From: hutch@hutch (Stephen Hutchison)
Subject: [DQ] Week Seven: The Final Frontier...
Reply-To: hutch@ibeam.intel.com
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 92 04:45:24 GMT

Dragon Questing: Week Seven.

Regrouping after the battle in the Plaza, our small intrepid band
has been pooling their information, such as it is.  The place and
time the Dragon was taken is known, and how it was done.  Lancos
and Valgar have mentioned information about the graveyard, but the
discussion doesn't get far.  ShockWave, half-inhabiting SunStorm's
body, has grown quite stinking drunk.  They are joined by a forward
young woman, striking with sky-blue skin and crimson hair.  She has
settled herself on Kadrys.

Meanwhile, 'Raelf has been "running a program" analyzing the
PyraCubicDiamond, and it reports completion.  He moves to read
the results...

====

+ 'Raelf glanced down at the display on his MageFamiliar 500.
+ "By the Great Void!", he shouted.

+ Everybody turned toward him, even Alita.

+ "You know, do you really know how bad your bloody rotten timing is?"

+ ('Raelf the elder smiled to himself. Nice pun.)

+ 'Raelf tapped a key on the case and the image bloomed into life. Before
+ them, a dark cave, a figure engulfed in shadows, staring with black-
+ glowing eyes down at a bank of machines, covered with strange dials and
+ lights and switches, and fastened by heavy cables to a huge glowing
+ structure, shifting in space yet remaining still, clearly some kind of
+ a big brother to the PyraCubicDiamond they had seen earlier.

+ And embedded in the center like a fly in amber, like a butterly pinned
+ to a display board, the image of SunStorm, surrounded by facets of his
+ life, and screaming in mortal agony.

The blonde man began tapping on the case, muttering at the box in words
that sounded like wind.  The image of SunStorm was a very short, very
dense one.  It lasted maybe two seconds, and 'Raelf replayed it back and
forth, oblivious to the comments of the others.  He looked up, finally.

"I really wish that sword could hold his liquor.  There's a lot of info
here that I can't interpret, but it looks to me like the thing is making
him relive all the traumatic experiences in his life.  Without a body to
anchor it, the memory of this could fade.  I can't tell if he will come
out of this insane, or stronger.  It won't kill him.  Nietsche didn't know
what he was talking about, though, he offed himself.  The sword might know."
He pounded a fist on the table in frustration.

"The longer he stays in there, the more he suffers.  We need information.
... Information."  He stared for a moment.  Kadrys coughed, gently.

"Can you tell what the object is?  Or that shadowy fellow?"

'Raelf blinked.  "You're right.  The shadow-dude, well, there's only enough
info to give us that image, the glowing eyes and shadows.  Nothing else, no
personality, no elemental construction, nothing.  The machines, well, they
look like a mad scientist from hell got loose in the computer lab, nothing
makes sense about them.  Those cables going down to the PCD, there, they
don't do anything.  The frame, that it's sitting on, that's carrying a
heavy charge of phlogiston, and the dials and lights and switches look
like the set from a bad SF movie."

Lancos tapped him on the shoulder.  "What's a mad scientist, what is a PCD,
what is a flojstan, and what's a essef muve?"

"Oh.  Sorry.  A mad scientist, is kind of like a mad wizard, only not as
horribly dangerous to his immediate surroundings.  PCD is a fast way
of saying PyraCubicDiamond, which is what that shape tries to look like
when you map it into this world."  Lancos looked blank for a moment, then
shrugged.  "Oh, and an SF movie, it's kind of like a play, a fantasy about
the future, only instead of having actors come around, it's told with
a kind of magical lantern shining the pictures and sound out into a big
flat wall.  People give money to see them, for entertainment."

"And phlogiston is an elemental form of fire.  Similar to electricity."

Alita disentangled herself from Kadrys and bent over the table (managing to
flash cleavage at all the men in the room).  She poked in the air at the
image - it sparked and sizzled as it bent around her fingers.

"Please don't - your wards are disrupting the image, and it runs down my
batteries,"  'Raelf said, moving a hand towards hers.  She quickly pulled
it back, avoiding his touch, smiling secretively.

"What is that word there, the funny letters on the side of that diamond
thing?"  She tried to point it out, without touching the image.

'Raelf tapped at a key on the case.  The image closed in, blurring then
sharpening, showing the side of the odd structure.  There was a glint,
just at the right angle, superimposed over an image from SunStorm's life.

"Tan-ru?  That's the ancient Explorer script.  I think I remember something
about this... <<selftrigger deep_recall>>"

He closed his eyes, concentrating.  In a strange, hollow-sounding voice,
he began to speak.  The words were noise.  He repeated them in Common.

"We name thee Tan Ru, traverse thee the cosmos, find life, and bring it."

His eyes opened wide, irises a deep blue-black.  "It can't be.  They
destroyed them all, didn't they?"

<<Halt_and_store.File_name.PCD1 Now>>  the image went blank.  He pulled
a long, green-and-amber crystal from a pocket on his bandolier.  He
pulled the much smaller violet crystal from the slot on the case, and
returned it to the pouch, then plugged the new crystal into its place.

<<Library.On Activate.Now>>  The crystal began to glow gently.  An image
of a bookcase, as though drawn by an artist but never colored, came into
view.  The blond mage touched the case, tapping its surface, and a book
leaped out, flipping open, and filled the image.  Inside it was another
picture, of a similar bookcase.  More tapping, and the change repeated,
and repeated.  Finally, it stopped, on a page showing a complicated image
that resembled a line-drawing of the PCD.  Runes flowed along the side.

"This is it.   The first of the Explorer Probes.  The prototype, called
Tan-Ru.  Hmm.  It was sent out to find life, yeah, ok, mother pie and
applehood, yeah, ok, wow, they sure put a lot of propaganda into this.
Ah.  Here we are.  On reaching a new cosmos, the construct generated
remote sensor fields which manifested as crystalline structures.  Any
life-forms which touched the fields, would be brought to the central
holding structure, then analyzed for elemental composition BY STANDARD
SPATIAL DISSECTION?  That's barbaric!  Information archived for later
retrieval at home base family Turve'k.  Figures.  They never did have
much regard for common decency.  No-thumb idiots.  Malfunction after
fifth probe, destroyed Altani home city, all sentients lost due to
inadequate storage.  Figures.  Construct developed random sentient
pattern, decomposed by solar immolation.  Idiots.  Solar immolation."

He looked up from the image.  "It's something my incredibly distant
ancestors created.  It goes from place to place, skipping around the
outside of each universe until it finds a singularity to come in
through.   Then it finds a hidden, secret place, and starts sending
out porter modules.  Anything living, or anything with a mind, touches
the module, it gets taken to the main structure, and examined.  If it
has a high enough self-awareness, it gets torn into its components,
and saved for later examination.  Tearing things apart like that is
a crime in my society.  We can only take something that is dying, or
that has no strong self-awareness."

The others shifted, somewhat uncomfortable about the idea of being
torn into constituent parts.  Valgar signalled for another beer.

'Raelf continued.  "The Tan-Ru construct was supposed to be destroyed.
They threw it into our sun.  Trouble is, they didn't know that our
sun doesn't so much destroy things, as transforms them.  And Tan-Ru
was the first of its kind, which makes it very special.  I wonder if
they knew about the rule of artifacts... "  He made the runes flow
by on the book-image.  "Nope.  No indication of formal ritual of
destruction.  Bet they didn't build one in, which means, it gets to
decide on its own.  And solar immolation probably isn't it."

Lancos was rubbing his temples, grimacing.  "I'm too tired to know
what you're saying, 'Raelf.  You say you know what this is - can you
destroy it, or barring that, can you get SunStorm out of it?"

'Raelf shrugged.  "Destroy, not likely.  Get SunStorm out, only if
I can get close enough to touch it.  That shadowy fellow is not
likely to let me get that close without a fight.  If we even know
how to get there, that is."

Valgar slid his chair back and reached into his pack.
"I think I found something that can help with that part."
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