Gradient

by Anders Cahill

  “I still dream of it sometimes.”

  “Of what?”

  “The shipheart.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “It’s like an invader. I will be in some other world, and it will appear, silver teeth, looming sexless body, taunting me, haunting me. I have also searched for any sign of it in our networks, also without success. As you said, it is either long gone or in hiding beyond our sight.”

  “That’s troubling, Oren. When was the last time you dreamed of it?”

  “I don’t remember. It’s been awhile, I guess.” I paused. “I dreamed of you too.”

  She looked at me, waiting for more.

  “We were in a strange temple. It was massive, and it looked like it had been standing for a thousand years or more. The earth started shaking, like it did in the ancient days of Forsara. Your mouth was open, and there was a shining point of silver light in the blackness of your throat. You were trying to tell me something. Something so important. And I could almost understand you.

  “Then the temple shattered and crumbled, burying us, and I woke up.” I couldn’t look her in the eyes as I told her this. I continued, “I guess our experience on the moon has never left me. I was so naive. Having fun with our little adventure, until we were all almost killed.”

  She nodded thoughtfully, her face warm and compassionate. Then she smiled as something occurred to her. “Maybe I was trying to tell you to forgive yourself.”

  Her words hit me with a shock, surprising me. I sat there, unsure of what to say.

  “You can, Oren,” she said. “You can and you must. Hear me when I say this. What happened to me was not your fault.”

  I nodded. “Thank you, Cere,” I whispered.

  “Thank you, Oren. I’m so glad I saw you today.”

  “Me too. What will you do now?”

  “What I’ve been doing. Recovering. Growing. Learning about my new self. My new strengths and limitations. Finding my own place in the universe. It’s the gift we’re all given, and it’s the struggle we all face.”

  “Viziadrumon believes that. Believes in life. That all we can do, all we have ever done, is light fires in the darkness.”

  The train was slowing down. Cere looked out the window again. “Shina,” she said. “This is where I grew up. I am going to see my family, Oren.” She stood, looking down at me in my seat. “Don’t give up,” she said. Then she touched her right hand to my cheek, leaned in, and kissed me on the forehead.

  “Goodbye.” She turned and walked towards the exit.

  “Goodbye, Cere.”

  I watched as she got off the train, trailing her with my eyes until she disappeared into the station. Then the train floated up, accelerating towards Manderley, and I was alone again, the hours ahead and behind all rolling together as I thought about everything that had happened and everything that was still to come.

  Part 2

  Hope

  17 Foundations

  I stood at the edge of the forest near our basecamp on Eaiph, my mind full with all these memories of youth. Forsara is a world of azure, violet, and mulberry, a riot of blues and purples infused with the chrome light of Appollion and the red heat of Shugguth. But here, beneath the golden rays of Soth Ra and the wide blue sky, nature paints its canvas with vibrant greens and sepia. As I peered into the shade of the broad cedar pines, I couldn’t help but think back on the long and winding path that led me to this strange and wondrous planet.

  The quiet whir of Sid’s bionetic legs carried across the arid, windless air, but I was deep in reverie, walking back across the years. I didn’t realize what I was hearing until his voice shook me from my recollections.

  “Orenpausha?”

  I looked up at him. His bald head glinted in the sunlight like polished bronze.

  “I’m sorry, Sid. I was far away from this place, thinking about life back on Forsara.” I smiled at him.

  He did not return my smile. He held a portable monitor in his hands, and his lips were pressed tight with concern. Sid was our team’s farseer, trained in the arts of systemic interpretation. It was his job to anticipate problems and solve them before they happened; to read the signs and portents that nature offers for those who know where and how to look. Only a fool would ignore the worries of a farseer.

  I ceased my smiling and reached for his handheld. “What’ve you got, Sid?”

  He handed me the portable monitor. I stroked my cheeks with my thumb and forefinger, examining the renderings displayed in front of me. I zoomed in, then back out again, coming at it from a few different angles. “A tectonic survey of the planet?” I finally asked.

  Sid nodded.

  “What’s it telling us?”

  “Based on the data we’ve been feeding Reacher, the planet is in a steady state of flux. The core of the planet is a colossal iron lodestone surrounded by a churning ocean of molten hot ore. Prodigious thermal veins about two farruns below the surface crisscross the planet, channeling all of the energy into volcanic gathering wells.

  “The resulting tectonics are impressive. The continental shelves are essentially floating on the surface of the planet, forever colliding and dividing, coughing up magma and mineral effluvia. It is like one huge convection oven.”

  “Incredible,” I said, looking at the handheld with fresh eyes. I sped up the simulation, trying to make sense of the complex, large-scale movements of the planet’s crust.

  I looked up at Sid. “There’s a ‘but’ coming, isn’t there?” I said.

  He exhaled through his nose. “But it means that the planet is unstable. Nothing so bad as Shugguth’s Curse, mind you, but nothing to scoff at either. Xayes and I have been working with Reacher to run the data through every conceivable permutation, and it almost always comes up with the same outcome. There will be a catastrophic earthquake in this region sometime in the next century. It’s not a question of ‘if.’ It’s a question of ‘when.’”

  The implications hit me hard. “An earthquake. At the very heart of civilization on this planet.”

  “It could happen tomorrow.”

  “And what if it did?”

  “Many would die. It could spell the end of civilization as they know it.”

  “Eledar’s breath,” I cursed.

  We stood for a time with the weight of that fact. The cedars were as still as sculptures, rising like blind sentinels drawn up from the rocky soil to protect the fungi and fragile trumpet blossoms that grew in their shade.

  “There has to be something we can do,” I finally said, pacing back and forth, my feet scrunching in the dry soil.

  “Pure Doctrine would insist that we do not interfere.”

  “I’ve been down that road, Sid. Non-interference is a fantasy that only works for zealots and theoraths. But we’re not in the temple, and we’re not at the academy, and there is no one here to insist on anything but us.”

  Sid nodded. “My parents were devout Purists,” he said. “The last time I saw my father, he would not speak to me because of these.” He rapped his knuckles on the trimantium of his thigh. “My mother did her best to make peace with it, but I know it broke her heart. As far as they were concerned, if I was born without legs, then that was as the universe intended, and it is not ours to meddle with.”

  “So you went with the chrome look just to really rub it in?”

  Sid laughed at that. “When I came of the age to make my own choices, I’d already known for years that I wanted to go biped. My pateruncle was more open-minded than my parents, and despite my father’s vehement protests, he arranged for the original procedure.

  “My first set of legs had living tissue designed to match my skin. The techs did a fine job, but… I don’t know. They just weren’t right. When I came to Forsara, I upgraded.” He smiled. “Unvarnished metal may not be the conventional choice, but it felt more true to me. These are not ordinary legs, so why try and pretend otherwise?”

  “You’ve always had strong instincts, Sid. That is one of t
he reasons the Coven selected you as part of this team.”

  He bowed his head at the compliment, and we went silent again, working the problem of the tectonics.

  “We must be missing something,” I said. “There must be a good choice here, even if it’s not an obvious one.”

  Sid traced complex spirals in the dirt with his bionetic foot. “With all that geothermal activity…” he said slowly. Then he snapped his fingers and looked up at me, eyes wide and smiling. “The moon of Danhk! Do you remember? Kohndrumon devoted an entire module to it. A second millennium settlement, too far from its star to gather adequate solar energy, the settlers forced to go underground to survive.”

  “The Danhkan! Of course!” I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Sid, you’re magnificent! Can you see if Reach has those records in his archives?”

  “I am on it,” he said, sharing my excitement. He turned and ran back towards base camp, his oiled trimantium legs whirring as he picked up speed.

  I stamped my foot on the ground. “The planet shifts beneath us,” I whispered. I could almost feel the land moving beneath me, drifting across the surface of this wide ocean world.

  * * *

  “I recommend we start here and here.” Sid gestured to two points in the holosphere, “and then work outwards in a loose spiral.”

  I looked around, scanning the group.

  Xayes nodded his agreement, his unkempt copper hair wobbling above his shoulders. “That thermal vein runs for almost three dozen farruns, and it has no surface channels that we can see. It is a massive font of energy, unimpeded by any foreseeable surface eruptions for the next several hundred planetary years. By that point, the local field network will be so thick with redundancies that a power shortage would be near impossible.”

  “Xander, what’s your read?” I said, turning to Xayes’s twin brother. “Tell us what might go wrong.”

  “Sid’s initial read is correct,” he said, squinting his colorless eyes as he bent close to the holosphere, examining the schematics. “But this planet is not the same as the moon of Danhkan. No matter how much we run the scenarios, our information is incomplete, and there is a chance that the earthquake could spiral out of control.”

  “What can we do to mitigate that risk?”

  “All things considered,” Xayes said, jumping back in, “I think this is our best bet. There is always the risk of failure. But the potential for reward here is as high as any planet we’ve seen.”

  I looked at Neka, Adjet, and Cordar, inviting their voices into this decision that would literally shake the earth.

  Neka shrugged and put up her hands, her ebony skin tinged with purple from the light projected by the holosphere. “People are my specialty. Not geo-engineering. If you all think we can pull it off, then I’m on board. We have a responsibility to the people of Eaiph, even if they’ve no idea we exist.”

  Adjet nodded at that, her silver hair shimmering, and Cordar made the hand sign for agreement, touching his thumb to his pale forehead, then moving his hand towards Neka, pointing at her with his pinky finger. He was of the same mind as her.

  “Reach?” I said, speaking a little louder out of habit, a kind of acknowledgment of his omnipresence, even though I knew he could hear every word we said, even if we whispered. “Any reservations?”

  “I have gone over all the data with Sid and Xayes,” he said, his voice piping out of the speakers hidden throughout the ship. “It is as sound a plan as we can make, given the variables.”

  I nodded. “Good. Then let’s get the insertion points ready. If we start at first light, we’ll have the foundation channels in by sundown.”

  * * *

  We tunneled deep into the earth, aiming the nanite bores on a direct path to the thermal veins. As these underground channels were being carved, Sid and Xayes devised an ingenious modification to the solar sails on Reacher, allowing us to capture and convert the tremendous heat from the planet’s core. With Soth Ra’s radiant energy above us, and our improvised thermal system drawing up from below, our access to power was virtually limitless.

  With these systems in place, we began gathering the resources and mining the minerals to build all the tools we needed. Organic batteries. Replicating fibers. Nutrient basins. Port adapters. Everything necessary to grow a field network that would let us influence the planet from within.

  Materials ready, we broke into three teams of two, Siddart staying behind with Reacher. Each team was charged with building and installing a field hub. The first three would serve as our base hubs, forming a triangle fifteen farruns on every side, with Reacher, our ship, in the center. From there, we could push out in every direction, tracing a circle around our triangle, overlaying the original, spiraling out just as Sid had suggested, increasing the density and distribution of our influence.

  * * *

  I ran my hands across the smooth, exacting surface of the field basin. “This is excellent work, Adjet. How many hubs do we have now?”

  “Ten fully online and operational,” she said, her long, alabaster fingers dancing across the basin’s lumina console as she pulled up the data, “ranging across more than one hundred square farruns. And five more will be ready within the week. The thermal energy is bountiful. More than enough to run the whole system.”

  “Do you really think it will be enough to control the quake? You didn’t say much when we debated the matter.”

  “Reach thinks so, and so do Sid and Xayes. That is enough for me.”

  “Can I plug in?”

  “Your eagerness never ceases, pausha. It is good you are here. It gives us energy.”

  “So is that a yes?” I said, giving her a knowing look.

  She grinned and held up a smooth, translucent disc, laced with platinum filaments.

  “The key?”

  She nodded.

  I held out my hand towards her, palm up.

  She placed the disc in my palm, covering my hand with both of hers.

  I bowed to her, then took the disc and laid it flush with the field port near the head of the basin. The surface wiring lit up with a warm yellow glow, growing brighter wherever I placed my hands.

  I nodded, smiling. “Excellent.” Then I stripped off my clothes and climbed into the basin, sliding down onto my back, resting my head into the field port. Adjet smiled back at me, then lowered her head as her fingers danced again across the lumina console.

  There was a quiet hiss and gurgle, and the nutrient bath flowed in, swallowing my body up to my neck. I tingled with anticipation. I could almost feel my cells responding to the nourishment, preparing me for the inner journey.

  Adjet touched her hand to the console and spoke. “Cordar. Sid. Orenpausha is preparing for the inaugural dive. Are the other hubs ready?” She listened for a minute, her eyes to the ceiling, then nodded. “Good.” She looked back at me. “Cordar and Sid are up at the ship. They are running specs on all ten hubs. Xander is on his way here for visual affirmation. Once he’s done, we’ll signal back to the ship, and then we will ready you for the journey.”

  I closed my eyes. I could feel the basin beneath me, the weight of my bones pulling me down. The nutrient fluid glided with my every subtle movement like a second skin. I pulled my belly in and flattened the curve of my back, compressing the fluid up and around my sides.

  I slowed my breathing. In. One. Two. Out. One. Two. My heart rate dropped. The pulse in my ears changed from a marching drumbeat to a churning dirge.

  Xander’s footsteps echoed off the smooth cavern walls. I heard his voice but the words were distant, inscrutable. Adjet sounded like she was laughing, a joyful sound.

  Their hands were on me. Adjet took her fingers and tapped along my meridian channels, loosening the energy, relaxing my muscles. Xander cradled my head, massaging his fingers around the tissue on my neck. Then he laid my head back down and I felt the wires from the field port weave into my spine, interfacing with my neural network, settling in.

  The serum flowed through me. I w
as floating at the top of the room. Xander and Adjet stood over my body. They were each holding one of my hands, eyes open, looking up at the ceiling. At me. I turned towards the long, dark tunnel behind me, and slid inside, rushing towards the light.

  * * *

  I stretched my mind. It was effortless, just like it had been on Reacher. As we traveled through space, the field enabled us to feel the ship from the inside, to interact with it, to become a part of it. Now, we could begin to do the same here on the planet Eaiph. I inhabited the whole nascent lattice we had built; all the echoing corridors we had carved beneath the surface, all the filaments of energy lighting up.

  I could feel my crew members’ footsteps inside the chambers like insects on my skin. I rose to the surface, sweeping past our ship and up into the low atmosphere. Winged birds graced through me, their feathers rustling with my breath.

  The rush was incredible. This was more than Reacher. More than Transcendence. More even than Forsara. In those places, the field networks were already established. But here? Here, there was pure potential. We were building our own network. We were not just participants. We were Architects. We could shape the network with our will.

  I stretched again, and the lattice grew with me. The filaments pierced out, winding through the dirt, connecting more and more of this world to the field. It was only a matter of time now. I smiled. The wind quieted.

  In the field, the limitations of the waking body fell away. The boundaries between the inner and outer world faded. All of the connections became clear.

  I drew a deep breath. The ground trembled. Yes. Again. Deeper this time.

  “Pausha. Slow down. Slow down!” Neka was in the field with me, and her voice was in my mind.

  Even though some small part of me was well aware that she was several farruns away, at one of the ancillary hubs, I felt her heart beating right next to mine. I laughed and the ground shook harder. “Can’t you feel this, Neka?”