The Empty Warrior (2 page)

The inner sphere was much smaller, searingly hot, and utterly lifeless. It spun in place over 90 million kilometers from the interior surface of the outer sphere, between the Akadean landscape and its sun. In addition to its dimensions and its sterility, it differed from the outer sphere as well in that it was not solid, but rather slotted perpendicularly across its equatorial circumference. Each slot resembled two slender, spherical triangles joined at the base, projecting both north and south from the equator, their apexes nearly touching at the poles. The hollow globe rotated at a rate that gave any random spot on Akadea alternating periods of approximately twelve hours of sunlight shining through the slotted holes and twelve hours of shadow when the light was blocked, except for an inconsequential area at each pole that was perpetually clothed in darkness. The designers had even thought to leave millions of appropriately sized holes through the sphere’s solid portions, giving the appearance of a starlit evening sky to the residents of the vast landscape beyond.

Inside the inner ball was the sun, a lonely star, its former bevy of planets having been completely consumed during the construction of the spheres. But this star was different from any other in that it would never go dark. It would never cease to send out its life-giving rays to the great Akadean construct, for this star was fueled, nurtured, and fed by a vast fleet of ships built solely for the purpose of bringing in new matter to be immolated in the great fusion furnace that was the Akadean sun. The whole process was controlled and overseen by the most sophisticated artificial intelligence network that had ever been devised. This star would not fail the humans that were dependent upon it. It would last as long as humanity did and longer.

Not only did the star provide heat and light for the construct, but also power. And since nearly all of its energy was captured, there was more power available than humankind could ever hope to exploit. Even after the ravenous hunger of the massive gravity generators was sated, there was still so much energy to spare that some of it was constantly being bled off into space lest the temperate globe become a searing oven.

In addition, the Akadean star was positioned slightly off center within the spheres, the gravity generators holding the giant globes in place, defying the will of nature. It was just enough to mimic the seasons of the old home planet across the whole of the inner surface of the world. The outer shell had also been built not as a perfect sphere, but rather a slightly oblate spheroid. This arrangement provided a close approximation of the varied temperature ranges that had existed on Old Akadea, allowing the complete spectrum of biological diversity of the old world to flourish in the new. It was, as far as Mult could tell from his limited knowledge of ancient history, a near perfect copy of the conditions that had existed on the birth world of humankind.

There were exceptions of course. There were no plates to shift and set the ground atrembling; no powerful, dangerous storms to turn everyday implements into deadly projectiles. There was no sea of magma waiting beneath the surface to someday spew forth and obliterate anything unfortunate enough to be caught in its path; no toxic ash to be sent skyward, obscuring the life-giving rays of the sun. There were none of the perilous and unpredictable banes of nature that, without proper controls, regularly frequented their wrath on the residents of non-engineered worlds; they had all been fastidiously deleted from mankind’s new home. That in itself was enough to make Akadea an extraordinarily pleasant place to reside and raise a family.

Whether the vast construct was flawless or not was certainly open to discussion, but there was no denying that it was indeed benign enough to have drawn, over the centuries since its creation, most of the human race back home from their far flung colonies. There were still a few men and women spread across a fair portion of the Milky Way; mostly scientists and workers, like Mult himself; engaged in the sometimes hazardous process of bringing knowledge and raw materials back for refinement in the academies and factories of home. There were also an insignificant number of colonials, those hardy few who dared to risk the danger and endure the hardships that abounded on conventional worlds. They remained on their distant outposts either out of attachment to the places they had called home for so long or loyalty to one of the many sects, each united by strange creeds and moral codes, that had settled on several dozen worlds spread across the fringes of the outlands.

But on the whole, the creation of Akadea had effectively depopulated the remainder of the galaxy. The last Akadea-forming of a planet had begun before New Akadea was totally complete, and although it and several other worlds were still in the midst of their transformations, there were no new planets slated to undergo the metamorphosis into habitable orbs. When the giant sphere of Akadea had been opened to families, environmental modification had become obsolete. Planetary remodeling took centuries to complete and was prohibitively expensive, so now that living space was no longer at a premium, new projects had been shelved indefinitely.

It was a fact that bothered Mult not one iota. Notwithstanding the daredevil reputation spacefarers and outlanders had engendered over the years, he was hardly the adventurous type. He loved living safely within the sphere of Akadea, and the relative ease of his shipboard life never dampened his eagerness to return to the comforts of his home there while he invariably sank into melancholy as the scheduled departure for his next voyage loomed ever nearer. He looked forward to the day when he could retire, despite the surety that that time was a great many years away. His current body certainly would not last that long. Maybe in his next one, he thought, when the last of his children were grown and gone and both he and his wife were young again. They already had their dream home; all they needed now was to put enough away to support them in style and keep their portfolio growing, and he would be extraordinarily content to do any further paintings mere feet from his own bedroom. He would create exactly the opposite of what he painted now. Instead of generating visions of home from billions of miles away, he would compose scenes of the infinite cosmos from the luxurious opulence of his Akadea-bound studio.

He smiled again. As much as he disliked his job, it had allowed him to see a great many things that others would never have the chance to. The vast majority of the people of Akadea had never seen, at least through their own eyes, the exterior of the sphere in which they lived. They had never gazed through the view-ports of a shuttle as it weaved through traffic amidst the mechanical jungle of robotic factories and shipyards that surrounded the outside of their home. They would never witness the sight of a tow ship suddenly appearing as it went sub-light, its 80-kilometer train of elephantine barges trailing behind, the whole assemblage decelerating into high orbit and gracefully settling in with the thousands of other ships that always begirded Akadea. They would never see the filmy, luminescent brilliance of a nebula or the long tail of dust and debris trailing a comet approaching a star. They would never personally gaze upon any of the wonders of the galaxy that their ships so commonly traversed. Most would live and die inside their globe, having never visited another world.

The people were, of course, aware of all such things. The entirety of the towering academic achievements of mankind was readily available to any resident of the sphere. Many people owned, and all had access to, physical reality simulators that were touted to be capable of recreating any encounter or happening that one might wish to add to their life experience. And yet, through personal trial, Mult had found that it was never quite the same, as the mind was always aware that for all the attention to every detail, the simulation was exactly that, a simulation. No technology could replicate the simple awareness of the human mind, and the mind would always on some level be cognizant that the simulators were merely generating an illusion; that there was no real ecstasy being enjoyed, no real hardship being endured, no real chances being taken, and no real danger being faced. Mult was of the opinion that the pure essence of reality would never be artificially fabricated with absolute authenticity.

He knew many of his Akadean friends envied him on that basis, envied him due to the unreality of their own experiences, envied him because he had actually traveled the void, living a life complete with real and perilous hazards—hazards that could kill rather than merely frighten for a moment. He lived a life into which actual, poignant excitement intruded from time to time; the kind of life that no longer existed for most of the inhabitants of Akadea.

But very few and quite possibly none of his benevolently caged friends would trade places with him. They coveted his past of having risked danger and surviving it, but they hardly desired a future for themselves of occasionally facing situations that had the potential of threatening their very existence. In that respect most were more than content with the prospect of a long life spent safely within the confines of their protective world. And Mult looked forward to joining their pedestrian and vapid existences on a full-time basis just as soon as he was able.

“Captain, your presence is requested on the bridge,” a feminine voice intoned politely, breaking into his reverie. It was
Endurant
, sticking to protocol as computer minds always did.

Mult sighed, momentarily thinking of ordering the ship to proceed with the braking maneuvers and the drop into sub-light without him, but then thought better of it.
Endurant
would file a report and the company would schedule a hearing and he would probably end up with a reprimand as he was in no way ill or incapacitated. All for not wanting to watch the ship perform a maneuver it had accomplished flawlessly a thousand times before.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and placed his feet squarely on the thickly carpeted deck. He was for a moment still loath to leave his quarters. Instead he rubbed the three-day growth of stubble on his chin, thinking that he should shave before he left the depot to go home to his wife.

“On my way,” he finally replied in a tone sullen with reluctance. He pulled on his boots, felt them tighten snugly around his feet, and stood; scanning the room for his uniform coat, and not seeing it. He walked to the closet and applied a bit of pressure to the door with his fingertips. It slid soundlessly to one side, but only to reveal that the sought-after garment was not within.

“
Endurant
,” he asked, “where’s my coat?”

“Specify,” came the curt, yet pleasant, reply.

Damn fool ship
, he thought.
What other coat would I be looking for to report to the bridge in?
But machines were machines and they knew only what one said, not what one meant. So Mult hid his annoyance as best as he was able. “My blue uniform coat,” he said evenly.

“It is draped across the back of one of the two armchairs at the dining room table,” the voice said. Sometimes, as now, Mult almost got the feeling that there was a hint of peevishness in the ship’s replies to his more petty inquiries, but he knew very well that it was only his imagination.
Endurant
was not programmed to mimic emotional responses. She was built for commerce. Beyond the comforts of the crew’s and passengers’ quarters there was no unnecessary extravagance on board. That knowledge, however, did not make the constant and aggravating perfection of
Endurant’s
computer brain any easier to stomach.

Mult shuffled indolently into the dining area. There, just as
Endurant
had asserted, was his coat. “I see it,” he said as cheerily as he was able. “Thank you.” His gratitude was false, of course, as it pained him to be civil to the ship. He would much rather have grumbled something uncharitable except for the fear that it would be overheard and understood.

“You’re quite welcome,”
Endurant
replied in its pleasant and yet somehow infuriating tone.

Mult most times suffered from a peculiar compulsion when shipboard, which as each cruise proceeded became progressively harder for him to contain. With each conversation between himself and
Endurant
he wished more fervently to simply scream at the blasted vessel; to tell it in no uncertain terms to take its omniscient precision and stick it up its star drive. He would have been elated to find something, anything; that the ship knew nothing about.
He
was Captain of this tow, but most times it seemed that was true only on paper.
Endurant
was really the one running the show, and it irked him mightily that not only was there so little for him to do, but also that the ship invariably acted so damned superior in every interaction that he had with it. All the while he was stuck doing those petty tasks still deemed insignificant enough to be left to a ship’s captain to undertake. Just once he would like to feel free to give full vent to his feelings in the matter, to tell the ship exactly how he felt.

But he was certain that some company hack witnessing such an outburst after the fact would surely consider it a sign of mental illness, and as one never knew just how much of
Endurant’s
logs the company examined while the ship was in port or exactly what might be forwarded to the attention of some high muckety-muck, he always stifled any acerbic responses that came to mind. Besides, it certainly couldn’t hurt his career to be polite to corporate property; as far as he had heard a little brown nosing never worked to anyone’s detriment with the suits. So he swallowed his pride on this occasion as he had on all those previous and said nothing as he slipped into his coat and buttoned his shirt.