Borne On Wings of Steel (3 page)

"Yes, they are. This city alone contains almost fifty million inhabitants. But still, another design was utilized. The Mrad harnessed these mighty winds to a certain extent and turned them to their own use.” Minstrel-Zuuk paused. “You no doubt have noticed that these cities are shaped to ride the constant buffeting of the horizontal winds which greatly assists the anti-grav engines—huge, aerodynamic-shaped cities originally built in far orbit and then carefully lowered into the clouds."

Rok turned to the great window. “Look, the wind has changed direction."

They all turned.

The ragged ribbons of purple and white clouds flying from left to right across the window disappeared with a blur of movement. The sky outside cleared into a wide-open expanse of several hundred kilometers. But in the far distance a solid wall of green clouds approached.

"The clouds never really disappear from view on this gas giant, but clear sky appears briefly once or twice a week,” Minstrel-Zuuk said, his tone matter-of-fact.

The onlookers suddenly felt disoriented; Kyle and Jysar reached out for support while the others swayed off-balance.

The distant wall of clouds changed.

"Wha...” Jaric said uncertainly, blinking his eyes rapidly as he tried to fathom what his eyes told him but his mind refused to believe.

The cloudbank took shape; details that a fraction of a second before were not visible suddenly became obvious—and huge. The distant clouds exploded into a massive cloud wall five thousand kilometers wide as it leaped toward them with unimaginable velocity.

Two seconds later, the leading edge of the green cloudbank reached them as everyone readied themselves—their subconscious minds telling them a tempest of fantastic magnitude was upon them with such awesome force it surely must destroy them all.

The window became solid green as the stillness and silence haunted their minds. In that moment they comprehended the fantastic speed at which the winds blew in this unique place.

As they gazed, still tensed for an explosive blow that never came, the solid green parted and small valleys of clear air grew between ribbons of cloud as the wind continued to rush head-on at them.

The only discernable effect was a humming sound that grew louder with the onslaught of the green clouds and now slowly—very slowly—began to fade.

Minstrel-Zuuk's voice broke into their awestruck reverie as a new wave of green clouds filled the huge window again.

"At strategic points all around this city and its twenty-three sister cities are massive vents that channel the force of the wind. This system powers the cities as well harvests the natural elements found in the clouds. This is why the Mrad have been able to build the most powerful computers ever constructed. And why they built them here."

"How can there be that much to those clouds?” Jaric asked.

"Again, being so close to its home star, and having those titanic gravitational forces wrenching the planet's surface, as well as the constant hurricane-force winds at its surface that eventually join with these horizontal upper winds, well, these cloud bands are rich with sub-microscopic raw material."

"Why doesn't that barrage of raw elements slam through the walls of this city?” Jaric asked again, fascinated by this exotic place.

"By the time the winds reach this altitude, the elements have been practically vaporized—battered almost to their molecular level and ready to be harvested. Still, there is a series of outer shields both protecting this city as well as funneling the elements to be processed. The Mrad leave nothing to waste, they utilize everything."

"Ingenious,” Jysar commented.

"But, we forget why we have come to RahajMr in the first place,” Minstrel-Zuuk said.

A shock of sadness gripped Jaric's soul and overwhelmed him. It seemed to kill him one lonely heartbeat at a time.

Yes, Jaric remembered.

He remembered all too well the hopelessness of their life-long search to find other survivors of the human race.

For the human race was no more—destroyed—eradicated.

Jaric shook his head as childhood memories flooded his mind.

No,
exterminated
better described it.

Well, almost
, he added mentally. He and Kyle alone remained, two young men, sole survivors of the human race.

Jaric's mind reeled with his dizzying melancholy
.

There was a third. Three humans survived mankind's destruction as Earth blew apart in the final battle. Becky had also survived—the last female human.

But Becky was now dead.

Jaric growled under his breath, anger filling his soul as he remembered again how Becky's ship disintegrated in their last battle with the T'kaan—the climactic battle of six alien fleets. A battle that brought the final destruction of the T'kaan. A mighty struggle fought by the combined Hrono, Mewiis and Kraaqi fleets led by Mother and Kyle and Jaric ... and Becky.

Jaric groaned deep inside.

The T'kaan were finally destroyed, but at such a terribly high cost.

Yet, there was Becky's clone...

Jaric remembered the entrance of Becky's clone, the clone created by the Hrono from Becky's DNA.

So, there was a third human survivor...

No. The clone did not count. There were only two survivors of the human race—he and Kyle.

He fought back the hot tears that suddenly filled his eyes as he turned away from his friends in embarrassment.

Kyle groaned as he watched Jaric. With clenched fists, Kyle too turned away.

Jaric's mind went back further. He reviewed once again their escape as Earth lay under siege by the mighty T'kaan Third Fleet, just before its destruction.

Deep inside the AI starship, the young child Jaric hid from the universe. He closed his eyes as mankind's
Last Stand
played out.

In this, Jaric's earliest memory of that terrible time, the only comfort he felt was that of Mother—the AI starship inside which he hid.

Mother was the ultimate warship, designed by the scientists of mankind as they retreated before the T'kaan onslaught. Mother was a combination of the best technology left to mankind—the most advanced hardware ever designed coupled with the latest, most sophisticated AI software ever developed.

Mankind armed the AI warship to the teeth and programmed it for one primary function—to destroy the T'kaan. Additionally, they enhanced the firepower of this ship with the most destructive of T'kaan weapons, reverse-engineered from one of the few T'kaan warships captured by humans—and even that battle had not been a victory.

For the T'kaan rarely lost in battle.

Knowledge learned as he grew older augmented Jaric's memory. There had been an AI ship created before Mother—the Alpha ship.

The prototype AI ship, the Alpha ship, was hugely successful at first. In five straight battles it destroyed every T'kaan ship it faced—although outnumbered every time.

The T'kaan trembled for the first time since their never-ending war began.

Next came the sixth battle, and the Alpha ship's single fatal flaw crippled it—for it was
merely
a war machine—and nothing more.

The T'kaan discovered this weakness and destroyed it.

The scientists who created the Alpha ship learned from that mistake.

They improved on their design with the second AI ship, the one Kyle and Jaric knew as
Mother
.

The scientists also programmed the second ship with science and human psychology and literature—and more. This would enable the ship not only to
learn
—learn more than simply how to fight better with each experience—but to grow and become
more alive
with each and every experience.

The second AI ship was more than simply a warship.

And secretly, with a hasty plan to save a handful of human survivors before the final battle, the scientists downloaded more—much more. Every piece of knowledge, science and lore—every aspect of recorded data about humanity throughout all history. From every collection of knowledge across the Fifty Worlds, the scientists downloaded everything to the AI ship.

They stored it all in the unimaginably vast memory systems created specially for this second AI warship—synthetic human-DNA memory systems.

The ship contained every recorded experience of the human race on which to draw upon, to learn from...

But the escape plan failed as the T'kaan attacked early.

With only three small children onboard and the collected memory of the human race, the AI ship observed in silence as the last human stronghold—planet Earth—blew apart.

The others never arrived to make the final escape.

The AI starship wrestled with its core programming as it left the destruction behind. The ship's turmoil grew as the young children cried out to it for direction and for comfort.

And for love.

Jaric remembered it all too well. And why they still searched for other human survivors, although it seemed hopeless.

"Which way to the Search-terminals?” Jysar's tone reflected his own emotional tension as he and the others watched the distraught humans.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up too much,” Rok said with a nod. “Remember Jarbornir, we were certain we had found a valid lead about other hoo-mans.” Rok's thick Kraaqi accent slurred the last word.

Jaric sighed with the memory of six months ago.

"Yes,” Jysar agreed. “The evidence seemed rock solid—a small remnant from a race destroyed by war-like aliens who took refuge there only a short time ago."

"But they were not humans, and the race which destroyed them had not been the T'kaan.” Kyle shook his head sadly.

"I think the one that really got to me was last month, when we landed on Krasas,” Jaric said as he turned to face the others again.

"We should have suspected something the moment he asked for money in return for his knowledge,” Rok growled. “I knew we could not trust that slimy alien the moment I first laid eyes on him."

Jaric looked up at the moist skin of the Zuuk. “Present company excepted."

Kyle's face became puzzled. “I thought the saying went, ‘Present company accepted.’”

"Now I'm confused, hoo-mans say same thing twice.” Rok looked from Jaric to Kyle.

Kyle began to chuckle. “Well, almost. At least our meaning is meant to be the same, but we did say different words—the last word."

"We've run into a lot of dead-ends,” Jaric said sadly.

Kyle bit his lower lip. “Well, we've had a couple of really hopeful leads turn out to be nothing the last few months. And the one that hurt was the lie we spent money on, hoping it was true."

"We must be more prudent in our use of questions, as well as the information about humans we share in our search.” Jysar looked at the two young men. “But most of all, we must weigh carefully any results we find—especially when it's exactly what we want."

"Yeah, if it's too good to be true—it probably is,” Kyle mused.

"Well, here on RahajMr we'll query a super-massive knowledgebase. Yes, we will have to pay to gain access to their vast knowledge resources, but at least our questions will be answered honestly as we honestly pay for them,” Minstrel-Zuuk said with confidence.

Jaric sighed. “Even if it's not the answer we want to hear."

[Back to Table of Contents]

"PLEASE SELECT AN appropriate queue. Please be patient, average waiting time is currently seventy-seven krinos,” an emotionless voice enunciated from the nearest speaker.

Minstrel-Zuuk and the others waited behind about twenty other customers—each appearing to be of a different alien race—in this particular queue. Behind Minstrel-Zuuk stood Jysar and Rok, with Kyle and Jaric bringing up the rear.

"And that means?” Kyle asked.

"About ten minutes,” Minstrel-Zuuk translated.

"Not bad.” Jaric looked around at the dozens of lines full of aliens waiting their turn, each queue containing perhaps a hundred aliens waiting just like them.

"There are over seventy thousand of these controlled search rooms in which to gain access to their network in this city alone. Imagine how many there are for all twenty-four cities.” The seven eye-stalks looked first one direction and then another
simultaneously
.

Jysar's eyes widened with amazement at the technology surrounding them.

"As I mentioned, this is the largest single store of knowledge known. Even to Minstrels, and we get around.” The seven eye-stalks suddenly turned in seven different directions. Minstrel-Zuuk smiled with satisfaction. “Wow, I just had to try that once. A real panoramic view, so to speak."

"Guess a Zuuk can really keep an eye on things, eh.” Jaric laughed.

"You bet.” Minstrel-Zuuk chuckled.

"Why don't aliens just log on from their ships, or from their own planets? They have multi-system networks in this Quadrant connecting planets, don't they?” Jysar asked with disbelief.

"The Mrad are shrewd businessmen. Their massive computer does indeed connect to the local inter-system network. But the data flow is only one-way, they search out data and bring it in, but none go out from it."

"Why do the other races allow that?” Jysar's voice filled with exasperation. “Why don't others protect their data from the Mrad?"

"They tried at first. But the Mrad have ingenious ways to sneak into computer systems and capture data, even from outside the known Quadrants.” Minstrel-Zuuk stretched its eye-stalks as far out as it could, surveying the myriad of aliens all around for a moment. “In fact, their system even has some basic information about the races of the Three Kingdoms, although neither the Hrono, the Kraaqi nor the Mewiis have any reciprocal knowledge."

Jysar's eyes narrowed. “The nerve of them,
taking
data like that."

"The Mrad make a lucrative living on data. And it is true, in the beginning a lot of races were angry. But soon they all acquiesced after using the system. They discovered that the benefits of using the data for a modest fee outweighed the problem of actually having to travel to the floating cities of this world. Actually, the Mrad make it worthwhile, running a nice tourism trade on the side too. Some of the best hotels, entertainment, food and drink are here.” Minstrel-Zuuk yawned. “And because their data acquisition techniques are so far-reaching, if any references to human survivors exist in any of the nearby Quadrants or from a passing starship's logs that they've lifted, this massive system will contain it."