The Boundaries of Science
- by Ardeth Silvereni
- Chapter Two -
Big Bugs and the Art of Planning Ahead
The Foreshadow had been back at the Cluster only thirteen hours, delayed far longer than expected, even including the detour. His Divine Shadow stood tall, with his hands clasped in front of him, and his back to Brizon. The guards that usually flanked His Shadow's audience chamber had been dismissed, and the Supreme Bio-Vizier was kneeling in a small pool of light in the darkness. His head was bowed, but his spine was straight. Brizon was too important to be forced to kneel on all fours; a small mercy considering the dull ache that was gnawing at his right shoulder. He had strained it, stubbornly refusing to leave work on the Brunnen-G assassin to his subordinates. He had even excluded Mantrid towards the end. It had taken a month, but the process was now complete, and not a day too soon, it seemed.
"I want Ring Torbin eliminated." His Shadow said. His voice was very soft and slow - the voice of an older man - but it commanded all of Brizon's attention. "He is an irritation I will no longer tolerate."
Ring Torbin was a rebel leader, based a planet called Phebee 27. He was not only hated by the Divine Order; most of the Heretics couldn't stand him either. The Foreshadow had attacked the planet a year ago, and Torbin had been mistakenly presumed dead. Recently, his characteristic raids on the fringe of the Order had begun again with renewed vigour. Searches encompassing thirty galaxies had failed to locate him. Had that changed? Brizon couldn't see how he could assist if not. He could not provide enough Divine Assassins for a manhunt on that scale.
"Do we know where Torbin is, Divine Shadow?" He asked respectfully.
"He never left his planet of origin." Brizon could detect a distinct note of annoyance rising in His Shadow's measured tone. "Torbin buried himself in the core of the planet, and the Foreshadow was inadequate to destroy him. It is obsolete, and must be replaced with a weapon that will not fail."
That's why I was summoned? Brizon thought, a little surprised, and a little annoyed. The Foreshadow wasn't very old, perhaps only twenty years, and it was still devastatingly powerful. Besides, Bioscholars didn't work on military vessels. The damned things didn't have any biological components, and he had better things to do with his time. Biting his tongue, he buried his resentment deep, knowing full well that he couldn't protest. "You wish me to design this weapon?" He offered. There was nothing else he could say.
"Yes..." It was almost a hiss. "An Insect."
Brizon paused, exploring the possibility. An Insect craft would have biological components. In fact, it would be a living ship, enhanced with mechanical parts. This request was no coincidence, he saw that immediately. Perhaps obliterating Brunnis 2 had reminded His Shadow of Brunnen-G inventions. They pioneered adapting Insects to human technology.
"You will also create a new type of assassin." His Shadow said. "That will be your first task." Obscured by his hood and robes, His Shadow's form seemed featureless and inhuman, and he was all the more imposing because of it. Not for the first time, Brizon wondered idly what the man beneath actually looked like. "Send Kai to Phebee 27. It will be a worthy test of your craftsmanship so far, Bio-Vizier. Then you will produce an Executioner, capable of destroying him and any other Divine Assassin."
"As you wish, Divine Shadow." Sensing that their brief meeting was concluded, Brizon gave a nod of acquiescence as he climbed unsteadily to his feet, and departed.
In his lab, Brizon prepared his charge for duty.
So your name is Kai? Such an old-fashioned Brunnen-G name...
It had been particularly popular during their early recorded history, if he remembered correctly. He also approved of Kai's attire. It had turned out well - a black replica of the bright suit he had died in. It would be the new standard uniform for Divine Assassins, if Brizon had anything to do with it. Which, of course, he did. It was as resistant to damage as the assassin's decarbonised flesh.
"It makes you look quite handsome." Brizon said, with amused admiration. The assassin did not respond to the compliment. He just stood there, utterly compliant and impassive as the Bio-Vizier made his final checks. Brizon carefully pushed the newly-sharpened brace back into the drum affixed to Kai's right arm. Then he removed the Protoblood feed tube from Kai's chest implant, and covered it again, replacing the fold of material. He made a mental note to replenish the lab's supply of the substance, as it was nearly all gone. The hand-held Protoblood vat was unusually light.
"Who do you want me to kill, Supreme Bio-Vizier?" Kai intoned. Brizon suppressed a wild urge to volunteer Mantrid as the first target instead of Torbin. He couldn't help grinning at the idea. Kai was a work of art, a marvel of biological engineering. Unstoppable. Mantrid wouldn't stand a chance if the assassin was sent after him.
I, however, would. Brizon thought, with satisfaction. He gazed down at his pendant. It bore the symbolic icon of the Divine Order in blue enamel. Long ago he had acknowledged that a Divine Assassin could one day hunt him, if he was ever seen as more of a threat to His Shadow than an asset. He had taken steps to protect himself in case such a day arrived. The pendant was one of several devices he had fashioned. At close range it could trigger an override in an assassin's neural microsystems, allowing Brizon to regain absolute control. He had also found an enzyme that could temporarily neutralise Protoblood. He would have to ensure that his precautions worked for the new Executioner as well.
Brilliance was simply the art of planning ahead, after all.
His Shadow might have adopted a similar philosophy of late, although what he was planning against was not clear. Brizon hadn't been expecting the Executioner project. It was completely unnecessary, in the Bio-Vizier's not-so-humble opinion. A waste of effort. If an assassin malfunctioned, it did not matter. They would soon exhaust their limited Protoblood reserves and lose animation. And if Brizon had guessed incorrectly, and malfunctions were not the issue, what was? He did not believe His Shadow could feel personally threatened by the Divine Assassins.
Unless His Shadow knows something I do not. Brizon considered. He would have to look into that later.
The project also had the tedium of been there, done that. He would have preferred something original that stretched his imagination and intelligence to the limit, rather than building on areas where he was already an expert. There was not much satisfaction to be had in re-inventing the wheel.
With wry humour, Brizon noticed his own contradiction. Designing the new planet-killer would be something original, yet given the opportunity he would have refused point-blank to do it. Experimenting with Insect tech did appeal to him, though. Warming to that challenge, his active mind started to play casually with a few ideas. He would need to move away from the cobweb-shaped energy blasts - they weren't strong enough, penetrating only a few metres into a planet's crust.
Torbin managed to escape the Foreshadow by hiding in the molten core of his planet, so my vessel's weapon would have to reach that...
... Raise the core's temperature enough to incinerate a hidden base?
... Raise the temperature enough to ignite a chain reaction in the core that would cause the whole planet to explode?
"What do you think, Kai?" He asked rhetorically, playfully. "Is it really possible to grow an Insect that can blow up a planet? I think it could be..."
The assassin remained expressionless and silent. It was almost frustrating.
"I know, I know. You don't think anything." Brizon muttered. It was a shame really, to see the great Brunnen-G reduced to this single, stoic representative. He turned away, and set the small Protoblood vat down. He realised he had allowed himself to become distracted. "We had better get you to the docking bay, my friend." He said brightly. "We both have lots of work to do."
He was in a good mood.
"Supreme Bio-Vizier!"
Brizon heard the shout as he was leaving the docking bay, cringed, and increased his pace. The young chemical sciences graduate caught up anyway. His enthusiasm to meet his hero hadn't been blunted by the curt response he'd received a month ago.
"Oh, it's you." Brizon said, throwing him a withering glare. "What do you want?"
"Well... you remember I liase... with the Foreshadow's scientists for my sub-department?" The graduate was breathless. "They called me to examine... something they have in cold storage."
"And?" Brizon prompted.
"I've never seen anything like it." The graduate inhaled deeply. "They tried to tell me it's parts of an Insect ship, but - "
Brizon smiled to himself. This was getting better and better. Now he would have samples of successful Insect tech from the outset. He hadn't known that the Brunnen-G still used such craft - it had to be Kai's - but what a stroke of luck. "Thank you," he said sincerely. "I will deal with it. Return to your normal assignments."
Decades passed as Brizon worked on both of his major projects, and many minor ones. A prototype Divine Executioner was produced fairly quickly, although extensive redesigns were needed before the Executioners could bring down a Divine Assassin every time.
Their main advantage over the Assassins was Parablood, and Brizon had introduced it into their construction from the beginning. It allowed an Executioner to enslave and control all humans in the area, giving it a self-made army to overwhelm an Assassin. That approach was effective in most situations, but not all. Brizon recalled Kai's first mission - to remove Ring Torbin. He had killed 2,807 men with robot controlled ion weapons, before reaching Torbin himself. Quite a feat. An army of humans had not been sufficient to stop him then. That was why Parablood was backed up with other improvements.
The Executioners had greater strength and speed, ensuring they always defeated an Assassin in one-on-one combat. Their brains had been modified, but they retained more of the parts related to emotion, and were programmed to thrive on hunting and killing. They existed for it, and loved it, whether their prey was an Assassin or a mere human. It gave them an edge, intensified by an insatiable thirst for Protoblood.
His Shadow now commanded about six hundred Divine Assassins, and five Divine Executioners. Undoubtedly those numbers would increase over time. Kai continued to be Brizon's favourite Divine Assassin, though every time Brizon reanimated him, it reminded the Supreme Bio-Vizier that he wasn't getting any younger. He was prolonging his life with various drugs, but he still had to find a more permanent solution. So much work to do on that, and no chance to do it... He would have to seriously consider retirement, as much as the thought of it irked him. Mantrid becoming the Supreme Bio-Vizier in his place? Pah!
The planet-killer project was progressing less well, and was very far from completion. Brizon had examined record after record, and the stark truth remained - the Brunnen-G had never managed to engineer an Insect craft that would be big enough. He had been able to clone 'Stinger' Insects from the debris of Kai's ship, but they exhibited severe genetic defects if tried to make them much larger. He had been forced to experiment on other, tiny species, increasing their size gradually through selective breeding. It was a very slow process, but a particular type of moth was showing promise. Dragonflies were next on his list of small insects to try. Realistically, Insects, like the intelligent creatures that fought in the Insect wars, were fundamentally different from insects, the domestic bugs he was using. He knew that was the root of his problems.
Another few years trickled by. Brizon decided they would be his last in the service of the Divine Order. He turned down requests from other departments, or passed the jobs on to other Bioscholars. He concentrated on his Insect vessel, and on a private personal invention. He spent all his time on one or the other. Mantrid caught him in the lab one evening, working on the latter.
"What are you playing with Brizon?" He asked.
"Haven't you got something to do Mantrid, rather than bother me?" From a high lift platform, the Supreme Bio-Vizier gazed down disdainfully at the other man. Mantrid was his student no longer; he was a competitor, always waiting in the wings for his day to ascend into greatness. Well, he would get his chance soon. Brizon tossed the tool he was using to the floor, just missing Mantrid's head. It clattered noisily.
"Dear colleague, so spiteful..." Mantrid said, as if stung. "I only came to offer my services."
Brizon groped blindly for another tool. They were laid out on top of his large, metal ship-like device, out of his line of sight. He had to distinguish between them by touch. He found the one he needed, and proceeded to use it, ignoring Mantrid entirely. Hopefully he would go away, and not pry too deep. This invention was important, incredibly so, and Brizon did not need Mantrid's interest or interference. Not now.
Brizon had never been ill in his life, then a painful sickness had seized him unexpectedly. He was only just recovering properly. He suspected Mantrid's involvement; the virus was not prevalent in the League of Twenty Thousand, and unheard of on the Cluster. Additional synthetic elements he had noticed made him particularly suspicious. The Supreme Bio-Vizier had to treat himself, clutching his stomach in agony, and unable to stand. The virus had the potential to be fatal, and it had reawakened all his half-buried fears about his own mortality. He was terrified.
Death had many downsides, but it was the inevitable lack of conscious thought, of self-awareness, that scared Brizon more than anything else. Oh, he would miss the sensual pleasures of the body, but he did not prize them above his intellect. He snorted. Alright, he hadn't engaged in sensual pleasures for a long time, but at least the possibility was still there, for the moment, at least. This device, if it worked, would allow his mind to survive after the death of his body. It was loosely modelled on the Brunnen-G's 'Burst of Life', but unlike that process, where life essences were simply stored, this machine would let his essence remain active and fully conscious. The machine would become his body, until he had an alternative form to inhabit.
If it worked...
Brizon had held the rank of Supreme Bio-Vizier for eighty-four years when he retired, quietly and without fuss. No one knew he was going; it was safer that way. Brizon didn't really want to end his illustrious career in the Protein Bank. Disillusioned and tired, he finally abandoned his 'Vessel for Thoughts', incomplete and flawed. Realising that someone else, possibly Mantrid, could develop it further, he considered destroying it. He didn't, but he introduced a bug into its system instead. Like his Divine Assassins and Executioners, he wanted to have ultimate control over this creation - the power to shut it down for good if the need or fancy struck him.
He left behind his plans for a huge dragonfly vessel, with a weapon powerful enough to destroy a planet with a single shot. He had thought of everything. It would be controlled by a single biological key, which would live inside its captain. It would contain a chamber for the growing of smaller space-faring vessels. These Moths, intended for use over short distances, would be tended to and maintained by humans adapted for that sole task. Cluster prisoners would be suitable for that, once all unnecessary brain material and organs were removed. It would also have cryogenic facilities.
He even gave it a name. He called it the Lexx.
As Brizon got into a Stinger he had made for himself, the only thing missing was an enzyme, a single biochemical catalyst. He had invested years of painstaking work in identifying it, and he was taking it with him. Without the enzyme, there was no way to grow a dragonfly larva into the city-sized vessel the project demanded. It was his insurance. It was also a last defiant act against his former pupil. Mantrid would not get the credit for Brizon's greatest achievement.