The Stars Like Gods Read online

  She stood, splashed water on her face and sent a message to the External Relations Advisors to let them know she was set to begin.

  Message unable to be delivered to intended recipients.

  Huh. The possibility that the Guides had escaped their prisons, mounted a full-scale attack on the Pavilion and rendered everyone inside nonfunctional briefly crossed her mind. But it was far more likely the Sogain maintained an interference field for some distance beyond their stellar system as a defensive measure.

  Either way, nothing she could do about it at present.

  Unlike when she interacted with the Taiyoks, here no algorithms existed beyond the rudimentary ‘first contact’ protocols to instruct her how to act or what demeanor to project, and those were less than useless since this was second contact. Or possibly third.

  No, the only tools at her disposal were her instincts and a healthy dose of desperation.

  She approached the stellar system at half maximum impulse speed with all cloaking mechanisms turned off—the space travel equivalent of holding her arms in the air, palms open. Based on the notes from the previous encounter, the Sogain somehow understood Communis and had even communicated in it, so she broadcast a message on a loop signaling her peaceful intentions.

  The first expedition had never made it close enough to any of the five planets in the system to determine which one, if any, the Sogain called home. If nothing arrived to stop her, she’d conduct flybys of every one of them—

  —the cabin lit up in a thousand swirling points of light. Before she could begin to react, they rushed around her in a torrent and the cabin vanished.

  SOGAIN STELLAR SYSTEM

  Nika hung suspended in nothingness. In space, perhaps, but the churning lights surrounding her made it impossible to say for certain. If the lights dropped her, it was possible she might fall forever and ever through the depths of the infinite cosmos.

  She breathed in—she could breathe. There was air, and the frigid, deadly vacuum of space wasn’t reaching her. So that was something.

  She struggled to make out an object beyond the fog generated by the pinpoints of lights agitating around her. A planet? No. Though globe-shaped, there was no soft glow of an atmosphere and no true surface. Instead the object was porous in the gaps between a multitude of rigid lines and sharp angles. Light, though markedly different from what surrounded her, pulsed in intricate rhythms across the object’s breadth.

  It was a machine. A constructed tool.

  She squinted, trying to make out more details. The patterns stacked upon one another into the depths of the machine. The star at the center of the system, which she suddenly realized she floated alarmingly close to, pulsed out solar flares toward the machine in a hypnotic rhythm. A rhythm which was neither random nor chaotic…nor unevenly distributed. While the star and the machine both rotated, the machine remained at a fixed point in space—it didn’t orbit the star—and the flares invariably licked its outer framework.

  The Sogain, who she assumed must control the machine, were siphoning off energy from the star, though by no method she’d ever heard of. Given the regular, targeted flares, it almost seemed as if they were controlling the star’s activity, manipulating the solar atmosphere to their own purposes.

  She should feel fear in the presence of such unfathomable power, but as she dangled helplessly there, a tiny speck of dust in the cosmos with naught but her supernal cocoon protecting her from its ravages, she felt only awe.

  She gulped in impossible air and greeted her captor or captors. “Hello?”

  You violate our directive and trespass on our sovereign space once again. Explain your presence or be disposed of.

  The voice boomed in her mind, more forceful and intimidating than the one she’d heard after the Rasu simex but possessing the same innate qualities.

  “I’ve come to plead for your assistance. My people face a grave threat to their existence—a threat that looms dark over all life in this galaxy. They are called the Rasu, and I believe you know something of them. I believe you gave me information on this species three years ago in an attempt to prepare me for the conflict that is now upon us. I’m most grateful for what you did, but it is not enough. Your information impressed upon me how fearsome the Rasu are and provided crucial details on their nature, but it didn’t show me how we can defend against them.

  “I don’t know how to protect my people from this enemy, and unless I find a way to do so, they will all die. If you value life, any life at all, I beg you to tell me everything you know about the Rasu.”

  Why do you suggest we interacted with you or your kind in any way? We care nothing of your flailings and wish only to be left alone.

  The voice came from nowhere; no distinct entity floated in front of her to whom she could direct her responses. Unless the voice originated from…the lights. Unless the lights were a Sogain, or all the Sogain.

  The revelation did nothing whatsoever to slow her racing heart. She swallowed hard.

  “I…think you’re lying. I think you’re the sole species we’ve ever met who is capable of contacting me in the manner in which I was contacted three years ago. I think you were in my head once before, a very long time ago, and let me assure you, it’s an unusual and memorable experience—one I experienced a second time three years ago, and a third time now. I think you remember who I am from our first meeting, and you deliberately sought me out.

  “Because I think you do care. Maybe not about Asterions. Maybe you only care about yourselves and recognize the Rasu are a threat to you as well. Maybe you care about life in the universe on an epochal scale and recognize the threat the Rasu pose to all of it. Whatever your motivations, I think you want us to defeat them, whether for ourselves, for you or for everyone.”

  Go on.

  She smiled in her ethereal cage. Gotcha. “I’m happy to defeat the Rasu—we’ll all be happy to defeat the Rasu—but you have to give me something more to work with. What is the base material they originate from? How is this material alive? How are they intelligent? What scientific principles do their weapons and starship engines operate on? What are their structural and strategic weaknesses? How can we disable them? Repel them? Destroy them?”

  Silence enveloped her for a long time. Approaching a minute, judging by the thousand heartbeats that punctuated the silence.

  A Rasu scout ship was disabled by an unexpected solar flare three years ago in a binary system containing two planets in your Sector III-E, Region 183. Though in time it was able to repair itself and re-form, it has chosen to remain on the planet upon which it crashed rather than return to the Rasu bastion. Go to this planet, capture the Rasu there and discover your answers if you can.

  “Thank you, but—”

  The world shifted in a blur of dizzying motion, and the next instant she was back in the cabin of the Wayfarer. The lights vanished, leaving the cabin feeling dark and empty.

  Her legs wobbled, and she stumbled to the couch to avoid falling on the floor. Once she’d caught her breath and the cabin had stopped spinning, she checked herself over for injuries. Her skin bore no traces of exposure to the ravages of space. She didn’t have so much as a scratch—

  —she tumbled to the floor anyway as the Wayfarer was blasted out of the stellar system by an unseen force. Not quite as rudely as on her first visit, but hardly a gentle farewell.

  She took the hint and hurried into the cockpit, where she quickly set a course for home and engaged the superluminal engine. No further shockwaves arrived to speed her departure, and after some minutes she decided she must be in the clear.

  Her chin dropped into her hand as she gazed out at the nebulous haze of the superluminal bubble. What had just happened to her? What in the literal cosmos were the Sogain? Finally and most crucially, how in the hells was she going to capture a Rasu in the wild?

  18

  * * *

  MIRAI ONE PAVILION

  Adlai steepled his hands at his chin and stared out at nothing. He
couldn’t afford to waste much time brooding. But maybe a minute or two.

  The idea of ancient Asterions walking among them—friends, lovers, adversaries? He needed to figure out how he felt about it. On the one hand, Maris and Nika were the same people he’d always known. Well possibly not Nika, but only at the margins. Even Satair remained the same arrogant, short-sighted blowhard he’d always been.

  And what counted as ‘old,’ anyway? Once upon a time, albeit in a distant past, they’d lived normal organic lifespans—were born, grew up, aged and died a mere few centuries later. By those standards, he might as well be an immortal. Asterions had changed what it meant to live, die and be reborn. In doing so, they’d changed what time itself meant…

  …but three weeks was a frighteningly short period of time under any measure, and the calendar raced headlong toward a zero-day confrontation with the Rasu. Enough of the brooding.

  He looked up as Perrin walked into the Justice command center wearing a big grin. “What’s got you excited?”

  She bounced on the balls of her feet. “Nika survived her encounter with the Sogain and is on her way back!”

  “That’s terrific news.” He met her halfway and wrapped his arms around her. Only after he’d done so did he remember half a dozen other people occupied the command center. Oh well, too late to be bashful now. “Did she learn anything?”

  “I think so. She said she’d fill us in once she gets back in a few hours.” Perrin’s nose wrinkled up as she stepped away to scrutinize him. “What’s on your mind?”

  Could she already read him so thoroughly? Probably. She was excellent with people, practically an empath, and ‘people’ included him, so he ought not to be surprised.

  Now, was he going to answer her question truthfully? It wasn’t his secret to tell. But like Dashiel, he didn’t feel comfortable acting as a coconspirator to immortals. “I don’t—”

  Spencer knocked on the frame of the open door. The man had as much right to inhabit the command center as anyone in Justice, but even in the face of chaos he continued to be unfailingly polite and respectful.

  Adlai whispered in Perrin’s ear, “I’ll tell you later,” and motioned Spencer inside. An officer from Synra—Francis Wallman, Adlai believed was the man’s name—accompanied him.

  “What’s the word?”

  “The…I guess ‘regens’ is the most accurate label…of all five former Guides have been completed without any glitches. Medically, that is. I understand the transition to functioning bodies is proving difficult for some of them, at least in the early hours.”

  “Then they shouldn’t have given up their physical forms in the first place.” Perrin crossed her arms defiantly over her chest.

  Spencer huffed a breath. “I don’t think anyone except them will disagree with you there.”

  Adlai nodded. “I heard from the teams at the internment sites we’ve chosen on Mirai and Synra a few minutes ago. They’re set up, and the locations have been secured. Selene, Harris and Julien are handling the other locations, and they haven’t raised any issues so far. Once the clinic clears them, we’ll be ready to move the—let’s call them what they are, prisoners—under full guard to their new homes.”

  “Yes, sir. If it’s all right, I’d like to take Officer Wallman here with me and stop by the Synra site to give it a once-over myself before its new occupant moves in.”

  “You don’t need to ask my permission for that, Spencer. It’ll be your purview soon enough.”

  “I hope so, sir.”

  “Don’t worry. The delay isn’t due to any doubts among the Advisors, but rather the need for us to focus all our efforts on getting the former Guides dealt with as quickly as possible.”

  “I understand, and I agree. I’d as soon toss them into holes in the ground, but so long as they end up stationary and secured behind the best locks we can configure, I’ll take it.”

  “As will I.” They shook hands, and Spencer departed once more.

  Adlai turned to Perrin and squeezed her hand; these public displays of affection weren’t so hard. “I should do the same for the Mirai site.”

  “You should. I agree with Spencer. I don’t want any of those awful machine people getting loose and coming after us.”

  “They’re not machine people any longer.”

  “But they are still creepy. And dangerous.” She bit her lower lip, eyes dancing, and swatted him lightly on the ass. “So get!”

  His face burned. “Perrin….”

  “Got to run myself—have to provide a shoulder to cry on for a bit. Bye!” She scurried off with a wave, leaving him standing there in mortification.

  He furtively looked around the command center, but everyone continued about their work, heads down and eyes trained on panes and files…

  …then Julien’s deputy, Frank Quill, winked at him.

  HATAORI RENEWAL CLINIC

  Ava and Maggie sat huddled together on a couch in the lobby, while Carson slouched in a chair across from them. Maggie’s skin had lightened to a shade above pale, and her formerly burgundy hair now shone bright fuchsia; when paired with Ava’s brilliant emerald locks they made for the beginnings of a bold canvas. Carson looked the same as before, with a buzz-cut fading to mahogany skin on a muscular frame.

  They all stood when they saw Perrin, and she wrapped Maggie and Carson in a big hug when she reached them. “Welcome back!”

  “Thanks.”

  She grabbed the remaining chair in the lobby alcove, and everyone settled back down. “Has Ava brought you both up to speed?”

  Maggie wound a lock of hair around her finger. “Let’s see: a nasty virutox swept through the population turning people into criminals but is now being quelled, The Chalet blew up, twice, the Guides were secretly machines but are now people who are in prison, the Advisors—of which Nika was and is again one—are forming a new government, and evil shapeshifting aliens are coming for us all with the dawn. Did I miss anything?”

  Perrin shot Ava a glare. “You didn’t sugar-coat any of it, did you?”

  Ava stared at her deadpan. “Why would I do that?”

  “Right.” She gave Maggie an encouraging smile. “You did cover the high, or I suppose low, points. Except the Rasu won’t be here with the dawn. We have a little longer than that. Not much, though.” She felt her smile fading and willfully propped it up. “But we are working on stopping them. Not me, personally, but people. Nika, for instance. She’s on a mission for exactly that purpose, and she’ll be back in a few hours.

  “There’s also more good news. You can now walk freely on the streets wearing your own face without fear of being arrested by a Justice squad. NOIR is now on quite good terms with Justice, in fact.”

  Carson snickered. “Yeah, Ava said you were shacked up with someone from Justice.”

  Perrin tried not to groan. She so should not have let Ava handle their regen briefing. “His name is Adlai, and I’m just staying with him until I can find my own place. I’ve been spending all my time finding lodging for everyone else—including you! Maggie, you’ve got a bed in Ava’s suite at the Mikan Hotel. Carson, you can stay with Geoff and Dominic in their suite, but feel free to rearrange yourselves as you like. The important thing is you have roofs and beds. The NOIR nex hub is also alive and kicking. You can get in touch with everyone and…” she shrugged, but tried to make it an enthusiastic one “…start living your lives again.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes at something Ava muttered in her ear. “Thank you for everything, Perrin. We will. And we’ll help out wherever you need us to.”

  Carson interjected. “But first we’re getting steaks. I’m getting a steak. You all can come with me, but you’ve got to get off your asses, because—” he stood and jerked a thumb toward the entrance “—the steaks are this way.”

  She laid a hand on Ava’s arm as the woman stood, then leaned in close. “Where’s Cair?”

  Perrin knocked to announce her impending presence before activating the door to the recov
ery room.

  Cair paced repeatedly across the small room, pausing to glance out the window every other pass. When she stepped inside, he sent the glance her way instead. “I heard you talking about lodging suites out there. I don’t want to stay with other people.”

  “I know you don’t. I got you a private room.”

  “Oh. Thank you.”

  “Of course. You know, you could have joined us in the lobby.”

  “No. No. I burned Carson and Maggie alive. They don’t want to see me. I can’t see them.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Cair. They know that.”

  “It was still me. My old hands.” He held his hands out in front of him, frowning at them without slowing his traversals.

  She propped carefully against the wall beside the door in an open and non-threatening stance. “It really wasn’t. No one blames you for what happened. This virutox? It completely altered a person’s fundamental programming. It made people do horrible things that they never would have done otherwise. An Advisor, Iona Rowan, slaughtered three Chizeru diplomats—final death for them—and shot up a group of corporate executives. A factory technician named Tristan McLeros destroyed the Mirai One transit hub, atomizing more than two hundred people. I know you feel bad, but you need to forgive yourself.”

  The pacing slowed, which might be progress. “I want to help on the Rasu. I’m good with patterns.”

  “Absolutely. Nika’s made everything we have on the aliens publicly available, and I know she’ll welcome another skilled mind looking at the data.”

  “Okay.” Cair stopped and made a good effort at keeping eye contact with her. “Thank you. You and Nika have always been kind to me, and I…I am grateful.”

  “We know.” She gestured toward the door. “Do you maybe want to join the others for a steak?”

  “No. I’m not ready for that.”

  “Well, can I buy you a sandwich, then?”