"You're in shock. Hang in there."
"Fen, I have more to tell you. Your father. Some of us in the Institute knew, understood, what he was trying to accomplish. This wasn’t popular with all of the Family members. In fact, there was a move early on to stop this project from proceeding. But your father had some very powerful allies, descendants of the Fuersts."
Grey closed his eyes. "Verat's family?"
"Yes, they were among his most vocal supporters. Verat was assigned to you by us."
"What do you mean? I requested that he be stationed on the Platform."
"Verat is your friend. But do you honestly think he'd willingly take this assignment as a favor to you? Be honest with yourself. Verat was providing us with unambiguous information. Some of the Institute leaders to whom you reported couldn't be trusted to provide us with the entire truth." Fen winced.
"Uncle, why would people resist the opportunity to link life and death in the universe?"
Fen was still for a bit, gathering his energy. "Grey, it's more complex than that. Planets like these are a great potential source of power. Imagine the ability to travel anywhere in the universe - not just the galaxy like we do now - by visiting these places. For that matter, perhaps we can explore other universes, other times, other lives. There's limitless untapped potential. We all have a spark of this in us. Some call it a soul or spirit. It’s a mere fact of life. This planet captures that energy. And it makes it a technological achievement like no other."
Grey found himself feeling off center. "Wow. This is outrageous. Is this why we almost died on the Platform and the Raven? Was someone trying to stop us?"
"Correct. And I guess that the ruling faction of the Collective wants to destroy the planet now and dispense of the risk once and for all."
"Uncle Fen, you know I love you and I hold dad's legacy near to my heart. But I'm not quite sure that I disagree with the leadership. I'm unsure whether the trillions of us can handle the responsibility. Look at what happened to old earth. We can't return to our own homeworld because of uncontrolled power unleashed by evil people. This - this place - could cause a catastrophe of galactic scale."
"Your father and I debated this for a decade. I agree with you. Your father, however, believed that if the planet was held in the right hands, it could be used for research and enlightenment. Ultimately, it would ease the burden of our crowded worlds. Instead of the limited worlds we have at our disposal, we’d have galaxies to fill. We could spread out and never overpopulate and overuse again."
"Ah, you young naïve boys." Grey patted his uncle on the shoulder. "Hang on. Help will be here soon, I hope."
Grey jogged back toward the monsters surrounding Minns. "Minns, start shooting toward my voice. I’ll shoot in the same area. Maybe we can clear a hole for you."
Sounds of charges emerged from within the undulating mass. Grey aimed and fired with Fen’s powerful concussion rifle. The hands gathered before him. Instead of thinning, they braided and rose up, far above his head. Large, gnarled fingers reached out to grab him from the top. I am going to be pulled apart like Rhodes, he thought. He crouched and fired haphazardly over his head. The fingers darted toward him, their nails dripping with thick moisture from the fog. He could feel the sharp pressure of a fingernail on the top of his skull when a large mass hit him sideways. He tumbled to the ground to see an impossibly fast, glowing creature slashing at the base of the monster.
Fromer.
Minns appeared next to Fromer, her rifle blazing. Within a few seconds, the monster had retreated into the brown haze. Fromer turned to smile at them and then dashed away.
"What happened to Fromer?" Minns was astonished. "He was so fast. He seemed bigger. And did you see that glow? It’s like someone charged his battery. Something happened to him back there."
"I think he’s dead," Fen replied serenely.
Chapter 40 – Sleep
In the emerald haze, Melat communed with her first love, the Raven. Like all relationships, the conversation was about give and take. In this case, she was trying to convince the vessel to give her a very special gift. But to get there, it would take some sweet talking. The Raven was unsure about her idea. She was persuasive and would eventually get her way with a little patience and tenacity.
Melat looked at her scabbed and bruised hands. They seemed so fragile and thin. It amazed her that this would be the last time that she would look upon them. In a short while, she’d be free of her physical form, existing in the boundless void. This wasn’t suicide. She wouldn’t die. Rather, she would be so very much alive. She’d hold the threads of existence in her hands. She giggled. Silly, I won't have hands anymore – unless I imagine them.
She had one more hurdle to jump and then the drop sequence would commence. The quantum drive began thrumming below her feet. She settled in the command chair and looked at the view screen. The outline of the shuttle was there in the haze. How she hated this planet. In fact, she hated all of existence. So, cold and hard. The only thing bearable was Fromer - his smile and wisdom. Yet, he was inaccessible. Another cruelty of this reality. It was time to banish all of this.
As she scanned through the diagnostics menu, she noticed the shuttle lurching to life beyond the Raven. "Well, good for them. God speed to you," she whispered. She genuinely felt for the survivors but doubted they’d clear the planet before it collapsed. She unlocked the final failsafe. It was time to launch.
She rested her arm on the chair. The needle expertly pierced her skin and began transforming her circulatory and nervous systems into an extension of the Raven. She settled lightly in a small field on her homeworld - new earth they called it. It was so similar to earth that most earth plants and animals were able to thrive there. One of her favorite flowers was the common dandelion. It amazed her how the flower would be full and yellow one day and the next morning it transformed into a fuzzy globe of white. She liked to think this was her. In this reality she was Melat. In the pilot's chair, she transformed, floating hither and thither, wherever the breeze might take her.
She blew on the seeds and the quantum drive began its cascade. Even a direct blast to the Raven's hull would be unable to stop her now. She wandered in the darkness, tiny emerald lights surrounding her. This light went to navigation, this one to electrical, and this one to the engines. She tunneled through the incandescent pathway to the quantum drive. There she gazed at the fabric of the universe boiling below her – a fortune teller before her beloved crystal ball. Swirls of brown mixed with brilliant white. She could see the center of the planet from her lofty vantage.
"Hello Melat."
The voice was familiar. How was it possible to speak in this place?
"Melat, my darling, you’re about to get your wish."
She turned. How could she turn? She didn’t have a body. In the void stood Fromer. He was strange to her. His features were transformed. The human and zenat qualities no longer competed for attention. Rather, they melded flawlessly. He was no longer a living contradiction but an extension of life itself. Joy seemed to radiate from him.
He laughed freely, openly. The sound was an open ocean inviting her to step in. She muttered in her own impossible voice, "Fromer, how are you here?"
"An old friend showed me the light. All I had to do was jump in." He smiled, putting his hands together as if he was going to dive. "In a sense, you’re taking the plunge as well. Where you’re going is complete freedom. You can choose it for selfish purposes. Or you may embrace it and find your salvation. It’s your choice no matter where you go. That’s the whole point of it. Freedom."
"Fromer, I like the cryptic connotations as much as the next girl. But I’m busy annihilating a planet and blasting myself across all of space-time. What on earth are you doing here? Or am I hallucinating?"
Fromer took her hand. "All I’m here to do is convey that no matter what form we take or where we go, we are imbued with self-will. You’ll have to choose your path. It is the beauty of life."
"Tha
t still doesn’t help me."
"I doubt if the being you met during those missing moments on the Raven - recall when you reversed time and wandered with it - gave you a choice. Taking the Raven permanently into infraspace was your only option, it said. The creature offered you eternal peace in return. Well, it succeeded in getting you to follow him but the reward won’t be waiting for you. You’ll still find yourself at a crossroads. Perhaps not at first, but it will come. The answer is in your soul."
She laughed. "Actually, I made the choice myself. I needed to get away from my life. Living means nothing to me. I made the decision years ago. It was you who helped push me along."
Fromer frowned, looking sadly at Melat. "Life’s everything, not nothing. I’ll see you again soon. Until then, enjoy the ride." He released her hand, turned and walked into a glowing portal. It dimmed and he was gone.
She felt the Raven jolt forward and the drop began. With no destination, it would never stop dropping. In that void, Melat had an eternity to consider Fromer's words.
Chapter 41 – Nevermore
Iggy manned the helm while Gorian frantically tried to locate their stranded crewmates. They marveled as an immense power fluctuation appeared on the shuttle's sensors - a clear sign that the Raven's quantum drive powered up. They remained silent and stared at their consoles. In fact, Gorian was unsure whether Iggy's communication interface was working properly. His speaker crackled occasionally, but he uttered no words while they searched the flat, infuriatingly foggy plain where the crew was last contacted.
"Ig, I see something at these coordinates. Let's head there."
He banked the shuttle and shot the vessel toward the location - a small valley cropped by scrawny shrubs. Gorian scanned the bottom. No sign of humanoids.
"Dead end, Ig. Let's increase altitude and hover." She paused and smacked her forehead. "Wait. I completely forgot about the drones. Verat was holding drone three stationary above them. It should be able to tell us exactly where they are."
She linked into the tech center back at camp and within seconds the coordinates streamed to her. "Iggy, get going. We have no time."
The shuttle sped forward and within moments they could see three specks in the haze. Iggy dropped the vessel steeply and landed silently next to Grey, Minns, and Fen. The hatched opened, Fen was tucked into an emergency capsule, and they rushed up the gangplank. The shuttle door closed behind them and the ship lifted with a slight whoosh.
They ascended nearly vertically when the gravity sensor began flashing. The shuttle shuddered and decelerated.
Gorian groaned. "The planet's gravity is jumping. The Raven must be dropping. Iggy, our only option is to fire the ion thrusters now. They might give us enough velocity to escape. This is going to hurt."
Iggy flipped a switch and the shuttle lurched. Minns and Grey fell back onto the floor. Gorian held on to her chair. The acceleration pulled their skin back. Gorian’s head felt like it would split open.
The haze thinned and stars appeared. "We aren't clear yet. Iggy, is there any juice left in the thrusters?"
He nodded slightly, pressed a button, and they were in open space.
The rear view screen activated. Nine had faded at its center, as if a dark storm appeared on its milky brown surface. The clouds began swirling clockwise around the spot. Flashes of light appeared all over.
"The lights – that’s the friction of the air as it is pulled down into the singularity," Gorian muttered.
On the surface, boulders, lakes, entire hillsides were blowing through the sky. Within the collapsing debris, a small plaque swirled toward the rift. An inscription on it said:
Planet C9: Dedicated to my son Grey Ferris Commons and the founders of the Terra Institute. May you find your dreams here.
From the shuttle, the crew watched in fascinated horror as the planet faded. It thinned into a waxy haze - stars were visible behind it. And then it was gone. It had taken less than fifteen minutes for a planet to be sucked out of existence.
"What happened to everyone else?" Grey asked.
Gorian walked up and hugged him. "I'm sorry about Verat."
Minns stared blankly at the viewscreen.
They slept. The shuttle exhausted its power reserves to escape Nine and was now only able to provide heat and recycled air. They had to accept Grey's assurance that help would come when the Platform staff realized that contact with them ceased and that Nine was lost.
Without the vanished planet to anchor them in space, they drifted toward the local sun. As they fell toward the star, it would become more difficult for searching ships to find them. The shuttle generated very little power and would be barely discernable against the backdrop of radiation in space. The mood turned from concern to dark gloom.
Fen clearly needed medical help that was unavailable on the vessel. Minns slept constantly, rolled in a compact ball on her cot. Gorian attempted to devise a makeshift beacon, without much luck. Tools and parts were scarce on the shuttle. Most of the supplies were sucked down along with the planet. Grey stared out the window thinking of his father and Verat. Gorian occasionally exchanged worried looks with Grey, but they seldom spoke. Iggy slipped into another dormant state. He hadn’t conversed since the previous day. Gorian kept Iggy's spray bottle full for him.
Provisions were not a concern in the short term. The shuttle was loaded with food and water for a much larger crew. When not sleeping, the crew picked at an array of compact, condensed food and drinks. Grey adopted a guilty fondness for the grey slime that Iggy called nourishment. Next to the notion of surviving perpetual isolation until they burned in the star's corona, their primary problem was boredom. Shuttles were meant for trips of short duration, so entertainment was not a critical feature. Gorian had brought a data tablet with music and a few games. Fen, Gorian, and Grey hoarded their time on the gadget. Even Minns took an occasional turn. Fen looked frail but his spirits were loftier than those of his companions. Gorian and Grey appreciated his good humor. Minns could care less.
A week passed with no sign of rescue. Gorian occasionally scanned the infraspace receiver. However, she could do no better than the computer, which found nothing out but static in space during its endless scans. Iggy stirred. Given the monotony, this was a moment of great interest among his crewmates. He rose and walked to the cargo area. A few moments he returned with a tube of viscous liquid and said over his crackling speaker, "Who has been eating my food?"
Fen and Gorian smiled and pointed at Grey. Grey shrugged. "What? I like the texture. There’s plenty to go around, especially if Iggy keeps going dormant."
Another day passed. Grey found Gorian in the cargo hold crying. He sat down next to her and rubbed the stubble on his face. "G, I’m so sorry it came to this. You know, I was hoping that after all this, we could maybe take a trip together."
She grabbed his hand and held it tight. "We’re going to make it."
"Was that a question or a statement? We’ll make it. To go through all that on the planet - we owe Verat and the others that much. Perhaps we already had our trip. What a vacation."
"Why haven't we seen a sign of rescue yet?" She pulled on her hair.
"Well, Fen pointed out that there are some in the Institute that would like to have seen Nine vanish. If we know too much, they might find it convenient to let us disappear as well. However, Fen assured me that there are others in the leadership that support us. They promised him that they’d find us if anything went wrong."
"Where are they?"
"I think it may be difficult for them to rescue us without tipping the others off. We just need to be patient. Keep faithful, hope is the only thing we have. At least we can grow fat and old in this box."
"Engineers aren’t fans of faith. We like certainty. And I know that we are falling into the star. So, I’ll let you hope for both of us."
"You need to convert to science. We aren’t afraid of a little uncertainty. How else are you going to discover new bits of knowledge?" He smiled a little an
d kissed her cheek. He headed back to the communications station at the helm.
Minns lifted from her funk. She was eating something that looked like creamed corn and sitting at the navigation panel.
"Welcome back," Grey said quietly.
Minns' face suddenly brightened.
"That's not for me, is it?" Grey asked.
Minns pointed at the screen, mumbling with her full mouth. A large object appeared about 100 kilometers below them. They magnified the image. It was a vast intergalactic transport with the name Fuerst in silver letters stenciled on its port bow.
The transmitter clicked. "This is Etch, pilot of the vessel Fuerst. Raven shuttle, do you require assistance?"
Chapter 42 – Fuerst
Etch welcomed his guests on the Fuerst with a bottle of his finest wine. Being full zenat, he didn’t drink, but realized that the crew would appreciate the token. Fen managed to sit up and join them as they sat around a table in the ship's galley, describing the events that happened.
"Etch, who sent you?" Grey asked.
"Friends in the Collective told me that you were in need. I am glad you survived. You are truly a remarkable team."
At that instance, Grey realized that it was a collaborative effort that allowed them to escape. These were his friends. However, they had lost so many. "Etch, I know that you were a colleague of Fromer. I’m sorry for your loss."
Etch chuckled in a raspy baritone. "Fromer is not lost my friends. I talked with him just a few hours ago."
They exchanged confused glances. Grey spoke. "You must be mistaken. The last time we saw Fromer on the planet, he was saving us from the creatures. We assumed that he ran to the Raven but didn’t make it there before the ship dropped and the planet collapsed."
Etch cleared his spiracles with a hiss. "Fromer is neither here nor there. He is no longer bound by what you consider reality. In a way, he is like a pilot but does not need a quantum drive and a ship. This is a very good thing, do you not think?" He was greeted by blank and baffled looks.
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