A sense of urgency tinged with desperation permeated the air as the stasis chambers proceeded in a nevertheless orderly, deliberate fashion out of the tower and into the belly of the superdreadnought. She assumed there were dozens of other superdreadnoughts at dozens of other towers, each one filling with slumbering bodies while the consciousnesses belonging to them wandered the cosmos.
She shook her head. It was all so very peculiar and contradictory. Alien. She’d always known Mesme was an odd bird, but en masse and laid bare for witnesses to see, the Kats’ nature bordered on unfathomable.
She did know one thing, however. They didn’t deserve to be slaughtered for being peculiar.
…Okay, so they were facing slaughter for trying to overthrow the intergalactic government. But even if the government in question hadn’t been a brutal, punitive dictatorship, it still would have qualified as a gargantuan overreaction.
Valkyrie sent them both a pulse.
I’ve received a message from Eren asi-Idoni. He says he has some information for us and requests a meeting at the Pelinys Arx in Andromeda. It’s ten hours travel from our location.
Standing here gawking at the soulless stasis chambers was quickly escalating from awkward to overtly uncomfortable, and Caleb nodded discreetly in unspoken agreement. Truthfully, it wasn’t even a proper nod; at this point all he needed to do to convey harmony or discord with her inclinations—which he’d usually inferred—was quirk his mouth and the corners of his eyes in a certain way.
Tell him we’ll be on our way shortly.
Caleb turned to Mesme. “We’ve taken up enough of your time. I’m sure you have much work to do, so we’ll take our leave. Good luck, and contact us when you’re ready to move forward, or if you need us.”
Yes. It will not be long, I think. If you wish to explore more of Katoikia—or merely this region—before you depart, you are welcome to do so.
They lifted off the surface but didn’t depart the planet immediately. She guided the ship into a low-atmosphere orbit of the planet, unable to tear herself away from the haunting scene quite yet.
As expected, they passed dozens of identical towers, each with identical funeral-themed processions of stasis chambers proceeding into a hold she knew from personal experience to be cold, bleak and dark. Not that the inhabitants of the chambers would notice.
“I wonder if it’s like this every time they evacuate a planet.”
Caleb rejoined her in the cockpit and handed her a drink, which she gratefully accepted. “I imagine it’s usually worse—more panic, more tears. Thankfully for them, these emigrants are asleep.”
“Right. Good point. I think I’ll skip the next one.”
His expression grew thoughtful. “We succeed, and maybe there won’t be a next one.”
She sank into the cockpit chair as if forced down by the weight of the statement. But it was the unvarnished truth, wasn’t it? They’d been here a few short weeks, but somewhere along the way she’d begun to recognize the residents as individuals, as no longer abstract constructs but real people.
She’d come here to fight for the ability of Aurora to continue to exist…but it was possible she’d also begun fighting for the right of all these species to continue to exist as well. And not simply exist, but live free.
Check her out, fighting for something good instead of just against something bad. Kennedy would be so proud of her, she mused with a touch of wryness.
Caleb moved behind the chair and began massaging her shoulders. “It’s a heavy burden. I know.”
She reached up and covered one of his hands with hers. “At least we can bear it together.”
“And we do.” He brought her hand up to his lips.
She closed her eyes briefly, soaking in the sensations his touch elicited, then started to increase their altitude in preparation to leave the planet…
…and instead adopted a wide arc across the arid plain. They had nearly returned to where they’d begun, and on the horizon the parade of chambers from the tower they’d visited continued. But her focus was no longer on the tower.
She slowed.
“You see something?”
“A…shimmer, like heat haze off pavement.”
“It’s not particularly hot out there.”
“No, it isn’t. Valkyrie?”
‘I detect nothing out of the ordinary. I saw it as well, but solely because you saw it.’
“Mm-hmm.” The shimmer danced at the edge of her peripheral vision once more, but when she turned to it, it was gone.
She descended until the Siyane settled the ground, then looked up at Caleb. “Fancy a little expedition?”
“Always. I’ll get our gear. Again.”
She smiled in thanks and stared out the viewport, studying what she sensed but could not detect, until he reappeared with the breather masks, plus tactical vests and weapons. She raised an eyebrow.
“No one ever said the Kats were the only life forms who lived here, or that we were the only visitors here now.”
“Fair enough.” She took her gear from him and suited up.
They stepped onto the desolate landscape for the second time. Ahead of them, flats stretched unbroken to the horizon. Nothing to see.
So she slipped into sidespace—and laughed.
“Something funny?”
She grabbed Caleb’s hand and started walking forward. “Valkyrie, we’ll be back. If the Machim fleet arrives while we’re gone, save yourself.”
‘The ways in which I am not amused by this proposition are legion.’
“Oh, fine. If there’s trouble, get Mesme and stay safe.”
She preemptively toggled off their connection and strode through the cloaking barrier.
23
KATOIKIA
TRIANGULUM GALAXY
LGG REGION VI
* * *
THE EDIFICE OF A LARGE, DOMED BUILDING stood in stark relief against the otherwise empty panorama. Crafted of the same smoked glass as the stasis chamber towers, the facets decorating its spherical half-polygon façade reflected the early afternoon sunlight to create flares of light upon the sky.
“Are they hiding this place from themselves?”
Caleb shook his head. “No. They’re hiding it from anyone and everyone else who chooses to visit the planet. This means it’s important, and I like important. Let’s see what they’re hiding.”
“Words to melt a girl’s heart.”
He bumped her shoulder playfully. “Well, the right girl’s, anyway.”
Their banter continued until they drew near enough to be able to make out details of the structure—including the most important detail of all, a small panel cut differently from the surrounding exterior. A door.
Caleb unlatched the clasp on his Daemon’s holster and kept a hand on it as he placed the other on the glass.
It slid open, and he stepped through.
When no shouts, thuds or weapons fire erupted, Alex followed him inside.
An open, high-ceiling room encompassed ninety percent of the interior. The area inside the dome teemed with overlapping panoramas of…scenes, of places. The projections appeared more substantial than the most advanced holos, yet they constantly shifted and blended into one another.
At the center of the revolving swarm of images, a Kat reclined in a cushioned lounge chair, turned away from them. Not a swirl of lights, but an actual Kat—a ‘little gray man’ wearing a gauzy, shapeless tunic.
The chair rotated around to face them, and the Kat sat up to regard them with enormous, teardrop-shaped pitch black eyes. “Ah. Mnemosyne informed me to expect you. I am Paratyr, Second Sentinel of the Katasketousya. Welcome to the Mirad Vigilate.” Its voice came out thin and high-pitched, but audible.
“What is the—you’re a—Mesme knew we would find this place?” She groaned. “Are you kidding me?”
It eased itself out of the chair to a standing position, rising to perhaps a meter and a half in height. “ ‘Kidding’ is not a behavior i
n which I have the luxury of engaging.”
Oh, goodie. It has even less of a sense of humor than Mesme.
So we should probably be nice.
Caleb offered a conciliatory nod. “Apologies. You’re the first Katasketousya we’ve met who is…occupying their body. We thought all members of your species had abandoned the physical form aeons ago.”
“True. Yet I have nowhere to travel, so no use to do so. I observe all from here.” Paratyr gestured to the plethora of images, which continued to move and change.
Alex took a step closer to the center. “What is this place? What are these scenes?”
Paratyr approached one of the frameless projections, and it grew in size in response to the Kat’s presence. It showed a horde of spidery creatures scurrying over a field of glass fibers splashed in crimson and azure.
“This is a Machim regiment’s misbegotten attempt to conduct a targeted Eradication of some of the creatures on AD-4508b in Antlia Dwarf—creatures whose skills and acumen they did not properly respect. The Machim commander will not make the same mistake a second time.”
The Kat moved to another. In contrast to the prior scene, this one revealed a shining city on the shore of an emerald bay. Decorative archways and other architectural flourishes lent it a markedly distinct feel from the bland utilitarianism of the Anaden architecture they’d seen so far. “The Novoloume homeworld. Interesting affairs going on there these days. Affairs the Directorate might not expect.”
Caleb peered at a visual of what may have once been a planet. Misshapen and pockmarked, it looked as if it had been bombarded by a torrent of asteroids.
Paratyr went over and brushed the screen away. “The final result of the Cultivation of T-1391d. The time in which we could have assisted has passed, thus it is no longer relevant.”
Caleb eyed the Kat. “This is how the Idryma knows who they need to evacuate and protect. You’re watching everything that happens in Amaranthe?”
“Much, and but a sliver.”
“How?”
Alex tore her gaze from a temperate jungle world where large birds soared above a canopy of trees. “Sidespace. These are somehow windows opening into locations accessed—or rather seen—via the sidespace dimension.”
She reached out and touched a fingertip to a scene; though it displayed the full depth of reality, her finger passed through to the air behind it. If Valkyrie were in her mind and she knew the physical location, she could go there and prove it. But it felt correct.
“I am not familiar with the term.”
“It’s a word we came up with for the—one of the—quantum dimensions. This dimension, trust me. I’ve seen other Kats work adeptly in it.”
“How is it you are able to perceive and interact with such nonphysical dimensions?”
She tossed the stodgy Kat a smirk. “I speak space.”
Caleb had started wandering deliberately around the edge of the scenes, studying the presentation and setup more than individual images. “How long have you been watching? Without a stasis chamber, your body is mortal and can’t continue to function forever, I assume?”
Paratyr tilted its oversized head toward one of the two enclosed spaces separated from the main room. Alex tried to keep her expression neutral, but it was proving to be a challenge to equate the diminutive, oddly proportioned alien with the majestic, rarefied, pandimensional beings she’d heretofore known the Kats to be.
“I do have a chamber, and colleagues. Three of us share the responsibility of monitoring the Mirad Vigilate, as someone must be observant always. We each wake for four-hundred-year periods, during which time the others sleep and their bodies rejuvenate.”
“And how long has this system been in place?”
“Three-hundred-sixty millennia.”
Alex did the math in her head…Paratyr had spent 120,000 waking years in this place. Watching. No wonder the Kat was a little cranky.
A particularly vibrant and active scene caught her attention, and she crossed to it.
Water lapped at the invisible barrier of the projection as if it were about to spill into the room, though it couldn’t do so. In the left corner, a cluster of sea creatures cavorted with one another far beneath the surface.
The first comparison which sprang to mind was to devil rays, but on closer inspection they bore only a passing resemblance, most of it in their broad wing-like appendages. They were silver in color except for a rose tint to their undersides. Their torsos were lengthy even in proportion to impressive wingspans, and their heads were unexpectedly rounded. Together with extended noses, their upper body almost resembled that of a dolphin. Two lower fins were webbed together by thin, translucent skin.
The creatures darted into an opening in a coral wall behind them and vanished. She frowned in disappointment.
Paratyr appeared beside her, and under the guidance of the Kat’s gaze the ‘camera’ pulled up and back to expose more of the coral wall.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, really, when it wasn’t a wall at all but instead an intricate sculpture woven upon the sea floor.
“It looks like a…building.”
“Which it is, of course.”
She glanced over at the Kat. “Of course?”
“The Galenai, as we’ve named them, are quite intelligent. Far above primate intelligence to be certain, and possibly sufficient to qualify as an Accepted Species on that measurement.
“They mate-bond, raise and educate their children and ritualize the passing of their dead. They have organized themselves into formal societal groupings and strata. They build structures, as you see, using a variety of oceanic materials and precision tools, and they have invented a type of machinery which runs on hydropower. They also protect their settlements with inventive defensive protocols.”
One of the creatures sped past their viewpoint so swiftly it was hardly a blur. Paratyr followed it as it launched into a rapid spiral, forming a whirl of water to spin away in its wake. It rose upward to crest the surface and soar across the waves before diving under once again.
“They are also quite prideful.”
Did the Kat mean ‘playful’? Did it appreciate the difference? She laughed, but right now she so wished Valkyrie were here so she could find and visit this downright magical place.
Caleb had joined her at some point, and he gave her an affectionate smile. Naturally he knew what she was thinking—he knew her desires, her fears, her foibles, her regrets. Everything.
She stepped closer, until the tip of her nose threatened to pass through the scene to the other side, and imagined she was drifting outside of her body, the way she had so many times. Beside her, Paratyr gained a hint of a white-blue aura.
“Will you tell me where this is? Precisely?” Her voice sounded distant and echo-y.
“No, but I will show you.”
She felt a vague sensation of movement—and she was surrounded by clear, sparkling water.
The fact she wasn’t actively drowning—and a quick check down that revealed no body—told her only her consciousness resided here. She had no idea how she had accomplished it without Valkyrie, but she would work it out later. She was here.
A Galenai swept past her, close enough to touch. Its impressive size didn’t diminish its gracefulness as the water yielded to its aerodynamic form.
She moved upward, over the coral, and gasped at what the vantage showed her. What she’d thought was a self-contained formation was in reality the outer corner of a city. The impression of discrete assemblies and private spaces was created in the twists and curves of shaped coral, hardened sediment and what looked to be…vitrified sand? How had they created such a material?
Then she spotted a wall of glass and abandoned speculating on the methods behind their accomplishments.
In a shallow cavity beneath her, two immature Galenai tussled like the children they were. She watched them for a minute, until a much larger one rushed in to scold them. At least, that’s what the shrill chirps and w
arbles sounded like to her.
Once she realized she could hear them, the cacophony surrounded her. She suspected the sounds fell outside the range of normal human hearing, somewhere in the ultrasound frequencies, for the pitch was very high.
Sound was the final piece, and the world came fully to life. Though she couldn’t understand them, the creatures’ actions gained purpose and distinctness; interactions took on depth and nuance. Before, they were cute, even delightful—but now she understood why the Kats deemed them worthy of observation.
A rush of churning water off to the side drew her toward it. A particularly large Galenai had maneuvered itself into a contraption of some sort. A harness led to a dense shell of coral positioned underneath the wings. The creature moved forward, away from the city. Intrigued, she followed.
Several dramatic flaps of its wings sufficed to increase its speed considerably, and the water it left behind frothed in agitation. She concentrated on the device it wore as they traveled. Inside the coral shell, water funneled through a convoluted series of cavities before exiting at the bottom rear of the device with significantly greater force than it had entered with. It was a motor.
Well, wasn’t that just the damnedest thing.
The creature’s speed reached what must be hundreds of kilometers per hour, and she fell back, letting it go. It vanished from sight in seconds.
Now she was alone, fluttering among the scattered rays of light penetrating this deep beneath the surface. She lingered there for a moment, astonished at the marvel that her life had become.
Dad, if you knew the wonders I’ve seen. She suddenly wished he was again in her head instead of cocooned in a section of Vii’s quantum network at home in Aurora, so he could be here to see this with her.
But he—his essence, the fragment of consciousness Valkyrie had accidentally brought into existence—was safer there. She sighed to herself a bit sadly; if it were truly him, he wouldn’t care about being safe. But until it was, she had to look out for him.
Relativity: Aurora Resonant Book One (Aurora Rhapsody 7) Page 15