Chapter Seventy-Three (Nakteti)

Nakteti held tight to Major Carnight's arm as the shuttle shuddered going through the storm clouds. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, attuned to every vibration of the frame, every change of pitch from the engines, the booming of atmosphere super-heated by the passage of gigawatts of electricity expanding then collapsing. She could smell the humans around her, none of them the slightest bit concerned as the shuttle vibrated in response to narrowly being missed by enough electricity to power a city superheating the air which cooled instantly and collapsed back into itself, causing a sonic clap that she knew could probably be heard for miles.

Worse yet was this was apparently allowed by the weather controlling mechanism around the planet.

She still remembered how beautiful the planet was from orbit, though.

The shuttle plunged through the clouds and into gray air that was filled with precipitation.

"Mommy! A rainbow!" an immature human female squealed out. "Mommy, look! Mommy!"

Without meaning to Nakteti turned and looked out the window to see what the child was squeaking about and stared.

A trick of TerraSol's energetic yellow star, the atmosphere, the drops of liquid H20 that had formed around microscopic dust or ice crystals, all combined to throw a rippling, pulsating arc of prismatic light through the gray sky.

She gasped, her eyes able to see additional colors than humans. She was mesmerized by the way it rippled, the amount of colors that shimmered, the way it seemed to sweep along with the shuttle.

The scientific part of her mind just told her it was atmospheric projection of prismatic light generated by near-white light through the drops of water, but that part was stilled in wonder at watching it.

Electricity flickered through the clouds, massive bolts, blue in color with white edges, streaming from different clouds to connect and then jump to the ground. She gasped, her fear forgotten by the sight. Even the sonic rumble that shook the shuttle didn't bother her as she watched the lightning flicker in the clouds.

Their magnetic field is so strong it creates opposing charges between the atmosphere and the ground, Nakteti remembered from her briefing.

A wild, savage planet.

The being she held onto, Major Carnight, was the product of this crazed ecosystem and maddened planet, yet every time she was distressed he would hold her, applying the correct pressure so that her distress would lessen. In many ways he reminded Nakteti of the planet she was heading toward the surface of. Dangerous, powerful enough to tear her apart with no effort but comforting and solid, easing her distress with the very bulk and power that could kill.

There was a ping on her implant, the updated one fresh enough that it still itched slightly, the skin around it still slightly pink. The shuttle was about to land. The new datalink implant wasn't the only thing. The inside of her thigh still itched where the humans had put a 'biocleanser' into her leg. It was attached to the main artery, able to filter out everything from prions to almost visible to the naked eye debris. Designed to break down anything foreign into base proteins to allow her organs to just process the remains.

A simple device, that she'd watched the complex 3D printer creation engine in the medical bay print out. That her own medical officer had stared at the template and how it worked, clenching and unclenching her hands in fury.

"It's so simple. The math, the tech, is right there and obvious to anyone! Imagine how many lives this simple blood cleanser implant would save every year!" she had cursed. "I could have built this, anyone could have built this, if we'd just been allowed to think of it."

There was a sudden deceleration that made both of her stomachs drop to her toes and pulled her from the memory.

The immature female human went "WHEEE!" and threw her hands in the air.

Nakteti managed to not throw up, even though she turned and grabbed Major Carnight's arm with all four hands.

The shuttle landed with a bump, it settled deeply then lifted slightly, making both of her stomachs bobble in her abdomen. She held onto Major Carnight as the other humans got to their feet and slowly left the shuttle.

"Teddy!" a small immature human female, still small enough the mother held it close to her body, blurted out, reaching for Nakteti. The little hands, still strong looking, opened and closed. When the mother kept moving the small human started crying as if her heart would break.

"She thought you were a stuffy," Major Carnight said. "I hope that didn't offend you."

That made Nakteti giggle, covering her mouth with one of her catching hands. "No. No, it doesn't."

More humans walked past, some glancing, some staring at something provided by their implant that only they could see, others obviously focused on a task they needed to complete. Nakteti just watched them all leave, until finally they were the only ones left.

"Are you ready? Despite personal space, it's going to be crowded," Major Carnight told her.

Nakteti nodded. She held onto the Major's thick arm as they left the shuttle, walking down the connecting tube, and into the concourse.

Staring around her, Nakteti grasped. While her own species was used to crowding, bumping and touching each other, what she saw amazed her. Humans moving together, in streams, pooling near eateries, where luggage came out on anti-grav conveyors, or just, to Nakteti's eyes, random spots in the massive concourse.

She held tight to him as they went down two sets of moving stairs, got a lift-cart, and moved to the luggage conveyor. As they stood there an elderly human woman, the hair on her head gray, her face lined and wrinkled, looked up at Major Carnight.

"Do you have family with the Sleeping Ones, Major?" the old woman asked.

"Yes, ma'am, but that's not why I'm here," Major Carnight answered.

"Oh, is it to show your guest around?" the woman nodded at Nakteti.

"Yes, ma'am, it is," Carnight answered.

The old woman reached forward, grabbing a trundle, its own levitation systems kicking in as soon as it left the conveyor. She looked at Major Carnight and nodded.

"Carry on, Major, and Fight the 13th," she said.

Major Carnight jerked slightly, looking at the old woman as she began to move away. "Old Blood, ma'am."

Nakteti looked up at the surprised expression on the Major's face. "What?"

"It's easy to forget that people who have chosen to age have lived a long life," he said, shaking his head. "Just, preconceptions from being effectively immortal."

Nakteti clenched her jaw at that. The humans had apparently fought and, for the most part, defeated death. The SUDS at the base of their skull kept a constant recording of their mental engrams, thought patterns, even a molecular map of their neural tissue. It was even backed up through quantum entangling with "Master SUDS Arrays" all over human space. Even if their body was completely destroyed, their mastery of cloning technology let them grow a new body identical to the old one or to specification. Apparently humans were capable of living centuries before they started suffering mental engrams, and with software, firmware, and wetware advanced, the lifespan was being pushed forward all the time.

Apparently, before that, they had managed to achieve immortality through removing the brain and keeping it under constant repair through nanite infused nutrigel with cybernetic implants to fool the brain into thinking there was a body there. Those were, as far as Major Carnight told her, mostly gone. Slowly succumbing to inevitable decay.

She felt a surge of jealousy.

The humans had evolved after a life extinction event, the fourth or fifth their planet had suffered, clawed their way to supremacy on a resource poor world, and had achieved what was basically immortality without anyone's help. Had beaten the resource problem, becoming a society where time and imagination and personal effort was worth more than any mere chunk of elemental ore or isotopes.

She squeezed Major Carnight's arm tighter, closing her eyes and doing her best to push away her jealousy.

If my people hadn't been found by the Lanaktallans, by the Overseers, what would we have accomplished? What greatness could have we discovered? she thought to herself. Their 'help' was little more than slave chains to keep us bound to their machines.

Finally their luggage showed up. Well, the small tote she was carrying. The Major didn't seem to need one but had suggested that Nakteti carry any mementos she felt like carrying.

Nakteti had chosen to take a blanket, a comfort gripper, and a couple changes of clothing. They all fit in a small tote, which the big human picked up.

They stopped by a few shops on the way, so Nakteti could purchase a few gifts and mementos of coming here.

It was in one shop she stopped, looking at a transparent brick of some kind of material, with the image of a human slightly curled, inside. It marked "Sleeping One" on the shelf. She looked up at Major Carnight, who was waiting for her to finish shopping.

"What is this?" She asked.

Major Carnight looked at the block and sighed.

"Its for you to buy to remember family members. From a long time ago," The Major said. Nakteti could hear the slight pain in his voice.

"Do you have one?" she asked.

He nodded slowly. "A maternal line relative. A many times great grand-mother," he said. He looked away, at the side of the store. Nakteti noticed the muscles on his jaw were clenched and dropped the line of inquiry.

They walked out of the concourse, out to a covered walk. There was a gray limousine waiting for them with two armed guards in military uniforms standing beside the vehicle. There was a heavy blocky vehicle in front of the limousine, two more behind it, all three had a mounted gun on them with an armored soldier standing out of the vehicle with one hand on the weapon.

She was startled the sheer obviousness of the military vehicles, of the display of a willingness to use armed force. Yes, the Overseers kept vehicles around that were often armed, in order to suppress riots and other disturbances, but the weapons were usually hidden unless there was an immediate need for them.

"This way, ma'am," one of the two uniformed men said, the other opening the door. She started to step forward when Major Carnight put his hand on her grasping hand that she held tight to his arm with.

"Did you check your implant?" Carnight asked.

"Oh," she looked at them and touched the muscle she'd learned to use. Both of the men suddenly had boxes around their faces, then blocks around their bodies, arms, legs, hands, feet. Another box appeared, showing what was obviously an official picture, then the names and ranks of the two men with VERIFIED under the box. The vehicle was boxed, then another image of it, and VERIFIED below the box.

"You are important. Always check your implant before getting in a vehicle with strangers," Major Carnight said.

Nakteti felt her ears flatten in embarrassment. "I forgot."

The limousine was warm and comfortable when she got in, turned to a temperature and humidity that reminded her of her home planet. Both of the military personnel got in the vehicle, the last one shutting the door, and sat opposite of her, staring above her head with neutral expressions on their face.

"If there's any problem, let me know and I'll adjust the controls," Major Carnight said. "I'll teach you later how to do it your implant."

"Thank you," Nakteti said, leaning over and resting her head against the big human's side, holding onto his arm with all four hands. He was warm and solid and comforting.

The ride was silent, the rain hissing on the car, which moved with just barely a suggestion of motion. Eventually it stopped and Nakteti regretfully let go of who she was beginning to think of as 'her human.'

Outside of the car, in the underground parking lot there were two massive bipedal constructs made of the black metal, that looked as if it should be glossy just from the way it drank in the light, something called "warsteel" that was apparently the main form of human armor.

"We have to take the heavy lift, but it should be all right," Major Carnight told her. "It's still decently done, it's not like we're moving you up a freight elevator."

Nakteti nodded, holding tight to her gripping stick with her grasping hands. One catching hand had her small bag with "I

They escorted her to a heavy elevator and then out into a waiting room that had three smaller elevator access doors as well as entrance to the big elevator.

"If there's a fire, terrorist strike, earthquake, or military attack, that box right there holds grav-belts. You just jump out the window and it'll lower you to the ground safely," Major Carnight said, pointing to a big red box that had "EMERGENCY" written on it. "It'll be a fast descent, but it'll slow you quickly thanks to the Icarus Landing System. All you have to do is buckle and jump, it'll detect the rapid drop. It'll also bring up a protective field."

"Thank you," Nakteti said, nodding. She felt a rush of relief.

The doors opened at she stared. The room was a palace. Sweeping, curved architecture, an upright keyboard musical instrument, couches, climbing bars, some kind of exercise equipment. She could see there were clear sliding doors leading out to a rain swept patio with a pool that seemed to extend off the end of the building and into nothingness.

Nakteti stared around her as Major Carnight walked her in. He pointed out the kitchen, how there was refrigerated food as well as a food dispenser. How there were three different toilet areas, a room where you could sit in steam or heat, two more lounging rooms, three bedrooms, a small library, two rooms entirely devoted to "enhanced" VR. The whole thing seemed like a palace.

"This is too much. I know I am to speak to the Terran press, so the people might know of my people and our trials and the Precursors, but surely this is the room of someone important," Nakteti said, staring at the pool.

"Captain Nakteti, it's a hotel room. An expensive, five gold star rated hotel, hotel ambassador suite, but it's hardly outlandish," Major Carnight said, standing next to her so she could still hold onto him. "Besides, you are an important person to us. Do you think we would have you sheltering in poverty, in some rude hut of sticks and mud? If you would like, there's a Primitivism Enclave nearby."

She looked up at him, staring into those intent human eyes. "Anyone could lease this room?" she asked incredulously.

Major Carnight nodded. "Yes, if they had the credits. If you just made minor template color changes that sold to a handful of interested parties in an old eVR you could make the money to rent this in a few weeks. If you had a couple thousand people download your template, you could make the money to stay in this room in a single day."

Nakteti shook her head. "It is so lavish, takes up so much space," she pointed at the bars. "This was done for me, so I can climb and work off stress. This must have been expensive."

He shrugged. "It's just steel and probably a half-hour of work in a template CAD program. Someone was paid for the time and effort, but beyond that," he shrugged again. "It's just steel and plastic. Easy enough for the 3D printers to run off."

She had heard humans refer to their culture as 'post scarcity' and had wondered exactly what it meant. Resources were scarce throughout the universe, that had been mathematically proven aeons ago. She had learned the formula in school. There were only so many planets in the Green Zone and Amber Zone, meaning even living space was limited, eventually to be completely filled.

The humans obviously didn't believe that, and lived as if the only thing of value was thought, effort, time, and labor.

Her mind wheeled as she realized her entire existence she had been lied to. Forced to live packed together in massive complexes, only allowed a small allotment of time each week to visit carefully curated nature preserves, forced to eat nutri-gruel.

Major Carnight felt her start to tremble before his implant alerted him that Captain Nakteti's distress levels were rising into amber. He knelt down, gathered her in his arms, and squeezed her gently. She trembled in distress for nearly five minutes. Finally, her hyperventilating slowed, the trembling eased, the tears stopped.

"How many humans are there?" She asked softly as he stood up. She held her gripping stick in three hands, his wrist with another one.

"Over a trillion, without counting the artificial sapients, the clone worlds, and a few other special cases," he shrugged. "The galaxy's a big place, we're spread around a lot. There's plenty of room for everyone."

"Our people are told that is not true. That planets must be carefully shepherded to prevent future generations from suffering," Nakteti said. "Any planet with life on it must be shepherded."

He nodded. "True. But there's still plenty of room. The Mantid and Treana'ad, they like warm dry dusty worlds, the Mantid like high oxygen, the Treana'ad like nitrogen. The Rigellians, they like cool silicate sand worlds, preferably with a red sun. We all like different planets. Sure, humans can terraform or even live on the planet unaltered, but we try to get along with our brothers."

He chuckled, pointing out to the world beyond. "If it comes to terraforming, we can do it. This whole place was glassed and we fixed that."

That made her mind whirl again. Her colony, her beautiful colony, had been glassed by a precursor machine.

"You could fix my colony?" She asked softly.

He nodded. "It takes a couple hundred years, but we can restore just about everything with a handful of Elven Queens."

Lightning flickered in the clouds and she realized that it wasn't something that the humans couldn't stop, that they'd repaired their planet and chosen to have lightning remain.

She moved over and sat on the couch, holding her gripping stick.

"Would you like to watch the vid?" Major Carnight asked.

She nodded and he picked up a remote, powered it on, and tossed it to her. A perfect throw she caught easily.

"Go ahead, channel cruise. I'll check in, see what's on the agenda," Major Carnight said. He looked at the two big black bipeds. "You guys keep an eye on Captain Nakteti. Ping me if she starts showing distress."

"Affirmative," the both said. She glanced over and saw their eyes were bright cobalt blue.

She channels were a dizzying blur. She had grown up with three channels. The channel where Overseers lectured on rules, laws, and the reasons behind them, a news channel, and a children's education channel.

Here there were entertainment channels, some of them for Mantid and Treana'ad. She stopped to watch one, which was apparently some comedy revolving around six Treana'ad acquaintances and the troubles in their lives. Set in someplace called "New York City", often with things that brought laughter from invisible people. She didn't understand much of it, it looked silly to her. She switched channels and saw a historical document about the exploration of a "Dark Matter Sea" that had taken nearly a thousand years of research. How even though dark matter was invisible, the Terrans had discovered that somehow large patches of dark matter had entire solar systems hidden inside. The education she had possessed had taught her that dark matter was essentially useless, just protomatter left over from the formation of the universe. That channel hurt her head since her implant kept offering, helpfully, to show her the math they were discussing as if she was a child in school.

Although the idea of creating a huge synthetic body shaped like a cephalopod and transferring one's mind in it seemed a bit, well, insane to Nakteti.

Another channel had a show involving poorly drawn animated characters running around getting into trouble. There was a lot of silly physical comedy.

For some reason it made her laugh.

After a while, Major Carnight came back and let her hold his arm and leg. He was mostly silent, just answering a few questions about shows. She ate dinner, watching the Tri-Vid, marvelling over it. She found out that humans enjoyed being frightened and watched intensely violent and gory movies called "slasher flicks" as well as frightening movies about supernatural beings called "horror movies". The "Action movies" were almost as frightening to her as the slasher flicks.

Moreso when she found out that one wasn't a fictional show but was a documentary.

Eventually she chose a bedroom and went to bed. Sleep came quickly, exhaustion at her day catching up with her.

She got up in the middle of the night. It was dark and when her implant asked if she wanted to wake Major Carnight she told it to let him sleep. She used the toilet then went back to the Tri-Vid, keeping the volume low.

The two giant bipeds, bigger than even Carnight, watched her with softly glowing blue eyes, as she flipped through the dizzying array of channels.

She saw an advertisement and queried her implant.

What she saw made her start to shake, hugging herself in horror.

The Mantid had attacked Earth. Billions had died.

But they had been connected, through datalinks.

They had cried out, screamed as they died, reaching out to one another. Some called out in terror, some in pain, some crying out for vengeance, but they had reached out to one another. It had shattered their SoulNet, where the primitive SUDS had gone to. They had reached out across SolNet, the eVR construct that connected them all so their entire world was augmented reality.

3.2 billion had died.

And the other 2 billion on earth and on their moon Luna had felt it.

It had sent nearly a billion of them into shock, made them catatonic. Still alive, still screaming, still engulfed in horror.

But the humans could not bring themselves to terminating their lives. Could not bring themselves to let them die nor could they wake them. Instead the humans had put them in some kind of dreamless stasis where they would not age. A technology from their original slowship colony vessels. A billion humans, locked in dreamless stasis.

They were the Sleeping Ones.

Major Carnight woke up to his implant ringing an alarm. He jumped up, rushed out to where Nakteti was curled up, shuddering, behind a potted plant, holding herself tightly and crying.

He held her tightly until she calmed down only a few moments before he would have called in the medics