Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (81 page)

              ‘Almost there,’ said the perfectly modulated voice of Aaokon in their ears.  ‘Not long now.  Eonara’s machines just need to cut a little deeper...’

              ‘I’m still not detecting a structure,’ said a second voice, that of the ship, emanating from one of its drones that sat coiled on multiple centipede-like legs in the snow, sensors twitching on its segmented head.

              ‘I assure you: it is there,’ said Aaokon.  ‘It has remained hidden ever since the Progenitors sealed it before their great exodus.  I am sure of the location.  Keep digging.’

              Katherine and Rekkid stood in silence and watched clouds boiling into the sky.

              The image through viewers was pin-sharp.  From her vantage point on the plateau, once the top level of a vast arcology now decayed, half collapsed and overgrown, she peered down into the centre of the sleepy village that nestled in the lush green valley below.  Waterfalls poured in streams of maiden-hair down the sides of the vast ruins that had once housed thousands and now formed a semi-regular range of mountains riddled with caves and buried secrets.  The streams gathered to form a gentle river that wove its way through the hamlet.  Katherine looked down upon a cluster of a few dozen buildings fashioned from locally quarried blocks that the locals took for stone, but which was actually the composite material that ruins all around had been built from.  All but the richer dwellings and few public buildings sported sagging roofs of thatch or wood.  The former had roofs made from glazed tiles of various colours.  Wisps of smoke drifted from chimneys into the morning air.

              The sky above was clear, with only wisps of cloud at high altitude.  Above the clouds, above the blue of the sky itself, were faint patterns of light and shade, reflective and gleaming and dark and glowering. Swirls of what sometimes looked like other clouds, or shining patches of water were occasionally visible.  The local people often looked up at those patterns beyond the sky and wondered what they signified, especially at night when they were clear and bright above them.  Was that land that they saw beyond the sky?  Were there people up there just like them?  Was that –whispered some – where the gods lived, watching over them like doting parents over their children?

              Katherine watched those self same local people now as they emerged from their dwellings.  The men carried implements as they walked towards the fields, the women scolded their children and herded them towards the temple at the centre of the village and its small schoolhouse.  Here were the remnants of a race that once bestrode the galaxy, tamed the stars and the planets and toyed with the very stuff of life itself and now they eked out a meagre, medieval existence amidst the ruins of their ancestors, ignorant of their origins, on the world that had given birth to them.

She was looking at the faces of the Progenitors.

There was the shadow of something visible beneath the ice now.  The Arkari had cut almost down to the rock beneath, and against the uneven shapes of the mountainside, there was something else, a more regular shape of some dark material that jutted outwards.  It was blacker that the rock that surrounded it, and as the ice was stripped away, it became clear that it formed some sort of bunker like structure that was half buried in the ground.

‘See?’ said Aaokon.  ‘I knew that it was here.  Not long now.’

‘And yet it is invisible to my sensors,’ said the ship.  ‘Interesting.’

‘Yes.  Some things should remain hidden.  The research facility that you can see emerging before us is manufactured from a similar material to that which the Shapers use to construct their ships, though somewhat more refined.  It exists in multiple dimensions and is invisible to conventional sensors.  It was an experimental technology at the time, one developed by the Progenitors and copied by the Shapers.  The base has been sealed ever since the great exodus, however I alone possess the means to open it.’

‘Is that why the base was placed here, to keep it from prying eyes?’ said Katherine.

‘It was hardly out of reach, but most people had no wish to come to the polar regions because of the intense cold.  The main reason was that it was hoped that in the event of a mishap, the cold environment would prevent any rogue biological materials from spreading into the biosphere.  However, the base was concealed to prevent the Shapers from finding it.  Although the research that led to their creation took place in a number of locations across the galaxy, it was collected here and wiped from all other locations, including the minds of the AIs involved such as myself and Eonara.’

‘You mentioned biological materials?’

‘Yes.  This place was once known as the Life Forge, a complex of subterranean laboratories dedicated to the exploration of artificial entities of one form or another. When the war started to go bad for us, the Progenitors began to look to maintaining their legacy somehow.  Our research here had led directly to the program to seed worlds with nanomachines and this was deemed to be a possible way in which the species might endure.  We conducted numerous experiments in which they were used to subtly alter living cells, but we had no wish to repeat the accident that had released the virus into the wider population to decimate the Progenitor people.  Of course when the program was begun, we did not know that the release of the virus was intentional.  That revelation only came later.’

‘Some of us had suspected, as soon as it happened’ said Eonara, her voice also emanating from the ship’s drone.  ‘We warned that the Shapers were plotting against us.  No-one listened to us.’

‘No, and we paid for our hubris,’ Aaokon replied sadly.

‘Research into the development of the Shaper race was initially moved here to isolate them in the event of any ‘mishaps’ also.  Many had raised ethical concerns about the creation of an artificial race.  Not only did people question whether we had the right to do such a thing, but there were fears about what such a race might become.  In the end, our over confidence and greed won out.  The universe was ours for the taking, it was argued, and we needed the necessary tools to achieve that.  There would be no end to the Progenitor Empire as it spread outwards from this galaxy to others.  We were wrong.’

The Arkari craft shut off their beams, leaving a steaming crater in the ice and snow that they had gouged several hundred metres deep.  Already, the surface was starting to refreeze, frost forming on the slick, black surface of the great circular door in the mountainside.

‘Any idea how we get inside?’ said Rekkid.  ‘What do we do, just walk up to it and knock?’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Aaokon.

They had begged Mentith to let them land here.  They had come all this way, they had argued, what harm would a few extra hours do?  Surely they should at least catch a glimpse of the descendants of the enigmatic race that had built this place, built the gate network and the other vast machines and structures that littered the galaxy.  Eventually Mentith had relented, on condition that they did not make contact and only observed from afar.  Katherine had almost literally jumped for joy.

As she looked upon them, she could scarcely believe how familiar the Progenitors looked.  They had seen a few images of them, and the AI constructs such as Eonara and Aaokon had modelled their avatars after their original creators, but to see the Progenitors in the flesh was something else.

‘They really do look like us, don’t they?’ said Rekkid, settling down beside her on the ground and squinting through a tiny pair of viewers at the scene below.

‘Yes.  This could be a scene from the past of either of our races.’

‘Or the future,’ Rekkid replied.  ‘If such civilisational reversal can happen to the Progenitors, it can happen to us too.’

‘But they’re so.... so... I was going to say ‘human’ but that sounds a little inappropriate.’

‘They’re very like us, both of us.  I keep wondering about what Aaokon said, about the Progenitors seeding the galaxy with nano-machines in order to manipulate the evolution of whole planets to create something like themselves.  Do you think that they look like us, because they
are
us, in a manner of speaking?  Maybe the Akkal weren’t the only ones...’

Katherine was watching one of the men through her viewers as he walked toward the fields on the edge of the village.  He stopped and turned for a moment, and looked almost straight at her.  She froze instinctively, before chiding herself: it wasn’t possible that he could have seen her from such a distance.  Aside from a slight elongation of the skull, slightly flattened features and a heavier brow, his bearded face would have been able to pass without comment on any human world.

‘I think...’ she began.  ‘I think that may be entirely possible.’

‘Maybe,’ said Rekkid.  ‘Or maybe it’s just a coincidence of parallel evolution.  In any case, we need to go back to the shuttle.  Steelscale’s on his way.  I said we’d join them as soon as possible.’

‘It seems such a shame to leave,’ said Katherine.  ‘The things we could learn.  Even if we excavated these ruins...’ she added, patting the ground beneath her, ground composed of the compacted floors of a massive habitation block.

‘I think that we should leave these people alone,’ warned Rekkid.  ‘One day, they may learn the truth about their past, about the horror that they unleashed upon the galaxy. For now though, let them exist in blessed ignorance.  I doubt if they would be able to comprehend the truth, and even if they could, it might destroy them just as the truth destroyed the Akkal.  It’s strange to think that their ancestors built all of this.  One day, perhaps the rest of the Progenitors will return from outside the galaxy to reclaim their home-world, but until then, we should let these people be.’

Despite the insulating suit, Katherine could feel the biting cold starting to seep through as she plodded forward through the driving snow towards the glassy bowl that had been gouged from the ice.  She cast her mind back to a few hours previously, when she had lain in the sunshine in the planet’s temperate zone and gazed in wonder at its inhabitants.  Those self same people had built the place that she now struggled towards – a circular plug of black material about five metres high that stood out against the exposed rock.  Light seemed to fall into it.  Its surface details were invisible save for where frost and snow clung to it, highlighting a pattern of concentric circles.

Rekkid walked at her side, along with the drone from the ship that was acting as the eyes and ears for the two AIs. It skittered along on its many legs.  Steelscale had joined them too, deciding to brave the cold once more.  He was as eager as they to see what lay inside the ominous black structure.

They eventually reached the edge of the bowl that had been boiled away out of the ice by the Arkari craft, which even now held station overhead, watching their progress.  The surface of the ice had already re-frozen, turning the surface of the bowl into a glassy sheen that was treacherous to walk on.  Steelscale seemed to fare the best, spreading his feet wide to get a more stable footing on the ice.  Both Katherine and Rekkid slipped and fell as they descended, the padding of their suits saving them from injury but not embarrassment, although even the ship’s drone seemed to be having a little trouble negotiating the descent.

Eventually, they stood before the great black door, and gazed up at the night dark edifice.  Like the Shaper ships, its surface hurt the eyes to look at it.  It seemed to be both there and not there at once, confusing the brain if one looked directly at it.  In the dull light of the snowstorm it seemed to imperceptibly shift.

‘Can you feel it, Rekkid?’ said Katherine.  ‘The weight of history pressing down on this place?  This is it.  This is where it all began.  All of it.  The end of the Progenitors, the creation of the Shapers, the war, everything.  Perhaps even the creation of other races throughout the galaxy.’

‘Those who have climbed the highest have the furthest to fall,’ Rekkid replied, transfixed by the black door.  ‘And the Progenitors fell so very far indeed.’

‘Even gods make mistakes,’ rumbled Steelscale.  ‘For example: our god did not make the K’Soth suited to cold climates.  Can we please get inside before my scales freeze off?’

‘Aaokon: you said you knew how to open this thing,’ said Rekkid.  ‘We would appreciate it if you would make good on that promise.’

‘Just a moment,’ said Aaokon.  ‘The interfaces may be a little recalcitrant in responding after all this time... they are not... ah, there we go.’

There was a dull thud from within the black door and then the hiss of a vacuum being breached as the air from outside rushed into the hairline crack that had appeared in the mirrored surface, a crack which grew ever wider as the two halves began to part and fold back into the mountainside until a looming black hole yawned before them.  Another set of doors, similar to the ones that had just opened, was dimly visible at the far end of the cylindrical chamber.  The wind howled, whipping ghostly flakes of snow across the dark hollow in the mountain.

‘Looks inviting,’ said Rekkid.  ‘Shall we?’

The drone was the first to move, scuttling quickly across the ice on its multiple insectile legs, the sensor clusters on its head sweeping ahead for danger.

‘War Marshal, this is Doctor O’Reilly,’ said Katherine into her comm. as they followed the drone in. ‘Are you seeing this?’

‘We’re getting a clear feed from the drone, yes,’ came the reply.

‘We’re heading inside.  I’d appreciate it if you’d stand by to extract us at a moment’s notice if need be.’

‘Do you think that’s likely to be necessary?’ said Mentith.

‘I don’t know.  Something about this place...’

‘We’ll monitor the situation.  I’ll instruct the teams on the ground to move in immediately if you require assistance or if we lose contact with the drone.’

‘Roger that, O’Reilly out,’ said Katherine and stepped over the lip of the entrance.

Inside, the floor material was smooth and glassy and felt indistinct under her feet.  Peering at it in the dim light she could just make out patterns shifting beneath its surface.  It was indeed reminiscent of the material that the Shaper ship on Rhyolite had been fashioned from, appearing to be at once there and not.  It confused her eyes if she looked directly at it and was immensely difficult to walk on without slipping and falling.