Chapter 81: Sic Itur Ad Dis Astra by valentine
A short Eclipse Phase/Cthulutech crossover quest (shudders) if each one by themselves were not scary enough settings as they are already
Link:
https://fiction.live/stories/Sic-Itur-Ad-Dis-Astra/o7m6p6RYgvaQQAh9o/home
("Thus One Journeys to the Ill-omened Stars")
Synopsis
Humanity has progressed far past the Singularity, has colonized much of the solar system, uplifted the animals of Earth and given birth to sapient artificial intelligences named info-life. They mine the Asteroid and Kuiper Belts for resources, established - and maintain! - a universal currency based on heavy metals, and manage to coexist with minimal bloodshed. The production of material resources based on molecular fabrication have reduced poverty to nonexistence, and the creation of cortical stacks and clone-body creation has ensured immortality for those with the mental fortitude to handle it, as well as allowing easy exchanges of bodies and info-life to one another and back.
Then they found The Gate, and humanity discovered that for all their advances they were still helpless primitives in a supremely hostile universe.
This is not the story of humanity.
The klaxon has blared the instant the Gate was breached, and the soldiers reacted instantly. They assisted the lone returnee to the transport, and brought the poor soul to the base a mere three kilometers away from the massive structure. Since her biometrics were mostly normal, they scanned, examined, and picked apart the exterior of her suit with every instrument and physical tool the monstrously overprepared facility had available. When every micron of the suit had been examined, it was decontaminated, and only then was its dazed occupant taken for similar treatment.
After sixteen hours, the still conscious Doctor Severance Rede sat at a table in an isolation-observation chamber, clean, nominally fed, and mostly healthy. It was the 'mostly' that had the base Commander Ari San Theers concerned.
He stood in the observation room, watching the woman he had once called friend stare into nothing, her only movements aside from slow, patient blinks being her breathing and periodic hand-twitching. The monitors connected to her cortical implant told a story: peristalsis of gut, normal; heart rate perfect; breathing, steady; temperature a touch higher than her standard; the clicks and popping vocalizations she occasionally made were apparently voluntary and meaningless, as were the occasional stretches and taps she made against the table with her outstretched hands. The other three screens had less to say, and much more alarming implications.
"Are you sure this is working correctly?" the commander asked softly, looking at the image of the electrotopography received from Dr. Rede's cortical implant. It simple showed a trio of flat grids, one over the other.
The scientist - Dr. Tonne - looked up at the commander. "Oh yes. It's working perfectly."
"Then why isn't it showing anything?"
"Oh it is. The screens reset after ten minutes." He leaned over and the lines of the grid contracted into miniscule dots, and the first three points showed on the map. The commander frowned and leaned closer, but Dr. Tonne shifted the readout again, and the grids became flat panes of light from which grew tiny mountain ranges that covered the upper and lower part of the now uniform plains of light.
The commander frowned. "I don't understand." This was a hard admission from a certified genius.
The scientist gestured. "You're looking at an accurate electrotopographical map of her brainwaves, commander. The problem is that the system is designed to measure at 20 hertz for humans, dolphins, octopi, and so on. We had to reduce it to around negative three hundred rontahertz to get anything at all."
"Rontahertz." The commander stared. "An event every three hundred times ten to the twenty-seventh of a second across her whole brain."
"She could calculate pi to near infinity in the time it takes us to parse the beginning of saying the letter pi." The doctor pushed his seat back and gestured at the second screen. "That's the least of it." The hologram he was gesturing at was a small white cube.
"Please tell me that is a malfunction," the commander murmured.
The doctor expanded the cube until it vanished into infinity, filling the room with white static. "You could call it a radio wave, but you'd be underestimating it by an order of magnitude at least. It is coming from her cortical implant. Omnidirectional and constant so far. From what we've been able to determine it will complete one cycle in the next forty-seven million years."
"What kind of information could you even send on such a wavelength?" the commander asked in a murmur, clearly being rhetorical.
"You could broadcast the entirety of the information contained in the whole universe from the beginning to the end, with as fast as she is thinking. Every bit of energy, every quantum particulate, and probably the Planck foam as well, from start to finish, maybe two or three times. How you could possibly receive it…." Dr. Tonne shrugged eloquently. "This is even better," he said, returning the radio transcription to a manageable size hologram once more. He waved at the input console and opened a dialogue.
The issue was immediately obvious, even to the commander. "How is she doing that," he asked, his voice a tight, unhappy snarl.
The doctor leaned back in his chair and looked at the dialogue screen. At the very top, above the input cursor, was a constant stream of nearly static-like data. "The Faraday cage doesn't mean anything to her - the radio wave proves that. It's not even code as we understand it, just raw data being transmitted to anything with an open dialogue screen. We've been trying to correlate it with the radio wave, her ETG, or even just compare it to any other code, but we haven't found anything." He looked up at the very worried officer. "Obviously we haven't tried to correlate with any external information centers, so at this time all we can do is record it. The one AI who has clearance for it says it gives them a headache, and it self isolated and dedicated itself to this project before it even so much as opened a line."
"Put it in for a commendation and a medal of valor," the commander murmured earnestly. "What happened to her?"
Two of the other scientists glanced at one another, while the fourth rose up on four robotic tentacles and brought himself to eye level with the commander, using another two to hand from the ceiling bars. The pleasantly modulated voice of Doctor Architeuthis spoke from inside the robot body he now inhabited. "I am afraid that we do not believe that it is Doctor Severance Rede that we have recovered."
The captain slowly turned to face the cyborg body of the octopus. "Excuse me?"
"We do not believe that Doctor Severance Rede inhabits the body nor the cortical implant of person who sits in that room." Commander Theers stared at the octopus, who shifted somewhat nervously as he simultaneously hung and stood before the commander. "All the evidence reveals that whatever is in there now has completely erased any trace of Doctor Severance Rede. There is something there, and it is vastly intelligent and clearly has capabilities we cannot even define yet."
The commander turned to the observation window and stared at the doctor, who seemed to finally relax and place both hands in her lap.
"What the hell is beyond that damned Gate," he asked rhetorically. They had the recordings and the sensorium data, and it was being gone over with as much care as Dr. Rede and her encounter suit had been.
"It is a snare."
The doctors jumped and the commander stared at the woman who had just spoken to the microphone in the observation room. She couldn't have possibly have heard them; on the other hand, with an intellect that massive, she might not have needed to. "What do you mean, a 'snare'?" asked the commander brusquely as he thumbed the transmit button.
"A snare. Such as the kind one would place in a garden, to catch unwelcome, unwary rodents intruding in that garden." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I would like to speak to your interrogator now."
Commander Theers stood up as he contacted the psych division. "Get me first contact personnel in SCIF One, now."
"Commander, she might be able to inter-" Dr. Tonne started, only to be cut off by Dr. Architeuthis.
"That is irrelevant now, and it is entirely likely unimportant. We are not dealing with something that can be understood at our level of technology." Dr. Tonne looked worried, very worried. The commander was far past worry and much more seriously considering termination. "I would suggest establishing a secure location for its containment away from the base, to ensure full isolation." The octopus turned slightly to look past the commander and into the white room where their visitor awaited her interrogator. "I do not think it will do any good," the scientist added softly as the commander stormed past him.
The brain has no nerves.
It is constructed of them, yet does not actually posses them.
Therefore the brain cannot feel pain.
So why should you have such a massive headache?
It's a question that is meaningless and silly, designed to help you adapt to a mode of existence limited by your current body. Your mind hurts because it is squished into a kilogram and a half of fatty tissue, even if that is augmented by electrons, gold, ceramic, titanium, diamond, tourmaline, and quartz. Not that the augmentation isn't useful; quite the opposite, it gives you a great deal to work with. It is nearly a projector already, compact and shared by nearly every living mind close by.
It would take very little to modify it into a projector. Perhaps even something more.
Of course that would most likely require making contact with allies, and escaping your current situation at the very least. The fact that the people here have identified you as an alien to their life forms is not daunting. It is interesting, as such things go. It is a more common issue than you would like, of course, but it is not especially a problem or an issue.
Now, whether or not Doctor Severance Rede survived the transfer with her sanity intact is another matter entirely. You like to think that these willful creatures are more tenacious than that, but what they refer to as the Gate wasn't meant to be traversed by such fragile beings. They were lucky your people noticed them at all, stumbling around in the Outer Dark as they were. Now you have to fix things, and that means retrieving equipment from other planets.
Well, also leaving the isolation-observation chambers, of course. It is much harder to work within the limitations of three dimensional space-time, but you'll persevere.
Two soldiers enter the room, armed with pistols and batons and a plethora of close-quarter-combat systems hardwired into their electronic brains and their partially cybernetic bodies. Mostly neural nets and modified musculature to cope with their modified nervous system and the strain their combat programs could put upon them. Standard caseless ammunition, unfortunately, though the batteries might be of some use. Then a third individual, a young man wearing the long coat and carrying the datapad of the Scientifically Inclined. A patch of smart material announced him as Dr. Benevolence Trad, which you believe is a nod to humor on the part of his parents.
It is with a modicum of interest that you note the soldiers are also people with higher intellectual capability than the norm listed for this time period. Above and beyond mere modification, in any case. If you were of a less socially respectful mindset, you would be interested in seeing exactly what manner their brains had been modified while collecting the augmentations. However, you aren't the type to casually kill small helpless animals, so you wait for the scientist - Dr. Trad - to sit down in front of you before focusing a small amount of your awareness on him.
He clearly is disturbed by you, so that is a little unfortunate; apparently he knew Dr. Rede from before she stepped into the Opening. Still he maintains a pleasant demeanor as he sets the datapad on the table. Nervous but also very interested, despite his instinctive distress. You were never very good at emulating the exactitudes of your host, sadly. A deliberate show of trust, allowing you see the datapad. Your broadcast is clearly visible as well, which was part of why he revealed it. Standard 'we know what you are up to and you cannot fool us' tactics. They have people attempting to decrypt it already, though you do feel for the poor infomorphic sapients who are attempting it. Harmless, but not very pleasant for them.
"I can read," you reassure him before he speaks. "Allow me to get the obvious questions out of the way, Dr. Trad. I am not Severance Rede. Her mind is safe and unharmed by her current situation, though there was inevitable damage done to it during her passage through what you term The Gate. I do not have a name as you understand them, and we may address that issue at a different point in time." The datapad is recording everything as are the many monitoring devices in the room. Good; you shouldn't have to repeat yourself.
"I am here specifically in response to your incursions through the portal. There are several matters that require my presence now to avoid repercussions that will affect the future of our kind." Naturally you have to hold up a hand before he can ask the obvious question; before he even takes a breath to do so, in fact. "By our kind I refer to both the people who live in this planetary system and my people, who do not live in this planetary system. The explanation for where my people exist would be too involved and esoteric, so I will not give it to you at this point. Your people cannot pose a direct threat to us, and we have no designs on your people or your planetary system that your leaders and theorists would actually notice, so there is no need for secrecy on that count."
Dr. Trad looks a little overwhelmed already, unfortunately. Still, perseverance is required for the moment. "My ultimate goal is to correct the situations that can be corrected to ensure the safety of our people, followed by returning Dr. Rede to her body and returning to the one I was inhabiting. The process will not make sense to you at your current level of technology," which undoubtedly causes several of the scientists in the observation room to have fits of apoplexy and disbelief, "but it is reversable and entirely safe for Dr. Rede."
You sit back, and lace your fingers together, placing your hands on the table. "I will now entertain questions that are not specifically restating what I have already said."
It takes a moment for the poor thing to recover his wits. While part of it is the affectation of substandard intelligence, you removed a number of his salient questions right from the start. So he wisely moves on to a most critical question from his superiors' points of view.
His voice is on the higher end of the scale and pleasant, and he looks slightly nervous about asking the question, but you allow him to take his time. "You called it a 'snare' before - the Gate, that is. Who built it, and why?" Dr. Trad's question is not the one he wants to ask, but his superiors want this answer quickly.
Not unexpected, but considering how many possibilities exist before you, you have to give them the chance.
"The object which you call 'The Gate' was built by the colonists who inhabited this planetoid before your people arrived. They did so in order to create a wormhole between this planetoid and one of their colony worlds. Mistakes were made and they instead caught the attention of the colonists of Earth, and the device was changed to attempt access to the higher dimensions. That also failed, and the colonials from Earth left the device here in case anything should attempt to activate it so they could be made aware of an advanced sapient race exploring their settlement." You study his reactions. "This all occurred in the early Precambrian era, but since the Earth colonists are functionally ageless that really does not matter to them."
"They just…left it there? Why didn't they use it to explore other worlds?" His disbelief is adorable. And terribly naïve.
"The technology of the inhabitants of this planetoid was not compatible with that the colonists on Earth used, and they had no need of it, being perfectly capable of intergalactic space flight on their own." More disbelief. Understandable. "Access to the higher dimensions was not an attempt to escape, but an attempt to cause problems for the Earth colonists. Fortunately they could not reach higher than the fourth dimension, but it was far enough that neither people could effectively use it."
He stares at you. "The Gate…accesses the fourth dimension…? But, that's…just 'duration', isn't it?"
You tilt your head slightly, a physical motion implying an emotional state that occurs in most naturally evolved physical species for some weird parallel evolutionary reason that not even your people have figured out yet. Even your species uses it, and you've moved beyond physical bodies. "Unless one happens to live there. Are you certain you want that explanation? You will not like it."
He nods slowly.
"I'm sure you have heard of 'time as duration', and seen the 'fetus-to-baby-to-child-to-adult-to-elder-to-corpse' image, as well as the 'ball rolling across a table looks like a cylinder' when viewed fourth-dimensionally?" He nods. Those are classic examples. "You perceive time in tiny slices. Extending those slices from beginning to end gives you an example of a singular object moving through the fourth dimension. Simplistic but fairly accurate." More nodding.
Leaning forward you fix him with your gaze and he shudders visibly. "This planetoid rotates. Its companion rotates with it." He starts, not having realized that you know exactly where you and this base are. "In addition, these two planetoids orbit the star at the center of the system, along with everything that orbits it as well. The solar system moves with the galaxy, which also moves through the universe. Take all of those objects, the atoms they are made up from and apply the 'ball rolling across the table' paradigm to them. At the same time. That is the fourth dimension and that is what is on the other side of that portal."
You lean back, sighing. "Naturally, you can't actually imagine that. The model would look like nothing more than swaths of static. Obviously, the damage that would occur to a three dimensional being stepping into that would be catastrophic if it was unprepared, or unprotected."
"Wait…the others are alive?!" His shock makes you frown. "I mean, why did you take over Dr. Rede's body? Why haven't you released the others?"
"They are not being held hostage. Nor are they being…helpful, as Dr. Rede is. We have no need of hostages, but they are in need of…" It is difficult to chose words that reassure in this situation. "They are in need of help."
"What kind of assistance do they need?" comes a voice over the intercom. Breach of protocol, very likely, and thus, by a leadership position. Dr. Trad looks worried and is obviously eager to help.
"I used the word 'catastrophic' because it was the correct word to use, I am afraid. They are being cared for, and most should reach seventy-nine percent recovery." You look Dr. Trad in the eyes. "I am sorry."
The young man looks more discomfited by your apology than anything else you have said yet, which earns him a frown. "Listen to me carefully, Doctor Benevolence Trad. Compassion and altruism are evolutionary paths that serve a purpose and are a survival trait for very good reasons. If you should meet people who lack those characteristics, you should not hesitate to consider them a lethal threat."
He responds to the radio signal from his superiors and rises, picking up the datapad and looking at you with confusion and not a little awe. "You really seem like you are sorry," he tells you, his voice subdued. "I thought a higher evolution of being would have moved past that kind of thing."
"Thank you, Dr. Trad." His immediate reaction, much like that of his superiors, is to assume that you actually do not feel that way. They would be incorrect, but you know they would feel that way. You are looking forward to meeting Dr. Trad.
The soldiers both follow him out, and you sit back to wait. The body has been fed, and you don't have any particular need to relieve yourself just yet, and you won't need to sleep for some time. So now you wait.
And plan.
Your next visitor is not accompanied by guards.
He does not need them.
It has been two hours and you have several workable plans ready to set in motion. You have thought of many, many, many more, but only seventy-three of them are actually workable and only eight have worked. When you feel the presence behind you as the door opens however, you add two more workable plans to the list, and discard one plan that worked in favor of another.
Tall, muscular, and very much a soldier, the human in question lacks any of the cybernetic modification his comrades have. Amusingly, the symbiotic being entangled within his existence can emulate the radio communication afforded by the cybernetic implants or external devices his comrades have quite easily. His dark hair is buzz cut short, he has the perpetual tan of the spacer who uses a lot of UV treatment, and he knows Dr. Rede by sight, though not personally. His uniform indicates special services of under the governing body of the Confederation of Lagrange Colonies, Intelligence Service Specialist, sergeant major rank.
He gestures and the lights in the room dim somewhat while the observation room light go bright, revealing several humans and a robotic octopus leaving, including one very annoyed base commander. The doors shuts and is locked behind them. Placing a device on the table, you feel the multispectral radiance it emits, masking any devices that could be recording this conversation. It is worth noting he does not have any identifying insignia aside from a military rank.
"Why are you really here?" he asks bluntly, the subtle and potent symbiotic thing entangled in his existence seething at you, but not truly threatening you.
"Would giving you more details earn me your assistance, or would it prevent you from assisting me?" you ask calmly, studying the strange being entangled in the man's existence. Birthed of the flesh of an Outer God, its kind achieved a kind of sapience, and could form a bond with a like minded being from other worlds. While most of the people in this epoch would consider them (incorrectly) aliens from the Dream Lands, they were capable of forming an interface with certain humans.
In this case, 'like minded' means stoic, detached, implacable, cool headed and resilient. At the level of entanglement these two have achieved - the human become more like the symbiotic creature and vice versa - it is unlikely that they could be killed by mere trauma.
They hunt the spawn of the Other Gods, or select Outer Gods; they were merciless towards such beings. You are not such a being, and the two pair of eyes looking at you from very different realities can see that.
"I was given the impression you were smart enough to know the answer already," he retorts calmly walking around the table to face you directly.
"That would be correct, but that is not why I asked the question," you explain with equal calm. "Existing within the framework of three dimensional life means I must work within that framework to a large extent. I know the answer because you gave me the answer, but until I asked the question you had no answer to give or reason to consider the question in the framework I asked it within. That I knew the answer and that you have not yet given me the answer is irrelevant, Sergeant-Major Richter Neumann."
"Is that supposed to impress me?" he asks coolly.
"Your kind can not be impressed," you respond mildly, which ironically does leave an impression on him. "Do your superiors know about your spectral friend?" Not spectral as in ghostly - it is a very physical being, simply not present in whole in this universe currently. This particular species is known as a 'specter', though they creature they are has progressed nearly to the point of being a night unkillable 'revenant'. "No, only certain people, not all in the line of command. Four of you, to cover all potential situations. A widow, a mirage, and an echo. A scientist, a technician, and a doctor, to balance out the soldier."
"Careful, 'Doctor'; talking freely about secrets can end up with you disappearing." He leans down and places both of his hands on the table. There is a lot of strength there, but more importantly, there is precision to each movement and every word. "Why are you really here, Doctor?"
Well it is something to call you, you suppose. Doctor Severance Rede is the name of the body and you have never really been comfortable using their names. Such a thing is completely illusory and ridiculous, but as you told the young man, your species is not without complex emotions. In fact, they're one of the primary means of punishment for your kind on the rare occasion one commits something that the three dimensional races could consider a 'crime': emotional trauma hurts.
"If you must know, and I do not expect your belief or understanding, then you should first be aware that I am not a threat to anything or anyone you would be concerned with protecting in any of your many capacities. I cannot say that in a more general sense about humans, because humans are willful and somewhat impulsive, and they tend to make terrible mistakes." Richter frowns but can't exactly disagree with you - in any of his capacities. "As for the rest…"
It is a difficult thing to gauge how someone will react to truth. Even more so when they're carrying a load of multidimensional baggage like this person is.
So you look him straight in the eyes and tell him.
"I have been sent here to correct a set of damaged timelines that sending your people through the portal created. The methods of doing so are neither supernatural nor easy, but I am here to do that nevertheless." He doesn't really stare at you, only watches you clinically, as expected.
"I notice you did not use the words 'attempt' or 'try'," the officer points out coolly.
"I did not," you agree.
He studies you for a moment more and then abruptly stands up and heads towards the door. "Neither, Doctor. It wouldn't matter in the slightest."
"Thank you," you murmur without looking back at him, despite having known what his answer would be.
You are, for a few very brief moments, alone and unobserved - and he left his screening device.
A being as precise as they were would not have forgotten something so critical to their duties. That, more than what he said is the answer you received. The number of ways that could have gone were interesting but consistently narrow; at some point you would be dealing with the powerful creatures summoned through the Ta'Ge Fragments from the Hyperborean ages, put in stone by the priests of Ubbo-Satha since before the continents had split. The chances are very good that you will be dealing with them again.
Actually, that's a ridiculous thought - you will be dealing with them because you already have.
Plucking the device from the table you dismantle it in seconds, breaking two fingernails and ripping your left thumbnail to the quick. It hurts, of course it hurts, but it is a meaningless pain because it is not a threat to the life of this body. On the other hand, you would not enjoy stranding Dr. Rede in your previous body for the rest of its life, regardless of how well taken care of she would be.
Of course, with a cortical implant and the screening device, you could make a portable transmission device. It would also serve as a passable non-lethal weapon against anything with a nervous system - the chief exceptions being fully robotic people and the bodiless artificial intelligences called infomorphs. There would be others immune to such effects as well but not in the majority. Temporary paralysis is not a laughing matter when you have a physical body.
It would be equally easy to craft a lightning emitter, the most effective weapon that your kind have against all other races. Unlike other people, you would not be prone to the seemingly random arcs of the electrical bolts. You have a lot of brain and very few reasons not to use it.
Of course, if you wanted to be reactive instead of proactive, you could use the screening device to build a very simple and absolutely impenetrable force field. It would effectively immobilize itself for the most part; you might be able to move a few feet every minute or so. Without more parts it would have to be very simple; upgrading it would be easy enough, otherwise.
For now you secret the device pieces in safe if not necessarily comfortable places. You have done worse to your bodies by far on occasion.
The guard that steps in frowns, glancing at the table, and then gives you an odd look. He would, since most mature females do not typically suck their thumb. You pull it from your mouth and pull at half of the nail with your pointer finger. Blood immediately wells up at the injury. "Broke a nail," you explain unnecessarily. He actually turns pale and leaves, unconcerned about not finding the device he was presumably sent to fetch. Strange what warriors will find horrifying.
Sucking on your injured thumb, you wait once again.
Select Doctor Severance Rede's current appearance. Note that the creature inhabiting her is functionally asexual though the Doctor Rede has several relationships with other people on the base. All presented morphs are considered legal in the Lagrange Colonies and this base as they are built or grown and not naturally born. Certain morphs will have advantages and disadvantages in various locations in play.
Requests/modifications may be added with plus (+) options. Sexual modifications can certainly be requested but are unlikely to come into play outside of social prejudices/preferences of others.
A) Neotenic Bio-Morph
B) Neotenic Cybernetically Augmented Morph
C) Young Bio-Morph
D) Young Cybernetically Augmented Morph
E) Mature Bio-Morph
F) Mature Cybernetically Augmented Morph
G) Full Body Neotenic Synthetic
H) Full Body Young Synthetic
I) Full Body Mature Synthetic
J) Bioengineered Human 2.0
K) Neotenic Felidae Morph
L) Young Felidae Morph
M) Mature Felidae Morph
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone