Ascent

by Morgan Rice

  Luna thought about the aliens who had controlled her. How would they react to people breaking free of them? How would they respond to any loss of control when all they seemed to want was to take more and more?

  Luna thought she saw something starting to glow at the front of the ship, a fiery orange that made it look as though someone had set light to a point on the vessel’s nose. She tried to decide if it might be a trick of the light, and then a far more horrible thought occurred to her.

  “Everybody scatter!” she yelled, pulling her bike to one side so fast that it took everything she had to keep it upright.

  The road ahead of their small convoy erupted in a blaze of energy that tore through the asphalt, sending dirt and stone flying in every direction. Luna saw one of the bikes skid and topple, the rider tumbling over the ground as the road disappeared from under them.

  Luna went off road, ignoring the jolts and the judders that came from the uneven ground as rocks and potholes threatened to unseat her. Around her, she could see the other bikes following, heading into the rougher terrain, staying away from the straight line of the road as the alien ship shrieked overhead. Another gout of dirt and rocks flew up as it fired again, and then it was past them, banking sharply as it started to turn back toward them.

  They were an easy target in the open. Luna could see the alien ship getting further away from them, lining up another run at them. If it fired at them from a distance, it would have plenty of time to aim and hit them all. They needed to find cover, and they needed to do it now.

  Luna looked around and then pointed toward some of the red rock valleys close to Sedona.

  “There!” she yelled. “It’s our only hope.”

  She pushed her engine, the bike speeding forward with the others following in her wake. Dirt exploded around them as the ship made another pass, and for a moment or two Luna couldn’t see anything ahead. When the cloud of dust cleared enough for her to see again, she had to veer left sharply to avoid the remains of a tree, torn apart by the latest blast. Luna just hoped that she was leading the others in the right direction.

  They headed into the valley, plunging past its mouth and speeding down it. Energy bolts slammed into the walls, sending dust up into the air and sending rocks tumbling so that Luna had to swerve and dodge to avoid them. They rumbled and bounced as they fell, one shooting past her head, close enough that she had to duck down to avoid it.

  “It’s coming in lower!” Cub called out from somewhere close to Luna. Luna knew that she ought to keep her eyes on the way ahead through the valley, but she couldn’t stop herself from risking a glance back.

  The alien ship was flying barely above ground level now, moving into the valley on their tail as it tried to line up its next shots.

  “Faster,” Luna called out.

  “We can’t lose it,” Cub called back.

  “We don’t need to lose it,” Luna shouted. “We just need to find out how fast it can turn.”

  She saw Cub grin as he understood, and their group of bikers hurried forward, pushing into the valley.

  “Hold on, Bobby,” Luna said.

  Luna clung to her bike, taking the twists and turns as fast as she dared, then faster still. The red rocks of the cliffs towered above her in misshapen stacks, the rocks that tumbled as energy blasts hit them a reminder of just how easily all of this could go wrong. One turn taken too fast, one twitch of the handlebars in the wrong direction, and she and Bobby would hammer into the walls of the valley, far too fast to survive.

  Luna gripped her handlebars tight, hunched down over them, and rode faster.

  She dared a glance back. The alien ship was still there, taking the twists and turns with them, firing at random when it couldn’t line up the perfect shot. It swung from one side to the other as it sped along the valley, and then, without warning, Luna saw one edge of it clip a wall.

  “Watch out!” she yelled, as it bounced from one wall to the next, struggling to correct its flight as it ricocheted like a pool ball, sparks flying as it hit one wall, then another, angling down toward the valley’s rocky floor.

  The noise as it struck the earth seemed to fill the world, dust flying up as it plowed in nose first until everything behind it was obscured. Luna and the others had to keep riding flat out just to stay ahead of it. They were running out of room, though, because the valley was coming to a halt, sealed in by a wall of rock that was punctured only by the opening of a storm drain. Luna rode toward that far end, hoping the ship would stop before it crushed them all against the wall. She pulled up next to the wall, wincing as the ship got closer.

  Gradually, though, it slowed, squealing and scraping its way along like a plate dropped from a table until finally, rattling, it ground to a halt.

  Luna pulled up in front of it, the others spreading out in a half circle around it, engines still running. She heard a hiss of escaping air as a hatch near the top opened, and she stood in shock as a figure staggered out.

  This wasn’t one of the controlled. There was nothing human about the spindly, insect-like figure who clambered down from the hatch, spiny plates looking like armor, but broken armor, with rents that leaked clear fluid onto the ground as it advanced.

  “Is that them?” she heard Ignatius wonder aloud. “Is that what the aliens look like?”

  “Does it matter what they look like when we know what they want?” Luna asked.

  “But we can study it,” Ignatius said. “We need to try to capture it.”

  It kept approaching, reaching for them as if even now it would find a way to kill them.

  “Get it!” Bear yelled, and the Dustsides bikers fell on it with fists and pipes and knives, striking again and again with anything they had. Luna heard the armored plates crack with a sickening sound that reminded Luna far too much of someone stepping on a beetle.

  “No,” Ignatius said, “there’s so much we can learn.”

  Right then, however, Luna felt as though they’d learned the most important lessons: they’d learned what one of their enemies looked like, and they’d learned that they could die.

  Then a light flickered on the front of the ship, twisting in the air, taking the shape of a tall, hairless figure that looked nothing like the creature they had just killed. It spoke, and some technology in the hologram translated the words, the same way it had with the boxes at the slave camp.

  “You have killed one of our servants,” the being said. “But it is not of the Purest. It does not matter. You do not matter. You are an obstruction to be removed, and you will be, unless you submit now.”

  “We know what that feels like,” Luna shouted back at it. “And we broke free. We’re going to break everyone free!”

  “You will not obstruct the Hive. You will die.”

  It flickered out of sight, and in the sky beyond where it had been, Luna thought she could see the specks of more of the ships closing in. It seemed that the aliens weren’t holding back when it came to killing them.

  “We need to get out of here,” Luna said.

  “There’s no easy way past the ship,” Cub said, “and if we ride out onto open ground, they’ll pick us off easily.”

  “Then we need to go into the storm drain,” Luna said.

  Bear looked over at it, then at her and Cub. “I don’t like leaving the bikes.”

  “I think it’s that or die, Dad,” Cub said.

  “What do you think?” he asked Luna.

  Luna was surprised by that. Bear was the bikers’ leader. Then again, she’d been the one to lead them into the valley. Maybe they assumed that she knew what she was doing.

  “I don’t think we have a choice,” she said.

  Bear nodded. “I guess not.”

  “Ignatius,” Luna said. “What I said before to that thing… we can save everyone, can’t we?”

  “I think that’s something we need to talk about once we’re safe,” Ignatius said. “I’ll explain everything, but not here, okay?”

  “Okay,” Luna said,
with a look back at where the alien ships were closing in. The only question now was whether they would ever be safe again.

  She ran forward into the storm drain. Behind her, she could hear the first explosions as the aliens opened fire.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Kevin could feel the full beauty and weight of the Hive buzzing in his brain. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t in him; he was in it. He was one part of the whole, a mote of light in a whole interconnected galaxy. Trying to keep track of it all was dizzying, seemingly impossible.

  “It will get easier,” Purest Xan promised him, although there was no kindness or sympathy in that. It was simply an observation of fact.

  “Has the Hive always been so… big?” Kevin asked, barely able to comprehend the scale of everything that he could feel.

  “You are seeing the connections of one world ship,” Purest Xan said. “Look beyond, Kevin.”

  Kevin tried to look deeper, and now he saw a shining strand leading out from the Hive that he was connected to, linking to a bigger, more complex web of connections in turn: a Hive of Hives, stretching so far out that just trying to comprehend the scale of it made Kevin’s eyes water with the effort.

  “The Hive is what matters,” Purest Xan said. “We serve the Hive, and the Hive exists to preserve those of us who are still pure, still what we once were. Do you understand?”

  In that moment, Kevin did. He understood it in a way that had nothing to do with words, or logic, or anything else that he would have understood before. He felt the need of the Hive to survive, built from the need of the Purest to preserve themselves and their world, whatever the cost to the rest of the universe. He understood the need to be a part of it, and to contribute to it all. He could see the pockets of thoughts there, and memories, the clusters of minds that worked on different projects, whole banks of them given over to calculations or contemplation. A part of him wanted to delve into those pockets, losing himself completely in their depths.

  “Come with me,” Purest Xan said, drawing Kevin away from the complex web of the Hive’s connections. They were still there, he was still connected to them so completely that it was impossible to think that the world had ever been any other way, but now he was able to focus on his own body enough to move and follow, stepping in the alien’s wake.

  Purest Xan led the way from the room, up through the spire, almost all the way to the top. From up there, it was possible to see out toward the other spires of the world ship, standing golden and pure among the grim grayness of the rest of it.

  “Stand here,” the alien said, gesturing to a round disc on the floor that Xan stood on, golden and solid looking. Kevin stood there without hesitation.

  It lifted into the air, silently and smoothly, still feeling as solid underfoot as the ground had.

  “How does this work?” Kevin asked.

  “It is a simple matter of gravity propulsion,” Purest Xan replied. “If you require more knowledge of it, the details will sit within the Hive.”

  That idea filled Kevin with wonder. He hadn’t considered that the connections between minds he’d seen would be more than that.

  “So it’s like an internet of brains?” he asked.

  Purest Xan was still for a moment, and Kevin felt the barest brush of a mind against his as the alien tried to understand the word.

  “Yes, that is almost correct,” the alien replied. “The knowledge that the Hive holds can be accessed by any. It is a part of us, though, not some external store.”

  Kevin tried to picture the idea of being able to access clusters of other minds at will, and then realized that he didn’t have to imagine it. The Hive was there, and all he had to do was reach out to access it.

  “Later,” Purest Xan said. “For now, there is more to see.”

  “Did your people invent this disc?” Kevin asked, as the platform continued to float over the city.

  “It was another thing learned from a conquered world,” Purest Xan said. “Their people were unworthy to survive except as materials, but knowledge such as this must be collected and put to the use of the Hive.”

  Kevin felt as though he ought to have been horrified by the alien’s words, but he didn’t feel any of that horror. He didn’t feel much of anything beyond the beauty of the Hive.

  “How does the Hive work?” Kevin asked.

  “You could see it, if you looked for the knowledge,” Purest Xan pointed out, “but it is right that we should explain.” The alien gestured to the golden spires that stuck out from the interior of the world ship. “These are the homes of the Purest. We guide the rest of the Hive, and give it purpose. You have already seen the interior of one spire. The others will be similar.”

  Their golden disc floated down now, into one of the complexes of the seemingly endless city that surrounded the spire. There were glass-walled greenhouses there, more like factories than farms, filled with vats and rows of growing things, stacked one atop another. Spiderlike creatures crawled through them, and Kevin could see them tending to the crops within. Reaching out toward them through the Hive, Kevin could see that they were little more than mindless drones, there to receive orders.

  “These are the nutrition factories,” Purest Xan said. “The creatures within are changed versions of the ones who first created them. Their world was a thing of narrow caves, and needed factories like this to produce enough to feed them. Now they feed the Hive.”

  Xan made it sound like a blessing, as though their world had only been waiting for the opportunity to serve the Hive in any way that it could be used. He even understood it, sensing the importance of the Hive, and the need for every resource to be used for its benefit. If a world could supply nutrient farms and workers, then wasn’t it right that it should?

  “The farms are only the beginning,” Purest Xan promised, and Kevin could hardly wait to see what might be next in that case.

  Their platform continued down through the contours of the world ship, into a space where it seemed that things were in the process of being constructed. Kevin could see hordes of creatures scuttling over spaceships like ants over a nest, fastening pieces into place in shapes that were almost too complex to make sense of.

  He could see others working on what looked like energy weapons, calibrating them and testing them in flashes that lit up the interior of the ship further.

  “The creatures who possessed this did not even see the possibility of using this technology as a weapon,” Purest Xan said. “They were peaceful things.”

  The alien made “peaceful” sound like a curse.

  Kevin could see workshops down there, and spaces where the creatures of the Hive worked on technologies he couldn’t begin to understand… and that he then did, reaching into the Hive for the knowledge. Waves of knowledge flooded into him about materials stronger than anything on Earth, about dust mote–sized robots, and weapons designed to overcome beings he hadn’t even known existed until that moment. It was hard to hold onto all of that knowledge, or even to truly understand it, but it was there.

  Kevin could see all the individual pieces that went together to make the world ship function, and it seemed incredible that it could fit together so well.

  “We integrated each piece into the Hive as we found it,” Purest Xan said.

  Kevin suspected that “found” meant the same thing as “took” here. The Hive stole whatever it needed, whatever it saw, from the worlds that it encountered.

  “Have you found new technologies on Earth?” Kevin asked.

  The alien made a dismissive noise, as if the very idea that there was anything to learn from Earth was ludicrous.

  “Then why come to Earth?” Kevin asked. “What did you gain?”

  “That is a fair question,” Purest Xan said. The golden disc that the two of them stood upon changed direction, heading toward an area of the world ship that seemed to burn with the heat of forges and smelts, where warehouses and yawning pits of goods stood.

  Below, Kevin could see worker aliens b
uilt with muscles and claws that could tear apart rocks and rip through steel. There were small, nimble things that could pick through piles of collected detritus, seeking out the smallest quantities of rare metals and unusual elements. They were loading floating carts by the spaces that they worked, for iron and calcium, wood and glass. There were barrels for water and other liquids, from the juice of fruits to the acids produced in its factories, while canisters stood there to hold gasses siphoned off from any world they encountered: oxygen and helium, radon and stranger things.

  Kevin watched the aliens below picking apart things that had presumably been taken from his world, and he felt… nothing, had no response to the strange rapaciousness of it all.

  “Why don’t I feel anything?” he asked. “You’re tearing apart things taken from my world, and I don’t feel anything.”

  “Your former world,” Purest Xan corrected him. “You are of the Hive now, Kevin. We have made you a part of us, and you no longer have to fear such human weaknesses.”

  It hadn’t felt like a weakness to Kevin before to feel things, but now he could see how obvious it was that it was a weakness. Had he still been held back by human feelings, he wouldn’t have been able to stand by and watch the resources of his world being plundered like this. He would have felt obliged to intervene, and then, no doubt, the creatures of the Hive would have killed him.

  “You have made me strong,” Kevin said.

  “Strong enough to fulfill your purpose for the Hive. Strong enough to serve it,” Purest Xan said.

  “Do you do that for all the creatures you take?” Kevin asked.

  Purest Xan made that amused, dismissive sound again. “Most are too weak to be anything but meat to shape. Come, I will show you.”

  They flew toward a new space now, and in this space, Kevin could hear the screams of a hundred or more different kinds of creatures, translated only because his mind seemed to grab onto them automatically and understand.

  “Remarkable,” Purest Xan said with a look across at him. “Your brain is exactly what the Hive needs, Kevin McKenzie.”