by B.J. Keeton
Chapter Twelve
He’s lying, Saryn thought as she walked out of the chamber. Something about Professor Nephil’s address didn’t sit well with her, but she didn’t know exactly what. He just seemed so…smarmy when he was talking to them. It didn’t matter, though. There wasn’t anything she could do except wait, so she decided that she would take the time to work on her thesis and maybe that would help her figure out what bothered her about the professor.
“Saryn? Saryn Bloom?” said a voice behind her. She stopped and saw a middle-aged woman jogging toward her.
“Yes? What can I do for you, Professor Harger?” Saryn had taken a few classes with Professor Harger over the years. She taught the theoretical sciences on board the Sigil, and Saryn’s line of research required more than a few of those.
The red-haired woman stopped beside Saryn and said, “I need to talk with you, Saryn. Do you mind if we talk somewhere a little more private?”
“No…No, of course not. What’s going on, professor?”
“In a moment.” Harger led Saryn down the corridor and into a small observation room. It was dark since there was no hyperspace blur shining through the wide viewport. Professor Harger motioned for Saryn to sit in one of the chairs, while she herself walked to the nearest wall and placed her palm flat against it. “I just don’t like the dark,” she said. “One second.” Light began to grow from her hand, a faint green-blue, and crawled in seemingly random tendrils of luminescence across the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room. In under a minute, the whole room was illuminated.
“Not quite as comfortable as the blur,” Harger said, “but it will have to do.”
“That was astonishing, ma’am,” Saryn said.
The professor smiled. “Thank you, Saryn. From you, that means a lot.”
Saryn blushed and changed the subject. She said, “What can I do for you, professor?”
“I’m not going to keep anything from you, Saryn, or make it out that this isn’t a big deal. It is.”
“Okay.”
“Your Rites begin today.”
“Today?”
“Within an hour, actually.”
“I don’t think I’m ready,” Saryn said.
“No one ever thinks they’re ready,” the professor replied.
“No, I mean, my thesis isn’t finished. I still have to revise the last few chapters, and some of my experiments haven’t been completed. I don’t have enough data to compile. I can’t have my Rites yet.”
“You’ll finish the thesis, Saryn. In most cases, it’s a formality anyway. In yours, especially. You’ve done good work from what I’ve read, and I can honestly say that another month of research and number crunching won’t help you at all with your Rites.”
“Oh,” Saryn said. She put so much of herself into that thesis, so many long hours, and for Professor Harger to qualify the compliment by saying that her work was merely a formality—rather than the useful research Saryn had believed it to be—hurt her.
Harger apparently noticed. “I don’t mean it’s not important, Saryn. Not at all. But your Rites fall into very unique circumstances, and you already have the theoretical experience that will help you.”
Saryn wanted to believe her, but it sounded like a crock, just like the professors’ explanation of why they dropped out of hyperspace. She said, “What do I have to do?”
Harger leaned back in the chair and stared out the window. “You know, the lack of stars when you look out the window is disconcerting.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it.” But she had. Saryn had noted that morning that they had to be in dead space because, without the hyperspace envelope around the ship, there was nothing but blackness. The only place she knew of that could be this empty was the space between galaxies. Dead space.
“You’re lucky. It gives me an awful feeling to look out the window and not see anything.” The red-haired woman sat silent for a moment as she stared out the window. “Anyway,” she said as she shook herself from her reverie, “your Rites will consist of a mission into a local Instance—”
“I thought we were disconnected,” Saryn interjected.
“We are disconnected. From Erlon,” Harger said. “We have found the ability to connect to a couple of Instances near our current location.”
“Unmapped?”
Harger nodded. “Yes. We have reason to believe that these Instances may provide a starting point for solving two current issues, the first being that it may be possible to chain your way from this Instance all the way back to Erlon.”
“But not go directly,” Saryn said. It wasn’t a question. “How far out are we?”
“Farther than we like, my dear. Far enough that Erlon is not easily accessible—may not be accessible to us at all. We just don’t know. We think it is possible to go from one Instance to another, provided that your team is able to determine the correct locations of portals and other Instances.”
Saryn wanted to say This sounds impossible, but she refrained. Instead, she said, “What’s the second issue?”
“We think that this Instance and many of the others that potentially connect back to Erlon possess a connection to the Untouchable. This was initially the primary directive of the mission, actually. Your team is to discover these connections so that we are able to locate the Untouchable on Erlon and stop his attacks before they escalate further.”
“That sounds more like Ternia’s—Ceril’s area,” Saryn said, correcting herself. She knew the faculty was aware of her and Ceril’s friendship, but referring to him by his nickname to others was a bit much. “I can maybe help with the way back to Erlon, but not with the Untouchable stuff. I don’t even know where to start.”
Harger looked away from Saryn and stared out the window again. “That’s why he’s your team leader,” she said. “Ceril Bain is going to lead your squad into the Instance and direct the fulfillment of your objectives.”
“I doubt I have a choice on this, do I?” Saryn asked.
Still staring away, Harger said, “There is always a choice, Saryn.”
Saryn bit her bottom lip then said, “Sure. I’m in.”
Harger’s head snapped back to her student. “You are hereby authorized to act in the capacity of a fully Rited agent of the Charonic Archive, Saryn Bloom, with all the rights and responsibilities of that position.” The professor held her hand out to Saryn, and the younger girl watched as a small, black ball materialized in her teacher’s palm. “Take it.”
The gravity of the situation suddenly hit Saryn. “Nanites?”
Harger nodded. “You will all be wearing a sleeve on this mission. You’ve been trained?”
“Barely,” Saryn said. “Twice, maybe.”
“I hope it stuck.”
“Me, too,” Saryn said as she took the pulsing ball from Harger. “Anything else I need to know?”
“No,” Harger said. “I don’t think so. You leave as soon as the rest of your team is assembled.”
