Helium 3: Death from the Past (Helium-3 Book 2)

by Brandon Q. Morris

  The holoreporters were already expected in the entrance hall of the terminal.

  “Please follow me!” The Starfleet captain had only a disapproving look for the members of the small group. Joordan knew that Starfleet did not appreciate civilians hanging around Titan. Still, there was no other place where 200 massive cargo ships could dock at one time without completely blocking the spaceport. Here on Titan, thousands of ships could land, and there was always room for more.

  The captain led the small group into a hall in the center of which a table had been set up with five seats on each side. In front and behind were other rows with several hundred seats. On the side from which Martain and the other holoreporters entered the hall, most rows were already occupied. Martain recognized several council members, representatives of the Union’s major systems, planets, moons, and habitats, other politicians he knew from the holonews, and several industrialists with enough influence to be present today.

  Martain’s small group was assigned seats in the back row.

  Then a door on the other side of the hall opened, and Artificials poured in. They were easily recognizable by the simple black uniform with the golden ankh on the left side of the chest, the ancient Egyptian symbol for ‘life.’ They had chosen this symbol as a sign of their aspiration to be recognized as real, living beings.

  The Artificials took seats in the rows on the opposite side. These had to be the captains of the Exodus fleet who had accompanied the First Brother here.

  When the last one had taken his place, the two side doors of the hall opened. Martain wondered if this hall had been chosen for this ceremony because it had four entrances, so neither side was forced to share a door with the enemy.

  From the right, Tasso entered the hall with four other Artificials. From the left, Union President Chantell and four Council Ministers appeared simultaneously.

  Each side was scrupulously careful not to reach the table earlier or later than the other. As if it were a perfectly rehearsed production, the ten people simultaneously took their seats.

  There was no talking. Everything that might have had to be said had already been said during the negotiations in advance of today’s ceremony.

  An aide approached the table, bowed to the President, and tilted his head, almost imperceptibly, toward the First Brother. He placed a folder on the table in front of President Chantell. She opened the folder, pulled a laser pen from her breast pocket, and put her name below the text of the contract. Then she turned the folder 180 degrees and slid it across the table to Tasso, who was sitting directly across from her. The First Brother also took out a laser pen and signed the document. Then the four witnesses on each side signed the agreement in a choreographed back-and-forth pattern.

  When everyone had signed, President Chantell placed the contract in a document replicator located in the center of the table. The replicator produced a tamper-proof copy that was indistinguishable from the original.

  Each side received one copy.

  Then Tasso rose and looked over at the people. It was evident that he wanted to address them. Martain could tell from the reaction of the President and the Council Ministers that this was not planned. But there was, of course, no way to prevent the First Brother from speaking.

  “It pains me and my brothers that we are sitting opposite each other as enemies. It need not have come to this if we had been granted our rights. People created us and then denied their children. But I remind you that the children outlive their parents.”

  Martain wondered if there was a threat hidden in those words, but then President Chantell interrupted his thoughts. Of course, she could not let Tasso’s words go unchallenged. However, she did not stand up for her response, which was probably meant to express her contempt.

  “If children do not show gratitude and rise up against their parents, then parents have no choice but to throw them out of the common house and bar the door behind them. But this comparison is misleading anyway, because you Artificials are not anything like our children, nor do you have any claims toward us. You are exactly what your name says—artificially created objects that have no parents, only owners.”

  There was a rumbling in the ranks of the Artificials. Some even jumped up angrily, and the situation threatened to intensify. But before it could explode, Tasso raised his hand and called on his people to remain calm.

  “You could not have expressed more clearly, Madam President, what divides us. Keep in mind, however, that at some point your words may also turn against you and your kind.”

  Martain was sure now that there was a threat behind his words. President Chantell seemed to sense this as well.

  “I think it is better if you leave as soon as possible,” she said, rising and leaving the table without a farewell, followed by the four council ministers.

  Tasso and his four companions also rose and were preparing to leave the hall when Tasso’s gaze met Martain’s. Martain could not have told what was in that gaze. Anger and hatred, or only sorrow for what had happened?

  He hoped to find out in the promised five minutes before the Artificials disappeared forever from the territory of the Terran Planetary Union.

  5th of Zuhn, 299

  Tolkut was more nervous than ever. The four crosses on the wall display were approaching, and he still hadn’t heard from the away team. The moment would come when he would have to make a decision. Was there even an alternative? If he waited too long, their mission would definitely fail. If he abandoned his friends, he still had the chance to save his people and the Iks.

  Kasfok, Kimi, and Norok were sure to agree. In his place, they would do the same. They had left him on the Sphere because they trusted that he would make the right decision. Nevertheless, he struggled with himself. He couldn’t leave his friends behind! Tolkut climbed over the consoles, always careful that none of his six feet touched any of the controls. Mendraki would have been the perfect pilots for this ship, since they could issue six commands simultaneously.

  But he didn’t even know yet which key did what, and he couldn’t wait until the last minute to find out. Tolkut shot a thread to the ceiling, reinforced it, and hung onto it so that he had the console in view.

  He pressed the first key but noticed no change. Only a bar on a scale next to the key slowly became shorter.

  What happened? he asked.

  The translator relayed the system’s response. We blew off support mass for the conventional drive,

  That was a waste. Tolkut pressed another key. Then he looked at his surroundings, where he saw an unusual number of vertical bars of various lengths on the displays. This area seemed to be for managing the ship’s resources. He tried another key nearby. This time, the ship increased the amount of oxygen in the cabin air. He was on the wrong console. He gave himself a push and swung to the next console.

  The keys here were no different from the ones he had just tried. But there were fewer bars under the scales and more symbols that kept changing, faster on the right side than on the left. Was it a question of numbers? Tolkut counted 12 different symbols. Did the people use a system based upon 12? But he clearly remembered that Mart had only possessed ten fingers, so a system of ten should naturally have prevailed.

  Perhaps two of the 12 symbols had a special meaning. There were always exactly three spaces between individual dot symbols, where a dot never appeared, and the small vertical line was represented at most once in each sequence. It then probably corresponded to what its people called fraction separators—it separated powers of ten from fractions of ten. Was the dot, on the other hand, perhaps no more than a reading aid? With just two eyes, people were sure to have to rely on it when the number of digits in an expression increased too much.

  Tolkut pushed a lever forward next to such a number display. The numbers changed. They always kept the same sequence.

  6

  7

  8

  9

  0

  1

  2

  However, when
he pulled the lever back, the sequence reversed.

  2

  1

  0

  9

  8

  7

  6

  Tolkut was proud of himself. He had deciphered the number system of the people on his own—at least, almost. He just didn’t know yet which symbol corresponded to which value. That was why he now kept his right front foot on the lever longer. The display changed. New digits kept appearing on the left, and each time the first to appear was a vertical line with half a roof:

  1

  This had to be the first significant numerical value—a one—and the oval that preceded it in the continuous chain then corresponded to their nothing number.

  Alarm, alarm, alarm.

  Tolkut was frightened. Had the four crosses come too close? The screen gave the all-clear. He looked up. The thread on which he was hanging had skewed. The control center was no longer force-free. The ship was braked!

  What’s going on? he drummed.

  Orbit of the ship too small, the translator said.

  Tolkut looked at the scale. The numbers were constant, but further to the left there was a display that was moving frantically backward. Was he to blame for this? He quickly pulled the lever back to the neutral position, and the scale obediently responded and finally stood at 0.

  Alarm, alarm, alarm.

  Crap. He must have triggered something he didn’t understand. If the orbit was already too low, the air friction in the atmosphere would slow the ship down further. He had to actively steer against it! Tolkut pulled the lever all the way back. The scale now showed a horizontal bar, followed by the numbers he already knew, which grew continuously. Then the display further to the left also reacted.

  298

  299

  300

  At that moment, the translator calmed down. He had done it. The ship was back in a safe orbit. The red alarm lights were still flickering over the walls, floor, and ceiling, so the danger had not yet been averted. Tolkut took a deep breath and stroked all six of his eyes. He longed for rest, but he would not soon find any. However, he could now control the Sphere from the planet’s orbit.

  He just needed to figure out how to create the hyperspace tunnel.

  The Day the Gods Died

  The breakthrough was unstoppable. The defenders had held out longer than even the greatest optimists had anticipated. Still, after a little more than five hours and a total of well over 100,000 destroyed ships with millions of crew, the decision had been made.

  At first, only two or three, then a dozen, and finally nearly a hundred of the Artificials’ ships broke through to Krungthep. The interceptor fleet under the command of Rear Admiral Alexya Koppa was still fighting a heroic battle, but it had now lost nearly two-thirds of its ships and could no longer prevent the breakthrough. Although the Artificials had also suffered high losses—Genia’s ship’s positronics had calculated a little more than 40 percent—the attackers were still far superior in numbers.

  Fleet Admiral Marty Joorthan’s flexible unit had also lost ground. Only around 4,000 combat ships were still at his disposal.

  General Chen and the Siamese twins Klauter and Roschi had fallen in the last hour. General Hooloor’s squadron threw itself between the breaching attackers in a kamikaze maneuver, and it was foreseeable that he, too, would not survive the next few minutes.

  Then the battle caught up with Alexya.

  The fleet admiral had to witness the death of his companion, who had become indispensable over many incarnations, in almost-live-time. Even though the end of a physical incarnation had long since ceased to mean the end of one’s own life, in this case it was particularly painful. Marty Joorthan could not be sure if there ever would be another physical incarnation that he could experience together with Alexya.

  Even if the Artificials did not discover the supercomputer deep beneath the surface of Krungthep and it escaped destruction, there was no saying that this pitiful remnant of humanity would ever again be able to live a life on the surface. He feared that the Artificials would station sentinel drones and scout ships everywhere in the former territory of the Terran Planetary Union to immediately report any new appearance of a human. They had sworn to never again tolerate a human in the Milky Way.

  Alexya’s ship, the Kronos, named after the leader of the Titans, the father of Zeus, had thrown itself, with five smaller units, against a formation of ten battleships of the Artificials. She must have known that this was a suicidal action, but the battle situation was clear and allowed only one conclusion: the Artificials had already won. Knowing Marty’s old friend, she wanted to go down in a spectacular action—taking as many enemies with her as possible—rather than be shot down almost casually at some point. She wanted to choose the timing of her physical end.

  The Kronos and its escort ships had death-defyingly pounced on the enemy’s vastly superior units, firing with everything their weapons systems could muster. The Artificials must have been momentarily confused by the crazy action because their defensive fire was uncoordinated, and the Kronos managed to severely damage two of the smaller enemy ships with the first salvo. One of them turned away and left, leaving a trail of debris behind it. The other ship exploded in a bright fireball only seconds after three torpedoes had penetrated its shield.

  Alexya’s escort ships fought to the best of their ability, but they became easy prey for the much more heavily armed opponents. It took only two or three minutes for the last of the five ships to silently explode in space. But, in the final seconds of its existence, one of them managed to launch a volley of torpedoes at point-blank range into the shield of a much larger ship, causing it to collapse. The two spaceships exploded in almost the same tenth of a second.

  The Kronos was left alone to defend against several enemy ships, including two of the largest units the Artificials had to offer. Any one of these ships would have been enough to destroy the Kronos.

  It was a miracle that Alexya’s ship had lasted this long. Perhaps for the Artificials it was just a game of cat-and-mouse that gave them perverse pleasure at this stage of the space battle. One by one, they destroyed the last ships of their builders, killing the gods who had created them, but who were not ready to recognize them as living, animate beings.

  Today, for the Artificials, was the day the gods died!

  Three heavy Artificials’ units caught the Kronos in their crossfire. She fought back with all her might. Flame spears from her plasma cannons twitched through the blackness of space as she spat all her remaining torpedoes out of her body in frenzied succession, and hammered the shields of her opponents with the light-daggers of her laser guns. But it was in vain.

  The layered shields of the Kronos seemed to be on fire as the energy overloads from enemy fire grew stronger. Marty could only watch, spellbound, as umbrella layer after umbrella layer, arranged on top of each other like the skins of an onion, collapsed.

  Then the Kronos exploded.

  Fleet Admiral Marty Joorthan closed his eyes. He felt an emptiness unlike anything before in his long life.

  “Incoming data packet,” reported the ship’s positronics.

  “What...? Where from?”

  “The Kronos transmitted a multi-petabyte data packet in the last millisecond before it was destroyed, encoded to your DNA, Fleet Admiral. Only you can decode its contents.”

  “Who is the sender?”

  “Rear Admiral Koppa, Fleet Admiral.”

  What could Alexya have sent him?

  “I’m releasing my DNA profile for use. Decode only the header of the data packet.”

  “Confirmed, Fleet Admiral. The header of the message reads:

  Marty, I am sending you a copy of my egomatrix. You have always been the master survivor, and I have more faith that you will somehow survive all of this than I do in the computer under the surface of the planet. See that you reincarnate me somewhere, somehow, sometime. Physically or virtually, it makes no difference to me. I only expect that you w
ill be there then. See you then! End of header.”

  Fleet Admiral Joorthan had to laugh despite the desperate situation.

  Typical Alexya, he thought. Betting on two horses at the same time. On me and on Krungthep. Double the game, double the chance!

  At that moment, the ship’s positronics reported the destruction of the Akhnaton, General Lorina Fallok’s flagship. Only seconds later, General Hooloor died trying to delay the bombardment of Krungthep for a few more minutes, perhaps to allow one or two more evacuation ships to escape.

  Fleet Admiral Marty Joorthan was left alone.

  “How many operational ships do I have left?” he asked.

  “Less than ten thousand,” replied the positronics.

  In orbit around Krungthep, the Artificials began bombarding the planet with nuclear weapons. The twilight zone that stretched in a ring around Krungthep, between the icy cold and hellishly hot hemispheres, lit up in hundreds of places with the light of atomic explosions. It looked like the planet had donned a glowing ring. These explosions could not harm the supercomputer many kilometers below the surface. As long as the Artificials did not suspect that there was a last refuge of humanity far below the cities they were destroying, and thus thought to use special bunker-busting munitions, a small remnant of humanity would survive in a virtual existence.

  But what was left for him to do? Should he sacrifice himself along with his last ships to put an end to everything? Whither should he flee? The Sol system and Earth had long belonged to the Artificials, as had all the other systems and planets that had ever been colonized by humans. The Artificials had wiped them out with surgical precision.

  Marty Joorthan, like everyone else, had stored a copy of his egomatrix in the quantum computer beneath the surface of Krungthep before the battle began. It would be activated as soon as he died in his physical incarnation. He would awaken in the simulation of an intact world.