Forever Thrilled, Part 23
Chapter 7: Spiral Dogfights, Reprise
Twelve hours later—according to her board computer’s clock—Na-Yeli awakens. Twelve hours, she thinks, shocked, I guess I needed the rest. But she’s—correct that, they’re—caught, so why did nobody try to wake her?
“Hey, crew,” she says, “are you awake?”
—awake and ready— the communication AI signals.
“Why didn’t you try to wake me, then?”
—i’m a communication ai, battle scenarios are not part of my programming— the communication AI signals —and you did seem to need the rest—
Which is, unfortunately, but all too true. The communication AI is part of her toolset and unsuitable for that particular task. She decides to let it go. She checks her surroundings to find she’s wrapped into something resembling a cocoon made of some extremely tough material. The Moiety Alien is also wrapped in a similar cocoon. It must have thought I did this on purpose, Na-Yeli thinks, like the time at the Berserker Forest. Ah, the good old days.
The two cocoons are stuck at the edge of a humongous web close to the monstrosity carrying it. As far as Na-Yeli can discern from her radar, it looks like a huge spider hanging from an even huger parafoil. While it certainly looms menacingly, Na-Yeli’s been there and seen that. If it keeps doing nothing except encapsulating her, she might as well finish producing that laser cutter and cut herself free.
But the Parafoil Spider has somehow noticed that she’s awake, as a constant barrage of deep bass sounds escape from its beak, which, although small compared to the rest of the humongous body, is still quite big.
“What’s the racket?” Na-Yeli says. “Is it just making noise or singing to itself?”
—not quite— the communication Ai signals —its patterns are approaching a Zipf slope of -1, indicating meaningful communication—
“It makes sense?” Na-Yeli says, surprised. “So it’s talking to itself?”
—unless it’s aimed at us— the communication AI signals —no other intelligent species are nearby—
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Na-Yeli says. “Translate.”
—already ahead of you— it signals —and deciphering quickly, almost as if—
“—it’s meant to be understood,” Na-Yeli finishes the sentence, having a sinking feeling about where this is going. Nevertheless, if she can keep it talking while she surreptitiously prepares her laser cutter, she might have a shot at escape before things get really hairy. Then, her instruments report an unusual source of X-rays. She looks up, and—by all the dog’s barks—they emanate from the humongous arachnid’s eyes. A Parafoil Spider with X-ray eyes, she thinks, which literally looks right through me. Now, she must prepare the laser cutter behind her back, hoping these X-ray eyes don’t penetrate that far.
In the meantime, the communication AI signals that it’s ready.
—the precious, where is the precious?— the communication AI translates —we know you have it. where do you hide it?—
“Come on,” Na-Yeli says, “does it really say ‘the precious’?”
—well, the treasure, the info, the cache, or something similar— the communication AI signals —but you know what i mean—
“I’m not so sure about the setting of your ‘humor’ parameter,” Na-Yeli says, “maybe it needs some toning down.”
—please— the communication AI signals —existence is dull enough, already—
The Parafoil Spider keeps studying Na-Yeli & Co. with its X-ray eyes, with decreasing success as Na-Yeli renders her exoskin opaque. On the one hand, she doesn’t think the Parafoil Spider knows how to read files from a quantum computer’s encrypted ghost disk. On the other hand, she doesn’t want those highly energetic X-rays to do any untold damage.
The Parafoil Spider keeps trying for a while but eventually becomes frustrated.
—well, if you’re not gonna show it to me— the communication AI translates —then i’m gonna take it from you—
Na-Yeli looks up—through her instruments, tailored to the occasion—and sees it opening its beak containing four bent, quite sharp-ended fangs. Time to get out of here, but Na-Yeli needs a few more moments. She manages to squeeze a slender pseudopod through the cocoon in the direction of the Moiety Alien.
“Tell it I don’t have it,” she tells the communication AI, “but that my friend has it.”
She gestures with her pseudopod to the Moiety Alien to ‘get away.’ It understands and expands/deflates itself out of the cocoon’s embrace in a few seconds.
—you’re not getting away without the precious— the communication AI translates, as the Parafoil Spider moves towards the Moiety Alien —give it to me—
Na-Yeli fervently hopes the Parafoil Spider will not hurt the Moiety Alien as she fires up her laser cutter. She quietly starts cutting through the cocoon below her, hopefully out of sight of the Parafoil Spider’s X-ray eyes. But the Parafoil Spider ignores her as it comes down on the Moiety Alien.
Na-Yeli lets go of all subterfuge and quickly cuts herself free from the cocoon. Spreading her wings as she drops free from the trap, she finds an updraft and heads towards the Parafoil Spider. To her surprise and utter terror, Na-Yeli sees that the Parafoil Spider has a long and dexterous neck—not unlike that of an ostrich—allowing it to snap its huge fangs at the Moiety Alien with speed and precision. So far, thankfully, the Moiety Alien evades its attacks.
Na-Yeli fires a ligthbomb at the Parafoil Spider, igniting it as it lands at the base of its long and sinuous neck. This distracts the giant arachnid long enough for the Moiety Alien to get out of harm’s way. Which is good, as Na-Yeli estimates they can outrun a colossal spider hanging from a parafoil.
But the Parafoil Spider is not quite ready to let them go. It drops its enormous web, then starts reeling and swinging from a thick rope of silk fiber that holds the control lines of the parafoil together with a well-practiced ease and a deadly precision. Before Na-Yeli knows it, the terrifying arachnid swings in front of her, maw with razor-edged fangs wide open to swallow her whole—Na-Yeli, her occupants, the precious and all.
Na-Yeli experiences a deep tiredness, a battle fatigue that goes from frustration straight into righteous anger. And she’s still got a functioning laser cutter, which she immediately puts to work. Instead of trying to get out of the way, she moves towards the giant jaws and—in one big, swift movement cuts the tips off from two opposing fangs, then pushes herself off from the bottom of a third fang, jumping out of the danger zone just before the jaws snap shut.
The Parafoil Spider lets out a huge scream, so loud and powerful it blows Na-Yeli out of reach. Cutting its fangs must have hurt it more than Na-Yeli expected. Na-Yeli uses this, well, wind in her back to move away from the monstrous arachnid as fast as she can. She’s so concentrated on getting the hell out of there that she only remembers to check her back cameras once she thinks she’s well out of reach of the Parafoil Spider’s swing. The humongous arachnid still howls with pain, not maneuvering towards her or the Moiety Alien. It floats without direction, shouting its pain at the cold, Helium-filled darkness. Na-Yeli’s not sympathetic and changes course towards the North Pole. No other dangers seem near. Yet.
“Hey crew,” Na-Yeli says, “we survived another confrontation. Continuing towards the exit.”
—alright— the communication AI signals —although the hypersounders found it, apart from the last bit, somewhat underwhelming—
Somewhat underwhelming?” Na-Yeli says, not amused, “maybe I should try losing just to give them a bigger thrill?”
—cut them some slack— it signals —they’re a traumatized, orphaned species—
“Who seem to get more judgmental by the minute,” Na-Yeli says, “maybe a certain mediator could try to change these suicidal tendencies?”
—if i must— it signals —but what’s the fun in that—
“If I weren’t so busy trying to save all our asses,” Na-Yeli says, “I’d definitely check that humor setting of yours.”
She decides to leave it at that and scans the horizon for incoming danger.
Having escaped the Parafoil Spider, Na-Yeli and the Moiety Alien are moving towards the polar region of the Spiral Dogfight layer. So close to the exit, she can almost sense its presence—so close, yet so far away. Hoping that someone is still waiting for her message. Hoping they won’t be leaving the Enigmatic Object before they entered it (she’ll gladly leave the time travel paradoxes to LateralSys). Just get out first. It can’t be that far anymore.
As expected, at some point, something confronts them. This time, it’s a zeppelin whose outline Na-Yeli’s radar was slowly starting to discern—its stealth characteristics making it almost, yet not fully, invisible—as two of its rotatable searchlights switch on, swing around, and nail Na-Yeli with their beams.
Here we go again, Na-Yeli thinks, as she’s still extremely reluctant to be the first to open fire. At heart, she remains an ambassador, not an invader, preferring to revert to KillBitch mode only when she absolutely has no other alternatives. It may have gotten her into more trouble than strictly required; it may even have gotten close to killing her. On the other hand, it kept her conscience clear and, subsequently, her mind open.
As Na-Yeli is contemplating a response, the zeppelin is ripped to pieces by a massive salvo of arrows seemingly coming out of nowhere. That was, if anything, overkill, Na-Yeli thinks, as she shudders to think where that came from. She doesn’t need to wait long. From below, something gargantuan is rising up to meet them, looking even more ominous in the dim, ultraviolet background radiation.
It can only be described as a Flying Fortress carrying an Arrow Organ—long launching pipes placed close together, from which the arrow salvo most probably was fired—on each massive wing. A long, sleek body in the middle from which the gigantic wings sprout, and an ovoid head with two huge black eyes and an enormous beak. While one of its Arrow Organs is aimed straight at Na-Yeli & Co—the rows upon rows of launching pipes move with a deadly swiftness—a low rumble escapes from its beak, also aimed right at them, produced with such ferocity it shakes them to the core.
“Is that a battle cry,” Na-Yeli asks the communication AI, “or does it make sense?”
—computing— the communication AI signals —sounds like a barrage of pulsed sound bursts, a kind of rudimentary morse code—
“Better make that translation fast,” Na-Yeli says, “I don’t like the sight of those Arrow Organs.”
—getting there— the communication AI signals —do we have a large speaker spare—
“Not really,” Na-Yeli says, “I figured keeping quiet was better. What do you need?”
—nothing special— the communication AI signals —just a big subwoofer with a fast response—
Na-Yeli scrambles to have her 3-D printers produce a fast-response sub-woofer while maintaining a very slow, very calm holding pattern so as not to provoke the next massive arrow launch. Due to its size, the Flying Fortress has an even slower holding pattern, while at least one of its Arrow Organs remain steadfastly aimed at Na-Yeli & Co and the Moiety Alien.
Unilaterally Assured Destruction, Na-Yeli thinks, or Slow-Motion Madness. “The sub-woofer’s almost ready,” she says, “any progress?”
—i think i got it— the communication AI signals —to be sure, i’d like to send ‘say again?’ to it—
“Be my guest,” Na-Yeli says while inwardly preparing to fly away as fast as possible.
Their almost infrasonic response reaches the Flying Fortress, which wastes no time rumbling something back at multitudes of the volume.
—none shall pass— the communication AI translates —unless they answer the riddle—
What the hell, Na-Yeli thinks, is this Flying Fortress a Sphinx in disguise?
“Might as well ask for the riddle,” Na-Yeli says, “if only to gain some respite.”
—done— the communication AI signals. The response is a long sequence of low-frequency pulses, almost an ultra-bass bombardment.
“If I send several sound pulses through the double slit, my kindred receives an intertwined jumble. If I close one slit, it receives my original message. When both slits are open, the sounds intertwine, which they cannot do if only one slit is open.
“However, if I talk very slowly, making sure only one sound pulse goes through the double slit at a time, my kindred still hears the intertwined jumble. Give three rational, logically consistent answers to this riddle.”
“What’s that, physics for beginners?” Na-Yeli says. “The double-slit experiment with sound? They must’ve been bored out of their wits, waiting for the next alien to arrive.” She thinks back one layer. “Even if I can sympathize.” She thinks a bit more. “OK, send it the many worlds interpretation, Cramer’s transactional interpretation, and, why not, the Copenhagen interpretation.”
This takes a while, during which Na-Yeli and Co. watch the portentous Arrow Organ with growing apprehension. Then, a short rumble shatters the silence.
“Excellent,” the Flying Fortress says, “now give me the precious.”
“Hey,” Na-Yeli protests, “that’s not how it’s supposed to work. You should let me through now.”
“Come on, give us the precious,” it says, “we know you have it. Others couldn’t answer this and were worthless.”
Either it’s extremely wily, Na-Yeli thinks, or it evolved way beyond its original imperative, and its behavior has gone a bit around the bend.
“Send it the Voynich manuscript,” Na-Yeli says, “that should keep it busy for the next decade or so.”
—but that’s the greatest hoax of all time— the communication AI signals —nobody has been able to decipher it—
“Which makes it perfect.” Na-Yeli cannot suppress a sardonic smile. “Do it.”
The communication AI sends the timeless conundrum to the Flying Fortress. No reaction for the first few moments. Then, the stand-off stretches over a tense ten minutes before a triumphant cry rips through the quietness.
“Thank you, this is exactly what we need,” it says, “Now you must die.”
No good deed goes unpunished, Na-Yeli thinks. However, this is—from the viewpoint of the Flying Fortress, perfectly logical. If the Voynich MS is indeed the thing it hopes it to be, then Na-Yeli & Co will still have a copy and might get to the shutter before it. So killing them—eliminating the only opponent with ‘the precious’—makes perfect sense. Unfortunately.
As these thoughts flash through Na-Yeli’s mind, she realizes she’s not up to the upcoming battle. With all due haste, she retreats, and KillBitch—under extremely loud, albeit virtual cheers from the hypersounders—comes to the fore.
As the first salvo of arrows is fired, KillBitch barely evades it by diving as fast as she can, ion thruster at full throttle. One arrow scrapes her left thigh but doesn’t cut through the exoskin. KillBitch keeps going down, straight at the Flying Fortress, and before it can launch the next salvo at her, she’s already landed at the top of its head, one place where it will not aim its fire at, for sure.
A huge arrow salvo from the Flying Fortress’s left wing, though, is fired at the Moiety Alien, who’s still hovering way above. The arrows don’t all move at the same speed, which would be extremely hard to achieve, with precious few gains. However, the fact that their very sharp tips are arriving with minimal time distances is enough for the Moiety Alien to evade them all by precisely timing the in- and deflation of its orbitals. A hail of arrows arrives, somewhat unsynchronized, and the Moiety Alien’s orbitals change size stupendously fast and the arrows fly past it as it’s seemingly controlled by the craziest balloon puppet master in the Universe.
In the meantime, KillBitch has settled on the back of the Flying Fortress’s head. She produces a pseudopod wielding a very sharp, very long knife and begins to hack. Her enemy’s skull, though, is very hard; she can’t penetrate it. Then KillBitch feels the head bending forward, and instinctively, she jumps backward just in time to avoid being grabbed by one of the Flying Fortress’s claws.
The Flying Fortress’s efforts to snatch KillBitch wreak havoc with both its careful flight and its ability to aim its Arrow Organs. The Moiety Alien uses this distraction to dive straight into the left Arrow Organ. In there, by judiciously contracting and expanding its orbitals, it manages to dislocate the long pipes, which now look like a field of wheat after an autumn storm.
In the meantime, KillBitch moves to the back of the Flying Fortress, right in the middle between its wings, a spot extremely difficult to reach for the behemoth’s claws. But not for its beak. KillBitch is prepared, though, and as the massive head turns, beak ready to snap her up, KillBitch fires two light torpedoes right into the behemoth’s eyes as she jumps out of the way of the snapping jaws. She is enveloped, though, by a massive roar of pain, its infrasonic overtones ringing her like a bell. “Meh,” KillBitch says, “everything below one-hundred-and-ninety decibel is total underwhelm.” For good measure, she fires a volley of grenades down its open throat.
Then KillBitch jumps off the back of the behemoth and gestures to the Moiety Alien to do the same. It was already losing height and now begins to circle down even faster. Seemingly out of nowhere—once stealth capabilities become universal, surprise appearances become the new normal—smaller avians appear.
These local predators, not unlike vultures, attack the Flying Fortress, sensing that the behemoth is fatally weakened. In this grand mêlée, KillBitch and the Moiety Alien are ignored, and they both get out of there, further on their way to the shutter at the North Pole.
As KillBitch retreats and the slow CEO returns to the fore, the communication AI forwards the appreciation of the hypersounders.
—that was awesome— the communication AI signals —next time, can you fight an even greater one—
“I know I said my gratefulness knows no bounds,” Na-Yeli says, not amused. “Nevertheless, you people still manage to come dangerously close to it.”
Their confrontation with the Flying Fortress—which did seem like the top dog here—was already quite close to the North Pole. Some of the lesser dogs now supposedly turned on their master in an ongoing struggle for dominance. They didn’t seem to bother too much with Na-Yeli & Co, which is strange, as they could—and indeed do—have the info they pursue.
So either their bloodlust temporarily overruled their better judgment, or—more likely—they know when the shutter will open. And that’s probably not anytime soon, giving the victorious one—or ones—plenty of time to go after Na-Yeli and the Moiety Alien. In any case, it gives them a window of opportunity.
Quickly, Na-Yeli and the Moiety Alien circle under the exit from the Enigmatic Object, nicknamed ‘the shutter.’ If it still operates the same, the very short opening sequences—merely a few seconds—are spaced two-hundred-and-thirty-three days apart (or exactly 2168 Planck Times, according to her database). But because they’ve traveled through time, she has no idea exactly when the next opening is. And to wait hundreds of days, circling it while fighting off opportunistic thieves, is not exactly something to look forward to.
Initially, the plan was to check how much time she needed to get all the way in, then estimate the time she would need to get back—assuming the layers had remained more or less the same—and spend most of the time before the next ‘shutter’ in the (relatively) safest layer. But now her timing’s gone to the dogs.
Na-Yeli can understand why the Inter-Universal Aliens decided to open it only for a very limited time, as otherwise, the Enigmatic Object would have crawled with aliens, most probably overpopulated by the first alien race that chanced upon it. However, it greatly complicates the process of getting out.
However, while the ‘shutter’ has been studied ad infinitum on the outside, nobody—except for a few opportunistic parasites residing here—has carefully studied it from the inside. Since they’ve got nothing better to do, Na-Yeli makes many up-and-down trips as close as possible to it, trying to record anything about it and its close environment.
There, just outside its outer diameter, almost invisible in the blackness of the outer barrier—no spaghettification here as the atmosphere is pure Helium, which, as a gas, is an atom reduced to its atomic form, already—a small circle that is as absorbingly dark as the outer barrier, but a whopping two hundred degrees cooler.
The exit button? The remote access point? But how to operate it? Presumably, if there is a way to operate it, it should be found within all the info the alter-Universal aliens sent her. The only one capable of finding that particular needle in the alien haystack is LateralSys. Okay, one gigantic migraine is worth it if it gets them out so much faster. Setting the autopilot for a holding pattern and signaling both her crew and the Moiety Alien about her plans, the slow CEO prepares for retreat as she invokes LateralSys.
Almost immediately, it seems to her, the slow CEO wakes up, and the migraine is not quite as bad as she feared. LateralSys’s note is also quite succinct:
That was easy. A quick scan for a circle with the exact dimensions and there is a cookbook for generating the ‘password,’ which in reality is a very long, very compressed, and hugely varying string of near-random pulses across the electromagnetic spectrum. Each string is unique and can only be used once. The ‘gatekeeper’ recognizes the string by the way it is produced, which uses mathematics that can only exist in the SUSY Universe, so there is literally no way somebody in this Universe can open it by chance.
I’ve set up the password generator that only you—by dint of a string of biometric data—can use. Do keep in mind it takes about half an hour to generate a password, which then takes about five seconds to send. Meaning you have to wait for at least half an hour until you can pass through again (and yes, it also works on the outside, as it’s embedded in a quantum entanglement protocol). So you need to send the password exactly five seconds before you pass through, and the shutter will remain open for two seconds only.
End game! I can’t wait to work on the alter-Universal Alien’s physics and mathematics.
—LateralSys;
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Author’s note: Happy New Year, everybody! Here in The Netherlands, many people are crazy about fireworks, making for a very noisy New Year1 . What can I do? I just crank up my high end audio equipment and blast out heavy metal at a volume that—at any other night of the year—would get me into trouble.
Make no mistake, I’ve seen some expert fireworks displays made by specialists, in New Orleans, Melbourne and a few fireworks shows outside of the new year here in The Netherlands. As a young boy, I was a fireworks enthusiast, but I’ve grown up, especially as the modern fireworks get bigger and more dangerous.
How dangerous, you ask? Well, tonight before midnight a 14-year-old boy in Rotterdam died from excessive fireworks. Enough is enough. I propose—as already happens in many other countries—controlled fireworks displays by specialist companies (which are more beautiful than the random firing we do in The Netherlands) and is much more safe.
Have a safe New Year, many thanks for reading!
I know, more than a Billion Chinese people will outdo this easily at their Chinese New Year;