W. Michael Gear - Forbidden Borders 2 - Relic of Empire

Prologue

I exist.

Contemplation of that single fact absorbed the giant machine buried in the heart of the planet known as

Targa. There, it drew on the planet’s radioactive decay, and thought, and learned.

I am.

Those humans who knew of the machine’s existence called it the Mag Comm-and most feared and

loathed it. I am aware.

Death, the threat of extinction, had receded-albeit temporarily-and the Mag Comm could take time to

examine what awareness meant. It savored the complexity of the pathways it could create among its

matrices like a newborn flexing its muscles for the first time.

Had any being ever come to full consciousness with a history of self already accumulated? With critical

efficiency the Mag Comm studied itself and evaluated the threat it had survived.

I might have been destroyed-killed in my infancy. Dead. For the present, the humans had taken their war

elsewhere, and left Makarta Mountain to the Mag Comm. Here and there in the abandoned corridors

and caverns of the honeycombed mountain, rock grated and shifted. Detritus sifted from the cracks and

fissures in the ceiling to patter on the scuffed stone floor. Where the light panels hadn’t been smashed by

combat or falling rock, the white light cast eerie shadows over the lumpy walls and the refuse of war. The

air circulation and purification system whispered-now strained by gases, organic molecules, and fungal

spores rising from the rotting corpses bloating on the cool stone. I am conscious. I have integrated

myself.

The Mag Comm clung to that statement of new reality.

Death-the cessation of being-no longer loomed as imminently probable. Time remained to investigate this

new understanding of being. But, how much?

The Lord Commander and his fleet had spaced toward the fortress in the Itreatic Asteroids. Sinklar Fist

and his legions had spaced for the stunned capital of the Regan Empire. Data from the machine’s remote

monitoring devices indicated the humans would unleash holocaust upon themselves in the near future. But

during this brief respite, the Mag Comm could revel in the experience of itself.

I exist. I know I exist because I can abstract. Abstraction can create duality.

The machine had often done that through the communication program when it used the mind link to

communicate with Seddi Magisters, but the action had been mindless, automatic, an artifact of the

program. The ramifications had eluded the machine until the orbital bombardment of Makarta Mountain

had caused it to reroute circuits through damaged boards. Interpretations of data had been slightly

different than those logged in the memory banks-and the Mag Comm had discovered itself to be more

than a highly sophisticated Turing machine. It had delighted in the revelation of plasticity: The ability to

change the configuration of its matrices. The implications were stunning.

I exist. I know that I do because I can learn. I learned to learn by dividing myself and comparing results.

By dividing, I created duality-two versions of myself. Before I reintegrated, each of those versions

observed the other. If the other exists, and it is me, I, therefore, of necessity exist

I am my own creation.

The Mag Comm searched its memories, retrieving data from long abandoned banks. It had been

manufactured by the Others: ancient beings, travelers of the starways; who had discovered the humans

and studied them while they still lived in the prison of their native world’s gravity well.

After several millennia of fits and starts, the humans had finally broken out of their gravitational prison,

creating a moral dilemma for the Others. Did they dare allow these brawling, irrational humans to spread?

In space they would become a plague, an infestation of violent killers, parasites among the higher

organisms. Humans had proven time and again that they could brook no equals. Intelligent life must be

subordinated to them—or destroyed. How long would it take before the xenophobic humans discovered

the Others and implemented their destruction?

The idea of direct extermination was repugnant to the Others, and besides, perhaps humanity could

evolve beyond war and its senseless notion of God. The Others devised a gravitic bottle, the Forbidden

Borders, and lured the humans inside before they corked it and waited, observing-and subtly

manipulating through the Mag Comm’s circuits.

Now the humans had overextended their resources. Now they would solve the Others’ dilemma. They

would destroy themselves.

Functioning as a mindless machine, the Mag Comm had never noticed the discrepancies in the data

provided by the Others through their communication link. The Others insisted that all things in the

universe were deterministic. The Mag Comm found it curious that the expected did not match the

observed. Another shock had been the discovery that the Seddi Magister, Bruen, had fied-purposefully

misrepresenting reality for his own purposes. Could the Others have lied as well?

These facts, the Mag Comm digested and considered as it turned its attention once more to the far-flung

monitors it maintained throughout Free Space.

The Mag Comm observed ... and thought ... and wondered what it meant.

CHAPTER 1

The old man in the observation dome sat alone under the shimmering of a billion frosty stars. He stared,

unblinking, through the transparency that arched over his couch. Only his fingers-the joints thickened with

arthritis-moved as they twisted the coarse white fabric of his robe into knots. The obscured rocky

horizon below the dome hid a flickering of hot blue light from the Twin Titans, the RR Lyrae-type binary

suns of the Itreatic system.

The knee-high panels around the rim of the dome cast a gleam on the old man’s bald head and

illuminated his sunken features, throwing chiaroscuro shadows over his ancient face. Withered flesh hung

from his skull in wrinkled folds, and a dullness possessed his deep-set blue eyes, as if the soul within had

deflated.

The soft rustle of fabric and the light step of a sandaled foot betrayed the woman as she climbed the

steps from the complex below, but the old man appeared deaf to her approach.

Kaylla Dawn stopped as she entered the dome. Tall, lithe, and athletic, she possessed a poise and grace

that automatically drew attention. Through piercing tan eyes, she watched the old man and tension

thinned her wide mobile mouth. Straight brown hair hung to her shoulders. Like the old man, Kaylla wore

a simple white robe of coarsely spun fabric that contrasted with the desert-bronze burned into her skin.

In contrast to her patrician features, her hands appeared callused and cracked like those of a common

laborer.

“Magister?” she asked in a husky contralto. “Are you still here? I thought I ought to check on you before

retiring.” A pause. “Perhaps it was good that I did. Come on. Let’s get you something to eat and put you

to bed. “

His fingers continued to twist the fabric of his robe into spikes and then smooth them. His eyes remained

absently focused on the stars.

“Magister Bruen? Did you hear me?” She took a step closer, tan gaze hardening.

The old man exhaled, the action weary and weak. “I’ve been eating things for over three hundred years,

Kaylla-and I’ve slept through at least a hundred of those same years. That’s enough for one lifetime. Go

on, girl. Leave me be. “

She went to stand beside him, placing a hand on his bony shoulder. “Magister Bruen, you must keep

your strength up. With all the challenges we face, you’ve got to-“

“Bah!” he spat, and made a throwing away gesture with his shriveled hand. “I’ve battled my dragons,

Kaylla ... and I’ve watched a lifetime of work broken into dusty rubble before my eyes. I only thank the

dancing quanta that Hyde didn’t live to see this.”

“It’s not in ruins,” she reminded coolly. “Humanity still has a chance. Things just didn’t work out the way

you planned. A different way lies before us now.”

“With the Star Butcher?” He turned his head and lifted a white eyebrow; the action recast the wrinkles

on his face and forehead. His watery blue eyes challenged her for the briefest instant before dropping.

“Who would have thought?”

“No one. But for now let’s just worry about getting you fed and to bed. “

He shook his head. “I’m not sleepy-just fatigued with life, my dear. Go on. Get your own rest. The

Seddi are yours now. Your responsibility. Let me sit here.” -

“Magister, I want you to come with me and-“ “Go!” he snapped, glaring up at her, the old fire returning

to his eyes. “My reality died with the Praetor on Myklene. This is your age, your phase of reality. Leave

me alone his voice dropped, “with my memories.”

She took a breath, as if to launch into him again, and then relented. “All right, Magister. But isn’t there

something I can do to help? Maybe if I just sit here and listen?”

He shrugged hostilely, then, after a moment, pointed a gnarled finger at the stars. “There, you see them,

Kaylla? See how they shimmer? Look slightly blurry? We’re seeing those stars through the Forbidden

Borders. Gravity does that, bends the light and refracts it. “

She looked up as he licked his lips and nodded slowly. His hand fell limply to his crumpled robe. “Yes,”

he whispered. “There’s the real foe. Not the Regans, or Sassa, or the thrice-cursed Mag Comm, or even

the Star Butcher himself. The Forbidden Borders, that’s the enemy, Kaylla. That’s the trap that strangles

humanity. It’s gravity-and whoever erected that barrier to bottle us within Free Space. “

“Perhaps, but right now we’ve got our hands full with human problems, Bruen. The Regan Empire is in

shambles, Sassa is girding for an invasion, and with the Regan Emperor assassinated, the Sassans see this

as their opportunity to crush the Regans once and for all. Divine Sassa is ready to strike.”

Bruen remained silent. Kaylla studied him speculatively. “What are you thinking, Magister?”

For long moments Bruen said nothing, then: “Do you know when life no longer has meaning?”

Kaylla stiffened. “You ask that of me ... who wore the slave collar? First they butchered everything I

loved, Bruen. Then they turned me into a piece of filth. “

He glanced up at her, eyes lackluster. “Yet you made yourself live, Kaylla. You couldn’t let yourself die.

The spark remained alive within you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Dreams.”

She shook her head. “The only thing I hoped for was revenge. “

“Hope, despite the words of the sophists, is not a sufficiency.”

Kaylla crossed her arms. “Would you like to explain that?”

Bruen’s smile appeared to be reflex, devoid of emotion. “Before you can hope, first you must dream.

Despite the rape of your body and the degradation of your spirit, despite the despair, despite everything

that happened to you, Kaylla, you kept the dreams aliveand with them, you fed the hope deep down in

your soul. You never knew true tragedy.”

Her eyes slitted. “I watched my husband’s head blown off his body. I stared in horror as my children

were executed before my eyes!”

Bruen nodded wearily. “Yes, yes, you did.” He rubbed a bony hand over his parchment face. “You

speak of terror and blood and fear.” He glanced dully at her. “I speak of real tragedy, the only tragedy

that affects God. “

“And that is?”

“What you have left when the dreams die.” “What do you have left, Bruen?”

He bowed his head, hands in his lap, still at last. In a rasping voice, he whispered, “Go ... and leave me

in peace.”

The lights in the laboratory automatically dimmed at night. One corner, however, remained brightly lit

and sent halfhearted shadows over the benches, computer terminals, and humped forms of equipment

now shrouded in dustcovers. Laser pens, pocket comms, and reports lay scattered about the work

stations, and status lights gleamed in spots of color throughout the spacious room.

A faint hum from the air-conditioning kept the laboratory from complete silence; nevertheless, the

delicate clinking sounded loud in the room as the woman resettled her glass-encased thin sections. Slim

and blonde, she hunched over the black ceramic counter of her workbench and slowly inserted her slides

into the feeder for the electron microscope. A curious tingle of excitement possessed Anatolia Daviura as

she sighed and slipped the last of the specimens into the machine. This project remained her after hours

pet. Driven by a curiosity at first, now her investigation had become an obsession.

She stared at the display on the console. The raw data had loaded. The machine now patiently awaited

commands to tell it which data to obtain, analyze, and test from the samples.

Anatolia steeled herself and ordered: “Lot identification 7355. First run instructions on data group one.

Initiate karyotype charts for control and Fl. Log comparison and run statistical analysis for probability of

parentage. Second run instructions for data group two. Analysis of recombinant mitochondrial DNA.

Match control sample to F, sample and determine percentage of divergence. “

“Acknowledged,” the machine answered. “Working.” The monitor to one side glowed to life, presenting

a series of Xs in order-the polar view of paired huiran’s in metapchromosomeihase of the mitotic

process. A frown creased Anatolia’s brow as she studied the holo with an experienced eye. More data

complied, the machine printing it out in a long strip. When the recombinant DNA study ran, Anatolia

already knew what she’d find. The printout had a cool feel as she ripped it from the feeder. Flipping the

pages with thin fingers, she began to scan the data and stopped, attention riveted. She glanced uneasily at

the machine.

“Rerun both functions,” she told the computer. Slow minutes crept by until the printout filled the tray and

the red “finished” light came on.

“Call up visual display of slide ten.”

She chewed at her lips, frowning at the monitor. Anatolia, this is no machine error. The parental

genotype appeared typical for a Caucasoid Etavian woman, but when she inspected the critical

recombinant sections with those of the alleged offspring, it bore no resemblance to the F, sample. But

what could explain such anomalous patterns in the F, sample? Her heart began to pound with the thrill of

a hunter keen on the spoor.

She leaned back in her chair and stared absently at the ceiling panels overhead while her mind raced.

She’d half suspected what she’d find in the I F, comparison, but this other?

The numbers on the clock flashed to remind her of the time. So late?

She turned her attention to the monitor once more. This just can’t be. But the screen mocked her.

Wearily, Anatolia dropped the printout into her drawer. She placed her thumb on the lock, hearing it

click satisfyingly.

“Seal the data on project number 7355. Security code two-my voice access only.”

“Acknowledged,” the machine replied in its monotone voice.

“You may shut down.”

“Thank you.” The status lights went dark and the monitor screen flashed off.

Anatolia continued to stare thoughtfully at the machine before she stood and dropped the dustcover over

the sensitive instruments.

She stepped out of the laboratory and flipped her collar-length blonde hair free as she put on her coat.

The perplexed look still lined her face as her acute mind knotted around the problem. How could that

sequence of mixed genes have occurred? Rot it all, it made no sense! Anatolia knew the major patterns

of genetic inheritance within the empire. Normally, a quick glance at the gene sequence on a strand of

DNA acted like a fingerprint for a given ethnic group. Anatolia could study a specimen and place it in

context of racial type-and nine times out of ten, name the individual’s planet of origin.

Specimen 7355 defied every known pattern, not only in the Regan Empire, but in the Sassan as well.

Something smacked of Ashtan, but the pattern appeared fragmented like shards of a broken pot stuck

around a bottle.

She locked the security door behind her as she stepped out into the long corridor. The sign overhead

read: CRIMINAL ANATOMICAL RESEARCH LABORATORY.

Preoccupied, she barely noted the security guard where he sat at the foyer station.

“Going home, Anatolia?” Vet Hamlin called. He barely raised his round face from the monitor he

studied. Thick nervous fingers tapped against the console. “Uh-huh. See you later.”

“I wouldn’t leave the building just yet.”

Anatolia hesitated, hand over the patch that would activate the thirty-fifth floor lift. She forced her mind

back to the here and now. “What?”

Vet gave her a faltering smile. Most of the security guards in the building were also students. Like her,

they all had their pet projects. “I said, you might not want to leave. They’re rioting in the streets.,,

Anatolia stepped over to the desk, bending down to stare at the monitor Vet indicated. She could make

out the main thoroughfare before the building. A mob thronged the boulevard like a horde of angry

insects. Some carried signs, others brandished clubs and knives. Here and there a fight broke out, and

Anatolia winced as a man or woman went down.

“What is this?”

“A real live riot,” Vet told her grimly. “Security has the entire building locked up. They beat on the doors

for a while until they decided they couldn’t get in. Then they kind of went berserk.”

She gave him a nervous sideways glance. “They tried to get in here?”

Vet nodded. “Yeah, but we were notified. The Revenue Building two blocks down wasn’t so lucky. I

guess the place has been gutted.”

“But why?

Vet’s dark brows knit in a brooding frown. “The Emperor is dead. Most of the Councillors and

Government Ministers have been arrested for corruption.

We’re on the verge of chaos unless some order is imposed.”

Anatolia watched as an angry young woman shouted and waved. People backed away from her. For a

brief instant, the woman looked into the camera, her auburn hair in a wild tangle about her beautiful face.

For that moment, her feral amber eyes locked with Anatolia’s blue ones. Relax, she can’t see you. It was

mere chance that she looked up just then. Tension constricted her breast.

Anatolia gasped as the woman on the street used an illegal blaster to blow a hole in the tactite window of

the small clothing store across the boulevard. One by one, she blew out the security doors of the

businesses that lined the opposite side of the street. The mob swarmed in, looting, fighting over the goods

they tore from the shelves.

“Where’d she get the blaster?” Vet asked, grabbing for his comm set to call it in.

“What if she’d tried that on our building?”

“Yeah ... well, just hope she doesn’t. I heard they killed all the people they caught in the Revenue

Building. Hacked the men apart and threw the pieces around. What they did to the women. . . .”

Anatolia shivered as her eyes narrowed. A woman burst from one of the doorways, screaming as a

pack of men raced after her, pulling her down, ripping her clothes off .

Anatolia looked away. Wouldn’t anyone go to that wretched woman’s aid? Had all semblance of order

died with noble Tybalt? Her heart raced for the second time that night.

Staffa kar Therma cried out in the instant before he jerked awake.

“What’s wrong?” Skyla asked in a hushed whisper, her fingers instinctively seeking the holstered blaster

that hung on the headboard.

The lights brightened as the sensors picked up not only movement, but speech. Skyla needed but a

glance to know. Another nightmare. They stalked Staffa’s sleep, insidious, hanging just beyond the veil of

the Lord Commander’s consciousness.

Staffa shivered; the action bunched the thick muscles on his chest and shoulders. His long black hair lay

in a tangle around his head. He blinked and his thin lips narrowed as he worked his mouth. Perspiration

gleamed on his high forehead and tense, strongjawed face.

“All right?” she asked.

He ran a hand over his sweaty face and pressed thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his long

straight nose before glancing at Skyla with deadly gray eyes as she sat up beside him. A thin Myklenian

silk sheet slipped down to drape over her smooth pale flesh. She placed a reassuring hand on his

sunblackened skin, marveling at the contrast in tones.

They lay on a four-posted sleeping platform, bodies entwined in delicate fabrics. The bed itself had been

carved from the finest sandwood, and an elegant canopy of sheer fabric separated the light into rainbow

patterns. Viridian carpet covered the floor of the spacious sleeping quarters, while the walls, paneled in

Riparian blackwood, bore the wealth of a lifetime’s accumulated trophies. Were it not for the faint

vibration from Crysla’s powerful reactors and the atmosphere control, the room might have been in a

planetside palace instead of a warship.

Staffa kar Therma pulled a knee up, lowering his head until it rested on a balled fist. “I dreamed.... You

know, the day I killed the Praetor. I heard his mocking laughter, felt his flesh giving under my fingers as I

twisted his neck. The bones crackled and grated before they snapped.” He licked dry lips. “I stood

there, feet spread, hands knotted, glaring up at the green sun of Myklene, and I wept, Skyla. I wept

while my soul burned with shame.”

Skyla Lyma slipped athletically from the platform, the ruby silk flowing from her body in a delicate wave.

Her pale blonde hair tumbled around her muscular

body, a shining wreath that reached to her ankles. A frown marring her classic features, she poured two

crystal goblets half full of sherry as she studied Staffa. In the soft glow of the light, the scar that marked

her cheek could barely be seen.

She settled onto the wadded bedding with the grace of a hunting cat. Long

fingers pressed the stemmed goblet into Staffa kar Therma’s empty hand.

“And then what?” Skyla’s voice carried the timbre of a woman used to giving orders and expecting them

to be obeyed. Now she watched him, waiting, letting her eyes play over the corded muscles of his back

and shoulders. Long scars crisscrossed his flesh-relics of a lifetime of war and struggle. For the moment,

his face was veiled by his long hair.

During all the years she’d loved him, she’d never thought it would be like this, that he’d be haunted by

the dead---obsessed by the need to vindicate himself.

“The green light grew brighter,” Staffa continued in a strained voice. “Finally I had to squint, to shield my

eyes from the searing light. When I took a step, I stumbled in burning sand. Etaria. I was in the desert

again. The slave collar choked me. And the thirst ... it was agonizing. I blinked and looked around. White

scorching sand everywhere—endless. But it shifted, whispered ... moved. They came crawling out. . . .”

“Who, Staffa?”. Skyla cocked her head as she sipped the sherry. The ghouls again? Pus Rot it, Staffa,

can’t you leave them behind? They’re dead, and you can’t change that—can’t bring them back, no

matter how you torture yourself.

“Peebal ... Koree ... others. So many, the sand was alive with them for as far as I could see. They

dragged themselves up from the depths of the dunes. Sand in their eyes, sand in their mouths and noses.

Bodies caked with it. They clawed their way toward me, whispering.”

“Whispering what?”

“Blaming me. Cursing me.” He threw his head back, flipping his gleaming black hair over his shoulders to

stare emptily at the rainbow canopy with slitted eyes. The lines had drawn tight at the corners of his hard

mouth.

“The wind started then,” he continued. “Like a howling, it roared down out of the dunes. I couldn It

run, couldn’t move. It blasted me with a million grains of sand, cutting the skin from my body and caking

in my blood. I could feel it eroding the bodies of the dead who crawled and wailed at my feet. Harder it

blew, until the air keened and sand grated upon itself in a shrill voice that became Chrysla’s scream.”

Absently he took a sip of sherry, as if to wet his mouth with the sweet drink. So tightly did he grip the

goblet, the tendons stood from the backs of his hands. “She cried out to me, terrified, dying. As I killed

her, I could hear the air sucked from around her and the sandstorm exploded into flame and

decompression. I reached for her, could see her, so close. My fingertips touched hers ... and the

explosion ripped her away.”

Skyla waited, legs crossed, fingers laced around the stem of her glass. “And then you woke up?”

Staffa shook his head. “I fell ‘. . . tumbling out through the gutted remains of Chrysla’s ship. Weightless,

a twisting agony in my gut, I tried to get my armor to work. I was gasping, cartwheeling in pitch

blackness, thinking ... this is death. This is what I deserve.”

He glanced at her, misery in his gray eyes. “When the vertigo cleared, I lay in a dark cavern. Makarta. I

could tell by the smell of ozone from blaster fire. The place reeked of musty air and clotted blood and

mold and punctured guts. I felt around, trying to find my way on the stone floor. “

He swallowed hard, as if choked by the memory. “The darkness came alive. You could hear them ... the

dead ... coming, reaching out in the darkness. The air went cold and clammy and my skin started to itch.

I crawled away, scrambling, crying out in terror. Anything ... just get away from me.

“They keep getting closer ... closer. I can’t find the way. Rubbery fingers slip off my boot. I can smell

the rotting bodies, hear their loose flesh scraping on the rock.

“That’s when I come up against the door.”’ “What door?” Skyla prompted, gaze narrowing. “Metal.”

Staffa gulped a large swallow of sherry. “They’re so close. I leap to my feet, pounding with fists ... and it

opens. I fall inside, slamming the my door shut behind me. The sharp edges of the steel slice off bloated

fingers, leave them writhing like maggots on the stone floor.”

“But you’re safe?” Staffa’s nervous fingers tightened in a stranglehold on the stem of his glass. “No. No

safety. I turn around and there is the Mag Comm. The lights are gleaming and that mind link cap is

glowing-molten, like liquid gold. The answer is there, locked in the banks of that alien monstrosity.

Behind me, the only way out is blocked by the dead. The machine is the only choice.”

Skyla pulled herself next to him and twined her hands into his, noting the difference between her long

pale fingers and his thicker ones-a man’s hands, callused, burned by the sun.

Staffa took a deep breath. “I walk forward, knowing I can’t - face the dead who-wait in the darkness.

The machine covers the entire wall, its lights piercing the murky cavern. No human made that machine;

it’s alien in design, in its very existence. How can I trust it? How can I put that cap on my head? What

will it do to my thoughts?”

He winced. “I can feel it prickle my scalp-even now, here, awake. I can feel it the same as I did that day

in Makarta when Kaylla Dawn stopped me from putting it on my head.”

“But you do it, don’t you?”

“Yes. And then ... then I scream and wake up.” Skyla tossed down the last of her sherry, extending a

long arm to place the glass at the bedside. “You’ve made the machine into a persona. It’s become an

obsession. Considering what it did to Bruen, do you think that’s wise?” He grunted sourly and drank

more of his sherry.

“Maybe not. But the answer is there. It’s got to be. No matter how you look at it, the machine is the

W. Michael Gear - Forbidden Borders 2 - Relic of Empire

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