Across the Stars: Book Three of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

by Anne Spackman

  Sargon stood and pushed away his chair, walking slowly and smoothly towards the large man, hardly seeming to move. Like a predator, he approached him, but the stultifying power of his mind was Sargon’s weapon of choice. Sargon stopped a few feet short of the man, unnoticed in the crowd of awed spectators that had gathered around the struggling monolith.

  Pain, Sargon thought calmly, but the force of the waves that struck the man grounded him, sending him writhing in a paroxysm across the floor.

  There, you beast, get what you deserve, Sargon thought, making sure it took great effect upon the bully.

  Sargon had no desire to observe the man’s suffering. He now despised such spectatorship. But he was sure that the small man would now be all right.

  Sargon left the tavern quietly and traveled on foot down the dirt and stone road, watching the bustling city activity, the merchants displaying their wares and shouting in the open marketplace of the town center, beggar children wandering around, laborers engaged in hauling fordhth rocks for fuel into large woven carts.

  As he continued down the road, a light snow began to fall. A large, cold snowflake made it through the heat of the infrared aura that surrounded him, melting and shrinking before landing on his cheek. Sargon looked up in surprise and raised his hands, catching a few flakes on his palms with the speed of his movement, before the snow had a chance to be melted by the energy that surrounded him.

  Snow—how he had loved to play in the snow, long ago on the planet Tiasenne, twin world of Orian. His mother and father had taken him out into the snow every year until his ninth birthday, and then Alessia—

  She had taught him to make his first snow angel. She had also taught him how to aim a snowball at a passing sentry outside Orashean’s Headquarters Building.

  * * * * *

  What could it all mean? Cameron Zhdanov couldn’t seem to find an answer, no matter how hard he looked for one.

  One thing was clear: most of the histories of the aliens who had joined the crew spoke of an ancient Empire that had once controlled this galaxy; at the same time, their legends spoke of an ancient race that had once been their ancestors or had once been connected to their ancestors.

  Cameron Zhdanov, as chief among the Earth people asking questions, enquired whether or not the aliens knew if their races had all been colonists from another world, the world of the ancient race. Perhaps all of the humanoids had once, long ago, come from a single home world. Perhaps this Seynorynaelian Empire had once brought them to each of their second home planets from another world or galaxy and had returned at some point in time to organize their brother races.

  Could there really be a connection between this Seynorynael and the ancient race of so many legends?

  Cameron had a difficult time accepting the fact that on almost half of the inhabited planets they had encountered, Selesta found a humanoid form of life not very far removed from their own. The odds of such convergence occurring naturally were astronomical, out of the question. For him, solving the puzzle necessitated unearthing a small piece of evidence to confirm his own suspicions—that some intellect was responsible for the transport of humans across the galaxy.

  There could be no other explanation.

  Contact with the Goeur Empire and its human slave trade and the discovery of new histories documenting the existence of an earlier galactic Empire of yet another culture made him consider the possibility that mass scale colonization of some early group of humanoids and other living species had occurred in the far distant past, as though there had once been some kind of space-going ark, loaded with humanoids and pairs of plants and animals—or an ark for each inhabitable planet.

  However, though their knowledge of history was rudimentary, the aliens claimed that their peoples had already been living an independent existence when representatives from an advanced race arrived. Independent?! But the Goeur humanoids couldn’t have evolved on their own! At least, that was that Cameron wanted, needed to believe. The Goeur claimed that almost immediately after being contacted by this advanced race, they had found themselves constituents of an Empire that lasted many generations. Then there had been a brief, sudden period of confusion when all contact with the Empire was lost. Years later, the Goeur had emerged to take its place.

  Would he have been able to find proof connecting his two groups of galactic conquerors there, if only Selesta had waited?

  He would never know, damn it all.

  During the subsequent scientific discussions, Cameron had suggested to the others that the Seynorynaelian Empire might have been just one Empire in a long succession, similar to the Goeur, that had expanded to conquer new systems in its period of dominance. Cameron’s real concern lay in the fact that nothing explained, or rather proved, where the humanoids had originally come from and why there were so many humanoid races in the galaxies they had visited.

  However, on Goeur, there seemed to have been little evidence of two distinct advanced races, only the one. But if the former Goeur territories had enjoyed an independent history long enough to obscure their earliest origins, Cameron argued, then they would not remember if a previous race or Empire had brought them to their new homes.

  However, the aliens found on Goeur, some who had been taken from other, still further planets, protested against his attempt to make them colonists of some other race. Their histories were very clear on the one point—they had developed on their own. Their distinctive cultures, languages, and philosophies could not have descended from one or even a small number of racial groups. They had no wish to see that they might all be brother races. Even their scientists held on to the belief that the coincidences in body structure could be explained away by genetic engineering at some later point in time.

  Cameron was irritated that he couldn’t solve all of the mysteries.

  How had the humanoid form appeared on so many worlds? Cameron began to wonder if he were the only person still interested in unraveling the mystery. But it was Selerael who posited the answer to him.

  “I think—perhaps Enor created the different human races.” She said absently at the end of one of their scientific debates as he left, again capturing his eyes. The others had already passed out into the corridor, but Cameron sat back down.

  Enor??

  “Enor? What makes you think so?” He asked. The crew knew very little about the mythical race that had possibly re-created the lom-vaia people.

  “I don’t know, exactly.” Selerael replied. “I don’t have any proof, just a gut feeling. I don’t know why, but I have often wondered about the Enor. Do you suppose they were a good people, to have made the lom-vaia more like themselves?”

  “Good? Well, I don’t know—probably just tampering with Mother Nature, as we have done ourselves, without considering the consequences.” Cameron replied, wondering why he hadn’t ever thought about it.

  “Perhaps when they traveled across the universe, they found no humans at all. Maybe they cloned themselves and altered their form as it needed to survive the various conditions on a myriad of planets—perhaps to live there themselves, perhaps merely so that they wouldn’t feel alone in the universe any more.”

  Then she laughed.

  “What is it you find amusing?” Cameron Zhdanov asked, wondering if she were now retracting her hypothesis now that he was warming to it.

  “I was just thinking that the whole humanoid experiment would make sense if the Enor were merely lonely and wanted there to be other creatures like them.” She replied sadly and sighed.

  “Hmmm.”

  “But for whatever reason they might have chosen to do it—could they be your answer, Cameron? Isn’t it possible that they’re this great “guiding force” you’re looking for? This ancient advanced race most of its descendants don’t seem to remember? If so, then no more massive galactic convergence. If so, you can get a good night’s sleep for a change, my friend.”

  Cameron mulled her suggestions over in silence and nodded.

  “You may be ri
ght. I’ll have to give this some more thought, though.”

  But then one question remained, Cameron realized.

  Just who were the Enor and where had they gone?

  * * * * *

  “What in God’s name is that thing!?” Cameron wondered, watching the recon team from Selesta’s holo-monitor. Selesta had fired her reverse thrusters to slow to a stationary position; they were waiting for the Valerian fighters to finish a recon sweep by the strange object just off Selesta’s flight path, an object radar had reported sitting dead in space. Selesta seemed to have encountered the object by accident, having suddenly veered off its flight path to avoid a newly formed star on Selesta’s course.

  Thirty-six years had passed since the Goeur expansion; they had jumped outside an elliptical and spiral class galaxy group only a few months back.

  “It’s a spacecraft!” Adam exclaimed over the net, directing the recon. “No life readings aboard.” He added a moment later, his voice steady.

  “A spacecraft!” Cameron repeated, glowing with an anxiety of two opposing natures.

  * * * * *

  After a brief meeting to discuss further action, Selerael offered to clear the Great Bay and investigate the strange craft. Despite hopes that someone on board might be able to identify the vessel, none of the original Goeur crew or living Kamians and Sakarans recognized the relays of the small craft. After a few objections against bringing it on board, Cameron reminded the others that Selesta’s air lock would decontaminate the craft, even if there were harmful microbes on board. And if an unknown threat surfaced, Selerael had promised to deal with it before it could cause any harm to the rest of the ship.

  Many of the scientists still objected, however, until Alloys Specialist Nikari-mai contacted the meeting from his on-board production center and expressed an interest in salvaging the alien alloys. Moments later, other scientists who had been monitoring the debate but hadn’t been able to join the meeting themselves relayed similar feelings, until gradually, the scientists and alien representatives who were present began to warm to the idea of bringing in the craft for further investigation.

  Perhaps it couldn’t hurt to investigate it.

  A large space was cleared in the eleventh cargo bay to house the small spaceship and allow it to land. Selesta approached the object slowly, until it was within workable range; using her telekinetic abilities, Selerael guided the vessel into the Great Bay air lock chamber between the inner and outer hull of the ship while all across Selesta, the crew watched holographic recreations of the scene unfolding in the cargo bay, where more than a thousand willing crew scientists waited for their opportunity to examine the alien vessel.

  Though no life readings had registered on their bio-activity scanners, Selerael ordered that the tiny ship remain in the air lock where it had undergone decontamination. Venturing out to the ship alone, she closed her eyes and searched for breaks in the atoms of the hull until she had found the entrance.

  She sent a current of cooperative brain telekinetic waves to the molecules of the small ship’s air lock pressure door. In response, the door opened and allowed her through a series of decontamination compartments before she entered a larger area inside. Selerael held up an analyzer to get a reading on the atmosphere inside the alien ship. The air pressure inside read within the range of medium elevation terrestrial air pressure, with a barely perceptible decreased ratio of carbon dioxide and nitrogen to oxygen.

  After a moment, her eyes began to adjust to the pitch black.

  “It’s so dark,” she said. Her aura intensified, creating light to cast a beacon about her and guide her thought an aphotic realm of corridors. Her analyzer guided her right and then left again to what appeared to be the largest open area of the ship. She waited behind the door for a moment, but found no automated entry trigger. Using her mindwaves, she pried the door apart.

  A hiss of vapors rushed into the corridor behind her, blowing across her face in a gust of warm but crisp air, crinkling her nose with the slightly acidic smell.

  “Pee-yew.” She exclaimed.

  The life monitors remained stable in the negative range, but Selerael sensed the presence of hundreds of sentient beings before her. She stepped cautiously forward and cast an illumination beacon into the cavern, but the room was already bright enough to see. Illuminated panels covered the black metallic walls and swept across the floor, colors dancing in sequences that mesmerized her. Huge metal squares two meters long and wide rose from the floor in an even checkerboard pattern, separated by only narrow lanes a foot wide cut deep into the base.

  Selerael sensed the life support that fed the aliens in front of her slowly fading. In another thousand years, it would be extinguished, terminating the lives of the creatures that had slept undisturbed in their long journey across space.

  Wake, she called to them.

  A loud echoing hum sounded beneath the floor. She heard a depressurizing sound, just as some force released the metallic casings before her. The casings retracted and slipped into the hollows between the squares, releasing more vapors that obscured her view of the awakening.

  By the time the mist cleared, she could descry a group of biped creatures emerging from the containers that had held them.

  Forty-two surviving humanoids stood and crawled their way out of the deep suspension suspended animation canisters. They blinked at the intrusion of light coming from the open doorway where Selerael waited and stopped, staring at her with keen, unwavering gazes.

  Selerael studied the man closest to her, a pale man with skin grey as stone and a shimmer of silvery-green eyes.

  The man cast her a strange look of passive acceptance as he felt her mind reach out to him and pick over his surface thoughts, to find the hidden secrets buried within.

  * * * * *

  His memory had dimmed in the long hyper-sleep, but he remembered the commotion as they neared the final moment, a point predicted a billion years before his time. What chaos it had been! What a panic! Despite the fact that he and the others had been born knowing they would live to see the end.

  They had prepared long years for that moment, and yet there was no guarantee that their people could escape the Great Collapse. The crucial test would be the last. They would only know that they had escaped if they still lived, if they ever awoke again.

  The fleet of a billion ships departed each of their inhabited worlds, no one course the same, each ship equipped with a singularity made of exotic matter, a singularity that allowed the ships to vault through the dimensional barrier between universes and time, each ship set on a course without hope of survival, to defy the end of the Great Collapse and escape the death of their universe.

  Each ship had launched itself towards a different universe through the portals of time—perhaps one in a thousand neighboring universes viable to their form of matter. The bulk of the great fleet, the last of their civilization, would perish, annihilated by the hostile space-time of other universes, anti-matter, and the smallest miscalculation of their course. It would be a miracle if any of them, even one out trillions, survived.

  Once outside their own universe, the computers would take care of them until forward time returned, and they could travel once again into the realms of existence and matter they had known.

  Then if by some chance they had succeeded in the escape of their own universe, the re-entry into the new universe would again reset the narrow odds of survival; of all those who had survived thus far, fewer still would make the journey successfully into hostile regions, or into the regions of newly formed matter formed from the death of their own ancestral home.

  They had only known of the dangers, but would have no idea how their luck had saved them, no idea that they had been saved until they woke.

  Yet in their dreams, while they slept undisturbed by time, horrible visions had come to haunt them, visions which would always haunt them, even when they woke, even when unnatural time robbed them of their memories, as it was certain to do. He longed for
that. Yes, take his memories! Oblivion could not come too soon. How he remembered and did not want to remember those horrible visions! The man had thought he would see nothing, feel nothing, nothing throughout their eternal sleep, but instead they had suffered unending torment, a punishment for those who had been fated to die with their universe, who had escaped their natural fate.

  Oh yes, there had been torment! The nightmares—they were coming for him. He remembered them now, they were coming. Nightmares in which he had known such torturous pain, pain all of his senses told him had been real—that no painkiller could clear away from his mind and body even as he slept.

  Selerael pulled her mind away abruptly. She found herself shivering; she was not cold. Quickly she recomposed herself, then contacted the thought-activated computer and asked for an approximation of the time passed since the journey began. A mental calculation into Earth equivalent put the time elapsed since re-entry at more than seventeen billion years! a figure she never could have known if she hadn’t read the aliens’ minds. Moreover, the computer had been unable to measure time until forward time passed in the new exploding universe.

  These aliens had been drifting in space for seventeen billion years! From what she had understood, it had survived a Big Bang of their universe by leaving their universe for another that was only just born.

  The computer reported that it had undergone damage in the impact of forward time, that it had lost its navigation and main source of power. It had continued to accelerate the ship, avoiding stellar dangers. Then the computer had found a safe area, using the last of its power to reverse acceleration until it achieved stationary status.

  Its energy at minimum power, the back-up system of this spaceship channeled all the energy the ship absorbed from space into the life-support systems. There had been no planetary systems then, at the beginning of the universe, capable of sustaining life, but the ship could not wait. In its last effort to protect the crew in this relatively stable area of space, it had no longer enough energy to reactivate the crew. Here the ship had waited another 14 billion years.