"This isn't a diplomatic visit," Felik said. "And technically, they only have the second-best access to the most advanced technology."
"You're not here to pledge your full support for Oberon, huh?" Steeger seemed disappointed.
"Envoys are supposed to remain objective on those matters," he retorted. "Just because I'll attend Oberon's funeral doesn't make me part of the Watchers network."
Steeger shrugged. "It might've been wise given the Chief Navigator's criticisms. He and Oberon are old friends."
"What about you two? I've heard you're friends."
"Me and Oberon? Well, he was raised by the Anunnaki." The Green Devil folded her arms over her chest and cocked her head at the holodisplay planet at war. "Tell me, Envoy, who should I place my bets on?"
"Whoever you like, I don't care about..." he drifted off, realizing he'd been caught in a trap. Now he looked like he didn't care about the well-being of alien planets.
"Yeah, why care about their history? The victims of those wars aren't important," Steeger said sarcastically. She shook her head. "I wondered if your experience on that MARINE base would've changed you at all."
"If I wanted experience in war, I'd run a few combat sims. Better than real." He said the motto of the realms with a tinge of cockiness.
The Green Devil snorted. "If you believe in the concept of absolute objectivity, then it's an absolute truth that no simulations can ever compare to real war. Constructs may trick our senses, our brains, hell they may even trick the neuro-nanites of our cores, but can they trick our souls?"
"The current science would argue that they can," Felik said.
"Maybe that's why the StarMaster capped scientific progress," Steeger grinned knowingly. What was she implying? Felik decided not to entertain the thought. He'd given her enough of his time.
He tipped his chin. "Since you seem to know the Anunnaki well, maybe you could help me find one in particular?" He projected a hologram of the Anunnaki’s ID.
"I'm sure I could. But I don't think I've gotten through to you, Envoy," Steeger said.
She fixed her gaze on him and flicked a thumb at herself. "I bled for this empire. Not virtual blood. Not smart blood. Real blood. Red and sticky. I lost good friends on the battlefield. I won't have your incompetence harm the Union."
Felik held in a groan. "Duly noted. If you'll excuse me, I'm here trying to keep the Union intact."
"Maybe we should, what's the saying, take a chill pill?" said one of the Anunnaki.
"That's an antiquated way of putting it, but I appreciate it," Felik said, turning to him.
The Anunnaki smiled. "Antiquated by a few hundred solar cycles for your species perhaps. But among Anunnaki, such verbal shifts take far longer to occur."
"I'd love to go on," Steeger gave an arrogant sigh, "but I'm inclined to accept my overseer's suggestion."
According to his nexus, the Anunnaki's name was Blemu. He'd been the head of corporeal security for the StarMaster's living frames, managing defenses against any sort of physical weapons, ranging from black holes to molecular splitters.
Felik did a double take. "You mean, you're his contactee?"
His instincts urged him to question Blemu, but that wouldn't exactly be keeping a low profile about his secret investigation. Plus, investigators had probably already spoken with Blemu.
"Indeed," Blemu said. "If she was bothering you please let me know."
Felik wished he wasn't being sarcastic. But if Steeger had enough clout to send her own overseer away, it was clearly more of an on-paper subservience. "Maybe I'll compile a report."
"The Anunnaki you seek is on platform A544K. Tell him Blemu sent you."
"Thank you," Felik said, noting that they hadn't asked him why he wanted to see this Anunnaki.
Felik registered the correct platform and launched over. There, a single light gray Anunnaki sipped a thick, golden liquid from a purple goblet. It was manna, a drink so rich it served as their meal for up to a few months.
"Blemu sent me," Felik said.
"And who is me?" Nuraz didn't bother looking at him.
"Felik, the Envoy. This is a fake ID."
"Then you're here to ask me about your new flagship."
Word of his ship had spread all the way out here. But that wasn't surprising given Xerix's ties to Nebiru. He'd grown up on an Anunnaki colony. "Predictive algorithm?"
"When you've lived as long as I have, it becomes easy to predict what will be asked of you. Sit." Nuraz motioned, and a seat materialized for Felik.
The Anunnaki released a long breath.
Nuraz smiled.
Felik locked his hands together.
Nuraz's face brightened.
The Anunnaki secretly loved referencing their hand in developing homo sapiens millions of solar cycles earlier by mixing their DNA with primitive hominids. He thought it best to humor him.
It was said that Anunnaki technology never glitched due to their insistence on a gradual advancement. Slow but steady.
Felik's spirits sank. Had he offended him somehow?
Felik bit his lip. He'd risked a lot coming here, even locked horns with the Green Devil with no return.
Felik tilted his head. Did Nuraz believe he was truly divvying out useful advice?
The Anunnaki cast his head from side to side.
Chapter 18
FELIK
Among the government of the Union Omega, what should have been one massive ceremony had split into two. Now Felik found himself at the funeral ceremony hosted by Oberon, and was, as a result, banned from the one hosted by Megas.
Not surprisingly, Felik had garnered negative karma from Megas's fans.
It didn't help that his brother had many fans.
All scion youth we
re sent to live with different prominent non-Terran species, learning from them, understanding them, and serving as a promise of their importance within the Union Omega. Megas spent his youth living among the Lumerians. They had taught him how to create alliances and deals among the weak but numerous. Now he was the proto of the Saganerio network, a collection of different, closely aligned alien species and networks.
Felik stood on an ornate circular platform that stretched hundreds of feet across. Obsidian and ivory wrestled for dominance of its surface, but the flood of sapients mostly cut it off from view.
What had once served as a chamber in an artificial planet for the Minds of Errukav was now the site of a ceremony to honor the sapient who had ensured their defeat. Hundreds of these artificial planets helped comprise the Nisto Cloud, along with Dyson spheres, space stations, and the supporting fleets. The spoils of the Great Cosmic Wars.
Hundreds of other platforms, large and small, hung in an expansive and seemingly endless chamber without an obvious up and down. Dotting the space, arrays of fifty-meter high crystals glowed with beacons of light, while large concave structures nestled spheres of light. High-ranking governmental and celebrity sapients were all here somewhere. Felik had seen avatars of New Terrans, Anunnaki, Andromedans, Trions, Onmirz, Phaetonians...he'd stopped keeping track of the countless different species after a while.
It was amazing to think that many weren't even seeing the same thing he was seeing. In their minds, they would perceive themselves in a setting equivalently majestic and formal by their species' standards and preferences thanks to automated perspective manipulators handled by their nexuses. They saw what they wanted to see. It was one of the many perks of advanced augmented reality.
A few dozen other high-ranking members of the Guardian Mind joined Felik on the platform. Each major government mind had received its own platform, large enough to support its key representatives.
"Whoa," Brody said, pointing up. A single missile cut through the cosmos at FTL in a holodisplay above them.
"Something, isn't it?" Felik said. Far more than the Union Omega had done at the funeral of their brother, Zelf, many solar cycles earlier.
Brody glanced at him. "I'm sorry by the way."
"About being an annoying little pest at the base?"
Felik couldn't blame him. They'd both been reeling from the StarMaster's death.
"Yeah. I know I am sometimes. The Scion Mother said all the scions are trying to accept that he's gone, so it's okay. Yesterday, Todzilmar wouldn't stop crying. I told him to be strong. I didn't feel strong."
He was referring to another scion in his cohort and technically another of Felik's brothers.
"No one this important has ever died before, huh?" Brody asked.
"I don't think so."
"How could his karma pylon backups even be wiped out? They're immutable! Black hole synthesizers, antimatter, supernova bombs—nothing affects them."
The pylons simply phased away all damaging effects to another dimension. Unchangeable except possibly by other immutables.
"Scientists can still edit their memories."
The Wenysh and Phaetonians harnessed the psionic immutability of the pylons and used that as a means of hosting sapient consciousness backups. But it wasn't particularly complicated to delete or corrupt someone's pylon backup on a conceptual level.
For most New Terrans a well-placed psionic attack could act like a mind-control device and make a person delete their own backup. Or it could infect them with an innocuous neural virus that corrupted their mental data.
The StarMaster wasn't most New Terrans. He would've possessed the best psionic defenses and all the safeguards. Not to mention he likely had private repositories. But those must've been deleted, too. It both amazed and terrified him that something had managed to erase his mind so thoroughly.
"Does that mean someone betrayed him? Like Brutus betrayed Caesar?"
Felik hadn't considered that Old Terra history angle to it. Maybe the answer was as simple as too many starkeepers fearing the StarMaster's immense power. Peace is like a hologram. When you try to embrace it, you discover it's not real.
"It's nothing we need to worry about now," Felik said.
"Why shouldn't I? I'll be a starkeeper eventually."
"Things will be better by then." It felt better to believe the lie.
He watched the missile shudder through the vast emptiness of space. In short order, it would serve as a wormhole conductor, warping in an artificially induced supernova from the other side of the universe.
"Can you believe some wanted to set off a hyper-nova?" Kridmar said, standing beside Felik. He was one of his oldest friends in the Guardian Mind. They'd worked together on several missions. His body resembled a thin, weasel-like organism with long, droopy fingers, exaggerated limbs, and a tail that ended in an oval.
"Maybe I'm not being objective, but this is the Galactic Chancellor's death," Felik shrugged, petting his back. Kridmar's species loved that.
"Yes, but we're trying to continue the Union Omega peacefully, not set off another Big Bang."
Well, that would've been one way to let the universe commemorate the Galactic Chancellor's importance.
"The universe is collapsing," Felik said quietly as his thoughts fell back to the Great Cosmic Wars' end.
"The universe is collapsing," Kridmar agreed.
Even though the human forces had won, the Minds of Errukav had gone out with a literal bang. An experimental bomb that reversed the universe's expansion. Since then, it had been shrinking at the rate of a kilometer per solar cycle. Not exactly urgent, but, given that the Union Omega's goal in the Grand Codex was to grant all races immortality using the karma pylons, either scientists would discover a solution, or they'd all learn the effects sooner or later.
Felik wrinkled his nose. He could feel the eyes of the other Guardian Mind representatives on him. Based on the procedures he'd parsed in the Envoy orientation node, he knew it wouldn't be wise to succumb to their pressure. Yet it meant denying the truth, something he'd always hated from those above him. He wanted to be transparent if he could.
"I didn't want to force my views on others."
"What are you guys talking about?" Brody whispered, tugging at Felik's pants leg.
Silence on his feed. He wondered what sort of private messages the other Guardians were exchanging.
"A decision you didn't come to lightly, I'm sure," mused another Guardian.
"What do I look like, huh?" Felik groaned.
"Please tell me I can answer that," Brody urged.
"Like a Terran spontaneously warped into enemy territory without his mind backed up on the karma pylons," Kridmar said jocularly.
"So does anyone know what's going on at Megas's funeral service?" he asked, eager to change the subject. He turned inward, pulling up a search on his nexus for updates on Megas's planned ceremony. His brother had kept it all a secret. Those were his ways. Suspense, theatrics, surprises.
Even though they looked to be within earshot, the construct meant that nothing they said to each other could be overheard. All thanks to fully integrated augmented reality and psionic abilities—two more technologies that victory in the Great Cosmic Wars allowed humanity to master.
Constructs didn't transport a sapient anywhere physically, only mentally. A sapient's nexus sent data to a pathon—psionic subatomic particles that were ubiquitous in the universe. The data included a virtual setting as well as the identity of a recipient or recipients. The pathon then relayed the invitation to that sapient. Once
the other sapient accepted, the pathon connected their thoughts, excluding anyone else from accessing them.
Through this single psionic particle, the sapients communicated as if they were inside a virtual setting. It made for an exceedingly secure means of communication. By default, the construct setting appeared as that of the inviting sapient's physical environment, but it could be highly customized.
"My subordinates got me thinking," Felik admitted.
"Subordinates have done worse things. Just remember, ultimately we rely on their processing power and cooperation. You'll learn to handle them in time. Or I can fork you a useful command package."
"No need for that yet," Felik said. Command packages did work—they altered the words you said to sound more effective—but sometimes subordinates could tell that you were using one and the upgrades ended up having the opposite effect.
"Then let me fork you what I've learned about Megas's ceremony."
Felik received the data node and parsed it. "How accurate is this?"
"Fairly accurate."
Felik cast his head from side to side. "He's seriously warping in a hundred white dwarfs to new solar systems?"
"Impressive, right?" Hayland said, his voice rising at the end.
"But they'll lose a lot of heat by the time civilizations form."
"Yeah in a million solar cycles. Will anyone care by then?"
He had a point. Megas would receive such a karma boost just for doing this that any negative fall out later on wouldn't matter.
Hayland continued. "What concerns me is Megas's ambition. The man fashions himself to be the next StarMaster and I can't see him accepting anything less. Hell, if he got his way, we'd all just be his living frames, nothing but extra bodies for his consciousness."
"They say his ego is so big, he stores it in Dyson spheres," Felik said.
"Why limit yourself to a living frame when you can put your consciousness into a few planets, right?"
"What about the karma pylon protocols? Won't they switch back to choosing Oberon soon enough?"
The StarMaster's Son Page 14
