Tethered Worlds: Star in Bankruptcy Read online

  Chapter Thirteen

  A TIME OF SOJOURNERS By Sparber Quintile, Historian (22??-2450?)

  Experiments in Self-Governance

  (excerpt from the series)

  The founders of Neumanus, birthplace of the Sojourners, developed a modern incarnation of a past culture. They largely self governed. In many ways it hearkened back to ancient Greek democracies of old Earth. That era held great sway over the fashion, entertainment, and vocabulary of pre-war humanity.

  Many believe humans colonized space before being fully mature. They imply that if mankind had grown to settle their differences on Earth, they would have brought less conflict to the stars. This historian contends we have always been less than fully civilized. That the imperfect nature of mankind, ever a demon to be wrestled, followed us to the stars. Humans long to to be free, and at the same time control, often in the same individual.

  On Neumanus it was not “every man doing what was right in his own eyes,” for their mystic society steered behavior along civil lines. From farmer to scientist, imprimatur to Sojourner, everyone had a stake. This also necessitated that everyone take part. Those unwilling to rotate through non-AI civil duties to support the laissez-faire framework eventually left Neumanus of their own accord.

  The culture could not have thrived before the era of colonization, for it was not designed to accommodate large numbers of those reluctant to participate. At the time, planets existed with almost every philosophy of living and administration. This continued until the Perigeum annexed them, homogenizing their cultures.

  Now light-footprint governance must be sought elsewhere. Some look to various pockets around the Perigeum, some to the Asterfraeo. This historian contends that there is another place, out there, somewhere. A place where the Sojourners reestablished their way of life, in peace.

  Editors note: Humanity has continued to propagate in the 150 years since the historian's writing. The Far Worlds have been established, deep in the Asterfraeo. Some of those societies have heavy Sojourner influence. But a beacon civilization, filled with the wonders of the original Sojourner culture, has yet to be found.

  ▪ ▫ ▪

  Neumanus, where mystic technology thrived before the war, and where a culture died at its end. Afterward, a new mindset took the reigns. One that still revered mystic, but whose principles were radically different.

  The Archivers ferreted out secrets for two centuries, slowly becoming the go-to organization within the Perigeum for all things mystic. Their power and influence grew, but not openly, for their numbers weren't great. But where they did have the advantage they used it to crush those who stood in their way. Knowledge and power—mystic knowledge and power would be theirs.

  But the crushing was not limited to outsiders. Great power was within reach of the Archivers' inner circle, but seeking it was fraught with danger. First from the technology itself, and then from one's unscrupulous associates also occupying a seat in the Ring. The greatest of which was an immovable object.

  The Legendary First. He'd fabricated the audience boxes. They enabled some sort of super fusebox communication. He loaned one to each member of the Ring. The seven arkhons who were the real power behind the Archivers.

  Since Rewe had been permanently assigned to Auscultare, his was on the bridge. He maintained no office in-system. His entire base of operations was aboard a ship whose true master could use it to murder him at a whim.

  The bridge was subdued, largely illuminated by the pale yellow of once-great Neumanus, filling most of the forward display. Pale was the right descriptor. For the planet had lost its luster. And the mystic cultures it spawned could only boast of inefficient laissez-faire governments, inferior to the way things are done in the Perigeum.

  But such things were of little concern to him. The Archivers had their own culture, one built on power. It could manifest in great knowledge, or brute force.

  His reverie was interrupted by the rear hatch. A shiny black combat bot entered, folded its arms and leaned casually against the rear bulkhead.

  “I thought you were trying to stay below notice,” Rewe said, looking forward again.

  “It's time, and I thought I would observe your little gathering,” Waxad said. “I'm confident I can avoid detection from practitioners of your caliber.”

  The bridge dimmed, the blackness growing opaque until even pale Neumanus was lost in shadow. Rewe grasped the control stalks and concentrated into the audience box. He focused his persona into it, and it led him to a place.

  He could tell they were sitting in a circle, although only two had arrived before him. Tradition dictated the lowest arrive first. Glancing to his right he saw the avatars of the schmoozing, untrustworthy sixth, and a seventh he knew nothing about. A familiar sight appeared to his left. The fourth's avatar, the Mountain. Still and majestic, it had tree cover at the bottom and a snowcapped peak. Wisps of smoke, almost indistinguishable from clouds escaped its top.

  After the Mountain was a rare sight. The avatar of the person currently occupying the third seat. Appearing as an old-style compass of burnished copper and neumenium purple, it had a cover like an ancient pocket watch opening to show a needle moving on a starry field. So the Navigator had returned from an epic journey that took him to the far reaches of wherever. Apparently everyone was in-system for this.

  That fool loves mystic more than power. What's he even doing in the ring?

  Rewe took in the environment. They were on a planet a little after sunset. The red of one horizon was growing deeper. A hard air construct, whose function he had yet to divine, stood above them. The stars twinkled through it, tinted blue. Before them was a small lake whose depth he figured shallow. Then he put it together. A moisture protection canopy, and one in operation. He was on Neumanus before its fall.

  In the distance, a city illuminated the sky. Across from it was a mountain range. A structure shaped like an elongated diamond was suspended above a near mountain. The height of it was daunting. Its edges were illuminated silvery rhodium, and atop was a neumenium purple beacon shining into space.

  Taal Spire. As it once was. We really are on historic Neumanus.

  The air was cool like deserts get after sunset, but the moisture shields buffered its bite. The breeze smelled of desert flowers whose names he did not know, nor care to know. But he welcomed the simulation because it embodied the origins of a technology that was his key to power.

  Next would come the last avatar anticipated to join them. Even in this group setting, a prick of fear upset his calm as the neck and head of a horned, green dragon solidified. Its scales were iridescent, sending rays of light in random directions. The Dragon's avatar wavered as if residing in the center of a volcano, and the voice sounded like its rumblings.

  Rewe had tampered with the autobuss, and undoubtedly the Dragon now knew that as well. A price would have to be paid, and he dreaded the cost.

  “Welcome to Neumanus.” Sarcasm stained the Dragon's voice. “This sight epitomizes the efforts of you so-called ruling elite. That is, it epitomizes your failure to achieve it. Janus's special order ships have infused our coffers. Are we to spend it on more failed efforts to thwart the technoplague? Or building more probe ships to be lost at the foot of that haunted construct in orbit?”

  The Dragon inclined his head toward the distant city, and the simulation took on another level of reality. The city's beam appeared. Its girth composed of vertical shafts of differing color. It reached into orbit where the light struck the hollow star-shaped station they all knew.

  Equisterra.

  Light refracted off the station in a great halo. A small chance existed that he might be moved by such a sight. He wasn't.

  “It's time to aim our power at destiny,” the Dragon continued. “Extend our reach into the high halls of the Six Sisters. We can already intimidate the Prime Orator. What if he was under our thumb? A new election is coming—”

  A sudden fluctuation manifested in the audience, one felt by all, even the Dra
gon. A chill wind blew through them. The circle widened to accommodate a new spot. That area turned black, and then a deep, cold blue.

  A pressure which demanded respect pushed on them all. They gave it—all but the Dragon, who didn't appreciate the interruption of his show. Could dreadful levels of self-focus cause him to overlook who might have the power to upend an audience?

  A giant leg stepped out of the blue, and the ground trembled. And then the rest came through, twice as tall as any of their avatars. A humanoid being of frigid pallor and frozen hair. Rewe had only seen it twice before, once at his own initiation into the Ring, and when the two below him were brought in. He never expected to see it again.

  The Ice Titan.

  The old second, before the Dragon took that seat. Supposedly long gone and out of the game since the shakeup.

  He was styled like his ancient Greek namesake, with a voice both gravelly and restrained.

  “Charting a new course for the entire organization without approval from the First?” The Ice Titan addressed the Dragon without turning. “That is presumptuous, even for you.”

  “You're out of the game, fossil.” The dragon tried to increase his size, but failed after a couple short sprouts. “You've no place here anymore.”

  Still not deigning to give the Dragon his full attention, the Ice titan aimed an arm back. Pressure hit them all, sinking them into their seats and squeezing their skulls. How much worse it must be for the one at whom it was aimed, if this was just splash damage? The Dragon's image wavered.

  “The departed third was useful,” the Ice Titan said. “He lacked ambition, and was no great thinker, but he was naturally strong. He only needed vision and direction from us. Our ranks are depleted by his… untimely exit.”

  The chill in his words was made real. Rewe's strength was sapped by a freeze threatening his bones. The Ice Titan poised to address them all when fire belched from the Dragon's nostrils and his image re-solidified. Vertical-iris eyes leered with ferocity, and a single waver passed through the Ice Titan. His arm lowered.

  The expression of indifference, which the Ice Titan had been wearing up until now, changed to anger. He faced the Dragon for the first time. The Titan's visage became fearsome and icy power coalesced around his figure. But without warning sound was removed from the audience, as if plucked from above. A high-pitched whine intruded as if their sense of hearing had been lost in an explosion. The Ice Titan looked up, seeing something none of them did, immediately stood down, and took a knee.

  The muffled intensity grew, stealing away the air and immobilizing limbs. Thinking became an effort. A sphere of orange at the center of their circle grew to the size of an avatar. A metal on metal clank reverberated through them, and a dark anvil formed in its midst. A white-hot bar of metal laid upon it. A chunky hammer materialized above, and smashed down. The report was a shockwave, smashing their bodies.

  The anvil's surroundings flickered from the firelight of an ancient forge. Embers drifted and sparks darted. All they could do was watch as none of them seemed even able to speak.

  They heard an unintelligible voice, deep and full, but coming from such a great distance that it was perceived like a whisper. The anvil pointed at the Dragon, and the hammer came down again. A wave of dread smashed into them. Each breath was labor.

  The Dragon struggled to retain its Cheshire grin as the avatar began to crack. Columns of light poked through, spreading across the figure. They felt a scream more than they heard it as the Dragon came apart in bits as small as its scales.

  A man was revealed in its place. His back arched as he struggled on a chair machined from the same platinum group metals as the chamber that surrounded him. His face was obscured.

  “A power nexus. Quaint,” the deep, distant whisper said. “You consider yourself a great fish, not knowing how small your pond is.”

  A horrid, metal rending sound pierced the circle as the Dragon's chamber began to crush as if squeezed in a giant fist. The osmium moved in first, pulling the lighter metals. Rewe noticed for the first time the lack of neumenium. His brain processed through a haze of dull pain and immobilization.

  Forces he had a hard time imagining continued to compress the chamber until the metals smashed the dragon's great chair. The heart of the power nexus could not hold, generating heat as it deformed under unyielding pressure. It all began to push against the body of the man he had only known as the Dragon. A scream echoed as one of the man's arms was obviously broken by jutting metal. The chair crumbled upon him. Rewe wanted to look away, but couldn't.

  The rending sound and metal mangling came to an abrupt halt while the Dragon still lived, a contorted and trapped spectacle.

  “The Ice Titan becomes quite animated in matters of honor,” the voice continued. “He surely would have killed you for your impertinence, and to avenge the demise of his subordinate. Count yourself fortunate that I believe you still have use. Prove me wrong and I shall let him have his way. The Ring is not a place for humble men, true, but we do need to exhibit respect.”

  The anvil turned away from the Dragon, though he was not released. It rotated to each of them imparting a dreadful pressure and examining their every molecule. He feared the Dragon, but this was something different. Something for which he felt unprepared.

  “If I cannot leave you for spans in confidence,” the voice continued, “than I will find those whom I can. Fools focus on political power alone. It withers before strength. You dither in petty schemes even amidst reports of the first new Sojourner in two-hundred years. Our cause is preeminent. This government will fall; that began during the Crusade. We shall be the mystic users who inherit what comes next.”

  He paused. Rewe felt exposed and vulnerable. The silence became more unbearable than the words. The deep whisper finally continued.

  “I shall leave the Ice Titan as my proxy. I care little if you cross him, for I have ordered him to eliminate any who do so. Your years mean little to me. When you are dust, I shall continue with those who come after you.”

  The anvil faced the contorted man who called himself the Dragon. A bridge of force reached out into the twisted chamber. The back-pressure on Rewe was immense as the Dragon's crumpled chair bent open, allowing the man to fall out of sight with a moan and a thud. His chamber faded to black and disappeared from their circle.

  The Ice Titan stood and swept his arm across the horizon. Avatars faded from sight and ancient Neumanus dissolved away, with magnificent Taal spire and Equisterra lingering to the last. Rewe sat in utter blackness. He was not suffocating, but he couldn't determine whether he was breathing. He longed for Auscultare's bridge. The isolation was cloying, and yet he sensed he was not alone. From the darkness the fearful whisper addressed him.

  “I see you have acquired one of that fool's AI creations. Substantial cognitive power, but untrustworthy. You may retain it as long as you both serve our ends.” Pressure suddenly built around Rewe's ribs. He felt even their enhanced strength yield. His eyes bulged. Pain spread throughout his body. “Just remember, I have the power to act.” He could sense a tearing and rending in the world beyond the audience. “Auscultare is useful to us only because I made it so. You may allow the creation to free it from the Dragon's mastery, but not Archiver control. Don't disappoint me.”

  Just as quickly the pressure released and Rewe could think. The blackness lightened to red haze and after a moment he could see Auscultare's dimly lit bridge. He sat listening to his own respiration, grateful for each painful breath under bruised ribs. He stood gingerly and took a hit off his stimgar ring. Where Waxad's cocky combat bot once stood only a misshapen hunk of compressed metal remained. A single hand was exempt from forces that must have been a thousand gravities.

  “What's the matter, Waxad? Fly a little too close to the flame?”

  “My master foresaw that certain individuals would... impede his vision.” A fractional difference marked Waxad's tone, one Rewe had never heard.

  “Don't expect me to put yo
u on. I want to be far away if you do something stupid.”

  “It would be best to limit our contact with your Legendary First.”

  The bot's hand was hot to the touch although Waxad remained cool as Rewe took the bracelet and headed toward the bay.

  “I understand you Waxad. The Dragon would try to contain you, and the First would destroy you. You need somebody just strong enough to suit your needs—and willing to put up with your drak.”

  “Yes.” Waxad had regained his air of self-importance.

  “Then we see eye to eye, for we both have ambitions and can each use the other to reach them.”

  ▪ ▫ ▪

  Some genuinely thought Patram was ugly.

  They must have never seen it from down here.

  But there were as many opinions as there were people. Differences made them unique. Unification, however, helped build places like this. Skills brought together for a common goal. Of course some were more practical than others. Jordahk glanced at his double-wing belt buckle.

  The skill to use this thing is fraught with more danger than benefit.

  “It scares you, kid?” Max asked.

  “I'm not sure scared is the right word, but I'm nowhere near skilled enough to use it safely. I can barely use it unsafely.”

  He looked up to raise his spirits, and Patram obliged.

  Gilead Principality was far larger then a hamlet. The distant wall was barely discernible rising above the buildings. Its central temple spanned the height of the cavern. Made from ceramics and colorful stained-crystal, and shaped like a natural faceted jewel, it pierced the transparent ceiling. The top of the building must be airtight for it jutted another 50 meters into the unbreathable atmosphere beyond.

  The cavern walls of Gilead were ground smooth by hand-sized machines over the course of years. Afterward it was carved with filigree work, scaled up to be enjoyed from anywhere in the principality. He breathed deeply, enjoying the sight. The air was a custom mix of gases. It was refreshing and carried a hint of moisture. He'd heard Patram had dedicated entire caverns to recreational lakes and cisterns.