The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (16 page)

She loved a good challenge, and this was one of the best she’d ever had.

INTERSTELLAR SPACE

▸IN SPACE, THERE is light on all sides, the stars an unblinking companion to the ships and species that move through the limitless vacuum, but for humans who ventured into the blackness, it was very much a reminder of the old expression “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.” Those distant sparks of light that surrounded you in the depths were completely inadequate to the task of lighting the local area, leaving everything very much in the dark.

So dark, in fact, that despite the omnipresent starlight, there is too little ambient light for most planet-bound species to see even as far as their hands if they were held up in front of their faces. Those species suited to space travel, however, make use of other senses than what humans would call visible light.

To them, the universe is a very different place. Alien, in fact, to the eyes of a human. Colors are completely different, determined not by what frequencies of light that a substance absorbs or reflects, but often by what energies an object generates of its own accord.

Very few things in the living universe are truly inert, so those with the eyes to see it can perceive a very different realm from the mundane world of men, indeed.

The Drasin were such a species.

They passed through the empty depths, unaffected and unmoved by the stark beauty around them. Their perceptions were turned to the life they saw in everything they passed. The tiny spark of it in the few rolling, tumbling rocks that existed in deep space. The almost imperceptible hint of it in the micron-sized particles of dust that collided with them.

And the blazing purity of white flame that they saw when they approached a star system.

Most systems, they simply bypassed, uninterested in the life they found there. The natural white flame that arose from the combinations of planets and suns was peaceful to them, and perhaps, someday, when they were finished, they might return.

For now, though, it was the crimson slash that drew them in. The life’s blood hemorrhaging from the living universe was anathema to them, and they could not pass it by.

This was such a system, the Drasin determined as it slowed its velocity and moved in closer. The tug of gravity on its skin was a pleasurable tickle of sensation, but was also ignored.

The Drasin had more important matters this time, and it alerted its extensions.

This system was filled with the crimson band.

In the past, many others had vanished into this pass, so the Drasin were cautious.

To a human, the caution might have translated to a superstition, something expressed as a joking phrase or statement. To the Drasin, it was simpler, more instinctual than that, but the sentiment remained.

Here be dragons
.

PLANET RANQUIL

▸TO GET TO Central, Tanner led Weston down through carved tunnels that were cool and moist. Unless Weston was mistaken, they had passed from the pyramidal habitats a few minutes earlier, walking deeper into the ground as they followed the path through a complex branching labyrinth. The halls through which they now walked were of stone carved from a single slab, unlike the glass-and-steel-like construction above, lending a feeling of antiquity.

In fact, he half expected the place to be lit by torches rather than the unobtrusive lighting systems that the Priminae favored.

“Here we go,” Admiral Tanner said as they came upon a large room, empty save for Commander Jehan, who was standing at the far end. “Nero, sorry we are late. I was showing Captain Weston some of the Old City.”

Old City. Eric had to suppress a choked laugh at that comment. The pyramids above them were over ten thousand years old, constructed of materials that the translator couldn’t accurately render when someone tried to explain it. The city that surrounded them, just over sixteen thousand years old, was
constructed of hardened stone that used a surface-molecular bonding to create a surface nearly impervious to the elements.

The “Old City” was what Rael had called the tunnels. Even he wasn’t certain of their exact age, since the building materials and preservatives used by the locals defied such mundane processes as carbon dating.

“It isn’t a problem, Rael,” Nero Jehan said in his somber way. “I would not have proceeded without you, in any case.”

“Precisely why I apologized, Commander,” Rael said cheerfully, shrugging as he and Weston came shoulder to shoulder with the commander. “Have you the prepared request?”

“Yes,” Nero rumbled, nodding once.

“Good. With luck, we’ll be done here momentarily,” Tanner said as he reached forward and tapped a polished plate on the wall.

Eric blinked as the wall rumbled and scraped, sliding slowly apart, opening a way for them to continue in. Tanner started walking brusquely, not bothering to look back, catching both Nero and Eric by surprise for a moment before they hurried along behind him.

The room in which he found himself was of polished metal, almost mirror smooth, about fifteen meters in diameter. There was nothing else in the room, just the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. Those were all made of the same metal, all polished quite carefully, but without any other distinguishing marks whatsoever.

Eric was looking carefully around when Tanner and Nero stepped toward the center of the room with their files and request, so he turned to watch them.

Nero looked distinctly uncomfortable, but Tanner nodded simply to him, and he returned the nod and prepared his
files carefully, drawing out one of the electronic data devices the locals used.

“Central,” he said carefully, “I have a request here…”

Strange
. Eric’s brow furrowed.
I thought they didn’t have voice interfaces here
.

“They do not.”

Weston nearly jumped out of his skin as the deep baritone voice echoed through his skull, though that was only part of his shock. As he’d watched Nero speak, the big commander and the small admiral had both vanished like someone had thrown a light switch. One instant, they were there; the next, he was standing alone in the circular room.

“What the…?” he muttered, rushing forward as he cast about for them.
Where the hell did they go?

“They are here,” the voice said again, startling him a second time. “They continue to make their petition for a land grant.”

“Who said that?” Eric cast about again, this time looking for the source of the voice.

“I am what the Priminae, as you call them, refer to as ‘Central.’”

Eric froze, eyes darting around. The door through which he had entered was gone, like it had never been, and he could see no way out. The voice seemed to come from inside his own skull, but it reverberated like the deepest voice he’d ever heard, sending a tangible sensation along his spine.

“You’re Central?” he said after a moment.

“I am.”

An AI?
Eric thought wildly, trying to grasp the situation. Artificial intelligence research on Earth was as yet an extremely rudimentary science at best, even the best systems being a long way from being considered “intelligent” in the slightest.

“I am not,” the voice replied, this time a hint of emotion in its voice. “There is nothing artificial about my intelligence, I assure you.”

He froze again.

It read my mind
.

A cold chill ran down his spine, a series of fearful scenarios playing across his head as he began to look even more urgently for a way out.

“I read your FirstMind,” the voice replied. “Humans record data in two known ways, though there are some indications of a third process that I have yet to prove. You need not worry about my learning state secrets and the like. First, I have no real way to use such things, being immobile as I am, and second, unless you think of those matters and load them from your SecondMind, they are not available to me.”

Of course, as soon as it said that, Eric immediately thought of the security codes for the
Odyssey
’s main computers.

Oh, hell
.

The voice chuckled softly from within his mind. “Do not feel bad, Captain. That trick almost always works on you humans. The first point is, however, still in effect. I am unable to access the computers on your ship.”

“What are you?” Eric asked, almost fearfully. Thoughts of Gordon’s directions to learn more about this…
Central
flitted through his mind.
This is not a computer
.

“Indeed, that would be a poor descriptor of me, though I’m hardly surprised that people are interested in me,” the thing said, amused. “In response to your more relevant question, or perhaps in the hopes of clearing up your meaning…What are you?”

Eric blinked, thinking about the question. “Ah…human, I suppose.”

“Ah,” the voice said, slightly mocking. “Then you mean, ‘What species am I’?”

“Sure,” Eric said, beginning to wonder if he was hallucinating.

“I’m not,” the voice returned serenely.

“Not what?”

“A species.”

By this time, Eric wasn’t in the best of moods. He didn’t react well to being entrapped at the best of times, and the fact that both Tanner and Commander Jehan were missing was both suspicious and worrisome.

“You may relax,” the voice said calmly. “As I informed you, they are both still asking for permission to use the land they desire.”

“Where are they?” Eric demanded, shelving the issue of the mind reading for the moment.

“Here. With you.”

Eric closed his eyes and counted slowly to ten, forcing back the angry retort that had been on the tip of his tongue.

“I don’t have a mother, Captain. So I would not take offense.”

He started counting again.

This time, the voice let him reach ten without further cause for outburst, and he took a deep breath. “Why can’t I see them?”

“Ah, a good question,” the voice said with a hint of humor. “Would you prefer the simple answer or the truthful one?”

Somehow, Eric had the immediate impression that he was being asked a trick question. “Hit me with the truth.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of altering the temporal-dimensional structure of the space you inhabit.”

Eric closed his eyes, groaning as if in pain. “Simple answer.”