World Walker 2: The Unmaking Engine (36 page)

The shrinking carapace kept repeating the process until nothing was left of the original Unmaking Engine. Then, its task complete, it continued to sink until finally, it rested in the dark blackness of the Atlantic depths.

There was no movement, no sound, no light. Nothing.
 

Chapter 43

The two men stood opposite each other for the last time.

Richmond Park was frost-covered, the ground white and hard, the trees gray silhouettes against a bleached sky.
 

On the pond, no ducks disturbed the stillness of the water, which looked at first to be iced over. A second glance revealed the water was still liquid, but was moving sluggishly, unnaturally.

Seb looked to the north. Instead of seeing the path, the trees and grass just faded away. It was as if someone had painted the scene and left a gap at the edge of the canvas where the first pencil sketches hadn’t yet been painted over. Even as he watched, the furthest tree—an ancient oak, its massive trunk dominated by the dozens of huge branches spreading above—lost definition and started to fade from the side furthest away.

“No need for this place anymore,” said Seb2. He was wearing a winter coat, scarf and gloves. Seb was still in the T-shirt, jeans and sneakers he’d been wearing when he’d intercepted the Unmaking Engine. Seb didn’t feel cold. His breath didn’t come out as vapor. Seb2’s did.

Seb said nothing, just looked around with a strange aching sense of loss. In the real world, this was where he’d first fallen for Mee. In his own subconscious, this was where he’d first met Seb2 and learned a little about the way his life was changing. Half a mile away, he’d seen a third version of himself, existing in constant pain. Seb3 had been absorbed in some way now, the pain gone. Seb guessed he should feel glad, but it worried—no, scared—him. Where was he now, this missing piece of his consciousness? And, after this, would he be fully himself again, or something less than that?
 

“It’s time,” said Seb2. “But I want you to make me a promise. There’s something you
need
to do. You’re changing faster than you know it now, but you must never lose sight of who you are. So, promise you’ll do something for me. For us—for
you
.”

“I promise,” said Seb, and his double told him what he had to do. Seb’s hands clenched into fists and he said nothing. Finally, he nodded.
 

Around the two men, the park was disappearing faster now. Trees were fading, paths had gone, frost-held blades of grass were losing what little definition they had and leeching away into the whiteness.

Seb2 took a step forward and hugged his double. Seb hesitated for a moment. Why did this feel like a bereavement? He wrapped his arms around the other man, but there was nothing there. He was just hugging his own shoulders. He let his arms drop to his side. He was standing alone.

“Hello?” he thought.

“Hello?” He said it aloud this time. The park had lost even its aural realism, the sound of his voice dead and flat, like the sound in a recording studio.
 

Seb watched the whiteness approach. The pond was going now. He felt a stab of fear. This felt more like an ‘unmaking’.
 

He had never felt more alone as the whiteness moved in and finally engulfed him.

***

The Unmaking Engine had plummeted into the south Atlantic at a point almost equidistant from the two continents to the east and west. NASA tracked it all the way, but in the absence of any nearby ships that might provide extra data, didn’t see any need to further investigate a medium sized meteorite that had, by now, surely sunk to an unrecoverable depth.

Nightingale Island, one of the three Tristan Da Cunha islands, was free of human habitation, populated mostly by a million seabirds. The landscape was dominated by two peaks—one of them an active volcano.
 

A tiny, inaccessible yellow sand bay lay at its northwest tip. Rocks were strewn across the sand, ranging in size from a closed fist to a small house. Perched on one of these rocks—this one about the size and roughly the shape of a three-seat sofa, H’wan had adopted a thoughtful posture, gazing out to sea in a philosophical manner.

He had experimented with a few different positions over the previous few hours. His penchant for the dramatic had been an unexpected side-effect of separation from the Gyeuk.

 
Existence in the vast hive mind of the Gyeuk was impossible to put into words, so the Gyeuk rarely tried. When pressed, its responses were usually aphoristic, Zen-like, and ultimately, meaningless to anyone outside the consensus.

Existence separated from the Gyeuk for a ship like H’wan was far easier to put into words, but it was reluctant to do so. To itself, though, H’wan admitted it was having fun. There was no other word for it. Fun. It felt like a rebel just for thinking it. ‘Fun’ was a word that suggested a feeling that didn’t, couldn’t have any meaning within the Gyeuk, where the emotional peaks and troughs of the flesh-bound were entirely absent.

Separation had, at first, been strange and painful. Tactless, flesh-bound visitors had occasionally tried to empathize by fatuously likening the experience to losing a limb. The truth was far worse. If anything, it was more like being a limb that had lost its body. Not even a limb. A fingernail, perhaps. But over time, H’wan had—to its horror at first, then to its secret delight—realized it was enjoying itself tremendously. The Gyeuk was the ultimate society, no doubt at all, but there was something a little pompous and ridiculous about all that drifting-through-space-thinking-deep-thoughts stuff.
 

H’wan changed its mind again and stood up. It folded its arms—well, the arms of its avatar, really—most of it was still the ship orbiting above. It adopted a stance intended to look strong and imposing. It based it on a drawing it had uploaded of an eighteenth century Samurai warrior. In H’wan’s case, a twelve-foot-tall Samurai. It imagined it must look fantastic.

If H’wan had experienced time as the flesh-bound of this planet did, it would have been looking at its watch every few seconds and tutting by now. As it was, it simply scuffed its feet on the sand and noted with delight another aspect to his personality. Impatience, how wonderful.
 

Just as it was beginning to wonder if it had been mistaken about the resilience of the T’hn’uuth, the water near the shore began to bubble and move unnaturally. H’wan had been broadcasting its presence for nearly half an Earth orbit now. If the T’hn’uuth had survived his battle with the Unmaking Engine, he would surely come to H’wan first, if only to gloat a bit. Wouldn’t he? H’wan was aware that some of his previous predictions about the fleshbound’s behavior had proved wildly off the mark.
 

H’wan had mixed feelings about the T’hn’uuth, or
World Walkers
as the human had named them. Almost all sentient species shared these feelings—of course, the occasional backwater species worshipped them as gods or feared them as demons. But mostly, they were regarded with cautious respect and more than a little fear. So rare as to be almost mythical, the T’hn’uuth represented a true unknown. And they were not renowned for their openness in communication. But Sebastian Varden was very young. H’wan felt the stirrings of excitement again. To encounter a T’hn’uuth at this stage of his development was somewhat of a scientific coup. It had been assumed, by those who even acknowledged their existence, that the T’hn’uuth were dying out. The last documented encounter had been over a thousand years ago, and that particular specimen was thought to be older than the planet it had visited on that occasion.

So, as the water rose, foaming and spitting, coiling and writhing, H’wan struggled slightly to maintain its imposing pose. It really wanted to rub its hands together in glee.

Suddenly, the ground beneath H’wan’s feet began to shake alarmingly. The volcano behind him was active, but not due to erupt for another 722 days. No seismic activity registering either.
 

Rocks of all shapes and sizes first trembled, then began to shake violently, finally prizing themselves away from the sand and flying into the sea. H’wan took a couple of steps backward, then resumed its imposing stance. Wouldn’t do to drop its standards now.
 

With a sound like that of a thousand breakers crashing into each other simultaneously, a huge column of water rose into the air. The rocks were lifted with it, and H’wan could see hundreds of fish—and at least one shark—still swimming in the gravity-defying shape towering above him. At a height of about sixty feet, the shape stopped climbing and started taking on some definition. Oval at the top, then flowing outward beneath to a huge central area, from the sides of which of which two columns began to form. No, not columns.

Ah,
thought H’wan.
A human figure. Impressive.

Looking up, it watched the oval change, becoming a face, flowing into easily recognizable features. The hair was a mass of seaweed, the eyes dark volcanic rocks, the skin tens of millions of shells.
 

The giant took a step onto the beach. H’wan abandoned his pose and slipped hastily backward, making his way further up the beach.

“Why are you still here?” The voice didn’t come from the towering figure in front of him. It was a soft voice directly behind him. H’wan, to his shame, let out a high-pitched shriek and pirouetted one-hundred-and-eighty degrees.

The T’hn’uuth—Seb Varden—was looking at him. H’wan had studied the micro-expressions common in thousands of humanoid species, including those on this planet, but it didn’t know how to begin reading Seb Varden’s expression now. The human was utterly still, self-possessed. H’wan knew it had to make an effort to take control of the encounter. It was about to speak when there was a huge crash behind and around it as the giant reduced itself to its component parts. By an immense effort of will, H’wan manage not to turn around. Although, it did make a strange involuntary squeaking sound.

“You survived, T’hn’uuth. I am unsurprised, but you show a degree of control that impresses me. World Walkers, as you call them, are rumored to train themselves in their abilities for many centuries. Although, I must confess, when it comes to information about the development of T’hn’uuth, the entries in the databanks of the universe are remarkably underwhelming. I don’t suppose you’d care to—,”

It broke off. That unreadable expression was remarkably unnerving.

“No, perhaps not,” it said. There was silence for a while.

“I asked you a question,” said Seb.

“You did, yes, you did. Undoubtedly,” said H’wan. Why was it babbling like an adolescent fleshbound? It felt off balance. It was Gyeuk—part of the pinnacle of evolution, the ultimate expression of intelligence. Perhaps it had been a ship too long, after all.

Seb waited.

“Well,” said H’wan. “As I said, it is not my place to intervene. The Gyeuk is beyond such matters.”

“Beyond intervening to prevent genocide?”

H’wan regained some of its composure.

“Your perspective is understandably skewed,” it said. “Identification is a necessary part of evolution. Almost every sentient series in the universe begins its journey by developing strong identification systems. Identification with a parent, siblings, a tribe, a nation, a race, a planet. As evolution continues, this infantile trait falls away. As hard as this may be to hear, your species has barely begun to reach a level where it might even be considered to be intelligent.”

“How can you say that, if you know anything about humanity’s history?” said Seb. “Our scientific discoveries, our music, literature, art.”

“There is nothing there I haven’t seen on thousands of other planets,” said H’wan. “By that measure, you show potential, but other species have moved away from violence and self-destruction much more rapidly.”

“We will do the same,” said Seb. “Our shortcomings gives you no right to destroy us.”

“Nothing has changed,” said H’wan. “My crew is already preparing another device. They are not easily dissuaded. You are just delaying the inevitable. Unless—,” H’wan paused. It knew the T’hn’uuth must have considered the possibility. He was a human, after all. “Unless you intend using violence to prevent them.”

The T’hn’uuth finally moved, turning away from H’wan and taking a few paces along the sand. A few drops of rain were beginning to fall.

“A bit late for you to take the moral high ground, don’t you think?” said Seb. He didn’t wait for an answer. “There may be another way. It will take a little time. Give me a few days.”

H’wan noticed, with some surprise, that this last was framed not as a request, but as an order. Even more surprisingly, it found its inclination was to obey. Interesting.

“How do I find you?” said Seb.

“Just speak my name. I will come.”

“Until then.”

H’wan bowed.

“T’hn’uuth.”

Seb nodded and turned to go. H’wan held up a hand to stop him.

“You spoke of humanity’s achievements. The words you used:
our
scientific discoveries,
our
music,
our
literature. You speak as if you yourself are still caught in the species stage of identification, but your - essence - says otherwise. You are not fleshbound, you are not Gyeuk, you are T’hn’uuth, a World Walker. If the legends are to be believed, you will always be
other
, always a wanderer, identifying with nothing, no place, no one. Your way is—I think—unknowable. Perhaps even to yourself. Until next time, World Walker.”

The eighteenth century Samurai started to dissolve into smoke and streak into the sky, just as Seb Walked, leaving the beach empty for a few minutes, after which the seabirds returned to their perches as if nothing untoward had happened.

Chapter 44

New York

The apartment was dark and there was a smell of decay. Seb thought for a moment that Mason had died, but a quick examination revealed he was still clinging on to the last vestiges of life, as his body incrementally continued its final shutting down.