Authors: S. Andrew Swann
Messiah (36 page)
A man walked out from the darkness beyond the reach of the Goliaths’ floodlights. He was not particularly tall for a human, but his body language compensated for it. Every motion was economical and confident, no step careless or accidental.
He wore a uniform; gray fatigues that were recognizable as BMU issue despite the redesign of the patches to read “Proudhon Defense Corporation.” On the collar were embroidered the stars of a general.
The man walked up to the podium. From him, Nickolai didn’t even smell the casual subliminal fear that most humans emitted in his presence. He stood facing the forced congregation and said, “I am General Alexi Lubikov, and I am in charge here.”
The prisoners started speaking, but Lubikov raised his hand slightly, and suddenly the area was filled with the sound of moving machinery as Goliaths pointed their arms toward the crowd.
“I would prefer not to be interrupted,” Lubikov said.
The objections died down.
“Thank you. As I said, I am in charge here. I am backed by the full force of the Western Division of the Proudhon Defense Corporation, and due to some recent instability in the PSDC, at the moment I answer only to God. Do we all have an understanding?” He stared out at everyone, and Nickolai had the thought,
How do you define God, General?
How do you define God, General?
“I come ahead of an invasion. An entity called Adam will soon come to this planet. The first few battles have already raged above the atmosphere. He’s been momentarily defeated, but that resistance has a consequence. When he does come, and he
will
come, it will not be as a conqueror. It will be as a destroyer.”
will
come, it will not be as a conqueror. It will be as a destroyer.”
Nickolai wondered how much truth the man spoke. He suspected that it was more than he would like.
Lubikov turned so he was addressing Brother Lazarus directly. “Since you had the remaining crew of the
Khalid
in your custody, I am quite certain you were aware of this. I am also sure you know why they came to you.”
Khalid
in your custody, I am quite certain you were aware of this. I am also sure you know why they came to you.”
Nickolai looked at the general, disconcerted by how much the man knew.
“They are going to cooperate with me, not only because we have the shared goal of preventing Adam from destroying this planet, but because I am sure they would like to be reunited with their comrades.”
Nickolai heard that and knew that Flynn had been captured. Despite his warrior ethos, he couldn’t find it disappointing that Flynn had survived his final battle.
Then the last word struck him.
Comrades
.
Comrades
.
“Parvi,” Kugara whispered next to him.
“You will cooperate with me as well, Brother Lazarus.”
“Why?” the canine half growled. “You desecrate a place of worship. You attack my people. You violate a sovereign territory that has pledged its stewardship of a treasure whose value you don’t even understand. Why would I cooperate with you?”
“Because martyrdom would be pointless if I still find what I am looking for.”
Nickolai smelled the canine’s anger in the air as Lazarus glared at the general. For a moment, Nickolai thought the monk might leap and attack Lubikov, despite the armored sentries surrounding them. But the monk remained still, staring as if his look alone could kill.
Then, without any explanation, Lazarus’ expression changed. His mouth twitched downward, and the hard glare in the eyes gave way to uncertainty. His posture sagged slightly, drawing inward, and the smell of anger drifted away, toward fear.
Lubikov shook his head as if negating an inaudible conversation between himself and the monk. “I never take a battle to a territory I haven’t studied beforehand. Those bombs may be buried deep, but not so deep as to avoid notice.”
Lazarus grumbled something. To human ears it would have been an inarticulate growl. Nickolai heard the words within the growl.
“You’re jamming...”
“You’re jamming...”
“And, thanks to your transmission, we now have the activation codes as well as the frequencies.” He leaned forward slightly. “Would I be wrong in assuming that by following the trail of those explosives, I would find myself in the heart of your Dolbrian mysteries?”
Lazarus looked defeated.
Lubikov smiled, “It shouldn’t be a hard decision. All you’re doing by cooperating is saving my time, along with the lives of yourself and your fellow monks.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Forbidden Fruit
“Beware of your allies’ secrets.”
—
The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom
The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom
“Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.”
—FYODOR DOSTOEVSKI
(1821-1881)
Date: 2526.8.13 (Standard) 350,000 km from Bakunin-BD+50°1725(1821-1881)
Rebecca stood on a dusty red plain, under a sky that wasn’t quite the right shade of blue. The ground under her feet was not quite barren. Spidery tendrils of grass had a tenuous hold on the near sterile soil, enough that the air was close to breathable. The sun above was bright and hard and cold.
Centuries of effort had been expended to make this place habitable, and Adam had erased it all in less than an hour. This Mars now only existed in the memories of Proteus, and even though she had never set foot there, in her own.
Jonah Dacham stood on the plain, facing away from her. He looked up at the sky and shook his head.
“I’m trapped, aren’t I?”
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what else to tell him. “If I hadn’t—”
“I know. I had that conversation with Mosasa. If Adam had seen me, it would have tipped Proteus’ hand. None of us realized where Adam had come from, or that he had been here before.” He turned around and smiled weakly. “I should be glad I retain some sort of identity, shouldn’t I?”
Rebecca stared at the horizon. Some of the hills in the distance resembled a human face. “If I could, I would set you free.”
And Mosasa, if he still existed here.
“But minds don’t work like that.”
And Mosasa, if he still existed here.
“But minds don’t work like that.”
Dacham shook his head.
“I’ve been trying to solve this problem since Adam took me and I found Mosasa waiting for me.” She had been spending a good part of the new awareness that Adam had granted her in examining her own mind, with the dispassion of a software engineer trying to decompile code. She thought she now knew more about the low-order workings of her own consciousness than Adam did his own. “I didn’t find him an exit, and you are just as much a part of me now. It’s like pouring three vintages of wine into the same bottle, then trying to only pour one back out.”
“Mosasa must have managed a way,” he said.
“I don’t think so. I just think he existed across too many minds. When he attacked Adam—” She found it difficult to speak. For some reason she had a hard time thinking the phantom pirate had actually sacrificed himself. Even though Mosasa probably existed replicated across Adam’s whole existence, the loss of him
here
affected her more deeply than she would have credited. “I think whatever part of him is left in my mind isn’t enough to remain sentient. I’ve found no objective means to segregate one thought from the next, despite who’s thinking it.”
here
affected her more deeply than she would have credited. “I think whatever part of him is left in my mind isn’t enough to remain sentient. I’ve found no objective means to segregate one thought from the next, despite who’s thinking it.”
“My existence is an illusion, as much as the Face over there.”
“No, I don’t think—”
“But you do,” Dacham said, “you think me.” He crouched down and looked at the Face on the horizon. “In fact, I am probably more you than me. I feel your thoughts the way I used to feel the air I breathed, when I breathed. It’s why I know you’re bringing questions for me, not sympathy.”
Rebecca didn’t respond, because Dacham was right. That, and he was privy to the same things she saw and heard, he would know of her talks with Shane, and his obsessions with the remnants of the Dolbrians.
“Why don’t you ask?”
“Don’t you know my questions already?”
He nodded. “I also know what you will do with the information. You will go to Shane, and he will go to the humans he is still so attached to.”
“Would I be wrong?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Shane believes that the Proteans—you—are lying.”
There was a long silence before Dacham said, “It’s unfortunate that I don’t even have a rationalization for the deception. After all this, I only have the faith that, for good or ill, there was a reason.”
“A reason for what?”
“Promise me something.”
“What?”
“A trade, for my knowledge.”
She stood there mute. She didn’t know what offended her worse, the fact that Shane had been right and the Proteans were lying about the Dolbrian remnants on Bakunin, or the fact that Dacham was making some sort of game of all of this. After all that they had lost. All that
she
had lost. She felt rage building, and Dacham looked as if he sensed it as well—
she
had lost. She felt rage building, and Dacham looked as if he sensed it as well—
“Please,” he said quietly, “think of it as a belated last request from a man who has died at least two more times than he should have.”
“What do you want?”
“When there’s an expedition to the surface, go with Shane.”
“No one’s suggested there would be—”
“When you hear what I have to tell you, there will be. And, like Shane, there are humans I have more connection to than a disciple of Proteus should.”
“Fine,” Rebecca said, “now tell me the truth.”
“It’s not that we’ve lied,” Dacham said, “so much as omitted some details . . .”
When Mallory finally slept, he slept for a long time, his body collapsing into a dreamless coma that lasted far too long. When he finally awoke, even in the microgravity in the core of the
Wisconsin
, he felt old. It was as if the past couple of days had burned out all of his training, and left him an arthritic old man.
Wisconsin
, he felt old. It was as if the past couple of days had burned out all of his training, and left him an arthritic old man.
Some of it, he expected, was aftereffects from being exposed to a vacuum. His lungs still felt raw, and the inflammation of the soft tissues couldn’t have been good for his joints.
He kept going, partly due to the grace of God, partly because he didn’t know how to stop. It took him longer than it should have to make his way down to the control center.
The room was empty when he arrived. He hadn’t expected anyone. The nexus of control had shifted elsewhere, somewhere into the collective brain of the Proteans who had deigned to stay behind. He slid into a seat at one of the control consoles, and started pulling up displays of the state of Bakunin’s solar system.
Again, on the schematic view, the dots were all blue. They had, for the moment, retained control. On another display, showing the surface of the moon below, he could see a long curving spine rising up from a flat plain. The crystalline object was several hundred kilometers long and gradually curved skyward to point up out of Schwitzguebel’s gravity well.
The Proteans had barely started building the thing when Mallory finally had gone to his cabin to sleep. Now, in less than a day, it looked fully functional.
He zoomed the image until he was only looking at the end of the massive structure. From far away, the thing looked delicate and fairylike, a crystal web-work of gossamer threads. Close up, the scale of it became clear. Those gossamer threads were pillars the diameter of one of the
Wisconsin
’s habitats, and they wove together into a braid that formed the ridge on top of the kilometers-long spine.
Wisconsin
’s habitats, and they wove together into a braid that formed the ridge on top of the kilometers-long spine.
Buried in that ridge, barely visible at this distance, was a tiny hole that was probably a hundred meters across at least. It drilled into the end of the spire as if it was the barrel of a massive gun.
And that would be a pretty accurate description of what the object was.
As he watched, a tiny speck emerged from the hole. Fired down the length of the spine, it had a speed ten times the moon’s escape velocity, and a trajectory that would take it out of Bakunin’s orbit as well. On the schematic holo of the system, he could see a new blue dot emerge from the vicinity of Schwitzguebel’s orbit.
It traveled out, safely beyond most of the other blue dots, and winked out—taching to somewhere in the outer system.
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