X-Calibur: The Trial (9 page)

Chapter 5

An Old Friend

Earth Year 6239

The patrons of the tavern rose to their feet, some hurrying towards the exit while others advanced upon Arthur and Merlin. “Wait, no!” Arthur said, raising his arms in surrender. “We're not to blame for this.”

Arthur ducked instinctively as the closest Mori swung for him, his combat programming taking over. A second Mori grasped his arm and Arthur turned, twisting away from his attacker as a third assailant wrapped his large, chitinous arms around Arthur's neck.

Resigning himself to having to fight, Arthur thrust his head backwards into the Mori's face, stunning him and knocking him backwards against the bar. The second assailant swung, a move Arthur dodged easily and returned in kind, an open-fisted blow to the throat which made him stagger. Upon seeing his two comrades defeated, the initial assailant paused and, after helping the second assailant to his feet, helped him to the exit.

“Not you,” Merlin said authoritatively as Ari-Dun attempted to sneak past them. “We need to have a conversation.”

Ari-Dun paused where he was, the sneer on his face becoming a wry smile as he returned to his seat. Arthur noticed again how frail he looked, hunched over and dragging his right foot as he walked. Every movement seemed painful and Arthur was surprised to find himself feeling sorry for his former enemy.

“Is this the part where you threaten me?” Ari-Dun scoffed. “I must warn you, there's little you could do to me that the King hasn't done already.”

“We don't want to threaten you,” Arthur said reassuringly as he took a seat opposite Ari-Dun. “We just want to know what's happened? How long has Mor-Dred held you all prisoner like this?”

“And why should I talk to you?” Ari-Dun asked. “What's in it for me?”

“I believe Arthur asked you nicely,” Merlin replied, his feeble attempt at intimidation sounding more comical than scary. “You saw how he dealt with your friends?”

“And we might be your best chance at getting out of here,” Arthur added. “You must see that, surely?”

Ari-Dun made a show of thinking it over before nodding to himself. “What do you want to know?” he said.

“Tell us about the hive ship first?” Arthur asked.

“You mean after your little rebellion?” Ari-Dun said scornfully. “Almost all the slaves were executed, even those who fought against you. Queen's orders, or at least that's what we were supposed to believe.

“No one knew at the time that you'd murdered our Queen, that a computer program was controlling the hive, wearing her face. We followed her at first, rebuilding the hive and trying to repair the gravity engines, but her behaviour became increasingly erratic. She refused to attend the Senate and explain her actions, and when I put forth an ultimatum she disbanded the Senate and placed the hive under martial law.

“When the others Senators and I attempted to force our way into the Palace, that's when we were arrested and the truth of our predicament was exposed. The program, Mor-Dred, imprisoned us. It tormented us, cutting off our oxygen until we passed out, denying us sleep for days. It even put drugs and chemicals in our food. I think it was experimenting with us, seeing what we could and couldn't endure.

“There was something wrong with it. Its behaviour got worse, more and more erratic, bordering on insane, but then one day everything changed. The Mor-Dred you saw today appeared as a hologram in my cell, telling me it had finally chosen, whatever that meant. It offered me a head start to get to the birthing chambers, told me it wanted me to be one of the first to arrive.

“I left the cell as soon as the shield dropped, but I didn't make for the birthing chambers, not until I heard the sirens. It, Mor-Dred opened the exterior doors, cast millions of people out into space like they were nothing. Only those who made it to the birthing chambers were spared.”

Arthur listened intently, trying to ignore the sense of despair he felt upon hearing of the extermination of the slaves he'd left behind. He'd known it was a possibility, told himself he'd filled every jump capable ship to capacity, but hearing it confirmed opened a fresh wound in his heart. He swallowed painfully past the lump in his throat before speaking again.

“What happened next?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

Ari-Dun chuckled mockingly to himself as he remembered the absurdity of his ordeal. “It ordered us into the pods,” he said. “Tried it with the Queen's voice first, but when people refused he showed them his new face. He began a countdown until the external doors in the birthing chamber would open, and soon people were climbing over each other to get in. I was one of the first, just like he'd wanted, and after a sudden sharp pain in my temples I woke up here.”

Ari-Dun paused and waved the barman over, ordering a drink for himself before he continued. “I found myself in the castle, though I didn't know it then. No one knew where we were or what was going on. All those who'd sided with me were in the dungeons, but they're dead now. Mor-Dred kept me alive for his own amusement, changed my body so I'm in constant pain.”

“How?” Merlin asked.

“I don't know,” Ari-Dun replied tetchily. “He controls everything in here, makes sure every day is exactly the same as the last. We've been trapped in here for over a year now.”

“A year?” Arthur asked with surprise. “No, that's not possible. It's not even been a year since-”

“Since your pointless little rebellion led to the deaths of millions?” Ari-Dun interrupted. “You asked me to tell you what I know, and I know I've been Mor-Dred's play-thing for four hundred and nineteen days. Tomorrow will be four hundred and twenty.”

Arthur and Merlin exchanged a confused look. The time Ari-Dun described didn't add up with what they knew to be true, but what would he have to gain by lying to them? Everything else he'd said had an air of truth about it, so why that? Arthur put it to the back of his mind and asked, “What if we said we were working on a way out?”

“I'd say you were fools to think you could get out of here,” Ari-Dun scoffed. “Don't you think people have tried? What makes you so different?”

Arthur looked to Merlin, who shook his head in warning. “Let's just say we have something no one else had,” Arthur said cryptically. “We're getting out, so are you with us or not?”

Ari-Dun looked sceptical, but after a moment he nodded. “What do you need from me?” he asked.

“Lance and Gwen,” Arthur replied. “Can you help us get them out of the castle?”

Ari-Dun laughed. “Freeing more slaves?” he remarked. “I should have guessed.”

“Can you help us or not?” Arthur said, striking the table with his fist.

“And if I do, you'll return me to the hive?” Ari-Dun clarified.

“We'll shut Mor-Dred down and get everyone out,” Arthur promised.

“Then leave it with me,” Ari-Dun replied. “Return here tomorrow and I'll tell you what I've learned.”

*****

Triltan turned in a circle, holding her scanner in front of her. She had begun to search the birthing chamber manually, but the more she explored the more she realised how extensive it was and realised she could be wondering around it for days. The scanner was programmed so detect human or Dorgan life signs, and after a moment it finally found what she was looking for.

The scanner reported two humans and one Dorgan, high up on a distant wall. They were trapped within birthing pods, their vital signs present but weak.

Returning to the console near the stairs, Triltan connected her scanner and attempted to override the access code. Though she was particularly skilled when using Teleri computers, she wasn't sure if the Mori systems worked in the same way and she was hoping that a brute-force hack would be the quickest route in. That and she was also frustrated at having to continually translate everything on the screen before her.

She momentarily considered trying to wake one of her prisoners, forcing them to give her the access codes, but she quickly dismissed the idea. She was too scared to talk to them for one thing, knowing that her voice would quiver and her hands would shake as she attempted to intimidate them. Once they saw how scared she was, they'd put all their efforts into trying to escape and she still couldn't imagine herself doing them actual harm. Instead, she tapped at icons on the scanner, forcing the software to interface and find her a way in.

It took her a little over half an hour before she was successfully able to access the birthing pod monitoring station, and a few minutes more to change it to the Teleri language. Once she'd finished she discovered that the system was remarkably simple to use.

The interface was intuitive and presented her with an overview of the state of the pods. Currently, one million, one hundred and twenty-seven thousand, nine hundred and thirteen pods were active. The occupants of two thousand and thirty nine were deceased, while the remainder were actively connected to the hive network.

Arthur and Lance had explained to her what the pods were, how they grew slaves in a nutritional gel before programming their brains shortly before maturity. According to the display though, the pods were currently doing something very different.

None of the bodies inside the pods were in a state of rapid growth; if anything, it was working more like the stasis pods her species had experimented with thousands of years before. The biological processes were minimal, all except for brain activity. What the display was telling her, and what she was struggling to understand, was that the communication between the network and the brains were extensive and moving in both directions.

Why would information be coming out of the brain and not just into it, as the pods were designed for? Was it downloading their memories, or were they actively interacting with the network? Who was controlling it all? The two guards she had incapacitated didn't look capable of controlling such an extensive merging of people and technology.

Triltan tapped icons on the screen and instructed the system to search for humans within the pods. The two humans her scanner had found were identified and she opted to display their information in more detail on the larger screen.

According to the readouts, both bodies were physically unharmed and were being maintained in a continuous flow of nutrient gel. Arthur's brain seemed most active, almost as though Gwen were sleeping, but there was still a steady stream of information moving back and forth. The readouts told her nothing more, not what they were doing in the pods or why they were connected to the network along with everyone else. For all the numbers and charts and lines of text, Triltan knew little more than she did when she was back aboard the Vanguard.

Triltan finally accepted that she was out of her depth. Arthur and the others were alive but imprisoned, and she had no way of knowing if she could release them. If she disconnected them from the pods, would they be leaving their minds, their memories behind? Would they even survive the process of being unplugged in the first place? She had no way of knowing and she didn't know what to do.

She was left with only one option. She was going to have to contact her father.

*****

Gwen hadn't realised she'd fallen asleep until the sound of the door opening startled her awake. She didn't know how long she'd been sleeping for, but as she woke she remembered screaming herself hoarse before finally giving up and settling down against the wall of the cell.

Her head was still foggy as she took in the dank cell around her, the same one she'd woken up in with Arthur and the others during the previous day. As she began to stand, she suddenly realised why she'd been screaming, and she was just about to start again when a lifeless form was pushed through the half-open doorway. She just managed to lunge forwards slow Lance's fall Lance as he was thrown into the cell in front of her.

“Lance!” she yelled as she lifted his head from the cold stone floor. “Lance, can you hear me?”

Lance's dark eyes had taken on a milky sheen as his transparent lids flicked back and forth over them. She shook him gently at the shoulders but she couldn't tell if he was able to hear her or not.

“Lance!” she yelled again. “Lance! Wake up!”

Gwen took a deep breath and tried to focus on the medical training she had begun back on Earth. “Okay,” she said to herself. “Just like anyone else who's been brought into the examination room.”

She started with his head, felt the breath moving in and out of his nasal slits before pressing her fingers to the artery in his neck. She felt his pulse, fast and strong, and moved down to his chest. She didn't have any of the equipment she'd grown used to, but she was able to begin her examination.

Lifting the cloth over-shirt, she noticed several small cuts to his blue skin as well as patches that looked like burns. Any bleeding had stopped, thankfully, but the quantity of injuries was more than enough to worry her.

Gwen's examination moved to Lance's arms and legs, where a similar pattern of injuries were to be found, particularly along his left arm. Much of the skin there was black and blistered, like it had been burned or boiling liquid poured over the flesh. She was barely able to hold back the tears as she saw the state he was in.