Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (75 page)

              ‘Why bother to expand at all?’ said Katherine.  ‘Wasn’t one galaxy enough?’

              Aaokon looked at her with a sad smile on his golden features.  ‘Hubris, that’s why - a symptom of all empires at their height and usually one that presages their fall.  The Progenitors thought that they were invincible. They thought that their rule would have no end.  Like countless others throughout the ages, they were wrong.’

              ‘I believe that my own people are a recent example of this self delusion,’ said Steelscale, ruefully.

              ‘Quite so,’ said Aaokon.  ‘In any case, the decision was taken to explore the rest of the universe via other means.  The Progenitors lacked the manpower to send vast exploratory fleets beyond the galaxy without depleting their already stretched resources at home.  They had already perfected artificial intelligence, but they needed AIs that were able to truly act independently within proscribed boundaries.  Exploring beyond the galaxy would take many millennia and it would be necessary for such entities to be able to self replicate and self repair and if required to evolve independently as circumstances demanded.  I was chosen to head up the committee of First Kind AIs involved in the creation of a new form of artificial life, the Second Kind. Eonara and several others also played a major role in their development.’

              ‘Yes, we know all this,’ said Rekkid. ‘The new form of life turned out to be ruthless and without compassion for other forms of life, seeing them as inferior.  They conspired to destroy the Progenitor race and take over the galaxy.  The rest is history.’

              ‘Indeed,’ said Aaokon, irritated at Rekkid’s interruption.  ‘However, what Eonara has not been able to tell you was that our experiments into the creation of new life did not end there.  Another programme had been established to colonise the wider universe by other means.  We explored the possibility of seeding distant candidate planets with caches of nanomachines.  These would lie dormant until life began to emerge on these worlds, whereupon the genetic make-up of the native creatures would be gradually altered over millions of years.  This directed evolution would eventually result in the native ecosystems producing creatures that were increasingly similar to the Progenitor people.  In time, the Empire would expand across the universe and find fledgling civilisations already in place, which could then be re-united with the parent once their origins were explained to them.  Understand of course that we were planning along extremely long timescales here since the Progenitors fully expected their empire to last.  In the end, of course, it all came to nought.  Our research was subverted by the Shapers and the resulting virus that they engineered from it proceeded to wipe out a sizeable portion of the Progenitor population.  As the Empire collapsed around them, the Progenitors took the decision to use the technology that had been developed to seed planets in this galaxy as a last ditch attempt to preserve their legacy and defy the Shapers who now had the upper hand.’

              ‘You seeded planets in this galaxy?  Which ones?’ said Mentith.  ‘Are the Akkal the products of your genetic technology?’

              ‘Yes.  At first I chose to remain within the sphere as its keeper.  I felt that I was responsible for the misguided creation of the Shapers and happily accepted being walled up in this place as my punishment.  The assumption then was that perhaps in time the Progenitors might return one day and I would act as guardian of the ones who elected to stay behind until they did.  Meanwhile, a number of AIs took it upon themselves to scatter caches of our nano-machines throughout the galaxy, before fleeing through the portal to Andromeda, each keeping secret from the others their destinations in case of capture by the Shapers.  I remained here but... it seems somehow that the virus managed to gain access to the population within the sphere.  I did what I could but it tore through those who remained and out of the billion or so who stayed behind, only a handful survived on the home-world.  Not enough, I thought, to maintain a breeding population.  I took a rash decision to leave the sphere and scatter some of the nano-machines throughout the galaxy and then flee to Andromeda myself, tell the Progenitors never to return and assist in the creation of their new civilisation.  I did not get far.  After seeding one world, the Shaper fleets caught up with me and, thinking me destroyed, left me for dead.  There I remained for almost four billion years, whilst I watched life emerge on the world that I had seeded, and then I saw the first flickering of intelligence appear.  Though I was powerless to intervene, it gave me hope that at least in a tiny corner of the galaxy, the descendants of the Progenitors endured.  Eventually, the Akkal developed space flight, began to colonise the other worlds in their star system, and they found me adrift in the outer system.’

              ‘I think we know what happened next,’ said Rekkid.  ‘You told them the truth, and it tore their civilisation apart.’

              ‘Yes.  In my enthusiasm I did not consider fully what implications this knowledge would have for their society.  I told them the truth.  I allowed them to access the gate network and ‘return home’.  Perhaps I was being selfish.  I too wished to return here, to repair my shattered ship and perhaps see if any of the Progenitors still remained here.  The Akkal helped me.  They used their primitive technologies to transport me across the system to the portal.  I in return turned over the secrets of this place, thinking that the Progenitors’ ancient technologies would be of use to them.  It was a mistake.  They were not ready.  They misunderstood what I had told them, worshipped me and the Progenitors as gods and turned on their fellows as unbelievers.  Eventually the AIs in the gate network realised that the Akkal had managed to obtain some of the Shaper’s terror weapons from the wrecks around the Ilion system gate junction and shut down the portals leading to their system, but it was too late.  I created the Akkal, and I destroyed them also.  I created the Shapers and unwittingly released their terror upon the galaxy.’

              The golden ship had drawn alongside the
Shining Glory
now.  A great elongated star that glowed softly with a shifting inner light, it was undoubtedly the same vessel that they had seen depicted over and over again in the artworks left by the Akkal in their archives.

              ‘The Akkal who were trapped here became my wards.  They live simple, uncomplicated lives, and after ten thousand years they have forgotten about me.  I prefer to leave it that way.  I assist them indirectly from time to time, but I would wish them to find their own way in the universe, and rediscover the truth about their home in good time.’

              ‘And what of the Progenitors who remained here, what became of them?’ said Katherine.

              ‘They appear to have struggled on for some time amid the ruins of their civilisation.  But they were so few in number that the population remained very low.  As far as I am able to tell, a number of phases of civilisation have taken place on the home-world, but they have never again reached the heights that their ancestors achieved.  In fact I do not believe that they have ever achieved interplanetary space flight.  The last wave of civilisations ended up in a nuclear exchange between the nation states that existed at the time.  That was over twenty thousand years ago, by your reckoning.  Currently the planet supports a population of just under ten million individuals concentrated in the temperate regions of the planet.  They have just rediscovered astronomy and are starting to wonder whether the patterns that they see beyond the sky really are another land inhabited by people like themselves as the legends suggest.’

              ‘Is it possible to meet them?  We’ve come all this way and...’ Katherine began, hurriedly and instantly regretted her over eager outburst.

              ‘I would advise against it,’ replied Aaokon.  ‘I cannot prevent you, except by force, and I have no wish to use it.  But I would ask that you leave them alone.  They do not know of their own ancestry and our arrival would be deeply traumatic for them.  Perhaps you can observe them from afar, as you have the Akkal.’

              ‘Aaokon, I have to ask:  is the facility where we created the Shapers still intact?’ said Eonara.

              ‘Yes.’

              ‘I require access to it.  Aaokon, I need to access the data that was deleted from my mind.  I need to know how the Shapers were created, how they work, how they think and communicate and I need to know because I intend to destroy our creation once and for all.’

              ‘The research facility has remained sealed under the ice at the home-world’s southern pole ever since the war,’ Aaokon replied. ‘I can give you the co-ordinates and the access codes.  You should find everything in order, even after all this time.’

              ‘Aaokon, you mentioned that other worlds throughout the galaxy had been seeded by the Progenitors,’ said Rekkid.  ‘
Which
other worlds?’

              ‘I do not know,’ replied Aaokon.  ‘As I have said before, the information was compartmentalised.’

              ‘The Defence Collective seemed quite happy to admit us to this place, once they had scrutinised us.  They said that Arkari and humans were welcome, but they were suspicious of Steelscale here.  So, which worlds?’

              ‘
What are you getting at?
’ whispered Katherine, shooting Rekkid a quizzical look.

              ‘I do not know,’ Aaokon repeated, firmly.  ‘The only place where you will find such information is on the home-world, at the research facility.  It exists nowhere else, to my knowledge.’

              ‘And you have never looked?’ said Katherine.

              ‘No.  Such things should remain buried.  The disaster that befell the Akkal is proof of that.  Some truths are just too much for some civilisations to bear.  If you look, you do so at your own peril.  I will not stop you, but I would warn you against obtaining such knowledge.  However, Eonara, I would be happy to assist you in your efforts to destroy the Shapers.  It is time to undo our greatest mistake.’

              ‘To the Progenitor home-world then,’ said Mentith.  ‘Ship: take us in.’

Chapter 43

              Isaacs squinted through a pair of compact binoculars at the rain drenched street.  Beside him, on the flat rooftop, assault rifles lay in a waterproof bag. Anna huddled with him, her hair plastered to her head by the lukewarm downpour.  The club, a dive named The Vortex, lay on the other side of the street, the lights and holos of its frontage turned off during the daytime.  The club was on the edge of town, between the centre and the spaceport, not far from the hotel in which they were staying in an area known as Portside.  Here, the oppressive security presence within the city was far less noticeable.  There were occasional, desultory patrols, but so far they had seen no checkpoints and although the streets were quiet, there seemed to be more people going about their normal business.

              Isaacs wasn’t too sure what that business might be.  He knew this area all too well.  It was a shady no-man’s land where the police had always been reluctant to go, patrolled instead by a network of local street gangs and where the gangsters of the Sirius Syndicate held sway above all.  It was conveniently close to the spaceport – all the better for moving illicit goods in and out of the system, illicit goods which were all too often sold through front businesses like the one they were looking at right now, or through the groups of feral looking gang members that loitered around the street corners.  He could see a couple now, huddled down in the doorway of a derelict building further down the street.

              ‘How’s everything look?’ said Steven’s voice in his ear.

              ‘Pretty quiet,’ Isaacs replied, keeping his voice low as he spoke into the mic. buried inside his jacket collar.  ‘I’ve seen one or two people coming and going from the club, but it doesn’t look like there’s any door security at this time of day.  One or two dodgy characters in the street outside, but nothing you should be concerned about.’

              ‘Entrances?’

              ‘Aside from the main one, there’s a fire exit that opens into the alley on the north side of the building.’

              ‘Okay, well here goes.  You know what to do if I call you for backup.’

              ‘Sure.  We’ll be ready until you come out.’

              And with that Steven cut the encrypted link.  Isaacs looked over at Anna, who was busy pushing rain soaked hair out of her eyes.

              ‘We couldn’t have picked a sunny day for this?’ she said, and blew a drop of water off the end of her nose.

              In the street below, their truck - with Steven at the controls - pulled up outside The Vortex.

              Steven stepped out of the truck into the pouring rain, which quickly began to soak the dark suit he had chosen to wear.  He dashed across the pavement into the shelter of the club’s entrance and felt the extra weight of the pistol he wore under his jacket and the backup weapon strapped to his lower right leg shifting as he ran.  Standing out of the rain, he took a second to compose himself and get into character as he brushed the rainwater off the suit’s expensive material and adjusted his tie.  The doors to the club were open.  Steven steeled himself, and then walked calmly inside.

              The interior of the club had seen better days.  The dim lighting couldn’t disguise the faded, peeling paintwork and the carpets that were sticky and stained by years of spilled drinks.  Music thudded in the background as in one corner a near naked woman with a fixed grin and empty eyes gyrated on a stage lit by flashing coloured lights and suggestive holos.  Steven took it in, noting the various denizens of the club leaning against the bar, huddled in booths at the side of the room or lounging around the gaming tables.  He felt their eyes on him as he walked across the room to the bar and ordered himself a drink.  As he paid the heavily tattooed barman and took a first mouthful of the cheap, adulterated beer that he had just been charged over the odds for, Steven leaned over and tried to engage the man in conversation.