“So the memory was real.”
He shrugged weakly. “At a minimum, the Taenarin who it belonged to believed it to have been a real experience. Could the Metigens have implanted false memories in Iona-Cead Ahearne’s mind, like we’ve speculated they did to humans to create the alien abduction myth? Possibly?”
Every answer they found only led to more questions; with every new fact the Gordian knot of the Metigens and their pocket universes grew more complex. And it was becoming damn frustrating.
“But then why the cloaking field? Why go to such elaborate measures to hide the Taenarin if there was never a real threat?” She shook her head. “Occam’s Razor. We could construct a labyrinthine scheme to explain how the Metigens faked it all, but the likelier scenario is it’s simply true.”
She sighed and dropped the scope on the workbench. “So what does it mean? Why do they treat some species as playthings and their deaths as sport, while going to extraordinary lengths to protect others? Why does a group of aliens who can and do engineer supernovae and black holes also actively shelter a single planet supporting less than a million beings?”
Protectors and killers. Saviors and deceivers.
Caleb wandered around the main cabin, no destination in mind. He knew something about being both. He would kill—had killed—to protect those he cared about.
So who did the Metigens care about? The Taenarin, apparently, but…. He huffed a breath and leaned against the data center table.
“What?”
“Amaranthe.”
“What Lakhes called the universe through the master portal. And?”
“That’s what they care about.”
Valkyrie understood. ‘The Metigens—Katasketousya—went to such lengths to save and preserve the Taenarin because the species originated in Amaranthe, which we must now assume is also the Metigens’ home universe. An excellent insight, Caleb.’
Alex snorted. “The Metigens are ethnocentric? Seriously?”
“And why shouldn’t they be? Not only are most of the pocket universes out here ‘other,’ they’re also stocked with their creations. Their experiments. But the Metigens didn’t create, didn’t engineer, the Taenarin.”
‘Hmm.’
He chuckled a little at Valkyrie’s very human utterance. “You have thoughts, Valkyrie?”
‘Forgive my momentary narcissism, but I am pondering parallels between the theory you’ve proposed and humans’ views toward Artificials.’
A flush rose to heat his skin, and he didn’t respond immediately. Was this shame he was feeling?
In the past he’d referred to Artificials as tools, as technology created by humans for human use, and brushed aside the notion they might be something greater. In getting to know Valkyrie these last months, his thinking had quickly evolved, but he’d never stopped to properly examine the evolution.
Had Mesme’s aeons-long observation of humans been what changed the alien’s opinion of them? If that were the case, why had Iapetus not experienced the same maturation with respect to the Khokteh, or the unknown Metigen who watched Ekos with respect to Akeso and its ilk?
Maybe the answer was as simple as the Metigens weren’t a monolithic species. Maybe there were good Metigens and bad Metigens, and many in-between. Of course there were. Where intelligent life was concerned, there always were.
“But most people’s poor treatment of Artificials stems from fear, not disdain.” Alex’s response was directed at Valkyrie, but she watched him with intense curiosity. He kept silent for now.
‘The Metigens feared humans, did they not? It did not stop them from also viewing humans as lesser. In fact, I would posit the two beliefs are often strongly interrelated. Disdain acts as a shield to obscure the fear.’
“Fair point.” Alex moved to the data center and opened the chart they’d created to track the various species and locations they’d encountered. “So far we know of three separate species in or from this Amaranthe: the Metigens, the Taenarin and the humanoid beings that were intending to reap the Taenarin planet. Anaden.”
“The same term Iapetus used on Ireltse. Now we know it’s not a place or a thing—it’s a species.” Caleb frowned. “Why would the Metigen say it to you?”
“I don’t know, but…it was said with fear. Kind of like the fear Ahearne sensed from Lakhes.” She drifted off for a moment, then abruptly jerked as if shaking off a reverie. “Anyway, they’re clearly gargantuan assholes, if not the only ones. So in Ahearne’s memory, Lakhes indicated numerous advanced species coexisted there—more than three, certainly. Not surprising, I suppose.”
“Isn’t it, though? We haven’t found any intelligent life back home. Admittedly, we’ve hardly begun to search. We’ve explored less than a third of a single galaxy among billions.”
Her countenance darkened. “True, but that’s not why we haven’t found aliens in our own universe. We…dammit, Caleb. We’re an experiment, too. There’s no use trying to pretend it isn’t true. What we’ve seen so far is one species per portal. Why would we be any different?”
“Because Mesme admitted we were different.”
She stared at him in palpable frustration. Mesme’s word would not be enough for her. “Well, special or not, we’ve crashed their playground, and we’re starting to make a real dent in this network. I say we keep going.”
He nodded agreement. He wasn’t ready to abandon this train of thought quite yet, but her abrupt shift in topic meant she was.
She enlarged the portal network map and, per their randomization tactic, covered her eyes and pointed. “Portal C-17 it is.”
41
SIYANE
Cibatus Portal Space
* * *
They didn’t emerge into a nebula.
Caleb straightened up in his seat, instantly on alert. The other times this had happened, the entire space had been empty, but it wasn’t the case here.
There were stars, for one. Not many, but they were here—and they were close.
He glanced over at Alex and found her posture slumped, her eyes shut. “Alex?”
After a second her lashes fluttered. She shook herself as if awakening from a slumber. “Yeah, this is new.”
“Did you just traverse the portal while linked with the ship?”
A guilty pout grew on her lips, but her focus remained far away. “I did….”
They didn’t understand the technology underlying the portals; they didn’t even really understand what the portals were, beyond the obvious. “That was reckless.”
“It was amazing. Like submerging in a pool of light and—”
“It was reckless, and you should have warned me ahead of time in case something went wrong.”
Her gaze fell to her lap. “You’re right. Sorry.”
He gave her a forgiving smile, but it hid festering concern. Her adventuresome, fearless spirit was one of the first and most treasured aspects he loved about her, but there was a point where fearlessness became foolishness. He knew this all too acutely, for in days past he’d strayed across that line a few times—and was damn lucky to have survived to grow smarter.
Now she played in unknown realms far beyond their comprehension, and she was increasingly doing it with a callous disregard for her safety.
But it could be he had become too overprotective, a consequence of his manifest need for her, and was forgetting the wisdom he’d gained after the assassination attempt on Pandora. Or maybe he resented her connection to the ship, resented how eagerly she sought it out and the growing hours it took her away from him.
He blinked and shook it off, far more willing to let this train of thought die. They were heading into yet another new space holding yet new dangers on the horizon, and he needed to concentrate.
“Okay, so no nebula. This means they aren’t bothering to hide the portal from whoever or whatever lives here.” He looked back at Alex and was relieved to find her eyes again clear and alert. “We’re probably facing a novel scenario. Be on your guard. Valk
yrie, go ahead and activate full cloaking now.”
‘Done.’
Alex nodded. “Initial long-range scan results?”
‘This space is most unusual. It can be considered a universe only in that it is a discrete, self-contained space beyond a portal. The populated region—populated by astronomical objects—is small, approximately two kiloparsecs in diameter. In addition, there are no galaxies within the range our instruments can reach, only individual stars. I’ve also been unable to detect any other notable astronomical phenomena: no nebulae, no supernova remnants, no globular clusters, no pulsars. I could go on, but you do not require a catalogue.’
Alex’s expression grew in incredulity with each data point. “How interesting. And the closest star is…” her hand swept up the virtual HUD “…a short thirty-four parsecs away.”
She stood, giving him a chagrined grimace. “Wasn’t expecting that. I’m going to splash some water on my face, then we’ll approach the star.”
His eyes followed her as she walked through the cabin and descended the stairs, but they found no answers and no comfort.
Alex gripped the edges of the sink and let her head hang over it, blinking forcefully at the start of each exhale. She felt simultaneously nauseated and giddy, buzzed on the high while already ill from the crash.
Traversing the portal had been amazing. It had also been disorienting and bizarre. The portal had spun her body up like a top, twisting and distorting it into something unrecognizable, then tossed it out the other side a scrambled mess.
You should rest for a while before we proceed any farther into this space.
Are you kidding? I’m not about to loll around like some invalid when there’s something new and unknown less than thirty minutes away.
The mystery can wait another few hours, Alex.
No. It can’t. I’m fine.
She sucked in a deep breath and met her own gaze in the mirror. Her skin still looked clammy; she splashed cool water on her face and wiped it dry, then checked again. Better.
She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and nodded sharply at her reflection.
Just fine.
She proved it by taking the steps two at a time and loping into the main cabin with a deliberately carefree smile. Caleb’s brow twitched once…but he seemed to accept the performance.
Relieved, her attention shifted to the viewport—
—a massive ship emerged from superluminal directly in front of them. “Valkyrie!”
‘Adjusting course.’
They veered to starboard dramatically enough to cause her to stumble. She lurched into the cockpit and leaned on the dash to peer up and follow the profile of the vessel as they arced around it.
“It’s definitely Metigen.” The design was familiar. As with the ships in Ahearne’s memory, it resembled a superdreadnought in important respects but lacked some of the more menacing qualities. It displayed a blockier profile, as if it were divided into segments. Interestingly, it did have docking ports spanning the hull, though they were all empty.
The ship cruised through the portal behind them and vanished as swiftly as it had arrived.
She sank into her chair. “What are the odds we’re going to discover another rescued alien species hiding near this star?”
Caleb shook his head. His eyes were piercingly bright and danced with unspoken thoughts—thoughts she was a little afraid to probe. “I’ve given up on calculating odds on anything out here.”
“You and me both. Nothing to do but find out.”
Valkyrie took the statement as an implicit instruction, and the warp bubble formed around them.
42
SIYANE
Cibatus Portal Space
* * *
Alex had seen a lot of oddities in her nine years as a space explorer. She’d seen a functioning sextenary star system. She’d seen an asteroid shatter a moon in real time; she’d even been up close and personal with a bona fide diamond planet. Since they’d begun exploring the portal network she’d seen enough queer things to believe she could no longer be shocked—not by astronomy.
She was wrong. “How many?”
‘One hundred ninety-two in this outer orbit, extrapolating from the consistent spacing of those detected. An additional grouping located 2.2 AU closer to the star hosts another forty-eight, and I am detecting a third grouping approximately 0.5 AU from the star containing between sixteen and twenty.’
“Planets.” It wasn’t a question as such, though her tone held plenty of disbelief.
‘Planets.’
“Okay.” She whirled around and went to the data center. “Since we can’t see all of them at once, let’s model this out.” Caleb joined her as a three-dimensional representation of the star system sprung to life above the table.
The star sat at the center of three sets of interlocking circles. The innermost set included three orbits separated by sixty degrees, with the middle orbit situated precisely on the star’s fundamental plane. Six small orbs on each orbit designated suspected planets, all equidistant from one another.
The center set resided 0.85 AU from the star—right in the Goldilocks zone—and included four orbits of twelve planets each. The final set, out here at a fraction over 3 AU, consisted of eight separate orbits playing host to an incredible twenty-four planets.
Each.
Two hundred fifty-eight planets orbiting a single star. Every one had been placed with a level of mathematical precision that ensured none fell into another’s Hill sphere of gravitational influence and the orbits remained steady.
And ‘placed’ they had been. This was an artificial construction from start to finish. But to what purpose? There was no TLF wave here; this was simply the closest star to the portal. Did all the stars sport such configurations?
‘I’m now picking up a number of smaller signatures at various locations throughout the system.’
“Ships?”
‘A reasonable assumption.’
Caleb shot her a questioning look, but all she had to offer was an exaggerated shrug. “I’ve no idea.”
“All right. Let’s creep, carefully and invisibly, up on the nearest planet. Give any ships a wide berth, and we’ll see what we can see.”
She nodded agreement and headed back to the cockpit, leaving the map rotating above the table. They’d need it again.
During the trip to the plum-colored gas giant, they passed within a few megameters of no less than four massive vessels identical to the one that had nearly run them down. Three appeared to be headed for the interior planets, one for the portal.
Enormous structures stretched from the exosphere of the planet down into the depths of a thick hydrogen and methane atmosphere. Smaller machines—they reminded her of the mechs at the superdreadnought factory she and Caleb had destroyed—worked along the outside of the structures.
They approached one of the structures more closely as a ship arrived to hover above it. The mechs detached modules from the top of the structure and ferried them to the ship, where they docked the modules into the empty ports.
“They’re extractors. The vertical structures are mining raw materials from the planet, which these ships are then transporting. Somewhere.”
She peered at Caleb with a hint of suspicion. “Makes sense, but….”
“How did I figure it out so quickly?”
“I should know better than to ask by now.”
He tilted his head. “Experience.”
She frowned at the vague answer, but let it go on account of the ridiculous scene outside the viewport. The mechs had now begun detaching the modules from the ports, reversing their path and carrying them back to the structure. It must mean their contents had been offloaded to the interior of the ship.
When they were done, the ship moved on to the next mining structure.
“Any signs of life down there, Valkyrie? Obviously nothing humanoid can live here—not without a great deal of help—but that doesn’t mean nothing can live
here.”
‘Zero. There is a significant amount of movement and energy, but it qualitatively matches the signatures generated by the small mobile machinery.’
“Understood.” Her fingertips drummed an insistent rhythm on the dash. Exploring the lower layers of a gas giant using anything other than a probe required all kinds of specialized equipment she didn’t have. “We may come back, but for now let’s move to the next planet.”
The next planet was a duplicate of the first, down to its diameter and the rich color of the outer atmosphere. The third one they checked sported a marginally different atmospheric makeup, but was otherwise indistinguishable from the others. They each had hundreds of extractors burrowing into them, staffed with the industrious mechs hard at work.
The volume of materials being harvested and transported every hour was gargantuan. When multiplied by the number of planets in the outer orbit, it grew to an amount which was difficult to grasp in any tangible way.
She dragged a hand down her face and grimaced at Caleb. “Move to the middle orbit? I mean, we both know what we’ll find there, don’t we?”
He nodded, though his focus didn’t stray from the scene below.
As expected, the planets in the central ring were garden worlds. They weren’t being stripped by towering extractors as the gas giants were, however.
Instead a series of still large, latticed docks orbited each planet. The massive transport ships were berthed in many of them, and smaller vessels arrived and departed with regularity.
These planets had far friendlier atmospheres and were more suited to life, so they were going down to the surface of one. It was a course of action so immediately and patently self-evident not even Valkyrie attempted to argue otherwise.
Alex took manual control and eased through the atmosphere, dodging several of the smaller vessels on the way. But the Siyane’s cloaking held, and none raised an alarm.
Beneath the cloud cover lay a temperate, semi-tropical land mass the size of South America and verdant green from coast to coast. She descended to less than a kilometer above the surface and zoomed in the visual scanner.
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