The Dark Between The Stars

FORTY-SEVEN
EXXOS

The black void was incomprehensible to his sensors, to his racing thoughts, and to his thousands of years of experience. It was not part of the same universe, did not follow the same physical laws, to which he was accustomed. Exxos was lost in an infinite, formless darkness.

The three surviving robot ships had plunged into the shadow cloud, hoping to elude the pursuing humans and Ildirans. But this irrational gulf seemed worse than nonexistence. As soon as his vessels were swallowed up in the dark nebula, the systems shut down, and the armored hulls crumbled and vanished, as if the matter itself were being unmade—leaving the robots drifting and helpless in a confusing nowhere.

The flood of data was irreconcilable. Space-time paused and shifted. The hundreds of black robots found themselves tumbling in a place where the universe itself seemed—literally—unreal.

Exxos sent sensor sweeps through his lenses and detectors. He could still communicate with his comrades, and their flow of inquiries shot back and forth like weapons fire. Although the black robots were materially identical, Exxos served as their de facto leader. Yet he had no answers either. His diagnostics made no sense out of the swirling void, and the boundaries seemed infinite.

The darkness around him changed, and a small section became impossibly blacker, a pulsing random shape, an inkblot that defined the very concept of unlight. Other blots manifested in the darkness, and in the center of each ebony blob there appeared an eerie and improbable eye.

The bizarre shadow-eyes brightened… focused on the black robots. On Exxos.

“You are different.” The thundering voice poured into his complex robot mind. “You are aware. You are intelligent—but your thoughts do not scream into the flesh of the universe. What are you?”

Instantly wary, Exxos guarded his information. “We are unique,” he said. Scouring his memory, he searched through his exhaustive internal database of historical records and personal experiences, including numerous encounters with the Ildiran Empire and their recorded history. He reached the inevitable conclusion: “You are the Shana Rei.”

“We are the purity and personification of the void.” The throbbing voice seemed to come from the staring inkblot in front of him, but also emanated from all the others that surrounded the helpless, drifting robots. “We cannot hear the scream of your existence, unlike all other sentients.”

“We are unique,” Exxos said again, trying to understand what the Shana Rei were saying. Something had interested the creatures of darkness enough that they kept the robots alive.

One of the floating, aimless Klikiss robots—Exxos identified the argumentative Azzar—split open his rounded carapace, extended angular wings. Thrusters sent heated exhaust through tiny rocket ports in the beetlelike body as Azzar tried to escape, though Exxos did not know where he intended to go. The void appeared infinite around them.

The Shana Rei focused on Azzar, and the robot froze in space, suspended like an ebony insect in obsidian amber. As if with invisible hands, the Shana Rei plucked the long wings from the robot’s body, one at a time. They tore the angular alloy film, crumpling it. Azzar struggled, but the Shana Rei were fascinated with their deconstruction activity.

Unseen hands snapped off the carapace. They plucked out the articulated limbs one at a time, peeled off the front plates that covered Azzar’s circuits. Next, they spun the robot’s angular head in a full circle before detaching it.

Even then, the Shana Rei weren’t finished. They tore out each of Azzar’s now-dull optical sensors and extracted circuits, spreading out an ever-growing cloud of debris. After the argumentative robot was completely dismantled, the Shana Rei broke down the components even further, snapping them, twisting them, until the large pieces were smaller pieces, then tiny bits that broke down into nothing at all.

Exxos had been correct in withholding detailed information. The Shana Rei could easily destroy all of the robots, but Exxos had to find some way to make himself, and his comrades, worthwhile.

Finally, the throbbing dark stain turned its eerie eye back toward Exxos and pronounced, “You are machines, but you are aware.”

“We are intelligent. We are independent. Our ships were escaping an enemy. We did not mean to intrude. We intend you no harm.”

The Shana Rei said in unison, “We cannot be harmed. The Shana Rei are everywhere. We live beneath, between, and behind the cosmos. You cannot intrude.”

Exxos pondered the conundrum, his thoughts racing. “We understand. Perhaps we can assist you.”

The black blot continued. “Order and precision offend us… but your robot thoughts do not cause us pain, as the Ildiran thism does, as the thrumming and rattling of verdani thoughts, as the piercing wail of the faeros…”

From Ildiran databases, the black robots knew that ages ago the Shana Rei had leaked through from the void to uproot the stranglehold of Ildiran thism. It had been a tremendous battle, and only an unlikely alliance with the fiery faeros had driven them back.

The Shana Rei grew more strident, more agitated, more deafening. “As does biological life everywhere—festering, chattering, droning, pounding.”

Exxos spoke, trying to stall while he thought of a way to save himself. “The Shana Rei are creatures of the void, chaos incarnate and entropy itself.”

“We are the natural state of the universe. Order and form are contaminants in the cosmos,” said the shadow blot. “We hold you now in an entropy bubble, safely walled off from the rest of the universe. Once, we resided quietly in the dark spaces between the stars, but now we have been forced to move, driven out of the silent emptiness because something tremendous is awakening.”

Reacting with incomprehensible anger, the formless Shana Rei expanded and collapsed like a midnight heartbeat. Then they used their invisible force to separate another helpless robot from the rest and sent the specimen spinning and careening.

Exxos watched as they toyed with it like a malicious child who had caught an interesting insect. The black robot struggled, bleated out signals of panic, but the others could not help. Exxos remained silent, fearing how many of his remaining robots would be torn apart on the whims of the shadow creatures. He began to doubt any of them would survive—unless he could find a way to make the black robots valuable.

As if testing their abilities, or just destructively curious, the Shana Rei extended the victim’s segmented metal legs, breaking off one at a time, before splitting open the back carapace to toy with the internal circuitry.

“We are only searching for peace, silence,” the Shana Rei continued. “To restore the universe to the way it was before the infestation of life.” The dark things continued their casual dissection of the robot. “The screams of living things and the thrum of minds make the universe an intolerable place.”

With a vicious yank, the Shana Rei tore off the robot’s flat head and sent it spinning into the emptiness.

“The noise just became intolerably louder as something great and terrible is awakening. It poses a powerful threat.”

With swift invisible strokes, they continued the methodical disassembly, breaking the robot’s pieces into smaller and smaller fragments, until nothing visible remained.

“The Shana Rei have been driven out and forced to war. Though the universe holds more emptiness than substance, we are losing the battle for creation.”

Before the Shana Rei could turn on other robots, Exxos decided he had to gamble to survive. He lied. “We are unique—and we know how to win that battle. You would be wise to ally yourselves with us.”