The Sovereign Road

by Aaron Calhoun

  Aboard the Worldship Gog, Gedron stared grimly at the data pouring in through the infographic crystals.

  The initial surge had worked as expected, and Vai now burned with a sullen red glow. When the first flames had pierced the star’s surface, a great cheer had erupted from the Gog’s crew.

  But at what cost…

  Sixty four worlds lost to the entropy clouds in under five minutes. Only his command to stop the barrage once the first signal of ignition reached the Gog had halted the storm. Still, he reminded himself, these casualties had been expected. The forecasts had been sent as planned, and he desperately hoped that their inhabitants had possessed enough caution to heed them. They, at least, would have had a chance. He was more concerned about what would come next.

  Sighing, Gedron turned his attention to the two infographic crystals directly in front of him. Each held the image of a Neutronium Forge depicted against the backdrop of Vai’s north and south poles. With a gesture, Gedron summoned the governing infochryst of each forge, and the images were replaced by two expressionless crystalline faces framed by glassy feathers.

  “Harut, Marut, have you had sufficient time to calculate the needed field strength based on the parameters of the initial burst?”

  The infochrysts responded with a barrage of statistics and models, their equivalent of a yes.

  Gedron glanced again at the image of Vai. The photosphere already had begun to cool, its ruddy light now shot through with growing patches of shadow. There was no time left.

  “Harut, Marut, commence stellar sustenance protocol.”

  From high above the poles of Vai, two tubes of blue gravitic flux shot starward from the Neutronium forges. As the flux tubes met and stabilized deep in Vai’s core, the surface of the star ceased cooling and once again began to burn. At this a cheer rang out from the crew, and Gedron permitted himself to smile. Then a series of bright flashes from the peripheral infographic crystals drew his attention, and his smile froze as he saw the entropy clouds erupt with poisonous fire.

  Sickly green prominences of destructive force arced from their surfaces, tearing through planets, moons and asteroids like scythes through wheat. Gedron watched for what seemed an eternity, hoping that Vai’s renewed solar wind could hold back the storms, but the clouds were already advancing faster than they ever had before, crashing down upon world after world in a vast boiling wave. Within a few moments it was clear. Vai’s radiation pressure was not enough. His models had been accurate. His worst fears were now a reality.

  Already the crew of the Gog knew that something was wrong. He could see a few of them casting furtive glances toward the infographic crystal that showed the entropy clouds, their expressions thick with worry. Gedron glanced sideways at Yithra-Gor, who met his gaze with a similar look of concern.

  It’s not too late. I can still stop this.

  The thought rose unbidden, only to be overwhelmed by the memory of the Entrope’s accusation of treason. Gedron turned again to the image of the entropy storms, his mind a whirlpool of indecision. As he watched yet another world be consumed by the storms he suddenly thought of his son, alone on the outer rim, adrift in a cosmos dissolving because of his actions. The whirlpool abated, and a slim crystal of icy conviction began to form in his heart.

  “The Axioms be damned,” he growled. “Harut, Marut, initiate laridian ring deceleration protocol and full shutdown sequence.” Gedron paused for a moment, then added, “And delete all stellar maintenance protocol data from long-term memory!”

  The emotionless faces of Harut and Marut nodded and vanished. A few seconds later the gravitic flux tubes projected by the Neutronium Forges dissipated. Gedron watched as the surface of Vai cooled, the red flames sputtering and vanishing, vast patches of shadow spreading across the star like a fungus. Soon the orb was again cold and dead. Gedron glanced at the auxiliary infographic crystals, and was relieved to see the entropy clouds slow and stop, their violence abated. Gedron lowered his arms and the infographic crystals that had surrounded him slid slowly into the platform beneath. Suddenly overcome by weariness, he took a deep breath and addressed the crew of the Gog.

  “College of Gravitists and crew of the Worldship Gog, we have failed in our efforts to sustain the reignition of Vai. I ask that you now set a course for high orbit above Latis, though it is with profound disappointment that we return to our families and homeworlds.”

  His speech completed, Gedron stepped down from the platform and left the bridge. Even now the Heirophants were meeting in Conclave, expecting him to join them after a successful reignition.

  They would not be pleased.

  ***

  Like mist dissolving in the light of the rising sun, the nimbus surrounding Vai began to disperse. Soon the violent convulsions subsided and the strange light faded from his eyes. Garin watched as the last of Vai’s muscles relaxed, and as Vai slipped into a deep slumber he rose to face Hyperion and his sons. Their eyes moist with tears, Vasya and Verduun held their breaths in fear of another assault, but as it became clear that this was not forthcoming their tears abated and their shoulders sagged with visible relief. Hyperion remained motionless, kneeling in silent contemplation beside the bed of his son. His heart troubled, Garin walked to Hyperion’s side and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  “They will try again, Hyperion,” he whispered softly.

  “Why?” answered Hyperion in anger. “Is it not enough that the rest of my children are dead? Now they must torture those that are left in their final hours? What good does this serve? Can your people not accept the fate they have chosen for themselves?”

  “No,” said Garin gravely. For a moment his vision turned inward as he contemplated the crystalline shell in which Daath had attempted to imprison him: his own personal world, a black hole of purposeless self-reference.

  “My people have lost the ability to see anything beyond the surface of their own dying cosmos, beyond the meaninglessness they consider their only true inheritance.”

  Hyperion pondered this for a moment.

  “And what of you, son of man?” he said finally. “You have done much to come this far, and you speak of the shortsightedness of your race, but can you truly see?

  “I know now that this blindness is the work of Daath….” began Garin.

  “No!”

  Hyperion rose to face Garin, all traces of his previous good natured demeanor gone. His face burned with imprisoned heat like the surface of the noonday sun, and his eyes flashed with righteous wrath.

  “I will not allow you the refuge of that half-truth,” Hyperion shouted. “Daath’s evil is vast, but you bear as much blame as he. Though his power is great, it is your choices that have granted him the authority to exercise it.”

  As Hyperion spoke, Garin immediately saw the truth of what he said.

  “You are right, Hyperion Starfather,” said Garin, bowing his head his head in humility. “Though I was brought up in darkness, it was still my choice to remain blind. There is much that I do not know, and many things I do not yet understand, but I have seen seen enough glimpses of the light to know that I never want to go back to that darkness again.”

  Hyperion’s features softened.

  “Such words are the beginning of wisdom,” he murmured. Then he rose and motioned Garin to follow him from the room.

  “Come, you will need provisions for your journey.”

  After outfitting Garin with a traveling cloak and a pack of food, carefully wrapped so it would not grow damp and mold as he sailed the stormy waters of the Mare Primum, Hyperion lead Garin from the house and into the valley outside. The sun had already moved past the zenith and was beginning its descent through the western sky. Hyperion pointed to the far side of the valley where, in the afternoon light, Garin could just make out a rift in the surrounding mountains.

  “There,” said Hyperion, “That pass is the beginning of the Great Eastern Meridian. Mare Primum lies only a short distance past the mountain wall. Travel with all haste, t
hough, for even now the Mariner completes his ship and makes ready to sail the flood at sunset.”

  Garin nodded, then paused as a question rose in his mind.

  “Hyperion,” he asked, “if the Mariner is he who sailed the great flood, how is it that he only completes his ship today?”

  Hyperion laughed, his good nature returning.

  “Child of Phaneros, do you think that time only flows one way? He sails the flood every sunset. In Mythos, each week contains all the ages of the Cosmos. Now, go with my blessing.”

  Garin turned and, with resolute steps, strode toward the mountain pass.

  Chapter 19: The Price of a Cosmos

  A great crowd gathered amidst the towering spires of Scintillus’ central plaza to watch the reignition of Vai. The local businesses, seeing an opportunity to enhance their wealth, had grown booths and arbors from which to sell their wares out of the local crystalline substrate. The entire atmosphere was festive and bright.

  With eyes turned skyward at the appointed hour, the crowd cheered wildly when the pale disk of the dead star burst into crimson light. Even when the light failed a few moments later, and the star faded again into the skies of Latis like a ghost, the crowd’s enthusiasm remained undimmed, a testament to the almost childlike belief that in this endeavor the Gravitic College could not fail.

  Then the first reports from the Worldship Gog began to filter into the crowd. They came slowly, one personal infochryst at a time, but soon the news was spreading like a virus and a tone of uncertainty began to replace the crowd’s once ebullient mood. Uncertainty quickly gave way to shock and then despair as news of the first entropy storms arrived, and cries of panic rose from a few isolated pockets as citizens from the outer rim realized that they now had no homeworld to return to. At last, like a wave withdrawing from a beach at low tide, the crowd began to drain away.

  Trielle stood with her mother beneath a translucent arbor at the edge of the plaza, taking in the bleak expressions on each face as they filed past. Dyana had wished to meet after Trielle’s morning classes at the Arx Scientia so that they could watch the event together and she had agreed, more from a sense of duty than anything else. It was hard to be enthusiastic about something that was doomed to fail.

  As the first new light from Vai had washed over the crowd, Dyana’s countenance had lit up like a star, and Trielle had found herself hoping against all logic that her father had succeeded after all. But as the light dimmed, reality had reasserted itself. Now, as Trielle watched the last guttering embers vanish one by one from Vai’s darkening surface, she struggled to feel something, to share in the emotions that she was witnessing, but she could not. She had known what was coming.

  What did I expect…

  “Trielle, I need to get back to the antenna.”

  Summoned out of her reverie, Trielle looked at her mother. Though Dyana’s voice was calm and measured, her face was as pale as ice, and her hands trembled slightly as she spoke.

  “The College will want to see the gravity wave readings from the ignition event as soon as possible. Perhaps they will be of help to Gedron. Do you have more classes this afternoon?”

  “No,” said Trielle, “I’m finished for today. You go ahead. I’m going to stay here for a while.”

  Her mother nodded wordlessly and joined the crowd as it poured from the plaza.”

  Soon the last dregs of the crowds had drained away, and, apart from a few stragglers, she was alone. She did not know how long she stood there in the eternal noon, staring absently into the sky, pondering the cost of her father’s actions, but at last weariness overtook her and she too left the plaza, making her way to the Kinetorium and her waiting ether chariot.

  ***

  The Heirophants were joined in Conclave, but instead of their typical vantage point in the midst of the three suns, their thrones now seemed to hover mere feet above the blackened photosphere of Vai. The gases below them churned sickeningly, pools of ash and dust larger than worlds.

  Gedron was disturbed by the choice of venue, but not surprised. It was, he reflected, a fitting location for his chastisement.

  “Even now the rimward information-flows are fragmenting,” transmitted the Photocanth, his halo flushed with sullen reds and oranges. “The populace is in turmoil. Already a migration from the rim begins, and there is not enough room within the Guard to accommodate it. Observe.”

  The Photocanth raised his hand and a cloud of glimmering spheres sprung into existence in the space between the thrones, each representing a planet of the Conclave. Above each world hung a column of bright light, and spider-thin threads wove in between them.

  “The glowing columns represent a combined sociometric integration of each planet’s current available resources, explained the Photocanth, “and the threads represent movements of people and goods. Before the failed reignition, the system was stable, but this is no longer so.”

  Gedron watched as the model swung into motion, the planets accelerating along their vast orbits, the transit lines arcing between worlds shimmering like gossamer threads in sunlight. Above the worlds, the columns undulated up and down in a seemingly placid dance of economic stability. All was peaceful.

  Then the worlds along the edge of the model began to darken and vanish one by one like the embers of a dying fire. Dense webs of shimmering thread burst from each world in its final moments, a representation of those who were able to flee the destruction to the relative safety of the Conclave’s dense heart. Soon the worlds had ceased disappearing, but despite this the bundles of thread continued to erupt from the rimward planets, and as they did so the economic dance was disrupted. The resources of the outer worlds stagnated, the bright columns above them shrinking to mere fractions of what they were, while the inner Conclave quickly became overburdened, their resource-columns rising uncontrollably and one by one taking on the ominous red hue that denoted increasing economic strain.

  “The last moments of this are a simulation,” stated the Photocanth flatly, the fiery red tones of his halo deepening to a solemn umber, “but the sociometric calculations employed are straightforward and unquestionable.”

  “My servitors have concurrently measured a sharp drop in short-term measurements of trade,” transmitted the Ouranos Radii. “Electrophotonic currency exchange is a fifth of what it was this morning.”

  The Ouranos Radii gestured, calling into existence the image of a vast green sea that hung in the space beneath the Photocanth’s simulation. The sea roiled and churned, its luminous crests and troughs representing rates of fiscal expenditure. It did not take long for Gedron to see that the levels of the central part of the sea were falling.

  “Even now the rates of exchange continue to drop among the central worlds,” he continued, “and if this stagnation continues, it will only exacerbate the resource drain caused by the migration.

  As he spoke, the model continued to evolve. Once free waves of economic activity began to circle the central depression, transforming the image into a violent accretion disk, its center a dark abyss. Above this void, the inner worlds of the Conclave glowed the deep crimson of complete financial collapse, like stars caught in the eternal redshift of a black hole’s event horizon.

  “It appears that the potential for profound social instability that was outlined when last we met had become our new reality,” transmitted the Chromatocron gravely, his halo a subdued grey. He paused a moment before adding, “I trust the reason is clear to all…”

  As his words rang throughout the collective thoughtspace of the Heirophants his eyes turned and fixed on Gedron, the weight of their gaze boring through him like high-energy lasers. A brief spark of anger rose within Gedron’s breast and briefly threatened to become visible in his halo, but he fought it down and regained his composure. Nothing could be gained here by rash words. He had made his choice, now he must defend it rationally. He only hoped the other heirophants would listen.

  Gedron took a deep, calming breath. His halo flashed with mingled
gold and sapphire hues as he willed himself into the state of confidence and composure that he needed.

  “I only assume your last reference was to the unsustainable nature of the ignition event,” he transmitted smoothly. “As you must certainly understand by now, the waste bosonic flux created by the neutronium forges significantly exceeded the radiation pressure Vai could generate in its reignited state. After the sustenance protocol was initiated, it quickly became clear to me that the initial entropy storms would only accelerate if we continued and had a reasonable likelihood of overwhelming the Guard and breaching the inner Conclave. Prudence dictated that we cease our efforts.”

  “Prudence!” transmitted the Chromatochron, his halo flickering with angry vermillion. “And what did this prudence you refer to tell you about the effects of your failure on Conclave society as a whole?”

  Gedron’s halo flared with brilliant gold and black. “Do not take me for a fool, Tauron! Of course I considered the sociometric ramifications. Still, the cost of continuing was too great. Hundreds of worlds would have been extinguished. We could not go on!”

  “No,” transmitted the Chromatocron, “you both could and should have continued, and your error in this is grave. Observe what might have been!”

  The Chromatocron gestured toward the still-evolving sociometric simulation, his movement causing it to rewind to the time just before the ignition attempt. Then, with a flick of his finger, he set the model in motion again. Again the outer worlds began to flicker and vanish, again the waves of migration fled each planet before it died. But this time the death of worlds did not cease; rather, it accelerated.

  Faster and faster the worlds vanished, each representing millions of lives extinguished like sparks falling in water. At first the migrations continued, but eventually the wave of entropic activity caught up with them and the lines representing transit and flight died in the surging storm, countless lives erased in the very act of seeking freedom. When the entropy storms finally abated more than two thirds of the Conclave had been annihilated, along with the bulk of those fleeing the destruction. Only a fraction of the migrants had survived. Brief waves of economic disturbance initially fractured the calm of the remaining worlds, but these quickly subsided into a new equilibrium quite similar to the old.