And it was a success. To a point. To us, anyway.
Time, then, for a history lesson, and a treatise on cause-and-effect. Not often you get to hear about a disaster from the initiator's perspective. Then again, I suppose most disasters are natural by your thinking, and it would be difficult at best to secure an interview.
Not for lack of trying, of course.
Did I say leaving was easy? I meant: leaving with the promise of return.
In years to come the incident will be called Biter, for the effects it will have on the planet and the psyche of the general population. A crater to swallow a continent, tooth marks slipping into the sea, gouged from the northern quarter as though by giant jaws. New waterfalls. New oceans. New seasons. The removal of mass will alter the planet's tilt, cause it to wobble upon its axis. The radiation will kill what inhabitants survive the first shock of sundering.
It will be a job well-done. A fine first start. An indication that we are no longer willing to suffer in peace and solitude. If there is to be pain, let it be shared. Let it be returned ten thousand-fold, affliction returned to those who afflict, that we may understand one another and name ourselves siblings-of-the-divide; brothers punctuated and punctured by sorrow.
Let us be brothers.
Golden prongs are my embrace, my word my promise: once I have stripped the flesh from your skeleton I will scatter your bones among the stars.
This I vow as I, ensconced within my Builder, prepare to depart.
< Be careful > says Squeaky.
< It is they who should take care > I reply, heeding not his worried image. He resides within his own Builder, several kilometers away, but it seems as though he stands beside me, Blue watching from afar. < If I were careful, I wouldn't be going >
< All the same. You wouldn't want to be the first Second to follow the path of our elders >
Blue peers over his shoulder, spotting someone or something invisible.
< Get a few of them for me > Squeaky calls as I dampen my Link connection, reducing the risk of Array interference,
< For the two of you, and Blue, I'll get them all >
Blue waves at us. < Go!>
< I'll be ready if you need me> says Squeaky, and then steps back into space, dwindling and fading.
I go.
I have no particular destination in mind. What destination could there be? The stipulation is a world, any world, and there are many stored in probe record; I select one at random and that is where and when I emerge. Travel is not a matter of mechanical action so much as desire— and it is for this reason I am glad the shifting mechanism does not fail. Perhaps we really are catching the monsters off-guard.
I emerge... and the sky glitters. Cloth of diamond, well of infinity, mosaic of watching eyes. Inside the rift barriers the darkness is absolute: here even the blackest of regions is woven of dimmest light. Stars. The light of a million billion stars. A light denied to us by our walls, our protection, our fear.
It sweeps across the heavens, brightest in a band of nebulous haze that marks the galaxy's spiral arm, hard and welcoming and real— real as even the best of simulations cannot be.
I have seen a sun. I have seen stars.
A planet slings around its orbit, and I around the planet. All that remains is for me to walk natural ground, to tread upon that which we shape... but that is yet to come.
My chosen world is blue. Blue and white, swirled with feathery clouds, a storm system developing near its southern continent. Vibrant. Crackling with life. Even at such distance I can hear it, feel it— a wildness that runs counter to all my instincts, all my principles. It's pretty enough, I suppose, but wrong.
It's... untouched. As it formed, so it remains. Billions of years of wasted potential.
Were its axis and its coastline properly adjusted, it wouldn't suffer such severe storms. Were its core cooled, it wouldn't have so many volcanic ranges. Were it fitted with a ring, its overall form would be more comely, and its auroras brighter.
As it exists, it is raw. Raw as bore wounds from the sickness. Raw as loss.
"Hello," I say to it, approaching closer, Builder edging into mid-orbit. There are other craft falling through the sky: crude, alien things with squared wings and crooked antennae, beeping boxes, spheres with blunt projections on all sides. Far away, but hurrying to meet me, is one of their vessels.
Space is saturated by gargling, the whole world choking on its own mandibles.
"You killed my guardian," I tell it. My voice echoes close, confined in the machine.
The only response is the swept-wing vessel— now turning, slowing, rotating blunt-muzzled turrets in my direction.
I push into low orbit, Builder prongs opening outwards. "You killed Swift-Runs."
More gargling; I ignore it.
"You're killing my siblings. You're killing me."
The vessel fires. Simple projectiles, fast-moving but no threat.
"You're going to stop."
Impact. Multi-ton spikes of metal flatten themselves against the Builder's fields, and then drop away.
"I will make you stop."
The vessel flashes past, flickering beams of light across my hull, and I toss out a loop to catch it. Deceleration is instant; inertia cruel.
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