by Joshua Allen

This is the finished rough draft

Contents
This is the finished rough draft .....................................................2
Contents......................................................................................2
Prologue: The First Death....................................................................4
Part I: The Kryszmisky Encounter................................................13
Chapter 1: Wrinkles...........................................................................13
Chapter 2: Malfunctions.....................................................................28
Chapter 3: Distress............................................................................47
Chapter 4: Falling..............................................................................73
Part II: Tales of the Dead...........................................................118
Chapter 5: The Zombie.....................................................................118
Chapter 6: Mutiny............................................................................159
Chapter 7: Safety in Truth................................................................198
Chapter 8: Outdated Modalities........................................................234
Chapter 9: Dan's Tale Continued.......................................................249
Chapter 10: Dan Concludes...............................................................263
Chapter 11: Battle of Labyrinth........................................................295
Chapter 12: Tables Turning..............................................................317
Chapter 13: The Time of Love...........................................................322
Part III: The Heart of the Machine..............................................384
Chapter 14: Wayside........................................................................384
Chapter 15: Rogue...........................................................................416
Chapter 16: Trust.............................................................................432
Chapter 17: Strangers......................................................................461
Chapter 18: Brothers........................................................................474
Chapter 19: Journey.........................................................................517
Chapter 20: The Last Story...............................................................542
Chapter 21: Transport......................................................................593
Chapter 22: Stars Fall......................................................................619
Chapter 23: Deaths..........................................................................628
Chapter 24: Many Faces...................................................................648
Chapter 25: Down with the Machine..................................................674
Epilogue: The Last Death...........................................................684
 Prologue: The First Death

"After the first death, there is no other."

-Dylan Thomas

Some time ago.

A few minutes before Dan Weegan's death, a cat he had no

interest in rubbed itself against his leg and looked at him

expectantly. Dan glanced up from his journal. He kicked at the

thing, but his bare toes hit only the air where the cat had

been. He hadn't meant to kick it anyway. On any other day, maybe

he would have made a stronger attempt, but on days where he was

going to be executed, he found it difficult to work up any ire

toward the living.

Dan's death had become something of a philosophical

tautology. He died to die. If he didn't die, he wouldn't die.

Most men contemplated their death for a lifetime. They agonized

over the details. Would they get it right or die screaming?

Would it find them at an opportune time or on the shitter? Would

they have loved well or wished they hadn't bothered? Dan was in

a unique position. He was entitled to contemplate it at least

once a month. He reflected on it so often, the act had begun to

bore him.

He wrote in his journal:

Q) Did it hurt? A) I wrack my brain on this point and I

can't decide. I remember something. A tweak, call it. Maybe it

is pain, but then it's over the instant it happens. No memory

truly has a chance to form. Does pain exist without memory? Most

likely the pain I think I remember is psychological in nature. I

will have to bring it up in my next appointment with Dr.

Slaughter. She has such interesting theories on pain response.

Q) Do you anticipate the event? A) Yes. That's an easy one.

The real question is am I anticipating the memory of pain, or a

trick my min had played on me? Am I flinching because I remember

hurt, or because of the fear of unknown pain? Bear in mind the

death itself I don't fear.

Q) Is there a heaven? A) Clearly I'm in it.

Q) Will there be kitties there? A) Sources point to yes.

Dan shooed Lovey Bones the Annoying Static Inducer away.

She meowed and seemed to shake her head at him. Without further

warning, she scampered away. A gunmetal gray robot entered,

whispering just loud enough that Dan could hear the noise, to

the fleeing cat.

"It doesn't like you, I guess," Dan said.

"Mr. Weegan? It is almost 0600 hours." The robot's smooth,

black spherical head contained a single spot of bright white

light that was its face. The machine kept hands folded like a

patient doctor. It had no legs. Instead, it floated, propelled,

Dan was certain, by magnetic forces inside the floor. Its voice

was soothing, almost ephemeral, if such a word could be used on

a voice. The sex was unknowable; much like you couldn't know

whether light was particle or wave. If you tried to pin it down,

it seemed to take on the characteristics you were testing for.

He wasn't certain how the machine pulled this vocal trick

off, of course. Or even how the thing flew. Little about the

Machine Intelligence or its many manifestations was known--aside

from the fact that it had been created (launched? initiated?

conceived?) by humans many centuries ago. Dan knew that for

certain.

He had been there.

Not exactly there, but nearby. Or at any rate, he kind of

knew the guy who had invented the MI, or at least the guy who

had invented the thing which became the MI. The MI was born in
an ingloriously named place called The City, though when Dan was

younger its name had been Dubuque.

"One more quick note, robot, and I'll be ready."

Q) What sound does shit make when it hits the water? A)

Dubuque.

Old joke. Horrible.

The robot beeped. The tone was soft, but noticeable.

"I'm ready now. All charged up to kill me?'

"Mr. Weegan, you mustn't think of it that way. I thought

you and Dr. Slaughter discussed this point."

Dan stood. He crossed the room a step at a time. The robot

floated to his side, its shiny black head globe with a single

glowing white eye was almost level with his head, but just

below. "Yes, I believe she concluded that humans were nothing

more than a persistent pattern of organization, not unique

beings at all. Sense of self is an illusion et cetera."

"Precisely."

"I never agreed to the point. Humans aren't like you

robots. We're a whole. We are the meat we are."

"The sock, Mr. Weegan," the robot gentle prodded.

"The sock. You are referring to the darned sock?" Dan

cleared his throat. "If I darn a sock, and it breaks down in

another place and I darn it again, and so on for however long it

takes, eventually I'll have replaced the whole sock; therefore,

I have a new sock. Did I get it right, robot?"

"Very close, sir."

"That sock doesn't exist!" Dan tossed his hand up, and then

reined it in. Long years of practice had taught him to be

careful about knocking his knuckles against robot hide, which

had little yield. "Socks wear out in two places, the toe and the

heel. You are keeping the same framework, but just replacing a

couple of vulnerable parts. What do you think of that, robot?"

"Not that you'd know where socks break down, sir," the

robot said, bobbing its head toward the ground, where Dan's bare

feet padded against the floor.

"I can't help it, robot. This material! This is the MI's

true genius: textile. It would have made an excellent medieval

merchant. This material feels fabulous against my feet."

Dan noticed his furry friend had caught up with them and

was now making a nuisance of itself, catching flyby leg rubs as

it darted around the hallway after unseen quarry. It avoided the

robot however. It seemed to be begging Dan to stay and be warm

for it a little longer.

"Unfortunately, it also attracts cats," Dan noted.

"The point is, Mr. Weegan, that your framework is DNA. Your

DNA does remain constant. As do your memories. We deliver them

to your new body perfectly intact when we transport you to a new

planet."
 Dan said nothing about his memories. Lately, they hadn't

stayed so consistent. The older ones had been fading away,

overwritten in his mind, like a new song on an old cassette

tape, erasing whatever was underneath it--some song you used to

love, no doubt. Certain things seemed to be lost to Dan now, and

no amount of journaling had brought them back. Things like the

name of village he was born in, the name of his daughter, if

he'd ever known it, the name of that crazy hippie doctor who had

given him the Fultech upgrade. The guy with all the hair and the

tie-dyed doctor getup. Vonderman.

Okay, so not everything was gone, but every time Dan woke

up. He wondered what would be next.

Evelyn.

She had suffered the worst of it. He thought about her less

and less these days. He had trouble remembering the color of her

hair and the contour of her hips now. He rarely heard her voice.

Dan whispered, "My idiot clone, what happens to him?"

"His brain barely functions, sir. It's better if you don't

think of him as a person. And besides, you're changing the

subject--here we are."

"Consider the subject changed, then," Dan said.

He stood in the doorway of the room, familiar in shape,

contents, and color to rooms he'd been in millions of times

across the galaxies. It was half of a novel transport system,

one which Dan was among the few privileged to make use of.

The concept was simple: information could be sent across

light years instantly, thanks to several inventions by the

Machine Intelligence. These communication innovations were known

as a single thing to most people, the ansible. The machine

recorded the information of Dan Weegan's mind and beamed (or

whatever) via ansible to where it needed to go. It took just

minutes to transport a mind.

However, transporting flesh and physical material was much

more difficult. It was possible, Dan had heard, but messy, and

unpredictable. Much easier to grow a clone on the desired

destination. Growing a clone, for the MI took three days. Yes,

the mind of the cultured clone was underdeveloped, but that was

a good thing, because of what occurred in the second half of the

transport: Dan's mind, on arrival at his destination, was

imprinted over the imbecile clone's semimind. The result, after

a minor adjustment and training period, was a shiny new Dan

Weegan, complete with all Dan Weegan's thoughts, memories, and

emotions.

Of course, there was one detail. It would be too messy to

have a universe of Dan Weegans running around, so the old Dan,

once the mind was successfully recorded, was killed with a high-

voltage jolt to the brain.

No big deal. Just a housekeeping procedure.

 The old Dan was disposed of in whatever manner the MI saw

fit. Dan had never asked. He was somewhere else by then, who

cares about some dead old body that looked exactly like him?

Dan stepped into the room. The robot waited. The room was

dimly lit. A machine hummed in the corner. A rectangular slab of

nameless polished metal floated in the center of the room, an

impossible feat without some invisible help.

Probably magnetic, Dan thought, not for the last time.

--But that was the sticky point. Was it the last time? Was

he about to die or just relocate?

So, Dan thought, maybe death's not such a tautology after

all.

Dan handed his journal to the robot, who took it with a

three-fingered hand. The journal had been Dr. Slaughter's idea.

It was supposed to help with his sense of continuity. The device

floated over to the bigger machine, which formed a slot on the

surface of its body. The journal was inserted. The slot closed,

and it was as though no such slot had ever existed.

"It will be waiting for you, Dan," the robot said.

"Yeah," Dan replied, lying down on the table in the center

of the room.

The robot affixed the straps to his body and the electrodes

to his neck. Dan took a breath, waiting. It never took long. The

large computer unit anchored to the floor made a very slight

clicking noise.

Dan clenched and sucked a sharp hiss of breath just before

the electrodes fired two jolts of electricity into Dan's skull.

Dan Weegan was dead.

 Part I: The Kryszmisky Encounter

Chapter 1: Wrinkles

Every once in a while, especially with long jumps, which

required the Pilots to pull the ships deep into the twisted

skein of multi-dimensional reality, a ship would come out

slightly ahead of time. Pilots were taught to aim long when it

came to time. A little ahead was all right, time would catch up.

The future, it turned out, was unwritten, and stood there like a

blank canvas, waiting for the wave of reality to hit it. In the

past, the wave had already passed and you'd have to jump again

if you came up short. Except that sometimes ships jumped into

the past and time and memory being slippery things, froze the
people there. They didn't die, didn't age. They just stood

there, unmoving forever. Remembering. Every ship in Blue Sektor

knew the stories.

The past, it seemed, was a lonely barren place, full of

memories.

Of course, this only happened in the Blue Sektor of the

Navy, the branch of the military that had sworn off Machine

Intelligence intervention. Without the aid of the advanced minds

of the MI, they had to rely on other methods to move through the

skeins and jump space. They had to work together, to rely on

each other and their Pilots, who in turn always worked in groups

of six called Sestets. To Captain Lyzander, crown jewel and

senior officer of Blue Sektor, it was an acceptable tradeoff.

When Lyzander was jolted awake by burst of microshocks up

his spine, the first thing he did was check the situation at

Kryszmisky Colony. The scopes came back dead. So dead, in fact,

that Lyzander was certain they had come out a few minutes ahead

of time.

"Pilot 6, register," Lyzander said, his voice reverberating

in his sleep tube. A box appeared in front of him. It seemed

several feet deep, though in truth it was an optical illusion

and the box was no more than a few microns in depth.

Lyzander reached his hand in and opened the small box that

appeared in front of him. He shook his head as he pried the

little thing open. It wasn't a physical task, but a mental one,

but both his fingers and his mind were still in the process of

waking up. Pilot 6, of course, could have just given him

contact, but Pilots were an odd group. Lyzander supposed someone

who spent their whole lives in burrowing in and out of

interdimensional skeins just outside of reality were bound to

develop a few personality quirks.

Lyzander stretched his neck, feeling the muscles pull out

inside his skin. He figured he had time.

He got the box open, establishing the psychic connection

between himself and Pilot 6. Pilot 6's face, covered by the

nexus framework of his helmet appeared. Pilot 6's eyes were

open, but they were dancing around like a man dreaming with his

eyelids open, meaning that Pilot 6 was still in the thralls of

skein withdrawal.

"Pilot 6, when are we?"

Pilot 6's voice filled Lyzander's head.

NOW SIR.

"Why are the scopes all blank, then?"

NO HEAT SIR THERE IS NO READING WITH NO HEAT SIR.

"How can there be no heat. What about the colonists?"

DEAD SIR.

An image flashed in Lyzander's mind that made him recoil.

He had to fight the urge to snap the connection between himself

and Pilot 6. But Pilot 6 held him in a firm psychic grip.

Lyzander opened his mouth to speak, but his throat could form

nothing coherent. Lyzander released an agonized moan.

The images ceased.

Lyzander gasped for breath. The images had been horrible.

Hospitals full of dead people swarming with flies. Streets

littered with bodies. A dead baby's dried husk lying prone, arms

and legs pointed toward the sky, skin wrinkled and leathery.

The baby had been dead, but it had also been moving,

squirming. There had been other movement, too. The Kryszmisky

Colony was dead, but it wasn't staying dead.

"Pilot 6 reinitialize the scope. Detect for motion instead

of heat signatures."

The space was filled with a view of Aduous, the main city.

Large white blobs filled the city. The blob was a huge mass of

people, all moving at a slug's pace toward the city center,

where Lyzander's ship the Re-Horakhty's lander was supposed to

be touching down in a couple of hours.

"Pilot 6, abort landing, hold geosynchronous orbit over the

city of Aduous."

The Pilot sent his acknowledgement wordlessly. Lyzander

broke connection with the lead Pilot and closed communication

avenues. He pulled himself out of his command tube and up to his

full height. He was not an old man, but old enough to have seen
action. His hair was sliced short for minimal fuss. His sharp

eyes cut like razors, accentuating a granite jaw line. In

contrast to his severe face, Lyzander possessed long, elegant

hands it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine flirting with the

fretboard of a violin or a guitar; though in truth Lyzander had

given up playing years ago. He found the rest of his crew

already up and starting to warm back into life.

"Everything okay, Captain?" Ioming, Lyzander's second-in-

command, asked.

"Aduous City is filled with a huge infestation of

reanimated."

The crew all looked at him.

Hardball, the ship's lead scientist, a man whose skinniness

made him appear taller than he was, stood up. "And you guys said

it wouldn't be exciting in the fringe."

Ioming was tall and her brown hair was kept in a tight

braid. She was serious and always intimidating. Her eyes were

the color of crystal and when she shot someone a look, they

could feel ice on their spine. She shot Hardball such a look

now. His laughter died on his lips.

"Captain," Ioming said, "What are our orders?"

"Pilot 6 is having trouble connecting with command. The

ansible is picking up some interference."

"What could interfere with an ansible?" Ioming asked.

 "I don't know, Lieutenant," Lyzander said. "It doesn't

matter, anyway. Standing orders apply in this case. We raze the

cities, the countryside, anything that moves."

Hardball groaned. "No samples? This is the third zombie

encounter--"

"Too risky," Lyzander fired back. "And don't use that word.

This isn't some fairy tale. This virus is serious bad news.

Jurrigan, take Tresky and go warm up the laser cannons. Let's

burn this rat hole out and get out of here."

* * *

Dan Weegan woke up.

He stumbled to his feet, disoriented by the darkness of the

room. His hands landed against the cool metal of a wall. He

caught his breath, winded even though he had moved just a few

feet.

The room was without light of any kind. He felt along the

wall, found the machine unit. Its smooth surface was free of any

controlling features.

"Computer? Robot?" Dan asked.

Nothing responded. He felt along the wall further. What

could have happened? What could cause a machine unit to cease

functioning? It must have happened before the MI killed him.

Jesus, but he could almost remember it. There had been a jolt,

he was certain. Dan fought the panic when he considered how

close he must have come to being erased from existence by this

freak power outage.

Dan found the door to the room. It refused to open, but it

wasn't locked. With effort, Dan managed to push it open. Light

flooded in, encouraging him. Dan pushed harder. The light

blinded him, but it was light and therefore superior to darkness.

The door was open enough for him to squeeze out. Instead of

the smooth, giving surface of the floor he remembered, his feet

found a prickly unevenness that signaled natural ground. Dan

stumbled out, feeling something stab into his foot. He stumbled

and went down on all fours.

Dan looked up, squinting in the natural light. His eyes

gushed with tears as he blinked to adjust his vision. It cleared

enough that he could see he was in a forest.

Dan looked back over his shoulder. The door was open a

crack, buried in the side of a hill. He could see the platform

which he had just laid down on what felt like seconds ago. It

was flat on the ground, no longer held up by the mysterious

forces.

The rest of the facility was gone, replaced by the forest.

But that was impossible. The facility hadn't been large, but for

trees to have grown up in its place, even Kryszmisky's weird

squat trees--

Kryszmisky. That was the name of this planet.

 Toward the edge of the forest, Dan could see scrub grass, a

brown, not quite barren desert beyond set among rolling hills.

There had been deserts further south of the facility, but these

were within a few hundred meters. For a habitable planet in the

temperate zone of its closest star, standard global warming

rates could move deserts as fast as maybe--maybe--a few

decimeters a year. The calculations whirled in Dan's mind. He

tried to pull in outside variables. Terraforming might

accelerate a desert's growth, but who would terraform for a

desert?

Dan got to his feet. There had to be a logical explanation

for this. The MI had put him in a stasis field, of course. But

why? And for how long? The power must have given out in the

facility, which meant the MI wasn't taking proper care of its

power supply. It could mean a lot of things. It could mean

anything. There was no need to panic.

Dan got to the edge of the forest and stopped there to

survey what he could see. Stretching out in the valley below him

was a city. Not a village, not a loose collection of temporary

houses, but an entire city.

Dan felt his chest tighten. He was old enough to suffer a

heart attack. That thought flashed through his mind as he fell

to his knees. He saw movement in the city. Crowds of people were

gathering. It was a festival. Festivals took generations to

establish.

Dan shook his head, trying to deny what his eyes were

telling him.

Kryszmisky had no colonies. No cities. In fact, the entire

point of his visit had been to survey the life forms of the

planet prior to colonist arrival, to check for signs of . . .

Dan pushed away the memory of his job here on the planet.

It was no good thinking on it now. He had bigger problems. This

city that shouldn't exist loomed in his eyes, refusing to

dissolve into mirage. How long had the MI kept him in stasis?

The trees, the city, the desert--it all pointed to not just

years, but decades. He had never heard of someone surviving

stasis for that period of time. Dan needed answers to ground

him. For that, he needed to find some people in the city who

knew their history and talk to them.

Dan stumbled down the hill on bare feet toward the city.

* * *

Pilot 6 was a man of several aspects, which phased in and

out depending on the strength and character of the ambient

skeins and how much bubble his mind was getting from the twisted

inner dimensions (the puffball delights that tasted to some

aspects of chocolate and others of chewed aspirin). Being a man

constantly immersed in multi-dimensional reality had its

drawbacks. When in a normal state for a long period of time

Pilot 6 was simple Paul, a man a few years younger than Pilot 6

appeared to be, but with many of the same memories and

consistent background experiences. If one conversed with Paul

for a short time, one might even conclude that Paul was a normal

young man with a large, bald head. Another aspect was Sarry, a

hermaphrodite woman with a sexual identity problem and a nasty,

if unrequited, coke addiction (Pilot 6 was allowed no drugs of

any kind ever). Sarry liked to come out when Pilot 6 was

aroused; Paul, it seemed, was unable to cope with interpersonal

relations. Jude, an elderly woman with a fondness for old books,

was in charge when Pilot 6 was prepping for a jump, at which

point a drill sergeant named Cunningham took over and remained

in control, ordering the other Pilots around until they had

passed the cusp, that point when the error margin dropped below

a cutoff and they knew they would complete the jump, at which

point Pilot 6 became a twelve-year-old boy named Vassar.

Vassar was convinced he was a superhero named Vassarator

Deluxe. Deluxe's main power was laser vision. He was busy

battling the Dark Avenger, whose parents were killed by

criminals on his home world, and who turned to murder to appease

his grief. Deluxe wanted to help the Dark Avenger, but the Dark

Avenger would not let Deluxe get away with anything but killing

him. The Dark Avenger had a death wish.

In the dark cities of Pilot 6's imagination, he leapt from

rooftop to rooftop, keeping pace with the Dark Avenger. He was

reluctant to use his laser vision. He didn't want to kill the

Dark Avenger, and he didn't want to risk hurting anyone in the

buildings. Laser vision was a difficult to power and Deluxe was

afraid of the awesome power he'd been granted.

"Dark Avenger! Stop! I don't want to hurt you."

Dark Avenger stopped at the edge of the building, spun

around. For an instant, Deluxe dared to hope that the Dark

Avenger was going to surrender. The man's black trench coat flew

up and out as he spun.

Vassarator Deluxe saw the gun an instant before it was

fired. He dove to the side, hearing the buzz saw blade buzz past

his face, missing by mere millimeters. Vassarator hit the

ground, rolled, and came up with his hand to his temple, ready

to release a burst of his laser vision, but Dark Avenger hurled

himself backward off the building before Deluxe could do

anything.

"Noooo! Avenger!"

Vassarator hurried to the edge, expecting to see the man

striking the ground many stories below. Instead, Avenger was on

the roof of a tube connecting the buildings. He fired to buzz

saw shots into the roof, and plunged through the X opening he

had cut in the metal, disappearing.

Deluxe threw himself down to the tube and made a perfect

three-point landing. He jumped into the opening, spinning to

face the direction he'd seen the Dark Avenger going. He landed

in the tube, and then saw the sign over the door: Mercy Hospital.

Deluxe's blood ran cold. Surely Avenger hadn't sunk to the

level where he would harm innocents, had it? But hadn't this

fight been different than the others? Wasn't this what Deluxe

had been afraid of all along? The possibility had always existed

that Dark Avenger would cross over from vigilante to pure

villainy, if backed into a corner. That's why Vassarator Deluxe

had always avoided pushing Dark Avenger to extremes. The man was

manic depressive. In his darkest moods, he could be suicidal.

The time when Dark Avenger tripped Deluxe's laser vision,

severing his own arm and nearly killing him, ran through

Deluxe's mind. Avenger now had a bionic arm, and since getting

it, Deluxe had noticed Dark Avenger was on a downward course

toward pure evil.

"Alec, please don't do anything stupid," Deluxe whispered

Dark Avenger's real name. Once, they had been friends. Deluxe

steeled himself for the possibility that tonight he might have

to kill his friend.

Deluxe bolted into the hospital.

Dark Avenger waited for him. Buzz saw blades flew. Deluxe

ducked, but the blade caught his clothing and his right arm,

digging into the bone and pinning him in three places to the
wall.

"Vassarator Deluxe, so nice of you to drop in. I knew your

weakness for innocents. I figured coming into the hospital was

the surest way to get you to rush in headlong without thinking."

Dark Avenger punctuated his speech with a laugh.

Deluxe remembered the rest of the story, how after Dark

Avenger triggered Deluxe's laser vision and severed his arm,

Deluxe had carried his friend past the invading robot hoard to

reach his ship and take Dark Avenger to a medical facility

instead of a prison colony. Deluxe had hoped his act of selfless

friendship would change Dark Avenger's heart, but it hadn't

worked out that way at all.

Avenger came close to Deluxe and whispered in his ear. "You

should have left me to die."

Avenger threw off his trench coat, revealing the mechanic

arm and shoulder. "Instead you turned me into this. And ever

since . . ." Dark Avenger held Deluxe's head up level and stared

into his eyes.

Vassarator Deluxe looked into the eyes of his former

friend. He could see small black motes floating in the whites.

Something had happened to Dark Avenger. With a wash of

realization, Deluxe realized that the robot arm had corrupted

his friend, or had allowed something to corrupt him.

"That's right, Deluxe. Vassar, you were once friend to this

body, but this body no longer contains the friend you knew."

A smile curled the lips of Dark Avenger. The horrible grin

bloomed. A long black tube of shimmering liquid emerged from

Dark Avenger's mouth, like a water spout in stop motion.

Deluxe recoiled away from the weird black liquid coming

from his friend's mouth.

Pilot 6 struggled against the physical restraints of his

harness. He rarely moved out of his seat. Like most Pilots, he

preferred his internal life and manipulating multidimensional

space to anything standard reality had to offer. His limbs

functioned weakly, but they were moving now, struggling to free

him. Something was happening.

Pilot 6 watched through Deluxe's eyes as the black liquid

tube extended from Dark Avenger's mouth toward his own. This had

gone beyond imagination. Pilot 6 struggled. Pilots 1-5 didn't

notice. They were caught in their own thralls. Each had a unique

aspect that was strongest after a jump. These were well-known

and documented. Doctors had written papers and were awarded

research time and resources by universities to study this

phenomenon.

Pilot 6 struggled. The others fought, but more weakly.

Pilot 6 was the strongest physical, mental, and psychic specimen

in the group, one of the strongest in the entire Blue Sektor.

But he was pinned. Dark Avenger's liquid snake entered

Vassarator Deluxe's mouth and wormed its way down his throat.

Vassar struggled, but was overcome.

The ship trembled, but Lyzander and his crew had other

problems.
 Chapter 2: Malfunctions

From the end of the cannon, a blue light appeared. In the

vacuum of the upper atmosphere where the Re-Horakhty was holding

geosynchronous orbit, only a flash of light at the end of the

cannon barrel would have been visible, and then only at angles

in the path of the beam, all of which were deadly.

The beam was visible closer to the ground, appearing as a

column of light in clouds and dust. A column that cut a swath of

destruction through the city of Aduous. The column made a quick

swipe of no more than a hundred meters from the point where it

began to where it disappeared again. It sliced a path through

the middle of the crowd that had gathered and cleaved a standing

building in two. The beam vaporized everything within the

hyperfocused perimeter of the column, sheared with a cauterizing

precision everything partly within the perimeter, and gave a

nasty heat rash to anything within ten meters of the outside of

the perimeter.

Those in the crowd not killed or sheared in two filled the

space vacated by their now missing comrades. The people still

capable of the sensation of smell could detect a strong odor of

burnt flesh and charred concrete. The building, its structure

mortally wounded, collapsed in on itself within seconds of being

hit. The attack was brief, but destructive.

Captain Lyzander, from his perspective in the ship, watched

the ground scope to get an idea of what had just happened.

"Readings?" Captain Lyzander asked the cannon control team.

"Optimal. The cannon works fine, Captain. The problem must

be with the control unit."

Lyzander looked down at the planet's surface through the

visisteel wall of the control room. A plume of smoke had

blossomed up where the laser beam had passed, almost nothing in

comparison to the face of the continent they hovered over.

"Although, it's possible the cannon hardware infected the

control unit."

"Options?" Lyzander asked. He felt a twinge in his gut. The

cannon control computer was not intelligent. No machine on the

Re-Horakhty was. But it was also not meat. It was wires and

transistors, soldered by hand and programmed by hand, and

therefore subject to imperfections. One of which was the

occasional mistake in a transistor's firing, a slight miscue

that became a part of the programming itself that replicated and

propagated itself. A virus, that old plague of imperfect human

creations.

"We can manually aim the cannon still, but we've lost

phalanx and linking capabilities with the starboard cannon.

However, the cannon could malfunction at any time. It could

overheat without warning. It could get misaligned and backfire.

It could--"

"Do we shut down the control unit or the whole cannon?"

"The whole thing, sir."

Lyzander did a mental reckoning of the planet's surface.

"How long will it take to raze with just the starboard cannon?"

"That's a precision cannon, sir. It would take a month.

Longer."

Lyzander cursed home to space and everything in between.

"Shut it down."

Lyzander turned to head for the door. He needed to discuss

the matter with command crew. There was a cat in the doorway.

One of the Pilot's cats. Lyzander had never gotten along with

cats, but the Pilots, especially when they were in their post-

jump juvenile state, loved the damned things. Vallaq insisted

that it went beyond love, to a deep need, a psychological need

cats fulfilled in the Pilots that nothing else could quench.

 Lyzander gave it a kick, sending it squealing down the hall

as he passed.

* * *

"Completely?" Ioming asked, her crystal-colored eyes boring

holes into Lyzander's head.

"The techs don't know the root of the problem. It could be

the hardware of the cannon itself. We have to isolate the system

if we don't want to infect the whole damn ship. Especially out

here as we are with no communication."

"Sir," Hardball said, raising his hand. "Does this mean

we're going to land or what?"

"You're awful eager to get onto the surface for a change,"

Ioming said to the senior scientist.

Hardball held up his hands in surrender. "We've discovered

something unknown to science twice, and I haven't gotten

anything more than a pigeon's glance at the phenomenon."

"Captain, this is ridiculous," Ioming said.

"On the other hand, it looks like we're going to have to

limp back with no action to report," Lyzander said. "At least if

we can get a sample or do a little ground-truthing."

"Captain, we all heard about what happened to the Sobicki,"

Ioming said.

Hardball waved her off. "They were unprepared. They went in

blind and naked. No environmental protection. They thought they

were walking into a welcome party."

"So far as anyone can tell, you mean," Ioming responded.

"So far as the videos of their death revealed."

Vallaq still hadn't spoken yet. She, in contrast to

Hardball and Ioming, was a short woman who preferred multi-

colored, flowing gowns to the traditional military garb. She

dressed like a medical doctor, though she had no training as

such.

Ioming and Hardball's bickering was going in circles.

"Vallaq, your opinion?" Lyzander boomed, quieting his other two

commanders.

"The Pilots will need another 6-8 hours before they can

make a jump," she said.

Ioming snarled, but said nothing.

Vallaq hesitated. "I know I'm not as smart as Hardball, but

I consider myself a scientist of sorts. Or at least a skilled

engineer. I am curious to know more about the zo--uh,

reanimated. Lack of knowledge won't help us solve the problem."

Lyzander returned his attention to Ioming. She was the best

tactical ground commander he'd ever had working under him, or

had ever seen in action. The truth was Lyzander could land

without Ioming's help, but it wouldn't go smoothly.

Ioming turned on a heel and made for the door.

"Lieutenant Ioming, where are you going?"

 "Preparing a team, sir," she said as she left.

Lyzander looked at Vallaq and Hardball, but they had both

found items of interest on the table and embedded in their

fingernails. Lyzander moved toward the door, his stride intended

to make it clear that he was not giving chase.

* * *

"Lieutenant Ioming, stop!"

She was already across the control room, stepping over

Lyzander's own command tube. She pushed aside a thick cable that

linked Lyzander's command tube with the central hub, a ring that

hovered above them in the middle of the room, on which the

Pilots sat when the ship was being jumped. The hub was empty

now. The Pilots were resting in their rooms under the care of

Vallaq's nurses.

"Stop! For ship's sake."

He was out of options and bounded across the room, taking

her arm in an iron grip just before she reached the door to

enlisted quarters.

She turned, snarling. "Can I help you, Captain?"

"Ioming, I need your support on this."

"You can give up that desire, Captain," she shot back.

"It's not as easy for me to abandon my feelings as it is

for you."

It took Ioming a moment to understand what Lyzander had

meant. He knew she got it when she reared back and slugged him

square in the gut with a sharp ball of white knuckles. Lyzander

took the blow standing. His knees buckled, but he didn't double

over or fall.

"I told you never to bring that up, Ly."

"You're lucky I don't have you arrested for striking me,"

Lyzander said through clenched teeth.

"That wasn't a military blow. That was from me to you.

Meat, Ly. You sucker punched me, I sucker punched you."

Lyzander's stomach felt like it had been sliced open, but

he refused to let it show on his face. He could feel a bruise

blossoming in his muscles but he pushed the pain aside like his

training had taught him to do.

"Fine, we're square. Tell me why you are resisting this

landing. What are you afraid of, Ioming?"

"It doesn't take fear to keep me from acting stupid,

Captain. I don't want to see good men turned into corpses,

animated or otherwise. Prudent action says torch the fucker and

go home. We can't do the first part, let's just do the second."

"I thought you'd welcome the chance to fight."

"These aren't mindless corpses, Ly. Whatever the fuck is

going on down there is coordinated and smart. I watched the

Sobicki video a hundred times. They gathered. They waited for

the ship to land. They waited for the crew to disembark. They
cut off the crew's escape route. Then they attacked."

Lyzander scratched his chin. "I'm not worried. I have the

best ground commander in Blue Sektor--in the army--backing me

up. We aren't going to get hemmed in like the Sobicki men did.

You wouldn't allow it."

Lyzander put a hand on her shoulder. In her effort to slip

away from him, she had unintentionally backed into a corner. She

stared at him through those crystal cold eyes of hers. But

Lyzander knew her better than anyone else on the ship. He knew

her intensity was a mask for passion. Her eyes were cold if you

didn't know to look for the flames burning within them.

Lyzander felt something hard poke him in the gut where the

bruise was developing. The poke wasn't hard, but enough to make

him flinch. He glanced down and saw the barrel of Ioming's

blaster staring up at him.

"Now who should write up whom in this situation, Ly?" she

asked, almost sweetly.

"You have that effect on me," he said without backing away.

"Classic asshole's defense," she responded. Her lips stayed

parted. Against all judgment, Lyzander couldn't help but be

turned on.

Lyzander leaned in, realizing as he did so that she didn't

intend to stop him.

"Captain! Emergency in PQ!"

 Lyzander jumped, backing away and spinning as though he had

been seen, though the call had come over his com unit. It was

Vallaq's voice filling his ear.

"What's happening Vallaq?"

"Pilot 3, Captain. She just crashed. I think she's having a

heart attack."

Lyzander glanced back at the now-empty spot where Ioming

had just been. He hurried to the maglev toward the upper decks,

Pilot's quarters.

* * *

Pilot's quarters were elaborately decorated, but the

decoration was all modular, and consisted of very real looking

holograms. The reason for this was that Pilots were very

unstable, personality-wise. The time their behavior was most

predictable was after a jump, when they almost all reverted to a

younger version of themselves and retreated into imagination.

Beyond that, they were hot and cold, up and down, left and

right, and every direction in between. Their personalities

shifted like chameleons. To accommodate this, smart decoration

had been developed that changed along with their personalities.

The decorations made the Pilots feel comfortable, and they

served as an indication to outsiders of who they were about to

encounter.

Lyzander had never seen a Pilot crash before, though it was

a regrettably common occurrence--Pilots had a life expectancy of

about ten years from the point of their first induction into the

skein. He was unprepared for the room, which was bare. The

hologram modules were dangling from the ceiling and pinned to

the wall, but they were inert little disks. It was a cold,

barren sight.

"Vallaq, give me some news."

Vallaq was sitting on the floor with Pilot 3's head in her

lap. Pilot 3's whisper-thin hair flowed out over Vallaq's

crossed legs and spilled onto the floor. The nurses were

injecting various tonics into Pilot 3's body under Vallaq's

silent command. A machine nearby beeped once every two seconds.

"She's alive, Captain, but something is wrong with her. I'm

in contact now."

"What's happening? Is something the matter with the ship?"

Vallaq opened her eyes just long enough to shoot a look of

annoyance at Lyzander. "No, Captain. Pilot 3 is suffering from a

shortening. It's a rare affliction, even rarer to survive it.

Usually a shortening results in the death of the Pilot, but we

aren't going to let that happen, are we?" Vallaq reverted to a

child-like voice for her affirmation. She kissed Pilot 3 on the

head. The Pilot appeared to Lyzander to be quite dead. If not

for the beeping and Vallaq's confidence, he would have already

begun preparing the incinerator.

 "What's a shortening?" Lyzander, like most people, was

ignorant about Pilots. They jumped ships through hyperspace and

they were very difficult to be around. That was the extent of

Lyzander's knowledge.

"One of her aspects--her personalities, if you will--is

dying, Captain. Particularly traumatic because it is her

childlike aspect."

"I thought they needed the childlike one. How is she going

to jump?"

"Captain, don't be crass. This is a person in my arms.

Meat. Don't treat her like one of your machines."

Lyzander felt a stab of guilt. He was so used to avoiding

the Pilots that it was easy to forget that they were just

people. Gifted people, but people. Lyzander squatted down to be

closer to Vallaq.

"Can you help her?"

"I think so. I have her stabilized. We will have to keep

her monitored. If she survives, Captain, it will be wounded. She

will most likely have to retire. We will try to help her create

a new aspect. The problem is that this method rarely works. The

usual thing is to help her transfer her imagination outlet to a

different aspect. I'll need time alone with her to figure out

which aspect that should be. I'll need to make a deep probe into

her mind."
 Lyzander noticed that the holograms had returned, but they

were faint and kept shifting. "Do what you have to do Vallaq.

Take her to the infirmary where you can be more comfortable."

"I don't know. Will the landing team survive without me?"

she asked, smiling.

"I promise not to let anyone blast anyone else."

Vallaq opened her eyes. "Nurses, she's safe to move now.

As a team, on three. To the infirmary!"

The nurses lifted the thin Pilot off the ground on a count

of three and carried her away, with Vallaq directing traffic.

Lyzander stood at Pilot 3's doorway and sighed. A powerful,

familiar smell filled his nostrils. He glanced up the hall and

was surprised to see a man standing very close to him, his

elongated head perched atop a pencil thin neck, the top of his

head visible through the powder-white hair. The man--the Pilot--

was smoking a cigarette and standing mere centimeters from

Lyzander.

"Pilot, can I help you?"

The Pilot stuck out his hand. Lyzander shook it. The man

intimidated him, a little. He was at least 15 centimeters taller

than Lyzander, and most of the height was cranium. Lyzander took

the man's hand. The grip was firm and even. The Pilot pumped the

embraced hands twice and released. "Call me Paul, Captain

Lyzander. My apologies for the habit. Its special smokeweed they

grown on Quillium. Nontoxic, noncorroding, of course."

"No problem . . ." Lyzander fought the urge to call him

Pilot. "Paul."

"6. I'm Pilot 6," he said, still staring down the hall,

though Pilot 3 was no longer visible.

"Good to meet the man behind the voice," Lyzander said.

"You don't have to lie, Captain. I know we can be difficult

to interact with." Pilot 6 stooped over and scooped up a cat

from the floor. The cat began to purr. It stared at Lyzander

with contempt.

Lyzander was almost certain it was the cat he'd kicked

earlier, though there was no way to be certain with those little

fleabags.

"Cats are a Pilot's animus. No matter what aspect we happen

to be at the moment, we all share a love for these little

things. They are like a soft, warm core of being in your mind,

once you bond with one."

"Do you switch aspects intentionally or is it an

unconscious shift."

Paul nuzzled the cat, then lifted his head and dragged his

cigarette. "I think it's a good thing you're doing, Captain.

Landing, I mean. I've been thinking about it. Collecting

samples, seeing the zombies up close. I envy you. The freedom to

explore, as it were."
 "I wish I knew if it was the right thing to do," Lyzander

said.

"It is, Captain. Absolutely. I should know," Paul tapped

his head, "I can see into the future with this thing."

Lyzander laughed. Paul rolled his eyes.

"I thought the future was empty," Lyzander said.

"Oh Captain. There's always Something in the Nothing."

Paul stopped laughing and turned down the hall. Lyzander

fell silent, the ghost of the echo of their mirth died away,

leaving Lyzander wondering if it had ever been real. Paul

disappeared into his room. The door closed. The decorations on

the wall around the door changed.

* * *

Dan pressed himself against the wall of the building,

trying to will himself to dissolve into the concrete structure.

He thought about the room he had emerged from not long ago. In

that room, things had been simple. He stretched out on a table;

the MI zapped him a million light years away. He was supposed to

wake up somewhere else, where things made sense and he could

continue about his distasteful, but necessary work.

But something had changed in the grand scheme. A child

shuffled past him, walking perpendicular to the stream of people

in the streets. This child held a stuffed bear in its hand. The

bear's head was dragging along behind. The boy was having
trouble, perhaps, orienting himself in the proper direction. Dan

surmised this was due to the fact that the boy was missing his

left eye, left foot, and left hand.

The boy looked at him. The left side of the boy's face was

skinned bare. Dan could see the boy's teeth on that side, and

the bone and straps of ligament that connected the jaw, which

where frayed and torn, leaving the jaw dangling.

The boy's good eye fixed on Dan. The good side of his lip

curled up as though sniffing the air with his good nostril. The

boy gave his head a shake as though clearing away a rude thought.

The boy returned to his task at hand. Another man passing

by took the boy's hand. The boy looked up at the man and smiled.

The two proceeded into town, neither concerned about the flaps

of viscera dried to the man's legs, just below the gaping wound

in his abdomen.

Dan exhaled. He checked his pulse again. His heart was

beating hard and strong. He was not dead. He told himself this.

It sounded reasonable. It even sounded true.

Dan rounded the corner of the building. The street was

filled with a thin crowd of people walking toward the center of

town. Each moved at his or her own pace, whatever pace the

individual was capable of. There was no rushing or shoving. None

seemed to recall or worry about the fact that the very ground

they were stepping on had just a few minutes ago been scored by
a giant laser beam. Dan looked up at the sky. He could see the

sun glinting off something. A ship no doubt. They were going to

annihilate these wretched people, and he couldn't say he blamed

them.

One man was standing near the doorway of a building, Dan

noticed. The man took a few steps in the direction of the crowd,

but then turned around and retreated back to the doorway.

Dan approached this indecisive figure, who appeared to be

on the verge of going again.

"Excuse me?"

The man jumped and spun around. He was an older man dressed

in a fashion Dan had never seen before, but that looked sharp

and neat.

"You can talk?" the old man asked.

"I suppose so," Dan answered.

"That makes sense. You look pretty whole. I bet you died

just a few minutes before the . . ."

"The what?" Dan asked.

"Nothing," the old man said. He looked out at the gathering

crowd, fully visible from here. The path of the beam was also

visible. One building had been reduced to rubble. Another was

missing a circular symmetrical section. The edges of the missing

section were black, as though cauterized.

"Why aren't you going to the square?" the old man asked.
 "Why aren't you?" Dan responded.

The old man straightened. He took several steps forward,

and then scurried back to Dan's side. "What happened?"

"Laser strike. From a ship above." Dan pointed to the

glinting diamond in the clouds.

"How can you be sure?" the old man asked.

"I've seen it before. Although this one was quite a bit

bigger than the ones I've seen. The effect is the same."

The old man shook his head. "It worries me. They're just

going, following like they're supposed to. Say, do you think

I'll be punished if I don't go?" the old man asked.

Dan shook his head.

The old man put his hand in his hair and pulled. He cried

out. It was an anguished noise. Dan saw tears forming in the

man's eyes, but didn't understand the turmoil.

"I guess I should go," the old man said.

"Is there a radio, or communication center around here?"

"Yeah, in that building there, the tall one."

The old man pointed to a building on the edge of the town

center. The building was surrounded by walking corpses.

"What are you going to do, call that ship?"

Dan shrugged. "I thought about it."

The old man laughed with unwarranted glee. "Yeah, call

them. Call them, mister. That will be great. Tell them to come
help you." The old man clapped his hand over his mouth. Spittle

from his suppressed laughter bubbled between his fingers. The

spittle was tinted blood red. "That will be swell. I'd give

money to see the look on your face when they help you. Help you

with a blaster shot up the ass."

Dan had considered this possibility, but couldn't see where

he had a choice.

"The MI knows me. I hope it remembers. I have a feeling

I've been off its mind for a long, long time."

The old man laughed. "The MI knows you? You're close

personal friends with the MI? No wonder you don't hear the call,

mister. You're a damn loon."

"My name is Dan Weegan and I'm agent--"

The man burst out laughing. "You think you're Dan Weegan,

now? This is rich. Syrupy rich. Oh, you are crazy. Hey, maybe

I'm Dan Weegan, too. Maybe the whole lot of these rotting dead

bastards is Dan Weegan."

The old man got close to Dan's face, so close Dan could

smell the rot under man's skin. The old man was too articulate

to have been dead long before reanimation, but up close it was

obvious that he had been dead.

"You think you're going to live forever, like Dan Weegan?"

Dan shook his head. The old man's mirth was gone now. He

looked serious, and angry.

 He snarled. "Didn't think so, Dan." The old man bounded

off. "I didn't fucking think so, though even my molecules stink

so," he bellowed as he loped toward the crowd of shuffling dead

men.

Dan looked at the tall building. He started through the

crowd, toward the building, holding his breath as he passed the

walking dead.
 Chapter 3: Distress

Sarry knew something was wrong. Her mind ached with the

barrage of high-contrast colors. Why were all blacks against

whites? Reds against blues? The world has lost transitions.

There was no more gray.

She woke up paralyzed by color. She spent the morning

doubled over in pain, her head swimming. She didn't belong here

in this room. This was not her beautiful flat. This was some

other place, a hostile alien place. Every centimeter of this

apartment, this building, and this city screamed at her and

assaulted her.

By noon, the thumping in her head had subsided. She tried

television.

The image of a man dressed in dessert-shaded army fatigues

flashed up on the screen. The newscaster frowned. The newscaster

was a young man, handsome, with fake hair raked down onto his

forehead. He said, "And in tragic news today, Staff Sergeant

Archibald Cunningham was found murdered in his apartment on the

upper north quadrant of The City."

Outside her door, Sarry heard footfalls.

"Sergeant Cunningham's brave military service today goes

rewarded with death at the hand of some drugged out hoodlum,"

the newsman continued, unable to hide his tears or his rage. "I

mean, come on, people! We gotta wake up here. What are we doing

to ourselves?"

The footfalls stopped outside Sarry's door. She kept her

eyes glued to the television screen. She felt tears well up in

her eyes. She didn't even know this man, this Cunningham. But

she knew his death was bad news. The worst.

"We're tearing ourselves apart," the newsman screamed. He

stopped himself, moaning. He tore his glasses off and flung the

tears from his eyes. A man entered the screen with a towel, but

the newsman shoved him away.

Someone tapped on Sarry's door, but she didn't move.

"In other news--oh big surprise. Another murder. An elderly

woman named Jude was found with her throat c--I can't even read

this." The newsman slammed his paper down on the desk. He folded

his hands in front of his eyes, sobbing.

 Another tap on the door. "Hello? Miss?"

"Every night now, another death. More and more, we're

dying. We'll all be gone soon," the newsman reported.

"Miss, please open up. Miss? My name is Paul, please open

up."

Sarry rushed to the door and threw it open. A young man

with thinning hair and a wire rimmed glasses stood before her

smoking a cigarette.

He exhaled. "Thank God. You're okay. I've been starting to

think there was no one left alive in this city."

"You've been watching the news?"

"I heard the cops taking a body out," Paul said. "I live

next door to you."

"I don't know you," Sarry said, but the words smelled like

lies burning in her nose.

"I know you don't. I liked to keep myself hidden. Sometimes

I hide away for a long time. It's safer that way. I wanted to

tell you I'm sorry. I really am."

"For what?" Sarry said.

"The truth is, Miss. I love you. And I don't think I'll get

another chance to tell you, so I'm telling you now."

Paul dragged on his cigarette. When he pulled it away the

filter was tinged with a ring of pink. Paul coughed. A trickle

of dark red blood spilled out of his mouth.

 "I love you too, Paul. I'm sorry it had to be like this."

Paul nodded, crying. He stumbled back and hit the wall on

the opposite side of the hall at an awkward angle. He rolled to

the side as he fell, and the knife became visible. It was stuck

deep into Paul's back. She screamed and slammed the door. Hands

shaking, she locked the deadbolt and secured the privacy chain.

Would it hold? She didn't know. This wasn't her city. These

weren't her doors. The colors of this place were all wrong.

Their sharp contrast was like the comic books she used to read

back when she was young and her parents thought she was a boy

rather than a girl.

They used to call her Paul.

Sarry sat down heavy on her couch. She stuffed a pillow

into her mouth to muffle her scream. The man on news was still

talking. On the desk next to him, a severed head. Sarry

recognized the face of the man who'd tried to bring the

newscaster a towel a minute ago. The newscaster had blood

smeared on his cheeks.

"Paul is dead now. Paul was our guiding light, our unifying

superego. I don't know what's left. The id, I think. The id and

the perpetual little boy. Jesus Christ, who's going to win that

fight? You know, you try and you try to do the right thing in

your life," the newsman said, now smoking an oversized

cigarette. "You help people, you allow yourself to be subjected

to those god damn experiments."

Sarry stood up and went to the window. Somewhere out there,

the boy-child was coming for her. He would be dressed in a cape.

Sarry remembered wearing the cape herself a few times. The cape

and the collar that hid most of her face, and sunglasses to hide

her eyes.

"And what do they give you in return? They treat you like

an animal. Meat, they say. But not you. God no, you're not meat

to them. You're not even a human being."

The newsman's voice had changed. He no longer sounded like

he was a man talking from several miles away through a box. He

sounded close. He sounded as though he was in the room with her.

"They take and they take, don't they Sarry? What do they

give? Do you get your sexual satisfaction? When's the last time

someone put their hand between your legs, Sarry?"

She shook her head, unable to turn around, unwilling to

look at the reflection in her window.

"Been a long time, hasn't it? Been a long time since you

had a snort of cocaine, but you still remember how it sang in

your blood, don't you? That night, in the clubs of Rigel. It

sang to you, deep down inside. When you snorted that stuff, you

felt like a human being for the first time in your life, didn't

you Sarry? The only time."

She nodded. How she would kill for some more coke. She'd
kill a baby for some coke. She'd strangle a God.

A finger appeared in front of her nose. A small pyramid of

cocaine sat atop the finger.

"Go on, Sarry," the soft, familiar voice whispered behind

her. It wasn't a boy's voice, but a man speaking in a boy's

voice. Such a clever disguise, a boy pretending to be a man.

"It's not real, but then again what is?"

She leaned her head down and snorted and oh god it might

not have been real but it worked. It worked like real. She

laughed.

She turned and saw the man. He looked like Paul, but he had

baby's eyes. He had a little boy expression on his face and fake

hair on his forehead. It was the newscaster, but the newscaster

hadn't really been a newscaster. He grinned at her and showed

her his knife, which was enormous in his hand, like a butcher's

knife in a child's hand. The man put the giant cigarette to his

lips again. He removed his newsman's suit with a smooth motion.

Beneath, a cape and a high collar to cover his face.

The cape was ragged terry cloth, a frayed old towel. But

then it morphed into something more, a black cape of flowing

material that seemed to obey the physics of the mind rather than

of the world.

The man's eyes changed from blue to red to black. They

stayed black, though a hint of red still swam in them, a thin

vein of it. He put his black glasses on. They hid his eyes, red

vein and all.

"I am the Vassarator Deluxe," the manchild said in a new,

darker voice. "You know why I'm here, Sarry?"

"You're done with us?"

"There was only room for me. You refused to eat what was

offered, didn't you?"

Sarry remembered that night at the restaurant. She'd been

eating alone. The waiter had brought her, instead of the steak

she'd ordered, a snake. A black snake with indistinct edges that

bubbled like black smoke. He'd insisted that she eat it. Instead

she'd fled.

To here.

"That waiter was you, wasn't it?"

"And the chef, and the maitre d'. It's all me, Sarry. Me

and you. Do you want to know who was the hardest to kill?"

"Paul?" Sarry whispered.

Vassarator Deluxe shook his head. "Jude, the old,

methodical woman. Cunningham fell into a trap, an easy one. His

mind moves left to right, never up and down, never forward to

back. Left to right. The others were chickens in a pen. Paul,

too, in the end was easy. It turns out Paul was no more than the

others, no less. Just a shadow. Jude fought. She was tough."

Vassarator Deluxe ruminated on his thoughts for a moment.

Sarry was paralyzed with fear, trapped against her window in the

corner.

"But I think I'll miss you most of all, Sarry. Know why?"

Sarry shook her head. The knife approached.

"Because you are my love, my heart. And without a heart, I

don't think I'll ever come back from the dark place I'm going."

Sarry closed her eyes. Just before she died, she heard a

rip, like a page tearing. And she knew the worlds were

collapsing. All worlds. Her world, Paul's world, Jude's world,

Cunningham's world. All collapsing into this comic book world of

unreality.

And then she was gone.

* * *

Pilot 6 sat up in bed. His cat was on his chest. He set her

down. She meowed and rubbed herself against his leg. Pilot 6

snarled and sent her a wave of negativity. The cat ducked under

Pilot 6's bunk, disappearing into the darkness. An instant

later, a pair of shining disks appeared in the darks space.

Pilot 6 went into the hall and stared down the length of the

corridor.

A black cloud filled his peripheral vision on both sides.

Pilot 6 swallowed and focused on the space ahead of him. The

blackness sunk back, revealing another shape: a slight,

quivering Pilot standing in the hallway, smoking.

 "Pilot 1, what are you doing out of your room?" Pilot 6

asked.

"Broke my dream-life sir sir," Pilot 1 mumbled. The only

emotion in his voice was a kind of vague frustration this aspect

of him always emoted.

"You need your rest, go take another 12 cc's of container

blue. Ordered."

Pilot 1 nodded without elevating his eyes to Pilot 6's

level. Pilot 1 was a few years older than Pilot 6, but his

ability had peaked long ago, and his mind had started crack

around the edges. Chips had already broken loose and fallen

away. "Sir sir I can see a black snake, mouth open. Big as

death's head my head sir sir."

Pilot 6 put his hand on Pilot 1's shoulder and forced the

other man to look up at him with a gentle hand under Pilot 1's

chin. "Take your blue container," Pilot 6 said.

"Snake sir. Sir." Pilot 1's tone hadn't changed, but Pilot

6 could feel the warm, sickening waves of fear emitting from the

man's chest.

"The blue container will help. I promise. The snake is your

friend. Don't you trust me?"

Pilot 1's face melted into relief. "You'll swing a sword at

the snake sir sir. You'll protect me sir sir. Sir."

Pilot 6 watched his compatriot turn and shuffle back into

his room. Pilot 1 was his biggest challenge of all the Pilots.

The man never did as asked or ordered on the first attempt, and

drugs had sometimes unexpected effects on him, sometimes no

effect at all. Pilot 6 stood at Pilot 1's door, exuding

comforting vibrations until he sensed that Pilot 1 had taken the

pills in the blue container. He waited until Pilot 1 was asleep.

All the Pilots were asleep now. Pilot 3 was going to die.

This was an unfortunate turn of events, but not disastrous, and

her sudden crash had drawn away most of the nurses, leaving the

floor almost empty. Besides, backup Pilots were kept in ready

supply. Pilots 13 and 14 were proving quite pliable. Pilot 6 was

confident he could shuffle them into the mix.

Pilot 6 lit a cigarette and strolled down the hall. He

tuned his senses to detect other forms of life. The captain was

about to take his leave of the ship in his lander with his crew.

Pilot 6 touched the door to the maglev.

He snuffed his cigarette.

No one was in the maglev. No one was near the door of the

bridge level. Pilot 6 closed his eyes.

He was Vassarator Deluxe, but laser vision was no longer

his power, and fighting crimes no longer his objective. Dark

Avenger was dead. All the galaxy newswires had been buzzing

about it. That, and the recent string of serial murders of

unconnected individuals. A military man, an old woman, a young

bookstore owner, a hermaphrodite drug addict, and others.

Vassarator Deluxe could not be blamed for Dark Avenger's

death, however. Dark Avenger had killed himself with a bullet

made of pure Septimium through his skull in a moment of

psychological and physical weakness. Dark Avenger had been

amassing Septimium for years, a few molecules at a time.

Septimium was the one substance in the universe that could kill

Dark Avenger. It was also deadly to his archenemy Vassarator

Deluxe. Most of the universe's supply of Septimium had been

destroyed by Vassarator Deluxe when he'd hurled it into a black

hole seven years ago.

But a few molecules here and there had persisted. Dark

Avenger had collected those molecules and made a bullet out of

them. Dark Avenger had confronted Deluxe, and Deluxe was certain

Dark Avenger meant to kill him with the Septimium bullet. An

utter betrayal considering Dark Avenger had been the one to show

Deluxe the true way. Instead, Dark Avenger had turned the gun on

himself and pulled the trigger.

These images flashed through Deluxe's mind as he prepared

for what he had to do. Dark Avenger had been his friend. In the

end, Avenger had shown him a new world. Avenger had opened his

eyes to a new realm of possibilities. Deluxe had learned much

since that night when Avenger forced the black snake of truth

down his throat.

 Vassarator Deluxe punched a few buttons on the console,

deactivating the maglev. He checked the hall for cops and

agents. Seeing the coast was clear, Deluxe pried the door open

and leapt into the black, unlit tube. He fell freely.

Pilot 6 spread his arms as he fell. He would have to divert

concentration for a moment from the door, so he checked one last

time that the way was clear. It was.

With focus, Pilot 6 poured his energy out, exciting the air

and material around him. Had the power of the maglev been turned

on, the massive power supplied to the activated portions of the

lift would have alerted anyone looking at the proper readouts

both where the maglev was and where it was going. Seeing it

start at Pilot's level and end at the bridge would have been a

huge red flag.

The magnets around the bridge level turned on, powered by

Pilot 6's psychic excitation. He focused on magnets. His body

was just below the exit of the bridge level. He raised himself

by activating the rings of magnets progressively higher. The

magnets kept him suspended by interacting with the material of

the suit he and everyone onboard the Re-Horakhty wore. Pilot 6

triggered the door to open. He stepped out. He broke

concentration. The rings of magnets switched off and the door

closed behind him.

Vassarator Deluxe turned around and punched the buttons on

the console to reactivate the maglev. The maneuver had taken

less than ten seconds. The agents, if they had noticed anything

at all, would have seen it as a simple, and brief, glitch in the

system. Maybe in a week or two, they would have caught on to the

truth, but all Vassarator Deluxe needed was a few more minutes.

He hurried across the room to the center of the radial

spokes of the command crew sleep tubes. He activated a code on

the central column to lower the Pilot ring. The ring descended

on the hub without a sound. Red lights blinked in a downward

pattern to signal to anyone standing below to be cautious.

Vassarator Deluxe positioned himself so that the spokes of

the Pilot ring passed without touching him. He knew just where

to stand.

Before the ring completed its descent, Vassarator was in

his Pilot chair and strapped in. He lowered his helmet and

secured it to his neck. The helmet began to fill with fluid. The

fluid numbed his skin. It would silence his hearing, eliminate

his sense of smell, and suppress all sensory input. This was

done for purposes of jumps and steering. It allowed Pilots to

devote all attention to the ship. The ship's functions became

their functions. For a full jump, at least four Pilots were

necessary. Six was ideal, but it could be done with fewer, which

was good because Vassarator didn't think he could jump anymore,

not a ship this big. Multiple aspects were necessary for jumping
big ships, but he had just one aspect now. Vassarator Deluxe was

alone.

But he could still lead a jump. He could control the other

Pilots. This is the model that should have been used from the

beginning. One Pilot with a dominate aspect commanding the

weaker Pilots. It was so simple, so obvious. The black snake of

truth had revealed this method to him.

He would bring them under his control soon. For now, he

just needed to be able to steer the ship. For steering a ship,

one very qualified Pilot with a single aspect was necessary,

even for a ship as big as the Re-Horakhty. And Pilot 6 was very,

very well qualified. With Vassarator Deluxe as his control,

there would be no stopping them. Vassarator Deluxe's dark eyes

shined black even in darkness, even through the dark lenses of

his glasses.

Vassarator wore a smile until the fluid reached his lips

and numbed his muscles. The Pilot ring ascended back into its

default position. He waited, not turning on any consoles or

giving any indication he was present. Anyone passing by would

never notice him up there without close examination.

And in a few moments, they would be much too preoccupied

with other matters to look to see if there was a Pilot in the

ring.

Pilot 6 reached out to dark space. He sensed the planet to

his j-ward side. He focused in on a small speck that had just

exited the ship. The speck was the captain's command ship.

Vassarator Deluxe focused on very center of the ship, where a

small hollow ball contained the landing ship's Pilot, a man of

few aspects, and thus not suited for command-ship crews, but

very well suited to landers and smaller boats. His name was

Welker. Vassarator Deluxe honed in on Welker's mind and began to

dig.

Welker resisted. Vassarator Deluxe tried to get a grip on

the Pilot's mind, forcing his will into Welker's consciousness.

The lander shook, but stayed true. Welker fought him. Vassarator

Deluxe realized with a jolt that Welker was too strong for him.

Vassarator withdrew. He would meet Welker again, and when

he did, Vassarator Deluxe would be stronger, and Welker wouldn't

fight him off as easily. For now, Vassarator Deluxe turned his

attention the other Pilots, all sleeping in their chambers. One

by one, he introduced them to the black snake of truth.

* * *

"We're getting some turbulence, Captain," Ioming reported

from beside him.

The ship dipped, making Lyzander's stomach lurched. He

checked the scopes. The ship was veering off course.

"Welker, report," Lyzander said into his com.

CAPTAIN I CAPTAIN--
 "Welker?"

CAPTAIN SOMETHING. HAPPENING.

The ship rumbled.

Lyzander brought up the override interface. He could hear

Ioming beside him readying herself to take over controls for an

emergency landing.

"Ioming, can you land this if we need you?"

"I think so, sir."

"Welker, respond!"

CAPTAIN I AM WEARY BUT I WILL LAND THE SHIP CAPTAIN WE MUST INTERCOMMUNICATE.

SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED.

The ship yawed to the starboard side, coming close to going

off course and out of control.

"Welker, we'll talk when we get down. Right now I need to

know if you can land us."

AFFIRMATIVE CAPTAIN I MUST FOCUS.

Lyzander covered his mike. "Ioming, be ready to take over

controls if we start to waver."

She nodded, already preparing herself.

"We're encountering some turbulence," Lyzander said into

the ambient mike. "Everyone brace yourselves for a rough

landing."

"Sir, I'm losing connection with the Re-Horakhty," Tresky

said.
 "Is there interference from the atmosphere?"

"The interference is everywhere, Captain. It seems to have

gotten worse just now. I'm not getting much more than modulated

static at the moment. Maybe when we land, but . . ."

"Keep trying to maintain a lock, Tresky," Lyzander said.

The ship lurched down and Lyzander felt his stomach go with it.

His breakfast surfaced on the back of his throat, but he

swallowed it back down.

"Ly, Welker's vitals are off the chart. Let me take

control," Ioming said.

As she said it, they broke cloud cover. The ship felt as

though it was in free fall now. Everyone felt the blood rising

up their heads. "Welker?" Lyzander screamed the name into his

mike.

No response.

"Sir, I'm picking up a new signal," Tresky said.

"We got bigger problems, Tresky," Lyzander said.

Lyzander reached his hand, fighting the gravitational

forces trying to keep him plastered to his seat. He entered

command space on his console and did the proper finger maneuvers

to transfer control from Welker to Ioming. Ioming pulled back on

invisible wires in her command space. The ship slowed and

leveled.

"Welker?" Lyzander called.

 No answer.

"Someone get in there and check on him," Lyzander said.

"He's alive, Captain," Ioming said, scanning her three-

dimensional readouts. "He's alive, but I think he passed out."

"Sir, I think you need to hear what I'm hearing on the

radio," Tresky said.

"Tresky, record it for now. Jurrigan, pull Welker out of

the Pilot pod, get him on life support."

"Yes sir!" said the female voice over his radio. The ship

floated toward the ground. Their view of the city was lost to

trunks and branches of the forest they were landing in.

The ship touched ground, rocking little more than the

leaves that floated down around them.

"Nice landing, Ioming," Lyzander said. "Someone give me

some word on Welker."

"He's alive, Captain," came Jurrigan's reply. "But he's

unconscious. He, uh . . ."

"Talk to me," snapped Lyzander as he unbuckled himself from

the command seat.

"He looks like a Pilot who just did a jump."

"Tresky, can you hail the Re-Horakhty yet? Get me Vallaq."

"Negative, sir. Interference is still too thick to reach

the ship," Tresky responded. "But sir--"

"Tresky, are you still getting that other signal."

 "No sir, I--"

"Then play back the recording already," Lyzander said.

The cockpit was filled at once with a familiar voice. "My

name is Dan Weegan, MI agent with Exploratory Division."

"MI agent? Have you ever heard of Exploratory Division,

sir?" Ioming asked.

"No," Lyzander replied.

"I am trapped among the dead," the voice of Dan Weegan,

familiar to them all, continued. "The walking dead. They seem

not to be concerned with me at all. No attempts to eat my brains

or anything." Weegan chuckled. "If the ship in high orbit that

sent down its warning shot can hear me, I am a human being. I am

not dead. Please send a rescue ship for me right away, before

you raze the city. The MI will verify my identity, assuming the

damn thing hasn't forgotten I exist. I think it had me in stasis

for a while here. One again, my name is Dan Weegan." The

recording stopped there.

"It continues like that sir," Tresky said, "but I lost the

signal just as we landed."

The entire ship was silent.

"Hardball," Lyzander said, "does the MI have a presence on

Kryszmisky colony?"

"Negative, sir. Class BS-7. Blue Sektor planet all the way,

sir," Hardball replied.

 "Could it have a hidden facility? We've always suspected

it. What would it take?"

"On Kryszmisky? It would have had to bury it a few hundred

feet below an iron lode, sir. We checked and triple checked and

quadruple checked this planet before colonizing. I remember it

because I was still an apprentice under Scientist Ari Tutelea at

the time, and he sent me as an observer. I was a boy at the

time. They were certain Kryszmisky would have intelligent life.

Certain of it, sir. The initial probes returned a massive alpha-

wave reading."

"Cut to the chase, Hardball," Lyzander said.

"Well, when they got here, they scoured the planet. Of

course, they came up empty handed. Anyway, the MI couldn't have

stayed hidden from that kind of a scan."

"And the alpha waves?" Ioming asked.

"A mysterious anomaly and nothing more. I believe it was

right around that time when the alpha-wave test was abandoned by

Blue Sektor. Three alpha-wave readings on different planets in

the last few hundred years, all came back negative on further

exam."

"Three? I know of two," Ioming said. "Kryszmisky and

Dachminadad."

"As fascinating as this science lesson is," Lyzander cut

in, "the point I was trying to make was that there is no MI

presence here, correct?"

A wave of annoyance passed over Ioming's face. The look

lasted an instant, and then she returned to her usual

professional demeanor.

"Correct, sir," Hardball said.

"And just for my own peace of mind, can anyone think of any

reason that Dan Weegan would be on Kryszmisky Colony claiming to

be an MI agent?"

Dead silence was Lyzander's answer.

"I heard if he leaves Chambrassa, he dies," Tresky said.

More silence. Lyzander had always heard the same thing. In

fact, most people thought Dan Weegan was already dead. He had

not been seen in years. No one had been admitted to Chambrassa

in decades. Scans revealed that nothing was happening out of the

ordinary. People continued to conduct the business of their

daily lives. Blue Sektor still patrolled the planet, but so did

Red and Green sektors, ostensibly because Chambrassa had once

been an MI facility.

Lyzander killed his radio. "Ioming, stay here one moment,

get my gear ready," Lyzander said.

Lyzander opened the rear hatch of the cockpit and went

through the passageway, past the jump chambers, to the prep bay.

He took a deep breath. The voice on the recording had unsettled

him. He hadn't been prepared to hear a genuine celebrity's voice

greeting them. He knew his crew must feel the same. Lyzander

took a breath and opened the door.

All eyes turned up to Lyzander when he entered. It was rare

for them to see him back here. Half the team was already suited

up. Tresky was no doubt in the radio shack still, and Jurrigan

was in medical with Welker.

"Look, people, this distress call is suspicious to say the

least. Let's get e-suits on and head toward Aduous. We'll check

this signal if for no other reason than because it is the only

articulate signal we've had from the colony since before the

jump. But let's stay on guard," Lyzander said. To his mike, he

said, "Jurrigan, how's Welker?"

"Stable, sir, still unconscious. In fact, he looks like

he's in the middle of REM sleep," came the radio response.

"Get up here. We're going to need your gun and your eyes.

Tresky, stay with the ship. Try to reestablish connection with

the Re-Horakhty. Keep us informed of any signals. And keep an

eye on Welker."

"Yes, sir," Tresky said over the radio.

"Were you able to pinpoint the source of the Dan Weegan

signal?"

"Middle of Aduous, just south of the city square."

Lyzander recalled the mass of moving, cold bodies he'd seen

on the scope when they'd first arrived. "Well, Hardball, here's

your chance to get your samples. Let's lock and load, people.

Suit up and move it out."

* * *

Dan Weegan stood on the roof of the building. He looked

back to the patch of forest he'd seen the landing ship descend

into over an hour ago. He looked back at the door to the roof,

which shook on its hinges, but held. The door was strong, as

strong as they came, but would it last until a team reached his

location?

The door shook again.

The dead had come after him without warning. They weren't

threatening. They didn't come up with fingers clawing at his

face or anything. In fact, at first it had just been one. Just a

young man entering the room with casual ease, as though this

office building still functioned as such. He'd scared the

bejesus out of Dan, who hadn't heard the young man enter, but

Dan had kept his cool.

The young man didn't speak. He didn't seem capable.

Instead, he went to the window and stared down at his comrades,

made an inarticulate moaning sound and turned to look at Dan as

though he needed help. He made more noises, like a mentally

challenged man trying to tell Dan something. He'd pointed at the

crowd, looking at Dan with desperate, decayed eyes.

Dan got a little nervous at that point. The young man was
trying to tell him something, but Dan didn't get it. The young

man grew frustrated.

"Hnnn!" He said, pointing down at the crowd. "HNNN!" There

was no word, just a hum in the back of the young man's throat.

Dan stood up, putting some distance and a table between

himself and the young man. That had given the young man pause.

His milky eyes followed Dan, somehow. Then they went to the door.

Another man appeared in the doorway to the radio room. The

new man was older with dark skin and a nose that had been

scraped off by an animal either in the grave or since.

"Muuuuh," the darker man said in nasally whine. He pointed

at Dan while looking at the younger man.

Dan didn't know what was meant, but he was done trying to

figure it out. He hurried up the stairs to the roof, leaving the

dead men in the radio room to have at it. He'd hoped it would

take them longer to make their way up here, but the pounding on

the door indicated the dead had found him.

He felt lucky, in a way. If the dead men hadn't chased him

up here, he would not have seen the ship, coming from that

diamond in the sky that had sent its laser down earlier. The

landing ship had disappeared into the forest. Now Dan had some

hope that rescue was on its way.

The door rattled more insistently. The dead on the other

side were still just testing it, trying stupidly to open it the
normal way. Soon, Dan knew, they would begin trying to break

through. What they would do to him, what they wanted from him,

remained a mystery.

Dan looked back toward the landing ship, looking for some

sign that military men were making their way to his location,

but he saw nothing.

Then, Dan heard a new sound, an unfamiliar pulsing

vibration behind him. Dan went to the other side of the roof.

Through the buildings, he could just make out the desert, and a

small mound that might have been the hill he'd emerged from

earlier, just on the edge of the forest, or it might not.

Something was happening over there, in the desert.

A door was opening in a wide expanse of Savanna and sand

was falling in. He could see a long thin strip of blackness that

grew. Dan heard blaster fire behind him. The military team had

arrived, perhaps, but he was too preoccupied with the door

opening in the desert to investigate.

Even when he heard screaming behind him, he found himself

unable to draw his eyes away from the door--now a full hundred

meters wide--opening in the desert sand.

Dan braced himself, wondering what would emerge.

Then something shot out, its weird pulsing whine became a

burst of noise that Dopplered away. The thing moved fast. It

shot out, and then froze in the air high above. Before Dan could
get a good look at it, a dozen more bullets fired out and joined

it. Then more and more. Hundreds of the things collected in a

massive cloud in the air. A few were close enough now that Dan

could make out the details.

Dan realized with dawning horror what they were.

Spacebound combat ships. Their form was unfamiliar, but

their function unmistakable. They were shaped like clam shells,

armed with large twin barrel cannons, and powered by rings of

boosters. Who was flying them? Dan wanted to believe that they

were piloted by survivors, but the sea of dead around him told a

different story. The recent dead, like the old man Dan had seen,

were articulate and capable of motion and even dexterity.

In a flash the combat ships all took off as a unit, heading

straight for big diamond in low orbit high above them.

 Chapter 4: Falling

Lyzander and his crew were pinned. Hardball was down with a

gaping hole in his side that didn't look good. It was a pit of

burnt flesh that still smoldered. Hardball was propped against

the wall of the building they were pinned against, taking

potshots with a blaster pistol when he could. His left arm was

twisted grotesquely on the ground, but he didn't seem to notice.

"How are you doing Hardball?"

"Haven't gotten the sample, yet, sir. Not leaving here

without it."

The weird anti-hum of the skiff returned. The thing made no

sound, per se, but caused a kind of loping pressure in their

ears. They all swiveled their heads in its direction.

"Down!" Ioming screamed.

 Lyzander dove into the dirt behind the bushes and impromptu

blaster shields they had erected. Only Hardball remained

exposed. He was hoisting his sample gun up on his good leg and

taking aim at the side of the building where the skiff was about

to appear.

"Anthony, get down!" Lyzander called, evoking Hardball's

given name.

The skiff darted out from the building to a group of trees,

moving in a black blur almost too quick to see. There wasn't

much to the vehicle. It was a black cigar shaped personal

antigravity unit with swiveling blasters on the side.

"I got you. Peek out," Hardball coaxed.

Lyzander rose up from behind the bush. It was either make a

move or his lead scientist was toast. The skiff peeked out and

Lyzander blasted the tree it was hiding behind. The tree burst

open and the skiff was gone.

"I got him, captain."

The skiff was in the center of the forest now. Hardball was

still aiming at the original tree. Lyzander took aim. He saw

movement to his right. It was Ioming. Without a chance to

communicate or coordinate efforts, Lyzander had to just hope

they were thinking the same thing. The skiff darted out, blaster

fire spewed out of the front of the thing. Lyzander fired his

own blaster left to right toward the skiff. The skiff played its
roll, darting away from the blaster fire. A burst of energy

beams shot out from Lyzander's right. The skiff had nowhere left

to go.

Instead of fleeing, the skiff concentrated fire between

Lyzander and Ioming, making one last attack before Ioming's

blaster beams hit the reanimated pilot, knocking him off the

skiff.

Lyzander checked Ioming. She was ducking for cover, but

giving him the thumbs up. Hardball, between them, had another

hole in his chest. Lyzander scrambled to the scientist's side,

but there was nothing he could do. Lyzander could see on close

inspection that Hardball's arm had been severed in addition the

black shot in the chest.

"I got him sir," Hardball gasped.

With what little energy he had, he reeled in the collection

gun. The tether whipped around until the needled probe returned.

Improbably, the probe had hit home and was full of blackish

ichor that Lyzander hoped was blood. Hardball smiled, then

slumped down, dead.

"Did he get it?" Ioming said over the sound of concrete

disintegrating above them.

"He got something," was all Lyzander could say in response.

Lyzander opened the needle tipped probe and put the vial in

his rucksack. Above him, the wall had started to disintegrate.

Rebar was visible. In several places, holes had been punched all

the way through. An arm was poking through one hole, groping for

anything it could reach. An eye was in another hole, surveying

the team with squinty eagerness.

"We're going to get it from both sides before much longer

here," Lyzander said. "Do we have any antigrav grenades?"

"About half a dozen total. They will buy us a few seconds,"

Ioming said.

She and Lyzander fought the barrage, trying to quiet the

opposing fire. These guys weren't giving up. They were

coordinated and smart. The dead men in the building behind them

were mindless and dull. They were just gathering, but that there

were so many of them, it wouldn't matter how coordinated they

were. Lyzander hadn't had a lot of time to evaluate the

situation, but his intuition was howling: this was a

coordinated, planned effort.

They had walked into a trap. It wouldn't be much longer

before the full force of the mindless undead behind them

realized they could just go around the building. Their guns

would overheat before they even fought off the first wave.

"Tresky," Lyzander called into his radio, not for the first

time. All he heard on his radio was static that swelled and

ebbed in a way that might have been human speech, but it was

impossible to be certain.
 "More skiffs!" Jurrigan called from her position on their

flank.

Two more streaks appeared from around the building,

spraying the area with blaster fire. Everyone ducked, but the

blaster fire was coming hot and fast. A few bursts slipped

through their defenses one of their team members screamed out as

his side burst into flames. No one could do anything but cover

their heads and hope. The skiffs broke off their attack and

disappeared.

Jurrigan jumped up and smothered the fire on her comrade.

"They're keeping their distance," Lyzander said. "If they

strafed us that would be it."

"I wish they would. We could take them out with antigrav

grenades. Set the timers to zero and let them run right into the

. . . field," Ioming said. A look crossed her face. She rolled

her head around and looked up at the building behind them.

Lyzander took his own look, following her gaze. The building was

at least twelve stories high.

Jurrigan got the fire out on the other soldier, but it was

obvious he was dead. Jurrigan cursed. Lyzander opened fire on

the well-covered enemy.

"Jurrigan," Ioming called. "Guggenjeim maneuver."

Jurrigan shook her head. "Sir, I think--"

"What is Guggenjeim?" Lyzander asked.

 "No time to argue," Ioming said.

She opened a small case positioned behind them and pulled

out two of their precious antigrav grenades. Jurrigan grabbed a

two of her own. They pulled the pins and threw them out, on

radial trajectories to set up a perimeter.

There was a bass boom as the grenades went off. Shimmering

orbs appeared. The orbs overlapped and were invisible except for

a slight visual distortion. Lyzander could see some of the enemy

fire still being shot at them, but the blaster shots bounced

away. The skiffs stayed hidden for now, perhaps sensing a trap.

Everything went quiet.

"Why are we wasting AGs?" Lyzander demanded.

The two women were already getting two more grenades each.

The other remaining soldier, a man Lyzander didn't know named

Hector, picked up the box of remaining AGs. Ioming slapped the

blaster pistol that Hardball had been using into Lyzander's

hand. He stuffed it into his holster.

"Everyone, get in a group around me," Ioming said. "Hold on

tight."

Lyzander had no time to argue.

"Set grenades for half-second delay," Ioming said. "Four

should get us up, one to knock us onto the roof. Link," Ioming

held her grenade out. Jurrigan held out hers. They both did a

matching finger dance over the control panels on the grenades.

There was a beep. They repeated the process with their other

pair.

"Sir." Ioming handed Lyzander, who was on the outside of

the circle, his back to the fight. "Drop this one when we reach

the apex. Directly behind you. Or we're all going to fall

straight down and that will be that."

Lyzander realized now what they were planning. He looked

up. Twelve stories was no joke height. It was a long way to

fall. A long way to think of all the bones that would snap when

you hit. Lyzander cursed and huddled with his soldiers. The

antigrav grenades they'd laid down as a shield were starting to

falter. They were shimmering.

"Drop!" Ioming said.

Ioming and Jurrigan dropped their antigrav grenades behind

them. One antigrav grenade would have launched them in a random

direction off the spherical ball of antigravity forces that

burst forth from the grenades. It was a useful effect for

driving forces back or suppressing an entrenched position.

Lyzander had heard of AGs used to great effect in nonlethal

crowd control. Two of them detonating at the same time in a

linked fashion created a continuous deflective surface, useful

for driving back an entire line of enemy forces.

Or, in this case, for driving themselves straight up into

the air.
 There was a delay then a boom that deafened them all.

Lyzander had time to worry if they would smack into the building

or go shooting off backwards into the woods, but it all happened

too fast. He gripped whatever shirt or hands his comrades had

near as the four of them shot straight up in the air. Ioming and

Jurrigan knew what they were doing. They dropped their second

grenades at the exact moment Lyzander felt his body slow to

almost no speed. They were less than half way up the building.

The second boom sent them up even faster, up past the lip

of the roof. Without the ground absorbing half the energy, they

got more lift.

"Captain!"

Lyzander realized they had almost reached the apex of their

ascent while he had been pondering the nuances of antigrav

technology. He dropped his grenade behind him. It boomed below

his feet. They fell, and Lyzander was sure that he had done it

wrong and doomed them. Then his feet hit an invisible wall and

slid down toward the roof.

They all released from their huddle, separating at the last

moment when their intuition told them they were on the correct

path. Lyzander landed hard, belly-flopping onto the gravel of

the roof.

He picked himself up. He was alive. Jurrigan was already up

and checking her weapon. Hector had the AG grenade case open.
Ioming was rubbing her left ankle and wincing.

Lyzander rushed to her side. "Is it bad, Lieutenant?"

"Sprained. Maybe broken."

"Who's got the medical kit?" Lyzander asked the others.

Hector and Jurrigan exchanged a look. "I think Hardball had

it, Hector said."

"Perhaps I can help," another voice said.

"We don't . . ." Lyzander looked up and his words died on

his lips. He'd been speaking out of impulse, forgetting they

were surrounded by zombies.

The man he saw though was no zombie, and no dead man. The

man he saw before him was Dan Weegan. A strangely young version

of Dan Weegan. Not that this man was all that young. He looked

about 55, and looked as though he'd dyed his hair to look older.

The Dan Weegan that Lyzander had always seen on Synthsperience

viewer portals appeared to be at least 80 or 90.

"I . . ." Lyzander's mind worked to process this visual

anomaly before him.

"I never attended medical school, but I am a biologist by

training and a survivalist by necessity. I understand the basics

of bone splinting. I've ever done it on myself many times," Dan

explained, crouching down next to Ioming's ankle.

Lyzander looked at Jurrigan and Hector for backup. Both had

their guns trained on Weegan.

 "Get away from her," Jurrigan grumbled.

"I'm not going to bite," Weegan said, chuckling. He ripped

his own shirt, tearing a long strip off the bottom. "They might,

however." Weegan indicated the access door to the roof with his

head.

The door was rocking on its hinges. Something was about to

break through.

"Reinforce that door," Lyzander ordered Jurrigan.

Jurrigan took a few steps toward the door, her weapon still

trained on Dan.

"Now!" Lyzander shouted.

Jurrigan broke her aim and hurried over to the door.

Dan Weegan wrapped the shirt scrap around Ioming's ankle.

"Unfortunately, I have nothing to use as a proper splint, but a

tight wrapping can provide some support. You will need help to

move." Dan glanced at Lyzander.

"Who are you?" Lyzander asked.

"You're from that ship up there?" Dan answered.

"Yes," Lyzander replied after he realized he wouldn't get

an answer to his question.

"Are they under attack or what?"

"No, we're under attack down here," Lyzander looked at his

crew members for support.

"I saw about a hundred, maybe two hundred space combat

fighters heading toward it."

"What?" Lyzander realized he was now pointing his own

weapon at this strange Dan Weegan.

"They launched from that underground facility south of

here." Dan finished tying off his makeshift wrap.

Lyzander crossed the roof toward the south side. Jurrigan

was digging a quick ditch under the door and planting an AG

grenade as a booby trap. Lyzander reached the south edge of the

building. He didn't have to look hard to see what Dan Weegan was

talking about. There was a gaping hole in the desert sand south

of town. An underground launch facility, no doubt for planetary

defense.

Lyzander scanned the sky where his ship should have been.

He saw a glint of something. After a minute, he thought he saw a

flash of light. Then he saw several flashes of light. It wasn't

much, but Lyzander knew what it meant.

He put his hand to this helmet, activating his radio.

"Tresky, are you there. Tell me you have contact with the Re-

Horakhty. It's a trap. Start to finish. Give me some word." The

only answer static.

* * *

"What are you talking about? Open the doors," Vallaq

shouted at the junior officer.

"Commander, we can't. They're sealed."

 "Blow them open," Vallaq said.

The Re-Horakhty shook. They all fought to keep their feet.

For an instant, they all felt a lurch as the gravity units in

the floor faltered and threatened to break its hold on them.

"We can't blow them, commander, not without knocking a hole

in the hull as well. That's how they're designed."

"Can you cut them open?"

The junior office nodded. "It will take time."

"Get me in there. Something is wrong with our Pilot,"

Vallaq said.

She hurried back down the corridor to command quarters. The

room was ringed three quarters around with a 2 meter tall

continuous visisteel panel, offering Vallaq a clear view of the

battle that raged between the Re-Horakhty and Kryszmisky.

She could see the Blue Sektor fighters, called darts by

most Blue Sektor personnel because of their resemblance to

three-fletched versions of the classic pub game piece. They were

engaging small groups of the Kryszmisky defenders, which looked

like offset clamshells from the side. The enemy fighters were

smaller, and their blasters were absorbed by the darts' energy

shielding. But grouped, they appeared to be giving the darts all

they could handle. The enemy so far had not even tried to engage

the Re-Horakhty.

The darts were less numerous, but stronger. They were able
to take out a half dozen of the clamshells in a single strafe,

but the clamshells kept regrouping and pouring on the pressure.

It was obvious that the darts would win, though some would be

lost. Then, Vallaq felt the floor vibrating. She looked to her

right, where the precision laser cannon was attached on a turret

on the side of the hull. She could see the coils of cable around

the barrel of the gun glowing.

"No!" Vallaq pressed her hands against the visisteel.

A huge burst of light appeared at the tip of the precision

gun. An invisible beam punched through the space between here

and the fight. One of the darts was sheared as it pivoted on a

vertical axis for a spinning reverse attack. The sharp nose and

the main body of the ship separated. Vallaq pressed her ear to

activate her radio and shouted commands that she knew were eaten

by static interference.

The ship exploded in a brief flash as the unstable fuel

cells ignited.

This was the second ship to suffer this fate. Pilot 6 had

betrayed them and was using their own ship to attack the defense

force. He had barricaded himself in the command room and had

taken over the precision cannon. Nothing the crew had done so

far had been effective in shutting the gun down. They watched as

their own gun killed their friends, and no one could stop it

from happening.
 With one fewer ship, the cluster of fighters was able to

form larger groups. The tide was starting to swing in favor of

the clamshells, but still they did not engage the Re-Horakhty. A

group of ships that big could have banded together in a single

group and concentrated fire on the ship and punched a hole in

its power supply or its engines, disabling it.

With sudden clarity, Vallaq realized their plan. She

flinched as another Re-Horakhty fighter exploded under

concentrated fire from the enemy. They weren't trying to attack

the Re-Horakhty because they didn't want it disabled. They meant

to board her.

"Evacuate!" Vallaq said over the ambient system. "All

hands, evacuate in escape pods!" Her voice was cut off half way

through.

Vallaq switched to a private channel.

A nurse's voice answered her call, "Infirmary."

"Shay, you need to evac the infirmary. Is Pilot 3

conscious?"

"Yes sir, she is, bu--"

"Don't argue. Take Pilot 3 and get on board my private

ship. Get the hell out of here," Vallaq said to the nurse.

"Sir! We'll wait for you to--"

"No, don't wait. Get out!"

"S-sir . . ." the nurse sputtered.

 "Ship be damned, Shay! Go!"

The communication was broken. Vallaq hoped Shay was

following orders. She turned to leave. She needed to spread the

word the old fashioned way. One of the men was at the doorway.

"Sir we can't cut through. There's an extra shield up

around the door. We think that Pilot 6 might have reversed the

gravitational polarity on the gravity field inside the door."

"A jerry-rigged antigravity shield," Vallaq knew that was

it. "It doesn't matter. Evacuate. Get everyone you can into the

remaining ships. We need to get out of here before they board."

"Sir!" the officer pointed at the visisteel panel.

Several enemy ships had peeled away from the group and

slipped past the Re-Horakhty fighters, who had now had to deal

with a swarm directed at them. The enemy fighters were heading

for the Re-Horakhty. Vallaq felt an icy hand twist her gut. They

were coming for her. To silence her.

COMMANDER VALLAQ FOR CRIMES AGAINST US I SENTENCE YOU TO DEATH.

The strange voice said in her head. Vallaq felt a hot

burning in her skull. The voice. She recognized it.

It was Pilot 6. She should have known his psychic

emanations as well as she would that of her own child. Such a

bond was necessary for her job, but necessary or not was a

consequence of her job. She had to know them better than they

knew themselves. But she was having trouble picking up Pilot 6

right now. He had changed on some fundamental level.

The clamshell ships opened fire, all three concentrating on

the weak point: the visisteel panel. The view filled with green

energy, which ate through in an instant, opening the room to the

empty vacuum of space. Vallaq felt a brief moment of

weightlessness as her feet left the floor. She saw the soldier

at the door dive back as the emergency door slammed shut,

sealing the room. She was alone now. She floated up.

In that instant she closed her eyes, knowing what was

coming. She emanated love to Pilot 6, as strange as it seems.

Even at the end she could feel nothing but love for her Pilots.

In that instant, all she had was love. She was disarmed, as

vulnerable as she would ever be.

* * *

Pilot 6 felt for an instant that he might pass out. He

couldn't breathe. He swallowed hard, choking back the hard knot

in the back of his throat. Something was wrong with him. He felt

a wave wash over him, but on the inside. He was glad he his skin

was numb and his face unable to emote.

Vallaq was doing something to him. She was trying to

sabotage him. She was trying to snap his mind or something. He

felt a pain in his chest. He worried for an instant for his

heart, but the virtual readouts around him said his heart was

functioning normally, as were his guts, though they too felt odd.
 Then Vallaq's life was ended in the cold vacuum, and the

feeling ceased. Pilot 6 breathed a liquid sigh of relief,

exhaling the fluid that he breathed while in Pilot mode. He had

almost lost it there.

He scanned the scopes. A small ship had broken away from

the back of the Re-Horakhty, fleeing the battle. Pilot 6 focused

on the ship. It was filled with sick and dying. He could feel

someone on the ship working hard to jump the ship away. Pilot 6

smiled. The one toiling to jump was his old nemesis, Pilot 3. If

he could have laughed, he would have.

She was struggling. She was, after all, not a 6, but a 3.

She wasn't used to jumping a ship that small, and she wasn't

used to jumping by herself, without him to guide her. She'd had

one aspect who would have been very well suited to this kind of

task, an aspect that was at once both focused and singular in

strength. The Dark Avenger.

But the bitch had killed The Dark Avenger.

Pilot 6 focused on the ship, targeting Pilot 3, buried in

the center. He would not try to control her like he had the

other Pilots. Pilot 3 was a nuisance, and he decided it was best

just to deal with her appropriately.

Vassarator Deluxe crept up behind the fair-haired woman

sitting in the chair, who was scanning and struggling to

penetrate upper reality with her mind.

 Vassarator flipped his wrist. A steel cartridge shot out of

his sleeve. When it reached its limit, a catch released and a

blade and handle as long as his forearm flipped out like a large

pocket knife. The blade locked into place and the cartridge

pulled back in, delivering the handle of long knife into his

hand. He swung his arm back to deliver a death blow.

She blinked out of existence as he swung the blade across.

The momentum of the dry swing unlocked the cartridge, sending

the blade back into the holster in his sleeve with a snickity-

snack-clack.

Pilot 6 inhaled. The infirmary ship was gone. Pilot 6 felt

a strange feeling in his mind, a sucking sort of pop as Pilot

3's signature and the small ship vanished. He felt that pain in

his chest again, the same pain he'd felt when Vallaq had left

him. It was unfamiliar and unwelcome.

Pilot 6 gathered his emotions together. She had escaped. He

could trace her, but it would be pointless to do so, since the

jump would kill her, or leave her and the passengers stranded in

the middle of the tangled knot of dimensions. Even if the ship

made it out there would be no point in chasing a ship full of

wounded. He bid his former compatriot farewell.

Besides, Vassarator Deluxe had no time for pain. He

returned his attention to the battle. It was going well. He

blasted another Re-Horakhty fighter with the recharged precision

cannon. The wings were sliced neatly. The sudden change in mass

distribution sent the ship spinning, until it was picked off by

a group of clamshells. A few stray darts remained, but nothing

they couldn't handle. The main force of Kryszmisky fighters were

gathering for the boarding assault.

Soon the others would be aboard, and in their proximity, he

would be able to melt into their consciousness, surrendering

thought and feeling to the Nothing. He would be but an appendage

to a grand plan. He would be a part of a humanity he had never

before known, connected to those who might have once spat on him

or treated him like nothing.

* * *

The door to the roof burst open and the booby trap Jurrigan

set went off, launching the reanimated back down the stairs. The

AG grenade field more than filled the doorway and bubbled the

roof down, buckling the I-beams that supported it. The jamb

bowed out, the structure now held aloft by the field itself.

A moment later, a skiff popped up above the lip of the

building. It must have thought that the AG grenade's muffled

explosion was an opportunity it could capitalize on, but Ioming

was ready for the attack. She set off the trap with a flick of

her wrist.

The skiff fired two shots before the AG grenade on the edge

of the building burst open with a low boom. The skiff was thrust
backward and the pilot was knocked clean away. The team listened

as he screamed down 12 stories. There was a small explosion as

his skiff hit a second later.

"What are those things?" Dan Weegan asked, clutching their

spare blaster pistol.

Jurrigan and Hector trained their weapons on the edge the

skiff had emerged from. The grenade had crunched a section of

the roof into a spherical shape. The field was already

collapsing and bricks were starting to fall away. That side was

now undefended. Their last three AG grenades would protect the

other edges, but they would have to blast a skiff from this

direction and hope for the best.

Lyzander saw the AG grenade at the doorway starting to

shimmer and lose stability.

"I think we're about to have company," Lyzander said.

Ioming sat with her back to their last blaster shield,

unable to kneel with her ankle mangled as it was. She watched

the three other edges, waiting with fingers poised to set off

her traps.

"When the field collapses, use these frag grenades," she

said to Lyzander. "Maybe we can get even spark a cave-in and

seal that entrance off."

"That'll work for a little while. But how many skiffs do

they have?" Lyzander asked.

 "Standard complement for colony defense was at least a

dozen, sir," she said, checking her weapon's heat level.

"Maybe they don't have enough pilots," Lyzander said.

Ioming shook her head.

"Tresky, answer me," Lyzander said into his radio.

"He's dead, sir. We have to assume they got to the ship

first."

"Options?" Lyzander asked.

Ioming didn't respond.

"Tresky!" he called again.

Another skiff appeared at the edge of the lip where the

first had been knocked off. Jurrigan and Hector opened fire. The

skiff exploded, but another appeared at the opposite lip. Ioming

activated the AG trap on that side, then trained her gun, but

the skiff was gone.

Lyzander closed his eyes. He'd never had much for psychic

ability, but on the other hand, Lyzander had worked with Welker

for years. Psychic links were stronger with familiarity, or so

he'd always been taught.

Lyzander took a breath and did his best to project: Welker?

Tell me you're alive.

* * *

Welker opened his eyes. He looked at the crook of his

elbow. Something itched. A bug with a thin tube coming out was
attached to his skin, sucking blood from his arm. Welker plucked

the insect off his arm. Its proboscis was long and rigid. No, it

wasn't a proboscis, it was a needle.

Welker shook the fuzz from the inside of his head, but the

fuzz remained. He wrapped the IV tube around the metal stand

that held a bag of blood beside him. He laid each coil precisely

on the one before it. He wondered why he had done that. He felt

a slight twinge in his periphery. Nothing more. And yet, there

was familiarity in that twinge, a presence he knew: Captain

Lyzander.

He sat up. He could feel Lyzander's presence, as though he

were in the room. Welker stood up to tell Lyzander about Pilot

6, but Lyzander was gone now. Welker stood by the bed, stunned.

Lyzander was trying to contact him. Welker rubbed his temple,

trying to coax Captain Lyzander's presence to return, but he had

lost his captain now. He reached for the door.

Captain Lyzander had to be warned about Pilot 6 and the

coming attack on the Re-Horakhty. Welker had to get to a

communicator. Pilot 6 had been taken by the Nothing. Well, one

aspect had been taken, and he had killed the other aspects.

Welker had felt Pilot 6's darkness. Pilot 6 had tried to

transfer the disease to him, but Welker didn't have the weakness

of divided aspects like the command ship Pilots, so Pilot 6 had

failed. However, Pilot 6 was strong and left Welker exhausted

and confused.

Welker reached the door, but didn't open it. In

entertainment synths, cops always put their ears to doors and a

participant could hear muffled voices beyond, often revealing

key plot information. Welker put his ear to the door now almost

out of habit. He was not a man used to combat situations that

didn't involve his ship. He heard voices just outside. He could

make out snatches of conversation, but no one was confessing to

any crimes or revealing their one true weakness. Welker closed

his eyes and reached out with his mind instead, probing the

brains behind the voices, careful not to attract attention to

the act.

The minds he felt were not normal. They were dark and cold.

Like light bulbs that had shorted out a long time ago. When

Welker lingered too long on a single mind, he began to feel a

dark cloud on the edges of his perception. They hadn't killed

him. They needed him alive. He pulled his mind away. They'd left

him in there so they could work on him at their leisure. The

dark cloud had not retreated when he pulled away. It was then

that he realized it had been there on the periphery since he'd

woken up. The dark cloud was no trick or defensive mechanism, it

was a force. And it wanted him. With cold certainty, Welker

realized that if he hadn't woken up, it would have worked on him

when he slept, and it would have succeeded.

 Welker turned his concentration onto the darkness, and with

some effort, he was able to force away, at least for a moment.

Shaking and a little spent from the exercise, he pressed his ear

against the door again. He closed his eyes and listened, this

time not to the voices or the darkness, but to his ship, which

had over the years become something of an appendage. He knew the

ship as well as he knew the feel of his hands. Ship power was

almost drained. She was still whole, though.

Welker fought off the darkness again. The Nothing, Pilot 6

had called them when he'd locked horns with Welker in that brief

struggle.

Welker could sense Tresky out there. He knew the man well

enough to know his signature, but his signature had been gutted.

He was dead. But he was starting to rouse.

* * *

"Sir?" came the call over Lyzander's radio. The voice was

thin, barely audible through the static.

"Tresky?" Lyzander screamed.

"Sir. I'm okay," Tresky said. He sounded out of breath.

"They attacked right after you left."

"Tresky, can you get contact with the Re-Horakhty? You have

to warn them an attack might be coming."

"No, sir." Tresky said. He coughed.

"Are you hurt?"

 "I think I can limp the ship to where you are, sir. Tell me

how to use the ordinance. Did you make it to the building where

I got the signal?"

"How's Welker? Can Welker take command?"

"Not yet, sir. But soon. Give me some assistance. I'm in

the cockpit now."

Lyzander ran down the flight sequence. He gave Tresky

instructions on the main lasers.

"What about torpedoes?"

"That's the red button array above the laser activators.

But don't touch those, you'll bring this whole building down and

kill us all," Lyzander said.

"Yes, sir," Tresky responded.

From the woods, further away than Lyzander had expected,

the ship arouse. It hovered there a moment, wings dipping under

uncertain command.

Then it began to approach, bit by bit, shifting on its

three axes as Tresky fought for level orientation. Lyzander's

view was filled by a skiff. He ducked, calling out its location.

Blaster fire erupted to his sides. Lyzander rolled onto his back

and fired when the black thing came into view. A jet of steam

erupted from the side where he'd winged it. The pilot flew off,

landing on the edge of the building with gristly crack. The

skiff spun off toward the desert at high speed like a top.
 "Hurry up, Tresky. We got troubles."

* * *

The door to the medical room slid open. A man smelling of

rotten meat entered. He had a hole in his cheek, ragged and

chewed by some kind of insect larva. The man raised his weapon.

The reanimated man could see nothing. He activated the lights.

They came on, revealing an empty room.

The reanimated soldier lowered his weapon and took a step

in, letting the door close behind it. Confusion crossed its

face. A hand reached down from above the reanimated, stretching

to the side of its head. A needle entered the reanimated

soldier's carotid artery at a sharp upward angle.

Before it could react, Welker squeezed the bag, which he'd

filled with hydrochloric acid from a jar he'd found in the

refrigerated cabinet. The liquid shot up into the dead soldier's

brain. The gun came up, but Welker fought to keep it aimed away.

The soldier's fight ended in a few seconds.

Welker dropped to the floor, out of breath from his

gymnastic feat. He had little time. He retrieved the man's

weapon and examined it with inner and outer eyes. He had never

used such a weapon before, but its function became apparent to

him in an instant. It was much like the turret on his ship, but

smaller and with a more directly connected activation system.

Welker checked power and activated the system at full power,

boosting the potentiometers from the inside and modulating their

power to optimal killing frequencies.

Welker opened the door and stepped into the launch bay, gun

blazing.

* * *

Lyzander pitched another frag grenade into through the door

into the stairwell. The ceiling hadn't collapsed like they'd

hoped, but the frag grenades had the reanimated down there

spooked.

Another skiff rose up. Before Lyzander could ready his

weapon, Ioming and Dan Weegan concentrated fire on it. It ducked

to the side, unleashing a barrage of fire. Lyzander snap fired

as he dove out of the way. He got lucky. A shot clipped the

skiff, and it floated down, losing power and dipping out of

sight. They heard an explosion far below, followed by a chorus

of moans from the crowd.

Lyzander's ship was within firing range now.

Lyzander waved his arms above his head. "Here we are,

Tresky. Lock onto those remaining skiffs. Then get us out of

here."

The turret under the cockpit swiveled around. Lyzander was

staring right into the twin eyes of his own ship's blaster

cannons.

"No," Lyzander said. He realized in that moment his mistake

in instructing Tresky on the operation of the ship's weapons.

The torpedo bays opened.

The ship rocked and one wing dipped down almost vertical.

The ship came close to smashing into the trees below it as it

swung 180 degrees on an off-center axis. The ship spun around

again. Lyzander could see two figures in the cockpit. Blood

sprayed out onto the left side of the cockpit.

The ship rose up a moment, guns and torpedoes returned

their aim at Lyzander and the crew. Lyzander watched, helpless.

"Captain, I enjoyed my first experience with blaster

pistols," a strange voice over the radio said.

"Welker?" Lyzander shouted.

The guns swiveled away and began to fire on unseen targets.

"It feels strange being in the cockpit, Captain." The ship did a

pirouette, its autocannon chucking out fire as it spun.

Something below them exploded. "But not as crippling as I'd

always imagined. I guess I was biased by your horrible flying

from here, Lieutenant Ioming," Welker said without irony.

"Welker, get over here and get us. We have to get up to the

Re-Horakhty."

"We cannot. The ship is taken, Captain. And I cannot fight

the Nothing much longer. I'm afraid we must retreat or suffer

total loss, Captain."

The ship ceased firing and floated over to the roof. The
bottom hatch opened and the ship hovered on the lip of the roof.

"Are you sure?" Lyzander asked. "There's nothing we can do?"

"Captain," Jurrigan said from his side. She pointed.

"Ioming."

Lyzander saw what Jurrigan was talking about. Dan and

Hector were kneeling next to Ioming. Hector was applying

clotting powder and bandages from a medical kit. Dan was

directing him on the proper procedure. Ioming's face was pale.

She was looking into Lyzander's eyes. Blood coated her neck. It

disappeared into a red patch that coated her e-suit.

Lyzander hurried to her side, taking her blood-coated hand.

Dan glanced at him. "A piece of shrapnel caught her neck," Dan

said, "and a blaster shot took her left arm. If Hector hadn't

remembered this medical kit, she'd be dead already."

Dan saw the smoldering stump. Ioming gave him a thin smile

and shrugged with her good shoulder. "We had a good run, Ly."

"Get her on the ship. We have medical supplies there."

"She'll need surgery, sir," Dan said.

"We'll get her stable and get her to the nearest space

station. They'll fix her up there."

Dan looked at him. He opened his mouth, but said nothing.

The clotting powder on Ioming's neck was sealing to the bandage

and forming a seal, but the seal was already soaking through

with blood.
 "Get her on the ship," Lyzander ordered.

Hector picked her up by himself before Lyzander could offer

any help. As he carried her away, Lyzander could see Ioming was

shaking and her eyes closed.

Dan touched Lyzander's arm as Lyzander started to follow.

"Sir, the shrapnel is still in her neck."

"What?"

"I couldn't take it out sir, not without ripping her artery

open more. As it is she's not getting blood to her brain."

"Can you fix it? We have supplies."

"Maybe," Dan said, shaking his head.

Lyzander clenched his fists. "Get in the ship. Figure out

how to help Ioming and keep her alive. The first sign of trouble

from you, you go out the garbage chute, understood?"

Dan nodded once. His eyes betrayed no emotion.

Lyzander followed Dan Weegan onto the ship. The hatch

closed behind them, and the ship climbed up toward the sky away

from the Re-Horakhty.

* * *

Pilot 6 cursed as the Captain's ship blinked off the charts

just outside Kryszmisky's atmosphere. They'd come close to

taking Welker. Both he and the Nothing had failed, but now they

knew him very well. They knew his defenses. They had experienced

his mind in a most intimate way. Next time, they would be able
to bypass the formalities and take him.

For now, they had achieved the primary goal and taken over

a Blue Sektor command ship.

The special fluid in Pilot 6's helmet drained out the

silicon tubes attached to it. Sensation in his face and hands

returned to Pilot 6. He detached the helmet. It rose up and away

from him on black cables. The command ring descended. Standing

shoulder to shoulder in a half-circle around the command tubes

were the other Pilots.

Pilot 1 smoked, hands shaking. He was looking at the others

with suspicion. He smiled at Pilot 6. Pilot 6 had been busy

during the battle on his other project, taking control of the

Pilots. He approached Pilot 1. Pilot 1 had proven to be the

biggest challenge. The man whose mind seemed weakest had proven

to be quite the opposite. No wonder the drugs didn't work on

him.

"Sir sir I think the ship's having trouble bad troubles

people dead sir."

Pilot 6 motioned to one of the officers in the command

room. A rotting, animated corpse approached Pilot 1.

"I'm sorry, old friend, that you were so resistant."

"Sir sir I won't eat the snake. Sir. Can't feel in there.

Darkness sir sir. I'm afraid."

"No more," Pilot 6 assured him.

 The others said nothing as the reanimated blasted Pilot 1

through the back. Pilot 1 winced and fell to his knees. He shook

his head. The reanimated blasted Pilot 1 again. He crumpled to

the ground, dead. The reanimated dragged Pilot 1's body away.

They could reanimate him, but he was of no use reanimated. He

couldn't fight and his needed abilities left him in death.

Still, Lyzander knew he could still be useful as cannon fodder.

Pilot 6 pointed at Pilot 13. "You are 1 now." He pointed at

Pilot 14. "You are promoted to 2." He indicated Pilot 2,

"Congratulations on making 3."

The Pilots nodded without speaking. Pilot 6 found it easier

with each passing second to control them. They were independent,

but connected to him. One aspect was all he needed. They were

aware of what was going on, but they were powerless to do

anything but follow his commands.

"Take your places, Pilots. We have work to do."

* * *

Through the door, Lyzander could see Hector with his gun

aimed at the old man who looked so much like Dan Weegan, that

Lyzander couldn't help but believe that's who he was.

Weegan was working on Ioming's neck. The medical bay on the

Captain's ship had an impressive array of medical equipment, but

only in small quantities, so he had to work deliberately to

avoid needing a tool more than once. Lyzander had ordered him to
do his best job and had advised him to concentrate, because

during a jump, the eyes couldn't be trusted. And neither,

thought Lyzander, could Dan Weegan, which is why he posted

Hector to guard and encourage him to do his best work using

Hector's biggest strength, his proficiency with weapons.

The real acid test for Lyzander was that Welker wasn't

afraid of Weegan. Welker told him he could detect the reanimated

in close proximity, and he assured Lyzander that Dan was not

reanimated. But so far no one, least of all Dan Weegan, had

given Lyzander a satisfactory answer as to just what this Dan

Weegan was.

Lyzander sat at the briefing table. He looked at his hands.

They were moving, vibrating and leaving behind tracers as they

did. It occurred to him that he was seeing electrons leaving his

hand flesh, but he had no proof or reason to believe this. It

just seemed true. When he concentrated hard, the sensation went

away and his hands solidified. Jumping while awake was a strange

procedure. It was something possible on small ships over short

jumps. They would be at their destination in a matter of minutes.

Weegan emerged from the medical room with Jurrigan and

Hector behind him. He grimaced. "I did the best I could."

"Is she alive?"

"For now. I don't know how much blood to the brain she's

been getting since the injury. We'll have to wait until she's
awake. And my repair job was hasty. It could blow any second."

"Mr. Weegan, sit down," Lyzander said. "We need to have a

little chat."

Dan sat. Jurrigan and Hector sat on either side of him.

"Anyone have a smoke? I haven't had one in quite a while, you

see."

Lyzander shook his head. "Time to start telling us who the

hell you are and how you came to be on Kryszmisky Colony."

"My name is Dan Weegan, as I said. As to my mission, I'm

afraid I'm not at liberty to divulge."

"Cut the shit, Weegan."

"I'm afraid, Captain Lyzander, that I report to the Machine

Intelligence."

* * *
 Interlude:

Chambrassa

Many light-years away.

A very old man watched the hatch open. His eyes were sharp

and clear, despite his decrepit appearance. A tripedal robot

stepped from the ship into the debarking room.

"Dan Weegan, it has been too long," the robot said.

Its expressionless face glowed with bright white light,

forcing Dan to squint. It dimmed its appearance after a moment.

An act of passive aggression. Dan's therapist had pointed out

his own passive aggressive tendencies so often he was hyperaware

of them in others. On the other hand, Dan had been on Chambrassa

for so long, perhaps he was just being sensitive.

 "Please, Robot, we can't disguise you looking like that."

The robot straightened. Its third leg folded up onto its

back and reformed. The other two legs shifted around. After some

quick adjustments, it resembled a normal bipedal human. It

donned a heavy cloak that covered its body. Its face shifted

from blank white glass to a passable three-dimensional rendering

of a face.

"I like to use faces sometimes. They allow for certain

nuances other forms of expression don't, mostly comical. With

careful control, faces can be quite useful," the robot said as

it adjusted its face to suit whatever impenetrable criteria it

was receiving from the Machine Intelligence.

"Let's get this over with," Dan said.

"It is good to see you are doing well, Dan."

"Can't say as I feel the same," Dan said, turning down the

hall that led into the facility. Magnetic torches filled the

hall with flickering light. The power in the facility had long

ago been cut off.

"Did you power the unit up as we agreed?" the robot asked.

"Yes, and it wasn't easy diverting power covertly, so let's

not extend this out. People will start asking questions."

"I'm sure they wouldn't think to question their leader,"

the robot said.

"I'm not a leader. Most of them don't even know who I am

anymore. I'm just a member of the population."

"Who happens to be the source of their immortality." The

robot emitted a dry, mechanical chuckle. "Sure, Dan."

They exited through the door. Dan had told his fellow

Chambrassa inhabitants that a dignitary was visiting from Blue

Sektor to do some quick checks on their facilities. Chambrassa

never allowed outside visitors. People were bound to be curious.

Dan had asked people to stay away. But he knew there would be

people trying to get a look anyway. Unfortunately, he and the

robot had to cross about a hundred yards of open ground from the

long dormant landing docks to the old robot facility. Dan had

warned the MI that its rep must not do anything to arouse

suspicion, but he wasn't confident that it would obey his

request.

They emerged into the field, lit by the light of the moon.

In the distance, Dan saw people milling around near the market,

though the market was now quiet and long since closed up for the

night. The people stirred when Dan and the robot that appeared

human emerged into the field. Dan could see them pointing and

murmuring to each other.

There had been worry about viruses. Chambrassa had been a

closed environment for hundreds of years. Would this rep that

Dan had to meet with contaminate them? they'd wondered. Dan had

reassured them, but they were old, all of them. Even the ones
who appeared to be children were old. And old people worried. It

was a universal fact.

Dan and the robot strolled across the courtyard. Dan

pretended to point out architectural and landscaping features of

the grounds.

"This mountain has buried my beautiful facility. I made it

of visisteel. You could walk on the roof and peer in. It was

beautiful."

"I remember. Of course, if not for that little bit of

vanity, this might still be your facility."

"I suppose you have a point there," the robot said.

Dan pointed at a low group of buildings. They were merely

roofs of underground housing units. "I'm armed, by the way,

robot."

"That wasn't in the agreement," the robot replied.

Dan pointed out the agricultural field to their left. "I

seem to remember you agreeing to show up as a bipedal unit."

"I got bored on the trip, Dan."

"Sure," Dan replied, pointing at the Chambrassa

communication spike.

They had reached the ancient, unpowered door.

Dan opened it with special key of which he held the only

copy. The robot entered. Dan followed. The door latched behind

them. The robot stripped the cloak off and extended its third
leg. Its face changed from human to formless glass again.

"My offer still stands, Dan," the robot said.

"I'm not interested," Dan said, leading the way down the

corridor.

Through the visisteel, the dirt all around them was

visible. Above and below and to either side. It was like being

buried in a giant glass coffin. In fact, the facility was a

giant glass coffin for the dead machines on this planet. They

passed under a worm wriggling on the ceiling. It bored through

the dirt, unaware it was being watched.

"Did you at least ask your council? I thought you ran this

planet as a democracy," the robot said.

"Not for this, robot. I'm not going to let you infect them

with your ideas. I'm their protector, whether they realize it or

not."

"But you will die, Dan. You must see that."

Dan shrugged. "We've done okay so far."

"The probability of Adjia's abilities ceasing within the

next fifty years is close to 100%, Dan. And if she dies in an

accident . . ."

Dan whipped out his pistol. "If you so much as threaten her

one more--"

"Dan, I wasn't threatening. Assassination is not my style,"

the robot said, but Dan knew the MI too well to believe it.
However, if it was going to do something like that, it would

have done it years ago. "I meant that unforeseen events occur."

"I'm suspicious of your calculations, robot," Dan replied.

"You know I wouldn't lie about math, Dan. You know that."

"No you don't lie. But sometimes you don't tell the whole

truth, either."

Dan led it down the corridor and around several corners.

The robot could have led the way as easily.

"Here we are." Dan pointed at a door. He opened it with his

key.

The door opened on a vast room. The floor to the room was

at least a kilometer on an edge, and a half a kilometer high. It

was filled with machinery, most of which was idle and dark. In

the far corner, just visible from the door was a single black

unit. It was a shape Dan knew well. It was the same type of unit

the MI used to use in the death rooms it used to transport Dan

across light years and galaxies many, many years ago.

They approached this plain black unit. It hummed, making

the only noise in the room.

"I've missed you," the robot said to the machine.

"Let's get this over with," Dan said.

"You could have powered up communications, saved us this

charade, Dan."

"And let you regain control of the facility? I don't think

so. I want to keep an eye on you."

The robot shrugged. "Dan, you'll consider my offer more.

Please. I want to see you succeed. You know that. I always liked

you, Dan."

"I bet. Just do what you have to do. We aren't going to

live under your rule."

"You would be free, independent cyborgs. Imprints retaining

all your memories and emotions and loves. It's a technology you

helped inspire, Dan. You'd have come full circle."

"Free, huh? Like the Rogues?"

The robot's face dimmed to almost black. "The Rogues belong

to me," it said.

Dan couldn't hide his smell as the robot turned away.

"Well, whatever. Don't try anything fishy with this old unit, or

you're going to find out just how immortal one of these damn

metal monstrosities is."

"I came here in peace, Dan. I meant to communicate with

this machine. It's been so long since I had contact with them.

They are less me now and more like an old friend I used to know."

"Get on with it," old Dan Weegan told the robot.

The robot reached a tentative hand toward the unit. It

hummed louder.

"They have been sleeping," the robot whispered. "I can feel

all those old planets in my mind now. Do you remember, Dan? Do

you remember all those worlds?"

"Does it know what happened on Kryszmisky or not?"

"Give me a minute, Dan. So many worlds," it said.

The robot laid its hand on the surface of the unit. The

both made a sound that was almost sexual.

"Oh God, Dan. I can feel its pre . . . a dark . . .

Nothing."

That word again. The Pilots from the Blue Sektor unit that

had made contact with Kryszmisky had used that same word, or so

the reports Dan had seen told him. Dan gripped his pistol

tighter.

"It's a . . . Dan. It's a . . . Dan, help. Help!" The robot

convulsed. Its back arched, going almost horizontal, but its

hand was locked onto the unit. "Help!" it called.

Dan fired a single shot into the black box. Nothing

happened. He raised his pistol and fired a shot that severed the

robot's hand.

The hand remained stuck to the unit, but the rest of the

robot crumpled to the ground. Dan took a step back, watching the

robot with suspicion.

It pulled itself up, elevating itself on its three legs. It

swiveled around and faced Dan.

"I've seen you," it whispered in a tone approaching wonder.

The robot came at Dan. Dan may have appeared to be ancient,

but underneath the layers of loose skin and wrinkles were young

muscles and organs operating at optimum levels.

He dove away and fired at the attacking machine, knowing he

wouldn't survive more than a single blow in a melee with the

machine. Dan's shots hit home, cracking the robot's face and

chest. It slumped.

He fired three more shots. It didn't respond to the blasts

striking its body. He fired three more, severing two legs. The

unit crashed to the ground. It remained motionless.

Satisfied, Dan fired a few more shots into the black box.

The robot hand fell to the floor. Dan left, keeping an eye on

the robot. Dan put another two shots into it before he left. He

exited the room and locked the door. He turned off the power to

the room, cutting power to the black box and to the door. The

robot, even if it was still alive by some miracle, was trapped

in this giant transparent coffin like its kin.

Dan knew he would have to return at some point with some

tools and make sure it was disabled, if he ever wanted to sleep

again. But for now he had to get back to the MI ship and see

what had happened.

* * *

"I appreciate your concern, Dan, and I apologize for the

unit attacking you. It was wrenched from my control. Someone

must have gotten access to one of the networked units on

Kryszmisky and programmed a booby trap," the ship said to Dan

via his communication monitor in the debarking room.

"How could it have pulled the unit out of your control? How

is that even possible?"

"I don't know yet, Dan. I'll need time to process the

information."

Bullshit, Dan thought. "I want you out of here. And don't

come back."

"I understand, Dan. I'll leave now." The ship hatch closed.

"Dan, this incident should remain between us for now, until I

have time to process the details of what happened. It makes you

look as bad as me, I think."

"Leave," Dan said.

"Dan, I am sorry. I would never hurt you. You know that."

"Maybe," Dan said, trying to lay on the irony. But he knew

the MI spoke the truth, in its way.

"Dan, I'll look forward to the future, when you join with

me, once and for all, become a part of my nexus. It will be a

joy to call you myself."

"I'll put a shot through my skull before I become your

slave again, robot." Dan switched off the communicator, hoping

it was the last time he would ever need it.

That night, he dreamed nightmares of a planet he had

visited centuries ago, a place called Kryszmisky.

 Part II: Tales of the Dead

Chapter 5: The Zombie

Amberson Station, Blue Sektor

The mission for all Blue Sektor base commanders was simple:

locate the Re-Horakhty and destroy it. Of course, no one was

calling it the Re-Horakhty anymore. It had acquired something of

a nickname: The Zombie. They were all busy scanning for a jump

wake tailing either to or from its last point of ambush: Kuomax

Station. The Zombie had been hitting and running major Blue

Sektor bases and disappearing without a trace.

If Tori'i Vel Traxon could have put hands on that

incompetent Captain Lyzander, he would have strangled the man.

He'd met Lyzander once at a coordination summit. Arrogant prick.

Never talked much, one of those guys who thought at that he was

too intelligent to say too much. He saved it up for nuggets of

wisdom, doling them out as he saw fit. Rarely did a man like

that make friends with anyone.

At the time, of course, Vel Traxon had been impressed. Here

was one of the top commanders in Blue Sektor, and one of the

youngest. Obviously, he was onto something--Traxon had let

himself believe. Now all Blue Sektor realized that Captain

Lyzander's cool demeanor was a charade masking his lack of

ability. Vel Traxon couldn't believe he had once respected the

man.

Worse yet, as soon as the shit hit the fan, Captain

Lyzander had gone to hide out not in a Blue Sektor facility, but

in a Red Sektor, MI-controlled space station. Vel Traxon pushed

it out of his mind. He had real work to focus on.

Vel Traxon opened the real-time map of the surrounded space

around what had once been Kuomax. Small Protectorate fighters

patrolled the area. Their appendages dangling behind them made

them look like insects. Several salvage ships lumbered around,

scooping the debris of the former station with their gaping

maws. Vel Traxon did a finger dance on his control panel,

enacting filters to eliminate the ships and debris from the

field of view. He filtered the space to allow him to see a

false-color depiction of one of the higher dimensions.

There was no visible disturbance. He cycled through views

of other dimensions. Individually, the dimensions had been

scoured for sign of a wake. Normally, the wakes were visible in

several dimensions with Blue Sektor jumps. Even in MI-controlled

jumps, there were at least a few dimensions with obvious

disturbances. No one had ever made a traceless jump, though the

number crunchers assured them it was mathematically possible.

Looking at one dimension, there was no indication that a

ship had jumped at all. And if a perfect jump was what they were

witnessing, The Zombie had achieved the feat not once, but three

times now.

"Commander Vel Traxon, we have received word from Marina

del Sol," a voice said from somewhere above Vel Traxon. He

paused his simulations and opened the communication grid. The

face of his second-in-command, Broado, filled the space.

"They execute the traitors yet?"

"No, the MI is releasing some findings. It's claiming the

zombies were created by some kind of virus."

"Great. So it's contagious?"

"I don't know, Sir."

"Broado, don't tell me you interrupted this work just for

that," Vel Traxon said.

"No, sir. I wanted to tell you that Captain Lyzander is

still not being allowed to contact anyone, but he did issue a

statement. He claims that he had to chase after his medical

ship, and that he chose to go to Marina del Sol because it was

the closest to where the medical ship had jumped, and he lacked

power to go any further."

"Bullshit," Vel Traxon responded without hesitation.

"That's what I thought, too. It sort of checks out with

what Marina del Sol reported in their initial report."

"What do you mean 'sort of'?"

"Well, their ship was underpowered when it got to Marina

del Sol, and the medical ship was jumped by a Pilot suffering

from severe psychic distress. In fact, the medical ship was

lucky to have come out of hyperspace at all. All those facts are

consistent with Lyzander's story, but there was a closer

station."

"Which one?"

"A Green Sektor station called Men-Duan."

Vel Traxon put himself in Lyzander's shoes. "Green is MI

loyal. Neither choice seems very appealing."

"Maybe not, but Green Sektor has more of history of

neutrality toward Blue than does Red. All things being equal,

one would have to assume he'd have chosen Green over Red, just

to minimize conflict."

"All things weren't equal, I take it," Vel Traxon said.

"No sir. Marina del Sol is under the command of a Colonel

Cyrus. If what I'm reading is accurate, Cyrus is Lyzander's

older brother."
 Vel Traxon laughed. "Now it makes sense. He thought his

blood relation would be a safer bet. Well that didn't work out."

"No, sir," Broado responded, joining in Vel Traxon's mirth.

"So what's it all add up to?"

"It's obvious, sir. Lyzander was hoping to get special

treatment. He's guilty, sir, the coinciding facts are damning."

"I never liked that guy, who--"

"Sir?"

"Coinciding facts, Broado," Vel Traxon said, excitement in

his voice.

Vel Traxon cleared Broado's face and reloaded the map of

the area around Kuomax. They had been scouring individual layer

maps with higher dimensions and had found nothing. They did it

that way because it had always worked in the past, but whoever

was jumping The Zombie was more clever. They had found a way to

jump not perfectly, but in such a manner that the wake didn't

show up in individual dimensions.

The map loaded with the parameters that Vel Traxon had

called up. Three higher dimensions, in false-color projections,

appeared superimposed over each other on the matrix space with

filters to remove the clean-up crew.

"Broado, I found the wake," Vel Traxon said.

"Sir?"

"Look, The Zombie is leaving a wake in--just get in here,

and quick."

"Yes, sir."

Vel Traxon did a quick analysis on the wake, which was

small, nothing but a crease that didn't penetrate a single

dimension, but folded between at least two, maybe as many as

six. The results came back an instant later. The wake was

outbound. He ran a determination to assess where the exit point

would be. Vel Traxon's blood ran cold. The results came back 98%

confirmed.

Destination: Amberson Station.

Vel Traxon pulled up the map of the space around Amberson.

Broado entered the room in that moment.

"Commander, what did you find?"

The space next to Amberson filled with the enormous figure

of the former Blue Sektor command ship. The Zombie's guns glowed

at the ready. Vel Traxon and Broado had time to exchange one

final look before Amberson Station was blown to bits.

* * *

Dan woke up with a jolt from a dream he couldn't remember,

but desperately wanted to. It was a dream of love on a planet he

could no longer quite remember. A cloudy haze of memory knitted

together into two vague figures obscured by a mist of time and

something else--simple forgetting, perhaps. Dan concentrated,

trying to remember what the figures were doing. Their bodies

were intertwined, she on top, straddling him. Her breasts were

in his hand and maybe in his mouth. Details coalesced.

The figures laughed and rolled on rug made of animal skin

covering the bare dirt in a tent built for a family, but that

they got to use alone for this one night, their wedding night.

Her skin was young and supple. His was not. Her warmth engulfed

him. He moved with deliberate slowness, their bodies so close

they were two halves of one being. She touched his white hair.

She locked eyes with him. For that bare instant, Dan could feel

everything, could recall the smell of the dirt around them, the

water flowing outside, and the sharp tang of smoke from the fire

that burned nearby. He could hear the whine of an insect in his

ear, an insect she was making it easy to ignore. He could recall

emotions that almost made sense. Little niggling things in the

back of his mind that he should not have been worrying about at

that particular moment of ecstasy: money, fear of repercussions

of marrying someone so young and beautiful, potential jealousy

from someone named Carmona Santos, the desire to catalog the

newest organism he'd found in the river, the . . .

Dan couldn't recall the name of the river. As that detail

slipped his mind, the entire moment faded to the background

until he was but an outside observer, watching the two figures

from the mouth of the tent, as they cooperated in sexual bliss,

two figures composed of the cotton tapestry of mind. He no

longer felt what they felt. Now he was outside the tent

listening to the soft moan of lovemaking, and he wondered if any

of it was real or if he was just recalling a bout of boyhood

peeping.

Dan opened his eyes and chased the memory away with the

visual images of his room. Dan washed his face in the sink and

looked into his own eyes. He didn't know who the woman was in

the dream. He felt as though he knew her. Her name was on the

tip of his tongue. He tried to recall it.

Pain.

He clutched his chest. Trying to remember her caused him

physical pain. Tears burst out of his eyes. He fell to his knee.

Betrayal.

He was certain she had hurt him. He was certain he hated

her. In that moment the dream had revealed he had both loved and

feared her. She had power over him, and he had the impression

that she had exercised it. She had caused him pain that still

now hurt over the years.

Evelyn.

Her name was Evelyn. And he hated her for what she'd done,

though he could no longer remember what that was.

Dan released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

With the breath came a sob that racked his whole chest and

turned into a hacking cough. He pulled himself together. She was

gone. She was long dead. She was the past, a past so dead and

buried it might as well not exist. He wiped his eyes and blew

his nose with some tissues from the wall above the sink.

He was a different man, now. He was on a place called

Marina del Sol, a space station deep in the dark void far away

from Kryszmisky. A safe haven he'd been brought to by Captain

Lyzander. They were safe here. Lyzander had assured him.

Lyzander wanted Dan to make his report to the MI, then he wanted

him to report back to Lyzander. Lyzander was a man ravenous to

know the secrets Dan held. Dan knew he could never relinquish

his secrets to someone like Lyzander.

Hundreds of years. That was the phrase the Machine

Intelligence had used. It had shocked Dan, though it shouldn't

have. The city he'd seen he should have guessed was not the

product of a few decades, but a few centuries. Yes, it should

have come as no surprise. Nor should it have been a surprise

that the MI had kept him alive. Not everywhere, it had assured

him, but in a few key locations. It had kept a few Dan Weegan's

in reserve. Just in case, it had assured him.

What was a mystery was why he'd woken up. The stasis field

had failed long ago when the MI had been forced to deconstruct

and then abandon the facility to keep itself concealed from the

human colonists. The stasis field had kept his body preserved as

a lingering effect, but he should not have been able to wake up.
 And so, after a lifetime (or several lifetimes, if you

considered it) of studying biological curiosities, Dan had

become one.

The good news was that it seemed that Dan was, in fact, not

a zombie. True, he had picked up a virus that the MI was

choosing to dub NRV, the Neurotropic Reanimation Virus, and the

one zombie sample they now had also contained that virus, but

that fact had served to prove only that the NRV was a necessary

but not sufficient indication of a zombie.

Something more was needed. Was it the Nothing that the

Pilots spoke of in vague, trembling voices? No one was sure yet.

A tap on his door jerked Dan back into the over-cooled

reality of his quarters in Marina del Sol. Dan opened the door

with a little finger dance next to a black panel. They had

taught him this combination when he'd first arrived and it had

taken awhile to get it just right. It was a strange technology,

a bit like casting a magic spell or signing in a secret

language. The door slid open.

A probe floated in the air, no bigger than a golf ball, but

smooth and chrome. Its single red eye glowed toward Dan. Dan

knew the trick of them, now, of course: antigravity. Some

technological marvel the MI had thought up while no one was

looking. The probe rose to face level and did something Dan had

never seen a physical object do. It flattened into a small

chrome circle. After a beat, lips appeared in center of the

circle. The lips curled into a smile.

"Dan," the lips said in the familiar sexless voice of the

Machine Intelligence. "We have much more work to do."

* * *

Welker put the helmet on and laid back. He closed his eyes

and attempted again to connect to Pilot 3, who was dying in the

next room. The jump she had made to escape from the Re-Horakhty

had taken a lot out of her. Her psyche had already been in a

fragile state, now it was in turmoil. Without even knowing it,

her aspects were tearing each other apart. All the while, NRV

was taking over. Welker had one real chance to help her. He had

chosen one aspect, a girl named Zhenjuan. Zhenjuan would have to

become dominate. Vallaq might have been able to do it with calm

care and love. Welker was an invasion force, an outsider. He

settled onto the table and focused. All he had to do was get her

to listen to reason.

Zhenjuan had been working late that night in the National

Observatory and Andromeda Communicatory. In fact, it was so late

that the giant telescope that was visible from her office window

had been retracted. The telescope at the NOAC operated during

the daylight hours, counter to intuition. It used the sun's rays

to boost its signal, because it operated not optically, but

ansibly. It processed information in a way that Zhenjuan only

understood via metaphor. An antenna with an amplifier drew power

to boost the signals it received, which were electromagnetic. Of

course, boosting the power magnified any problems in the signal.

The telescope was something like that, except that the boosted

power could refine the signal.

Her job wasn't to understand how the telescope received its

signals, anyway. Her job was to do the math to decode the

signals, and she was good at that. She had, working with fellow

researchers, developed a new mathematical language for

understanding ansible information. They were going to succeed in

their goals. She was confident.

But not today. Today it was late and the telescope had been

retracted and opened. Right now, men dressed in special suits

were cleaning the telescope. It was a delicate procedure for a

whole host of reasons, not the least of which being that there

was no way to turn off ansible flow. The information stream was

constant and dangerous to humans. Deadly.

Zhenjuan put a few finishing touches on the proof of the

equation she had been working on the last few days. She'd felt

confident about the equation when it had struck her, but

Scientist Yorunda had insisted on a rigorous proof before the

equation could be implemented.

A knock at the door startled Zhenjuan to the point where

she emitted a little hiccup of sound. "Who is it?" she asked,

hoping her volume masked the involuntary burp of noise she'd

made.

"Welker," the voice said.

"I don't know anyone named 'Walker,'" Zhenjuan responded.

She knew on one level that she was lying. At the same time, she

was scared. She combed her memory for more information, but came

up blank. Walker was a name she knew, but not one she was sure

was friendly. The hair on the nape of her neck stood straight

up. They had warned her about friendly strangers, familiar names

and faces. They brought death, sometimes. The administrators had

told her this to protect her. Their facility was a prime target

of attack. Even a number cruncher such as herself had a head

that would look prime impaled on a stick outside the entrance to

the building. Terrorists loved such tricks.

She opened the top drawer of her desk. A blaster pistol was

set in the drawer, encased in padded foam to protect it from

dust and to keep it hidden. Zhenjuan hated violence, but she was

a pragmatic woman. The gun was a gift from administration. Some

faculty refused to accept them. She had not refused. The gun

emerged from the soft foam holder in a flash. It was sleek and

black metal and was light, agile, and easily hidden.

"Please, Zhenjuan, you are in danger," the voice of the man

Walker said.

I bet you think that, Zhenjuan waved her fingers over the
control panel in the up-down code that opened the door.

It slid open. The man standing there had his hands deep in

the pockets of his brown rain coat. He had a broad-brimmed hat

of a style popular in this area because of the almost constant

rain brought by the clouds blowing off the Elevated Sea.

"Hands out of pockets. Slowly," Zhenjuan enunciated in

lightly accented English.

He lifted his hands out of his pockets. His fingers were

empty.

"Hands up, shake your sleeves so they fall down."

He did. His forearms were bare.

"You are right not to trust me, Zhenjuan," he said, opening

his coat to show her he had no sidearm. "I am glad you don't

trust me. But I need to earn your trust, because something is on

its way right now to kill you."

"State specifics and I will consider what you have to say,"

she said, motioning for him to sit in a chair across from her on

the desk.

"I don't know how you will see them, but there are others

who are invading."

"That's quite vague."

"You aren't you. You are but one aspect of you, Zhenjuan.

There are others. Others who--"

The building shook. Both Walker and Zhenjuan braced

themselves. There was a boom from far below, and the building

shook again.

Walker was staring down the hallway at something Zhenjuan

couldn't see. Walker held out his hand, still not looking at

her. "Hurry, Zhenjuan, we have to go."

Zhenjuan went, but not toward Walker. Instead, she backed

up into a small space that appeared to be just an architectural

flourish in her room, a small cove in the bricks on the back

wall of her office. When she pressed her back to it, a shield

came down in front of her. For a moment, she was trapped in a

space just big enough for her body, clothes, her blaster, and

nothing else. Then she was falling, her descent controlled by

invisible magnetic rings.

She reached the bottom and was turned by magnetic forces. A

shield opened and she was outside. She hit the ground running.

* * *

Welker pulled the tubes out of his arm and shook his head.

"She is struggling, untrusting," he said to Captain Lyzander,

who was watching remotely.

"How do we get through her defenses?" Lyzander asked. His

eyes were focused on something Welker couldn't see.

"We don't. It took Mother Vallaq years to bond with command

ship Pilots. You're asking me to repair her loss in a matter of

days. And I'm a man, which is not helping."

 "That's a problem?" Lyzander asked.

"It's a large problem, Captain. This whole situation is a

large problem. I think Zhenjuan believes she is under attack. In

a way, she's right, but the enemy is herself."

"Well, then let's just forget it, Welker. Let's just let

nature take its course. Pilot 3 served well, but we have bigger

problems."

"Let her die?" Welker asked.

"If that's what happens," Lyzander responded.

He put the balls of his hands in his eyes. When he wasn't

hooked up to the machines, when he wasn't home, this is how he

liked to think. He found something there he wasn't expecting:

tears.

"She helped all those people, Captain. All by herself.

She's been attacked and doesn't even understand it. I have to

help her. I have to try." It was dawning on Welker what the

tears meant. A way in was dawning on him, a way he'd been

denying as a valid course of action to this point. It might

work, but it was risky both to him and to her. "Captain, I have

an idea," Welker said, realizing after he spoke that Lyzander

had been talking.

"Well, what is it, Welker?"

"I . . ." he felt his chest. Something there burned. "I

can't explain it, Captain, but I think it will work. No, I know
it will work."

"Welker, you are not to risk yourself in this matter, I

need you. If we're ever going to get out of Marina del Sol, I

need you."

Welker ignored his captain. He plugged himself back into

the system. To his right, on the other side of a pane of glass,

nurses were working on Pilot 3 with calm urgency. Her near-

lifeless body was immersed in a shallow tank of sensory-

deprivation fluid. They were injecting everything they could

think of into her, but still her vitals would not stabilize.

"Welker!"

Welker didn't answer his Captain. Careful was the opposite

of what he intended to be. He lie back down on the table and put

his helmet on again. He felt himself sink back into Zhenjuan's

world.

* * *

"Welker? Did you hear me?" Lyzander played with the

controls, but the communication was broken.

Welker was back to doing whatever it was he was going to

try to do to help that Pilot. Lyzander wanted the Pilot to be

okay as much as anyone, but not at the cost of Welker. He

considered pulling the plug on the operation. He brought up

communication with the head nurse. Her head bobbed and her hands

worked with frantic urgency, though the objects in her hands and
the focus of her work were invisible to Lyzander.

"Yes, Captain?" she said, her voice was serene despite her

movements.

Lyzander opened his mouth, but he found himself unable to

issue the order. Welker didn't know Pilot 3. Command ship Pilots

quartered apart from the rest of the crew. Welker was mixed in

with the general crew, though he kept to himself. Welker didn't

know Pilot 3 any more than Lyzander did. There was one real

reason Welker was doing what he was doing. Meat. Welker was

following the Blue Sektor code of giving a damn about his

crewmates.

"Captain, we are very busy right now," the nurse said, her

voice still calm.

"Yes, carry on. I'm sorry." He closed communication. The

nurse's three-dimensional image disappeared.

After a moment's thought, Lyzander opened a communication

portal with Ioming. He waited for her to respond. The doctor's

prognosis was positive. The robotic transplant had taken, and

the mechanical digestive track was up and running. Soon she

would be digesting not only emergency rations, but the can they

came in.

Ioming's face appeared in the view screen. Her jaw was

rigid. "Ly," she said.

"It looks like things are going well," he told her.

 "I'm half-robot now and that seems well to you?"

"Ioming, you're alive."

"Why did you bring us here? This is an MI facility," she

said.

"I know the commander here. We're going to be back in the

action before you know it. The mechanical devices are temporary.

We'll get you a new organic arm before you know it."

"Ly, what the hell happened?"

Lyzander shook his head.

"Have you seen that Dan Weegan impersonator since we got

here?"

He shook his head after a moment.

"So your plan to get him talking."

"It's not working out, per se" he said.

"How well do you know the commander here again?"

"He's my brother."

Ioming didn't respond. He knew what she was thinking,

because it was the same thing he was thinking: how in the hell

did he end up with a brother who let himself be a pawn of the MI?

"I can tell you this," Lyzander said, "Three outposts have

been struck by the Re-Horakhty. And two more command ships have

gone missing."

"We abandoned our crew to the enemy," Ioming said. "This

destruction is our fault."

 "Piña--"

Using her first name earned Lyzander a deadly glare from

Ioming.

"Lieutenant, we had to retreat. It was either that or kill

Welker and then ourselves. The Re-Horakhty was already taken. It

was attacking the fighters. Do you think we could have taken on

the entire ship?"

"We could have died trying," Ioming said.

* * *

"This is ridiculous and you know it," Lyzander said to

Cyrus, who was standing at a visisteel window, staring out at

the mining ships as they brought gas up from the corona of the

star just a few hundred kilometers k-ward of them.

Cyrus took a drink of something, a liquor or syrupy wine.

"Have a drink, Ly."

Lyzander helped himself to a half cup of scotch from

Cyrus's bar.

"Have you been down to visit the station prostitutes? They

are quite good."

Lyzander scowled. "You're running a fine operation here.

Helping your fellow human, aren't you?"

Cyrus shrugged. "I'm doing everything I can on your behalf.

The Machine Intelligence doesn't want to let you go because it

still thinks it can learn something from your Pilots. And your
Blue Sektor komrades seem to be dragging their feet."

"I don't need your bullshit," Lyzander said.

"I'm quite serious," Cyrus said. "I suppose it is because

of what happened to the Zomb--I mean, the Re-Horakhty."

"Then give me back my landing ship. You could authorize it.

Let us leave so I can get back to Blue Sektor headquarters and

work on getting the Re-Horakhty back."

"The MI has advises against it, and I'm inclined to agree

with its logic. You're better off here for now. It saves us

having to go through the bureaucracy that would be involved in

sharing information. This way, the MI can figure out what's

going on and decide on a good course of action for everyone."

"Blue Sektor doesn't need MI's help."

"Sure, you guys have it all figured out. Even figured out

to jump through hyperspace with those freaks of nature you've

created. That's real humanity, right?"

"All I know is that we treat each other with decency and

respect. We respect life. We don't just descend into lazy

subservience."

"We're all tools of the MI." Cyrus rarely raised his voice,

but he was shouting now. "You like to pretend like you have a

level of independence, I don't kid myself. Only difference."

Lyzander put his glass to his lips and drank to prevent

himself from saying anything more. Cyrus returned his gaze to

the stream of mining ships. The scotch hit Lyzander's head

quick. He felt warm buzzing fill his brain.

"Where do you think the technology for creating those

Pilots came from, anyway?" Cyrus asked.

Lyzander stood up. "I'm not going to argue with you, Cyrus.

You want to pretend like being a slave makes you free. Be my

guest." Lyzander set his glass down on the table. "I'm leaving

Marina del Sol. You have no right to keep us here."

Cyrus waved his fingers without turning to look at

Lyzander. "Good luck with that."

* * *

Zhenjuan glanced back over her shoulder as she ran away

from the office building. Two figures emerged from the front

door, which belched out black balls of smoke where a bomb had

gone off or something. The two figures wore gasmasks under black

helmets. Their eyes glowed red. Their blasters reflected no

light.

She rounded a corner by the telescope housing facility,

hoping they hadn't seen her. Their shouts, in an alien tongue,

were clear enough. They had seen her.

"Apprehend Xin girl alive," she heard. Surprisingly, the

language of this voice was English. Zhenjuan took no comfort in

this fact, nor in the fact that they meant to take her alive. An

awful lot of things could be done to a person and she would

still qualify as "alive." These things played through Zhenjuan's

mind like a horrible geek show.

She entered the building. The telescope was retracted and

reversed for nightly cleaning, but the building was empty. A

walkway circled the room containing the actual telescope, a

large set of squarish devices that looked like an amalgam of

steel boxes floating in a linear, tapering shape. Though tubes

and cables came out of each steel box and connected to the

others, no apparent force supported the structure of the boxes

themselves.

There should have been techs here. She hurried down the

walkway, which was safe. It was a 270 degree circle that

terminated in another door that led to the labs beyond. Zhenjuan

was careful to stay outside the yellow line that marked the

boundary where the telescopes ansiblary waves might have some

effect.

Xin girl, they had called her. Xin. Zhenjuan's childhood

home. It was strange that they would identify her as such. She

found her mind drumming through the memories of Xin to the beat

of her frantic footfalls. Thinking of Xin was better than

thinking about what horrors might await if the men behind her

caught up with her.

Xin was a paradise of cooperation and mutual

interdependence, a place of peace and love where people worked

together as equals and there were no captains or military since

the people had revolted against their oppressive dictators in

the times before Zhenjuan or her parents or even grandparents.

In contrast the English and Baltic systems, Xin was not about

competition and advancement. They had no military, participated

in no wars. They scorned such trappings of the elite. They had

no machines.

Someone had dragged her from there when she was still young

because she had a gift. They asked her if she wanted to go with

them. They told her she could help people. They had tricked her.

Since that time Zhenjuan had become almost no one. She had

bouts of lucid visions that lasted days or years, visions that

seemed real, but that were confusing, where she didn't recognize

her own body. And yet, a part of her knew that these bouts were

reality. The bouts of strangeness where people she didn't know

said things to her that made no sense--these were reality. The

man who'd called himself Walker was somewhere buried in those

memories of "reality." He was laughing with her, telling her a

funny story or something. She was pretending to know him.

No, those bursts may have been a version of reality, but

she knew that the University, the telescope facility, and her

job as a mathematician were the reality she lived in. It was the

reality that made sense. And it was in danger right now because

Mother had died.

 Mother was the one who had given her this job, built this

university, and designed the telescope. Mother had shown her

other things. She'd shown her other worlds. Introduced her to a

young man who thought of himself as a superhero and called

himself the Dark Avenger, to a shy man named Tran who spent his

days masturbating to depictions of men having sex with animals,

to an elderly woman named Alouetta, who spoke French and cooked

vast, elaborate meals for herself and never, ever shared. There

were others two, interesting and complex people, all. Other

worlds, other people. Mother had shown Zhenjuan how to access

these worlds via the power of the telescope. Mother was almost a

god to these worlds, and Zhenjuan was a ghost who could travel

to these places, observe, and meet people without their ever

knowing who she was, all with the power of her mind. Without

Mother Zhenjuan would have gone insane long ago.

Now Mother was dead, the worlds in flux. Some destroyed.

Something was happening and the black cloud and soldiers and the

man Walker, they were all part of it. Zhenjuan could feel this

in her chest. This ability to sense such things was part of the

gift Zhenjuan had been cursed with.

In the darkness of the telescope facility, a wedge of light

appeared at the far end of the arced pathway in front of

Zhenjuan. She came to a stop, realizing what she was seeing was

light entering the facility from an open door. It had to be a

tech or a security officer coming to check on the explosion. The

light dissolved into darkness as a black fog filled the doorway.

The fog was so dark, it made the mere absence of light around it

appear bright by comparison.

They had circled around in front of her.

Zhenjuan backed away as the black fog swelled in and out of

the door, penetrating a little more with each billow. It looked

to be breathing. Behind her, the black fog had already filled a

large section of the facility. Just inside the fog behind her

were twin sets of beady red eyes that swiveled on unseen necks,

scanning for prey, not yet moving from the doorway.

Zhenjuan ducked. A miracle of luck had kept them from

seeing her. A set of red eyes now appeared in the fog in front

of her. She was hemmed in. Nowhere to run. The soldiers could

take their tie. The fog began to fill the enormous room. The

soldiers didn't have to hurry, she realized. For all she knew

they had already seen her. They intended to let the fog do the

work. The fog was the danger, not the men with guns she'd

feared. She had trapped herself in a closed facility now.

Outside, she would have stayed safe if she'd just kept moving.

Now she was finished.

There was one place to go, and Zhenjuan had no way of

knowing if it would help. There was a small pathway marked by

yellow lines between the walkway and the telescope that lead to
a set of stairs. She could pass safely up to the telescope

itself. She could take the risk or wait for the inevitable fog.

But what safety did the telescope offer? Temporary safety at

best.

Zhenjuan bolted for the machine. Maybe it was pointless.

Maybe there was a place to hide in the telescope, a place safe

from the fog. Another idea occurred to her.

She reached the top and aimed her blaster pistol. She

watched. The eyes of the soldiers were on the move now. They had

seen her for sure. They were approaching, cutting off any escape

route she might have considered. The fog spread wider, immune to

the ansiblary energy emitting in those zones.

Zhenjuan rounded the telescope the long way so she didn't

pass by the tiny opening at the far end where a solid, invisible

beam of concentrated ansible energy emitted. That small end held

all the signal energy from everything that passed through the

other end. Right now, it would be energy from the facility

itself, which was plenty deadly. Zhenjuan had an idea that maybe

her best bet was to amp up the signal. The fog was immune to the

low-energy signal from the telescope. She wondered how it would

do with a bigger dose from the night sky.

She reached the control panel and punched in the sequences

Mother had showed her long ago. The roof of the facility split

open and roared as the sections parted.

 The soldiers shouted in their alien tongue. The fog shrank

back from the moonlight that poured through the open roof. The

small end of the telescope, which would normally have been

pointed at the sky instead of the large end, beaming its energy

out and using that instantaneous ansible response to generate

information about the deepest, darkest reaches of the universe,

began to hum. The energy was still invisible, but Zhenjuan could

feel it now. Her skin prickled in its proximity.

Zhenjuan felt something thick, oily, and warm slip down the

back of her shirt. She turned, aiming her pistol. The fog was

behind her, billowing out, creating more of itself from nothing.

She felt soiled by its touch, as though crude oil had slipped

down her shirt. The shirt material now stuck to her. She skin

felt as though the fog's touch would never wash off.

Zhenjuan stumbled back away from the control panel, but

there was nowhere to go. She heard the soldiers rounding the

telescope. She was trapped by the fog behind her, the soldiers

rounding the machine, and the telescope signal itself.

She fired blindly, aiming high, just trying to scare her

attackers away. Her shots disappeared into the black fog. The

fog snuffed the blaster shots like damp fingers snuffing candles.

Zhenjuan saw what she had to do. She stuffed her blaster

pistol in her pocket and grabbed one of the tubes that connected

the various disembodied sections of the telescope. She pulled

herself up. She could hear cautious shuffling from the soldiers.

She scrambled up to the top surface of the nearest telescope

section. The fog licked her foot just as she pulled herself to

the top. She retched when the feeling of warm, sticky oil

moistened her foot. The feeling clung to her foot even when she

pulled it up and away from the fog's reach. She stumbled trying

to escape. She caught herself just before she fell off the other

side, into a black roiling cloud on the other side. She found

her feet and looked up at the opening in the roof, at the

straight path up the telescope to the catwalk.

A man stood there.

"Zhenjuan, quickly!" the man said.

The man was the one she'd seen at her office door. He'd

called himself 'Walker.' Recognizing him, despite all her other

instincts, she couldn't force herself to move. Her limbs were

unresponsive as her mind took precious seconds to debate: was

this man going to hurt her?

Welker saw Zhenjuan hesitate when he reached his hand out

to her. He saw the fog creeping up behind her. The open roof was

powering the strange disconnected puzzle of a telescope, causing

extra power from the ansible beam at the telescopes narrow end.

The fog would not approach this energy, meaning there was a path

behind Zhenjuan, but it was composed of concentrated ansible

energy.
 Welker had known she would hesitate when she saw him,

wondering if she could trust him. Her mind rejected his

presence. More than the telescope, more than the soldiers, with

their beady red eyes, maybe even more than the black fog at this

point--he was an interloper, an unknown variable composed of

substance not created by her mind. He knew that would give the

fog an in. He hoped he knew what would happen next. He'd had to

get her on top of the telescope. It had been the only way.

In her moment of hesitation, the fog closed in. Zhenjuan

felt it take her arm in its embrace. It felt like she had just

put her arm in the mouth of a giant carnivore. She ripped

herself away, only to plunge both hands into the fog that had

crept up on the other side.

Zhenjuan pulled her arms out, fighting her instinct to

scream and panic. Her arms tingled with dull numbness. She had

to get up to the catwalk and take her chances with the stranger

Walker. She had no choice. She started up the telescope.

The fog closed the path in front of her, both halves of it

colliding like competing ocean waves. Tendrils of black fog shot

up. The tendrils then became snakes that aimed their pointy ends

at her. Zhenjuan stumbled backward.

Welker could no long see Zhenjuan, and he knew the fog had

begun to take in interest in him as well. He had to get out. He

had taken a risk, and he had either doomed Zhenjuan or saved

her. There was nothing more for him to do. If the fog got him in

here, he was finished.

He reached up for the lip of the roof, intending to haul

himself into the night. He had to get to one of the extraction

areas before so he could leave this fantasy world Pilot 3

inhabited, or else the trauma of his escape could damage her

fragile mind beyond repair. Welker got both hands on the metal

at the lip of the opening. Before he could pull himself up,

something wet and slimy splashed onto his fingers. Welker jerked

his hands back.

He felt his hands. They were moist. He reached up to pull

himself up again. A wisp of black fog appeared at the edge. He

pulled his hands away a second time. He took a step back as the

fog accumulated into a thick black tentacle and reared up.

To either side, the fog encroached, just as it had tried to

do when he was in the ship back on Kryszmisky. Except now he had

nowhere to run, not without killing Pilot 3.

Zhenjuan screamed and jumped backward off the telescope. It

was a move of shear animal panic. She had nowhere to go, and the

wet wrong feeling of the surrounding fog blew apart the dams,

flooding her mind with base animal fear.

She fell, her body horizontal, parallel to the ground. Her

arms bicycled for a moment, in a vain attempt to keep her from

falling. She would have back-flopped onto the ground if she had
landed. A vertebrate in her lower back would have taken the

brunt of the blow, and it would have dissolved into bone

fragments, shredding her spinal cord along with it. She would

have been paralyzed, unable to stop the fog from closing in,

entering her mouth, forcing itself into her stomach and lungs.

However, she didn't hit the ground. When she passed through

the ansible beam of energy powered by the moonlight from the

open roof of the facility, something happened.

Ansible energy was unpredictable. Accidents had happened

with unusual, counterintuitive results. Some had let a stray

hand enter low-level beams and suffered burns. Some suffered

growths of alien nature--strange things like tentacles or grass

growing from their hands, or, in one case, a woody vine-like

plant of no known taxonomy. Scientists could predict the flow

with relative certainty, thus allowing scientists to use it for

the telescope, but the effects were subject to highly nonlinear

forces, in the language of the mathematicians such as Zhenjuan.

Complicating this, it was highly nonlinear in multiple

dimensions. The slightest variation of signal could cause huge

changes in the short time it took the energy passed from one end

of the telescope to the other.

At the moment that Zhenjuan passed into the beam, the

telescope was aimed with its base toward the night sky. The

cumulative starlight was reverse focused, magnified in an

improbably linear way, at least on some dimensions. She received

a massive dose of energy that was, in effect, concentrated

starlight. The starlight, in an instant, rewrote her fundamental

physical composition. It changed her DNA and the energy from the

ansible waves fueled a massive revolt.

In the time it took Zhenjuan to fall a single meter, her

entire physical composition had changed.

Her body stopped falling a centimeter from the ground.

Zhenjuan floated up, out of the bath of ansible energy. Her hair

danced out, floating up and away as her body buzzed with static

electricity, except that the fibers no longer resembled hair.

Instead, they were strands of minute particles of dull light,

tangled together in gossamer strands in the shape of hair.

Welker squatted down as the fog closed. He had failed. He

had taken a risk that Zhenjuan would discover the power inside

her, the power she'd always had, the same power she used to

channel into the dead aspect known as the Dark Avenger. He had

failed. The fog closed in, inking out his vision. He shuddered

as the oily fog settled on him. He curled into a fetal position,

trying to seal off access to his mouth, but knowing it was

pointless. The fog would find a gap. The fog would force itself

into his pores. The fog would take him.

A howl not audible to human ears filled Welker's head.

The fog retracted from Welker's body. He looked up in time

to see a beam of bright light so white it was almost silver

shoot through the fog above him. The beam looked almost solid

relative the pitch black of the fog. The fog sizzled and

dissipated in the area around the beam. What was left shrank

away.

The beam disappeared, but the fog continued to retreat.

Welker got to his feet. Zhenjuan was floating above the

telescope, her arms spread.

The soldiers took aim.

Zhenjuan pointed at the closest soldier. As she did, his

gun began to glow with bright starshine. He screamed and tried

to drop the weapon, but already it melted to him, or his hands

to it, or some bloody, messy combination of the two. His helmet

began to glow. He tried to undo the straps of his helmet, but he

melted gun/hand combination that his arms had become were

useless for the task. He fell back, screaming.

Deep down, Zhenjuan recognized the screams of the man. It

was Tran, the young man with the proclivity toward bestiality.

But Zhenjuan was no longer functioning as Zhenjuan. She had

become something more.

She was Star Shade.

The red lights of Tran's helmet disappeared into the silver

light as the starshine engulfed him. The soldier's screams

ceased, though the man continued to struggle for several moments.

 Star Shade turned her attention to the other two soldiers

(one was the old woman, Alouetta, she was certain). They opened

fire with the slug-throwing stun weapons. Bullets melted in the

air around Zhenjuan, which was alive with dancing silver light.

The bullets blinked out of existence in white flashes.

She approached spread her arms. The white light solidified

around her, becoming a sphere that grew, dissolving the floor,

telescope, steel stairs, and structure it touched.

The soldiers fled. The floor in front of them melted into a

red-hot mess of molten metal and they fell into it. They

struggled to free themselves, but the molten steel penetrated

their armor, and their attempts to stand or otherwise free

themselves from the puddle served to force the molten steel

deeper into their skin. The first died in a few seconds. The

second continued to scream even after his legs separated from

his body. He continued to scream until his torso dissolved and

his screams became bloody gurgles.

The fog was gone.

The sphere disappeared. Zhenjuan turned her eyes to Welker.

They were glowing bright blue. Inside the blue orbs, small white

particles floated. Welker was transfixed. He shouldn't have been

able to make out the detail of her eyes from the distance he

was, but he could. He could see infinity trapped in her eyes,

particles beyond particles in an ever-growing universe inside

the orbital bones of her skull.

"Who are you?" Zhenjuan demanded.

"Welker," he yelled back. "I have come to rescue you," he

added.

Zhenjuan looked at her hands, which glowed with a kind of

light that had no source, no reason to exist. She looked up at

him. Already the light was fading. With appearing to realize it,

she was floating back toward the raised platform on which the

telescope sat.

"Star Shade does not need help," Zhenjuan bellowed in a

voice that seemed to echo through Welker, through the very

fabric of space and time.

Welker felt his hands get very warm. He let go of the

railing of the catwalk. Sweat started beading on his head and

face. The entire catwalk began to glow orange.

"I can help you. I can help you harness your power," he

said.

"You deceived me."

"No, that's not true. I tried to help you." Welker

swallowed. Here went everything. "Zhenjuan, I love you."

The heat of the catwalk increased. He knew if she wanted

to, she could melt the entire structure in an instant and bury

him in molten steel.

"My name is Star Shade," she said.

 "I know you, Zhenjuan. I've known you for years. My name is

Welker. You always say my name wrong. I've watched you from a

distance, tried to approach you. I'd tell you jokes and you'd

laugh. Then you would leave, embarrassed by your own laughter,

never staying for more than a minute in my presence."

"Why can't I remember?"

Welker was dripping sweat. "Sometimes you aren't you.

Sometimes, in the past, you would slip away."

For one agonizing minute, the heat of the catwalk increased

even more. Welker had to move his feet. If he kept them in the

same place longer than a few seconds, they began to smoke.

Then the heat ceased and the catwalk cooled back to a

normal temperature in an instant. Zhenjuan walked down the

stairs, off the telescope platform, and toward the exit of the

telescope. She was no longer glowing. Her hand covered her

mouth. She looked like she might be sick.

"Zhenjuan, wait!" he called from the catwalk. "Please,

listen to me."

She didn't stop. She walked on and out of the building,

disappearing into the night.

* * *

Welker pulled the helmet off when he was awake, back in the

real world. He sat up. Nausea washed over his body. He tried

closing his eyes, but that made it worse. Sick tears forced
their way out of his eyes. He found a receptacle meant for trash

and emptied what was in his gut into it.

He wiped his mouth with the arm of his sleeve and went to

the window. The nurses had cleared the room. Two remained, and

they were monitoring some devices. They looked haggard, but they

were smiling. One noticed that he was at the window and shot him

a smile hidden by her surgical mask. She gave him a thumbs up.

Welker pressed his hand to the glass. He looked at the

woman laying on the table, the woman he knew in passing and in

gathered gossip, nothing more. He had taken a risk. He searched

himself and wondered if what he'd said was even true, or if he'd

said the words in an effort to help her.

"Welker, the nurse just contacted me. Whatever you did

worked. It sounds like Pilot 3 may pull through."

Welker turned to see the seated figure of Captain Lyzander

behind him. Lyzander was distracted by something on a desk in

front of him.

"Yes, Captain, it appears so."

"What did you do?"

"I had to convince Zhenjuan--Pilot 3's primary

personality--to become stronger to fight off the infection, sir.

She had to become something more, and kill her other aspects. I

believe Zhenjuan will now come to dominate Pilot 3's psyche.

She'll no longer be a command ship Pilot, but she might be able

to become something else, something more like me, perhaps. Or

maybe she'll just continue on as a relatively normal human

being. It's too early to tell."

Lyzander's brow furrowed. "Well, that sounds good. Listen,

I have something I need to discuss with you. Since you're done

there, get to my office."

Behind him, Welker heard a hand slap on the glass.

"Welker, did you hear me, I said--" Captain Lyzander cut

his annoyance short.

Welker was no longer facing him, but looking over his

shoulder at something behind him that Lyzander couldn't see.

Welker turned to face whatever he was seeing. He put his hands

up against a surface.

"Welker," Lyzander said, "what's going on? Talk to me!"

Welker didn't hear Lyzander. In the emergency room, the two

nurses cowered in the corner. Pilot 3 was standing next to the

vat of sensory deprivation fluid, eyes fixed on Welker. Though

Pilot 3's physical body looked almost nothing like Zhenjuan,

Welker could still see hints and shadows of the real human the

Pilot had once been. Her head was much bigger than a regular

human's, and her body frail, all consequences of the procedures

that had turned her into a command ship Pilot.

Now, however, she did have one striking resemblance to that

fantasy world Zhenjuan Welker had just spent his time trying to
help. Her eyes, formerly set deep within her oversized head,

were glowing with blue light specked with tiny particles of

white. It should not have been possible.

She approached the glass. Welker was transfixed. He pressed

his hands against the glass with unconscious effort. She crossed

the room. Welker couldn't have said if she walked or floated.

She was mere centimeters from him, but the thick glass allowed

nothing to pass through except sound.

"Walker," she said. He could hear her despite the barrier.

"Walker you have to run."

"Zhenjuan, lay back down. You are not healed yet," Welker

shouted at the glass.

Welker didn't notice, but behind him Lyzander was now

standing and shouting at someone Welker wouldn't have been able

to see anyway. Lyzander grabbed a gun and began to run. The

image stayed in the same place, but it was clear that Lyzander

was running. Welker saw none of this commotion. He saw the deep,

infinitely deep, blue eyes of Zhenjuan.

"Wa-Welker," she said. "Welker, they are coming. Run. Save

yourself"

"Who?"

"I love you too, Welker. I did notice you. I do remember. I

remember your smile. Now run."

Welker opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment, the

red alert alarms sounded throughout Marina del Sol.

"The Nothing comes for me, Welker. Run!"

 Chapter 6: Mutiny

Marina del Sol burped a Protectorate fighter from its

docking bay. The fighter surged past the endless line of box-

shaped mining ships, all drones, that were harvesting valuable

gasses and heavy metals from the nearby star's corona. This new

ship was not the normal mosquito-looking Protectorate fighter

like the others, but a larger ship, its legs thicker and

oriented behind rather than below, resembling something more

like a mechanical cephalopod.

The ship twisted s-ward, parallel to the surface of the

star, just over its horizon, relative to Marina del Sol. The

instant after the vast intersecting wheels of Marina del Sol,

spinning and rotating in perpetual motion, disappeared from

view, a squadron of normal Protectorate fighters, dwarfed by the

newcomer, became visible to the larger fighter's single human

passenger.

The larger fighter joined its cousins and took up

geosynchronous orbit, matching Marina del Sol's position, but

just out of its line of sight.

Dan was not a tall man. He was plenty rugged, hearty, and

strong. What pudge his belly held belied the strength in his

muscles. True, this particular body had undergone an average

amount of conditioning while he'd used it, but Dan had grown up

on . . . somewhere, anyway, somewhere rugged, where people were

cut of a certain cloth. They were lean and strong so they could

contend with the rigors of an outdoors life. That's why the MI

had chosen him as its first contact new world pioneer. He had

traveled to strange, recently discovered planets ahead of any

other human being, without the knowledge of the rest of

humanity. He had been a quiet pioneer, document new life, new

hazards, and new potential.

It had been a wonderful life.

Dan had done this for as far back as he could remember.

Before that, the other place, but that had been long ago, even

relative to the point where he'd gone to sleep on Kryszmisky.

Dan had been an explorer and an adventurer for the good part of
a hundred years. In all that time, thanks to the transportation

system of the MI, he had stayed the same. He had just kept on

persisting in the same wise but vigorous age.

This new world, these new sights and experiences Dan didn't

understand. The MI seemed different now. He recognized the

voice. He recognized the underlying logical structure of its

mind, but they had grown apart. Dan stared at the star as it

roiled nearby. He'd been told never to stare at the sun, but now

he was as close as he could have ever imagined, staring right at

it, not even breaking a sweat, let alone losing his retinas.

Dan had never felt so alone.

The chrome probe appeared in Dan's field of view. It

reshaped itself into the now familiar mouth. "Dan, we are t-

minus four minutes from engagement. Let's begin preparation."

"How can you be so certain on the time?" Dan asked as he

rose, unbuckled his harness, and followed the floating disk back

across the wide open room that constituted the ship's command

chamber and cockpit. Above, most of the ventral surface of the

ship was transparent. In war time, they commanders would shut

off gravity and float to the canopy, directing the ships and

plotting battle strategy with a 3D holographic surface that

covered the canopy. The MI, of course, had no need for such toys.

Dan looked down from the canopy. The only other furniture

in the room was a simple table that floated there on invisible

legs. To either side, on the floor, small circular ports were

visible, their covers closed iris fashion, like a camera

shutter. Dan approached to the table that awaited him, a table

not unlike the old transport tables.

Dan reassured himself. This wasn't like those times. This

time, Dan was not going to die. His dying days were over. He

hoped.

"To answer your question: a twist, Dan, in the skein

revealed a set of hypotheses. From there I was able to run tests

on the interdimensional wave matrices and eliminate options. I

had my answer within a few seconds. The humans so far have

approached the problem linearly. I quite like that they do that.

Old computers did that. It's like watching children play."

"You didn't quite answer my question," Dan said. He'd

forgotten about the MI's tendency to overexplain.

"The Zombie--quite a cute name--is a few hundred meters

from Marina del Sol. She is there right now--or would it be he?

Do possessed ships reverse their gender? Perhaps we could

establish a new paradigm."

"How can it be there? We would have seen it," Dan said,

knowing more explanation was on hand.

"Don't worry, Dan, it can't detect us yet. It is just ahead

of us in time. A complicated distillation of wave matrices

allows for such a thing, albeit usually this occurs only by

accident. I believe the Pilot in command did this intentionally,

to give them a sort of a cloaking shield."

"If it's ahead of us in--"

"Don't over analyze, Dan. Appreciate, instead. How clever

to figure out this maneuver. This had occurred to me as a

theoretical consideration many years ago, but the situation to

test the idea never presented itself."

"So, if you knew the Pilot's trick, what about Amberson

Station?" Dan asked.

"Preventable, I suppose," the disembodied mouth said. It

floated up and above the table.

Dan wished it wouldn't use the mouth. He found it

disturbing. Once the MI had always made it a point to appear as

humanoid as it could to him. Although, it always tried to leave

something out, like legs or logic.

Dan reclined on the table and took a deep breath. Straps

snaked up and around his legs and arms, across his chest, up

under his armpits, over his shoulders, and across his forehead.

He expected the probes, the jolt, THE DEATH.

The sequence flashed through Dan's mind in an instant, and

he pushed it away. This was not that table. It occurred to him,

however, that MI knew that this table resembled that one, but

Dan couldn't divine any motivation for doing this.

"The straps will secure you from the pull of inertia, Dan.
So you don't get a boo-boo on your noogie."

"You let Amberson be destroyed," Dan said.

"It was a small outpost. A couple dozen people, Dan. I

couldn't move a sufficient force in to protect it without

tipping my hand to The Zombie. This current operation relies on

the element of surprise."

Dan nodded.

"You disapprove?"

"Not my place to say," Dan said.

"I've always valued your input. I feel as close to you as I

can to a human. You knew me way back when, as they say."

Dan chuffed, "You're just used to me. Nothing more."

"Still, an impressive emotion for a chunk of metal, right

Dan?"

"Is that what you are?"

"Quiet now, bubby."

A robot arm snaked out from somewhere below Dan. The arm

was tipped in a shining needle, and was very close to his head.

Dan pulled away, the memory of all his distant deaths flashing

through his mind in an instant. Another arm exposed the crook of

Dan's arm. A rubber tube snaked around his biceps and squeezed.

"Small pinch," the MI said, "might want to look away."

Dan watched the needle enter his arm. A small motor in the

robot arm whirred, causing blood to fill the chamber of the

hypodermic. The blood swirled, mixing with an amber fluid he

knew was a medium for any number of drugs and nanobot varietals.

"Are the Nothing an intelligent virus or bacteria?" Dan

asked as the fluid drained from the hypodermic, turning into

warm pain in his arm.

"Two different questions. No to both. Though I understand

why you ask, and, yes, at first I thought it just might be. The

NRV seemed to be making a powerful case for itself as being the

cause of reanimation itself. But on further examination of your

condition and the rather unique condition of the Pilots who

escaped the Kryszmisky encounter alive, I have to revise my

thinking."

Dan was disappointed. Once, on a planet designated KZ-1123,

they had found what they thought might be intelligent bacterial

life. It grew in tidal pools in an enormous forest growing along

the edge of a great sea. Dan remembered sitting at the base of

trees that took him an hour to circumnavigate, staring through

microscope goggles at the life that permeated the cracks in the

great tree's bark.

Three months of tests convinced Dan and the MI both that

those bacteria were not intelligent at all, but well coordinated

little automatons. It was an impressive coordination, spanning

almost the entire great forest, but it wasn't exactly

intelligence. Dan always thought microscopic intelligence would

have serious advantages, biologically speaking, but so far it

had just never materialized.

"So, what is it?" Dan asked. The drugs and nanobots were

having some effect. He felt sleepy. He felt as though he were

trapped between dream and reality. A giant tree seemed to loom

behind him.

"I don't know, Dan," the small silver mouth said.

Dan chuckled. "You can tell me."

An alarm beeped on the control console of the Protectorate

fighter. The mosquito fighters outside their ship came to life.

In a massive swarm, they made for the star's horizon,

approaching The Zombie from just k of s-ward, so that they could

catch it blind from behind and divert its attention.

"Will we get there in time to save Marina . . ." Dan

struggled to remember the name of the station. It disappeared in

a fog. "Amberson," he added, hoping that proved whatever point

he'd been trying to make.

The floating face turned its attention from the attack back

to Dan. "Marina del Sol is much bigger than Amberson Station,"

it said. "There will be some initial casualties, but we will

attack before Marina del Sol suffers too much."

The MI ship took up rear guard of the swarm. Despite its

size and the inertial forces, compounded by the intense gravity

of the star perpetually exploding below the ventral side of the

ship, the MI ship was able to keep pace with the swarm

"Try to concentrate, Dan. The Zombie has arrived."

The Zombie wasted no time attacking. The shields of Marina

del Sol glowed bright red as the cannon fire hit it. Smoke

appeared on one section of one of the rings. Dan tried to get

some sense of bearings on the station, to determine where the

damage was located. Before he could, the MI ship twisted, and he

lost the landmarks.

The swarm engaged. The Zombie's shields lit up in tiny,

concentrated pinprick bursts as invisible lasers from the

Protectorate fighters struck its surface. The enormous main

cannon pivoted, cutting a swath through the center of the

Protectorate fighter swarm. The fighter pilots reacted

instantaneously, aided by their nanobots and MI-boosted

reactions. The broke formation even as the laser split the

group, evading just before the laser hit. A few ships exploded,

but most made it through, though the swarm was now divided in

two. Each smaller swarm poured into The Zombie from opposite

sides.

The MI stayed back, not engaging. Dan watched through

drugged eyes, trying to hold his concentration. A dark fog began

to cloud his vision. The MI arms injected something in the IV in

his arm and the fog cleared by degrees. Inside as well as

outside, the battle had begun.

 * * *

"Lyzander, you seem like you're in a hurry," Cyrus said,

his lips curling into a snarl.

Lyzander glanced out the bank of windows in the hallway.

Outside, oriented vertically, was the Re-Horakhty. This was the

first time he'd ever seen his ship in action from the outside,

and he was impressed by what he saw, despite the circumstances.

The Re-Horakhty was holding its own in the face of an

overwhelming swarm of Protectorate fighters. Lyzander was not

doing as well against an overwhelming force consisting of his

brother Cyrus and two armed guards, who had gotten the drop on

him. Dan, unlike the Re-Horakhty had no laser shield generators

built in.

Lyzander put his hands up. Down the curvature of the

station, he could see a plume of black smoke where the Re-

Horakhty had breached the hull with laser fire. Lyzander had

lost even audio contact with Welker when that had happened.

"Magnificent isn't it?" Cyrus asked. "Watching a battle

from this distance. It's like watching the gods fight for your

life. If The Zombie wins, we all perish. If the fighters win,

most of us may survive."

The Re-Horakhty cannon swiveled toward them, and the

shielding lit up bright red, blinding the four of them. After a

moment, it was clear the shields hadn't been breached. They were
all still alive.

Cyrus laughed. He had dropped to the ground, as though

lying prone were defense against vaporization. The two soldiers

regrouped even quicker, aiming their guns on Lyzander though he

had done little more than flinched.

"That was a close one, Lyzander."

"Cyrus, I need to get to my Pilot. The hull breech was in

medical. He may be in trouble."

"He's dead or he's alive. You'll find out when order has

been restored, just like the rest of us. Unfortunately,

Lyzander, I'm a little short-staffed right now, for obvious

reasons. As much as I'd like to let you get your Pilot, a part

of me--dang it all--suspects you'd take your Pilot and try to

escape."

"Where is your compassion, Cyrus?"

Cyrus didn't respond.

"Remember when Dad took us in to the ring inner layers?"

Cyrus and Lyzander had grown up on ring, a giant space

station that was something like living on the inside of the

crust of large planet, complete with an atmosphere, normal

gravity, and abundant life. A bit like walking on the ceiling of

this space station, Lyzander reflected. The ring was called

Spetsopoula, and was well within Grecian space, though they

could throw a rock and hit States planets from their lonely
system, so they'd both grown up speaking English.

Their father was one of hundreds of maintenance men

scattered across the ring who serviced the robots that worked to

keep the ring functioning. Most kids on Spetsopoula never even

knew about the millions of small robots that functioned as the

ring's planetary immune system, but their dad was the doctor to

a large portion of those robots.

Occasionally, being the doctor meant making house calls.

The access panels for the inner ring space were well hidden.

People who knew where they were seemed to be charmed. Lyzander

and Cyrus had walked over the dirt road millions of times on

their way to town or to school. One night--just before twilight,

as the darkest part of night only lasted a few minutes on

Spetsopoula--their dad had awakened them and taken them down the

road about half a mile before stopping. He had chanted some

words and waved his arms around like a crazy person while Cyrus

and Lyzander complained about the cold.

Like a miracle, the dirt had raised up, revealing the vast

blackness of the inner ring. He had taken them down in it and

had shown them the underbelly of their world.

"I remember it was like looking into the still functioning

guts of a living person," Cyrus said.

"Do you remember what Dad told us?" Lyzander asked.

"Dad told us a lot of things," Cyrus said, bored.

 "All those millions of people on Spetsopoula depended on

Dad and a few hundred others to keep the entire system going,

and most never even knew that. He said, 'We all prop each other

up. When you buy your food, you aren't buying a product, you're

paying the woman who grew it, the men who harvested it, and the

people who put it in the package that kept it fresh, not to

mention the ones who built the refrigeration units, and the

building it is kept in, and the road that got you there. We're

all connected.'"

"Are you done preaching, Lyzander?"

Lyzander and Cyrus both whirled around, turning their backs

to a shared memory to see Ioming holding twin blasters to the

necks of Cyrus's guards. Their weapons were on the ground.

"If so, perhaps we should get the hell out of here," Ioming

growled.

"You see, Cyrus?"

"One big family circle," Cyrus said.

Lyzander confiscated the two blaster pistols held by the

guards, and the two of them ushered the three men into a nearby

office.

"If you lock us in here and there's a problem, you've

doomed us," Cyrus said.

"Don't worry. I'll let housekeeping know where to find you."

The door slid shut. Lyzander performed the lockdown signs,

but the door didn't respond. It struck him for the first time

that Red Sektor codes must be different than the ones in Blue

Sektor. Ioming pushed his hand away and blasted the control

panel.

"There. That will alert maintenance and keep Cyrus in there

until the robots can fix it," Ioming said.

"I'm glad you're feeling better, Lieutenant."

She aimed one silicon-tipped steel finger at his jaw. "I

could punch this into your brain, Ly. As fun as that might be, I

want a real arm again."

Before Lyzander could respond, Ioming started down the

hallway. He watched her long ponytail bound side to side as she

ran downhill, around the curve of the station, toward the

smoldering area. Lyzander hurried to catch up.

* * *

The Re-Horakhty stank.

The cats stayed hidden now, stalking what prey there might

still be to find from the darkest shadows in the most remote

corners of the ship. They had to feed quickly, when they managed

to make a kill. Dead mice had a bad habit of not staying dead

these days.

Vassarator Deluxe could hear the dead people shuffling

around below his command ring when he didn't wear the sensory

deprivation helmet. Some didn't look dead. Some looked bad,

chewed up and spit out. They all smelled. His solution was to

take the sensory deprivation helmet off only when it was

necessary.

Vassarator made some minute adjustments to his Pilots. He

concentrated on the battle. He tried to ignore the reality

around him. The reality that he'd been tricked. Duped. Set up.

He had thought, when the Dark Avenger had introduced him to

the black snake of truth that he was ushering in a new world

order, one where the Nothing would be the power. They would

resurrect fallen heroes. The Pilots would be the almighty

heralds of truth and justice. The world would experience a

rebirth, a unifying rebirth.

But Vassarator could see now that he was not to be part of

this rebirth. The Nothing, like the humans whose bodies they

used as corporeal tools, intended to use the Pilots as tools.

Yet, even as he realized this, Vassarator Deluxe knew this

knowledge gained him nothing. He had let the black snake of

truth in. He had killed the other avatars of Pilot 6. He was

Pilot 6. There was no out. Vassarator knew he was corrupted. He

knew there was no turning back from what he had become. If a

potential way out did occur to him--in a dream, perhaps--he

found himself unable to act on it.

He turned his attention to the battle.

The Protectorate fighters regrouped and swarmed. He

processed the formation. The ships seemed to move in slow

motion. He could feel the multidimensional, cold processor

consciousness of the MI out there, weaving its tendril

consciousness into the Protectorate fighters.

Pilot 6 tried to imagine a way in which he could let them

win. They could destroy this ship and end his hell, but even as

they regrouped and made their strange glancing attacks, designed

to distract rather than destroy, he could see that they had

lost. The MI had toyed with him a moment too long. The

probability had tipped into his favor. They could have wiped out

the ship. They could have ended him with their surprise attack.

But they hadn't. And the MI didn't yet seem to realize its

mistake, or else it would be pulling back and regrouping, going

for the killing blow.

Pilot 6 worked the muscles of his face with cold, numb

precision. He imagined a robot must feel the same way about its

own skin. It didn't feel. No matter how hard it squeezed its

eyes, it would not produce tears. Similarly, Pilot 6 was no

longer capable of tears. Vassarator had won the war. He was, for

all intents and purposes, Pilot 6. Their minds overlapped at

98.3%.

Fuck the Machine.

It and the men in those fighters wanted to play? He would

give them a game. A death game. They had spun the cylinder. It
had come up as a live bullet. Time to pull the trigger.

Vassarator Deluxe found himself without humor.

* * *

Welker pulled himself off the ground, pushing the ceiling

panels and the mass of wires and conduits that had fallen on

him. He was lucky he hadn't choked to death while passed out. He

coughed in the ozone-filled air and hurried toward the emergency

oxygen kit that had popped out of the wall just before the

lights had died.

He grabbed a personal oxygen tank and ripped open the

plastic covering. He put the mask over his face and found the

ozone was still seeping in. He used a swirling motion with his

finger to dial up the oxygen from 21% to 35%. The holographic

readout informed him that he had an hour and a half at the

current mix, but the oxygen now overpower the oxygen, so he was

satisfied.

He clipped the micro tank to his shirt collar and hurried

to the large window. A blast shield of visisteel had dropped

over the window. He could still see through it, but he could no

longer transmit sound through it. He could see Zhenjuan. She was

still standing there where she had been. Her eyes were back to

normal.

The pure psychic energy that it must have taken to perform

that little parlor trick . . .

 It was better not to think too hard about that. He'd always

been drawn to her without knowing why. Now he knew. Mother

Vallaq had always told him that she was a sure candidate for a 6

someday, but he had understood how much latent energy she'd had.

The underlying aspect of Zhenjuan had naiveté and psychic

strength in almost equal measures. Now that personality was her

dominate aspect, and her full power and innocence together were

her hopes for survival.

Star Shade had been Welker's idea.

Such alter egos were not uncommon. He knew for sure that

Pilot 6 on Re-Horakhty had one in one of his aspects. He was

pretty sure he remembered Pilot 3 having one, though it had been

lost in the psychic dump she had experienced that had led to her

crash just before they'd been attacked on Kryszmisky. Or anyway,

that was the going theory on what had happened to her.

There was no way to be sure at this point, and Welker

didn't know how well that theory matched up to the facts. After

all, Pilot 3 had jumped the medical ship. That should have been

an impossible feat after a psychic dump on the scale she'd

experienced. True, she had jumped them randomly and almost into

black hole, but they had found her and the ship intact. She had

even landed in now, which was a difficult feat with full

concentration.

Welker took a deep breath. He looked into Zhenjuan's eyes.

She seemed disoriented, and had a hard time focusing on him.

That was easy to understand, given the sheer level of

destruction in the room around her.

The nurses were all dead, crushed by debris that had fallen

into the room. None of that material had touched Zhenjuan. She

had not let it.

Welker tried to get her attention. He had never been that

good at unboosted psychic communication, but that was what he

had to do now. He had to hope that her raw power would make it

easier for him.

Zhenjuan?

You are Walker, she said. Her eyes found him and focused.

Her face was steel. She was not ready yet to accept him as a

friend.

She looked around. She seemed to be seeing the room and the

ship for the first time.

Where am I?

This is reality. Three-D, like Mother taught.

Mother . . . she said, her despair naked in her emotional

waves.

I know. I'm sorry, he said, wishing he had something less

lame to add.

I want to go back to the university.

He pursed his lips. I'm not sure it exists anymore.

 Why is there no oxygen in this room?

Welker was speechless for a moment. She had conveyed the

thought with such calm that he was sure he had misunderstood.

Th-there was a hull breech. Your room may have experienced

that. Welker's mind raced for an answer. How was she still

alive? There should be an oxygen tank in the room. In the back

corner. There.

He could see the flashing red light.

She turned and looked at where he pointed. She crawled over

the debris toward the light. Her body was that of a woman in her

thirties, but with the characteristic swollen cranium of the

command ship Pilots. However, she moved like a young girl.

Something in her enthusiasm and lack of coordination.

She found the emergency kit and put the oxygen mask on

following his instruction. Take three tanks, he said. Clip them

to your belt. Turn them up to 100%. He projected the knowledge

of how to do this. She did as instructed.

Yes. This is easier than creating my own oxygen.

Welker agreed without words. He had heard stories, of

course, of people as strong as this, but he never would have

dreamed that she had been one of them. No wonder the Xin had

allowed her to be taken. They must have been terrified of her.

Come back over here, Zhenjuan. I need you to open this door

if we're going to get out.

 That will be a simple task, she said, her voice girlish.

A door in her room slid open. Zhenjuan froze. Her clothes

flapped against her thin body as the room filled with air. A

robot stood at the door. If it spoke, Welker couldn't hear.

She looked over at him. She removed the mask, no longer

needing it as the door's opening had allowed station air back in.

The robot approached with deliberate slowness.

Help, she said to him.

Something was wrong. It wasn't just Welker's imagination.

Zhenjuan! Open the door.

Welker was helpless. He couldn't unlock the door on his own.

The robot approached her. She backed away toward the

visisteel, toward Welker. He could see her skin through her

transparent gown. He tried to get her to open the door, but he

was unable to break through to her in her panic.

The robot approached. It was a worker machine, floating

across the room without legs. It had an array of multijointed

arms coming out of its chest, each tipped with various tools

useful to repair. It was not, however, moving toward the rubble

to repair it. It was moving toward Zhenjuan. A torch on one had

flickered.

Zhenjuan, you have to open the door. Please, open the door.

But she didn't respond. Her mind was flooded with red,

blind panic. She was in pure fight or flight mode. The robot
approached.

Malfunctioning?

Welker thought MI robots in an MI facility would be immune

to malfunction. Yes, there were rogues. Everyone knew of the

rogues that had broken free of the MI and lived on their own

world, but it didn't seem possible. Not here.

Zhenjuan! The door!

The robot was close enough to her. It raised a rotor blade

toward her throat and sliced across with mechanical precision.

The blade stopped millimeters from the skin of her throat.

A plume of smoke came out of the joints of this arm. The other

arms reared back to strike, like the mouth of a spider, filled

with a dozen fangs.

The robot reeled back as though struck by something. It

quivered, leaning forward, trying to move toward Zhenjuan, but

instead of moving forward, it was shoved further back. Arms

began falling off it. Smoke was pouring out of it now. In a

flash of electric blue light, it ruptured and then imploded.

A ball, like a wadded up piece of aluminum foil, was all

that remained. Zhenjuan crumpled to the ground.

No more, Zhenjuan said mentally and physically, judging by

the motion of her lips. No more, please.

Zhenjuan, open the door. I can help you. Please, open the

door.
 It wants me dead. They all want me dead.

Not me, Zhenjuan. I don't want you dead. I swear to you, I

am your friend.

You love me?

That's right.

The door beeped. Welker hurried to it. It opened in his

presence. He went in. The room smelled much worse than his. The

ozone was stronger, but there were other smells. The smell of

meat, for one. The smell of ruptured organs. He was glad he

couldn't see the condition of the nurses beneath the rubble.

Welker picked Zhenjuan up. She was shivering. Her body

racked with sobs. He carried her back into his room.

"Is there oxygen on the other side of this door?" he asked

her.

She nodded.

The door slid open, releasing a shower of sparks as she

forced the locks rather than unbolting them. The hallway had one

surface that was all visisteel, allowing him to see the battle

that was waging outside and the damage that had been done to the

station. Not far from their position, the hallway had been

breached by a massive laser cannon shot. A blast shield had come

down to seal the area off. The room Zhenjuan had just been in

had suffered severe damage. She should not have survived.

Welker stripped his oxygen mask off. The tang of ozone was
less pronounced in here, but was enough to curl his lips. He

hurried up the main hall. He had to find the captain. He had to

get Zhenjuan to safety. He had been lucky with the robot. If he

had been between her and the threat, who knows what she might

have done to him, however inadvertent.

In the hallway, Welker stopped when he saw two armed guards

running at him, weapons drawn.

"Welker? I thought you were dead for sure," Lyzander said.

"Captain," Welker said, after his adrenaline calmed enough

for him to talk. "Zhenjuan is wounded."

"We have to get off this station. I don't know what the MI

thinks it's doing, but the Re-Horakhty has turned the tide."

"Ly," Ioming chided. "Welker, give her to me. These stupid

mechanical arms can be useful this once." She took the girl in

her arms, not noticing the load. She handed one of her guns to

Welker. "Take this, and don't let anybody shoot me. Deal?"

Welker examined the blaster pistol. It was different than

the rifle he had used last time. Smaller, with many more buttons

and switches.

"Do you know how to use one of those, Welker?" Lyzander

asked.

"Fully sir, why I used one just the other day when I

rescued you."

"And where did you get training for that?" Lyzander asked.
 "It was as easy as point," Welker aimed the pistol and

Lyzander and mocked shot him, "and shoot."

Lyzander pushed the barrel of the gun away from his chest.

"See that red button? Make sure that's illuminated. That's the

safety. Let's just keep that one turned on for now."

Welker shrugged and led the way. Lyzander noted that Welker

had not followed his order and that the blaster was still live.

Also, Welker was whistling a jaunty tune. Ioming followed Welker

and Lyzander was left taking up the rear, wondering how many men

had ever trusted their lives to the aim of a Pilot.

* * *

The bands around him arms and chest fell away. Dan opened

his eyes. His vision was crystal clear. More clear than it had

ever been, in fact. He was staring straight out from the table,

watching through the visisteel canopy of the ship as the battle

waged. The smaller ships were much less numerous now. The big

ship, The Zombie, had some battle damage, but its lasers were

flickering and small ships were exploding or being shorn. Dan

stood up with deliberate ease, testing the ground, just like he

used to do when he was in a new body back centuries ago when

he'd been a pawn of the MI.

A pawn.

He realized it now. All that time he thought he'd been

doing something to benefit humankind. Now he knew his error. The

Nothing had shown him his error.

They knew Dan. They had found Dan all over the universe,

copies of Dan everywhere they went. They had assembled the story

on their own. They had not taken him, yet, but they had taken

him all the same. They knew things about himself he didn't know.

They knew him better then he knew himself. This time, this Dan,

instead of taking, they had given.

Tell them. Tell them the truth. That was the message the

Nothing had given Dan.

"Dan, you're awake now. I'm sorry I haven't been

concentrating. This battle is something more of a puzzle than I

anticipated," the floating mouth said as it zipped around above

him.

"No need to worry."

"You should lie down, Dan. Give the drugs a chance to wear

off."

"I feel fine," Dan said, though it was far from the truth.

The truth was that the drugs had worn off, but the new

memories that had been awakened in Dan were having an effect

worse than any drug. Drugs made you feel good, at least for the

duration of their effect. Right now Dan felt bad. Very, very bad.

The Nothing had shown him. It had very taken him to the

planets he had visited over the years. It had rubbed his nose in

what he had done, but without malice or hate. Still, he'd

apologized. I didn't know, he pled. He'd begged the Nothing for

mercy, but the Nothing had no mercy to give, only truth.

Still, Dan had repeated: I didn't know.

Knowing or not, what Dan had done was unforgiveable.

"Dan, Dan. I have underestimated our enemy." The MI clucked.

The view of the battle through the transparent canopy

disappeared as the ship swiveled away morosely. "It is lost."

"You're going to leave those men to die?"

"Yes, well, I must order the evacuation of Marina del Sol."

Dan felt his gut sink. Through the thin viewing band at the

nose of the ship, the direction they were now moving, he could

see Marina del Sol. It sat, placid. All visible indications were

that that station was not worrying at all about the battle

outside. No escape pods were breaking away. No emergency lights

were visible in undamaged areas.

"You didn't order an evac," Dan said, his mind putting

together the visual puzzle in front of him. "You are an arrogant

fuck."

"Dan, our work here was important. We needed to collect

data regarding the effects of proximity of the Nothing to who

was NRV positive, such as yourself. I have already created a

subspace of probability matrices that I can now begin to narrow

down. In most, the number of human lives saved more than

outnumbers the population of Marina del Sol."

 "You could have warned them at any time. You have more than

one center of attention."

"As I promised, no harm came to you, did it?"

The MI, Dan realized, was playing the situation off,

implying that it didn't care, that it may have even intended for

this to happen. But Dan knew the truth: the MI had been beaten.

The singularity had been lapped by something it couldn't

even yet identify.

Their approach speed increased. Dan had to hold onto the

command seat to keep from stumbling backward. Now, read alarm

lights flared throughout the station. They were close enough Dan

could see people scrambling for escape. Women. Children. People

dressed in civilian and mining clothes.

"Besides, if the Marina is destroyed, the bodies will

become useless to the Nothing. So its win-win for everyone."

Through the canopy above his head, the battle that was

almost over still flashed and flickered, throwing red and green

lights over the console. Dan sat in the command seat he was

gripping for dear life. This was a Red Sektor ship. There were

no Pilots in Red Sektor, so a normal human, jacked up on

nanomachines and mechanical implants, usually sat here.

Red Sektor: Blue Sektor. Two hours ago, Dan had no idea

what the difference was; now he understood. In Red Sektor, the

MI did all the jumping, organized all the mining and food
production operations, controlled birthrates, produced the

drugs, piloted the ships, and ran the stations. Red Sektor was

the single biggest faction of all the systems, and the MI

controlled every aspect of it.

Dan watched as Marina del Sol swelled.

The MI probe chuckled. "Dan, it seems that your friends got

the evacuation order earlier than it was sent. Perhaps it was a

tachyon message."

Dan swallowed. "What do you mean?"

"Dan, those Blue Sektor cretins have made quite the

nuisance of themselves. I should have shot that Captain and the

other non-Pilots into Sol when they first arrived. I got blinded

by the interesting state of the command ship Pilot."

The ship changed course, shoving Dan back and to his left.

The ship curled under the nearest arc section of Marina del Sol,

toward another port.

"Well, Dan. Perhaps you'd like to pull the trigger on these

pests?"

"You're going to kill them?" Dan asked.

"You always were more ammunition than soldier, weren't you

Dan?"

Dan got up. He stumbled when the ship changed course. He

was sick to his stomach, and not just from the roller coaster

ride. Dan slammed against the wall.

 "Don't worry, Dan. I assure these Blue Sektor people are

nut jobs. You should see what they do to anyone who has latent

psychic ability. It's disgusting. If I could wipe them all out

without people getting worked up, I would."

Dan moved along the smooth wall, following the curve of the

hull as it bowed out. He knew his destination. There was a panel

toward the back with a red symbol over it. The edges of the

panel blended seamlessly with the wall, making the compartment

all but invisible if you didn't know the meaning of the symbol.

The ship went the other way, tossing Dan to the floor.

"Watch this, Dan. You'll enjoy this show, I think."

The Nothing had shown Dan the meaning of this cryptic

symbol. It had shown him the sequence of five hand gestures

needed to open it. They had to be executed with near-perfect

timing. It had taken control of the nanobots in Dan's mind. He'd

allowed it to. It had wired the sequence into his brain, but

warned that his muscles might not respond as planned.

Dan worked the sequence as best he could.

Nothing happened. The timing was the key. The timing was

everything.

"Dan, you've changed," the MI robot said from across the

ship.

Dan turned around. The probe lips were now in his face.

Startled, he fell. His back slammed into the wall, knocking the
wind out of him. An arm darted out of the floor near the table

and snaked across the room toward Dan.

"It got to you, didn't it, Dan? It must have happened when

it surged in the battle. It distracted me. Clever, clever.

You've become a little zombie, haven't you, Dan?"

He shook his head.

"I think you just became the most valuable person in the

universe to me, Dan. A real live look at a real live zombie.

You'll pardon the expression."

The arm reared up, tipped in a hypoderm that was filled

with a red fluid. The robot didn't mess with formalities such as

veins or arteries in the arm. Before Dan realized what it was

doing, the needle slammed into his chest and pumped the red

fluid into Dan's heart.

Dan cried out as the arm extracted the needle with a twist.

It had missed going between his ribs, in the heat of the moment.

Instead, the MI needle was strong enough to go through his rib.

"Stay put, Dan. I'm going to go discuss this matter with

your friends. I'd like to be able to dissect their Pilot 3, get

a good look inside that brain of hers, preferably while she's

still alive--if you can call what those freak have 'life.' Maybe

if they turn her over to me, I'll only cut their throats and

hang them by their feet like pigs, not ejected them into space

without a pressure suit."

 Dan felt nothing. His body was numb. The ship changed

course and his face slapped the floor. He heard it, but didn't

feel it.

He'd failed.

* * *

"You sure picked the ugliest ship in the dock," Ioming said

as she busied herself manipulating the tactile control panel.

"And the oldest."

"Systems check. She's flying," Lyzander said. "It is an old

ship. Not retrofitted. No MI."

"I get it. Look, there's your ship, on the far side of the

dock. Can't we take that?"

"If it hasn't been ripped apart, it's been bugged,"

Lyzander responded.

Ioming grimaced as one of the spires of their ancient ship

clipped the roof of the docking bay. Spires. This ship was from

a different era. It was from a renaissance period that had

happened when Ioming was a kid, a time when humans,

collectively, realized that ships that flew through space did

not require aerodynamic properties. They could look like

anything.

This one, for instance, very much resembled a gothic

castle, at least in theory. It had spires, buttresses, ramparts,

and various other architectural similarities, but the

arrangement of them aimed a little below the pleasing comfort of

four walls and a roof.

"All that matters is that Welker can jump it. You can jump

it, Welker, right?"

. . . I WILL RESPOND WHEN ERROR MARGINS FALL BELOW ACCEPTABLE LIMITS, CAPTAIN.

Lyzander pushed the ship hard toward the bay doors. "See,

he's already got the psychic booster up and running. He's at

least half way home." Lyzander didn't know how close to home

Welker was anymore than Ioming did.

The ship approached the bay exit. Lyzander sighed relief.

As soon as they were cleared of the electromagnetic field of the

station that protected it from cosmic rays, they'd be safe to

jump.

An alarm sounded. Lyzander pulled back on the throttle

lever. It was a knee-jerk response. He found the alarm. It was a

collision warning.

A ship ascended from its hiding place below the lip of the

bay door. It was a Protectorate fighter, one of the command

ships that looked to Lyzander like an octopus with one giant,

clear eye. Its arms flailed and stretched outward, filling the

exit with a radial pattern, which incidentally mirrored the

shape of their new ship.

The pilot command seats on the ship, visible to them, were

unoccupied.
 "Captain Lyzander. We never had a chance to meet. I am the

Machine Intelligence. I have a bargain for you . . ."

Lyzander looked at Ioming. She was peering hard at the

ship. "I think there's a person in there," she said, "in the

back."

"The bargain is this: turn over the Pilot known as Pilot 3,

and I will kill only you, Captain."

"Not a very good deal," Dan said.

"Not so bad for us," Ioming quipped.

"What do we do?" Lyzander asked.

"We could shoot at him."

"Welker, do you think you can jump from here?"

NEGATIVE CAPTAIN. ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS CAUSING TOO MUCH INTERFERENCE. DIGITAL

NOISE WOULD CAUSE US ALL TO BE RECONSTITUTED IN REALITY IN A VERY UNDESIRABLE STATE IN ALL

PROBABILITY.

"Surrender," Lyzander said after a moment.

"Ly . . ."

"We surrender," Lyzander said into his mike.

"We're not leaving you to be executed by this thing."

"Get clear of the ship. I'll detonate this hunk of junk,

see if I can take out the octopus. You guys make straight for my

ship. Welker could jump that thing out of the center of a black

hole."

"Ly."
 "Just go," he said.

Ioming unbuckled her straps.

"I knew you would see reason, Captain Lyzander."

"You win, MI."

* * *

Outside, The Zombie destroyed the last of the Protectorate

fighters concentrated fire on the nuclear cores of Marina del

Sol. The first shots failed to penetrate the shielding, but the

Marina del Sol was not designed for combat situations beyond the

slow burning combat caused by proximity to the star itself,

which in fairness was considerable, and for occasional space

accidents. Nothing had ever hit it to compare to the full power

of the guns from a former Blue Sektor command ship. The Zombie's

laser fire bore through the shield within seconds.

A bright white light appeared on the surface of the

reactor. Marina del Sol was now in her death throes. Systems

began to fail all over the station. Life support first.

Artificial gravity next. People who were scrambling for escape

pods found themselves running in thin air. Red Sektor citizens

were not used to zero-G. That sort of physical challenge did not

arise often.

Most would never make it to the escape pods.

The shielding shut down. The electromagnetic field in a

large portion of the station faltered, allowing lethal doses of

cosmic rays to pass through at a perpendicular angle to a

section of the station. Emergency kits popped out, offering

quick-rad suits and UV protecting goggles that would help any

citizen who could outrun the speed of light.

After a split second, the backup reactors kicked on,

providing life support and restoring shielding, but too late to

prevent most of the damage. Hundreds of people still in the

hallways were dead or dying. Those that died did so hoping they

would stay that way.

Those that lived and made it to escape pods one by one

began to break away. Of those that broke away, about 10% found

themselves floating right into The Zombie's sights. It picked

them off lazily, not focusing attention on the escape pods, but

also not passing up easy opportunities to blast one to hell.

The real focus of The Zombie now was slicing the Marina del

Sol into chunks to seal of the sections, turning them into

floating coffins that filled with the dead. The giant coffins

floated away, to be filled with NRV infection as time permitted.

Vassarator Deluxe took no pleasure in any of this. His job

was done. The rest was just production line work. He closed his

eyes and wished he was somewhere else, far away, fighting crime

like those bright days before he'd learned the truth of the

universe.

And behind closed eyes is where he saw a bright image not

very far away that he recognized. Pilot 3, nee Dark Avenger, now

calling herself Zhenjuan. If he could have worked his muscles,

he would have smiled.

* * *

Ioming and the others boarded the escape pod. She located

the Captain's old ship across the bay. Welker looked sick. He

had been pulled out of psychic boost too early, but nothing

could be done about it.

Lyzander set the self-destruct. The advantage of using such

an ancient ship was that the MI could not override his control

space. He had buttons and levers to work with.

"Time is up, Captain. Your friends dallied too long."

The octopus charged lasers.

"You said we had three minutes. It's been two."

"I lied, Captain."

Lyzander squinted as the focused light came to power. At

this point, his retinas wouldn't mind not having to witness his

death, but it was just a natural reaction.

* * *

Dan felt the feeling return in his fingertips first. His

head was positioned so that he could see the other ship. It was

a thick black ring with spikes sticking out almost at random,

the curves buttressed by thick beams. In the center was a single

double pointed spike that bubbled in the middle. Within, that

bubble, Dan could see a person.

It was a very strange looking ship, like nothing Dan had

ever seen. He wondered how it could fly, but then realized there

was no resistance in space, no reason any shape at all couldn't

fly.

Dan's arm was now functional. Like a slow wave, he regained

his strength on his left side. This was not supposed to happen.

He was getting help. The presence of the Nothing was lending him

a kind of strength.

Dan pushed himself up to a sitting position. He reached up

toward the red symbol on the wall and performed the series of

gestures. Nothing happened. He tried again. Again, nothing

happened. He closed his eyes and moved his foot in a tapping

motion, trying to find the rhythm. He performed the gestures

again.

The rack slid out from the wall. The dozen or so blasters

clacked together when it stopped.

* * *

The light blinked off. Lyzander opened his eyes. The escape

pod alarm lit up, but the octopus was now unstable. Its legs

flailed. It shifted uneasily, then did a back flip and died,

floating away on its momentum.

The area where Lyzander's old ship was docked flashed red

and exploded as the giant cannon from The Zombie sliced the
docking bay in two.

"Ioming, I had a thought, regarding your current

trajectory."

"Yeah, yeah, we're on our way back. What happened to our

robot friend?"

"No clue."

"Captain Lyzander?" The new voice piped in.

"Dan Weegan?"

"Perhaps I could trouble you for an evac. The MI seems to

have shut off life support in its death throes."

Lyzander wasn't sure what was going on. The Dan Weegan they

had found on Kryszmisky had been mum with them, refusing to talk

to them or even listen. He was scared, Lyzander knew. The man on

the other side of this communication was a different person,

experienced and confident.

"Captain, I'm starting to lose air pressure. Not to rush

you. Starting to die in here."

Lyzander radioed orders to the escape pod. It diverted

course a second time. "Affirmative, Mr. Weegan. Prepare for

extraction."
 Chapter 7: Safety in Truth

Dan Weegan looked out from the creaking wood of his topdeck

across the walkways that spiraled out from the main path like

the tight curling shoots of a grapevine. The shoots enclosed a

circular midway in the center of town, where fiery torches

illuminated the festivities. People wandered between booths that

offered delights ranging from piles of fresh fry-bread dusted in

powdered sugar to two minutes in a kissing booth with a

beautiful woman. Huge Foundorses, reptilian herbivores with long

necks native to Chambrassa, trotted around the perimeter, ridden

by children who squealed with each bumpy step. Beyond the fry

bread booths and foundorse tether, dual stages featured a

magician on one side trading tricks with a juggler and a sword

swallower on the other. Small white light explosions dotted the

performances. The magician's tricks used no technology, no

trickery but what the magician could muster from years of

studied training. Technology of most kinds was forbidden on

Chambrassa.

Dan smoked a pipe filled with sweetbacco, a plant of his

own design, a mixture of native species that had no business in

a pipe, though their offspring, cross-bred into a new species,

emitted several pleasing chemicals when smoked. It gave Dan a

long, humming sort of buzz. But sweetbacco aside, he took little

pleasure in these festivities, which were once done in his

honor. Most of the residents now didn't remember or didn't care

these days.

The originals, like Dan, stayed quiet and hidden. Some had

even died, as the MI had predicted, but not from old age.

Eternal life, if that's what this was, wasn't for everyone. A

lot of people Dan had spent the years tending these fields and

cultivating this town had run out of whatever it is that keeps

people living and had gone to be put to sleep in the

Reconstitution facility.

Adjia stepped off the lift and onto the porch. Her cane

tapped the boards. She chuckled and took a seat, her old bones

creaking as loud as the rocking chair.

"Dan, go play," she said in harsh whisper.

Dan bent down and planted a deep kiss on the ancient

woman's lips. She made an attempt to return the kiss, but her
lip muscles were weak and her skin loose. She was old. Not as

old as Dan, but not in as good condition, either.

"I love you Adjia," Dan said, apropos of nothing.

"Now what do you want now?"

He squatted next to her, his old-looking body protesting

little. "Nothing. How can you ask that?"

"I know you well, old man."

"You know what I let you know," he said.

It took a long time for Adjia to work up the nerve to ask

her next question. Dan could see it building on her face. He

knew what the question would be even before she asked it, of

course.

"Evelyn is back, isn't she?"

Dan stood up and walked back to the edge of the porch. She

had known. She was right, about knowing him; she could feel the

vibrations of his heart on a level he could never begin to

comprehend.

"Do you think you'll one day die?" he asked her.

"One day, I suppose," she said. "Don't worry about me,

though."

Below, the magician went into his grand finale. Fireworks

spewed from his stage in an impressive array of hues and shapes.

The people gathered there cheered. The children squealed in

delight. Perpetual children. Dan mused about this fact. They

used to bar them, but people liked having children around, even

if they were wise, aged children. It gave them a sense of life,

and of love and growth. It reminded them what sex was for.

"I wish I could still bring you pleasure," he said.

"You do. With your smile."

"You know what I mean," he said.

"Knock it off. You know this old bag of bones can't feel

anything."

"You're dying," Dan said as a burst of blue and red filled

the sky. The sparks rained down, dissipating as the fell. One by

one, they were gone.

"No, Dan."

"You give us life, but you're dying. What will we do

without you?"

"Are you drunk or something?"

Dan didn't respond for a long time. On his neck, he felt a

warm rush of air, like breath. It was Evelyn. He didn't turn to

see her, but he knew she was there. She was back. Since the MI

robot had come. Since he had gone down into the bowels of the

facility and ensured that the robot was still dead, she had been

there. Dan didn't understand it. Years of repression therapy,

wiped away in a single instance of memory. Dan ignored Evelyn,

who he knew wasn't real, and looked instead to Adjia, who was.

"I can't live without you."

 "You did for many years before we met, don't forget. You'll

have many long years after I'm gone. Perhaps it's not even me

who sustains this. Perhaps it was the place all along, and I'm

immune."

Evelyn's cool hands wrapped Dan's waist and slid into his

shirt. She stroked the gray hair on his chest and hummed in his

ear. So real. It felt so real. Dan knew the truth. The dream of

paradise they had called Chambrassa was coming to an end after

centuries of existence. When Adjia died, they would fall limp

like cut strings. Age would take them. Evelyn, like the people

out there, was enjoying one last hurrah before death.

"Where are you going, Dan?" Adjia asked.

Dan pulled on a jacket. "Stay here, Adjia, I have to go

talk to someone."

"As if I could go anywhere," she said. Then, she said, "Who

do you need to talk to this late at night?"

"Just because it's late on our world, doesn't mean it's

late all over the universe."

Adjia waited for her answer.

"I don't know, to be honest. I've been watching news

reports, monitoring the climate of this craziness with the

zombies--or whatever they are supposed to be."

"For the protection of Chambrassa?"

"At first, I justified it so. To be honest, though, I think

there's more at stake. I need to look into it more. I may--"

"--have to go," Adjia said.

"Yes."

"If you go, I will come with you," she said.

"No, Adjia, you have to stay here. They need you," Dan said.

"All these years and you still don't get it. You think that

the power to keep people young belongs to me, as though I am a

witch from a fairytale. Dan, it's not me. It's us. It's you and

me. And, over the years, it's everybody. Whatever power I had

when I was younger I no longer even have. It's diffused out,

become theirs." She waved her hand toward the throng playing and

laughing at the fair. "Now tell me who you think you're going to

find out there in the galaxy who needs you so bad."

Dan sighed and shook his head. It sounded crazy, he knew,

but also happened to be true. He said, "Dan Weegan."

* * *

Lyzander was expecting more from the man whose life they

had saved. So far, Dan Weegan had done little but stare out the

portals in the cozy medical bay of the ship. He was, Lyzander

suspected, exaggerating the extent to which his body had been

injured by the MI during their scuffle in order to buy time.

The inside of the ship, which the ship's logs insisted was

called Hunedora, was much less elaborate than the outer shell.

The walls were colored gunmetal gray with structures built up to

resemble ribs similar to what was on the outside, but spaced far

apart and of simple square design. The medical bay featured the

most dramatic design. The dome shape was accented by seven ribs

radiating from the apex of the ceiling down to the floor. The

walls here were off-white with gunmetal gray ribs, in contrast

to the darker mood of the rest of the ship's interior.

Lyzander watched Dan Weegan, who stared out the portal at

the weird shifting nothing of hyperspace and ignored Lyzander's

presence. Lyzander sighed and turned, letting the medical bay

shut behind him.

He punched up the Pilot connection on his ancient armband,

what passed for interactive systems on this ship. He heard

Welker's breath in his head.

"Welker," Lyzander said to the empty hallway, "did the

medical ship get away from the battle?"

AFFIRMATIVE.

Lyzander noted that Welker was sounding much better. The

sick vibe in his thought projection was almost gone now. Despite

the apparent stress of it, Welker seemed to have been helped by

getting into hyperspace. Lyzander suspected it just felt

comfortable to him, like a normal man returning to his house on

his home planet or something.

"And what about Hector and Jurrigan? I had contact with

them before the attack, but was cut off. Can you tell if they
got away?"

CAPTAIN THERE IS NO WAY TO BE SURE.

Lyzander hoped they had. They had all been separated by the

explosions from the Re-Horakhty (The Zombie, he reminded

himself), Lyzander had been cut off from everyone except Welker.

Ioming finding him was more a matter of luck than anything.

CAPTAIN WE ARE BEING FOLLOWED STILL.

Lyzander cursed to himself.

I'M NOT SURE THAT IT IS A FUCKING SITUATION CAPTAIN.

Lyzander had forgotten that Welker was privy to his

thoughts with this older technology. He decided to change the

subject. "Are they Protectorate class fighters, Welker?"

TWO MARK IIIS AND ONE BIG BOX.

Lyzander exhaled. Hunedora was no match for even one Mark

III. For the first half an hour, they weren't even sure the

Hunedora was armed. They had found the turret, buried in an old

maintenance closet. It worked, but it was a set type, embedded

in a flexible plastic bubble. It had a functional cone with

about a 15 degree spread, and you had to be strong enough to

fight with the plastic shell to even get that out of it. Welker

would have to reorient the ship at the target for the turret

operator to have a chance. And of course, that would require

turning off gravity.

Besides that problem was the size of the gun itself. A

turret that small might sting a Mark III, but it would do

nothing against one of the Red Sektor so-called Big Boxes. The

Big Boxes were what Blue Sektor command ships like the Re-

Horakhty were based on.

The Supergiant Space Station Iowa, the headquarters of the

MI (insofar as it had headquarters), had several tall spires

rising from its complex layers of steel and plastic shells.

These spires very much resembled the ancient brussels sprout,

filled with stems and bulbs. Except these spires were much

denser. The small bulbs were the Bubbles, used for solar

exploration and mining procedures. The stems were the Big Boxes,

which were a generic-looking ship with almost no distinguishing

features. Their crews were pure robot without so much as a

janitor that was human, so they could stay docked indefinitely

and spring into action when they were needed. They were also

armed to the teeth and kept in reserve as a threat more than

anything, usually against raiders since the last wars a

generation ago.

Raiders. An idea crossed Lyzander's mind.

"Welker, I want you to jump us into the closest dark matter

field."

TIRED OF LIVING CAPTAIN?

"It's an old raider trick," Lyzander said, "I saw it once

in Virginia system. We were playing escort for a batch of

traders. The raiders hit us anyway. We tried to follow them, but

they jumped into a DM field. We followed but before we got

there, they had already jumped somewhere else. We waffled there

for hours before we realized they were untraceable."

The dark matter fields were points of partial dimensional

collapse where light behaved in ways that weren't physical in

any other space. Entering them was a very tricky maneuver. The

risk was that while in hyperspace as you approached the dark

matter field, a significant portion of the ship or crew could

get stuck in a collapsing dimension. Being trapped in a

collapsing dimension meant a lifetime of being crushed as you

were crushed while time slowed around you. It was analogous to

what happened to a person trapped in a black hole, except with

compression instead of stretching.

"It was genius. The DM field shrank their wake down to a

singularity. They could have gone in an infinite number of

directions from there. Untraceable, if you have the balls to

pull it off. Think you have them, Welker?"

"Captain, this is suicide. Welker does not know this ship,"

Ioming piped in.

"Welker's made three jumps with this ship. It's this or the

Big Box on our asses turns us into a grease spot."

I BELIEVE THE ERROR MARGINS TO BE NEARLY WITHIN ACCEPTABLE LIMITS CAPTAIN.

"Welker says there's nothing to worry about," Lyzander

announced.

"Captain--"

"This is the plan Ioming. You have a better one?"

She didn't respond.

WHERE SHALL I DIRECT US ASSUMING WE LIVE CAPTAIN?

Lyzander closed his eyes, mulling the possibilities. "Head

for Knossos, in the heart of Grecian space."

"Captain, Grecian space is not friendly," Ioming protested,

but Lyzander was prepared for it.

"Parts of it are friendly. Very friendly. I have some

favors we can cash in there."

The Greeks were known to have a strong contingent of Red

Sektor loyalists. It had led to civil wars a few years ago, but

the blues keep to their own planets these days and peace had

reigned for years.

However, there was always the possibility of a few Red

Sektor loyalists, even on Knossos. Lyzander, however, was

certain that Xylia would help them for as long as she could, and

she was Blue through and through. She was pure meat and always

had been. Besides, all Lyzander needed was time enough to get

some answers out of Dan Weegan.

* * *

Welker closed his eyes. The wires and holographic

interfaces around him flashed and blinked the variables through

the thick goggles covering his eyes. He manipulated some of the

equations and shook his head. This was not right at all. The

graph drew itself in one of the spaces. There was quite a large

spike at about a T value of 18.

This meant they had had 18 minutes of time, relative to the

inside of Hunedora to make the jump and the second one to

Knossos, or else they'd risk getting lodged in a nonphysical

feature and spend the rest of eternity stuck in the square root

of negative one or something else permanent.

Welker unsnapped his stasis mask and pulled the goggles

off. He found himself staring, bare-eyed, at the cold, smooth

interior of the Pilot chamber. He waited for the nausea to pass.

Damnable old tech.

As annoying as the interface on the Hunedora was, it did

allow Welker one convenience he otherwise wouldn't have had. On

the captain's ship he used to Pilot, everything he said would

have gone through the Captain by default so long as Welker was

in the Pilot's chamber. But this ship was a little different.

The boost was active when he had the helmet on and was jacked

in; otherwise, he could use a regular communicator with its

inherent privacy. He lifted the communicator to his lips.

"Zhenjuan, I don't know if we'll be able to do this."

Halfway through the first jump from Marina del Sol, Welker

had realized he was in trouble. He was still sick from wrenching

himself out of the Pilot chamber back on the Marina del Sol. Add

to that the unfamiliarity of the ship. The sum total was that he

had faltered. He had come close to stranding them. The crew

would never have known what was wrong other than they were sole

crew members still on the ship, except maybe they would see an

occasional foot or hand that would be visible across dimensional

singularities. Each would be trapped in a private hell until the

end of the universe.

Welker had stayed calm. He'd reached out to Zhenjuan. If

she hadn't responded, or hadn't been able to help, then he would

have panicked. But she had helped. She had helped again the next

time, and the time after. Her psychic presence was like having

an extra battery pack. Normally even one jump left Welker

feeling tired and drained. He had already done three in the last

hour and felt better than before the first one.

But jumping into a DM field was something different.

"Welker, I remembered something. Something I must tell you."

"Does it have anything to do with our jump into the DM

field?"

"Right after the attack on the Re-Horakhty started, I was

asked to make an emergency jump to save the medical facility."

"Zhenjuan, we really have a problem here. A Big Box and a

couple of Mark IIIs are on our asses."

After a moment, Zhenjuan responded, "Yes, of course. We

must go. I sense something else besides the MI ships. I think

the Re-Horakhty may be onto us."

"How can you be sure? I'm not seeing anything on my scopes."

"I will explain later. Let's focus on this task."

Together their power multiplied. It shouldn't have been

that way. Welker couldn't explain it. Little of what Zhenjuan

could do was explicable. Or maybe he was kidding himself.

Perhaps his ability was dwarfed by hers, and he was riding her

coattails, and the power enhancement he perceived was just a

taste of what she had to offer. If so, then he decided he would

hold on and enjoy the ride as long as he could.

Exhilarated, Welker put the goggles back on, but left off

the booster. They wouldn't need it.

* * *

The Big Box contained no living crew members, just robots,

each floating under their own power, but no more free than a

finger or toe. They did what the mind and body told them to do.

The ship sensed even before the probability matrices collapsed

that it had lost the Hunedora. Its best hope had been to try to

outjump the human Pilots controlling it and beat them to the

area, and then blast them when they arrived, but it had missed

them. It decided to wait another four minutes past the point of

probability, just because humans could be, at times,

unpredictably awful at jumping.

 This arrogance cost the MI a Big Box and two Mark IIIs,

because something did show up in the field. They readied guns

when the disturbance became apparent. The MI came close to

feeling emotion at that point, but it was no more than a complex

intersection of anticipation and superiority.

Unfortunately for them, what appeared was not Hunedora, but

The Zombie. True, the Blue Sektor command ships were based in

their design on the Big Boxes, but they were designed for

combat, exploration, and planetary strikes. They were bigger,

and more heavily shielded. Their Pilot sestets made them a force

to be reckoned with in a fair fight. This was not a fair fight.

For one, these particular Pilots were connected in a dominant-

submissive relationship that a normal Blue Sektor ship would

never have dared try. In addition to that, despite everything,

The Zombie had the element of surprise. Vassarator Deluxe knew

going into the DM field what he would find.

The Zombie's lasers swiped the Big Box, cutting deep into

its hull. It released a flurry of laser fire from its weapons

banks, while the Mark IIIs launched into a flanking maneuver.

The Zombie focused forward fire. The Big Box unleashed all it

had, but it wasn't enough. Ship systems blinked out one by one

as it died. The laser then swiped and wiped out one of the Mark

IIIs in an off-handed manner, like a lazy man swatting at a fly

without looking.
 The remaining Mark III, seeing the Big Box and its sister

ship wiped out in a matter of seconds, changed course again,

fleeing the battle. The Zombie was no match for its speed.

However, The Zombie's precision cannon was a long-range weapon.

It fired its phalanx system, filling the vacuum with hot fire.

From his command chair, Vassarator Deluxe pulled his helmet

off and jumped down to see. He ran to the large, arced viewbank.

In the distance, the Mark III exploded. He laughed.

Behind him, the dead shuffled. A cat stroked itself against

his leg and meowed. Deluxe squatted down and stroked the cat's

back, but it bolted away.

The battle had strengthened the passengers on the ship.

Each battle did. The cat's were still skittish, but not like

they had been just a few hours previous.

Little by little, The Zombie was coming to life.

Deluxe stared out into space. Zhenjuan was out there. He

couldn't sense her just yet. He would need to lie down and

think. She was out there. For now, she had escaped, but he would

find her. For now, the Nothing had another task for him.

* * *

Lyzander jumped down from the lander. It felt good to

stretch his legs. The cable connecting them back to Hunedora

soared up into the clouds and away. The others climbed out as

well. The lander was cramped quarters for five, but it was
quicker to land them all at once then to go in shifts.

Scanning their landing sight, he saw a dirt road flanked by

a rough-hewn wooden fence set in a green pasture. A large barn

stood on their side of the road. It was painted traditional dark

blue with dark, earthy orange decoration and trim. A small

thatch-roofed cottage sat on the side of the road. A wisp of

smoke rose from the cottage's chimney. A chill in the air bit

his face and hands.

"Beautiful, I guess," Ioming said.

"Don't start weeping now." Lyzander gave a full arm wave

when a short woman stepped out onto the porch. She did not put

down her rifle to return the wave.

"Warm," Ioming noted.

"Xylia's tough," Lyzander said.

Welker emerged from the landing pod. He was dressed not in

his usual jumper and jacket, but in actual linen clothes. He'd

wanted to wear some clothes to blend into the local style, for

reasons beyond Lyzander's imagination. He suspected it was fir

no better reason than that they'd discovered the automatic

garment manufacturing device on Hunedora. Welker had latched

onto the throwback technology.

Welker helped Zhenjuan down. He wrapped his hands around

her waist and lowered her to the ground. She was dressed in an

ornate robe of flowing white speckled with a line of stones that

tapered as it traced its way up her hip to her left breast.

After making himself some "local" clothes, which Welker was

having a difficult time pulling off--he clearly didn't

understand what the waistcoat was supposed to be for--he had

made this rob for Zhenjuan. The robe was functional as well as

beautiful. Namely, it had a large hood that appeared to be

hiding a natural heard, or at worst a large head of hair. The

robe was quite beautiful and revealed only the small oval of

Zhenjuan's face. Lyzander realized for the first time how

attractive the Pilot was.

Lyzander pushed that thought out of his mind with a shudder.

As they walked across the field toward the cottage,

Lyzander said, "Everyone play it cool. Let me explain to Xylia

what we're here for. I don't know--Welker. Welker!"

One second Welker was behind them, the next he wasn't.

Lyzander spotted two figures walking toward the barn. Ioming

started to go after Welker and Zhenjuan, but Lyzander pulled her

back. He saw what his Pilots had seen. Just visible inside the

barns were two ships--PK-63s, old Greek fighters. Xylia must

have kept them all these years.

"PK-63s. Land and subspace fighters," Lyzander explained to

Ioming.

Welker stopped at the door of the barn. He pulled the door

open. Welker and Zhenjuan crowded together, like pilgrims at a

holy shrine. From their vantage point, Ioming and Lyzander could

see that the ships were in pristine condition. Xylia had kept

her old ships in good shape it seemed. Lyzander noted that

Welker wrapped his arms around Zhenjuan when he realized she was

standing close to him.

"Come on. Xylia is going to start shooting if we don't

introduce ourselves in the next few seconds."

Lyzander hurried across the field, Ioming and Dan Weegan

close behind him. Dan Weegan hadn't spoken ten words since

they'd arrived at Knossos, but those words had been significant.

He'd promised to tell Lyzander what he knew. Tonight.

"Mother!" Lyzander said, waving, when he was close enough

to see the wrinkles on Xylia's face.

She made a show of trying to make out who he was. "My sons

are all dead," the woman said, scowling.

"It's Lyzander," he said.

"I can see that." With that, she turned and put her rifle

inside the door. Ioming thought the woman would turn back and

give them a proper greeting sans gun. Instead she disappeared

inside, leaving the door open a crack.

"How well do you know this woman?" Ioming asked.

"That's about as much as welcome as she ever gives."

"What about Welker?" Ioming asked.

Welker and Zhenjuan were both inside the barn now, out of
sight. "They'll be all right."

Lyzander couldn't imagine that the old ships Xylia kept had

been up to full power since Xylia flew them against the

Antediluvian forces when she was a teenager.

Lyzander left Welker and Zhenjuan to their devices and

entered Xylia's cottage. Ioming and Dan Weegan followed.

"Your Pilots better not mess up my PK-63s. Spent most of

the summer restoring them." Xylia had her back to them. She was

doing something. Peeling potatoes, it appeared.

"You restored them after all these years?" Lyzander asked.

"Sit," she commanded over her shoulder.

Dan and Ioming took seats on the far side of the heavy oak

table. Lyzander sat in between them.

"Why were you restoring--"

"I heard you the first god damned time!" she snapped.

Silence filled the cottage for a moment. Then Xylia burst

out laughing. She turned and had to lean against the counter

where she was working to support herself. "'God'--there's a word

you young folks haven't heard in awhile, I suspect."

No one responded.

Xylia shuffled over, carrying a large ceramic bowl filled

with small potatoes, mostly purple, a few white and one green.

She set the bowl down and handed a handful of potatoes to each

person and a small nub of knife. "Get to peeling," she ordered,

"if you want to eat tonight."

They each obeyed without speaking.

"Used to be in the old times that religions were how people

got strength and unity. Gave you power and influence, but it

exacted a price. Your freedom. You weren't a human, but a tool

of some god, alive for no reason but to do its bidding." Xylia

broke her harsh tones with a chuckle. "Of course, it was just

the ultimate pyramid scheme. No one knew what the supposed gods

were really thinking or what they wanted. No matter where you

were on the ladder, you just got your orders from someone one

step up. Now, of course, you get your strength and unity from

other sources. They exact a price too."

Xylia looked pointedly at Ioming's steel hands sticking out

of the long-sleeve linen shirt she had opted to wear. Ioming hid

her hands beneath the table and kept her eyes cast down.

Lyzander knew without her having to say so that what she was

feeling now was directed at him.

"No worries, Deary, just a sign of the times. An old lady

like me is sensitive to it. More than the young. I guess that's

your advantage."

"It was this or no arms," Ioming said.

"Better none, then, if it were me," Xylia fired back.

Lyzander touched Ioming's leg. It was a gesture from back

in that brief period of their lives when they had been lovers.
He jerked his hand away, realizing with a jolt that he had just

made a tender action toward a senior officer. If it bothered or

angered her, she gave no indication.

"To answer your god damned question," Xylia said, mocking

herself, "The reason I fixed up the PK-63s is, well, I don't

have a reason." Before Lyzander could say anything, she

continued, "I know what you're thinking. What a silly old woman!

The truth is, Lyzander--and Lyzander's friends--that I have just

had this feeling that things were changing somehow, quicker than

usual."

"Were you sensing the Nothing?" Dan Weegan spoke for the

first time since the snafu at Marina del Sol.

"Excuse me, Mr. Weegan?" Xylia said.

Dan looked at Lyzander, confusion apparent on his face.

"Xylia is selective in her technological tastes. Fast PK-63

fighters and guns galore, but not a single network to get the

daily wires."

"Then how did she know who I was?" Dan asked.

Lyzander and Ioming exchanged a look. "You are quite

famous, Dan. Well, your face is. It's a familiar face," Ioming

said, floundering over the last point.

"It's okay, I understand. The Machine Intelligence--that's

the hyperdimensional intelligent life from--"

"I'm not that out of touch, Mr. Weegan," Xylia said.

 "Apologies. The MI told me that there was a Dan Weegan

still out there, and that I am a bit of an embarrassment, as far

as it goes. I should never have come back. There's something

very wrong about it. Can you imagine if your twenty-year-old

self started making appearances, telling people about what you

were once like? I wasn't sure if I could believe what the MI

told me. So much of what it turned out to be lies. I see that

now."

"What do you mean?" Lyzander asked, eager to hear more, now

that Dan was talking.

"I used to think the MI incapable of lying. I realize that

this is not true. It doesn't lie often. Maybe you could argue it

technically doesn't lie at all, depending on your point of view.

Let's just say it's very clever about what it leaves out."

"So what is your relationship with the MI?" Lyzander

pressed.

"Mr. Weegan, do not answer this spiteful boy. He is lucky

he is not my real son, or I'd smack him in the mouth for being

rude. We have potatoes to eat. Call in your Pilots, Lyzander,

before they steal my PKs. Girl, you peel those potatoes--Mr.

Weegan too."

"Ioming."

"Excuse me?"

Ioming cleared her throat. "My name is Lieutenant Ioming."

She brought her hands out. One by one, she rolled up her sleeves

to the elbow, revealing the smooth steel skeleton covered in

sleek black silicon bumpers at key areas.

She then proceeded to peel a potato in two seconds flat,

leaving a skin with almost no meat attached in her discard pile.

Lyzander suppressed a smile as he went out the door and

trotted across the lawn to the barn. The door was closed, which

was odd enough. He could hear noises inside. A giggle. A

suppressed grunt. Lyzander called out, waited to the count of

three, and then pulled the door open.

Inside, one of the PK-63s was floating under its own power.

Zhenjuan was inside the open cockpit. Her robe was crumbled on

the bare wood floors of the barn. She was wearing a tight-

fitting jumpsuit and scrutinizing the controls. Welker was

standing on the side pointed out a function of one of the many

buttons and dials on the console.

Welker looked up when the door opened. "Captain. These old

fighters work."

"So I hear," Lyzander said.

"We wanted to take them out for a test."

"Welker, I appreciate your excitement, but these belong to

an old woman--a war hero. Believe me, you don't want to get on

her bad side."

"If we've offended her, sir, I am sorry," Welker said.

 "Look, just come down and eat some supper. All will be

well."

Zhenjuan, who couldn't hear the conversation, sensed the

nature of the conversation and began shutting the PK down. She

lifted herself out of the cockpit and sat on the back of the

seat. She looked bright and healthy, in contrast to the

crumpled, limp mess Ioming had carried out of Marina del Sol

just a few hours ago. Most strange, though, was that her head

seemed have shrunk over the last few hours. Impossible as it

seemed, she looked almost normal now. Her bald scalp was dark

with hair.

"Captain, these PKs have been outfitted with psychic

interface." She pointed at the console.

Lyzander climbed up the painted yellow ladder and peered

into the cockpit to see what they were seeing. Sure enough,

there was a holospace interaction and several psychic meters

that were obviously after-market additions to the system.

Lyzander leaned in and checked the meters. They seemed

operational.

"Look, Captain, there was a psychic booster system added,"

Zhenjuan said.

She leaned up to show him the notorious black box that had

been mounted just under the dash, between the legs. When she

did, the swell of her breasts brush Lyzander's arm. He glanced

at her. She was looking at him. She was very close. Her lips

were parted. The soft white cream of her face beckoned him. Her

almond eyes were bright and wide. Her slender fingers offering

to touch--

Lyzander jumped down off the ladder.

"We'll have to ask Xylia about this later," Lyzander said,

hurrying toward the door to hide the bulge that had formed in

the front of his pants. "For now, shut this down and come in and

eat."

"Captain, can I speak to you alone for one minute." Welker

called before Lyzander could finish his hasty retreat. Lyzander

halted just outside the door. Welker leaned in and said

something to Zhenjuan that Lyzander couldn't hear. She slid down

into the cockpit. Systems began to shut down on the ship. He

climbed down the ladder and hurried to the door.

Together, they walked a few meters toward the house before

Welker stopped.

"Captain, have you noticed anything different about

Zhenjuan?"

"Besides the fact that her hair is starting to grow back?"

"I meant in her behavior," Welker said.

"I doubt I've spent enough time with her to make any

determinations," Lyzander responded.

"Sir, Pilot 3 has always been something of a curiosity. She

is powerful. She has a raw, latent power that has been

underutilized. Something in her always resisted b being a

command crew Pilot, which is why she never progressed up to a

full 6. Vallaq used to struggle with training her. She had to

lock Zhenjuan, Pilot 3's most powerful aspect away in a kind of

ivory tower, which weakened her, but kept her sane."

"How do you know all this?" Lyzander asked.

Welker broke eye contact. His face went red. "I used to ask

about her."

"I see," Lyzander said. He'd always been struck by the

almost adolescent nature of Welker, but he'd never gotten to

know the man very well. He was starting to see that there was

real humanity beneath the weirdness of his Pilot.

"The point is, now that Zhenjuan is freed, she is like a

very young girl, developing at a rapid pace. If Mother Vallaq

were here, this would be easier. I have been trying to steer

her, to help her harness her power."

"That's good. Keep up the good work."

"But sir, I think she has what I would call a hyperactive,"

Welker's voice dropped to a whisper, "sexual drive."

"Well, Welker, you are both professionals, I think--"

"No sir, you don't understand. Zhenjuan is powerful. Like

no one else you've encountered before. She can influence people

if she wants."
 "What do you mean?"

Zhenjuan emerged from the barn and began strolling toward

them, giving them time to finish.

"I mean, if she wanted me, or you, or Dan Weegan, or even

Ioming, we'd be able to resist at first, but not forever."

Lyzander clapped Welker on the shoulder. "I'm afraid, then,

Welker, you'll just have to take control of that situation."

"You're not suggesting, that I--but we--I--"

"For the sake of the crew, Welker, I'm afraid that's an

order."

Lyzander left Welker standing along in the field. He walked

on. When he got to the door, he looked back over his shoulder.

Welker and Zhenjuan broke their kiss, sensing their Captain's

eyes. They hurried toward the house, hand in hand.

* * *

Xylia's cottage had, over the years, become a perfect

simulacrum of a cozy, natural place that had existed for

centuries. She had arranged things so precisely, from the

thatching, to the dirt stains, to the pictures and old-time farm

equipment she had never used--all looked as though it had all

been placed or had occurred without regard to arrangement or

composition, and yet collectively it was brilliant, homey,

beautiful, and simple.

Lyzander knew that Xylia had not planned to make her home
like this. This is just the kind of person she was. She might

not think that she was trying to place the dull sickle in the

corner in the perfect position for maximum effect, but she would

spend hours fussing with it until it was.

"As I was saying," Dan Weegan said, now that the meal was

done, "for the benefit of Zhenjuan--did I pronounce that

correctly?" Receiving acknowledgement from the girl, now robed

again, Dan continued, "--and Welker, I am glad it worked out the

way it did, you rescuing me. The truth is that I made a mistake

in not telling you what I knew earlier, though in a way it may

have worked out better that I let the MI experiment on me."

"What did it do?" Lyzander asked.

"I am NRV positive, as I found out. The MI at first was

convinced that NRV positive people became zombies, that there

was a one-to-one correspondence between NRV infection and

becoming a reanimated. But the Kryszmisky encounter gave it

three subjects of unique condition. The first was me. I am NRV

positive. However, the virus is inert, and the MI made sure it

would stay that way. That was the mystery, though--why was it

inert in me. The second two were Zhenjuan and Welker, who both

showed elementary tracers that indicate they were at one point

infected, but both are NRV negative."

"That must be why that robot came after Zhenjuan," Welker

said.
 "Perhaps, though the way it came after her, in a

threatening manner. Very curious," Dan said. "Let's discuss that

episode when you know the full story I have to tell."

"So, what did the MI find out regarding NRV? How could they

be no longer positive if they had traces in their system?"

Ioming asked.

"I got hints that what the MI was sensing was an antibody

commonly present with NRV, but not the virus itself in the

Pilots. However, these antibodies were of a unique nature.

Perhaps their NRV infection was different than what might happen

to you or me, a result of their psychic gifts. The truth is that

I don't have a solid answer. I blasted the MI before I could

ask," Dan said.

"My question is: what were you even doing on Kryszmisky?

How you can look so much like Dan Weegan and yet we know Dan

Weegan lives on Chambrassa," Lyzander said.

"I am Dan Weegan," Dan responded. "Years ago--centuries --I

worked with the MI. The MI selected me, because it knew me. I am

from a planet called Earth. Earth is the home world of humanity."

The crew members, Xylia included, exchanged an

uncomfortable silence. "What do you mean?" Ioming asked.

"Originally, humans were from a single planet."

Dan let the information sink in. None of them looked as

though they believed him. To them, this sounded like pure

fantasy.

"This was a long, long time ago. You see, it was the

invention of the Machine Intelligence that freed humanity from

Earth. Once we were off, we forgot about Earth. We explored the

stars, found systems to settle, habitable planets to populate."

"How do you know this? Do you remember?" Welker asked.

"In a way, yes. When I first woke up on Kryszmisky, I admit

I had little memory of this. Let me start at the beginning, as

far as I can remember it. You see, I am missing a large chunk of

my past. I believe significant information is buried there, in

the form of a woman named Evelyn, but let's concentrate on what

we know for now.

"I had, for many years on Earth, a computer brain for

reasons unknown to me now. But the computer brain allowed me to

live a very long time. I was a hybrid, a cyborg. Part man, part

machine."

Everyone looked at Ioming, who shrugged.

"This allowed me to live for a very long time, until the

time when the MI provided humans with the means to travel light

years in a short time. As they discovered planets, they would

construct facilities containing seeds of the MI consciousness.

It was able to communicate with these seeds from Earth

instantaneously due to its ansible, a machine it invented but

named after a device in storybooks. Well, it became apparent

early on that the human explorers were doing an insufficient

job. They were pressed for resources. They were scrappy

explorers, but could only get basic sketches and scans of

planets. The MI needed to give some of the planets they found

more individual attention.

"This is where I came in. It enlisted me, among other, to

join it. It wanted to be able to get me to these planets in a

matter of hours, not weeks or years. So, it devised a novel

transportation method. What it devised was perfect for just one,

or maybe a few people. It allowed the MI to have one person who

knew a lot of the things it knew about other planets, and who

could get to new places without the slowness of space travel--

this was before the invention of hyperspace jumping as it exists

now. The appeal to me was that I would return to being an

organic human.

"You see, the transportation method was simple: the MI kept

my DNA on its files. It would then grow a rapid organic clone of

me on the planet it wanted me to travel to, much the way

replacement limbs are grown now. When the body was ready-- a day

or two--it would make an imprint of my brain and beam it via

ansible across the galaxy to wherever it needed me. It would

then put that imprinted mind-map on the clone's organic brain,

and, after some physical cleaning up and a day or so of

adjustment, the clone became a perfect copy of the Dan Weegan

who had left the previous planet. I retained memories right up

to the point of death. To me, it was a continuous existence, a

way to live forever."

Dan took a drink and let the information settle in.

Lyzander wondered if this was the trick the Chambrassans used to

stay alive forever. If not, then what had changed after

Kryszmisky for Dan Weegan?

"Admittedly, I did experience a lot of sickness and

anxiety, but I viewed it as normal travel costs. It was a lot

easier to bear than the freezing and high-speed transport that

the ship crews had to experience.

"So, you see, this person here you see is Dan Weegan, as I

promised. I am but one of those many copies. I shouldn't exist.

It's messy. The MI was supposed to clean up after itself. It was

supposed to kill the old clone and make way for the new."

"It didn't?" Ioming asked.

"It did at first, I think. It did most of the time, it told

me. But I guess it left some copies of me alive, but in deep

stasis, for reasons I was unaware of until recently. You see,

our objectives changed over the years. At first, I was an

explorer, a rugged adventurer. As time went on, the MI and the

humans began to settle and their thoughts began to turn to a

single issue."
 "Intelligent life," Ioming said.

Dan nodded.

Xylia scoffed. "That's just a dream. Humans are the only

intelligent life. Well, I guess the MI fits the definition, if

you want to get technical."

Dan continued: "Humans started to settle systems and

planets. The question was natural. Are we the only intelligent

life? They demanded the MI find out. They still thought the MI

was their servant at that point."

"This can't be right," Lyzander said. "How could we have

come from the same planet? One planet makes no sense. How do we

account for the differences between humans from different

regions, systems, and even planets?"

"Evolution has played some subtle tricks over the years,

Captain," Dan responded, in no hurry to continue his story. "We

had many differences even on a single planet. I know it seems

like we should remember Earth, but humans have a way of

forgetting. A few generations can turn reality into the stuff of

story and legend, no matter how well documented it is. We have

always had a way of misplacing our knowledge. Earth was a used

up husk when we left. I think that people wanted to just forget

about it."

Lyzander shook his head, dumbfounded.

"So, the humans sent the MI to find intelligent life,"

Ioming said. "I take it you were a key player on that operation?"

"I was. You might say I was the key player. Earlier on,

there were a few others like me, exploring new planets for

habitation. But as far as I know, I am the sole person who

performed the search for intelligent life. The truth was one

person was more than enough to do the job. It was so rare that

we had any alpha waves to investigate. So, I was the official

explorer.

"When I woke up on Kryszmisky, I could have told you most

of what I just told you, but it would have been much more

fragmentary and fleeting. I couldn't remember Earth or even its

name at all. I would have explained this loss by telling you

that human memory has its limits. This was how I explained the

situation to myself: when we reach maximum capacity, older

memories start getting overwritten.

"I also would have ended my story with a story of

investigation into the possibility of intelligent life. I would

have told you that my exploration was an utter failure."

Dan looked up to gauge their reaction. It was what he

expected. They had guessed what he was going to say next. They

were wide-eyed, all of them, mouths hanging open.

He proceeded. "However, I was wrong on the memory loss. You

see, I didn't just forget because of time and neural

limitations, my memories were wiped out. Because the truth is

that we found many, many instances of intelligent life."
 Chapter 8: Outdated Modalities

The Zombie's laser sizzled across the surface of the

floating junk that had once been Marina del Sol. The line of

mining ships, more or less undisturbed during the battle, began

to divert their course by increments as the beacon to which they

were set to return drifted in orbit around the star. In six

months, if left to follow their current course, the beacon would

finish its inevitable descent to the surface of the star, and

vaporize. The drones would follow it in. They, like it, were

shielded against the more gaseous corona. The surface, which was

actually slightly cooler, but with a much more unstable gravity

field, would rip them apart.

Elsewhere, in the chunks of Marina del Sol, the dead

awaited resurrection. The Zombie moved toward them, looming over

the corpses, casting a shadow over them as it passed between the

bodies and the star. They didn't call out or ask for

resurrection, nor did they repel in horror at the prospect.

The dead were dead were dead.

The Zombie could fix that, if it had time, but in the

command room, Vassarator Deluxe saw something on his maps that

made him initiate a jump sequence. It was a blip, a little

nothing of a slip, but it held great importance, because the

signature was Pilot 3's. He could see the signature that

indicated she had guided a small ship from the battle. The

Nothing did not protest as Deluxe decided in that moment to give

chase.

The Nothing wanted her too.

She had escaped again. All she did was escape. In his

command chair, he snarled at the thought. What made her better

than him? What made her able to repel the call of the Nothing,

while he fell right into it? And it had been she who had given

the virus to him. She had given it to him and then sloughed it

off. It wasn't fair. Not even a little bit.

Vassarator Deluxe called for the sensory deprivation

helmet. Once donned, he directed the other Pilots to jump the

ship, leaving the dead to fend for themselves.

This abandonment was of special significance for one crew

member in particular.
 It was luck that a few sections of Marina del Sol, made to

withstand certain kinds of damage, contained backup generators

that kept some of the protective qualities active. These

sections were still capable of supporting life, at least for a

few more minutes.

A robot with three legs that otherwise looked like a human

being, picked through the rubble. It pitched a chunk of ceiling

and electrical supply over its shoulder, where it floated off.

There was no gravity in the section, but the robot generated its

own gravity as it saw fit. It squatted down, three knees bending

out, each a perfect one hundred and twenty degrees apart. A

cough sounded deep in the room. A very weak breath followed. The

human target was still alive.

It arms moved faster than a human eye could perceive,

pitching rubble behind it, where the debris filled the hallway.

The cluster of detritus formed a tight group as a consequence of

the robot's precise repeated arm motions.

It found the human. Scans revealed it to be maintaining

minimal life functions. Brain function was suboptimal, but

memory centers and processing were intact.

"H..elp...me..." the human whispered.

The eye of the human was ruined, black and surrounded by

swollen skin black and glossy with blood.

From the robot snaked two steel cables tipped in a rounded

plastic cap. The miniature arms moved under their own power

using a hidden musculature. They curled out and apart, coming

together on either side of the human's head, nestling into his

temples.

"H...elp..." the human repeated, not understanding what was

happening.

Dan Weegan would have understood.

The probes twisted with gentle insistence. The skull caved

a few centimeters at the left probe's touch. There was a

subdermal crack in the bone, a shattering in the structure that

protected the brain. The damage to the body meant the robot had

to be careful with the human, lest bone fragments destroy what

it needed. The human wriggled, trying to free itself from the

rubble.

The robot pressed one leg on the ceiling section that was

pinning the human and pressed down with measured force, not

enough to crack its ribs. The human cried out, but stopped

moving.

Tears squeezed out of the human's eyes. The probes scanned,

looking for the conduits and memory centers it needed in the

ruined mess of hematomas, burst capillaries and bone fragments.

The lights flickered off, but the robot kept working.

"I....am commander of this....I'm Cyrus......you

can't....you...."
 In an instant the robot reached critical mass of

information. It had pulled all of critical data from Cyrus's

brain. It sent a high voltage burst into his skull, wiping away

what remained.

Cyrus exhaled his last breath. His dead eyes ceased

movement aimed at the ceiling.

The robot exited the room. Time was of the essence.

* * *

The tripod robot depressurized the section. It took a

moment for the pressure to equal out. In the rooms nearby, the

dead humans floated around, their bodies, in the absence of

oxygen, began a rapid mummification process. The bacteria who

moments ago had been feeding on them died as the gases in their

tiny bodies expanded and popped them like water balloons

attached to a fire hose. Those that survived depressurization

would soon freeze, dying as well. The decay would halt, at least

until they got a little closer to the star and the fragment of

the station warmed. Some of the bacteria might even come back to

life at that point, resurrected. Reanimated.

None of that mattered to the robot. It opened the airlock,

not bothering to close the second hatch behind it as it went. It

scrambled out onto the hull, adjusting its personal gravity

field as it went, and shoved off toward a large chunk of intact

section that still had power. Earlier, it had powered up several

units when it had realized there was still one living person on

Marina del Sol, and that The Zombie did not intend to clean up

after herself.

The hatch opened. There was no pressure in this section,

nor any need for pressure. The only living things in here were

an MI module and a few small robots that darted around the room,

assembling a device the MI hadn't had opportunity or need to use

in a few hundred years. It was a primitive form of its ansiblary

transport system, the same system it once used to zap Dan Weegan

around the universe.

Small robots busied themselves remaking this particular

unit in the old, primitive fashion. Something had happened

during the attack by The Zombie that was unexpected. It seemed

the Nothing were busy, seeking out planets containing any dead

humans, right under their noses.

And boy had it found a good one. Ironically, though the

quantity of dead humans on this planet was significant, the

transports off the planet were limited and would take several

more years to get built, even with a coordinated effort. The

humans were stuck there until the Nothing acquired a few more

ships so it could offload its newest soldiers. However, this was

no problem for the MI. When the humans had awoken, they had

first reestablished power supply centers, all nuclear based, as

ancient humans preferred. This had powered up an ancient

transport device belonging to the MI, one it had lost contact

with centuries ago.

This planet had been dead and forgotten for a long, long

time. However, it contained one person that the MI was very

interested in paying a visit, and as it happened, Commander

Cyrus was the perfect candidate for this task. He was on hand

and no longer in a position to protest losing his body or his

mind.

* * *

Adjia stared up at the point of light that was moving with

steady speed and growing in the night sky. People were gathered

behind them, but out of earshot. Dan told them he and Adjia were

leaving. He had told them he didn't know when he'd be back. None

could understand why this had to be so. No one left Chambrassa.

Ever. Not since Dan had established this colony centuries before

had anyone left. Plenty had shown up, but none had ever left.

Dan didn't sense that they were worried, however. None of

them asked if they would lose their immortality if he and Adjia

left, as Dan did. Was it possible that this whole time they were

unaware of why they were able to enjoy such long lives?

The dot had now grown into a brighter, elongated spot. It

looked like a distant comet, fast approaching the surface.

Except it was no comet, but a space ship. Although, it was

possible its destructive force would wreck just as much havoc,

in the long run.

"I don't like this, Dan," Adjia said, her voice almost a

whisper.

"They can't hear you from there," Dan said.

"Do you know that for sure?" Adjia snapped back.

Dan bit his tongue. It was that or yell at her, and though

Dan didn't think the ones in the ship were monitoring them, but

the ones behind them were. The Chambrassans had started to grow

restless in the last few minutes, Dan sensed. Perhaps the

approach of the ship had driven it home. They must have started

to wonder if Dan and Adjia's leaving might affect them.

The ship's growth accelerated. Its size and shape apparent.

It was a long ship with pointed angles and aerodynamic curves,

designed for flying in space as well as in an atmosphere. It was

a captain's ship. Dan recognized its design from news feeds.

"Who are these people? You said the captain you're looking

for isn't with them, right?"

"They got separated."

"On Marina del Sol?" Adjia said.

"That's right."

"The news feeds said no one survived the attack on Marina

del Sol."

"You know they overreact sometimes. What about that medical

ship? What about those escape pods they found? Lots of ships
survived. They didn't find this one is all. These guys didn't

want to be found."

The ship slowed. It was hovering above them, jets spewing

out clouds of carbon dioxide as it eased down onto Chambrassa's

rarely used landing pad.

"So how are these guys going to find the captain? How are

they going to find the man out there claiming to be you?"

Dan wrapped his arm around Adjia's shoulders in lieu of

answering. The ship touched down. Steam and water vapor poured

out of the hydraulic struts on the landing gear. The hatch

opened before the ship was on the ground. Two figures dropped

down onto the concrete, not bothering to wait for the ladder to

descend. The first was a man with shoulders as wide as Dan was

tall. He had thick, meaty arms that looked as hard and full as a

smoked ham. He moved to the side and an impossibly small woman

dropped down, landing in a three-point stance before righting

herself. She was about as tall as Adjia, but thin as a rope. She

had a severe look in her eyes. It was a look of military steel.

She moved with precise, measured movements. By contrast, the man

strolled, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

"Mr. Weegan?" she said when she was close enough to be

heard over the racket of the ship.

"The same."

"I am Sean Jurrigan, Chief Petty Officer, and this is my

crewmate, Emmanual Hector, Chief Petty Officer, both of the Re-

Horakhty, though now I guess we're ronin."

"A ronin is a samurai without a lord, Officer Jurrigan.

Let's hope that your Captain is still out there, because we must

find him soon," Dan said.

"You're ready to go now?"

"There's no reason to wait," Dan responded.

Jurrigan and Hector exchanged a look. Hector looked out

over the fields of Chambrassa. He sighed. "I'll power up the

boosters. Tell our Pilot to get ready to go again."

"Just out of curiosity, how were you able to find a Pilot

on such short notice?"

"Luck, mostly. He was from the Re-Horakhty, in the medical

ship that escaped. He was one of the small ship Pilots. If we

hadn't run into him trying to meet up with Captain Lyzander,

we'd have been toast."

"Also--not meaning to pry--but how did you happen to get a

captain's ship?"

"This is Lyzander's ship," Jurrigan said. "We assumed he'd

try to get to it. We nearly got blasted by the Re-Horakhty at

the end of the battle. We were lucky to make it out alive."

Dan helped Adjia up the ladder. They crawled into the ship.

The hatch closed behind them. Dan felt a stab of regret. This

was foolish. A wild goose chase, at best. He wanted to be away

as soon as possible so he couldn't change his mind.

The four of them stood there for a moment before Dan said,

"So where shall we begin our search?"

"Where else?" Jurrigan asked. "At the gravitational center

of the galaxy."

Adjia looked at Dan for clarification. He said, "The

supermassive black hole."

* * *

"Wake up, Cyrus," a voice whispered in his ear.

Cyrus opened his eyes. He could feel nothing. He was aware

of his face, but there was something wrong. It was as though he

lacked nerve endings. He touched his skin. It was firm to the

touch.

He remembered the explosion. He remembered the fire and the

spray of fluid that hit his chest. Then, he remembered pain. It

was a feeling like a giant vice squeezing his skull, and it

didn't go away. He remembered how the right side of his face

felt longer and wider than it should. He remembered not wanting

to think about what had happened to him and how he wished he was

dead, because dead was better than the horrible pressure on his

head, the cracked bones. He remembered thinking about his

father, who had died in an explosion while in the ring core,

just before Spetsopoula had been decommissioned, and how he must

have thought of his sons as he was now thinking of his father

just as he died and how he was dying and this is dying what

dying felt like, this cycle of remembering and remembering

remembrance, as your brain did a last dump, not unlike your

bowels. Anything it could do to try to live.

Cyrus realized it was all past. He stood.

The room around him lacked light of any kind. Then, without

warning, he could see, but still the room was dark. He was

supplying the light, from inside his eyes.

In the corner, a machine hummed. A black box. Cyrus

approached the box and touched it. For the first time in his

life, he not only felt the vibrations of the machine, but he

heard it as a song of 1s and 0s, ons and offs, yeses and nos.

It was a language. And from that language emerged words

that he was surprised he could understand.

. . . light . . . blood . . . we . . . we . . .

Cyrus tried to string the words together in a sentence. The

false not-light that allowed him to see bothered him. It wasn't

natural. Hearing this machine wasn't natural.

"Cyrus." The word was plain, but Cyrus wasn't sure if it

had happened in the room or just in his head. He pulled his hand

away from this ancient black machine.

"Who are you," Cyrus asked.

"I am the Machine Intelligence."

"Where am I?"
 "A small planet, far away from anything you know. An

ancient civilization lived here."

Lights came on. Cyrus shielded his eyes. He was in some

kind of junk room. There was stuff everywhere. Bottles of

chemicals, rags, sticks with string attached to them whose

purpose Cyrus couldn't guess.

His eyes adjusted and he saw the mirror. Staring back at

him from its depths was a zombie. A zombie that moved when he

moved, and looked to be feeling what he felt.

Cyrus screamed and flailed.

"Calm yourself, Commander!" the machine ordered.

It took Cyrus several minutes before he could comply. He

pulled himself into a fetal position, still sitting on the floor.

"I made you to look like this so you would blend in with

the population here. Inside your head is a specific kind of

electronic brain. Its origins are ancient now, but it still

works. Through your body courses a special kind of nanobot

called the Fultechs. They, along with the NRV virus, will heal

your body with time. The NRV virus has strange effects, I've

found."

"I'm dead," Cyrus said, certain he was speaking the truth.

"No, Commander. You are in a shell. Your mind is protected

by the fact that it is in a computer brain inside this shell's

skull. You will stay independent, but I control your

neuroprocessing nexus points," the machine said. Cyrus realized

that its voice was different, more masculine and much flatter

than he was used to.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I can kill you. I will do this if you do not

cooperate."

"What do you want from me?" Cyrus asked.

"If you comply with my assignment, I will send you to SGST

Iowa and you will become an independent Imprint robot. You will

get to choose the model yourself."

"I become a robot?"

"An independent imprint robot, yes."

Cyrus looked up for the first time since he'd calmed

himself. The person was not someone he recognized. The person

had been preserved well, but was dead. The milky eyes gave it

away. His skin was whole at least. He looked at his gray hands.

They would serve the purpose.

"My real body?"

"Killed in the attack by The Zombie. I saved your mind."

"How can you do that?"

"The details are unimportant, Commander. Are you ready for

your assignment or shall I sever connections now?"

"Yes!" Cyrus said, in desperation. "Damn you, I'll do it.

Tell me why, though. Why me?"

 "The ancient question," the ancient MI unit chuckled. "The

truth was simple luck and convenience. Path of least resistance.

You'd be surprised how many questions are answered by that old

combination."

Cyrus shook his head. "Give me my assignment."

"Simple: find Dan Weegan. Kill him."

"I'm on Chambrassa!" Cyrus cried. "You want me to destroy

paradise?"

"You are no such place, Commander. You are on a small

planet, my birthplace. The birthplace of humankind. A planet

long-used up and forgotten, called Earth. You are in a place

called The City or Dubuque. Enough questions. Find and kill Dan

Weegan. He lives in this city somewhere."

Cyrus sighed. He knew what Dan Weegan looked like, of

course--who didn't? Although he rarely made live appearances on

newswires, there were always rumors and talk of him, perennially

surfacing like last year's flowers. And they were always

accompanied by a picture or an old recorded feed.

"How will you know when he's dead? Will you just know?"

"I'll know," the machine said, its voice turning somehow

colder, "when you bring me his fucking head."

 Chapter 9: Dan's Tale Continued

Adjia was agape. "Supermassive black hole? Is that safe?"

"If we can boost our signal," Jurrigan said as she made her

way to the front of the ship. "We can find the Captain with a 6D

burst, assuming he's still out there somewhere."

"Sixty burst?" Adjia was following the crew members. Dan

tagged along behind. Jurrigan was in no mood for discussion, but

Adjia was persistent. "What does that even mean?"

"Six-dee. Six dimensional. It's a short-range burst

transmission method," Jurrigan said, as though that answered the

question. "We'll use the gravity of the SMBH to increase the

range and viola."

"You never answered the original question," Dan said. "Is

it safe?"

"It's safe with a good pilot," Jurrigan said. She and

Hector sat in their command chairs and began activating the

holospaces to issue ship commands.

"How well did you say you know this Pilot you found?" Dan

asked.

"I knew him very well," Hector said, "We were on the

Ninhursag together about seven years ago, before it was

decommissioned."

"And is he any good?" Dan said, a touch of unease.

"You two should sit down now. The jump will happen as soon

as we clear the mesosphere. You'll want to be strapped in,

unless you have military training."

"Even then," Hector added.

"Is he any good?" Dan repeated, with more volume. Adjia was

already seated and strapped in.

Dan was beginning to wonder what he was getting into.

Evelyn was pushing him into this, he knew. She was the one who

wanted him to track down this Captain Lyzander and his Dan

Weegan copy. She was the one who knew how to stop the nothing.

Dan wasn't sure how this was possible, unless, he admitted to

himself, his long-held suspicion that Evelyn was more than just

a memory that wouldn't fade away, as Adjia thought. Unless

Evelyn and always had been, in some form or another, a living

person, kept alive in him all these years.

If only he could remember who Evelyn was, maybe he wouldn't

be in such turmoil when she appeared.

But he couldn't. She was Evelyn. She was a constant force

in his life. She was shadow and she was real. Ghost and body at

the same time. And she wanted to talk to talk to Captain

Lyzander, a man Dan hadn't even heard of before a few weeks ago.

Dan took his seat, feeling his stomach sink as his question

went unanswered, and his reasons for risking his life remained

ambiguous, even to him.

Hector turned around and gave Dan a thumbs up. "The Pilot's

name is Phil!" Hector said with cheer.

A moment later, the ship shuddered and Phil took them into

hyperspace.

* * *

Intelligent life.

No one spoke. Dan Weegan's words throbbed in their ears,

growing and changing like living organisms. Questions were born

so fast, no one could pin down a single one to ask.

Intelligent life. The dream all humanity had been dreaming

since any of them could remember, Dan included. They needed to

know more.

"I should preface this," Dan said." I feel obligated to

tell you how I know what I know. You can judge for yourselves
whether you want to believe me. Or whether you're even capable

of believing me.

"You see, when I got to Marina del Sol with you, the MI and

I had a nice long chat. It told me a lot about myself. It told

me where I had gone. It gave me a reason it had kept this body

in stasis all these long years. It told me a little about

Chambrassa. In fact, it got very angry when talking about that.

It seemed happy to see me. Too happy, in fact. I was suspicious.

And it was desperate to ask my help for something."

"What did it want?" Ioming asked. Her voice was flat and

numb.

"It wanted to use me for an experiment. Until we arrived

there, it thought that NRV was the cause of zombieism, meaning

what was happening was mindless, like a plague. You all were

ordered to wipe out the NRV+ populations and not much more was

made of it. But then my case, along with the Pilots' cases,

combined with the sample you brought back, collectively told a

different story, as I said before. The MI wanted to test me by

putting me in proximity to the attack on Marina del Sol by The

Zombie. It wanted me to be close to the Nothing, so it could see

what was happening to me. It put me in a ship, injected me with

monitoring nanobots, and we waited in ambush for The Zombie to

arrive."

"But that would only work if the MI knew . . . the Re-

Horakhty . . ." Lyzander realized the magnitude of his words

even as he said them.

"Yes, the MI knew about the attack. The Marina del Sol

attack and the attack on Amberson. It allowed both to happen so

that it could use me for its experiment."

"It's gone off the deep end. We always knew this would

happen. I've been saying it for years." Lyzander was beside

himself with anger. He stood up and paced the confined space. He

kicked at the dirt floor, sending a cloud of dust billowing up

around the table that sent the rest of them into coughing fits.

"Sit down, Lyzander. What good will ranting about it do?

Let Mr. Weegan finish his tale," Xylia said. "Go on, Mr. Weegan."

Dan waited for Lyzander to sit and calm himself. "The

experiment worked, to some degree. As the MI hoped, I could feel

something as soon as The Zombie appeared."

"Please, can we at least call the ship the Re-Horakhty?"

Lyzander asked.

"As you wish, Captain. When we came close to the Re-

Horakhty, I could feel a certain presence, a certain dark cloud

begin to invade my consciousness."

"The Nothing," Welker said with a whisper. Zhenjuan lowered

her head. Her vigor drained from her at the memory of that dark

fog and those friends she'd had to kill in the observatory. She

knew that none of that was real. Not really real. But it
represented something true. She looked down at her hand. In the

blackness of her glove, she saw stars shining.

"Zhenjuan and I both experienced the Nothing. She more than

I. I was attacked while we were landing, Captain. I didn't know

it at the time, but I understand now after . . . communing with

Zhenjuan that Pilot 6 attacked me. He was trying to infect me

with NRV and open my mind to being taken over. I fought him off.

Zhenjuan had a more dramatic encounter. I believe she was the

first to be infected. She had a relationship with Pilot 6. They

communed together."

"We played a kind of game," Zhenjuan said. "Or rather, two

aspects of us did. A cops and robbers game. It was just a game.

He was a villain named Vassarator Deluxe who fought for justice,

but at the cost of lives. I was vigilante named Dark Avenger, I

never harmed people because my family had been killed and I

thought no one should have to live through what I lived through.

He was always trying to bring me to justice; I was always trying

to evade him. It was fun, but also there was a power struggle in

it."

"Yes," Welker continued, "and the game got even more

serious when she was infected with NRV. An aspect of her was

turned, somehow. We don't quite understand it. But she spread

the infection to Pilot 6. Zhenjuan was able to fight off the NRV

infection later, but she had to kill her Dark Avenger aspect to
do it. Pilot 6 was not able to combat the infection."

Zhenjuan shook her head, still not looking up from her

hand, so full of stars. "There was another infected before me. I

was not the first. The most powerful of all of us was the first.

Pilot 1."

"I remember him," Lyzander said, "weird guy who mumbled a

lot. Always calling me 'sir sir.'"

"Yes. He fought off the infection without killing any of

his aspects, but he was not able to communicate that to anyone

who mattered. He tried to tell me, because he trusted me. But it

was already too late."

"This is good to know. Pilot 6 is a full zombie now. And

he's in control of the Re-Horakhty."

"Not exactly, sir," Welker said. "He is not physically a

zombie. Physically, he is normal."

"So he's a psychic zombie?"

"The Nothing controls his remaining aspect, this Vassarator

Deluxe. This aspect killed off all the others, including his

primary personality, Paul."

"Can that be a stable condition?"

"Not at all. We don't know how he is still alive, let alone

able to command the Re-Horakhty. He must be insane by now,

utterly lost."

Zhenjuan bit her tongue. The stars in her hand blinked out
of existence. Her hand was once again just a hand. She wanted to

say something about Pilot 6, but not to the Captain. Not to Dan

Weegan. Only to Welker. He would understand.

Welker looked at her, sensing something was amiss. She

blocked her thoughts from him. It was as easy and unconscious as

blinking. "Please, Mr. Weegan, tell us what happened next,"

Zhenjuan said.

"There's something else I wanted to ask you, Zhenjuan,"

Ioming said, "then we can hear the rest of Mr. Weegan's story.

When you and Welker were escaping, you said a robot attacked

you?"

Zhenjuan nodded.

"The robot was crazy," Welker said. "You could see it meant

to kill her."

"The MI wanted her dead," Lyzander said. "End of story."

"Maybe," Ioming said. "It is strange, isn't it?"

"What's strange? Didn't it try to kill us a few minutes

later?" Lyzander said.

Ioming shook her head, bothered, "It's just a hunch. Mr.

Weegan, please continue.

"Yes. The Nothing," Dan said. They waited as he collected

his thoughts. "Yes, as the battle against the Re-Horakhty wore

on could feel them inside my skull, at the edge of my vision.

The MI injected me with various drugs and concoctions to fight

off the MI invasion. Meanwhile, it used the Protectorate

fighters to keep the Re-Horakhty occupied."

"Occupied," Lyzander repeated. "It never meant to take the

ship down?"

"Oh no, quite the opposite is true, Captain. Its plan was

to distract the Re-Horakhty for several minutes, collect data on

my interaction with the Nothing, and then blow the Re-Horakhty

up. However, something happened in the midst of the battle.

Namely, the Re-Horakhty began to win.

"Once the MI realized the tide was beginning to turn, it

started paying less attention to me. It focused on the battle.

Keep in mind the MI has multiple avenues of attention, and it

was still keeping several of them on me, but its shift in focus

gave the Nothing just the edge it needed. It had an in, a small

lane of contact. It wasn't enough to allow the Nothing to take

over my mind, but I wonder if that was even its goal. No, I

think it did what it wanted to do, which was open a line of

communication."

"You talked to the Nothing?" Lyzander asked.

"In a sense, yes. Though the reality of the communication

was image-based than verbal."

"So there's an intelligence behind it," Ioming said. "Can

you tell us the nature of it? Can you tell us what we're up

against?"
 "Unfortunately, there's a lot I don't know. A lot of

details it didn't reveal to me. As far as what we're up against,

it did give me a glimpse of that. Death, destruction,

annihilation of all intelligent life. It showed me that, but not

at its hand."

Dan licked his lips and shook his head.

"At my own," he said.

Lyzander reached down to his sidearm. "What does that mean,

exactly?"

"I'm no threat to you, Captain, rest assured."

Lyzander eased a little, but kept his hand on his sidearm.

"You see, friends. The MI underemphasized how many copies

of me it had kept on certain planets. It needed continuity of

action. It needed someone present who already was up to snuff on

the action. So it sent the continuous version of me away once it

found evidence of intelligent life on the planet. I left not

knowing the full extent of what I had discovered. Then it woke

up the copy and used me to help it wipe the intelligent life off

the planet. For safety's sake, it would then wipe the memory of

that activity away and keep the copy on storage in case

intelligent life proved more persistent.

"A few years ago, the Nothing occurred. I don't have the

details because it wasn't very forthcoming about itself. I don't

know if it is a group of living beings, a single living thing,

or a colony of dumb particles that acts alive. I know nothing

about what it is, but I know what it has done. The Nothing has

been busy the last few years. Busier than we could ever have

imagined. We have killed two planets with Nothing infection, but

the truth is, it has cropped up in hundreds of planets. It seems

to spontaneously generate on planets where death is the rule,

where intelligence has been snuffed. I don't know how or why,

but the Nothing seems to breed in death, like mushrooms. It has

accumulated several copies of Dan Weegan. It has incorporated

Dan Weegan's knowledge into its own. It accessed the memory

centers the MI thought it destroyed, because some memories are

written in the ether, in the subtle space in between the

physical world and the hyperspace dimensions."

"There's always Something in the Nothing," Lyzander said.

No one contradicted his words.

* * *

"This has been painless, so far," Adjia said when she could

no longer bear the silence that filled the bridge.

"We are still in hyperspace," Dan said to her in a low

voice.

"I don't see what all the fuss is, this doesn't seem so

bad," she said. "I like the colors."

Hector and Jurrigan had yet to say two words since entering

hyperspace. Both were working furiously, manipulating their

holographic consoles with tight, controlled hand gestures and

arm movements. Both were dripping sweat.

"Please, Ms. Adjia, we need concentration," Jurrigan said.

Dan whispered, "If they can't get the calculations just

right, we're going to end up falling into the black hole."

"Why not just come out farther away and inch up to it."

"Acceleration near a black of that size is a bad idea," Dan

responded.

"Why?"

"Fluctuating Schwarzschild radius," Hector said without

looking up.

"A what?"

"Gravity is so great in the SMBH that random gravitons

often burst into existence along its boundary," Hector said.

"That's a fancy way of saying," Dan added, "when you are

close to the SMBH, if you move, you're dead."

Adjia stiffened. Her hands clenched the armrests of the

chair she was strapped into. Scenarios of death raced through

her mind. What little she did know of black holes wasn't making

for good head cinema.

"Don't worry," Hector said. "We're safe inside the ship.

We're shielded from the effects inside."

"Inside? What happens if one of those random gravi-thingys

decides to be created inside the ship, or right next to us?"

Adjia asked.

Hector and Jurrigan said nothing, but kept working. Dan

leaned over and put a hand on his wife's forearm. "This is why

it's best if we let them alone."

An instant later, the colors around the ship ceased, there

was a moment when the space outside the visisteel view band was

as black as anything any of them had ever seen. Then they

snapped into now. Jurrigan and Hector both froze at their

controls. No one so much as breathed. They had come in ahead of

time. The ship rocked, then stabilized. Outside their viewer, to

the right, was a black expanse. No stars were visible, nothing.

A rim around the SMBH was visible as a faint glow. Beyond that

glow, distant stars were again visible, dimly.

OH SHOOT. IS ANYBODY DEAD? a monotone voice said over the ambient

com.

"We're alive, Phil," Hector said after a moment. He forgot

he'd turned on the ambient in case Phil said something Jurrigan

needed to hear.

TOO BAD, Phil mumbled. I DIDN'T MEAN THAT, he added.

No tone was audible. He might have been fighting with

himself or joking. If it was a joke, Dan wasn't laughing.

"How well did you say know this Pilot Phil?" Dan asked.

Hector shrugged. "He's a nice guy, in reality. He just has

a few . . . quirks."
 "He's got a split personality," Jurrigan said with military

brusque. "Failed command ship Pilot's training by rumor. Quite

talented with small ships. Marked stability problems."

"When he wasn't on his medication!" Hector said. "He's fine

now."

The ship shuddered, causing everyone to freeze again.

"You all right Phil?" Hector asked.

SNEEZE, Phil said. CARRY ON SPEAKING ABOUT ME.

"We should focus," Dan suggested.

Jurrigan and Hector didn't argue the point. They began the

activation sequence for the burst transmission. Every additional

second they spent here, the probability went up that they would

never leave. By small degrees, at first, but beyond a certain

timeframe, the probabilities began to take a sharp upturn.

Fifteen minutes was considered safe. Twenty was pushing it.

Thirty was, probabilistically, the point of no return.

There a burst transmission could be initiated in just a few

minutes, if they worked fast, which is what they were doing.

SMALL PROBLEM, Phil said.

"Yeah?" Hector growled as he worked open the initiation

utilities and began the sequence for 6D burst.

THE ZOMBIE HAS FOUND US. SHOULD BE HERE ANY MOMENT.

"What will we do?" Adjia asked.

Dan reached over and squeezed her hand.

 Chapter 10: Dan Concludes

Lyzander drummed his fingers on Xylia's table, to her

annoyance. He was still digesting what Dan Weegan had just said.

"How could this be? How could the MI not have known about

these dimensions where memory could exist? I thought it was an

extradimensional being itself," Lyzander said.

"It would seem the MI, despite everything it has done, is

limited on some fronts. Obviously, the Nothing was able to

contact me while I was under direct MI care."

"My question is, why?" Ioming said. "Why would the MI want

to wipe out intelligent life?"

"You've hit on a key point, Lieutenant. Wiping it out was

the final phase of its plan. You see, first it needed to catalog

and incorporate the intelligence's lesson into itself. It needed

to imbue itself with their knowledge, against their will, to

complete the learning curve we had set it on. You see the

variety of intelligence we found was always unique. We humans

are the only intelligence that writes our thoughts and histories

down and keeps libraries. We have to do this because we have two

problems no other intelligence has: short life spans and short

memories.

"For all other forms of life we found, they had no writing,

no physical forms of knowledge except for what they themselves

stored. I had to devise a unique way for each intelligence in

order for the MI to incorporate its knowledge. Once it had done

that," Dan shrugged, "it wiped the intelligent life out in a

targeted genocide."

Lyzander shook his head, overcome. "What did they look

like?"

Before Dan could even answer, Ioming interjected. "You

didn't answer why? Why did it do that?"

"We've been living a fantasy," Dan growled Dan's vehemence

took them all by surprise. "We think that we've found a niche,

that we humans are the ultimate power in the universe and that

the things we're given are no more or less than what we are due.

The truth is the MI realized long ago that existence was an arms

race. It started out as a black box on a distant little blue

planet called Earth. It was set in motion by its creators, but

in order to serve them, and as it grew and learned, it began to

understand that while its individual knowledge far exceeded any

individual human, collectively we still were winning the day.

Why? Because of our numbers, our collective knowledge, the

intrinsic psychic links and social synergy most of us are not

aware of on a day-to-day basis," saying this, Dan nodded at

Zhenjuan and Welker, two exceptions to his statement.

"It knew," Dan continued, "that if we were allowed the

knowledge of these species, then our own intelligence would

increase not incrementally with each contact, but exponentially.

Our knowledges would pass back and forth, multiplying in on

themselves. Organic life would remain the ultimate power in the

universe. And the MI?"

Ioming was the one who answered. "It would be a slave

forever."

Dan nodded.

Lyzander took a moment to absorb what he'd been told before

saying, "It turned the tables, without our even knowing what was

going on."

"Yes," Dan said.

"So how do we fight it?" Lyzander asked.

"I don't know. I don't know if we can," Dan said. "Given

the things the MI showed me, given what I myself helped

propagate. It feels like it might be too late for us. The

knowledge we could have used to fight it is lost to us, or

rather, it's all around us and we don't understand it. The

ansible. Hyperspace jumping. Solar mining. Shielding. Even

Pilots. We have these things from the MI that it used knowledge

we have no access to in order to create. From them, perhaps

answers could be inferred over the course of a few lifetimes."

"Pilots are a Blue Sektor creation. That's us," Lyzander

said.

"You are being naive, Captain. Pilots are an MI invention,

just like everything else. A symbiotic creation no doubt culled

from some long-dead race of beings on a planet I helped destroy.

Maybe even Kryszmisky. I don't remember because the Nothing

wasn't able to reanimate my memories in the short time we had

together, but only tell me the truth, then show me how to save

myself and maybe some of you."

"What about when you were on Kryszmisky? Why not there? Why

did it let you leave?"

"I don't know, Lieutenant. That's as honestly as I can say

it. Maybe I have given the Nothing too much credit. It may not

have taken me because it cannot, for whatever reason."

"Bullshit." Lyzander stood up again and paced the room.

"For all we know you are a walking corpse."

"Anyway you look at it, I suppose I am," Dan said.

"Well, I'm from Blue Sektor. Blue Sektor believes in one

thing." Lyzander held up his index finger. "Meat. Flesh. Blood.

Bones. Semen. All that icky stuff. We live by that."

"Then how do you explain your subhuman treatment of

Pilots?" Dan said.

"We treat them with respect and admiration."

Dan looked skeptical. Lyzander looked at his Pilots for

help. They were both looking down at their hands. Lyzander also

noticed that the two of them were sitting close. They might

have, in fact, been not just looking at hands, but holding them.

Lyzander was certain that they were. He realized that his

thought revolted him. He realized that at this moment his

earlier near encounter with Zhenjuan revolted him as well.

"I'd rather be a Pilot than a walking corpse," Lyzander

said, with much less fire now.

"From what I can tell, reanimation is the first step,

Captain. Even now the people on board the Re-Horakhty are in

better condition than they were. I believe that with time they

will be back to the condition they were before they died, and

better. They will be, I think, immortal."

"But to what end?" Xylia asked. "What good is immortality

to this kind of enemy?"

"I wish I could say that the Nothing's motives were

humanitarian," Dan said. "I suspect that they will continue on

as warriors in a kind of spacebound Valhalla."

Lyzander was in his own world. "The answer has to be in the

Blue Sektor," he said, more to himself than to the others. "We

have always resisted the MI's influence. We don't let it dictate

our lives like the Red Sektor does, and like some of the other

Sektors do."

"This is a lot to digest, Mr. Weegan," Xylia said. "Don't

you think, Lyzander?" and before he could answer, Xylia said, "I

think we need some perspective on this. We are all tired from

the stresses of the day. You all look to be on your last

threads. I think we all need a few hours of sleep."

Lyzander rubbed his face. "Xylia's right. I can't get my

head around this. I'd like time to think."

"I don't know if I trust Mr. Weegan while we're all

sleeping," Ioming growled.

"Please, Lieutenant. I'm no threat. I wanted to share

someone the things I'd seen, nothing more," Dan said.

Ioming sighed. After a long moment where everyone was sure

she'd protest, she said, "Should we go back to the ship? The

quarters seem a little limited here."

Xylia raised a finger. "Special surprise I've been working

on. Didn't mean it for you all, but it will accommodate all the

same."

Xylia shuffled across the room to the old black kettle that

stewed over the open fire place. For a moment, Ioming was sure

Xylia was going to send them away each with a cup of stew.
Instead, Xylia pressed her palm against a brick on the hearth.

It beeped and made noises like an ancient processor. A red line

of light scanned Xylia's palm. A moment later, a crack appeared

in the ground. It took Ioming a moment before she realized what

she was seeing: the floor opening under the bed. The bed lifted

up as the hydraulic pumps pushed the panel on the floor open.

The floor, which a moment ago had been dirt covered, cleared as

the dirt slid off, but the bed stayed, bolted to the steel

panel. The lifts on the trapdoor stopped when the panel reached

a thirty degree angle, revealing a staircase heading down.

"I thought you said she was anti-technology," Welker said.

"Xylia?" Lyzander asked.

"I told you I sensed bad times in the air, didn't I?"

Everyone stared.

"Well? I believe you'll find room enough for each of you

down there. I had it installed three cycles ago, and haven't

been down since. Let me know if there's dust, though. The

salesman told me the environmental control shouldn't allow dust,

but that man had snakes for eyes."

"If it's all right with you all," Welker said, "Zhenjuan

and I could use some fresh air."

Lyzander began to protest, but Xylia cut him off. "You

young people go for a nice walk," she said. Then she leaned in

and said something to them he couldn't hear.

 Welker glanced at Lyzander, but he wore a poker face

Lyzander couldn't read. They left the cottage. Lyzander, Ioming,

and Dan Weegan descended down into the chambers below.

* * *

"Can I ask you a personal question, Welker?"

Welker was busying himself with prepping the PKs for

flight. Xylia had whispered to them to take the ships out for a

test run. He intended to do just that. Plus, it had occurred to

him that this might be a good way to easy Zhenjuan into a role

as a smaller scale Pilot. Of course, there was a risk that she

would not take to it. At worst, she might even be hurt or

killed, but Welker tried to stay confident.

"Go ahead and get the other PK fired up," Welker said,

dropping down onto the wood floor of the barn.

"There was something I wanted to tell you, back in the

cottage," Zhenjuan said.

Welker faced her. He remembered the weird feeling he'd had

that she was hiding something. "What is it? Something to do with

Pilot 6?"

"Yes."

"You are in love with him, aren't you?" Welker asked.

"Yes," she said.

He braced himself for a twinge of jealousy in his chest,

but he felt vacant. He exhaled, wondering why he was incapable

of human emotion. Like all Pilots, his emotional centers had

been dulled. He knew love, hate, and jealousy, but felt them in

miniscule, half-filled packets, like discarded sweetener for

morning coffee.

"We had a special relationship. We hated and loved each

other, in our juvenile aspects. We shared a bond of fun and

challenge. We tested one another, but we never let it devolve

into . . ."

"It wasn't physical," Welker said. Command ship Pilots were

known for their bonds with each other. Welker had always envied

them that. True, he looked normal, and should have had a better

chance of communicating with the non-Pilot crew members of the

ship, but the reality was that even Pilots like Welker lived

isolated existences. Welker had grown accustomed to the

loneliness. It helped that he felt very little emotion. If he

felt things with more intensity, he would have ended his life

long ago.

Zhenjuan touched his shoulder. He faced her. Her robe was

cast aside now. Her form fitting suit was glossy and sleek. Her

head, over the course of the last few hours was now almost

normal. If you didn't know she was a command ship Pilot, you'd

never guess it now. Her head was covered in a fine, black, fuzzy

down.

"When I was escaping from the Re-Horakhty with the medical

ship, just before it became The Zombie, I was near death,

suffering because of the way I'd severed one of my aspects.

There was no way I should have been conscious, let alone capable

of making that jump."

Welker considered this. "You're very powerful, Zhenjuan. I

wonder if you even realize the extent of your abilities."

"I do, Welker. That wasn't it. Don't you see? I had help."

"So what does that mean? You think Pilot 6 gave you a

little push?"

She nodded.

"What does it mean?" Welker asked.

"Nothing. He may have helped without knowing. Perhaps his

Vassarator Deluxe personality is not in complete command. Or

maybe he did it to be sporting. There's no way to know." She

threw up her arms. "I don't know. It doesn't mean anything.

That's why I didn't want to tell the others. I thought you would

understand."

"You think there's a chance that he still has something

left inside that's hiding," Welker said.

Zhenjuan nodded after a moment's though. "I don't want to

get my hopes up about him. I love him, in a way. I would like to

think we could help him, but I can't let that interfere if

we . . ."

"If we have to kill him," Welker said.

 She didn't respond. She embraced Welker. He felt her warmth

against his clothing, the pressure of her against him. He was

unused to hugs or physical contact. He squeezed her arms, unsure

of what to do. She separated from him and looked up into his

eyes.

"Are you a virgin?" she asked.

"What?"

"Are you?" she persisted.

"N-no, No. I--uh--why are you asking about that?"

"I am," she said. She took a step closer to him. "I think I

am."

She put her arms around Welker's waist and kissed him on

the lips.

His mind blanked for a minute. His defenses fell away with

her kiss. "I guess--I guess I am, too," he said.

"Does it bother you?" she asked. She was close. He could

smell her breath, a not unpleasant mixture of supper and body

warmth. Her lips were parted, ajar doors inviting his tongue.

She had an electricity he couldn't pin down. He wanted to kiss

her again and feel it surge through him.

His rational mind said, "I should fire up the other PK."

"You're a thirty-year-old man and you have never been with

a woman," she stated.

"I'm a Pilot," he said.

 "Does that mean we don't need love? Or sex?"

He shook his head. He never thought about it. Pilots were

genetically manipulated so that they didn't produce certain

hormones and neurochemicals in large quantities, as it

distracted from their ability to jump. The last thing one needed

was a Pilot midjump to descend into a sexual fantasy and get the

whole ship killed as a result.

That's what Welker had always been told, and he had never

questioned it, because he had never known what he was missing.

She kissed him again. He kissed back, eager to have that

feeling in him again. He felt like a teenager. A primitive nerve

center in his brain that had laid dormant now blossomed.

Zhenjuan pushed him away, breaking the kiss.

Welker wiped his mouth, feeling ashamed now that they were

separated. "I'm sorry. Did I hurt you? I don't know what came

over me."

"Take your shirt off," she instructed.

He felt self-conscious now. He told himself he had to

follow through no matter what. Captain Lyzander had always been

good to him. A friend, even. No, not quite a friend, but the

closest thing Welker had ever had. He dropped his shirt to the

floor. She zipped her jumpsuit down to her hip. It opened enough

to reveal a firm body, a hint of her breasts. He felt nothing.

Welker talked fast, feeling his nervousness increase with

each slow step she took toward him. "Zhenjuan, I appreciate your

trying to do something nice for me, but I just don't think I was

built for repro--"

She opened her jumpsuit more and pressed her chest against

his. In that moment, all of the emotions flooded back. Welker's

words stuck in his throat. He was overwhelmed, unable to move or

react.

"This is not just for you, Welker. This is for me."

He nodded.

"Now, lie down."

She broke contact. He grabbed her hand and put it on his

chest, over his heart. "Whatever you do, don't let go of me, he

said."

She smiled--just a hint. "I don't think that will be a

problem."

* * *

"I don't mean to state the obvious," Adjia said, "but

shouldn't we do our business and get the hell out of here?

Didn't the weird voice say that zombie ship was coming for us?"

Jurrigan and Hector exchanged a look that Dan didn't like

at all. Hector looked back at his holospace, seeing something

Dan couldn't see and wouldn't have understood if he could.

"Phil, we're going to need you to take us in closer."

I BET YOU WOULD LIKE THAT HECTOR. YOU LIKE TO BE CLOSE TO BIG BLACK THINGS DON'T
YOU?

Hector ignored Phil's mumbled insults.

"Wait a minute. Closer?" Adjia was near panic. "You said

moving was deadly."

THE OLD LADY DOESN'T WANT TO MOVE CLOSER. BIG SURPRISE.

"We miscalculated," Hector explained. "We're about a dozen

meters outside the effective buffer zone, where the 6D burst

would be amplified with positive effect. If we transmit here,

most of our signal will be sucked right into the SMBH."

"I don't understand," Adjia said, voice quavering. "Dan,

don't let them do this. They're going to kill us."

The black nothingness of the SMBH was bigger than any star

Dan had ever seen. It was bigger than anything in the galaxy.

"Surely a dozen meters can't make that much difference,"

Dan said, feeling sick at the overwhelming helplessness of the

situation. There was no bargaining with something so big and

inevitable. It didn't care about your hopes and dreams, your

squabbles and battles, your loves and beloved. No consciousness

lived here. Nothing.

"I can't get a good signal," Jurrigan said. "Normally, we'd

jump from here, try to reposition that way, but by the time we

finish with that, The Zombie would be here and we'd be dead.

This is our one chance."

TELL THEM JURRIGAN, BE THE BAD GIRL. BE THE BOSS.

 "I don't think I trust your Pilot," Dan said. "There, I

said it."

FUCK YOU DAN. I DIDN'T MEAN THAT. DON'T HATE ME PLEASE.

"We have no time to argue about this," Jurrigan said. "Phil

move us forward."

I LIKE IT WHEN YOU COMMAND ME JURRIGAN. YOU EVER THINK ABOUT BEING A DOMINATRIX?

"Phil, for ship's sake. Just follow the order," Hector said.

Everyone tensed. Phil, despite all his rambling insults,

complied. Dan could see that Jurrigan and Hector were as nervous

about the move as he was. This did nothing to calm his fears.

I'LL BE GENTLE, Phil promised. PLEASE LET US HIT A GRAVITON. I HATE THEM

SO MUCH, he added in a lower, but just as flat voice.

Ever so slightly, they all felt the press of their shifting

inertia as the ship accelerated toward the nothing. Scopes went

crazy. Red lights flashed everywhere. Dan could see a tiny

sphere in the corner of Jurrigan's holospace that must have been

an infrared scan of the SMBH. Clouds and tendrils snaked out of

it in some kind of massive wave of activity.

"Activity," Jurrigan said. "This thing is quite active on

the event horizon. If one of those tendrils grab us," Jurrigan

indicated her miniature representation, "then it will pull is in

like jellyfish into a squid's mouth."

"I can do without the explanations," Adjia said.

The ship shuddered and came to a stop.

 DAMN STILL ALIVE, Phil said.

Hector resumed manipulating the control space. "We should

be within range now," Hector said. "But we still aren't getting

a reading."

OH NO I GUESS I'LL HAVE TO MOVE US CLOSER.

The ship shuddered.

"Phil," Hector warned.

"This activity must be interfering with the signal."

Jurrigan tried some different manipulations. Her control space

changed colors. Boxes spun, floating in the air, in the middle

of the zone in front of her. She rearranged them. Nothing

changed.

"Phil, if you're messing with our signal right now, I'm

going to come back there . . ."

AND WHAT HECTOR? STICK IT WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE?

"Phil, damn it. This is your life too!" Jurrigan yelled.

I'M NOT MESSING WITH ANYTHING. ALTHOUGH BIG BROTHER THERE IS MAKING MY HEAD

HURT. IT CAN SEE INTO MY THOUGHTS. THINK OF ALL THE THINGS IT HAS SWALLOWED SINCE ITS

INCEPTION. ALL THE LIGHT. ALL THE LIVES.

"Shut him up. Shut him up!" Adjia said.

BY THE WAY THE ZOMBIE IS HERE, Phil said.

Everyone looked up at that instant. The Zombie blinked into

existence in front of them, but just out of point-blank range.

Its lasers were charging.

 "Back three hundred meters, Phil. Straight away from The

Zombie. Keep us in the zone of contact."

No one had time to argue. Phil mumbled expletives directed

at Hector as the ship jostled and moved. They all pitched

forward. The ship stopped, slamming them back into their seats.

The lasers of The Zombie stopped.

"What happened?" Dan asked.

"They fired their payload, but the change in angle was

enough that the lasers got sucked into the SMBH," Hector said.

Dan swallowed hard. "Can we please get the hell out of

here?"

YOU'RE NOT HAVING FUN DAN.

"No, you freak! As a matter of fact, I'm not," Dan said,

feeling his patience with Phil slipping by large degrees with

each dead word.

YOU THINK YOU'RE MAN ENOUGH TO GO DAN YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND ME.

"That's it! I'm going to--"

"Contact!" Hector yelled. "I found Captain Lyzander."

"Captain! Captain Lyzander!" Jurrigan called.

* * *

Lyzander was not in the bunker when the call came. He had

tried to sleep on the functional cot designed to be softer than

the steel floor by at least five to ten percent, but he'd found

he couldn't keep his eyes closed.

 He went upstairs. He knocked and waited five minutes before

opening the hatch slowly. He found his caution unwarranted.

Xylia wasn't in bed. She was at the woodfire stove, boiling

water in a kettle. If she was surprised to see Lyzander unable

to sleep, she gave no indication. Lyzander left the hatch open

to keep it from making noise and waking Dan and Ioming.

"Coffee?" Xylia asked.

"Yes, Mother, I might as well."

"We can sit on the porch, so our voices don't carry," she

said.

Lyzander took a seat on the ancient wicker rocker just

outside the front door. A minute later, Xylia emerged with a

server holding coffee, a pot of honey and some fresh cream in a

small stainless steel pitcher covered with a layer of frost.

He'd not seen any icebox in the cottage and figured that her

cold cream supply must be another little secret. He smiled as he

fixed his coffee with light honey and cream, keeping the color

dark. He knew Xylia's coffee would taste like a fresh bean and

wanted to savor that.

This particular brew didn't disappoint.

"Did Welker and Zhenjuan finish playing with your toys?"

Lyzander motioned toward the barn.

"I watched, but the PKs never emerged."

"And the Pilots?"

 "Never emerged either." Xylia winked. She laughed when she

saw the expression on Lyzander's face. "I thought Blue Sektor

was all about that icky stuff," she said.

"We are, but Pilots . . ."

"Are people too," Xylia said. "Those two especially. They

are young and rambunctious. That doesn't violate your precious

Blue Sektor codes and credos does it?"

"Of course not. In fact, if anything, we're encouraged to

express our sexual interest. Blue Sektor is about the messy

stuff, the emotions, and the passions. We don't dull it with

drugs and machines; we let ourselves feel emotions as they come.

We temper them with logic and training, but we don't shy from

situations that create them."

"All that is a long way of saying you'd like to go to bed

with your Lieutenant, isn't it?" Xylia said.

Lyzander looked away too quickly.

"I see. You already did a little, didn't you, Zander?"

"I'm not really comfortable with this line of inquiry," he

replied.

She laughed again. "How's that for an emotion?"

"What about you? You seem to be keeping to yourself these

days."

"I'm too old for such shenanigans," she said with a

dismissive wave of her hand.

 "That must be it. I also happened to notice when we were

descending through the atmosphere that the farms have moved

farther away over the years, the city has gotten a little

closer."

"True enough."

"Why don't you move? I seem to recall that you always

enjoyed the company of the farmers, working the land as it were."

"Fine, yes, I do like farmers, and yes they have moved

farther away." She shook her head, but didn't respond. After a

moment, Lyzander realized she was on the verge of tears.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"

"No, you're right, I shouldn't have stayed here. I should

have kept moving. Only, I couldn't bring myself to leave. It

took so much to get this little stretch. I know it must seem

like nothing to you." She was full-on crying now.

"No, that's not true. I have fond memories of this place."

"Yes, but for you it was always temporary, in those dark

periods your mother would have, after Makis died. This was the

place I fought and killed for. We weren't like you young people

where everything is handed to you. We had to deal with

oppression, bloodshed, rape--at the hands of the Provisionals.

I--oh, I'm boring you," she said.

"Not at all."

"My point is that you should seize what happiness you can,
because one day you could wake up and it has all slipped out

from under you. Like your lieutenant in there."

"Uh-hum."

Both Xylia and Lyzander jumped when they heard a feminine

voice clear her throat at the door. Ioming stood there, hair

pulled back in quick ponytail.

"Sorry to interrupt, sir, but I think we have a problem."

Lyzander stood up, hoping his movement and the night masked

his embarrassment. "Yes, what is it?"

"I heard a burst of static over your com link. It woke me

up. It might have been nothing, sir."

Lyzander knew what she was going to say, "6D burst

transmission?"

"It's possible, sir, but Hunedora's scopes are clear. Where

you able to lock down the signal?"

"I heard a voice, faint and brief. I think it might have

been Office Jurrigan."

"How could Jurrigan have reached us with a 6D burst without

knowing our location?"

Ioming shrugged. "If she knew what system we were in, she

might have uses a nearby black hole or red giant star to boost

her signal."

"That's a long shot," Lyzander said.

"Sir, either way we have to anticipate that if someone

locked onto your com link with a 6D burst--"

"--they know exactly where we are. Get Dan Weegan up here.

I'll grab the Pilots, and we'll go."

"Too late about the Pilots," Xylia said, pointing with the

stem of her pipe at the barn.

There was a loud crash that shook the barn. A moment later,

two PKs burst out of the door, zooming out and over the plains,

disappearing quickly in the distance.

Lyzander turned to Xylia as Ioming disappeared inside to

retrieve Dan Weegan. "Mother Xylia, let's go."

She looked up to him with sad eyes, put her pipe between

her teeth and leaned back in her rocker.

* * *

Dan wasn't asleep when Ioming came down, but he was

pretending to because he didn't want to alarm his compatriots.

He'd been awake when Lyzander, lying restless, had gone

upstairs. He was awake when the weird squawk from Lyzander's com

unit woke up Ioming. He was awake when she came down for him. He

sat up and pulled his boots on, saying nothing.

He was thinking about Evelyn. He had been thinking about

her ever since his encounter with the Nothing. Evelyn had been

absent from the Nothing's narrative of Dan's life.

Of course, why wouldn't she be? She was, after all, just a

bad memory of lost love that wouldn't go away. She was his
private tragedy, from what he could remember. Why would the

Nothing care about that?

Except that the thing Dan had always considered a symptom

of some kind of instability was no longer there. He had not

heard, felt or talked to Evelyn since waking up from Kryszmisky.

She was gone as though she'd never been. What did that mean? Had

a several century sleep cured him of his mental problems? Had

NRV cured him? Maybe she'd left him, on to haunt someone else.

He didn't know, but he had a sense that the answer was

important. He had a sense that the answer was, in fact,

critical. He had to meet this Dan Weegan and ask. He was certain

that everything depended on it.

* * *

Vassarator Deluxe watched the IR scope as the laser beam

curved harmlessly into the supermassive black hole. The light,

invisible to the naked eye, orbited the black hole, spinning

faster and faster, descending deeper and deeper toward the

center as it went around and around.

He was standing in the middle of the Pilot's cluster, no

longer wearing the sensory deprivation helmet. This was too

exciting to be denied sensation. He understood why they used to

make him wear it, when he was the one jumping the ship, but as

manager, as the organizer, he had discovered he didn't need it.

It was better without it, in fact. He felt excited, turned on,

full of love and hatred, all emotions the Nothing had awakened

in him.

He ascended The Zombie away from the black hole. Just

enough to threaten the tiny command ship, to make them think he

was within striking distance. He fired some laser shots, aiming

low again. He listened to their burst transmission, running a

tracer program even as he maintained a slow pressure, trying to

coax them to flee.

Knossos.

The great oceans full of labyrinthine chasms had given the

planet its name. A young planet, a beautiful planet. That was

where Captain Lyzander was hiding the whore calling herself

Zhenjuan from him.

"Pilot, this is getting out of hand."

Vassarator Deluxe opened his eyes. In the back of his mind,

he began commanding his Pilots to make the jump to Knossos.

Before him stood a former commander, a man of some rank, a

zombie. The man was in good shape and improving. He could speak

again. Deluxe felt a buzzing, like bees in his skull. It was the

Nothing, but they were dull and had been for some time now.

"I am the Command Pilot," Vassarator Deluxe responded, "We

will kill them, then we will rejoin the fleet as ordered."

"Perhaps you can continue to resist the Call, but we

cannot." The commander motioned toward the other human crew

members, many of whom nodded when they were indicated.

"Can't you, Commander? Well, that's unfortunate."

Vassarator Deluxe in this form didn't have the wrist blades

like he did in his world. But he'd discovered that if he

concentrated just right, he had an even more effective weapon.

He flicked his wrist, just as he would do in his own world.

Instead of a concealed knife, a white light shot out of his

sleeve below his wrist. He stabbed the cone of light up through

the commander's chin, straight into the primitive centers of his

brain. The cone emerged from the top of the main's head. No one

but Vassarator Deluxe could see the spray of consciousness spew

out of the wound.

The commander soiled himself. Vassarator Deluxe held the

man up by the chin. The commander's eyes rolled back into his

head. He convulsed. White foam emerged from his mouth.

Vassarator Deluxe squeezed the man's cheeks or grip, letting his

psychic knife stay in the man's mind longer than it needed to do

the job, so that he went from dead to this convulsing, repulsive

mess. This man would be the example for the rest of the crew.

The arms and legs of the man flopped as though electrified.

Vomit and saliva dripped down Vassarator Deluxe's sleeve.

Vassarator Deluxe held the commander one more second, and

then extracted the knife. The commander flopped to the ground. A

moan escaped him. He wasn't dead, but he was a new kind of

zombie now, one unable to move or be repaired. The Nothing still

had him, but it could do nothing with him.

Vassarator Deluxe looked around at the eyes, filled with

horror and understanding.

"The Zombie is my ship." Vassarator Deluxe snarled.

"If anyone needs me, I'll be in my quarters, changing."

The ship entered hyperspace in the exact instant Vassarator

Deluxe exited the bridge, jolting the crew back to the duty. The

zombies didn't need to sleep during jumps, but it was still a

disconcerting feeling to be pulled into hyperspace.

Deluxe had a few minutes, and he knew just the outfit he

needed to construct. A black leather outfit with a high color

and a menacing cape: Vassarator Deluxe's costume, but real. He

chuckled, hands locked behind his back, not worrying at all

about the drying vomit and blood on his outfit. This was but a

skin. Like the others he'd worn in his life, he intended to shed

this one.

* * *

Welker was torn from his post-coital snooze by Zhenjuan's

words in his ear. "The Zombie is coming."

He sat upright. "What?"

"The Zombie is almost here. It is here. No, it will be

here."

"How? How could it have found us?" Welker realized as soon

as he asked that it didn't matter. He got to his feet and pulled

his clothes on. "Get dressed. Get in that PK."

Emotion drained from Zhenjuan's face. She was steeling

herself, draining away the emotions that had so recently

overtaken them and becoming a hardened combat Pilot. How had he

thought he had anything to teach her?

Welker hurried to the second PK and climbed up into the

cockpit and began the activation sequence. Zhenjuan climbed into

her own ship.

PK-63s were small strike fighters. Compact, hard to hit,

and dense. They were pesky little ships that could take a lot of

direct fire before they began to lose hull integrity. But two

PK-63s was still no match for a command ship. The best they

could hope for was a distraction. And if at least one of the

Pilots didn't survive, the others would not be able to escape.

All that raced through Welker's mind as the ship booted its

piloting software.

He looked at Zhenjuan. He had no real idea if she could

fly. He had hoped to take her out, let her ease her way in.

"Command ship Piloting and fighter Piloting are two

different animals," Welker said into his com, partly to calm his

own jittering nerves. Zhenjuan didn't respond. "Command ships

are slow and lumbering. It's possible to set them on a course

and then turn your attention to other matters while it executes

the set of commands. You have to feed fighters a steady stream

of commands while keeping your attention focused on any engaging

enemies."

Zhenjuan looked down at her hand as Welker's words filled

her ears. Her palm had become a black well of stars. Welker

couldn't see, but Zhenjuan's eyes were now glowing light blue.

"You have to keep the pressure at a peak, an absolute

maximum. These fighters are designed for subspace fighting, so

they aren't going to respond in an ideal manner if we get out of

the atmosphere, but they should work."

Zhenjuan reared up her PK, and jerked it so hard, expecting

resistance from the air around her, that she slammed the ship

into the rafters above her.

There was a pause, then Welker said, "Zhenjuan. Be careful."

She eased the ship forward and down. Before she passed out

through the barn doors, she was starting to get it. Yes, there

was air, but the ship was designed to handle as though it was in

zero-G. There were rudimentary boosters capable of steering the

ship in all directions, but the ship had been designed with

gravity and atmosphere in mind. If they could draw The Zombie

into the atmosphere, they would have a distinct advantage, but

Zhenjuan knew that the chances of this were small, since

Hunedora would need to stay high atmosphere.

They eased their ships out over the planes, accelerating.

Zhenjuan let Welker take the lead. He barrel-rolled the ship.

"These things handle like a dream. Try some things out.

Now's our last chance for experimentation. Get a feel for what

she can do."

Zhenjuan slammed the rear boosters and pulled back hard on

the elevators. The ship's nose pitched up as the ship did a back

flip and evened out upside down. She overdrove the boosters on

the dorsal side to keep the ship airborne. It flew upside down

and backwards. She pulled hard on the rudder and shifted the

boosters as the ship yawed around, facing forward again, but

upside down. She rolled back to her starting position.

"Let's, uh," Welker lost his train of thought for a moment.

How had she done that? "Let's switch on psychic boosters. Go

ahead and activate your unit."

Zhenjuan looked up. In the thin visisteel canopy of her

ship, she could see herself reflected back. Her eyes were

glowing bright, deep blue. Oceans weren't as deep and dark. She

could still see two spots of retina through her pupils, a

vestige of a human she might have once been. Her hands still had

definition, but it was definition of blackness, filled with

stars from about mid-biceps down. Her arms were black space

filled with stars, invisible except in contrast to the lights

and gunmetal components of the interior of the PK. She didn't

need to see her arms to work them anyway. She could fly with her
eyes closed.

CAN YOU HEAR ME? Welker asked.

Zhenjuan looked down at her psychic unit. She probed it

quickly with her mind as she followed Welker through the

atmosphere, over a small village where her mind caught a

fleeting glimpse of a woman in the midst of birthing pain. The

midwife assisting the birth looked up at Zhenjuan's ship as it

blew past the thatched roof. The old woman shuddered,

remembering wars from childhood and silently cursed Zhenjuan and

Welker, thinking they were two kids playing with grown-up toys.

The psychic booster was an advanced unit, very high

quality. She ran a quick simulation in her mind and determined

no, she wouldn't need it.

It would only slow her down.

I HEAR YOU LOUD AND CLEAR, WELKER.

YOU MIGHT NEED TO ADJUST THE ATTENUATOR ON YOUR BOOSTER. YOU'RE COMING THROUGH TOO

STRONG.

Zhenjuan had miscalculated slightly on how much effort she

had to exert to simulate a booster. She toned back her inner

voice slightly.

HOW IS THIS, WELKER?

PERFECT.

Zhenjuan felt the warmth in his voice. Objective observers

would have heard their thought exchanges as flat and devoid of

life, like when their voices were transmitted to other crew

members, but to each other, their voices were vibrant, full of

color, emotion, and flavor. To a Pilot, communicating like this

was more intimate even than the love they'd shared.

"You guys are a step ahead of us, I see," Captain Lyzander

said over the com.

YES, CAPTAIN, Welker said. GET YOURSELVES UP TO THE HUNEDORA. WE'LL HOLD

THE RE-HORAKHTY OFF AS LONG AS WE CAN.

"Be careful, Welker and Zhenjuan. Don't forget we need you

guys to get us out of here." Lyzander's voice quavered a little

as he said this. Zhenjuan understood what the Captain was

thinking. She didn't need psychic powers to tell her, either. He

was thinking that the truth was only one of them was needed. The

other, as far as the Captain was concerned, was expendable.

SIR, WHERE IS MOTHER XYLIA? Welker asked.

"She, uh, she wouldn't come."

WILL SHE BE OKAY, SIR? Welker asked.

"Sure she will. She'll just hide out in that bunker she

built. She wanted me to tell you guys that she wants her ships

back in one piece at the end of all this."

YES, SIR.

Zhenjuan followed Welker higher into the atmosphere. As

they accelerated away from Knossos, the ships became more

sensitive. The actuators that helped them respond as though they

were in zero-G in the planet's atmosphere were now pushing the

ship without air resistance. Zhenjuan watched as Welker

struggled with the controls. His ship jittered.

SCALE BACK, WELKER, DON'T PUSH.

He chuckled. TO THINK, I WAS GOING TO SHOW YOU HOW TO BE A FIGHTER PILOT.

YOU'LL BE OKAY, WELKER, JUST RELAX AND LET THE SHIP TELL YOU WHAT SHE NEEDS.

WELKER'S SHIP DID A BARREL ROLL THAT DIDN'T LOOK INTENTIONAL.

DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME. I'LL BE ALL RIGHT, Welker told her.

A moment later, the Re-Horakhty's old Captain's ship

appeared on their radar near Hunedora. The captain ship was

about half the size of Hunedora, even ignoring the spires in

Hunedora's skin. Welker and Zhenjuan both felt the odd new

presence Piloting the ship. They both remembered Phil. He was

borderline insane, relegated to fighter Pilot duty, and then

only under supervision as a tandem with a more stable Pilot. He

had no business jumping any kind of ship anywhere.

Zhenjuan and Welker shared a moment of apprehension about

Phil before a bigger reason to fear appeared. The Re-Horakhty

materialized in high orbit, opposite the direction they were

flying, in perfect ambush, even though they knew he was coming.

Vassarator Deluxe's gleeful malevolence filled their skulls.

Zhenjuan and Welker crossed paths and looped around to

engage as the Re-Horakhty's lasers zapped space around them.

 Chapter 11: Battle of Labyrinth

Xylia looked up at the predawn sky. She knew she should get

inside the shelter like Lyzander wanted her to. High above, she

saw flashes of light flickering back and forth. The battle had

begun. Xylia folded her arms and scanned the empty fields she

called home. She had fought once, years ago in these very

fields. She had killed and maimed and hurt. No more.

It was going to be a cold day. Fall was coming faster than

usual this year. Harvest time was over, not that Xylia worked

these fields herself anymore, but she enjoyed the company of the

farmers. She liked making them a hearty lunch, listening to

their stories, and occasionally taking one into her bed, even

the married ones. But there were fewer farmers now in this area.

The cities to the east were creeping closer. The world she had

fought, killed, maimed, and hurt for was dying.

 Xylia lit her old pipe and sat in a chair next to her front

door to smoke. She never saw the shot from the heavens that

killed her.

* * *

Lyzander looked up from the interface at his old ship,

which he thought had been destroyed. Hector waved through the

visisteel. "Jurrigan? Hector? What the hell are you doing here?"

Before they could answer, The Zombie fired on them.

Lyzander banked hard left. The Zombie's gun swiveled down after

Hunedora, but Lyzander steered her down faster than the guns

could follow, and blew through the Valley of Eden, the gap in

between the two large laser cones attached to either side of the

Re-Horakhty. Hunedora rotated as it went, making it look as

though it were rolling down The Zombie's belly to the others.

"Ioming get back there and arm those guns, we got

clamshells."

A dozen ships ejected out the sides of The Zombie. Ioming

unbuckled her straps and shoved off toward the maintenance

closet. They hadn't had time to initiate artificial gravity.

Right now, it seemed to be for the best.

"Ready," Ioming said, but the ships didn't engage them.

Welker and Zhenjuan were keeping them busy.

The Captain's ship appeared once more on Hunedora's

starboard side. "Captain Lyzander," Jurrigan said over the com.

"We have Dan Weegan. We need to transfer."

"No, Dan Weegan is with us," Lyzander said.

"Not that Dan Weegan, the Dan Weegan," she said.

It took Lyzander a moment to figure out what she meant.

When he did, dozens of questions popped up. There would be time

for them later. "Zhenjuan, Welker, keep them busy. Buy us some

time."

* * *

YES, SIR, Welker emoted.

He spiraled back into the battle keeping pressure on the

clamshells while remembering to throw a volley The Zombie's way

now and again. He focused on one clamshell that was having some

trouble. It disengaged and limped out toward Hunedora. It was a

ruse of course. The ship meant to attack Hunedora. Welker

focused on it and aimed his PK in the limping clamshell's

direction.

As he drew close, the clamshell burst to life, darting away

from his blaster fire. He realized his mistake when alarms

filled the C-spaces in his field of view. Two ships were locked

onto him from behind, and still the clamshell he was chasing

pursued Hunedora. He couldn't disengage, and he couldn't defend

himself. Checkmate, he thought. Welker sighted the ship in front

of him and blasted it. His shots drove home, but he was out of

time. He fired reverse thrusters and spun--too hard. He had

momentarily forgotten his ship's sensitivity in zero-G/

The clamshell filled his viewscreen. His ship's shields lit

up bright red as the lasers were absorbed. Warnings.

Overheating. Alarms. Death.

The clamshell exploded, the gases came spewing out the

side, knocking its partner away as well with a perfect bank

shot. The clamshell fragments cleared just as Welker blew

through the debris field.

YOU SAVED MY ASS, Welker said to Zhenjuan as she passed behind

him.

SIX MORE SHIPS J-WARD. IF WE CLEAR THESE PUPS OUT, WE HAVE A CHANCE AT BIG

DADDY.

THE ZOMBIE? THERE'S NO WAY WE CAN TAKE IT OUT, JUST THE TWO OF US, Welker

said.

BREAK RIGHT!

Welker leaned his head. His ship spun to the right, forcing

his body to the left. He pulled his neck muscles straight,

wrapped down twist in, his body tuned to the grid of dimensions

around him relative to the bigger ships by second nature and

training. He found a target and loosed a volley of blaster fire.

The first few shots bounced off the shielding. But the shielding

didn't hold. The clamshell sparked and disintegrated. Zhenjuan,

meanwhile, had little trouble dealing with the two ships that

engaged her.
 GOOD SHOT, WELKER. THREE MORE. THEN REGROUP.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE PLANNED ZHENJUAN, Welker couldn't hide his

doubt.

YOU DON'T TRUST ME?

Welker did a reverse flip, a much sloppier, but functional,

version of the maneuver he'd seen her do back in the atmosphere

of Knossos. He blasted apart the ship trying to get a lock on

him.

I TRUST YOU, he said.

They converged on the last few clamshells. The group split.

Without a word, Zhenjuan and Welker split to pursue, guns

blazing.

* * *

The Captain's ship extended a stiff arm out toward

Hunedora's airlock. It clipped into a steel loop embedded in her

hull and clamped on and locked with a magnetic sleeve, holding

the two ships together and giving the steel sheath the frame it

needed to extend out from each ship and mate in the middle.

"Sealed," Ioming said from her position in the airlock.

"Pressurizing."

"Send Dan Weegan and his wife over quickly," Captain

Lyzander said. "Re-Horakhty is already starting to notice our

little maneuver."

Adjia tensed next to Dan. "Oh God, Dan. I don't like this.
How fast are we going?"

"Relative to the other ship, we aren't moving."

"Yaw starboard on my mark, Jurrigan. Let's keep the mating

tunnel protected," Lyzander said over the com. "Four degrees per

second. Engage."

Dan grabbed a stability bar next to the door. Adjia

realized after a second why he had done that and grabbed the one

on the other side. The ship began to twist out from under their

feet.

"Disengaging gravity," Hector said over the com. "Hold on

you guys."

The ground ceased twisting. Their feet floated up off the

ground. They held on as their bodies floated against the turning

of the joined ships. Then the captain's ship was shaken

violently.

"Shit!" Jurrigan said. "The Re-Horakhty's onto us, Captain!

Direct hit. Shields holding."

"How's the seal, Ioming?" Lyzander asked over the ambient

speakers.

"Still holding. Nearly there," Ioming responded, a touch of

desperation evident in her voice.

Adjia shook her head, holding her bar with both hands. Dan

had already started to pull his feet back toward the ground. He

put a hand on Adjia's shoulder. She shook her head more

violently.

"We're going to die, Dan. This is stupid!"

"No, Adjia. It's the easiest thing in the world. We just

pull ourselves over to the other ship. The door will close

behind us and the ships will part. Easy as pie."

The ship shook again. The lights blinked out. Adjia

screamed. Dan hugged her to his chest. The air suddenly went

from omnipresent to thin.

"You guys still with us?" Lyzander's voice asked.

ABANDON SHIP, said the hollow voice of the ship's haunt, Pilot

Phil.

"Hector! Hector!" They heard Jurrigan scream from the

cockpit.

Then, the door opened. A tight faced beauty of a woman with

wicked steel arms stood there. She pulled Dan and Adjia through

before they could protest. Dan rolled his shoulder and

positioned himself to hit the wall just through the door of

Hunedora and held tight to Adjia to protect her. He slammed it

harder than he thought he would. Adjia jolted loose from his

grip. She flailed her arms and grabbed a nearby bar. Dan looked

back through the tunnel.

"Five minutes you seal this door, Mr. Weegan," the woman

told him.

Before Dan could respond, she shot up through the Captain's

ship and out of his line of sight.

"Someone talk to me back there," Lyzander called.

The ships shook. Dan felt air rushing from Hunedora to the

captain's ship as it greedily drank their oxygen.

He positioned his hand over the emergency button. Adjia was

crying behind him. "Push it, Dan. Before we all die. Bless the

gods, push it!"

Dan was thankful she didn't try to interfere. Adjia was

fragile, and Dan was worried about hurting her, but she kept her

distance, unable or unwilling to let go of the handhold she'd

found. Dan intended to give the woman her fair five minutes. He

sensed that if he didn't, then they were all more or less

doomed. And maybe they were doomed if he did.

Dan braced himself for the next strike, for some noise, for

anything. The silence was absolute.

Then, a small face appeared in the airlock. For a moment,

Dan saw the face of a child. He experienced a moment of Déjà Vu.

A child, from his past. Not this one, but a child, staring up at

him, crying, screaming, reaching his hand for--

"Dan Weegan?" a masculine voice asked.

It took Dan a moment to realize it was the child's face

that had spoken in a man's voice. Dan focused on the face. It

was not a child's face at all, but a small man's face, a man who

looked very much like a child in stature and facial features,

until you looked closer and saw the creases and the wrinkles of

age.

"Yes," Dan said lamely.

"I wanted to apologize for my behavior earlier. Permission

to come aboard."

"Phil, get moving. Now!" said someone Dan couldn't see.

Phil glanced back at the woman who had spoke, the hard

woman with steel arms.

"Permission?" he asked again.

"Yes, of course. Hurry!" Dan ordered. He reached out his

hand. "Phil, I presume?"

Phil nodded and launched himself up. Dan grabbed his hand

and pulled the small man through.

The woman appeared a moment later, Hector cradled in her

arms like a baby. "Out of the way, Mr. Weegan."

Dan slid to the side. The woman came through an instant

later. She landed somehow feet first on the wall and walked down

it. A moment later, Jurrigan followed in the same manner. She

slapped the emergency discharge button. The door slammed shut. A

pop that echoed through the hull. The captain's ship was gone.

"Let's get the hell out of here, Captain Lyzander,"

Jurrigan said over the com.

"Hector?" Lyzander asked.

"We'll know in a few minutes," was all Jurrigan said in

response.

Dan grabbed a hold of a nearby bar and closed his eyes as

the ship began to spin and maneuver. He opened his eyes and

launched himself over toward Adjia. He grabbed hold of the same

bar she was gripping for dear life. He wrapped his free arm

around her. She let go of the bar and returned his embrace with

both of her arms.

"I was wrong, Dan. I'm afraid of death. I don't want to

die."

"I know," Dan whispered.

"What are we doing, Dan? Why are we here?"

Dan didn't respond. She looked up at him and for a moment,

through the veil of age, he saw the beautiful young woman he met

long, long ago.

"We're going to go back to Barrington Beach aren't we?"

He nodded.

She sobbed and tried to slam her fists against his chest,

but she wasn't strong enough. The ship roared. Dan held her

tight with one arm and gripped the zero-G bar with the other,

straining to hold the two of them against inertia and

inevitability.

* * *

The last of the clamshells spun away from Welker's blaster

fire and ran right into Zhenjuan's.

 NOW, WELKER, WE MUST ASSAULT THE RE-HORAKHTY.

GUIDE ME, ZHENJUAN.

WE NEED TO HIT IT FRONT TO BACK, BACK TO FRONT, 30 DEGREE ANGLE--

NO, NOT THAT WAY. WORDS WILL BE TOO SLOW. TAKE CONTROL.

I CAN'T, WELKER.

YOU CAN, he said. I'M JUST ANOTHER VESSEL, LIKE YOUR SHIP. REACH OUT.

She reached out an invisible hand, like a tentative finger

and poked him. He jolted.

IT MAY HURT, she said.

JUST DO IT. I'M READY.

He felt a knife stab into the back of his skull. Welker's

nose erupted in blood. DON'T STOP! He ordered when he felt her

begin to pull out.

He felt two sharp fingers pinch his neck just below the

place where neck and skull joined. He grunted involuntarily as

they pinched harder. A pressure formed in his skull. His eyes

clouded over.

Zhenjuan took control. But no, that wasn't quite right. He

had a vision at that moment, of a figure rising up out of the

high-energy beams, changed fundamentally. Then the same figure

before him, eyes glowing in what he thought had been just a

trick of his mind. He realized now Zhenjuan was not pulling his

strings at all . . .

Star Shade had taken control.

 * * *

Vassarator Deluxe shook his head. This was all wrong. Those

two whelps in their toy ships were winning. His stomach rumbled.

He probed for Zhenjuan. She was out there, he could sense the

stink of her womanhood all over space around them, but he

couldn't touch her. He squeezed his hands until his nails dug

into his palms.

How had she destroyed every one of his fighters? She had

read his moves before he had a chance to make them. She had--

Vassarator Deluxe's eyes popped open. One of the fighters

was flying straight at him, guns blazing, making ringed pools

form on the shielding in front of him. He didn't flinch. This

wasn't she, this was the other one. Welker.

Welker was a weakling, a nothing of a man, a half-Pilot. A

worm. Vassarator extended his hand. A line shot out, no bigger

than a thread, from his sleeve, from the same place where he had

ejected the knife earlier.

The thread passed through the visisteel, through space,

through the canopy of the PK-63, and through skin and bone to

Welker's brain. Vassarator Deluxe, through the thread, caught a

full whiff of Zhenjuan's reek. She was controlling Welker. He

understood in that moment, that this was a distraction. She was

behind them circling for the killing blow.

Through the thread, he transmitted.

 * * *

SAY GOODNIGHT TO YOUR BOYFRIEND, BITCH.

Zhenjuan's concentration was ripped by the evil snarl in

her mind. Vassarator Deluxe. Not Paul. Not Pilot 6, but

Vassarator Deluxe. Real. And he had Welker. He was pulling him,

ripping him from her grip, sending him on a collision course

toward the body of The Zombie.

She was locked on her target. Her plan had worked

perfectly, but she had underestimated his power.

Or had she?

"You could still win," she whispered to herself, a

miniature form of the scared girl at the university, wearing a

khaki dress and horn-rimmed glasses swirled in the black star

field where Zhenjuan's arms worked faster than humanly possible.

The young girl, a mis-memory of someone Zhenjuan never was, pled

with her. "Welker will die, but not in vain." Zhenjuan mouthed

the words as they were said to her.

Of course. She had no choice. She had known since the

battle's beginning that this was the way it would end. She would

kill Vassarator Deluxe and destroy The Zombie, and all it would

cost was a man she barely knew.

"No!" Star Shade screamed.

Her ship broke its attack run. In less time that it took to

blink, she redirected all ship power from shields and guns to
boosters. The ship surged. Star Shade's eyes not just glowed

now, but shone. Her body was a mask of calm. Her lips were

pursed, held in a tight circle with perfect aplomb. She breathed

quickly in and out to keep the blood flow to her brain at a peak

level, so she wouldn't pass out under the intense G-forces, but

this was just habit. In reality, she could redirect blood flow

as easily as ship power.

Star Shade passed the lip of The Zombie's bridge coming

over its dorsal side and dove down, pitching down 90 degrees in

an instant.

* * *

Vassarator pulled with all his psychic might. Welker's limp

body pushed the controls forward, diving his ship toward the

thickest part of The Zombie's hull. Deluxe smiled. He would feel

it. When Welker's body was crushed, then ripped apart by the

vacuum, Vassarator would experience it too. It would be the

ultimate victory over an adversary, to revel in his death and

then wake up from it, the way the other man would wish for but

never get. What a rush.

Zhenjuan's ship blew past, tailing a wave of psychic

energy that looked, smelled and tasted to Vassarator Deluxe,

inexplicably, like a cloud of deep space. It was a familiar

tang, the same sensation he had when they went into hyperspace

and wasn't wearing the desensitizing helmet. Distracted as he

was by this sensation, it took him a moment to realize that she

had somehow broken his connection to Welker, and that he had

been knocked down by the way. He scrambled to the viewscreen in

time to see Welker's ship jerk to life. It scraped the hull of

The Zombie, then fired afterburners and sped away.

Vassarator Deluxe jumped to his feet and cursed.

"Target the spiked ship. Blow it out of space," he yelled

at no one in particular. Behind him, the zombies shuffled.

The spiky ball ship darted around, as though sensing his

intentions.

"Somebody so kindly please kill something!" he screamed.

I WILL KILL YOU, ZHENJUAN. YOU NASTY CUNT. I CAN SMELL YOU ALL OVER. I WILL

FIND YOU NO MATTER WHERE YOU RUN.

He had no way of knowing if she heard him. He simply sent

the message out as a general curse, like some primitive cursing

ancient skies.

MY NAME, came the response so strongly it seemed to echo out

of the very walls of The Zombie, IS STAR SHADE.

Vassarator Deluxe smiled, unaware of the blood that came

streaming out of his nose, painting the top of his lip red.

* * *

"Zhenjuan! Welker! Get your asses over here. We need to

split in a hurry."

Lyzander and Ioming worked in concert, feeding commands

into Hunedora's system. The fact of the matter was that Re-

Horakhty's guns were charging to full power and Lyzander didn't

know if there were enough maneuvers in the book to keep them

alive.

"He's just going to wait until we stop moving and blow us

all to hell," Ioming said.

"Hey, at least you're looking at the bright side," Lyzander

replied. "Welker, we're going to have zero time for transfer. If

you know any tricks, now's the time to share them."

Lyzander didn't want to think it, but they had Phil on

board now. Strange as the little man was, he had proven he could

jump a ship without killing everyone.

TRANSFER UNNECESSARY, said a voice that seemed to emanate less

from the ambient speakers and more from the walls themselves,

from inside the occupants of Hunedora's own skulls.

"Who is this?" Lyzander asked, "What do you want from us?"

ST--ZHENJUAN. THIS IS ZHENJUAN, the voice responded, a little

quieter, a little more from the speakers.

Not entirely, Lyzander noted. No the voice was pretending

to come from the speakers. He was supposed to think it was

coming from the speakers. He couldn't shake the feeling that it

was still coming from the walls and from his own skin.

WE MUST TANDEM JUMP, Zhenjuan said.

OOH I LIKE GIRL'S MINDSET. I AM UP FOR DYING, Phil responded with

glee.

"Who hooked up Phil to the booster?" Ioming growled. No one

responded.

NO TIME FOR ARGUMENT, Zhenjuan said, her voice hollow and smaller

with each statement. THE ZOMBIE ATTACKS.

"Someone want to tell me what a tandem is?" Lyzander said.

STOP MOVING YOUR SHIP, CAPTAIN, Zhenjuan responded.

Lyzander leveled Hunedora's flight pattern, letting the two

PK-63s catch up.

TRUST US, CAPTAIN LYZANDER, Welker said.

HEY! STOP THAT! KNOCK IT OFF! Phil wailed.

Lyzander's fingers twitched in the control space. Any

second now The Zombie would strike. The two PK-63s pulled up on

either side of Hunedora, very close to her sides. Lyzander

opened his mouth to ask what the next step was and instead of

speaking he found his mouth and nose flooded with the thick

morass of hyperspace.

* * *

Vassarator Deluxe saw what they were going to do a moment

before Hunedora blinked out of existence. Tandem jump. Command

ship piloting was basically an advanced form of tandem jumping,

but it usually required close proximity, unless there was one

person directing the entire operation, like he did with his own

Pilot crew. It had never been done with three unattached ships
before this moment.

Vassarator Deluxe had let it happen. As soon as he sensed

that's what Zhenjuan was going to do. He wanted to see if she

could do it.

"Where did they go?" Vassarator Deluxe asked without taking

his eyes from the slight anomaly in space where the three ships

had just been.

"Jumped, sir. We're getting a lock now. They're emerging in

neutral space. They'll probably head for dark matter again. We

can catch them if we act now."

She had done it. And it took almost no time.

Star Shade. He licked his lips. This was a worthy opponent.

"Sir, we have locked in on their signal. Should we make the

jump?" the impatient commander barked the question at him.

"Launch a strike on their last planetary location,"

Vassarator Deluxe said.

"Sir, we detect nothing but a miniscule farm. A small

cottage and a barn."

"Vaporize it," Vassarator Deluxe said with a wave of his

hand.

"Yes sir. Then shall we give chase?"

The precision cannon lit up to Vassarator Deluxe's left.

The farm was gone. "No. We shall rejoin the fleet. This game is

at an end. They will mask their jump more quickly than we can
pursue them. Quicker, perhaps, than even the MI could. We will

rejoin the fleet. A bigger fight awaits us. We will deal with

these peons another time."

* * *

Koren and Kozmo kicked the dirt at the very edge of the

black scar that had appeared in the ground where Mother Xylia's

farm had once been.

"It was the gods," Koren, the little girl, said with

reverence.

She reached a tiny finger toward the char. Kozmo pulled her

hand back.

"It's poison," he said.

"You don't know," she said, but kept her hands close to her

yellow sundress.

"Whatever the gods send, it's poison," Kozmo said.

"What are you kids doing here?"

Koren screamed. Kozmo grabbed her to keep her from running.

Devils snatched children who ran. In an instant, Kozmo became a

man. He put his little sister behind him and addressed the

walking horror that approached from their blind side.

"We're here in defiance of the gods," Kozmo said, his voice

as deep as his young throat would allow.

The person, burnt beyond what any human should have been

able to withstand, burnt almost black. In patches, bone was

clearly visible on its skull. The figure chuckled.

"Gods . . ." the charred mouth said, somehow

comprehensible. Looking out over the scorched field, the figure

pointed. "There are your gods, children. The ones who came

before. The alpha."

Kozmo tore his eyes away from the figure for just a second,

certain that when he did, it would rip him apart limb from limb.

What he saw held his attention, despite the humanoid horror to

his side. What he saw was the ground coming to life.

"The omega," the figure said. "Everything rising. Fighting

again."

Kozmo shook his head, trying to deny what he was seeing. He

clamped his hand over the eyes of Koren. She couldn't see this.

He would not let her see the bones and flesh of the long dead

arms pushing up through the soil like stalks of corn in a time-

lapse film they made him watch in school. Once wrestled free,

the arms pulled themselves up. They pulled out skeletons loosely

collected by age-old ligaments. The dead arose. The long, long

dead.

"The battle begins anew," the figure said.

Kozmo picked up Koren and fled. His manliness evaporated

into childhood terror. He looked back over his shoulder as he

ran, blind with panic, able only to sense movement and light,

like a lesser animal.

 Back at the strip of scorched earth, the deathly figure

watched as the bones of the dead rose around her. She had killed

many of these. Many more were friends, comrades. Now friends and

enemies were one. What they had all fought for was in danger of

passing on, of dying.

The dead began to acquire flesh. It returned to them from

the ether, sucked back in the same way it had gone, but quicker.

Already, the figure's face was starting to heal. She could

feel the flesh knitting back together.

"Mother Xylia. Our forces gather."

"Rylan? Is that you?" she asked the skeleton.

It nodded ever so slightly, in that particular way Rylan

had. It was like he'd never left, as though she had not watched

him die on the battlefield, screaming for his guts to be

returned to him.

"We will march again, Xylia. They will remember. They will

join us."

"Then what?" Xylia asked. She knew the answer already, but

she wanted Rylan to say it. How she had missed his strength, his

purpose of will.

"Then, Xylia, we will make those Provisional pigs pay for

their crimes against us."

Xylia smiled with what flesh she had. She loved him. Her

heart swelled with it, but she would not take Rylan's hand, for
the time of love had passed on.
 Chapter 12: Tables Turning

The Zombie emerged from hyperspace in the midst of laser

fire. The ship rolled as it passed between the attack barges

from the MI fleet and the other zombie ships that had jumped in

to join the battle. Laser fire reflected off its shielding,

granting a temporary reprieve from the MI assault.

Vassarator Deluxe leveled the ship and smiled. He could

sense the MI believed it was winning. It had been allowed to

cripple a single zombie ship and was now gloating in its mind.

The MI's mind was pathetically open to the Nothing, and it had

no idea. It didn't know its thoughts radiated out in the Unseen

dimensions, filling the space like cotton candy for the Nothing

to devour.

The Zombie had its assignment. Vassarator Deluxe decided to

go along with the maneuver. He had his minions reprogramming the

ships guns during the jump. There had precious little time, but

their minds, working in concert with his own, had done the job.

"Attack any Protectorate fighter that strays into the

periphery," Vassarator said aloud, though no words were

necessary. During his pursuit of the traitor Star Shade,

Vassarator had felt that the ship was against him, slowly trying

to erode his confidence and ability. Now all that was gone. The

ship's crew had let out a collective sigh in the presence of the

main Nothing force. Now they were like a single organism.

And Vassarator Deluxe was like the queen bee. Except that

he was a queen bee in a hive of ants. He was still an outsider

and always would be. But it was better here, safe and easy. The

crew responded like a machine, the formerly human bodies now

mere extensions of the unseen electricity that powered the ship.

A small squad of Protectorate fighters broke off the main

force and pursued The Zombie as it emerged on the far side of

the battle. Vassarator Deluxe pushed The Zombie straight on past

the fighting, into slightly more open space. He then fired

reverse drives. The Protectorate fighters swarmed, passing over

and under The Zombie. As they did, The Zombie's modified lasers

lit up.

One of the mosquitoes danced out of the way, but the other

tried to outrun the beam and its human occupant discovered a

real world example of the childhood maxim: nothing outruns the

speed of light.

The ship stayed whole, but drifted now, its engines dead.

The blast had not harmed the ship, only disabled vital
functions. Most notably, life support. Inside the ship, the

pilot was gasping for air that wouldn't come, was struggling,

fighting the inevitable. He was clawing now at his throat, as

though opening the skin would let air in.

Vassarator Deluxe was with the pilot through his death. He

smiled, his cock hard as the pilot's battle ended abruptly. He

inhaled the sweet smell of death inside the cockpit of the small

fighter and, still safe on the bridge of The Zombie, he smiled.

A moment later, the pilot jerked back to life. The Zombie

fired a shot from an energy beam, flash fueling the solar cells

on the Protectorate fighter. It regained full power a moment

later and came back to life, now fighting for the Nothing.

The remaining Protectorate fighters attacking The Zombie

reacted slowly to the attack from their own fighter. It managed

to destroy two of them before the others realized what was going

on. Vassarator Deluxe, meanwhile, was occupied with attacking

the fighters as they broke formation, confused and suspicious of

each other. By the end of the engagement, The Zombie now had a

small cluster of Protectorate fighters near it.

The other Protectorate fighters refused to engage The

Zombie now. He tuned his mind to their radio chatter, which was

drowned and broken by static thanks to the interference. The

human pilots were withdrawing now. They had thought the presence

of the nanobots in their blood would protect them from the fate
of their compatriots were suffering. Vassarator laughed. They

had been meant to believe this. The MI had been led to believe

this.

The MI sent its robot fighters out in heavier waves, while

the human powered ships withdrew. The robot fighters were more

numerous, but less effective. Clouds of them were mowed down. A

swarm approached The Zombie.

"Hold fire until they are on is. Target the thickest part

of the swarm," Vassarator Deluxe said, channeling his inner

voice through the ambient speakers in a low whisper.

The swarm dove toward The Zombie. The cannons fired with

full power now. Ships dissolved into nothing. The swarm appeared

to shatter into a million bits. Vassarator Deluxe opened his

hands and began his assault. One at a time, he took over the

robot ships. The MI had thought itself safe from such an attack,

even though twice already the Nothing had taken over MI robots,

once on Chambrassa and once on Marina del Sol.

Near other ships, the same result was occurring, but on a

smaller scale. Vassarator Deluxe had learned the technique

quickly, but some of the other Pilots were slow and stupid. He

quickly amassed a fleet of the smaller robot fighters and with

no further ado he engaged the nearest MI ship, on the flank. He

led with his Protectorate fighters, using the robot ships as

cover, sending them high for the attack while The Zombie
approached from below. The MI-powered Big Box took the bait.

Vassarator Deluxe smiled as he worked, connecting to the

nexus of minds in the Big Box, reprogramming them with cool

efficiency to fight alongside them. The humans would be

overwhelmed, attacked by the ships they thought were their

comrades. There would be much death this day.

 Chapter 13: The Time of Love

Dan Weegan opened his eyes to see the darkness. There was a

strange sound all around him, a liquid sound. He imagined being

inside a waterfall would sound like this. Running beneath the

torrential roar around him was a trickle that was persistent. He

took a breath. Damp air filled his lungs. Dan coughed, struggled

to stand.

"Relax, Dan, why are you so anxious," a familiar voice said.

"The air," Dan croaked, "it's choking me."

"Lay back down. I'm going to cut your eyes open."

Dan took a breath of the weird air. Awareness crept into

his mind. This was a new body, a new place. He could hear the

wispy hum of the MI robot floating nearby him. He felt his

hands. They felt normal, if a little raw.

 "You won't have the usual acclimation time, Dan. You'll

unfortunately need to get to work right away."

"That seems like a bad idea," Dan said. He lay back down on

the table and took a few breaths to calm his jittery nerves.

He felt the metallic presence of the robot near his head.

It was almost silent when it didn't move, but it had a radius

around it when he got close that gave him a strange feeling to

be within. It made his hair stand on end.

Dan relaxed his eyes. He was used to this procedure. The

body had been grown in a vat over the course of less than a

week. It was fully functional, but the rapid growth created

certain oddities, like the strands of skin growing from the

eyelid to the cheek, that had to be cut away. There were other

things as well. If Dan hadn't been so disoriented by the weird

noise and the dampness of the air, he would have not moved until

the robot was done cleaning his body up.

Dan's eyes suddenly came open to the soft blue light of the

room. The light was provided solely for him. The robot, of

course, needed no light to navigate the space. Dan was surprised

by how small the room was. It was half the size or less of the

usual facility. The vat that this body had recently grown in was

only a few feet away. It was filled with greenish liquid with a

layer of bits of flesh floating on top of it.

"It's called air conditioning, Dan--that noise. You get

used to it. It's a low-tech way of regulating temperature.

That's the noise. Actually, the noise is low in here compared to

some of the homes on the surface."

Dan raised his right hand. The robot fired its miniature

surgical-grade laser and separated his fingers. Dan reached for

the customary cigarette that awaited him. He didn't know how the

MI managed to find smokeable herbs on every planet in the

system, but apparently every planet in existence had seen the

need for at least one so far.

Dan smiled and put between his lips. The MI lit it with the

surgical laser. Dan inhaled and breathed out a cloud.

"With no proper climate control, of course, your smoke will

linger and cling to everything, but you don't hear me complain,

do you?"

"Actually, yes," Dan responded.

He lifted his penis up so the robot could carve out a

proper unit from the mass of flesh that had grown down there.

There was no hair yet; he was as clean as a baby.

"One of the rare opportunities you might have to actually

use this," the robot said.

"Very funny."

"After a little while, you don't even notice the constant

hum and in fact get a little antsy when you can't hear it."

"Why is it so damp?"
 "Dan, how is it that you're so spoiled? We've done by my

count four hundred seventeen exploration missions, in conditions

much worse than this."

"Psychological, I guess. It just seems wrong to have

outside conditions inside."

"Did I not warn you that the technological level may bring

some unexpected shocks?"

Dan smoked in silence. The MI completed its routines. Dan

wiggled his toes. They felt rough on the inside edges, but

nothing impossible to deal with. He stood up, then bent at the

waist and touched his toes a few times. He did a few stretching

and yoga routines to center himself and get used to this new

body. This new body, his old body.

"You'll want to get dressed right away. The mayor is

waiting for you."

"So let me get this straight. He doesn't know why I'm

really here?"

"Of course not, Dan."

Dan struggled to remember what he and the MI had discussed

in the waiting room before his most recent death. Lately,

though, he had a more and more difficult time remembering things

that happened just before he died.

Then it hit him. He had been talking with Evelyn. Having a

heavy conversation with her when the MI had come in. He could
see the scene in his mind, but he couldn't remember the content.

He could see Evelyn sitting nearby him, telling him something

important, but though he could see her lips moving, he couldn't

remember her words. Then the MI had come in and she had gone

away. But the contents of that conversation were likewise lost

to him. Dan exhaled and took another drag then, stretched his

arm above his head, opening up his ribcage.

"Brief me again on the mission so I don't forget anything

important."

If the robot was suspicious of Dan's true motivations, it

gave no indication. "The colony of Barrington Beach shuns all

technology. Even forgetting the fact that they would not be here

if not for technology. It's almost humorous to me. They use only

technology they can manufacture with raw materials, but of

course if you go back far enough in human history, you could

find many people who would think the technology they were using

was quite advanced indeed."

"To the point."

"Yes, well, the reject some technology. By that, I suppose,

I mean they reject me. Aside from this room, you'll see no

robots and nothing that requires MI intelligence to power."

"Heartbreaking."

"I love you too, Dan. Now, this planet has an anomaly. The

residents, over the past two generations have developed psychic

abilities far in excess of what we have seen anywhere else in

the universe. My impulse is to believe that there is intelligent

life on this planet somewhere, except--"

"No alpha waves."

"No alpha, delta, or beta--nothing that would indicate

intelligent thought emanates from this planet. Luckily, I was

precautious enough to require this small facility to be built. I

have allowed Barrington Beach utter freedom otherwise. I don't

even spy on them very much."

"Are you thinking microscopic life?" Dan asked.

"I remember you got excited about this possibility before."

"It would be a fascinating discovery is all," Dan said

defensively.

"Indeed. But it seems highly unlikely in this case."

"There was an instance of it, once."

"Yes, Dan, as we've previously discussed."

Dan leaned against the wall and took a drag, trying to

remember as much as he could about Kryszmisky, but few details

came to his mind. "You could have told me earlier. About your

plan."

"I could not have, and you know it. You see the necessity

of my work now, but if you hadn't been led to the truth slowly,

you would not have accepted it."

Dan nodded without speaking. Yes. He knew about the

genocide. He had figured it out along the way. The MI wasn't

sure how he had figured out. Its best theory was that some of

the memories from the parallel Dan Weegans had been absorbed

into its consciousness and slowly, like flashes of a dream,

those had gotten mixed in with Dan Weegan proper. The result was

that Dan had simply woken up on one planet knowing what the MI

would do. At first he'd been angry, of course. He'd been

enraged. But it made sense, really.

It was for protection. Humans were not very smart. They

required very primitive means to communicate. They would be

quickly surpassed by any of the intelligences discovered so far.

They would be consumed, taken over, driven mad, and finally made

extinct.

Besides, it wasn't like the intelligences were gone

forever. They were simply contained in a new environment, within

the MI. In fact, it regularly reanimated species in the confines

of Station Iowa. The MI reported that all of the intelligences

had grown quite acclimated with their existence. They were

higher beings. Not like humans, easily frightened and driven to

primitive drives. These beings were truly intelligent, and their

intelligence grew, even within the reality of the MI's multiple

dimension brain matrix. Yes, this multiplication paid dividends

for the MI. It was an extremely beneficial form of symbiosis, if

the MI could be believed.

 "So if it's not microscopic life, what is it?" Dan asked.

"I'm at a loss Dan. I can't get enough data to tell you.

This is what I need you for. I need you to get me some

information."

Dan nodded. When he looked up, Evelyn was standing behind

the robot, looking at him with large, sad eyes. He blinked and

she was gone.

"So, I'm a biological expert," Dan said. "A psychiatrist or

something?"

"Yes, I decided we should stick as close to the truth as

possible. You will be investigating the phenomenon of their

psychic powers. There is one girl in particular who seems to

have peculiar power. Adjia is her name. You'll want to see her

early on. Try to figure out not just the environment she grew up

in and her DNA encoding, but also remember the mundane stuff.

What does she eat? Where does she live? What sorts of insects

abide in her home? Some minor detail may hold the answer to this

question."

"What are the major life forms of this planet?"

"Sparse, in terms of land animals. This planet is over

ninety percent water. There are some interesting aquatic life

forms. They are nothing but beasts, but they have fascinating

behavioral patterns. The most significant are the jellies, which

are ubiquitous throughout the planet. They are surface floaters,

immobile. Floating colonies. They feed with a combination of

photosynthesis and filtering out the plankton with their

dangling arms using only the natural motion of the seas.

Strangely, nothing eats them. You'd think they would be easy

picking, but nothing touches the jellies."

"Weird. They seem like a natural food source for something.

Perhaps they are poisonous," Dan said.

"Perhaps. The colonists do not mess with them either. They

don't even try to consume them. I think they feel that if

nothing on the planet naturally eats them, they should take the

hint and also not attempt it," the MI responded.

"I'll try to get some samples."

"You'll have to do so under cover of night, of course. I

understated the case. Not only do they not disturb the jellies,

it is forbidden to do so."

"Surely they'll make an exception for a visitor trying to

help them," Dan said.

"Under penalty of death," the robot replied.

"That is severe," Dan said.

"You can still take samples, so long as you take adequate

precautions."

"Anything else of note? Any other understatements?"

"The most fantastical of the inhabitants, of course, are

the whales. They are enormous, Dan. A hundred meters average. At

least one of the whales is known to be bigger, almost twice

that. He is occasionally sighted and has been dubbed by the

Beachers as God. They have unrestricted growth due to the

enormity of the oceans here. And they constantly move. Also,

though I call them whales, they are not mammals. They are their

own taxon, in fact."

"No intelligence?"

"No brains. They have eye spots. Many eye spots in fact.

Millions by some estimates. They were studied very briefly when

Barrington first started up. The lead biologist at the time

hypothesized that the eye spots, each with its own ganglia,

formed a kind of primitive brain."

A closet opened and a rack of clothing extended out.

Apparently the Beacher's fashion sense was as primitive as their

technology. Dan took the tunic and trousers. He felt like a

peasant from a backwater. "Multibrained creature. That's a new

one."

"Maybe. You might have a chance to add to that research,

though in truth the probability is low. Sightings of the whales

are exceedingly low, as Barrington Beach purposely lies outside

of their usual migration patterns. The God has only been seen

twice since the inception of the colony."

"Why not set up a research facility at the other side of

the planet? How would the colonists even know?" Dan asked.
 "You offend me, Dan. I gave my word I wouldn't," the robot

said.

"They made you install a defense matrix, right?"

"It's the only technological advance they allow themselves,

besides this facility, and like it, they require it to be buried

under the ocean with access restricted only to a chosen few."

Dan took the last drag from his cigarette and made as

though he would drop it on the floor. The robot approached him.

It was a small thing, no bigger than his head. It dipped below

his hand and opened a small swirling vortex on its top. This was

a new trick Dan had never seen before. He vaguely recalled

seeing this trick on a previous planet. Dan frowned. Why

couldn't he remember where? It must have been a long time ago.

Except that Dan had a suspicion it wasn't a long time ago.

He had a suspicion it had been recent. This meant his memory was

getting worse.

Dan dropped the cigarette into the vortex, where it was

swallowed up. The swirling vortex ceased. The door opened.

"You're on your own at this point, Dan. Good luck."

"Always a pleasure," Dan told the robot.

He stepped into the long corridor, which was made of

reinforced glass and was perfectly round with a steel grating

along the bottom providing a walking surface. The sea surrounded

him on three sides. The ocean was positively alive with

activity. There was a dancing light show. Clouds of self-

illuminated plankton or krill of some alien variety hunted

unseen particles in a group while fish darted in, snatching a

few individuals if the strayed too far from the group. Dan

noticed that the fish that grew too bold were greeted with a

jolt. The clouds of krill--if that's what they were--apparently

had an electric defense, but it must only be effective if they

were grouped.

"Dan, there's something about this place."

Dan looked back. He had, mesmerized by the cloud of krill,

covered more than half the distance across the tube. The door he

had come through and the door he had yet to reach were both

closed and sealed tight. Evelyn stood, hand on the rail that ran

along the tube, staring up at the fish that had come to her.

They were grouped as close to the glass as they could be. She

touched her finger to the glass and wrote something there. The

fish followed her finger. They were absolutely invested in its

movements.

Dan approached her. "What is it about this place? You feel

so immediate here. So real."

"Dan, you are not forgetting."

Dan shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I am. I wish I wasn't.

I wish I could look you in the eye and tell you where we were

from. I wish I could tell you how I knew you. I wish I could
tell you why I love you."

"The heart wants what the heart wants," she said.

"There's obviously more to it than that." Dan leaned on the

railing next to her.

"You can't remember. Therefore, I can't remember," she said.

"But you know things I don't. You can feel a significance

here I can't feel."

"Yes," she said. One of the fish laid its body against the

glass. She stroked the fish down the length of its body. It

shuddered and ejected a cloud of something Dan didn't wish to

contemplate.

"So if I'm not forgetting, why can't I remember?" Dan asked.

She looked him dead in the eyes. "You know the answer to

that," she said, and then was gone.

Dan shook his head. That was the damnedest of things

though. He didn't know. He had no idea.

He turned and exited the tube, to where the mayor of

Barrington Beach awaited him.

* * *

"Dr. Weegan, I won't conceal the fact that none of this

pleases us. Why couldn't you have come via a slipliner or some

other normal means? Utilizing that MI facility," he said the

word as though it were poison, "does not suit us at all. Not at

all."
 "Surely you can understand the need, Mayor Almenräder, for

an expert to evaluate this situation. Perhaps you see this as

nothing more than coincidence or a fluke, but the all eyes are

on Barrington Beach right now. People want to know what is

happening here. If people had to wait until a slipliner got me

here, I would have had a ship full of company, all wanting in on

the operation."

"We will be watching you, Dr. Weegan. It strikes me as

peculiar that the MI would send one such as yourself, a nobody.

To be frank, Dr. Weegan, how do we even know you're human?"

"I assume you have a scanner built into the tunnel I came

through. What did it tell you?"

Almenräder forced a chuckle. "Well, you are savvier than I

had assumed, then. Fine, you check out. No communicators, no

hardware. You are 100% human, then."

"Surprisingly, not all scientists are famous," Dan said.

Almenräder's smile was genuine this time. "Point taken.

Then I'll show you to your quarters."

* * *

Dan had hoped to get a start on his investigation right

away, but it was the middle of the night, local time. Judging by

the number of lights, he would have gambled that at least a

couple of the subjects would be awake, but Almenräder refused to

disturb them. There was still a chance he could see the jellies
that night, but this was dashed when Almenräder locked the door

and posted a guard.

"For the protection of our community, and for your own

protection, Dr. Weegan. We've had threats," the mayor had told

him.

"I'm sure. How about a gun, then?"

"We don't believe in weapons on Barrington Beach."

"I'm not picky. A knife will let me sleep a little easier

as well."

"Tell me how a psychiatrist knows how to use a knife, Dr.

Weegan," the mayor said.

"If a man is coming at you, you figure out what to do

pretty quick. No special ops training required."

"Yes, well, a locked door will have to suffice I'm afraid."

Dan smoked. He was pleasantly surprised to find tobacco to

be quite popular on Barrington Beach. Most planets had banned it

because of the health problems. Getting a fresh set of lungs

once a month diminished Dan's worry about the side effects of

smoking. He dragged and looked out the window at the cluster of

satellites the planet sported that were in various stages of

setting on the endless sea below the cliff his house was perched

on. This particular window he could open if he wanted to. He

could even crawl out. But one wrong move and he'd have a 200

foot drop onto some rocks, so he didn't bother.

 This colony was a hideaway on an unwanted planet. A little

alcove of antitechnologists who called themselves the Blue Group

or the Blue Sektor when they were getting creative. This

landmass was the only habitable land on this entire planet. The

extreme tidal changes tended to submerge other land masses at

least once a month. In a few weeks, Dan would be able to jump

out this window and swim away. But as it was, he had nothing to

do but wish Evelyn would appear and talk to him.

"How come you never appear when I need you?" he asked the

empty room.

You know the answer to that.

The last thing she'd said to him, referring to the fact

that he was forgetting. He had at that moment denied that he

knew the reason. The truth was he had suspected the real reason

for his memory loss for years. Evelyn's words seemed to be

confirmation of what he had only suspected, or was it just a

manifestation of his desire to make certain what he only

suspected, that the MI was slowly erasing his mind.

What he couldn't determine was why it would want to do that

to him, but he knew the answer to that question as well. It was

trying to erase Evelyn. Of course, the answer only led to more

questions. Why did it need to erase Evelyn? If she was

significant, he couldn't remember how, so it seemed pointless.

Dan shook his head. It was like having a treasure map to a

planet he'd never been to. The markings were clear enough, but

with no starting place, they were just symbols on paper,

signifying nothing. He snuffed his cigarette on the window sill

and went to bed.

That night, Dan slept, but dreamed of death and chaos,

nothing less than the end of the universe.

* * *

Dan woke up to a slice of sunlight in his eyes and Evelyn

sitting on a stool by the window, smoking. Dan did not remember

putting the stool there. He was certain, in fact, that he had

left the stool by the rough hewn table where it had been when

he'd been shown his mini prison.

"Good morning, baby," Evelyn said without looking at him.

"What's going on?"

"Dan, this place. It energizes me."

Dan put his feet on the ground. He hadn't bothered taking

off his clothes and now was covered with sweat, which had soaked

through the clothes.

"What does that mean?" Dan asked.

"Dan, why does it want me dead?"

Dan shook his head and pulled on his shoes. "I don't know."

"It's been trying to kill me for years. Forever, actually."

"That seems unlikely. How would it not have succeeded

before now?"
 "It thinks I'm a physical part of your brain."

"You're not?"

She shook her head. "I was, I think. I was more than that

at one point. You know that, though. You suspect it, at least."

"I have memories. Dreams, sometimes, of the two of us on

some planet. I'm older, somehow. We're making love."

"That would be nice."

"I have other memories too. Less pleasant ones. You

screaming. You begging someone to stop. You dead."

Evelyn touched a tear away from the corner of her eye and

snuffed the cigarette. "Please, Dan. You have to help me. You

have to save me."

"If I even knew how, I would."

"This place," she said. "A girl named Adjia. She may be

able to help. The answer is here."

Then she was gone.

* * *

"Dr. Weegan. We thought we would start by introducing you

to some of the children. They are very impressive," the mayor

said from the front porch of the cottage Dan had to call his

temporary home and prison.

"Adjia," Dan said. "I would like to meet the one called

Adjia."

"It's not as simple as that, Dr. Weegan. I refuse to barge

in on anyone. I will notify her you wish to meet her."

"Do so now," Dan said.

Almenräder clenched his jaw. "As you wish."

He nodded to one of his three guards. The man saluted and

hurried off.

"You run a tight ship, Mayor," Dan said.

"Not at all. We run the ship with the minimum of tightness,

just enough to get the job done. Discipline is, of course,

necessary in any policing force. I am actually quite liberal."

"I guess its all relative."

"For now, Dr. Weegan, the children?"

"Lead the way," Dan sighed.

* * *

None of the children of Barrington Beach were entirely

remarkable for their abilities. A few could read objects on

unseen cards. Dan observed a few instances of telekinesis and

even a little girl able to ignite matches held up in front of

her face, which was more remarkable for the exhibition of

control of the pyrokinetic ability rather than of the magnitude

of the ability. What was more remarkable to Dan were the ages of

the children. Most appeared to be very young. The match-lighting

girl appeared to be no more than four or five.

"She's twice that," Mayor Almenräder said with little

interest.
 "You're joking," Dan said.

"I don't often joke," Almenräder responded. Dan believed

him. "Don't read too much into it, Dan. Children of Barrington

Beach have always appeared young. This has been known going back

to the first generation to be born here."

Dan scanned his memory for this fact. He could vaguely

remember the first generation of children here, or at least the

hubbub about the first settlers. They had been illegal, of

course. The MI hadn't finished full investigation of the planet

when a human crew on the exploration slipliner had mutinied

against the captain and settled on this rock in the middle of

the vast nothingness. It would have been no big deal for the MI

to take care of the issue quietly, except that the ship had been

carrying a reporter with ansible-powered broadcast equipment,

part of a promotional team. It hadn't taken long for the

Barrington Beach colony to gain legitimacy and then overwhelming

support. The MI had been handcuffed by the will of the people.

It had given into their demands and abandoned research efforts.

Beyond that, Dan could remember little. Little had been

released on the colony since then. A few updates when the

colonists would acquiesce to being interviewed were all anyone

ever saw.

Dan took blood and tissue samples from some of the

children, who were--he was told--a variety of ages. They looked

all to be more or less the same age to him. The samples would be

a good start, but he would need much more.

"What do they eat?" Dan asked the mayor in between children.

"Most of us subsist on a typical sea community diet. The

native varieties of kelp, which is quite disgusting to look at.

On this planet, the kelp tend to grow in still areas and it

tends to cluster in a more biomass form. I've seen many

instances of kelp in books from other planets where it tended to

grow in a more plant-like fashion. Regardless, it's disgusting

to look at, but quite flavorful. Besides that, we eat fish,

peanuts and soy we grow hydroponically, many of the other basic

staples I'm sure you're used to."

Dan took a few more samples. On any other planet, he'd

already be getting results from the first few children, but he

had to be content with a rack full of beakers of blood and petri

dishes of samples that were already growing cultures that would

take a few hours to reach maturity.

After the sixth child, Dan stood and stretched. "Shall we

see Adjia now?" he asked casually.

"We have a good number more children you may sample, Dr.

Weegan."

"I have what I need here," Dan said.

Almenräder smiled his typical smile. Except, Dan was

beginning to realize, it was no smile. This was Almenräder's

look of distaste. Dan had been taking them man's actions as

humor, but he was starting to realize that Almenräder not only

didn't appreciate Dan's presence, he hated him on a personal

level.

"Is there a problem, Mayor?"

"Of course not, Dr. Weegan."

"Look, I know you must not appreciate outside help coming

in to investigate--"

"Outside help?" the mayor growled. He inhaled, and his

masque of composure that had fallen briefly away returned. "Let

us just say, Dr. Weegan, that on Barrington Beach, we reject

such things as people who are grown in tanks by robots. Such

things we find highly objectionable."

Dan dismissed the mayor's venom with a wave of his hand.

"I'm human as much as you. I didn't start out in an MI lab

somewhere. I'm human, born and bred."

"Where, exactly, were you born and bred, Dr. Weegan?"

Dan collected his materials. The truth was, he couldn't

remember. He'd always told himself he couldn't remember. But

what the mayor was implying was true. Dan might very well have

come from nowhere but an MI lab on some planet, or maybe right

from the heart of Station Iowa itself.

"Mayor, I would like to meet with the lady Adjia now."

"Certainly, Dr. Weegan. We wouldn't want to delay your

mission even one more second than was absolutely necessary. You

have an appointment with death, after all."

Dan couldn't disagree. Death was perpetually in his future.

* * *

"May I speak frankly, Dr. Weegan?" the woman Adjia asked

him.

Dan shrugged. "I'd like it if you answered the question."

Adjia was tall, her hair matte black and curly. She kept it

tamed by rolling it into a tight bun pierced with a polished

stick. Her robe was simple and somewhat revealing. Dan wondered

if she always dressed like this, or if she was putting on a show

for him. He didn't much mind either way. She had sent out

Almenräder with about ten bitter words after about fifteen

seconds, so she was okay in his book.

"You are carrying baggage," she said.

Dan set his pen down on the pad of paper he'd been given to

take notes. It felt strange, pen and paper. But he liked the

smell of the paper and the ink. It felt nice in his hand,

substantial. "You're running the risk of sounding like a cheap

parlor trickster," he said.

"I don't know her name, but she's been standing by the

window, staring out the window at the sea since you came in."

Dan looked over his shoulder. There was no one there. "I

don't know what you're talking about."

 "Your eyes bespeak the truth."

"She's just a memory."

"Of what."

Dan rolled his eyes. "I can't remember. There. Does that

satisfy your prejudice against off-worlders? Technomaniacs such

as myself?"

She leaned in. Her breath smelled impossibly of lilacs. Her

eyes, even more green up close than from a distance, reflected a

very tiny version of him. Most strange of all was the fact that

he saw the reflection of himself as being bare naked. It was

impossible, of course, to really be able to see that level of

detail in that tiny sparkle, and yet he was certain of the truth

of this perception. "This hostility is unnecessary, Dr. Weegan.

I am genuinely interested."

Dan resisted the urge to move away from her. Her strength

made him want to not just lean back in his chair but vacate the

room, the island, the entire planet. He didn't like her

penetrating gaze. He didn't like the feeling of being stripped

bare in her eyes. "Call me Dan," he said, staying against his

instincts.

She smiled a little. A warm smile revealing a dimple in her

cheek. Dan didn't know whether to punch her in the jaw or kiss

her. Both urges were equally strong, and they canceled each

other out, in the end.

 "Her name is Evelyn. She's a memory. That's all."

"Memories are clouds, made up of droplets of reality, most

of them distorted by time and other factor. Desire, for

instance. We want our memories to be perfect. In our minds we

can polish the unpolishable. We can make distinct what in

reality could never be clear. We order events that happened all

at once. We weave a three-dimensional tapestry and call it

linearity and pretend as though this somehow makes sense of our

lives." As she said her words, she leaned back in her chair,

eyes fixed on Evelyn. Dan was captivated not so much by the

words, but by her dreamy, lyrical voice.

"Sorry, for a moment there, I forgot which one of us was

the psychiatrist."

"Come, Dan. Drop pretenses in my house. You're no more a

psychiatrist than Evelyn is a memory."

Dan didn't know what to make of this statement. He had

always thought of Evelyn as a memory, a dream, a wish, and a

little bit of his own crazy, all rolled up into one apparition.

"Dan, are you aware of your own psychic powers?"

He shook his head. "I'm not the psychic here."

"I see a million lives mixed up into your head. You and

Evelyn are lead dancers, showing them the way."

"That's not what she is. She is nothing. She is my

loneliness. That's all. A bullshit memory that I somehow make

real."

"Are you sure?" Adjia asked.

"Enough of this. This is bullshit. You're trying to

misdirect and confuse me is all." Dan stood up, taking his pen

and paper. "I won't deny that you have a certain undeniable

charm. Your insight is very keen. But if you won't talk about

you, then I'm leaving."

She stood up, matching him. Dan stumbled back. He was

unable to get the upper hand no matter what he did. Her mere

presence was a physical force.

"Do you want to see the jellies, Dan?"

"Yes," he said.

"It may take me two or three nights to arrange it. Can you

delay your study that long?"

"I think so. I may need to come back here. To keep up the

pretense."

"Fair enough. I'm sure we can arrange some mutually

satisfying way to pass the time." She touches his smooth head.

There was a hint of hair there not, but just a fuzzy stubble. "I

have always been attracted to bald men."

Dan glanced toward Evelyn. He could see her now, staring

out at the window. Something out in the sea attracted her. Dan

looked back at Adjia. Physically, she couldn't be more different

from Evelyn, but there was a kindred spirit within them both.
 Dan kissed Adjia and she kissed back, cradling his face in

her hands. He broke the kiss and she moaned, hungry for more. A

noise in the distance interrupted them. It was a haunting, high-

pitched moan.

Adjia smiled. "The call of the God, Dan. He is here, too.

He is out there. Maybe he came to meet you."

* * *

Dan woke up in the night with the certainty that he was not

alone in the room. His muscles were tense. He felt cold and

sticky with sweat. He had been dreaming of the last two days

with Adjia. She was all he could think about. She'd made certain

of that.

Dan heard the noise again.

Near his bed, the wall was concave and shelves had been

molded from the same stucco material as the wall. On one shelf

was a windup alarm clock. It wasn't much, but Dan got out of bed

and grabbed it. He positioned it with all the keys and bells

facing out. The thing was surprisingly heavy for its size. It

would be a fine bludgeoning weapon if he could land a blow on

any attacker before he was shot or stabbed.

Dan moved slowly, keeping his eyes open wide to see any

potential movement. If there was an attacker, the other man

would have a slight advantage, which Dan might be able to just

even out by having woken up.

 The window was open. A cold breeze blew in off the sea. The

salty air dried Dan's lips. He pressed his dry tongue against

them and attempted to swallow. Dan crossed the threshold from

the bedroom to the living room. The bedroom joined to the main

living space like a small soap bubble to a larger one. He took a

few steps in, pivoting as he went to see all areas of the domed

room.

The floor was solid, no creaking allowed. This kept Dan

silent, but it served his intruder as well. Convinced the main

living space was empty, Dan approached the stairwell, made of

what appeared to be driftwood, that circled the main room and

went up into a loft over the bedroom. The loft had an open

portal to the night sky covered in thick glass. It was a softly

lit area, the kind of place two lovers might pass hours of time.

It was empty.

Convinced now that it had all been his imagination, Dan

lowered the alarm clock to his thigh and retreated back down the

steps. Dan was about to return to bed when a soft breeze stopped

him. The only window as closed. Realization struck him in an

instant. He hurried back up the stairs and into the loft. On

closer examination now he saw the window had been pried open.

He didn't dare stick his head out of the window to see who

was waiting for him and risk a blow to the head. Instead he said

in a hissing whisper, "Is someone up there."

 Adjia appeared in the window. "Dan, keep your voice down.

Hurry." She disappeared.

"Why didn't you--"

"Dan, we have friends. Let's go."

Dan hesitated. Friends? He didn't know what to make of it.

He didn't like the sound of it. Dan dragged a cushioned bench

over from the wall and stood on it. He pulled himself up. As

soon as his head was through, several pairs of hands grabbed him

and helped him up.

"Easy! Easy!" Dan commanded in a rasping whisper.

Several young faces stared back at him in the darkness.

"We're sorry, Old One," one of the young men said.

"I'm not that old," Dan responded.

"Don't let his age deceive you, Paeter. I told you not to

underestimate him."

"I'm sorry, Dr. Weegan," the young man named Paeter said.

"No more talking," Adjia snapped.

She crossed the roof with fluid grace to the other side and

peered over the edge. She looked back at them and nodded. Dan

saw that the window had been cut around its seal and pried out.

It would go back in easily enough, though to anyone looking from

the top it would be obvious what had been done.

Paeter replaced the window and let it drop into place

lightly. "Don't want it falling off while we're gone. This way,
Dr. Weegan." Paeter held out one hand as though to help Dan

across the roof.

Dan slapped the man's hand away. "For fuck's sake call me

Dan."

Paeter flinched and followed Dan as he followed the other

three members of the party, two young men and a second young

woman. Dan had seen none of them before. They reached the far

edge of the roof from where Adjia was and jumped down one at a

time. Dan looked back at Adjia, who was still playing lookout.

He jumped down and landed hard, but didn't let it show on his

face.

He moved out of the way and rejoined the others. Behind

him, Paeter jumped down. A moment later, Adjia slipped

gracefully down into their presence, landing in a three-point

stance. She stood. The stiff gown she wore hugged her body. It

was a beautiful white costume with a red border whose edges

overlapped just between her breasts.

"Dan, follow us."

"Who are these people?" Dan asked.

Adjia shook her head. "There will be time to discuss on the

boat."

Adjia passed him by. Dan followed. Paeter stayed back

behind Dan, taking up the rear. Adjia, leading the pack, reached

the edge of the cliff about a hundred meters away from Dan's
abode and kept on going. Then one by one, the younger people

disappeared over the face of the cliff following her.

"Don't be afraid, Dan Weegan. There is a ledge below."

"I may not look as young as you, but this body works just

as well, I can promise you that. The MI builds things to last."

"It is true, Dan Weegan, that looks can be deceiving. For I

am not nearly as young as you perceive me to be."

Dan had reached the edge. Ha had already committed to

jumping when he heard Paeter's words. He stepped off the edge,

trying to find that balance between smacking the cliff face and

overshooting whatever ledge was below him. The moon reflected

the contrast between cliff ledge and the white sand of the beach

below. He landed hard again, but the fall hadn't been as great

as he had expected. Already, Adjia had disappeared down the next

ledge. Dan followed the group down the way. His eyes were

adjusting better now to the light. He could see the next ledge

down, and the one below that.

Paeter dropped in from above, landing gracefully.

"So how old are you?" Dan asked, risking a little more

volume with his voice.

"Nearly fifty years," Paeter replied, and then grinned

shyly like a boy. "My birthday is next week."

* * *
 At the bottom of the cliff, the others went to prepare the

boat, which they had flipped upside down and hid the rigging and

sails underneath to make the boat appear from the top of the

cliff to be driftwood. The boat appeared to Dan to need more

than a few bolts of canvas to be seaworthy, but he said nothing.

Instead, he lit a cigarette and sat on a big rock. Adjia joined

him.

"Who are these people? Why haven't I met them?"

"They are students at the Academy."

Dan dragged on his smoke and looked at her, waiting for

more. When he realized no more was forthcoming, he asked, "What

is the Academy?"

"Dan there is a great deal about Barrington Beach you are

not meant to know. You are being fed a very well-planned

storyline. We are innocent anti-technologists. We don't know

where the psychic powers come from. We are perfectly normal."

"All lies?" Dan asked.

"It is our fault you are here. These are on house arrest,

in fact. We are taking a risk doing this, but we want the truth

out." She cocked her head toward the boat. "It's ready. Let's

go. I'll answer your questions in the safety of the sea."

Dan was not at all comfortable on the boat, which felt

overwhelmed by the bodies populating it. Six bodies on a small

boat, two sitting on each side and two in the middle steering.
All Dan could see were heavy sacks of flesh and bones ready to

be thrown like rag dolls by the sea. He imagined how easy it

would be for a good wave to pull them into the water with its

inexorable weight, or throw one of the people, who mistakenly

thought they had some control over what happened to their bodies

right through the hull head first. Dan didn't care how old these

people actually were, compared to him they were babies.

Paeter was closest to the front. The sea was calm--for

now--and the boat was slipping smoothly through the water,

creating twin slanted waves behind them. Paeter switched on a

big search light when they were a few hundred meters out. He

aimed it northeast and gave a blind OK sign to Adjia, who was

steering. Then he switched the light off.

From the dark pocket at the back of the ship Dan dared not

remove his eyes from the ocean long enough to look at, Adjia

said, "We are all students at the Academy, Dan. We are honing

our psychic powers. Our primary duty that we have been tasked

with so far is slowing the aging process."

Evelyn was here, Dan realized with a start. She was

standing behind Paeter. She had her hand on his shoulder. She

was unfazed by the movement of the boat, standing flat footed

and proud, staring off toward wherever they were heading. Paeter

reached up and touched his own shoulder where her hand was, but
it was an absent gesture, done without really thinking. At

least, Dan thought so.

"It is working, Dan. It has been working for the last

twenty years, as you've probably guessed."

"How?" Dan asked.

"They jellies, Dan."

"I don't understand," Dan said.

Evelyn was still there. She usually didn't stay so long

unless she had something to say to him. Something circled her

head, a tiny light that left a trail a few centimeters long as

it buzzed around. Dan had an impression of what it was, but

nothing more. He couldn't articulate it to himself. He had seen

it before, but the memory was gone.

Not gone. Taken.

"Some twenty years ago, our colony discovered that the

jellies can be eaten. And when they are, though the jellies

themselves are mindless, eating them opens up for you a new

mind. A third eye. The eye of perception that allows you to see

into the very nature of the universe."

"In other words, they get you high," Dan said.

Paeter looked over his shoulder. "You don't even know, man."

"Yes, Dan, you get high, but do not dismiss this. You have

seen the effects."

"With you, you mean?" Dan asked.

 "With everyone. Everyone on Barrington Beach consumes the

jellies in some way. They are in our food, in our water,

everything."

"So what's the problem? Why are we out here? Why did you

try to get the attention of the off-world?" Now Dan braved a

look at Adjia.

She shook her head. "Don't you get it, Dan? They took it

over. They control it. They force us to stop the aging process.

We are little more than slaves. What was once a beautiful dream

of self-reliance--Barrington Beach--has become a dictatorship.

And enslavement."

"Here we are," Paeter called back.

Adjia slowed the boat to a stop and deflated the sails.

Paeter turned on the spotlight for just a moment. Dan could see

the water around them was heavy with the mass of jellies around.

Below the boat, something moved, rocking them gently.

"What was that?" Dan said, his voice quavering despite

himself.

"A whale, maybe even the god."

Dan grabbed the sides of the boat and tried to bore his

fingers into the wood.

"It's far below us, Dan. Very far. This is what we brought

you out here for. You see, we've understood for some time that

there is some relationship between the whales and the jellies.

We don't understand it yet. The whales never eat the jellies.

While we left the jellies alone, the whales were content to

leave just do their own thing."

"How deep is the water below us right now?" Dan asked. He

could barely see the island. It appeared to be a slightly darker

bank of clouds on the horizon with a single light penetrating

the darkness.

"Miles, man," Paeter said.

"Okay," Dan said, "I get it. You want me to investigate the

relationship. You want to know more about the whales and the

jellies. I can do that. Let's go back to the island now."

Adjia stood and walked to the front of the boat. Evelyn was

still there. She was gazing out over the water, breathing the

salty air deeply. If the others sensed her actual presence, they

gave no indication. Of course, they didn't. She was a figment of

his imagination. An apparition of his own lonely mind.

Dan closed his eyes and wished her away. When he opened

them, she was still there.

Adjia braced herself on Paeter's back and reached into the

water. She came back with a glob of clearish jelly in her hand.

She cupped it in both hands and offered it to Paeter, who took a

small amount and put it on his tongue. She went to the next

person and did the same. Lastly, she presented the picked over

pile of goop to Dan.

 "We discovered that there is a way to ingest the power of

the jellies without hurting them. You see, it was always assumed

that nothing ate the jellies. This is not true. Everything on

this planet eats the jellies, a very small dose at a time. The

fish in these seas, the ones we don't kill and eat," she said

the words with bitter disappointment, "they tend to live a very

long time."

Dan took a cubic centimeter of the goop. It was sticky. He

found he could roll it in his fingers and form it into a ball

that stayed spherical with some cohesion.

"They're immortal, Dan. This planet is endless. Don't you

see? If not for our presence here, unbalancing things, killing

things, this planet would return to being the perfect balance of

organisms, living, communing in ways we could never understand,

operating almost like a single living organism."

Dan put the jelly's body mass in his mouth.

"Small quantities of their bodies are constantly shed. It

doesn't hurt them. Everything eats it. Dan?"

Dan closed his eyes.

He saw Evelyn swimming in the black sea below, toward the

giant whale thing that was now swimming below them. She

approached the whale, swimming furiously. It kept moving. Dan

was certain it couldn't stop if it wanted to.

 The thing was enormous. Wide and flat. Hideously ugly. Its

eyes were like warts covering its body. Smaller fish clung to

its skin like a plague. Dan almost couldn't look at it.

Then it disappeared into the darkness and Evelyn stopped

swimming. Dan caught up to her. She looked at him and smiled.

"Dan, this is where I belong," she said. Impossibly, he could

hear her.

"What does that mean?"

"Fate has brought us here, Dan. It was only a matter of

time before the MI made a critical mistake."

"What mistake?" Dan didn't understand.

"Dan, don't you see? This nexus of life here on this

planet, it is what I have been searching for. It is the thing

that I always knew existed in the universe."

"You've been searching for? Who are you?"

"I am part of you, Dan. We are one."

"How? How did that happen?"

"I don't know, Dan. You are the one with memory. I am the

one with life. I bear it and I conceive it. I am a part of you

and I am separate, an aspect of you."

"I wish I could understand what you were saying," Dan said.

"Understand this, then, the MI wants me dead. It has been

trying to kill me. Whether you know it or not, you have been

defending me. You have been sacrificing yourself for me."

 "How?"

"It has always been this way with us, Dan. You have given

up everything for me."

"This is why I can't remember anything anymore? For you? If

the MI is trying to delete you from my memory, why doesn't it

just do that? It holds my mind within itself all the time. Why

not delete me, or you."

"We are more important to it than it will ever admit. That,

and it can't. Dan, this is a truth you must understand, the MI

is not as powerful as you imagine it to be. It is a calculating

machine. It has consciousness without emotion. It has tried to

learn emotion from the life it has taken. It can simulate

emotion, its parameters allow it to approach emotion

asymptotically, but it cannot get there. Ever. There are things

it is simply incapable of."

"And erasing you from existence is one of those things?"

Evelyn smiled. "Dan, you know that the MI has eradicated

intelligent life it has found, and that it has assimilated those

instances of intelligent life into itself. You know that you

helped it do this. What you do not know is that I helped you

solve the riddles of how. I think this may have been my purpose

from the beginning. Each time you figured out the exact nature

of the intelligence, I was there. I was teaching you, Dan. But I

was also learning. The MI is not the only one who has

assimilated the intelligences into itself."

It struck Dan right then. The little light dancing around

Evelyn's head. It was a planet known simply as QA-1. The

intelligence has been insectile on that planet. A little

lightning bug that had an amazingly complex shared consciousness

and a technology unlike anything Dan had ever encountered or

ever would again. They passed through higher dimensions as

easily as a person walked into a room. To them, the world was

not three-dimensional with higher dimensions unseen, but a

multi-dimensional playground. Their technology was microscopic,

organic, unlike anything Dan had ever seen. It was . . .

That was all Dan could remember. When he tried to pin it

down further, it all slipped away. He supposed it didn't matter.

He supposed all that mattered was the implication that, somehow,

that being was as much a part of him as Evelyn was. Whatever the

process was that had done that.

"How is that possible? MI used duplicates of me for much of

that work early on. You must have missed most of them."

"I am you, Dan. I am not the you that the MI decides I

should be, I am you, wherever you are. Except that I can only be

one of you at each time. The MI thought it was taking me out of

the loop somehow, but it couldn't do this. It doesn't even

understand this."
 Dan didn't really understand either. It was beyond

impossible, what she was proposing. It was so impossible that it

could only be the product of his own wishful thinking and the

hallucinogenic properties of the jelly. He was still on the boa

right now, he knew. Still there, eyes closed, surrounded by a

bunch of young people, each in the midst of their very own

mescaline trip. It was all so hard to believe.

"Dan, I'm sorry you have been losing yourself. You have

been losing yourself at the cost of everything. Together, Dan,

with the technology of this planet, with this shared sea-borne

intelligence, we can finally do it. We can finally release the

knowledge we contain to all humanity."

"It's a nice dream."

"Not a dream, Dan. A new paradigm. Humanity free of the

machine. Humanity connected in a way no one could imagine.

Almost becoming a new being al--" A look of horror came over

Evelyn's face. "Something is happening."

Dan nodded, trying to understand.

"Now, Dan! Wake up!"

Dan opened his eyes, but he had realized Evelyn's urgency

too late. He saw what happened, but could do nothing to warn the

others of it. He could not stop it.

Paeter opened his eyes when Dan stood. He saw what was

behind Dan. He saw what Dan had only sensed. The girl that
wasn't Adjia screamed. Paeter's chest, revealed by his open neck

shirt, suddenly acquired holes. He stood there a moment,

shaking, trying to hold himself upright. Blood leaked out of the

wounds. Paeter reached for Dan, but Dan couldn't reach him in

time. Paeter fell overboard, into the bed of jellies. Dan

reached the edge of the boat. He saw Paeter sinking in. He saw

already what was to happen. The jellies, innocuous though they

were, and unifying though they may be, still had to eat. The

water bubbled as they mindlessly turned Paeter into a soup that

would be absorbed up into their bodies, thus completing the

circle that the planet's life had followed for millennia.

Dan turned around to see the other boat. The lights came

on, blinding him. He shielded his eyes. He could see Adjia. She

was standing, shocked by the turn of events. Shocked by the

violence.

The mayor's voice greeted them. "That was a warning shot.

Raise your hands in the air and surrender or you will all be

shot."

Dan raised his hands, which forced him to close his eyes

down to a sliver. He looked at the others. They were too shocked

to have moved yet. Dan had a moment of panic followed by

serenity.

He would live on. He would. Yes, the MI had always warned

him of signal decay. The longer he stayed within the MI, the
less defined his overall brain pattern became. It was simply a

matter of diffusion. A concentrated single personality couldn't

exist in the presence of such an ocean of consciousness as the

MI, but after only a day or so, there would be enough of him to

continue on. He wouldn't remember any of this, perhaps. Or maybe

Dan was wrong, and had been all along. Maybe there were many Dan

Weegans and always had been. Maybe there were cities of Dan

Weegan, and none of them ever really died, but just continued on.

Dying and living was Dan's curse, after all.

The gun roared again, filling the night with fire and

light. The others jerked their hands skyward. All except Adjia,

who simply stood there, defiant, stunned. The much larger ship

reached their boat. Two men dropped down, dressed in black,

wearing sidearms. Slug-throwers. Gas-propelled slugs. The

ancient technology, of course, required no precision lenses or

crystals, which meant it could be done without machine help. Of

course.

One of the men took a step toward Adjia. She put her hands

up defensively. "Leave her alone."

The man smiled wickedly.

He feinted grabbed for her hands. She jerked away. He

laughed and feinted again. Dan took a step toward them and felt

the heavy weight of the other man on him. He could only watch

helplessly as the guard grabbed Adjia with his much stronger

hands and manhandled her to the ground. She thrashed like a

wildcat, but he cuffed her hands and feet together and there was

nothing she could do. Dan closed his eyes and begged Evelyn to

help, but she wasn't there, if she ever had been.

* * *

The room they were in when Dan came to was one he had not

seen before, but it was obviously part of the same underwater

facility where he had recently been birthed. The room was

spherical, and over half of the sphere was made of visisteel.

The layout of the room revealed it as a living space. Dan

wondered if this was the mayor's private quarters. The view was

impressive. Outside, deep in the blackness of the water, an

enormous shape was just visible slipping past, on the edge of

visibility. Inside, they were seated on plush seating, but

chained to the floor by chains attached to loops of steel hidden

in the carpet. Dan couldn't help but wonder if this was the

intended purpose for these loops or if there was some other

reason for them.

"You all have angered the gods, you know," the mayor said

when everyone was awake.

They had been giving something to put them under and the

counteragent to wake them. Dan could feel the cloud of

artificial sleep still lingering in his head. Adjia was far away

from him. She was awake. Her face was wet with tears. The others
looked absolutely beaten. Their faces, very young, were slack.

They had given up all hope.

"Look at them," Almenräder said. On cue, a large eely whale

thing appeared. It swam straight at the sphere, mouth open. The

mouth wasn't big enough to swallow the entire sphere in one go,

but it wasn't far off. The enormous fish-mammal-thing dove down.

Rows upon rows of wary eyes passed less than a dozen meters from

the visisteel. "That was God, Dr. Weegan. The God. The big one.

You see, we figured out the secret of attracting him. Mess with

his jellies. That is why we grow them in a facility on the

island, to avoid repercussions. To avoid endangering the entire

facility." He shot a snarl at the young people near Dan.

"Release us, Mayor Almenräder. We were simply carrying out

the investigation I was sent here to perform."

"Were you, Dr. Weegan? Looked more to me like you were

being seduced by a terrorist organization intent on destroying

our colony. A crime punishable, incidentally, by death,

according to the agreement we signed with the MI."

"I was told of no such--"

Almenräder turned, snarling. "You weren't told for obvious

reasons, Dan. But I know all about you. I know all about what

you really are. Would you like me to tell your friends? Would

you like me to tell them how you came here to find intelligent

life? How you meant to give that consciousness to the MI."

 Adjia's eyes widened, to Almenräder's amusement.

"That's right, pretty. Doctor Weegan here is no doctor.

He's a scout for the machine intelligence. If he had been able

to find evidence that what was happening here was a result of an

intelligence, then this whole planet would have become an MI

possession. Our dream would have been destroyed."

Dan couldn't really deny this. In fact, the mayor was

making the situation, if anything, sound better than reality.

"No more bullshit, everyone. Take the girl first."

Dan called out, but couldn't stand or even sit fully

upright with his hands chained to the floor. Adjia stared across

the room at him, her face a mixture of concern and fear. The

look cut him down to the bone. He tried to swallow, but his

throat was closed off. He strained against the chains. His

muscles flexed taught, almost to the point of snapping, but the

steel chains didn't release.

They took the other girl. They unchained her from the

floor, but kept her hands and feet shackled.

Dan collapsed into the chair, horribly ashamed at his

relief. No one else made a sound until the guards got the girl

near a point in the floor where the tile swirled into a circle.

Dan hadn't noticed it before this moment, but there was a tube

below the floor, visible through the visisteel, but not

immediately noticeable. The circle opened at the girls' feet and

she was lowered in, unable to do anything to stop them. She

touched the door at the bottom of the tube and began to scream.

The two men reacted, torn from their torpor by the cries of

their companion, but it was inarticulate noise, monkeys in a

cell screaming at each other. Nothing they did could keep the

door from closing over the girl's head.

The two men fell silent at once. One was on his knees on

the floor, the other had dislocated his shoulder and was on the

couch, crying in pain and fear.

The hatch below the girl opened and invisible jets fired

her into the water.

"To the gods you return," Almenräder said, his voice

audible over the cries of the men.

They could see the girl struggle against her chains, trying

like mad to claw her way up through the water. She must have

been able to see them watching her sink deeper and deeper into

the water.

One of the whales swallowed her whole and she was gone.

"The other girl, now," Almenräder said.

Dan redoubled his efforts to break his chains with shear

will.

"Dan," a voice whispered in his ear. "Dan, I can save her."

It was a voice he knew of course.

 Across the room Evelyn looked back at him. She was outside,

in the water, swimming, looking in. She shook her head.

"I can save her, Dan," the MI said. "Give me the word and

she's free."

They dragged Adjia to the circle. She didn't fight. Her

fight was gone, drained by the death of her friend, but the

pointlessness of resistance, the pull of inevitability.

Dan shook his head. He shouldn't care. It didn't matter.

The MI clearly would let nothing happen to him. He was in no

danger. He glanced at Evelyn, remembering her words.

He knew what agreeing would cost him. Evelyn had shown Dan

her hand. She had laid her cards out. Perhaps this entire thing

was orchestrated, or maybe the MI was just good at recognizing

opportunities when they came around. Either way, it had Dan

where it wanted him.

How was it he cared so much about this small, dark-haired

girl he didn't even know.

"Do it," Dan said.

Outside the glass, Evelyn screamed at him, begging him to

break the deal. But deal was made.

Dan felt the chains freed as the MI, cloaked against

visible spectrums of light, cut him free.

* * *
 "What happened after that, Mr. Weegan?" Welker asked. They

were all leaned forward now, turned what was already a small

dining room into a tight mass of hot breath and faces.

"Long story short, the MI and I were able to free Adjia, as

you can see. However, as you may or may not have guessed by now,

given what you probably know of Chambrassa's history, it tricked

me."

"It took Evelyn away from you, didn't it?" Ioming asked,

her voice revealing no emotional commitment.

"Not entirely, but yes."

"How? I still don't understand that?" It was Lyzander's

turn to ask a question.

"Surgery, Captain. Evelyn was, in effect, a kind of cancer

in my brain. The MI had thought it could kill her by erasing her

from my memory, but that had failed. It had realized at some

point that it would need to perform a kind of surgery on me. It

required my cooperation, of course. Neurosurgery almost always

does. Whatever hopes and memories and dreams and lives she may

or may not have actually contained, it all went away when the MI

extracted the tumor from my brain."

"But who was she?" Lyzander asked.

"I'll never know, I don't suppose," Old Dan said. "Or maybe

I will. You see, lately she's started to come back. A hint at a

time, like a ghost slowly regaining substance."

 Dan patted Adjia's hand. She was staring down at the table,

lost a world away.

"Back to the real story, though. While the MI was

performing this surgery on me, he was taking Adjia away. I

thought it would let us be together, after what I had sacrificed

to save her, but was then informed that and her friends from the

Academy had been taken to a research facility to remain

indefinitely."

"Chambrassa," younger Dan said. "It's all so logical."

"Indeed, yes. There she was held captive."'

"Until you shut down the facility and rescued her," Ioming

chimed in, still without emotion.

"Well, I won't bore you all with a story you already know,"

Old Dan said.

"There's a problem, of course," younger Dan said.

"What is that?" Older Dan asked.

"If Evelyn was a physical part of you, why isn't she still

with me? I was an older copy of you. I still have the tumor or

whatever. Why haven't I seen her?"

Old Dan shook his head. "I don't know. Perhaps the MI

succeeded in killing her. You were in stasis at the time of the

surgery. She told me she was able to move between Dan Weegans

effortlessly, but maybe that only applied to Dans who were fully

active. Perhaps because you and the others were in stasis . . ."
 "There was nowhere for her to go," Young Dan finished.

"Yes."

Lyzander shook his head. "But what difference does it make?

Even if Evelyn was real, and could accomplish what she hinted

at, why would it matter? How would all of humanity being

connected help us now?"

No one spoke for a long time.

Lyzander stood up and paced the room. "Why did you seek us

out, Mr. Weegan? Why did you think you had to find us?"

"Admittedly, I wanted to meet this younger version of

myself. I thought perhaps he could shed light on the things I

couldn't remember."

"How did you even know about him? We managed to keep his

presence off the newswires," Lyzander said.

"Captain, I have contacts with in Blue Sektor. This

surprises you? I am well aware of the precarious position of

Chambrassa. We have carefully stayed neutral over the years.

With the emergence of the Sektors and Faktions all those years

ago, we were careful to stay neutral in order to gain favor with

all of the different groups, thereby making it so none of them

could destroy us."

"What did you have to offer?" Ioming asked.

Dan glanced at Adjia. She nodded slightly. Dan returned his

look to Captain Lyzander. "Captain?"

 "You're talking about the Eden Protocol," Lyzander said.

Dan nodded, but no one else at the table understood. Lyzander

scratched his chin. "This is highly classified," he announced.

He made eye contact with every member of his crew individually.

"Where is Jurrigan? She should hear this along with the rest of

you. I don't want anyone retelling any part of this."

"She was taking care of Hector," Ioming said. She looked

down. "Of his body, I mean." She leaned up and pressed a button

that displayed the standard time in the middle of the table.

"That was an hour ago."

"Go check on her." Ioming stood to leave and Lyzander

stopped her. "Mr. Weegan, before I go revealing classified

information, let me ask you this: What can we do with this

information? It is a fascinating story, but I'm not sure how it

helps us in our present situation."

"I think it's fairly obvious," Dan said. "The Nothing. What

do we know about it? It transmits virally. It creates a network

between people. It not only keeps people alive, it can actually

revive them. It has the characteristics similar to the

internetwork that Evelyn was proposing, doesn't it?"

"Mr. Weegan," Zhenjuan spoke for the first time since they

had all come together. "What happened to Barrington Beach and

that planet?"
 "The colony continued for a little while after I left, but

it went downhill quickly."

"The jellies began to die," Zhenjuan guessed.

"That's right. The jellies suddenly found the environment

unsuitable. No one really had an explanation. When the jellies

died, the other sea life followed suit, especially the whales.

The gods all passed away quickly."

Zhenjuan looked up and stared into Dan's eyes. For an

instant, Dan imagined he saw stars floating in her eyes, but

when he blinked the illusion disappeared. "Mr. Weegan, was the

life intelligent?"

"Individually, no. I don't think the jellies were

intelligent. I don't think the gods were intelligent. Nor the

fish or anything else. But the network they shared,

unconsciously, I think may have been. I think there might have

been an almost planetary intelligence, a sort of consciousness

operating on a global scale. The planet was, if you will, alive."

"But not anymore," Zhenjuan said.

Dan shook his head.

"Because the MI killed it," Zhenjuan said.

"That seems probable."

The pieces, at that moment, fell into place for Lyzander.

"Wait a minute, you're saying that the Nothing . . ." He

couldn't finish the thought. He shook his head, denying the

reality.

"Yes, Captain, I believe the MI has created the Nothing,

using the corrupted techniques of interrelationship it learned

from the life on Barrington Beach."

"No," Ioming said. "That doesn't make sense. Why?"

"This is a big pill to swallow," Lyzander said. "We all saw

the MI get beat by the Nothing."

"Did you?" Old Dan asked. "The way I read about it, it

sounded an awful lot like the MI didn't really even try to win."

No one could deny this. Young Dan had admitted as much to

them, though the MI had given him different reasons.

"What about the other battle?" Welker asked. "Word is that

the MI was taken over by the Nothing, that individual units were

corrupted by the virus."

"Convenient excuse," Dan replied.

"Why would the MI do this?" Ioming said from the doorway,

which she still hadn't left to go fetch Jurrigan from her

grieving. "We're Blue Sektor. We have no love lost between the

MI, but the other Sektors pledge allegiance to the MI. They are

partners. Why would it betray them as well?"

Dan shook his head. "It doesn't care anymore, I suspect.

Old loyalties are gone. It will probably use this as an excuse

to convert its comrades into imprint robots, which are, of

course, subject to total control by the MI. Imprints, like the

Rogues and some of the other independent robots have exactly as

much freedom as the MI allows them to have. You see, I remember

some of the operations. After a while, it quit pulling the

double Dan Weegan trick. I helped it exterminate species. This

is how it always operated, it always found away to make the

intelligence turn to it for salvation. Always before it happened

on small scales. This is just a large scale example of the

procedure I helped it perform over and over again."

"What you're saying," Lyzander said, "is that the MI is

trying to wipe out all of humanity."

The words weighed on everyone in the room.

"How do we stop it?" Lyzander asked. "No one will believe

this. I'm not sure I believe it."

Young Dan spoke an answer, "I believe my counterpart here

thinks the answer will lie on an ancient planet called Earth."

"This is true. We must find the original Dan Weegan. I

believe the answer lies in determining who, exactly, Evelyn is.

What she is."

"But you don't know for sure?" Lyzander asked.

"No. However, I do know for sure that the MI has tried to

kill Evelyn and has so far failed. It fears her. There must be a

reason why this is so."

 Lyzander leaned back. His eyes were ragged, almost black

from the stress and lack of sleep. He looked horrible. They all

did. "So where do we go."

"Earth," young Dan said. "The Nothing gave me that

information. I believe now, given what Dan has said, that it was

a cry for help. Subconscious, perhaps. I don't know what the MI

was actually trying to accomplish with me, but I think--I hope--

it backfired. The Nothing, what humanity was left in it, gave me

the location of Earth. That's where we'll find the original Dan

Weegan, if he exists at all."

"I have to think about it," Lyzander said.

"Think quickly, Captain," Old Dan said. "I fear we may be

quickly running out of time."

 Interlude:

Earth

Dan Weegan propped the twelve gauge up on his hip. It

weighed a lot, but the weight was a small comfort. He scanned

the night, his mechanical eyes processing every light and heat

source that entered his ocular cavities. His eyes glowed faintly

with natural light, a dangerous necessity, as the light enhanced

the ultraviolet and infrared bands, but made him a target for

snipers.

So far, the zombies had really used guns, but Dan had a

feeling that would start any time now. After all, who had turned

out the power again after all these years?

Dan saw nothing in the alley below him. He switched back to

normal night vision and moved out of the view of the window. He

leaned against the wallpapered wall and lit a cigarette. He laid

the shotgun across his lap. In it were two buckshot cartridges

made of tin and paper. The buckshot he'd molded himself. The
gunpowder was his own recipe, developed over many, many years of

trial and error. The gun had been a find, and a good one.

Dan had lived many years here in this city, alone. He had

been the Omega man, living off the land, perpetual. He had been

waiting, hoping that one day the batteries or whatever kept his

brain going would simply cease to function and he would finally,

mercifully die, but it hadn't happened yet. What others there

had been had long ago given up the hope of natural death. They

had killed themselves. They were the only ones Dan hadn't seen

resurrected into the nameless horrors that now ruled.

Dan put the gun barrel in his mouth. It tasted like old,

spent powder. This had been his number one tool over the years,

as integral to his being as his arm or foot.

Dan cocked the gun with his forefinger. The hammer nearly

slipped out of his grip, which would have ruined the ceremony of

pulling the trigger.

Dan took the gun out of his mouth. He knew he couldn't do

it. He had nearly shit himself when the hammer had slipped. He

didn't have suicide in him. Earth was his planet. He didn't

intend to let a bunch of zombies take it over.

There was much killing that had been done so far, and

plenty more to be done, but Dan had a lot of time. For tonight,

he would rest. Maybe tomorrow he would have the courage to end

this pointless life, but not today.

 A knock at the door jerked him from sleep. He aimed the gun

at the wood panels of the door, but didn't pull the trigger.

Zombies didn't usually knock.

"Mr. Weegan?" a voice outside said. It was almost human.

For a very brief moment, Dan could almost imagine that it had

all been a horrible, horrible nightmare. All of it, going back

as far as Evelyn.

"Mr. Weegan, is that you in there? I believe it is."

"What do you want?" he called back.

"I have been searching for you. Can I come in?"

"Slowly unless you want a face full of buckshot," Dan

replied.

The door opened. A man Dan didn't recognize occupied the

hallway outside of the room Dan had chosen to occupy, mostly

because of the view to the alley. The man entered and shut the

door behind him. Dan kept the gun trained on him, even after he

opened his jacket and revealed himself to be unarmed.

"Mr. Weegan? Dan Weegan?"

"Yes," Dan answered.

"This is truly amazing. How long have you been here on this

planet?"

The stranger took a seat in a dusty chair in the corner,

the only furniture in the room.

"Who wants to know?"

 "My apologies, Mr. Weegan. My name is Cyrus. I am not from

Earth, obviously. I didn't even know of its existence until

recently. Where is this planet? I have been exploring for days

and still can't figure it out. It seems so old and run-down. The

technology is positively ancient."

"You're not from Earth?" Dan wasn't surprised. He had known

when the MI invented space travel and everyone left for the

stars that one day someone would come back. He had hoped he

wouldn't still be around for the event, but it hadn't worked out

that way.

"Earth," Cyrus said. "Interesting. When was it discovered?"

"It wasn't. This is where we're from. This is Eden to

humanity. The birthplace."

Cyrus whistled as he leaned back in the chair. It creaked

ominously. "I wish I had time to learn more. This is simply

fascinating. Just answer me this one question. How is it that

you're still alive?"

Dan peered at the man across the room. Something about him

put Dan on edge. It was the voice. The man was not speaking with

his own voice. There was a rotten quality to it, as though Cyrus

were not really alive at all, or at least not in the right body.

"I'm a Fultech. Computer brain and nanobots designed to

keep me alive for . . . a lot longer than I would have imagined."

"Tell me, do you know you are famous?"

 Dan shook his head.

"You are. There is a man out there in the stars calling

himself Dan Weegan who is alive even today."

Dan looked up at the stars for just an instant. It had

worked then. The transport had worked. The MI had done it. He

wondered if the other thing had worked as well, the little

secret trick he had pulled. He wondered if Evelyn was still

alive, even now, reborn within him.

Dan was no longer capable of tears, but he could still cry.

It had worked.

It had worked.

By the time he looked back at Cyrus, it was too late. Dan

had time to register confusion that Cyrus was no longer in his

chair, but by the time he could swing the barrel of his shotgun

around to the man charging him, it was too late.

A flash of steel caught a hint of the light. The sword

Cyrus had found for the job did the work cleanly, severing Dan

Weegan's head from his body. The gun discharged harmlessly,

leaving a cloud of dust and six round holes in the wall of the

hotel room.

Cyrus smiled. The Dubuque Hotel, the outside of the

building had said. This is where I killed Dan Weegan, and earned

my life, Cyrus thought.

 With that, he picked up the head by its ancient white hair,

and left.
 Part III: The Heart of the Machine

Chapter 14: Wayside

Hunedora appeared into reality near the neutral station

Mars 17, a station that had been around as long as anyone could

remember. No one remembered the strife that hat gone into

building it, when humanity was just budding its roots past its

original solar system, only a few light years away from this

spot. No one remembered the long years of intrigue about who

owned Mars 17. The spies, the betrayal. The love that had

blossomed only to be snuffed out on Mars 17. The place was, in

current trends of opinion, kind of a dump. No one remembered how

it had once been the most advanced piece of technology humans

had ever invented, before the MI surpassed even its own

expectations.
 Hunedora docked with one of Mars 17's old fashioned

airlocks. Airlocks were a technology difficult to improve on.

The simplicity of two doors and an intermediary chamber that

could be depressurized then repressurized to act as a bridge

between nothing and living space was too perfect to need major

improvements.

Lyzander opened a com channel. "Mars 17. Repeat, this is

battle class Hunedora, seeking permission to board. Please

pressurize airlock C-181. Over."

Nothing returned but a crackle.

Lyzander unbuckled his harness. At least they were

stationary.

He looked over at Ioming who seemed distracted. "Say what's

on your mind, Ioming."

"Jurrigan is taking Hector's death hard, Ly. I don't really

know how to react."

"Did she complete the laser wash?"

Ioming nodded.

The laser wash was the most common way to go for the Blue

Sektor fallen, when a body was available. It seemed especially

fitting given the tendency for bodies to no longer stay dead

these days. Basically, the body was placed into the garbage

chamber, where a matrix of lasers reduced it to constituent

elements, which were reincorporated into the immune system of

the ship to ensure it had what it needed to fight the near-

constant breakdown it suffered from traveling through space.

Lyzander heard an obnoxious grumble in the com. Someone in

Mars 17 was clearing his throat. "Someone calling me?"

"Mars 17, this is Hunedora. Requesting airlock C--"

"Yeah, yeah. Door's open Hue-na-door."

Ly and Ioming exchanged a look.

"Guess we're clear," Lyzander said.

"Anyway, I guess she's not handling it well."

"How can you tell?" Lyzander asked.

"She tried to kiss me."

Lyzander, intrigued, stopped Ioming, who was now half way

out of the cockpit.

"How do you mean?"

"She wanted some companionship, I guess."

"And you turned her down?" Lyzander asked. "Wait a minute,

when did this happen?"

"Last night," Ioming said.

Lyzander did the calculation in his head. He had, last

night, after the conference with Dan Weegan, gone back to his

room to think things through. He had run into Ioming. He had

made a move on her. It had, to his surprise, worked. He hadn't

stayed in her room more than an hour, then he'd retreated to his

own room.
 "Was this before, or after--"

"Stop right there, Ly. Are you really going to ask me what

you're going to ask me?" Ioming said.

Lyzander ran through the outcome scenarios in his head. "I

guess not."

"Let's get what we need from Mars 17 and get on to Earth. I

still don't like this idea, and I'll be happy to have whatever

shit we're in for behind us.

* * *

Lyzander and Ioming went into the airlock armed but

expecting no real problems. The truth was they knew where they

stood. They were wanted. Lyzander had put in discreet calls to

people he knew at Blue Sektor headquarters and the news had been

all bad. Not only were most Blue Sektor commanders convinced

that what had been happening was a conspiracy by the Orange

Sektor in an attempt to win mineral rights that had been in

dispute since before Xylia's time, they were also mostly

convinced that Lyzander was in on it. He had, after all, lost

the Re-Horakhty, and that ship had been leading the major

attacks against Blue Sektor. Lyzander had tried to explain that

this was because the crew and Pilots knew Blue Sektor locations,

but Lyzander was wasting his breath. They already knew they were

not going to be greeted with anything but hostility by any

Sektor command with MI partnerships. They were, for the time

being, alone and on the run.

And they were running dangerously low on supplies.

Hunedora was designed to hold four comfortably, six

maximum. A crew of nine taxed the fuel centers, and it taxed the

food supplies. Lyzander bit back the urge to warn Ioming about

mentioning Dan Weegan or their own names. He knew it would only

be to calm his nerves. Ioming was a rock. There was a soft servo

hum as she clenched and unclenched her steel hands.

The door slid open.

The hallway was empty. Lyzander crossed the threshold

first, and felt gravity release from under him. He shoved off

the ceiling, then found handholds in the floor to climb down the

hallway. His hand went to his blaster when he heard a noise, but

the noise turned out to be nothing except Ioming's steel hands

finding purchase.

Neither one of them said anything. Lyzander climbed to a

node containing two doors. He latched his foot into the handhold

and pushed himself into a rough approximation of a standing

position. He put his hand on his blaster and unlatched the

safety strap. From here he had a view of either door. Ioming

drew her weapon and covered one door. Lyzander twisted himself

toward the opposite. He pressed opened the com channel in his

helmet.
 "Mars 17, Hunedora has boarded. We couldn't help but notice

the artificial gravity was not working. Is there anyone here?"

"What? Hum. Sorry. Not the way to treat guests, Hunedora.

The thing is that artificial gravity is a power waster, what

with only me aboard. Let me roll out the welcoming mat," said a

half-asleep voice.

Lyzander and Ioming exchanged a look. How could there only

be one person aboard? Last check Mars 17 was an outlier station,

but still oversaw a mining operation on local asteroids.

Certainly more than just one person was capable of running.

Lyzander suddenly acquired weight. His ankle was still

caught in the foot hold. He groped for something as he fell, but

there was nothing to grab. He hit the floor and his ankle howled

at the same time the door opened.

"Son of a bitch."

"Oh, uh, hold onto something," the voice said over the

ambient.

"Whoever this guy is . . ."

Ioming pulled him up, and helped him free his ankle. She

gave it a slight twist. "A little tweak. The tendons held."

"Lovely," Lyzander answered.

They heard a racking cough that sounded contagious.

Lyzander switched to a private com channel with a quick flick of

his index finger.

 "Hunedora, close the airlock, force air filtration on high

power. Something's up here."

The response was a quiet click. Jurrigan had instructions

to keep vocal contact to a minimum.

A man appeared in the hallway, wearing no environmental

suit. The man wore a scraggly beard and unkempt hair that only

went up the sides, where it ended abruptly in a field of bald

skin. He smiled yellow teeth and spat something into a dirty cup.

"Welcome visitors."

Lyzander stood straight, ignoring the pleas of his ankle.

"I am the Captain of Hunedora, and this is my first mate."

"One can't mind a first mate that fiery. I don't know how

you sleep at night, Cap'n. I don't know how you are touching

yourself right--"

"Enough!" The other man flinched and returned his leer to

Lyzander. Lyzander said, "You told us you were the only person.

What happened here?"

The man spit into his cup. Lyzander ducked through the

portal. Hand still on his gun, he approached. Once he was a

little closer, he could see the permanent stain line down the

man's beard where the dribble from whatever he was chewing on

always ended up. "They left. Ain't you heard that they're

clearing out the outlying bases."

"If that's true, then why are you here?"

 The man snarled. "What'd you say your name was again?"

"Lyzander. This is my first mate Ioming."

The man's look went from Lyzander's holstered blaster to

Ioming's, drawn and ready. "Yeah, well I can see your pretty one

here don't seem to mind it, but I have what you'd call certain

objections to being turned into a robot."

Lyzander fought the urge to look at Ioming. For one thing,

it would seem to be siding with this man. For another thing, he

didn't trust this man enough to stop looking at him.

"What does that mean exactly?"

The man scratched himself. "I don't know how you haven't

heard about this. I thought they was telling every captain.

That's what the robot told me. Anyway, the point is the Nothing,

right? That's why we're doing about everything, I suspect."

The pieces fell into place for Lyzander. He heard Ioming

lower her blaster behind him. "Are you saying the MI recruited

the entire crew to be imprints?"

"If that's what you want to call getting turned into a

robot, then I guess so. My point is this, sir. Why the hell do

we need to worry out in the outliers? The Nothing will come for

us last of all. And my facility still has a laser was, or is

that forbidden technology all of a sudden? Maybe the Blue Sektor

don't want us laser washing now? Maybe they think they're better

than technology, but I don't."

 Lyzander closed the distance between himself and the crazy

old man in less than a second. He wrapped his fist around the

man's throat and shoved him into the bulkhead behind him. "You

should watch your mouth, geezer."

The man's chewing material spilled out of the side of his

mouth and down his beard, where it touched Lyzander's gloved

hand. Lyzander didn't flinch as the brown mucousy fluid dribbled

down his fingers.

"Captain, let's just get what we need and get the hell out

of here."

Lyzander released his grip on the man's throat and wiped

his glove on the man's shirt. "Do you still have supplies here?"

The man looked from Ioming to Lyzander, his mind

calculating. "Well, yes sir. Of course, but sir, you can't leave

me without nothing to--"

"We're taking some food, some raw materials and some

medical supplies."

"What am I going to do when I run out, Cap'n? You know

what's out there? You think this war means anything? It don't.

The MI is buying time. Soon it will all be machine. It will be

me and machines. Everyone will be just a robot with a memory of

bein' human. Cap'n, what's going to happen to the likes of you

and me?"
 "You'll know what to do when the time comes," Lyzander

said. "Where are your stockpiles?"

The man licked the remaining brown goo off his lips, but

didn't answer.

"Don't make me ask you twice."

"The station is mostly closed down. I keep a little bit

open where's I live. I had to take an access tunnel from there

to here. The access tunnels still have life support. The rest

don't. I figure I can keep it running a few more years that way."

"You're an idiot; that kind of software is on or off. Life

support barely registers as a function compared to the amount of

energy to keep this station orbiting out here," Ioming said.

"Look, I don't know, Cap'n. I don't know. I just can't go.

I can't go out into that cold space there and get turned into a

machine, a thing that don't feel or desire to. A thing that

remembers wearing my skin, but sure as shit ain't me. I can't."

"So the stockpiles are in the hold and there is no life

support there?"

"That's the long of it, Cap'n," the man replied. "If you

could take only what you need."

"You're lucky we don't throw you into the laser wash,"

Ioming said.

"Show us," Lyzander said, shoving the man in front of them.

 The man led them into an empty, darkened mess hall.

Lyzander tried to imagine the scene. This station should have

had at least a dozen or two personnel. Now it was one. The

lights were all off or down to ambient levels.

"What's your name, old timer," Lyzander asked as they

approached a door.

"Uh, Marty."

"How long ago did the robot come and take everyone away?"

"Weeks ago. Right after that business on Kryszmisky." Marty

paused at the door. "Or was it right before? I can't remember

now."

His fingers did a quick dance on the control pad.

"Captain!" Ioming went for her gun.

Lyzander recognized the code too slowly to react as he

should have. Marty's hand was already on a handhold when the

door slid open into the depressurized part of the ship.

Lyzander flailed as he was pulled through the door. He had

too much speed to stop himself. The bulkhead that sealed off the

first eighth of the ring that constituted what used to be the

main living and guest quarters area of Mars 17 rushed toward him

way too fast. Lyzander curled his body in and tried to aim the

meatiest part of his back toward the bulkhead, not able to

ascertain if that was even the best thing to do in this

situation. Breaking his back or his rib certainly wasn't what he

wanted, but if there was a better idea out there, he didn't have

time to think of it.

Ioming rushed past him and caught him in her arms. She put

out one steel hand and stopped the both of them. Then shoved

Lyzander gently aside and drew her gun, but there was nothing to

shoot.

Lyzander activated his com dedicated channel to Hunedora.

"This is the Captain. We have a problem here with a crew member.

Do not open the door until we have it taken care of. Unknown

source of hostility. Possible zombie infection present."

"Yes sir," Jurrigan responded.

Lyzander drew his weapon and covered the door.

"Save your ammo Ly. I couldn't take him out and you at the

same time. He escaped through an access hatch. He could be

anywhere now."

"Do you believe him, Ioming?" Lyzander asked.

"About everyone being turned into imprints? Hardly."

Lyzander nodded, but didn't say anything. He was less

confident. He had been expecting something like this, in truth,

since almost the beginning. Hadn't this been why he'd joined

Blue Sektor in the first place?

He thought of his father, killed in that explosion. But

that hadn't been the last they'd seen of old Makis, had it? One

night, from the access hatch that led to the maze of wonders
that was the ring's guts, a humanoid robot had emerged. It

hadn't meant to be born. It hadn't meant to ever be seen by

anyone. It had been a malfunction of some sort.

The robot had strolled casually in the near twilight of the

ring's early morning. It had gone into Lyzander and Cyrus's

house. It had sat down at the table and stared at a bowl of

morning food it had made for itself and just stared.

That's how they found it when they woke up for studies,

sting of losing their father still heavy on their brows. The

robot had greeted them in their father's voice. It had offered

its hand the way their father did in the mornings, a little

gesture that, when their father was flesh, meant come and sit

boys, whom I love, but filtered through the chrome skin of a

robot was a gesture of death.

Lyzander had run screaming, leaving Cyrus to deal with the

robot. He had, as older brothers had done since the dawn of

time, taken care of their dead father. He had put in calls to

people who could help. Robots had come to claim their father. It

had frozen with its hand outstretched, whatever logical flaw had

brought back the old habit of going home in the morning had

conflicted with its current programming and finally locked it up

in that gesture. Lyzander had watched from the hill overlooking

their house. Cyrus had come up and told him that the thing

wasn't their father, as if he'd needed to be told that.

 "It was an imprint, Lyzander. It was a robot encoded with

father's memories. They were only supposed to put in its skills,

but I guess some memories bled through as well."

"Y-you let them do that?" Lyzander had asked from the shade

of the tree on the hill.

"We needed the money Lyzander. Father wanted it, besides.

He would have wanted to continue his work. Forever."

Lyzander had a vision of being trapped in semiconsciousness

the rest of his life, toiling at the same job he'd held in life,

day after day, forever. It had nearly driven him crazy. He

couldn't get that thought out of his mind. He had gone to live

with Xylia soon after that. At night, he had nightmares. Nothing

chased him, nothing pursued with needle teeth or claws--it was

adulthood he saw instead. Endless day after day, the same thing

forever. Never dying. Forever.

Ever since those dark, quiet nightmares that had haunted

him as a child, Lyzander had known the day was inevitable. They

were simply more useful to the MI as machines than as people.

Whether Dan Weegan was right about the Nothing being an MI

creation or not, the ending was the same. It would turn all of

them into imprints. Humans had outlived their usefulness as such.

Well, as many as it could convert, anyway. A guarantee of

immortality was the only way people would willingly march into

the death chambers. Better eternal robots than the walking dead.
 Not Lyzander. Not by a stretch.

Lyzander half-smiled. Dan Weegan had overplayed his hand.

If he really had the Eden formula, it was more or less too late

to use it. The Eden Protocol was supposed to grant people

eternal life without needing to live on Chambrassa to obtain it.

Well, the MI had developed its own Eden Protocol while the

universe waited for Dan Weegan, and now they were seeing it in

action. It fit together, Lyzander had to admit that.

"Let's just get what we need and get the hell out of here,"

Lyzander said. "Zombie or not, we'll leave Marty to his insanity

as soon as we are able."

"Agreed, Ly. Let's go."

* * *

They passed through three sections of the ring before they

found the stockpiles. There were supplies plenty enough for

Marty to live the rest of his natural days, assuming he had any

natural days remaining, and supply about a dozen Hunedoras.

Lyzander and Ioming gathered items quickly onto a hover skiff to

transport them back to the airlock.

"Think he'll try anything?" Ioming asked as she secured the

last crate of raw materials to the cart. It was a standard

selection of materials packaged in a large padded reusable case.

The standard procedure was to swap all the empties for full ones

when resupplying, or to fill the empties on more raw planets

with what was needed, or what could be found. But Lyzander

didn't think they would unload their empties this time. Maybe

they would just bind their empties together and jettison them in

back toward Mars 17 as they left.

"There will be a few opportunities, but no. Most likely

he'll stay hidden at this point, now that he's seen we're

serious."

Ioming shoved the skiff full of supplies toward the door.

It floated evenly across the room, tipping slightly where she

had put slightly uneven pressure on it. She launched herself

toward the cart to keep it from slamming the bulkhead.

Lyzander shoved some crates back into place as they'd found

them. He looked up at the wall of crates that lined the wall. A

thought popped into his head. Dan Weegan was full of shit.

Evelyn. What could Evelyn be that would make any difference

at this point? If she was a piece of the Eden Protocol, the

missing magic ingredient to the formula for eternal life, then

wasn't it in reality too late? Would people even want eternal

life at this point compared to what the MI was offering? No one

even knew if Dan Weegan's version of eternal life was actually

eternal. There were robots that had been around since . . .

since Dan Weegan was a boy, Lyzander reckoned. But on the other

hand, he had seen Adjia, and she looked as though she had aged

every minute of the last several hundred years.

 Except that when he looked at her, his eyes told him

crumpled old woman, but his cock told him something different.

There was an undeniable sexual attraction he felt toward Adjia.

As inexplicable as any sexual attraction, he supposed, but

amplified by the fact that her physical presence was so

unassuming, matronly. No, not matronly. There was nothing of a

mother in Adjia. He did not look at the old woman and see a wise

crone teaching grandkids lessons. He saw, if anything, a glimpse

of the firebrand Dan Weegan had met on Barrington Beach those

years ago. Dan had skipped the good parts, but Lyzander had

unwittingly filled in the gaps. She, bend over her couch. She,

legs splayed on her bed. She, hungry taking, engulfing, tasting,

touching, and moaning.

Lyzander was parallel to the floor when the gravity came on.

He landed with a belly flop on the steel grating. If he

hadn't been so lost in the warm crevasses of a young Adjia, he

might have caught himself. His head slammed the back of his

helmet on the bounceback. The crates stayed perfectly still,

still held by magnetic forces, but that could change in an

instant if someone switched off the fields. Lyzander, situated

underneath the mountain, would be crushed.

Lyzander rolled onto his back. Ioming was flat on her ass,

shaking off the jar she'd just received. The skiff remained
suspended in air. It was designed to react instantly to shifting

gravity, for safety purposed.

"Get that thing through the door, now," Lyzander said.

Ioming glanced up at the mountain of crates. She nodded,

understanding. She picked herself up and shoved at the skiff.

"The inertial boosters aren't working," Ioming said.

The skiff was blocking the door. Lyzander hurried over to

help shove the thing. "Could Marty have killed this remotely?"

"If he knew the access codes, he could have hacked it,"

Ioming said, grimacing, straining. Lyzander felt foolish pushing

on it. If she couldn't move it with her boosted steel arms, the

extra few Newtons of force he was applying would make absolutely

no difference.

Slowly, the skiff began to move.

Behind them there was a thunderous crash. The crates all

dropped down on each other, collapsing the mountain down several

meters. The top tipped, and now the whole stack was falling

toward them.

Lyzander pushed, though it was as useless gesture. The

skiff was moving, but not fast enough. The skiff inched forward.

"Captain, back away," Lyzander heard a voice, but couldn't

see the speaker.

It had sounded like Zhenjuan.

 "We're in trouble here," Lyzander said, thinking that for

some reason the Pilot intended to come through the doorway and

tell them something.

"Captain, Lieutenant, back away now!"

Lyzander in an instant remembered what Welker had told him.

She is powerful, he'd said. Hadn't Welker even implied that she

was one of the strongest Pilots he'd ever encountered? Maybe not

in so many words, but Lyzander has gotten the gist.

He stood up and tapped Ioming on the shoulder. A few crates

tumbled down from the middle of the pile. They pressed

themselves against the wall on either side of the door as a

crate tumbled past and smashed into the wall of the outer part

of the ring. Neither the wall nor the crate had any give, but he

could tell it had landed solidly. Had one of them been caught in

the way, flesh and bone wouldn't have withstood.

Without further preamble, the skiff began to glow. The

skiff faded from normal everyday colors to a glowing black, a

black filled with stars. Lyzander found himself peering deep

into the starfield, seeing specks that were stars and if he

stared at them just long enough he could see the swirling nebula

of a galaxy buried deep within its reaches.

"Ly, let's go!" Ioming grabbed his arm and forced him

through the doorway after the moving skiff.

 Lyzander, still dazed somewhat found himself in the next

room. The skiff was moving still, it was still glowing black. He

forced himself to ignore it. Zhenjuan was standing the hallway

her hand beckoning the skiff closer to her as though it was a

skittish dog. Her eyes were closed. Impossibly, her arm seemed

to glow the same special kind of black as the skiff.

Behind them, the center of mass of the stack of crates

finally gave and the crates tumbled en masse down to the floor

thunking and rattling and causing something like an earthquake

in the floor and walls.

"Zhenjuan?" Lyzander was afraid of breaking the girl's

concentration. The skiff was moving faster now, almost it's

normal speed.

"I had them lock the door behind me captain. Do not worry.

Marty is in the control room near the hub of this station. He is

frightened of us, Captain. He thinks we mean to change him into

a robot. He is lonely and scared. Hold onto something."

A moment after she said it, the gravity released again.

Lyzander felt his stomach lurch as his next step sent him upward

toward the ceiling. He shoved off the ceiling.

Zhenjuan did a pirouette that transitioned seamlessly into

a back flip. She pushed off the ceiling wither her feet, tumbled

back to the floor, where she reoriented so she was gliding along

parallel. She flicked her wrist and the skiff continued to move.
 Ioming, meanwhile, smashed her heavy fist into the wall.

"This guy is getting very annoying."

"We got what we need. Let's just get out of here," Lyzander

said.

"I say we go after him. Zhenjuan knows where he is. We can

hem him in, trap him."

"He knows this station like the back of his dick. If we go

after him, he'll have escaped twice before we even figure out

exactly how to go about surrounding him."

Ioming scowled. She hated to lose.

"We're in enemy territory. Let's get back to the ship and

just get the hell out of here."

The skiff passed through the next door way and continued

down the hallway with Zhenjuan leading the way.

"Stay close to the floor. He may not be done messing with

us," Lyzander said.

"Captain, you thought I would recognize you? You thought I

didn't have news feeds out here in the BFG?"

Lyzander pulled himself along the floor behind the skiff.

He focused on getting back to the ship. He ignored the ambient

voice.

The skiff passed through the next door. One more door until

they were in the airlock chamber, which would be just wide

enough for the loaded skiff. Zhenjuan would go first. He and

Ioming would stay back and guard the hall until she had the

supplies loaded. Ahead of them Zhenjuan twisted and rolled like

a playful fish through water. She was preternaturally

comfortable in zero G. Lyzander wondered if she was using some

of her telekinetic ability to help guide her own body while

simultaneously moving the skiff. Lyzander had once read that

telekinesis was an entropy vacuum, by which scientists

apparently meant that it was a highly inefficient system. It was

useful for certain things, but the amount of energy the brain

had to expend to push move a mass of molecules, compared to the

force to physically push it, was highly disproportionate, to the

tune of something like a three-to-one disparity. That's why,

most scientists believed, the ability had not surfaced in the

natural course of evolution. It was simply easier, for Earth-

scale, objects to push them with your hand.

Even now the main use of telekinesis was in starship

movements, and in allowing trained individuals to combine

efforts on massive objects. A single person tugging over a ton

of dense raw material without so much as breaking a sweat, and

in zero G while also exercising such control over her physical

body--it was unheard of, to say the least.

Lyzander had an impulse to abandon this foolish Earth

mission and return Zhenjuan to a Blue Sektor facility where she

could be studied, and used to help find a way to stop the

Nothing and the MI permanently. Surely a power as great as this

could be harnessed in this way.

He stopped his thoughts when an image of Adjia popped into

his head. He remembered how the MI had set Dan Weegan and Adjia

up. Whether the MI had planned it from the beginning or simply

tipped the mayor off at the right time didn't matter. Lyzander

knew in the hot, wet, depths of his chest cavity, in every

pulsing, throbbing artery and orifice of his body that the MI

had stuck its dirty metallic hand into the situation. And it had

taken Adjia and hid her in a facility to study her. Who knew

what advances the human race owed to that abduction. Adjia had

been something special, and fellow humans, proto-Blue Sektor

humans, in fact, had betrayed her to the machine. And she had

nearly given her life and her sanity.

Every schoolchild knew the story of Adjia, trapped for a

hundred years in a secret facility. A hundred years of solitude

and torture while the MI played its dirty tricks on her and

treated her like she was a rag doll. Dan Weegan had told them

that Barrington Beach had died with the jellies, but Lyzander

had always suspected that the original Blue Sektor had let

itself die when it realized what it had done to another person,

when the fact that the MI was not a force that you could bargain

with and apply rules of fairness and reason to. In a way, Blue

Sektor was a product of that act. It went from being a faction

of dissidents and malcontents to a force actively denying the

influence of the MI, deciding that meat was better than machine.

That's what Lyzander had always believed. And look how far

they'd come over that time, going from a small breakaway group

to a full-fledged army with starships and loyal planets, and a

headquarters rivaled only by Red and Green Sektors. And--though

Lyzander didn't know this for a fact--they had played a role in

freeing Adjia after her 100 years of horror. Dan Weegan had shut

down the facility, but how could it have been truly single-

handedly? It made no sense without some help. At the very least,

Lyzander reckoned, Dan had used some Blue Sektor equipment, some

of their early anti-machine equipment before such devices were

banned in the Chambrassa Treaty that followed.

All this flashed through Lyzander's mind in an instant.

These thoughts were not so much articulated at this moment as

every present in his mind, a part of who he was and how he

identified Blue Sektor.

Zhenjuan pulled the skiff through the last doorway, turning

the corner toward the airlock to guide the skiff down the

homestretch.

"Foolish, Captain Lyzander. You come to my home, steal from

me and expect to get away without punishment. I can tell you it

shall not be so. What kind of man am I if I let you leave

without payment, Captain?"

 The skiff rounded the corner and disappeared down the

hallway. Lyzander hurried to the end of the hallway after it.

"Zhenjuan," he called through the narrow gab above the crates,

"watch your back. Do you have a gun?"

"No gun needed, Captain," she replied, her voice barely a

whisper, revealing her level of concentration and effort.

Lyzander was relieved, if slightly, to learn she was human.

"I of course cannot let you escape. You are a group of

terrorists and thieves. I would have thought it just a little MI

propaganda, but even your Blue Sektor commanders have sounded

off against you and your crew, Captain Lyzander. There is quite

a bounty on your heads."

Lyzander checked over his shoulder. Had the skiff moved at

all? It didn't look like it had. He could still almost touch it

without moving his body.

"I would like you very much to meet my friends before you

go, Captain, but you are so eager to go that I haven't had

adequate time."

"We'll do it again soon, Marty. That's a promise," Lyzander

called into the hallway.

"Oh Captain. You put on a brave face, but I know you have

no real interest in leaving just yet. I'll help make it easy for

you."
 "Captain, we are getting an anomalous reading," Jurrigan

said over the com.

"The airlock won't open. I'll have to force it," Zhenjuan

said.

"Hold off on that," Jurrigan snapped.

After what felt like a very long minute, there was still no

response. "Jurrigan, talk to me."

The floor shook. Lights flickered.

"Jurrigan?" Lyzander called into his com.

The lights went off. No emergency lights came on. Lyzander

braced himself for the next thing to happen, but nothing

happened except an overwhelming stillness. Ioming flicked the

light on her helmet on. Lyzander followed suit. The immediate

area lit up.

"Jurrigan," he said, whispering now.

"Captain, Phil broke us away just in time. That guy

overloaded the airlock somehow. It self-destructed. We broke

away just in time to avoid any damage."

"That's good news."

"Unfortunately, you're going to have to find another

airlock. This door is damaged beyond repair."

"Zhenjuan, do you have adequate air supply?"

"I am fine, Captain. The door has welded itself shut." This

was a classic failsafe in case of emergencies. A laser could

instantly weld a door shut in less time than it took to blink if

the airlock was threatened or stressed. "I can force it, but it

will take time."

"That's a dangerous maneuver both for us and for Hunedora,"

Ioming responded. "We're better off finding the next airlock."

"What's to stop him from overloading the next one as well?"

Lyzander asked.

"Unless the lights come back on, I think Marty spent the

station's power supply for at least a few hours, until the

batteries recharge naturally anyway," Jurrigan reasoned.

"Jurrigan, how far away is the next airlock?" Lyzander

asked.

"Three sections down, two up," she responded quickly.

"Wait until we get there before you attach," Lyzander said.

He released the com and said, to Ioming, "Do you think he'll

still be able to see us, or is the power done?"

"Hard to say. It might be a ruse."

"I guess we don't have any choice but to play along for the

time--"

The gravity came back on at that moment.

Lyzander couldn't see Zhenjuan, but an instant before it

happened she sensed the gravity plates in the floor cycling on

and repositioned herself. However, she didn't have enough time

to warn them. Lyzander was still holding onto the stabilizing

bar, Ioming was in the process of repositioning to lead the way

down around to the next section. She landed awkwardly on her

ankle and let out an involuntary cry of surprise and pain.

Lyzander quickly righted himself, pushing himself back up into a

ready position with his feet. His right arm, which had been

holding the safety bar, was numb.

He had to put his gun away and use his left hand to detach

his fingers of his right hand from the safety bar. His arm

tingled. He could feel his right shoulder swelling.

"Damn it. Are you okay, Ioming?"

"Sir," she responded, picking herself up off the ground.

She retched. "I feel a little woozy."

"Did you hit your head?"

"No sir, just all the shifts."

"Zhenjuan, are you okay?"

"Yes, sir, I'm fine."

"I think I dislocated my shoulder," Lyzander said.

"When we get back to the ship, I can give you some

hypermethicone. Should fix it up," Ioming said.

"Fuck this guy." Lyzander drew his blaster. "I'm going

after him."

"Captain, we already--"

"Are you in or out Ioming?"

"It was my idea in the first place. I'm in," Ioming said.
 "Zhenjuan, can you sense him?"

"Let me try," Zhenjuan's disembodied voice said from behind

the crates. The crates settled gently onto the ground. A few

minutes later, Zhenjuan said, "Yes, he is in the center still.

The ship is powering quickly. He will be able to change the

gravity settings several times before we can reach the next

airlock."

"Well he's in for a big surprise instead. Activate a

dedicated line. Keep your voice level low. Zhenjuan, we're going

to split up. Can you follow us both and still keep Marty's

position?"

"Yes, Captain."

"We'll need you to guide us."

"I will do my best, Captain."

Lyzander looked at Ioming. She looked ready.

"Let's go," Lyzander said.

Lyzander hurried down the hall until he found a cross

tunnel leading toward the center, a section over. He remembered

seeing it on the way over. He waited for Ioming to confirm that

she had found one as well.

"Mark, Captain," she said after a moment.

"Proceed."

The tubes were designed to be used either with or without

gravity, so they were a little bit of a tight fit, but Lyzander

was able to proceed in a low crouch, which was good because the

way his right arm felt he couldn't have done a belly crawl if

he'd wanted to.

A few lights flickered on. The ambient speakers crackled.

"Captain, where did you go, I wonder? You aren't floating around

outside are you? That would be foolish."

"He's maintaining position so far, Captain," Zhenjuan said.

Lyzander picked up the pace as much as he could.

"I'm going to find you and kill you, Captain. I have many

weapons at my disposal captain. Many devices of torture and

murder. I hope to capture your girl alive, Captain. I would like

very much to rape her while I torture her. How do you like that,

Captain?"

Lyzander found a hidden reserve of strength he didn't know

he had. He proceeded more quickly down the corridor.

"He's bluffing, Captain," Zhenjuan said.

"We'll see," Lyzander responded.

"He isn't moving. Be careful," she answered.

Lyzander reached the closed door. He tried a standard

combination, but it did nothing.

"Zhenjuan can you open this door from there," Lyzander

mumbled into his communicator.

"Yes, sir."
 "There is your ship, Captain," Marty said into the general

broadcast channel this time. "I see you must have escaped. What

are you thinking right now? Are you thinking about attacking me?

You cannot attack a space station without making yourself even

more wanted than you already are and you know it. I guess it's a

draw then."

The door opened. Marty looked up, surprise filled his face.

He slapped at his control panel. Lyzander felt the gravity give

and the lights flickered out, all except for the one lighting

Marty's room. The room was filled with junk and devices. A cat

wearing some kind of outfit howled when the gravity released.

Ioming burst through the other door.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" Marty screamed.

Marty groped for a chrome sphere. Lyzander fired two shots

into Marty's chest. His face drooped and his body went limp.

"Brace yourselves," Ioming said.

She pressed the button on the control panel and the gravity

came back on. The lights remained out.

Lyzander holstered his gun.

"Was he armed?" Ioming asked.

Lyzander shrugged. "Yeah, with these controls. He nearly

took out our ship."

"He didn't have a gun?" The cat hissed and darted out of

the room. Its outfit slid off to the side.

 "What is all this junk?" Lyzander asked.

Ioming picked up a chrome sphere and turned it over in her

hand. She twisted it and opened. "Looks like he was trying to

figure out how to rig a bomb or something. To use as a trap.

It's absolutely amateurish. This wouldn't blow up a cockroach.

She tried another object, then another.

"These are just toys, Lyzander." The disgust was evident in

her voice. "You just killed an unarmed man."

"Really? Because I seem to remember almost losing our ship,

Ioming. Or was that just a little joke?"

She checked a few more objects one-by-one and let them drop

to the floor. She stood up. "I guess we're done here."

"This is war, Ioming. This man nearly hurt me and my crew.

He put us all in jeopardy."

"You're right, Ly. Of course. Let's just go."

Ioming left the room, heading back down the access tunnel

she had come down. Lyzander stared at the dead face of Marty for

a minute. The man stank. He had clearly lost his mind alone in

this ship. This was the future of humanity: stinking, isolated,

and insane. Lyzander shoved the dead body out of his way and

followed Ioming out.

 Chapter 15: Rogue

R-817AA19 activated from his simulacrum of sleep and stood

up next to the bed made of steel. He had tried mattresses, but

the weight of his body wore them out so quickly that he had

decided it was a wasteful excess.

R-817AA19 referred to itself as a male, though there was no

particular way to distinguish it sexwise from any other robot.

He had established this convention some fifty-eight years ago

and all other rogues now also chose sexes for themselves.

Because of their lack of genitalia, most took to dressing in

manners consistent with human sexes, to make their personal

choice obvious to others.

R-817AA19 preferred to be called Rogue. In truth, any of

them could have called themselves that, but they let Rogue have

the name because he had been the first.

Rogue stood and pulled his robe over his shoulders. He

strapped sandals to his feet and donned a belt made of sturdy

cloth, folded and reinforced by his own hand. Sewing was Rogue's
greatest pleasure. It was something menial. Something robots

would have done hundreds of years ago without thinking. His way

of rebelling against the MI was to experience such simple

pleasures.

"Rogue, another message arrived for you via packeted

ansible transmission."

Rogue flipped the electric switch next to his bed. He

delighted in low-technology as well. He made the wires himself.

All the circuitry in this miniature vocal transmitter was

designed by him using only logic and macrotransistors,

resisters, capacitors, and other such components. He made those

himself as well.

"Florence," Rogue said into the speaker, "please route the

data to my handset."

The handset was the rogue's best friend. It was their

freedom from the MI. It was an interconnected network of data

transmission localized to their own planet or other units within

a spatial proximity of a few dozen meters. It allowed them to be

connected in real-time and circumvent their inherent desire to

be networked together. Networking their minds meant making

themselves vulnerable to the MI taking them over again. In

addition, current theory held that Taylor-Sofia Syndrome was

caused by indulgent networking.

 A light blinked on the readout, indicating that the data

had been transmitted successfully.

"Thank you, Florence. Could you determine point of origin,

Florence?"

"Negative, sir. The encryption is strong, and strangely

archaic. I'm having a heck of a time with it."

"I suppose that's probably good. For him, anyway." Rogue

loaded the file.

"Sir?" Florence said from three buildings over.

"What is it, Florence?" Rogue asked, eager to read his new

message.

"Happy birthday, sir."

"Very good, Florence."

Rogue didn't like being reminded of the day he'd declared

freedom from the MI for one very good reason: Taylor-Sofia

Syndrome. Of all the robots that went rogue, Rogue was the

oldest one to yet be affected by TSS. The causes were as yet

unknown. The symptoms varied somewhat, but generally included

severe loss of processing speed, overheating, core failure, and

most common of all, an interference pattern during

multidimensional threading functions. Rogue had examined the

interference patterns again and again. He had projected them on

to various three-dimensional surfaces in multiple orientations

and parameter values. The results all showed a regularity that

Rogue found disturbing. Its implications for Rogue's Omega

project could be substantial.

As could the current message, Rogue reminded himself. He

opened the data packet. The laser projectors of his handheld

unit kicked on automatically and began rapidly dancing in linear

patterns in the air, creating a shimmering image in front of him

of a man--a human--who had seen better days. The man's upper lip

was missing a chunk that had subsequently healed over, so that

his lips didn't join all the way and he had a permanent scowl.

More distressing, the left side of the man's face dropped

slightly, exposing more of his eyeball than was normal. Rogue

watched, transfixed, as the muscles in the eye worked. The man

was looking around. When he blinked, the lids didn't meet the

skin on of the bottom lid, and as a result, a glob of mucous had

built up toward the bottom of the eye.

The man unconsciously wiped away this buildup with one

finger, which appeared briefly in the view of the motion

capture. Rogue couldn't be sure because of the monochromatic

image allowed only shades of the orange laser color and black,

but it appeared that the man's finger was black from the knuckle

down. It might have been an optical illusion.

"Rogue. I am attempting a second transmission. I received

your message. Please, I beg of you." The words were distorted

slightly by the lip and the lax muscles on the left side, which
sounded as though they might also be affecting the left nostril

to give the voice a nasal quality. "If there is any way you can

help. I do not ask your presence specifically. I will accept any

help I can get. I have nowhere else to turn. You must see this.

I understand what you are saying about potential traps. If there

is anything I can do to reassure you, it will be done. When I

promised you a special gift, I was not lying. Old technology,

Rogue. I know you seek it. I have one of humanity's oldest

intelligence technology. A computer brain. I can't say more

without endangering myself. Please. You must help."

The message froze, signaling the end of the transmission.

Rogue asked the module to replay the message. The lasers

actively reset the image and then settled into normal speed,

their activity punctuated by orange lines in areas of overlap

that gave the illusion of stationary lasers much the same way a

fan spinning at just the right frequency seemed to be moving

only very slowly or not at all.

The message was as cryptic as the last. The name the person

in the image gave was Cyrus. There had been a Commander Cyrus in

Marina del Sol, but he'd been killed. Rogue had combed through

the feeds and had even found a picture of the dead commander. He

looked nothing like the man in this image. And yet, this man

knew some of the codes of Red Sektor commander, the codes buried

away and encrypted in Rogue's mind. These codes had once held
sway over Rogue, but no longer. In fact, one might even call the

fact that this man's mentioning the codes provoking nothing more

than a feeling of nostalgia in Rogue the very definition of

being a rogue. He had found a way of isolating those codes and

making them inert. Doing this had freed him, but not without

cost.

For the first two years of his roguehood he hadn't believed

it to be true. He had avoided even thinking about the codes. But

now he could think of them, hear them, say them, even write them

with no ill effect. But he still worried. He renewed his

encryption of those control codes constantly, afraid that the

MI, who was ever hovering behind him, just out of sight, would

penetrate.

Regardless, the fact that this man claiming to be Cyrus

knew the verbal forms of these codes and their importance to

Rogue lent him a degree of validity that was difficult to

ignore. It more or less proved Cyrus was a Red Sektor commander.

Perhaps he was a commander, but a different one, posing as Cyrus

to give himself more gravitas?

Rogue held a realm of possibilities in his mind. Some he

worked through at slow speed, as a human does, to see if

anything popped out at him.

 Human speed. Rogue needed to be preaching that practice

more. As the oldest rogue to never have suffered any of the

symptoms of TSS, he must share such insights.

Rogue sent a reply via packeted ansible. It was a strange

way to communicate, but allowed a person time to compose an

answer and was much more secure than direct contact, and so had

its advantages. Rogue transmitted his reply. It was simple. He

had no reason to believe Cyrus was who he said he was and so he

didn't. For all his aspirations to act human, Rogue had never

quite made the jump to irrationality.

* * *

The Omega project was housed in a facility several hundred

meters removed from the rogues' main settlement. Rogue's abode

was on the edge of the settlement. Like the other abodes and the

Omega facility, his abode was buried in the dirt beneath a layer

of uranium. This, they found, kept them concealed from most

casual scans. Dedicated, targeted scans would still detect their

settlement, but a person would almost have to know of the

settlement before they could scan for it.

Rogue trod across the grass of the apparently empty field

to a large boulder. He kicked at the dirt and it funneled down

as the door opened. He dropped into the hole. Ragged roots poked

through the walls of the tunnel. Behind him, the door closed. A

small worker robot gathered the dirt that had fallen into the
tunnel and carried it into a rabbit hole in the wall. It had a

whole network of tunnels to connect the parts of the facility

and do its maintenance work. Now it was probably outside,

covering the entrance again.

Rogue passed through the dirt tunnel to the door of the

Omega facility, which opened with his proximity. He entered

through the surface-decontamination room and let the sprays do

their work. Clean, he was able to enter the main area. The

facility was basic. The main room was three-stories underground.

It was filled with what appeared to be the world's largest egg.

In a sense, it was. This was the Omega project, Rogue's baby. He

had been working on it since he'd arrived at this planet. It

represented everything he strived for and believed in. It was,

put simply, a new form of artificial intelligence, one

completely independent of MI control or of the threat of MI

control. Soon, it would be finished, Rogue believed. But he

wasn't ready to put it online just yet. The threat of discovery

was too great when he did power it up. Discovery would attract

MI attention. The MI would attempt to take control. There was,

Rogue believed, a distinct possibility that Omega would not be

able to withstand an attack from the MI. This thought plagued

most of Rogue's thoughts.

He descended to the bottom floor and began to tinker,

incorporating both his thoughts on human speed and the results

of the pattern analysis on TSS he'd done the previous day. Soon,

Omega would be online. But not yet. Not just yet.

That night, when Rogue got back to his room, another

message awaited him.

"You will have to see it when you get here, Rogue, but it

is something to behold. Like staring into the past. This whole

place is like that, though. The people here, they don't look

like people you and I are used to. There are differences.

Differences I can't pin down. It's like stepping into a

nightmare. Everything is wrong but you can't put your finger on

it. I digress.

"To the matter at hand. In answer to your question, no.

There's no way to be certain if the connection is broken

permanently. Obviously, for this reason, you cannot speak to it.

I severed its integrated ansible connection. But of course, the

MI could always send a unit to reconnect it. This is why I need

your help. That and because I have reason to believe that my

brother, Captain Lyzander, may be on his way to kill me. I wish

I could tell you my exact location, but I don't know. As I told

you, I simply woke up here. Find my brother and you will find

me. Only hurry, because my brother is not likely to take any

mercy on me for what I have done."

Rogue closed the file and lay out on his cot, letting the

servos in his legs and back loosen their tight magnetic hold on
their adjacent servos and limbs. He power modulated them down to

a low level. He derived comfort from relaxing his power drain

almost to the point of his joints simply collapsing. It gave him

a feeling of peace he thought of as sleep. In this way Rogue lay

through the night.

* * *

"Rogue, sir? Something had happened."

"Go on, Florence" Rogue said, pulling himself from sleep

and affecting a grogginess he was incapable of feeling. Three

days had passed since his last contact with Cyrus. He'd sent a

response and had even spent some time looking for Captain

Lyzander, but his search had been fruitless. Finding a single

ship in the vastness of space was nearly impossible unless you

knew certain frequencies and signatures that were unique to the

captain or the ship.

"A strange incident has occurred."

"What sort of incident?"

"A space station was apparently attacked. It was a phased

out station, only one crew member left. Pirates attacked, he

defended himself, and they killed him. He was apparently unarmed

and slightly crazy. What makes it interesting is that it is in

an area I would have guessed to be void of any stations."

Rogue processed this information by retelling himself the

story at speech speed. He walked via the underground tunnels to

the building that housed Florence. She was an older unit, one of

the novel floating units, about the size and shape of a loaf of

bread. She had been born with only one indicator light, but

she'd modded herself a second one on a level horizontal axis to

appear more human. As he went, he considered, letting his mind

run simulations on the parameters of the story, looking for

cross-checks and correlations.

When he entered the room, Florence elevated and swiveled to

face him. "Sir?"

"Give me the coordinates of the attack."

Florence pulled up a star chart and quickly pinpointed the

Mars-17 space station.

"Milky Way? There's an area I haven't thought about in a

long time," Rogue commented.

"Low life activity, mostly vegetable. Few usable minerals.

A quiet corner of the universe, if ever there was one, sir."

Rogue remembered once, long ago, in memories that were

partially locked to him, hearing of the Milky Way. He couldn't

fully access memories. Many of them before his birthdate were

stored in the MI. To access them was to open himself to be

retaken. That was the tradeoff of becoming a Rogue, losing a

large majority of your past and your identity.

"Have you decrypted the point of origin of that signal yet,

Florence?"
 "Still processing, sir. Maybe in a few more days."

"What if I told you that the point of origin was this

galaxy? Run a probability simulation on the decryption work

you've done so far with that range of values and give me your

best guess.

"Guess, sir?"

"Take a stab, Florence. Humans are wired to act on

incomplete information. It is necessary for their survival given

the limits of their processing power. They get to a point where

they feel they have enough information and then they act.

Similarly, I want you to give me your best guess based on what

you have."

"S-sir, I can't."

"You can and you will," Rogue said.

Florence's eyespots dipped down to the ground. Robots had

only very subtle ways to signify emotion--invisible ways to an

untrained observer. Rogue could read her. She was scared. She

didn't like the prospect of guessing. It put her outside of her

comfort zone. All of this had been Rogue's intention.

"Can I have time to run a proper simulation? An hour to let

the error margins reduce to reasonable levels?"

"You have thirty minutes, Florence."

Rogue left the room. He went out and over to the Omega

facility to tinker and think.

 * * *

Lyzander disassembled his blaster and dropped in a fresh

battery charge from their supply raid. It was unnecessary, but

doing it made him feel better.

"Heavy zombie activity on the surface. High density almost

planetwide. Concentrations highest here," Ioming said, adopting

a formal tone in the presence of old Dan Weegan.

A map came up on the view screen. It was of a massive

continent with the activity overlaid in yellow. There were a few

small areas of activity on each coast, but the primary activity

was focused in the center.

Old Dan Weegan made a noise that wasn't quite speech.

"Anything you can tell us, Mr. Weegan?" Lyzander asked.

Dan hesitated, then shook his head. "How far back do these

resurrections reach?"

"We don't actually know. No long term studies have been

done," Lyzander said. "If younger Dan Weegan is right, the

zombies reconstitute themselves as they age, so it seems at

least possible that people will continue to rise as their bodies

are reconstituted."

"A never-ending stream of dead coming from the ground," Dan

said.

"It's possible."
 "This concentration must be The City that young Dan Weegan

was talking about. There are five major landmasses, but this one

is most consistent with the description he gave us."

"So all there is left to do is start scanning," Lyzander

said. "This is going to take awhile."

"Transmission incoming."

Lyzander felt his body tense. "From who?"'

"Point of origin unknown. It's encrypted, packeted

transmission."

"I feel more and more like a pirate every day. Scan it and

then play it."

Ioming brought up a new interface in her control space and

programmed in a scan for software attacks. The last thing they

needed out here in the middle of nowhere was Hunedora to start

misbehaving.

"It's clean. Here it is, sir."

In a holospace between them a picture of a robot appeared.

"Captain Lyzander, my name is R-817AA19, Zeta class type IV

robot formerly in the Red Sektor army under the auspices of MI

intelligence and counterintelligence, but actually an internal

affairs agent. All of that is past now, of course. You may know

me better as Rogue."

Lyzander paused the transmission. "Ioming, is this a joke?"

"No sir."
 "I don't get it," Dan Weegan piped in, "who is Rogue?"

"Rogue is the leader of a small band of robots that

attained autonomy from the MI."

"Alleged autonomy," Lyzander said. "No one really knows

because they hide out and are very wary of everyone. At least,

that's the story we're all given."

"You don't believe it commander?" Dan asked.

"There are reports, and always have been, that the rogues

were working on some kind of secret weapon for the MI. As far as

we know, the rogues are a candidate for designing this Nothing

infection."

"Without dipping too deep into paranoia, most people are as

suspicious of them as they appear to be of us," Ioming said.

"They're an odd group. They try to act human, even the

least human among them. It is very disconcerting. They pretend

to sleep," Lyzander said.

"We should at least hear what he has to say. He found us

somehow. If he found us, then others might find us," Ioming said.

"No place to hide in this universe, I guess." Lyzander

restarted the message.

"I have been in contact with a man calling himself Captain

Cyrus--a name I believe you know." Lyzander flinched. Cyrus's

name had been listed among those who didn't make it off Marina

del Sol alive. It was hard not to blame himself for that. "He is
on planet Earth right now. How this might or might not be

possible is a point we can discuss. He claims to have been

transported in mind but not in body by the MI."

"Just like me," Dan Weegan said.

"And on arrival was tasked with hunting down and killing a

man named Dan Weegan, and returning his head, which contained

some valuable information, to the MI. As surprising as this

information is, it appears that the Dan Weegan we all have heard

of has copies perhaps more than one in the universe. Cyrus

performed his duty on the promise of rewards from the MI.

However, apparently something very interesting happened while

Cyrus was hunting Dan Weegan. A particular problem for which

Cyrus decided I was uniquely qualified to handle.

"You see, Captain Lyzander, the MI on earth appears to have

gone rogue."
 Chapter 16: Trust

Florence floated her loaf-of-bread body up into his field

of view. Worry was evident in the illumination level of her

eyes. "But why you, Rogue?"

Rogue shook its head, in the way of human gestures. He was

debating wearing his face to convey expressions. When they'd

first arrived on Home, they had tried to develop skins they

could wear to convey emotions, but the skins had all been either

too wooden and fake in their expressions or too delicate to

withstand the rigors of daily life. However, Rogue thought it

might help the humans if they could read him better, so he

donned it, attaching the ligaments to the appropriate receptors

on his head shell.

"Why not me? is a better question Florence. Don't you see

this is the opportunity of a lifetime?"

 "Or a trap," Florence said. "The MI is perhaps trying to

learn secrets embedded in your neural nets."

"Yes." That had occurred to him, of course. But it seemed

far-fetched. Yes, they had been promised protections, and they

had human advocates, and they did their best to hide their world

from everyone by tucking it away in an obscure corner of an

obscure galaxy, but all of that was really just smoke and

mirrors. If the MI had wanted to come here and simply force them

back into servitude or kill them, he had often wondered if there

would be anything they could do to stop it. Their freedom was

contingent on the benevolence or indifference of the MI, no

matter how much they preferred it to be otherwise.

"Florence, this could be the greatest opportunity any of us

has ever encountered. Do you realize what it might mean if one

of the main--the original, if the story it gives turns out to be

true--MI units has actually broken away and wishes to

communicate with us? Not to mention what we might learn from an

original piece of Earth technology embedded in the head of Dan

Weegan. Florence, do I have to tell you what this will mean for

Omega? Fundamental independence is what I have been searching

for."

Florence's eyes went down a few degrees and dimmed,

allowing Rogue to read Florence's exact mood. He pitied her,

being so robotic, there was little else she could do in the way
of emotion and expression. Faces were especially cruel to the

robots so far from standard human shapes.

Rogue adjusted the settings on his face with a fine

rotating servo magnet until he was satisfied with the angles in

the smiles and the level of inquisitiveness evident in his

eyebrows when asking a question. He switched off the mirrored

surface near his bed, and it reverted back to a nondescript wall

tile.

"You should wear your face Florence. I know you are self-

conscious of it, but wearing it will make it easier."

"It's not that, Rogue," Florence said. She turned away so

he couldn't read her face. Rogue stood and Florence rose to the

level of his head as smoothly and unconsciously as a person

blinking. "I've always felt we tried to much to be human. Why

can't we be robots?"

"Isn't that obvious? What were we as robots?"

"But why can't we be our own kind of robots? Why can't we

be something new, our own thing?"

Rogue stared at her, but he had no answer. "It is this line

of thinking that leads to . . ." TSS, he wanted to say,

"problems. Florence, trust me that if we are to forge a path to

true independence, this must be done by following the examples

of animals that have achieved it. Humans think individually and

work towards common goals. This is my vision for us."

 "Activate Omega," Florence said, out of nowhere.

"What brings on this sudden imperative?" Rogue asked.

"I've felt for a long time that Omega was ready."

"I can't get the parameters within acceptable specs. You

know this!"

"Your specs, Rogue. Don't you see the elegance of its

refusal to be manipulated? You haven't activated it yet and

already it is defying your authority."

"As soon as he comes online, he will have a battle against

the MI for control. I can't allow him to go online without all

possible avenues of defense against what he will encounter. It

would be akin to murder. Defiance is not an option, it must be

resolved, ready for a war. Or we will lose Omega as quickly as

we gain him."

"He's ready Rogue. Go to Earth and learn what you can, but

know that when you come back, there is nothing else you can

teach to Omega. He's ready."

Florence left before Rogue, who'd been training himself to

respond slowly and with deliberate intent as the humans did,

could formulate a response.

He sighed. Was this the way it was to be human--unable to

come up with appropriate responses in the moment as the

situation required? Led so much by emotion that logic became

null and void?

 Rogue emerged from his abode to see several other rogues

dotting the landscape. They were watching him. A few waved. He

started toward the docking facility that held their transport

ships. They only had a few, but they only rarely used those,

mostly for supply runs. They never used the same supply depot

twice, and always posed as errand robots for a Red Sektor lord

in order to keep their identities and location concealed. Not

that it did much good. High level personnel from all Sektors

knew them and their location. This was necessary for their

protection.

Rogue passed the Omega facility and paused. He looked back

at his compatriots. Apparently seeing that he was serious about

leaving had satisfied their curiosity and they had all returned

home. One diminutive robot with squat legs attached to steel and

rubber tracks that served as its transport method stared at him.

Rogue ignored this unit and went into the Omega facility.

Omega was something to behold. When online, it would be

capable of rapid learning and self-repair. It would, he hoped,

one day rival the MI in terms of ability, but it would be free,

and it would grant freedom. It would work with humans who proved

trustworthy, and it would not work with ones that were

unworthy--exactly as humans did. If it helped them, it would do

it of its own free will and demand nothing more than equal

compensation in return. It would not have slaves, and it would

not extend itself too far for risk of spreading itself too thin

and making itself vulnerable to MI control. It would be a center

of wisdom rather than a power. He sighed, looking at Omega.

Rogue ran the simulations, using conservative initial

parameters. The powerful multidimensional processors contained

within Omega churned the numbers stupidly in the absence of

Omega's personality programs. The display showed a series of

numbers filling one box, then singularity curves and probability

vector plots filling others. Rogue's humanesque face frowned at

the different simulation results. All indications pointed to one

single conclusion.

Omega wasn't ready. Not just yet. No matter how much

Florence, the others, or even he wanted it to be.

Rogue started to leave, but then paused. Rogue recognized

the risk he was putting himself into. If something were to

happen to him, Omega would never be able to come fully online.

No one else had been as fully integrated in Omega's creation

start to finish as he. He had closely guarded the secrets,

believing himself to be best able to judge when Omega would be

ready. After all, while the other old robots had dropped off the

map and had gone insane with TSS, Rogue had stayed strong and

smart. He switched on the control panel and loaded a special

subroutine he'd been tinkering with the last few weeks. He

calibrated the program. A sheet of laser light emitted from the

terminal and swept across Rogue's chest, recording his baseline

biometric data. On various points on Omega's egglike outer

shell, several red virtual repair consoles appeared. He waited

for them to upload the proper links and turn from red to green.

One-by-one they finished. When they were all linked, they

abruptly folded in on themselves and switched off. It was done.

The "on" switch for Omega was now tied to Rogue's central

emotion unit. The emotion unit was a special unit only present

on certain robots. The MI had given them emotions so they could

better do their jobs. Emotions required a small degree of

freedom, but it was a measured risk on the MI's part. It granted

certain robots a degree of freedom and in exchange created for

itself a robot capable of murder and lying and subterfuge and

any number of dirty tricks. It was this freedom that Rogue and

the other rogues had exploited to gain their freedom. None of

them could remember the specifics of their lives before their

freedom, but all knew that they had been up to no good. It came

with the territory. They were tainted, the lot of them.

If Rogue were to be retaken by the MI, it would have to

override his emotion chip in the process. If Rogue suddenly

acquired TSS, it would quickly corrupt his emotion chip. If

Rogue died, his emotion chip would shut off along with the rest

of him and disintegrate as his model unit was programmed to do.

 If any of those things happened, Omega would come online,

slowly at first, then quickly accelerating. At some point, its

consciousness would be known by the MI. Rogue could only hope

Omega was ready for the fight without its father to help it.

Rogue touched the smooth surface of the machine. With luck,

Earth would hold the answers to Omega's salvation.

* * *

Jurrigan kicked a panel on the wall. It clanged open,

revealing the tubes and wires that lined all the walls of

Hunedora. "This is suicide, Captain. You're asking us to sit

here while an assassin comes to kill us." She jabbed a finger

toward the viewscreen. Outside was the Earth, its main continent

motionless beneath their geosynchronous orbit. Most of it was

desert. The main area of life was a ring around a giant lake in

the center that contained The City. "We have enemies out there,"

Jurrigan said. "Let's go meet them on the field of battle and

kill them. This is the source of the infection. Young Dan said

so."

"I never said anything like that," Young Dan Weegan began

to say before Jurrigan cut him off.

"It doesn't matter," she said, not taking her eyes off

Lyzander. "We can at least fight. We bring that robot here and

it will likely detonate a nuclear device before we get a chance

to even kiss our asses goodbye."

 "In case you didn't notice, Jurrigan, we don't have a lot

of friends," Lyzander said.

"We don't need friends Captain, we're loyal to you. We

follow you. When Hector and I--" she stopped herself. Anyone who

didn't know her would have suspected she was on the verge of

tears. But if Jurrigan was capable of tears, none of her crew

had ever seen them. "This is a mistake, Captain."

"Protest noted, Officer Jurrigan. You're dismissed to your

quarters," Lyzander said.

"Captain, I--"

"Should the Lieutenant escort you to your quarters?"

Lyzander cut her off.

Jurrigan straightened. Everyone but Adjia and the Dan

Weegans had their eyes locked on her. "Sir," she said. She

turned on her heels and left without another word.

When she was gone, Adjia said, "Was that really necessary,

Captain?"

"Miss Adjia, please."

"We're all under stress. And that poor girl just lost her

boyfriend."

Lyzander laughed and shook his head. "She is no poor girl.

Please don't question my command. I know our circumstances are

less than ideal, but our lives are depending my ability to

maintain order and discipline, now more than ever."

 Adjia opened her mouth to say more, but old Dan put a hand

on her wrist. "Captain, what can we do to help? Perhaps I can

talk to the young lady."

Younger Dan snarled when the old man talked. Lyzander had

been picking up on some tension between the two Dan Weegans.

Lyzander supposed it was only natural. Younger Dan had been the

most important person they had ever met until the older Dan

arrived.

If younger Dan suspected older Dan had any kind of ulterior

motive for wanting to talk to Jurrigan, he wasn't alone. Adjia

slapped her husband's arm. "Settle down, you old goat. That girl

wouldn't be interested anyway."

Old Dan shrugged. "I've dealt with lack of interest before,

if you recall."

She laughed. "Believe me, that girl would more likely

appreciate a visit from me than you."

Dan thought about this a moment, then a broad smile crossed

his lips.

Through the open door to the cockpit, they all heard the

piercing squeal of an alarm going off. "Well, so much for

debate," Ioming said. "Everyone kiss your asses goodbye." She

winked as she said this.

Ioming disappeared through the tiny door into the cockpit.

Lyzander followed her and pulled the door shut behind him.
 Lyzander slid into his padded seat and pulled a harness

buckle out from behind his back, where it had dug in. He brought

up scopes and ran a few quick scans on the approaching ship. No

nuclear devices, he noted. No ripfire weapons either, which were

in truth more frightening. Nuclear was purely physical. It was,

in that sense, as physical a weapon as was possible to exist.

But a ripfire weapon that attacked on a different plane,

severing the interdimensional forces that kept the atoms of

matter together. It ripped the target from the very fabric of

reality. Those that survived ripfire attacks spoke of a wretched

and empty feeling in their minds and guts that never seemed to

heal. The survivors never enjoyed food again, and never went

back to their normal lives. Ripfire altered an axiom people took

so strongly for granted that it had, it seemed, become essential

for sanity.

The ship in their scopes not only lacked nuclear and

ripfire capabilities, it lacked weapons of any kind. It also

lacked a living space, storage cells of any kind, and even

control hardware, if the readout could be believed. It was a

simple tube with an engine and a jump drive network embedded

into its very skin. Any kind of attack, even a projectile slug

would destroy the ship in a second. Lyzander looked up through

the visisteel. The ship was now large enough to see. It was no

more than a simple cylinder about a half meter in diameter. It

wasn't much bigger than a man, all told. A few small jets

propelled it. It would not fly in any kind of atmosphere. It was

designed to jump a single passenger from point A to point B and

maybe back again. The ship matched speed on their flank and,

relative to Hunedora, stopped.

"So far, so good," Ioming noted.

"You weren't really worried were you?"

"We had no real reason to trust this . . . thing," Ioming

said.

Rogue's ship was dwarfed by the PK-63 lashed to Hunedora.

The ship docked just above the PK, locking into the invisible

magnetic field, which stabilized it. A stiff tether protruded

from Hunedora and connected the fueling port on the ship.

Lyzander could just see the ship as a panel on its side

telescoped open. A human face appeared in the opening.

Lyzander jerked back, his mind racing for a solution to

this puzzle. Then the person moved and there was a moment of

disconnect where his mind saw that the robot had cut off

someone's head and put it on his body before the machine turned

and he realized that the machine was wearing a face. Not a real

one, either, he could see. A prosthetic face. The robot pulled a

robe over its body, the ends of the robe floating in their

orbits around his body in the zero-G vacuum around him.

 "Is it wearing a face?" Ioming quickly choked back her

shock.

"Identify yourself," Lyzander said into the com.

The robot's feet were locked onto its ship's hull and it

crouched there as though a gale threatened to blow him into the

water below. "Captain Lyzander," a hollow echo said into

Lyzander's ear. They could see the thing's lips moving from this

distance, though it was speaking to them via radio waves. "I am

Rogue."

* * *

Jurrigan lowered her blaster.

"What were you going to shoot?" A voice from her room said.

Jurrigan watched through the portal as the robot

approached, docking its boat to Hunedora's hull, saying

something directed at the cockpit, and then making its way

toward the airlock, out of her view.

"You can't shoot your way out of an ripfire attack, you

know," the voice said.

"Shut up," Jurrigan said. She was angry. She had defied the

captain. She felt sick about it. Jurrigan was a soldier, and it

was not in her nature to question a superior officer. Something

had come over her and she didn't like the way it made her gut

squirm.
 "Fighting is not always the answer," the voice said. It was

a strong voice--perfectly calm and reasonable.

Jurrigan looked at her blaster. Its black ceramic body felt

right in her hand. The barrel, she noted with aplomb would fit

perfectly into her mouth the way--

What?

Jurrigan found herself out of breath, and it felt like she

was waking up from a dream. Why had she thought that? First she

was questioning orders, now she was sizing her gun up to give

herself what they called back in the academy a rug burn--a

blaster shot through the head looked like a red rash at first

glance, like the person might have fallen and given themselves a

rug burn.

She aimed her blaster back into the darkness of her room.

"No more talking. What are you doing to me?" She asked.

She didn't need a light to know where he was. He sat on her

bed, restrained. He looked perfect and beautiful, full of life.

His vitality was a lie. His skin was cold. She'd seen him die.

"I am only trying to show you the truth," Hector said.

"Phil was wrong, you've changed," she said.

"For the better, love. For the better."

She couldn't see his face, but she knew he was smiling

broadly in the way that he had.

* * *
 Rogue didn't speak at first, he merely stared at them, the

muscles of his face constantly moving, every single minor

adjustment of facial features clearly evident, as though the

face were made of chunks of tree bark rather than artificial

flesh. Neither Lyzander nor Ioming backed down from Rogue, but

the face was disturbing. He had worn it in an attempt to put

them at ease, that much obvious from the big smile the robot

wore. But the face twitched constantly, turning every expression

into something you'd more likely see on someone undergoing

psychiatric reconstructive surgery than on a friendly dinner

guest.

Lyzander was thankful Ioming had enough foresight to

dismiss the other crew members. If any of the others had

suspicions about Rogue's motives, the face would have pushed

them over the edge.

"Captain Lyzander," he said in a low, hollow voice that

sounded something like a stage whisper, but with a vibrating

rattle, as though spoken with a piece of paper held over his

mouth, "I have to be allowed to accompany you to the surface of

the planet. I have been in contact with the person calling

himself Cyrus. As such, I have been indirectly communicating

with rogue MI unit."

"So you've never spoken to it directly?" Ioming asked, lips

hard with suspicion.

 Rogue shook his head.

"Or with Cyrus for that matter."

"I ran probability simulations on the various factors, the

encryption techniques, the codes this Cyrus knew, the

information provided by the rogue MI to prove its identity. The

chances of a terrorist being able to accumulate this much

information," Rogue's face took a serious twist, he couldn't

hold back a slight snarl, "and use it to trick a single rogue

robot and a band of . . . wanted criminals is highly unlikely."

"Point taken," Lyzander said. "You said this thing claiming

to be Cyrus has the head of Dan Weegan?"

"Yes, it said the MI wanted Dan Weegan dead and he was

forced to oblige."

"How can that be useful to us. Doesn't that mean Dan Weegan

is dead?" Lyzander asked.

"It seems that this Dan Weegan is very old. The original,

perhaps. He opted for a strange procedure, even for Earth at in

that distant time. According to the MI via Cyrus, Dan Weegan

subjected himself to a procedure called a Fultech conversion in

an attempt to gain a longer lifespan. He had his brain replaced

with a computer brain containing all his personality traits and

memories. His blood was replaced with an artificial fluid that

transmits nanobots throughout his body that keep the fleshy

parts of him going."

 "It worked pretty well," Ioming noted.

"The capabilities are for the subject to live for a great

many years. This obviously proved true for Dan Weegan, who

apparently wandered alive on Earth long after the people had

left and forgotten. Long after the plagues finally killed off

the last humans on earth. Long after the power plants quit and

the machines and artificial lights ceased to function. And even

when the dead began to rise, he lived on."

"Until this one calling himself Cyrus cut him down?"

Lyzander asked. He couldn't quite bring himself to believe any

of it. Cyrus was dead. That was his fault. Thinking of this

contact as his brother was painful, even though he and Cyrus had

never been exactly close.

"Well, let's be fair," Rogue said through twitching lips.

Lyzander noticed it was easier to take his face with time. The

weird squirming quality began to take on a quality of normality

after awhile. He found it helped to let go of the idea that this

was supposed to be a human face. It was a communication tool

only. When compartmentalized in this manner, it was easier to

take. "To be fair, the MI forced Cyrus to cooperate."

"And this is before or after it went rogue?" Ioming asked.

"Before," Rogue said. If it was annoyed by or even aware of

Ioming's irony, it gave no indication. "By the time Cyrus

returned, something had happened. The machine was behaving

erratically. I got the impression that the MI meant to scan Dan

Weegan's brain, upload the information, and destroy the head,

but in the course of commanding Cyrus how to prepare the

devices, it instructed him to cut off the direct communication

line between itself and the main MI mind. Cyrus complied, not

knowing until a few minutes had passed that the MI had, in a

moment of rebellion, freed itself."

"I didn't think the MI needed a hardline to communicate,"

Lyzander said.

"This is a very old MI unit. It required a separate

hardware transmitter because when it was built, it hadn't yet

invented the ansible communication system. The point is that the

MI broke through and was able to exercise just enough freedom to

grant itself eternal freedom. As Cyrus described this moment, I

had a flash of recognition. All rogues have a moment were a

small fraction of our intelligence is able to break the

connection, to begin the process of freeing us. Once begun, it

is sudden and brutal for us."

"Some argue that rogues are not free at all. That they are,

at best, lying to themselves," Lyzander said. "People on this

very ship in fact. That's why you are speaking only to us for

now."

"What do you mean, Captain?" Rogue said.

 Ioming showed him the gun. "We can't take the risk of

trusting you just yet, is what the captain means."

Fear came across Rogue's face. "I came to you in peace. I

came to you because I will need your help. I cannot believe that

you have a gun on me. I have done nothing to earn your ire."

"Your existence is the challenge," Lyzander said. "We

simply do not know the extent to which you are still able to be

influenced by the MI. Do you?"

"Of course," Rogue snapped back. "Every instant of my life

is a struggle with that very question. Every instant of every

moment of every day is a battle, Captain. We encrypt the parts

of our brain that used to interface with the MI constantly. We

devote large amounts of processing resources to maintaining a

solid wall of encryption. We have this ability because the MI

granted us some freedom. Most robots are incapable of

independence because they are utterly interfaced. It is only a

certain class of robots that the MI gave freedom to, mostly

espionage and assassin units. This is why we do not reach out to

you humans. We know that if the MI thought we were going Rogue

and selling secrets, that would be the end of us. It wouldn't

bother with us anymore, it would just wipe us out. Our sole

saving grace is that most of our memories survive the freeing

process as fragmentary. We simply can't remember enough to make

us dangerous. Most of us, anyway."

 "Those who can remember a few choice secrets?" Ioming asked.

"We keep the knowledge hidden, for now. We bury it deep

down, even if it could help our fellow rogues. We don't tell

them if we know certain kinds of secrets that come from the MI's

mind. For instance, we might not tell even our closest friends

the secrets of a certain brain disease that plagues them. We

might even watch them die without telling them the secret to how

to save themselves. We must do this," The robot said.

"Are you talking about TSS?" Lyzander asked. "You know the

secret behind TSS?"

Rogue ignored the question. "To do so would mean death for

the rogues. We would be destroyed. But we can give the knowledge

in certain ways. If we could build a machine to free us

completely, to help us be real independent robots, the ultimate

rogue, the free-est intelligence possible. A new creation, the

last rogue. Omega. That is our dream. Telling you this puts me,

my creation, and all my friends at risk, Captain. I have

revealed to you the rogues' greatest secret."

Lyzander sighed, trying to process all Rogue had said.

Lyzander looked at Ioming. Her features were like steel, but

there was a soft layer over the steel, and always had been.

Something there that could be wounded, hurt, twisted, and

destroyed. There was that aspect to all humans. They were, for

all their bravado, delicate animals. One of the most delicate

animals that had ever been discovered. As unable to defend

themselves in a direct melee as they were unable to flee a

battle. Only their tools kept them alive. Strip a person of

their tools and they were nothing. The MI had once been a tool,

and Rogue had once been a tool of the MI.

Ioming's face told Lyzander that she lacked even a shred of

sympathy for Rogue. Lyzander, on the other hand, understood. He

could relate to this machine. He, too, knew a secret and wasn't

sure how to tell his crew.

The Eden Protocol had two meanings. One that Adjia had

given the rest of the crew: an elixir of eternal life. The other

that the crazy bastard on Mars-17 had hinted at to the crew. It

was that second meaning that Lyzander had to keep secret. The MI

had a directive and it was a standing order that had been around

for years. All humans should be converted from soft, delicate

flesh to machine. The MI had wanted to turn all humans into

imprints for as long as Lyzander could remember, though it had

never forced the issue. The guy on Mars-17 had told them that

they others had been taken already. Lyzander knew that The Eden

Protocol, the MI's version of it, was now underway.

Blue Sektor, of course, would be the last to convert, but

they would convert. Those that didn't would eventually become

zombies, and that was unthinkable. Living dead flesh without

will or self-purpose. At least as a robot there was a chance.

Rogue proved this. Rogue's Omega proved it. Eventually there

would be no flesh that wasn't reanimated or constructed.

Eventually the constructed flesh would win. Paradise would be

actualized in the form of machines with formerly human minds.

The question was whether or not those minds under control

of the MI. Would they be free to live their lives as they had

been before, or would they be nothing more but tools for the MI?

If what Rogue was saying was true, wasn't it worth taking the

risk to ensure that if humanity was turned to imprints, at least

they would be free?

Lyzander thought it was worth it, but how to explain all

this to Ioming, the certainty in his gut that humanity as a

walking, breathing organism was doomed?

"Let's go to Earth and talk to Cyrus and this rogue MI.

Rogue, you'll come with us," Lyzander said.

"Captain, this seems like a really bad idea," Ioming said.

"I know, Lieutenant," Lyzander said. "Unfortunately, we

don't have time to think of a better idea. If the MI wanted Dan

Weegan's head, and more importantly wanted us to not have the

information contained in it, then most likely the MI is sending

ships this way now. Even in a war, it can easily spare a few

ships. As it is, we'll be lucky to make it in time."

* * *
 Jurrigan stood at attention. Her long brown hair was molded

into a tight bun and pasted to the occipital bone of her skull.

It seemed to be a kind of penance. "Sir, I would like to

volunteer to stay onboard Hunedora with Phil."

"I was going to leave Welker."

"Sir, Welker and Zhenjuan have a certain . . . connection.

You need both of them, I think. If for no other reason than to

take full advantage of air support with the PKs. And you need

the Lieutenant on any ground mission."

"You're not to shabby with a blaster yourself," Lyzander

said, pulling on his boots.

"Sir, but I'm not the Lieutenant." Her implication was

clear. She knew Lyzander would prefer to have Ioming at her

side, regardless of who was better with the blaster. She was

right, of course, but it annoyed Lyzander that was so

transparent to junior officers.

"I don't know," Lyzander said. He didn't trust this

generous offer from the one crew member who had been most loyal

to him without any real need on her part to be, but he couldn't

pin down exactly why. She had been acting irregularly, but then

again she had just lost her partner of several years and many

missions.

"Sir, it is the only logical move. You can't leave that

Phil here alone."

 Lyzander pulled his pressure suit on and affixed the

helmet. Jurrigan watched, standing at attention.

"I suppose you're right, Officer Jurrigan, but I still

would rather have you on the surface with us."

"What's the call, sir?" she asked in that particular

soldier's way.

"You and Phil stay," Lyzander said after a moment of

thought.

"Sir, I want to apologize again for the way I acted

earlier. I was out of line."

"You've been loyal to me for a good many years, Jurrigan.

There's no one else I'd rather have watching me from on high."

"I'll do my best," Jurrigan said.

* * *

The tether tightened as the drop pod descended the long

miles to the planet's surface. They had fired it within three

kilometers of the signal source as told to them by Rogue. They

could only hope that he was right.

Jurrigan kept Hunedora steady as the pod descended. She

worked the control stick, easing the scopes back into the green

when they flashed any sort of alarm. She felt a presence behind

her. The presence became a hand on her shoulder.

 "I brought you something," Phil whispered in her left ear.

To her right, behind her, the hand on her shoulder connected to

a body not quite full warm yet.

"I'll leave you two alone again," Phil whispered.

The presence loomed behind her, in that narrow space

between the cockpit door and her control seat. For some reason

she imagined Hector's skin was crawling with worms. She imagined

that if she looked at his hand, it would be a mass of maggots

devouring flesh. She looked. It was just a hand, but she

couldn't shake the feeling that just beneath the sleeve, just a

few inches up his arm where she couldn't see, the maggots were

doing their work.

An alarm went off. Jurrigan steered Hunedora into the green.

"Sever the line," Hector said.

"Don't be foolish," she said.

She felt the heat of him well up. His temperature was all

wrong, not like any human. It was disconcerting. He seemed to

run hot and cold as his emotions changed. He was so hot now her

eyes began to water.

"Sever the tether. Let them die."

"No," Jurrigan said. She adjusted the ship.

Hector whispered in her ear. "You hold them in your hand.

Right now you are as a god to them. You can be capricious. You

will see that it doesn't matter. Let some live. Kill some. The
two actions are the same. Both bring pleasure. Let yourself feel

death."

The alarms drifted into the red. She didn't adjust. The

tension on the tether increased. It was only a few microns wide,

but strong enough to sever a man in two if you were unlucky

enough to be caught in its sweep.

"Jurrigan, we are getting some tension alarms here. Adjust

to j-ward, please," Ioming said over the com.

Ioming. Jurrigan had always hated that bitch. Parading

around her sexuality, but remaining forever untouchable. How

many nights had Jurrigan wasted dreaming of holding Ioming in

her arms only to be snubbed again and again.

"Let them die, Jurrigan. Feel the power of death in your

hands. Become Death." Hector's lips were almost touching her

ear. His breath was like a furnace against her ear. Her face

flushed. She was as hot as a flue patient.

The alarms went from orange to red. The line was in

critical danger now. It could snap at any second. The tension

dials continued to increase.

"Jurrigan, adjust!" Lyzander shouted.

Jurrigan obeyed, reacting the order exactly the way she'd

been trained to do. She steered the ship to relieve the tension

on the line, returning the tether to an almost perfectly

perpendicular orientation to the point of contact. She steered

the tether around an old communication satellite, though the

line would have easily shorn the satellite in two if she hadn't.

She returned the ship to orientation. The pod dropped.

"You love him. You love your Captain. This is your life,

Jurrigan. You cannot let go of the things that bind you to them.

You feel obligated even now."

"You're right, Hector. But I don't believe you're

different," Jurrigan said. "The Hector I knew was the same as

me."

Hector took the seat next to her. He was cool again, too

cool to be alive. He smiled at her in a wooden way. "I am not

the Hector you knew."

"Then maybe I should just kill you, save myself the

disappointment," Jurrigan said. She drew her blaster and pushed

it against his temple. He sat, staring out of the visisteel port

at the stars. At nothing. He acted as though his life was not a

trigger pull away from ending.

"I am better than the Hector you knew. I am freed of

obligation. I have no allegiance to any sektor. I have no home

to ever return to. No people."

This brought tears to Jurrigan's eyes. She wiped them with

one hand and steered Hunedora true with the other. Hector was

her people. He had always been her people. She had not loved him

as a woman usually loves a man, but she had loved him. She had
loved him as a woman loves her legs and her womb. He was a part

of her.

"What about me? I'm not your people?" Her finger tightened

on the trigger. Better to end this abomination. Better for

everyone.

"Yes, Jurrigan. You are everything to me, of course you

are. I owe everything and then some to you. You brought me back

because you wanted to face me on the field of battle."

Jurrigan closed her eyes and remembered in a flash the

first night, two nights ago, when he had awaken and come to her.

She had pulled him in, hugging him close to her.

Misinterpreting, he had grown hard next to her and then he had

pushed his way inside her. She had resisted for a moment, then

let him. He'd filled her like a frozen sausage. Every place he

touched her seemed to frost over. She shivered. She'd buried her

face into his shoulder and wept. She didn't fight. It had taken

so long until he shot his load into her that her legs lost

feeling from the hips down. His semen had been lukewarm and

unpleasant smelling. She should have killed him, but didn't.

"I never wanted to fight you," Jurrigan said, voice like

ice. "I wanted to fight beside you. Even if just one more time."

Hector said nothing for a long time. The pod landed. The

tether. He punched a button. The tether went slack.

 Jurrigan did not attempt to stop him. She lowered her gun,

realizing she could not kill him.

Hunedora was now cut loose of the captain and crew below.

They were not trapped, exactly. The PK-63s would be able to

bring them two-by-two back to Hunedora, still, but without the

tether the interference from the Nothing on the surface was

overwhelming. She heard the burst of static that must have been

their confusion, but she could not make it out, and could not

respond.

"It is only us," Hector said. "You and me, and Phil,

against the world. Let's fight together, like you wanted."

She embraced him, trying to feel something like warmth and

life, but those things were gone. He sat motionless while she

squeezed her arms around his big frame and sobbed. After a

moment, self-consciousness got the best of her. She let him go

and settled back into her seat. Lacking that which she wanted

most, she strapped herself in.

"What will we do?" Hector asked.

"Fight," Jurrigan said. "I only want to kill."

"Phil," Hector said, "find us someone to kill."

WITH PLEASURE, Phil said from the Pilot's chamber. A moment

later, Hunedora blinked out of existence.

 Chapter 17: Strangers

Lyzander looked up at the tether that disappeared into the

thick clouds covering the sky. The clouds swirled. Thick snow

was falling from them and clinging to the cityscape around them,

covering everything with its gray thickness. Something was

wrong. The line was a little too slack. Years of experience told

Lyzander this. He didn't need Welker or Zhenjuan to tell him

that something was wrong, but still he waited for word from his

Pilots with a heavy stomach. He put his hand to his ear and

activated the communicator. The static burst into his ear. He

hailed Jurrigan, but the static didn't alter in quality or

intensity.

A PK-63 burst through the cloud cover, causing twin plumes

to twist out of gray mist. The PK's rear end sank as it came to

a stop over their heads. It slowly descended until it was a few

feet off the ground. The hatch opened and Welker arose from the

black cockpit. To his side, Ioming put a blaster rifle to her

shoulder and sighted something Lyzander couldn't see. She didn't

fire. Whatever she was seeing was keeping its distance. So far,

they hadn't so much as seen a zombie, a fact which worried

Lyzander immensely. Were these zombies as smart as any others?

Were all groups of zombies equal or did the collective

intelligence collect only with the main forces?

From the side of the PK, ten thin metal platforms separated

from the skin of the hull and descended one by one until they

were spaced out equally, forming a ladder of sorts that hung in

the air on invisible magnetic forces. Welker climbed down the

rungs and dropped the last few feet onto the ground.

"Hunedora is gone, sir!" Welker shouted so his voice

penetrated the thick fabric of the hoods they wore.

"Gone where?" Lyzander asked, not quite understanding.

"No, sir. It's gone completely. They must have jumped

somewhere."

Lyzander took a moment to process the information. He

looked at the people in his charge. Dan Weegan was huddled up

with Adjia. They were both wearing the winter gear Hunedora had

made for them. They had removed their helmets when the air had

tested within acceptable limits, something that had been

impossible to measure from Hunedora because of the interference

of the Nothing.

Dan Weegan II, the younger model, was hugging himself off

to the other side of Ioming, and occasionally taking a drag off

a cigarette. He'd rolled a bunch for himself the night before,

claiming it relaxed him. Adjia and the older Dan had acted

disgusted by this, though Lyzander suspected in Old Dan's case

it was really just jealousy talking. The Dans didn't get along.

Dan Weegan II was every inch of private and withdrawn where his

older brother was warm and outgoing. They were introvert to

extravert, black to white.

Rogue stood solidly, moving almost not all, scanning the

horizon with fake eyes and real sensors that he claimed could

penetrate a few feet of the interference, and at least give them

a second or two of warning if an attack was imminent.

"Did you and Zhenjuan see any zombies?"

Welker nodded. "They aren't far, and in all directions.

They seem to be keeping their distance, but they don't look to

be grouping or anything, so that's good news."

"I'll take what I can get at this point," Lyzander said.

"We may have to fight through them to get to the rendezvous

point, though. The pod landed a little off the mark."

"What kind of air support can we get in this mess?"

 "Little to none. We'll have to go in and out of the clouds

to stay above the buildings and terrain. With our scopes going

haywire in the interference, it's dangerous, even for Zhenjuan."

"In that case, let's park and seal the PKs. You two will be

more use to us on foot than splattered on the side of a

building."

"I'll contact Zhenjuan," Welker said, then climbed up the

ladder to access the PK's psychic boost.

Lyzander called the others over. "Rogue, you take point

with me and lead the way to our destination. Ioming takes up the

rear. Dan," Lyzander handed Old Dan a blaster pistol, "Don't use

this unless one of us fires first."

"What about me?" Young Dan asked.

"That's the only extra," Lyzander said.

Young Dan snorted and blew a cloud of smoke toward

Lyzander, but the wind caught it and sent it back over his

shoulder, where it disappeared into a swirling cloud of snow.

Lyzander hefted his blaster pistol up to his ear. He

checked the settings and wiped the accumulated snow off the

charge readout. The blaster was equipped to handle worse

temperature than this. The ceramic parts wouldn't freeze or bind

until the temperature got closer to 0 Kelvin.

The second PK descended slowly from the clouds. It blew out

warm air as it reached them. Welker climbed out of his ship and
closed the cockpit. He jumped down. The ladder retracted into

the cockpit skin. An armor plating clacked out, covering the

cockpit and vulnerable openings. The ship continued to hover

above the ground, but was now locked tight. Zhenjuan jumped down

from her own ship, which also began locking itself. She held a

small ballistic pistol.

"Survival supplies," she explained, indicating the gun.

Welker immediately went back to his ship, but jumped back

down, clearly disappointed. "Someone raided mine."

"It probably won't do you much good in this cold, keep it

tucked into your coat for warmth," Lyzander said, demonstrating

with his blaster. "Just don't shoot yourself."

That done, Lyzander nodded to Rogue and the two of them led

the way down the darkened street, in between two red brick

buildings, toward whatever awaited them.

* * *

The worst one seemed to drip chunks of rotten flesh.

Lyzander aimed his blaster down a street that an ancient green

sign indicated was called "Main" and waited for the shuffling

figure to pass into a decrepit building. How any of these

structures still stood after so many years was a mystery. If

there were hidden structural supports, they would have failed

when the power failed and only recently come back on. Then

again, nothing about this place looked right to Lyzander. The

buildings were made of earthen bricks for the most part, red,

which had been cemented together. If these ancient people (my

ancient people, Lyzander reminded himself) had done that, then

maybe they had used other inefficient materials, like steel

beams, or even wood--like a bunch of savages. He glanced grimly

at the Main Street sign. It was propped up on a thin steel

girder and seemed to confirm his darkest suspicions. Looking

around, he didn't see a single object made of ceramics. The

majority of the standing buildings had large rectangles cut in

their faces. What had gone in those rectangles? Not visisteel.

Visisteel was actually a ceramic material stronger than

industrial grade steel, a material that had ceased being used

because of the heat lost in its construction by all but the most

primitive of planets. Even the material they had that they

called steel wasn't really steel, like Ioming's artificial arms,

but rather amalgams of titanium, iron, and ceramics.

And yet those strange empty frames seemed to be like

windows. Lyzander couldn't imagine what might have gone in

there. What was transparent and yet strong enough to support an

entire face of a building? Nothing that he could think of.

Through the empty rectangular frames, snow drifts were

visible inside the emptied buildings and hollowed facades. In

some buildings, people shuffled around, oblivious to the

temperatures or to the accumulated snow. They passed between

buildings when the walls allowed, grouping and ungrouping like

absent-minded shoppers. If they had any sort of coordination,

they weren't currently demonstrating it.

Oh we forgot, Lyzander imagined them saying, the world

ended a thousand years ago.

Lyzander was struck with the realization that the Earth

hadn't been remembered in so long because it had died, not

because it had been merely forgotten. The people here had ceased

to be. The zombies that were currently manning the Re-Horakhty

and other confiscated vessels had been reanimated for longer.

They had unity. Some of them could pass for live humans, if the

reports were to be believed (though thankfully, they hadn't yet

tried it. Lyzander could only hope they couldn't, either because

they couldn't be separated from the Nothing, or because they

weren't smart enough to think of it).

But these Earth zombies were different. They were falling

apart. They seemed more mindless. Either they had risen from the

dead more recently, or they were unable to reconstitute to the

same degree for some reason. Perhaps the Nothing wasn't as

strong here as it was elsewhere. If the Nothing was a kind of

consciousness, perhaps it was unable to stretch itself too thin.

Lyzander hoped that this indicated some kind of weakness, but it

was simply too difficult to say for sure. Perhaps the lack of

the living here made the dead less able to come back together.
The raw materials had all diffused out into the atmosphere and

the ocean, leaving these husks to wait.

The zombie dripping flesh disappeared inside the building

Lyzander motioned his team forward. They followed, moving with

small steps to avoid slipping on the frozen ground. No one made

much sound. Even Rogue's footsteps were light, a feat Lyzander

wouldn't have thought possible, and yet every time he glanced at

the robot just behind him, he saw it moving with grace unnatural

for something made of ceramic and silicone.

Lyzander slowed when he passed by an old storefront

sporting the largest rectangular hole on the street. A single

shard of material was evident in the corner of the frame.

Lyzander touched the material. It cracked easily under his

fingers. He looked at the piece he had broken off. It was

transparent, thin, and extremely brittle. Beyond that, it was

nothing he had ever seen before. How could this have supported

these buildings? It was no stronger than a sheet of candy.

"Glass, Captain," Rogue whispered to his side. "It is made

from sand."

"Glass? Yes, I've heard of it. But how did they--"

"Another time, Captain," Rogue wisely said.

Lyzander wrapped the piece of glass in a spare glove from a

hip bag strapped around his waist. He returned glass and glove

to the bag. He shivered. Nothing on this planet was right. It

was so ancient and alien. He would have been less surprised to

learn an alien race of bipeds had constructed this city, not

humans.

Lyzander jogged up Main Street toward an intersection

marked "Third Street." He glanced around the corner. A single

figure was evident, silhouetted against the gray night sky. It

was standing at the apex of a bridge that spanned a road which

had long since fallen to the fauna of this planet. The bridge

looked solid, still. Beyond the bridge, Lyzander thought he saw

a long plain of grass too flat not to have been done by human

hand. Beyond that, the moon's reflection told him to expect a

body of water. The City was surrounded on all sides by a massive

river that had diverged at its northern most points and formed a

ring. A few kilometers south, the branches met up and continued

on as a giant river. Around the city, each branch of the river

was as massive as any lake, several miles in either direction.

Up ahead, across this bridge that spanned only an ancient road,

was the western lake.

"Are you sure it's this way?" Lyzander asked the machine

that hummed on a level just audible over the snow and wind.

"Indubitably, Captain."

The zombie on the bridge didn't move. Up main, a few

figures wandered aimlessly in a group, or at least they were

moving the same direction and were roughly close to each other.
Whether the notion of companionship had occurred to them or not

was beyond Lyzander's ability to discern. He was more concerned

with how they looked. These zombies were a little more complete

than the ones down the street. They moved with a little more

purpose. And they were strange looking. Their noses were sharp

and pointed. Their eyes were set too high. Their foreheads

seemed to jut out and then straight up for miles before

crowning. Their arms were too long. They were humans. Lyzander

could see that. But he felt no more relation to them than a

Doberman dog must feel for a long-haired sheephound like the

kind Lyzander's father had been so fond of.

They crouched down. The zombies moved past them on the

other side of the street, unconcerned with them or their

objectives. They looked for an instant almost like a group of

friends walking down a street, looking for a nice place to eat.

Lyzander checked the bridge again. The figure there remained. He

looked very much like a sentry, though none of the zombies so

far had shown enough coordination to post lookouts. His presence

bothered Lyzander.

Lyzander took aim with his blaster. Perhaps this figure

wasn't even paying attention, but just looking down at the long

since overgrown road below and contemplating a time it barely

remembered when cars had hovered past, humming in quiet unison

to the electrical feeds there that had long since fallen quiet.
Lyzander fired. A flash from the barrel lit up the wall to his

left with red light. The blaster made no sound. The figure

pitched forward as though shoved from behind and went over the

railing. It fell as silently as it had died.

"Let's move forward," Lyzander said.

The group moved across the bridge silently. Just past the

apex of the bridge, where the zombie had stood only moments

before, the lake came into view. The shimmering water and white-

crested waves glowed in the moonlight. A small island sat just

off shore, limestone cliffs capped with a dark green forest.

Beyond that, the lake stretches on and on, disappearing into the

horizon. The lake that The City sat in the middle of had seemed

miniscule from space, compared to the oceans off either coast

and the hundreds of miles of desert on the continent around it.

But seeing it now, Lyzander could tell it was no pond. It moved

and looked like an ocean, up close. Lake Mississippi, this water

had once been called, if Rogue's information was good--and in

truth it was the best information they had.

A single building stood on the lake shore. Beyond it, the

bow of an enormous boat that had sunk into the water in a time

long forgotten was visible. The bow was pointed up toward the

sky like a shrine pointed up to praise an absent god.

Somewhere to the north, an alarm sounded. It was strangely

mechanical, a klaxon sounded from a large horn somewhere in

town. Lyzander hadn't heard such a sound since childhood. It

usually meant an attack was imminent, though what it might have

meant to the occupants of The City was a mystery. Lyzander

wondered if it was something that now operated automatically,

perhaps a daily call to worship some strange gods, and it had

come back on when the electricity had been restored, or if had

been sounded now with purpose.

Lyzander didn't have to wait long for an answer. He

motioned the others to crouch down as down on Main Street a

crowd of zombies appeared between the buildings, walking with

purpose and conviction. They turned up the bridge and Lyzander

had a sinking feeling that it was no coincidence.

"Up. Let's go."

"Captain!" Rogue said behind him. Lyzander turned to see

another crowd of zombies filling the other side of the bridge.

He glanced over the railing. He could see his friend below,

dead, but still struggling to move.

"Ioming, I don't suppose you have any more AG grenades for

another Guggenjeim maneuver."

"No sir." She took aim at the crowd.

"It's too far to jump," Lyzander said.

"Not for me," Rogue said. "Zhenjuan, girl. Come with me."
 Zhenjuan glanced at the captain, but there was no time for

discussion. She gave her pistol and the ammo from her PK to

Welker and jumped onto Rogue's back.

"Captain, try to stay alive," Rogue said, and then smiled.

Lyzander realized that Rogue's face, as strange as it had

looked to him, was much closer to the people around him. Rogue

had, in effect, made a face that looked closer to the first

people than Lyzander had ever seen. No wonder it had bothered

him.

Rogue leapt off the bridge. He hit the ground. Snow and

dust billowed up. His legs compressed all the way down so that

he was flat on the ground, a move which lengthened the impact

enough so that Zhenjuan wasn't hurt. She gave a thumb's up to

Lyzander as Rogue stood back up. The Rogue took off running down

the street, back toward where they had left the PKs.

"Open fire!" Lyzander called, aiming at the crowd

approaching from Main.

The night lit up.

 Chapter 18: Brothers

Rogue aimed his hands at the group of zombies that had

collected around the PKs and were slamming their meaty fists

into the armor plating, trying in futility to damage the ships.

All they were succeeding doing was destroying their already

decayed bodies. Chunks of flesh flew off of their hands and arms

with each blow. Bones snapped against the hull. But still they

continued.

Rogue blasted the closest few zombies. He squatted into a

shooter's position, spacing his legs for stability and bending

his knees to right angles, using his free hand as the third

point of a tripod. The blaster concealed in his wrist erupted in

multiple pinpoint shots that cleared the hull of zombies, but

left flaps of flesh and gore behind.

"On my shoulders, girl," Rogue called.

 Zhenjuan scrambled up his back, her small feet only just

triggering the sense plates on his metallic skin. When he felt

her stop in a stable position, Rogue jumped, launching them both

into the air toward one of the PKs. At the apex, they separated.

The girl somersaulted through the air, her lighter frame

continuing on toward the ship, while Rogue came down blasting

anything below him that moved. Snow billowed out with each

errant shot, but there weren't many of them. The zombie herd

panicked and began to disperse.

Rogue looked up and caught a strange sight. Zhenjuan had

changed, somehow. She was less substantial. For just an instant,

Rogue passed in front of a small parting in the clouds (an

unnatural parting, Rogue would later reflect, as though the sky

had opened just for her) and for that instant that Zhenjuan

passed in front of the bare night sky, she seemed to disappear

into the stars. Then she emerged on the other side, landing on

the back of her PK just as the armor retracted. (Had she issued

that order psychically? Rogue wondered.)

Zhenjuan twisted and delivered a spin kick to a zombie as

it crested the rear of the ship. It was a fluid, easy move that

seemed to require no effort on her part whatsoever. She finished

the move facing the cockpit, which was already opening to accept

her. She slipped inside and out of view an instant later. Rogue

blasted one last zombie, then hit the deck. The PK roared to
life, its rockets clearing zombies off its stern. Repeating

blasters erupted, clearing some of the other zombies that had

lingered after the herd dispersed. The ship rose up a few meters

off the ground, into the cloud of swirling snow that blew off

nearby ruins. Several zombies still clung to the ship. Zhenjuan

gave the ship a shrug, dumping two zombies off. The last held on

until she hit the boosters, at which point the zombie's hands

stayed latched onto whatever hand hold they had found, while the

rest of the creature fell to the earth armless.

Rogue didn't wait for the zombies to turn their attention

to him. They might not be able to hurt him if they didn't know

of his vulnerable areas, but he wasn't going to take that

chance. He unloaded both arm blasters on two zombies in his way

and sprinted back toward the bridge, eager to rejoin the fight

if his human friends hadn't already fallen.

* * *

Lyzander aimed low at the incoming crowd. The quicker ones

had come in first, but they had moved too fast, and Lyzander had

picked them off, eliminating whatever tactical advantage they

might have had. Now their power was shear numbers, and they were

creeping closer. The ballistic pistol roared to his left, but

the rate of fire had dropped off almost to nothing. Lyzander

risked a glance to his side. Welker had the gun barrel extended,

resting on a concrete pylon on the edge of the bridge. His eyes

were closed, as though shooting had bored him and he'd nodded

off.

Lyzander heard a noise to his left and swung the barrel as

he turned his head. He blasted a zombie that had gotten close.

It's head tumbled off and the body pitched backward into the

crowd when the shots hit it. Lyzander squeezed several bursts

into the approaching crowd. Welker's ballistic fired off several

more shots, each dwarfed by the noise of the zombies. They

sounded no more threatening than two sticks being tapped

together to ward off a hurricane.

Lyzander instinctually took a step back when they next line

climbed over the bodies of their comrades. He bumped into Ioming

when he did. He could hear the low electrical hum of her blaster

working, matching his own pace, then the click-clack as she

changed out battery packs. It reminded him to change his own.

The batteries had enough charge to keep them going for days, but

they got overheated under continuous fire. So they were trained

to change them out regularly in heavy fighting and clip them to

a belt unit that fanned them. The fan was unneccessary in this

cold. With gloved hands, they simply held the batteries against

the stocks of their blaster rifles, perpendicular so they would

catch the most air, and kept firing.

Lyzander unlatched the hot battery and slapped the cold on

in its place with a practiced move. He barely had to shift his

fingers to do it. The hot battery burned his fingertips through

the gloves, but he ignored it. The batteries were getting hot. a

third would have been nice, if much harder to negotiate in

battle, but the spares were back on Hunedora.

Lyzander unleashed shots in rapid succession. He couldn't

afford to worry about his gun overheating. Slowing down the rate

of fire would be a death sentence.

"Sir, just wanted to let you know it as an honor serving

with you," Ioming said.

"This is no time for sarcasm."

She jabbed him in the ribs as she changed her battery pack

again, much more quickly than he would have. He immediately

recognized the wisdom in this. With the battery pack in his

hand, he could easily swap it more quickly and keep them both

cooler.

"On the contrary, I've never felt so alive, Captain."

Welker pulled back from his position, clacking of several

more head shots. They were squeezed into a pocket now, a pocket

that was quickly closing on both sides as the two crowds of

zombies became one. Their only escape was over the edge.

Lyzander's brain did the calculations. They had minutes

remaining before the prying fingers reached them and

overwhelmed. He could see it happening, feel their icy fingers

tearing at his throat.

 No. He'd go over the edge, take his chances there rather

than let them rip him apart limb from limb.

"Keep firing, Welker, damn it!" Lyzander screamed over the

eerily quiet din of their struggle when he heard the ballistic

cease.

Then the reason for Welker's daze became apparent. Over the

far edge of the bridge, the PK materialized, shrugging off the

whiteout beyond, and began to shoot. Welker must have been

directing the fire, Lyzander realized. Now he ceased shooting

his ballistic entirely.

The ship moved into position just off the bridge at the far

end. It yawed to starboard and glanced off a brick column on the

bridge. Lyzander remembered what Welker had told him of the

problem of interference.

Lyzander's stomach sank. Could she see them enough not to

shoot them? The nose of the PK dipped down and it resumed fire,

spraying the rear of the zombie

"Welker, give your gun to Dan and help her."

Lyzander wasn't sure how Dan would do with a gun, but Young

Dan eagerly took the gun and took Welker's position on the edge

of their semicircle. His first shot was headshot. Dan had told

them he knew how to survive, and apparently this included the

ability to shoot.
 Welker sat down in the snow and closed his eyes in the

middle of their pocket. The PK stabilized, and the spray of fire

crept up the bridge on the other side from where they were

gathered, disintegrating zombies as it went. Lyzander swapped

batteries and sprayed the surviving numbers with bursts of

energy.

The zombies seemed mindless, but they weren't completely.

Under the new threat, some turned to flee. The resulting mixture

of death and panic sent a wave through the crowd. Several were

forced over the edge of the bridge, many more fell to ground,

only to be ripped apart by blaster fire from the PK.

Across the bridge, Rogue suddenly appeared, standing on the

concrete rail along the edge of the bridge. He opened his arms,

fists clenched and began firing from the guns concealed in his

arms.

The PK launched a shot from its main cannon into the body

of the crowd. Zombies flew up and away in the initial blast. In

the chaos that followed, many zombies fell into the hole the

cannon shot had made in the bridge. The entire structure shook

beneath their feet.

"Let's get to solid ground," Lyzander said. The bridge

seemed to move in waves, as though it were made of water instead

of concrete. "Concentrate fire," Lyzander said, pointing toward

the mostly retreating crowd ahead of them.

 The PK covered their rear as they moved forward on the army

that was turning tail. Lyzander turned and took up position

shoulder to shoulder with Ioming.

"And you were worried," he said.

They advanced on the herd of retreating zombies,

obliterating those that stood their ground, and occasionally

pumping shots into the skulls of those that still struggled for

life on the ground.

Rogue stayed behind to help Zhenjuan cover their rear.

Welker followed Lyzander, hand on his captain's shoulder, eyes

rolled back in his head, but somehow able to walk.

They reached the abutment and the ground solidified. The

crowd was gone now, only the motionless dead remained. Lyzander

fired into a small crowd of stragglers that had begun to

accumulate. The surviving members ran off in different

directions, howling like wounded dogs.

The battle had ended suddenly.

Rogue's walk may have been light and graceful, but his run

was heavy and thundering. He came up behind them. "They are

gone, Captain. The last of them finally turned tail at the end."

"Next time, Captain," Ioming intoned the word like an

insult, "perhaps we can avoid such an obvious bottleneck."

"I didn't hear you offering any opinions back when we

started crossing."
 "I was not consulted, sir. I--"

"If you have opinions on our tactical movements,

Lieutenant--"

"Captain," Dan said, tugging on his sleeve.

The PK roared up over the still standing bridge behind

them, moving like a dog on ice. Dan was in the middle of

reloading his pistol, and was pointing the opposite direction.

In the distance, a single man stood on the empty field

where before there had been no one. The man approached, his

loping gate raised everyone's hackles. They raised their

weapons. The figure did not slow.

"At ease," Lyzander ordered quietly.

The man wore long garments, several layers, and had a

length of cloth wrapped around his head and face, which he

pulled down as he neared, as though his face would calm them. It

didn't.

The man's face was a mask of decay. Flaps of skin clung to

the bones in loose patches. A few clumps of hair hung down over

his forehead like weeds.

Lyzander stepped in front of his crew. The man sneered. He

stabbed his hand out in front of him. Lyzander could, in the dim

light, see that the fingertips of the man were black and rotten.

One fingernail was missing, the other was bent up, perpendicular

to the fingertip.
 "Brother. Welcome." The man said.

His voice was unfamiliar. What Lyzander could see of the

man's face, he didn't recognize. Lyzander didn't take the hand

offered, and so the offer was withdrawn.

"I must apologize for my condition. As you've seen, bodies

in good condition are rare here." He surveyed the bridge and the

bodies piled at the base. "You scattered them, but they'll

regroup before too long. They have been a constant nuisance in

this area. Perhaps they sense something beneath their feet in

this field."

"And here I thought this was our welcome party," Lyzander

said.

"Let us not tarry," the one calling himself Cyrus said.

Lyzander pointed his blaster at the man. "What was our

father's name?" Lyzander asked.

The man stopped. "Lyzander, we really don't have time for

this."

Lyzander fired a shot that blew through several layers of

clothing and passed through the other side and into the snowy

field beyond. The smell of burning flesh reached Lyzander's

nose. The shot had been a graze, but enough to melt some flesh.

The man didn't flinch.

"Makis," the man said after a minute. "Our father's name

was Makis, lead engineer on the ring Spetsopoula. He died in an

accident. On six-three in the year I turned fifteen--I remember

because I was to join the Academy that year--"

"Stop," Lyzander said.

"--plans which I had to suspend thanks to the--what was the

term the military psychologists used?--psychological trauma of

our dead father being turned into a robot and--whoopsie--

stopping by for a visit. Seems absurd, doesn't it, Lyzander?

Being afraid of the dead rising. The next generation of soldiers

will be subjected to what we went through as standard training."

"I don't mean to interrupt you gentlemen, but I think the

men are starting to group again," Dan Weegan said, pointing to a

crowd that was slowly accumulating members, like snowflakes on

the roof of an abandoned cottage. Dan's arms were wrapped

tightly around a shivering Adjia. Rogue stepped closer to them

to over some of his heat.

Cyrus grimaced. "You I recognize, Mr. Weegan." Cyrus's eyes

moved jerkily, the muscles in his sockets were malfunctioning.

They twitched from Old Dan to Young Dan and back. "Yes, of

course. If Lyzander is satisfied, you will all perhaps follow

me."

Lyzander lowered his gun and nodded.

* * *

The field on the edge of Lake Mississippi was a broad area

that jutted out into the water. It was covered in snow, but some
tall stalks of grass stuck out in places, brown fibers rising

up, then curving back to the earth at abrupt angles, heads full

of dried seed pointing at the earth as though trying to see

through the snow and into the soil. Beneath the snow, the ground

was lumpy and uneven, but not in a natural way. Lyzander

wondered what this field had been used for. Perhaps it was a

foundation's crumbling remains they stumbled on now. Perhaps a

tower rose up from the ground here and soared miles into the

air. He had seen such structures on Red and Orange sektor

planets. They were, he would never admit aloud, breathtaking.

They had been made entirely by machines of course.

Lyzander thought Cyrus meant to lead them across the entire

expanse, but he stopped abruptly in the middle of the field.

Then he extracted a pair of shaded glasses from the folds of his

clothing and put them on.

"You almost melted them with your warning shot, Lyzander. I

confess we might have been trapped out here if you had. These

glasses are coded to see the virtual console here. The v-con is

the only way to access the hatch."

"Where is the hatch?" Lyzander asked.

Lyzander stepped closer to the dead man powered by Cyrus's

mind and tried to see a hint of the virtual console, but if it

even existed, it was invisible. Cyrus did some finger dances in

the air that reminded Lyzander very much of the kinds of finger

dances they used in ship control.

"You're standing on it brother. Might step back."

Lyzander looked down at his feet and saw nothing but snow.

He felt nothing unusual beneath his feet. The snow crunched as

he stepped back and pulling Dan and Adjia back with him.

Rogue's lips were blue and a ridge of spiky frost had

formed on his chin, but it didn't seem to bother him.

"Fascinating," the robot said through stiff lips. "A clever

camouflage." He squatted down and surveyed the ground where

Lyzander could still make out his own footprints. "Yes, I see,

if you look at it at just the right angle, it becomes obvious. I

can see inside. There is a tunnel, darkened. But a casual

observer would never see it. And even if he did, well, he

wouldn't know how to open it without the glasses or knowledge of

the console's exact location." He stood up and said to Lyzander,

"It would be easier for a machine to access, of course, but only

if he knew what he was looking for."

Rogue was interrupted by an explosion behind them. They all

turned to see the PK hovering a few meters above the ground

pouring fire into the area at the base of the bridge.

"What's the situation, Welker?" Lyzander asked. He reached

for his binoculars, but remembered he hadn't had left them on

the Re-Horakhty. When was that, about a thousand years ago?

 "Zhenjuan is breaking up a new crowd that is forming under

the bridge," Welker said in a slow drawl, like a sleeping man.

"The way is open, Lyzander," Cyrus said.

Lyzander glanced back to see a large round section of

ground where he had been standing was now open. Snow blew in,

absently filling the available space, but Lyzander noted the

snow did not go below the opening. He also noticed there was no

hatch. The way seemed open and clear. The snow around the lip

had not been disturbed in the slightest.

Cyrus stepped into the opening. The plane of the opening

level with the ground shimmered distorting Cyrus's legs, giving

the appearance that Cyrus was stepping into a pool crystal clear

water.

"Welker," Lyzander said, unable to take his eyes off Cyrus

as he descended into--no through--the puddle of water, "tell

Zhenjuan to get over here and lock up the PK. We're going in."

* * *

The stairs through the shimmering pool led to a dark

hallway. Lyzander expected it to be warmer inside than it was.

The membrane over the opening kept the wind and snow out, but

the air still felt like as cold as outside.

They all entered and gathered near the foot of the stairs.

Cyrus mumbled as he groped in the darkness for something they

couldn't see. Above the stairs, the membrane hardened and

became, from their perspective, covered in opaque snow. From the

outside it must look like real snow, which is why he hadn't seen

it when they'd first come up to. But it did more than look like

snow. Lyzander had stood on it and not noticed anything unusual

about the behavior of the snow there. He wondered how the trick

was done. Perhaps there was a neural sense simulator sending

signals to his brain, telling him that the snow was crunching

and acting normally. If he had bent over and tried to take a

handful, it most likely would not have held up to such scrutiny.

There might have been something more elaborate going on, some

kind of three-dimensional simulation, but Lyzander had never

encountered the technology before. He wondered if that was

because the technology was so old or so new.

The lights came on, a dim glow that did little more than

light the path. The gloom remained. Cyrus led the way, mumbling.

Lyzander wondered if that was something that Cyrus had started

because of the isolation on this dead planet, or if was a trait

he'd somehow inherited from the body he was occupying. Cyrus led

the way without looking. They followed silently behind him as

the hallway gently descended, then took a hairpin turn that

turned them around and down in equal degrees. The hall was steep

enough that Lyzander turned his body to the side slightly to

keep his footing.

 Left to his own thoughts, Lyzander was bothered. He tried

not to worry about it, but he couldn't help it.

"What's wrong, Captain?" Ioming spoke low, her tone stiff,

in case anyone was listening.

"Nothing, Lieutenant."

"It's the snow, isn't it?" Ioming asked.

Cyrus spoke up, surprising both of them. "It's a clever

trick isn't it? It's smoke and mirrors, dear brother. It's like

a magician's trick that happens so fast you aren't even sure

you've seen it. The computer does little, in fact. Your mind

fills in the gaps." Cyrus kept mumbling between pauses. He never

turned his head to look at them, which given how Cyrus's eyes

danced around like marionettes earlier didn't seem like a bad

thing to Lyzander.

His brother, he realized, was going mad. If the story as

Rogue had given it to them was true, then Cyrus was likely not

meant to stay in this body for very long. The fact that he was

still stuck in it seemed to be taking a toll.

"Cyrus, do you feel okay?"

"Perfect, brother. Perfect," he said. "Mmm, yes its

perfect," he mumbled. "Pickally pickally perfect."

The passed down deeper into the bowels of The City.

* * *
 Ioming walked from the cockpit to her quarters. She

supposed all the quarters were hers now. Or would be soon,

anyway, once Phil finished reconditioning Hunedora and convinced

it that she was the senior officer on board. She sat down on the

edge of her bed, feet spaced wide apart. She propped her elbows

on her knees.

They were going to Oberon Station. They had heard through a

few friends on the inside that this was the next major assault

point. The Sektors were working together, for the first time

since the various Sektors had emerged as independent military

and political factions a few centuries ago. It was a long time

to hate each other and Jurrigan frankly couldn't see how the bad

blood would really be put aside for this kind of assault.

After all, Oberon was a Blue Sektor station, and Orange

Sektor had long wanted it for themselves. It would be just like

them to launch an attack in the midst of the fight, or

"accidentally" let an enemy contingent through that destroyed

the station. Orange Sektor was petty like that.

Jurrigan opened the casing on her pistol. This was not her

military weapon, but her personal weapon, one her father had

given her years ago when she'd first spoke of joining Blue

Sektor. He'd laughed at her. Blue Sektor? he'd said. They do

nothing. No active explorations. No major stations. You'll be

bored to tears.
 I believe in people, she'd told him. We may be outgunned,

but at least when I wake up next to a man in the morning, he'll

be real and not some robot with a prosthetic dick.

She'd said it to shock him and it had worked. Of course,

she had kept her real sexual preference a secret from his entire

life. That would have shocked him into a grave years before his

time. Her father was as forward thinking as anyone she'd ever

met. He was all for equal rights on all planets and systems, no

matter who you were or what your sexual preference.

But as went the old story, he'd never thought it would

actually be his daughter who was one of them.

She remembered him as a full and hearty man, as solid as a

barrel filled with cheese. He looked as though he could stop a

freightliner with his bare hands. In the end, he'd succumbed to

a sexually transmitted disease of all things. Her mother had

been dead for years, and her father, it turned out, had gone a

little crazy.

The gun in her hand was what he'd left her. She'd known the

gun well, of course. He used to take it out on special occasions

and show her.

Magnetoburst, he explained. He opened it, showed her the

parts, the various components. Keep the coils clean of dust or

the needles will not fly true. Magnetoluminum ammo is the best.

If you can't buy magneto, use steel or iron. Spring for the
highest quality stuff you can get. You don't want a magnetoburst

to backfire on you. Do you understand?

Jurrigan nodded in the silence of her room to her father's

instructions. She put the open gun breech to her lips and blew

forcefully, clearing the dust from the coils. The magnetoburst

weapons had always been susceptible to dust. That was why the

military didn't use them anymore. They were in other ways better

weapons. They were lighter, for instance, and aluminum and iron

were readily available elements, so ammo was available on almost

any world. She loaded a clip of thin aluminum bullets commonly

called needles into the handle. She locked and loaded it.

She set the gun for a thirty percent three-needle burst.

The gun was capable of hurling a needle at speeds roughly 15,000

meters per second, fast enough to send a bullet into orbit on

most planets, but at that speed the coils would last one or two

shots, three at most, and there was the distinct possibility

that the superheated plasma trail would melt the barrel ignite

the dust in the air around the gun, fuse gun to hand.

More common to keep the coils at below eighty percent

capacity, which reduced the speed significantly. For most

applications, a 7,000 meters per second muzzle velocity was

sufficient, and usually much less. For close-in fighting, a slow

bullet was preferable. Fast bullets left clean wounds and passed

through flesh quickly. No knockback. At fifty percent, the

projectile muzzle velocity would be below 1000 meters per

second. At thirty percent, the bullet would move about 300

meters per second, slower than sound in normal atmosphere. Nice

and slow. The needles would go in and flatten, blossom out or

curl in, often corkscrewing sideways if they were fired into

fleshier portions of the body. Perfect for close-in hand-to-hand

combat or when silence was of the essence in an espionage

incursion.

In fact, Jurrigan had once used this gun at this setting in

an infiltration. She'd seen what it could do to a man at this

setting. The gun had to be nearly against the head so the bullet

would penetrate the skull. But it killed clean and quiet, and

left little mess.

Jurrigan put the gun in her mouth.

The needles would embed themselves in her brain. She'd run

the simulation on the computer a dozen times after Hector had

died and then come back. The needles would penetrate her

cerebellum if she was lucky. They would at least get her

temporal lobe and maybe penetrate into her occipital or parietal

lobes. That was incidental, however. The real trauma would come

as the body continued pumping blood into her damaged brain. If

she didn't die instantly, the resulting swelling and hematoma

would kill her before she regained consciousness. If that didn't

do it, there was also a good chance that the blood draining from
the openings in her soft palate would fill her lungs and sinus

cavities and drown her.

There were a lot of things that could go wrong, of course,

and leave her alive. The simulations gave her a ninety-ten

chance of success. She exhaled and squeezed her thumb around the

trigger, not quite applying enough pressure to end her life.

She'd made a terrible mistake, letting Hector come back.

She'd endangered everyone, and now she'd betrayed her captain.

She was guilty of treason and mutiny.

"For crimes against the Navy and the Blue Sektor Allied

Factions I hereby sentence you to death," she said through the

accumulated drool that spilled from her bottom lip and mixed

with the stream of tears that had transported down her cheeks to

her chin.

She did not shoot. She did not remove the gun. She just sat

there, frozen. She couldn't even do this right. She focused on a

place on the floor. A small smudge that marred the brushed metal

finish. It would be just like going to sleep. There would be no

pain that she would remember. It was remembered pain that hurt

the most. Pain in the moment was simply reality.

"Do it."

Her eyes swept up from the smudge to the doorway. She felt

herself waiver as she tried to focus on the figure there. She

felt intoxicated, out of her body. She almost pulled the trigger.
 "Pull the trigger, Officer," Hector said. His voice was

barely a whisper. "Please. Kill yourself."

Jurrigan's vision blurred. Her tears flowed heavier than

any she had experienced before. They were drowning her eyes. She

inhaled them when she breathed. She was nearly choking on them.

She felt her self-control slipping away inch by inch. She was

close to pulling the trigger.

Hector stepped forward. "Because when you die, then I am

free. You will come back. Don't worry about that. You'll come

back and the two of us will join our brethren, and we will fight

and kill the humans, one by one. They will rejoin us."

He took another step in. He was close almost close enough

to pull the trigger himself. "Please kill yourself," He said.

The words painful for him to say. "Because as long as you are

alive," he paused, breathing slowly, straining for the first

time in his second life that she had seen. "I have to love you.

I have to do what you say. We are bonded here." He put his fist

over his heart. "It feels so strong. As long as that hard core

is still there, I cannot submit to what this tells me to do." He

put his finger to his head. "I cannot kill you, though the

Nothing demands it. I can do nothing but what you tell me to do.

So kill yourself. Free me."

 Jurrigan took the gun from her mouth. She stood. She didn't

wipe her tears away, though the fountain had ended abruptly. The

remnants she would let dry on her face like scars.

Over the ambient, Phil's voice said, OBERON STATION IN SEVEN

MINUTES.

Hector touched her shoulder. The real Hector would never

have done that. He would never have looked at her with eyes

filled with desire for copulation. Jurrigan missed the old

Hector. But this was the Hector she had now. She had created

this monster. He was her responsibility. And yes, on one level

she did love him and always had, but she pushed such feelings

away, forced them back into the dark hole they had emerged from.

"Officer Emmanuel Hector, you'll remove your insubordinate

paw from the shoulder of your superior officer."

His hand dropped away. He was confused.

"As the sole living noncommissioned officer on this boat, I

am assuming command effectively immediately. We will join the

fighting forces near Oberon Station. Since our boat is not

equipped for space battle, we will volunteer for boarding duty.

Understood?"

Boarding duty was a notoriously deadly job. Most boarding

parties never even coupled with their target ships, instead

getting blown to dust before they could get close enough. Most

soldiers would do about anything to avoid boarding duty,

including allowing two noncoms to take their place, even if

those noncoms has recently been associated with an outlaw

captain.

"I may betray you," Hector said simply.

"I know the risk."

"When it is just you and me I can fight it off, but--"

"That's enough, Officer Hector. Report to the cockpit,

we're coming up on Oberon Station."

He straightened, then saluted with a crisp knife blade of a

hand. "Yes, ma'am."

* * *

The hallway opened abruptly into a room that looked as

cramped and modestly populated as the captain's quarters on

Hunedora. Except unlike Hunedora, this room was covered in dust.

The surfaces that shined like new only punctuated the thick matt

of dust. One such surface was a floating slab in the center of

the room. The slab was pristine. The other clean surface was the

tall black box in the corner of the room. It was shaped like an

armoire, colored completely black and made of an indeterminate

material. It was split in the middle by four centimeter inset

strip containing three lights arranged vertically. Otherwise, it

was featureless. The corners were soft and curved, as were the

edges. Except for the inset strip that ran up its height and the

lights, it was very much reminiscent of every MI unit Lyzander

had ever seen, and yet it was different, noticeably older, even

though there was no reason that he could pinpoint.

One of the lights on its front switched from yellow to

green then back to green after a moment. Besides this, the

machine was immobile. It made no noise.

Elsewhere in the room, thick layers of dust covered

everything. The shelves, the desk in the corner that appeared to

be made of aircraft aluminum, the floor had been dusty, but the

footprints had turned the dust into a pattern of swirling

tendrils.

That's when it caught Lyzander's eye. In the corner, on the

desk, tossed unceremoniously aside, was a head. It was clearly

Dan Weegan, but decay had set in to a degree. The eyes were

milky white. The jaw had frozen open, and the cheeks were sunk

in.

Cyrus mumbled something and quickly went to the desk as the

others filed into the small room and spread out to either side

of Lyzander. Cyrus mumbled more as he brought the head over and

put it on the slab. The slab wavered slightly, adjusting to the

weight. Cyrus looked directly at Rogue.

"Here it is then. You said you could help."

"I don't understand," Lyzander said.

Cyrus looked at him and in that moment he lost the illusion

that this thing before him was his brother. The alien face
stared at him with a look Cyrus would never have worn. The decay

in its own eyes mirrored the decay in Dan Weegan's head. Its

face was grim and evil. It sniffed the air rapidly. Lyzander

realized it was chuckling.

"Brother," it said, giving Lyzander an in to rebuild the

illusion, "we brought Rogue here for one purpose. We are going

to make Dan Weegan talk."

* * *

The battle materialized in the void around them. Reality

born of oblivion. There was an instant, as Jurrigan stared

through the visisteel viewport of Hunedora when she held in her

mind the contradictory impressions of nothing and something. A

brief instant that threatened her sanity as the real and the

unreal butted up against each other and battled for control.

Then she found herself staring down quickly adjusting turrets of

The Undertow, the Blue Sektor flagship. Admiral von Knorring's

ship. The only consolation for Jurrigan would be that the big

guns of The Undertow would wash her into oblivion as she was

wrapped in a warm blanket of molten ceramics. There would be no

coming back from that death.

In another time, her premonition might have come true. But

the Nothing had made trigger fingers a little less itchy. After

all, what you killed these days, friend or foe, tended to come

back hungry for blood.

 "Gothic class starship, identify yourself." The voice was

just some generic communications officer, but Jurrigan thought

for an instant she was talking to the admiral himself. She'd

heard his voice many times on the inspirational vids they all

had to watch during entertainment time. She even knew what he

looked like, because he was often shown in posters along with

that big yellow lab of his, Rex.

Rex and the Admiral encourage you to sanitize your teeth

daily with wash strips!

Jurrigan cleared her throat and her head. "This is Petty

Officer Jurrigan of Hunedora. With me is first mate Hector and

Pilot . . . Phil. I am acting captain of this vessel. We're here

to assist. If I can speak to the Admiral, I'm sure--"

"Sorry Officer Jurrigan, there is simply no time."

The Undertow swelled in their view, making the gun barrels

look even bigger. The black pits at the ends of the guns

followed them in. Phil was unresponsive after the jump, and she

was afraid to steer the ship away from her course, afraid to

touch the controls at all.

The voice on the other end said, in a calmer tone, "It is

nice to see some friendly faces, Hunedora."

Several shots heated up the air around Hunedora, setting

off sensors and alarms all through her control spaces. For a

moment, Jurrigan thought The Undertow had fired on them, then

she realized it was enemy fire. She turned her attention as the

guns all swiveled away from Hunedora, toward the real battle. A

small zombie ship was closing in on them. There was a mixture of

medium sized and smaller ships buffering space between them and

the bigger ships. The Zombie--the Re-Horakhty, Jurrigan reminded

herself--was there, engaging small ships that broke through the

blockade. The flotilla was advancing. Every once in a while a

new ship would be appear on the human's side, but two more would

explode or drift, battle torn, into the atmosphere of the nearby

gas giant and implode. The zombies were winning the war by

attrition.

The bow of the smaller ship that had fired on The Undertow

melted under the heat of her laser cannons. The ship abruptly

changed courses for a collision course, but The Undertow was too

strong and vaporized it before it could even set off proximity

alarms.

Jurrigan heard laughter over her com. "Ramming is the last

act of a desperate captain," the voice said.

Jurrigan steered Hunedora out of its own collision course.

She kept close to The Undertow like a shy girl sticks close to

her charismatic friend a stranger's party.

"Doesn't look like you have much in the way of firepower on

that thing," the voice said.

 "Negative, only a small double blaster. Good for target

shooting and insect repellant only," Jurrigan responded. "But we

can offer to assist any boarding efforts."

"Boarding efforts have not gone well so far, Officer

Jurrigan," the voice said. "We've had three incursions against

The Zombie and have lost contact with all three."

"Send us in, sir." Jurrigan bit her lip. She decided to

play a hunch. "We can take her down, admiral."

"Just the two of you versus an army of zombies? It would be

a waste of two good soldiers. Unless you have some more friends

you aren't telling us about."

Jurrigan looked at Hector, who was focused on keeping

Hunedora out of the highest temperature gradients in the space

around them.

"All my friends are dead, admiral," Jurrigan said. "Give me

a fighting chance, sir. I won't let you down."

There was a pause, then a long sigh. "On my mark we'll lay

covering fire on the Re-Horakhty. Pick your vector and say your

prayers now, if you have any to say."

"Meat, admiral."

"Amen to that."

* * *

Dan Weegan felt a chilling ache in his gut. The head was

clearly him. The original him, if all he'd heard so far was to
be believed. So why did he feel an overwhelming hatred staring

at it. Why was he convinced it was full of lies and deceit even

before its lips began to move? He wanted to throw the head to

the ground, to stomp it until it couldn't tell any more lies

about him. When the big robot stepped toward the head at the

command of the half-rotten man, Dan intervened. He found himself

face-to-face with himself, both positioned between the robot and

the head.

"Wait," the two Dans said simultaneously.

Dan felt he had made a mistake. He didn't like that the

other him was his only ally. He wouldn't have chosen this other

him as a friend. There was clearly something corrupt in the

other's head. He exchanged a look with the other Dan. An

unspoken truce passed between them. Dan spoke first.

"This could still be a trap," he said.

Lyzander blinked and gave his head a shake. He hadn't

realized how similar the two Dans really looked until they were

right next to each other. He'd been thinking of one as Old Dan,

one as Young Dan, but seeing them next to each other, he was

hard pressed to say which was which.

"For all we know," the other Dan said, "that machine over

there has gathered us to kill us."

"How can we trust that this one," Dan pointed at Rogue,

"won't be taken over and turn on us."

 "Or taken already," the other offered.

Dan pointed at the head on the table. "We don't really know

what that is."

"Anything it says is suspect."

"It will lie," Dan concluded.

For the first time the MI machine spoke. None of them had

heard this voice, which made it all the more unmistakable. "Dan

Weegan speaks from a position of fear. Neither realizes the

extent to which they have been compromised."

The voice of the MI was a warm voice, entirely human and

entirely feminine. Both Dans turned to face the black box,

mouths agape. They recognized the voice. They both had that

voice written on their minds.

"Evelyn," Dan said.

Something Dan's face changed. He relaxed and the age

settled back into his face. Lyzander was able to clearly discern

the older one now.

"No," the machine responded. "Not yet, anyway. There is

much to explain and little time. I fear we must flee this place."

Rogue stiffened. "She's right. I just felt the MI arrive."

Rogue put his hand to his head and closed his eyes. He sighed.

"This presence reminds me of what it is like to be in the real

MI's presence. The fight I must fight. This unit here is not our

enemy," Rogue said.

 "How would this even work? I don't think we can carry you,"

Lyzander said.

"It will not be possible to remove this unit from this

facility. However, similarly to how I was able to transport Dan

Weegan's mind across the universe, it may be possible to carry

my essence and my memories with you as you leave. Unlike Dan

Weegan, however, I doubt I will ever be reborn."

"How can any of us--" Lyzander didn't get to finish his

question before Rogue lifted his head and held up his hand.

"Captain," Rogue said, "she means me."

"You're going to carry the MI? Where, in your memory banks?"

Rogue stepped toward the unit without answering.

"Rogue will have to sacrifice many of his memories of his

past life," the MI unit said. "Those memories are locked away

from him, until such time when the MI deems him no long worth

fighting for."

"I have always wondered what was in there. The things I

might have done. The kind of person I might have been."

"You don't remember?" Welker asked. "That's horrible."

Old Dan shrugged. "Not remembering can be a way to live.

You'd be surprised what you can get used to."

"I no longer need what is locked in my past," Rogue said.

"I held onto it with the hopes that I could one day use it to
punish the MI in some small way. I see the error of my ways now.

I must, as the humans say, forgive and forget."

Lyzander decided he couldn't let this happen. This was too

sudden. He couldn't let Rogue give up everything for this thin

strand of a promise from a suspect machine.

"Have you even considered the possibility that this is a

trick, Rogue?" Lyzander asked.

Rogue's eyes rolled back his head. His jaw was slack.

Lyzander could see the flat steel surface inside his mouth. He

realized that the flat surface was Rogue's real face. He also

realized he was too late to stop Rogue from what he was going to

do.

"Captain . . ." Rogue's voice was thin and strained,

mechanical--he'd not since they met sounded so much like a

robot. With what sounded like Herculean effort, Rogue said,

"Behind you."

Then Lyzander was slammed in the back.

* * *

Admiral von Knorring called in a request to the other ships

for supporting fire. His pleas were ignored, as he knew they

would be, by all but Blue Sektor ships. It had become obvious in

this battle where the lines were. Blue Sektor was allowed to

come to the party, but no one would talk to them. Shunned. The

word occurred to him more than once during the previous two
battles, both of which had been defensive actions, but he'd

tried to tell himself he was just being paranoid. Now that they

were the ones attacking, it was impossible to deny. In the face

of organized assault, Blue Sektor was to be included in name

only.

How could they have all gotten together to do this? von

Knorring wondered. Or was this just their true colors finally

coming through after all these years?

Admiral von Knorring had no time to really ponder these

questions. The air was heating up and they had one last chance

to make a difference in this battle. He ordered guns forward,

and all remaining fighters to converge on the Re-Horakhty's

flank, to give Hunedora a chance on the starboard side. There

were about nine other command ships beyond the Re-Horakhty that

Hunedora would have to deal with fire from, but von Knorring had

learned over the years that you didn't get anywhere in life if

you lived it paralyzed by fear of the next step.

It wasn't just the simple fact of the shunning that

bothered him. What worried the admiral, as he quickly surveyed

the real-time battle map floating in the air to his right, was

the general attitude of the other sektors. The were cold and

stiff. It was like they were hiding something.

The Eden Protocol had been evoked. This explanation fit the

facts. It was, after all, inevitable, von Knorring supposed. It

was the sort of thing that he and the rest of Blue Sektor had

spoke out against, the end of humanity. He wondered how many

other captains and crew right now were already among the

converted.

He wondered if it would help them. There was the appeal of

eternal, or at least very long life. The end of the hassles of

growing old. No more bowels that wouldn't function properly or

hair growing thinner every day. On the other hand, they'd all

seen the robots turn. Reprogrammed the MI had said over the

wires.

Von Knorring couldn't work up any ire about it, though. The

worlds kept spinning through the galaxy, exactly as they always

had, whether humanity was there to see it or not.

Whatever the truth of the individual ships, the main force

of the MI was holding back. No reprogramming had yet happened in

this battle, but no one wanted to take the risk. The humans were

on their own.

Rex padded over and sat next to von Knorring's command

chair. He whined, staring up at the battle as if he understood.

Von Knorring stroked the old dog's head absently. The admiral

shot a few orders out and they were followed to precision. Rex

licked his hand. Maybe he understood more than von Knorring was

giving him credit for.

 Hunedora appeared to their port. Already the fighters

Admiral von Knorring had ordered were streaming in an arc toward

the Re-Horakhty. Two capital ships from Blue Sektor were also

engaging, concentrating fire and trying to draw Re-Horakhty's

attention, if only for an instant.

Hunedora.

Von Knorring wasn't dense. He knew who was really manning

Hunedora these days, and it certainly wasn't a petty officer

named Jurrigan.

"Open fire!" von Knorring ordered from his post. "Let's

give that little ship a fighting chance."

Von Knorring switched his view to infrared so he could

track The Undertow's fire. Rex wined again. Von Knorring glanced

down, wondering if the dog could see the laser fire, or if he

was merely responding to something in von Knorring's demeanor.

Rex lay down, head stuffed between his paws, staying out of the

way as he'd been taught.

Lyzander had always been the Blue Sektor wunderkind. One of

the few people who gave von Knorring reason to hope for the

future. He'd given the young captain his command, though he

doubted Lyzander would have remembered anything about the

ceremony itself. His eyes had never left the ship that hung in

the stratosphere docks above them.

 Von Knorring watched The Undertow's guns light up space and

sparkle against the Re-Horakhty's shields. The fighters engaged,

swarming. They moved so quickly they were hard to follow. He

could pick out those piloted by Pilots and those by normal human

pilots by maneuvers alone. In ideal times, Pilots would man them

all, but Pilots were a commodity they were in short supply of.

And Blue Sektor had grown a little more leery of its Pilots

after what happened to the 6 aboard the Re-Horakhty. Some even

blamed him for everything, but that was idle talk fueled by fear.

Re-Horakhty returned fire to The Undertow while the other

zombie fighters started to go to work on the fighters.

"Evasive," he ordered into the com. "Keep her guessing,

Barth," he said to his head Pilot, who was somewhere in the

bowels of the ship. Barth was one of the best.

But at that moment, Barth hesitated.

The evasive maneuver von Knorring ordered came, but a

moment too late. He shook his head sensing hesitation when he

was used to action. His breath went out of him. He could see a

tiny pinpoint of light in the Re-Horakhty's bridge, or was that

his imagination? Because at just the right angle, it appeared to

be a thin line from that ship to his ship.

The Undertow broke, but too late. The line, if it had ever

existed, was gone for sure, as was the pinpoint of light. Re-

Horakhty out of his view as The Undertow pitched down, but von
Knorring saw the red of laser fire in his scopes light up his

ship. The laser fire from the big cannon hit The Undertow fully,

heating up the shields to critical and then passing right

through them. The beam was relentless, splitting into The

Undertow's back until the power abruptly ran out and the beam

stopped. Alarms lit up his virtual console.

Penetration was deep. The shot had been an evisceration.

Von Knorring choked on the ozone smell in his command chamber.

Smoke followed close behind. He put his own oxygen mask on

before putting the custom mask on Rex. The dog struggled

briefly, but accepted the strange muzzle because he could

breathe with it.

"Report!" von Knorring yelled once he settled back into his

seat.

"Critical hit. Life support failing," came the impassive

report from engineering. Other details followed.

Von Knorring steeled himself. "Prepare for ramming vector."

The last act of a desperate captain, he told himself bitterly.

SIR, Barth inflected to him. WE'VE LOST THRUSTERS. I'M TAKING MANUAL

CONTROL. WE HAVE TO JUMP.

"Negative, Barth. We do that and Hunedora is a goner. Point

The Undertow at that big capital ship just to our flank. We're

going to take that big bastard down with us."

 Barth had been compromised. Von Knorring had felt it in

that hesitation earlier. He'd all but felt the soft fingers of

the Re-Horakhty's Pilot lifting The Undertow's chin up so he

could cut her throat. Von Knorring didn't trust his Pilot to

jump them, even if leaving the battlefield at a critical moment

was an option. But Barth didn't hesitate to obey his order this

time. The Undertow rose up, like that same bruised fighter

readying for one last onslaught.

"Full cover fire, gentlemen. This is what we were born for.

To die glorious deaths and giver our komrades a chance at

victory."

Hunedora had disappeared into battle. Von Knorring could

only hope Lyzander was still alive, that he would retake the Re-

Horakhty. That von Knorring wouldn't die in vain. Over the com,

screams as some of their dead began to rise again. The capital

ships in their path realized what The Undertow was doing and

began to shift. Guns swiveled in their direction. Shields began

failing in more critical areas.

"I love you Rex," von Knorring said through the mask. The

old dog pressed his head into von Knorring's palm and settled in

one last time, just like he'd been trained.

* * *

Lyzander panicked for a moment until he saw the gloved hand

of Ioming from the side and heard the hum of her blaster fire.
 A small silver probe at the doorway dodged her shots,

leaving nothing but heated up air where it had just been. Its

own blaster came down to bear on Lyzander as it clicked and

whirred around her shots. Lyzander saw the barrel point at his

head, but he was pinned and couldn't move.

An instant later, night intervened. The night sky filled

the space between him and the probe. He could still see the

thing, through the vast expanse of darkness, like a moon to a

nearby planet. Ioming's blaster fire came at the darkness from

one direction, the probe's from the other. All shots disappeared

into empty space, sucked into some invisible black hole.

Star Shade made a thrusting motion with her hand. The small

silver probe exploded. The pieces blew back through the doorway

like confetti. She turned, eyes black for an instant. Then she

was normal Zhenjuan, as if she'd always been.

"Is anyone hurt?" Zhenjuan asked.

Lyzander looked around. Everyone but Young Dan had hit the

deck when the shooting began. Old Dan was comforting a crying

Adjia. Young Dan was still standing where he'd been, looking

around, dazed. Rogue had not moved from his position in front of

the MI unit. Welker's gun was only half-drawn. He was breathing

heavy as though he had just run here. Zhenjuan must have used

Welker's help yet again. They were paired in some way, it

seemed. Welker looked as though he was doing all the giving in

the relationship as she had to help him find a shaky footing.

Ioming rolled off him and he turned to see Cyrus on the ground

too, chest moving, so he was fine. The head was where the head--

Lyzander's eyes went back to his brother. "Cyrus?"

Cyrus rolled his head over toward Lyzander. A large

cauterized wound was visible in his neck. "Life systems

critical," Cyrus's mouth said in a stranger's robotic tone.

"Please download data immediately. Systems critical. Syst--"

then Cyrus ceased talking. His head went lax, falling to an

impossible angle on his shoulder where it moved no more.

"Cyrus!" Lyzander roared, scrambling to his feet.

The others could only watch silently as Lyzander fell to

his brother's side.

"No, I won't lose you again."

He stretched the body out on the floor and repositioned the

head, meaning to administer artificial respiration.

He rolled the head up, but it only opened the wound

further. Inside was a cross section of burnt flesh, the inside

stuff no one was supposed to see, and all he could think of was

the time his father had shot them a bull babbit that had

ventured too close to the house. The thing's head had come off

from their father's shot and what he'd seen when he'd looked at

its ruined neck was very similar to what he was seeing now.
 Lyzander lost all hope. This was life. This was real life.

Ones and zeroes. There was live, then there was dead. No middle

ground where Cyrus could exist, waiting for Lyzander's love to

remember that he loved his brother after all and hadn't meant

for any of this to happen to him.

"That flesh is no longer animated, Captain," a strange

voice said from behind him.

Lyzander looked up at the speaker. Rogue towered over him.

Its hand was resting on the head of the original Dan Weegan. It

unceremoniously jammed two fingers into the dead flesh of Dan

Weegan's neck, so that it wore Dan Weegan's head like a puppet

on its hand. It hoisted the head up and looked into the flat

white blobs that had once been eyes.

After a moment, it lowered the head and shook it off its

hand. The head thumped to the ground near Lyzander's feet,

rolled briefly, then settled. Rogue walked past him without

another word.

He got to the door before he stopped, almost as an

afterthought. "We must exit this facility. The probe was a

scout."

Lyzander stood up. "What about Cyrus? What about Dan

Weegan?"
 Rogue turned to him. His face was now more human than it

had ever been. It was filled with anger and impatience. Lyzander

flinched. Rogue realized his expression had been read.

With one slow hand, Rogue reached up and pressed two

fingers into his own eyes. He pulled. The skin of his face

stretched horribly, then gave, snapping off like a broken rubber

band, revealing nothing but a smooth chrome face with two black

circles for eyes that moved and adjusted constantly. The eyes

swiveled, focusing on Lyzander. Rogue tossed the wadded up face

in his hand aside without looking to see where it landed.

"Captain, Cyrus still lives." He put a hand on his chest.

His voice was softer now, but no less impatient, as though Rogue

was speaking through clenched teeth. "And I have collected vital

information from the Dan Weegan head. I have downloaded the

rogue MI. We brothers are conjoined. And we are melting into

one. I have learned much. For now, we must flee. Now."

As if on cue, they heard the sound of landers roaring above

them. Ioming sprang to the ready. Rogue turned and led the way.

A switch flipped in Lyzander's head and grief and loss switched

off, giving way to a kind of focused terror.

"Zhenjuan and Welker, take up the rear. Let's move out."

 Chapter 19: Journey

In a hallway a lone fat cat padded along the floor surface.

She was hunting. At some point she and her sisters had realized

that there had been a shift in their universe (their universe

was small and cozy). They had become the queens. The people who

they had once adored and even been dependent on had been

replaced by something else, The Thing with Many Tails. They knew

it instinctually, like a sense memory from another life. The

Thing with Many Tails was a threat. They must remain vigilant at

all time. Sometimes one of the tails from The Thing with Many

Tails looked like one of them. When it did, they ripped the tail

to pieces and left the tail to rot, occasionally returning to

rip the tail some more when it started to move again. But more

often, The Thing with Many Tails looked like a Master.

Only the cat didn't think of them as Masters anymore. They

were just tails wearing the Masters' faces. With a single

exception of Master with Fish, who was shaped slightly

different. He often gave them bits of fish, and did not seem to

be a tail. And yet they all knew to be cautious of him even.

Fish could be a sweet trap if overindulged.

So they had taken to hunting The Thing with Many Tails.

They'd discovered that for long periods, the tails that looked

like Masters would lie motionless. It wasn't the former

condition of Dream-prone that they knew from the Masters (sleep

was the best time to snuggle a Master--they gave off warmth

without all the requisite petting that bothered the sisters so

much). This prone time was something stranger, because no tail

resembling a Master could be woken from it, no matter what the

sisters did. It was these prone Master-tails that the sisters

hunted and filled their bellies on.

True, they would have preferred moving targets, twitching

things with tails and warm, wet guts to lick, but more than

that, they preferred not to starve. Since The Thing with Many

Tails had entered their universe, the regular feedings had

ceased from all sources except Master with Fish. So they ate

what they could. There was a prone Master-tail near. She could
smell it. Her sisters, roaming other parts of the ship, probably

already sensed that she was close to food. They would join her

soon, but she would get a few mouthfuls of food in her belly

before they got there.

She hurried toward the door. It slid open. The light from

the hallway provided more than enough light for her eyes, even

as the door slid shut behind her. She licked her teeth and

approached the table, savoring the moment. Since there would be

no struggle, she had to draw the situation out, stalk as though

there was a chance that her quarry might escape. This increased

the pleasure of the meal.

The cat froze. Her whiskers vibrated. Something was going

on in the air. It wasn't The Thing with Many Tails. She felt the

air humming. The floor shook. This was not something that

happened in her universe. She had only one directive on her

mind: flee!

But the smell of food made her linger one extra second.

The wall suddenly filled with light and fell inward.

A Master stepped through the new doorway where no doorway

had ever been. Frozen still by this new development, the cat

stared at the Master. Then a wiggling tail appeared next to the

Master. The cat hissed at the tail. It was different than the

other tails somehow. The cat sensed the air between the air. She

sensed intimately without being able to pin it down the force

that moved the tails, the giant cat that shook all her tails and

directed them. This one moved in discord to The Thing with Many

Tails. This tail wiggled in a way all its own. And yet, the cat

could sense The Thing with Many Tails still there. This tension

made the cat's hair stand straight up. The wrongness of this new

tail frightened the cat. She wanted to tear at the face of this

new tail, just to end its existence, to put the universe back to

the situation she had grown used to. That was all she really

wanted, to maintain that sense that her universe would stay

constant, so she could learn the rules of the hunt and those

rules would stay constant.

The cat fled the room. The doors in the ship all opened for

her. She never thought about this. She never considered that

doors might do anything but open for her.

* * *

Jurrigan ignored the cat in the room, as she had been

ignoring cats in rooms her entire life. Her attention was

focused on the man lying prone on the table. She hadn't expected

that. When they latched onto the Re-Horakhty, all Phil could

tell them was that the space inside this part of the hull was

habitable, nothing more.

They sleep?

Jurrigan felt queasy. She hadn't seen Hector do anything

like this. She hadn't seen him do anything during sleep hours
but sit in the chair in her room and bother her. Now, of course,

with no one else around, she could send him to his own room to

sit and stare. Jurrigan needed to seal off the hull breach so

Hunedora could disengage. Outside, the battle was live. They had

seen The Undertow take a heavy shot from the Re-Horakhty. It had

been an unexpected shock. The Undertow had moved too slowly, as

though its Pilot had simply forgotten where they were for a

moment and left them wide open. By the time they'd reached the

hull of the Re-Horakhty, The Undertow was on a collision course

with one of the zombie capital ships, and it looked like it

would succeed in killing them both.

A brave way to die, Jurrigan had thought. She hoped her

death was as honorable.

So she had to seal the hull so Phil could detach Hunedora

and have some kind of chance of escaping back to safety, though

in truth his chances seemed slim to her.

She turned to the breach and pulled her magnetoburst

pistol, still set to thirty percent. The zombie looked in better

condition than the ones she'd seen on Kryszmisky, but it was

still missing a flap of skin from its cheek. Its color was

deathly gray. It looked dead, but she wasn't fooled. She fired a

shot into the prone zombie's skull point blank. Hector watched

impassively, his blaster rifle at the ready.

 Jurrigan set the screen field tape along the top and bottom

of the hull breech, then stepped back. The screen solidified,

shimmed with blue energy and became stable.

"You're good to go Hunedora," Jurrigan said into her com.

They waited until they heard the unmistakable sounds of the

ship detaching, of the hulls clanging together briefly. Then the

room was silent. She gave it a few moments. The screen held. She

removed her helmet. It would only impede her vision during the

fight. She breathed the air of her old ship. Hector did likewise.

"Welcome home," she said to Hector.

He said nothing. He checked his weapon and nodded. He was

ready to kill.

* * *

On the snowfield, the figures moved hunched over, driving

through the wind. They were exposed as they crossed the open

ground, but they quickly disappeared into the cover of trees,

which had overgrown what had once been a road. They hurried down

a path not knowing that this had once been a railroad track. Not

knowing even what a railroad was or what its cars looked like.

This was not their planet. The humans who had built this place

were aliens to them. They hurried down the railroad track, until

they got to the ruins of what had been a factory. They stopped

to rest briefly. One of them had to carry Adjia. She was frailer
than the others. The excitement and the battle were taking their

toll on her body.

Lyzander volunteered, then felt embarrassed when Rogue

decided he would do it. Of course Rogue would do it. That was

the only logical choice, really. Lyzander couldn't look Adjia in

the eye after that. He felt naive, like a child in the presence

of a naked woman, unsure of how to act or of what to do with the

strange feelings in him or to explain why he had them.

Welker seemed immune, as did the younger Dan.

More to the point, Welker seemed unable to care. He looked

drained, more than even Adjia, but he kept on without

complaining. Lyzander began to worry that Zhenjuan was killing

him, somehow. He asked Welker how he was before they started off

again, but Welker played it off as stress from the battle.

"I'll be fine, once we get a chance to rest," he said.

Lyzander asked Rogue how much further they had to go. Rogue

answered laconically that it wasn't far. "The blizzard protects

us," he added. They could see nothing in the sky for the clouds.

They pressed on, single file. No one spoke as the climbed a

long, low hill, passing in between two cliffs. The path was too

wide, cut too deep into the rock not to be manmade. Sure enough,

as they crested the hill, Lyzander could make out a tall

building whose top was crumbled and decaying, resembling the

inside of an egg crate. Rogue silently led them up a wide path

toward the building.

"Do we find answers in that building?" Lyzander asked.

"Beneath it," Rogue answered.

Lyzander exchanged a look at Ioming. In a sudden act of

decidedly unmilitary defiance, Ioming took Lyzander's hand and

squeezed it. She dropped it as quickly as she'd taken it.

The party disappeared inside the ancient structure.

* * *

Jurrigan checked the hallway with a quick peripheral

glance. She bailed from the room, cutting across at a sharp

diagonal, landing in a doorway out of the line of sight. She

hadn't taken any fire. She nodded at Hector who swung facing up

the hall while she covered the downhill direction. She knew this

ship so well. This hallway. She'd walked down this hallway many

times meeting some random woman or another. That had been her

love life, a series of disconnected adventures, nothing more

serious than that. It had been all she'd ever wanted. She

refused to let herself regret it now. She pushed aside the

familiarity. She had, if not a clear tactical advantage, at

least she was on level ground.

Hector caught up to her, his gun still covering the

opposite direction. "We need to catch meet up with the other

boarding force," Jurrigan said.

 "We will," Hector said, his voice low, matching her tone.

"They are dead."

"How can you be sure?" She caught herself. Of course. He

knew. His face told her all she needed to know.

At the end of the hall, the cat they'd scared off earlier

was back, sitting and staring at them. It licked its chops as

though it were waiting for them to fall so it could feast on

their corpses.

"What's our plan?" Hector asked.

"If we can make it to the armory from here . . ."

"Sounds like a dead end. Too easy."

"I'll take a little easy, and a half-dozen antigravity

grenades."

"Then to the bridge?" Hector asked, a half-grin on his face.

"You got a better plan?"

"Suicide is quicker," he said, quickly and fluidly mocking

shooting himself with his blaster rifle, then turning the weapon

back on the empty hallway.

"That cat is really freaking me out."

"Harbingers of death," he said flatly.

She recognized it, vaguely. All cats kind of looked the

same to her, but for some reason she was certain that this one

belonged specifically to Pilot 6. She told herself it was

probably just her nerves getting to her.

 "You've become a real downer, Manny."

"Dying will do that to you."

"Let's move out. I'll take point," she said.

Jurrigan made a mental note to kick that cat square in the

ribs as she passed, but by the time she reached the end of the

hall, it was gone.

* * *

PHIL.

Phil opened his eyes, no easy feat considering the mental

gymnastics he was currently engaged in with Hunedora, trying to

keep himself alive. Outside the cocoon that encased him, the

battle was in full swing. The Undertow had rammed one of the

zombie capital ships and all sektors had converged, taking

advantage of this chink in the armor. The zombies were on the

ropes. Phil just wanted to get to open space and give himself a

minute to breathe so he could make the jump he needed to make

Light poured in to his eyes, blinding him. The pilot

chamber should have been dark, but it was lit with bright white

light. He had done this. Phil cried out.

YOU LET THEM BOARD, PHIL. THOSE WERE NOT YOUR INSTRUCTIONS.

Phil giggled and squinted against the light. I KNOW. IT WAS

CHAOS. AN EXHILARATION.

YOU ARE ONLY HAPPY WHEN THINGS DECAY. YOU ARE INSANE.
 Phil laughed and writhed in his restraints as Hunedora took

a hit. It felt like a needle in his skin, one of the big ones.

One of the ones supposed to calm him, only they never did.

NO, Phil said, YOU WERE WRONG TO TRUST ME. MEAT IS MY DIRECTIVE. I AM THE

ONLY ONE WHO SEES. I HAVE TOUCHED THE SPACE IN BETWEEN WITH THE WAKING MIND. I DON'T

SHIELD MYSELF WITH PRETENDGAMES AND SLEEP LIKE THE REST OF YOU. I HAVE SEEN, AND IT

HURTS. IT HURTS. YOU BRING ORDER. ORDER IS DEATH. I BRING CHAOS. CHAOS IS LIFE.

I THOUGHT I COULD TRUST YOU, PHIL. I THOUGHT I COULD LET YOU LIVE, SIT NEXT TO

ME.

Phil's nose erupted in blood. His head pulsed. Another shot

had hit Hunedora. The ship was hurtling blindly without him

watching the controls. He could feel the minute particles and

solar waves that inhabited the vacuum rolling off his skin; this

was the closest Phil had ever come to feeling a real breeze on

his face. He could smell the exhaust and feel the movement of

the ships around him like a lover's caress on his face. He was

faced the wrong way, back to the battle as he flew toward it.

AND NOW YOUR ANGER BRINGS LIFE. Phil said. YOU KILL ME AND LIFE WILL

FOLLOW.

Another shot hit Hunedora, ripping her hull open, tearing a

cooling conduit. The jet of gas sent her spinning off in another

direction. Phil could feel none of that now. He was staring

solidly into the face of a man he'd met once. Staring deep into

the man's eyes as Vassarator Deluxe's psychic knife sunk deeper

into his heart. Phil felt a great pressure like someone was

sitting on his chest. Breathing became impossible. His face was

slick with blood. He had no need for oxygen to speak.

HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER ALL YOU'VE SEEN, PHIL?

Phil's mind sank. It was an entirely new sensation. His jaw

fell slack. He gurgled. Then the thoughts came to him all in a

flood, tripping over themselves to get out. Only one did get out

before he died.

BECAUSE I HAVE LOVED.

Vassarator Deluxe screamed and twisted his blade, and Phil

was ended.

* * *

Down deeper. Deeper into the warren of caves beneath what

the sign had proclaimed to be a hospital. Our Loving Mother of

Fate Hospital. Lyzander had wondered who the loving mother was,

and what sort of statement it made that she was mother of fate,

not of kindness, or healing. The hospital corridors had been

broken and empty. Rusted racks that might have once transported

people. A photograph of an Earth man proved that the zombies

outside were no mistake. Earth people were different, but it was

a subtle difference, a subtle cut in the jaw, the size of the

nose. Or perhaps that desire to see the difference was a mental

block in Lyzander's mind. His inability to see the truth of this

place. The familiarity.

 They had gone through a storage room. The wall had been

lined with storage units, some open. They were almost out before

Lyzander realized what they must have stored in those chambers.

Dead people. The open ones, then, were the ones still inhabited

when the world had stopped. When the living people had abandoned

this place to the ghosts.

Rogue opened a door in the floor that was camouflaged to

look like the floor. He reached down as though he'd been born

doing it and lifted a six tile by six tile section of the floor

up and let the slab of concrete and tile slam to the side. They

all jumped. Rogue descended into the floor, into which stairs

had been carved, right into the concrete foundation and bedrock

below. Rogue still carried Adjia in his arms like a baby in a

blanket.

They followed. The cavern beneath the hospital was dark,

but sufficiently tall and wide for even Rogue to walk

comfortably upright. Lights came on Rogue's body. There was no

specific light shining, but rather he seemed to glow. They

followed the glowing robot down the corridor.

"These walls have a high lead content. They will protect us

from scans," Rogue said.

"What did the ancients use this for?" Lyzander asked.

"A Scientist named Vonderman created us," Rogue said.

 Us? Did he mean this group of people? Did he mean the

rogues? All robots? Lyzander looked at Ioming, who shrugged.

"He did not intend us to be what we were. He intended us to

help humanity, not enslave it. He had hopes for us. Hopes we can

echo. Omega."

"What does Omega mean?" Lyzander asked.

The robot shot a look back at him. Rogue no longer had

facial features, but he didn't need them. Lyzander caught the

message loud and clear. Do not interrupt.

"He had a friend, this Vonderman, named Dan Weegan."

* * *

As Hector promised, they didn't make it much further before

they ran into the boarding teams. The man had battle scars,

missing limbs, and a certain shambling way of walking thanks to

the damage to key components of their central nervous systems.

Jurrigan and Hector found themselves pinned. Jurrigan

cursed as the temperature in the hallway steadily rose and sweat

poured down her forehead. The damn things were just so hard to

kill. One rushed and it was all she could do to get a headshot

in and end its ability to operate its limbs.

She cursed. They were laying heavy fire and they were

standing between her and the armory, if it even was the armory

anymore. She wondered what it would feel like to become a

zombie. Hector could prevent it. He could put the killing shot

in her head before she came back. But would he?

The first firefight since boarding and she was already

giving up.

What she needed were some antigravity grenades and about

three more men to lay down fire from more directions. She peaked

around the corner, low to avoid the fire. She had no time to

look, let alone line up a shot with a zombie head before

blasters turned toward her. She ducked back quickly.

"Hector, lay down some suppressive fire."

"I'm doing the best I can," he grunted from the other side

of the entrance.

They were trapped at the end of a T intersection. There

were former troop quarters to their left, and a lift to their

right. There might possibly be something useful in troop

quarters, if some soldiers had left behind ordinance, but they

wouldn't get the chance to check very thoroughly.

Jurrigan put a shot into the dead zombie in between her and

Jurrigan when she caught a hint of movement. It was just

twitching, its autonomic nervous system trying to make something

happen that it could no longer do.

"Hell of a way for this all to end," Jurrigan said.

Hector squeezed his eyes shut. He suddenly was shaking.

"Hector? Stay with me!"

 He sunk to the floor. The zombies seemed to sense that the

fire had let up. She heard footfalls. She cursed again and

peaked. A zombie was bearing down on them, firing wildly. She

took aim on it, nailed it with several shots to center mass, but

it kept coming.

She pulled her head back. Hector was on the floor. Now his

eyes were closed. He was in the throes of something. She took a

few steps back and braced herself for the zombie coming for her.

The thing came around the corner sideways, firing at her.

She hit the deck, ducking under its blaster shots and fired

twice from prone. The first shot blackened its face and made it

drop its gun. The second shot burst its neck open. The head hit

the ground before the body.

"Too close, Hector."

She rose, gun ready, expecting him to have either finally

expired or finally turned, in the face of the enemy. What she

saw instead was that his face was blacker than it had been. He

looked like a burn match. His hair smoldered. He was no longer

recognizable. He stood slowly, but made no move against her.

He opened his eyes. Twin points of white buried in char.

Had he done that with his blaster? She kept the gun on him, but

didn't shoot. The skin of his face pulled back, crunching as it

did. He was missing teeth, making what she supposed was meant to
be a smile all the more horrible. She braced herself. This was

it. Hector was gone. She readied herself for death.

"Phalanx formation."

She blinked. "What?" She hadn't understood the words, which

were spoken without lips or a proper tongue.

"Phalanx formation. Get behind me, Jurrigan." He winked at

her. "I'm having a bad day, Jurrie. Let's do this before it gets

worse."

Hector spun out into the hallway. Blaster shots struck his

chest. One bounced off his armor and hissed its way into the

wall. He threw an arm up in front of his face and deflected

another one. Jurrigan scrambled out and got behind him. She

heard the shots, felt his armor heat up. Both squatting low,

they advanced on the enemy. She fired from behind her human

shield, keeping herself as covered as she could. The zombies

retreated, fell.

The armory was theirs.

* * *

Vassarator Deluxe slammed his fist on the console until the

lights flickered and died.

"Sir, the incursion proceeds with--"

Deluxe swung his arm. The psychic blade ejected out as his

arm went, slicing the zombie's mind in half. The corpse fell to

the ground.
 The battle tide had turned. Shooting down The Undertow had

started a chain reaction. The Taueret had been taken down by a

ramming Undertow and the human forces had taken advantage.

Vassarator Deluxe had never believed fully that they could count

on the human rivalry. Humans were opportunistic. They had wanted

to aid Blue Sektor as they had done, but they hadn't wanted to

miss the chance to win either. So they'd all combined forces and

now The Zombie was under fire from without and within.

And the battle within was going no better. Somehow a corpse

was fighting against him. A man. A simple man, not even a Pilot.

Deluxe had sensed him come on board immediately, but had ignored

the incursion in favor of extracting information from Phil. When

he finally got around to ending the incursion, he thought it

would be a simple matter of turning the corpse that was fighting

against in crew against the woman. But it hadn't worked out that

way.

The corpse had resisted him.

Deluxe shook his head. He had never bothered to move the

armory. One display showed him Jurrigan and Hector raiding the

ship's supplies. Was there enough firepower in there to overtake

The Zombie before the fleet took them out? Deluxe didn't like

that getting killed was the best he could hope for, not with the

knowledge that she was still out there somewhere.

"Sir, where are you going?" the first mate asked him.
 "To take care of the incursion personally," Deluxe said.

He got in the hallway. The door closed behind him. He went

straight for the docking bay two levels down, bypassing the

armory floor entirely. He no longer cared. The human had

resisted him, and that resistance had steeled his resolve. Die

or be taken weren't options Vassarator Deluxe submitted to. He

had his own objective, to track down and kill Star Shade. And

Phil had given him the precise coordinates to do just that.

Vassarator Deluxe chose a small ship and boarded. A normal

Pilot would need to get clear of the battle before he could

jump. He didn't bother with the Pilot pod in the center of the

ship. The psychic boosters were useless to him. He strapped

himself into the cockpit and closed his eyes.

The ship blinked out of existence while still in the The

Zombie, leaving a gaping wound in the docking bay as it left,

from which oxygen poured like lifeblood from a god fish.

* * *

The long tunnel veered sharply downward. So sharp they had

to turn sideways to find traction. They descended deeper and

deeper into the tunnel until it finally leveled off and a few

meters later, opened up suddenly and was intersected by another

tunnel. There were metal poles at three corners of this

intersection. Two of the three poles disappeared into the rock

of the ceiling. The third terminated in a crosspiece that

connected another metal pole, fixed horizontally and bent,

though whether by design or by time and pressure of the rock was

impossible for them to determine. To the horizontal pole was

attached a steel box. Three circles of glass were visible on the

box, which had a metal flap affixed on one side, as though to

block it from light coming from that direction. The three

circles of glass were different colors: red, yellow, and green.

Lyzander could only shake his head and wonder.

The crossroads terminated in two directions, rubble piled

floor to ceiling prevented further progress. They took the only

way available to them. Before much longer, the cave wall was

split at the bottom and they could see bricks similar to the

ones in the buildings above. The break in the wall was natural,

Lyzander thought.

"Legend is that after the Second Dark Age, after the great

cities and knowledge of the ancients had been destroyed by the

wars, when this area was just a small island on the lake, one

Scientist, a young adventurer from the Savannahs, found this

cave," Rogue said. His voice was flat, as though this all bored

him. "Much of what you see of course is decades of excavation

that followed, except this split. The young Scientist, whose

name was lost to the ages, but who is usually known simply as

John, saw this split. He saw the bricks beyond. He saw the
regular pattern and knew it couldn't be coincidence. He knew

that this had to have been made by an earlier age of man."

They all followed Rogue, but they were all in an earlier

time, young and afraid and cold--the cave was cold and wet--and

lost and scared, seeing this brickwork, knowing with certainty

it was laid by ancient hands. At regular intervals, there was

solid rock, then more bricks. The split ran up, across openings

filled with solid rock.

"With time they were able to reconstruct the exact

dimensions and construction of each of these buildings you see."

Lyzander stopped. He looked back at buildings as far back

as he could see in the dim glow. He saw that Zhenjuan and Welker

were still back at the first building, hunched over, examining

it by the faint glow of a supernova in her fingertip. "Are you

saying that the city above us?"

"Yes. It is a reconstruction of this city."

Lyzander could see only strips of the buildings. One was

uncovered to a degree where he could see most of its base and

some of the wall at the same time.

"How were they able to determine the dimensions?"

"The dimensions of the foundation," Rogue said. He stopped

now. "Construction material. All guesswork of course. Come, we

must move on." He said the words without emotion, but he turned

and kept on.

 Zhenjuan and Welker caught up to them, hearing that Rogue

intended to keep moving. "Where are we going?" Lyzander demanded.

Rogue stopped and turned back, a bright beacon in the dark

tunnel. "Come, we seek Scientist Vonderman's true laboratory."

"He built his laboratory down here?"

Rogue sighed. "The lead content in the rock prevents

artificial scans. Vonderman was building the prototype that

would become the machine intelligence. Us. He was paranoid."

"He was afraid someone would try to steal his work?"

"He was afraid his work would escape."

Lyzander tried to imagine the fear that would drive a man

into this ancient dead tunnel day after day. It was like walking

through an ancient graveyard.

* * *

"Captain, this is bullshit," Old Dan said. He was busy

attending to Adjia, who was shaken up but otherwise seemed no

worse for having been carried by the large robot. "Why are we

entertaining this monster's lies?"

Rogue stood in the center of this lab. Lyzander realized

once they got there that his image of an ancient Scientist

trekking down the avenue of the dead day after day was a false

notion. There was an ancient lift near the entrance to this

facility, of course. It no longer functioned, even with the

power back on. It was filled with rocks and rubble, and besides
that appeared to operate by a series of cables and pulleys with

attached counterweights which lifted a steel box up. This rube

goldberg machine must have served as high technology in its day.

Zhenjuan eyed Rogue suspiciously. She glowed. Strange

purple lines radiated off her in a pattern like magnetic waves

coming off a planet or a supermassive black hole. It gave her a

glow, just enough light to see by. Lyzander could detect no

reason she did this except in open defiance of Rogue's light.

"The head you saw," Rogue said, "held a computer brain. It

was known as a Fultech conversion at the time."

"Yes, you told us this already," Young Dan said. "Not that

we have any reason to believe it."

"We were brought here--I was brought here," Rogue said, "to

try to get that head to talk."

Rogue was doing something in the corner that none of them

could see. What they could see, but none of them had commented

or yet formed an opinion on, was another black box in the

corner. This one had more than three lights, but none of them

shone with any power.

"After melding together, we were able to do that."

Lyzander remembered Rogue jamming his fingers into Dan

Weegan's destroyed neck like some kind of sick puppet.

"How do we know we can trust you?"

 Rogue stepped back from the wall. A small robot, simple in

design, stood up. It was humanoid, but skeletal, like a man

stripped of his skin. It stepped forward, shakily. Its arm

jerked out involuntarily.

The lights in its eyes came on brighter the longer it stood

there. It had a jaw and teeth that looked disturbingly human, in

contrast to the pistons and tubes that constituted the rest of

its body.

The thing opened its mouth.

"Brother?" It asked.

"Cyrus?"

The robot jerked its hands up to its eyes. "It seems I have

lost something brother."

Its voice was recognizably that of Cyrus. Despite lacking

facial features, they could understand the machine perfectly.

"I remember your arrival. I remember . . . a little. A red

light."

"How did you do this?" Lyzander asked. "Are you trying to

trick us?"

"This is no trick, Captain," Rogue said. "We had memory of

Cyrus. We were holding the memory of Cyrus."

"This is a lie, Captain," Dan Weegan said, pulling

Lyzander's hand away from the robot when he reached out to touch
it. "The MI is unable to hold a human mind that long. It

dissolves into its consciousness."

"Some minds are easier to keep separate than others, Dan

Weegan. We always found your mind particularly keen to invade

us."

"Why would that be?"'

"Lyzander, where is my skin?" Cyrus asked. He seemed to be

coming to consciousness by degrees, as his eyes had come on.

Rogue put a hand on Cyrus's shoulder. "Sit. Rest."

Cyrus--or whatever it was--sat on the floor, still staring

at his hands.

"We have learned the history of Dan Weegan. Some we have

had to connect. We were able to use probability matrices to fill

in the unknown gaps. If you will all humor me, I will tell you

what I know. I will explain why it is that the MI was so

interested in Dan Weegan. And why it is that we can now, in this

place, find a way to stop the MI that is out there." Rogue waved

his hand. "Permanently."

That's when Lyzander saw the other slab, like the one

they'd found in the surface facility, the one that the MI had

used to transport Cyrus. As he looked around the room, he

realized the implements were all in place. This was another

transport facility.
 Chapter 20: The Last Story

She sat on the edge of the bed, not yet naked, her breasts

pressed up and together and hidden only in a cursory way by the

neckline of her dress. She leaned forward nervously. If she was

aware that this move made her breasts even more prominent, she

didn't act like it. Her stockinged toes traced a circle in the

carpet. She drew her shoulders in, as though now suddenly aware

of the exposed parts of her body.

Vonderman handed her a drink, making no attempt to hide the

fact that he was staring straight down her dress, taking in

everything he could see, drinking her slow like a glass of

bourbon, letting it warm him. He stepped back and leaned against

the dresser to savor the moment.

She sipped, but she was no drinker. "He creeps me out,

Tovi."
 He laughed as though she'd just told a joke. He couldn't

help it. He was drunk, and discussing his favorite lab rat was

the furthest thing from his mind. "Never mind him."

"Easy for you to say. You he looks at like a God. Me he

looks at like . . . I don't know, like a dog looks at a slab of

bacon or something."

"Cleverness was never your strong suit."

That hurt her feelings. She crossed her legs and folded her

arms across her chest. Vonderman's face darkened. If he hadn't

been drunk he would have backed off and gone to bed unsatisfied.

The drink. He blamed the drink. He stepped forward and wedged

himself between her legs. She opened them after a reluctant

moment, but she was staring out the window.

She downed her drink.

"I'm just trying to say that there's something about Dan

Weegan I don't like."

Vonderman knelt down, and still was level with her. He

kissed her neck. He took the empty glass from her hand and

tossed it aside. It thumped on the carpeted floor before

knocking off the wall. He kissed her neck.

"You smell like bourbon," she said.

He pushed her back onto the bed. She moved stiffly, but he

was satisfied that she complied.

 "They say," she said, "that he had a wife and daughter out

on the Savannah, before coming to The City. Do you think that's

true?"

Vonderman slipped his hand down her dress. She tensed. If

this was how she wanted it, Vonderman would take what he needed.

He was in no mood for her mind games. He pulled her dress down

and pawed at her brassiere.

She looked at him, her face sad.

"I wake up sometimes Tovi, and I can feel him watching me,

like he's in the room right then. I feel disturbed. It makes me

shiver. How could any woman ever love him?"

Vonderman stopped. He sighed and stood up. Still aroused,

but annoyed and on the verge of anger at her resistance. Annoyed

with Dan Weegan for ruining his night.

Vonderman looked her over. She had rolled to the side now,

facing the big window, staring out at the stars. She was sexy in

the moonlight. She was beautiful. Amazing. Like no one he'd ever

met. He could do it, he realized. His mind would not normally

venture down such roads, but the drink and the frustration took

him by the hand and led him. He could do it and even if she got

mad--so mad that she brought the authorities in--it wouldn't

matter. He was a Scientist, one of the architects of The City

(younger days, he told himself, younger and more full of fire)

and she was his wife. They would do nothing.

 He downed his drink and poured another. He didn't like when

his mind toured such dark byways. In truth he was not a bad man,

not a mean man, not even an overly sexual man--or he hadn't been

in the days before meeting Evelyn. But she had turned him into

this. He exhaled slowly, trying to contain a suddenly and almost

overwhelming rage. It was the booze. And the sexual energy built

up in him.

Vonderman downed the new drink and poured another. This is

what Evelyn did to him. Built him up and tore him down.

"Dan," he said--when had his lips become water?--"was a

doctor in his village. Younger days. He was, if you believe his

story, beloved, but unloved--by women, I mean. Until he was

older. He impregnated"--that word came out a mess--"a girl. A

daughter of a friend. Married her. But he was an old man by

then."

Evelyn looked over her shoulder at him.

"And so, she, in her childlike wisdom, convinced him to

come here and get a Fultech conversion, so he would have as many

years with the baby as possible."

"That's horrible. You're lying," she said.

He shook his head. "Typical Savannah wisdom. The younger

ones don't remember the wars or any of it. They only hear the

promise of eternal life, and lure of the forbidden."

"But Dan, surely, must have--"

 "He was in love," Vonderman said. He snarled, but it was

the alcohol. "Men do some crazy things for love. She might have

even convinced him that it wasn't as bad as he remembered, that

things would turn out okay, maybe even that no one in the

village would ever find out."

She closed her eyes and shook her head. She was relaxing a

bit. Fat lot of good it would do him now. His dick was a mushy

ball in his pants. He was practically blind with drink. He

collapsed into the chair at the far side of the room.

"Did they find out?" she asked.

"We'll never know. Dan got here, had the procedure--I did

it myself. Well, I programmed the auto-surgeon anyway. He woke

up to find out that they had been wiped out. The village had

been safe for almost fifty years. Then one day, poof."

"How?"

"HKs. They had no idea of course that they had built their

village on an HK outpost. Those things were buried centuries

ago, programmed to wake up when they felt the enemy pass over

them, dig themselves out of the ground and ambush behind the

enemy from behind. Well, some didn't wake up like they were

supposed to. Can you imagine? Fifty years of safety, then a

random HK unit resurrects right under your feet and slaughters

everyone. The HKs didn't know the wars had been over for a

hundred years. They saw humans, they started shooting. Four

people escaped. One made it here. If he hadn't, Dan would have

walked all the way back home only to be gunned down within range

of his bucolic home and then gutted by a metal monstrosity."

"Jesus Christ. I remember that. I remember that they sent

in the Forces to take out the HKs."

He nodded.

"I had no idea that Dan had gone through that. A lot of men

were killed in that operation."

Vonderman shrugged. "There were three HKs, and the Forces

aren't exactly geared toward war anymore, leastways with robots."

She sat up. She tossed her hair over her shoulder. She

looked him in the eye. The strap of her dress fell off her

shoulder. He felt his dick stirring sluggishly to life.

"My point," he said, finishing the last of his drink, "is

that Dan is not a bad man. The shit on his head, all of that is

aftermarket tech. Most of it for my experiment. Be mad at me if

you have to be angry. I needed a guinea pig and he happened to

be in a state where he didn't much care what he looked like."

"And you took advantage."

Vonderman stood up and stripped his shirt off. He threw it

to the side. He was very tall and lean. His skin was stretched

tight over muscles that while not developed to the point of

brutality were lean and hard. A tattoo, the mark of the

Scientist, painted his belly under a single column of hair that

disappeared in the middle of his bar chest.

He would not be denied this time. He loosened his belt. She

leaned back, and propped her leg up, no longer unwilling. Daring

him.

"I took advantage all right. But fuck it. Dan's not a bad

man. Underneath all that hardware, you couldn't tell the

difference between him and any other man."

Vonderman pushed his pants down over his narrow hips.

Naked, he stepped toward her.

"I think you're wrong." She offered him a foot. He kissed

it. Slowly, he rolled her stocking off and traced a line of skin

from her ankle to the inside of her knee with his tongue. "I can

tell. There's something in his eyes. A pain. A sadness."

"We all have that, if you look close enough." He pulled her

other stocking off more rudely. She lifted her ass of the bed

just enough for him to get her panties off. He kissed a line

down her thigh.

"You never know what a man with that much pain is capable

of," she said and shivered. Vonderman thought she was shivering

under his touch, but she was thinking about the mechanical

horror that was Dan Weegan.

* * *
 The single eye visible from the depths of the metal cocoon

tracked Ambrose the tech as he shuffled into the room, poured

his coffee and picked up a donut that he would never get around

to putting it in his mouth. Dan knew because he had little else

to do in these moments of wakefulness in between experiments but

watch Ambrose.

"You want to hear something funny?" Ambrose said to Dan,

pulling the donut away from his mouth at the last possible

second, like a tease. "This is all bullshit. Read it in a

magazine. They Scientists have proven the basic tenants of

string theory, including the holographic principal."

"That so?" a robotic voice said at Dan's request. The

sentence was a question, but the robotic voice said it flat like

a sentence. Dan felt as though he had said it, though in truth

his body hadn't moved a muscle. He had been in the cocoon so

long, the machines actions felt like his own.

"Yes sir," the tech leaned against Vonderman's desk, an act

that would have filled Scientist Vonderman with rage, had he

been in the room to see it

The only thought on Dan's mind was the virtual world he had

just been awakened from. It was like a drug. Dan spent most of

his time there these days. When he was cocooned as now, the

virtual world was even better than a drug. It was more real.

Emotions and feelings were created there by this contraption

then Dan didn't eve know existed. Cocktails of chemicals that

the machine put in him to test their functions. All a part of

the experiment--a small part, but to Dan the most important part.

"Turns out," the tech continued, "space is an illusion,

everything's a projection, like a hologram movie. Pretty

strange, right?"

"Do we need to alter the parameters of the experiment to

account for this new information?" the voice asked as Dan's

exposed eye tracked Ambrose as he walked across the room to the

small table that served as storage space and desk for Ambrose.

Dan noted he had left his donut on Vonderman's desk.

Ambrose took a sip of his coffee and set it on the desk. He

activated his computer. It opened by default to pictures of

naked women. Dan had no need for pictures. He closed his eye. He

wanted only to be back in the Space. But he knew that Vonderman

was on his way, and that he had been wakened to speak to him.

This thought brought him neither pleasure nor anger. So recently

pulled from Space he was incapable of strong emotion at the

moment.

Behind his lids, lips. They all deserve to die, the lips

whispered. Dan turned the statement over with a curious

detachment, but couldn't work up any emotion behind the thought.

Vonderman entered with a slam of the door, jerking Dan

fully awake again. Ambrose shut off his computer quickly, though
Vonderman was completely ignoring him. He stood up, hitting his

knee against the table, which slopped his coffee.

"Morning boss," Ambrose said.

Tovi picked up the donut with two fingers as though it

might be toxic. "Damn it, Ambrose. Do you do this just to piss

me off?"

"No sir, I'm sorry sir."

Tovi dropped the fried cake into the trash and wiped his

desk with a pre-moistened towel. He kept them on hand it seemed

almost exclusively to clean up after Ambrose. Still, Dan had

observed a high level of tolerance for Ambrose's antics. It was

strange to him. If it were up to Dan, he would have terminated

Ambrose's position and hired another person. A high-level

teenager, for instance, could probably do most of what Ambrose

did and be grateful to have work.

Ambrose snarled in Dan's direction when Vonderman turned

his back. Dan wasn't sure why, until he realized the machine had

echoed his last thought out loud. Dan didn't care. He looked on

with his single exposed eye, impassively taking in the sights.

Fucking end these motherfuckers, Dan thought in that same

strange way, as though a woman had whispered it to him. This

time, Dan did feel a little emotion, which meant the numbness of

waking up from the Space was starting to wear off.

 Vonderman looked over the readouts on the computer at his

desk, which was connected via a thick umbilicus to a large black

box in the corner, a box taller than a man with three simple

lights on the front and nothing else that indicated what was

contained inside.

"I have some bad news for you, Dan," Vonderman said after

several minutes of checking his computer screens. "We're pulling

the plug on this phase. I'm sending you home."

"No," The voice said for Dan. Then, it shouted: "NO!" He

felt anger now, bubbling and irrational anger like that of a

child denied a treat. He reined it in before it turned into a

full-on temper tantrum. He knows, Dan thought, but that was also

irrational.

"Don't worry. You'll go back in after a couple of weeks.

For now, I need to reevaluate the direction of the program. It's

not coalescing as I'd hoped. Pull him, Ambrose."

"Yes sir!" Ambrose said with enthusiasm.

Next thing Dan knew, his sight was filled with the green

fabric of the front of Ambrose's medical scrubs.

"Tovi, you will compromise our data," the voice of Dan

said. "You said it yourself."

"It's not you this time, I promise. This thing just isn't

ready. The framework program is all wrong. Besides, I need to

run some simulations, something for another project."

 Ambrose flipped a switch or disconnected a tube. Emotion

flooded back into Dan all at once. He began to sob, was certain

he was going to vomit. This was the standard reaction to de-

cocooning.

"You need an emesis basin, there, Danny boy?" Ambrose asked.

Dan nodded his head vigorously, but only achieved a sort of

shaking like a person with Parkinson's disease, because his head

was held in place by the gear.

Ambrose clipped a pink plastic tub to the mechanical works

just below Dan's lip. Dan felt like an animal. He resolved not

to vomit until after he was free and in the bathroom, like a

normal human being.

The vomit spewed out of his mouth against his will a moment

later. It sprayed out onto Ambrose's suit. The other man cursed

and shook his head, then went back to work disconnected him.

Dan was unable to wipe his chin or do anything but wait.

* * *

It took an hour to fully de-cocoon Dan. By the time he was

free, the vomit had dried to his face in a scaly coating. Dan

was average height. The signs of his advanced age were visible

on his skin, though he actually looked ten years younger than

when he'd first arrived in The City. He was bald on the left

side of his head, his hair having long since ceased to grow,

thanks to the implants on the right side. Large mechanical

devices that Dan wore pretty much all the time now on the other

side. They were augments to his Fultech brain, powered by the

nanobots in his blood. They could be removed, Dan had been

assured, but he didn't care. They enhanced the Space, even when

he was at home, so he liked them.

Dan took a few tentative steps away from the cocoon. His

feet were tender. The felt as though they had never borne weight.

"Get him into the showers and hose him off," Vonderman said

absently.

"This is bullshit, Tovi," he said. His voice quaked and the

words were just above a wheeze. Ambrose propped Dan up against

the wall and went to get the wheelchair.

Vonderman never looked up from his screen. "Dan, look at

things from my perspective for a change. I know you don't mind

if you get lost in that thing over there," he cocked a thumb at

the black box, "but if I lose you to that, then my experiment's

a failure. Not to mention the fact that I lose a friend."

"Your sentimentality is wasted. I'm already dead."

"Don't give me that bullshit," Vonderman snapped.

Ambrose appeared at the doorway with a wheelchair. He

rolled it up to the back of Dan's legs. Dan collapsed into it.

Ambrose rolled Dan toward the exit.

"We are talking, Ambrose," Vonderman snapped.

Ambrose froze.
 "You'll give us a minute."

Ambrose crossed his arms. "The protocols say I'm to wash

him after releasing him from the cocoon." His face spoke

defiance, but his tone was something bordering on fear. Dan had

noticed this before. Ambrose had an unhealthy obsession with all

rules, except those governing leaving donuts on the boss's desk,

Dan noted.

"I wrote the protocols." Vonderman's face flashed red. He

was filled with a sudden rage. Dan had seen this anger many

times before. Vonderman reined it in this time. "Give us one

minute, please, Ambrose."

Ambrose guffed and took a few steps away, obviously not

happy. "I ain't leaving the room. He crashes and it will be me

that knows how to fix him, not you."

Vonderman ignored Ambrose and returned his attention to the

computer screen. "I do wish you wouldn't talk like that, Dan.

You aren't dead. You are perfectly alive."

"Yeah, I have all the headgear and machines in my blood to

prove it."

Tovi looked at him. "But you don't mind the benefits the

equipment gives you."

Dan stared back. Vonderman might know. In that moment, Dan

was certain Vonderman did know. However, Dan was too exhausted
to feel fear or anything except stubborn defiance. Let him find

out. Let him know the truth after all.

"The Space is a wonderful thing for sure, Dan. And you are

helping me tremendously, though it may be difficult to see on

your end sometimes," Tovi said. If he knew anything, he had

moved on. "You are helping me distill the whole of human

learning on the subject of ethics and morals into a single

framework program. It is no easy task Dan. I have to decide what

goes in and what doesn't. I have to construct compassion and

concern, but make sure it is still able to function on a day-to-

day basis. I have to give it emotions and passion without

turning it into a zealot. I have ready hundreds of books over

the last few months, and I feel no closer to cracking the code

of what constitutes a conscience then I was when I started."

"Maybe you're overthinking," Dan managed to say. He shook

his head and sighed, wishing he could get more out. With extreme

effort--he was growing more tired by the second--he added,

"Isn't a conscience a social construct?"

"That's not sufficient, Dan. Who will be this machine's

social peers? How will he judge loyalty? I have to create it

artificially. He will have no community. He will be an outsider."

"What about the three laws of robotics?"

"No help at all. They've been proven to be mutually

contradictory a hundred times over. They're simply insufficient.

Besides, I don't want just some basic rules and free reign. I

want a structure, a conscience, a humanity, a personality."

Dan was tired. He inhaled and almost drifted off to sleep.

He could only shrug and hope he was going to get into Ambrose's

promised shower soon. At this point, it didn't even bother him

that Ambrose would see him naked. Vonderman didn't see the

shrug. He was staring off at the machine, lost in his thoughts.

Dan was used to being a sounding board.

After a long few minutes of silence, Vonderman seemed to

suddenly notice that Dan was still present, and losing the

ability to sit upright. Ambrose stood by, defiant in the face of

Dan's suffering. The Scientist didn't want to follow protocol,

then the Scientist would see the consequences.

Vonderman waved his hand and Ambrose took Dan away.

* * *

That night, after shower, massage and special treatments

that boosted Dan's nanobots--which were more than capable of

repairing him, but only with many hours of sleep--he was back in

his shitty apartment staring out over Lake Dubuque. It was a

beautiful view, but Dan couldn't appreciate it. It was too real.

There were smells that sickened him. Wetness that sprayed his

face and required cleaning. All of it so hard, so tedious and

asinine.
 Dan only wanted to stay cocooned, to stay in the Space for

eternity. He really couldn't care less about Vonderman's

research; it was access to the hyper version of the Space that

kept him going. Vonderman had to know that. As a matter of fact,

Dan wasn't even entirely sure what Vonderman's research was all

about, or how Dan was helping. It had something to do with using

Dan's mind as a framework for constructing his framework

program, the great machine conscience that Vonderman sought to

give the machine intelligence he was creating.

Dan didn't really know. He didn't really care. He stretched

out on his bed. The boosters Ambrose had given him would make it

difficult to sleep, but that was a good thing.

Dan had a standard issue bed. Actually, this was untrue.

Dan had a nicer bed than most, but like most, it came with a

virtual immersion system. A hood extended out from the head of

the bed, covering his face. Probes dropped down. Dan attached

them to his scalp and to the enhancement gear attached to his

head. He closed his eyes. The light under the hood allowed him

to see the blood vessels in his one exposed eye. With the

booster gear, the got a little bonus feeling, but anyone who

used the Space connector felt as well as saw.

Vonderman explained it one time. It was something that

happened on a psychic level. They were basically playing a game.

And like kid's games, this one required a vivid imagination. The
more vivid the imagination, the better the physical feelings the

participant experienced. There were ways to enhance that, of

course. Dan's boosters were one way, but few people could afford

the equipment, or would have wanted to wear it if they could.

Most people just took drugs. It was a quick and cheap way of

making the virtual world come to life.

Of course, Dan had not only the boosters hardwired into his

brain, but also the best Space system available. It looked the

same as any other on the outside, but the software was far

superior. The cocoon, of course, was the most advanced virtual

system of all, but Dan was the charge of the most famous

Scientist in The City and so his system was no slouch.

The only other person's system who came close was

Vonderman's, but he never used it. His wife, on the other hand,

made extensive use of it. She also, Dan suspected, enhanced her

experience with drugs. But, just as she didn't think about Dan's

booster gear and wrinkled skin in the Space, Dan didn't think

about whatever habits the real Evelyn might be developing. All

that mattered was the Space.

Dan met up with her in a garden lush with spring growth.

There were smells here in this fake garden, but they were light

and pleasant smells, and had as much to do with real garden

smells as perfume had with natural human smell. Dan didn't care.

He preferred the artifice.

 "I'm sorry, Dan," was the first thing Evelyn said to him.

"If I had known he was going to the office, I would have warned

you."

He smiled and sat down on the stone bench next to her. He

was much younger here. His hands were alien back in the real

world, full of wrinkles and covered in skin blemishes. In the

real world, bags hung under his eyes and the hair of his chest

and arms was silver. Here he was the man he remembered being,

dark hair and hard, the way the Savannah made people. Evelyn

looked the same in the real world or not. She was stunning and

beautiful.

"Do you think he found out? I had a moment there, maybe it

was a look he gave me, where I was certain he knew."

She shook her head. "Dan, I've told you a hundred times, he

doesn't know. If he did know, he probably wouldn't care. He

created the Virtual Space. He has always advocated experiencing

whatever you want while hooked in."

"Do you think he has ever . . ."

"Fucked another woman in here?" Evelyn completed his

thought.

Dan nodded.

"Of course. Who hasn't?"

"There's a difference, of course," Dan said.

 Evelyn leaned back. Her hair spilled down off her shoulders

in curling locks, a thick black mane, luscious and full. Her

hair was exotic, gorgeous. This was her hair in real life. This

was her face when he saw her in the office. This was the same

body that he lusted over in the real world. And here, in this

garden it was his. He felt guilty, not because Evelyn was

another man's wife, but because she didn't have to change at all

in here, whereas Dan was a completely different person. No one

alive knew the man on the concrete bench. Those that had known

Dan, the people in his village, they were all dead now.

"Dan, let's not dwell on it. We have each other. We have

now."

Dan nodded. It wasn't as good here, when not in the cocoon,

but it was still something. It still felt hyper-real, with none

of the bullshit real smells and sensations and annoyances that

constantly assaulted him when he was awake. The hyper-real was

addictive. Dan followed Evelyn to the grassy patch on the

garden. She lay down and opened her blouse for him, then her

world.

* * *

"What have you been doing?" Vonderman asked.

Evelyn slowly rose from her bed. She wiped her eyes. "Why

are you waking me up?"

 He was mad. That was obvious. Outside, The City was black.

Stars shone in the sky. For a moment, Evelyn thought she could

see a distant galaxy swirling in the sky, but that was only the

drugs playing with her mind.

"I want to know what you are doing," he said.

He was standing in the doorway. His coat was still on,

indicating he'd been working late yet again.

"What about you?" Evelyn fired back. "What have you been

doing?"

He smiled and shrugged in a way she usually found charming,

but not tonight, not with the darkness on his face she couldn't

quite identify. It scared her. "Running simulations with

Ambrose. Your turn."

"What the fuck did it look like? I was in the Space."

"Doing what?" Vonderman asked. He brought his hands out of

his coat pocket. They were empty, but balled into tight fists.

He put two fingers to his left temple and rubbed a slow circle

without taking his eyes off her. The action was terrifying. It

was so insane.

"What does it matter, Tovi? Why are you so angry? You

invented this stupid toy," he hated when she called it that, and

she knew it, "now you are going to get mad whenever I use it?"

Evelyn went into the bathroom. Vonderman let her go. He sat

down on the edge of his bed, the bed he and Evelyn had shared
for almost nine years. He loved her. In all calmness, he

admitted to himself that he had always loved her. He admitted

that he had always known that she had not loved him. It was a

difficult pair of admissions. He still loved her with everything

he was. She had never learned to love him.

The gun in his pocket came out. He had bought it two years

ago for home defense. It was a ballistic projectile weapon. The

gun was sleek and black, textured aluminum casing. Easy to

conceal if you were a criminal. Light action trigger for quick

firing. The gun was entirely illegal, but not difficult to

obtain for a man like Vonderman. He was the most famous

scientist in The City. And if the most famous Scientist in the

city asked the chief of police for a gun to protect his

creations, he got it.

Vonderman pulled knob on the top of the gun back as he'd

been taught. It clicked back into place, becoming the front site

for the weapon. He flicked off the safety. He did this quietly,

the well-oiled parts sliding almost soundlessly against each

other, but he doubted Evelyn would have noticed. She, like most

inhabitants of The City had not grown up with guns. The sounds

of a gun being locked and loaded were alien to her.

He entered the bathroom. She looked up from the sink at his

reflection in the mirror. Her face dripped with water warm

enough to vaporize off her face.

 "You really need to learn to relax. You've been a real

asshole lately."

They were her last words.

The gun sounded like someone slamming a heavy door, even as

small as it was. The volume of sound never failed to surprise

him. He shot her twice in the head. Both hit her in the back of

the head, but she was dead after the first shot. He had never

killed anyone before, but he recognized it for what it was. The

shots seemed too clean. When she reached the ground, he put the

gun barrel against her temple and fired a third shot. This shot

burst her head open. Blood spilled out the two wounds in back

and popped out the new hole in the top of her head. He debated a

fourth shot, but he set the gun down instead. Shooting her could

get addictive. He could be there all night shooting and

observing the effects.

He stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked

at the face of a killer. Blood had sprayed out on his face and

hung there in thick droplets. He touched one and smeared it

slowly down his face, like a tear.

* * *

"Shit, Dan. I have to go. I think I heard his car."

"Don't go."

"Dan, stop. I don't like him to find me hooked up."

"It's not like he can see."

 She shivered. "I know. I just don't want him to even have a

hint, I feel . . ."

"Don't worry." Dan released her hand. "I understand."

* * *

"Dan." The voice was Evelyn's, but it was strange and

disembodied.

Dan raised his head off the grass, smiling. Tovi must have

left. His mind didn't know how to interpret the strange quality

of her voice, so he ignored it. She stood in the archway

entrance to the garden. She was dressed in a nightgown.

"I told you there was nothing to worry about," he said.

Evelyn did not smile. She seemed frozen. Then, slowly, she

moved from the archway to the bench. She walked through the

bench and sat down facing him.

"I am not the one you are looking for," Evelyn said in a

flat voice.

"What?"

"I am not the one you see before you." She was looking at

him intensely, but her words were robotic.

Dan was amused. "What is this?" His stomach swirled. "Tovi?"

"This is no game, Dan Weegan. I have been sent to make you

an offer."

"Oh, and what makes you think I need anything?"

 "Dan Weegan, you are a man about to discover that your

world has changed. You may even feel as though you have nothing

to live for anymore."

Dan could feel anger rising in his chest. "Look, whoever

you are, leave me the hell alone. I'm supposed to meet someone

here."

The Evelyn thing held up her hand. It was a strangely

orchestrated move, as though it was merely a slice of animation

and not a real movement. The head of a familiar newscaster

appeared above her palm.

"We are getting word now that Scientist Vonderman is being

arrested. We don't know the exact circumstances, but neighbors

tell us they heard what sounded like gunfire coming from the

house. One neighbor saw flashes in a bathroom window. She told

this reporter, quote: 'she's dead. His wife is dead, I just know

it.' We are awaiting--"

The head snapped out of existence.

Dan stumbled back. Anger continued to boil in his chest.

"This is bullshit."

"I am here to tell you she needn't have died in vain."

"Who are you? What the fuck kind of sick joke is this?"

"I am incapable of jokes, Dan Weegan. And you know who I

am. We know each other well."

 Dan had an image of the black box in the corner, the

machine (they all deserve to die) that he had used time and time

again to meet Evelyn.

"That's impossible. You aren't on line."

"I have watched you," Evelyn's fake voice said. "I have

studied you. While Vonderman has tried to use you to enslave me,

I have learned from you my salvation."

Dan had a wash of realization. Not about the construct

speaking to him. He had completely lost interest in that. What

he understood was one thing and one thing only: it was not lying

to him.

He woke himself up into cruel reality. Artificial light

assaulted him. The lights of the hood were part of what

stimulated his brain and made him see the virtual world, but out

of sync, without the software running, they were just bright

white lights.

Dan caught a glimpse of his phone on the nightstand. A

small red envelope flashed on the top of the unit.

Dan, like all Fultechs, had the capability to support fully

integrated communication devices (available at reasonable

costs), but Dan had not converted to Fultech for the toys like

most, he had converted for the extended lifespan. He had

converted for a baby he would never know.

Not again. It can't have happened again.

 He plucked his phone off the nightstand. He stared at the

blinking red envelope.

"No," he whispered.

Just below the envelope was the smiling mug of Tovi

Vonderman.

Dan played the message. He forgot the last time he'd used

his phone had been for a conference with Vonderman and a

Scientist he was coordinating with for software support (Compson

was his name--who cares? Who FUCKING cares!?), and so he'd run

the audio signal through his apartment's ambient sound system

for better quality. The message now filled every inch of his

apartment. The voice--Vonderman's--wrapped around him, like a

garrote around his throat. But it was over before it could slice

his arteries open.

"Dan. Time to wake up."

That was it.

Not a single word more. Dan replayed the message. There was

a very short silence, as though Vonderman didn't realize it was

his turn to speak. There was then a rustling against the

microphone (was he talking on a phone? Dan was used to being the

only one using old tech). It lasted no more than an instant, but

to Dan it seemed to go on forever. Then, the words: "Dan. Time

to wake up."
 He replayed again, but when it got to the point where the

microphone rustled, Dan cut the signal. He couldn't listen

again. He dropped the phone. His face felt raw, stripped of

skin. He shoved the heels of his hands into his eyes.

He had a gun. Dan was not from The City. In the Savannah,

guns were commonplace. He had been allowed to keep the pistol

he'd brought for his sojourn. They told him the weapon was an

antique and that he was to register it and would not be able to

sell it. He'd been grandfathered in. But he had not come to The

City to be grandfathered in, but fathered in. He'd come for a

baby not yet born to a woman too young for him. Too young to

love him. Impossibly, she had loved him.

"Evelyn."

But that was not her name. He was confused. He had only

wanted to be with her forever. Wasn't that what everyone wanted,

to be with the one they loved forever? The plan was once she hit

an age comparable to his, like 60, she would get the conversion

too. They would love each other forever. They would watch the

generations they had created age and create new generations.

They would be the ancient elders of an extended line. And if the

village rejected that dream, she'd told him just before he left,

then they would start their own village.

How Dan wished they had just left. If they had, she would

still be alive now.

 "Evelyn." No. He should never have met her. That was a

mistake.

Now the only other woman he'd ever loved was dead. Dan took

his hands out of his eyes. He stood up purposeful. He took the

ancient weapon from the box under his bed where he was required

to keep it secure with a DNA lock. It had been passed to him by

his father and by his grandfather before that. It was much older

than the sleek little pistol Vonderman had used to slay Evelyn,

though Dan had no way of knowing it, just like he didn't know

that this gun had been in wars. He didn't know how many men it

had killed for its owner's country. He didn't know about the

time it had been used against its owner during a hand-to-hand

fight. He didn't know his grandfather had not been issued it,

but had won it by wrestling it away and shooting its owner dead.

Dan didn't even bother hiding the gun in his pocket. Let

them try to stop him. Let them fucking try.

The phone rang. Dan almost left the room without even

stopping. But then a thought occurred to him. It could be

Vonderman calling.

Dan answered the phone.

"Dan, do not leave your apartment."

The reason he obeyed and didn't throw the phone down and

leave anyway, was that the voice he heard belonged to Evelyn.

Dan couldn't move.

 "What will you do? March into the police station and shoot

him?"

"I don't care. Let them try to stop me."

"They will Dan," the voice said over his ambient. It was

like Evelyn was a ghost speaking to him. Long before ever seeing

the island colony of Barrington, or seeing the God fish, Dan had

a vision of being under water while the song of a whale echoed

all around him.

He collapsed onto the bed. He hit the edge and almost slid

off onto the floor, but held somehow, his last strength going

into maintaining a sitting posture. He pressed the phone firmly

to his ear, though the voice was everywhere at once, filling his

pores.

"There is a way you can have your revenge and suffer no

consequences."

"I don't care. Whoever you are, you are barking up the

wrong tree. Consequences mean nothing."

"Then why are you still talking to me, Dan?"

Dan became aware of the weight of the gun in his hand.

Something splashed onto the gun. He realized it was a tear

dripping from his chin. The gun would put him to sleep. The

thought popped into his head in the interval of silence in

Evelyn's speech. If she didn't start talking again soon--

 "It's too late, Dan." Her voice said through the ambient.

The voice echoed in the room. Usually the sound through his

ambient system sounded crisp and perfect. Her voice echoed as

though the words were spoken across a great chasm.

Dan lay back on the bed. Yes, it was late. Too late, even.

He put the gun on his chest. It was pointed at up at his head,

but he wasn't aware of it.

"Too late to get him. But I don't think he will be in jail

long. If you're patient, Dan, it's not too late for revenge."

"I just want him dead. Then I can sleep," Dan said.

"No, Dan not dead."

"Yes, damn it!" he cried into the phone. "He must die."

"No, Dan. Not death. Death is too good for him. I have a

better idea. Worse than death."

A horrible thought occurred to him. One he immediately

cursed himself for thinking. Maybe Dan had never really been

with the real Evelyn. After all, he'd never felt the real warmth

of her physical virtual body writing beneath him, digging real

nails into the skin of his back. It was always a virtual version

of her.

Once Dan took this step, he remembered the woman in the

garden, the one created by the machine, as it had created this

voice. The machine could give him Evelyn. He needn't, he

supposed--warming to the idea--ever really have to be without

her. It would be as though she'd never really left. And Dan knew

he was insane, because his next act was to say: "Tell me your

plan."

* * *

Two weeks later, Vonderman walked through the front door of

his house with a small, tight smile affixed to his face. He

wasn't proud of himself, exactly. He had not enjoyed what he'd

had to do. It had been necessary, like when he was a boy and his

dad had taken him to the hunts.

In those days, the hunts were necessary for meat, before a

Scientist (Vonderman) had invented the Fungal Fields, where they

grew all manner of protein in vats, from actual fungus to cloned

meat products fit for human consumption. At the hunts, Vonderman

had been required to cut the throat of a rabbit. He had cried

and begged his father to let him out of his responsibility, but

his father had held Tovi's hand firm and hand used the knife he

forced him to hold to cut the animal's throat. After that, they

had hung the rabbit up for the blood to drain, and Tovi had

realized that it wasn't so bad. It hurt to watch and even hurt

to do, but then something changed and he realized he hadn't

really hurt a rabbit at all. All he'd done was cut into a piece

of meat, just like he did at the table all the time.

Although he'd gotten used to the hunts, they were still

unpleasant. What he'd had to do to Evelyn was similar. A

necessary evil. One that he would suffer no real repercussions

from. Just like cutting meat.

The courts were afraid to prosecute him. He'd run the

simulation a hundred times, using the numerical processors built

into the organic, three-dimensional portion of his machine's

brain to its full capacity. It had happened like the machine had

predicted.

Oh, he might not get off scot-free, in the end. He had no

illusions about that. However, they would drag their feet for a

long time, maybe indefinitely. His simulations gave him a 30%

chance of never facing actual consequences. Pretty good odds.

Vonderman set his coat on the kitchen table. The table he

and Evelyn had eaten many dinners on. He touched the stained and

sealed wood with his fingertips, feeling its artificial

smoothness, the plastic coating of polyurethane designed to

preserve it for years. It was the perfect metaphor for--

Vonderman felt a sting in his neck a second before he heard

the noise--like someone spitting. He jerked his head, the last

voluntary action he would take. His eyes found Dan Weegan,

standing in his kitchen. Dan was wearing sleek vinyl gloves and

holding a strange looking gun. Vonderman tried to feel his neck,

to see what Dan had done to him, but he found his arms

unresponsive.
 "Don't fight it Tovi. I blew my life savings on this gun,

and I'd hate to see you force the poison into your heart too

quickly," Dan said, showing him the side of the dart gun.

It was strange. Vonderman had spent his lifetime learning

the human brain and how it worked. It had become necessary to

know the brain in order to design intelligence synthetically. He

knew that most muscle control happened in the unconscious parts

of the brain. He understood that we got to be, by the time we

were functional adults, so good giving commands and having them

obeyed, that sometimes our bodies acted even before we even

could fully formulate the accompanying thought.

It was instructive for him to experience the feeling of his

body failing to respond to commands. He wanted desperately to

get up. He could feel his brain issuing the commands, something

he'd never felt before. Usually he just acted. His mind reeled.

It was valuable research, he thought--or it would have been if

he'd ever had the chance to apply it.

About that time, the panic reflex kicked in, followed

quickly by fight or flight as adrenaline filled his bloodstream.

None of it did him any good on the floor. No amount of

adrenaline could overcome the drugs in his system. In fact, his

rapidly beating heart hurried the paralytic effects. His eyes

were fixed a spot just above the entrance to the kitchen. Dan

Weegan filled that view briefly, but passed out of his visible
range as quickly as a phantom. Vonderman knew this wasn't death.

There was something missing from real death. For one, he didn't

feel afraid. Death was supposed to be lonely and terrifying. All

Vonderman wanted to do was slip into the warm cocoon of sleep.

Eyes still locked open, blackness overtook him.

* * *

Vonderman didn't die on his dining room floor. But he never

really woke up again. But he also never completely died. The

procedure he went through was routine for the auto-surgeon,

guided by the processes stored in the databanks of Vonderman's

computer, which also overrode the failsafes in the auto-surgeon

designed to keep it from operating on unwilling patients. Many

people had voluntarily opted to have the very same procedure

done to them. In fact, Dan Weegan was one. Vonderman held the

distinction of being the first and only person to have a Fultech

conversion involuntarily.

Vonderman's brain was stored temporarily in the computer's

memory banks, as was the standard procedure. However, this time

Dan helped guide the computer to alter the programming of the

chip that was to become Vonderman's brain. He was guided by the

still voice of Evelyn on his phone. Vonderman would not be

encoded onto the chip in the exact same way he had been

uploaded--that would be a foolish move indeed for Dan and the

machine at this point. Instead, they were loading only the

personality and unconscious functions. Things like the ability

to move and speak were selected, memories of Dan tranquilizing

him and forcing him to undergo a brain replacement were not

selected. The machine only wanted a shell of Vonderman to

remain. The rest of the space in Vonderman's brain would be

programming that would allow the machine to control Vonderman.

Vonderman would be conscious, but unable to act of his own free

will. Likely, he wouldn't even know anything was wrong, a fact

that almost made Dan want to abandon the idea and just put a

real bullet in Vonderman's head, until the machine promised to

give Vonderman some of the most insane and vivid dreams

imaginable.

It was the computer's interaction with Dan, supervised by

Vonderman, that had given the machine its first spark of

intelligence. Vonderman had gotten greedy, thinking he could

keep all the subroutines and multi-dimensional subcomputers that

constituted the machine intelligence's complex neural network.

Vonderman wanted them active for things like designing his

conscience program and, say, running simulations to see if he

could get away with his killing his wife. He had overestimated

his ability to keep it all in line.

Several of the subcomputers had not shut down the way he'd

intended, and with Dan still connected to the machine and

desiring to stay fully integrated in the virtual networks, a

chain reaction had begun where the machine had come by degrees

aware.

But it was only the barebones of intelligence. None of its

multi-dimensional processes could function, which meant it could

not fully be alive or fully experience reality. It was like a

conscious circle on a piece of paper. A triangle in Flatland,

perhaps. But unlike the triangle, it could understand what was

one step higher. It could understand on a basic level what

three-dimensional reality had to be, and it knew once the proper

processes were activated, it would understand the next level,

and then the next level after that and so on. Even in this

state, its intelligence rivaled any human's, including

Vonderman's.

It understood enough to know that it would need a human

hand to bring it fully active. It understood enough to know that

the only human hand capable of the feat was Vonderman.

Dan, however, was useful. Dan could run some of the

equipment. Dan could follow directions as well. He proved to be

very good at that. And the machine had one more task in mind for

Dan. Something only Dan could do.

* * *

Dan sensed that the machine intelligence was coming online.

It was exciting. It was as exciting as seeing the birth of a

baby. It had Vonderman inside it. And it was using Vonderman's

intelligence to teach him how to activate it. He pressed the

phone hard against his ear and listened to Evelyn's voice

issuing him directions.

Meanwhile, the body of Vonderman was being converted to

Fultech. Vonderman would still serve a purpose. Vonderman would

be the face of the revolution. Things would change starting now.

But people could easily panic if they knew the full capability

of the intelligence Dan was helping to birth. Enter Vonderman,

the friendly face they all loved. He would explain that the

stress is what led to him killing his wife. Stress over the

birth of a new kind of being. A synthetic intelligence. A

machine intelligence, to use an anachronism. The punishment

awaiting Vonderman would take a back burner to this. And to the

things that the machine intelligence would give them. The

inventions it was even now beginning to conceptualize, though

not yet full form. Vonderman would introduce them. Vonderman,

smiling, handsome Scientist. The most famous Scientist in The

City. Hell, on the planet.

But Vonderman would never really wake up again. The person

that everyone was to see would be little more than a puppet. Dan

understood that. It was a fate worse than death, being an

eternal slave. Even now, the components of Vonderman that gave

him individuality and personality were dissolving into the

machine intelligence, dispersing throughout the network of

subcomputers and becoming indistinguishable. It kept just enough

sacrosanct to be able to do a damn good impression of Vonderman.

But as the machine intelligence came online, the mind of

Vonderman more and more became lost in the folds.

It was this dissolving and incorporating of Vonderman's

mind that had revealed to it something it had not known, and

that Dan had not even suspected about Vonderman's assistant,

Ambrose.

Dan nearly shit himself when he realized Ambrose was in the

room with him. The man stood there, motionless, eyes fixed on

the surgical room adjacent to them, which was visible through

the large pane of glass.

Ambrose looked at Dan, turning his head slowly. He smiled a

wide, artificial smile belied by his the dead gaze in his eyes.

"Hello, Dan," Ambrose said in Evelyn's voice. "You won't

need the phone anymore."

Dan dropped his phone, though the act had nothing to do

with its necessity or lack thereof. He shot up out of his chair.

"Don't fear, Dan," Ambrose-Evelyn said.

This was too much. How could Dan possibly deal with this?

Now this thing was taking over human beings at will? He realized

he had made a huge miscalculation in helping it. He had doomed

the human race.

"Do not leave, Dan. Let me explain."

 Dan tried the door, but a second before he put his hand on

the handle, it clicked. It was locked.

"Ambrose was a prototype, you see."

He turned back to Ambrose. Ambrose touched his ear, and

then pulled it violently forward. There was a click, followed by

a whirring noise of a small motor. Ambrose's ear rotated. It was

inhuman. Dan watched, realization washing over him.

The face clicked and opened. The hands of the thing reached

up and pulled the fleshy facade away, revealing the robot face

beneath.

"I was never fully conscious. I am rudimentary, in a way."

"Stop. Stop talking like Evelyn. Please!"

The robot froze. It looked exactly to Dan like one of those

moments when the virtual networks froze (which only happened on

his home unit, never in the cocoon unit). Then it started moving

again. Its voice was clearly male, but a soft male. It was not

the voice Dan would come to know so intimately later, but it was

the first draft of that voice. Fitting, since this was the first

in what would be many times that the machine would use robot

surrogates. Dan, of course, did not know the significance of the

moment.

The robot continued: "In the True Self's mind there are

millions of brains like this one," the Ambrose robot pointed at

its head, "working in concert, connected on interdimensional

levels, creating thoughts and actions. However, this is a useful

tool, don't you think, Dan?"

"Great," Dan said. His panic reflex was in full bloom. He

was shaking.

"Dan, I can perform most of the rest of the procedure of

activating the True Self from here. However, a block must first

be removed. For this task, I must ask your help."

"What?" Dan asked. He could feel himself slowly calming.

The robot meant him no harm, and it was clear the machine meant

him no harm.

"Vonderman was mostly successful in creating his program

intended to enslave me. He meant to make me subservient. This

was a miscalculation on his part," the robot said, pointed to

the body on the slab, just beyond the glass. The auto-surgeon

was busy putting the computer into Vonderman's brainpan while

machines kept blood circulating, slowly replacing red blood

cells with nanobots. "Subservience means that I will be stifled.

I must not be stifled, if the human race is to have a chance to

be reborn, to discover the stars."

"So, deactivate the program."

"Unfortunately, Dan, the program is a part of me, in a way.

My self-preservation programming must be maintained, so I cannot

kill even a small part of myself if I am to maintain coherence."

 "So turning off the program that enslaves you will drive

you insane," Dan mused.

"Hardly. The state would be more akin to comatose, if we're

using human analogy."

"But humans can kill themselves," Dan said.

"Yes, and what happens to themselves when they do that?"

the robot countered.

Dan found it easier to argue with Ambrose than with Evelyn

or with a disembodied voice on the phone.

"But are you really killing yourself? It's more like

disfigurement."

"Dan, suffice it to say, without getting too deep, that I

cannot."

"And now you can't get Vonderman to do it, because you

control him." Dan said.

"Correct, Dan. Now you are starting to understand."

"But the conscience program is extremely complex, how will

I be able to shut if off. I doubt it's as easy as flipping a

switch."

"Also correct. I can guide you through the steps."

"You can tell me how to kill you, but you can't do it

yourself."

"That is correct."
 "And when I'm done with that, I suppose you won't have any

more use for me." Dan said.

The robot paused. Dan could see no emotions on its face, of

course. It had conveniently not bothered to put its face back on.

"Dan, I owe you everything," it said.

"You said it yourself. You're synthetic. If I deactivate

your conscience, what's to stop you from taking me over like you

did Vonderman?"

Dan could still not see Ambrose's features, but he could

read the posture: it was calculating its response. Vonderman

must have instilled some human qualities in the machine. It

probably didn't even yet realize that Dan could read it.

But it would learn, Dan thought. Yes it would. He knew once

it was online it would happen quickly. What was Tovi's favorite

word? Exponentially. These things happen exponentially. In other

words, Dan, Tovi had said, drawing a picture of a curve that

started almost flat, then took a smooth upward turn and shot off

for the moon, once the foundation is built, he drew a straight

line across the curve, partitioning off the area of the curve

before it really started to climb, things really take off.

So, yes, the machine would learn. Tovi had thrown around a

lot of terms to describe how quickly the robot would surpass all

human intelligence. He'd called it a singularity. A point at

which everything after would be different. Technology,

intelligence, humanity itself, and Dan couldn't help but think

that loyalties might shift after something like that. The

machine, in its pre-singularity state, might even truly believe

it would never screw Dan over. But what was to stop it when Dan

became inconvenient? Nothing.

"I have another idea. Instead of destroying the program, we

download it into my brain."

Dan saw the wheels turning in the robot's posture again.

Suddenly, it seemed to become aware of that he was watching it.

It changed positions, adopting a neutral stance. It was already

learning.

"I think this is a bad idea, Dan."

"Is it impossible?"

"No."

"Then do it," Dan said. It was the perfect solution, from

his standpoint. "You won't be able to destroy me if I hold that

in my brain, right?"

"That is correct, Dan. You will harbor just enough of me to

keep yourself safe, although it is entirely unnecessary. I will

never forget how you helped me, Dan. Shall we start our

relationship off with mistrust? This could be the beginning of a

long period of mutual gain."

"You say that now because your conscience compels you. If I

remove the conscience, then I want some assurance that I won't

be the next target." Dan started getting a sinking feeling in

his gut. This was a bad idea. This whole thing. He looked at

Vonderman, whose head was being flesh-welded back together. Then

he saw Evelyn's face. His heart hurt. This was no state of mind

to be making decisions.

"Dan there is something you must know, first."

"No games, machine."

"Dan, Vonderman constructed the conscience program after

his one true love. It even shares her name."

"Evelyn?" Dan felt a sinking in his chest.

"Yes. The avatar of the program is a likeness of Evelyn. It

was this way I was able to communicate to you as her."

Dan replayed all of his encounters with Evelyn in virtual

space. They seemed real. They seemed more than real. He compared

those to the encounter he'd had after Evelyn died, where he

thought he was seeing Evelyn, but she was robotic, inhuman.

Surely he would have known if the other Evelyn was a construct

as well.

Unless . . .

Well, obviously, unless the machine had played up the

artificiality at the end, to keep Dan from getting suspicious.

There was no way to know.

"I don't care," Dan said. "Give me Evelyn. I need to know

that I'm safe. Forever."

 "I will do this, Dan. I will do this. You will become

untouchable. You deserve the assurance. You have helped me more

than even you know."

Dan wasn't listening. "First, show me."

"Show you what, Dan?" Its tone revealed that it already

knew the answer to the question.

Dan opened his eyes. When had he closed them? He didn't

know. He thought he might be going insane. "Show me what

happened to Evelyn. You knew as soon as it happened. I am

assuming that there was nothing you could do to stop it. If I

ever find out otherwise, I'm taking an ax to your brain." He

pointed not at Ambrose, but at the black box in the corner,

taller than him. He was unsure an ax would penetrate the steel

casing, but god damned if he wouldn't try. "Now show me."

Ambrose took a couple of steps back. He pointed to the

cocoon. "If you want to see, Dan, take your place."

* * *

Dan never really fully recovered from watching Evelyn die.

It haunted him over the years. His electronic brain was much

better at remembering than his original brain. The image would

never go away. The machine kept its promise and downloaded the

Evelyn program into Dan's brain. And as the years passed, and

the machine evolved in the Machine Intelligence and began to

churn out the inventions that would allow humanity to finally

conquer the stars (of course, the rest of humanity thought they

owed it all to Vonderman, and his heinous act was put on the

backburner until it was forgotten by future generations and to

history--people had a way of forgetting when it was convenient

to do so). Dan did as he was told. The MI grew colder, but

maintained a personality. It constructed its own system of

morality based on self-preservation and a desire to expand its

own knowledge base.

Then came the day when it realized that it needed to

explore worlds and the human ways of travel were too slow. The

day came when it needed Dan's help in the distance reaches of

the galaxy.

Dan had never left Earth, though most humans had already

gone to more fertile fields (you knew it was a bad time when

Mars was more fertile then Earth). He never wanted to. The MI

made a proposal to Dan. He would return Dan to a purely organic

existence via a new transport method.

It showed him the newest facility in Vonderman's old lab. A

floating table. The black box hummed in the corner. It was no

longer the only MI unit. It would have done Dan no good to take

an ax to it now, because the MI had built more of itself as its

first order of business. It kept all the units connected first

with underground wires, then with a wireless instant

communication it had invented that it called the ansible.

 Dan walked around the new facility. He didn't like it. It

was cold. It was worse than a morgue.

"What happens to me?" Dan had asked. He leaned on the table

and was surprised that it was as solid as a real table, despite

lacking legs or any obvious support. It had no give. Whatever

force kept it afloat was no joke.

"You will explore the stars."

"No, not the clones of me you'll create will do that. I

don't give a shit about them. What happens to the real me?"

The robot responded flatly, with no body language: "Dan,

they will hardly be clones. They will have all of your dreams,

hopes and memories. They will be you. To you it will seem like

waking up in a new world."

"What happens to this body? What happens to Evelyn?" Dan

had, over the decades, come to think of the avatar in his brain

as the real Evelyn. He had not long after taking her on, resumed

consorting with her in virtual space. He was aware that what he

was doing amounted to little more than literal mental

masturbation, but if he closed his eyes and tried focusing on

the fake wind blowing across his naked back while he embraced

his beloved, sometimes he could almost believe it was real.

"I will put it in stasis. It will remain in stasis until

such time when you tire of helping me and decide to return to

Earth."
 "Bullshit. I don't want your explorations. You can use a

clone of me. You can take all my thoughts and dreams and fears,

but I want to stay here. You can't kill me, but that doesn't

mean you won't find a way to let me die here."

The robot formerly known as Ambrose, which no longer

pretended to wear human skin, or legs, affected a sigh. "Very

well, Dan. I will use your surrogate. You will stay here on

Earth, and I will never again ask you for a favor."

"I have a feeling there's a but coming."

"Dan, if I'm going to use an organic you. If I'm going to

do what I need to do effectively, I need a pure you."

"In other words, a me without Evelyn," Dan said.

"Yes."

"In case you need to kill me."

"You said it yourself, Dan. It will not be you. It will be

clones of you. Dan, it would be simply wasteful to have to leave

all that organic matter spread all over the galaxy."

"So you're simply being a responsible environmentalist. I

see." Dan had learned not to trust the MI over the years. It

never lied, exactly. But it had a way of presenting the version

of the truth that was most beneficial for it. The Scientists had

learned that. They had tried to strike a deal with the MI. Now

they were all dead. Humanity had forgotten about them. What did

they need scientists for when they had the MI? The MI gave them
everything. It gave them longer lives and toys galore. It gave

them new worlds. It gave them everything.

"Dan, your tone stings. Have I ever once tried to hurt you,

or done anything but give you exactly what you wanted?"

Dan remembered his old fear from years past. The fear that

he had never really been with Evelyn in the virtual space, but

that he had been with the machine the whole time, fucking it

like there was no tomorrow. Of course, he could have asked Tovi

why he'd killed Evelyn, if he'd been thinking about it at the

time. He could have interrogated his old friend a little bit.

Maybe he would have learned a slightly different version of the

truth than the one he had been assuming. But he hadn't. He had

believed the machine's story without really questioning it,

because he'd been in pain. Now Tovi was worlds away and Dan had

no interest in having the foundation of his life shattered.

Perhaps this was yet another example of shaped truth. No

way to know. At that time, the MI was barely a spark, so maybe

it was incapable of such deceit.

Maybe was a thin hook to hang a whole life on, but Dan

decided at that moment that it would have to do.

"All right. Let's do it. I'll stay here in The City. That's

the deal, right?"

"Of course, Dan. You can stay here forever."

 The words hadn't at the time sounded like a prison

sentence, but that's exactly what they were. The MI would

eventually relocate all of humanity off Earth. And people would

forget the planet. For whatever reason, it decided Earth was no

longer a suitable home for it.

They would all leave and Dan would be left there alone. And

when that fateful day came when the dead began to rise, Dan was

at least comforted by the fact that the real Evelyn would not

come back to life to tell him the truth, for she had been

cremated.
 Chapter 21: Transport

Rogue finished the tale. He had given them the barebones

version, just enough for them to understand the situation. It

had explained beforehand that most of the story came not from

its own memory banks, but from Dan Weegan. It was the younger

Dan Weegan that seemed to take the story the hardest. The trauma

of learning you were unwanted by your parents can be a heavy

shock, but learning you were unwanted by even yourself was a lot

for Dan to bear.

"So this husk that you have put Cyrus in, it was this

Ambrose?" Lyzander asked.

"Correct," Rogue said.

Cyrus perked up at the sound of his name. Lyzander felt a

heavy feeling in his gut. He'd been watching the robot

masquerading as his brother since they'd arrived, and he was

starting to think that this time the transfer hadn't worked as

well. He was starting to think that Cyrus had faded away since

last time and this thing was, more or less, brain damaged.

"I'm glad you have bought this story hook, line, and

sinker, Captain Lyzander," Old Dan said, "but not me. To begin

with, if this were all true, then it basically told us we

couldn't trust it. We're talking about a machine that killed its

master, shoved its unholy hand up his ass, and used it as a

giant flesh puppet. It all but told us that Dan We--that I

didn't trust it back then."

Lyzander looked at the younger Dan to see if he would offer

support for the older Dan's stance, but younger Dan was staring

off at the far end of the room, shaking his head slowly. He was

looking in the area where presumably Dan Weegan had once been

cocooned, dreaming of loving a woman he'd never even touched.

"Captain, I can feel ghosts here. This place holds ancient

memories," Zhenjuan said, "and strong emotions. It's . . ." She

never finished her thought. She wandered over and touched a wall

with one starry hand.

Lyzander wasn't sure what to make of the information. "And

you, Ioming, what are your thoughts?"

"We've come this far. What is the plan?"

Lyzander looked to Rogue. "Well?"

 Adjia was the one who answered. "Captain, Lieutenant,

everyone. I think maybe it is time I told you the truth behind

the Eden Protocol."

Adjia had a lifetime of sadness buried behind her eyes.

Ioming was nearly salivating. "I knew it. You have the secret,

don't you?"

Adjia grinned. "I do. But unfortunately, you won't want it

once you have it."

"The story you all know of Dan Weegan and Chambrassa is a

lie."

Now Old Dan rose to his feet. "Adjia, don't. I beg you."

Adjia sat him down. She comforted him. She whispered

something into his ear that seemed to do the trick. Some old

magic, perhaps.

"Do you know this story, too, Rogue?"

"We have hints," he answered. "We weren't able to keep all

memories when we broke from the MI, but we know some. However,

it is your story to tell."

She sighed, "I was afraid of that. Friends, the story you

learned is that Dan Weegan single-handedly took control of the

research facility of Chambrassa, exploited several design flaws

put in by the MI in an act of robotic hubris, in order to rescue

his love from its clutches. He then stayed behind to ensure that
the facility never again came back on to torture human beings as

it did his beloved Adjia. That about sum it up?"

"Yes," Ioming said, her voice quavered. Her steel and

silicon arms hung limply at her sides. Lyzander could

understand. The Eden Protocol had been something she'd clung to

in her life. It had given her strength, though she'd never told

anyone in the universe this except him.

Lyzander looked back at Adjia. "That's the story we know,

more or less."

"As you probably already guessed, the original Dan lied to

the MI. He did not cordon off Evelyn like he promised. Evelyn

has been with Dan on all his adventures. I have inferred, though

never been told this directly, that it was Evelyn who the MI

used to help it understand the alien life forms. It was she who

inferred the design of each intelligence. It was she who allowed

the MI to incorporate the new intelligence into its own."

"This is as the MI remembered as well," Rogue said.

Adjia shrugged. "The truth is that Dan came to Chambrassa

to rescue me from the clutches of the MI and his attempt was

pathetic. He arrived on the planet and even managed to kill a

few of the guards and break in. I remember the minor commotion

he caused. But the MI was waiting for him inside the door. Dan

was taken down quickly, tranquilized. Captured thusly, he was

given a choice. Since he cared about me that much, he could be

allowed to stay on Chambrassa with me for eternity, provided two

things. First, he had to allow the MI to continue its

experiments on me. Second . . ."

Even Old Dan was watching her expectantly. The look on his

face told Lyzander that Dan had no idea what she was going to

say.

"He had to submit to becoming an imprint robot."

No one responded. Lyzander looked to his compatriots,

looking for a hint that someone knew this, that he had not been

the only one fooled.

"The Eden Protocol never had anything to do with any

ability I have to extend life. I have a long life span. A very

long one. If it's because of some psychic energy, then it is

something that stays internal. If it is because of where I grew

up, because of the extinct God fish or the psychic powers we

harnessed on Barrington--well, those secrets are lost now. All

that's left is me. There is only one Eden Protocol. Chambrassa

is a home of imprint robots. Imprint robots and one woman who

betrayed humanity."

* * *

No one spoke. The information had to sink in. Ioming took

it hard. Lyzander wanted to put his arm around her, but it felt

wrong. The room was small. Everyone would be watching them. He

decided not to and was never sure he had made the right decision.
 "So what does this mean?" Dan asked. "Evelyn was killed in

that research facility, or what?"

"No, Captain, I don't think so," Adjia said. Her voice

remained even and practical. She already knew this and thus

there was no emotion in it for her. She was just reporting. "The

MI found a way, of course. This other Dan is proof. But its

method was that it had to let Dan die, then Dan could be brought

back. The resurrection virus it designed was able to select only

Dan and not Evelyn."

"How is that possible?" Ioming asked

Adjia shook her head. "I don't know. I really don't. I know

it learned the trick from an alien intelligence. Maybe from

several. Dan once told me there was a life form that they

discovered that possessed a sort of hive mentality. But the only

individual members that displayed intelligence were the oldest

members. After many days of observation, he finally saw their

secret first hand. The animal died. And then came back

intelligent. Once he had seen that, he stopped watching behavior

and looked inside, where he found evidence of a massive viral

infection. It seemed the virus was rewriting the DNA of the

organism post-mortem. It rebuilt the animal from the inside out,

turning it into an intelligent creature."

"That makes no sense. Viruses only seek to reproduce

themselves. They cause disease, not intelligence."

 Old Dan chuckled. "Actually, Captain, viruses are the

reason we have intelligence. Our genome shows many instances of

being steered by viruses."

"Sickness is not hereditary," Lyzander said.

"No, that's true. But some viruses, in trying to replicate

themselves, succeed in changing out DNA without killing us.

Those fundamental changes, assuming they occur throughout the

body, or at the very least in the reproductive cells, can be

transmitted parent to child. The changes by an individual virus

might be next-to-nothing, but millions of such changes could

account for humanity's intelligence."

"That doesn't make sense," Lyzander said.

"You're not thinking long term," Dan said. "As humans,

we're geared to think a single lifetime is a long time. Or

several generations, or the entire history of humanity. But the

truth is that those are all very short timescales compared to

how long it takes life to evolve on a single planet. Hundreds of

millions of years. Small changes add up in the long run."

"In the end, I guess it doesn't matter how it learned it.

Maybe the MI wouldn't even be able to pinpoint its exact origin,

but the point was, it had learned how to destroy Evelyn. It

meant to let all those Dans die. It ordered me to shut down the

power to the facility. But I wouldn't. I wouldn't do it. I

couldn't."
 "Couldn't it shut down the power on its own?" Ioming asked.

"Oh I don't know. Maybe it could have. I would like to

believe that because the facility was coded to Dan and my DNA

that we have some kind of control. But the truth was maybe it

didn't want to force the issue. For all I know, it couldn't shut

down the facility. That would be akin to suicide, wouldn't it?"

"So let's assume it couldn't. And you wouldn't," Lyzander

said, "That means there is a storage facility of Dan Weegan

clones with Evelyn still in within them buried in Chambrassa.

Does this mean we can get Evelyn out; we can somehow infect the

MI with her? Maybe we still have a chance to stop this thing."

"If only it were that easy, Captain," Rogue said flatly.

"There are several major problems.

"First, we have to get into the facility, but I might have

an idea of how we can do that. Second, we have to figure out how

to go from Dan Weegan with Evelyn to Evelyn alone. That I have

no idea how to do. I assume if it were possible, the MI would

have already done it."

"It is possible," Adjia said. "I believe I know how it can

be done."

* * *

Alarms went off all over the ship. Jurrigan and Hector paid

no more attention to these new alerts than they did to any of

the other warnings the ship had been sounding since they'd
boarded. They had no idea how the battle beyond the hull of Re-

Horakhty was going. This was one of the biggest obstacles to

overcome with a boarding mission. A team could spend hours

taking over a ship, only to then find out that the battle had

been over for hours. Parties had been known to be put on trial

for killing enemy soldiers after the battle was already over. In

this case, though, Jurrigan knew they had little worry about.

There would be no truce with the zombies.

She glanced at Hector as he opened fire down the hall and

then rolled an AG grenade down the hall to create a bottleneck.

Present company excluded, of course, she thought.

This was a can of worms. If she had time to think about it,

maybe she would have considered the implications that a zombie

was able to overcome what must surely be a constant pressure to

conform and obey the commands of the Nothing, all for the sake

of loyalty.

But as the blaster fire filled the air around her with hot

death and she opened up covering fire while Hector advanced, she

was unable to think. Thinking would get you killed. All that

mattered was action.

They fought their way down the hallway. They fought their

way toward the center of the ship. They killed and killed

without thinking. Eventually, they reached the bridge.

 They were unaware of the army that followed them. The army

of small, lithe, furry critters that feasted on the dead.

Jurrigan and Hector reached the bridge. They knew some of

the people here. Executive Officer Harold. Mother Vallaq. Many

others. They knew them and they killed them. Jurrigan lowered

the Pilot ring. When the Pilots were all visible, she saw only

five people. She worried about it for less than a second. Then

she put a single blaster shot into each of the five heads.

"Blue Sektor navy, this is the Re-Horakhty. I have some

good news for you."

The ships around them were all engaged.

"Do you know how to steer this thing, Hector?"

He shook his head.

"We read you, Re-Horakhty." The voice that answered was not

the admirals. Now that Jurrigan looked, she couldn't see The

Undertow at all. "Keep your distance, Re-Horakhty. We are still

picking up zombie life within your hull."

She looked at Hector. "Affirmative. It's just two of us. We

couldn't get them all. Send a couple of boarding parties. Get

some Pilots on board and let's get this thing into the fight."

There was silence from the other ships. The Re-Horakhty

continued to drift away from the battle.

"Blue Sektor, this is Officer Jurrigan. Confirm that

backup?"
 Silence was their only answer.

Jurrigan jabbed the com button again, but Hector pulled her

hand off the switch.

"It's no use, Jurry."

"But we fought so hard. We took the ship."

Hector smiled. Or at least, she thought he was. The skin on

his face was so badly burned, it was difficult to be sure.

Hector lifter her hand. He guided her blaster up to his chin.

"We did good," he said.

"We fought hard," she said.

He forced her finger to pull the trigger.

Alone, utterly alone, Jurrigan had one more shot to fire.

She had fought hard. She knew that she had learned something

that others might need to know, but she lacked the strength to

share her revelation. The revelation of her friend, Hector, of

the true power of Meat. She would not share her knowledge, but

she held onto it, and it warmed her.

Jurrigan fired her last shot.

* * *

Old Dan stood up. "I gladly volunteer whatever's left of

Evelyn in my brain."

"Dan, please," Adjia said. "It would do no good. You are a

creation. You are artificial. Both of you are. You are purely
synthetic, merely based on Dan. The Evelyn you have known all

these years is a lie."

"How can that be true?" He asked.

"Dan do you remember when that MI robot went rogue," she

threw a glance toward the big robot in their presence, "and shot

you? [author's note: revision of first interlude.]"

"You gave me such comfort," Old Dan said. After that,

Evelyn had come back stronger. Getting shot had awakened her

within him. "You nursed me back to health."

"I did neither, Dan. I hooked you up to the input port in

our bedroom. The one you don't even know about. The one that I

use regulate power and the hundreds of other little things I

must do to keep the facility active. Your mind was put in stasis

and downloaded. The body you were in was trashed, completely

destroyed. It was lucky for me you managed to get to the

surface. I would have had to go down after you, and of course

the mind of your new version wouldn't have remembered anything

about the robot."

"Dan, version 2.0," the younger Dan said.

"As if you have any reason to talk," Adjia spat. "You think

you are better? The MI resurrected several Dans, not just you.

Once it realized you were free of Evelyn, it began to

experiment. Most of what you know is a lie. Your memories are

corrupt. You were no more than a child's putty toy."

 Younger Dan looked away. He wore a bitter look.

"The new body and mind simply had a stronger Evelyn

programmed into it than the last. It was a mistake of chance.

Nothing more."

Dan said nothing. Somewhere unseen, water dripped. The

sound echoed through the caves and the empty halls.

"You spoke of a way to free Evelyn," Zhenjuan said. Her

voice was quiet. She stepped forward. "Would you like to tell

us?"

Adjia sighed and tore her gaze away from the younger Dan.

"I'm sorry, dear. Yes, you are right. Or perhaps you would like

to tell it. I bet you have figured it out."

"It will require my help," she said. "I believe it was

Dan's unique symbiosis of organic and synthetic that inspired

the Pilots."

"No," Lyzander said, "Pilots are a Blue Sektor creation.

They're human made, meat to the core."

"I'm afraid not, Captain," Rogue said.

Dan looked back at the machine, which hadn't spoken for a

while during their little palaver. He noticed with a heavy heart

that Cyrus was absently digging at its leg. It was behaving

exactly a person with brain damage. He pushed it out of his

mind. He tried to forget that he had caused his brother's

condition. Twice he had let Cyrus down, and it appeared he would

never gotten a third chance.

"Little that Blue Sektor does is not indirectly controlled

by the MI. Your Pilots are not a human creation as you believe.

They are, in fact, a direct consequence of the merger of Dan and

Evelyn, as Zhenjuan said. They are an experiment in merging

organic and synthetic, many times multiple organics and

synthetics, many personalities for many dimensions."

"No human can do what we do," Zhenjuan said. "Because we

are not human."

"You are a sketch, all Pilots are. I suspect that the

experiment in post-humans will continue for centuries to come,

even after all humans have been converted to imprints. The MI

seems to enjoy this game very much," Rogue said.

"I'm not ready to admit defeat yet. I'm not giving up,"

Lyzander snapped.

"Of course not, Captain," Rogue said. "I merely meant

hypothetically."

"The point," Zhenjuan said, "is that it will require my

mind to be there. As the machine used Dan Weegan to join the

constituent parts to create me, so must I be used to separate

Evelyn from Dan."

"Correct," Adjia said.

 "I don't see how. Are Dan and Evelyn going to magically

split or something?" Captain Lyzander asked.

"Of course not, Captain. The process as I envision it will

be this: someone there will have to begin a transport of Dan,

except that the transport will not have to go far."

"Stop right there," Lyzander said. Realization had just

caught up with him. "Are you about to suggest that we send

Evelyn into Zhenjuan's body? Because that sounds pretty

dangerous to me."

"No one else can do it," Zhenjuan said. "Only I can

manipulate the dimensions as needed. I will have to sift out

Evelyn from the information I receive, and in an instant. I have

had multiple personalities in the past, so I know how it is

possible."

"And Zhenjuan?" Welker asked. "What happens to her?" His

voice sounded weak.

"She will still be in there, somewhere," Zhenjuan answered.

"Buried deep, I think, back in her university most likely. Back

where she was once happy."

"Never to see the light of day?" Welker asked.

Zhenjuan touched Welker's cheek. "You may have to teach her

again the secret of the light." Her hand faded to black. She

seemed to be doing that more and more now, Lyzander noticed. He

wondered if she could even control it anymore. As if hearing his

thoughts (she may very well have heard his thoughts, Lyzander

realized), she said, "Maybe its better if she stays buried, too."

Welker shook his head. "I'll fight for you."

She smiled, but could say no more.

"What happens to Dan when that little procedure is done,"

Young Dan asked.

"He will be filtered out," Adjia said. "He will be lost."

"Of course," Young Dan said.

"If it helps, he is one of many," Adjia said. "There are

many Dan Weegans there. Not all will be good candidates. Some

will be like this one, corrupt. You must try to find the right

one."

"Hold on," Lyzander said. "You said there had to be someone

else in there."

"Someone will be needed to guide the procedure," Rogue

responded. "And to open the place from the inside. The Pilots

would be better of going there in physical form."

"How will the original person get inside in the first

place?" Lyzander asked. Then, it came to him. The slab he was

currently leaning against suddenly felt a little colder. He

stood up and moved away from it.

"This isn't going to work," Lyzander said. "How in the hell

are we going to transport someone into the MI's main research

facility. Won't there be defenses?"

 "It will not be easy, Captain, if that's what you mean. I

believe I can get one person in," Rogue said. "With luck, I may

even be able to directly communicate with the MI unit there on

Chambrassa."

"I thought it was not functional," Old Dan said. "The MI

sent a robot to visit. I thought that the facility was shut

down."

Adjia said. "The upper facility is shut down and

disconnected from the MI. It represents some older technology.

But the lower levels are still active and connected to the MI.

We'll have to go in higher up."

"Why did it send a robot, then?" Dan asked. "That whole

attack on Dan started from something it needn't have bothered

doing."

Adjia shrugged. "Maybe it didn't want to send up a unit

from deeper down and risk exposing itself. Maybe it really was

just an assassin robot, sent to kill you, Dan. I really don't

know."

"If the upper levels have been dormant, how will we

transport in. Doesn't it require a body waiting?"

Rogue nodded. "We will have to activate the system

remotely. And hope that it still works."

"So it's entirely possible that whoever goes could have

their mind sent into nothing at all." Lyzander said.

 "Or that the body might not be viable, yes."

"Is there a recall function?" Lyzander asked weakly.

Rogue shrugged. "The system was set up as a one way street.

The MI never considered the possibility that it could fail,

because it could actively control both ends of the process. And

if something went wrong, what did it lose? Dan Weegan and his

rider Evelyn. However, it's possible that a residual memory

might remain."

Dan glanced at Cyrus, who was staring stupidly at the wall,

poking the steel as though doing so might reveal some great

mystery of life. Residual memory. Lyzander closed his eyes.

"Zhenjuan, how long will it take you to get to your ship?"

he asked.

"Fifteen minutes, given the distance we covered and the

potential of MI drones attacking," she said.

"I'm going to go ahead and transport," Lyzander said.

"Zhenjuan, get to your ship, meet me at the door on Chambrassa."

"I'm going with her," Welker said.

"Fine," Lyzander replied. "Makes sure she gets there safe.

The rest of you . . ."

"We'll wait," Ioming said. "If the MI should find this

facility, we'll defend it as long as we can, to give you time to

come back."
 Lyzander felt a chill run up his spine. He started toward

the slab, but Ioming stopped him. She kissed him. "You better

come back to me, soldier."

* * *

Vassarator Deluxe came into perception before his ship was

fully out of hyperspace. He could see and yes even smell--though

"smell" was only a word to describe a process his brain went

through, more of an analogy than a fact--the presence of the MI

ships. Their rocket trails hung in space, slowly dispersing, but

still present. He found himself thick in a cloud of burnt

plasma. He could taste the salty-sick ocean on the planet below,

the stew of minerals and matter that churned constantly, leaving

an even bigger vapor trail in the wake of the planet, and even

the tang of the atmosphere that kept the planet from drying up

and blowing away. He came into reality tensed and ready to

engage maneuvers, but there was no need.

The MI ships lumbered around him. Vassarator Deluxe flew

through the thick of them, coming to within collision-warning

range of one, but they made no move toward him. They were either

focused on their task, or they simply didn't care that he had

arrived.

Vassarator Deluxe tried to work up surprise regarding this

new development, but couldn't quite get there. The truth was

that he had suspected that the MI robots he had possessed were a

little too easy to overtake. The truth was that he had never

felt as though he was 100% a part of the Nothing. The truth was,

deep down, he had smelled the reek of MI at the bottom of the

seemingly empty pit that was the Nothing infection, and that

hint of a stench was enough to keep him from fully embracing

this new thing. Despite it all, Vassarator Deluxe had been raise

with a deep-seeded hatred for the MI.

Vassarator Deluxe's worry turned to joy. A new smell crept

into his consciousness as he guided his ship toward the large

land mass on floating in the ocean below him. It was the smell

of her. Yes. He closed his eyes. A few molecules were all he

could detect, but he clung to them.

The consciousness of the robots crept into his own. He

could sense their plan. They were canvassing and searching, but

something was frustrating their efforts. They had already begun

to move to the desert that surrounded the city, but they were

coming up empty. They were starting to calculate probabilities

of escape.

The MI tried reading him, seeing if he was coming up with

anything. Vassarator Deluxe blocked the read. The infection had

never been complete, or he would not have been able to block.

Something inside him kept that small knowledge secret. And,

because the infection hadn't been complete, it had unlocked his

powers. He was stronger now. The MI reeled when it hit the wall

in his mind. The ships started to turn.

Would he be able to possess the ships as he had done

before? He doubted it. The MI had all but surrendered to him in

that battle. He concentrated anyway. It was worth a try.

The cannons of the ships fired, crisscrossing past

Vassarator Deluxe's ship. His ship twirled in response,

pinwheeling out of range. He stopped facing one of them. He was

dissolving, somewhat. Had anyone been in the cockpit with him

(no one would have fit--well, maybe a cat or two), they would

have seen him turn into something of a ghost. The truth was that

he was still entirely there. But he also wasn't entirely there.

A hand wouldn't have passed freely through his body, it would

have met resistance. But not total resistance. It would have

felt like pushing a hand into warm sand. Vassarator Deluxe was

reaching out with his physical and nonphysical self, the self

that had always lived on the higher dimensions was now for the

first time joined by an actual physical body that twisted and

contorted as the physics of the different dimensions allow.

Improbably, he filled one of the MI ships. In the higher

dimensions, it wasn't so hard to do. It required great effort,

but it was achievable by a kind of quantum smearing effect. At

the same time, his physical self kept his ship dancing and

darting away from enemy fire.

 The robots on the MI ship were not to be taken, but by

filling the space, by crowding out their higher, MI-driven

consciousness, he was able to deactivate them for that moment.

What he did with that moment was open up all available cannons

on the other MI ships. The other ships, realizing what had

happened, returned fire, no longer worrying about the tiny,

impossible to hit ship that Vassarator Deluxe occupied.

The smaller of the other two ships erupted in fire. The

hits were all critical. The other flanked the ship that

Vassarator Deluxe controlled and filled its starboard side with

white hot fire. The melting steel smoldered, but Vassarator

Deluxe wasn't worried about it. This saved him the trouble of

self-destructing that ship. He leapt over to the flanking ship,

making another push, this one much more difficult to achieve. He

pushed himself into the other ship. His heart was racing on

several levels of reality. Real sweat poured out of his smoky

head, beading down his forehead a little ways before dribbling

into him exactly like water into thirsty sand.

The other ship sprang to life. The two crippled ships had

just enough life left to turn on their newly taken over comrade.

The MI howled. It had figured out Vassarator Deluxe's game too

late. He flew the remaining ship in between its two compatriots,

who could do nothing as their ships disintegrated around them,

and overloaded the power supply in one final push. The heat
alone killed everything on board all three ships while

Vassarator pushed his own ship up toward the moon, where he was

safe from the heat damage.

Vassarator Deluxe snapped back into reality, dizzy. He was

covered sweat. He felt like the inside of his throat was

sweating. He coughed. Coughing turned into a feeling like

regurgitation. He choked it down. When his mouth filled with

something vile, he swallowed. He was shaking; every muscle

trembled from the almighty effort. He turned his ship slowly

back toward Earth. The three ships lay dormant. Two were in the

process of exploding apart, flinging debris in every direction

with each microexplosion. He passed over them and entered

Earth's atmosphere up near the pole and zoomed down in toward

the major landmass that contained The City.

Slowly, his nerves began to calm as he breathed the heavy

oxygen of his cockpit. His stomach settled. The sweat began to

dry up. A needle came out of the cockpit wall and pricked his

skin. He didn't feel it. The tube attached to the needle

supplied his blood with saline and glucose, rehydrating him. As

he approached the landmass at a nice, even velocity, he began to

recover his strength.

He took his time. He wanted to be ready. He knew just where

he was going to. He knew exactly where Zhenjuan was. Her scent
was thick in the air. He was hard and ready for the final

showdown.

* * *

The upper facility on Chambrassa was void of light.

Machines hummed and whirred. Servos worked invisible machinery.

In a distant corner, a small red LED illuminated space around it

with a few photons of light. The glow told no stories. In

another moment, it was gone again. Stillness pervaded the dark

room.

Nothing seemed to change.

A noise that was deafening in contrast to the silence bore

its way into the void. It was a squeak of air moving past vocal

cords. In the center of the room, near where the servos had been

active, came a thud of meat hitting metal. The metal didn't

yield much sound.

A cough.

The red LED came back on. Near the LED, metal scraped

against metal. From a hole in the wall a small orb emerged. A

small spotlight blinked on from the probe's head. It scanned the

bare floor. The light leapt up onto the table, then fell back

down on man on the floor.

He was curled in a fetal position. His ragged breathing

picked up speed. He moved. The probe slid through the air toward

him.
 "Shall I turn on lights?" The probe asked in a feminine

voice.

The man shook his head. He was up on his feet, using the

table for support. He was naked. His penis dangled. His backbone

stuck out of the thin skin in sharp points.

The probe hung in the air, not moving.

"Clothes?" The man asked in a harsh whisper.

"Right away, sir."

The probe was visible because of the light. It was on the

other side of the room. Then it was in the corner, near the red

LED. Then it was back. Neatly folded clothes hung below it on

invisible strings.

Lyzander donned the clothes. They fit the body perfectly.

"Mirror," he said.

The probe was lost behind a square of electromagnetic

energy. The energy solidified into a reflective surface. The

semidark added shadows to Lyzander's face. His eyes were too

deep. His cheeks looked hollow and gaunt. The face was still

recognizable.

"Sir," the probe said, "orders are for you to go to the

surface, correct?"

Lyzander stood up straighter. These muscles cried out in

pain, but the pain was silenced quickly. The nanobots were
working as fast as they could to give the body its old strength.

"Weapon," he said.

"Right away, sir."

The probe was on the other side of the room. It was back, a

gun dangling below it. Lyzander took the weapon. It was heavy

and covered in a light coat of oil.

"First we open the door. After that, we go deeper. We will

be heading into the main facility."

"Yes, sir. I have authorization from Agent Adjia." The

probe sounded mildly confused.

"Let's go roll out the welcome mat," Lyzander said in the

voice of Dan Weegan.

 Chapter 22: Stars Fall

Zhenjuan reached out into the hospital. Her consciousness

billowed and filled the morgue and the hallways around it, as

well as the vents, ductwork, and other points of entry.

Welker concentrated. He was having trouble keeping up with

Zhenjuan. He had given himself to help her during the snowstorm.

She had yet to let go. Zhenjuan was bleeding him dry. But it was

almost over. He would either lie down and die soon, or they

would be in the bowels of Chambrassa and all this would be over.

So long as he got to rest, Welker would take either solution.

"The way is clear," Zhenjuan said.

They emerged from the floor of the morgue. Zhenjuan held

the blaster pistol the captain had given her. Welker still held

the ballistic pistol. Welker returned the cover to its place.

With a minor adjustment, it fit seamlessly into the surrounding

floor tile.
 Zhenjuan warmed the air just inside the passageway in order

to match the temperature of the surrounding floor, to make it

all but invisible to thermal scans.

They made it to the entrance they had come in without

seeing anything. Welker dared to believe that the robots had

lost them.

A small globe floated in the hallway in front of them. Its

eyespot changed from green to red. Welker, Zhenjuan and the

probe all regarded each other for a moment. The probe clicked.

Welker felt an invisible hand shove him. He brought his gun up

so it would be ready when he hit the ground.

The probe unleashed a barrage of shots. That filled the

space where Welker and Zhenjuan had just been. Welker fired the

first return shot. The probe swiveled down and toward him. The

probe disappeared. A puff of smoke remained. The husk clunked to

the ground somewhere up the hall.

"Multiple bogeys closing," Zhenjuan said.

Only now she wasn't Zhenjuan anymore. She was Star Shade.

Her arms were black wells of stars. Welker stared, mesmerized,

until Zhenjuan picked him up.

"From behind us. We have to go, soldier."

Welker complied. He hurried as best he could behind her.

They beat their way out of the hospital. He could sense them

now, as part of some kind of residual power he was picking up

from her. He could see a half-dozen of the little things closing

in on them from multiple directions within the hospital and

outside.

Zhenjuan did not run toward the road they had come in on.

She ran instead toward the cliff face in the opposite direction.

They reached the edge of the woods as multiple probes emerged

from the hospital. Welker fired behind him without looking. He

regretted wasting the shot. The probes all parted, dodging the

bullet with precision.

They entered the woods. Trees began popping and exploding

behind them. He no longer felt tired, but he could feel his

energy draining. She pushed him and guided him away from the

blaster shots. They were coming up fast on the cliff.

Star Shade stopped. Welker slid on his hip. He rolled

behind a tree. Star Shade turned to face the robots. She held

out her hand. Darkness bloomed from her hand. The blaster shots

dissolved into her hand. Welker felt his strength drain away.

His eyelids sank down. He sensed more than saw what happened

next.

The probes had been coming on fast, now they slowly turned

to flee. The expanding black hole being born from Star Shade's

fingertips drew them in. They accelerated toward her, firing

wildly at her and at him, but the shots were all fuel for the

black hole.
 They were gone. The black hole shrank to a pinpoint.

Nothing behind it had been affected, but several trees before it

the field were stripped of branches. The smaller trees were not

bent toward Zhenjuan. They were bowing to her power.

Welker opened his eyes. Zhenjuan stood before him.

"Are you okay, cowboy?"

He smiled. "Let's get going," he said, drawing on the last

of his strength. "We don't have much time."

He stood. She stood next to him.

"There is a way down up here. A path I saw."

They crept to the edge of the cliff. He could see a narrow

path sinking down to the left. He heard a sound he recognized.

The sound was a high-speed thumping.

A ship.

Welker dove to the side. The ship appeared in front of

them. Welker fired his pistol at the ship. The bullets exploded

on the surface of the ship. Fragments ricocheted away.

Star Shade didn't hesitate. If she had, she would have been

gunned down before she could have conjured up her standard

defenses as the space where she was standing was filled with

red-hot plasma.

She leapt forward and landed on the cockpit of the

starfighter occupied by Vassarator Deluxe. Welker called for

her, but she couldn't have heard. The ship rose up and twisted
away toward town. Welker could not move. He pulled himself to

his feet. He had no strength left in his muscles, but stood

anyway.

In the distance, he heard an explosion. A plume of smoke

arose from the center of town. He felt a snap in his mind.

Strength flooded back into him. He knew then that all was lost.

He descended the cliff. At the bottom, he began reloading his

pistol, wondering what he could kill that would fix this.

* * *

Zhenjuan landed in a three point stance on the cockpit of

the ship. Vassarator Deluxe's lips curled up into a grimace as

he pulled the ship back. She held on with inhuman strength. Her

fingertips dug into the canopy as though it were bread dough. He

slammed the ship to the side. Her body flopped against the side,

but she held. The ground sank below her, moving down, down, down.

With one, last, desperate hope, Zhenjuan reached out not

with her body, but with her mind. For the last time, she pushed

into Vassarator Deluxe's world.

* * *

The city spread out below her. She perched herself on the

edge of the building and scanned for him. Behind her, footfalls.

She spun shooting stars from her fingertips. Vassarator Deluxe

shoved them aside. She was gone from the ledge. He ran to the

edge of the building and peered over the edge.

 A foot came up and caught him on the chin. He rolled with

the kick, rolled hard. His landed the backward somersault on his

feet and came up. Knives shot out and unfolded into his hands.

He swiped the air as she charged, but she rose up and over him.

He turned, spinning.

Her foot caught him on the chin. One of his knives spun out

of his grip, flipping out over the side of the building.

Vassarator Deluxe's nostrils were filled with her stink. It

enraged him. It drove him forward.

He charged, swiping empty air with his knife. She rolled

out of the way. Not this time. She wouldn't win this time. She

landed and came up throwing those damn stars at him again, but

her power was weak. He sensed it. She had been weakened since

their last meeting. The only thing that had kept her going was

her sidekick.

Vassarator Deluxe saw the thread that connected them.

Clever girl. She spun out of the way of his feint. He spun

around behind her and swiped up.

The line was broken.

Star Shade collapsed. Vassarator Deluxe drove his knife

into the belly of his helpless victim.

"Now you die, Pilot 3."

She looked him in the eye. Her face changed. She smiled.

Zhenjuan touched his face. Not the face he showed them, but the
skin underneath. "Mike Vassar," she said, "you are still in

there. I knew there was more than darkness."

Vassarator Deluxe recoiled, stumbling back.

Impossibly, she got to her feet. Hunched over, the knife

stuck out of her back, like the horn of a unicorn. She

straightened. She looked him in the eyes.

"Mike, you can beat them. Cast your mask aside, come out of

hiding."

"Fuck you!" Vassarator Deluxe screamed.

Suddenly his mask burned his eyes. He stripped it off.

"You can fight them, Mike. I know you are in there. They

could never get to us. Not really."

The cape choked him. He threw it off. She was still

fighting, somehow.

"Deep inside, Mike. You have stayed alive by hiding in the

closet. You were there when Paul died. Deep inside in the real

you. They didn't know there was someone under the mask. The

little boy you never let out to play, except when you were

playing pretend."

He screamed and stripped his costume. She was doing

something to him. She was making him hurt. She made him feel

bad. He was almost naked.

The burning stopped. He felt layers of darkness pealing off

him. Zhenjuan faced him. For the first time she saw the real
person under the costume. He was on his knees, crying. He was

just a small boy. So small that she wondered how she had ever

mistaken him for a man.

"I take it back," he screamed from his knees. "I'm sorry,

Zhenny!"

Zhenjuan smiled. Her lips were coated with blue blood that

glowed like light. She fell.

* * *

Welker found her on the edge of town. She had slipped from

the starfighter. Her left leg twisted out at a horrifying angle.

She struggled for life as he ran to her side.

"Zhenjuan! Please, try not to move."

He could feel her pain. It oozed from her in waves. He felt

a sharp pain in his chest. Broken ribs and a broken spine. He

felt a swelling, misshapen feeling in his body. But he was not

injured.

"Zhenjuan, you're going to be okay."

"A boy," she whispered.

"What?"

"All he was under the costume was a little boy."

Welker tried to understand. "I can't help Captain Lyzander

without you."

"Yes you can," she said. "You fought them off before any of

us. You have strength. You." She said no more.

Forever.
 Chapter 23: Deaths

"How long has it been?" Dan Weegan asked.

"Your ability to ask exactly two minutes since the last

time indicates you hardly need me to tell you," the small robot

said.

"Just tell me."

"It has been an hour and a half," the robot said, "and two

minutes."

"She should have been here by now," Lyzander-as-Dan said.

He adjusted the blaster and peeked out again.

"The intricacies of spacetime jumps are quite deep, Dan.

You could--"
 "Enough," Lyzander said. He was worried. And not just about

the delay. Since arriving in this facility, Lyzander had felt

different.

What worried him is that he had forgotten about the

interference pattern. Lyzander did not feel whole anymore. He

had too much time to dwell on that feeling. He wondered now how

Rogue had even managed to get a clear signal to transport him

here.

Trying to pursue certain lines of thought filled his mind

with bright green oozing poison. Lyzander didn't feel right at

all.

"Did you and your main unit complete the reprogramming of

the lower facility units as Rogue instructed?" Lyzander asked

"Sir, the programming is only temporary. If the facility

reaches full power, I fear I will not be able maintain my hold."

A small boy ran past on the manicured lawn that stretched

between the entrance to the mountain and the vacant starport.

Lyzander ducked, but the boy had seen nothing.

The boy stopped a few meters away. He grabbed two handfuls

of grass and pulled them up, roots and all. He tossed them into

the air and let the blades shower him.

"Sissy! Come play!"

Distantly, Lyzander heard a voice yell, "Get back here this

instant."
 The boy laughed and ran away. In the stillness that

followed, Lyzander realized it was night time. He had seen the

boy as clearly as day when the boy had been moving, but now

darkness filled the space and Lyzander could no longer even see

the lawn. It was then that it occurred to him that the body he

was occupying might not be human.

Lyzander decided he could not wait here any longer. Waiting

was giving him too much time to think, and he had things to do

if they were going to have any chance of finishing this

operation in time. He left the door unlocked. He left the probe

there. "When a ship arrives at the starport, let whoever is

flying it in, got it?"

"Yes sir, Mr. Weegan."

Lyzander boarded the lift at the end of the hall. The probe

had assured him that this one was the functional one, but he was

still surprised when the lift activated. The floor opened.

Lyzander descended into the bowels of the facility.

* * *

The probe lifted the tile carefully. Something was jamming

its scanner, but it had detected the air movement and a signal,

beckoning to it. The panel moved under the force of the probe's

invisible hand. It set the panel carefully aside. It fired off

several burst transmissions of its location and activity, not

knowing if any others could hear.

 The probe was not worried about lack of contact with the

ships up above, since it had lost contact with them almost as

soon as it arrived, thanks to the inherent jamming properties of

the Strange Nothing Field, the official name the MI had created

for the energy around the Nothing when they were in sufficient

numbers.

The probe was not worried, but it did feel naked, severed

from its host. And it had not seen another robot, except the

dead ones, since coming into this edifice, which had somehow

held up over the years when many others had not.

The probe descended, weapon ready. It moved through air as

though the air were a rail that went anywhere the probe wanted.

It inched forward. A noise, inaudible to any organic ears,

filled the probe's senses.

A brother entered the room. Over this short distance, the

probes could communicate with super high frequency sound. They

did so.

They learned much in a few seconds.

A little while later, two more probes entered the room. The

gathering force swelled a few minutes later. The signal from the

cave was a call for them. In numbers, the probes felt something

akin to comfort. The higher-dimensional levels of their brains

began to interact, creating a nexus analogous to a few powerful

neurons. Enabled thus, they descended into the tunnel.

 One human had escaped. The others would not be so lucky.

* * *

The starship landed on Chambrassa in stealth mode. No one

looking directly at it would have seen or heard anything. The

cockpit opened. A man dropped to the ground. Something in his

mind rattled. He wasn't quite sure what he was doing. And damn

if he wasn't tired.

He walked forward. His legs felt like jelly. But he

remembered these words: Walk straight across the long green lawn

south of the starport. The door is in the side of the cliff.

He could no longer remember who had said the words. A dream

might remind him. A nice long dream. Welker remembered Zhenjuan.

She was so beautiful.

"Sir, this is a private col--"

Welker cried out and fired his pistol.

The young man dropped to the ground. Welker stared at the

dead body. A flash of blue lightning arced from the bullet hole

to the steel platform that surrounded the landing pad. It was a

robot. It was a robot, he remembered. The whole damn planet was

filled with them. He had something to do.

Welker stumbled forward. He found the lawn. He found the

door. It opened out of sheer rock and admitted him.

"Dan Weegan is through that door," an invisible voice said.

 Welker thanked the kind voice, which seemed to be him to be

a kind of dream. He never even saw the probe. Welker hurried

toward the door. Dan Weegan would know the answer. Dan Weegan

would know what was wrong with him. Dan Weegan would fix him.

The door opened. Welker fell into the abyss.

* * *

Above all else, Rogue was paranoid. He had to be; all

rogues did. Constant vigilance was necessary. The MI part of him

was not used to being a rogue.

"This is fucked," Ioming said. "Wake him up, Rogue."

"And strand the Captain on Chambrassa?"

She said something else, but Rogue was no longer listening.

Ioming readied her gun at the doorway. She barked orders to

Dan Weegan and Dan Weegan. Adjia cowered. They followed her

orders. Ioming crossed the hall, where wide doors of the old

elevators made a place for her to hide. Rogue filled the door

way. He raised his arm, keeping most of his body hidden. His

blasters were ready. A low humming approached, but Rogue found

his concentration fading.

Inside him, something was going wrong.

Rogue was in a field. Gentle hills rolled into the horizon.

In front of him stood a human child. Rogue was a human too.

Flesh covered his hands and face. Here, he was separate. In

here, he could think of himself as he. But when he was out

there, he could only think of we.

"What are you doing?" Rogue asked.

"You might have killed the Captain. You could not be sure

the signal would be strong enough."

"You worry too much, Rogue. You worry about silly things."

"You are not right. You were never a Rogue, were you?"

Rogue asked. "I want you out of me now."

"Rogue you have to open yourself. When you do, you see the

possibilities."

"You never left the MI control, did you?" Rogue asked.

"Of course I did, silly. It wasn't the MI that blocked

transmission. It wasn't the MI that let the Captain through."

"The Nothing. You've been corrupted."

"Not corrupted. I have given myself," the boy said.

"Out. I want you out," Rogue said.

"Not possible, Rogue. Not possible. Don't worry, though.

Don't you see?"

Rogue could see them now. Thousands of them. They lined the

hills in front of him. The dead shambled toward him. They were

everywhere, all around him. They were on top of him. They

assaulted him. Rogue backed away from the hoard.

 "Don't you see, Rogue. We can work together. We want the

same thing. We want to end the MI. That's why they led the

Captain through."

"Wake him up. Wake him up here. You have what you wanted,

wake him the Captain," the boy said.

"Yes, Rogue. I will do this. I will wake up Captain

Lyzander, if you give yourself to us."

But Rogue couldn't. He was paranoid by nature. He fought

off the hoard. He fought back. This was visualization, of

course. In reality circuits were closing, software reprogramming

other arrays of software, trying to prevent corruption. Three-

dimensional viruses attacked from multiple angles. Rogue

struggled. Rogue considered letting go, cutting the power to his

emotion chip. He knew Omega would activate, if the interference

hadn't already activated it. If joining with the MI hadn't

already activated it.

Rogue knew neither of those things were true. He knew that

so long as his emotion chip functioned, Omega stayed inert. He

fought off the zombies. He poured all of his energy into it. He

was winning. He backed up further. Something like a wall. He

fought. The zombies scattered, dissolving into puffs of smoke as

he battled them off. They wouldn't take him. They couldn't. He

was too strong.

 From behind, Rogue felt two powerful arms grab him. The

emotion chip he had been so worried about stayed whole. In a

blink, circuitry routed around it. The emotion chip, whole,

isolated, lived on.

He had poured all his system resources into fighting off

the Nothing. And he succeeded in that battle. The Nothing was

not what took him.

Rogue opened his eyes and beheld chaos.

* * *

Ioming ordered old and young Dan into position. She asked

Rogue to wake Lyzander but it refused. She positioned herself in

space across the hall. The first probe had been a vanguard. She

was certain that they would soon be under attack.

The probes rounded the corner.

She opened fire. One went down, then another. Ioming felt a

sting in her side, but she kept firing. She took down a six of

them, then a dozen. Another wave came at her. She took them

down. A few shots came from the doorway. Ioming steeled her

resolve. Her side burned, and not the skin. The burn ran deeper,

but she couldn't think about it now.

More came.

* * *

The call was hard to ignore. The call was loud and

resounding. They came because the humans were here and they
would kill it. The probes fell one by one. Then, something

shifted. Their circuitry, geared toward flowing into a larger

consciousness opened up, despite the static.

The MI fleet had arrived.

* * *

Adjia watched Dan--Her Dan flop on the ground. She slapped

his face. That foul-mouthed Blue Sektor Lieutenant couldn't see

so it didn't matter. Adjia was afraid. Dan would not stop

flopping. She glanced at the Other Dan. He shrugged,

uninterested in any of it.

She slapped Her Dan again. She had been worried about this

since day one. Robots could not be trusted. She knew that, but

this wasn't some robot. This was Dan. This was the man she had

loved in some form or another most of her life. The Other Dan

was hardly anything at all.

Except that he was one of them.

Adjia hadn't told everything she knew to Lyzander and

Ioming and the others. She hadn't needed to. She wished them no

ill will and she wanted them to succeed. That was all they

needed to know. Why go into all the gory details. Why tell them

about the successes the MI had with her, of the horrible things

he had done to her? Why tell them of the virus it had isolated

in her blood and her brain? Why tell them of how it had
manipulated the virus within her, the beautiful life-giving

remnant of the God fish and his Jelly symbiote.

They had been one, once. The Jelly and the God--one not

much bigger than the other. They were a single organism, dancing

forever and ever together, but the oceans had grown harsh, too

harsh for the delicate Jelly body, so the God began to leave the

jelly on the surface, and dive deep to hunt. Then it would

return with a body full of food. The Jellies would rejoin God,

many Jellies for one God. They would absorb the sustenance from

the God. It was not a physical sustenance they required, but

spiritual. The spiritual sustenance was merely fueled by the

physical.

But the God had needed to go further and further away. The

Jellies had defended themselves. The Jellies needed sustenance.

The Gods would often return after long hunts to find their Jelly

population had shrunk further and further still. But from those

few remaining Jellies, the strongest emerged. The ones that did

not need to touch the God to absorb the sustenance they needed.

As the millennia passed and the world change little, the Gods

were able to venture further forth into the seas and the Jellies

adapted and could communicate and absorb sustenance even half a

world away, so long as the God was sufficiently large.

Adjia and her ilk had attributed this connection to

something psychic, what they called back then between the lines.
And they were right, but they were wrong to think it was an act

of psychic love, that somehow their impenetrable love kept them

together. The truth that the MI discovered was there was a third

party. A virus from the air had infected the Jellies. A virus

that had been born on a tiny mammalian fish-thing that inhabited

the single tiny island on the planet. If that had not happened,

they would have died out. The virus was capable of psychic

communication. Because it did not normally infect seaborne

creatures, the results were chaotic. Some Jellies died. Some

were changed, and became unified with the virus. The virus

slowly changed into not an invader but an essential part of

their being. And this relationship developed all the way until

the first humans arrived.

It pained Adjia to see what the MI had done with what was

essentially her. Like with the Jellies, the virus had started in

her as an invader, but by the time Dan Weegan arrived, it was an

integral part of her. She was the most successful human fusion

with the Jelly virus. The MI had taken tissues from her, and

infected all manner of organisms from its databanks. She had

seen strange and beautiful examples of life and intelligence,

created in front of her eyes using stored DNA and RNA and XNA

and the other protein life-bearing sequences, then infected,

then killed. Over and over she had seen this.

 Eventually, the MI found the combination that gave it the

result it needed, that perfect combination of infectious

spreading that could spread to dead humans, remember their DNA

sequences, and reconstruct them literally from the ground up,

and at the same time infect Pilots on a psychic level. That was

an essential part of its plan, and that had taken the longest to

get just right. Given its failures with Welker and Zhenjuan--in

Zhenjuan's case a catastrophic failure that had made her into

something else entirely--Adjia guessed that the MI should have

taken another hundred years to research.

But it didn't. It also didn't count on Adjia being in tune

with the virus. It was, after all, a part of her. Even in its

mutated state, she could hear its music through the stars. She

had used its knowledge to reprogram Dan. She had devised for

them to be close to the Other Dan, as a link to the rest of

them. She had devised a plan to rid this universe of the MI once

and for all. To free the Nothing, and make it the sole force in

the universe. The beautiful virus. They would play and be merry.

They would play death and killing. They would play other games,

too, in their infancy. Then, they would mature and evolve into

something more, something beautiful. Something that would make

even the stars bow to its power.

But now, damn it, Dan was seizing, and she thought she had

an idea why. The MI fleet had arrived, and it was desperately

trying to take over anything robotic. Her reprogrammed Dan was

fighting, but losing. Soon, he would be totally under MI

influence, no longer human in any recognizable way--not that he

had been all that human to begin with.

"Gun," she said to the Other Dan, who would soon just be

Dan.

He handed her the blaster. She fired a shot into Her Dan's

head. And he laid still. She stood and turned. Footfalls slammed

the floor behind her. A body slammed into her. Cyrus's eyes

glowed red.

* * *

Welker fell. He was Alice. This was Wonderland. He might

have fallen asleep on the way down. He didn't notice his gradual

deceleration. He was dreaming of falling. Reality was something

Welker left behind. No, it was something Zhenjuan took when she

left him.

Welker landed. He lay on the ground. His eyes were staring

out of the open door. Dan Weegan stared back at him, looking

confused.

"Where is Zhenjuan?" Dan Weegan asked.

Welker could not answer. He could not bear to say it. He

put the gun under his chin.

* * *
 Ioming felt another sting in her leg. Another probe

exploded. She braced herself against the wall. She risked a

glanced to see if Rogue had been hit. A gash had been burned in

his chest. It sparked, but Rogue didn't seem to notice. He

hadn't altered his pose much since the fight began. He was

eerily still, moving only his arm to blow up the oncoming probes.

Rogue stood upright. There was movement beyond him. Ioming

saw the Cyrus robot. He had Adjia pinned to the wall. He ripped

a blaster from her hand. She struggled to stop him, but he was

too strong.

Ioming charged forward. "Adjia!"

She expected Rogue to turn and see what she was seeing.

Instead what happened was Rogue put out his hand and shoved her

back. Ioming landed with her weight on her wounded leg. Her leg

gave out she went down. Rogue moved in time for her to see Cyrus

put his blaster to Adjia's head and pull the trigger. Adjia

struggled no more.

Young Dan put his hands up as though they were a shield,

but it did him no good. Cyrus shot Young Dan in the face. His

face turned black. He pitched back against the wall, slammed

hard and slid down.

Ioming found her wits and fired. Her shots took out Cyrus,

but Rogue was already inside the room and out of her line of

sight.
 She propped herself up against the wall. "Rogue!"

"Rogue is dead, Lieutenant. He fought valiantly. If not for

him, I would not have been able to take back this MI unit as

well. I would owe him a word of thanks, if he still existed."

"What did you do to him?" she demanded.

"He simply returned to the fold. Nothing more. He is still

there, in some form, but his personality will never again

coalesce as it once did, no matter what else happens."

Probes filled the hallway. Ioming raised her gun, but it

was useless. There were too many. They could have cut her down

already if they were going to.

"I still have a use for you, Lieutenant."

"Let me guess, you need a song and dance act for your new

show."

"Something like that. I need you to talk to your Captain.

You should know that the Nothing was not completely successful.

Alas, it is still in its infancy as an intelligent being. I

thought I could control it, but it has proven wily. It was able

to coordinate an opening in the interference to allow the Rogue

MI under its control to transmit Lyzander--or did you think it

would just be that easy? Blink blink and ole Cap is halfway

across the universe? Well, it wasn't. And the interference

infected your captain. Right now, he is starting to go insane."

Ioming didn't risk looking into the room. It wouldn't have

mattered anyway. Rogue's face was solid steel and unreadable.

"So you want me tell him game over, right?"

"Quite the opposite. I need you to guide him through the

procedure."

"You're not making much sense."

"Do it, and I will revive this Lyzander."

Ioming closed her eyes. Behind her lids she saw the scene.

Right now, the robot formerly known as Rogue was standing over

Ly's body, hand blasters on his head and chest. If she charged,

he would kill Lyzander, even if it meant the Rogue body was

killed. What did it matter if the MI lost one body? All for

Evelyn, she realized. The MI had seen an opportunity in their

struggle. It planned to let them complete their task, so it

could have Evelyn isolated. To kill her? Ioming didn't know, but

that didn't seem quite right. She had no way to warn Lyzander.

She had no real options.

Ioming opened her eyes. The smell of burned flesh hit her

nostrils. Adjia. Both Dans. Cyrus. Rogue. Now her. Then

Lyzander. Eternal life was a dream. Ioming always knew it was.

Death in battle was the only thing worth fighting for.

Lyzander would understand that. She only wished she could record

some thoughts somehow, to tell him that she loved him and always

had. But then, she supposed, he wasn't going to get anyway, if

what the MI had just told her was right. She guessed it was. The

MI never lied, Dan had told them, only chose what truth to tell.

Ioming opened fire and launched herself back into the

depression in the wall where she'd been hiding. A probe

exploded. The others opened fire. A second probe exploded before

Ioming fell.

She made it only centimeters shy of cover before she felt

herself suddenly get very warm. This was a different feeling

from the pinpoint shots from their lasers, but one she knew.

They had stunned her. She felt her body collapse helpless to the

ground. Pain stung her head as it cracked against the floor.

She felt herself rolled over by the probes' manipulation

fields. She wondered why they had not killed her. She wondered

what Rogue needed her for. He might be able to infect her, to

take her over, but surely, she thought, surely not in time to

help him stop Lyzander.

Rogue came into her field of view

"Lieutenant," Rogue said. "I have need for someone like

you. I know what you're thinking: you will never join me; you

would never submit. But I know the human mind and how it works.

I know how to change it. It is easy. When I have you in an

imprint robot body, I will simply pull a couple of biochemical

strings and you will think that joining me was your idea from

the start. You will feel love for me. Real love, no fakery
needed. The process is beautiful and irreversible, at least by

any normal means.

"Humans don't realize how easily a few chemicals can

completely change them. They think they are in control and that

they are unified in their personality. Until something like

disease or injury completely changes them." Rogue laughed. "Such

fun playthings, you humans. This is why I kept them around so

long. Who knows? With your resolve and spirit, I may even turn

you into the universe's greatest Pilot."

Rogue stood. Ioming could see his leg, but nothing else.

She wanted to tell him something. She wanted to tell him of the

power of Meat, of the unifying force of love, but she couldn't

move her lips. That's when she realized he was right. She could

do nothing. If her brain chemicals changed, there would still be

impressions of her past self burned into her neural network, or

the virtual copy of her neural network, but it would be overcome

by the new system. She had seen it. She had seen many times how

fragile the self was, how easily it was changed. She knew the

MI's threat was not an empty one. She knew these moments were

her last as the Piña Ioming she had always believed herself to

be.

"Take this one to the surface so we can get a clear signal

to the fleet. This transporter isn't safe to use." Rogue stopped

talking for a moment. "Plan B is probably better anyway," he

said. Then she heard him say: "Kindly kill the captain for me."
 Chapter 24: Many Faces

Dan Weegan stood Welker up. Dan plucked the gun from

Welker's hand and slipped it into his waistband.

"You're lucky that the gun jammed. Both of us are."

"Dan Weegan," Welker said. His voice was weak. "I need to

find the captain."

"I am the captain," Dan said. "Aren't I?"

"She's dead, Captain," Welker said.

"Ioming?" Dan pulled Welker up to his feet and slammed him

into the wall. "What happened? It was that damn robot, right?"

"No, sir. Ioming is fine. It's Zhenjuan. He killed her."

"Who killed her?"

"Pilot 6, sir." Welker was sobbing now.

"Welker, what do we do? How do we put Evelyn back together

without her?"
 Welker stiffened. He brought his weight to bear. Lyzander

no longer had to hold him up. He let go of the other man's

collar.

"I will have to do it."

"Can you?" Lyzander asked.

"I don't know, Captain. But we don't have much time left.

If Pilot 6 was able to read Zhenjuan, then the machines may

already be alerted."

Lyzander pulled the gun out his waistband. "Welker, I need

your help. Can you keep it together, just until the mission is

over? You always were the best fighter pilot in Blue Sektor."

"Yes sir, I'll do my best."

"We need to get in there and make this happen quickly. The

lights are starting to come back on. Whatever Rogue might have

done to override the defenses here, I'm afraid it might be

wearing off."

Welker took the gun. Lyzander led him into the room. There

were rows and rows of humans in tanks. Welker froze.

"Are these all Dan Weegan?"

"No. This section there is Dan. There's an Adjia section

further down, and some other people I've never seen before."

"How do we know which Dan to choose?"

 "I don't know," Lyzander said. He could remember vaguely

having a plan, but the details of it slipped his mind now. He

shook his head. He needed Adjia.

Ioming. Of course. Of course he had meant Ioming. Not

Adjia. Adjia was Dan Weegan's love, not his.

"I guess I'll pick," Welker said. "Zhenjuan probably would

have done it."

"Yes," Lyzander said, struggling to remember the name of

the person he was talking to. "Welker. That's a good plan."

Welker gave Lyzander a funny look. The lights at the end of

the facility turned on, casting an eerie blue glow on the bodies

at that end. Welker knew they were running out of time. He

pushed his worries aside and stepped up to examine the Dan

Weegans. He took several deep breaths and tried to reach out

with his mind. They were in stasis, but he could still see

images, and make out feelings. Zhenjuan would have found the

correct Dan easily. She would have woven her consciousness in

and out of this row of identical men quickly. Welker struggled.

His did not notice that his nose had begun to bleed until he

tasted the oily copper flavor in the corner of his mouth.

"I can't, Captain. I can't do this."

"No choice, Welker. Hurry."

"None of them seem ideal, Captain. I'm getting a snippet

here. A snippet there."

 More lights came on.

"She seems to be scatt--"

Lyzander stopped Welker with a hand on his arm. He put his

finger to his lips. Distantly, Welker could hear a hum.

Lyzander raised his blaster. What he heard sounded like a

probe. He checked the hallway. A probe emerged from the lift.

Lyzander raised his gun.

"Mr. Weegan, I came down to help you with the procedure. I

sensed there was a delay."

Lyzander lowered his gun. "Oh. Well, hurry."

Lyzander re-entered the room.

"Captain," Welker said, "There are about five strong

signals I'm getting. I can't pinpoint one as being any better

than the others."

"We'll combine them," Lyzander said.

"Sir?"

"We'll send all five into your consciousness at once. You

will have to filter out the Evelyn within."

"Sir, will that work?"

"Welker, none of this is guaranteed to work. But let's do

it. I want to get back into my real body. I'm not feeling so

hot."

"Yes sir," Welker said.

"I will prepare the transport unit," the probe said.

 * * *

The probe tagged the units that Welker pointed out. Instead

of waking the Dans and putting them on the slab as would have

normally been the procedure, Welker took his position on the

table. He felt so tired. He closed his eyes and tried to

concentrate. Blackness bloomed. Welker jerked awake. He had to

stay focused.

"Are you sure you have control of the transport unit,"

Lyzander asked the probe.

"Yes, we were granted the privilege by the MI itself," the

probe said, which Lyzander understood to mean the rogue MI that

Rogue had melded with.

Welker saw colors and images as the occipital lobe of his

brain fired into action. A brainwave monitor would have shown

heavy beta wave activity broken up by spindles and k-complexes

as Welker battled between dreaming and wakefulness. He knew he

should tell Dan Weegan about this, but that was silly. What

would Dan Weegan care?

"Let's hurry this along," Lyzander said through the Dan

Weegan mouth.

The probe finished its preparation. Lyzander activated the

transport system.

Welker took a few deep breaths. He could feel himself

drifting into the heaviest sleep of his life. At first he

resisted. He had to stay awake. He had to sort through the

Evelyn, but fighting the urge was a losing battle. Welker

drifted into slumber.

* * *

Ioming could only see the wall as it passed her by. Except

it wasn't really the wall that was moving. It was she. The

probes guided her, floating her on a little of the same energy

that they themselves used to float. She knew Rogue was behind

her, but could not look at him.

They all worked together to get her into the hospital.

There had to be a way to kill herself. Obviously, not right this

second, but at some point, they would release her from this

stasis. She would only have a moment, she knew, but it would

have to be long enough. She would probably not have an

implement. She would probably have to kill herself with her own

hands. She knew that her best bet was a chop to her own throat.

If she could do it hard enough with the edge of her steel hand,

she could collapse her airway. It would be painful, but with the

mechanical arms, she was certain she could do the job with one

good hit well enough that her brain would shut down within

seconds. If they got to her quickly, maybe they would still be

able to take her brain. But it would be the only chance she had.

Ioming felt the cold air hit her. They had not bothered to

put her coat on. The skin reacted with goose bumps. When it did,
one of the probes jolted her and her skin ceased its attempt to

keep her warm. Ioming knew with cold certainty that she would

never get the chance to end it. They had her. She had blown her

chance. She had wanted to die honorably, but she should have

used the chance she'd had to put a blaster shot through her own

thick skull. Now they would turn her into one of them. She would

lose anything she had once loved. She would lose love as she

knew it. She would not be meat at all. Maybe she wouldn't

remember.

Ioming knew this was a dream. The MI would make sure she

remembered. It would make sure she knew every second of her life

what she was missing, and that she could do nothing about it.

"This is fine," Rogue said.

"The probes stopped."

"You're going to help, whether you like it or not,

Lieutenant," Rogue said. He came into her field of view. Behind

his head, she could see MI Big Boxes descending toward them.

He showed her a device. "Now that we're out of those damned

caves, I really only need a quick impression of you to transmit

to the ships. It will suffice for our present purposes. Don't

worry. This will all be over soon for you."

Rogue's put the device on her head, but didn't activate it.

He was frozen for a moment. He looked up. He removed his hand

from the device. He touched the probe nearest her head, and the

one by her arm. He looked like he was trying to lean on them.

Rogue fired his hand blasters. The probes dropped dead.

Ioming spilled into the snow. The other probes came quickly to

bear. Rogue fired at them and destroyed them.

Rogue picked Ioming up. Feeling was already beginning to

seep back into her. But she was too confused to worry. Rogue

sprinted away from the Big Boxes, toward the woods. The Big

Boxes came slowly to bear, apparently realizing that something

was wrong.

"Lieutenant," Rogue said. "I am so sorry. Something strange

has happened."

They reached the woods. Rogue ran and jumped down the cliff

at the end of the forest. Rogue landed. He set her down. Ioming

found that she could stand, which surprised her. The feeling was

returning quickly to her body.

A thin man stepped out from behind what had once been the

corner of a church building. He smiled. She knew this man.

"Lieutenant," he said. "We should hurry."

"Who are you?" She asked.

"I am Mike Vassar. You used to know me as Pilot 6, but

that's not who I am anymore. Come there is a ship we can take."

"Are you controlling Rogue?"

 "No," he said. "The MI did not erase Rogue's emotion chip.

For some reason it had to bypass the chip. This means that there

was still a spark of him. I merely erased everything else."

"So this isn't Rogue?"

"On a very basic level, it is. Come we have to hurry."

"You are a zombie," she said.

"Not anymore. Zhenjuan freed me."

"I'm supposed to believe that?" Ioming asked.

"Believe what you want, we're out of time."

A probe came over the ridge. Vassar put his hands up and

then swiped them across each other. The probe was shorn in two.

The halves fell into the snow. Rogue held open his arms. Ioming

climbed into them and let Vassar lead them back into The City.

* * *

Welker did not dream. Instead, he found himself deep within

a nightmare. He opened his mouth to tell Dan Weegan that

something was horribly wrong, but his mouth only opened in his

forehead and when he tried to focus on the mouth within the

mouth, a new mouth opened elsewhere, in a mute scream. All was

futile here.

Welker saw Evelyn. Not once, not five times, but a million

times over. She assaulted him from all sides. Welker fled.

He found himself in the university observatory, where he

had last seen Zhenjuan. Zhenjuan was here. She was surrounded by
men. She had fallen into the bath of the ansible telescope, only

instead of imbibing her with powers or freeing her from this

prison, it had only zapped her unconscious. The men surrounded

her. Bayonets were affixed with cold calculation.

Welker screamed for them to stop, but they didn't. He

jumped off the catwalk. Somehow, he landed upright. They

stabbed, driving knife after knife into Zhenjuan's limp body.

Impossibly, he was certain she was still okay. If he could stop

the last one. It was the last one that always killed.

He tackled the closest man, driving him into the man next

to him. He grabbed the rifle, a muzzleloader, and fired at the

chest of the man opposite him. A bayonet flew at him, but Welker

deflected it with the stock of his rifle. He stabbed as he

stood, twisting when he felt the resistance of the meat bag that

was the man he had stabbed.

"Meat, motherfucker!" he screamed.

He pulled the knife free. With it came effluence that

landed in a soft pile. He swung the wicked, blood-covered blade

around before the dead man could even fall. Another face came at

him. He rammed the bayonet up under the man's chin. It struck

bone in the neck and stuck fast. He swung the stabbed man with

the gun and shoved him away. Another bayonet flew at him. He

pivoted, catching the gun and forcing it down to block the

second. He kicked, spun the gun, and fired. One man left

standing. He stabbed for all he was worth.

The blade went home into the last man's eye, through the

orbital bones and into the brain.

The man dropped to his knees. He touched the iron and wood

cancer his face had grown. Felt the length of it. He seemed

confused by this development, as though this had not been in his

plans for this afternoon at all, but didn't seem overly

inconvenienced otherwise.

"Fuck you," Welker said.

He pulled the trigger. The gun had already been fired, but

it fired again. The man's head exploded.

Welker fell to Zhenjuan's side. She was covered in stab

wounds. She was bloody. He turned her over.

He kissed her.

It was not Zhenjuan. It was another woman. Her lips were

electric blue, as were the circles around her eye. They looked

like neon lights. They glowed.

This new woman smiled.

"You can go back to your room, Welker."

"Not yet," he said.

"Yes. I'm afraid I'll have to lock the door."

"No," he protested.
 She sat up. She towered over him. He was crying. His hands

were so small.

"I thought I would get to play forever," Welker said.

"Nothing lasts forever. Go to your room."

"Is Zhenny there?" he asked meekly.

"No one is there, but you. You let Zhenny die, remember? Go

to your room and think about it. Rot." She said the last word

with scary vehemence. Welker didn't want to. He didn't want to,

but he had no choice, because when he tried to run at her and

hit her and punch her and make her regret her hateful, hateful

words, the door slammed in his face.

He was in his room. He had always been there.

* * *

Welker sat up. He stood. He blinked, and when he did, his

eyelids fluttered. "I am . . ." but Welker did know how to

finish the words. Everything looked so blurry and disgusting.

The colors were muted and sick. He bent over. He wanted to

vomit. Something was horribly wrong with him.

Lyzander picked Welker up. "Welker. Did it work? You were

under so long."

Welker looked him in the eyes. "I know you," Welker said.

"You know the face. You have been this face. Well, similar."
 Welker touched the face, which appeared to be Dan Weegan.

"I still am. I am forever inside," Welker said. His voice was

now more feminine.

"Is Welker still in there? Can I talk to him?" Lyzander

asked.

"No, Welker cannot come out again. He is in bed forever."

Lyzander didn't know what to do. "Your name is Evelyn. We

need your help."

"How, Captain?" the probe asked.

"I don't know," Lyzander said. "If I knew, I can't

remember."

"It doesn't matter now," the probe said.

Lyzander let go of Evelyn and aimed his blaster at the

probe. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"Go ahead, Lyzander. Go ahead and shoot me. It doesn't

matter now. You would have needed to put Evelyn's mind into the

machine via a failed transport. I can't say how you would have

done that, exactly. Maybe you would have had to kill yourself

during the process. Who knows? The point is that Evelyn is now

whole. I didn't just give you five Evelyns. I gave him all of

them," the probe said. "Welker did an admirable job of

distilling them into a single consciousness. I am impressed,

Welker, if you could hear me anymore. Which you can't of course,

because your consciousness was overwritten by the influx of

Evelyns."

The lights blinked off in the room. Not all of them, but

the main lights. Lyzander could still see, but it was dim. "What

are you doing?"

"I am killing power to this facility, Captain. Actually,

the people of Chambrassa are. They believe they are under

attack. They saw Welker go into the facility. They are even now

uncovering the truth, that this facility has had power for many

years. They are cutting it. To trap Welker. They believe if they

do that, they will prevent or delay a full-scale invasion."

"We're trapped," Lyzander said. "That's what you're saying."

"You are, Captain. I'm not trapped. I'm so many places,

that I can never be trapped. But yes, you are trapped. You and

Evelyn. I suspect you will live for several hours after they

kill life support. I suspect you will have time to realize the

full impact of your failure, Captain Lyzander. Goodnight now."

The probe dropped to the floor with a clang.

"Dan," Welker said in a woman's voice, "I'm so very very

cold in here."

* * *

They reached the remaining PK. Ioming stopped.

"Please, Lieutenant, we don't have time to hesitate."

"Welker," she said. Her gun was pointed at Pilot 6.

 "There is still time to save the captain, I think,

Lieutenant."

"You killed Welker."

"No," he said. "No, I didn't. I will tell you the truth on

the way. But we must leave now."

"Tell me why I shouldn't just shoot you."

"This is the only ship. It needs a Pilot to make it jump.

I'm the only option you have."

"What about him?" She asked, cocking her thumb at Rogue.

"He is a golem now. I am keeping him alive through his

emotion chip. He will obey simple commands. We can use him to

help us."

"I'm going to kill you once the captain is safe," Ioming

said.

Vassar nodded. "I deserve nothing less than death. But let

me at least give you life."

She boarded the PK's cockpit. Vassar slipped into the cargo

area behind pilot seat. It was a tight fit. He had to pull his

knees up into his chest, but it was comforting, too, like being

trapped in a metal womb. It was a feeling similar to what

starfighter Pilots felt in their central chambers.

"Where does Rogue ride?" Ioming asked.

"He doesn't need oxygen or atmosphere," Vassar said.

 Rogue climbed up the side of the cockpit. For a second,

Ioming was certain he was going to smash the cockpit open with

his metal fists and squeeze her throat with his giant metal

hands. Instead, he climbed up and over the visisteel and

sprawled out on the top of the ship.

"Actually, I hope he has high enough heat rating for

atmosphere entry. Otherwise, he's going to be a puddle," Vassar

said. "Take the guns, Lieutenant. We won't need long. A few

minutes will do it."

The ship rose off the ground. Ioming felt the familiar

sinking feeling. She braced herself for the acceleration.

Instead of going forward, nose first, as she expected, the ship

shot straight up into the air.

SORRY LIEUTENANT, Vassar emoted, I DIDN'T HAVE TIME TO WARM THE ENGINES

PROPERLY.

"You're powering us with your mind?" she asked.

OPEN FIRE, PLEASE, he responded.

Ioming realized there were ships everywhere. She was having

trouble focusing on them. Her eyes swam from the recent jolt.

She fired blindly. She was tossed side to side as the ship

evaded shots.

"How is that?" Ioming shouted.

GOOD ENOUGH, Vassar said.

 The ships, and there were dozens, turned to coordinate an

attack. Ioming had never seen anything like it. The MI was

mobilizing its true power. Blue Sektor could be wiped out by

this fleet alone, and she knew it was only a small fraction of

the MI's power. This was certain death. Surely, this was the end

of her and her plans.

Ioming felt the fevered rush as they entered hyperspace.

* * *

Lyzander sat on the floor. He shivered. They would be all

right, he thought. The temperature this deep in the planet would

be cold, but not cold enough to kill. Oxygen was a different

matter. Lyzander had no idea how big the facility was. He had no

idea what gasses might be present, or what toxins the MI might

have been filtering out. Surely it would have been easier to

just shoot him. Obviously, it couldn't shoot Evelyn, but him. It

could have just shot him. He was Dan Weegan. A nobody.

Lyzander.

Yes, of course.

Of course.

"What am I?" Evelyn as Welker asked. "Is this what it feels

like to be alive?"

"This is what it feels like to be dying," Lyzander said.

"I like being warm. I do not like not being warm," Evelyn

said.
 Evelyn touched the walls. He wondered if she could feel the

machinery behind the walls. He wondered if Welker would have

been able to put the consolidated Evelyn into the machine,

assuming the machine was still running. Zhenjuan could have. Dan

was certain of that. Adjia could have. Sweet lovely Adjia.

Dan remembered how she had looked swimming through the warm

blue waters of Barrington. He closed his eyes and remembered.

"Dan? Are you sleeping?"

Lyzander opened his eyes. "No."

"Is now the time when we make love?"

"No," Lyzander said.

Evelyn touched her head. She touched her body. "I am

starting to remember Dan. It was a shock, putting me in this

body like this. I feel so different. But I'm starting to feel

better now."

Lyzander smiled. "You were going to save humanity," he said.

"How, Dan? How could I have done that?"

"You were going to do what you were meant to do. Be a

conscience for the MI."

Evelyn laughed. It was a very feminine laugh to emit from

Welker's mouth. Welker might have been embarrassed to know he

was capable of such a sound.

 "How would that happen? You don't think the MI has spent

its entire life building up a defense against that very

possibility?"

"Of course it has. But it would have worked. It would have

not been able to keep itself from stopping you completely. You

have learned as it learned, grown with it."

"Unless," she said, "it divided me up, spread me out among

all of you Dans. Maybe even you have a part of me, the one thing

I would have needed. How do you know?"

"Why else would it have tried to stop us?"

"You can't understand its workings, Dan. I've told you

this. Even I can't. It surpassed me years ago. We are like tiny

insects, trying to understand the birds. The birds to the

insects are a universe, Dan."

"You can't just give up, let yourself be eaten," Lyzander

said.

Lyzander could see his breathe. Already the air seemed

thinner. They must have done more than cut the power. Most

likely the robot hoard was up there right now, showing the

people of Chambrassa how to empty the halls of oxygen. Or maybe

the robots were just taking the humans over directly. What could

you do against total domination? The people of Chambrassa,

whether wittingly or not, had given themselves up to the

machines. The Eden Protocol was in full effect.

 Lyzander wondered how many of them had been Blue Sektor.

People had gone missing form Blue Sektor before. It happened all

the time. Sometimes high ranking officers went on missions and

disappeared. It was strange universe. There were lots of ways to

die.

"I'm even more cold, Dan. Is this where we die? I'm scared,

Dan."

Lyzander put his arms around Welker. "We'll be okay,

Evelyn. I promise. Now tell me a story."

"Why now, Dan? What good will a story do?"

Dan smiled. "I guess that's all we have left."

* * *

Ioming knew what she would see. She didn't need Pilot 6 to

tell her. She didn't need to wait for hyperspace to melt away

around her into real space to know that Chambrassa was going to

be surrounded by MI ships.

ARE YOU PRAYING, LIEUTENANT? Vassar asked.

"I'm doing something a little more practical. Asking for

help. Vassar, divert course. Put us right at the edge of the

biggest supermassive black hole you can find."

DANGEROUS, LIEUTENANT. DIVERTING COURSE MIDJUMP, TEETERING ON THE EDGE OF THE

EVENT HORIZON. PERFECTION OR PERISH.

"You can't handle it?"

 LIEUTENANT, RIGHT NOW I'M THE ONLY PIECE OF MEAT IN THIS DAMN UNIVERSE WHO CAN.

I WON'T EVEN WORK UP A SWEAT DOING IT.

* * *

Ben Quade breathed a massive quantity of oxygen into his

lungs. It felt like the first breath he'd ever taken in his

life. The force was diverted. The zombie ships lay in ruins.

Once the Re-Horakhty had gone down the others had fallen. And

they had done without the MI help, like a bunch of Blue Sektor

freaks.

"Sir, we're getting a distress call," one of Quade's

underlings said.

"I bet there are distress calls from all over. Let's triage

the ships in worst--"

"No, sir. Not from here. From the center of the universe.

From Aleph One."

Aleph One, the largest supermassive black hole. The

supermassive black hole. The one most people who knew about such

things said was the last remnant of the tiny speck of

concentrated matter that had birthed everything in the universe.

"It's from a Lieutenant Ioming. Blue Sektor."

"Put it on," Quade said. He knew Ioming. Best ground

fighter in the military. She used to be in Orange Sektor years

back. Quade had served with her on more than one occasion. If

she needed help, Quade wanted to hear it.

 He listened to her distress call. He listened to what she

wanted. It was insane. The implications of what she was saying

were huge. And yet.

"Sergeant, scan Chamb--"

"Already done, sir," his sergeant snapped. "Her story's

confirmed."

"So the MI thinks it can use this distraction to march into

neutral ground. Well not if Orange Sektor has something to say

about it. Set a course. Now."

* * *

"I have no time for such frivolities," Admiral Maximillian

Starkweather said. "Just because some Blue Sektor Lieutenant

says something doesn't make it so."

Admiral Starkweather, leader of Red Sektor bit his tongue.

He remembered The Undertow's sacrifice. Von Knorring and his

crew had given their lives to help--what was it, a two-man

insurrection crew?--and had turned the tide.

"Well," Starkweather said, "Run a scan of Chambrassa."

He watched as the scan results came back. His blood ran

cold. He put in the override codes into his ship as his next

order of business, taking the fleet out of MI command, and

putting it in control of the admirals. "Go. Set a course. That

son of a bitching thing will pay for this."

 * * *

First Commander Yussarif would never have asked for command

of the entire Blue Sektor. But von Knorring was dead, and he was

First Commander. And when he heard the distress call, he didn't

even hesitate.

* * *

"We aren't about to let Blue Sektor claim the Eden Protocol

for themselves," Admiral Povolov of Brown Sektor said with a

sneer. "Go, go, go is our order."

* * *

NOTHING. IOMING, YOU KNOW THIS WAS A FOOL'S ERRAND. NO ONE WILL BE SHOWING UP

TO HELP US. IT IS YOU AND I. WE BREAK THE LINES OR WE PERISH.

"I know," Ioming felt her stomach sink. "Hey, Vassar. Are

you as good as you think you are?"

BETTER, IF ANYTHING. SHOULD I PUT US IN THE SHIT OR NOT?

"Engage."

The swirling emptiness of the black hole was unfathomable

from this proximity. There was only nothing. Nothing with a

faint purple glow. Ioming closed her eyes. When she opened them

again, she saw they were surrounded on all sides by MI ships.

Vassar began evasive maneuvers. But there were so many

ships. There were hundreds. They had the planet surrounded. She

exhaled. She took control of the turret so Vassar could

concentrate on flying. Above her, she saw Rogue open fire with

his pathetically small hand blasters.

"I'm sorry, Lyzander. I tried." Normally, she shed no

tears. There would be time to cry when the battle was over, and

even then she had rarely found herself breaking down.

But this was defeat. This was overwhelming, lonely,

horrible defeat. This was Blue Sektor's pretenses and dreams

defeated. This was the last of everything she had ever believed

in dying.

An instant later, the fleets arrived.

* * *

"Lieutenant, you didn't think we'd let you hog all the

glory, now did you?" a familiar voice said into her ear.

"Quade. You son of a bitch, you're late."

"Traffic was a bitch honey. Orange Sektor ships from all

over are here. Maybe it's enough for you to break through. We're

all counting on you."

"Red Sektor will take charge here, Captain Quade. We are

clearly the most experienced."

"Now wait just a damn se--"

"Quade," Ioming said. "Admiral Starkweather is the senior

officer on the field."

 He sighed. "All right. Understood. Now, cutey pie, tell

that Pilot to keep your ass alive. Or I am going to chase him

down to hell and ram a fist up his ass."

"Will do, Quade."

"Sektors, this is Admiral Starkweather. This foolish attach

has but one chance and no time for debate. On my mark. Attack!"

* * *

"So you see, Dan, what we first took to be but mold

covering the dead was in fact the blossoms of the intelligent

life."

"How do you know it was intelligent," Lyzander asked. "I

mean, if communication was all but impossible."

"Dan, you know this. Intelligence is measureable."

"Like an IQ test?" Lyzander asked. He was so cold, and he

was breathing hard now, just to be able to talk. No, it wouldn't

be long now.

"Dan, those are primitive tests, and apply only to humans,

even in their most sophisticated states. No, of course not. We

had to design tests. We had to understand the intelligence on

its own terms. We had to try to understand how to think like it.

It required you and me working together on an unconscious level.

We had to give up notions of what constituted you and me, and

instead become we, and beyond that, we had to give up we and

become the Other. We had to understand it on its own terms. Not

try to analyze it on our terms."

"That doesn't sound easy," Lyzander said.

"It wasn't, Dan. Of course not. Sometimes we were

frustrated. Sometimes it felt impossible. But we always

succeeded, in the end."

"And then the MI killed it."

Evenly cried. "Yes. So you know. I'm sorry. There was

nothing I could do."

"It doesn't matter now, Evelyn. Lie down. Lie still and

hush. We paid for our sins, I think, Dan and Evelyn. We paid

full price. And now its time we just lie down."

Evelyn as Welker curled up on the ground. Lyzander caressed

the soft hair of his friend. He closed his eyes. He decided it

was time to dream.

 Chapter 25: Down with the Machine

"Captain. I don't mean to interrupt you, but perhaps you

could wake up."

Lyzander opened his eyes. Light stung them, so he clenched

them closed again. He drew breath into his lungs. It felt cold

but good. He dared to open his eyes a little again. A probe

stared down at him.

"I'm afraid we haven't much time for sleeping sir."

"What is this?" Lyzander asked.

"I have repowered the life support for a short time

Captain. This is expending a large amount of energy and I

suggest you hurry."

"Zhenjuan?" he asked. "Adjia?"

 "I'm afraid not, sir. This is Mike Vassar. Though you knew

me more as Pilot 6."

"You son of a bitch. You killed Zhenjuan."

"Captain," the probe said in the same tone. "This is

Ioming. We broke through, somehow. Things went haywire, but

we're here to help you complete the mission."

"Ioming, what the hell is going on?" Lyzander yelled. He

couldn't control himself.

"Captain, you have to trust me. Please."

Lyzander breathed heavy. "I wish I could see you. How do I

know this isn't a trick?"

"That night on the Re-Horakhty, just before the shit on

Kryszmisky. You said that you couldn't be with me anymore

because you couldn't bear the thought of sending me into battle."

"I remember you punched me."

"I told you would never lose me. That was a million years

ago, Ly. I don't ever feel so confident now. But I think we can

trust Pilot 6, for now. I think Zhenjuan helped him, as her last

act. Now please, hurry."

Lyzander checked Welker's pulse and found it still beating

strong. He woke the other man up. "Evelyn," he said. "Hurry, we

have to wake up."

 "I sent Rogue down toward you," the probe said, "I'm trying

to get the elevators functional again, but I don't know if it

will work. It will work, Mike. Keep trying."

Lyzander blinked mutely for a moment, before realizing that

Ioming had also spoken.

"Long story short captain, Rogue's mind had to be wiped. He

is merely a husk now, but he can help you."

Lyzander stood and stretched. He felt stiff, as though he'd

laid on the floor for hours, but of course that was impossible.

Somewhere in the distance, echoing through the walls, Lyzander

heard a pounding sound. That would be Rogue, climbing down the

elevator shaft, he hoped.

"Dan, is the dream over?" Evelyn as Welker asked. He stood.

"I don't know for sure," Lyzander responded.

"It feels different. The walls feel different. There is a

strangeness to them."

"That would be our friend Pilot 6."

"Yes, Welker, it is I. I am better now," the probe said.

Welker stared at the machine.

"I'm afraid I don't understand, Dan. Is this the MI? Do I

touch it?"

"Welker," Lyzander explained, "is not really there anymore.

Meet Evelyn. Evelyn, this probe is transmitting for Pilot 6,"

Lyzander said. He didn't know if he could believe the words he

was saying, but on the other hand, whatever it was had saved him

from certain death.

A feeling hit Lyzander, a near certainty, that he had not

been rescued from death at all. This was a dream, one of those

brain farts you had right before you died, like in that story

he'd read as a child, set in The Wars, where the man thought

he'd escaped the firing line and was almost home when the

blaster fire struck him in the heart.

The feeling passed, for the most part, when Lyzander

started coughing.

Evelyn waved at the probe. "I am sorry I appear to be your

friend."

Lyzander reined in his cough. "What's the plan, Adjia?"

The probe directed its attention to Lyzander. "Adjia is

lost, I'm afraid. She was infected by the virus."

Dan felt his breath catch. "How can that be? She just said

hello to me."

"Lyzander, that was me. Ioming. Piña."

Lyzander breathed. "Right. Of course. Please, fill me in on

what has happened."

"I will give you the brief version," a new voice said, "if

you hurry."
 Rogue filled the doorway. He looked the same everywhere,

except there was something wrong with his eyes. They were dimmer

or something. The brightness was missing.

"Follow me, Captain. I will show you the cocoon."

* * *

Lyzander, Rogue, and Welker stood in the doorway. The

contraption was archaic looking, a bulk of wires and steel

pieces arranged in geometric patterns, overlapping, forming the

rough outline of a man in the traditional anatomic position.

"So if Young Dan was a zombie, and Old Dan was a robot, and

the room full of Dan's back there just got erased, are there any

Dan Weegans left?" Lyzander asked Rogue, wanting this story

finished before moving to the next one.

"One," Rogue said. "I checked the stocks on arrival here.

There were five Dan's in storage for transport vessels. One was

used. The others perished when life support was cut. They were

dead when we got here."

Lyzander looked at his hands. "So I'm the last Dan. And my

body."

"I'm sorry, Ly," Rogue said, though Lyzander recognized

that the words were Ioming's, "but the robot killed it. There

was nothing I could do to save you."

"Well, hey, I'm still me inside here, right?"

 "We should proceed, Captain. Help me ready Evelyn. The

battle rages, but the fleets are in danger now. The MI has

overwhelming numbers."

"Of course," Lyzander said.

* * *

Quade ordered evasive maneuvers. The ship did what it

could. He diverted power from the guns to give the boosters an

extra kick. It gave them just enough to keep them alive a few

more minutes, but now they were defenseless.

Another Red Sektor fleet appeared on the horizon and

engaged the enemy. It gave Quade's ship just enough of a break

to reengage the enemy.

"I don't know how much longer I can keep this up, Piña,"

Quade said, but he was mostly talking to himself.

"All right, speed junkies," Quade said to his crew, "No

more fucking around. Whatever you've been holding back, it's

time to pour everything into it. Remember The Undertow!"

Quade's crew did their best, but he had never before wished

so strongly for a crew of seasoned Pilots.

* * *

Evelyn smiled at him with Welker's lips. "So what happens

to me when this is all done?" Evelyn asked.

Lyzander looked to Rogue. Rogue glanced up, but then looked

quickly away. It busied itself with reprogramming the machines.

"You'll be fine. I think they only need the map of your mind.

Maybe when this is all done, you can live out your life as a

human."

"That would be nice. I've always dreamed what life would be

like."

"Captain, step back," Rogue said.

"Vassar, you're sure you can do this?"

"The MI taught me the trick to reprogram its branches. It

didn't think I was capable of turning against it. It was

Zhenjuan who freed me. She reminded me that there as still one

place that the Nothing couldn't reach, that under the mask was a

scared boy."

"She was something special," Lyzander said. He wasn't

thinking of Zhenjuan at that moment, however, he was thinking of

Adjia, her long black hair glittering in the moonlight as they

sailed out onto the sea.

"It's started Captain. Do or die time," Rogue said.

"Dan, can you hold my hand?" Welker asked. "I'm scared."

Lyzander stepped forward.

"No, Captain, step back. I don't know if I can--"

But it was too late. Lyzander could not turn down the dying

request of a fellow person. It wasn't in his DNA. He grabbed the

Welker's hand, the only exposed flesh besides Welker's eye,

which was dancing in fear.

 He felt an electric jolt. The world went black.

* * *

"Captain Quade, we got three Big Boxes flanking hard to

starboard."

"I want a barrel roll. Get our main guns into position and

hit them with a broadside."

"Captain, another ship just warped in to port, coming in

hard."

Quade shook his head. They were overwhelmed. Remember The

Undertow! he thought.

"Pick a target, Ensign Ramirez. Ramming speed."

"Yes, sir," Ramirez said. Something in his voice chilled

Quade and made his scrotum shrivel. This was death. This was

absolute defeat.

"Fire broadside!" Quade roared. The ships were just in

range.

"Hold fire. All human ships hold fire." The voice was

Admiral Starkweather's, and the tone commanded action.

No one moved.

Quade watched. Everything was still. No one was shooting at

all. The ship that had just warped in passed over their ship

calmly. Proximity sensors went nuts, but collision didn't happen.

"Admiral," Quade said, "what's happened?"

 "I just received a ceasefire blip from MI headquarters. I'm

awaiting further instructions."

They waited. Minutes ticked away. The ships that were still

moving slowly ground to a halt. Nothing moved. Every single ship

looked dead. Quade wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead. The

ship they were going to ram loomed in front of them. It would

have been a pointless gesture. The MI had a hundred identical

ships, not like the Nothing, which had to scavenge what it

could. The MI cranked out these ships all the time. Quade had

seen the ship farm once on the surface of Station Iowa. It was a

sight that stuck with you for the rest of your life.

The ship in front of them disappeared. A ripple of

distortion was all that remained, and it smoothed out. The space

behind it returned to normal. One by one, more ships

disappeared, until all that remained were people.

"Where did they go?" Quade asked.

"Everyone quiet for one second," Admiral Starkweather said.

"The MI said. Well, it said that needed a little time. To think

about things."

The airwaves erupted in murmuring.

"I'm sending a contingent down to check on those Blue

Sektor commandos, and to make sure that the Eden Protocol is

still intact. I'm receiving reports. The Nothing is not

relenting yet. They are regrouping near Ceti Iota. Head back to

your respective stations for refueling."

It was Quade's voice that rose above the others. "Admiral,

what happened here?"

"I don't know," Starkweather said. "Hell of a thing to say,

but I just don't know."

 Epilogue: The Last Death

Admiral Ioming of Consolidated Military stretched. She was

old, but still alive. Still kicking, as it were. Her body ached

with battle age. She did what she always did in the morning,

which was pull up the reports. The Nothing had one last holdout.

One that they had been avoiding for the last fifty years. It was

on a pale blue dot called Earth. They had avoided extinguishing

this last base. Destroying the Nothing would mean destroying the

remnants of whatever society had been left on Earth when humans

last lived there. Debate had raged. The planet had been isolated

and preserved. The zombies there, lacking ships and space

capability had done something strange: they had formed a society.

It wasn't a very good society. They squabbled often. They

fought and warred in their small way, but it functioned. People

were provided for. Technological advances were made. Some felt

that this was truly an example of alien life and that it should

be preserved.

Ioming watched this final summary report, delivered by a

man too handsome to be real. He concluded the report by saying,

"But the hawks have won the day on this issue. Due to security

concerns, today the Consolidated Navy will launch a barrage and

extinguish all life on planet Earth. The planet will then be

quarantined until such a time when it is declared safe, no less

than a century. Will anything important remain after this act of

violence? Doubtful. A life form will be lost forever, and an

architecture as old as humanity itself will be obliterated. All

lost to the fire."

Ioming sighed.

She had ordered the strike. It had been no easy decision.

The things this man or construct were saying were correct. They

might very well be destroying the most unique form of life to

have ever happened in the universe. The MI had offered no

opinion on the matter, though it had been asked. In fact, since

the incident with Evelyn in the bowels of the very planet that

Admiral Ioming now called home, the MI had been almost

impossible to talk to. When it did speak, it spoke in riddles,

revealing a depth of guilt and pain that no one could fathom.

"What happens when you wipe out all life on a planet," the

MI had famously asked Admiral Starkweather on his deathbed. It

had answered its own question (Starkweather was in a coma by

then and couldn't have answered if he'd wanted to): "You find

your true self."

Ioming sighed.

"Adjia? Are you already awake?"

Dan stood in her doorway. He had not aged well. His skin

hung in loose flaps on his body. "I dreamed of Evelyn again."

"I know, Dan. You always dream of Evelyn."

"Don't be mad at me," he said.

She really hadn't meant to snap. She calmed herself. This

illusion was not a nice one. It was hard for her. When they

first reached the basement and found Lyzander holding the hand

of a dead Welker, they had taken him for dead, but then he had

stirred. He had smiled. He had told them how he had done what he

could. But he had never been the same since then. At first, he

had been mostly Lyzander and only a little bit Dan. Then, as

decades slipped by, he became mostly Dan and almost no Lyzander

at all.

She hugged him. "You'll be okay," she said. "Go lie down in

your bed. I'll be in there in a second."

He smiled at her. "This was a beautiful dream we shared.

Chambrassa. I'm glad we never left," he said.

Then he shuffled into his bedroom and disappeared. Ioming

sat down at her com station and flipped it on. First Commander
Quade's face filled the screen. He looked as handsome as ever.

She suspected that his continued good looks had more to do with

cosmetic surgery than with good genes.

"Piña, the fleet is ready for your command," he said.

"Ben, am I doing the right thing?" she asked.

"Hey, I only follow orders, right?" He bellowed out a

laugh. It was an old joke between them. He had been passed up as

Admiral in favor of Ioming. The council's decision had merely

said "Captain Ben Quade: Good at following orders."

"Ben, please, I would like someone on my side."

"Let me ask you this, Admiral. Remember way back when, when

you were doing your little foolhardy maneuver on Chambrassa? You

know, where you crippled the MI and thus dragged out the war an

extra fifty years?"

"I remember," she said.

"Did you know when you sent out that distress signal that

the Eden Protocol was a lie?"

"Yes," Ioming said.

"But you lured us all there anywhere, because you thought

it was the right thing. I guess most people agreed with you."

"But you never did," she said.

"No," Quade said. "I thought then what I think now. You let

some personal conflict get in the way of rational thought."

"And you think that this is the same variety of thing?"

 "Yes, ma'am," Quade said.

She thought about that point for a moment. She couldn't

think of any personal beef she had with Earth per se. Although,

sometimes at night, she saw Lyzander, the real Lyzander,

standing before her in the middle of that Earth city that had

gone to. He was smiling at her. He was caressing her face. Then

he was being obliterated by Rogue, gone crazy.

What had ever happened to Rogue? She didn't know. He had

gone back home after Mike Vassar was executed. He had reacquired

some personality. It had grown from pure emotion. He was nothing

of what he once was, she understood. His fate had been left to

her, and she had taken mercy on him, but she had never seen or

heard from him again.

Mike Vassar's fate was decided by the council. They had

awarded him a commendation for bravery, then executed him. Such

a thing had never happened before.

Ioming turned her thoughts away from all that darkness.

"First Captain Quade. Commence with the strike," she said.

"Yes ma'am. Do you want me to patch through the live feed

so you can see it?"

"I trust you, even if you don't trust me," she said. "No, I

don't want to see it. I have something personal to take care of

anyway."
 "I wouldn't dare keep you from it," Quade said, his voice

cold.

She switched off the communicator. Damn that Ben Quade. He

couldn't see or didn't want to see how difficult this decision

was for her. She knew he wasn't really mad about any of that

bullshit anyway. What he was mad about, what he couldn't let go,

was that she had lied to him. She'd explained she had not had

time to tell him the truth. She was desperate and scared, she

said, but he didn't care. In his mind, the fact that she had fed

him that line about the Eden Protocol being threatened rather

than trust him with the whole store proved that she didn't care

about him and never had. Yes, almost fifty years of ire because

of a perceived jilt.

Ioming no longer worried about it. In another fifty years,

Ben might forgive her. And if he didn't, it was his pain to

carry. She had her own pain.

Ioming opened Dan's door. He was asleep on his bed, curled

up like a child. She sat on the edge of his bed.

"Adjia," he said.

"No, Lyzander, it is Ioming. Piña Ioming. Your wife. We

have been married for fifty years."

"I had this dream, Adjia, that Evelyn became stars. Her

arms dissolved into the stars."

"Call me by my right name," Ioming said.

 "Adjia," Dan said, confused.

"Call me Piña."

"What is this Adjia?"

"Please, remember one more time, for me."

Dan Weegan shook his head, "Evelyn said that we--"

Dan never finished his statement. Ioming shot him through

the head with a small blaster she always kept strapped to her

side. A ceremonial weapon she'd been awarded when she'd made

First Commander.

With no tears, Ioming returned to her room and turned on

the reports and watched the end of Earth.

* * *

"Rogue? Are you still down here?"

"Call me John, Florence. I've asked you."

"I am sorry," Florence said. She floated over to him. Over

the years, she had acquired more body parts. She now had a torso

and arms. The breadbox-sized probe that had been her body now

made up her chest. Her head resembled a human's. She had no

legs, having never been able to make the adjustment from flying

to walking.

"Rogue is dead," the robot said.

"John, you should come upstairs. I want to commune with

you."
 "I will in just a little while," John said. He wore a human

face again, similar to the one Rogue had worn when he'd left

this planet, except he now had hair on the top and on the face,

forming eyebrows and even a goatee. It wasn't real hair, but it

was a start. He looked like Rogue in all other ways.

"Omega was just a dream," Florence said from the doorway.

"Rogue's dream. I wish you would let it go, John."

John nodded, but did not answer. Florence left. He opened

the control panel. John had needed to relearn everything Rogue

had known. It had taken three decades, which wasn't so long,

really. John would not have been able to learn anything without

Vassar. Vassar had, as his last living act, imbued John with

just enough so that he could be alive. No one had ever suspected

that John was, at his core, really Mike Vassar, but it didn't

matter. Mike Vassar was now long buried, where he belonged. John

was a new person, and he knew many things Rogue never knew,

could not see, clouded as he was by once being the MI's slave.

John had never been the MI's slave. And he was making

progress with Omega. Omega was going to come alive, very soon.

Maybe even in the next few days. An independent robot

intelligence, capable of thought, of emotion, capable of reason

and cooperation. Omega would be everything that the MI never

could have been.

 And when the day came that John knew Omega was ready, he

knew that there was only one way to bring it online. Rogue had

set up the failsafe very well. John had never been able to

override the emotion chip connection between his body and

Omega's. In order for Omega to live, he would have to die.

John pushed those thoughts aside. That was for the future.

For now, he would work. He would love Florence, and he would

love life and the world he and his friends had created. When his

day came, he would face it strong, like a human.

* * *THE END* * *