by Alex Deva
“Which is?“
“It makes them unafraid of death.“
The voice from far away considered. It, too, knew what death was.
“Well, there are many reasons to not fear death,“ it suggested.
“Sure. But these people actually believe they’re immortal. They die, ostensibly, and of various causes, but they believe that if they wanted to, they could live forever.“
“Is that not somewhat… conceited?“
“Good word, Control. I see human form becomes you.“
“One of us has to be doing their job, fletcher.“
“Well, you’ll be humanly glad to hear that I, too, shared your opinion initially. Until I had another look at the biometrics of a group of people who exited the bubble after a particular vicious nomadic incursion.“
“And?“
“I thought my watchers were malfunctioning, because they showed nearly no change at all. Not at any level. Their digestive systems had made nearly no progress pushing food along; in fact, I am quite convinced that they exited the bubble with the same air molecules in their lungs which they had inhaled on their way in.“
“How long were they in?“
“Half a day. Objectively measured, from planetary orbit.“
“Unless my human body is inadequate, I do not see how they could have held their breath for so long.“
“I am sure your human body is adequate. I have come to believe that the bubble slows down subjective time, in the same way that something in that forest clearing speeds it up.“
“Does your newly invented mathematical apparatus count this as compensation? One is slow because the other is fast?“
“It could be applied in that sense, yes.“
“Subjective time change in a stationary reference frame? That is a pretty blatant break of the laws of the Universe. Are you sure you’re still in ours?“
“That might actually be a better question than you think, Control.“
“Excuse me?!“
“No, we’re still sharing the same Universe. But consider that we may not be the first advanced visitors to this particular planet.“
“The Eight?“
“It’s probable that they keep an eye on the planet, but this is too advanced even for them.“
The voice pondered.
“Of course, we have not met everybody everywhere, and we have always known that we do not know everything, but time manipulation at rest seems like a stretch.“
“Yes. But perhaps no more so than my Blank would appear to these young people.“
The voice pondered again.
“Now you have really given me something to talk to the Council about, fletcher Keai. If this is first contact with a civilisation that much more advanced than us, then indeed manning your Blank would come second to that.“
“On the contrary, I’m making my Blank a priority now.“
“Are you? You can be difficult to follow at times.“
“Control, I am surrounded by people who go to a fight knowing that, whatever happens, they can send their loved ones to quite possibly the safest place in all time and space. Can you imagine how that makes them fight?“
“I presume that they fight like people who believe they are immortal.“
“Yes. In fact, I’m quite sure that many of them object less than strongly to being plundered.“
“And that makes them viable candidates for your Blank?“
“Not just viable. It makes them prime candidates for a particular position.“
“Let me guess. You’ve found yourself a Cub Tamer.“
“Indeed I have.“
“My congratulations. I do believe the chances of us surviving both our jobs have increased considerably. How did you find her, or him?“
“It was quite interesting, really. I noticed him in a group of children who were running to take refuge inside the Bubble.“
“What did he do?“
“He turned around, fought their attackers, and thoroughly disabled them.“
“Was it necessary in order to gain time for the others?“
“No, it wasn’t. The kid was actually having fun.“
IX.
“Excuse me,“ said Tiessler and his image froze.
Lykke Dahlberg glanced at her tab nervously, then shot a questioning look at Souček. The priest returned her look, then signalled to someone outside the camera’s field of view.
Momentarily ignoring Mark, the director of civilian security turned to Jessica Lawry, who was fidgeting nervously on her chair.
“I know you’re not supposed to open your mouth, lieutenant, but do you have any notion as to what your boss could possibly have to do that’s more important than this?“
Jessica Lawry coughed edgily and said:
“No, madam director.“
“I see. Would you tell me if you did?“
“No, madam director. But I might tell you that I knew, if I did.“
“What’s going on?“ asked Mark.
“Nothing as far as I can tell,“ answered Souček from his screen. “We’re not under attack, and we don’t have any reports of anything out of the ordinary.“
“And we're still safe here in the hotel,“ said Dahlberg glancing again at her tab.
“How many people do you have there?“ asked Souček.
“Not that many. About thirty. This whole floor, two floors above and two below, and a few posted outside.“
“Thirty Rooks?“
“Yes.“
“God save us all,“ said Souček, sotto voce.
Mark leaned towards Lawry.
“What’s a Rook?“
“Remember the guys who escorted us from the hangar?“
“Two guys, two girls. Were they Rooks?“
“A Rook is a crazy bastard, sergeant. A Rook is a fantastical being. Notice that I say being, not human being.“
“They were robots? Androids?“
“Might as well be.“
“The Rooks are my special agents,“ cut in Dahlberg. “They’re not robots, they’re people. But they’re very good people.“
“In the same way that a bullet is a very good knife,“ said Souček.
“Ah,“ said Mark.
“Fanatical fucks,“ muttered Lawry.
“Who are?“ asked Tiessler.
“What happened?“ asked Dahlberg breathlessly.
“That yellow square,“ said the German colonel, now returned on his screen. “The Builders refer to them as, well, Squares. Or maybe that’s just how it translates into English. Or how it translated into miss Doina’s brain’s English. Sowieso. They're a race numbering trillions, and they live in the atmospheric isobars of gas giants. They’re apparently extremely advanced by, erm, galactic standards,“ he read.
If Doina told them that, she must’ve had a terribly good reason, thought Mark, who was also hearing it for the first time.
“They interact and communicate by some kind of vibrations, which is mostly how we do it ourselves,“ continued Tiessler. “Except they can vibrate in the whole spectrum, from ELF all the way to gamma rays and beyond. They are, um, exactly one atom thick.“
A frozen silence filled the conference room. Mark looked around uncertainly. Lawry returned his gaze blankly.
“One atom of what?“ asked Souček.
* * *
“How long?“
“Not long now. My beamer is almost above us.“
“Should you not be with him by now?“
“Yes. Here they come.“ And then, loudly: “Hail Rome!“
“Fuck off,“ answered Aram, at unison with the old man who was with him.
* * *
“…using some kind of alien stem cells,“ finished Tiessler.
“Can stem cells act as brain neurones?“ asked Mark.
“Technically yes, but not on such a massive scale,“ answered Souček. “At least definitely not with our current knowledge.“
“And not in a few seconds,“ said Dahlberg.
“And not from a distance,“ added Tiessler. “Yes, I know this isn’t the complete answer. But it’s all we have at the moment and it’s enough. The most important thing is that we know that it’s possible for the Squares, and that it wasn’t magic.“
“Nobody thought it was magic,“ muttered the Czech priest.
* * *
“What do you currently look like?“ inquired the voice from another planet.
“I’m a Roman soldier. I’m newly attached to their military group called the Gemina legion. My name is Cornelius Albus Paullus,“ answered Keai. “I have orders to report to their barracks in Apulum, together with this other centurion called Naevius.“
“Interesting role. You seldom play warriors. Did you really arrange to get those orders?“
“Of course not. I merely produced the necessary proof. Once I harvest my Cub Tamer, I don’t intend to spend much time in this role. Speaking of roles, I think that was my cue to act like an idiot.“
Calculating the proper intonation to express irritation and arrogance, the alien said, in his synthesised human voice:
“Are you really going to let these barbarians talk to us this way, Naevius?“
* * *
“Well. I suppose there’s no question anymore that we made the right decision,“ said Souček.
The others said nothing. Mark looked at Tiessler’s screen and asked, softly:
“Colonel?“
“Yes, mister Greene,“ said the perpetually tired German. “I know, and I agree. It’s time you became appraised of our plan.“
“Which I proposed and you opposed,“ said the priest.
“Yes, well, not anymore, father.“ The annoyance in the retort and the irony in the appellative were unmistakable. “Please tell our guest what, um, your plan was.“
“The Vatican — and, as of now, the other parties present at this meeting —“, began the Czech, “are of the opinion that humankind cannot handle the current crisis, no matter what we try. We are facing forces so far beyond our understanding that our chances of recovery are currently rated at null comma null.“
He paused for effect. Dahlberg looked towards the ceiling, and sighed in quiet exasperation.
These two really can’t stand each other, thought Mark.
“We need help from elsewhere. That much is obvious,“ said Tiessler.
Mark frowned. “We’ve had this talk already, colonel,“ he said.
“Yes, you have,“ intervened Dahlberg, “and I wish I was present, but whereas then the subject was helping Eurasia against the United States, this time it’s about helping humankind against atom-thick beings who can rebuild brains and want to force us into worship and onto their side of a galactic cold war.“
Mark looked around ostentatiously. “I don’t see any Americans at the table,“ he said.
“I’m American,“ muttered Jessica Lawry sourly.
“The Americans are at the table, through me,“ said Dahlberg, ignoring Lawry. “We’ve activated a couple of back channels, which wouldn’t have worked during the Moon War, but even the Yanks understand that this is a lot bigger. It was too risky for us to bring them here to Austria, or even to participate remotely. But believe me, mister Greene, that just this once, the Americans and we are united. And sure, we’ll probably jump back at each other’s throats the second this threat is over, if we’re still here and we still have throats.“
The Brit nodded. No armistice like finding a common threat, he thought. Some things will never change.
“Arguably, we have a starship,“ he began.
“Two,“ said Tiessler.
“Arguably two, then. How might we employ them to prevent global religious radicalisation in the name of an anti-matter false god?“
“Scaring away the Squares would be a start,“ said the German.
“Isn’t the harm already done?“
“There’s a lot of harm done, yes, but there’s plenty left to be done.“
“Like what?“
Tiessler scratched his face in annoyance, and glanced away at his tab. “As it turns out,“ he said, still looking away, “this isn’t their first operation of this kind. They’ve done it before, to other civilisations, and what they did scares me a lot more than remote brain surgery.“
* * *
A yellow ribbon-like ray, attached to nothing but the blue sky above, wide as a man with arms outstretched and flat like a sword, was approaching from the east. It made no discernible noise and, for all the surprise it caused, seemed to do no other harm. It came near the two centurions and completely engulfed the young one, who instinctively picked up his shield and raised it above his head. Weirdly, the yellow ray went straight through his wooden and leather shield as if it was water.
“Why did you raise your shield?“ wondered the voice.
“It was appropriate for me to act surprised,“ answered Keai. “Of course, my beamer is tuned to the subject and wouldn’t bind to anyone else. I programmed it to find him in reference to me, so that’s why it’s scanning me first.“
“How long is your window of opportunity?“
“The Blank is on the precisely opposite side of the planet, waiting for the matter stream. Unless I act to change its orbit, there are only a few moments left.“
The ray headed to the two Dacians. Frowning and apprehensive, the old Dacian stepped right in front of the ray and was engulfed in yellow light a moment later.
“Kinda looks like Jupiter is pissing on us,“ remarked Cornelius/Keai loudly.
“Why did you mention Jupiter pissing?“ wondered the voice in his head.
“Cultural reference, Control. And, look — the beamer found my Tamer.“
The ray found Aram and turned orange, and then red.
“Good… that’s good. Checks complete. Ready for matter transfer.“
The ray turned dark.
The summer sun was still shining and there was plenty of light everywhere, but the ray above Aram was like a grey shadow, which turned darker and darker until the young man disappeared in it completely. There was a black flash — the ray becoming, for an instance, blacker than black — and then it disappeared in a blink of an eye.
Aram was gone.
X.
“Can they really do that?“ asked Aram, grabbing another boiled corncob from a Tupperware box.
Ileana Toma passed him a small, white packet with the EASS MONNET logo in a corner and the word “salt“ printed in the middle. The Dacian took it, touching the scientist’s fingers perhaps one tiny fraction of a second longer than absolutely required, and mumbled thanks in his native language, knowing that she would understand.
“Yes, they can,“ said Doina. “They’ve done it before.“
“Wouldn’t that take millions and millions of them?“
“Yes. But that’s not a problem.“
“So they actually fly out between a planet and its sun, and block the light like a cloud?“
“Like an eclipse,“ said Toma. “A living eclipse, stopping light and heat. It’s the ultimate planetary destroyer. Better than any bomb. Worse than any bomb, I mean.“
“Like an eclipse with tiny holes in it,“ corrected the twelve-year-old girl. “They would allow some places on Earth to be lit and warmed. For the believers.“
“There’s no way any government on Earth would resist that kind of blackmail,“ said Toma. “It’s just impossible. Earth would agree to anything. Anything at all.“
“But these fuckers are really thin,“ said Aram in confusion. “I could take Effo for a quick spin and, you know. Offend them. With the Offender,“ he added as an explanation that didn’t really help Toma, who shot back a confused look.
“Effo’s cannon might be a match for a Square, or it might not,“ said Doina, “but, besides the fact that I really hate the idea, it wouldn’t work. They can move faster than Effo can aim. It’d be like throwing rocks at flies.“
“How about Doi’s cannon?“
“Will you forget about c
annons. Killing even one Square would put the Builders at war with the Eight. Millions of other worlds would be dragged in, including Earth.“
“Hum,“ said the Dacian. He had known war his entire life, but his wars had been fought against people made of flesh and blood, warriors with axes and spears and swords and arrows and horses. And we had swords and arrows and horses too, he thought. And, of course, the Shelter and the Firebark and the Quickening. What a difference those things made.
He wondered idly about the Quickening, that special place where Dacians would draw their attackers to slow them down and make them vulnerable. I could actually hit a fly with a rock in a Quickening when I was a kid, he thought. Or with a Firebark, although it’s hard to miss anything with a Firebark. Wasn’t there a Quickening somewhere here in space, too? He’d have to remember to ask Doina about that. Might come useful.
“Anything wrong with that corn?“ asked Toma.
“What? No. It’s delicious,“ he said.
“You were just twisting and turning it.“
“Nah, was just thinking about something. Corn’s great,“ he said. “Wish we had it in my time.“
“Oh, they only brought it to Europe about a thousand years after you were born,“ said the biologist.
“Really,“ said Aram. “Well worth the wait I say.“
She smiled, just as he had hoped.
So everyone’s gonna die, he thought.
* * *
The first to speak was Karel Souček. His voice was calm, but his face was whiter than before. He swallowed hard, reached towards a glass of water and, before taking a sip, said:
“Did I just say our chances were null comma null? That may have been optimistic.“
Lykke Dahlberg was staring blankly at Tiessler’s screen. The German officer, having finished reading from his tab Doina’s story about the blackmail techniques of the Squares, seemed more tired than ever. He put his tab gently down on the table, very slowly and deliberately, as if trying to not make the slightest sound. Then, he ran his hand over his mouth, exhaled and closed his eyes.
