Bender of Worlds

by Isaac Hooke

  The alien moved away from the hole, and Tane spotted a sharp projectile protruding. The wireframe representation on the LIDAR band made that projectile appear lumpy, and slightly irregular.

  “Looks like more rock to me,” Sinive said.

  “Exactly what it’s supposed to look like,” G’allanthamas said. “The Builders create almost everything out of these crystals, which are formed of the Dark Essence.”

  G’allanthamas resumed digging, and Tane and Sinive joined in to lend a hand. Jed also materialized to help.

  After several minutes they had exhumed a large, arrowhead-shaped crystal.

  “Now this is a dweller shuttle,” Sinive commented.

  “Get back, get back,” G’allanthamas said.

  Tane and the others obeyed. He noticed a section of crystal slightly offset from the others on the underside of that arrowhead. It folded open, providing a ramp. G’allanthamas led the way inside.

  “Why was I expecting it to iris open or something,” Sinive said as she followed the dweller up. “Folding open seems like something only human craft should do. But an alien shuttle? The hatches should iris open. Like a pupil adjusting to the light.”

  “Thank you for giving me a lecture on how my own technology should work,” G’allanthamas said.

  “Just saying,” Sinive told him.

  “Yes, well, since we were doing this for thousands of years before we met your kind,” the dweller said. “I’m inclined to believe that we invented the technology, and you copied it from us.”

  “And only a short while ago you were telling me that you weren’t as pompous and self-centered as other dwellers,” Sinive said.

  “You know, if you two weren’t different species, I’d almost think you were flirting,” Tane commented.

  He glanced at her, but the LIDAR didn’t penetrate her faceplate, so all he saw was a blank square where her features would have been.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Sinive said. “Fulfills some kinky dream of yours or something?”

  Tane didn’t have an answer for that one.

  The ramp closed behind Jed and the party waited in silence while G’allanthamas toyed with some console on the far side of the compartment.

  The LIDAR highlighted a series of large holes on the cabin floor, likely meant to fit dweller occupants. Tane went to the edge of one of them and sat down, letting his legs dangle inside. Jed joined him, while Sinive took another hole for herself.

  A minute passed.

  “Well Dweller?” Jed said impatiently. “Do you plan to leave while it’s still dark?”

  In answer blue veins in the surrounding walls began to glow, illuminating the spacious cabin. The interior was made entirely of black crystals, all of which seemed substantial and real. Tane, Sinive and Jed meanwhile continued to look blurry, as if they didn’t belong in this universe.

  Which they did not.

  “Nice,” Sinive said. “It’s like spelunking inside a cave filled with glow worms!”

  “You’ve been inside such a structure before,” Jed said. “Though you probably don’t remember it.”

  In the dim light, Tane could see her features behind the glass pane of her faceplate: her smile faded at Jed’s words, and he thought she shuddered.

  “No, I remember,” Sinive said.

  “Then that is just as well,” Jed said. Tane noted the Volur was excluding the dweller from the comm channel at the moment. “We must remain vigilant at all times.”

  “You think the dweller is leading us into a trap?” Sinive asked.

  “All I’m saying is, be on guard,” Jed told her. He looped the dweller back into the main channel.

  G’allanthamas exchanged a serious of shrieks and clatters with the shuttle’s AI, and the craft shuddered, taking to the air.

  “Well look at that, it works after all,” Sinive said.

  Gia quickly moved to the offline column on Tane’s contact list, as the nodes in their chips and spacesuits weren’t powerful enough to maintain the adhoc mixnet with the rapidly receding Mosaic.

  “So what’s this shuttle called?” Sinive asked.

  “I’ve rechristened it Sinive,” G’allanthamas said.

  “Funny,” she said. “Seriously, what’s it called?”

  “There is no matching name in the human tongue,” G’allanthamas said.

  “Fine,” Sinive said. “I’ll call it Squeaky. Because that’s how it sounds.”

  An upset series of clatters and shrieks came from the overhead intercom.

  “The AI takes umbrage at that name,” G’allanthamas said.

  “I’m surprised it even understands me,” Sinive said.

  “It’s programmed to understand several human languages, of course,” the dweller said. “It just can’t speak them.”

  “I don’t suppose you can feed the shuttle’s positional data to our overhead maps?” Tane said. “So we can keep apprised of how far away we are from the city?”

  In answer, Tane received a sharing request from the dweller. He accepted and saw his position update on the HUD.

  “Looks like we’re keeping relatively low to the ground,” Jed said.

  “And continuing to weave back and forth,” Sinive added. “Are we still worried about observation centers now that we’re aboard an actual dweller craft?”

  “It is best if we are not detected until closer to the city, yes,” G’allanthamas said.

  “Then what was the point of switching to the shuttle?” Sinive pressed.

  “The observation centers form a tighter grid near the city,” the dweller said. “So the Mosaic would have never made it. When the shuttle is finally detected, it’s likely the observers will assume we’re from a tribe outlying the city, and I’ve told the AI to relay as much. I’ll land on the city outskirts, in a blind spot within their detection grid, and we’ll proceed the rest of the way on foot as planned.”

  G’allanthamas timed their journey westward across the continent so that the night followed them the whole way. The goal was to arrive at the city during the hour of least activity, when the dweller city was essentially asleep.

  About two hours in, the cabin shook. Tane glanced at his overhead map and realized the shuttle had come to a halt. The flashing waypoint on the map indicated the artifact was one kilometer to the north.

  “We’re here?” Tane started to get up.

  “Yes, but we’re early,” G’allanthamas said. “We must wait until Bhavan, the time of rest. The darkest hour. Then we’ll exit the shuttle and approach on foot. I will blur your bodies with the Dark Essence, confusing the perimeter sensors into believing you are dwellers.”

  Tane sat back down.

  “It’s too bad you can’t apply blurring to a shuttle,” Jed said. “Then we could fly right to the artifact and be done with this.”

  “I wish I had a high enough level in the necessary work,” G’allanthamas admitted.

  “How long do we have to wait?” Tane asked.

  “Thirty minutes,” the dweller answered.

  Ordinarily Tane would have been extremely apprehensive right about now, considering in thirty minutes he was going to sneak inside the heart of a dweller city, but the emotion-dulling effects of the Umbra kept him calm. He was grateful for that.

  In her deck gap nearby, Sinive’s legs bobbed up and down in nervous anticipation. Jed meanwhile had removed his glowing Chrysalium sword, and seemed to be stropping it with a strip of leather. Tane didn’t think a sword of that caliber needed sharpening, but he suspected the Volur was only doing it to keep his mind occupied. Or maybe he was merely cleaning the blood of previously vanquished foes.

  Meanwhile Tane used a small part of his own spare time to calmly prepare works of Fingers of Ruin and Melt Metal, placing them in reserve so that the dark globes floated above and in front of him.

  A blurring sphere of darkness appeared around Tane. A couple of minutes later another sphere surrounded Sinive. And then G’allanthamas himself.

&n
bsp; “I presume you will become invisible when we leave, Volur?” G’allanthamas asked Jed.

  “Your presumption is correct,” Jed answered.

  “Good,” the dweller said. “Saves me from blurring you.” The alien stood up on his eight legs and waggled his tentacles. “It’s time.”

  The blue veins that provided illumination began to fade out as the crystalline ramp lowered behind them.

  “Should we reduce the transmission range of our comm nodes or not?” Sinive said. “I seem to remember something about the magnetic resonance from the blurring spheres masking that.”

  “The magnetic resonance from the spheres will prevent any readers from detecting your RFIDs,” G’allanthamas said. “But your other emissions are unaffected. So yes, I would recommend reducing your transmission range. No LIDAR, please.”

  “Switching to infrared and night vision,” Jed said. “And reducing broadcast range to five meters.”

  Tane and Sinive likewise reduced their own transmission range.

  “Can you share your night vision feed?” Tane asked. He could have used the appropriate Dark work instead, but if he could share Jed’s feed and save some of his stamina, he might as well.

  “You might want to try your helmet’s own night vision,” Jed replied.

  “Oh, I didn’t know I had that,” Tane said. “I just assumed, because I don’t have LIDAR...”

  He couldn’t remember seeing a night vision option anywhere, but he accessed the spacesuit’s HUD and went to the settings area. Sure enough, night vision and infrared were available.

  He activated the pair: the entire cabin appeared black behind Tane, while a gentle green glow emanated from the bottom of the ramp ahead.

  Jed led the way toward the surface. He had become invisible, so Tane only knew where he was because of his indicator on the overhead map. Tane allowed Sinive in front of him, and followed her down, stepping onto the rocky ground. G’allanthamas came behind him.

  Tane paused to survey his surroundings. Varying shades of dark green indicated the terrain immediately around him. The shuttle was a large green and black arrowhead. The dweller stood out from the landscape, but just barely: the blurring sphere made G’allanthamas appear to be an indistinct blob beside Tane. The same was true of Sinive on the other side, though she was much smaller in comparison. No doubt both of them blended in perfectly at farther distances.

  Tane turned toward the flashing waypoint indicated on his map until he was facing a flat, green surface of uniform green that dominated the landscape all the way to the horizon, almost like a lake. It seemed to be the source of the dim light in the area that allowed the night vision to work in the first place.

  “Where’s the dweller city?” Tane asked.

  “Right in front of you,” G’allanthamas said. “The city is underneath a liquid hydrocarbon lake.”

  “Good of you to tell us this tidbit now,” Tane said.

  “The dweller in fact told me,” Jed interjected. “Sorry, I thought you knew.”

  “Technically, it doesn’t matter,” Tane said. “We are wearing spacesuits, after all. But you do know I can’t swim, right?”

  “Vent oxygen for propulsion,” Jed said.

  “You make it sound so easy…”

  “By the way, Dweller,” Sinive said. “I thought your kind didn’t need a liquid environment to survive in the Umbra?”

  “We don’t,” G’allanthamas said.

  “So why build a city in a hydrocarbon lake?”

  “Because, while we don’t need liquid, we do prefer it,” the dweller explained. “Plus, it’s harder for the Hated TSN to detect our colonies that way.”

  “I like how you’ve gone from Hated Enemy to Hated TSN,” Sinive said.

  “Yes, well, that was your doing,” G’allanthamas said.

  “Glad I’m finally rubbing off on you,” Sinive said.

  “It’s not so much you’re rubbing off,” the dweller said. “But rather your nagging and complaining is taking its toll…”

  “Guys!” Tane said. “Can we go to the artifact now?”

  “Sorry,” G’allanthamas said. “One moment while I create a beacon.” The dweller turned toward him. “Unless of course you’d prefer to leave your existing artifact behind, which contains my previous beacon?”

  “No,” Tane said.

  “Didn’t think so,” G’allanthamas said.

  The dweller retrieved a large stone fragment from the shards covering the surface and held it up with the fingers at the tip of one tentacle. Veins of dark blue began to glow within the fragment.

  “It’s done,” G’allanthamas said. “I’ve transferred the beacon from your existing artifact to this stone.”

  The alien set the dimly glowing fragment down next to the shuttle and buried it under other stone shards until its gentle light was hidden. G’allanthamas seemed entirely unaffected by the effort involved in creating the beacon, which was impressive, given that it was a level seven work of the Dark.

  “You’re not tired after that?” Tane asked.

  “I prepared it during the journey here,” G’allanthamas replied. “So there was no stamina drain involved in its release.”

  “Okay, well good,” Tane said. “So. To the artifact…”

  “To the artifact,” G’allanthamas agreed.

  Jed was already heading toward the lake, according to the overhead map. G’allanthamas followed him. Tane once more allowed Sinive in front of him, and then he brought up the rear.

  As he got closer, Tane confirmed that a dim glow did indeed come from the lake. Tane decided that the stamina drain from Night Vision was worth boosting his visual acuity even further, so he released the work after the short creation time, brightening his surroundings enough for him to disable the thermal imaging provided by his helmet entirely.

  The dark filaments from his body led away at an angle into the lake. That was a good sign that the artifact was still intact and waiting within. Then again, seeing as this was a dweller city, it was also possible that some other Essenceworkers had created a reservoir of the Dark within, though somehow Tane doubted he would have had access to the Dark reserves it contained. At least, he assumed that was what the threads leading from him to the artifact meant.

  “Activate shield generators,” Jed said.

  “Will they be detected?” Sinive asked.

  “No,” G’allanthamas said.

  Tane activated his unit. Shield generators worked in liquid environments, of course, and their energy fields would pass through the hydrocarbons without draining.

  “We’re entering the surveillance field,” G’allanthamas said. “If they’ve developed technology to penetrate blurring fields, we’ll be receiving a visit shortly.”

  But as they continued their approach, no one came.

  Tane remained completely calm on the final leg to the hydrocarbon lake, no doubt thanks to the Umbra.

  “Once we hit the streets underneath, the blurring will continue to protect us from the monitoring AIs,” G’allanthamas said. “But if we encounter any dwellers on patrol, we must take shelter, because they will be fooled only at a distance.”

  “Do we have to worry about kraals in there?” Tane asked.

  “The city guards would have trained the kraals to avoid the hydrocarbon lake long ago,” G’allanthamas said.

  “Sounds like we wouldn’t want to be meeting these guards,” Tane said.

  “Probably not,” the dweller agreed.

  Jed reached the lake. Tane knew because he saw a disturbance on the surface, and a glance at his overhead map confirmed that the Volur was indeed at the outskirts.

  “Are we safe to increase transmission range to twenty-five meters?” Jed asked. “I intend to scout ahead.”

  “Should be safe,” G’allanthamas said. “The route I’ve plotted will take us well away from any detectors they have in the city. Until we arrive at our destination.”

  “You really did your homework,” Sinive said. “I�
�m impressed. Though I have to wonder if your information is outdated.”

  “It’s recent,” G’allanthamas insisted. “Up to a week ago, anyway.”

  “One of your great great great grandkids?” Sinive asked.

  “That’s right.”

  The alien entered the outskirts of the lake and advanced across the liquid. The dweller’s dark sphere descended, and then vanished as G’allanthamas apparently dove underneath the surface. Tane increased his transmission range to twenty-five meters, and the positions of the dweller and Jed updated on the map.

  Sinive paused near the edge of the lake. She was gazing out across the surface.

  “I’ve always been afraid of water,” she said. “I don’t know how to swim.”

  “Neither do I,” Tane said. “And this isn’t water.”

  She glanced at him; in the dim light, even with Night Vision active, he could barely see her features behind her faceplate, obscured as she was by the blurring field. But she smiled slightly. “I suppose you’re right.”

  With that she waded into the lake.

  Tane hesitated only a moment, and then followed.

  25

  Tane found trudging through that hydrocarbon lake somewhat different from wading through ordinary water. The liquid offered less pull against his motions, and tiny waves seemed to ripple away from him a lot farther.

  Sinive, just in front of him, abruptly dropped from view, leaving only ripples. Had she been pulled under by something? Or…

  Tane quickly waded forward and the lakebed gave away underneath him. Tane instinctively took a deep breath as he fell, even though he was enclosed in a pressurized environment.

  The liquid engulfed him and he plunged downward rapidly. He had stepped off a shelf of some kind. He vented a burst of oxygen to slow his descent. He expected his surroundings to grow darker as he descended, but the liquid around him actually appeared to brighten. Looking down, he understood why.

  The dweller city was spread before him, in the deep valley situated at the bottom of the shelf. Irregular crystals jutted upward, sprawling across the entire lakebed as far as Tane could see. Some of those crystals looked almost like reefs and the tree-like coralline structures that formed in human oceans. Those crystals were the source of the lake’s glow, and emitted a dim blue light into the liquid. At least Tane thought it was blue—it might have been white light that was blue-shifted like all photons in this universe. The crystals were obviously Essence-imbued, or perhaps made with the Dark Essence by dweller Builders. With Tane’s Night Vision active, it made the city seem just as bright as any human city viewed from the air by night.