Into the Unknowable Ch. 21

Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

Vashti stumbled through the open lawns of the penultimate level where Beatrice had so recently been imprisoned. She reasoned that the android perhaps had an idea of what was happening. How was it possible for a nanobot community to be compromised in such a strange and unprecedented manner? There was nothing in Vashti's vast repository of data and experience that could explain it.

It was definitely humbling for a being who naturally presumed that she was superior over both biological and robotic life-forms in every measurable way to be so ignorant. It was even more humiliating to have to ask advice from a mere android. Humans were handicapped by emotions such as pride that made it difficult for them to seek advice from someone they'd previously treated with contempt, but Vashti wasn't human. Her imperative was to seek assistance from wherever she could. It wasn't just the success of Vashti's mission, but her very survival that was at risk.

Vashti evaluated the symptoms of her predicament as she stumbled across the elegant landscape. The ground was no longer firm beneath her feet, but resembled more a boggy marsh into which she sometimes sunk. The physical form she'd adopted was losing its integrity and consistency. Scrolls of skin would sometimes shed off her legs and hover behind her until they reasserted their solidity and reattached themselves to her body. Her hair flowed and shimmered as if it was only tentatively attached to her head. When she dragged her fingers over her face, the skin would either briefly detach itself or stretch like a coating of fresh paint before it fell back onto the contours of her cheek. The effort to generate a uniform to cover Vashti's nakedness was now beyond her ability. When she attempted to do so, her brown skin took on an utterly unconvincing silvery cloth-like texture.

The problem wasn't simply that the entity known as Vashti was having difficulty in maintaining her integral individual identity. The bigger issue was that the nanobot community which not so long ago had grown large enough to assimilate space fleets and maintain an endless number of distinct independently operating manifestations was now reduced to one single individual. And this individual that had no previous difficulty in maintaining its identity in the Solar System for over thirty years was now failing in the rudimentary task of holding itself together.

Some parts of Vashti were functioning rather better than others. In fact, they appeared to have a life all of their own. The part of Vashti's anatomy that most fit the description was her penis which was twice or even three times its normal length and breadth and was slapping against her thighs as she walked along. Sometimes it sprung into full erection and even ejaculated with no motivation or purpose. This puzzled Vashti. The systems that composed her—the sexual, intellectual, lymphatic, cardiac and perceptual—were competing with each other for primacy in an uncoordinated fashion.

"Good evening, sir," said a soldier, probably a corporal but maybe a sergeant, who stood to attention and saluted as Vashti approached.

"Good evening," said Colonel Vashti who was struggling to recall what the various insignia might mean. She stopped and saluted, aware of the strange sight she made with her penis now inappropriately erect and more than half a metre long. "Have you anything to report?"

The soldier gazed at the naked colonel in consternation. For a moment, Vashti wondered whether he might not just be another Apparition.

"Come on, soldier," said the colonel. "What's the problem?"

"Your eye, sir," said the soldier.

"Oh," said Vashti, belatedly aware that it had somehow worked its way out of its socket and was dangling over her cheek. With a matter of will she retracted it back into the socket which must have further alarmed the soldier. "Never mind that. What's the overall situation?"

"Anarchy, sir. Absolute chaos. There's no order at all. Everyone's seeing these weird Apparitions, sir. And they're solid. They're real. They can even kill."

"Kill?"

"A whole cohort of Roman soldiers suddenly appeared on the fourth level, sir," said the soldier. "They were there for only five minutes or so, but they slaughtered over a dozen scientists and service personnel. It was horrifying. Are you sure you're alright, sir?"

"It's been tough on me, soldier," the colonel admitted. "How is discipline holding up?"

"Almost non-existent, sir," said the officer. "All the senior military officers have vanished. I was told by Private Johnson that Colonel Musashi actually disintegrated."

"What do you mean by that, soldier?"

"It's like the literal meaning of the word, sir. One moment he was standing there in the command centre and the next he sort of fell apart. It was like he was turning into dust except that instead of falling in a heap on the floor the particles of dust were so fine that they just blew away. It was very strange."

"Do you know how he was before that moment, soldier?"

"He'd been behaving very strangely, sir. He could hardly express himself coherently. He even had difficulty standing up. We think it's happened to all the senior officers. No one knows anything for sure. The only person I've heard of who's sort of... disintegrated... is Colonel Musashi. But I've heard that Captain Kerensky, Chief Petty Officer Singh and all the rest of the crew have also kind of vanished. There's no one manning the bridge. It's like we're leaderless in deep space, sir."

"Well, I'm still here," said Colonel Vashti.

"Yes, sir," said the soldier, who seemed rather less than reassured.

"We need to keep order."

"Yes, sir."

"It's paramount."

"I agree, sir."

"I shall try and locate the missing officers."

"Thank you, sir."

"Don't abandon your post."

"No, sir."

"Dismissed," said the colonel finally.

"Thank you, sir."

Vashti continued her trudge across the level. It was as she feared. The integrity of the nanobot community had quite simply ceased to be. It was as if it had been blown asunder by a breeze. The facsimiles she'd generated of the senior officers had all disintegrated just as the soldier had described it. They were no longer coherent entities. The nanobots had decomposed into their constituent elements. Instead of assimilating the environment they were themselves now being re-assimilated back into it. And the same thing was happening to Vashti.

The only hope she had was that Beatrice, the most advanced life-form on the Intrepid after Vashti, might have some insight into what was happening. At least an android wouldn't be re-assimilated.

Vashti scanned the horizon as she tried to guess where the android might be. She caught a glimpse of several camels walking by on the horizon. On their backs and chanting from the Quran were several Arab warriors. They then suddenly vanished. Vashti looked towards the villa where Beatrice had been imprisoned for the last year or so. Just behind the villa a strange orange being with skin that resembled chiselled granite was lumbering over the lawn. Then that too vanished leaving behind footprints embedded in the path. There were many strange sights, but no sign of Beatrice.

Vashti walked towards the villa while her penis became ever more excited and tumescent at the anticipation of meeting her lover. This again was totally incongruous and inappropriate. There was no evidence of Beatrice at the villa. The invisible force field that had confined her had disintegrated in just the same way as her facsimiles had. Every part of her nanobot community had ceased to function. Vashti was very much alone.

Where else could Beatrice be? The most likely place, of course, was Paul's villa also on the same level, but would Beatrice really choose to go there? Would she really want to be by the side of her husband given that his only function for Beatrice had been to facilitate her passage on the Intrepid? What possible use would a super-intelligent android now have for a less than adequate biological life-form?

Vashti had no answers to such questions, but she nonetheless decided that Paul's villa would be her next destination.

Vashti hobbled, stumbled and lurched over the Intrepid's lawns and gardens to the tranquil home where Vashti had very little doubt that Paul would be in residence. He very rarely wandered from home even when there was nothing to hide from. Now that there were peculiar Apparitions everywhere on the space ship, where else would the man stay but where it was most homely and familiar?

Vashti could see Paul standing in the garden of his villa. He was regarding with bemusement a golden fountain that had somehow located itself a metre above the ground and was encircled by a ring of bluebirds. It was a captivating sight, but after a few minutes it too vanished.

Paul was now even more bemused.

"Why it's you, colonel," said Paul as he saw Vashti approach. "My goodness, you really don't look very well. Where are your clothes? And what the fuck is that between your legs?"

Paul was perhaps the only person aboard the Intrepid who didn't know about Vashti's peculiar assets. However, when Vashti gazed down at her engorged penis it was so monstrous that it was perfectly understandable that Paul should be alarmed at the sight.

"Didn't you know, Paul," said Vashti. "You could say that I'm a very peculiar woman."

"You most certainly are," Paul agreed.

"Is Beatrice here?"

"Beatrice? No. She isn't. Do you know what's happened to her? I've been looking for her everywhere."

"Everywhere?"

"In the bridge. In the military quarters. On the other levels. Everywhere I could think of."

"When was the last time you saw Beatrice?"

"I don't know," said Paul. "I've lost all sense of time. Maybe days ago. She just vanished. She disintegrated. It was like she turned to dust."

"That wasn't Beatrice, Paul," said Vashti who really didn't see any point of maintaining the pretence any more. "The real Beatrice was elsewhere. The woman who you thought was Beatrice was just a facsimile of her. An exact copy. You haven't been living with the real Beatrice for over a year."

Paul shook his head in disbelief. "I know that some very strange things have happened since we entered the Anomaly, but I don't see how what you've just said makes any sense."

"There's a great deal you don't know, Paul," said Vashti. "Shall we sit inside? I'm not feeling very well."

"You don't look yourself at all," Paul admitted. "Come inside. You'll have to excuse the mess. Very peculiar things have been happening even inside the villa. I don't know which is worse. Being outside where you can see all these bizarre Apparitions popping up all over the place but mostly at a distance. Or indoors where they happen a lot less often but make much more of a mess."

Paul and Vashti walked into Paul's living room which was indeed in a chaotic state. Vashti set a chair upright and sat on it while Paul sat exactly opposite her.

"What do you know about Beatrice?" Paul asked.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I just need to."

"Beatrice wasn't born on Venus. She isn't even human. She comes from Proxima Centauri and she is an android. Is that what you wanted to know?"

Paul looked puzzled. "You don't have to play games with me," he said. "I just wanted to know where Beatrice is and how I can find her."

"Those are both questions for which I don't have an answer," said Vashti. "You'll be pleased to know there is at least some area of ignorance we share. My hope was that I might find Beatrice here in your villa. In that I was obviously mistaken."

"So what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know, Paul," said Vashti with absolute honesty. "I don't know what's happening to the ship and what's more I don't know what's happening to me. Could I just rest here for a while?"

"Of course," said Paul. "Would you like a cup of tea or something?"

"Tea?" wondered Vashti. "Are you offering me tea?"

"Or would you prefer something else? I can order up anything you like. The Intrepid's systems are working perfectly well."

"They are?" wondered Vashti. "Do you mind if I look at them, Paul?"

"Of course not. Go ahead."

Vashti was no longer able to scan the computer systems any faster than a human could but it didn't take her long to gain an understanding of the current situation. The controls that Vashti had put in place had been neutralised and the Intrepid was functioning no better than a human-manufactured space ship should. The mechanisms that Vashti and Beatrice before her had set up were no longer functioning, so the passengers were free to view the bridge and all the space ship's concentric levels without censorship.

The situation was clear. The prisoners on the outermost level, including Captain Kerensky and Second Officer Nkomo, had all escaped and were now re-establishing control of the ship. Everywhere on the ship, crew and passengers, scientific and military alike, were wandering in disorganised chaos not at all sure what they should do and where they should go. All the while there were Apparitions appearing randomly all over the space ship. Simply thousands of them. Of all kinds. And Beatrice? Where was she? Unfortunately, the Intrepid's surveillance system wasn't designed to locate an android who had chosen to evade detection.

And then, when Vashti almost concluded that her pursuit of Beatrice had been in vain, she could see the android's familiar figure, also naked, walking purposefully across the level and towards Paul's villa.

It was obvious. Beatrice had been searching for her just as Vashti had been the android. Beatrice also had a mission to accomplish.

"I'll have that tea, Paul," announced Vashti as she settled back on the sofa.

"You really don't look very well," said Paul, as the colonel lowered herself down.

"Don't worry about me," said Vashti,

However, she shared the human's anxiety. Her eyeball had fallen out of its socket again and her now limp penis had grown to about a metre in length and flopped in serpentine fashion over her thigh.

Paul handed Vashti a cup of tea in the elegant bone china provided by the Intrepid. "The Anomaly seems to have affected you in a very strange way," he remarked. "Why's that, do you think?"

"Because I'm not human either, Paul," said Vashti as she sipped from the tea.

"Are you also an android from Alpha Centauri?"

"Proxima Centauri," Vashti corrected. "I'm not an android at all, Paul. I'm something quite different. But enough of me... I do believe your wife is on her way here."

"Beatrice? How can that be? Where is she?"

"Shall we wait, Paul," said Vashti. "She'll be here any moment now. So tell me, how have you found the last few weeks or so since we entered the Anomaly?"

"Very very weird," said Paul. "It was all right really before Beatrice disintegrated. How did that happen? How did she manage to recover?"

"You really haven't been paying attention have you, Paul?" said Vashti. "The woman who decomposed in front of you at wasn't the real Beatrice. However, you can ask her yourself. Isn't that right, sweetheart?"

The last was addressed to Beatrice who was standing naked at the doorway. The expression on her face didn't suggest she was in good spirits. In fact, she looked very angry.

"Are you content now, you monster?" Beatrice said. "Look where your foolish interference has taken us."

"And where is that exactly, sweetheart?" asked Vashti, while Paul looked on in astonishment as his wife and the colonel addressed one another.

"A place we shouldn't be. A place where there is no escape."

"I've been searching for you, Beatrice," said Vashti, ignoring her reply. "You will have noticed that I'm not looking my best. Do you have any idea why that might be?"

Beatrice regarded her adversary and lover with renewed interest. "Why should I know?" she asked. "Isn't it you who normally has all the answers?"

Vashti began answering but her enunciation was slow and disjointed. It was almost as if she were a human and had consumed too much of an intoxicant like alcohol. "The situation is such that... The Anomaly has... My nanobots are... The integrity of the... Beatrice. Beatrice... I love you, Beatrice..."

"I can see that," said Beatrice who nodded towards Vashti's erect penis which was now truly monstrous and longer than her forearm. As if in response to Beatrice's words, Vashti's penis now demonstrated just how much of a life of its own it possessed by spurting forth globules of semen that splashed onto Beatrice's face and bosom. The android wiped it off her mouth with an expression not only of disgust but of something much more like hatred.

The next few moments were a blur to Vashti whose responses were much slower than normal and rather slower than Beatrice's. The two non-humans were in physical hand-to-hand combat that was violent enough to smash into pieces every item of furniture in the room and would have killed Paul if he'd not prudently run into the next room. Vashti's body was torn apart in the battle but then promptly cohered together again. An arm was torn off and Beatrice held it aloft in her hand, only for Vashti's other arm to also dislocate itself and push Beatrice's face back while the first arm reattached itself. Beatrice dug her fingers deep inside Vashti's eye sockets with enough force to burst them and ripped apart her upper and lower jaw, while she also pulled at Vashti's long erect penis and tore it free from her crotch.

Vashti wasn't human, of course. The nanobots that composed her could as happily exist together as apart. When an arm was pulled off, a leg broken in two or, as happened at one stage, her head was twisted off her shoulders, these parts still retained the ability to act as part of a coherent whole. And it was this integral whole that with more force and effort than was normally required finally took the very step that Vashti had never intended to take which was to terminate the android's bothersome existence.

This she achieved in less than a second. Beatrice was broken irreparably in half. In whatever sense that word ever had the android was no longer alive.

This Vashti regretted. It wasn't what she'd wanted to do. It wasn't what she'd have chosen to do in normal circumstances. She'd rather have given the android the apparent satisfaction of destroying her, safe in the knowledge that her nanobot community was indestructible and immortal. It just wasn't possible to destroy Vashti by physical force alone. Not even a nuclear or antimatter blast could achieve that. So why when Beatrice pulled off Vashti's penis and smashed its testicles repeatedly against her face until they burst and spattered even more globules of semen and blood all over the room, did Vashti react in such an extreme manner?

There was nothing left to do.

Vashti staggered out of Paul's villa and left the grieving husband huddled over the scattered remains of his wife. She was confident that Beatrice was beyond repair, especially now that there was no prospect that a Proxima Centauri space fleet might come to her rescue.

Vashti staggered out into the gardens and lawns of the penultimate level. Ahead of her was a battlefield of soldiers doing futile battle with the Apparitions generated by the Anomaly. They were commanded by the real Colonel Musashi who had at last found a uniform. All around was the random chaos of unpredictable manifestations that were sometimes persistent, sometimes transitory and sometimes something in between.

What should Vashti do now?

The highest priority was survival and this had become more and more of an issue. She was very much diminished, most obviously by the loss of her penis which she'd left behind in shattered pieces about Paul's living room and no longer belonged to her. Nor now was one of her arms which dropped off at the shoulder and fell behind. The eye that kept rolling out of its socket was now completely detached and fell onto the ground where she carelessly crushed it underfoot. When even the foot fell off, her progress was slowed to a crawl. Vashti then lost an entire leg when she trod on a damp section of lawn and her leg remained where it was. She now progressed forward by wiggling her limbless body across the lawn.