Abysm (41 page)

“I suppose we have no choice but for it to be. Regardless, the only way through is forward, come what may.” Miriam studied her thoughtfully. “I have very belatedly learned you single-handedly destroyed the OTS hideout on Romane. How did that come about?”

Alex fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “I did. It was the right thing to do—for someone to do. But, admittedly, I was not…entirely of sound mind at the time.”

“What do you mean? Were you drunk? High?”

A childish panic seized her chest, which was simply ridiculous. “‘High?’ Like on a chimeral or something? Why would you think that?”

Miriam stared at her deadpan. “Alex, I may have been a lousy mother when you were growing up, but I was not a stupid one. Who do you think arranged for those charges to be dropped against you and Mr. Tollis in…2309, was it? In San Francisco?”

“I, uh, never knew. Okay, um….” She huffed a breath. Back then she was so certain of her cleverness…and had assumed her mother didn’t care enough to pay attention. “I guess it’s way too late to say thank you?”

Miriam shrugged mildly, as if to say ‘not necessarily.’

Alex burst out laughing, and after a weak attempt at a serious countenance Miriam joined her.

When the laughter had subsided, Alex ran a hand over her mouth. “
Anyway
. No, I wasn’t high, not exactly, though the chimeral analogy is a bit more apropos than I’d prefer.”

“Are you all right?”

She nodded, with genuine conviction no less. “I am. Or at least I’m well on the road to ‘all right.’ But I wonder….”

She reflected on the path they’d traveled to arrive here, littered as it was by a thousand missteps and mistakes, chasms hewed with loss and barriers erected in bitterness. In the months following the Metigen War, they’d healed the present but never really the past, because how could they? There was no going back.

But this was a new dawn, dammit, and she vowed to treat it as such. “Would it be too much of a bother if I talked to you a little bit about what happened to me? I think I’d like to do that.”

Her mother looked taken aback for the briefest second; then her expression grew gentle and she squeezed Alex’s hand. “Of course you can. I would…I would like it, too. Very much.”

INTERMEZZO
VI

MOSAIC

E
NISLE
S
EVENTEEN
S
PECIES
A
SSIGNMENT:
H
UMAN

A
VER MOVED AMONG THE PRIMITIVES UNNOTICED.
After donning a hooded cloak he resembled them closely enough to not draw attention, so long as no one studied his face for too long. Even then he might pass muster, as a minority of the individuals displayed facial and ocular adornments not dramatically different from his own.

The surreal nature of his current experience baffled him. Though undeniably primitive, these creatures
were
Anadens.

He’d terminated one’s biological functions and taken it to his ship to study it further, and while it displayed strange incongruities—several extra organs and no blastema node, for instance—a genetic test identified the being as a
homo sapien sapien
.

What in the name of Zeus were the Katasketousya doing? It was unadulterated blasphemy, but what was their goal in it?

He was growing frustrated with asking the same questions repetitively while achieving no resolution. Despite this vexation, he felt he needed to uncover the answers in order to fulfill his purpose. Uncovering them before exposing the Katasketousya malfeasance ultimately better ensured a complete elimination of the problem.

He suspected but would soon confirm that this manufactured species had begun to expand into neighboring sectors of this galaxy. Based upon the terrestrial technology he observed, they were the presumed source of the ubiquitous interstellar noise he’d detected en route.

Had they encountered the Dzhvar yet? The absence of any evidence of them during his travel from the gateway suggested they had and had dealt with them accordingly.

Unless the Dzhvar were never here. Exactly how faithful of a replication of Amaranthe was this, truly?

Despite his admitted curiosity about the nature of these proto-Anadens, the details of their current state of development weren’t pertinent to the assignment, merely their existence. After he filed his final report they would be Eradicated, though the Erevna Primor was likely to insist on taking a few as samples to study.

No. It was time to ascertain the Katasketousya plan and bring an end to this profane creation.

He determined to return through the gateway and search the remaining spaces until he located their haven. There he expected to learn the full extent of their malfeasance.

An Accepted Species had not been Eradicated in fourteen millennia, but for such treason that would be their fate.

His
diati
stirred. Yet he had not called it into service.

He frowned as it grew so agitated his hands began to glimmer a faint crimson. The
diati
only acted on its own initiative when there was a great threat nearby or when an astronomical event of tremendous significance was on the horizon. The latter seemed more unlikely than the former, but neither were very credible.

Nevertheless, something was amiss. He tensed, heightening all his sensory pathways. Nothing definable leapt into his perception, but his
diati
urged him in the direction of a spaceport structure.

The pull grew stronger as he neared the structure. He did not understand its meaning, but much about the
diati
had always lain beyond even the Primor’s comprehension. The relationship was a symbiotic one, and the
diati
had served the Praesidis Dynasty for a thousand millennia.

Thus he did not question the pull, instead trusting it would lead him to where he needed to be.

A security process blocked pedestrian entrance to the spaceport. Killing his way through would be a simple matter but promised to attract a level of attention he didn’t desire to be troubled with, so he concealed himself and floated upward, following the silent wishes of the
diati
.

He reached the roof of the spaceport and found it clogged by a variety of small vessels. One abruptly launched at an almost horizontal angle, missing him by little distance. He hurriedly withdrew a span.

The
diati
directed him to a vessel 52° around the circular roof. His entire body now pulsated from the power of its agitation. In his memory through two hundred seventy-one generations, he located no recollection of it acting so forcefully of its own accord.

Sensing the vessel he approached was connected to the
diati’s
unrest, he removed a tracker dot from his kit and began closing in on the ship—when it launched over his head.

He responded instantly, propelling the dot upward to link itself to the hull.

Then the vessel was gone.

He descended to the ground and made an effort to continue exploring the area, but the
diati
screamed in his head until his skull throbbed.

Disturbed but obedient, he returned to his ship and prepared to follow the tracking signal.

A
URORA
T
HESI (
P
ORTAL
P
RIME)

The intermingling of such sentiments as relief, joy and pride—a lavishness of pride in my charges—with apprehension, with dread at the rising shadow they could not see overtaking them, disconcerted me to an uncomfortable degree.

By nearly all measures, Humanity was succeeding in righting itself yet again. The challenge had been met and overcome, much as they had done time and again throughout their existence.

This was why I believed in them: because when the worst of their species threatened to plunge them into darkness, the best of them rose to vanquish their own enemy and steer Humanity to the preferred path forward.

Yet my pleasure at their triumph was marred by my knowledge of the Anaden lurking among them now.

I could not track the Praesidis Inquisitor within Aurora. The vessel’s cloaking activated soon after it arrived there, and its concealment capabilities exceeded our most advanced technology.

I had chosen not to warn the Humans of the Inquisitor’s presence during their crisis, judging they did not need a distraction they could do nothing to address. But what of now, as their apparent troubles ameliorated? I desired to allow them a respite, but I feared the time for respites had now passed.

Yet what information might I impart? That a killer more dangerous than any they had previously known moved among them, and I knew neither this killer’s location nor a viable method of eliminating him?

I had told the Conclave this may represent Humanity’s final test. If it were such, and if they were to succeed, they must do it by way of their own ingenuity. They did display an abundance of it, so hope remained.

Should they fail—should the Inquisitor return through the Aurora portal—we were prepared to use all our resources to attempt to kill him, for he now possessed sufficient knowledge to bring the full might of a Machim fleet down upon the Mosaic. The fleet would eradicate the Idryma, and with it the stasis vault and thus the lives of all Katasketousya who called it home. All hope of a free future for any would be lost.

Yet our likelihood of success in stopping the Inquisitor was not measurable with any degree of confidence. While we hurriedly constructed new offensive vessels and moved them here, the AI-driven vessels could not hit what they could not detect. Further, if the Inquisitor’s
diati
sufficiently protected his ship, no amount of firepower we directed at it would harm it.

Finally, we dared not shut down the Amaranthe gateways, for this would disrupt the transfer of resources from the provision enisles, an act certain to quickly raise its own alarms and thus defeat the very purpose.

I rippled in surprise at an unusual anomaly in the recording I viewed using a portion of my focus.

While I monitored the overall situation in Aurora with only the slightest gap in time, I was now reviewing recent events from around the populated region. My hope was to detect the presence of the Inquisitor in some manner, preferably one which did not involve the death of thousands.

In nine separate locations scattered in a two hundred parsec arc around Earth, fissures in the physical dimensions materialized and energy poured out from them into normal space. Then eighteen additional fissures opened in new locations.

After twelve seconds, the energy ceased spilling forth—simultaneously across every occurrence—and the fissures sealed. Because space was almost entirely a void lacking any matter larger than atoms, none of the energy streams impacted objects before dissipating.

Mystified, I reversed the recording, then paused it when energetic plasma cascaded out from nothing into space. What had caused these anomalies?

The AI-enhanced Humans had discovered how to project a quantum consciousness beyond the physical dimensions, but none had begun to perceive how to manifest tangible rifts.

And yet.

When did this transpire? Shortly prior to the resolution of various political confrontations on Earth. Earth also represented the apparent focal point of the fissures, though they all occurred distant from it.

I had already studied the salient episodes on Earth in some detail—but not those in the space surrounding it.

I followed the trail of events as they backtracked into space. Admiral Solovy’s vessel was attacked by the planet below, yet not destroyed. Not so surprising. It was a source of encouragement to me that the Humans now created more resilient vessels with every passing day.

…But this was not why it had not been destroyed.

I watched the streams of energy—nine at first, then twenty-seven—vanish mere meters before they reached the vessel. Not be dispersed, repelled or absorbed, but vanish completely.

I went further into the past, until Alexis Solovy departed then appeared on the vessel in question.

She possessed the operating code which drove our cloaking and dimensional displacement technology, having acquired it from the device hiding this planet. She had deciphered the cloaking operations, crudely so, and the Humans now used it widely in their armed conflicts and other machinations.

But she, or any Human or AI, should require another millennia of scientific advancement to even begin to grasp the method by which dimensions were shifted, and another to accomplish it.

And yet.

Oh, you clever girl. Dangerous girl. Do you fathom what you have unlocked?

PART
VII
: