New chapter.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Too Far?
Cloak was the first to break their impromptu silence with the Coluan.
"You do that," he said, in a quiet voice that nonetheless carried the length of the room audibly, "and I will stop holding back, and come at you with every ounce of power that I can muster."
"Holding back?" the mad Coluan said. He affected an indifferent, uninterested tone. But Cloak could hear the fear, the uncertainty, the Brainiac tried to disguise.
"You're making him angry," GH said, "and you wouldn't like him when he's angry."
Saffa jabbed him in the gut with her left elbow, causing him to yelp in pain and demand why she did that for.
"And I, too, will not hold back," Spectre said, speaking for the first time in a while. Sam never liked to mince words all that much when he was alive, and that remained when he played host to the Spectre spirit. "And you will see how much rage and power I can dish out as well."
Although he spoke seemingly to disguise Aquilai's reappearance, who was pocketing his sonic screwdriver while acting as if he had never left. Cloak hope he succeeded in his endeavor -- it would make this exceedingly easier if he had.
"I -- I'll . . ." the mad Coluan stammered. He didn't look so sure now. It was clear, in his 800+ conquests this was really the first time anyone managed to get close enough to him to cause him legitimate danger, to possibly be able to kill him. He had never anticipated this -- he had allowed his incredible hubris to color his judgement in allowing the RAFians aboard his ship, just so he could know what he desperately wanted to know. "Just tell me what I want to know."
"No," Cloak said, with a resounding finality. He knew if he gave what the Coluan found to be an unsatisfactory answer -- or even if he gave one the Brainiac found acceptable -- that he would just blow up Earth anyway, despite the risks to his person. Just to make a point. But, thanks to Aquilai's efforts, they had a contingency.
"Just tell me!"
"No," Cloak said. "Coluan, you need to learn -- there are just some things that you'll never find the answer to. And instead of hunting ever obsessively after it, and hoarding it away, just accept the fact that no one, not even me, knows everything that there is to know. No exceptions."
"I have siphoned eight hundred and two worlds dry of their knowledge and culture," the Brainiac said, savagely. "I
will know it all. I
will know everything!"
Spectre shook his head, "Like he said, omniscience is an impossibility. Even now, you probably have forgotten the names of three-quarters of those worlds, much less the species and cultures you've slain."
"You . . . you don't know what you're talking about!" Justhe Phax denied, a little to emphatically.
"Even a computer needs to consult a database to 'remember' certain memories," Abby chimed in. "In a manner of thinking."
"You're
wrong!"
"Even your collection of spheres," Saffa said, "even they won't last forever. Technology, despite the stereotypes and tropes, does not last forever. Even their memory gets lost, corroded, or corrupted. This knowledge you gathered and hoarded like a dragon with treasure -- it may last for decades, maybe even millenia, but it won't last forever. Eventually, you'll lose everything."
"With proper maintenance, it can last forever!" he argued, completely forgetting that he was supposed to me lofty and holier-than-thou to them.
"Perhaps," Cloak said, "perhaps it can last for a while, but not forever. You have organic parts, and presumably a fully organic brain.
You are not forever.
You are not immortal. Maybe your kind can live to sixty years, my time, but that's hardly forever. Even the stars themselves are not immortal, just long-lived."
Cloak glared at the Coluan. "Even civilizations are not forever. Life itself isn't forever. You cannot hoard all the knowledge in the universe to yourself -- that would be a monumental task in futility. You committed over eight hundred acts of genocide really for nothing in the long run. The others may not have noticed, but I counted no less than twenty-five of your orbs that dimmed, that were fading away. And possibly many more have before we even got here. You're entire motive for committing these heinous acts was for naught."
"I . . . I don't believe you!"
"I don't really care one way or another if you do or don't," Cloak said. He glanced at Aquilai, who nodded, confirming Cloak that it was safe to depart.
"Go away!! Go away!!" he roared, sounding more like a child who was told his toy couldn't be fixed. "Just go away!! I'll leave your planet alone if you'll just leave me alone!"
They did.
