LEID
THE ICE-COVERED MOUNTAINTOPS GLISTENED, refracting rays of light across the ship. They were megalithic, taller than I’d ever seen, inaccessible to even the most daring travelers. Our guide caught my gaze and explained how they grew taller each year, his mouth twisted into a proud grin, like he was personally responsible for them. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I knew this already, so let him go on.
Our descent into Poekka had been uncomfortably cold so far. There was no portal directly linked to our target destination, and so we met at the cosmoport station in orbit of the planet. A shuttle had taken us part of the way. At the Frayhksar Shelf, we boarded a helium-fueled airship toward the western mid-lateral landmass where the anomaly presided. We’d brought an obelisk with us; this journey would only be taken once.
Zira and I stood on the outside deck, covered in the furs of regional fauna. Zira was less taken with the scenery, instead staring at the guide with a mixture of indifference and annoyance as he told us of things we already knew. He kept curling his right hand into a fist, then relaxing it, then curling it again. It was a nervous tick he’d seemed to develop recently, ever since returning from the Ophal System Confederacy.
“There are no roads here,” he remarked, interrupting the guide’s topographical monologue.
“No roads here,” confirmed the guide. “This is the most remote you’ll ever see. On purpose.”
Zira had been looking over the deck rail at the dense forestry below, but then his eyes flicked to their corners, at the guide, having grown curious about the latter statement. “On purpose?”
“The work here is top secret. So secret that no one knows what they did or how to fix it. They made sure you couldn’t get anywhere near the campus by ground.”
“Someone surely must have funded the research,” I said.
The guide nodded. He had a name, but I’d already forgotten it. “Surely. But the funders are not interested in the details, only the results.”
“What were the results supposed to be?” asked Zira.
The guide shook his head. “I simply fly the ships. You’ll have to ask the Chief.” And with that, he receded below deck. Zira and I shared a look, and then simultaneously gazed out at the scenery.
“Everywhere I go with you is cold,” he muttered, shivering.
I grinned, while my vision rose to the pulsing gold and blue ring hanging low in the sky, where a star typically resided. “At least the scenery is pretty.”
“Don’t see that every day,” conceded Zira. “Shame that such a lucky civilization could be so reckless with their future.”
TriColony Sigma orbited its galaxy’s supermassive black hole, not a star. They weren’t bound by an actual solar system—which meant greater stability, without the constraints of a fiery ball of imminent death, waiting to go nova and swallow them whole. The sky was mesmerizing, the event horizon taking up a third of the sky at any hour; a world permanently under the watch of a giant, celestial eye.
On the eastern side of Poekka one could see Acgenon hanging even lower, their second colony world. The third was west, both so close it seemed like you could reach out and touch them.
“The multiverse favors the risk-takers,” I said.
“Not the suicidal.”
“Suicidal would suggest intention.”
“Ineptitude, then.”
“Zira.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
I sighed. “You’re not wrong.”
Zira smirked, but his amusement was brief. In just a blink he was gloomy again. I was tempted to ask him his thoughts, but he and I weren’t close enough for that. Not yet. We’d always held each other at arm’s length, after Calenus. Once upon a time I was his peer, a guardian. He was the only one still alive who’d known me as such.
I was surprised at how adaptive he was. Someone like Ixiah would have never accepted new leadership. It would have been bad, all the what-if’s. Messy. I was thankful Zira made it so easy.
“Thank you,” I said aloud, almost reflexively.
Zira looked down at me, curious.
“For coming,” I explained, but that was only half of it.
“You don’t need me,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m here.”
“Because it’s lonely,” I admitted, lighting a cigarette.
Zira looked at the cigarette, wary. “Leid, having an active flame isn’t safe on this—”
I waved a hand. “We’re fine.”
He rolled his eyes. “Qaira would have made a better companion.”
“He didn’t want to come,” I said, frowning.
“Neither did I, but alas.”
“Well he was actually contributing to progress, while you were playing games in the yard.”
Zira shrugged, excusing himself from the conversation by following the guard below deck. I watched him leave, mildly amused by his lack of sociality. I wondered how he and Yahweh ever got on. An odd match, for certain.
I finished my smoke and absorbed the waste. I was about to join the others below deck when I saw it—a golden haze off in the distance, its glow the only remnant visible amid the tree-lined horizon. The coding there was different. The air felt charged, electrified; it tasted bitter, acidic, burning the back of my throat. Attica recognized the pulsing algorithm as athanasian in delta-signature and chirped warnings from the bottom left of my vision.
I blinked, silencing it.
Above the wind, another hymn was heard. A roar, with chimal undertones, like a celestial voice beckoning us forward.
Zira reappeared beside me, eyes fixed on the hazy aura to the east.
“You feel that?” I whispered.
“Yes.” The response seemed forced. His expression relayed a familiar feeling, one that pained him. Honestly it was the most emotion I’d ever seen him wear.
*
Such a beautiful world, this place.
I’d seen many worlds, beautiful in their own right, but there was nothing more breathtaking than a biome unscathed by sentient life. Poekka was intentionally unscathed for security reasons, yet the sea of trees adorned with lilac and blue leaves stirred something in my chest. Lush valleys of black flowers and fluffy, six-legged fauna touted retinol photosynthesis; a different chirality of organisms than we typically saw. Such uncommon organic characteristics were undoubtedly caused by the system’s orbital source. A black hole had much more ingredients to offer than a binary star. The astrobiochemist in me squealed with delight.
The scenery had moved Zira, even. He’d kept discretely adding vis-captures to the conscious stream as we skirted the terrain on a buoyant, low-hovering craft en route to ground zero. The Court of Enigmus had never been to Poekka, only Acgenon, and their mainworld was nothing but sky-scrapers and ring-colonies—typical midciv fare.
Qaira would regret not coming.
Then again he’d never been one for pretty scenery. After all the time I’d spent across Halon IV, even a patch of grass was a blessing for me. Call me old-fashioned. I’d sometimes day dream about spending a year on a remote planet with chilly weather, in a tiny cottage with a wood stove; the only things keeping me warm were Qaira and a fur-lined cot. Let the Multiverse have its mysteries—I just wanted to live, damn it.
But it was apparent now that we lived for the Multiverse, not the other way around. We were its agents, because why else would we be here? We were the only species that always adapted, capable of moving between universes like they were doorways of an elaborate house. We’d thought all the questions were answered with the Framers, but now here we were once again, called upon to chip away at a new, inexplicable feature of our reality.
The weather was warmer at ground zero, and the furs came off, thrown into a pile at a vacant spot on the rover bench. No one was seated. How could we be?
Before us was a dome of violet and crimson mist, thirty-six kilometers in diameter, its aura changing the sky to a murky gray as if the anomaly sucked all the color from the environment. Luminescent smo
ke wafted from its surface, swirling into glittering threads, evaporating into the placid air.
The TCS investigators had set up camps around it, sheltered in portable canvas pavilions. Equipment littered the ground; seismometers, radiation detectors, and photodetector lenses were among the instrumentation I spotted at first glance. The rover had come to a halt next to a smaller tent where two uniformed men awaited us. Their suits were strange, and I realized that they were protectorate in design. The anomaly made things toxic, which explained all the gadgets. There was a lot of energy involved in creating a time-continuum tear; radiation was always guaranteed. Neither Zira nor I were affected—at least physically, as Zira was evidently unnerved by the sight of the field, while I probably looked excited.
We hopped off the rover.
Cue the standard long silence, in which I assumed the men before us tried to grasp the idea of our existence.
Their faces were concealed by protective masks, but I felt their stares; less frightened, more awestruck. Most of the clients we had were well-familiarized with the idea of different races and multiple systems housing intelligent life—a majority of them had cross-colonized with neighboring systems, even. But for some reason we, scholars, were always regarded with a sort of reverence that I couldn’t quite understand. Regardless of the reason, I was used to it, so I spoke first.
“Good day, I am Leid Koseling and this is Ziranel Throm,” I said, gesturing to Zira as he stared coolly at them. “We’re here to follow up on the TCS request for a contractual arrangement with the Court of Enigmus.”
“We heard word from base,” confirmed the officer on the right. “Are you planning to go inside the field?”
Their language was spoken in a series of different pitches, sometimes in the same word, and a lot of throat acrobatics. I had no idea how our anatomy allowed for any communicable participation, but it did. Yahweh had hypothesized that our built-in linguistics translator came with a perception of intention—as in, we heard them speak and although to us everything sounded Exodian, the intent behind their words were received by us as well, something like telepathy. It made sense, as we could only understand existing languages because a piece of multiversal sentience held meaning to it. Attica translated written script so long as it had been understood by us at some point in time.
“Not yet. We haven’t received enough information, so we are here to observe and speak to those who might know more.”
The officer on the left made a noise—I think it was a chuckle. “We know nothing. Esoterics was a shadow research base, privately funded.” He looked around the lot. “All of our best scientists are here, trying to understand. But honestly how can we understand something we’ve never even seen?”
“Have you sent anyone inside?” asked Zira.
“We sent teams early on, when the field first formed,” said the officer on the left. “As soon as they stepped in, all communications with them ceased. None of them returned.”
The other added, “We even tried to have one team only take several steps inside the field and then step out to report what they saw, but they still vanished. That’s when we called you.”
Zira looked toward the swirling dome. Being so close now it seemed much like the base of a debris-ridden tornado, about to plough through us. For a moment it appeared he wanted to respond, but instead asked, “The TCS report said it’s expanding. Have you calculated the rate?”
“There is no constant rate. Sometimes it expands a little, and then a lot. We’re moving camp further back tomorrow morning because it’s growing again. It was only a third of this size when we arrived, maybe a week ago.” Before we could ask any more, he nodded to one of the larger pavilions. “We can show you some of the data we’ve collected.”
*
The pavilion had several rows of workstations remotely connected to their headquarter database. The measurements taken with the equipment outside were concurrently uploaded to the database, most likely for review by an analyst team. One of the officers sat at a vacant station and entered their credentials into a log-in portal. The process was all very primitive—so much so that Zira and I subtly shared a look. A civilization so low on the middle scale shouldn’t have had this problem. Either private research teams had better technology than their own government, or…
Well, there wasn’t really another scenario here.
But we weren’t here to rub their faces in the mud; they were probably aware of the latter revelation already. One of the scientists at the seismometer appeared in the pavilion doorway just then.
“There’s an unauthorized rover entering the perimeter. I think it’s the press,” he said.
The officer at the terminal cursed, while the other started for the door. “I’ll handle it,” he said in parting. “Everybody stop working. Don’t let them see what we’re doing.”
“We can’t just stop the measurements,” argued the scientist, and then they were gone.
The room grew silent again, save for the clacking of the officer’s fingers on the keypad, he shook his head and exhaled slowly. “This is becoming a proper mess. Poekka houses four different research corps, any of whose privacy the media could breach.”
“How are they getting here?” asked Zira.
“They’ve probably bribed employees or security contractors into receiving clearance.” The screen in front of him beeped. “I’m in. The system was compromised yesterday. Everyone is trying to find out what happened. Unfortunately, we don’t know any more than they do.”
A proper mess, indeed.
Zira frowned and crossed his arms. “TCS leadership probably shouldn’t allow privatized research without some knowledge of the methods or intention involved.”
“I don’t disagree,” said the officer, “but I’m too low on the chain to make any meaningful recommendations.”
“Noted,” said Zira. “I was just thinking aloud.”
“He does that,” I said.
Zira gave me a sidelong glance.
I smiled, he didn’t. Tough crowd.
Satellite radiographers had picked up a significant seismological event right before the anomaly appeared. We watched it in slow-motion on the replay instance. The energy magnitude was comparable to that of a nuclear detonator, or a pin-point supernova. I’d seen this before—some higher civs had dabbled with black hole creation on a small enough scale to contain and study it. Black hole research was plausible here, but what that had to do with the athanasian shards was anyone’s guess.
Oddly the only after-effects of the surrounding area were ground tremors. It was like the anomaly had absorbed the catastrophic reaction that typically followed a seismic event. With all the radiation squiggling through the air, I wondered how many of these people would die in the coming months. Their suits might protect them from the brunt, but not the tail. Telling them as such would do us more harm than good, so I decided to say nothing. Their ignorance was necessary.
The officer had swiveled in his seat. It took me a moment to realize he was looking at me again. “What do you think?”
“Nothing yet. Do I have permission to investigate it myself?”
“You don’t need my permission. We’re asking you for help,” said the officer. He’d told me his name, but again I’d forgotten it. Attica had registered him as Chief Fjetli. Thank goodness it paid more attention than me.
I smiled. “Yes, but I’m polite.” With a nod to Zira, I turned to vacate the pavilion; not a moment later he was at my heels. “Thank you, Chief. I’ll be back in a little while with a decision.”
Out of ear’s reach, Zira scoffed. “You act as if you’re not planning to take this contract.”
“Keeping up appearances,” I chimed, nodding in greeting to a group of scientists who’d turned to gawk at us as we passed an area of heavy foot-traffic. There was a scuffle outside of the camp. By the sounds of it, guards had managed to keep the reporters at bay, but barely.
“I’m sick of them looking at me,” muttered Zira.
<
br /> “We’re not wearing protective suits. And our skin isn’t red. And our eyes aren’t composed entirely of giant square pupils. I’d look at you, too.”
His response was a shrug, nothing more.
We trekked along the perimeter of the anomaly, up a foothill and outside of camp. Without the sounds of bustling life, all we could hear was the roar of forces colliding, making this impossible thing happen. Even the noise was quieter than I’d expected. We came to a halt about a mile from camp. I squatted in front of the hazy, colorful wall, tapping my chin in careful thought. At first Zira stood beside me, casting the field an indignant stare, but then stepped back.
“Leid, attica just caught an expansion of 0.04 meters.”
“Yes, I have attica too.”
“You might want to postulate from a further distance.”
“Thanks for your concern.”
When I didn’t move, Zira looked annoyed. He was overreacting; I was several feet away already. “This is definitely a rift of some sort. The light refraction is showing curvatures.”
Zira was squinting at it. “Attica can’t find a targeted location of the rift. The energy patterns match nothing in any universe. I’m recording a few now for later study.”
“It’s singing the basewave, though. That means it’s part of the multiverse…just one that we haven’t discovered. The athanasian algorithm is strong.”
“Yes,” said Zira, solemn. “I think you should reconsider your team.”
My finger froze mid-tap, and I looked up at him. “What?”
“That’s… it’s not a place for people of unsound mind,” he said. “It does things to you. Makes you see things; turns your thoughts against you like it knows your subconscious.”
It only took me a second to realize what he was alluding to. “Qaira’s doing well now. He’ll be fine.”
“Take Yahweh instead,” urged Zira. “Or Aela, or anyone else.”
“I didn’t realize you disliked Qaira so much,” I murmured.
“I don’t, but he’s crazy. He is the least rational of us, which can be good at times. This is not one of those times.”
Covenants: Anodize (Hymn of the Multiverse Book 9) Page 3
