An older woman, perhaps in her mid-to-late forties – dressed in black, chitin-like armour – stood facing her, holding a small disruptor weapon, her face obscured by a thin black veil made from silk.
“Who are you?” Chen hissed, adrenaline surging through her body. “What are you doing here? Are you trying to sneak up on me?”
The veiled woman put a finger to her lips, looking into her eyes intently. “Shhh!” Then she whispered, “Lora, please be quiet. No-one else knows I’m here…” She moved towards her. Two paces.
Chen blinked the sweat from her eyes, raising her eyebrows. “That’s close enough. I asked you a question. Who are you?”
The woman took a deep breath, then reached up and pulled the veil away from her face.
Lorelei Chen could not believe it at first. She went cold and wanted to vomit, yet her stunned disbelief was gradually turning to anger. “Are you my future self?”
“Yes,” the older woman said, staring into her eyes.
Chen swallowed, wiping cold sweat from her forehead. “Okay. This really is the strangest day of my life. So what’s your story? Are you three hundred years old too?”
The older Chen held up a hand, silencing her. She blew out her breath slowly and wearily. “No. I am you, twenty-one years from now. There isn’t much time to explain, so I’ll keep this short.”
“This is all very confusing,” Chen moaned.
“Listen,” Older Chen said. “We have control over what happens to us in the future. There is no destiny or fate. There is nothing that will happen for sure. We determine our future from what we do now, our actions now. We make our own future from our own actions, and nothing or no one else is responsible.”
“Then how do you explain Damarus?”
“He is a temporal paradox – a convergence of multiple universes, nothing more than an anomaly in space-time. The actions committed in various time travels have actually overlapped one reality with another. Cris, the man you love, is not necessarily destined to become him – your actions can still prevent it.”
Chen swallowed dryly, still confused. “Why should I? If we prevent Cris from becoming Damarus… the world wouldn’t ever recover from the Apocalypse. He saved our people…”
Older Chen shook her head. “There is much you still don’t know about him. Cris is… changed… after what happens to him on the other side of the wormhole. Damarus is evil, for lack of a better word. Yes, evil. Purest evil.”
“I can’t believe that,” Chen said.
“Believe what you want,” Older Chen told her. “But just remember what I have told you. You can change things. It doesn’t have to be this way. I know you are thinking of leaving, of running away and hiding from this situation. But you have to play your part in this – you must go with Cris through that wormhole, and stop him from changing into that monstrous entity.”
Chen sighed. The idea of running away had occurred to her, but only briefly. She was going to go with him, no matter what. “I love Cris too much to abandon him now. And I’d never allow any harm to come to him, you should know that. I can’t believe you came back through time just to tell me such things. Why are you really here?”
Older Chen straightened, and gazed toward the exquisitely-crafted doorway to Damarus’ throne room. “Unfortunately, in my universe, I was never able to stop him. Perhaps there is still a chance for you yet. But here, and now, I’m going to end the reign of Damarus, once and for all.”
Damarus was sitting on his throne when the two Chens came back into the room, walking side by side.
“Lora!” Cris blurted. He was standing in front of the throne, at the base of the stepped platform, looking tired. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Long story,” she muttered.
“Lorelei Chen,” Damarus said, addressing the older woman as they stopped at the base of the throne, beside Cris. “I have been waiting a long time to see you again, my love.”
Older Chen sneered, and raised her disruptor weapon toward him, playing her finger over the trigger. “And so we find ourselves in this situation – again. What a perfect circle these events have formed. Have you told our younger selves how you have sent out an army to crush the resistance movement?”
“I didn’t think it was relevant,” Damarus said.
“Resistance movement?” Chen said, frowning. “What are you talking about?”
Older Chen turned to look at her. “Many of the world’s factions, as we speak, are sending a grand army, led by Queen Anacksu’namon and your friend Ammold Paramo, to overthrow Damarus as the sovereign ruler of this planet. You know how much discontent there is among the peoples of this world, having this… thing… dictate and rule over them for so long.”
“I thought that only a small handful of people…”
“You’re lying to yourself, Lora,” Older Chen said. “You know that most of the population fears Damarus and his iron rule, you’re just too afraid to admit it. Too afraid of divine retribution, because you are so wrapped up in those religious beliefs that it has blinded you to the truth. Damarus is not divine. He is just a man, who became twisted with evil power and took advantage of our people when they were at their most vulnerable…”
Cris blinked. “Wait,” he said. “Wait, this isn’t…”
Damarus got to his feet. “Lora,” he said. “Do you honestly expect that disruptor weapon to kill me? Surely you know better than that.”
“No,” she said bluntly. “But I’m going to try, just the same.”
Damarus turned to Cris then, and gestured toward the doorway. “This is where we part ways, Cristian. I’ll take this from here.”
“W… What?” was all he could say.
“Take Lora, and get yourselves to my personal launch bay, a little further down the Grand Corridor. There you will find the Thunder, a prototype ship capable of hyperspace travel. It was originally commissioned for a ‘colonising mission’ to Tau Ceti, but this was just a false pretense to secure the necessary funding for its construction. It is in fact yours to take, Cristian. It is the only ship on Earth that can withstand the gravimetric forces within Heaven’s Gate without being destroyed. That is its true purpose. It was designed with your journey in mind. Take it, as I once did, and go through the wormhole. Your destiny awaits you on the other side.”
Chen frowned, and looked across at Older Chen, who was still pointing her weapon toward Damarus. “What about you?” she asked.
“I’ve been waiting twenty-one years for this moment,” Older Chen said. “This is between me… and him. Go. Do as he says. Just remember what I told you.” She gave her younger self a cursory glance, then returned her gaze to her masked target.
Chen looked at Cris, and for a moment they both hesitated.
“Go!” Damarus roared. “And don’t look back!”
They ran.
15
They ran down the Grand Corridor, flushed with a sense of unease and vulnerability. The encounter in Damarus’ throne room had caught them both by surprise, and raised some serious fears within both of them. Cris feared most of all that Damarus was right; that the imminent journey through Heaven’s Gate was going to change him into something he couldn’t even imagine. The thought of becoming that thing – that impossible anomalous entity ruling over the peoples of the world with a dictatorial fist – seemed like a dreadful, dark destiny that chilled him to the very core. The question was how… How on earth could something like that even happen?
Meanwhile, Lorelei Chen was anxious, and confused about the appearance of her future self. And her love for Cris, and indeed for God himself, while as strong as ever, now felt threatened by the implications of Damarus’ revelations. The future was uncertain, she’d told herself. What was going to happen to them? She didn’t even want to think about the temporal repercussions of all this. The entire universe seemed skewered, with her heart right at the centre.
Her thoughts wandered in that moment, turning to the events of thirteen years earlier…
/>
It was the year 179 ND (of the New Dominion). Lorelei Chen was undergoing her Undergraduate Apprenticeship in Science and Archaeology at the University of Einek, studying under her father, who lectured at the college. Her most valued experience of that time came when, shortly after her fourteenth birthday, she was picked to join the team excavating the remains of the ancient city of Hong Kong, five miles out into the coastal wastelands beyond Einek’s borders. After the Apo’calupsis, volcanic activity in the region had become intense, and the ancient city had been consumed by lava, becoming a desert of rock hundreds of years ago. In order to excavate the city, huge tunnelling machines were made to bore down almost a mile beneath the surface, creating a vast sinkhole within which the archaeologists’ more sensitive work could take place.
Her father, Janos Chen, was a man devoted to his work, and to his religion. The chance to excavate and catalogue the remains of an ancient church building was particularly enthralling to him on this day.
“Fascinating,” he said, holding up a small clay bust, perfectly preserved, depicting a haloed woman in prayer, wearing a blue head scarf. “That these people actually deified the mother of Jesus Christ. The Virgin Mary. The Mother of God.” He chuckled to himself, shaking his head at the archaic, mythological concept. “How strange the world must have been back then, with its different, conflicting religions and spiritual viewpoints, coupled with the general lack of scientific understanding. Nobody could agree on anything.”
Lorelei smiled, and looked up at him. “People didn’t understand what they were, or their place in the Cosmos. We, as a species, have learnt much from the teachings of Lord Damarus, father. Before the writing of the Third Testament, the world was a barbaric place, indeed.”
Janos nodded at her. “Quite right, my child. If not for Damarus’ arrival, there may never have been a Spiritual Revolution at all on this world.” It was a well known fact that Lord Damarus was credited with single handedly unifying all of the world’s old religions with pantheism, creating the One Religion that existed today. There had been resistance, of course. There were three epic religious wars known collectively as the Bellum Sacrum, which ultimately led to the formation of the New Dominion and the strict iconoclasm of all opposing ideologies. “I would dread to think what the world would be like without him. Hallowed be His Name.”
“Praise be,” Lorelei said. Damarus was considered the Mind of God, a mediating power between good and evil, making sure that neither had a decisive victory over the other, maintaining universal balance. He also served as a scribe of God, credited with the writing of the books of the Third Testament, as well as all modern works of science and philosophy which had transformed human society after the Apo’calupsis. “I would love to visit the Silver City someday, and meet with him,” she said, then sighed. “But Laputa is such a long way from here.”
Her father looked at her proudly. “The strength of your faith is admirable, Lorelei. Your grandfather would be proud, I’m sure.”
She smiled. She had heard tales of how her grandfather Doci had been an important Holy Guard at the Silver City’s Sacred Palace, in the years prior to her birth. It must have been such an honour to serve the Holy Emperor in such a personal capacity. But she still knew so little about him. Sometimes it felt as if the full truth was being kept a secret from her, somehow. She didn’t know why. “How did my grandfather die?” she asked.
Janos looked uncomfortable. Then he seemed to relax a little. “A young member of the Holy Guards named Ammold Paramo, who was a close friend of your grandfather’s before he committed certain blasphemies, founded a wave of resistance against Damarus’ claim to divinity, and your grandfather was killed in the ensuing war. He died a hero in the Battle of Oneiland.”
It was the same thing he’d always told her. Something about it just didn’t add up, but she decided not to pursue it. “I just wish I’d known him.”
Janos took a deep breath. “Keep Damarus, and the One Religion, close to your heart, Lorelei. Your grandfather would have wanted this. If his death meant anything, it was that pursuing heretical fantasies is ultimately folly. Remember that.”
She loved her father very much.
They reached the entrance to the launch bay, and went inside.
Cristian Stefánsson blinked wearily. He was looking at a scene of incandescent brightness. After the shaded calm of the Grand Corridor outside the glare was dazzling.
The hangar was immense. From outside, where pretty much all of the exits from the Grand Corridor were an identical-looking decorated doorway, it had been hard to get a true impression of its real size. He and Lora were at the south-east facing corner and from where they stood the huge space ran away before their eyes like a vast cavern. The inner walls were painted black or maybe dark brown, but Cris couldn’t tell for sure. There were so many enormous arc lights slung from above, the blinding glare made it difficult to focus on them. It was like staring into a star.
The hangar was huge, but the bioship docked within was more awe-inspiring still. With a glistening semi-saucer fore with a squared-off aft section, the Thunder easily measured over a hundred and twenty meters in length, constructed from some organic metamaterial. It had 4 decks, making it much smaller than most interstellar bioships, but its design was exquisite, suited to the exotic tastes of the Holy Emperor. A short, rectangular extension housed a large navigational array deflector, and two giant engines were housed on either side of the ship. The Alcubierre-Sel’varis Drives were not parallel; their axes intersected less than a ship-length at the rear, which currently faced toward them.
Cris blew air from his mouth. “Wow.”
Before Chen could respond, a small creature emerged, approaching them swiftly from somewhere behind the ship. It appeared to be a human male, but was seriously deformed if that were the case. Somewhere in the region of four feet tall, his skin was dry and hard and seemed to be cracked in many places, somewhat resembling the scales of a fish. His mouth was large and round and open. It had no external nose, but two holes where the nose should have been. His eyes appeared to be lumps of coagulated blood, turned out, about the bigness of a plum, ghastly to behold. No external ears, but holes where the ears should be. The hands and feet appeared to be swollen, were cramped up and looked quite hard. The creature spoke, a strange kind of noise, very low, and haunting.
“My name is Sai’bot,” he said. “I am His Holiness’ personal assistant. He told me to expect you today. The Thunder is primed and ready to go, as he instructed. Please, feel free to take the ship. I will open the hangar bay doors which will allow you to leave.”
Cris swallowed, taken aback slightly. It seemed incredible that Damarus had already made these arrangements, in anticipation of their encounter. He nodded. “Thankyou, Sai’bot. Perhaps we will meet again some other time…”
Sai’bot shrugged, then shambled off toward a nearby control panel.
Chen watched the creature go, then followed Cris silently as he approached the bioship’s boarding ramp. She realised, with a chill, that they were about to embark on a journey into the unknown: a journey that would surely test the very foundation of her being. Once they were inside Cris pulled the door shut, watching a little computerised screen display some kind of compression sequence which sealed in the artificial atmosphere.
Ten minutes later, a hydraulic mechanism on the north-facing wall of the hangar activated, and a large panel constructed from rock slid back, revealing the orange-red skies outside. Chen sat in the pilot’s seat and eased the vessel out of the chamber, into the light of day, the thruster engines giving out such intense force that they almost vaporised the metal alloys surrounding the hangar’s outer wall. Then they were away, off and flying.
Cris, seated beside her, gave her a wounded look. “I’m sorry,” was all he could think of to say.
She shook her head. “There’s nothing to apologise for. You couldn’t possibly have expected any of this. And let’s be fair: technically, a lot of this hasn’t even happ
ened yet.”
“Maybe,” he said absently. “But still, this can’t be easy for you. I mean it’s tough for me, but I can only imagine how you must be feeling right now.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay, Cris. Really. Whatever happens, we’re going to face the future together, right?”
“Right.”
“I’ve invested myself in you,” she told him, “and I’m not going anywhere.”
When they reached one-hundred-twenty thousand feet, the colour of the atmosphere outside turned from pale orange-red to dark red, and then finally black, the stars beyond beginning to twinkle with distant yet stunning clarity.
“I love you, Lora,” Cris said, and reached out a hand.
She took the hand in her own. “I love you too, Cris.”
They watched through the viewport as the image of the planet Earth swirled into view, the clouds disappearing beneath them, the familiar spherical horizon showing itself, engulfing the comparatively tiny ship. It was an image that Cris had seen countless times in photographs, movies and television, but this was the first time he’d ever seen the Earth from orbit for real. It was a moving experience, a humbling moment, made even more powerful by the knowledge of what was still to come.
“It will take approximately thirty-seven minutes to reach Heaven’s Gate,” Chen said, inputting commands into the navigational system. There was a slight inertial shift as the vessel accelerated across the expanse of the Solar System.
The Complete New Dominion Trilogy Page 13
