Morgan's Return (7 page)

Morgan ambled along, kicking her figurative heels. All of these displays were on the data stick they'd bought at the museum. They wouldn't see anything new here, she was sure. The trail led through a door that opened on creaky hinges as they approached. Beyond, the central heart of the cathedral glowed in a soft, golden light. Massive pillars curved from the edges of the circular space, to meet around a giant lens high above. Mirroring the pattern in the vault, a tiled pattern resembling stylized sun rays led outward from a circular, raised dais set directly beneath the lens.

"Catches the sunlight," Ravindra said, gazing up.

"Runs the whole building. It's a solar collector," Morgan said.

"No seating," Prasad said. His goggles dangled in his hand.

"You bring your own mat, apparently." Morgan gestured at three people sitting cross-legged near the dais, their hands resting on their knees, eyes closed.

One of the figures stirred and rose to its feet. A man or a woman? Morgan wasn't sure. The shapeless robe hid any clues the body would have provided. Grey hair, parted in the middle, hung below the shoulders. A web of wrinkles surrounded faded hazel eyes. Someone who had taken the option of ageing gracefully—rare in a technological society. Smiling, the person approached, one hand extended.

"Welcome. It's good to see pure humans in our cathedral."

A woman, judging by the timbre of her voice and the way she walked. Ignoring Morgan, she approached Ravindra and Prasad, who exchanged a look.

"You have need of these." She pointed at the goggles. "Which means you do not have one of these." She pointed her index finger at the place just behind her left ear, where an implant would have been.

"You don't have one, either?" Prasad asked.

She curled her lip. "It is an abomination, an insult to the Creator."

Morgan rolled her eyes. She despised religion. Who needed a creator when you had Nature? Besides, who created the creator? Where did it end?

A contemptuous smile creased the woman's features. "You mock. You think we cannot survive without these…" she waved her finger at her head again…"things?"

"You use technology, don't you?" Morgan said. "Do you despise that, too?" She pointed a finger at the lens. "Like the solar generator that powers your lovely light show? Or the door guard that collects your credits and dispenses the goggles? Or the systems that create your audio-visual displays? Do you think they're any different to the chip in my head?"
And you don't even know about the implant in my brain. Stupid, ignorant… Let it go, Morgan. Old wounds, long forgotten
.

The woman straightened, a picture of dignified affront. "I thought perhaps you sought sanctuary. It seems I was mistaken. Enjoy your visit." She bowed, and turned.

Prasad directed a glare at Morgan. "Don't go," he said to the woman. "We are visitors from another planet. May I ask, did you perhaps think we were Solvarian?"

The woman paused, looking back at him over her shoulder. A ripple of emotions crossed her features; surprise, recognition, doubt, and coming to rest as calm. But she couldn't hide the thundering of her heart from Morgan's enhanced senses.

"Are you Solvarian?"

"No. We come from Coromandel. But we've seen evidence of the problems caused here by Solvarian immigrants."

Facing them again, the woman folded her hands together. "Not by them, by the haters who do not understand that the cranial implant is just another means of control, a subtler manifestation of the scourge of machines."

"Like the war machines?" Ravindra pointed at a mural on the wall between the curved pillars, where a human-shaped metal monster as big as a multi-story building, strode across shattered armored vehicles and human bodies, toward a defiant gun emplacement defended by dour-faced soldiers.

The woman paced over to the wall and tilted her head to look up at the display. "This is what we escaped from at great cost. I fear we have replaced this monster with a more insidious means of machine control."

Ravindra's gaze traveled over the mural, an eyebrow slightly raised. "You believe the war machines looked like that?"

"I don't know. Neither does anyone else. But it hardly matters. It is a metaphor, a war machine made in our likeness. Now, we can do much more."

Ravindra stopped gazing at the mural, and turned his attention to the woman, his eyebrows lowered. "What do you mean by that?"

"These chips in heads can be controlled. They are made by special humans who carry special implants in their heads. Imagine what they could do with such power? They are dangerous; much more dangerous than this thing." She waved a hand at the mural.

"You mean the people they call Supertechs?" Ravindra said, taking Morgan's arm, and squeezing hard enough to hurt. "But I thought they were designed to stop machines from taking control?"

"I don't know what they're called. But I fear them, a cross between a human and a machine. We're traveling the same path as the last time, before the Conflagration."

Morgan bit her tongue. Stupid bitch. Supertechs were controlled. They did nothing without direction. Except her. Ravindra's grip slackened. He'd made his point.

"Ah. That's one reason we've come here," Prasad said. "I'm a scholar. We've been to the Conflagration Museum, and we were sent here."

Her eyes narrowed, she smiled. "And what did you seek here?"

"Does the name Rosmenyo mean anything to you?" Prasad leaned toward her, hopeful, almost pleading. Morgan was impressed. He put on a good act.

The woman considered for a moment. "His name is in the old books."

"Yes, we know. With a reference to the menace from the stars. Do you know what that means?"

"I can't be certain."

"Understood."

The woman chewed at her lip, then said, "The seers describe the menace from the stars as demons led by the Arch-demon Zenji, sent to torment us because of our treatment of our planet, but I think they were really the war machines, the great fighting engines. We created our own destruction, and learned a lesson we should never forget." She sighed. "Although it seems many have forgotten already."

"Can you tell us any more than what's in the books?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm simply interpreting what I read. You can read the texts as easily as I."

"And if you wanted to learn more, what would you do?"

She shrugged. "The best Conflagration collection is the central library in Torreno."

The priestess told the truth, all she knew. Morgan checked her heart rate. Calm. It fitted the body language, the way she stood with her hips angled away, wanting to be gone. Beyond her, the two meditating figures had risen to their feet, clearly waiting for her. Morgan glanced at Ravindra and Prasad, and told them, with a barely perceptible shrug, there was nothing more to be learned here.

Prasad bowed his head. "Thank you. It has been a pleasure to see your beautiful cathedral."

Huh. Superstitious nonsense
. Morgan had a good mind to say so, but tightening his grip on her arm, Ravindra marched her toward the exit. "With any luck Davaskar and Jirra will have the replenishment finished," he murmured.

"Silly bitch. She thinks Supertechs are a danger? Huh."

"You could be, without some control," Ravindra said.

"Huh. And what about that stupid war machine? What sort of idiot would make a weapon as inefficient as a human body? Can't fly, can't turn, can't do any damned thing worth doing."

Chuckling, Ravindra released her. "Yes, my dear, you're right. So… what now?"

"That was a crashing waste of time, wasn't it?" They passed through the crumbling archway back into the street. "Now? We get off this dump of a world and…" Morgan sidestepped to avoid a uniformed woman on the footpath, "…sorry. Then we head for Torreno. There's sure to be some clues in the central library."

***

E
llen watched them as they entered an autocab, which disappeared into the heavy air.

Bloody Selwood. She'd walked around her, said sorry. Ellen had worried for a moment that she would be recognized, that Selwood would detect her as another Supertech. She should have known better. Nobody ever recognized her, especially not the famous Morgan Selwood. Ellen had just been another junior Supertech, hovering around the edges of whatever it was Selwood did, easily ignored, easily overlooked.

The man she was with, though. It had been worth the risk, just to get a better look at him. What a man. He was even more impressive in the flesh, with a beautiful, deep voice, smooth as dark chocolate. The other man was no slouch, either, lithe and graceful as a dancer. She hadn't understood the language they spoke, but Selwood had said 'Torreno'.

Beyond the wall the cathedral's petal-like pillars opened out to the fetid atmosphere between the office towers. This was just another bunch of back to nature crazies, the last remnant of a once-powerful church. According to the literature, the strictest adherents wouldn't even use common medical technology to delay aging. Idiots.

So then why had Selwood and her friends come here? Rats. She'd have to go in to find out. She paid her admission, and went inside, gazing around at the vibrant murals on the walls, moving from the battle for the planet against the impossible war machines, through to a wasteland under a roiling sky, then new life, new colonists… all the usual uplifting nonsense.

"Can I help you, officer?"

The voice startled her. The man wore a long robe which swished softly across the tiled floor. No implant, and certainly no anti-aging enhancements. For goodness sake, the fellow was nearly bald.

Ellen forced a smile. "I came here looking for friends. A woman and two men. Have you seen them? Two tall, dark-skinned men. The woman had shoulder-length hair, and blue eyes."

"You just missed them. They left not more than minutes ago."

"Oh. That's a shame, but I know they had an appointment. I'm late, you see."

The man waited politely, his hands folded inside the sleeves of his robe.

"They wanted me to see something here. You wouldn't know what they looked at?"

He chuckled. "Indeed. They weren't here long. They looked at this mural, then they left." He waved a hand at the battle scene.

"That's all?"

"Yes." His lips jerked. "You do not seem the type to be a believer?"

"I'm not. But I'm interested in history. Did they say where they were going?"

He shook his head. "I heard mention of the central library at Torreno." He chuckled again. "But I doubt they'll be doing
that
this afternoon."

Ellen bobbed her head. "Thanks, I'll see if I can catch them up."

Ah, well. She turned away. She'd heard about the fabled fighting machines from the Conflagration, but the thing on the wall was nothing short of absurd. At least she could be certain of one thing; Morgan Selwood was alive and heading for Torreno. But she wasn't going to arrive.

Chapter 5
 

"S
tation control,
Curlew
clear of lines and ready to go," Captain Davaskar said. He sat in the captain's chair, the ship's controls arrayed around him in an arc. Jirra sat to his right, monitoring readouts from the station relayed to a bank of screens and Morgan was strapped into the engineer's chair to the captain's left. She left the two officers to it, merely keeping an eye on the systems. She could do that from anywhere, of course, but her presence was apparently comforting.

"Acknowledge,
Curlew
. Clamps released."

Through the ships' sensors Morgan watched the station's locking arms retract into themselves like some sort of huge insect folding its limbs. She couldn't wait to get out of the place. Iniciara had been crossed off the one-hundred-places-you-must-visit-before-you-die list. What a stinking, messy, dump. She hadn't even liked eating the food there. Who knew where it came from? What it was? She bet the half of it was synthetic, made in a factory somewhere.

Curlew
shuddered and began to move backwards. The station had applied enough thrust to push the ship out of the bay and into clear space, with the ship's systems controlling her drift so
Curlew
stayed equidistant between the docking bay walls. Beyond the bay, the station's slowly-receding bulk rose before them, a metal pincushion of ships, arranged in slowly-turning tiers.

Aft and forward side thrusters fired.
Curlew
pivoted, then followed a traffic lane to the designated jump area for Torreno. For Morgan, that really would be almost like coming home. She'd spent many a year on the Coalition's capital planet, some good, some not so good. Judging by the lack of traffic, Torreno wasn't a favored destination from Iniciara. Or maybe all the traffic for that destination had already left. Whatever. Space was a very empty place out here.

"Crew prepare for shift transfer in ten," Jirra announced.

One last check of the sensors… Morgan's heart thudded. "Missile, coming fast, from starboard." She'd raised the shields before she'd finished the words. "Prepare for impact." They wouldn't be able to avoid the strike whatever she did.