Exodus, page 2
Visits to the Tinaja system were rare for Makaio-Yalbo. His assignment as one of the queen’s spymasters was to cover the Kelowan system. Yet this meeting had been agreed upon five years ago, after he’d received an unexpected message from Olomo, Archon of the Heresy Dominion, whose brief was similar to his own. It was a heavy investment in time. The trip through the Gates of Heaven that connected Kelowan and Tinaja had taken only a couple of weeks relativistic dilation time on board the Alumata, while nearly two years had elapsed outside. Then after they arrived at Tinaja, they’d taken ten days to fly just over an astronomical unit, 150 million kilometers, from the Gate of Heaven to this gas giant Lagrangian point—a location so remote that no one would ever observe them by accident. Such an in-person meeting between dominion archons was extremely rare; normally their business was conducted by secure encrypted messages at pre-agreed drops. The rarity was the reason Makaio-Yalbo had accepted the invitation without question. The Heresy archon clearly believed it was exceptionally important—in itself a worrying notion.
The Alumata’s life support ring rotation slowly brought the HeSea into view—a sinuous onyx blemish with dainty intergrowths of scarlet filigrees, so dense it could easily be mistaken for a solid object against the nebula’s gentle iridescence. It was an astronomical anomaly Makaio-Yalbo never grew tired of seeing: a unique high-density zone of helium-3, a sea of the gas half a light-year in diameter, the residue of a mini-nova. None of the astronomers of the Celestial dominions in the Centauri Cluster understood the mechanism of such a nova. Yet somehow a helium gas macroplanet, four thousand times the mass of old Jupiter yet too small for fusion ignition, had exploded, flinging out the cloud, which was such a significant resource to the Crown Dominion.
Fleets of large scoopships owned by the five Royal Families gathered up the helium on decade-long flights, bringing it back to Tinaja’s Gate of Heaven, and from there distributed it across the stars of the Crown Dominion. Every civilian and commercial starship in the Centauri Cluster used helium-3 for fusion fuel, as did all the industrial fusion generators powering the habitable worlds of the dominions. Having the HeSea inside their boundary gave the Crown Dominion an economic resource which many dominions envied.
“That’s amazing,” Faraji said. “I see what you mean now.”
Makaio-Yalbo turned stiffly to look at his son on the couch next to him. The boy was seven years old and, like all Imperial Celestials, had almost reached his full height. Already he was over two meters tall, although his torso was still childishly narrow; he wouldn’t begin to broaden out until he was over ten and puberty triggered the final growth phase of his marsupial womb.
“It is something quite admirable, is it not?” Makaio-Yalbo conceded. “For darkness to draw the eye, it must possess its own brand of majesty.”
“Yeah. Has the HeSea always been so dark?”
Makaio-Yalbo did his best not to frown in disapproval at such a graceless question. “Just about. I believe it might have been even darker four thousand years ago when I first saw it. However, nostalgia always aggrandizes reality.”
Faraji grinned happily. “How many bodies have you—I mean, we—had?”
“It is not the quality of the glass that matters, only the wine that it holds.”
“Okay. Got to be about seventy or eighty, though. Am I right?”
“I expect you are.”
The smile grew wider. “And I’m next.”
“Indeed.”
“When? When will I be you? I mean, when do I inherit the mindline?”
Makaio-Yalbo’s hands rose of their own volition to caress the elaborate configurations of bloodstone that were growing from his head in a final flourish that anticipated the body’s approaching death. Under his direction, the calcium-like biotech had spent the last eighteen months expanding to cover most of his skull and cheeks, leaving only his mouth, nose, and eyes unencumbered. From that base a crown of scalloped horns had wound their way out, curling around each other and embellishing the pattern of surface scissures with faint hues of turquoise and gold.
The rest of his body, beneath the formal toga he wore, was equally brocaded by growths of bloodstone. It made moving his arms and legs increasingly difficult as it continued to spread along them in a lacework pattern. Within a few years the progression would finish engulfing his flesh entirely, at which point he would gift his mindline into the Faraji body, becoming Makaio-Faraji. All that he was would continue inside the new host, ensuring athanasia. And the boy’s immature first-level personality element had been right: there were seventy-seven previous host bodies. They lay in the Family Gaziz crypt, where his current host body would join them after the succession was fulfilled, newly interred in its own mausoleum of bloodstone. It would be the eighth such bloodstone entombment, which was surprising. Makaio-Yalbo had always considered the symbiote a fashion fad, but it had lasted far longer than he expected. Still, the queens of the Crown Dominion enjoyed it, so everyone else obediently followed suit.
“Soon,” Makaio-Yalbo said.
“Yes, but…”
“Enough. Enjoy the knowledge that, of all your brothers, it is you that I have selected to host me.”
“I am so grateful, father,” Faraji said admiringly.
“Good.” Makaio-Yalbo placed his hand on one of the small connection bulbs at the side of the couch. Information flowed into him through the neural induction pad in the center of his palm. Was it imagination or was the knowledge not as clear as it used to be? Definitely a sign that he’d lived in this body too long. But finding the time to move on was difficult at best in his profession. And this unexpected voyage hadn’t helped.
“I believe his ship is approaching,” Makaio-Yalbo said.
Faraji frowned. “Believe?”
The basic scan of space around the Alumata unfolded within his brain, similar to a sphere of dusky water. A fuzzy point slipped across it, so insignificant many would take it for a glitch.
“How ironic,” Makaio-Yalbo murmured. “A peacock pulling in his feathers.” He looked up at the lounge’s window and pointed at a tattered scarlet curlicue within the glowing nebula.
A small, pale oval appeared against it, exposed now as darkness drained away from its surface. As they watched it decelerate to rendezvous with their own ship, it began to change shape with the ease of a liquid. By the time it finished decelerating and came to rest a kilometer away, it was a long cone with a crown of ten spikes emerging from its base and curving around to run parallel to the main bulk. Makaio-Yalbo found something about its shape intrinsically disturbing—undoubtedly because the tip of each spike was aligned unwaveringly on the Alumata.
“That is really cool,” Faraji announced happily.
“Each dominion has its own areas of excellence.” Even so, he couldn’t help admire the Heresy Dominion starship. Perhaps there was some envy as well; it was nearly twice the length of the Alumata, which spoke to how they valued their archon. But the Heresy lacked traditional warships, which meant individual ships were fitted with powerful defensive systems.
“Our starships are good, though, aren’t they?” Faraji asked.
“Yes. Especially our navy ships.”
“Are we going on board?”
Makaio-Yalbo hesitated. Those spikes…“Yes.” He put his hand back on the connection bulb and told the Alumata network to negotiate a docking protocol with the visitor.
“So what do we—” Faraji began.
Makaio-Yalbo held up a hand. “A moment, please. I must prepare myself. The Heresy archon can be challenging.”
“Are you going to use a rider?”
“Yes. It will assist my focus.”
“Honestly, father, I can’t see how it’ll make a difference. You’re like the calmest person in the whole Centauri Cluster.”
“You don’t have to adulate me. You are already part me. You will be me.”
Faraji shrugged.
* * *
—
Finn’s scream failed after a couple of seconds. It was so cold he could feel his extremities shutting down as the air howled ferociously around him. Not that it mattered. The lack of oxygen was already diluting his thoughts, drawing him mercifully away from the real world. The wind was delivering a street-gang beating to his flesh, sending him tumbling. With his wrists and ankles bound, he couldn’t even attempt to halt the crazy spin. Confusingly, he thought he glimpsed the plane’s orange strobe whipping past again. The plane itself had vanished. Opalescent light played across his freezing skin.
After ten seconds hurtling down through the hostile air, Finn finally stopped his chaotic spinning. The weird orange light shone across him again. He almost didn’t notice it, his body was so numb now. Below him, the rugged sprawl of mountains had grown significantly larger.
A dark shape slid into view beside him, a cylinder barely a meter long, with a small pair of fins at the back, framing a nozzle whose ion jet glowed an intense turquoise as it emitted a high-pitched rumble. An orange strobe flashed on the tip of its pointed nose cone. It matched his speed and held itself half a meter away.
His vocal cords were so cold, all he could manage was to grunt: “Huh?”
“Greetings, passenger,” the cylinder said. “I am a type seven emergency air rescue module. I detected your unscheduled separation from the transport aircraft and launched. Do you require assistance?”
A massive surge of adrenaline banished Finn’s lethargy. “FUCKING YES!”
“Please extend your arms so I can engage my support harness.”
“Can’t,” Finn groaned through gritted teeth. “Arms. Legs. Immobile.” He had no idea how the module’s very basic-sounding Construct Intelligence manager would respond if he said he’d been deliberately restrained.
“I understand,” the CI manager replied. “May I engage the harness around your torso? Warning, there may be discomfort when the parachute deploys if the harness is not in the stable one position.”
“Yes! Engage harness.”
“In addition, ground impact may result in physical damage if you are not upright upon contact.”
The mountains were huge now, their ice-sword pinnacles lethally sharp. Closing at terrifying speed. “Do it!”
The rescue module glided in smoothly and bumped against Finn’s back. It kept pressing against him, pushing them sideways through the air as it sought to maintain contact. Finn saw rather than felt the four black straps of the harness curve around him. They locked together just as he fell level with the top of a mountain.
“Harness engagement confirmed.”
“Chute,” Finn yelled desperately. “Deploy chute!”
The mountain’s bulk was rearing up to swat him, the snow of the crest giving way to a pine forest that covered the lower slope, spreading out to fill the steep valley. “NOW!” The dark mass of the forest resolved into individual trees, their peaks lengthening into lances, eager to impale him.
Finn screamed again. The chute streamed out of the module with a loud, leathery rustling sound, as if a flock of bats were racing for freedom. For an instant he was poised between the nebula and the trees, then the chute billowed outward and his body was wrenched up. He felt and heard ribs crack below the awkwardly placed harness straps.
He yelped in pain as he hit a small upper branch, which knocked the wind out of him. “No!” He ricocheted into another branch, which kicked him off. A tiny fall onto a bigger branch below. Ice-hardened pine needles jabbed savagely into what must have been every square centimeter of skin he possessed. The chute lines tugged hard, and he was abruptly inverted. A wide branch was directly underneath, about to strike his head. Then the chute lines jerked again, sending him bobbing about as they slam-braked his chaotic descent. Snow burst out of the branches it had settled on, cascading around him. Then nothing was moving apart from the gentle swaying motion of his own body.
* * *
—
The Alumata fired its maneuvering thrusters in small bursts, nudging them closer to the other starship. In his mind, Makaio-Yalbo reviewed the library of riders he’d assembled over his long life—those passive constellations of thoughts and behavioral traits that would adapt him to meet whatever challenge he was facing, becoming exactly who he needed to be.
The one he sought wasn’t used often. Thankfully. Even sensing it stir at his examination caused him to shiver; there were unwelcome associations inherent with its application. Like a slumbering creature greeting the dawn, it rose up to dominate his primary consciousness, bringing a host of concomitant memories—the previous times he’d talked to archons of other dominions, the deals and maneuvers he’d made on behalf of the Crown Dominion, and more importantly his own queen, to advance the Great Game in their favor. This rider—this foreign aspect of him—had conducted several of those negotiations with the icy assurance of a person who could—and would—unleash destruction at a planetary level if a single concept were to be misspoken. A personality from which emotion was banished, replaced with logic and determination alone. It was the only way he could carry the fearsome responsibility.
Just a few years ago his very flesh would have responded appropriately to the emergence of the disdainful persona, subcutaneous protocells shifting his features to project the superiority of his elevated mentality. But now, almost his entire face was hidden beneath bloodstone. And as for posture, the encrustations caging his limbs made every move stiff and measured. Not for the first time, his plaintive wish was that the wretched fad would finally be discarded.
The Alumata’s network showed him the two starships were now close enough to extend their docking tunnels toward each other. He rose from the couch, a single finger beckoning Faraji. The boy got to his feet, his humor darkening as they made their way to the lift that took them up to the starship’s central section.
When the doors slid open, they were in free fall. A few instinctive flicks of his fingers sent Makaio-Yalbo out into the broad, featureless corridor that ran along the axis of the engineering section. He pivoted around a handhold and headed for the airlock. Faraji kept level with him, zipping along as if his body had acquired some kind of avian heritage. The boy’s plain white toga fluttered lazily around him, and Makaio-Yalbo could tell he was making an effort not to smile.
“Remember,” Makaio-Yalbo said, “although the Heresy Dominion is technically our ally, anything you say in the archon’s ship will be heard.”
“So don’t say anything. Got it.”
“No, you will speak politely when and if you are addressed by the Heresy archon, but at all other times you will remain silent. I especially do not wish to be informed of your opinion, and neither does he. You are simply to listen to our conversation; nothing more.”
“Yes, father. Uh, is their archon going to be aggressive?”
“No.” They passed into the airlock chamber. The docking tunnel stretched out ahead, a basic tube three meters in diameter, ribbed with bright lighting strips. Makaio-Yalbo paused at the rim. “We will be perfectly safe—a courtesy we also extend to the Heresy archon. Without the basic tenets of diplomacy, the whole Centauri Cluster would collapse into anarchy. The archon will respect this. After all, the citizens of the Heresy consider themselves superior to us.”
“Why?”
“They believe they have evolved further from the original human baseline than we have.”
“They haven’t!”
“Your loyalty does you credit. Celestial evolution took many forms as we progressed out of the Dawn Times. None of the other dominions have matched our mindline immortality. Therefore, none of them can acquire our wisdom in their woefully short lives. The majority of Heresy don’t even live beyond four or five hundred years. They are true children. Large, powerful, and well armed, but children nonetheless.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Come now.” Makaio-Yalbo launched himself into the docking tunnel. When they passed the halfway point, the lighting was subtly different. Softer, Makaio-Yalbo decided; the white light of the Alumata, which matched Wynid’s primary, had drifted into the yellow spectrum. He didn’t know which of the Heresy star systems it was supposed to portray; the habitat clusters of their dominion were established across many, and the tentacles of its influence grasped still further. The alliance they had with the Wynid Royal House was established and occasionally fruitful, but Makaio-Yalbo was under no illusion it would switch in an instant if there was an advantage to be gained in becoming closer to one of the other four remaining Royal Houses of the Crown Dominion. Just as I would switch ours.
The airlock at the end of the docking tunnel was a broad spherical chamber, with a single multi-segment door opening into a smaller compartment.
“Secure your feet,” Makaio-Yalbo instructed Faraji, gesturing at the gripband.
They both settled, and the door segments closed up. A slight acceleration force pulled at them as the chamber started moving. In less than a minute it had built to a full gravity. The door opened. Olomo, the Heresy archon, was waiting for them. Like the majority of Heresy citizens, he was close to three meters tall thanks to a spindly body and six long, slim limbs—two legs and four arms—that had a strength equal to the biotech muscles dominions favored for their armor suits. The folds of his multilayered robe swirled as he extended an arm from his top set. The hand was close to standard in that it had four fingers and a thumb, though the elongated fingers had three joints apiece. His lower set of arms dangled out of the robe like inflexible ropes with bulbous elbows, and their hands were a simple triple claw arrangement. The anatomy was designed to provide excellent mobility in zero-gee environments, which Makaio-Yalbo never did understand, given that their habitats all had rotational gravity. Also inexplicable in terms of environment was the archon’s head; both sides of the skull were extended cones that came out level with his shoulders. Skin, such as it was, was almost reptilian, and wrapped his body so tightly it could easily be mistaken for an exoskeleton shaded with subtle hues of blue and green.
