Eternity's Mind (36 page)

But she changed her mind as soon as the faeros slammed into the clusters of bugbot ships. Countless robot vessels exploded as the fiery ellipsoids tore through them, scattering their clusters and driving them from Earth's orbit. Keah herself joined the rising cheer.

Reacting, the black robots swarmed around the faeros, attacking like suicidal hornets, but their energy weapons were not at all effective against the elementals. The fireballs swooped around Earth's orbit, knocking the rest of the robot formations into disarray.

Keah wasn't going to complain about it. She transmitted to all of the surviving ships, “Let's not take any more damage. Pull back and implement emergency repairs where possible—even if this breather lasts for only half an hour, let's make it count.”

The sheer unexpectedness of the arrival had sent the bugbots reeling, but the faeros were as capricious as the Shana Rei were chaotic. Even fifty elemental fireballs could only do so much damage. The flaming beings ricocheted through the black ships and clumsily destroyed numerous evacuating human vessels as well.

The Klikiss robots were not the enemies of the faeros, however, and never had been. The fireballs swooped directly toward the oncoming Shana Rei shadow cloud.

 

CHAPTER

60

DEPUTY ELDRED CAIN

After touring Dr. Krieger's sun-bomb factories with General Keah, Cain made his way to his mansion built on the edge of what had been Madrid. There, he received the first frantic reports about the Shana Rei, and he knew with cold dread what was going to happen.

Since it served as CDF headquarters, Earth had more warships in residence than any other world in the Confederation. Deputy Cain had the utmost confidence in General Keah. He knew she would fight the battles that could be fought and win any victory that could be achieved, given her resources. He also doubted it would be enough.

Countless civilian ships scrambled to evacuate, but only a handful of the world's billions would ever manage to get away, and a significant number of those would be destroyed in space as they tried to flee the solar system.

As the enemy plunged in toward Earth, he realized the rest of the decision process was out of his hands. He was a pragmatist, and he had closely studied the images of Relleker. As the battles raged at the LOC and more than a million black robot warships came in unabated, Cain understood in his heart that Earth was lost. The Shana Rei and the robots would attack with more destructive force than they had used against any previous target.

Now that he'd returned to his mansion, Cain was more than an hour from any government center. He had purposely built his mansion far from population centers, and he wasn't going to be able to arrange an evacuation. He ran the options in his mind, didn't like his chances, and instead decided how he would prefer to spend that last hour or so.

He clung to precious memories of humanity's high points. Night had fallen over the Madrid impact crater, but the dark sky was etched with claw marks of fire, the orange exhaust trails of robot battleships racing over Europe. The ships dropped devastator bombs that were far more deadly and more precisely targeted than the barrage of meteor impacts that had caused so much destruction at the end of the Elemental War.

Overhead, the battle provided a terrific light show. Multiple sunrises filled the sky as CDF ships deployed their last sun bombs. No doubt the flashes wreaked havoc among the attackers, but not enough. It would never be enough.

Cain was astonished when flaming ellipsoids rolled in like burning cannonballs. “Faeros? Now that is unexpected.”

He watched from his balcony, looking out at what had once been Madrid, home to the Prado, one of humanity's most amazing art museums … the loss of which had been as momentous to him as the loss of all those lives. He had spent years trying to collect and restore the remnants of humanity's great art: works by Whistler, Goya, Hieronymus Bosch, Van Gogh, and his favorite, Velázquez.

Cain went inside his home now, turning his back on the raging conflict as he walked slowly through the gallery, stopping to admire the nuances, the imagination, and the depth with which those masters imbued their paintings. The soft display lights flickered from the disruptive battle over Earth, but once his standby power blocks kicked in, the illumination grew steady again.

Hands behind his back, he drank in the lush details, the swirls and enthusiasm of “Starry Night,” then the gritty horror of Goya's “Saturn Devouring His Son,” and the many works of Velázquez—a well-respected but, in Cain's opinion, underrated genius. He stood there knowing that these masterpieces would soon be destroyed, that he was the last person to lay eyes on them.

The shadows were coming.

Not far away, a gigantic hemisphere of light wiped out another Spanish city—probably Toledo, given the position. There was no place to hide. Nowhere safe. The sky was so full of explosions and energy beams it resembled confetti. The blasts of color and swirls of vapor trails looked almost like Van Gogh's painting. A starry night, indeed.

He went to his home comm center and tuned it to the
Kutuzov's
command frequency. The screen showed the Juggernaut's bridge filled with shouts, sparks, explosions. His transmission was barely loud enough to be heard over the mayhem. “I know you're busy, General. I just wanted to tell you to keep up the fight. You will find a way.”

Keah was haggard, her hair tangled, her face drawn. “Not now, Deputy.” An explosion rocked the bridge. “Increase the starboard shields! Do we have any railgun projectiles left? Yes, Mr. Patton, I'm talking to you!”

“Farewell, General,” Cain said.

Keah gave him a quick look. “What the hell are you doing, Deputy? Get out of—”

An explosion roared nearby—not the
Kutuzov,
but at the Madrid crater. Robot ships screamed through the air, strafing the ground, and Cain realized that he was cut off. Hundreds of thousands of black warships swept over Earth for the coup de grâce.

Cain emerged again onto the broad balcony, where he had often sat to study the stars or watch the frequent meteor showers. Now, though, the stars had vanished in an entire quadrant of sky. A swirling opaque black shadow unfurled like a blanket descending upon Earth.

Cain couldn't tear his eyes away as darkness fell.

 

CHAPTER

61

KOTTO OKIAH

The miracles grew more amazing as his survey craft cruised through the void, delving deeper into a nothingness overlaid with paradoxes. Piloting cautiously, Kotto approached the glowing bright spots of structure, patterns imposed on the inner workings of the sideways universe.

He squinted, pressed his face against the windowport, but the harder he tried to stare, the less focused those vibrant fingerprints seemed to be. “How close are we?”

The navigational systems ranged outward with an array of sensors, but the two compies remained at a loss. “We are sorry, Kotto,” said GU. “We have no reference points for our location, nor any anchor for our destination.”

“Then let's keep flying closer to whatever they are. I sure don't think they're the Shana Rei.” He felt no fear, only curiosity—which was foolish, he knew, but at this point, he had already committed himself. Kotto meant to gain answers—
all
the answers, if possible. He had always wanted to know.

The smudges of phosphorescence appeared elsewhere around them, seeming to move like mirages. Either Kotto's piloting was woefully inadequate, or the distribution of those other
things
continued to deviate. He launched forerunner probes that hurtled ahead, scanning and sending back readings that were at first baffling and then overloaded. He studied the screens and muttered, “That's not helpful at all.” With a sigh, he looked backward, although the emptiness behind looked no different from the emptiness ahead. “Maybe we should return to Fireheart. We did find the Shana Rei hiding in their lair, and the Confederation needs to know. That's vital information.” He shook his head, then leaned forward again, fascinated by the glowing smudges. “But I have to say, this is very intriguing. Let's just go a little farther.”

The technical readings warbled off the scale, went dark, then flared back with sensor gibberish and a wash of loud static. Kotto began to feel a throbbing inside his head, an external curiosity that was like his own, but seemed to be as vast as the universe. It fascinated him, and he felt an odd, close connection. He tapped his temple and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate. “Hello. Is anyone there?”

“Yes, we are here, Kotto,” said KR.

He opened his eyes. “Not you. There's something else. Do you feel it in your heads?”

The two compies said, “No, we do not.”

Now that he had made an overture to that looming presence, he could see sharper colors, more distinct traceries of the tapestry underlying the universe. Smudges and lines tangled in webs and mazes. This seemed like behind-the-scenes workings that the very architect of the universe had not meant for anyone to see. Kotto felt puzzled to think that God might have left unraveled edges.

As the survey craft flew closer, the smudges brightened, as if they were now letting him approach, acknowledging him. The throbbing and thrumming grew louder inside his skull.

“Hello?” His voice was just a whisper, but that mysterious presence heard him; he was sure of it. “I'm Kotto. Kotto Okiah.”

When they had flown past the angular Shana Rei ships, he had sensed nothing from the shadows other than a cold deadness that stood out even in the void. This imposing presence was entirely different, and the more Kotto tried to grasp that trickle of consciousness, the more it awakened and noticed him in return. He felt a thought, a package of information, an identifier, and he brightened. “It's … Eternity's Mind. That's what it calls itself.” He looked to the compies, nodding. “Eternity's Mind.”

“We detected no signal, Kotto,” said GU.

“But we will make a note of Eternity's Mind,” KR added.

“Pleased to meet you,” Kotto said aloud. His head was pounding, and so was his heart. He felt giddy. The potential here seemed infinite, and he wanted to know. All his life he had seen the universe as an intriguing puzzle box filled with glittering ideas, possibilities that if he could connect them this way or that, if he tweaked a calculation just
so,
then he could turn the crank on an engine of understanding, which would reveal further equations and deeper answers.

It was scientific magic, pure and simple.

Kotto had devoted himself to unraveling those secrets. His attention bounced from one idea to another, a pure Brownian motion of understanding. Most importantly, he had applied those ideas for years, the concepts that he sifted out of the debris and distractions, and then used his engineering knowledge so he could do something with his discoveries.

In his remarkable career, he had built an unlikely metal-processing settlement on a superhot planet; he had founded a hydrogen-extraction facility on a distant ice moon; he had invented ways to crack open hydrogue warglobes when other weapons had no effect. The great Kotto Okiah had discarded or lost interest in more ideas than most geniuses ever thought of in the first place.

In the last two decades, Kotto had become increasingly focused, but also increasingly distracted. Yes, he had accomplished less and less in his “waning years,” which made him try harder to prove that he wasn't losing his talent.

Shareen and Howard had embarrassed him by solving impossible conundrums that had long since defeated him. Those two young workers reminded him of the wonder of understanding and the magic thrill of finding an unexpected solution. But Shareen and Howard were also reminders that he could no longer call himself the boy genius. For a time, Kotto had been depressed about it, worried that there was nothing left for him to discover, that there were no further grand conclusions he could make.

But now he had a remarkable opportunity. He could sense it, and he pushed back, reaching out to grasp it for himself. He looked out into infinity. “Hello?” he said again. “Eternity's Mind?”

The survey craft approached a nexus of the glowing smudges, residue from the real universe, as if these things were so powerful they left an echo even in this dimension.

Finally, the voice answered him. Not in words. Not in concepts, but in a
presence
that felt tremendous, omnipotent, like the universe itself.

“I want to understand,” Kotto said. He thought of all his scientific knowledge, his mathematics, his concepts, and wondered what would get through to this vast entity. He yearned to see the answers of the cosmos to every mystery he had ever wondered about.

The throbbing in his head grew louder, more powerful, and at last he began to see. The vast and powerful entity revealed what it knew—only tantalizing hints at first, tiny tastes that were, nevertheless, a feast for Kotto.

“It's an enemy of the Shana Rei,” he said to his two compies. “I understand that clearly. It hates the shadows. It wants to fight them, but it wants more than that.” He patted KR and GU. “It wants to share knowledge with me. Ha! By the Guiding Star, of course—yes, I want to learn.” He raised his hands. “I'll let you in. I want to know whatever it is that you know.”

“Kotto, we advise caution,” KR said.

But Kotto suddenly saw the inner workings of stars, the secret language of nebulas, the communion of atoms, and the mysterious underlying dance of quarks all the way up to the structure of galactic superclusters, and beyond, revealing a vastness to the universe that went far beyond any concept of creation.

“Yes…” he whispered, filled with euphoria. “Yes!”

The thoughts and the revelations shone within him as bright as a star. His Guiding Star. The throbbing voice grew louder, and he kept reaching out, grasping for more.