Relic

20

The overriding sensation was as if they were now standing in an amorphous container filled with colored fire. Except the temperature was unchanged and the brilliant lights remained constrained within the surrounding walls, floor, and ceiling. It was a cold conflagration. Feeling his age as well as his ignorance, Ruslan turned to the ever-ebullient young woman nearby.

“What do we do now?” He indicated his communicator. “We don’t know what, if anything, is happening up top. I can’t get in touch with Bac’cul or any other member of the expedition.”

Cherpa was grinning anew. Broadly, he reassured himself… not maniacally. “We warned the AI about possible danger,” she said. “I don’t hear any footsteps or voices. Until we do, I imagine we’re still secure down here. If it responded to a warning, maybe it will respond to a question.”

He frowned. “What kind of question? We don’t want to do anything hasty, Cherpa.”

“Of course we do. She who hesitates stays immobile. As to what kind of question,” she added teasingly, “you just formulated it.” Once again she raised her voice, though this time not as piercingly as before.

“Hey, whatever-wherever you are! What do we do now?”

That a response was forthcoming was gratifying. That it was no more than a repetition of what had gone before was more than disappointing.

“Install pattern number one?”

They had no idea what that meant nor to what the unseen AI might be referring, but by now there was no stopping the irrepressible Cherpa. Before Ruslan could caution her further, she had already replied, energetically and authoritatively.

“Yes!”

No verbal response was forthcoming—but the pulsating aurora that surrounded them underwent an immediate and perceptible shift in hue. New colors appeared, while old ones faded away. Configurations changed, roiled, darted through the walls. Cherpa did not have to point at their focus: Ruslan saw it, too.

The capsule containing the static human form had become enveloped in a refulgence so intense they had to squint in order to be able to look directly at it. Searching for change, Ruslan thought he could see the clothed chest within starting to rise and fall, but he couldn’t be certain. Nor was he sure he saw the closed eyelids fluttering.

Further speculation was rendered moot when the top half of the capsule abruptly opened to one side and the figure within sat up. As soon as it stepped out and away from the transparency, the lid reclosed and a new shape slid into the vacated space. The replacement was female, as were four of the nine figures that now occupied the remaining and heretofore empty cylinders. They reposed face up, fully clothed and unmoving.

The intense illumination in which the first capsule had been bathed rapidly subsided to its previous state. As an awestruck Ruslan and Cherpa looked on, the individual who had emerged slowly turned a complete circle. Apparently satisfied with his surroundings, he finally focused his attention on the other occupants of the chamber. The unaltered voice of the AI echoed softly through the underground.

“Install patterns numbers two through eleven?”

Ruslan was having a difficult time dividing his attention between the revived man and the female shape that now occupied the nearest of the ten capsules. She looked to be about his age, perhaps slightly younger. Long-buried yearnings began to flicker within him. Would she, could she, be revived as rapidly and apparently as successfully as her male predecessor? If so, how might she respond to him? How might he respond to her? Save for Cherpa, his whole life had been bereft of female companionship. For an entirely selfish moment the future of his species seemed incidental to long-suppressed personal considerations.

The resurrected man spoke. His accent was thick and difficult but ultimately comprehensible. It unsettled Ruslan, but not in a bad way. It was as if his insides had momentarily turned to jelly. The man was speaking in the tones, in the highs and lows, of old Earth. Like him, the speech he was employing was an artifact… an artifact brought back to life.

Something bumped Ruslan’s left side. Wide-eyed, Cherpa had moved to stand next to him. Together they listened raptly to the upright relic.

“My name is Nashrudden Megas Chin.” Prolongation of the ensuing silence jolted Ruslan into realizing he was expected to respond to this introduction.

“I’m called Ruslan. I’ve forgotten my other names. When you’re the last of your kind, you tend to shed extraneous information pretty quickly.” He nodded to his left. “This is Cherpa.”

“Mated?” the revivee asked politely.

Ruslan wondered if he was blushing. Somehow, when another human voiced it, the query came out sounding entirely different than when it was propounded by a Myssari.

“No, no. A friend.”

“A very good friend.” Reaching up, Cherpa put a hand on Ruslan’s shoulder. “He saved me. Saved my life and my mind.”

“Others?” the man asked. It struck Ruslan that Nashrudden was no more voluble than the AI that had revived him.

“Some children,” Ruslan told him. “Our offspring, produced through artificial insemination. Our Myssari friends are looking after them.”

“Myssari?”

“A nonhuman species.” Ruslan did his best to explain. “One of the alien intelligences humankind always believed were out there. They exist, and there are many of them. They arrived in our area of the galaxy just as the Aura Malignance was killing off the last of us.” Curiosity was turning to empathy. “I’m guessing you have been contained in this place for at least a couple of hundred years.”

“But not you.” The more the man talked, Ruslan reflected, the easier he became to understand.

“No.” Once again Ruslan nodded toward Cherpa. “There may be others, but as far as I know I’m the only one on my homeworld, Seraboth, who was born with a natural immunity to the plague. Likewise Cherpa and—one other—on her world, Daribb.”

The newly resurrected man nodded understandingly. “You also cannot be carriers. If that were the case or if any vestige of the Aura Malignance remained on Earth, the Preservation Project system would not have allowed me to be revived. I know: I helped to design it and oversaw much of the final construction and installation. It is because of my knowledge of the system that I am first to be revived. It means that this world, at least, is clean. It may be hoped that the same is true of all others. Without humans in which to propagate, the Malignance should have long since died out. As we again move off-world we will be cautious, just in case. A repeat of the cataclysm cannot be allowed to happen.”

“The Myssari will help,” Ruslan said encouragingly. “They have an entire scientific branch devoted to the study of our species and its culture. So do the Vrizan, and probably some of the other intelligences as well.”

“Other intelligences.” Nashrudden shook his head in disbelief. “A difficult concept for one of my time to grasp. I wonder if their scientists could have found a way to halt the plague. Something else we will never know.” His expression brightened. “But my revivification proves the Earth is free of the Malignance. We will not repeat the mistakes of the past. This world and the others our species settled will once again resound to a multiplicity of human voices and the full range of human activity!”

Ruslan and Cherpa exchanged a glance before he replied. “Concerning that, there are good things to say. But there are also some… complications.”

With her help he proceeded as best he could to fill in the scientist on two hundred years of missing history—and the current sociopolitical reality in this human-blighted corner of the cosmos.

No one knew how much time had passed since their disquisition had begun. No one much cared. Nashrudden Megas Chin was both fascinated and much pleased.

“Instruments were set in place to unobtrusively record everything that might transpire since the Project was initiated. The results of that effort will eventually be scrutinized. But they cannot, they could not, record for posterity the events of elsewhere. I am indebted for your input on the state, however sad, of the colonized worlds.”

“I’m sorry I can’t remember more, or in greater detail.” Ruslan was apologetic. “I’m—I was—a mid-level administrator, not a historian.” He glanced at the young woman next to him and smiled. “Cherpa was too young and put-upon to be anything except a survivor.” He turned back to the scientist. “What happens now?”

“Continuance.” Raising his voice conspicuously, he addressed the unseen but omnipresent AI. “Install patterns two through eleven.” With a smile that was almost shy, he added, to his new companions, “My coworkers. Once they are revived, the Project can resume in earnest.”

Frowning, Ruslan indicated their surroundings. “We haven’t explored every corner of this chamber, but it doesn’t seem big enough to hold or support very many people. And what about food and water?”

“Did you think this single room was the extent of the space accorded to the Project?” Nashrudden gestured at the floor. “This is only the uppermost, supervisory level. Many others lie beneath us. All were stocked with carefully prepared long-term supplies. The same is true of similar installations hidden elsewhere on the other continents. But this one, this place, was designed to be reawakened first. My colleagues and I are the scientists, the designers, the engineers, the technicians. First we are revived, then we can more speedily awaken the others. The Project’s reach is wide.” Turning, he started toward the ten now fully occupied cylinders. “Some of my friends may find resurrection disconcerting. I need to make myself available to reassure them.”

Ruslan gestured toward the cylinders. “This is all very different from a similar arrangement I saw on Treth. There the bodies were held in a liquid suspension.”

“I imagine that when the Aura Malignance struck, the science here was more advanced than anything that was achieved on any of the colonies.” Standing at the foot of the nearest cylinder, Nashrudden watched as the light enveloping it began to intensify—a now familiar development to the two onlookers. “It’s easier to preserve individualities and memories when they’re separated from the physical corpus. Restoration involves reintegration of non-corporeal memories with the original biological form.”

Shielding his eyes from the intensifying glow, Ruslan struggled to understand. “You mean you removed the memories and thoughts of everyone who was stored for later revival?”

“Not removed. Copied out. Restoration involves writing over the original. The result is the same.” He smiled anew, though Ruslan could hardly see him now through the intense auroras that enveloped all ten of the cylinders. “I certainly feel the same.”

A question had been bothering Cherpa. “Why would a system designed to preserve humans when everyone else was dying off need a live human to reactivate it?” She gestured upward. “Would the supervising AI periodically sweep the surface for evidence of the Malignance and, after a reasonable time, awaken you if no plague was detected?”

Nashrudden looked back at her. “Surface sweeps would only indicate when the Earth itself was free of plague. Had that been the programming, we all could have been revived only to have the Malignance return, carried by an infected human from one of the colony worlds. Then all would truly have been lost.” He smiled. “The presence of uninfected humans was the signal for which the instrumentation was designed to wait.”

Unable to comprehend a science capable of shuttling human individualities around like so many collections of numbers, Ruslan did as he had done with every piece of incomprehensibility he had encountered since his years alone on Seraboth.

He simply accepted it.

The food and drink whose location was revealed by the AI in response to their query was old but impeccably preserved. Even so, Ruslan was reluctant to try it. Cherpa felt no such restraint, digging into the contents of the self-heating rehydrating containers with as much gusto as if they had been prepared yesterday. A ravenously hungry Nashrudden joined her, as did the first ten of his revived colleagues. Not wishing to be left out of the Earth’s first revivification conclave, a hesitant Ruslan eventually joined in. Compared to decades of Myssari fare, the revived provisions were a riot in his mouth. In a sense he was eating history. His appreciative digestive system made no unnecessary distinctions.

When he thought Nashrudden could spare a moment from helping his colleagues with the process of revivification, Ruslan asked him how they now expected to care for themselves. That the Myssari would help, gladly and freely, he had no doubt. But if there were many…

“Appropriate resources were stored in many safe locations across the planet,” the resurrected scientist told him. “Food, additional clothing, instrumentation, machinery, even a few personal items each individual was allowed to sequester. Enough so that the species could rebuild and begin anew… hopefully this time with more care, common sense, and ethics. It has been a costly lesson.”

“Repositories.” Cherpa had come up behind them. “Only this time for people and not objects.”

“They could be called such, yes.” Nashrudden smiled at her. “You’re very pretty. I haven’t been out of body so long that I’ve forgotten what those parameters are like.”

She did not blush, blushing being a behavior that is not innate and must be learned. She simply accepted the compliment.

“And you are very brave—allowing yourself to be the first to be revived without having any idea what kind of world you might be entering.”

“I was also, as far as I know, the last to have his individuality extracted and body preserved.” The scientist shook his head. “But I’m not brave. The brave were those who were still healthy, still untouched by the Aura Malignance, but who did not have their selves extracted and their bodies placed in stasis. The ones who remained outside and aboveground to ensure that each facility was functioning as planned before being sealed. The brave ones died. The rest of us”—he gestured at the increasing crowd of the revived—“are the fortunate placeholders.” Wiping at his eyes, he took a deep breath before once more turning a soulful gaze on Ruslan.

“How many others are there on the colonies? How many other survivors off-Earth?”

Ruslan and Cherpa exchanged a glance before he replied. “You’re looking at them.”

A stunned Nashrudden stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Two? Just… two?”

“There were three,” Ruslan told him apologetically, “but there was an unfortunate incident.”

“Two. Out of millions upon millions of colonists.” He fought to speak. “I wish I could believe in a hell, if only as a just final resting place for those who developed and propagated the Aura Malignance.” There was more he wanted to say but it was interrupted by the onset of weeping.

Ruslan and Cherpa looked on, embarrassed, not knowing how to respond. There wasn’t anything they could do, really. Sufficient and appropriate words did not exist to describe a near-extinction to someone who had not experienced it.

More three-days than Bac’cul cared to remember had passed since the two human specimens had sealed themselves within the mountain. Spread out around him were all the scientific and engineering resources the Myssari outpost could bring to bear. These were augmented by the presence of an equal quantity of Vrizan material and equipment. Having agreed to work together to try to enter the mountain by means that would not see those making the attempt violently deconstructed, the teams put in place by the two reluctantly cooperating species had thus far managed to achieve a share in nothing except failure. Two attempts to bypass the doorway—one to the left of it and the other working downward from the top of the mountain—had ceased when material of the same composition as the doorway had been encountered beneath the overlying rock.

It had just been decided to bore a hole and then excavate horizontally in an effort to interdict the lift shaft from one side when Cor’rin came running to alert him. That she had chosen to do so in person instead of employing her communicator said much. He had never seen her move so fast, rocking from side to side as she entered the field office located near the back of the portable building.

“Something I think you should see.” Beneath her heavy brows her eyes were glittering. “Something I think everyone should see. Recording will ensure that they will, though they will have neither the joy nor the astonishment that comes with actual physical proximity.” Without further explanation she all but pulled him away from his resting bench. In her mind urgency overrode the incivility.

Once outside and again confronted with the source of so much recent anxiety and confusion, he understood her insistence without having to have it explained to him.

The impervious door blocking entry into the mountain had risen to expose the tunnel beyond. The smooth, illuminated passageway looked exactly as Bac’cul remembered it save for one difference.

It was crowded.

The specimens Ruslan and Cherpa led the way. They were joined by a human male of indeterminate age whose mat of facial hair reminded Bac’cul of Ruslan’s appearance the first time the researcher had encountered Seraboth’s sole survivor. These three were followed by others. Hundreds of others. Having spent much of his professional life studying human history in the hopes of one day being fortunate enough to encounter a single live human, Bac’cul was overwhelmed by the sight that now swelled before him.

How extraordinarily different they are from one another! he reflected. In height and girth, in epidermal tinting and hirsuteness, in facial features and physical structure. Such diversity within a single species and even within the same gender was unknown among the Myssari and all other civilized races. It was as if the fine details of the species’ genetic code ran rampant over reason. Why should one be so much taller than another, or darker, or wider? It made no sense, but to a specialist like himself the bewildering parade offered an abundance of delights.

Having spent fruitful decades among the Myssari, Ruslan was able to hazard a guess at the thoughts that must be going through the researcher’s mind. Grinning, he gestured toward his and Cherpa’s unanticipated companion.

“Bac’cul, may I present Nashrudden Megas Chin. A scientist of his time, recently revived. Together with a few of his closest friends and colleagues.” He translated for the newly resurrected scientist. “I think you two would work well together.”

Having been properly introduced, the dazed Bac’cul responded automatically with the traditional Myssari embrace. Nashrudden flinched but otherwise accepted the three-armed clinch manfully. Having arrived in haste to join the group, Cor’rin followed with a greeting of her own, as did Kel’les. Formalities concluded, Ruslan and Cherpa proceeded to fill in the astonished Myssari on everything they had learned.

They had almost finished when the attention of human and Myssari alike was diverted by the hum of an arriving air transport. It was larger than the one that had preceded it. The anxious troops who emerged to be greeted by their few still-stunned surviving comrades were more heavily armed than their predecessors. They had been prepared to confront a Myssari scientific team and perhaps a pair of humans. Met by the sight of more than a thousand of the latter, all apparently as healthy as they were diverse, their commander and his suborns were taken aback as to how to proceed.

Taking pity on them and fully sympathizing with their shock, Bac’cul took it upon himself to make the next set of introductions. The Vrizan officer struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. In contrast, the human Nashrudden appeared utterly at ease with the arrival of a new set of aliens.

“So these are the Vrizan?” he asked Cherpa. “The species you said is desirous of laying claim to and settling Earth?” When she nodded confirmation, the scientist walked directly up to the Vrizan commander. They were of equal height, Ruslan noted, and, craniums aside, truly more alike than human and Myssari.

“Tell him, if it is a him, that the people of Earth are returning from a long sleep to reclaim their homeworld.”

She translated into Myssari, and then back again when the Vrizan replied via his translator. “Commander Kanathel Uri Eln extends his greetings and wants to know how many people of Earth are going to return.”

“We are but the first of many. All returns start small. Tell him.”

She proceeded to do so. Physically capable of far more facial expression than a Myssari though less than a human, the Vrizan honored himself with as extreme a variety of facial tics and contortions as Ruslan had yet observed in one of his kind. When the commander finally found his voice again, it was to put another question to the human via Cherpa.

“Assuming your claim was to be upheld by the relevant authorities, he wishes to know what you would plan to do with the existing settlements the Vrizan have worked hard to establish here.”

Nashrudden met the alien’s gaze as evenly as he could. “Tell him that while I must consult with others of my kind, I see no reason why they should not remain. There are many… empty spaces… that could do with the ameliorating touch of civilization. Any civilization. Devastating as it is, a mass die-off of one’s own kind is a powerful argument for future cooperation.” When Bac’cul started to object, the scientist added that the Myssari were welcome to establish similar projects of their own. “All assistance will be gratefully welcomed. It may be hoped that we have knowledge we can share with you as much as you can share with us. The knowledge of the living,” he concluded, “to complement that of the dead.”

While not entirely happy with the human’s assertions, the Vrizan saw no civilized means of contesting it. It was not for a minor functionary like Kanathel to decide anyway. The rendering of such momentous decisions was the province of his superiors. He was glad it was so. It was not a decision he would have wished to make on his own. When all communication with the field team that had preceded him failed, he had been ordered to assemble a rescue team and proceed to the site at speed. It is safe to say that whatever he was expecting to find, the presence of hundreds of live humans, with more continuing to file out of the tunnel every minute, had not figured into his planning.

Was the human who spoke no Myssari telling the truth when he claimed there would soon be many more of his resurrected kind spreading out across this world? Though rather more aggressive than the Myssari, the Vrizan were no less ethical than their tripodal rivals. The commander knew there could be no valid excuse to mount a war for a world that was being reclaimed by its original inhabitants. Additionally, the collective wisdom of a race that had successfully settled dozens of worlds was surely worth far more than any single habitable planet. If the human scientist was to be taken at his word, his kind were willing to freely share much of that knowledge. It behooved the Vrizan to begin the relationship on good terms with them. Lastly, his people were far more firmly established on the human homeworld than the awkward Myssari.

Trusting the human female to continue translating honestly, he raised one hand and turned it upside down in presentation to the revived scientist.

“You are most generous. I personally look forward to assisting your people in fully reclaiming this world.”

“As do the Myssari,” put in Bac’cul hastily. Though no diplomat, he could evaluate a critical situation when he saw one. “The Combine will provide you with any and all the help that you need.”

“As will the Vrizan.” Commander and research team leader glared at each other.

Leaving the two alien representatives to engage in an ongoing confrontation that was chilly but polite, the three humans edged away to greet and explain the current situation to as many of the revived as they could.

Eventually a driftec arrived to carry the original exploration team back to the Myssari outpost. Nashrudden and several of his colleagues went along. Looking back as he prepared to board the transport, Ruslan could see the resurrected humans organizing themselves into groups. As they began their work, repositories would be unearthed, automatics activated, and supplies distributed. Reconstruction would begin soon enough. Aid already promised by the Vrizan and the Myssari would help to speed recovery. Earth, humankind’s Earth, would live again. This time there would be no mistakes.

He entered the driftec and took a seat across from Cherpa, who was engaged in animated conversation with Nashrudden. The two were about the same age, Ruslan reflected. She had never seen a man her own age. Something sharp and painful lanced through him, faded like a burn, and was gone. This was right, he told himself as he watched them. Heavy as it lay within him, he could not find it in himself to object to rightness.

The woman who sat down beside him was one of the first ten following Nashrudden to be revived. She appeared older than the scientist but not by much. Her eyes, Ruslan noted, were very violet.

“You’re Ruslan, aren’t you?” She gestured across the way. “Nashrudden told me about you. You’re a natural immune from, I think he said, Seraboth. I’m Elehna. Elehna Anchez, one of the last to be extracted and have her body put in stasis. Like Nashrudden.” When he said nothing, she smiled. “You know what used to be said: the last shall be first?”

He finally remembered to nod, trying not to stare. “Yes, I’m Ruslan. Ruslan… I don’t remember the rest.”

“Well, Ruslan-I-don’t-remember-the-rest, Nashrudden says that you have lived and survived among these trisymmetrical aliens ever since they plucked you off your homeworld, and I really would like to hear everything you can tell me about your experiences. In detail.”

He found himself, automatically, smiling back. It was a smile that just kept getting wider and wider.

“And me? I’ve waited most of my life for the chance to tell you.”

“There will be others,” she told him. “They’ll want to know what you know, too.”

“I’m happy to start with you.” He truly was. “How many others have to be revived? How much work remains to be done to bring them all back into the light? How many thousands will walk the surface of the homeworld again?”

“Thousands?” She looked at him strangely. “The Project head didn’t tell you?”

He shook his head. “I just assumed thousands.”

Her expression shifted from warm to serious. “Ruslan, there are three billion of us.”