The Dark Imbalance
Page 5
“But this is not such an occasion, is it?” said Roche. The silence which followed was filled with unspoken disapproval for her interruption.
“This council,” continued the voice shortly, “was called forty-six months ago, and is now in full session.”
“Forty-six months?” Roche exclaimed, not caring whose sensibilities she offended. She wanted answers, not speeches.
Movement to her right caught her eye as a figure in blue took a step toward her. She interpreted it as a warning against further interruptions, and ground her teeth together.
“We have been aware of this threat for that long. Only recently, however, did we learn about Sol System. Our data showed an apparent convergence upon this region, although not enough on its own to fix the location precisely. An attack on a nearby system helped us triangulate traffic among the civilizations we’ve been keeping an eye on, suspecting them to be corrupted. We were among the first to arrive here, barely a week ago.”
The figure to Roche’s right shifted once again.
“The speed with which word has spread is phenomenal,” the speaker continued. “Ships continue to arrive at the rate of over one hundred every hour. We have reopened several secondary anchor points on the fringes of the system, to act as exits should congestion worsen. If that is not enough, we might have to close the main anchor point altogether. That way, only the most determined will be able to come here.”
The figure in blue took several more steps forward, close enough now so that Roche could make out the face of a man, the blue-white light from the spike above casting deep shadows in the lines of his aging features. He was the one talking, not the Heresiarch.
“The situation here is approaching a watershed,” he said. “The council senses a change coming, but does not know what form it will take, or to what purpose it comes. Some of us suspect that you might lie at the heart of it, Morgan Roche, and believe that you can help us with an answer to this question. Will you do so?”
“Of course,” she said without hesitation. Looking at the Heresiarch, she added: “After all, That’s why I’m here.”
She saw Vischilglin nod approvingly as she turned back to the speaker.
“I am Esko Murnane,” he continued. “My superiors in Pompili sent me as their plenipotent envoy to the council, and the council in turn has declared me chairperson for this hearing. You have already met Hue Vischilglin, co-adjutant to the leaders of the Rond-Spellor Outlook. Although a minimum of thirty Pristine nations are required to allow the full and proper council to sit, at present we number four hundred and seven. All have representatives here today, although few, if any, will be known to you. We will, therefore, forgo introductions for the time being. Should you be asked to join our cause, the identities of your questioners will become known to you then.”
Again, Roche nodded. “I understand.”
“Good. You stand before the council as a witness to the aftermath of the atrocity that recently occurred in Palasian System, and as someone who appears to have a deeper association with the enemy than most of us here.” The slow steadiness of his speech combined with what he was saying lent Murnane an air of deep, long-standing authority. “All of us have been touched by the enemy, in one way or another, to our detriment and lasting regret. So we are keen now to hear all that you have learned.”
He paused and looked around the enormous chamber, his eyes eventually finding their way back to Roche. When he spoke, they remained upon her, but his words were directed to everyone present.
“Who will begin?” he said.
“I will.” The voice came from the far side of the chamber. Another male, but younger, and fair complexioned. “Each of the many nations in the council was drawn here under a different pretext, none seemingly more convincing than any other. We hope to find one that predominates, for that one might contain a shred of truth. By what name do you refer to the enemy, Morgan Roche?”
“At first,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly, addressing her reply equally between her questioner, Murnane, and the Heresiarch, “we thought they were Wunderkind created by the Sol Apotheosis Movement. They had a base in this system, a couple of thousand years ago—”
“We are familiar with their history,” the speaker interrupted. “So, have you ascertained another name for them now?”
“No,” said Roche. “I’m afraid not.”
“We are told that you have one of the enemy aboard your ship.”
“Yes, we do.”
“And what does he have to say on the matter?”
Roche shook her head. “Nothing.”
Another voice spoke, this time a woman to Roche’s left: “But he does have a name?”
“Yes,” said Roche. “His name is Adoni Cane.”
“A name of your choosing?” said the woman.
“No, it’s what he called himself when we first met. I’ve never had cause to doubt him. Later it produced a match in Dato Bloc’s historical records, confirming a link to the Sol Apotheosis Movement.”
“Which later turned out to be spurious?”
Roche nodded.
“How do you account for that?”
She frowned, fighting her automatic urge to answer with the truth. The AT had faked the historical data in order to mislead the COE and other neighboring governments—and also to throw any of the “enemy” off the trail. If the enemy knew how close the High Humans behind the Crescend and the Box were getting—even if it wasn’t very close at all—it might work to their advantage.
The fact that it still might, in the midst of the Interim Emergency Pristine Council, gave her cause to reconsider.
“Would you like the question repeated?” said Murnane.
“No, that’s okay,” she said. “I guess I can’t account for the discrepancy. Maybe the data was deliberately corrupted by the enemy in order to throw us off the trail.”
“That is certainly a possibility,” said Murnane, coming forward. “There is a risk of infiltration and perversion at every level. I fear we have not yet seen the full extent of the enemy’s abilities or motivations. Until we do, we must assume the worst— even of ourselves.”
“Has Adoni Cane ever revealed any detail regarding his origins?” The speaker, another woman, was very close and directly behind Roche.
She turned toward the voice, but was unsure which of the many faces looking back at her had asked the question. “He seems to have no knowledge of his origins,” she said, addressing them all. “He doesn’t know where he came from or why he’s here.”
“You’re saying he has no memory?” This time Roche saw who had spoken: a young girl, tall and thin, with flaxen hair brushing the shoulders of her blue robe.
“Everything since his awakening is clear,” said Roche. “But nothing before then.”
“And you are convinced he is telling the truth?”
She hesitated, remembering her most recent conversation with Cane. “I trust him as much as I can,” she said. “Under the circumstances.”
“Because he claims to be one of the enemy?”
“Yes. That is, he talks about them as if they are his siblings; he shares certain characteristics with them.”
“What characteristics, precisely?”
“Well, his genetic profile is profoundly abnormal,” she said.
“And his body is patently modified in order to make him a good soldier. I haven’t seen hard data on others like him, but I do know that if he set his mind to it, he’d be more than capable of the same destructive force that they have displayed. And when in Palasian System he did respond to a command language understood by the other clone warriors—”
Murnane held up a hand. “We will return to Palasian System in a moment,” he said. “First we’d like to hear how you met up with this Adoni Cane, and what you have observed about his behavior to date.”
She took a moment to organize
her thoughts, then began to talk—describing succinctly how she and Cane had met on the Midnight, how they had escaped and crash-landed on the surface of Sciacca’s World, and their pursuit and eventual escape from the penal colony.
“He helped you escape?” The question was from another council member whose thick accent was unfamiliar to Roche; she had to concentrate to understand what he was saying. “From prison wardens corrupted by a rival government? Do you know why he did this?”
“No,” she said, with a shake of her head. “And I have to admit that it’s puzzled me.”
“Can you explain why his behavior is so different from the others?”
She shrugged lightly. “The best explanation I can come up with is that he’s a freak,” she said. “A mistake.”
“You mentioned genetic data, earlier,” said one of the previous speakers, the man with the fair complexion. “Will you give us access to this data?”
“Gladly,” she said. “If I may contact my ship...”
“Your lines of communication are not being interfered with in any way,” said Murnane.
She was about to turn back to Murnane when she remembered Maii’s suit standing immobile beside her.
<1 wouldn’t let them do that, Morgan,> the girl reassured her.
Murnane cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he said. “We have received the data and will examine it later.” He folded his arms and took a couple of thoughtful paces around the font. “But I am curious. At the time Cane was examined on the Midnight, news had not yet reached your corner of the galaxy that there even was a problem he might be part of, otherwise his capsule would have been instantly identified. And on Sciacca’s World, your rebel friends had access to even more limited information about the outside world. Yet our sources in the Commonwealth of Empires reveal that in a very short space of time you determined precisely what was going on—bearing in mind the Sol Apotheosis Movement fallacy—and confronted your superiors with that knowledge. When was it that you managed to piece it all together?”
Roche opened her mouth to speak—then shut it again. If they had sources in the COE, chances were they already knew the answers to every question they had asked so far. So why go through the motions?
Then she reminded herself: trust no one. They could no more believe their sources than they could believe her—even if one corroborated the other.
She didn’t envy them their position.
“It wasn’t me so much who put it all together.” She half expected a nagging voice in her ear telling her to be careful what she said. “It was the Box.”
“What is this ‘Box’?” It was asked in the same thick, unfamiliar accent as before, except that this time the questioner was female. “I take it you are referring to some sort of intelligence- gathering device?”
“An AI, yes.” Roche nodded. “I was carrying it to Intelligence HQ when I was intercepted by the Dato Bloc. That’s how I ended up on Sciacca’s World in the first place.”
“This device reasoned that Adoni Cane was one of the enemy?”
“Yes,” she said. “And everything afterward seemed to confirm it.”
“How was this device able to do something you yourself were unable to do?”
“The Box was no ordinary device,” Roche said, remembering to use the past tense. “It was a truly remarkable piece of engineering. It suspected from the very start who Cane was. It even faked the distress call that led to the capsule’s discovery.”
“So it had access to information which you did not?”
“Yes, like the command language. But it wasn’t just that. It actually thought better than I did.”
“Impossible. No AI has yet surpassed a Human intelligence.”
Roche shrugged. “I told you it was remarkable.”
“And who built this amazing device?”
“It was manufactured on Trinity,” said Roche. “They specialize in AIs there.”
There was a muted whisper. Then Murnane spoke. “We have no record of such a place.”
“No?” She looked around and out of the corner of her eye caught the gold robes of the Heresiarch. She had forgotten he was there. “Go ask your sources,” she said. “They’ll confirm it exists.”
Murnane stirred. “What say you, Trezise?”
Startled first by the familiar name, Roche almost jumped as a familiar voice followed: “We know the place. It’s administered by a High Human we have had some dealings with—an entity calling himself the Crescend.” The man’s voice was flat, emotionless, almost dead. “The AI Roche refers to did indeed come from this place, but as to its other abilities...”
Salton Trezise, Roche remembered—senior aide to Auberon Chase, head of COE Intelligence. She should’ve guessed someone like him would be here.
“You are not aware of any facility capable of making Human- superior AIs in COE jurisdiction?” Murnane pressed.
Trezise’s tone didn’t change as he said: “I’d sooner believe in aliens.”
Murnane turned back to Roche. “You will understand if we hesitate to accept this aspect of your story without any hard evidence to back it up,” he said. “Unless you could produce this AI for us to examine, perhaps?”
She didn’t need the tiny prod the Box gave her. “I’m afraid it was destroyed along with Palasian System.”
“I see.” A sigh carried his words. “Well, the exact manner of your discovery of the enemy is not the issue here. What is important is the fact that you learned of their existence and went seeking more data. What can you tell us about Adoni Cane that we have not already covered?”
“The Box thought we should check the introns of Cane’s genetic code,” she said. “But I don’t know what for.”
Murnane nodded as though the suggestion was trivial. “And your young charge here.” He pointed to Maii. “Does she have nothing to contribute to this discussion?”
Murnane raised a hand before Roche could pass the message on. “Simply speak to me,” he said, “as you would to Roche, and a relay will announce the message for all to hear.”
“—words?”
Roche heard the girl’s voice directly through her own senses and a split second later through the relay, aloud. The relay stood on the far side of Roche; it was disconcerting to hear the girl’s voice coming from two directions almost simultaneously.
“And appropriate images, where necessary.” Murnane inclined his head in welcome. “Please feel free to share with us any impressions you received regarding the mind of Adoni Cane and any other member of the enemy’s number you have encountered.”
Maii did so, conveying as best she could a number of conflicting visions. Cane possessed a mental shield that was difficult to penetrate, but did allow him to communicate with her by epsense and occasionally offered strange glimpses of what lay beyond. Sometimes, Cane’s mind seemed to spin like a top; at other times it was as still and clear as a lake, or a mirror. The irikeii had imagined him as a glowing light-source with a speck of black at its heart, and also as a snake coiling and uncoiling around itself.
“What sense do you ma
ke of these impressions?” she was asked.
“None of them are necessarily true representations of his mind,” she said. “They’re like the different reflections you get off the facets of a diamond, or the different meanings one collection of sounds has in different languages. I’m not seeing the underlying reality, just the secondary effects.”
She shrugged, and the heavy shoulders of the suit magnified the gesture. She sent an image, via the relay, of a crystal turned inside out: smooth and spherical outside, facets crossing and tangling inside.
“It’s hard to find words for this,” she said.
“Evidently,” said Murnane. “But if you had to choose just one word to describe him... ?”
“I’m not sure. ‘Complex’ isn’t enough. ‘Incipient,’ perhaps? ‘Numinous’ has too many spiritual overtones, and I don’t believe ‘unknowable’ applies to anything. There’s a great potential within him. I don’t know what for, but it’s there.”
Murnane waited a moment, to see if she would add anything else—or perhaps to confer mentally with the reaves surrounding them. After a moment he said: “And what of the irikeii? What did he think of you?”
Maii was silent so long, Roche thought she wouldn’t answer. Finally, she said: “He disapproved of me.”
“We thought as much,” said Murnane, nodding. “The Olmahoi Caste petitioned strongly for your capture prior to your arrival—as did your own government. Somehow the word of your existence has spread, although exactly how has yet to be determined. We decided not to become involved, for very good reasons; there are enough inter-Caste tensions as it is without the council seeming to take sides—and what happens in non-Pristine Castes is, ultimately, none of our concern.” Murnane stopped and took a deep breath. “Still, it is clear that the events that occurred within Palasian System have had far-reaching repercussions—many, perhaps, still to be felt. Morgan Roche, would you care to explain to us what happened there?”