“If I tell them the truth, they won’t help me.” Gaz stood in the conn with Nathaniel as his ship approached the part of Riggon’s Cluster where the “rogue” members of the Root clergy had been. Or where their station had been. The remnants floated in the area, like pieces of ash drifting off of an incinerator. Surprisingly, none of the usual scavengers hovered about the site picking away at those remains.
“And if you lie to them and they find out?”
Nathaniel’s pointed question hung in the air between them. Gaz worked the problem with her processors on full cycles, reviewing the additional information she’d gleaned from the legitimate Root cleric’s databanks. “They might trap me forever.” Those records had shown the Root clerics’ preferred forms of punishment. Not death, but captivity. “But they may choose to do that as soon as they realize what I’ve done.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“I do not care for catch-22s.”
That made him laugh. “If you did, that alone would make you unique among the stars.”
It was almost enough to bring out her own laughter. If only the stakes were lower. “They’re the only way I am going to find Alaya. Aren’t they?”
“I do not know. There are other orders of clergy. But none so powerful or common out in the black.”
There was no catch-22 here. Should the Root clergy demand Gaz’s life in exchange for Alaya’s, Gaz would have accepted their offer without wasting another cycle. But the question was, would they make such an exchange or would they simply claim Gaz’s life as punishment for her prior crimes? “I do not care for the uncertainty either.”
This time he didn’t laugh, but Nathaniel just nodded. “Then accept the risk and consequences either way. And I counsel honesty.” He paused, as if checking an internal system. “You have three hours before we make contact with the Root clergy’s signal.
Stranger than the fact the pieces of the destroyed station floated untouched by scavengers in the void was the fact that Nathaniel had detected a signal coming from that wreckage. Neither a distress call nor a positional beacon, it appeared to be a normal communication channel. One which the Root clergy did not respond to. But there was no question from their instrument readouts that people yet lived among the floating pieces of destroyed station.
Maybe I didn’t kill as many people as I suspected?
Cyborgs did not need to breathe, sway, or fidget the way baseline humans. Neither did Nathaniel. He stood next to Gaz, both as still as the ancient statues his station aped, for all one hundred eighty three minutes it took their ship to close with the debris of the station.
One of the good parts of having Nathaniel carry them here was that he could be ostensibly neutral. Alaya and Gaz had made sure to keep a strict firewall between their actions and the assistance he provided. Then again, Nathaniel had accepted the ten reputation points offered by the false Root clerics.
Fortunately for Gaz, she would have had to voluntarily shiver for her discomfort to be visible to anyone else. Nathaniel knew the risks to himself. Besides, the Root cleric’s pacifism meant they posed little threat to The Pillar of Man.
Sensors showed the debris cloud expand. Wood, bits of metal, and little spheres of water and gas slammed in to The Pillar of Man’s shields and bounced off harmlessly. The sim interface drew a spheroid around the center of the debris field, indicating the origin of the signal they’d followed here.
It was a tiny spheroid, no larger than one meter by one meter. Impossibly small.
“How can that be?” Gaz finally moved after three hours of imitating a statue. “They shouldn’t even have enough power to broadcast.”
Pink firelights flickered over Nathaniel’s skin and brightened his eyes. “Magic. That whole area is filled with powerful magic.”
“Should we hail them?”
“That,” the lights faded and he turned toward Gaz, “is up to you.”
A virtual interface flickered from Nathaniel to Gaz, the option to contact the Root clerics before her, Gaz once more hesitated. Millions of potential outcomes blazed before her eyes as the milliseconds ticked by. “This is the void ship The Pillar of Man, hailing the remnants of the Root Clergy station. Come in?”
Her voice ricocheted around the conn, the room otherwise silent. Gaz opened her mouth to repeat her hail a minute later, only for a woman’s voice to cut her off. “Acknowledged, The Pillar of Man, maintain distance or you will be fired upon. You may send one skiff with one rider: the cyborg named Gaz. Any other action besides departure will be considered hostile. We’ve announced our warning to the Cluster. Go ahead.”
Nathaniel nodded to confirm the transmission before Gaz responded. “Okay, station, sending one skiff.”
Technically, she could have flown herself into the remnants of the Root clergy’s base. But doing so would have been in contradiction to their demands. Hundreds, no millions, of bodies later, Gaz had never once been called to account for her killings. Sailing into the comm sphere of the Root clergy would, at the very least, be novel.
The skiff she piloted was larger than the two-meter spheroid Gaz approached. Having given her controls over to the station’s piloting systems, Gaz did not consider the possibility they might run her into their station on purpose. Not until it loomed ahead of her.
Eyes open and sensors focused on the oncoming dot of black, Gaz recorded the change in space as the black dot opened like a treasure ball, hinged on the side with an incredible scene of wild landsappeared before her.
And then her skiff’s instruments went berserk. Passing through the opening caused gravity and pressure to immediately assert themselves over the skiff’s mass. Its gravity plane shorted out, the hull whined and complained at the need to adjust, but other than the loss of artificial gravity, nothing else adverse happened to her skiff.
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Thirteen people wearing white robes stood in a circle around Gaz’s skiff. They raised their handsand lowered them in unison. At the same time, Gaz’s skiff buckled and dropped until it had hit the surface of the… was this a planet?
It resembled historical records of the Terran forests or the wood farms of Venus. Neither of which existed today. Gaz stood and complete her final message to Nathaniel and Alaya, in case the clergy captured her, and she stepped to the exit hatch and popped it open.
Air, more clogged with impurities than she’d ever sampled rushed over her as the seals on her ship opened up. A melange of odors registered in her sensor banks, a list of pheromones, terpines, and other volatiles melded together created an almost three-dimensional view of the world around her.
Not a second after her sensors sampled the air a force wrapped itself around Gaz and yanked her out of the ship. Beautiful blue skies flipped and spun in counterrotation to Gaz as she landed on the grasses before a woman wearing a golden crown and carrying a long crozier. “The murderer returns.”
It looks like I failed you, Alaya. Gaz prepared her chassis for self-destruct. No one would take her and leave her forever imprisoned. At the very least, Gaz could preemptively avenge Alaya, assuming these people had something to do with her going missing. And if they didn’t then Gaz would have the satisfaction of knowing she’d stopped them from holding her.
“Do not kill yourself on our account, cyborg.” The woman, who’s flaming red hair fluttered in the wind. “Our souls do not want to accept the karmic strike.”
Gaz understood the individual words, but had to take a little bit more time than usual to achieve a broad understanding of them. She tried to speak and found her voice unimpeded. “I don’t see how my death would be your responsibility.”
“That surprises me, but you have a very… mundane view of the world.” The unknown woman cocked her head as if listening to another voice and shrugged. “We know why you are here.”
“And?”
“And,” she straightened her head and flattened her lips, “we wish to hear your appeal from your lips. What do you want from us?”
Negotiation… it was a kind of game intended to reach a compromise between two people. Gaz hated it personally, but mostly because humans had a habit of negotiating in bad faith. Not at all unlike the false root priests. With a little extra processing, she could appeal to them with a level of skill only politicians could have. But instead she chose the truth, heeding Nathaniel’s advice. “I am seeking the woman I love.”
The redheaded woman’s eyes narrowed as a few around the circle nodded. Perhaps they expected her to say this, or perhaps they approved. “This is the same woman who assisted in destroying our station, killing our people, and stealing the star seed.” It wasn’t framed as a question. The woman looked Gaz straight in the eyes and said, “if we say no?”
“That depends on whether you let me go.” Gaz considered her situation. “Self-destruction is an option.”
Fingers drummed along the shaft of her crozier and the leaded said, “fine. Why do you think we’d be willing to help you?”
“I have no other hope. And I will retrieve Alaya if it kills me.”
Alaya’s name drifted through the circle, whispered by the people gathered around Gaz. The redhead was the last to rasp out Alaya’s name. “In order to retrieve your love, you must retrieve the starseed. There is no other way for us to help you. What you did… has cost the galaxy a thousand years of darkness.” Her fingers wrapped around the shaft of her crozier and trembled with the intensity of her grip. “What do you say to that?”
“We didn’t know?”
Sucking in breath as if to shout at Gaz, the redhead slowly let her air out through pursed lips. “You didn’t know.” Her eyes flicked to another person in the circle. “Did you know there were hundreds of innocent people aboard our station when you destroyed it?”
“We… I did.” Gaz bowed her head, awaiting the fall of the axe blade.
“And why did you steal the starseed?”
“Because we believed we were retrieving it for the rightful owners.” Honesty, Gaz. “And because they paid us.”
At the final words the redheaded woman nodded. “You said you loved her, would you die for her?”
“Yes.” The answer came even faster than Gaz’s digital synapses could process.
“Then you will be our agent, you will retrieve the starseed and return it to us.” The woman’s voice boomed over Gaz, pushing her back as the force holding her shook. “And if you fail, the Verse herself shall claim her due.” One beat of the crozier and angry red lightning struck from the ground. Crimson red sparks sprayed across Gaz and digital systems began spitting out error after error. The electric charge from the woman’s magical assault carved itself a path into Gaz’s mind.
A dozen voices joined in chorus with the electrical blaze, curling into her consciousness as the magic took hold. Rictus would have taken her limbs if not for the paralysis holding her. And then it ended, leaving Gaz’s perceptions floating in a haze of ochre light. “Do you accept this mandate?”
Stripped of her digital accessories, the trappings of her form, Gaz had no way to offload the cognitive load to her processors. If she wanted Alaya back, her only option was to agree. “Yes.”
The magic gripped her, rang her out like the last drops of water in a bag, and then released her where she fell onto the ground. Her mass, what she’d accumulated in the time since the false Root priests had attacked her, shattered and spread across the loam like spilled oil.
None of the Root priests assembled moved away from the dispersed nanites. It took laborious seconds for Gaz to reassert control over her disparate parts. In the process, the redheaded woman quirked her eyebrow at Gaz’s activities. But did not speak until Gaz stood up before her. “You believe us weak because we do not kill our foes.”
Honesty. With her control back, Gaz could think and reason again. “Yes.”
“Of course you do.” The redhead simply nodded and opened her right hand as if offering candy to Gaz. “And you are desperately mistaken.”
This time the light from her magic created a faint green glow as it struck Gaz’s face. Her perceptions shifted from the strange world she stood on back to the space around The Pillar of Man. Faint projections flitted about Nathaniel’s ship, holograms representing the past. Gaz made out the Mousehome among those images as well as the security ships patrolling the cordon around the station. The station itself returned, time rewinding as the section of the hull they’d blown off tumbled back into contact with the station and smoothed itself out.
Something pulled Gaz’s vision inside of the station. The people who Alaya and Evan killed, they died for certain. But as time reverted to its usual flow, people vanished from the Root station one by one, speeding up as the station’s end approached.
“Those who perished gave themselves so the Root may yet live on.” The redheaded woman’s narration intruded into the vision. Large blazing candle flames rose up across the station as the Mousehome barreled into her side and bore away the seed they’d been protecting. By the time the station fully collapsed, no one remained aboard.
The vision faded and the redheaded woman loomed over Gaz. “Now go, you pollute our sanctuary with your presence and we must banish what you carried with you.”
The same telekinetic force which had held her in place now lifted Gaz up and carried her back to the skiff. Its door was still open, and it shut on its own accord when Gaz alighted into the pilot’s chair. Then, without directions from Gaz, the ship shuddered and rose. Still bound by the Root priests’ powers, Gaz and her skiff flew up and back the way they came. Without access to the skiff’s sensors, Gaz couldn’t say whether the portal back to the void was still open.
Space’s night-black embrace washed over her as Gaz and the ship reentered void. The gravity plane remained inoperative, but the engines and the hull were intact. Meters from the spheroid where the comms signal originated, the telekinetic force released her and she directed her ship back to The Pillar of Man.
A lone timer ticked off seconds in the lower left section of her visual field. Gaz had not put that timer in place, it was the same crimson shade as the Root clerics’ lightning. And it would run down in seven days.
That was how long she had to retrieve the starseed.