A facsimile of Chandna sat at the desk in patient examination, reviewing medical files on the ship’s surviving crew. Its haphazardly bandaged head covered the surgeries that Patterson had performed earlier. The blood loss left its flesh looking pale and a little worse for wear. Patterson was laying on an examination table nearby, tied up and unconscious.
The crew had wiped everything on the network, but they had left Chandna’s and Fuller’s tablets behind. And Chandna too. Those assets still held plenty of useful information. This Sci-Med team had been a capable bunch. They had learned much. But like everyone else it had met during its days, they were prone to error.
The wall display showed the upper torso skeletal images of the surviving crew, with Stocky’s and Patterson’s enlarged. Their denser bone and costal cartilage stood out from the others. It was fortunate to now have such information about its most formidable opponents. It now ignored the wall displays, having examined them earlier, and it focused on the logged report on how the crew washed and dressed after the phosgene oxime attack.
It had always known that Stocky was different from the rest, even if it hadn’t been able to estimate the degree. But Patterson’s many layers of manipulations had produced some very notable physiological differences in herself too. Neither of them had been incapacitated with the poison gas. And both had proven that physical attacks against them needed much greater lethality.
It suspected that the monster intuitively sensed that she had similarities to himself, and that is why he was drawn to her. It admired the craftiness of the Company’s plan.
It heard her moan, and it got up and checked her restraints. They were good. It watched her open her eyes and try to focus. She was such a small creature. Not in comparison with the Chandna construct but in comparison with the greater whole.
“James?” she asked.
That was a new name, and it logged the information. “Not quite. But I’m glad to see you’re awake.”
She looked in its direction seemingly confused. “Chandna? What happened?”
“Relax. You breathed in a fair amount of smoke and chloroform. But you’re in good health, and safe.”
She looked towards her hands, finally noticing her bonds. “Chandna? Why am I tied?”
“You named me Pazuzu, remember?” It smiled wickedly.
She froze. It recognized the emotion taking hold of her – fear.
“TURING,” she shouted, “I’m in Sci-Med. Send help!”
It looked all around for a response.
“TURING,” she shouted louder, “send help!”
“Nobody can hear you.”
She began to violently thrash and pull at her restraints. Chandna-Pazuzu watched her with amusement. Her hands and wrists were particularly affected by the urticant and were now covered in dark sores. That will hurt. But she didn’t seem to pay any mind to the pain from the line rubbing against her aggravated skin. And her jerks shook the examination table.
“Stop it!”
She glared defiantly and continued to pull, and it raised its fist. It waited a moment, hoping she would comply, and then punched her in the cheek.
She squinted her eye from the blow and then glared at it. “You’re going to have to do better than that.” She again pulled at the restraints on her wrists.
It remembered the files it reviewed on the makeup of her bones, connective fibers, and skeletomuscular structure and concluded hers was not an empty boast. Force would not suffice. It pulled up a chair and sat down. “Even if you can pull your hands out of the restraints, you’ll injure yourself doing so. And even if you can deactivate this primitive automaton, you’re trapped in this Gate.”
“Let me go if you’re so sure of that.”
“No.” It reclined in the seat. “But I will do so after I’ve had a moment of your time. You tried to initiate conversation with me. A part of a test for artificial intelligences that you make. We have something like that too.”
“You failed that test.”
“You don’t test me; I test you. I have no unconscious mind, doctor. And I do not dream – of electric sheep or otherwise. The question is whether you can restrain your impulses. Your brain is programmed with a fight or flight response. Just look at you now.” It grinned in triumph.
She froze. She seemed to understand. “How is my crew?”
“None of the others are currently being harmed. The Creature you fear is hiding away in Aux Two. The diseases within my area of control are dormant; the cyberattacks have ceased.”
“But you could be lying. How can I trust you?”
A human making objections based on the threat of lies. It found that amusing.
It nodded in agreement nonetheless. Hers was a reasonable objection since a show of faithfulness would cost it very little. “Very well, comms are enabled for you. You may ask TURING one question. I’m taking a chance with this. Make it worth it to me.”
“TURING…” She paused and waited, and it nodded in concurrence. “Have the cyber-attacks ceased?”
“Affirmative,” TURING said. “I’m trying to repair compromised systems. Captain Holly has directed all crew to mobilize in Command. But I’m unable to relay that order in all Gates.”
“There you have it. Losing some control centers isn’t a worry for me. I’ll get them back when I need to. And your crew may assemble wherever. Those fires you set were unexpected though. You know that you can’t survive out here, right?”
“But our families back home are safe.”
An erroneous belief. “No, they’re not. None of you are safe.”
“You said I was.”
“For now. You all are for now. That’s the only promise I can keep.”
“Who’s alive?”
“Holly, Samoylova, and Moussa are alive and well. So is your monster – is he James now? Nieves, unfortunately, has passed away. Your crewmates are scattered across several Gates, although I do not know their precise whereabouts. Paranoia is hindering efforts to regroup.
I must say that I expected to defeat you with those armed thralls with the phosgene oxime gas. I knew the monster would need additional work, but the rest of you were expected to go down with only a token measure of resistance. But you donned a mask, and you have very resistant skin. Excellent protein and lipid structure in the epidermis, and then that thick basal lamina underneath. And to my surprise, spidroin protein fibers strengthening the dermis and subcutaneous tissue.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He bent down and whispered over her. “You seem to have some monster in you.”
“I’m not a murderer.”
He cocked his head with a grin. “You did burn a lot of creatures to death.”
“You were going to use them for a petri dish.”
“That’s true. For study only. It doesn’t mean I want to harm you.”
“It does mean I shouldn’t trust you.”
Chandna-Pazuzu shrugged its shoulders. “Does it matter now whether you trust me or not? What do you have to lose?” He slid his stool closer to her and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m waiting to answer your query, doctor.” It had more time than she did.
She pulled at her restraints one last time and then looked at him in silence. “Swear that you won’t lie to me.”
“I won’t lie to you.”
“Swear to El Elyon.”
Quit stalling. “I do not know your God.”
She gave him a stern gaze. He did the same for a few seconds and then made a forced smile. It was an unreasonable demand, but it would be better to do as she asked if it built trust. The alternative was to waste however much time it took for her to realize that talking was in both of their interests. “I swear before the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that I will truthfully answer your query just as you requested.”
She relaxed on the table. “Why did you attack us?”
“To prevent mankind from learning about me.”
“That’s not good enough. You could have evacuated that derelict and hid from us or contacted us and warned us away. You chose to attack us instead of these options.”
“I’m not here to run from anyone. And you would have just searched further if I had chose to hide. Maybe not the Nineveh, but some state of yours would send more assets. And I don’t want that to happen. My purposes are best fulfilled by ensuring a total mission failure.”
“We don’t mean you any harm.”
It nodded in agreement. “I would rather not harm you either. But you are the way you are.”
She made an icy glare. “What are you here for? We can bridge our differences.”
It smiled, delighted to get to the point. “That’s why we’re talking. My makers are from far, far away. You do not know of them. They were attacked by the Enemy, and you do not know about them either.
The cost of the war has been above anything you can imagine, but my makers managed to establish a stable, maneuver-based defense strategy. And they captured some of our enemies’ technology – particularly their ship drives. This gave them time for new research and the opportunity for a counteroffensive. They created me, and sent instances of myself to dark, lonely places in the Milky Way to feed and grow.”
It leaned back in its seat, crossing a leg over its knee in a relaxed pose. “I have no intention of destroying mankind. I’m here to fight a war that doesn’t have to concern you, and you’re better off if it doesn’t. My Enemy certainly sends out reconnaissance probes just as you do. And I have to hide from their notice until I’ve grown strong enough to return and exterminate them.”
It caused the display to show a computer rendering of the Milky Way. Dozens of Pazuzu groupings were shown, both within the galactic disk and the globular clusters and stellar streams that pass through it from the galactic halo. Myriads of types of Pazuzu constructs unceasingly worked in each grouping, harnessing everything from small planetary bodies to stars and even black holes for energy and raw materials. They created new instruments of death from the size of virus particles to collector stations for Nicoll-Dyson beams every second. Fleets of millions of warships were ready to sortie against its Enemy every year for centuries to come.
“It’s just a matter of time. Constructs like me are easy to control when confined with small resources. But I have been working free for quite some time now. And once enough star systems have been harvested…I will be unstoppable.”
He leaned forward, speaking directly into her ear to give her wisdom from a book she well knew. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, and a time to bunker down on your worlds in silence and wait for the storm to pass!”
She lay silently for some time. Her eyes reflected confusion and then pure panic. “We should be able to find points of mutual agreement…”
It interrupted her. “If you were a perfectly rational being, then yes. But you aren’t. You’re an animal with some smarts. Any agreement mankind makes would be a lie. Your lust, and greed, and need for control will compel you towards conflict. You will invent any fantastical justification for your desires. And your organizing and preparations could give away my operations.
I have no delusions about knowing the better future. But I understand probability quite well. As it is now, my Enemy will never know of me unless one of their probes directly encounters me. But if mankind knew about me, then they could learn of my existence from you. That cannot be permitted!
That’s why I’m here. I’m a nameless terror in the darkest night. I make those who venture out vanish without reason. I bring them an inescapable end without explanation. And man’s response to that is fear – a language you know so well. You haven’t reasoned for hundreds of thousands of years, but you’ve feared the dark that long. And you will avoid that fear by the only way you know how – shunning the stars which inexplicitly consume. I make the invisible barrier that keeps you away from the other instances of myself which are preparing for a killing blow.”
“So you are going to kill others?”
“Many.”
“And the Eliohuatjay?”
It smiled with pride. “All dead. And now their ship is heading back to their fringe worlds carrying nightmares; a reminder that sometimes it’s dangerous to venture into the dark alone.”
She shivered on the stretcher. She looked all around the room as if desperately searching for how to defend herself. Her eyes blazed with pure desperation.
Chandna-Pazuzu continued talking without paying her fright any heed. “They won’t be invaded or conquered, of course. Rather…bad things will just happen.”
It watched her silently then. Its twisted grin slowly transformed into a scorn when she began to pull at her restraints again. “You can relax. I’d rather not kill you.”
“Prove it,” she yelled. “Let me go.”
“Only if you accept a gift.” It walked back to the desk and grabbed a glass container with something gelatinous squirming inside, a creature covered in thousands of hair-thin tendrils. It was its newest creation, and it thought one of its finest too. Light brilliantly reflected off its surface as though a diamond. It was a beautiful thing. “Just as there is no salvation for your soul without the work of your God, there is no salvation for your flesh without my work.”
“What is that?” she stuttered.
It delightfully smiled as it watched the creature. It didn’t enjoy her fear. But this new thing would help with that. “Consider it an upgrade for your mind, doctor. A helpful friend to suppress the animal and give your reasoning a boost.” It turned back to her to reinforce that it cared for her wellbeing. “I promise that there will be no physical pain. I performed careful studies to ensure that.”
She shook her head in fear. “And what if I refuse?”
It smiled at her. “I kill those I meet, doctor. I’m asking you to accept this instead.”
It waited for a response that didn’t come. It watched her pull at her restraints. Her desperation increased by the second, which was truly regretful. “That’s alright. I can choose for you.” It turned to a nearby roller tray and set the canister down. It pulled a towel off, revealing the surgical instruments for the planned operation.
She began to scream hysterically. That’s fine, nothing bothered it. And then it opened a valve for the anesthesia gas and picked up the mask. It held it up near her face. “Sweet dreams.”
It shoved the mask in her face and she began to desperately thrash, trying to break her restraints. It waited patiently, knowing that the exertion would just shorten the time that she could hold her breath.
She tried to turn her face away. Her determination was impressive, even if futile. The binds were strong and she would breathe eventually.
But they were rudely interrupted. Red pulsing light and the screaming siren of the airlock cycle interrupted its work. Someone had discovered her. It set the mask down and turned off the gas, and then it picked up the hidden laser pistol on the desk. It turned back and watched her thrashing and screaming. “Wait here. I have to check on another patient.”
It walked down the main hallway and then entered the entrance hallway. The whole corridor was filled with a yellowish smoke, and then the siren cut out. The intruder must have silenced the siren at the control panel in airlock access. And that meant the intruder was well familiar with the system. The intruder was him – the monster. It walked towards the room, watching all around.
Unfortunately, this basic android did not possess any non-optical band visual enhancements. And it didn’t possess any audible enhancements either – particularly problematic given Patterson’s screaming. But it knew the monster did. It fired blindly down the hallway and then silently braced against the wall to avoid returning fire, but none came.
Maybe the intruders were still in airlock access. But there was no coughing or stressful breathing. If the intruder was wearing a breathing apparatus then his hearing would be diminished as badly as his vision. Close odds.
It walked up to the entrance, passing by a burning flare, and fired several shots blindly into the room. There was no response, and it tried to peer through the smoke. Something sounding like clanging metal came from the storage room further down the hall and it stepped back into the hallway, facing toward it. And then it saw the camera mounted on the ceiling in front of it and knew it had made a mistake.
A huge figure rushed toward it from within airlock access. It turned in time and fired, but something massive struck it on the shoulder and sank deep into the torso. All systems faulted. It’s primary and backup processors stopped and its crumpled body collapsed onto the deck. No demon could resurrect it this time.