The Navigator, page 55
Seraphim's hologram hummed loudly for a moment.
"I will log a report stating that there is a high probability that Cynax-8172's survey was inaccurate when we reach the Terrelian Markets. The C.G.G. will then take corrective action."
"They'll be too late! The natives already have the Aii. They salvaged a Consortium escape pod infected with them. They haven't opened it yet, but they will soon. By the time you get me to the Markets and back, and the C.G.G. decides what to do, everyone on that planet could be dead. My sister could be dead. You have to let me help her!"
"Are you suggesting an alternative course of action?"
"Yes! Take me back. Cynax left my sister where she was because she's in a city and he knew she couldn't be evacuated like me without you discovering his survey was a fraud. Please take me to her! I can show you where that pod is too, and you can use this ship to destroy it. Let me rescue her and save that world. I - I don't want her to die. She's in danger. Everyone there is. You have to let me save them!"
Seraphim stared at Petal for several tense minutes without saying a word, studying her for the slightest eyebrow twitch, increased ruddiness in the face, or any other physical indication of deceitfulness.
"I will temporarily reverse course back to planet ZX-1-H23 to confirm what you've claimed. But as of this moment, I do not plan on contacting its supposed natives or initiating any other Khoi evacuations."
"Okay." Petal tried to hide her excitement. "You'll see. There's a whole planet full of people there, and Aii too. I - I wasn't lying."
After her conversation with Seraphim finished, Petal watched the windows on the Kingfisher for any indication that the ship was turning around.
For an entire hour she saw nothing.
After the hour mark passed, the star streaks slowly converged into dots and began to twinkle.
Once the stars shrunk back to shape, Petal ran forward to the window that lay at the end of the hall, staring over the bow of the Kingfisher, out at what looked like a looming blue marble.
Seraphim's hologram remained in the lounge. Before it switched off, it spoke to Petal.
"Due to rapid acceleration and deceleration you will experience mild time dilation. While only a few hours have passed on this ship, several weeks have gone by on this planet."
"Really?"
Petal didn't turn around, too mesmerized by the planet in front of her.
The blue world swelled in size, becoming more defined, with one craggy, tan and green continent, a seemingly endless, turquoise sea, and an ocean of churning, white clouds. Floating above the planet's southern hemisphere was a giant hurricane, over a thousand miles across that seemed to spin in slow motion. Up to the north, was a ghostly red, green, and gold aurora borealis that glowed brightly over the eastern half of the lonely continent.
Baffin Island
- 85-
Chairman Manheim rubbed his eyes. He was having trouble staying awake. He took a bite of a small almond cookie that was sitting on his napkin and then washed the dry crumbs back with a sip of ginger tea. The drink normally allayed his nighttime indigestion.
Around the table, on either side of him, were General Keitel, Representative Folkum, and Representative Ontalla. They were all sitting at the top of the P.R.K.S.S.S. building, in its windowed penthouse office, holding a late night planning session.
Khai Shen's lights twinkled a thousand feet below, a nauseating mix of flashing colors. A constant drizzle formed little rivulets that blurred the lights into streaks on the window glass.
"What's next on our agenda?"
"Now that Yong has fallen, the People's Assembly has proposed a new name for the P.R.K." Representative Ontalla paused for a moment. "Yong has long been known as the Democratic Republic of Yong. To harmonize their reincorporation into a new Kudian super-state, and to signal our continued commitment to freedom and democratic principles, the Assembly has proposed that we rechristen our country - the Democratic People's Republic of Kudu. The D.P.R.K."
"Just what we need." Representative Folkum rolled his eyes. "An even longer name for our country. No one even bothers to say the People's Republic anyway. Everyone just calls us Kudu or the P.R.K."
"So then what's the fuss of adding one more letter?"
"This is silly," General Keitel grumbled. "We'll have to remake every state seal and reissue thousands of military and police uniforms just to add one more meaningless letter. Doesn't the Assembly have more important matters to attend to than dreaming up long-winded acronyms? And what happens when Roc falls? Shall we then become the D.P.R.K.&R?"
"When the Kingdom of Roc falls, and Kudu is unified once more, we'll drop all acronyms." Manheim leaned forward in his chair. "From then on we shall once again be known only as 'Kudu' as we were before the breakup. No more People's Republics, or Democratic Republics, or any other perfunctory compellations."
The office hummed with murmurs of agreement.
A loud rumble echoed through the clouds that hung over Khai Shen, causing them to glow red, green, and then an electric yellow. Seconds after the noise, the lights in the office flickered off.
The city below was plunged into primordial darkness, and its streets fell silent for the first time since the Flood.
***
Quill cuddled up in bed. She tried to read a book on antediluvian mythology that Sejanus loaned her, but couldn't focus. Her mind wandered and she decided to shut her eyes and get some sleep before the Typhoon made landfall.
Just an hour ago, an aurora borealis unlike any ever seen before had begun to glow brightly over the bow of the ship, shimmering across the cloud tops. The Typhoon's nomad crew took this as an omen and fell to their knees in religious wonderment.
Simultaneous with the appearance of the aurora, the fleet's electronics failed, crackling loudly and then fizzling out, as if they'd blown their fuses. Quill had foretold this to Rho before he set sail, and he'd ordered the fleet to abandon reliance on electrical instruments.
Now, the fleet was sailing only by coal power and the wind, using the stars to guide themselves to the Continent.
Quill knew the CME reached Ea when the clock in her cabin stopped mid-tick. This was followed by a commotion that rocked the entire ship, and then by singing and chanting. She remained in her cabin because her feet were swollen and sore, content to take small bites of her dinner while weighing whether to try to pick up Sejanus's book again, or go to sleep out of sheer boredom.
Suddenly, Sejanus flung her cabin door open.
"God." Quill cringed. "You scared me. I could have been sleeping."
Sejanus danced his way into the cabin. He motioned for Quill to stand up and take his hand as a dancing partner.
"You must come above deck to witness the lights in the heavens. They are wondrous! A rainbow of colors streaming down from the stars. What a show! What an omen!"
"I need to rest." Quill buried her face in her pillow. "We'll reach Khai Shen in three hours. I want to have energy once we get there."
"Then rest," Sejanus teased, sitting down on the bed, next to Quill, grinning. "You're exhausting yourself keeping track of our course, ever the dutiful navigator, my little Giovanni. Time to rest those tired, auburn eyes and drift off into the nirvana that is slumber."
Sejanus stood up. He pulled his assault rifle from his back and removed its magazine. While Quill lay motionless, he inspected his weapon, making sure its barrel was clear and all of its components were properly functioning.
The clanking noise grated on Quill's ears; her teeth involuntarily clenched every time metal scraped against metal. She stared up at Sejanus like a chiding mother.
"Sorry my dear, didn't mean to make so much clamor." Sejanus jammed the magazine back into the weapon and cocked it with satisfaction. "I needed the illumination for a proper breakdown. Can't have it jam when it's needed."
"You've been in a war before, haven't you? You seem calm."
"I've been in a war yes, but never in a battle. During my time in the Coterie, I served as an interrogator, far from the fighting in Yong. It was a horrid assignment. Just horrid. I've spent many years trying to forget what I did in the name of the State. I've tried to do something worthy with my life since then - and what better than to form a Court and provide aging cannibals with order and civilized justice?"
"You were in the Coterie?" Quill sprawled out under her sheets. "I was in the Coterie too. . .until they expelled me."
"Better that you were expelled, my dear. Their elitism warps all it touches. Take me, for example. Before I was accepted into their ranks, I would have considered myself a polite, humble, and respectable young man." Sejanus pointed to his facial tatoos. "Now look at the monster they made of me."
"You're not a monster. At least not now, anyway."
Sejanus backed away, fumbling for the door handle. He hid his face. He no longer looked happy. He looked troubled.
"It's too late for me to repent, Ms. Clymene. My sins are too numerous and heinous for me to recall. That's why I wear them on my face - for all but me to see. I'm certain that the guardians of Tian Shri Ha will turn me away at the gates. But ah! No more wallowing in the past. Time to drink deep from Lethe and forget that which cannot be undone. Life is about swimming forward against the current of time, not about treading idly in the eddies of one's memories."
Sejanus walked into the hallway. He turned to Quill and smiled once again, his expression pivoting back toward elation. He then stepped away, out of Quill's line of sight, skipping down the hallway, softly humming to himself.
"I'm going back up to gaze at the ethereal lights. If you feel renewed vigor - Ms. Clymene - please - come join me!"
Quill spent the rest of the night lying in bed. At daybreak, the Typhoon's hull rumbled as the flagship opened up the great battle for Khai Shen with a salvo from its deck guns. Quill could feel the vibrations deep in her chest, followed by the very first kicks of her baby.
- 86-
Petal watched the sky around the Kingfisher change from twinkling black, to dark, velvety purple, and then back to a familiar shade of powder blue. The shifting colors mirrored her descent to, and subsequent ascent from, Ea's sea bottom.
As the Kingfisher cut through the mesosphere, she stood up and walked the length of the deck, full of anxious energy and bored to death of the lounge, which she'd been waiting in for most of the voyage.
Petal exited the lounge and walked through the room of fish tanks, taking a few minutes to ogle the strange fish and the whale, before reentering the giant trell hangar. She stepped onto one of the trell platforms.
"Seraphim? Have you been able to scan Ea yet? Have you found the escape pod? I think it might be with my sister in a place called Baffin Island."
"It is difficult for me to locate the pod unless I am in close proximity to it, and the Kingfisher is still at an extreme altitude."
"Then lower us. Baffin Island is on Kudu, the big continent. The natives said it's a little island in the bay of the continent's capital city. Kai. . .something. It's a military base."
"Acknowledged. I am approaching this planet's only sizeable landmass as we speak. ETA 19.25 minutes."
Petal smiled at the news. She grabbed the trell's central cable, bubbling with excitement.
"When you get us there, can you lower me down to the ground? I'll look for my sister while you scan for the pod."
"Negative," Seraphim buzzed. Its voice was followed by a loud staticy noise. "Cynax-8172 is hailing us. Would you like to speak to it?"
"Umm. . .okay?"
The lights on the hangar's ceiling cast down an enormous electric green projection of Cynax's squid-tree body.
Petal backed away from Cynax's giant hologram, intimidated by its size. It filled up half the hangar.
The alien A.I. glared at her with its one, hideous eye. Its hundreds of tentacles flailed around wildly.
"Why have you returned?"
Cynax spoke the words with such force, the trell shook.
"Seraphim knows you lied about the survey. She's scanning the surface right now. You can't hide anymore. The C.G.G. is going to find out what you did here."
"I have already discussed that with Seraphim. I asked why you have returned, Petal-Fatima."
"To get my sister. You doubled-crossed me! You promised you'd take me to her!"
All of Cynax's tentacles twitched in unison. "You intend to intervene in native affairs and make first contact with Continental civilization?"
"We contacted them hundreds of years ago. Our forerunners did. I remember. And you promised you'd take me to Junk in exchange for what I did for you! I almost died! You promised!"
"I warn you," Cynax hissed, its cold voice steeped in anger for the first time since Petal met it. "Colonial Galactic Governmental Directive ID-S9-8 authorizes me to take violent, preventative measures to prevent an unscheduled first-contact. I will do such unless you discontinue your current course of action."
Petal turned away from the hologram.
"Seraphim! Turn him off! I don't want to talk to him!"
"As you wish."
Cynax's hologram morphed into a staticy mess and then switched off with an unusually violent crackle.
Petal breathed a sigh of relief.
A soft hum filled the hangar, rattling the walls and shaking the trells. It sounded like a giant computer booting up.
"What is that? What's that sound?"
"Cynax-8127 seems to have planted a logic bomb in my systems. Possibly during the previous overload. I am attempting to compartmentalize my functions to ensure it cannot gain control over this ship, but several of my systems have already been compromised."
"Wha - what do you mean? What's happening?"
The four, headless, mechanical men on either side of Petal came online. The central light in their chassis glowed bright electric green. Each machine took a jerky, lizard-like step forward on its footpads.
The sound of their feet banging against the metal floor was deafening.
Petal froze, covering her ears. The mechanical men were so large, they surrounded her instantly. They quickly blocked the hangar's exit with their lanky steel limbs, sealing off the only escape route.
All Petal could do was scream. She trembled in place, mesmerized by the giants.
The machines took another step forward and loomed over her, twenty feet tall. Their headless bodies obscured the trell satellites above. Eight, four-pronged, mechanical claws reached down, trying to grab her.
Petal couldn't move. Her body and mind had already surrendered. She was paralyzed, resigned to death, a feeling she would often get in nightmares when escape seemed impossible. She stared at the claws as they closed in, now only a foot away, expecting them to crush her.
Before any of the machines could grab Petal, her feet were lifted off the floor. Her body too. Her stomach went into her throat and stayed there. All gravity ceased and for a moment Petal and the four mechanical men hovered in the air, completely weightless, levitating.
That second of zero gravity came to a violent end when Seraphim banked the Kingfisher left and took the ship out of free fall.
Petal slammed into the floor. A gash opened up on her forehead, sending blood trickling into her eyes. The floor shifted diagonally and she slid down the slope, toward the wall to her left, unable to keep her footing.
The mechanical men were also brought down by the sudden loss of gravity. The one in front of Petal and the one to her right fell flat on their chassis. The other two machines collapsed into one another and then slid across the sloping floor with a piercing screech. They careened into the wall and became entangled in each other's jagged machinery.
Petal shot to her feet, slightly wobbly. The tangled machines to her left stopped struggling to separate themselves and went rigid like they'd been shut off – their chassis lights faded. The other two machines put down their claws and tried to flip themselves over.
The ceiling lights glowed brightly and cast down Seraphim's Petal-clone hologram.
Petal stared at the hologram as the two remaining machines slowly rose to their feet, dumbly waiting for the A.I. to give her some type of instruction.
"Those cargo-loading mechs are highly dangerous," Seraphim hummed, emotionless. "I will not tolerate Cynax-8127's intrusion into my systems, and I will do all that I can to protect you from the mechs, but at the moment, I recommend fleeing the area."
Petal took off, running to the hangar door and into the fish tank room in a full sprint. The thunderous footsteps of the mechs reverberated just a few dozen feet behind her.
- 87-
