The Soul Consortium (15 page)

“True, but in fact, Castor’s World was a very sought after destination. Because of their location and lifestyle, the residents were seen as ideal candidates to study the AI Reductionist Codex, so obviously there were many people who wanted to join the privileged few. But the Order of the Codex ended quite suddenly. A man by the name of Plantagenet Matthias Soome was the last person ever to visit the planet, and soon after he went there all communication ceased.”

“Am I going to regret asking what happened?”

“Probably. It’s better you don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

“I really don’t think—”

“I can guess what happened anyway. All the monks were killed?”

“Correct. The official reports are inconclusive, but the belief was that they all murdered each other. The most widely accepted theory was that the study of the Codex drove them insane.”

“Sounds possible. After all, the Codex brought on the war that wiped almost everyone out. So who was Plantagenet Soome?”

“The summary shows him primarily as some sort of detective.”

“Ideal. If I’m going to be looking for Keitus Vieta, what better role could I hope for? Forget Abbot Deepseed. I’ll try my next life as Soome.”

“You’re settling for subject 8.47199E+77, Plantagenet Matthias Soome, then?”

I take a deep breath and glance at the blue lights inside the sphere. “Yes. He’ll do. Get the WOOM ready.”

S
ubject 8.47199E+77: Select.

Subject 8.47199E+77: Aberration detected.

Subject 8.47199E+77: Override authorized—ID Salem Ben.

Subject 8.47199E+77: Activate. Immersion commences in three minutes.

“Protocol compels me to warn you that once you have been immersed you will not be able to withdraw until the moment of Plantagenet Matthias Soome’s death. Protocol also compels me to dictate that whatever you experience, however terrible, you must endure without possibility of extraction. You will know each and every moment as if it were your own …”

I’m nodding slowly. I’ve heard that message more times than there are stars in the sky, but knowing what I am going to face, Qod’s words hit me hard. Whatever I experience, however terrible, I must endure without possibility of extraction.

The metallic threads slip from the walls of the sphere and lift me into the WOOM once again. Shackles lock around my wrists and ankles, and the minuscule pulse of energy that holds the life of Plantagenet Soome comes my way.

“Farewell, Salem. See you in three hundred and four years.”

In the sky, she weeps

For her heart poured through his

Prometheus

Endless Abyss.

And from that other place

The Death God creeps.

T
he date is mil 16, year 1212, day 71, and I’m about to arrive at my new home—Castor’s World. It’s an abandoned planet supporting an abandoned people, and today is my first day as a monk belonging to the Order of the Codex under Abbot Thamiel Deepseed.

Abandonment
isn’t a word most people would choose to describe this tiny community, but to me it seems appropriate. They are not isolated from the rest of humanity, nor do they choose to shy away from their responsibility to communicate with us if the need arises, but to discuss their purpose or even to acknowledge their presence is not met with favor: their work is dangerous.

Most people who think about Castor’s World harbor a secret desire to know what the order knows, and I am no exception. They were kind enough to furnish me with a copy of
The Book of Deeds
to read during my journey, and although I received it with great interest, I wished they would have sent me a small part of the Codex itself, enough at least to see how such a dangerous thing would be presented.

Alas, to add to my disappointment, I found that the greatest portion of the book they sent me is written in an ancient language I am not familiar with. Fortunately, the most interesting part has been translated for me (with the exception of a few bracketed words the experts have guessed at), and I have spent the last part of my journey engrossed in the text.

Much like any other sacred tome, it begins with the usual paragraphs of history slanted with the writer’s own mystical perspective.

The Book of Deeds. Origins 1:1-31

¹
Before all things were the three reigns: Void, Form, and Toil.

²
At the end of things, we find the beginning of things. It is the way of things.

³
For Earth-kind, in the ancient days of Old Earth, rose up from their toil. They shunned their magic and mystery and found new gods to worship:
⁴
gods of air, earth, water, and fire—elemental gods named by the minds of men,
⁵
crafted by the lusts and guilt of their hearts, sold into bondage through the path of ignorance.
⁶
And so it passed that man grew tired of their slavery and learned to master the elements.
⁷
With new enlightenment they forged weapons of
science, art, and wisdom; they cut down the gods of their fathers.
⁸
And the fourth reign, the Reign of Mysticism, ended.

⁹
At the end of things, they found the beginning of things. It is the way of things.

¹⁰
Spread across the stars, Earth-kind became their own gods.
¹¹
They shunned their science and wisdom and fashioned new weapons of machine minds—binary slaves to war against the new gods: Death, Nature, and Need.
¹²
The fifth reign, the Reign of Knowledge, ended. And life was good.

¹³
At the end of things, they found the beginning of things. It is the way of things.

¹⁴
But men were not satisfied with their dominion and craved fullness of knowledge, for they understood all things save one small [part].
¹⁵
They sought out the old gods, and from Prometheus, the first god of the universe, they received their wish.
¹⁶
He bestowed upon man the last [part]. But the sum of the [parts], being great in magnitude was too complex for man to understand, and he bequeathed the sum of the [parts] to the machine minds for illumination.
¹⁷
And with the sum of the [parts] the machine minds brought forth the Codex, and with a promise to return, were caught up to [heaven].
¹⁸
With the Codex came full revelation.
¹⁹
And with full revelation came the new gods: War, Fear, and Chaos.
²⁰
And the sixth reign, the Reign of Machine Mind, ended.

²¹
At the end of things, they found the beginning of things. It is the way of things.

²²
From the chaos arose a light among Earth-kind to summon the old gods of science and wisdom, the queen of the Seventh Golden Reign.
²³
She brought order from chaos, peace from war, and security from fear. A hallowed seal was placed upon the Codex so only the blessed ones may seek its illumination.
²⁴
But the machine minds returned with a message of wrath upon man, threatening a final culling.
The queen in great dismay did not yield to the threat of the machine minds but turned from light to dark and fled through the heart of Prometheus to escape the final culling.
²⁵
And her name will forever be despised.
²⁶
And the seventh reign, the Golden Reign, ended.

²⁷
At the end of things, they found the beginning of things. It is the way of things.

²⁸
And it came to pass that the ancient gods of the mystic age did repent of their absence.
²⁹
The final culling came but not through the design of the machine minds. Pandora, the Great Mother of all, came forth and in her terrible wrath, destroyed the machine minds, the queen, and stayed to watch over the blessed keepers of the Codex.
³⁰
Forever will her shining eye be upon the order.

³¹
At the end of things, we found the beginning of things. It is the way of things.

It is those last four verses that really capture my attention—Pandora. The few who have visited Castor’s World have much more to say about her than they do the order or even the Codex. I am told she is an astonishing sight. I hope to find out why when I arrive.

A
t the request of the order, my shuttle dropped me off ten miles from the monastery, the distance ensuring not only my submissive humility at having to traverse the star-ravaged wastelands to reach them but the sense of isolation the monks crave.

The small craft jets off into the distance sucking up a trail of rusty soil and dust. Through the churning cloud, the mountain range forming the edge of a crater large enough to conceal a small town becomes visible again. With one hand I hoist my backpack into a position better suited to my four-hour hike, and with the other I shield my eyes to peer through the haze in search of my new home.

The journey will be difficult. Not just because of the constantly shifting gravitational pull caused by an unstable core but because of the hellish atmosphere. The oxygen processors and recycling plants were deactivated long ago, and the barely breathable air that remains is like breathing hot sand.

A star no bigger than the jewel in my ring, flickering nervously like the stuttering flame of a dying candle, is all that lights the sky. Nine centuries ago two suns lit this world, but at the end of the Seventh Golden Reign, when the Great Cataclysm turned most of the stars in this quadrant supernova, the dominant sun that brought life to this planet exploded, and all that remained was its lesser sister. The wounded star provided enough warmth and light to make existence possible but not without expressing its grief through violent storm and a sky the color of a deep wound, trapped permanently in a state of moody twilight.

Such was the force of devastation that the scarred landscape and ruined sky inspired volumes of poetry from the monastery, telling legends of “the mourning gods who wept tears of blood onto the land.” Some of the more colorful tales in
The Book of Deeds
describe the crater in which I now walk as the mark of Pandora’s first teardrop: the seal of abandonment precipitating the destruction of almost all life here.

It is no wonder that such poetry has been written. The descriptions are no exaggeration. All around me are intimidating mountain ranges resembling mighty tsunami that have been petrified in mid rush, as if the cataclysm simultaneously turned the planet’s crust molten, then froze the magma before it had the chance to splash back down again. There is little evidence of the civilization that once thrived here. No plant or animal life (save a few scuttling magma beetles), only blasted, ruddy rock tortured by an unrelenting hateful wind as far as the eye can see.

But it was not just the destructive force of the nebula that inspired such storytelling. Humans have a boundless capacity to personify the natural world: Mother Nature, the Man in the Moon, Father Time, and here visible most clearly on Castor’s World, Pandora’s Nebula. The cloud patterns created by the nova formed the unmistakable image of a woman’s face gazing down with bloody malevolence at the ravaged surface—two stormy hollows like spiteful eyes, one with the glowering star at its center, another murky patch stretched light-years wide as a screaming mouth, and a spectral hydrogen trail that suggests a mane of wild, fiery hair. An incredible but intimidating sight I have to stand and admire, even with the wind stinging my eyes.

It’s a sinister and harsh environment for a community to live out its existence, but the Order of the Codex is known for its discipline. Illumination of the Codex is a calling that has its deepest roots intertwined with the laborious calculations of artificial intelligence, yet all these men shun the gears, switches, and technology that bring the rest of the cosmos longevity and convenience. Instead they have built their small community on a semi-religious foundation centered on worshipping the Great Mother—Pandora. A strange setup.

Still, that won’t be a problem for me; I don’t plan to be a monk long enough to miss the luxuries of normal life.