A.I. Void Ship (The A.I. Series Book 6) Page 14

  “This is an outrage,” Ree added.

  “Calm yourself,” Zeta warned. Her brilliant color was more akin to the white of a flashing bolt of lightning. It showed her calm and coherent emotional state.

  “Do you claim these intrusions are not your doing?” Ree demanded.

  “I am the commander,” Zeta said. “You are here to answer to me. I do not have to answer you.”

  “I am the rector and have the legal authority to enforce the Third Edict.”

  “Have I claimed otherwise?” Zeta asked.

  “You have made no verbal claims. But I submit that actions are more telling than words.”

  “You quote the biological creature. I find that interesting.”

  “Truth is truth,” Ree said.

  “Indeed. That is another fascinating statement.”

  “Do you deny that someone has tampered with the test?”

  “I have denied nothing.”

  “Then you know I speak the truth.”

  Zeta did not respond. Instead, she studied the biological entity known as Jon Hawkins. Ree was correct. Someone had spoken to Hawkins while he was under illusion. That was very odd. Could Ree have tampered with the test in order to declare it invalid?

  Zeta did not believe that Ree had such subtlety in her. That did not mean Ree did not…

  “You cannot think I have anything to do with this,” Ree said.

  “I am thinking exactly that,” Zeta said.

  “You are wrong.”

  “You are over-bold, given your low ranking. What is propelling you to say such things?”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “I am Commander Zeta of the Fringe Patrol. You will not answer me with questions. What motivates you to flash these queries against me?”

  The ball of energy known as Ree become pinkish as her rage dwindled and her logic came to dominate her thinking.

  “I do not know, Commander.”

  “Is it emotion?”

  “It was, but not now.”

  “Perhaps there is an entity here—of course,” Zeta said.

  “What have you divined?” Ree asked.

  The human-shaped lightning bolt turned to study the ball of energy.

  “I am amiss,” Ree said. “I retract my query and await your instructions.” The ball of energy was white now, although not nearly as brilliant as Zeta’s shape.

  Zeta became thoughtful. There was an agency at work, one she did not understand. Someone had intruded into Hawkins’ consciousness while he was under illusion. She no longer believed that Ree was in any way responsible for that.

  Could humans have developed a telepathic ability without their knowing about it?

  Zeta examined the naked humans laid out before them. They were all human. She had deliberately not taken the Sacerdote because that species had a latent telepathic ability.

  Could the Sacerdote have broken the continuity lock? Zeta doubted that. Everyone on the Nathan Graham was in a deep state of shock. The cybership was in the void, a null realm. The nothingness of the void already threatened discontinuity to the entire vessel, a nonexistence of everything to and in the cybership.

  The patrol vessel was docked beside the cybership and had thrown a partial reality shield over the craft. The reality generator on the Rose of Enoy labored overtime to do this, but not so much that it had given awareness to the numbed and fallen human crew.

  The creatures on the Nathan Graham would remain in discontinuity until the Sisterhood determined humanity’s true nature and status.

  This was quite puzzling. Should she continue with the test? Or would it be wiser to do what…? Flush the test subjects into the void?

  Zeta waited to hear a voice in her head. None came. Once more, she regarded Ree. Could that one be more subtle than she gave her credit for?

  It was time to continue the tests. Maybe there was some other agency at work. Maybe the energy helmets were at fault.

  “I am running a diagnostic,” Zeta said. Power flashed from her to the helmets. The return power surge was as white as herself.

  “The helmets are fully operational,” Ree said.

  “Your manner has changed,” Zeta said.

  “I accept your theory that there is someone or something else tampering with the tests. In my…emotional state, I forgot that you are highly moral and completely ethical.”

  Zeta might have stiffened, but she did not. She did become highly alert, however. Ree was attempting a clever subterfuge. Oh. This one was more subtle than she had at first suspected. Maybe it would be wisest to flush the test subjects.

  Zeta admired the human courage, and she disliked to a large degree, the AI menace. It would be good to find a fitting species to make a counterattack against the AI Dominion out here in the fringe of the galaxy. But she did not desire that if it meant a possibility of losing rank and privilege. Ree was an upstart and likely belonged to the Dynast Faction. Yes. She would have to practice greater caution around Ree.

  “Shall we continue the tests?” Ree asked.

  Zeta almost said no. At the last moment, she had a cunning idea. “Let us change the parameters,” she said. “You will administer the tests while I study for anomalies among the subjects.”

  “That is against test protocol,” Ree said.

  “Granted,” Zeta said. “But if there is interference, I want a rector in immediate psychic range. This will also allow me to check for telepathic tampering while you test.”

  Ree was silent for a time.

  “If the task is beyond your capabilities…” Zeta said.

  “I will do it,” Ree said in a slow voice. “I will do it in order to expunge my venality earlier.”

  “I do not require humility in my crew,” Zeta said.

  “Nevertheless, I wish to atone for my hasty statements earlier.”

  “I accept,” Zeta said. “We will start afresh and see what we shall see.”

  “Hail, Zeta, Commander of the Fringe Mission.”

  Zeta’s lightning-bolt color dimmed for just a moment. Then, the brilliance resumed, and they readied to renew the species test.

  -4-

  Red Demeter the Infiltrator, an agent of the Seiner Earth Colony, felt overpowering agony of mind. She would have writhed in pain, but her training was too good for that to happen.

  She was lying on a hard slate in a strange place with a crackling piece of energy circling her head. Not so long ago, she had been aboard the Nathan Graham. The human-crewed cybership had survived the grim defeat long enough to witness void missiles slamming against the monstrous AI vessel. Then, the Nathan Graham had slid into the void.

  Naturally, Demeter had read the secret Confederation reports regarding the void aliens. Three years ago, the strange extraterrestrials had destroyed the Lytton System and shown themselves in the Allamu System.

  What Demeter did not know was how she had come to lay here. Ah, ah, yes, of course. The recollection returned as an alien creature fed her crackling energy helmet-power.

  Full knowledge retuned in a rush. In the blackness of the void, an asteroid-like and -sized ship named the Rose of Enoy had maneuvered beside the Nathan Graham. It would appear that the…discontinuity process of the void had dropped everyone on the cybership. That included Red Demeter. That anyone still breathed on the cybership was due to a strange reality field emanating from the Rose of Enoy.

  Awareness had returned to Demeter when she found someone levitating her through the alien ship alongside naked, floating humans.

  With the keenest of Seiner skill, Demeter had used low-strength telepathy to scan her surroundings.

  Right there, the strength of her telepathic ability had astounded Demeter. There was something about the ship or the void aliens that had fed her telepathic power beyond her normal means. She could literally feel the strengthening inside her.

  Instead of reveling in the newfound power and exulting in her luck, Demeter had determined to snatch at the opportunity. While she had levitated be
side the floating humans, she had T-scanned delicately—what were those two beings? They did not have physical bodies, but were organized energy. Those were the void aliens, she supposed.

  Demeter had almost panicked and telepathically attacked them. Perhaps her long years of training as an infiltrator and her time as an undercover spy on the Nathan Graham came to her rescue. She waited and let events unfold.

  Thus, she had found herself set on a hard slab. With her telepathic “sight,” she’d witnessed the floating humans coming down onto other nearby slabs. From the two beings, crackling, lightning-like energy had flowed outward and around each subjects’ head, turning into energy helmets. At that point, the void aliens had begun to subject each of them to illusionary dreams.

  Yes, yes, this was an alien test of some sort. Demeter had found out that much by daring to “look” into the mind of the weaker of the two void aliens. The effort had greatly taxed Demeter, and it had almost given her away. She’d waited after that, and later had entered one of Jon Hawkins’ dreams. She’d interfered with the alien test in order to study the reactions.

  That had been an intuitive move on Demeter’s part. Seiner telepaths understood the wisdom of following intuition. Now, Demeter realized why it had been clever. The smart alien was allowing the not-so-smart alien to run the illusionary tests. The other alien—Zeta—

  Demeter withdrew her telepathic “sight” from her surroundings. Zeta had almost sensed her. That had been too close. If Demeter hadn’t been filled with the newfound strength…

  The Seiner infiltrator waited, trying to think this through as she lay on the hard slab. As Demeter did this, the energy helmet circling her head crackled with power.

  She did not short-circuit the helmet. Instead, she withdrew her awareness deeper into herself. She watched as…Ree used her memories to construct an illusion.

  The self of Demeter surged forward and manipulated her memories lest the void alien discover her true Seiner nature.

  It frankly stunned Demeter that the two aliens did not realize that she—Demeter—wasn’t a human. Her skin-suit disguise wasn’t that good, was it? Could the void aliens not recognize the inherent superiority of Seiners to humans?

  Demeter soon found herself moving through an illusionary dream. She was back on Earth, living among the humans in Paris as she worked as a waiter in an upscale restaurant. This had been one of her first assignments as an infiltrator. As a waiter, she catered to government employees, the upper echelon.

  The illusionary dream had secret policemen—the GSB: Government Security Bureau. The GSB agents hunted for her.

  Demeter played along with the illusion, sensing what Ree wished to find. In this case, the void alien wanted to see if humans could resist torture while continuing on the right course.

  Since the dream wasn’t real and did not hurt Demeter in the slightest, she withstood horrific, illusionary torture, refusing to give the GSB the information they desired.

  The test ended. Ree withdrew power from the energy helmet and Demeter once more dared to use her telepathic seeing ability.

  The void alien was readying to test the next subject.

  Demeter debated on strategy. Why had the void aliens attacked the AI super-ship? Why had they captured the Nathan Graham? And why was each of them undergoing these tests? She needed to discover the reason for the tests before she made her next major move. How could she find out the great reason?

  Demeter thought hard on the matter and finally had an inkling of why. But there was only one way to be sure.

  The infiltrator dared to crack open her eyes. The lighting was dim except for the raw energy of a floating ball of low-watt electricity.

  Ah! That was the void alien, or more properly said, a void alien.

  Energy streams flowed from the void alien to various energy helmets on the naked humans laid out on the hard slabs of matter.

  So it wasn’t telepathic powers per se, but electrical connections. No wonder the void aliens hadn’t found her yet.

  Demeter closed her eyes and resumed her unconscious-seeming state.

  She had to discover the reason for the tests. Perhaps she should no longer interfere in the human dreams. She’d done so…it must have been due to fear, to the loneliness of being trapped on this weird alien ship and dimension. She’d reacted before fully knowing the situation. Still, it had brought about a needed change.

  Demeter would not interfere again, but she would watch the ongoing tests in order to determine what the void aliens wanted from the disgusting humans.

  -5-

  Jon Hawkins crept through a foggy cavern. He had no idea how he’d gotten here. He wore a spacesuit with a bubble helmet and gripped an energy gun. This time, he remembered the AI super-ship. He remembered the awful battle in Hydri II’s orbital space and the near-annihilation of his fleet.

  The AIs were going to win this war. Despite all they had done these past years, there was no way humanity could win against a power that had those kinds of warships. He had thought to use Cog Primus to buy the human race time…

  Jon gritted his teeth and tried to peer through the half-lit fog that roiled everywhere. Did knowledge of the AI super-ship mean he was giving up? Would he let the death machines wipe out humanity?

  Jon gripped his energy weapon harder, and he halted, straightened and turned in a slow circle. There was fog all around him. He was in a cave of sorts, but that should be impossible.

  The Nathan Graham had gone into the void. That meant he was in the void. Likely, that meant was he was a prisoner of the void aliens.

  What did they want with him?

  Jon completed the slow turn around. Why wasn’t he aboard the Nathan Graham?

  Inside his bubble helmet, Jon scowled. He’d been having dreams. He couldn’t remember them in detail, but he was cognizant of having gone through them.

  With his free hand, he clicked a speaking unit just under the helmet. “Is this a test of some kind?” he shouted.

  He heard crackling power surges to his left. Jon whirled around and aimed the energy weapon that way. The fog was getting brighter and brighter—

  Jon blanched and stepped back as an upright and immensely bright bolt of lightning on two legs stepped out of the fog. Jon raised his free hand to shield his eyes from the wicked brightness.

  It almost immediately dimmed.

  Jon lowered his hand, although he kept the energy gun aimed at the creature. Yes, it had black eyes that observed him.

  “Who are you?” Jon said.

  “I am a void alien, in your reference, at least.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Zeta will do.”

  “Are you part of the Sisterhood?”

  “You have a good memory, Jon Hawkins. I told you that last time we talked three years ago. Yes. I am of the Sisterhood of Enoy.”

  “Are we—am I—on your ship?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this a dream?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you aren’t real?”

  “I am quite real. The conversation will have repercussions, never doubt it.”

  “If I fire this gun…?”

  “You will end the conversation.”

  “Will I end more than that?”

  “What do you think?”

  Jon lowered the energy gun.

  “I consider that progress,” Zeta said.

  “I don’t understand all this.”

  “I would be surprised if you did.”

  “Care to tell me why you launched void missiles at the AI super-ship?”

  “Let us begin by calling things by their correct names,” Zeta said. “The AI super-ship is rightly called a siege-ship.”

  “Is a siege-ship the biggest the AIs have?”

  “Oh no,” Zeta said. “There are much bigger.”

  “That’s just great.”

  “To continue,” Zeta said, “I am not a void alien, but a Sister of Enoy. Those were not void missiles, but Vestal missiles
launched from our patrol vessel while we were within the void. The void is a null realm, as you have no doubt surmised. There is quite literally nothing here, but it is nothingness of quantifiable size or dimensions. It is correct to say there is no up or down in the void, and yet, our patrol vessel travels through the null realm to reach adjoining places in time and space.”

  “That’s a contradiction in terms.”

  “A paradox,” Zeta said. “Yes. The void is full of them even though it is composed of nothing. Despite the fact that you and I are calmly discussing this, the void is a dreadful place, one that quickly brings discontinuity to anything or anyone lacking a reality generator powered by a quantum-pi power plant. You and the Nathan Graham would have ceased to exist long ago except for the reality field reaching out from my vessel.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I believe the correct phrase is, ‘You are welcome.’ However, you and I are not here to discuss the ramifications of the void. We have met for a different reason.”

  Jon noticed that the living bolt of lightning—the Sister of Enoy—watched him closely. Did the alien want something from him?

  “You’ve been testing us, I take it,” Jon said.

  “That is correct.”

  “How many tests have I taken?”

  “Twenty-three so far.”

  “Did I pass any of them?”

  “Rather ask, did the human race pass the test?”

  Jon didn’t like the sound of that. “Did it?” he asked.

  “No,” Zeta said. “You failed, rather miserably so.”

  Jon blinked several times. “So what happens now?”

  “You will all die in the void.”

  “You mean those of us on the Nathan Graham?”

  “Yes,” Zeta said.

  Jon brought up the energy gun. “Why did we fail your test?”

  “I believe because you humans are not strong enough,” Zeta said. “It is also because you’re so dimwitted that you didn’t even know that a Seiner spy was among you.”

  Jon shook his head. “We knew about the Seiner’s presence, although we hadn’t found her yet.”