The theos, p.21
The Theos, page 21
part #5 of The Survivors Series
I nodded.
"What did they want? What happened?" Mary's voice was quieter now, less strained, but her hands were still shaking and her eyes were wet with tears.
"They took you from us. You sent us back to New Spero with some power of theirs. I'm not sure how it worked. The Padlog were there, and they broke the spell momentarily," I said.
"The Padlog?"
"The insectoids. They'd been following us, tracking us to the world. Their Supreme didn't give me much for details on their trip, but they were only trying to stop us from unleashing the Unwinding." I looked up to Slate, who still hadn't told us what the vortex was doing out there. Had it failed after the vessel was gone? I could barely wait to ask him, and his eyes told me he had something urgent to say.
Mary closed her eyes. "I see them now. They fired above me, and I ... I shot them with some black energy. Oh, Dean, what have I done?"
"You didn't do anything. Not a damn thing!" I yelled the last and took a second to compose myself. "They manipulated us to get us there, and they took you as their vessel. It's only been a few weeks. I don't even know how long. Five or six, I think. The days have been a blur."
"Five weeks!" she yelled out in surprise. I glanced down at her stomach, which she caught, and her hand ran down to her belly. "What is it?"
I leaned over to her, our heads were touching. "The Iskios said you were with child. It was one of the reasons they chose you over me as the True."
"I'm pregnant? I'd thought there was a chance but hadn't tested it yet." Her voice started off strong but cracked as she kept talking. "This is unbelievable." Tears flowed freely, and I found myself welling up.
I wanted to reprimand her for not telling me, for going on the quest to find the Theos with the possibility, but it wouldn't accomplish anything good. I bit my tongue, because Mary was here and healthy.
"We're going to have a baby," I whispered, and kissed her on the forehead.
"Boss, I hate to break up this moment, but we have some unfinished business," Slate said.
I broke contact with Mary and turned to him. "What is it?"
"The vortex is still there, and it's not getting any smaller," Slate said. "I think it's still coming for the planet."
Mary was getting up behind me, and when I went to stop her, she waved me away as she began to stand, using her left hand pressed against the wall for support. "I'm fine. Just a little foggy. What's the vortex?"
She really had no memory of her last few weeks, and that was probably for the best. "The Unwinding is the energy force of the dead Iskios from the crystal world," I said. "We went back, and all the color was gone: nothing but clear crystal the whole world over. It's here now, and from what we've heard, it's devoured entire systems' worth of ships, moons, planets, and even stars."
"And...I was the one leading it?" she asked.
"It wasn't you. It was them using your body."
Mary's arms wrapped around herself, as if seeking comfort. "The distinction doesn't feel as clear for me."
"What do we do?" Suma spoke for the first time since Mary had come to. "The portal is closed, and we don't have a ship. The Unwinding is coming to destroy us." She stood beside Mary, and now it was my wife who put an arm around the small Shimmali girl.
We stood inside the dead portal room, each looking at one another for answers we didn't have. There had to be a solution, but what was it?
"Let's go outside. I need a clear perspective." I let Slate and Suma go ahead and paused to turn to Mary. "I'm so glad you're back."
My hands gripped around her tightly, and her head nestled into my neck. "Dean, thank you."
"For what?"
"For finding me. For getting me back. I don't know how you managed this, but I can't wait to hear the story when we're back home." She slid her hand into mine, and we walked down the corridors. She looked around, seeing the inside of the building Slate and I regaled in our tales about the place.
"I would have done anything."
"Is everyone okay?" She was obviously asking about the rest of our friends.
"Yes. Oh, and we now have a robot in our crew." I smirked as Mary eyed me suspiciously.
"I'll want to hear that story too." Her hand went back to her stomach. "Dean, do you think she's okay?"
"She?" I asked, wondering why she chose a sex.
"I can feel her down there. It might be a boy, but I don't want to think of her as an it." It made sense to me.
"I think she will be just fine." I winked at her, and we made it past the corridors, bridges, and the exterior doors where Suma and Slate stood, propping the door open.
"Look, boss." Slate pointed toward the sky, where we could make out the swirling vortex even from way down here. The cloud cover was lighter than it had ever been, but winds blew heavily around us as we stepped onto the platform high above the city level.
"Is that it?" Mary asked.
"That's the Unwinding. The destructive force they'd been waiting a long time to unleash on the universe. We'd hoped that freeing you from their grasp would have been enough to stop it, but evidently, it wasn't. For all we know, it'll move without rhyme or reason now." I stopped talking and watched it a moment longer before speaking. "Or maybe it was programmed by the Iskios that had been inside..." I hesitated, knowing it would sound insensitive. Mary didn't seem to notice.
"We need to stop it."
I knew that, but I just wanted to escape it. Then we could get the collective knowledge and power of the Gatekeepers, or the Planetary Alliance I'd heard Rivo's father mention in passing and let them deal with the problem. Sadly, there was no way around this.
We couldn't leave the planet, and it was about to be destroyed by the Unwinding.
"I didn't come here to save you only to have us be eaten by an energy vortex." I hated the option, but it was the only one we had. All the pressures of the last few years, starting with the moment James was ripped from my living room, to the search for the Theos, then Mary, exhaled with a deep breath.
It was my only possibility.
"Boss, why do you have that look on your face again?" Slate asked, picking up my vibe.
I squinted at Mary. She was so wonderful. Even now, with tangled hair and dirt-stained cheeks, she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever laid eyes on. She was my everything, and she was carrying our child. The irony of my decision pained me to no end.
"Dean, what is it?" Mary asked, grabbing my hands in hers. She felt like home.
I looked away, unable to watch her eyes as I said it. "I know how to stop it. But I think it's a one-way trip."
Thirty-Three
"What do you mean, one-way trip?" Mary pointed toward the powerful vortex, high above in space. "How can you stop that?"
I patted the Shifter in my pocket. "Garo Alnod."
"Who, or what, is a Garo Alnod?" she asked.
Of course, she didn't know anything about Bazarn, or Rivo and her father. "Without getting into all the details, Garo is one of the wealthiest beings in the universe. One of his companies was trying to create something called a Shifter. You'd be able to transport anything to another dimension."
"Why would anyone do that?" Mary asked.
"Let's say your star's about to go supernova, and you have a system with a hundred billion lifeforms nearby. This would allow you to transport a whole world away. Believe me, I don't understand the science behind it at all."
"Okay, well, that makes some sense," Mary said, probably still wondering what this had to do with me.
"His nemesis, Lom of Pleva, a bad dude who was behind the hybrid creation, wanted the technology for war."
Mary's interest was fully piqued. "He created the hybrids? Like Bob and Janine?"
"Yes. The very same."
"Wow. I've missed out on some important things, haven't I?"
"We'll get to that. He wants the tech, so Garo sets up for his nemesis to die in a freak accident while Lom was visiting one of his very own mines. Everyone thought he was dead, but Rivo swears he's not, and he's coming for Garo and the Shifter." My hand still rested on the pocket.
"What does this Shifter have to do with our situation?" Slate asked. He didn't know any of this, since we'd been separated on Bazarn.
"I have it, or one of them. The last true device with the ability to shift something to another dimension, or so Garo claimed. He was freaked out, and I offered to take it from him." I didn't know what the others would think.
"You took the Shifter? Is that what that battle on Bazarn was all about? We barely made it out of there alive!" Slate shouted.
Mary raised a hand, taking the conversation back to her. "I'm not even going to ask about Bazarn or the battle there. What are you saying, Dean? You want to use this technology on the Unwinding? Great, let's do it."
I didn't want to say it out loud, but I had to. "I can't use it from here. I have to be... up there." I pointed to the vortex.
"What do you mean? Dean, how are you going to get up there?" Suma asked, finally chiming in.
"I'm wearing Garo's suit. It has built-in thrusters. I've already been out there. I goaded the Iskios down to the surface."
"I was floating around in space this whole time?" Mary asked, her expression saying she found the whole thing unsettling.
There was no point in keeping it from her. "Yes. As far as I know, you were."
She didn't comment further on the subject. "Is there any other way?"
"Not unless you can think of anything." I'd run through options in my mind for the last half hour, but nothing else would work.
"Dean, this is a planet with lots of technology. I bet we can find a ship. Use it to shoot the Shifter into it." Suma stood straight-backed, proud of her idea.
"The vortex is getting closer by the minute. I don't think we have much time, and it needs to be tapped manually. Garo showed me how it works, and he was clear about the details." I brought the compact disc-shaped device out.
Suma stuck her palm out, and I handed it over. She fiddled with it, and I showed her what I knew about the Shifter.
"Here's where we select the dimension to send it to. How will we choose?" Suma asked.
I hadn't thought about that quite yet. "There's no way of knowing what's there. I mean, even Garo made it sound like theory at this point of their research. It didn't sound like they'd had anyone return once they dimensionally shifted."
"We'll be sending it into another dimension?" Slate asked. "There could be millions or billions of lifeforms on the other side, being sent to their deaths."
"Or there could be nothing but empty space." Mary was getting behind me, and that made me grateful for the support.
"Guys, it's either we get devoured by the thing, and let it continue on until it reaches countless other planets, including New Spero, or we toss it away and let some other parallel universe deal with it. I know where my vote's going." I tried to sound confident, but the idea of making it someone else's problem didn't sit well with me. My stomach flopped inside.
"The odds of finding a dimension with life are low. I studied a theoretical class on the subject," Suma said.
"Fine. Let's say we're doing this. How do you get to it?" Slate asked, frowning at me. He already knew the answer; it was written all over his face.
"I use the suit, fly up there, use the Shifter and fly into it, taking it with me wherever we're going." As soon as I said it, Suma's hand wrapped around the device as if she intended to keep it away from me.
"Dean, no," Mary said. "There has to be another way."
Slate started to undo his own EVA. "Give me the suit. I'll go."
"Stop!" I shouted over them. "I've made my decision. I'm going. Slate, it's too small for you. Suma, it's too big. I've already flown in it, and it's tricky. We can't risk anyone else doing this." Mary wouldn't look me in the eyes.
Suma passed the Shifter over to me. "I'm sorry, Dean." She turned around and walked away. Slate mopped his mask with a gloved hand and joined her, leaving Mary and me alone.
"Dean," she said, her voice light, yet heavy with sadness, "maybe we can get away. Suma thinks there could be a ship nearby."
"Then what? How do we stop it?" I asked.
She refused to look up as tears fell onto her flushed cheeks. "We can find another way, get help."
"You know that's not in our cards. I can't let anyone else deal with it. Just like the Event, or Mae going to the Bhlat, or finding a way to keep everyone we could alive and bringing them to New Spero. We don't have anyone to do this for us. We never have." I hugged her close to me.
"What about our baby? She needs you."
That brought out the tears I'd been trying to hold back. All I'd wanted was a quiet life. I'd become an accountant knowing I could do my work, be my own boss eventually, and watch baseball games on Sunday afternoons. When I met Mary, I wanted nothing more than to have a family and just be on our acreage on New Spero. While we'd had a few months of that over the past couple years, it wasn't enough. It was just a tease of what could be. Now it would never happen, and I already mourned for the life we couldn't have together.
"I know...and I need her too. I'm sorry it's come to this, Mary. If there's any way I can make it back, I will." The words were fruitless, said for her sake more than anything. I didn't think it would be possible.
Storm clouds thickened as if to set the mood for my task, and lightning began to flash across the cityscape once again, leading toward the lava ocean.
"I need more time with you," Mary said. Her grip on my hand was tight.
The vortex was closer, the wind stronger over the platform on which we stood, high up on the building. "Time is something we don't have." After all the fight to get Mary and our baby back, I had to leave.
Change the universe. Kareem's words echoed in my mind. Was this my task? To save our universe from the Unwinding? Did it all lead to this moment? The Kraski, the hybrids, the Deltra, Patty, Ray, and all the others who'd lost their lives along the way? Was it all so I'd be here with the Shifter in my hand as the Iskios energy vortex threatened everything in the galaxy?
Regnig had called me a Recaster. I had the power to change things. I hadn't found Mary so she could stay under duress. The vortex was the ultimate stress, and I could change that. I would.
I took my helmet off once again and coughed as the harsh air hit my lungs. I didn't care. It was worth it. Mary slid her respirator off her face, and our lips met. Her hand pulled me in closer, the moment intimate and raw, lust and love intertwined as we stood there, lightning cracking in the sky around us. Wind gusted heavily, and we ignored it all, and for a short time, there was nothing in the world by the two of us.
Eventually, we broke our contact. Both of us had tear-stained cheeks. "I love you, Mary. I always will."
"I love you. Come back to us." She rubbed her belly, and my heart shattered.
I wiped my eyes before getting my helmet back on. I tried to firm my resolve and push it all down. My reservoir was getting full of the pain and angst, but now wasn't the time to let it out. It was time to save my friends, and most importantly, Mary and our baby.
"Dean..." Slate pointed to the sky, where we could see the large vortex above the world, even through the clouds where we stood. It was closer. That made it time.
"Slate, I can't begin to say..."
"Then don't, boss. Just do what you have to do. Finish the mission and come home to us." He hugged me and fired off a salute.
Suma ran to me, wrapping her short arms around my waist. "What he said." Her squawks were deeper than normal.
The three of them stood beside one another, watching me as I moved to the edge of the balcony. I checked to make sure the Shifter was ready and tapped on the thrusters. I'd just done this, but the Theos had been inside, guiding and helping me when I needed it. Now it was just me, one human trying to make a difference for many.
This was it. I'd never see them again, and I didn't even know how to feel about any of it. There was no choice now. I was committed. Much like every other adventure leading me to this point, I was going in head-first, but this was the only time I assumed there was no coming out of it alive. The other times, I'd done what needed to be done, but somehow thought everything would be okay. This was different. It felt...final.
I waved to them where they stood, a handful of yards away, each of them clearly upset. I couldn't look at them anymore or I'd lose my nerve. I spun and accelerated away, not looking back.
It was one of the hardest things I'd ever done.
Thirty-Four
With less control than before, I raced toward the looming vortex. I was above the clouds, each breath coming quickly as I pushed through the world's atmosphere. The suit's built-in energy shield kept me safe as I bucked to and fro crossing into space. I had to straighten using the thrusts on the back of the suit a few times but quickly found the hang of it again.
"Barl?" I asked, hoping something from inside would answer. No one did, but for a moment, I thought I felt a tugging on my mind. "If you're still there, now would be a good time for some help."
The vortex was huge now, the swirling mass compiled of emerald green colors, dancing as they moved. If I didn't know how deadly the thing was, I'd have thought it beautiful.
I kept away from it, seeing small space debris being sucked toward it from a distance. As soon as I got closer, there would likely be no turning back from the power it held. I'd be committed. I looked around, hoping for some sort of intervention from the outside, only there was nothing else near us. I checked the suit's map, and nothing but the anomaly showed on the sensors.
The world below was quite the sight, and I stared at it momentarily. The red lava was visible even from this distance. Mary and the others were down there with no way of getting home. I could only hope they'd find a way off the vacant rock. Leslie knew where they were and would find a way to get to them. She wouldn't leave them behind, especially after the portal showed as dead.
The Shifter was tethered to my arm, and I opened it, seeing digits glowing on the screen. These were the coordinates for some other time and place. I wondered if I'd be consumed, or if I'd live long enough to see where we ended up. I wasn't sure I wanted to.
