“It marked the second time I had been shown my place by the diati. I think I handled the second time rather better than the first, if I may say so.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed, until he realized what Nisi must mean. “When we talked before, you said that in six hundred thousand years I was the only instance of the diati abandoning one host for another of its own volition. That was when the confrontation with your son happened, wasn’t it? You believe the diati willingly chose him as a more worthy master, but you’re wrong. He forcibly took it from you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He’d developed a way to dominate the diati so thoroughly it was compelled to obey his commands—not just the diati merged with him, but any diati in reach. It didn’t abandon you. He stole it from you.”
Nisi spun away as emotion swept across his face. His chin dropped to his chest in profile, and he was silent for almost a minute. Finally he sighed, but kept his back to Caleb. “Then why does it not return to me now?”
Caleb tried to choose his phrasing carefully. “I can’t say for certain. It speaks to me on its own whims, and never in words. But as you yourself said, you’re not the man you once were. Not necessarily lesser, but undoubtedly changed. It’s possible the diati that has been separated from you for many aeons no longer recognizes you.”
Nisi fell silent for another moment before nodding slowly, as if to himself. He turned to Caleb wearing a poignant smile. “Yes. I am at peace with who I am now, but you are the one with the fire burning in your soul that a worthy champion requires.”
“If it was up to me, I would give it to you. All of it.”
“Even if it meant you were unable to save your people?”
“I can save my people without it—hell, I don’t have to. They can save themselves. Your people…well, I’m not as confident.”
“You Humans are indeed formidable. As Ambassador Requelme said, you are who we might have been, if things had gone differently. Perhaps if I’d been strong enough when Renato betrayed me. Perhaps if I hadn’t given up and fled when I should have fought.”
Nisi straightened his shoulders in what seemed like a display of mettle. “But that is neither here nor there, and long in the past. The diati obeys you, and it is not inclined to change its mind. Therefore, I will do my best to help you use it wisely, boldly and to world-altering effect.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“While I’m in a confessional mood, what else do you wish to know?”
Caleb cringed. “Much, but I can’t stay. Today’s a big day for the Solovys, and I can’t miss it.”
62
AFS STALWART II
MILKY WAY SECTOR 17
* * *
MY NAME IS DAVID NIKOLAI SOLOVY, AND I AM ALIVE.
David studied his reflection in the mirror and was relieved to recognize the man who gazed back at him. Familiar gray eyes accepted what they saw as matching his innate perception of himself. Dusky blond hair that had always refused to lie down properly splayed defiantly across his left temple. The fact that it refused to lie down today told him it belonged to him.
He breathed in, taking proper note of the miraculousness of such a simple act. It ensured life continued…or in his case, resumed after a brief, eternal pause.
Fifteen months ago he’d emerged from he knew not where, a faint spark of consciousness awoken as a shard of thought half in an Artificial’s mind, half in his daughter’s mind—which was every bit as disorienting and surreal as it sounded. Later, he’d awoken as a quantum construct, a more fulsome but still digitized mind, and it had felt more real than it had any right to be.
Now he was flesh and bone and blood, inhabiting a body crafted by Anadens using Anaden technology but human DNA—his DNA—and built to spec. Human organs, human cybernetics and a human-designed eVi controlling them, with only a few tidbits of Anaden organics to fill in the odd gap here and there.
So what was he, truly? Part human, part alien, part quantum synthetic, part intangible consciousness, all molded into a hopefully cohesive whole and reborn into a world where those who were once dead could live again. Reborn into a time not his own and a universe he didn’t comprehend—but at least he wasn’t alone in the last part.
He knew everything that had transpired in the intervening twenty-five years, yet he knew nothing at all. Wars had been fought, peace won and lost and won again. Enemies had become allies; allies had become comrades. His daughter had grown up and lived and loved and set the world ablaze in her wake. His wife had fought all comers, stood tall and risen to greatness, then yet further, to a position of such gravity and responsibility he’d never have wished it upon her.
But these were merely cold facts, devoid of nuance or character. What had Miriam and Alex felt? How had they laughed? When had they cried, in joy and in pain? He knew what they had done, but how they had lived was forever lost to him.
But no longer. From today, he could again see them live and love and laugh and cry. Universe willing, he would do so with them.
Alex cleared her throat as she moved into the open doorway behind him. He watched her reflection smile back at his. Miriam’s smile—the real one, the one she’d only ever shared with a precious few people—sculpted upon features close enough to his own to make him selfishly proud.
The girl he remembered had become a woman of such astonishing wonder, verve and determination, beyond what he’d dared imagine possible. Would her life have gone differently if he’d been there for it? Should it have?
They wouldn’t be here, in this place, now if not for her. What if his absence had been required for her to find her destiny, and for all of humanity to follow along behind her? It didn’t change the fact that if given the chance he’d opt for a better past.
She stared at him as if she expected him to vanish at any moment. He didn’t blame her—so did he. “Are you ready?”
“What are you offering me?” He’d asked her when she’d returned to his tranquil little fake mountain camp, impossible proposition in hand.
“Life, Dad. I’m offering you life, not bound by virtual walls. I’m offering you a chance to walk in the sun again.”
He grimaced, or thought a grimace was what the expression looked like. It had been a while. “No, I’m not ready. I mean, yes, absolutely, of course I am…proklyat’ye, eto pizdets.”
Caleb appeared behind Alex then, his hand falling to her waist with the easy familiarity that came from true intimacy. Husband to his daughter, killer in the service of his killer, and now something more than either.
But Caleb seemed a good man in the ways which mattered, indisputably loved Alex with a purity of spirit David appreciated all too well, and was exceptional in the manner she richly deserved.
Also, he offered a welcoming greeting to David while displaying no wariness or judgment in his eyes, oddly crimson though they were. For today, this counted for more than it probably should.
“So he’s where you learned that curse from.”
Alex chuckled and dropped her hand over her husband’s with equal familiarity. “Among many others. Are we set out there?”
“The bridge has been cleared, and no one’s returning to it until I tell Major Halmi they can.”
“Okay.” She tilted her head at his reflection in question. “Dad?”
He’d never lacked for confidence. In his time many had called it arrogance, and he couldn’t fairly dispute them. But now a tiny, petrified voice deep inside his head wondered if there existed any room in his wife’s life—or in her heart—for him. By her own words she’d remained alone since he died. But sex was one thing, and not always everything.
Had twenty-five years erased the feelings underpinning the bond they’d shared? Had they simply been an accident of fate, unable to be replicated? Had it simply been too long?
He closed his eyes and reached for the old confidence, for the cocky certitude that the world would give him what he needed from it, or he would take it by force of will. By sheer forc
e if required.
My name is David Nikolai Solovy, and goddammit but I am alive.
The lightness in Miriam’s step took her by surprise. Yesterday had been a good day for AEGIS, no question. But the road ahead of them remained steep and treacherous, the final goal all but impossible to reach, and she should take care not to get too optimistic.
But as she surveyed the main hangar bay, taking note of the energetic manner in which the crew carried out their tasks as well as the sporadic laughter and lighthearted banter, she decided to cut herself a break.
The blow they’d suffered at the Sagittae Gateway had been devastating, but instead of wallowing in despair or slinking off in defeat, they’d buckled down. They’d rested, recharged and found another way, and the results spoke for themselves. A significant strategic obstacle had been overcome, an alliance with the anarchs strengthened, and a psychological and practical victory over the enemy achieved.
Perhaps she should take the win.
She nodded to herself and headed for the lift, mentally reviewing their next steps. The crew was allowed to enjoy the win for a bit longer, but she needed to take advantage of the wind at her back if she wanted to translate one win into two, then into a string of wins that led to victory.
The effect Nisi’s manifesto broadcast was going to have on their strategy wasn’t immediately obvious. Support of the populace was always helpful in war, to the point there existed entire government departments back home devoted to creating and nurturing it.
If a widespread uprising distracted the Directorate from her fleet, all the better. And the tantalizing promise of regenesis for all was sure to make things interesting. Was there a more tempting prize, for any species?
But she didn’t have a good grasp on the civilian situation in Amaranthe, nor how such an uprising might play out. She ought to meet with Sator Nisi to discuss the matter. Alex’s friend Eren may be a valuable resource, too. He likely had a better read on the vagaries of the masses than the Sator.
In the meantime, she needed to continue hitting the enemy where it was vulnerable—
Alex was waiting for her opposite the lift on Deck 2. “Oh, good, I found you.”
Miriam hadn’t seen and had hardly talked to Alex since the start of the Machimis mission the day before. Her daughter had begged off the morning meeting, citing vague business with the anarchs. She hadn’t let Miriam know she was coming up to the Stalwart II, either.
“You did.” Miriam motioned down the corridor, and Alex fell into step beside her. “So what’s this morning’s surprise?”
“What? Why do you think I have a surprise?”
“You went incommunicado yesterday after the mission, skipped the AEGIS Council meeting this morning, and now you show up here unannounced? This kind of behavior usually means you’ve either stirred up trouble or have an urgent idea of how to do so.”
In the corner of her eye she caught her daughter’s shoulders drop as she exhaled with uncommon soberness. So there was something.
“Okay, you caught me. Do you remember how, at the height of the huge final battle against the Kats, I sent you a cryptic message and asked you to trust me? You did, and it worked out fabulously, right?”
“I still maintain that you should have brought me in on your plans sooner, but yes, it did. Why?”
“So you trust me, and you understand that I will never do anything I think might hurt you.”
Miriam stopped outside the armory and pivoted to her daughter. “Alex, what have you done?”
“Mom, something extraordinary happened…a while ago. It seemed as though it was going to be ephemeral and transient and ultimately bittersweet at best, so I didn’t tell you about it. But then the world changed, and we went to another universe, and…opportunities arose to transform this miracle into something real.”
“You’re talking in nonsensical riddles. I’ve already gathered this secret scheme of yours will upend my day and possibly my week, so out with it.”
Her daughter’s lips parted, and the look on her face was enough to give Miriam pause.
“It’s better if I show you. Come with me to the bridge. I have a gift for you.”
When they reached the bridge, Alex leapt out of the lift ahead of her and briefly disappeared out of view.
Miriam stepped onto the deck and located her daughter, then peered past her and frowned. “Why is the bridge empty? Where is everyone? I didn’t authorize shore leave for the entire bridge crew.”
Alex gave her the oddest little smile. “It’s not empty, Mom.” She took a long step back, to the side and out of the way, revealing more of a bridge that plainly was, despite her words, empty.
Miriam scanned it from the starboard airlock up to the cockpit and down the port side all the way to her office—
Impossible
She ceased breathing. Time ceased moving forward and began rushing in reverse.
She was dead—had been shot in the heart, or the ship had exploded—and her brain was firing random neurons in the final nanosecond before it ceased functioning. She knew this because she would want him to be what she saw at her last breath.
A magnificent hallucination of what had once been
“Hi, Miri.” The false vision spoke, even as it leaned against the open door to her office, wearing Alliance BDUs and a smirk as dashing as the day she’d met him. A perfect doppelganger.
But the BDUs the hallucination wore were of a modern design, one implemented a few short years earlier. So her mind was breaking down, then, and mixing things up. Another nanosecond or two and oblivion would claim her.
A shame, when she had so much left to do.
Alex shifted anxiously in her peripheral vision, which didn’t make so much sense if she were dead. Miriam drew air in through her nose. Her chest felt tight, but it rose and fell as if she were alive. She brought her hand to her chest to confirm the movement. Lifted her hand in front of her face. There was no blood.
Her mind searched for alternate explanations beyond its own cessation. Alex’s comments minutes ago rushed to the forefront, and her reaction when pressed…Miriam opened her mouth and forced words out of it. It was harder than it should have been if she was actually alive.
“Alex, what have you done? What is this?”
“I told you, Mom. It’s a gift. A miracle of a gift I can give to you. What I mean to say is, it’s Dad.”
In light of mounting evidence to the contrary, she began to accept the likelihood that she was not dead. Thus, the world and the Stalwart II bridge continued to exist for her. Logic and reason reasserted themselves to take over, as was proper.
If she, the world and the bridge continued to exist, logic dictated that so, too, did the form standing at her office door exist. But what did such a conclusion mean?
“This is a trick—an Anaden clone. A synthetic construct ported into a body. A Directorate spy disguised to fool me. Where are the MPs? They need to arrest this, this…intruder. Why is the bridge empty?”
“Mom, please—”
The stranger wearing her husband’s face and skin and mannerisms pushed off the door frame exactly like he would. “It’s all right, milaya. Your mother is correct to be skeptical. I’d suspect her of being a fake if she wasn’t suspicious.”
His—its—gaze hadn’t veered from her while it spoke to Alex, but a new intensity shone in its haunting visage now. “Do you know what’s been running through my mind over and over on this most terrifying of mornings? A memory, one above so many. It’s from the night you confessed, in a somewhat rueful statement against interest, that you’d fallen in love with me. I told you—after I picked myself up off the floor—I felt as though I’d found my rightful place in the world.
“This isn’t the world I left behind. But seeing you now, I know without a shred of doubt: you’re still my rightful place in it.”
Logic abandoned her to the wretched turmoil of emotion, yet she clawed valiantly to hold onto its last vestiges. Memory. Mind. Neural imprint. One e
xisted back on Earth, in Aurora…and the leaps required to get from there to the figure standing before her now defied her treasured reason.
So she lashed out in defiance. “Knowing he said those words doesn’t prove anything!” Had she shouted? Was she hysterical? Was she overtaken by insanity, or was everyone else?
“No, it doesn’t. With my neural imprint out there any Artificial could access those memories. And I won’t lie to you, I will never lie to you. Along the way, one did.”
See? her mind screamed. Logic had led her to the precipice of the truth, yet provided her no path across the chasm which remained.
“But that’s only a tiny part of the story. The really interesting part is how our skazochnaya marvel of a daughter brought me back to life as only she was capable of doing.”
“Alex….” Wouldn’t betray her. Alex had said to trust her, and had proved worthy of trusting many times over. But Alex was wild and reckless…and would do anything in her power to have her father back.
She wielded so much power now.
The bridge spun dizzyingly around Miriam, and she lunged for the railing extending out from the overlook to steady herself. Then she tried—tried so—to stand up straight and proud.
She sensed her daughter’s shadow retreat out of view and watched as this…man…slowly lowered his chin in…respect?
“But it’s not up to Alex to convince you I’m real. It’s up to me, and I accept the challenge. I will do whatever I must, for as long as I must, to earn your trust. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.”
He took a step toward her, and she fought the urge to flee. He sounded so like David, from the rolling ‘r’s of the accent he hadn’t bothered to lose to the easy confidence lending affect to his voice.
She did not understand. She could not find a path that might lead to understanding. She’d never wanted to believe in something so tremendously in her life, but belief, no matter how strong it became, did not make something real. He was gone, so long gone, and nothing could ever bring him back.
Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3) Page 79
