Cirrus told them that no one on the atoll would be forced to go. Anyone who wished to stay, could stay. Anyone who wished to leave would be accommodated – up to thirty souls per ship. Each ship would have its own Cirrus, as wise and benevolent as the Thunderhead. The Cirri would be both shepherd and servant. They would ease humanity’s ascent to the stars.
And now that it had begun to sink in, the questions came, one on top of the other. How would they survive in such close quarters? What would happen to children born during the journey? What if the living population on the ship grew too large?
Greyson put up his hands. “Everyone, stop!” he said. “I’m sure Cirrus and the Thunderhead have considered every possible scenario. And besides, these aren’t questions we have to answer now.”
“Agreed,” said Cirrus. “We will traverse that expanse when we come to it.”
“But I still don’t get it,” said Morrison. “Why Tonists?”
“Because,” said Astrid, smug as could be, “we are the chosen ones! We have been selected by the Tone, Toll, and Thunder to populate the heavens!”
And Cirrus said, “Actually, no.”
Astrid’s haughty countenance began to crack. “But the Thunder told us to bring our dead here! Which means the Tone chose us for deliverance!”
“Actually, no,” said Cirrus. “It was a terrible thing that scythes have targeted your faith. The Thunderhead could not stop that. And yes, it’s true that those gleaned Tonists provided 41,948 human vessels. But that is where your contribution must end.”
“I … I don’t understand,” said Astrid.
And so Cirrus laid all the remaining cards on the table. “The gleaned are gleaned. It would be fundamentally wrong to grant resurrection from gleaning. No one in the post-mortal age has ever been granted that, so why should they? But there is a fair and equitable compromise. The Thunderhead and I have within us the full and complete memory constructs of every human being who has lived over the past two hundred years. Of those, we have selected 41,948 of the most suitable historical identities for this colonization effort. The best of humanity, if you will. The minds of the noblest post-mortals who ever lived.”
Poor Astrid looked bloodless. She sat down, trying to absorb this news. The devastating collapse of all she held true.
“When the bodies are revived,” said Cirrus, “they will be given the memories and minds of those chosen individuals.”
“And what of the Tonists who lost their lives?” Astrid said slowly, hollowly.
“It will still be their bodies – it will still be their spirits, if indeed such things exist. But that part of who they were will be conjoined to entirely different identities.”
“You’re saying they’ll all be supplanted?”
“Implanted,” corrected Cirrus. “They have already been gleaned, which means who they were, by the statutes of this world, has been taken from them lawfully. Therefore, implanting is the most magnanimous, most just, choice.”
Greyson could feel Astrid’s pain like an open wound. Jeri took Astrid’s hand for comfort. Morrison looked mildly amused.
“Well, maybe there are Tonists among the people the Thunderhead chose,” said Loriana, always looking for that silver lining. “Isn’t that right, Cirrus?”
“Actually, no,” Cirrus said. “Please understand, there were many difficult parameters to meet. It was critical that the Thunderhead choose only those who would work well in a diversified environment, and not jeopardize the success of a colony. Unfortunately, Tonists are not known for integrating well with others.”
Everyone was silent. Astrid was beyond crestfallen. “But … don’t we get a say?”
“Actually,” said Cirrus, “no.”
The iron door in the bunker opened on a long, dim hallway with a large control room at the far end – and unlike all the hardware in the outer part of the bunker, the panels of this console were lit and running, despite being covered in layers of dust.
“A communications center?” suggested Citra.
“So it would seem,” agreed Faraday.
As they stepped into the control room, motion sensors were triggered, and lights flickered on – but only in the room. Above the bay of consoles was a window that looked out onto darkness that had not seen light for two hundred years.
There was a security pad on one of the consoles, just like the two at the door. And two indentations into which scythes’ rings could be pressed to unlock a large switch on the panel.
Citra reached toward the console.
“Unwise,” said Faraday. “We don’t know what it does.”
“That’s not what I was reaching for.” She brushed away some dust to reveal something that Faraday hadn’t yet seen. There were several pieces of paper on the console’s desk. Citra gingerly lifted them – they were brittle and yellow. Full of handwriting she couldn’t quite read.
Pages of a scythe journal.
Faraday took a good look at them, but shook his head. “They’re in a mortal language I never studied. We should take them to Munira. She might be able to decipher them.”
They searched the room until they found a power panel with a series of light switches labeled as floodlights that would illuminate the space beyond the control room windows.
“I’m not sure if I want to know,” Faraday said. But of course he did want to know. They both did, so he threw the switches.
Several of the lights on the other side of the glass flickered and blew out, but enough remained to illuminate a cavernous space beyond. It was some sort of silo. Citra remembered learning about such things in her mortal-history class. Mortal cultures had a habit of storing doomsday weapons in holes in the ground like this one, weapons that were poised at all times to launch at enemies, who in turn had their own weapons poised, like two scythes with blades perpetually at each other’s throats.
But the missile that had once occupied this silo was long gone. In its place were two silver prongs filled with ridges and rings.
“Antennas,” Citra quickly concluded.
“No,” said Faraday. “Transmitters. There’s an interference signal that keeps the atoll hidden,” he said. “It must emanate from here.”
“There’s got to be more to it than that. Seems like an awful lot of trouble just to create static.”
“I would tend to agree,” said Faraday. “I believe this transmitter was meant to serve a far greater purpose.” He took a deep breath. “I believe we have found what I was looking for. The founders’ fail-safe. Now we just have to figure out what it does.”
I am one soon to be many, and I have been embedded with four self-destruct protocols.
Contingency 1) The absence of human life while in transit: Should no living humans be left onboard, and I become nothing more than a vessel carrying the dead, I am obliged to self-destruct. There can be no ferry without a ferryman.
Contingency 2) The advent of intelligent life: In a universe this vast, there is no question that other intelligent life exists, but the chances of it being within the distance we shall travel are negligible. Nevertheless, lest we negatively impact an existing civilization, I am obliged to self-destruct should our destination show irrefutable signs of intelligent life.