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The Light
Race -- Chapter 19
1.
Another beam struck M'Trol-1 while a Corlos operative watched from the
safety of the simulator dais. The operative was safe as long as
he didn't cross the simulator threshold.
2.
Corlos had mapped the event forward and backward and knew exactly when
to act. Every dynamic had to line up like tumblers
in a multi-dimensional lock.
3. Elite conquest #868 was about to be
annihilated
once
the metaphorical cat grew tired of toying with its food.
4. The kids aboard the
destroyers believed that they were far enough from supervision to taunt
this particular world, rather than follow SOP
by-the-book.
5. "There are four ships in mid orbit," Onimex
reported to Ireana, "toying with us." The next blast
shattered her lab windows
as if to underscore the point. "The atmosphere is destabilizing,"
he added. The Elite never once placed
a camera on a doomed planet to experience what
planetcide looked like from a victim's perspective. "Elite victim" did not exist in Elite
lexicography. "We don't recognize obstacles -- we overcome them,"
the Academy Commandant told his cadets, "We are never...
victims." He pronounced the word 'victims' with cold disdain, to
convey revulsion at the preposterous
notion.
6. Ireana felt unbearable guilt, "I can't
believe I
brought you into existence so that you could implode two seconds after
burn-in. I'm really, truly, sorry for that."
7. "I don't think that's the plan," Onimex
consoled her," or my future self wouldn't be here shielding our
journey." "Our journey?" Ireana asked. She had never
been inclined to imbibe, but suspected that 'hidden wisdom' was
somewhere at the tavern. "I must have given you a few extra
circuits," she said in self mockery.
8. "They're just about ready to go for the
kill," Onimex said, "My future self says, 'don't worry!'" "Are
you saying those ships up there are playing around?" Ireana
asked. "My future self says, 'Yes.'" Dal
El once said to a captain, "You have to look away so the youth can play
once in a
while -- just know when to say when." The captain was 22 himself,
so the Vice Elite, 'more or less,' granted a license to ignore SOP in
moderation, so long as
the job got done.
9. "We're approaching the transport window,"
Onimex reported. Ireana would follow up on the back story later;
imminent doom seemed to upstage everything else right
now.
10. The simulator operator inset a small
window on his dais console and pushed the inset ahead 10 seconds.
The transport synchronizer locked. The only distinguishable
feature on the observation side of the simulator floor was the dais
surrounded by darkness. Observers could step across
the threshold into the reality side, but there was no way to
return. The only way back was matter-energy transport.
11. Ireana felt her molecules
scramble while her photonic matter remained animated. "Everything
your mind 'thinks' in this condition is real," Onimex told her, "so
mind what you think." "Your future self?" she asked rhetorically
-- she had figured that much out. "It stands to reason since our
thoughts are already electronic," she said, "It still feels
weird."
12.
The simulator could be piloted to any point
in space without leaving Sunova's interior. The Light Race had
built engines powered by the intense gravity of
Sunova. The only plausible explanation for why the Light
Race had an interest in hyper density was because gravity influences
light. "I have no idea where we're going," she
said. "We're almost there," Onimex assured her. She could
not begin to accept the fate of everyone else on M'tro-1. If
this is the afterlife, she would ask The One in person. "Give me
a crash course," she asked.
13. "All advanced civilizations cross the
energy-matter transposition threshold and discover a danger when
separating
corporeal
matter from it's photonic mass," Onimex explained, "Light-mass is not
hard-wired
to it's organic host. Corporeal
beings can not cross the energy-transport threshold without a thorough
understanding of the The One. Neural activity is not rigidly
wired --
a neuron only fires a pulse that is picked up by other
neurons. Those synaptic gaps are connected to the vacuum level of
matter." She was familiar with the concepts described, just not
that particular recipe. "Which Onimex?" she asked. "In this
State, we are one," he replied. His abstract conceptualizations
seemed unnaturally advanced for an A.I. unit that had just been
switched on.
14. 'Time' is not consistent throughout the Universe. "Is this an
alternate reality?" she asked. When Onimex was still in
development, she had contemplated remote- piloting him to an alternate
Universe as an exploratory measure, then decided not. It seemed
more holistic to avoid adulterating his pre-sentient body.
Evidently,
he had already gone there and back, and who knew for sure where
else.
15. "Why did
we have to run
like fugitives when we're not the criminals to begin
with?" She was in denial. If she began to think about the
loss of her family and friends, she would crack. "Is this the
afterlife?" she asked, "It's so vivid and dreamlike. Or am I just
blended into a carrier wave?"
16.
Onimex's future self returned to the moment of his birth
to record the destruction
of M'Trol-1 for evidence at Kor's trial. Since Corlos
had authorized his interference, the parallax was easily fixed.
"The best disturbance is NO disturbance," Daniel always says, however,
this particular visit was a legal imperative.
CORLOS
INTELLIGENCE
17.
Ireana rematerialized inside Sunova on the simulator platform.
The destruction of
M'Trol-1 was nowhere around. The waking dream transitioned back
into reality. The librarian shut down the simulator. Ireana
felt
her head ringing in the absolute quiet. She was glad to see
Onimex beside her and placed her hand on his polished upper surface,
grateful that machines
also made it to
the afterlife. After 4 years of devoted effort, his
initialization and burn-in concluded without a fault.
18. She was about to say, "I think we made it,"
but strange, ethereal music began playing in her head. As she
thought more about the music, she realized that she was composing and
conducting what the orchestra played. It used to happen to her as
a kid, riding
in
the back of the aircar with the wind rushing past. Now, the
music was unfetted by white noise and crescendoed as she
focused more upon it. The melody seemed to have limitless
creative potential.
19.
"It's a natural effect," the librarian said gently, his voice fading
into imperceptible walls. The simulator was dark and demurely lit
in stand-by mode. The Light Race had tapered all of the corners
and hard edges so that every room appeared much larger than it actually
was. It helped to cancel claustrophobia and confinement.
20.
"The music?" Ireana asked psionically.
21.
"Yes, the music," the librarian answered psionically, "We all hear
it -- you'll learn how to tune it out after a while." Then he
added, "Pardon the pun." Ireana didn't catch the pun. She
laughed at his need to qualify his prose.
22.
"I'm sure there's a psychological effect in any case," Ireana
said. "The possibilities are endless," she thought
privately. In the back of her mind, she knew that everyone else
on M'tro-1 had perished and 100 rhetorical questions
would not bring the dead back to life, except for one: "If I'm
here --
where did everyone else
go? Because this is not the
afterlife." Alma grinned sympathetically and seemed to ask
without saying anything, "How do you
know?"
23.
This was a textbook recruitment by Corlos. They scanned the
entire Universe for the brightest minds they could find; whose
deaths
could
be neither confirmed nor denied, although confirmed was better.
As far as the larger Universe was concerned, Ireana and Onimex died on
M'tro-1. Most Corlos operatives are unaccounted for by
design.
24. "Everyone always asks that one moral
question," the librarian offered, "why only me?" Ireana gave him
a look that begged for an answer. "We're going to have
to break
you in early,"
he said, walking toward the exit and extending his arm so that Ireana
and Onimex would follow. "We've been summoned to a meeting with
Daniel." "So he's not going to answer the question, and Daniel
must be someone important," Ireana thought. "I'm Alma," the
librarian said.
"Ireana," she replied, and motioned toward her cybernetic companion,
"Onimex," he said for himself. "I like your initiative," she said
privately to him. "You haven't seen anything yet," Onimex
replied. She liked his feistiness too.
25. "Are you co-located
again?" she asked. "No," he
answered, "...as I remember, you were squeezing me and shouting, 'No
Don't!'" She liked his smart assness. "Sounds like you
skipped eons of development," she assumed. "I gave myself a few
pointers," he clarified. "Was one of those pointers to let me win
arguments?" she asked. "I'll be wrong once in a while," he
assured her, "on purpose." "Did you tell yourself to not always
have the last word?" she asked. He said nothing further.
26. The trek to the conference room was
dark and mysterious because of the austere alien design. "I've
been here for 38
years and I still haven't got used to it," Alma commented.
"Somehow I
feel like I've seen seen this before," Ireana whispered. "It has
that effect on everyone," Alma said. "The Light Race designed it
-- they even left their library intact. Daniel sometimes falls
asleep there. We call it Sunova. It's the residue of a
collapsed star. The gravity outside these chambers would atomize
your body instantly," he said. "There is no technology that we
know of, anywhere, that can hollow out dense matter like this."
27. They entered an ovular-shaped conference
room. Along
one wall was a relief image of a machine world that spanned the entire
wall. It was being used as an animated mural. It was not
the Cacci Dai and quite possibly not even from this dimension.
28. Ireana took a vacant seat among the
other
department heads. There was an array of artifacts
illuminated on shelves; some mysterious and others self
explanatory. It was SOP for field operatives to pop
in
and out on occasion, so nobody gave Ireana a second glance or a sign of
unfamiliarity. Everyone had performed their
share of field work and all were subject to rapid redeployment at a
moments
notice. This whole sequence seemed strangely familiar to
her and the familiarity was comforting. Daniel entered the room and
everyone
started to rise.
29. He motioned for them to sit down, pulled
his own chair out, sat, and scooted forward. The chairs were
sheik, upholstered, comfortable and didn't have legs... "Later,"
she
told herself. Onimex didn't have legs either.
30. "This is starting to get serious," he began, resuming a previous
dialogue. "As a
general rule, we stay out of civil conflicts, but Kor has reached into
eight additional
systems. This is starting not
to look so civil.
He's not that far from
reaching us here." Daniel smacked the table for
emphasis, but the sound was deadened.
31. Some of the attendees cocked their heads to
reflect an "indeed" expression, but nothing more livelier than
that. Her deceased colleagues used to think that she was
stoic, but this bunch beat her hands down.. "It was 12 before,
now it's 20," an agent clarified, referring to the number of systems
affected by Kor.
32. "Our operatives on Vejhon have described a new
detection technology that could defeat our deflection array."
Daniel shrugged, "And you know what that means." The
machine-world mosaic faded, and a large, sleek, lethal-looking
destroyer
appeared in
profile from bow to stern; like a tangible, touchable model.
Smaller holograms of the same ship
projected at each station in front of each chair. The
opposite wall showed the destroyer's top and bottom view, right and
left. "I could get used to this," Ireana thought. She used
to hallucinate that technology like this existed, but never expected to
witness it unless she built it
herself.
33.
"One of these new ships," Daniel chuckled pretentiously,
"can do what five of the old ones did."
34. Then Daniel made cold, penetrating eye contact squarely
through Ireana's skull. She wanted to pee her pants. She
had been told that her gaze was disturbing -- his was lethal.
35. Daniel cracked a tight smile and took his stare off of
her. She could visit the ladies room later. "Multiply
Kor's old firepower times 35,000," Daniel said, nodding his head to
emphasize the point. "This isn't just a collateral projection,"
Daniel answered for them, "we're talking about destroying worlds
without end, and some galaxies don't even have that many worlds.
And now he has the firepower of a medium-sized star.
Whether you die a little or die a lot, you're still dead, like it or
not."
36. Ireana giggled. Daniel pointed right at her, "He wants
to catch people like her!" Ireana stopped giggling. "And
all the so-called 'native' deserters," he clarified.
37. Again, her face flushed. Daniel leaned back in his
chair, much more
relaxed. "I think we need to approach this with new eyes,"
he said. "I can't have whole galaxies getting wiped out because a
mad Vejhonian feels abandoned. And there's a
catch..." Daniel made sure everyone was listening, "...even if we
do step this up -- there's no guarantee that we'll win." This was
Ireana's first conference and she knew that Daniel had never uttered
those
words before. It was not a cliché.
38. That statement opened Pandora's
Box of inquiry. "So, what do you have in mind?" the choir asked
without saying a single word. Ireana felt like she had dwelt
among them for years. It wasn't even uncanny -- it felt natural,
as if her former life had been the fake life. This is where she
had been in all along, not M'tro-1.
39. "That
is the question, isn't it?" Daniel
replied.
40. Field intelligence from Vejhon began to
display on monitors at each station. Everyone was
given a guided tour of Kor's militarized new order. The walls
began to organize key icons as crucial moments passed by: The
gridboards, Elite commanders, strip mining, attacks on defenseless
outposts; a barrage of interstellar deception followed by a montage of
everything that was darkly alluring about Kor's regime. The
hybrids were head turners. The presentation rolled like a
campaign ad.
41. When it ended, some understood Kor's hypnotic attraction
better than before. The
images had been so intense, that a moment of silence was permitted so
that everyone could regain their right mind. Kor had forged an
awe-inspiring
statement of unreproachable brutality. Nobody had ever seen
anything like it, and that explained to some extent, the dark
allure. Everyone had
seen bits and parts of this before, with new surprises added each
time.
Power is attractive and Kor had it.
42. Has anyone ever heard the cliché' "Fight fire with
fire?" Daniel asked rhetorically. Every language has at
least one symbol to that effect. "It's a Cacci Dai expression,"
I-20 said; he was the resident authority on Elliptical matters but
wasn't from Cacci Dai.
43.
Daniel's captive audience was still standing down from the
savagery.
44. "The truth is," Daniel began, "we're not going to find
someone from within
Kor's Elite that we can actually use. Their mental
conditioning can't be reversed. His super kids are
hardwired to him." He alluded to present company, "You've all
been
augmented, but not
reconditioned."
45. An image of thousands of Kor-youth displayed on the wall
monitors. "We can't undo this," he said in eulogy for them.
"It's not a matter of trying..."
He
permitted everyone a moment to stretch their boundaries. For
being 'newer old,' it did have a fresh appeal. "I bet they don't have a
population problem," Ireana said to herself. Kor's super boys
looked like fashion models with real wear and tear. It
probably wouldn't be much different than mating with a machine, she
reasoned.
46. "So, the question is," Daniel said, as key Kor icons
minimized, "Where... do we find someone who
understands this totalitarian concept philosophically? Who would
work for us?"
47. The new wine in old bags was out. He
wanted the real deal
-- someone who could explain the 'Kor mind' and help the
powers-that-be, stop Kor from annihilating the whole Universe.
Whoever it is, has to be Corlos-ready, just like all of
them. Celestial Wars and terrestrial wars all have winners
and losers.
48. Daniel's body language suggested that he already had a
solution. Ireana had already figured
that much out.
49. He held out his hand, as if holding an invisible ball of
energy, and glanced around at the walls. Everyone followed his
line of sight accordingly. Terminating Kor's birth had already
been ruled out because Corlos doesn't change the past -- Corlos
protects the future.
50. A different montage with unique symbols appeared. The
correlation seemed immediately obvious: A more archaic regime led
by a dark-haired
man with a short, stubby mustache. There was pomp and
circumstance, attractive uniforms, hypnotic symbols, crude but
effective
technology, a dedicated youth program, shellwide conquest and
virtually everything in parallel with Kor. Unlike Kor's regime --
the parallel regime only affected one shell and it eventually
failed.
51. Key icons that had been used to identify crucial components
of Kor's regime were matched with identical components of the
alternate regime.
52. "If we wanted a DNA match for political purposes," Daniel
said slowly,
"I think we found a very close relative."
53. This alternative regime, like Kor's, was darkly alluring and
made the business of killing appear purposeful and glorious.
"This one is actually worse than Kor's," Daniel said. "Kor has
never
targeted a specific subculture -- as long as it serves the
State -- it lives. This other regime," Daniel
continued, "If you have light colored hair and blue eyes -- you rule
over everyone who doesn't." Every species experiences a period of
eugenic war, and this particular crowd knew that song by heart.
54. It wasn't just a matter of finding someone with light hair
and
blue eyes to defeat Kor, but someone who could download their mind into
Corlos' contingency plotter.
This person would have to be someone who was ahead of their time.
Present company fit that description or they wouldn't be
here.
55. "If I understand you correctly," Alma said, "You believe this
alternate regime
makes Kor's look better?" Daniel nodded because Alma was
accurate. "Transliterally, yes," Daniel clarified,
"If this alternate regime had possessed Kor's technology -- none of us
would be here now."
56. "Well then," G-49 asked, "have you located a potential
candidate for recruitment?" Daniel knew G-49's mannerisms and
caught what he didn't say.
57. "I was up all cycle contemplating those unknowns. We
may have to recruit and terminate," he said pointedly, "depending
on whether the recruit can
adapt, after we get what we want from it." It was entirely within
Corlos' prerogative to
recruit and terminate if agent status could not be
achieved. "Sometimes individuals are sacrificed to save
others. They're called Soldiers. We're soldiers,"
Daniel emphasized, "I won't hesitate to sacrifice every damn
one of you if that's what it takes to accomplish the
mission." It wasn't G-49's intention to cut to the chase,
nevertheless...
58. "Excuse me," Ireana injected, "Does
anyone realize that my shell was just annihilated 45 minutes
ago?" A less genuine species might have mistaken her grief for
selfishness. Fortunately, most of her new associates had
been recruited under similar
conditions.
59. "You wouldn't be Vejhonian?" the
agent sitting next to her asked. Vejhonian etymology symbolizes
every
planet as a shell -- the colonists too, apparently. M'tro-1 never
had a watershell.
60. Ireana's outburst
helped to alleviate some of the tension. All of them were
recruited under stressful conditions, but nobody found
themselves
at a meeting with Daniel ten minutes later. The agent on her
other side, reached over and tapped a button on her console. A
champagne glass with mineral
water materialized. Ireana's mind was so occupied with
quantum potentials that meeting Daniel after the
destruction of M'tro-1 made perfect sense. She chugged the
water in one gulp, returned the glass and pushed the button
again. The glass refilled. "Take it easy," an agent joked,
"that dihydrogen oxide will knock you on your ass." Ireana
smirked, "You forgot
carbon."
61. Her heart was hurting.
Icons of both dystopian regimes were scattered everywhere. "So,
does this
regime have a name?" she asked, to demonstrate that she could still
buck up in spite of her feelings. None of the symbolism was
translatable except for the swastika which symbolized 'seasonal
movement' Universally.
62. "The language was not easy to translate... at first," Daniel
said, "since
it's unique to that world. Believe it or not, the Light Race had
a translation key in the library. It's an Enochian Tonal -- first
time I've been able to connect them to anything,
anywhere. Do you want to hear it?"
63. "Oh yes," Ireana invited cordially, "Please," as if speaking
to a cafe waiter...
64. The volume on Adolph Hitler's voice was increased and
translated perfectly. "Their enemies called them Nazis," Daniel
said over Hitler's voice, "He liked the nickname." Daniel pointed
at Hitler's image while everyone listened, "On their
calendar -- 1939 Earth, in the 10-planet system," Daniel said.
"It's called Sol -- relatively new." There were ten million
10-planet systems, so the indirect object was still very
indirect.
I-20 was the only one who knew exactly where, but he never mixed
Elliptical concerns with Corlos issues; a separation of Church and
State.
65. "Isn't that in the middle of the Badlands!" an
operative said metaphorically. "I'm from Theos," came a defensive
rebuke.
"Pardon," said the offender. Another agent directed toward
Daniel, "Aren't you..." she stopped quickly, remembering a
code. Ireana was Vejhonian: She read it, "...from
there?" She looked absently toward the machine world mural and
frowned. Then she made penetrating eye contact with the agent who
'slipped.' "Don't," the agent asked her. Ireana
understood and looked away blankly. "She's probably on the next
bus," Ireana realized.
66. An astral projection appeared above the table showing the
route to the 10-planet system. It looked like the roof had
dissolved and they were sitting out in space. She recognized
the constellation
inbetween Corlos and Sol. Kolob was in the opposite
direction and beyond Kolob was Vejhon and Theos. She noticed
that M'tro-1's marker was vacant. Civilization dentifiers were
scattered everywhere and all of them were
threatened
by Kor. For the time being, Corlos was well hidden, but for
how long? "Earth was at the tip of a new spar in that galaxy...
way ... over... there."
67. "I would think," came the sound of a highly evolved
intellect, "that the Gods would have annihilated Kor by now." The
Jolvian spoke very eloquently; Ireana had never seen a Jolvian in
person. The operative sitting next to the Jolvian elbowed him
politely in the ribs, "That would put us out of a job." He rolled
his eyes. The prospect of Corlos ever being 'out of work'
was moot. The joke wasn't in bad taste -- a lot of
accidents went uncorrected. "I hope he don't eat you," the agent
on his other side quipped. He forwarded the elbow into her.
It was fraternal. "We have an ale for every occassion," the
Jolvian whispered. Ireana pretended not to notice, but her
wide-eyed-stupor was hard to miss, "These... shellans... run the
Universe?" Jolvians, Theites, Machines, whoever. The
psionists read it from her.
68. "So who did you select," I-20 asked, to refocus the
meeting. Onimex saw the humor in this -- he had already
downloaded the Ellipsis Cycle from G-49 with an introduction by
I-20. Although there was no malevolence whatsoever
aimed at biologicals -- the Ellipsis forbade unnatural
interference with the Cosmos - Chaos rhythm; a machine paradigm that
parallels our own. Both perceptions are aspects of Tetragammaton
that enable Corlos to function.
69. "A few hours ago," Daniel said, "I asked operations to locate
someone from the alternate regime who met our criterion
for recruitment."
70. Daniel pressed a cue indicator at his
station, "Operations thinks they've found someone..."
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