Gedron was sure the Entrope was monitoring him, and it was for this reason that he was not working at the Omegahedron or his home. Those infochryst terminals would almost certainly be under surveillance. Here he could be assured of some degree of protection, if he were careful.
Gedron waved his hands above the infochryst and it sprang to life. He first activated a group of subroutines designed to mask the identity of the device from the Ionocaric Infochryst and prevent the data stored within from being accessed beyond this particular terminal. Only then did he bring the two devices together. For a moment they communicated in silent, rapid flashes of blue light, then a shimmering information network coalesced in the air above them.
He worked quickly, first confirming his intuitions regarding the properties of Kaons via a search of the public physics databases. The results brought a smile to his face. One of the high-energy mesons, Kaons possessed weak isospin, a property that the ligher mesons did not have. In and of itself this was of little consequence, but when coupled with the Kaon’s momentum this property gave each particle a chirality, a “handedness” to its spiraling motion that drastically changed its interactiveness with the weak force and hence its rate of decay. Known as CP symmetry violation, this effect was thought to be the primary cause of the dominance of matter over antimatter in the universe.
With this new information in hand, Gedron called up the simulation of the redesigned vacuum sculptors, paying specific attention to the predicted balance of Kaon chirality that the devices would generate. It took an eternity to run the model on his tiny infochryst, but firewall or not, he was not going to take the chance of moving the simulation to the much faster public terminal. When the run was complete, the results were more encouraging than he had hoped. Over eighty percent of Kaons generated by the new vacuum sculptor resonances were of the long type, a mix of chiral states that allowed for extended particle lives and a much higher effect on the strong force binding constant. All that was needed to disable the vacuum sculptors was to change this balance. If he could be sure that enough short-lived Kaons were produced by the process then the danger of supernova could be averted.
Gedron leaned back and closed his eyes as a mixture of exhaustion and excitement ran through him. Changing the Kaon mix should only require a simple alteration in the neutronium filament resonant frequency. The greater issue was how to transmit that new frequency to the millions of vacuum sculptors that were even now being seeded into Vai’s photosphere. He was still far from a solution, but he felt sure he was on the right path. He only hoped that Trielle was meeting with similar success.
And Garin, he still dared not think about Garin…
Chapter 26: The Forgotten Vale
The golden sphere skimmed across a gently curving expanse of translucent crystal. Beneath its surface Trielle could see the whole of the Conclave spread out like a map.
“We’re currently skirting the edge of the world-shell that contains your cosmos,” said Anacrysis, “a structure that I believe your cosmologists would call a five-brane. What you see beneath it is a multidimensional view of your universe’s spacetime. But there is more you must see; lift up your eyes.”
Trielle did so, and gasped as she caught her first glimpse of the mountain.
A series of crags made of stars and darkness rose beyond the expanse, culminating in a soaring peak crowned with terrible light. Upon its slopes rested four bright gems that gleamed with unearthly colors. Though they looked small from her current position, Trielle could not escape the sense that the gems, like the crystal plain beneath her, were large enough to contain whole universes.
“Anacrysis, what… what is this place?” cried Trielle, overwhelmed by a sudden wave of wonder and terror.
“Despite what the Conclave has taught you, Trielle,” said Anacrysis, “your cosmos is not the only one. It is but the lowest link in the great chain of worlds. And this,” he spread his arms to indicate the entire mountain, “is the foundation upon which they rest, the greater reality in which they live, move, and have their being.”
Though she knew she had never seen this strange, otherworldly vista before, it still seemed somehow familiar. Then she remembered Garin’s map, and rush of hope swelled within her.
“Anacrysis, is this where Garin went?”
Anacrysis nodded. “By now he is in the upper worlds,” he said, pointing to the gems that rested on the highest slopes of the mountain. “A rumor has come to us that he was separated from the one you call Kyr, but even now they draw closer together.”
It was as if a heavy burden had been lifted from Trielle’s shoulders. She felt a great tension that, until now, had lay coiled below the surface of her consciousness suddenly rise up and give way, leaving only mingled relief and joy behind. For a few moments she said nothing, a wide smile on her face, but then her natural curiosity reasserted itself and a new question rose in her mind.
“Anacrysis,” she asked, “how is it that you can travel like this?”
Anacrysis thought for a moment. “It is difficult to explain,” he said finally. “Your scientists are used to considering the natural world, even space itself, as something inanimate that can be manipulated with tools such as the Laridian rings, but you must not think of it that way. The cosmos is not a dead thing but a living expression of the outpoured life of He Who Is, its Maker, and every thread of the world’s being throbs with His heartbeat. The body that houses your spirit is, in its current state, like a poem or play composed of the ephemeral fluctuations that you call particles and fields. The Anastasi, however, exist at a deeper level. At the time of my resurrection the patterns that once were contained in the matter of my body was written upon the underlying structure of spacetime itself. Do not misunderstand, even in your present form you partake of the Life of the World, for there is one Life just as there is one Life-giver, but because my current body is essentially composed of pure spacetime I have much greater latitude in my relationship with distance. It is a relationship in which all created beings were meant to partake. But we can speak of this later. We have almost arrived.”
The golden sphere dropped downward, merging with the crystalline material beneath it like a bubble of soap alighing on a pool of still water, and the worlds of the Conclave unfolded before Trielle. To their immediate left hung a brown dwarf, its surface a churning soup of opaque gases and dully glowing plasma. Ahead lay a small planet pockmarked with thousands of craters.
“Is that En-Ka-Re?” asked Trielle.
Anacrysis nodded.
Within moments they were soaring over the planet’s surface, the craters and fissures passing beneath them in a dizzying blur. At first she thought them natural features, but as they flew onward she began to notice a strange uniformity to their shapes and sizes, almost as if they were artificial. Then she understood. These were not natural features at all; they were the scars of war.
Ahead loomed a mountain ridge covered by a sprawling collection of technology - generators, pipes and electrophotonic architecture all feeding into a line of laridian rings that stood upon the crest of the ridge like sentinels. Although they were currently inactive, the rings appeared ready to spin up at a moments’ notice.
“The Siegewall,” said Anacrysis darkly. “It has been there ever since the war and the hiding of Hyrosol Neos. It keeps the Sur Ekklesia imprisoned within the valley beyond.”
As they neared the ridge, Trielle saw a group of indistinct figures tending to the machinery.
“Those are the Entrope’s personal guard,” said Anacrysis, “an army of clones with altered brain strutures that carry all of his intelligence, but none of his will. He would trust no-one else with guarding this valley.”
“Won’t they see us?” asked Trielle.
“No,” said Anacrysis. “Though we are close enough to the cosmos to see within it clearly, our bodies are still outside the world-shell, and they cannot detect us until we pierce it. An Anastasi re-entering normal space produces a specific pattern of gravity wave
s that is fairly easy localize with the right sensors. While they expect to see that pattern every now and then within the Valley of the Sur, detecting it outside could trigger a massive retaliation. It is the sword that the Conclave has hung above our heads.”
Trielle thought about this a moment.
“So is that why I had to meet you on the moon of Galed?”
Anacrysis nodded. “That moon is almost pure iron. It’s one of the densest bodies in the Conclave. Combined with Galed’s tidal forces, it fills that area of space with enough gravitational anomalies to confuse all but the most accurate sensor arrays. Still, it’s risky to appear even there. Had I manifested as an Anastasi on Latis or one of the other inner worlds there would not have been a valley to return to.”
As he spoke, a troubling thought arose in Trielle’s mind.
“Anacrysis, I need to tell you something. My father is the High Gravitist of the Conclave.”
“I know,” said Anacrysis. “Most of the Anastasi know as well. We have been watching you and your brother for some time now. Our ability to enter the world-shell without fully translating into normal space has many uses.”
Trielle could see the figures atop the ridge clearly now: their bodies covered in black and green armor, their faces obscured by featureless masks. They seemed close enough to touch, and for a moment she was afraid that they would be seen despite Anacrysis’ assurances, but the golden bubble sailed by the guards undetected. Then the mountain wall fell away behind them and they soared into the valley beyond.
Here the land sloped sharply downward into a deep bowl filled with a golden haze. The ground was covered in scrub grasses, punctuated by the occasional twisted trunk of a tree. They were the first plants Trielle had seen on this planet.
“En-Ka-Re once had an atmosphere - thin, but breathable to most of the races that composed the Dar,” said Anacrysis, “but the war changed all that. Now the only place with enough air to support life is this valley. Even if the inhabitants were permitted to colonize the rest of the planet, there is nowhere else to go. Still, the vale is fairly spacious and supports the remnant well enough.”
The scrub grasses soon gave way to a patchwork ring of fields surrounding a collection of slender, transparent buildings that rose skyward like a glass forest. As they approached the buildings, their movement slowed until soon they hovered above a single structure. A few seconds later the golden bubble dove abruptly downward, passing through the structure as if it were a mirage. There was a blast of wind and a shattering sound as if they had just crashed through an invisible barrier. Then the golden sphere unfolded, and Trielle found herself standing next to Anacrysis on the cold stone floor of a basement chamber.
Despite its subterranean location, the chamber was brightly lit by a number of lamps made of luminescent sapphires that hung from the ceiling. The center of the chamber was, save for them, unoccupied, but a table and several rude stools filled one corner, overshadowed by a gnarled plant wrapped in vines and crowned with golden-red foliage.
“Xellasmos,” called Anacrysis, “we have come. There is someone here you must meet.”
“Indeed,” said a voice that sounded more like rough surfaces being rubbed together than an exhaled breath. To Trielle’s surprise, the gnarled plant turned and moved toward her, the vines wrapped about its trunks coiling and uncoiling to pull it across the ground. The bright foliage atop the plant fanned outward at it approached, revealing a central core of flowers that vaguely resembled a human face. The creature came to a stop several feet from the pair and for a long time stood immobile, as if staring at them. Then, with utmost graciousness, it spoke.
“And who might this be?”
The creature’s speech was largely comprehensible to her, despite the raspy quality of the sound, but many of the words had the same odd divergent quality she had noticed in Tseramed’s chant.
“Her name is Trielle,” said Anacrysis, “and she had come to learn the true history of the Sur Ekklesia. But it is her brother that I feel may be of most interest to you.”
“Indeed,” said Xellasmos after a moment of deliberation. “Have you brought him as well?”
“No,” said Anacrysis. “Even now he ascends the road. He is the first to do so in millennia.”
At these words a trembling thrill ran through the creature’s foliage.
“Could he be…”
“Perhaps,” said Anacrysis, cutting him off, “but the situation is more complicated than this. Their father is the High Gravitist of the Conclave, and Vai is in his hands. If we do not proceed with care, this could undo everything.”
“It is worse that you think,” said Trielle. “The last attempt to reignite Vai was unsuccessful because my father had a change of heart. He saw the destruction it was causing and stopped the process. When the other Heirophants understood what he did they stripped him of his authority over Vai. They have also developed another, perhaps even more dangerous, way to attempt reignition.”
As Trielle told them about the vacuum sculptors Xellasmos’ foliage began to droop and Anacrysis’ lips narrowed in an expression of grim concern.
“This is indeed dire,” said Xellasmos after she finished. “And you say that we have only a few days before they are activated?”
“At most,” confirmed Trielle.
Anacrysis took a deep breath. “Though this is disturbing news, it is comforting to know that your father is no longer an enemy of the Sur Ekklesia. His aid may yet prove vital. Now is not the time for despair, but for knowledge and action. Trielle, you have been brought to Xellasmos to learn the truth. He is one of the foremost scholars of all the Alapsari races on the history of the Conclave.”
“When I last spoke with my father, he told me of the founding of the Dar Ekklesia Empire by an alien extradimensional entity of some sort, and about the war…”
Trielle’s voice trailed off as she saw a look of mingled amusement and incredulity in Anacrysis’ eyes.
“Is that how they remember things?” said Xellasmos with a note of shock.
“If so, then the truth has been completely lost even among the Conclave’s leaders,” answered Anacrysis.
”Forgive my surprise,” he continued, turning to Trielle. “I meant no disrespect, but it is both sad and amusing to hear He Who Is, Son of He Who Is, the very source and life of the Cosmos, being referred to as an ‘alien extradimensional entity.’ No, Trielle, it is the Conclave that is truly alien, for your people in their ongoing rejection of that life have alienated themselves from the very breath that sustains their existence.”
Trielle’s brow furrowed with incomprehension.
“Your father’s story stands in relationship to the truth as a blurred, cracked mirror to the reality it reflects,” said Xellasmos. “The actual story of your people, and by extension the story of the Conclave, extends ninety one thousand years into the past. I was then in my youth, and our race, the Ferisi, had just developed the technology to survey other worlds…”
“Wait,” said Trielle in shock. “You are ninety one thousand years old?”
“Oh no,” said Xellasmos with a grating sound that might have been a laugh. “Forgive me for the confusion. The youth of a Ferisi can last over ten millennia. My age is closer to one hundred and five thousand of your years.”
Trielle’s eyes widened in wonder and surprise. “There are hundreds of different races in the Conclave,” she whispered, “and though some are longer-lived than mine, none have a lifespan past three or four hundred years. We no longer age, but death itself is still inevitable. How is it that your race is so long-lived?
Xellasmos foliage shook with evident dismay. “Anacrysis, she does not know?”
“It is part of the complex of falsehoods that forms the basis of their society,” replied Anacrysis. “Trielle,” he said, “I fear that you misunderstand. It is not that the Ferisi are long lived, it is that they do not die at all, at least naturally. Their bodies, of course, can be destroyed, as all material things can be. The f
irst true Feris, born from the crawl-shrubs of their native world, lived for thousands of millions of years only to be slain in the Philosoph War. But left to themselves, there is no death among them or any of the Alapsari races.”
“The death of a sentient being is a violation,” said Xellasmos, “a severing of their tiny life from the greater life of He Who Is. Each race that is called to attain true selfhood is simultaneously called to submit that selfhood to He Who Is. By doing so they are joined to He who is the life of the world and share in His eternity. But if a race chooses otherwise…”
Xellasmos paused for a moment, his foliage drawn inward as if in deep thought.
“Perhaps it is best to show you.”
The Feris turned and set off with long strides, the multiple trunks that made up his lower body shifting and knotting as the vinelike cords that evidently served as its muscles pulled them forward. They left the room and ascended a broad stone staircase that ended in an open glass atrium lit by the ember-like glow of the brown dwarf. From there a second staircase, this time made of glass, ascended further into the structure. After another short climb the trio arrived at a small chamber containing a podium made of bright silver metal. Atop the podium was a bowl containing a shimmering liquid that Trielle could not identify.
“Wait here,” said Xellasmos, who left the room and returned a few moments later with a large woody bulb in his tendrils.”
“Our race first developed the technology to survey other worlds almost one hundred thousand years ago. The photonscopes we then used not only allowed us observe these worlds optically but also to decode the entangled quantum information present in the captured light, allowing us to generate immersive simulations of the events we were following. Our planet of origin was only ten light-years from your world, so your race was the first we watched. Though I was young at the time, my scholarly pursuits made it natural to include me in the observational team. During the first few years we saw little of note, and spent most of our time experimenting with and refining the equipment. But halfway through the fifth year of observation our instruments picked up something different, something new.”
The Sovereign Road Page 24
