Arlene bobbed her head. “Well, good,” she confirmed, matter-of-factly, unmoved by the fact that Molly’s visions had some significance.
“So what does this mean?” Molly asked.
“Well, for one,” she explained to her, “it suggests that your realm jumping is getting more precise and useful. I wouldn’t be surprised if Neechie was helping you access aspects of your higher self that knows everything from past, present and future.”
Molly allowed the new paradigm to float into her consciousness, cognizant that Oz could always give her a replay later.
Arlene continued. “As for what the scene means specifically, what else can you tell us?”
Molly closed her eyes, trying to recall the incident again. There was a pause on the line. “I saw some kind of doorway. In stone. Like an entrance to a tomb. Or a temple.”
Arlene started tapping some notes on her wrist holo.
Molly continued talking. “There was a smell of how the air goes when it’s hot outside but cold inside the stone walls. And there were markings. Like the Zhyn characters. But not. Maybe a different language. Or older. And they were worn away a bit, making it hard to make them out for sure.”
She moved her head as if looking up and around, her eyes still closed, her mind lost in her memory. “The constellations were strange… but that would make sense if it were in the Orn System, an area of space I’m not familiar with.”
Arlene whispered to Giles. “So it’s a tomb, above the ground…”
Giles nodded, his eyes not leaving the holo of Molly. If this was true, then maybe there was a reason that Molly was developing these abilities. And maybe it had something to do with the talismans and the mythology they were finding themselves drawn into.
“Anything else in the sky?” Arlene asked, obviously searching for clues to narrow down their search. Giles smiled to himself. Atta, girl, he thought to himself, seeing that they were on the same page.
Molly shook her head again. “No - just a beam of light falling on it. Lighting up the glyphs.”
Arlene’s voice seemed a little more excited. “Can you see where the light is coming from?”
Molly shook her head. “No. But then I was somewhere else.” She paused a moment, as if reliving the experience. “I turned, and looked down, and I was in a bedroom… looking at a drawer next to a bed. A bedside cabinet.”
“Who’s bedroom is it?” Arlene coaxed.
Molly shook her head, a strand of her blonde hair dropping in front of her face. “I’m not sure. I feel like it’s a girl. But a little girl who is quite… precocious. She feels as if she’s beyond her years, or something. She’s… strange.”
Arlene’s voice reached out to her. “What else can you see in the bedroom?”
Molly’s brow creased up, as if she were trying to see closer. “There were red curtains over by the window. And outside… a building like the Capital Building in Spire. The room was sparse. Like a religious dorm or something. There were some Estarian beads on the wall.”
She paused, her head looking downwards now. “But on the bedside table, there are tablets… that aren’t being taken.”
Arlene’s voice penetrated her consciousness. “How do you know they’re not being taken?” she asked.
Molly answered simply. “I just know.”
Molly was silent. Giles and Arlene waited, watching. Wondering if there was any more information to come.
Molly suddenly opened her eyes. “That’s it,” she told them. “That’s all I saw.”
Arlene flicked up and down her holo notes, making sure she had everything she needed.
Molly waiting patiently for Arlene’s opinion. “So what do you think?” she pressed, a twinge of anxiety in the corners of her eyes.
Arlene pursed her lips, and then closed her holo. “I think,” she told her, “that you’ve been seeing things that may help us narrow our search down.”
Molly’s face brightened. “Well, that’s great then!” she said. Her face dropped a moment later. “But why?” she asked.
Arlene took a deep breath, and then glanced over at Giles, who was cleaning his fake glasses.
Realizing he was now being invited into the conversation, he sat up a little and pulled his chair forward. “I believe that as you’re becoming more proficient in your realm jumping, you’re able to access more and more intelligence out of time.”
Molly frowned. “Out of time?” she asked.
Giles nodded, placing his glasses back on his face. “Yeah. So as humans… or any organics I know of… we experience time in sequence. Like frames of a movie.”
Molly nodded her understanding and Giles continued. “Thing is, all these frames exist at once. Plus there’s an infinite number of possibilities, which all have their own track of frames.”
“Ok…” Molly agreed slowly.
Giles continued his point, watching her carefully to make sure she was following. “So imagine all of these frames, and then not necessarily being tied to them. So you’re able to look at all of them out on a table in front of you.”
Molly bobbed her head. “Yeah, okay. I get that.”
“Right,” he said. “So when you’re realm jumping you’re basically accessing these other frames from that altered perspective. What I’ve been calling ‘out of time’, or more precisely ‘outside of time.’”
“Hmmm,” Molly mulled the idea for a moment. “That sounds… plausible. And it certainly explains all the different things I’ve been experiencing with the jumping and drifting.”
Giles smiled, and then leaned over to speak quietly to Arlene, well aware that Molly could still hear him. “It’s unnerving how quickly she accepts these things.”
Arlene nodded. “I know. It freaked me out a little when I first met her. I still haven’t figured out if it’s personality or just rapid processing of new paradigms.”
Molly eyed them playfully. “Erm, hello? Still here,” she called, waving. “Even I know it’s rude to talk about someone in the third person as if they’re not there.”
Arlene smirked a little. “My dear, we thought you were beyond such social conventions.”
Molly relaxed in her seat. “Well. Yeah. That’s true. I only mentioned it coz I thought it would be funny,” she confessed blankly.
Arlene and Giles burst out laughing.
Molly looked at them, completely puzzled and missing the unintentional joke. “I don’t understand,” she said, as their laughter subsided.
Giles wiped an eye from behind his glasses. “It’s funny because you tried to make fun of yourself and we didn’t get it… and then you explained it - which was hilarious. And then it was a double whammy when you didn’t understand why we found it funny in the end.”
Molly’s expression was still deadpan. “I think my head is about to explode.”
Her eyes seemed to change as if she were ready to move the conversation on. “Ok,” Molly said more brightly now, “this has been useful and enlightening. What’s next?”
The conversation continued for a few minutes longer and eventually they said their farewells.
Giles clicked off the call and sat back, thinking.
Arlene glanced over at him. “You didn’t want to talk to her privately then?”
Giles frowned. “Whatever for?”
Arlene rolled her eyes and moved her console chair back across the cockpit to her usual spot. “No reason,” she said, a hint of playfulness in her voice.
Giles couldn’t tell if Arlene was having a dig, or genuinely encouraging his interests in Molly. Plus, she had her back to him as she made the comment, making reading her expression ever more difficult. He suspected she had done that deliberately, because of the many papers they’d written in their early days in research about facial cue for evaluating truth and credibility.
He got up, stretched his legs, and ambled back into the rec area of the Scamp Princess to catch Beno’or up on the latest developments.
CHAPTER SIX
Aibek Mo
on, Orn System
“Guardians!” Jendyg muttered to himself. “May as well call us ‘the bloody forsaken.’” He moved across his hut, carving tool still in hand.
He added his latest carving to his collection of miniature statues above his fireplace. Some were of animals he remembered from his youth back on Zhyn. Others were of warriors and soldiers. And people.
He tried once to carve one of the person he remembered as his mother. But his memory failed him. The extended life they had been given by their elders while they remained on this rock wasn’t accompanied by an extended memory. He had forgotten most of the things from the early years. Only some memories lingered with him.
Like the memory of living with another family member when his mother died. He thought it was his uncle. But he could no longer be sure. It was a long five years at the time, and now it was a nightmare that ebbed further and further from his consciousness each time he recalled the memories.
Memories of being held captive in a cell with very little food and water. Memories of being beaten. Enslaved. Helpless. Until one day the order came to rescue him. Well, that was probably just a by-product of them finding the man who had betrayed them to some other organization. It was all explained to him when he was older and had joined the military arm of the order: the Sacred Warrior Order of the Zhyn. But by then it was already vague — emotionally charged memories he struggled to assemble in any kind of fashion.
He did recall that his days in training and serving on Zhyn had been pleasant. Probably the best of his life. So when the time had come to volunteer for a special mission he was only too eager to sign up.
And that brought him here. To this rock. With its artificial air, fake soil and pretend ecosystem. The deal had been that they would be relieved by new guardians every ten standard cycles.
The tenth cycle came and went.
By then they already needed new supplies and equipment. Repairs were increasingly difficult, especially to the force field. But they persisted.
That was back when there were ten of them. Now only six remained.
He shuddered, trying to push out the memories he would rather not recall. Strange, he thought to himself, how some memories are so elusive, and others you need to use a mental force field to keep them at bay.
He sighed, straightening out his row of carved Zhyn warriors, wondering what might happen if the energy field on the rock brought them to life. His mind wandered as he puttered around in his little hut. The freeze would be coming any day now. That’s what Gagai had told them the other night after hunting. That always meant that finding food was going to be tough for the following weeks and they needed to increase their supplies while they still could.
He shook his head and sat down on his wooden rack. Right now he couldn’t worry about that. They’d survived the freeze every time in the past. This time would be no different. And if he started worrying about it he’d never get to sleep.
He lay back, still with his outdoor layers on. He’d take them off later if he woke up too warm, he told himself. He gently closed his eyes and returned to his daydream of his carved figures coming to life and what relief they might bring to his miserable, lonely existence.
Aboard the Scamp Princess
Giles rolled out of his rack, still groggy from a disturbed night’s sleep. Between the hard work of surveying each moon and the interaction with Molly the previous day his mind had spent the hours churning.
He grabbed a mocha from the machine in the living quarters and then ambled, in his onesy sleep-suit and boots, out into the cockpit where Arlene was already up and working.
“Morning!” she chirped brightly as she heard him emerge. She didn’t take her eyes from her screens.
“Mghhh,” he grunted, still not fully in charge of all his faculties. He sat down in the console chair behind her, as far away from his normal piloting console as possible, and waited for the mocha to return the life back to his senses. Arlene continued working. She knew what he was like in the mornings.
Eventually he mustered the will to speak. “Got anything?”
“Mmm. Maybe,” she replied, her voice crisp against the dullness in his sleepy brain. “Turns out we’re still going to have to land in order to survey each one separately. There’s still no way of checking all the structures for something as small as a temple - but at least we know we’re looking for something above ground.”
Beno’or appeared at the door, also clutching a fresh mocha. Giles realized he must have been sitting in the back when Giles had got up and come through to the cockpit.
“And this is the information you received from Molly?” Beno’or asked.
Arlene spun round to see him, a tad confused. “Giles filled me in yesterday,” he explained, indicating at the grizzly bear in the chair next to her.
Arlene nodded. “Yes. The one and the same… and if you’re going to give me a hard time about taking her visions seriously can we save that for a proper conversation later? I don’t have time to explai-”
Beno’or cut her off. “My dear…” he said theatrically, “you misunderstand my clarification. I fully trust your instincts on knowing what is fiction and what might be a useful clue from the psychic consciousness.”
Arlene turned to look at him again, this time grinning. “Right,” she said, her grin fading into sheepishness. “Well then…” she added, turning back to her console.
“So perhaps,” Beno’or continued with the task in hand, “we just need to make our best guess with which ones to start with.” He wandered into the cockpit and leaned over to look at Arlene’s screen. “If I wanted to hide something, I would put it in one of two places. Either in plain sight, or somewhere where no one would think to look.”
Giles rubbed the sleep from his eyes beneath his glasses. “That’s a good point,” he concurred.
“Smaller planets then?” Arlene quizzed.
“Yeah maybe,” Beno’or agreed. “Or insignificant-looking ones. Which are the least accessible?”
Arlene thought for a moment and then poked a little at her screens. “There are these three here,” she concluded. She leaned her arm on the console and rested her chin on her hand. After a moment looking at the screen she turned and looked at the others. “Okay - so I guess we start with those three?”
Giles rocked back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head, stretching his back. “Three is a damn site better than eleven,” he admitted, brightening up. “Good thinking, my friend,” he nodded to Beno’or.
Beno’or touched his nose lightly. “Comes from decision making for the Empire,” he confided.
Arlene smiled. She was warming to Beno’or more and more. “The other thing that will speed our search,” she added, “is the information from Molly that we’re looking for a temple above ground, and not an underground tomb. That will certainly make life easier.”
Giles nodded, now relaxed and resting his eyes.
Arlene got up. “Okay, well… this talisman isn’t going to find itself,” she declared. “Up,” she instructed, tapping Giles’s arm as she left the cockpit. “Get yourself showered and dressed so we can get going.”
Giles took a deep breathe, opened his eyes, and hauled himself upright with great effort. “Fine,” he called after her. “I’m getting another mocha first though,” he mumbled in defiance, for Beno’or’s benefit more than anything else, as he ambled sleepily back out into the rec room.
The Sacred Ascenders Convent for the Gifted, Estaria
The night air wafted in through the bedroom window. Anne hurriedly pulled her boots on and tied the laces. Fully clothed, she scooted over to the window, pulled it closed and dropped the latch. She snatched at the heavy red curtains, drawing them closed too, making it look from the outside like she was going to bed. She may look young, but she was well aware she had wisdom beyond her years - and her wisdom was telling her she didn’t have long before the opportunity would pass.
Quietly, she crept to her bedside table on the other
side of the room, looking at it as if lost in thought. Or planning. Her eyes didn’t even register the bottles of tablets that the convent had her taking. Or not taking. Every now and again she would tip a handful down the toilet just to keep up the appearance of abiding by their rules.
A moment later, as if decided on her course of action, she drew a deep breath, pushed her raven hair out of her face, and bent down at the cabinet and opened the drawer.
Moving a few pieces of jewelry away, including her Estarian meditation beads, she shifted some papers and found what she was looking for. She grabbed it tight in her hand and then decided it was probably best to put it into a pocket. She patted herself down, deciding which pocket would be big enough. She chose the one inside her jacket. At the very least it would be more discrete than carrying it, if anyone found her wandering the convent halls at night.
The item concealed and secured, she turned to the door, switched the light off, and then opened it, stepping out into the darkened corridor as her eyes adjusted to the new light levels.
It was cold. The heating went off in the evenings to encourage the charges not to stay up too late. Morning meditation would be hailed in a matter of hours and it was easier to accept as a way of life if one had had adequate sleep. Or so the sisters told them.
Anne crept down the corridor as quickly as she could, cringing at the swishing noise her outdoor suit made. She had considered going out in her night clothes, but then being caught so vulnerable didn’t appeal to her either.
Trying to breathe and move as quietly as she possibly could she moved down the corridor, taking a right onto the stone slab flooring into the stairwell. She hurried down, her boots tapping softly as she went. Arriving on the first floor of the residential wing she hurried through the hallway to the kitchen and then slipped out of the back door. Often, it was the only door that was left open. Somehow the nuns had decided that access through the kitchen didn’t pose a threat, but through the front door (the most obvious point of ingress with porch lights) did.
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