The Celestial Minds (Spacetime Universe Book 2)

by J. Benjamin

  Then there were their natural-forming fusion reactors. Once a host had obtained enough natural energy, its core would form a reaction powerful enough to lift it out of the seas and into space. It was these very cores which gave the Aquarians the ability to traverse subspace and reach across galaxies.

  A host resembled a glowing, royal blue rose that hadn’t yet bloomed. Unlike a rose, Agamemnon was towering the height of a fifty-story skyscraper on Earth, and he was on the small end compared to other hosts. The elusive giants were capable of growing into juggernauts the size of a city. Edie hadn’t seen any of those ships on the surface of the Universal Crescent. It’s been presumed by the human colonists that the super-giants originated in space, where they could grow unhindered by gravity.

  Edie and Alex stepped on the soil, streaks of glowing blue roots interspersed through it.

  “You know Edie, neither of us have ever been inside one of these things before,” Alex said. “Come to think of it, I don’t think any natural human has been.”

  “There’s a first time for everything, Harper,” Edie replied. “The three hosts told me how it’s done. Basically, we touch the roots.”

  “That’s it?” Alex asked, surprised.

  “They read our fingerprints, know it’s us, and yeah. That’s basically it,” Edie said, looking down at the thick Aquarian roots running into the soil.

  “Okay,” Alex said. “Let’s go.” They knelt down to get a closer look at the alien extensions. Alex cautiously moved his right-hand to touch. A surge rushed through him, and he flinched.

  “Yikes!” Alex said.

  “I feel it too,” Edie replied.

  “It feels like . . .” Alex stammered.

  “Like we are connected into the interface?” Edie asked.

  “Exactly, except we are still here.” Alex felt as though he’d entered the Aquarian anima through his mind but remained fully present in reality. “And I know you’re feeling it too. I can feel the faint connection to you.”

  “I feel it,” Edie said. “It doesn’t feel as deep as when we’re in the sequence. Just deep enough to know we’re connected to the same entity.” They looked up at Agamemnon.

  Suddenly, the ground begun to rumble beneath their feet. Edie jumped. The rope-like roots of Agamemnon slid from beneath her like pythons. The host’s appendages melted into the mantle of the living ship, as it sat heavy.

  At the base of the host, a fizzle slowly emerged in the hardened exterior. The anomaly began as the size of a baseball, but then grew into a giant disk. A groaning noise startled the humans as a gaping hole appeared in the side of the ship. It spread open, revealing a cavernous-like entrance.

  Edie and Alex cautiously approached the tunnel leading into the host. Water droplets fell from the entryway like the opening to a carwash. Edie felt the telepathic presence of a third consciousness growing stronger. It was beckoning them.

  “Message received. Come on,” Edie said, motioning to Alex as she stepped into the ship.

  They were immediately greeted by hundreds of Aquarian workers, crowing from every direction. Except the multi-colored, tentacled creatures were separated from them by a barely-visible force field. Edie realized they were following a transparent passageway within the leviathan which protected them from the water around them.

  It was like entering a reverse-aquarium. It reminded Edie of the time she stayed at the underwater hotel in Dubai. She was doing an international job with an ex-lover, who she preferred to forget. Every morning they’d wake up to schools of fish hovering over the glass outside their room’s curved ceiling and walls. Occasionally they’d even see a great white shark. It was like living in a fishbowl.

  Agamemnon, like all the other Aquarian hosts, had an extensive network of life-sustaining branches that acted as a ribcage for the ship. It was at the core of the ship, where each of these branches met. Powered by the core, each of the gargantuan branches was lined with a vast covering of egg pods. Each pod provided sustenance to an Aquarian worker and allowed them to connect to the greater anima host.

  “Looks like they really put on the finishing touches,” Alex said to Edie, as they stepped up the slowly ascending, transparent tunnel.

  “I have a feeling we haven’t even seen the half of it,” Edie replied. The tunnel cut upward. As they got deeper into the vessel, Edie could feel a stronger connection to it.

  Natural humans like Edie and Alex had always connected themselves via Aquarian technology. But all bets were off once a living organism entered the kaiju. As far as humans could tell, the hosts could seamlessly communicate with whatever or whomever shared their space.

  Except as they walked further up, Edie felt a greater sense of a spirit luring them in.

  “Edie, look!” Alex pointed toward the greater void of the ship. Edie followed his finger to a formation that was clearly not a natural part of the host. Whatever it was, their path was leading them to it.

  Though one might not immediately see it, the surface appeared as moving turquoise lights, blending in with the rest of the ship, but observed closely, it was clear the lights were moving along a specific surface not part of the rest of the ship.

  “What do you think it is?” Alex turned to face Edie, who stood by his side. She peered further ahead.

  “I think we’re about to find out.” The path led directly into the segmented formation. They picked up their pace, as their anticipation intensified. Edie looked down to find where they initially entered the host, almost dropping the heavy bag on her shoulders. The opening sat far below them at a depth equivalent to ten floors. They were curving up the cavernous interior of Agamemnon in a spiral pattern. The spiral avoided the spinal branches holding the ship together.

  They reached the level with the saucer-shaped cylinder. With each step, more Aquarian workers swarmed the outside of the tube-path. An entrance resembling a wall of suspended liquid lay ahead.

  “We need to go inside,” Edie said. “That’s what they want us to do.”

  “Agamemnon?” Alex inquired.

  “Correct,” Edie replied. “I can sense it.”

  “Lead the way,” Alex insisted.

  Edie walked to the barrier and examined it closely. She could see the Aquarian biology at play. The barrier wasn’t a natural-forming structure. It was the Aquarians utilizing their biology to build tools for their use. As the humans in the Universal Crescent discovered via their interactions with the galactic-spanning creatures, the Aquarians had a gift for using their own cells to build structures and technologies that defied logic.

  That technology was ever-present in everything that defined the Aquarians. Whether it was their fusion-powered living ships like the one Edie and Alex currently stood in, or their solar technology, or the tools they created to bring humans into the sequence, the evolutionary building blocks that formed the species allowed them to make the universe their kingdom. After all, the level of complexity inside a microscopic Aquarian cell was equivalent to the power of a human brain. Aquarians surpassed humans much like humans surpassed bacteria.

  Edie extended her right hand into the barrier. It was cool to the touch and wet. Her fingers moved a millimeter deep. As she pulled them away, the barrier rippled as if it were a lake someone had just thrown a rock in.

  “Whoa,” Edie said, mesmerized. Without a second thought, she plunged her right arm into the barrier. Her forearm reacted with the sensation of having just jumped in a pool. “It’s a door. Come on,” she motioned to Alex.

  Without hesitation, Edie jumped through the liquid wall. For a split second, she felt submerged. Then, she landed on a platform on the other side. The hairs on her skin jumped the way one’s would after leaving a swimming pool. Shortly after, Alex landed next to her.

  Edie looked down to see that they were standing on a hard surface. She looked up. They were in a much more compact area than where they had come from. In fact, everything about this space looked and felt different.

  “What is this place?” Alex
asked in amazement.

  “I think they built this thing for us. For the long journey,” Edie replied. “What? Did you think they were gonna have us float around with the jellyfish things?”

  Not far from where they stood, Edie saw two massive pods. These were much bigger than the small, egg-shaped pods used to house the workers.

  “Are those for us?” Alex asked.

  “I think so,” Edie said. The pods were purple, human-sized contraptions which resembled Venus fly-traps. Edie walked up to one. She ran her hands along the sides and found a separation. She shoved her hands into the separation and pulled the pod open to reveal what was inside. “Well . . . there’s something you don’t see every day.”

  Inside were a complete set of sheets and a pillow.

  “Uh . . . Okay. So the Aquarians know enough about us now to build human beds,” Alex said. Edie shrugged and jumped into the alien-constructed bed. “How is it?” he asked.

  “Not bad. They got the comfort levels down right. Certainly beats the shit out of what fuckwad Dev had.”

  “Ugh!” Alex said in revulsion. “Please don’t mention that guy.”

  “Sorry,” Edie said. She propped herself up in the pod and saw there were two recliners. The semi-circle chairs looked as if they would come as accessory pieces to the Venus fly trap beds in a furniture collection.

  Standing right beside Alex between the beds and the recliners, Edie noticed the wall opposite the main entrance, with two walking paths leading left and right. Edie walked into the section on the right.

  “What is it?” Alex asked. Miraculously, Edie could hear him through the wall. She pulled her head back into the main room.

  “How do I put this delicately?” she posed. “I think I just saw an alien attempt at a human bathroom.”

  “Attempt?” Alex asked, nearly horrified. “How can you be sure?”

  “There’s definitely a shower in there. Good to know, we won’t go dirty on here,” Edie said. She knew what words were going to come out of Alex’s mouth next.

  “And a toilet?”

  “I . . . think I saw a toilet?” Edie said, unsure of herself.

  “Got it,” Alex said. “Glad I used the facilities before we left.”

  “So, wanna check the other side?” Edie said. Alex nodded. He hurried along. For a man whose muscular frame made him look tough, Alex had a goofy side to him which Edie adored. It showed as he hastened his pace to see the rest of the human section of the ship.

  Edie took another look around their new home. On each of the recliner chairs were two devices, small enough to fit in her palm, the color of Aquarian-turquoise and thin like wafers. Edie picked one of them up, unsure what to do with it.

  Alex’s head peered back through the barrier.

  “Edie! Get here quick!” he shouted, startling her.

  “Coming.” She followed him into the other entry. Spanning the entire outer wall was a bird’s eye view of the world outside.

  “Wow!” Edie said with amazement.

  They were getting as good a view as they’d ever had of the Universal Crescent. In the distance lay the familiar beaches and forests they’d called home for the past year. The many treehouse settlements which comprised Villa del Universo lay center-stage of the part-alien, part-human landscape.

  Edie took a minute to absorb her surroundings, the weight of her decisions fully sinking in. She’d worked so hard to help build it, and this could very likely be the last time she’d ever see it. Maybe it was insignificant in scale and made for fewer than a hundred humans, but it was her home. She was effectively an outcast, denounced by her enemies and avoided by her supposed allies. The only ally she truly had left was the bald man standing beside her. As she looked into his eyes, she wouldn’t have traded him for anyone else.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Alex said, breaking the silence. “But we made the right choice.”

  “I want to believe that,” Edie replied. “But we built something here. A colony. A home. The first human settlement outside the Solar System. Shit! The first human settlement on an alien world. And we escaped that maniac, Ivanov. We escaped the GSF. I’ll level with you Alex. I feel like we are turning away from everything we built.”

  This vulnerability was out-of-character for Edie, known for her discipline and stoicism. Alex grabbed her hands and turned her to face him.

  “Everything we built is right here on this ship,” Alex said, looking Edie squarely in the eyes. “That colony is treehouses and huts, and I know because I helped build them. You, Edie Brenner, are far bigger than that. We have gone further than almost any human has ever gone and pretty soon we will surpass all of that. Don’t ever lose sight of that.”

  Edie wrapped her arms tightly around Alex and squeezed the only human she might ever see again.

  “If this is our long walk off the short pier, I couldn’t think of a better partner to march into the sunset with,” Edie said.

  “Till the bitter end, Edie Brenner. Till the bitter end.” Alex kissed her forehead. They embraced for a minute, silently. Their lives had already transformed beyond measure. Earth, the Herschel, the interstellar jump, and the colony were, perhaps, each stepping stones for the endeavor ahead of them.

  The sensation of the third entity began to encroach on their embrace. Edie felt it crawling on her right shoulder, even though the only individual touching her was Alex.

  “Can you sense it?” Edie asked, pulling away.

  “Yes,” Alex replied. “Right shoulder?”

  “You read my mind?”

  “Nope, but I think something is clearly reading ours,” Alex said. “I wonder if it’s trying to tell us something.” As he said this, the sensation in both of their right arms intensified. It wasn’t so much a pain as a growing pressure.

  Surely if Agamemnon were trying to communicate, it got their attention.

  “Of course!” Edie said.

  “Of course what?” Alex asked.

  “Wait here,” Edie answered. She quickly ran into the bedroom and quickly returned. She revealed the Aquarian wafers. “Alex, I think these are patches. I think they want us to wear these.”

  “How?” Alex asked, as he took one from Edie and carefully examined it?”

  “They probably bind to our skin. Only one way to find out.” With that, Edie held the patch to her right bicep. Alex quickly followed. The reaction was immediate. Tiny micro-fibers emanated from the patch and quickly embedded into her arm.

  Her hopes of easing the pressure with the patch quickly died as her upper arm now felt blasted by a blowtorch. The pain was agonizing and Edie fell to the floor, screaming. It felt unlike any physical pain Edie had ever endured.

  A short time later, the pain stopped. The pressure was gone. Edie panted frantically as she tried to catch her breath. She saw Alex also laying on the ground.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You?”

  “I’m alright.” They stood up, trying to make sense of what happened.

  “Oh my God!” Alex shouted. “Edie look!”

  The ceiling disappeared and Edie and Alex looked up to see a never-ending void of darkness above. A giant Aquarian floated over them, tentacles flailing.

  “Edie Brenner and Alex Harper,” the host said. “I see you have already devised a name for this host.”

  “Agamemnon!” Edie said. “But how? We’re not in the sequence. At least I don’t think we are? We’re still conscious.”

  Edie was referring to the outside world which hadn’t changed. They were still standing in the ship. Yet the host’s spirit was visible before them. It was becoming hard to discern the physical from metaphysical.

  “Do not be alarmed,” Agamemnon said, able to understand the humans’ reactions.

  “What is this?” Edie asked, pointing to the patch on her arm.

  “During your time in our realm, we have studied your species at great length. We’ve come to understand not only your languages, but also yo
ur culture, your habits, and everything down to your cellular structure. At first we had to rely on our limited human contact. But once your species’ machines reached one of our outposts, we were able to learn far more about you than was possible with just the sample from the colony.”

  “I think they’re talking about the Pelicans and Wolf 482,” Alex said to Edie.

  “From our studies of the human brain, we were able to develop technology which will allow you to remain conscious in the physical realm, yet still exchange communications to us as you would if you had entered the trans-abyssal realm.”

  “Trans-abyssal. They’re talking about the spacetime sequences,” Edie said to Alex.

  “Correct,” Agamemnon interrupted, clearly disinterested in whether the humans were directing their contact away from them or not. As far as Edie and Alex knew, the Aquarians were an emotionless species. For this reason, it was unsurprising that Agamemnon failed to recognize the ‘A and B’ conversation between the humans.

  “So we’re in the sequence but still in reality?” Edie said in disbelief. “Oh dear.” Feeling overwhelmed, she grabbed her temples.

  “Edie!” Alex said.

  “What?”

  “Look outside.”

  Edie turned her gaze to the large pane. The village, trees, and beach quickly shrunk in size. Edie ran to the edge. A shrinking, multi-colored planet with a patchwork of different-colored skies faded out of view. Beyond the atmosphere, entire fleets of space-faring hosts hovered.

  Though the two humans couldn’t visibly see them, they could feel the ships from afar. Edie was certain this ability had both to do with their presence aboard Agamemnon, as well as the communications patches that Agamemnon provided the humans. Amongst the fleets of Aquarian hosts were even larger ships capable of carrying heavy quantities of base elements and pollinating the planet with artificial atmospheres on the surface below. This was how the different realms were able to exist independently.

  “So that’s how they built the mini-environments,” Edie said. She could see Alex’s eyes transfixed on the larger ships at the edge of the atmosphere. “We couldn’t see them from the surface because they were cloaked to us!”