Now all the B’tari had gone, along with their mother ship, there was no place of refuge other than here at his old reconstructed moon base. The last time Roidon had been here – over two centuries ago – he had set about to defeat a powerful alien, using the technology of an even more powerful alien species. He still had the blue prints of the device (or rather the B’tari had kept them knowing of their significance).
Roidon had mixed feelings about being accompanied. As he watched her – reclined on a soft-back sofa, in what amounted to a lounge, drinking coffee, still appearing to be overwhelmed by events – he thought it would be a good thing to have her. Of course there were younger women who would have undoubtedly fallen for his charm, but liaisons with them would certainly have been inconvenient at this time. Instead, he studied this potential conquest before him and found her to be adequately attractive. Her current vulnerable state may even play to his advantage. They both understood that time was of the essence, but more importantly they faced the prospect (and even with his current experiments it was a logical consideration) of total demise, erasure from history – no less. And in times of imminent doom the natural basic instinct was bound to take over.
He sat beside her. She put down her coffee and regarded him cautiously.
‘How are you feeling now?’ Roidon asked.
She tilted her head slightly. ‘I’ve been better, though a few bruises I can certainly live with. I guess I’m lucky to be alive, really.’
‘You and me both, Raiya.’
‘How is your experiment progressing?’ she asked in a polite tone.
‘Harvo is currently running tests on the anti-graviton-flux array.’
‘So you’re now having to wait.’
‘That’s right. There’s not much I can do for the next hour or so.’
‘Do you have any entertainment systems up here?’
‘Unfortunately there wasn’t time to install one. I had to return in haste.’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘I have to admit, Raiya, it can get a bit lonely up here. Sure, there’s Harvo – and he can converse on any subject. But it’s not the same as a real person.’
‘I understand what loneliness is like.’
‘You being a psychiatrist must give you something of an insight.’
‘I mean I can get lonely too.’
‘It seems the world has made us both isolated in our own particular way.’
In a knowing way, she nodded. ‘Being a psychiatrist enables me to recognise the signs of when a man is angling towards a fuck. So why don’t we just dispense with all the talk of two lonely people getting together, and just get on with the act.’
‘To be honest, I thought you might be a bit more reluctant in your current condition.’
She gave him a wry smile. ‘I am not so delicate, Roidon. Now come on. The world might end soon.’
She pulled his top of, fumbled with his trouser fastening. It seemed like she wanted to get it over with, get it out the way, as if she was merely resigned to the inevitability of his desire, and then going through the motions. But this time he wanted something more. Sex was so easy, forgettable even, sometimes.
As he was undoing her shirt, Roidon said, ‘Raiya, we don’t have to rush this.’
She raised the curved line of an eyebrow. ‘Mnn, a gentleman indeed. Maybe I misread your intention.’
‘It’s just … we have time.’ He cradled her head, then ran his fingers through her long dark hair. Kissed her. Felt the gentle embrace of her body. Inhaled her delicate fragrance – subtle enough that only this kind of intimacy revealed it.
Later that evening Roidon took Raiya on a tour of the complex, but only on Raiya’s insistence that she wanted to see for herself the true extent of his plan. Her genuine interest was something of a fillip to him, it seemed to validate his work; no other human had even witnessed it. Now they were in the main hanger. Roidon expressed his reservations; the AFG device was approaching full power. It's peculiar effects were starting to take hold, and now he noticed Raiya's alarm at seeing multiple versions of herself – and himself, all linked in a fused chain.
‘This is quite normal,’ he reassured her. The graviton converter amplifies the connection between quantum states until they are projected together. Normally these states are not available to our perception.’ His voice echoed from the other versions of himself.
‘So they are all equally me,’ she said as more of a statement than a question.
‘I've been working in this field for some time and I still find it difficult to accept that these other versions are equally as real as me.’
‘So are they all facing the same problem, doing the same experiment? It can't all be the same?’
‘These are collective cohered quantum states, the temporal fuzziness writ large; past and the future fused into their stable masses. Normally, on a quantum level, the particles are mixed up. Our normal reality is a concatenation of de-cohered states.’
‘What are you hoping this experiment will achieve?’ she asked in all earnestness.
‘I am hoping it will slow down time. Already it is generating an expanding bubble, or corona – more precisely – of decelerated time. Think of it as like the corona of the sun – hotter than the sun itself but the surface of the sun is much less hot. Think of heat representing time: hotter equals slower. It’s as if we are on the surface of the sun in this shielded compound. It creates what I call a zero point field.’
‘So being here buys us some time.’
‘That’s one benefit. But if I could extend the shielding material, enough to save the population – and increase the power exponentially – it may be possible to slow outside time to the extent where it virtually stops, at least from our perspective. That would buy enough time that we can just develop a permanent countermeasure.’
‘You are certainly a man of immense confidence---’
‘---However, with immense confidence comes unreasonable ambition. I understand, doctor.’
‘Maybe not so unreasonable.’
‘There’s a theory that time in the universe has been slowing down ever since the Big Bang. I merely intend to slow it down further.’
‘I think it’s time for bed – if only for sleeping.’
‘Then follow me.’
*
The craft had taken Torbin to Lacus Spei, a small plain in the moon amid a gently craterous region. Again his internal transponder was guiding him over the dusty surface to a specific location. Walking was an awkward affair; his exoskeleton had clearly been designed only for earth-g. Now he was leaping almost a metre off the ground like some demented grasshopper. He wondered why the B’tari had chosen such a seemingly vulnerable location to set up base when they could locate anywhere, invisibly, in space. Maybe they were using the resources for their nano-constructors. He was buoyed along at the prospect of obtaining a new body. They would simply use his DNA to grow his new body that was every bit him but young, perhaps with a few engineered improvements. After what he had been through, his B’tari associates could surely indulge him that. With all the knowledge he now possessed, what they’d gain would be more than worth it.
The base itself was well hidden from view somewhere beneath a crater, he was sure he’d never have found it unaided. He had to scrape away at dust on the gentle slope, which gave the impression it had lain there undisturbed for millennia. The hatch was fitted with a simple keypad lock; it looked as if that too hadn’t been used for centuries. Surprisingly, after looking at the key-lock for a few seconds, the number appeared in his faceplate HUD. His Elusiver ally had been thorough; Torbin wondered how tempting it might have been to get even more involved. Perhaps there was some shared philosophy with the B’taris’ Temporal directive.
After clearing the airlock, Torbin descended alloy-framed stairs to a short hallway with a basic door at the end. It was locked. The type of lock itself was mechanical – ancient, requiring a metal key. He had nothing that would substitute such an object. He thought about his next action, wondering what defences there might be on the other side.
He took a step back, then kicked the door around the area of the lock. It swung open, taking a section of the door frame with it. He’d hardly felt any resistance; it seemed like the force had been overkill.
He was in some kind of makeshift lounge, warm and dim side lighting; there was a sofa, tables, a cup and mug, some discarded food packaging. Uncharacteristic of the B’tari – they were always meticulously neat. He knew who it had to be.
His suspicion was confirmed when Roidon emerged from a side door. The man's expression was clearly of shock, if not horror – and for a few seconds this did give Torbin some pleasure; Roidon had never seemed to be shocked by anything.
‘Who are you?’ he questioned, wearing a strangely old-fashioned maroon robe.
Torbin shook his head and pointed at the area of where his mouth should be.
‘You can’t speak? I see.’ He picked up a small tablet device from the table, offered it to Torbin, and said: ‘Do you have an interface port?’
Torbin wasn’t sure; he hadn’t even looked at himself yet. The full glory of my grotesqueness.
Roidon approached, studied Torbin’s metal head. ‘I can see at the side of you head there is a small glass-like dome,’ he observed. ‘It looks to be a pulse reader.’
Torbin tapped it with a tritanium fingertip, and then tentatively took the device from Roidon.
‘Ah good,’ said Roidon, back to his usual equanimity. ‘Just hold it as you would a book, and it will lock on. Just think the words but in a forceful way. Project them.’
‘Hello, Roidon,’ came the words from his mind, and vocalized so accurately to the words in his head it was as if the device could know that. He continued: ‘It’s your old friend Torbin Lyndau.’
‘How...?’
‘I thought you’d be able to work that out.’
‘The Transcenders – of course!’
At that moment someone else entered the room. A woman, in a similar robe, her hair looked unkempt; she clearly had been asleep. It took a few seconds before he recognised her as Raiya. When she caught site of him she gasped loudly, and then said, ‘My god.’
‘Not quite. It’s Torbin. We have met a few times before.’
‘Your not Torbin, you’re a machine! Torbin died.’
‘That maybe what he wanted you to believe,’ Torbin glared at Roidon.
Roidon said, ‘Your clone died. During his short life he caused mayhem – destroyed the B’tari base.’
‘My evil clone. Except that clone may have been my real body. Clearly the Elusivers wanted you to think that was me while I was sent to my death in a black hole.’
‘I truly am sorry for what you have been through,’ Roidon said in a mild tone that was some attempt at sincerity. ‘I guess you must have a lot of anger.’
Torbin then looked to Raiya. ‘What about your analysis, Dr Fortenski. Do you think I have a lot of anger? Do you think I have a right to be angry?’ His replicated voice sounded overly expressive at this point, emotional.
Raiya maintained a shocked expression, before saying: ‘Of course. You have every right to be angry.’ There was still fear in her voice.
Roidon said, ‘Torbin, your doppelgänger tried to kill Raiya; though I am sure sure that she, like myself, has some doubts that you are the real Torbin.’
‘I have his memories. I have his hatred of the Elusivers, and I have his desire for revenge.’ At this point he wondered if he should mention the exiled Elusiver, but maybe that would complicate matters.
‘Well, I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt.’
‘That’s so good of you, Roidon. Maybe sleeping with her has had a moderating effect on you.’ Again, the exaggerated emotional tone made him sound more bitter than he intended.
Roidon was glancing curiously at Raiya, then back at Torbin. ‘Were you two...?’
Raiya swiftly stepped forward. ‘There was never anything going on between us. Was there, Torbin?’ Her look was intense, the fear in voice almost gone.
Torbin felt slighted. He’d never wanted to fall in love with her; she was not the one, she couldn’t compare to Emelda. But Emelda was gone, and he had accepted that. And now the one person he thought had truly understood him just saw this machine filled with the memories, the anger, the bitterness of a man whose doppelgänger had threatened her life. She was so far now from ever being his. But why did she have to be with Roidon? Of all the men!
Torbin said finally, ‘You’re right, of course. I was just another lonely case you took pity on. I do perfectly understand why you called the police.’
‘I’m sorry, Torbin, I know you are an important man, but I’m afraid I don’t remember you very well. Strange things have happened to me. There are very few people I can trust.’
‘Raiya, I’m the one who should apologise,’ he said, glad that his replicated voice sounded sincere.
‘Right now, what matters is that you are on our side.’
‘That goes without saying,’ he said brightly. ‘Times like these we should be focusing on what really matters.’
‘He’s right,’ affirmed Roidon, nodding. ‘We do have the population of planet Earth to save, after all.’
Raiya was looking at Roidon as if trying to communicate telepathically; maybe she was using some hidden thought projection technique. Torbin could see a bond between them that seemed exclusive; himself the freakish outsider – a role he was not entirely unfamiliar with.
Raiya turned back to face Torbin. ‘We can all work together. At least you and Roidon will make a formidable team.’
Torbin still thought he could see a look of fear on Raiya’s face. He said, ‘You don't need to be afraid of me, either of you. Just because I’m in this mechanical body – I’m still just as human as I ever was.’
Except he couldn’t be sure if that was really the case; he hadn't even seen his reflected image, could not bare to look yet.
Roidon said, ‘The B’tari have left us, gone back to their central base. But they are bound to return, they always return. Growing a new body for you will be ... well, you know it’ll be no trouble for them.’
‘The B’tari always like to step back when things really heat up,’ Torbin noted.
‘Tell me about it!’
It felt like a revelation: the possibility of them working together no longer seeming objectionable.
***