Chapter 10: Phaon

"Well, that should do it," Leon announced as he shut off the welder. Solo, no expert about these things, had to admit that the seam looked good. Thorn nodded approvingly herself.
"O.K. people," Solo announced, "Let's pull everything we want to keep back. I want two layers at least between us and the sickbay until we can figure a way out of this.
"Why two layers?" Tessa asked.
It was Joe who answered instead. "He's worried that the pressure might build up enough to force the doorway and then we'd be drowned as all the water in that room flooded the lower chambers."
"Will it last?" Tessa asked.
Solo looked to Leon for an answer.
Leon shrugged. "I guess we'll find out."
"Dia! You guys are so cheerful with your predictions," Thorn chided. "Cmon Tess, Joe. You, me and Bug can help move stuff back. Then we have to find some way to power up our new quarters or we're going to freeze to death. I don't think that portable heater's going to serve all of us. The Dia help us if it ever fails."
"Do you have to say that `D' word?" Tessa asked her. "Out being on one of their ships, it kind of gives me the creeps."
"Don't worry," Joe told her. "Aside from Raymont's unsubstantiated fears, I don't think we have anything to worry about. We have only the dead to share this place with."
"Well, as long as we don't join them," Leon commented.
"Amen to that," Thorn agreed. Looking around, Thorn noted that one of their number was absent. "Say, anybody seen Raymont?"

Raymont's mind flowed along jumping from band to band, as each coloured highway sent his brain cells reeling in imaginary vertigo. It was more vivid than any drug or plug trip he'd ever known, and it seemed so real. He thought he could reach out his hand and scoop up some electrons from one of the pattern pools that he passed. But then, he didn't have any hands. He was disembodied thought. Patiently, the computer raced on, trying to cram the info into his head.
This is great," Raymont thought. "Since I don't know how to work the program, the comp does it for me and just feeds me what I want to know. This thing is awesome. I wonder how much I could sell it for?"
He was starting to feel dizzy from all of the info. It was a real physical sensation and it was pulling him back. It was like his body was resucking him back into itself, jealous that his psyche had been gone so long.
Then he was back. He tore the headpiece from his temples and sat, readjusting himself to sensory input. It was then he realized how far he had been gone. Every little detail of the room, from the textured pattern of the wall to the spongy texture of the flooring was at once apparent and galling in its three dimensionality. He almost thought he could visualize time flowing.
"Wow, cool trip," he commented to no one in particular. Then the info hit him. Unable to process it all, his head exploded. That's at least what it felt like. Tossing the Ono-Sendai away from him, hoping by that physical act to disassociate himself from the pain, Raymont clutched his head.
Then he screamed. (Raymont suffer 2 concussion hits and loss of 5 temporary Me and 2 temp. Re.)

"What the hell was that?!" Thorn's eyes widened until they appeared like they were going to pop.
The doorway to the room they had set up in opened the rest of the way and Raymont staggered out, clutching his head.
Everyone dropped what they were doing and rushed over to him.
"Are you alright?" Tessa asked him while Leon grabbed Raymont from behind and gently lowered him to the floor. Not waiting for an answer, she asked the question that everyone was wondering. "What happened?"
Joe, who had disappeared into the room, came out holding onto the portable Ono-Sendai computer Raymont had found on one of his journeys through the ship. In Joe's other hand, everyone could see the mindlink headset. The lights on it indicated that it was on.
"You didn't use this?" Joe accosted Raymont.
Raymont looked up at Joe and grinned. "So what? It's a free planet. I just tried it out."
"What's wrong with using the headset?" Solo grunted. "What's it do?"
Joe held up the thin band of the headset so that everyone could see it. "This is a mindlink," he told them. "With it, you can think your way into the computer's functions. You can make yourself govern how the computer acts, you can program it or read files way faster than normal. You can also use it to access other systems in other computers."
"Well, that sounds good," Leon nodded.
"Trouble is," Joe told them all, "Is that if you're not trained on how to use a mindlink, it's a good way to get your brain fried. Suffering a little vegetable burn out?" Joe once again chided Raymont.
"Man!" Raymont shook his head quickly, as if he was trying to clear it "One thing for sure. I'm not doing that again in any hurry."
"You haven't told us what happened," Tessa told him.
Raymont continued to shake his head. "God it was beautiful. I wish I could describe it. It was like being pure energy, floating in a world of coloured lights. It was like I was a genius. I was a super genius and I could figure out anything I wanted. It was kind of like being a god," he told them.
"That was you interlinking with the computer," Joe told him. "Why did you do it? What were you trying to accomplish?"
"Well," Raymont confessed, "My computer operation skills are pretty minimal. You know, basic school stuff. Well, I was just exploring what that crazy mindset could do when I realized that I could tell the computer what to do just by thinking about it. So then I fed it the data from out multiscanners and set about thinking which parts of the ship would be safe from the flooding water."
"And?" Thorn prompted him.
"Well," Raymont made himself comfortable, his headache apparently gone, "I could see the ship, I could feel it sort of like it was being recreated in me. It wasn't perfect, but I sort of followed how it crumpled and tore apart in the crash. I mean my mind made this happen many times so that I could see again and again probable outcomes from the crash. Data like rock hardness, hull density, I mean I could think EVERYTHING! Then I was running math equations like crazy and figuring out how the river above played out against the crashed ship models. It was like all these probabilities, millions of them were all happening at once. Then I started to get dizzy and then it started to fuckin hurt. Now it seems I can't remember jack!"
"Mind overload," Joe announced. "His brain wasn't meant to hold the sum of the computer's thinking. A trained computer link operator would have just tried to siphon off the information rather than trying to absorb it all. You're lucky, Raymont. You should have been brain fried," Joe told him.
"Excuse me, but I am brain fried," Raymont retorted. "And it fuckin hurt! Anyway," He looked around him at everyone, "I think I figured out that most all the probabilities said that this ship is fucked. I mean, there ain't enough of it to call it a whole ship anymore. And, as for the river, I think, I'm not sure what I remember, but I think that the water will just flow down various levels, exiting the ship through holes and permeating through the rock later. Though the lower levels will probably flood, I think we'll be O.K. for now. The ship will just act as a conduit for underground water flow. Does that make sense?"
There was a long silence.
Finally, Tessa asked Raymont, "So what did it feel like, being inside the computer?"
Raymont looked right at her, his face dead serious. "Tessa, it was the most fucking awesome thing I've ever experienced. It was better than any drug trip. It was more real than any plug or holo bit. It was better than sex!" It was the only thing he could think to say.
"Better than sex?" Tessa looked at him.
There was another long pause. Then Solo reached out for the mindlink.
"Give me that thing, dammit! I want to try it out. Give it to me. Give it to me now!"
"No way, Solo!" Thorn butted in front of him, "Get out of here. I'm next!"
"Well I think I'm the better trained to handle this," Leon offered.
"No, Raymont promised it to me," Tessa announced. "Didn't you Raymont."
"Obviously you are all ignoring the fact that I'm holding onto it. I'm next!" Joe yelled out.
The hallway erupted into a chorus of shouts and posed arguments.
Disgusted, Bug walked away, getting back to the work at hand, while shouts of "No you don't", "Get your fat hands", "Well, at least I can", "How would you like to?" and "I'd like to see you try", occasionally made their way to him intelligibly. Humans, he grimaced. How had they ever made it this far?

Solo shook the multiscanner, frustrated that it wouldn't read very far through the ship's bulkheads and walls. Shaking it didn't make it work any better, but it did seem to make him feel a little better.
Suddenly he got a reading. It was a lifeform, non-human, and it was approaching him fast. Alone, up in the wreckage of the ship above where they had set up camp, Solo grabbed his rifle while watching the scanner display. He wasn't going to be alone much longer.
Then it was there. It was upon him.
"Hi, Solo," Bug waved at him as he zoomed through the hallway.
Solo threw down his rifle in disgust. Then he saw that it had landed on the corpse of one of the ship's crew, who hadn't quite finished rotting yet. Now that was disgusting, Solo decided and debated about whether it was worth it to reclaim his rifle. Maybe he should just go get a new one.
Tagging along, Bug followed Solo to the ship's auxiliary control room. Being somewhat bored, but too nervous about travelling alone, Bug decided that Solo would make good protective company for exploring.
However he wasn't much of a conversationalist, Bug decided. He seemed to just grunt whenever Bug made a comment, but other than that, just seemed to scowl a lot.
When they got to the auxiliary control room, Solo sat down at one of the terminals while Bug hovered alongside.
"This is it," Solo announced. Then, before he punched any of the buttons, Solo looked over at Bug. "Hey Bug, you know anything about computers?" he asked.
Bug looked down at the console. Though advanced by human standards, the system seemed cumbersome and awkward. He had worked on better stuff as a hatchling.
"Here you go," Bug punched a button while Solo stated to read. And it was fascinating reading.
(Some of what Solo gleans before the file disappears)
Third Empire: NOTE: THIS FILE IS RESTRICTED. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE TERMINATION. THIS FILE IS CODED RED AND REQUIRES A SECLAR RATING OF 12 TO ACCESS. The Daysanj (from French des Anges) arrived while the Earth and her colonies were busy squabbling over pieces of nearby planetary systems. The Daysanj, who had conquered most of the galactic core were now exploring the spiral arms, conquering and overcoming all in their way. They found humankind a rather uninspired race but having easilly overawing the humans with their technology and power, were able to easily manipulate one human faction against the other and with their aid to conquer the rest. It has long been speculated why the Daysanj bothered with this rather laborious way of conquest as they could have easily overwhelmed all the Terran powers. But now it is realized that the Daysanj, having studied human history, realized that humans, every bit fratricidal and fractious, were still highly resilient and resourceful. Their initial method of subversion would preserve the most genetic material for future breeding whereas open conquest would have proved unneccesarily wasteful.. Also, humans were quick to learn and easy to manipulate and coerce. And since slavery had long been part of their own history, openly and also in various guises of class, sex, and economic subservience, it was obvious that humans would make ideal slaves for the Daysanj. Once consolidated without too much bloodshed, the Daysanj discarded the fiction of their alliance and openly assumed stewardship over the human race. Humans were seeded to various farm planets and bred to differing standards as to make them more appropriate workers in different planetary climes. Also, humans were found to be highly nutritious as a food supplement to the Daysanj diet and though the adults were considered too economically unprofitable in terms as foodstuff, taking far too long to mature, the newborn young could be gleaned and were quicker to produce and had a superior flavor by comparison. For all human pretensions of justice and freedom, once the overwhelming physical, mental and technological superiority of the Daysanj became evident, humans fell over themselves to try to please and ingratiate themselves to their new masters. Those few that didn't were culled. Ever adaptive, humans were soon becoming the foremen of the breeding farms themselves. Humans were also trained as low level technicians, trained to operate some of the more simple systems of Daysanj technology. In this fashion, ever useful humans were seeded throughout the galaxy, as both slaves and crops. They became the Daysanj' most useful animal. Through selective breeding and genetic manipulation with alien genes, Daysanj was even able to foment a very limited telepathic ability in some humans, thus it is revealed that the Daysanj were the creators of the telepaths so that they could better communicate and serve their masters. Since they were themselves exclusively telepathic, some archeologoscientists have speculated that it was Daysanj DNA itself that was used in this fashion. This steward arrangement continued for some 200,000 years until a great catastrophe occured that overthrew the Daysanj. There is some speculation that Daysanj, having breached timeflow, was able to contact an ancient galactic wide empire and that forces of this empire, which predated the Daysanj existence by billions of years, were able to come into the present and set about to war with the Daysanj with technologies that were every bit as potent as its own. Other theories state that a coalition of Daysanj subjects, or an extra galactic power that the Daysanj had only recently conquered, had revolted and in a bitter war lasting millennia, wiped out the Daysanj, but were themselves almost utterly destroyed and certainly removed as contenders for stellar power. What is also certain is that humankind faithfully served their Daysanj master but when Daysanj died, humans were left with enough technological knowledge to keep something of the Daysanj infrastructure alive. Now turning on their former masters, most humans ruthlessly destroyed any surviving Daysanj enclaves, fearing that if Daysanj was allowed to regrow, it would one day resume its power over humankind. Of course, there were sects of humans who clung to their old belief of worshipping Daysanj as God, but these sects eventually died out or were destroyed. Until they were themselves destroyed in superstitious purges, the various techno castes were able to keep the lesser Daysanj machines going and understood enough to build new machines, such as early stardrive units. Thus it is understood that almost all modern technology as well as the phenomenon of telepathy can be laid at the feet of Daysanj. Of course such knowledge only adds fuel to the Genesis Heresy, which caused much damage heretofore in the efforts to eradicate it. It is considered a irrelevance and a heracy to point out any truth in the Genesis stance that humans were not always supreme or destined for supremacy in the galaxy. For this reason, all Daysanj discoveries which cannot be directly utilized are ordered destroyed and all trace removed. This is a standing order from the Prelate of the Holy Order of Archeology.
(Note that the traditional use of the plural in reference to Daysanj is still considered correct, even though new information convincingly proves that Daysanj were merely extensions of the same consciousness. It is therefore also correct to use the singular in reference to Daysanj in that by human understanding, Daysanj was a single entity.)
Solo let out a long whistle after skimming through the file. He didn't notice that Bug was busy playing with the computer keys. He did notice it when the Genesis file winked out, followed by all subsequent files which flashed away before them.
"What's going on?" Solo yelled out.
"Someone's erasing all the files. They must be accessing the computer core through another area," Bug told him. "But someone is completing the task all these people set out to do."
In the time it took Bug to say this, all files on display had disappeared. They had all been erased.
"Who did this?" Solo screamed.
"Someone," Bug answered him.
"But Who?!"
"I don't know," Bug told him.

Hurrying down to main engineering, Solo and Bug were surprised to find many more circuits operating than when Solo and Joe had come there before. Taking a look around, Bug announced that the main engines were online and that though the ship didn't seem to be any longer intact or capable of any sense of flight, there did seem to be a lot of power available.
"Looks like damaged systems have been automatically bypassed. There's even some working atmosphere processors going," Bug announced after examining some of the display panels.
Bug then turned to one of the panels near the engine core. After he examined this one, he screeched and ran back to Solo.
"Solo! Solo! We've got to get out of here! We only have sixteen hours!"
"What are you talking about?" Solo demanded. "Have you gone buggy, I mean, have you gone nuts? Calm down, Bug. Get a grip."
Bug tried to calm down, but when he looked back at the display that had prompted all this, he got all excited again.
"Solo!" he screamed. "Someone's set the ship's self-destruct! Those engines are going to explode in sixteen hours!"
Solo was stunned. When he recovered, he yelled, "Then do something! Stop the engines!"
Bug ran back to the panel "I can't! I'm locked out! I don't have the code! Who knows what it is? It could even be genetic!"
Solo slumped back against one of the panels. He was having a really bad day and it was going to get worse.

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