Nexus by Robert Boyczuk (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

The medikit in Liis’ backpack was ill-equipped to deal with serious injuries; she did what little she could for Upatal. She applied pressure until the bleeding stopped. Then she cleaned the Speaker’s wounds with an alcohol swab, covered them with sterile gauze patches and bandages. There was nothing in the kit that would have allowed her to probe for the fragments that were lodged in the Speaker’s body. As Liis worked awkwardly with her one good hand, she remembered how she’d tended to Josua’s wounds when he’d been hurt back on Bh’Haret.

Surprisingly, the memory evoked no reaction. Josua was dead.

There was nothing more she could think to do for Upatal. Liis stood.

The room around her was alive with movement. Everywhere she looked, small metallic creatures scuttled, snagging bits of debris, dragging them over to the channel where they nudged them onto the frictionless slope. The debris slid down into the trench and accumulated on the white surface, apparently waiting to be recycled when the next fetus would reactivate the rollers. The gantries had all moved as well, their priorities altered, Liis assumed, by the damage done to the incubators. Articulated arms, previously hidden amongst their superstructures, had swung out to grapple larger fragments. A second gantry had already positioned itself next to the damaged one and seemed, in concert with hundreds of the swarming devices, to be disassembling it piece by piece. No doubt the parts would be recycled, and a new gantry constructed.

Ignoring the activity, Liis hurried through the ranks of incubators until she reached the place where the twins were first separated and placed into their own cells. Standing in front of one, she drew the laser pistol from her pocket, aimed at the transparent panel and pulled the trigger.

The material was tougher than it appeared. It took several minutes of sustained cutting to make a hole wide enough to draw out the infant.

Liis reached in with her good arm; the liquid was warm and slightly oily. Clutching the baby by its ankles, she pulled it from the incubator. Fluid trickled from its nose and mouth and ears. Its tiny chest heaved. Laying it face down on top of the incubator so that its head lolled over the edge, Liis swatted it lightly on its tiny buttocks. The infant coughed and began to howl.

Liis picked the child up, cradling it next to her chest, and walked over to where she’d seen Upatal slip through a door. Slowly, she moved around the periphery of the room. When the wall next to her darkened, she stopped. She stood there, the child bawling in her arms, as the arch of a doorway formed.

Epilogue: SJH1231-K, The Relay Station

Under the pale illumination of the dome, a tall woman hurries along something more than a path, but less than a dirt road, clutching a naked, wailing infant to her chest. The light is failing, as it had been for a long time before she emerged from the broad door of the hatchery. The illumination from the underbelly of the dome, it seems, cycles through its own circadian rhythms.

An eerie twilight clings to the fringes of the forest; under the canopy of trees, it is already pitch black. The woman and child pass the treeline and are swallowed by night.

They descend into a ravine, cross a small wooden bridge that spans a dark stream and ascend the opposite slope.

She stops, places the infant on the ground and pulls a cylindrical object from her pocket. The child’s puling grows as the woman raises the object above her head.

A circle of wavering light springs up from the tip of the flare, shocking the child into silence. But the respite is only momentary: in seconds its wail resumes. The child’s cries follow the woman as she moves away, pursuing her into the forest. Bent low, the woman fixes her eyes on the path, ignoring the wails.

The wavering light makes an impossible hash of things, creates counterfeit shadows that flee as soon as she steps up to them. Over and over she tells herself not to hurry; to be patient, to be thorough. To make as much use of the light as she can. A few steps ahead, she spots something, and her heartbeat quicken. The woman rushes toward it.

Another false alarm: bits of stick, a shadow. She curses, resumes her search.

Behind her, the child has fallen silent.

Alien trees loom, press in from all sides on her fragile bubble of illumination; it is easy for her to imagine they resent her presence and would like nothing more than crush the intruding light. She is seized by an urge to flee the forest. To run back to the light and warmth of the hatchery.

But she suppresses this impulse; to accede to it is to surrender. And she has come too far for that.

She fixes her mind rigidly on the task at hand. Moving ahead, she scans the path carefully, painstakingly, searching for her salvation.

Epilogue: The Twins

The sudden onslaught of pain was a ripping agony; Yilda’s twin felt as if the meat was being torn from his bones. He staggered to his feet, clutching his head. Tears streamed from his eyes. Distantly, he was aware of the other Pro-Locutors in the room with him, some real, some virtual, watching in shock. Through the burning sheets of pain he felt helping hands grasp him, lay him on the floor and restrain his arms and legs. Protocol forgotten, a welter of messages flooded his mind, questions concerning his well-being, concerning enemies, concerning their own fears. He closed them off, shut them out. He had to focus his attention on this attack.

It was unlike anything he had endured in his long life; savage in its intensity, utterly without reserve, hatred aimed solely at him, driving like a spike into his brain. He had no time to marshal a response, to assay a counter attack. It was all he could do to keep the other mind from completely overwhelming his, from destroying his final barriers and annihilating the kernel of his sanity. He had dealt with strong minds before, but never anything like this. Immensely powerful, it was suicidal in its intent on destroying him. And he understood why: light years away, it was already dying an agonizing death. It had used its own pain to bolster its attack, to span an improbable distance and find his consciousness. With a monumental effort of will, he held on.

The other mind shattered his defences. Like a firestorm, it swept through his brain. He convulsed as his neurons overloaded.

Goodbye, brother, he heard the other’s last thought.

Bound together for the final time, their millennia of memories flared and burnt like tinder.

NOTE

Being a self-published text, this volume is bound to contain more than the usual number of typos and formatting errors. If you spot an error I’d be grateful if you would drop me an e-mail note so that I might make corrections in future editions (should there be any!). I’m also interested in any comments you might have on the story itself. I can be reached at [email protected].

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