Kirlian Quest
He concentrated. Take me to a safe site with usable machines, he thought, hardly expecting it to be this easy.
He was in deep space. Deep deep space! Intergalactic space, perhaps inter-Cluster space.
He rotated, guiding his orientation by willpower, since he had no body. Now he saw a Galaxy, so far away it resembled a diffuse star. It was Andromeda! Or the Milky Way, or some other great Galaxy of the Universe.
Was he lost in some far Cluster? He had not anticipated this!
How was he able to see, since he had no body? None of this made much sense.
He examined his situation more closely. Now he turned his lens on it. His apparatus was a conglomeration of antennae, baffles, and refractive fields. A functioning Ancient machine, in a safe location. A million light-years from the nearest Galaxy. Well, he had asked for it!
His aura had animated the machine. It was possible! He was now a robot in space. No one suspected that the Ancients had left functioning equipment out here! Not that it made much difference, as no telescope could resolve so small an object at such a range. No physical ships would be traveling out here. It would take them at least two million years to get this far, and any that did that not only had to be freezers, they had to predate all contemporary cultures by two million years, and postdate the Ancients by one million years, which meant they could not exist anyway. Even the survey Net could not pick this up. The Net did not go this far out, and the receivers were not nearly sensitive enough. Only freak luck would show a space-borne extra-Galactic Ancient site, which was why this one was safe from discovery by Cluster entities—or the Amoeba.
If he could report the site's precise location, the Cluster Council could have their experts attempt to tune it in, and mattermit a specialized crew here.
Mattermit?
Yes, this was a mattermission station. He recognized it as such because he was of it. It was also a Transfer station intended for energy transport. Evidently the Ancients had Transferred a sapient entity along with their shipments of energy, to supervise operations. Though what they were doing way out here in nowhere was not clear.
This might be the only surviving space station, or there might be hundreds, some much more conveniently placed for investigation by Cluster experts. He would have to perform a survey. He had already established that a high-aura creature could occupy Ancient equipment; therefore victory on both Cluster and personal fronts was within reach. The Cluster could achieve Ancient science, which was turning out to be even more marvelous than he had really dared hope, and he could recover Psyche. Maybe this was where the Ancients themselves had gone: into their own equipment! Unfortunately, they had not been able to reproduce themselves there— No, they would not be such fools! All would soon be known. But until he knew where he was, he could not accomplish much.
Location: exactly where was he? He needed some sort of spatial coordinates, precise ones. Was there orientation equipment here? There should be... and there was. As he thought of it, this subunit became functional. He focused his scopes and antennae, becoming aware how marvelously efficient they were, and in moments had his answer. He was at the fringe of the Cluster ellipsoid, and the Galaxy he saw was Milky Way.
He noted his position as precisely as possible, then concentrated again: nearest other functioning unit.
And found himself in orbit about Cloud 9. In an instant he had jumped another million light-years. The implication was plain: However many Ancient units had been in Cluster space originally, few remained now. That suggested a fair attrition rate. The machines were not perfect. Not quite.
How many such stations had there been originally? He could not tell; the information was not in the Ancient memory banks. These were functional sites, not memory-storage units. Probably a landbound site, such as the one be and Flame had entered, would be more complete. Maybe she was getting all the information they needed while he wasted his time traveling.
But he still needed to identify the ones that remained. Not only would analysis of their equipment offer the Cluster parity with the Amoeba—and perhaps superiority— but each could be an excellent base for launching attacks against the enemy. It would take the best Cluster industries a significant period to build sophisticated new equipment along Ancient lines, even given full blueprints, assuming the Cluster Council ever let the blueprints get out of committee. In that period the Amoeba could overrun it all. It would be necessary to use the stations already in place to stave off the enemy thrust until the new weapons were ready.
Still, why mattermit technicians out to a space station, if there were planetbound ones available? If he could find one, and get news out about its location before the Amoeba struck, they might get a Cluster battlefleet into position to protect it. Those energy-globe Amoeba ships were effective, but they would find armed Cluster battleships to be much more of a challenge than an unarmed archaeological mission!
He considered the geography of the Cluster. Where would a planetary site be most accessible to the natives, and least accessible to the Amoeba? Not in deep space, certainly! But Amoeba ships had come to Planet Keep and Planet Mars within the Milky Way Galaxy, so a Galaxy was no protection either. And he had fought, as it were, hand to hand with the Amoebites in the globular cluster orbiting Pinwheel. They might be non-Kirlian, but they could certainly get around. Probably the Amoeba could strike anywhere, and within minutes. Except perhaps at a major Cluster military base, or a fleet of battleships.... A military base? Why not? Technology alone made the Amoeba superior. Nullify that, and the advantage would swing firmly to the Kirlian Cluster. At a military base, it would be a straight one-to-one combat without frills. The Amoeba's technological sophistication would be matched by the sheer firepower of the base.
But how would the Ancient equipment know where contemporary bases were? The Ancients had put together their Empire three million years before such bases had been established. Unless the Ancient equipment monitored such things....
No harm in trying, anyway. So far he, like other contemporary entities, had consistently underestimated the capacities of the sites. He might find out more by investigating the instruction banks of the equipment itself, but this was like delving into a host-memory: tedious and time-consuming. Easier to make it operate in its own fashion. He wanted his answers now, before the Amoeba struck.
He willed—and was there. In a planetary site near a military base. He looked out of his lens and saw—
A Jet.
So he had reached a site in Sphere Jet, Sixteen's globular Cluster home near the black hole. Of course the Ancients had been here, since they had taken the trouble to isolate the low-aura Jets. Well, the Jets were part of civilization now, fully sapient and with more aura than they had had three million years ago. Too bad they had not known about this Ancient site in their midst.
Too bad for them; perhaps fortunate for the rest of the Cluster. Had they discovered this site a million years ago, the Jets would have become the Cluster enemy!
Not known? He was looking into a chamber of the site itself. The Jet was inside the site!
Maybe the Jets did not realize its significance. They might think it was merely an interesting artifact. He would contact them.
How? He was in the Ancient circuitry, his aura little more than a current within it. As Psyche's aura must be, somewhere. Getting in direct touch with a creature outside this circuitry was a problem. He had no living host to step into, unless he tried for the Jet himself, and he hesitated to do that yet. It might only foment confusion.
Well, he could operate the equipment to a certain extent, as he had done in space, turning perceptors about. Could he make this machine speak?
He tried. Attention, he thought. Too bad there was not a vision screen or animation chamber here. He could really communicate with one of those!
The Jet in his view reacted. It wooshed something in an unfamiliar language. Certainly not the language Sixteen had used briefly, =, and no variant of it; the fundamental precepts and inflections diffe
red.
But then Herald's circuits meshed, and meaning came through. And the invocation of those special circuits told him something else. This language was related to that of the Ancients themselves, for the equipment could comprehend it directly.
No... it had to be a full translation rendered into Ancient by this amazingly sophisticated site. Naturally it seemed like Ancient to him, at the receiving end. The reason he had not understood the Jet original was that the modern language was not immediately comprehensible either to him or to the Ancient equipment. It had to be classified and rendered into machine-language. The Ancients would have understood the speech of Jet three million years ago, so the equipment could trace its considerable evolution.
Other Jets appeared. They operated the inputs. Naturally they were curious about this manifestation of the site. He was curious about them, too. If they understood this equipment well enough to tune the controls, why hadn't they understood it well enough to Transfer to the main centers of the Cluster, instead of remaining in isolation? They could not have discovered this site just in the past day; they moved around in it with too much familiarity.
Of course. They were low-Kirlian and so could not Transfer. Still, why hadn't they told the Cluster Council about this site, knowing how important it was? Were they saving it for their own use, contrary to Cluster policy?
Herald decided on caution. He really knew the Jets only from the one archaeological expedition on Planet Mars, and from Sixteen. That had been a separated group, reared in the Galaxy. Their home culture in Sphere Glob might be quite different, with secrets and motives unsuspected by other Clusterites. These Jets might not be quite as friendly as he had thought at first. If he had been a member of a culture restricted to a globular Cluster, adjacent to a dangerous black hole, for three million years, how would he feel about outsiders? Particularly when the first outsiders had done the restricting and the later outsiders had alleviated it only to the extent of taking (and never returning) sapients as samples for study. No question about it: He would be extremely cynical about the motives of aliens!
Now their dialogue filtered through to him. |||The machine spoke! Is it a communication from the ancient ones?|||
Not the = of Sphere Jet, but the ||| of the site. A full translation! He was already coming to comprehend the Ancient mode better.
|||No. Consider the readings. There is an abnormality in the machine. It is very old; such problems are to be expected.|||
Time to get in touch, since they were now aware of him anyway. As they were low-Kirlian, they could not get at him even if they weren't friendly.
No abnormality, he willed. I am Herald the Healer of Sphere Slash, Andromeda.
|||It must be a recording,||| a Jet said.
|||No, the readings indicate aural flow in excess of aperture-keying intensity. A definite malfunction.|||
|||Eliminate it. It is vital that the unit be properly functional for Action Hour.|||
|||This is difficult without risking damage to the apparatus. These ancient devices are of borderline reliability.|||
They didn't believe him! Idiots, I am Herald, Kirlian sapient. This site must be made available to Cluster experts immediately.
|||Inanimate consciousness?||| a Jet exclaimed.
|||Notify X!|||
Not inanimate consciousness! Herald blared. I am a living creature. Speak to me!
|||The site has developed self-consciousness!||| a Jet cried, horrified. |||We must destroy it!|||
Oh, oh. Herald decided to shift location; he was making reverse progress here. Another site near a military base, he willed.
The Jets vanished. Where was this site? He extended his awareness. It was in Sphere Duocirc, Andromeda. %. But—
Within the site were more Jets.
Something was wrong. Jets could not be here in an undiscovered site in the heart of Galaxy Andromeda! Unless....
Where was the last site? he inquired with sudden suspicion.
And had the answer from his Ancient circuits: Sphere Slash, Andromeda. Not Glob Jet, but his own home region!
The Jets, verifying their gauges, became aware of him.
|||There is a disturbance in the equipment!|||
Herald willed himself to another site: the one at Glob Jet. The real one.
He bounced. There was no such site.
|||Message from X: Be on alert for machine consciousness in functioning ancient sites.|||
If there were no site in Glob Jet, how had the Jets gotten here? They must have infiltrated the Cluster, somehow locating sites that no other species was aware of.
But the Jets could only have done this by using the sites themselves, as Herald was doing now. Not by Transfer, for them, but by mattermission. Perhaps one of their archaeological teams had uncovered a functioning site, giving them entry into the entire system? And they had used that site for their own purposes, instead of giving the invaluable secret to the Cluster. Now, in the face of the crucial threat by the Amoeba, the Jets were still keeping the secret, though they had to know how vital it was for the very existence of Kirlian life. Which side were they really on?
Then Herald perceived what he had missed before: These Jets differed in detail from those he had known. They had a different taper on the fuselage, a distinct pattern of coloration, and thicker support fibers. They were in fact a separate variety of Jet, perhaps a distinct subspecies. No wonder their speech and manner were strange!
|||This unit possesses alien consciousness!|||
Herald wished himself away again. This time he landed in Sphere Magnet of Segment Etamin, Milky Way, a station hidden in an orbiting planetoid. No Jets here, fortunately!
Strange that these hostile Jets had not infused their auras into the mechanism of the sites, as he had done, so they could chase him down directly. That was the obvious course, instead of trying to track him by reading their instruments. Of course, Jets were low-Kirlian, so could not ordinarily Transfer, but this was not an ordinary situation. The Ancient equipment possessed the power of enhancement, so that even very weak auras could be elevated to Transfer strength. Now any Kirlian creature could Transfer! They must have discovered this. If they really wanted to catch him....
A Jet appeared in the mattermission aperture. That was another thing: Why did they mattermit so freely? The expense of energy, when Cluster distances were involved, was criminal. The Ancients must have given their equipment huge reserves, but the Ancients were no longer present to restore that energy as it was depleted by wasteful use, and these fabulous sites would inevitably become nonfunctional in time. If these Jets had the finesse to use all these supposedly undiscovered sites, surely they knew the value of energy!
Herald investigated. He concentrated himself in the circuitry adjacent to the control panel and extended his aura into the volume of space the Jet would occupy as he operated these controls.
Sure enough, the Jet came. Herald tuned in on the typically small aura he knew was there—but it was not there.
Either he had lost his ability to perceive fractional auras —or this entity had no aura.
No aura at all?
He gave it one more try. He drew on the resources of the equipment, enhancing his own aura to almost three hundred, and spread a more powerful perceptive net. If anything, even a millionth of norm, were there, he would pick it up.
Nothing was there. His field spread through purely mechanical channels. No electrical or semielectrical nervous system at all. It would be impossible for any entity to Transfer into such a host.
Slowly the truth registered. This species of Jet was not small-aura, it was null-aura. No wonder they used mattermission: even with the potential of enhancement, they could never Transfer. No wonder they followed Herald only by instrument. The Ancient equipment could detect his Kirlian frame, but this Jet variety was inherently incapable of it.
Non-Kirlian sapience! Completely without aura, yet fully intelligent and competent. He had the proof at last, from direct experience; such spec
ies did exist in the Cluster. Perhaps the Jets of Sixteen's species knew about this, but had concealed it, fearing their cousins would be destroyed, as all other non-Kirlian sapients had been three million years ago. Now, with the coming of the Amoeba, they could act at last.
|||Alien consciousness manifests in this unit!||| the Jet exclaimed.
And through the Ancient unit came the answer: |||Destroy unit!|||
They were playing for keeps, these sudden allies of the enemy! The Jet nudged the master power switch—and Herald willed himself back to Sphere Slash, Andromeda. Now he knew why Psyche dared not reveal herself. Cutting the power of his equipment would destroy any aura within it.
He arrived safely. His £ host stood in the communication chamber, beside that of Flame's host. Apparently the non-Kirlian Jets had not yet discovered his point of origin.
He hopped quickly into the host. The Jets were no doubt querying the site network about his location. If he got out before they caught up, they might lose him entirely. This particular site had no mattermission facilities, perhaps because there could be so few receivers for creatures this size. It was pure Kirlian. That was a big help. Neither the non-Kirlian Jets nor the non-Kirlian Amoeba could strike directly, physically, here.
Non-Kirlian Jets, non-Kirlian Amoebites—how could he have missed it. Once more he had been blind to the obvious. These strange Jets were the Amoebites! Non-Kirlian sapience from another Cluster of the Universe.
Where was Flame? Her host was here, but if her aura had followed his into the Ancient equipment....
The flame of Flame appeared in the screen in the holographic image. "Herald? Is that you?"
"Yes! We must depart instantly. The Amoeba has taken over the Ancient network of sites. We must get out, for this is the one site they cannot invade physically. Don't go in the circuitry, because they may turn it off by remote control."
"Herald, I know! But I must tell you—"
"Move! Or it is death—for us and Cluster! Activate the surfacing mechanism!"
"Herald, I have found Psyche!"