The Borrega Test

by James Vincett

  The airlock opened and he stepped in. The outer door closed and the atmosphere and gravity normalized. He took off his helmet.

  “Take off the suit,” a voice said. McFinn complied

  The inner airlock door opened and McFinn nearly vomited at the smell. Two Naati, in gray armor but unarmed, stood in the passage beyond. Each one grabbed an arm and nearly dragged him down the passage into a lift.

  The Naati said nothing; they didn’t even look at him. The lift door opened and they dragged him down another passage. The door at the end slid open and McFinn entered a cavernous space. He saw scores of Naati standing in two long trenches running the length of the space. At the end was a wide raised platform with a large command chair. Red light bathed the entire chamber. McFinn immediately recognized Fangrik from the eyepatch. Gavanus stood next to him.

  The Naati escorted McFinn to the base of the platform and released his arms, but they remained on either side of him. McFinn’s hands shook as the fear flared in his mind.

  The chair turned and Fangrik faced the end of the chamber. A life-size holographic image of another Naati appeared. It wore shining battle armor and spoke in barks, yips, and snarls, the speech translated into Anglic.

  “Lord Commissar Galag,” Fangrik said.

  “Commissar Fangrik. I am glad you are willing to speak with me. What we have discovered here can change everything.”

  “The hoo-mans have betrayed us,” Fangrik replied. “I was wrong to trust them, but I am not convinced the forces you are meddling with are good for the Hegemony. However, I am willing to listen.”

  “What is this hom with you now?”

  “It was one of the representatives of the Union with whom I engaged in negotiation. It is a vile, obsequious creature, but has offered its own life as recompense for the Union’s betrayal.”

  “Is its life worth it?”

  “It is the natural spawn of one of the Union’s leaders. I believe it has some value. I have it here as a threat to you, Lord Commissar Galag.”

  “A threat? How could such a puny thing be a threat?”

  “I may yet ally with the Union against your heresies, but hoo-mans are a treacherous race, as I have learned to my grief. I give you this one opportunity to convince me of your scheme.”

  “Very well, Commissar Fangrik. As you see we penetrated the hom defenses around the planet and landed our forces on the southern continent.” The image changed to an orbital night view of Borrega; McFinn saw a quasi-particle image of a continent, a mountain range running the entire length from east to west. The image zoomed into the highlands. “This is but one site where we have been digging. During our past occupations, we found these strange artifacts; large ovoids of incredible mass and very low temperature. We have found forty-three such sites, but we believe there are more.”

  The image changed again. It looked shaky, as if taken from a handheld or helmet mounted device. McFinn saw a large, steaming mass of rock and ice inside a cavern, illuminated by powerful lights mounted on a surrounding scaffold. Several Naati in gray armor stood beside it, revealing the scale of it. The camera approached the object, and McFinn saw a passage dug into the base. The camera moved into the passage, lights illuminating the rocky and icy walls. At the end of the passage was a curved mirror-like surface.

  “For years after their discovery, we knew nothing about these artifacts. The yallic slaves failed to determine anything about them; no sensor could penetrate the object. Likewise, the hom inhabitants discovered some, but did not have the scientific expertise to conduct any investigation. The yallic slaves believe the object is similar to devices they found on the Anuvi Artifact, when we briefly controlled it; they call them time cysts or stasis fields. The yallic believe that inside are objects, or beings, that are shielded from the passage of time.” Galag’s image reappeared.

  Fangrik looked at McFinn. “You saw these on the Anuvi Artifact?”

  “Something like it, yes,” McFinn replied.

  “What was inside?”

  “Individuals of the ancient alien race that built the Anuvi Artifact.”

  “They are powerful, more so than any known race in the galaxy. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  Fangrik looked at Galag. “Do you see what you meddle with? Dare we release such beings? They could threaten everything, not just the Hegemony. We know nothing about their purpose or disposition.”

  “We believe we can control them, or at least communicate with them.”

  “How?”

  “When we briefly controlled the Anuvi Artifact, the yallic slaves were able to combine the DNA of the beings in the stasis chambers with our own. They succeeded in creating four hybrids, and each manifested the telepathic abilities of the ancient beings.”

  “The Anuvi Abominations. You are guessing these hybrids can communicate or control the beings in the stasis chambers.”

  “That may be, but we believe it is worth the risk.”

  “I beg to differ. How will you release them?”

  “Some who approached the artifacts experienced mental anguish, as if whatever was inside was projecting telepathic thoughts and images. We believe the hybrids can telepathically communicate with the beings inside, and disable the stasis fields. This is what we are about to try. Proceed.”

  The image changed to the cavern in the mountains. The camera had retreated, and showed a single Naati, in armor, standing near the mound of rock and ice. The camera zoomed in as the Naati took off its helmet. It had a pink and hairless face.

  I’ve seen one of those before.

  It walked into the passage and disappeared.

  Fangrik stood and muttered, back spines quivering.

  The mound of rock and ice exploded. An instant later, the video feed disappeared, replaced by the orbital view of the continent. A bright flash, a pinprick of light, flared in the darkness of the mountain range.

  “What’s happening?” Fangrik roared.

  A cloud, like the emission from a volcano, spread into the atmosphere, and the area glowed with heat. The cloud transformed into a churning mass, shot through with lightning. A cursor appeared around the cloud, and then the image zoomed in to an emerging object.

  “What in Malar’s name is that?” Gavanus said.

  A schematic of the object appeared beside the orbital image. It looked like a long and twisted shell with a head of tentacles. From the measurements on the schematic, McFinn guessed it to be over a hundred meters in length. It flew up into the atmosphere and arced over the continent. Bright flashes appeared below as it flew over the mountain range, the clouds rising high into the atmosphere, hot spots glowing, lightning flashing in the hot emissions.

  McFinn stood with his mouth open in wonder, his wide eyes gazing at the image. Noga had told him the enemy was buried on Borrega, the enemy of the Harbingers. It’s freeing more of them. Hundreds more!

  “Galag!” Fangrik roared. “Can you control it?”

  Galag didn’t answer.

  McFinn looked at Fangrik. “What are you going to do now?

  Beckenbaur

  The Trieste emerged from hyperspace into the outer reaches of the system.

  “I don’t know if we can risk an active scan,” Talbot said, “there could be Naati here.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Beckenbaur said. “I want to find this thing and get back to Bandele.”

  Over the next several minutes, images of five worlds circling a class G yellow star populated the HUD. The outermost was a gas giant with eleven moons.

  “That’s the best clue we have,” Beckenbaur said.

  “Knowing our luck, this time it’ll be the exception to the rule.”

  “Do you think there’s a Harbinger artifact hidden somewhere on the moons of Jupiter or Saturn?”

  “Possibly,” Talbot replied, “but we’ve been poking holes in those moons for centuries and have found nothing like that. Set course for the gas giant.”

  “Strong sensor sweep,” Nick said, “coming from t
he fifth moon.”

  “Spineys?”

  “Unknown.”

  Memories flooded into Beckenbaur’s mind: watching Trik cut the Naati to pieces using the excavator; collecting rock samples from the landscape around the tower; the Marine’s nukes detonating, causing the moon’s crust to ring like a bell; discovering the structure embedded in the crust; marveling at the holographic image of the moon in the control room:

  “What did you find?” Beckenbaur asked.

  “You’re gonna love this, Doc.” Dundas touched the icon and the globe changed. It showed a cutaway of the interior of the moon. Complex graphics showed the different layers of the mantle and the core. Hundreds of sets of wriggling text and arrows described features of the subsurface. Thin lines ran from each of the sixteen buried spheres down to the core-mantle boundary.

  “My God! They drilled to the core!” Beckenbaur gasped.

  “It’s them,” Beckenbaur said. “The Harbingers that left the Anuvi Artifact came here.”

  Heather topped the ladder onto the command deck. “Hans! They’re here! I can feel them!”

  BLINK

  Something thrust into Beckenbaur’s consciousness. He saw his brain; the vision zoomed into his prefrontal cortex; then through the surface to a cluster of spindle shaped cells; then into the cord-like nucleus of the cell; then to the crossed ropy chromosomes; then to the double helix. Thousands of pairs of cyclic structures, snakes eating their tails, lit up between the gossamer strands of the double helix.

  BLINK

  The crew of the Trieste stood in the midst of a forest, the trees scores of meters in height, their leaves green, yellow, orange, purple and red. Rays of light filtered down from above through a translucent mist. Dense vegetation, ferns, shrubs, and grasses covered the forest floor. The place smelled of black earth after a rain. Sounds filled Beckenbaur’s ears, some whispering, some chirping, and some whistling. Life forms in the air flitted between the trunks of the trees, and Beckenbaur heard rustling sounds in the vegetation at their feet.

  They stood quiet for an indeterminate time, all of them looking around, their mouths and eyes wide with wonder. Beckenbaur looked at the faces of his companions; they seemed to glow with light, their features smooth, and their eyes bright like gems.

  He heard laughter, and suddenly children appeared, running through the vegetation. They wore simple shifts, each a different color, and their feet were bare. They ran by, playfully touching each other.

  A young girl no more than ten years old turned and looked at them. She smiled. “It’s this way!” She ran after her companions, laughing.

  Wordlessly, Beckenbaur and the others followed the child. They emerged from the forest into a vast green space. The sky above was a clear blue but studded with stars, a wide band of light strewn across the sky. A yellow sun burned above; scores of prominences arced up and back to the surface of the star.

  Heather gasped. “Eden!”

  A pack of life forms appeared, bounding out of the forest. Each was a four-footed creature, with a wide head, broad shoulders, and slimmer posterior. One stopped and looked at them: it had red eyes with black pupils and black spines growing on its head and back. The color of the creature’s shorthaired coat was not unlike a giraffe, a pattern of tan and black. It chirped and warbled, bared its long sharp teeth, and then bounded after its companions. As they ran, they began to call, a high keening sound filled with warbling and chirping. The sound became a song, a haunting melody that drifted on the breeze.

  Beckenbaur and the others followed the creatures toward a hill crowned with trees. Beckenbaur couldn’t judge the size of the feature, but as they drew closer, it seemed to grow larger. As they approached, Beckenbaur saw a seated figure. It sat on a rock and worked at something with its hands. At first, Beckenbaur couldn’t determine any details, but as he approached, the figure took on definition. It wore a simple tunic and its feet were bare. Its form was Hominin, but its appearance seemed to shift in facial features, skin and hair color, and size. The figure held a rock in each hand, striking one with the other. Beckenbaur had done the same as a child, working with the stone to create arrowheads, or spearheads, or other items.

  As the figure’s face shifted, Beckenbaur saw his parents, relatives, friends long forgotten, the crew of the Bering, and others unknown to him. It sat with its feet wide apart, striking a stone with another, as if shaping it.

  “What is this place?” he asked.

  The figure looked at him.

  BLINK

  Beckenbaur and the others stood in a chamber; it looked exactly like the Anuvi Artifact. He stood between long rows of tubes, set almost vertical. Each tube had a transparent cover, and inside he saw Hominins. They were naked, their eyes open, suspended in time. As they walked the life forms in the tubes changed. They saw black and red aliens, spider-like, each with four eyes. The more they explored, the more species he saw, a multitude of different forms. Tens of thousands of the devices filled the chamber.

  “It’s a genetic repository,” Heather said. “They’ve stored representative individuals of these races here.”

  “Why?” Talbot asked.

  BLINK

  A beautiful planet, a blue and white sphere, hung in the void of space. Two seven-fingered hands moved over the holographic controls seemingly suspended in space. The being, one of the Vanguard, could look all around itself, the sensor feed from the surface of the craft passed through and displayed on the interior of the ship. The spacecraft flew in a formation of seven others, mirrored bullets reflecting the darkness and stars of space. The formation was but one in a wave of seven more, and that wave but one in seven more, and that wave but one in seven more.

  Orange, red and white explosions bloomed in the space around the planet. At this distance they would have been massive, the size of asteroids, as the lead elements of the Vanguard engaged the chaotic formations of the Enemy with particle and antimatter beams, matter disruptors, and reality distorters.

  The vile Swarm, their ships long twisted shells, were three times the length of the Vanguard’s craft. The Scouts had come across the Enemy infecting and corrupting the life on this world, life planted and succored over a vast stretch of time. The Scouts trumpeted the message across the stars in this region of space.

  THE ENEMY! WE HAVE FOUND THE ENEMY! COME, VANGUARD, WE SUMMON YOU!

  INCREASE VELOCITY. The space around the vessel became warped and distorted, the light from the planet and stars bent and deformed. It felt a towering pride and love, a deep love for all life. Exultation seized its mind, for the defense of life was its purpose.

  BLINK

  The Vanguard swept aside the orbital defenses with ease and then descended to the surface of the world. Below the spacecraft, a great green and blue forest spread out to the horizon, but there, on the curvature of the world, huge plumes of darkness rose high into the atmosphere. This was not smoke; it was the destructive nano machines of the Swarm, corrupting the pure life on this world. As the seven times seven times seven formations flew toward the plumes, the being saw the curved shells of the slug-like Annihilators, ten thousand of them, each the size of a mountain, feeding on the streams of matter flowing from the spreading sheet of nano machines. The Swarm, their long snake-like forms encased in exoskeletons, fired massive beam weapons at the Vanguard, the white and blue beams streaking from the surface.

  There were too many! The Annihilators were too powerful! The Swarm and their destructive machines covered an entire continent. The Vanguard made one pass, the antimatter and disruptor beams of the Swarm arcing from the surface and striking their spacecraft. Several beams raked the being’s spacecraft, and the holograms pulsed blue and yellow with warning. This Swarm was beyond their power to contain. They accelerated up and out of the atmosphere. The Vanguard sent a message to the Scouts.

  WE MUST SACRIFICE THIS WORLD TO CONTAIN THE SWARM

  The formations increased their velocity and moved into orbit.

  BLINK

&nbs
p; The Chosen of the Vanguard had finally arrived; the world ship, the great planet mobilized by the Chosen, popped out of hyperspace just beyond the strongest part of the gravity of this world.

  The Chosen slowed the mass of the world and brought the great weapon to bear. The Swarm and its Annihilators had almost destroyed one of the two great continents on the world. From orbit, the surface looked a seething gray and mottled brown. Now having destroyed all of the living matter on this continent, the nano machines died in a convulsing mass of gray and brown goo. The Vanguard knew the Annihilators were preparing to leap across the narrow ocean and lay waste to the remaining continent.

  The world ship was once a living world. The life on that world, from the basest single cell lifeforms in the smoking vents at the bottom of the oceans, to the microscopic life that rode the winds in the atmosphere, to the complex forms that had lumbered across the face of the continents, had been saved in the Ark. The Chosen of the Vanguard harnessed the molten dynamo at the heart of the planet to create the most potent weapon ever devised.

  As the solid iron core spun in one direction, the molten outer core flowed in the other, creating a vast output of heat, radioactivity, and magnetism. Conduits drilled to the planet’s core converted the energy of the planet’s heart directly into a limitless source of power.

  From an ejector at the equator, the weapon flash heated a portion of the world ship’s crust, then ejected in a vast stream of plasma directly at the Swarm infestation on the continent of the infected world. The plasma stream cut the continent in two, melting through the crust and into the mantle. A molten wave of matter spilled outward from the newly formed gash in the continent. The forces unleashed rent ancient faults; hotspot volcanoes erupted by the score, pouring forth ash, rock and smoke into the atmosphere; subduction zones buckled and slid; earthquakes shook the continent. The Swarm and the Annihilators sat helpless on the surface, their protective stasis fields flickering to life as the layers of lava, rock, and ash flowed over them.