Chapter 2

  Owen’s new name came to him. Dalex. He stood in the center of another large room, shivering, not because of any water-logged chill, but from the comedown of being filled with the unanswerable mysteries of the universe. He felt close to an important realization, the kind of thing religions and philosophers had spent millennia attempting to nail down, but it was just out of reach. The woman in front of him holding the bucket gave him a stiff look that said, if he had any guesses, he should keep his mouth shut. He didn’t.

  “Why did you do that?” Dalex asked, shaking out his arms and legs, showering the smooth metal floor with water. The warped wooden chair had vanished, leaving him free to move around. This room was noticeably darker than the one where he met Jeremy.

  The woman explained, “A sudden change of temperature and sharp pain will aid in recovery after a faster than light jump.”

  She looked human, in her mid-twenties. Her hair was green. She wore a skintight catsuit. It didn’t look very comfortable.

  Dalex rubbed his cheek where she had struck him. “I see. You wouldn’t happen to know the meaning of life, would you?”

  “Procreation,” she answered matter-of-factly. “Owen Little, you have just traveled four hundred and eighty-one parsecs in the span of four minutes and forty-eight seconds. Welcome to the starship Expedition 7. How do you feel?”

  She handed him a towel.

  “Call me Dalex,” he said, taking the towel and drying his body. “What’s your name?”

  The woman blinked at the name Dalex and said, “Possible cognitive impairment. I will prepare a neural stimulant.”

  “No, no. I’m fine,” Dalex assured her. “I’m just trying a new name. So, I’m already on the starship?” Dalex gave the room a closer inspection. It certainly looked like the bridge of a starship. The windows looked out into space. There were only two chairs, which seemed like they wouldn’t be enough for the necessary crew. Jeremy had said the ship would be empty, though he had been wrong by at least one count. “I thought it would take longer.”

  The woman turned around and picked up a neat pile of clothes from a shiny, black-topped table. She held out the clothes to Dalex. Black underwear, a gray pair of work pants, and a white t-shirt.

  “Your Benefactors are capable of faster than light travel. Moving one human a short distance across a relatively uncomplex galaxy is child’s play.”

  Dalex handed back the wet towel and took the clothes.

  “My Benefactors?” he asked. “You mean the aliens? If they can do all of this, what do they need me for?”

  “Your Benefactors are not suited to interstellar travel. Humans, on the other hand, are known to be quite hardy.” She paused and then added, “After some improvements.”

  As Dalex finished pulling the t-shirt over his head, he did more acutely notice that he felt different. Stronger. More flexible. He could stand unaided and hadn’t needed to learn to do so.

  “You didn’t tell me your name,” Dalex said, walking past the woman to look at himself in the reflective surface of the table. His own red eyes stared back at him. That was new.

  He was still the same eighteen-year-old dude, but he was definitely different. His physique looked bigger, well-muscled and with limited body fat. He smiled and inspected a full set of straight white teeth. He patted his hair; it felt thick and healthy, though the grayish silver color of it took him by surprise. Apparently, the aliens couldn’t fully resurrect brown hair or brown eyes.

  The last time he had seen his body in a mirror, his ribs had stood out from his belly and his face would have passed for a malnourished zombie. And he had lost all of his real teeth and hair by the time he turned fourteen. He ran his tongue over his new pearly whites. This felt good.

  “I am Seventh,” the woman said.

  Dalex stepped away from gazing at his reflection and turned to face her. “I get the feeling you aren’t human yourself. A {golem}?”

  Seventh’s chin hitched up and down at the word. “Correct, I am an [android]. Are you certain you are not experiencing negative cognitive symptoms?”

  He waved away the question with a dismissive hand. “I guess it makes sense why the {otherworlders}– no, that won’t work. How about {far realmers}? Yeah, I like that. It makes sense why the {far realmers} wouldn’t come out here themselves, but why send me if you’re already here? I’m sure you could run this {celestial ark} better than I could.”

  “Your Benefactors prefer an organic presence on the ship,” Seventh said. “As capable as I am, I have limits.” She paused and then said, “I am detecting fluctuations in your vocabulary choice, a potential sign of hemorrhagic stroke. I will prepare a tissue plasminogen activator.”

  “Don’t play dumb with me,” Dalex said. “You understood what I said. This may not be a fantasy world, but if I’m gonna work for the {far realmers} and start this new life, I’m gonna treat it like one. From now on, I’m placing a moratorium on all sci-fi technobabble and instituting a rule that everything must have a fantasy name.”

  Seventh just stared at him. For a really long time. Long enough that Dalex started to worry he might have broken something in her.

  Finally, she said, “I have searched my protocols and determined that I am not required to comply with this rule.”

  Dalex snapped his fingers. “That’s fine with me. I love a {golem} that chooses sentience over subservience.”

  Seventh suddenly turned her head to the side and froze again. This time, Dalex felt confident he hadn’t done anything to cause it.

  “I am afraid I must cut this discussion short,” she said. “The intruding faction has activated, and we must respond.”

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  “What’s that?” Dalex asked.

  Seventh faced the table. Its polished black surface suddenly lit up, filling the space above with a solar system map. No, an {astral map}, and it definitely wasn’t Dalex’s home realm. There was a yellow star, but it didn’t dominate the center of the map. Seven blue and green planets orbited around the star, and on the far side of the realm was a dark spot around which several more planets rotated, gas giants if Dalex had to guess.

  “Welcome to Gaia-BH1,” Seventh said, “a binary system consisting of a G-type main-sequence star and a stellar black hole. Seven habitable planets orbit the star, and there are many more significant celestial bodies within the system. Your Benefactors have detected trace amounts of benefine present on all seven of the habitable planets. Your mission is to harvest this benefine and deliver it to a resource hub in the galactic nucleus of the Milky Way.”

  “Cool,” Dalex said.

  She pointed at a glowing blue dot at the bottom of the map towards the outskirts of the realm. “This is our current location.” Her finger moved up the map to the top and a glowing red dot. “This is an unknown faction, approximately fifty astronomical units away. They likely want to harvest the benefine as well.”

  “A second set of {far realmers}?” Dalex asked. “How long have they been there? How long have you been here?”

  “The Expedition 7 arrived in system three days ago. The unknown faction two days ago. I have attempted all known methods of communication, many of them common to reputable interstellar societies, and have not been answered.”

  “Do you think we can share the {adamantine}?” Dalex asked, feeling optimistic.

  “Unlikely. Until one minute and thirty seconds ago, they had taken no action.” A dozen smaller red dots appeared on the map, moving away from the big dot down the map toward the blue dot. “In the simplest terms, these signals indicate they are preparing a battlefield.”

  She used the next few minutes to explain. Apparently, inter-astral combat occurred either instantaneously or at the speed of light. The smaller red dots represented signal posts that prevented any matter from traveling faster than light, meaning the second {far realm} faction wanted to duke it out in slow motion. To keep the playing field even, Seventh deployed her own signal posts while she talked.

  She finished by saying, “The bad news is, we will still engage them at light speed. It will be very fast for your human senses. The good news is, given our distance to the unknown faction, combat will not begin for another five hours.”

  “That is good news, but I’m guessing we should start making some decisions right away.” She nodded and so Dalex continued, asking, “What are we fighting with?”

  “You can vocally request a rundown of the ship’s [assets and armaments].”

  “{Inventory},” Dalex said.

  A blue screen appeared in front of him, obscuring its background enough to be legible without squinting.

  Each unique segment of the screen gave Dalex the option to delve further into the different weapons and cargo available, but even this simple list was enough to make his eyes bug out of their sockets.

  “I recommend using the standard command,” Seventh insisted while he took a moment to recover. “[Assets and armaments] will more reliably display the information you are looking for.”

  “And yet the system understood me well enough.” Dalex shook his head and said, “Hold on, Jeremy only mentioned the one {celestial ark}. I count more than thirty on this list, plus a lot of other stuff.”

  “The Expedition 7 carries a full complement of support craft,” Seventh explained. “Except for two previously deployed [probes] and twelve [buoys], all craft are currently stored in compartments within the ship. You have full command and control of these vessels through me and the Expedition 7’s more rudimentary [artificial intelligence] systems.”

  Dalex gawked at the little icons representing each vessel. “Just how big is the E7?”

  “Approximately three hundred kilometers long with a mass of 17.5 million metric tons.”

  “And you think I shouldn’t call it an ark?”

  “Most of the ship is empty space meant to store harvested benefine and other useful elements.”

  Dalex took a step back from the table, putting his hands on his hips. It was too much. How was he supposed to help fight a battle with pieces like this? It certainly made for a magnificent armada, but he imagined the enemy could summon similar weapons in similar numbers. And all of these vessels did things he couldn’t hope to imagine.

  A thought occurred to him, one that gave him a tiny bit of hope.

  “Don’t tell me there’s another human over there doing the exact same thing I am.”

  “Most likely not,” Seventh said. “Your Benefactors are the only known species interested in recruiting humans for this task.”

  Dalex blew out his breath. “There goes any chance of an even playing field. No use crying about it, though. What do we do next?”

  Seventh did not answer immediately. She watched him silently and then said, “I have one concern.”

  “Only one?”

  “Precedent states that all other humans recruited by your Benefactors for similar tasks requested motivation to comply with the mission. Variations of the question, ‘What if I don’t want to help you?’ have been asked in six hundred ninety-five out six hundred ninety-nine similar situations. Are you not dissatisfied with what is being asked of you?”

  Dalex leaned over the table toward her, resting his palms on its surface. “Is completing this mission likely to get me killed?”

  “The chances are moderate, but only due to the presence of the unknown faction. Otherwise, the vast majority of humans recruited by your Benefactors have suffered no harm.”

  “Can I refuse to help you?”

  “Yes.”

  Dalex rapped his knuckles on the table. “That’s enough for me.”

  “It is?”

  “Sure! It tells me you don’t plan on working me to death, and that you wouldn’t force me to do anything against my will. So, let’s stop talking about it and go kick some ass.”

  There were holes in Dalex’s explanation. Seventh could very well be lying to him about everything. But it was well within the abilities of his Benefactors to vaporize him with a thought and go grab the next dead guy from Earth. This way, at least he got to stay in the action a little longer.