|
|
‘The Pipe-world, Ah’kis, is five thousand miles long and just over ten miles in diameter. It was one of a dozen Arks sent out from Earth to populate distant planets; each meant to journey a mere two hundred years at one third light speed. But some accident knocked Ark Six from its course, and now 10,000 years have passed. Kassi seeks her brother, who has been kidnapped by “demons”, and now travels north to the end of the world. She is accompanied by Sebastian, a sentient bot of dubious origins, with whom she can communicate telepathically. That ability seems to set her apart from the rest of the world’s population.’
S ALWAYS, THE sunline arced along the length of Ah’kis. It was time for it to cool seasonally. Traditionally a time of harvests and longer nights. No one knew why. Just that the Ancients had created the world in such a way. Kassi casually walked the winding dirt path that twisted alongside a narrow stream, Sebastian, her companion, at her side. This close to the northern end of the pipe-world, the land was mostly flat, and large fields of wheat, barley and corn were inter-spaced with rice paddy fields curved up and around the distant sunline five miles above their heads. This was the ‘breadbasket’ of Ah’kis, and large trolls lumbered along the wide fields, scything the ripe harvest.
Trolls. Kassi watched fascinated as the large machines walked or rolled across the landscape, cutting, reaping and storing the various produce. Here, so close to the Spike with its collection of Sighs—scientists—as well as being the home to most of the world’s elves, meant that these trolls, trollies or base models upon which a mishmash of extensions could be added and controlled by AIs, actually worked. Their AIs had not degenerated into madness over the millennia.
The nearest sported a huge roller with blades that cut into the wheat as it strode purposely across the plain. Sebastian had called it a ‘combine-harvester’, although Kassi had yet to work out what it was combined with. Ahead, rising above the huge troll, the northern ‘end’ loomed large. Kassi had once briefly glimpsed the southern end through a blizzard of snow and ice. That had been a mass of ice permanently clogging that end of Ah’kis. Whereas here the ‘end’ just sat there. A vast wall that filled her vision. Filled the world before her, yet they were still a hundred miles from it. It was incredible.
Already she could see the end of the sunline where it was ‘held’ in the sky. The burning filament itself ‘started’ a good mile or so from the true end. No one in their right mind would actually climb the ends of the world and then touch the brightly burning sunline. But then in her experience, people were inherently stupid, so that somewhere, someone would try such a thing. Health and safety, Sebastian called it. Then again, he called a lot of things by weird names.
Kassi glanced around. She could sense Sebastian’s comforting presence, but he was off somewhere to her left. Wisely leaving the warrior alone because he knew she needed the space. The emptiness and the quiet. Definitely the quiet. Considering she had captained a ship for almost two years, Kassi was surprised at how quickly a group of people could get on her nerves. Perhaps it was the fact that most people on the Shadow Queen had been colleagues who had felt less inclined to have a natter every five minutes. Whereas her companions on this, the last leg of her arduous journey, were friends and family.
Thus, each had an opinion and a thought, or memory, or hilarious thing they wished to share with her. Each day. Every day. Every. Fucking. Hour. Of every day. She had spent so much time alone that such camaraderie was... strange.
Even Kaze was an effort. Especially Kaze.
Her brother, who had been held in some sort of suspension for the past few years. Held by four legged two armed demons that Sebastian called aliens. Creatures from outside of Ah’kis. Just like the Ancients of Earth. That was not even the worst that had happened. This ‘suspension’ had somehow frozen her brother in time. He was now younger than her, and their initial meeting had been bittersweet. That and extremely awkward. The !Chann had held Kaze as a motivation for Kassi. That she responded less well to such motivation had meant that he had been held for over five years.
The only upside of all of this was that Kaze had no recollection of any captivity, so for him only a few days had passed. Oh, and now she was also big enough to boss him around, no longer the little sister who had to do what her brother told her to do. That part she enjoyed immensely.
Remarkably, Kaze took his own capture and not-being-alive-nor-dead part well. It was the two months they had spent at the Spike, living amongst the elves and the occasional Sigh, that had been the problem. While Kassi discovered as much as she could about this last part of her journey, her friends, and others, were filling Kaze’s mind with crazy talk. So much so that most of his conversations with her now began with. ‘X says that you....’ Today it had been her fight with seven knights. ‘How did you? What did they do? When did you?’ On and on and on. When that was finally over, Kaze then started again on her run-in with ‘The world’s greatest swordsman’. (Now deceased.)
Perhaps it was all karma. The way Sebastian had described it, Kassi could see her young self always pestering Kaze, and now he haunted her. God. How she loved him. Despite all of it. Because of all of it. A normal life at last. Except her life had never been fully normal. A girl as interested in sword play as doll play. And of course there was Sebastian. A machine, allegedly, yet one more alive than many a person she had met. A machine and the cause of much worry for her. She’d had a weird idea days ago and was waiting to broach the subject with him.
‘You rang?’
She almost leapt out of her skin. She already had her sword half drawn.
‘How can something made of metal not even clank once?’ she asked, knowing that there was no answer.
The surface engineering bot just shrugged. An action that appeared to require no moving parts whatsoever yet was abundantly eloquent. ‘You generally make enough noise for the both of us. Why should I add more?’
Kassi rolled her eyes and looked sunlineward. Every other rogue A.I. had either become mad or semi-functional. She had to be the one person to find the sole A.I. that had developed sarcasm.
‘I was thinking.’ And she whipped her sword under Sebastian’s ‘neck’ part just to inform him that saying anything at that point about how unusual such an event possibly was would be unwise.
There was a soft ‘Humph’ that only she could make out and then silence.
‘I do not feel that this Kyrk’Non-Loann of the !Chann is telling either of us the full truth.’
‘What makes you think this?’
‘Numerous times she has explained how unique I am and that I am needed to turn Ah’kis and save the pipeworld.’
‘But?’
‘Why the subterfuge? Why take Kaze and then let him go, back at the Spike? I could have easily turned around and not carried on.’
‘That’s not you though, luv.’
‘I know that. And you know that. But these demons/aliens have barely monitored me all these years. We know that they used Fyonne to patch me up as best they could, but that whole thing with the Shadow Queen. What was that all about?’
‘Why make you swim ashore when there was a good chance that you’d die? It is something that’s troubled me for months.’ Sebastian sounded worried.
‘I have an idea. A crazy idea but...’
‘So have I, luv, but please, you go first.’
‘They were excited about human telepathy. Not only because it would aid all the people on Ah’kis, but because of something else. When they found the first ark, they harvested as much technology associated with it to help, but it still wasn’t enough. They wanted it so badly that they were searching all the people for that bit of DNA, whatever that is, that makes me telepathic. They even tried to find it in Kaze, but to no avail. I’m one in tens of millions. Too special to kill yet with no way to use me for whatever they need telepathy for.’
‘Until suddenly she was willing to toss you overboard and just see if you survived.’
‘Because I’m not really special, am I? Not in the sense of being the only one who has telepathy here on Ah’kis.’
She looked down at her friend and companion. ‘You do too.’
‘A quirk of my positronic brain having spent a few millennia outside with energetic cosmic particles ripping through the spongium of my brain.’
‘A quirk, yes. But one that can be replicated—is that the word? One that can be placed in other A.I.s and then whatever they need me for they can reproduce a thousand you.’
‘They want me up there at the northern pole of the ark. Not you.’ Sebastian’s voice was flat and emotionless, but Kassi felt his anger on a deeper level. ‘And they have put you, your brother and everyone else we love in danger just so that they can play their games.’
They walked on in silence for a minute before Kassi said. ‘To be honest. That’s as good a reason to find out what the hell is going on.’
‘It may be easier than you think,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Can you feel something shifting at the side of your senses? A feeling of echoes unheard?’
Kassi paused and concentrated. ‘Yes. Just a faint rustling. I would’ve ignored it if you hadn’t told me. What is it?’
‘I think it is the background chatter of the !Chann, at least those who are telepathic themselves. We may be able to “hear” what it is they are trying to hide.’
‘Apart from taking you and leaving me here dead or alive?’
Sebastian looked at his friend. They both understood that the only way they would ever be separated would be with Kassi’s death. He would fight until his own demise to prevent that ever happening.
It took them five more days to finally reach the northern end of the ark. Now the wall rose solidly before them, stretching up and around. Filling the senses. Overwhelming the eyes. Sebastian had explained everything to her and the others. What was supposed to happen was that the ark slowly stopped spinning, reducing centrifugal force, and that would allow the people to be carried to the northern end in preparation for the slowdown. The air-flyers the elves used were a part of that original transference.
Then the people would be assembled here on the rims that stepped up, or down depending on your perspective and the effect of the forces that affected you as the whole ark slowed. Acceleration and deceleration. That push/pull you felt when a cart started or stopped but multiplied a thousand times.
Already Kassi could make out the square indentations that created steps up the face of the wall. Concentric circles that, when the ark slowed, you could actually sit on and work from. Allegedly, it would take two months to slow the ark to a halt. Uncomfortable but easily survivable. Except today, after many thousands of years instead of the requisite two hundred, no one knew about this. No one was prepared for this and, most importantly, there were now many millions more than could actually wait out the journey’s end.
That meant that whatever the aliens told her, Kassi had no choice. There was no slowdown-and-stop chance. If people wished to leave, it would be from a craft travelling at a third of the speed of light. Which frankly meant nothing to her even when Sebastian explained it all. The numbers were so large that she just understood them as a lot.
She looked up. About two miles up the face of the northern end, there was a small hole. The entrance she sought. As she studied the steps while they climbed higher, she considered ordering everyone not to come. Asking them politely last night had gone badly, with no one agreeing to the idea. Johan suspected there was something, but that was mostly because there always was something, and often there was coin to be found at the end of it. Kassi tried to keep her friends away from the craziness of her life, and the fact that each and every one of them was willing to climb this solid wall was a testament of her failure.
She sighed. She really should have been more awful to the lot of them. Perhaps even stamped her foot and screamed once or twice. That had seemed to work with her mother. Then she would not be here with a group of people in tow. She even had an elf in tow. Zen, a senior elf who had taught her to use the airwings, had decided to come with them to the ‘far north’. She just wondered what it was that caused all these people to follow.
Finally, with a shrug, she faced the wide steps that swooped majestically upwards. At first, they were shallow, and the group found it easy to walk. The first mile up was pleasant, even if the lesser sense of ‘gravity’ was disconcerting. Still, they had all been atop the Spike and spent a good few months up there, so ‘lower’ gravity was not a real issue.
The last mile was harder. The stairs were steeper until they ended at the almost vertical northern face. Wide banks of ladders rose up the last few hundred metres with wide ledges to rest on. Resting was for the others. Kassi and Sebastian almost raced up, reaching the small opening just after midday. Small is a relative word. What had seemed a minuscule entrance from below was now a huge opening at least a hundred metres square. The last few metres, the steps returned.
Kassi waited at the top. Sebastian would never get tired, but he was not built to climb stairs as steep as ladders. The entrance opened into the wall, creating a vast space as big as any auditorium Kassi had seen during her travels along Ah’kis. At the end there stood a large doorway, probably thirty feet square, that was accessed through what looked to be an ill-fitting door. It was as wide as the entrance, yet a little short. Kassi wondered if others had tried to access this ‘bridge’ the aliens had spoken of, or if there had been damage over the millennia.
There was no sound, but Kassi knew that Sebastian was standing behind her.
‘A broken door?’ she asked.
‘Not sure. Solid metal from what I can see close up. It looks to be just placed there.’
‘Can we get around?’
‘There appears to be room.’
The two began the long walk to the entrance. As they approached it, the metal shuddered and unfolded in quite a deliberate way. Limbs extended from it and lifted it up. It turned to face them. A troll. A giant of a troll. They paused, waiting to see what it did. The trolls further south had degenerated so much that their AIs were barely operative. Those trolls were murderous, attacking anything that came close. So far, this one had done nothing but turn to face them.
A long sliver of metal snaked from the top of the troll, and Kassi saw a squashed sphere with sensors. This was the troll’s ‘brains’. Its head. The head floated slightly above them, its sensors watching them intently. Then, a loud booming voice echoed in the confined chamber of the vast entrance hall.
‘Pa.. ss.. Wor.. D,’ it said, stuttering as though it had forgotten how to speak after all these centuries.
Kassi said to Sebastian, ‘I have this. Hopefully.’
She stepped forward and spoke clearly. ‘1. 2. 3. 4? Or perhaps. 0.0.0.0? I mean, Sebastian here is always telling me that no one ever resets the original password. Correct?’
She felt rather than saw the bot roll its eyes. A thing that should be physically impossible for him.
‘In.. cor.. rect,’ the troll boomed.
Sebastian came to her side. ‘Perhaps if we knew the parameters of the password. For instance, how many words, etc.’
The head shifted slightly, hovering just above them, out of reach. ‘129.. chara.. ters. Seventeen capitals... Five numbers... Nine special.. sssymbols.’ The troll paused, and then a smile appeared on the face. ‘And... it is a... a palindrome.’
‘Now wait. That cannot be correct. The whole thing is uneven and therefore one of the five numbers and nine symbols would need to be placed dead centre. There is no combined number/symbol,’ Kassi said.
There was a strange sound that juddered from the troll. It took a second or two for Kassi to realise that it was laughing. She slipped her sword out, ready. The troll did nothing for a second and then a large leg swept towards them. Or at least where they had been. Both of them had moved. Sebastian to safety. Kassi at the troll. She swung her sword, but the head was retracting quickly back to the body, which, inconveniently, was suddenly a lot closer.
‘Why did the last troll have to be insane?’ she asked no one in particular. ‘We’ve passed hundreds down there all happily working away and yet up here... Cuckoo land.’
‘Law of averages?’ Sebastian posited. ‘For every hundred happy trollies, there is one big motherfucker who is mad? Also. Down there. Elves and Sighs working to keep said trollies happy. Up here? Loneliness and no one to talk to.’
‘Does it look like it wants a cosy chat?’ Kassi asked. Sebastian just shrugged.
The troll skittered towards them, and Kassi felt a chill down her spine. Sebastian had always moved with a fluidity that belied his eight legs. There was almost a feline quality to his movements that she had never really noticed before. Until this large troll raised itself up and walked towards them. There was a stiff, rapid, ungainliness to it that triggered some deep instinct that resided in all humans. That sudden shudder when something many-legged runs across the periphery of their vision.
Not that it slowed Kassi down one iota. She ran and leapt, the lower ‘gravity’ at this height enabling her to almost fly at the troll. A wall of sinuous tentacles similar to Sebastian’s own writhed around her. She swung her sword, hacking through the multitude of limbs almost effortlessly. Landing to the side of the giant. At least only Sebastian and I are facing this monstrosity, she thought.
Then a cry went up, and a series of crossbow bolts rebounded off the tough carapace of the troll, and Kassi saw Jago the dwarf fly through the air, axe in hand. A throng of limbs batted him away, but Kassi saw him land feet first, thankfully unharmed. Behind him, Zen, in his exoskeleton, raised a wand/rifle and fired. The shot, powered by powerful monopoles, sent a thin slice of metal into the carapace of the troll. It appeared to ignore the shot.
I really should not have spoken, she thought. Johan ducked beneath a dozen limbs and split them open with his own sword. He turned and smiled at Kassi. Then shouted.
‘Did you think we’d leave the two of you to have all the fun?’
No, but it would have been nice to know you were all safe, Kassi did not say. Instead, she turned to the giant. Her friends were more than capable of protecting themselves, although she had a small pang of doubt when it came to Kaze. He was a fair swordsman, but she had been able to beat him from the age of twelve. What sort of swordsman can be beaten by a twelve-year-old? She pushed the thought from her mind.
{Sebastian?} she thought.
{Aye?}
{Where do you reckon the troll’s mind is?}
{Most likely the head we saw.}
{The one we saw retreat deep into its heavily armoured, densely protected body?}
{Yep. The same one, luv.}
She sighed (whilst dodging a dozen limbs and running her sword along the underside of the trolls body. Sparks flew.)
{Fine. Keep Kaze as safe as you can}.
{Whilst also aiding you and stopping this machine? Of course. I have the brain the size of a planet, and you want me to do only two things at once.}
{And this brain the size of a planet always forgets that I am immune to your pop culture references.}
She dodged one of the long, heavy legs as it pounded into the ground, Sebastian’s chuckle in her mind.
{Keep them all safe for me.}
Then she shut that part of her mind away and focused on the giant troll in front of her. (And above her. To both sides of her and most likely behind her as well.)
‘The legs. Forget the tentacles and concentrate on its legs,’ she shouted, swinging her shield around and flicking it on. A deep blue shimmered into life just as it met the leading edge of one leg. The shield was a relic of the past. One where the people who had built the ark were still in charge. The combination of atom-thick metal and monopole magnetism had created something that could cut through almost everything. The troll’s leg certainly being on the list.
Kassi rolled away as the troll suddenly found one of its supports vastly weakened. It instinctively shied away from putting weight on the leg. Which was fine. It had a dozen or more, anyway. Johan, Jago and Sebastian converged on a second leg whilst Kassi joined Kaze at a third. Zen continued to fire at will.
‘Is it always like this?’ Kaze asked her.
‘Like what?’ she replied, hacking at a thick coil of electronics and hydraulics running down the girders that consisted of the troll’s legs. ‘Chaotic? Noisy? Violent? Unplanned? Balletic?’ She danced away from the heavy leg to illustrate her point. ‘Useless? Hard? Shields? Swords and Sandals?’
‘Sandals?’
‘Sebastian tries to teach me something he calls “popular cultural references”.’
‘Sounds awful.’
They backed apart, allowing a mesh of limbs to wriggle past them.
‘Oh. It is. Very. But it keeps him amused.’
‘That’s odd,’ Kaze replied.
‘What is?’
‘When I spoke with Sebastian the other day, he told me that letting you “go off and hit stuff” was his way of keeping you amused.’
They had to part for a minute or two, dodging the troll’s attacks and generally hacking away at any part that was within reach of a blade. When Kaze caught up with his sister he asked. ‘Why are we doing this?’
Taking down another leg Kassi replied. ‘Eventually the troll will be unable to move. Then I can actually get to the important bit. Its brain.’
A mass of wriggling tentacles squirmed their way towards them, and she set her shield free to bounce back and forth, cutting most of them into small piles of useless metal. The shield returned to her arm just as she chopped away at more hydraulics. The smell of oil filled the place.
‘We could set fire to it,’ Kaze said, parrying the four remaining tentacles.
‘And what would survive better in fire? Flesh or metal?’
‘Ah.’
‘A fair idea though. Just that we’re in a pretty enclosed space and mad buggers like this are.. Well. Mad. God knows what it would do.’
Kassi leapt onto the nearest leg and shimmed upwards. At the joint she stuck her sword in and twisted. The whole lower leg suddenly collapsed, and the troll stumbled. It was slowly running out of usable legs. It roared in frustration. She jumped down and rolled under a few trailing limbs. Popping up here and there to disengage them from their bodies. Glancing across the concrete floor she could see Fyonne, Zen and Sin all firing crossbows and rifles. At least they were a safe distance away.
Two legs stomped down close to her. She jumped on the nearest, waited until it began to rise, and then leapt across to the second. A second later the first leg smashed into the ground. If she had stayed, Kassi would have been hurt badly. As it was, the troll had merely damaged one of its own legs. It howled again in pain and frustration.
Kassi meanwhile climbed quickly up the leg and onto the giant’s back. She managed a handful of thrusts before a blanket of the finer limbs slithered across the troll towards her. She jumped, diving through the air and rolling heavily on impact with the ground. Three feet followed her, stamping hard enough to crack the concrete.
Sebastian used the troll’s distraction to propel himself upwards and cling to its underbelly. Sebastian’s two forward arms/legs hung free as he manipulated their ends until both were thin blades. As he scuttled across the giant’s belly he jabbed and cut, hitting a major electrical pathway and severing another main hydraulics centre. Then he dropped and hurried away.
The troll did not know where to turn. Its head, imbedded deep within its chest, turned this way and that. Trying to focus on who was inflicting the most pain and failing. It tried to move away, but with so many legs now damaged it could only do so slowly. Somewhere inside its programming and memory the troll began to understand its predicament. It tried another sweep of its available legs, but the small carbon-based forms just jumped over and stung it more.
Kassi took the opportunity to climb up the giant and onto its large back. Already hydraulic fluid ran and sparks leapt from cut electronics. A number of thick defensive panels were cut open and, given time, somebody could easily find something inside that was important. The thing was that all the troll’s most vulnerable systems were hidden deep within that body. She ran along the ridge of its spine and swung across its sight. A plethora of flexible limbs tried to sweep her away.
Out of their reach Kassi noted that at least two bolts had found the troll’s left sensor and it was dull and unresponsive. The remaining ‘eye’ was more than capable, despite the constant drip of hydraulic liquid that ran down the troll’s face. Glancing towards the wide opening that showed Ah’kis in all its splendour, Kassi had an idea. She transmitted the germ of her idea to Sebastian and then scrambled back to the troll’s face. There she smeared more oil over the giant’s remaining sensor and then scrambled out of its reach.
‘Light,’ she shouted and then she began to hack at the troll’s remaining legs, pushing it back.
The troll was too occupied with the carbon-based forms to properly wipe its sensor clear. Beside. It knew every inch of this space, having inhabited it for thousands of years. Through the smear it looked around and saw that behind it was the soft light of the entrance. The small creatures were trying to push it that way. Most likely aiming to push it over the edge to fall two miles. The troll smiled to itself and pushed back. It may have had a number of damaged legs, but it could still move fast enough to cause the worst of the little creatures to move out of its way. It made its way slowly to the back of the entrance hall. Towards the gloom and the safety of the corridor which had become its home.
Kassi tried to push the creature towards the light but it refused. Slowly edging ever away from it and towards the darkness. She thrust and prodded continually. As did Johan but to no avail. The troll relentlessly made its way from the light towards the darkness. Here the ground was slippery with oil and the troll hesitated. It tried to find the smaller opening to its corridor, the place where it felt safe.
Kassi ran before the giant, goading it. Calling out and waving her sword to catch its attention. Then she darted forward and sliced through yet another set of supports for the troll’s massive legs. It stumbled briefly and rounded on her in anger. She leapt to one side as it brought a leg down trying to smash her. The troll’s leg came down heavily, but instead of solid concrete the giant found an edge.
It had put so much force into the blow that when it found only the edge of the ground it slipped forward, almost rolling over itself. It tried to right itself but the small human leapt onto its back tipping it further forward. Then the small mechanoid ran into it from behind and the troll suddenly found itself no longer in the vast entrance that had been its home for centuries. Now it was outside, flailing trying to find a way to hold on, and failing.
Everyone ran forward, unable to even articulate the name that each wanted to scream. All apart from Sebastian, who sat patiently to the side, waiting. As the others almost reached the edge of the vast hallway, a shape emerged from the gloom of the Ah’kis night and Kassi walked up the last few steps back into the soft light of the hallway.
Johan ran into her and almost picked her up before deciding that kissing her would be the better option. Fyonne looked at her sternly and said angrily. ‘You did not just throw yourself off, did you?’
Kassi struggled speak between kisses and Sin apparently trying to entangle her legs so that she did fall this time.
‘I could lie,’ she finally said, gently pushing Johan away and detaching the boy from her right leg. ‘The main thing is that it worked. When Sebastian and Zen lit up the far wall, the troll became disorientated, forgetting that the nights draw in earlier this time of year and so the sunline was switching to the moonline. It thought the ‘light’ was the opening and fought its way to the ‘back’. It found the edge instead. It was then just a matter of pushing it over the ledge.’
‘Are you sure that it won’t be coming back up here?’ Zen asked nervously.
‘I could go and have a look.’ Kassi stepped towards the edge of the entrance hall and everyone shouted. ‘NO!’
‘Okay. Well I can tell you that it did not have the mechanisms to hold on just those weird snake-like things, so it was well on its way to the ground when I managed to jump off it and land back on the wall.’
‘So what now?’ Johan asked.
Sebastian stepped towards the long corridor. ‘I believe that goes on for a few hundred metres and then there is a lift which will take us to the bridge.’
‘And that is it?’ Jago asked unconvinced.
Sebastian and Kassi looked at each other, thinking about their discussion days earlier.
‘Yeah, she replied brightly. ‘It should be a walk in the park.’
The End
(Until Kassi and the End.)
|
|
|
|
| |
|
