Zero Star

by Chad Huskins

  The officer hadn’t been trying to be abrasive, the fact of the matter was that roughly one-fifth of the Republic’s citizens were involved with some kind of military endeavor: thirty billion enlisted, and about eighty billion civilian weapons contractors and suppliers. It was the most secure job in the galaxy for humans, seeing as how mankind was always on the defensive.

  Stellarpathy isn’t a solid market, Father Ogden had warned. You’ll always be on the fringes, living off of government-standard, barely eking out a living.

  Father Dershaun had been even harsher. You’ll be an embarrassment to all of us, and you’ll make no real mark on history.

  As it turned out, Moira had ended up right smack in the middle of some of the greatest historical moments of her time.

  Judging by the traffic on the pubnet, one might think all that mattered in the galaxy that day was the rediscovery of the peoples of the Taka-Renault System. As an explorer by trade, Moira found it impossible not to be enthralled with all the updates. She was privy to more than most, however, being so close to the Crusade’s leadership. For instance, she knew about the dead broodling hanging around at the edge of Taka-Renault, whereas the military had managed to keep that piece from leaking online.

  The rediscovered colonies of the Renault explorers became an anthropological cause célèbre. The Republic immediately became involved, assuring its citizens that all territorial rights would be respected. Plenty of people saw this as a good sign of Man’s endurance, and on social media they used this as reason to scoff at Harbingers and naysayers.

  For the first time ever, people were talking about a potential Rise of Man.

  There was even a rare statement issued from several Isoshi governments, and some congratulations from different Faedyan branches. It was small, and yet monumental, and indicative that something was different about the Crusade. Paired with the story of Lyokh’s venture into the s’Dar Watchtower, and its subsequent transformation, this caused a wildfire across the pubnet like Moira had never seen before. Kalder’s face, Lyokh’s face, and even her own face were tossed up on screens. Desh was interviewed twice, giving his usual swagger and tough talk, while giving ample credit to Kalder’s genius.

  “I think now we’re realizing we should’ve done this sooner,” Desh said, his ruggedly handsome and unshaven face looking right into the camera, right into the souls of Republic citizens across the galaxy. “In just a couple months, we have helped liberate a nearly forgotten system at Phanes, reconnected with them, opened trade between them and the Brotherhood of Contrition, discovered something new and revolutionary about the Watchtowers, and now we’re about to reconnect with a true lost colony.”

  Moira shook her head whenever she heard those talking points repeated. The first part wasn’t true at all; Crusade Fleet hadn’t even formed until after Phanes.

  But since when did truth matter in propaganda? she thought.

  Still, it was working. There were talks from alumni from Moira’s College to petition for a grant to stabilize the Takans’ economy, preserve their language, and revive their culture. It was all anyone could talk about, the Crusade Fleet and its amazing goal, its stupendous results, and the genius of its architect.

  Kalder had already rushed out statements, which his fellow Restorationists immediately fell in line with. He promised that the Takans would not be politicized or taken advantage of. He said, as any good Restorationist would, that they must be preserved and cherished, but they must also be educated in where they come from, and that they are a part of the Republic. Whether they like it or not, probably, Moira thought.

  Kalder also promised they would not be exploited, that they would be allowed to recover before any resources were taken from them. This played well with the Liberty Arm, not so much the Corporate Arm, but what could they do? Kalder had the people’s hearts, the Corporatists had their money. Doms might win out in the end, Moira imagined, but only if Kalder couldn’t keep the sentimentality flowing.

  He’ll find a way.

  For right now, it was all anyone was focused on. Perhaps billions of new humans had just been added to the galaxy’s census. Faith 6A reported tremendous rallying support for the Restoration Arm, for Kalder, and for the Crusade. All focus was now on Taka-Renault.

  “So why does Kalder have me looking into the Tapir System instead, Pritch?” she asked her dog as she sat slumped on the floor, back against the wall, going through all entries into the systems that Thulm had mentioned to her.

  The Vac Hound got up from his spot on the floor, dragged himself over to her, and plopped down beside her, his head in her lap. He was bored. Vac Hounds liked space travel well enough, but they needed tasks, they wanted buttons they could nose, chimes they could bark after and alert the pilot, leaks they could sniff out. Cooped up like this, Pritchard was getting glum.

  “I can empathize, boy.”

  Kalder was suddenly letting her in on a lot of secrets, telling her what he believed the Watchtowers were, and why Captain Lyokh was so essential to the Crusade, now more than ever. But he still hadn’t told her why he suddenly found the madman Thulm’s words so compelling.

  Moira wondered if it had anything to do with trying to reconnect with more lost colonies. It might make sense, since the systems that Thulm had mentioned were remote, at the very, very tip of the Perseus Arm. And that was very strange, for the Perseus Arm was famous for being inhospitable towards humans, given Perseus’s propensity for building dangerous networks of black holes. Two thousand years ago, humans had discovered what the other major xeno civilizations already knew; Perseus was no friend to life.

  The Crab Nebula was there, it was a supernova remnant, the crime scene left over from a star’s violent end. An interesting fact, the Crab Pulsar gave off enough powerful electromagnetic radiation, and at frequent enough intervals, that humans, as well as all xeno races, had at one time or another mistaken it for signals from advanced civilizations. Moira always thought it was a great irony, that all civilizations had looked upon the pulsar at varying times, wondering if they were alone.

  There were lots of the Messier Objects in the Perseus Arm, such as Open Clusters M36 and M37, and there were vast stretches of spacetime being ravaged by corridor after corridor of black holes. Not only that, but the Perseus Arm was far from the Sol System, about 7,200 light-years away, making it a taxing journey even with a top-of-the-line A-drive strapped to your ass. It was remote, dead, and violent. A wasteland that could kill you.

  So why the hell would anyone want to go out there?

  It only took a few hours of searching to realize the obvious answer: Mormons.

  All of the systems Thulm mentioned where d’Arhagen had been—Tapir, Vlondonsk, and Xang—were originally explored and inhabited by an ancient group, called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Moira knew them well, but only from what she learned in school. Devout Christers who, some few thousand years ago, wanted their own systems, their own governance. They wanted to be left alone. These three star systems were not “lost” per se, but they were about as remote, private, and ill-looked-after as an Amazonian tribe on Earth Cradle.

  Moira looked through any news articles she could find on LOG. Scarcely little had been recorded, just a few journalists that had gone there on a lark, a couple of documentarians a hundred years ago. The people of Tapir and Xang had no QEC capabilities, while the people of Vlodonsk did but hardly ever used it. According to one report, the Vlodonskians thought that by even activating their QEC transceiver, they might hear words to poison their children’s ears, recordings from non-believers elsewhere.

  One report did come through the pipeline two years ago, though. It even made a small splash on the pubnet, but just certain sites. It came from Vlodonsk, from a professor at something called the University of the Wondrous Skywatchers, and it detailed a report of something sinister moving against their system. Some unknown threat, rising from the darkness.

  Moira searched for more details. There was only one more mes
sage sent by this professor, and it included rambling about “the one born from the egg.” She skimmed through a lot of religious babble, “God has granted me the eyes and opportunity see this wondrous event,” “I have been chosen to mark this momentous occasion,” “I have Him to thank for guiding my eyes and my hand at the right moment to witness…”

  On and on and on it went. Until she came to the conclusion, which baffled her.

  “ ‘And now I see the truth,’ ” she read aloud to Pritchard, scratching his ears. “ ‘I see that the star is not a star, but an egg. A thing from whence the World Serpent was born. How many others were born of such violence? Was the Crab Pulsar its beginning? Are all supernovas the result of their birth? If so, then God has shown me the beginning of a great life-form, perhaps his most elegant and towering creation. I have seen it born from its egg, a Zero Star, the point at which the most colossal life emerges.’ ”

  World Serpent. That’s what Thulm said. He said it had a name. Magonogon.

  Still puzzling over that, she read through descriptions of a monster of impossible dimensions, and then read what the professor said he had heard from other star systems not too far off. For instance, she read that tradesmen visiting from both Xang and Tapir were reporting sightings of “the World Serpent” at the edge of their systems, seen only through telescopes that were about as advanced as those of the mid-twenty-first century, for they had shunned much technology after arriving in their remote places and staked their claims while terraforming the worlds.

  Moira had been taking notes the entire time, and now made a brief one-page summary of all of it, and dumped everything into a single file and sent it to Kalder. It would probably get received and reviewed by his creature Julian first, and it would likely all get pushed to the rear since the Taka-Renault thing had everyone’s attention at the moment.

  Moira started to switch off her tab, but paused.

  You’ll make no real mark on history, Father Dershaun had said.

  It came to her on a whim, and she decided to go with it. She brought up a secret file she had been writing about Kalder, containing every scrap of information she had discovered about the man—his lack of birth info, his unknown years of service, his story about being stranded with the Buddha man for decades, her research into the Delphine Hammer and its rescue of an unknown person from a planet called Tuhhbis more than a thousand years ago, Kalder’s belief in the Strangers using a tachyonic antitelephone and zero-point energy to build the Watchtowers from the future, the disappearance of Moira’s colleague Besandra after Kalder hired her to look into Trevor’s Cluster, even his interest in the Eaton System and its “ghosts.” She hesitated to include her belief that Kalder’s “Trix” bot had killed one of her colleagues, then decided that as long as she was being honest…

  Desh told me to keep everything to myself, she worried, her eye hovering over the SEND option. But I need to share it with someone who might listen.

  Still, Moira hesitated a moment before sending it to Sir Captain Lyokh. He should know. Moira added to the file what she knew of the strange alien words she’d heard at the Zhirinovsky site, and their similarities to what Lyokh had heard on Widden. She also added Kalder’s admission to knowing what Lyokh would experience at s’Dar. Then she sent the message to him.

  Once it was done, she sighed and looked at Pritchard. “You up for a walk?”

  Pritchard’s head jerked up, his tail wagging slowly, expectantly.

  “You’ve earned it. We both have. Up, let’s go.”

  The dog barked happily, and rushed to the door. As they stepped out, Moira couldn’t shake a strange chill that crawled over her flesh.

  World Serpent.

  LYOKH RECEIVED THE message from Moira, marked URGENT, and read it on his way to meet with the senator. What had begun as a dim warning in the back of his mind now grew to an alarm with each morsel that he digested from the stellarpath’s message. He was waiting for Kalder when the senator stepped out of his office, with Julian and Desh in tow.

  “—if Thulm’s leader has the resources he claims he does, we may have the support we need,” Julian was saying.

  Kalder replied, “It’s troublesome, though, since he says d’Arhagen cannot make it our way for two to three years.” He stopped talking when he spotted Lyokh.

  Lyokh’s mind was now swirling with questions. “We need to talk,” he said, determined to do this before the briefing.

  Kalder nodded as though he knew what this was about. Probably did. “Go ahead without me,” he told the others. “I’ll be along.”

  They walked by Lyokh without looking at him. He turned to face Kalder, and just over the senator’s shoulder, Lyokh could see through the office door before it had fully shut. Lyokh spotted, just for a moment, the hologram of a man with a bald pate and a heavily tattooed face. The tattoos were intricate, like cuneiform designs, and he had the bearing of a monk. Lyokh only saw him for a second before the hologram winked off.

  He looked back at Kalder. Now that the moment was upon him, he felt a little uncertain about addressing a man of such power with his concerns. What Lyokh had come here with was basically just an accusation, without proof. Despite his own certainty and anger, he felt a bit nervous. For some reason, he could charge into battle and accept that any moment might be his last, but things like being called to the carpet to face the Visquain, or having to face ceremonies, or having to look a senator of the Republic in the eye and tell him you think he’s crooked…those things jammed up his thoughts, as surely as a jamming signal will gum up communications.

  “Go ahead, Captain,” Kalder said.

  When faced with such apprehension, Lyokh’s instinct was just to get it all out. Just be blunt. In that way, speaking the truth would be like ripping off a stick-gel bandage. But Lyokh knew he speaking to a politician. Takirovanen’s words came to mind: Politicians don’t respond well to bluntness. So, for a moment, he considered trying to keep his tone calm and choose his words carefully.

  But then Lyokh remembered something. He’s a Zeroist. If anybody would appreciate bluntness, it’s one of them.

  “How did you know what was going to happen inside the Watchtower?”

  Kalder nodded, his suspicion confirmed. He didn’t even try to deny it, and that, more than anything, put Lyokh off. Kalder just started speaking as though this were an old debate the two of them had been having for a while. “It’s been one of those things that has haunted me since it first happened to me. It’s difficult to say at which stage my own experience inside a Watchtower began to influence me. Was I an immediately changed man after it happened, or did it happen over time, coinciding with my disillusionment over society’s machinations?”

  Lyokh felt uncomfortable. This was different than an argument, or a stripping down from a superior, which he had partially expected. Kalder was doing it again. Like he had with the painting. Deflecting. Or waxing philosophical. Whatever. And Lyokh realized in that moment that the man wasn’t a perfect Zeroist, he could just as easily deal in obfuscation as anybody.

  How does he do that? Appear honest all the time, and blunt, and clear, and yet be anything but?

  Lyokh tried to get a word in, but the old man continued, speaking extemporaneously. “You know, in my time, I’ve believed in just about every religion you can think of. I lost count of how many times I converted to this one or that one. I suppose it’s bound to happen to anyone that lives long enough. You go through phases as you pass your hundreds—no one tells you this, they make it seem like all the phases happen from childhood to adulthood.”

  Kalder shook his head.

  “They’re wrong. The phases keep coming down through the centuries, they’re just fewer and far between, and they don’t have fancy names like mid-life crisis. They’re nothing you can define or mark, just lots of waxing and wanings on this subject and that. Some decades you hold true to one set of tenets, and then come the decades when you abandon them completely.

  “You’re over eighty, still in
your prime, and with military-grade regens you could last another two hundred years. You don’t yet know what it’s like to live so long that all of your family and friends have died. You may never know what it’s like to live as long as I have, to see your philosophies crumble, to watch all your beliefs fail in the face of changing circumstances. You’re never right forever, never permanently correct on any philosophy, you’re…you’re just sort of…”

  Lyokh nodded. “In a constant state of becoming.”

  Kalder brightened. “Yes. Yes, quite so. Always becoming something else. Emerging from a cocoon to spread your wings, only to return to a new cocoon somewhere down the line. It occurred to me, therefore, that there can be no permanent truth. At least, not a social or political one. Times change. Technology changes. Circumstances are irrevocably altered. Society remains in flux.” He nodded towards Lyokh. “In a constant state of becoming, as you say. But if you embrace that idea, it can make you stronger.

  “I embraced it. And I took it upon myself to try and uncover truths, to see the truths that lived long before the dawn of Man or Isoshi or Faedyan. I believe one of the weapons the Strangers had was not one used to wield against an enemy, but one directed at themselves, that perfected them and their society. How else could they have risen to such heights, if not living long, and seeing the hell that is immortality?” He shook his head. “Of course, they probably don’t even exist yet…so that truth is still in their future.”

  Lyokh shook his head. “Is this how you answer my question, with riddles and nonsense?”

  Wordlessly, Kalder started walking down the hall, and Lyokh followed him. A loincloth-clad vorta went past them, sweeping the floor in silence, looking at no one.