Алан Дин Фостер - Relic

Frowning, Ruslan indicated their surroundings. “We haven’t explored every corner of this chamber, but it doesn’t seem big enough to hold or support very many people. And what about food and water?”

“Did you think this single room was the extent of the space accorded to the Project?” Nashrudden gestured at the floor. “This is only the uppermost, supervisory level. Many others lie beneath us. All were stocked with carefully prepared long-term supplies. The same is true of similar installations hidden elsewhere on the other continents. But this one, this place, was designed to be reawakened first. My colleagues and I are the scientists, the designers, the engineers, the technicians. First we are revived, then we can more speedily awaken the others. The Project’s reach is wide.” Turning, he started toward the ten now fully occupied cylinders. “Some of my friends may find resurrection disconcerting. I need to make myself available to reassure them.”

Ruslan gestured toward the cylinders. “This is all very different from a similar arrangement I saw on Treth. There the bodies were held in a liquid suspension.”

“I imagine that when the Aura Malignance struck, the science here was more advanced than anything that was achieved on any of the colonies.” Standing at the foot of the nearest cylinder, Nashrudden watched as the light enveloping it began to intensify—a now familiar development to the two onlookers. “It’s easier to preserve individualities and memories when they’re separated from the physical corpus. Restoration involves reintegration of non-corporeal memories with the original biological form.”

Shielding his eyes from the intensifying glow, Ruslan struggled to understand. “You mean you removed the memories and thoughts of everyone who was stored for later revival?”

“Not removed. Copied out. Restoration involves writing over the original. The result is the same.” He smiled anew, though Ruslan could hardly see him now through the intense auroras that enveloped all ten of the cylinders. “ I certainly feel the same.”

A question had been bothering Cherpa. “Why would a system designed to preserve humans when everyone else was dying off need a live human to reactivate it?” She gestured upward. “Would the supervising AI periodically sweep the surface for evidence of the Malignance and, after a reasonable time, awaken you if no plague was detected?”

Nashrudden looked back at her. “Surface sweeps would only indicate when the Earth itself was free of plague. Had that been the programming, we all could have been revived only to have the Malignance return, carried by an infected human from one of the colony worlds. Then all would truly have been lost.” He smiled. “The presence of uninfected humans was the signal for which the instrumentation was designed to wait.”

Unable to comprehend a science capable of shuttling human individualities around like so many collections of numbers, Ruslan did as he had done with every piece of incomprehensibility he had encountered since his years alone on Seraboth.

He simply accepted it.

The food and drink whose location was revealed by the AI in response to their query was old but impeccably preserved. Even so, Ruslan was reluctant to try it. Cherpa felt no such restraint, digging into the contents of the self-heating rehydrating containers with as much gusto as if they had been prepared yesterday. A ravenously hungry Nashrudden joined her, as did the first ten of his revived colleagues. Not wishing to be left out of the Earth’s first revivification conclave, a hesitant Ruslan eventually joined in. Compared to decades of Myssari fare, the revived provisions were a riot in his mouth. In a sense he was eating history. His appreciative digestive system made no unnecessary distinctions.

When he thought Nashrudden could spare a moment from helping his colleagues with the process of revivification, Ruslan asked him how they now expected to care for themselves. That the Myssari would help, gladly and freely, he had no doubt. But if there were many…

“Appropriate resources were stored in many safe locations across the planet,” the resurrected scientist told him. “Food, additional clothing, instrumentation, machinery, even a few personal items each individual was allowed to sequester. Enough so that the species could rebuild and begin anew… hopefully this time with more care, common sense, and ethics. It has been a costly lesson.”

“Repositories.” Cherpa had come up behind them. “Only this time for people and not objects.”

“They could be called such, yes.” Nashrudden smiled at her. “You’re very pretty. I haven’t been out of body so long that I’ve forgotten what those parameters are like.”

She did not blush, blushing being a behavior that is not innate and must be learned. She simply accepted the compliment.

“And you are very brave—allowing yourself to be the first to be revived without having any idea what kind of world you might be entering.”

“I was also, as far as I know, the last to have his individuality extracted and body preserved.” The scientist shook his head. “But I’m not brave. The brave were those who were still healthy, still untouched by the Aura Malignance, but who did not have their selves extracted and their bodies placed in stasis. The ones who remained outside and aboveground to ensure that each facility was functioning as planned before being sealed. The brave ones died. The rest of us”—he gestured at the increasing crowd of the revived—“are the fortunate placeholders.” Wiping at his eyes, he took a deep breath before once more turning a soulful gaze on Ruslan.

“How many others are there on the colonies? How many other survivors off-Earth?”

Ruslan and Cherpa exchanged a glance before he replied. “You’re looking at them.”

A stunned Nashrudden stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Two? Just… two?”

“There were three,” Ruslan told him apologetically, “but there was an unfortunate incident.”

“Two. Out of millions upon millions of colonists.” He fought to speak. “I wish I could believe in a hell, if only as a just final resting place for those who developed and propagated the Aura Malignance.” There was more he wanted to say but it was interrupted by the onset of weeping.

Ruslan and Cherpa looked on, embarrassed, not knowing how to respond. There wasn’t anything they could do, really. Sufficient and appropriate words did not exist to describe a near-extinction to someone who had not experienced it.

More three-days than Bac’cul cared to remember had passed since the two human specimens had sealed themselves within the mountain. Spread out around him were all the scientific and engineering resources the Myssari outpost could bring to bear. These were augmented by the presence of an equal quantity of Vrizan material and equipment. Having agreed to work together to try to enter the mountain by means that would not see those making the attempt violently deconstructed, the teams put in place by the two reluctantly cooperating species had thus far managed to achieve a share in nothing except failure. Two attempts to bypass the doorway—one to the left of it and the other working downward from the top of the mountain—had ceased when material of the same composition as the doorway had been encountered beneath the overlying rock.

It had just been decided to bore a hole and then excavate horizontally in an effort to interdict the lift shaft from one side when Cor’rin came running to alert him. That she had chosen to do so in person instead of employing her communicator said much. He had never seen her move so fast, rocking from side to side as she entered the field office located near the back of the portable building.