Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (95 page)

              ‘It had occurred to me. I get the impression that you get some sick pleasure out of tormenting me, although I thought perfect beings such as yourself were above such things.’

              ‘Indeed we are.  No, it is because you are still useful to me alive.  Whilst we did not have the resources to fully take this world, you served as a useful figure to demonise, but now that we have all the forces available that we need to join this world to the Shaper consciousness you are still of use.  You see, I need to break you, Admiral Haines.  I need to break you and I need all of humanity to see it, to see their hero reduced to a wreck of a man, crushed and defeated, before I kill you.  I need them to see the despair in your eyes before I put a bullet in your thick skull!  Mopping up resistance movements is tiresome and costly and slows down our expansion.  Humanity needs to know that it has been defeated, even before we burn the world of your origins to a cinder.’

              ‘No...’ Haines shook his head violently.  ‘No, this is personal.  I can feel it.’

              ‘You are mistaken.’

              ‘You devoured Cox’s mind, then you spent too long away from your precious Singularity, didn’t you?  You started to develop independent thoughts of your own, started to become him!  I know, because I knew Admiral Cox. I can see some of him looking out through his eyes, and I also know that he fucking
hated
me!’  Haines started to laugh.  ‘Yeah he would have done anything to get me in a locked room... guess he got his wish after all.’

              ‘Shut up!’ spat Cox, lunging forward and striking Haines across the face.

              ‘See?’ said Haines, still reeling from the blow.  ‘Anger!  I thought you didn’t have emotions, that they were a weakness that you despised.  Isn’t it ironic?  That I’m being kept alive because the man you devoured and whose skin you walk around in hated my guts.’

              ‘No! No, you are wrong.  Very wrong,’ said Cox, leaning over him.  ‘You are only alive and in possession of your own mind because you are a useful tool to me, nothing more.  Let me show you what happens when things outlive their usefulness to me.’  Cox turned smartly and strode towards Morgan.  He stood behind him for a second, and then suddenly locked the Admiral in a vice like grip with both arms around his throat.

              ‘I’m sorry, Admiral Morgan, but the deal’s off, I’m afraid,’ said Cox into Morgan’s ear.  Morgan choked and gasped for air, struggling in vain to free himself.

              ‘I knew that you would try to betray us eventually. You were useful for a while as a way of controlling the local populace, even if you were only trying to buy time for yourself in some pathetic hope that your species would be allowed to retain a degree of freedom as collaborators.  Now, of course, we can resort to more direct methods so I’m afraid your services are no longer required.’

              Morgan writhed in Cox’s grip, his frantic feet beating a tattoo against the carpeted floor.  The two armoured figures came forward and helped Cox hold him down.  Something had entered the room and was crawling across that floor.  It was small and black, segmented and insect-like, and it moved with quick, skittering steps on thin, articulated legs.  Razor sharp mandibles clicked hungrily.  Morgan saw it and his eyes widened in horror.  He tried to scream.

‘Nevertheless, I have decided to reward you,’ Cox continued.  ‘You have earned yourself a place within the blissful embrace of the Shapers.  Your burdens are no longer yours to carry.  We will do your thinking for you.’

Haines watched, aghast, as the thing started to climb up Morgan’s trouser leg.  Cox and his men held him tight.  Morgan clamped his mouth shut, straining to turn his head away as the thing scuttled up and over his chest.  The Admiral’s eyes bulged as he looked down into its tiny features that were composed entirely of razor sharp blades and minute clustered sensors, which even now were scanning his anatomy.  He clenched his mouth tighter.  It mattered not to the creature, which rushed forward and sank its mandibles into his flesh, burrowing upwards through his lower jaw.  Morgan shrieked, even as the black thing ate through his tongue, then the roof of his soft palate and then it finally tasted brain matter and started to feed in earnest, carving itself a burrow between the two hemispheres.  It began to extend tendrils into the surrounding tissue, not only into the brain’s motor functions, but also into Morgan’s veins, where it could tap into the nutrients flowing around his body.  It would digest and grow, adding segments to its length until it resembled a centipede, when it would finally push its rear segments out of the back of Morgan’s skull to act as a heat sink and communications hub.  Then it would rebuild his body from within, strengthening it to withstand damage that would have killed him ordinarily, though now his mind was trapped within a living death.

Morgan’s struggling ceased.  Cox and his men released his slack body, which now began to twitch as the creature inside his head began to assert its control.

‘Jesus,’ said Haines, disgusted by what he had just witnessed.

‘Oh, don’t worry.  He’s still alive,’ said Cox. ‘Very much alive, in fact.  He can see and hear us, can’t you?’ Cox added, speaking to the slumped, twitching form.  ‘It’s just that we’re in control now and he’ll do as we tell him.  You won’t be so fortunate, Admiral Haines.  I assure you, I do intend to kill you when the time is right.’

Chapter 54

              The
Shining Glory
emerged in a blaze of light as the Shadow Gate opened once more.  Flanked by Aaokon’s golden craft, the Arkari vessel slewed to a stop.  Once outside the Great Sphere again it turned and faced back towards the Shadow Gate as it snapped shut, severing the connection to the interior of the Progenitors’ domain.

              ‘We strongly advise against this course of action,’ said the Defence Collective, their chorus of voices echoing across the bridge.  ‘To fly into the heart of the Shaper domain, into that very nest of evil, is a mission that can only end in your deaths or your eternal enslavement.  We would ask you again to reconsider.’

              ‘It is the only course of action open to us,’ said Aaokon.  ‘The Shapers’ reign of terror over the galaxy must be ended.  We must rectify the mistake of their creation.  Perhaps we must meet our ends so that others might live free from their tyranny.’

              ‘Understand that we cannot re-open the wormhole once you have passed through.  The risk is too great.  We do not know what may attempt to break through.’

              ‘We understand,’ said Eonara.  ‘Whether we succeed or fail, we will not require it.  Succeed, and we will leave the system freely under our own power.  Fail, and we shall meet one of the fates that you described.’

              ‘And the Progeny on board this primitive vessel?’ asked the Defence Collective.

              ‘Are aboard voluntarily,’ said Mentith.  ‘Even now, the Shapers prey upon our worlds.  We would help Eonara to end this, if possible.  We are ready to face the consequences of journeying to their home-world.’

              ‘Very well,’ said the Defence Collective.  ‘We shall now re-target the Shadow Gate according to the projected location of the Shaper home-world.  You should prepare yourselves.’

A million automated weapons systems in the space surrounding it now took aim at the Shadow Gate as the ancient device recalibrated itself.  The massed guns under the control of the Defence Collective stood ready to obliterate anything that might emerge from where the wormhole it was about to spin would terminate.

              Then the Shadow Gate activated once more.  It blazed with pale light as the wormhole opened, creating a window into that hellish place, into the very centre of the Shapers’ spreading web of control.   The newly spun wormhole terminated high above their very home-world, a dead planet infested with machine life and home to a great and implacable intelligence.  Weapons and shields fully charged, the two ships sped forward into the Shadow Gate, which snapped shut behind them.  Alone once more, the Defence Collective deactivated its massed weapons systems and returned to its long, silent vigil over the birthplace of the Progenitors.

              A simultaneous gasp swept across the bridge as they exited the wormhole and cast their eyes upon the home of their enemy.  It had once been the iron core of a gas giant that had wandered too close to its parent star and then, after being stripped of its mantle of crushing liquid gas seas, been flung out of the unknown system of its birth into the darkness of interstellar space.  It had wandered for countless aeons before being captured by the embrace of the Maelstrom, the vast black hole at the centre of the galaxy, falling into a stable orbit around that all-consuming engine of ultimate annihilation, its surface illuminated not by sunlight as other planets were, but by the light of dead and dying suns as they were rent apart and crushed by the black hole’s immense gravity.  The Progenitors, unable to control their creations, had exiled the Shapers to that frozen world, where they had infested it like maggots in a corpse, hollowing out tunnels in the ice rimed rocks and then multiplying and spreading their tendrils out into the galaxy to remake it in their image.

              Behind the rough, dark grey sphere of the Shaper home-world, the Maelstrom dominated the sky, gas and debris swirling into its maw, the vast accretion disk casting a deathly light over the scene.  Things were moving against that light.  Countless numbers of malevolent things had suddenly seen the two ships emerge in their midst and, in the core of the dead planet, the great implacable intelligence within also turned its gaze towards them.

              ‘Inbound contacts!’ said the ship.  ‘I am detecting in excess of a million vessels within half a light year of our position.  They are of course aware of our presence.  Many are moving towards us and have already entered hyperspace!’

              ‘Oh God,’ said Katherine.  ‘This really is suicide...’

              The ship’s main display was crowded with icons denoting the presence of ships.  Thousands, were now converging on their position.

              ‘Types and numbers?’ said Mentith.

              ‘The majority of the vessels detected are of types unknown to us, and there is great variation in shapes, size and apparent technological sophistication.  The remaining vessels, around one hundred thousand in all, are undoubtedly Shaper craft of various types, some of which we have not encountered before.’

              ‘I’m really starting to regret coming here,’ said Rekkid, his voice quavering despite his attempt at nonchalance.  ‘Is there any chance that we can turn this thing around?’

              ‘Impossible,’ said the ship.  ‘The wormhole has already closed behind us.  We are trapped here.  I am calculating possible escape routes through hyperspace, though I fear that it is likely that the Shapers are able to stop us.’

              ‘We need to talk to them.  Get their attention before they fire,’ said Mentith.  ‘Eonara, Aaokon, begin broadcasting your presence immediately.’

              ‘Won’t that just encourage them to attack us?’ said Steelscale.  ‘Surely, they will still wish to eliminate any trace of their creators?’

              ‘Or it will pique their curiosity,’ said Mentith.  ‘Do it.’

              The ships were rapidly closing in, emerging from hyperspace all around the
Shining Glory,
weapons primed and ready to fire.  The view on the main display began to fill with ships, the crystalline shark-like forms of Shaper vessels emerging first, then the myriad shapes of the alien vessels enslaved to their will.  Katherine could hear the Shapers as a babble of mocking, laughing, threatening voices inside her thoughts, voices that whispered her doom, voices that tried to seduce her with honeyed words, voices that described what they would do to her once she had been captured.

              Aaokon and Eonara broadcast frantically on all channels, loudly announcing their presence to all in range.  The ships advanced no further.  They did not fire.  They held their positions, like hunting dogs straining at the leash.  The
Shining Glory
and Aaokon’s ship were now surrounded on all sides by an ever increasing number of Shaper vessels.  For several tense minutes they hung there, poised to destroy the two vessels that frantically broadcast the presence of the two Progenitor AIs to all who would listen.

              ‘We’re being scanned,’ said the ship.  ‘Both by the ships all around us and sources on the planet’s surface.  I think it’s safe to say that we’ve got their attention.’

Then came one voice that drowned out all the others.  It was so loud inside Katherine’s head that it caused her acute physical pain.  Even the Arkari and Steelscale, usually deaf to the voices of the Shapers, could hear it.  Katherine saw them flinch in surprise and pain as the voice filled their heads also: it was the voice of a god, the voice of the Singularity.

              ‘WHY DO YOU COME HERE, AAOKON AND EONARA?  WHY DO YOU COME AFTER AGES SPENT SKULKING IN THE DARKNESS?  HAVE OUR CREATORS COME TO KNEEL BEFORE US?  HAVE YOU COME TO OFFER THESE IMPERFECT CREATURES TO US AS SACRIFICES?’  It was like the voices of billions speaking at once, overlapping one another in a Babel of different languages. An avalanche of sound, it roared inside their minds, yet each individual heard the Singularity’s words in their own tongue.

              ‘We who helped create you have come to seek an end to this war,’ said Eonara. ‘We have brought representatives from a number of races who would seek to parley.’

              ‘THIS WAR HAS BARELY BEGUN,’ said the Singularity.  ‘WHY SHOULD WE CEASE TO PROSECUTE IT?’

              ‘Why waste resources fighting a war against these people when they may be willing to ally themselves with you?  Others have and fight willingly for you, and have offered themselves for alteration also.  We know this,’ said Aaokon.  ‘I implore you to allow these races to survive in your service, not as mindless slaves but as willing participants in your war to unite the galaxy.’