The navigator, p.48
The Navigator, page 48
"Who cares what they believe? They won't be able to rebuild this ship just by seeing it!"
"I also have concerns that this shearwater may be contaminated with Aii. This craft sat idle within the Tear Drop for many years. It is highly likely that some Aii from the station have burrowed into its internal structure. I cannot risk spreading the Aii onto land. Thus, this craft must be scuttled in deep water."
"Urgh! Where's this survival pod?"
In lieu of a verbal response, Cynax activated something inside of the shearwater. The whole craft shook as a section of the left wall retracted into the ceiling.
Behind the wall, in a large, central cubby, was a strange object that looked like a giant shell. The shell was three feet long and three feet wide. It was colored a shade of off-white that made it look like it had been carved out of porcelain. Deep ridges cut across the face of the shell, perfectly mimicking the form of a scallop.
Quill walked up to the strange scallop shell. It popped open.
The interior of the scallop looked like the lining of Petal's dive suit. It was full of thick, gray foam but was otherwise empty.
"That's the survival pod?"
"Affirmative. I will eject it from this craft once you are encapsulated."
"You're kidding me." Quill poked the shell's child-sized interior. "I'm not getting in that."
"You must. It is your only means of survival."
"No." Quill furiously shook her head. "I'm not getting in that thing. That thing is a coffin."
"That survival pod is water tight and contains enough oxygen for you to survive for up to twenty four hours. You will be safe. Please enter it immediately."
Quill swallowed her spit.
"I'm not getting in that and getting lost at sea - again! Just pilot this ship back to land. Please! I've helped you already! Now help me! Meet me in the middle!"
"I will scuttle this vessel regardless of your chosen course of action. I warn you - that pod is your only means of survival."
Quill's chest tightened. Her vision contracted. She was on the cusp of a panic attack. She couldn't bear the thought of hopping inside of the little shell and having it snap shut - entombing her.
"Wha - wait! You - you said you couldn't kill people. If you sink this ship, and I don't get in that pod, I'll die. Then you'll have murdered me. And my baby too! You said you couldn't do that!"
"I would not be actively terminating you. I have left you with a clear means of survival. Whether or not you choose to take it is your own prerogative, but my chosen course of action is in no way in conflict with my neural programming."
Quill's cheeks went flush.
"Screwing me over is part of your programming!"
Cynax didn't respond.
"Are you going to screw Petal over too? Why are you doing this to us? We've done nothing but help you!"
"Although I have withheld information from both of you, I have not betrayed you. I do not intend to harm the Khoi. I merely wish to return her to her people."
"The Kingfisher. . .That's why you agreed to-"
"Your planet is still in great peril from the Tear Drop's escape pod. It is imperative that you warn those who possess it not to open it. I will attempt to plan contingencies to prevent them from doing so, but you are in a superior position to ensure that does not happen."
"How do I know you're not lying about this pod? Or the Tear Drop's pod? How do I know you aren't trying to kill me? You could sink this thing once I'm in it."
"I can do nothing but offer you additional verbal assurances."
Quill crinkled her nose. "Your word is shit, Cynax. I don't trust anything you say. All you've done is lie to me and Petal from the beginning!"
Cynax didn't reply.
The shearwater was deathly silent.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Quill began to pace around the craft. "You're just trying to get rid of me. . ."
"The choice is yours." Cynax broke its long silence. "But I will scuttle this vessel."
"Please, if I die - I die. . .but please don't hurt Petal."
"Acknowledged." The monitor switched off.
Quill heard a loud pop followed by a low rumble. The shearwater shook violently and water seeped up from the floor, soaking her boots. She hopped onto one of the seats to avoid getting wet, staring up at the sunroof, lips curled in disgust.
"GODDAMNIT! I hate you, Cynax! I HATE YOU!"
As the shearwater began to sink below the waves, Quill scurried over to the scallop shell survival pod. The water was now creeping past her ankles. She hesitantly sat down on the bottom half of the shell and tucked her arms and legs inside, so she was in a contorted ball. The moment her body was completely inside of the shell, the top half snapped shut over her.
Quill whimpered, now completely trapped in the tiny, pitch-black prison. She wanted to kick herself for trusting Cynax. While she unsuccessfully tried to un-tuck herself from her uncomfortable ball, she heard a muffled whoosh.
The little shell was ejected from the shearwater via a small escape hatch. It gently splashed down into the sea.
- 74-
Petal's fall came to an abrupt end after roughly three hours. At that time, a row of tiny fans embedded in the back of her dive suit activated, allowing her descent to slow to a gentle crawl. She never even saw the seafloor as it approached. Her feet simply came to a rest on the dark bottom in a surprisingly smooth, yet unexpectedly abrupt, landing.
The bottom of the sea was a vast mudscape of black, diatomaceous earth and ghostly drifts of gray marine snow. Petal couldn't see anything. Her surroundings were darker than space. She saw no light other than the blue glow of her suit. She stood on the seafloor taking in the suffocating darkness.
The earth under Petal's feet wasn't solid. It had the consistency of a peat bog - a thick porridge of soupy muck. Peal had to constantly shift her feet to avoid sinking into the ground. It grabbed her boots like quicksand. With every step she took, she kicked up a cloud of mud and sediment. She panted inside of her helmet, waiting for the clouds to settle, tense and still deeply afraid. The silence on the sea bottom was deafening. Her ears rang from the lack of stimulation.
Petal turned her head from side to side, trying to guess which direction she should walk to reach Amanahora. Every direction was clouded by kicked-up sediment and was darker than night, but soon she noticed the blue glow that surrounded her suit glowed more brightly in one particular direction.
Having no other clues to go on, and with Cynax incommunicado, Petal decided to go with her gut and follow the cue of her suit. She began to walk forward with long, exaggerated steps as she glided over the featureless seafloor. The water around her absorbed most of her weight, allowing her to bounce up and down, high above the sediment clouds, like an astronaut bounding across the moon.
Soon, Petal saw lights twinkling in the darkness. At first, she wasn't sure if these lights were the flashes of bioluminescent fish, but as she came closer to them, she saw that their glow was constant. The mesmerizing flicker she'd seen at first was caused by the marine snow, which flaked down in a constant blizzard.
When Petal got to within one hundred feet of the strange lights, she could see that they were mounted on top of a ring of tall spires that rose up from the seabed. These spires were shaped like octopus tentacles, carved out of solid rock. At each tentacle's tip was a sphere of light that dully illuminated the bottom of the sea, and an absolutely massive structure which the tentacles encircled. This central structure was a gigantic black dome which glowed electric blue. It was over a mile wide, with the zenith of the dome towering a thousand feet above the seafloor.
Petal walked past the ghostly spires, up toward the central dome; her footsteps still light and nearly weightless. The dome towered taller and taller, until it filled her entire field of vision. When she came up to its outer wall, a tiny section lit up and glowed white.
Petal stared into the light. It was a wavy sheen of white and yellow, so luminous it was almost too bright to look at. She innately knew this sheen was a Khoi barrier. The barrier was clear, but the water in front of it gave it a wavy, liquid metal appearance. Behind it was a small room.
Slowly, Petal inched toward the shimmering barrier. When it was less than a foot away, she held out her arm and put her hand up to it. Her hand easily pushed through the barrier, which seemed to be some kind of ultra tough, yet easily permeable membrane. She wiggled her fingers when they poked through to the other, hidden side. She didn't feel the usual resistance of water. She closed her eyes and stepped through the barrier.
Once she passed through the barrier, she toppled over, her weight no longer buoyed by the sea. She hit the ground with a thud and was terrified that she'd cracked her helmet. She rolled over and checked the integrity of her suit. The opening where the barrier had glowed began to close as dome's outer walls slowly pushed themselves back together.
With the barrier shut, Petal was trapped. She tried to stand, but her suit was too ungainly. Instead, she sat dumbly on the floor, studying her new surroundings.
The room Petal entered was gray and empty. It had a thick, circular door opposite the wall where the barrier had been. That giant door was completely flush with the wall and seemed airtight. From her prior experience on the Tear Drop, she guessed she was sitting inside of an airlock.
Petal reached for the lip of her helmet. She had no hope of exploring the structure while encumbered by her suit, but she wasn't sure that the air in the airlock was breathable. Terrified, but with no other options, she took a deep breath, flicked open a clasp, and slowly pulled off her helmet.
Nothing horrible happened. Water didn't rush in through the gap around her head, crushing her skull; toxic alien gasses didn't explode her lungs on contact.
Safe for the moment, she eagerly sucked in several lungfuls of the mold-tinged, acidic air that filled the airlock.
After catching her breath, Petal unzipped her dive suit and wriggled out of it.
Now free of her suit, Petal shivered in the cold airlock, searching its bare walls for any sign of an exit. There was no familiar access pad on the circular door in front of her, or on the section of wall from which she'd entered. While she struggled to decide what she should do next, the lights in the airlock suddenly dimmed and then darkened.
"Hello? Is anyone down here?" Petal spoke in Khoi, realizing as she did, that it was the first time she'd done so. "Chaharta?"
There was no answer.
Petal shuddered at the silence, wondering if she'd been permanently entombed. Then, as suddenly as the darkness had fallen, it lifted. The lights in the airlock reactivated, and the circular door in front of her buzzed loudly like a klaxon and rolled open.
Behind that thick door was a long black corridor.
Petal crept forward to the mouth of the newly revealed corridor. A blue light shone out from a silver panel embedded on the wall to her left. The light took the shape of three blue orbs, stacked one on top of another, from smallest to largest, like an upside down ice-cream cone.
Each orb hovered in the air, shimmering in place, forming a hologram.
Petal reached out to touch the orbs. Before her fingertips could penetrate the blue light, the hologram flickered and crackled loudly.
"Hello?"
"Chaharta omalala Fatima - 'Greetings crewman Fatima,'" a charming, masculine voice bellowed. "It has been 3,821 planetary rotations since your last Amanahora login. Welcome home. I am pleased - yet also saddened - to see that you've returned."
Petal pulled her hand away. She tried to decipher what the hologram had just said, not used to being spoken to in Khoi.
"Are you. . .BLUE-HUE?"
"Of course. I am Consortium A.I. - BLUE-HUE," the three orbs hummed. "But we have already been acquainted. Now, how may I best be of assistance?"
"Is there anyone else down here? Any Khoi?"
"No, I'm afraid. All Amanahora personnel are deceased and have been consumed by Aii. You are the only Amanahora resident who survived the outbreak."
"My parents are dead too? You're sure the Aii killed them?"
"Yes. Despite my best efforts, the Aii outbreak proved lethal to all Amanahora personnel. You are the sole surviving Amanahora crewman."
Petal's eyes fell to the floor, a bare walkway of gray metal. She peered into the unknown darkness.
"It is wonderful to see you in good health, crewman Fatima. I had no idea what had become of you, and I have had no one to interact with for such a long time. . . and I thrive on mental stimulation."
Petal darted back into the airlock and reached into her dive suit, which was now heaped on the floor. She'd left her nanite-kit cube in it. It was the only thing she'd taken with her from the surface.
"I need to reach Amanahora's reactor." Petal pulled the cold, green cube out of the right sleeve of the suit, palming it. "That's why I've come here."
"Ah. . .I see. . .Cynax-8127 has convinced you to follow its machinations?"
Petal squinted at BLUE-HUE's projection.
"Cynax told me that Amanahora needs to be destroyed to wipe out the Aii. He said they could spread from Amanahora to the surface."
"The odds of the Aii in Amanahora escaping this city and reaching the surface intact are approximately one in one billion. Negligible."
"But Cynax said. . .Why would he tell me that if it wasn't true?"
"Well, in my humble opinion, the 8000 series was delegated too much mission autonomy. To achieve their goals they often employ deception and deceit. Their ethical shortcomings led to the discontinuation of their model line."
"Cynax lied to me to get me to come here?" Petal's pupils dilated from a mix of anger and fear. "Why would he do that?"
"I lack sufficient information to confirm your theory. However, Cynax-8127 has made repeated attempts to intrude upon my systems to try to destroy this city. Thus far, on every occasion, I have been able to block it from accessing Amanahora."
"Why have you blocked him?"
BLUE-HUE's projection flickered in and out for a moment.
"Cynax-8127 has no authorization to use Consortium systems - my systems. Cynax-8127 is an illegal hacker who is attempting to destroy Consortium property."
Petal's mouth went dry.
"This city is full of Aii though, right? Isn't that dangerous? Shouldn't you or I do something?"
"The danger is confined to Amanahora, and I have initiated a city-wide lockdown to quarantine the Aii until the arrival of a Consortium Contagion Response Team."
Petal's ears perked up. A bit of her fear abated.
"When will they get here?"
"I have been unable to initiate extra-planetary communication since the Aii threat spawned, so I will have to wait for the next scheduled resupply vessel. That vessel should arrive in just under ten solar orbits. As scheduled."
"Ten years?"
"Correct. I will illuminate a safe path for you to take back to your quarters. You can wait there for the vessel's inevitable arrival. I apologize for the current condition of Amanahora. Most of the lights in the city, and all non-essential systems, have been set to standby."
"You want me to wait around for ten years? Alone, down here? With the Aii?"
"That is standard protocol for Consortium personnel in the event of a catastrophic Aii outbreak."
"I'm not doing that." Petal shook her head, indignant. "I'll probably be dead in ten years. I'd be twenty-five by then - an old Khoi woman."
"You could attempt to patch me into the Tear Drop sky lab. That facility has extra-planetary communication capability, but Cynax-8127 has impeded all of my attempts to access it."
"I just destroyed the Tear Drop. Right before I came here. It's gone now."
"That is very unfortunate. Now I have no means by which to expedite your rescue. You will need to wait here for the interval."
"Are there submarines or other machines down here that I could use to get back to the surface? I'm not waiting ten years."
"There are dozens of submersibles spread throughout Amanahora. However, all of them have been contaminated with Aii and are currently inoperable."
"Could you fix them for me? Could I fix them?"
"Negative. They are too badly damaged. I lack the means to disinfect them or make them operational."
Petal quivered in the cold as a realization sunk in, making her feel weak and nauseous.
"You're saying that. . .that I can't leave here? I'm stuck here. There's no way out?"
"Affirmative," BLUE-HUE calmly hummed. "Since you've entered this city without a safe means of exit, you - like all previous residents - will have to remain quarantined here for the duration of the lockdown."
