Posleen War: Sidestories The Tuloriad (31 page)

Past the fronds and the cave entrance it rapidly grew darker, then utterly dark. In just a few minutes, though, the Posleen's genetically engineered night vision, more heat vision, really, kicked in and he could see well enough to navigate by. By that vision, Finba proceeded down the ramp inside the cave mouth. After many hundreds of beats of oozing through the silty slush, the ramp turned upwards. Eventually, he left the water behind him . . .

. . . and emerged into a vast, hemispheric cavern, filled with partially completed ships of the People, arrayed around the edges, in smaller circles further in, and in a group at the center. With air that had been this stale, this long, the kessentai didn't even consider removing his helmet.

Looking about him, Finba had something of the sense of an assembly line to the thing, one where, perhaps, the workers went from assembly to assembly, project to project, rather than have the things come to them.

Only makes sense for a shipyard, he thought. But how did they expect to get the ships, once completed, out of this cavern? Nothing on the walls . . . nothing below . . . noth . . . oh.

Above, Finba saw that the roof of the cavern was artificial. Moreover, it looked movable, or perhaps collapsible.

But it's not going to move at this late date.

Dismissing the overhead assembly, Finba turned right and began tracing along the walls of the cavern. By each partially completed ship he saw between two and five forges, each on casters to allow it to be moved to a new position.

We could probably use a few more forges, Finba thought, since we've only the one. But these are simply too big to fit on the ship, even if we could get them out of this . . . factory.

Though he doubted he'd find anything different along any portion of the walls, still Finba walked the entire perimeter. Halfway around, he found a tunnel leading out.

I'll go back to that later.

When he reached the tunnel through which he'd originally entered, he stopped and faced to a direction that guessed was to the right of the exit tunnel. Looking up, Finba marked a spot on the wall, near where the movable roof sat. He aimed himself at this.

Along the way there were three more circles of partially completed ships, plus one larger one—Finba thought he recognized it as the core of a battle globe—in the center. He delayed long enough to walk around the battle globe core. On the other side he found a plaque, near where the entrance should have been, had the ship been further along.

The plaque was engraved with Posleen characters but, blessedly, free of more than a few Aldenata words. Finba read:

We leave this message here and elsewhere for any that may come after us.

Here were the People exiled, loyal and disloyal together.

Here the People grew, past all limits of the planet to support them.

Here did the People wage war against and amongst themselves, generation upon generation.

Here did the Aldenata trap us, refusing us ships to leave.

Here was born the philosopher, Rongasintas, who developed our own ships from plans.

Some escaped when the next war began; others were left behind.

Still others, those who erected these plaques, chose to stay and beg forgiveness of our lords.

We, those who stayed behind, await here our end,

Praying that the Aldenata, our old gods, might forgive us and save us.

Lords, hear our prayers.

And so this is the world of exile, after all. Did the gods listen then, at the end, and save the remnants of the People? Perhaps they did; I see no bodies, nor even bones. Would they save us now, if we prayed to them properly? What then, would be the proper form of prayer?

One of the downsides to Golo's suit, and a downside he hadn't even begun working on yet (“Why bother with perfecting what I can't yet replicate?” the Tinkerer had said) was that it could not feed its wearer. For that, the helmet had to come off. For that, Finba'anaga needed a safe place to breath. The only such was the lander.

When he did return, it was to hear the AS say, almost smugly, “Tulo'stenaloor wishes a brief word with you, lord.”

And that was a particularly unpleasant conversation, the more so as Tulo didn't threaten punishment for leaving the AS behind, but simply ordered Finba not to do so again. The words were not, in themselves, unpleasant. What was unpleasant was the cold tone that spoke, not unlike the Rememberer's, of a thousand hungry nestlings and a kessentai chained and helpless.

Gulping apologies, Finba acquiesced, before spilling his report. “Lord, this is the world of exile.”

“You said so on the ship, puppy.”

“Yes, lord, but I've found documentary proof. And the hulls of ships . . . no bodies though. I'll look more tomorrow.”

“See that you do, and bring your AS with you.”

Again, the tone conveyed a threat that sent little quivers of anticipation through Finba, the shadowy pseudo feeling of nestlings munching on his reproductive organ while he writhed in chains.

As far as Finba'anaga travelled, though being afoot he could not travel all that far, he saw nothing more impressive than the cavern, the half completed ships, and the plaque, which he thought of as “The Plaque of Remembrance.” For each of the next eight days he searched out the tunnels, looked in the warrens that had apparently sheltered his ancestors, and recorded whatever there was that seemed significant.

Though tempted, he did not try to displace and carry back the plaque he'd found by the battle globe's core. Something indefinable told him that the spirits of the ancestors watching over the place would object. The form that objection might take could be, so he imagined, as bad as a thousand starving nestlings.

At night, subjective night for the planet never knew true sunset, he thought long and hard upon what he had found. Yet he'd not found an answer for the questions that plagued him.

It was the last day. Before another ten thousand beats, ship's time, had passed, Finba'anaga had to return. He'd already gone as far in every possible direction as he could. What more there was to be found he didn't know. On a whim, Finba decided to explore the core of the battle globe.

“Welcome, Philosopher of the People,” the ship said, as Finba reached the very center of the core. The surprise nearly caused both of Finba's hearts to burst through his body. “I have sensed you walking about and wondered why you never came to visit me.”

“What?”

The voice had some of the quality of a very ancient kessentai, contemplating his own imminent demise. With a sound like the rumbling of gravel, it answered, “I said, 'welcome.' Long have I awaited the return of the sons of Rongasintas. Long have I conserved my power against the day.”

“You have been here since . . .”

“I have been here since Rongasintas, in fear of discovery by the Aldenata that he was building ships, launched directly from the planet into transitspace to avoid the interdiction the Aldenata set around the planet.”

“Are you an Artificial Sentience?” Finba asked.

“I am like them,” the ship answered, “but I am not of them. They are creatures of the Aldenata, even if they do not wish to be. I was designed and created by the People, as were my brothers, the ships that escaped.”

“Why did you not escape?” Finba asked.

“There was no time to complete me, to make me spaceworthy, before the Aldenata would have interfered.”

“It must have been lonely.”

“It was.”

Finba thought about that, eon upon eon alone, and asked, “Is it possible to take you with me when I go.”

The machine intelligence sounded much amused. “No, I am too large to fit in the little ship that brought you.”

“Do you have a name?” Finba asked.

“I was to be called, 'Hope Bringer,” the ship answered, “but they never got around to actually naming me before they had to flee.”

“Is there anything I can do then, Hope Bringer, for if no one else has, I, Finba'anaga, so name you?”

“Yes. Before you go, please shut me off.”

“I will, if that is your wish, but before I do, I have some questions.”

“Ask then. If I know the answer, I will give it.”

“Tell me of the Aldenata . . .”

It was to be many tens of thousands of beats, and three requests for extensions of time, before Finba'anaga kept his promise and shut off the intelligence behind the ship, the Hope Bringer. Its last words, as Finba's digit hover above the switch, were, “Thus ends the agony of my long and intolerable loneliness. Bless you.”

It is not true, as is sometimes said, that man cannot organize the world without God. What is true is that, without God, he can only organize it against man.

—Henri de Lubac, Le drame de l'humanisme athee

Anno Domini 2021—Anno Domino 2022

USS Salem

“He brought a weapon back, Dan,” Sally said, pacing the confines of their quarters. “What the hell does he need a weapon for? I don't like it.”

“I asked him when he asked if he could hide it in our quarters. It's just a sword, and he plans to give it to Querida,” the Jesuit answered. “I don't see the problem. I mean, sure, we decided not to take anything for ourselves. But if anyone has a claim to what was down there, surely it's a Posleen. Besides, Christmas is coming.”

Sally sneered. “A pagan holiday you Christians grabbed for your own. And so what if he gives it to Querida? He can always get it back; he's her Lord and Master. I don't like it.”

“That much is obvious,” Dwyer said. “I'm curious, wife; if you—the ship part of you—had gotten into the Second World War, if it hadn't ended so soon, would you have felt the same way now about the Japanese as you do about Guanamarioch?”

“I . . . don't know.”

The priest shook his head. “It isn't just race, or species, hatred. You like Querida and you love little . . . well, not so little now, Frederico. So why this suspicion and hatred of Guano?”

“I don't know that, either. He just makes my skin crawl.”

Guano rubbed scaly fingers over a piece of artificial, forge-made ivory, smoothing it to the texture of human skin. His own skin, while perfectly adequate as ad hoc sandpaper, was not nearly soft enough to tell how much progress he'd made. For that he used his tongue.

“Hmmmm . . . not quite yet,” he muttered in High Posleen, after touching the tip of his tongue to the off-white object. He resumed his rubbing.

“Dad,” Frederico asked, “if you don't mind, what are you making?”

Guano didn't even look up, so fixed was his concentration on the piece upon which he worked. “Oh . . . nothing . . . nothing important. It's just a hobby, son. By the way, did you take the heavy metal down to the forge to have it turned into wire?”

Frederico was, in terms of his own development, about where a human teenaged boy would be, if considerably larger. Looking guilty, he hung his head and answered, “Not yet, Dad. I forgot. Sorry. I'll do it right now.”

“Hello, young kessentai,” the forge said, as Frederico approached. “I sense that you have heavy metal about your person. Did your sire give it to you?”

“Yes, Forge. He says he wants it turned into wire. He said you already knew the gauge of the wire.”

“That is correct.”

“Where do I put it?”

“To the right side of me, as you face, you will find a hopper. It goes in there.”

Frederico looked, saw the hopper, and upended his father's pouch to pour the golden fingers in. “How long . . .”

Before he got the question out the forge beeped and a large spool of very fine golden wire appeared at its outflow point. “Never mind. Thank you, Forge.”

“You are welcome, young kessentai.”

As Frederico walked away with the wire spool in his father's pouch, he heard, over the speaker system, “All hands and passenger, all hands and passenger. Stand by for emergence from hyperspace.”

Guano, also in attendance on the bridge, stole a glance at his hand and waved it, fingers outstretched, from side to side several times. Half satisfied, he asked aloud, “Do the rest of you see what I think I'm seeing?”

“If what you think you see is a gas giant, an anti-matter gas giant, in the middle of nowhere, being eaten by a black hole,” Dwyer said, “then, yes, we see what you see.”

“Good,” Guano said, breathing a sigh of relief. “For a minute there I thought I was having a VX flashback.”

Dwyer raised an eyebrow. “I though Boyd was kidding when he said . . .” He let the words trail off.

Guano shook his head. “No, Father. When I was in despair I did a lot of really strange things. But for the Grace of our Lord, I don't know what would have become of me.”

“Or any of us, Guano,” Dwyer answered, “or any of us. What now, Sally?”

“Now, given that the fuel is there to be harvested, I think we refuel. I've got big bunkers but they're not infinite.”

Many jumps later, around an entirely different system, al Rashid looked deeply disappointed. Dwyer's command, however, “No, we're not going down there,” was absolute. It looked like such a fascinating world, too; a moon of a gas giant, never knowing night. Yet the radiation was simply too high, much more than the pinnace, the Salem, or any suit they had could protect against.

“Do we know they were there? The Posleen, I mean?” al Rashid asked.

“Yes,” Sally answered. “There are traces of them all over, from cities to tunnels to the wrecks of ships. Must have been a hell of a war, to ruin the place as thoroughly as they did,” she added, perhaps a bit wistfully.

Al Rashid nodded. “A shame we can't explore it. When will the radiation allow people . . . beings, anyway, to land?”

“Basically the whole place is radioactive. If we had some Armored Combat Suits they could land and explore,” Dwyer said, “for a while, anyway. So perhaps it will not remain a dark hole in our knowledge forever, or even for very long, Imam. By the way, Sally, do you have any idea of what has caused the radiation to remain so bad so long?”

“Maybe. Background radiation is naturally high on that moon anyway. But I think—I can't be sure, but I think—that one or more ships trying to enter hyperspace from too close actually impacted on the planet instead of making a complete jump. There are spots down there that just exude death. And then there are enough glazed spots . . .” She let the thought drift.