both were very aware of the fact. The pistols they wore were more for show. Anna knew what to do with hers. Lian knew enough to keep hers holstered.

  In agreement, they pulled the track-drive to the side of the large, long entrance passage. Inside was safer than out, though if the door closed, or became blocked, or if attack came from outside...

  Jin placed the broken drone atop the track-drive.

  ‘Any way of telling what these ships are?’ asked Lian as she followed Ulrich’s commands, setting out what they should take from the vehicle on a short excursion deeper into the ship.

  She felt better, if still woozy, and her right arm was weak, but she was functioning. The meds in her system might have something to do with her assessment of her own condition though, but she wasn’t concerned yet, and couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Too many variables, just like every single day.

  Probabilities, but certainty out of reach, and Lian never enjoyed that sense of control slipping away. She just wasn’t built to like that. She didn’t take joy in living at all.