Usurper of the Sun (35 page)

“Natalia has always been with me. She has always been here before.”

No matter how many times she had played the scenario in her head, Aki had thought that she would talk to the Builders about culture and the arts. Aki had thought that they would discuss songs and poems, what sort of comedies and tragedies the two cultures performed for their children. She had wanted to ask about their accomplishments as a civilization.

What were their first forms of technology? How do they protect their environment? Had they overcome war? Did any religions actually do any good? Were they able to stop aging? How did they first explore space?

Aki had fantasized about asking her questions for decades. Now she was stunned to realize that there were not going to be any answers. Her mind was overwhelmed. Here was her precious moment, the meeting of two completely distinct intelligent species, and it was being spent exchanging trivial, fact-based information that did not change a thing. Aki had imagined opportunities for much more. Aki felt like she nodded off for a moment, then she asked the only question that mattered.

“Is there room in this solar system for us to live together?”

“I will abstain from threatening your existence. Now that I am aware of your presence, I will go elsewhere.”

Aki shook her head, her thoughts and emotions fractured. “That is not what I meant. I want you to stay and live alongside us.”

“I cannot. I will only continue to realize your presence until our consciousness recovers from scission and our minds reunite. After we are again one, our only desire will be expansion in order to attempt to provoke advancement. When that happens, we will forget that you are here. While I am interested in Natalia’s history, if we were to stay in this system, we would simply continue to construct our solar shell and life on your planet would end in order to meet our needs.”

Aki lost her balance. Raul caught her. She wished he could catch her falling mind the way he caught her body.

“I have a question for you, Aki Shiraishi. Why did you ask us to live with you when you once became angry at Natalia and threatened to shut off our power?”

“I wish I did not remember.” Aki felt tears run down her face.

“I do not understand your behavior at that moment. Why did Natalia provoke such anger in you?”

“I was angry with you. I projected my frustration onto Natalia because you were similar. I wanted you to communicate with me instead of ignoring me.”

“Were you also upset that our Ring caused you such hardship?”

“Of course I was! You killed someone I loved.”

“You are speaking of your Mark Ridley.” Alice’s comment took Aki by surprise.

“Yes, Alice, yes, I am. I regret what you did to him and I regret that I did not get to go with him.”

“I thank you. I understand more now.”

Aki almost fainted. Her knees collapsed before she even realized that she had slipped from Raul’s grip. Then Aki toppled over onto her side. Joseph was there in an instant, steadying her and making sure that her suit was functioning properly.

Once he helped Aki rise unsteadily to her feet, Joseph turned to Alice. “What about the graser? It didn’t fire on us.”

“Our ship identifies itself to the graser in ways that you do not understand and are unable to detect.”

Aki was disoriented enough from her fall that she was unsure where she was. She wondered again if this was all a trick, if this conversation with Alice was a dream or some sort of wish-fulfilling phantasia. Aki noticed that Raul had been waving his hands to get her attention.

“Hello, sunshine. Glad you could join us. You won’t believe what’s happening.”

Aki looked toward the wall to where Raul was gesturing. She was stunned to realize that the wall had become transparent. She believed that she was conscious after all. Stepping toward the window, she saw a pillar with golden particles of light. The pillar was stretching toward the ship, emerging and then receding from view as the Torus rotated. The light was coming from Mercury, which appeared half full in the distance. The mass drivers were ejecting raw material, still busy and hard at work.

“Where did this window come from?” Raul asked.

“I created the window for you. Your species seems to enjoy using its eyes,” Alice said.

The golden pillar of light was so close that the pillar showered the window with brilliant luminance each time it came into view. Countless glowing particles seemed to be attaching themselves to the ship.

“Our ship is low on resources. We are replenishing.”

The particles collected on the window, gradually blocking their view until the window became a glowing area on the solid wall. Then another section of the wall began to swell. A perfectly shaped half-sphere protruded from the surface.

A hole formed in the center of the bulge that grew until the hole was large enough for them to walk through, large enough for them to step inside. Alice explained that it was an airlock for their departure.

“Wait. I am not ready to go. There is so much I still need to ask you!”

“You must go now if you want to be able to return to your ship, Aki Shiraishi,” Alice said calmly.

“Can’t I have five more minutes to talk to you?”

“We will use force to eject you if that is what you desire.”

Aki realized that she had no choice but to leave. She walked to the airlock bubble. Joseph and Raul followed. The entrance hole closed behind the Contact Team and the pressure dropped. The Contact Team felt the sudden acceleration as the bubble started moving. The weak gravity dissipated, and soon the three were weightless again.

After what seemed like merely seconds, the sphere reopened. They found themselves at the top of the tower extending above the middle of the Torus. Aki looked toward her feet, surprised to see that the Torus was now several hundred meters below them. Then she moved her head and was even more astonished to see the
Phalanx
. The
Phalanx
was a magnificent sight—made even more beautiful because Aki had been certain she would never see her ship, their ship, ever again.

A slit of light appeared from the airlock on the habitation module. The opening expanded until the silhouettes of two figures in space suits became visible. Igor’s and Aida’s voices began to echo inside Aki’s helmet as they expressed the joy of seeing the Contact Team alive and returning to the ship. Aki looked to Joseph and Raul. Both of them returned her glance with a smile, silently acknowledging that, no matter how hard they tried, they would never be able to describe their experience in a way that could communicate what it had really been like.

Firing their thrusters sent them across the divide that separated the three of them from their crewmates. Decelerating as she approached the
Phalanx
, Aki grabbed Aida’s outstretched arm. Aida pulled Aki into the airlock. Igor and Aida helped the Contact Team out of their suits and hugged them.

“I cannot believe we are here. I cannot believe we are anywhere,” Aki said as she entered the crew room. She took a deep breath and sighed.

Eventually, Raul turned to Joseph and said, “I think I’m going to owe you that roast beef back on Earth after all.”

THE BUILDERS’ SHIP
had already changed position by the time the Contact Team returned to the
Phalanx
. The cleanup of the inner solar system was underway. The mining operations on Mercury had been halted. The Vert-Ring itself separated into tiny hexagonal elements that whirled like a double helix toward the Builders’ ship, merging with the ship and recreating the mass that had been lost during its long deceleration into the inner solar system. The nanites were also reconfigured to create a massive solar sail that progressively accelerated the ship away from the sun.

It was eventually discovered that the Builders were headed to Epsilon Indi, 11.8 light years away. Their velocity was slower because the sails were only catching photons from the sun instead of harnessing the powerful lasers of a solar Ring. Their voyage would take over ten thousand years to complete, and deceleration into Epsilon Indi would require the consumption of most of the ship’s mass.

Aki still had questions that she wished she had been able to ask.
How many generations of Builders were born during the voyage? Do they transfer their consciousness to their progeny when they die? What did they think of humans as a species? Had the Builders found a way to prove the existence of God? Had the Builders proven that God was a lie?

Aki knew that her only chance to find the answers for her questions had passed. After the Builders’ ship had reached a distance of just over two astronomical units, the Builders ceased communicating with Natalia. Perhaps their complicated exchanges were infeasible because of the increasing time delay. Due to her interaction with the Builders, Natalia’s program had grown over ten times larger. It occupied almost all of the memory that the
Phalanx
’s computer could allocate without compromising the ship’s primary functions. Natalia continued to grow in size even after her dialogue with the Builders came to an end, but she still remained unable to communicate with Raul.

UNSDF Headquarters decided that Natalia should be allowed to continue growing, even though allocating the computer resources caused inconveniences for the crew. The five on the
Phalanx
had no objections. Natalia’s burgeoning awareness was the only gift that had been given to them by the Builders. They understood that Natalia had already lived for seventeen years as a nonadaptive intelligence.

Aki stared out the tiny window in the crew room, barely able to see the Builders’ gigantic solar sails reflecting the sunlight.

She wondered what kind of future would be in store for a species that had lost its ability to perceive the presence of others.

Aki felt certain that humanity would never choose such a lonely existence, especially after having seen what a relentless quest for pure intellect had done to the Builders.

Several months into the voyage, the idea that they were going home infected all five members of the crew with euphoria. Until that realization settled in, Aki had felt a nagging sense of sadness because her questions were left unanswered and her goals unachieved.

Now that the alien invaders had moved on, she knew that human beings would turn on each other—slipping back into pursuing selfish desires nearly as demented as the ones that motivated the Builders. She had tried to convince humanity that the Builders were benevolent. Now Aki would try to keep her species from forming its own merciless hivemind.

EPILOGUE

HE OPENED HIS
eyes to the sensation that the sun was beating down upon his face.

The first thing he saw was a dazzling light shining through what appeared to be yellow amniotic fluid. It was a soft and soothing light. He felt an odd, dreamlike sensation of omnipresence, able to see multiple views simultaneously. He could look at the light, or just as easily shift his focus away from it and see nothing but the star-spotted darkness of space. The light now appeared reddish in color and was the central point of focus in many of the scenes he was seeing.

Somehow, he instantly knew where he was. He was seeing the star Epsilon Indi. He was orbiting the star at the distance of an inner planet, present in every point along that orbit at once. He did not know how this information was entering his mind. Why was he here?

He then recalled a distant memory, almost as if it belonged to somebody else, of being wrapped in tiny fibers and absorbed into the ring. As he tried to connect this memory and his present situation, again, the answer came to him spontaneously. The ring had absorbed him, assimilating every part of his consciousness and memory. It was one of these memories that it was playing back now. Another memory entered his mind. It was of Aki. She wore a look of both terrified horror and loving tenderness. It was the last thing he saw before being enveloped by the fibers. He then saw another vision of Aki; she was much older and was wearing a space suit. Tears rolled down her cheek.

He wondered if the Builders had revived his consciousness as a gift to Aki for taking his life away in the first place. More than anyone, Aki desired to know the truth. It would have been better had they just brought her here to see for herself, he thought.
She did not need to come,
a voice within him replied.
For her, staying behind and experiencing the death of Mark Ridley was much more meaningful to her in the end.
He then knew this was true and that she had even said it herself.