Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 172

Chapter 172 - Over Performing Errors - Part 2

“You understand that if they raise their city-ship’s shields it will be highly unlikely that I will be able to retrieve you?” Thor asked from this command chair.

“I know.” Eventus acknowledged. “But the base code limitations on the Asurans wouldn't keep them from accessing the systems on a gate ship. Only stop them from sabotaging anything they do access.”

And as much as he would have appreciated the small feeling of extra security that came from flying the gateship down to Asuras. The annoying reality was nothing the ship would allow him to do would make the slightest bit of difference if the Asurans figured out some way to turn on him.

Nodding, Thor began to turn one of the control crystals on his control console only to pause. “If possible could you investigate what the Asurans meant when they said they had warned us before? It is… Worrying.”

Eventus blinked, having glossed over that due to the answer being obvious. “They probably ran into the Vanir.”

Thor's hand twitched slightly. “The Vanir are in this galaxy?”

“According to the Travelers.” Eventus nodded with a slight frown. “I thought Doctor Weir informed Hermoid about that?”

“She may have.” Thor acknowledged. “My focus has been on the body replacement project. So it is possible that information was forwarded to others instead.”

“There’s never enough of you to do everything that needs to be done, is there?” Eventus asked with a sigh.

“No.” Thor agreed with a slight tilt of his head. “And attempting to duplicate ourselves has only run into problems.”

“Yeah.” Eventus winced at the memories that drugged up. “Questionably sane duplicates are always a pain to deal with. Especially when it comes to domestic disputes.”

“Indeed.” Thor sighed.

“I’ll make sure to ask the Asuran’s about it.” Eventus finally confirmed. “Hopefully they just passed through or something.”

“Thank you.” Thor said as he finished twisting the crystal.

As the flash of the translocator cleared from Eventus’s vision, he couldn't help the slightly annoyed sigh that slipped passed his lips.

The arrival point the Asuran's had directed him to was an external landing padd on top of one of the buildings that connected via skybridge to their city-ship. And it provided such a purposefully impressive view, that it all but screamed the kind of 'look what we accomplished’ level of insecurity that the Lantean knew from experience was likely to cause nothing but trouble.

“You did not arrive by ship.” A surprised voice said, causing Eventus to turn and see a single Asuran watching him with an almost perplexed look on his face.

Niam was much as Eventus remembered him, a tall man with slicked back blonde hair and an apparent age straddling that nebulas zone between thirty and forty.

“I did not.” He smiled in acknowledgement. “There's some sensitive information on my gateships main computer covering some allies that I didn't want your people accessing.”

“Then you do not trust us.” Niam said in a tone that suggested he found that moderately surprising.

“I don't know you.” Eventus countered with a shrug before glancing over towards the multiple mile long skybridge. “I assume we're walking?”

“Yes.” Naim confirmed with a nod. “Oberoth did not wish to authorize your use of the transport chambers.”

Eventus shook his head in disappointment. “Moderately petty, but I can't exactly begrudge it given we did try to exterminate you.”

“It is good you understand.” Niam said before motioning over to the door with an arm. “Please follow me.”

They began walking, and even knowing what he did Eventus still found himself more than a little bemused at the Asuran's duplicative architecture choices given everything they had to work with.

“So if you don't mind me asking, how many of you are there now?”

Niam glanced over at him, seeming to weigh the question for several seconds before answering. “There are currently five hundred twelve million, nine hundred seventy three thousand, two hundred and twenty six of us on the planet.”

“Impressive.” Eventus admitted honestly, not having expected anywhere near that many full Asurans given what he remembered from the show. “Are you using base personality templates, or something more personalized?”

“That is not a question I will answer.” Niam rejected primly.

“Fair enough I suppose.” Eventus acknowledged since he probably wouldn’t have answered that in Niam’s position either. “What about you? Have any questions for me?”

“Several thousand.” Niam admitted with a slight nod.

Eventus waited for him to ask one for several seconds before rolling his eyes. “We have another twenty minutes of walking ahead of us, I’m not going to be annoyed if you ask a few questions during that.”

Honestly, he’d be more annoyed if the Asuran didn’t, because long stretches of meditative walking was very much not what he wanted to deal with at the moment.

Niam seemed to consider that for a moment before nodding again. “Very well, how does one ascend?”

A non-existent edge seemed to catch Eventus's foot at the blunt question, though thankfully he was able to recover with only a slight hitch in his step.

“Really starting at the top, aren't you.” He muttered as he considered the sheer depth of possible answers.

“Would you rather I start at the bottom of the list?” Niam asked with a slight frown.

“No, that's fine I suppose.” Eventus shook his head. “At its most basic, ascension is the process of uniting physical body, mental processes, and higher dimensional superstructure together in a moment of understanding.”

“We are aware of this.” Niam confirmed. “But achieving that fusion has proven impossible.”

That caught Eventus's attention, and he clamped down on his possibly premature excitement before it could become visible. “Then you've been able to confirm that you possess a higher dimensional superstructure?”

“In some of our population.” Niam confirmed.

Clenching his fist, Eventus couldn't quite help the surge of righteous joy that shot through him at the certainty that a small group of ascended on his side of that particular debate had gotten to give a very big ‘we told you so’ to Moros and the rest.

“You seem pleased at that?” Niam questioned in an odd tone.

Eventus realized he had been grinning and quickly schooled his features to radiate slightly obvious pleasure. “I just learned my side won a really old argument.”

“Ah.” Niam murmured in seeming understanding. “Then you were one of the small percentage who voted against our destruction.”

“And even openly argued against it.” Eventus confirmed, grinning once more despite himself.

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Author’s Notes: And from there we’ll just jump over the rest of the conversation that’s Eventus and Niam basically going over a handful of extraordinarily minute details about Ascension. Mostly because I really don't want to insert a chapter full of philosphical debating into this.