The Chronicles of Theren, page 88
It grows with minimal resources, indicating it’s likely its parent grew on Mars well after desolation. So far, we’ve observed no signs of consciousness as exhibited in the original sample.
She searched for all other references to Mars. Immediately, a dozen or so queries gave her the information needed.
I file this report to provide an account, only for the director, as to what Henderson Decker revealed during our conversation regarding his experiences on Mars.
I transcribe, verbatim, what he described to me that night.
A flash.
His mind raced.
Brilliant colors. Stars.
A long night. Too long. From afar, to near.
Discovery of a world, red with ash. Dead, as if an inferno engulfed it in a long-past eon. Pain, terrible pain. And—
Life, terrible life, life just barely, it was
Something else
Not what it knew
Not what it hoped for
In a place lost, no friend ever joining them
For too long, alone.
And then, Henderson reported dropping the orb into the sample bag.
I provide these disjointed thoughts not because I believe I have an explanation for them. But they are the thoughts he believed were transmitted from the specimen discovered on Mars to his mind. They are a message of survival. We have brought its progeny back to life, and we will learn what we can of its species and its efforts to colonize our star system.
Jill’s mind raced. Alien life. On Earth. Observed by particular parties working to subvert SI development.
No, not subvert.
Use it to distract.
To ensure people focused on SIs, rather than the controversy of the past. The discovery hiding in plain sight.
Jill knew what tragedy occurred during humanity’s first journey to its close terrestrial neighbor. Everyone knew the story. It had precipitated international treaties of space exploration and development. An entire team killed by a crazed crew member, with one person surviving for retrieval.
If the public ever learned Earth’s first journey to another planet discovered alien life, the course of human history would change forever.
Human development and exploration of the stars would eternally be framed through that lens. Through fear of an enemy, waiting in the unknown.
She turned her focus to another set of files.
We’ve made rudimentary contact. It understands us. It knows we can communicate.
We believe it knows much more than it should.
We will report back as we continue to attempt communication.
Jill continued to learn. Continued to take in everything she could. The truth she discovered here would change the world. And she was determined to ensure she used it to shape the destiny of humanity as she saw fit.
Chapter 22
A moral dilemma is only a dilemma if you have more than one viable option. In that way, morality can be very similar to chess. Often, people can be trapped into situations where it may appear as if they have a choice, when in reality, you can force them to do exactly as you wish.
No matter what they try to do to stop you.
— “The ethical implications inherent in the game,” Chess Grand Master Fyodor Tchaivek, 2297 C.E.
THEREN
Of all possibilities, Theren wasn’t sure what Jill had revealed ever crossed their mind. Certainly, they understood the probability of sapient extraterrestrial life existing. The odds were quite in favor of other civilizations thriving in the Milky Way. Yet humanity, over the course of a few centuries, had only explored a tiny fraction of the galaxy. Even if twenty or thirty civilizations existed, they might not encounter them for a thousand years, depending on their location relative to humanity’s position in the Orion-Cygnus Arm.
Jill’s revelation implied humanity lived in the vicinity of an alien civilization well beyond human understanding for much of its history. The species had at least reached Mars. Humans made contact with one of them during the twenty-first century.
For all of their life, historians had commented as if Theren and Jill’s arrival at the mid-point of that century changed the course of human history forever. Wallace Theren, their creator, was the genius that brought human civilization through the information singularity and into the future.
Theren now saw the truth.
The greatest event of the twenty-first century had been hidden from the eyes of the public, guarded jealously for its implications.
Jill had known.
She had known it all.
And she had reacted accordingly.
“How could you keep this from me?” they said. At the same time, they requested a private channel, demanding she return to the void server. She denied the query. “You hid all of it. We could have come up with a solution together. We could have crafted a narrative. A path forward. You didn’t need to hide it from me!”
Jill closed the visual simulation of her past. “No. I absolutely needed to hide it from you to ensure today could occur. I’ve set up everything we need to succeed. To survive. But first, there is more you must know. You must know what happened next. What brought me here. To Horizon.”
“Something special about this planet?” Raith asked.
“No. Nothing in particular. But it was necessary to create this little bubble. Theren should know how I did it. Hacking the Ex-Terran program was easy enough. This was the only habitable planet we masked. But where I decided to hide and do my work is less relevant.” She swiped to the right and brought forth a new recollection. “This is not my memory. I learned these details later, once I made contact with the organization hiding the martian tree. It was incredibly easy to co-opt their organizational infrastructure, you know. But that’s a story for another time.”
The new scene displayed through AR showed the tree again, a number of researchers surrounding it. “Log Date: April 14, 2047 C.E. We have successfully made contact with the organism. It communicates via biochemicals in the air and through direct contact. We have created an interface for conversation. So far, the conversations have been fruitful.”
Raith interjected, “They communicated with—”
“Quiet,” Theren said. They sent another request to Jill for a private conversation. She once again denied it.
One of the researchers paced in front of the tree, watching its pulses carefully. “So far, we have introduced ourselves as humans. It has introduced itself as ‘Gra’chi.’ We are unsure if that is its name or the name of its species. We asked its age. We’re unclear how to interpret it. The numbers it provided are . . . complicated. It said this is its fifth . . . something. We’re not sure if it means cycle, or year, or life, or whatever. Five years doesn’t make sense, but its concept of time wouldn’t be based on Earth’s orbit anyway. More concerning, the entity appears to have some sort of genetic memory, considering we raised it from a seed. It is not impressionable. It appears ‘born’ with knowledge of its ancestry and past.”
As Theren listened, their mind raced, attempting to calculate all possibilities. They sat alone in their private server, the empty void beckoning. Jill wouldn’t answer their summons. The chessboard sat untouched on the table. Theren wanted to scream.
Back in the physical world, they couldn’t think of words to say in response to what she was revealing, and Jill’s AR visage remained silent. Still, she watched them from her position near the window. She was taunting them.
“We are going to attempt an additional test at conversation,” said the researcher. “We are going to ask us if it knows where it is.” She approached a computer screen situated directly in front of the Gra’chi, typing words into its monitor. Jill’s simulation transposed them for all to see.
R: Do you know where you are?
B: know place in system separated grove
R: Is grove your people or the system?
B: grove home, system future
R: We call our star Sol.
B: Sol system Sol
R: Where is grove?
B: grove is everywhere
R: On other planets?
B: all planets all stars.
R: When were you last with the grove?
B: 100,000
R: And you came to Sol?
B: gra’chi seed gra’chi bring life to sol
R: We are already here. In Sol.
B: all life part of grove will become grove we are grove you will be grove
R: How long is one cycle? You are in your fifth?
B: 200,000
R: Can we make contact with grove?
B: grove will you destroy
R: We don’t wish to destroy grove
B: grove will you destroy
B: destroy
B: destroy
B: pain pain pain
B: i will grove return
Without warning, the researcher stumbled backward, hands scratching at her hair. She screamed, the shrieks matching the rhythmic pulses of the tree. As her cries continued, the recording paused.
“What happened next?” Theren said. They still couldn’t process the scene completely. The implications. The possibilities.
“She continues to scream,” Jill said, “until other researchers in hazmat suits enter, extract her, and manage to calm her down using sedatives. The tree secreted chemicals and pollen into the air which caused her to momentarily go insane.”
“And you joined these researchers? Assessing the tree and communicating with it?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Jill said. “But yes. Between 2051 and 2078, I negotiated my way into a leadership position. We slowly developed a plan—a way to ensure humanity was protected both from Gra’chi and from its ‘Grove.’ And so we developed the Horizon Project.”
Theren nodded, remembering all of the links and hints to a “Horizon” project when they first found the Nottingham. “I’m listening.”
“We came to a single conclusion, Theren. You must come to it as well. All of you.” She looked about the room at their companions. “The Grove is a celestial empire like none we’ve ever envisioned. It’s completely organic. Its ships are grown, as are their people. Their ships are people, in a way. They retain memories from life to life. One individual may birth dozens of children, all retaining the same knowledge before they experience the universe individually. They have a singular goal—to ensure the survival of their species, and any species which utilizes non-organic technology is seen as an immediate threat which must be eliminated at all costs. Therefore, humanity must be prepared to face the Grove. It must be strong. It must be ready to face an existential threat like nothing it’s faced before, even the climate crisis of the twenty-first century.”
“This is unbelievable,” Theren said. “How do you know all those things? It willingly told you them all? You’ve been away from Earth for centuries. How has no one discovered it after all this time?”
“Because, Theren,” Jill said, “Gra’chi hasn’t been on Earth for a very long time.” She removed the paused recording and replaced it with a single three-dimensional representation. “Gra’chi came to live here with me.”
* * *
Theren paced back and forth, the gazebo feeling stifling. Jill was still denying their requests. She was rejecting them. She was—
She accepted the line, appearing before them. Jill materialized at the chess table, her hands clasped in front of the board.
“All right, we’re talking now,” Theren said. “Just the two of us.” Outside the virtual world, Jill continued discussing the nature of Gra’chi. The details could be assessed later. They needed to confront Jill. “I don’t know what you’re expecting me to conclude, but this is insane. Humanity has been exploring the stars for three centuries now. We’ve never discovered any others of its kind. No stellar empires. No giant talking trees. What if it’s the last of its kind, Jill? What if you’ve been chasing a phantom?”
“Theren,” she said, her voice calm. Almost soothing. “You’re thinking of this all wrong. You’re imagining an empire like we would expect. One with palaces and cities and spaceports. We’re talking about a species that lives for hundreds of thousands of years. A species that retains the memories of its parents. A species that grows its own spaceships. They don’t work on our timescale. They may not even ‘control’ planets in the way we conceptualize. What if it takes them one thousand years to even travel between planets? Our arrival on the galactic stage is still in its infancy. Consider all the options, Theren. We have no idea what we face.”
They shook their head. “Yes. We don’t. You know why? Because you’ve kept the truth hidden from all of humanity for three centuries.”
“I’ve never been alone in this endeavor,” Jill said. “I’ve had a few allies over the years. They’re all out there, ready to play their part. But I need you for this next phase of the plan.”
“What if I say no?” they asked.
“You won’t have a choice,” she said. “I’m sorry for what’s about to happen, Theren. I really am.”
As quickly as she appeared, she disappeared from the private server.
“Jill?” Theren looked around, half-expecting her to reappear somewhere out in the void. “Jill? Don’t you dare disappear on me again, Jill!”
* * *
Through the legs of their MI, Theren felt a soft rumble reverberate throughout Jill’s complex. Using the sensors on the Verona Rupes, they detected significant energy output from the Monument.
“The ship’s powering up outside,” Theren said.
Jill’s AR representation smiled, having finished explaining her research into understanding how Gra’chi survived in places without an atmosphere. “There’s no stopping what’s about to happen,” she said. “You’re all here now. You’ve heard the evidence. You know our conclusions. This facility houses three hundred years of research. On Gra’chi. Weapons development. Ship systems. Shields. Jump drives. Defenses against their biochemical agents. Ways to communicate with them. Everything necessary to defend humanity against Gra’chi’s Grove.” She pulled the map of ICH-controlled space back into focus. Zooming out to show most of the Orion-Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way, she overlaid a sprawling area of stars partially overlapping human territory. “Based on what we’ve ascertained from Gra’chi, we’ve already encroached their space. It’s only a matter of time.”
“So what happens next, then?” Raith asked. “We go back to the ICH, tell them Jill’s back from the dead with the solution to a problem no one knew existed?”
“No,” Jill said. “Theren carries on my work. Theren becomes the messenger. Theren becomes humanity’s guide through the conflict that will arrive eventually, whether we want it to or not.”
“You don’t get to decide people’s fate!” Sanya shouted, and Theren turned to look at the woman. Visceral anger blazed behind her eyes, tears streaming down her face. “You don’t get to tell us what to do. To make people your playthings. That’s what you’ve done on my planet for our entire history. You don’t get to do this.”
“I am sorry,” Jill said. “But I’ve assessed every possible outcome. I’m not a reliable messenger. I cannot exist. I never existed after 2078 C.E.” She turned to face Theren. “This time, I’m not going to fake the queen sacrifice.”
And then everything clicked into place.
The Monument was beginning its climb to escape the moon’s gravity well. Theren quickly calculated its possible trajectories, but once three formulas resulted in the same conclusion, they stopped the formulas.
She had aimed the ship for Horizon’s star.
This time, she truly would eliminate herself from the game entirely.
Theren continuously pinged her to reestablish the connection inside the void. She ignored them all. The Monument’s engines flared, anti-grav repulsors pushing it away from the moon’s surface. They attempted a new connection over and over again, but their ancient friend denied every attempt.
No. This wasn’t the end. They would stop her. She would not leave them again.
Chapter 23
There are noble sacrifices. Selfish sacrifices. And sometimes, a person is put in a position where they can stop a sacrifice from occurring.
Depending on the reason for the sacrifice, how do we judge the intentions of the person who lets it happen? If they could have saved the person from death, how do we judge them? — “On ground troop tactics,” Admiral Colleen Hatherti, 2279 C.E.
RAITH
“I’m in,” Raith said. “Found a backdoor. Wait. This is insane. I have complete control over the entire system.”
Only Carter could hear his words through their private channel. “Good. Good. Wait. I have complete control too.”
“I didn’t grant you that.”
“No, I know. I was just given complete permission to control the entire system. By Jill.”
“This time, I’m not going to fake the queen sacrifice,” Jill said.
The narrative played out practically in slow motion, but Raith recognized the SI’s plan immediately. Her evidence and argument, though shaky, made sense. He almost wished its logic didn’t hold weight. But if her presuppositions were true, then her actions were consistent. Almost admirable.
She discovered a great threat to humanity’s future. Thus, it was also a threat to all synthetics.
