DUALITY: The World of Lies (19 page)

Gahre was flabbergasted. Wordlessly he stared
at the man in wonder. Jokhon, for his part, was clearly drained
from the telling of it. Gahre took it as cue not to press Jokhon
further about the heavens, whose majesty had overwhelmed him and
scarred his mind by sheer virtue of their scope, but terrestrial
matters were still in play, and Gahre had plenty of simple
geographical questions to pose.

“So if the world is a sphere, that means then,
were one to sail west on the Depthless Ocean, which is also
therefore not an endless expanse as they teach us, if he stayed his
course continually west for the entire span of it, he would land on
some eastern outlaying shores of the impassible Sea of Sand in the
east where all maps end?”

Jokhon seemed suddenly anxious as one
realizing he'd said too much.

“The Law forbids me from answering you.
Forbidden Knowledge,” he said. “I find it a travesty that one with
your great inborn potential has not already been recruited into The
Order and taught these things.”

Jokhon had also answered the question by not
answering it. Gahre now knew there were realms between the Sea of
Sand and the western reach of the Depthless Ocean.

“It's just that you are the first to ever
inquire. I should have taken more care in my words,” the ascetic
explained.

“You mean you should have lied to
me?”

The ascetic grinned awkwardly. “If you could
see these realms you would understand why their existence is hidden
from us. Their ways are drastically different from ours and not
conducive to nurturing the rich and varied cultures we have here in
the Pangea. A man such as you, for example, could never come to be
there.”

“The Pangea? That is what our realms are
called then, rather than simply “The World?””

He sighed. “Yes, and hidden beyond the edges
of the map is another subcontinent of our world, known as Arath,
composed itself of many nations. But I tell you, bright one, if you
want to know wisdom I can teach you the methods of internal alchemy
and meditation. Although The Sight was granted me by an ascended
master, I also believe it be possible that one may cultivate it on
his own.”

“You would be my master then?”

“Nay, young one. You are too bright, and I
never knew a soul as strong as yours was in the world. The
Dharmaists would say that you were not ascended from the lower
realms, but rather a divine entity that has tired of heaven and
returned to the world for the sake of compassion, at the grave risk
of corrupting of his eternal soul and becoming once again lost in
the vicious cycles of Samsara.”

Gahre was dubious of that statement. Truly he
was a truthseeker, but he was no divine being. Would an angel be
fool enough to make himself so intoxicated that he nearly get
himself killed in the wilderness? No. It was absolute human folly
of the lowest variety.

“I do not think, wise one, that I could bear
to sit in stillness as you do. I have an active mind, not an empty
one. And my meditation is the straining of my legs and my boot
against the terra firma.”

“Who is to say that is not a path in
itself?”

“Vast is your mind, I have no doubt. But vast
too is the universe around us. If my path coincides with my nature,
I cannot sit here and journey in stillness. Just as my mind
contemplates the mysteries of the world, so I shall take the world
as my mind and explore it thusly. The straining of my legs and the
hunger of my belly will be my meditation. I shall travel east and
find these Forbidden Lands. And once I have, I will return to this
place, and we shall compare our journeys!”

“Indeed, Gahre of Tulan, Son of Danu, I will
await your return with great anticipation. I believe you followed a
Way that led you here, and now it seems you know quite precisely
where you'll be going next. I warn you though, both routes are
impassible. No one has ever made either journey; not by sea in the
west, nor by land in the east.”

“I will find a way, friend. I will see this
land of Arath and its wonders with my own eyes, I vow it! I'm
nothing of a seaman but I have yet to meet any terrain my two feet
could not conquer.”

On that occasion, he’d been 19, and after an
evening of profound discourse with the wise man and another long
and regenerative sleep, he returned to Tulan after two weeks of
absence, in good health and with renewed vigor and absolute
purpose. He had just one piece of unfinished business to attend to
before he set off for Arath: The Spring Conference.

Returning to the village after an expedition
was usually a great joy. He would relay his tales to the other
younger men, who listened in awe and admiration. The same society
that had seemed so restrictive would become a delight to engage in
for a time. He lived every moment vitally and ethically, and
developed a bold yet earnest charm that earned him a place of deep
endearment in the heart of every resident of Tulan -if not always
their approval. He would gorge himself on chicken and grains and
cheese until his belly fattened, and when he felt the entanglements
of civilization wrapping around him, he would disappear
again.

But this time was different. This time, with
the key to Forbidden Knowledge in his hand, he slipped into Tulan
surreptitiously in the dead of night, quiet and contemplative,
plotting deception against The Order.

C
aptain
Psyron contemplated an overview display of the freshly patchworked
Kinetic Dream. The webbing around the central sphere reminded him
of a hemp net surrounding a glass orb like those odd objects that
adorn homes in fishing villages and leave the tourist guessing at
their purpose.

Mei poked her nose into his display and
commented. “It looks like something you'd find for sale at an elder
community craft market.”

The steel tether wires were supplying high
voltage currents to the sphere, which in turn generated their
shield. System was still at work attaching the recently acquired
accelerated particle drill heads to the spoke stubs. The quantum
magnetic generator which ran the full circuit of the ship's inner
ring had the dual capability powering the ship’s persistent
magnetic shields and accelerating protons to tachyonic velocities.
So with the drill heads in place there should be no materia they
could not pierce, even this inscrutably sophisticated compound that
had somehow stably sheltered the sphere in the heart of a star for
months or years or more, where their own modern materia had failed
them in just a matter of a days.

Aru speculated on what might be inside. A data
bank of the cryptic knowledge of Logos was all he could really
imagine. The silent emperor had only spoken one time in over two
centuries. He was as a ghost, his eminence acknowledged, but his
presence all but forgotten. (Though not in the Machine World where
Logos was still worshipped) He was surely the preeminent
superintelligence in the known galaxy. The Stones, it was believed,
were dedicated in their entirety as a pure thought machine,
comprised of vast fields of circuits running their processes upon
processes of ever increasing complexity, and even human brain banks
that all worked in concert to produce an unfathomable intellect all
controlled by a single central core consciousness, who was seated
upon the throne.

Whatever this orb contained, it was something
the Emperor wanted as hidden and as far from himself as possible.
They had observed how both Stones only sent transmissions through
the corona, while none were returned. This sphere was a conduit
that transmitted energy in great abundance, but not signal. It had
received signal, but they still did not understand how. The
flawless surface of the sphere was uniformly composed of that
golden compound. He and Mei had speculated that the polar energy
jets about the axis through which the sphere conducted energy and
discharged mightily in a toroid about itself in much the same
manner as a star was also the receiving point of those
undecipherable signals from the Stones. It hardly stood the test of
scientific reasoning but it was the best they could conjure up to
explain all they had observed.

The Service's interest in the object also made
him think it might be a weapon. The Ultimatum of Logos had been
issued the better part of a century ago, and the public had all but
forgotten it, but not the Cearulein High Command. They knew better
-as surely did Mnemtechian Red High command. Not that Aru was privy
to the machinations of Taiji leadership, but a lot of speculation
pointed to the PoleStar North project as the means by which Logos
intended to carry out his vague and grandiose threat. The imperial
goings-on there were indeed suspicious, but this orb being that
intended vehicle of mass destruction was not something he could
rule out either.

In spite of that peril, they were going to
peek inside as mandated by their mission directive, under extreme
precautionary measures. Mei's orders were to “investigate the
contents” after all. And as far out on the line as they'd put
themselves to retrieve this object, he simply had to know what it
was all about, not only to satiate his fevered curiosity about the
thing: he personally needed to know if it had been worth
it.

They would drill in small increments, less
than 250 nanometers at a time in the beginning. System had been
instructed to prepare itself for whatever came out, be it matter,
energy, or information. The drill head had been mechanically
firewalled and ordered to seal the hole instantly at the first sign
of a cyber-response from within.

“Captain, drillhead 4 on spoke 4 is fully
installed and primed. We may proceed at your command,” System
informed him.

The drill hole would be microscopically small,
the diameter of whatever portion of the surrounding materia the
singular stream of hyper-accelerated protons took with
it.

Mei looked like she had been vaping a bit but
was in otherwise good form, haloed by his side with eyes on
holograph. She was, for reasons he could only begin to guess, armed
with an analog EMP rifle. He didn't inquire. Whatever made her feel
secure.

“System, proceed with drill
operation.”

There was a steady hum as the inner ring
particle accelerator warmed up. A few moments later a fine blue
line of energy between the drill emitter and the surface of the
sphere became visible. Then it stopped.

“Captain, the materia has been breached to a
depth of 223 nanometers.”

The display zoomed in on the drill point
closer and closer until a clean tiny pock could be seen marred into
the sphere's otherwise flawlessly smooth surface.

“Excellent. Are there any changes to the
readings?”

“All readings are normal, Captain.”

“Continue to 500 nanometers.”

“Aye, Captain.”

This tedious process repeated to the next 500
nanometer mark, at which point he increased the increments to 750
nanometers, then to micrometers, and worked his way up to
millimeters. At a full centimeter in he ordered the drill beam
widened to bore the hole to a hair's width to accommodate the
sensor.

Mei was impatiently urging him to hurry up the
process and advocating an unplanned and completely reckless course.
He met her part way and started drilling in a half a centimeter at
a time. At 30 centimeters they broke through the surface coating.
They bored it out and performed a microsensor analysis that
determined they had broken through to a layer of iridium steel. The
drills were able make quick work of that. Another 10 centimeters in
they broke through to an entirely empty area. It was such a
complete vacuum it immediately began to suck in the sparse plasma
of surrounding space. Aru ordered it sealed at once, but System had
wisely anticipated this and beaten him to the punch.

“Is this what's in there, a whole bunch of
nothing? Wouldn't that be a lark!” Mei wisecracked.

Aru knew there was no such thing as a perfect
vacuum but guessed by the vigor it was sucking space plasma, the
closest natural thing to a vacuum, that it had to be quite close to
that unattainable ideal.

“It could just be an insulating vacuum layer,”
he answered Mei. “Or maybe you're right, maybe its entire purpose
is merely that which it appears to be on the surface, a dispersal
generator.”

“We've calculated the mass at nearly 34 metric
tons, I don't think the amount of material we've so far discovered
even comes close to accounting for that. System?”

“Correct, Commander. There are still 22.6
metric tons of mass unaccounted for.”

“It could be a layer, a pocket, or a channel,”
offered Mei.

“System, try to snake the hairline sensor down
there with minimal seal breach to find where the next solid layer
begins, then internally seal the drill path through the open area
with a nanotube to retain the vacuum.”

“Aye Captain,” and after a brief pause,
“Procedure complete, Captain. We have encountered another plane of
iridium steel.”

“And I bet it's the same width as the first
layer,” Mei reasoned. “You were right, this is a vacuum insulation
layer.”

“System, resume drilling until you've reached
through the lower steel layer.”