The Arc of the Universe

by Mark Whiteway

  She nodded. “I’ll have our ship launch a scout vessel.”

  “Why can’t we go?”

  “The scout is faster.”

  “But we’re a lot closer.”

  “Quinn is correct,” Vil-gar said. “The breaching pod would reach the anomaly three minutes ahead of the scout.”

  Rahada opened her mouth as if she were about to argue, then turned to the Shanata at the controls. “Set course for the distortion field. Thrusters to full!”

  ~

  Quinn stayed glued to the screen as the breaching pod entered the expanding sphere of glowing ship fragments.

  Rahada shook her head. “I still don’t see it.”

  “Instruments show it dead ahead,” the operator replied.

  Vil-gar clasped his tiny hands. “Excellent. Signal the ship. Ask them to launch a zahar directly at the anomaly.”

  Rahada blinked. “You’re mad! We’ll be killed!”

  “On the contrary. The zahar will leach energy from the field, allowing the pod to enter.”

  Quinn fixed her with an iron gaze.

  She turned to the operator and nodded.

  His fingers tapped the display. “They’re responding. Shall I ask why they destroyed the Damise ship?”

  She hesitated. “No, there’s no time. Order them to target the anomaly with a zahar.”

  He barked at his console. “Rahada gazka kolassi zahar. Kazote!” Quinn ground his teeth.

  “They’re acknowledging,” the operator said. “Zahar is inbound.”

  Seconds ticked by, and then a ball of crackling energy flashed past and detonated, revealing a sphere shimmering in the darkness.

  “By sapping the field’s energy, the zahar will have decreased the time differential,” Vil-gar said, as if addressing a lecture hall. “Eight minutes remain until cessation of all biological functions within the field.”

  “What!” Quinn exclaimed. “You never said anything about that!”

  Vil-gar’s proboscis sniffed the air. “It was the only way to access the anomaly. You may still have time to retrieve your son.”

  Quinn reddened. He wanted to rip Vil-gar’s ears off, but assaulting a projection was pointless.

  “Flank speed,” Rahada said. “Bring us to a full stop at the event horizon, then take us in on thrusters.” She glanced at Quinn. “We have no idea what awaits us inside that thing.”

  Quinn acknowledged her with a grudging nod.

  Seconds fled by. The newly visible anomaly grew until it filled the screen. As they pierced its outer edge, the pod shuddered and the screen erupted in white light. Quinn shielded his eyes. Rahada remained impassive.

  “Systems show nominal,” the operator reported. “We are undamaged.”

  “Analysis!” Rahada said.

  He shook his head. “Getting some very odd gravimetric readings. There appears to be a large structure at the centre. We are being drawn towards it. Velocity is increasing.”

  “Can you control our approach speed using reverse thrust?”

  “I think so.”

  “Bring us to within point zero one hochari.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Silence stretched taut as a trip wire. Then the shape of the dolin appeared, hanging unsupported in the brilliance.

  Vil-gar studied the readouts. “Ingenious.”

  “What are you talking about?” Quinn demanded.

  “The Damise designed a twofold trap. First, there’s the time differential. Time within the field has been slowed. Doubtless they would have slowed it a great deal further had they completed their work. Second, they inserted a gravitational sink at the centre.”

  “You mean a black hole?” Rahada suggested.

  “If so, then it’s minute,” Vil-gar replied. “It’s not strong enough to collapse the field, merely to create a gravitational gradient.”

  “Like a deep well,” Quinn mused.

  Vil-gar brightened. “Exactly! Its gravity is dragging us towards the centre.”

  “But if the dolin is also at the centre—”

  “I suspect the gravity sink is subatomic in size. That would place it inside the construct.”

  Quinn forced himself to refocus. “We’ll need to access the dolin’s back compartment. That’s where Conor should be.”

  Vil-gar’s wizened hands grew animated. “You should be able to touch down on it just as you would an asteroid.”

  “All right, prepare for landing,” Rahada said.

  You’ll need protection if you’re going to venture outside,” Vil-gar went on. “Temperature’s falling, and oxygen’s only forty percent of normal.”

  Rahada pulled open a compartment and tossed Quinn a belt. As he caught it, he instantly recognised the device from his time on the frozen moon in the Nemazi system. Buckle it around your waist, and a series of interlocking plates would extend to fit around your entire body. The suit was designed to sustain vital functions. It even had a rudimentary artificial intelligence.

  “Take care!” Vil-gar said with a jaunty air. “I look forward to monitoring your progress from here.”

  “Oh no,” Quinn said. “You’re coming with us.”

  “That would be foolish. The danger is too great.”

  Quinn raised his eyebrows. “You’re a projection.”

  “I did not mean me. You agreed humans would give me sanctuary, and in exchange, I would gift you my vast knowledge and wisdom. If something were to happen to me, the loss to your people would be incalculable!”

  Quinn set his face in stone. “I’ll take the risk.”

  ~

  With Rahada and Vil-gar at his back, Quinn stepped from the pod onto the stone giant’s back and hurried to the section that housed the hidden compartment. An inner voice reminded him of the absurdity of his situation. After weeks of wandering two universes, he had almost forgotten what “normal” felt like.

  During their approach, he had spotted the orange beam still shining from the dolin’s sole functioning eye. He hoped that meant that the construct’s systems were still operating, that it knew what he was trying to do, and that it would be willing to open its compartment since he knew no other way of gaining entry.

  He reached the place and halted, clutching a spare belt in his fist. The compartment was firmly shut with no handle or recess for him to access. He called in the direction of the giant’s head. “Open up!”

  With the distance to the creature’s auditory receptors, the muffled effect of his suit, and the lack of air to carry sound, what were the chances it might hear him? He yelled at the top of his voice. “Open this bloody thing!”

  He dropped to his hands and knees and scrabbled at the crack. The burnished dome overhead hurt his eyes. “Open up, damn you!”

  “Quinn.”

  He barely heard Vil-gar’s voice.

  “Quinn, the time limit has passed. Your son is gone. I am very sorry.”

  Salt tears stung Quinn’s eyes. No. No, I won’t accept that. I can’t…

  “He was merely a re-animate, after all,” Vil-gar added.

  Quinn was torn between his frantic effort to free the hatch and his urge to verbally tear Vil-gar limb from limb. Before he could pick one, the hatch cracked open with a faint hiss. He stared at it in disbelief for a split second before wrenching it aside. Within lay Conor’s crumpled figure.

  Dropping into the hole, Quinn fit the spare belt around the limp boy’s waist. Dark plates wrapped around Conor’s form, growing transparent at the face, though Conor’s eyes stayed closed. He looked peaceful.

  Rahada shoved Quinn aside, accessed a small panel in Conor’s suit, and examined a set of twinkling lights. “He’s alive. I have no idea how.”

  “It was the dolin,” Quinn said, his voice distant.

  “That doesn’t seem likely.”

  “It was the dolin. It sealed the compartment somehow, heated it and channelled enough oxygen to sustain him.”

  “Why would it do that?” Rahada asked.

  “It has
a connection to the boy,” Vil-gar said. “And that could very well make him the most dangerous person alive.”

  ~

  Quinn reboarded the pod, carrying Conor in his arms. After sealing the airlock, Rahada headed forward. “Lift off. Get us out of here.”

  Quinn set Conor on the floor and tapped the boy’s suit buckle. The suit parted, and the plates withdrew into the belt with a faint clacking. He removed his own suit, and as he watched Conor’s chest rise and fall, his own breathing slowed.

  “I said lift off,” Rahada said. “Why aren’t we moving?”

  The Shanata at the control panel moved his hands over the board. “Uncertain. Engines are responding, but I am detecting no appreciable thrust.”

  Vil-gar waddled over and peeked around his shoulder. “Fascinating.”

  “What’s the matter?” Rahada asked.

  “The gravimetric force emanating from the centre of the anomaly has increased.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “A moment.” Vil-gar addressed the operator. “Display gravimetric gradient.” The symbols on the small screen vanished, and a line appeared. “Overlay engine power consumption from when we entered the field.” A second line appeared on the screen. He pointed a bony finger. “There, you see?”

  Rahada’s expression was blank.

  “There’s a direct correlation between the increase in gravity and our engine output. The Damise device is designed to resist any attempt to overpower it.”

  “Device?”

  “I know of no natural phenomenon that would have that effect. It has to be a device constructed from subatomic particles. Objects may enter the field, but they can never escape. Clever. Very clever.”

  “Fly paper,” Quinn mumbled.

  Rahada shot him a look before turning her attention back to Vil-gar. “Could we get a signal out?”

  “I cannot see how a rescue attempt from outside the field would be successful,” Vil-gar replied.

  “I wasn’t thinking of that. I want to warn them off so that no one else will be trapped in here.”

  “Electromagnetic signals have mass, and mass responds to gravity, but it’s reasonable to suppose the device has limits as to sensitivity. A low power signal might get through, but I would suggest transmitting it sooner rather than later. Time is still moving five times faster outside the field. A rescue effort may already be underway.”

  She nodded to the operator, who busied himself at the controls.

  “It seems to me we have only one chance,” Quinn said. “Destroy the device, or whatever it is.”

  “I’m sure the Damise would have thought of that,” Vil-gar said. “They will have countermeasures in place.”

  “Besides, if it’s lodged inside the dolin, we have no way of getting to it,” Rahada added.

  “If you remain here, you’ll perish,” Vil-gar said.

  Quinn’s gaze lingered on the unconscious Conor. “The ‘greatest intelligence in the galaxy’, and that’s the best you can come up with?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So are you saying there is a way out?”

  Vil-gar made an odd sound in his throat. “You already know the way out. Do you expect me to spoon-feed you?”

  “Well… not exactly.”

  “Then let’s see if your puny mind can figure it out before your air, food, and water run out, shall we?”

  His projection vanished, and the silver sphere fizzled into nothingness.

  ~

  Quinn stared at the space Vil-gar’s projection had occupied moments ago. “I don’t believe him.”

  “He sounded in earnest,” Rahada said.

  “No, I mean I can’t believe he would leave us in the lurch like this.”

  “You were not very respectful.”

  “What?”

  “Your attitude towards him betrays resentment.”

  She was right, of course. Every time he looked at Vil-gar, Quinn could not help but see the image of his fellow Farish being forced into cubicles to feed his life essence at the expense of their own. Vil-gar claimed it had been an act of noble self-sacrifice on their part, but Quinn had stumbled across the official recording of those events and knew better. Vil-gar might well have great intellect and even a certain quirky charm, but he was a monster.

  Quinn raised his head and saw that the Shanata were all looking directly at him. “It’s… complicated. Let’s just concentrate on finding a way out of here, okay?”

  “According to Vil-gar, you have the answer,” Rahada pointed out.

  “Well, he’s wrong. Dead wrong. I’ve never been in a situation remotely like this. I’m nothing more than a… a paper pusher.”

  “Paper pusher?”

  “It means someone who just pushes paper around. I prepare inventories, bills of lading, stuff like that.”

  “Don’t humans have computers for that?”

  “The point is I have only a rudimentary knowledge of physics. I’m probably the least qualified person in this room.”

  Rahada sat cross-legged on the floor. Loosened from the facemask, her auburn hair tumbled around her pale-grey face. She was an oasis of calm. “Can your friend Vil-gar read minds?”

  “He’s not my friend,” Quinn replied, a touch hastily. He sighed before continuing. “No. No, I don’t think so.”

  “Then his statement that you know the way out must derive from your interactions with him. His race is unfamiliar. How did you meet?”

  “It was after the confrontation with Ximun and the Damise, among the ruins of the original Agantzane civilisation. We were climbing back up through Pann’s lower levels. When we reached the third level, the dolin picked up a distress signal. We went to investigate and stumbled on a vast complex built by another ancient race.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Quinn went on. “At the centre we found a… creature in some sort of suspended animation, the last of his race. Power to his avatron—his life-support unit—was failing, and he was close to death. Vast numbers of Mogrey flooded into the complex. I told the others to escape while I secured a replacement power source. Eventually, we all met up again and made it back to the upper level.”

  “You saved Vil-gar’s life.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Forgive me,” Rahada said. “I know little of human customs and even less when it comes to Vil-gar’s people, but when two sentient creatures share an experience such as that, it tends to create a bond between them. Yet your relationship seems rather more… acrimonious.”

  Quinn shook his head. “I don’t think that has anything to do with our current problem.”

  She nodded. “All right. What happened after you returned to Pann’s upper level?”

  “We got caught up in the lower races’ invasion of the enclave. The Medyr attacked, and then you rescued us. The rest you know.”

  “Hmmm.” She frowned. “You said the Mogrey attacked the complex en masse, and the others fled. How did you survive?”

  “I guess it was Vil-gar who saved me. My time on Nemazi left me with certain Shade abilities, but using them has become increasingly difficult. I tried to encompass both myself and Vil-gar’s avatron in a four-space bubble, but I failed. Vil-gar intervened, or at least his consciousness did. Somehow, he took over and expanded the bubble into something much larger—a subuniverse, he called it.”

  “Could you and he do the same thing here?”

  “You mean take us out of normal existence, isolate us from the effects of the field? Do you think that’s what he meant?”

  She offered a weak smile. “Maybe you should ask him.”

  Quinn stared at the walls of their single-cabined craft. “Vil-gar,” he shouted into thin air. “Vil-gar, I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you.” No response. “Vil-gar, I know you’re listening. It’s the subuniverse, isn’t it? That’s our way out? But I need your help. Please.” Answer me, you wrinkly little—

  The air shimmered, and the silver sphere rea
ppeared, closely followed by the image of Vil-gar. His proboscis tested the air. “Well done, Quinn. I calculated a less than five percent chance that you would come up with the right answer.” He shot a glance at Rahada. “Of course, you did have help.”

  Would Vil-gar really have left them here to rot, or was he merely playing out a little drama for his own amusement? Quinn decided now was not the time. He addressed Rahada. “Thank you for your assistance.” He turned to Vil-gar. “Now can we get out of here?”

  Vil-gar raised a bony finger. “A bubble sufficient to encompass this pod should suffice. Begin the process as you did before, and I will complete the expansion.”

  “What about the dolin?” Quinn asked.

  “What about it?”

  “It’ll be trapped here.”

  “So much the better,” Vil-gar said. “It’s a dangerous and unpredictable weapon. You left it behind once on Panns’s lower levels. Now, you have the chance to be rid of it permanently.”

  “I want to take it with us,” Quinn said.

  “The Damise devised a sophisticated trap to neutralise the construct. If we set it free, we will have virtually no chance of bringing it under control again.”

  “It saved Conor. I owe it the chance to explore the nature of its existence.”

  Vil-gar made a raucous sound as if he were clearing his throat. “You speak as if it were a sentient being.”

  “I don’t know what it is. But I won’t destroy it through fear and ignorance.”

  Rahada rose to her feet. “Have you forgotten the Damise’s device, Quinn?”

  Quinn addressed Vil-gar. “Last time, you altered the gravitational constant within the subuniverse. If we do the same here, would that not be sufficient to counter the device’s effects and free the dolin?”

  “You learn quickly,” Vil-gar said. “But preserving the dolin is ill-advised.”

  “Perhaps. But we’re doing it anyway.”

  The sides of Vil-gar’s mouth drooped. Quinn half wondered whether the little creature was going to get the hump and disappear again, but Vil-gar merely said, “You may begin when ready, Quinn.”