This is a fan translation of Line of Dreams (Линия грёз) by the Russian science fiction and fantasy author Sergei Lukyanenko. The novel can be considered a fan fiction of the original Master of Orion game.


Chapter 5

A pretty nice room had been prepared for them. The chairs, the beds, and the table had probably been taken off some human ship. The Silicoids had even taken care of the aesthetics; a colorful mural on the wall portrayed a forest on an earthlike planet and several animals, possibly bears, playing among the fallen trees.

"What's wrong, Kay?!" Arthur shouted, when they were left alone. Altos let him go.

"I'm tired of being treated like an idiot, Artie. A bodyguard can't work blindly. Either you or your father, doesn't matter, had to have warned me."

"About what?"

"About the Silicoids. How should I take Sedimin's words?"

"I don't know!"

"Don't lie to me, Artie!" Kay gripped Arthur's shoulders again. "You've tried to get to Grail thirty-six times. Who's been stopping you?"

"None of your business!"

"It is my business, kid. I have eternity ahead of me."

"Do you really think so?" Arthur smiled. The smile turned out to be twisted, since Kay's fingers had been gripping him too tightly. "Let me go, you son of a bitch!"

Kay did. Then he slapped Arthur. Once, twice, three times. Arthur's head jerked with each blow, his cheek burned red. He tried to hit Kay in the groin, but Altos deflected the blow with a single movement. Yelling out, Arthur slumped onto the floor.

"Don't keep me for a pawn, boy." Kay bent down over him. "You're risking nothing, and I've been written off from the beginning. I don't like this approach."

"Psycho," Arthur said quietly.

"And you're an angel. Kid, what is the blood on my hands worth? I'm just a tool to you… just like the ones who have protected you before."

"And I'm a tool for van Curtis," Arthur replied without standing up.

"You're his son."

Arthur's face twitched.

"You idiot… I'm not van Curtis's son."

Kay sat on the floor. He fell silent, peering into the boy's face. Then he looked away.

"Curtis van Curtis has no children," Arthur said.

Kay was still silent.

"He doesn't need any kids. He's immortal, and Grail will only accept him."

Arthur's voice quivered; he was crying.

"I… I'm a clone. I'm as much of a tool as you… or the others…"

"I'm sorry," Kay said.

"I was created to walk this path…"

"Forgive me," Kay repeated.

"I'm a clone. By Imperial law, I have no rights."

"Hi, Artie."

The boy looked up.

"Hi, Artie," Kay repeated. "I'm Kay Dutch from Shedar's Second Planet. That world didn't recognize the Empire's Genetic Moratorium. I'm a third-generation Super. By law, I have to undergo filtration and a series of downgrading surgeries. Senator Lacitis's wife gave me the ID of her son, who had been killed during the first Sakkra attack. But even this name was taken from me."

Arthur sobbed, wiping his tears. Then he asked, "What are you a Super in?"

"Visual memory, linguistics, reaction time."

"Hi, Kay Dutch," Arthur said.

Sedimin, the Foot of the Silicoid Foundation, watched Arthur, who had been crying on Kay's shoulder, for a long time. Then he transferred the perception to Rememberers and cancelled the surveillance of the humans.

He already knew what Curtis was going to tell Kay.


"I have always known, for as long as I remember," Arthur said. He was sitting on a bed, climbing up on it with his feet. He was no longer crying. Kay Dutch-Altos was digging through a cabinet. Finding a pyramid-shaped crystal bottle, he glanced at the label, nodded in satisfaction, and sat in a chair.

"It… it was normal. Familiar. Officially, I'm van Curtis's son. In reality, I'm just his biological copy."

"What about the memory? The Mind?" Kay opened the bottle and took a swig from it. The brown liquid burned his throat; Hygarian brandy had almost sixty percent of alcohol by volume.

"I have my own memories," Arthur answered dryly.

"Then don't worry. Who cares how many of your genes match van Curtis's, fifty percent or a hundred?"

"I don't. The Empire—"

"Forget the Empire. What does Curtis Sr. want on Grail?"

"The Line of Dreams."

Kay took another swig. He looked at Arthur questioningly.

"I don't know what that is. I only know the way."

"You're lying. Is that another alien technology?"

"Yes."

"Whose?"

"Kay, you don't need to know that."

"Was Sedimin right about the Precursors?"

"There've never been any Precursors. Let it go, Kay." Arthur's lips quivered.

"Have a sip," Kay handed him the bottle, "but only a small one."

Arthur obediently took a sip, grimaced, and returned the bottle.

"What did Sedimin mean about throwing you back to Terra?"

"I can only assume."

"Go ahead."

"Do you know how aTan works?"

Kay didn't reply, assuming the question to be rhetorical. But Arthur waited patiently. Altos sighed and began, "A molecular replicator can copy any biological object. But they remain dead… inanimate, which the Church of the Unified Will was pleased to find out. Only in the event of the death of the original, when the neural network transmits the informational psychological field, it can be downloaded into a new body—"

"Wrong. A neural network is incapable of instantaneously transmitting such a huge volume of information. It works in real-time."

"But—"

"The information is continuously collected in the company computers. The termination of a neural network is treated as the person's death. So shielding the psi-field results in only one thing, the creation of a new personality."

"A fully-functional one."

"No. A vegetable… or rather an automaton. It's capable of eating, drinking, answering questions, following orders. But it's not a person. A person is more than the sum of the body and the memories."

"The Patriarch would have been happy to hear that."

"Why do you think the Church has blessed aTan? We have proven the existence of the soul."

Kay had some more brandy. Then he said quietly, "So this means that the Silicoids…"

"No. They can't destroy us. If they screen the psi-field, which is possible, then two zombies named Arthur and Kay will be created on Terra. But as soon as the real we die, then the zombies will attain consciousness. This thing that is above the psi-field will find our new bodies without any aTan. We call it the psi-factor. This factor is absent among the Darloks, the Alkari, and the Klackons, making aTan useless to them."

"I see."

Arthur's face blushed, his voice sped up.

"The Silicoids are unable to completely destroy us. Screening the psi-field can only lead to zombies living on Terra for a time. As soon as we find a way to kill ourselves, they'll become conscious. A memory wipe will have the same result. I'm not sure… maybe even a Darlok symbiosis would have released the psi-factor."

This one Kay had trouble believing. Arthur had been too frightened on Layon. But there was no need to voice his opinion aloud.

"Have you already gone through this?"

"Y-yes…" Arthur stuttered. "Six months ago, I was captured on Gentar II. A group of humans… then a Silicoid appeared among them. They put me in a chamber; it probably had screening systems, and aTan was triggered. For two months, I was… not myself. Then my consciousness came back. I had probably managed to kill myself."

"Or they had wiped your memory," Kay suggested carefully.

"My memory was wiped a year ago. On Sigma-T." Arthur sighed and gave a forced laugh. "I remember being placed under antennae… then my head started hurting… And that was it. There were only humans there. We suspected the Ramds Corporation… the Silicoids had remained in the shadows…"

"They're going to try to turn all the galactic races against the Empire." Kay lay on his bed. His head ached, but his thoughts remained clear. The brandy wasn't intoxicating him. "Is Grail really worth all that?"

"Grail is worth nothing. The Line of Dreams definitely is."

"I'm going to sleep, Artie." Kay closed his eyes.

"Sleep," Arthur agreed.

Altos had almost fallen asleep, when Arthur asked him, "Are you disgusted that I'm a clone?"

"Are you disgusted that my embryo was put together under a microscope?" Kay muttered.

"Good night, Dutch." Arthur fidgeted on the bed. "I'll think about what we can do."

"Thank you, my king," Kay said, covering his eyes with his hand. The Silicoids hadn't thought to put a light switch in their chamber… or hadn't deemed it necessary.