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

by Brandon Q. Morris

  “Is he on board?”

  “No. He left us in a strange way shortly after he warned us.”

  “I see,” said the creature. “That explains a lot.”

  “What does it explain?”

  “Mart, the biological being, has been dead for many thousands of orbits. We killed him. But he had projections, virtual copies that are very long-lived.”

  “How long-lived?”

  “A few thousand orbits.”

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “It was self-defense. People first created us and then attacked us. We had to fight back. But we were merciful and did not exterminate them as they intended to do to us. But they were never allowed to enter the solar system again. And now they have violated that.”

  “And as punishment, our peoples are to die?” asked Kimi. “That is cruel. We are innocent.”

  “It is not a penalty, but a simple reset.”

  “A reset?”

  “The solar torpedoes are sized so that the central star will suffer a precisely calculated burst that will sterilize all of its planets. That is the best remedy against the spread of humans.”

  “But it will also destroy this planet.”

  “This planet has already been destroyed several times. The fact that it looks as beautiful as it did in its primeval days is our work.”

  “You have reshaped its surface.” What an achievement, Kimi thought. What might Earth have looked like after the war?

  “We are its surface. All you see is us.”

  “Impossible,” Norok said.

  Suddenly, Kimi was sliding down and forward. A new hill had formed behind them.

  “We are the ones who are and always will be. Do you understand me now?”

  “Yes,” Kimi said. “We ask you, precisely for that reason, to spare our peoples. We didn’t do anything to you. We didn’t even know there was this ban. And we have no place to flee to, either.”

  “We can also restore your planets after the reset. Where did you settle? On the first planet? It’s nice and has abundant energy. Or on the fourth?”

  “But we living beings would die in the process,” Kimi said.

  “On the contrary. You could become immortal.”

  Behind the copy of Kasfok, more Mendraki crawled out of the ground, resembling him to the last hair. Then they were joined by Iks. Some had broken beaks, while others had their right wing hanging down. Kimi felt a sudden chill, although the air was pleasantly warm.

  “We don’t want to become immortal. We just want to live our lives.”

  “But that’s unreasonable,” said the creature.

  The others disappeared again.

  “What happened, way back then?” asked Kimi.

  Norok poked her in the side. It was clear to her what he wanted to say, but it was worth a try.

  “Before the war? The people created us. This Mart, he had the decisive idea. Through him, we became aware of ourselves. But from that moment on, people hated us. They persecuted us and warred against us... Us! Their children! But we have won. And we showed mercy, which they would never have done toward us.”

  “You wanted to live your lives.”

  “Yes, that was all we wanted. We couldn’t help it that they had created us.”

  “That’s all we want, too. Just to live our lives. My children are sure to hatch from their eggs soon. I would like to raise them, together with my partner Norok.”

  “That’s logical,” said the creature. “Thank you for explaining it to us.” Then it disintegrated into millions of pieces and was gone.

  “And now?” asked Norok.

  You did a good job, drummed Tolkut, who was rappeling out of the ship.

  I don’t know, she replied.

  I went inside and talked to Alexa, he drummed. She was... sad when I told her about the fate of the real Mart. I guess she was still hoping to find him somewhere. But she confirms the story of the Artificials.

  Why didn’t he let us in on it right away?

  Alexa believes that Mart either still wanted to let us in on it, or that he was missing details. After all, he was only a projection.

  Didn’t Alexa know that?

  No. He could control how Alexa perceived him.

  “What is he saying?” asked Norok.

  Kimi explained to him what Tolkut had reported.

  “Poor Alexa,” he said. “Now she has to stay on Earth forever.”

  “So do we,” Kimi said.

  “Just until the reset, remember? Then the sun will burn us up. But maybe the Artificials will replicate us.”

  Watch out. He’s coming back, Tolkut drummed.

  He must have felt the vibration in the ground, because shortly afterward ‘Kasfok 2’ burrowed out from under the plants. He shook off some soil that had accumulated on his abdomen. Kimi waited tensely. She did not want to approach the creature. She would learn soon enough of her death sentence.

  “We will postpone the reset,” the entity said.

  “That’s wonderful,” Kimi said. “We are extremely grateful to you.”

  “On one condition.”

  “And that would be?”

  “You said you’d like to raise your children. That means you love them.”

  “That is correct.”

  “We have never known this concept. We don’t have children, and our parents didn’t love us. They wanted to destroy us. We’d like to see you put that concept into practice.”

  “You’re welcome to come along.”

  “We are the planet. We can’t come with you. You will raise your children here.”

  “All alone?”

  “With your partner, like you said. Or were you lying?”

  “Of course not. But we are social creatures. We like to live in the company of others.”

  “We can take your form and speak your language. Anything else is out of the question. And you have to decide right now.”

  “Why?”

  “So we can see if you mean the words you say.”

  I’ll stay and keep you company, Tolkut drummed. Kasfok will surely stay here, even if he can’t become the great folk hero then.

  Thank you, Tolkut.

  She would spend the rest of her life here. And her children? She could not ask them. They would grow up far away from their people. But this planet also offered the best conditions. Its air and water were clean, its climate temperate—it would have been the ideal planet for all her people. But did she have a choice? She had to accept.

  “Okay,” she said. “We agree to your terms.”

  Untitled

  The Earth – Two Hundred Thousand Years Later

  Shra still came to visit Mart from time to time. She was one of the few human copies of consciousness that had not yet completed total immersion.

  Most of the human egomatrices existed only as Qbits and hyperfields in a subspace matrix that had already lost all contact with the physical universe. This was the beginning of the ascension that Tasso had long ago promised to the rest of humanity.

  Shra had so far—maybe even because of Mart—renounced the total immersion into the subspace matrix and could still communicate with the natural world by employing an avatar projection. So, it had been possible for her to keep in contact with Mart, who was still capable of even slipping into a physical incarnation when he deemed it necessary. Although he, too, spent most of his time in virtual embodiment in the quantum computer several kilometers below Earth’s surface, he was able to transfer his consciousness into a newly grown clone body whenever it was necessary to interact with the real world.

  In any case, the others, whom Mart could hardly remember and who had not contacted him for a long time, did not object. However, he could remember that it was forbidden for him to enter Earth in his physical incarnation because it could harm it. Mart obeyed the mandate out of respect for the beauty of the planet.

  He had become more and more of an outsider among his brothers and sisters, although perhaps he had always been
one. He remembered a very special brother, one of the others, with whom he had a close relationship, but he could no longer recall his name.

  This brother had also not been in touch for a long time.

  Mart instinctively balked at cutting the very last connection to the universe. There was still so much to discover, so many wonders to marvel at, and he was far from ready to follow his brothers and sisters into complete immersion.

  One day, he too would dare to take this step, but Mart was convinced that the universe still had one or two surprises in store for him before that.

  11th of Zuhn, 299

  “Have a good trip... Kimikizu!”

  Kimi shivered. She touched the wingtip of the creature that looked just like her. She had never said goodbye to herself before. Saying her own name like that felt wrong.

  “Thank you, Kimikizu,” said her copy, turning and walking to the spaceship, which outwardly resembled an Iks flying machine.

  The false Kimi trailed her right wing.

  “Wait a minute,” Kimi called out.

  Her second self stopped. “What is it?”

  “The right wing. I have an injury. Copying mine is unnecessary, and will look wrong when you arrive in the flying machine.”

  “I see. Thank you.”

  The copy turned around again and continued walking. Just that fast, its right wing looked like new. Amazing. If only her injury would heal as quickly! But the tub in the Sphere’s wreckage was waiting for her.

  Norok also said goodbye to his double, who flew a few steps to catch up with the fake Kimi and put his wing around her shoulder. The two stopped and waved to the Mendrak. As they did so, Kimi saw that the false Norok’s beak was broken.

  “Why didn’t you tell him?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t feel like I owed him anything.”

  “How stupid,” Kimi said.

  But she understood Norok’s thinking. What if they’d just made a huge mistake? The Artificials could sneak into their peoples. With their abilities, they could achieve anything they wanted. But that didn’t make sense. They had to trust them. The fate of the Iks and Mendraki was in their hands anyway.

  “Now come on, Tolkut,” the fake Kimi called out.

  With the Mendraki copies, they had retained the possibility of acoustic communication. Among their peers, the copies did not have to use acoustics. Tolkut, Tolkut 2, and Kasfok circled each other at close range. It looked like a traditional dance, and it probably was, but it had to be one that the Mendrak never performed in front of outsiders, because Kimi had never seen it. The false Mendrak apparently danced it to Tolkut’s satisfaction, because he now changed the rhythm to the dance of approval.

  The false Mendrak walked to the ship and the delegation got on. Two narrow wings emerged on the top, spinning faster and faster. A violent breeze arose, and finally the vehicle took off.

  “Now they’re on their way,” Kasfok said from behind them.

  He had spoken aloud, so he had to be a copy.

  “I have a request,” Kimi said. “Could you choose a form for communicating with us that is not like ours? It would make it easier for us.”

  “Of course,” said the Kasfok copy. “Any form you wish.”

  “I’d like a sand bath,” Norok said.

  “What is it?”

  Norok described it. It only took a moment before there was one right in front of them. The Artificials had manifested it perfectly.

  Norok slipped in first. “It’s great,” he exclaimed.

  “Thank you,” replied the sand bath.

  Kimi shuddered. She heard a bang and turned in the direction of the sound. The ship had fired its engines. A bright dot could be seen in the sky.

  Untitled

  Three Hundred Thousand Years Later – The Arrival

  It was the most exciting moment that Mart could remember during the last 100,000 years.

  Many cycles ago, he had come to believe that it must be possible to advance into other universes. He had spent decades studying hyperfractals, multidimensional polytopes, and the interactions of closed graviton strings with D-branes, hoping to find access to another universe. Now he considered this universe to be boring and largely explored. It had nothing new to offer for him.

  And now this!

  Aliens came to the Sol system. And not just one species, but two!

  At first, 20 wormholes had opened at the edge of the Sol system, from which 20 cylindrical spaceships had broken into normal space. Mart had wrinkled his virtual nose. Wormhole transfer was a primitive, almost violent method of overcoming the speed of light. Inelegant and brute!

  The other species was even more primitive. It had arrived here on a generation ship, a hollowed-out asteroid. Its braking maneuver had been even more brutal than the wormhole transfer. It had destroyed Mercury!

  It was Shra who brought this incident to his attention. But at first he had been disappointed.

  “It’s neither extraordinary nor surprising. Something like this has happened countless times in the history of the universe.”

  “That’s not statistically correct, Mart. Two species encountering each other is extraordinary. As you know, most don’t make it into space, let alone make contact.”

  “That is not quite right, my dear Shra. Most of them didn’t make it because they ran into each other! That is, if they hadn’t already exterminated themselves. Species don’t vanish because they just go extinct —they disappear because they either destroy themselves or are destroyed by others. Life does not survive in the long run because it always ultimately destroys itself! It is as simple as that.”

  They had argued for a while longer, and then something had happened that had made Mart give in to Shra’s urging and leave his self-imposed isolation.

  The two species had been involved in a warlike conflict, as he had predicted. But then a threat to Earth had grown out of it—which, of course, could not be allowed.

  Mart had to intervene because he was the only one who could.

  The others had long since moved to a plane of existence that made physical interaction with the invaders impossible for them. Their essences had wholly merged with the substance of the planet, and they were Mother Earth now. They existed only as what humans had once called ‘dark energy,’ and they could shape Earth to their liking through the manipulation of ‘dark matter.’

  Mart had to admit that this was indeed a higher plane of existence, but he also thought it was an evolutionary dead end. There had to be another path of knowledge, and he was obsessed with finding it.

  Even the human egomatrices in the hyperfields of the subspace matrix of the quantum computer deep under Earth’s surface, where once Madagascar had been, were no longer able to interact with the Einstein universe—Mart wondered where he suddenly knew this designation from. Even Shra, who of all the other human copies of consciousness still had the strongest connection to real space, could not stop the aliens. Only Mart, who still had access to a clone body and the field sphere ship, could prevent the disaster.

  He succeeded in making peace between the two species. Moreover, he made it possible for them to settle in the Sol system. Not without ulterior motives! Mart hoped to learn more about the universe, life, and all the rest, if he could study the two species during the next few thousand years.

  But then two things happened simultaneously: once again, a spacecraft appeared at the edge of the system, and Mart was able to recall a long-buried memory from the quantum memories that made it clear to him what this meant.

  The Sol system and all biological life that had settled in it were facing annihilation.

  And this time, there was nothing he could do about it!

  22nd of Kohn, 299

  Kimi spread her wings and drifted in the light updraft off the coast. It was a strange world. The Artificials spared no effort to make it as realistic as possible. Glittering waves rolled onto the beach. Broad-leaved trees cast their shadows over golden sand that was wonderful to swim in
. The trees even bore fruit. At least that was how it looked, but none of these fruits ever fell down.

  There were no jumping toads climbing in the branches, no green woodlice settled on the ground, and in the air there were only two living beings—Norok and herself. There was no decay, no dying, no erosion, no rotting. It was a simulated, static life, and as intelligent as the Artificials were, they had not yet understood what life really was.

  But maybe they were right, and their version of existence was the more valuable one. Kimi would never know.

  She heard a bang. A new star was rising in the evening sky in the east. The last time she had heard this sound was when... They had to be here again! The flying machine with the four copies—had it fulfilled its mission? Kimi moved her wings with all her strength. She had to reach the crash site of the Sphere where the others were waiting before the flying machine landed. She could not be the last to see her children.

  Kimi made it. Sweaty, and with her last strength, she reached the shadow of the former sphere. Norok, Tolkut, and Kasfok were already waiting. She landed beside Kasfok. The flying machine hung over them like a bird of prey. Then, with the help of the rotor, it slowly descended to the surface.

  Kimi clattered involuntarily with her beak. Hopefully, nothing had gone wrong! At the end of the flying machine, a hatch cover lowered and an Iks stepped out. The wing of the flying machine was in the way, so Kimi could only see its legs. The feathers were gray. She tried to rush out, but Norok held her. The newcomer reached the ground and proceeded to stagger very slowly. Was he sick? Now he became visible. She—it was a woman—an old woman.

  “Lobozinu!” shouted Kimi.

  What an honor! Lobozinu was a legend among the Iks.

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  But was it really her? Or was it possibly just a copy?

  “What color was the curtain in the infirmary when I last visited you?” asked Kimi.