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

  His presence galvanized her, however. She raised the gun and fired ceaselessly until she realized that the blasts were beading off of a portable screen.

  There was no longer any air to transmit sound and there was nothing he could say to her really. He shot her with the Clockwork Beam, ignoring what she evolved into since he already knew.

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  Scanlan stood before the viewport, which remained unobstructed. Below it, though, the stations had grown with his technology. Holographic screens formed a secondary arc opposite the viewport and gave a more complete overview of the ship’s surroundings.

  By becoming a Shade, Scanlan had acquired patience on an order that would have sickened him prior to his transformation. With all that he could do now, there was no such thing as waiting, except when he had to depend on the actions of others. But the wonder of his Artifact-backed creative genius often gave him pause and had turned him into a daydreamer in this new stage of his life. He was daydreaming now, thinking of his plan made real, and so had to collect himself when the final signal came through, indicating that the last of the devices had been set. He grinned.

  The first thing he did was establish a two-fleet-wide network, utilizing all the ships’ communications systems, and putting every computer in communication with every other computer. All communications would route through Scanlan’s ship. Differences in protocols would be dealt with from the top down: from Scanlan’s ship to the masters, from the masters to the slaves, until over the network there was but one overriding source of instruction. This took less than five minutes and was punctuated by a total cease fire. The second thing he did was send a command to all ships, locking out manual controls. The third thing he did was shut down life support and open the air locks on every last vessel as he had his own.

  This last was something of a subtle spectacle. With the simultaneous release of oxygen from so many sources, both fleets shimmered and sparkled. In another time, Scanlan might have thought this beautiful, but overwhelming any visual appreciation was the sense of power he felt. His arms, his legs, his body, his eyes were all around him, spanning thousands of kilometers of space surrounding the Palace. Video feeds he didn’t need to see with his own eyes relayed images of crew members, Guild and Patrol, hurtling through corridors, bellowing out muffled cries as the retreating air robbed them of their voices as well as their lives. Some of the crew would find means to remain aboard their respective vessels, but Scanlan’s control was too complete to override or interrupt. If they were lucky enough to find and don an environmental suit, they would die of starvation. If they managed somehow to stave that off, they would ultimately parish, becoming food themselves for the Vine.

  There was no longer any threat to the Empire here. Information gleaned from both the Guild’s and the Patrol’s computers revealed that these fleets represented all that was left of either side after a very long and destructive war. No one would be coming to anyone’s aid.

  Though the fleets were extensions of his body now, Scanlan would require time to conduct them as he needed to. First, and most importantly, their firepower would be used to clear the struts from the Palace’s path. When the ships were no longer needed, they and all the floating scrap left behind would be collected, absorbed, and harvested by the Vine for reuse. Simple and efficient.

  2.5 THE WAY CLEARED

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  It took nearly three months to clear the lattice work of struts and secure the fleets for absorption. Looking down the length of the Vine, Hilene thought it looked like it was encrusted with massive, lusterless jewels. Nothing had any luster anymore it seemed.

  The ships would not remain indefinitely. In another three to four months, they would be gone, slowly devoured by Vine fiber; the Stitch Drive would be reengaged and the journey resumed. It all annoyed her, though. Everything annoyed her. She was plagued by a combination of disillusionment, apathy, and an awful restlessness that kept her general dissatisfaction at the forefront of her mind at all times. She stared out the viewport, feeling Raus’s presence behind her before her eyes could focus on his transparent reflection in the glass.

  She frowned, swallowed hard, and fought an urge to just cry. “Something happened to him, out there.” She thrust her chin out to indicate any one of the myriad empty vessels pressed close to the Vine.

  Raus sighed and cast his eyes down. It was some time before he responded to her. “Something’s been happening to him since before I met him, Hilene.”

  She folded her arms and pouted.

  “I’m going to tell you something I swore to keep to myself only because I can’t stand to see you suffer. It’s no secret that Jav has an affliction, although I don’t think any doctor could give an accurate diagnosis. You already know about Mao Pardine, and how her death affected Jav. I think you know about her sister, Mai, too.”

  Hilene, still facing the viewport, nodded.

  “When Jav came to Sarsa to recruit me, he came across a native Sarsan girl who intrigued him. I don’t think anyone besides Jav and I know about the girl or what she meant to him.” Raus paused. His brow furrowed and he seemed to reconsider his statement. He pursed his lips, continued. “Her name was Anis Lausden and in her Jav saw the ghost of Mai Pardine. With recently awakened memories, he confided in me that in Mai Pardine he saw the ghost of Jeny-Fur. I think that was her name. Ghost isn’t exactly right, either. Each was more like an echo of the last. . .”

  “You’re talking about soul echoes,” she said flatly.

  From her tone, Raus didn’t think that she believed in them.

  “I watched Anis Lausden die in his arms. He told me that he was helpless to stop Mai Pardine from being killed and that he watched her die. I can’t know for sure, but I’m fairly certain that something similar occurred with Jeny-Fur. I don’t know if the cycle continues back further into the past, but I do think it continued forward.”

  “Forward?”

  Raus nodded.

  Hilene turned around to face him, adjusting her folded arms in an attempt to reign in her bubbling anger. “You think that he’s been finding echoes of a girl he’s been—what?—destined to love—that’s not me—and watching them die, helpless to stop the cycle, turned into some poor victim of fate?”

  Raus narrowed his eyes. His breast heaved as he considered his response. “I don’t not believe in fate. . .”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe that. Not Jav.”

  “I don’t have all the answers, Hilene. But I do know that even as Anis Lausden was wasting away, soon to die, with Jav half the circumference of Sarsa away, he complained of having lost something he couldn’t identify. I was there. Her death and his loss were too much of a coincidence to have been unrelated. Mao helped fill the emptiness, probably because physically she was so much like her sister. You know what he was like after Mao died.”

  Her pout had reasserted itself, but was now melting away. “Do you think he watched one die on that ship?”

  Their eyes locked and they shared a moment of infinite sadness; Raus for his friend, Hilene, not so much for the lover she could never have, but for the man who, if Raus was right, had happiness endlessly plucked from his breast.

  “I’ve had my own personal experience with soul echoes,” Raus said. “You believe in a god who returned from the dead to kill his murderers. We’re at this very moment traveling through space in the fibers of a planet-eating plant god. Is what I’ve proposed so unbelievable?”

  She started to shake her head. Tears welled in her eyes to overflowing but didn’t spill.

  “You don’t believe it?” he said.

  She took a deep breath. “ I do,” she said with a gasp. “It’s just so sad.” Her tears fell then, released with all the built-up tension she’d been collecting for years.

  He reached out and placed a great, blocky hand upon her comparatively delicate shoulder.

  THE BEGINNING & THE END

  3.1 PERPETUAL MOTION

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  In a single stroke, Aris Kossig simultaneously gave birth to his planet’s doom and its salvation. Ultimately, the latter would win out, but not before an ample helping of the former tested the limits of Planet Stolom’s resilience.

  From an early age, Kossig was obsessed with the secret of perpetual motion. Though the laws of physics declared the concept impossible, Kossig knew on some instinctive level that those laws were wrong, or that they would be for him. His genius laid the groundwork for his success, but it was an accident which set the actual machine in motion.

  The machine itself was simple: a hollow, four-meter, framework cube, composed of thirty-centimeter-in-diameter tubing. The tubing was of a special alloy, mixed precisely to produce a natural magnetic field in the center of the cube. A suspension arm housing a particle exciter angled from each corner, focusing on the cube’s center.

  Kossig had experimented with various fuels, garnering various results. The goal was always to create a perfect system: the exciters would stir the material housed within the magnetic field, providing free energy to be collected and reused by the exciters without any appreciable loss. The best fuel, it seemed, was also the most limited. The element, getnium, was the rarest to be found on Stolom and Kossig had most of the available quantity locked within his machine. The getnium results had come so close to perfection that they managed to pique Kossig’s frustration. While reading the results of the negligible loss in energy, he struck the work table before the machine, not mindful of the sharp crimping tool beneath a sheaf of papers. The papers offered no protection and the crimpers left a deep gash in the bottom of his fist. Shocked by the sudden and unexpected pain, he jerked his hand back, sending a streamer of blood out across his lab.

  The pain was forgotten, instantly overwhelmed by the intriguing sight that now held his attention. His blood stretched out like a rope, somehow drawn to the magnetic field and adding to the getnium stirred by the exciters. He felt the tug of blood from his hand until he broke the connection, snatching his hand back and cradling it close to his breast. Within the field, though, the miracle was taking place. The blood mixed with the getnium in streaks and whorls at first, muddying the bright green light the getnium gave off. The mixture darkened to a brick red, but that color faded with the spin urged on by the particle exciters, until the bright green of the getnium returned and the rhythmic pulses began.

  Kossig absently wrapped his hand as he examined the exciters. The settings on each had changed—had been forced to change—by the overpowering reaction occurring within the field. The exciters were showing an excess of power. The affixed gauges could only indicate an overflow of five hundred percent. He would need to run a diagnostic test to be sure, but Kossig had an idea that the actual amount was quite a bit higher.

  He stood before the machine, silhouetted by the brilliant green light. Tentatively, he examined his hand, wondering if the mixture in the field was still hungry for his blood. He held his hand up without a trace of fear and was rewarded for his bravery. Pressing his luck, he moved his hand closer to the pulsing field and winced at the resulting throb. But something had changed. He pulled his hand back, removed the bandage, and marveled at the smooth skin that covered the spot that had been rent just moments before. He had no idea at the time what the implications were of this last. He simply pursed his lips, nodded, and cried out in victory with all the collaborative might his lungs and spirit could muster. The Kossig Perpetual Motion Engine was born.

  Within months, the city of Fortus was completely outfitted with circuit transceivers, bringing free and limitless power to every home and business. Within a year, the Kossig Engine supplied the continent with power with no reduction in output. Within five years, all of Stolom was powered by the Kossig Engine.

  A side effect, which many were not prepared to acknowledge at first, was the gradual eradication of disease. Germs inimical to human beings withered and died. Genetic defects disappeared altogether in generations following the establishment of the Kossig Engine. Humanity flourished. The sciences flourished. It was a time of plenty on Stolom.

  Another side effect, which soon no one could deny, was the rapid rise of an as yet unknown enemy. Both side effects were essentially the same side effect. Radiation from the Kossig Engine perfected mankind, made them stronger, and urged expedited evolution. It had a similar effect on other indigenous species. Reptiles in particular, once thought to be the simplest of creatures on Stolom, raced through their evolutionary paces almost overnight.

  By the time the Kossig Engine’s influence had spread around the world, select enclaves of reptiles had grown into mental and physical giants. The quadrupeds of Luska in particular had developed into great thinkers and philosophers. However, while the effects of the Kossig Engine on humans were nurturing and ultimately stable, its effects on reptiles were neither. Though several reptile species benefited from the exposure, it was at a price. Only those with a certain genetic make-up were able to endure the final evolutionary push the radiation forced. The rest went mad, gaining release only by acting out the savage impulses that plagued them until they succumbed to the physical degradation that awaited them. Even the fortunate few who were able to maintain their senses, had this final degradation awaiting them.

  On Stolom there is no escape from Kossig Engine radiation. For reptiles, though, proximity to the Engine can drastically affect one’s lifespan. Many reptile clans were able to reason out the source of their rapid evolution and demise and conducted military raids on Fortus in attempts to destroy the Engine. Aris Kossig developed the means to protect the Engine—and all of humanity—but the Engine proved that it could defend itself. Reptiles coming too close to Kossig’s legacy consistently experienced a rushed evolutionary dead end in the form of instant degradation, which is to say liquefaction. It was messy and invariably preceded by new heights of madness, but the Kossig Engine was proof against any direct assault by the reptiles.

  Reptile degradation could occur anywhere on Stolom, so even though direct assaults could no longer be considered, the destruction of the Kossig Engine remained forever the reptiles’ goal.

  To combat the reptile threat, Aris Kossig developed the Godsorts, seven machines made in man’s image but on a titanic scale. Though the Godsorts stood thirty meters tall, physically on par with their reptile opponents, each was a match for several of the enemy. Once Kossig equipped the Godsorts with their own, smaller Perpetual Motion Engines which could be augmented by the infusion of blood, the reptiles had no hope of victory.

  The Engines were installed initially to give the Godsorts a temporary boost over the stable output produced by the main Kossig Engine and in case that power source was ever extinguished. The pilots of the Godsorts, namely Kossig’s youngest son at that time, Bron, discovered, though, that the further addition of blood to the Godsorts’ Engines produced an effect far greater than expected and which would later be called High Formation. High Formation brought about a synchronization between man and machine that made the Godsorts unstoppable for three minutes. Once the Engine burned through the added quantity of blood, normal power levels resumed, but the battles were always finished by that time because of the disparity of power.

  High Formation was only possible using blood from the Kossig line. Aris Kossig was too old and not at all suited to piloting a Godsort. Two of his sons had been killed in the fighting before the introduction of Engines into the Godsorts, leaving only Bron Kossig and Bron’s eldest son, Stol. Fifteen years old at the time, Stol was trained and found to be a natural pilot. As a direct descendent of Aris Kossig and having had the most genetic enhancement through exposure to getnium rays, Stol Kossig could command phenomenal power through High Formation, more than his father, and more than his cousins who stepped up to pilot the remaining five Godsorts.

  Bron and Stol remained in Fortus to defend the original Kossig Engine. Barlo and Karstus Kossigan were dispatched to Luska in the south, Enzo and Samas Kossigus to Fornanim in the east, and Hostur Kossigou to the i
sland nation of Acra. Though Stol far outstripped them all, all were capable of initiating the High Formation, so even spread out as they were, they could not fail against the reptiles, and yet the beasts fought on, rushing towards extinction.

  After more than a year of fighting the enhanced Godsorts, Raohan La, from the southern continent of Luska, broke through the Kossigus defense, bringing his La clan dangerously close to Fortus. Raohan La, a long-necked quadruped, had evolved extraordinarily in his own lifetime. His mental powers were unmatched and he’d taken to walking erect to better meet the physical challenge posed by the Godsorts. The Kossigus twins—whom he’d left alive—regrouped and chased Raohan La back to Fortus, but the La clan wasn’t alone in its advance on the Kossig Engine. The reptiles had amassed a fantastic army and threatened to bring a cataclysmic end to the war.

  Only it didn’t happen that way. Raohan La shocked humans and reptiles alike by offering another solution, one that would work for both sides. Seeing the benefit that the Kossig Engine provided to humans, Raohan La knew that to destroy it would cripple human society. They would likely survive the sudden loss of both worldwide power and the nurturing effects of the getnium rays, but they would be set back terribly. Oppositely, reptiles could not live in a world where getnium rays were allowed to shine. Raohan La had meditated long and hard on a solution, and his advance on Fortus was not to promote war, but to make his proposal to end it by relocating every reptile to Stolom’s primeval past. In his meditations, Raohan La had discovered the means to make this happen. That he’d proven his theory intellectually was tantamount to having taken action, which was proof that either the relocation would have no other future effects on Stolom or that the relocation was already a part of Stolom’s past.