Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [95]
Back on the homeworld, the First Lattice had been a great fortress, its foundations reaching deep into the crust of the planet, its sensory organs stretching almost to the clouds. But the Lattice had moved as soon as the war against the Metatraxi had begun, decades ago by the campaign calendar. The fortress had grown engines, turning itself into one enormous dynatrope unit. It had taken the neural energies of over four thousand Krotons to lift it off the ground and out into space; the effort had exhausted all of them, but the sacrifice had been worth it. These days, the First Lattice was large enough to consume whole cities, though it was still navigated by only four minds, the Highest Brains that had overseen its growth over the centuries, and that now formed the heart of its structure.
E-Kobalt was still wearing its null-gravity body when it disembarked, its legs so long that it could have touched both sides of its dynatrope’s control section just by flexing its joints. But even this form was tiny next to the tunnel ahead, the passage from the docking nodes to the caverns at the core of the First Lattice. It took days to travel from one end of the tunnel to the other, E Kobalt knew that from experience. Even so, it began the the walk without a moment’s hesitation.
Of course, it could have used some kind of vehicle. The passage was wide, easily large enough to accommodate a dynatrope. But that wasn’t the point. Above all else, the First Lattice was an object of veneration. If the four Highest Brains were to be approached, they were to be approached properly, and with the due decorum. Step by step. Kilometre by kilometre.
(It was a Kroton thing. No one else would have understood.)
Three days later, E-Kobalt arrived in the cavern occupied by the four Highest Brains.
The word “cavern” might not have been strictly accurate, as the area had been crafted by the sheer will of the Highest Brains, but it was large and empty enough to make E-Kobalt feel it had been there since the first tellurium-based life-forms had crawled out of the primal ocean. The floor was enormous, a field of polished crystal at the bottom of a shaft that stretched from the core of the First Lattice to the sensory organs at its very tip. If you fell from the top of that shaft, the rumours said, you’d fall for a full day before you hit the ground. Even among Krotons, there were stories like that.
Each of the Highest Brains was a cranial unit the size of a standard habitation block, a single flawless crystal that no longer had any need for legs or weapons attachments. Intake tubes sprouted from every available surface, sucking matter from the jagged white walls of the cavern. High overhead, the Brains were linked by delicate neural connections, and from the ground E Kobalt could see other Kroton units using them as walkways, making their way from neural port to neural port, inputting new data from Kroton-occupied worlds along the Quartzline Front.
But as the Commander of the Fifth Lattice, E-Kobalt-Prime had the honour of standing on the floor of the cavern, and thus holding the full attention of the four. The news of the victory at Qu2296 would already have been received and processed, days ago, but Lattice commanders were expected to report to the Highest Brains in person. It was the way of things.
‘YOUR-PUR-POSE-IS-TO-BE-A-MEN-DED,’ said the Highest Brains, in perfect harmony.
Their voice shook every nerve in E-Kobalt’s body. The commander was surprised, even a little disappointed. It had expected questions about the battle against the Metatraxi. Honours, perhaps. Not this. ‘I-do-not-un-derstand,’ it said, hoping its legs wouldn’t shatter.
‘YOU-WILL-WATCH-THESE-ME-MO-RY-RE-CORDS. YOU-WILL-UN-DER-STAND.