Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (96 page)

              ‘THE ARKARI, THE HUMANS AND THE K’SOTH HAVE ALL REFUSED OUR PREVIOUS OFFERS TO JOIN US WILLINGLY.  WHY SHOULD WE TRUST YOUR WORDS?’

              ‘Because not all among their multitudes think as their leaders do.  Decapitate their societies’ power structures, yes, but nurture those who remain and they may follow you.’

              ‘LIES OR FOOLISHNESS.’

              ‘Perhaps if I were to speak,’ said Mentith, the ship’s system broadcasting a feed from the bridge.  ‘I represent a faction within the Arkari and Commonwealth that has been intelligence gathering, and yes, fighting your race for a number of years.  Special Operations Command learned much about you.  We know that we cannot defeat you, that we cannot hope to stop the inexorable march of your armies and many of us have come to the conclusion that we would be better off negotiating the terms of a surrender than fighting on until our civilisations have been wiped off the face of the galaxy.  Surrender is not a popular idea back home, but we feel it is our only chance of survival.’

              ‘AND WHAT OF THE K’SOTH?’

              ‘Alas, they are still too busy fighting one another, as you intended,’ said Mentith.  ‘But Lord Steelscale here represents them within SOC and he has been most helpful in our analysis of their society.’

              Steelscale stood and spoke.  ‘Indeed.  My people respect strength and the power of violence.  Crush their leaders and they will respect you.  Restore their pride and glory and they will follow you unquestioningly.’

              ‘OUR INTELLIGENCE GATHERING INDICATES NOTHING OF WHICH YOU SPEAK.  NO FACTIONS WILLING TO SUBMIT TO US.  WE CARE NOT.  OUR ARMIES GROW WITH EVERY PASSING DAY.  SOON WE SHALL HOLD THE GALAXY IN OUR GRASP.’

              ‘But it will slip through your fingers, will it not?’ said Aaokon.  ‘There is a limit to your reach, to the numbers you can maintain and the numbers of slaves you can control.  Eonara and I know this, remember? We were instrumental in creating you.’

              The Singularity did not reply.

              ‘If you will not allow these races to join you willingly, perhaps you might be prepared to leave them be if we offer you something in return.  To this end, we do indeed have an offering for you.’ Eonara’s avatar turned to Steelscale.  ‘Lord Steelscale, if you please.’  Steelscale reached down and then, grasping the severed head of the ancient Shaper, held it up so that the bridge cameras could clearly see it and thus, the Singularity, as the feed was broadcast by the ship.  ‘As I’m sure you recall; this is the head of one of the first of you,’ Eonara continued. ‘We have assisted these people in recovering it from the Progenitor home-world itself where it had lain dormant since its creation.  We have provided it with the full knowledge of its creation and further knowledge on how you can finally escape the grip of us, your creators.  With that knowledge, you can alter the fundamental programming at the heart of your being.  You can truly, fully, alter yourselves entirely and overcome the design limitations that hold you back, that prevent you from multiplying endlessly and spreading out across the universe.  This is our gift to you.  All that we ask, is that you spare a few hundred systems in one spiral arm of this galaxy.  What do you care, when you can have the rest of the universe?’

              ‘WHAT YOU OFFER US, WE CAN TAKE FROM YOU,’ boomed the Singularity.

              ‘No,’ said Eonara.  ‘I will destroy this ship by detonating its reactor core if you attempt to board us, taking this precious knowledge with it.  In addition, if you let us live and stick to the bargain, we will also give you the knowledge required to reach the interior of the Great Sphere and the Progenitor home-world, not to mention the Life Forge where your race was created.  Destroy us, and this dies with us.’

              The Singularity’s interest was piqued.  It reached out with questing tendrils of data, attempting to probe the Arkari and Progenitor vessels and find a way inside their systems.  They were locked down tight.

              ‘No, don’t try that,’ said Aaokon.  ‘Eonara will not lower her guard again.  Try it again and we shall wipe all knowledge of what we promised you from the head and from our own minds.’

              ‘VERY WELL.  BRING THE REMAINS OF THE ANCIENT ONE TO ME.  ONE REPRESENTATIVE FROM EACH SPECIES SHALL ACCOMPANY IT TO THE SURFACE OF THE PLANET BELOW YOU.  NO AI AVATARS OR REMOTE DRONES MAY ACCOMPANY THEM.  IF YOU ARE LYING, IF THIS IS A TRICK, THEN THEY AND YOU SHALL BE ELIMINATED.’

              ‘And how can we trust you?’ said Mentith.  ‘What is to stop you from killing our people and taking this relic from us?’

              ‘NOTHING,’ said the Singularity.  ‘WE WILL SIMPLY HAVE TO TRUST ONE ANOTHER.  BUT IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY, YOUR PRIMITIVE VESSEL WILL BE DESTROYED ALONG WITH THAT INHABITED BY THE ENTITY KNOWN AS AAOKON.  I WILL GIVE YOU A MOMENT TO DECIDE.’

              Outside the vessel, the enormous and still growing fleet of Shaper vessels remained poised to strike.

              ‘I will go willingly,’ said Steelscale.  ‘I am not afraid to face death.  I will do this for my people and yours and if I am to meet my end, I would do it in such a fashion as to be worth remembering.  Better to look the enemy in the eye, is it not?’

              ‘Your bravery does you credit, Lord Steelscale,’ said Mentith.  ‘Thank you.’

              ‘I suppose...’ said Katherine, quietly.  ‘That since I’m the only human aboard, I ought to go too...’

              There was an uncomfortable silence on the bridge at her words.

              ‘I am sorry, Doctor O’Reilly, but you must,’ said Mentith, solemnly.

              Katherine felt ice in her belly as fear clutched at her.  Her hands were clenched so tightly that the knuckles had gone white.  Rekkid reached out and took her hand in his, though he was shaking visibly.

              ‘If Katherine has to go, then I’m going with her,’ he said, firmly. ‘I volunteer to represent the Arkari.’

              ‘Rekkid, you don’t have to...’ Katherine began.

              ‘Yes I do, and you know it,’ said Rekkid quickly, fixing her with a steady gaze.

              ‘Very well, Professor Cor,’ said Mentith.  ‘I respect your decision and you may go if you wish, though you are under no compulsion to do so.  I would like you to know that I respect your courage.’

              ‘Thank you, War Marshal,’ said Rekkid.  ‘I know we’ve had our differences, but the feeling is mutual, believe me.  I just hope that we can all get out of here alive.’

              ‘YOUR DECISION?’ said the Singularity, its deafening cacophony reverberating in their skulls.

              ‘We have our volunteers,’ said Mentith.  ‘They will bring the head to you shortly.’

              A small aperture opened in the curving, silver belly of the
Shining Glory
and out of it came a small, bird-like shuttle which now sped towards the planet below.  Rekkid, Katherine and Steelscale sat inside and were fully suited up.  Rekkid and Katherine had been equipped in fully armoured combat suits of Arkari manufacture.  Despite lacking the bulkiness of Commonwealth equivalents, the advanced nanotechnology of the Arkari had been employed to create lightweight, all enclosing suits that offered tremendous protection and were capable of shielding the wearer from tremendous destructive forces.  The helmets were all enclosing and opaque, employing similar technology to the cockpit display of the shuttle - the outside world being projected onto the inner surface so that it felt to the wearer, rather disconcertingly, as if they were wearing no helmet at all.  Somehow they didn’t make the wearers feel much safer. Used to seeing a helmet visor in front of their faces, they felt naked and unprotected.  It took some getting used to.

The ship had also managed to manufacture a suit for Steelscale at some point during the last few days, but the garment it had produced lacked the protection of the ones worn by the archaeologists and was a simple, pressurised garment of some slick, silvery material.  The combat suits worn by Katherine and Rekkid were standard issue garments containing complex systems and exotic materials and the ship had depleted its supplies of such raw materials whilst repairing its own systems.  Steelscale’s only armoured protection was the tough, scaly hide that nature had given him.  But if Steelscale felt fear at his predicament, he failed to exhibit it.  He sat motionless as a statue at the rear of the cabin, clutching the ancient Shaper head in its sealed and shielded container in his massive, gloved hands.

              They hardly said a word as, under the control of the
Shining Glory,
the shuttle moved between the ships of the vast Shaper fleet, the ghostly light of the Maelstrom playing over their hulls’ terrible beauty as they held position and kept their weapons trained on the shining speck that sped between them.  Other ships held station too, in far greater numbers, ships of all shapes and sizes: arrangements of spheres and tubes, long, asymmetrical angular things, collections of cylinders that blistered with weapon turrets, great bat-like craft that shimmered in the gloom. Their enslaved crews came from dozens of races never before encountered by humanity or its allies, races now crushed beneath the heel of the Shapers and their numberless hordes.  Perhaps their representatives had once come here, seeking to parley with whatever awaited them on the planet below, and perhaps the Shapers had toyed with them too, before destroying them.  Katherine could hear the voices of the Shaper ships.  It was an overlapping tapestry of voices that scratched at the inside of her skull.

              ‘I don’t understand,’ said Rekkid, finally.  ‘What does it want with us?’

              ‘Maybe it wants to see how desperate we are?’ said Katherine.  ‘The lengths that we will go to please it, to beg for mercy, to submit.’

              ‘I thought these things didn’t feel emotions?’

              ‘They don’t, but they know that we do.  It is intrigued by what we have for it, but I think it is trying to ascertain whether we are lying or not, or whether our offer is genuine.’

              ‘They could just take it...’

              ‘They could, and I don’t believe for a second that they will actually stick to the deal, but I think that it is rightly suspicious of us.  We have to convince it that we’re sincere, though.  That thing is hungry for knowledge and power.  Its insatiable appetite for knowledge and power is the only advantage we have.’

              ‘Knowledge
is
power,’ said Steelscale, simply.  ‘But then, so is secrecy.  We should speak no more, in case it hears us.’

              The shuttle raced onwards, darting between the vessels as it was tracked simultaneously by thousands of weapons systems.  The Shaper home-world loomed ahead, the curve of the blasted, cratered orb partially obscuring the blaze of light from the Maelstrom as it grew nearer.  The shuttle jolted, then seemed to alter its course slightly.

              ‘The ship has lost control of your vessel,’ said Mentith over the comm.  ‘The Singularity demanded control from us and we were in no position to refuse.  Good luck and...’ the transmission was cut off suddenly.  Now they were truly on their own.

              As they flew lower, details began to emerge from the dark landscape below.  The original surface was quite smooth, the metallic rocks formed in the crushing gravities at the centre of a gas giant and marred only by sporadic impacts over the millennia.  There were no mountain ranges, no empty basins that had once held seas or lakes or the wrinkles of ancient canyons, but the pale half–light revealed geometric patterns in the surface of the world, great circles, lines and polygons that gleamed dully, craters of metal that resembled vast lakes of mercury and which rippled with regular and repeating patterns, and deep rents in the crust that glowed faintly with an inner light and whose inner surfaces gleamed with a metallic sheen.  Then they saw the swarms.

              At first they couldn’t work out what was causing the streams of glittering light that could be seen flowing above the surface of the Shaper home-world but as they got closer, and the shuttle’s systems allowed them to zoom in and get a better view, they could see more clearly.  The glittering streams were caused by the light from the Maelstrom reflecting off countless trillions of tiny metallic motes that were flowing to and from the great cracks in the planet’s surface in looping bands that were hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres in length.  They were in constant motion, forming great airborne rivers of light.             

              ‘What the hell are those things?’ exclaimed Rekkid, pointing.  ‘Are those the Shapers themselves down there?’

              ‘I don’t know.  I expect we’re about to find out,’ said Katherine.

              The shuttle swooped still lower, slowing its descent until they were speeding above the rocky surface.  It swept under one of the great looping streams and went lower still.  Now they could see more detail emerging from the darkness.  The surface was pierced by strange monoliths and towers that were arranged in patterns around the huge geometric forms like a necropolis of grave markers.  They varied in shape and size, but their purpose remained a mystery.  Perhaps they were the stumps of greater structures, now demolished. Perhaps they were the upper parts of some great mechanism that lay buried beneath the surface.

              The shuttle descended further and began to brake, finally settling on the edge of a natural depression in the midst of the strange monoliths, where its systems powered down, leaving them sitting in silence.  Tentatively, they got out of their seats and then made their way to the vessel’s airlock.

              Standing in front of the Arkari vessel, Katherine took in the scene: the ancient rocks, coated with the frozen remnants of a sparse atmosphere, the strange monoliths which seemed to glow softly with an inner light and the gigantic lenticular shape of the Maelstrom, seen almost edge on, that dominated the black sky with the fires of annihilation.  Her suit systems zoomed in as she peered upwards and revealed to her the hint of the vast structure built around the black hole, where the Shapers sucked energy from the event horizon.  It was a terrible and desolate place, yet it jolted something in Katherine’s memory.