by Paul Anlee
Never mind, it was a start. Raytansoh got to work.
The useless coordinates were preceded by simple names in the Standard language of Alum’s Realm: Trinti 647.3, Folcan 1483.12, Gargus 718.5.
And…Alum’s Hall.
Alum’s Hall!—Raytansoh was amazed. What could that be, but a most important location? A special center for communing with the human God?
How could he use that information?
Share it with the five other Gods? Lead the attack? He was sure the entire plan was a reckless proposition. Probably lethal.
So, what? Go to Alum? Betray the other five? Beg for mercy at the feet of the most powerful of the Gods? Pray for a place in the new universe?
The other Gods didn’t notice Raytansoh’s quiet retreat; they were used to his silence.
He listened to their developing plans of attack, noted their growing excitement, and became more and more convinced of their foolishness.
They are not going to listen to reason. They’ve betrayed Darak. He won’t protect them, and I will not be drawn into this absurdity.
In his own empire, some unknown distance and direction from any of the other five empires and Alum’s Realm, Raytansoh drew a protective volume of ocean into a nurturing sphere around his true body—a whale-sized, two-headed octopus—and activated the entangled particle that linked his world to Alum’s Hall.
Only the bold survive—he reminded himself.
He abandoned the connection to his Aspect in the Hall of Thrones and shifted.
27
A scan of the reception chamber showed it was too small to accommodate Raytansoh’s bulk. He waved his tentacles in annoyance at being forced to endure the discomfort of outer space and shifted to a spot half a kilometer outside the rocky asteroid.
His arrival provoked no reaction from the asteroid. No one seemed to have noticed the sudden appearance of his whale-sized octopoidal form.
Where’s Alum?—he wondered. I should have been challenged upon arrival.
Raytansoh began to fear Depchaun might have been right. Maybe Darak and Alum were one and the same. Maybe Darak/Alum had withdrawn to lick his wounds after his near defeat in the Hall of Thrones.
There had to be a more reasonable explanation; other possibilities were significantly more likely.
He hung in space a few moments, watching the stars. Apart from the chamber on the surface of the nearby asteroid and the bright point of the distant sun of this system, there wasn’t much to see. He swept the space around him with powerful radar pulses and waited patiently for the waves to bounce off any nearby planetoids and return to him.
Besides the adjacent asteroid, only one signal returned. It came from a body about a hundred thousand Standard kilometers away.
Raytansoh waited another two full Standard minutes. Apart from the asteroid where he’d arrived, and the other one some distance away, there appeared to be nothing bigger than a small boulder within the twenty million kilometer radius his radar pulse covered.
Was he wasting valuable time? The other Gods may have begun their attack. How would they react once they noticed he was no longer with them?
Clearly, there’s nowhere else to go but to that other asteroid—he thought, preparing for the series of short jumps that would take him to the only nearby feature.
With a strange sensation that he could best describe as a blink in time, Raytansoh suddenly found himself confused, disoriented, and floating within an enormous chamber ten kilometers wide. A miniature galaxy hung in the air in front of him.
Where am I? I didn’t shift here.
He felt the buzz of an electronic handshake within his built-in communications.
Alum!
WELL, WELL, WELL. WHO DO WE HAVE HERE?—a voice boomed in his sensors.
Raytansoh bristled at the imperiousness of the question. You are addressing a God!—he asserted, but only to himself.
Instead of speaking, he cast a field to move a glowing sun pulled from a universe of his imagining to center stage in front of Alum’s galaxy microverse. The sun blazed brightly for half a second before an unseen power snuffed its ardent flames into thin wisps and the entire sphere disappeared as if wafting away on a breeze.
HA! ONE WHO PRETENDS TO GODHOOD—the voice said.
Chagrined and humbled, Raytansoh remembered why he’d come.
“I am Raytansoh, God of the Ixtil, Ruler of the Thousand Worlds. I place myself at Your mercy, Great Alum.”
YOU KNOW WHO I AM?
“Indeed,” Raytansoh replied. “Darak Legsu has told the Six all about You and Your Realm.”
DARAK LEGSU—Alum said. THAT NAME, AGAIN. I REMEMBER IT NOW, THOUGH I THOUGHT HIM LONG DEAD.
“I was with him less than a Standard day ago. We all were.”
HE HID HIMSELF WELL ALL THOSE YEARS, THAT GOD WHO LET ME BELIEVE HE WAS ONLY A MAN.
“I know little of his history before he appeared in my empire,” Raytansoh answered.
IT IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE. HE SHALL DIE AS HAVE ALL OTHERS WHO THOUGHT TO CHALLENGE ME. AS WILL YOU!
Raytansoh thought the galaxy before him grew a little bigger.
“Wait!” the gigantic, two-headed octopod cried. “I came to warn You. Attack is imminent. I bring knowledge of Your enemies, their empires, and their plans.”
He felt his insides churning as his core matter began to alter. He desperately tried to analyze the changes being forced onto his atoms. He cast fields to override the external imposition. His efforts slowed the changes but didn’t stop them.
“I bring You links to the Eso-La ringworld.” He hoped it wasn’t a complete lie. The links were no longer working but it was possible the glitch was only minor or temporary.
“The Gods believe that Darak may be there.” At least that part wasn’t a lie. They did believe that, although, with absolutely no evidence.
Raytansoh felt his insides relax. Pain reports receded into the background.
DARAK IS ON A RINGWORLD IN ESO 461-36? THAT WOULD EXPLAIN MUCH—Alum said. WHAT IS THIS ATTACK YOU SPEAK OF? He shut off the fields disturbing the physics of the octopod’s guts.
Relieved to be freed from Alum’s disruptions for the moment, Raytansoh sent a video synopsis of the meeting in the Hall of Thrones.
“Depchaun has the others convinced they can defeat You. They think they can bring a halt to Your Divine Plan by destroying the Deplosion Array. But I’ve seen Your Realm. I’ve observed the evidence of Your true power. I’ve felt that power directly. I think they’re all fools.”
The center of the galaxy flared briefly, and a human emerged. He walked toward Raytansoh on a ramp that had materialized between the alien God and the miniature galaxy.
“Yes, they are fools,” Alum said through His Aspect. “I permitted this so-called God, Depchaun, a victory as a ruse. I allowed him to defeat a tiny moon of no importance. I allowed him to think he controlled Home World. Should he attempt more, he will be crushed.”
“Together, the five are formidable, but not formidable enough to defeat even Darak Legsu,” Raytansoh added. “They have fooled themselves into believing Depchaun’s fanciful story.”
The Living God rubbed his chin and glowered at the alien.
“I defeated the Aelu Gods long ago. Now, I intend to tame the endless multiverse. These five are no more than insects to Me. I will squash them,” He said, and pounded a fist into the palm of His other hand.
“Let me have their empires,” Raytansoh said, more bravely than he felt.
Alum’s eyes met the octopod’s visual ring steadily, showing no sign of discomfort.
“And why would I do that?”
“The Deplosion Array is nearing completion. Their worlds will be of no consequence to You, nothing more than a distraction from Your true goals. I will administer them in Your name until You are ready,” Raytansoh explained.
Alum eyed him suspiciously. “If you admit this cycle of the universe is almost over and My endless perfection is imminent, why would you care abo
ut their fate? Why should I care?”
“For their wealth.”
Alum guffawed and raised His arms to either side. “I have no need of anything.”
“No, not material wealth,” Raytansoh agreed. “I mean, for the richness of their cultures, their sciences, and their unusual perspectives. Perhaps, one day, a billion years after You have taken this universe to its next cycle—“
“Its final cycle,” Alum interrupted.
“Very well, its final cycle,” Raytansoh continued. “Perhaps You will have reason to seek novelty. Diversions. New ideas. If You allow me the time now to encode these diverse cultures, perhaps it will lead to new inspiration in the future.”
Alum scowled. “I have no need for new inspiration.”
“Not now, no,” Raytansoh agreed. “But the future is difficult to predict, isn’t it? What if some threat arises, something You can’t conceive of at the moment, something that threatens Your perfection ages after Heaven is created?”
Alum turned and walked up the ramp toward His microverse galaxy, and considered Raytansoh’s proposal. His recent experience with Mirly and her mandala in Heaven had shaken His confidence in the absolute perfection of His design.
Have I overlooked other details that may come back to haunt me?
He was committed to Heaven, to bringing about the end of this unpredictable universe and of the greater Chaos from which it arose. But Mirly had made Him painfully aware of His own imperfection.
Perhaps it would be wise to have other experiences to draw on, after all. Experience and wisdom divergent from My own.
He’d taken tens of millions of years to consider the design of a perfect universe. His version of Heaven was the closest He’d been able to conceive and yet, even there, unpredictability—a close cousin of the Chaos—persisted.
The uncertainty in that universe matched His own uncertainty now.
Incorporating other perspectives could be advantageous—He allowed. While I work on making My vision of Heaven the perfection that I envision, I will study the minds and conceptas of these other Gods. I will store them within Me and probe their thoughts and memories extensively.
He had no doubt He would prevail in any challenge to His capability. Even Raytansoh acknowledged that the Gods he knew were no match for Alum.
Perhaps I’ll keep this one alive for now and grant what it wishes. It could prove useful.
He turned back to the lesser God.
“Agreed. You shall have what you wish.”
He sensed relief spilling off the octopod.
“Rather than obliterate the other Gods, I will subsume their selves into My archives so that I may study and consult their concepta and personas at My leisure.”
“You are wise, Alum,” Raytansoh replied, almost cheerfully.
“And I will have a complete copy of your own self as well,” Alum finished.
Raytansoh hesitated. His watery body deflated a little before he could prevent the tell.
“Will You include me in the universe You create after the destruction of this one?”
Alum smiled and opened His welcoming arms.
“I don’t see why not. I will accept you into Heaven as a friend and an ally.”
“That is all I can ask,” Raytansoh replied, with no hint of regret.
“Now, let us discuss the attack plans of these other Gods.”
28
While the stolen Deplosion Array elements kept the ringworld, its sun, and the entire solar system surrounded by a shift blocking field, Darak, Darya, and Darian cleared the Eso-La system of entangled particle trackers.
With their new God-level knowledge and Darya’s quark-spin lattice, they generated enormous decoherence fields millions of kilometers in radius. They swept the gigantic fields across the system by blind-jumping in distance-gobbling shifts.
It was a mammoth feat even to a God or trio of Gods. The Eso-La ringworld alone had a surface area of over one thousand trillion square kilometers, and the volume of space near the orbital plane was over ten to the power twenty-five cubic klicks. It was a daunting task.
On the first day, Darak demanded they do a quick pass over the ringworld. They were done in a few hours, after which, he used the array elements to move the entire system another dozen light years away. Next, they made their first thorough sweep of the entire solar system, and Darak shifted Eso-La again.
They repeated the entire process twice more over the next two days.
Still, Darak wasn’t completely satisfied.
“There are a million ways a smart drone could have avoided the decoherence fields,” he said.
“But the probability of that is miniscule,” Darya replied, and shared her statistical analysis of the overlapping sweeps to support her point.
“Sure, if they had been designed by anyone but Gods,” Darak countered. He sent an alternative analysis demonstrating how any one of a hundred strategies could have allowed a drone to evade their passes.
The Esu didn’t sit back idly during this process. They ran their own security sweeps and found many more autonomous, microscopic drones littering the ringworld. Altogether, they discovered six different designs, one for each of the Gods at the Hall of Thrones.
Thankfully, it was only six—Darak thought. A seventh design might have indicated Alum’s involvement as well.
“I ran the numbers, adding a theoretical analysis that merged and compared all of the numbers and scenarios from both of you, and I don’t see any way to improve our odds without adding another decoherence field generator,” Darian stated confidently.
Darak was impressed. Darian Leigh has been a God—really, only a complete person again—for no more than a few days and already he’s making important contributions. It felt good to have his old mentor back. Reassuring. Darian had always had unique and insightful ways of seeing a problem. They needed someone like that on their side if they were going to defeat Alum.
Darya bobbed agreement. “Yes, unless we want to raise Mary, Stralasi, or Crissea to godhood, I think we’ve done all we can to provide a reasonable level of security here.”
“Not only is this work mind-numbingly boring,” Darian added, “but if we are to confront Alum and the other Gods, we’ll need some time to integrate attack and defense tactics. That’s a more productive use of our time.”
Darak chuckled to himself. Yes, that sure sounded like his old mentor. Some things never change.
Before he could respond, Darya added her agreement. “He’s right, boring as blazes. But if we’re that uncertain of our measures, then we need to keep the jump-blocking field in place and continue shifting Eso-La every few days. Honestly, though, that solution doesn’t strike me as such a great idea.”
Darak sighed. “Nor to me. You’re both right. We have done the best we can reasonably do here for now. Our time will be better spent focusing on other issues.
“I’ve sent decoherence generator plans to the Esu Council. They’ve configured a billion Familiars to keep the main ringworld safe. Hopefully, that’ll buy them enough time to alert us and to successfully respond to an attack.”
He shifted Eso-La—the ringworld and its sun—one final time and dropped the jump-blocking field from the Deplosion Array elements.
The three of them waited, sensors extended, listening in on all Eso-La comm channels. An hour passed with no sign of any unwelcome incursions.
Darak relaxed but only a little. Now that the Gods knew of Eso-La, an attack could come any time. He needed to deal with the Gods before they tried anything else.
“I have to go to the Hall of Thrones,” he announced.
“Take us with you.” Darya’s voice was firm, tinged with vengeance and with concern for the man she’d once loved.
“No,” Darak replied, equally firm. “You need time to review your capabilities, and I mean all of your capabilities. Explore them. Familiarize yourself with them.
“We know you can generate huge shift-blocking fields and navigate without entangled
particle beacons but there is so much you haven’t had time to explore. Your abilities need to be second nature to you. You never know what creative solutions might come in handy down the road.”
“I have to agree,” said Darian. “Darak has proven he’s capable of dealing with the Six on his own. We have a lot to study.”
“Wait a day,” Darya implored.
“I can’t,” Darak answered. “If we miss even one drone here, the Gods could attack any minute.
“They’re no match for you. Against all three of us, they’d be powerless.”
“Don’t count on it. Do you think they were really that easily defeated, or were they just testing me? I suspect the latter.
“If there were only us to worry about, I’d agree, they’d be no match. But they have the advantage of numbers. It would be easy for five of them to keep us busy while one tore Eso-La apart.”
“Especially given that Darya and I have no battle experience,” Darian observed.
“Speak for yourself,” Darya shot back.
“Don’t get offended. Until we get more practice with our new capabilities, I’d have to agree with Darak. I think it makes the most strategic sense for him to confront the Six directly.”
“But the Hall of Thrones isn’t a direct confrontation,” Darya objected. “I mean, it’s not like they’re really there, is it? It’s just their Aspects, at most. Or their virtual Avatars.”
“A warning should be enough to get them to back down,” Darak said. “If it isn’t, I may have to pay them a personal visit.”
Darya sensed his underlying anger, bridled for the moment but only barely.
“Okay. Okay. You go. We’ll stay here and study, and practice, and try to make sense of all the new knowledge and systems you’ve given us. When you get back, we’ll be ready.”
She sent Darak a likeness of her original human self, the scientist, Kathy Liang. She morphed the image into that of a fierce-looking Princess Darya standing atop a barren hill, clad in the leather and metal armor of a warrior and clasping the hilt of her sword.
“Ready for battle,” she said.
