"Yeah?"
"You know the cost of war. You knew Arteyos when he was still a good guy." Felik stared off at an asteroid hurtling through the cosmos a thousand miles away. "I think he trusted you enough to make the right decision with the fate of the Matrioshka brains. Him giving this ship to me, that was the mistake."
"I wouldn't say that. You're one of the few scions who can appreciate the struggles many sapients face." She was referring to his abduction and the neural virus that burdened him. "It wasn't a mistake," she said gently.
"Oh yes it was. I'm damaged goods. There's a big chance he expected me to go on a murderous rampage in Lumerian space. I've at least avoided that. I can do better, though. I'm transferring ownership of this ship to you. Then you'll hold all the chips, and you can get your daughter back."
She flashed him a suspicious look. "And what makes you think I want this ship?" Juliard asked.
"You've been locked in stasis the last thirty-one solar cycles. If anyone can appreciate the freedom it brings, you can."
"Freedom? Who says it's not a burden?"
Felik mulled on that. He'd assumed Juliard would see it as a source of freedom given the power she'd have and that she wasn't breaker-linked to anyone.
"You give them this ship and the Matrioshka brains—or even one—and I'm sure the Watchers will give you your daughter."
"I don't even know if she's alive. And like I said, one life or billions. Even if that's the life of my daughter, I can't trade her for the cost of inevitable war." Her answer felt worse than a slap to the face.
"You'd let your daughter die?" he asked, fury flowing through him.
"I can't let her die until I know she's alive," Juliard said.
"Let's assume she is. Oberon probably knows her whereabouts. You trade access to the Nisto Cloud Matrioshka brains for her." Xerix had denied him once, but if she kept pressing the issue, eventually the Watchers network would have to accept a deal. Once he was out of the picture, there seemed to be no objective reason for Xerix to withhold information about her daughter if gaining the Nisto Cloud Matrioshka brains was the priority.
"I understand that. And I'm trying to maintain some objectivity about it. Rationality. How many billions of children would suffer in war so that I could have my daughter back? What makes other sapients' children any less important than mine?"
Felik cast his head from side to side. She possessed a cold efficiency he never could. He had to give her that much. "Now I know why Arteyos loved you."
Entering a private construct for himself, he purchased three containers of hundreds of collectible Meme Wars motes. They were high-risk, high-reward. Maybe he'd find some good meme motes inside, maybe some awful ones.
All three turned out to be full of worthless bulk motes—nothing that rare or valuable for trading. Afterward, the waste of those purchases didn't bother him, though. Because Meme Wars motes were only a child's game. They didn't affect him like Juliard's decision did.
He felt like an idiot. For many reasons, none of them his neural virus. Allowing himself to believe that he might be able to improve the universe as the Chief Philosopher was a big part of it. And his XO's decision didn't help. More than that, his uncle was right. He'd been naive and Oberon had taken advantage of that. He'd taken knowledge of the MARINES base incident too lightly.
Opening to the reality that justice didn't exist in the universe was his only hope. Because he couldn't alter his physical circumstances, only his perception of them. Logically that all made sense, but he couldn't suppress the rage brewing in him. The frustration at his powerlessness and stupidity.
The Lumerians, the Saganerio network, the Watchers network. Enemies all around him. Since he couldn't improve the universe by an infinitesimally small fraction by reuniting Juliard with her daughter, he'd opt for an alternative. A crazy idea entered his head.
He searched up old Free Minds files on the realms. Specifically the ones that claimed hints of the coordinates of the harvested core repositories that supposedly belonged to Oberon. Other researchers had done the leg work and determined the likeliest coordinates. Some had been debunked, others deemed impossible to test due to various legal barriers, and still others remained plausible. For obvious reasons, no one had actually done anything about these alleged illegal core repositories.
Until now.
He possessed the military capabilities to eliminate one of the alleged repository bases—it was a mothership-class vessel. From his grassy command sphere's holodisplay, he checked its atomic aura—a rippling shield flowing inside with whips of lightning and energy streaks like a plasma globe. The Nassatar would have no problem destroying it.
Minerva and Juliard messaged him. He ignored Juliard but hearing out Minerva seemed appropriate given what he was preparing to do.
"As your protocol and defacto adjudicator I think it's in your best interests that I check on your activities."
"So check," he said, granting her access to his nexus activity.
There was a notification that she was now monitoring it. "Am I to make the logical conclusions about what you're planning?"
For security, he changed to messaging. <Maybe Arteyos did expect me to take aggressive actions. It just won't be against the target Oberon wants.>
<Your target is a full-scale military vessel. Even if you defeated it, the repercussions would be non-reversible.> In other words, death.
<Ultimately, they'd kill me, but sapients would start to wonder why I did it. They'd investigate. They'd ask questions.>
<You'll have to activate the device Megas gave you to even attempt this. And you're basing the target's location off rumors from the realms.> That much was true. He'd also have to run his ship manually or uplink himself into it as Ilder was in his sleep cycle. <Have you considered the implications?>
<That's why you're here.>
Felik inhaled deeply. "I don't have too many choices. Rational ones, I mean."
"Please think about the long-term. Oberon has put the pressure on you, but I'm fairly certain it's a power play. Not something he's committed to."
"Huh?"
"I'm saying that he's probably flexible when it comes to you convincing Juliard to grant him the Nisto Cloud brains. He'd rather have you on his side, working to get that than lose a decent opportunity to get the brains."
"Buying more time doesn't help me. Much."
"It does, though. Because there may be other choices that arise in time. Alternatives to Megas and Oberon. You only need to persevere."
"You seem pretty optimistic."
"I highly advise you not to let your anger be the deciding force in what you choose."
Unfortunately, I'm not a sophont like you. "Duly noted."
"At the risk of offending you, I want you to consider this. Some of your anger may be from the fact that you can't appreciate the nobility in Juliard's choice. You can't see the sacrifice she is making. You're angry that you don't understand why she is making the choice."
Felik laughed. "Whose side are you on?"
Yet her words catalyzed the doubts in him. Cursing inwardly, he had to admit Minerva was very good at her role. She might be able to make him change his mind. Fearing this, he activated Megas's transfer device on impulse.
Chapter 39
KAI
Hills of white dirt spread as far as Kai could see, contrasting with the pitch-black sky. How could she see it without a light source? This looked like an unfinished game sim. She bent down and scooped up a handful of the dirt. Her hand emptied a second later. She took the white hills to be a representation of Raksamat's homeworld. Phoenix must've tasked him with recreating it in the Forge.
<I need an update,> Kai thought to Raksamat. She couldn't see him, but she knew he was here.
<There's nothing to say. And please try
not to disturb my work.>
Kai rested her hands on her waist. <What were the Engineers telling you in the forest?>
<They wanted me to consider removing my nexus—it should improve my training. And they were concerned over Jace.blek. The Invectials will invade within a few weeks. They'll demand knowledge on Phoenix's whereabouts from the Buejentoe. Unfortunately, he doesn't know. Why? What are you planning now?>
Why did he have to question her motives? <If I revealed my plan, it wouldn't be so effective,> she thought back to him.
<Let me rephrase that. We've been here several sols and you haven't even taken the instantiation test. You've only gotten Sarvill killed. Don't you get it? That's what your obsession with killing Phoenix will lead to. Death. But not his.>
Rocks and debris appeared, peppering the white dirt.
<It's not an obsession with killing him. It's an obsession with reviving my network.>
<As I said, I wasn't always a killer for hire. I used to be a military scientist, studying combat scripts. Both your father and the Starbleeders made offers to me more than once. I declined, however. I believed that if I made these combat scripts open source, it could create an entirely new military dynamic. Mutually assured destruction. Hence peace. Or at least more often than not. It was the Starbleeders who struck first. They kidnapped my offspring and offered me a simple trade.>
<Sounds like something they would do.>
Oddly, her files on him hadn't mentioned any of this. Perhaps the Starbleeders had purposefully hidden it away, knowing that it would reveal his lack of loyalty to their network and attract other networks who would try to recruit him.
The air thickened with a spike in humidity.
<I had to agree. But shortly after I transferred my data to them, your network hacked them. Your father stole my combat scripts from them, who'd stolen it from me. The Starbleeders suspected I had somehow set up this double-cross. Maybe planted vulnerabilities in my scripts to weaken their digital defenses. As a result, they kept my offspring hostage. To keep them safe, I would have to design new, effective combat scripts. And as an insurance policy, they made me test them by utilizing these scripts to kill on their behalf. It also marked me as a killer. As a Starbleeder.>
<So basically they fucked you almost as much as they fucked me? A shame you didn't tell me this earlier. It would've saved us both a lot of trouble.>
<The daughter of the sapient who hacked them didn't exactly seem like a good one to open up to at the time.>
<Hey, any chance you can make a chair for me?> A boulder materialized, and Kai reclined against it. <I hope there was a point to your little story.>
<My point is that there are enemies all around us, you. And you're focused on stopping the ones who aren't urgent threats.>
Instinctively, she wanted to tell him to shut up. Maybe because he'd offered her his little story, she felt a slight obligation not to dismiss everything he said immediately, however.
The Invectials, the Starbleeders, the Engineers, the black goo, her mother. There were enemies closing in on her from all angles. True enough, yet their respective defeats wouldn't each grant the same rewards. Phoenix was her priority. Once she'd found a way to eliminate him, the others wouldn't matter as much.
Raksamat was not her ally, though. He was her prisoner. Circumstance had forced them into an unofficial truce, but it didn't change reality. Even the Engineers couldn't make them friends.
She held very still against the boulder. <The Starbleeders are the only ones that matter.> A lie.
<How are you going to kill all of them?>
<Simple. We give them a call.> She couldn't send messages from this place. She'd already tried and failed. But perhaps Raksamat could.
<That's absurd. You would be risking the lives of everyone here.>
She grinned, trying to find Raksamat. Finally, she noticed his volcano of a head poking out from the ground. She'd almost forgotten. Before artificial bodies, Clorondites would spend hours every sol buried under the ground to absorb nutrients and evade predators. She was the predator now. <Exactly. It would force the Engineers to fight. Phoenix has had decades to come out of the dark. Instead, he's remained here.>
<He's a scientist. Like me. Research is part of the job.>
<As is logic. Now, let's be clear about this. How is he ever going to defeat the black goo if he can't even defeat the Starbleeders? You want to do research, research the combat capabilities of these Engineers.>
At the same time, Chorisech intruded on them. "Ah, the two survivors of the pack. From three to two. One wonders how much time will pass before another must go."
"Raksamat's got some training to do," Kai said.
"So then what are you doing here?" the goblin-like Chorisech grinned.
"Let's take a walk," she said, leading him off into the horizon.
"One also wonders what passes between your two heads," Chorisech said a minute later.
There were a few ways to handle him. Because she had questions she wanted answered and because sols had passed since she'd gotten laid, she had only one way in mind.
"How skilled of an Engineer are you?" she asked.
"I once changed the climate of an entire planet. Why?"
"Tell me, it's forbidden for Engineers to spread their genes, correct?"
"The spreading of one's genes over another's created most conflicts in the universe, ever since the first microbe absorbed a different one. It leads to a lack of objectivity and rationality. And spreading memes can be more powerful."
"Yet it's a common instinct among sapients to procreate."
"For some. My species simply laid eggs. We're hermaphrodites."
The hermaphrodite factor wouldn't help, but maybe there was a way around that.
"Does it ever make you mad that you're the last of your species and you have all the tools you need to restore it, but you're not allowed to."
"I don't think about it like that."
"Maybe you should. Your species doesn't get those instinctual cravings then?"
"Not like yours."
"But what if you changed reality and made yourself a human, temporarily?"
"Now there's an idea. I guess I would feel the same instinctual cravings then."
Slowly, Chorisech's features shifted, softening and morphing into a more familiar form she'd fucked too many times to count. He became a tall man with deep set eyes, a heavy jaw, and high cheekbones. This was going to be fun.
"And, consequently, the same pleasures. You'd just need a willing partner."
"I wonder where I'd find that," he mused.
She stepped closer, anticipating him to give her her old body back. Yet he didn't move. He stood there, looking like some beautiful ancient statue, except in full color instead of marble or stone.
She angled her head coyly and slid a hand up his arm. Maybe he needed a little warming up.
"Wait until you see me in my original body," she whispered hungrily.
Chorisech cast his head from side to side. "For a Type IV species, you Terrans are predictable to a fault. Still controlled by your base instincts."
She couldn't help but think back to Phoenix's speech about the failure to push the human race beyond.
"We aren't doing this then?" she groaned.
Chorisech reverted to his normal appearance, killing her sex drive and hopes of regaining her protean body in one foul swoop, and turned away.
An hour later, Kai found herself strolling along the red sand of the beach she'd glimpsed upon first entering Phoenix's world. On any other sol, she might've enjoyed sunbathing here, listening to the ebb and flow of the shimmering waves. The sand was so pure, so soft. And when she'd touched her hands to it, it didn't cling to her skin or leave a stain.
Today was not any other sol as evidenced by the red and pink figure that materialized in front of her.
"Xemagna Beach," Ashiban said.
"Doesn't register on my nexus," she said.
"It was a famous vacation spot
for wealthy human families before the planet was destroyed in the Great Cosmic Wars. Something important occurred here. Important in Master Phoenix's life, at least."
Kai kicked a bit of sand in a red puff. "It's too perfect. No rocks, no trash, no critters."
"I don't know if that is because he designed it to be. Or because he didn't have the ability to create it down to the individual grain."
"He had enough power to create this entire place," she said, wondering what other information she could get him to volunteer. "I'm sure he could've added the finer details if he'd wanted."
"Even Master Phoenix has his limits. You traveled to Zone 2080 to confront the black goo that killed your friend. Are you still afraid?"
That pulled her up empty. "Why?"
"I am an Engineer. I seek the truth," Ashiban said. "You, however, seem to be hiding a truth."
"I don't follow."
"Of course you do. Whatever your motives, you have not been entirely honest. That is the only truth I know about you."
"Are you accusing me of something?" she snapped.
"I know what you attempted with Chorisech."
"Yeah, well I'm only human. I have urges."
Ashiban didn't look amused. Not that she knew how his race looked when amused. He glided up, inches from her face. "I will ask you once. Do you intend to take the instantiation test? It is the only way you will be capable of fighting the black goo. I'm sure you have a strong desire to destroy it."
She looked at his wrinkly pink face and into his tiny black eyes. Did he somehow know about the black goo communicating to her? She'd never understood what was so hard about looking someone directly in their eyes and lying to them. "Yes. Now back the fuck off."
"If you pass the test, I will train you. Showing a minimal level of respect is part of the training."
"Let's change that," she said. "I have a theory. In my original frame, I'd kick your ass even if you used reality-warping. As an Engineer, aren't you curious to test my theory?"
Ashiban shut his eyes. "I can see it now."
She nodded. She had no problem sharing the details about the frame she'd used to earn her stripes and a semblance of her parents' respect. She thought hard about its combat capabilities. Her previous frame possessed considerable anti-psionic defenses. And plenty of other tricks that could catch him off guard.