Fractured Worlds (Book 1 of the Fractured Worlds Trilogy)

by Alan VanMeter

  18: THE IMPOSSIBLE

  Tristan watched the sun rise above Penny’s ridge far to the east. It wasn’t what you could really call a sunrise though, as the local sun was so distant from their tiny world; it appeared as not much more than a bright morning star. Still it was a much welcomed sight as there wasn’t much in the way of celestial interest. Even the gas giant they were told that Penny’s Planet orbited, was forever hidden from their view; due to the fact that their tiny moon didn’t rotate on its axis. He sipped from his warm cup of home-made herbal tea, reveling in the comfort of it. Today was a rest day, and he waited for his wife to join him.

  Five minutes later she crawled up through the entrance hole to the cathedral, holding a cup of tea also.

  “Shen Dao wouldn’t give me my pill for the month babe.” She told him.

  That stopped him mid sip, and he nodded thoughtfully.

  “You don’t think the backup replicator is going out too, do you?” Penny wondered.

  He knew that couldn’t be the case. If their last material replicator died on them, they would probably perish, and he knew that didn’t happen to them there. The knowledge of you own destiny could be beneficial at times, but mostly it was a prison sentence. They must follow their predetermined paths, or simply cease.

  “No I don’t think the replicator’s on the blink.”

  She looked at him with a frown.

  He nodded.

  The only other answer for the change must be what they had both come to realize, but that Shen Dao nor Leena would ever answer for them. They had always eluded to the fact that three specially attuned humans were required to activate a portal, but they refused to explain just how that was to occur. Neither Tristan, nor Penny were dummies though, and they had known deep down, for years even, that they were missing someone.

  ----------

  “Well?” he called to her.

  “Hang on!” She scolded him. “It takes a minute to turn color.”

  A few moments later she burst from the bathroom, and looked at him with a most peculiar smile. Penny jumped into his arms and kissed him repeatedly.

  “We are going to have a baby!” She laughed, and hugged and kissed him some more.

  “Congratulations are in order.” Shen Dao said in Chinese, and there was no translation. They had turned that off over a year ago, when they realized that over time they had learned Chinese from the continual bombardment of the old man, and then the English translation.

  “Wow! My big brother is going to be a dad. I don’t know what to say. YES!” Leena’s image joined in.

  Tristan was a little bit in shock, even though he had tried to mentally prepare for this; it still hit him suddenly. “WOW!” he said.

  The next several months were quite different from any they had spent in the spire. While Shen Dao still worked him fairly hard, Penelope was given much rest. They both kept up their meditative practices though, but Shen Dao had warned her to be careful during her pregnancy. What the old man hadn’t counted on though was Penelope and William actually communicating with their unborn child through their out of body travels.

  It happened quite by accident; Penny was reentering her body when she felt a mind tug at her. She investigated and found an undeveloped, but powerful mind. She could communicate only feelings with it to start with, and then she told her husband. He had to feel it too, and before they knew it their child was becoming cognitive in the womb.

  Even in several days the change was remarkable, and they felt they might have made a giant mistake in contacting such an undeveloped mind. They determined not to make contact again, but the child had other plans. It, or rather she, contacted Penelope’s unconscious mind, and began to download all of her mother’s knowledge while she slept. Six months into the pregnancy, Penelope discovered this. She told Tristan that their unborn child was fully aware, and was years mentally ahead of her natural developmental age.

  So they decided to make direct contact with her again, and teach her; since she was obviously going to learn one way or another. The two of them spent hours with her in deep meditation, showing her everything; even having the fetus mind leave its body with them, and travel to the other dimensions. They told Shen Dao of all this, and he was quite perplexed. The Pearmainians had no direct experience with reproduction. Their host bodies might have, but in regard to unborn souls performing dimensional travel; to his knowledge only one race ever had. He simply asked them that they inform him as to all developments.

  It was early morning when their baby came into the world, and the delivery was an uncomplicated one. After all, the child helped in every way it could. Shen Dao had instructed Tristan for months on delivery procedures, as the holo-program had a ton of medical knowledge. Penny had taken herself into a deep state of self-hypnosis to allow her body to perform its function without her fighting it. Tristan handed the freshly swaddled infant to her mother.

  “Hello Starchild.” Penny whispered sweetly, and kissed their baby’s cheek.

  “So you have come up with a name, and a fine one.” Shen Dao said proudly. “Starchild, I like it.”

  “She named herself.” Penny said equally as proud.

  “Hmm,” Shen Dao mused. “I like it even more.”

  Tristan beamed. “She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Lenna said with a proud smile, “No doubt about it.”

  The infant looked around, but not with bewilderment. “Mommy.” She rasped with new vocal cords.

  This made Tristan step back.

  “Daddy.”

  “Holy smokes!” Tristan exclaimed.

  Penelope smiled at him knowingly.

  The first years of Starchild’s life were filled with her exploration of just about everything, and her unrequited thirst for knowledge. Very soon she surpassed the intelligence of her parents, but never reproached them because of it. She loved them very much, and they her. There were no secrets from her either, as she could climb right into either of their minds whenever she wished, and find out anything they knew. Some of her talents she could teach to them, while others seemed beyond their capability, but Starchild held nothing back from her parents.

  As soon as she could walk, which was very quickly; they had her on the pedestals, teaching her how to absorb the spire’s energy. She reveled in this, and found it to be quite natural. The next step was to activate the spire portal. Shen Dao was careful to remind them of the danger involved if they got carried away exploring the Universe of then. They had a mission to accomplish, or all three would cease to exist.

  They found that teleporting, or shifting through the spires was a very basic folding of space, and their mind could easily do the same, but the energy required to actually move their bodies was enormous. Their minds had even entered the other dimensions, and that was what they needed their bodies to do in order to travel through time. Getting your body to follow your mind is not an easy thing, especially when it involved de-materializing the aforementioned body. The old Pearmainian told them they were getting close to their goal.

  When Starchild turned three, she found that if she concentrated with enough focus, she could move objects with her mind. Her parents were astounded. Even though they had reached high levels of internal skill themselves, it was nothing like their daughter’s. She had become supra-human. Her genetic make-up was the same as everyone else, but just the fact that she’d known the wonderful power of the mind and spirit since even before birth; was what made her so unusual. As Shen Dao put it, “It would take a Pearmainian a million years to achieve the level Starchild has in three.”

  Starchild was completely humble about it, saying that she owed it all to her parents, and to Shen Dao.

  Before Tristan had known it, he had become a man, and then a father. Penelope had become a beautiful vibrant woman, and a mother; while both became p
owerful warriors. Their daughter had become something unbelievably incredible. It had all gone by so quickly in retrospect. Now it was time to leave the spire. Shen Dao had told them approximately when they would make the time shift, but not exactly. They knew it would be soon too, just by their abilities; they felt it.

  For the last year Tristan had been able to feel the warp in the fabric of the other dimensions that they themselves had made when he and Penny had been shot forward in time. This is what Shen Dao referred to as their ‘map’.

  “You must follow your own trail, your own ‘map’ back to approximately where and whence you came.” He had told them. He also warned Starchild, “Be very careful of what you do in the past, before you we born. Though there is not much chance that you will do something to ‘erase’ your existence, or your parents for that matter; there is always a possibility.”

  She paid close heed, knowing full well of the dangers, as she could experience any memory of her parents, especially of her mother. She had felt their close fade into nothingness that they had experienced as children, and though it didn’t frighten her as it had her folks; she respected the peril.

  One morning as they all awoke, and filed into the kitchen area; they found Shen Dao, and Leena sharing the hologram. The two images had only done this on very special occasions, like when they were married, and at Starchild’s’ birth. The three of them knew right away that this was the day.

  “So this is it?” Tristan asked.

  “Yes.” Shen Dao said beaming with pride. “You have done very well, and have mastered the improbable. Now you will perform the impossible.”

  They all looked at each other with some uncertainty, as most of their lives has been totally regimented. No deviation, or to face sure and quick extinction. Now they started to realize that they weren’t going to be told what, or when to do it from then on, and it scared them.

  “I’m sure going to miss you all.” Leena said.

  They knew that the program was speaking for itself, as it most always used Leena’s personality to express deep emotion. They had come to rely on, trust, and even love the programs of Shen Dao and Leena.

  “I’m going to miss you too Auntie Leena’s program.” Starchild started to cry. This had been her only child friend her whole short life.

  Penelope grabbed her daughter’s hand, and squeezed.

  “What do we take with us?” Penny asked.

  “Just yourselves, and the dastardly device that sent you here.” Shen Dao said.

  Tristan retrieved the device that the old man had told him to protect so well, and strung the special sack that he’d made for it around his neck. Mother led daughter over to the floating disk, and turned to wait for Tristan.

  “Thank you my friend, we are forever indebted to you.” Tristan spoke perfect Chinese. “I can’t wait to meet you.”

  Shen Dao laughed, “I will see you soon.” He bowed formally.

  Tristan returned the bow, and the image blinked off for forever. He joined his wife and daughter, and the disk rose.

  Up in the cathedral the three quietly went to their respective pedestals, and sat in the lotus position. The golden light flowed over them, and the three beams bent towards the center above them, then joined into a large sphere of light. The spire shook as it always did when the portal was activated, and the sphere of light energy enveloped them. Now instead of just visualizing that they were in another location, as they would do to merely shift to that location; they closed their eyes, and began the deep breathing cycle that was second nature to them now.

  Then each projected their spirit up through the tops of their heads, along with their natural energy flow, and the spire’s. The pinhole in the very fabric of space-time above them opened even more with their focus on it. At that moment they joined their energies together, and tried to synchronize this with the harmonics of their ‘map’, or the echo from their childhood time warp. This is where it got hard. Each time they had done this before in the past months, they had felt their bodies start to dematerialize, but just the sensation of that alone would cause one or more of them to lose focus, and they would have to start all over again. They couldn’t force themselves any harder either. Patience was all that would work, because of the naturally relaxed state that you had to be in, for the energy to circulate. They kept the focus going longer, and longer.

  Then right as they felt the familiar numbing tingle of their bodies starting to dematerialize, Starchild felt something she hadn’t before. Her ability to move objects might hasten this process, so she immediately tried; adding her thought energy to loosening the atomic bonds between the molecules. Quite suddenly they entered the other dimension with their bodies complete, though dematerialized, and the three of them were gone.