Exodus: Tales of The Empire: Book 2: Beasts of the Frontier. (12 page)

The
Universe turned out to be one in the last stages of its life, as Lucille had
surmised.  The only living stars were red dwarfs.  Trials showed that it had a
hyperspace array similar to the human Universe.  The place could support human
life for however many thousands of years it took to find another home.  There
was still no reason to think it would come to that.  But humankind had not
gotten along in the Cosmos by being trusting.  It had learned that paranoia was
a healthy state in an unhealthy Universe.

*     *     *

Universe
five hundred and forty-nine opened just as easily as most before it.  But the
blast of hard radiation that came through the opening and fried the portal room
chamber sensors told them from the start that something was different.

“Electromag
field to maximum,” yelled Rodrigue.  The field covered the wall of the portal
chamber, and was always kept at half strength when the hole was opened,
allowing all the instruments to look through it with minimum interference.  Now
it was strengthened to its maximum power, stronger than that of an Imperial
battleship.  All charged particles were stopped by the multilayered field,
while the uncharged ones were absorbed by the liquid insulation layer built for
that purpose.

“Residual
radiation is at a minimum,” called out the tech who was monitoring those
systems.

“Send
through the probe,” ordered Rodrigue.  “We might as well get a look at whatever
hell we opened.”

The
probe went through and started to transmit.  It was immediately apparent that
the robot was not going to function very long, not with the radiation sleeting
through its destroyer class electromag screen.  But they did get some
information back, enough to tell them what they were dealing with.

“It’s
only a couple of thousand years since this Universe went through a Big Bang,”
said Yu, looking over the data through the link that allowed her to get a
comprehensive overview.  “It will be hundreds of thousands of years, maybe
millions, before we can live in that space.  Billions before there are planets
we can claim for terraforming.”

“So
it’s another dead end,” said Rodrigue, glaring at the holo as if it was a
personal affront.

“The
probe is dying,” said Lucille, looking back at her boss.  “Should we close it?”

“This
Universe is of great scientific significance,” said one of the other
scientists.  “We can gain a lot of knowledge about how our own Universe formed
from this place, if nothing else.”

Rodrigue
sat and thought for a moment, while the data from the chamber sensors faded
over time from the radiation overload.  “Send through another probe.  We’ve got
thirteen more.  We’ll keep sending them through one at a time until we’re out. 
Then we can requisition more from administration for the next opening.”

And
so it went through the day, as they looked at a Universe that was still in its
infancy.  From all indications it would become one such as theirs.  Some put
forth the proposition that it actually was theirs, just in a different time. 
That maybe the dying Universe was also theirs, at a later time.

That’s one of the problems here
, thought
Lucille as she was monitoring probe number thirteen, the next to the last. 
We
really don’t know what we’re dealing with.  We’re making it up as we go along
.

At
least it was a good day at the Other Universe Project, as no one was killed or
injured, and new information was gathered at the cost of fourteen robotic
probes.

*     *     *

Universe
six hundred and one was an unmitigated disaster.  The day started off
ordinarily enough.  The last twenty-five openings by this team had been
uneventful, or as much as opening a portal into another reality could be called
such.  Twenty-one of them had been Universes of nothing but academic interest,
not capable of supporting their form of life.  Four had the proper physical
laws to allow carbon based organics to survive.  They just didn’t contain
anything that could be properly called matter.  One was an antimatter Universe,
while one was made up, as far as could be told, of negative matter.  That would
have been useful as the source of a scarce resource, if that Universe hadn’t
been empty for millions of light years past the portal, and there seemed to be
no dimensions of hyperspace to use to get to the negative matter.  Only the
characteristic radiation of negative matter reactions gave an indication of
what lay across those millions of light years.

“Are
we ready?” asked Dr. Rodrigue, looking at the holo of the chamber that showed
the black hole ring ready to go.

“As
ready as we’ll ever be,” whispered Lucille under her breathe, wondering what
might come out of this particular rabbit hole. 
I have a bad feeling about
this one
, she thought, trying to hold her hands steady.  She didn’t think
she was precognitive, like some members of the Imperial family were said to be. 
She had never had a vision before.  But last night she had suffered through a
dream that showed something dark was waiting for her.  And her mind could think
of no darker place than the holes they were opening up into other realities.

“Open
her up,” yelled Rodrigue.

Lucille
glanced back at the man, and could tell that he didn’t feel at ease either. 
Too
many uneventful openings recently.  So now he’s waiting for the other rock to
fall. 
She looked around the room, seeing tension everywhere.  In the set
of shoulders, the roaming of eyes. 
This can’t be real, can it?
she
thought. 
I’m a scientist.  This is just a feeling.  It’s not real.

Despite
the rational thinking the disquiet grew.  The holes moved away from each other,
ripping the space apart.  As the hole opened what was revealed was
anticlimactic.

“It’s
another null,” said one of the techs with a sigh.

Yu
nodded her head, feeling the same relief.  The hole was black, the complete
absence of light.  There should have been no radiation coming from that hole to
a Universe that had no matter.  But when she looked at the readings she hissed
in her breath.  There was a lot of radiation coming out of that hole, more than
had been coming out of any other but the new Universe they had opened a half
year ago.

“We’re
getting unknown radiation,” called out the tech who was monitoring the chamber
instrumentation.

“What
do you mean, unknown?” called out Rodrigue, standing up and walking over to the
tech’s console.

“There
are fast moving particles,” said the tech, looking up with a frightened
expression on her face.  “But they don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Electromag
field to maximum,” called out the senior scientist, turning toward the
scientist in charge of the defense team.

“It’s
at full,” said the tech that Rodrigue was standing over.  “But the particles
are still coming through.”

“My
God,” gasped Lucille, looking at the holo image that showed what shouldn’t have
been possible.  The darkness was moving out of the portal, like a liquid or gas
made of pure black absorbing, something.  And she could feel something there,
some intelligence that was intent on coming through the opening.  An
intelligence that was hungry, and sensed what it needed in their Universe.

“What
the hell,” yelled out one of the techs as the blackness spread through the
portal chamber.

“It’s
alive,” said Lucille, feeling the evil of the thing through some kind of
connection.  “And it’s coming to eat our Universe.”

“That’s
impossible,” said Rodrigue, running over to her console, his eyes locked on the
holo.  “It’s just some kind of physical phenomenon.”

Lucille
looked in the man’s eyes and could tell that he was whistling past the
graveyard. 
He knows it's more than that.  He just doesn’t want to admit it.

“Close
the portal,” he yelled.

Most
of the crew was paralyzed at their stations, held by fright, or possibly
something else.  There were screams coming over the com link, the exploration
team and the marines that were just outside the portal chamber, exposed to the
thing even more than the people in the control room.

“Close
the portal,” screamed the chief, running to one of the tech stations and
pushing the man out of the way.

The
black holes began to move inward, more slowly than they should have.  Suddenly
they lurched to a halt, pressed against the black substance that was pushing
back.  Flashes of Gamma indicated that the holes were absorbing some of the
substance of the invader, but not enough.

“What
the hell is it?” yelled Rodrigue in a panicked voice.

“It
is that Universe,” said Yu, knowing she was speaking the truth.  “Whatever it
is absorbed everything there was in that place, now it's coming for us.”

“That’s
insane,” yelled out another tech.

It is
, thought Lucille, staring at the holo as
more or the thing came through. 
How many years did it take to absorb that
Universe.  How many billions will it take to absorb ours.
  She looked down
at her trembling hand and saw that the veins were standing out on it. 
It’s
taking in all the energy it can reach.  Our electricity, the electromagnetic
fields, even our biological energy.  Then it will take in everything that it
can.  And all that will be left will be the husks, the black holes, maybe
neutron stars.

“Why
won’t the holes close that damned portal?” yelled Rodrigue.

Lucille
couldn’t move her hands on her board.  Something in that thing was reaching out
and controlling them.  Preventing them from linking into any of their systems. 
Even the chief was doing nothing but sit at a console and yelling.

Lucille
was already in the link.  Her mind was what controlled the system, that opened
the portal.  Her mind, linked with the computer to perform the equations to
open a hole between Universes.  And she still had control of that system.  It
took seconds to run through a dozen simulations, to know what needed to be
done.  And with a thought she shut off the electromagnetic fields that held the
black holes within the cups of the arms.  At the same time she overrode all the
safety protocols and blew each arm from its wall mounts with the fusion charges
placed there for just such a possibility.

The
black holes pulled the twelve arms into themselves with a flash of Gamma
radiation, each hole increasing its mass by two hundred and fifty million
tons.  The force of twelve two hundred megaton fusion blasts imparted their
momentum to the holes.  The holes collapsed together into a much more massive
hole.  If left on its own it would have fallen into the center of the planet,
dooming it to eventual collapse.  Fortunately, there was someplace else for it
to go, through the rabbit hole into the other Universe, pulling the mass of
that Cosmos back into itself.  Along with it came most of the force and
radiation of the fusion blasts that had propelled the black holes, the only
thing that save the people in the control room.  The hole closed with a flash,
and a sound much like a scream of anger and agony combined came over the few
sensors that had survived the destruction.

It
took minutes for the people in the control room to come out of their shock,
while the planet around them shook with the vibrations of the explosions and
the collapsing space of the portal.  Lucille stared at the holo that showed the
ruined portal chamber, wrecked at the cost of a half trillion Imperials. 
And
a bargain for saving the Universe
, she thought.

“Was
that real?” asked Dr. Rodrigue, staggering over to her station.

“It
was real,” agreed Lucille, nodding her head.  “I wish it weren’t.  I thought I
didn’t believe in evil.  Or hell.  And then had both proven to me in one day.”

“Well,
it’s gone now.”

“Is
it?” asked Lucille, looking up at the man.  “It knows we’re here, and it knows
the resonance of our reality.  I’m sure it will be trying to find a way to get
to us.”

“All
the more reason to find somewhere we can run to,” said the senior scientist.

Lucille
looked at the man in horror, knowing that this project would go on.  Maybe to
open a portal into someplace worse than what they had seen today.  Something
that she couldn’t imagine.

Even the worlds that had been
settled for centuries still had their dangerous beasts.  Most of the population
is isolated from the wilds, but some hunt those forms for pleasure, the
thrill.  And they must have their guides, so that the hunt doesn’t become
unreasonably hazardous.  On the Core World of New Detroit the idle rich, the
nobility, hunt for trophies, using the skills of the lower class hunt masters
to keep them alive.

“Bastards,”
growled Parker Murphy, slamming his hand down hard on the table.

Cornelius
Walborski nodded his head in sympathy while taking a sip of the good beer.  He
was treating this night.  Parker, while he wouldn’t starve, would not have the
discretionary funds for nights out in the near future, if at all.

“You’ll find
something,” he told his friend, raising his hand to get the attention of the
serving robot. 
Nothing too good for us workers
, he thought as the
machine flashed a light his way, then wheeled off for the bar.  Human servers
were expensive, and one server specialist could run three of the robots, enough
to cover the entire bar.

“How the hell am
I going to find anything,” yelled his friend, attracting stares their way
despite the noise deadening field around their booth.  Noise deadening was the
operative word, not sound proof.  People could still hear them if they talked
loud enough, and a yell seemed to be loud enough.  “Those fucking bastards
control all the work.”

“You won’t
starve at least,” said Jonah Friedmoore, another of Cornelius’s close friends.

“I want more
than to just exist,” hissed Parker, glaring at his friend.  “I want to get
somewhere in life.  Not spend every day looking at the walls of my apartment.”

Cornelius nodded
his head again.  He didn’t know what to say.  The dole allowed people to
exist.  As Jonah had said, you wouldn’t starve, and your medical was covered,
one of your rights as a citizen.  There was even the mind numbing entertainment
of the vid stream, or the online library if you were someone who was into
learning.  But to get ahead you needed a job, and jobs were hard to come by. 
And the jobs were all controlled by...

“Those
bastards,” said Parker again.  “Those greedy, privileged bastards.  I wish I
could get that damned Baron alone somewhere.”

Good luck
with that
, thought Walborski.  Nobles had bodyguards, who would take Parker
apart before he could do anything to their precious charge.

Their drinks
came, and Parker downed his in a few moments.  Cornelius signaled for another. 
After all, he had the luxury of two jobs, and his wife another, in a society
where almost half the work force was idle.  If not for the Man in the Loop
accord it would have been worse, but someone needed to oversee all of those
robots that worked the factories and civil maintenance

“There’s always
the Fleet,” said Jonah, whose father had served in the Imperial Navy, a fact he
was sure to let everyone know about, even if he didn’t join himself.

“You’ve got to
have skills to get in the Fleet,” said Parker, grabbing at the next beer that
the serving robot put in front of him.  “Or connections.”

Cornelius was
not sure that was true.  He had always heard that the Fleet trained its
recruits.  But to be away from family?  Parker had a wife, after all.

“Then join the
Imperial Army,” said Jonah, never the most diplomatic of people.

“You join the
fucking Army,” yelled Parker.  “Since you seem to love it so much.  Maybe you
like taking orders from the Baron and people like him.  I think we need to put
assholes like him in their place.”

Cornelius
cringed in his seat.  The Baron was in charge of Windsor City and surroundings,
and was not someone to mess with on his own turf.  Cornelius got his jobs from
the Duke himself, the chief executive of the continent, but it still did no
good to stir up trouble with the noble’s subordinate.  And Katlyn had her job
directly through the Baron’s wife, whose husband also owned the factory
Walborski worked in.

“Hey,” yelled
the bartender, a real live human, walking toward the booth.  “I will have no
talk of treason in my bar.  You understand me, Murphy?  Keep a tight lip on it,
or get out.”

“I’ll say what
the hell I want,” said Parker, standing up and glowering at the bartender, who
was also the bar manager.  Parker picked up his glass and threw it at the
tender, bouncing it off his arm.

“That’s assault,
you asshole,” yelled the bartender back. “I’ll have your ass in jail.”

“And I’ll have
you in a reconstruction tank,” yelled Parker, pushing Jonah out of the way and
going for the bartender.

He can’t be
that drunk
, thought Cornelius, grabbing for his friend’s arm and missing. 
He
had to have taken something on top of the alcohol
.  Not that drugs were
hard to find, legal and illegal.

Parker pushed
the bartender, a man he towered over, hard enough to send the man staggering
back, where he fell over a chair.  Parker headed toward him, bringing a foot
back to kick the man, when he wobbled on his feet, then fell to the floor in a
limp mass.  Cornelius clapped his hands over his ears as the sonics sounded
through the bar.  He felt a little numbness in his body as well, but nothing
like his friend.  He spotted the Copeye robot in a second, floating near the
ceiling, its front end, where the stunner was located, pointed at Parker.

“Let’s get out
of here,” said Jonah, pulling at Cornelius’ arm.

“We’re on the
thing’s memory,” said Cornelius, planting his feet and refusing to budge. 
“They’ll want our statements.  You rather give it to them here, or at home?”

Moments later a
pair of tern faced police officers came walking through the door, big men in
light augmentation armor.  They didn’t move with the grace of the biologically
enhanced.  That was reserved for special units made up of military retirees. 
But their armor gave them an advantage over any regular citizen that might want
to try them.

“And that’s what
happened,” said Cornelius to the officer that took his statement, after Parker
had been removed from the scene.  “Look, he’s not a bad guy.  He lost his job
today, and got a little messed up.”

“And how did he
lose his job?” asked the police officer in a flat voice.

“He made a
comment that the Baron overheard when he was touring the factory Parker worked
at.”

“Teach him to
speak in front of his betters,” said the cop, shaking his head.  He looked
around the bar for a moment, then back at Walborski.  “You can go.  We’ll be in
touch with you if we need more information.”

Cornelius nodded
and walked away.  Moments later he was in his aircar, a luxury that multiple
jobs gave him.  The city was lit up around him, though some of the windows of
the skyscrapers were dark as the people inside went through a sleep cycle.  But
many more were lit.  People on the dole didn’t have to keep regular hours.  He
started to fall asleep himself along the way home, but his car knew the way. 
Windsor wasn’t the largest city on the planet, which didn’t boast the largest
cities in the Empire.  He dreamed one day of visiting Jewel, and see the
capital city of Capitulum, home to over three billion people. 
We might just
be able to do that in a couple of years. 
He and Katlyn were getting ahead,
and recently they had actually started savings.  Interstellar travel was still
expensive, too much so for most private citizens.  Unless it was a one way trip
to the frontier.

“Katlyn,” he
called out as he entered their apartment, again, something they could afford
with a regular income, a place to be proud of.  Boss Kitty, their four year old
Tom, came at the sound of his voice, meowing like he was scolding Cornelius for
being late to come home. 
Probably just wants some food
, thought
Cornelius, walking to the kitchen with the cat weaving in and out of his legs.

She must be
in bed
, was his next thought, as he pulled a can of cat food from the
cabinet, then emptied it into a frictionless bowl he pulled from the cleaner. 
Maybe
we can get a program for the robot that feeds the damned cat.
  He shook his
head at that last thought.  Katlyn liked to feed the cat, though she was quick
enough to use the cleaning bot to get rid of the animal’s waste.

Cornelius pulled
a joint of synthicanibus from the lower cabinet and made his way back into the
living room, plopping down on the couch.  With a thought the trivee projector
came on, and he was surrounded in the peaceful scene of a city park, children
playing in a fountain, one of Katlyn’s favorite views.
She forgot to reset
it, again
, he thought, flipping the surrounding scene to that of a tropical
beach.  He didn’t like the park at all, as it reminded them of what they didn’t
have.  And he had been to that park before, in New Detroit City, and had never
seen that many children around. 
Just another lie.

He ran down the
list of entertainments in his mind, rejecting one after another.  He didn’t
want to play a mercenary, or a tough lawman, or any of the other
possibilities.  And none of the canned shows held any interest.  He dismissed
the illusion with a thought and switched to a news channel, one that didn’t
surround him with the immersion of a studio, just replicating the anchor
sitting in 3D at her desk.  Cornelius lit up the mild narcotic and took a puff,
feeling the relaxation flowing through him.  Boss Kitty jumped up beside him,
demanding attention, and Cornelius blew out the smoke while he kneaded the
cat’s shoulder muscles.

I need to get
to bed
, he thought, looking at the time stamp over the tridee image.  He
hadn’t slept much the last couple of nights, and even with nanite augmentation,
a body eventually had to have a good night’s sleep.  Getting up, he walked to
the kitchen, picked up the now empty bowl and turning it over the disposal,
letting the last crumbs of food slide off the surface, then putting the bowl
back in the cabinet.

He slid into the
bed next to Katlyn, trying not to disturb her.  She woke up anyway, and turned
over with a sleepy smile on her face. 
She’s so beautiful
, he thought,
wondering how an average looking guy like himself had gotten together with her,
much less gotten married. 
Might be because we had been friends for so many
years.
  He had known her since they were toddlers, and just felt
comfortable with her the whole time they were growing up.

“You’re home
late,” she said, putting her arms around her neck.

“Parker lost his
job today,” said Cornelius, running a hand down her arm.

“What happened?”

“He made a
comment about the Baron,” said Cornelius, shaking his head.  “And it got back
to the man himself, when he was touring the plant.”

“The idiot,”
said Katlyn, her hands going to her mouth in shock.  “What the hell was he
thinking?”

“He wasn’t,”
said Cornelius.  Everyone knew in their society not to insult the nobles. 
According to the constitution of the Empire they had equal rights, nobles and
commons.  But the nobles still had privilege, in part due to their position in
the governance of the Empire.   And in part because of their family
interconnections and wealth. 
It would be different out on the frontier
,
he thought, then remembered that some of those differences could be deadly. 
New Detroit was a core world, and as such was well defended.  “And even worse,”
he said, feeling rage rise in him at the thought of the nobles and what they
could do.  “He got arrested for assault.”

“So he’s totally
ruined his life,” said Katlyn.  “No work for him, doomed to be a Dole Rat for
the rest of his life.”

“At least he
won’t starve,” said Cornelius, knowing that he wouldn’t want to be a Rat
himself.   You didn’t starve, but you also didn’t really live, other than what
you could get vicariously through the trivee.  If you could afford the upgrade
nanites to keep up with the transmission systems.  “And there’s always the
frontier.”

Katlyn shuddered
as he said that and he held her tighter.  “It might be the only way we’re going
to get a reproductive license.  You want a child.”

Katlyn looked up
at him with a tear streaked face.  “I want a half dozen, but I know I’m never
going to get that many.  Can’t your father help us?”

We’ll get a
license to have a child when we’re both over a hundred
, thought Cornelius. 
People didn’t get reproductive licenses at a young age on a core world, which
were all at the legal population limit.  Not unless you had some great skill,
like a scientist, or were one of the nobles.  If they were lucky they could
have a child in early middle age, when they reached that hundred year marker. 
His father had been able to have two children, but only because he had the
patronage of the Duke.

“Would the
frontier really be that horrible?” he asked.

“Hold me,” she
said, and she gripped him tight.  He held her, and things progressed until they
were making love.  There was no danger of pregnancy, not while their nanites
were programed to prevent such.

*    
*     *

The factory was
working at full swing when Cornelius reported for his shift.  The robots on two
of the lines were turning out aircars, moving the vehicles from station to
station to have parts added, then nanowelded by a spray of microscopic robots,
leaving not even a mark to show where the new part had been attached.  Men sat
in the booths overlooking the floor, supervising the work robots.  Each could
only watch a maximum of three of the bots at a time because of the Man in the
Loop Accords.   In this factory they only had to watch two, so that they could
maintain the quality control this company demanded.