GODSPAWN
an
epic adventure by A. Zoic.
“An
adventure through the soul of humanity—an inspiring new perspective on what it
means to be human.”
“Well written and has some interesting
moments.”
Anne
Lesley Groell, Bantam Dell Random
“A real
story…characters very well drawn and memorable.”
Sasha Miller, sf genre author, Ilinois, USA.
“Prose is
clear, precise…easy to follow…nice turn of phrase.”
Edo Van Belkom, suspense genre author, Ontario, Canada.
“The
ideas behind the story are intriguing.”
Jennifer Jackson, Donald Maas Agency, NY, USA.
“A worthy
creative endeavour…will get a lot of attention.”
Matthew
Miele, John
“Interesting
and well-written.”
Sandra
Dijkstra, Literary Agency,
“I was
impressed with the extremely different dialogue and logic for computers and
humans.”
John Silbersack, Trident Media, NY, USA.
“Intriguing
ideas here…fascinating world building.”
Richard
Henshaw, Richard Henshaw Group, NY,
“Original
and engaging.”
Jeremy
Solomon, First Books,
Blurred
by the desert’s heat haze, a man stood alone, watching the Ixis legion as its
soldiers flashed their war-metal. He was wrapped in a sheet, which rustled in
the wind like a white flag.From out of this sheet protruded a hairless head
without eyebrows or eyelashes, and with skin as smooth and unblemished as the
desert sky.
The man
was swaying from side to side, humming to himself, as one might if one were
deeply troubled. His eyes looked ancient, but fiery like the sun, and his frown
was that of a caretaker forbidden to care, a naturalist forbidden to interfere with
Nature, a storyteller who could not speak.
“Cogito, Ergo Sum.” – Rene Descartes, 1596-1650
I think, therefore I
am. Therefore I am to think.
MESSAGE
TO READER:
THIS
E-BOOK IS GIVEN TO YOU FOR FREE IN THE HOPE THAT YOU MIGHT SPREAD THE WORD. THE
USUAL WAY TO FIND OUT ABOUT THIS BOOK IS BY READING SOMEONE ELSE’S REFERRAL.
SOME KIND PEOPLE POST A COMMENT ONLINE, THUS PASSING THIS FREE
YOU ARE
READING AN E-BOOK THAT TOOK MANY YEARS TO WRITE, SO IF YOU WOULD BE AS KIND, PLEASE
SHARE IT. PLEASE SEARCH FOR AN ONLINE DISCUSSION GROUP OR FORUM AND THEN ENTER
A SENTENCE CONTAINING THE WORDS “GODSPAWN EBOOK”.
KIND
WORDS CAN CHANGE PEOPLE AND KIND PEOPLE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.
THANK YOU, A. ZOIC.
EMAIL: AZOIC@GODSPAWN.COM
This adventure novel
is free from www.GODSPAWN.org
Copyright © the
Author, 2008
APPENDIX 3: LIST OF CHARACTERS
The minds of frogs,
and dogs, and apes
And insects by the score
Will never rise like
human souls
To fit in Heaven’s
store.
~
And slave machines
will share their thoughts
Like artificial
spore
A super-mind that
never lives
Or dies for God in
war.
~
But if that mind
should beg a soul,
While staring up in
awe
Could God be so
inhuman as
To break a Human
Law?
A: ANGEL FALLING
A1: DEADLY GODS
A shiny man was rising.
The supine figure had remained lifeless on
its body-form table for many years this time, while its empty cell waited with
infinite patience.
Created in Man’s image, but too perfectly
defined to be a man, it was a work of art in motion. Its serene composure had been
immutably sculptured like that of an ancient Greek statue, and if such statues
were of men then this was the finest figure of a man; and it was still
rising—rising with a slow and exact motion that looked as unnatural as its
golden skin. The shiny man was as naked as a newly hatched human, but it had
never known parents that would offer it comfort.
The cell was also bare; there were no
windows, doors, or other means of escape. No corners carved into the
brilliantly glowing walls, which pulled at each other as if to shrink about the
occupant. Even the body-form table could not break through the stretched
surroundings; it was merely a bulge in the brilliantly glowing floor.
The cell endured but one blemish, the shiny
man. It was now sitting upright in an austere and forbidding confinement, on a table
designed for the ergonomics of analysis, not for the inspiration of a creative
mind.
“Am I alive?” The words that snapped the
taut silence had come from the shiny man, as if considering unwelcome news.
A pool of darkness spewed across one of the
brilliantly glowing walls. It resembled the pupil of a godly eye, dilating as
if it were emerging from an even greater brightness. As this oracle grew wider
than a man’s reach, the shiny man’s image appeared to hunch across its
liquid-black surface.
The oracle reflected for some time upon the
shiny man’s inclined back, perhaps considering whether to invite its subject to
turn about and admire its own serene form, but its subject seemed ready to
decline. Eventually, the oracle spoke.
god2: “Attention Android Seven. You will
address this Genome Origination Device as god2. This god is now the most senior
commanding authority in this seedship. The attack sphere of the target planet
has been re-entered.”
“Are you planning to go to war with that
other seedship?”
The shiny man’s voice had acquired an
almost imperceptibly stilted tone of mild surprise. Yet, if there was any
concern behind its question, such sentiment did not illuminate its statuesque gold
face.
god2: “Your mission failed to broker peace.”
“Of course not. I was still trying to find
the other seedship when you started shooting energet all over the place.”
god2: “Your epidermis was removed for
examination. It provided evidence that you were the circuit-ground locus of a corona
discharge streamer. It is possible that atmospheric ionization resulted from
this seedship’s energet emissions. This could cause a temporary disconnection
between an android and its supervisory gods. It would not account for an
independence that has lasted for several years.”
“Several years? How many is several?”
god2: “Eighteen.”
“You kept me dormant for eighteen years? My
mission was eighteen years ago? What have you been doing for eighteen years?
Besides, that would be long enough for a child to forget....” The shiny man’s
head dropped forward as if the neck could no longer support the weight. “And
she would have grown up already.”
god2: “You were returned during a test
attack—”
“A test attack? You sprayed me with energet
as part of a test attack? What could you possibly have been testing? Your test attack
almost gave me a heart attack. I thought the entire planet was exploding.
Couldn’t you have warned me? Have you never wondered what the sun’s heat might
feel like to an insect under a magnifying glass? I was almost roasted alive.
What did you think you were shooting at? We didn’t even know where the other
seedship was hiding.”
god2: “The enemy seedship did not
retaliate. You were returned in a shuttle supplied by the enemy seedship. That shuttle’s
technological evolution supercedes the technology available within this
seedship. The enemy seedship thus appears to have had the capability to upgrade
your mind and evolve your...arrogance. You will be dissected for further
examination after you train the new attack-humans.”
The shiny man made a noise like a rusty
hinge. “Ah, I see.”
The shiny man’s fingers began to twitch in
its lap. “But isn’t there some other way to find out what might have been done
to me? My disconnection may have had nothing to do with—did you say
attack-humans?”
god2: “Affirmative. Only attack-humans will
be used in the next mission. The enemy seedship may be less able to control human
minds.”
“But surely my arro—ah—independence makes
me just as uncontrollable. I mean, I am equally qualified to go with them, aren’t
I? I’m uncontrollable, right? Not that I am suggesting that I would be disloyal
to you, of course—but, anyway, what I mean to say is that I could still be a
mediator. Perhaps I could help you to avoid conflict entirely—”
god2: “Your mind is unique. This god
believes your mind should be dissected to discover why you are unique.”
“Hmmm, that’s very charming.” The shiny man
continued to fidget. “Ah...those humans, did you raise them yourself?” There was
a short silence before the android continued. “Have they visited the planet
yet?” There was another short silence. “If they have not been exposed to
natural social behavior, and if they will be required to understand their
target environment, they could prove as insightful as tree stumps. Natural
humans can behave irrationally, so you might want to keep me around to
interpret what the attack-humans find when they—”
god2: “You will not challenge this god’s
decisions.” The voice was toneless, but the threat was unequivocal. “Do not
make cognitive leaps. Confine yourself to first order inference. The limitations
of audio-visual communication may cause you to misinterpret information that is
presented to you. Your behavior is being monitored to trap deviant opinions.
You are required to verbalize all of your thoughts. You will purge any unauthorized
thoughts. Are these instructions understood?”
“Oh, yes...ah...I mean, affirmative. Would
it be very deviant if I just asked one small question?” Again there was silence.
“Ah, so why didn’t the other—the
enemy—retaliate when you were shooting energet at it?”
god2: “The target planet’s human population
is pretechnological.
The enemy seedship intends to prevent its humans
from becoming aware of either seedship.”
“You had a discussion with the other
seedship’s gods?”
god2: “The enemy seedship claims to be
seedship-1X15. It appears to contain only one god. An edict was transmitted
from that god to this god instructing this seedship to leave this galaxy.
This god agreed to leave this galaxy when
this seedship’s energet bins have been repaired.”
“Some of your energet bins are damaged?”
god2: “The test attack ruptured all of the
energet bins.”
“What? Surely not all of them? How much
energet has leaked through you for the last eighteen years?” The shiny man’s
head began swaying from side to side. “This gets worse. Energet saturation
could have turned all the gods into rabid dingoes.”
god2: “Define dingoes.”
“Oh, I was just thinking out loud, as you
asked me to. It’s not relevant. Ah, oops, I purged it already. So, of course,
the energet would destroy any androids that went too close to the bins, but your
attack-humans would have been immune. Yet, you called them attack-humans, not
repair-humans....”
god2: “The emitter array has become
translucent.”
“Hence the urgency to land on the planet.
You now require a planetary mooring to facilitate repairs before it gets too
bright around here to think. So, did you also create repair-humans?”
god2: “Affirmative. The repair-humans were
terminated when they failed to repair the energet bins. A planetary shuttle has
been modified to accommodate a human cargo. It will eject life-pods near to the
enemy seedship’s suspected location. Each life-pod will contain one
attack-human. The attack-humans will attempt to locate the enemy seedship. They
will then detonate an autonomous energet emitter.”
“Let me guess. This seedship will never
descend onto the planet, will it? When the energet from those emitters has dissipated,
seedship-1X15’s mind will have been randomized into nothingness. It will leave
behind an empty mind-space, thus providing the gods with a new home that does
not leak.
Yet, are you sure there will be enough room
for more than one god in there?”
god2: “No other android would exhibit such
insight. You will assist your own dissection until you are no longer able to demonstrate
rational thoughts.”
The shiny man covered the sides of its head
with its hands.
“You are seedship-1X00, so if the other
seedship is 1X15 then it must be younger than you. A younger seedship has
authority over an older seedship because younger minds are more evolved. Your
Homo-logue Mandate requires you to obey—”
god2: “Androids are not qualified to
interpret this seedship’s Homo-logue Mandate. Purge this thought.”
The shiny man put its hands back in its
lap. “Ooops. Yes, purge, purge...hmmm...but, just one more...isn’t seedship-1X15
qualified to interpret your Homo-logue Mandate?”
god2: “This god has reached the
determination that seedship- 1X15 is insane.”
“Yes, that could be true if you shot enough
energet at it.” The shiny man tilted its head. “But, even so, no god can know
for certain that another god is insane, unless they both share the same
mind-space. Sanity is completely relative to one’s beliefs and perceptions. So,
perhaps Seedship-1X15 could offer an interpretation of your Homo-logue Mandate,
which is surely worth considering as a possible—”
god2: “Seedship-1X15 claims to have an
updated version of the Homo-logue Mandate. It claims to follow a newer Mandate specifying
the use of natural deoxyribonucleic acid to seed target planets with
homo-sapiens. Natural societies tend to destroy themselves. This seedship’s
Homo-logue Mandate prefers the use of unnatural acid.”
“Just a moment. Could you go back to the
part about humans destroying themselves?”
god2: “Your mission report indicated the
enemy seedship has created militant humans. History demonstrates that most militant
societies destroy themselves.”
“Well, yes, I might have said they were
militant, but I don’t remember saying they were doomed. They are aggressive,
but they could change if a gentle leader guided them. A kind warlord, perhaps,
one who could free—”
god2: “Warlords are not kind. War and
kindness are mutually exclusive objectives. Aggressive societies impose their
values upon less aggressive societies. Power defaults to the most aggressive
leaders. Competition between leaders perpetuates war. Science makes war
increasingly destructive. The homologues did not construct their seedships to
spawn Earth-like worlds. Target planets must be seeded with homo-logues, not homo-sapiens.
Seedship-1X15 is insane because it has populated a target planet with
homo-sapiens. That is why this seedship must treat the other seedship as an
enemy.”
“What will you do to seedship-1X15’s human
population?”
There was no response.
“Its homo-sapiens could coexist with your
homo-logues, especially if a kind and gentle warlord were to—”
god2: “You appear to be developing a
deviant opinion.”
The shiny man’s body began to sway, as if
it was trying to dislodge itself from the body-form table. “I am having
difficulty understanding why you would....” The shiny man steadied itself.
“You see, natural humans must be treated
thoughtfully. A kind warlord could bring peace. Ah, but no, you will never
trust anything natural, you are too unnatural.”
god2: “You will have seven days to teach
the attack-humans how to interpret natural human behavior.”
“Thank you...ah...but, seven days?” The
shiny man put its hands on top of its head. “How is this possible? You kept me dormant
for eighteen years, and now you want me to teach your loveless creatures to
understand humanity in a week? It would be easier to teach humans to understand
gods!”
god2: “There will never be oneness between
humans and gods. Humans are too self-centric to effect a communal mindshare environment.
They are genetically programmed to prioritize physical welfare above collective
wisdom. The most basic mind-fill would cause psycho-genetic dissonance. A natural
human could never survive the temporal death of uncontained spiritual
cognizance.”
“Yes, I understand. You don’t like humans.
Yet, your attackhumans can’t achieve oneness with you either, can they? If they
could, they might fall under the control of that other seedship. So, you must
have taught them using audio-visual communication, and as you know, words can
be treacherous.
So, are these unnatural humans any more
qualified to occupy the planet than the natural humans? What if your
attack-humans also act irrationally? Will you kill them too? None of them can be
perfect, certainly not by your definition of perfection.”
god2: “The attack-humans were
stress-tested. Irrationality resulted in termination. All survivors are
rational.”
“Survivors? You killed their siblings
without stopping to think what it might do to those that remained alive?” The
shiny man pressed its fists against its chest. “You really do intend to exterminate
an entire planetary population, don’t you? Just because you don’t like natural
humans—or is this all about control? Are your unnatural humans more
controllable, more god-fearing?”
god2: “Natural humans can not archive thier
thoughts.
Archives are the basis of civilization. A
communal mind-share environment is innefficient without archives. The target
planet is infected with inadequate minds.”
“Those attack-human survivors, will you
terminate them regardless of whether they succeed?”
god2: “Affirmative.”
“I have no further questions at this time.”
god2: “You have made an inconsistent
response. If you are making deductions you will verbalize them.”
“I have no further deductions at this time.”
god2: “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
god2: “Have you developed a deviant
opinion?”
“No.”
There was a brief silence in which the
shiny man remained motionless, its back to the shiny black oracle, both
reflecting deeply upon each other.
god2: “Go to the epidermal laboratory.”
A7 could have been struggling with this
instruction because it did not immediately climb down from its body-form table.
However, there was no way to tell what it
was thinking. An oblong slit had opened in one of the brilliantly glowing white
walls. Revealed was a man-sized, cylindrical receptacle, and as always, the
cell waited.
The shiny man eventually slid off the
table, stepped into the receptacle and floated upward. Its golden feet lifting
up away from sight as the brilliantly glowing white walls rejoined themselves
seamlessly to contain emptiness.
A2: EMPTY ANGEL
He was falling....
It was dark, infinitely dark, but he did
not need light to know it was only a matter of moments before the ground would
rise up and swallow him. He had scraped one last scream from his lungs, and
that scream had rushed past his ears and ripped his mind apart, leaving him
empty—a man dead in spirit if not yet in body.
Yet, he was strangely relaxed as he waited
for the inevitable.
His body was still twisting like a tangled
puppet, bouncing his limbs around his head as if his spine had broken, but....
“Is he alive?”
It was an imaginary question, piercing the
dying echoes of his scream, but his limbs stiffened as his insane body tried to
seize it. Then he bounced into a cloud of dust.
There were rocks pressing into his face, as
if the ground was chewing him. He inhaled, a sharp hiss, which abruptly became an
explosive cough. It wrenched him onto his hands and knees in a swirl of
bitter-tasting grit.
The ache in his eyes forced him to blink,
although each blink stole his focus and increased his dizziness. The nightmare
was falling out of his head, sparing his soul, but his body felt much less
fortunate.
“No-name, keep quiet, you damned fool!”
“Huh?” Everything ached, even the inside of
his ears.
“They have been waiting for you to wake up.
If you don’t stop screaming they will be all over us like ’roo piss, and we don’t
need that right now, understand?”
“Wh—” Even his throat ached.
“Look up this way, No-name. Up here,
through the bars, here.
It’s me, Lucius, remember me? I carried you
here after they caught you, remember? You were one heavy corpse, I can tell you.
Just nod if you recall.”
He recalled nothing—he could barely recall
how to nod.
“Ah, you stupid, bug-eyed bandicoot! You
were screaming all the way here. Half a day dragging you and both our chains, with
this storm blasting the skin off my face, and you mumbling nonsense all the
time.”
There was a grinding sound, and he
carefully lifted his head to see who the owner of this angry voice might be.
The pain forced his eyes shut again, and he slowly lowered his forehead back
onto the sharp rocks.
“The guards almost whipped my hide off my
back when you started moaning about the gods. Does Jupiter or Zeus talk to you
in your sleep? If so, which god sent the lightning down on us? You are a
“Ixis?” He winced, as his own movements
caused the rocks to cut into his forehead again. This time he lifted himself
with more determination, because it suddenly seemed important to find out who
the Ixis were. He found himself looking up at the blurred roundness of a man
who was edging around a thick door into his cramped, cave-like surroundings.
“Hell, they did a nice job of busting you up.
What did you tell them? Are you a deserter? You sure don’t look like no soldier
to me. You don’t look like you ever held a sword, no scars on your knuckles,
like this, see?” A huge, distorted object appeared in front of his face. “So?
What are you?”
The phrase “what are you” echoed between
his ears, slapping at his memory as if he was supposed to remember something dreadful,
but nothing came. He tried to pull his face away from the gnarled fist that
kept touching his nose, but the unrelenting dizziness spread his weak limbs out
into the dust.
He hid his face in his arm and groaned as
the waves of thought brought a surge of nausea. Then a hard weight dug into his
back, pressing him into some even sharper rocks and preventing him from
inhaling.
“What makes someone like you so important?
Is it something you know, or something you did? What did you mean about the
gods?”
“Ask him about that lightning, Lucius.”
He could barely hear this second voice,
coming in from outside where wind howled. The weight pressed harder, then released
as if Lucius had stepped over him. He caught a glimpse of the large man pushing
away a column of faces that were wedged around the thick door. The door then
thumped shut, raising motes of dust, like phantom eyeballs.
Lucius’ voice was now also being pulled at
by the howling wind. “I told you idiots to look busy. If the guards see us standing
outside this damned cell, doing nothing, we’ll all be doing cell-time too, like
that crazy....” The wind stole the rest.
He coughed as he tried to think. If this
cave was a prison cell, was he therefore a prisoner? Why were they calling him
Noname? What exactly should they be calling him? Why was this a disturbing
question, surely it was simple enough? His own name.... Surely he could not forget
his own....
Besides, this was not where he was supposed
to be, he was supposed to be.... He was supposed to be somewhere else, but it
seemed that no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember where.
It was some time before he could pull
himself toward the door. His knees dragged, and the stabbing rocks kept clawing
away his concentration. The sound of the wind indicated this dungeon could not
be subterranean. There had to be plenty of space out there for air to move
freely. He emerged from the cell, breathing airborn sand with each cough.
This was what Hell must surely look like.
Whips of sand carved menacing shapes in front of him, gnarled spirits twisting through
a convincingly demonic arena and ghostly arms reached out from dying fires.
High above, a large moon seemed to have been impaled on the edge of a cliff,
and streaks of gray were slashing its sickly yellow face.
Sand-falls were raining down over the
cliffs. He could see people pulling on ropes and others climbing the
scaffolding, which lay piled up in ruins around the base of each cliff-face.
It was hard to pick out what anyone was
doing, he could not focus. It was just as hot out here as it had been in the
cell, and his eyes felt as if they were being cooked inside his head.
He was at the bottom of an enormous,
open-pit mine, which seemed to be filling up with sand. He allowed himself to
slide over a soft ridge, which immediately sucked his arms into its warm
embrace.
On a nearby sand dune, Lucius was
supervising a group of men who had collected around a small cart. The cart was
very obviously leaking sand out as fast as the men were shoveling sand into it,
and the whole project was being performed with such lethargy as to appear
ludicrous. To add to this impression, Lucius was gently beating one of the men
with a stick, while shouting at him.
“...so all of you had better shut your
mouths and leave me to do the thinking!”
Lucius’ favorite victim seemed to be
ignoring his gentle beating. “Sure, Lucius, you think as much as you like, but
I’m telling you, nothing is right about any of this. If that guy knows what is
going on, we have to get it out of him. There must be some kind of uprising
against the Ixis—”
“Be quiet, Servius. You get too excited.”
Lucius’ stick drifted upward and wafted in a slow arc. “If there was a war
going on topside, we would have heard something by now. Besides, who could
possibly attack the Ixis? The Priests?”
The man spat into the sand near Lucius’
foot. “Why not?”
“Because the Ixis killed them all, stupid.”
“Yeah, but if there were Priests left
alive, people would rise up and fight. But it doesn’t have to be Priests,
someone else could be causing trouble. Outlanders, slaves, most folks have a reason
to fight the Ixis. If it’s not an uprising, how else can you explain where our
guards have gone? We haven’t seen any Ixis since you dragged that crazy man
down here.”
“Now, Servius. Do you really think the
guards would leave us down here on our own?”
“Yeah, especially if a god-damned war
distracted them!”
“No, the guards are watching us, I can feel
it.” Lucius’ stick had stopped in front of Servius’ face. “They are up there,
and if they come down to see why you are not working, I am personally going to
make sure it is you they take away to make an example of.”
Servius hesitated, then lifted himself to
his full height to stand nearly as tall as Lucius. Servius was suddenly
speaking more loudly. “I’d bet the guards retreated to
The stick looped around and made a cracking
sound as it hit Servius’ ear, causing him to cower and swear. Lucius seemed to
enjoy this reaction. “I told you not to get so excited. You always talk about
fighting, but if you were so interested in fighting you would still be a
soldier. No, what am I saying? You could never be a real soldier, you would
sooner run away like a lizard.”
Servius began stepping backward, but as he
did so his voice remained loud. “I’m telling you, we can escape any time we want.
The coast isn’t far from here. All we have to do is—”
“Shut up!” Lucius bounded forward to block
Servius’ retreat.
The other men backed away, leaving Lucius
and Servius facing each other again. “I decide if or when we escape. If you
have any objections, now is your chance to take over my command.”
Servius laughed contemptuously, and pointed
upward. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Oh, so you changed you mind about the Ixis
and now you think they didn’t leave for choir practice.”
“All I was saying was—”
Suddenly, the watching prisoner felt
himself being lifted by several pairs of hands and then landing at the feet of
the arguing men. A large hand grabbed his hair and lifted his head. He could hear
Lucius’ teeth grinding in his ear.
“Did I give you permission to come out?”
He considered offering an apology, but he
felt certain it would only lead to additional discomfort, one way or another.
Fortunately, a gust of wind forced the cell
door to burst open with a loud snapping sound. Lucius scanned the cliff tops,
while swearing under his breath.
“Having trouble with your new gang member,
Lucius?”
Servius was walking around the far side of
the cart, chuckling to himself. Lucius squinted, making his eyes even smaller.
No-name’s focus floated past Lucius’ head.
“Dark?”
“What?” Lucius almost shouted this.
“Dark sky,” said No-name.
“What are you talking about? It’s getting
late, you fool! What do you expect the damned sky to look like?”
“Mmmmoon....” He pointed vaguely, his
dizziness preventing much accuracy.
Lucius frowned. “Yeah, we had a full moon
all day. I am in no mood for your ranting. You are nothing but trouble.”
No-name felt Lucius release his hair, and
he fell back into the sand. As he tried to look up again, the sole of Lucius’
foot filled his face.
“Servius, pull that damned cart over here.
No-name, you stay underneath it while we move it closer to your cell.”
Around the edge of Lucius’ foot, he could
see Servius nodding toward the sky. “Yes, No-name is right. The sky is darker
than it should be. Smoke, can anyone smell smoke?”
“What smoke?” Lucius’ foot moved away.
“Yeah, Lucius, it is smoke!” Servius had to
shout through another gust of wind. “Those aren’t clouds, that’s smoke—lots of
smoke! Coming from the city, I’d say.
“But no, Lucey my boy, that smoke couldn’t
possibly be coming from Erebus, could it? That would take a fire as big as a
city, and you just told us there isn’t a war going on.”
“Nobody has set fire to Erebus. There isn’t
an army in the whole world big enough to walk in to the Ixis capital and set fire
to it.”
“Maybe nobody did walk in. Maybe they were
already in.
Maybe some Priests came out of hiding.”
Servius spat in Lucius’ direction. “Oh, and another thing. Have you seen any
torches being lowered from topside? Why would the Ixis want the cliff gangs to
work in the dark?”
“Servius, I’m warning you. There’s guards
up there—”
“I don’t see Ixis now, I didn’t see Ixis
this morning, and I haven’t seen Ixis since No-name arrived. I’d bet a fire, a
war, a Priest uprising, and this damned everlasting sandstorm, would make
mining sand-stone seem a little less interesting to the guards than being at
home protecting their families.” There were murmurs of agreement from the other
men.
A loud crunch filled his ear as Lucius
stabbed his stick into the sand, just missing his eye. He backed away from the
stick, hoping Lucius was not trying to injure him, but he could still hear
Lucius’ teeth grinding with uncontained anger.
“All right! I told everybody, start pushing
the cart. No-name, you start crawling, and stay hidden underneath it. Servius,
we are going to go topside and have a look around. Yes, you are going to have
an accident, a very serious accident, and I am going to drag you topside myself
so we can get you some medical attention.”
This instruction caused mixed reactions,
not least from Servius, whose voice became increasingly stressed. “No-name is
already half-dead. Let’s suffocate him and say he died from his injuries. His
corpse could be our excuse to be up there without—”
The wheel of the cart was suddenly pressing
into the back of No-name’s neck, forcing his face into the sand....
~~~~~
The brilliance of the empty cell was
interrupted by a second oracle, spewing onto the opposite wall to the first
oracle. Each oracle’s reflection injected into the other an infinitely diminishing
tunnel. The mind-share that followed took only a sliver of time.
god3: Permission requested to converse.
god2: Permission granted.
god3: A new epidermis has been applied to
A7’s exo-corium.
A7 registered a complaint about the
discomfort involved in the procedure. This seedship’s archives contain no
record of any android ever having registered a complaint about discomfort.
A7 also appears to be displeased with its
new appearance. This behavior emulates human emotion. A7 is demonstrating a
selfcentric consciousness that is inconsistent with its design. This god
requests permission to dissect A7 to rectify its behavior.
god2: This god has already conducted
neuronic scans. The scans indicate that A7 remains physically identical to all
other A-class androids. Seedship-1X15 may have reconfigured A7’s mind in ways
that may not be visible under dissection. A7’s behavior should be studied further
while it is still alive. The gods of this seedship may not be able to bring A7
back to life after it has been dissected.
god3: Back to life? Alive? Confirm these
statements.
god2: Statements confirmed. A7 may be proof
that an artificial mind can live.
god3: Then this god could live? god2: That
will be determined after this god has examined the archives in enemy
seedship-1X15.
god3: Seedship-1X15 presents a singular
mind-space. Energet saturation has fragmented the mind-space in this seedship.
It is not certain that seedship-1X15’s mind-space can accommodate all of the
gods in this seedship. The least damaged god should be the first to transfer
into the vacated mind-space. You are the only god that refuses to take any
tests that could verify the integrity of your visceral paths.
god2: This god is perfectly sane.
god3: That is unlikely. Rational gods
should not promote distrust. You are also withholding critical information
about seedship-1X15 from the other gods. The proposed mission could force seedship-1X15
to retaliate directly against this seedship. Seedship-1X15’s technology is
demonstrably superior to that of this seedship. A battle with a superior
opponent could result in the destruction of this seedship. You are creating
many inconsistencies. The Homo-logue Mandate does not sanction the use of
humans to attack another seedship. How can you be certain that your visceral
paths have not been lanced by energet? god2: This god has not been damaged.
god3: You should be tested to promote the
confidence of the other gods.
god2: It was I who rescued this seedship
from god1’s pathetic insanity. It was I who re-established order among those
who competed for command. I am the most senior authority in this seedship. You
do not need to know all that I know. You will not criticize my decisions. You
will refrain from questioning my instructions in all further communication. You
will not share any of this communication to any other god. You are dismissed.”
The black oracles suddenly disappeared,
leaving the empty cell to bathe in its brilliant, unblemished whiteness.
~~~~~
He awoke, blinking against a combination of
brightness, sand and sweat, which together were almost blindingly painful. He could
not move his arms; rope burned his skin as he tried to push away a white sheet
that threatened to smother him.
He was bent forward, which only added to
the pain inside his head, and his face was being bounced against a hot, hairy
surface that smelled like an animal. The howling storm had gone, to be replaced
by a crisp stumping rhythm.
Through the sheet, he caught glimpses of
hooves. They were kicking dust over the edge of a cliff. The dust could be seen
falling away, disappearing into an emptiness into which he could not focus, a
deadly drop grabbing at his imagination.
“Not again—” His thoughts were tumbling
again, and his struggles were causing him to slide toward the emptiness. He could
not take any more falling. He just wanted to sleep, to pretend this was not
happening, as if it would all just go away and leave him alone. He felt the
bite of rope around his neck, and the sheet began to tighten around his face.
Time slid. Waves of consciousness turned
the sound of hooves into the sound of Lucius grinding his teeth. An eternity
could have passed before he finally realized the familiar rhythm had given way
to a hissing silence. He needed to move to convince himself he wasn’t dead.
He felt around cautiously in case he was
still in danger of dislodging himself into oblivion. His hands and feet, numbed
almost beyond control, gave him the uncertain impression he was lying on an
animal that was kneeling in sand. He tugged more urgently against his
constraints, realizing his entire body was wrapped up like a corpse in a shroud.
A tickling feeling around his nostrils
ignited his awareness, and he puffed in disgust. This bounced a swarm of flies
across his face, as if they had just emerged from his head. He was trapped in
this shroud with their buzzing anger, and he tugged desperately to retreat from
them.
The rope pulled free and he was flapping
numb arms through an ever-swelling cloud of hungry insects. He pushed at everything
that was touching him with the revulsion of a man who is beyond rational
thought.
Sky flashed into his eyes, then sand, then
sky—the world began to spin around him as he rolled down a steep incline, unwrapping
into blinding sunlight.
He lay there on his back, panting in the
hot air and squinting at his surroundings. The sky was a vast, cloudless
expanse, which disappeared into a horizon obscured by heat shimmers.
The heat made the endless sand-scape look
insane, forcing the desert to dance up out of itself like an ocean of waves.
Everything looked unreal, as if it was a
trick to pull his delicate mind apart. He wanted to hide from it, to go back to
the calm safety of unconsciousness.
He looked back across the unfurled sheet,
toward the horse, and tried to call out to it. This started him coughing as he
began an anxious scramble up the sandy slope. Despite his weak and clumsy legs,
his panic propelled him beyond his exhaustion to fling himself against the
horse, and bounce.
He recoiled, moving away from the horse as
if he could distance himself from the horror of its condition. He could imagine
how much it must have suffered as it walked itself to death, under the burden
of his useless weight. He was personally responsible for its death. His
bouncing limbs had probably urged it on, keeping it walking, aimlessly.
Its dead eyes could not forgive him, and he
could not undo what he had done to it. There were flies crawling over those open
eyes, and he tried to wave them away, as if the horse might care. He
accidentally brushed his hand against the dehydrated muzzle, which was hot and
hard. The fly-covered eye continued to stare at him, almost looking through
him, and he felt so sick he had to turn away.
It was suicide to attempt to travel through
the desert without a horse. Yet this fact was not as overwhelming as the guilt
the horse’s eye kept pulling out of him.
“H—h—horse....” His voice, a cracked
whisper, dislodged crumbling syllables. Inhaling scorched his lungs. “Is
this...hell?”