DUALITY: The World of Lies Read online

  “She’s exquisite,” he commented absently.

  “Yes, she’s really a piece of work that one. Her records indicate that her grandfather was a Pangean alchemist of some renown who came to understand his elements a little too well for Service’s comfort. So he was relocated out of the Pangea, along with Li Meiyang's mother and father. She is the only native born Arathian in her family. And best of all, being Tropican, she’s already ours.”

  “What do you believe she is to me, Machine Lord, my counterpart, my second, my soulmate?”

  “Compound combinations are not unheard of, like the Dreaded Double.” Mnemtech’s eyes widened in a dramatic expression.

  Aru’s ears could hardly bear to hear this phrase uttered. It was so abjectly childish, it made every rational fiber inside of him shudder to hear it coming from a being of Mnemtech’s stature. The “Dreaded Double” was a dualistic term for another being who is both your soul mate and counterpart, a tragic combination that inexorably leads to one or both parties’ downfalls. You’re more superstitious than the looniest Blue I’ve ever met, he wanted to tell Mnemtech, but then thought better of it. Some objective part of his mind realized he was being schooled right now –and in a major way.

  “I want her,” he said instead.

  “Then she shall be yours, Captain. I’ll see to it personally.”

  “You are too kind, M’Lord.”

  “Back to “m’lord” are we? You must be starting to get sweet on me. I’ll have you know that we anthrometas don’t swing that way.” He winked.

  Aru laughed, genuinely laughed. All his life he’d only known the media-portrayed image of Mnemtech: the distinguished diplomat and leader, the wise and moral counselor, eminent rationalist. In person, he was just... bizarre.

  “This is the most mystifying conversation I’ve ever had, M’Lord. I'm still trying to figure out what to make of it.”

  “I suggest you make the most of it, Captain. The next time we meet our guns will surely be trained on each other. In the meantime you and your House shall have the full measure of my favor. Now, if you don't mind, I’m going to take my leave. I only came to Calidon for the graduation ceremony, and I intend to shuttle back to Occitania at once. Truth be told I’m so keen on spending my time there that the rumor is I’ve turned blue.”

  “I wish you a safe and comfortable passage, M’Lord. Shall I then take my leave of here to rejoin my peers?”

  “You may do no such thing, rebel. I’m leaving. You’re going to stay right here, wide awake under that halo-scanner for the next twelve to fourteen hours until I’ve got every facet of your mind mapped into my personal databanks.” He noted Aru’s dejected expression. “But feel free to order up any creature comfort you desire, so long as it’s not of a mind-altering variety. You can catalog through the ships that have recently come online and choose whichever one is to your liking to command.”

  And that was it. In an instant, without so much as a trace of formality or even basic manners, he was gone.

  The Pangean

  The young Gahre remembered being the new boy in Tulan village that bordered the impassible Mountains of Immutability, a cloudy domain of spirits and dragons where no man dared tread. He'd relocated there when he was but only four after his mother had died at the bloody hands of bandits. Her funeral was the only time he’d ever gotten to meet his father. Father was in The Order. That can happen when one is recruited into The Order, that they should disappear for decades, or at least so he’d been told. So it had been that he came to live with uncle, a kind and simple man, in a new and distant village. Long behind him were the enchanted memories of Zenithia, and those of his dear departed mother. The other boys of Tulan had teased him about his accent and his long wild hair. They called him “barbarian,” but that didn’t last long. Gahre was hardly one to be bullied, and he gained respect quickly. The Elders had sent him to Tulan to live with his uncle and make a fresh start. It was a breathtakingly lovely village, situated on a narrow plainsland between the outskirts of the Pangea’s second largest forestland on the east and towered over by the grand and mysterious Mountains of Immutability on the west. Tulan had a reliable water table and moderate seasons; good land for corn and wild oat strains. During his first year Gahre had pulled in more of the harvest than any of the other children, even the older boys.

  He excelled at all physical activities, particularly the hunt and fighting. In mock battles, he nearly always scored the most marks against opponents. In his formative years he became an accomplished horseman and marksman, and the most accomplished recruit in the Ranger’s youth program, rivaling the more experienced men with his survival skills. He could live indefinitely amidst the elements. He picked up such arts effortlessly as if he’d born to them: to forage, fish, build, scale, swim, and hunt. It was even rumored that he possessed the remarkable gift of speaking with animals.

  Indulu was highly ranked in The Order, and although he wore no uniform or insignia when he took his leave in Tulan village, his status was revealed by the way the elders behaved towards him. As his godfather, Indulu had always shown interest in Gahre during his annual visit, and the talk of the village was that Gahre might one day be called upon by The Order, the highest of honors. Though there circulated more arguments against this happening than for it. Gahre was smart, but not a good student. Gahre was imaginative, but curious at times to the point of folly. Gahre was charismatic, but he spent too much time alone. Gahre was very strong, but that applied just as much to his will as it did his biceps. Gahre was bold, but not always rational. Gahre was kind to people, yet he had spilled the blood of many creatures in the forest. Indulu was a Dharmaist –and a very devoted one.

  A dear friend of Gahre’s father, Danu, Indulu was Gahre’s appointed godfather, though he scarcely had time to attend that duty. During Indulu's passing visits he consulted on the boys behalf and advocated for him as a potential recruit in The Order, but had tasked the village Elder Panthus to monitor his daily progress in his stead. Gahre was delighted to realize he was being considered for The Order, for there was truly no higher honor. It was a well-known fact that members of The Order were privy to all manner of Forbidden Knowledge.

  Though he loved to read, he was not the most focused student according to his teachers, “Gahre’s mind frequently wanders down flights of fancy.” It was true. He possessed a grand imagination, and often daydreamed of great hunting adventures in the western realms, or sat contemplating the enigma of Forbidden Knowledge to the exclusion of the lesson at hand.

  In his heart, Gahre sensed how much he did not know, how much was hidden from him, and it burned inside him. All he could know was what he’d been taught, but those secret truths hidden from him… he smelled the hint of them like a distant fragrance or a forgotten dream, and the wonder of all that was unknown enticed him. Part of him knew, just knew, that almost all he’d ever been taught were lies. Lies upon lies upon lies, that they had set to work upon him from the day he was born.

  The common folk were not bothered so much by what they did not know, and most probably would not care to know it if they could. That set Gahre apart. It didn’t appeal much to him, society that is and their ways and their schedules. In his early years he took up hunting with the other boys of the same inclination. They became quite skilled with their bows and their bolas and their traps and their spears, but none so much as Gahre. They hunted small game of the periphery of the forest, occasionally making camp to stay a day or two. Over time such challenges failed to satiate him, and he organized deeper, lengthier excursions into the wood during the holidays. He took up night hunting. None of the others were willing to go to that extreme. The forest at night frightened most rational folk. It frightened Gahre too, but that fear became a fascination that in the end compelled him to it. The fear of becoming lost in the arboreal expanse, of dying to the elements on deep treks into it, attacks by predators, Gahre risked it all, and he did so alone. The wilds offered him a truth, which although at times cruel, he c
lung to. Nature was itself; it did not lie, for it had no pretension of morality to distort. It did not spout platitudes or attempt to pervert his mind. As time progressed, his excursions grew longer and longer -and his school attendance waned. He lived and breathed survival and contemplated its dark and alluring beauty. He sought to assimilate himself to it, and in time the wild was no longer a place of danger, but one of peace and solitude. He stopped hunting large game, as he had only himself to feed, and being always on the move could not drag a large carcass far anyway. His fires were small and his camps were simple, leaving little trace of his passage. He knew every edible feature of the wood, every plant, every bud. He ate grubby insects and frogs. Every moment of the day had one of two purposes, survival or contemplation, with his imaginative mind to keep him company, he seldom missed the presence of others.

  It was not absolute isolation from the world of man. He did meet similarly minded folk on occasion: hunters, druids, rangers, herbalists, outlaws, and ascetic s. It was those of the last category that intrigued him most. Most were Dharmaists and he took their company and to some manner their teachings. Others were followers of the Way, hermits and the like, and still others belonged to the multitude of sects that flourished throughout the Pangea.

  Gahre was not the religious sort, nor was he partial toward any particular faith. He read the doctrines and found them headache inducing. They blurred together into mind-mush. The Dharmaists held belief in Samsara, the world of false perception, which was the only religious concept he held any solid faith in. Daydreamer that he was, he carried a fiercely rational outlook on the world. What could be seen, what could be verified by the senses, was real; all else was speculation. Although he reveled in fantasy, he always knew where the line was between imagination and reality and switched between these modes effortlessly.

  His love of nature and the pursuit of truth amply fulfilled his spiritual needs. He could listen to the proselytizers for only so long. In truth he pitied them, mired and entangled as they were in those doctrines. He did not seek to dominate the minds of others, and allowed no one the right to shackle his. Those females he admired from afar, he stayed weary of, for he had witnessed enough of his peers be roped down by them. Pangean society was permissive of young lovers, but not tolerant of them remaining unwed for long. By sheer force of will he contained his longings to preserve his precious freedom.

  The life of a farmer, a tradesman, or even a ranger had no appeal to him. One does not need society when he is a master of the wild. The Rangers Guild was eager to officialize him after his graduation, but he wanted no part of their order either. He already worked with them in some capacity, reporting his observations in the village's surrounding wilds and exterminating rogue predators that pestered or threatened human civilization.

  The day came where all these skills were put to the test. Gahre became a local legend when he was 19, and landed himself on the wrong side of the Law. Or, that is, the filthy hypocritical side of the Law.

  His actions had been nothing less than noble through and through. He had spotted a small camp, suspiciously located below a ledge overlooking a traveler’s lodge on the highway, where a merchant family was boarded for the night. He stealthed about the outskirts of the camp under cover of darkness and identified one of a trio of men standing about the fire there. It was Har Darox, the notorious bandit! His crimes were widely known, and he was wanted for many counts of banditry, murder, and ravishing women.

  Gahre was alone, and not an ordained lawman. The sanctioned procedure would have been to warn the merchant family to flee and then alert the rangers, but there was no time, for the men were clearly gearing up for an imminent raid, donning armor and quivers, and sharpening blades. Har Darox even had a rare and highly illegal weapon at the ready, a rifle! The very first Gahre had ever seen. These certainly were not the actions of men preparing for a night’s rest. There was no question in his mind that the situation called for swift and immediate action.

  Gahre had no tolerance for banditry as his mother's life had been taken from him by this despicable sort. The very sight of them made his blood boil. He found his vantage point camouflaged above their camp, aimed his crossbow, and without hesitation fired upon Har Darox. The bolt drove squarely into the highwayman’s knee. The other two men scrambled for cover as Har Darox lifted his rifle and fired into the darkness. The sound was so loud it jolted Gahre off his balance for a moment, but with his bow rebolted he quickly regained his stance and loosed another round into Har Darox’s forearm. Har Darox dropped his weapon and collapsed in agony.

  Gahre kept solid cover as the bandits sent a volley in his general direction. They could not see him, so they could not target him. He waited patiently for their next volley, and the moment they broke cover, he fired at his second target, but narrowly missed. His moccasined feet silently crept toward their left flank as he tossed a gnarled old branch to their right. Just as they loosed their next misplaced volley he simultaneously fired back. His bolt flew true, cracking through the man’s crossbow and driving itself squarely below the collarbone. The man staggered for a moment in shock and then then rasped out in pain.

  Har Darox dragged himself to cover bellowing orders at the men to advance, but the bandits chose instead to flee. Darox had by now lifted his rifle by his left arm, struggling to reload it, and so Gahre spent another bolt into that limb.

  Gahre came into the camp cautiously and sensed that the two renegades had not doubled back. He approached the writhing Darox and clubbed him hard with the butt of his crossbow. Then he bound him to a tree, grabbed the rifle and ammunition, and set off after the other two. He had never seen or used a rifle before, as they were forbidden by the Law, but he had heard how to operate the weapon. He examined it and found the loading mechanism, placed a round in it, and fired it loudly into the night sky to announce his intentions.

  The wounded man was an easy quarry. Gahre ambushed him in the dark, wrestled him to the ground and hauled him bound back to the camp. Then he set off again after the last of bandits.

  The third bandit was uninjured, but even in the dark Gahre was able to track his path down toward the lowland roadhouse. The young bandit, not knowing the lay of the land, erred and found himself at a precipice unable to descend. Gahre’s imposing silhouette appeared before him in the red moonlight, weapon aimed and sure. The bandit did not need long to consider his options, and surrendered.

  Gahre dressed the men’s wounds, and gagged them when they tried to speak. He led them bound together in their own ropes to the roadhouse where the merchant family lodged and explained the situation. The family was dearly grateful and praised him and offered him coin. Gahre needed naught but their horses. And as the Cearulien dawn broke in the west, Gahre, brandishing his new rifle, rode through the morning mists into town with three horses in tow behind him, a man bound to each.

  He was met by the Sheriff Janker, who summoned the Ranger Captain Throjos. Throjos called upon the Venerable Elder Panthus. They immediately and angrily confiscated the rifle. Har Darox was identified and the three outlaws were put under guard, one to the jailer and the other two off to the healers. The townsfolk gathered and applauded his act his valor, but those in authority showed no such enthusiasm, meeting Gahre with stony grave faces. He never could have anticipated the circus of filthy sophistry that would follow.

  Star Crossed Conspirators

  Commander Li Meiyang was an accomplished navigator for the Red Fleet, but she was not born on any carousel, nor did she hail from either of the twin worlds, not the surreal maroon lands of Calidon nor the endless ocean of Aq Thalassa. She had not even been born within the electrospheric domain of Ignis Rubeli. Through an odd mishmash of circumstances she came to be one the most unique sorts in the Taiji, the only human of pure Pangean descent to serve as an officer under the banner of Ignus Rubeli, The Machine Lord Mnemtech, and the Demigod Logos.

  Or more simply put, Commander Li Meiyang was Blue, and this mission in a Red ship with a Red captain d
iving into the flaming heart of the Red Star itself had been assigned to her by the very highest level of the Cearulein hierarchy.

  The Kinetic Dream effortlessly cut its way through the rarefied but highly energized coronal plasma. Mei monitored the thermal registers closely as the ionic medium that surrounded them reached upward of 4 million degrees. She knew they were at higher risk they longer they sustained this course, and she worked with System to find the best approach angle towards their destination: the lower, relatively cooler layer between the solar surface and the corona.

  “Five more hours in the hot zone,” she announced at the end of her negotiations with System.

  “I could have us there in two,” insisted Aru. “With our magnetics at full capacity in such a rarified medium, friction ceases to concern me.”

  “It’s not the friction, Aru, it’s the rate we are building charge.” The Kinetic could channel surrounding environmental current to supplement power to its magnetic shields, and in this scenario maximizing shield strength was a life or death necessity. The internal shipwide currents were not enough to power the shields against the hyper-thermal particles they were awash in, and the ship itself had to continually build up positive charge to match its environment. Moving into the lower solar planes under these conditions in a mid-sized manned spacecraft was untested territory. Untested in any type of craft, and thus there was every reason to err on the side of caution. If they were too negative, one mass discharge could fry their electrics, leading to a full breach that would raise the Kinetics thermals high enough to broil them alive in minutes, if not seconds. Mei also understood that increasing velocity would make the forward probe that provided them a wake of a second forward bowshock more prone to a breach as well, which would be followed by immediate meltdown.