It remained possible something had been here, something since removed. Before or after Aver’s arrival? By Aver himself? Space wasn’t like a solid surface that retained traces of what once existed long after an attachment vanished, and here no evidence remained to be found of past objects or events.
But the Communis data in the ship at the lunar habitat included more than simply coordinates. Appended to the coordinates were two distinct wave frequencies.
Precisely calibrated wave functions served many purposes, but one of them was to act as keys. She created the wave and sent it forth, then considered the portal which opened out of nothingness in front of her.
She didn’t need to consult the Annals to know it was Katasketousya in origin, for it was an exact copy of the entrance to their Provision Network.
She could muse that this wasn’t the answer she’d expected, the Katasketousya being what they were, but in truth she’d held no expectations. During an investigation her mind was a blank slate, etched upon solely by the evidence she discovered.
An additional wave frequency remained unused. Perhaps its use came later, elsewhere, perhaps not. Perhaps it was a passcode.
She fired her ship’s weapon at the portal and watched the energy bounce off its shimmering surface. Now she activated the second wave and fired again. The energy passed through and did not emerge out the other side.
She studied the shimmering plasma barrier before her in growing suspicion. Portals such as this one acted as passages to spaces cosmically apart from their own. An incidental effect of the dimensional shift created was to prevent regenesis for a consciousness whose body expired while on the other side.
It could be a trap. A singularity might be waiting just through the portal, and this marked the end of the line. The fact it was hidden and needed special information to access meant it was unquestionably nefarious in nature.
Aver had been foolish to traverse it blindly, especially when there existed a known portal matching this one which did not have a singularity on the other side—the entrance to the Provision Network. It was passcoded as well, but the Directorate knew the code, and their Primor would provide it if requested and justified. That portal was not guaranteed to lead to the same place as this one did, but it represented a far more prudent intermediate step in the investigation. A lesson Aver had learned too late.
The decision as to her next step took an additional twenty seconds, as she must be sure.
KATOIKIA
TRIANGULUM GALAXY
LGG REGION VI
Katoikia could be described in totality by a single word: barren. The descriptive applied equally to the terrain and the structures built upon it, of which there were few. While Praesidis architecture tended toward minimalism and Machim’s was unapologetically spartan, most of their cities appeared opulent by comparison.
Nyx recognized how it had come to be so. The Katasketousya had lived their lives in the stars for more epochs than the Anadens had ruled Amaranthe, and they had long ago abandoned their homeworld in all but the most utilitarian respects.
Though she had mentally admonished the deceased Inquisitor for not traversing the Provision Network Gateway, and that option was certainly open to her, she was electing to take a more direct approach.
No matter the form of the corruption lying beyond the portal in Eridium II 4A, the Katasketousya were the perpetrators of it. Ela-rank Inquisitors were investigators, while elassons such as herself could better be described as…solvers. Having identified the source, she would solve the problem.
Scrub grass dotted the brown landscape surrounding the tower, one of two hundred such complexes—part sanitarium, part living tomb—housing the physical bodies of most if not all the Katasketousya living today. Safely ensconced in stasis chambers which kept their bodies operating, the pseudo-physical manifestations of their consciousnesses were allowed to run free.
Nyx landed several meters outside the tower, disembarked and glided to the entrance. The security system performed a genetic scan, and the door opened for her.
All Accepted Species facilities were obliged to allow entry by elasson-rank members of any Dynasty, without question or challenge. Privacy was not a concept which carried any real meaning in Amaranthe, for nothing lay outside the reach of the Directorate.
She strode down a hall to the transit tube and ascended to the fourth floor, where she was met by a Katasketousya—presumably a medical monitor of some sort, as it was thus far the only sentient presence in this mausoleum.
Inquisitor, welcome. Your visit is most unexpected. What can I—
“I require a stasis chamber. Any will do.”
Our reserve supply is located on the first floor, in the far right corner of the building. I can take you there now, though I wish to inquire what—
“Not an empty one. An occupied one.”
The Katasketousya quivered and retreated toward the wall. I do not understand.
“I require a stasis chamber occupied by one of your kind who is presently off flitting about somewhere.” She moved past the agitated swirl of lights into the lab and went three rows down to stop in front of the third pod in from the aisle. “Here. This one will do.”
But you cannot remove it from the lab environment without—
“It contains self-preservation functionality, yes? It can sustain itself and the body it contains for…up to a decade, I believe?”
Well, yes, technically, but—
“Good.” She sent a cluster of diati out to encompass the stasis chamber.
Ship.
A tornado of crimson light formed, then it and the chamber vanished.
Inquisitor, please. These chambers and their inhabitants are my charges and my responsibility. If you would take a moment to explain where your interest lies, I will endeavor to assist you in any way possible. There’s no need to engage in such…violence.
Such a squeamish creature, to view her actions as violence. No, the violence would come later.
Her gaze drifted down the row. “Actually, I believe I’ll take two. Insurance, you see.” She repeated the process.
Once the second chamber had disappeared she pivoted and, with a curt nod to the caretaker, gathered diati around herself and teleported directly back to her ship. After securing the chambers in the lower hold so they didn’t become damaged during the flight, she set a course for the Milky Way.
18
* * *
THE GREATEST OF THE ANADEN WARRIORS was a man named Corradeo Praesidis. He was not their supreme general, but instead a skilled strategist who displayed a keen mind. A decisive actor who studied the nature of an adversary until he understood it as much as any ordinary being could hope to achieve.
We determined that, as he represented the best hope for the Anadens, so too did he for us.
But the merging did not go so well as we expected.
We had believed our long observations had taught us all we needed to know about the species, but the reality of an organic mind, of flesh and consciousness bonded together, of physical existence and its mortality, proved mystifying beyond anything we had ever experienced. We struggled and fought as Corradeo struggled and fought us in turn, resisting our increasingly agitated attempts to form a sympathetic bond. He exhibited an uncommonly independent mind and a fierce spirit, to an even greater degree than we had expected.
These very characteristics had led us to choose him as our vessel, yet they nearly resulted in our undoing, to the doom of all.
He suffered, and we perceived it far more viscerally than we were prepared to process. We suffered, and the foreign sensations we could not absorb were expelled as energy.
Structures and terra firma were damaged. Lives were lost.
In the end we had no choice but to subsume ourselves completely to him—to act as his vessel rather than he ours—in order to reach a stable communion. Anadens as a species were a stubborn sort, and this man above all others refused to be ruled.
The deeper connection wh
ich resulted opened up new opportunities, however, and in due course we learned to communicate with one another. Not in so crude a manner as through words, but on a more profound, intrinsic level.
We taught this man how to access dimensions beyond those he saw, then how to manipulate them, then how to control them. He assimilated this knowledge with the zeal of the desperate.
Now equipped with the power to shape the fabric of space itself, he wielded this new skill as a sword, using it to fashion weapons which the Anadens deployed to withstand, then push back, then crush the Dzhvar out of existence.
The Anaden victory was unparalleled, a watershed event not merely in their development as a species but in all of cosmic history.
We might have left them to their own devices at this juncture, but we found in the intervening years we had become accustomed to a physical, corporeal existence. Tied to the flesh, we experienced the world around us in wholly new and unanticipated ways.
As we were eternal, the passage of time had no significance for us, and we resolved to stay for a while.
Our companion was agreeable to this, as our presence had gifted him incredible talents—talents he wished to use to protect his people against future threats.
For though the Dzhvar had been the first enemy strong enough to threaten the Anadens’ existence, they were not the only dangers waiting in the vastness of the cosmos.
SIYANE
LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD GALAXY
LGG REGION 1
Caleb awoke with a startled jerk. For the briefest moment he felt detached from himself—out of time or out of body, he wasn’t certain which.
He breathed out deliberately and worked to ground himself. He didn’t often wake up disoriented, not when being aware and observant in the first seconds may be crucial to survival.
Once he’d convinced himself he remained where he’d been—the Siyane—and no threats lurked in the shadows, he checked to make sure he hadn’t woken Alex.
She continued to sleep, but it looked fitful. He gently stroked her arm while murmuring whispers of comfort in her ear. It could simply be an unpleasant dream; still, he wouldn’t be surprised if the deep interaction with the Reor had sparked a craving, if only a subconscious one. But her distress seemed minor, and after a few minutes she calmed without waking.
He settled back to contemplate why he was awake.
The aberrant dreams were becoming more frequent, and as absurd as it sounded, he couldn’t rightly claim them as his own. They felt like visions…or recollections. He lifted his left hand off the covers and stared at it until faint crimson flecks appeared above it.
Seeing as he’d lived through no such events to recall, either Amaranthe was fucking with his head in new and unprecedented ways or the dreams belonged to the diati. Dreams of a time long past, of a time when the Anadens were more human than monster, of a time when the symbiotic relationship between the diati and the Praesidis bloodline had been forged in furtherance of a noble purpose.
The world the dreams revealed…it was like viewing humanity’s present through a warped mirror, at once strikingly familiar and altogether alien.
Was the diati trying to show him something, something he needed to know? If so, he’d really appreciate a better articulation of it, because the message wasn’t getting through.
Or were the dreams just noise, the overflow of too much information and too many thoughts of two consciousnesses sharing the same space?
He’d gradually become convinced Mesme was right on this point. The diati was in fact alive. He couldn’t communicate with it and he definitely couldn’t hold a conversation with it, but it was alive nonetheless. The dreams, however, suggested it wasn’t merely alive but conscious and self-aware, even sapient. He didn’t feel like he now shared his body with another incarnate entity, but there it was.
In Amaranthe, life expressed itself in many more and stranger ways than anything they’d ever encountered at home. That was by design, of course; Aurora had been created as an isolated test environment bound by rigid and controlled variables. The real universe was as fascinating and terrifying as they’d always imagined it should be.
A pulse from Valkyrie interrupted his reverie.
Caleb, Mnemosyne is requesting to speak with us. Do you want to wake Alex?
Almost as if she knew—had Valkyrie inadvertently nudged her subconscious?—Alex stirred in his arms, not fitfully but languidly. He ignored the query for a minute to welcome her to wakefulness properly.
She murmured contentedly against his lips, and he drew back with a great deal of reluctance. “So our favorite Kat wants to talk to us.”
“Now?”
Valkyrie answered. ‘I’m afraid so. Mnemosyne claims it is urgent.’
Alex stretched until her fingers wiggled above her head, then curled her long arms and legs around his body. “Fine, but audio only—no showing up in our bedroom.”
‘I will pass your terms along.’
She proceeded to trail lazy kisses down his chest in a manner which was becoming highly distracting by the time Mesme’s supernal voice filled their heads.
I have received word of a most troubling occurrence. An Inquisitor has visited Katoikia, removed two stasis chambers and departed with them.
“Katoikia?”
The Katasketousya homeworld. I fear our ability to act in secrecy is rapidly coming to an end. Lakhes has authorized an evacuation of the population’s stasis chambers into the Mosaic, but such a momentous act needs oversight.
If you wish to see my homeworld, I recommend you go there now, for this may mark the last time any of us will see it.
Alex’s gaze rose to meet his, and he sighed. “That’s dire.”
She frowned. “I have to admit, I am a bit curious about where the Kats came from. And while we have things we can do, we’re still kind of in a holding pattern until we hear from Eren.”
His chin notched down in agreement, and she propped up on her forearms. “Okay, Mesme. We don’t want to be a distraction from the evacuation, but we’ll come visit. Give Valkyrie the coordinates.”
Done. Now I must attend to such matters.
“Bye, Mesme.”
In the silence that fell, she rested her head on his chest. He gently ran a hand through her hair, coaxing it back over her shoulders until he could see her face.
She regarded him pensively. “It’s starting, isn’t it?”
AURORA
19
SENECA STELLAR SYSTEM
SENECA LUNAR SSR CENTER
* * *
THE EIDOLON SKIMMED less than three meters above the lunar surface—so close it stirred up puffs of basalt in its wake—and two meters closer than a human pilot could reliably maintain.
The blast of a laser from one of the drones splashed across the field of view before vanishing into the rift.
Commander Morgan Lekkas made a note in her log files:
Test parameters: 2.8 meters in altitude, 1.4 terajoule drone weapon power, 450-meter distance
Result: 100% energy capture with 0% spillage damage.
She confirmed the numbers then instructed the pilot to move on to the next testing scenario.
Though completely immersed in the full-sensory feed from the pilot, an ache in her neck nagged at the edge of her perception. Too long in the sim chair.
Sometimes it felt like she spent more time in a sim chair than a cockpit chair these days. Wasn’t this what she’d left Seneca to get away from? Yet here she was once again—and of her own free volition now, no less.
She wasn’t ungrateful for peace reigning across settled space, but it did have its negatives, the biggest one being there was nothing to shoot at. Nothing real, anyway.
It made for a bit of an out-of-body experience to have her hand rub the side of her neck back in the chair. She shook off the odd sensation and tried to concentrate on the test flight.
The Eidolon wasn’t merely a new design—it was an entirely new model of starship. Part interdictor,
part fighter, part stealth interceptor, it fell under the broad rubric of ‘multi-role tactical attack craft.’ It boasted the speed and agility of a fighter while carrying a larger, sturdier frame.
Also, it was piloted solely by a compact Artificial, consciously whole and complete but specially crafted for the purpose of flying and operating all facets of the ship.
No human pilot meant no need for life support systems or a spacious cockpit. The freed-up space and decreased logistical requirements meant the designers were able to fit a large enough power core into the frame to support a small Dimensional Rifter.
The engineering required to make it all work was mind-bogglingly complex, even for a Prevo, but it did seem to be working. None of the prototype models had exploded or crashed, which was a great first step. Better yet, their in-flight performance was exemplary.
Morgan continued to believe that a solitary Artificial could never best a Prevo pilot in on-the-spot decision-making and cleverness of tactics. But she might be willing to concede the other benefits outweighed the disadvantage in ninety-five percent of scenarios.
Weapons testing—targeting, locking, accuracy and so on—would come later. Today she was testing maneuverability, but also the mini-Rifter. It was a drastically scaled-down version, though the engineers said this shouldn’t matter, since the device only needed to capture offensive fire that would otherwise impact the vessel’s small profile.
Still, there were special considerations to be taken into account when using such advanced equipment on a ship this small. And this new. Cutting-edge. Unproven.
She rolled her eyes in her mind. At least it wouldn’t be untested.
The next test scenario began, and the Eidolon pivoted and accelerated straight for one of the field drones. She sent an instruction to the drone to hold off firing until the range was less than fifty meters. When the boundary was crossed her entire field of vision flashed white, and the pilot pulled up to soar barely a meter over the drone.
Relativity: Aurora Resonant Book One (Aurora Rhapsody 7) Page 12