Eduro motioned to a tapestry on a far wall, which depicted a few dozen red-skinned men and women standing before a large, crystalline ship, overlooking a wide, barren desert.
“It is conjectured that the microscopic singularity that powered the Atlan craft was responsible for changing the dynamic between the original universe and this sick, lifeless twin. The housing which contained the singularity had a negative energy characteristic, vital to maintain control of the powerful gravitational and energetic effects of the singularity. In any event, when the first Atlan craft passed into the fissure, it emerged into a new universe which was already billions of years old, but which had not yet been contaminated by contact from Earth. When the second Atlan craft attempted to pass into the fissure, at the moment of the cataclysm on Earth, the craft must have been destroyed, and in so doing, its constituent elements were reduced to powder. The negative energy housing of the drive mechanism, it is believed, shot like shrapnel through the fissure. Permeating the environment of this newfound world, the particulate elements periodically intersected with naturally occurring wormholes in the quantum foam, which in one in a billion trillion instances resulted in a transient, traversable wormhole, connecting a point on Paragaea to a point elsewhere. And since the space-time in which this new universe grew was connected by an umbilicus to Earth's universe, from time to time these traversable wormholes create fissures between the worlds, through which matter and energy can pass unharmed. Some of them remain viable only for a picosecond, or open onto the cold vacuum of space, or open deep within the molten crust of the planet, but some bare few allow the opportunity to move from one world to the other.”
Leena swallowed hard, listening closely.
“Imagine, then, how surprised those Atlans must have been when new fissures began to open, and things fell through from Earth. Animals, organism-filled showers of seawater, seeds, even human beings. But due to the random nature of the fissures, they led to and from all points in Earth's history, not just the Atlans' own era. Now, with Paragaea slowly becoming stocked with flora and fauna, the Atlans would be able to survive.” Eduro took another sip from his crystal goblet, and raised it in salute to the red-skinned men and women woven on the far tapestry. “My forebears, though, were not content merely to survive. Given this new world to inhabit, they sought to improve it, to make a better world than the one they had left behind, sundered forever. And so, the Atlans began to experiment with the animals and people who were transported via the fissures to Paragaea.”
“You experimented on people?” Hieronymus asked, drawing back with shock.
“And why not? Isolated on our island home on Earth, we Atlans had developed into a subspecies of humanity ourselves, so we bore no guilt for using other human species in our experiments just as we used animals.”
Eduro glanced at Balam, and flashed an avuncular smile.
“The results of these early experiments were the first metamen.”
Balam stopped eating, and narrowed his amber eyes at the red-skinned man.
“The metamen were an amusing diversion for a time, grafting human and animal genetic material, manipulating the genes to create advantageous mutations, increased intelligence, improved senses. But after a time, we bored of these games, and released the viable species into the wild.”
Leena and Hieronymus looked to Balam, worried about how he might react, but to their surprise, he merely thought for a moment, shrugged, and went back to eating.
“For a long span, we Atlans kept to ourselves, but when we had rebuilt over the generations to the point where it was possible once again to harness the power of a larger-scale singularity, our thoughts turned towards control. This was the beginning of the Black Sun Empire. But even in those days, in which we ruled all of Paragaea, most Atlans stayed atop Ignis, preferring to send out agents to collect information and send it back. Agents either human, or metaman, or even artificial.”
“Like Benu,” Leena said, nodding.
“Yes,” Hieronymus said. Seeing Eduro's confused expression, he explained. “We met an artificial man, who said that he had been constructed for a similar purpose in ancient days by the Atlans.”
“Oh, really?” Eduro leaned forward eagerly, eyes wide. “And where is this Benu now?”
“Somewhere, nowhere, who knows?” Balam shrugged.
“He entered one of the gates,” Leena said, “and left Paragaea behind.”
“That's too bad,” Eduro said with a sigh. “I would have liked the chance to meet one of our probes.”
“You might still get your wish, if you desire,” Balam said darkly.
“Oh?”
“Yes,” Hieronymus said, “there is an army of religious fanatics encamped to the north, excavating something from the dead soil of Eschar, for what reason we don't know. And at their head is a being who we believe might be the ‘son' of Benu, a replacement body that was allowed to develop a mind of its own.”
“Oh, dear,” Eduro said, clapping his hands. “That sounds exciting, doesn't it?”
Leena leaned forward nervously, her fingers laced together. “Eduro, you still haven't said. Have your people…” She paused, swallowing hard. “Have your people the knowledge of controlling or predicting the gates to Earth?”
“But of course,” he said casually. “We can open fissures to whichever point in space-time we desire. Why, did you want to return?”
The next morning, Eduro led the trio to a vast room at the heart of the citadel city. The crystal floor at their feet glowed red and orange as shapes and shadows moved in its depths, while the ceiling rose in a high dome overhead. Arranged in a circle were metallic pedestals, surmounted by flat tables upon which gemstones were arranged in complex patterns. At the center of the circle, hovering several meters off the floor, was a large sphere of complete blackness, around which coruscated red tongues of flame.
“In ancient days,” Eduro said, pointing at the floor, “Atla drew its power from the thermal energies of the volcanic Ignis. In time, our energy requirements outstripped the volcano's output, but fortunately by then we had once again mastered the art of creating and maintaining singularities.”
Balam took a step forward, as though mesmerized, his eyes on the black sphere overhead. “What is it?”
“Take care,” Leena said warily.
“Oh, it's quite safe, I assure you,” Eduro said. “At a distance, of course. You don't want to venture too close to the encasement, as it is constructed of matter which, in addition to not registering on the visual spectrum, also has a negative energy density. It would not be wise to come into physical contact with it.”
“So that is the singularity of which you spoke?” Hieronymus pointed at the black sphere.
“Yes,” Eduro said. “The sphere you see is actually the event horizon of the singularity within. However, though light cannot escape, radiation does bleed from the singularity, evaporating away in an energetic spectrum, which is then directed through channels to fulfill the energy needs of Atla.”
“And this energy will allow you to create the gateway to Earth?” Leena said.
Eduro smiled. “I believe so. It's been some time since any of us had a yen to travel, and so the citadel hasn't had to create a traversable wormhole in a considerable while.”
Hieronymus paced around the perimeter of the room, regarding the gem-topped pedestals. “The citadel creates the wormhole?”
“In a sense.” Eduro walked to the nearest of the pedestals, and repositioned one of the gems on its surface. Then he turned back towards the trio, glanced at the ceiling overhead, and said, “Atla?”
“Atla awaits your instruction, Edurovrahtrelarnivast-(Ψ/b)2(Θe)Descending-Viridian-Prime, best beloved,” came a musical voice, seeming to echo from the walls themselves.
“Housed within the walls of cultured diamond which make up the citadel city resides the intelligence which is Atla.” Eduro reached out, and touched the edge of the pedestal with a gesture that seemed almost affectionate.
“So the city is alive?” Balam said, looking warily at the crystalline walls around them.
“In a sense,” Eduro said. “As alive as the probe you encountered, at any rate, to which it is close cousin.”
Leena crossed her arms over her chest, uneasy at the thought that the city had senses that could have watched them at any moment. She blushed slightly, involuntarily, and hugged her arms to her chest tighter.
“Now, my dear,” Eduro said, turning to her, “if you will help me fix your desired point of entry, in terms both spatial and temporal, I can instruct Atla to begin work on the calculations necessary to locate and open a suitable gate. It may take some time, since the city's intelligence will have to sort through a trillion possibilities every fraction of a second, but in time, it should be able to locate a microscopic wormhole occurring naturally within the walls of the city itself which should suit your purpose.”
In the end, it took nearly a day of studying ancient Atlan star charts and projections of stellar precession for Eduro and Leena to work out the point in time to which the gateway should lead, and several more hours to work out a desirable geographical location. The destination would not be exact, and so Eduro instructed the crystalline intelligence of Atla to err on the side of caution, preferring to send Leena back to Earth a small number of years after she departed, rather than risking her arriving on Earth before she launched in the Vostok 7 module, which could engender paradox and the violation of causality. Even Eduro and the combined wisdom of the Atlans could not say with certainty what would eventuate, were that to happen.
The afternoon of the company's third day in Atla, while they waited for the crystalline intelligence to complete its computations, their diversions were interrupted by a gonging sound issuing from the walls themselves.
Hieronymus and Leena had been in their quarters, enjoying their solitude while Balam was in a large kitchen a short distance away, making experimental dishes with the strange foodstuffs with which the city's larder was stocked. They paused in the long silence that followed the sound of the gong, expectant.
“Friends, my apologies.” The voice of Eduro echoed from the walls, disembodied. “Will you please join me in the refectory? There's something I wish to show you. The servitors will show you the way.”
Leena and Hieronymus dressed quickly, but before leaving their quarters, he took her by the hand.
“We have come a considerable distance to reach this point,” he said, pulling her close to him. “And it seems that the means to return to Earth is nearly within your grasp. So I must ask you. Are you still bound to return?”
Leena averted her eyes, squeezing his hand tightly. “I must fulfill my duty. I am obligated to return, and report on what I have learned.”
“And nothing would convince you to stay?”
Leena looked up at him, their eyes meeting.
“I…” she began. “Though I must go, there are things about this world that it pains me to leave behind.”
Hieronymus nodded thoughtfully.
“When you go, would you object to a traveling companion?” He smiled slightly. “I've seen much of what Paragaea has to offer, these last years, and it might be interesting to see how Earth has changed since my long-ago departure.”
Leena's eyes misted, and she drew Hieronymus to her, wrapping her arms around him.
“Together, then,” she said, her face buried in his chest.
“Together.”
They stood like that, holding one another, for a long moment, until a servitor appeared at the doorway and began to twitch anxiously.
“Come along, then,” Leena said, drying her eyes and striding towards the door. “Let's see what our host has to show us.”
The pair followed the scuttling spiderlike machine through the corridors of the city, and at last reached a long, high-ceilinged room dominated by a large, curved screen of translucent crystal that rose dozens of meters above the floor. Balam was already there, lounging on a low couch, munching on a pastry of his own concoction.
“Oh, thank you for coming so quickly,” Eduro said, gliding into the room, gathering the folds of his spun-moonlight robe around him. “Atla has alerted me to something that I thought you should see.”
The Atlan moved to stand below the curved crystal screen.
“This is the Eye of Atla,” Eduro explained, motioning Leena and Hieronymus to join Balam on the couches. “With it, we can see whatever the senses of the city can detect.”
Leena and Hieronymus sat together on a divan, a short distance from Balam, their eyes on the translucent screen.
“Go ahead, Atla,” Eduro said, and sank into an overstuffed chair.
On the screen an image suddenly appeared, with such detail and clarity that it seemed to Leena as though she were looking through an enormous window, not at a projected image.
“Damn,” Balam snarled, fangs bared.
The screen showed them the image of hundreds of metamen crowded about a massive machine of some sort, propelled on an enormous wheeled platform. The perspective of the screen was such that it appeared the viewer stood directly in front of the approaching metamen, behind whom a snow-covered plain stretched to the horizon.
“Rotate,” Eduro said, and the perspective of the screen shifted dizzyingly, rotating through space around the metamen while spinning one hundred and eighty degrees, so that in a split second it now appeared to the viewers as though they were standing behind the metamen and looking forward.
Towering before the metamen was a wall of rock, into which a channel had been cut, rising straight up at a steep grade.
“That's Ignis,” Hieronymus said, jumping to his feet.
“Of course,” Eduro said, surprised. “Why else should I be concerned?”
“That looks like the machine Per's followers were excavating in Eschar,” Leena said. “What is it?”
“It is an ancient Atlan war engine, last used in the metamen uprising,” Eduro explained. “Pulling its power directly from the singularity at Atla's heart, the weapon is capable of destroying a whole continent. Fortunately, the city's senses indicate the machine's reserves are drained to empty, and so the weapon would need to be brought in close proximity to Atla itself to be recharged.”
As they watched, the metamen reached the foot of the mountain, and in their hundreds began to struggle the enormous machine onto the Stair of Ignis.
“Look there,” Balam said, pointing to a small, pale figure at the corner of the screen.
“Magnify, please,” Eduro said, and the perspective of the screen shifted again, zooming in and focusing on the pale figure.
It was Per, standing with the metamen dignitaries, directing the activities of his followers.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” Eduro said excitedly. “That is most definitely a degraded example of one of the Atlan probes.”
“Then Per's army was marching south to Atla,” Hieronymus said.
“And Per is Ikaru, after all,” Balam said. “Whatever his dark purpose.”
“But how did he get past the Barrier?” Leena asked. “Without the Carneol, we'd not have been able to get through, ourselves.”
“Well,” Eduro said absently, “the war engine, with its power systems, could conceivably have been modified in such a way to drain its charge from the Barrier wall itself. It would have taken a considerable amount of time, but it would have been possible.” He paused, and shrugged. “But since I deactivated the Barrier shortly after you arrived, that wasn't necessary.”
A contingent of metamen, armed and fearsome, raced up the Stair while their brothers below labored in their hundreds beneath the war engine, moving it slowly but steadily up the mountainside.
All eyes were on the image of the ancient, wizened creature on the screen, his mouth wide as he shouted at his assembled followers.
“If Per is the offspring of Benu,” Balam asked, pacing before the crystal screen, fangs bared, “then what does he have to gain from all of this?”
“W
ell,” Eduro said, distractedly motioning towards the screen, “let's see, shall we?”
Suddenly, the room filled with amplified sound, and they could hear the whistling wind, the murmuring hordes of metamen, and, above it all, the rising voice of Per.
“…the blood of the Atlans, who have abandoned you, their offspring! The universe has decreed that the demiurges who created you must now be uncreated, so that you can ascend and take their place, as you have always been fated to do. You have proven yourselves worthy, and now, at the time of the Reckoning, you shall be rewarded.”
Eduro motioned again, and the room once more fell silent.
“Well, I think that explains it,” Hieronymus said dryly.
“He wants revenge,” Leena said. “When Benu related the story to us, he told us of Ikaru's madness, and his thirst for control.”
“But surely his cognition is not damaged so extensively that he believes he can actually survive the war engine being used,” Eduro said, disbelieving. “It was intended for remote detonation only, and one would have to be far from the blast radius to escape complete discorporation.”
“Maybe he doesn't want to survive,” Balam said, looking at the screen beneath lowered brows. “I think he craves death, not just for himself, but for all living creatures. Look at his eyes. He is beyond madness, now.”
“Eduro,” Hieronymus said, striding over and taking the Atlan by the arm. “Is there any way to disable the war engine before it can be recharged?”
“Our only option would be to allow the energy of the singularity to bleed into the higher dimensions, leaving the war engine without power. It would also, though, leave Atla itself without power.”
Leena stepped forward, eyes wide. “But you must finish opening the gate to Earth. If the power is cut off before the calculations are completed, we'll never be able to return home.”
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