I Am Titanium (Pax Black Book 1) (33 page)

“Terry!” he called. “Terkun’shuks’pai! I know you’re here. Come out!”

A man fell out of a thin slice of nothing and landed in a heap in front of Pax. Pax barely recognized the man. He was wearing Terry’s pseudo-Japanese fighter’s outfit and had a bald head, but that’s where the similarity ended. His head was covered with patchy black-and-gray stubble, and there were patches where the hair hadn’t been shaved evenly. There were ingrown hairs on the back of his head. The knuckles on his hands bulged like an old man’s, with dirt under the nails and scabs across the back of his right hand. Like he’d been punching something without gloves.

And he stank. Not just “had a long day” sweat-stink, or even the stink of someone who’d pissed himself, but the kind of stink that smelled like it had been around so long that it had fermented. A rotten cheese kind of stink.

The guy raised his head. It
was
Terry. What Terry would have looked like if he were actually human instead of just good at building imaginary human bodies.

Long-healed broken nose, hair growing out of his nostrils, eyebrows that grew off in crazy directions and were splotched unevenly with gray. Vomit stains on his robes, and dirt and blood on his knees. One earlobe bigger than the other. Crooked teeth, a split lip. Stubble growing thick and dark in spots, thin and gray in others. Wrinkles. Dark circles under his eyes.

“Scarlett really worked you over, didn’t she?” said Pax. “Serves you right.”

Terry picked himself off the ground and tried to stand upright, to resume some of his old posture. His body wouldn’t do it. His back stayed hunched and he had to crane his neck up to look Pax in the eye.

“Terry. The invaders. Are they real?” Terry didn’t say anything. Pax’s teeth ground together in frustration. “You tell me how to find them so I can find out whether they’re real or just more of your bullshit.”

Pax didn’t add that he was going to kill Terry afterward.

Pax banished it. It was
his
head. Terry wasn’t going to fill it with images of a fake Japanese countryside that probably had never existed.

“I can’t,” said Terry, his voice shaking. “I have to show you—”

“Nice try,” Pax said. “Just talk. Or else.”

Terry reached out a hand and laid it on Pax’s arm. “This is faster,” he said, and he poured his thoughts into Pax.

Earth was my destiny.

When astrals are first created by our progenitors, we are often almost identical copies, but without their memories and experience. Experience is held to be sacred—only the most monstrous would even consider taking a memory or an experience from another, although we have the ability to do so. We believe our memories hold the essence of our individuality; it is the closest thing we have to the concept of a “soul.” Only species that have an element of genetic randomness in their reproductive system, as do the species of Earth, can have the idea of a soul, that is, the belief that there is something innately individual about themselves. The only real individuality we astrals have is in our memories.

We respect our elders, not because they are wise or share our genetic line, but because they have more memories. Yet youth and inexperience are valued, too. At the beginnings of our existences, our progenitors often assign us problems they found unsolvable, in the hope that their progeny will succeed where they could not.

My progenitor was Ush’shuks’pai. He discovered the Earth near the dawn of your species.

When Ush’shuks’pai traveled here, it was a kind of paradise, with relative harmony between all species. Predators and prey still existed. But predators would sacrifice themselves if they saw not enough prey was available, for the good of their packs. And the prey would do the same, when they had not enough grass to eat. It was no heaven, the way your culture imagines it, but it was more balanced. Microscopic life carried genes across species to mutual benefit rather than killing or making its hosts ill. Competition among and between species did not extend to destroying the environment. Evolution was slower then, and energies more restrained. It was not a planet of great genetic or technological innovation; it was a slow, relatively unproductive backwater.

Ush’shuks’pai ascertained the potential for humanity to access the astral plane, if they continued to evolve. It was something that would take many millions of years.

But.

Ush’shuks’pai thought that perhaps a few minor alterations might increase the tendencies of a few species toward increased innovation. He was hoping to accelerate the development of humanity toward the stars, on both the physical and astral planes.

He succeeded, all too well.

Across the entire planet, he greatly shortened the average lifespan of almost every living thing, as well as made the nature of life on the planet more violent, more prone to draw negative energy toward itself. Evolution sped up, as did humanity’s technological innovations. Earth was a hothouse, a Petri dish under a heat lamp.

He didn’t realize what he had done until later.

He was young.

I don’t say this to justify his actions. He destroyed a paradise and released evil upon it. Later, he regretted his actions. He saw what he had done had prevented humanity—as well as every other possible primary race on the planet—from ever gaining the ability to become citizens on the astral plane. They might reach the stars, but that was all.

He tried to undo what he had done but was prevented by the Council, who did not believe him. When Ush’shuks’pai spoke out against the Council, he was deemed to be insane and locked up.

None of this I knew at first.

I was created against my progenitor’s will, with the hope that I would take his place and find a way to undo the damage he had done. Desperation, and a surfeit of memory of failures past, had made the Council blind.

Many years ago, they sent me to Earth to study my progenitor’s work. Another young astral, Akllana’chikni’pai, was sent with me to study the cultures and spiritual makeup of the planet; her progenitor had been an eminent cultural and spiritual assessor before being nominated to the Council. We were to train and teach and nurture each other, our talents coming into bloom beside each other’s, a rich garden that would help save the astral plane from starvation. The White City would endure, with our help.

They told us nothing we did not need to know.

When we arrived, I became enraptured by the study of the way the spirits and genetics of Earth life were intertwined. I saw the destructiveness my progenitor had wrought and thought I could fix it: give you longer lives and more peace. I dove into my examination of your world, ignoring everything else.

Akllana’chikni’pai became imprisoned within the undying corpse of a young girl, trapped by the spiritual powers of the humans I was so busy studying. A thousand years later, more or less, I remembered her existence and went to find her. On the astral plane, time has a distant quality; one takes as much time as one needs. So, when we travel to the physical planes, events crowd up on us. Time slips through our fingers.

I brought Akllana’chikni’pai back from her tomb, and we returned to the astral plane. My work had not been finished, and the Council was unhappy with us both. Better, they said, for me to have left her there another thousand years, if it meant I finished my work.

By then, I had no intention of finishing it; I realized I could not undo the damage to life on Earth. Humanity was spiraling out of control and would cause more harm than good to the astral planes. Yet I still loved this world.

I began putting plans in motion to cut Earth off from the astral plane, to make it… well, to make it a kind of
pacha
of my own, a paradise where I could be free of distractions and obligations. I intended to be worshipped as a god, in exchange for eventually finding a way to return life to its more balanced origins.

Then I met you.

Despite the damage to your body, your soul was closer to the original spirits of the Earth than anything else I had seen. But it was also damaged in places, nearly ruined. I worked to study you and to heal you at the same time, with mixed success. I had not felt such hope in over a thousand years.

And at the same time, I was despairing.

The Earth was being flooded with negative energy. Where had it come from? I told myself it was a byproduct of the damage to your spirits. But that energy did not come from nowhere. It came from a hole in the spiritual plane, a rift as fateful as the damage to your spirit.

The nature of the universe is such that it has its own spirit, its own kind of life. It comes into being; it grows; it reproduces; it ages; it calcifies; it becomes weak; predatory universes consume it and bring forth new universes of their own.

Our universe, as we are able to measure its existence, is young. It is only barely coming of age; it has not yet begun to reproduce. Even on the astral plane, with our looser sense of time, we count the age of the universe as almost beyond understanding. Yet it is barely an adolescent.

It is sick, Pax. And it was Ush’shuks’pai who made it so.

My progenitor’s action pulled open a hole in the spiritual plane, wounding the universe, creating a weak point in its immune system’s defenses, where other universes can infect and damage it.

The monster I created… is a test.

It came from another galaxy, one where a minor rift developed in the universe. The species nearest it was advanced enough that it destroyed the invaders, sealed the rift, and then started spreading spacefaring seedpods that, when they came near the invaders, would reproduce rapidly, gather the resources needed to fight the invaders, and destroy them.

I do not know how to defeat the monster I have created; I do not know how to communicate with it. I only know it will evolve rapidly and launch itself into space and fight the invaders if we cannot.

The rift here is larger, the forces more prepared. I doubt my monster will win against them. Yet I must try.

When the invaders come, they will appear alien and dark and evil. But soon they will put on fair faces and pretend to bring gifts, as they did in the other galaxy. You will find them beyond the orbit of the moon. Some of them are already here; more are coming through as we speak.

I have done monstrous things, Pax, things that would cause me to be destroyed if the Council knew. But even so, I was never able to find a way to defeat what is coming. And I was, forgive me, never able to convince the Council the threat was real.

And so I have arranged for the Council to cut all direct links to the Earth because I want to save my people. I have arranged to give you the best education I could in defeating the coming invaders.

Even so, my gambit has failed. You have learned nothing from the monster I have created; neither have I.

And now we cannot even ask the astral plane for help.

Akllana’chikni’pai had appeared before the Council only twice before—once as an advisor on promoting the primary race on the planet of Shu-hashu to contributor status, and once to celebrate a victory of her progenitor’s. It had unnerved her both times.

This was worse.

The room itself had not changed. It was circular and made of white stone that had been polished to glossy perfection. Around the room were white thrones with high, arched backs; smooth pillars; and tall, arched windows opening onto the White City, far below them. The sky outside was white, except at the tops of the arches, where it was the faintest blue. White towers rose around them, some with long, delicate silver flags flapping in the slight breeze. The floor was polished and inset with a silvery pool of astral material.