The Path to Loss (Approaching Infinity Book 4) Read online

  The sound of the man’s neck breaking was lost amongst the noise of the crew’s work, but the hiss of blood being siphoned through the creature’s body to fill the squirming sacs upon its back soon had the attention of most of the men.

  They, like their doomed fellow, stood and stared in mute fascination mixed with horror, too shocked to act. This did not go on long, however, as the little creature exploded beneath the growth of its young. Not filled with the blood—which is not truly blood—of Raus Kapler, the young completed their race to maturity on the bursting of their parent with the final, forced infusion of nutrients and protein, and so the now nine-man crew faced twelve of the little beasts where there had been but one. Some of the men were able to break the shackles of their terror and seek escape, but the agility of the newborns exceeded their ability to flee, and soon a second colony thrived.

  With variations, it went on like this so that the numbers of the creatures increased exponentially, all in the hardest to reach regions of the damaged Palace. At about the time Vays made his report, other reports had started coming in, describing vicious animal attacks, but those reporting were cut off and not heard from again.

  Witchlan himself took charge of the operation, coordinating with the Palace Planning and Infrastructure Division. Crews were teamed with Imperial Police escorts and everyone was armed with knowledge of the danger and, perhaps more importantly, fan guns. These pistols were repeating seed guns, the ammunition of which rapidly regrew within the weapon itself and primed the targets for quick absorption into the Vine. They had no power to penetrate even thin armor and were of little value in most of the warfare conducted by the Viscain, but for the crisis at hand they would serve perfectly.

  Strays were encountered and dealt with, but it took some time to locate the nests. Each time a crew did locate a nest, chaos invariably resulted. The fan guns proved to be extremely effective against the creatures, which were dubbed glass pigs for their appearance and singular appetite, but once the beasts were roused from their hibernation, they scattered so that while the majority were killed, there were always those which managed to scramble away to find a new hiding place.

  10,810.302.1030

  They were all assembled in the war room for the second time in roughly six hours. Witchlan brooded in the shadows just beyond the light of a holographic screen at the head of the room.

  With arms folded and an uncharacteristic disconnected disgust, Witchlan spoke. “We’ll let the Biological Sciences Division fill you in on the details concerning our vermin problem, then discuss plans for the Palace. Director Jaspo?”

  The thin man on the screen sat forward, the lenses of his spectacles catching light and becoming opaque. “Thank you, Minister,” Jaspo said. “We have collected a number of specimens, both live and dead—and some somewhere in between, thanks to General Kapler—and have arrived at the conclusion that these. . . glass pigs have been genetically engineered to do exactly what they are now doing here within the Palace. They are a pest whose sole motivation is to reproduce through feeding, either upon nutrient rich blood or, with somewhat reduced results, on raw energy.

  “Each full grown animal has fifteen eggs in three rows of five running along the length of the spine. Their teeth and claws are extremely sharp and durable. While their claws are too short to cause much harm, they enable the animals to adhere to just about any surface. Many of you have witnessed them clinging to smooth metal surfaces and this is not surprising. While the musculature of their jaws is impressive, it is the combination of sharpness and durability of the teeth which makes their bite so dangerous, even to Shades. We have measured some of the edges to be as thin as a single molecule.

  “Each full-grown animal is a perfect copy of its parent, completely indistinguishable.”

  “Excuse me, Director Jaspo,” Raus said, “but if that’s the case why aren’t there fifteen offspring with every successful feeding?”

  “Successful is the key word, General. Every food target will offer different potential. Ideally, yes, there would be fifteen offspring with each feeding. If there are defects in the food target’s blood it seems these are filtered through an amazing combination of organs designed for this purpose. The eggs immediately above the spine are given priority, then those on either side of the spine moving down the length of the body. It is always the eggs furthest from the food source that suffer and fail to develop if any should fail to develop. First in line and all that.

  “The animals are better equipped to process blood than pure energy, but they have two separate means to process the latter. One of the filtering organs previously mentioned is essentially a converter with only thirty percent efficiency. Still for a biological mechanism, pretty efficient and something we will be looking into replicating. Their translucent skin is an even less efficient converter, which works on a principle similar to photosynthesis, capturing maybe ten to twelve percent of input.

  “They are quite hardy in the face of energy discharge weapons, but the fan guns have worked very well against them and we can see no better approach to exterminating them.”

  “Just so,” Witchlan said. “Mr. Porta, will you assist me in distributing these.”

  “Of course, Minister,” Nils said, moving to where Witchlan indicated. He gripped the handle of a meter-long rod that stood erect upon a tripod base. Secured to the rod, which ran through the trigger guards, were ten pistols. When he held the thing aloft, the base gathered and retracted within the rod. Nils detached the first weapon and placed it on the glass table before Jav. He proceeded to provide each of the Shades with one of the guns.

  Jav stared dumbly at the weapon for a moment and snickered uncontrollably.

  “Something funny, Holson?” Vays said.

  Jav raised his eyes slowly to meet Vays’s gaze, looked to Hilene briefly, then back to Vays. His lips parted and shook as if he were afraid to voice his thoughts. “It looks like flare gun.”

  “What’s a flare gun?” Hilene said.

  Jav shook his head, shrugged, swallowed hard.

  Icsain turned his head sharply, regarded Witchlan, who stepped forward.

  “Yes, Mr. Holson, tell us. What is a flare gun?” Witchlan said.

  “It’s a gun,” Jav said, his eyes losing focus, “that looks like this. It. . . it fires a small combustible charge that operates like a primitive version of a jump ship’s optical beacon before burning out.”

  “How quaint,” Witchlan said.

  Jav laughed nervously, his lips still quivering. “I don’t know how or why I know that.”

  “You’ve doubtless come across them over the course of our many acquisitions,” Witchlan said.

  “Doubtless,” Icsain said, but was quickly cowed by a sharp look from Witchlan.

  “What bothers me,” Jav said as if not hearing either of them, “is that I remember thinking this before, that this weapon looks like a flare gun.”

  Jav blinked several times, but he saw nothing. A single image flickered in his mind, that of a woman’s face spattered with blood. She was maddeningly familiar, but would not come into focus long enough to bring recollection, despite temporarily overwhelming his vision. Frustration, also familiar, boiled inside him, fueled by a combination of emotions that he’d felt before but couldn’t properly sort through. He wanted to break something, and it took all his self-control to not reach down, take the fan gun up in one hand, and crush it.

  Silence reigned. The atmosphere was taut with a tension that only two in the room fully understood. Icsain sat straighter in his chair. Both he and Witchlan stared at Jav, waiting for more from him, perhaps the loosing of all his repressed memories, but nothing came.

  “Anyone else care to share any instances of deja vu?” Witchlan said with careful jocularity. “No? Right.” He fixed his attention on Scanlan as he turned the weapon over in his brass hands, examining it.

  “Fan guns,” Witchlan went on, “were in wide use in the early days of the Empire, but as with all things, more efficient mean
s were developed and employed. Still, they will have their use once again. They require no loading. Their ammunition is inexhaustible, but reproduction may require some time.”

  “Reproduction?” Scanlan said, raising his eyes from the weapon to regard Witchlan.

  “They are products of the Vine, just as your Artifacts are, but are of a much simpler order. While we do not in any way dispute your powers or abilities, each of you will take one of these weapons and use them as a first line of offense.

  “The thought of the Palace filled with parasites—uninvited parasites—is sickening.”

  Several Shades shared uncomfortable looks at Witchlan’s clarification.

  “We will not allow this infestation to grow,” Witchlan said, “or to continue even in diminished form. We will wipe out all trace of this biological weapon with our botanical one.

  “You may visit the Military Hardware Division for holsters or to engage in target practice, but you are to keep the weapons with you at all times.”

  “Do they come in different sizes?” Raus said, holding the weapon between two fingers which made it appear tiny.

  “We’ll see what we can do for you, Mr. Kapler.

  “You are all to work with the Palace Planning and Infrastructure Division, heading up select sweep teams. I will admit that this work is beneath you, but that fact alone does not exempt you from it. When finished here, report to the Planning and Infrastructure Division for your assignments.”

  “Now, as for the Palace, we are making preparations to reengage standard propulsion for passing through this floating junkyard. For all forward-lying obstacles, Tether Launch bays have been stocked with explosive payloads. However, the Astrophysics Division has discovered what may prove to be two separate fleets of sizable vessels. We have encountered such in the past, but not on this scale while this vulnerable. With the Stitch Drive initiated, the Palace would prove to be an impossible target, but we cannot yet engage the Stitch Drive and so are instead a rather easy target.

  “We see tedium in the foreseeable future, picking through the scrap in our path, but you are all to remain alert and ready should those fleets seek contact with us.

  “That is all.”

  10,810.302.1145

  The Shades received their assignments at the Palace Planning and Infrastructure Division. As they were separating with their respective teams, Hilene made eye contact with Jav, pressed her lips together in a smile, and headed off for the Division jump deck. He hated himself just then. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he bring himself to open up to her after all this time? He was struck by her tenacity and the obvious depth of her feelings, which was impressive, really, considering his essentially cold response to her. He snorted, becoming aware of a sick irony: he was moved by her efforts, but strangely, not by her. He liked her. He found her attractive. There was nothing that should prevent them from being together, and yet. . . He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

  “We’ll be heading towards levels forty through sixty of quadrant two, sir,” the lead PPID operative of Jav’s team said.

  Jav cleared his head, nodded, and went Dark. “Let’s go.”

  The breaches in quadrants two and four had been sealed with Vine fiber at the Emperor’s direction. There would still be clean-up to do later, but the priorities right now were to eliminate the glass pig infestation and to clear away the severed struts so they would no longer pose a threat. The latter operation was being handled right now by precision delivery of explosives via Tether Launch.

  Jav and his team boarded the Division jump deck, which was larger than most personnel decks and hard-routed to similar service decks located throughout the Palace. They emerged from the service deck into dark clutter. Everyone drew his fan gun at once, in a synchronized motion that made Jav raise his eyebrows in surprise. He self-consciously pulled his own fan gun from the cross draw holster at his left hip. He held the weapon up and examined it.

  A face flashed like an exploding sun before his mind’s eye and he bent at the lurch he felt in his stomach, having to stop and rest his hands on his knees. He thought he might be sick right there.

  “Are you okay, sir?” the PPID lead asked.

  Jav didn’t respond right away. That face. . . It was. . . Jennifer. Jennifer Gordon. He recalled her face clearly now, how beautiful she’d been, how perfect. He remembered how though she’d promised herself to another, she had given herself to him, wholly and without reservation.

  Still tottering on the edge of nausea, he smiled unseen beneath his bone helmet. He raised the gun with a shaking hand to regard it once more. Another image burst across the screen of his mind, of Jennifer being being riddled with ragged red holes, of being shot with a. . . with a fan gun.

  He saw her clutch at her breast as blood pumped between her fingers. He heard her breath gurgle wetly as more blood spilled over her lips and moved in visible waves down her chin, down her graceful neck, to mingle with the blood already covering her chest. But she wasn’t dead. No, the fan gun hadn’t killed her. Something else had. Someone else had. Jav couldn’t get his head around just who this was, but even the vague recollection filled him with a fury he hadn’t known for over a hundred years.

  Somehow he knew that, though justified, his fury was at least partially misdirected. This insight, born of time’s passing, gave him pause, and he was torn. Part of him wanted to crush the fan gun between his palms, to lash out and kill every man he could lay his hands on as if somehow this might lessen the impact of Jennifer’s death or perhaps make up for it in some primal, though ultimately false, way. Another part of him him longed for a more complete recollection of Jennifer, as if this would work towards filling the emptiness he’d felt for so long. He half-felt that if he could remember enough, he could simply retreat into his memory of a time when Jennifer was alive and unthreatened and they were happy together. He knew that she and Mai Pardine were the same in their way, echoes, just as Anis Lausden had been. Christ! Anis Lausden. He’d forgotten all about her. How could he forget about her?

  He looked at the gun a third time, wondering if it was responsible for teasing out his memories or if something else were to blame. Certainly the gun was helping, and he didn’t want to lie to himself, but it almost felt as if something were approaching—so slowly that he couldn’t be sure the sensation was real—and beginning to fill him with what he could only identify as hope, though that of a prickly sort.

  And anyway, who or what was Christ?

  He stood straight, apologized to the PPID operative, and they continued on with their assignment.

  • • •

  With the Emperor’s attention no longer occupied with the sealing of the Palace, he could focus on the glass pigs. Simple knowledge of their presence offered a huge advantage in the fight against them, since he could now sift through all the millions of sensations occurring throughout the Palace, isolate potential nests, and direct teams to exterminate them. The fan guns continued to prove their worth to this end over the next several hours.

  10,810.302.1820

  Word over the public address system echoed through the Palace halls, confirming the elimination of the last of the glass pigs. Along with that announcement was a call for Shades to assemble in the war room.

  When all were present, Witchlan nodded his head enthusiastically. “We are clean once again. Our thanks to you and the teams you led. Other matters may be of continued concern, however.

  “One of the fleets we’ve been tracking has made steady progress. Long range scans from the Astrophysics Division have provided us with some images.”

  On screens throughout the war room, images of ships appeared. These all shared the same basic design: long, roughly cylindrical, obviously man-made and man-occupied, averaging about a thousand meters in length.

  Shocked into ignoring etiquette, Jav stood up, and moved to a screen to scrutinize one of the vessels.

  “Twice in one day, Mr. Holson?” Witchlan said, cocking his head questioningly. “I
do believe you’re turning deja vu into a skill rather than an affliction.”

  “It’s the Kalnia,” Jav said, turning to face Witchlan.

  “The Kalnia?”

  “While I was still learning the Eighteen Heavenly Claws, after training with Kimbal Furst, there was an accident. On my return to Planet 1287, the jump ship slipped from the warp field.”

  “We remember. . .”

  “I crashed into a ship—the Kalnia—that looked exactly like this ship here, like all these ships.”

  “Hmm,” Witchlan said. “What were their armaments like?”

  “I know they were interested in the jump ship’s shields and wanted to incorporate that technology into their own. I don’t know about their ship to ship capabilities, but,” Jav said, unconsciously touching his chest, “they’ve got the most powerful hand weapons I’ve come across. I think they were called Farmingtons.”

  “Farmingtons?” Witchlan said. “They certainly don’t sound dangerous. “Energy discharge?”

  Jav nodded.

  “They are coming too close for comfort,” Witchlan continued. “To compound this worry, the other fleet appears to be approaching from the exact opposite direction. Details on these ships are still sketchy, but they appear to be of an altogether different design sensibility. All appear to be spheres and saucers of a mass on par with the ships of the closer fleet.

  “For now, we will employ Tether Launch bombs to dissuade further approach. You are all to remain on high alert.

  “That is all.”

  • STOAKES II •

  10,810.302.0425

  Salton Stoakes was on the cusp of having a bad day. Whenever he had no specific assignment, and when he wasn’t spending the night with one of his many lady friends, he allowed himself to wake naturally from sleep in his own bed. This morning would rob him of that simple pleasure, however.