Pushing the trolley into the experiment room, the technician
donned a radiation suit before transferring the container to the priming
station. Sian, strapped onto the operating table in the middle of the room,
tried to turn his head to see what was happening, but he couldn’t find the
right angle. Alex could imagine the man’s fear, and he swallowed the sudden
surge of guilt that coursed through him.
Exiting the room, the technician closed the door behind him.
Alice hit another command key, and the window blackened. The only images those
in the lab could see were on their monitors, which would blank the moment the
reaction took place.
Alice programmed in the first formula sequence, and Alex
watched on his monitor as the milligram of Kinemet—magnified several hundred
times by the camera—was bombarded with a series of electromagnetic waves. The
display indicated the Kinemet was transforming its elemental signature on a
microscopic scale.
Everything was going as Alex expected, except that his wrist
felt like it was on fire.
He pulled his hands out of his pockets and grew alarmed when
he saw the red blotch on his skin had tripled in size. There was a large lump
forming, as if he’d developed some kind of sebaceous cyst.
Was the minute amount of Kinemetic radiation in his system
reacting with the micro-monitor?
Unable to help the impulse, Alex scratched at the spot,
which was turning white at the top. Pressing down, he detected something hard under
his skin. It felt like a metal sphere. There was a sudden flare of heat, and
the capsule popped open.
The sensation that went through Alex was completely
unexpected.
It was raw Kinemet inside the capsule, at least a half a
gram. The doctor had not injected him with a monitor. He’d given him a strong
dose of the kinetic metal—enough to power him for several months. The doctor?
Alex wondered. Was he a saboteur? An agent? Whatever his motivation, had he not
known that the greatest weapon against the Emperor was a fully irradiated Kinemat?
Starved from the lack of radiation, Alex could almost feel
every fiber of his being soak in the effects.
The electromagnetic shielding around the cage was set to the
lowest level in an effort to minimize any effect it might have on the trial.
That level was more than enough to contain the trace radiation Alex previously
had in his system. Now, however, with raw Kinemet surging through his system,
the damper field was like a thin sheet of paper against a hammer.
Instinctively, Alex pushed against the shielding, and the
damping coils burst above the glass encasement.
Alice and the other technicians jumped at the sound and spun
around to see what was happening.
The door of the cage was no longer electromagnetically sealed,
and Alex slammed his shoulder into it. Bursting open, the door hit a technician
who had rushed over to stop Alex.
The impact sent the technician reeling backward toward Alice
and her command console.
She shrieked as the man flailed about to get his balance,
and threw up her arms protectively.
In the chaos, the tech must have hit the door lock command
to the experiment room, and it unsealed and rolled back with an electric hum.
Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw on his monitor that
the priming sequence was complete.
“No!” Alice screamed, trying to reach for the failsafe
button on her console to stop the Kinemetic trigger.
Without the Kinemetic damper in the experiment room to
shield them from the reaction, they would all be exposed to the Kinemetic
process.
The entire lab was bathed in a blinding light as that
section of Qin Station, and everyone in the area, quantized.
Skanse
Aerie :
Gliese
System :
Over the next
few weeks, Justine acclimated to life on the station. During the days, she
worked with the Solan Society in a diplomatic capacity, meeting with
ambassadors of hundreds of other worlds to strengthen future ties between Sol and
the other systems when the day finally came that Sol System gained membership
in the Collection of Worlds.
At first, encountering so many new life forms had been
overwhelming, and she was certain she’d committed dozens of social
faux pas,
but with her increased capacity for learning, she quickly overcame her anxiety
and awkwardness.
Within a short time, Yoatl was able to get the Collection to
recognize Justine as the Envoy of Sol System. While this did not give her any significant
power in the Collection, it did give her a voice, and increased her status in
the Solan Society.
When she wasn’t establishing relationships with other
worlds, Justine spent time with the Gliesan-humans, talking to them about Solan
culture, history, science and politics. As Yoatl had hoped, her stories of
their home system inspired several of their younger members to enlist in the
Gliesan Space Force and undertake Aether training. It would be years before
they were ready to become pilots, but it was a step in the right direction.
Justine also spent some time with the other human Aetherbeings
in the system, and though they were restricted from discussing Gliesan Aether
technology, they were allowed to help Justine learn more about her altered
physiology—aspects common to all beings who had undergone the quantization
process.
While in physical form, Aetherbeings were unable to sleep in
the classic sense of the term, but they still required rest and time for their
minds to process all the information of the day. They showed her meditation
techniques that proved quite effective in giving her both requirements. During
her four-year flight from Sol to Centauri, Justine had been fully conscious;
there had been times she thought she was going to go mad from boredom and
loneliness. When they’d learned of her extended time in Aetherspace, the others
had been alarmed, and wondered that she hadn’t gone insane. Aethers rarely
spent more than twelve hours at a time in the Aetherstate.
“Books,” Justine told them. “I was able to recall every book
I ever read. They kept me company.”
One of the human Aetherbeings, Na Huama, told her that word
had come through the ranks that the Kulsat had posted a single warship to
patrol the Centauri System. It was likely the ship would remain there for months,
perhaps even years. The Sentinels, Fairamai and Naila, decided to go on
reconnaissance trips to Centauri once every few days to check on their enemy’s
status.
In her off-hours, Justine visited Red Spot and went over the
plan to get back to Sol System. She also undertook the training she needed to
accomplish that goal.
One of her first questions was what the final component was.
“We do not know, specifically,” Red Spot told her. “It was a
tool of subjugation. With it, the Xtôti were able to nullify the Gift.”
“Like a damper?”
“A damper will only suppress the power. We have devices that
will quell the Gift from an enemy or their vessel, but it is a temporary
effect. Whatever technology the Xtôti had, if they used it on a ship, it would
render the Gift permanently inert—whether it was in a quantum engine, or in a
Risen. If a ship were too far from a station or planet, it would never return.
Any Risen exposed to this technology would perish.”
If the Kulsat had that technology, they would be able to
eliminate any other system’s ability to travel between stars. With that kind of
threat, no world would dare to resist the Kulsat.
The alien didn’t have any more information other than that,
and Justine was left with only speculation on how she could identify the final
component.
“What if it’s not on my home world?” Justine asked.
“Then you will have to continue searching other worlds until
you find it. Our people have the advantage in that we are the only race looking
for the final component.”
She listened as the alien went into minute detail over the
Kulsat training exercises for Potentials. Though Red Spot only knew the
theories, she was able to convey to Justine many techniques of control while in
Risen form.
Justine practiced quantizing herself. Red Spot, along with
several other Kulsat, volunteered to let her practice on them as well. Soon,
Justine could quantize twelve of the aliens at a time, maintaining a photonic
link with them for over an hour without becoming depleted.
She learned several other techniques besides quantizing
objects and beings. The first was how to hide her quantum signature while in a
photonic state.
When she’d escaped from the Kulsat mining ship, luck was on
her side in more than one way.
If the ship leader had extended his
sight
, he would
have detected her moving about the ship. He would have initiated a
section-by-section damping field to trap her and return her to her physical self.
In that event, she would have drowned.
Red Spot remarked that the hull of their ships had an
external damper—a basic defense against alien Aethers boarding their vessels.
To conserve energy, the shields were not normally charged unless there was
cause. She was lucky to have passed through the hull without being converted to
her physical self out in the cold of space.
Another ability, which many Risen were unable to master, was
to learn how to resist being quantized by another being. Three Crescents had
not yet perfected the technique, since Justine had been able to quantize him.
Justine could not practice hiding her signature or resisting
being quantized by another. There was no one to practice on, or against.
She’d promised the Gliesan Parliament that she would not try
to learn their—or the Collection’s—technology, but there was no rule that said
she couldn’t learn how the Kulsat did it. If the Collection of Worlds or the
Parliament of Gliese found out she was learning the techniques, however, they
might decide she was going against her oath by using that loophole, and
restrict her from visiting Red Spot.
The most important ability she needed to learn was how to
travel outside light. Red Spot informed her that the technique was universal,
no matter how the quantum engines had been constructed.
Once again, however, Justine could only learn the theory;
there were no Kulsat quantum engines for her to practice on. She hoped the
theory would be enough when the time came.
The skill was a compound of all the attributes of becoming a
Kinemat.
The navigational principle was similar to when Justine had
flown the
Ultio
from Sol’s star beacon to Centauri’s. Her
sight
was able to mark the spacial locations of the two beacons, and her enhanced
memory kept the two points in her thoughts when she engaged the star beacon.
In order to travel outside light, the pilot would have to
use the electropathic ability to link herself to the star beacon much the same
way she linked herself to the quantized passengers on her ship. In this regard,
it was akin to quantum entanglement. For a brief time, she, her ship, her
passengers, and the star beacon would be a single entity. The star beacon would
‘know’ her navigational intentions.
Once she reached the star beacon, instead of sling-shotting
past as she’d done before, the star beacon would take over, and absorb the
photonic energy of the ship and its passengers.
That’s when the mystery began.
Everyone she spoke to gave her an identical explanation:
outside light, the star beacons shared the same space. That made no sense to
Justine.
If it were a form of dimensional travel, then the star
beacon would simply transfer the photonic signature from one beacon in this
plane of existence to its counterpart in another dimension, then back to
another beacon in a different region of space. There was no way Justine could
conceive of this without there being a delay. Travel between two star beacons
was instantaneous; therefore, it wasn’t dimensional transference.
It couldn’t be true entanglement, which would mean the star
beacons were, in effect, the same beacon existing in different places at the
same time. If that were the case, anytime someone activated a star beacon, they
would all activate.
No one knew the secret, or how the Xtôti had built the star
beacons. The only thing they agreed on was that they had developed the
technology nearly a million years ago.
Justine wished she had Alex and Michael to talk to about it;
perhaps they would have some theory to explain it.
Each day, she went over the lessons with Red Spot, but
without a practical application, she wouldn’t know if she had mastered the abilities.
Under no circumstances would she share the fact of her knowledge with anyone
outside of Red Spot and the other Kulsat.
Learning the techniques without being able to practice them
was a significant obstacle, but a bigger hurdle was managing to get on board a
vessel heading for Sol System.
No ship from the Collection of Worlds would break protocol
and travel there. Speaking with Na Huama, Justine had learned that Ah Tabai had
always been something of a rebel. As much as the human Aetherbeings wanted to
help, they would not follow down their colleague’s path.
Justine had given her word that she would not break Gliesan
Law, and she was not one to go back on her word. She’d worked hard over the
past few weeks to establish relations with nearly one-hundred systems; if she
broke the Law, she would also break the trust she’d engendered with those
races. Of course, if Sol System were ravaged by the Kulsat, those diplomatic
relations would be meaningless. Justine was torn.
When she related her concerns to Red Spot, the alien’s reply
hit her like a bombshell. She couldn’t believe what she heard. For a brief
moment, she thought that, despite all the time they had spent together building
trust, Red Spot had been secretly plotting against her all along.
It was only after the initial shock began to wear off that
Justine realized it was the only way for her to uphold the Laws of Gliese and
the Collection, and to get home and try to find the final component.
Red Spot told her, “If no Collection ships will travel to
Sol System, and you will not commandeer a ship, then you must be on board a
ship that is already heading there … you must find a way to board a Kulsat
ship.”