Laren crept up beside him. Miko mustered enough courage to reach out a finger to touch the panel. A strange ping rang out in the murk.
Star’s eyes widened.
A substanceless figure coalesced from behind the glass. A disembodied voice spoke. “Greetings. I see you have discovered me...”
A chill ran through their bones. Old, ancient tones echoed in the air and Miko peered around wildly looking for their source. In the luminous glow, Usk’s features were cast in a macabre light.
Miko wondered if the figure’s speech broadcast in all required languages simultaneously, as Usk chittered back a response as soon as the words had been spoken. A universal language modulator? Some form of Unispeak? How could such be engineered?
The face was neither male nor female: elongated, expressionless, with hollow eyes and hairless hooded skull, emerging from before the organ pipes like a ghost from the ages past. The body: an androgynous, slim-hipped one, garbed in a thin colourless robe, yet tall with short forelimbs and long bare feet with four hairy toes of some giant, primitive ape.
“I hope my form is pleasing to you?”
Miko wondered how anything could be less so.
Star gurgled something incoherent.
“Come forward, guests. Enter, if you please...” A hand lifted, a claw-like one, puffy with bluish-white flesh, the disturbing face morphing into something of a ghastly smile.
“What—are you?” gasped Miko with a mixture of awe and dismay. He reached out a hand to touch the plasmic cloud, green and gold, that shimmered through the glass to settle before them. His fingers passed right through.
“Suffice it to say,” said the creature, “I could be a great brain floating in a vat somewhere on a nameless planet light years away—or maybe I could be a figment of your imagination. Call me ‘G’ or ‘Genetrix’, if you like. Some have called me ‘Master’, although the title is a tad pretentious.” A deep, otherworldly chuckle issued from the sound source, which Miko and the others had not yet located. The muffled sound seemed to come from all around, as if they were underwater.
Miko, Usk and Star retreated a step, suits swishing, uncertain how to respond.
A cylindrical object rose from a billowing cloud near the figure’s arm and its long-clawed hand reached out to touch a glowing panel appearing on its flat top.
A kaleidoscope blur of data and pictures suddenly revolved in the cloud mist. Miko saw locusts teeming in crowded laboratories, in tunnels and cages, snippets of unspeakably violent nature: locusts striking locusts, pincers snapping off limbs, warring figures of unknown races, fighting, tearing teeth. Creatures plunged headfirst into tanks filled with water. Locusts engaged in ghoulish intravenous feedings. The scenes switched in vivid detail to long-limbed beings performing fiendish experiments on unclassifiable lifeforms, primitive locusts and Zikri in sinks and tubs.
The thing that was the Genetrix lifted a grotesque hand and the images came less frequently, then faded from view.
The images had stirred Usk, for the luminous glow lit up his face in a fearsome rictus. Star’s face too went ghostly pale.
“I hope these phantom images will help you understand. Your unasked questions make my sense centres quiver.”
Laren gasped, “Why show us all this repulsiveness? Are you friend or foe?”
“Forgive my manners. You are—?”
“Laren,” he croaked. “And this is Star, Miko and Usk.”
“Excellent. I’m grateful you have discovered my hideaway. For a while, I was contemplating whether I would pull my own plug should I spend the rest of my days floating in limbo, rather than wait till my power cells burned out.”
Miko grunted. “You still haven’t told us precisely what you are.”
“The Genetrix as I have said. A robot, neural intelligence. In my aeons of darkness, I pondered the question, is it possible to create a universe where goodness prevails and the primitive and barbaric languishes?”
The AI indulged in a hollow laugh. A malformed claw-finger pointed to the warships from near space that appeared on the holo screen. The vaguely anthropomorphic figure formed something of a condescending smirk on its face. “What a jejune concept.”
Laren took a short breath. “I don’t—”
“Understand?” the AI gave a tolerant sigh. “A primordial hatching ground, this planet, a birth soup of life. When our scientists conducted our experiments millions of years ago, we had no idea all that would come of them. What they have become now, these Zikri and locusts, I cannot begin to guess. But those warships out there give me some indication.”
Miko’s brain reeled.
“Once we were known as the Cuyrne. But we evolved far beyond the corporeal limitations of those brain-based, fleshy creatures who experimented on far worlds.”
“What do you mean? You’re telling us nothing,” said Miko.
“In essence, I am long dead and you are witnessing only an artificial facsimile of the real me. For all intents and purposes, I am a true and convincing copy of what I once was. Sadly, I’m devoid of a soul. Only clever electronics sustain the illusion of my personality as a thinking, interactive being.” The image shimmered. “It’s intriguing technology.”
“Impossible,” sputtered Laren. “AI is not that advanced. Robots can fire lasers, repair machines, nothing more. Boxes of circuits, lifeless non-entities is all they are.”
“Perhaps in your age. But what of ages past?”
A croak caught in Laren’s throat. Miko blinked, a dim sense of dread stirring in the pit of his stomach.
“The locusts were close to the oldest creatures of this universe. Look,” The Genetrix motioned to the revolving display of locust-like birthlings teeming in some primeval swamps on a primordial planet. “After the basic pathogens, viruses and bacteria appeared as the
