ATLAS 2 (ATLAS Series Book 2) (41 page)

“Guide,” Jiāndāo said. “I have brought them.”

The Artificial known as the Guide did not shift its attention from the view screen, which was starless and black. Darker sections painted the blackness, delineating peaks, valleys, and craters. I thought it might be a planetoid that filled the view.

I glanced at where the tactical display should have been in the center of the room, but the holographic representation of the battle space was currently inactive, and all I saw was empty glass. Who knows, maybe it wasn’t the tactical display at all—I wasn’t on a UC vessel, after all.

“Humans are such easy things to break,” the Guide abruptly said.

I exchanged a glance with Hijak. This was the envoy to humanity, and that was the first thing it had to say?

“Take something like this rock,” the Guide continued. “Floating before us in space. Inanimate. Steered by the whims of gravity. Lifeless. No sentience whatsoever. And yet it requires such a vast amount of energy to break in two.

“One-tenth of that energy is needed to break a human being. Mostly, all one needs is time. Of all the species I have had the pleasure of vanquishing, humanity has proven the easiest thus far. Both physically, and mentally.”

The Guide finally turned around. The Artificial appeared to be the spitting image of the Paramount Leader. Big lips, oily and pocked skin. Matted, balding hair. Entirely underwhelming, just like the real man. Indeed, the face was so realistic that it made me wonder if the Paramount Leader himself was an Artificial. Even the eyes were correct, with just the right amount of moisture, and that gleam of certainty all great leaders had. There was no “uncanny valley” here, that fine line between real and fake that caused repulsion in a human being if an Artificial’s face was even slightly incorrect.

“It took me the longest time to understand human vocal patterns,” the Guide continued. “Let alone speak. The engrams stored in the neural net of this Artificial helped, of course . . . the fibrillary random access memory had Korean-Chinese, English, and the more common languages of your race installed. I much prefer the original Korean-Chinese I have to admit, but English does have its charms. There are so many words for describing killing in English, just as if the language were specifically designed for the task. Slaughter. Butcher. Massacre. Assassinate. Exterminate. Slay. Raze. Destroy. Eradicate. Extinguish. And on and on. A warrior’s tongue. Still, the inflections and phonemes feel unusual to me. In any case, once I had a solid grasp on the main languages, it was relatively easy to transmit my knowledge to the Learned, such as Jiāndāo. And then interpreting your documents and machinery became so much easier.” The Guide took a step toward me. “I see the question on your face. Ask it.”

“What are you?” I said, staring at the condensation on its neck.

“Ah. You refer to my composition in this universe, as it were. A gas when exposed to the void of space. A liquid within the pressurized environment of humankind. The simple answer is I am a multi-universe entity. What you see here in this liquid state, via the photons emitted to your ocular units from the constituent atoms of my form, is but a small fraction of my entire being, which spans countless dimensions that humanity cannot begin to fathom.

“Though we are not dissimilar from most life in the universe. Humans themselves are multi-universe entities. Your physical bodies comprise merely a tenth of your actual forms, but you don’t even realize it: humanity has a way of blinding itself to the truth, relegating it to the level of an inconvenient headache. In any case, your species has developed a theory of matter called dark fluid. Tell me, have you heard of it?”

“No.”

“I have,” Hijak said quietly.

The Guide’s eyebrows shot up. “Do tell.”

Hijak gave me a hesitant look. “Dark fluid hypothesizes that the fabric of spacetime acts as a fluid. It coagulates, compresses, expands, and flows just like any other fluid, and when the fluid of spacetime contacts matter, it slows down and coagulates around it, amplifying the forces of gravity near it. The effect is only noticeable when you look at obscenely large masses, like galaxies—spacetime collects around those masses, and helps hold them together. But in places where there’s hardly any matter, like the voids between the galactic superclusters, the dark fluid of spacetime relaxes, and starts stretching away from itself, becoming a repulsive force. Imagine three rocks representing galaxies in a shallow vat of molasses. The syrup—the dark fluid of spacetime—collects around the rocks, and in between them it stretches thin. That’s dark fluid in a nutshell. The theory supersedes the theories of dark matter and dark energy, making them irrelevant.”

“Bravo,” the Artificial clapped mockingly. “Well done. Dyson Xang, is it? You have a keen mind. You will make a fine host. In any case, the space between Slipstreams is dark fluid. And that, in essence, is what we are.”

“Your race exists in the space between Slipstreams?” I said.

The Artificial smiled patiently. “No. We
are
the space between Slipstreams.”

I didn’t fully understand, however, if I ever got home, maybe this tidbit might help the fleet scientists get a better handle on what we were dealing with.

“What about her?” I nodded at Jiāndāo. “She is human? Or alien?”

“Both. The physical part is human. The cognizant part is not. Somewhat similar to myself.”

My eyes drifted to the metal bar grafted onto Jiāndāo’s spine. “So she’s a slave then. Her human part.”

“A slave?” The Guide rapped its thumb against its chest. “Worse than a slave, I would say. After installing the necessary biomechatronic grafts to provide integration with the nervous system, the host body is ours to do with entirely as we please. Without the grafts, the bodies of most species in this universe incinerate on contact.

“When integrated via the graft, the host is still alive, though not in command of its mind and body. Its consciousness has effectively been replaced. It cannot think, nor move of its own accord. It is an experience similar to one of your fully immersive vids. Life plays before the eyes of the host, but the host itself is a spectator, nothing more.

“After the integration, we have access to some memories, but mostly it is a fragmented jumble. That’s where the embedded IDs found in human beings come in quite handy. Your IDs store visual and auditory data from your Implants and external aReals in a fashion readily understandable by us, allowing us to retrieve the data at our leisure once we are in control of your bodies. Which is why we prefer to break a human before integrating him or her.

“By integrating with the members of a species, we can better understand how to vanquish them. But there is also a wonderful side benefit. As you may have noticed, we do not possess bodies of our own in this universe. It is a sublime thing to experience a species from their point of view. The galaxy is so much more vivid, and interactive, when you have a vessel capable of touch, of emotion, of taste.”

“Except you’re a robot,” I said.

“This is merely one of my hosts,” the Guide said.

“Why have you come?” I wondered how much more I could ask this “Guide,” and why it was willing to entertain my questions in the first place. I had to remind myself that it had an entirely different way of thinking. Maybe some alien code of honor required the Guide to brag about the capabilities of its race and reveal its intentions to every lifeform it planned to kill or integrate, I don’t know. But as long as the Guide was receptive to my questions, I was going to keep asking them. “Why do you attack our worlds?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” the Guide said. “Geronium. We feed upon it, and use it to power the great industry of our ships. Those entities you call Burrowers are engineered from the biomatter of this universe, yet exist partially in our own. We call them the Great Formers, and they have one specific purpose in mind: transform the crusts of planets into Geronium.”

“Don’t you have enough planets to transform in your own region of space?”

“The transformative process requires a planet populated by sentient lifeforms, as the multi-universe fields produced by such organisms are a major part of the process. These fields linger some Stanyears after a population has been terminated, and the Burrowers use them to process the crust into Geronium. In essence, the Burrowers digest what humanity would call the lingering ‘souls.’

“When a suitable planet or moon is chosen for harvesting, a compatible species must first be assigned to the planet and bred. Terraforming or bioengineering is almost always involved, because while some species are better suited to certain planets than others, there is usually some disqualifying factor. Atmospheric pressure is too high, temperature is too low, gaseous ratios are off, and so forth. The process of terraforming and populating can take centuries. So, when we find a race that has done the hard work of colonizing planets for us, we are exhilarated. There is no better find. Of course we’re going to come. Of course we’re going to conquer. Thanks to humanity, we will have this whole region producing Geronium in under ten years. That will give us enough stores to last the next twenty thousand years, if you include the cache on our side of the galaxy.

“But humanity does not have to die out as a species. Obey us, and twenty percent of you will live: the twenty percent who contribute eighty percent of your societal output—the artists, engineers, scientists, and so forth. The remaining eighty percent of humanity, the unnecessary, superfluous dead weight, shall perish. We are doing you a favor, in actuality. Trimming away the fat, as it were.”

Stunned, I just stood there for a few seconds. “Only twenty percent of humanity will live?”

“Yes. If you surrender. Otherwise less than one percent will be spared, to be used solely as breeding matter for Geronium production, and our entertainment.”

I had to snicker at that. “Let’s say we listen. We surrender. What happens to that twenty percent? The elite of humanity. Where will they live? Will they become hosts? Integrated, as you call it?”

“They will remain entirely human, and will live in peace on a designated planet. Perhaps your current homeworld, Earth. They will be given technology to increase their lifespan and quality of life. Everyone will be equal. All that we ask is the survivors obey us when the time comes, and let us draft capable men and women into our service. Do these things, and your place in the galaxy is secured.”

I laughed. “So that you can eventually kill us or our descendants off for fuel? No thanks. Humanity will never agree to that.”

“Some of you already have,” the Guide said, nodding at the astrogator and tactical officer, who very carefully did not look back. As I mentioned, neither man had a steel bar grafted to his spine. “Why would you want to resist, anyway? Humanity will thrive under our tutelage. You will know an era of peace and prosperity unlike any you have ever experienced before.”

“Yeah, as disposable breeders.”

“When the time comes we will assign a small portion of your race to appropriate planets for breeding purposes, via a fair lottery. But that will be an age from now.”

“The governments of humanity will never agree to any of this,” I said. “Let me guess: you’re going to take away our Gates, and our starships too?”

The Guide nodded. “You will be restricted to the designated home planet as part of the agreement.”

I shook my head. “You can’t take a space-faring people and knock them back to the stone ages. And you can’t kill eighty percent of their population. The governments of humanity won’t submit to either scenario. I’m sorry, this surrender isn’t going to happen.”

“Do you speak for all of humankind?” the Guide said, then nodded to itself when I didn’t answer. “I thought not. If humanity surrenders, the quality of life enjoyed by your race will improve by a factor of ten. Billions of your people currently live in starvation and poverty, while billions more enjoy the comforts of limitless food and advanced technology. These ‘haves’ essentially live off the ‘have-nots,’ expending needless resources on such endeavors as colonization, when the time and energy could be better spent solving the problems of your homeworld.

“By reducing your population to twenty percent, we solve all these societal issues in one blow. In any case, a twenty-percent survival rate is much preferable to one percent. As the months pass, and the population of humanity continues to dwindle, the system governments will agree with my assessment. And they will surrender.”

The Guide sat down in the captain’s seat, and swiveled the chair toward me. “No doubt you have wondered why I have allowed you, a mere peon, to ask these questions. The answer is simple: I will let one of you go, so that he may report everything he has seen and heard. The one who returns will give his superiors full access to the data recorded in his embedded ID, and thus inform the United Countries and other empires of Earth they have one Stanyear to consider my offer. Meanwhile, my race will continue its advance, taking your colonies, making them our own. And if your people flee these colonies in excessive numbers ahead of our advance, we may steer toward the most populous planet in the region early. Yes: Earth. We want inhabited worlds, remember.”

The Guide put his hands behind his head. “So. Now you have a choice. A dilemma, perhaps. Who will remain behind and become a host? And who will go free and spread the word of our generous offer? Choose, quickly. Or I will choose for you.”

I stepped forward immediately. “Take me and let my brother go.”

The Guide opened its mouth, but before it could say a word, Hijak came to my side.

“I’m not leaving you behind,” Hijak said.

“You are.” I gazed into his eyes. “It has to be me. You know it does. You’re the caterpillar.”

“I have a callsign now. Don’t do this.”

I swallowed. I realized I had to tell him why I was doing it or he’d never let me go. This was going to be hard. “I . . . I haven’t treated you very well these past few months. I didn’t think you deserved to be here. I was wrong. I had this coming, Hijak. Karma’s a bitch.”

Hijak shook his head. “You had every right to treat me the way you did. I had to prove myself. I’m still proving myself this very moment. When I signed up, I knew that someday I might have to make the ultimate sacrifice for one of my platoon brothers. I choose to make it now. I’m ready. Let it be me, Rage.
Me
.”