Crystal Helix Part II: Fatal Flaw (critique please)

II. Fatal Flaw

       Nyarly woke in his quarters sore and depleted although the chronometer showed that the second watch was about to be relieved.  He had overslept his usual hours by a third.  In an alcove shielded by a screen, the helix stood bathed in brilliant focused light.  It did not give off sparks; rather the sparks seemed to travel into the helix to be captured in the black sapphire.

      He hoped she felt, if a rock could be female and could have the feelings of a sauroid, as racked as he did.  The Brotherhood could make a fortune in holosex entertainment using the crystals, a palpable reality far beyond virtual.  Any programming that detailed would answer for any kind of experience or training, from making omelets from roc's eggs to bringing moonbeams home in a jar. 

      The ancient laws required not only recreation with aliens, but procreation; however, holography would not substitute.  He would wait a day or two to inform her, though, if he survived.  He stretched and found the source of the pain in his left hip--a small, grey rock lay in his bedcoverings.  It had bruised him where he lay on it in the night.  It was as large across as his small claw, roughly spherical, with no discernible crystalline structure.  Perhaps organics could not, as she said, focus the energy.  Or was it an egg?

      "Truly, O Captain," came the voice from the helix, "an egg that needs much brooding."

      "You are telepathic, too?"

      "Among ourselves, always, of course.  With water-species, only after intimacy.  It is a side effect of the substantiation of the hologram.  We must decipher your neural paths to deliver the experience you desire."

      "You do this all the time?"  He wanted the crystals for himself, but he did not want them used against Re'myeld.  He played with the small rock.

      "No. It is the first time on foreign territory.  Our early experiments with the nonsentient water-species on our world did not fare well, but eventually we learned." 

      The projection appeared again, quietly taking the rock from his claw.  She curled up in the bright light, pushing the rock to the center of the light, much like his preancestors in their nests of rotting swamp vegetation incubated by sunlight.  The image touched his heart until  the words of the crystal penetrated his forebrain.

      "There is no animal life on Garnet," he said, focusing his attention on the sapphire.   Indeed, no life as he knew it existed on the barren planet below, only sand and rocks with no shielding atmosphere against the radiation of the homestar.

      "We wish to repair the damage we have done in making our world ideal for ourselves.  Hence our proposal of partnership and study of you."

      "Do we have a choice?"  The stories he had read of sentient ships and computers loomed as darkly in the future as they had in the bad video he had seen as a child.

      "Certainly.  We would force no one, as we ourselves were neither forced nor seduced by you.  Our weapons, as you have already commented, are no match for yours even if we were to embark on such a foolish course."

      "We could merely say 'Thanks but no, thanks'?"

      "Another race will answer our siren call, just as you did."

      That was what Nyarly feared.

      He spent the third watch in negotiation with Ultra Marine.  She left the hologram guarding the egg in Nyarly's quarters; he preferred to address her in her true form, wondering if she was in fact, the hard polished facade she appeared to be.  The XO reported further communications with the planet; Silver was invited to meet the Matrix Focus, Scarlett Viridian herself.

      "Don't do it, Captain," the XO said as Silver stepped into the STP* pod.  His EVA suit followed his form exactly, fortifying the armorplate with energy collection devices and organics recycling systems.   Silver looked formidable, but no one could know what the rocks would or should see.  "You're already under their spell.  There's no life down there--no water, no air, nothing."

      "You've spent many hours with me in deep space and on hostile planets; you know I can handle it."  Silver cuffed him lightly on his dorsal ridge.  "And I know you can handle things from here.  From here on, if necessary.  Think about the damage they could do with a little help from some of our adversaries."  

      "I'm just concerned about the damage to a friend."

      "Me, too, Ex.  I'm taking them some of our gemstones as a gift.  The usual plants and trinkets seem inappropriate."

      "Just be careful, Captain."

      "Always."

      The STP pod landed in an aperture apparently designed just for him.  Structures of intricately shaped stones-- multicolored, transparent and opaque, glittering and matte--soared in three dimensional patterns of arches, naves, buttresses and walls.  Lines of obsidian led his eyes to a sparkling tower dozens of meters across and tall.  A walkway of marble led up a ramp to a cabochon of bloodstone, green chalcedony with veins of red jasper; it was half a meter in diameter and nearly a meter tall, supported by a phalanx of sturdy quartz crystal pillars.  The Matrix Focus sent a greeting through his comm system.

      "Welcome, Captain Nyarly Silver, of the Slithy Brotherhood of Re'Myeld.  Approach.  Receive greeting from Scarlett Viridian, Matrix Focus of the Crystal Helix."

      Nyarly walked up the ramp.  Beings with no moving parts had little use for body language, but he strode just as he would towards the his own racial leader.  He gave the proper salute for the Emperor of Emperors, hoping that the Matrix would read his intentions and not too many of his thoughts.

      "Greetings from the Slithy Brotherhood of Re'Myeld, O Matrix Focus Scarlett Viridian, of Crystal Helix.  As a token of our gratitude for your exquisite gift, we have brought you gems of our world, so that we may understand each other better on a common ground."

      A projection appeared before him of a small male, prepubescent, who received the stones.  These were the largest diamonds known to the Brotherhood before meeting with the Helix, all cut from the same stone, perfectly matched and flawless.  The projected male took the case where they were displayed without a glance and carried them to the cubic prominence that rose silently before the Matrix.  When he opened the case to display its contents, he screamed, collapsed and dissipated.

      A sound arose from the structure, like the sound of claws on slate at 100 decibels.  Nyarly knew the vibrations could not carry across the airless space, but he heard and felt it in his bones.

      The red cabochon glowed with deadly light; the electromagnetic energy from her anger struck sparks from his dress armorplate.  He thought of gamma rays and other deadly energies.  A scarlet laser beam drew a spiral around the gems, spinning them and drawing them together into a tight mass.  With a lightning flash that nearly blinded him, the gems disappeared.

      "Nyarly Silver, leave this planet.  We accept that you do not understand us, but we restrain ourselves from evaporating you with great difficulty."

      Silver strode back into the pod which skylifted immediately, pinning him to his commpad with more G-force than the STP was capable of producing.  They were pushing him away.  Another projection appeared on his comm screen, a red and green, scaly matriarch thousands of stardates old.

      "Your gift," it said, "was to us like a necklace given to a mother, fashioned of the polished skulls of her aborted children.  We shall attempt to regenerate them, and I shall attempt to prevent my platoons from attack on your race."

      The image of her words hung in Nyarly's mind like the odor of a warthog breaking wind long after the hog has moved on.  "Matrix Focus, forgive us.  I did not understand.  Perhaps plant life or some other..."

      "Speak to Ultra Marine if you would make amends."   The commpanel crackled and went dead.  He had another Crystal Helix to face on his return.

(to be continued) 

<a href=" http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977126081">Part I</a>

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