Rune was no longer on the ship, that much was certain.
At first he thought he was dreaming, or maybe trapped in yet another world of his own distorted unconscious by a possessing spirit. He had journeyed deep into a portal that connected the Great Light's consciousness to the physical world and there was always a risk that the Great Light might be able to contact him more easily and possess him, despite the security measures. The scenario he saw before his eyes was not unlike the world constructed by the Great Light.
There was a baroque look to it, full of gigantic stone columns and archways, that reminded him of the throne room where he had met the fake Alis. Elaborately carved friezes conveyed flight and long journeys, bird's wings, the passage of seasons and the positions of celestial bodies. He also saw images of people who looked to be in positions of great authority, tall, imperious-looking, stern-faced men and women in long robes. Some of the designs reminded him uncomfortably of Dark Force, as drawn by people who didn't quite know what the entity looked like. The room was terraced but there was no way to reach the next floor without walking down long, wide corridors. Silence followed him, that of a long sleep that he felt an urge not to disturb. Soon he found himself wandering through indoor gardens of miniature trees and flowering shrubs that were an icy blue-green colour and looked as delicate and brittle as if they had fossilized. A similar garden existed in the inner sanctum of the Esper Mansion but on a much more modest scale. Still, Rune was already beginning to feel homesick. It wasn't as alien a world as he imagined but his spirit, which was so strongly tied to his homeland, already began to feel the difference...
So, you managed to make it here...
Rune flinched, his head darting around. He had only seen the vision out of the corner of one eye but it had still been quite distinct; a tall, slender, beautiful woman who could have been Alis, except for the braided golden hair...
"How are you feeling, Rune?"
The much more immediate and lucid voice of Demi brought him back to the present. She had bent down behind a tree but was now visible as she stood up. She had removed a clipping from a branch, taking care to avoid damaging the alien flora more than necessary, and was placing it inside a cavity in her chest that apparently existed for the precise purpose of storing fragile research material. Rune was surprised that she let him see her with such a cavity open; the android had been programmed to feel uncomfortable exposing her internal workings in public but apparently this did not extend to storage compartments. Chaz and Rune had always believed it was because she was programmed to imitate human female personality traits, until Wren revealed that her component parts included some prototype systems that were still being kept secret until the final release date. Rune now wondered if that was something to do with her attempts to give herself the capacity to use techniques. He also wondered where Wren was.
"I'm fine," responded Rune, taking another look behind him. The woman had vanished. She had seemed very real for an illusion, but that could have just made her an unusually effective illusion...
"That's good news. It backs up the reports from the scanners. I was a little worried we had changed environment too rapidly for them to recalibrate. If the atmosphere really does fully support human life, we can start to rely on their other findings," she frowned, "They are rather odd, though..."
"What are we doing here?" he asked. If Demi was here, it probably meant he wasn't stuck inside his own unconscious mind. This could be his own secret perception of Demi but he doubted he spent that much time thinking about the android to have such a clear mental image of her.
"A teleport misdirect, I believe," she said, quite cheerfully, "Although, I don't understand how we could have been moved independently of the Landale. The Escapipe was set up to teleport the ship, not its crew! Not that it makes any sense for it to have activated at all without my command..."
"A teleport misdirect. Again. Oh joy..." Rune sighed, "Have you at least seen Wren?"
"I was hoping you had seen him. No sign of him on the scanners. Another anomalous effect. I've never heard of an Escapipe that doesn't teleport the entire group to the same place, but of course, with some misdirections..."
"Well, we found each other, so that's a start. Why don't we go and explore some more? With luck, we'll catch up with him eventually," said Rune, trying to move the topic away from teleport misdirections, which made him feel a little queasy.
"Good thinking," said Demi, heading off in the opposite direction to the way Rune had come from. By the look of it, she had taken a third side passage to reach the garden. How big was this place?
"Did the scanners detect anyone else here?"
"No human or android signatures at all. This place is clearly artificial, though. In fact, my scanners are convinced that this entire environment is artificially constructed. We are most probably on board a satellite or a very large spaceship."
"Funny-looking spaceship," said Rune.
"We are only seeing a small portion of the structure. I would need to travel extensively to even pick up an idea of its shape, although I have my suspicions," said Demi, running her scanner over a stone wall that had vines of the same colour as the trees trailing down it, "We do not have the time for such a venture at the moment, however. Our priority should be finding Wren, then returning to the Landale. While I don't know where our ship is, I am still able to communicate with it and activate its autopilot systems, presuming that nothing untoward has happened to the ship."
"If there are people here, they might be the ones who sent the signal."
"There certainly aren't enough personnel to maintain a satellite such as this, even if a skeleton crew remains. This place is almost entirely automated," commented Demi.
"Still, I think I saw someone earlier..." mused Rune.
Normally, that would be a good idea, but unfortunately...
Rune turned his head to regard the voice that whispered to him. This time he thought he saw Rika, or someone very much like the Numan, springing from one end of the corridor to the other. However, this woman looked older, her hair a vibrant red rather than Rika's dark pink, her ears that of a normal Palman rather than the dark-tipped feline ears of a Numan.
"Rune, I am picking up Wren on the scanner. This way," Demi pointed down the corridor where Rune had seen the Numan. Now there was no sign that the stranger had ever been there. Had he seen Wren and mistaken him for someone else? The lighting was low and the far side of the corridor a fair distance away, but it would take more than an optical illusion to mix up Wren and Rika.
"I certainly hope it was not Wren moving like that," commented Demi when he admitted what he had seen, "I am concerned that he isn't remaining calm. I do not wish him to start an unnecessary conflict by misinterpreting a situation."
"This atmosphere is enough to make anyone paranoid. Heck, I'm probably just seeing things," he laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head.
"It is possible that you are picking up on psychic phenomena that my scanners cannot detect."
"Ghosts, you mean? Looks like that sort of a place," he agreed.
"Lingering psychic resonances from an entity no longer in residence, or some other extremely subtle or unusual use of psychic energy. I can detect psychic energy but your mind is a much more sensitive tool. I can only tell that such a thing exists in the area."
"And you're picking up readings?"
"Only a low-level blanket reading. The problem is, as far as I can tell, this could easily be generated by yourself. Please do not drop your background techniques," she told him even before he thought of it, "You will need all your defences on hand in an unfamiliar environment. If there really are incorporeal entities, or somebody watching us under a psychic cloak, we don't know it isn't hostile."
Or this really is an illusory world, thought Rune. With all the twisted versions of his allies, it was looking increasingly like the effect of his earlier possession. If Demi and Wren were also being possessed, or hacked, it was possible that a powerful psychic could create a plausible consensus reality from their memories of shared experiences. It was unlikely, especially between a biological life-form and two androids, but he once again found himself doubting the reality of everything he saw.
"Wren! Over here!" yelled Demi as the combat android wandered around the corridor, a frown of confusion on his face as he held his own scanner out in front of him with one hand, photon eraser tightly gripped in the other.
"I'm glad to see the two of you safe. You wouldn't believe the readouts I'm getting from this place."
"It's confusing me too," said Demi.
"I'm afraid it isn't confusing me at all. I know exactly where this is and it makes perfect sense. I'm just surprised to have reached it in such a manner. The information is too old to be on your database unless you're specifically looking for it but I'm sure you'll have heard of it."
"Please update me," said Demi.
"Of course. This is..."
Now you've come here, I'm afraid there's no way to leave...
Rune ran around the corner and towards the foot of the stairs that led up to the next terrace and were surrounded by its high wall. The stairs were wide and the figure was able to casually lean with his back against one wall and his legs stretched out, as if waiting for something. He was an android, one of the lighter models, more like the older Wren but not yet painted to look humanoid, its hair also a fiery red. Unsettled by his insistent, slightly menacing tone, Rune drew his staff and began charging up a Nawat technique. Wren also pointed his weapon at the stairs, then looked around at Rune, his expression even more confused. Rune pointed at the spot on the stairs again, then looked around to find the other android gone.
"Rune is seeing things," explained Demi conversationally, "Now, where did you say this was?"
"It's a First Era Palman generation ship," said Wren, "One of the emergency evacuation fleet."
"How far out is it? Did we make it out of Algol?" asked Demi.
"I would need the ship's scanners to pinpoint our location," said Wren.
"This isn't Algol," muttered Rune, still watching the stairs suspiciously.
You should not have been able to reach this place. What have you done?
"I guess this means your theory is correct," said Wren, "I don't detect anyone around who could have sent a signal, though!"
Rune took care not to look up at the source of the voice, in case it was the thing that triggered the apparitions to vanish. Instead he whispered, ignoring the androids, "Who are you?"
We are a lost chapter of your history. We are lost outside space and time. If you came here, it means you could be lost too.
"You didn't call us here, then?"
We can't communicate with the outside world any more. Even if we could, it would be suicide. The enemy has overwritten the space where we were.
"The Enemy? You mean the Great Light?"
"Rune, who exactly are you talking to?" demanded Wren.
The Great Light knows that this place exists. That's how it lures people into its grasp: it makes them think that the new world is the same as our world. It uses our image as an illusion. When it comes back, it'll find you and corrupt you too.
"You don't feel corrupted. What's keeping you safe?" demanded Rune. The ghost's words explained why he had seen this place in the vision that threatened to corrupt his heart. This was probably the first that the Great Light had seen of Algolian civilisation since its exile.
The accident that projected us out of space and time also sent us too far away from anything the Great Light can manipulate. It was ironic, really. If we'd found a way to send everyone on the ship here... but then they might never be able to return to the real Universe.
"Are you talking about a teleport accident? Like the one we just had?"
Ah... that may explain it... after the first accident, this probably became a localised point of least resistance.
"We haven't found anything else sucked in here!"
It is rather an out-of-the-way place. We never got very far.
"You know where we are?" he turned to face Wren, who was starting to look irritable and slowly turn up the settings on his gun, "They had a teleport accident, like us. They can't interact with our world any more."
"That explains it! I can scan for spatiotemporal anomalies. It would have to be an extreme one to allow no communication with the outside world," said Demi, "I wonder if it was one of the original prototype Telepipe experiments?"
"They say we don't have much time. Our enemy might know we're here..."
"No energy signatures matching the enemy detected," reported Wren, "How about you, Demi?"
She shook her head. Then, after a few seconds, the female android's scanners began to beep wildly, "Massive anomaly detected! Pinpointing it... it's overlaying the entire ship! I'm picking up several life forms inside it!"
"Can you communicate with them?"
"It would waste less energy for Rune to be an intermediary," said Demi, "Although, it makes no sense that Rune can speak with them."
"It's because I have the Elsydeon. These are still the legendary heroes of Algol, even though they're in exile. It makes sense that I can speak to them through the sword," Rune told them.
"Actually, Rune has been through a total of three misdirected teleports in a short space of time compared to our one. It could be that he is simply closer to their state of existence than we are. I would advise not being involved in any more accidents if you do not wish to actually join them," Wren told him.
"Thanks, I'll bear that in mind," muttered Rune, "So, guys, can you tell us where we are, exactly? You haven't seen our ship, have you? We can't get out of this place without it."
I'm afraid we can't find out where your ship is. We can tell you a rough estimate of where our own ship is in the galaxy, although it tends to drift.
"If they give you the co-ordinates, can you two call the ship?" he asked the androids.
"I'm afraid I've lost contact with it," said Wren, "It is highly improbably that the vessel even survived."
"Oh, great," Rune sighed. Then a loud explosion sent him off his feet. If Wren hadn't grabbed him, he would have flown across the corridor. The androids were much more stable on their feet than he was. Wren's gun was extended and he was charging it to maximum power, looking around for the correct thing to shoot.
They've arrived! Get out of here while you still can!
"Mind telling us the way out?" he yelled over the clamour of a second explosion and a wall collapsing on a higher terrace, sending rubble clattering down behind them. The whole structure was precariously close to falling on their heads or trapping them inside the room, at the mercy of whatever was attacking them. Wren took point and Demi held the rear as they made their way as fast as they could down the corridor while keeping a cautious eye out for enemies. Rune translated for the ghosts as they relayed the directions to the emergency shuttle bay. They had no idea if the shuttles still worked but without the Landale it was their only hope. The shuttle bay was close to the outer rim of the colony so it was also most likely to come under attack first. Rune let them know colourfully what he thought of that design choice, even as he ran down a flight of stairs, hurling Nawat techniques at the enemy they were now sighting for the first time. The ice-based technique was one of those less likely to destroy the spaceship, compared to manipulating fire, electricity or gravity.
Rune was surprised to see that the enemy was human. He had expected more of the Great Light's monsters. However, it wasn't all that much of a shock. The Darkness had used plenty of humans in Her plans, and Rune recognised these people. No, he corrected, clutching his head and swearing irritably, I do *not* know these people! Those are Lutz's memories, not mine!
Lutz had fought them inside the Spaceship Noah. They were from Earth.