Aurora Resonant: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 3)

by G. S. Jennsen

  ‘Not as such. You should both come see.’

  Curiosity piqued, she climbed off the couch and met Caleb in the cockpit as the superluminal bubble dissipated.

  An emission nebula stretched across the horizon of space. They were already surrounded by the first wispy coils of dust and gas, but ahead ivy green and amber nebular clouds thickened until they created the impression of a solid wall.

  “How large is it, Valkyrie?”

  ‘It stretches for one hundred eighty-one parsecs in height and a diameter of two hundred sixty-eight parsecs on this side. I cannot yet say how deep it extends.’

  “That’s…big.”

  Caleb frowned as they traveled through progressively more concentrated clouds. “It reminds me of Metis.”

  She rolled her eyes. “When the Kats want to hide something….”

  “They encase it in an ominous, spooky nebula.”

  The scene soon escalated into eerie territory. Visual sight was reduced to kilometers as they floated through a seemingly endless swath of dense ionized gases. Broad spectrum sensors fared little better, returning solely the composition of the thick nebular clouds.

  ‘Interesting.’

  “Oh, boy.” Caleb chuckled. “What’s interesting, Valkyrie?”

  ‘I have not detected any evidence of recent star formation, as one would expect if this were an H II region nebula. The negative implies it is instead a planetary nebula. If so, assuming our coordinates approximate the core of the nebula, we ought to be close enough to detect the ASG star that created it.’

  “And?”

  ‘There is a star ahead, but it has long since passed into the white dwarf stage.’

  Now Alex frowned. “But if it’s been a white dwarf for a while—hell, if it’s a white dwarf at all—the nebula shouldn’t be this bright. In fact, it should be fading from sight.”

  ‘Yes.’

  “You think the Kats are artificially maintaining the ultraviolet radiation necessary to ionize the gases, which they need to obscure what’s inside.”

  ‘It would be well within their capabilities.’

  Shafts of luminous amber-tinged emerald light began to peek through the gloom ahead like rays of sunlight breaching thunderclouds. “Look at that.”

  Caleb hugged her from behind. “For the record, if there’s a portal in here…ah, who am I kidding? If there’s a portal in here, we go through it.”

  She shrugged in his arms. “It’s what we do.”

  Further banter was cut short as the nebula clouds at last thinned, though they didn’t disappear entirely. Space outside the viewport took on a ghostly, haunting aura as the increasing light dispersed through the dust and gases.

  A dark, decidedly non-nebular shape broke through the clouds to loom due ahead of them. “Full stop!”

  They came to a halt less than fifty meters above the etched corner of an immense monolith of Reor.

  “Oh. My.”

  “You always did have a talent for understatement, baby.”

  She grinned, but no way was she diverting her attention from the sight outside the viewport.

  Beyond the one they hovered above, slab after slab after slab of Reor orbited a distant, cold white dwarf barely radiating faint white-blue light. The cumulative area of the slabs added together would easily constitute a large moon if not a small planet.

  Each slab was a separate object, but they were arranged in ordered rows and columns, and precisely spaced pillars of energy pulsed between them like conductive traces on a circuit board. The collective glow of the pillars and the filaments within the slabs was enough to wash the cabin in prismatic color.

  If Valkyrie will land the Siyane on the surface of one of the structures—it does not matter which one—and the two of you will come outside, I will explain.

  For once, Mesme’s ‘voice’ didn’t herald the arrival of a bossy swirl of lights, and the Kat remained elsewhere. Presumably nearby, but elsewhere.

  “What is this, Mesme? Why are you hiding them?”

  Please, do as I’ve requested.

  It wasn’t as if she didn’t want to go outside, so instead of arguing she went to get her gear, grabbing Caleb’s hand as she passed him to drag him along with her. “Guesses?”

  His gaze flitted up to her without a response before returning to checking over the environment suits.

  “You do have a guess. And you’re not going to tell me.”

  He shrugged. “I might be wrong.”

  “When have you ever been wrong?”

  “Well, there was the time on…no, I was at least eighty percent right that time. Oh, but…no. Anyway, I’m sure there was a time.”

  “Uh-huh.” She tossed him a mock glare but elected not to push it. They’d both know the answer soon enough. And then he could gloat in that delightfully understated way he had, as she was also fairly sure he would end up being right.

  The hull rumbled as Valkyrie alighted the ship onto one of the Reor slabs. “Are we set, Valkyrie?”

  ‘All systems are nominal and contact is confirmed. I have extended the energy shielding to its maximum distance to provide you additional radiation protection, so you may depart whenever you’re ready.’

  She checked Caleb over then he did the same for her, as always. She bounced on the balls of her feet in only slightly exaggerated excitement. “Let’s do this.”

  “After you.”

  Stepping onto the surface should have reminded her of doing the same on Rudan. Frozen mineral beneath her feet, odd light all around, hazy darkness surrounding it. But while the atmosphere was among the most unusual and haunting she’d ever encountered, it somehow felt welcoming rather than ominous.

  The filaments ran in perfect straight lines at perfect ninety degree angles to one another, endlessly deep into the mineral of the slab. They were also active, streaming ever-shifting colors to the horizon. Eren had said they only changed color when they were encoding information, but she was beginning to wonder how much he truly knew about the substance. Standing here now, it occurred to her to wonder how much anyone truly knew about it.

  She took a step forward. The material wasn’t slick, but she still tread cautiously as the mag boots were the only thing keeping her from floating away. As her left boot alit on the surface, she noticed a hum penetrate the protective gear. “Caleb, can you feel that?”

  He shook his head.

  She crouched down and placed her glove on the surface; the hum immediately intensified. It was similar to the sensation she’d experienced when she held Eren’s Reor slab, but what was creating it?

  No answers offered themselves, so she stood once more. “Mesme, we’re here. It’s time for you to pull back the curtain.”

  White-blue lights gained strength in the distance, far across the slab. What had it been doing way over there?

  Mesme gathered into a semblance of a cohesive form as it approached, though it remained spread out across a far larger area than usual. Alexis, you feel a presence when you touch the Reor, yes?

  “A presence? I’d characterize it more as a…power. An energy.”

  This suffices. Caleb, you do not?

  “No.”

  Gather a small measure of diati and allow it to make contact with the surface.

  He didn’t waste any time in doing so; she suspected he was as curious as she. The area outside his glove began to sparkle in crimson as he crouched down and allowed his hand to hover a few centimeters above the surface.

  Abruptly he jerked. “Hey!” His hand withdrew briefly, but he quickly pressed it down again. The diati brightened and sparked.

  After a bit he looked up at her, wearing a smile behind the faceplate. “It’s not fighting—neither of them are.”

  They recognize one another.

  She whipped around to Mesme, knowing the answer before the words formed on her lips. “The Reor is conscious. It’s alive.”

  As you say.

  Valkyrie?

  This explanation is a logical
one. I cannot construct meaningful communication out of what we’ve experienced, but I do feel like I can sense intelligence in it.

  Caleb stood and allowed the diati to dissipate. “You said ‘they recognize one another.’ You’re implying the diati is as alive as the Reor, however alive that is.”

  I have previously professed my belief this is the case.

  “Right. So what does this mean for the Reor, and for Amaranthe? You’re hiding these slabs of Reor, much the same way you do when you’ve rescued species who are to be Eradicated. Because…the Directorate doesn’t know it’s a living entity, does it?”

  As is your habit, Caleb, you are correct.

  She chuckled at the notion that Mesme, too, had resigned itself to that reality.

  The Directorate would never allow a sentient life form to be privy to the myriad of secrets the Reor carry across the universe. It discovered the Reor’s home planet, studied the substance long enough to learn its computational and informational value, and harvested it until it was depleted. Then it grew more Reor, and more, and more, never understanding the nature of the material it produces and utilizes every day.

  Alex dropped to her knees and began running a hand over the surface with newfound respect. “Why didn’t the Reor…I don’t know, protect itself? Resist in some way?”

  The Reor intelligence is perhaps the most alien, the most unfathomable we have ever encountered. It does not perceive the individual actors in the universe the way you or even I do. By and large, it is content to experience stimulus in the form of the coursing of information through its pathways.

  “Were the Ruda your attempt to recreate this type of life form, or something akin to it?”

  I will not deny we took inspiration from the Reor when setting the conditions for life in the Ruda Enisle. We hoped to breed a synthetic species which functioned closer to our own existence, so we could understand one another. And in this respect, we succeeded.

  “But?”

  But the Ruda thus far lack the pandimensional characteristics the Reor display. They are sentient inorganic life, which is a rare enough occurrence, but they are not….

  “Extraordinary.”

  Mesme didn’t respond, but it didn’t really need to. Alex could sense some indefinable complexity about this life form that far exceeded the rigid, passionless dialectics of the Ruda. “Why isn’t this collection of slabs located in a portal space? You’re hiding it, yes, but this can’t be as safe as the Mosaic.”

  We considered and deliberated on it, though we could not ask the Reor its wishes. But the Reor are intricately connected to Amaranthe in ways that prove difficult to explain. As well, in the Mosaic they would have no stimuli and thus no meaningful existence.

  “And these pieces? They’re receiving stimuli?”

  They store copies of some of our data for us.

  “So you protect a small…” no word choice felt sufficiently accurate “…sample of Reor, since should the Directorate ever learn the truth, it will try to destroy every slab in existence.”

  Yes.

  Caleb chuckled. “There’s an enisle with Reor in it, isn’t there?”

  Of course.

  She shot a glare in Mesme’s general direction, but Caleb took several steps toward the fringes of its presence. “If you could find a way to communicate meaningfully with the Reor, they could be a powerful ally.”

  A powerful weapon, you mean.

  “All allies are potential weapons, but not all weapons are allies. I meant ally.”

  Then talk to it. Either of you—you each possess unique capabilities which make this a conceivable possibility.

  Alex stared suspiciously at Mesme. “If it speaks at all—if it has thoughts—they’re expressed in an extradimensional quantum manner. That’s one of your specialties. Why can’t you talk to it?”

  A reasonable question for which I have no acceptable answer. We study its signals and find only the data it holds. You are here. Make the effort.

  Caleb shook his head. “I can’t talk to the diati yet. I doubt I can talk to a pandimensional mineral.”

  Not pandimensional—merely extradimensional.

  The faceplate did nothing to obscure the acerbic smirk Caleb directed at Mesme.

  Alex, however, was already settling more fully to the surface and crossing her legs. Let’s give this a shot, Valkyrie.

  How do you propose we proceed?

  No idea.

  She placed her palm flat on the material and activated the cybernetic pathways she would use if she were interacting with a screen or control panel. Her gloves were designed to conduct the signals received, albeit more weakly, so it might work.

  The hum grew in strength, and she sensed a pressure on her palm as the mineral began shifting beneath it. She gasped but didn’t move, allowing her hand to be lifted as the surface raised itself.

  Three tiers formed, creating a pyramid of sorts half a meter in height, before the process stopped. She waited, but nothing else happened. “I wish I could touch it with my bare hands. But there’s no atmosphere here, so even if my suit sealed at the wrist, my hand would freeze in seconds.”

  “Wait—I think I can do something about this.” Caleb knelt beside her. He stretched a hand out over hers and began manipulating his fingers in a purposeful pattern until the space around her hand and the new pillar glowed in a thick cluster of crimson lights. His brow knotted in concentration. “Okay. I think you can take your glove off now—but keep your hand inside the halo.”

  She carefully unlatched the glove and slid it off. The air was cool, but not cold. It felt…normal. “Damn.”

  Caleb huffed a breath but kept his attention on the halo. “You’re telling me.”

  She put her palm back atop the pillar—and almost yanked it away, the vibration oscillated so forcefully against her skin. A second later the mineral began to soften, becoming pliable. Her fingertips sank into it, only a centimeter or so. The filaments in the material made contact with the conduit fibers in her fingertips, and the jolt made her gasp.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. Valkyrie?

  It is speaking to us, I know it. But I cannot decipher the language. Not yet.

  It’s fine. Listen and record.

  The sequence lasted almost twenty seconds before the connections broke and the mineral hardened back into its original shape. She sighed in disappointment and reattached her glove.

  She was about to stand when the top of the pillar was pushed upward by a new layer underneath it, then detached from the pillar as if it had been sliced off with a knife. She picked it up and studied it; it resembled the Reor slab she’d held before, including identical proportions.

  She turned to Caleb, and Mesme lurking behind him. “We couldn’t decipher what it was saying, if it was saying anything at all. But there was activity of some kind. We’ll study it.” She held up the piece. “And now I have one to play with.”

  Her gaze ran across the surface of the slab they stood on to the sea of Reor and their little star beyond. The filaments buried in the mineral pulsed through the color spectrum in time with the streams of energy flowing between them, vibrant and alive.

  As she fixated on the streams they seemed to shift until they pulsed toward her, no matter which direction she faced. Enthralled, she began walking toward one of the vertical streams. She was vaguely cognizant of Caleb and Mesme trailing her, but they didn’t question her purpose.

  In the silence she listened to the energy flowing below her and, increasingly, ahead of her. She did not understand the words, but it sang to her nonetheless.

  She neared the outer edge of the energy beam—it was quite wide up close, at least twenty meters in diameter—and started to reach up. Her hand paused mid-air.

  Caleb appeared at her side, gave her a small smile and conjured a new sphere of diati to surround her hand. “I’d tell you to be careful, but we wouldn’t be here if you’d ever taken that advice. No reason to start now, right?”

>   She laughed faintly and removed her glove once again, extending her hand until her fingertips touched the beam—

  —a yellow star, a frozen planet—

  —an eternal city, a room pitched in blackness—

  —a sphere bathed in light, spinning away from void to—

  “Alex, talk to me.”

  She blinked and looked up at Caleb, surprised to find herself ass-first on the slab and him crouched in front of her. Behind him the stream continued to pulse in surging power.

  I forced you to pull away before your cybernetics overloaded, followed soon thereafter by me.

  Good call.

  “I’m fine.” She took Caleb’s hand and let him help her up to standing. “I saw…places. Planets, stations….” She shook her head. “It was probably just fragments of the data stored here.”

  “That’s enough cosmic play for one day.” Caleb glanced at Mesme. “Time to go.”

  She didn’t argue, and she allowed him to lead the way back to the Siyane, for her mind swam amidst the lingering memory of the images, buttressed by the refrain humming beneath her feet.

  Did the Anadens—and everyone here in Amaranthe—not comprehend the power of these objects they used so carelessly? Did they not notice the life exploding from within them?

  Awed, overwhelmed and humbled, she decided she would understand the Reor. What they were, what they said, what they sang.

  AURORA

  13

  ROMANE

  IDCC COLONY

  * * *

  THE NIGHT SKY BLAZED in the fire of dancing, streaming light, wowing a crowd that should have been jaded beyond the ability to impress. Not tonight, though.

  Devon Reynolds’ chest nearly burst with joy as the gleaming platform sent Emily spinning upward, the visuals her hands created chasing after her high into the air.

  The projections of the other performers on Earth and Seneca were so detailed anyone who didn’t know better was liable to insist they were all here on the stage on Romane. The scene would be the same on the other planets hosting the galaxy-wide celebration commemorating the first anniversary of the end of—and victory in—the Metigen War.