Silence
Days to weeks. Light to dark. Crystallised in perfect memory, unable to be forgotten.
The old man looked out across the stony plain as sheeting rainclouds unleashed their fury upon the Earth. From here there was a magnificence to it; the storm, this rushing cold, attacking the world in muted colour and a million movements. He drew a slow sip from the tall glass bottle clutched between his fingers. Stolichnaya. The child knew its stuff. Viktor had only written down “vodka”, and yet the creature had had the decency to procure something other than pure swill. Or that sugar‑water Americans mislabelled vodka. Pah.
He took another sip, feeling the alcohol burning the outmost tendrils of his thoughts. A slow, steady backburn inwards, until the maze no longer seemed so unmanageable. He’d been ready to defend it as medicinal, but the boy never queried the request.
The rain continued to pour and the man continued to drink, staring out into the falling, nothing grey. There was something instinctively peaceful about watching a storm where it could not touch you. Something quietly, primally comforting, serenity which promised never to forsake. A knowledge that you had escaped. He could remember, exactly, how many days it had been since he’d last seen rain, yet to his primate mind it had been eternity.
Time seemed to slow, and he tried not to track its passing.
Breathe.
Close your eyes.
Breathe, Caitlin whispered, in and out.
Breathe…
Time passed. When Viktor opened his eyes again, he was no longer sitting alone at the cavemouth. The child sat beside him, twinned in stillness and silence.
They watched the rain fall for several minutes more.
“I did not see how much it warped my perception,” the old man said after a time. The boy’s head turned, fixing him with those swirling, curious eyes. “You were right, in the prison. My intellect screams so loud, it… it is hard to give anything else credence.”
He tilted the bottle to his lips and let white fire trickle down his throat.
“In there, it was as if time stood still. The world around me was in stasis – surely, the world outside must be too. Surely.” He shook his head. “Irrational, emotional denial. I think myself above these petty surges, but I am a fool. I am as emotional as the rest. Merely better able to argue away that fact.”
His shoulders slumped and he pressed cold fingers into his forehead. A few more moments passed, then Viktor glanced at the boy.
“Do you know loss, Ariel?” he murmured.
“Of sorts,” the child answered.
The old man hung his head. “Of course.”
Silence.
Mentok placed the bottle between his legs and clasped his shaking hands. Unsaid went a myriad words.
“Is this my fate, time-walker?” he finally whispered, “To be the last? To be the burier? Dead eyes in the snows. Dead eyes in the rainswept night. I am a haggard branch that refuses to fall. Is this my trueborn legacy? Futility and pain?”
“All life is pain,” the child replied, “The pain of action. The pain of inaction. Death comes, in the end, for all of us. How you travel to meet him is up to you.”
“Small comfort,” the old man murmured. And they stared out at the rain.
*****
A week later, and the skies cleared blue to herald a revival. Siegfried was reborn. A fraction of his former self – barely taller than Mentok’s hunched shoulders – and unspeakably crude, forged as he was mainly from cannibalised car parts. Yet somehow the way he stood still looked familiar. The same old sentinel. That coldness to the touch.
“Hello, my friend,” the old man whispered. A machine’s soul was the worried scraps of its creator’s. He had returned Siegfried from Elysium, and in doing so unwittingly stolen back those pieces of himself. It was a reunion he hadn’t known he’d yearned for.
“To darkness then?” he murmured. Weak hands closed around the shoulders of the armour. As if Siegfried had ever denied him. As if it had ever done anything but stand by his side.
Mentok opened the armour’s carapace and climbed tentatively inside it. He closed what plates he could, leaving others open.
“Do me up,” he requested, and the child appeared and obliged, not seeming to need any further instruction. Metal enclosed around Mentok’s arms and then his legs, his chest and then his eyes. The old man blinked, adjusting to the light of the computer screen within the helmet, the rudimentary interface.
“This seems excessive,” he heard the child remark from outside the armour. Mentok flexed his hands, testing the fingers, the joints, the feet. All seemed to be functioning.
“Up there has what I need. In excess and anonymity. As dutiful as your assistance is, dear Ariel, some materials are too complex for a single fabricator.” With a screek, he turned Siegfried’s metal head. “And the conditions up there might provide you some difficulty. Time travel or no.”
“Not untrue,” replied the boy.
Mentok turned his digitised gaze skywards. “We all have our limitations.” Then he marched, in clunky, thunderous steps from the cavemouth, and set his rocket boosters to launch.
OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMM
My calculations are correct, he repeated in reassurance, as his metal skin rattled and the world beneath him began to fall. I trust my process and I trust myself. Power spewed from Siegfried’s footpads, and the armour trembled as it rose slowly into the sky.
*****
Space. Humanity’s true black cradle.
He floated there, for time unspoken, out amongst the starlight – savouring the tranquillity, savouring the dark. The weightlessness. Around him, Siegfried’s frame was silent, uttering not a shake, not a sound, save the occasional hiss-hiss of nitrogen to stabilise and redirect. The seals were holding. The suit had endured the flight. Just like he knew. Just like he’d hoped.
Mentok floated gently, bathed in distant sunbeams, his eyes closed as he listened to the sounds of infinity and oblivion.
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There were two ways men could react to space. The first was fear, to hate it; to dread the dark, to paw at the confinement, to be engulfed in mortal panic at the claustrophobia and the constant death lurking always mere inches away. The other was to embrace it; to see past the second skin and open one’s soul to the endless expanse beyond. It was a freedom greater than any other. True liberation. True majesty. True insignificance.
He had come to space many times in the past, in the old days, the before time. It felt like home, like he belonged out here. His sanctuary. How long has it been, great mother, he whispered in his mind. Since before Caitlin died. That long? Of course. There had been no real need. Inside the drifting suit of armour, the old man sighed and gave a small shake of his head. No practical need. Just a great, unacknowledged personal one.
He turned his metal head back round, setting his sights once more towards his destination. Space debris, orbital junk – broken satellites and the like, sentenced to drift in perpetual rotation around a world that had long since moved on. A graveyard of technological progression. He scanned the wrecks for signs of usefulness and, having found a prospective candidate, gave a quick boost in its direction to intersect and match.
It was an American military satellite, he noted as he drew closer. Abandoned, probably not more than a few years earlier, due to some malfunction or flaw. Up here, few repairs were performed – far easier just to launch a replacement and leave the original to junk. Who in their right mind would want anything with this old detritus? Who indeed, Mentok mused as he drifted close.
His metal hands reached out towards the satellite, catching hold as he drew flush. Three or four times the size of a station wagon, he held himself to the side and dissected it with his eyes. Yes. There was plenty here he could use.
He pulled Siegfried across the satellite’s exterior, placing its bulk between himself and the Earth, unintentionally bringing the planet’s majesty into view. A sudden hole of colour in the darkness. Mentok’s movement ceased.
How quiet from up here, he marvelled. This blue-green marble. How beautiful and unassuming. It was amazing, the peace allowed by distance. Here, there were no conflicts; no conspiracies, no fear, no malevolence. It was just a world, one of billions, a ball of rock and water with a little biospheric paint. What do you owe it, came a thought unbidden. Why did he need to save it? It did not shackle him like it did so many others. He could diverge himself from its fate.
Unconsciously, Viktor found his gaze turning out towards the endless fields of starlight. Was there really anything left for him down there? What was stopping him from finding a new home? Mars, perhaps, or Venus. Return, yes, briefly, then modify Siegfried, gather his strength and set out on a cosmic journey to colonise and grow. With proper preparations, it need not be difficult. There would be challenges to be surmounted, naturally, but he would surmount them, maybe even thrive. A small, floating home amongst the Venusian clouds; matter refineries, probe mining, solar sails. Maybe a cloning program, using his or other tissue – maybe a city, a nation, a people. A refuge; an arc for true, unbound humanity – a window to the stars. He could do it. He didn’t need to save the Earth. Heydrich never need learn his fate.
I don’t know why you stay, little runner. There is nothing here for you but death.
Words of a corporal and a stranger, in a frozen home in Stalingrad. Snow drifting through splintered gaps, the ceiling broken. Buckled bricks, weeping fractures in the wall. The soldier sat at a well-worn table and offered the shivering boy a half-cracked cup of warm, weak tea. A kind, broken-hearted man with mouse-brown hair and a sad smile.
Nobody would know or need you. You owe not your life to this war. There are enough unburied dead.
Why had he stayed then, Viktor remembered. Thoughts of his parents. A need not to give in to the enemy, defiance. Fear of the unfamiliar. But something deeper – something more personal. Because no matter the hurt, no matter the cost, a good man did not turn away when he was needed.
And deep down, in his heart of hearts, he’d wanted to know that he was good.
Strength and courage, little runner.
Alone in space, Mentok blinked back tears, and returned his gaze to Earth. Then slowly, methodically, he turned back to the satellite, and began to dismantle what he needed.
*****
“Let us be clear, apparition. I need to know what I have to work with, and I need to know how much time.”
The old man stood in the cave, across from the child; his shoulders straighter, his words crisp, his body encased in metal and his hands clasped behind his back. Siegfried was better now – more sophisticated. Repairing, supporting, rehabilitating. A proper suit of gleaming armour that flowed in curves and arclights around his body and drew distractions from his mind.
The child, resting against a wall, answered in his usual, dispassionate tone.
“It is June 1991. Klaus Heydrich’s masquerade as Captain Dawn continues. He bides his time, preparing to launch his final conquest. He is almost fully recovered, and none seem wiser to his schemes. He will begin again in six months.”
“I need you to stall him,” Mentok commanded, turning to stare at the blue-eyed child. The boy sat unblinking. “Can you do that?”
“Yes,” the time traveller responded, after only a moment’s hesitation, “Heydrich desires the power of clairvoyance. I can create a series of fakes.” The way the child spoke made the plan seem pre-concluded. “Rumours of clairvoyant powers, shadows for him to chase. They will be convincing.”
“How much time will it buy us?”
“Nine years, approximately.”
“And the cost?”
“Several lives which would have ended anyway, given voluntarily once they understand the stakes.”
“Excellent. Sufficient and acceptable. Go then. I entrust to you this part of the bargain.”
The child did not move. “It is already done.”
Mentok’s mouth twitched, but he tried not to be unnerved. “Good. Nine years.” His mind raced with calculations, plans started and discarded. “It will have to be enough.”
“It is the maximum I can achieve.”
“Yes. Don’t think I’m not appreciative.” Mentok turned back to his blackboard, the figures squiggled out in chalk. He paused. “There cannot be any restraint in this.”
“Correct.”
“Every option to take, I must take it.”
“It is your only hope.”
“I won’t be afraid to delegate,” the old man said, more to himself than to child. After a moment, he rounded on the boy. “If I give you names and institutions, can you posit who is trustworthy? Who will not defect to Heydrich nor tip him of our hand?”
“Yes,” the child replied, “Name your targets.”
“The Department of Defence, perhaps. The Pentagon. I still have friends in the Kremlin. The Legion too, or what remains of it – though those are cards held close to Heydrich’s heart.”
“He will reopen it,” the boy said suddenly, “In the third year. Begin recruiting new Acolytes to its halls.”
Mentok turned to look at him, his thick eyebrows furrowed. “Why? For what possible purpose?”
“To gather powers,” the child told him, “But also to coalesce support. He sees himself the hero, Heydrich. The pinnacle of man. The notion of having followers appeals to him, as a reflection of his superiority.”
“We can use that,” Mentok murmured, “If he builds a Legion for us. We can get in before he poisons them. If there’s a way to go unnoticed.” He paused and glanced at the blackboard, chewing his lip. Then his head turned back to the boy.
“He has superhuman intellect. How can I ensure my approach is not detected?”
The child shook his head. “He holds the power, but he rarely uses it. He is disconcerted, I think, by the feeling of his thoughts taking on rapidity. And his proximity to the Legion serves as a constant reminder of you and your condition. He is scared of Scarlett’s Syndrome – scared that if he spends too long a genius that it will come for him as it did you.”
“A not unreasonable worry.” Mentok’s own mind still howled in a thousand directions, but the combination of purpose, alcohol and psycho-suppressors he’d commandeered through the time traveller seemed to have slowed its acceleration. For now.
“He leaves his genius dormant,” the child continued, “Only dipping in for times of planning and calculation. Even when active, however, his genius is outstripped by yours.”
“Very kind.”
“It is not flattery. You are more practiced and experienced. And your Scarlett’s cannot be discounted. There is more life in an overgrown forest than in a pristine garden.”
“True enough. Yet nine years is a long time.” He closed his eyes, ignoring as always the constant spirals, the endless noise. “The condition will worsen.”
“Yes. There is no stopping it.”
“Then I will give it tasks to focus on.” Mentok opened his eyes and looked at the boy. “Siegfried is long overdue some siblings.”
The blue-eyed boy shook his head. “No matter what army you build, there is no stopping him. Every contingency you plan, he will have an answer to. You need to succeed at every junction. He needs only succeed once.” The child paused. “You understand that this road leads to only one outcome. You still fall beneath the storm.”
“I understand,” said the man, “That I have nine years to prepare to face him, anonymity, and the greatest intellect on Earth. Nine years. Give me nine years, boy, and these hands will kill a god.”
“We will see,” murmured the child. Mentok turned back to his work.
“Yes,” he whispered, “We will.”