Hyperion - Orphans Of The Helix Part 2

The Spectrum Helix delegation had been aware of this Ouster adaptation and each was wearing a subtle hearplug, which, in addition to picking up Far Rider's radio transmissions, allowed them to communicate with their AI's on a secure tightband.

The second Ouster was partially adapted to s.p.a.ce, but clearly more human.

Three meters tall, he was thin and spidery, but the permanent field of forcefield ectoplasmic skin was missing, his eyes and face were thin and boldly structured, he had no hair -- and he spoke early Web English with very little accent. He was introduced as Chief Branchman and historian Keel Redt, and it was obvious that he was the chosen speaker for the group, if not its actual leader.

To the Chief Branchman's left was a Templar -- a young woman with the hairless skull, fine bone structure, vaguely Asian features, and large eyes common to Templars everywhere -- wearing the traditional brown robe and hood. She introduced herself as the True Voice of the Tree Reta Kasteen, and her voice was soft and strangely musical.

When the Helix Spectrum contingent had introduced themselves, Dem Lia noticed the two Ousters and the Templar staring at Ces Ambre, who smiled back pleasantly.

"How is it that you have come so far in such a s.h.i.+p?" asked Chief Branchman Keel Redt.

Dem Lia explained their decision to start a new colony of the Amoiete Spectrum Helix far from Aenean and human s.p.a.ce. There was the inevitable question about the origins of the Amoiete Spectrum Helix culture, and Dem Lia told the story as succinctly as possible.

"So if I understand you correctly," said True Voice of the Tree Reta Kasteen, the Templar, "your entire social structure is based upon an opera -- a work of entertainment -- that was performed only once, more than six hundred standard years ago."

"Not the entire social structure," Den Soa responded to her Templar counterpart. "Cultures grow and adapt themselves to changing conditions and imperatives, of course. But the basic philosophical bedrock and structure of our culture was contained in that one performance by the philosopher-composer- poet-holistic artist, Halpul Amoiete."

"And what did this ... poet ... think of a society being built around his single multimedia opera?" asked the Chief Branchman.

It was a delicate question, but Dem Lia just smiled and said, "We'll never know. Citizen Amoiete died in a mountain-climbing accident just a month after the opera was performed. The first Spectrum Helix communities did not appear for another twenty standard years."

"Do you wors.h.i.+p this man?" asked Chief Branchman Keel Redt.

Ces Ambre answered. "No. None of the Spectrum Helix people have ever deified Halpul Amoiete, even though we have taken his name as part of our society's. We do, however, respect and try to live up to the values and goals for human potential which he communicated in his art through that single, extraordinary Spectrum Helix performance."

The Chief Branchman nodded as if satisfied.

Saigyo's soft voice whispered in Dem Lia's ear. "They are broadcasting both visual and audio on a very tight coherent band which is being picked up by the Ousters outside and being rebroadcast to the forest ring."

Dem Lia looked at the three sitting across from her, finally resting her gaze on Far Rider, the completely s.p.a.ce-adapted Ouster. His human eyes were essentially invisible behind the gogglelike, polarized, and nict.i.tating membranes that made him look almost insectoid. Saigyo had tracked Dem Lia's gaze, and his voice whispered in her ear again. "Yes. He is the one broadcasting."

Dem Lia steepled her fingers and touched her lips, better to conceal the subvocalizing. "You've tapped into their tightbeam?"

"Yes, of course," said Saigyo. "Very primitive. They're broadcasting just the video and audio of this meeting, no data subchannels or return broadcasts from either the Ousters near us or from the forest ring."

Dem Lia nodded ever so slightly. Since the Helix was also carrying out complete holocoverage of this meeting, including infrared study, magnetic- resonance a.n.a.lysis of brain function, and a dozen other hidden but intrusive observations, she could hardly blame the Ousters for recording the meeting.

Suddenly her cheeks reddened. Infrared. Tightbeam physical scans. Remote neuro-MRI. Certainly the fully s.p.a.ce-adapted Ouster could see these probes -- the man, if man he still was, lived in an environment where he could see the solar wind, sense the magnetic-field lines, and follow individual ions and even cosmic rays as they flowed over and under and through him in hard vacuum. Dem Lia subvocalized, "Shut down all of our solarium sensors except the holocameras."

Saigyo's silence was his a.s.sent.

Dem Lia noticed Far Rider suddenly blinking as if someone had shut off blazing lights that had been s.h.i.+ning in his eyes. The Ouster then looked at Dem Lia and nodded slightly. The strange gap of a mouth, sealed away from the world by the layer of forcefield and clear ectodermal skin plasma, twitched in what the Spectrum woman thought might be a smile.

It was the young Templar, Reta Kasteen, who had been speaking. " ... so you see we pa.s.sed through what was becoming the Worldweb and left human s.p.a.ce about the time the Hegemony was establis.h.i.+ng itself. We had departed the Centauri system some time after the original Hegira had ended. Periodically, our seeds.h.i.+p would drop into real s.p.a.ce -- the Templars joined us from G.o.d's Grove on our way out -- so we had fatline news and occasional firsthand information of what the interstellar Worldweb society was becoming. We continued outbound."

"Why so far?" asked Patek Georg.

The Chief Branchman answered, "Quite simply, the s.h.i.+p malfunctioned. It kept us in deep cryogenic fugue for centuries while its programming ignored potential systems for an orbital worldtree. Eventually, as the s.h.i.+p realized its mistake -- twelve hundred of us had already died in fugue creches never designed for such a lengthy voyage -- the s.h.i.+p panicked and began dropping out of Hawking s.p.a.ce at every system, finding the usual a.s.sortment of stars that could not support our Templar-grown tree ring or that would have been deadly to Ousters. We know from the s.h.i.+p's records that it almost settled us in a binary system consisting of a black hole that was gorging on its close red-giant neighbor."

"The accretion disk would have been pretty to watch," said Den Soa with a weak smile.

The Chief Branchman showed his own thin-lipped smile. "Yes, in the weeks or months we would have had before it killed us. Instead, working on the last of its reasoning power, the s.h.i.+p made one more jump and found the perfect solution -- this double system, with the white-star heliosphere we Ousters could thrive in, and a tree ring already constructed."

"How long ago was that?" asked Dem Lia.

"Twelve-hundred-and-thirty-some standard years," broadcast Far Rider.

The Templar woman leaned forward and continued the story. "The first thing we discovered was that this forest ring had nothing to do with the biogenetics we had developed on G.o.d's Grove to build our own beautiful, secret startrees. This DNA was so alien in its alignment and function that to tamper with it might have killed the entire forest ring."

"You could have started your own forest ring growing in and around the alien one," said Ces Ambre. "Or attempted a startree sphere as other Ousters have done."

The True Voice of the Tree Reta Kasteen nodded. "We had just begun attempting that -- and diversifying the protogene growth centers just a few hundred kilometers from where we had parked the seeds.h.i.+p in the leaves and branches of the alien ring, when ... " She paused as if searching for the right words.

"The Destroyer came," broadcast Far Rider.

"The Destroyer being the s.h.i.+p we observe approaching your ring now?" asked Patek Georg.

"Same s.h.i.+p," broadcast Far Rider. The two syllables seemed to have been spat out.

"Same monster from h.e.l.l," added the Chief Branchman.

"It destroyed your seeds.h.i.+p," said Dem Lia. So that was why the Ousters seemed to have no metal and why there was no Templar-grown forest ring braiding this alien one.

Far Rider shook his head. "It devoured the seeds.h.i.+p, along with more than twenty-eight thousand kilometers of the tree ring itself -- every leaf, fruit, oxygen pod, water tendril -- even our protogene growth centers."

"There were far fewer purely s.p.a.ce-adapted Ousters in those days," said Reta Kasteen. "The adapted ones attempted to save the others, but many thousands died on that first visit of the Destroyer ... the Devourer ... the Machine. We obviously have many names for it."

"s.h.i.+p from h.e.l.l," said the Chief Branchman, and Dem Lia realized that he was almost certainly speaking literally, as if a religion had grown up based upon hating this machine.

"How often does it come?" asked Den Soa.

"Every fifty-seven years," said the Templar. "Exactly."

"From the red giant system?" asked Den Soa.

"Yes," broadcast Far Rider. "From the h.e.l.l star."

"If you know its trajectory," said Dem Lia, "can't you know far ahead of time the sections of your forest ring it will ... devastate, devour? Couldn't you just not colonize, or at the very least evacuate, those areas? After all, most of the tree ring has to be unpopulated ... the ring's surface area has to be equal to more than half a million Old Earths or Hyperions."

Chief Branchman Keel Redt showed his thin smile again. "About now -- some seven or eight standard days out -- the Destroyer, for all its ma.s.s, not only completes its deceleration cycle, but carries out complicated maneuvers that will take it to some populated part of the ring. Always a populated area. A hundred and four years ago, its final trajectory took it to a ma.s.sing of O2 pods where more than twenty million of our non-fully s.p.a.ce-adapted Ousters had made their homes, complete with travel tubes, bridges, towers, city-sized platforms and artificially grown life-support pods that had been under slow construction for more than six hundred standard years."

"All destroyed," said True Voice of the Tree Reta Kasteen with sorrow in her voice. "Devoured. Harvested."

"Was there much loss of life?" asked Dem Lia, her voice quiet.

Far Rider shook his head and broadcast, "Millions of fully s.p.a.ce-adapted Ousters rallied to evacuate the oxygen breathers. Fewer than a hundred died."

"Have you tried to communicate with the ... machine?" asked Peter Delem Dem Tae.

"For centuries," said Reta Kasteen, her voice shaking with emotion. "We've used radio, tightbeam, maser, the few holo transmitters we still have, Far Rider's people have even used their wingfields -- by the thousands -- to flash messages in simple, mathematical code."

The five Amoiete Spectrum Helix people waited.

"Nothing," said the Chief Branchman in a flat voice. "It comes, it chooses its populated section of the ring, and it devours. We have never had a reply."

"We believe that it is completely automated and very ancient," said Reta Kasteen. "Perhaps millions of years old. Still operating on programming developed when the alien ring was built. It harvests these huge sections of the ring, limbs, branches, tubules with millions of gallons of tree-ring manufactured water ... then returns to the red-star system and, after a pause, returns our way again."

"We used to believe that there was a world left in that red-giant system,"

broadcast Far Rider. "A planet which remains permanently hidden from us on the far side of that evil sun. A world which built this ring as its food source, probably before their G2 sun went giant, and which continues to harvest in spite of the misery it causes us. No longer. There is no such planet. We now believe that the Destroyer acts alone, out of ancient, blind programming, harvesting sections of the ring and destroying our settlements for no reason. Whatever or whoever lived in that red giant system has long since fled."

Dem Lia wished that Kem Loi, their astronomer, was there. She knew that she was on the command deck watching. "We saw no planets during our approach to this binary system," said the green-banded commander. "It seems highly unlikely that any world that could support life would have survived the transition of the G2 star to the red giant."

"Nonetheless, the Destroyer pa.s.ses very close to that terrible red star on each of its voyages," said the Ouster Chief Branchman. "Perhaps some sort of artificial environment remains -- a s.p.a.ce habitat -- hollowed-out asteroids. An environment which requires this plant ring for its inhabitants to survive. But it does not excuse the carnage."

"If they had the ability to build this machine, they could have simply fled their system when the G2 sun went critical," mused Patek Georg. The red-band looked at Far Rider. "Have you tried to destroy the machine?"

The lipless smile beneath the ectofield twitched lizard-wide on Far Rider's strange face. "Many times. Scores of thousands of true Ousters have died. The machine has an energy defense that lances us to ash at approximately one hundred thousand klicks."

"That could be a simple meteor defense," said Dem Lia.

Far Rider's smile broadened so that it was very terrible. "If so, it suffices as a very efficient killing device. My father died in the last attack attempt."

"Have you tried traveling to the red giant system?" asked Peter Delem.

"We have no s.p.a.cecraft left," answered the Templar.

"On your own solar wings then?" asked Peter, obviously doing the math in his head on the time such a round trip would take. Years -- decades at solar sailing velocities -- but well within an Ouster's life span.

Far Rider moved his hand with its elongated fingers in a horizontal chop. "The heliosphere turbulence is too great. Yet we have tried hundreds of times -- expeditions upon which scores depart and none or only a few return. My brother died on such an attempt six of your standard years ago."

"And Far Rider himself was terribly hurt," said Reta Kasteen softly. "Sixty- eight of the best deep s.p.a.cers left -- two returned. It took all of what remains of our medical science to save Far Rider's life, and that meant two years in recovery pod nutrient for him."

Dem Lia cleared her throat. "What do you want us to do?"

The two Ousters and the Templar leaned forward. Chief Branchman Keel Redt spoke for all of them. "If, as you believe, as we have become convinced, there is no inhabited world left in the red giant system, kill the Destroyer now. Annihilate the harvesting machine. Save us from this mindless, obsolete, and endless scourge. We will reward you as handsomely as we can -- foods, fruits, as much water as you need for your voyage, advanced genetic techniques, our knowledge of nearby systems, anything."

The Spectrum Helix people glanced at one another. Finally Dem Lia said, "If you are comfortable here, four of us would like to excuse ourselves for a short time to discuss this. Ces Ambre would be delighted to stay with you and talk if you so wish."

The Chief Branchman made a gesture with both long arms and huge hands.

"We are completely comfortable. And we are more than delighted to have this chance to talk to the venerable M. Ambre -- the woman who saw the husband of Aenea."

Dem Lia noticed that the young Templar, Reta Kasteen, looked visibly thrilled at the prospect.

"And then you will bring us your decision, yes?" radioed Far Rider, his waxy body, huge eyes.h.i.+elds, and alien physiology giving Dem Lia a slight chill. This was a creature that fed on light, tapped enough energy to deploy electromagnetic solar wings hundreds of kilometers wide, recycled his own air, waste, and water, and lived in an environment of absolute cold, heat, radiation, and hard vacuum.

Humankind had come a long way from the early hominids in Africa on Old Earth.

And if we say no, thought Dem Lia, three-hundred-thousand-some angry s.p.a.ce-adapted Ousters just like him might descend on our spins.h.i.+p like the angry Hawaiians venting their wrath on Captain James Cook when he caught them pulling the nails from the hull of his s.h.i.+p. The good captain ended up not only being killed horribly, but having his body eviscerated, burned, and boiled into small chunks. As soon as she thought this, Dem Lia knew better. These Ousters would not attack the Helix. All of her intuition told her that. And if they do, she thought, our weaponry will vaporize the lot of them in two-point-six seconds. She felt guilty and slightly nauseated at her own thoughts as she made her farewells and took the lift down to the command deck with the other three.

"You saw him," said True Voice of the Tree Reta Kasteen a little breathlessly.

"Aenea's husband?"

Ces Ambre smiled. "I was fourteen standard years old. It was a long time ago.

He was traveling from world to world via farcaster and stayed a few days in my second triune parents' home because he was ill -- a kidney stone -- and then the Pax troopers kept him under arrest until they could send someone to interrogate him. My parents helped him escape. It was a very few days a very many years ago." She smiled again. "And he was not Aenea's husband at that time, remember. He had not taken the sacrament of her DNA, nor even grown aware of what her blood and teachings could do for the human race."

"But you saw him," pressed Chief Branchman Keel Redt.

"Yes. He was in delirium and pain much of the time and handcuffed to my parents' bed by the Pax troopers."

Reta Kasteen leaned closer. "Did he have any sort of ... aura ... about him?"

"Oh, yes," said Ces Ambre with a chuckle. "Until my parents gave him a sponge bath. He had been traveling hard for many days."

The two Ousters and the Templar seemed to sit back in disappointment.

Ces Ambre leaned forward and touched the Templar woman's knee. "I apologize for being flippant -- I know the important role that Raul Endymion played in all of our history -- but it was long ago, there was much confusion, and at that time on Vitus-Gray-Balia.n.u.s B I was a rebellious teenager who wanted to leave my community of the Spectrum and accept the cruciform in some nearby Pax city."

The other three visibly leaned back now. The two faces that were readable registered shock. "You wanted to accept that ... that ... parasite into your body?"

As part of Aenea's Shared Moment, every human everywhere had seen -- had known -- had felt the full gestalt -- of the reality behind the "immortality cruciform" -- a parasitic ma.s.s of AI nodes creating a TechnoCore in real s.p.a.ce, using the neurons and synapses of each host body in any way it wished, often using it in more creative ways by killing the human host and using the linked neuronic web when it was at its most creative -- during those final seconds of neural dissolution before death. Then the Church would use TechnoCore technology to resurrect the human body with the Core cruciform parasite growing stronger and more networked at each death and resurrection.

Ces Ambre shrugged. "It represented immortality at the time. And a chance to get away from our dusty little village and join the real world -- the Pax."

The three Ouster diplomats could only stare.

Ces Ambre raised her hands to her robe and slipped it open enough to show them the base of her throat and the beginning of a scar where the cruciform had been removed by the Aeneans. "I was kidnapped to one of the remaining Pax worlds and put under the cruciform for nine years," she said so softly that her voice barely carried to the three diplomats. "And most of this time was after Aenea's shared moment -- after the absolute revelation of the Core's plan to enslave us with those despicable things."

The True Voice of the Tree Reta Kasteen took Ces Ambre's older hand in hers.

"Yet you refused to become Aenean when you were liberated. You joined what was left of your old culture."

Ces Ambre smiled. There were tears in her eyes, and those eyes suddenly looked much older. "Yes. I felt I owed my people that -- for deserting them at the time of crisis. Someone had to carry on the Spectrum Helix culture. We had lost so many in the wars. We lost even more when the Aeneans gave us the option of joining them. It is hard to refuse to become something like a G.o.d."

Far Rider made a grunt that sounded like heavy static. "This is our greatest fear next to the Destroyer. No one is now alive on the forest ring who experienced the Shared Moment, but the details of it -- the glorious insights into empathy and the binding powers of the Void Which Binds, Aenea's knowledge that many of the Aeneans would be able to farcast -- freecast -- anywhere in the universe. Well, the Church of Aenea has grown here until at least a fourth of our population would give up their Ouster or Templar heritage and become Aenean in a second."

Ces Ambre rubbed her cheek and smiled again. "Then it's obvious that no Aeneans have visited this system. And you have to remember that Aenea insisted that there be no 'Church of Aenea,' no veneration or beatification or adoration.

That was paramount in her thoughts during the Shared Moment."

"We know," said Reta Kasteen. "But in the absence of choice and knowledge, cultures often turn to religion. And the possibility of an Aenean being aboard with you was one reason we greeted the arrival of your great s.h.i.+p with such enthusiasm and trepidation."

"Aeneans do not arrive by s.p.a.cecraft," Ces Ambre said softly.

The three nodded. "When and if the day ever comes," broadcast Far Rider, "it will be up to the individual conscience of each Ouster and Templar to decide. As for me, I will always ride the great waves of the solar wind."