“What did they do?”
“Frustrated at the apparent stalemate, the Darkest feigned defeat, appearing to limp away on mere impulse power. The Taarakani chased them down, seeing them as easy prey. Yet they allowed their pride to cloud their judgement, and strayed too far from their world. By the time they reached the Vakragha fleet, they were far from Taarakalis, and the Tulari was no longer able to protect them. They were slaughtered in minutes.”
Zahn could think of nothing to say, and his gaze drifted over the angular rocks for a few moments.
“What about those left on the planet? Why was it so ruined if the Tulari was protecting it?”
“With the entire Taarakani fleet wiped out, the Vakragha had free rein of the system. What you refer to as the Tulari still protected the planet, but the Vakragha placed a photon barrier between the planet and their star, killing off most of the plant life. The process of starvation was gruesome, and when most had died off, the Vakragha enacted a complex ground assault on the structure the Chintamani stone was kept in. Yet they found that when they drew near to it, they became weak. Their twisted cell structure was dissonant with the stone’s pure unifying energy, and they were forced to retreat, enraged that they still could not retrieve the stone itself.”
“And then we came along.”
“Indeed. It is possible that the Tulari may have even wanted to be found by your fellowship.”
“What? What makes you say that?”
“Perhaps Vayuna will speak more of this later. Right now, your attention ahead will provide the greatest service.”
They followed the rocky tunnel as it curved to the right, and Zahn saw something that left him completely dumbfounded. For a few seconds, he had no idea what to say.
“Whoa!” Zahn screamed out, “Navika, FIRE!”
CHAPTER 29
ABERRANT READINGS
Asha felt a chill sweep through her body.
In her mind’s eye, she thought she saw Zahn, but the image faded, soon replaced by a feeling of soreness. She was lying down on a platform that was remarkably soft, quite unlike what she had grown accustomed to these past few days.
The familiar sound of a low whistle permeated the air around her, but she kept her eyes shut tight. Even through her eyelids, bright light filtered in, and she waited for her eyes to adjust.
Another low whistle.
She opened her eyes and beheld the late afternoon sun peering out from behind a patch of clouds above her.
“Asha? Asha, are you cohesive? Your vital signs have stabilized. How do you feel?”
She pushed herself up and took a deep breath. Her feet were now bare and her pants had been pulled up to her knees, presumably so Liila could examine her injuries. As she swung her legs around to the edge of the bed, her right foot felt strange. Yet before she examined it, she was distracted by something on the edge of her vision. Just to her right, she could see the end of the tunnel that overlooked the enormous gash which led into the planet. Yet to her left was the command chair, floating in midair slightly above her. In fact, when she looked down, she gasped to see that they were now suspended in the air over the Rift.
“Liila, you saved me.”
“Heard your signal. Vociferous! Like a siren on the sea. Glad I found you when I did.”
“Me, too.” Asha’s gaze drifted down to the hole below them, etching down through hundreds of layers of rock, dissolving into darkness with the distance.
Asha tried standing up, but immediately felt that something was wrong. She couldn’t balance normally and realized that her right foot was completely numb.
“Liila, what’s wrong with me?”
“Nerve damage. Doing all I can.”
Terrifying images flashed into her mind. The Žha creature had grabbed her foot. She had been paralyzed by it. If Liila hadn’t come along, she would probably be dead.
“Why can I move my legs but not my foot?”
“You are resilient! I was able to counteract the neurotoxin, but despite treating you and restoring nerve connectivity, you continue to experience difficulty. Curiouser and curiouser!”
“Can you do anything about it?”
“By medical standards, your foot should be quite nominal.”
“Nominal? Why don’t you just say my foot would feel fine? Why do you have to refer to my body like it’s some kind of machine? I’m not a machine.”
“Is that so? Sometimes I wonder if we are all merely different kinds of machines. Alas, Mira becomes agitated when I mention it, so I won’t. I’ll remember your preferences. In the meantime, you may want to try standing and practice walking. If you can, that is.”
Asha tried standing up again, and found it quite difficult. She was just able to hobble over to the command chair and plop down. Once she did, the bed transformed itself back into a reclined chair.
“You did that transformation thing again.” She paused and took a breath. “Why?”
“For when we retrieve Mira, of course.”
“Right. Hold on, I’m going to try something.”
Still sitting on the command chair, Asha pulled her bare foot up to her lap and rubbed it with both of her hands for a few moments, making it warm. Then she closed her eyes and put pressure on the space between her heel and toes, focusing on light flowing to that part of her body. She pulled fresh air into her lungs and felt her foot becoming warm and infused with light. Still, the numb sensation remained. She tried again, and although the numbness reduced, it did not go away completely.
She stood up again and walked around slowly.
“My records show that you began your healer training on Amithya rather recently. I am curious how that has helped you.”
“Began is the key word. I still have so much to learn. Anyway, walking is still a challenge, but it’s better than it was. Any idea what’s causing this?”
“If you’re still having difficulty, it could be something blocking your will that I cannot detect. I will keep you apprised if I learn more. Until then, I suggest we contact Mira. Have you seen her?”
She bit her lip. “You’re not going to like it.”
As Asha slipped her uniform and boots back on, she told Liila of all that had happened since they’d been apart. At first, Liila wanted to race back to the Temple to see Mira, but Asha reiterated that Mira had said the Kiss of Life was more important. She also asked what happened to Liila after they had been swallowed by the sea.
At first, Liila was reticent to reveal what had happened, but after some coaxing and reminding her that they were in fact on the same mission, Liila relented and told Asha how they had been separated. Somehow, the waves of jellyfish they’d both encountered had developed the ability to exploit a weakness in the cloaking field to create an energetic feedback loop on Liila’s systems, allowing them to open the hatch and temporarily disable her impulse drive and weapons systems.
Liila had been enraged and even a little embarrassed. She explained that she had done everything in her power to save Mira, but by attacking the one remaining weakness in the cloaking layer, the jellies had overpowered her, and Liila had watched in horror as they took Mira away. By the time her weapons systems had recharged a few minutes later, Mira had sent Liila a final message instructing her not to follow, but instead to find Asha.
“But to send you after me? That’s crazy.”
“Crazy and genius are often bedfellows. So I looked for you, until I realized that the jellies wouldn’t let me get within a half-klick of the complex. If I did, they would use their epsilon pulses to disable my systems again, each time doing more damage. They’re more dangerous than they appear. And in the end, I decided to search for the Kiss of Life itself. After all, if I were to find it, I knew that your death would not have to be a permanent condition.”
“So you were looking for it when you found me?”
“I have been bent on it, searching these caverns thoroughly. Inauspicious chances. I also explored several million fractal variations in the meantime. Do
you like fractals, Asha? I’ve been thinking a lot about fractals lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re a metaphor for something. I’m just not sure what for yet.”
“I do like fractals, but stop changing the subject. Do you mean you searched all of the tunnels and couldn’t find anything?”
“Well, I did triangulate one energy reading with an epicenter roughly one hundred klicks below our current position. Already investigated. Aberrant readings. More like a ghost than an object.”
“Liila, can you be more specific? What did you find?”
“Only a shadow of where something should be, and I located another gate in the process. At first, I wondered if the gate was generating the strange readings, but they are emanating roughly two meters above the gate aperture, which is closed. Highly anomalous.”
“We should contact Mira. She’ll know what to do. Can you establish a secure connection?”
“Yes, her wristcomm is in range. That’s peculiar; her wristcomm wasn’t responding before. Analyzing. Yes, somehow this planet is creating an intermittent timespace disruption. That would certainly explain some of the phenomena we’ve observed. The timespace comm seems to be nominal now. Secure connection established.”
Mira’s voice filled the cabin. “Asha! Does my comm tell the truth? Did you actually locate Liila? Where was she?”
“Liila found me, actually. She saved me.”
“Saved you? From who? Surely not the Vakra—”
“No, no, nothing like that. She saved me from one of the Žha creatures. No doubt you’ve heard of them by now. The islanders seem to be pretty scared of them, and after what just happened, I understand why.”
“Are you all right? Liila should be able to help you recover.”
“She did. I’m okay, but I am not fully recovered quite yet. I think there’s something we’re missing, and I’m going to have to take it easy on my right foot until we can have it looked at by a true healer; no offense, Liila.”
“A true healer.” Mira paused. “I hope you find that person, Asha. And have you made any progress with the Kiss of Life?” Mira’s voice grew serious. “Have you found it?”
Asha looked down, through the transparent floor, to the chasm just below, fading into complete darkness in the distance. “No. Liila has located the epicenter of an energy anomaly far underground, but she couldn’t find anything.”
Asha heard Mira groan in frustration.
“All right,” Mira said. “Here are your orders. I want you to examine every square picometer of the chamber containing the anomaly. There must be something Liila is missing, some clue. Should you need extra firepower, there are high-yield plasma rifles aboard the ship. If you head out, ask Liila to give you one. For the purposes of this mission, I now grant you status of acting captain until you are able to retrieve me. This status gives you new privileges, including access to the weapons aboard Liila.”
“Thank you, Mira. But how have you been? Are they taking care of you?”
“They’re doing all they can. They seem to use water itself as a healing tool. More than once, some of the elders have formed a circle and used blessed water on me. Somehow, it does reduce the pain, but I can feel my strength fading. Still, don’t worry about me. Just find the Kiss of Life. You can do it, Asha.”
“I will find it, Mira. No matter how long it takes, I promise you, I will find it.”
“I know.”
Asha’s eyes became wet. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Yes. Yes, you will. Goodbye.”
Liila cut the transmission, and Asha found herself sitting in the relative silence of the central cabin once again. The only sound was the faint warbling hum of Liila’s impulse drive, still holding them above the Rift that led down into the planet.
“Liila,” Asha said. “Can you contact my father? Maybe he can bring help.”
“Sorry, Asha. I’ve already tried contacting the Confederation for support, but it seems that none of my signals are leaving this system, like a ship in a bottle. I thought my comm systems might be malfunctioning, but our conversation with Mira shows that obviously isn’t the case.”
“What is going on with this planet?” Asha shook her head. “First these disappearing and reappearing villagers, and now this comm problem. Even this lake disappears and reappears. How? And for that matter, why? It was here last night, and now we’re floating here, in the midst of where it should be. How does a nearly bottomless lake disappear?”
“An extremely large and thirsty creature? I don’t know, Asha.”
Asha leaned back in the command chair and cupped her palms over her eyes for a while. She had learned this many years before, back when she had first done research on different healing techniques. This technique, called palming, had the dual benefit of channeling energy directly into her eyes as well as blocking out all light so that all of her eye muscles could completely relax. In the total blackness, she imagined Zahn there, sitting beside her on the newly-formed chair. She wanted to apologize for yelling at him, to hear his voice again. Imagining his feathery blond hair blowing in the wind helped her feel better, and she got lost in her thoughts, until Liila’s voice shattered her reverie.
“Asha, while I value time for private reflection as much as any other reconstituted consciousness construct, I would urge you to make a decision soon. Need I remind you that you are acting captain? What are your orders?”
“Sorry, I was just calming my mind.” Asha looked up, noticing the afternoon colors in the sky above her. “You know, Liila, you’re right. Even though I have no way of knowing how this will end, it’s time to make a decision with the limited information we have. But first, can you send Zahn a message? I know we have no idea where he is, but it’s worth a try.”
Liila was silent for some time.
“No signal, the same problem we were having before. Judging from everything we’ve seen up to this point, I doubt he’s even within a thousand light-years of our position.”
“All right. Then take me to the epicenter, and be stealthy about it.”
“Of course, captain. Like a wily prowler.”
Liila shot downward into the Rift, and all around her Asha watched as untold millennia of geological layers flashed by. As they plummeted down into the darkness, Asha reflected on how the Rift branched out along the edges the deeper they went, like the roots of a tree. Even though they were in complete darkness, Liila displayed an outline of the surfaces as they zoomed past them, and the deeper they got, the narrower the Rift became.
Over time, the darkness gave way to a faint orange glow. At first, Asha wondered if there might be phosphorescent life down here, until the narrow tunnel finally ended and opened up into a huge chamber. They had emerged from the center of the ceiling, and just below them was a hideous black mound surrounded by a seething lake of orange, glowing lava.
CHAPTER 30
THE EPICENTER
The lava rumbled with a sound that Asha had never heard before. The rumble was like a low roar from a terrible beast, and the surface of the lava formed glowing cracks that expanded gradually as the height of the lake rose and fell from minute to minute. The mound itself was a few dozen meters wide, covered in sharp boulders of various sizes.
This alone wasn’t especially surprising. What shocked Asha was the elevated platform in the center of the mound with an interstellar gate lying horizontally across the platform’s surface. The aperture was closed, and the controls that wrapped around the circular platform appeared ruined from millennia of neglect.
“Whoa.”
“As stated, the epicenter is just above the gate. Also, the magma is superheated. We would be wise to avoid it, lest we incur permanent damage. At this range, shields are holding easily.”
Asha was silent for some time as she studied the ebb and flow of the crackling lake of fire. “Liila, do you ever wonder why these gates end up where they are? Such a strange place to hide a gate.”
“I’m not so sure this one was hidden. As
you know, this island is delightfully unstable. During my survey, I detected dozens of lava craters, no doubt formed when magma receded from subterranean lava tubes, resulting in a collapse of the land above. And while it is unlikely that such a collapse could cause a gate to fall over one hundred klicks, it is nonetheless possible that this gate was not always this deep. Would you like me to run some simulations on how it may have arrived here?”
“No, that won’t be necessary. Can you show the energetic epicenter in the view ahead?”
“Certainly.”
A crisp, white ring hovered just a short distance above the inactive gate, and Asha stared at it in silence for a few moments.
“Liila, do the void suits have a high tolerance for heat?”
“Yes. Although I wouldn’t go poking the lava with a stick, if that’s what you had in mind. Just keep a safe distance.”
“Okay.” Asha smiled as if she knew a great secret. “Then set us down beside the gate and prepare a void suit for me.” She stood up. “And while you’re at it, a plasma rifle would be just wonderful. Can you do that?”
“Of course, captain.”
When Asha once again stepped outside, she was wearing a thick void suit with a long, violet plasma rifle slung onto her back. From this close, the gate loomed under her. Somehow she’d forgotten that even the smallest rings were around ten meters wide. The last time she’d used a gate, it was to escape a Vakragha prison moon, but that gate was small in comparison.
Cautiously, she walked up to the curving console and examined the controls inlaid on its stone surface. They were reminiscent of gate controls she’d seen in the past, with the obvious difference that completely different planets were carved into the stone console. A recognizable ring shape was carved into the upper left corner of the central panel, and Asha touched it. As she suspected, it didn’t respond.
The Island on the Edge of Forever (The Epic of Aravinda Book 2) Page 18