Lacuna: The Prelude to Eternity Read Online Free PDF Page B

hold Toralii. On a Human, they were ludicrously oversized and clearly uncomfortable.
    The person looked up, looked straight into Liao’s eyes. Liao stared into a macabre mirror and knew exactly who she was looking at.
    Herself. The copy of her body she had seen aboard the Giralan , Ben’s ship. An enemy from a lifetime ago.
    “Good evening, Melissa,” Ben said in Liao’s voice but his accent. The inflection made her flesh crawl. She felt her skin turn to gooseflesh even though the liquid in the tank was quite warm.
    “I don’t see what’s good about it,” she said. It was the only thing that sprang to mind. “So I’m guessing you didn’t die when your ship crashed on Belthas IV.”
    Ben smiled a wide, appreciative smile that only made things worse. He—or was it she now?—touched his chin with his fingers, with real, non-prosthetic fingers. Even so, Liao could see that that version of her had been modified as well. Visible metal objects protruded from the copy of her body with the same haphazard disregard for aesthetics and symmetry that the Giralan possessed. Had his ship survived too? She had believed it to be consumed by the singularity that had consumed Belthas IV.
    “You know,” said Ben, “it truly is amazing how the universe works. When you first met this body, it was suspended in the same chemical liquid that I find you now within. That is quite ironic, wouldn’t you say?”
    Liao fixed a firm stare upon him. “If you want to keep pretending you’re a Human, Pinocchio, you might want to try and get our language right, something you’re going to struggle to learn from books and data files. This isn’t irony. It’s merely coincidence.”
    “Of course,” said Ben. “What would be more ironic is if you had expended all that blood, steel and energy trying to defeat me and yet I had been the one who, wearing your face, had summoned the Telvan Alliance to assist your species in their darkest hour.” He smiled whimsically. “They were far too eager to assist The Butcher of Kor’Vakkar.”
    “A kindness I’m sure you granted to us out of the sweetness and generosity of your heart,” said Liao. She bit down on her lip to prevent far more unsavoury words slipping out. “But now that you’re here, talking to us face to face, I’d be curious to hear your list of reasons why I shouldn’t have these men shove you into an airlock and see if any of that metal bullshit you implanted into my clone will allow you to breathe in space.”
    “One does,” he said, matter-of-factly. “For a limited time. It doesn’t prevent radiation exposure, of course, nor damage from overheating. Nor does it prevent the surface liquids of the body from boiling away, such as those which lubricate the Human eyes, but it will preserve biological function for a significantly longer period of time when exposed to vacuum than—”
    “Enough.” Liao glared at him. “What do you want, Ben?”
    “What we all want,” he said, gesturing around him, his heavy manacles clinking as his arms moved. The Marines behind him tensed. “I want to live.”
    “You want a life wearing my face? You must be joking.”
    “My datacore is destroyed,” said Ben. “I’m not a construct anymore. I’m not you either; my modifications saw to that. We share the same genetic pattern, the same biological makeup, more or less. It’s not your face any more than a biological twin has your face—twins, nothing more, free to live our own lives and forge our own destinies.”
    “Are we, now?” Liao breathed deeply, clearing her mind. “The more you look like one of us, the less you truly understand about what it is to be alive. Do you realise that one of the preconditions required for living with Humans is that we have rules both written and unvoiced but woven into the fabric of our society, and those rules, if broken, have punishments that you may not find entirely comfortable?”
    “I am aware of such things. I presume you mean to charge