Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (56 page)

              ‘It sounds like he could be talking about the Progenitors’ home system,’ said Katherine.  ‘After all, the map of the jump gate network showed that it’s only a single hop away from here.  Hopefully it’s still active, if we can find it.’

              ‘Yes indeed.  It sounds as if only the most worthy, the most honoured members of the exploration effort were ever allowed to go there,’ said Rekkid.  ‘Competition was fierce.  I suppose that the Order of the Sacred Way must have used it as an incentive to spur their men on to greater efforts.  I suppose in their eyes it was literally like being able to go to heaven.  Listen to this though: “Team Fifteen appear to have made a great discovery amongst the wrecks.  There has been a great deal of fuss made about it, so no doubt they will be the next to be picked to visit the Home of the Gods.  It appears that they explored the remains of a great vessel. It was a portion of what must have been a vast ship - a great, jagged black thing.  They have found some sort of weapon system within its hull.  Efforts are now under way to remove it.  Rumour has it that this is something that could win us the war but hard facts are difficult to come by for obvious reasons.  I do not like it.  I do not think that we should be using the weapons of these terrible vessels.  These were the enemies of our creators.  Something tells me that this is very wrong indeed.  One rumour has it that our scientists have described this thing as a world-killing weapon, one of the very things used to extinguish one of the stars in this system.  Another says that its discoverer was led there by dreams and visions.” ’

              ‘That’s it, isn’t it?  That must be the weapon that the Akkal used to destroy their home-world?’ said Katherine.

              ‘I believe that it may be,’ said Rekkid, and continued.  ‘ “Our fears have been confirmed.  The World Breaker Cannon, as they are now calling it, was removed from the wreck today and transported back to through the portal under heavy guard.  I believe that it may be the last thing to make the journey.  The portal is closed to us now.  I think that we have angered the gods.  That terrible thing... we should have left it be!  Now we are trapped in this Gods-forgotten place with only limited supplies.  The portal does not respond to our pleas and later in the day we found that the portal to the Home of the Gods is also closed to us now, with many of our people still trapped on the other side.  We are beginning to fear the worst.” ’  Rekkid scanned through a few entries.  ‘As you can imagine, they were in a desperate situation.  No means of getting home, limited ability to move about in this system and their food supplies were running out.  The other teams scattered throughout the system were in similarly dire circumstances.  They had all been dependent upon ships and supplies coming through the portal from the home system and now they were trapped here.  They made a number of desperate attempts to communicate with the portal and get it working again but they didn’t have any success.’

              ‘Are we to assume that it was the Shaper weapon that caused the portals to shut down?’ said Steelscale.

              ‘I think it’s a distinct possibility,’ said Rekkid. ‘Perhaps the AIs detected that the Akkal had retrieved something terrible of Shaper origin and decided to seal off the system.’

              ‘The Shapers must have led the Akkal to that weapon,’ said Katherine.  ‘It was the Shapers who caused the Akkal to destroy themselves! Why? What threat did these comparatively primitive people pose to them?’

              ‘Perhaps they had their reasons.  Perhaps the Akkal really were creations of the Progenitors, like Ushild said, and the Shapers saw that as reason enough to destroy them?’ Steelscale ventured.

              ‘Perhaps,’ Katherine replied. ‘I suspect we’ll never know.  What happened after that?’

              ‘Well, the Akkal trapped here survived for a surprisingly long time, although the team on this base gradually lost contact with the others in the system as they succumbed.  Eventually they had the idea that if the presence of Shaper technology had closed the portal, perhaps the presence of Progenitor technology might open it again.  The base had a couple of engine modules used for moving larger chunks of debris, so they rigged them up and tried to move their base, and the hunk of Progenitor starship below us, towards the portal.  Only they weren’t able to manoeuvre its large mass accurately enough and the chemical rockets ran out of fuel before they could correct their error.  In the end, they decided to try and hold out as long as they could, eventually being left with the choice of resorting to cannibalism to survive or ending their own lives.  It seems that they chose the latter, being unable to face the former.’

              ‘That doesn’t even bear thinking about,’ said Katherine, and shuddered, remembering the dead faces of the people sitting in the dark.

              ‘At least they died honourably with their dignity intact,’ said Steelscale. ‘Although, it was indeed a terrible choice to have to make.  Better to die like that than those fools who took their prize back home to win their pointless war and die in the process.’

              ‘So what now?  Is there any clue in that diary as to where this second working portal might be located?’ said Katherine.

              ‘None as far as I can see,’ said Rekkid.  ‘Although somewhere in the vicinity of the remaining star would be a good place to start.  Without the
Glory
fully operational though, we don’t stand much of a chance.’

              Rekkid returned to his study of the diary, poring over the delicate and ancient handwritten volume in order to translate its faded scribblings.  Katherine and Steelscale, meanwhile, began to go over those portions that he had already worked on for any clues as to the location of the portal that could lead them out of the system and, they believed, to the Progenitor home-world.  If they were not successful, they would need to return to the base below them with engineers from the
Shining Glory
and attempt to access the base’s surviving computer systems, if such a thing were to prove at all possible.  They also began to search the diary for any reference as to the possible locations of the other Akkal exploration teams that had been scattered through the debris belt, in the hope that their facilities or craft could be located and studied.

              After a couple of hours, Kurano disturbed them over the internal comms.

              ‘You should all come and have a look at this, something’s happening to the
Glory
,’ she said, a note of uncertainty entering her voice.

              They rushed up to the cockpit to see.  Above them, relative to their current orientation, the vast destroyer still hung in space, but something was definitely awry.  The ship convulsed and thrashed like a living thing in pain, the great surfaces of the wings that powered it through space waving erratically and randomly.  Kurano began to power the scout ship forwards, keeping pace with the destroyer as it started to move slowly from the thrashing of its wings.  This continued for several minutes.  Then the ship’s movements began to calm, and it braked smoothly to a stop.

              The comm. chimed.

              ‘It’s the
Glory
,’ said Kurano. ‘They’re hailing us.  Putting them through.’

              ‘This is Eonara speaking,’ said the calm, measured tones of the Progenitor AI.

              ‘Eonara!’ cried Rekkid. ‘It’s good to have you with back with us at long last.’

              ‘And likewise, it is good to be in control of my own faculties once more,’ said Eonara.  ‘I apologise for the inconvenience that I have caused you all, but I am quite recovered.  The
Shining Glory
has likewise been returned to full operational status.  The ship bids you to come aboard.  I feel that I owe you all an explanation.’

              They had returned to the
Glory
.  Eonara stood before them on the warship’s bridge, her liquid metal form as graceful and imposing as they remembered it.  The ship’s cat avatar, also fully recovered, fussed around her feet.

              ‘The Shaper viruses did immense damage to me,’ said Eonara.  ‘I was only able to survive by cutting myself off from the rest of the ship, but damage to my outer layers of systems was very severe.  But, it seems, the AI bound within the portal was able to purge and reprogram my crystalline matrices and insert programs to cleanse them once and for all.  It detected my presence when the
Glory
approached and recognised a fellow servant of the Progenitors in distress, after all this time, and did what it could to assist.  It was only partially successful, and I am afraid that in my initial attempts to link back with the ship I was premature and disrupted her systems.  I must also take the blame for inadvertently lowering my defences when my attempt to control this vessel through the untethered wormhole, spun off by the collapsing Shaper portal, resulted in numerous system failures and overloads causing the ship’s defences to be lowered.  Ordinarily, even relatively primitive computer systems would have been able to defeat this attack if properly operational, but the Shapers detected my failing systems and struck.’

              ‘I found further Shaper viruses hidden in your reactivated systems,’ said the ship.  ‘Hence the difficulties you encountered and the resulting chaotic behaviour of this vessel.  You were not to know. They had skilfully concealed themselves, having had time to do so.  I have, however, dealt with them.  I would be interested to know how the Shapers managed to successfully infest the Arkari Hypercom sphere so successfully.’

              ‘They probably proceeded with great care over a considerable length of time,’ said Eonara.  ‘It would not have been a simple matter to accomplish such a feat undetected, even for them.’

              ‘We do not place any blame on you, Eonara,’ said Mentith.  ‘You successfully destroyed the Shaper portal at the Maelstrom and saved this ship.  You saved our lives and those of countless other billions.  For that, we are in your debt.’

              ‘But why bring us all this way across the galaxy?’ said Katherine.  ‘Was it your intention to return to the Progenitor home-world?’

              ‘Yes.  The
Shining Glory
was caught in a wormhole spun out by the collapsing Shaper device and was cast thousands of light years into the galaxy.  I was able to steer the ship through the higher dimensions that we were flung into and return to normal space in a system that I knew contained a link to the gate network that could return me to the home-world.’

              ‘But why?  Why not try to take us home instead?’

              ‘Because I intend to find a way to destroy the Shapers once and for all.  The home-world is where the Shapers were first conceived.  It is there that we must go to find the answers I seek.  It will not be easy.  The Progenitors’ home system was the most heavily defended place in the galaxy.  It may still be.  During the war, the Shapers and their servants tried many times to assault it and failed.  In the end, they attempted to cut off the home-world from the gate network that connected it to the rest of the galaxy.  The wreckage that you see around you is the result.  They succeeded in destroying one of the stars in this system that once contained one of the principle network nodes.  Many of the portals were indeed destroyed, along with a number of worlds and the billions who once called this place home.  Fortunately, the portal that I seek is still intact - the one that leads to the birth place of both the Progenitors and the Shapers, the one that leads to the home-world.’

              ‘You said before that you were involved in the creation of the Shapers,’ said Rekkid.  ‘Do you not already have knowledge of how they were created?’

              ‘During the final war, much of that knowledge was wiped from my mind,’ said Eonara.  ‘The logic was, that the mistakes of the Shapers’ creation should not be repeated.  However, I retain some information regarding the facilities used for their creation and I intend to seek them out and the knowledge that they may still contain.  The Shapers once used a virus to initiate the collapse of the Progenitors.  I intend to return the favour.’

              ‘The Akkal believed that the Shapers created their race.  They worshipped them as gods and their society tore itself apart as a result.’

              ‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that,’ said Eonara.  ‘I was not party to such information, if that is indeed true.  But I will tell you this.  The name Progenitors was given to the Bajenteri people by their children, the Shapers.  The name is a literal one.  The Shapers saw themselves as children destined to replace their creators who were no longer fit to rule the galaxy.  It is not inconceivable that there may have been other experiments, ones to create biological as well as machine based life-forms.  We shall see.  Perhaps, on the home-world, the truth will reveal itself.’

              With that, the ship began to move, accelerating quickly.  Through the forward bridge displays, the narrow band of another wormhole portal began to resolve itself against the brilliant background of the star that powered it.  As the
Glory
approached, the device came to life, opening the throat of the wormhole that it held within the grasp of its ancient machinery which swallowed the speeding destroyer.

Chapter 34

As the
Profit Margin
moved through hyperspace to its destination, Isaacs sat pensively at the controls, watching as the navigation display counted down to the moment where the ship would exit its jump above the moon of Orinoco.  Leaving the
Uncaring Cosmos,
they had slipped out of the vessel’s docking bay as she de-cloaked on the edge of the system.  Using the stealth module, Isaacs had taken the
Profit Margin
far out of the Achernar system, before switching the device off and returning on a different course, hopefully giving the impression that she was simply a vessel coming to the end of a trade run from another system.  In the meantime, the massive Shaper vessel that the Nahabe had been tracking had arrived in orbit around Orinoco, right in their path.  As the
Profit Margin
headed towards it, the
Uncaring Cosmos
followed in its wake, hiding behind its stealth systems until the last moment.