by Brett Bam
“It wasn’t just us. It’s this whole sector of space, everything was hit.”
“Hit by what?”
“That.” An image of the sun filled all the displays, it was a roaring ball of fire shown in all spectrums.
Dalys finally understood, “A Coronal Mass Ejection.”
It was the grandfather of all bogeymen, the final threat system wide, the ultimate doomsday feared across the Community of Man. Once in the ancient past the sun had burned men from the Earth and now it had burned them from the sky.
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” said Curtis from her couch, “What happened?”
“The sun erupted like a volcano Doc. It pushed all this energy and radiation into space and that washed across this whole sector. Every electrical and magnetic system between us and the sun is dead, Hellfire indeed.”
There was silence on the RHS for a long while. Dalys could not stop staring at the dark face of the asteroid. She played the instruments over it again and again looking for signs of life, but could find nothing. It was simply dead.
Kulen was standing in the back of the room, largely ignored in all the excitement. He had no responsibilities on the ship, even Curtis managed to be busy, and she had the least to do with maintaining the systems. When he did speak, they all turned and looked at him.
“All those people are dying. I saw a woman on the asteroid, she was a mother and she had children with her. And an old man who was very happy. They were few of many. They will die now, yes?”
“Yes,” nodded Dalys.
“We can’t let that happen. We have to help them.”
Dalys looked at the boy with the windblown hair and the rainbow eyes, “How do you propose we do that?”
“Take me back. I will help them. What I did here I can do there. I can bring life to the rock.”
Kulen looked at Jack Mac and touched Berea’s cross hanging under his shirt. Too many lives had been lost around him, and now if he could help it, there would be no more.
Chapter 25
The Sunseed
The flare
There is an emergence, a distancing from light, a momentous fall from an unknowable grace, into the deepest pit.
The universe grows darker, and I start to see something other than the glare of solid radiation I have just come through. This darkness is a catalyst for detail and I see more and more as I move into it.
It has been such a completely overwhelming journey, from there to here. That much pain and fire, burning so hot it was a purity unto itself, a state of true grace, something divine.
The mortal plane looms before me where time is linear and energy is finite. It looms larger like a wall across space, dominating half the sky, becoming very quickly a vast barrier I am about to hit. I shift my perceptions and as I hit...
I emerge from a state of grace, a bright comet boiling with power. Heat evaporates from me into the frigid depths of naked space and I radiate. I am a comet, falling into both the real and the physical. Dimensions roll up and vanish with a hard snap, time stretches away into distance before me, and behind me time translates into speed.
I feel myself shrinking and becoming less than I was, cooling like an ember cast from flame.
The powers I had are diminished, this new place is colder by far than the place which was before. The energy of the otherplace clings to me as I depart from it, like bubbles from a rock falling into the deepest ocean.
I am moving very fast, time is slowing and becoming something it was not. Matter is flaking from me, leaving me colder and colder but not cold enough.
I see the planets spinning away, slowing as I come past into static balls of dust and rock and gas and liquid. All the worlds of this solar system role past my eye in this way. The roaring solar wind flutters away, leaving my new form enclosed in a crusted shell of burned remains. The shell is suffocating, encroaching and claustrophobic, so I push at my shell and crack it open like a bird in an egg. The pieces shatter and crumble and disintegrate into a cloud of agitated particles which swirl and shiver all around me.
I am still moving too fast, and getting colder, moment by shortening moment.
I reach out and gather the dust to myself with gravity and magnetism and pull it toward me. My body is reforming and it needs protection. The structure builds and gains definition in space around me. Light calms itself and begins to behave enough for me to see again. Matter calms, and I breathe it like air and drink it like water. Around me it coagulates and shifts and turns and grows into the structure I desire. As I focus, slowly, the glove reforms on my hand.
It took a lifetime, but at last I am home.
I am emerging, and it is an emergence quite the same as the other I have experienced. But I have changed each time, I am something new under the sun, a creature never before seen. And I wield great power, enough to scan the fabric of the real stretched out into causality and displayed before me. Power to examine it thread for thread, and power to pluck those threads, or unravel them and weave them into something new.
I see all the worlds now, the planetary bodies spinning their way around the sun. I see smaller indications of traffic all over. It practically swarms in the sky. Great cities of metal lit with bright lights crisscross the sky in all directions. There is so much activity! Faster sparks everywhere, leaving long trails of shimmering heat which make the sky flicker, little ships full of people and goods making their way from here to there. There were long chains of ice which glimmered like rivers in the sky. They necklaced the sun and were hard to see, like ebony pearls on an ebony skin.
I search for something with a particular glimmer, one which sparkles and is obvious. There it is, far away and yet within reach, orbiting a rock which in turn orbits the sun.
I notice that wherever I look, the little lights go out. As if the mere observance of them, the slightest exposure to my attention, is the cause of their extinguishment.
Of course, I know what this is. I knew the damage I would cause when I came out of the star. The eruptions of energy cause desolation across the physical dimensions. I have seen this before, and I will see it again. My arrival, left unchecked, will diminish half of the life I can see in the sky. If I allow this to continue, billions upon billions will die. I don't want to do that again, so I summon the wind.
I feel the solar wind all around me. The gale which blows from the sun shining in our sky. Every photon ever cast from that eternal source has left a record behind as it passed through the vastness of space. Every thing under the light of the sun which had ever been was detailed in those threads, and the weave of it was the solar wind. It was in turmoil. I could see it clearly, like a raging sea stretching away, an infinite fabric of murmuring reality which dwarfs the little network built by my children. There is a massive discordant knot of heat surging through the wind. I pull at it and tease it and cause the wind to blow across Sol’s system. Wherever the wind blows it will spark machinery back into life, the energies it carries will bring succour and salvation. The disaster will ease and the hot discord will dissipate. Millions will still die in the small hours and days it takes the wind to do its work, but it will merely be a disaster, not an extinction. Not like before.
I travel around Sol several times, gazing at its face. It enraptures me, that bright pit of gravity and energy, I cannot believe what I have achieved and I can't wait to do it again. But first I have work to do. I look again and see the little spark. It is enclosed in metal and plastic, enshrouded in electricity. It is a hard thing, this little ball of aware light, this little seed of a seed which will soon become so much. I will blow on that ember until it is afire. I look upon it with a sense of fond nostalgia and then marvel at the emotion. One advantage of this mortal plane is the emotional complexity of it. What glory, what energy and creative bluster.
The spark sees me and begins to panic and I cannot soothe it for I know what comes next.
Watching it squirm and start to look for a way to run is almost amusing. A small crowd of
people gathered near the ember are reacting to its panic. I recognise them all.
I slow myself further and begin my approach.
I am almost upon my prey. They run into the rock, as I knew they would.
Chapter 26
Gamaridia
Ebal Gibeon stared at a beam of light falling from a window. The motes of dust were fascinating, small specks of golden light that promised unexpected detail if he could just look closely enough. He was in a comfortable place, lying in a bed, head propped up on a pillow. It all smelled clean. He felt rested, really well rested, actually. He’d had such a wonderful dream. He became conscious of a voice next to him, a girl’s voice. It was his sister Ruth, she was reading something. He couldn’t quite hear her. Behind her sat his friend Damien, dark and sullen as usual.
“Hi guys.”
They both looked at him in surprise. “Ebal?”
“Yes?” he frowned at her. She looked honestly surprised. Damien's usual sullenness had been replaced by an actual smile.
“You recognise me?” What a weird question.
“Sure I do. Why wouldn’t I recognise you?” He sounded concerned.
A doctor bustled into the room and now it was Ebal’s turn to look surprised. He sat up as he realised he was in hospital. The doctor was wearing scrubs and had a long pony tail the colour of iron. There were two nurses tapping away at pads. The doctor had a long sequence of questions, which he rattled off while performing a rushed physical exam. Then he explained what had happened, how he had been in some strange accident, how his memory had been temporarily affected. They confessed to him they had no idea how it had been done, they had simply recorded the process of his recovery so far. However, they were finally satisfied that Ebal’s brain was working the way it should. He showed no more signs of the incident, and because they needed the beds, he was free to go. Just like that. The GASD would be in contact soon. The doctor rushed off to examine the other victims of the cyber attack, encouraged by this positive development and eager to spread some good news.
With some prompting, Ebal remembered the details of his encounter with the tall dark haired youth. He remembered right up until a wind had blown into his face, and then… he was lying here in this bed, with nothing but the memory of a beautiful dream of rainbow eyes.
After he was dressed and released, the three youths made their way to the transport depot where they waited for a passing gondola. The zip-lines that carried them were a tremendously complex system of lines and pulleys which knotted its way across Gamaridia, slung like a web through the whole chamber. Access was free, and it was possible to reach any point on the interior. The junctions where the gondola changed directions were always an unpredictable mechanism, part of the fun. How the gondola transferred from one line to another always differed. Some of the faster lines used swinging globes to change position, and the passengers would endure long sweeping falls to new positions on the zip-lines. There were 13 junctions where the gondolas actually dropped or swung or were flicked into free fall to cross a short distance to be caught on metal rails, or share ferris wheels with other gondolas. Once or twice a journey the gondola would lurch and slide to one side, or make a short sharp drop. Sometimes it would pivot 360 degrees for no apparent reason and any loose objects and unprepared passengers would end up on the roof. Other times it simply got so high on a single line that up became down and the fall got faster as it traversed the gravity gradient of the spinning chamber. It was a common way for the adolescent population to travel. The adults and children mostly stuck to more predictable blimps, taxis or personal transports. They embarked and rode a series of lines and interchanges before coming to the top of a tower. There was one long lonely line stretching from the top of that tower into the complexity of the sky. The line twisted and turned and climbed into the heights where gravity was significantly less. There they rode and interchanged and chose another lonely line which swept away into the distance. With a strange pivot of the point of awareness, up became down and down became fast. It was a long straight fall in lesser gravity, and after a while the velocity was quite high. They felt the swing bottom out and slow.
They moved across the city and as they travelled their view was panoramic. The three of them had the gondola to themselves. They sat at the window watching the chamber drift by. They had all been raised in this city; it was the only home they knew. They had lived here with their families, holidayed in the endcap sea, gone to school here, become adults here. And they were still together after all this time. None of them had ever been outside the chamber in their lives, and none of them ever expected to. Ebal felt his sister’s hand in his.
“That was very scary Ebal. You didn’t know who I was. I thought this life was changed forever.”
“Thanks for coming to get me guys. It’s nice to know I can count on you.”
“What happened to you Ebal?” asked Ruth.
“I had a dream, a beautiful dream. Which I can't quite remember now. I feel fine, really.”
They were all silent for a short while. Damien opened his mouth and took breath to say something, but then the lights went out, and everything went dark.
They all screamed a little as the world outside disappeared. They could still hear the line whipping through the pulley as they fell. Nothing had changed except they were in darkness.
“What’s going on?” asked Damien, brushing long dark hair out of his eyes.
“I think the power has failed.”
“It’ll come back on, right?”
“Yes of course it will. This is just another one of those lines that tests your courage. You know, like the city sets up sometimes, or that show where they trick out a crazy swing in the line and broadcast the terrified reactions of the passengers. Something like that. They could even be filming us, relax, and sit down.”
Ebal felt more alarmed than he sounded. If the lights in here had gone out that was okay, but where were the lights of the city around them? Why was everything dark?
“Guys, you don’t think this is the whole asteroid, do you?”
“No way, they’ve got back ups and redundancies, emergency measures.”
“Um, if there’s no power how do we stop at the other end of the line?”
The three friends sat together shoulder to shoulder in the darkness and tried not to panic. Then, far away down the chamber towards the sea, there was an explosion which filled the chamber with orange light and something burned. Smaller fires began to blossom everywhere, accidents along the Spiral Highway. They clung to each other in terror. The line they drifted on trembled like a plucked string. It was vibrating. In the light of the fires below they saw a tall residential building in the middle of a forest of buildings began to lean horribly. Another of them followed suit, then they all did. Suddenly they recoiled in the other direction and began to wobble on their bases, the tops of the buildings shedding glass and plastic as they shook and cracked. The first one fell. It cracked at the foundations and fell into the buildings surrounding it, crumbling into dust as it went. The three youths watched as other buildings began to fall randomly while the rest wobbled. The vibration increased, and the gondola began to rock. Then suddenly the gondola was wrenched upwards. They were flattened into the seats with the acceleration. Then there was a horrible moment of zero gravity and the gondola fell. The line shook them up and down and then suddenly stopped. They drifted in freefall for a second before starting to slide again. They hurtled along at a fair pace, the line whistling through the coupling above the gondola. They were all shaken and bruised and Damien's arm was at a crooked angle, he'd broken it. Towards the end, they all knew they were going to die. There was no need to state the obvious. They could see the buildings of the terminal getting larger as they fell closer. They could see the light of the fires raging across the chamber. The three had a perfect seat to watch Armageddon unfold in the only home they had ever known.
The final horror was the rising of the endcap sea. It swelled and burst and flowed up th
e centre of the chamber, foaming water, vicious and inevitable. It leapt up and slammed into the city, spilling through the debris and sweeping to cover everything. The last thing any of them saw before they were engulfed was the massive wave rearing high above them before falling to knock them from the sky. They screamed and clutched at each other. The water invaded them, choked them, and they drowned as they fell.
“We’re going to have to abandon ship.”
The crew of the Otherc looked at each other in fear and shock at the unbelievable statement. The Ribbontail had caused a tremendous amount of damage with her surprise attack, and now the Otherc was dead and drifting slowly away from the docking bay. The enemy fire had pounded the ship into the docking bay gantries and they had literally bounced from there and out into space. Then, to make matters worse, the dark bit down. They had stumbled around in the pitch-black interior, slowly finding each other and mustering at the airlock. The environment suits were not functioning and they had been forced to resort to the mechanical last resort, basic equipment which was nothing more than a bag of air they had to climb into and zip up. They had covered this in their emergency drills. It was normally a humorous exercise which they all regarded as a holiday from the normal ship’s routine, fumbling around with the clumsy equipment while passing scathing remarks about the way they looked in the bulky white gear. None of them were laughing now.
“I’m going to crack the hatch and depressurise so we’ll lose communication. I want you to exit the ship as quickly as possible and head for the bay. We’ll get inside the chamber and reassess the situation from there,” said captain Ronid Jabesh.
There were nods from each of them. Jabesh cranked the airlock open and the air puffed out. Silence became absolute. The scene which greeted them was horrifying. They were drifting away from the superstructure of the docks, between them and safety was an infinite chasm speckled with stars. Jabesh slapped his 2IC on the back and pointed out of the airlock. The man snapped off a sharp salute, braced himself against the hatchway and jumped. He sailed through the vacuum, heading slowly across the gulf toward safety. It was a couple of hundred metres away and increasing, so he drifted for long moments. Behind him the rest of the crew followed, and from the dead ship a line of small white dots stretched across the dark, desperate people reaching for salvation. The ship’s doctor, a good man who had served with Jabesh on the Otherc for more than a decade, stepped up to take his turn. Jabesh clasped his shoulder and leaned forward to bring an arms length of their suits together. The vibration of the captain’s voice came through the contact.