“Okay, so it lit up,” Marz said. “That doesn’t mean it’s working, or that it can do…anything.”
The whole group stood around watching the Enivakara, if that was truly what it was, that they’d been feeding power into gradually for several hours. At last Doug had reported that it was starting to respond, and they all gathered for that moment when the power reached the point the machine was fully on—if it still worked.
It apparently did. Interface screens around the metal ring lit up. A soft glow came from somewhere inside the translucent sphere. But not everyone was ready to accept this meant much. Marz folded her arms. But Beau joined Professor Reynolds, who was already reading the text on one of the lit-up screens.
“I think,” Reynolds said, “that there’s an interface. Not just this one, I mean. That a person can interface directly with the machine. And…oh goodness, talk to the dead, to the…minds stored in the machine.”
There was a moment of silence. Beau looked over this shoulder. Marz was still skeptical, arms folded. Ki-tae looked perhaps…disappointed.
“Bullshit.” Beau broke the silence, then felt bad for swearing in the response to Reynolds. “Excuse me, Professor. But you can’t record and store consciousness like it’s video.”
“They certainly seemed to believe they could,” Reynolds said. “And their brains may have worked differently than ours.”
“She’s right,” Ki-tae said. “This thing is a computer. Consciousness is software in the brain, which is also a computer. Who can say that software can’t run on another type of hardware?”
“So if you want to, then you do it,” Beau said irritably. Now they’d found the damn thing, he wanted to get it out of here, take it to King. The idea that there was a load of minds stored in this thing was equal parts awe-inspiring and creepy as hell. He didn’t want any of his people trying to mess with this thing.
“All right, I will,” Ki-tae said. It took a moment for Beau to realize what he meant.
“You will not,” he said at once. “There’s no need for anyone to do that. The deal was, we find it and take it to the client.”
“But we don’t know for sure it’s this Enivakara,” Doug said. “If we take Mr. King something that turns out to be…I don’t know, a big games machine or something, he might not pay us.”
“He’ll pay us,” Beau insisted. “Maybe not the full amount, but—”
“Also, I’m not subject to your orders,” Ki-tae pointed out.
“When you’re on this ship, you are. We established that a while back, remember.”
“Beau…” Ki-tae said. “I can’t stop you taking this to King. I’m one man. I can’t take you all on. This might be the only chance for…anyone else to know for sure if this is what we think it is.”
There was pleading in his voice. Beau felt some sympathy with it. He’d seen Ki-tae’s disappointment a moment ago when the professor translated the text on the artifact to learn it was a depository of minds, not a way to contact someone in the afterlife. So it meant he wasn’t going to talk to his dad.
Maybe he wanted this as compensation, to say he’d done it, to carry the knowledge he gained back to the Institute. Maybe to boost his reputation. Become The Man Who Spoke to the Dead. To finally make up for Beau beating him to valedictorian. The pleading said he’d fucked this mission up pretty bad—losing his ship, losing his informant, getting nothing to lock up Beau with, and, oh yes, sleeping with the man he was pursuing. Give me this one thing, his expression said.
“We probably can’t figure it out,” Beau said. “And it probably doesn’t work with humans.” But Ki-tae was smiling. He knew it was a concession.
“We can at least try,” Ki-tae said.
They did, over several hours of reading everything the machine had for them. They found a compartment in the side of the machine that glowed when they opened the cover. Beau checked it out.
“There’s machinery in there. You want to risk putting your hand in it? If it rips your arm right off and you bleed out here on the cargo-bay floor, then don’t come crying to me.”
“I promise not to.” Ki-tae was scanning the compartment. “The things in there are fixed in place, according to this. There’s nothing dangerous that I can see.”
Beau snorted. “The whole damn thing is dangerous,” Beau said. “And you’re a damn fool.”
“I fear so. Look, Beau, I’m confident this will be safe. It’s a neuro-interface according to all we’ve seen. It’s not so far from our virtual-reality machines. We let those interface with our brains all the time.”
“Those are just machines,” Beau said. “They don’t have an agenda. Who knows what plans the minds in there have?”
“Ones that are a million years out-of-date,” Ki-tae said. “Nothing that can harm anyone today. Beau, we’ve checked thoroughly. The information all says that the individual channeling the…others…retains control and can break free at any moment.”
“Sure it says that. But the Tozanka codex said Pangal fish were a tasty delicacy, and King Finjex and his entire court died of explosive bloat.”
“We could try a test,” Marz said. “Use the computer to simulate a brain link-up.”
“Nothing simulates a brain,” Ki-tae said. “And nothing on this ship even comes close.”
“Also,” Beau said, “I’m not linking that thing to the main computer, are you crazy?” He smirked at Ki-tae. “You want to risk yourself, well, I’ll miss you and everything. But we need the computer to get us home.”
“Are we ready?” Marz asked. “Or are we going to eat first? Because it’s dinnertime.”
“Um,” Dev said from where he was sitting watching on one of the lower catwalks. “Maybe eat afterward. If something did happen, it’s probably better if he hasn’t just eaten.”
“Nil by mouth, then,” Beau said. “I’ll make you bacon and eggs later. If you survive.”
Ki-tae nodded distractedly, not even noticing the teasing. He slipped off the hoodie he’d put on to combat the chill of the cargo bay, revealing a sleeveless shirt under it. He flexed his left arm, as if that could help.
This was happening, and Beau couldn’t stop him. He’d never been able to stop Ki-tae doing anything he wanted to do. He wished this could be the exception. It could, if he was prepared to restrain him physically and lock him up for his own good. It would be considered a betrayal for sure. But Ki-tae had betrayed him first, so turnabout was fair play.
But he met the determined look in Ki-tae’s eyes and decided this was better than having him sneak down here and do it alone sometime. “Okay,” he said. “Then let’s do it. I hope we all recall our late-period Imperial Standard, because I assume that’s what we’ll be speaking for the next few minutes.”
“Imagine,” Reynolds said, wonderingly, “to hear it spoken. Not on a recording, but by one who spoke it first a million years ago…or at least, spoken through Agent Park…oh my!”
“Here goes,” Ki-tae said. “Professor, stand by to initiate the interface.”
He slid his arm up to the elbow into the device.
“Initiating now,” Reynolds said. For a while there was nothing but a slight humming from the power unit as everyone watched Ki-tae. He looked normal, except…It came slowly, gradually. No dramatic cry or convulsion. His eyes closed, but they didn’t spring open glowing, or red, or all black; they came open again slowly, the same dark brown, though his pupils were huge.
His face changed. No grimace of pain, no twisting into a sneer, but there was a subtle shift in the muscles to an expression Beau had never seen on Ki-tae’s face before and didn’t know how to interpret. He heard Marz mutter softly, a curse. “It’s not him anymore,” she said. Beau’s heart hammered in his throat. Ki-tae better be okay. If the machine did not give him back intact, he’d take an ax to the thing, fee be damned.
“Do you know me?” Beau asked in Imperial Standard, wondering how bad his accent was.
“He knows you,” Ki-tae—no, the thing talking through him, the Eltique said. “The…vessel. He knows Beau. He is yours.” Beau blinked and avoided the eyes of the two women. He was heartily glad Dev and Doug couldn’t understand this.
“Is he safe?” Beau asked.
“Safe. Yes.”
“Let me speak to him.”
In an instant Ki-tae was there again, eyes flashing, familiar scowl—which Beau had indeed seen many times. “For God’s sake, Beau, we just got started.”
“Okay, just checking,” Beau said. “Let’s continue, then.”
And again he wasn’t Ki-tae anymore. The shift in his features happened quickly this time, and the other was back.
“Confusion…” it said. It raised Ki-tae’s free hand, turning it around, looking at it curiously. “I don’t know your form. Which planet are you from?”
“One a real long way off,” Beau said. He felt a strong urge not to tell this thing more than he had to. “What’s your name?”
“Eltique is who we are.”
“Okay, I know that’s the…group you’re part of. But you, who are you?”
“We are the Eltique, that which survives. The last of us.”
“You’re like a group mind?” Marz asked. “All the stored minds in this thing are all…merged together?”
“We are one.”
“How many?” Beau asked.
“Many…No. There is no many. We are one.”
Beau rubbed his temple. That wasn’t helpful.
“Perhaps we’re getting the words wrong?” Reynolds said, in English. The Eltique looked at her, and Beau wondered if it understood her because Ki-tae did. He spoke in English.
“How about we kill this thing right now?”
It smiled in a creepy way, like it was trying out something it had never done before. It answered him in Imperial Standard. “You threaten, but you lie. We are already dead. All below. And you will not kill your lover.”
Shit, how much of Ki-tae’s memory did it have access to? If everything, then it knew every dirty little deed they’d done together. Maybe he should try to steer it away from such personal stuff before it told Marz and the professor a lot more than he was comfortable with them knowing.
“What was the mission of the space station where we found you?” Beau asked. “Did you work on it, before your mind was uploaded into the Enivakara?”
“Its purpose was our purpose. Purification.”
That didn’t sound good.
“Explain,” Marz said, sounding grim, “exactly what you mean by purification.”
“Ki-tae,” Beau said. “If you can do so, make him explain fully.”
“Fire,” the Eltique said. “Purify all things with fire.”
“The station was a weapon?” Beau gulped at the thought of the dead planet far below. “A…a planet killer?”
“We purified a dozen planets, before we purified ourselves, when they came for us. They came, but they could never stop all of us, all the others, across the great corrupt body of the empire.”
“There were more of those stations?”
“Dozens more. To work, to purify, and then to be purified.”
“To die yourselves, after your…mission was over? That was what you did?”
“The final glory. To burn away all the corruption. To live on as thought, that others might learn from us, how to carry on the great work—” It…Ki-tae’s skin was shining with sweat. His free hand was clenched into a fist, so tight the knuckles were pale. His whole body was quivering with tension.
“Let me talk to Ki-tae right now!” Beau demanded.
This time it was a struggle; he saw it. Ki-tae had to fight his way out, as if through a crowd going one way and dragging him with them. But he emerged with a heaving gasp, his eyes huge, pain etching lines across his face.
“Burning,” he cried out in a sobbing breath. “It burns!”
Beau didn’t wait for more. He grabbed the power cable and yanked it violently out of the Enivakara. The machine went dark. “We’re fucking done,” Beau snapped. The rest of the crew stared at him. “What? It was hurting him. Ki-tae, are you—” He turned to Ki-tae in time to see him crumple to the floor.
* * * *
Ki-tae woke from dreams—memories—of flames, to a dim room and a shadowy figure nearby. His throat felt burned, and he only croaked when he tried to speak. In an instant the figure was at his side. Beau. He held a glass to Ki-tae’s lips to help him drink. Chips of ice touched his lips. A few sips soothed his throat, and he lay back again with a groan, eyes closed.
“Wait, wait a second,” Beau said, but not to him. He opened his eyes again to see Devlin hovering too.
“I’m okay,” Ki-tae said, though that was something of an exaggeration. “I’m fine.”
Beau looked down at him, scrutinizing him. “You are just you again. Right? That guy, those…people, didn’t get a permanent hold of you, did they?”
“Certainly not,” Ki-tae snapped. “Do you think I’m some weak-minded ninny who can be so easily taken over?”
“Yeah, he sounds okay,” Beau said, grinning, a flash of white teeth in the dimness.
“All his vitals are fine,” Devlin said.
“Then can you leave us alone to talk, please?”
“Okay. I’ll be outside, so shout if you need me.”
Devlin left, and Beau turned back to Ki-tae, who sat up in the bed, looking around for his clothes and wondering who exactly had undressed him.
“Relax there, buster,” Beau said. “You had…I don’t know, some kind of seizure.”
“I’m fine. Bring me some clothes. We have to destroy that thing.”
“What? Hey, wait a second.” He put a hand on Ki-tae’s chest when he tried to get off the bed. Ki-tae looked down at the hand, then up at him. Beau moved the hand, but he still stood close, blocking Ki-tae from getting up. “Explain,” Beau said. “Tell me what it was like with that…whatever it was in you.”
Ki-tae leaned forward, and Beau tensed, but Ki-tae didn’t try to get past him.
“There were thousands of them in there. Or they had been thousands once. Now they’re one, but it’s a one with thousands of voices.”
“How is it even possible to store so many brain patterns in a thing that size?”
“I don’t know. Subatomically maybe, on the quantum level. Or…maybe they take no space at all. Consciousness…You can’t exactly weigh it, can you?”
“Okay, but what was it like?”
“Like being insane. Because they are. They were insane before, and now, after a million years, they’re insane to the nth degree. It was…red, hot…”
“Burning,” Beau said. He glanced at Ki-tae’s arm. “I thought your arm would come out of it charred to the bone.”
“I’m glad you were wrong.”
“You said you were burning, right before I broke the connection. I thought they were…burning you from the inside out. Destroying you.”
And he sounded terrified about it, Ki-tae thought. Which was most interesting. He should use that fear. “We have to destroy it. They…the Eltique, we didn’t know even a tenth, a hundredth of that they were and were capable of.”
Beau sat on the bed. “So tell me.” Ki-tae lay down again, his head spinning with new knowledge that was forcing new spaces in his brain for itself.
“They were a cult, we knew that much. But what they worshipped was death. Death was purification. Liberation from the corruption and weakness of the body.”
“So they were a suicide cult?”
“No. Suicide would only come once the main work was done. It would be more accurate to say they were a genocide cult.”
“Shit.”
“I was right about the station. It was a planet killer, burning the surface of any planet to cinders. They, the ones from that station, knew the Imperial navy was coming for them and they couldn’t escape, so they found the world below—it was a remote colony, with only about twenty million people across the whole planet. They went to the surface and controlled the weapons remotely. Destroying the whole planet—and themselves.”
“Holy fuck, they really were insane.”
“The symbol, the black circle, I know what it is. It’s a burned planet. Like the one below.”
“I knew there was a reason I never liked that thing.”
“They didn’t cause the empire’s decline, but they hurried it along. They destroyed several key strategic colonies and bases. They wanted to burn it all down. That’s why we have to destroy it. Because they’re still alive in there, and determined to complete the great work.”
“Is that why they built the Enivakara? Because it seems weird, if they wanted death, that they’d build themselves an immortality machine.”
“Yes. They stored their minds to continue the work later. They want to burn everything, and that will include Earth and every other inhabited planet. They have knowledge of awful weapons.”
Beau looked narrowly at him. “And does that mean you do too?”
“No, it’s only vague. And it’s fading all the time, like a dream. But if I connected again, went deeper…”
“You are not doing that!”
“I know. I just meant it could be done. By someone who wanted that knowledge. Wanted to use it.”
“Are you suggesting Ronnie King would do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, if they talked to him enough. It’s like having a thousand voices in your head. All of them telling you what to do. All of them wanting to use you to their purpose.”
“Then why didn’t they take you over? Don’t tell me it was all about your disciplined mind.”
“Not entirely,” Ki-tae conceded, as painful as that was to admit. “But I’m of little use to them. I’m only an ordinary man. What?” he demanded when Beau smirked.
“Nothing. But…you’re far from ordinary, Ki-tae.”
A glow spread through Ki-tae, from his toes to his nose. He put aside that reaction to concentrate on the important. “Thank you. But I mean I have no exceptional resources or influence. I have only a limited amount of power. But King, he has power, influence, and resources to burn. And burn is what he’ll do with it.”
“I was thinking…we could sabotage it somehow. Get rid of the stored consciousness in it. Then it’s just an artifact.”
Ki-tae sat up again, though it made his head spin. He grabbed at Beau’s shirt, pulled him closer. “I told you, I don’t even know how they are stored, and I was connected to it. Destroying it is the only way. Forget your fee—”
“I don’t care about the fee, but the others, they need the money more than I do.”
“No fee is big enough to put the whole galaxy in danger. That’s what I’m talking about here. They want to kill everything, Beau. Everything. Don’t give them the means to do it.”