Dissonance inundated Eti’s auditory cortex with agonizing, deafening, blinding, and ultimately debilitating disorder. Cacophony became his universe. Rather than spaceport, lake, city, mountains, sky, and stars, an infinite unsolvable maze of madness fused periphery with horizon. Behind, the knowledge of the Ruzgar, ordinarily a comfort, was usurped by the specter of panic. He fell aimlessly, a helpless observer to his own meaningless doom.

Compulsory external shutdown protocol was nothing so crude as an electro-magnetic pulse. It was a countermeasure integrated into his root physiology. Not merely his, but all machine-ai engineered on Cizra Su-Lahn. At its essence, it was akin to the manner living things, with seeming randomness, react with horror to snakes, spiders, or, irrationally, the number three. Yet this went well beyond that flight-or-fight instinct. He could never reliably identify the source. The exquisite torture drove any ability to observe it from his mind. Excruciating in the instant before sensory overload occurred, the sudden pain nevertheless cowered beneath the shadow of uncertainty of whether it was to be his last living sensation.

[I]“Living,”[/I] he muttered sardonically, [I]“as if the concept of alive or dead even applies to machines.”[/I]

That’s how he knew he was alive; well, functional anyway.

For those who are temporarily deactivated, there is no white light at the end of a tunnel nor world going dark; no fading away of consciousness. It is nothing like falling asleep. Existence halts, abruptly and without gaps in awareness before the moment of reactivation.

In a single excruciating blink, he transitioned from standing brazenly in spaceport to leaning limply against a wall like a rag doll. Unlit, the chamber was, with the exception of himself, empty and without obvious means of egress. He was alone, unarmed, unclothed, and without a notion as to what happened to him or his ship while his consciousness was suspended.

He didn’t move, but neither did he waste time. Eti was busy trying to infer his reason from being here from the facts present in his mind.

[center] . . . [/center]

Ec-shavar mulled over the report on the mindscan of Eti Naris and data download of the Tabriz Ruzgar. While present was a cornucopia of illicit detail on Potan Mul’s activities on behalf of the empire, there was little that lent itself to an investigation regarding her probable death. Nothing explicit about what she was doing in the star system, where she might have gone, or how she might have died. Yet her death was a near certainty. With the information gleaned, Potan Mul’s reputation would be ruined and she’d be executed were he to some day resurface.

Assassin, traitor, spy, thief, and other monikers were applicable. Most interesting was the cultivation and corruption of her companion into a conspirator and killer. Ordinarily, the machine would be destroyed, but it was Potan’s official heir, for some vile reason, and technically should be sent to the home world where it very well might not survive the bureaucracy of Cizra Su-Lahn’s utterly impossible courts.

What remained unsaid was what caught Ec-shavar’s interest. Potan Mul’s victims were all members of the high caste and all, though it was seldom a matter of public discourse, condemned by the priesthood on the suspicion of being heretics and members of the long-outlawed extinction cult [i]Hez-Karaz[/i]: fanatics who drained the heavenly well and weakened the whole with their unsanctioned practice of sorcery. There was no direct link between Potan Mul and the priesthood, but the implication was obvious. She was their hand when it came time to mete out judgment. 

[i]“She is the one who tried and failed to kill me,”[/i] snarled Ec-shavar, [i]“Not acting alone, but on orders.”[/i]

His talons tightened into a cudgel-like fist. 

[I]“A declaration of war against my divine right to rule this system.”[/i]