by Isaac Hooke
Sinive hacked into the rental unit, and they shut the door behind them.
There was no automated assistant in the room, nor any cameras, so he finally felt a little at ease.
Tane went to the window and shut the curtains before taking off his hat. Then he peered through the edge of the curtain to watch the people below.
“It’s going to happen again, you know,” Tane said. “Eventually. We’ll wake up and find ourselves in another universe. And next time, there might not be a way to return.”
Behind him, Sinive didn’t answer.
“The archaeoceti woman was right,” Tane continued. “The boundaries between our universe and the others are definitely weakening. Look at them. All those people walking back and forth. Oblivious to the coming doom.”
Sinive slid her arm into the crook of his elbow, and gazed through the gap in the curtains toward the passers-by below. “The boundaries are weakening… what are the chances we would be the ones to experience that firsthand? The universe is a very big place, filled with countless galaxies, and yet, it just so happened to weaken around the two of us. Makes me wonder… are we the only ones who experienced this, or did a bunch of other people get sucked into alternate universes at the same time? We returned, but they…”
“They’d be trapped,” Tane finished for her. “I’m checking the Galnet news streams as we speak. As far as I can tell, there are no mass missing person reports, nor even any upticks in the number of people reported missing over the past twenty-four hours. There also haven’t been sightings of aliens or other strange creatures suddenly appearing on any of the colonies under the TSN’s dominion…”
“Maybe it’s too early, and the reports are just beginning to trickle in,” Sinive said.
“Maybe,” Tane agreed. “Of course, it could also be that the TSN is suppressing the news, but in this day and age, where everyone has a chip and potential recording device in his or her head, suppression on that level is difficult.”
“But it can be done,” Sinive said.
“Yes,” Tane said. “But I’m going to go with my gut on this: I believe that so far, it only happened to the two of us, and we two alone.”
“Why?” Sinive said.
Tane hesitated. He wasn’t sure he should tell her the reason.
Sinive bit her lower lip. “It’s because of who you are, isn’t it? If the boundaries between universes are weakening, it makes sense that you’re going to be the first one to experience the effects of that, seeing as you’re linked to them all, or at least three universes we know of. Well I guess four, counting the one we just left.”
Tane nodded. Her thinking was in line with his own. “Send a message to Gia and Nebb. Tell them what planet we’re on, and that we need a pick up.”
“Will do,” Sinive said. “And after they arrive, what are we doing next?”
“We head for the TSN headquarters,” Tane said. “It’s time to have a little meeting with the Paramount Leader.”
23
Tane and Sinive searched each other for signs of microcrillia or similar infections, but found nothing obvious, at least on the surface of their bodies. And while their chips reported everything seemed normal with their endocrine, cardiopulmonary and nervous systems, that wasn’t to say their organs or other subdermal tissues weren’t harboring something nasty. Once they were aboard the Mosaic, they planned to have full medical exams.
Naked full body examinations like that were quite a turn on, at least for Tane, so it wasn’t long before their exploratory sessions turned into a shared shower and love-making session.
They ordered food in, and spent the day together. And the night. It was a good break from the constant rushing around and running they had been doing for the past little while. And when they woke up again, they were thankfully still in their own universe.
Fifteen hours after their return to this universe, Nebb and Gia finally reported in via the Galnet. They had arrived at the planet in their respective vessels. Apparently their individual jumps had put them on different sides of the system, but they managed to reach the planet only fifteen minutes apart. Since Nebb had arrived first, he was the one who came to pick up Tane and Sinive.
As soon as the door opened, he gave Sinive a hug. “Good to see you, Girl.”
“And you as well,” Sinive said.
“I nearly had a heart attack when Gia told me her AI was reporting you two had flat-out vanished from your quarters,” Nebb said. “At first I thought you’d been sucked out into space by some deck breach… you know, a structural integrity failure, and so I swore up and down, telling Gia I knew the two of you should have stayed with me aboard the Red Grizzly. But she reassured me that the compartment you two shared was intact. I didn’t know what to think. I’m just glad you’re back.” He glanced at Tane. “So I guess the Whorl Bender has developed some entirely new means of interstellar travel. When are you going to teach me that little trick of yours?”
“Believe me, you don’t want anything to do with what happened to us,” Tane said.
Nebb gave him an appraising look, then shrugged. “You’re probably right.” He tossed two pouches onto the table. “Your storage pouches.”
Tane grabbed his, and secured it to his belt. He retrieved the blurring cap from inside and promptly slid it over his head.
Sinive did the same. “Well, at least these aren’t as conspicuous as the sombreros.”
Nebb glanced at the two big hats lying on the floor beside the beds. “You wore those out there? Ridiculous!” He went to one of the sombreros and kicked it. “If I saw you walking out there in one of these, I would have stopped you and issued a citizen’s arrest!”
Sinive glanced at Tane. “If you haven’t figured it out by now, Nebb can be a member of the fashion police.”
“Only for the most egregious violations,” Nebb said.
Tane regarded the smuggler’s trench coat with amusement.
Nebb glared at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” Tane said. That coat paired with the smuggler’s own wide-brimmed hat seemed to be a bit of a fashion faux pas in and of itself, but then again, what did Tane know? He was just an Outrimmer.
Tane glanced at Sinive. “I’m changing my ID again.”
“But we changed it after arriving,” Sinive said. After a brief pause, she added: “Actually, you’re right. Probably a good idea.”
He chose the name Erstwhile Tanner, while Sinive chose Reyna Phillips.
“Erstwhile Tanner, that one’s a bit obvious, isn’t it?” Sinive asked.
“No,” Tane said. “If I wanted to be obvious, I would have chosen Erstwhile Tane.”
“Close enough,” Sinive said, but she shrugged.
“All right, let’s get to the shipyard,” Nebb told them.
The smuggler walked to the entrance of the room along with Sinive. When Tane didn’t follow, Nebb turned around to give him a questioning look.
“Once I step out that door, there’s no going back,” Tane said.
“We can lay low here for a few days if you want,” Nebb said. “Or weeks, even.”
“No,” Tane said. “There’s no time. I don’t know if you’ve realized it or not yet, but what happened to Sinive and I wasn’t a natural thing. And it’s going to happen again. Not just to us, but others. I thought I could make my own destiny. I was wrong. It’s time to deal with whatever fate the universe has planned for me. I’ve been avoiding it long enough. I have to stop running, face it head on. ”
“Good man,” Nebb said. “We all could learn from your example. I just wish the rest of us had our destiny as clearly written out for us as yours is.”
“Oh, my destiny is far from clear,” Tane said. “I take it one day at a time.”
“As do we all,” Nebb commented.
Outside on the streets, Tane and Sinive kept their blurring caps pulled low. Nebb’s wide-brimmed hat apparently had a built-in blurring device as well, because he didn’t deviate from any of the obvious cameras the
y encountered along the way, such as the drone hovering above a crossroads. He did take a side street when a patrol of city guards came their way, just to be safe.
Nebb brought them to the closest shipyard and led them through customs. One of the officials seemed on the verge of detaining them, but a quick chip-to-chip credit transaction from Nebb had them on their way again.
“Gotta love it when they employ people instead of machines,” Nebb said as they took a gravalator to the top of the building. “You can’t bribe robots.”
“That’s not always true,” Sinive said.
Nebb pursed his lips. “I suppose not, at that.”
Tane thought they were referring to the AI of the Red Grizzly, whose personality was based off of a mind imprint taken from a human being. A heavily locked down imprint, but human nonetheless.
The smuggler directed Tane and Sinive to the hangar containing the Mosaic, and then departed to board the Red Grizzly, which waited on another launch pad nearby.
After Tane and Sinive boarded the Mosaic, the pair went straight to sickbay. The medical robots gave them a clean bill of health. There were no mirror universe microcrillia infections, nor any other types of infections in either of their systems.
“So when do we get to hear your plan?” Gia said over the comm band.
“As soon as we’re out of this system,” Tane said.
“Where do you want me to jump to, anyway?” Gia asked.
“Anywhere, as long as it’s away from here,” Tane replied. “Oh, and it should be a system where the TSN presence is minimal.”
“You got it,” Gia said. “Both ships are fully fueled and repaired. Chase and I have had a full night’s rest, seeing as it took eight hours for our ships to arrive after we jumped here. We can fly into orbit and open up distortion tunnels as soon as you give the word.”
“Good, take us to jump orbit whenever you’re ready,” Tane said. “Relay the order to Nebb.”
He closed the connection.
“So Chase is the new jump specialist aboard the Red Grizzly?” Sinive asked Tane. “I admit to feeling a little jealous. I don’t even really know him.”
“I plan on remedying that once we’re underway,” Tane said. “We’re all going to get to know each other very well. I want us to trust each other with our lives. Because we’re going to have to, for what I have planned.”
“Great,” Sinive said, the sarcasm obvious in her tone.
Tane and Sinive joined Gia in the cockpit as they neared jump orbit.
“I’ve detected an anomaly,” Muse announced.
“An anomaly?” Gia said. “What kind?”
“The system’s binary suns…” Muse said.
“What about them?” Tane commented.
“They’ve begun to disappear,” the Mosaic’s AI responded.
“Show me,” Gia said.
“Can I get access to that feed, too?” Tane asked Gia.
In moments the video feed appeared, displayed across the bulkhead in front of him. It was zoomed in on the binary stars. At this distance, they appeared as two dots, one red and one blue, set amid the countless other stars of deep space. Otherwise, nothing seemed out of the ordinary among them.
“Increase magnification two hundred percent,” Gia said.
The view changed, and now the stars were bigger, their brightness muted by the display to make their coronas more easily discernible. It looked like a very small portion was cut out of the right sides of either sun.
“Again,” Gia said.
The magnification amped up by another two hundred percent.
Tane could definitely see the cut-out areas now, obvious against the backdrop of space. He could also see an oval-like distortion among the stars just in front of each of the excised areas.
“What is that?” Gia said.
“I believe those are two massive distortion tunnels,” Muse said. “They exist stationary, relative to the stars: the suns are traveling inside on their own momentum.”
“Connect Gall, too,” Tane said. “And Nebb and Chase. I want them to see this.”
“They’re online,” Gia announced.
“What is it?” G’allanthamas said.
“Are you seeing these suns?” Tane asked.
“I am,” the alien said. “They’re… being swallowed. By the Z’Antamaraan.”
“Yes,” Tane said. He raised his voice for the benefit of everyone who was now on the comm. “You’re watching the destruction of this system. And the loss of over a billion people. The Z’Antamaraan are going to kill them all. When those suns are gone, the population won’t be able to evacuate in time to save themselves from the coming cold.”
“They’ll have to live in underground shelters to survive,” Muse agreed. “Existing on geothermal energy. But not all will die. I estimate the TSN will successfully evacuate two hundred million before the surviving colonists exhaust the last of their supplies and begin to succumb.”
“That’s still eight hundred million lives lost,” Tane said.
“The TSN won’t abandon them,” Sinive said. “They’ll arrange for new supplies until more ships can come.”
“Yes, but even then, there will be deaths,” Tane said.
“I estimate the final death toll will reside between two and five hundred million,” the Mosaic’s AI agreed.
“It was inevitable that the Z’Antamaraan would begin to take suns in human territories,” G’allanthamas said over the comm.
First, the boundaries between universes were weakening. And now this.
It was fairly obvious now that he could no longer keep delaying the inevitable. He would have to face the Z’Antamaraan. Sooner, rather than later. Perhaps even today.
“How long would it take to fly to the closest sun?” Tane asked.
“Approximately two days,” the Mosaic’s AI replied.
“And how long until the suns are swallowed up entirely?” Tane pressed.
“You want to try traveling through the distortion tunnels along with the suns?” Sinive said.
“I do,” Tane said.
“It will also take about two days for the suns to be devoured,” Muse said. “However, even if we are able to pass through in time, we’ll have to travel within the event horizon of one of the suns. Once we arrive on the other side of that distortion tunnel, we’ll be trapped in a decaying orbit around the star, and won’t be able to escape its gravity. We’ll have to jump right away.”
“Then we’ll jump right away,” Tane said. “Gia, have Muse set a course for the closest sun.”
“There is no guarantee we’ll arrive in time,” Muse said.
“Gia?” Tane pressed.
“Set a course, Muse,” Gia told the AI.
Tane disconnected G’allanthamas and the others. He lay back against the bulkhead and stared at the video feed.
“Again the archaeoceti were right,” Tane mused. “The Z’Antamaraan are accelerating their pace.”
“It’s the end of the galaxy?” Gia said.
“Not just the galaxy,” Tane said. “The entire universe.”
Tane returned to the quarters he shared with Sinive and rested on the bunk. Three hours later he received a call from Muse.
“The tunnel is closing up faster than I initially calculated,” Muse said. “We’ll arrive six hours too late.”
“What are the chances the distortion tunnel will remain open six hours after the suns are gone?” Tane asked.
“Extremely low, I would say,” Muse told him. “Given how much energy—or Essence—it must take to maintain a distortion tunnel of that size.”
“What kind of creatures could master such an amount of Essence?” Tane wondered aloud.
“I don’t think I’d like to ever meet them,” Muse said.
“Too bad it’s my doom to do so,” Tane told the AI. “And by association, you’ll probably meet them, too.”
“Wonderful news,” Muse commented.
Sinive arrived and she sat down beside hi
m.
“Muse, have Gia stand down,” Tane said. “Jump us out of here whenever you’re ready. Choose the closest system with the smallest TSN presence. Send the order along to Nebb. And as usual, change our heat signatures mid-jump.”
“Will do,” Muse said, and disconnected.
Sinive slid her hand under his.
“Feeling guilty?” Sinive asked him.
“A little,” Tane said.
“You can’t save everyone,” Sinive said. “That was never your destiny.”
“I wish I knew what it was,” Tane said. “It’s so vague. Face the creodenti. Then face the Z’Antamaraan. Whatever that means.”
She placed her other hand on top of his, and rubbed his knuckles. “We’ll figure it out together.”
The deck began to shake slightly, and he heard a gentle, rising hum.
Tane felt suddenly nauseous, and he tilted to the side, leaning against Sinive. She momentarily paled as well.
The feeling passed, and the hum faded. The deck stopped shaking.
“Guess we just jumped,” Tane said.
“Uh huh,” Sinive told him.
Tane received a call from G’allanthamas. He accepted, and conferenced in Sinive.
“You decided not to head toward the distortion tunnel?” the alien asked from his cramped domain in the cargo bay.
“Well, the situation decided for me,” Tane said. “We would’ve arrived six hours too late.”
“You know, it’s probably for the best,” Sinive said. “I don’t think you were ready to face them.”
“You’re starting to sound like Lyra and Jed,” Tane said.
“Well, it’s true,” Sinive told him.
Tane considered that for a moment. “Of course I’m not ready. Just as I’m not ready to face the Paramount Leader. But I have to try on both accounts. We’ve run out of time.”
“The Doomwielder is correct,” G’allanthamas said. “He won’t ever be ready. Even if he reaches level seven in all his Essence abilities. At some point, His Woman, you will have to let the Doomwielder fulfill his destiny.”
“I guess I’m afraid I’ll lose him,” Sinive said.