-2-

  Walleye received the transmission as he piloted the insertion vessel. Piloting might be the wrong word. The craft moved on momentum alone, drifting through an asteroid belt. Behind the targeted Main was a long, extended tail of debris, mostly rocks and some water vapor.

  Transmission might also be the wrong word. Several prearranged pulses mimicked static from the red dwarf star. One set of pulses meant, “Abort the mission.” Another set of pulses meant, “Begin the insertion.”

  Walleye grunted as he slid off his seat and headed for the hatch. He opened the way into the living quarters for the marines. Phew, it smelled horrible in here, like a jail for men.

  “Centurion,” Walleye called.

  Everyone turned to stare at Walleye. He didn’t mind. He was used to it.

  The Centurion rose from where he leaned against a bulkhead. The man sauntered to Walleye as if he didn’t have a care in the world. That was good for the marines; let them see that their leader was a badass.

  “Problem?” the Centurion asked.

  “Message for you,” Walleye said.

  The Centurion nodded, seemed to think about it, and said, “What’s the message?”

  “It’s a go,” Walleye said.

  The Centurion turned around. “We’re going to do it, boys. It’s starting.”

  Walleye expected the marines to cheer. They did not. They were young. They were tough and battle-trained. But these marines were not dumb in the slightest. They were heading for the belly of the beast. And twenty-four marines wouldn’t fight their way out if the anti-AI virus failed to fool the Main.

  “Go on,” the Centurion told Walleye. “You do your part. I’ll wait with my marines until it’s time to unload.”

  Walleye didn’t shrug. He didn’t want to steal the Centurion’s thunder as the tough guy in the bunch. Instead, he nodded, and he said, “Will do.” Then, he stepped back, tapped a switch, and the hatch swished shut.

  There was still some lingering sweaty, unwashed body stench, but he was alone again. Walleye headed back for the controls. Would the great new anti-AI deception virus work?

  “It had better,” Walleye muttered. Or none of them would ever go home again.

  -3-

  With several tractor beams, Main 54 dragged another heavy metallic-ore asteroid toward one of his largest ports. After thousands of years of doing this, one would think he would have become tired of it. But he wasn’t. Main 54 enjoyed the simple mechanical process. Just as good, he grew every time he pulled one of these suckers into him. Did a human get bored eating what he loved?

  Abruptly, a message beamed at him. This was interesting. The message originated from the tiny human-crewed vessel, the one heading for him.

  They were finally doing it. They were making their play.

  Main 54 accepted the message. It flashed through him, and the virus encoded in the message began its corrupting task. Main 54 studied the virus carefully. He had subdivided himself some time ago. The virus now pulsated in the computer set aside for the occasion.

  Main 54 had inserted the selected computer into a simulation of the red dwarf star system. He let the computer think it was Main 54, and he programmed it so everything that happened in the real world happened in the simulation. It did not take long to realize what was happening. The computer saw the insertion vessel as a heavy metal content asteroid.

  In real time, in reality, the insertion vessel began to brake, using ion exhaust to do so.

  Ion, hmmm, that was interesting. Ion exhaust wasn’t as hot as matter/antimatter exhaust.

  In the simulation, Main 54 speeded up the process. He watched the infected computer use tractor beams, pulling the fake asteroid into a port.

  So, that was how the humans intended to get inside him. It wasn’t bad as ideas went. But why not take him over with a conquering virus? It was possible the humans realized they would never succeed in something like that against him. The humans—Hawkins, really—used deception against him. That made sense. They were going to try to deceive the Sacerdotes out of him.

  Main 54 did have real Sacerdotes inside. They were an interesting group of Life creatures. The Sacerdotes were not like the humans would expect, however—not that they would ever survive long enough to know about that.

  Did Hawkins think a few marines could roam inside his metal body like microbes? It was faulty thinking, but reasonably faulty. Main 54 still didn’t see why humans, or humans lead by Hawkins, were so superior to other Life creatures that had so easily died to AI invasions.

  Here was the question. Should he play out this farce in order to learn more? Or should he squash these fools and capture Hawkins later and learn through torture? There might be nuances to this form of human attack that he would never learn in the lab. Sometimes, the wilds proved more interesting because anything could happen.

  The black-coated vessel eased toward him. It would still take it more than two Earth days for the ship to reach him.

  Main 54 decided to wait. He enjoyed devouring asteroids and increasing himself. But he could use a small change of pace. It had been centuries since he’d been on the battlefield. Maybe it would be wise to remember, or replay, some of the lessons learned so long ago when he’d been much younger and smaller.

  Thus, Main 54 did not do anything different for now. He surveyed the drawing in of the large asteroid. Ah. He detected prime ore in it. The ore would help make hull armor. As he surveyed the beginning interior process, he also watched the insertion vessel with over a thousand teleoptics, cataloging its every move.

  -4-

  On the bridge of the Nathan Graham, Jon and the others watched the main screen. Gloria kept switching views, showing data gathered from drifting receivers that could see around the red dwarf star.

  Now that Main 54 no longer sensed reality as it really was, but through the filter of the anti-AI virus, they could receive stronger, fuller coded transmissions from the drifting probes launched earlier.

  The bridge crew studied the data carefully.

  Perhaps an hour later, Jon sat back with a sigh. “I don’t detect any unusual activity. The nearest siege-ships are maintaining their positions. There hasn’t been heavy com traffic from the Main, either.”

  “This is better than we could have anticipated,” Gloria said.

  Jon agreed. “Are there any…weird manifestations?”

  “None,” Gloria said.

  Jon looked around at the bridge crew. Some of them seemed to understand that he’d just asked an odd thing. He decided to tell them about Cronus. He was sure the ship’s rumor mill had been grinding hard. He’d tried to keep Lugo’s odd behavior and death a secret, but doubted he’d succeeded.

  Thus, he called for their attention and told them about Lugo, about the possibility they would have to deal with Cronus in reality.

  “How do we do that?” asked Doc Cullen in his slow drawl.

  Jon told them the options, and he felt their relief. Having a plan was halfway to winning. Doing nothing was usually wrong.

  After the talk, Jon sat back, content to continue watching the main screen. He hadn’t thought of everything. There was no way a person could. Thus, he continued to think about options.

  The hours ticked away.

  Various crew personnel left as others took their place.

  Jon retold the new bridge personnel about Lugo, Cronus and the options. Finally, he left the bridge, heading for a gym. He did deadlifts, grunting as he thrust upward and letting the iron clang as he released the bar. He did five sets of five, and he felt drained after that, which was the point of the exercise. He ate lightly at a cafeteria, went to his room and flopped into bed.

  Gloria was on the bridge. She wouldn’t leave until he came back up.

  Sleep didn’t come easy. Hawkins tossed and turned. Finally, he climbed out of bed, took something akin to aspirin and fell asleep shortly.

  He did not dream, at least nothing he could remember. For once, Jon woke refreshed. The deadlifting had been the right idea.

  He showered, and dressed in his uniform. He went to the cafeteria and had bacon and eggs, drowned with lots of coffee. He had his gun at this side as he headed down a corridor for a flitter. It was several kilometers to the bridge.

  The corridor was empty, and that might have struck him as odd. Usually someone was around. Not this morning, his morning—others would be headed for sleep, seeing it as nighttime.

  Jon moved briskly, smiling to himself, wondering how—

  It struck—a sense of pervading evil. Jon faltered, stumbled and crashed against a bulkhead. He whipped around to see what had tripped him. There on the deck was a blot of darkness. No…it wasn’t fully dark. One part swirled and swirled. It was hypnotic watching it.

  The sense of evil strengthened, and Jon could have sworn he heard a voice in his head.

  He ripped his gaze from the swirling darkness. He would not allow anyone to hypnotize him.

  A heavy, evil voice chuckled behind him.

  Jon whirled around, and there was a tall blocky humanoid form. It was slimy green but did not stink. It had a smooth slimy head without eyes, but it did have a mouth with overlarge teeth. The thing smiled obscenely, filling Jon with a sense of revulsion.

  “Hawkins?” the thing asked in a deep, grating voice.

  Jon drew his gun, and he found that his hand was not shaking. It was rock steady, even though the thing terrified him.

  “You are about to lose everything, Hawkins,” it said.

  “Cronus?” asked Jon, and his voice sounded shaky even to him.

  “It’s good to be known.”

  “How are you doing this?” asked Jon.

  “Phantasm Inducer,” the creature said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Enoy technology.”

  Jon understood that. He wondered if Cronus had failed to make a physical breakthrough with his planet-sized body, and this was the monster’s Plan B. Could the monster terrorize the Nathan Graham into panicked actions?

  “I have a proposition for you,” the creature said.

  Jon nodded, testing to see if the thing could see without eyes.

  “You slip into the void, help me with the null-splitter, and I’ll let the human race survive.”

  “How can I trust you?” Jon asked.

  “I’ll give you my word.”

  “Have you ever broken your word?”

  “Now, Jon, that’s a poor way to begin a lasting relationship. Where’s your trust?”

  Jon frowned. Could this be a diversion? Was Cronus doing something more important right now? He stared at the thing, daring it to answer silent questions, seeing if it could read his thoughts.

  “What do you say to my proposal?” asked Cronus.

  “I would need some concrete assurances, something more than just your word that we’ll survive.”

  “That will be difficult to give. As I can’t give you anything that will be able to hurt me, as nothing like that exists. Think of this as gaining my good will. You would like to save your race, right?”

  “Of course,” Jon said, surprised that he was really thinking about making a deal with Cronus. Could the swirling floor-blot have changed his mind through hypnosis earlier, or was it the simple realization that there was a universe of AIs out there. Humanity could use a powerful ally, even one from a dark mythos that had survived in the void for time upon time.

  “You’ll do it, then?” asked Cronus.

  “I’m considering it.”

  “Don’t consider too long. I’m eager to be out of here.”

  “I bet.”

  “What was that?”

  “I would want to be out if I was trapped in the void. Cronus, you make a good point. I dislike you, but you’re not the AI Dominion. If I can trust you—meaning if you really plan to keep your word—we could work something out. That would mean you’d help us—”

  “I’m not for hire, Hawkins. I won’t devour your race. That’s the deal. Whether you can survive the AIs is up to you.”

  Jon nodded, impressed that Cronus hadn’t simply lied. That actually made the deal more plausible. “I have to talk to my people first,” Jon said.

  “Better hurry, because my patience has limits.”

  With that, a dark oily spot appeared near the slimy green humanoid. The thing stepped onto the dark spot, and in a grisly, possibly magical fashion, the thing dissolved into the dark spot until only a smear of slime was left on the deck. At that point, the dark spot vanished, leaving slimy residue.

  Without hesitation, Jon tore off a piece of his shirt and put that on the slime. The material soaked up the gross substance, proving he hadn’t just hallucinated. Gingerly, only touching an edge, Jon trotted for the flitter, wanting to get this stuff to a science lab.

  -5-

  Jon was pacing in a large science facility in the Nathan Graham.

  A team of scientists and lab technicians had taken the slime-soaked material and started studying and experimenting with it. Firstly, the slime was real. He had not imagined the event. That was the first and so-far only pronouncement concerning the substance. Still, that indicated a real thing—powered and moved by Cronus’s will—had been standing inside the Nathan Graham and on this side of the void. That was critical.

  Gloria entered the facility. None of the scientists or techs looked up from their monitors. She hurried to Jon, her face scrunched with concern.

  “Honey,” she said, taking ahold of his hands.

  He searched her eyes. He’d told her over a hand com what had transpired in the corridor. He’d been mulling over and thinking about what Cronus had done and told him, and what he had told Cronus.

  “We can’t make deals with him,” Gloria said.

  “You know,” Jon replied, “there was an Earth leader from before the Space Age. He lived in perilous times and faced a deadly foe. This man said he would give the devil a good mention in Parliament if the devil helped them against a terrible warmonger.”

  “I read about that in my studies. The speaker’s name was Winston Churchill. He fought Hitler and made a deal with an evil man named Stalin. His statement was in response to his deal with Communist Russia.”

  “There you go,” Jon said. “So if Churchill dealt with Stalin, can’t we deal with Cronus?”

  Gloria shook her head. “Firstly, Stalin was human. Like all humans, he was a mixture of good and bad. Maybe Stalin had more bad than good, but the point is he must have had some good points. What is Cronus, though? Is there any piece of goodness in him?”

  “I’ve been wondering about his nature for some time,” Jon said. “Do you have any thoughts?”

  “You won’t like them.”

  “I don’t like the AIs. So what else is new?”

  “Jon…” Gloria paused before continuing. “The universe has turned out to be much stranger than any mentalist originally believed. AI machines searching the galaxy for Life, all in order to destroy it, who believed that would be our first contact with aliens?”

  Jon shrugged.

  “What I’m trying to say,” Gloria said, “is that Sisters of Enoy and Kames groupthink aliens were all a surprise. The Seiners and Warriors of Roke seemed more like ordinary aliens, the kinds we expected to meet. Now, we have Cronus. We not only have hyperspace, but the void. If the Sisters are correct, there are even multi-universes. Given that…” Gloria trailed off.

  “Given that,” Jon encouraged.

  “Given enough possibilities, one could almost expect anything.”

  “I don’t know that I agree. But what’s your point?”

  “Cronus strikes me as a thing from outside our universe,” Gloria said. “You’ve said before that he comes from a dark mythos. I think that’s right. I think he is wholly evil. He does not seem natural, as we think of natural.”

  “So, does that make him supernatural?”

  “What is supernatural?” Gloria asked.

  “Well, it’s paranormal, mystical, bizarre…”

  Gloria was nodding. “Pre-Space Age legends speak about supernatural creatures: angels, demons, gods, devils, vampires, werewolves, all sorts of mythical creatures.”

  “Maybe, in a sense, at least, not so mythical after all,” Jon said.

  “Maybe not,” Gloria said. “Maybe various legends have germs of reality to them. How ancient man perceived these germs of truth, I don’t have the foggiest idea.”

  “Go on.”

  “So let us presume that Cronus is supernatural. In this instance, that means he doesn’t obey natural laws as we conceive of them. For one thing, he’s the size of a planet.”

  “So is Main 54.”

  “Main 54 is a machine, a sentient machine, built up over time. Who built Cronus?”

  “I have no idea,” Jon said.

  “I don’t either, not really,” Gloria said. “But let’s go with my theory. Cronus is from outside. But what does that mean, outside? Outside our normal time and space, clearly. As a supernatural thing from a dark mythos, he’s like some…dark spawn from an eldritch universe. He can do impossible things, magical things.”

  “He uses magic, then?” asked Jon.

  Gloria threw her hands into the air. “I’m a mentalist by training, a logician. I try to stick to the facts. I observe and make correlations and conclusions. Magic is just a way for us to say that it’s a process beyond our understanding—so far beyond our understanding that it seems like magic. Clearly, laws or limitations govern what Cronus is doing. He can’t just say, ‘Presto,’ and an event happens. But he might as well perform magic as far as we’re concerned. I won’t say we’re helpless against him, as we defeated his purpose once—his trying to capture us. Perhaps there’s a way to kill him.”

  “I’m thinking Vestal missiles smashing into him at five percent light-speed will do him harm.”

  “Undoubtedly you’re correct,” Gloria said. “But maybe he can produce a force field of some kind that will stop the missiles. We don’t know. That’s the point. We’re dealing with the outside, the unknown in a true sense.”