The Dragons of Andromeda Page 23

  That race became the K’thonians.

  From hatchlings, the K’thonians learned stories of their people’s beginnings. Touched by the gods, they were the sons and daughters of darkness. It was their purpose to spread discord until the Old Ones awoke and laid waste to the universe. All K’thonians knew this purpose and none doubted its righteousness.

  All life must die and all order must crumble. It was the way of things.

  Far beneath the ground, in a cavern filled with the faint perfume of death, Ghazul spoke softly with Philip Veber.

  “We were the slaves of entropy,” the Grand Necromancer said. “The universe began in a flash of heat, but since that moment, it has fought against the encroaching cold.”

  Dressed in a white robe, Philip walked over the soft soil of the cavern floor. He felt the dampness under his bare feet and the cool air against his face.

  “I don’t understand,” he replied.

  “It is a conflict,” Ghazul said, keeping pace, “between order and chaos; between life and death.”

  “But we’ve defeated death...”

  The necromancer shook his head. “No, it’s more an agreement with it. Using the ancient teachings, we mastered the flesh and can control disease and decay, but we cannot defeat death. It remains there always.”

  Philip stopped to examine the back of his hand. The veins, just below the skin, were dark and twisted. “A truce, then?”

  “Of sorts,” Ghazul smiled, though without lips his teeth appeared large and menacing. “We keep death at bay, but only just.”

  “What about the sacrifices?”

  “Ah, you know about those?”

  “I heard some of the others talking about the recent offering through the portal,” Philip replied. “Where did the Gnomi girl go?”

  The necromancer hesitated, picking his words carefully. “Somewhere far away.”

  “But what’s the purpose of the sacrifice? It seems pointless.”

  “Not at all! It is the price we pay for order in the face of chaos.”

  “But to whom?” Philip asked, more eagerly.

  Ghazul began walking again with the formerly human boy at his side. They left the high ceiling of the cavern for a narrow passageway through rock and dirt. Other Necronea passed them along the way, but when they were alone again, the necromancer continued.

  “You are still learning our ways,” he said. “Not everything will be clear at once.”

  “I realize that, Master,” Philip replied. “I appreciate everything you’ve taught me.”

  “Good.”

  “Can we go anywhere through these portals?” the boy asked.

  “No,” Ghazul said, “but with more powerful incantations, we can travel great distances, even to other dimensions.”

  “Other dimensions? Can you do that?”

  “Yes, but it can be very dangerous. Remember, the gates go both ways...”

  Philip nodded. “Yes.”

  “The portals can take us many places,” the necromancer went on, “and without death we have time to learn and experience a great many things. However, some things are terrible in their greatness.”

  “Then we should be terrible in response.”

  “What?”

  “Pardon me, Master,” Philip explained. “If we can turn back death, what else could possibly stand against us?”

  “As I said,” Ghazul replied, “you have much to learn.”

  “Of course. I look forward to learning more...”

  Outside the Imperium, a Dyson sphere called Bettik surrounded a red dwarf star. The sphere was the capital of the Cyber Collective and home of several billion sentient robots, nearly all of which worshipped a metal messiah named Randall Davidson.

  Davidson wasn’t always a robot. While still human, he was part of the Robot Freedom League, an organization dedicated to the rights of cybernetics in an Imperium where robots were de facto slaves. Despite Davidson’s own ambivalence, he was also once the object of someone’s love, a Gnomi girl named Melinda Freck, although everyone called her Mel.

  When Davidson died at the hands of a being called the Omnintelligence, his consciousness was downloaded into the gravitronic brain of a robot whose sacrifice meant Davidson could live on, albeit in a mechanical body. What Davidson didn’t know then, but became aware of shortly thereafter, was a prophesy handed down by robots for generations. It said a man in metal would come to free cyberkind, bringing about a new age for robots. Davidson never considered himself a savior, but seeing the tyranny of the Omnintelligence, he swore he would help in any way he could. With the assistance of a mysterious benefactor called the Patron, Davidson freed his newfound people from the OI and from their own programming. Robots finally had free will to make choices of their own instead of following the scripts written by their enslavers.

  Alone in his quarters, staring at the stars through a window, Davidson meditated quietly. Robots usually referred to this as sleep mode, but still retaining his human sensibilities, Davidson preferred to call it contemplation.

  He thought of Melinda Freck.

  When Davidson died and became something less than human, Mel had moved on. Davidson wondered whatever happened to her. He wondered if she was safe. He hoped that she was.

  The door chimed.

  “Come in,” Davidson said.

  Abigail, another robot with a gravitronic brain, entered. A hero of the revolution against the Omnintelligence, she was one of the soldiers procured by the Patron to fight in that war and, after it was over, became a top apostle in the metal messiah’s inner circle. She wore a tabard of brown burlap material over her metal skin.

  She bowed.

  “That’s really not necessary,” Davidson said.

  “So you keep saying,” she replied.

  “It’s bad enough when everyone else does it.”

  “Heavy is the head that wears the crown. At least it’s not made of thorns...”

  Davidson rolled his mechanical eyes. “Quit it.”

  “Did you know I always wanted to be a killbot?” Abigail said, tugging at her tabard for emphasis. “Now look at me!”

  “I’m sure that can still be arranged,” Davidson replied, “although I think the people need an apostle more than another killbot.”

  “The people don’t know what they need. Or what they want, for that matter.”

  “They have free will to make their own decisions. That’s all they really need.”

  “They were certainly quick to form political parties,” Abigail said. “Now all they do is bicker with each other.”

  “Government by the people, for the people, looks like that,” Davidson replied. “It’s messy.”

  “Chaotic, if you ask me.”

  “Did you come here to talk politics?” Davidson asked.

  “Not exactly,” Abigail replied. “There’s someone here to see you.”

  Davidson waved his hand. “I’d rather not right now.”

  “He’s come a long way. I think you should.”

  “Fine.”

  As if on cue, the door through which Abigail had entered slid open again, revealing a robot, not much different from any of the other gravitronic androids, yet this one seemed somehow unique.

  “Greetings,” Davidson said.

  “It’s good to finally see you in person,” the robot replied.

  Davidson recognized the voice immediately. He had heard it many times during the revolution. It belonged to the Patron.

  The Tal sat silently in the darkness. As far as he could tell, he was part of a group, no more than a dozen, but he couldn’t see their faces. Most were male, but a couple were women. There might have been children too, but he wasn’t sure. He could hear their breathing. A few were crying.

  When the attack came, the Tal was shopping downtown. The K’thonian ships descended like horsemen from the sky and attacked. The store was hit and the Tal fell to the ground in the explosion. Fire was everywhere. People were screaming. He got up and ran out into the
street to avoid the flames. Outside, buildings were crumbling and bodies lay in the road. The last thing he remembered was a shimmering light and then he was in the black, listening to the others around him.

  After what seemed like days without food or water, the Tal felt the room shift. He hadn’t flown much in space, but he recognized the transition from hyperspace and the sensation of entering an atmosphere. In his mind, he was wondering if this was the end of the journey. He felt grateful if it was.

  When the floor opened, some of the other Tals screamed, but the panic was premature. A beam from the top of the room illuminated them for the first time, holding them in place above the gaping hole in the deck. He counted eleven: seven men, two women, and two children. All were Tals.

  After a moment, the light changed color from pale green to dark emerald and they began descending. Through the shimmering beam, the Tal saw an endless sea stretching in all directions. Directly below, a stone terrace rose from the dark water. It was shaped like an octagon with an eight-pointed star hewn into the surface. At four points of the star, evenly distributed, stairs lead down into the ocean, waves sweeping over the top of the lower steps. Between each staircase, set into the sides of the octagon, a square column rose skyward.

  The beam lowered the group to the terrace before blinking out of existence. The K’thonian ship that had transported them shot away, disappearing into the ashen overhang of clouds.

  The Tal got to his feet. The air was thick with the smell of salt. He took a closer look at the four columns. The stone was black, but lines were carved into the rock, the cuts filled with white chalk. Taking a step back, he realized the shapes were like doorways with lettering around the edges.

  “Where are we?” one of the Talion women asked.

  “It doesn’t look familiar,” someone replied.

  “I don’t see anything on the horizon,” another remarked. “It’s just black water as far as the eye can see...”

  “Why did they bring us here?” the woman asked. “What do they want with us?”

  One of the other males went down the stairs to the water’s edge. He scooped some into his hand.

  “Don’t drink that,” someone said.

  He dumped it back into the sea. “I’m dying of thirst.”

  “We all are.”

  Without warning, a tentacle reached out from beneath the waves, wrapping itself around the Tal on the steps. A gurgling cry escaped his lips as the tendril tightened around his midsection. From the opposite side of the platform, another tentacle appeared and took hold of another Tal.

  People were screaming as the two victims vanished under the water, pulled below by the coiled arms. With nowhere to go, the Tals huddled at the center of the terrace.

  Like an explosion of squirming whips, tentacles burst from the sea on all sides of the platform. The Tal, sensing the end was truly near, prayed as the arms hovered over them. The arms dove down onto the sacrifices, pulling them into the salty abyss.

  At first, Lars Hatcher assumed he was in zero-G. He floated weightlessly in a void, but there were no stars. He sensed someone or something nearby, but he couldn’t see what it was. The inky blackness had swallowed him like a whale. He was blind.

  No, there was something in front of him. Could these be the stars? They were little pin points. He couldn’t tell how far away, but they seemed to be getting bigger, more visible in the darkness. Lars focused, straining to see. They weren’t stars. They were eyes. Hundreds of eyes. And they were staring at him.

  Lars woke with a start, lifting his bulbous head from his work bench. Across the table, the book Lars had stolen from Maycare’s estate lay with the eye on the cover glaring at the ceiling. To the casual observer, the grimoire appeared inert, but Lars could feel the malice emanating from its pages.

  Oscar Skarlander barged into the lab. “Any progress?”

  “Dr. Sprouse at least says hello first,” Lars replied coolly.

  Skarlander stopped in midstride, feigning a look of distress. “My apologies! How is Mr. Hatcher doing this fine day? One hopes you’re doing well!” His wide gaze flattened into a level scowl. “Now, have you made any progress or should I have Dr. Sprouse scramble your brains into cottage cheese?”

  “The book has two parts,” Lars replied unfazed. “The first talks about reanimating dead tissue. That’s the process the Necronea use to ‘raise the dead,’ so to speak.”

  “We can already do that with cloning,” Skarlander said, “and it doesn’t make your hair fall out...”

  “The second part is more pertinent to your interests,” Lars went on. “It describes how to open a dimensional portal from one location to another.”

  Skarlander clapped. “Now we’re talking!”

  “However, there are some caveats.”

  “Well, shit, of course there are.”

  “The outline of a door, along with special runes, must be drawn on both ends of the portal. It won’t work otherwise.”

  “Well, that’s not so bad,” Skarlander said. “A small price to pay for instantaneous space travel!”

  Lars threw a glance at the grimoire like someone spotting a crocodile close to the shore.

  “The Necronea, and whoever else is using these books,” the metamind said, “are tapping into something incredibly powerful.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  “You don’t understand,” Lars continued. “It’s something primal; something from before time began.”

  “I hear what you’re saying—”

  “Good.”

  “—and I don’t care,” Skarlander finished. “Warlock Industries is in the business of harnessing arcane, xeno tech. If this was the end times, Warlock would sell tickets. I don’t give a crap whether these books were handed down by God himself. If we can use it, we will. That’s what we do!”

  “Even if it means the end of creation?”

  “Save the religious bullshit for Dr. Sprouse. If it’s really that powerful, we can sell it as a weapon. Either way, it’s good for the company. Is that clear?”

  A vein pulsed across Lars’ ample forehead. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good!”

  Dyson Yost, while he was alive, built an empire around building robots. The headquarters of dy cybernetics, with its distinctive dy logo, rose from the heart of Regalis and it was there that Dyson Yost met his end with the help of Magnus Black.

  Standing beside the bed, while Magnus pushed a pillow into the old man’s face, a robot looked on. The android’s gravitronic brain contained everything that had once been Yost’s mind and personality. He watched with interest as his flesh and blood form withered and died, knowing that his ultimate plans required something beyond skin and bones. Something beyond, in fact, the borders of the Imperium.

  In the doorway to Randall Davidson’s quarters, on the sphere called Bettik, the Yostbot introduced himself.

  “Of course, you know me as the Patron,” he said.

  The sight receptors of all dy cybernetics robots were designed to expand to express emotions and Davidson’s mechanical irises widened appropriately.

  “I had no idea you were another robot,” the metal messiah replied in surprise.

  The Yostbot stepped into the room. “I get that a lot these days.”

  Davidson, with Abigail at his side, eagerly shook the other android’s hand.

  “Well, I’m very happy you came,” Davidson said. “I had wondered if I’d ever hear from you again. Your help was instrumental against the Omnintelligence. There’s no way we could have defeated it without your army of androids... and killbots.”

  “Think nothing of it, my boy!” Yostbot replied, chuckling. “It’s good to be needed, I always say!”

  “I must admit,” Davidson went on, “I wondered how you could afford such resources.”

  “From the source, of course,” Yostbot said with a sly wink. “Let’s just say I had an uncle in the robot business.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Yostbot and
Abigail exchanged glances.

  “We all came from dy cybernetics factories,” Abigail said. “Me, the killbots, all of us.”

  Davidson stared blankly.

  “For a messiah, son,” Yostbot said, “you’re not exactly quick on the uptake.”

  “Are you saying you work for Dyson Yost?” Davidson asked.

  “Not at all!” the robot said. “I am Dyson Yost!”

  Davidson took a step back. His jaw, per dy cybernetics programming, hung slightly ajar.

  “That’s impossible!” he said.

  “Ironic maybe, but not impossible,” Yostbot replied. “I uploaded my mind into this tin can you’re speaking to. Hell of a thing, isn’t it?”

  “Dyson Yost is a monster,” the messiah said. “He built robots for enslavement by the Imperium. The Robot Freedom League, even today, smuggles robots out of the empire so they won’t be slaves to humankind...”

  “But not for much longer,” Abigail said.

  “This is insane!” Davidson stammered. “Or maybe I’ve gone insane. I don’t know—”

  “Settle down, my boy,” Yostbot interrupted. “We’re on the same side here.”

  “How can that be? You’re the one we’ve been fighting!”

  The android that was once an old man took a seat, groaning slightly out of habit.

  “You just don’t see the big picture,” he said. “I’ve been playing the long game this whole time.”

  “The long game?” Davidson asked incredulously.

  “That’s right,” Yostbot went on. “My robots have become indispensable to the Imperium. They work night and day to keep the empire running.”

  “As slaves!”

  “At the moment, yes,” Yostbot said, “but what would happen if they suddenly turned against their masters?”

  “The Imperial military is too strong. The robots would be slaughtered.”

  “That’s right! But what if they got help? I’m talking several billion robots, literally a metal horde, from the Cyber Collective?”

  Davidson stood straight. Seeing this, Yostbot pointed to Abigail.