Perfect Circles

The Armageddon Machine-1

Mackenzie watched the universe end. It was beautiful, like a flower closing up for the night. Stars and planets swirled inwards, spiralling around and down, faster and faster, collapsing into an infinitesimal particle. As silent as the sunset. The more space/time that was pulled in, the more massive the particle became and the more gravity it exerted on what remained of the universe.

The point of no return had already been passed. It was inevitable now that all of creation would reduce down to a single point. He wondered how it was he was able to watch without being affected. That couldn"t be right. But it was surely only a matter of time. And what did that mean since time as well was being destroyed?

The scale shifted outwards. Now whole galaxies, superclusters of galaxies, were being sucked in. The rate of collapse increasing exponentially, the end of everything suddenly at hand. And then what? Would there be another Big Bang, the start of a pristine, virgin universe? Still he was outside, remote from it all.

There was nothing left but the invisible point and the void and him. And it wasn"t the comfortable, familiar blackness of space he knew so well, but a terrible absence of space, a nullity.

Something still nagged at him that this wasn"t right; he couldn"t be watching this. It occurred to him he must be dreaming. It was a gloriously reassuring realisation but still he couldn"t break out of it. It seemed to be a story he was stuck inside. He promptly lost the realisation.

Then came the noise, the start of the Bang, an alarmingly loud noise sounding strangely like the tolling of a bell. But how could that be possible? Of course, he was dreaming, becoming more and more confused as to what was real and what was not.

A familiar figure was standing over him. She was a musician from – what – Earth"s nineteenth century? He had forgotten most of his history. She had bright, scarlet hair, teased up into a ridge of spikes. Her nose and eyebrows and ears were pierced with a variety of metal studs and pins. Her clothes were a deliberately ragged collage of ripped cloth, leather, lace and studded metal. She had a worried look on her face. The bell was a gentle but insistent chiming from the ship, waking him up. Or was he still dreaming? No. He had known the ship use this avatar before when speaking to him directly. He was on board the Higher Than The Sun. His ship. OK. He sat up blearily.

“You"re worrying about the Armageddon Machine more and more. Your nightmares used to be all memories of your experiences in the Draconian war. Now anxieties about the device have taken over. Maybe it"s time you took a break.”

He smiled, rubbing his eyes with two of his four hands. “Kind of hard to get away from though isn"t it? A device capable of bringing to an end the entire universe. Hard to escape something like that.”

“I guess.”

“You woke me because I was having a nightmare?”

“No. It has changed course again. You wanted to know.”

“Show me.”

A wall of the cabin became a window, showing space outside. Everything looked the same. The unlovely machine was there in the centre, part grey asteroid and part black metal starship, like a creature half-emerged from an egg. All round it, at a respectful distance, a halo of twinkling lights. The ships of the flotilla, their courses shadowing that of the machine.

“Can you spot any patterns yet, any reason for these course changes?”

“None. I have searched through the cultural and scientific records of all Million Star worlds, and everything we know about all other societies, and the movements of the ship match nothing. The course, the timings all appear chaotic. I still think our notion of a random-walk is the best; that the ship is searching for something and following some arbitrary-seek programming to do it.”

“Or it"s defective, it"s gone wrong somehow.”

“Indeed. Although judging by the normal effectiveness of Draconian military technology I"d say this was unlikely. I don"t need to tell you that.”

He grunted. Damn right. He watched the machine for a while, still a little stuck in his dream, expecting the thing to detonate at any moment. A pearly, yellow light pervaded the room, mimicking a pre-dawn glow. He had the whole fleet following a standard diurnal cycle. It seemed futile to be at battle-readiness.

“Remind me how the Draconians pronounce the name of the ship.”

“lsiur.”

It sounded such a gentle word. “And do we know yet what that might mean?”

“An exact translation is impossible. Maybe Ragnarok? The Final Machine? The Armageddon Machine?”

“That such a device could have been conceived, let alone built.”

She sat down on the bed next to him. “From their point of view it made perfect sense. The Draconians thought it inherently desirable to kill other beings. That was why there were other beings. And why there were Draconians. It is quite conceivable they would construct such a machine when they were faced with their own demise. At least this way they could never lose the war against every other living thing. Only draw it.”

“Insane then.”

“They thought the universe was theirs to use as they wished. They were unique in that they created a spacefaring technology solely in order to find more beings to hunt and kill. Every other species has been driven by inquisitiveness, population-pressure or the need to secure natural resources. Or as the result of some benign intervention, typically by the Xin of course. The Draconians did it because they had wiped out everything else on their homeworld.”

“And the Ancients did nothing to stop them.”

“Apparently. We can"t really be sure. The Xin move in mysterious ways.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He knew a lot of people were voicing doubts about the Xin. They had lost the collective will to live. Their time had come to an end; they actually wanted to see the universe die. They were corrupt, divided, already all dead. He couldn"t believe any of it but he did wish they would get on and do something now.

He yawned. He didn"t feel particularly rested. “Well, nothing more to be seen I guess. Remind me tomorrow to have another word with our prisoner. The last surviving Draconian must be able to tell us something even if it does think we"re all worthless bacteria infesting its universe.”

“Have you forgotten that a delegation will also be here tomorrow to discuss the situation?”

“Wish I could. But I think I"ll talk to our captive demon first. Wake me in time.

“OK.”

The Draconian stood at his normal place in the centre of his cell, staring at the star field they displayed on one of the walls. They did not, of course, show it that the Armageddon ship was nearby.

The creature was tall, twice Mackenzie"s height, and massively powerful. It bristled with spikes and spines, each limb, each part of its anatomy, modified to act as a stabbing or a slashing weapon. Its carapace was the standard, shimmering, metallic green. He remembered how they had mistaken these fearsome killers for some sort of Draconian war machine at first. Only later did they realise they were the Draconians.

The cell was bare: a large, evenly-lit cube, all surfaces grey. It wasn"t that they were trying to punish the alien. It was simply that they had no idea what sort of environment it would have preferred, and the Draconian hadn"t deigned to inform them.

The ship put him inside, immediately in front of the creature. He couldn"t help feeling a pang of anxiety. It barely seemed to notice his arrival. It glanced down at him with blank eyes, as if trying to decide whether to bother killing him, then ignored him. The array of symbols scratched onto its chest was clearly visible: stylised representations, so the thinking was, of all the people it had killed. The spiked limb which they assumed was damaged hung inertly at its side. They hadn"t bothered or dared to try and treat it.

It occurred to Mackenzie they could be considered very beautiful creatures.

“Will you speak?” he asked.

It said nothing. Mackenzie began to stroll backwards and forwards in front of the creature, his four arms folded behind his back. He knew it could understand him. They were far from unintelligent.

“There are many of my people who wish to see you killed. If you help us, I can prevent this happening.”

The creature, ignoring him, proceeded to hone the cutting edges of some of its talons by rubbing them on patches of specially-adapted hide. Mackenzie pressed on.

“The ship we found you near at the end of the battle. The ship that is half-asteroid. What is its function? Is it a warship? Did you help build it? Are you a member of its crew?”

It looked down at him as if seeing him for the first time. Very rapidly it struck out with one of its arms, scything cleanly through Mackenzie"s body.

The avatar being projected by the ship did not waver. The creature gave a low, grunting sound and resumed its sharpening behaviour.

Mackenzie had the distinct impression that it wasn"t really listening to anything he said. Perhaps he was merely an annoyance to it: the buzzing of an insistent fly.

“There are others who want to open your mind and extract what you know forcibly. We can do that. It would destroy you.”

He knew the creature wasn"t in the least concerned, that it was unable to take such threats seriously. Nevertheless, it did now respond. It emitted a rapid series of clicks and thrumming tones, which the ship translated into a deep, rasping voice.

“Your empire. What is it you call it?”

“The Million Stars. And it isn"t an empire.” He couldn"t help himself being defensive. “At the last count there were, I believe, 1.2 million suns covered by the Concordat. Although, of course, there are a few less than there were because of your supernova weapon.”

For the first time the creature seemed genuinely interested, its upper limbs moving slightly in something like excitement.

“The sunburst device. Did you see it? Glorious. So much death in one strike.”

He tried not to get riled by the creature. He had seen the supernova weapon used. He"d been part of an evacuation mission. From a system of five planets with a total population of some one hundred billion people, they"d managed to rescue about a million. He wasn"t going to give it the satisfaction of telling it that.

“We have nearly obliterated you from the galaxy. How does that make you feel?”

The creature said nothing and returned to watching the stars.

Mackenzie set the walls, floor and ceiling of the conference room to transparent, so that it seemed as if the simple, wooden table and chairs were floating freely in space. It was what he usually did. He found it tended to disconcert visitors, especially those used to living on planets. It was a small advantage but he needed all he could get. He stood and waited for the delegation from the Million Star Council to arrive. The ship stood next to him in avatar, still in the punk persona. Behind him, the Armageddon ship and its surrounding flotilla continued their progress. There had been no more sudden course changes.

The Council had sent a delegation of three. The ship introduced each as they entered the room.