by Kae Bell
“Sure you are, as responsible as they come,” Per nodded as he poured himself a tall glass of brownish liquid.
Breen grabbed Per’s hand, sloshing some of the brown liquid on the bar top.
“Careful you fool, what’s gotten into you!”
Breen leaned and eyed Per’s beverage. “I sure could use a drink myself. All this talking is thirsty work, you know.”
“Oh, so now you’re demanding, are you? You’re already running on credit, three weeks back, you owe me. What’d you do with all that Coin they paid you? Some of that should be coming my way.” Per poured Breen a short glass of the brown liquid.
Breen’s glassy eyes shown with Carbon Fever. “It was like they knew someone would be coming, as I remember. They seemed so certain.” He sipped his glass, trying not to gulp it all down in one swallow.
“So I waited. Started digging around in the bushes. I was hungry, thought there might be fruit or something. It’s lush down there, so peaceful. I was eating berries, I’d found some blue ones that looked ok. Was picking them right of the branch. Then there, at the base of the bush, all bunched up and covered in dirt, there’s this shiny thing.”
“The Night Prism.”
Breen wiped his shiny brow. “That’s right. I dug around it and picked it up, shook it out. It started to jump and tug in my hands. It was like a wild creature, took me by surprise. The more I held tight, the harder it pulled, in every direction.”
“And then it got away?” Per raised his well-plucked grey eyebrows.
“Well, the man had come back to relieve me of my shift, you see.” Breen took another sip, a larger one this time. “I was worried, as was not sure if I was supposed to eat those berries and all, those berries stain your fingers, and there is no way to hide it, just has to wear off…”
“But the Night Prism ripped as you held onto it,” Per said impatiently.
Breen nodded. He enjoyed telling a tale, especially if there was free drink to be had. “That’s right. A man called out to me by name, said I could go. I turned around with the Night Prism in my hands, my fingers blue as could be. The man, he must have been someone important, he was dressed all fine, he shouted out, as surprised as me, and then he jumped at the Night Prism. This startled the little silver bugger and it pulled so hard away from me, flapping and luffing so, I thought my shoulders might get yanked out of joint. Not as strong as I once was I guess. In my prime, I thought I might be a Wrangler…” Breen’s eyes grew moist at the memory of his younger, more hopeful days.
“But anyway…that’s when I tried to get a better grip on it, shifted my hands up but it slipped away the second I loosened my fingers.” Breen flexed his thick, dirty hands. Grime lined the under nail of each finger.
“But that little piece got caught on my zipper.” Breen showed Per the offending metal zipper along his ancient jacket. It was meant to close a long pocket on the side of the garment. It was half zipped and rusty, having not functioned for well over a century.
Per squinted as he topped up his own glass and Breen’s, then pulled up the nearest stool. He got as close to Breen as his nostrils would allow without revolt. Then he inched a bit closer, sure it would pay off.
“Breen, my good fellow, how did you get this job in the first place?”
Breen gulped this liquid down and eyed his empty glass. “He asked for me specifically,” he said, trying to hide his pride.
“Who is ‘he’?”
Breen started to fumble with his jacket, buttoning and unbuttoning the dull metal buckles. The wool was worn thin along the bend in the arm and his dry patchy elbow shown through in some places.
Per was in no mood for coy traders. “Breen, out with it or you’ll never drink here again. You know your credit is no good elsewhere. Who was it asked you to guard the Liquid Mines?”
Breen finished his drink, sure it would be his last. He uttered a word that stopped Per’s heart.
“Hyko.”
Chapter 8
If a being could be both alive and dead, Princess Cressida thought, this is what it would be like. She was conscious, of that she was sure. But she could not feel her body. Any body or anything. In fact, she could not sense anything corporeal. No touch, no smell, no taste, no sight. Wait. Sound? She tried listening. There was the absence of sound, which she decided was quite different from silence.
She willed herself forward, not knowing if she was merely shrouded in darkness or numbed by the transition from the Night Prism. There! she heard a sound, a fine high-pitched repetitive squeal. She stopped to listen more clearly and the sound ended. Perhaps it turned a corner away from her? She moved in a different direction, toward the source of the sound. There it was again, that high-pitched squeal. What a shrill noise! She tried to move away from the sound, deciding best to avoid its maker, but it followed her as she turned a corner and climbed up a slope.
Wait a minute. She stopped to consider this strangeness.
How was she moving? She stopped and thought. She could not see herself, could not feel herself. No feet, no legs. But she was definitely moving. Without a body.
Princess Cressida turned to retrace from where she started and the wailing began again.
Ahhhha.
Then she remembered Wrangler Zav’s ‘Ahhha’ as he had disappeared into the Night Prism. This was it. This was the change.
She was sound. Which meant Wrangler Zav was sound. Which meant she should be able to hear him. She stayed very still and tried harder to listen to the Nothing.
Then she caught it, a faint low tone from a ways away. She waited. It seemed to be coming closer. She could tell it was Wrangler Zav. She was not sure HOW she knew. She sensed the pulsing undulation, so different from her own, and was certain. She moved toward it.
*******
As he waited for Cressida, Wrangler Zav tried to recall how it all worked. The up and down was disorienting, especially at his age. When he’d been a young man, it was a kick, all this out of body stuff, up and down. Back then, there had been lots of jokes, young men still getting used to their strong bodies, suddenly losing them to sound waves, sneaking around, all under the threat of capture by the Dark Spectrum. It had been easy then, to be so reckless. But Zav did not want to get captured.
He moved, gauging the density of the material. Forward, up and down. He stopped for a moment, remembering. No backward. Never backward.
He hoped they’d only need to hide out a short time. He didn’t fancy getting stuck in the Nothing. No thank you. When he’d been here so many years ago, the universe had not been on the edge of war. A trip to the Nothing had been a prank, a dare. He moved again, spooked by the stillness.
Odd. He remembered it being slower going last time.
Truth was, he didn’t mind this freedom. Not one bit. His old body, his knees and back, all the moveable parts really, were worn out from years of riding the Plumes and chasing runaway stars. There was no avoiding it in his profession. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d busted himself up tying down a young upstart star.
This effortless oscillation was freeing.
Now where in the blazes was that Princess? He followed a high pitch he heard in the distance. Sounded like complaining. Had to be her.
*******
As she rounded a corner, she heard Wrangler ask her, “Do you still have the Night Prism?” She stopped, so relieved at having found him. It was beyond disconcerting to move in a place one could neither see nor feel.
Wrangler asked the question again, this time using her name at the beginning. She felt like he was surrounding her, his sound was everywhere. She tried to reply but was unable to speak without a mouth or a body to make sounds.
“Unnnth…” she said. Or thought she said.
Wrangler explained quickly, “Listen now. To talk, don’t try to speak, in the regular way. Just keep on moving along and then think about what it is you want to say to me. It’ll come through via your wavelength.”
Princess Cressida decided now
was not the time for questions, so she started to move. That, at least, she had figured out how to do.
“I don’t know. How would I even know if I’ve got the Night Prism? I don’t even know what has happened to me!” She moved as quickly as she could, her pitch rising.
Wrangler slowed himself down to a crawl, trying to come up beside the Princess.
“For now, suffice it to say you don’t need to worry about getting gussied up while we’re in here. Is there a part of you that feels slower?”
“Slower?”
“Yes, kinda like it’s a dead weight, dragging you down, slowin’ you up. Try bouncing off that wall over there, see how it feels.”
As she moved, she noticed a slight drag as she climbed upward. She explained this to Wrangler. He made a high pitch sound of relief.
“Good. That’s the Prism. Best hang on to it or we’ll lose our way back. Me, I don’t fancy hangin’ around here longer than we need to. Alright, follow me.”
“Wrangler, what are we?”
“We’re sound. Pure unadulterated sound. The Night Prism can only handle wavelengths. We can’t be light, so we got converted to sound.
“Where are our bodies?”
“All scattered about, spread along this sound wave as particles of sound. Not your clothes of course, that got left behind. Bit embarrassing when we go back to the other side. But never mind about that now. Stick close to me and if you hear something else besides me, slow yourself way down but don’t stop. Keep moving. The guards can detect waves, though if I recall right, they’re more likely to detect light.
As it happened, his warning came just in time.
*******
The guard Koe returned to the guard station. There, he found several others playing Sinew on a large table in the middle of the rectangular room. In a corner, a newbie suited up for the first time, struggling with the thick black material. The newbie had his suit on backward and the others snickered at him as he struggled to zip it up from behind. Koe pealed off his own heavy suit, grabbed a drink from the fridge and settled down to join the game. He thought about telling the others exactly what the Dark Spectrum had said but everyone was in high spirits and he didn’t want to dampen the mood. Except for the newbie, this group was set to rotate out shortly, back to the other side. It had been a long twenty years for them all.
On the wall opposite the main door, several large screens displayed various readings and measurements of temperature and pressure. A complex chemical formula took up the entirety of one screen, with percentages below each of the listed compounds. The percentages changed by a few points up and down every few minutes.
Koe rolled the dice and drank deeply from the bottle. This was only his fifth interaction with the Dark Spectrum and it was as terrifying as his first. His friends watched in surprise as Koe continued to drink from the bottle until it was empty. He wiped his mouth of the harsh clear liquid and took a breath. Seeing the others staring at him, he laughed off his unusual behavior.
“What?! Darkness makes me thirsty!” He wiped his mouth again for effect.
The newbie had finally figured out his suit and was zipping it up. Hale, the most senior of the guards, called out to the newbie, “Don’t forget your sealant, lad.” The newbie, walking awkwardly in the tight suit, stopped in place and turned to the shelving, on which stood several metal canisters marked ‘Sealant’. He selected one, shook it, and then sprayed a thick stream of bright yellow fluid along the suit’s main seams. That completed, he walked toward the table for any last minute advice.
The alarm that sounded from a screen in the upper right corner made him jump. The siren rose in pitch and then descended, filling the room with its sound. The screen itself flashed orange and black.
Rather than acting, everyone simply stared. Not one of them had ever seen that screen alert before. Not in twenty years. They knew what it was but…could it be?
“What does that alarm mean?” The newbie had been studying all the different measurements of this unique system but didn’t have them all memorized.
Koe placed the bottle back on the table and shook his head. He looked at Hale, who nodded.
“It means we have an intruder.”
Koe turned to suit back up. He wanted to tell the Dark Spectrum. This news would please his Sire.
Chapter 9
Stars are sneaky creatures. When they wish to be undetected, they travel the skies without light, called being 'On the dark'. Stars travel on the dark all the time, kind of like flying under the radar. But, like most creatures, they leave behind evidence of their presence. In particular, Stars shed ‘Radiance’ as they move through space, a persistent trail of dust particles and gases. It is this Radiance that makes up the Star Plume.
The first Star Plume was discovered by chance. A Trader named Grolock found he got an extra ‘kick’ when he followed a star’s path. Anything to save time. He started following the stars, even the ones traveling on the dark, tracking them by the Radiance wake.
It was later confirmed by the High Senti that the Radiance moves forward, like a current, so travelers on the Star Plume are pulled toward their destination. The Senti liked to take credit for major discoveries, so they were always dispatching members to measure and manipulate. But all the Traders knew it was one of their own and Grolock lived on in Trader lore, long after his passing.
Naturally, the mapping of the Star Plumes followed. The rush to be the first to map the outermost reaches led to many a barroom brawl, as Traders and even Wanderers tried to win the right to name a Plume. In the end it was decided by the Stars themselves, who after all knew the universe better than most, had been around the longest.
*******
The Time Fiend stood on the edge of a far-flung Star Plume and inhaled, pulling in the amalgam of elements floating in the vacuum. Its massive hairy tongue touched the roof of its mouth, tasting the universal particles as they passed over his unrefined palate. Light tasted faintly of clover. The Time Fiend could sniff it out when it was hiding. And he’d found it. The last of it.
The Time Fiend edged carefully around a strong black hole in front of him, feeling its pull. Those black holes were nasty beings, with a penchant for time.
Ahhh, there. The Time Fiend slowed down as he gazed at the sight before him. Several Stars, one of them much larger than the others.
This large Star had shone in this edge of the universe for eons. During this time, it had gently warmed several planets that revolved around its light. It had morphed and aged, as stars do, and was now busy condensing and cooling in its golden years.
The Time Fiend prepped its gun. No time to waste. The Dark Spectrum waited.
The Fiend blasted its gun, blasting the Stars into a cold death, and the revolving planets with them.
*******
The light Packet escaped just ahead of the Time Fiend’s blast. The largest Star had released it only moments before.
The Packet slid assuredly through the darkness, seeking a safer zone. It landed on a passing frozen comet. There, it shuttered itself deep in an icy crevice filled with dust and gas, pushed itself up against the farthest wall, lest it shine around the corner and give itself away. Cold methane and ammonia swirled around the miniscule light source, attracted by its tiny warmth.
The Packet shivered, uncertain. Before the Time Fiend appeared, it had been planning to jump out for a long journey to wherever light might go. The Packet knew nothing of Time Fiends. It could not imagine why any creature would destroy a Star. It peeked out from its corner and watched as the Time Fiend approached the cold Star that had been the Packet’s home, watched the Time Fiend scoop the Star into a large bag. The Packet could see other dead Stars in the bag. Then the Time Fiend turned and all the Packet could see was the Time Fiend’s hulking backside.
The Packet thought about consequences and likelihood, about probabilities and percentages. Then putting all that aside, it leapt. In a burst, it slid under the oily scales of the Time Fiend and hitched a ride
to the Nothing.
*******
Before the Senti developed the Nothing, they studied the Dark Spectrum, its properties, its abilities, and its tendencies. From that, they engineered a holding cell so vast and so complex, it exceeded their own expectations and hopes.
The Nothing was designed to hold the Dark Spectrum forever. Importantly, the Dark Spectrum would be slowed down to almost a crawl. The density was critical.
The Senti built redundancy into the Nothing, to avoid material failure.
In the testing phase, a Nothing prototype had been developed using only a single material. Unfortunately, every substance has a weakness, be it stability, reactivity, or radioactivity.
The prototype had deteriorated when subjected to extreme time.
A few adjustments were made, further expertise called in. The completion of the final Nothing was a marvel.
Before the Dark Spectrum was launched into it, the Nothing was available for viewing by high-ranking dignitaries from all participating systems.
It was lauded as self-perpetuating. Impenetrable. Eternal.
That was when all the Night Prisms had been collected and locked away, their usage banned. Too risky.
Nothing was left to chance. Everything had been carefully thought out. Each detail addressed. All contingencies considered.
But something always slips through the cracks.
*******
Chapter 10
Aglaje reached the Wayeer before its moons had passed the Sidestream. The Star Plume dropped off precipitously here, as few travelers visited this forlorn place.
Flyer had worked up a sweat from the long ride and the quickly dropping temperatures had frozen his coat into thick salty clumps. Aglaje bed the tired horse down in a vast stone stall built deep into the side of a cliff. Several other riding animals were in residence and Aglaje could see they had recently been fed and watered. This was a good sign that someone was tending after things daily, as she’d hoped. She’d taken a risk coming all this way.