Villain

by Ivan Kal

  He shook his head. He had spent enough time reminiscing, but he felt better now. He needed this reminder of who he had been and the promises he had made. Turning around, Adrian walked out of the cemetery and made his way across the city, heading toward the reason he came to Sanctuary.

  “You okay?” Iris’s voice asked through his implant. She was up in orbit with Moirai, and was communicating with him through one of the things that they had recovered from the AI: its comm system, based on access points, which allowed for instantaneous communication across insane distances. It was how she continued to work back in the AI’s system while she was physically here.

  “I am, but thank you for asking.” He had long since accepted who he was.

  Adrian found the large building that was the Scientific Institute easily. Nothing on Sanctuary had changed, and the building itself was the same as it had been more than seven hundred years ago. He entered and made his way to the front desk where he announced himself and asked to see the Minister. After a few minutes he was allowed through, and a few elevator rides later he stepped through into a large office.

  “Minister,” Adrian greeted the tiny Asian woman.

  “Adrian,” Seo-yun Hyeon, Minister of Science and life partner of Emperor Tomas Klein greeted him back. She stood from behind her desk and walked over, shaking his hand.

  “What brings you all the way out here?” Seo-yun asked.

  Adrian sighed. “I need answers, and I am hoping that you can provide them.”

  She raised an eyebrow, but then she gestured for them to sit on the two couches on one side of the room. She sat across from him and looked at him inquisitively.

  He took a deep breath and spoke. “Did Tomas send you the data we have on the Enlightened weapon?”

  They had come to an agreement a few days ago. They would attack with two forces, one in the core, and one in Josanti League territory. Adrian was actually feeling relieved that he hadn’t had to fight with Tomas about it. He hadn’t realized how much the strain on their relationship had affected him.

  “Yes, he forwarded me everything. I have my experts working on it, but I don’t think we can figure out what that weapon does with such limited information,” Seo-yun said sadly.

  Adrian shook his head. “I know. I didn’t come here for that.” If Iris couldn’t figure it out, he had no illusion about what others could do. “I came here because you have the latest discoveries about the nature of the universe, the Sha and the dimensional barriers.”

  “Oh?”

  “I know that we can’t figure out how the weapon works. But we do know what it does: it is supposed to kill all life in the galaxy. What I want to know about is everything about the dimensional barriers, the universe, the Sha, and their connections with each other. Perhaps that will give me some insight into how they plan to do it, and why they think it is necessary.”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she leaned back and thought for a long minute. “All right. First, there are a few things that you should be aware of. There are things that we know, things that we think we know—there may be an overlap there—things that we don’t know, and the truth. In my eight centuries of life, I am certain of one thing: we know far too little about the nature of our universe.”

  “How so?”

  “What we know changes constantly. We once believed that the universe would eventually evolve into a state where it would no longer be able to sustain entropy, what was called the heat death of the universe. Now we know more. We know that Sha plays a big part in the ecosystem of the universe. As stars die and cool off, new are born, and while we used to think that this wouldn’t be able to continue forever, we now know that the Sha somehow ensures that it does continue. We still don’t understand a lot, but with what we do know, we now believe that the universe will continue on in this state forever. Unless something else, like an external force, interferes with the balance that the Sha provides.”

  “Like another dimension crashing through?” Adrian asked.

  “Exactly. Only, to understand this I really should explain this all again. Hm… Where to start… I know.” She placed her palm on the wooden coffee table in front of them and it lit up, becoming a holotable. He hadn’t realized that it was a holotable, even though he knew that it was fake. They didn’t make things out of real wood anymore.

  She stood up and moved her arms, the holo following and forming a green bubble between her palms. “Imagine that this is our universe. Now, these are hyperspace and trans-space.” Two more bubbles formed, one inside the green one and the other over it. “Our universe is just a single dimension in what we call a fully realized universe, which is made up out of seemingly countless other dimensions, each occupying the same space and time. Now, these different dimensions exist separately, but some are more closely linked than others. Subspace, for example, is another dimension, but one that is completely merged with our own, such that one cannot exist without the other. Hyperspace and trans-space, on the other hand… They are different, follow different rules, which is why the Sha keeps a solid barrier between our dimension and those others. They were never meant to interact, you see.”

  “Yet we can access those dimensions,” Adrian said.

  “Yes, which only puts strain on the dimensional barriers every time that we do it. It erodes the barrier, and eventually they will fail. Holes will appear and the other dimensions will leak into our dimension.” Seo-yun took a deep breath. “The result will be catastrophic. As different laws collide, everything will be wiped clean in the flood of different states. Life as we know it will end. Perhaps, sometime in the future life will become possible again, but it will not resemble anything that we now know.”

  “That is what the Enlightened want to prevent… But killing all life as a way to stop it? Will that help?”

  “No…not really. I mean, not exactly. It will prevent life from doing more damage by using other dimensions as FTL travel, and it will have the effect of not pooling the Sha into star systems and on planets.”

  “You said something like that before, when we first realized that they wanted to kill all life.”

  “Yes, although we have had a lot of new theories come up since then.” She looked at Adrian. “Let me start with the most prevalent theory right now. It was most recently given by one of my Sowir scientists. Look at our universe as an ocean. The Sha is everything, the universe and everything in it, and it has two distinct layers: the shallow Sha and the deep Sha. The shallow is everything around us, what our Sha users utilize when they use their abilities, what holds together matter and keeps the laws together. The deep Sha, however, is broader, and it is the foundation of everything. Energy, matter, life.”

  “The Sha state,” Adrian said.

  “Yes,” she said with a nod. “When you enter that state you somehow bring yourself deeper into the ocean that is the Sha. Actually, I find it quite interesting that the first being who had achieved this—in our time, at least—is a Sowir. Lurker of the Depths had somehow tapped into that power instinctively. Even the Enlightened had that connection made artificially.”

  Adrian nodded, as he knew the reason for it. The Sowir race had spent nearly all of their existence believing in the song of the Universe, a consciousness that connected all living things. Long ago the Sowir had waged war against other races because of it. It had been a horrible time; the Sowir had exterminated all races they encountered who couldn’t hear the song of the Universe, who didn’t have telepathy, and they had been devastated to learn that they had done so because of a misinterpretation of what they were hearing, and because they didn’t understand life that didn’t have telepathy. Many had committed suicide, not being able to live with what they had done. Lurker of the Depths had been their leader even then, but he had moved past his guilt.

  Now, it appeared like the Sowir had been right, at least in some way. The song of the Universe did exist—each time Adrian entered the Sha state, there was something there at the edge of his consciousness
, something so large that he couldn’t comprehend it. He didn’t know what that was, but it connected everything.

  “You know, from my conversations with Vas—that is, Aranis—I got this impression that they believed in something more. He mentioned that they felt Axull Darr’s soul ‘pass through the Sha’ when he died. I don’t know if they were being literal, or if they have some kind of belief, a religion, maybe. Did the People have a religion?”

  “No, they had moved past such beliefs early on, much like we have. True, we still have religious people, but they don’t disregard science.”

  Adrian nodded. He had never been religious, so he didn’t understand the topic at all. “When I go into the Sha state, there is something there that I am missing, some connection, or… I don’t even know how to describe it.”

  “Do you think that souls exist?” Seo-yun asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said dubiously. “Even if they did, I don’t think they would be anything like what religion describes.”

  “There had been a movement in the scientific community that postulated that souls existed. It was after we first discovered Sha, when you heard the beacon. It never went anywhere, however, as they couldn’t prove anything.”

  Adrian sighed, then waved his hand. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up at all. It isn’t relevant.”

  Seo-yun shook her head. “I apologize, I didn’t mean to go off topic. Regardless, as I was saying, Sha is existence. It protects our small piece of reality from all the other pieces. Sha exists in other dimensions, in hyperspace and trans-space, of course, it’s just different there. Now, the dimensional barriers are failing, and other dimensions are trying to get in, because all of dimensions in our fully realized universe occupy the same space. The Sha is supposed to prevent that from happening, but it isn’t. It’s been thinned, and there isn’t enough of it to keep the barrier up. The Sha is naturally denser near planets, stars, life, which is why we can’t use hyperspace near stars—there is more Sha there, so the barrier is stronger. We believe that in the far past the hyperspace barriers used to be far farther away from stars, but as the problem is getting worse, the barrier failing more, the closer it is possible to enter hyperspace.”

  “What about trans-space? There are trans-points deep inside systems as well as far outside of them.”

  “Different dimensions touch our dimension in different places. It is a bit hard to explain, but hyperspace touches all of our dimension everywhere. Trans-space touches our dimension only in certain areas.”

  Adrian hummed, thinking. “So, do you have any idea how we could repair the damage?”

  “None,” Seo-yun said. “We have no idea why it is even happening. We know from the People’s historical data that it is a recent development, if you can call a billion years recent. When they were at their height, the only methods of travel were skimm drives and access points. Only when other life came did other ways of FTL travel come into being.”

  “So life was the cause, as the Enlightened believe?”

  Seo-yun grimaced. “There is really no evidence to support that, either. We are exacerbating the problem, for sure, but we have found no direct link from our existence to the inciting event. We just don’t know why it happened.”

  “Let’s assume that what the Enlightened believe will work, that they kill all life and somehow the barriers are repaired. Is this a problem only here? In our galaxy? Has it spread to others?”

  “Again, we can only speculate, but the truth is that we have no real data. We don’t know anything about the other galaxies. Perhaps it is only limited to our galaxy; if so, the question is what caused it. If it is across the entire universe…well, then we’re screwed,” she said bluntly.

  “And the Enlightened wouldn’t be able to fix it then, would they?” Adrian mused. “How long will it take, at the current rate, for the dimensional barriers to fail?”

  “Impossible to be sure, not with our level of understanding and technology. We can tell that the effect is being accelerated, but for all we know it will happen so far into the future that it might as well be never. Or it could happen tomorrow.”

  Adrian sighed. “I don’t think that the Enlightened are monsters. They have a goal that at least in their eyes is just and right. It would be in ours, too, if the price wasn’t so high.”

  “It is not up to me to judge what price is too high for the preservation of an universe,” Seo-yun said. “That’s why I work in this office and not in the palace.”

  Adrian smiled. “What are the chances that we can figure out how to prevent this from happening, without using whatever method the Enlightened are preparing to use?”

  “Depends on how much time we have to figure it out, as well as on countless other factors. If we are to do it, we will first need to stop the bleeding, so to say. Stop using FTL, then stop using Sha abilities. They don’t erode the barrier, but the more people with abilities there are, the more we are disturbing the Sha and keeping it from holding everything together.”

  “So, slim.” Adrian leaned back and deflated. He just didn’t know what the right course of action was anymore. What if the Enlightened were right, and the only way to save the universe was with their plan?

  “I can’t give you those answers, Adrian, and we can only do what we believe is right with the information we have available to us. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  He knew that she was correct—he just didn’t know if what he believed was.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Year 718 of the Empire — People manufacturing system

  Ryaana was flying through space. She could’ve never imagined doing something like this, but yet here she was. Her combat suit was rated for vacuum up to an hour, but she knew that she could survive even without it. The Sha state filled her with power, so much of it that she feared getting drunk on it. It was perhaps too much; she felt like she could rip entire ships in half and crack moons. It was too much power for any one person to have. She felt her focus waver, but then a steadying presence slid next to her and she settled.

  “Focus on the task at hand,” Lurker of the Depth sent.

  “Sorry.”

  She knew that she still had a lot of training ahead of her before she reached the same level of control and power as her father and Lurker of the Depths had. And she needed to push herself, now more than ever. Soon they would set off for the core, and probably encounter the Enlightened. She wondered what Vas—Aranis—was doing now. How did he think of the time he spent in the Empire with her? She had hated him for so long, but now with the possibility of seeing him again…she didn’t know what to feel. He had been her friend, her best friend for a long time. A confidant, someone who was always there for her. Could she face him without hesitation? She wasn’t sure, but she knew for certain that she wanted to look him in the eyes. She needed to see the monster that she had missed.

  She stopped in empty space, some distance away from the planet. Lurker of the Depths stopped next to her, and a moment later his voice echoed inside of her head.

  “Remember what I taught you. Keep your location and destination fixed in your mind.”

  Ryaana nodded and did as he had instructed her. This was not the first time she was attempting this, but so far her success rate was rather poor. Still, she felt her power reach down into subspace and she marked two points. With an effort of will she pushed herself into subspace and bent it around her. She felt a twist in the Sha, and then she was somewhere else. Her surroundings were the same, only empty space, but she felt exhilarated as she knew that she had just teleported several kilometers away.

  The distance wasn’t really a problem, at least not until you got to system-length distances. But anything less was relatively easy, and the only problem she had was successfully following all the steps. Lurker of the Depths popped up next to her.

  “Well done. That was your quickest jump yet.”

  “Thank you,” Ryaana answered.

  “Now we just need to make sure that you are
able to do so one hundred percent of the time,” Lurker of the Depths sent with a hint of amusement.

  Ryaana smiled beneath her mask, and sent him her emotions. They spent a few more minutes in space, lightly sparring, before heading back to the ship. Once on Bastion, they made their way to the center of the city and the fleet hub. Ryaana had been left in charge of all the forces in system, but in truth that meant just the Nomad Fleet. The Krashinar needed little supervision, and even if they did it would be hard for her to coordinate, as it would take too many telepaths to send messages back and forth. Someone like Lurker of the Depths could do it, but she had never been all that talented in telepathy. And the machine ships along with the Black Swarm were under Iris’s control—from half the galaxy away—which was still insane to Ryaana.

  They reached the control room and her subordinates gave her the most important reports. There wasn’t anything all that important that had happened while she was training, other than a few ships having finished being constructed. She dealt with her duties, and then retired, Lurker of the Depths never leaving her side. The Sowir took his duties as a teacher fairly seriously. He wasn’t just teaching her about how to use her Sha powers outside and inside the Sha state; he had also taken it upon himself to discuss philosophy with her, as well as to provide her mental puzzles and games as they walked through the city.

  She didn’t mind, really. It was entertaining and she had nothing better to do until her father came back for the fleets.

  Then Lurker of the Depths startled her as he suddenly changed the topic. “How are things between you and your girlfriend?”

  Ryaana blinked. She was so caught off guard that she didn’t answer for a full minute. “Things are fine,” she answered finally. She felt just a bit uncomfortable; it was strange to talk about that kind of things with anyone, especially someone who wasn’t even the same species as her.