Kali (or The Needle and the Skull)

He struggled to clean up the sermon, to find something fresh and new in a limited repertoire of ideas. He almost had a decent text, one that hopefully wouldn’t bore everyone to tears with the same rehashed platitudes, when Jarvin, his senior Initiate, knocked on the door of the austere office.

“Master, I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s someone to see you, and she’s most insistent.”

Aki blinked off his text and told Jarvin to send in his guest.

Shirin Jurrin stepped into the room. Dressed in little more than rags, she had a deep scar across her face, and she did not look happy to see him.

* * *

The three Blitzes, the captain and his two cousins, the surly one and the crazy one, were off on some errand, taking the excursion skiff and about half the equipment recovered from the Saratoga with them. Onaris was alone in Upper Engineering when Path’s avatar came down to see him. Her face was repaired again, a pale beauty with the regal Sassinasi nose reconstructed. She still had most of Tatyana’s wardrobe, and she selected something stylish, tight and suggestive, but not blatantly so.

He greeted her with an offhand wave, and asked for a tool. She watched him work for a while and then said, “It’s almost as if you don’t think I’m capable of tuning my own engines.”

He paused and looked up. “Well, you know, I think a second eye always helps, and I’ve got another perspective – more experience.”

“You know, you are allowed to leave the ship, explore the worlds we visit,” she said. “Have you ever stepped out onto to Kadesh?”

“Been out on Kadesh,” he replied. “It’s rather go to the High Port or the Eagle's Aerie. But not on the surface – I’d rather stay on the ship.”

“So, you’d rather be inside me?” she said, trying to project the proper sly smile.

“Yeah. The outside is dirty,” he answered, obliviously.

She bit her lip. Subtlety wasn’t working. Maybe she was being too obscure. She tried a different tact.

“Onaris?”

“What?”

“Put the tool down, please.”

“Um, I’m in the middle of –”

“Put the tool down please.”

“Fine, but I’m –”

“And turn around for a minute.”

“Okay but –”

She kissed him full on the lips.

* * *

Gregor Vaften’s was office on the third floor of a non-descript building in the industrial district outside of Zapata’s capital city of Hidalgo. It was hardly suitable for the headquarters of the government-in-exile of the last legitimately elected Chancellor of Bismark, but money was tight, and this was functional enough.

Vaften was overdue for a full regeneration, and he ran his hand through thinning gray hair, trying to see something positive in the latest response from the Teslan Embassy. At least they hadn’t cut off all support. He was trying to come up with an appropriately gracious reply, when Olav Vreven, his one and only remaining aide buzzed the intercom.

“I’m sorry to interrupt Herr Chancellor, but there are three rather large men named Blitz that insist on speaking to you.” Vreven’s voice seemed uncertain, almost fearful. “I told them you were very busy, but they demand a personal audience. I can hold them in the foyer if you like. Should I notify the authorities?”

Vaften smiled and shut down his writer. “No Olav, it’s fine. I want to see these gentlemen at once. Please send them in.”

* * *

Bright parklands filed with flying critters and sweet-smelling flora covered most of the habitat, though the endcap cliffs loomed large, cut with overhangs and cliffside dwellings. Here, far from the nearest star, Founders flew through the thick air, their translucent bodies dancing in the sky.

They met in a small clearing, comfortable chairs set in a circle to hold the Humans, Heshar, Vandar and the two Founders that showed an interest. Ibrahim preferred to stand. Comfort was a weakness of the flesh.

“It actually went quite well,” one of his questioners acknowledged at the end. “Considering what little support you had, you’ve succeeded admirably.”

Before he could give his thanks, another asked. “And about our Malthan experiment. What would be you assessment of the three in the wild?”

Ibrahim allowed himself a mechanical frown. “Well, two of them, I think have adapted reasonably well, especially when you consider their upbringing. The third, well at best I’d classify him as a useful tool, but one to be used with care.”

“Good. Then can proceed with other seedings,” another one answered, a winged Human, a Nobilis-Majestic hybrid whose regal face would have been recognizable to long dead billions.

“That’s still up for discussion at a different forum,” interjected another man, smooth skin and glossy black hair unable to hide ancient eyes. “I think we’re done here.”

Ibrahim paused, then ventured. “Well, there is one more thing I uncovered.”

* * *

A shepherd moon glided through a gap in the rings of a small gas giant that orbited far from an unremarkable K-class star. The system had its share of metal, but nothing spectacular, and no worlds held any life more sophisticated than a microbe. Nobody would have bothered to notice that the moonlet was hollow, and even if they had, they would have dismissed it as a natural rubble-pile of sticky dust.

But inside its hard crust, the moon was a beehive of activity, as robots, Constructs and Androids worked to build, repair and service a growing fleet of warships. Countless hangars stretched along the narrow scaffoldings and the spartan quarters for the engineers and administrators that supervised the effort. Soon crews would emerge from the cybernetic slumber, and a fighting force would set forth to scour the sky.

In a small conference room near the moonlet’s missing core, the surviving original avatar of the once High Emissary Khaldis sat around a table, surrounded by her own spawned avatars. Some were nearly all metal – Machines or High Cyborgs – others mostly flesh, some elegantly thin, some voluptuous or corpulent, infiltrators of dozens of worlds, searchers for technologies and resources and secrets.

“With no contact after the others of her party returned, we’ll have to consider the Ertan avatar lost,” she said.

A cyborg reflection of her interjected, “It appears they only recovered historical data – no weaponry, and certainly not the planet buster itself.”

“It was worth the gamble,” she replied. Another piece of her lost, another thread of memory and experience that would never return to its host. But that was inconsequential. She had her share of experiences, weighed by circumstance toward the triumphs and not the defeats. That fraud of a God King Aurgeus would soon pay for abandoning her original host and for casting aside her other avatars. His conscious threads would all end violently.

She got up and strode to the room’s transparent wall and she looked out over her growing fleet: spheres of starships, sleek strikers, lancers and fighters arrayed in their bays. The Divinity was just the beginning. Once Aurgeus fell beneath her warships, she’d take the secrets her selves had learned, the weaknesses and foibles of so many worlds, and her fleets would take down ancient governments, overthrowing the weak realms of flesh. Her face, thin pale skin over metal, twisted into a smile.

Out beyond the ringed gas giant, far above the ecliptic, a gossamer starship materialized into solidity, moving impossibly fast.

Kali