Only a handful of people remained in the courtyard, frozen with uncertainty. The cleric’s shoulders slumped, and he held out a hand, calling the hovering holo projector back to his palm. He stepped down from the bench that had served as his pulpit, shaking his head.
“Only fools must shout to be heard,” Brak hissed.
Lucien glanced at the Gor. “Not if wisdom falls on deaf ears.” He turned and strode toward the cleric.
“Where do you go?” Brak asked.
“To sign the petition,” Lucien replied.
The cleric regarded him with wary suspicion as he approached.
“I’ll sign your petition,” Lucien announced, drawing shocked looks from the remaining people in the courtyard.
The cleric’s gaze abruptly widened. “A Paragon advocating disobedience? And a champion, no less!”
“Not disobedience,” Lucien corrected. “Reconsideration. Your ideas are absurd, but you were right about one thing: this blasphemy deserves an answer, and the only way to answer it is to send the mission that you propose. Besides, it is only a petition. Etherus will have the final word, and in His wisdom, He will know how to answer it.”
The cleric smiled, and held out his holo projector once more. A document appeared floating above his palm, and Lucien read the title at a glance.
Petition to Send a Mission to the Cosmic Horizon.
“Where do I sign?” Lucien asked.
“Here…” the cleric made a gesture, and the document scrolled rapidly by a list of countless thousands of prior signatures. Lucien was shocked by the sheer number of people who had already signed. From the reactions of the people in the courtyard, he’d assumed this heresy was as unpopular as any other. But with over six hundred trillion people aboard the Icosahedron, sheer probability dictated that even the most obscure ideas would be shared by a large number of people.
Lucien hesitated briefly before using his index finger to add his own signature at the bottom of the document. Perhaps Etherus would agree to send the mission. Or maybe He’d simply tell them what they’d find, and save them the trouble.
“You’ll get your answers, cleric,” Lucien said, “but when you do, don’t be surprised to find out that you were wrong.”
Lucien turned to leave, but the cleric’s reply slithered back to his ears like a snake. “There’s no shame in being wrong, Lucien, only in being afraid to ask the question.”
The cleric had obviously looked up Lucien’s name on his ARCs. Lucien turned back to face him and returned the favor. “There’s always another question… Damon Korr.”
Damon inclined his head. “And always another answer.”
“The only way you can answer them all is to know everything, and then you would be god, not Etherus. If that is your goal, then what you are preaching is treason, and I’ll have to arrest you.”
“Of course not,” Damon replied. But the cleric said it with a smile.
Lucien scowled. “Have a good night.”
“And you, sir.” With that, the cleric vanished, leaving his holo projector behind, still hovering in the air. After just a moment, the projector itself zipped up and away, and that glinting silver speck quickly became lost against the myriad lights shining down from the artificial night’s sky.
Of course, Lucien thought. The cleric wouldn’t risk his life by preaching his heresy in person.
Lucien stalked back to Brak’s side. “Let’s go,” he said. “We’ve got better things to do than listen to hot air escape a cleric’s lungs.”
Chapter 1
—One Month Later—
Lucien stood on a viewport in the floor of his quarters in Level One, looking down on a carpet of clouds. Here and there, where the clouds parted, he saw the distant surface of Halcyon, the capital facet of New Earth, peeking out with the dark, verdant greens of forests, and the sparkling blues of lakes and rivers. Most people would rather live on the surface, but Lucien actually preferred living above it all, having a bird’s eye perspective. Besides, he couldn’t afford to live down there on a champion’s salary.
If surface living was what you were after, you’d better have at least a million coin, or else move to a real planet somewhere out in the colonies.
A distinctive trumpet call sounded in Lucien’s head, relayed via his augmented reality implant. The comms icon in the upper right corner of his ARCs flashed insistently with an incoming message. A six-sided star circumscribed the icon, indicating that this message came straight from Etherus.
Lucien mentally selected the flashing icon and saw that more than a dozen holo news companies were currently broadcasting the message. He picked one at random and queued the message to play on the main holo display in his living room.
The wall in front of Lucien’s couch became a window into the palace throne room, with Etherus himself sitting on the throne. Lucien sat on his couch to watch.
An array of spherical holocorders hovered before the throne, each of them bearing the logo of a different holo news company. Lucien looked past them to Etherus himself. Like all Etherians, his skin was luminous and pale, but unlike the other members of his species, his eyes blazed blindingly, shining like twin suns. Long white hair cascaded to his shoulders, framing an inhumanly long face. His features were sharp and alien, and forbidding for that alienness, but somehow his face and glowing eyes managed to look both kindly and terrifying at the same time.
Skeptics of his deity, most of them clerics from the Academy, pointed out that with an application of a spray-on luminizer and minor modifications to their ARCs they could also radiate divine light wherever they went. Lucien found it best not to dwell on such doubts. They had a tendency to multiply.
“I come before you today, because a new petition has acquired the requisite one billion signatures for me to answer it personally,” Etherus said. “This petition is the proposal to send a mission past the red line to the cosmic horizon.
“Before I answer it, you should know that the red line exists for your own good, but not just yours. Etherians are also restricted by this boundary. The universe is a dangerous place, and I cannot guarantee your safety beyond the red line.
“Having said that, I will not keep you in a cage, so I will grant this petition and authorize a mission to the cosmic horizon. The explorers will take one of New Earth’s facets, and the crew will be made up of all one billion people who signed the petition. If you signed, but you don’t want to go, then you have one month to withdraw your signature. If you didn’t sign, but you do want to join the mission, then you are free to sign now. Choose wisely, however, because I will not be going with you.” Etherus pointed to one of the ball-shaped holo projectors hovering in front of him. “I will now answer one question from each of you.”
The indicated holocorder bobbed past the others, and a reporter’s disembodied voice bubbled out.
“We know that you can appear in a seemingly infinite number of places at once, but no one knows how you are able to do this. Is your decision not to go with the explorers based on a physical limitation of yours?”
“I am wherever and whenever I want to be. My decision not to join this mission is based on principle. The signers of the petition want to learn the nature of the universe because they are questioning whether I am really God. These people don’t want me in their lives, telling them what to do and believe, so I will respect their wishes. Next question.” Etherus pointed to another holocorder, and it floated to the fore while the previous one retreated.
“Why don’t you just tell us what we’ll find out there? Then we won’t need to send a mission.”
“Those who signed this petition wouldn’t believe me even if I told them, and if I did tell them, where would it end? They wouldn’t be satisfied until they knew everything, and knowing everything would make them gods in their own right—but perhaps not good ones. The explorers will encounter many such evils beyond the red line.”
Lucien felt his eyes widen with that revelation. It made sense that they would find ali
en empires beyond the red line, but no one had known for sure—until now.
Etherus pointed to a third holocorder, and it bobbed up to the throne.
“This is an old question,” the reporter began, “but it follows from what you’ve just said. Why do you allow evil to exist?”
“Does cold exist?” Etherus asked.
“We can feel it,” the reporter suggested.
“What you feel is just the absence of heat. Does darkness exist?”
The reporter hesitated before offering a reply this time. “Yes…?”
“And yet darkness is just the absence of light. Evil is the same as cold or darkness—you can perceive it, but it is just the absence of me.”
“So without you, good can’t exist? The clerics in Astralis might argue otherwise.”
“Without me, morality is strictly defined in terms of what is beneficial for the group and for the individual. In this model of morality, enslaving those you consider to be outside of your group could be considered morally right because their enslavement is advantageous to you and your survival.
“Asking why I allow evil to exist is just like asking why do I allow people to be free, and the answer is, because that’s what you wanted. It’s the reason the rebellion and the Great War started. Next question.” Etherus pointed to another holocorder.
“Everyone knows we used to be Etherians before the rebellion—before you made us human to give us a taste of freedom—but if Etherians aren’t tempted to do wrong, then how did the rebellion start?”
Etherus’s expression flickered into a frown. “The evil one started it.”
Lucien sat suddenly forward on his couch, his eyes wide. This was new, something Etherus had never told them before. The holocorders drifted closer to the throne.
“Where is this… evil one now?”
“Beyond the red line.”
“Who is he?”
“No further questions,” Etherus said.
The throne room erupted in chaos with reporters all shouting their questions at once in the hopes that Etherus would answer just one more, but he vanished from the throne, disappearing into thin air, and the light of his splendor went with him, plunging the room into darkness.
Lucien waved his holoscreen off before the talking heads could come on to dissect everything that Etherus had just said. He sat back in his couch with a deepening frown. There’s always another question… He had one for himself: What am I going to do?
He’d signed the petition, and now he had to decide whether to retract his signature, or cast in his lot with the explorers traveling to the cosmic horizon.
Chapter 2
“I’m going to be gone for a while, Troo,” Lucien said as they walked the streets of Halcyon, the capital facet of New Earth. A waterfall thundered in the background as it poured over the top of a skyscraper on the other side of the street. Colorful birds chirped in the gold-leafed, silver-trunked Gilda trees lining the street.
Out of the approximately five hundred thousand facets in New Earth, Halcyon was the one where everyone wanted to live: the most prosperous, and the most utopian in every way. The Paragons had their primary training facility here. Lucien had been living at that facility just two months ago. But now that he’d graduated, he had assigned quarters on Level One—yet another thing he was leaving behind.
“How long is you being gone?” Troo trilled, her vocal chords whistling with the strain of speaking Versal rather than her native tongue.
Troo, short for Troosssak’arrr, was the last living Fossak in the universe, an arboreal species that had been wiped out by their ancestral enemies, the Mamoks. Lucien had rescued Troo from them while exploring the outer reaches of the Large Magellanic Cloud with his father, Ethan. When they returned, Etherus took her in as a ward of the state, to be trained as a Paragon.
Lucien glanced down at Troo, wondering what he should tell her. How could he explain that he would be gone for two hundred years? She was only two years old. To her, two centuries would sound like forever. It sounded like forever to him, too, and he was ten times her age.
Troo stood on four legs, looking up at him with her giant green eyes. She had no discernible ears, but she had a long snout and tail, and her sleeveless gray tyro’s tunic revealed sleek black fur that gleamed in the sun. Four long white fangs protruded from her upper jaw to remind people that she wasn’t cute and cuddly.
A purple-feathered bird with six wings stole Lucien’s attention. He watched it land in one of the Gilda trees that lined the street. They were over a hundred stories above the surface of New Earth, but those trees gave the illusion that the surface was actually much closer.
A hover train went whirring by. The wind of its passing sent a rain of golden Gilda leaves fluttering down, and flapped the red cape and battle skirt that decorated Lucien’s gleaming white exosuit. Red was the color of champions. Lucien had once dreamed of someday becoming a crusader like his father, of having his own Star Galleon to command while he explored new star systems and galaxies all over Laniakea, but that dream would have to be put on hold now.
“Let’s go somewhere more private,” Lucien said, and started toward the edge of the street.
People sat on benches under the Gilda trees, admiring the waterfall on the other side of the street. Rather than find an empty bench to watch the view, Lucien walked straight up to the railing and waited for Troo. She padded up beside him, now walking on two legs. The top of her round, furry head only came up to his shoulder.
“Climb on my back,” he said.
Troo did so without asking why. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
“Hold on tight,” Lucien said as he climbed over the railing.
A few people glanced their way, but made no comment. By now everyone was used to seeing Paragons do strange, inexplicable things.
Lucien activated the grav boosters in his palms and boots, and leapt into the chasm between the skyscrapers. Adrenaline sparked through Lucien’s veins, and wind ripped at his cape, flapping it loudly. The exhilaration of flying brought a grin to his face. He looked down and saw a sapphire-blue pool sparkling in a park far below. Clouds of mist swirled around the waterfall, tickling their nostrils, and giving life to a sparkling rainbow that plunged dozens of stories into the chasm.
Up ahead, a catwalk crossed over the top of the waterfall. Dozens of people stood there, watching the view. They pointed to Lucien and Troo, shouting exclamations as they drew near.
But Lucien wasn’t aiming for the catwalk.
As the waterfall swelled to fill their entire view, Lucien added a last minute impulse from his grav boosters and rocketed straight through—
To a penthouse balcony behind. He landed there. His hair and armor were dripping wet, but he was dry from the neck down thanks to his exosuit.
Troo fell off his back with a splat. She let out an angry growl and shook herself like a canine, sending drops of water flying in all directions. Lucien regarded her with a smile.
“Something wrong, Troo?”
“You is knowing that I hate to be wetness! You do this on purpose.”
“It’s a hot day. I thought you might like to cool off.”
Troo bared her teeth at him and licked her forelegs to straighten the fur.
Lucien looked around the balcony. There were hanging plants, ferns, and flowers everywhere. The penthouse was empty and listed for sale, so they wouldn’t have any problems with the owners. Lucien usually brought his dates up here, but it was a good place to talk to Troo as well.
Lucien went to sit on a bench in the garden, facing the waterfall. After a moment, Troo came and sat beside him.
Sheets of water curled endlessly in front of them, creating a blurry view of the elevated streets where they’d been walking a moment ago.
“This is what people who are wealth live like?” Troo asked, her large green eyes bigger than ever as she looked around the garden.
“Wealthy people, yes.”
“I is to be liking this.”
Lucien snorted. “Who wouldn’t?”
Troo turned her green eyes on him. “Here we are privacy. How long is you being gone?”
Lucien took a deep breath. “I don’t know. It might be several hundred years before I return.”
Troo blinked. “You is making humor.” She gave a warbling laugh to emphasize her point, but he didn’t join in. “Why is you not laughter?”
“I’m not laugh-ing because it’s not a joke. I really will be gone for hundreds of years.”
“No mission is taking that long. You effort to get rid of me by saying this.” Troo looked away, the fur on the back of her neck rising with displeasure.
“Troo, that’s not true…” Lucien frowned at the awkward phrasing, and tried again. “I’m not trying to get rid of you. You’re like a little sister to me. I’m telling you this, because you deserve to know the truth.”
Troo’s large, almond-shaped eyes narrowed to slits. “Where is you going?”
“Past the red line, to the cosmic horizon.”
“You is to be going on the mission for the clerics?!” Troo growled, her fur rising again.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I have my reasons.”
“What reasonings? Etherus is be saying no. You is be saying yes. This is to be disobedience. To be Paragon is to be obedience. Is not you being a Paragon?”
“I am.”
Troo held his gaze unblinkingly. “Not for long.”
Lucien frowned. “Etherus didn’t say no. He’s not trying to stop us from leaving.”
“But He is not being approval, or He is to be going with.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lucien said. “This is important.”
“Why?” Troo asked again.
“Because people are doubting Etherus, and they’ll go on doubting until they learn that the universe must have had a creator.”
“Then let the clerics be leaving. Why must you be joining them?”
“Because those clerics are going to need all the Paragons they can get on this mission, or they’re going to get themselves killed long before they reach their destination.”
Dark Space Universe (Book 1) Page 2
