This is a fan translation of Line of Dreams (Линия грёз) by the Russian science fiction and fantasy author Sergei Lukyanenko. The novel can be considered a fan fiction of the original Master of Orion game.


Chapter 13

Curtis Jr. took off his shoes and wrapped his bare feet in his jacket. Kay hung his sneakers to dry next to the newly started fire.

"Dad was the first to find this planet," Arthur said with a strange sense of pride. "You can call him a coward, but worse crimes have been forgiven for discovering a Class A oxygen world."

"Did he inform the Colonial Service of the coordinates?"

Arthur lowered his gaze.

"Go on."

"He spent only one night aboard the ship. In the morning… it was as if something called to him. Dad didn't even bring a weapon. He simply came to the river, to this very place…"


Curtis van Curtis, drafted into the fleet in accordance with a new Imperial law, which had cancelled all prior privileges, was standing on a bank. He didn't know what had brought him there. He needed to leave, as there was a reward awaiting him on Terra for discovering a world suitable for settlement. He didn't need to risk his life, hopping from one stone to another in search of local animals.

He crossed the river ford and headed for a cliff that didn't look any different from the other lifeless granite chunks. Just then, Curtis wasn't feeling the fear, which had become his life companion. He could have felt happy about that, if only he could still feel emotions.

Like a two-legged automaton, Curtis van Curtis approached the rock. And then the world disappeared, turning into a blinding darkness outside of time and space. But even then he wasn't afraid. He had become a part of something so vast that the two kilograms of neurons in his fragile skull meant less in the face of it than dust in the wind. He was wide open… which earned him neither approval nor condemnation, nothing at all. He was too insignificant.

At the same time, he had become the only impetus for the thing that surrounded him.

For a moment, he saw himself through a different gaze, a gaze that was coming from every direction. A puny human, strong enough to invent goals and weak enough to have them.

Curtis van Curtis felt the eyes of God upon him.

Then the haze went away, and he saw Him.


"Dad doesn't know," Arthur said. "Maybe that was a planet, or maybe an entire world. A world of God… He couldn't have created the universe without being equal to it."

"A metal planet with factories for igniting stars," Kay looked across the river. There were many cliffs there, and it was impossible to see the Door among them.

"No, of course not. Dad called Him a machine, only because He was physically real. He didn't explain it, but I'll see for myself."

"Curtis was incapable of seeing a different God. He needed solid ground under his feet and something that could talk, and something that could look. He only found his own God."

"True. But so what, Kay? Even if he only saw a part of Him, and only the one he was capable of seeing. So what? Only someone equal to Him can see everything."

"You're right," Dutch agreed. He glanced at Tommy, who was sitting next to him. What would have this boy seen, a glow in a shapeless cloud, like on the murals of the Unified Will churches, or a man full of superhuman power?

What would he himself see?

"Dad said that He has no desires," Arthur went on. "This is where your story was wrong. He created the world and then stopped influencing it. There's simply no point for God to do that. So, when Dad passed through the Doorway, he became the part of the universe that could desire. God offered him a world."

Kay heard too much boredom in his words to doubt them. Arthur Curtis had grown up with this knowledge. His father, himself as well, had been given a universe by God.

Had he rejected the gift?

"I wouldn't say that this world is for Curtis," Kay noted.

"Not this one. This world has been created and remains unchanged. Even that which hasn't happened yet is already predetermined here. God opened the path, which Dad called the Line of Dreams. It's a path that can be seen and which can be walked. At the end of the path, Dad would get a new world, a new universe, created for him. A universe of his Dreams."

"And he refused?"

"He asked for time to think about it. An unlimited amount of time to grasp his dreams. So he received aTan. Now he has decided to also get the Line of Dreams."

Kay laughed. He lay back on the cold stone surface, staring at the sky, created by someone. A hundred meters from him, beyond a sacred Doorway, a phlegmatic God was slumbering, bestowing gifts upon the first pilgrims. On the distant Terra, Curtis van Curtis was waiting for the blueprints to dreams.

"God told him that he would have to come back," Arthur went on, offended slightly. "He said that Dad would have to come; it didn't matter if he would be older or younger. And he has come. I have come to God."

"Are you going to dream for Curtis?" Kay asked. Tension had left him, as the drama had turned into a farce. Dutch was perfectly fine with God who didn't get involved in the affairs of man. He wasn't bothered by that dream world Curtis van Curtis had come up with for himself.

"We each have our own dreams. Dad will choose his, and I will choose my own." Arthur reached towards the fire, taking his sneakers from the stakes sticking in the ground. "Think about what you want."

"First and foremost, I didn't want to kill you," Kay said. "I'm glad it won't be necessary."

"Me too, because you wouldn't be able to kill me."

Arthur stuck his hand into the fire. He slowly grabbed a handful of embers. Tommy cried out.

"Try it, it'll work for you too," Arthur told him, pulling his hand out of the fire. "This is the Threshold, where only the chosen ones may stand. We're protected here. Dad assumed it would be the case, be he wasn't completely certain."

The embers were smoldering in his palm, a crimson-black pile, oozing with gray smoke. Kay smacked his hand, shaking off the embers, and the resulting sparks prickled his skin.

Arthur's hand was clean, untouched by the heat. Even his skin wasn't red.

"Don't worry, Kay. In the world of your dreams, you can be just as invincible. It will be your world, based on your desires. If you like, Sakkra ships will be destroyed on the way to Shedar in that world. Or, if you want, there won't be any aliens at all there."

"I haven't been given the Line of Dreams," Kay said, keeping a grip on the boy's hand. "I've come too late."

"But we have been given the Line."

Kay finally understood, "Is it going to be like with aTan?"

"Yes. Worlds sold to everyone. Just pay and go. A real world, not a drug addict's delirium and not virtual reality. A world, where one can be an emperor or a slave, an immortal or a butterfly that lives for a single day. Anything you want. No limits."

"Now I understand Sedimin," Kay said, "aTan was an evolution with a plus sign… the best were able to stay alive. The Line of Dreams will be an evolution with three negative signs. First, the most talented will leave to realize their dreams. Then, it'll be the weakest and the most impatient ones, who will be tired of struggling. Everyone who is worth something and is able to pay."

"Dad is giving people freedom."

"He is selling humanity its own degradation."

Dutch picked up the carbine from the ground, keeping his eyes firmly locked on Arthur, and switched off the safety.

"I doubt this is going to work," the boy said.

"So do I. But it's still worth trying."

"You're wrong, Kay." Arthur didn't look scared. The force that had protected him from the laser beam was unlikely to make an exception for plasma. "Talk to Dad, he has spent a long time thinking about this."

"I'd have to scream really hard."

"Not necessarily. This is the Threshold, Kay. There are many paths from here…"

Dutch hadn't noticed anything: no movement of the lips, no concentrated stares. Just a shadow of detachment on the boy's face.

And then Curtis van Curtis was standing next to them, dressed in a formal suit. Kay couldn't even feel surprised. There simply hadn't been time for that.

"Glad to see you, boss," Dutch said. "We're talking about dreams. Don't make any sudden movements, and everything is going to be fine."