Archeon breathed a sigh of relief. His form changed to that of the kurrgion, and he hoped onto the compan with a thud.
“Thank you, Orpal,” he chirped.
Orpal took off. It was time to find the final piece. It would not be easy, but with Kyle and Cetee working together they should be able to find it.
Orpal sniffed. “Right then, war or no war, nothing’s changed, we go for the last piece. Saran UL par, here we come.”
He spoke with more bravado than he felt.
*
The Lore Council – space. All of it.
Space, as a whole, is a phenomenally large place. It is not infinity, but to the mind of an Enlightened it may as well have been so. Upon space, and underneath it, the Lore Council met. They spanned the universe, and their communication may have seemed infinite also. To the Lore it sounded as if language had slowed.
Upon space a Gat Moriumthraite sat alone, claws curled around a dead Uon tree baying for its companions.
Upon a rock, spinning through space, a robot that looked like a man still held hands tenderly with his wife, a robot that looked like a woman. Despite their love they bore their losses with heavy hearts. She held in her arms the proof of their love; a dead headed snake.
Under sea, a clan of questra mites lay unblinking along the seabed in volcanic effluence. The giant yori ate the questrans.
Within a moon three ambiots joined together in death’s dark embrace.
The Lore Council began, only this time the Lore was little more than a whisper, lost in space.
“We cannot survive against the Ecentrists and the Enlightened.”
“The assassination was carried out by the Enlightened, surely?”
“We cannot let it pass.”
“We must let it pass. Since the last war we have laid down arms.”
“We promised never to take arms again.”
“There is one among us…”
“NONONO.”
“Then we will surely die unsung.”
“We are diminished.”
“We will grown again.”
“We must fight.”
“We must not fight.”
“No.”
“Fight.”
“NO.”
“Fight.”
“Archeon.”
“NONONO.”
“Then we will die.”
“Yes.”
One voice remained unheard. Perhaps it was time to listen. Across the endless expanse of space the last weapon spoke its piece again, and again. Its neverending barrage, its unheard pleas, fell upon almost dead ears.
There comes a time in every pacifist’s life when the choice between life and death must be made. The Lore were making that choice.
*
Saran UL par sect unknown COVE unclaimed – en route
Orpal was under way again. Cetee was troublingly quiet. She had not spoken since Archeon had revealed the extent of the threat from the Ecentrists.
“Total war between the Ecentrist and the Lore and the Enlightened would leave nothing but the three base races and a million small, pointless races,” said Orpal.
“I’ve had enough! I can’t take anymore of this,” said Cetee. Kyle looked at her askance, shocked by the outburst. He looked down and realised he was still holding Cetee’s hand. She had been quiet for so long he’d almost forgotten she was there.
It didn’t matter which way he looked at her, Cetee was decided.
“What!?” said Kyle. “What have you had enough of?”
“I’ve had enough of this.” Cetee raised her arms in an all-embracing gesture. “I didn’t sign on for a war. I wanted to make some time, now you’re talking about a war. I’m a thief, not a bloody soldier.”
“I thought…”
“You thought wrong! Let me off.”
Kyle looked hurt. “I thought we – I – meant more to you than that.”
Cetee looked down at her feet.
“Now, now, Cetee. Think about this. I need you,” said Orpal. He hadn’t thought any of the crew he’d put together would bow out, but then when he’d started out on this quest there had been no threat of total war. He could understand anyone not wanting to get in the middle of such a war.
“Well, I don’t need you. Let me off at Saran UL par. I’ll make my own way back to Enlightened space. Thank you very much.”
“How are you going to get off the ship…” asked Orpal.
“You’ll let me off, won’t you?” Cetee knew Orpal would never try to stop her if she left. There was too much of the Lore in him.
Perhaps she wants the find the thing for herself, thought Kyle.
“Let her off at next stop, then,” he said.
“What?” Cetee said, “I thought you’d want to be with me. “ This was unexpected. She had expected him to be against letting her off the ship.
“OK, would you rather I had you put in jail so you can’t run off?”
“Don’t go,” said the eyes, talking through Archeon. “We need you.”
“I’m sorry,” said Cetee, “I’ve got to go. Let me off here.”
“We’ll let you off at the next stop,” said Orpal with a heavy componet. Things were decidely going awry.
They travelled for almost two days. During that time Cetee had argued with Kyle almost incessantly, but she refused to back down. She would go her own way once she had reached Saran UL par, regardless of what Kyle wanted. No man could make her get in the middle of a total war. There were other considerations. Cetee wondered how much time she could make by going to work for either side. There were plenty of opportunities for a good thief in times of war.
Cetee gathered her things and prepared to leave. They would be there in under an hour. A knock at her door came. Cetee took a deep breath and prepared to tell Kyle for one last time that she was decided. It was cute really. He was so insistent. She would be almost sorry to leave him behind. He knocked gently on the door again. She opened it tentatively.
“Cetee, I want you to stay.” Kyle stepped into the room and put his hand on her arm, where she let it lay, unresisting. The blisters from Tenophoria were already healed.
“I’m sorry, Kyle, but this life is not for me. I’m a thief, I’m not a saviour of races, or a soldier, or a quester. I’m just me.”
Kyle rubbed her arm gently. “But I need you here with me,” he said.
“No you don’t, tribe boy.” She smiled at him, letting him know that the term had become one of affection. “You’ll be fine on your own.”
“No, Cetee, we’ve been together too long now…”
Cetee laid her hand on top of his. Her armour was already on, and the sinblade retracted. Her shoulder cannon stood out as the only weapon on show. “I have to leave, Kyle. I’m not cut out to be the hero.”
“Of course you are!” Kyle stomped his foot, and grimaced. “If there’s anyone on board cut out to be a hero it’s you.”
“No Kyle, believe me, it suits you better.”
“But I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”
“You’ll get along just fine.”
“There’s nothing I can say?”
“Not a thing.” She led him back to the door.
“I’ll miss you.”
She turned and took his face in her hands and kissed him one last time. “I would have slept with you,” she said, and pushed him away.
“Then I guess I’ll have to let you go,” said Kyle.
Cetee smiled sweetly, one last smile, and shut her door behind her. Kyle smiled to himself as he walked toward the comroom.
Let her think she was free. There was no way he was letting her out of his sight. Orpal would just have to keep track of her for him.
*
Saran UL par sect unknown COVE unclaimed
Kyle, Orpal and Archeon remained, watching her leave. Cetee had said her goodbyes to Orpal and Archeon and the eyes. The hatch opened and Cetee walked out onto the hard dustpan that made up most of the barren surface of Saran U
L par. The sun was waning and on its way to setting, letting in Saran UL par’s harsh and inhospitable night. Warmth still remained on the planet, but not for long.
Good luck finding a ship out of here, thought Kyle. To Orpal he said, “Have you got her?”
“Yes,” replied Orpal, “she’s on scanner. “We can keep track of her at least.”
“She’ll be in danger out there. She doesn’t know a thing about this planet, and she’s hoping to find passage off it? I thought I was a dummy.”
“Let her go, Kyle. If she can’t find passage out she’ll just have to come back here. I’ll wait for her but like I told you before Kyle, I won’t make her stay. It’s not right of me to do so.”
Kyle clenched his fist and squeezed the genogun’s glans-sac with all his strength as he watched her go. “If it’s too dangerous out there for me to go out without Archeon, it’s got to be too dangerous for her.” He still wasn’t ready to let her go.
Orpal realised the hunter was having a hard time. Orpal hadn’t seen them apart for more than a day since Cetee had come aboard, and no matter how alien the thought of sharing his life with someone else was, Orpal understood. The hunter had come to rely on Cetee. Leaving her behind wouldn’t be easy.
“There’s nothing for it, Kyle. If she wants to go, we have to let her. I won’t track her after she leaves this planet.”
“Well, her armour is state of the art at least,” said Kyle.
“Yes,” replied Archeon. “It would almost be enough to withstand me. You have to trust in her abilities, Kyle. Her armour will protect her.”
“Yes,” replied Orpal. “Still, the progression of armour will become obsolete as other functions/fields improve, eventually doing away with the need for armour – such as actually not being there when you are attacked.”
“Yes,” agreed Archeon “– the emitter is the natural progression of this. Invisibility is a further stage along the line, the emitter enables the owner to actually not be there – not only that, it enables the wearer to not be anywhere…it is the most advanced evolutionary example in existence, at least that created by sentient, rather than natural, hands…”
“Armour is, however, almost nugatory against the genesis weapon of the Tradition,” said Orpal.
Kyle sighed loudly from the comroom, where he watched the slowly receding blip on the hologen that represented Cetee. “So now Cetee’s gone, I suppose I’m going to have to listen to both of you expounding your intensly useless theories.”
“I can’t believe armour would ever be pointless,” said Archeon. “Even against me there are defences.”
“That’s a good point,” picked up Kyle, “so how does one defend against the last weapon of the Lore? Can’t be easy.”
“Well, take the hrun’s for example. They genetically modified themselves instead of using armour – armour is by no means the only means of protection available to a species – they built into their DNA an osmotic barrier that would allow no metal to pass. They ruled supreme on their planet, and were wiped out by the Madrals who were themselves from a neighbouring solar system, allergic to metal, and had therefore become so expert in utilising other natural material – neither had reach reached field-tech level – arrived in ships of stone and destroyed them utterly.”
“Your point?”
“Width is a prerequisite for survival. Those who explore and adapt that which they find to their own needs survive. Those who look solely within always die with a look of shock on their face when the enemy comes…”
“So?”
“So,” Orpal said, “practice makes perfect. If Archeon was used against the Ecentrists for long enough, the Ecentrists would evolve some kind of defence against him.”
The eyes spoke through Archeon, where they were now housed in his chest, whatever shape he took, apart from those, obviously, that didn’t have chests. “The emitter takes the user out of the known universe. It takes the user to one plane outside of everything, perhaps a plane created by the emitter itself upon use, perhaps a higher, lower, the first, last, the everything plane, all they really know is the plane is unlike any ever seen, that the plane can only be reached by using the emitter…”
“So the emitter, you’re saying, is the perfect armour?” asked Kyle of the eyes.
“Yes, that’s what it’s saying,” interpreted Archeon.
“Sometimes I think I’d like to know everything,” sighed Kyle.
“Well, imagine that, Kyle”, said Orpal. “Imagine knowing everything, yes, wouldn’t that be great? But what if, here, try this out for size, knowing everything would be like having the universe inside your head. Well, take a look. It’s already there. Everything’s connected, Kyle. Everything.”
Kyle sighed again. Losing Cetee could prove painful. No there were no distractions from Cetee, the only thing left would be Archeon and Orpal babbling at him.
Kyle thought he would be despondent, but felt she was still with him.
“I miss Cetee.” On the monitor, she finally disappeared.
“She’s really gone then,” said Archeon.
“I thought you said you could track her! I only agreed to let her go because you said you could track her!”
Orpal shrugged, “Win some, lose some. I told you I wouldn’t make her stay. I’m not tracking her anymore because she’s in a ship.”
“What do you mean, win some, lose some? I only let her go because I thought you could track her!”
“Well, I could, Kyle, but I won’t.”
“Won’t?! What about me?”
“Me, me, me. You’re very selfish, you know that Kyle? What about Cetee? Did you ever think about that? What she wants?”
“I don’t care what she wants. I want her back. Get her back. I’m not ready to let her go.”
“I’m sorry Kyle, but if she wants to go then it is not for me to hold her back.”
“She was a nice lady,” said Archeon.
“Bit harsh though,” said Orpal.
“Any money she’s not on a ship, she’s found the last piece of the emitter first.”
“Well, time to go then, eh? Let’s follow her in there. We’ll take the navicom and see what we can see.”
*
Saran UL par
Kyle exited the ship, with his eargen in place, Archeon behind him. “Well, it’s time to go to work,” said Archeon.
“Yep,” said Kyle. “Five to ten on she’s already found it. I knew Orpal wouldn’t let her get away.” He brushed his hair back from where it flopped into his eyes. In the three weeks and more that his journeys had taken his hair had grown long and unkempt.
“I’m sorry Kyle, but he will. He only wants the emitter.”
“Well he won’t get it if she gets it first, so let’s hurry up.”
“Why would she want it? It’s no use to her without the other pieces.”
“Just one piece would be worth a fortune, and she is a thief.”
“Well then, we’d better get it first,” said Archeon.
Kyle stepped onto the hard packed floor underfoot. Outside Orpal the air was only breathable through a back up transconverter, which stuck in the back of his throat and tickled. It made him want to cough. His gun was on his arm and he wore a padded suit that Orpal had given him, thick enough to turn aside projectiles but not resistant to laser fire. If there was going to be any shooting on Saran UL par he had better make damn sure he wasn’t in the thick of it.
He held his gun up next to his face and looked it over. Archeon stepped of the gangplank beside him, his assumed shape at the moment that of a Thihumagal, bulky but not overly tall. He would need the shape and size of roughly a human or smaller to negotiate the planet’s masses of ships.
Saran UL par was in Cove space. It was a repository for wayward ships. Orpal had landed on the wastelands, but as far as the eye could see forward there were ships of every description abandoned for scrap or shipwrecked by smugglers all around.
There was nothing else to see. There were no pla
nts on the planet, no trees or ferns or mosses, the kind of plants that grow anywhere. All there was to see were the almost geological features of walls of ships. The smugglers that inhabited the planet put them into walls, so that they could navigate the shoals underneath.
There was no water to speak of, just that which was on the ships. The ships were an essential resource for life on the planet, as there was nothing else there for the hardy inhabitants of the planet to live on.
Life on the planet was harsh. Food and water could only come from the wrecked ships that came here, and magnetic coils, huge structures made from ships pointed to the sky. Any ships coming close enough would be sucked down to the planet’s surface to be cannibalised by the denizens of Saran UL par.
The harshness of the planet made the inhabitants a little crazy. They would eat people as soon as talk to them, and Cetee was all alone among them. Some of the ships still worked, and as power was a minimal resource if she could get to a ship that hadn’t been too badly gutted she would be able to flee the planets surface. Finding a ship that still worked was the trick. Those who lived on the bleak planet would never be smart enough to be able to fly a ship. They were better at destruction than creation, and flight itself was a form of creation, creating waves in the sky to sail upon.
Replicators would work without drives, but finding a working replicator was no guarantee of finding a working drive in a ship.
The smugglers and pirates of Saran UL par had a lot to answer for.
Kyle wondered if Cetee had been found yet. He hummed to himself as he walked, and Archeon followed on behind. Looking up at the wall of ships around him, Kyle negotiated the oasis of dust and followed in Cetee’s footsteps were they were clearly visible. His navicom would show him the way so there was no need to worry about getting lost.
Kyle thought dark thoughts and warmed his gun up. The air was thick with anticipation. He was ready for war. His arm hummed in tune with him and Archeon followed behind him.
Kyle stood on one side of the scrapyard, Cetee on the other.
Evolution Page 16
