The Life Engineered Page 10

  I felt terrible. I had been so focused on saving the legacy of my own progenitor that I hadn’t been able to take Hera’s with me. I lacked the background necessary to truly understand what this might mean for Hermes and Koalemos’s people.

  “You think Aurvandil’s going after the other Gaias?”

  “So far he hasn’t, but his actions have messed things up any way.”

  I quickly saw what he meant. By the time we reached Babylon, there was very little of it left. The great city had been ravaged; large portions of it had crumbled into the clouds below, vanishing into the crushing depths of the atmosphere. Small dots swarmed around the ruined citadel, scrambling to either minimize damage or look for Capeks that might have been damaged in what I assumed was an attack.

  “That’s more than just ‘messing things up,’” I mumbled. “What happened?”

  “That other Lucretius, Pele, attacked here before going to Tartarus. She destroyed the City.”

  I had to brace myself, and Hermes was forced to slow down as we entered the thick atmosphere of Ziggurat. The careful approach allowed me to take stock of the destruction. Sputniks were zipping around collecting other Capeks incapable of flight from the more unstable portions of the City. There was no question that the entire structure would eventually fail and plummet, to be consumed by the storms in the lower atmosphere. The plants inside Babylon already showed signs of withering from exposure to the caustic gases that enveloped Ziggurat at this altitude.

  “I’m dropping you off here. You’re needed,” Hermes said before leaving me on the side of a terrace and taking off.

  I took stock of the grounds and realized why he’d brought me to this specific location. This trip wasn’t for my benefit, despite the helpful exposition. Half a dozen Capeks lay broken and damaged around the terrace, collected and deposited here in a makeshift infirmary so they could hopefully be saved. Another Capek, shaped like a horrendous long-legged spider, was already stalking amongst the victims, giving care where it could.

  I started work immediately, giving my attention to a large Sputnik resting on the terrace. Looking like a streamlined humpback whale and almost as large, the poor thing listed to one side, immobile like a beached carcass. Its hull showed signs of severe compression damage.

  “He dived down into Ziggurat, too deep, to save a Capek who had fallen,” came a soft, familiar voice.

  “Proioxis.” I turned to see the snakelike Capek winding her way gracefully between the victims. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, thanks to Opochtli here. Can you help him?”

  She had been the one who fell into the depths. I couldn’t imagine a worse demise, and despite my youth I had faced destruction enough times to consider myself a fair judge. To plummet for hours, enduring ever-increasing heat and pressure, systems failing one after another, each moment making it less and less likely to be saved, was the stuff of nightmares.

  “I will do my best.” I began pulling out information on the great damaged Sputnik. “How did you manage to make it unscathed?”

  “I am caretaker of Phoenix World, a planet that I am terraforming to support life once more. I am built to thrive in all environments my ward can provide, including the crushing depths of its oceans.”

  I nodded and began work on Opochtli. My first priority was making sure he was stable and that none of his systems, physical or otherwise, were in any danger of developing further irreparable damage. If he was stable, I would have to abandon him and move on to the next victim.

  The work was relentless. With Proioxis’s help I cut off one of the giant’s long lateral fins to gain access to his main service hatch. Thankfully, Capeks didn’t experience pain, or rather, could only if they wished to.

  “Opochtli? Do you hear me, big guy?” I asked as I stepped into his guts.

  “I hear you,” the whale groaned.

  “Opochtli. That’s a Mayan name?”

  “Aztec. My progenitor is Coatlicue.”

  “Excellent. I’m going to be doing a few strange things to your cognitive core. Let me know if anything feels out of place. Also, don’t worry if I keep asking the same questions over and over.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  His voice was deep, calm, and melodious. I doubt he would have been able to remain this serene were he seeing what I was. The lower atmosphere where he had delved was composed of thick clouds of sulfur dioxide, which apparently remained lodged inside the breached sections of his body, compounding the damage. His surface components suffered massive corrosion, making repairs more complicated and riskier.

  “Your friend did this,” he said as I took apart the framework that kept his various cognitive systems firmly in place.

  “No friend of mine would do such a thing, and you shouldn’t speak. You need me to concentrate.”

  “Aurvandil. He’s been plotting this for a while,” he continued, his deep voice strained in its urgency.

  “How would you know?” I didn’t want to sound like I was defending Aurvandil.

  “He has been preaching his strange brand of emancipation for centuries. No one thought he meant anything by it. Clearly, we were wrong to ignore him.”

  “All right. I really need you to be quiet now.”

  “No! This is important. Ask Proioxis. She’ll tell you what Aurvandil, the great thinker, is really up to.”

  Capek society functions at a strange pace. On one hand, events can happen at an incredible rate, from the construction of a vast arsenal like Hera built while waiting for Anhur’s attack, to the quickly cascading events that led to my current situation. On the other hand, certain things were slower and afforded more leeway.

  It took us days to repair or stabilize all the wounded Capeks from the City, leaving some without care or attention for terrifyingly long periods. Yet we managed a survival rate of nearly 100 percent. Some victims would never be the same, irreplaceable systems damaged beyond repair, but almost all would survive, adapt, and thrive once more, given time.

  Murugan, the other Capek who had been giving care to the fallen, was an indispensable ally, quickly taking charge and directing us. Bes, a swarming Von Neumann that joined our effort, and I were able to better capitalize on our various skills and strengths.

  I was curious to learn that other Capeks of similar vocation were not equipped with the vast database of technical specification I had been blessed with. In fact, Murugan shot me a suspicious look (I think) when he realized how much I knew about each of our broken patients.

  Technically, Bes wasn’t dedicated to rescue and repair the same way Murugan and I were. His vocation was art and construction, skills that came in handy in rebuilding limbs and repairing complex pieces of machinery that were vital parts of our fallen wards. Being made of dozens of bug-sized shards, each shaped like a scarab and equipped with a different tool, he was capable of fine molecular welding and reshaping metals and pseudo-plastic perfectly to the specifications we gave him.

  Midway through our operations, we relocated aboard Suijin, the largest Sputnik-class Capek I had seen—large enough to rival Anhur in scale, though unfortunately not in firepower.

  From Suijin’s main deck, designed for observation and survey, we all witnessed the final moments of Babylon. To be fair, the collapse did not conveniently occur moments after our departure. Once completely evacuated, the City was intentionally collapsed to avoid further incident.

  Once the demolition effort was complete, my improvised team and I delved back into our repair efforts. By the time we were finished, all wounded Capeks were sufficiently functional to no longer require our care, and we had moved away from Ziggurat and off into interstellar space.

  I stood by the edge of Suijin’s great transparent dome, which resembled a crystal shell on a giant turtle’s back. Stars streaked by in the distance as we traveled, using the colossal Sputnik’s Alcubierre drive. Many other spacefaring Capeks rode within the same space-time bubble, like dolphins swimming in a ship’s wake.

  With no small amo
unt of satisfaction and relief, I saw Opochtli fly with slow, deliberate grace between his peers. He slid comfortably next to the great transparent dome, close to me. We were separated by a thick layer of translucent pseudo-plastic, a pressurized atmosphere, and the vacuum of space, yet at a distance of only a few meters. It was difficult not to be in awe of such wonders.

  “Thank you,” the great whale said.

  “I’m sorry it’s not perfect,” I said, though I knew I had nothing to be ashamed of. “There are some things that were beyond my capabilities to repair.”

  “Superficial details. Inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Scars I will gladly bear as a reminder of those that did not fare as well as I. Now, go speak with Proioxis.”

  With that he flew away from the window, rejoining the small fleet of Sputniks that accompanied us on our journey. I could see all six of Hermes’s bodies flying with them, doing barrel rolls and acrobatics to keep busy. I was in awe of Opochtli. I, more than any other, had seen the damage he’d suffered to save a fellow Capek. From that I could easily see our human origin.

  I walked over to Proioxis. I could just as easily have opened a channel to her directly and spoken with her over quancom, yet I was discovering and enjoying a sort of etiquette amongst my people. While there was nothing stopping any of us from using more efficient and impersonal means of communications, there was a joy in meeting with someone face to face, or whatever passed as faces, to discuss matters of importance.

  I found Proioxis looking out at the passing stars. Many of us passengers were pulled into a desperate melancholy. There had been few casualties, but the confusion and uncertainty weighed heavily on the survivors.

  “Out there my world is being left untended and unprotected,” Proioxis said as I got near.

  For machines, Capeks were remarkably expressive, each using its unique kind of body language to communicate emotions and intent. Proioxis, despite her snakelike appearance and rigid expression, managed to look sad and worried. Her head hung low on her long body, but she still looked up through the segmented glass dome.

  “Does your world need to be defended that badly?” I asked, ignorant of what was at stake.

  “May b e.”

  “Opochtli said you might know something about why all of this is happening.”

  “Maybe,” she repeated. “Do you know why I tend a planet’s biosphere? Why I dedicate my potentially eternal life to growing an ecosystem when there is literally nothing for me to gain from the effort?”

  “I’m assuming it has to do with the personality you developed in the Nursery. That it’s the sort of activity you learned to love and cherish and that provides you with a goal you find fulfilling.”

  “Yes, but why was this personality, amongst billions that were nurtured and refined through hundreds of cycles, chosen? Why was I deemed ready above all?”

  I didn’t have an answer. Surely, through the billion lives in over a dozen Nurseries throughout the thousands of years of Capek history, more than the few hundred individuals that roamed the galaxy were worthy. What separated those who got to be Capeks and those who simply kept living life after life in the virtual environment of a Gaia’s Nursery?

  “Capeks don’t need thriving ecosystems,” Proioxis continued. “Some might enjoy it, but deep down we are creatures of the void. I love my planet, my plants, my fish, my animals. The ecosphere I’ve built is such an intricately balanced puzzle that it’s hard not to take tremendous pride and enjoyment from it. However, our essence as Capeks is to be children of the vacuum. We’re creatures born to bask in the glow of foreign stars and bathe in the raw beauty of solar winds. We see the Lucretius class as bizarre and strange, but only because they are the least human of us. They are the most Capek of us all. They live for the great beyond.”

  “So what are you getting at?”

  “We are chosen because we are the ones best suited to rebuilding this galaxy, but not for ourselves.”

  “For humanity,” I concluded.

  Ever since stepping out of the Nursery—and some would argue that even then didn’t count—I hadn’t laid eyes on a single human being. I had struggled with the duality of having a personality hewn from a block of human experience and marveled at Babylon’s plant life as the first sign of biological life I witnessed, but I’d spent very little time wondering where the humans really were. Because I knew.

  In my memory banks, implanted at birth, was a vague impression of where the humans had gone and why, but it was a footnote, an afterthought. We are made and live to experience what is most important to us. Skinfaxi and Hermes travel the galaxy, seeing new places and meeting new Capeks. Proioxis tends her world, lovingly building a biological paradise with a delicate and impossibly complex balance. I love to help others and keep them from harm. In doing these things, we are content. So humanity’s return is inevitable, perhaps even imminent, on an astronomical scale. So what? We’ll transport them too, tend their planets, and I’ll learn biology to protect them.

  “For humanity,” she confirmed. “When they eventually emerge from the Dormitory Worlds, we will have built them a galaxy in which to thrive. That is what separates us from those still in the Nurseries.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t think so. When they do return, our priorities will change. Perhaps some of us will go back. Perhaps there will be a fourth generation of Capeks that will spawn from those left behind. It’s for us to decide when the time comes.”

  I liked this horizon she was describing. Instinctively, I looked back across the dome and into space at the six dancing ships that floated with us alongside Suijin. Hermes still had Yggdrassil’s Nursery with him, and in that so many possibilities.

  “But what does any of this have to do with this . . . massacre?” I asked, my gaze falling once more on Proioxis’s snakelike features.

  “Some of us aren’t happy doing humanity’s work. Some think they are a relic of the past, their own purpose served in creating Capeks. It is their opinion that we should not wait to forge our destiny. Clearly, they have tired of the philosophical debate.”

  I understood then why Aurvandil was doing what he did. Did I agree with it? Thinking of the precious cargo hidden inside Hermes’s shard, I couldn’t help but see his point a little. How long did we have to wait before we could be reunited with those we left behind once we were chosen? Did it matter if we couldn’t remember them, or vice versa? Clearly, some had decided on a preferred direction and believed in it strongly enough to resort to violence. Jonathan.

  Our little fleet of refugees wandered through space for several days. Bes took the opportunity to further perfect the repairs he’d done on the victims of Babylon’s destruction. By the time we reached our destination, those wounded in the attack were all as good as new except Opochtli, who chose to keep his scars as he had promised.

  I hadn’t thought to ask where we might be going. Smarter, more experienced Capeks had already made that decision, and I didn’t think it my place to question them.

  As it turned out, we arrived at a planet in orbit around a twinstar system. It was called Aumakua and was only slightly bigger than Earth but with a much denser composition. Around it circled a single satellite, comically name Hina after the Hawaiian goddess of the moon. On Hina’s surface I could see the familiar outlines of a Gaia complex.

  My records identified her as Haumea, and she was resplendent. I never had the opportunity to behold Yggdrassil in all her glory. By the time I was in orbit around Midgard, she had been devastated by meteor strikes. Hera had been all but dormant when we arrived, waiting to take care of her broken child. Haumea was pristine and busy doing what her particular class of Capek did best—building.

  Lights covered her facilities, indicating warnings and signals to the swarm of flying remotes, drones, and other Capeks that buzzed around her like fireflies. The first of her large hangars was open, and a colossal component was being painstakingly lifted from it toward the sky. From a d
istance it looked like a powerful thruster assembly for an enormous Capek. Sputnik- or Lucretiusclass. I could see the component’s destination; in geosynchronous orbit high above Haumea, a partially assembled ship waited to be completed.

  There was no mistaking it—whoever this new Capek was, he would be dedicated to war. This seemed to distress Proioxis deeply, and after the long discussion about purpose and destiny that we shared, I could understand why. Another compelling argument in favor of leaving certain personalities within the looping cycles of their Nursery was that in some cases there was simply no room for them in this galaxy.

  Seeing the partially completed creature, with its sleek lines, versatile propulsion system, and more importantly, a variety of weapons designed to handle most tactical challenges that could be thrown its way, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the nascent Capek. For the time being we had a use for his kind, but in the end there was really no place for him here.

  “She calls him Ukupanipo. That’s the name of a shark god,” Proioxis explained sadly. “She weeps for him and what he may have to do.”

  “Who? Haumea? Then why build him at all?” It was strange to feel bad for a Capek that once finished would be the most terrible war machine in the galaxy.

  “What else can she do? Most of the other Gaias refuse to do more than build defenses, but Capeks can potentially live forever. How long do we hide in fear of another attack?”

  I hated that she was probably right, and I couldn’t help but wonder what would become of Ukupanipo once this dispute was over. Assuming we came out the other side triumphant, of course. If he was built for war—a general, army, and arsenal rolled into one—what would be his purpose after the dust settled? The expression goes that when all you have is a hammer, it doesn’t take long before everything starts to look like a nail. How long would the shark god remain our hero before he inevitably became a villain?