The Forever Peace Page 7

  The other thing the big shots wanted to know was where the Luminarians stood in terms of the inevitable Berrillian incursion. The Luminarians were one species the Deavoriath identified as possible members of the alliance against the Last Nightmare. Nothing came of any initial contacts with the Luminarians, so they pretty much dropped off everyone’s radar screens. Subsequent attempts to establish relations with them had equally fizzled out. The politicos concluded that the Luminarians had no interest in anything except themselves. Great. If no one answered the phone or opened the front door, send Jon Ryan to make happy with them. But, hey, it was a mission, and it was one where I was the most unlikely to get eaten, shot at, or dented.

  In terms of the two assignments, scoping out the Luminarians seemed the easiest and by far the shortest. Heck, they were probably going to blow me off so fast I’d be home for dinner the same night. The Berrillian assignment looked to be a long one. So, I was off to Rigel 12, land of the snooty electric globs. Kymee told me once that non-corporeal species were generally intolerable, too good to associate with us fleshy-bodied space trash. They were too big for their charge-distribution limits, was what I’d have said if asked. The fact that I didn’t like them before I even left didn’t bode well for my success, but it was kind of fun to go on a mission that was likely to fail. It wouldn’t be my fault, and I could be a turd in someone’s punch bowl all I wanted. Assuming, of course, Luminarians had anything akin to punch bowls. I’d find some way of being annoying if they were snobs. Yeah, it was kind of a paid vacation.

  I took my standard set of equipment on any voyage. Wrath, with Shearwater strapped to him, and Al along as someone to talk to that wasn’t Wrath. He also served as the computer I could trust. Hey. Not a bad tagline for a computer company. Bob’s computers, the computers you can trust.

  Rigel was a cool star. It was visible as a bright blue-white star from Earth. I grew up wondering at it on long, cold winter nights. Okay, maybe I caught it out of the corner of my eye from the backseat of my car, but Rigel was one of my favorites. It had around twenty planets, give or take, depending on how you defined a planet. That was huge, as far as star systems went. Planet twelve was home to the Luminarians. There were sentient races on two other Rigel planets, all unrelated. Rigel 5 had a sort of humanoid species that developed to around our Middle Ages. Rigel 10 was a jungle world, very hot and moist, almost a victim of runaway greenhouse gas heating. Life abounded there. The sentients were kind of ape-like in body and intelligence. They might make good football linemen or politicians, but they were otherwise uninteresting.

  Back when the Deavoriath ruled the galaxy, the inhabitants of Rigel 12 were evolutionarily transforming into what they would fully become in a few hundred thousand years. Kymee compared them to the electric eel of Earth, only more electric and less eel. I guess Kymee didn’t give me too much credit in terms of brain power, did he? Anyway, they’d since shuffled off their mortal coils, to paraphrase the Bard. They’d also shed most, but not all, of their technology, and certainly most tools, such as radios and the postal service. That was why contacting them was dicey. You never knew if they heard you and were ignoring the call or if they weren’t listening in the first place. To my way of thinking, these snobs deserved a visit from me. I’d set them straight, or I’d at least piss them off enough to make my efforts joyous.

  Wrath popped into space a thousand klicks above the surface of Rigel 12. I had him put us in geosynchronous orbit over what had been a major city, Feleliquet. Kymee told me in the day, it covered about one third of the dry land surface of the entire planet. I quickly ascertained it was still there, but it was completely abandoned. There was no functioning electric grid, power source of any sort, or radio chatter. Wrath narrowed in and confirmed there was no street traffic or planes in the air. The few remaining artificial satellites in orbit were long since defunct.

  Al broadcast messages on all frequencies, announcing our arrival and asking for acknowledgement. Nothing came in response. I had him send some transmissions in odd wavelengths, like MASER and optical signals. Still nothing. Okay, I was going to have to drop in uninvited. Who knew if they even cared?

  I had Wrath land near what was the capitol area. It was a sprawling expanse of buildings and parks. The entire place was overgrown with vegetation, and the buildings looked positively decrepit. Clearly, no maintenance had been performed in centuries. With a little difficulty, I walked the streets a while, looking for any signs of life. The going got tough at times due to fallen trees and the buildup of debris. It looked like those ancient images of Chernobyl after their reactor contaminated the region. Existing, but dead.

  I entered several buildings. More decayed nothingness. It was ashamed to have all that infrastructure wasted when humanity was searching for a permanent home. Rigel 12 was not a likely colonization candidate as the Luminarians had to be somewhere and almost certainly didn’t want millions of emigrants. Both Wrath and Al scanned as best they could and detected nothing that could be interpreted as a sign of life or of purposeful movement. It began to dawn on me there weren’t any critters around either. No rats, feral domestic animals, no bugs. That was odd. Okay, the highfalutin sentients become electrical blobs. Why would that affect the rest of the ecosystem? It shouldn’t have. Wildlife should have continued to survive and evolve.

  After a full day with no clues as to where the locals were, I moved us to a far-removed part of Feleliquet. Though it was architecturally distinct, it was also equally barren. Simple physics dictated that if an electric charge moved, it generated a magnetic field. None of us found any trace of magnetic flux, aside from naturally occurring ones. Their was no one home.

  I was forced to do something I disliked. I had to sit back and think. I was a man of action, not a chess player. So, I reasoned, if I was a superior being, an electric eel minus the eel, where would I spend eternity? I assumed they were still on Rigel 12. A loose association of electrical charge wouldn’t last long in the hostile environment of space. Stellar winds, cosmic rays, and random charged particles would wreak havoc with such a free-floating apparition. Would I go to the highest mountain and contemplate where my navel used to be? Maybe the bottom of the ocean? That was unlikely. Salt water and free electric charge would be a problem for the Luminarians. If I no longer had eyes, a pretty landscape would hold no wonder.

  Food. If they were alive, they still needed to eat. Short of plugging into a one hundred twenty-volt outlet, where could they recharge? No food production, no agriculture was anywhere to be found, so they weren’t making electricity from organic sources. Naturally occurring electrical energy was rare and unreliable. Lightning was the only common manifestation. So, it had to be, I reasoned, some form of photoelectric conversion that kept them electrified. That was easily possible. They could have evolved photoelectric conversion cells. So, I’d likely find Luminarians where the gradient of light from their sun would be the highest. That meant I was off to the equatorial band of the planet, but not too high in altitude. There would be a trade-off for them between more intense solar radiation and a cold, hostile environment. All right. I had a plan.

  I had Wrath fly low and keep a view portal open. That way I could get a picture of the planet as I flew over it. From a three thousand meter elevation, the landscape seemed pretty much what I’d anticipated. Oceans, land masses, and trees. I still didn’t see any signs of life, and neither of my computer associates reported any finds either. Odd, but there it was. Al could confirm some marine life, though it was mostly well off shore. That was reassuring, in that it suggested there hadn't been some catastrophic environmental crisis on Rigel 12. But, the distribution of life was off. At least on the water worlds I knew of, life tended to hug the coasts and shallow waters. Maybe the changes I saw were just consistent with a very old ecosystem. Oowaoa was the oldest planet I’d visited, and it certainly had less flora and fauna than I’d have anticipated.

  As we neared the equator, I did begin to see a pattern develop. There were fewer tre
es the farther south we went. That was, of course, just the opposite of what I expected. Any standard planet with the usual rotation and orbit would be warmest at the equator. Rainfall would, therefore, be the highest. More heat and water suggested the vegetation should get denser, not sparser, the closer we came to the equator. The changes were spotty at first, but by the time we were nearing zero degrees latitude, there were no trees or vegetation to speak of. Though there were hills, mountains, and rivers, the land itself was bare dirt. Actually, it was bare mud because of all the rain. Whatever was going on with Rigel 12 sure made it a bust as a tourist destination.

  Finally, Wrath chimed in with the words I wanted to hear. He’d located moving patches of electrical charge. We’d found us some LIPs. It turned out it would be easy enough for me to at least address one, as none of them moved quickly and most were close to the ground. As I suspected, they were concentrated in the band of elevation between five hundred and a thousand meters. Again, because everything about life on Rigel 12 was odd, the Luminarians were spread out uniformly with almost mathematical precision. Not very social creatures, it would seem.

  Wrath landed in an area where the concentration of charged blobs was the highest, and I set out on foot to make a new friend. Even if they were invisible, I’d be able to locate one with my sensors. Almost immediately, I found my quarry. The Luminarians were visible as hazy, irregular blobs. They had no heads, feet, or other attachments. Most were in the shape of thin disks, like the shape of a red blood cell. A few were more donut shaped. As I approached the one I picked out, it made no moves to suggest it saw me, or at least it paid me no mind.

  “Hello,” I shouted when I was a meter away.

  Nothing. Not movement or response I could detect.

  Al, I said in my head, you pick up any response from this dude?

  Negative, Captain. It remains unchanged.

  I broadcast the same greeting across a wide radio band.

  Still nothing, sir, reported Al.

  Any ideas? I asked.

  Maybe try a flare.

  A what? Are you serious, Al? You think getting its attention by lighting it on fire will create a good first impression?

  No, pilot, it would not. I was thinking you might wave it near the body. A flare will create a good deal of light and heat energy. Perhaps it’s hungry.

  Al, my boy, you’re brighter than you look.

  After centuries of service together, admit it. You have no idea what I look like.

  Sure, I do. You look like a shiny metal box.

  That’s my housing, not me.

  Well I think of you as a shiny box, kind of like a toaster without the slots.

  If I cared at all what you thought, I’d be insulted. Fortunately, I’m a better machine.

  I didn’t snipe back. Instead I fired up one of the flares I carried in my belt. They were manganese based, so they were white hot.

  Within a second, Al was back in my head. A dozen nearby Luminarians are heading toward you quickly. The flare seems to interest them.

  Or piss them off, in which case I’m in trouble.

  Good point. I’ll be sure to take good notes for posterity.

  A bunch of the hazy blobs configured themselves in a semi-circle in front of the flare, about half a meter away. On a whim, I put my hand in front of the flame and flipped it up and down to simulate a signal lamp message by Morse code, like an old Navy vessel would have used. Damn if it didn’t work. It took several seconds, but the closest blob started flashing slightly brighter in pulses. It copied the parts of the Morse code it had learned from me. I quickly ran through the entire Morse signals for letters and numbers. Just like that, we were communicating efficiently, if not rapidly. The Luminarian could flash quickly, but me flipping my hand was clumsy at best.

  C-a-n y-o-u c-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-e w-i-t-h- m-e b-y s-o-u-n-d- w-a-v-e o-r r-a-d-i-o? I asked.

  Y-e-s, it replied.

  Okay, my friend, why didn’t you just do it and not flash it?

  C-a-n y-o-u-h-e-a-r m-e w-h-e-n I s-p-e-a-k?

  Y-e-s.

  Hmm. You’re trying my patience a tad here, pal.

  C-a-n y-o-u v-i-b-r-a-t-e t-h-e a-i-r t-o s-i-m-u-l-a-t-e-s-p-e-e-c-h?

  Y-e-s.

  I began wondering what would happen if I punched this electric cloud.

  “If you can hear me and return the audible signal, why haven’t you?” I asked loudly.

  B-e-c-a-u-s-e I c-h-o-s-e n-o-t t-o. I c-h-o-o-s-e n-o-t t-o n-o-w.

  Son of a spark plug.

  “Why the hell not?” I challenged.

  “Because,” it said by pulsing the air, “I wish to ignore you.”

  Well how do you like that? Insulting and rude. What an unrefreshing and unwelcome attitude.

  “I’m Jon Ryan. I’m here representing a large alliance…”

  “I know who you are and why you are here. Please leave.”

  That sounded vaguely familiar in a most unpleasant way.

  “How do you…”

  “I know because I am a superior being. Leave.”

  Dude was getting on my last nerve with the finishing my sentence crap.

  “I am glad you are superior. Makes my day, really. The issue is—”

  “We have no concern for the petty wars of you corporeals.”

  “Do you know what a cattle prod is?” There, I got a full sentence in.

  “Yes. What does—”

  “I’m about to see what one does to your sorry ass if you don’t start communicating with me and stop insulting me.” Yes, score two points. I cut him off.

  “You are not in possession of such a device, and it would have no effect on me.”

  “Look, let’s start again, shall we? My name is Jon—and don’t interrupt me—Ryan. Your name is what?”

  “I am.”

  “Yes, great. You are…?” I let that hang.

  “I am. That is who I am.”

  “You’re named am?”

  “No, that would be silly. I am, that is who I am.”

  “Is there some-am else I can talk to. You’re impossible.”

  “If I were impossible, how could I be here speaking at you?”

  “No, you’re impossible to deal with.”

  “Ah. No.”

  “Ah, no what?”

  “There is no one else for you to pester.”

  Al, begin fabricating a cattle prod, I said in my head.

  Way ahead of you. It’s nearly complete.

  “I heard that.”

  “Can I talk to that one there?” I said, pointing to the Luminarian next to the useless one I was about to ground.

  “You are. I am. He is.”

  “What, now you’re a child’s reading primer? No, maybe you’re a grammar lesson, is that it?”

  Pilot, I believe the waste of voltage is trying to say they are all one and that they don’t possess names. They just are what or who they are, said Al.

  “Your machine is correct. Perhaps I should speak to it, asking that you leave.”

  “Look, Kymee warned me that you non-corporeals were challenging to interact with, but I actually think you’re just messing with me now.”

  “Kymee? You know Kymee of Oowaoa? That is impossible.”

  “He’s a close friend. Why, do you know him?”

  “We fought together in the Tempest Wars, near the Manifest Verge over a million years ago. Surely his light has passed from this universe by now?”

  “No, he’s alive and kicking, and a hell of a lot nicer than you are, Am.”

  “Ryan, you and I have as much in common as you do with a mouse. Our intellects are, if anything, separated by a larger margin. Just as you can neither be nice nor rude to a mouse, from the mouse’s point of reference, so I cannot be so to you.”

  I’m pretty sure that was another insult. Pretty sure.

  “Mouse, rat, or similar rodent aside, how about you answer a few of my questions and then we can both try and forget the other even exists.”

&
nbsp; “Forgetting you will be a pleasure.”

  “You’re welcome that I’m able to put a smile on your face, metaphorically speaking.”

  “You wish to know if we will join your alliance against the invasion of the Berrillians. We will not. Just as you would not join one mound of ants combatting another mound of ants, we cannot lower ourselves to fight in your toy wars.”

  The prospect of not working with these losers sounded powerfully good to me right about then.

  “So, when they land here in great numbers, what will you do?”

  “Nothing. We will ignore them as I wish to ignore you.”

  “But what if they are even less interested in being ignored by you effete snobs? Hmm?”

  “Their desires, your desires, are immaterial to us. If you had not tricked me with that heat device, I would have ignored you as fully as I intend to ignore them.”

  “Tricked you? I was trying to get your attention, which I’m beginning to regret having done.”

  “I was hungry. It was treacherous of you to trick me into acknowledging that fact.”

  “Whatever. Look, I don't care if you’re hun—”

  Wait. I got the worst feeling, like someone was walking over my grave. These self-impressed egomaniacs were starving, to such an extent that they rushed to a food source without thinking though what it was or who proffered it. The dry land of Rigel 12 was devoid of animal life, sea creatures only lived way off shore in salt water, and most vegetation was absent where the Luminarians’ concentration was the highest.

  They’d eaten their world.

  These useless, lazy, self-congratulatory sons of batteries couldn’t be troubled to construct a hydroelectric generator or fission reactor. Toiling at crop production or animal husbandry was way too lowbrow for these prissy jerkwads. No, they’d rather rape their planet while resting comfortably with what were their thumbs inserted where their asses used to be.

  They were the Last Nightmare, separated only in degree. The Nightmare consumed universes while these yokels were content to ingest their home world. At least for the present.