Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (41 page)

“Our personalities both come from the same
set of memories, that’ll never change. Even if I changed my name, I
wouldn’t feel right answering to it.”

“You’re not getting it," the previous Ayan
interrupted. "Look at me!" She barked. "This is the measuring stick
you gauge yourself against!" It was as though a sudden storm of
fury had taken control of her. "I am a genius by design, hardened
by failed relationships and alone because I refuse to let go of the
past. I embraced fatalism, forced myself to come to terms with
rotting on my feet until I fell down dead. You have to overcome the
walls I built, and my terrible expectations. You idolize me and
impose my limitations on yourself. "

Ayan stared at the image of her predecessor,
agape. “Maybe,” was all she could offer.

"Well quit it, you bloody prat! Whatever
brilliance or beauty I had was borrowed and I paid for it dearly. I
was barren, foolish, and short sighted.” She rolled her skullcap
back to reveal wiry hair that grew in spotty clumps. Pulling two
handfuls of the dark grey stuff free was effortless. “It fell out
in clumps just like this,” she said with wide, tear filled eyes.
“That was the worst part of my life, when my body began fighting
itself and there was nothing I could do to hide it, nothing anyone
could do to stop it. My mother didn’t know how to speak to me, I
was watching my friends go on with their lives, and when I knew it
was all over I went off to find the answer to one of the most
important questions in my life. What happened to the man who set us
all free, who showed us a greater universe? I rebuilt the ship
Jonas saved, made sure the people he loved were taken care of, but
I hadn’t found out what happened to him.

“The most merciful act I’ve ever benefited
from was Jacob Valance pretending, for just a few minutes, that he
was Jonas. I was given peace right at the end, but the woman you
idolize and would emulate was long gone by then. She had wasted
away. Ayan Rice the First had accomplished her last wish.” She let
the thin hair fall from her fingers and drift away on the breeze.
“She’s gone now. You have her memories, and they can help you. Take
what you want from that, learn what you can, but become your own
person, embrace life and don’t make it so hard for someone to love
you. That’s how you can honour me.”

“You’re right,” Ayan admitted quietly. “I’ve
been trying to be you but I’ve never felt the same. Not really.
Even when I’m being harsh and strict I’m still shaking inside,
forcing it.”

Her predecessor went on, her temperament
eased. “It comes from love. You only lose your temper when you’re
trying to protect people you care about. In your mind are dreams of
a future, sensible thoughts about helping people who are less
fortunate. You stand in your own way, and until the path is
cleared, you won't be able to make the right decisions for anyone."
The exertion of being angry cost the ill woman; she was breathing
laboriously. Her last statement emerged from a gentle smile. "You
can have a long life. You can afford optimism. You can have
children."

It was as though a weight had been lifted
from Ayan's shoulders, and she blinked through tears. Children. She
could be a mother. That was something she had memories of dreaming
about since she was a girl, but it wasn’t possible. In her previous
life, Freeground had sterilized her at birth because of the genetic
modifications that had been performed on her before she was born.
She remembered rationalizing it, hating it, but not being able to
do anything about it. The thought that there was nothing stopping
her as Ayan the Second was one that had crossed her mind, but she
never really focused on what that possibility meant, or realized
how much she wanted to have children one day.

She cleared her eyes and was amazed as the
fine dust and dirt underfoot became hard tarmac. The expanse of
wrecks was replaced by a maintained port filled with ships, busy
with cargo and passengers moving along roadways laid out for heavy
terrestrial vehicles.

"Finally, she gets it," the previous Ayan
said. "Just make sure you stay strong your own way, luv. Right now
your own instincts are best, taking someone else's direction will
only lead to course corrections later."

The transformed scenery around her wasn't
the Port Rush Ayan knew. It was even busier overhead, with a
shimmering shield above to protect the people on the ground. The
air was clean thanks to scrubber units, and the tarmac was kept
clear by small robots that scurried past.

* * *

"All this because I 'get it?’” she asked
herself. When she looked back to where her predecessor had been she
saw a man in a dark Stetson hat sitting on a crate, gently
strumming an old green electric guitar.

"She always was slippery when she wanted to
be, wasn't she?" he said, punctuating the last with a thickly
strummed chord. He cut it short and looked up at Ayan. “Ease up on
the waterworks, the hard part’s over.”

"Minh?" she asked with relief. Her disbelief
overshadowed everything else, even the sight of one of her most
adored friends. "All this change because I've had a moment alone
with myself?"

There were a few more lines in his face,
more than he would have had if only nine years had passed. "You are
the butterfly," he said with a half smile. “Congratulations, you
have a pivotal role in the future. Imagine if the founder of
Freeground was killed right before he got up to make his big
speech. There would be no founder, a group of lost colonists and
criminals wouldn't have gotten together to build that first drift
station, and none of us would be here a few centuries later. Now,
I'm not saying that you're destined to make some big statement
worthy of poetry or song, but there's this moment coming up, and at
first the Victory Machine was thinking you'd take one path that
would lead to that mess you were seeing. Now that you've had a bit
of a talking to, self on self, it's pretty sure you have the sense
of mind to take the right path. And they call me crazy," Minh said,
rolling his eyes.

"So there's a way to stop the fighting
here?"

"Nope. The Leviathan is on her way and it's
gonna put a hurt on this place. The Fifth Era needs a flash point,
a marker in history that says; 'this is where it all begins, when
the page turns.' You get to be there. Lucky you."

"So what you're here to tell me-"

"Has absolutely nothing to do with anything
you just told yourself,” Minh interrupted with a chuckle. "I'm here
to tell you about the reality you live in. I don't know why, but
your brain conjured me up to tell you a few things about the near
future as it stands. You’re lucky, that last episode you had,
confronting yourself, was enough to nudge you onto a path I’m sure
you’ll like travelling down a lot more. Best of all, you won’t die
in two days, which would have put a lot of noses out of joint."

“Thank you?” she replied.

“You’re welcome. I don’t have much time so
I’ll get on with dropping the spoilers. The real war is about to
begin, and how bad the Carthans get their asses kicked will depend
on how seriously they take your warnings.”

“What about Port Rush? Should we try to
leave? Head to the island?”

“No. In fact, if you leave Port Rush you’ll
be separated from most of the tools you’ll need to survive the next
few weeks,” Minh said flatly. “Just picture what that would look
like for a moment. You’d pack your people into half repaired ships,
your gear into cargo containers, and try to save yourselves in a
big carrier that barely works. It’s a random shot in the dark while
jumping off a cliff. The Triton’s a liability for now.”

“I see your point, I should have thought
before asking.”

“You are thinking, that’s why you’re here.”
Minh-Chu began gently plucking an ancient song Ayan faintly
remembered, but the name eluded her. “The Victory Machine has been
busy over the last nine years. For a lot of that time it was
feeding Hampon and General Collins just enough information to guide
them down what a few people on Earth thought was the right path.
They should have known better. Prophecy is dangerous.”

“Hampon and Collins? From the Overlord Two?”
Ayan asked in disbelief.

“Yup. They had a way of gathering power,
those two, and a few geniuses on the home world decided that they’d
try to stop a galaxy wide war that was coming. That war would have
set humanity back about a thousand years, give or take a century.
They would have become vagabonds dependent on other races. The
eggheads on Earth managed to prevent it by manipulating Collins,
who was easy to predict. The man was mostly motivated by greed.
Hampon was a different story. He was so in love with the idea of
having a window to the future that he nearly fried himself by
trying to create his own Victory Machine. His brush with mortality
changed things, and the Victory Machine started to speak to him in
whispers. Little transmissions that told him just enough to adjust
his actions according to what he thought would bring him closer to
real immortality, or at least a cure. The Victory Machine just
wanted him to survive long enough to deliver a few messages, get a
few million people in the right place.”

“So somehow the Holocaust Virus and
everything that’s happened since is better than the alternative?”
Ayan asked.

“Whoa there, you’re skipping way ahead.
Hampon and Regent Galactic have done what they were guided to do,
and the future is a little brighter. At least no one has to step in
and save humanity, that’s already been done. You and your people
just have to do your bit and fight to stay free from the Order of
Eden. That religious order is about to kick into overdrive. Hampon
accomplished something incredible, and it’ll save humanity from a
worse fate than what we’re facing now. He went a little overboard
though, so now someone has to deal with the machine he built to
accomplish his goals, not to mention clean up the mess he’s made of
civilization.”

“I know,” Ayan said quietly. “I was on
Pandem, and I’ve seen images of some of the other worlds.”

“You should see it now! Pandem was the
primary world for Order of Eden recruits. There are so many people
there that old Hampon is celebrating by opening three more solar
systems up for followers that are already moving in his direction.
By the time the sun sets on Pandem tomorrow, the Order of Eden
won’t be some flimsy religious order with afterlife promises and
fringe benefits. It’s about to hit the big time, show real rewards
for this life. The followers are about to get all fanatical and
dangerous.”

“Is there anything I can do to stop it?”

“Nope,” Minh replied.

“Then why tell me?”

“You need to know it’s coming. The Carthans
are about to get their teeth kicked in. You and your people will
have to fight like hell. Port Rush is important to everyone.
Gabriel Meunez is on his way and he wants to take his turn playing
prophet.”

“That’s why the Leviathan is coming here?”
Ayan asked. “Then why not move the Victory Machine?”

“Nope, what has to happen will have the best
outcome if it happens right here. The Victory Machine has gone from
sideline advisor, giving little directions and making fine
adjustments, to being the featured item in a short-lived scavenger
hunt. You just have to warn everyone you can. Fight as hard as you
can.”

“What about the Samson?”

“You mean the Warlord? You were right,
they’ve gotta go, just not for the reasons you seem to be focused
on. Ah, the Fifth Era, it’s going to be interesting. If you stop
him from leaving he’d be a big help, but he’d be missing something
big out there. Might not seem big, but it will be. If you let
things take their natural course with him, it’ll turn out
better.”

“Can I get a few details on that, or do I
have to settle for ‘it’ll turn out better?’” she asked.

“I’m trying to prevent unnecessary spoilers
so you won’t over-adjust your strategies. It’s already like walking
in a minefield with rim weasels fighting in my vacsuit,” Minh
replied.

“Okay, so I’m supposed to lead the defence
on the ground. That’s something I can manage, but not over a large
area.”

“Do it the way you think is best. After
you’ve held your ground long enough, you’ll see an opportunity to
help with the greater scheme of things. Something shiny will fall
from the sky, and you’ll have to send Oz and other people you care
about out to collect it.” Minh’s strumming grew louder, and Ayan
recognized the tune. As the melody of Birdhouse In Your Soul grew
in volume, he went on. “You’re going to have an important visitor.
Just try to get to their transit pod first.”

“This visitor can tip the balance?”

“We’re talking game changer big. For this
war and your life.” Minh’s nimble fingers began playing Toccata and
Fugue. He did it so effortlessly that it seemed his hands had minds
of their own.

Ayan was grateful for the warnings, even
though she wasn’t sure if she trusted them, but needed more.
“You’re telling me that we’re about to be thrust into a war, and
you’re giving me this objective, which you’re treating like icing
on the cake. I need more. Give me advice that rings true about
something that I’ll recognize in the future. Something that will
demonstrate that what you’re saying is spot on because what I heard
from Ayan could come out of a good therapy session. What you’re
telling me right now seems just a little vague, for the most
part.”

Minh silenced his strings. “Sure. At oh nine
thirty-one tomorrow, the Leviathan will arrive in orbit. That’s
zero, nine, thirty-one hours, galactic time. They will launch
assault pods with framework soldiers directly at Port Rush after
detecting trace amounts of temporal radiation. That’ll happen three
minutes after the Leviathan arrives. You will see an explosion to
your left as one of them strikes a xetima tank. You will want to
move the Weary Traveller eighteen meters back, otherwise the fore
section of the ship will be destroyed in a pod strike. By doing
this you will save the lives of two pilots, a comms officer, an
electrician, and her young son. Specific enough?”