Perhaps he had cried at some point. Perhaps, overwhelmed with the
sorrow of losing so many people -- so much of his world -- he just
broke down and wept at the senselessness of it all: his planet, a
living paradise not very long before, now dying by degrees all around
him; his wife, buried in its overheating, sterile soil; half the
population fled, the other half reduced to... something else; attacks
from space on the once proud planet of Psychon.
Perhaps the horror of it all, and what he was now doing, got to him
sometimes.
He was Mentor. It was an ironically fitting name in some ways: he
was once an eminent and well-respected scientist among his peers and
the people in general, and had much knowledge and wisdom to pass on.
Now, he was alone, except for the only two things that could console
his spirit. One was his daughter, Maya. She was the only one left
to teach. He was the only teacher she had now.
Mentor's only other consolation in life was his dream of someday
restoring Psychon to the beautiful world it once was. Now, it was
merely a rapidly overheating, festering mass of volcanic activity,
threatening to consume everything. The once-happy world, afflicted
with a disaster he would never discuss by name any more.
The restoration of Psychon was not merely a beautiful dream, but
something Mentor thought within reach. After all, this was the world
of metamorphs. His own daughter, by the time she reached full
adulthood, would know how to transform herself from her usual form
into other living patterns. Molecular Transformation -- an ability
common on Psychon. So why couldn't the world itself be made
metamorphic -- to revert to its once paradisiacal form?
It was not far-fetched, as a number of unfortunate aliens were to
discover later. Psychon science was advanced, along lines peculiar
to its metamorphic people: for individuals who could learn such
exquisite control over all the molecules of their own bodies,
uncovering at least a few of the secrets of life was not as great of
a stretch for them as for most other species. Their technology had
long reflected this fact, including the development of
semi-biological computers.
Mentor was one of the lead researchers, on the cutting edge of
Psychon's newest technologies. Sometime not long after Maya's birth,
and while Psychon started to rapidly die around all of them, Mentor
threw his efforts into a new biological machine with the potential
capacity to transform his world. It would be a sort of brain for a
world he hoped to give the biological capacity of metamorphosis.
Such a device required more than the usual computer "mind," more than
the usual biological "hardware." It was something which needed an
unprecedented amount of mental power, and when the computer, even
with little initial mind energy, proved promising, a few people
volunteered their minds to Mentor's machine, in selfless acts of
heroism they hoped would eventually restore Psychon to the rest of
its people.
Mentor, as many others, wanted his child to inherit a restored world
to raise her children in. His own wife, buried close by, had
died early in Psychon's own death throes, and memories of her
beautiful face, her lovely voice, and her sweet scent haunted him
when he was alone; while Maya's presence, embodying so much of her
mother, looked at him every day with warm eyes that clearly showed
that she thought the world -- literally -- of Mentor. For Maya, as
she grew, clearly believed her father could return the beauty she
still faintly remembered from her earliest childhood -- and Mentor
would do anything to bring her hopes to life.
The sacrifice of those first Psychons who submitted the energy of
their minds to Mentor's biological computer was not in vain: they
ceased to be separate, thinking, sentient individuals; but their
stripped mental energy began increasing the machine's abilities.
Mentor called the whole system Psyche, after the world it would save,
unaware that certain aliens would find other, more ironic meanings --
for it was a mind-ripping computer. Even that early, its
power, with its echoes of the metamorphic abilities of sacrificial
Psychons, proved itself, allowing Mentor to command his Psyche to
reach out and embrace the most immediate area of his laboratory and
home, protecting them, and shutting down the volcano that had grown
so close by.
Meanwhile, others frantically built ships in which to leave Psychon.
What they previously had was insufficient for mass interstellar
exodus, and while the respected Mentor's efforts appeared promising,
they feared it would be too little, far too late, to save the people.
They simply could not count on only one approach for the survival of
their people. Furthermore, with so much of the planet being
destroyed, they were coming under increasingly bold attacks from
aliens who came to Psychon under false pretexts of peace.
Soon, as Mentor gained more experience and continued to improve
Psyche; and as more Psychons submitted their minds to the machine,
Psyche grew more powerful, extending tentacles of influence through
more of the planet, and beginning to slow down Psychon's rate of
decay.
It was not enough for the shipbuilders. Psychon was still dying, and
they doubted that Mentor could reverse this before they were killed.
Perhaps they were also revolted at Mentor's extremely questionable
methods. In any case, they left in their now-complete
ships, to take their chances among the stars.
Mentor could no longer even conceive of the idea he might fail, nor
could he consider leaving his wife's grave, or abandoning his world;
and Maya could not leave her father's side. A few others also
remained behind, convinced Mentor was close to reversing Psychon's
slide to doom, and submitted their minds to Psyche.
While this would perhaps leave no option for new children on Psychon
itself, the bodies of those whose minds were taken by Psyche did not
die -- at least not immediately -- and Mentor could even use tiny
fractions of Psyche's ever-growing and now tremendous amount of
energy to animate the mentally-destroyed but physically-intact
bodies. He pressed them into service for himself and Psyche, using
them as needed, particularly to mine the rock around Mentor's base,
to find more of the materials needed to further build Psyche. Their
presence also allowed for the hope of restoring the population:
Mentor, though his biological computer, could direct their bodies to
reproduce, and generate children. There was nothing wrong with their
genes, after all; and Mentor, perhaps with Maya's later help, could
raise these children to perfectly normal adulthood. So he thought.
Perhaps he had already crossed a line -- or perhaps he did so with
his next actions -- from an already grey area into darkness: from an
already revolting process that adult Psychons had allowed, perhaps
not knowing the full extent of what would ultimately happen; to a
much more evil purpose. Mentor, long since obsessed with the
restoration of his planet, was already doing a lot of things he might
never have considered earlier; now, he progressed to the next step.
Aliens had been attacking his planet -- and it really was his
now, for he and Maya were the only intact Psychons left -- for some
time. Yet, with Psyche now powerful enough to transform rocks into
ships and even more powerful balls of light, Mentor had a weapon --
the best Psychon ever had -- which he used it to grab the alien
ships, extract the individuals to give their minds to Psyche and
their bodies to service for the machine.
Soon, he was reaching into space with his metamorphic "ships," paying
no attention to who might be hostile and who was really innocent. He
captured, cajoled, pleaded, lied -- anything to capture more aliens
and put them at his disposal -- and his daughter's as well. He would
introduce Maya, now a young woman with growing metamorphic ability,
to them, for her to "see" and understand their forms -- and those of
any other creatures they had aboard their ships.
No matter how horribly his victims suffered, Mentor smiled, for his
biological computer was gaining strength, getting ever closer to
being able to restore his world. Mentor was the spider, sitting on a
growing planetary web called Psyche, catching flies to be stabbed and
drained of their vital juices.
He was a lost soul -- but not entirely.
Over time, when his daughter met all the various intelligent aliens,
she found them to be hostile, to the point Mentor had already put
them behind force fields. However she may have questioned her father
on this, Mentor could easily lie, blaming it on anything but the true
reality of his actions. Furthermore, when the aliens inevitably left
Maya's sight, he simply claimed they had, in the end, calmed down,
agreed to help, and were now on their way elsewhere, unharmed.
That was the curious thing. Though he would do anything -- no matter
how evil -- for Psyche, and could have easily employed Maya as she
grew up, indoctrinating her young and impressionable mind to these
"necessities" and "facts" of life, he instead shielded her from
knowledge of his methods, telling her no harm came to those who
offered themselves to Psyche -- saying nothing of the drained husks
laboring in the caves so close by.
Some large part of him -- something still sane -- loved his daughter
too much to corrupt her mind and actions with his. He smiled while
acting the spider's role; but the same smile was far more true with
Maya. Though he never acted the physical metamorph, it was as if he
were a mental metamorph. Mentor was a torn man: on one hand, doing
virtually anything for Psyche, however dirty and outright evil, and
smiling in satisfaction at the results; on the other hand, doing
everything in his power to keep Maya clean and free of his actions.
To him, she was all the best of Psychon, so like her dead mother; and
while Mentor was mostly lost to moral corruption, he still knew she
must remain clear of it.
Yet was it truly possible to keep her that way, when her own father's
rotting soul was festering, so near her? Did his deep, regal voice
sob at night? Did he fear Maya learning the truth and hating him for
it? Did he fear something worse, that Maya would become like him,
turning into some sort of monster far worse than just physically?
Did he ever fear that the innocent, affectionate smile she had
inherited from her father would subtly transform into Mentor's
other, nearly identical but very different smile of evil
pleasure? Did he ever contemplate just destroying Psyche?
The last was no longer an option for Mentor, however, because Psychon
-- and Maya with it -- would die, for Psyche was now the only thing
holding the planet even partially stable. He couldn't stop feeding
the machine that which it needed. Nor could he simply hand his
daughter away to some aliens to distance her away from his own evil:
he could no longer guess which visitors were hostile and which would
be friendly.
Yet, he would soon be forced into some of those very quandaries, with
the troubling questions forcibly answered for him.
When he captured several people who appeared more Psychon-like than
any other Mentor had captured, he could see Maya was entranced.
Though she had always wondered why every alien she ever met
was hostile, he could hear definite bewilderment in her voice after
she had met the Alphan Commander. It was easy, as always, to sooth
his naive daughter and send her away while he talked to John Koenig.
Mentor knew this wasn't a case of some small ship carrying maybe ten
aliens and some assorted plants and animals: the commander's
wandering "Moonbase" contained thirty times more life, nearly
three-hundred intelligent individuals -- a prize he could not let slip by.
In their base, they were beyond his physical reach; they would have
to be cajoled from their base, onto ships Mentor could pluck. It was
an extraordinary situation, and he tried to maneuver the alien
commander, but was frustrated until he finally resorted to coercion,
mercilessly threatening to drain some other, already captured Alphans
right in front of their leader's horrified eyes.
Yet Koenig was shrewd beyond Mentor's early estimations, somehow
slipping a message to his people, who later, with Maya watching,
tried to destroy Psychon. This naturally failed, but Maya was
obviously disgusted by the attempt, and stormed out to confront the
imprisoned commander. To her father's shock and bewilderment, she
later returned to the Grove of Psyche with Koenig. Mentor
could not even comprehend what his daughter was doing, until he heard
her words -- in an stricken, betrayed voice -- that she had seen the
pitiful remains of Psyche's victims, laboring for his -- and, in a
sense, her -- benefit. His pained heart could see and hear that
Maya's faith and trust in him were shattered, that she was rejecting
what he had done as evil. He could see and hear her sheer horror.
Mentor had lost his daughter.
He was soon to lose even more, for Koenig started destroying Psyche.
Mentor could do nothing as his prized biological computer -- now a
horror in Maya's eyes -- started overloading, wildly releasing its
force not just within the Grove, but all along its world-wide web.
It was Psyche insane, metamorphic energy released in the most
destructive ways. The planet, barely held in check before, was now
disintegrating rapidly. Psychon was doomed. So was Mentor.
Maya....
He could not bear the thought of his beautiful daughter dying for
crimes she was innocent of. It was Maya, not Mentor and his Psyche,
that represented the best of Psychon, and he would not allow her to
perish. Over the explosive noise and flames of dying Psyche, he
shouted to Koenig, pleading in a still commanding voice to save Maya.
His own daughter had far more honor in her than the tatters remaining
in her father, and Mentor could only hope and trust that these
Alphans would treat Maya honorably. Perhaps he had already seen
their moral strengths from the first moment they met, or saw them
now, or maybe it was only his wild hopes for Maya. In begging Koenig
to save her, Mentor entrusted his daughter's life and future to this
alien commander, even as Maya herself begged her father to leave
Psyche, which she believed had caused him to do evil. He knew she
was naive to the truth, however -- the reality that he had pursued a
horrifying course, and could not wash away his sins so easily.
Psyche had become something of an extension of his own mind; and he
still could not leave his world, or his wife who was buried there.
Despite Maya's struggles to prevent it, he was soon buried as well.
Mentor's last sight, as the Grove of Psyche's ceiling collapsed on
him, were shadows of Koenig and Maya, his daughter morphing through
several increasingly violent forms in an attempt to escape the
commander, to save her father -- even as Psychon started exploding
around them. His last words were further pleas to Koenig, that the
latter not give up on the wildly struggling Maya.
He died not knowing whether his daughter would manage to escape to a
new and hopefully happy life, or senselessly throw away her life in
an attempt to save her corrupt father.
