Eternity's Mind (7 page)

“So it's stable,” Kotto mused. “That's a good thing.”

GU, his other compy, added, “The boundaries are indistinct and difficult to measure, however.”

“We can all agree it's a good thing the gap has not torn wider…” Howard said in his usual quiet voice. He sounded reticent.

“Definitely better than the collapse of the universe,” Shareen agreed. The void where the Big Ring had been was like a hole in the nebula, where streamers of wispy gas poured down into nowhere like the diaphanous veil of a colorful waterfall. It made her stomach queasy.

And she had thought solving the problem of the green priests and the trapped worldtrees seemed difficult.…

For two days, the tense Roamer workers at Fireheart Station had waited for answers. Completing the Big Ring had required so much effort that they felt adrift now that it was over. The complex had not yet gotten back to normal manufacturing levels, despite Chief Alu's urging. Many workers had fled immediately after the Big Ring collapsed, afraid that the tear in the universe would swallow the nebula whole. Fortunately, that disaster hadn't happened. Yet.

Garrison Reeves, one of the Roamer crew leaders, had established a conservative safety perimeter by placing warning buoys far from the edge of the void. A web of sensor packages provided instant telemetry closer in, but the sensors revealed no useful information. Long-distance sensors just weren't able to do the job.

Very soon, Shareen knew, Kotto would be pressured to provide answers about what the void was and what dangers it posed, but so far he had not yet offered even preliminary hypotheses.

When Shareen and Howard first came to Fireheart Station to be his lab assistants, she had been excited to learn from such a famous figure, a genius in every sense of the word. Despite working at Fireheart for years, Kotto had produced nothing remarkable, until he invested his entire reputation in the Big Ring project.

Shareen was ambitious and intelligent, and Howard was eager to learn. When Kotto asked his new assistants to comb through old notes and half-finished projects, the two dove into the work with great enthusiasm. They solved problems that had stumped him for years, and Kotto had seemed pleased with their work, even a little astonished at what they figured out. Afterward, the great scientist had been even more determined to prove that his Big Ring would work.

That hadn't turned out as planned. Shareen and Howard refrained from saying “I told you so”—they had not wanted to be right. Now, in the aftermath, Kotto didn't tear his eyes from the view of the void. “I wonder where it goes.”

“We should send probes,” KR said. “That would be the best way to map the anomaly from within.”

“Naturally we'll send probes,” Kotto said. “I was planning on it. That's our next step.”

Chief Alu entered the observation deck to join them at the windowports. Alu was a small, wiry man with a long ponytail that extended down to the middle of his back. Long hair was not practical for anyone working in space, which was why Shareen kept hers short, but Alu was more of a manager than an actual space worker; he rarely donned an exosuit.

“I have to start reassigning work teams, Kotto,” he said with a long-suffering sigh. “By the Guiding Star, we need to get back to manufacturing power blocks and harvesting isotopes again. Fireheart will still provide the support you need to assess the results … but we've got to get to work. Fireheart Station isn't a charity operation. I'm accountable to seventeen major clans.”

Kotto sounded baffled. “But I'm not stopping you from doing anything.”

Alu frowned. “We've been waiting to find out what that void is.”

“It is something very interesting, with a great deal of potential,” Kotto said firmly. “It may take some time to get the answers, but by all means don't stop the business of Fireheart. Shareen and Howard here can help me collate the results. We'll keep ourselves busy.”

The Station Chief looked confused but also relieved. “So, you think we can start isotope skimming again, stretch the films to make more power blocks? You're sure the void doesn't pose any danger?”

Kotto gave a dismissive wave. “Garrison Reeves marked out a safety perimeter. So long as your operations stay outside the boundary, you'll be fine.”

Shareen turned away so no one would see her doubts. Kotto had no basis for making such a statement.

“All right, I'll inform the teams. They'll be glad to get Fireheart back to normal.” Alu glanced through the windowport at the black void slowly drinking the nebula gases. “Your experiment was a big setback for us, Kotto. By the Guiding Star, I'm amazed by what you accomplished here, and it was the greatest show I've ever seen … but once the experiment was over we were hoping to repurpose the superconducting magnets and strip out thousands of power blocks. Now they've all been sucked down the cosmic drain, gone forever. We have to start from scratch.”

The chief's tone had only a hint of scolding, but Kotto did not seem bothered. “Starting over from scratch, Beren—that's what Roamers do. Depending on what it turns out to be, that void could make Fireheart Station into a major tourist attraction.”

Shareen and Howard both shot a surprised glance at him.

The Station Chief blinked and let out a nervous chuckle. “I highly doubt that.”

“One never knows. Right now there are too many unanswered questions, and a lot of theoretical physicists will be on their way to have a look. Feel free to have your teams start generating income in the traditional way. As soon as I have answers for you, I'll present them.”

Since it wasn't her place to interject, Shareen waited for Alu to leave. When he was gone, she started to ask her questions, but Kotto rubbed his hands briskly together. “There, that's the impetus we needed,” he said, as if trying to sound certain. “We have to find some answers—and that will involve asking more vigorous questions. We can't just stand here at a distance and look. I'm going to take the next step.”

KR said, “We have standard probes ready for immediate deployment, Kotto Okiah. They will give us a first look into the gap.”

Kotto was impatient now. “Not good enough. Everything about my project was big and bold. We can't be shy now—this calls for a scientific adventure!”

Unsettled, Shareen looked at Howard, but she could tell that Kotto had made up his mind.

“I'll outfit a survey craft and prepare for an expedition,” he said. “I'm going to go inside that void.”

 

CHAPTER

8

OSIRA'H

The faeros were like a sunstorm in the Ildiran sky. Her father had gone up to face them.

The gathered people were terrified, their uncertainty thrumming through the
thism.
Osira'h could feel it. In the crowd, the human historian Anton Colicos frantically took notes. Nira wept, tears trickling down her emerald cheeks as she gazed up at the Mage-Imperator's small figure high on the tower. “What if they incinerate him, just like Rusa'h?” she whispered.

Osira'h put a comforting arm around her mother. She felt a call of her own, though. She had been bred to command the elemental hydrogues, and her powers also extended to the faeros. She and her half-brothers and sisters—Nira's children—were successes of the Dobro breeding program, just as the remaining misbreeds were the failures.

She knew she still had the strength within her.

Even from here, Osira'h felt her father struggling with the faeros, and knew that she had to help him. If he failed and the elemental beings careened across Mijistra, tens of thousands of Ildirans would be turned to ash. Breaking away from Nira, she grabbed the arms of her siblings Gale'nh and Muree'n standing next to her. “The Mage-Imperator needs us! I can connect with my father, and if you connect with me, we'll be stronger together. Maybe strong enough.”

They pushed through the crowd, some of whom were too young to remember when the fireballs had scorched the city and laid waste to other Ildiran colony worlds. But many of them knew that horror and realized that their future balanced precariously on what the Mage-Imperator did next. Osira'h wouldn't let him do it alone. “We have to hurry!”

Athletic Muree'n bounded ahead and cleared a way to the entrance arch. Tal Gale'nh, in his military uniform, wore a commanding expression as they hurried past the throngs. He had been fighting self-doubt ever since the shadows had engulfed the
Kolpraxa
and absorbed his hapless crew. Thanks to his halfbreed genetics, Gale'nh was able to resist the Shana Rei, and Osira'h now hoped that he could also find the inner strength to help forge an alliance with the fire elementals.

The three of them ran up the steep spiraling staircases to the apex of the main tower. Osira'h could see the flickering backwash of faeros light through crystalline structural blocks. When she, Muree'n, and Gale'nh finally rushed out onto the high platform, the atmosphere was like a bonfire. Hot air seared Osira'h's mouth and nose as she inhaled, and she could feel a crackle on her skin. She and Gale'nh reeled from the onslaught of heat, but Muree'n bowed her head and marched forward like a soldier about to take a strategic hill.

Mage-Imperator Jora'h stood with his arms upraised before the fireballs, his glittersilk robes flapping in the fiery breezes, the edges singed brown. His sinuous hair flew loose, writhing around his head like a corona. He stretched out his hands and squeezed his eyes shut as he concentrated. His face was tight, his lips drawn back. He shouted into the thermal white noise. “You must help us. The pain of Rusa'h brought you.”

The faeros loomed in the sky, rotating ellipsoids of flame as large as spaceships. The elementals throbbed as if they could hear him. Jora'h strained, but he could not make them understand.

Osira'h could feel the fireballs all the way to the core of her being, a looming presence that was familiar to her—defiant, yet frightened. Rusa'h had called them here, and she doubted that her father could control them himself. He needed her—just as she needed her siblings. Together, they could get through to the capricious fiery elementals.

Clasping hands with Gale'nh and Muree'n, she called out with her mind. Osira'h was the perfect combination of breeding: all the strength of the Mage-Imperator, and all the sensitivity and telepathy of a green priest. The Ildiran Empire had tried for generations, breeding and misbreeding, to create someone exactly like her. Muree'n and Gale'nh, similar attempts at developing just the right hybrid, each had a significant power, and Osira'h drew on them now.

Not long ago, she and her half-brother Rod'h had gone out to find the faeros and beg them to make an alliance. But even though they made contact, the faeros had been too afraid of the creatures of darkness. It was unnerving to think that even the fire elementals were intimidated by the Shana Rei.

Osira'h still did not understand what deep connection existed between the faeros and Ildirans that Rusa'h's agonized call could compel the elementals to respond. But they had come.

She shouted both with her mind and her voice. The words
burned
out of her mouth. “The Shana Rei are a great enemy, but we will fight—and we beg you to fight them as well.”

The fireballs swirled as if in alarm, resisting her. She felt waves of uncertainty. If beings as mighty as these trembled before the creatures of darkness, then the Shana Rei must be far more powerful than any enemy they had fought during the Elemental War.

Jora'h drew strength from his mastery of the
thism.
“The blood and agony of Rusa'h called you—and I bind you by it. You must listen to me.” His command sounded powerful, but Osira'h felt that his control was strangely slipping. She added her strength to his and drew more from Gale'nh and Muree'n.

Jora'h opened his eyes under the orange blaze of faeros, and she was startled to see that her father's normally bright irises were now obscured by an oily black sheen of darkness that seemed to well up inside him. Beside her, Muree'n saw it as well and recoiled, but Gale'nh's eyes were closed. Still recovering from the Shana Rei and now in the presence of elemental beings of pure fire, Gale'nh fought to focus on his inner strength.

Under the onslaught, the Mage-Imperator shuddered, ready to collapse, but then the blackness in his eyes washed away. Osira'h gave her father all the secondary strength and focus that she could summon, and her mental voice intertwined with his. “If you refuse to fight the Shana Rei with us, then the entire cosmos will be unmade. You cannot ignore this threat. Help us! We share the same enemy.”

The Mage-Imperator's eyes were clear now; Osira'h had steadied him. He looked to her, and then all of them stared up at the fireballs. Together, their single voice rang out. “You cannot hide from the Shana Rei. We beseech you to fight them with us! Come when we call you. We bind you with the agony that brought you here.”

The Saga of Seven Suns described how Mage-Imperator Xiba'h had set himself on fire to call the faeros, which held them in thrall long enough to battle the Shana Rei. That tactic had worked millennia ago, but perhaps the Shana Rei were stronger this time … or the faeros were weaker after the Elemental War.

Now the fiery elementals brightened under the demand, like stars ready to explode. Osira'h could sense how they fought against the command, and she was afraid they would lash out at anyone who tried to force their will upon them.

For a long moment the firestorm seemed to be approaching a critical state.

Then the faeros backed away and rose up from the Prism Palace. She couldn't tell whether or not they had agreed to anything. The fireballs hovered high above them, and all the Ildirans in the Foray Plaza below watched the ominous blaze in the sky. Osira'h could feel a pounding, thrumming mental turmoil of churning faeros thoughts.