Chen had moved out of the ship’s shadow and now stood facing toward it, holding up her Vei’nl again as she scanned and assessed the damage. “Good,” she said. “The Ta’xve)r larvae survived the crash, and have already started their work.”
Cris had no idea what that meant. “The what?”
She looked up at him. “The Ta’xve)r larvae are a nanoscopic organism that reside within the biomechanical hull of every bioship. They exist in a symbiotic relationship with the vessel, and will repair the damage for us automatically.”
“Are you serious?” he asked.
She nodded. “They ingest the damaged molecules, and release a reactive modulating monopolar energy field which then allows them to assemble the atomic structures into whatever configuration is needed, creating new molecules in the process. To repair the damage done here, it will take them a few hours at most.”
Cris was stunned. The ship was perched on a large rock formation, its nose smashed into the basalt, with smoke piling out from both engines. It looked like a wreck. “That’s hard to believe,” he said.
“Obviously, we will need to bring the ship off that rock formation, and land it on level ground,” she said, “but everything is too damaged right now. After an hour, or two, it should be safe to do that.”
“That’s amazing,” Cris said, and laughed. “After we crashed I was pretty sure we were stranded here.”
“We don’t even know where here is,” she reminded him. “But wherever we are, we aren’t completely stranded. We just need to access the ship’s sensors and pinpoint our location on the stellar map. That is, of course, assuming that the wormhole has brought us somewhere in the known universe. To be perfectly honest with you Cris, we could be absolutely anywhere.”
Cris grimaced and looked away. In the distance, trembling through the heat haze, was a huge impact crater. Further away, on the horizon, a line of dark, jagged mountains shimmered in the baking air. “What are we doing here?” he asked. “There’s nothing for miles, hundreds of miles. Why would Damarus want us to come here?”
Chen didn’t have an answer for him. The hot breeze shifted a lock of hair across her forehead as she looked at him. “I don’t know, Cris.”
“So what now?”
“Now, we wait.”
Using some impressive climbing skills and the ‘spider silk’ wire from her Rãvier suit, Lorelei Chen had managed to extract some medical supplies and basic survival equipment from the ship’s cargo hold. Now, having patched up their wounds with Aias fluid, they sat in plain, fold-down chairs beside a folding table with two glasses and a bottle of chilled drinking water. For some time they had been sitting in a tense silence, nursing their drinks, both of them tired and hot, contemplating their situation and the experiences they’d had so far.
Cris looked up. “Lora. Do you still love me?” The question felt partially rhetorical, but it was becoming a genuine concern. “After everything that’s happened… I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt differently now.”
She averted his gaze. Something did feel different now, but she’d avoided saying as much. “I… I don’t know, Cris. Yes.”
He looked hurt, and confused.
She sighed, avoiding his eyes. “The things Damarus said back on Earth… were not easy for me to hear. My future self, and this journey through Heaven’s Gate… being on this exoplanet with an uncertain future. I still haven’t come to terms with all of this. I’m hurting inside, Cris. I need more time.”
Cris nodded. He’d suspected as much, but still wasn’t comfortable with it. The feeling of love he felt for her hadn’t changed. He hadn’t changed. He didn’t choose any of this. “I still love you,” he told her. “You’re still the strong, independent-spirited woman I’ve always known you to be, since you brought me out of cryofreeze. I feel this… attachment to you. It makes me happy.”
She took a breath, and smiled. “Try not to worry too much, Cris. You’re still the beautiful, if slightly inept man I fell in love with before. Nobody makes me feel the way you do. You feel like home to me. I just hope… that doesn’t change. I don’t want you to change into something else.”
He knew what she was saying.
“I can’t go with you on that journey,” she said.
“Look,” he told her. “I’m living my life here and now. I don’t care what some religious freak tells me about my future. It hasn’t happened yet. All I know is I love you, and I want to be with you.”
She nodded. Then she opened her mouth and said, “Why did we go through that wormhole in the first place?” Her eyes met his, and there was a look of impatient demand there.
He blinked. “I wanted to take you back – to my own time. To the twenty-first century. You know that. To be together.”
She wasn’t sure. “What about your family?”
He was taken aback. Immediately his thoughts went to the experience he’d had in the wormhole, of waking up on Christmas morning. “I don’t know,” he said. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I…” He didn’t know what else to say. He still loved Alexis, his wife, with all of his heart. But that was different… Alexis was…
Dead…?
Tears began to roll down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” he said, and started sobbing heavily, his shoulders buckling.
She stood up and went to hold him. “It’s okay, Cris, it’s okay.”
She held him closely, and somehow, in that moment, felt a sense of regret. She regretted all of this. She only hoped she could still do something to make it right.
Two hours later, they made their way back onto the bridge of the Thunder. Cris was surprised to see that much of the room’s previously damaged interior had been cleaned up significantly, and the electric lights were now working, despite the enormous mass of rock that had torn into the nose of the ship and was still wedged there.
“Wow,” he breathed.
Chen went to the pilot’s seat and punched a few buttons on the main control console, bringing the secondary thruster engines online. There was a barely audible hum as they churned into life, along with the pilot’s holographic Heads-Up Display. “Good,” she said. “Looks like we’re back in business. Strap yourself in while I reposition the ship.”
Cris obeyed, sitting down in the other chair and adjusting the leather-like harness, then watched with a hushed anticipation as Chen eased back with the manual controls. There was a loud groan of straining metal followed by an intense thrashing sound, as the ship slowly backed away from the wall of rock and turned about. He saw the shadows stretch away and merge, as the ship moved through the air – turning toward the reddish sun – and descending toward the desert floor beside their makeshift campsite. He never actually felt the moment they touched the surface – the ship was lowering so gently that when it finally did set down, he only realised it because the vibration of the thruster engines ceased. If anything, Lorelei Chen was a superb pilot. He wondered where she’d learned how to do that.
All sense of motion stopped. There was no sound. Now, the view ahead of them was of the heavily damaged and smashed nose of the ship, and the hazy heat of the desert beyond.
“Okay,” Chen said, smiling to herself. “Now the Ta’xve)r larvae will be able to finish their job. Give it a few more hours, and this ship will be as good as new.”
He nodded, overwhelmed by the advanced technology. It was far and away beyond anything he’d ever known in the twenty-first century. Even now, after everything that he’d seen – he still underestimated just how far things had progressed in the past four and a half centuries. It was incredible.
“Let’s see if we can pinpoint our location,” Chen said, waving her left arm over the control sensors. The lights on the bridge dimmed, and within seconds, the entire room around them dissolved, replaced by a huge, twinkling holographic map of the universe.
“Holy shit,” Cris said, blinking.
“This map shows the known universe,” Chen said, “partially mapped out to about ten billion light years. It i
s showing many of the major superclusters, represented here as single points of light, within ten billion light years of Earth. Each of these superclusters contain hundreds, if not thousands of smaller groups of galaxies.” She pointed toward a red, glowing dot located some distance from the nearest point of light. “This is our current position.”
Cris swallowed dryly, and squinted. Was he reading it right? “We’re far outside the edge of the map,” he observed.
She nodded. “About fifteen billion light years, to be precise. Just as I feared, we’re farther away from Earth than I ever imagined we’d be. We’re on the other side of the known universe, and further still.” She touched more controls, enlarging the display of the nearest star to reveal the four planets orbiting it. “We are here, on the largest planet in this pre-degenerate star system.”
“Anything special about it?” he asked. “Damarus must have sent us here for a reason.”
She sighed heavily, browsing through several walls of text and numbers. Most of it was gibberish, even to the trained eyes of Lorelei Chen. “Uninhabited,” she said after a while, “though there is a rather interesting anomaly some forty-seven miles from here. An artificial structure. Sensors are indicating the same type of material as… Heaven’s Gate? Wait, that can’t be right.”
That got through to Cris. “Oh?”
“Heaven’s Gate is constructed out of a mineral unlike any ever found in the worlds of the Terran Alliance,” she told him. “Its origins have been a mystery for centuries.”
“And? You’ve found some?”
She ran the planetary surface scan again, then triple-checked, and got the same result. She couldn’t help but smile then. “I believe we may have stumbled upon the first evidence of the Gate Builders beyond the Sol System. Cris, we have to check this out.”
He felt his pulse quicken. Chen’s excitement was contagious.
“This could be the biggest archaeological find in the history of our species,” she said. “I wonder what’s out there…”
Cris stared at the holographic image flickering in the air over her face. It showed what looked like a strange rock nestled in a deep valley, waiting patiently as it had done for untold millennia. A chill passed through his body as he wondered what secrets awaited them on this ancient, dead world.
18
Much to Cris’ relief, it turned out they wouldn’t need to cover the forty-seven mile journey across the desert on foot. Housed in the Thunder’s vehicle hangar was what Lorelei Chen called a Zat’utpyt: a lightweight yet sturdy all-terrain personnel carrier. Resembling a spider’s abdomen with ten hugely adaptable, two-meter-diameter springy wheels, the chassis was made from bonded titanium, with a hull coated with a biological resin and shimmering, bone-like tiles. Cris had already nicknamed it the “Zat Car”, much to Chen’s amusement.
The interior of the vehicle was cramped, space for two crew and twelve positions for passengers, all equipped with seat harnesses. The driver’s view was limited to a forward view of quartz armoured crystal, though this was supplemented by periscope ports providing vision to the sides and forward quarters.
“Can you drive this thing?” Cris asked, watching her perform a systems check.
She nodded. “I don’t see why not. Most organic vehicles operate on exactly the same principle – the Zara’moth computer interface. There are a few exceptions, of course, but for the most part, if you can pilot one vehicle…”
He nodded. “Makes sense, I guess.”
She gestured to the control panel. Its design was similar to that on the Thunder’s bridge. “This doesn’t look any different. We should be fine. Unless, of course, you’d rather walk. Need I remind you that it’s almost a hundred miles, there and back again?”
“I think we’ll take our chances in the Zat Car,” he grinned. “So how long will it take us to get there in this thing?”
She shrugged. “About three and a half hours, I would think.” She went to perform one more equipment check, then when she was satisfied that everything was ready for their journey, she strapped herself into the pilot’s seat. “I’ve double-checked all the supplies,” she said. “Everything’s in place.”
“Then we’re go for the excursion,” said Cris.
“Yes.” She started the engine, which hardly made any sound, then eased the throttle forward, taking them down the vehicle hangar’s open exterior ramp and down onto the sand.
Cris sat beside her, silent for some time, as he watched the alien landscape roll past. His eyes took in the landforms, the boulders and craters and wind-sculpted sand dunes, and for a moment he was seized by a sense of childlike wonder, a humbling feeling that understood how impossible it was for someone born on the planet Earth in 1979 to see a planet fifteen billion light years away, five hundred years into the future. Awed. Overwhelmed. But none of these descriptions was really accurate. There wasn’t a word for this excitement. He just stared, amazed.
After a while the landscape became more rugged, until they were threading through a vast, jagged, stony forest of rock towers that loomed high above them; pillars eroded into eerie sculptures that reminded Cris of wildly abstract totem poles. For hours they drove through the towering spires, with not a single sign of life in the dry, barren sands.
Cris turned and gazed at Lora. Her facial expression was sour as she stared ahead. She seemed worried and sullen. “What’s wrong, Lora?” he asked.
She glanced at him, and sighed. “Oh, Cris. It’s just something my future self told me. I can’t get it out of my head.”
“What is it?”
“She told me that there is no such thing as destiny or fate. That nothing can be predestined to occur. Our futures are determined by our actions in the here and now.”
“I’m inclined to agree with her,” Cris said. “That’s pretty much what I’ve always believed.”
She nodded. “Right. But what’s troubling me is the fact that she was unable to prevent you, in her timeline, from becoming Lord Damarus. When that happened… the love that we share… was lost. She wanted to change things, to keep us together, but ultimately she couldn’t. Why, I couldn’t say. She pleaded with me… begged almost… to make sure I succeeded where she failed. To be the Lorelei Chen who breaks free of this damned causality loop… to be the one who fixes the timeline, for the better.”
Cris looked at her, unsure of what to say.
“I don’t want you to change,” she muttered, lowering her gaze.
“I know,” he said. “Neither do I…”
She gritted her teeth. “I just can’t help but think that following this signal… toward this artificial structure, here, on this world…” she shook her head. “It just feels like we’re doing what Damarus wants us to do. It feels like a crossroads. Whatever we find out there, whatever it is, could be what starts the change inside you. It could be the point of no return.”
Cris nodded. Certainly, Damarus wanted them to come here for a reason. It was a fair bet that whatever they were going to find out there in this ancient desert, had something to do with it. He could see her logic. “Then let’s turn back,” he suggested. “Turn the Zat Car around, and we’ll head back to the ship. When the repairs are complete we’ll take it back through the wormhole, away from this planet, and take our chances wherever it leads us. If that’s what you want.”
She took a long breath, considering his words carefully. She could almost see her future self standing beside her, screaming at her to listen to him; that at all costs she should listen to what he was saying and turn this vehicle around immediately. Let whatever had lain undiscovered on this world for countless millennia go untouched, perhaps until the end of all time. But then… she thought of her father. She thought of the expression on his face whenever he made an archaeological discovery of some significance.
“Fascinating…”
That awe, that sense of enchanting mystery that filled his heart and the desire to uncover the secrets that lay hidden within, was infectious. Lorelei Chen, lik
e her father, found it intoxicating. “I can’t,” she said finally. Sweat was beaded around her brow, and she found herself blinking the stuff out of her eyes. “I can’t. Whatever it is out there, is something that I need to see for myself. I’m sorry, Cris. Blame my father. Because the scientist and explorer in me is telling me that this is something huge. The chance to uncover the secrets of the Gate Builders is something most historians only dream of. Besides, I don’t intend to let you out of my sight at any point.”
“Fine by me,” he said. “And don’t get me wrong. I am genuinely interested in what we might find. These Gate Builders have undoubtedly played a hugely significant role in the history of… well, everything. I promise I won’t re-write the Holy Bible without consulting you first.” He smiled.
She managed a laugh. Cris’ humorous comment made light of the potentially hazardous situation, and helped her to relax a little. Maybe she was worrying too much, she thought. The pressure she had felt piling upon her since the encounter with Damarus was having a choking effect. That, and she was severely tired. She felt like she could sleep for twenty-four hours straight. “Okay,” was her simple reply.
They sat in silence for a while longer. Cris thought about the prospect of becoming that monster – that impossible entity calling itself ‘Damarus’. How? How could that happen? Suddenly, in that moment, the realisation struck him that it was possible… that Damarus hadn’t simply been lying in order to deceive him. It had really happened, in some other time, some other universe. He felt a sense of grief, mixed with horror. It was so strongly reminiscent of what he had felt when his mother and father had died that just thinking about the impending doom of it all was deeply disturbing. He blinked, trying to think about something else.
“I have an idea,” Chen said. Her lips curved slyly into an upward crescent. She set the vehicle on autopilot, then unstrapped her restraint and got out of her seat.
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