Liminal space shadows an.., p.9
Liminal Space (Shadows & Light Book One), page 9
No, they are not.
“I’m not referring to the information flow we’re aware of, and at times control. But all the waves I believed to be empty, aren’t. I felt a sense of something rich and deep and….” An aching sorrow swelled in her chest until she felt as if she was on the verge of splitting apart from the effort to contain it.
“Mesme, what did I sense?”
Something unknowable.
She groaned, and the spell her discovery gripped her in broke, leaving behind a nauseating vertigo. “For once, can you not be enigmatic? I realize these explorations are intended to be lessons, but if you know anything about what I experienced, please tell me.”
She sensed more than saw Mesme’s lights join her at the railing, washed out as they were by the climbing sun. But I do not know. In a million years, I have never known. I can only speculate that this is yet another facet of the nature of kyoseil as a primordial being of the universe. To know it would be to know the universe itself, and I fear this is beyond even such beings as us.
She smiled haltingly as the vertigo subsided. “It’s sweet of you to include me, but I’m not like you. For one, I can’t transform into particles of light and flit about the universe on a whim.”
You are closer to doing so than you think.
“What do you mean?”
How do you think I ‘flit about,’ as you put it?
“I’ve never considered….” She trailed off as her focus returned to what it had felt like to be everywhere at once. “Are you saying you travel on those kyoseil waves?”
Did you not feel their pull? As if with a single directed thought, your feet could buoy off this balcony and alight wherever your mind wanted to go?
“I’m not…maybe?” She frowned. “The waves are fairly systemic, but they aren’t everywhere. What happens if they don’t travel somewhere you need to be?”
Mesme did not immediately respond.
“Mesme?”
That is for a later lesson.
So it had revealed more than it intended, but also succeeded in deflecting from her initial inquiry. Annoyance flared; Mesme’s cryptic routine tended to assert itself precisely when she most wanted answers.
But the Kat had helped her in incalculable ways over the years, so she let it go for now. “All right. So are you saying I can travel on kyoseil waves? Physically, I mean? Not that I need to, as I can wormhole anywhere I want to go. But if I did need to?”
Perhaps in time, but you will require far greater control over both kyoseil and other cosmic elements in order to do so. Accordingly, I would not advise you to make the attempt. It is a precarious affair, and you might well find yourself on the sidewalk far below you, or stranded in deep space with no air.
“Duly noted.” A ping arrived from Alex then, saving Mesme from further grilling.
10
* * *
AKESO
Hey, are you busy? I want to run something by you.
I’m merely talking metaphysics with Mesme. Why don’t you come over?
Alex hesitated. She did pretty well being around Nika these days. It had proved difficult at first, but in time she’d learned to put out of her mind the fact that Nika was Mesme, or rather Mesme was formerly Nika in the last cycle, and also Nika’s future if they didn’t find a way to defeat the Dzhvar. Granted, not exactly put it out of her mind. More forced it into the background, where it mostly stayed so long as she focused on Nika as an individual. As her friend above all.
But she tried to avoid being around both Nika and Mesme at the same time whenever possible, because it was just so much. Awkward, painful, tense. Every second was a reminder of how she was lying to Nika about something of epic yebanaya importance, and so was Mesme, and they were both doing it to protect her for as long as—
Oh, crap. If the Dzhvar were back, and they were, did this mean the clock was running out? How long until all the secrets would be spilled? What if it was today?
Eh, it probably wasn’t today, right? And she couldn’t smoothly decline now, anyway.
I’ll be there in a few minutes.
She downed an electrolyte drink to try to calm the faint, lingering sensation of dizziness from her delve into the manifold abrasion, steeled herself to rise to the challenge of the test ahead of her, and opened a wormhole to Mirai.
MIRAI
Nika was sitting at her dining room table, a steaming mug cupped in both hands. She wore an oversized cable knit beige sweater that must belong to Dashiel, and her long raven hair tumbled freely over her shoulders.
Mesme meandered around in a shapeless blob of lights in front of the wall of windows. It hadn’t taken on its winged phoenix avatar in Nika’s presence for three years now, with damn good reason, as the similarity between it and Nika’s back tattoo was what had led to Alex deducing Mesme’s secret identity.
“Hey.” Alex sat down opposite Nika, then glanced over her shoulder. “Mesme.”
Hello, Alex.
Mesme spoke telepathically, since Nika also didn’t know that Mesme—that all Kats—could speak aloud as plain as day, and the ‘shove words into your mind’ schtick was a power play on their part. Ugh, she hated all this deception. But she understood the need for it.
“What’s up?” Nika asked. “Oh, can I offer you some shoka espe? It’s basically chocolate coffee.”
“Two words that should always go together. Yes, please.”
Do you wish for me to leave? Mesme sent to her privately.
Wish? Yes, but it would look strange for you to flee as soon as I arrived. Also, no. I need to talk to you as well, and it wouldn’t hurt for Nika to join in the conversation.
As you wish.
Nika returned from the kitchen to set a mug in front of her. “Give it a minute to cool. As I was saying, what’s on your mind?”
“First, I was wondering if you can take a second to check the Elakrin system for kyoseil.”
“I already did. When I heard what happened there, I admit I was curious.”
Alex blew on the foaming liquid in her mug, then breathed in deeply. It smelled like bonfires and snowy mountains. Asterions prioritized tangible, real-world experiences, which meant their food and drink tended to be aromatic and delicious. “What did you discover?”
“It’s interesting. There is a bit of kyoseil in and around the planet. About as much as one typically finds in inhabited regions where kyoseil doesn’t have a physical presence. But there are dramatic kyoseil waves bowing out around the periphery of the stellar system. I suspect those paths were formed when the system was hidden away, before this whole volume of space exploded back into existence. Based on the curving shape of the paths the waves take, it’s as if when the space inside the bubble emerged, it nudged aside the manifold that was in place there. Does this sound right to you?”
“You know, it hadn’t occurred to me to consider the physics of it at such a technical level. And I should have.” Alex risked a sip of her drink and smiled. “Hmm, this is delicious. Anyway, what happened there isn’t like The Displacement, where the astronomical bodies—planets, stars, moons—were physically moved, but most of the volume of the portal universes themselves were left behind. I really did ‘pop the bubble,’ so to speak. What happens when you pop a bubble? Air dislocation. So it’s a sound explanation.” She eyed the drifting bundle of lights through the wafting steam of her mug. “Mesme? Anything to add?”
No. As I told you, I know nothing about the Piega Strai’s mechanism of operation.
“Because the Kats didn’t know where Elakrin had gone.” As she’d promised Caleb, she’d forcefully inquired as to Mesme’s knowledge of the Elakri after they’d returned home. It had claimed ignorance, and events had interceded before she’d had the chance to draw out any further information.
Correct.
“Does this mean we didn’t save them in the last cycle?”
It does.
“And the one before that? Miaon’s sequence?”
The same. There were no Elakri in Amaranthe at the end. To my knowledge, details of which extend back six to eight cycles, the Elakri have never before reemerged from their shrouded space.
“Damn.” Laurent, dead. Deunan, dead. Arien, same. Plus another two billion people. Yes, yes, if they didn’t win the coming war, everyone was dead, again. But the implications never got any easier to absorb.
She brought the mug toward her lips, but paused it halfway there as an intriguing notion occurred to her. What if…?
“Alex?” Nika asked. “You have that look about you. What is it?”
“Mesme, I know in your time, the Dzhvar reappeared eight years after the defeat of the Rasu. How much time passed between those events in the earlier cycles?”
The Rasu were only defeated in the previous three cycles. In those—
“What?” she and Nika both exclaimed at once.
I’ve told you how we demonstrated greatly improved progress in recent cycles.
“Yes, but I guess I assumed…” Alex frowned “…well how did events play out when we didn’t defeat the Rasu?”
The Dzhvar resurfaced while the Rasu were still conquering space. Most recently, while Concord battled the Rasu. Prior to this, before the Rasu arrived in Dominion space. In the oldest cycle of which I have any knowledge, Concord never existed to battle them.
A game of progression. Of two steps forward and, occasionally, one or three steps back.
Nika dropped her chin onto her palm. “So though the Rasu were created by the Dzhvar, the Dzhvar’s return isn’t inexorably linked to the Rasu’s defeat.”
No. Apologies if I implied it was. The details which I must keep track of are legion.
“Oh, I’m sure.” Nika smiled. “Thank you for being so forthcoming now.”
Alex pressed her lips shut to prevent the tiniest sound escaping from them, while studiously not looking at Mesme. Sukin syn, this was difficult.
She tried to pick up the thread of thought she’d been chasing. “The question stands: how much time passed in the earlier cycles between when we did defeat the Rasu and when the Dzhvar returned?”
In Miaon’s cycle, twenty-two years. In the one before then, fifteen.
“So not a linear shortening of the time, even when progress was made. Okay. Follow my logic here. The Piega Strai was failing rapidly. It was likely to catastrophically break down within a matter of weeks. But it’s reasonable to assume that the Siyane widening one of the tears to slip through accelerated this process. If we hadn’t intruded, it might have been several months or as long as a year before the device failed.
“Now, entropy is a bitch, and it takes no prisoners. So in every cycle, the device would’ve failed eventually. But over a period of nine thousand years of operation, a million factors could shift its expiration date backward or forward by years or decades, if not a century or two. The vagaries of the stellar wind, how much a fastener was tightened during installation, you name it.”
Mesme had drifted toward the far end of the table, close to Nika, so she was able to stare meaningfully at both of them, which she now did. “What if it’s always the Elakri? What if the popping of their bubble universe frees the Dzhvar from their prison every time?”
“But how?” Nika asked.
“I do not know. Not yet. Believe me, I am trying to figure it out. But whatever the mechanics of it, it seems as if that’s what happened this time. So what if it happens every time? Mesme, you never learned of a correlation between the events because no one ever lived to share the news of the Piega Strai’s deactivation. Because until this cycle, it did so explosively.”
It’s not an entirely implausible theory. But the Dzhvar do not reappear anywhere near Elakrin, or even in the Marestelle galaxy. In the last cycle, they first appeared in the Coma Supercluster.
“No, the Coma Supercluster is where someone first detected them. Once they’re here in Amaranthe, they can cavort across gigaparsecs in a blink using quantum dimensions. You admit the Kats don’t have the bandwidth to the entire universe, and they never have. So you don’t have any real idea of where the Dzhvar first make an appearance, in any cycle. Now, if the first place we register their presence is in the Coma Supercluster this time, then I’ll reconsider my theory. But I don’t think it’s going to be.”
She leaned back in her chair and let her gaze unfocus as she forced herself to run through the analysis again, for one simple reason: if it proved to be true, this scenario let her off the hook. The Dzhvar’s return wasn’t her fault. Well, it was, but at most she’d sped up their arrival by a year or so, while saving many lives in the process. She so deeply wanted it to be true that she didn’t trust herself to leap to such an exculpatory conclusion.
“Nika, poke some holes in my theory, please.”
“I don’t see any glaring ones. We can’t know for certain, though, because we can’t go back in time and put eyes on where the Elakrin system was attached to the manifold around the time the Dzhvar reemerged in previous cycles.” Nika grimaced. “I hate to say it, but the only way we can ‘prove’ it is to understand why the deactivation of the Piega Strai released the Dzhvar in the first place, if it did.”
“And that’s on me.”
Or on me.
Alex arched an eyebrow at Mesme. “Oh?”
The Katasketousya build pocket universes. Perhaps the answer lies in the physics of their creation as much as their destruction.
“Mind if I send Valkyrie your way to explore this topic?”
I am not the best source of information for the details. My role has always been one of strategy, not engineering. But I will be happy to introduce her to one of our world builders.
Oh, Valkyrie was going to be giddy at the prospect of talking shop with a ‘world builder.’
11
* * *
AKESO
Marlee pirouetted on the ball of one foot—then halfway through the spin, flexed her calf and leapt upward at the same time as she extended the other leg.
Caleb jerked his head backward as her heel slid by less than a centimeter from his nose. “Whoa!”
Her kicking foot landed solidly behind her, and she grinned, panting but holding a defensive stance. “I thought I had you there.”
“You did have me there. Or you had anyone who isn’t me there.” He blew out a harsh breath and waved her off. “It’s official. You are as fast as I am.”
“Good genes.” Marlee knelt down and took a long swig of water. “And the new cybernetics upgrades, obviously.”
“Oh? Perhaps I need to pay a visit to Dr. Canivon myself.”
“I thought you didn’t like her.”
“I don’t. But I do respect her work.” In truth, he’d researched the latest offerings, then acquired and loaded a set of new ware routines of his own shortly after returning from Elakrin. The fight on the rooftop with the assassin had been too close for comfort, and just because he didn’t often need to call his combat skills into use, it didn’t mean he shouldn’t stay ready for when he unexpectedly did. Lives might depend on him staying sharp and quick.
He picked up the leather whip he’d acquired at Marlee’s request, but considered it dubiously. “What’s the story here?”
“The Belascocians have tails, and they’re most adept at manipulating them. It was a thing.”
“What kind of a thing?” He immediately regretted asking, as he was not at all sure he wanted to know the answer.
“A melee thing.” Marlee rolled her eyes, but they did gleam with a hint of mischievousness. “Galean never would’ve been able to take me captive in the first place if not for his ability to use his tail as a third hand. It exposed a weakness in my skillset, so…” she motioned to the whip “…I want to overcome that weakness.”
“Hopefully you won’t be combating any tail-limb wielding attackers in the future, but I applaud your desire to always be improving your skills.” He cracked the whip on the ground, sending a distinct thud reverberating beneath his feet, then spun it in the air a few times. “If this makes contact, it’s going to hurt.”
She nodded sharply and dropped back into her defensive stance. “I’m ready.”
Caleb was splashing water from the kitchen sink on his face when he sensed the Caeles Prism activating above the landing pad, a signal more of their guests were arriving. Since starting these monthly dinners over three years ago, they’d made more months than they’d missed. Sometimes the group expanded to include Isabela or Kennedy and Noah or some of Alex’s family, and sometimes it was only Eren, Felzeor and Marlee. When things were difficult, they talked through troubles, but most of the time they simply enjoyed each other’s company for a few hours.
He leaned in behind Alex, who stood next to the sink washing cucumbers, and kissed her neck. “Thank you for cooking tonight.”
“It won’t be a gourmet meal, but I can manage some roasted chicken and vegetables.”
“It’ll be delicious. I think Eren and Felzeor are here. I’ll go say hello.” He hated that Felzeor had missed the training session this evening, but a last-minute work meeting had held the Volucri up. Now that Felzeor was part of a fully staffed, cohesive team, Richard was handing them more involved and lengthier assignments.
Caleb glanced over his shoulder to find Marlee sprawled out in the middle of the living room floor beneath the ceiling fan, fanning herself in an exaggerated motion. “If you want to take a shower, you’re welcome to.”
“Nah, I’m good. Bruised and sore, but good.”
He’d only made contact with the whip a few times; he’d done his best to pull back when he had, though he didn’t doubt those hits had left marks. But it was what she’d wanted. She was always pushing, always reaching for ever higher goals. “In that case, do you mind setting the table?”
“Not at all.” She inhaled deeply, then drew her legs in, leapt straight up to her feet and went over to the cabinets to grab the plates.
