“Oh.”
“Yeah.” He’d not bothered to grace this wonderful place with his presence in almost nineteen years, yet when presented a Seneca devoid of life, it was the only place he’d wanted to see.
He tried to recall the outlook he’d embraced when he last came here. But it seemed that of a child, naïve and myopic, with no appreciation for what waited ahead of him. Which he suspected wasn’t too far off.
Samuel had known all the right buttons to push, flattering him with praise for his observational and analytical skills then luring him in with tales of adventure, intrigue and daring heroics. Given the benefit of hindsight, he realized it was because the man knew everything about him prior to ever meeting him. His father would have told Samuel over the years, before he died—a tragedy Caleb had accepted as truth, if only in the abstract. His father had been as good as dead to him for two decades, so the difference was only semantics.
It was never mine, and I don’t want it.
In the months since learning the deluge of lies surrounding his father, Samuel and Division, Caleb had tried hard to make peace with a past that wasn’t what he’d believed it to be. And he’d nearly succeeded. Coming here, revisiting this place—or a reasonable facsimile of ‘this place’—felt like a way to put the final touches on his peace.
“I’m not sorry I said yes. I loved my job most days—a lot more days than I hated it—and I can’t imagine taking a different path would have brought me as much…I don’t want to say fulfillment. Satisfaction will do. Most importantly, I wouldn’t have met you. Everything which came before is what led to me being here, now, and I wouldn’t trade this for anything.”
Alex wound her arm around his and rested her head on his shoulder. “Good. But?”
“But…I wish I could talk to Samuel for five minutes. I wish I could ask him why he never told me about my father. I’d wish I could ask my father why he never told me what he did, but I know that answer. I understand why an agent believes they need to lie to their family and loved ones. But with Samuel? I was doing the job. I didn’t need to be lied to. I didn’t need to be protected.”
“Despite the secrets, you knew him well. What do you think he would say?” Her voice was gentle. She was prodding, but he suspected she hoped talking about it would help him find closure.
“I think he would say he was protecting me—protecting me from the pain and angst that came with betrayal, protecting my childhood and my memories.”
He blew out a harsh breath; sometimes closure stung like a vicious bitch. “And he would be lying. I think the reality was he felt guilty, if not responsible, for my father’s death…and he didn’t tell me the truth because he was a coward.” He gave her a quick, close-mouthed frown. “It’s a hard thing to accept about someone I considered my closest friend for many years. But no one said life was always easy.”
Her expression conveyed untempered sympathy…and possibly a tinge of uncertainty, of frustration at being unable to conjure the elusive words needed to give him comfort. But her presence here beside him was worth far more than any mere words.
He reached over to draw the pad of his thumb along her jaw then her lower lip. “I have an idea. Want to help me make a new memory, a better memory, for this place?”
Her lips parted into a sultry smile full of promises. Her voice dropped low, and she adopted an improving imitation of his accent. “It would be my genuine pleasure.”
11
SIYANE
Sol-Par Stellar System
Gemina Portal Space
* * *
Inhabiting the Siyane while the ship inhabited a superluminal bubble was akin to being on a chimeral high that hovered at the cusp of turning bad. The exotic particles maintaining the bubble moved in a space which simultaneously was and wasn’t, dancing in and out like they might surge inward at any moment and drag her into the blackness. Just beyond them, blurry and indistinct, lay a domain removed from space, a nothingness which seemed wrong.
Alex experienced none of these sensations when looking out the viewport during superluminal transit; they were tied to this elemental venture.
If you do not enjoy the sensation, you should return to your body.
It’s fine. I don’t want to recoil from it out of fear. I want to get past the unease.
Perhaps this is not a realm humans were meant to experience or comprehend.
When has that ever stopped me, Valkyrie?
Granted. More a challenge than a barrier in your case. Still, I derive no pleasure from the apprehension you feel.
I’m sorry.
Not enough to cease the activity, however.
No.
She powered through the anxiety bordering on low-grade terror and struggled to orient what she saw and perceived into the laws of science she knew, but she’d made little progress when they reached the doppelganger Sol system.
She dropped herself out of superluminal inside the Main Asteroid Belt, intending to approach Earth in a way she never before had: through the senses of the ship. Space warped into normalcy all around her—
—searing heat tore through her borrowed skin, and a million pinpricks of agony drove her to retreat into the illusive safety of her tiny, confining body.
‘Radiation and heat shield strength increased to maximum. Visible light filter increased sixty percent. I recommend both of you administer radiation meds in the next half hour to combat the gamma ray exposure.’
Her eyes popped open with a gasp of pain. Was she hurt? Her head throbbed from transferred anguish, but her eVi flashed no warnings of injury. She allowed Valkyrie to calm her racing pulse.
You are unharmed.
If you say so.
She shot Caleb a weak, forced smile in response to his concerned stare, then focused on Valkyrie’s barrage of reports while gaping at the scene outside the viewport in disbelief.
The surrounding space was dominated by bright teal and citron gaseous clouds. Was this some sort of nebula? “I don’t understand. Were our calculations off due to expansion displacement? Is the Sol system somewhere else now?”
‘No. The star known as Sol is located 1.6 AU from us. It is now a neutron star.’
“That’s impossible.”
‘I tend to agree. Nevertheless, it is what the instruments are telling me.’
“Wait. Are you saying this—” she gestured haphazardly toward the viewport “—is a supernova remnant? That’s—”
‘Also impossible.’
“Yes!”
Caleb was still frowning at her; it was possible the impetus for it had transitioned to the mystery outside, but too much was going on for her to be sure. “Clearly the timing’s off, but why is it impossible?”
“Sol doesn’t have nearly enough mass to go supernova. It will expand into a red giant then eventually become a white dwarf—in about eight billion years. Long after Seneca’s sun will exit main sequence, I’ll note, which it hasn’t yet done here.”
She pressed a palm to her forehead and grimaced. If she closed her eyes she could still feel the burn of the radiation. “So Earth’s gone, then, disintegrated in a supernova shockwave. How long ago, Valkyrie?”
‘Based on the data we’ve captured so far, seven to ten thousand years ago as measured in this universe.’
She peered at Caleb through splayed fingers. “Thoughts?”
He gave her a weak shrug. “I’d reconsider whether this truly is an exact replica of our home universe, except yesterday we stood on an exact replica of Seneca. So there’s really only one other explanation: Metigen manipulation. We’re in another one of their playgrounds. Here, instead of experimenting with species they’re experimenting with stars, and possibly with the fabric of space itself.”
“I’m an idiot.” She spun the chair around and leapt up to go to the data center. Once there she began pulling in a variety of wide-spectrum survey data they’d collected since arriving, arranging and grouping the data sets above the table.
‘Alex, I can
conduct whatever analysis you wish on the data.’
“I know, but I’m not certain I can articulate what I’m looking for.” She shifted her weight onto her back leg and brought a hand to her chin. She was vaguely cognizant of Caleb coming over to lean against the wall and watch her with interest.
“The last thing you are is an idiot, so what do you think you missed?”
“We’ve been fixated on star positions, since they jumped out as immediately familiar yet noticeably off-kilter—so familiar we overlooked all the other aspects of this universe that don’t fit with our own.”
She enlarged one of the data sets. “There are way too many heavy elements here. Not uniformly, though. They’re clumped into regional clusters all over the place. And metals—nothing on the level of the Rudan universe, but too many. Valkyrie, measure the neutrino concentration—never mind, not here. We’re obviously swimming in them here. But I’m willing to bet we’ll be swimming in them everywhere.”
She cocked an eyebrow at Caleb. “This pocket universe, or at a minimum the Milky Way in this pocket universe, is flooded with supernova remnants. Valkyrie, take us out of this system to somewhere neutral. Somewhere we can gather less tainted data.”
‘The interstellar medium between Demeter and Arcadia is relatively free of activity compared to other nearby regions.’
“That will work.”
Caleb planted his hands on the rim of the table and leaned into it, now fully engaged in the mystery. “So why supernovas?”
“It might not be only supernovas. We need to search for evidence of other out-of-balance phenomena.”
“Okay, but for now let’s assume it’s primarily supernovas. Why? What makes them special?”
“Well, I doubt it’s because the Metigens like to make pretty explosions to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ at. Supernovas…inject a lot of new material into the surrounding space, especially heavy elements and neutrinos. Also often gamma rays, which we know the Metigens do like. Supernovas create neutron stars or black holes depending on the characteristics of the star, both of which are…among the more interesting astronomical objects. They also kill the progenitor star and everything in the vicinity of the star: planets, moons, asteroids, comets, everything. In the long run they often lead to many new stars forming, but it takes a while.”
He nodded. “The Metigens can create universes. Maybe this is part of how they shape them to look the way they want—a test field of sorts, where they try out new techniques.”
“That almost makes sense. But artificially inducing a supernova? No, altering a star’s makeup then artificially inducing a supernova? I suppose if they can create entire universes then ipso facto they possess the capability to do it, but the technology required? I’m having trouble fathoming it.”
12
SIYANE
Gemina Portal Space
* * *
They put the gamut of the Siyane’s scientific equipment, most of which had been upgraded before they returned to the portal network, to full use. They put Valkyrie’s computation and analytical talents to yet more fulsome use.
Caleb watched Alex be a scientist for a time, watched her work the data with an enthusiasm and zeal he hadn’t seen since their early days together. He took inordinate pleasure in doing it. So much of this happened in her head these days, out of view and outside his ability to appreciate. But when she was puzzling something out or testing theories, she still talked aloud, muttering and grumbling and implicitly inviting him into the process.
He may not know astrophysics the way she did, but he did know patterns and logic. He knew how to step back, observe the big picture and see the thread dangling out of place. He thought she’d probably realized this about him by now, which was one reason for the invitation. That, and she enjoyed the varied amused expressions he awarded her.
Like this one.
“Caleb, they’re creating supernovas that trigger in a manner of months—weeks—not millennia. And pulsars and superflares and coronal mass ejections. Of course we have to discover how they’re doing it!”
In wandering this distorted replica of the Milky Way, they’d found evidence of each of those phenomena and others, all in greater quantities than should logically exist.
He shrugged, but he was also smiling a touch, enjoying the passion behind her indignation. “Say we find tangible evidence of how they’re accomplishing all this. We still won’t understand it. This is far beyond anything we grasp about physics, or any science.”
Her lips pursed as she rocked against the worktable behind her. “True, but we can take readings. And visuals. And once we have them we can study them at our leisure, and one day we will understand them—even if ‘we’ isn’t actually you and I.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I bet it’s us.”
She rolled her eyes but regarded him hopefully.
He threw his hands in the air as if giving in, but the truth was he hadn’t been putting up a fight, merely playing devil’s advocate. “Okay. Valkyrie, work your magic and locate us a star which shows signs of actively undergoing…some transformation, at a faster rate than normal.”
‘With parameters such as those, I expect to have a suitable target by dinner time. Next year.’
The Artificial was turning into as much of a smartass as Alex. This really should not surprise him.
Uncharted System
Gemina Portal Space
It also should not have surprised him when Valkyrie had a potential target within two hours. A cold red giant with two distant planets, neither of which showed any signs of harboring life. There was nothing unique or particularly interesting about the star, except according to Alex it exhibited low luminosity for its spectral class, yet its mass placed it on the cusp of earning the supergiant label.
Also relevant was the reason Valkyrie had picked it out: an oxygen-neon-magnesium core that was degenerating faster than natural stellar evolution could explain.
Alex was scowling darkly at the massive vermilion star out the viewport. Her brow had drawn into a series of creases, her mouth into a thin line.
He buried a chuckle; she was deep enough into the work of unraveling the mystery she wouldn’t appreciate him making fun of her…much. “You expected a Dyson swarm, or at a minimum a constructed halo ring or two.”
“Maybe a little.” Abruptly she exploded in movement. “So how are they doing it? What’s feeding the changes in the star’s composition?”
‘They could be using a machine which is relatively modest in size. Without an idea of precisely where to look, it will be difficult for us to detect a small, low-power structure.’
“Hunt for power signatures similar to those generated by their ships or the cloaking—ugh, if the apparatus is cloaked we’ll never find it.”
He shook his head. “There’s no reason for them to cloak it. There’s no one here to hide it from.”
“Right. We have no choice but to act under that assumption, anyway.” She blew out a breath through once again pursed lips. “Let’s be methodical about it. Valkyrie, adopt an orbital course 0.5 AU out from the star and open the scanners wide. We can detect as low as a hundred twenty terajoule energy emission for 0.1 AU in every direction. We’ll do a full stellar orbit then shift to the next sector and repeat until we find something.”
He didn’t suggest the possibility there would be nothing to find. Like her, he believed there would be, for it was clear the Metigens were up to mischief on an astronomical scale. Whether they’d be able to uncover the source was another matter, but they wouldn’t know until they made the attempt.
‘I think I have something.’ A pause. ‘Yes. I’m detecting a steady 1.2 petajoule energy source 1,235 megameters away.’
They’d been relaxing on the couch, talking about nothing in particular and relishing simply being close, but now Alex vaulted out of his arms for the cockpit. This was their seventh pass; they’d moved to 0.3 AU out from the star, as close as they dared spend any time.
He stood and
followed her at a more reasonable pace. “We’re fully cloaked, right?”
“Almost always.”
He waited, and the next second Valkyrie helpfully provided a more comforting answer. ‘We’ve been at one hundred percent cloaking strength since we reached this system.’
“Thanks, Valkyrie.”
Alex settled into her seat and strapped in. “Approach at forty percent max impulse speed until we’re twenty megameters away, then slow to ten percent max. Oh, and shift our heading until the object is between us and the star. I want to be able to see this bastard.”
A low-level buzz began to thrum beneath Caleb’s skin the closer they got to the mysterious object. The familiar, comforting perception of an approaching threat. Of danger.
He worked to keep his expression serious but neutral, not intending to give away the fact some part of him hoped for a confrontation, even if a confrontation with Metigens was unlikely to provide him anything satisfying to combat.
They were less than a megameter away when the object finally crystallized against the filtered light of the star. Similar to many structures the Metigens built, it displayed an orb-like shape and lacked obvious external ornamentation. Something powered it, however, and to a substantial level. It was not in orbit around the sun, but rather stationary, and the area of the sun directly in front of it constantly shifted.
“It looks big, but I recognize that doesn’t mean much.”
Alex shook her head. “No, it is big, at least compared to us.” She opened a new screen on the HUD. “Six hundred eighty meters in diameter. Bigger than a cruiser, smaller than a dreadnought, though not necessarily smaller in volume. Valkyrie, are we able to pick up anything beyond the power signature? Any indication of what’s happening inside?”
‘Nothing except…may I move the Siyane S 72° -44°z?’
“All right.”
The profile of the orb shifted until only a sliver of an arc remained backlit by the star. He could sense Alex getting agitated.
Aurora Renegades Page 42
