Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework

by Randolph Lalonde

  “Yes, but don’t decide to be there simply because I told you about this,” the hooded woman said with a broad gesture. “There are walls around your mind that have to be broken down if you want to survive the coming days. You have to learn to think without considering what I would have done in your place. The advice of friends and colleagues is more important than what my ghost can offer.”

  “I made that realization before Tamber,” Ayan replied. “I know I’m something, someone, different.”

  “No. You still think you can invoke the disposition of my mother and look just as confident as I did. People see a petulant princess when you adopt that guise because your true confidence comes from somewhere better. I was satisfied being a soldier and a builder. They went hand in hand and it was good for my lifetime. You enjoy both, but they are like opposites in you. The warrior and the architect are always presenting options that are at odds and you haven’t found a balance. If you’re wondering why you don’t feel comfortable in your own skin, that’s it. It’s not the extra pounds, or the fact that you’ll never look like me while I was in my prime. It’s the fight you carry with you.”

  “What am I supposed to do about that?” Ayan asked. “I can meditate, stay healthy, but you’re saying my personality is having a row with itself? I agree, but I don’t see your point.”

  “Learn to use each perspective in turn and you’ll learn to think in a way that I never even considered. Imagine if all our generals and admirals were trained to build instead of destroy? The best commanders always gave thought to what the battlefield would look like after the war was over. You have that potential, and it’s time you started tapping into it. To do that, you have to allow yourself to become someone new, Ayan the Second, or take another name entirely if you have to.”

  “Our personalities both come from the same set of memories, that’ll never change. Even if I changed my name, I wouldn’t feel right answering to it.”

  “You’re not getting it," the previous Ayan interrupted. "Look at me!" She barked. "This is the measuring stick you gauge yourself against!" It was as though a sudden storm of fury had taken control of her. "I am a genius by design, hardened by failed relationships and alone because I refuse to let go of the past. I embraced fatalism, forced myself to come to terms with rotting on my feet until I fell down dead. You have to overcome the walls I built, and my terrible expectations. You idolize me and impose my limitations on yourself. "

  Ayan stared at the image of her predecessor, agape. “Maybe,” was all she could offer.

  "Well quit it, you bloody prat! Whatever brilliance or beauty I had was borrowed and I paid for it dearly. I was barren, foolish, and short sighted.” She rolled her skullcap back to reveal wiry hair that grew in spotty clumps. Pulling two handfuls of the dark grey stuff free was effortless. “It fell out in clumps just like this,” she said with wide, tear filled eyes. “That was the worst part of my life, when my body began fighting itself and there was nothing I could do to hide it, nothing anyone could do to stop it. My mother didn’t know how to speak to me, I was watching my friends go on with their lives, and when I knew it was all over I went off to find the answer to one of the most important questions in my life. What happened to the man who set us all free, who showed us a greater universe? I rebuilt the ship Jonas saved, made sure the people he loved were taken care of, but I hadn’t found out what happened to him.

  “The most merciful act I’ve ever benefited from was Jacob Valance pretending, for just a few minutes, that he was Jonas. I was given peace right at the end, but the woman you idolize and would emulate was long gone by then. She had wasted away. Ayan Rice the First had accomplished her last wish.” She let the thin hair fall from her fingers and drift away on the breeze. “She’s gone now. You have her memories, and they can help you. Take what you want from that, learn what you can, but become your own person, embrace life and don’t make it so hard for someone to love you. That’s how you can honour me.”

  “You’re right,” Ayan admitted quietly. “I’ve been trying to be you but I’ve never felt the same. Not really. Even when I’m being harsh and strict I’m still shaking inside, forcing it.”

  Her predecessor went on, her temperament eased. “It comes from love. You only lose your temper when you’re trying to protect people you care about. In your mind are dreams of a future, sensible thoughts about helping people who are less fortunate. You stand in your own way, and until the path is cleared, you won't be able to make the right decisions for anyone." The exertion of being angry cost the ill woman; she was breathing laboriously. Her last statement emerged from a gentle smile. "You can have a long life. You can afford optimism. You can have children."

  It was as though a weight had been lifted from Ayan's shoulders, and she blinked through tears. Children. She could be a mother. That was something she had memories of dreaming about since she was a girl, but it wasn’t possible. In her previous life, Freeground had sterilized her at birth because of the genetic modifications that had been performed on her before she was born. She remembered rationalizing it, hating it, but not being able to do anything about it. The thought that there was nothing stopping her as Ayan the Second was one that had crossed her mind, but she never really focused on what that possibility meant, or realized how much she wanted to have children one day.

  She cleared her eyes and was amazed as the fine dust and dirt underfoot became hard tarmac. The expanse of wrecks was replaced by a maintained port filled with ships, busy with cargo and passengers moving along roadways laid out for heavy terrestrial vehicles.

  "Finally, she gets it," the previous Ayan said. "Just make sure you stay strong your own way, luv. Right now your own instincts are best, taking someone else's direction will only lead to course corrections later."

  The transformed scenery around her wasn't the Port Rush Ayan knew. It was even busier overhead, with a shimmering shield above to protect the people on the ground. The air was clean thanks to scrubber units, and the tarmac was kept clear by small robots that scurried past.

  * * *

  "All this because I 'get it?’” she asked herself. When she looked back to where her predecessor had been she saw a man in a dark Stetson hat sitting on a crate, gently strumming an old green electric guitar.

  "She always was slippery when she wanted to be, wasn't she?" he said, punctuating the last with a thickly strummed chord. He cut it short and looked up at Ayan. “Ease up on the waterworks, the hard part’s over.”

  "Minh?" she asked with relief. Her disbelief overshadowed everything else, even the sight of one of her most adored friends. "All this change because I've had a moment alone with myself?"

  There were a few more lines in his face, more than he would have had if only nine years had passed. "You are the butterfly," he said with a half smile. “Congratulations, you have a pivotal role in the future. Imagine if the founder of Freeground was killed right before he got up to make his big speech. There would be no founder, a group of lost colonists and criminals wouldn't have gotten together to build that first drift station, and none of us would be here a few centuries later. Now, I'm not saying that you're destined to make some big statement worthy of poetry or song, but there's this moment coming up, and at first the Victory Machine was thinking you'd take one path that would lead to that mess you were seeing. Now that you've had a bit of a talking to, self on self, it's pretty sure you have the sense of mind to take the right path. And they call me crazy," Minh said, rolling his eyes.

  "So there's a way to stop the fighting here?"

  "Nope. The Leviathan is on her way and it's gonna put a hurt on this place. The Fifth Era needs a flash point, a marker in history that says; 'this is where it all begins, when the page turns.' You get to be there. Lucky you."

  "So what you're here to tell me-"

  "Has absolutely nothing to do with anything you just told yourself,” Minh interrupted with a chuckle. "I'm here to tell you about the reality you live in. I don't know why, but your brain conjure
d me up to tell you a few things about the near future as it stands. You’re lucky, that last episode you had, confronting yourself, was enough to nudge you onto a path I’m sure you’ll like travelling down a lot more. Best of all, you won’t die in two days, which would have put a lot of noses out of joint."

  “Thank you?” she replied.

  “You’re welcome. I don’t have much time so I’ll get on with dropping the spoilers. The real war is about to begin, and how bad the Carthans get their asses kicked will depend on how seriously they take your warnings.”

  “What about Port Rush? Should we try to leave? Head to the island?”

  “No. In fact, if you leave Port Rush you’ll be separated from most of the tools you’ll need to survive the next few weeks,” Minh said flatly. “Just picture what that would look like for a moment. You’d pack your people into half repaired ships, your gear into cargo containers, and try to save yourselves in a big carrier that barely works. It’s a random shot in the dark while jumping off a cliff. The Triton’s a liability for now.”

  “I see your point, I should have thought before asking.”

  “You are thinking, that’s why you’re here.” Minh-Chu began gently plucking an ancient song Ayan faintly remembered, but the name eluded her. “The Victory Machine has been busy over the last nine years. For a lot of that time it was feeding Hampon and General Collins just enough information to guide them down what a few people on Earth thought was the right path. They should have known better. Prophecy is dangerous.”

  “Hampon and Collins? From the Overlord Two?” Ayan asked in disbelief.

  “Yup. They had a way of gathering power, those two, and a few geniuses on the home world decided that they’d try to stop a galaxy wide war that was coming. That war would have set humanity back about a thousand years, give or take a century. They would have become vagabonds dependent on other races. The eggheads on Earth managed to prevent it by manipulating Collins, who was easy to predict. The man was mostly motivated by greed. Hampon was a different story. He was so in love with the idea of having a window to the future that he nearly fried himself by trying to create his own Victory Machine. His brush with mortality changed things, and the Victory Machine started to speak to him in whispers. Little transmissions that told him just enough to adjust his actions according to what he thought would bring him closer to real immortality, or at least a cure. The Victory Machine just wanted him to survive long enough to deliver a few messages, get a few million people in the right place.”

  “So somehow the Holocaust Virus and everything that’s happened since is better than the alternative?” Ayan asked.

  “Whoa there, you’re skipping way ahead. Hampon and Regent Galactic have done what they were guided to do, and the future is a little brighter. At least no one has to step in and save humanity, that’s already been done. You and your people just have to do your bit and fight to stay free from the Order of Eden. That religious order is about to kick into overdrive. Hampon accomplished something incredible, and it’ll save humanity from a worse fate than what we’re facing now. He went a little overboard though, so now someone has to deal with the machine he built to accomplish his goals, not to mention clean up the mess he’s made of civilization.”

  “I know,” Ayan said quietly. “I was on Pandem, and I’ve seen images of some of the other worlds.”

  “You should see it now! Pandem was the primary world for Order of Eden recruits. There are so many people there that old Hampon is celebrating by opening three more solar systems up for followers that are already moving in his direction. By the time the sun sets on Pandem tomorrow, the Order of Eden won’t be some flimsy religious order with afterlife promises and fringe benefits. It’s about to hit the big time, show real rewards for this life. The followers are about to get all fanatical and dangerous.”

  “Is there anything I can do to stop it?”

  “Nope,” Minh replied.

  “Then why tell me?”

  “You need to know it’s coming. The Carthans are about to get their teeth kicked in. You and your people will have to fight like hell. Port Rush is important to everyone. Gabriel Meunez is on his way and he wants to take his turn playing prophet.”

  “That’s why the Leviathan is coming here?” Ayan asked. “Then why not move the Victory Machine?”

  “Nope, what has to happen will have the best outcome if it happens right here. The Victory Machine has gone from sideline advisor, giving little directions and making fine adjustments, to being the featured item in a short-lived scavenger hunt. You just have to warn everyone you can. Fight as hard as you can.”

  “What about the Samson?”

  “You mean the Warlord? You were right, they’ve gotta go, just not for the reasons you seem to be focused on. Ah, the Fifth Era, it’s going to be interesting. If you stop him from leaving he’d be a big help, but he’d be missing something big out there. Might not seem big, but it will be. If you let things take their natural course with him, it’ll turn out better.”

  “Can I get a few details on that, or do I have to settle for ‘it’ll turn out better?’” she asked.

  “I’m trying to prevent unnecessary spoilers so you won’t over-adjust your strategies. It’s already like walking in a minefield with rim weasels fighting in my vacsuit,” Minh replied.

  “Okay, so I’m supposed to lead the defence on the ground. That’s something I can manage, but not over a large area.”

  “Do it the way you think is best. After you’ve held your ground long enough, you’ll see an opportunity to help with the greater scheme of things. Something shiny will fall from the sky, and you’ll have to send Oz and other people you care about out to collect it.” Minh’s strumming grew louder, and Ayan recognized the tune. As the melody of Birdhouse In Your Soul grew in volume, he went on. “You’re going to have an important visitor. Just try to get to their transit pod first.”

  “This visitor can tip the balance?”

  “We’re talking game changer big. For this war and your life.” Minh’s nimble fingers began playing Toccata and Fugue. He did it so effortlessly that it seemed his hands had minds of their own.

  Ayan was grateful for the warnings, even though she wasn’t sure if she trusted them, but needed more. “You’re telling me that we’re about to be thrust into a war, and you’re giving me this objective, which you’re treating like icing on the cake. I need more. Give me advice that rings true about something that I’ll recognize in the future. Something that will demonstrate that what you’re saying is spot on because what I heard from Ayan could come out of a good therapy session. What you’re telling me right now seems just a little vague, for the most part.”

  Minh silenced his strings. “Sure. At oh nine thirty-one tomorrow, the Leviathan will arrive in orbit. That’s zero, nine, thirty-one hours, galactic time. They will launch assault pods with framework soldiers directly at Port Rush after detecting trace amounts of temporal radiation. That’ll happen three minutes after the Leviathan arrives. You will see an explosion to your left as one of them strikes a xetima tank. You will want to move the Weary Traveller eighteen meters back, otherwise the fore section of the ship will be destroyed in a pod strike. By doing this you will save the lives of two pilots, a comms officer, an electrician, and her young son. Specific enough?”

  She went through her instructions in her head, only to find a perfect memory of them there.

  “Just make sure you pop that into your comm unit when you get out of this guided dream,” Minh remarked with a smirk.

  “This is all real, those things will really happen,” she said, mostly to herself.

  “Damn straight. You’re going to discover things about this galaxy that are going to get you thinking big. You and everyone from Freeground grew up in an isolated little can, and it’s time you all opened your eyes so you can really be a part of things. Jake’s done it already. He was forced to.” Minh stopped playing for a moment and tipped his hat up. “Now on to the really important stuf
f.”

  “What? Telling me that a group of elitists on Earth decided to feed information to Lister Hampon and his friends wasn’t big enough?” Ayan asked. “They had to see the Holocaust Virus coming, they had to know what he’d-“

  “The other option would have led to humanity losing control of its fate. Now humanity has a chance, and people will start seeing the upcoming war for what it is - a just one. Besides, the Holocaust Virus was supposed to be a little program based on Alice’s code that gave the gears a kick, made artificial intelligences less reliable so several of the participants in a coming galactic war would back down. Collins found the secret to creating a virus that would take control of the Eden Fleet at the same time, and things got crazy,” Minh sighed. “Bad crazy. No, General Collins and Lister Hampon overdid it, and before Collins could start corrections or put Hampon back on a leash, Gabriel Meunez bashed his brains in. It was still the solution, but applied with too heavy a hand.”

  “You think so?” Ayan replied.

  “That virus was supposed to get humans moving, spread out, not kill billions. The whole mess wasn't even supposed to be blamed on Valent.” For a moment Minh allowed himself to get distracted as he performed a more difficult part of the piece. Around him the environment changed slightly. Several of the ships faded away to be replaced by others. In the distance two large docking towers appeared. Each of them showed signs of damage. Repair platforms were being lifted into place by shuttles. There had been fighting, but more progress than was evident before. Minh silenced his strings suddenly and continued. "Kerry, the previous holder of the Victory Machine who was killed in a collapse in Mount Elbrus sent information to Hampon because he knew that, one way or another, he'd do what had to be done. Unfortunately, the bearer of the Victory Machine doesn't send instructions, just flashes like I’m doing now, or much less, like lines of text and fortune cookie length prophecies. Hampon's best method of countering the dark future the Victory Machine predicted was to create this Order of Eden and offer it as a refuge to people as they tried to escape the Holocaust Virus. The game is rigged, always was."