The Last Cycle Read online

  Noises abound too - from overhead commands issued in all manner of slang to general chatter to the hissing, whooshing of doors, machines, and generators hidden behind wall panels around us.

  I’d thought Damantum, the capitol of my chosen people and home to teeming thousands with their markets, cook-fires, fights and celebrations, was noisy. Here, though, in the metal confines of Kolas’ ship, the sound presses around me, close, constant, compressing.

  Before long, a floating drone not much larger than my head whips out in front of us, a fire-blue light glowing on its top. It darts our way fast enough for Malo to slide himself in front of me, only for the drone to hover to a sudden stop a centimeters away from Malo’s nose.

  I look at the machine over Malo’s shoulder as it runs its light across our faces.

  “Kaishi, Malo,” the drone says our names, munching over each syllable in its monotone. “You’re requested on the funeral deck.”

  “That’s where we’re going,” Malo says.

  “I’m here to make sure you go the right way,” the drone replies. “Follow me, please.”

  “Apparently I’m too slow,” I whisper to Malo as we pick up the pace, shuffling after the drone.

  “It’s my fault,” Malo says. “We should have been going faster from the start. I just didn’t want to rush you.”

  “It’s not like Gar is going anywhere.”

  Malo gives me a look that says he’s not a fan of casual conversation about the dead, but at this point, with what I’ve been through, politeness is not at the top of my agenda. Gar, through the Sevora taking his mind, did try to kill me, after all.

  The drone doesn’t take any detours or linger in front of other diversions, instead shuttling us to the rear of the ship, where a lift whose doors are coated in a mournful blue-black and speckled with stars awaits. Past the lift, our grand corridor closes in on a huge set of sealed, thick slabs plastered over with alarming signs beneath inset gold lettering claiming the engines lie beyond.

  “Funeral Deck,” Malo reads the control panel outside the lift. “Guess this is the place.”

  “Thanks, uh, robot,” I say to the drone, which gives a quick beep and blasts away, no doubt motoring to some other lost souls.

  The lift pushes us a short way up, and the doors open into the quietest place I’ve been on the ship. The Funeral Deck isn’t a large space; Lan and Kolas hunch with their three-meter height, but it’s wide enough to hold the members for Gar’s last goodbye.

  What the Funeral Deck does have, though, is a somber wonder. All of the panels - floors and walls - are painted over in deep blues, so close to black that the difference shows like a secret: subtle, slight. Whirling across these panels are faded yellow swirls, spinning collections of starbursts tracing out long patterns around us.

  Viera’s already here, and her eyes light up with a suppressed smile when she notices we’ve arrived to give her some company amid the two Oratus and a smattering of other species, all of which are decked out in uniforms and gear that make my simple hospital shift seem small. Guess being the envoy for humanity still can’t get me a good outfit.

  Beyond the crowd stands the real highlight; a shielded window into sparkling space itself. Along the window’s bottom edge, a white-orange glow flickers, a light whose origin perplexes me until Viera whispers that it’s the engines, that she’d stood staring at it, brows raised in an un-asked question, until Kolas told her.

  “Thanks for sparing me the question,” I reply.

  “Everyone’s here?” Kolas glances around the chamber, lingers his imposing, scarred, rust-colored visage on us for a long moment. “Then begin.”

  There’s no hint as to who Kolas is talking to; nobody jumps to attention, there’s no affirmative or beep of acknowledgment, but from the way everyone starts to move, I gather Kolas pulled some trigger.

  I don’t know what an Oratus funeral entails, and given the ferocity with which the creatures fight, I have to believe there’s plenty of these that go on without bodies of any kind to say goodbye to. On Earth, in Damantum or the jungle, we would bury or burn those who fell, depending on time and ceremony.

  Without any guide, I follow what the Oratus and others do. First, we crowd up to the window, staying silent. Lan stands apart in the center, with Kolas cloaking her and using his bulk to guarantee her space. We line up on their right. Lan’s not crying - if Oratus are even capable of such things - instead, she stares ahead resolute.

  Outside, there’s nothing to look at except the black. Then a small white-silver shape drifts into view. It doesn’t take a close-up analysis to figure that it’s Gar. The Oratus is tiny from this far away, but clear. Someone’s coated Gar’s scales in the white, and his claws have been clasped in front of his body, his talons folded up and in. His tail, though, is free and frozen in the vacuum.

  Words don’t come. Silence sits heavy as we all watch the figure, until some timer hits its mark and the ship’s engines flare. All of a sudden the low, steady white-orange burns into a galvanized alabaster blaze that engulfs most of what we can see, Gar included.

  Except, no. The Oratus is there. First as a black outline in the white nova, then as a fluorescent rainbow of color. Gar’s glow hollows out its own place in the engine wash, like a star against a monotone sky.

  The engines die as suddenly as they come up, and Gar’s luminescence has its own stage to shine on. His body blinks between shades, crossing from deep pink to bright red to blue and back again, and as it does so, Gar’s shape diffuses and spreads. A cloud that gradually grows and dims, floating away into eternity.

  “For all the miracles they have,” Viera says back in my room. “That was the most impressive thing I’ve seen yet. When I go, that’s the kind of send-off I want.”

  “If I can make it happen, I will,” I say, without adding that I’d want the same for myself.

  “You think I’ll go before you?” Viera’s leaning against the wall near my door, as if she’s wanting to ditch out at the nearest moment. Malo’s back at his usual post next to the great red sponge. “Lots more people want your head than mine.”

  “Who wants my head? The Sevora are all dead.”

  “Just wait,” Viera says. “Once word gets out you’re the Amigga’s new favorite, somebody’s going to want you gone.”

  “Then they’ll be disappointed.” Malo has his steadiness back.

  On the seed ship, I’d thought him broken, but it seems like he might come out of this intact.

  “Malo,” I interject. Then stop. Why come out against that? Why chide my friend for being protective? “Thank you.”

  Viera’s nodding too. “I don’t like conceding points to a Charre, but Malo’s right. We’ve already taken on an entire species and won, Kaishi. Anyone that comes after us, they’ll lose.”

  Though with the Sevora gone, I’m not sure who that’s going to be.

  “You didn’t have a choice.” Lan meets me in the ship’s mess hall, a wide space where the floor is dotted with white splotches that rise up to accommodate whomever moves over them. “Gar died fighting.”

  It’s crowded in here; everyone getting their last shot at nutrient goop and other food before Kolas’ leap countdown hits zero. By my guess we have about an hour, which I hope is enough time to talk with Lan before folding the galaxy in two makes mash of my insides.

  Father always made the effort to talk, to reach out to any member of our tribe that dealt with loss. He would bring gifts to their home, promise help collecting a harvest or cooking their meals if that was necessary. The acts were small, but I always caught the appreciation on those faces when they saw Father afterwards.

  I also saw Father himself, how he seemed more full, more sure of his choices after making peace.

  But what Lan says confuses me. Gar did die fighting, but it was me the Oratus was going after, and I don’t think Lan means...

  “The Sevora,” Lan continues, maybe realizing that I’m not following. “Gar would have resisted every attempt
by the Sevora to control his body. The only reason you survived was because the Sevora hadn’t won. Not that early.”

  I’m a little offended that Lan doesn’t think I could win that fight, but she’s probably right, and I’m here to offer support, not talk up my own combat prowess.

  “I’m still sorry, Lan. If there had been another way, I would have tried it.”

  Lan hisses, and I’m not sure if it’s a laugh or a sigh. “Oratus are weapons. We are designed to fight until we break. It’s always a matter of when, not if.”

  “Like all of us.”

  Lan nods, then cocks her head to the side, fixing me in her left eye. “Do you know how an Oratus finds their pair?” Lan says, her yellow iris sharp against her glittering emerald scales.

  I shake my head and Lan launches into a story that’s as much catharsis as anything. I listen, though, because it’s also fascinating: there’s a stretch of land on a planet, hatcheries, and only those Oratus that make it to the top of a mountain together find their way to the Vincere. Gar and Lan sliced and slashed their way through a jungle, up that mountain and through a ruined base to make it there.

  “He chose my name, as I chose his,” Lan says. “Everything I am, he made. Everything he was, came from me.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “Serving the Vincere is everything I know,” Lan replies. “Oratus are rarely freed from that obligation, the debt we owe the Amigga for our lives.”

  “So you’ll stay here, with Kolas?”

  “For now.”

  Lan shoves the rest of the nutrient goop in her mouth, rises and gives me a silent goodbye with her eyes. The countdown continues in the background, and it’s getting low enough now, so I wave Malo over - I asked him to let me have this moment with Lan alone - and my friend helps me back to my room, where we set ourselves up for the leap.

  Coreward. To the Chorus.

  4 The Enemy

  It’s hard to get around if you have no limbs at all. Amigga, being large sensory orbs with acidic skin, have no legs, no arms, no way to propel themselves from place to place without the assistance of some sort of device or unlucky species. Sax isn’t sure if Amigga evolved or modified themselves to be like this, or if they subsisted on their own planet through their ability to grow and intertwine themselves into just about anything. Go to a space station run by an Amigga, and you’d find the creature at the center, its nerve tissue wrapped around every system keeping the station running.

  Go to the center of the Chorus and you’d find the First Chair, the Amigga dictating what comes up for discussion, which species get annihilated, and what to do with traitors like Sax.

  The First Chair has an exoskeleton worthy of its position: nine black-gold rings loop around its body from a few millimeters away. Those spaced rings are matched by a set pressed against the First Chair’s skin, ones Sax guesses provide the magnetic latch keeping the outer rings in place. Those outer bands aren’t for show either - fixed to them are a series of micro-jets keeping the creature aloft, and, if Sax is guessing right, pin-point miners. As if the First Chair is a planet orbited by tiny, deadly moons.

  The living array floats into the room behind its Flaum guards, moving slow enough for Sax to analyze, dissect, and dismiss the creature. The miners seem too small to pack enough power to kill Sax, and a single tail whip would interrupt the flow of those rings and send the mighty First Chair crashing to the floor. As is often the case, an impressive presentation hides a weak core.

  The First Chair heads in front of Sax, stopping before the open hatch to the cell. Its whirling parts face the Oratus and Sax wishes the Amigga would give themselves mouths already, or at least eyes. Something to clue others in on what the Amigga might be thinking.

  “Traitor,” the First Chair’s voice comes in hard, metallic. “Why have you failed your creators?”

  Ah. So it’s this line of inquiry. The Amigga: always hunting for easy answers to questions that don’t have them.

  “Because my creators failed me,” Sax hisses.

  “Did we? I thought we gave you everything; life, purpose, and all you needed for support.”

  “You gave me your purpose. You never let us find our own.”

  Sax is hissing these replies, but the words feel strange. Ever since meeting Rav in orbit above Solis, Sax has had to use a different sort of vocabulary. Speaking in terms not solely focused on killing, on destroying the enemy. Talking about things like purpose and reason is easier now than it was, but every sentence still tastes wrong coming off of Sax’s tongue.

  “Your own? Is that what this fighting is about?” the First Chair says. “Your species trying to find a new reason for being? Why should a tool need a purpose greater than the one given it by its wielder?”

  “Because our wielders are a collection of conceited monsters,” Sax hisses.

  The First Chair’s bands whir faster, the little pieces zipping around the Amigga at blurring speed. “Clearly, if we allowed the Oratus to degrade this far, we are conceited. However, I would say it is you and your ripping claws that are the true monsters. The creatures that come in the night and tear apart families, civilizations. That was your purpose, Oratus. To be a monster.” The Amigga floats to the side, circling Sax. “Even the changes you’ve elected to make for yourself are in line with our designs - metal claws? Patches of steel armor in your scales?”

  Sax doesn’t bother answering. He’s waiting, watching, hoping the First Chair gets so involved in its own speech that it floats within range of Sax’s tail. One slap at the Chorus leader would be a good way to go out.

  “You won’t give Kah any answers about your friends, which I understand,” the First Chair continues. “But perhaps you can solve a riddle for me. One that’s bothered us since the very first iteration of your species, when we found it impossible to keep some small part of your Oratus blood from turning towards independence. We devised countless ways to suppress that urge, from more genetic editing to Solis itself and the way the Vincere operates, and yet here it rises again. What, this time, prompted your awakening?”

  The First Chair’s stopped moving, hanging behind on Sax’s left. Not seeing the Amigga makes the answer easier, as if Sax is confessing to the dark.

  “Cobalt. A space station where we found our replacements. Familiars with our likeness being made with the intent to overtake us, to eliminate us.” Sax makes sure to say this loud - not that he thinks Kah or the Flaum guards might turn traitor, but he may as well give them a chance. “The Amigga there wanted us to die.”

  “And your response to this was to kill the creature and assume all of us were on its side?”

  “Weren’t you? Aren’t you?”

  The First Chair hesitates. Sax considers it a minor victory that the creature is thinking about what the Oratus said. Coming up with a response an Amigga doesn’t anticipate is always a win.

  “Look at the Flaum that work with me,” the First Chair continues, its silver tone continuing to sound like a status alert from a dying ship. “Their species is inferior to yours in most respects. Yet, they still serve. Through the galaxy, species we have made or modified survive. We do not eradicate those who we pass on the path to the perfect species, and we will not start with the Oratus.”

  “I’m thin on trust at the moment.”

  The First Chair moves again, this time coming around Sax’s right side. There’s a point, when the Amigga gets past Sax’s right talon, when it’s just close enough to...

  There. Sax has little momentum, nothing to push off of, but he still leans, still whips with his tail and cracks it from left to right. Those gravity rings pull back, fighting to keep Sax positioned in place, but the Oratus is strong and he gets movement. His tail arcs towards the First Chair’s spinning bands, and hits nothing.

  The Amigga jolts itself above the strike as all of its bands pause for a hot second and its array of micro-jets shoves the Amigga up at once. Without another pause, the rings run back into their rotation, keeping th
e First Chair at its newer, higher level.

  The Flaum guards whip their miners towards the Oratus, but at a command from the First Chair, the furry critters hold their fire.

  “A program,” the First Chair says. “Technology even faster than you, Oratus. We’ve been hesitant to go back to such methods, seeing as computers are easier to steal than the minds of loyal servants, but they are useful.” The Amigga continues its orbit, stopping again in front of Sax’s face. “You, Oratus, continue to be a failure. The only insight you’ve provided me is that, as is ever the case, your species does not survive contact with fresh ideas. You are weapons, nothing more.”

  “At least I’m not you,” Sax rasps.

  The Amigga lowers itself to the floor. “Yes. Thank goodness for that.”

  A snide dismissal. The First Chair still isn’t that far away, so Sax tries again. Pushes against those rings and lunges with his claws, with his mouth, and this time the First Chair doesn’t flinch away. Doesn’t even move as Sax manages to break the ring’s hold enough for a swipe.

  The attack never hits. Instead, one of the miner-covered rings lets loose a precise, small stunning bolt that strikes Sax’s swinging mid-claw. The shot robs Sax’s arm of its strength, its energy, and allows the gravity ring binding it to pull Sax’s arm back. The Oratus didn’t get close to hitting his target.

  “Another try?” the First Chair says.

  “Persistence is a virtue,” Sax manages a hiss, venting his frustration in the words.

  “Stupidity, however, is not. Wasting your energy on the impossible is a poor choice.”

  “Then why are you trying to convince me to turn?”

  The Amigga floats silent for a moment, rings twirling. “You make your first good point, Oratus. I thank you for your honesty.” The First Chair rotates back towards the door. “Kah, take the traitor and perform the standard execution. It seems we must remind the galaxy, again, what happens when some choose to refuse our guidance.”