Judas Unchained

“Do you know where my mom and dad are?”

“Long way from here, that’s for sure.”

“They’re alive!” the incredulous boy cried.

“Yeah yeah, they’re still knocking around.”

Orion started crying, tears smearing the dirt on his cheeks.

“Friend Orion,” Tochee said, “I am pleased for you.” It reached out with a tentacle and touched Orion’s shoulder. Orion gave the manipulator flesh a quick grateful squeeze.

“Good news, man. The greatest.” Ozzie put his arm around the boy’s shoulders, hugging him. “I hope you’re right,” he said in a warning tone to Clouddancer.

The Silfen shrugged, ruffling his wings.

“When this is over, I’m going to set out again and find them,” Orion announced. “I know what I’m doing now. I can survive out here. I’ll get myself some decent equipment first, though.” He looked down at his feet. “And boots.”

“I’ll buy you the best,” Ozzie said. “Promise, man.”

The clearing had a covering of thick mossy grass. Strong sunlight from the overhead star shone down, dappling the edges. Ozzie slung his pack to the ground, and sat with his back against it. Orion was too excited to sit; he paced about, grinning every time he looked up at the vast sky.

Ozzie held his water bottle out to Clouddancer. “Drink?”

“Water? Shit, no. You got any decent booze?” The winged Silfen crouched on the spongy ground opposite Ozzie. His tongue flicked out with reptilian speed.

“I didn’t bring any. I figured I needed to stay sober for this.”

“Okay, good call. You want to start the twenty questions routine now?”

“Sure. I’ve earned that right.”

Clouddancer managed a very human-sounding snort without using his tongue.

“Did you put the barriers around the Dyson Pair?” Ozzie asked. This wasn’t quite how he’d envisaged the end to his journey, the historic moment of contact with the real Silfen. There was a certain daydream that had him in an ancient cathedrallike alien library, maybe an abandoned one, where he roamed the aisles, reactivating computers with huge banks of flashing lights. Now that would have been cool, rather than getting his ass damp on the grass while he chatted away to a demon as if they were a pair of old barflies. Yep, definitely didn’t see that coming.

“No, it wasn’t us,” Clouddancer said. “We don’t go around judging other species like that. We don’t have the ego some people in this universe have.”

Ozzie ignored the slight. “What do you mean: judge?”

“The barrier makers were a race younger than us, with a technological proficiency approaching us at our peak. The dickbrains believed that gave them responsibility. In that, they were very like humans.”

“So who were they?”

“We called their star Anomine—a short version of the true name, but accurate.”

“You’re speaking of them in the past tense.”

“So I am; glad someone’s paying attention. As they were then, they no longer exist. They were always faster, always hungry to advance. Again, just like you guys. They evolved from that stage and went off down a whole new route away from the directly physical; they fused with their machines, which in turn transcended. Not universally, mind you; some of them disagreed with the direction their techheads were headed. Those are the ones who still exist in their old physical form. Now they’ve calmed down some and rejected their technological culture and its outcome, they farm their original homeworld like regular folks, they rejoice in their young, they ignore the stars—though they welcome visitors from across the galaxy. I know you, Ozzie, I can see that hunger in you; you’d like them. We did.”

Just for an instant, Ozzie saw them, or at least their planet, the way to walk there. His mind had lulled itself into the pleasant warm reverie amid dreams and awakening. Ahead of him, a long road took him down many glittering paths like gold strands stretched between the stars.

Dream inside a dream. “Groovy,” he said contentedly. “So why the barriers?”

“The sentient species that evolved on Dyson Alpha lust after individual empires and dominance. Think of them as the ultimate self-obsessed power freaks. Real bastards, from your cultural perspective, I guess. In their basic state they would think nothing of obliterating every other life-form in the galaxy and beyond to guarantee their own immortality.