The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [24]
*
The Construct had just begun briefing one of its humanoid semiorganics when a new update arrived and merged with its cognitive state, causing a slight pause in its walk across the room.
‘Another report from the front?’ said the chalky-white semiorganic. Its body template had yet to be aged, sculpted and adorned with character so its features and posture lacked all expression.
Giving the merest nod, the Construct sent some excerpts from the update’s vid file to the wallscreen, confined to a frame alongside the frozen image of Robert Horst.
‘Thus far encounters with these adversaries have played out very much as predicted,’ the Construct said. ‘That is to say, not entirely to our advantage. However, our deployments of the Aggression have slowed or delayed their advance and in a couple of instances inflicted serious defeats.’
On the screen, against the filtered aura of a blue sun, Aggression barb-cruisers closed on a Shyntanil cryptship. One of its four weapon spires had been reduced to a melted stump and it left a gaseous trail as it tried to escape. The debris of a thousand ships lay spread out in vast glittering clouds amongst which a few lesser craft fought on against the relentless victors. The pursuing barb-cruisers launched missiles but before they reached their target, the cryptship blew apart in a series of violent explosions.
‘This has happened three times,’ the Construct said. ‘Either their vessels self-destruct, or when we manage to take Shyntanil prisoners their lifesigns slow and shut down as their cyborg systems carry out a preset process of self-annihilation. With the Vor it is similar, unhesitating suicide, resulting in the death of both endosymbiote and host, a pattern of behaviour utterly different from the last time they made their presence known.’
‘Seventy-five thousand years, in Human reckoning, since those revenant species last made any inroads into the levels of hyperspace,’ the semiorganic said. ‘Back then they were fighting each other, and after several thousand years of diminishing activity and rare sightings it was thought that they had simply died out. Who or what brought them back from oblivion, I wonder?’
‘And modified their behaviour so radically,’ the Construct said.
‘The Godhead seems to be the likely candidate.’
‘Even so, I had sent Robert Horst to attempt communication with it, perhaps to negotiate a cessation if it was behind the aforementioned anomalous events. With that in mind, observe the following.’
The scenes of battle on the wallscreen vanished and the image of Robert Horst, seated in a padded wooden armchair near an open window, expanded as he resumed speaking.
‘ … led me to Buhzeyl on Tier 103. Have you ever been there?’
‘No,’ came the Construct’s voice from offcam. ‘I do know that it’s called the City of Bone.’
‘It’s an accurate description,’ Horst said. ‘The adjacent tier, 104, is practically a stupendous ossuary, containing the fossilised remains of gargantuan creatures, some over ten kilometres in length, so I was told. Anyway, in Buhzeyl I met a renegade Shyntanil – or rather one who had not undergone the regeneration process.’
‘The Caul Death.’
‘That’s it. He called himself Eshanam and openly admitted that his job was to spot any Godhead-hunters and send them onwards to be captured by the Godhead’s servants. But, he told me, he had grown disillusioned with the deceits and the betrayals, especially since the last survivors of his own species had been lied to and subtly enslaved by the Godhead. He said that he knew of a way to a strange place cherished by the Godhead, from which there was a gateway which bypassed the guarded ways and the elaborate labyrinths of traps.’ Horst grinned. ‘It sounded so like a typical con that I nearly laughed in his face … ’
The Construct paused the image and spoke to the semiorganic. ‘It turned