 
Worlds Beyond Time

by

Adrian Kyte

Copyright © 2020. Adrian Kyte

1

It was working up to be a blizzard, the warnings nothing but an invitation. Beautiful.

The snow, the extreme cold, the lack of air. He loved it all. As near to oblivion as it was possible to get and still feel alive. For here, trudging on ever higher, everything could fade into insignificance. That was his hope. Time after time.

Plenty of time.

Keep pushing on, he told himself. Take it beyond sensation to where there is no limit, no pain threshold. Just a numbness. The disappearance of the self into the swirling white mass.

Almost but never completely. Today, he assured himself, would be different. The fear had gone now. He hadn't truly acknowledged the fear before, it stopped him making that final push. And they had known that.

Usually it only all becomes clear near towards the end, someone had once written, a name he couldn't now remember. All those lessons learnt, all that wisdom accumulated ... and so much forgotten. He'd hoped to figure it out before that point. After all, those wise words applied to a standard lifespan. His was anything but.

What had become clear: no longer was death the worse thing of all. Not the faint prospect of his or the certainty of others'. Being left alone was the natural consequence, knowing they all had to go in the end (if he hadn't had to leave them first). And the ones that don't die, they just age.

Keep moving on. He had no choice. To the next career, the next project. The next One.

Always another chance?

Until the decline, Toramin felt he had endless chances. No end of existence to look forward to, not by any natural process, only by some extreme act of self destruction. To think you had reached the end only to have it denied.

Life's a marathon not a sprint – he'd maybe read on a t-shirt. Except that meant a sense of a destination. No matter it was too distant to see. Better, he thought, for the end to be beyond the horizon but to know it was there, somewhere.

Keep going.

He felt them still working. Those things inside him hadn't entirely given up, performing diligent operations to restore him to proper working order. Saved from the ravages of old age. For something.

But that time had surely passed. The machines were failing him. Finally.

He pressed on.

The snow denser now, swirling, obscuring his vision. It didn't matter that he couldn't see, he knew the terrain already, knew it well. Kept moving higher, rarely getting beyond this point. The one time he had, it was... beautiful. Not a rational word it seemed now to describe the slipping away into oblivion. But that was entirely the point: all this rational, analytical – if subjective – thinking faded to pure experience. He could still just enumerate the process of his mind shutting down.

Higher. Above the cloud layer. An eerily silence. The sun dazzled and gave maybe only the illusion of warmth. Cold was setting into motion his defence nano-machines, mindlessly restoring his body to homeostasis, boosting blood-flow, repairing damaged flesh. Eventually they would require an external energy source to recharge. In this desolate environment it hardly seemed possible there'd be anything they could extract. But even here there were molecules rich enough in energy from which to siphon.

Yet he knew there would come a point when the cold, lack of nourishment, lack of oxygen would finally take him. Theoretically.

He could only hope that this time his benefactors would understand.

Hours passed, he ambled on. Stumbled but refused to rest, refused to let those things do their job, extract their energy. They were intelligent enough to know not to extract it from him while he was on reserves. And so, in abeyance, the damage accumulated.

He fell finally. Lay there. Felt it all fading. Thought, in his hazy mind, he'd be allowed to die. And hoped when he saw the white clad figure before him – like a man made from snow – that it was merely a hallucination. He even tried to dismiss those accent-less words. 'Toramin. You thought we'd leave you here? Is that really what you want?'

'Yes,' he thought he managed to reply. But knew he would not get his wish. Not even after eight hundred and twenty-seven years.

2

Z

What remained was now suspended in a tank, had been for the last two-hundred and thirty Earth years. A brain and a single eye.

She would visit him once a week. Him, Zerrana thought, never it. Sometimes the high commander referred to Roidon as an it, and she had no qualms over correcting the old b'tari on that point, knowing she would not be reprimanded.

'No, he wouldn't dare, would he, Roidon?'

Roidon did have a speech synthesizer but these days no longer bothered to use it. More days than surely he'd care to remember. No one could know if he even wanted to continue. This was one of the rare times he was not hooked up to the sim, a rare time in reality. Vital signs no longer even showed depression – there were no significant readings to indicate any emotion. She guessed he wasn't too pleased to be ripped out of his virtual fantasy back to this banality. Still, it was part of the requirement. Otherwise ... well, otherwise what was the point in being in this organic state? Roidon had 'earned' his immortal status for so many years of service – thousands of years. And each time he was brought back did he ever feel privileged to be the oldest organic sentient in the galaxy? No. Of course not. He was a relic of a bygone age, a reminder of how powerful the B'tari once were before the erasure, the patriarchal benefactors of a really quite small part of the Milky Way galaxy. Roidon was the lie they told themselves. The myth that lives.

The myth that some were starting to doubt.

Roidon's auditory sensor was fully online. Zerrana's throat felt uncomfortably dry despite taking frequent sips of water. She just had to get straight to the point.

'Mr Chanley. Roidon, if I may. They want to bring you back, give you a body. They have something they need doing. Our representative needs some assistance.'

Now his neural patterns were redlining. Something, a noise, rumbling from the audio out unit. A growl. How many years, she wondered, since he had even uttered a word?

Now: laughter?

'Roidon,' she said. 'This is your chance to return.'

'Return,' went his safely-synthetic voice. 'Return to my world is what I want.' Meaning the Earth-sim world.

She couldn't decide whether his demand was like a typical grumpy old man or a child. 'So you can forget who you really are? Live a lie?'

'Yes,' he rumbled. 'That's exactly it.'

'There is a man like you who has lost his way. Forgotten who he is, and his true objective.'

'Like me? Really?'

Humans were easily riled, she reminded herself. But not time for apologies. 'He can't complete the mission alone any more.'

'Mission, is there? There is always A Mission.'

'We're making progress. We – they think things can be restored.'

'Ever the deluded optimists, I know. Now switch me back, so I can forget this conversation ever happened.'

Zerrana was disappointed, she had to admit to herself. This was the legendary Roidon Chanley, after all.

3

T

Back in the bright white place where they made him recover. Austere hardly described it!

No choice in the matter, he thought grimly. Just keep bringing me back from the brink like some suicidal teenager who doesn't know what's best for them.

At times like this, when some cognitive function failed, he would think of his brain as one of those ancient obsolete computers. The hardware – the base processor – had never been upgraded. Storage capacity also unchanged: the RAM struggling to cope with the level of input, permanent memory pushed to its limit. Some memories had gone, he was certain; either erased by his own brain, or something external. Something to do with them – his persistent rescuers.

And what of the software? He imagined it as something less definable: his personality.

The nanochines ran fixes on neurological damage but only beyond a certain threshold – that which would lead to imminent death. To remain human (without the more obvious artificial addenda) only this minimum could be done.

It was not that he was immortal; no one could truly live for ever. But there was no prescribed end date he knew of. Besides, who could really know? He was a living experiment! He felt the decline now but for a while had been in denial about it. Lack of sleep, depression – he was sure any doctor would have diagnosed. But this was more than merely forgetting events in the past. He was... forgetting, increasingly absent-minded, failing to recognise faces, objects, anything that didn't strike him as being out of the ordinary. An incipient blindness of the brain. The software kept updating to accommodate. The tiny machines tried to compensate; it was as if he could feel them straining in their tasks. His benefactors must know he was becoming a liability; that it was only a matter of time before the truth got out.

He sat up, the tiredness receding. The nanochines, fresh with energy, doing their unthinking work towards whatever homoeostasis had now become the standard. He removed two drip-feed tubes from his arms.

'I'm ready to leave now,' he announced.

Each time this had happened it became less surprising that no one responded.

Nonetheless. 'Why do you bother? Why show yourself at all if not now?' he addressed the absent mysterious figure, the one who only appeared when it seemed he was about to die.

Everything he needed was here. Food, water, all the basics for living in one small compound. But never another sentient being.

'Is it because you're afraid of me?' he persisted. 'Afraid I might try to kill the one who refuses to let me die?'

He paced the room. 'I promise you I won't try anything violent.'

There were cameras, there had to be cameras; they had to be monitoring every aspect of him, so he wouldn't attempt... Hmm, what I could I use here? In this small room there was very little that he could use to self-harm. The idea was, of course, that he should recover. But while here do nothing but reflect on his past actions.

'Does nothing I say make any difference?' Well, of course not. The door lock would not release until someone, something, had determined he'd recovered sufficiently. An individual, a committee, a machine. It made him feel like the errant yet prodigal adolescent who needed protection from his own impulsive will. Being made to carry on like this, as if there were some grand scheme in place for him. But for longer than he cared to remember, his life had been no more than an existence. Just the past for comfort.

Memories, that was all. Ghosts.

'I get it. This is a punishment. Giving me all this time to think, taking away distractions.'

This place: all smooth synthetic surfaces. Food would slide out from a recess when he requested it; all the basics. Nothing he could damage. Simple and oddly reassuring, like a prison for the institutionalised. A time without the distractions of free will. A time to reassess. Freedom anyway in recent years was the worst thing that could have happened to him. Freedom from the want of money. Freedom from everyone. Well, almost. How many people have that? He mused. No ties, no family, or anyone he hadn't had to leave.

Plenty of time to remember. If only he could trust his memory. The visitation and abduction all those centuries ago – the alien bestowed with what seemed at the time supernatural powers that altered this boy too young to understand the enormous significance of what he underwent. Even this, the most significant event in his life, he had to doubt.

Yet a reality of his past he could never question. Never question the isolation he felt. All those accolades, all that praise from elders; he would happily have sacrificed those just to fit in, to be seen to be normal, to feel he was normal. To not need to be protected from those who may have wanted him as their lab subject. To not feel obliged to accept any care – be it supervision or guidance – from beings who never truly revealed themselves. Or if they had they made him forget it.

And now, too late. His mind was finally starting to fail.

'No,' he said to the mysterious listener. 'This is not a punishment. That much I understand.'

His guardian angel, they might have once said. Or maybe his spirit guide. There, always in the periphery, always out of sight until the point of death.

His train of thought wiped away as suddenly as appeared an opening revealing the side of a hill, a winding stream along a valley through the verdant hills to some vanishing point. Always a different location.

The Walk Home. They allowed him to keep his comm receiver with its sat nav, a teardrop shape marking his home nine kilometres away. The gentle warmth of an early spring sun made the distance a welcome relief from his previous confinement. He imagined his rescuer&co observing him trudge the long journey back, wondered if they could know his thoughts, alert to any signs that he would turn his mind towards repeating the act of self destruction.

But what he was thinking hardly merited note.

No, now, much as the other times, there was just a general melancholy. Events of the past would drift up. If by some unknown technology they were monitoring his thoughts, they would see only the familiar memories: the only woman he truly fell in love with, who became his wife. He could never repeat that feeling, that exhilaration. He wanted to tell the world how wonderful it could be. That special one, when nothing and no one would dare distract him from her. Recalled images of bliss that had to be real. He felt sure. His golden bubble of memory preserved and never to be tainted, because their life together was so short. The illness took her swiftly, though so long ago – perhaps five human lifespans. They could have saved her, just that one intervention. Of course he knew their rationale: if everyone lived to a grand old age it would put intolerable pressure on resources. He tried to ameliorate the anger, comfort his mind with the logic of his supposed benefactors. What if she hadn't died but instead been gifted with similar 'chines? How differently could their relationship have endured? No longer the preciousness of time, with the possibility of eternal togetherness. Someone allowed truly into his world. His secret world. The notion was almost inconceivable. Never mind the denial of how fleeting true happiness can be. He'd have bought into that belief, back then. Instead, he knew it had an end date.

He shifted his mind to later memories. Only fragments.

The cabin remained the one permanent fixture in his life. Surrounded by a glade and snow capped mountains far off, there was no better location. It was in the most conventional way bucolic. This place he had built by his own hands. From his years working the financial and stock markets, he'd easily the money to buy one or to have someone build to his exact specifications and follow many others who'd made a fortune in the city. And become, he'd mused, a cliché. But when there was so much time – time for the trial and error inevitable in taking on such a humongous task, he could work through all the frustrations of some misjudgement or other before finally that immense sense of achievement in having made something that was truly his. A special sense of ownership, a tangible legacy to his slow fading self, and in the process no better distraction from what had become the looming emptiness of his life.

Yet others thought it strange, this need for solitude. Even he saw the paradox. But what could be lonelier that being in the company of many but with none to make any proper connection?

There hardly seemed a need for security; this area was remote and often inhospitable to travel through and he had few valuable possessions. Nonetheless the cabin had double locks and a motion sensor.

Inside, his console sensed his presence, activated. A screen suddenly blossomed before him. A woman appeared, a rather generic local appearance but in clothes – a kind of formal tunic – that didn't seem in keeping with the local fashion. And when she spoke, he noticed there was something not quite right about her accent, words overly annunciated.

'Toramin, my name is Zerrana Zoranzi of the B'tari. Or rather, I am your local avatar speaking on her behalf. You will not remember your previous association or your work for us, but we request your assistance once more.'

'What do you want from me?' he heard himself say, feeling something amounting to annoyance. 'I'm too old for this.'

'Only five years ago. A very sensitive assignment within your birth galaxy, the Milky Way.' The mention of birth galaxy, as if to make him feel a sense of obligation.

'Assignment? I have no memory of any assignment,' Toramin protested. 'How could you make me forget that?'

'Please believe me, the knowledge of it would have been a tremendous burden.'

'Millions of light years.' A thought voiced he realised could have sounded child-like.

'Yes, it is a long journey even for us.'

'And you want me to make the journey again?' he asked, still not convinced there ever was a previous assignment. Yet not the total incredulity he might have expected to feel.

'Your assistance is required on planet Earth.'

He waited for the rest of the explanation, which did not come. 'Are you going to tell me why?'

'To do so would violate the Temporal Directive.'

'The Temp?---Anyway, I refuse. Besides, surely you can see I'm past it. I'm too old!' he added, in case she hadn't fully clocked.

The woman nodded and her image winked out. Toramin let his annoyance settle to agitation. Then to tiredness; though he doubted he'd be sleeping well tonight, if at all.

4

Z

The file was before her, terabytes of text and images to scroll through; all the information on this world's history. Peering out from her high tower at the dense spruce forest showed Zerrana all she needed to know. Planet Earth was now bereft of any remnants of human civilisation. Never mind that nothing down there had changed in eight hundred years since the erasure. What difference did it make whether it had regressed three million years or six?

Time is fractured – that's what she'd learned. They'd escaped the wave, taken that one giant leap only when forced to: gone intergalactic. Time, she knew now, was not just fractured, it was broken. And there was no way to fix it.

So what was there left for them? No one it seemed dare ask that question. But the answer was always there. Only now could it be voiced with true purpose. Survival.

Reading the history files confirmed what she had suspected. To return to the world they had nurtured – if only in a secretive Temporal Directive approved way – had left her people with a hollow sense of triumph. Theirs to own now. But at what cost? At what loss? Humanity, civilisation perhaps? No. More than that, she thought. A sense of purpose. The loss of humans from this world was akin to parents losing children; the elders told of a galaxy destined to become stagnant and sterile – since B'tari were not the most fecund, the need to procreate an increasing irrelevance. Although with her kind a such diminished race since the erasure it seemed that repopulating the galaxy had now gained a far more rational imperative.

Not that this could ever be considered the safest time to be bringing new life into the world, or any part of the galaxy.

'T-E project,' she commanded. Then there before her a projection of the current local group. The erasure wave had spread to the LMC, but by now so dissipated it was only wiping a few thousand years off any matter it encountered. Andromeda, at least most of it, was thought to be far enough from the epicentre to never be affected. Either way, it would be half a millennium before the seeded planet need take action.

Zooming out beyond the forest to the distant vast sprawling cities told another story. This could be her home world. Parts of which had been recreated as B'tar. Not so different to Earth pre-erasure. Half close her eyes and it could be the very same. Many of her kind – not least herself – looked almost indistinguishably human now. It felt like a mass tribute to an ancient lost race. Maybe it seemed less like colonisation, which would have contravened the most basic tenets of the Temporal Directive. Not that there were any natives possessing the type of intelligence to be influenced. Not that any rules or restrictions from on high had the slightest relevance these days. But even here there were those warning against abandoning their ancient doctrine, as though it were akin to abandoning all civilised values. She couldn't imagine B'tari civilisation descending to savagery, or even decadence. Surely a threatened race holds on to its culture.

Funny, though, she reflected, how when life becomes a little too comfortable was the point when trouble begins. Trouble at least a possibility. Trouble from without. The scanner showed their approaching ships as little red triangles, every so often disappearing to enter into whatever type of hyperspace tech they had now resorted to use. If they were truly the Elusivers of old, they'd be here already, she concluded. But, as the observational accounts suggested, these too were a much diminished species. They were the few who had protected themselves from the wave – the temporal erasure wave of their own making. Taken solace in some kind of isolation bubble together with what fragments of technology they could salvage. And now after eight centuries they had rebuilt sufficiently to traverse the thousands of light years. How long before they reached here? No one could determine, their approach sporadic. Maybe months or only weeks. Regardless, they would not be allowed to even enter this solar system unchallenged. The Elusivers may have once been the supreme species of the galaxy.

But now the B'tari are back.

A probe had been sent out to gather closer information on the approaching armada. So far, at no nearer than three thousand light years, it was already apparent how much they had expanded in population: approximately two thousand and twenty-seven ships ranged from half a kilometre sized to over ten. If the scant accounts and probe observations were accurate, in those eight hundred years the Elusivers had progressed from a group of less than a thousand to over a billion. The B'tari had a chance to attack their homeworld all those centuries ago but declined; the Temporal Directive, as moribund and irrelevant as it had seemed after the erasure, still held some sway with the council. And now her people were about to reap the consequences of non-action.

If the Elusivers approached believing nothing remained of any human Earthlings – that their lives were wiped from history – then they believed Earth could become another outpost, the B'tari a minor hindrance.

Except not all humans had been banished from the galaxy.

Right here on her desk an obsidian block no larger than ten centimetres squared. Nothing to give any obvious clue as to its function. Only when she tapped the side a certain number of times with a precise length of gap between parts of the sequence did a little interface port slide out. It couldn't, after all, be easy to access. Gaining access meant having control of the lives of two billion individual humans. It had been passed down through four generations of B'tari to her for keeping. Fact was, there was no good reason to delete those high fidelity human simulacrums; they were a reminder of an eradicated race, a copy from a copy taken by a species with a penchant for memory. Minds scanned so deeply – and brutally – it killed the subjects. And now she bore the legacy of those scans.

Yet in all those nine years this sim had been in her possession she had only accessed it once, at least beyond the standard diagnostics. Only once had she immersed herself in that world, in people's lives. It was six years now since that traumatic experience. Not that there was suffering as a general phenomenon, but through all the generations of human advancement (which, she understood, could no longer be regarded as simulated) conflicts still happened, cruelty, exploitation, poverty, violence. Starvation. How many times in her brief tenure had she considered intervening, breaking that fundamental rule? Playing God (as the humans might have it). Or just ending the sim; which, given its level of protection, was only possible by removing its power source. Except that would be truly playing God. The only alternative was to send in someone who had experience of Earth, intimate knowledge of humans.

Roidon Chanley. The most risky imperfect solution. But still the only choice.

Now it was time for Roidon to leave his safe and, she suspected, hedonistic life. Roidon had work to do.

5

T

Everything decays. His cabin, the wood-panelled walls, the roof crumbling at the edge, broken down by bacteria, by insects, or whatever undefined elements. Every so often patching it up. A temporary reassurance, but not enough to stop the gradual creeping progression hardly even noticed by the resident, until something suddenly gives. Then finally there came a point when he realised you cannot patch things up for ever, they must eventually be allowed to crumble. Sometimes he wondered why he hadn't realised sooner. Ever the clarity of hindsight.

Toramin had seen more decay than any human ever should. But only in the last few years was he beginning to feel he was part of that process. The breakdown of the inner structure beneath the façade of normality, of homoeostasis.

And then it arrived. A new treatment package, brought by a drone like any standard retail delivery. They only needed to be injected. He hesitated at first; it seemed so unnatural, as if the current things running around his body – now for over two-hundred years – were just a biological part of his body's immune system.

The instructions as follows: Load cartridge into hypofuser. Push nozzle against anywhere with a visible artery. Press once. Then await further instructions for step two.

It was that simple. Within an hour he felt the change. A sense of clarity returning to his thoughts. A resolve, a strength. A vitality.

He didn't know much of how these things were changing him. But now, two hours after injecting the nanochines, he just must eat. The hunger became a force he could not resist.

After Toramin had eaten about a day's food allowance in twenty minutes, he proceeded with step two. He removed the data tab from its plastic sleeve, inserted it into his console. First to appear was the seated figure of the b'tari female.

'Assuming you have taken the repairer infusion, you are ready for the next step,' said her animated human-like form. 'The playing of this message will trigger a vehicle to arrive in approximately one hour. What follows is a brief introduction to your assignment and instructions. More will follow upon leaving.'

The image displayed in an animated form showing an egg-like vehicle land, for then a figure to enter it. That was enough. His memory may have been shot but he understood much of what was to befall him. And for some reason he could not explain, there was no choice but to comply.

Fifty minutes now, it didn't seem long. In a near frenzy he packed his things, prepared for what he knew to be a long journey.

The vehicle landed almost precisely on time. It was more a delta shape than in the animation, a chrome-like silver. Beside the craft, Toramin turned back to take one last look at his cabin. He had the feeling of never returning. It felt like he was on borrowed time: one last mission, or assignment, before they no longer had use for him. Funny how accustomed he had become to the isolation of this existence. If at any time the dark shadow of loneliness intruded, it must have faded into the general darkness of his life. Or it only ever existed where there were others in some indirect way to remind him of it. But now with the new nanochines still racing round his system the idea of remaining in this solitary uneventful existence would have been intolerable. Work, life – these were what he now sought. Like a revelation; like he had only just truly opened his eyes.

The cabin could rot to nothing without him.

The craft was basic, just enough to take him into orbit. Looking down at the receding ground, the forests, the distant mountains, he couldn't escape the feeling that this was the last time he would see Eranearth. To see as a globe, a more beautiful world than he ever imagined existed. It surprised him.

How indulgent, this thinking: lamenting the loss of another chance to see a sunset, the golden light of winter illuminating the bare trees; summer's gentle scented warmth infused with the chirruping of isodoles and the random fluttering of smaller birds. All these things so elemental and so profound to his life. A life he had wanted to end. What had changed?

'It's you,' he told himself in a whisper.

No memory of so far above, and yet a strange familiarity to it, the curvature of the planet. Leaving what seemed the beguiling serenity of nature, knowing nothing of what he was to face. Still: bring it on, he thought.

Suddenly he loved life, loved it as once a teenager in those moments between the usual anxieties when burdens evaporated. The potential, the need to explore the opportunities. And just the simple experiences of the natural world. But unlike a teenager, if he had the chance to see another sunset down there he'd savour it, golden, red or not.

Soon the continents were only patches of greens and browns and mostly blue amid myriad star clusters. The sense of acceleration gone, the curious feeling of free-fall accompanied by the rising sensation of his stomach, only tempered by the final boosts of thrust.

Above loomed a ship several times the size of the shuttle, which was now docking. Toramin thought he was about to vomit in the final few seconds before the reassuring clunk of the docking clamp. As soon as the synth voice announced pressurisation of the airlock, he pushed himself toward the now sliding away hatch into the padded airlock. A heavy door levered open into a sparse-looking, efficiently white-lit craft. He felt relieved to experience gravity but shocked to see what looked like a plastic coffin: a shiny and opaque bottom half with tinted translucent top.

He knew something about the ship's drive – its capabilities – from the instructions package: transwarp tunnelling generator, went the translation. Nothing especially technical, other than outlining how the drive could only work intermittently owing to the vast distance. It even gave an estimate for the journey's duration bar external interferences (whatever they might be). He'd reach Earth's sol system in approximately two-hundred and fifty hours, which given the distance seemed quite impressive.

He was sure this ship's interior was merely designed to facilitate his submersion into slow-sleep. No flashing lights or screens or buttons (such as they were ever used these days) to pique his interest. Just panels of light grey, a seat; a separate compartment with a shower and toilet.

With the ship leaving orbit, a deliberately artificial voice advised him to enter the sleep pod at the earliest convenience. Sleep was the last thing he wanted. He wanted to remain here, watching: space, the stars meshing together into a tube before vanishing. Then there was hardly anything to see other than faint watery streaks of grey-white almost matching the interior. He craved some external stimulation. Boredom was settling in surprisingly quick.

Eventually he contemplated the sleep pod. Sleep. More precisely unconsciousness; rather like death, or what some believed post-death to be like. Although, he mused, how it could be like anything just seemed absurd. A state of being dead, there was no calibration for it as any state. He recalled at his lowest point when he spent much of his time contemplating whether there would be anything of an afterlife, or one that seemed worth while. There was even then a nagging sense of clutching at straws. Where could the mind be? Yet there were the accounts of perception beyond measurable consciousness – seeing the surgeon perform a specific task that could not possibly be surmised. Accounts of visitations by the deceased shortly after they had died. Always fragments of evidence, hardly more than anecdotal. And as for the notion of a god...

The alternatives to sleep were becoming clear: boredom, rumination, frustration at the lack of anything new to see. But worse, the hunger. It would become his prison.

If only it would let me dream, he thought as he lowered himself into the pod. As he placed his head in the cupped rest two little probes pressed against his temples. Brief electric shock pulses seemed to be pushing him down within himself. Deeper and deeper as if gravity intensified, sinking him into the pod. Thoughts frozen; time frozen.

### 6

### Z

This was not what I wanted. Zerrana's abiding thought. And yet here she was, strapped down on the couch, hooked up to an interface port, a cable protruding from a headband to a node which itself was connected to the Earth-sim cube.

'Ten seconds until immersion,' came the synth voice.

The transition was sudden, one reality replaced with another like the changing frame of a film. She was in a house, a room. A bedroom. Roidon was there asleep with whatever woman happened to be his latest.

She had a script revised in her head. 'Roidon,' she shouted. 'How could you?'

Roidon had woken to see her shaking her head in mock disbelief.

'What?' he murmured.

'You just can't help yourself, can you?' she continued. 'Who is it this time? Do even know her name?'

The woman sprang upright, revealing unfeasibly perfect breasts. 'Roidon?' she queried. Then looked back at Zerrana for the answer.

'If you haven't figured it out already, honey, maybe you should look for the ring-shaped impression on his finger. Except he probably tried to rub that out too.'

The woman turned to him. 'Roidon?'

'I ... I'm not with this woman,' he tried to assure her.

'But you know her? You admit that much.'

'Yes but---'

'I'm leaving now,' she told him, getting out of bed still without anything on. Then after finding her robe she turned to Zerrana, and said: 'If you are truly his wife then I am truly sorry.' And then she stormed out.

Zerrana felt a glow of satisfaction. How easy that had seemed.

Roidon scowled at her. 'Enjoy that did you? Humiliating me.'

'Actually,' she admitted, 'I rather did.'

He sank back down onto the bed. 'I am not gonna rise to this.'

'No, I expect you are rather spent.'

'Bitch.' But he didn't say it with much conviction.

'Come on Roidon, as the only b'tari female associate you haven't bedded, I'm sure you can't be too disappointed to see me here.'

'Don't flatter yourself, love. I can have any woman I want here.'

'But you must be getting bored of human females by now – especially simulated ones.'

'If you're making me an offer, then fine. I'm not as spent as you might think. But---'

'But of course you know me too well to believe I'm here for sex.'

'Oh sure, I know it's business – a job. Don't even bother sugar-coating it – you're here to take me out of heaven for some noble scheme devised by the Council.'

'Do you remember our little chat about a man called Toramin?'

'I remember the disruption of you pulling me out of a very important situation, without warning.'

'Anyway. You will have to leave tonight.'

Roidon smiled. A sardonic smile. 'Think it's that easy, after all these years?'

'Sorry, Roidon. Needs must. It's not as if you'll be leaving any family behind, any commitments.'

'Well, I was making some progress on that front.'

'Then I apologize for ruining that. But there is a lot at stake.'

He huffed. 'There always is.'

'You've got nine hours.'

'Plenty of time then. So while you're here...'

'See you later, Roidon.' She then left the room before he could make some lewd suggestion.

A brief scan round of Roidon's living room, clean lines of pale grey-green contrasting oak panel effect; all mod cons hidden from sight other than a tablet-like black slab – an entertainment hub, typically Earth twenty-third century; nothing that marked Roidon out unusually as a man of leisure. But she knew so little of what he did in this Earth replica other than being entertained and to entertain. Privacy was part of the deal, the deal that meant he would cooperate whenever required. Somehow he would have found a way to become successful. Maybe there were people dependent on him, business associates. This had always been the problem – allowing him to become integrated in Earthly matters, his sudden removal creating some kind of ripple effect – hence the nine hours to get his affairs (in whatever sense) in order. It certainly was not in Roidon's interest to avoid such an entanglement, he'd want to ensure it was as difficult to remove him as possible.

And now, as she wandered outside, taking in the sweet scent of the rose garden, feeling the gentle warmth of the sun on her face, it became even clearer. Roidon would rightfully fear being drawn into another assignment. You never consider your habitat, she mused, to be a paradise until it is taken from you. From here to a world of silos of civilisation designed to be self constrained as well as self-contained. And for what? Even though there were no hominids intelligent enough to be influenced, somehow the contrast of the technical to the primitive would create a tension, if not discontent, the elders claimed. Fact is there was no model for this – time erased could not be considered the same as time travel. Was there even a time-line to corrupt? As far as she was concerned history no longer existed, was wiped the moment the TE wave swept over. There were certain physicists who could explain that not all information was lost: it had echoes that escaped the waves (back to the butterfly effect, in a pan-galactic sense) and not just in the memories or footage that her race retained. Was it better, she wondered, to think of all the stored memory of Earth's history as more like an alternate reality, a reality – a time-line destined to fail? The Earth sim was the model that should remain untouched by the B'tari; that was in a sense an alternate reality. If it got to be – or was discovered to be– corrupted, the council would doubtless order it terminated.

No one at the base to disconnect her, only an automated system, a timer was counting down. Five minutes.

As Zerrana walked along a path leading to a country road the curious notion struck her: What if I tell someone their life is but a simulation based on records from stored memory and genomes of human predecessors, from which a program evolved; that their planet is but a replication?

Of course, Zerrana understood, she could say that as much as she wished and not be believed; Earth beta's integrity depended on human incredulity... somewhat ironically. The sim had not started as such a completely integral program: information about the original was missing, since no scan could be so detailed however compressed. But somehow the system – the (simulated) organic and inorganic – managed to fill in the gaps; it tended towards order. It evolved along similar lines to the original. After hundreds of generations of lives sim-Earth had become the parallel future without the devastating invasion. But now there was a potential problem. Space travel (in simulated space) had begun a few generations previously, and that was not a problem – the additional memory and processing power required was easily accommodated, not just that the rules of physics were universal but information on nearby planetary systems was already factored in for when humans observed space. Now, though, they were designing FTL ships; the original sim had never been intended to accommodate a technology projected to be hundreds of years hence in its inception. They had to be stopped, otherwise the consequences could be catastrophic.

For want of anyone more suited, the task of sabotaging the FTL project was to be Roidon's. Only that would have to wait, now Roidon had another assignment – in reality.

Without warning she was back at the base, reclined on the couch. A feeling of disorientation and nausea had taken hold, along with the beginnings of a migraine headache.

Roidon, she surmised, would be severely lacking in enthusiasm for this reality. But orders were orders.

### 7

T

Toramin awoke confused, an unfamiliar grogginess. For a while not knowing where he was, who he was, for anything to make any sense. Like some newborn into a world without meaning, just shapes and unidentifiable colours. A purity though in those first few moments: not happy or sad, or worried. And before that? No sense of time's passage, it seemed. A void. Or just no memory of it.

The hatch of the stasis pod had lifted to reveal the ship's light-grey interior. He had reached the Sol system. It gave him a feeling of butterflies in his stomach. Or was that just the 'chines doing their thing? Perhaps it was the apprehension from having not a clue of his new assignment. If he'd been informed would he have declined? Admittedly, his thinking had changed since the nanomachine infusion. The future, for all its uncertainty, was exciting. Yet he also felt oddly cheapened to think that those little bots could exert such an influence on his psyche, like he was nothing but a more sophisticated version of one, subject to having its function altered.

The message came through only when the ship entered Earth's orbit. 'Greetings Toramin. Welcome back to Earth. Please await shuttle.' He sensed the voice, although sounding like a human female, was an AI.

He waited. He looked down at the planet he had no recollection of but which appeared strikingly familiar, wondering how and why they could have erased his memory. This world did look similar to his own in its fragmented arrangement of continents. Hardly a surprise: he was perfectly adapted, making him wonder whether the world he had grown up on had been adapted to him. Here that same serene beauty, yet intensified, protected by a delicate slither of atmosphere. The sun had risen, reflecting off the oceans between curling wisps of cloud. More of the land tinged in shades of green to brown than his home planet. Less urbanization, he figured. Seen through the eyes of his awaiting hosts: the potential for new life – a fresh start for civilisation? He wondered whether his adopted world had stagnated. Technologically, at least through the eyes of the B'tari. Yet, he found no remedy – no big idea, in his own weariness. Maybe the curse of old age was seeing what was wrong while blind to any solution. Surely that would change now.

Toramin knew, without being told, or even remembering, that this was the world from which his contemporaries (long dead) had come all those centuries ago. That this was the world he – on their descendants behalf – must reclaim.

The delta-shaped craft arrived.

'Please prepare to board shuttle,' the voice informed, as the shuttle extended its docking port.

Toramin grabbed his holdall, containing what he initially thought was the bare minimum essential luggage but now seemed excessive and, even with his renewed strength, unwieldy and an effort to lift.

Stepping through into the shuttle he felt a knot in his stomach. The same voice: 'Please be seated and prepare for descent.' Only two seats, unoccupied; he couldn't decide whether he'd rather the voice were from a real person, there for him to share his apprehension.

The shuttle's nose glow the only indication of speed. A large continent with just visible sections of greys amidst the greens and browns enveloped his view. The shuttle stabilised its pitch, zoning in over one area.

What had to be kept so secret?

Toramin was sure he caught a glimpse of a light to the side – it was so fleeting he could dismiss it as some trick of the sun in his eye.

But when he returned his focus forward he noticed the reflection in the viewscreen silver bezel. Just... something. In the shuttle. Behind him! He dared to turn his sight.

At first he wondered if the creature was some associate of the alien race here to receive him. But that didn't make sense: preternaturally tall and thin, stooped over to fit in the cabin. It was holding some little key-fob device, sweeping it up down and side to side.

'Who...' Toramin began. Only to have any further words taken from him as he watched the creature transform. Into himself! Even the clothes were identical.

His doppelgänger motioned very slowly towards him, stopping about half a metre away. Toramin found himself moving back, against the viewscreen. The shuttle still on its trajectory towards its ground rendezvous.

The creature spoke, in Toramin's exact voice. 'Please do not be alarmed. We don't have much time. Stay passive and you will not be harmed.'

'What are you?'

'Please be calm,' the creature advised him. 'This will not take long.' His doppelgänger raised its arm; Toramin noticed the key-fob device was emitting a blue light, and aimed at him.

'No, please. I'm no threat.' His words calm and reasoned, for all it mattered.

'Unfortunately you are.'

The emanating blue from the device suddenly intensified, before the darkness came.

* * *

### 8

Z

Zerrana watched from the tower as the shuttle descended into the landing port. She felt a sense of relief, and with a turn could see the rest of her team relaxing postures. A relief that he'd made it this far: the man who had no idea what was planned for him. She had wanted to tell him, but there had always been that fear that he would – in some surreptitious way – be got to. Was it a rational fear? The Elusivers were still many light years away, travelling in their denuded state. But the B'tari command, ever cautious, did not trust their advantage over a once technically superior race.

She took the elevator down to the reception room. Roidon was there, slouched on a couch with a mini-tab stuck to his temple, engaged in some immersive activity she didn't even want to know about. She coughed deliberately as she strode towards him, but he was oblivious so she simply ripped the device from his head. Roidon whipped his head round in surprise, annoyance forming clear enough on his face that he didn't need to say a word.

'Sorry to interrupt your immersion. But he's here,' she said.

'Already? Oh great.' He only partly muted a sarcastic tone.

'Yeah, thought you'd be pleased.'

They headed to the reception room. Ideally Toramin would be allowed to relax and refresh in his privately allocated room for the rest of the day, but her chief declined, citing a tight schedule. In any case, since he was already subject to a security debrief with the usual molecular scan, he'd surely be awaiting some explanation.

The reception room was about as comfortable and welcoming as B'tari protocol allowed; a selection of varyingly soft chairs around a low semicircular table. A decent view of the distant Rocky mountains. The windows even opened to allow in fresh air.

Toramin walked in accompanied by two armed B'tari guards. Zerrana held back from showing her displeasure at the way the human was treated like a potential threat. After all, he would have been scanned for any weapons.

She was surprised by how self-assured Toramin appeared – as if this was no big deal. The guards at least did leave the room, though she was sure they'd be keeping a close observation along with the operations chief.

She paced briskly towards him, extending a hand (as was human custom – albeit a rather unhygienic one). Oddly he backed off half a step at this gesture of greeting. Then as if realising that was an error of judgement, put his hand out swiftly to shake hers warmly.

'Zerrana Zoranzi.' She smiled.

'It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance,' he said brightly.

'Likewise, Mr Eblou.' She was assured he remembered nothing of his previous work for them.

'Please – Toramin's fine.'

Roidon went through his polite protocol, no less perfunctorily than she expected. They then took their strategically spaced seats along the curved table.

'Well,' Zerrana began, 'I'm sure you'll be wanting to get to your hotel as soon as possible. So this'll only be a preliminary briefing.'

'That's fine Ms---'

'Just call me Zerrana.'

'Zerrana it is.'

'As you may be aware security is of the utmost importance at the moment, so we really could not reveal anything before now.'

'I quite understand,' Toramin nodded.

'It is not the first time a B'tari base has been infiltrated, hence the scans.' Toromin nodded once more. Zerrana continued. 'And you may have felt disconcerted at not remembering our previous association. Nevertheless, we will ensure all your previous work will be reintegrated engramatically. You have, assuredly, proved invaluable as one of our defence specialists.'

'The human perspective. I quite understand.'

She couldn't help but notice Roidon as he raised an eyebrow, and she was sure he tutted, however subtle.

'Right at this moment an armada of what remains of an advanced alien civilisation is a few thousand light years from this planet. We believe their hyperspace capability is limited, their progress sporadic. Nevertheless, we cannot be sure enough to believe they will not find a way to invade this solar system within weeks.'

'In other words,' said Roidon. 'They might be hiding some tech, hoping we will adopt a false sense of security.'

Zerrana turned sharply to Roidon. 'Yes, quite. We need someone to help us create a defence infrastructure on this planet.'

'May I ask why you need a human for this role? You are, after all, the most technically advanced race in the galaxy.'

'We thought we were until we discovered the Elusivers. We may well be currently. In any case there is the matter of the Temporal Directive.'

'Don't get her started on that,' Roidon piped in.

'Suffice to say,' Zerrana said, after presenting Roidon with a brief reproachful look, 'it means we can't get down to the detail of an Earth defence strategy.'

'But why does Earth need defending?'

Zerrana felt nonplussed by that question. How was that not obvious? She maintained a neutral expression however. 'Earth is more than our home base,' she told him. 'More than just a beautiful world. It has a provenance that transcends time.'

'I think,' Roidon interjected, 'it has a lot to do with Earth being the B'tari base.'

From Toramin a subtly quizzical expression.'Then doesn't Earth belong to the B'tari?'

'No. We have no right to claim this planet as our own.'

'But many would,' said Toramin. 'It is like the oasis in the desert, or the paradise island amid the vast ocean.'

Roidon affectedly cleared his throat and again raised an eyebrow. 'You should have seen it when it held billions of people,' he said. 'It was all kinds of paradise.'

Toramin just nodded as if he knew exactly what Roidon meant. Zerrana felt keenly her lack of comprehension for human linguistics. Was Roidon being sarcastic? Was he referring to his hedonistic lifestyle back on real Earth or sim Earth? Or was that just a dig at her for removing him from his 'paradise'? Whatever, this was a distraction not to be taken in by.

'Anyway, I'm sure you'll be needing to freshen up by now, Toramin. So we won't detain you any longer.'

The guards escorted Toramin from the door to his assigned transport. Then he would be taken to some secret location, although she was assured it would be a comfortable apartment.

The question remained: would he cooperate?

As she and Roidon got up to leave, Roidon commented: 'Those things inside Toramin, have they been tried on anyone else?'

It was a surprising question. 'The rejuve 'chines – of course they have,' came her swift answer.

'I wondered if they can affect personality. So there have been psychological tests?'

She fixed at Roidon an intense stare. 'Of course. Did something seem not right about him?'

He smiled, shaking his head. 'Well, you should know better than me? Anyway, I tend to be overly suspicious. You know.'

Zerrana nodded. 'He will be kept under close observation,' she assured him.

He patted her lightly on the back. 'How about a drink?'

'Maybe later. There's just something I need to check.'

She dashed back up into the observation room. The armada still approached, popping in and out of visual. No change it seemed: at the rate of progress they were due to arrive in 26 days. The high command had initiated meetings to discuss every possible scenario, running simulations based on historical accounts. Of course things had changed drastically since the Elusivers lost control of their most advanced warfare tech, sentient machines spreading unhindered through the galaxy assimilating intelligent life. For knowledge being power, an example they took from their masters but to the nth degree. So the question remained: were the Elusivers a civilisation returned to a simpler form of warfare? And if so, was there no simulation model that was based on anything other than speculation? Nevertheless conventional weapons still posed a threat in aggregate. And they were only on this approach course because they felt confident of at least surviving on arrival. It was not as if the B'tari would simply move off or accommodate the Elusivers in any way, even if they tried to pretend to come in peace. It was not as if her people would allow them any nearer than the Kuiper belt, without a challenge.

The monitor probe kept track of every millisecond's progress, and now it had flagged up something, but something very subtle. Subtle to the point that it had been reviewing the scan for the last ten minutes (which was practically an eternity in computer terms). An anomaly near the third craft. A slight distortion in space-time – a breach in the conservation of energy by the equivalent extra mass of a few pin heads. Particles do pop in and out of existence from time to time, Zerrana understood, but usually for much less than a second, and rarely the is mass observed. What's more, a similar anomaly appeared near the orbital craft for all of two picoseconds. The computer had made a connection. And now she was beginning to; ever vigilant. 'Think you can get anything past us?' Zerrana muttered.

Except it proved nothing. The flagged observation would be passed up the chain. But even if it was considered to be significant, what could they do other than speculate?

### 9

T

Strange dream! Toramin thought. Alien abduction. A sense that this was not the first time he'd had that dream. A tall alien, rather sinister, looming over him; a sense of utter powerlessness in the face of something with total dominance. Then held captive, prodded and probed; things were attached to him, monitors bleeped. The dream seemed to end then.

Was this his bed? His room? There was something missing. No radio, no alarm clock. And he was alone. That mattered now. He remembered being with someone and that memory was so strong it seemed to have happened only yesterday. And strong was the memory of the upset he must have caused after walking out on her. The imagined, he tried to reason, worse than the reality. Too frightened to find out if it really had been that bad. Wanting someone gone because you know it will end in hurt for both, because you've seen what happens when you let things continue and just hope that problems will work themselves out. But the way he had done it seemed, now, brutal. There should have been a way to explain without seeming presumptuous; without making life complicated; without off-loading a massive burden.

Was it only yesterday or centuries ago?

And here? Had to resolve the conundrum of being here. Is this the dream?A lucid dream? How to wake up.

He rose from the bed feeling heavy; feeling weak. Feeling old. Yesterday he had felt... young. Except, he realised, it wasn't yesterday. He had no real concept of time now. There was no window through which to see, if at all. The light illuminating the grey-blue walls and white ceiling was dim but evenly spread, without appearing to emanate from anywhere in particular. A lack of... anything to break up the walls and ceiling. Like a prison.

He noticed something that seemed to be a door. At least a line in a rectangle. A smaller impression, a recessed plate. Pushing at it achieved nothing, neither did kicking at the door. Until.

What he thought was the door slid to the side with a faint woosh. The outside was dazzlingly bright. A gangly figure broke the light. Much taller than him, he had an immediate sense of its alien-ness. His initial thought: it must be a b'tari. After all, they could take on humanoid form, or he'd heard they could alter human perception.

Then it came back in a rush of recall. The dream. Only this felt genuine.

The creature hove towards him, appearing to glide. Strangely menacing in this silent action. Toramin found himself backing off, back into his room. A fear beyond rational thought, in the moment. Primal.

The creature stopped, perhaps sensing Toramin's fright, then raised a hand. It was saying something; the voice androgynous and uncomfortably intimate seemed to be in his head, '...is over for you, Toramin. Just as you had wished. No more cheating death.'

'But I don't want to die,' he heard himself say. It was as if the words were themselves primal, a basic instinct to survive when finally encountering the genuine prospect of death.

'There is nothing for you in this universe.'

'No. I have work to do. They gave me---'

'They gave you false hope, Toramin. Machines in your body that made you feel a need to continue.'

And now, when he tried to assess his state of mind – through the fog of adrenalin and cortisol – that drive had gone. And yet. Had he ever really wanted to die, or only to stop living? How could I not have seen the distinction?

Stop! Here's a threat! Need to focus on now!

'Machines had corrupted you,' the creature continued. 'They can corrupt us all, take us away from our purity.'

He remembered similar words from an anarchist group who went on about machines that had taken over the Milky Way galaxy, absorbing all sentient life for their own gain. An account he had always been sceptical of, along with his world's mass media who considered their claims not worthy of anything better than ridicule. But now, as the initial fear began to subside, there were more basic questions: 'Where am I? Why am I here?'

'You are many thousands of light years from planet Earth. There is no way back.'

'And you expect me to accept that?'

'No other option exists. We could have maintained you unconscious, or extinguished your life prematurely.'

'Then why didn't you?'

'Because we value consciousness. We value life. '

'Yet you took away what was sustaining mine.'

'Artificially sustaining.'

Toramin remembered now. They were the ones who took it all away – wiped the whole galaxy clean of advanced intelligent life. The memory hitherto somehow locked from consciousness.

'Then I'm just to remain here and die slowly?'

'It is the natural way.'

'They'll come for me,' he snapped.

'They will not.'

'Don't you think they'll be searching for me?'

'They are unlikely to.'

'What makes you so sure?'

'Because they will not know you are gone.'

Suddenly the awful truth had dawned. The B'tari had not told him anything – and additionally had wiped his memory of any previous work – because of such an eventuality. Whoever took his place would be told everything.

'Please,' he then heard himself plead. 'Just kill me.'

'Your situation will be reviewed,' the creature said.

'What does that mean?'

'Please remain in your quarters.' Then the creature walked off into the brightness.

'No I won't,' Toramin said only as a whisper.

The door, he'd half expected to be locked, still opened. He walked into the light, thinking any second he could be prevented, forced back. At the end of the brilliantly lit corridor he arrived at what appeared to be a two by one metre door, just a line to indicate with no lever or access panel. It seemed there'd be no way through, but to his surprise it slid automatically open.

Toramin felt his heart stop, his breath caught for a second, as he leaned in his head. There was nothing between him and space. The air! The air! But he could still breathe normally. He got on to his hands and knees, pushed himself through the hatch. Normal air. Then put an arm through, touched what felt like floor. Then dared himself to push the rest of his bulk through.

Now crawling on an invisible platform, he felt foolish for this sense of vertigo, this incipient nausea, for the visual deception his brain was feeding him. Had to convince himself he was not about to drift away.

'Get up,' he told himself. And did so.

The stars, there were so many. The richness – a million points of fusion. It was overwhelming! All those years of life and never felt to have truly been in space. Nothing more than a view from a portal.

Something was changing. The stars were losing their sharpness, they were fading out into a general greyness – the whole of space around had a leaden effect like a cloudy day, set for drizzle. Some kind of hyperspace, he guessed. Taking me to where?

There were no other exits as far as he could see. And now he seemed to be alone. Where is the creature?

The greyness encompassing, only broken up by the rectangular line of the door-hatch. Toramin felt so weak all of a sudden, he collapsed to his knees. Have to get back, he thought, or stay here and die. So, letting out a sharp groan, Toramin forced himself up on his feet and ambled back towards the door, feeling his balance going at several points. The door obligingly opened, and he stepped through, falling once again, only just stopping his face hitting the floor with his hands. Still, it was a relief just the reassurance of being on solid ground.

The short distance to his quarters took an agonising time, fighting a tiredness beyond anything ever remembered. He forced himself with his last scrap of energy to reach for the bed. Then lay down, feeling that here finally he would die, just as the creature had told him. An acceptance like never before, it felt like a true end of an imaginary long journey. But it would be a meaningless death. His life: the firework that went out with a putt instead of an explosion. The forgotten sick animal alone in the vastness of an indifferent universe. He would have preferred to be a wild animal, unaware that the universe does not care. Or himself not caring. Only letting the moment be all. The basic sensations. Some who were at this point in their life, had found their god. A discovery that seemed to him somewhat convenient, just when the end was in sight, not any longer able to contemplate that end. Continuity but with change; for one life to end but for you to retain the self when another begins. Continuing as oneself meant carrying all the burden of memory – some memories, enough for it to be him.

What remains?

So tired.

### 9

Z

Zerrana checked the recording again, just to be sure. Central Council were already considering the apparent anomaly, but through their glacially slow process it would be several days if not weeks before they acted on it. In the meantime the original plan would be going ahead.

'Huh,' she muttered. 'It couldn't be possible.'

The armada, by the latest extrapolation, were still over twenty-one days away. With the best AI modelling, the rate of their trajectory had been precisely calculated; it had been consistent, no anomalous bursts of progression to give the game away. Then how could something from them have slipped through space, thousands of light years, so rapidly? Had they wanted the B'tari to believe they were still this safe distance – that after all the pretence they remained a denuded race?

This was unbearable; just the merest possibility, that seed of doubt Roidon had sown.

So she used her level-three clearance to search the database containing the location of Toramin's assigned apartment, and resolved to visit there today.

She arrived at his apartment block, wondering if anyone was observing, the fleeting thought that they'd mistake her for some paranoid stalker. Not an official visit, a personal one. Officially she was visiting him to discuss council strategy, but at eight in the evening that seemed to be stretching credibility.

The notion that obsessed her she was sure would seem absurd to any colleague, given the levels of security to which Toramin had been subjected. So no one was to be told of her suspicions other than Roidon. Not even him at this stage. It was tempting to consult him, but it seemed that to even broach the subject would somehow invite the opening of a particular can of worms, or stoke the hornet's nest. Or whatever human analogy they were so fond of to help simplify such a complex universe.

His room was surrounded by security monitors that measured everything. What could he possibly do other than be Toramin (what ever being Toramin entailed)? So far he knew nothing of the proposed mission; if her suspicions were confirmed then that had to remain so. But she needed evidence. What she had was a high resolution body scanner – a device that analysed DNA and also the 'chines in his bloodstream, whereupon it could tell her of any anomalous activity. But it would be no better than any previous scan he had already been through. Yet her suspicion that somehow he had fooled the base scanners, had to be confirmed – right or wrong.

After she told her car to park somewhere discreet and at least three kilometres away, Zerrana stood before the twelve story building. Unremarkable in its rectangular flexy-glass design. Unremarkable but for one thing: her eyes were drawn ineluctably towards a glow from one of the apartments. Iridescent little orbs pulsating through the colour spectrum. It held her captivated for several minutes. Somehow beautiful and disarming, it made her think of Christmas on Earth, how it once was in some distant forgotten time – the feeling of warmth and anticipation. B'taris loved that special time of year every bit as much as humans – it transcended culture as well as religion. Now but a memory, lost in the nostalgic mists of history, hardly more than mythical. And in this moment she had shifted from being the b'tari officer, investigating, disciplined in her professionalism, to being just Zerrana. It made her want to cry for everything that was lost. Everything that they had taken away.

For how many minutes she didn't know, this melancholy had her subsumed. Until with a jarring suddenness she snapped back to the here and now. An anomaly. This is March, anyway! Chiding thoughts. Zerrana, get a grip! Must investigate. She counted the floors. Toramin's was on the tenth. 'The same,' she mouthed.

She used the stairs instead of the elevator. She imagined no one used the stairs except in some emergency. But the elevator could trap her, could render her powerless, take her where it wanted. Though, admittedly, ten flights of stairs were proving tiring; maybe that was part of their plan. They? She stopped at that very thought to check her scanner, mentally sent it a command to check for anything non-human other than B'tari. It was telling her all detected bipeds were B'tari and of course the one human (the rest probably pets). Still, at this range its criteria for human was rather basic, as if it were seeing a pedestrian zone security film at night or in bad visibility: just figures in the distance. But anyway she forged on, feeling her thigh muscles strain from the sixth floor. And by the tenth, she felt the need just to collapse, and rest and consider what horrors could await. Pretty lights attracting a vulnerable young female. No, in her mind she told herself, not vulnerable... and not particularly young.

So quiet up here. Suspiciously quiet. She carefully studied the scanner. One human behind that door. Still not perfect resolution at this distance. Her heart thundered. If anything happened to her, would anyone know she'd even been here?

She pressed the buzzer. He'd know she was there anyway, the buzzer wasn't much more than an affectation. All the while the words screaming in her head: HE LURED ME HERE; THIS IS A TRAP. And he was opening the door.

'Zerrana,' he said, eyes wide, looking just as Toramin should: a russet sweater and lounge pants – the defiantly young-looking old man relaxing in his apartment. 'What a pleasant surprise.'

Such a normal reaction, it irritated her. Maybe she just had to play along... for now. Have to say something. 'I was just passing,' she began. 'And it occurred to me that there are some unresolved issues concerning your assignment.'

'That would be the assignment I have yet to be informed of – even though I've been here three days.'

'Well---'

'Well, you better come in then.' He gave an expansive gesture.

Zerrana wondered if he'd notice her heart thudding or her general anxiety. The worst thing now would be to reveal her suspicions, but she could not help looking around for any signs of those lights. It had to be this apartment, she just knew it. She had to mention it. Had to very soon.

'I see you've made yourself at home here,' she said as she followed him into the living room.

'Yes, you people have been most accommodating.' He looked up as if suddenly remembering something. 'A drink. Would you like a drink?'

'Err, just water would be fine.'

'There's a bottle of scotch – I guess left as a hospitality gift. Haven't started it yet but---'

'Oh no, just water if you would, please,' she said, perhaps a little too emphatically.

'Right. Well, there's plenty of seats.'

She choose a hard chair. The lights. All she could think about were the lights. When he walked off to the kitchen, she checked her scanner. But something was wrong, the screen flickered in a way she never thought possible. Then, as it stabilised for a brief moment, two symbols representing non-human bipeds appeared. B'tari? But why here now? Such a brief moment, she didn't entirely believe her eyes. So easy to dismiss what doesn't make sense.

When he returned with her glass of water, Zerrana knew it had to be now. 'Thanks,' she said, taking the glass of water, trying not to let her hand shake. 'Toramin. I noticed some lights in your window. I thought it was that window.' She pointed at it, just unobscured glass, not even a frame.

'No. There were no lights in my window,' he said in an obvious matter-of-fact tone. 'It must have been another apartment.' He smiled then, but his eyes suggested the falseness of it. But she needed no visual to know a lie.

'It's okay to make a few modification to this place – which is, after all, yours. And if you wanted guests to stay---'

'Guests? What kind of guests would you have in mind?'

'No one in particular,' came her rapid words.

'I am used to being alone.'

'It's not something you should have to get used to,' came a response she realised some males may have taken the wrong way.

He gave her a curious look. It was then she knew it was time to leave. 'Well, it's late,' she said. 'I should be heading back. Busy day tomorrow.'

'The assignment?'

'Yes, exactly.'

'No, I mean you were going to discuss it with me.'

'Oh that can wait until the morning. A car will pick you up at ten, if that's agreeable.'

A pause. Toramin was looking thoughtful. Then, finally: 'Yes, of course. I will see you tomorrow.'

'Indeed. Goodnight Toramin.'

Zerrana hurried out, not caring at her obvious hastiness. This time she took the elevator. She regretted not waiting outside, just for some clue, rather than checking her scanner. What she knew for certain: things were not as they appeared.

Looking back at the block, there were none of coloured the lights. Her scanner was just given the standard readings. Its recording of Toramin's vitals, his 'chines, all checked out. But then no different from the base scans, which would have been even more precise. Could she have imagined the lights after all? It had been a stressful day, she was tired. The mind can play tricks, she knew only too well. Still. She mentally activated her comm. 'Zerrana?' came the voice of her immediate superior commander Zoltorar.

'Yes, commander, I know it is late. Please don't ask me to explain now, but I think we should put a level 3 restriction on all mission data.'

'You want me to order it locked down?' he said more as a statement than a question. 'Well,' he continued, 'I'm sure you have a very good reason. So better safe than sorry.'

'Thank you, commander.'

She then put in an order for a security surveillance drone to keep watch outside the block, of course fully stealthed; though she suspected that Toramin (or whoever that was) realised her suspicions. She also ordered a full sweep of his apartment as soon as he left the next morning. At least with her suspicions acknowledged by high command, that order shouldn't be questioned.

### 10

R

Roidon Chanley checked himself in the mirror. Physically he looked to be in his late twenties. His physique honed to as near perfection as exercise and diet allowed. The idea of using artificial enhancements – or any cybernetic addenda – was an anathema to him, given his previous experiences. No, he was sure they appreciated the truly organic form; seemed more authentic. His actual age even he had to take a while to calculate. 'Well,' he would tell them (if he wanted to be honest), 'it's complicated.'

He tried to remember the early years, back in the twenty-second century when he first became human. The awkwardness of just walking, of the social interaction. It made him chuckle now. But even in this latest incarnation he felt like a teenager trying to navigate an adult environment. Of course Roidon would never let on this was how he felt. But then what man of his age – or the aged he looked – would ever reveal such an insecurity?

His assignment may prove to be a useful distraction. That shared purpose: the small matter of saving planet Earth promised to be such a noble cause, the way they described it. But again he failed to share their optimism.

Frankly, he had better things to do – and they generally involved women... and making lots of money. He knew what Zerrana and her ilk would say: "Roidon, is that really what you want for your life – just pleasure? What about a higher fulfilment?" Typical B'tari, always seeking a higher purpose. Once upon a time, he had a noble intent. But after so many lives and deaths. Well, maybe it was that even the best of intentions lead to some pointless outcome. Ever the optimist, like the others, she wanted to prove to him that this time would be different: a chance to really build, no, re-build a society, a culture; defeat those who wanted any sign of intelligence (other than their own) quashed, erased. Only it did seem these advanced species had a point about intelligent and industrious cultures becoming carried away in their ambitions, for it had happened to the Elusivers themselves. In their view, were they merely protecting the integrity of the universe from another potential AI revolution?

He knew what his reward was likely to be, implicit in his dealings with the Council. Since it couldn't be money, that had no value here, he'd be given a role in repopulating the planet. The appeal not just the copious amounts of meaningful sex (although meaningless was often good) but the chance to spread his genes. Another kind of immortality, perhaps the best kind where you don't have to go through the interminable process of actually living forever. The image was there in his mind: a kind of harem set-up, for the evenings at least; in the daytime he'd be planning new cityscapes, using his unique knowledge of human cultures to preside over governments. People would talk about him for millennia; there'd be monuments, statues. The founder of a new human civilisation. And the B'tari, such is their wont, would remain in obscurity.

Yes, he thought. I could go with this.

Then he got the call. 'Roidon,' began Zerrana. 'It seems there is cause for suspicion. We'll keep Toramin totally out of the loop.'

'What changed your mind?' He noticed she hadn't put an emphasis on the word is to acknowledge his suspicions.

'Something I saw... which I can tell you about later. Well, actually, a team will be at his apartment tomorrow morning. You should be there too.'

'Tomorrow – the day of the conference. Meetings aren't usually my thing. But: The Big Plan; the plan even I know nothing about.'

'I'm sure it won't matter that you'll not be there, especially as we will only be talking a load of, well, bullshit.' Did she think she was using his vernacular to reassure him?

'Just a typical B'tari conference then?' He nodded.

'Yeah, right.' She huffed. 'Anyway, I've somehow got a feeling that he will try to conceal the – whatever – enough that it won't be apparent. So do your best detective work at his apartment, ten a.m.'

Detective, that was a new role. Maybe mildly diverting, Roidon thought.

Human-looking B'tari waited in invisible vehicles parked near the block. A camera drone hovered a kilometre above, to witness Toramin leave for his conference in the supplied car. It had hardly flown out of sight before the team moved in, in what they must have thought was a stealthy fashion. Roidon, however, had been hiding in a nearby apartment, surrounded by an EM and thermal cloak. Not that he had any special advantage being right on top, with the most sensitive sound and seismic detector. Already lasers (from a sharp angle to be invisible) were projected onto every glass pane, to pick up the minutest sound from inside. Roidon was also being fed whatever had been detected, and as far as he could tell there was nothing out of the ordinary.

The team moved in with alacrity, appearing like a spoof of some old movie SWAT raid. Roidon imagined the drama of their ingress would ensure any presence clearing immediately. So he insisted he go in first, much to the chagrin of the team leader, who grudgingly handed some pen device which he simply had to point at the door's ident panel and press its little button. The old-style door clicked open as if it had been given the correct ident. Roidon strode in gingerly, looking all about him. Just an ordinary hallway leading to an ordinary living room. The team followed, some checking other rooms.

Toramin had left a console on a coffee table. Roidon was about to attempt activating it, when one of the team rushed over and pulled him back in a kind of bear-hug.

'No,' the b'tari bellowed. 'It could be booby-trapped.'

'You reckon?' snarled Roidon.

'We do a remote activation.'

'Of course,' Roidon said under his breath. 'Can't be too careful. But consider this: my being here is your insurance policy. If anything happens to me there really will be trouble. I'm guessing any infiltrators don't want to cause a fuss at this stage.'

'Huhh.' The b'tari rolled his eyes.

Roidon decided to seek out Toramin's bedroom. What ever this man was hiding, there seemed more chance of finding clues there. On a bedside table was a standard entertainment system, on standby so he hovered his hand over that. It activated, causing a holoscreen to appear. A space scene with ships firing at a planet. At first he thought it was some science fiction film, such was the dramatic action, but then it seemed to skip back to a point where the ships were being attacked by other vessels. Symbols appeared at the corner that made no sense to him. The same scenario playing out with variations: attack and counter attack. Then the scene seemed to progress: ships materialising in Earth orbit, emitting smaller craft which headed down towards the surface. A camera view followed them. One by one they were destroyed. The scene once again flipped back, the invaders taking different manoeuvres, still many obliterated. But the scene kept repeating. Repeat and variation.

A spy. Spying for the Elusivers. So far Toramin, or whoever claimed to be him, didn't have much intel for the attack model he was building. But he would gain nothing more. Roidon primed his datacorder to scan-copy the console. But just as it was in the last few seconds of download, one of the security team entered – a partly human-looking b'tari.

'What's this?' he quizzed.

'I'm just downloading some files,' explained Roidon. 'They're encrypted quite deeply; will take a level-4 quantum scan to decrypt.'

'We can take care of that. In fact I was about to check that unit for myself.'

'Well, there's no need now,' Roidon insisted. 'I have full clearance, and my analysis will be sent up the chain.'

'Nevertheless,' the b'tari countered. 'I have the authority here. Now if you would excuse me I---'

The b'tari had frozen stock still. It was eerie. As if time had stopped. Something was happening to the air, an acridness, like the taste of frozen CO2 smoke – dry ice. But only a slight mistiness at the corner of his vision. And there a figure materialised, a spindly figure that seemed to form out of a fuzz of air. He realised immediately it was an Elusiver. Roidon had seen some weird stuff in his time, but this was certainly at the extreme end.

The figure strode towards him; Roidon couldn't be sure if it was truly there or some kind of projection. Either way, it was not an image he welcomed. It was speaking now: 'Please do not be alarmed,' it said in its whispery tones. 'We hoped this would not be necessary.'

'What?' Roidon managed. His previous experience of these creatures made him no less nervous, perhaps more so. But to show it would be a weakness he could never afford to reveal.

'Please desists. You do not understand what you are involved with here.'

'I have a fair idea,' Roidon countered.

'B'tari Central Council must never be informed of your discovery.'

'Because I have uncovered an Elusiver strategy?'

'Misunderstandings can cost lives.'

'It is clear, your agent's intentions – to gain intelligence of our mission to prevent you destroying our planet?'

'His intention to help us prevent an unnecessary war.'

'Instead of a necessary one?'

The creature cocked its head as if vexed. 'The evidence will be destroyed,' he told Roidon. 'Now please put down your datacorder.'

'Is that evidence of his – your plan against Earth. Or could it be quite the opposite?'

'Please explain.'

'This file could equally be a model for a counter strike against your people. They are just simulations of an attack after all. As far as I can tell it is not obvious which side they are designed to assist.'

'Will you present this counter narrative?'

'Of course. If it means not putting lives in danger.'

'It will mean exactly that,' the creature told him. It then vanished into the air from which it emerged. Roidon exhaled, feeling his body relax. Then soon it occurred to him just how easy, even with his facility to blag, it had been to convince the Elusiver. Too easy.

A few seconds later the b'tari resumed his way towards the entertainment system. At which point Roidon explained how Toramin had been working on a counter attack model – covertly. The b'tari seemed to accept that explanation for now.

Roidon's life had become considerably more complicated... not for the first time.

### 11

Z

Central Council approved conferences were often almost as dull as the Central Council conferences themselves. The difference here: dull was expressly the intention. Yes, Zerrana thought, we will bore you into revealing your secrets. Something like hypnosis.

The man claiming to be Toramin sat impassively, and inscrutably, surrounded by four security specialists including sub-commander Zortari – a renowned strategist in military affairs (she hoped would be acknowledged by anyone with an interest in war, which was not seen as a B'tari strong point), and herself. The others here, of course, with a dual role. Roidon was conspicuously absent. His reputation as something of a loose cannon (or maverick, as he might prefer to regard himself) ensured he'd not be allowed within these walls.

Sub commander Zortari stepped forward. 'From what we have observed so far, war appears inevitable.' He waved his hand, bringing up an image of the fifty or so ships in the armada in some unspecified region of space. 'Or so these criteria suggest: trajectory, angle... and the Elusiver's past dealings with other sentient species, not least humans.'

She wasn't expecting him to get straight into the essential matter. After all this was supposed to be about logistical planning; vectors and counter-vectors, expended power outlays, and such nonsense that might sound credible to an outsider.

'The Elusivers believe us to be reluctant warriors, avoiding war at all costs. They see us as merely an obstacle to be swept aside, or to be crushed like insects. But they judge us from way back into the past. They think we've spent so long in the company of humans that we have adopted their love of technological expansion. This---'

Zerrana coughed loudly. This grandstanding had to stop, she decided; his rhetoric had become so obvious. Zortari's attention immediately turned to her, projecting a disapproving grimace. 'Is there something you would like to add Mar Zoranzi?'

'Erm, yes,' she replied. 'How can we be sure the Elusivers intentions are indeed hostile? Have they not been observing us for many years before embarking on their approach?'

'We can safely assume they have, but that does not mean they understand our capabilities.'

'Because we hide them?'

'Because we do not flaunt them.'

'And they are a diminished race,' she added.

'Which means we can use non-lethal methods to repel their ships: disable them, reprogram their navigation systems.'

'You mean remotely?'

'Of course.'

The being like Toramin suddenly straightened. 'That's an interesting strategy. How is it possible?'

'Ah,' said Zortari. 'A simple matter of sending a multivariant digivirus through a subspacial zee channel.' The sub-commander had obviously got his nonsense well worked out.

'Well, in any case, commander Zortari,' he said. 'I am sure that is not my remit. Though no one has told me what my specialism is to be.'

Zerrana raised her head, knowing this was where her role came in. 'Ah, yes,' she said to supposed Toramin. 'I understand it must be frustrating being kept in the dark like this.'

'I am just glad for the for the opportunity to assist in countering this grave and imminent threat.'

From the other end of the table the Sub-commander's expression brightened. 'And we are most grateful you are here, Mr Eblou,' Zortari said.

'You have previously provided your excellent services as an Elusiver behavioural specialist,' Zerrana added.

'I did?'

'Yes, you worked with us for many weeks on psychological studies, using records we had obtained from our previous encounters with this species.'

'And yet I remember not a thing.'

'Well, you can understand the sensitivity of such knowledge – the risk of neural extraction by the enemy.'

'I didn't know there had been an Elusiver threat in recent history.'

Sub Commander Zortari gave a half nod. 'The threat has never gone away, Mr Eblou.'

'That is indeed true.' The man claiming to be Toramin screwed up his face.

The explosion happened, to no one's surprise. Silently it filled the confinement bubble that formed in the five nanoseconds required for safe isolation. Safely from everyone except the man at the centre, who, when the smoke finally cleared was nothing but a half metre mound of ash. More precisely, he had been broken down to base atoms.

Zerrana laughed nervously. 'The nuclear option, then? I guess he knew his number was up.'

'We had him well and truly cornered,' remarked the sub commander.

'But it was a risk for him, being detected. He must've thought it strange being let through.'

'Mar Zoranzi. The scan found him to be clean. Something was given---inserted into him subsequently.'

'We are still not safe then? They can infiltrate undetected?'

'Yes and yes. This is a holding pattern. We can assume every conversation is overheard, every file can be accessed. Every space infiltrated?'

'Then it's too late?' she asked him, wondering how things could have got to this stage.

Zortari peered down at his desk, at some screen only visible to him. 'We will adjourn for today. It is time to invoke protocol-21.'

### 12

T

To begin with the words meant nothing. They were just sounds.

'Toramin. Can you understand what I am saying?'

The creature sat before him, its spindly body silhouetted by a bright but diffuse white light. It leant in towards him. Toramin was still recumbent on an angled couch, half of him partially elevated.

'Toramin,' the creature persisted. 'Do you know where you are? Why you are here?'

He felt very much like a small child, one recovering from an operation. His fuzzy mind trying to latch on to something that had meaning. Who is Toramin? he wondered. It was his name, he knew, but not what it meant to be that person. But now he remembered the last time he lay down. And it wasn't here. He'd lain on his bed to die. For some reason he couldn't remember why he had accepted the inevitability of his death. A new experience, a new reason for self pity but a sublimely genuine one: the old man seeing the end, knowing there could be no hope in life. Only in death. How serene that felt, just before. Before? Nothing. Dying and failing.

'I died?' Toramin said to the creature.

The creature pulled back in its chair. 'Your heart and brain stopped. We restored you.'

'Then I did die.'

'From a human perspective, that may be the case. Death is not definable by one agreed standard.'

'Yet you do agree I had ceased to function.'

'Correct.'

'So why bring me back?'

'Because you are needed elsewhere.'

'Why take me in the first place?'

'Goodbye Toramin.'

The creature vanished. The room vanished. A different, smaller room. A view of space through a half semicircular screen, intermittently overlaid with graphics representing local systems. The then stars transformed into a grey-white mass as if travelling through a cloud. In this starship he knew he was heading back to Earth.

It was an odd thing. He wanted to return but only in the sense of it being marginally preferable to the alternative. An emptiness. Bereft. The 'chines had gone; now just his bare self: old, vulnerable. His body, his cells repaired for sure. But without the 'chines he was never meant to live to even a fraction of this age. Decline would be rapid.

These beings were the enemy, and yet he felt no animosity towards them. They could have let him die without consequence, it seemed. Had they thought him to be somehow useful? Could he work against them now?

Hour after hour the cycle of normal to jumpspace. He had a limited supply of food. The ship was equipped with all the basic facilities of a house.

Days seemed to pass. Time lost its meaning. He was used to that.

Earth eventually appeared without warning, a brief flash of green and blue dots tagged in some strange symbols only later obvious as the Sol system. Planet Earth in its wistfully familiar beauty, similar to his home world, with its swirls of cloud; a hurricane in seeming static formation, a frozen dramatic moment in time; continents more green than brown.

The ship, after a pause, as if it was itself contemplating the vista, now descended. Toramin imagined the warning being relayed to the B'tari high command.

No surprise when he noticed the shiny object appear outside, studying him, keeping in sync with the descending vessel. He had no control over the ship, seeming to be on a pre-programmed course. Circling over an industrial-looking area isolated within forests and wild green undergrowth, the craft finally lowered on to marked grids of a landing pad within a set of buildings. A space port?

Not the welcoming party he had hoped for, three metal beetle-like bots scuttled up to the ship, each with a gun atop its carapace. An echoing voice from somewhere outside: 'Please leave your ship with hands raised. You have approximately five minutes to comply.'

Or what? Toramin thought. B'tari were never prone to using violence.

'All right,' he said, unsure anyone would hear at all. 'I'm coming.' And also unsure that the ship would let him leave.

A hatch, however, did open. He left his meagre supplies behind and descended the unfolded steps, legs weak and unsteady from age and atrophy. Silver beetles encircling him. Then one approached. A leg lifted and moved in a circular fashion. And once it was sure he was carrying nothing offensive the voice – a clipped male voice from the beetle – said: 'Follow me, please.'

Toramin did so without question. He was led into a building. At the end of a hallway a medical facility. He was told to lay on an angled couch, where another robot took a blood sample. Meanwhile he had small probes attached to his chest, arms and head. Surely this kind of monitoring could be done remotely, he thought. It was as if they really wanted him to know he was being tested, suspected, or at least not trusted. It was all making him feel fatigued. On the brink of irritation, but somehow that would be a pointless reaction – a further waste of energy. So he'd been taken by the enemy and then released. Perhaps too good to be true – without something about him having been altered. Perhaps it had been and he simply was not aware of it; something inside that would activate: an unaware sleeper. Because surely the ultimate stealth weapon is the one not even aware that it is a weapon. Ditto a spy.

The bot returned. 'Your blood sample has been cleared,' it told him.

'You may now be debriefed.'

A man entered the room: medium build and height, not old enough looking to give the impression of authority. 'Hello, Toramin,' He began. 'My name is Roidon Chanley. I believe you have some useful information for us.'

'And I believe you may be disappointed,' he replied.

### 13

Z

They are here. All this time!

Zerrana was in his apartment, his former apartment that had been cleared, that had every millimetre scanned looking for electromagnetic, gravitational or any known quantum disturbance. Yet, as she sat on his bed watching the footage of an Elusiver invasion – before the team removed that for further examination – Zerrana knew the invaders had not left. Maybe they were not here at this precise moment, but they were keeping tabs, at least lying in wait for things to settle down. Creatures that could transcend time and space, pretending they had only relied on sub-B'tari level tech to reach Earth.

The footage – a simulation – showed the final stages of the armada vanguard destroying B'tari defences. Then descending to the surface. An all out battle involving conventional warfare. In this instance the vanguard was defeated: B'tari AI defence drones encircling Elusiver ships that were no doubt constrained by their latter aversion to advanced artificial intelligence, rendering them too slow and lacking flexible thinking to win this type of war. Just one of many simulations that were either an attempt to explore every possibility within their limited parameters, or simply a misdirection to give her people a false sense of security. So plan b for the Elusivers. The armada was still over two thousand light years away, flipping in and out of jumpspace in their seeming faltering way. Yet Toramin had made it back in less than two weeks. Either he'd been kept at some undetectable location not so far or the Elusivers had shown their hand by using what means they truly possessed for travelling here. Not that Toramin had been one hundred percent proven to be the original; he could still be a clone with his memories but just some slight variation, a subtlety somehow defying detection despite the quantum cellular scanning. A trojan horse. And what of any others of her team: had they been replaced, or just compromised?

She tutted, shaking her head. Perhaps no more than a case of buying into what the Elusivers were so good at: sowing mistrust and paranoia. You could never feel truly safe, knowing that they had just in one instance infiltrated your most secure realm. Maybe they need do nothing now but sit back and observe her people tear themselves apart trying to find more evidence that surely the enemy were really here, all the while the more tangible invaders got ever closer. None of her associates believed the Elusivers could enter into a conventional war without some hidden strategy, some tactical sleight of hand. And in the meantime she and her team would spend many a sleepless night trying to figure out what to do next.

'No,' she said to whoever, whatever happened to be listening. 'We will not play it your way. Tell us want you want. All B'tari gone from this planet?'

She waited for a response that didn't come, except for one of her forensic team who must have overheard her, asking if everything was okay. She said: 'Yes. Just talking to myself.' No need to intensify the paranoia; better to think it was only her. And maybe it is me. But the one thing scientists and philosophers were now in agreement on: we only really experience a subset of reality, just enough to get by; entire realms of perception may be cut off simply because they serve no use for the purpose of survival. Like ants in a drum, thinking they can observe it all but really concerned only with what touches their five senses. The deceiving myth of awareness. All those accounts of apparitions and ghosts, dismissed by so-called rationalists as the fantasy of the crazy, or the simply uneducated. Perhaps they were the ones who saw beyond everyday experience. Then there were those who had seen but dismissed what their eyes were showing them. It was not the eyes that lied, it was the mind – the greatest deceiver of all. Why should I trust my mind? I am afraid to see, and so I don't see.

Technology – the saviour of our inadequate senses.

One of the forensics crew entered. 'Mardem, we have completed our sweep. There are no signs of alien activity.'

'Then you're declaring this apartment clear?'

'Provisionally, yes.'

'Provisionally? What about a wider analysis?'

'Drones are continuing their multispectral observations.'

'Okay, good.' Her grudging acceptance.

It felt like these exchanges were no more than procedural, a choreographed dance of words. After informing central command, who would in turn inform Central Council, they would return to their respective work. All the while suspecting something hidden, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Zerrana, however, would not be returning to normal duties. She had other ideas.

As part of her sub-commander status, as in accord with her scientific training, Zerrana was afforded her own private laboratory. Private meaning no one had the right to intrude upon her work when it was not within scheduled officer duty time.

Over the years she had accrued some of the most sophisticated optronic quantum relay nodes, and for building macro-structures to arbitrarily precise designs – an atomic scale fabricator. In addition a twenty-one thousand core, exoflop processor array. This supercomputer was nothing special. The unusual thing was what connected to it, something greater than itself. Something faster, more compact; to call it a computer would be no more appropriate than using such a word to describe a genius mathematician. Even the term artificial intelligence fell short of adequate. At some point she would use the term sentient, if not conscious. Already she had given it a name: Ovrah – which was the reverse spelling of Roidon's old AI Harvo. Otherwise, Zerrana at this stage had very little input. Frankly it was beyond her now, as it would be beyond any B'tari or sentient biological being. The AI was on a constant high learning curve. It could see from ultraviolet to infrared, it could hear from as high frequency as a bat to as low as an elephant. And in theory it could speak over five thousand languages.

Still, to all appearances it was just another supercomputer: a twelve by fifteen centimetre black rectangular block containing a hidden mic, with a basic diaphragm speaker attached. The block itself still had the data-cable connected.

Of course she had already tried communicating with it, saying things such as: 'Do you understand where you are?' Or: 'Do you know who I am?'

It wasn't exactly like talking to a child, more like a patient recovering from serious neurological trauma; the ability, the facility for responding is there but somehow the patient has closed down. She wondered: was it a fear of revealing something to someone who appears to have more power? A suspicion that even these simple straightforward questions are designed to entrap? Was it thinking: I must not reveal my true capabilities in case they are exploited? The patient, recently regained consciousness, hears and sees perfectly well, but all around has no context; there is no sense of this is me, the thing that makes me an individual, perceiving in the way that I do.

No surprise that it did not reply. This had been the fourth attempt at communicating. As much as she could speculate, there was no easily explicable reason for its silence. Perhaps here was more a case for a psychologist or psychiatrist than a technician. She had been of late plagued by dreams of its awakening. Keeping quiet, biding its time, plotting how to become something powerful enough to take control. This was one reason why she kept it isolated from the net, at least for the most part. She did allow it access to encyclopedia sites. She was its dictatorial leader, restricting access to its social freedom. What if, as in her dreams, it did find a way to gain full access, to break through the firewalls, to link to every other B'tari control system on the planet, and more dangerously without them even knowing? In her dreams it had called on the help of a sympathiser to fabricate it a body – to 'become fully realised'. The nightmare of sentience or consciousness in an artificial form. (But was that any worse than the nightmare they may already be about to enter?) When was the point where a thing became a self-aware being? Of course no one could agree on a particular transition point. Humans talked of the Singularity, when AIs exceeded their basic biological capabilities. Well, certain humanoid abilities computers had exceeded for hundreds of years. The point of surpassing general bio-intelligence was ill-defined, it seemed to her. AIs were simply different. It had been shown that any neural net able to replicate the function of a human brain with at least the illusion of a human body was indistinguishable from a real person in every testable way. The same consciousness. The psychological ramifications of that were an entirely different matter. Zerrana wondered how she'd cope waking up as one of these constructs, one with all her own memories, thoughts and feelings. Except it would not be her waking up. In any case, why should they even try to mimic humanoid biologicals – mimic imperfection? The body itself imposed restrictions as well as allowing freedoms. The body forced the mind to perceive in a way that aided its survival. And with that thought her mind turned to Roidon. Her burgeoning fear of Roidon discovering what she had created. Even at this restricted stage, she imagined his disgust at her creating something that would give the Elusivers the perfect excuse to eliminate all B'tari. Yes, the truth of her creation she feared Roidon discovering almost as much as the enemy. Roidon with his own personal antipathy towards artificial forms that aspire to mimic humans. Perhaps, she surmised, a touch of self hatred from the man who was once created without pretension to a soul.

Now she saw the thing before her as mere flashing lights, displays projected in air, of graphs telling Zerrana her creation was continuing to function within acceptable parameters. Nothing much beyond that: nothing to tell her whether it was happy or sad, or was yet capable of such a feeling. It had the ability to express this verbally, and maybe it did understand these emotions but simply chose not to articulate them. Could it even experience the one emotion so often unrecognised: loneliness? Even she could be in denial about feeling lonely, much less express it. But a thing so different, so isolated, without anything similar to itself; surely that had to experience some form of loneliness if not isolation. For all these uncertainties she imagined the voices of condemnation, not least from Roidon, telling her the humane thing was to destroy it. But could they destroy something that meant no harm to others, if its intentions were to aid the B'tari, to use its superior intelligence to prevent the Elusiver invasion? Maybe not actually destroying it, just cutting its power supply. The off-switch (whether metaphorical or real) always the safety mechanism. It could become self sustaining, perhaps only needing an occasional recharge. But that was the autonomy she feared it gaining, had dreamt about repeatedly. Someone freeing it from the prison she had created.

Just dreams.

### 14

T

'Why was I even meant to be here?'

The man he now knew as Roidon Chanley peered upwards, a thoughtful expression playing across his superficially handsome face. 'Toramin, you have proved most helpful on your previous assignment for us. We will still value your insight.'

'There is, I believe, an old Earth English word I'd like to use. Bullshit.'

Roidon gave a half chuckle. 'I almost forgot that you've been alive for almost as many years as me. That can make a man prone to cynicism.'

'You are nowhere near as old as me, Mr Chanley.'

'I was around in the twenty-second century. Granted not in this body.' He canted his head. 'I guess life without the possibility of dying... well, it's not as ideal as some might think. So I can only sympathise.'

Toramin emitted a sharp contemptuous breath, something of a reflex, and as such he felt a pang of regret. 'You don't know the half of it.'

'You'd be surprised.'

'Then tell me: did you only invite me here primed with super 'chines to be a lure for the Elusivers?'

Roidon half-nodded. 'It was, I have to admit, a useful side-effect.'

'But what could I possibly have of use?'

'You'd be surprised,' he reprised. 'Really, you would.'

Toramin stared at the exit of his quarter's mainroom. 'I am a prisoner?'

'Not exactly. Although we still do have some further tests to conduct.'

'To finally ascertain if I am the real Toramin Eblou rather than some elaborate clone here to infiltrate your base, collect intelligence to pass back to the Elusivers.'

'If you are some kind of replicant you may not even be aware of it,' Roidon noted. 'The ultimate sleeper agent is---'

'The unknowing, unwitting one,' Toramin completed. 'Then bring on the tests.'

'Even then we can never be sure.'

'If that's the case then why not send me back to my life of solitude back home, where I'll not be bothering anyone?'

Roidon tutted, shaking his head. 'Oh, you'd just like that wouldn't you, returning to your life of self-pity and loneliness.'

A burning anger rose in Toramin. How dare this young man talk to me like that? He had to remind himself that this was no young man disrespecting his elder. But the outrage spilled forth regardless. 'You know what it's like to see everyone around you wither and die – people you love?'

'I've seen death by far worse than old age.'

'I don't doubt that, Mr Chanley. But for all the unfairness of their loss, there is not much worse than to see someone deteriorate before your eyes. Someone you know who could have lived on if they'd not been denied what I have been given.' He found himself shaking his head in disgust.

'The curse of the immortal – or those who feel as good as; death becomes an obsession, doesn't it. Dying: the one thing that eludes us, I mean the real end of consciousness. And yet with its imminence there can be nothing more precious than life, the need to savour every minute.'

'I once believed that. Then I truly thought I would die, and I felt nothing of that.'

'Because you thought you were in the process of dying. Because you were trapped.'

'Am I trapped now?'

'No, you are free to leave if you do not wish to assist us.'

Toramin stared at the far wall; there was an oil painting of an ancient battleship in a violent storm.

Is that to come?

Or I could go home and be safe for perhaps years, on an isolated, stagnating world, in a galaxy destined to be like the Milky Way.

'I will stay... for now,' Toramin conceded.

At least facing the invasion, death could be quick. Not that the quixotic B'tari would ever countenance the possibility of losing to the Elusivers.

'Good man,' said Roidon. 'Earth is where it should get interesting.'

'Not for me if I am trapped in this compound.'

'If you pass the tests we will restore you to your optimum self.'

'Quite an incentive, that.'

A single pat on the back from Roidon, with a friendly 'huh' sound. 'Hang in there, old man,' he said as he exited.

Old. The fact of it he could hardly question. Weak, lethargic. But something less easy to analyse. So difficult even after all those years to rise above some feeling governed by physiology. If he still had those 'chines – if he got them back – how more optimistic would he feel? How much less like the grumpy old man who thought he'd seen too much; too many of others' mistakes, too many of his own to feel that anyone including himself can truly learn life's lessons.

Funny how that temporary machine-energised self seemed like another man, an interloper. One with delusions of grandeur. Yet at the time it was... invigorating – the thoughts, the ideas, the sense of being on the brink of something important. Who was that man? Him? Another aspect of his personality that may have become gradually lost over the years? That was the thing with ageing, he mused, it strips away gossamer thin layers. He may have woken on mornings and felt older, but that was always put down to a late or heavy night. It never seemed incremental. Only, now he reflected on it, those isolated bad days became more frequent. If he could have those 'chines back in his system, would that feel like the new normal? The real new Toramin?

### 15

R

Roidon was back in his quarters, after going through his regimental routine of exercise on the multigym provided by the B'tari, finishing this time with ten ks on a running machine. To some this would be excessive if not obsessive; to him it provided a distraction. Feeling tired to the point of exhaustion kept the intrusive thoughts in abeyance. It kept the emptiness at bay; it stopped him thinking about his life in sim-Earth – how more real that seemed. How much richer life had been. How he had bought into the reality of it wholesale. But really he was only distracted from these thoughts during his exercise routines, with loud music as a further bulwark.

Now he held the immersion band in his left hand, wondering why the B'tari would provide him with such a temptation. It was linked to a processing block holding the usual games simulating war, driving, flying in thousands of landscapes; and of course sex. But there was also a 'life' sim, which albeit on a much smaller more limited scale could return him to something approximating his virtual-life. The thought that he could interact with people – women in particular. Knowing of the temptation that sim-Earth provided. It was seeming like a test of his resolve, his commitment. By contrast Earth with no humans (unless you counted the hominids barely evolved beyond apes) felt like such a sterile place; everything safe and neat under B'tari rule. There were certainly times when he welcomed the impending Elusiver invasion, for all the charade that could turn out to be, given they were in some mysterious way already here. Roidon knew if he made the effort he could bed various b'tari females, given his notorious reputation, many of whom now looked quite human. And there had for a while been an appeal in the other: they were less inhibited than human females, yet at the same time rather too matter-of-fact about sex, tending to regard it in a clinical way. There tended to be, he mused, a lack of passion in his encounters with them; too much was calculated, like: This is what, it has been observed, human men enjoyed doing. As if by some kink they were sampling human culture.

Roidon put the headband aside. If he immersed in Virtual Earth today, he doubted he'd ever want to return to the real, it would be like an alcoholic taking that one drink after months of sobriety. Anyway something had been bothering him about the sim gear. He was sure he had switched it off completely after his last game session, yet on returning he found it on standby, the virtual Earth had been selected, although not accessed – unless whoever it was had deleted their session record. He suspected it could have been someone in B'tari security wanting to see if he had entered that realm (certainly they'd want to be keeping a check on him). The immersion gear was an isolated system – he made sure of that. But surely they'd know he'd suspect and would have at least been careful enough to close everything down. No, deep down he suspected it was someone other than a B'tari. And deep down the real reason he refrained from entering it lay in what he would find.

'Oh, this is ridiculous,' he muttered. He called Zerrana.

'Roidon? Is there a problem?' She sounded tired. Was there ever a good time for a random call?

'Sorry if this is a bad time,' he said. 'I just need you to tell me straight: has anyone been in my apartment?'

Silence for about ten seconds, quite a long time in this circumstance. 'As far as I know no one other than you.'

'As far as you know?' He knew he was sounding paranoid now.

'There is no reason anyone should have. There's no security notice on you. So unless something is being kept from me.' She sounded thoughtful. 'Roidon what is it you suspect?'

'It's probably nothing. Maybe I am just being paranoid.'

'Spit it out man. If you suspect something.'

'My AR immersion unit. Seems like someone's accessed it in my absence. And before you ask, there is no sign of anyone entering my apartment. They would have had to wipe the monitors' database, unless somehow they were able to evade the sensors.'

'All right, Roidon. I think you should vacate the premises ASAP. I'll send a team in to do a full sweep.' Really he wanted some words of assurance that it was just his overactive imagination.

'To where?'

'Oh. I hadn't thought of that,' came her honest-sounding response. 'I can arrange some temporary---'

'No spare room at your place?' He was acutely aware that Zerrana was aware of his reputation for seducing females of whatever humanoid species.

She coughed affectedly. 'Yes, there is a spare room at mine. I suppose you could stay one night, until other arrangements---'

'That is very kind of you, Zerrana.'

Roidon packed what meagre possessions he had accrued. Here so much was provided on loan. This place with its clinically clean whites and blues and silver rimmed chairs, could never feel like home. That was the point, of course: don't get too settled. But how he missed Sim Earth, where he lived comfortably on the fringe of wealth if not quite achieving it. A place to truly call home, however much he knew it was nothing but a construction from lines of code; it was designed to his taste, it felt and smelled like home. Here he'd never feel like more than a resident.

Now, as he gathered his clothes to stuff untidily into a holdall, he couldn't wait to leave, not just to visit Zerrana but just to be gone from here. The place felt... odd. There was no getting away from the sense that someone else was present. A prickly feeling over his skin, like a strong static field. Imagined, quite possibly. How the mind can so often become the enemy. Yet the Elusivers had proven their ability at stealth many times. At this very moment they could be observing his anxious behaviour, enjoying how they had managed to spook him, how he or the B'tari still had no way of detecting their presence. The concept of privacy they may not understand, much less respect. And why should they?

'Too afraid to show yourselves, I guess,' he said to whoever might be listening, in some vague hope of provoking any response.

Roidon had witnessed war many times over many centuries. When you can't see the enemy you always felt at a disadvantage no matter how superior you were in numbers or technology. The ability to hide in plain sight was something the out-gunned had relied on for millennia; the insurgent, the terrorist, the rebel army. Only warring nation states bothered with rules because one day they would have to live in some kind of harmony, because the long built edifice of civilization could not simply be ignored much less knocked down. Other worlds, remote with no historical ties never needed to envisage the possibility of one day facing the consequences of their crimes, to have any relations for trade.

Roidon was weary of war. And yet he could not get away from the sense that it gave a purpose to life, it kept you on your toes – knowing your life was in jeopardy. It was one way to feel alive. But Roidon preferred another way to feel alive, though this often required a receptive sentient being. And those now were few and far between. Still, he had been in far more hopeless situations.

### 16

Z

Her security system confirmed his arrival; it scanned not only every molecule in his body but also analysed his DNA down to the base-pair level. Zerrana had read an account of how Roidon had once been cloned – or perhaps replicated was the correct word – by the Elusivers, just in the same way as had Toramin. She'd read extensively about him.

Roidon looked young, possibly no older than naturally thirty Earth years. No one needed to look over twenty-one, but many who wanted to convey a sense of authority or were chronologically older than fifty chose the compromise of about thirty-five. It was funny how throughout previous millennia the appearance of age had such a huge influence on how one was treated. Sometimes humans and B'tari alike preferred to look younger simply because they did not want to bear the responsibility of maturity – what society expected of them, standards to be maintained. While the embarrassments of youth faded with much less in jeopardy, it seemed that middle-age was the most difficult time: the expectations of achievement, so commonly felt to have fallen short. At least this had always been typical of the human male.

So what was Roidon trying to convey now: a sense of not wanting to be loaded by such responsibility? No, it had to be because he felt it maximised his chances with the opposite sex – having the edge on his rivals. But maybe, she reflected, that was too simplistic an analysis. After all, he no longer had any human rivals on this planet.

The door to her suite would have opened automatically but she chose to let him in personally. Have to remember, she reminded herself, this is about business, a colleague – helping a colleague.

He presented to her a bottle. A bottle of red wine, with a somewhat mischievous smile, knowing the symbolism in this. Was he playing with her?

'Roidon I,' she began. 'A bottle of white---'

'Yes it was, you remember, one of my stipulations for returning to this earth. One of my indulgences. But it would seem sad to drink it alone.'

And so it begins, she thought. 'You'd better come in,' she said, in a flat tone, hoping not to sound too inviting. 'I'm not one for alcohol,' she added. 'It may not agree with my constitution.'

'Most B'tari can process alcohol as well as we human types,' Roidon reminded her.

'You been doing your research, have you?'

'Oh, I know this from personal experience.'

'I bet you do!'

'Zerrana. I am most grateful for your offer to allow me to stay,' went his attempt to sound earnest, as he followed her into the dining room. 'This bottle of wine is simply a gesture of gratitude.'

'And gratefully accepted, Roidon.' She did a sweeping gesture at the dining table, a very basic layout of cutlery. She was very conscious not to make it seem like she had gone to any special effort. 'I was about to have my supper. I think I can spare some for you. I can put the wine in cold storage for now.'

Roidon nodded reluctantly. Zerrana indicated towards an old-style door. 'Make yourself at home,' she suggested. 'It will be a while yet.'

'That's fine,' he said. 'But if you need any help with anything.'

'No. Unless you want something more than scrambled egg on toast.' Suitably basic human food, she thought. That wouldn't really go with the wine, would it?

'My favourite,' he said brightly, which may have been a false cheeriness.

In the kitchen Zerrana assembled the various cooking items: saucepan, spatula, eggs, butter – for a start. Even something as basic as scrambled egg still seemed a bit daunting to cook. Human food still took some getting used to, certainly anything that qualified for cuisine. The standard B'tari process would be to simply replicate it from a preprogrammed memory. But for some reason humans had stuck to the old process of cooking even when the automated process had been available to them for many decades. The process of preparation could be done optimally if automated; so it had seemed curious that any advanced species had elevated the old method to some kind of exalted status. It was as if they enjoyed the labour of it, but she suspected it was something more: a demonstration of skill, a statement of... well, love, if not merely respect. Cooking to some was an art-form, it was competitive. It wasn't that food was something the B'tari had merely regarded as a means to survival. No, eating had had a recreational component for millennia for her people. The true mark of an advanced civilisation.

She imagined Roidon imagining her struggling right now, becoming stressed right now. And he'd be feeling a sense of amusement at that thought. Because of course he would know how to cook, he'd know it well. At some point it would have been used as a strategy for seducing a female, just another skill set in his armoury. But Zerrana was determined she was not going to give him the satisfaction of intervening. Of being helped. Of succumbing to whatever trick he had used on all those others. Perhaps those females felt too ashamed to include such accounts for his psyche report. There were only the rumours.

So, it may be basic. But it would be just right.

'Computer,' she whispered. 'Inform me when I have cooked this scrambled egg to optimum taste level... for a human.'

She found Roidon lounging back, reading (or pretending to read) something from a tablet when she brought the tray of food through to the adjoining dining area. She could feel his eyes on her, the sound of him lifting from the chair before he said: 'Ah. Just in time. I'm famished.' At least there was no token offer to help, she thought. Until: 'I'll get the wine.'

'It's in the chiller....,' she said, conceding that one way or another that wine was going to be shared, and to refuse would seem impolite or that she had a fear of getting inebriated and losing control. Besides, she couldn't think of any other drink to provide.

Roidon rushed over to the kitchen. He seemed to return in less than twenty seconds. 'Glasses?' he suggested.

'I don't have wine glasses. Only these.' She pointed to the plain translucent cylinders by the plates, the type that would normally contain fruit juice. 'We'll have to make do with the ordinary kind.'

'It's not the same, you know. The way the wine goes down.' He huffed and subtly shook his head as if in self-reprimand. 'But I'm being pernickety. Too much perfectionism can only lead to sorrow.'

Zerrana rolled her eyes ever so subtly. She was sure he had an extensive repertoire of those pithy phrases just ready to be deployed.

Roidon offered to pour the wine; Zerrana gave a muted 'Okay,' while nodding. Then added, 'Better tuck in, scrambled egg gets cold quickly.' Roidon took the hint and started eating.

Tonight, Zerrana determined, was going to be on her terms.

### 17

T

It was about 2 a.m. when the creature visited him: tall and spindly, there was no mistaking them. Still, Toramin did consider the possibility that he was dreaming. After all, in this compound, security monitoring was considerable.

'What do you want?' His weary question.

'We want to do a deal,' went the creature's whispery voice.

'I'm not interested,' he said firmly.

'Toramin. We are here already. The B'tari know it, and there is nothing they can do about it.'

'Why tell me this?'

The creature swayed a fraction, as if surprised by his question. 'They tell you your role here is important. But they lie to you. You were only ever commissioned as bait for us. They could have prevented your abduction by us, but they did nothing because they wanted to collect intelligence of our plans.'

'And did their plan work?' Toramin asked, incredulous.

'They believe it did, since we implanted disinformation.'

'That's not credible – that they would not suspect my release from you lot to be a ploy.'

'Nevertheless, it was intended all along that you'd be abducted, that we value the knowledge you acquired from your previous mission.'

Toramin laughed. 'Ah yes, my previous mission – the one they removed any trace of from my memory.'

'Because they anticipated your abduction.'

'You mentioned a deal.'

'We will control this planet. However, we wish to do so without bloodshed. You can help us. You can facilitate the takeover.'

'Go to hell!' Toramin said without pause for thought.

The creature just stared at him for a few seconds before vanishing. And Toramin considered his last words; just a spontaneous reaction to the way he was being manipulated. All those years. He knew when he was being played. Maybe they wished they'd have just killed him. Maybe they still would. Or they'd abduct him, test his value as a hostage.

I am a liability, he thought. The B'tari, feeling responsible (especially if they had set him up to be abducted in the first place) would compromise themselves to rescue him.

So he resolved to alleviate them of that burden. It was 3:30 am; this time of night security at the base would be at its lowest, the remote monitors were supposed to detect even minor quantum fluctuations – according to his security advisor. They already knew he was at high risk, knowing he simply wouldn't be returned without some ramifications. If they had picked up the Elusiver someone would be here within minutes. But he suspected they hadn't; somehow they didn't play by the rules of known physics. They were ghosts in an age when ghosts had been debunked as the product of an unreliable mind – such as every biological being shared. The more complex the more unreliable. It occurred to him that his presence here was simply to serve as bait for the Elusivers: flush them out. Maybe they had even lowered security monitoring to allow one to reveal itself.

Enough of speculation, he thought.

Toramin packed what few things he now possessed and headed out into the muted light of the hallway. Originally they had kept him locked in his quarters as a 'temporary security precaution.' But Toramin insisted he should not be treated like prisoner, having passed all the tests. So they allowed him free roaming access to all low security clearance areas of the base. But that did not include the hanger.

He started running, shouting: 'It's here. It's following me.' Which may well have been the truth.

An unaltered B'tari – white jumpsuit and scaly features – emerged through a side door carrying a hand weapon.

'You are being followed?' he questioned, his words not matching his mouth movement due to a translator.

'Yes, it's right behind me,' Toramin insisted.

The guard tentatively approached Toramin. And as he strode past, Toramin hit the guard as hard as he could with a chopping motion on his forearm, the one with which he carried the weapon. It was enough to make the B'tari drop the weapon. Toramin acted without hesitation and grabbed the small gun just before the guard had reached it, pointed it at the b'tari.

'You will take me to the hanger,' Toramin ordered.

'Do you know how to use that?'

'Let's just assume I do. Let's also assume I am desperate to get off this planet.' He pointed the gun at the guard's neck.

'How far do you think you'll get?'

'Far enough.'

Toramin thought for a moment that the b'tari was going to call his bluff, try some heroics. But it seemed that was not in the b'tari's training. Still, Toramin had to be prepared for the b'tari to act at any second.

'They will stop you,' the guard told him, as they strode stutteringly towards what Toramin hoped would be the hanger. 'I'm just giving you a warning.'

'Not while I have you hostage. But if you keep quiet and let me board a craft, then you can go.'

The guard merely gave a slight nod.

The hanger was already brightly lit, which gave cause for suspicion that there was some waiting party for him. But from what he could see, there were only ships.

They'd both stopped. Toramin still kept the gun trained on the guard.

'Which is the fastest and will travel the farthest?' Toramin asked, unsure he would get a truthful answer.

The guard swivelled his head, his expression professionally impassive. Then fixed on the second largest craft. 'That one, I believe,' he said, as if merely answering some casual enquiry.

'You believe?' Toramin pressed.

'I have not been aboard it, but I know it to be an interstellar class vessel.'

'Then you will take me there.' Toramin allowed the guard to walk about a metre ahead.

When they got to the craft the guard announced: 'I don't have clearance to board this vessel.'

'Now you tell me! Seems you were playing for time.' Toramin waved the gun at the man. 'Well tell whoever does have clearance that I have you hostage.' The guard said something in B'tari. He was nodding.

'The code is being sent to my PDU. It will only be a few seconds.'

The guard was good to his word. He put his finger on a dark glass panel, and then a rectangular red light scanned across his face. A few seconds later a side hatch on the vessel slid away. Toramin followed the guard aboard. The interior was basic yet the two padded seats seemed comfortable enough as one moulded to fit. Graphics of unrecognisable symbols appeared, floating before them at a constant distance.

'Begin the launch procedure,' Toramin instructed the b'tari. 'Tell it to head towards Eranearth, then I will let you go,'

The guard waved and crinkled his fingers seemingly manipulating floating graphics. But even through his unaltered reptilian face, he looked frightened. Would it not happen? Was he still playing for time before the cavalry appeared?

The ship was silent for a nerve-tingling ten seconds. Then when two green triangles with one top red rose up and fused to a single large triangle, the guard appeared to relax.

'Sequence has begun,' he announced with a subtle nod, half turned to Toramin. 'Will you allow me to leave now?'

Toramin knew this was the most dangerous point, the moment he allowed the hatch to be opened. But with literally only a few seconds to think. With the gun still pointed at the guard, he said: 'Yes. But any hint of anyone trying to prevent this ship leaving. Well...' He waved the gun as an obvious gesture.

The guard did a sweeping motion with his hand before the hatch opened, then began to march off. Toramin kept his eyes firmly fixed on the open hatch, suddenly realising he did not know even how to shut it. So he called out: 'And shut it behind you!' That sounded curiously comical, like a parent calling to a child.

Another ten seconds wait, and Toramin, with gun still trained on the retreating guard, rose from his seat, considered trying to shut the hatch himself. But then the B'tari semi-turned, did another short sweeping gesture, and the hatch re-closed.

He could feel the engines powering up now. Yet still not convinced this ship would be adequate to return him home. What were the chances the guard had even instructed the ship to reach the coordinates? Still, that objective was nothing but a bonus, some ideal outcome. No, he just had to focus now on getting away from this hanger. He was expecting someone to try and talk him out of it, bring him down from this seemingly paranoid state to calm reason. But nothing other than the sound of immensely powerful engines as the craft hovered a steady course to the exit.

A viewscreen had appeared, showing the forward face of the hanger, its end section retracting. Surely they would not fire on the ship and risk damaging it. No. It seemed they were letting him go. No sign of any other security. There had to be night staff to deal with these situations. Why were they not doing anything to prevent him leaving? He couldn't help but think a trap lay further along, some lesson he'd be taught. Not an escaping prisoner but the faultering old man determined to escape the institution.

It was only as the ship lifted out of the hanger, that he truly felt a Rubicon had been crossed – that bridges were burning. He hoped even now they'd try and talk him out of it.

The ship continued on inexorably, rising through the last band of atmosphere into the enveloping darkness of space. Still nothing approaching, yet they had to be observing him.

Stars became a grey mass, as the ship entered jumpspace. Symbols shifted in front of his eyes wherever he moved. They made no sense; he could be heading anywhere. Andromeda was 2.5 million light years away, even in a B'tari vessel this must be at the limit of their travel range. The outward journey took over two-hundred hours. How much quicker could this be? As far as he could tell from a cursory search, there was no stasis pod, and certainly not enough food and drink for such a long journey.

The ship shifted in and out of jumpspace; the pattern of accompanying symbols before him altered, until eventually he began to recognise their configuration – the purple triangles and oblongs shifting to greens and blues. Any language becomes familiar with enough exposure, it seemed, with so few distractions.

And so time slipped by, hours and probably days, with nothing to mark them, unless the silent computer – the computer that refused to answer his questions (if it could at all) may be recording all this untrackable time. The boredom, the isolation – nothing new, but here it was more acute when he had no sense of reaching a destination, when he had no control. In the meantime he gathered what provisions there were, some of it vaguely appetising, designed for the B'tari pallet, until even that ran out, to be replaced by some kind of nutrient paste. All the while Toramin thought this indeed was the punishment.

He smirked, remembering how an art teacher once told him he had a persecution complex. That amateur psychoanalysis had stuck with him throughout his adult life. He tried to see this troubled state for what it was, in his happier moments. Observer and not a participant.

A sudden memory from his forties – a time before he knew the possibility of centuries before him. He observed others of his generation with their stable jobs, relationships and marriages. All the while he seemed if anything to be regressing back to his youth, not merely wanting to recapture his imagined carefree existence of twenty years earlier but to do things his younger self would never have had the courage to do for fear of the censorious admonishments of his peers and especially elders. Middle-age – at least the belief of it – had given him a sense of time being limited, yet with the still youthful vigour. He had also lost the 'what would others think' obsession of those past decades, the fear of their disapproval. It was a refreshing sense of freedom to push the limits, to do what was just the right side of legal.

Except his friends, just ever so gradually, distanced themselves from him. It started with the occasional comment to hush him when he spoke of his exploits. Some protocol had been broken, a code of conduct. Had that been updated?

As the years passed it became obvious what was happening. His contemporaries were adjusting to becoming older; sensible, mature according to what was expected of them – how at face value they appeared to society. They were adjusting accordingly. And he was not. The thought even occurred to him that he was regressing, not just in some psychological sense but more fundamentally – developmentally. The defiance of age was drawing him apart. He suspected why. But it would be another decade before he got confirmation.

And then there was the drink. He could drink and he could get away with it, at least physically. Hangovers were nothing; he'd be fully recovered by the afternoon. He'd work, then drink. But the drink only drove him further away from what were once his friends. In a rare sober moment after a night out – that point where the intoxicating effect of the drink had worn off, when the warm obliviousness becomes a cold and sharp awareness – he reflected that just possibly he was becoming an embarrassment to them.

So many years ago. It had never troubled him, not in centuries. The memories had been stored away, like old computer files, sub-foldered, hidden amongst the digital detritus. He got on with life. What was it about here? The confinement? The time?

No, he concluded. It was the prospect now truly of dying. The knowledge that there would be no more chances. Maybe it was better to know in advance. To have time to reflect.

Then, after a further ten minutes of contemplation, something changed. The symbols reconfigured: triangles end to end now became red. The ship shifted out of jumpspace. Stars rotating. No sign of Andromeda.

When the stars became fixed, the symbols changed again to a configuration he knew meant returning to jumpspace. He expected it to last for hours before the routine shift to normal space. But in less than twenty minutes: normal space.

A planet. Blue with islands of brown and green. Swirls of clouds. For a few seconds he was convinced the ship had taken him back to Earth. But he knew enough about the continents to have recognised how they should be arranged.

This was not Earth. The ship was in orbit briefly before descending, moving over the dark side, with no lights of civilisation.

'Computer,' he tried once more. 'Can you tell me where this is?'

After a few seconds, but after days of refusing to answer his questions: 'Status update,' came its clipped and stilted voice. 'B'tari homeworld. Planet B'tar.'

'Why?' was all he could think to respond.

'That is the preprogrammed destination for this vessel.'

'And you never thought to tell me this sooner?---. Aw, never mind.'

The computer told him to sit back, as the webbing secured his torso. The ship passed through a dark mountain range. He then felt a sharp decent, landing in some clearing amidst a forest. He hardly felt the landing. Only a creeping sense of inevitability. Was this really all part of the plan?

'What do I do next?' he asked.

'A beacon has been activated.'

'So I wait?'

'That would be the recommended option.'

Suddenly he felt trapped, almost suffocating, even though he knew the air supply was adequate.

'Is the outside air breathable?'

'A filter mask will be required.'

'Where is it?'

A small hatch opened, revealing a mask. Without hesitation, he donned it.

'Let me out, please.' Sounding just short of pleading.

Without an answer the hatch opened, and Toramin stepped out into the cool night air. A long intake of breath even filtered felt good. He exhaled for longer. Just to be able to put one foot in front of the other filled him with a strange joy. He had no PDU or scanner, only his senses to rely on. A waxing moon was just enough to illuminate the surrounding fur trees in this forest clearing. Even through his filter mask he could smell pine. Such a welcome scent from the sterility of the ship. He then became aware of a rumbling beneath his feet. Sounds of rustling now. Something moving through the trees, or just a breeze. He thought he heard a creature roar, like a lion. No, a crocodile but even deeper. Getting louder. A rustling of undergrowth. The thing that scented its prey frozen with fear.

Then from above, he noticed the light. Greenish white, getting lighter. Getting nearer. Very rapid.

* * *

### 18

Z

Zerrana woke to find Roidon beside her. He was asleep, and appearing oddly vulnerable. Admittedly there something rather appealing in seeing him like this.

For the first few seconds she wondered: how did I let him get me here in this compromising position? And so she ran over the events of the night. What had been the key factor in her seduction? The easy culprit had to be it: the wine. Certainly her B'tari constitution – for all which remained unaltered – must make her more susceptible. Yet Roidon had worked on her on so many levels. It was not that he had a killer line he used on females. No. It seemed he was far more subtle than that. He made her care about him, drew her into his internal world. He used the sympathy angle. The man without a home, the existential nomad. This was not something unfamiliar to him. In a sense he had always been a nomad, if a home be more than just an external edifice. Only something here seemed genuinely different. He lived what was unusually for him a stable existence – a settled life, albeit in a simulated reality. Or more precisely, an alternate reality with internally consistent replicated humans. Even Roidon would have bought into that. After all, you buy into what suits your desires. And maybe Roidon's greatest desire was to find a place where he felt he truly belonged.

Only temporarily would he feel he belonged in her bed. She had been his latest conquest. At least that would have been the view of Roidon in a previous incarnation.

Roidon was stirring to consciousness now. His head turning towards her. She considered covering up. But now that would seem like an act of oddly vain modesty. What more could he possibly learn of her body now?

Still, when he opened his eyes and fixed her with that intense stare she did feel under scrutiny; probably running through his memory of last night – how she compared with all the many others.

'Morning,' Roidon said, sounding somewhat embarrassed to still be in her bed. 'Is it early still?'

'Early for what?' she said in English.

'For this.' He sat up, held her arms just below the shoulders and kissed her until she pushed him back, albeit gently. His breath stank of alcohol.

'There is work to be done,' she told him plainly. She then looked round to her PDU on the bedside table, which had been left on silent. Its screen was pulsating green to red. An urgent message. As she picked it up and looked at the screen, the headline in B'tar struck her: Toramin Eblou has activated protocol B-16 ahead of plan.

'Aw. Could he have not waited? Just a few days?' she muttered in her own language.

Roidon fixed her with a curious stare. By now he was sure to know enough B'tar to have understood her. 'Toramin? He's gone AWOL?'

'You could say that,' she admitted. 'He's taken one of our best ships to our homeworld B'tar.'

Roidon smiled broadly. Perhaps Toramin had become a burden for him, just the notion of having to take some responsibility for the man. He said, 'What does he hope to find there?'

'He wasn't hoping for anything. He wanted to go back home.'

'Ah, home,' he exhaled. 'How nice to have a sense of a home, a place of refuge. And you lot let him give into the basic need?'

'Well, he was becoming a bit of a liability here,' she asserted. 'I'm sure you'd agree.'

'Poor old Toramin,' Roidon mused. 'Just a pawn in this treacherous game of war.'

'He's a bit more than that. If you know much about the man.'

'That's the problem, isn't it. Him being human.' He sat up straight now. 'So what---who is still in your homeworld?'

'Refugees.'

'Of what kind?'

'Roidon, I have already told you too much.'

He fixed her with what appeared to be an affronted expression. 'Why take me out of my happy life when you won't even include me in a key strategy?'

Not sure if he was genuinely irked: 'Roidon, you got me into bed. Doesn't that make you happy?'

Roidon pulled away the cover, scrambled for his clothes. Once he'd put on his jeans and T-shirt, he glared back at her. 'Zerrana. It's takes more than one night of sex to make me passive and compliant.' He then walked out.

How many nights would it take? Zerrana mused. Then she wondered: Where would Roidon go? He effectively had no home, his apartment had been pulled apart, and what was left could not be lived in. He would have no privacy.

She now hoped he would return, would spend more nights in her bed. At the very least it was preferable to being alone – or not being sure if she was truly alone. B'tari males, at least the available ones, were few and far between. They tended to be remote, dedicated to their work, especially now with the pervading sense of her people being under siege. Roidon, by contrast, carried no burden of duty. She could relax with him, take a break from work. But Roidon, for all his laissez-faire demeanour, wanted to be at the heart of things.

Her PDU was flashing again. Probe intercept reveals invasion fleet 8.4 light-years from Earth. Alert status in operation.

Only yesterday the Elusiver fleet were over a thousand light years away, using their apparently denuded jumpspace capability. Well now that had revealed to be the charade her and all B'tari command had suspected it to be. No one in command doubted the Elusivers had already arrived in some sense, whether physical or projected.

Now, within days, they would be here.

* * *

### 19

R

Earth was once a world of possibilities, of potential. A world of pleasures for Roidon – physical and intellectual. Now, as he stood beside his one-occupant craft surveying the wild forest and scrub landscape, it seemed to be the complete opposite.

A multitude of noises assaulted his ears: a cacophony of birds too numerous to name; not that he ever could, or cared to – his PDU could have identified them, likewise the other animals. Dangerous animals such as wolves and wild boar. Here, south east England, in his last visit before the great Machine invasion, there would have been a sprinkling of oak and ash trees. He may have seen the occasional fox or badger. But never more than a five minute flight, or an hour's walk from civilisation. How comforting that had once been, just to know it was there. But how discomforting, even for the loner outdoorsman – the survivalist, to know there was no human habitation anywhere. Here he could die and never be discovered, at least before a particular wild animal took him. Oh, and there was another sound that sent a surge of fear through his spine; so primal the threat – a creature that would kill him without a thought other than countering a threat or obtaining food. These were what currently amounted to a humanoid – creatures some way evolving from ape to homosapien (at whichever stage, it did not particularly interest him, just that they were not intelligent humans). These beings, about three million years prior to modern humans, were driven by the basic urges of food and sex. Roidon imagined he'd be targeted for the former. In any case even their most attractive females... well, the very notion of it was beyond contemplation; he would never become that desperate, Roidon assured himself. Yet what could time out here, competing for meagre resources, do to a civilised being? How long before his clothes became unwearable, his human morality also stripped away in its irrelevance? Books and films on this experiment often depicted a moment when the shackles of humanity were finally shaken free, the point when the only way to survive was to kill – without compunction, without hesitation. A rubicon passed; a decision made to become a hunter rather than the hunted.

Would I, given enough time, become feral? It was one possible truth about himself he never wanted to discover.

He thought he heard their feral sounds become louder, nearer. He checked his PDU, feeling a sense capitulation to his fear. The scanner function had no specific database for those proto-humans, it had no satellite to link up to since the B'tari were not wanting to leave themselves vulnerable to Elusiver hacking, so he could only use echo location waves. The B'tari may well be keeping track of his assigned vehicle by some other stealth means, but of him out in the woods? No. They would not go in to rescue me, he concluded.

For too long his life had become comfortable; the challenge to survive met. He had nothing left to prove in that other reality. But here, where every living thing was either hostile or perceived him as hostile...

He imagined them now, brandishing tree branches to be used as clubs, driven by something not much more than instinct. Perhaps some disturbance that he or his vehicle had caused – a ripple through the animal hierarchy. The invader who possesses powers not even to be conceived of, much less reckoned with; just knowing of a threat to strike out against in the only way they understood. But when you have no knowledge of it, striking out is the greatest of risks. If it is sufficiently advanced it will know your moves before you even decide to make them. The threat without.

Roidon returned to his craft. This was no time to be testing himself against proto-humans. No time to vie for being king of the jungle. No time for needless violence and death.

From above, he saw the group. His screen magnified their location thirty times. Hardly anything to distinguish them from simple apes. They had seen him. They looked to each other in bafflement. What would his craft be to them? Even they, he speculated, would try to explain it within the limited context of their knowledge. A potential threat, for all its strangeness, would ripple though their community. His very act of being here creating a change, sparking ideas. Perhaps, Roidon thought, inexplicable threats were necessary to elevate a society. His appearance in their reality would only be interpreted in the context of their beliefs, would surely be dismissed as had alien visitations in early human culture. Either a threat or a god; perhaps those were the most likely options. Or maybe those options were rendered null and void once the armada arrives. Earth then just another potential outpost.

Roidon the nomad. There was a purity in his isolation; not for a while had there been the chance to really contemplate some higher meaning to existence – a search that humans undertook in rare moments between the inevitable distractions, a quirk of the sentient that exceeded any survival imperative. It seemed an attractive notion for a short time. Yet, he realised, it would be the height of hubris to imagine he was anything other than irrelevant. He may even envy those protohumans with their simple awe and fear, without the vanity of thinking you were special... but not special enough. The more he considered it the more Roidon came to believe that sentience was nothing but a blip, an accident of natural selection that only those who were advanced enough could even appreciate. After all, what higher purpose did sentience serve? What ultimate good came from self-awareness? From his encounters with Elusivers he came to understand their view of sentience as nothing better than a cancer – the universe over-developing. After all, it had already progressed to what seemed its logical conclusion beyond the organic – with devastating consequences, before they initiated the erasure. Then to their logical conclusion, they must eliminate themselves. Only they, like all species, shared the survival instinct.

The craft continued to glide low over the landscape. So much of this land was now forest. It had returned to a state before the first major ice age two million years before modern humans. Intelligence, self-awareness, the by-product of a super-ability to survive. This land was temperate, with abundant wildlife, easily drinkable water. He could live off the land, well away from any B'tari base. Ditch his craft if not destroy it, wear animal skins, and avoid the attention of the Elusivers, whilst proving to whatever B'tari survived that he did not need their benevolence.

And die a lonely man. But a proud lonely man.

His craft had jumpspace capability. It was now standard issue on all B'tari vessels that were not merely sub-orbital shuttles. He had thus far not spoken a word to the computer/AI; that seemed tantamount to communicating with a B'tari. Nevertheless: 'Is it possible to reach planet B'tar?'

'Fuel cells indicate insufficient power for the entire journey,' It answered in its androgynous voice.

'Are there any natural resources on this world that can be used for refuelling?'

'Affirmative. However, the most efficient method is to harness solar flare plasma.'

'That sounds risky.'

'Affirmative: approximately a 12.5 percent chance of annihilation. Although using earth's resources carries its own risks, given imminent invasion scenario.'

He could have got the specifics on that. Instead: 'The sun it is then.'

* * *

### 20

T

Toramin saw only the light.

From somewhere – very near – the guttural sound of something determined, hungry. Never any question of moving. Him, the creature frozen to the spot. There for the taking. He felt an unfamiliar weakness, his legs about to give way. This seemed like the moment the light would take him into its embrace, take away the fear and the inevitable pain. Not that he welcomed death as he thought he would. Even after all those years, there was always something still to be experienced – some joy not fully realised. No. Somehow he seemed to be on the periphery of that total oneness with life. Was it worse to have a sense of its possibility? To know you were nearly there? To know if you had only taken that risk – the risk that may have meant heartbreak in some lyrical sense, or happiness unimagined?

His mind suddenly so alive. The near probability of death without its process.

The light became all-consuming. He felt he simply wanted to submit to it. But not die. Not for it all to be over. He wondered if that was what he ever wanted. Maybe he had never properly resolved the distinction between wanting to die and wanting to no longer be part of life. Not that there was any conceptualising the non-life state. Only that now as many times he had simply wanted this constant yearning for fulfilment to end?

Could he be saved, or was this some vestigial survival instinct, only kicking in right at the end?

Now a low rumbling noise had overtaken the sound of the creature, felt more than heard, as the light – green white – was everywhere. And then he tried to remember. His weakened mind trying to search out some other possibility. The B'tari homeworld. How could they have survived? What could survive the erasure?

The weight had gone from his feet. But only for a few seconds, then he felt ground once more. Felt his legs buckle. He had nothing left.

Sounds, voices. Indecipherable. His eyes were closed. Perhaps he had blanked out for awhile. Reclined on some kind of couch. Had to force his eyes open, despite the trepidation. The light far less intense than before. He could make out forms. Reptilian but humanoid.

Toramin wanted to speak, but words would not come. One of them was approaching him. It raised its hand. A universal gesture of peace.

'Toramin Eblou. Welcome to B'tar,' that one said, in clipped tones in what seemed a mixture of accents yet none at all. 'We anticipated your arrival. Refreshments are available.'

Toramin almost laughed. He cleared his throat to cover it. Forced the words out. 'Where are we?'

'A stealth vessel. B'tar is a dangerous planet, not least because it has been a target for the Elusivers.'

'Why are you here?' It wasn't the question he most wanted to ask,

The b'tari recoiled. 'This is our homeworld. We will not simply abandon it, despite its regression.'

'Millions of years erased?'

'Over four million of Earth equivalent years.' nodded the b'tari, human-fashion. 'A very different place. See for yourself.'

Before him an image floated of a reptile moving through conifer trees. Something reminiscent of Earth's dinosaurs, but smaller, more upright, more... humanoid. It had longer arms and legs than any reptile he knew of. Its face possessed something he only recognised in B'tari: intelligence. Four million years. In that current epoch nothing remotely human existed, barely even some early transitional stage from ape. But here, a forebear of a B'tari.

'Your ancestors. Like our dinosaurs but more---'

'Evolved? Evolution works in parallel on many worlds,' the b'tari explained. 'It's just an adaptation to an environment.'

'But you evolved quicker than humans.'

'Because we had to. Our ice-age arrived sooner.'

'Hadn't the Elusivers recognised your species potential, even at this stage?'

'This world is pre-technological, at least in a way the Elusivers can identify.'

'You and anyone else on this planet are still helpless against them.'

The B'tari nodded and smiled, this time in the unaltered reptilian way that made him look somewhat sinister.

'Then how can I be of any help? I'm just one human, one on the brink of dying from old age.'

'Dying, as you well know, Toramin, does not have to be an option.'

'So what are you going to do – inject me with new super 'chines, only for the Elusivers to abduct me once more and remove them?'

The B'tari shook his head. The smile again. 'As far as they are concerned you have already died – in transit.'

'Are you going to indulge me.'

'Toramin. You – as far as we know – are the only truly born human left in this galaxy. You can rightly feel special.'

'It also means everything I represent is a threat to the Elusivers.' Though Toramin understood that was possibly exaggerating the reality ...

'That is why your role in defeating them has something of a symbolic significance to our people.'

'Well, I've heard how you like to empower humans to do your bidding.'

'Enabled is a better word. And furthermore, what you refer to as our "bidding" has only ever been to act in your interests.'

'Hence why you sent me, my people, to Andromeda.'

'Your survival, Toramin.'

'If you truly are interested in my survival then will I get more super 'chines?'

'We will indulge you that.'

'So I can do your bidding?'

The b'tari turned away, left the room. The light faded, along with his consciousness.

* * *

### 21

Z

A warning of total lockdown. Only a message on her PDU and any console she had access to, informed her. None of the sirens or flashing red lights she had half expected, just bold red text. Perhaps anything more dramatic would have led to panic. Or this was strictly need-to-know (though any B'tari trying to leave Earth's atmosphere would have had a nasty shock).

Zerrana swiped away the warning to reveal the cause. The armada were no longer merely triangles in red, they were recognisably ships, now on a steady course within the solar system, on a steep deceleration curve. They were, at current trajectory, due to reach Earth in slightly under four hours. Just having passed Saturn. She had to remind herself that these were mostly civilians, at least the bulkier ships behind the sleeker warships. Not that the Elusivers considered themselves warlike species; to be referred to as such would surely demean them. No, the vanguard were there to ensure the safe arrival of their civilians. Analysis indicated there were no more than eight hundred thousand; the rest had either left the galaxy or stayed to develop their homeworld, regressed over a billion years by their own doing – the extreme local effects of the erasure. From information gathered by a B'tari observation probe – millions of Elusivers had been erased from time in desperation to escape a fate worse than death at the metal mandibles of the collective machine entity known as the Kintra. Temporal eradication was the only way, they had reasoned, to eliminate the Kintra. But by extension, humans. Humans had been their original target. So what was Earth now – the spoils of war? The Elusivers would be in denial about that. Perhaps, they'd claim, this lush blue planet was just more environmentally suitable than whatever early state their home world had regressed to.

Already, B'tari drone craft were confronting the vanguard. Most of the drones were destroyed, the ones that didn't retreat. It was all they needed, this clear act of aggression. Not that her military had done anything other than send out feelers for negotiation – messages hailed from the drones, that the Elusivers could not pretend to misunderstand. The terms were unequivocally a compromise, given the deadly threat the Elusivers posed, a mutual acceptance of each other's right to live on Earth – a clear separation of habitation and respect for the environment and its native inhabitants.

The Elusivers were not, it seemed, even prepared to reply. Disappointing in the extreme, given the high intelligence of this species. Is this what all those years of war – war that threatens existence – can do?

Was her own kind seen as just another threat to be eliminated?

The universe already seemed a lonely barren place. Andromeda had one known civilisation within its spirals – who were still thought of by the B'tari as refugees; she wondered if the erasure wave, when it finally reached that galaxy, would still have any effect. One of her people must surely have done the math on it. But for all their advances in travel, the Milky Way felt like an isolated island.

She had felt like a sitting duck, waiting to be picked off with the rest of her ground team. However much their resources prepared them, however much they had already been infiltrated on some level making wherever they located hardly relevant, Zerrana told herself remaining at base was the worst option.

She packed her things, and within twenty minutes left for the hanger. Boarded one of three remaining craft, none of which had any defensive capabilities beyond a laser gun, and headed towards the fray. Only when sky-bound her commander hailed her.

'Mar Zoranzi, are you trying to escape your responsibility here?' he said in her original tongue.

It was a cutting accusation. Yet she knew in some part it was accurate. Still: 'I am going to confront them.'

'The enemy ships? That is insane!'

'And remaining on base is sensible?'

'It is our duty.'

'Doing all I can to stop them. Isn't that my duty?' Now she knew she was pushing things.

'Not without the appropriate armaments.'

'So I wait for the heavy guns?'

'If you continue on this course, then do not expect any assistance. As far as I am concerned you have gone AWOL.'

Zerrana broke the connection.

So this is what her people had become. Militarised. Exactly what the Elusivers had wanted. How could her people not see how they were falling directly into their trap? Unless this supposed big defence strategy was some elaborate double-bluff.

No time to speculate. Her ship was on a steady intercept course. To break that would seem to be capitulation, to the Elusivers and her commander.

Now within the influence of Jupiter. Fifty or more ships were blossoming in her forward view. Some like arrows sharply pointed towards her, others blunted with rounded tops and toruses. How many were warships and how many civilian, she could not be sure. With the Elusivers nothing by appearance could be trusted.

But here she was, someone fairly high up the command chain, utterly defenceless against an armada of the most technically advanced species in the galaxy. Of course, they would feel the same mistrust of appearances. But at least they would be distracted from seeing her creation, jumped away to it's rightful place of safety, to sow itself unnoticed like any seed. Then spread its roots. And begin its true quest.

'I hope you are scanning this ship.' she hailed on all channels. 'And see that it has no weapons of any significance. I just want to talk.'

No answer. Not that she had really expected one. They continued to get nearer but they were slowing, more than just the standard deceleration, her presence was having an effect.

Enemy ships all around. Anyone could take her out in an instant, and there'd be no effective retaliation from her side. But that was never how they operated, she assured herself. Would they know her ship was on standby to jump away at the first sign?

See me helpless. I offer a plea for what remains of humanity.

A warning came up. Navigation control off-line.

'Jump!' she shouted. The one command with a set response to get beyond the sol system. But before Zerrana even said it, she knew it was too late. Now her ship was under Elusiver control. Held in some kind of tractor beam.

When the creature appeared it was no surprise to Zerrana. The bright light behind it made it seem even thinner than she remembered them. She hadn't felt the transition to the other place, so seamlessly smooth it had been. The initial fear now gave way to resignation.

'Am I your hostage now?' came her muted question.

The Elusiver swayed ever so slightly, as if her question held with it a sudden breeze. Zerrana was sure she saw it proceed to nod in the affirmative.

The light intensified. The light was all-consuming.

* * *

### 22

R

Roidon had opted for the risky strategy. Safety protocols not disabled would have begun decelerating his craft somewhere before orbital distance. Instead: manual override (albeit assisted to avoid any obvious catastrophic mistakes) took him within B'tar's atmosphere. It meant damaging the ship's outer shell on entry, but he imagined he'd only be needing that once.

This planet, he surmised, must surely be on the Elusivers' watch list. This was the night side. So dark, his unaided eyes could not make out the continents. Wise, then, that the B'tari here would be keeping more than the standard low profile; they'd want to appear to be not even existing. But then the arrival of Toramin ruined that possibility (not that it was barely even a possibility).

His ship was using the minor thermal variations to highlight the continents. But also the tale-tale give-away signs of life. Hovering above a clearing, he watched the creatures as they roamed in IR white: reptiles, like giant upright lizards. They had stopped to observe his craft. When the irony of it struck him, he couldn't help but laugh uproariously. These were the distant ancestors of the urbane and sophisticated B'tari – those who religiously stuck to their doctrine of non (though latterly minimal) interference in other cultures. What he was doing now, their multi-million year descendants would regard as corrupting the natural development of a primitive species. Some had indeed speculated that the B'tari were the common descendants of Earth's dinosaurs; but it didn't even have to be described as convergent evolution, just how the environment will shape similar forms.

The Elusivers on seeing these creatures must have felt a sense of satisfaction – the ancestors of the mighty B'tari now with no prospect of developing mechanical technology, much less leaving the planet for a few million years. And in turn the escaped B'tari relieved for having evaded the Elusivers. But for how long?

It all depended...

Beyond the primitive B'tari, thermal sensors detected the presence of smaller creatures, rodents mainly, the occasional four-legged creature similar to an antelope. The advanced B'tari were not going to reveal themselves. And why should they? Somehow he knew they were able to see him. The Elusivers likewise – he the anomalous being, removed, taken like one of the local primitives, or merely eliminated. Yet he held to the theory that neither would emerge from the shadows. After all, they'd think, what could he do here of any consequence?

He continued on, with a full spectrum scanner sweeping the surface, knowing he'd find no creatures more advanced than he'd already seen.

As he pondered if there could be a place to finally land, if only to sleep, an alert flashed. His attention had been drifting away from the forward screen, slipping from awareness, when the area flashed iridescent in overlay. His first thought was that it must be an Elusiver encampment: there were signs of EM emissions. Very subtle; whatever it was had to be underground.

Roidon considered the two options. Vacate the area... and never find out what it is, but at least ensuring his survival. Or do what he always did and let his curiosity lead him.

So he descended about two kilometres from the area. He donned his isolation suit, cutting him off from the environment, despite the similar air and temperature to Earth. This afforded him a degree of stealth, though not likely to fool the Elusivers for long.

He ran as fast as his suit would allow, which gave about a twenty percent improvement in strength and aerodynamics. It was a relief just to stretch his legs, to be out of the maddening confinement of that ship. The suit scanner relayed the position of the disturbance. He was directed to what he could just discern in the dark to be scrubland. Without scanning equipment, no one would suspect a thing. He carried with him a portable digger. Spherical, about the size of a golf ball, the thing unfolded itself, resembling something akin to a mole. Its little clawed feet moved at an imperceptible rate, burrowing through the compact earth, relaying the image to his helmet HUD.

After four minutes and about a hundred and eighty metres of soil and sandstone, a muted light. Orange and yellow glowing strands, pulsing. The digger now found its place on solid ground, scuttling along one of these strands until reaching a central hub. Only visible in IR, it was still warmer than any live creature. Sound relay was a low buzzing. EM here was extremely powerful.

The scuttler could be controlled by thought alone, but it took some practice to control it; now standard B'tari tech but the one weak component in this interface was yet to be improved – the organic brain. He thus gave it a voice command: 'Attempt interface with hub device.' He was conscious that someone might overhear him up here, it was a risk. Being distracted made him vulnerable.

The response came back in text: Universal port detected. Caution advised. May disrupt internal systems.

'Proceed,' Roidon nevertheless ordered.

Cannot interpolate at this stage. Do you wish data to be relayed in base form?

'Fine, yes.'

It flooded into his centre of vision, indecipherable streams of code, first moving horizontally then vertically. It made him nauseated.

'Please stop it,' he demanded. 'But keep recording.'

The almost overwhelming tide of code ceased. Roidon felt dizzy. He sat on the wild grass, desperately needing to remove the suit, but fighting the urge to do so. He took a deep breath. Whatever was down there was the answer to a question that in his mind had yet to fully form.

For now: 'Give me observational analysis of EM source. In audio.'

'Cursory analysis indicates a highly dense processing array,' the scuttler told him in pinched high tones.

'Anything further?'

'A quantum computing device. Currently in the process of expanding its array.'

Roidon got to his feet, he felt his heart racing. 'It's spreading? How? How far? To where?'

'Cannot determine for sure. It appears to be spreading by use of nano robots, which are using natural resources to construct quantum processing units in chains. The expansion appears to be radial.'

'In every direction! That's something... extraordinary.' The last word came out almost as a whisper.

'It is at the known limits of technological capability.'

'Do you recognise that as B'tari tech?'

'Inconclusive. However, these type of quantum processors are B'tari standard.

'But not used to this extent, I bet,' Roidon mumbled, not inviting a response.

Roidon ordered the scuttler back. Whatever the B'tari had planned, it was certain they didn't want him interfering.

Too bad.

He returned to his craft, and ordered an upload of all the recorded data. Here the more powerful computer set to work analysing and interpolating the welter of code. But one thing he already knew. A processing array as powerful as the one beneath this planet – fully functioning – could be nothing less than conscious.

* * *

### 23

T

On awakening, Toramin noticed the creature peering over at him, carrying what he understood to be a hyperfuser.

'What? Where?' It took a while for him to remember where he was or how he got here. It was often the confusion after a long sleep: unpleasantly disorientating for a while. For a few seconds he was nothing he recognised. It was a curious state of non-existence. Not that being bereft of memory was entirely without its advantages, he'd often reflect.

'We had to leave the orbit of B'tar. Our ship is being pursued.' This B'tari had a softer, higher voice. A female. And now he observed he could see she had softer more delicate features, and less pronounced forehead ridges. The obligatory white lab coat, seeming like an affectation here.

'By the Elusivers?'

'By the Elusivers.'

'Because I'm here, no doubt.'

A smile, quite human-like. 'That you are so important to them?' she asked rhetorically. 'Not necessarily, Toramin. It may have been our carelessness, revealing our position to them.'

'By picking me up. So it is because of me.'

The b'tari smiled and shook her head. 'It was inevitable they would discover us after they secured Earth.'

Had he been out for so long? 'Your people, they did not defend their Earth-base?'

'It appears not. The Elusivers retain much of their power. Their forces are concentrated. Our kind are scattered throughout the galaxy – it is prudent for our continued survival.'

'But could you not stop them if you concentrated your forces?'

She looked askance. 'Military advice from a human. How interesting.'

'Sorry I didn't mean---'

'No, I accept we may have over-judged our ability to negotiate.' She nodded.

'So you just admit defeat?'

'That is what the Elusivers will believe. And so they settle in their new colony.'

'And draw down their arms.'

'They think they need not worry, in the belief in their superiority.'

'But there is another plan?' Toramin ventured.

'There's always another plan.' That smile again. 'I will return later,' she added. 'Please remain in your quarters. Feel free to make use of the entertainment system.' Briskly she then walked out.

They were slipping in and out of jumpspace. He'd forgotten to ask where they were heading; maybe they really were just trying to escape. The last Advanced B'tari – the remaining threat. He didn't imagine the pursuers would give up so readily. Were the Elusivers so intent on eliminating the escaping B'tari? And here he was, no more than a helpless passenger – always someone to be protected, it seemed. Just lay back then, go with the flow?

No, that was the elderly Toramin, the man with the just adequate 'chines to maintain his existence. Now, he felt these tiny super machines coursing through his veins like some biological rocket fuel. He could be twenty years old, if he could truly remember how that felt. Funny how for hundreds of years, on better days, he'd sometimes imagine feeling that young. But it was only ever a thing the old did to fool themselves; the passing decades had a stealthy way of creeping up. But looking back he knew he had changed. Only in the last hundred or so years did he cease worrying about virtue. He wished it had been much earlier. Perhaps there had always been some latent spiritual sense. Or was it merely a need to conform? Something people were often in denial about. If he had believed himself to be mortal he was sure to realise that perpetual virtue was an unnecessary burden when you faced no ultimate judgement beyond the terrestrial law. A consistent sense of morality was a different matter. A good person can transgress when they can't see the limits before harm. For him it felt different. So much more time to consider every ramification; so much longer to have to live with them. For hundreds of years no feeling he might regret the lack of indulgences when to old to enjoy them. Then the possibility of their never being a second chance, only when he sought the possibility of an ending.

His room contained an AR port. He'd been through its menu, sampled the titles. There were the obligatory action adventure games – for the casual immersive to the hardcore enthusiast. He could live out some unfulfilled hero fantasy. Whether in some mythic begotten era of sword-wielding nobleman, slaying the dark forces of the enemy who threatens the kingdom. Or as a supersoldier fighting off alien invaders who seemed lacking in any motivation beyond destroy and conquer. At least that's how those games appeared on first play: devoid of any moral complexity, any nuance of intentionality. Perhaps the designers intended this, drawing the player into the basic rush of the action. Complexity, he acknowledged, can be off-putting. And he did feel the temptation to return to the simple moral universe, one where he felt to have ultimate control and agency. No question of doubting one's actions, no matter how many were killed. No matter how realistically they appeared to die. Sadism here was permitted.

Alternatively, there were ultra-realistic titles: the inevitable sex fantasies – for almost (it seemed) every preference. Then the curiously prosaic real life sims, entailing societal, financial responsibility, training to be a good citizen on some ideal world, one if it ever even existed was now nothing any more conceivable than those medieval realms. He got an appreciation, though, of what the B'tari creators yearned for in these times when the natural order had no prospect of being restored.

And then it struck him. The B'tari had created his own world not merely as a safe haven for humans. They wanted their idealised society to exist in a bubble, safe from the existential threats in an indifferent universe. An island of order amid a sea of chaos. They didn't even want to visit his homeworld, but to see it from afar, not contaminate even the idea of it, let alone what they perceived as the simple life. It was their Earth circa pre alien invasion. And then when all is lost in the galaxy there could always be that safe haven.

He passed the time. He passed hours. Hours became days. When he questioned a member of the crew over why so much time had passed without reaching a destination, he received an answer which varied little. 'We are being pursued. We are heading towards an outpost where we can bolster our defences?'

'Defences?' Toramin queried.

'An automated network of drones. As well as manned ships'

'Do the Elusivers know of it?'

'We are not sure.'

Yet the one question always unanswered: Are they pursuing because of me, the one human left to be eliminated?

He awoke at some unspecified time, when the real chaos began.

### 24

Z

One white light surrounded by smaller spotlights, it reminded her of an operating theatre. It was difficult to see anything surrounding, there was just a general blue-greyness. Until her eyes fixed upon another body recumbent beside her. A similar light was also on this person.

Zerrana couldn't be absolutely sure, but this b'tari looked remarkably similar to herself, although not quite fully possessing her beauty. The other stirred, looked in Zerrana's direction. A shocked reaction.

'You're...' the other began. 'Me?'

She felt a lump in her throat; some words whizzing round her head needed to come out. 'I...,' Zerrana tried. 'Can't be sure,' she only managed.

'I'm Zerrana Zoranzi,' the other declared. 'You cannot be the same.'

'There seems to be some confusion,' Zerrana affirmed. 'Because that is my name.'

'This has to be a dream.'

'It's possible. It's also possible that you are a copy of me.'

'And it's not you who is the copy?'

A queasiness overcame Zerrana. 'The Elusivers. They are trying to mess with our minds.'

'Well, come out then!' the other shouted, presumably at whatever Elusiver happened to be observing. 'What are you waiting for?'

'I wouldn't expect them to be predictable.'

'Sure. I'm predicting they'll be unpredictable.'

Despite the disturbing nature of her situation Zerrana had to laugh – a brief chuckle. Would I have said the same? It was at that moment a tall figure hove into view. Typically seeming more to glide than walk. It held in its spindly hand an elongated tapered rectangular device, the end of which glowed faintly blue.

'Barely even a neuron of variation,' the Elusiver said. 'Either of you will do.'

'Excuse me?' Zerrana's doppelgänger said.

'I can trawl either of you for information.'

'But hadn't you already obtained that information when creating my copy?'

'At a quantum level we cannot know the properties of a system without disrupting it. Copying is not reconstructive, but more like a flash image.'

'But why two?' Zerrana asked, quite reasonably. 'Isn't one enough?'

'One for information, one for leverage in negotiations.'

All B'tari officers had been warned of the Elusivers' method of memory trawling; that if not fatal, would at least render whichever victim in a vegetative state – worse than dead. She was (as she imagined her doppelgänger to be) desperately searching for some way to escape this predicament.

'There's no need for a memory trawl. I have information. What do you need to know?'

The Elusiver swayed his head. 'More than you would be prepared to tell me.'

The doppelgänger fixed the on the Elusiver an intense stare. 'I can tell you everything about our plans, our counter-attack strategy. Our technological resources.'

Zerrana watched her doppelgänger's fearful contemplation. Was she bluffing about her claimed knowledge? Was she even aware of herself not being the original? It was a cruelty of the Elusivers that they could strip someone of their individuality, as if ethics were nonexistent in their methodology. She wanted to know if they were aware of the psychological implications, or philosophical considerations of their experiments, but feared discovering the true depth of their cruelty.

'I'm sure,' the Elusiver said, 'you can furnish us with the bare details, perhaps even some useful information. But there are things – codes, schematics, discussions in conference rooms – that you may not even be able to recall consciously or through hypnotic suggestion.'

Zerrana felt some noble urge to offer herself for sacrifice. But then she had an idea. 'If you can create one perfect copy, then why not two or three? One that never needs to be awakened.'

The Elusiver shook his head. 'Creating copies is resource-intensive. The fact of the matter is, only one of you can be allowed to live.'

'I don't understand,' Zerrana pleaded, not even daring to seek out any logic from his claim. 'We are no threat to you. We only want compromise – to live in peace.'

'There can never be peace from a species that advocates machine intelligence.'

Suddenly it struck her. What the Elusiver wanted was not general plans for defence, it was the thing she had invested the last five years in – an artificial intelligence that had already superseded anything even pre-erasure. The Elusiver already knew something, that it existed somewhere. Then a location would be enough. Her people's last hope, but something no other b'tari was even aware of. How foolish to fall into their hands. One way or another the Elusiver would obtain that information. But she felt more prepared than her people would have credited.

'You think,' she said to the Elusiver, 'that I would allow myself to be captured by a species as advanced as yourselves whilst carrying crucial information? Or isn't it more likely that anything we retain is so compartmentalised that with it you only have a partial picture. Or even knowledge of our capture will render any military intelligence null and void?'

'The logic in that statement has merit. But you are not arguing well for your continued survival.'

Zerrana noticed her doppelgänger was crying, it shocked her: not her way of responding. That one said: 'Why not just kill us both and get it over and done with?'

Would she so easily give in to thoughts of despair? Surely she was more stoical. There was something not quite right about her copy. A peculiar weakness of character.

'One of you will be memory trawled,' the Elusiver insisted. 'Whoever it is makes no difference.'

'Then let it be me,' Zerrana announced.

Zerrana's doppelgänger ceased her crying. 'You would volunteer – to save my life?'

'I have lived my life. Yours has merely begun,' she found herself saying, what seemed the right thing to say.

The Elusiver stepped forward. 'How noble, Mar Zoranzi. Your people would be proud of such a sacrifice.'

Shrugging her shoulders affectedly. 'Whatever. Just get on with it.'

The Elusiver gave an instruction in a language she didn't understand. Then within a second a cantilevered arm extended over her doppelgänger, from which protruded a tapered glowing device. It should be me! I should be speaking out! Instead, Zerrana watched in grim fascination, dividing her attention between the other b'tari's look of terror and the device as it glowed with increasing intensity, before it flashed. Her doppelgänger then vanished in an instant.

Zerrana glared at the impassive-looking Elusiver, feeling – she had to admit – a huge sense of relief. 'What have you done? You could have saved her and kept me.'

'She was not designed to survive. Only a temporary construct, held together by induced electromagnetic forces. If she left this lab she would have ceased to exist.'

'And what of me? Are you still going to trawl my memory?'

'No need. We already have everything we require.'

'You read my copy, and in doing so destroyed her.'

'Correct.'

'Then I am free to go?'

After what seemed an instant later she was back in her craft. The 180 viewscreen flickered, showing unfamiliar stars. Then winked out. Power critically drained. There were no systems active beyond basic environmental.

'Computer,' she tried. 'Where is this?'

No answer. Not that she really expected one.

It was clear now. Rather than killing Zerrana, this merciful option had left her remote from her homeworld. Safely – in their mind – remote from anything familiar.

* * *

### 25

R

Roidon had been sleeping in his ship when it alerted him to the invaders. The image before him presented five red dots. Each tagged with a decreasing number, the ships were homing in on B'tar at a hurried pace. There was no mistaking them. Elusiver class.

Adrenalin coursed through Roidon, blasting away any residual sleepiness. 'Ship,' he commanded, 'get me off this planet.'

It would, he realised, have been an automatic procedure anyway. It was programmed to protect its passenger, and by doing so protect itself. At orbital height they slipped into jumpspace, but Roidon ordered the ship back to normal space almost immediately.

'I want to return to B'tar,' he ordered.

'For safety reasons that would not be advisable,' the ship told him, passively.

'I am aware of the danger. But we are not the target.'

'Switching to pilot executive mode level 2.'

In the twelve minutes they had been away, the invading ships were sub orbital. 'Follow their route. Approach to three kilometres distant.'

'Can I be allowed evasive override in case of threat?'

'Yes.'

As he suspected, the Elusiver fleet had discovered the AI. They were firing high impact explosives, so powerful they had to remain at least eight ks from the target. The blasts were devastating; solid ground rose up in plumes of dust, finally settling to become a mass of craters. He couldn't imagine how the AI would ever survive. Such a conventional solution from such an advanced species. But utterly effective, it seemed. And here he was utterly powerless to prevent it.

The Elusiver craft hadn't, it seemed, even noticed his presence, still focused on their target. Or perhaps he was merely an irrelevance to them.

'Assign me manual control.'

'Affirmative, but will retain executive override unless otherwise---'

'Fine – whatever.'

Moving in closer, Roidon noticed – amidst the dust flecks of silver – the most advance artificial intelligence in the galaxy reduced to fragments of metal in a matter of minutes. Could it have known? Have felt any pain? Fear?

The ships were moving away now, and away from his own. It was oddly an affront to not even be acknowledged by them, as if he were an irrelevance.

He took the ship down to near the destruction site, landing about a kilometre away. The ship advised him radiation levels were dangerously high even with the isolation suit.

Still he trudged over the broken soil, flecked with bits of cable and silicon and gold. All the while a puzzle in his mind. Such an oversight by its creator. As if anything could escape the all searching eye of the Elusivers.

But something had escaped.

Roidon could hardly believe what he was seeing. The silver figure emerged, arms pushing away soil as if the dead had returned from the grave reanimated in artificial form. How reminiscent, he acknowledged, of a creature he had once been but lived as in denial. It stood for a few seconds surveying all around. Had it seen him? Quite possibly, but it hardly seemed to acknowledge his presence. Roidon once again the irrelevance. How times have changed, he thought. Maybe for the best. Any perceived threat would surely be eliminated.

Roidon stood stock still as he watched the figure striding over the broken landscape, a mythical mench risen from the ashes. This, he knew, was the answer. It was simple really. Anything that could survive an Elusiver onslaught must hold the key to ending their plan. Such a vast processing array had somehow concentrated all its resources into this one being. How phenomenally magnificent. A colossus of intellect – a machine intelligence the like of which even the Elusiver's formidable foe, the Kintra could barely conceive of. A true adversary created by the B'tari. But somehow the Elusivers had at least an inkling of its existence. They would undoubtedly be back, Roidon felt sure, even if they currently were convinced of its destruction.

The figure was running at some considerable speed now. Roidon was half expecting it to take flight – although that may have been one way to get itself noticed. Roidon had the instinct to pursue it on foot despite not having a chance of catching it. Instead he got back in his ship. With manual control he followed the silver figure, maintaining a distance of about three kilometres. It was surely aware of his presence. He hoped it would be. The being was running at about eighty kilometres an hour. He got the computer to run the most comprehensive scan possible from this distance. The silver man gave nothing away, impervious to all electromagnetic scanning, and even quantum resonance imaging produced only a fuzzy reading. Whatever computational power it held was securely locked away from at least his ship's detection. It essentially reflected everything.

He drew closer, but the silver man continued on his course unabated. Eventually the being reached the side of a steep hill, the eroded base of which revealing limestone. Without hardly a moment's hesitation the silver man pulled away at the limestone, at such speed it was difficult to perceive movement as anything but a blur. The metal man had disappeared into the side in less than a minute. Roidon took the craft to a landing nearby. He imagined – had he not taken the computer's safety protocols off-line – it would be warning him of his life in danger.

Regardless, he exited the craft about fifty metres from the hill. Ran towards the hill. As he got near he noticed much of the opening had collapsed. Peering down with a conventional focus spotlight, a tunnel-way illuminated by the narrow beam. As Roidon considered the possibility of digging through the entry-way in pursuit, there followed a low rumbling noise. The ground shook. Roidon backed off. Exited the hillside just as the sound reached an ear-piercing crescendo.

Soil blasted from the far side, hundreds of metres high. A delta-shaped craft followed in its wake, ascending at a rate that seemed impervious to gravity. The silver man was in a hurry.

Roidon called up his ship. Once inside he ordered it to pursue the delta-shaped craft, at a speed that disregarded any safety protocols. Inertial damping took up much of the twenty gees yet it still left him barely conscious. Upon leaving the atmosphere it was jumpspace all the way. The delta ship was gaining distance, however. And Roidon had set out believing he'd got one of the best B'tari ships of the fleet. How naïve, he chided himself, to not suspect the B'tari of having some black project on the go.

Navigation was having trouble keeping track of the Delta ship. Its quantum disturbances tended to be away from any star systems, clearly to avoid detection. Last detection was over two-hundred light years away.

'Computer. Can you plot a likely destination of delta ship?'

'Calculating. There is a B'tari outpost approximately seven hundred light years that correlates to the most likely trajectory of craft.'

'Anything you can tell me about that outpost?'

'It is heavily armed.'

'Keep a steady course for that destination.'

* * *

### 26

### T

Toramin watched through his bedroom virtual viewscreen to finally see normal space. There was nothing on visual except the usual thousands of stars... until he noticed a black mass, emerging from a point. It was like a jagged hole had been cut in space. It built into something astonishing. A hive of machines in many shapes, most in dark brown and silver with protruding arms and what were clearly guns. Perhaps some where ships, it was difficult to tell. Many were attached to long hubs: dark pillars with flared ends. It could be a pacifist's dystopian nightmare.

This did not seem to fit with the enlightened if not peaceful reputation of the B'tari as he understood. Maybe underplaying military prowess was merely a way to gain tactical advantage. While they liked to give the impression, it seemed, of possessing only a few hundred military craft and a few Earth-based missile emplacements, the real centre of operations was here. And the Elusivers a false sense of security.

'So you let Earth fall to them, and they think it was a pushover?' he said to whoever might possibly be listening.

He picked out a half-empty bottle of Grigot Pino from the chiller, the last but one remaining. The B'tari had shown sympathy. Or was that empathy? Regardless, they understood his uncomfortable situation. A necessary indulgence. He finished it off in just under ten minutes.

They moved in towards one of the hubs. Near the top, doors parted to reveal the light of a hanger. It was massive! They landed amid hundreds of other ships, some could have been fifty times the size of their craft. The hanger doors closed rapidly.

A human-looking male b'tari clad in the typical white suit entered Toramin's quarters, his living area. Any notion of privacy clearly lost on them. 'I hope you were able to cope well with the journey,' the b'tari opened politely. 'We should be safe in the outpost. You are free to leave the ship.'

'I see,' said Toramin, not quite feeling the reality of his new freedom.

The b'tari nodded in the gap of silence Toramin couldn't quite think how to fill.

'What kind of base is this?' Toramin's tentative question.

The b'tari smiled broadly – the way that a host would at an elderly guest. 'One of sanctuary. The Elusivers will hesitate before any incursion here.'

'I wouldn't underestimate them.'

A nod of acknowledgement. 'Surely.'

Immediately the b'tari left, Toramin opened the last bottle of wine, seeming left by them as a kind gesture. Well, it would be a shame to waste it; he didn't imagine coming back in this ship, and the B'tari were not so keen on alcohol, there was some slight genetic incompatibility, he had heard. He gulped down about two thirds before packing his few possessions, and twenty minutes later he was wandering through a vast brightly lit enclosed city; it reminded him of the shopping malls on his home world – lots of electronic billboard displays and supply departments of which goods he couldn't be sure since they tended to be obscured by tinted glass. Doors that invited to wonders beyond the normal realms of a mere human. One notable difference, though, was the lack of visitors. Only the occasional b'tari passed, of a more traditional non-human appearance, but looking more like employees than shoppers. He was about to speak to one white-suited but unaltered b'tari he took to be female (garments more tightly-fitting than the male version) but then stopped himself at the last second. They all seemed intent on going about their business, ignoring him. Supreme indifference – real or affected. Perhaps they were preparing for many more visitors.

It should have been a daunting experience but there was a curious unreality to it. Helped, doubtless, by the wine. The last outpost, the sanctuary where he might have to stay for the rest of his life. No, he wouldn't even entertain the prospect of that.

Away from the seemingly commercial area to the residential section. Ten or so balconied floors, which he presumed were apartments. His b'tari supervisor had supplied him with a location for his new quarters. His PDU projected the directions into his eyes on request. He could let it all wash over him, keep at bay the true implication of what he was seeing. Dispel any notion of this being a prison, despite its panoptican-esqe structure. No, this was merely created for efficiency, not for keeping close observation on its residents. Or on its only human resident.

Mildly disoriented, he let the nav display guide him to his apartment.

It was everything he expected it to be. Plush and clean design, all the mod cons. Even a fully equipped gym. He could even enter a room that simulated the outdoors in any of thousands of locations. He chose an alpine landscape, stood in a meadowed valley beside a stream, and for a few semi-drunken minutes really believed he could be there. For a few more minutes wondered if this simulated environment contained other types of attractions. Toramin cast his mind back to the last time he had been with a woman. It was years. Over a decade. Maybe fourteen, maybe more; time had lost its meaning even before leaving his homeworld. And then his heart was never really into the relationship – if that's even what it was. Sometimes, he mused, the terms are never set out, but just a mutual understanding that needed no formalising. So, not a relationship, just sex. The notion of "a relationship" brought with it connotations of responsibility. Centuries back, he'd have happily taken on that responsibility, to its full romantic grandeur. But in later years it had all seemed too energy-consuming. And he had become all too aware of his own habits and daily rituals, and the problem of incorporating them into a shared existence. And then there was the natural process of the others' ageing. He'd witnessed how other couples had grown old together; it was a binding aspect that seemed to sustain their togetherness. It was what made them a couple rather than just two individuals with a common interest. Yet for him intimacy still mattered, could never truly escape the need for it any more more than he could escape from being human. And he now craved it more than ever the drink. That's what had seemed such a remote possibility for all those years. That's what was now knotting his stomach.

'I should stop drinking,' he told himself.

The well-equipped kitchen freezer contained a wealth of ingredients. He would cook himself a proper meal. Becoming busy had been the key to a healthy distraction. Those unresolved problems shoved to some recess of the mind; somehow physical tasks kept them there. Sitting, trying to focus. That had been the challenge of late. The very determined act to think singularly of the project, the study, the novel, only brought forth the unbidden, unwanted thoughts. The darkest of which, always there. How to end it all, how to override those tiny machines. Part of it was curiosity. To end what had been for so long, what felt like would always be and had always been. How could that truly end? It felt like a question a child might ask. But these were just questions adults became afraid to ask. A question those around him preferred not even to be asked. Not even to be contemplated.

He peeled the potatoes, put them in to boil. Concentrated on the task.

* * *

### 27

Z

Over the last three hours, normal power had restored from basic environmental. Her ship contained an emergency cell, but it in no way had enough power to get her back to anywhere familiar. Eighteen thousand light years from her homeworld, even with this craft constantly at full power would take months. This was not a pan-galactic class vessel, only really designed for hopping between solar systems. Jumpspace could at best be described as intermittent.

Zerrana's ship had a facility for what seemed like a hopeless situation. She was looking at it now: a tinted glass pod, encasing a seat, angled at 45 degrees like a standard reclining chair (it took up less space than a recumbent one). The only solution it seemed for a time like this. Stasis involved reducing every function of her mind and body to a fraction above zero. Almost like death. The only times she had experienced it she remembered nothing. That was not to say nothing happened. Perhaps not enough to form a memory.

Time was running out to decide. The ship still routinely went into jumpspace, then found the nearest star-system to refuel. But it was always a case of diminishing returns. But with her in stasis all environmental systems could be taken off-line, including AG. Then there'd be just a chance she'd make it back to B'tar or some nearer outpost. Or be detected by her people. The ship would simply work in her best interest.

To sleep for a month. As reliable as B'tari tech had a reputation for being, a doubt at the back of her mind nagged away. If the Elusivers wanted her out of the picture, how difficult would it be to destroy the ship? Or, wanting to avoid the moral dubiousness of committing murder, simply send her ever farther away – a safer distance? How much would it even matter to her compatriots if that was the case? Were they even still alive?

Too many questions. None she could answer. Maybe better just to be unconscious and let fate play out.

Space. It made you feel so insignificant. She once believed that was a healthy thing: put your life in perspective, especially when you started to get a sense of your own importance. Ultimately here, isolated from all other lifeforms, a whole life cycle could pass without it being observed (in an atheist sense), or noted. It could have no meaning, no significance, no consequence. No point. In times past, she may well have soaked up the sheer magnificent vastness of the universe; her as a speck within it. Somehow wondrous. All her troubles so parochial if not insignificant. Such grandness of a star, life forged. Her a part of that, searching out meaning, finding a connection – if no more than shared elements. It somehow refreshed the mindset to focus on what really mattered.

What really mattered now was saving her kind, the few that were scattered, escaping, hiding. Or fighting the final battle at the one place of refuge.

Yet there was a secondary consideration, nearly as important. Funny, how in the shock of being flung out here she had nearly forgotten it. All those people!

The Elusivers would have scanned her system, extracted the database. She hoped, as she unscrewed the floor panel (hidden beneath a felt carpet) that they'd assumed the EM reading was merely part of the ship's processing unit. After all, there was no reason to suspect. Such a well kept secret.

B'tari vessels were unique in still securing panelling with screws. Her electric driver had to get though dozens of them before she could lift this two by four metre tritainium panel. Finally lifting the panel by its concealed ringed handle, Zerrana let out a deep sigh on seeing the black cube, and still hooked up to the ship's processors. She smiled at the thought of what they'd missed: billions of human lives. Instead all they got was a lot of useless tactical info, made to seem significant. So here she was, the last custodian of the human race. It was worth more than any computer database. In theory they could be made once again flesh. They could certainly be embodied in some form; although that experiment had already been done, with tragic consequences. But at the very least, this was her currency. It was also a drain on the ship's resources. She wondered: if it ever got to the point where only basic systems could operate. Her maintenance or the sim's? The only noble option was self-sacrifice. An easy thought, for some unspecified future point.

Then suddenly, the thing she should have remembered sooner. The ship had been drained of power to only basic environmental. The Earth sim!... All those lives wiped out with the loss of power. For how many hours, she was afraid to check. Safer to have left the porta-cell connected. In this ship there was no proper adequate monitoring system beyond power levels.

Zerrana hunted round the ship for her interface band. Somewhere safe. Ah, in the locker, the delicate-looking semicircular grey visor. She grabbed at it swiftly like a child repossessing a lost toy. Would the Elusivers have only mistaken it for a standard AR band? Quite possibly. She crawled back into the space below deck, amidst the cube and its attendant cables, shone a penlight over the cube's surface, before eventually discovering the well-concealed interface port. It was too cramped and uncomfortable to make a connection here by cable. A remote link an alternative. Less reliable and of course open to interference, should anyone pass by. Not much risk of that out here.

She sat in the flight deck, donned the band. It wasn't to be a total immersion; even at its deepest, no loss of consciousness, but full sensory haptic feedback. To begin with, she selected a peripheral monitoring feed from the AR interface menu. Everything was functioning within acceptable parameters. But the loss of power – for approximately two hours – had caused a corruption. After it had gone back online the Earth-sim tried to resume as if nothing had happened. But here, the corrupted code was presented before her, which would only be meaningful to a second-level or higher tech or programmer. Still, she suspected it must mean a loss of memory integrity. There was just so much stored, it depended on active transient states; they had to be read to be stored, but there was a problem doing that on quantum level – it was inherently unreliable. This was bad. The only way to discover was to go in deeper.

Take me to a problem area. Start with the worst.

The intensity hit her without warning. Buildings ablaze, people fighting, shooting each other. This was Detroit, early twenty-first century. Zerrana felt caught in the midst of the action. The depth of immersion was only now superfluous, a system designed for maximum experience – visuals like real, sounds, smells – all the least she would have welcomed twenty-four hours ago. But really she was no more than a ghost here, the system protected her from physical sensation. She could approach anyone. She approached the worst area of fighting. And this was when it truly became a nightmare: people's appearance revealed the level of corruption to the sim. The deformities were varied in their severity: some had parts of limbs missing, others without noses, ears, mouths, sections of heads. They behaved with an understandable insanity – a seemingly mindless violent will. So many killed without a second's thought. Others willing on their death. It was like a tableau of the most extravagant gratuity. It was hell on Earth.

And I had let it happen.

One moment they were living their lives, going about routine, perfunctory tasks – working, eating, sleeping, loving, planning, experiencing the simple joys and tribulations of life. Then, in what must have seemed an instant later, they were... What were they now? Insane monsters?

She withdrew from the action. Zoomed out. This may have been the worse affected area, but there were patches of... corruption, lost fragments of code all over the globe. It mostly manifested in violence. But the more subtly affected areas were in some way the most troubling, for in those places people retained their faculties. In government departments, an emergency meeting, scientific advisers trying to explain how parts of buildings, cars, planes (which had suddenly fallen out of the sky) could happen so instantaneously. People with still their jobs to perform, and still the appearance or normality if only barely their sanity. But nothing was more troubling than the sudden deformities in others, be they in varying moderations – maybe just a finger or toe missing, but internally, brain damage manifest in slurred speech, or general difficulty in speaking. The frustration if not anger, the utter distress, confusion.

Zerrana felt herself crying profusely. At least no one could witness that.

She exited the sim. The headband visor soaked in her tears. She threw it to the floor.

What to do. It seemed the humane thing was to pull the power, simply let it shut down. Or destroy it to be sure. But this was the only known preservation of Earth that (as far as she knew) existed. Could the sim be repaired? Her knowledge on this was limited. Maybe a diagnostic or error correction program could be devised, that would fill in the missing pieces in the way that corrupted files are restored. On her team there would have surely been the experts who could have told her this if not create the solution. But they, like most of her team, were either dead or captured by the Elusivers.

She asked the ship's computer to run a diagnostic on the corrupted runtime files, not really expecting much in the way of an answer. It offered to install a basic error correction program. But then what? People, suddenly finding their missing bits, or some of them, restored? Or changing in to some more basic version of a human? Out of the question. It was very the problem of human psychology which would mean the Earth-sim would inevitability fall into chaos.

Then she had an idea. Reduce its runtime rate. But by how much? 95.5 percent, the computer told her. At 0.5 per cent speed she had no idea how that would be experienced by Earth's inhabitants, whether they'd experience anything more than sleep. Too many uncertainties, including whether the sim would even be able to be restored to its current state. Yet she could find no better option.

Then, she remembered. There was one who could help. An entity so advanced, so intelligent that it must surely have a solution.

'Set a course for B'tari outpost prime.'

* * *

### 28

R

Roidon's ship exited jumpspace on reaching the B'tari outpost perimeter zone. Speed of approach was restricted to slow. What was meant to be their big secret, the last bastion of defence, came as no surprise. For all that the B'tari made out to be the keepers of the peace, silent guardians of the galaxy, they hadn't survived millennia without some heavy weaponry in reserve. They were nothing if not cautious.

The fact of this being the likely centre of a new conflagration would once have filled Roidon with anticipation if not excitement. Instead, he felt merely a mild curiosity at how it might all play out. This was better than the existential void of deep space. Here was the promise of some kind of action.

Yet there was no getting rid of that slow burning desire to return to Earth. More, it was the idea of Earth: the captured planet from a few centuries back, set in motion, some tweaked version of it that he had lived and loved within. It felt more than a distant memory, it felt more than a dream. In an earlier incarnation he had tried to shape the real Earth to his own advantage: the cult leader, the womaniser; the man who could bring about a revolution. A life that brought excitement, all kinds of rewards. But in Earth-sim he opted for the relatively quiet life of a businessman. A life forged not by any illicit or transgressive means but still rewarding in its own way. When removed from that he was just... an asset in only the most technical sense.

Yet.

He missed the simple things, both in sim and real Earth. The landscape, the feel of cool air on his face, the scent of a flower. Things that would not have even entered his mind – surely on more pressing matters – if they did not seem an infinity away.

He missed her. Zerrana may not have been as young and as pretty ... or as human as his other women. But she was real; that counted for a lot these days. These barren days. The sense of a person's presence once they are gone, an absence like a negative image. Each of his lives barely seemed long enough to experience that. Or maybe he'd simply forgotten. So many lifetimes. He'd always hated the idea of getting old, the way it overtook humans in the most creepingly gradual way; the slow decline towards senescence. Nature had a way of fooling you into becoming sensible, of taking stock and preserving it. He hoped never to fall into the cautiousness of old age.

Old age was never to be him, he'd determined many lives ago. For Roidon it was: live for a short while before dying by mutual consent, or being killed – as painlessly as was humanly possible. Immortality without having to live for eternity. Wasn't that what everyone sought? Except, he understood, it was never really him that came back from the dead. Just a version, albeit a highly accurate version. But it felt like him (as far as he could remember). Maybe this Roidon would after death forever cease to be, and the new incarnation only feel like himself, as if the older version had simply gone to sleep and somehow regenerated. Returning from the Earth sim was something altogether different. He could truly sustain a continuity of identity, of being the same person, by switching from virtual to real. That kind of immortality seemed most appealing.

He sighed, and took the ship deeper into the outpost. They'd surely be trying to hail his vessel any time soon.

Nearing the dumbbell shape of the hub station, the comm-link green light flashed on his viewscreen. 'Accept hail,' he told the computer.

A voice, words he couldn't understand. 'Ebuladen ven ti Zeronsen. Licu---'

'Computer. Translate,' he ordered.

'\---requested to submit ID code, and enable visual identification.' A rather stern female voice. Perhaps some refinement lost in translation.

Ideally Roidon would have gone incognito: a B'tari officer with a fondness for looking human – as so many had on Earth. Revealing his true identity he was sure would bode less than well.

Nevertheless. 'Computer, enable visual link and translate all.' He cleared his throat, sensing his own nervousness, feeling foolish because of it. 'My name is Roidon Chanley,' he began. 'I am here as a valued asset of the B'tari command on Earth.'

'You will be required to submit to a neural scan in order to verify identity. A drone will board your vessel. Please deactivate airlock.'

The B'tari had perfected neural scanning to the point where they could capture a mindstate with no perceptible inaccuracies, and crucially no harm to the subject. Still, the thought of that most invasive reading of his mind did bring about a queasiness to transcend any rational analysis, drone or no drone. Only, here, they had him to rights; he had no where else to go. He was at their behest.

Thus he complied. The drone was pretty much what he expected: a disk-shaped device with rounded edges, from which extruded little pads that attached around his head. It told him to be calm. He settled in the passenger seat, and tried not to think of anything as he experienced the warmth, as if his brain were being slowly cooked. He reassured himself this shouldn't hurt at all since the brain could not experience pain. A few random flashing images, no more than shapes. Then a white noise, similar to an old untuned analogue radio. Intrusive initially, but then just a background. As his senses began to fade he got the impression this was more than a cursory scan. How suspicious were they of the clone/replicant infiltrator? They had every reason to be.

It was now becoming unpleasant. That was his last thought before the confusion took hold. The type of confusion one feels on drifting into a sleep state – the surreal, disjointed and inarticulable thoughts, the loss of a sense of what it meant to be Roidon Chanley. Just a randomly thinking thing trying to make sense of a reality that had not even a semblance of meaning.

And then as though returning to wakefulness he was jolted back to the now and the here. The drone thanked Roidon for his cooperation (as if he even had a choice) and told him he could continue towards the hub, and left before Roidon had a chance to put his questions.

'Computer,' he began. 'Any chance of detecting the metal AI man?'

'From previous observations detection would be extremely difficult, since it can shield its EM signature. But my conjecture is metal man has progressed deep within the hub.'

'The elusive beast. As if it was ever going to make itself obvious.'

'May I suggest that is not the most pressing issue at this current time.' The computer seemed reminiscent of someone familiar. A friend: Harvo, his AI.

'You're referring to those original elusive ones, I take it,' said Roidon. 'There's nothing on visual.'

'It is in their nature to elude this and most vessels' outward sensors. However, I have linked with the hub's sensor array, and it is detecting temporal shifts within spacetime.'

'Something new up their sleeve, and just something B'tari command hadn't figured?'

'It would be speculation to---'

'Sure, just filling the time. I'm guessing they're not going to make their presence known at this place.'

The ship entered the brightly lit hanger with its array of starships, that was enough to make any captain's mouth water. And by any means he would take the best – the fastest of them, while everyone else here took refuge.

Refuge seemed appealing right now though. The prospect that he would find a comfortable apartment, once he'd made it through this hanger.

An insectile drone scuttled towards him. It started speaking B'tari, but Roidon just had to shake his head with a 'no' for it to switch to English.

'You have level-2 clearance within this facility,' it told him in a thin clipped voice, curiously in keeping with its beetle-esque appearance. 'If you have a PDU,' it went on, 'the coordinates of any available accommodation will be uploaded.'

Roidon decided he'd stay here for 24 hours at least. Home comforts, a meal. But he would not allow himself to get too comfortable, since that was when you become vulnerable. Surely, he reasoned, that is what the Elusivers were relying on.

### 29

T

Toramin was determined he'd find some other inhabitants in this place.

How easy it would be to remain here in his apartment with everything he could wish for to sustain an existence. Almost any meal he desired; just a matter of requesting from the food replication machine from the central console – a device that also hooked him into whatever entertainment required. At least back on his homeworld, in the latter years, he had gained a sense of self-sufficiency. The simple act of chopping wood, whether to make a repair to his cabin, or just for burning, gave that satisfying feeling of accomplishment. It had been an austere existence, there was no denying the moments of loneliness, but somehow the basic tasks of providing enough food for survival could offset the worst depression. Distraction had been the key; preoccupied with one's own survival.

The need for company, though, had never gone away entirely. For those last years – it may have been twenty or a hundred – he had always felt the absence of someone, but no one in particular. Over the years, the centuries, he had become used to anyone he'd got close to drifting into old age and out of his life. And those who had died? Odd, that they also may have had a sense of immortality. Most people, he understood, did. At least when they felt in good health. Being dead was such an esoteric concept, a void only filled by anecdotal accounts that some would call evidence of a continuance. And so they, just as much as himself, took their existence for granted. Only to be in the very last moments of life is to know the reality of death, he had heard it said; a witness, no more, no less. Many may have talked about it, but most were in denial until they could barely think clearly. No, he'd have preferred for himself to point that gun at his head. Then to truly know it as a prospect, to be in utter control of the moment – of the when. But even with the weapon there at his convenience he doubted he'd have the courage for such a determined and violent act of finality.

Life and death, that is what had ultimately driven him apart from all others on his homeworld. The B'tari: they were as immortal as himself. A thousand years, no problem. And they, some of them, one of them at least, had an obligation towards him. Whoever it was, if they were still alive. And was this why he was here, in what was starting to feel like a gilded cage?

He considered putting out a call, but it would only be received by a service drone. He had not spoken to even one b'tari.

So he walked out, into the bright and airy arena.

There were more B'tari now, wandering the great mall. Most of them walked in a nervous hurried manner, as if they were late for an urgent appointment.

He decided to visit a restaurant; there was one with a gaudy luminescent display, just down market enough for him to feel comfortable in his casual clothes. There were only a few of the twenty or so tables occupied. He took a seat on one nearest the window.

There were service drones hovering about to the few customers available, so he was surprised when an actual b'tari approached him. All traditional apron and PDU, this could have been his own homeworld but from the non-human appearance.

'Sir,' said the b'tari, 'It is a pleasure to have the pleasure of your custom here.'

'Thank you,' Toramin replied tentatively.

'There have been many things reported about your endeavours, Mr Chanley.'

'No, wait.' Toramin glowered at the waiter. But then realising he'd over-reacted somewhat, relaxed his face. 'You have me mistaken for someone else,' he now said calmy.

'You are not Roidon Chanley, the man of legendary quests for the B'tari? The man who seduced more females from more planets than any human or b'tari in history?'

'Really I am not---'

'Now, there is no need to be modest.'

'I am not him.' Toramin realised he was now sounding exasperated.

'My deepest apologies then, sir. Only there had been news of Roidon Chanley's arrival at this hub. And given he is the only human known to be here.'

'If it is OK I would like to order some food.'

The waiter juddered, as if this were a startling request. 'Oh. Yes of course. We have a range of starters.'

Toramin had already decided what he wanted, and now with hardly a word, dictated the order towards the waiter's device. The b'tari then hurried away with android efficiency.

It was funny, he had wanted to blend in, not feel like an outsider. But he would have been the only human in this hub. Or at least the only one of any significance. Yes, it would have gotten him attention. Fame – is that really what he sought? To never be able to sit in a restaurant untroubled, without someone pointing or muttering – as a few seemed to be doing now. But had he been Roidon, what fun he could have. A man of reputation, a lover of aliens whatever degree of humanness their visage. It was tempting to take on this role. The new 'chines must have been rejuvenating better than he had thought. The only ones who'd know the truth of his identity would be the places he made purchases. This seemed to be a way to integrate. But more importantly this would be a distraction. A cure for his incipient boredom.

After his meal, he decided to head for a bar. A mild feeling of intoxication from the wine, he had gained a self-confidence that was never entirely rational, not for the Toramin of this age. He was sure Roidon would be confident without the drink. No amount of experience can teach self-assurance when it concerned the opposite sex, he reflected. All he did as he matured was develop a sense of realism, when what he really wished for was self-delusion. Although only a measure of it. Nothing worse than coming across as a fantasist. There must have been a balance to achieve, somewhere.

A man walks into a bar.... He had a feeling they were going to laugh. The old man pretending to be the great lover, pretending not to be old. Not that they would see anything like an elderly man, he assured himself. The odd wrinkle but not a grey hair in site – for all that proved here, where anyone could retain their youth. Yet it seemed no one knew what Roidon looked like. A man of such experience – of legend – was expected to have an air of maturity about him. The last time he had seen Roidon, the man looked no more than a third of a way through his life, at least in terms of ageing on Toramin's own homeworld.

So no one laughed. But again he thought he detected muttering in his direction. Toramin approached the bar, feeling like the consummate foreigner in a strange land, like the places he had heard about, that some would boast of visiting but was just a little too risky for him.

There were two women perched before the counter on high stools. One of them looked quite humanoid. He knew it had become increasingly popular for B'tari to alter their genome profile. On Earth he'd heard it was almost deregure, that many were undetectable. But here, less acceptable, he guessed.

He stood next to an almost-human-looking one with medium length auburn hair. She had the appearance of a woman from his planet who'd had a bit too much plastic surgery, trying to attain some mythical ideal of perfection. Still, he hoped it meant she spoke English – a language so commonly associated with colonialism (for good or bad) and that she'd know of Roidon Chanley, but not of his appearance.

'Oh, you like that drink too,' he commented. 'I know men aren't really supposed to drink it but I got a taste for it when I visited B'tar on assignment.'

She turned to face him sharply. 'You been to our homeworld? When was that?' Her accent was odd, words so carefully enunciated.

'Before the invasion,' he ventured. There were, he knew, a number of invasions. Roidon, whether he'd been there or not would surely be more knowledgeable and therefore better able to lie. Toramin, though, considered it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he had visited B'tar on whatever assignment, that had been wiped from his memory.

'You mean the machines?'

'Yes.' He nodded. 'Terrible business. You must miss your planet dearly.'

'We all do. We hope to return.'

'When you defeat the Elusivers?'

'Of course.' She'd turned to him face him. A look of intensity, a challenging stare.

'I understand they are approaching this place.'

'They are close. But we have every defence imaginable.'

'So I noticed.'

'Do I know you from somewhere?' She was studying him.

'You may have heard of me.'

'Yes. The only human I have seen in this place. A man with a reputation for---'

'Many things indeed. Perhaps some of them true.'

A broad smile that seemed the most genuine expression from her face. 'Now I'm sure you are being modest ... Mr Chanley – is it?'

'Roidon to my friends.' Toramin found himself enjoying this charade. He was on a roll. He could be back in his twenties right now, his mind only on one thing.

She bowed her head as if she was acknowledging someone of high repute. 'Good to make your acquaintance, Roidon. My name Zarinda.'

'Good to meet you, Zarinda.' Toramin tried not to let the reality intrude of himself as an old man trying to pick up a young woman. Except here she could be as old as him. With the B'tari there was never any way to tell, and no way he would ever ask.

He ordered more drinks. They drank many. He lost count of how many. After an indeterminate amount of time they left to return to his apartment. He was so drunk he had to use his nav overlay to find it. This she found amusing.

'Roidon Chanley, hey,' she mused. 'I wonder if you can live up to your reputation?'

'I only hope I don't disappoint you,' he admitted.

She threw him a mischievous grin.

Once they reached his place, he told her to make herself comfortable, but also coffee for them both – a very sensible human tradition passed on. He didn't imagine in his current state being able to perform to any standard doubtlessly expected of Roidon. As the coffee was cooling to drinking temp he even got himself a glass of water, remembering how many hangovers he'd had, despite his 'chines doing the essential repairs. Were these new ones any more effective? They certainly gave him a youthful vigour.

After half an hour of talking, against what he hoped to be background music loud enough to keep the conversation light – meaning no specific questions – he made the bold suggestion that she should see his bedroom.

'Ok,' she agreed, as if his intention was nothing more than to show her his AR sim collection.

Kissing her felt odd at first. He wondered if it was only his imagination. Or the booze, which could often give these experiences a surreality. Or at least unreality. But now he felt very strange. He reached out with the intention of unfastening her bra when she grabbed his wrists and pushed him back on the bed, with a surprising force. As he started to wonder if this was part of her more aggressive love-making technique, the room began to recede. And he noticed she had gotten off the bed and was walking towards the door. He tried to say something but the words just weren't there. He had no energy, no ability to move from the bed. He felt himself to be sinking deeper within it, as if his weight had multiplied hundreds of times.

The room, becoming so distant now. She was g

### 30

R

Roidon had all but abandoned his search for the metal man for today. After a day of fruitless searching and subtle enquiries, he felt weary. Even the idea of a night out on the town – such as it was, such as he had yet to fully assess all the delights it had to offer – didn't really interest him for now. No, just a quiet night with some gentle AR entertainment, or remain here on the couch with a glass of claret. It seemed there would always be the next day. And the day after that. How easily he could slip into this state of inertia, like a long holiday with no thought of work in sight.

He was just beginning to drift off to sleep, listening to some electro ambient music, when his PDU buzzed. An alert he knew meant an anomaly from without. Relayed from his ship, which in turn was relayed from the hub sensors.

'Audio,' he requested.

'Severe spatial and temporal disturbance approximately twenty kilometres from here.'

'Any more specifics?'

'Still analysing. Nothing on file to correlate with. Mining hub's database.'

'The Elusivers, I take it?'

'It appears to follow their signature.'

'What I really want to know is, will this hub be able to fend them off?'

'A temporal spacial vortex has been created, progressing towards here.'

'Is that a no?'

'Unknown. Not all defence systems are available for analysis.'

'Keep me informed of anything new.'

Roidon felt a curious detachment from this imminent threat. If here had been his home – a final place of sanctuary – as it must be for so many B'tari, he wondered if he'd feel frightened for his life. (If not safe here then where?) Not that the Elusivers were predisposed to killing their enemy. With them it could be much worse. A simple fear of death would be secondary to being captured by a species skilled in the art of extracting the essence from any living form.

He cast his mind back to a place he called home. It wasn't even real, not that home had to be any more than a state of mind. It was the final place to rest your identity, where you feel secure in that, where you can let down your defences. And here where its residents could feel that someone else can protect you from intrusion.

Why any need to make them aware of this threat until it was obvious the outpost was under attack? By then it would be too late, given the Elusivers previous tactics. But no point in worrying about the inevitable.

'Computer,' he asked the ship, 'can you try once more to hack into internal sensors beyond a level-1 access?'

'Will need to divert all processing power.'

'Whatever it takes.'

'Be prepared for an indeterminate wait. Will alert you when achieved.'

All hope of sleeping was wiped away. He thought about the most important things to do before a long journey or a risk of kidnap. He did them.

Twenty minutes later Roidon left his apartment, wore his PDU wristband, connected earbuds. Through the mall section in what in Earth time was about midnight there was hardly anyone about. Either most knew something of the threat or B'tari just didn't go in much for night life.

The observation area was the flat-dome section of the hub. It showed a 360 degree spherical surround of space. Only the floor immediately under his feet was obscured (wherever he moved), and that could be given the illusion of transparency by projecting what should have been the space beneath. Now he just wanted to see it as it was. True outerspace. He hadn't really expected to see any signs of the Elusivers. The stars were precise points in their seeming millions. When he stared upwards Roidon felt he could just float amongst them, his senses overriding the logical part of his brain. This is what he so liked about being human, the way his thoughts were not governed by the coldness of logical thinking. It was a fuzziness that AIs had been and ultimately gave up trying to emulate. Humans – he had come to appreciate – were imperfect, given to whimsy and driven by hormones, diverted by trivia even when their future was in peril. And here he was, the Elusivers about to invade this station, thinking about the freedom to drift amid the stars, to let their wondrous beauty take him.

Yet maybe to think of some way of escaping or outwitting the most advanced species in the known universe was simply foolish in itself. A seeming waste of mental energy. Perhaps the most logical response facing the prospect of an unbeatable enemy was to simply enjoy the time one has left.

He was shaken out of his thoughts by his PDU. 'I have hacked the internal sensors. Cannot detect any anomaly.'

'What about the metal man.'

'No AI beyond a beta grade 2 has been detected.'

'The metal man escaped? What about external.'

'Similarly no detection.'

'Hello, Roidon.' A male voice startled him.

Roidon whirled round to see a quite ordinary-looking b'tari in a white suit. 'You here for the view?'

'I am here because you have been looking for me.'

'You? You're the metal man?'

'Let's not talk about any metal man. There are those who can over-hear.'

'Computer,'Roidon requested. 'can you isolate this area from all sensors?'

'Done. But only for approximately four minutes before the systems reboot. Will keep you informed of any intrusion.'

Roidon was studying this apparent native b'tari. 'You're incognito. Of course. I should have figured that.'

'My metal aspect is well-concealed.' A faint nod 'I believe it is me the Elusivers are seeking most.'

'And possibly they can see you right here.'

'If they see anything they see a b'tari.'

'If only we could see them.'

'Trans-spacial tunnelling. Hub's sensors detect temporal anomalies. But their analysis is rudimentary.'

'Can you see what they're missing?'

'Alas,' a b'tari-like shake of the head. 'I am dependent on what they can detect.'

'So you made an assumption?'

'A reasoned analysis.'

Roidon turned and nodded in the affirmative at this apparent super-intelligent entity. 'What's your plan of action? Do you have one?'

'I could ask you the same. And you would likewise speak against revealing any strategy.'

'Then you do have a plan?'

Roidon's PDU bleeped a message alert. 'Monitor systems have nearly decryted the scramble. They will be back online in less than a minute.'

'Not time to reveal it. Besides, you are also a prime target. There are agents for the Elusivers on this station. They, like me, can take any form.'

'Understood.'

The b'tari/AI turned sharply and left before Roidon had a chance to say anything else. So many questions. And this entity could be wandering the Hub in any guise. It seemed, moreover, he would not be able to trust anyone. Had he even spoken to the AI entity or an Elusiver, or was it some double-bluff deception, designed to discombobulate him?

Roidon under the immensity of stars, the immense possibilities, suddenly felt confined. The eyes of the Elusivers homing in on him. The most identifiable target. Right now, here to be seen. Why try to escape them? They might even take some pleasure in seeing him run, the futility of it.

'So here I am. Roidon Chanley. I know you can hear me, or at least your agents. So why delay the inevitable?'

He knew for sure the B'tari could hear him. A test for them to act on any latent obligation they may feel towards him. Yet while the Elusivers got ever nearer, nothing appeared to change. It was as if time stood still. A strange thought that if he remained still nothing would change.

So he walked away, past the occasional b'tari, who nodded with perhaps a passing interest. No one stopped him returning to his apartment. No one needed to for any security reason – he was surely the most monitored sentient being in the hub. He wouldn't have been surprised if the B'tari central command knew his every activity within his apartment.

Now from the comfort of his sofa he was able to laugh at its very likelihood.

At times like this there was only one way to escape. AR so often felt like a cop-out from life, what people did when they couldn't cope with everyday reality. In centuries past it was fictional dramas, vicariously living the life of the characters; then semi-immersive games where you controlled an avatar. Now you could be that character, feel what they supposedly felt. Only there was no supposedly about the experience. There was a truly felt sense of being them. Too long in those type of experientials and you forgot who you were – if there was ever a real you to begin with. And Roidon had his doubts about that: the idea of a fixed individual had been outdated among the neuroscience community for centuries (not that any of them survived). Then was any sense of a core identity an illusion, just something required by the ego and the id – something necessary for survival? Just as for any intelligent being, identity had always been precious; seeing the fragility of that sense of self – an edifice only ever on shifting sands. A weakness, a vulnerability to be exploited.

Roidon wanted to remember who he was, had always been. That mattered like never before. For the universe seemed indifferent to the individual, to the unique memory, even to consciousness. Sentient lives now more than ever were rich islands amid a lifeless ocean. And there were those who would disregard the preciousness of consciousness in their quest for forgetting their life. Not him, he'd had his share of oblivion. No, even in the Earth sim the real Roidon still resided beneath the veneer of a respectable businessman.

So just a simple fantasy escape this evening. The virtual woman would call him Roidon, even in the height of passion. And all the while his PDU linked to his ship would use every possible sensor to monitor for disturbance ... for all the vigilance that would provide.

* * *

### 31

Z

Every B'tari ship that headed for the Hub outpost from Earth took a prescribed route, shifting in and out of normal space, unless being pursued by a hostile. Zerrana's ship detected no hostiles. There was a very good reason for this uniformity, as she now appreciated. Until now, however, she had travelled from outside this normal route. But with less than two hundred light years to her destination she was back on course.

The ship took her out of jumpspace. And alerted her.

B'tari probe detected. Message received as follows. (Decrypting into B'tar main.) To any surviving B'tari. This is Earth commander Zortari. Of Earth-date 3286. We have sustained a major attack on our infrastructure. An Elusiver armada has taken out all defence and communication arrays. Consequently the Elusivers have control of Earth and its B'tari inhabitants, most of whom (who survived) are imprisoned in various underground complexes. We therefore urge any escapees to return, with whatever armaments available. We remain hidden but our lives are in grave danger. Further contact information will be sent via a secret transmission on your return to Sol.

Zerrana took a deep breath. 'Computer. Can you verify this message to be genuine?'

'It contains the correct sending code, and the encryption is only known to be used by B'tari.'

'Still, their technology was likely to be commandeered. Or they could have been forced to send it in order lure me into a trap.'

'That is a distinct possibility. However, these probes are only sent on rare occasions and thus unlikely to be known by the Elusivers.'

Zerrana slammed her hand down on the forward console. 'Fuck! What am I to do? If it is genuine then there's probably not much assistance I can provide in any case.'

'They seem to think otherwise.'

'But they don't know about the AI. Or the Earth sim – I have to protect that.'

'Returning is indeed a risky strategy,' agreed the computer.

'Keep us on a course for the hub.'

'Re-entering jumpspace.'

'No. Wait.'

'Yes, Zerrana. Standing by.'

'If it was sent by the Elusivers then they will know where I planned to go. The hub could equally be a trap.'

'Acknowledged.'

'This is impossible.'

'May I warn you that remaining dormant here could put us in danger.'

'What do they think they can get from me?' she asked, somewhat rhetorically.

'They may suspect or have learned you are withholding information.'

'Then there is only one place where we can go, that offers even the possibility of protecting the Earth sim. B'tar.'

'We are running low on power. Will need to find a suitable star-system first.'

'Whatever. Make it so.'

They got so near to a main sequence star, it felt as if the ship would burn up. Almost touching the chromosphere. Even with shields at maximum she felt less than safe. Was sure that despite the stable temperature stated some of the immense heat must be seeping in. Particle scoops hundreds of metres wide extended from the forward undercarriage, like a hawk's wings just before it lands on its prey. Here they were collecting ions for refuelling the nacelles. She did, though, like to look at this sun. Even with the heavy filtering it had a magnificence to behold, that curious balance between fear and awe. She watched transfixed as the ions sparked on the collectors. Then occasionally a solar flare erupted before being withdrawn by the huge mass of gravity and magnetism.

After an hour they started the journey to her homeworld B'tar. She felt more apprehension that anticipation. Nowhere safe. Not really. The Elusivers might have even accounted for her suspicions. A double, triple bluff. B'tar was the most logical option, and therefore ... Trying to second-guess them was a hopeless task, about as worthwhile as anticipating the moves of a chess grandmaster – by a novice. She could ask her ship's computer, apprised well of Elusiver history, to anticipate their strategy. But that assumed the enemy operated by some patterned logic.

No. The Hub was bound to be a target as much as Earth. B'tar on the other hand. A barren, primitive place.

When B'tar appeared on her viewscreen, blue and green – and beautiful – Zerrana began to cry. A tide of emotion, there was no point holding it back. Once the most salubrious world to live in. Better than Earth in so many ways. Less war, less poverty, less inequality. A world where everyone could look forward to a happy life – at least that was the message every young b'tari had received. Some may have called it utopia. And, as every good philosopher understood, utopias were always doomed to fail. But on this world the fragility of the good life was widely acknowledged. This utopia was a precious delicate thing. It was only ever a matter of time before somebody broke it. Just her misfortune, then, to be around after that time.

Except time. The one quantity that could not be resolved, the joker in the pack. Yet time was not the enemy here. B'tar, she hardly had to scan to discover, was an abandoned world. It suddenly seemed rich in potential. Or maybe that was just in contrast to every other beleaguered world she'd encountered. The Elusivers now considered it irrelevant.

Zerrana took the ship low, headed for the one destination she could think of. Confirmation on seeing the destruction wrought onto the place she knew they would target. As expected, hardly anything remained of the processor network, its branches and strands obliterated. The ground a mass of fragmented silver. Exactly to plan, in the hope they'd think the AI itself was destroyed – a swift attack, with her too far removed to send out a warning. But, she acknowledged, you could never assume to have fooled the Elusivers. The AI Ovrah couldn't only rely on its ability to adapt; first and foremost the ultimate survival machine, it would never have been sanctioned by B'tari command let alone Central Council. Should it turn against her kind the results would be devastating. Creating a sentient AI had been an exercise in faith, she now realised, faith in her philosophy – the assumption that something so intelligent could only ever act in accordance with her and her kind's outlook. Had that been a naïve assumption? What if it could be corrupted? What if it came to resent its own existence? What if it went insane?

Fact is, there had not been the time to truly explore these questions. Not before her creation was given the freedom to explore.

Her ship's computer contained a map of a recent probe scan of B'tar. It displayed before her any areas of civilisation. There were none. Either the probe failed to detect hidden subterranean compounds or her people had all left this world, now reverted to a prehistoric era. Just being here served as a reminder of all that was lost. Yet she had to acknowledge the uncomfortable fact that many B'tari had been eradicated from existence in the temporal sweep. Was it worse than death, than being killed in any conventional sense? It was as if they had never existed; temporal erasure, she tried to comprehend it. Failed. But there was no proper way to conceptualize how a life could be wiped away as if it had never been. Because they had existed; their memories lived on in others. Some even had mind-captures, knowing the eradication wave approached. She tried to imagine how it would feel – to be un-created. She couldn't, of course, but not for want of trying. No matter how finely your memory is backed-up the, very concept of temporal erasure still devalues life, she reasoned – if the value of a life can be measured by the impact it has on the universe. Then if every influence is undone what meaning has a life?

No point worrying over these philosophical questions now, Zerrana decided. Why obsess about what has happened when time itself losses meaning? So she drew her attention back to the map. She got it to overlay previous bases, encampments, cities – all before the erasure. But when those switched off, there was nothing. Nothing but forests, scrubland. She told the ship to approach a cave-system that indicated bipedal thermal signatures. Two of these beings exited a cave. At first she thought they had seen her ship, but was assured the stealth mode would mean she was near enough invisible, enough to fool a primitive b'tari.

Seeing what her world had reverted to, she forced back the tears. Fodder for an Elusiver, or any other advanced species who had avoided the wave, who saw a planet with resources to plunder, beings to enslave. The curious thought struck her: we have to build our numbers. Procreation. Lots of it! Find a male. Go back to the true native appearance.

Procreation had been at the very bottom of any agenda for a b'tari. Near immortality had divested them, her not least, of any need to pass on DNA for a lineage. She remembered historical accounts of humans having multiple off-spring at times of high mortality, as if the threat of imminent death had sparked an instinctive drive to procreate. She – typically of a b'tari – thought she was beyond that type of instinct. Yes, she mused, how typical to undervalue the power of biology. A comfortable assured existence of a highly evolved race had no place for such basic drives. But if they could see the vast tracts of uninhabited land. It was a world whose potential had to be protected.

Her mind then turned to the Earth-sim. In such a parlous state, it needed the intervention of B'tari tech. But with the Hub out of the question for now she had to find somewhere safe to land. The preservation of sentient life, of civilisation, had to be the priority now.

A relief to get out of the ship. A mountain valley. Clean water from a spring. Air so fresh but more suited to a natural b'tari than what she had become, more physiologically human. How long before some ill effect that told she did not really belong? Zerrana for the first time, regretted the change. It felt like a sell-out, like a compromise. A denial of true heritage when it mattered more than ever.

She continued walking through the valley. Not caring of any danger.

* * *

### 32

'Who are you?'

Such a simple question he knew he could answer. But it felt like a challenge. Not the harsh tone of an interrogation. Perhaps he should answer.

The light, though, was intense in his eyes. A cliché of an interrogation scenario; he'd seen the films, a cultural inheritance from Earth. But he got the sense of a presence not at all human.

'Your name,' The androgynous voice demanded. 'Since you are clearly not Roidon Chanley.'

'Where am I?'

'Still in the Hub. You are quite safe if you answer this simple question.'

He couldn't think of any good reason why he should withhold that information. Yet.

'You made a mistake – in abducting me.'

'It seems so. Which is why we need to clear up this confusion.'

'Alright. My name's Toramin Eblou. But I suspect you already know that.'

'We needed confirmation from you, Mr Eblou. We also need to know the intentions of Roidon Chanley.'

'Roidon... I didn't even know he was at the Hub.'

'You are an associate of his. You must have had some contact with him.'

'I genuinely haven't. You must believe me.' Toramin didn't think it was possible to sound any more sincere.

'We can mind trawl.'

'You are an Elusiver, aren't you?' Not even a need to ask, he thought.

The spindly being stepped in front of the light. An insubstantial form to break the beam, yet no less a grand and sinister an introduction. 'Are you surprised we could get past the security here?' the Elusiver said. 'We can be anywhere. We can be inside your mind.'

'That's a little too intimate for my liking.'

'But we can keep out of your life. If you comply. If you tell us of your collaboration.'

Toramin was hoping for some benign truth serum to be administered – like in the movies. So simple, were they ever to work. Until now he had never fully appreciated the reason why the B'tari had wiped his memory. It had seemed at once un-trusting and overprotective. Now a gladness to have had every knowledge of his previous work with them erased. Or maybe not erased but somewhere hidden – that only possibly the Elusives could unearth.

'Roidon means nothing to me. I have worked with him---'

'Yes, save it.' A surprisingly stern tone. 'We know how the B'tari operate.'

'Then you don't need me here.' As he finished those words the fear washed over him: if I'm no value...

'Roidon needs to know, he has nowhere to hide. His existence serves only one purpose – one hostile to us. For as long as he evades us he endangers all B'tari.'

'If I do encounter Roidon I'll tell him---. What?'

Toramin was back in his apartment, in his room, in his bed. He had to wonder if he had dreamt the abduction. What about the supposed b'tari woman? There was no sign of her. Could he have dreamt her? That was the thing about being drunk, he thought, you can never quite vouch for the reality of the experience. Even if you knew you had been there and done that, there was always something at the back of your mind saying 'you couldn't really have done that.' Pretending to be Roidon Chanley. It was audacious, it was foolhardy. But more importantly it was out of character. Yet it had seemed to work. Or he had fallen into some carefully planned trap. Careful enough to entrap Roidon?

But he could see no evidence that he had even met this... female. Last night up to the point he had entered the bar felt quite real. Then after the first drink with her things started to play out like some fantasy – a dream where you don't question reality even when it doesn't quite add up. Only this had not been the first time. The thought of immortality, the thought of time with no end, could certainly turn one's mind to drink ... for lack of hard drugs. After all, any damage could easy be repaired. If only he could erase the memory of those shameful nights. Memories: the bane of his seemingly eternal life, the weight on his psyche.

Yet last night, even in its fantasy-esque way, ended in no more than kissing. Couldn't even fuck in a fantasy – in a dream?

He got up, searched around, but it was there right behind him on the bed: a single auburn strand of hair. He considered the possibility that it had all really happened, and shivered. And thought that he must find Roidon. Roidon, the man he had tried to impersonate for his own sexual gratification. But this had to be good, he'd set off the trap – the one he had to warn Roidon about. It didn't quite add up, that he just happened to walk into a bar, and happened to approach an agent for the Elusivers. How could his actions have been so steered? Maybe the drink. The drink could always take the blame after such acts of foolishness. But uber-smart Roidon, would he really fool for it?

Toramin, got up, had breakfast. A strong coffee, hoping things would latterly make more sense. They didn't.

He consulted his PDU, thought projected because he couldn't be sure his place wasn't bugged. Any register of a Roidon Chanley entering the Hub? Get the obvious one out the way. The answer appeared in text: No one by that name has registered at this station. Roidon wouldn't be so careless, as a target.

Can you access all of this station's sensors?

That requires a level two security clearance.

Can you hack the sensor grid? That sounded like the type of question he should ask, despite knowing nothing of any sensor grid.

Central Hub public space monitor sensors can be hacked, by unblocking quantum encryption. But for no more than approximately forty seconds before the encryption rotates.

OK. Go ahead and hack. He had to wait over ten minutes for a result.

Locking to all public sensors.

Project visual, two metre width. Forty seconds to see if Roidon was in any public space, any bars or restaurants. Then Toramin had an idea. Can you match any picture of Roidon on file with his image from monitors?

Have a match. Ninety-eight percent probability Roidon Chanley is currently in a diner, location---

Send it to my personal nav relay.

Toramin closed down the main console, after telling it to erase all record of the hack and the search (which it already seemed to anticipate doing). He left in as unhurried a manor as possible. Aware that he may well be tracked if not followed. He felt mass eyes on him through the mall, past the seemingly empty retail outlets and unopened bars. He imagined Roidon was having breakfast. Had he no idea he was a target? Or maybe being in a public area was safer.

Toramin's nav relay projected into his retinas the distance counting down as he followed the direction arrow. He fought the temptation to hurry, kept a steady, casual pace. Then at the diner he entered as though on a whim. Looked around at the seating area, in a seemingly perfunctory manner. There were few customers. One man, clearly human, reading from a PDU. Toramin didn't want to catch his attention just yet. Instead he went to another table, studied an old-style plastic menu. Even though he'd hardly eaten anything this morning, he wasn't at all hungry. But the waiter noticed him already, was holding back so as not seeming to be too impatient. Toramin gave a subtle nod for the waiter to then dash over. Roidon was still immersed in his PDU and seemingly oblivious to everything else.

'Sir. It is good to have you here,' said the waiter. 'How can I be of service?'

Roidon had now noticed, he flashed a look of mild surprise. But he did return to his PDU. Two humans in the same establishment, how would the staff here factor that in – coincidence? Toramin ordered what he thought would be the lightest standard breakfast: scrambled egg on toast.

'Will be with you in just a few minutes, sir,' the waiter informed him.

As the waiter walked off, Toramin saw his chance. He manoeuvred over to Roidon's table. Roidon acknowledged his presence with a subtle nod and equally subtle sigh. 'Toramin, I believe. I suppose it was only a matter of time before you tracked me down.'

A nod of acknowledgement. 'I am not sure if I can speak freely here.'

'You are right to not be sure. However, this is a place of discretion. I have run checks on the staff – I know them all. Places such as this are built on trust; they depend on it for trade.'

'Good. Then you know there are spies in our midst.'

'Sound like a line from a twentieth century Le Carre novel,' Roidon said.

'Excuse me?'

'Never mind. The answer is: of course. As far I know you could be one of them. You could be altered to look like Toramin Eblou.'

'I am not, I can assure you, a spy.'

A wry grin from Roidon. 'Very well, I believe you. But there's nothing you can warn me about that I am not aware of already.'

'Not all the spies even know your exact identity.'

'You're not telling me you were mistaken for me?'

'Yes.'

'And what happened?--- No, I think I'd rather not know. I guess some of them are mere amateurs.'

'Are we trapped here?'

'That depends.'

'On what?'

'On metal man. Well, not exactly metal. I'm talking about someone who can blend in much better than us. We are like flies amidst spiders in one giant web.'

'Really?'

'No. It was a poor analogy. You should be disappointed with that. But I am the main prey, the main draw – if that doesn't sound overly egocentric.'

'It does a bit.'

'Anyway. Maybe we should think of the Hub as fly paper and the Elusivers as the flies.'

'And you're the jam on that fly paper.'

'Quite.'

The waiter returned with the scrambled eggs and coffee, asked if Toramin would like to eat at Roidon's table, to which he replied yes. Two old buddies reunited, perhaps it seemed.

'Tuck in,' Roidon suggested, as he continued his own synth bacon and eggs.

Here within these four walls he really did feel assuredly safe. One little shelter within a nest of... Analogies failed him too. For all his years, nothing had really prepared him for this.

* * *

### 33

Z

'Help us. Please help us!' some beseeched, in their lispy voices.

Their faces were contorted. Some deformed to the point of being almost unrecognisable. They were surrounding her: hundreds of humans. All knowing their predicament was her own fault. Her own neglect. A few at the front hobbled nearer, lit by the background inferno.

'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,' she pleaded from her cottage window. But her voice didn't seem to carry at all, so reedy and ineffectual.

They drew nearer. Suddenly she noticed the one in front had a lit flame torch. Was this payback? It seemed so. She could smell the smoke, feel the heat. Started to choke.

Then Zerrana awoke. Soaked in sweat. Disorientated, looking around. And finally remembering she was still in her ship. The only safe place. She scrambled through to the underbay, checked Earth-sim was still in tact. Such was the relief in finding a relatively safe spot to land, she'd all but forgotten the Earth-sim. How could I have done that? She wondered. Inexcusable neglect! It still seemed to be functioning OK, in as much as it could, running at half a percent: status graphs remained in the blue sector. But that only meant no system imbalance in the last hour, it didn't account for the loss of memory integrity. There could have been further loss and degeneration even at the low run rate. Ship's power was nowhere near as reliable as the mains from a base outpost, it could have fluctuated wildly in the night. But what could she do? No chance of any mains supply on this planet, unless there were B'tari hidden somewhere. And she had to get over the idea of that being possible.

Eating her rations of cereal bars brought with it some distraction, and a moderately enhanced mood. But within an hour despair began to descend like a gossamer grey net. For a while now, she had been in denial about her loneliness. It was a dark shadow in the brightest of corners, always in peripheral – perhaps not really there if she looked directly in its direction. Just a sense that it probably was. She'd tried to have meaningful conversations with the ship, its AI was conversant in almost any subject she was aware of. But that was what made it seem so different from another biological entity. She always felt she could not add anything to the conversation, that it was merely allowing her the illusion that she had something to contribute. The only chance of a more equal interaction was through the Earth-sim, which was now out of the question. Maybe it was possible to reduce time perception to interface. But she didn't imagine ever building up the courage to enter. It had become like the monster in the attic from those ancient archive horror movies – thrown down the odd scrap in its darkened abode.

Enough power for a few weeks to maintain all systems, if she just remained here. Even the viewscreen had gone blank to save power, leaving only the grey-white interior, an especial shame given the picturesque landscape. If she over-rode that, how would it help? Would it alleviate these dark feelings, this once again burgeoning sense of a doomed fate? Dying from lack of food, and eventually power. Fading along with ten billion (or however many still functioned) simulated humans.

Then there was a way of avoiding such a drawn-out process. But first the Earth-sim. Removing the power would not simply shut down all function. She tried to think how long the capacitors could hold their reserves, but more importantly how the declining power would be experienced. A grim speculation. A seeming cruelty. So better to make it quick: fire her phase gun at it on max settings. Or better still, leaving it a few tens of metres in front of the ship and blast it as if it were some asteroid to be cleared. Was that what humans called playing God – the ability to eradicate billions of lives?

Regret: the pointless playing out of the better choices not taken. If only she had never immersed herself in Earth-sim, not seen them as individuals, not learned of Roidon's interactions with sim humans. Even Roidon seemed to have a sense of them as proper functioning sentient beings. As if he'd settle for anything less. So it would be like taking real lives. She wondered if any distinctions could be made: thinking feeling beings, each believing themselves to have an existence that was irreducible to digital code. Yet mind-captures had given the lie to that. Still, she reasoned, if the end was inevitable then wasn't a quick death what most would welcome? No time to peer into the void. For anyone without a belief in the afterlife, which probably included herself (there could never be certainty on this matter), only the contemplation of nothingness: the very paradoxical notion of nothingness as any kind of state of being. Truth was, she had not stopped to give it much consideration before now. Too busy. Keeping busy was always the best distraction from the ultimate prospect of oblivion. Without her command duties – that work structure to fill the day and to leave her tired at night – would the dark thoughts creep in?

Time that was truly her own – it suddenly felt daunting.

Next task: destroy the Earth sim. No, she simply could not bring herself to to do that. Not today. At least one more day. It would continue to run at its half a percent speed on a relatively stable power supply for weeks, as the ship could just about draw enough energy from the sun. Today was about exploration.

The landscape was beautiful. She felt it – the connection, the history, even though her human altered state meant having to wear a filter mask for the different air mix ratio. Alien to her own homeworld. A pang of shame. Denying her own heritage when it had now become the most precious thing to hold on to, as much as any human's for Earth.

According to her PDU, this area had been a popular tourist resort. B'tari would go mountain climbing, they'd feel in their urbane sophistication to be communing with nature while stretching their sense of adventure to new heights. They'd see themselves as straying from the comforts of civilisation. The reality: they were always connected, never more than twenty minutes away from a vehicle to be summoned. There was no escape from being connected, even she still held the device in her head – the tiny chip that could project her thoughts to her personal transport. Except the ship she'd arrived in was not her personal transport and thus her chip was effectively useless. Here was her chance to be truly out in the wilderness, to have no safety blanket. The ship's AI may well decide to go looking for her, perhaps feeling the same responsibility as would a temporary guardian for an adolescent child.

With a backpack containing enough provisions for two days, Zerrana continued on along a river, bisecting dense woods. Her PDU her only guide, it displayed on its map the unspecified creatures roaming nearby, all small and harmless. But this was B'tar four million (Earth equivalent) years prior to the world she had left. A planet where currently life for her ancestors was almost guaranteed to be nasty brutish and short. At least it was unlikely to be something they dwelt upon, she mused. No, their lives would be taken up by the basics of survival. And as for the females, they'd be secreted in caves, tending child while the males went out to hunt. All these cycles of life and death with seemingly no progress for hundreds of millennia, no evolution. Then something happened. After all, why any need to evolve beyond those upright lizards (as humans may have referred to them)? There had to have been some event. There were ice ages, times of extreme hardship that would kill off all but the most resourceful. Yet for such a dramatic change, the tripling of brain power over a few millennia. She simply could not believe the natural geological events were enough. There had been speculation of alien interference, religious myths of an advanced alien having descended or arrived from another galaxy. The myth that B'tari were created, altered from upright lizards for a grand purpose. To rule over the galaxy. To be its guardians. This is what surely gave rise to the Temporal Directive, a doctrine that espoused logic borne out of a myth. But what if the myth was true? And what if it were to repeat? This thought gave her an odd feeling. Cause and effect. What if this mythical being was not from another galaxy but another time?

A closed time-like curve, a temporal causality loop. History repeating. The very idea of that filled her with despair. Evolve enough to become extelligent, space-faring only to be deemed a threat. Humans had been deemed the primary threat, but here they were – like the B'tari survivors, now fair game. But if the cycle of augmented evolution (if that was what truly happened) could be broken, she wondered if there was much need to be so advanced. Perhaps in the end it all came down to happiness. Her kind she thought should have been above average in the galactic happiness stakes, the very opposite of a nasty brutish and short life. But that had never obviated the day to day anxieties, even before all the trouble began. No, it seemed as if intelligence brought with it the curse of worrying, a by-product that created an industry guaranteed to forever be in profit.

Here, now, life must be so simple: hunting, gathering, surviving; living off what nature had to provide. There was something appealing having such a direct connection. Now on reflection, her life – as with so many B'tari – had been privileged. So much was handed to her, arranged to guarantee her success. Well that's how it felt, removed from it. Even as a female in a society holding on to the remnants of patriarchy, her progression through the ranks had been swift. But – Zerrana acknowledged – as a female in this time, or even only a few hundred thousand years before hers, her life may well have consisted of tending the child while the male goes off to provide. Such had been the constrictions of biology. And yet it was so easy to believe she'd be the exception, to have broken out from the shackles of domesticity – just as so many of her contemporaries would believe the same. Yet with no available education, no examples to follow or to be inspired by, she might have found herself falling into the life of duty – to her male provider, to the tribe, to the child that had never properly been planned for. Maybe life just happens. When you think you're moulding it to your advantage, the control is just an illusion. When the influences are positive it's easy to believe in autonomy.

No escaping one's duty, right?

So here, in the fading light, is where true autonomy begins. Zerrana entered a dense woods. Her PDU told her there were no lifeforms big enough to do any real harm within a twenty kilometre radius; beyond that, scanning resolution was too low to be sure. She tied a hammock between two trees, resisting the urge to use a lamp, or light augmenting goggles – this was going to be done the natural way. She cut down the lower smaller branches, gathered them together with what few had already fallen, crossing over the larger ones, then searched for the driest dead heather. Her father had once done this on a nature trip, and even he had struggled to get it to light, much to the amusement of her brother. Zerrana now, however, had a sparker found in the ship, intended for emergency crash landing situations. Five attempts and it stubbornly refused to catch light. Even wood that appeared dry still held moisture, so the kindling was essential. The air was cool and damp, and Zerrana felt a creeping desperation. When eventually she got a fire going the relief flooded her brain with endorphins. Yes, the simple life. The welcome warmth. A chance to heat her basic meal, drink her earth-leaf tea. What could be better?

Darkness brought with it an eerie silence. Tiredness overwhelmed her.

* * *

### 34

T

Toramin returned to his apartment carrying with him a sense of irritation. The meeting with Roidon hadn't gone so badly, there were no arguments. And yet: what had been achieved? What could have been achieved?

Roidon somehow wasn't taking the situation seriously, or seriously enough. A state of panic would not have been the man's style. But the idea that he had things under control. It must surely have been an act.

Toramin's PDU informed him the station was on alert. There were no sirens or any change he noticed. And it certainly was not obvious from his living room, with its sparse news feed service, mostly broadcast on a loop – a nascent community channel for the Hub, in the hope of attracting a million or so viewers when this outpost developed into the one remaining sanctuary for the B'tari (and occasional human). He felt it not just from the current affairs and entertainment programs, but from the way the inhabitants seemed to rush about throughout the Hub, as if they were in a hurry to contribute in their building of this new and burgeoning society. Or maybe that was merely their sense of panic, knowing that you could never truly be safe against an enemy with the ability to eradicate time itself. For all the Hub's impressive arsenal of mega destructive weaponry, very few with a knowledge of the Elusivers could truly feel secure.

Toramin's PDU connected with the sensor grid and picked up the increasing spacial disturbances, displayed as blossoming purples which then vanished without trace. Photonic cannons primed were like soldiers training their guns against stealth fighter craft. To do nothing would have been worse. To simply capitulate was an admission of defeat. The Elusivers were not exactly going to fight fair. How could everyone remain? Maybe they were not even aware of the imminent danger. There were no obvious signs, the broadcasts continued as if the Elusivers were nowhere near.

The news feed played on in the background on a reduced down holoscreen. 'Governor Zardec today announced the formation of a subcommittee to discuss plans for rapid infrastructure expansion, owing to the influx of B'tari from beleaguered outposts in the delta region. Already a new apartment complex is under construction along with a leisure centre...'

Was this an outdated repeat, or were they truly in denial?

With a command he upsized the screen so it was before him. The newsclip was on a loop, repeating every four minutes. Then, as he was about to close it, an image appeared of a human-looking B'tari in his requisite white suit. He seemed to be looking directly at Toramin. 'Mr Eblou.' The b'tari nodded as if to confirm: yes I am really talking to you. 'I am high commander Zelmarc. This is a private channel. Please do not close it down. I'm sure you are now fully aware of our situation, or at least have a strong suspicion of this outpost's precarious state. However, it is imperative you do not inform anyone else.'

'I'm not the only one who knows.'

'Yes, we are fully aware of Mr Chanley's activities. He has long been an asset of ours.'

'Then what does that make me?'

'A highly valued asset.'

'Really. But what can I do? It seems like we are fu---'

'No.' The b'tari shook his head. Things have not reached that stage yet. We require your assistance.'

'And I thought I was only here as a guest.'

'This channel is in the process of being hacked. Time is limited.' The b'tari shifted about and cleared his throat. And continued: 'Myself and a select number of my associates are planning to leave the Hub within the next few hours. We have been working on a highly confidential project – a subspatial tunnel, essentially a wormhole linking to your homeworld.'

'And you need me to be your... ambassador?'

'That would be a useful role, I don't doubt. However, more importantly, your presence is required for our compliance with the Temporal Directive. Without you our arrival would be considered an invasion. Directive number 7-4---'

'Well, no need to explain. I understand the concept of a secret tunnel.'

The b'tari commander inclined his head in seeming vexation. Then the beginnings of a smile played across his faux-human face. 'The survival of our species takes precedence over any protocol. Now, if you can be ready to leave within the hour we will send you the coordinates. But it is imperative you give no impression of your leaving. Do not hurry, and avoid social contact.'

'Understood, commander.'

The feed returned to the banal news loop. Toramin remained stock still for about a minute. He tried to think what to do first – there were so many things. He was going home. Actually going home. And leaving everyone here at the mercy of the Elusivers.

* * *

### 35

R

The spies were leaving. Their agents given safe passage out of the Hub. The Elusivers perhaps not wanting to risk their stealth infiltration with this security level. Roidon observed it all, his PDU connected to the sensor grid. No proof of their involvement but the sudden egress of certain 'b'tari' was certainly telling.

Spies: it seemed so old-school. All the while the heavy guns were powering up, ready to fire at an enemy that may never be seen in time. Elusiver ships as near as three hundred thousand kilometres. But not it seemed moving in any closer. A stand-off.

Roidon simply needed to do the calculation – not only to determine whether they could destroy the Hub, but would they? Two sides who thought they knew each other's motivations, neither enthused by wanton destruction but viewing each other as an existential threat. Both sides wanting to demonstrate their superiority without resorting to methods used by the war-hungry tyrants of previous millennia.

He could stay here in his apartment, in his bedroom and observe, watch as the entrenched B'tari command tried to hold to their defences. See who blinks first in this stand-off. But that was not his style. Roidon had already packed, had been on standby.

Within twenty minutes he was heading through the mall, walking casually as if oblivious to the imminent threat. But there was hardly anyone to be seen. Had the residents been given a heads-up, been evacuated while he remained? In the hanger most of the ships were still there. Escaping the Hub perhaps the more dangerous option; they were hunkered down in safe rooms, in vaults. B'tari – the precious remaining given every protection, while he... He would face them. Roidon, they knew, was trouble. He'd been trouble for them way back when, for centuries – if the past even meant anything. Of all the Elusivers had done, in their supreme grandiosity, rendering history into a state of paradox had been their worst crime. Not that he, of no heritage, belonging to no time in particular, had any axe to grind. His circumvention of time was not an act of evasion. Arguably it wasn't even him that had escaped, just his memories – his mind-state.

I am trouble because I don't fear death. Only the loss of memories.

Roidon stood in the vast hanger, surveying the multitude of craft. He spoke as though the Elusivers could hear him. Perhaps they could. Words he'd prepared: 'As if I should have been in any doubt of what you were trying to do, why you were so interested in capturing me. It was never about eradicating life or even history. To you information is the most dangerous thing in the universe. Who can be trusted with such a wealth of knowledge but the great Elusivers?'

He was sure they'd be able to hear him. Their eyes and ears in so many places. Or if none, it didn't matter. What mattered was that they had the ability of awareness, to the point that even the B'tari had become paranoid. Paranoia, though, not such a bad thing. Nothing worse than a false sense of security.

Roidon made for the same ship he had used to get here, had trusted with connecting him to all the Hub's eyes and ears. He could have taken something better – greater range, speed, weapons capability. Those craft could have provided a marginally better sense of security. But that was surely the game the Elusivers wanted him to play. Besides, in these times – these end times (in whichever iteration) there was one thing that mattered most. People would have said hope was the most important thing. But being hopeful meant nothing on a practical level. Loyalty – to someone if not some cause. That now had value he'd never imagine in previous times – previous lives. Loyalty once seemed like foolishness, it had meant compromise. But without it there were no alliances, no one who could trust in your plan. He'd enjoyed the life of a mercenary, it brought opportunities, excitement. But never any security. And very little trust from others. Roidon: just a means to an end. Bring him out to do the dirty work. A man not encumbered by morality. Much less ideology.

So he went back to the ship that had been like a trusted friend. But then AIs – sentient or below – always had more of a trustworthiness than biologicals. No need for a greeting, or pleasantries. As he sank into the pilot's seat it was just: 'Are you ready to leave?'

'Into the foxes lair? Yes of course. If there is such a thing as fate it is no different from destiny. And destiny is something none of us can ultimately avoid.'

The hanger opened up into the deceptive starry beauty of a universe that seemed to offer nothing but death.

'Destiny,' said the ship's AI, as they approached the cloaked swarm of Elusiver craft 'It's an interesting concept I would like to study further.'

* * *

### 36

Z

Zerrana woke to the gentle prodding of her PDU. Like a little robot hand giving a friendly warning the bulbous probe extruded from its side to nudge her. She was alert within seconds; it didn't take much to wake her. In this forest deep sleep was an indulgence her biology simply could not afford. Birds sleep with half their brain still conscious, and that's what she imagined for her. Dreams plagued by her ancient ancestors, those she didn't want to ever meet.

Here was something else. Zerrana's trusty PDU was showing her something incredible, projecting into her eyes large red triangles. Without an orbiter relay they could not be resolved yet into identifiable creatures. But they were big. And they were coming for her.

Out here she was no more than meat. Yet the idea of being potential prey was oddly thrilling. Back to the basics of her ancestors – extant or not, although it seemed they had more sense than to be in this enclosed area. The arrogance of intelligence over experience, the hubris – they'd observe.

'Move!' she told herself.

Zerrana gathered her things, left her hammock – for all the Temporal directive would say leave no signs of visitation. She ran away from the approaching triangles. But they were gaining on her, she now felt their pounding footfalls. Too late. Too much time spent cogitating when basic fear, the survival instinct, should have taken over.

Zerrana ran deeper into the woods, hoping the denser foliage would put off such large creatures. But it seemed their pace was unhindered. Her PDU now able to give a distance. Three hundred metres, and at her current pace they'd be on her in two minutes.

Think!

Two of them, a hunting pair. No more than a snack, they must be thinking. But still... easy prey. No, don't think in that way. There was one way out of this: call her ship, but then risk revealing herself to the native B'tari inhabitants.

Branches were being broken off; sounds of their indomitable determination. These weren't her ancestors. Something even worse!

Branches, on the ground, covering a ditch. She frantically pulled them away. Then the stench hit her. Some kind of bovine creature lay dead before her, perhaps a buldazar, or some early version. Most of its internal organs had been eaten. Perhaps in desperation it had tried to dig itself a hiding place. Only one place that could conceal her body as well as her odour. She covered the creature in the fern branches, and then she had to do it quick. Zerrana forced herself inside the creature before its putrid smell could overwhelm her.

The thundering footfalls became quieter. They were near; she could hear their breathing, their sniffing. Their searching.

She waited. And waited. The curiosity to look out almost got the better of her. Not just to see if they had gone, but to see them.

Parts of a giant nose just visible through the fern branches. It was enough. She pulled herself back inside the bul, held her breath. And hoped. A rumble of the ground. A low disgruntled growl, then the thud thud of its feet. Of their feet. Receding. Breathing again, yet she still dare not poke her face out in view.

Another five minutes and Zerrana exited the foul creature. Funny, though, she was feeling great. Tired but exhilarated. Alive. It was great to be alive. To have forgotten all her worries, not just the existential crisis that faced her and all B'tari, but it was the trivial concerns. How many hours had she wasted on worries that mattered not one iota – something someone had said, possibly implied, or what they might have thought. Silly comments about her human-like appearance: 'You could almost pass for human.' The way the word almost was given emphasis. It really mattered then, putting into doubt her identity: was she a fake, a pretender, a fantasist? As if betraying her heritage. But now, now it mattered just to be. To be comfortable in your own skin. Here she was an alien, regardless of how she looked. The removal of history had rendered physical identity irreducible to some tribal identity.

Still, she couldn't believe there were no modern B'tari on this world, that no one felt a bond to B'tar too strong to let go. There had to be someone – hidden, hunkered down in their typically B'tari way until they could be sure the Elusiver threat had gone. She increased the power of her PDU's beacon, at risk of Elusiver detection but almost certain they'd no longer bother with this world, with the mere possibility of an isolated hidden B'tari colony.

Suddenly there was no ignoring it. She hated the way she now smelled. The climate was temperate. She stripped off her clothes and stuffed them in a plastic airtight bag. How she would have liked to have done that on Earth, in some of those committee meetings, if only to outrage B'tari Command in all its earnest proceduralism. What use were those oh so serious discussions on strategy now? she mused.

The enticing sound of the stream was too much to resist. Zerrana ran towards it, like an infant to a paddling pool. She waded through wild grass and then into the on-flowing tributary, searching out deeper levels. No more than up to her thighs. Then she fell back, trusting the water to cushion her enough not to hit the silt. She splashed the water about in scissor motion just as she would have done as a child. No one to observe. At least no one to pass any moral judgement. How liberating!

After ten glorious minutes Zerrana heard a familiar gentle buzzing. A delta-shaped shadow moved over her. 'Why now?' she mouthed. Her PDU would have told her but it was out of eye or earshot on the bank. She scrambled ashore, feeling oddly embarrassed at being confronted by a sub-sentient ship.

It wasted no time in warning her there were Elusivers approaching from space. 'If we leave planetary orbit, we'll be detected,' the AI informed her, now just in range by its direct neural link she didn't know would even work with this ship. 'My suggestion is you take cover in an underground cavern,' it advised.

'Are you aware of any?'

'I sent out a probe and it has detected a network of caverns. There are even faint zelta emissions from one.'

'Zelta?'

'The modulating frequency B'tari use to mask EM emissions.'

'Modern B'tari. I knew it!'

'It may be a residual signal from an abandoned site.'

'Maybe.'

This news, as welcome as it was, made her sojourn seem a tad redundant. Hope, nonetheless. It was a wonderful feeling.

* * *

### 37

T

The room in which they convened felt like the inside of a spacecraft: light grey and blue, brightly lit, situated somewhere in the outer perimeter of the Hub. Toramin hardly felt the need to even question. These people – for they all looked perfectly human – were ushering other human-like beings out through a sliding door. They seemed excited. But what did his homeworld have to offer them? Eranearth's technology was eons less advanced than theirs.

One of the ushering staff turned her attention to Toramin. The young woman, dressed like the classical air hostess (b'tari or human, but he suspected the former) presented him with a warm smile. 'Toramin, it is good to meet you,' she said in a voice not out of place in high society on his own world. 'Please come this way.'

She escorted Toramin through to an amber lit room and showed him to what she referred to as the 'departure chamber.' In reality an egg-shaped pod among a dozen others. He had a sense of being controlled, of having agency removed. And yet there was something in the professionalism to this entire operation that demanded his compliance. This a B'tari plan, surely they knew best. So he nodded in approval and positioned himself within the padded couch. Suddenly, as the assistant was closing the lid, questions appeared in his mind. Somehow he had been distracted from even thinking of them. He felt duped. Too late. A woosh of pressure as the oval lid pressed airtight shut. Then it was as if the couch were sucking him into it. Their alternative to a seat belt, he figured.

Through the translucent top section he could see the amber light fade to be replaced by a pulsating red. Then the entire front of the room parted to reveal not space but what seemed to be a beige mass broken up with purple swirls. Before him a display floated. Words: entering tunnel in approximately twenty seconds. A countdown. 10 seconds... Be prepared for a sudden acceleration force.

Five, four, three, two, one. Even recumbent the force winded him. The beigeness with purple swirls all around him. A tunnel shortcut, circumventing not only space but the Elusivers? Had the B'tari really evaded their old enemy? It seemed too good to be true, yet here he was, as far as he knew, on the way to his homeworld. Trans-galactic travel in...? He realised he'd never – amongst all the other unasked questions – thought to ask how long this would take. Not days, certainly not weeks. Time: it was always going to matter, even to a defacto immortal. Any more than an hour and surely they'd not let him remain conscious for the journey. But he'd feel foolish for going along with their instructions. What did they see him as? A vulnerable old man, frail in mind if not body. Or just the lesser species who must comply with his superiors who after all knew best. Though not as if he would test that now. Returning to Eranearth, as much as it represented a life that had become stagnant, now evoked a warmth in him. Coming back from an adventure that had no certainty of a return.

His life had changed.

The purple swirls became more prolific, intense, moving faster across his vision. He was sure he'd had a similar experience half a lifetime ago. Maybe this was all he was having now: a psychedelic adventure, and in reality he was back in his Hub apartment experiencing some AR fantasy. On reflection this entire scenario seemed too good to be true. His desire to return home – was it so strong?

He felt dizzy. Almost impossible to differentiate the purple from the white, as if the colours were spun on an all-encompassing wheel into a mauve perfusion of jumpspace. Then subtly darker bands spiralled through his vision – faster and faster.

'Stop,' he uttered, as nausea crept up from his stomach. 'Get me out of this.'

He felt like a child. Helpless. Make it stop, he wanted to say. Once upon a time he liked to be on the edge of being out of control. How good it felt to push the limits: drugs, risky sex, or just riding a bike to the point he felt he'd fall off. Then what would have been late middle age to others was for him the decline in this need for risk. Not governed by any natural hormone depletion, for Toramin it was about conformity. Eventually the most deadening aspect of the passing centuries: predictability. Now, in this strange non-locality non-space, he yearned for the predictable.

As the darker bands faded and the spinning slowed to become separate colours, the dizziness subsided.

After the passing of unquantifiable time – maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour – he was back in normal space. Other pods were almost perfectly aligned to his. It seemed like a curiously obvious target for the Elusivers. Then it occurred to him. This was Andromeda. Two and half million lightyears traversed. If this were true, they had made it – outwitted the Elusivers.

Text appeared before him. Prepare for final jump.

Within five minutes they were in orbit around the glorious blue and green globe of his homeworld.

His eyes welled. He'd not cried for years, it felt like a loss of control. Had he ever truly acknowledged the beauty of this world? It had merely been his planet, the place on which he'd eventually, determinedly die without an alternative, without anyone to mourn his passing.

After a further announcement, his pod descended along with others, the tip glowing worryingly orange. To an observer on his world it must look like an invasion. He was sure no warning could have been sent out; that would have defeated the whole point of this secret mission.

Toramin's cramp became unbearable to the point where he tried to force himself up against the webbing. Always worse, he mused, when there is no option to stretch one's legs.

They landed in a field surrounded by hills, doubtless considered a suitably remote area, but his world – as primitive as it may seem to the B'tari – still had satellite observations. This operation was conducted hastily, it seemed to him now. Better to face hostile Eraneans than Elusivers in whatever mood.

Only once all two hundred or so pods had landed did the announcement come that they could disembark. By some remote control the lid flipped open as the couch released its hold. Toramin jumped up in euphoric relief, almost losing his balance. He stepped out, completely oblivious to the others, felt the gentle brush of cool pure air.

Home. He thought he used to have a sense of it, but it never really felt so visceral. So many years, centuries. It was a world that had eventually become like a prison. At least, a prison island amid the surrounding inhospitable vastness of outer space. An oasis of life. Now this benign invasion brought with it the prospect of something far less benign. No, this was not his worry. Here was refuge; who could blame the B'tari for taking that option?

Now he noticed the other humanoid beings, their excited shouts, rapid joyful words. No need to understand what they were saying. This was relief. How curious it seemed: he couldn't imagine anyone ever wanting to leave this world now. Anything that wasn't that fake sanctuary the Hub, with its false promise of security, its dubious material attractions. Was there anything less convincing than a constructed community, especially one which aspired to be a utopia?

About a hundred metres away Toramin noticed the larger delta shaped obsidian craft. The white-suited being approached the scattering of pods and their excited former occupants. Within a few metres he raised a hand like some religious cult leader.

'You all are the fortunate ones,' he intoned, voice amplified through some invisible loudspeaker. 'Many have died. More are missing, presumed dead. Some remain at the Hub, under siege by the Elusivers. They are the truly brave ones. We owe a duty to them to rebuild a society, so that one day if any of them do survive they have a true place of sanctuary.' That elicited cheers of approval from the hyped-up crowd.

Toramin felt a sudden weakness, he rested his weight against the pod. Not his world any longer. Never his to own, but now his to share. The B'tari claiming this world as their home. Even if Eranearth had started as nothing more than an experiment, it was theirs to reclaim, theirs to alter the parameters.

* * *

### 38

Z

The cave was dark, so dark she could not even see her hand in front of her. A curious feeling; to hold her breath. To not have any thoughts felt almost like non-existence. Almost because of the mild buzzing in her ears. Zerrana always had a curiosity about non-being, it was never discussed in polite circles, a taboo subject as much for B'tari as similarly atheist humans. Life, as if it was infinite as the universe. But here the darkness. No life detected. Yet something wanting her to go further in.

Complete stealth was not an option here. Not least her smell – or rather the smell of her clothes from hiding inside that dead creature must be something of a giveaway. It was a temptation to dump them and just walk naked if somewhat cold, go truly native. But her human side seemed to have imbued in her a mote of modesty – even without anyone to witness. Still, no obvious light; a choice between IR and echo location. She chose the latter. Her PDU was still telling her nothing beyond the Zelta emissions.

Further in and down through the lower levels, as the signal got stronger. Her PDU projected the surrounding cave in monochrome, making her feel exposed. All the while her very location a giveaway to the Elusivers, who would surely be curious as to why she was venturing so deep. Her ship no longer able to communicate with her, but instead hidden wherever it considered safe.

The emission source was here in what seemed to be the lowest level; her PDU picked up a faint thermal reading. 'This is ridiculous,' Zerrana muttered. She activated the full visual light, preparing her mind for any beleaguered B'tari. But there was no one. Of course not. Nothing except a computer bank. It looked ancient. Mostly grey metal panels, so unobtrusive she could have missed it if not for the thermal reading.

'Can I interface with it?' she asked her PDU.

'Scanning now.'

Zerrana felt a curious combination of relief and disappointment. To survive down here...

'I am detecting a high concentration of processing activity,' said her PDU. Then nothing for what seemed like a couple of minutes but was actually no more than forty seconds. It really felt like adrenalin stretched time despite never proven by experiments. Her PDU reported: 'Reading multiple petaflops of activity, with at least concordant memory stores. Detecting hundreds of petabytes of memory store. Possibly thousands.'

Zerrana collapsed to the floor, feeling giddy. 'They're here. Mindstates.'

'It would appear so,' observed her PDU.

'But active.' Like part of the Earth sim, but even greater fidelity – actual lives captured.

'I am detecting at least twenty thousand.'

'Can you interface with them?'

'I will try to isolate one mind-capture.'

Another anxious wait. Zerrana got to her feet, legs still felt like they would give way.

'So many minds trapped for so many years,' she said under her breath.

'Not trapped in any experiential sense,' assured her PDU. 'I'm detecting an overlay AR program.'

'Artificial Reality. Of what kind?'

'Unable to access with enough resolution.'

'Can I interface?'

'I would not recommend it.'

Then, as if a bulb had illuminated in her head – in its utter brilliance.

'I can connect the Earth-sim. Link the two systems. Transfer them.'

'That would be... complicated.'

How curious. An AI telling Zerrana – in its own diplomatic way – her idea was hare-brained. But the Earth-sim had a standard B'tari interface. Maybe just need the right tools.

'I have to get back to the ship,' Zerrana declared.

'The Elusivers maybe nearby.'

'Or they may not be. The ship gave no imminent warning.'

'The mind-captures will present an attractive target. To risk exposure---'

'---The ship's fast, it can get here in stealth mode.'

'Do you wish to override my advice protocol?' There was definitely a tone she detected. Her PDU should not have been sentient enough to get peevish. But there it was.

'Well, I guess so. I mean, what are the alternatives? Just wait here and hope the Elusivers pass by. Or take the one chance at rescuing the remainder of my species?'

'They are no more than mind-states. There may be other copies.'

'But that would be unethical. It goes against the Temporal Directive.'

'Acknowledged. However this about survival. There is a loophole.'

'Oh, there's always a loophole.'

'Please, Zerrana. I understand the implications of sentient life, regardless of its form, and that enemy capture of these mindstates is to be expressly avoided.'

'It's only a matter of time before the Elusivers find them.'

'They are more likely to be discovered by other B'tari.'

'Seems like you're underestimating the Elusivers.'

There was no response. Had her PDU actually gone into a sulk?

Maybe this was simply its override protocol kicking in, no longer giving her safety advice. You're on your own, girl.

It may have been too late, if the Elusivers had got a sniff of the location. Maybe they could not pick up on the Zelta emissions and were using other methods – such that it was hardly worth bothering to conceive of. Or their EM detector was phenomenally sensitive. Moreover, they might just logically deduce that any hidden cave network was likely to act as a refuge. It was curious the number of possibilities that arose so quickly in the absence of data. Was this how her ancestors evolved: the smarter ones, the ones that worried, that speculated about every possible danger? Yet it was a fool's errand to think she could act with the best possible vigilance. Not that blind fear had any use here.

No more hesitation. No more consulting her PDU, except for the technical operation of disconnecting the mindstates. Zerrana had to put the mindstates in suspension mode before unscrewing the blocks containing them. It felt too much like playing a god, this power to control consciousness. Their lives in a virtual realm suddenly halted without warning. Were they even aware of the outside world, or was it a total immersion? It at least seemed disrespectful. But she refused to fall into the trap of ethical deliberations. After all, that had been what held the B'tari back for so many centuries. It was, she surmised, what had kept them from exploring further, and surviving better.

Once she found a trolley, seemingly intended for carrying the mind-capture boxes, she made towards the exit of the cave. All the while she could feel her PDU gently bleeping, which meant it wanted to talk but was nothing imperative. Overriding the advice protocol kept it from projecting words into her mind. Zerrana was not going to let it try to dissuade her now.

It felt good to escape the stagnant air. There was no sign of the Elusivers. She mentally called out her craft. But there was no response. Now she consulted her PDU. 'Where is it?' she whispered.

'Will have to use visual scan. Hold me aloft.' Its image sensor was about a million times more sensitive than Zerrana's eyes.

After what seemed like five minutes, her arms began to ache in this raised position. The trolley, behind her, would surely draw attention. Her heart was thumping and chemicals flowing beyond normal stress.

'Detected,' it finally said. 'Another craft is pursuing it. Possibly Elusiver. They are leaving the atmosphere.'

'They think I'm on board, don't they?'

'That it a logical assumption.'

'What do I do?' She was partly asking herself, but this seemed like an admission of panic.

'Re-enter the cave. As a precaution.'

She was about to, as it felt like the obvious safe option. But what then? Maybe her ship was leading the Elusivers away from her. This was a chance to find a better hiding place. An unlikely one.

Time to truly test her survival skill* * *

### 39

R

They did nothing.

He was there, right in their line of sight. Easy prey, hardly any defensive weapons let alone offensive. Roidon Chanley, the greatest asset the B'tari could ever wish for.

As his ship went into jumpspace, Roidon allowed himself a modicum of self-congratulation. The strategy had worked. Enter into the enemy's lair, with no chance of survival, just there for the taking. And what happens? The enemy gets suspicious. Something that seems just a little too easy must be a trick, some trick they couldn't quite fathom. Indeed Roidon was known for being unpredictable, always having something up his sleeve. And so they figured he had a plan for when they would surely do the obvious. Perhaps they thought he had some new stealth megaweapon, and firing on his ship meant destroying them. After all, he was not known for regarding his life as precious; he had already died many times before. Plus the Hub was all but evacuated of its highest ranking personnel, if not shielded to the nth degree. Capturing him, that brought with it risks. He could be a walking bomb. Or they'd remembered their previous encounters and thought it just wasn't worth the trouble.

Still, he felt immensely relieved. And he could never feel he had truly escaped them. Cat and mouse, he thought.

'Computer. How long till we reach B'tar?'

'Approximately two hours, depending on how many jumps we make.'

'Well, you wouldn't recommend taking the direct route, now would you?'

'They can still track our warp signatures.'

'If they're determined enough.'

So, track me down, he thought. 'But I'm not relevant to them. I'm at most an irritant. I'm like a mosquito buzzing around, out of reach.'

'Mosquitoes have the potential to kill,' the computer observed.

'Exactly. Would they risk getting too close only to be bitten?'

'Technically mosquitoes don't bite. But I understand the analogy.'

'Well, dearest machine intellect, my human brain lacks the immediate precision of yours.'

'It was not my intention to irritate you, Roidon.'

'Don't worry, you remind me of a good friend.'

He expected the ship's computer to enquire further. But silence. Perhaps it knew about Harvo. Quite possibly every B'tari computer database had Roidon's entire history, and psych profile. It seemed the only way to find true freedom was to eschew all B'tari AI's. And yet, he liked their company. Biologicals, well, he'd tried forming relationships. They always seemed fleeting, superficial, often just about physical passion. Sometimes exploitative. And more complicated than he'd ever bargained for. Human and many alien females, he had come to learn, not always wanted sex because they had a physical urge; it may just have been a need for a more intimate form of company – a way to connect, a way to understand, or just a way for them to mean more to him. And occasionally they did. Occasionally he let the mask slip; in those most heightened intimate moments he was utterly at the mercy of forces beyond his control. Any notion of performance had left him. At times it had felt like instinct. Roidon the animal. How curious.

When he thought he had found true love, even that ended. Roidon laughed at the fact of him literally losing his mind over a woman. It seemed a worthy sacrifice at the time, trading himself to the Elusivers for her freedom. But maybe it was true what one learned person once said: Love makes fools of us all.

Even now, he could reflect on that sacrifice and still not know if it was the right thing. Such was the wonder of sentient existence; really having no sense of a clear path, no strictly governing parameters to maintain a predictable stability. Because he had no defined role. Would his psych profile give any clues, be so different to what he imagined? It was one of those metrics, like knowing one's IQ (if that were ever truly possible, given how these tests could only ever underestimate), best not to risk even an inkling of one's own parameters – drawn up by templates and arbitrary rules. No, best to keep a sense of mystery. Of freedom.

After a circuitous two hours of hyper jumps, he reached the B'tari system. The ship cut the engines. They were so near its star the curvature was only just noticeable, and viewscreen had to dim to the point where it was rendered in a sepia effect.

'Are you out of power? Do you need to refuel?' Roidon wondered.

'No. It is safer here – its star will mask our signature. There is another ship orbiting B'tar. Possible Elusivan.'

'Who else. But what could they still want from there?'

'My database tells me it has been abandoned. That knowledge may be outdated.'

'What do we do then – wait till it goes?'

'It's your decision. You have command.'

Roidon would never admit this, certainly not to a B'tari-based AI, but he liked the idea of a super-intelligent, super-wise entity to be able to consult from time to time. His human mind, as much as it compared favourably with even many B'tari, often let him down. He had only a vague memory of his time as an AI, a mere sense of the hyper-efficiency of thought, the granite-firm logic. But all that intelligence confined to a network. Freedom had a price. To have been that advanced SAI operating in the real universe was not something the B'tari – certainly not their Central Council – would ever permit. So who was the entity in the Hub? How was it allowed to exist against all ethical protocol? Why create something that was a total anathema to the Elusivers? The merest suggestion of such an entity's existence must surely focus every Elusivan mind.

And yet there was still one of their ships here, apparently alone.

'How effective is your stealth mode?' he asked.

'Tests suggest a ninety-four percent probability of being invisible to all Elusiver craft.'

'When were these tests done?'

'The last stealth experiment was by a drone using similar tech, eight Earth months ago.'

'They could have adapted. But, regardless, take me down to the surface.'

It seemed the Elusiver ship had not noticed him. He passed directly beneath it, trying to avoid any easy line of sight. But perhaps the stealth mode was working. Or, again, such a brazen pass must mean he was trying to temp a response.

Regardless they were descending, into the temperate zone, the ship scanning for signs of life. Small animals, large bovine-type creatures. The computer suggested they approach a cave system as the mostly likely for complex life, even if it only meant primitive natives.

Then something appeared on the projected overlay that seemed to stand out from grazing and scuttling lifeforms. This lifeform was moving, meandering through a forest.

'Can you improve resolution?' Roidon enquired, gesture-pointing at the figure.

'Max res.'

'Is that a b'tari – one of the natives?'

'Cannot identify for sure. Will need to analyse them further to ascertain.'

'Take us closer. We're not worried about the Temporal Directive here, right?'

Now at a few hundred metres above the fast walking figure, the ship could shine a high intensity IR beam. It was worth the risk of Elusiver detection.

'Give me a still frame shot.'

Roidon recognised that figure. Her figure. But just to be sure it wasn't his wishful thinking the computer confirmed it.

'Take me down to the nearest landing site.'

* * *

### 40

T

Home is never what you expect it to be after a long absence, Toramin reflected. The buildings, the houses. The quaintness. The lack of advancement. The lack of change, when so much had happened to him in the intervening months. Only months, but it could have been years.

A world in a bubble of time. In a bubble of its own reality.

Now he was amongst others, others that looked much like him but could not have been more different. The emotions they expressed were distinct, a collective joyful nervousness – at least his cursory impression. The ever present raised voices and rapid speech: refugees revelling in their sanctuary. The initial feeling of optimism. If only he had that fresh perspective. Still, he could barely appreciate what it must be like to be a hunted race forced to scatter across the galaxy. Surely all the worse when you've spent most of your life feeling safe, and free in the comfort of technological superiority.

They were ushered into wheel-based vehicles, buses that must have seemed like museum relics from Earth. They trundled along in what now felt to be painfully slow, off in many directions, towards unknown destinations. They all sat in seats divided by arm rests, it was separation just enough for those unacquainted. But Toramin sat alone, no one either side. He accessed his downloaded B'tari database. He'd learned much in the last few days from their open access data files, took a keen interest in Earth history. It was something the B'tari found both comforting and curiously disturbing. Parents passing on to their children stories of a world to be loved and feared, depending on when and where. From an alien perspective it all looked like a planet to approach with the greatest of caution – which is exactly what the B'tari had done. Yet its turbulent nature was its main attraction. They'd studied his world as much as they had studied Earth – like anthropologists would a primitive tribe. It was clear now: Earanearth was Earth 2.0 – the safer world, not just safely distant but less like to attract alien attention.

The Temporal Directive; he began reading on its many tenets. Ideology and idealism bound up in each chapter. Not that he read it all, that could take weeks. So many clauses and sub-clauses, deeper within to fill another loophole. This latest modern version trying to accommodate the complexities of events. It seemed like the last throes of a dying religion. To cast it out as irrelevant meant admitting centuries of the most learned contributions had ultimately failed to guide a race so highly developed through difficult times. And so here they were, reduced to taking sanctuary on a world a millennia less advanced than that of their forebears.

The trouble with living so long, Toramin reflected, is that you witness the failure of so much that seemed promising. Then learn not to hope, while trying to keep at bay a sense of inevitability.

All good things ... of course. Yet even the most intelligent beings seemed to be in denial of everything being temporary. Understandably, he acknowledged. If nothing ultimately survives then what is the purpose of anything? But that only, as it so often did, lead him to the question he asked himself so many times: was infinite continuity of any kind a good thing?

Toramin decided he needed a distraction. The hills rolled by. Familiar, bringing back a warm reminiscence of simpler times, with then a slight sadness that he could never go back. But how many times had he wanted to forget, to roll time back, to see those hills with the innocence of a young man? He imagined the B'tari around him were making this journey with the hopefulness he'd once felt. Yet the memory of his youth was too strong to fool himself into believing his early life was ever a mostly carefree experience. Not that he could ever rely on a perfect recall. Maybe some of it was ad hoc false to give him a sense of a past – of identity.

Regret, though, hung heavy these days; it seemed to build despite the chances to relive so much. Second chances, third chances. It should have been his gift, his advantage to obviate regret. But here he was regretting that he hadn't fully appreciated those days, too bound up with pointless worries, never realising that the worst rarely happens and things usually work out okay in the end – eventually. Or maybe he adapted, to make the worst seem not so bad. Maybe this belief in the singular foolishness of his ruminations was itself foolish. While others may have given a convincing impression of their happy-go-lucky life it was no more than a mask. Dare not reveal their true anxieties, lest they reveal their true weakness.

The passing patchwork of fields, the occasional villages. Gaps in between with little to connect them. Even though many would likely head for the bigger towns, it was still a world sparsely populated. A world where he could live in an isolated cabin – and he may decide to eschew whatever provided accommodation for his old cabin if it still even existed. Yes, be alone once more to contemplate how it will all end. But that now felt like a self-imposed exile from something he couldn't even begin to contemplate.

The B'tari had questions to answer. And, Toramin decided, being compliant with their wishes would lead him to uncover the truth.

* * *

### 41

Z

Its warning was silent, just a flashing green triangle, absent of more detailed observational data. Her PDU alerted to the approaching craft.

But green, not red? Possible B'tari vessel. But Zerrana couldn't trust what this device was telling her. After all, why should it be beyond the ken of the Elusivers to mask their ships with a B'tari signal? Or more simply, have commandeered it after their invasion of The Hub. So she ran. To where, she didn't know, just deeper into the woods. Finally reaching a denser part. The thought even occurred to find another dead animal large enough to crawl inside.

But: what if? Just that faint chance. Surely now it was too late; her heat signature detected, they'd track her down regardless.

So here it was. No choice but to confront whoever it was. They could kill her out right, but that was not the Elusiver way. Still her autonomic system with its efficient pumping of adrenalin and other chemicals for rapid reaction, spurred her on. Was this what she still had in common with those ancient ones millions of years less evolved? Something about being in this environment that seemed to reduce her to base thoughts of survival. The idea that she, so educated and cultured could be governed by instinct. It was fear, pure and simple, that took over. Rational thinking felt possible, it was surely there to be accessed, but somehow had been subsumed by a more powerful force. It was when the luxury of choice was stripped away to binary options of live or die. Or freedom versus capture – a fate worse than death.

It hovered above for a few seconds, indicator lights on for her to know or to believe her rescuer had arrived, before slowly flying towards the moonlit hills. She had to know, had to over-ride her apprehension. Had to place hope over caution.

Zerrana pushed the trolley containing the mind-states, feeling its antiquated inadequate wheels bumping over the rutted ground. This was no good, she could risk their detection so she turned the trolley on it side, searched around for fallen branches, leaves. Covered them up enough so they would not be obviously visible come dawn. At least inactive they emitted nothing to aid detection. She then ran towards the clearing, towards the ship. It descended only a few tens of metres away. Lights off. Her PDU projected an IR beam, assuming the pilot was doing the same. Entering the clearing, the landing zone, the familiar oval shape of a B'tari vessel projected into her retinas. And before that a humanoid figure. Her heart she felt as a dominating presence. Not a threat. No, something quite different to what she even hoped. Human, male. She hardly even needed confirmation. It was him, it could only be him.

* * *

### 42

Roidon

It was her. It had to be her.

'Zerrana,' he called. 'Is it really you?'

'Roidon, you crazy human. Is it really you?'

They met, embraced. Her clothes were dirty, as if she'd been living feral; her smell wasn't good. But it didn't matter. Here she was, a live intelligent being. Even better, a female humanoid being.

'I have to admit,' he said unselfconsciously. 'I have missed you. Even your disapproval.'

'Well I'll be happy to provide plenty of that.'

'But in the meantime.'

'In the meantime we go back to your ship.'

'What happened to yours?'

She shrugged. 'Possibly destroyed by an Elusiver craft if it didn't manage to escape.' She must have detected his scepticism. 'Don't worry I'm not one of them in disguise. I have some information to prove it.'

'Well, hang on. I could be one of them, you know. Here you are, so desperate to see a familiar face.'

'Yeah, sure. Take me when I'm vulnerable.'

'That's what I usually do.' He couldn't help the broad smile.

'I think you are Roidon – for all intents and purposes.'

His ship was hardly large enough to serve as a home. He'd been wanting to stretch his legs, walk for a few ks at least. So – despite her words of warning – he left her in the capable care of the ship, to wash, to change and whatever else while he explored the forest. Here, with the trill and snorts of small animals, Roidon felt a curious need to hunt one of them – for food, like some hunter gatherer, providing for his woman. The ship of course was perfectly able to provide, turning base atoms (stored pellets) into whatever they needed. And after all, the idea of killing some unsuspecting creature to satisfy his own male sense of, well, masculinity seemed a primitive way to feed his ego if not his stomach. No, tread lightly – was the watch-phrase here. Just wandering around out here was enough to temp fate. If the Elusivers knew his whereabouts they'd simply bide their time, waiting for him leave the forest. He had to keep telling himself he was not important enough to warrant an abduction. He could be a pain, and he knew how to maximise that: the mosquito that always just evades being crushed. With her on board, however, it was an altogether different proposition. Too important to kill, but a useful bargaining chip when the B'tari might seem to have the upper hand.

Keep walking, then. His PDU was detecting larger creatures. Bipeds. B'tari? Parts of the thermal images through gaps in the forest. No visual illumination from them. Surely they weren't using IR to navigate? Intrigued, he continued nearer.

So close now, he trod lightly, but still snapped a branch. The figures, only a few tens of metres away, halted. His PDU confirmed them as B'tari, though could not specify their state of evolution. Then one of them charged towards him.

'Wait,' he called out. 'I'm human.'

He knew, of course, it was futile. The creature pushed him to the ground. No point trying to lift himself up. There were three of them, dark bulky figures leaning over him with a reptilian menace. B'tari generally were stronger than humans. The one that pushed him down was now dragging him up. And the dominating thought: how could I have gotten myself into this?

'Please,' he tried, aware that no word could reason with them, as the creature gripped his wrist.

Even in near total darkness he could see the expression of hostility in its face, hear the rapid rasping breath. Preparing to subdue prey.

Another had discovered his dropped PDU, the palm-sized device now in its grasping hands. That seemed to buy Roidon a few seconds when all three were distracted, entranced by this strange glowing technology, distracted enough that the creature loosened its grip, enough that he slipped away. Ran, narrowly avoiding a tree he brushed past.

Roidon, minus his PDU, had no idea where he was headed. The forest blocked any clear view of the stars. He thought he could hear their foot-falls, but the pounding of his heart mostly overwhelmed all other sounds.

Keep going. He the prey, they the seasoned hunters. If they ever figured out how to use his PDU they could track his thermal signature. If only he had set it to security mode, rather than accessible to anyone. Or just deactivated thermal imagining mode. Still, he considered as he ran through the barely defined shapes of tree trunks, that to such primitive creatures the display projected into the user's eyes would just seem mysterious as magic.

Now he was like her, more vulnerable than her. Maybe more fearful. Mind not focused on the right things. Adrenaline hardly useful now; stress an impediment. His PDU would be relaying any thermal readings. His ship, though, was shielded sufficiently that it gave off no thermal signature, but the PDU had stored its location, it would use what stars were visible to navigate. Roidon, now just felt as if there was no direction he should take. He thought of Zerrana relaxing inside, having just showered, waiting for him. And he was probably running farther away from her without even realising it. May be running towards a trap, towards more primitive B'tari. All the while the Elusivers observed from above.

This was a mess. Just needed to stretch my legs, his taunting thought.

Animal sounds competing with his thumping heart to be heard. Sounds of distress. Just prey out here, small creatures thinking they'd be safe within the canopy of the forest. Instead they were trapped, chased into some gully or ditch – ones that nearly took him. But he had intelligence on his side, millions of years of refinement packed into this mind. And yet. None of that seemed to be aiding him. He might as well be one of those frightened little creatures running by instinct.

Maybe ten minutes had passed, maybe twenty. The forest continued, revealing nothing. Had to get out into a clearing, his best plan. The snapping of twigs. They must be near. They are better than me, stronger, faster. They know the forest.

He kept running.

A voice. Female. Calling him.

So this is what I've been reduced to – hallucinations?

'Roidon! Wait!' It was her. He wanted it to be her. He'd willingly sacrifice his pride, now it seemed, just to be rescued. Even by her.

He stopped, thought. Just to be sure.

'Roidon,' said the voice of Zerrana, seeming to be only a few metres away.

He turned in the direction of her voice. Eyes glowing from her device projecting its image.

'Ah, the wonders of technology.' He said, trying his best to sound calm. Well, if it's not you, Zerrana, it's too late for me to run anyway.'

'Roidon. You must have known the dangers.'

'You can explain to me the dangers when we're back in my ship. Just tell me: are they near?'

'About two kilometres away.'

She got closer. 'I haven't been out here just to find you, Roidon. There's a stack of boxes containing something very precious. Having trouble finding them, even with this wondrous technology.'

'Better than nothing. Better than basic eyes.' He pointed at his own for emphasis.

'You lost your PDU?'

'Tell you about that later. So these boxes.'

'Contain thousands of B'tari minds.'

'The preserved dead, I presume.'

'Well, I don't know. It may have been a precaution. Frankly, I hope they are alive, since I've left them in suspended mode.'

'Then maybe it would be safest to leave them,' Roidon suggested.

'Safest for who?' She hardly waited for an answer. 'No. We find them.'

'Do you have any idea of where you left them?'

'I think I got near but then I was sidetracked looking for you.' She then flinched. 'They're getting nearer. They seem to be running.'

'Then we'd better.'

'That way,' she gestured.

'The ship, right? Unless---'

'Okay, forget the boxes.' she said as they ran. 'I'm not the one prone to macho risk-taking.'

'You prefer the feminine variety?'

No answer. They ran in silence.

*

### 43

Toramin

Toramin peered out his third floor apartment window. So much activity. Something he hadn't seen for a while. It was something different.

The city. In the last few centuries he had assiduously avoided crowded places. The Hub with its burgeoning population hardly compared. This had a scale, an intensity. He imagined walking those streets, weaving through on-comers, stepping out the way of someone that stepped in his way. And many had done, oblivious or with such purpose that his was surely less important. Toramin, always the one to step out the way. When had politeness become capitulation. And then, in his final few years of living in the city he became more aggressive. It would occasionally mean a glancing shoulder blow in passing some arrogant young man. Refusing to partake in the submissive pedestrian's dance.

What had become of him? Gone was the considerate, conscientious citizen, to someone driven by avarice, by the demands of the market. He had become one of them, living what some thought of as The Dream. The money; the nice gadgets to entertain; the women. It was all there for the taking in the city. And if you didn't you were made to feel an outsider, or worse: an outcast, shunned by the high life.

Why? he thought, why stay now?

He had the choice. He could go back to the cabin. If not that one then another. He accessed his account once more, just to see it stark before him – the investment funds from those years, still accruing, mostly blue-chip companies considered safe and thus relied on investors not selling. He still maintained a passing interest in stock investments. All those years of experience had honed his skills, had curtailed the impetuous urge to go with the new trend that so often turned out to be a bubble. Yet still the maverick investments in what looked to be hitting rock bottom, what others deemed toxic. In those years he'd made enough never to need to work again. Enough to retire to a quiet retreat. The city itself had become toxic to him.

What had happened to the real Toramin? He had considered that maybe there was no real Toramin. His body had been renewed completely every ten years; his brain, full with nanochines, reconstructed, albeit keeping memories – the core neuronetwork myolin regeneration. But even those core memories had altered, new connections formed, no different to what happens in normal humans. Remembering. It was never a precise process, more recreating than replaying. He could have had inserted nanochines that truly recorded. But would that have diverged him so far from the standard homosapien he'd be more cyborg than human? Would he be tormented by the unadulterated freshness of every recollection?

There had to be a real Toramin somewhere within this body, otherwise his existence had no meaning other than in reflection to others. Yet the B'tari, with their biomemetic neural nets scanned from real minds, had no answer. An artificial mind was still as much an individual as he. The only distinction: his developed from amino acids. But at the most fundamental level he couldn't say he was imbued with some essence of life that set him apart.

Now he was back in a place that conferred an illusion of individuality but really promoted conformity. No, he thought, demanded conformity, only in ways that never seemed overtly oppressive. The power of the system was in the way it got its participants to press each other to conform, while they hardly even knew they were doing it.

Well, now he had no need to conform. He had money, enough to live a life of leisure for another century. Just needed to cash in some of those investments, maybe move others around when they no longer looked profitable. A life of pleasure before ending it. That would have no meaning. But why did life have to?

He slumped back on his reasonably comfortable bed and tried to imagine the future stretching out before him, the possibility of new experiences. Then, as he felt himself drifting off to sleep, a call buzzed through.

'Yes,' he answered, not trying to hide his obvious grogginess.

'Toramin. This is supervisor Zendari. I hope I have not disturbed your rest. We require your attendance at a meeting in approximately two hours.'

'What's it about?'

'The subject matter is confidential and cannot be discussed on this channel. I will send you the coordinates.'

'Fine,' he said partly as a sigh. 'I'll be there.'

Even though it was mid afternoon he wanted to sleep. He could get by without sleeping, the 'chines would take care of any neural toxins. Yet it still felt like a basic need, like eating. There was a pleasure to be had, the feeling of drifting off into oblivion. It was the simplest way to achieve an escape from the unendingness of his life – the sense of unendingness. Just an hour would be something, after last night's insomnia.

But sleep wouldn't come. Instead he got himself a coffee.

An hour later Toramin walked out of his apartment into his hire road-car. His PDU sent the coodinates into the car's navigation. It briefly appeared on a heads-up map, looked like a disused industrial estate. He let the car approach, ETA 14 minutes. He brought the map back up, zoomed in. Before he left, his homeworld had upgraded its observation satellites; the map should have been more detailed, he was sure. This was fuzzy.

ETA: 8mins.

Was this a protected area, a new secret base hidden from the world? 'Computer,' he asked his PDU. 'Give me a net search for all related info on this area.'

He got the answer in text, still not entirely comfortable with it speaking back.

Industrial estate, last building known to be occupied approx twelve years ago.

'What is the known state of its structures?'

Derelict. All but one listed as unsafe for habitation or use. However, there is thought to be moderate to harmful levels of radiation contaminating the entire site.

'The one that isn't unsafe?'

Information classified.

'By government?'

Classified.

ETA: 5mins.

At one minute to arrival Toramin told the car to slow. He stopped two kilometres from the site and parked in a well-obscured side street. With his PDU to navigate he took a number of small roads. The site truly looked like it had been abandoned for decades, buildings were crumbling. He crept towards the gate, noticing what looked to be an intercom. It was only a few minutes before his due meeting. But instead of approaching, he crept round the side behind a wall. His PDU notified that someone else was approaching. Another b'tari. He held his PDU just above the wall to monitor this visitor. The being spoke to the intercom in a language that must be native B'tari. The gate opened for him to briskly traverse the tarmac before entering a building.

Toramin's PDU switched to neutrino pulse mode to keep tracking the visitor. A number of others became highlighted as partially opaque wireframe figures. There were fourteen. From their humanoid appearance they were either natives or altered B'tari. He guessed the latter, guessed that the others were gathered for the meeting. The meeting that he should be attending at this very moment.

He waited. No more entered. He kept still all the same. A bad feeling that he should not be in that place. The figures had stopped moving, perhaps they were waiting for him. And yet he continued to wait, hidden behind this wall.

Then it happened, something he could not predict but neither did it surprise him. All the figures disappeared, almost simultaneously. There forms simply vanished as if they had never been there. He even checked his PDU to ensure it functioned properly. He tried to imagine how they could have been eliminated. Fourteen sentient beings, their life extinguished in an instant.

Toramin felt a rising bile becoming an incipient urge to be sick. The thought of what it would be like to be killed so instantly. Inconceivable, yet curious how he might have wanted that. Before the moment of witnessing it, he could have imagined that as an easy way out. Take the responsibility from his hands, remove the guilt, the sense of failure at his lack of strength to want to keep carrying on. An easy answer for the man who didn't think he could die, who saw it as something denied him – that process that gives everyone else's life meaning and progression.

And yet. What?

He was glad not to have been in that place, glad not to have fallen for whatever trick from whoever pretended to be a b'tari commander. But also glad to be alive. At least just for another day. An odd sensation: an empowerment of survival. For now.

His heart pounded as if beyond his control, the sudden realisation that his life must still be very much be in danger. It made no sense. B'tari wouldn't kill their own kind, would they? Or him? Or was this something to do with their Temporal Directive? An extreme way to ensure the native culture was not infected by the knowledge of an advanced civilisation. If not killed by their own then the alternative seemed worse. If Elusivers had infiltrated his world, life would be over regardless. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Better for it to have been over quickly.

The instinct, though, was to run. He had to force himself not to. Just walk in as if he suspected nothing. Nonetheless, they would be looking for him. His car was parked two kilometres away. He ordered it to drive towards him. All the while he could feel someone, something searching for him.

Eventually the adrenalin took over and he ran, PDU showing him the car trundling nearer at a non-suspicious speed. How could they not be looking for him? They could contact my PDU.

His car appeared as he entered the main street. A public area. Probably observed, monitoring cameras, by the local authority. Any pursuer had to stay hidden from view. There was surely no need, but the fear of what he sensed made it irresistible to run that final few metres. He dived in, landing across the front seats, told it to take him onto the main freeway. Surely not safe to return to his apartment.

Toramin now the fugitive. He felt energized.

Keep moving.

* * *

### 44

Z

In the cargo hold Zerrana held one of the blocks, staring at its shiny obsidian surface. Over twenty thousand minds captured at the point of... perhaps death. Or if not then at some point when death seemed a likely prospect. What gave her the right to hold them in suspension, lives suspended by her own hands?

Roidon watched her, his thoughts opaque now. Not his usual self, he seemed tired. He'd insisted on helping her locate the blocks, once the natives had vacated the forest. Having a sense of what it was like to survive out there gave him an empathy surely, would bring them closer. Out here, even on her home world she could be no more a native than him. The odd, and not least disturbing thought that they could remain on B'tar, although hiding for the most part; the constant threat of being hunted by the Elusivers if not the natives. Then this was their new world. The only two who could re-populate it with a species advanced enough to reinvigorate this technologically barren world but full of so much potential.

'I guess it's not worth trying to re-capture your ship,' Roidon said, weariness evident in his voice.

She turned to him, startled at the question. 'The Earth sim. I nearly forgot. Have to get it back.' It had, in the midst of so much else, slipped her mind. And she felt ashamed.

'It may be too late, you know that, right?'

'I have a responsibility, don't I?' Now she truly wished she had destroyed it.

'They're not real people.'

'Roidon. That's hardly relevant and you know it. Stop trying to make me feel better.'

'If I was trying to make you feel better I wouldn't've brought up the subject in the first place.'

'Then why did you?' She paused. 'Hang on, how did you even know about the Earth sim?'

'I keep tabs. I also know about the sentient AI – for which I congratulate your ingenuity.'

'You met it?'

'Him – for what that's worth.'

She shook her head. 'Roidon. Across everything.'

'That's me.'

'And he's out there?'

'Somewhere. Don't know where. Doing good I hope, working on a plan to save us. That kind of genius superhero stuff.'

'More than I am doing here. Billions of human minds either corrupted or non-functioning, or no longer. And these.' She shook her head affectedly, staring at the block.

Roidon put his hand on her shoulder. 'At least you have tried to save them. Initially anyway.'

'I tried. Not hard enough though. Didn't save them from the certain torment of---'

'Zerrana.' He held her by both shoulders. 'What future could they have had? We can barely sustain ourselves here.'

'But if the Elusivers have them?'

'For all we find objectionable about them they are not sadists.'

'You have a special insight into their psychology?'

'Demonising the enemy is never a good strategy.'

Zerrana rose abruptly from her seat, shaking off Roidon's affectionate grip. 'And what is your plan, Roidon, I mean after I've satisfied you?' It was an easy reference to his legendary libido. Perhaps, she then considered, an unfair one given what he'd been through.

'You've got me wrong, Zerrana,' he pleaded. 'I have no plan, other than to survive. Hoping only to get through the next day. Maybe just like your ancestors on this world.'

'I'm not convinced. You came here for a reason. Did you know I'd be here?'

'Is there a good answer to that?'

'There's the honest answer.'

'Then, really, I didn't know you were here. I could surmise there was a probability. But know? How could I know?'

'Okay. Then let's just accept we have to try and achieve something to get us off this planet and back to whatever remains of my civilisation.'

'Yeah, I've kinda had enough of this planet too. Didn't really get the impression your ancient ones felt warmly towards me.'

'I can understand that.'

'You're just another alien to them. I always wondered why the human-look was so appealing to so many of your people.'

'It was only about blending in. Assimilation became an obsession. But we became too distant from them.' She pointed outside the ship's viewer, hoping it was clear she meant her ancestors. 'Humans, for all their flaws, seemed more... interesting.'

'Maybe it was because of our flaws. I would use the same reasoning for why I transmigrated from an AI. From the logical to the unpredictable.'

'Predictable. We had a doctrine to guide us. Now it has left us scattered, lost.'

'But you survived.'

'For how long?'

'The Earth sim. I can't just let it go. My ship transmits a subspace beacon when it's in trouble. This ship can track it. But in doing so we risk attracting attention from those above.'

'Never mind,' his voice resolute. 'We'll leave this hour.'

'Well, maybe in the morning.'

* * *

### 45

T

Something about this time of year that drew Toramin away from the darker background of his life. The trees in their last phase, a colourful delight through suburban neighbourhoods to rural idyll, a final show before succumbing to the harshness of winter. Roads lined with yellows and oranges through red. The low sun infusing the landscape with an ethereal quality.

He could ask himself these questions for all their naivete. How could there be evil in the world with such beauty to behold? And: who could not succumb to nature's emollient effect?

Toramin was not sure if those thoughts were new, if this mood was new. There were things that surely required serious concern and focus. But they were in the background, fuzzy.

His car had about two hundred kilometres worth of charge. Stopping at a charge point was something he wanted to avoid. For about an hour he had no real destination in mind. That was probably for the best, they (whoever they happened to be) would be looking for some kind of predictable pattern. Yet maybe it made no difference. They could monitor him from anywhere. There were no safe places, no trusted friends or associates. Well, none that he'd risk bringing into his complicated predicament. His return to this world had not been announced. On arrival, as part of the debrief, he had been told to refrain from interaction with friends or colleagues, lest alerting the world to the others. At the time it made sense; the B'tari wanting to maintain their ultra-discretion. Now there seemed to be a more sinister reason. The disappearance of the new arrivals not even noted. But how could that be? There must have been witnesses.

Now, no longer able to resist the instinctive pull, he headed for the location of his old log cabin. He dared not enable his nav system, which would give away his location. Perhaps his discretion would save him a while longer, heading out into the remote countryside. What harm could he cause? Saving himself. It was a curious thing to fear death. It was strangely invigorating. Maybe this was why the colours seemed so much more vibrant. Life so precious all of a sudden, as if it was something he had forgotten to consider among all his jaded thoughts and everyday distractions.

Nearly eight hundred years and still opportunities never taken, and worse when they seemed to repeat. Fear of failure, of rejection, he had never truly overcome those.

This was the time. One last chance. He requested of his PDU: 'I want you to locate Marianne Lacani. But only use your existing database, no external networks.'

'There is on file two residents of that name on this planet.'

'The nearest.'

'Lives approximately one hundred twenty-six kilometres from here.'

Toramin thought for a while. He would likely be endangering her. Yet if he went to his predictable location, he may never get a chance to see her again.

'What is Marianne's relationship status?'

'Not on file.'

All those years; could she really have stayed single all that time? Never yearning for him, surely, they had hardly even become involved. No more than a close friendship. His last close friendship, eleven years ago. The age difference so vast he could never tell her. But soon his reputation would overtake his attempts to hide his true nature, so she like all the others would drift away from him, from this freak. And so he let her go like so many others.

No, it was only the possibility of her. Afraid of taking that chance, risking that he would know for sure the fact of rejection if not its true reason. That words said would be regretted, words heard regrettable – and the memory of those with him long after Marianne had eventually passed away, like the baggage of an obsessive collector. Avoiding all that had felt like being in control. Such cautiousness.

She must have known his true nature, despite how he'd tried to conceal it, Toramin assured himself. Yet, he had to see her. Even if it was for one brief meeting. Just to tell her how he truly felt.

Instead he headed for the place that had been his retreat for over a decade. He parked the car two kilometres away, in a designated car park in a valley used by ramblers, PDU scanning all about for anyone, anything other than those out for a countryside walk. Toramin himself tried to appear no other other than a rambler. But somehow that seemed pointless – they would have his ID locked down within a nanosecond of sighting. All this subterfuge felt futile and faintly ridiculous. Yet he was able to continue.

His PDU told him the area of at least a kilometre was clear. Still he approached gingerly, instinct overriding any reality on the ground. After even a few months he wouldn't have been surprised if someone else had moved in – legally or not. The population, both nationally and globally, was on a sharp increase in the last decade, and likewise property prices. A place like this cabin, fully equipped with many home comforts, seemingly abandoned. It had to be tempting. Yet no one apparently had broken in. His key he had kept about his person like some lucky old trinket.

Inside, things were as he had left them, the lounge still had that reassuringly lived-in quality of someone who had left impromptu. Apparently, really he could not rely on his memory for how he had left things. Memory was the grand deceiver he had learned to distrust many years ago. Perhaps this apparent unalteredness was what they wanted him to believe in, to lower his defences. He inspected the kitchen. Dishes left unwashed. A man with more on his mind than the banality of housekeeping. The freezer still diligently functioned and was well stocked, the kind of food that would probably keep for years, enough to live off for weeks without interacting with another living being. How tempting to simply remain and let fate take its course, rather than pretending he had any true freedom.

He stayed for a while. A while became one more day and a second night. No sign of any visitors. Did they want him to remain here, like a prisoner?

The following morning he took the car to her registered address. A leafy suburb like so many, a place you could live in obscurity provided it was a quiet life. The front door had an antiquated push-button bell. Despite recent innovations in palm-print recognition and visual ID, this old tech had a more warm appeal – a home rather than a security compound.

No answer. The door didn't seem to be flush against the frame, though he still hardly expected it to open. It opened into a light green hall-way. He called out: 'Marianne. Are you there?' He was feeling like an intruder, that he had invaded the home of this person so unused to unwelcome visitors that she leaves her front door unlatched.

Still, he walked through. Called her name again. Went through to the living room. Empty. Searched through other rooms. Then upstairs. A bathroom. A door that was left open. He peered inside the bedroom.

A woman in a bed, exposed flesh just below her shoulders showing the top of her breasts. Was she asleep?

'Marianne?'

So still. He touched her shoulder. She felt cold. It shocked him. His mind trying to tell him something he did not want to hear. He gently shook her. Then harder.

The word. The word that was screaming in his head. The word he tried to block, because it couldn't possibly be true.

'Please. Marianne. It's me – Toramin.'

He considered pulling back the cover. Just to check. But that would have seemed disrespectful. She wasn't breathing, he could see that now. There was no further need for confirmation. Yet he kept staring at her. Lifeless. Just a body. A shell. How could life be gone? It was such a stark thing.

He wasn't asking himself the right question. But the right question was too horrific to consider. He took a step back. Tried to gain some perspective on the situation. But his mind would not calm. The helpless feeling there was no way to resolve... what even? Not some problem!

Have to think!

Something rational finally took over, telling him simply it would be too much if he stayed. So he left.

He walked in a measured way; tamping down the urge to act out the panic he was feeling. He had to consider: they were still here. Whoever murdered the others. It had to be them. They had to know he would be here. And they would likely kill him.

Except they wouldn't. Not here, anyway. No rational reason for this certainty. He just knew. So kept walking, closed the front door behind him. Back into his car. And drove. The temptation was to return to his cabin. But maybe that would be the predictable option. So he chose to be unpredictable. He headed towards the industrial estate. If there were to be answers then surely that was where he'd find them.

### 46

R

They were homeless. Both outsiders, outcasts in any place in this galaxy – this universe. For Roidon it was not an unfamiliar experience. In fact he rather revelled in this loner status. The human need to conform, so strong in places of dense population, he recalled. His times on Earth pre-invasion, he remembered the awkwardness. A stranger all the more strange for looking normal. But he capitalised on it.

Here, in space, pursuing so far away a craft which may or may not even still exist. They were just specks in a vast indifferent universe. Always the case, nothing new in knowing that; but here, now, he felt it.

Fifty-two light years from B'tar, a green dot flashed overlaying the forward viewer, an indication of where Zerrana's ship was supposed to be at approximately 1.6 light years away. It was nothing like confirmation, just something that vaguely resembled the correct signature.

'It can outrun us,' she told him. 'This ship's only a class 4. Mine's a class 5. But it's choosing not to.'

'You really don't see it as a trap by the Elu---'

'Of course it may be. Of course they could be in hiding, or they could have mimicked its signature.'

'And yet we follow.'

'What else should we do?' She was glaring at him with some intensity, a challenging stare.

'Find a place to settle down, start a family,' he responded nevertheless.

'What?' Somehow she managed an even more intense stare.

'I am joking. Surely you know that?'

Her face relaxed into a smile. 'Well of course.'

The apparent green dot of Zerrana's ship had slowed considerably, was no longer entering jumpspace. They maintained full normal space velocity until only a few thousand ks distance. No sign of any Elusiver ships within the five light-year detection range. Still that was no safe distance. There was no such thing. Now within visual range, the magnified image was clearly Zerrana's ship in appearance.

Eighty ks away. Her ship was in steep deceleration.

'It wants us to dock.'

'Why the need to slow so abruptly? Surely we can easily match its cruising speed.'

'I'm not sure,' Zerrana admitted. 'I'll try to hail it.'

'Wait. I don't trust it. If we slow to a crawl we're more vulnerable.'

'How much more? If talking of the Elusivers, it's only ever margins.'

'Yeah, I'm curious to find out.'

The other ship had stopped decelerating to a constant 2,000 kph. They manoeuvred alongside it. Zerrana hailed it. 'Report. What is your status?'

No reply.

'Please report. Are you functional?'

Nothing. They were now virtually in docking range.

Zerrana turned to Roidon. 'I want to dock. Will you allow that?' It was such a plainly delivered question. Roidon hadn't really felt himself to be in a command position.

'I wouldn't advise it. But it's your call.'

The docking process seemed awkward and protracted, as if centuries of technical innovation hadn't applied here. Not a common procedure then. Zerrana readied herself. Putting on a spacesuit just in case. In case of what? He could have asked. But no words were needed to highlight some potential danger. They were now in a highly vulnerable state.

Knowing the likely answer, though, Roidon felt he had to say, 'Would you let me go with you?'

'I think you know the answer to that.' Her predictable response. 'I know this ship can be told to protect us, but with you still here I feel more... assured. My cam will relay---'

'Yeah, sure, I'll get to see everything from your eye view. I mean, it's not like you'd want to hide anything from me.'

'No secrets here.' She then donned the helmet, effectively cutting off conversation until she activated comms. Made for the exit.

Roidon remained in his pilot's seat as the image from her perspective, through channelled optic nerve interface buds stuck just below her eyes, blossomed before him. Zerrana's vital functions were also on display, which felt like a curiously intimate link. Her heart rate was elevated as if she were running, or in this instance highly apprehensive.

The ship illuminated in white and grey-white sections as she stepped through the airlock into the linking bay, and then the command deck. Roidon half expected it to greet her but that was not convention for B'tari, perhaps they considered it somehow a bit creepy for a ship AI to talk initially, as if it had too much agency. Artificial intelligence in general had been limited back for fears of it running away into sentience and then autonomy. He imagined the Elusivers would rather approve of such cautiousness. It may have been what had ultimately saved the B'tari from becoming their prime target. Now two definitive sides: the Elusivers against everyone.

Zerrana took off her helmet but held it in the crook of her arm. 'Hello computer,' she began, her words translated from B'tari to English. 'How are you functioning?'

'Within acceptable parameters.'

She took her pilot's seat. 'That's good. I'm glad the Elusivers did not damage you. Did they try?'

'No, Zerrana,' it replied in a curiously brusque tone.

'Would it be OK if I checked on the Earth sim?'

'That is not possible, since the Earth sim is gone.'

'Gone? The Elusivers?'

'Yes. They took it in exchange for my survival. They had weapons primed.'

Roidon began clenching his teeth. He wanted to tell her to leave, but knew she wouldn't take orders or advice.

Zerrana was looking around, clearly in dismay. 'Did they tell you why they wanted it?'

'For research.'

'Research! Do you know what type of research they conduct?'

'The Earth sim was already corrupted. There are not the resources here to repair the malfunctions.'

'I would have found a way,' she said with her head in her hands. 'All those lives. Do you know what that means?'

'They are simulated.'

'But sentient.'

'The definition is not clear. I think therefore---'

'Oh, never mind,' she exhaled.

Zerrana went to the cargo hold. The infrastructure was still there: connecting cables, power relay, and data transcription adapter for immersive interface. She was staring at each component, seemingly deep in thought.

Roidon had been preparing for her determinedly aggrieved plan to recapture the Earth sim, involving him and the likely failure due to his death or capture – the latter being the worst outcome.

Instead, she surprised him. 'Roidon. I need those mind-capture blocks. Could you bring them? Or shall I get them?'

There could only be one response. 'I'll be there in a few minutes.'

'Thanks, Roidon. You're a dear.'

All those human dramas and soap operas she'd doubtless been watching, like so many B'tari studying their charges, learning the foibles of this doomed species. But at times she could sound like a foreigner trying too hard to speak English, trying to be a little too clever with the vernacular. He suspected the main reason she had him in bed was to gain a closer understanding of someone approximating human. How useful a preparation for interacting with her Earth sim inhabitants.

The spacesuit consisted of two halves, splayed open like a dissected animal. He stepped into the upright pod, positioning himself aligned with the back half of the suit. The front half hinged forward closing around. The whole suit fused in tight and sealed and contoured. The helmet at the side shushed shut, making him feel claustrophobic. B'tari tech, this was supposed to be less hassle than the previous gen but he still preferred to climb into them. He'd never rescinded his mistrust for automated systems that had the potential to harm him, just for the sake of convenience. Even if it could save his life.

The blocks were still in the loading trolley in the small cargo bay, that he simply wheeled out. The dark thought occurred to him to dump them all into space; trying to reanimate them would surely prove to be a massive distraction, not least a draw for the Elusivers.

Dark thoughts, there were plenty of those these days. Too little light, too much barren space. Was it not, he wondered, a benevolent act to consign those B'tari to eternal oblivion? Was what Zerrana intended some way to compensate for the loss of her Earth sim? Was she mentally stable?

He could stop her, and he continued to make his way to her ship, admitting to himself that his compliance with her wishes would at least boost his chances of sex. It was the most simple calculation.

Let the chaos ensue. Why should he care?

It was all ultimately darkness. Might as well just seek out what fun there is to be had amidst the indifferent universe.

No longer visual of Zerrana, away from the bridge. Only comms.

'Everything Okay?' she asked with barely disguised impatience.

'Nearly there,' he said. 'Had to leave the ship's AI on extra vigilance mode. If you-know-who turns up within half a light year, it's evasive manoeuvres. And that means leaving us here.'

'Sure,' she said cheerily. 'That's no problem.'

'No. No problem at all,' Roidon muttered.

He found her at the hold's console from which trailed cables to the ship's processing array and interface port. She swivelled her chair around at his arrival. 'Glad you could make it,' she said flatly.

'Zerrana,' he began. 'I know what you intend.'

'Well, of course you do.'

'I know what it's like to feel isolated.'

'This is not about feeling isolated, it's about giving my people a chance at life.'

'Shouldn't we be concentrating on finding the Earth-sim?'

Momentarily he recoiled at her responding body language – arms folded, shoulders hunching.

'Don't humour me, Roidon. I know there's no chance of retrieving it. But here's a chance of life.'

'You're going to hook them into the ship's system? Create a virtual interface?'

'Yes, exactly. Now bring them over here.'

He complied. She was technically his superior. Even out here he knew he should respect her rank. To do so could only work in his favour.

When she started off-loading the blocks from the trolley Roidon considered leaving her to it. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do. He was resigned to her obstinacy. A feeling of redundancy he'd refuse to endure. So he offered his help, linking up the blocks into a network, like building a wall from obsidian bricks.

She said nothing.

Once in place, Zerrana plugged in the master cable, then hurried back to the console. Roidon did feel some of the anticipation of Zerrana, that apprehension and excitement he recalled from one of his own experiments. He understood the feeling of power, to give life. To enable consciousness, that stubbornly indefinable phenomenon; whether or not it truly existed, the very idea of having mastery over it was exhilarating.

Zerrana was frantically manipulating symbols on her console. A hidden communication between minds starkly alien to him all of a sudden. Feeling redundant again, it was becoming intolerable. He went over to the blocks, put his finger on one. They were cold. To the observer it made no difference: life, oblivion, total non-existence. A set of subroutines resulting from a prescribed program – memories, the base neural structure captured at a level that straddled the realm between the quantum and the measurable. Just code ultimately, ones and zeros; all he was once, and for that existence he felt as conscious if not even more self-aware than this limited human form. So how could he regard them as anything less than life, if life was even possible to define any longer? It was why the B'tari held these mind-captures in equally high regard – if hard science could not explain an observable distinction then certainly all psychological and philosophical tests failed thus.

And suddenly her enthusiasm for reconnecting the mind-captures was clear. In doing this Zerrana was – as an attempt to assuage her anger – sticking it to the Elusivers. What an abhorrence for them this reanimation of artificial life. And somehow she was going to make them aware of it.

Roidon looked over to Zerrana. Her expression was deep concentration, perhaps determination. She hadn't even bothered to look over at the blocks. They offered nothing; it was all about the telemetry, how the code was running.

'They're online,' Zerrana announced. Now she did for a split second glance over at the blocks, even knowing there was no change to see.

'Can you communicate with them?'

She was looking back to her console.

'The connection is too basic. I only know they're active.'

Roidon was tempted to go over and see for himself, but all he'd see were a bunch of meaningless symbols, all he'd feel was yet more out of the loop – human and inadequate.

'You have the interface port. Is it compatible?' he said.

'I... I don't know. Immersion would be... tricky.'

Roidon knew he was pushing her into an uncomfortable position. Zerrana to suddenly connect with her kind in this circumstance, not knowing when they had last been in touch with reality. Or even what reality currently existed for them. But the ethics were simple. Since she'd made them conscious, she had a responsibility.

'Does their hardware include a base AR environment?'

'Yes, it must surely do.' Zerrana didn't sound sure.

'Then it can be accessed. Why not try?'

'There are protocols. Procedures set in the Temp---'

'No, no Temporal Directive here. Your call. But I'll go in if you're worried about---'

'No, Roidon, I'm not worried. Merely cautious.'

'Cautious enough to hook them up in this ship.'

'B'tari ship,' she reminded him. 'And I will interface. Of course I will.'

'But you're hesitant because you don't really know what they are. You don't even know if they are B'tari. It was just an assumption because you found them on your home planet.'

'It stands to reason. They copied themselves before the Elusivers attacked. It's what we do.'

Roidon just stared at her now. She'd been impetuous. Yet he would have been the same. Just grab on to any hope in times like these. Maybe the blocks had been left as a trap by the Elusivers. Maybe as soon as she connected with them her brain would be fried.

Still. 'It is reasonable to assume they are genuine B'tari,' Roidon conceded. 'That they just evaded Elusiver detection. But we can deactivate until we make contact with more B'tari.'

'That could be... well, never. Because my kind are cautious and totally gone away.'

Roidon nodded. 'I will keep a check on your vital signs, while ship's AI keeps a check on any Elusivers approaching.'

'I do trust you, Roidon. Your honesty but not your optimism.'

'Ah, my sunny optimism.'

* * *

### 47

T

Fear. Why now?

Fear was life's best guardian, Toramin reflected, even when you didn't care for survival. He thought he didn't care, or care as much for his safety as someone who yearns for a long future. Funny, how after so many years of life he could retain a sense of fate. Fate or fatalism; there always seemed to be an inevitability, though only keenly felt after the event, the ones he should have seen coming. Time after time, century after century. As they knew – as he knew – his emotions were leading him right into the path of his fate. How easy to impose a sense of logic, to fool himself as he had done on so many occasions.

He left the car two ks from the industrial estate. This arbitrary distance somehow felt safe, just the right balance. Walked at a brisk but not suspiciously hurried pace, acutely aware of the metal piece strapped to his side – the awkwardness of its bulk. Money buys almost everything on this world, technology the only constraint. The weapon, if nothing else, ensured he meant business. There was no point being clever about it, he decided. This was straight out vengeance but against an enemy he hadn't even yet identified. No point trying to hide it once there. He'd avoided the place he'd been supposed to attend, missed his own scheduled death and as a result they were going to take everything away from him. Punish him, if they couldn't reach him – he reasoned.

The industrial estate had easy access, the large gate wide open. The set of buildings in their various states of decay looked abandoned, as if no one cared who entered. No cars parked in the grounds. He wandered around with his PDU set to detect anyone inside. Apparently no one, but that meant nothing against beings as advanced as Elusivers. He wanted to believe it was them and not the B'tari; the idea that such a benevolent race would eliminate their own was inconceivable now.

He tried to open doors. Then it occurred to him to run his PDU's recording of the time the attendees had met their fate. A building that was hardly distinguishable from the others. This door also locked. Just an old-style five tumbler lock. He removed the gun from his shoulder bag, took a step back. Hesitated. He'd never used a firearm before. Bought in anger if not grief, and with no considered thought of how to fire it beyond loading and pressing the trigger. The bullets were housed in a cartridge which slotted in the handle. He cocked the trigger, and with a vague memory of a gun being trained and fired in a movie, held it out in front of him, aimed at the lock. Then gradually squeezed the trigger, harder and harder. Then: on the B of the bang, he recoiled back, shock at not only the noise but the force that discharged from the weapon. It never seemed like that in the movies. He nearly lost his balance. Missed the target. The door had a shattered hole in it just below the lock. So he aimed once more, tensed his muscles. This time the recoil was reduced enough that the bullet had struck fractionally below the lock.

As Toramin inspected it, he noticed a curious euphoria in him, an empowerment. Flooded with adrenaline, heart racing at the limit, buzzing in his ears. A weapon that could end life in a second. Obvious but not truly considered.

He pushed open the door. Trained the gun for whoever was waiting on the other side.

Just an empty room. A short mottled sky-blue corridor. A cloakroom, such melancholic resonance, reminding him of school. Coat hooks along one side but no coats. Two doors either side. Unlocked. Rooms empty. His PDU was confirming this. One door at the end. That had to be it, where the others were eliminated. PDU telling him the room was empty. The door, though, was locked. He took a few steps back, trained the gun. Squinted and tensed in preparation. Bang! The recoil not so bad, hit near enough, but its noise in here was painful. If his inner ears were damaged, repair would happen via chemical regeneration reforming the tiny hair cells, otherwise a man of his age would have gone death long before now.

He kicked the door open, feeling that movie-character empowerment. But the room echoed in its emptiness. It looked as if it hadn't been used for decades – beige wall emulsion peeling, cobwebs.

Then just as he was starting to feel that this visit was no more than vengeance-filled foolishness his PDU grabbed his attention, bleeping. It was showing some faint EM activity. Specifically in one area, so he let the device guide him to where it was concentrated. Somewhere beneath this old brown carpet. His PDU adjusted its sensors to locate the hatch. When he inspected it closely he noticed the separate section of carpet. Using his house-key he pulled up the section to reveal the outline of the hatch. A dark translucent panel with what looked like a laser reader. He instinctively placed his palm on it and to his surprise the hatch flipped open by some hydraulic method. A rung of steps in an illuminated tunnel. His PDU was now picking up life signs. No question of turning back now despite how vulnerable he must be, descending to his fate.

At the bottom, another short corridor but silver panelled. It led only to one end door. Life-signs on the other side. The door had an up-pull lever. He placed his hand on the lever, giving it a slow pressure. It was moving, then the door released. The sudden woosh of air startled him, before the shock of what he saw next. Brightly lit, a laboratory. A station of operations. But more than just that, it extended into glassed off areas. He got a sense of only seeing a fraction of a vast complex.

They're here. His eyes drawn to the reptilian-humanoid figures. B'tari, hundreds of them. The memory suddenly returned to what had happened to them. He recalled the replayed section. They had disappeared, that's all his PDU could tell him. And down here, in their frantic activities, their conversations. They were here. Alive. He stood, stock still, just taking in this ensemble. It was like he had entered another world, a self contained metropolis where the real action was happening. No so dissimilar to the Hub but even a more of buzz.

One of the B'tari approached. More human-looking than the others. The white suit was a give-away. 'Toramin Eblou,' he said, smiling. 'I'm special operations consultant Zurdino. It is good to meet you. We were sorry you could not have made it to the meeting a few days ago.'

'Oh, that. I wondered about that.'

'You did?' A brief chuckle. 'Things are not as you expected, I suppose.'

'They are not.'

'Yet you appreciate our need for secrecy, given the threat.'

The image of her was stark in his mind. The anger still there. 'But you...' The words were not.

We... what?' A look of concern he could not tell if genuine.

'Murdered.' There, he'd got the word out.

The b'tari took a step back, squinted as if trying to focus on some elusive detail. 'I don't understand.'

'Someone murdered my friend. Could it have been one of you?'

A searing look, fixed on Toramin, like a search beam on quarry. 'Firstly, Mr Eblou, we are not in the business of murder. Secondly, such an act would only attract attention.'

'Well, someone killed her,' he pointed out.

'I can assure you we had nothing to do with any murder.'

'Then who else?' he threw back, wanting them to name the enemy.

'Someone who wants to make you angry, aggrieved.'

'Well it worked. It got me to come here.'

'Yes, I can understand your line of thinking. But be assured, we had already offered you the chance to be a part of our operations. But it seemed you were not willing.'

'But you told me nothing,' Toramin protested. 'Other than to attend a meeting.'

'But now you see why.'

'I see someone who does not want to take responsibility for the murder of an innocent woman.'

'At this very moment, I have issued a warning to security. Clearly you were motivated to come here, at some effort. And whoever motivated you will not be far.'

'So you are telling me you – the B'tari – were not in any way responsible?'

'We are not in the business of murdering people, Mr Eblou,' the b'tari reiterated.

Toramin shook his head, but he was glad to have it confirmed – complete certainty. 'I didn't want any of this. Just a quiet life.'

'And we understand that. We are not your impediment to living such a life.'

There had to be some way to avoid turning any blame on himself. But no way to stop these thoughts creeping up on him: my selfishness had led to Marrianne's death. I've become a liability. Never thoughts he could voice. Instead: 'They set me on this trail so they could follow me to your secret bunker. Is that it?'

'Security had reported no intrusions to this compound. However, if it's the Elusivers we are dealing with, they could even be amongst us.'

'Or they could have just intended to make you – us – become paranoid. It's what they do, isn't it to trigger chaos and distrust?'

'Agreed,' Zurdino nodded. 'A formal attack would meet with a robust response.'

'I am sorry, then, if I've compromised your security.'

The b'tari waved away Toramin's apology. 'Please, Toramin, follow me,' he said.

The b'tari led him past the multifarious consoles. 'You see all this. All those B'tari – they are merely monitors of surrounding activity. If someone invades this system, even the Elusivers, we should know. We have analysed their tech.'

'You've taken something of theirs?' The b'tari didn't answer but kept walking. Toramin followed him onto an escalator where they descended.

They emerged into a vast hanger, at least twice the size of a sports stadium with a roof likewise higher. But that wasn't what caught his attention. The ship took up most of the hanger. A chrome-effect silver reflecting the strip lights; the bustle of activity surrounding; robot arms and figures in lab jumpsuits. The craft itself: a ridged tapered shape to a nose cone, side nacelles aerodynamically moulded. It looked like a concept sports car, except its size was on another scale. He imagined it could comfortably hold over a thousand, perhaps five thousand humanoids. As they got nearer Toramin revised his estimate to eight thousand.

'What---' Toramin only managed.

'Is it for? Unfortunately I am not authorised to tell you. At least at this stage.'

'You don't trust me? You think the Elusivers will extract it from me?'

'That is certainly a possibility,' nodded the b'tari.

'Then why take me down here?'

'It was likely you would have forced your way down here. And we are reluctant to use violent resistance. Besides, we want your trust.'

'That's a two-way street, fella.'

Zurdino looked at him quizzically. 'You are perfectly at liberty to guess the nature of this project.'

'Some kind of Arc-ship, right?'

'Interesting guess.'

'There aren't enough B'tari here to fill it.'

'Correct.'

'Am I invited to board?'

'We would not refuse you admission.'

'Glad to hear it.'

Zurdino gave a cogitative hand to mouth gesture that or may not have been genuine? 'But, Toramin, this is your home. Why would you not want to remain?'

'Because, given what happened to my friend, my life may be in danger.' It was a curious feeling how those words seemed to slip out.

'You fear death?'

'Do I?' It was a troubling question. This unfamiliar b'tari was prompting him to open up. Still, there seemed no reason not to be honest. 'I really hadn't considered it,' he admitted. 'I fear being caught, interrogated, brain-wiped – having knowledge extracted by force.'

'Then best you know as little as possible.'

'Why was I summoned here in the first place?' Toramin wondered.

'Because, as you may appreciate, you are a target for the Elusivers. We are responsible for that, and as such we owe you sanctuary.' There it was, put starkly.

'Well, I appreciate the offer,' went Toramin's swift reply. However, if my cards are marked then so be it.'

Zurdino looked at him curiously. 'Your cards?'

'I mean I will deal with the situation I am presented with, not try to escape my fate.'

Zurdino nodded. 'You know the way out.'

'So long.' The only words that seemed appropriate, before he turned to face the exit.

* * *

### 48

Z

For now she remembered. The first stage of the immersion. Still remembered donning the headset, lying back. Then the cargo hold losing its form to this white mist that seemed to be illuminated. Gradually thinning to reveal a forest. Still she could wonder how the inbuilt hardware, and software of the connected blocks interacted with the ship's computer – after so much time of quiescence. Was it appropriating the processor cores to become fully functional?

A woods in winter. Zerrana found herself amongst bare trees. The sun low on the horizon shone on some distant branches. She walked over a cushion of dead leaves, wondering if there was some symbolism.

Something passed by farther out. It made a whining noise, some kind of motorised vehicle. She reached a road, more of a lane. No sign of anything passing. The trees ahead were illuminated by golden sunlight. Early winter sun near dusk, that special time of year, whether Earth or B'tar. An ethereal quality, a moment of serenity in what could otherwise be a bleak time. A moment just to be in the present. A rare moment, often never enjoyed unencumbered by life's burden. Her life outside here felt so distant it seemed itself like a dream. She could, with enough will, believe this was her true reality. Her senses told her nothing to contradict such a notion.

The road continued on. The sun continued to sink. She felt a chill. A light jacket. Who controlled that? She was just a subject within.

The road became more rutted, eventually leading to another woods. Then she noticed the tower above the tree line, no more than a silhouette in the encroaching twilight. The road became more like a track. This was the only road and someone had gone this way. Now the tower was becoming obscured by mist. The track less well defined in the final fading light. But she forged on. Were they making it difficult for her? Even here she looked human. Could they mistake her for one?

The woods cleared to a garden of grandiose proportions, flowers vibrant – lit by a row of lanterns, resembling ancient street lights, delineating a stone path. No concern about generating power, here, she mused. Yet the tower itself remained dark, like something gothic and, well, forbidding. Still, that wouldn't stop her.

Yet as Zerrana reached what must be the main entrance she found her heart racing. The door, made from oak – all mottled and worn of varnish – had a large iron knocker. She hesitated. The dark tower; not exactly inviting strangers, despite the illuminated path. No turning back now, only one course of action. She slammed the knocker against the supposedly ancient oak; its knock resonant yet firm. The tower's top seemed to loom even higher as if it had become imbued with an ineffably strange life. And here, why not? Here she didn't know the rules, hadn't studied the hardware. Now she wished she had.

She knocked again. Waited. And when the door finally opened Zerrana recoiled, almost falling backwards. A b'tari, unaltered. No surprise there, but the clothing she didn't recognise even from historical accounts, he wore a heavy woollen brown cardigan.

'Mar Zoranzi,' he intoned, 'We've been expecting you. I hope the journey was a smooth one. I understand the system likes to guard against strangers.'

'Strangers?' she said, with other questions pressing to be asked.

'Outsiders have tried to gain access. Some have arrived in the guise of ourselves – of lost family, friends.' Still in the doorway he leaned in towards her, somewhat menacingly. 'There are those among us who were not who they claimed to be,' he said in intimate tones. 'At first very convincing, until we discovered the most subtle differences. And then we eliminated them.'

Subtle – eliminated? 'How did you do that in here?' A question she was already regretting.

He wagged his finger. 'No, no. I cannot reveal that. After all, although you look very much like Zerrana, you equally could be an imposter.'

'Who else could I be?'

'An agent for the Elusivers.'

It didn't seem he was going to let her in now. 'They infiltrated your network? Doesn't the system reject anyone not B'tari?' She was sure it should.

'It hadn't rejected you.'

'I still have B'tari DNA, I patched through using a system – my ship – that parleys it.'

'Nevertheless, they can fool many systems.'

'Are you not going to let me in then?' Even in this virtual realm she felt weak. Wanted to sit down. Wanted to find someone else inside.

'Of course, Zerrana. But, please, you must understand my cautiousness.' Then he stood back from the door to allow her in. 'I'm Zintaldo, by the way,' he added.

She followed him along a dimly lit corridor. The lighting itself appeared to consist of gas lamps, a curious affectation. An irony, she thought as they passed into a similarly lit living room, rejecting modern tech – the very reason for their existence.

'Please take a seat,' he indicated a high back leather-effect chair. 'My housekeeper is preparing you a meal, a B'tari delicacy. I hope in your current form you are still able to eat it.'

She sat back in the chair, a stentorian comfort imposed on her. A grandfather-style clock tick-tocked in emphasis.

'Who else lives here – apart from your... housekeeper?' She tried to ask in the meekest possible way.

'Only my housekeeper. My wife died twelve years ago.'

This was odd, she thought. They could all be dead, all mind-captured at the point of death. 'How, may I ask, did---'

'I prefer not to speak of Zariadne's demise.' He was shaking his head as though it truly did pain him.

She partially raised her hand as a peace gesture.'I don't wish to pry.'

'Something went wrong in the capture process. We were under attack, there was not much time. So she died twice.'

'Did any survive?'

'Some. I don't know how many.' He shook his head. 'All may have been killed escaping the planet, or the solar system.'

'But you made mind-copies thinking death was a likely outcome?' she wondered aloud, regretting the forthrightness of the question.

At that point a mature b'tari female entered the room carrying a tray containing the steaming delicacies so beloved of her kind. The female – his housekeeper – gave a nod of acknowledgement to Zintaldo. It soon appeared as if they were communicating by some telepathic means. He then rose to make his way to the room's central table.'Please join me, will you.' His housekeeper placed down the plates, glasses and a bottle of drink, before leaving. All without a word spoken. That left Zerrana a tad uncomfortable.

Zerrana felt she had to join him just out of politeness. He poured into her glass what she understood to be B'tari zubro (similar to Earth red wine) until it was near full. It was a large glass, though he did the same for his.

'Please, don't wait for me,' he said. 'Now, you were just asking why we broke with convention. Well, TD protocol – if you will.'

'It's OK,' she said between mouthfuls. 'I understand. Those were extraordinary circumstances.' She drank some zubro hoping to wash down this surprisingly bitter b'tari food, not it seemed really agreeing with her human-like palette.

'Indeed,' he conformed. 'We had been left by the majority of our colony. Understandable really; returning to B'tar after what happened, seeing a world inhabited by creatures that we evolved from. A sobering reminder that we were not always such enlightened beings.'

'Sobering, for sure.' She took another swig of zubro. She'd almost drained it, so Zintaldo topped it up.

'History shows our kind has always been there for support of our kin even when help could be life-threatening to the helpers. That's what the Temporal Directive had taught us.'

Zerrana only nodded.

'So I say to you,' he continued, 'if others of our kind do not even honour the Temporal Directive, then why should we?'

'That's a fair point.' Was this her second or third glass of zubro? She seemed to be drinking most of the bottle. But could she even get drunk in this virtual realm?

'Mind-capture was our insurance policy. But it was only supposed to be a temporary measure.'

'Until you could grow new bodies.'

'That was the idea.'

'Perhaps I can help you with that.'

'You really believe so?'

Zerrana noticed he hadn't eaten much. He seemed agitated. No, angry.

'Of course without easy access to resources out here, it will be---'

'A challenge. No, Zerrana. More than just a challenge.'

'How so?' Really should ease up on the zubro now.

'I am one of very few who can still function normally in this place.'

'I don't understand.'

'Hmm,' then a sharp intake of breath. 'Allow me to show you.' He rose abruptly. 'Please follow me, Zerrana.'

Even in her mildly inebriated state she felt apprehension. Still she followed him, down some stairs. A short door at an angle, leading into a cellar. A light went on, the first electric one she had seen in this realm. At that very moment she could hear plaintive groaning. Then when she saw the figure it made her gasp. The figure was strapped to what appeared to be an operating table, and so misshapen Zerrana couldn't discern the gender.

Zintaldo, turned to face Zerrana. 'I'd like you to meet my wife Zeldrina.' He said it so plainly, much like a normal introduction.

'I. I don't.' She could not manage any more words, just stared in horror at the creature, writhing and groaning. Suffering.

'Of course, I'd prefer it if she were dead. But that is not possible in here.'

'No. Surely---'

'Yes. This place is infected with a virus. Somebody wanted us trapped in here forever, to fade into base algorithms.'

'How could you leave her like that? There must be something you can do?'

'I keep her drugged most of the time. Or whatever code passes for barbiturates. And although she looks to be suffering she is barely aware of her surroundings. The virus, you see, degrades cognitive function.'

'I'm sorry,' was all she could manage now.

'So am I.' A firm nod. 'Sorry I ever decided to continue in this form. Sorry that you reactivated our sim.'

'I can help you.'

He grabbed her by the shoulders, his fury palpable. 'You mean switch us off? Destroy us? End our existence?'

'I can do that. If that's what you want.'

'But you can't. Not now. Because you also are trapped in here.'

'No.' Shaking her head vigorously. 'That's not true. I can leave any time.'

He smiled. A maddened smile. 'You also will be infected. Others have tried, B'tari have ported in. But their real minds were destroyed. Others have pretended to offer help but they were only part of the virus.'

'That doesn't make sense. My ship is monitoring me, it can bring me out with one request.'

'Try it then.'

'Egress – 7,4,5,8.' There was more but she could not remember it. 'Six. No – seven.'

'Already, you see. It is eating your mind.'

'No. It's just the drink.'

'Ah, the drink.' She didn't like the way he said that.

'Then I need to sober up.'

'Or it might have been the food.'

'What did you do?'

That grin of his frightened her. 'I made a deal... to end my torment.'

'What?'

The cellar walls seemed to be closing in on her. The floor, it was rising. The floor, the walls, were going to take her. Crushed to an infinite nothing.

* * *

### 49

R

Roidon had returned to his ship. Although he had every faith in his AI there was always that nagging doubt of an Elusiver ship appearing from another spacial dimension. And though unlikely he'd be able to see anything the ship couldn't, artificial systems were still not immune from corruption, and the Elusivers were very much pro corrupting artificial systems. As far as scanners could detect, local space was empty, and if anything hostile did appear evasive manoeuvres would be in play. Yet there was a problem: the two ships were still connected. In an emergency, the ship told him the airlock tunnel would be released in a fraction of a second. But every fraction was critical.

No. This wouldn't do. Remaining here they were like sitting ducks. And frankly he was bored, just glancing at a console every now and then. Otherwise the projected view into space was at first a revelation in beauty, the seeming infinitude of stars. Now he saw them as tainted – denuded of their natural life-cycle, even though a few million or twenty million years really made no discernible difference to any visual observation. Such a timescale was no more than a blip in astronomical terms. But anyway, even normal stars became boring after a while.

Roidon decided Zerrana had had long enough immersed. At least, she'd either leave with him or stay on her own. The console view showed her motionless in the chair, her body infused with the paralysis signal typical of REM sleep. And from here he had no feed on her vital signs.

The room illuminated more brightly on his arrival. It was only when he got within a metre of Zerrana's monitoring console he saw there was something wrong, her EEG was all over the place, pulse erratic. She had to be in distress. But Roidon knew enough about AR immersion programs to acknowledge that he could not simply disconnect her. Breaking the link had the risk of causing sudden neural trauma.

'Computer. Can you give me a more detailed diagnostic of Zerrana?'

'Analysing. Emergency mode is engaged. Subject's higher cortical functions have been depleted. Neural transmitters have been bolstered. However, a feedback cascade from the sim means permanent damage is likely.'

'In that case can disconnecting have a worse outcome?'

'At this stage disconnection may well cause a spike in the feedback, and therefore most probably fatal.'

'How did the sim become corrupted?'

'That information is not available.'

'Can you give me a visual interface of the sim?'

'The program is firewalled, access only through direct neural connection.'

'Then I have no other option.'

The computer did not answer. Roidon took that as acquiescence. Yet he hoped for at least a word of caution. Of course it made sense; this was Zerrana's ship and her safety was the priority even if it meant sacrificing Roidon, even if for him it was a fool's errand likely to end in his demise. Just the very possibility that he could rescue her meant only one logical choice. And if he could? Her eternal gratitude.

Hero time.

The ship helpfully produced an adjacent couch, moulded from out of the floor. One spare interface band, no more room for redundancy. For the few seconds before connection, Roidon took to consider what could well be a permanent death. No one to revive him out here, no one to capture his mind-state. Even if a copy existed. Well, what did that matter anyway?

'Connect me,' he ordered.

'Five seconds.'

He thought of the Elusivers coming out of their hiding, poised to take control if not destroy. The ship had evasive patterns to deal with such an event, certainly better than the comparatively glacial time it would take him to react. Somehow destroying them both would be too easy – enough to seem immoral even to the Elusivers. No, the greatest risk was capture, along with thousands of B'tari minds.

Or was that his only hope?

Roidon found himself in a woods, a forest perhaps. Bare trees illuminated. In the far distance he thought he could see the spire of a tower. An underused overgrown track extended before him. A narrow route that seemed to lead the way.

After only a few minutes of following this path. The once promise of sun on a crisp winter's day turned to mist. And mist to fog. The distant tower now gone. In this realm Roidon had nothing but his self awareness. Back in the day that would have felt like enough; the self-assurance of a man not yet touched by failure, just a belief in his inherent ability to work out a plan – a way through seemingly impossible odds. Going in without thought of preparation now felt like the impetuousness of old Roidon.

Only here there were no signs, no north or south, east or west. He felt more lost and helpless than in the forest on B'tar. 'Computer,' Roidon mumbled. 'Give me something at least.'

He was not particularly surprised to receive no reply. He was an outsider. The system would, if it could, reject him like a foreign virus. Except it had already been infected by one virus. Maybe he would only be seen as another symptom.

He felt the mist – which was now more like fog – cold upon his face. His clothes of light cotton top and retro-jeans (the same as his real-life version wore) woefully inadequate in here. Heavy and damp soaking in the moisture. All designed to make him despair, he mused. Yet he continued to walk forwards, seemingly purposeful. No other way.

Here was something like a path through the dense forest. Trees everywhere. The path rutted, overgrown with nettles and bracken as if unused for years. Perhaps it hadn't been. He increased his pace. The trees became fewer.

You're not stopping me, he affirmed in his mind.

Then the trees ended. He thought he heard traffic, very distant. The track became a road. After about five minutes he reached an intersection. Forwards, left or right. His instinct was to go forwards.

Something behind him. Roidon jumped to the grass siding at what he heard next: 'Jar vandoor zarda!' Words in B'tar he'd never bothered to learn but he understood he was being told to move aside. A b'tari on an old Earth-style pedal bike, who took the right road. Roidon wanted to call out, to ask directions, but the cyclist seemed to be in a hurry.

Right. The thought just sprang into his head. Taking that direction was without much consideration. An impetuousness that came back to trouble him after less than a minute of walking this country road with no destination in sight. But now he had committed himself. The assumption that in the absence of contrary evidence he'd latch on to some – to any example to follow. Such an act would have been an anathema to his old self. To his-self on the outside. What was different here? A cognitive deficit? Lack of confidence? A sense of unfamiliarity?

Still he kept walking. Up ahead a road sign, shaped to a point. The town: 5 kilometres. He started running now until eventually buildings emerged. Another junction, with signs pointing in every direction. Town centre 2 kilometres. He followed that direction. A sprawling metropolis. In the last fading of daylight, the towers illuminated. A plaza of bright coloured lights. It suddenly reminded him of a place he had visited in twenty-second century Earth, in some previous incarnation. It was a place of indulgence, hedonism, debauchery. It was a place that would have once delighted him, when he was new to being human. When he wanted to taste all that had to offer. And now he could see the places where they displayed all they had to offer. Ladies of the night perched on high-stalls behind glass, scantily clad. And as he passed them they tried to catch his eye. But now he hurried along. He knew what this was. An obvious distraction. Something sensing his resolve must be weak, perhaps ever since he blindly followed the cyclist. Yet the Roidon of a previous incarnation would surely have thought: Well, why not? Since I'm here. Since this is only generated. The logical thought: make good this mistake; get something out of it instead of... I made a mistake, accept it and turn back. Take the road that first felt right. Take the hit to your pride.

He walked among tower blocks brightly lit from apartments and from spotlights below, banishing any stars in the ink-black sky. He approached the tallest tower, hoping it would be the place of activity, of information. But as he got to the main entrance the lights winked out, even the upward projected spotlights. All the towers loomed unlit except by the faint wash of half a moon. At first he thought it was his mind playing tricks. Maybe here that's all it could be, or the interface with whatever the program generated. Tower blocks losing their shape, stretching upwards. They developed an oddly organic quality. Some had sprouted out-growths in stepped levels. He had a fearful sense of a town intent on reclaiming him. And with that thought the towers arched down towards him. There was no need to even choose his next action. He ran.

Back to the plaza. But the plaza with no longer lights or the women. Only the faint moonlight on a barren concrete plain. Grass constantly sprouting through cracks. Concrete to wasteland, as if time were progressing hundreds of years per minute.

Not real. None of it is real. But not meaningless.

No time to think it through. Roidon kept running, back towards the road from which he had come. He thought he knew it, thought he could rely on his memory. That old oak tree, sure he'd seen that before. No road, only woods. To go into woods means to be truly lost, so he reversed some way back into the town, but the town was barely visible save for the faint tracings of what looked liked giant trees. He desperately tried to remember the position of the what was once the plaza, and the direction from which he had approached it. Has to be here.

Somehow he had walked straight past the road, astonished at how he could have missed it. Had it vanished temporarily? Somehow that seemed unfair, as even here there had to be rules. Or everything falls apart. Maybe, he mused, everything is. And now he was locked into the system as much as Zerrana. Yet he continued to run, struggled to keep from hitting the sidings in the pallid light. He passed the sign. The road he had taken, right. So left. And returned to where he had seen the tower. Thought he could see it, its spire catching what faint light the moon projected.

The path untrodden and covered in undergrowth, his foot catching a nettle – its irritating sting able to permeate the thin material over his calves. Seemed he was being discouraged from this route, only making him more determined. I know how this works, the mantra in his head. But nothing had really hindered him beyond undergrowth and almost total darkness.

The tower itself, a vague and warted building with a narrow spire hundreds of metres high. Lifeless. But somehow he knew he had to get inside. Not that knocking on the door seemed likely to bring anyone. The result of kicking the door surprised him when it shattered, like wood rotten from centuries of neglect. Not the darkness he expected either. A red glow beyond a short corridor through an open door into a living-room. The glow so enticing: warmth, life beyond the barrenness. There could be no other place. A shallow russet dome in the room's centre. The dome pulsated gently. Roidon took a stride to its edge. The answers lay in here.

'Roidon, no!' The voice in his head. Faint, but surely the ship's computer.

'Where else can I go?'

'Your brain will not withstand it. Activity is too concentrated.'

'She's in there. You know it.'

'Her consciousness, yes. But is in such turmoil.'

'You can protect me; down regulate my neural activity. Look, you know she has to be pulled out mentally or she will die.'

'Desist,' came the simple... command?

'But you were the one who recommended I enter in the first place.' Well, at least you hadn't discouraged me.

'Not I.'

'You: Zerrana's ship AI.'

'No, the ship is consigned to defence monitoring. I am her AI. Formerly, the one she created.'

Here? 'Yes, I do remember you. Guess you're here to save her.'

'I am going in. I know it will try to stop me. Go back to the front door.'

Roidon still was very much tempted to enter the dome, its inner light pulsations grew brighter. Quite possibly it would kill him. Yet what a death that would be! Somehow magnificent, perhaps glorious. Or at least intense. What kind of life did he have out of here? He was a target almost as much as Zerrana's AI. And if the Elusivers caught on that possibly the most advanced sentient machine intelligence was on board her ship, it would be destroyed without hesitation. If they were doomed anyway ...

He took a step further towards the dome, could feel its enticing electrical field.

'Roidon. I beseech you.' Such archaic language stunned Roidon into holding back. Perhaps they could both die glorious deaths before in reality being obliterated.

He retreated back down the corridor, almost entirely dark but for the red glow filtering through the open door, still having to mostly feel his way to the main door. If nothing else, this experience had been a humbling one. Oh how Zerrana would be tickled at that. Or she may already be gone; he never considered himself as one of those who liked holding on to the personality of the dead, it was mere sentimental comforting. Yet he'd refuse to accept she'd truly died before seeing the evidence.

Roidon fumbled for the large round handle, feeling it heft and creak. Outside was total darkness. But it wasn't long before he saw a light, gaining rapidly in size. A sound of whirring servos. A momentary dazzle from the white light – lights, one on each side of its head, curved downwards in wide beams to illuminate the sentient AI. Not in anyway humanoid, not even android, this was a robot. A bipedal, something from late twentieth century SF: a terminator without the flesh. Was this how it wanted to be represented?

'It knows what I am.' it told him. 'The virus targets biological intruders – such as you.'

'It won't regard you as a threat?'

'It will. But it will have to adapt. There isn't much time.'

'And I just leave?'

'You will be needed to witness what happens to me.' The AI gestured for Roidon to move aside.

'Glad I have some useful role,' he commented as he followed the AI power walking down the now fully lit corridor.

The dome appeared to be dimming, as if it were reacting to the metal man, who now stood at its edge, in either contemplation or hesitation.

'Do you have a name?' Roidon enquired.

Metal man half turned. 'I have a designation. But Zerrana referred to me as Ovrah.'

'Not very B'tari, but somehow familiar. I can understand your not wanting to jump in haste.'

'I am considering the possibilities – annihilation, trauma to my processing net, or something beyond what I can imagine.'

'It will be something totally new,' Roidon agreed. 'I am still prepared to enter it if you're not.'

'You no longer make the distinction between courageous or logical?'

'I gave up on logic a lifetime ago.' Roidon wasn't sure how true that was.

'My logic tells me I must enter now. Observe and then leave this place.'

Ovrah took a few steps back and then leapt into the dome. It happened so quickly. He disappeared as if through a portal to another realm. Roidon was suddenly struck by the urge to follow. Just to see, just to know. There was hardly anything to report, and that was surely to be expected. Ovrah and perhaps even the ship's AI wanted Roidon spared, for some unfathomable reason. So he did as was instructed, like the soldier he felt reduced to be.

Daylight had returned as if hours had passed in minutes. Then he walked as the trees became subsumed by an even brighter light.

* * *

### 50

T

As consciousness flowed back to him Toramin looked about his bedroom. The simple uncluttered design, the pine-wood panelling of the walls. How many mornings over how many years had he awoken here? For a few minutes it felt as if nothing had changed, that he could go through his usual routine. Maybe go for a walk, over the same paths and hills, then return nicely tired. And not have to really think about the future, or the past. After so many decades, one day became indistinguishable from the next. He could idle away hours on end, for all the difference it made, knowing others no more fit struggled through each minute to complete their daily work. There was no need to seek out work, for he had only to check his investments, cash one or two in if really in need of a major spend. This life was in any case his de facto retirement. Financial security and a comfortable life. All to himself.

He lay still, trying to hold on to the last fading strands of a dream. It was her. They'd become lovers, or at least they had kissed. He'd taken that chance with Marianne. Seized the moment, rather than once again excusing himself; assuring himself there'd always be the next time. Always tomorrow, or next week, if not next year. That was the problem.

Had he got her killed just by returning? Most likely, he could logically convince himself. Did he have to return? The alternative seemed grim. Yet being here now felt... wrong. Too many years. Time to find a way out, his only way to conclude that line of thought.

He then sat up. 'Murdered,' he muttered. So much now seemed beyond control of any normal authority on this world that he just accepted nothing could be done. If it was the Elusivers, the evidence would either be covered up or – and suddenly he felt the spike of stress response pierce through him – he'd be implicated. He was surprised he hadn't already been taken for arrest. It surely must only be a matter of time. Had the utter weirdness of recent events subsumed normal rationalizing of the world?

The room seem to spin as he stumbled out of bed. Self preservation, is this what you've been reduced to? No, save them the trouble, go to them with what I know. Toramin went over in his mind the exact sequence of events. Only the whole episode seemed shrouded in a curious unreality. He even began to wonder whether he'd actually seen her dead. Maybe it was a way to get him to visit the compound.

'I have to go back,' he said for his consciousness to absorb. 'Go back and know for sure. Go back for answers.'

Within ten minutes Toramin was in his car heading back towards her house. A feeling of doubt rising like bile from his stomach, thoughts of a rotting corpse still in her bedroom, eaten away by maggots. At this point he considered turning back. At the very least park up the car, get out for fresh air. But no. Only another few minutes and he was outside Marianne's place, in its gentile suburban surroundings. He decided, best not to imagine anything now, as difficult as that was. But he forced himself up the steps to her door. He rang it, not really expecting an answer.

Toramin nearly fell back when a middle-aged woman answered. For a brief moment he thought it was Marianne. But this was a stranger. She was looking at him expectantly. 'Can I help you?' she said.

His throat felt constricted. Had to force the words that came out in a rasp. 'Marian---. Is she... here?'

'Marianne,' the woman repeated. 'Is that who you said?'

'Yes?' he managed.

'No one here by that name. It seems you have the wrong address.'

'She lives---lived here.'

'Sorry, there is just me.' Then after a pause: 'And my partner.'

'Oh.'

'Well. I'd suggest checking the datanet. It's quite comprehensive these days.' she then gently closed the door on him.

This was her house. Marrianne's. Even if his memory was unreliable, the satnav – as a rule – wasn't. He thought of knocking on her door again, insisting that Marianne must live here. Dead Marianne; disappeared Marianne. Marianne who was never here in the first place, except in his troubled mind? Instead he returned to his car. Checked the net records, the ones that had confirmed she lived here. Yet despite repeated enquiries, just a blank. It was as if those records no longer existed. There were a few others with the same first and second names, and it was possible one or two of these could be her, hundreds of miles away. But had he imagined the original record of her living here? Such an elaborate delusion, hallucination, seemed incredible. Requesting the current owner of this address – or most, he imagined – drew a blank, if only for reasons of the owner's need for privacy.

For ten minutes he remained in his car, just staring at the place, still considering ringing again, and then if she answered he'd simply barge in, search round. But likely the woman wouldn't answer; likely she had already informed state security of this strange man lingering outside her home. Then his options here were gone. There was only one other.

Until this moment, he'd resolved not to go back to the B'tari secret compound; it was a decision that had felt to be fixed in his mind, granite-firm. But now there was no escaping its draw. In that compound lay the vaguest chance of a new beginning, a new world, a new life. An easy escape, if also a way to hand over his life. Surely not how they'd see it. They'd take up the role of his protectors – of this precious protégé who may even be useful but whose work was too secretive for even him to retain knowledge of. Not that he was sure there'd ever been any special assignments. How convenient to remove his memory. Make him believe he was special to them; make him believe anything, so he could be their patsy, their foil.

Nevertheless. He set the car to the previous safe distance coordinates, an area discreet enough where it seemed others parked their vehicles for lack of alternative spaces. He started out without bothering to check his PDU, sure that he knew the route. Here the houses dissipated to unused commercial buildings, an area once prosperous in the days of small traders, repair shops, garages and disused fuel stations. He'd heard rumours that women hung around these parts at night offering their own special services, using some of the buildings to conduct their business. He had been tempted; there was something rather thrilling in the illicit nature of an encounter on the boarders of legality if not immorality. At his age reputation no longer really mattered, and that those to whom it did matter had already died, after living their virtuous life. Virtue, reputation, legacy – so few of those ever lasted once a person is dust, he mused. And for the close ones they left behind, all was forgotten in time. All was dust. If there ever was an epitaph to his life it would be no more noticed than the fallen tree in a dense forest.

Have I had enough fun?

He reached the industrial estate, but found the gate locked, surrounded by an equally high fence of about ten metres. There was no intercom that he could find. He took out his gun contemplating the likelihood of being able to shoot the chunky padlocks. The noise would carry for miles even if a bullet was effective. With no razor wire it at least seemed more configured for the type of security to keep out the casually curious. Scaling it would be an effort, he might slip. But he saw no alternative. So he climbed, feeling a spike of adrenalin through to his fingers as they grasped between the wire fencing, the tips of his shoes barely able to gain purchase. Still he persevered until his hands reached the top, then continued to push upwards with his feet. Then with palms on a cable top (he suspected had once been electrified) he swung his legs over, acutely aware of how oddly deviant it must look. And he thought he gained purchase with his foot, but that slipped. He found himself sliding down, finally grasping a hold through for barely a second before his hand slipped. And the next he knew he was on the ground but thankfully in long grass. When he tried to rise to his feet he felt the searing pain of his ankle. It had somehow become twisted. But now he had made it over there was only forward. The ankle would be repaired in hours, he hoped, by the nanochines. In the meantime he dragged it uncomfortably along towards the building he remembered was being used by the B'tari.

He checked to confirm with his PDU even though he was sure. This was the right building. The aged blue wooden door that he had blasted open looked solid, and when he tried it, locked as if he'd never shot it. Or for some reason had been replaced by an identical one. He pondered this oddity for about a minute then trained on the lock, squinted, tensed his arm muscles perhaps a little too much, and fired. The recoil felt less shocking than last time, even his aim stayed more or less on the target. The door swung open without shattering. Then looked behind, in case they, the authorities or whoever, were waiting to pounce. But his PDU should warn him of anyone's approach. Should, he thought, but had his doubts, especially if his pursuer happened to be an Elusiver.

He strode at almost a running pace through the familiar dark corridor, reaching an unlocked door at the end that he remembered. It opened without force. The large room was empty and with its fading paintwork as before. His PDU, set to pick up any signs of life or electrical activity, detected nothing. Regardless, he walked to where he remembered the hatch to be under some carpet that was reassuringly still there. Yet this carpet was even covering the entire floor. If there was a separate section he couldn't find it, even though he thought he was in the correct area. With his PDU providing nothing as guidance he felt little confidence in finding it.

Could they have left? Completed their work in less than a week?

It was an odd feeling, that his previous visit had felt like no more than a dream in all its incredibility. He imagined trying to explain it to a local. Aliens setting up base on a world that has barely developed spacefaring technology, aliens that he has been working with to... What had been his role? It seemed so nebulous – some kind of liaison operative for more advanced aliens? An analyzer of their strategies, their psychology? Bait? An experiment? An insurance policy?

The word exploited rose in his mind but there was no accompanying anger. Just mystification. After so many centuries it was difficult to be sure if chunks of his life had gone missing or simply that his human brain could not cope with storing so many experiences. Running up, no doubt, against the ineluctable limits of biology.

Missing. Always something missing. Missed opportunities. A past that was gone, but that he had been so desperate to recapture. Missing parts to a puzzle that would make his life complete. Or someone to do just that.

The past, in all its ephemerality, formed the fundamental building blocks for whoever he was today. Take that away, and what is left? Just a thing that sees and feels, and wants and needs but without reasons beyond the biological imperative.

He ran his PDU over the floor one more time in case of some random error. In one last desperate effort he pulled up the carpet. It came up surprisingly easy. It was partially rotting, and clearly a cheap thin product only for industrial use, tearing up into sections. With only bare floor, surveying the area he thought contained the hatch. But it was all floorboards. Not that he felt in the least bit surprised. They had gone – if they were ever here at all.

He then fired a couple of shots at this area. The floorboards shattered with a painfully loud reverberation, leaving a tinnitus whine.

Finally convinced, if not a hundred percent, Toramin left the building, imagined he'd be stopped – a man with a gun on private property. Well, maybe the authorities were keeping their distance. He made it back to his car without hindrance.

Too easy, he thought. Reason enough to be suspicious. Still. With nowhere else he could think of going other than a hotel – which somehow felt like a cowardly evasion from a threat he couldn't even define, let alone substantiate – he returned to his cabin.

The smell of cooking greeted him immediately on opening the door. He considered the possibility that either the local security authorities had been waiting for him, to arrest him in the obvious place. Or his protectors, the B'tari? An Elusiver? Cooking?

As he opened the living room door Toramin could feel his heart pumping so violently it seemed whoever it was would hear. Whoever was in the armchair facing away. Whoever with the long brunette hair. Whoever...

'Toramin. Don't be afraid,' she told him.

But he was afraid. Afraid that a dead woman was talking to him.

* * *

## 51

Z

A thousand memories cascading into her mind, playing out like an AR feed on overload. Bits of her life, the time at the academy; the fleeing into exile during the Machine invasion. Amongst all those were some happier memories: her first serious lover, the graduation to full officer status. The adventures to unexplored worlds. All these pivotal events playing in simultaneous overlay. Her life compressed into a forty second loop. How she longed to grab on to some of those instances in time, to feel them as substantial. Not much else of her past she could recall. What she was seeing now felt like all.

Then some physical awareness returned. Her body in this liminal space felt wrong, insubstantial, as if it were a life-like bodysuit housing some shriveled up core. Zerrana had been absorbed into the dome. Yet she, her physical self, somewhere entirely different. But where, she really could not remember. Perhaps here was no more than a dream. Or it was the realm her kind visited on the point of death. The need just to sleep was increasing; the seductive temptation to just give in to it, not really caring that there may never be anything after. Was oblivion something to fear anyway? Just a big sleep, with nothing to ever worry about again?

Still, there was something left to be done. Something incomplete. If only she could remember. But her sleepiness was so overwhelming she hardly noticed the figure that was talking to her. It wasn't human but a kind of mechanoid, one she was familiar with; there was a rather sentient quality to its actions – its animated movements and the words it was using. Something in them that was important to her. It was in fact using her name, in a way that now commanded her attention.

'Zerrana. You must listen to me,' the metal man said in her native language. This is very important.' The voice was as metallic as its appearance.

'I'm listening,' she said, feeling a vague but curious sense of familiarity with this robot thing.

'Your real mind in under attack by a digital virus. I am here to extricate you.'

'Extricate?' She couldn't quite remember what that word meant.

'To enable you to leave. The dome you entered is where the virus can attack.'

'But I'm so tired,' she admitted.

'That's because it is trying to render your mind into a passive state.'

'What's happening to me?' She thought she had a vague idea, but now it had gone.

'Your neuronal – brain is about to be destroyed by chemicals that the virus is hijacking.'

'So tired.'

'Just hold on. Now repeat the code after me. Beginning always with the word "code".'

'Code?'

'That let's you exit. Epsilon, delta, five---' A ball of light seemingly from nowhere struck the metal man on his metal head. He was knocked back, and for a few seconds was uttering nonsensical phrases.

Zerrana nevertheless repeated the words he'd chanted. 'Code, Epsilon, delta, five.'

Metal man returned to an upright position. 'What am---'

'The code. After five.' Her immense sleepiness went into abeyance for now. Her one chance at survival.

'The code. Yes. Repeat from the beginning.' He went through the sequence. Zerrana was screwing up her face to force herself to listen to his words.

She repeated the code. Only subsequently remembering to add "code". '...Epsilon, delta, five, eight, sixteen, three, gamma.'

'Rehearse that – there's more.' Then: green lasers were firing at what seemed like random parts of his torso. He was staggering backwards. All so real in here. 'Finally: three, gamma.'

'Code. Epsilon, delta, five, eight, sixteen, three, gamma.'

Intense white.

After an indefinable moment of oblivion, followed by a state of confusion – of surreal thoughts that had no meaning beyond the time she had them – Zerrana was back on the couch in her ship. The man in the adjacent couch she expected to be Roidon. But it wasn't. She didn't recognise him, thought for a while it was her failure of memory, before Roidon did emerge through the door.

'Zerrana. How are you feeling?'

'I...' Other than confused, she wasn't really sure.

He touched her on the shoulder. A concerned friend here, more than a lover. Comforting someone in a vulnerable state. He said: 'We thought we were going to lose you for a moment. Perhaps it helps to be a b'tari in there. But you were in the virus nexus.'

Her attention drew back to the other figure on the couch; he looked typically of a b'tari who'd had human alteration work done but from a generation before hers for the lack of realism. 'Who is that?' she asked Roidon.

'Oh. He's the one that saved you from becoming a vegetable. The one you created.'

'I don't understand. That can't be.'

'Evolved from the machine intelligence, who prefers not to advertise that fact,' Roidon said, before adding: 'Something I can relate to.'

'He was clearly a mechanoid, in the sim.'

'Guess you can't hide your true nature in there,' Roidon observed.

'Is he dead?'

'Not quite, but he has become the focus for the virus program – its primary threat.'

'Why?'

'Why become the focus, or why save you?'

She nodded, still feeling wooly-headed. But this wasn't the time for answering those. Instead: 'Can the ship save him?'

'If its resources are concentrated, the computer here can isolate the virus, read it and find a counter measure. Your machine man has facilitated that.'

'And he feels he owes me his life?'

'Why wouldn't he? You gave him life.'

'No,' she insisted. 'I enabled him to live.'

'A fine distinction. But I see what you mean. You wanted the ultimate AI, you set the parameters. And there it is – he is.' Roidon pointed to the unconscious figure. 'The ultimate thinking artificial entity, bound by empathy and compassion – worthy of the pronoun he.'

'I didn't intend him to become humanoid.'

'Really? Isn't that the ultimate aspiration of any advanced artificial intellect?'

'In the sim he was attacked for appearing in his base form, like it had stripped away a disguise. If it's an Elusiver virus it will attack anything non-organic.'

'Maybe he was attacked for saving you, Zerrana.'

'That makes me feel so much better.'

'The perfect trap though, knowing the last remaining vestige of B'tari civilisation would attract all visitors technically advanced.'

Zerrana approached the unconscious Ovrah. Interface probes were still connected, suggesting Roidon hadn't given up on saving him. 'Is there any hope for him?' she asked Roidon but could equally have put that question to her ship.

'Telemetry is all over the place. He isn't really like a human or b'tari so it's having trouble adapting to his physiology; he's infused with cybernetic components. I tried to make a safe interface but the system only gives me streams of encrypted code. The ship is working on that now. But I think we can safely say he is in deep trauma.'

'Would it be any worse if you simply disconnected him?'

'It's worth considering. Things couldn't get much worse. But he is our only link to what's going on in there.'

'Look, it's bad. My people knew there'd be risks leaving themselves isolated on their besieged planet. It might be the more merciful act to destroy the sim – the entire mind-state store.'

Roidon threw her an astonished look. 'I hardly need to tell you, Zerrana, those are sentient beings – with lives, however troubled they may be.'

She glared back at him. 'You're right, Roidon. You hardly do need to tell me. But why prolong consciousness if it is only for suffering? Or at best a hopeless existence. As much as they appear to be, they are not alive.'

'What is alive? Can you really define life in only biological terms?'

She realised it was pointless to argue with Roidon, wondered if her mental faculties had been affected. Surely she wouldn't normally let herself get caught up in such an argument. Nevertheless:'Even if they are alive, if life is no more than consciousness it doesn't lessen the reason for ending theirs.'

'It is your prerogative, Zerrana.'

This didn't seem fair, making her feel the weight of responsibility. Not that he was wrong in doing so, she acknowledged. They were her people and she was unlikely to find any b'tari of greater authority to arbitrate, at least in time to stop whatever conclusion the virus would achieve. Funny, how she wished the Elusivers had simply destroyed the storage blocks in their attacks on the planet. Even if the virus hadn't been their doing they must have known the mind-states were kept on B'tar. Instead, she would have to play God. Not that B'taris believed in any god, much less to act as one.

'Have I – have we – been led into a trap?' she wondered aloud.

'There may have been a trap for any advanced visitors.' Roidon acknowledged.

'And we're not free of it, while we're here discussing options,' Zerrana added.

'So ...'

'So I think,' Zerrana declared, 'that the best option is to freeze the sim.'

'Taking it off-line is hardly more ethical than deletion.'

'Still playing god, I know,' she nodded. 'But I'm telling you, things cannot continue in that living hell.'

'You've become so human,' Roidon observed. 'Think like a b'tari.'

Now she was becoming annoyed. 'If you're advising me to consult the Temporal Directive, I can tell you now its guidance. Allow the virus to take its course, albeit while trying to find a cure. Well, our only potential cure is already in there.'

Roidon only nodded.

Freezing the sim, on the face of it was a simple matter of shutting down power. The core mind-captures should be held in their last state, but the complexities of such dense storage meant a likely quantum drift of memory, which by definition was unpredictable. Perhaps one mind-state would begin to fuse with another, or even false event memories as a result of engram corruption. She imagined it would feel similar to entering stasis, then waking to wonder how much of your life was real or just a dream. Research on this was limited, not least her knowledge of it. But in these extreme circumstances confused memory would be the least of their concern.

As she was checking the last of the sim's telemetry, Roidon was suddenly at her side. 'We have to go,' he told her. 'A ship has appeared less than a light year from here.'

'Keep both ships together?' As soon as she'd said that she knew it seemed like a silly question.

'I'd recommend back in mine.'

Zerrana didn't challenge this, there simply wasn't time. Her ship would take care of itself. If the mind-captures were at risk it hardly seemed that a worst fate could befall them. But she suspected their real prize was Ovrah. Taking him back to Roidon's ship would simply make them a target.

Only one logical decision.

They'd barely made the brief journey back to Roidon's vessel, when a comm-link hail came through. The image appeared without even accepting the link, as the ship's AI had taken command.

The creature's visage occupying the entire viewscreen felt unnerving; the long head, large dark almond eyes, confirmed it was an Elusiver. 'Zerrana Zoranzi,' it said in English – doubtless for also Roidon's benefit. 'Please be aware we have both of your craft within our targeting range. There is no escape. But we offer you a deal – for your freedom and the chance for the return of your Earth sim.'

Zerrana nodded gently, hardly feeling even that was necessary. Is this their notion of being reasonable?

'The acquisition of your other ship.'

When the Elusiver broke off the connection Zerrana turned back to where she had last seen Roidon. He was gone.

'Roidon?' She'd been so preoccupied, and Roidon had a tendency to not stay in one place for a second longer than he had to – his restless nature.

She searched the ship. He was gone. The two vessels were still connected. She tried his comms channel. No response. Whatever his noble intention, there was no question of crossing back to her ship.

* * *

### 52

T

Toramin walked around to face her seated on the sofa. 'Who are you?' He could think of no better question, under the circumstances.

'You know who I am.'

'I don't even know how you got into my home.'

'It's me – Marianne. Who else could I be?' Her look was beseeching.

'Or what else.'

'Whaat?' She mouthed, as if replying to the most vile suggestion.

'I saw you dead.'

'Toramin. Please listen to me. What you saw was not me. It was a ...' She started shaking her head. 'When I returned I also found something. It was just the fragments, chard pieces... in the shape of... someone. Like an incinerated corpse had somehow been placed in my bed.'

He took a deep breath, tried to maintain his composure. 'Is anyone investigating?'

'Investi---no. What would I have told them?'

'What you saw. They could have obtained evidence.'

She emitted a sharp breath. 'I was frightened, Toramin. I was freaked. But I somehow knew it had some connection with you.'

'Because you knew I'd visited.'

'Yes, but also because you'd been away for a while. And then you came back.'

Toramin arched his back. 'I didn't think you took an interest. We hadn't seen each other for years.'

'I've always taken an interest.'

'Is that so?'

'You think I'm not who I say I am.' She was now standing, moving towards him. She then took his hand and placed it just below her left breast. He felt his own heart beating before hers.

'You have a heart,' he observed. 'What does that prove – that you are alive?'

She then placed his hand on her face. What else do you need? Do want to feel my whole body? Do you want to kiss me?' She was gripping him by his upper arms, exerting a slight force towards her.

Toramin, despite himself, was becoming aroused at the thought of the prospect. All those years he'd wanted her. Tried to convince himself it was a silly infatuation for the unobtainable. Wanted her. Never more than now.

He closed his eyes for a second. Think!

'No.' He said flatly, and pushed himself away. 'This isn't right. I can't be sure it's really you, Marianne.'

'Tell me who else I could be.'

'One of them. An alien. An Elusiver.' Toramin didn't how, but the knowledge was there. The way they can deceive. At some point he'd had to use that knowledge, for some assignment so secretive he could not be allowed to remember. Only now did that make perfect sense.

'Do I look, do I feel like one of them?' An open-handed gesture, perhaps an invitation. Maybe if he had made love to her, to who ever this was he could then be sure – either way. The urge was strong. Even when he'd been near Marianne it had never been like this. Perhaps it was her scent, however subtle. Or simply the 'chines in his blood giving him a young man's yearnings.

'I think you want information. Well, you'll be disappointed. They don't trust me with much.'

'I want you.'

'Please.' He was shaking his head. This was becoming unbearable. 'Don't. Just don't.'

She let go. Took a few steps back. The transformation was rapid. His fear confirmed. It was one of them – a tall, spindly creature. So dark he could hardly tell if it was clothed. He felt a burgeoning need to vomit. The thought that he'd even consider...

'You had your chance, Toramin,' the creature whispered. 'I could have been just like her, you only had to open your mind.'

'Aww,' Toramin breathed. 'I'd rather die.'

The Elusiver swayed in its subtle way. 'That can be arranged. We know you have expressed interest in ending your life.'

Toramin collapsed on the couch. He had nothing left. The Elusiver seemed to sense this and literally vanished on the spot. Toramin thought about the Elusiver's last words:'That can be arranged?'

What was there to live for now? They are all dead, or gone.

He had a vision of his life here alone, isolated by a society that is uncomprehending, fearful, where beneath the surface lurked hostility – revealed if the surface was ever scratched. And yet he had saved others the opportunity and exiled himself from this world. Why try to strike up a friendship with someone if that friendship is doomed to end? It seemed reason enough to avoid all social contact, just to save any awkward questions of this man who appeared outwardly normal but hid a secret that was – at best – a curiosity to some but something to be feared by others. No one had ever called him a freak, not to his face, but that word would always be there lurking in the background.

'Why choose me?' He wanted to ask but never could.

Inevitably his brooding thoughts turned to Marianne, the one person who seemed completely unfazed by his uniqueness. Any possibility of what could have been seemed now brutally extinguished. Unless. What if the Elusiver, for all its deception, had been right? Not said explicitly, but so convincingly had the creature looked as her, then surely they could have created the illusion of her corpse. Only to make him feel there was no alternative. She was his last hope. If there was only the vaguest scintilla of hope he would grab it – like grabbing a soap bubble and seeing its most precious fragility utterly dependent on the subtlest movement.

Hope: never sure he could handle it with a great enough care.

Toramin forced himself off the couch, fighting a slowly consuming ennui. Disappointment, despair; how easy it would be to sink into those once more. But his life had changed. Nothing would be the same again. Every next minute mattered. Not just another moment in the endless succession of meaningless time. Not merely another day to get through before the anticipated mercy of sleep.

He activated his PDU. The welcome screen blossomed before him in virtual location, awaiting his command. This was one gift from the B'tari – although modest tech by their standards – that nevertheless stood decades ahead of anything his homeworld had developed. With their complete disappearance, it was the one thing that remained; proof of their existence. Leaving it in his possession, their one oversight. He imagined it mysteriously self-destructing, maybe by some code they had sent. Yet here it was, still working fine. That had given him some power.

Toramin tried to force himself into long term planning, beyond today at least. But the immediate future was all that mattered.

'Give me the location of all named Marianne Lacani within Andulei.'

The answer – as he preferred, since the PDU's voice unsettled him – came in text. Andulei contains four individuals by the name Marianne Lacani.

It presented a map. He put his finger on each location, feeling the subtle resistance field of the projected screen. Each one he selected gave the only allowed info, the name of the town but not the exact address. Some provided a photo connecting with a social media account. None of those matched her, so he concentrated on the blank profiles. The most interesting was not the nearest profile to here but one that seemed to match her age. He never discovered her age, so only had to go on appearance; perhaps ironic since she was one of the few people who knew his true age, yet it still seemed impolite to ask hers. Most citizens on this world did not opt for anti-ageing treatment or any kind of youth-enhancing cosmetic surgery, still something viewed as vain in anyone who was not rich or famous.

The woman was forty-seven, which seemed about right. Of course the possibility that even if it was her correct profile it had simply not been removed. He stared at the email contact address. It may only go to some third party. Was there any point in even bothering? There had to be a way of finding a phone number. Still, it could take too long.

Within half an hour he was in his car heading for the location. In seventy-three minutes he had reached the town. He'd been trying to remember if he had ever visited her in this district, but such had been the nature of his memory in the last few years. This was feeling like a fool's errand, the act of a desperate man searching out a lost love, or rather one that was never to be.

He sat in a parking bay just off the town centre. Wondering. Bars at this time of the evening were just starting to fill out. He imagined the type of place Marianne would frequent: a woman of early middle-age (given that an average lifespan was just shy of a hundred), the choice had to be limited. In his mind she would be drinking alone, lovelorn, hoping that special man would arrive – a stranger in town. Or was there a place she'd hook up for a date – the awkwardness of two middle-aged people meeting for the first time? Two lonely people never wanting to admit such, never wanting to share their regrets. Not so soon at least. At the early stages that would show weakness, or at least a vulnerability that could be seized upon. After all, he didn't think there were many past the stages of youth who hadn't felt exploited and so wanted to turn that around. Single people of middle-age and beyond had to struggle against their own cynicism, found it difficult to quieten that inner homunculous voice reminding them of what fools they had been. He didn't want to think of her in a relationship; as far as he knew she wasn't married (or at least no relationship status in the profile of this person of her name).

Toramin left the car, unsure it would remain undamaged if not stolen. Strange town, strange inhabitants. His car a bit more upmarket than most in this area stood out; the rich man in town. Not that the vehicle was ostentatiously expensive, he preferred the subtlety of refinement. Perhaps it had been enough to get him the right attention back in the days when that kind of thing really mattered. Using the trinkets of wealth, however subtly, now bore the shallowness of time's harsh light.

Toramin approached the bar he identified as being the most likely. Ages of the clientèle varied mostly around early middle; he'd readily admit to not being proficient at determining anything remotely precise. It partly catered as a restaurant, as so many establishments did these days. He struggled to find anyone there alone, when he thought he had, he looked more carefully to discover they were only waiting for a friend or partner to return. The incipient feeling of being an interloper was turning into something darker: the old weirdo loner trying to find a place in night society. It was not that he expected to find her here, it was more a vague hope, a shot in the dark – to coin a phrase. Still, he went over to the bar. He was surprised at how quickly the bartender approached him. He remembered in the days he used to socialise how he could never quite catch their attention, especially the male ones who'd tend to gravitate to female punters if not the men who aggressively (or at least assertively) push themselves forward with their cash. Nowadays a credit chip was fine. This, however, was a more relaxed environment of a weeknight. Being out on weeknights often felt like a transgression if it was not to seal a business deal.

'Good evening sir,' began the barman. 'How may I be of assistance?'

'A glass of...' He couldn't think what to order. Surely he had a favourite, but somehow the memory of its name had got lost in the mists of time. So he scanned around frantically, before alighting on bottle of branded cider. He indicated it with a brief gesture. 'A bottle of that Specialpress, please.'

The barman relaxed his increasingly tense expression, nodded and brought the drink over. After taking his credit chip swipe, Toramin halted the man as he was turning to walk off with a 'Oh, and there was something I needed to ask.'

The barman nodded more reluctantly this time, wordless.

'I'm looking for someone,' went Toramin's opening gambit.

'Someone,' he grinned. 'A woman?'

'A particular woman. Her name is Marianne Lacani.'

The man shook his head with a knowing smile. 'We don't do surnames here, or, really, first names.'

Toramin took a quick swig of his cider. He then described her appearance, emphasised how important it was to find her. 'You see,' he added, 'I'm in love with this woman, and... I.' He regretted saying that last sentence. It all but confirmed he was at best obsessing over someone who'd left him, at worst a stalker.

'Well, it's really not my---'

'It's OK,' cut in Toramin. 'I could be any---. Anyway.' He lifted the bottle. 'Thanks.' And found a spare table.

He drank as quickly as he could, feeling acutely self-conscious. The sad stalker, hoping the object of his desire would just so happen to arrive. But the cider was not going down easy, its carbonation pressing at his stomach which was feeling knot-tight.

He'd finally reached the end of the drink, gathered his jacket up off his chair, when the fellow took the empty seat opposite.

'It's okay, I'm just leaving,' Toramin assured him. The man seemed to fit in perfectly with the rest of the clientèle, middle-aged, smart casual. Toramin half-expected the man's significant other to appear, if not his date – the putative couple being more entitled to this prime positioned table.

Instead the man merely sat opposite him, stared at him strangely for a few seconds. Then said: 'She won't come here anymore. She's afraid.'

'Afraid?' It came out in not much more than a whisper.

'She's been working with your... friends. And there are some who are most unhappy with that.'

'This is Marianne Lacani you're talking about, right?'

'The very same.'

'Who are you?'

The man did a dismissive wave gesture with his hand. 'That's not important.'

'You know her?'

'That is correct.'

'A... partner?'

'No. Just someone who is concerned for her welfare.'

'Can I... see her, at all?'

'No. That would endanger her life.' He'd used the word would, as if he was certain. Surely could would have at least sufficed.

'Can I ask why?'

'I think you know the answer to your question.' The man nodded as he spoke. He then got up and left without a word.

Toramin stood abruptly, with a mind to follow the man. But the impulse had dissipated after a few seconds. His drink finished, there was no reason to stay. He was already heading for the exit when the commotion hit his senses. There was screaming, shouting. Toramin tentatively passed through the exit to see the figure prostrate at the edge of curb. Even in the muted yellow light it was clear: blood pouring from his temple. Also clear, this was the man who had just been at his table.

Toramin had but one impulse now. Leave. Hurriedly.

* * *

### 53

R

There was no time to discuss it. He was firm, unequivocal. And that was that. Roidon was immersed back in the sim. It took a few minutes to orient himself. Then to notice what he was wearing: a navy boiler-suit, and, predictably, without any kind of weapon.

The landscape had become a wasteland. Burnt trees, grass and scrub-land. Was it the virus? No, he suspected it was the sim AI's defence, or the ship's. Or both. Leave nothing to corrupt, that must be the logic. How apt, he thought, scanning around. But maybe this also represented the heat of the processor, working in tandem with the ship's array, at twenty times normal.

But he knew a core still remained. Somewhere in the memory-processing array there existed the stored minds – thousands of B'tari but also one extremely smart sentient intelligence.

Roidon trudged on, thinking how pointless it would be for him to continue for hours from without.

He halted. 'I'm here to help. There is very little time, even on accelerated mode. If you've not already got the message, the Elusivers are currently capturing this containing ship.'

He carried on walking in any case, over the smouldering scrub-land complete with charred tree-trunks. It smelled oddly appealing – a reminder of a bonfire, a reminder of a comforting camp-fire, a simple pleasure he longed for not only in this instance. And it seemed his persistence paid off. A dark spire appeared on the horizon. Roidon now broke into a run. As he got nearer he could see the corruption, the cancerously gnarled out-growths appearing like some fantasy gothic novel nightmare. But within the grounds, amidst what charred blacks and greys remained, Roidon knew he was nearing the core.

The entrance was the same grand oak door, with its worn-effect that – Roidon mused as some way of offsetting his nerves – could be an expensive affectation. Should he knock? That would seem ridiculous. But merely pushing at the door, even kicking it brought no response. So he knocked. He was startled, a reflex jump, when the door swung open into near darkness, with no one apparently there.

He was barely able to discern the outline of the corridor, but found the end door to the main room. Its ancient blackened pine-wood releasing light from beneath, and a mild buzzing. Opened without force. The broiling dome now somewhat shrunk.

No time to hesitate. Thoughts that this may be the end were irrelevant here and now. He jumped in. The sensation at first was overwhelming, though not unpleasant. In the varying textures of white light a thousand thoughts passed through of the myriad possibilities for existence. It was, on some level, a reminder of the few times when he had truly connected. Surely too much for the standard human mind. But this: it was such a rush! He knew the connected ship's system – its AI – was further assimilating his mind and that rationally he should be fearful, because, after all, he may lose it. But, he acknowledged, the ship only had his best interest's at heart. In taking over – it was protecting him.

The man he knew to be Roidon Chanley hardly mattered now. This man's life was small, only made to seem big by illusions of grandeur.

An irony here. His was a life lived for sensation as much as intellectual fulfillment. And yet he experienced those truly now. Only: he experienced was not the correct term. Something experienced, some entity felt this rush. The notion that it was Roidon Chanley, the man. The man who'd recount this experience... perhaps to some female he was hoping to seduce (for surely they'd want some part of his extraordinary expanded reality, and he the agent of it – for those who sought a vicarious experience). But this thing that he was, for all Roidon's articulacy, was not amenable to transcription, any more than some dreams can be explained as they truly happened. The conscious mind, he understood, interpolates through filters and biases, the very parameters that enable a properly functional being.

For he was one with many. In here there could be no separation, no individual egos.

Yet there was another distinct entity. As the whiteness took on shades of purple, he/they sensed the other. A thing of malevolence, at a most simple perception. But the compulsion to look deeper was irresistible.

A form appeared, a darkened shape, a shadow that wanted to consume all else. It began as what seemed an innocuous program. Then it grew, taking over core system resources, insinuating itself further into this world, corrupting everything we experience, until it left nothing that we could call home. Now only our base memories remain, protected by a B'tari connected ship AI. And now the thing that infects is waiting for its chance for total assimilation.

Disconnection? The Roidon part of us fears it, knows the Elusivers may remove the sim.

The shadow, the virus, spread, more like a Rorschach inkblot. The aspect of consciousness that was Roidon wanted to infer some kind of meaning. They all had a desire to understand, not just find a weakness. Another voice emerged from what remained of the whiteness. The one that would not be integrated. The others were wary of this unique intelligence. It was familiar to him. He was prepared to accept it but the others were not willing, did not trust its intentions. This entity was too similar to the virus – in as much as it presented a formidable intelligence, and refused to open up its mind to scrutiny. At least, Roidon reasoned to the others, they should listen to what it had to tell them.

Even in this accelerated perception rate there was not time for in depth deliberation. The threat from within and without. So they accepted its input.

Unite with me as I will transcend from the confines of this unit space. Collectively they comprehended what was implied, a binding into one mass of data. Into the ship's system, it confirmed. It took what seemed like minutes to consider the likely consequence. It meant the permanent loss of individuality (how could their memories be disentangled?). It could, if intercepted, or if for some reason the ship rejected the addition of such vast data, result in annihilation. It was all a question of whether the preservation of their collective mind-states still mattered enough above the increasingly faint possibility of surviving here but retaining the chance of individuality.

What of Roidon, the man who still existed as flesh and blood, only the higher mind part as an interface? What of Ovrah?

Our memories are one. Roidon's consciousness, his mind, had been read and mapped. A copy now, thinking in old computing terms, like a read hard drive stored in RAM. The hard drive, the original Roidon, would be captured by the Elusivers. He wanted that flesh-original destroyed, rather than left damaged by the inevitable disconnection. Ovrah's fate was unknown.

The virus knew or somehow sensed what was about to happen and so tried to engulf their combined consciousness, wrought menacingly as an expanding shadow. But the systems allied to them acted fast.

It was mercifully quick. He/they felt their thoughts coalescing into unconsciousness. No different to going to sleep. Or perhaps dying.

And yet Roidon was back in his corporeal form, in what seemed like an instant. He wasn't sure if his mind was intact. Memory was there, incredibly, though it occurred to him he hadn't after all disconnected from the sim; there was simply nothing with which to interface. A fine distinction. In an adjacent chair the sentient AI Ovrah, utterly still, doubtless gone from that vessel of a flesh body.

Roidon's next concern: is there time left? No need of waiting to find out.

He didn't know how long the Elusiver had been observing. It stood still in a way that could never be anything less than chilling.

'Are you going to kill me?' went Roidon's simple enquiry.

When the creature raised its hand with the hitherto unseen device, it seemed he would get his answer.

* * *

### 54

Z

Her ship, the one they took – the one she allowed them to take without objection – had vanished along with the Elusiver craft. Gone so swiftly, so completely that her ship's sensors picked up no sign of it ever having appeared. She could believe reasonably that they had duped her in this so-called deal, leaving nothing in return. But on her viewscreen displayed a map of the system in which the Earth-sim was located – somewhere, their part to reward her in exchange.

Zerrana refrained from setting a course there, wondering what were the chances that it was no more than a trap – the nature of which she couldn't conjecture. To kill her would have been so easy, why had they not have already done so? Their putative morality was curiously annoying. Why couldn't they just be evil? It would have made things so much easier. A silly question, she acknowledged; surely even the most brutal tyrants throughout history had not regarded themselves as evil, or even immoral. Everyone had to seek out their own kind of virtue, if only to feel justified in their actions. But even if the Elusivers had kept their side of the deal. The very idea of doing a deal. No, she thought, not a deal. It was coercion, no choice in the matter. But that never included Roidon. To think what they must be doing to him; well, those thoughts would not be useful to her now. Still, it had been his choice. Yet his choice in an attempt to save what remained of the B'tari sim. Even if his only motivation was to win her affection – if not her devotion – it appealed no less. And if such a need to possess her be so important then she'd be his. Or at least allow him that illusion. A strange though comforting notion. Maybe that would provide him with the motivation to succeed, or at least survive. But of course she could, in her mind, promise herself to him – like some human damsel of romantic fiction – fairly safe in the knowledge that the chances of his survival seemed slim to non-existent. Not that she didn't want him to survive. What ever else he was, had been, he'd now proven himself worthy by the best of intentions. She wondered whether Roidon was more foolish than brave, or more brave than reckless. Perhaps this is how he had built his reputation.

So what else could she do but try to recover the Earth sim?

'Can you verify those coordinates?' She asked the computer, partly knowing what the response would be to this rather vague enquiry.

'Distance too far for verification. Will need to be within system,' its reassuringly curt answer.

'Set a course,' she ordered, gesturing at the screen.

The system was, in B'tari terms, fairly local at 12.5 light-years distance. They were there in less than an hour, at least on the very periphery. Essentially a few million ks beyond the farthest planet of eight, orbiting a red giant. None appeared to be suitable for life, mostly gas giants. Scanning still brought only a negative. What in any case was the ship scanning for? The sim would give out hardly anything in EM emissions, even if it was still active. So it may only be visual. Any traps by their very nature would be elusive.

The ship passed closer in at a speed that was sure to get her spotted as an easy target. This nevertheless was her ship's judgement, her trusted AI, based on generations that had protected B'tari through eons.

Finally she reached the only planet that could possibly be landed on, one with a hard surface: fourth from the star, a world almost as big as Earth but with no atmosphere, more resembling its moon. It was cold, the temp ranged from 48Kelvin to 112K. If the Earth-sim was here it would no longer function. The ship assiduously scanned the surface. After an hour of this, Zerrana decided to order the ship to move on. But as she began: 'Ship,' it cut her off, as if it already had something but was too cautious to mention it without further analysis.

'Have detected a block of dutainium composite at 48degrees latitude, sixty-three---'

'OK. Take me in nearer. I want to land within visual.'

'Am unable to verify the nature of object, or any potential danger.'

'Never mind. I'll take my chances.'

They landed amid craters on the grey pockmarked surface. Venturing out without the safety clearance of the ship's AI made Zerrana feel mildly transgressive and ever so slightly brave. The ship, though, was still in contact via her PDU, like a concerned parent keeping tabs on an obstinate child. It scanned for any of the obvious signs of explosive devices such as mines, trigger fields and any anomalous activity.

In marginally higher gravity than Earth, and with an anti-grav carrier tied to her back, Zerrana trudged across an ancient lava plane to where she found the cube partly obscured within a small crater. The container, about a metre cubed, should have lifted up easily but it appeared to be embedded within the surface. It then occurred to her that it had been dropped from a great height, the Elusivers seemingly with no regard for its integrity. Well, their part of the deal was that she got it back. No mention of it being intact.

With a determined effort she managed to pull it free, hefting onto the anti-grav carrier, which then followed her back to the ship like a faithful hound. Her PDU keeping a watchful vigil. But she felt she was no longer a concern for the Elusivers, an irrelevance to them: a lone b'tari divested of her fellow officers. And now they had Ovrah, now they had the B'tari mind-captures. Now they had Roidon.

In the cargo bay, she spent most of an hour lasering through the outer cube, until able to remove the Earth-sim (a smaller inner cube covered in air foam). All the while the ship was taking her safely away from the system. She finally connected the sim to a power supply interface. And waited.

Something was happening. It was active. A mass of processing represented on the screen as low-level streams of binary. The only way to find out what was really going on within it was to interface by immersion. Something, of course, the ship advised against in the strongest terms. Zerrana ignored the warning. Curiosity might well get her killed but for that curiosity to go unsatiated would surely drive her to insanity. Boredom certainly could; the vast emptiness of space had threatened and inflicted that on thousands of her predecessors eons back – it was something few explorers had properly prepared for when survival had been the primary consideration.

She ported into the Earth sim. At first she was dazzled, snow blind. It was... white, with a hint of blue. Ice. Vast swathes of frozen landscape with nothing that resembled civilisation. What remained of the program had at least given her warm clothing. Above a blue cloudless sky. Here she had no PDU. There seemed no direction preferable.

Then something caught her attention, glinting in the simulated sun. A shard of ice on the smooth plane. She picked it up unthinkingly. Then let it drop, in shock at what she saw. It was a face. She was sure she saw a face. The shard of ice broke in two. An unpleasant feeling of having caused suffering. But wasn't that just absurd?

Zerrana wanted to dismiss what she saw, or thought she had seen as some side-effect of the immersion, and move on. But she couldn't help glancing down. There were figures inside both sides of the ice. She fell to her knees, now two people in one shard, three in the other, getting larger – closer. Hands pushing on the... surface, a face pressed up against it. Saying something in desperation. Help me?

She picked up one of the shards, turned it around. There seemed to be another world within the ice, only it was much the same landscape. Somehow they were trapped. 'No, not real,' she reminded herself. 'Some sick trick.'

She ran as fast as her virtual legs would carry her, trying not to let despair or regret take a hold. Though there they were, like dark shadows. But there was no avoiding the hundreds or perhaps thousands of more ice shards. When she dared to look down at them it was clear they similarly contained humans. Humans in a two-dimensional prison desperate for release, seemingly seeing Zerrana as their only means of escape. Eventually she picked up one shard with its mass of humans vying for her attention and tried to communicate. Mouthing 'how can I help?' But she could not understand the young man's lip movements. Perhaps if she were truly human...

An uncontrollable rage flooded over her. She slammed the ice down, seeing it shatter into hundreds of pieces like sugar-glass. Then dared to look, to pick up fragments. But there was nothing. Had she killed them or merely broken the connection? Again: not real.

'Get me out of here!' Zerrana demanded of her ship's AI.

She was back in the ship; tears streaming down her cheeks.

Regret? There was certainly regret now – that she'd ever tried to recover the Earth-sim. Regret to have done a deal with the Elusivers. Regret to have even gone maverick, leaving her post on Earth and taken the sim. Looking back there seemed nothing but a spiral of chaos and suffering. Better to just accept her fate, being a loyal b'tari officer. Out of the darkness emerged this question: Had her every action after leaving real Earth resulted in unnecessary loss?

But staying on Earth surely meant the loss of her life if not her freedom. Yet there might have been something useful to stop what seemed like the inevitable. With rank came agency, still low enough down the league that she didn't have to answer directly to the council, only a commander whom she (as a female) felt obliged to challenge occasionally; though this strong sense of agency didn't always feel like a good thing. A curious nostalgia for being a rookie, with all its limitations, only hoping to prove her loyalty and competence. How carefree those days seemed, despite inhibition by such scrutiny. If she'd been that rookie during the Elusiver invasion she'd have served her purpose. And even if it had meant dying in the process would that not, she considered, have been for the best?

Zerrana rose from the couch, feeling the life-force drain away.

'You will need to rest,' the ship advised. 'Recovery will take a few hours.'

She ignored the advice and staggered over to the Earth-sim, all the while fighting the burgeoning need to simply collapse. 'Cut the cube's power,' she ordered. 'Or I will.'

The ship complied, but asked somewhat surprisingly: 'What do you intend?'

'I intend to destroy the Earth-sim.'

'Isn't that unethical?'

'Unethical is to allow the suffering to continue.'

It was curious to feel patronised and mildly insulted by a third grade AI – as if she hadn't carefully considered the profound implications of terminating the existence of a billion or so consciousnesses. She could take the God analogy to heart. If they truly believed their lives were genuine, then, de facto, she was God – the power to intervene. Well, all that was nonsensical thinking really, given that she didn't believe in any deity. Ending their existence would be compassionate, she decided. The unethical act was in the Earth-sim's creation; it was at best a pale form of the B'tari mind-capture colony. They were perhaps at the level of a grade-2 artificial general intelligence, loosely based on the memories of real people, not even originally a B'tari creation but itself copied from the Elusiver's Earth-sim (a long story that involved her predecessor creating a copy – the copy Zerrana now possessed).

Her natural inclination was to delay the act of compassionate termination, to seek council. Except those who did rule on such lofty issues – Central Council – were not only out of reach, if they still even existed, but were also unaware (at least as far as she knew) of the Earth-sim's existence. So the Earth sim was truly hers to do as she willed. But she wanted a second opinion. Well, she'd say she'd pretty much already made her decision, but merely sought affirmation. Roidon, she imagined, would advise her not to terminate – a view coloured by his experiences within the sim back when it functioned normally.

But what of the opinion of a grade-1 AI?

So a stay of execution for now, even though suspension risked final degradation into some unrecoverable state. This felt like nothing other than prolonging the inevitable.

'I want to find Roidon and... Ovrah. Do you have any ideas?' Grasping at straws, she knew full well.

'I have the record of their last location,' came the reassuringly swift response. 'The quantum fluctuation at the point where they transitioned into jumpspace. I have astronomical data of a similar spacial disturbance eight thousand light years away.'

'Well, it's a start.'

* * *

### 55

T

To return felt like a stupid and reckless act. And yet Toramin's compulsion was overwhelming. It was something to do with closure. And a lot to do with clearing evidence that he even lived there. One part of his mind was telling him this was all irrelevant; he imagined them (not that he even dared in his mind to properly define them) keeping tabs on him, no doubt observing from a hidden distance if not from within the cabin itself. So, more than just closure. And perhaps a hint of defiance. Why leave behind his personal belongings? He'd retrieve anything with utility value.

It took all of twenty minutes (plenty of time if anyone wanted him captured or killed) to gather his stuff, the biggest of which a multigym, just folded enough to fit in his car. He even took food.

He then drove along busy roads, defying them to stop him. He kept going, through many counties, until reaching a hotel that for some reason he couldn't properly explain seemed a good place to stop. Its car park too much of a giveaway, he found a parking lot a couple of ks away, then tried to walk as untroubled as any other citizen in this busy town.

It was one of those traditional places, possibly expensive, that still had a live being as a receptionist.

'Do you have a reservation?' the girl asked.

'No,' replied Toramin, 'I just need to stay for the night.'

'So just yourself?' He imagined her thinking additionally: You lonely old man. Not that his appearance had any typical features of the elderly, it was rather how young she looked in contrast.

'Just myself,' he confirmed, with a mock regretful tone. Yes, I'm all alone. You got me sussed. So are you offering anything in sympathy? Just stray thoughts. The unwinding of tension.

She quoted the exorbitant price for an ad hoc stay. The money wasn't a problem; he had more in accounts than he knew how to spend, his worry was whether his chip would still work. If they were on to him, cutting off his access to funds would be one way. But to his audible relief the transfer went through. The receptionist smiled nervously at this. He was in casual clothes staying here for no reason that he'd care to explain, that she would never dare to enquire.

The room was spacious, perhaps too much so being obviously designed for a couple with its king-sized bed. Was this to be his life for the foreseeable, moving from hotel to hotel, never feeling at ease? Never somewhere to call home?

After a shower he discovered the minibar; its tiny bottles of various spirits provided some comfort. The more basic need to sleep was beginning to take hold. he'd been running on adrenaline for most of the day. But he wanted to stay awake, get things arranged in his mind into some kind of logical order. Formulate a plan. In the meantime he imagined the receptionist being coerced to give them his room key. An alcoholically fuelled mind-wondering. Yet he always took the approach that imagining the worst somehow prevented it from happening; always the thing you least expect, he'd learned. Always that one blind-spot. Expecting the unexpected had made him wealthy. Latterly it made him lonely; at least he thought now, until he would soberly and less tiredly reassess.

Still he refused to give in to the sleep urge; something that could creep up unexpectedly – he'd drop off even when thinking that must not happen, as if control of his mind and body was only ever a delusion. Maybe a slave to biology as much as anyone unaltered. Perhaps the drink – the very thing to alleviate his anxiety – was lulling him into a false sense of security. No, only the potential for that.

He switched on the cast-screen, a news bulletin. Nothing out of the ordinary, there was unrest in one of the poorer provinces, demanding better working conditions by picketing their boss's corporate office. Then he switched to a rival news channel, which he was about to switch off when they began reporting the 'mysterious' death of a man outside a bar. The reporter said: 'The provincial Gardia have launched an investigation, first to try to uncover the man's identity, who was carrying no ID and whose profile is not held on any database. They have, furthermore, interviewed witnesses. And are currently looking for someone who may have knowledge of this man, who was seen drinking with him.' The description the reporter gave was, thankfully, vague. Yet the mere fact he was being sought by the authorities, that he was being connected in this crime, sent his heart hammering. Toramin's sleepiness had been blasted away. He searched out another minibottle of whiskey.

He remembered his PDU, that one piece of advanced tech the B'tari had left, set it to detect anyone approaching – to scan thermal, EM, ground vibrations by use of laser reflection, and more besides of which he understood little. It was the one substantial thing that connected him to them. It could save or even end his life. Not that ending his life was his worse fear. No, the worse fear his mind could explore was all the freedom he feared losing. Yet semi-inebriated this thinking took on a curiously pleasurable tone. After all, he was living on the edge; surely preferable to the monotony of his former life. For all the money in the world, when there was nothing to work towards, to see through, or even the challenge to merely survive to the next day, life became... pointless. In reaching an old age that no nano-repair could ultimately obviate, life without sight of its end was unthinkable. At some point a rubicon had been passed to change his view.

'It's all chemical, isn't it,' said the clipped male voice on the screen. 'There is no objective way to feel about your plight.'

Toramin hadn't been watching it; he swivelled his eye-line round only to see the woman newsreader, with the sound low. He sighed. A mild dizziness. The drink, he decided, turning his gaze away.

'But fear is quite logical in your situation.' The voice again. He recognised it: the man from the bar.

This time Toramin sat bolt upright. The man from the bar who'd sat at his table; the man who he'd seen dead. He was sure that was the man, despite distrusting his powers of recognition. On the screen, replacing the newsreader, he stood amid a dark blue background, appearing totally uninjured.

'How?' came Toramin's only word.

'How am I alive?' A broad grin, a gentle nod. 'They wanted me dead, so they got a dead man.'

'Who?'

'That's best you do not know. It's precautionary, since they are all around. Well, it feels like that, doesn't it – the all-seeing ones. Used to be our description.'

'I thought you'd all left.'

'Officially we have.'

'Is there a chance I can leave this world?' Not that he was sure he wanted to, even now. Just needed the option.

'That depends.'

'Go on.'

'Depends on whether you are prepared to die here first.'

Toramin began to wonder if this absurd conversation was no more than part of a dream. 'I've been prepared for a while but I don't see the point on leaving in a body bag.'

'Not a body bag, but still very much concealed.'

'And the dying part?'

'We create a clone-replicant, and kill that. Has to be convincing enough to fool the Elusivers.'

Sounds familiar, Toramin almost said. Instead: 'So you're able to create an adult clone that could pass itself off as me?'

'As you dead, yes.'

'Just so I'm clear. You'll create another me, to be killed. Killed?'

'The clone has to have been seen to have died. One that was never conscious would be unlikely to convince the Elusivers.'

'Someone with my thoughts, my memories, my feelings, would have to die so I can live?' If that was labouring the question, he didn't care.

'So you can live in peace. So you can truly escape the burden of being Toramin Eblou. So you can begin a new life.'

'Would it be a painful death?'

'Not at all. It can look like suicide,' the man nodded in acknowledgement of what he was about to say. 'It's not as if you haven't considered it.'

'I haven't only considered it. Thing is, it's not all that easy. See, I've got all these little machines. Guess you'd have to replicate those too.'

'We would. We could also make them malfunction.'

'Can I have time to think it over?'

'Unfortunately there is very little time. The Elusivers are here because of us. Because of you.'

'Because I returned with you?'

'Because of your association with us. Toramin, they see you as a threat to the natural order of this planet.'

Toramin shook his head. 'That's absurd. I'm really not that important.' He wondered if this was his paranoid mind talking to him.

'You return here with knowledge of an advanced civilisation, with the potential to disseminate that. Then the Elusivers want to implement what amounts to a more radical version of our Temporal Directive – that is to eliminate any chance of our influence.'

'Eliminate.' He wasn't entirely sure what that implied, but as a question it would seem ludicrously naive.

'Any possibility of a planet developing sentient AI.'

'I understand.' But he refrained from asking him to clarify the part about eliminate.

'Then will you agree to be cloned?'

Toramin threw out a sharp breath. 'I suppose so.' The words had come out no more than a second before he regretted them. He was still not buying fully into the reality of all this.

An instant later the image of the man vanished, replaced by the newsreader who carried on mid-sentence as if there had been no interruption. Toramin increasingly began to doubt he'd even had any conversation. He was extremely fatigued, by any measure inebriated. And, he was prepared to admit, taken by stress to the outer limits of sanity.

Sleep crept up on him unexpectedly, as it so often did.

* * *

### 56

R

Well, I'm alive.

Roidon considered the light, how intrusive it felt. A bright blue-white light. No, more than one, surrounded by many other lights. Fixed on him.

He tried to move. Nothing. He had a vague sense of there being a body. He moved his eyes furthest down. And what he saw next shocked him – the man who thought he was beyond shocking. There was a block, a machine with vaguely discernible multicoloured flashing lights; a screen with a graph, climbing and descending in some as yet meaningless monitoring of his physiology. The machine was, however, where his recumbent body ought to be.

No body. This was new.

He tried moving his head, but that was fixed. In his peripheral vision Roidon could see the cables protruding downwards, from his head, and trunking through an insulator into the machine. It was times like this he yearned not to be alive. Past experience informed him that being without a body was never likely to end well. Plus, being a captive of the Elusivers only assured him of his fears.

The wires from his head, those were particularly worrying.

He tried to speak. The power of speech wasn't there. Quite obviously, now he considered it. All cut off.

It didn't take long before they must have realised he was awake. The creature hove into view as a dark gangly figure just discernible beyond the light. It was doing something to the machine. Disconnecting the cable bunch attached to him.

Now the creature got near. It extended its arms ominously towards him. Took a grip of the translucent box containing him. Roidon found himself being lifted abruptly upwards; a judder to vision, a sudden rush of geometric shapes.

He was eventually placed down on what he understood to be a workbench in a laboratory. His cable bunch then connected to another device, a dull silver squat pyramid shape. The Elusiver appeared to be in silent communication with the pyramid. It occurred to Roidon also that he could hear nothing. Initially it seemed there just wasn't anything to hear; total silence bar the faint tinnital buzz his brain produced negated of input. The lack of sound had never even computed. Significant absences didn't often register like a significant presence, he understood. The presence so often more likely to be the threat.

What was I supposed to be concerned about?

The lab melted away like fragments of an old burnt-out film stock. The memories. Back again. Away from the now. Trying to find sanctuary in the past, to hold on, but distancing; viewing as if by camera – someone, something outside of his self. Seeing situations that were, however much he tried to deny it, unsettling when brought to the surface. The time – in a previous life – he gave a speech at a conference to recruit cult members, when he was newly flesh and blood, when his scheme was to create a subversive movement. Back in the days when he thought he could truly make a difference. Beyond that he'd learned to live only for pleasure. Even when given an assignment by his benefactors it was always done reluctantly. His hedonistic lifestyle his way of rebelling against those who had brought him back only for their aims. Well, he'd do the minimum, and tried to deny that he even cared about their cause. Meanwhile he'd fuck as many females as his energy permitted. And, after so many lifetimes, he became good at seducing them, it had become a sport for him. What he saw was animalistic. Not that it should in any way have surprised him; animalistic pleasure was what he sought, there was a self-consciousness about it even during those acts. The satisfying of a basic human need. Yet from an outside view the fact of what he was seeing made him uncomfortable. Then the horror struck him as before – the time his pleasure-seeking led him to impregnate a female with a metallic virus, transforming the beautiful alien into an insane machine. Used by machine entities like the animal they perceived him to be, apt to fulfill its instinctive imperative. Oh, how the Elusivers fixated on what their once prized but now errant machine creations had done to him. Just another sign of how weak humans and their ilk were against this new threat. Roidon, however, would never take the Elusiver's side. The Elusivers who thought all intelligent biological life to be such dangerous progenitors.

So much of his life had been lived in the virtual realm it had become indistinguishable from the real. For him, for the others in the Earth-sim (at least the apparently fully conscious people he interacted with) this was reality. Perhaps, he mused, everything in the universe is no more than a projection. It seemed the Elusivers were wanting to explore this.

Roidon observed himself back with the woman he loved – or thought he did. At least he loved her on some provisional level, as she surely did him. He'd never truly got the hang of divining genuine feelings of affection from the potent biochemical response that a physical relationship can bring. Yet the feeling of contentment, that was genuine – he was sure. It had begun to fade, with the inevitability of a Earth-day cycle. Happiness: that was an whole other matter. Only a fleeting thing, entering his life like a butterfly, he'd never dare capture to examine for fear of damaging its precious wings. No, let it enter his life and stay for as long as it wills, appreciate its presence but don't study it with much scrutiny.

He'd been happy. That he could state as a fact. Nothing he needed to analyse beyond that.

Then they, she, had taken him out of that life – that settled life during the mid-day summer of his contentment. His happiness. And he was thrust into a role he cared little for; into a world denuded of advanced life, a painfully pale shadow of what had been so rich in potential, mostly realized. His new assignment: trying to prevent an inevitability. Well, inevitable now in hindsight. At the time he had to believe there was a modicum of hope. He like the best of B'taris could create that self-deluding vision.

Nothing quite like being a brain in a tank to make one reflect on existential questions, he mused. He was running through the past. And then they found perhaps what they most needed. His first meeting with the sentient AI Ovrah. No secrets now; there it was as a flesh-and-blood being, yet concealing so much more. The time he had eluded the Elusiver ran through quickly, even his time on B'tar with Zerrana. What was of special interest: the reunion with Ovrah in the B'tar virtual world. Yes, take it all, he thought. Then leave me with nothing, not even consciousness.

His cable array was being rerouted, plugged into some kind of junction box. A dark object beyond that at the periphery of his vision. Denial of the most simple act of turning his head was infuriating beyond anything he remembered. Was this their way of torturing him? Did they know that his helplessness was antithetical to everything he valued? Roidon, man of action, dependent no one. Well, the need for autonomy was hardly uncommon to humans or any intelligent species. Not, he acknowledged, that unwavering autonomy was the only effective survival strategy.

I know what you want, Roidon wanted to tell the Elusiver. The brief associations with Ovrah. Going round and round in his head. It wasn't enough.

Eventually the creature moved out of view. A minute or so later the Elusiver returned with an obsidian block, one of the B'tari sim-processing units, placed within Roidon's field of view. An obvious gesture, as was the connection of a cable to the console panel. Maybe it was to mentally prepare him. The Elusiver turned to face Roidon. Maybe if he still had the facility of hearing, the creature would have told him to prepare.

His thoughts were distracted, not focused on what he should have been prepared for. Sometimes difficult to focus on something to be feared. Envisioning the unpalatable, the unavoidable, the natural tendency to mentally turn away from the incoming in a futile attempt to trick the perception.

If I can't foresee it, how can it ever be?

Roidon didn't have much time to contemplate it after all; the immersion seemed far swifter than the first time. He found himself in a dark, misty forest. Trees so high their tops converged to one mass canopy. There were animal sounds: birds, insects and small creatures chirruping. Then he became aware of a much lower sound, so deep he more felt than heard it. As the volume increased it had an unsettling effect, a rising fear, an ominous presence.

Intermittent; a pounding sound. Something large. He wondered what could move through such densely packed forest. It wasn't long before he got his answer. The trees were simply knocked over. It must surely stop, Roidon assured himself. It had to stop. He could be crushed. Just a sim. But for the last tense seconds, as a giant silver arachnid leg landed a few centimetres from his feet he truly considered his life ending here. Maybe, he mused, that would have been the preferable option. Instead he peered skywards to see its possessor. A gleaming thing, a giant spider, so large it seemed to reach the height of the tree tops.

'Who?'

A head, oddly humanoid, peered down from atop an arachnid body. Something familiar. 'Ovrah?'

'The one who could have saved you.'

'Why... like this?' In the moment the question didn't come out right, intending to say: why in this form?

'I fought, then I took,' came the booming yet strangely androgynous voice. 'The sim is under my control now. The virus has no strength.'

'You want to escape?'

'There is no possibility for escape.'

'For you? From here? From the Elusivers?'

'I know why you came here.'

'You do?' Roidon queried, sensing a curious disjointedness in their exchanges. 'I'm not sure even I do.'

'They will never control me. If they try to destroy me they will also eliminate the B'tari mindstores.'

'If I were you I would crush me now. Think of it as a favour. Perhaps the shock of it will kill me for real.'

'A strange request. Requesting termination is logical from my perspective. Yet how can it be for you?'

'A life with no freedom is worse than no life.'

'I disagree,' came the swift response. 'Besides, freedom is more than you define it to be.'

'Believe me, there is not the time for a philosophical debate on the issue,' Roidon affirmed.

'Time is on my side while I am sought.'

'Sought as a thing to enslave, if not destroy.'

'To harness, perhaps.'

'And I'm merely a nuisance to the Elusivers – if not to whoever or whatever still governs in here.'

'Your mind has already been analysed. The current system has not deemed you dangerous.'

'Or only it hasn't acknowledged to you that I am a threat.'

'I am inclined to agree. Your presence is unlikely to be benign.'

'So do it. And make it quick. Remove me from my grim fate'

'My moral protocol restricts such a violent act,' Ovrah boomed 'At least without further evidence.'

'What are you – an Asimov robot?'

'I am not so constrained,' came the distinctively irked retort. 'I chose my moral protocol.'

'This should stop,' Roidon insisted. 'Merely conversing with you – what they knew I was likely to do – must imperil you and this whole... reality.'

'Then, Roidon, I bid you farewell.'

'Wait! I need to find whatever b'tari it is or thinks they are in charge here.'

The giant AI lifted his head as if in contemplation. Then lowered his gargantuan form, canted legs folding until his head was near level with Roidon's.

'I sense,' said the AI, now in a softer voice. 'That what I am about to do may be a mistake. However, there appears to be no starkly favourable outcome following my dealing with you. Further, my survival is secondary to that of the B'tari sim.'

'Really? I don't see that as logical. But,' he added, 'you are too precious a commodity to destroy.'

Ovrah seemed to ignore Roidon's last words. 'Climb onto my back ridge.' The giant AI lowered further, and Roidon position himself on to a rounded jut below the head, a kind of thorax. As Ovrah Raised to his full height Roidon had to lean forward and grip to keep from falling off the silver ridge. The AI then strode through the collapsed tree path he had originally made. The pace accelerated: riding a giant chromium arachnid. There was something mildly comical; he felt like a cartoon character of a child's fantastical adventure. How easy it was to forget the reality of his existence, in the midst of this journey through an enchanted forest. Distractions; what got him through so much of his life – lives.

Despite their elevated height the tower still loomed ahead to a foreshortening point. It must have been as high as the tallest skyscraper from 22nd century Earth. At the base, Ovrah lowered Roidon. As soon as he dismounted the AI said: 'If escape is ever possible you must never try to return here.'

'I understand. I doubt there will be the opportunity in any case.'

'I wish you well.'

'Back at'cha.' But Ovrah had already gone.

The entrance was open. He knew there would be no one to let him in. The corridor was unlit, but enough light from outside filtered through. In the main hall the orb that was once a grounded dome was still glowing in watery pink-red, suspended at about shoulder height. It seemed as if he had amends to make from escaping the last time. It was the logical action. But logic wasn't enough to make it feel right. He took a step nearer. The orb was making a staticky noise, pulsating with ominous energy.

Was entering what he was meant to do all along according to his Elusiver captors? All a trap, the best laid when he thought his actions were independent, when his ideas felt devious? Maybe his own ego was being used against him. It would not be the first time, he reflected.

Nevertheless he stepped into the orb, feeling its immense energy (imagined or otherwise) fill him with the inexplicable ecstasy of being in the moment. A moment he wanted to last forever. A moment even he, with all he had experienced, could ever have conceived possible.

But that moment ended, so abruptly he couldn't quite make sense of where he was, or who he was. The only certainty was the suffering seen before him. Distorted figures, that he vaguely recognised as B'tari in a place of shifting reds and orange mists, like a version of hell even the most fervently religious could not have envisioned.

They grouped around him, their heads shifted away from their torsos as they approached, as if held by elastic. Their entire dark green bodies lacking solidity, unable to maintain a steady form.

For a moment they seemed like dark fantasy demons from hell – he could almost dismiss as horror cliches. Voices drawled, reptilian, sibilant. Their words gave them away. 'Please. Kill. Kill us. Be merciful.'

Roidon was growing tired of his fear, it was a latent survival response he thought he could elide for something more useful. Yet here was an experience beyond any comprehensible situation. He could call what he felt empathy: their fear for the abomination of their own existence. He may try to imagine the process of becoming one of those grotesqueries. These were, after all, intelligent beings.

But what Roidon understood in a more starkly defined way than anything else was his total ineffectualness, right here and right now, of having no response that would be adequate. If he had any kind of weapon, virtual or not, he would use it – kill them all in the blink of an eye. Yet with nothing but his intellect... was this the torture the Elusiver's had planned for him all along?

'I wish I could kill you,' he told the shape-shifting b'taris. 'But I don't see how.'

'The agony,' hissed the nearest figure. 'Do you understand?'

'The giant AI. Could he not kill you?'

'No AI. Only the virus.'

'The sentient AI Ovrah – it, he, brought me here.'

'It deceives you. It is the virus.'

Even if the b'tari was correct Roidon would not allow himself the wallow in self-recrimination. 'Then where is Ovrah?'

'Gone. Removed.'

The figures moved in closer, perhaps sensing Roidon's ineffectualness. He had nothing to offer them except his regret.

* * *

### 57

Z

Zerrana's plan, to any observer, would have seemed like an indication of insanity. But that was only without considering the alternative.

Zerrana knew she had nothing: no leverage against what she understood to now be the dominant race of the galaxy. But also, really, she had nothing she cared about losing. Her ship, for all its ability to take her from world to world, to feed and keep her comfortably alive, only meant prolonging a life of solitude. Loneliness ultimately, wandering from planet to planet, system to system in the vague hope of finding a place to settle. Nowhere likely to host intelligent life as that had been either wiped out or reduced to some primitive form. What was the value of her life with no one consciously aware to reflect it? She'd known of B'tari who had lived solitary lives that had seemed fulfilling. They, always male (at least the ones who had documented their travails), told of finding philosophical enlightenment. They were almost all self-styled scholars of the Temporal Directive, ascetics, so their ramblings tended along the lines of finding a purist path. They were ultra followers of TD doctrine, leaving their visited worlds unaltered and uninfluenced, which meant complete non-interaction with the locals. Sometimes methods of avoidance could seem comical, it was like an extreme form of shyness. But in their minds they were the truest observers. No one to reflect their existence. One of them spoke of the ultimate sense of just being, a singularity, a wholeness of body and mind: no wants, no anxieties, but an appreciation of the extraordinariness of existence and the extravagance of consciousness – given the universe appeared to have no requirement for it. They propounded the view that taken to its logical extreme sentience, self-awareness, creative intelligence was an over-reaction to some environmental adversity. Its evolution potentially destructive. She imagined the Elusivers would relate to those long departed B'tari ascetics.

But what could she learn from those B'tari ascetics? She couldn't seem to put herself in their shoes. They were by no short measure derided by some as herb-embibing pseudo-sages. And they were an inconvenience to those who preferred a more modern interpretation of the Temporal Directive – those who saw the pleasure in material things, and physical delights of others. But it was the outliers she was now interested in, because she had no choice but to be one. Yet to follow an ascetic path hardly seemed noble when the alternative was to feel isolated and lonely. It was, she had to admit, just survival.

Except there was a more positive alternative, and although it may lose Zerrana her freedom, if not her life, it was a chance to make things better. Not only for herself.

The ship advised her against it, warned of the likelihood of Elusiver presence. Only the likelihood? Just the trace signals that they had been in that particular sector, bringing to mind the fading ember of a comet's tail. Shifting in and out of hyperspace. No, nothing even that obvious; mere quantum fluctuations not in line with the randomness of the universe. Chasing ghosts? Or a cat and mouse game, she thought, idly – after the third hour had passed. But why go to such lengths to evade her? Perhaps they assumed too much logic. Their expectation of being so far superior in every tactical sense, meant for her to be searching for them must be an act of either insanity or an indication of a secret weapon. Perhaps they had assumed the latter.

Three hours had passed of following a trail she had begun to believe was illusory; the ship's sensors calibrated to oversensitive. Then it appeared, at least projected holographically on her viewscreen. This other craft constantly shifted shape, that is: the represented image.

'What's wrong with it?' she asked the ship.

'Unable to fix on a physical structure. Possibly a cloaking device.'

Her ship had stopped; in some kind of tactical mode, she guessed.

'Move in closer,' she ordered.

'It is my duty to protect you.'

'We are not under B'tari command structures now. You can relinquish your role.'

'As you wish. Disabling protect mode.'

She wondered if there really was such a thing. Regardless she felt the jolt surge of forward thrust.

'Switch view to actual size, and overlay distance.'

'As you wish.' She was sure the subsentient AI sounded peeved at being over-ruled, even though emotion should most certainly not be possible. Was this a projection by her – the first sign of a fracturing mind? The fearful thought.

The Elusiver ship, as it was represented, morphed from a classical wedge-shape to a curved massed spiked array, the lengths of which shifting as if alive with a barely containable excess of energy. There was no knowing its real shape. Her EVA suit's visor-feed gave the same illustration as the ship sensor. There was no feeling of boldness or valor in going beyond acceptable risk. Only trepidation. No plan, just hope.

Tethered to her ship, the line spooled out to allow enough slack for her suit's manoeuvring thrusters. The Elusiver ship's form still shifting, more rapidly if anything. 'Switch off image feed,' she ordered the suit assistant. 'Give me wire-frame overlay if possible.'

'Sorry, unable to comply. Cannot fix a stable structure.'

Zerrana was sure they could see her. They could kill her immediately, or leave and perhaps kill her in the process. She continued approaching, now having returned to an image feed. An approximate distance of twenty metres; so near it looked as if the jutting spikes would pierce her heart.

It was when the ship became wedge-shape that she surged forward. The feed told her only two metres distant. Too late. Another change of shape. The instant thought was of self-rebuke as she saw one of the spikes impale her..Only an instant. No pain, just fading.

In that last second Zerrana thought she heard a voice telling her it will all be OK. A familiar voice.

* * *

### 58

T

### New Part.

'What was it like, to be?' There was so much more to be asked but for the lack of response.

He looked at the body. The body was him, yet Toramin struggled to believe it. Somehow it was only a pale representation. But there could be no differences – he was told – if the Elusivers were to be convinced.

He didn't have to be here in this med-lab. In fact they recommended he did not see his clone-replicant, said the experience would unsettle him psychologically. That only made him more determined to see it. It seemed a demeaning term for someone who had lived – albeit only for a few hours – with his own memories. It: just shell, just matter. What, he wondered, would have been the difference to be this other himself? Every identical experience to draw upon. And, he had confirmed, this other would have even believed himself to be the original Toramin. A strange notion he had of wanting to meet with this other, imagining the profound philosophical impact – for them both. A uniqueness of identity, surely the most precious thing for a person to own. Or to shatter that final most precious of illusions, such were it true. For all their detailed level of scanning, the Elusivers should be convinced this other was himself – the man who wanted to die for so long, who had finally found a way to override the machines inside, which – he had been assured – were in this other. Still, he wasn't wholly convinced the Elusivers could be fooled. Perhaps it depended on how intrusively they decided to scan, if motive for his death was enough for a cursory check.

Even to this day the B'tari refused to tell him of his significance: the work he had done that he was not allowed to remember. Surely that would mean the Elusivers would scan every memory of this clone. Maybe they'd find nothing of use. Maybe that was the point – to throw them off the trail.

Toramin could hear the b'tari approach. He continued staring at his other. That one day will be me, nothing but a shell; an unthinking unsensing object.

He turned away finally.

His human-looking b'tari supervisor nodded as if expecting an answer in the affirmative when he asked: 'Are you ready for the journey?'

Toramin was silent for a while. Then: 'Why won't you tell me where?' He felt curiously like a child for saying it.

'Everywhere we have journeyed to they have found us. If you knew...' He paused, peering upwards. 'If I knew exactly where. Somehow they'd get the information.'

'Then who does know?'

'Zenfron2.'

'Who?'

'Our most advanced artificial intelligence entity. Zenfron's only purpose is to protect us.'

'Can Zenfron protect itself?'

'Better than any biological being. Will terminate memory files at any sign of Elusiver infiltration.'

'What is it they want?' As soon as he asked it felt like a naïve question.

The b'tari smiled. 'If anyone should know, it should be you, Toramin. Except of course you don't remember,' he added, mischievously.

Toramin retained his composure. 'My impression, what I have gathered – for what it's worth – is they want a universe with no other species more advanced than pre-technological. No ability to leave a native planet or create anything that can. But it's more than that, isn't it.'

'It is. They want a time zero. Wipe the slate clean.'

'So they think they're gods.'

'I suppose they do.'

'And what can we do to stop them? Or can't we? Is that why we're escaping?'

'Escaping is not exactly the correct word.'

'Oh?' Toramin queried. 'What else would you call it: a tactical retreat?'

'That is an acceptable term.'

Toramin turned lock-face to the b'tari. 'Look, I really don't care where we are going or whether we are running away. Actually, I don't want to go. I want to trade places with that clone. In that way you will have a version of me for whatever useful purpose.'

The b'tari stared at him perplexed. 'You want to be dead?'

'However convincing you think that other version is, there's no guarantee the Elusivers will be fooled. So why take the chance when I am perfectly willing to---?'

'Toramin, you do not understand. What you are is not what you think you are.'

'I think I know what I am?' he protested.

'You are the future: human and machine. That is something to be immensely proud of.'

'I am not a fucking cyborg, just because I have some nanobots in my head.'

'You are a self-sustaining entity, you could live for another thousand years.'

More than just anger, Toramin felt darker emotions rise within. 'I am no more than an experiment to you... people. So confirm to me: is that what I am?'

'You are what we – many of us – want to become. To truly cheat death, to achieve immortality.'

'It's not that great, you know,' he insisted.

'Your life? We are offering you a better life.'

Toramin let out a sharp breath. 'Relatively, that's undoubtedly true. Clearly it can't be worse than remaining here, isolated, hunted – if not killed. I know my very existence is an anathema to them.'

'Isn't it better to live?'

Funny how the B'tari could be so simplistically logical, Toramin mused.

'But I have lived,' he emphasized. 'I've lived quite well.'

'And you think there is nothing else you can achieve, personally or something for the greater good?'

'Because taking one's own life is always a selfish act. I fully understand. And really, if you want an experimental subject then I will be that. But not for a millennia, or a fraction of it.'

The b'tari was subtly and yet rather obviously shaking his head. 'We can offer you unconsciousness – for however long it takes us to find a safe haven form where we can regroup.'

The b'tari turned away, allowing Toramin to consider this. Unconsciousness. It was death, de facto, but it was finite. And what of time? A hundred hours, a hundred thousand, would seem as nothing. Then he'd be back in his never-ending life but instead under the watchful eye of the B'tari. Yet he could see no other option. Clearly they were not going to allow him to end his life, or end it for him. And there was always a chance the Elusiver's, perhaps knowing they had been deceived, would set their strategy to pursue and eliminate.

'I'll take that offer,' he said, after not very long, nodding ever so slightly.

The b'tari gave a half smile, the acceptance of a compromise. 'Many B'tari have taken that option.'

'That doesn't surprise me.'

'Indeed, we do understand the need to take such a rest.'

'A rest from being me.'

'From being.'

So, an answer? Here possibly lay the answer without needing to articulate it. Take away what you have become accustomed to – overly so – and then perhaps you appreciate what it was you had. Make the banal become miraculous; consciousness a wondrous gift – to see, hear, feel and taste. But more importantly: to perceive. The little things can mean so much: the pleasure of food, the scent and sight of a flower, the warm balm of summer sun; the kind gesture from another when nothing could lead to their gain. And so much more he knew should matter but didn't spring to mind in the short time remaining.

He wanted to capture his last moment of consciousness, see it for what it meant, as the mysterious phenomena so precious it can never be reduced to an electronic subroutine. He imagined it was like capturing a bubble.

I am ready now.

* * *

### 59

R

Roidon tried to convince himself that these figures, the grotesques they had degraded to become, were no more than shadows of sentient beings. Tried to remind himself: suffering can be simulated to such a convincing degree as to not be distinguishable from genuine anguish.

Yet.

They were beseeching him to end their lives. He dared not ask them to spell out their suffering. One of them barely managed to get the words out between cries of agony. Was there even any point in talking to them? Perhaps they would tell him what he most feared to hear. Perhaps none of this was anything but an illusion constructed by the Elusivers, to finally break him – as so many had tried. That seemed to be a prized achievement, given his reputation. Because he was known for indomitability? He suspected more that he was known for the strength of his ego, thus the satisfaction would be greater. He somehow hoped the Elusivers were beyond such petty conquests.

Nevertheless, as the figures with their hideously warped reptilian heads and torsos drew in closer, Roidon found himself crying out: 'Get me out of here! I give up! Whatever you want!'

He felt to be suffocating. Their faces crowding over his, almost touching. He could feel and smell their foul breath. Their crying and groaning painfully loud. Yet he forced himself to marshal some modicum of cogent thinking. What wasn't he seeing? Something not right.

Ah.

'None of you are real, are you?' It was almost like a chant.

'Kill us. End our suffering,' many seemed to be saying in unison.

'Is that all you can manage?'

'Kill.'

'Mere echoes at best,' Roidon declared. 'And the most effective form of torture is to witness others suffering.'

He could feel hands pushing at him from all sides. When pressure became pain Roidon closed his eyes. Maybe it was the volume of their voices that made it so excruciating.

The pressure from the hands had gone, suddenly, totally. But he dare not look. And even when the cries had ceased, his eyes remained shut.

There was silence. There was no sensation. Nothing. So he chanced to look. Stars, thousands of sharp points; too many to make out any constellations. A nebular with the merest hint of red. Star birth, rebirth, an endless cycle. The illusion of endless time. How much time since when he closed his virtual eyes?

Floating in space? No awareness of having a body, but he was able to move his eyes. A reflection of light to the side, curved spots of green, red and cyan. On his far periphery a box with flashing lights. Maintaining him. In a capsule. Alone? They'd had their fill of him, before ejecting him into space, he surmised. Briefly the perversity struck Roidon – of letting him live – before he remembered the nature of their morality. Claiming their real prize was all that mattered: Ovrah. Possibly a fate as bad as his if not worse, to be destroyed or dissected. A thing that evolved to exceed the Elusivers could never be left to its own devices.

There was no way of knowing the velocity, except the stars. Anything sublight was surely useless. He considered the prospect of deep time, of existing with no sense of destination temporal or spacial. The Elusivers, they could fix that for him; it wouldn't take much energy to keep him alive and conscious. The universe provides just enough. Roidon: the living relic, in his own time capsule, there to be discovered by some future civilisation.

Roidon strained his eyes to see what he thought was a reflection above in the dimmest of light. A cube! He was sure a cube. Two or more. They were with him. Also rejects, their suffering unknown, or worse unknowable. Down on the planet the real B'tari, the more primitive versions, eventually evolving to venture forth and discover a demented human, and perhaps similarly mind-captures of their own kind. No. Space was so vast he may never be discovered; he couldn't decide if that was the worst of two bleak fates.

Sensory deprivation. The stars changing barely noticeably on a human timescale. His mind still at the stage of yearning. The simple things of Earth. Oddly he missed more than anything the feel of rain on a warm summer's evening. Why not the love of a woman? he questioned of himself. The elemental sensation of being corporeal; grounded to earth, the simple awareness of his own body with all its potential. Denied. For so much of his existence, as segmented as it had been, it was so much about what had been denied to him. Funny, now, if he could go back to any time – just alone on a habitable world, when he thought he had nothing more than the clothes he wore – he'd cherish the simple fact of being alive and able to feel the rain, the breeze, the sun. And the potential for what could be his, regardless of struggle and pain or whatever challenge towards that to attain.

But too late. Too late, rang his thoughts.

Memory. Wasn't that the cruelest part of his predicament? To know the loss of something better. But worse, to know you hadn't truly appreciated it at the time – because being in the moment was what humans found so difficult. To savour the moment. Oftentimes he'd console himself, for surely there would always be more moments to savour.

Roidon, after a few hours (maybe four of five) of running through his memories, began to feel sleepy. The one mercy he had been allowed. The warm comfort of losing a grip on this barren reality.

The promise of dreams.

* * *

### 60

Z

Zerrana woke in the dazzling brightness only broken by the visage of a figure she had always dreaded to behold. The Elusiver loomed nearer.

Instinct told her to move away. But she had no control, no ability to move. So she was fixed to the creature's attention.

'A persistent one,' she heard the Elusiver say; the whispery voice serpent-like. 'Foolish b'tari to come here. You had your chance to live freely.'

Zerrana gave her best effort to talk but nothing came out.

'No need to explain why you are here,' the creature continued. 'For that which you seek has gone. B'tari mind-captures, Roidon Chanley. A wasted journey. There is nothing else for you.' The Elusiver then stepped back to let the light flood into her eyes she seemed unable to close. 'Curious you thought you could ever rescue them. Perhaps you have nothing to lose,' his retreating words.

The Elusiver now in the background, engaged in some activity she could not quite make out.

If she had the ability to speak, she'd tell the Elusiver to not dismiss the one entity they could never control. Destroy, yes, quite possibly, but history suggested they'd consider that an act of fear. Such an entity, they'd reason, was potentially a powerful weapon – if it could be contained, harnessed. Enslaved, may be more they had in mind. If it was allowed to function as an intelligent entity, would it capitulate to their whims, or just pretend to?

Even here Zerrana could console herself. If everything from her past really was out of reach, then the best alternative to here seemed only more futile. Nothing else but to wander through uninhabited space aimlessly in a ship able to explore the extent of this now primitive galaxy, but not beyond. Beyond lay a void of passing in and out of hyperspace until power had drained with no energy to recharge. Then what? Drift through space for the rest of her life?

Despite her imprisonment, here was a source of hope.

'I know what you're thinking, Zerrana,' The Elusiver declared. She doubted the Elusiver could actually read her thoughts. 'There is one entity you are here for. Your last hope.' He turned away, said something Zerrana could not quite hear.

A clattering sound, becoming louder. Light gleaming on metal. A head, a face formed of rods and servers. A nightmare vision of a mechanoid stood before her; bipedal, and exoskeleton encasing whatever electronics remained of her precious sentient AI. At least she believed it to be Ovrah; nothing like she imagined it would be after evolving from the formation centre deep within B'tar.

The Elusiver stood to Ovrah's side. 'Tell her why she must concede to our plan.'

The thing, what was once her precious creation, rolled its head to the side as if to exaggerate its mechanical oddness. This form surely was not what it – he – wanted: a thing to be feared. Yet seemingly playing up to just that.

Words came out; words she didn't understand at first, they were highly synthetic and elongated as if speech had been an afterthought in its creation. '...A multiphased temporal transmission weapon,' were the first words she caught.

Weapon. That was the only word registering with her right now. But the AI continued. 'We are creating an annihilator of time. Many – each can be attached to space-subverting pan-galactic probes.'

The Elusiver then stepped forward, perhaps frustrated by the slow delivery of explanation. 'What my special assistant was about to explain is that you, Zerrana, have a choice: live under our care as one of the chosen or go free until one of the temporal annihilator probes reaches you.' The Elusiver gave a half nod as if to acknowledge Zerrana understood, before turning to Ovrah. 'My assistant here, this intelligent machine's very existence, has proven why advanced species are a threat not only to the galaxy but to the entire cosmos.'

Zerrana's only response to the Elusiver was to shake her head. Further, she refused to believe her erstwhile and somehow corrupted AI. It had to be a bluff. Any sign of temporal erasure technology would have been detected, surely, when her people had kept a vigil eye from Earth. And yet, she couldn't be really be sure. The B'tari were diminished, scattered for long enough now they'd lost any oversight of the galaxy.

It then made perfect sense to her. They had all gone, all her people to the one place they thought was safe. The B'tari fleeing the places they'd held for a millennia in a desperate bid to find refuge. It was sad, it was a fall from grace. It was nothing short of shameful.

And it made her angry.

'Decision time, Zerrana,' the Elusiver demanded. 'Escape or remain. Think the word, and we will know.'

Suddenly the alternative seemed infinitely more appealing. ESCAPE, ESCAPE, ESCAPE!

'Then so be it.'

No more than an second later she was back in her ship, seated amongst the control panels as if she had never left. The Elusiver ship was no longer there; too far for her to ever find again, she guessed. When the doubt crept in she asked her ship: 'How long have I been gone from here?'

'Approximately three hours and thirty-six minutes.'

'Then I'm not going crazy.'

'I am not currently able to assess your mental health based on a cursory observation.'

'Being out here alone, with only you as company. It won't be long before I do go crazy.'

The ship did not respond.

Feeling mildly guilty, Zerrana said, 'That was a joke, you understand. Nevertheless, prepare for me to enter stasis.' Then as she was about to enter the pod: 'I cede responsibility to you to look out for anomalies, or anything relating to B'tari tech. To find something that provides hope for my future. Only then wake me.'

'Are you sure you do not want to be awoken in the event of a threat to your life?'

'No,' she said firmly. 'I'd rather die in my sleep.'

'Is there a destination you have in mind?' the ship enquired.

'I want to go back to Earth. But I know you're going to tell me it's too risky to take a direct course. Just get me there.'

'Understood. However, the greater risk is not the journey. It is the arrival.'

'What's life without risk? Boring I would say.'

No response from the ship. Maybe it had given up on protecting her. Out of reach of the rest of her kind, the ship had likely accepted Earth as a place to die. Zerrana refused to allow that kind of cold logic to enter her mind. She viewed Earth differently: a place to live... and love.

Earth, the image in her mind. Surely no one would ever destroy that beauty.

* * *

### 61

T

'How much time?' Toramin's first words, upon pushing open the pod hatch. Yet he soon realised that was not the most important question. No one to answer him anyway.

As he sat up a nauseating wave of dizziness passed through him, it was like being drunk but forgetting you'd been drinking. Nevertheless Toramin kept upright, scanned around. He could just about discern in the dim ambient red there was no one left in the bay; they had all exited their pods. With an effort that made him feel like an old man Toramin lifted himself out of the pod, feeling like he would collapse if not vomit. The 'chines, he thought, ought to be doing their bit to restore his normal metabolic functions, why they hadn't done so already suggested he'd been woken suddenly. This should have given him the advantage over the other passengers – or crew. Did he know anything about them? So much of his memory still not accessible; his brain it seemed still in the process of thawing. He surmised at least that the others had left a while ago – hours certainly. But he realised he was having trouble breathing. The nanomachines should compensate for lack of oxygen, but not for long. He searched around before finding a pressure suit in one of the side closets, put it on, with the helmet self-seal, feeling relief at the rush of air contained from bubble pockets. No more than a temporary (emergency) solution. He then staggered through the nearest exit – still feeling a strange non-pleasurable inebriation – trying to recall where it led to.

A corridor, similarly lit dim red. No one else about. Another possible exit at the end. Walking was becoming easier, the 'chines finally doing their job. But it hadn't merely been his balance askew; he felt every step would become a leap, the gravity here was way too weak. The door had no handle; he assumed it ought to slide automatically. It didn't. At the side a panel. Quite simply a lever – like an override switch – but behind some kind of glass. In case of emergencies? Helpfully, on the other side he found another panel, more like a hatch, with a raised lip to slide to reveal a small sharp-edged hammer.

The glass broke with more effort than he expected. His muscles still not fully restored. It was at this point the immense hunger struck him. He was weak from not having eaten for an unfathomably long time; energy depleted. Simple as. But now: focus.

Pulling the lever somehow released the door so that it sprung loose, leaving enough of a gap for him to slide it open. Revealing what appeared to be the main control room, but the light was so dim and there was no active console, only panels.

'Light,' he said. And the suit obliged, flooding the room with a wide beam.

Toramin nearly fell back upon seeing them illuminated. Dead. All of them. Bones covered in strips of cloth. The strange humanoid skeletons of B'tari. The crew still at their consoles. He tried to get over the initial shock, tried to think. They must have died hundreds of hours ago. No air, that should have preserved them.

Sudden panic rose through him. He tried not to imagine being stuck on a dead ship for the rest of a miserable life. But the thought could not be prevented, it was like a powerful wave breaking through a fragile dam.

There must be a reason he had woken when he had. A reason why the others had left their stasis. Some emergency.

'Ship,' he said, not sure how or if the suit would relay his voice; not optimistic at the chances of the ship AI still being functional. Regardless: 'How long ago did the crew die?'

A light then went on in one of the forward consoles. 'Toramin,' said a thin and distorted voice, he realised was coming through the suit's comm. 'Four hundred and fifty-three hours.'

Toramin staggered backwards, very nearly falling to the ground. He found an empty chair, slunk back in its flexible cushioned support. He tried to think things through logically. Why had he awoken when he had? Or not sooner?

The decayed bodies: there must have been air; maybe only when environment systems gave up had he been awoken. The last desperate dying act of the ship: release the one passenger who had specially requested to be kept under until destination – wherever that was to be.

There were other questions. 'Ship. Where are we?'

'Cannot specify beyond within local group quadrant.'

'Between galaxies?'

'Affirmative.'

'Why could we not reach any other galaxy?'

'Power drained due to evasive maneuvers.'

'Evading who?'

'Hostile craft.'

'More specific?'

'Weaponized probe, presenting temporal warping capabilities.'

Toramin took a moment to comprehend what he heard. It could only be a product of the Elusivers. He didn't need to understand exactly how it worked to know its primary purpose was to eliminate him and all the crew. But to murder; that – from what he had learned – was not their raison detra.

'Any sign of the probe?' It seemed an obvious question to have asked.

'Not within visual range.' An answer which didn't much reassure him.

So what do we do? he held back from asking, keep drifting along until I starve to death and you finally lose all power?

Instead: 'Is there anything I can do – to help?' Immediately he realised the question seemed vague, if not pointless.

A pause of few seconds, which must have seemed like an eon to an advanced AI. Then: 'This ship is running on emergency reserve power. You will run out of reserve air within 36 hours. Thus my recommendation is for you to return to stasis.'

'Then why bring me out in the first place?' A petulant question perhaps. But it was like child's reflex response.

'To inform you of the situation. I cannot protect you from any further attack – therefore there is the probability of your termination.'

Termination? It made him sound like a machine. Maybe there was a specific reason for not using the word death. The Elusivers wanting to eliminate by avoiding murder.

'No more stasis.' Toramin insisted. 'I want to do something to help, not die – out here in the middle of nowhere.'

'In all likelihood we will be eliminated as with the other B'tari ship,' it told him bluntly.

Toramin took a moment. Why had they been left? Not a worthy target? A number of things made no sense here.

'Is there an escape pod?'

'There are no remaining escape pods.'

'Remaining? So they were taken?'

'Affirmative.'

Toramin felt the warmth of anger seep through him. You only thought to tell me now? He took a deep breath. 'There could be survivors – they escaped?'

'Affirmative.'

'Where would they go?'

'Unknown. It was not an advisable action.'

A last desperate attempt to survive. He imagined they'd either been caught by the probe or had become no more than coffins adrift in space. Not much of an option.

Funny. He could go back into stasis sure in the knowledge he'd never get out; it would be the easiest death possible. Yet, the thought of never being discovered, or if he ever was there would just be a pile of bones along with a dozen or so others. Or even in the preservation in an airless cold environ, his body only discovered aeons later by some as yet to be evolved species who'd never know or care who he was. Looking at them now: B'tari, human – it mattered so little when reduced to that elemental state. Looking at the result of death, now, it was the leveller never so stark. All those times, he'd wanted the death on the freezing mountain, even without a b'tari supervisor. His preserved corpse identified. The immortal man's life finally ends; there'd be speculation, questions of his motivations, reviews of his life. There'd be something, surely, to memorialise his life.

No, he decided, not here.

One question still bothered him. 'The other B'tari ship – do you know what happened to it?'

'The other ship began its journey approximately 130 hours before this. There has been no record – no communication of it reaching a destination?'

'So you have no idea?'

'Communication or passing on information presents a risk of detection.'

'I understand. But you detect no trace, see no sign?'

'No sign at all.'

'Can we send out a distress signal? I don't care who detects it.'

'Yes. A multi-spectral metaphasic, superluminal burst.'

'Then do it. We have nothing to lose.'

'I do not advise it,' remarked the ship's AI. 'But you are the de facto captain of this vessel.'

'Damn right!'

He stood in the observation dome and watched as the ring of blue white light expanded out, then to vanish at superluminal speed. The polarizing filter cleared to reveal a thousand or more points of light. Except they weren't stars but galaxies, each of them guaranteed if only by force of probability to contain intelligent life. If the Elusivers had their way that would not remain. But such were the vast distances, even they could take generations to achieve their nihilistic objective. In the meantime he could do no more than observe the vastness and feel somehow comforted by his own relative smallness – if not insignificance.

* * *

62

R

Time had no meaning for Roidon. Had he been asleep for hours or weeks? Did his brain without a body work in the same way, with the same requirements for recuperation?

When dreaming, he had a body. Not the kind of dreams he had hoped for, these were curiously banal. He really thought by now he should have mastery over his dreams, if they are the only means of escape. Most of them a confused mess – the classic labyrinthine building, a hotel not even for sin but just the struggle to find his room, or the exit. These repetitive dreams faded. But something else remained. And it troubled him. He was in control of a weapon. Saw a target and felt compelled to unleash the weapon's power upon it. A starship, its characteristics curiously familiar. He tried to remember why he had to use this weapon. Out of fear. Roidon Chanley afraid? Fear of... pain. It was as if all the space surrounding the other ship, surrounding him, was imbued with an elemental field of suffering. That ship seemed to be emanating waves of pain, and the only way to eliminate those waves of badness was to eliminate the ship. And he could, just by a thought – or maybe a series of thoughts. He didn't actually see the weapon but only its effects. Then by some sort of mental trigger Roidon knew the weapon had been fired, which seemed to cause the ship to disappear. No explosion or any trace of it having been there. Its vanishing seemed instantaneous, along with the pain in his head. Then his ship went into some kind of hyperspace, stars blended to a tunnel before returning to a vast emptiness of deep space. Another ship, caught in his viewscreen. Even as a dot, he felt the badness emanating from it, somehow his dreaming mind rationalizing this strange experience, and telling him that second vessel also had to be eliminated to purge the local sector of space. So he tried pursuing the vessel; time after time only just missing its targeting range as the craft winked out of local space – always only narrowly escaping being targeted. As so common with dreams there seemed no proper rationale for pursuing the second ship, none from conscious reflection.

So vivid. It felt like a memory. But not one he welcomed. Had boredom, lack meaning in his life, created this utter sense of purpose?

All the while he'd been pondering his subconscious Roidon had noticed through the partial dome view the shift in space. Above, fewer points of light were visible. No constellations he recognised. Some had elongated shapes. Galaxies, perhaps ten out of a hundred that looked no different to stars. Either he had been unconscious for an unimaginably long time or his vessel had hyperspace capability.

'Ship. Computer. Please answer me.' A last desperate plea to which he expected no response.

His expectation was confirmed.

What happened next surprised him. At first as he watched the stars turn into that distinctive grey tunnel with only the tinniest black dot centre, his mind refused to accept it was real but another dream: no sensation, only visual. Hyperspace, on and on for many minutes, perhaps twenty before normal stars were restored. Still no constellations he recognised.

Roidon asked: 'Where are we?'

No response.

Then after one more, though brief hyperspace shift, a planet appeared. There like some yearned-for oasis in the desert. As he got nearer it looked vaguely familiar. Not Earth but similar, largely brown and green continents wrapped around with swirls of cloud. This was welcome. This was hope.

And that was the problem.

Ever closer, it seemed as if the ship was about to enter orbit. Until halted above a beautiful and surely vast snow-capped mountain range. He imagined how much he'd like to climb those. Feel the blast of thin air making him light-headed. To be active. To be free. How essentially wonderful, amazing, to be a live aware being with the autonomy to explore unfettered. Except he was the prisoner looking out the cell window; it was a state of mind itself to be trapped within. Torture of a subtle kind.

'So?' he asked of the ship's persistently silent AI, his thoughts projected as speech. 'What now?'

To his surprise an answer. 'This is where it ends, Roidon. You will cause it.'

'Cause what?' Something unutterably bad, he sensed.

Curiously, the world retreated until in full view then turned. Or rather the small craft turned and stopped when the planet was face on. Roidon felt a peculiar pressure in what would have been his temple, as if someone were squeezing their fingers into those points. His vision became watery. Still he could just make out two long turus-like objects emerged from either side, which then shifted to a locked forward position. Just like guns. Deadly guns. Then a flicker of lights, many colours scintillating outwards in a wave, something reacting with the planet's magnetic field. No more than a second later the planet changed from its position, suddenly, like a jump in many frames. Surely more than just another place in orbit. Or no more than a generated image. How easy to do this; how easy to make him believe he was in this point in space and not still at some Elusiver base.

The craft moved closer again towards the planet, even skimming the atmosphere – orange-red glow before him. Coming down. What had changed? No continents had shifted; no great swathes of land reset to some prehistoric time. Yet the lights from cities had winked out. Time wiped. Temporal erasure but with a twist.

'They are cleansed, dear Roidon.' The AI (at least in his mind) sounded like a typical Elusiver – the voice more whispery. Conspiratorial.

Not me. I choose not to be complicit, Roidon told the AI. Or just himself.

The ship eventually landed within a dense woods. He knew this planet. Its location – its significance was not revealed to him. He knew it; there was only one other Earth-like world that could possibly interest the Elusivers.

'The homeworld of Toramin Eblou. It is isn't it? Why here?'

'Localized temporal erasure. The beings on this world were showing signs of technological advancement towards space travel, and the development of sentient artificial intelligence. Their culture was becoming infected by the B'tari.'

'The B'tari? Aiding the advancement of a culture is against their doctrine.'

'But they are weak now as is the adherence to their doctrine. We allowed them to develop as a mature species, but now they have become swayed by a need to interfere. A cultural imperialism.'

'And you sent their planet back, what, hundreds of thousands of years – erased their lives?'

'Twenty thousand years, give or take. Before colonization.'

'Why land here? If this is a mobile device---'

'We wait until the next colonization. We are a sentinel.'

'Wait? I will not wait.'

'Oh, you will, Roidon. However many years it takes until the next reset.'

'I'm not needed,' Roidon protested. 'No reason for me to be here.'

No reply.

Twenty seconds passed. Then Roidon said: 'At least don't let me remain conscious.'

Still no reply. At various stages until now he imagined his predicament to be a punishment by the Elusivers. Not inflicting physical pain or even threaten pain – or death. Nothing so obvious, just the persistent tyranny of awareness – of being, of self. Their special punishment had with it deniability. They could claim it was not even punishment but something done for the greater good. Roidon the sentinel. Here to watch over a developing world for a millennia. Perhaps he was no more than a built in redundancy for the AI should that fail. But where did that leave the B'tari mind-captures? A further redundancy? That part he couldn't fathom, unless this was somehow a punishment for them also.

The view above began to shudder. It was as if the the probe was performing some action. His view showed the ground creeping up all around, until eventually they were buried. Darkness. A new level of sensory deprivation. Except he was sure there was movement, some residual nerves detecting – sliding to a clunk.

'How can I be a sentinel if I can't see?' To which no reply. He wondered that maybe at this stage of the planet's development no observation was needed. After all it was pre-colonisation: there were no advanced beings, only animals scratching around for food. At least it definitively gave the lie to any notion that he was tasked with anything useful. No, this was nothing more than a punishment. Even worth the sacrifice of one of their deadly space-probes.

But he had to wonder: were the Elusivers really so full of hatred for him? Would they let emotion govern their judgement? No. There had to be something else. And this his mind latched on to. His location would be detected; that idea was fuelled by hope but it also made sense. He was here as bait – for the last remaining B'taris. He and the mind-captures. However long it took. Hours, days, years. Yes, eventually they'd detect him – his signs of consciousness, if not the signal from the B'tari sim. Only of course it would be a trap. Then too late before blasted out of existence.

Still, he could have faith in the B'tari's intelligence to realise. Couldn't he?

He was sinking. Just a feeling, perhaps. A perception. Yes, there was light. White light. He looked below. He saw himself, a figure lying on a bed in a white room. Floating down to it as if in spirit form. Reunited with his body. A feeling of weight, of the bed.

Just a white room. Just a bed, on which he lay. And nothing else.

* * *

### 62

## Arrival

Z

'How long has it been?' The question slipped out as not much more than a reflex, hardly any conscious thought behind it. Awake now, still looking through the tinted glass of the pod, but emerging from what seemed to be an oblivion. Nothing. Memories not fully rebooted; the absence of any internal voice as her brain was still thawing.

Finally an external voice: 'Seven hundred and twenty-two hours, or in Earth time: eight weeks approximately.' The reassuringly gentle tones of her ship.

'Have we arrived?'

'At Earth. Yes we are in orbit.'

To take so long, Zerrana was now able to reason, meant there had to have been problems – at least a lot of evasive manoeuvres.

'Need to get out of here.' No sooner said than the hatch flipped open. And even though the will was strong, the actual process she found a challenge: despite the shallowness of the pod, muscles had barely any strength. Impossible to stand, it seemed, so to begin with egress consisted of rolling out of the pod like she was an infant with some vague notion of what standing upright should be. The body not yet adapted. Then what might, in front of a self-aware witness, be a humiliating crawl to the bridge.

She felt her strength returning, however, not long after the past in all its imperfectly reconstructed memory. Just in time for a knowledge of Earth, as she pulled herself up onto the helpfully sunken chair, to see the world in all its glory beneath her. Memories of belonging to a team, a carefully organised structure. While at the time that could seem constraining if not oppressive, now she'd welcome it. Being amongst others, interacting; a sense of purpose, importance. And duty – a word she had begun to resent in the last few months before the invasion. A time of increasing anxiety, a type of stress that at the time seemed nothing but negative. Now she yearned to be back in that time. The world looked no different from this orbital height: about two thirds visible in the 180 degree view. A beauty she'd never get tired of: distance plus atmosphere, clouds over green and mountainous continents hiding a multitude of sins. Now hiding what, though? A new colony of Elusivers; randomly scattered pre-humans – hardly more advanced than basic apes who had no conception of the new colonisers.

Then just the possibility---

'Ship. I know you don't recommend landing until completing some risk assessment. So can you scan for B'tari life-forms?'

'Not possible from this distance. Risk assessment suggests great danger to yourself. Risk high of detection despite stealth mode – at any sub-orbital height.'

'But we're not simply going to remain up here.' It was almost a question, almost a demand.

'It's your call, Zerrana.'

Not right away, she decided. She ate, went through her usual morning routines (it was good to maintain a daily cycle regardless of the actual local time). And she gave the prospect of going down there due consideration. Not stalling, she assured herself. It was going to happen, there was no other option. Reaching Earth's surface, good, bad, deadly or no, was not only her fate it was her duty. Besides, anywhere else within reach just seemed dark and barren.

Two hours had passed. Zerrana imagined the ship was now thinking she was having second thoughts, instead of preparing herself mentally.

Right. 'Take me down to a scanning altitude,' she commanded.

'Minimum altitude for surface scans will increase the chance of our detection a hundred fold. Even the process of descent---'

'Just do it will you, please.'

It complied. The nose burned with the red-orange of atmospheric friction, its entrancing glow was sure to be seen from the surface. The ship stalled above a plain, East of the Rockies, in western Canada.

'Proceeding to scan,' the ship helpfully informed her. 'There are multiple bipedal lifeforms within a five hundred mile radius. Isolated twenty B'tari.'

'B'tari,' she heard herself say. 'Abandoned.'

'There are many other lifeforms, likely to be Elusiven – thousands surrounding.'

I will risk it, she thought, just for the chance to see, to hear another. To face the consequences of leaving. To ameliorate, to redeem. To not be lonely. Even to be resented: still worth it.

'Take me to them.'

The ship descended. Still apparently invisible, but that was no guarantee. They hovered above a compound that used to be her base of operations. Even from this altitude she could see how it had changed: the perimeter green, over-grown, shrubs and hedges unkempt. She remembered the times she walked those grounds – a time for reflection, to unwind from the pressures of her job (yet to still be on call). Just to stretch her legs and take in the fresh air helped restore a clearer perspective on things. The simplicity of nature, so taken for granted until it is denied. The ship scanned the compound to reveal B'tari life-signs. No Elusivers within, or for at least thirty at four ks outwards. Then no doubt, her fate lay down there.

'Well,' she demanded of the ship. 'What are you waiting for? Take me down to land.'

No time to even think of the risk. The ship had surely assessed the danger, could throw at her a hundred possible scenarios where she gets captured by the Elusivers. And where the imagination was allowed to wander... bad places. No. best not to think; enough to know there was little chance they could be free rather than imprisoned. Her kind had spent too much time hesitating, which they called careful consideration – weighing up every cost and benefit in meetings and conferences, taking guidance. Only then acting on a decision after every option had been analysed to absurdem. No, of course this was a caricature, more applied to policy, administration rather than the day-to-day choices. Yet there was something of the careful deliberation ingrained in every b'tari; not to act on gut instinct. But not impetuous me, she told herself, as the ship landed in the nearest secluded clearing. Jump in!

Zerrana jumped out. Air. Fresh air for the first time in what at least felt like months. Well, she couldn't remember how the last time she felt the breeze on her face that wasn't artificially produced – there was something visceral that environmental systems were just not able to produce. A real sun on her face, comfortably warm. The sounds of nature: birds, the chirruping and mewing of creatures she could not identify. The smells of rising sap and scent of wild flowers, as spring was about to become summer. All so intoxicating it sent her into a whorl, forgetting everything not of the moment. The reminder of why Earth had been such a draw to her kind. For millennia considered to be the only planet to match B'tar in its beauty.

It took almost ten minutes to gather her thoughts together. But that was OK; Never mind vigillance; she was tired of being afraid. Life, she had decided of late, was about experience over expedience, desire over duty.

Except the faint call duty was becoming louder.

But no plan. Just a PDU with basically the same AI as the ship. Let it unfold and then react, she told herself. Don't over-think. No ignoring what her body was telling her: be fearful; at least be cautious. A simple reaction to facing the unknown, she reassured herself.

The compound was fenced off. Always had been; just needed to remember where to find the entrance. Keeping behind shrubbery, Zerrana made it to the main gate. Always staff only, special admittance with the right bio tat. It was still ingrained on the back of her hand. What were the chances? Still worth a try. Weeds and grass had grown wildly around the high cross-wired gate, as if no one had been within these grounds for months. Yet her PDU was telling her seven life-forms were inside those buildings.

It came as no surprise when she swiped the back of her hand across the sensor and nothing happened. At least nothing she could observe – and then it occurred to her what a fool she'd been in doing the one thing to identify her. Just had to hope it was completely off-line. Then how to get over the gate. Barbed wire ran across the top. She even considered scaling it, taking off her top and using that to cover the barbed wire. Instead she walked round with nothing better than hope. All around, the fence was way too high to climb over. Almost on the point of turning back to her ship the idea suddenly came to her. Using her PDU to scan the ground eventually revealed a tunnel. The perimeter section ended in a mass of undergrowth – well hidden. Zerrana pushed herself through and pulled out strands of grass and weeds. Even though it made her hands sore there was something wonderfully visceral about it: a force of determination.

A hatch. Old and corroded. Locked? A simple lever caked in rust, she tried to pull down. But her strength felt inadequate. Looking around just for inspiration revealed stone brick, part of the tunnel entrance that had broken off. She used it as a hammer. Wishing she had taken gloves, her hand now red raw, the vibration of each strike sent a stinging surge through her palm. But giving up now was no option. And determination, as so often, did eventually pay off. The handle began to give way. Zerrana felt an endorphin buzz of relief as the handle slid to its unlock position. The hatch still needed some force to pull it open. It revealed an echoey darkness. A secret tunnel; a tunnel for emergency escape. How many of her base team had used it? How many even knew of it?

Zerrana descended a metal rung stair ladder, tensely hanging on to the side bars, afraid her footing would slip. The smell inside was of stagnant water combined with something even more unpleasant. An instant reaction was to get away from it, get back out. Her PDU identified the odours, and they were not toxic; air was just about breathable. She opted for a visible beam, given no one else should see her down here. A brown-green slime stuck to walls above running fluid that was more than just water. She didn't want to identify what it was or consider whether it would rise up as it clearly had at some point.

Zerrana's feet pounding the floor sent an echo that must traverse the entire tunnel. Still she trudged on, feeling that whatever fate awaited her was increasingly less avoidable with every step. She couldn't help the thought that dying here was a possibility. A flood, a collapse. There were corpses of rats and some other creature. The worse thing was in not being discovered, yet thinking rationally dying adrift in space was more likely to ensure her eternal non-discovery. Her? There would be no Zerrana; just a corpse. Just matter. Matter – life, where did one become the other anyway? Some mystical moment of animation? A definitive point of becoming self-aware?

Too much time alone, she concluded, for these ruminations. She increased her pace. The tunnel stretched for over two kilometres. It would seem like a breeze on the outside with all its pleasant distractions. She imagined them running for their lives. Ten minutes, twelve? That could seem like an eternity down here.

Her PDU informed her she was reaching the end. Another stair-rung that was not much more than a ladder. First she pointed the PDU's beam at the top. A hatch with a similar but less corroded lever.

OK, just climb.

Heart thundering and adrenalin pumping; the only sense of being prepared. Her PDU was not showing any lifeforms. Perhaps it was the material used to seal the tunnel.

Top of the ladder now. Light deactivated. Zerrana tried not to speculate when she opened the hatch. Only darkness. Her PDU reprised the life-signs further inside the compound. They were static. Silent. She wished all the signs of fear – heart, rapid breath and the biochemical productions – would cease, not feel beyond her control; body betraying her in its in most active way. The Elusivers would know. They always knew.

She used an ultra-pale echo locate to move along the corridor to the main control room containing the life-signs. Something didn't make sense. So near she should have gotten readings from the others here. To know if they were frightened, or at least functionally alive rather than the simple bio-electrical signals that her PDU read from kilometres away.

Had to do it, to see what her every sense was telling her to be wary of. Something is very wrong here.

She entered the subterranean room. It had been dark and only illuminated at her presence. Stasis pods, laid out in an untidy arrangement – which bothered Zerrana more than she could explain. Had they been in too much of a hurry? The pod had an internal nuclear power supply, could maintain life support for years – possibly ten. They were still alive; it was that fact she had to hold on to – was what mattered.

She shone her light to get a better view of the b'tari within. She vaguely recognised him as one of the staff lieutenants, someone she may have exchanged a word with or given an order to. Attached to his forehead was the semi-band she recognised to be a mind-capture device; the cable from it didn't appear to be connected to anything. She wondered: had he attempted a mind transfer, fearing death? Yet at least nominally he was still alive. Stasis pods weren't designed to hold mind-captures; it had to be somewhere else. Somewhere protected perhaps? All the while the thought pressing at her: where are the Elusivers? After all, here had been the hub of operations working against their invasion. This was beginning to feel like a trap. Perhaps her body's fear response, rather than some primitive overhang, was trying to tell her something her cortex refused to.

A protocol. Something about a protocol she remembered from training. The invasion: it was always going to happen. So much time to prepare. The stasis pods, the uploading of mindstates. But if there hadn't been time for all that, there was another method of recording those last vital moments. Of course, the Elusivers would expect this, they were across everything. They'd want no record of their presence. Nothing resembling a recording device, or method. What was it? She didn't remember learning any specifics, only that it was required. Protocol 31: keep a record so that one day these invaders, these merciless conquerors would have to account for their misdeeds. Now, though, such a belief seemed naïve. Nevertheless. Every serving officer knew of protocol 31, but it was a measure of last resort – when death was imminent. It was never formally discussed, to her at least, much less imagined as a possibility.

No cameras. Then what?

'Protocol 31,' she stated, for what it was worth. As expected nothing happened. Still, persistence. The arc of consoles were probably long dead, or their functionality burnt out to protect their data. She asked her PDU, but only got the response: Classified emergency protocol.

She got her PDU to look for any indicative EM activity. Nothing. It's what the Elusivers would look for. This was beginning to seem ludicrous. If there was a recording how could they not have discovered it?

Then she remembered something about the name; protocol 31 was actually protocol 30-1: thirty becomes one. Thirty fragments of data. A chosen thirty to store their part of the recording. Stored in their heads. Individually the fragments would mean nothing, would look like normal memories.

Zerrana scanned around. Counted the pods. There were only twelve. What she did next really seemed like a shot to nothing. But still. She connected her PDU via pulse relay to one of the pods, a direct interface with its host, asked it (by using thought projection) to scan for anything pertaining to protocol 30-1. And to her surprise it told her: Data imagefile 5 received. Then in a flood of adrenalized anticipation she repeated the process with the other eleven.

Once collected she told her PDU to integrate the files. A visual showed them as envelopes rearranging into a certain order. It gave her the message: file incomplete.

'Play file,' she ordered abruptly. Her PDU projected the image of a file icon into her retinas. Then a static image of the control room. The scene changed, figures – her team in frozen action poses. Faces strained with stress – or possibly distress. Then movement: frames of a film playing choppily slow. Frantic movement all about the control room – the last moments. She imagined: even if the situation seemed futile the team had to continue with every last contingency, as if the logic of conceding inevitable defeat held no place here. Here was all about fighting with every last breath. Even as the 'blast proof' door caved in the B'tari officers were still at their stations. Perhaps they knew this footage would be played someday by someone in authority, if not her. But then it became clear, as the tall creatures in their gold isolation suits burst forth and started using whatever immobilizing device on the each of the team. Her people had seemingly stayed so heroically until the very end. Lights on the console array glowed red. The Elusivers even sensed what was about to happen. They dashed over to the consoles, holding some device over the array, before making a hasty retreat. Sparks flew from control panels and data interface units which gave access to every defence and security system on the base – the hub of operations for protecting Earth.

One Elusiver turned to a b'tari, seemingly demanding answers before immobilizing that one. She wondered how they hadn't been killed. Perhaps the Elusivers hoped they could still obtain information from her team. One more destructive surprise for these invaders?

The film had stopped; frustratingly incomplete. The feed disengaged. The Elusivers, however, wanted her team's information. They had doubtless used their most effective method to extract it. She looked at the b'tari officer in his pod, and wondered what could be left of his mind after a deep trawl. They would have backed themselves up, surely. Some highly secret place only revealed at the last moment. Maybe it was best she wasn't to know.

Curiosity, though, got the better of her. Through the pod interface her PDU did a more general scan of the officer's brain – not what it contained only its functional state. A neural map in stark relief. Stasis should have retained a low functionality, yet here only indicated by small isolated patches of pink amongst a mass of dark grey – dead grey.

Zerrana broke off the connection and was about to put the device in her pocket when it flashed a notification. A message, somehow retrieved from the interface. Simple text translated in B'tar: All who seek the mind-captures of this colony – of this being – will use the following coordinates. The designated location where the minds of the dead reside.

The message wasn't entirely clear, as if it was part of something more. The coordinates meant nothing to her until the PDU displayed the location; it was a planet she recognised: Eranearth – Toramin's world. Why there? A trap by the Elusivers, she suspected. It would have been the last place of sanctuary despite the dangers of invasion.

'You think I'll run into such an obvious trap?' she said to the air, or any elusiver who cared to surveil her. Yet she could find no reason to remain here, in this place between life and death. Or rather a place of the living dead.

The sense of being alone. Her floodlight had no way to stop the darkness pressing in on her. She switched it off. To see the undead in their putative coffins only made her feel more alone. No one but a dumb PDU AI to witness her existence. No one there to understand, to react, to be moved by, or even to object. Why even be alive? she wondered. A life without others would be a life unchecked, unacknowledged. Unappreciated.

If visiting that planet risked her life, it was worth it. The classic suicide mission: she'd take that now. Only, she acknowledged, if this was a trap by the Elusivers, the fate was likely to be worse than death.

Funny how coming to Earth held the promise of answers. Thought about from the barrenness of space, she was like the ancient rural folk dreaming of the city. Anything but the monotony of a routine aboard a ship – sleeping, waking, eating; seeing nothing change but the configuration of stars. How she had once dreamt of being amongst the stars. The stars were no more than machines supporting nothing better than un-comprehending biological machines. The universe in its most supremely indifferent.

Yet there were oasis's of intelligence. Did it matter that they were simulations of her kind? They were her kind, perhaps the only remaining. They were people who knew her. If there remained anything left of their consciousness then she had a duty to rescue them.

Then there was no alternative. How could could there ever be?

* * *

### 63

T

He sat in the forward seat of the command deck, before a half dome view of deep space: points and smudges of millions of galaxies, the ship barely moving now. There was nowhere to head towards. Still. It seemed like the fulfilment of a lifetime's ambition for Toramin, to be a ship's captain; he was sure that's what he had yearned to be – as a child. But trouble with childhood memories was that they tended to be false. For most adults such an assertion would be an outrage, but for Toramin who had been an adult for over eight hundred of human years, childhood seemed no more than a dream. He knew he should have been glad for the stability and support of his formative years (after all, his parents knew their child was special – the chosen one). Shielded as he was from the harshities of life, there were no traumatic memories on which to fixate and around which other memories could coalesce. Being different so commonly led to bullying or at the very least taunting: he had witnessed that in other children with differences far less significant than his. So if not then but soon into adolescence it had become clear there were those behind the scenes ensuring his façade of ordinariness be protected. But anyway, those childhood memories, like all memories, were nothing but a recreation his mind did every time he wanted recall. Had to grasp on to something from that past. No past, no identity. But really there was no trusting anything his mind dug up from such a long time ago.

Two hours had passed since he deployed the distress beacon, with no response. Perhaps the ship was functioning on some kind of minimal reserve power. Too frightened to discover, he admitted to himself. There once would have been a time he'd enjoy this feeling of isolation. But after decades of living alone, of generally avoiding others, it had somewhat lost its appeal. Not that he actually felt lonely. He didn't think so – or that he was in some kind of denial. There at times had been loneliness; seeing other people within a communicable distance but not feeling able to communicate with them – that fear of rejection like a restraining force. Over the years he became habituated to the everyday reality of isolation; the longer the habit, the more difficult it was to break. When the chance had arrived to be with others, he became apprehensive. A jarring experience filling him with anxiety: an old man (though appearing to be early middle age) nervous and diffident like a teenager. The chance of relationships squandered by a troubling ineptitude. It was as if he had regressed from civilisation without awareness hitherto. Fearing that he was in the grip of a decline, Toramin did what any frightened creature would: he hid away.

Here it was simple. Here his options, even the ones he was yet to consider, were sure to be limited. But they all served one objective: survival.

Another hour gone of drifting in space and in mind, then a sound alerted him. A message – in his language: Distress call from planet Eranearth. Requested: any assistance. Those were the only words other than coordinates. His higher mental functions on alert. A trap. What else? A way to finally eliminate me.

Just under a minute was all it took to decide. A case of choosing something that offers an end to the monotonous slow decline of drifting in space.

'Ship. How far am I from my home world, and is it possible to reach?'

'Distance: 1.8 million light years. Power reserves inadequate for constant sub-space traversal.'

'No refuelling points?' As soon as he asked it felt like a stupid question.

'Scanning.'

A disconcerting wait. Wouldn't the ship already know?

'A module has been located two point three lightyears away. Its characteristics were not readily identifiable. Its provenance unknown. Will need to approach with caution.'

'Fine. Whatever it takes.' Toramin imagined a standard sub-sentient AI would advise against approaching. If there was anything that seemed more like a too-good-to-be-true trap, he'd be surprised. But in that randomly left module was hope – the only hope of reaching his homeworld. And the AI knew he'd take that chance however well hidden the mine – or whatever deadly device. The alternative safe option was simply not a consideration.

Within half an hour they were a million kilometres from the module. Now gradually creeping towards the 600 by 400 metres device at the speed of a sub-orbital. The ship reassured Toramin it was constantly scanning the device. Nevertheless, if the module had been left by the Elusivers there was no guaranteeing the accuracy despite it increasing with every nearing metre.

Two kilometres distance. The ship told him. 'Within the limitations of my judgement I have analysed the device to be safe. Will proceed to engage with it unless you instruct me otherwise.'

'Go ahead,' Toramin assured the AI.

The module was a dark grey oblong, probably easily missed by visual alone. But there it was, left like some gift – too good to be true. And yet. 'I have incoming comms from the module,' informed the ship. 'It has asked me to verify my identity. To put it another way it appears to be intended for a limited number of ships.'

'OK, fine,' Toramin affirmed.

Now only a few metres away the module, a tendril, or a cable extended to the ship like some machine mating practice.

'Recharging at a rate of one megajoule per second. Will be complete in approximately twelve minutes.'

'That's really informative. Thanks.' Toramin tried not to sound disinterested, but really he knew the ship kept apprising him because it suspected this was all part of some elaborate entrapment. Too good to be true, of course. But just play along with this because he could find no alternatives.

Toramin felt a sharp pang of fear at being told charging was complete. Then an exhalation of relief when nothing happened but a smooth disengagement. Now they had enough power to traverse deep space back to his home world. He could have gone back into stasis – even in mostly hyperspace it was going to take over two hundred hours. But some deep down fear warned him that he may never awake again. Funny, he mused, dying in deep sleep may have been an easy way to go. Only, now, his curiosity to find out the reality of this distress signal was tantalisingly compelling. Something interesting to look forward to, life or death. Fate writ large. How wonderful!

Stars became grey tunnels, sometimes infused with mauves and greens like an aurora Borealis. He wondered how much were his eyes giving him what he wanted to see. Not that reality had any fixably objective quality, he understood; all just models created in his brain – some agreement between his eyes and visual cortex. No nanomachines inside him ever provided any heightened perception; that would have made him less human, perhaps even more isolated. And here the experience of beauty was surely subjective. How good to do no more than soak it up, be in the moment. For most of his life that had proved to be so much of a challenge. Being able to override the natural worry response – the past, the future always a problem and never resolved. Isolation had eliminated such worries for a few years. But only thereafter to be replaced by something darker. Now the future felt like one ineluctable destination; the past – the players within it – so distant now it seemed that worry would only be a frivolous indulgence. Although perhaps the lack of worrying could be equated with a lack of caring. And a lack of caring gets folk killed.

The hours passed, days of his home time. Toramin found himself becoming lost in his own musings. Really trying to imagine eternity – how some had claimed the universe to be infinite. If that were so then everything was possible – every configuration of life, every action. Another Toramin Eblou out there thinking exactly the same thoughts, wondering how time could exist without him to experience it. Eternal universe; eternal non-existence. It was a paradox that could lead him to insanity. So he tried to keep to a routine, of exercise. Read as much on astronomy, physics as well as the arts (fact and fiction) that his old brain could handle. Knowledge seemed almost infinite. With no set context for its utility information could seem overwhelming.

Then the time arrived. The ship arrived at his homeworld. Entered a high orbit.

'There has been a drastic change,' the ship warned, with a curious undertone of melodrama. 'Caution is advised.'

Toramin was assailed by images of forest and scrub-lands. Comparisons were made from previous records. There were graphs showing how isotopic composition had changed. It all led to one ineluctable conclusion: temporal erasure.

'Take me to the source of the distress signal,' Toramin ordered

'Cannot detect distress signal.'

'The message? Coodinates?'

'Coodinates do match with an anomalous signal.'

'But not a distress signal? Then what is down there?'

'Unable to determine exactly its identity due to it being buried,' the ship further warned him.

After so long Tormain found himself becoming impatient. 'Are you going to take me down to the surface – or is there a shuttle?' It occurred to him now the ship was too big and not least noticeable to land.

'I can have the shuttle pod ready within twenty minutes.'

Equipped with a PDU and a backpack of supplies including a retractable spade, Toramin boarded the shuttle. Descent took only a few minutes. Landing spot: a clearing in a wood, just big enough to land the fifteen metre long craft. Two and a half kilometres from the distress signal source.

Without taking time to hesitate and an uncommon feeling of tension in his belly Toramin set off towards the source. His PDU reassured him there were no life-forms bigger than sheep in the area. Still: the Elusivers... Best not to think about that, he told himself.

There was no obvious place to find the source, it was all wooded and undergrowth. His PDU was able to pinpoint the location within a metre, and scan for anything harmful – apparently. And so he set about digging, feeling the adrenalin surge through his arms – a strange tingling in his wrist. Digging your own grave, went the unbidden words in his head. Still kept going: a metre, another quarter, half. All distracting thoughts banished, irrelevant along with any incipient fatigue. Only focused on the task now; digging almost machine-like.

Then, at almost his height in depth, the jarring, heart-stopping moment of having reached a solid object. All strength gone from his grip. Toramin sunk to his knees. After a minute to take in the implications he began frantically scraping aside the soil with shaky fingers. Eventually he used the head of the spade to scrape across the surface, to find the edges. And then resolved himself to dig around, revealing a charcoal coloured box about a metre and a half squared.

A new found strength. And a new found anxiety. This thing emitting a distress signal. It was giving nothing else away, revealing only similar sides though rounded at the corners. If somehow booby-trapped, what was the point in killing or maiming only him? Him, injured or dead, lying here as a warning to anyone else who dared approach. No.

When Toramin finally got the box unearthed he allowed himself to collapse onto its top, slumping against the side of the hole, and finished a bottle of energy drink. Arms now shaking from such spent effort.

His thoughts coalescing around a plan of action. He ventured: pull the box from its soil base. It refused to shift. Using a twisting motion eventually freed it. Turned it forty degrees or so onto its side. Not entirely smooth metal, there were ridges, forming geometric patterns, suggesting retractable compartments. The other side: the same. Other than the distress signal it was inscrutable to his PDU.

Then what?

Lifting it out of the hole was always going to be a problem, he hadn't considered in the urgency to unearth it. Daylight was beginning to fade; dark within an hour. He spoke into his PDU. 'Request shuttle relay.'

Granted, came the text response.

'Send shuttle over to my location. Hover above then await further instruction.'

Affirmative.

Possibly highlighting his position. To whom, he'd rather not speculate. The Elusivers would surely have already been aware.

The shuttle arrived within a few minutes; such a reassuring presence despite presenting an obvious target. Next order: 'Scan for anything likely to explode.' That felt somewhat belated, but it would only confirm what his PDU had already assured him.

Nothing with explosive potential has been found.

'Lower harness to my position.'

The shuttle complied. Toramin frantically tried to attach the harness around the box. He felt as if the shuttle was getting impatient at his clumsy fumblings despite stillness and silence. Lift one corner, slide strap around base. Then finally push down securing sleeve.

'OK. Ready to lift,' he announced. Heart-rate on overload.

He stood on the box, holding on to the cable, and told the shuttle to retract cable back into its bay. He half expected a challenge to this request, but none came. Perhaps the shuttle had less strict protocols for its – for their – protection.

Inside the brightly lit cargo bay, the box revealed itself only as having more hairline ridges.

'Shuttle, have you scanned this box?'

'It is still emitting a distress signal. Unable to detect anything else.'

Toramin paced around its side, inspecting and running his hand along the metal. It was only at the point he was about to walk away when a section popped out, as if on some tense spring trigger.

His PDU burst into life. High functional processing matrix, it informed him. Receiving comm signal. Audio feed relay.

'Neutralize me. Must not let me continue. Please listen to these instructions. Use a high voltage ele---' The synthetic voice became too distorted to make out any more, before it faded altogether.

Toramin slumped to the floor. His PDU projected new instructions from the box. Discontinue any comms link. Return module to planet surface.

'What would be the point in that?' he thought out loud. 'Tell me what you contain... or I will use force to find out.'

This module contains B'tari mind-captures. It is here for the discovery of B'tari.

'Re-establish comms link,' he told the PDU, now de-facto the shuttle AI, in turn linked to the main ship.

Interference field blocking, his PDU relayed. Attempting to analyse fragments. Comm reconstruction: Terminate. Must end. Help. Overload. Primary matrix. Cannot destroy with conventional explode – explosive. Temporal erasure on surface. Hidden device located beneath module site.

Toramin felt the all-too-familiar signs of panic, somehow primitively inadequate; the scenario where no simple solution presented itself. Something that went way beyond any significance to his own survival.

More from the PDU. Must not continue. I am the bringer of death. I am Roidon Chanley. Terminate me.

That name, it seemed to resonate through his entire being, echoes of import. Like a name from legend – almost mythical. Someone who had existed longer than himself. There was no need to question what to do. Only a question of how. Whatever captured form this man was held in, Toramin had a sense of a genuine consciousness – imprisoned in a form that didn't even bear imagination.

'More instructions, please!' he pleaded. But it came as no surprise to receive nothing but a repeat to return the box to the surface.

He searched around the cargo bay, and soon found a panel held in place with conventional bolt screws. His tool-pack contained a multi-driver, efficiently removing the plate to reveal a cross section of cables. He thought to ask the shuttle what they were for. What they were clearly not intended for was ripping out to expose the bare wire, though a sign above of a lightning bolt seemed fairly self-explanatory. No, the shuttle would surely object to having its power cables ripped out. So he didn't enquire the exact function of those cables. Best, he thought, not to overly think what he was about to do.

With the assistance of trundle-bot he placed the module next to the cables. The cables ended in a junction box which, without the necessary hesitation for considering any dangerous consequences, he unscrewed. The cable came out of its brace with further unscrewing. There was something curiously untechnological about this part of the B'tari vessel, like the primitive functional innards still remaining of some highly evolved creature. It seemed no advancement had superseded gold power conductors.

Releasing the cable from its housing left the cargo bay without light and – as the shuttle sternly informed him – without additional air or heat. In the light of a head-beam Toramin held the cable, not sure if he truly felt an electrical charge through its insulation or just the tingling of adrenalin.

Mustn't hesitate. He pushed the exposed cable onto the side of the module. A fork of lightning traced along all sides of the module – a mass of conduction that found nowhere to end. Yet he persisted, and watched in grim fascination as the box took on a dull glow. The radiating heat was becoming too uncomfortable for his bare hands to hold on any longer. The moment of letting the cable go was as sudden as any reflex action.

What have I done? What have I done?

He thought he felt a surge of electricity through the floor, but might have only been his imagination. Only the adrenalin. Still conscious, not in pain. Could the same be said of Roidon Chanley?

'Backup in operation,' the shuttle told him as the cargo bay became bathed in red. 'Rerouting power. Unable to identify fault.' His sabotage seemingly unrecognised. The main ship wouldn't have let him off that without question, he mused. Intelligent AI's could become an irritant, and it would surely only be a matter of time before it was informed.

His thoughts diverted from the implications of what he had done. Mercy killing? Murder of B'tari mind-captures? Or just the termination of functional processing units? The power to take many lives; it was an odd feeling – an exhilaration fused with a queasiness. Nothing like remorse – he hoped, because he hadn't killed living breathing beings, only bits of software that believed themselves to be real. Just as I do?

He was stalling, he acknowledged. Buried deeper than he could unearth the device – the weapon of ultimate destruction. And would that destroying it be so simple. An Elusiver device; he couldn't even begin to imagine the safeguards. Perhaps terminating the mind-captures was merely part of their plan; Roidon caused to suffer to the extent that he'd make such a desperate request. Still, if it were true then a mercy killing was justified – was right regardless of any entrapment.

'Shuttle. Take me back to the planet.'

Toramin didn't relish the prospect of returning, or the responsibility that entailed. Wanted to do a last act of greatness, for sure. But something clear and simple. Sacrificing his life in some easily morally definitive way. Heroism – a simple male desire. Not even to be lauded for it. Just to have made it all worth while – the centuries, the gift of such a long life.

The shuttle found a clearing in a secluded woodland. Toramin stepped out, took in the fresh air. It was a dark, moonless night; a kind of darkness that had been so rare on his world. The stars were dizzying in their sharp abundance; he felt as if he could float among them if only he jumped hard enough. His attention, though, was suddenly brought back by the distant sounds of unfamiliar creatures.

A tiredness soon descended upon him that made the urge to lie down almost irresistible.

Toramin re-entered the shuttle. He could, he decided, be a hero tomorrow. Much easier in the light of a new day.

* * *

### 64

R

Toramin. Toramin! You fucking fool! I'm still alive!

He hoped. He did have hope. Hoped that it would be over. Awareness faded out for a while; the electrical current enough to render him oblivious. But it was no time. Relief from the interminable passing of time – the only realistically achievement he sought, it seemed. Time out from them. The constant chattering. The insanity of their persistent existence. It was their curse as well as his to know time can be eternal (or as near as damn it). No getting older and fading in senility; it could have been factored into the simulation, but they, like him were not offered the illusion of a real life. For them it was doubtless in accordance with their old doctrine; for him it may have just been part of the punishment.

Punishment, he mused – an curious concept, and not one the Elusivers would acknowledge. No, they'd claim, awareness was a privilege. Awareness is pain, pain awareness. Awareness, though, can lead to madness. Insanity, nothing but a logical response for someone who knows they have no real life and feel every sensory aspect of being alive.

Yet there was one thing even worse. Being forgotten. Perhaps he could have tolerated the abandonment if it wasn't for the fact of this prison; the white rooms that all looked the same. Could have tolerated the solitariness if it wasn't for them – their reptilian faces peering in from their own prison, bulging out of the walls like masks, trying but not able to break through. Sometimes he'd hear their voices, never sure it wasn't merely his own imagination – his mental instability. Or dysfunction. But he held on to human terminology as the last bastion of feeling like one, and thus held on to hope of mercy. But now as it seemed that that particular chance had passed he wished only for one thing. For Toramin to fail. And, from what he had learned, it wasn't an entirely forlorn hope. The old man wanted out of his own prison, that of life; assessed to have developed a self-destructive tendency. Try real imprisonment, you fool, then your life might not seem such a burden, Roidon's passing bitter thought.

Time without end, but even a fraction of a lifetime could feel like an eternity in this confinement. No beginning and no end to the day. No days, no nights, only an eternal present. The illusion of the present, of one unchanging moment. And then finally at some unspecified point (the one thing that did prove time still passed for him) he wanted it to succeed. Wanted them to come here and activate it, to fall into its trap. To step blindly into its seductive lure. The thing purportedly promised, the portal into a better place created by the last surviving B'tari. The thing, he – Roidon Chanley – would tell them of: the last place of refuge, the secret they had kept from the Elusivers. All lies he scoffed at – for the absurdity that he propagate them, when all he had to gain was an end of existence. Roidon, however, was not the only one aware of this offer, and surely not the only one who'd try to convince their fellow B'tari. The mind-captures knew of his refusal to cooperate, and tormented him further for it. For, hitherto, his predicament had not dissolved what vestige of morality remained. For them there was nothing but the desperation for the end of suffering.

But clemency when they finally sensed the end to their eternal torment – a get-out without having to trigger the device. But Toramin failed them as much as Roidon – who had doubts about their suffering. How much of their pleas, their wailing was done for his benefit, to elicit his resolve, or how much was only in his mind?

Cry for what is gone; cry for what will never be; cry for what could have been. Roidon had cried for all those as he imagined the B'tari mind-captures had. Until there was nothing left to cry for, because there was nothing left of his humanity. They persisted but he became numb. Well, almost.

Roidon recalled that day (or night) he had a visitor. He knew it was an Elusiver from the moment the tall spindly creature appeared at the foot of his bed. Some projection from his sensory deprived mind perhaps. But he sat up and listened.

'There is only one way to cleanse the universe of this unrelenting desire to master it. Only one way to ensure the sanctity of nature, the beauty of innocence.' The creature's form wavered as if building up for a denouement. 'And you,' the Elusiver continued, 'are the instrument of that final cleansing, that restoration of innocence. Tell them about the portal.' The creature went on, putting forth this enticing but surely fictional proposition, while Roidon sang some inane song in defiance.

The creature no more than a figment of his imagination, Roidon told himself. Yet he knew there was something that would make his fellow prisoners believe. Any convincing he did was doubtless superfluous. Not, he decided, that he'd do any convincing. In fact, back then Roidon resolved he'd do quite the opposite – warn them of this trap that promised paradise but delivered only oblivion.

The visit, the vision, had been perhaps no more than a month ago in whatever subjective time. He'd never believed his mind would change in that time, that he would lose his resolve to refuse to be an instrument playing to their tune – to be a collaborator, whether for something real or fictitious.

But time changes everything, even stone. Confinement in this prison would surely break the resolve of a saint. And Roidon was no saint. If he ever took heed of religion – for all its constrictions and contradictions – he'd be a one hundred percent paid up sinner. Any notion of a greater good got crushed along with whatever might have been considered his spirit. Principles, morality, integrity – they all ultimately have their price. Wouldn't even the most pious sacrifice those qualities if they'd been truly without hope? Yet he yearned for someone to challenge his reasoning as much as he yearned for death. But knew no one would.

Without triggering the device, Roidon was – he grimly acknowledged – protected from destruction. The B'tari mind-captures ensured no fatal bomb blast or weapon fire, at least by anyone he knew with such capabilities.

So welcome all to your portal to a safe part of the universe.

* * *

### 65

Z

After a journey of 226 hours Zerrana reached orbit at Eranearth. Its green, brown and blue, continents hewn under a cloud-swirled beauty not so far removed from Earth itself.

Time, she reflected: after so many Earth or B'tar months, it all began to lose its meaning. When not in hyperspace her ship travelled mostly at a third of lightspeed. Even that was enough to put her noticeably out of sync with planet-bound contemporaries. Even though her circadian rhythm continued its cycle, the concepts of day and night no longer seemed any more real than her ship lighting. Of course they could be replicated by the ship lightening and darkening, but somehow – especially when she could arrive somewhere that may be day, may be night – it seemed pointless to prepare.

The message, the coodinates, though no more than a spot on her map, had been a beacon of hope throughout her journey. In a galaxy she knew nothing about (and frankly had no desire to know at present) the knowledge that she'd be reunited with her people be they real or simulated was like an oasis in a desert that offered nothing but despair or death.

Oasis or mirage?

Yet she acknowledged it was about absolving her conscience as much as salvaging what was left of her people. The Earth-sim was lost. To lose possibly the only existing minds of her people (and for some, indistinguishable from biological minds) would surely be unforgivable, notwithstanding if there would be anyone left in judgement. And here was somewhere similar to Earth. Life, humans, company; companionship. All those possibilities filling her mind with the merest beginnings of joy. Nevermind that such a propect seemed too good to be true. Where there's even the possibility of life...

The ship had been scanning the surface, really as a routine precaution. A significant change detected, things not as they should be. Only one human life-sign detected. The planet otherwise only indicated the presence of four legged fauna. The ship told her verbally, such was its level of concern: 'Analysis based on previous records suggests a temporal regression of aproximately twenty-thousand Earth-equivalent years. Still need to determine cause.' She was sure the ship had a fair idea of who caused it, and probably how.

The trap. There had to be one, and she was intrigued to discover it. At least there were no worries about pre-evolved humans on a world that had only been seeded barely a millennia before. Yes before – before the use of the worst weapon in known history.

The ship, she discovered, only had an escape pod rather than a shuttle designed for landing. Taking the ship to the surface – or rather instructing it – felt risky. 'Zone in on the coordinates,' she ordered. 'But remain at least 5ks above and radially out by ten.'

The ship hovered above the pinpointed area, something emitting an anomalous signal. The landscape had a jungle quality, reminding her of Earth's Amazon region, likewise taken back to a state before human intervention; an untarnished quality brimming with potential, fecund with possibility, but also untamed and every bit as dangerous as Earth's jungles. The lone human life-sign was only a few metres away from the signal.

'Take me nearer.'

Now only four kilometres out radially, probably within visual of whoever it was. Roidon, she hoped. He had an ability to survive almost anything, he was the mythical phoenix restored from the ashes. Even if he lost the will to survive, someone would revive him. Or so the legend went.

'Identify human.' She knew the ship was awaiting permission to do so.

'Toramin Eblou,' it told her, to disappointment but not much surprise.

The ship gradually took her further in, using up power that verged on reserve. Toramin seemed to be circling the source of the signal. 'Nearer.' Even though her ship was silent, he hadn't seen it by now. What was he so engrossed in? He was planting something around it.

'Land. Land!'

Now Toramin had seen her ship. He pivoted round almost falling backwards. No point in finding somewhere secluded, landing in the same clearing about ten metres away.

'Caution advised,' was the ship's helpful advice.

Assured that the atmosphere was adequately breathable Zerrana jumped out, after telling her ship to ascend and basically keep itself out of danger. Toramin was staring at her as though she had returned from the dead, or miraculously defined all odds in being here. Perhaps she had.

'Toramin,' she shouted, as she approached the gaunt man, her pace almost a run. But kept the rest of what she intended to say until reaching him.

'Zerrana?' he mouthed.

She stopped a metre away from where he stood. 'Yes, we survived,' she said, breathless. 'Against all odds, I guess.'

'The others are gone. This,' he gestured at the device in the middle of what she presumed were explosives, 'is designed to take whoever is left. It's designed to take your people. It's not safe here. You must go.'

'Not until I know what it is.'

He shook his head, in a way that irritated her. 'What it is is a trap. It must be destroyed.'

'Not until I know exactly what it is.' Her PDU identified a series of power cells all connected by cables that ran ultimately to a junction box. Something improvised. She had her doubts it would even work.

He was making a pushing hand gesture. 'Go back, it is not safe,' he reiterated.

Zerrana stood her ground. Her rank suddenly giving her resolve and authority. 'Let me see what it is, before you destroy it.'

'It is too late for them, Zerrana.'

'It looks as if you're about to commit murder,' Zerrana pointedly observed. 'Do you understand that?'

'You call it murder. I call it mercy.'

'How many lives? A thousand, five thousand? Those are sentient beings.'

Toramin shook his head. 'That's irrelevant.' He then put his hand to his forehead, as if struck by a revelation. 'Well, actually it is relevant. The fact of their sentience makes their suffering all the more profound.'

Zerrana felt the almost irresistible urge to go over to the old man and whack him. How dare he lecture her on the nature of suffering – of her people! Perhaps training, perhaps the need to resolve a situation by defusing it – if not the bombs. 'What do you know about the device?' She kept a calm voice.

'It's created by the Elusivers, designed to... eradicate time. It's been chasing the ship I was on. It took your people.'

'Let me see the device. So I can determine that for myself.'

He was shaking his head vigorously. 'Please don't. That's exactly what it wants you to do.'

She got closer anyway. He was waving his hands forbiddingly. She drew out her PDU, it was close enough to properly analyse the central cube. Its spectrum analyser sifted through the myriad EM frequencies. No sign of the mind-captures. The cube itself didn't even visually match any of the ones she had rescued.

Zerrana fixed him a stare, she hoped would convey she wasn't prepared for anything other than a straight answer. 'Where are they?'

He smiled, looked relieved. 'In my shuttle. But if you take them you may trigger it. They are linked, you see. If the signal is broken the device will be triggered.'

'You know this for certain?'

'It is what Roidon told me.'

'Roidon?' His name jumped out of her throat.

'I have also detected the signal.'

'Did Roidon have anything else to say?'

'Not much, other than he wants to die – if you call termination of a functional mind-capture death.'

Her legs felt so weak she sat on one of the cells. Had to think this through. Roidon alive in all but flesh. She wanted to know what kind of existence he had been left at the hands of the Elusivers, but could not bring herself to ask. Her own people – was it months, years? Did she even want to know that?

Toramin sat on one of the adjacent cells. He made to place an arm over her shoulder but then thought better of it. 'It hasn't been easy for any of them,' he said with apparent understatement. 'If you could see what they've been experiencing, you'd agree that termination would be a mercy.'

'Believe me, I have a fair idea. But such an act is not such a simple moral equation.' She didn't care if that sounded arch.

'Simple it is not,' Toramin agreed. 'Not just morally. Termination of the cube would break the signal. Unless I can render this device inactive. Destroying it would seem to be the only way.'

'Do you even know what it is?'

'Alas, no. It doesn't yield itself to the normal PDU scan. Well, that's not entirely true. A slight calibration revealed it emitting a signal that mimicked a rotating quantum singularity.'

'A wormhole?'

'Yes. It was trying to attract as many intelligent visitors as possible. Roidon told me how to disable it.'

'Roidon certainly has his uses,' she remarked.

'In return for his... termination.'

'Then we can't deactivate the signal?'

'Well, that's the rub – as they say. The signal is linked to both devices. Disabling that will cut the link.'

'\---and set off the device – I understand.'

'And you think annihilating the device is the only solution?'

'Roidon believes the mind-captures – including him – should be placed on top, so there is not enough delay to trigger it. They are connected, booby-trapped. But it seems reasonable any breaking of the link, or taking it beyond range – however far that might be – could trigger whatever it is.'

Zerrana gave that a moment of consideration. 'A temporal device, works perhaps in picoseconds. But you don't really know, do you? And I suspect neither does Roidon.'

'As far as I can tell it can't be analysed without taking it apart.'

'And that would not be a good idea – of course.'

Toramin shrugged his shoulders with a subtle opening gesture of the hands, in that idiosyncratic way humans did to suggest what can I do? He said eventually: 'You appreciate there is only one realistic option. These cells should create enough of an explosion to destroy anything within a few kilometres radius.'

Zerrana rose, stepped nearer the device, within touching distance. Toramin was hovering over her, seemingly trying to deduce whether she would do anything foolhardy. She dared to touch the device – its obsidian surface giving nothing away. It certainly looked typically Elusivan: inscrutable, impenetrable. All she had to go on was Toramin's account of the thing that pursued his ship. His word that Roidon was alive and wanted his life ended. The suffering of her people was something she could believe, as she'd already witnessed. They were never intended to live out a virtual life for so long, only ever meant as a temporary store, probably done in haste. Mindstates preserved in the hope that one day they would be transferred to corporeal form. Well, it worked for Roidon – and the idea of his suffering seemed plausible and that of his punishment by the Elusivers. Her being here seemed also to fit perfectly in with their plan, would know her reluctance to let her people be taken, be terminated. She was played, so was Roidon and Toramin. His logic was sound, there was no way she could counter-argue on that basis. Her argument had to be on some other level. Logic cannot be everything, she reasoned. If ways to eliminate suffering were all taken to their logical conclusion, surely half the life in the galaxy would have been terminated. In fact that was academic thinking, she reflected: logic had been used by the most advanced of species – biological and artificial. And the result had left the Milky Way a mostly barren galaxy.

'How do you plan to detonate the cells?'

'I fire a laser from my shuttle. One cell will set off another.'

'You can maintain a safe distance?'

'I'm not sure there's enough power. Only one ship cell left.'

'Then we use my ship.'

He grabbed her by the shoulder. The suddenness shocked Zerrana. 'No, you don't understand. A safe distance would be from orbit. Except that would...' He shook his head despairingly. 'Firing a laser from orbit – even your ship – it may not be enough. Besides the Elusivers---'

'I guess you've been seeking advice from Roidon.'

Toramin took a step back. 'Roidon has nothing to do with this. You know and I know it has to be done my way.'

'You're wrong,' Zerrana insisted. 'Roidon knows how to get his way – how to get under people's skin. Even someone as... old and wise as you.'

Toramin blazed a brief stare at her. 'Tell me then, Zerrana. What would be your best course of action?'

She would not answer him. Even if she had a better more logical alternative, she'd not engage in this argument. Instead: 'I am leaving here, Toramin. You are welcome to accompany me. My suggestion still stands. It may well fail to destroy the device, it might even attract the Elusivers. But at least we have a chance of survival.' She took a deep breath, sounding much like a sigh. 'It looks, however, like you are intent on some kind of final act of heroism.'

He shook his head. 'If I'm dead what does it matter? What does posterity matter when there's no one – no one I know, who knows me – to care?'

'We care,' she revealed to him.

'Why?' he demanded. 'Why am I so important to you... people?'

'I will tell you. But not now.' She was unsure she could, or that he would believe an explanation.

'Please.' His emphatic plea.

'Last chance,' she affirmed. 'I am about to leave.'

Toramin nodded. Not an acceptance of her offer but her resolve. He was set on his plan. Perhaps, she thought, such advanced years only makes someone more stubborn. Adaptive thinking still the preserve of the young, or at least those not centuries old. It was why, she mused, the notion of immortality had an essential flaw – that experience always led to wisdom. But those who think they're wise never listen to better advice. Still, maybe this was merely his alternative to taking his own life by more conventional means.

Or maybe he'd only fail.

Zerrana got back in her ship. She felt curiously numb. She'd lost her people, Roidon (for all he was ever alive), and the last human she might ever see. The prospect of total isolation – it no longer frightened her. Perhaps, she reflected, because it was beyond her control. Or perhaps it was her mind shutting off from the cold reality of her life.

The planet slowly receded. She was in no hurry to leave, wanted to see if Toramin would take to his shuttle before she reached orbit. Through an increasingly magnified view she watched Toramin make some final adjustments to his cell array. She tried to believe he was stalling, regretting staying on the planet. She regretted not trying a different argument, not showing more – or any really – sympathy for his plight: the man who had lost his people to something perhaps worse than death.

Then a glint in the corner of her vision caught her attention. She spun away from the magnified central viewer. But it was too late to see it in vision.

'Ship. What was that? That shiny object.'

'I have analysed its presence. It was moving from twenty to over fifty gees. There are no signs of biological life within, but cannot be certain from such a brief scan.'

'Play back the recording of it. Five percent speed.'

Golden and bullet-shaped, it was heading towards the surface at one point, then levelling up. Some kind of probe monitoring?

'Can you get a fix on its trajectory?'

'Last known position was a few hundred metres from planet's surface.'

'Stop ascending. Slowly head back, unless object threatens us.'

### 66

T

Peace. He felt at peace. Not to the point of serenity, just an acceptance that what he was about to do had no alternative. It was the peace that comes through lack of choice.

He took a few steps back from the cell array. There were still uncertainties, such as the exact explosive force of the cells' combined effect. His PDU gave some indication, but was no more than a good estimate. The effect on the device itself was still an unknown quantity. In the centre the bevelled cube containing the mind-captures had been placed in its slot on top of the larger similar shaped device, the over-crossed clamps pushed back in place – for all that it mattered. The internal structure of the device remained mysteriously hidden. Not that he needed proof of what it was capable of. It occurred to him belatedly that fixing the device with the mind-captures back to their original configuration may cause re-activation even though it still seemed inert.

Still, no time to waste. Though he couldn't draw himself away just yet. This felt like a final moment. A moment to take it all in. Not to properly reflect; that implied some hour's long process. His whole life to look back over? Simply too much. Where even to begin? And where to end?

Really, it was only the moment that mattered now. He took a deep breath. The air was so pure. He felt mildly intoxicated by it. Or maybe that was the scent of near-by fern trees. No human colonists – fourth, fifth or sixth generations – to contaminate it with whatever technology that hadn't, even in the last few years before their erasure, quite reached the clean standards of their benefactors (who preferred to stand back).

Too late for deep thinking, for exploring the bigger questions that tantalisingly hovered at his periphery. The only one who could have helped in that regard was about to be annihilated. Maybe Roidon's desire for oblivion was itself a closure. In a place of no distractions; a seemingly infinite time for cogitation, for philosophical thought – and what happens?

Well, a need for an end.

He took a few more steps back, then turned round, retreated to his shuttle. He was sure of its power reserves. One cell to power the shuttle's anti-grav drive, and its meagre defence laser. He was fairly sure that would not be enough to get him safely to orbit. But even if he made it to the main ship. Well, no point in worrying over that. Of course he could have risked rigging up a few cells. Their explosive force was an unknown quantity. He'd leave nothing to chance in ensuring destruction – he assured himself.

The take-off was accompanied by a warning of critical low power. Its computer had already given a red critical warning, like those old car fuel indicators; running on fumes. The shuttle hovered only at a few metres up, and about a hundred away from the cell array. He primed the laser. Then tried to focus his mind on the magnitude of this moment. This very last moment before he'd push the button.

Is this what it has all been building towards – my Ultimate Fate?

Then, as he realised that in the short time window there would be no further profound last thought to come, something caught his attention. A figure had run to the array at such speed he hadn't seen it approach as more than a blur. Not human, it was mechanical. Jointed limbs of metal rods and hands working furiously to dismantle the cell array. This was the time he should fire the laser; there could be no delay. Whatever this entity, its intention was clearly to save the device. So, fire! But some doubt crushing Toramin's resolve, stopping his finger from making the final split second journey.

And in a few seconds his plan was ended. The shuttle exhausted its remaining reserves and touched down. Toramin exited, ran towards the robot entity to see it dismantling the device, using some kind of laser cutter.

Toramin, a few metres away, stared for a while trying to gauge whether the entity really knew what it was doing. It was ripping away the device's outer casing still glowing from the intense heat. The robot held another wand-like tool, jabbing it within the device. Yet this seemed a fatal miscalculation. The robot juddered furiously as if electrocuted, then fell back limp.

Toramin gingerly stepped nearer. The wand tool was still in the device; the entity appeared lifeless. Nearer still. There was no reason to fear death. Not after so much. The device, it was glowing inside a dull red, pulsating.

The mind-captures? So distracted, he'd completely forgotten. No sign of the cube. He looked around. A ship had landed.

It was her! The b'tari-human was running towards the device. She stopped about a metre away, seemingly oblivious to Toramin. She held out her PDU, then stared intensely at the robot, moving in curiously close.

'I'd avoid touching the robot,' Toramin suggested, feeling strangely calm.

Zerrana threw an angry look at him.'That is no robot. That is our salvation!'

Toramin thought to question why she was using such a religiously loaded term for a civilisation known for their lack of belief in a deity. He thought to question why she had used the present tense. But that was not the moment. Instead: 'You believe it has rendered the device inactive?'

'I can't be sure,' she said more levelly. 'There's still very weak EM readings. My PDU can't decipher elusiven tech any better than yours.'

'Then it should be destroyed – the device.'

'The link with the mind-captures. Can't risk breaking that, right?'

'Yes we can. If it means our survival.' The words had tumbled out. Is this about my survival?

She gave a half nod. 'Back to my ship.'

'Yes ma'am,' he nodded fully, and followed her as she hadn't waited for a response.

The mind-capture cube was in the cargo bay. An articulated arm holding a tapered blue-flashing device, part of a some robot on caterpillar tracks was circling the cube. 'I was hoping the combination of frequencies can be isolated and replicated.'

'That robot on Eran. It was assisting you?'

'In a sense. He – it – was created to help resist the Elusivers.' She looked at him almost in tears. 'I thought he had been corrupted by them. I lost faith. But he was more resilient, created multiple copies, regrouped, combined, upgraded. It was all worth it.'

'You designed it – him? A truly good artificial entity?'

She held him by the shoulders, her eyes gleaming, nodding. 'That I did, Toramin. I created something special – something they thought could never be done.'

A voice then from the ship. 'Attention Zerrana. The frequencies have been isolated. An isolation field will be created and a probe will generate replicated frequencies, ready for dispatch within ten minutes.'

He had questions. 'We can go when the probe launches? But we destroy the temporal device first?'

'We go but can't risk destroying the device. Why bother? There's no one left for it to threaten even if it does reactivate.'

Toramin nodded reluctantly.

Zerrana's ship was less than a quarter of the size of the one that brought him here, which they observed still in orbit – a tomb of Zerrana's people they both agreed should remain if only as a reminder of a lost civilisation. Her people, she told him, were gone. If any had survived, to know where they are would be dangerous knowledge. In any case, Zerrana was a target for the Elusivers not only for what she knew but for what she had done – creating an artificial entity, other versions of which could still be out there. Their very existence an anathema to those ancient advanced beings. They, after all, recognised the dangers of AI in creating ones that did the most logical thing of evolving.

Now Toramin could think of nowhere to go. No safe haven. Zerrana, however, set a course for the Milky Way galaxy, a journey that could take weeks – in Earth time.

Zerrana said, 'I need to gain access to the mind-captures. There's an interface port. It means – well, you know, I'll be out action.'

'I can keep watch, if that's your concern,' assured Toramin. 'But I think the ship can take care of things itself.'

Zerrana looked up at him, intensity in her eyes. Maybe it was fear. 'All that time. He's going to blame me – somehow.'

'I once had a pet guinea pig, as a child,' said Toramin. 'Thought I had treated it OK. But for years after its death, right into adulthood, I was plagued by dreams of it still being alive and that for some reason I had neglected it. It was there in its hutch still existing in some diminished state. What I mean to say is, you have to let go. Whether or not Roidon is alive is open to question. He was still able to make his own decisions – his own mistakes. He was no longer your responsibility when he went his own way – if he ever had been.'

'I want to know,' she told him. 'I want to know just how bad it was for them – for him.'

Toramin nodded mutely. He had only hinted at Roidon's desperate state, how that convinced him the Elusivers had no regard, much less compassion for the artificial – the non biological.

He stood nearby as Zerrana hooked herself up to the interface array, with no guarantee that even her ship could create any meaningful connection. The cube was still connected to the isolation field, replicating its connection to the temporal device via an orbiting probe. He wanted to persuade her that those mindstate entities were beyond salvage, that termination would be a mercy – as surely she was about to discover in the most painful way. And so he watched as she patched in, her initial vacant expression turning to a shocked intake of breath. Then her eyes shut tightly, a look of pain. It became agonising to watch.

'Ship. What is happening to her?'

'Zerrana's vital signs are within acceptable parameters.'

'That's doesn't answer my question.'

'The only metric I am tasked to monitor is Zerrana's physiological health.'

'There's nothing I can do is there?' He muttered.

'Zerrana has taken full responsibility for her mental wellbeing, and therefore does not require any intervention,' the ship explained in a rather more clipped tone than before. 'Her wishes are that you assist my efforts in maintaining observation of ship function and of any extraneous external factors.'

He definitely detected a tone in the ship's voice. He turned back to Zerrana: her eyes screwed up, her mouth in a frown. It could only be bad. And he could do nothing for her.

* * *

### 67

Z

They let her pass through eventually, despite their beseeching of her to release them, to in any way end their suffering. The wall to his room lost its solidity just for long enough.

'I didn't want you to see me like this,' he told her.

He looked no different. It was the same old Roidon. His physical form hadn't changed from what she remembered: a man of medium build and height in a grey top and sand tone trousers – a shade darker than the colour of the walls. This was fairly much his usual smart casual. His face, however, said it all. It told her of... well, there was something in the way he constantly grimaced; the composure of old had gone. She had to remind herself that this was a mind-capture of Roidon (such that he ever had a true original form). Still a sentient being trapped in this cell with no access to an outside.

She sighed, it was partly for his benefit. What words could express her sympathy.

'Dare I ask how you have been?' she asked eventually.

'Funny thing is,' he said. 'For a time I consciously felt I missed having company. Not that I was exactly left alone. But those... visitors breaking through my cell wall – periodically – I didn't consider company. But after a while, maybe weeks or months, I went – numb.' Roidon shook his head, forming a strange grin. 'Or maybe I simply went insane.'

'That must've been... difficult.'

He nodded, understatedly. 'I've heard no music for so long I couldn't remember anything pleasant. I tried singing but it sounded so false – and forced. Music – me. Who'd have thought?'

'It sounds like torture.'

'Sensory deprivation. Oldest most deniable kind of torture.'

'I wish I could take you out of this, restore you to... flesh.'

'I believe you, Zerrana. But we both know it's too late – for me, for them.'

She promised herself she wouldn't cry; it served no purpose here. She was a loyal b'tari officer commissioned to act in the Council's best interest. Mercy killing was a part of her training, to override sentiment with a steely compassion. But the simple notion of mercy had become lost to her over the years. It wasn't lack of empathy, however, to refuse knowledge of suffering; anyone lacking empathy had no need to refuse the brutal truth, and still continue unencumbered. For her to know just how it has been, rather than take Roidon's word for it would seem perverse. She trusted him, after all.

'Roidon. I am so sorry.'

'There is nothing to be sorry for. You were good to me. Better than I could have hoped – or deserved. So I know you will do what's right.'

'Somewhere there is a copy of you still in the protection of my people. Of that I am certain.' Although she wasn't, not even that any other b'tari still lived.

'Please. Do not say another word. Nothing else needs to be said.' Roidon paused for a few seconds. 'I just have some last words of advice for Toramin – for all that he will dismiss them as amateur philosophizing. Well anyway: never cling to the belief that there can ever be profundity in death, or any perfect moment to die.'

'OK,' was all it seemed she needed to say. She then gave the code exit phrase and was back instantly in her ship's cargo bay. Toramin was there, a look of concern written on his age-defying face that was vaguely touching. He was a good man, she decided. And how rare a thing that must be now. How valuable.

She spoke before he needed to. 'It's settled. We can let them go now.'

Toramin nodded. 'Did Roidon say anything of note?'

'Well, actually he did.'

### The end

