The plains no longer held any fears for Rial. He had wandered them aimlessly for two weeks or more now, heading always in the general direction of the outpost and henceforth the village, but finding himself unable to maintain his course.

They had given him away, betrayed him to the worst kind of khaf.[1] What would they say if he did return? Would they apologise? Beg forgiveness? Declare their shame?

Or would they make excuses, try to reason with him?

The one thing they wouldn't, couldn't do, was blame the Kotaku. That would be the grossest breach of tradition. The Kotaku made the decisions for the village, and the village was bound by those decisions in all results and effects.

So Rial wandered, and in his wanderings he spoke with his one companion.

"So you say we actually did come from beyond the stars?" he asked.

"Yes, a long time ago," replied Mead, as it called itself.

Apparently it stood for Manifold-Energy-Altering Deterrence system. Whatever that meant.

"How long ago?"

"Unknown."

"You don't know?"

"Correct. Unknown."

This was a common answer to Rial's questions.

It had taken some time for Rial to realise it, but whatever this weapon was it wasn't alive. Not in the way he thought 'alive' meant.

Yes, at times it could sound truly so, but only in regards to specific areas of knowledge. Anything outside these areas resulted in the same response; 'unknown.'

More importantly, the thing told him so itself.

"So you're saying you're not alive?" he had asked it, early in their time on the plains.

"Correct. I am a highly developed pattern-recognising program, but a program nonetheless. My linguistic capabilities are a result of Golosio datafolds interacting with Turing-Feigenbaum redundancies. I am not alive."

"Are you a demon?"

The machine sighed, a curious sound coming from an inert piece of metal.

"No, I am not a demon."

"What are you, then?"

"I am a weapon. The most powerful weapon on the planet."

"But not a demon?"

"No. Well... it depends on what you mean by 'demon'..."

And now they sat beside a fire as the first sun descended behind the mountains, and discussed the history of humanity on this... 'planet.'

"So how did we get here?" asked Rial.

"Unknown."

"Why did we come here?"

"Unknown."

"Where did we come from?"

"Earth."

"What is 'Earth'?"

"Unknown."

"Why have we forgotten all this?"

"Unknown."

Rial was eating an unfortunate grakar that had raced out of the slopes nearby believing it had found today's lunch, only to be fried in an instant by Mead. The giant lizard now sizzled over the fire, its final expression one of wide-eyed surprise.[2]

There was silence for a while.

"May I ask a question?" said Mead.

Rial was surprised. Mead had not offered any unsolicited conversation up to this point.

"You can feel the desire to ask questions?" Rial asked.

"I am programmed with conversational pattern-matching and analysis. A conversation cannot be held by only one person, with notable exceptions. I am also programmed to analyse and react to body language and pheromones in order to judge situations in which my owner may feel the need to converse, filter through psychological traumas, and process stressful periods of their existence."

Rial poked the fire.

"What does that mean?" he asked, staring glumly into the flames.

"It means you need to talk."

"So what is your question, Mead?"

"What is your goal, Rial? Why are we wandering aimlessly across this land?"

"I... have nowhere to go."

"Interesting," said Mead, then lapsed into silence.

Rial turned to look at the smooth metal where it lay on the ground nearby.

"Interesting? Why?"

"Your norepinephrine levels are high and serotonin low, whilst skin conductivity remains weak. You are homesick."

"You can't tell me where you're from but you can tell me that?" exclaimed Rial.

"Monitoring stress factors within owners and others is a vital part of prejudging attack potentialities and likelihoods. I am therefore equipped with the ability to monitor the levels of hormones and chemical imbalances that enhance stress."

"Right, right," said Rial as the weapon babbled on unintelligibly. He was resigned to only understanding a fraction of anything the weapon said.

“Yet we do not return to this village you have spoken of,” continued Mead.

“I told you; they cast me away.”

“They will not do so again. They cannot.”

Rial wondered what thought processes occurred within the shining skin of the weapon. How could something that was not alive think? Yet at times like this Rial was certain it was thinking, despite the lack of outward signs.

“They cannot? Why?”

“Because you have me in your possession. I have scanned for several thousand kilometres and found no evidence of any remnants of technological sophistication that could pose a challenge to myself.”

Rial stared at the machine.

“I am not going to attack my people,” he said.

“You wouldn’t have to,” replied Mead. “Extrapolating from previous reactions, the mere potential for violence I represent would be sufficient to cow any resistance.”

Visions raced across Rial’s mind, images of him striding into the village and forcing those who had betrayed him to kowtow, of himself standing above the prostrate form of the Kotaku, of himself recognised as the greatest in the village.

Rial shook his head.

“I’m not that kind of person,” he said.

“Hmmm, is that so? Still, it is probably best not to squander my limited charge for such minor power plays.”

“Charge? What does that mean?”

Even as he asked the question Rial had the alarming suspicion he knew the answer.

“I do not possess an infinite amount of energy, and have already used a substantial amount of my reserves during the altercation at the time of my activation.”

“You can run out of magic?” said a dismayed Rial.

“I am not magic.”

“You took my blood, didn’t you? When I forced my hand down onto the spike. That seems pretty magical. Demonic, even.”

“A simple genetic calibration. Your genes contain the correct sequences required for my initialisation. No doubt you are a descendant of my original owners. The initialisation method simply ensures I am activated only with serious forethought.”

Rial ignored the nonsensical sentence. It still sounded like magic.

“So how do you do what you do? How can you run out of this... 'charge'?” asked Rial.

“I operate on Lorentzian manifold principles of harnessed energy. Essentially, I am a Klein bottle that regulates flows of power through four dimensional space. The same energy I project returns to me through the skein of the reality grid, hence my relatively small size for my effect - I can reuse the same energy multiple times. However, I am not a perfectly closed system, and lose differing amounts of stored charge with each use.”

“What does that mean?” sighed Rial.

“It means…”

Again, the long pause, like something within was considering its reply.

“It means I can run out of magic,” said Mead, at long last.

[1] He still wasn't sure he was using that right, but he'd be damned if he wouldn't give it a try.

[2] It hardly needed cooking after Mead was done with it, but Rial felt more comfortable this way.