To occupy Rene’s mind and help him cope with his newfound phobia of space travel, Exar decided to teach the pathfinder how to patch up breaches with the tool case he found under his seat. These included a stack of lamellar plates whose edges were lined with thousands of tiny suction pads, a gun that extruded a dark foam which instantaneously expanded into a sort of iron-hard mortar, and a canister filled with bright orange aerosols. The process was fairly straightforward and was as follows: first the crewman covered the breach with an extensor plate, pulling a lever on the back which caused the suction pads to flatten themselves against the bulkhead and fill the gaps between them, forming an airtight plug. This seal was then further reinforced by generous daubs of the dark foam.
“After that, all you have to do apply the spray can to the corners of the plate. If you still see that orange stuff getting sucked out and disappearing, it means you’ve botched the job and there’s still a sizable leak someplace that needs taking care of. In which case you just gotta squeeze a bit more of the goo from the sealant gun and hope for the best,” Exar concluded, “Did you get all that?”
“I think so,” Rene said proudly, “It seems easy enough.”
“Great! Man, it’s a good thing the company designed nearly every piece of equipment to be idiot-proof. Not that I’m implying that you’re a numbskull,” Exar added hastily as Rene opened his mouth to voice his displeasure, “As a matter of fact you’re doing astonishingly well for an oompa-loompa.”
"That's the second time you've called me that, Exar. I'm not sure I like the sound of that word."
“Relax,” Exar teased, "It's not a slur, per se. More of a term of endearment. You see, sometimes these RTF programs of ours go wrong and the company has to pick up the pieces. That usually involves us trying to rehabilitate, er, disadvantaged cultures like your own.”
“RTF?”
“Rapid terraformation,” the sphere filled in for him, "See, after the age of seedships and all the unpleasantness that followed, RTF became all the rage. Directed evolution, tectonic and lithographic restructuring, biospheric transplantation, asteroid herding. All that jazz. Slow and steady wins the race was the idea. But it’s no easy task adapting a world for human habitation instead of the other way around. Our work is meant to take place over extended periods of time. Decades, sometimes even centuries. A lot can go wrong at any stage of the process. It’s really more of an art than it is a science."
"So that's what Exodus Industries was,” Rene thought aloud, “A society of world-builders.”
“That’s right,” Exar said, happy with how quickly Rene was catching on, “Your future, built today.”
“Are we just another one of your failed works, then?” the pathfinder asked coldly. Exar considered his next words, then said with a pained voice:
“I’m not yet certain who’s to blame for all the destruction, Rene. But one thing’s for sure: somebody definitely shit the bed on this one.”
Zildiz started sharpening her blades one against the other like a fishwife at her stall. Through the rasp of the grinding edges she spoke:
“Don’t listen to that little ball of make-believe. His people broke their word. It’s as simple as that.”
Rene was on his feet in an instant.
“Where’d you get those?” he interrogated her.
“From that nook underneath your compression capsule where you tried to hide them,” she said dismissively. It was at this point that Rene knew he had to give it up—there was no use trying to pretend that Zildiz was still his prisoner. The dynamic between them had shifted into something else entirely. Rene didn’t understand the nature of it yet, but her words intrigued him. After all, he knew very little about her personal motivations and the belief system of her fellow Gallivants. This was the perfect opportunity for him to learn more.
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“Listen, honey bunny,” Exar was saying, now openly hostile, “You’ve clearly got a bone to pick with me and the company. But I wasn’t around when the big decisions were being made, whatever they were. So I got no skin in this here game, ya feel me?”
“You seem to know an awful lot more than you’re letting on,” Rene said, deliberately taking Zildiz’s side, “Tell me more about this promise that your masters broke.”
“I just told you!” Exar bleated, “I wasn’t around for that part! I’m flying in the dark as much as you are. Philosophically speaking, my existence began the moment Rene booted me up with the solar cells.”
“More lies,” Zildiz said, testing the points of her blades with ball of her thumb, “Exar is a silicate soul, one of the immortal servants of the Betrayers who were instrumental in directing their conquest of the galaxy. In throes of rage and jealousy your ancestors subjugated every newborn seed colony they came across, until at last they met a people they could not overthrow. So then the Betrayers conspired to win by deceit what they could not gain with force. They did not succeed,” she finished with quiet relish.
Rene was starting to see the vague outlines of the conflict now. But whose version was he supposed to believe? That of Zildiz or Exar? On the one hand, you had a walking arsenal, a psychopath with no regard for any life other than her own. On the other, you had an intelligence so sophisticated that it could pass for a real person, a machine that could calculate ballistics and orbital mechanics on the fly but which claimed to be as ignorant of the grander scheme of things as Rene was.
Somebody’s story wasn’t adding up.
“Hold up,” he told both of them, “Let’s start from the beginning, why don’t we? Exar, what’s the very first thing you remember?”
“If you’re referring to my factory setting files, then I’m sorry to disappoint you,” the sphere said, “All I know is that this RTF project was supposed to be a joint effort by the Laisser League and a new subspecies it had encountered in deep space called the Ceytians. Exodus Industries had the most cost-efficient pitch, so we won the contract. It was supposed to be the start of a beautiful friendship between our peoples,” Exodus’s rings went the colour aquamarine, which Rene supposed was his version of a tired shrug, “I guess that friendship turned sour.”
“Yes, that does tend to happen when you stab people in the back,” Zildiz reflected, “The Ceytians gifted your masters with the crowning achievement of their genius: a sentient biosphere capable of perfecting and maintaining itself, the ultimate terraforming tool. And how did you repay them? By slaughtering them wholesale!”
“Watch it, you!” Exar finally snapped, “From what I’ve seen of the wreckage, the killing went both ways. Who’s to say the Ceytians didn’t fire the first salvo? That’d be right up their alley, considering what they are. Or rather, were.”
That last bit was clearly meant as a gloating insult. It seemed that Exar could be just as petty and vengeful as the next person. Somehow that hidden flaw in his behavior endeared him to Rene. Zildiz took an angry step towards the defenceless sphere, but Rene held her back, saying:
“Don’t be stupid. Neither of us can operate this thing. We’d be stranded. If Exar dies, we all die.”
“Gee, and here I thought you were keeping me around for my charm and wit,” the machine said sarcastically. Zildiz looked disdainfully down at the hand on her shoulder and told Rene flat-out:
“I could go through you like a door.”
The pathfinder had to admit that when it came to pure swordsmanship, Zildiz was undoubtedly his superior. She had an uncanny, instinctive talent with those weapons of hers. True, the sword of the ancients could cut through just about everything, but by the time he got it out of it sheathe she would have already served him up with a side of fava beans and a cup of rice wine.
“Yes,” he gulped, taking his hand off her shoulder, “But will you?”
Zildiz thought about it. Then she stuck her blades back in their flesh housings and replied:
“No. I want to see this business to the end. I want to meet what’s left of your gods in person—assuming it was they who sent out this shuttle.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to ask them why they did it,” Zildiz said, “I want to know why they killed the world that could have been, why they condemned us and all our children to a thousand cycles of pain and penitence. I’m going to stand there and hear all their excuses, and when they’re done, I’m going to spit in their faces. Yes. Yes, that would be enough for me.”
Zildiz turned and went back to her seat. Rene slowly loosened the white-knuckled grip around his sword hilt and took a deep breath. Then he addressed the silicate soul, saying:
“Well? You heard the lady, Exar. Fly us in. It’s time we met our makers…”