By the time they ate and decided what the shift schedule would be, night had fallen. The lunar cycle on Horsh Gorbrey was in their favor. Sanguinifolia can grow at night when the moon is full, but fortunately for them, there was no moon light that evening.
“Listen, did you hear that?” asked Wayne. A soft swooshing sound, then another broke the still night air. “I think they are shedding their blades.”
All around them they heard the sound of grass blades falling gently to the ground. The abscissions continued throughout the night until just before dawn, when Blackie rustled everyone awake. They all drank some water and readied themselves to make a break for the Nomad.
“We should try to stay as close together as possible, in case one of us gets trapped. When the blades are tall they’re very strong,” said Joules. “According to the field guide it could take several people’s efforts to break an entangled person free. Everyone ready, let’s go!”
They bolted off the rock in pairs with Blackie and Joules leading the way and ran across the meadow straight toward the line of trees that hid the Nomad. Wayne tripped when some grass snagged his legs and before he could get to his feet he was trapped. Grass blades snaked around his ankles and lower legs, and were trying to snare his arms.
In the few seconds he was on the ground the grass blades inflicted dozens of cuts to his arms and hands. As Amelia worked frantically pulling long blades of grass to free his feet, Wayne’s left arm became snared in several shoots of long grass. Wayne fought off the grass with his right arm, and Blackie was able to break the chord like leaves and free Wayne’s left arm.
But while he was helping Wayne, his legs got tangled in the swaying grass and it rapidly grew up around his chest. Amelia and Joules were close to freeing Wayne when the grass snared Amelia’s arm.
“Joules” she screamed.
Everyone is snared; we’re not going to make it, thought Joules as her hands began to glow brightly. Without any warning, a bright white beam of light flashed through the air below Amelia’s arm, cutting the grass that held her. arm. Again, it flashed, and now Blackie was free. The severed grass blades fell to the ground and ignited the dry grass blades from the previous evening’s abscissions.
Joules screamed at them to stay close, and seconds later the field of light beams emanating from her formed a shield around them. Grass blades trying to invade the beams were singed as they moved forward, and everywhere around them the straw lying on the ground burst into flames.
They walked as quickly as possible inside the shield of light beams toward the Nomad. As they passed, straw on the ground burst into flames. Behind them, most of the meadow was now on fire.
They made it to the Nomad and at Joules’ insistence Amelia, Blackie and Wayne got inside after she enveloped the entire car in the shield. Around its exterior everything combustible was engulfed in flames. Straw on the ground had ignited the trees surrounding the meadow, including those close to the car.
Nudging Blackie’s shoulder to get his attention, Wayne spoke forcefully to make himself heard over the burning trees and gyrating light shield, “How long can she keep this up?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think she knows. I’m worried about how long the oxygen inside this shield is going to last.”
Joules turned toward them, peering over the roof of the Nomad she pointed.
“What’s she doing?” asked Wayne.
As the words left his mouth, Joules’ protective shield collapsed and she scrambled to get in the car. A strand of grass grabbed her arm as she opened the door, but Blackie grabbed it and ripped it from the ground, then pulled Joules in.
“Anonoi is back, he’s on top of the car.” No sooner had the words left her mouth than the shift began.
It happened so fast it caught them off-guard. They moved, and like their previous shifts it wasn’t fluid movement, it was jerky, staccato, like movements from one point to another. The scenery in-between twitches were almost invisible as they passed. Amelia pressed her eyes shut and tried to keep her mind off what was happening. When she perceived a flash of light through her eye lids, she involuntarily uttered a deep groan.
Following Amelia’s lead, Joules closed her eyes and wasn’t the least bit tempted to open them; she had seen enough craziness for a while. Wayne, who wasn’t affected by the shifting’s jerky like movements in the least (and never was), watched the staccato like movements trying to pick out the landscapes that flashed by.
The movements were hypnotic, and both he and Blackie felt a surreal trance-like effect as they moved forward; they couldn’t take their eyes off the shifting scenes as they flew by. Wayne narrowed his eyes, trying to see the next point before they twitched to another location.
The erratic movements didn’t allow a full view of what they were passing, but the snatches of images weren’t lost to Wayne’s photographic memory. If they ever returned to any of those locations, he would remember.
When the twitches were over, Anonoi had deposited the Nomad on a white, sandy beach, where small waves steadily broke with a gentle sound on the trillions of shell fragments along the water’s edge. To the landward side of the beach, sand dunes rose in the air to a height of thirty feet, protecting the low areas beyond.
Everyone except Wayne bounded out of the car and peppered Anonoi with questions about where he had been and how long it might take to get to Centoria. Anonoi answered their questions as best he could, but suggested nothing was definite. Sensing an escalating tension, Wayne got out of the car and joined the others.
“Anonoi, you’re not telling us something,” accused Blackie. “I can tell from your answers, you are not sharing something with us.”
Before Anonoi could answer Wayne cut in. “I saw flashes of other planets while you were moving us, Anonoi. All of the movements were jerky, but some of the location changes were hurried, they were pressed quicker than others; almost hastily.” Blackie, Amelia and Joules were listening closely to Wayne’s comments. “Before every one of those rushed twitches I caught a glimpse of a planet falling apart, like it was decaying and falling to pieces, exactly like the one we escaped.”
“What’s going on Anonoi, we have a right to know what’s going on.”
Anonoi didn’t communicate. As if he were debating whether to give them more information than he had already provided, he hung in the air above the hood of the Nomad.
“Anonoi, we want to know,” appealed Joules. “I think my father would want us to know.” Suspecting he was with them because of her father, Joules thought a little pressure might persuade him to be more open about their situation
“They have returned,” said Anonoi.
“Who are they?” asked Amelia.
“We know little of them. Many beings in our universes have stories or legends about them but there is little fact. They come, not often, but when they do, there is much destruction.”
“What can we do?” asked Wayne. “Can they be stopped?”
“Some have tried, but with no success. My kind believe it is futile to resist them. We must let them have their way.”
“You must be kidding,” said Blackie scathingly. “That planet we were on was being ripped to shreds. What if it had been inhabited?”
“Anonoi, please, tell us what you suspect. We need to know. We have a right to be informed about what we’re dealing with,” pleaded Joules.
Anonoi was quiet for some time. Their situation was frightening at the least, and life threatening if they were not extremely careful, and he wrestled with how much to tell them.
“As you wish,” he replied. “There is never a warning before the sky is torn apart. On Faxicom you saw the gash in the sky, a tear that looked like a blackened lightning bolt. Those who have witnessed these things, and lived to tell about them, say the gash is a gateway that tears apart the heavens as it rumbles across the sky, sounding like a thousand claps of thunder piercing the air.”
“The sound wave that follows is enormously strong, shaking mountains to
their foundations, and causing widespread landslides that crash through everything in their path. It causes volcanoes to erupt and fault lines to shear, sending giant tsunamis across oceans. The destructive force of those sound waves wreak havoc across entire planets.”
“The gash in the sky always runs from one horizon to the other and hangs in the sky as far as one’s eyes can see. It is a deep, deep cut that penetrates our dimension and the next, and joins two worlds that don’t co-exist in the same dimensional fabric. And yet, without each other they would be completely and utterly destroyed. When the thunder ends and everything is quiet and still, they come.”
“Who are they,” asked Blackie.
“Between every universe are razor thin slivers of dense space, and in those slivers, are eons of time and expanses without limits and filled with gateways to other dimensions. Time, area, and matter in dense space are unique, and exist only for them. Their real name is not known to many, but here in our universe they are often known as the Harvesters, or the World Eaters.”
“Universes lie against each other like grains of sand on the beach,” continued Anonoi, “or are folded around each other like long pieces of cloth wound on a bolt. Out from between the universes, where nothing is supposed to be, they come. Like hordes of Picosaurs they swarm out of dense space and through the gateways, and every planet in their path is overrun. Unless inhabitants leave immediately, they do not survive. It is the end for them; their future is cancelled.”
“Our ancients spoke of those that cross the gateways. They left cryptic warnings of their existence and their unwelcome forays into our space and time. But the World Eaters come out of dense space to reestablish a balance between the dimensions, by siphoning matter from our space into the dense space universes of their dimension. Without them, every planet, every solar system, everything everywhere, would cease to exist.”
“The entirety of all physical things in our universes would collapse inward on themselves, or expand so rapidly in their universes that all life would cease as their planets moved away from the stars that give them light and heat. The World Eaters come to siphon off the excess matter that accumulates in our space, re-establishing a balance between the two dimensions, and preventing the collapse of our universes and the destruction of everything we know.”
“The universal constant,” offered Amelia.
“The what? asked Wayne.
“Einstein said it was his biggest mistake. In 1917, Albert Einstein inserted a term called the cosmological constant into his theory of general relativity, to force the equations to predict a stationary universe. That was the commonly accepted model among physicists at the time.”
This topic was right in Amelia’s wheelhouse, and she was excited to contribute to the discussion. “When it became evident the universe was expanding and not static, Einstein abandoned the constant, calling it the biggest blunder of his life. Physicists now say when Einstein thought he was wrong, he was right. The universal constant is what prevents everything from being destroyed.”
“What else can you tell us, Anonoi?” asked Joules.
“Between every adjacent universe in space, between every fold and bend, there is dense space, and in that place the World Eaters live and wait. When matter in their dimensions has been depleted, by leaking into adjacent dimensions, and the balance between space and dense space is on the verge of causing cataclysmic destruction on both sides of the gateways, we and they, are threatened with extinction.”
“That is when they come. The World Eaters pour out of their dimension through the gateways to harvest every planet in their path, and reestablish the mass balance between dimensions. You can understand how they must not be prevented?”
“We get it Anonoi, but we’re not excited about being sucked through a hole in the sky,” said Wayne.
“What if that happens?” asked Amelia. “What if we can’t escape them and we’re pulled through?”
“Everything the World Eaters collects is processed as it passes through the gateway. How this is done we can’t say, but we do know matter passing through the rift is broken into particles no larger than grains of dust and is released into dense space,” replied Anonoi.
“One of your kind has been there, haven’t you?” asked Blackie. “A Desredeedese Shade went through a gateway and into dense space.”
Blackie hesitated for a moment. “I’m right aren’t I,” queried Blackie. “You can slip through without being processed because of your unique form and physiology. The only way someone could know the things you described, is if they had seen them from the other side.”
Anonoi didn’t answer. There was only one way to describe what had happened. And, although he searched for a better way to explain, in the end, he told the simple truth.
“Many ages ago the Shades were asked to help resist the World Eaters when they visited this universe,” he said. “Before we answered the request, one of us passed through the gateway seeking to understand why they intruded so violently on our worlds. Our entire body of knowledge comes from that singular intrusion.”
“Our answer to help fight was no. Afterward, the reputation of our species was greatly maligned because we didn’t help the resistance. It was futile. Those who sought our help refused to listen to reason, and yet they had no adequate means of confronting the invaders; they were desperate. Their desires were greater than their abilities, and their actions were ill-advised. The World Eaters processed thousands of planets into dust as it passed into dense space.”
Amelia was apoplectic. She had a look of absolute shock and disgust on her face. “So, you did nothing?” she asked.
“Quite the opposite. Every Desredeedese Shade worked feverously to transport beings off planets that were being harvested. We helped save millions upon millions of lives, but we refused to fight the World Eaters when our victory would have insured the destruction of our worlds and theirs.”
“You haven’t told us where WE sit in this mess we jumped into. Where are we located, and how do we escape; if we can?” said Blackie.
“We are in the Sote-kiliet, on the leading edge of the harvest, closest to the rift. Without extreme caution, any jump or shift we make could put you in greater jeopardy. When I leave you, I visit adjacent planets to check their status. But I should warn you, things can change rapidly. When I visited Faxicom, it was untouched, so I took you there. By the time I returned, the gateway was open and Faxicom was in the initial stages of being processed.”
“What do we do if that happens again; if we’re somewhere being harvested? Do we wait for you or do we jump?” asked Wayne.
“I do not know.”
“If you don’t, how are we supposed to?” asked Joules. “You’re sort of the expert here, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but my experiences, and what the Shades know about the World Eaters, are woefully inadequate as a basis of predetermining a strategy for situations that can change in seconds. You must choose. You must decide to wait or jump. But you should be aware, the Jump Starter’s particle residue may be difficult to trace if you jump through space where planet harvesting is in progress.”
“You mean you might not be able to find us,” stated Amelia.
“Yes, that is what I mean.”
Each of them pondered Anonoi’s answer silently. If they were caught in another scenario like the one on Faxicom, did they have to react on-the-fly? It seemed to each of them like that approach would introduce more risk into an already risky situation.
If they waited too long for Anonoi, they might be swept through the gateway. None of them were in favor of being processed into tiny particles, even if it helped balance another dimension, and Wayne considered the thought of doing that to the Nomad to be unconscionable.
“How does it start and how long do we have?” asked Blackie. “If we are going to wing it, we need as much information as possible. Our best option is to let you shift us to safe planets. But if we have to use the Jump Starter, we could inadvertently jump to a planet a
lready being processed. Something tells me the Jump Starter Corporation didn’t include the World Eaters in their safety-first protocol.”
“After a gateway opens and the rift appears, approximately one hour and thirty minutes passes before the thunder and shock waves cease. Harvesting usually begins within hours, but sometimes not for several days. It is not much time. Whole planets may sometimes be harvested in a matter of days.”
“We have to stay together,” said Wayne. “We have to stay together and we have to stay close to the Nomad; no more strolls through a meadow. Amelia, you’ll have to keep the Jump Starter with you constantly.”
“How do we decide if we need to jump?” asked Amelia.
Joules and Blackie were listening carefully to the conversation. Blackie didn’t have any conclusive ideas or suggestions. Joules listened to Amelia’s question, then offered a comment.
“I think we should jump when any one of us feels uncomfortable or threatened. Every situation will be different, and in each of those situations we will all react differently. Taking a conservative approach might mean jumping prematurely, and jumping won’t preclude another bad situation, but waiting too long is not an option.”
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” said Wayne.
“Excuse me?” replied Joules.
“It’s a phrase we use on Earth when someone leaves a bad situation and ends up in a worse one,” explained Wayne. “But I agree with you Joules, the worst thing we could do is wait too long. There’s no recovery from that. When someone wants to jump, I say we jump.”
Blackie and Amelia felt like it was a loose plan, but it was better than nothing. “We have to be honest,” said Blackie, “our situation doesn’t reward heroes. Valor that puts the lives of others at risk is misinformed. So, I agree. If anyone wants to jump, we go.”
“Believe me, I won’t have any problem fessing-up to being scared,” said Amelia, who blushed a brilliant shade of red.
Jump Starting the Universe Book Bundle Page 70