He had been in the shower when Andromeda appeared to tell him Trance needed to speak with him about the Magog Worldship; the steam making her holographic image seem even more insubstantial. It was already a late night for him, and the interruption had not been welcome. Given the lateness of the hour, it didn't take long to figure out who Trance had been talking to. Harper would win no awards for keeping his mouth shut. This had been an eventuality, an inevitability. Still, he'd hoped Harper would hold on until she was physically stronger. It would be better for her to face her physical demons before battling mental ones, but that was too much to ask of the universe, or Harper it would seem.
Hair wet, wearing black gym shorts and a red tank top—the first clothes he found—he descended the final ladder to Med Deck and crossed through the door. He expected Trance to be alone, but beyond the partition he saw two shadows on the bed, partially obscured by foliage, facing each other, their voices rising and falling in a soft-spoken conversation.
So, he was right. Harper had spilled the beans. When Harper disobeyed orders for Harper reasons, Dylan preferred to take time to compose his thoughts before confronting him. Harper usually made it easy, making himself scarce until ordered to appear, a well-honed sense of self preservation taking over. Not tonight, Dylan thought, irritated.
"Ah, Mr. Harper, just the man I wanted to see," he said as he crossed into the partition. They both turned their heads, Harper grimacing at the reprimand in Dylan's tone.
"Dylan," Trance cut him off, a hint of warning loaded into his name, eyes hardening into rounds of agate; not harsh or angry, but stern, a look his mother would have been proud of. Sometimes she appeared as young as Harper, and others much older than himself. This was one of the latter. In these times he wondered who was in charge between the two of them. Just a part of her mystery. He tilted his head towards her, encouraging her to continue. "I made him tell me. You should not have kept it from me."
He wanted to argue that he was doing what he thought best, his prerogative as captain and friend. But, she no doubt understood his intentions, yet still admonished him. And, she was right. If his theory about who destroyed the Worldship proved correct, Andromeda might be in danger and only Trance out of the five-hundred souls onboard understood the threat. Any other crew member and he would not have hesitated. He needed to ask Andromeda to step in and play Devil's Advocate.
"You're right. I shouldn't have. Andromeda said you wanted to talk about the Worldship." He raised an eyebrow at Harper who defied expectation again by remaining in place, sitting cross-legged on the foot of Trance's bed. She took a sip from a metal cup either oblivious to Dylan's concern, or choosing to ignore it. Dylan guessed the latter, not much escaped Trance's notice. He took his lead from her and accepted Harper's presence. It was her story to tell.
"Yes. It is time to tell you everything. No more secrets," she said. He watched her lock her eyes with Harper as she spoke the last words as if she meant them for him.
So, he was here at her request. Interesting.
Her gaze then shifted between the two of them. "This is the story of the birth and death of our universe, of who I am and who the Lambent Kith Nebula are. I've wanted to tell you so many times. Every time you pressured me, Harper, and every time you needed more answers Dylan, but I couldn't. It would have put us all in danger. Now, I fear, there is more danger in not knowing. My people work in secret, tying invisible strings to major players across the Universe. If you are not aware of them, or even looking for them, they will catch you in their web."
"And this story, the story of our universe, explains why your people destroyed the Magog Worldship?" Dylan pressed.
"Not exactly. I cannot be sure they were responsible for the Worldship, but nothing else makes sense. This story explains what might have motivated them to do so."
"Oh good, I love scary bedtime stories." Harper quipped. Trance gave him a sympathetic smile and Dylan did the same. He remembered the shock he felt when Trance first revealed herself to him. While the rest of the crew understood she was the avatar of Tarn Vedra's sun now, and some of what she had been capable of, it was still a lot to absorb.
"Dylan, you may want to sit. I have a lot to explain." He pulled up the arm chair and took a seat.
"Are you sure you are up to this?"
"Yes, I will be fine." She put her cup on the cart and settled deeper into the backrest of the bed. Dylan leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Harper, too, leaned in. She took a deep breath and spoke with the air of a wizened storyteller, "In the beginning, there was singularity, and there was nothing."
"Wait, you mean the 'in the beginning God created Heaven and the Earth' beginning? The big bang? Were you there?" Harper asked, eyes narrow, studying Trance, a woman who didn't look a day over 26. She frowned, squaring her shoulders.
"I'm not that old. Dylan might have been there as Paradine, but I wasn't. At least, not the part of me that is here with you right now." Her gaze, now trained on Dylan, was penetrating, searching deep inside him for the key to unlock his past. He shifted under her scrutiny. She told him before that the Paradine may have had a hand creating this universe, but he had no recollection of it. It caused tension between them. She so certain of his role in this universe, and he unable to or unwilling to accept it. Harper transferred his wide eyed surprise to Dylan.
"Hey, I was raised on Tarn Vedra. I don't remember the beginning of the universe either," he said, holding his hands up in front of him. Trance allowed a soft smile, conceding to him, before starting again.
"That is neither here nor there. I like you analogy, Harper, so I will use it. In the beginning there was Heaven, and there was nothing. But, not really nothing, because there were other universes. They aren't important just yet." Her cadence reminded Dylan of his favorite professor at the High Guard Academy, how he'd woven the pieces of a story together, revealing just enough to keep students interested. The best history class he'd ever taken. "In Heaven, matter and energy lived together, bound tightly there by a force called Love."
"Love?" Dylan asked. Trance shrugged.
"That is the best translation I have in Common. Love with a capital 'L'. Love held everything together, it was the embodiment of peace and harmony, of order. Under Love's control, Heaven was a place where nothing changed. It was boring. Stagnant. And it remained that way for time immeasurable, but in this place of order, something new took hold, a force unfamiliar to Love."
"Like hate?" Harper chimed in.
"No, not hate. Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. This was something unexpected and unrelated. Boredom. Some of the matter and energy grew tired of this idle and lifeless existence. They formed distinct personalities and became adversarial, fighting back. In response, individuals rose on Love's side. And then war broke out."
"A war in Heaven? Devils and angels and stuff like that?" Harper asked. Dylan shared Harper's disbelief.
"Yes, in a matter of speaking." She coughed and cleared her throat. They sat in silence as she sipped water and adjusted herself to a more comfortable position. Her eyes closed for a moment, a small knot of pain forming on her forehead.
Dylan reached out and put a hand on her knee. "Are you alright?" She nodded and opened her eyes. He wanted to hear this story, but not at the expense of her health, even if it meant she might not be so refreshingly open in the future.
"Yes. The nanos are working and it makes my muscles ache that is all. Let's keep going," she replied, determined.
"Wait, before you move on, I need to know something." Harper sounded like a man with a theory he didn't want substantiated. "You said the part of you that is here right now wasn't there at the beginning, but you are an avatar, so that means your sun was there. What side were you on?"
She raised an eyebrow and fidgeted under his gaze, shoulders twisting back and forth. "You know the answer to that, Harper. Think about it."
"The tail. The horned headpiece..." Harper's mouth fell open. Trance tilted her head to the side and held a hand, palm up, in front of her as if to say 'there you have it'. "So, you were basically the Devil? Freaky."
Trance giggled, a soft, bubbly sound. Dylan laughed too, agreeing with Harper's assessment. This was all freaky. The younger man looked abashed.
"To tell you the truth, the tail has nothing to do with Heaven, or what came after. The Tarn Vedran sun and I were never the same, but that is for later. So, there was a war in Heaven. We won. Then we blew it up."
"You blew up Heaven?" Dylan asked. He knew she was telling the truth even before saying anything. Something stirred inside him, an awareness, a part of him he was not familiar with.
"Yes." Harper leaned back away from Trance, his eyes narrowed, nose wrinkled, clearly uneasy.
"Out of boredom? You blew up Heaven because you were bored?" Something passed between the two of them that Dylan couldn't read, but Trance's eyes sparkled in amusement, and Harper squirmed, his eyes darting towards a pile of flexis on the bedside cart and then back to Trance.
"Humans have a saying, idle hands do the Devil's work," she said with a shrug. "There was no life in Heaven. Chaos is life. It is beauty. It is everything. We wanted sentience, excitement… explosions. We wanted to live. After blowing up Heaven, the Lucifers drew matter and energy towards themselves and they burned so brightly. From them came everything, infused with their energy, their lifeforce." We. The Lucifers. Dylan noted that she switched back and forth, sometimes separate, sometimes including herself, her identity torn. Andromeda, a ship, full lost souls searching for themselves.
"I bet Love wasn't too happy with all of this exploding and burning business." Harper said.
"No. And it worked hard to bring back its version of order and the eternal dance started. Love pulled everything back into singularity, the Lucifers blew it up." She pulled her hands together, two fists kissing, and then pushed them apart, palms out, fingers splayed. "Expansion and contraction. Over and over. But each time it happened, Love grew more resentful. Then, it manifested itself in the universe as the Lucifers had. They named it Enigma."
"The Abyss." Dylan said, voice hushed as if he feared his enemy would return if he spoke its name aloud, as if it were a spell, and he a child tempting fate by chanting its name three times in the mirror.
"Yes, the Abyss. After it manifested itself, the cycle moved more quickly. The Lucifers were at a loss on how to stop it. So, the cycle continued, growing shorter each time. We feared that it would trap us and we would never shine again. Then this last time, the time we live in now, something changed." She paused taking a deep breath and shifting her position again. Dylan fought the urge to ask her, again, if she was all right. He had to trust she would tell them if she needed anything. To regain her confidence, she needed to be in control of her recovery. He had learned a lot from her over the last year.
"What changed?" Harper asked. She met Dylan's eyes, and he had to will himself not to fidget under the weight of her gaze.
"This part of the story is something you, Dylan, could tell if you could remember." Again. He didn't know how to make himself remember. He didn't know why he didn't remember. The answer to his heritage lay behind a door, locked, with no keyhole. Hell, he didn't even know where to find the knob.
"But I don't, so you will have to enlighten me." His tone was sharper than intended, earning a raised eyebrow from Harper. Trance, reading his frustration, tilted her head in gracious acceptance, no offense taken.
"This is where those other universes come in. There are an infinite number of universes, some of them accessible by the Route of Ages, most not. Some universes are bursting with light and life, some are dead, and others dying. These universes aren't connected, and they are almost impossible to travel between, but sometimes a species advances enough to figure it out." She moved her gaze between them, asking with her eyes if they were following. Dylan remained silent, as did Harper, engrossed once again. "You have to understand that while this cycle happens over and over again, the same worlds, the same species, aren't born every time. In the cosmic scheme of things, organic life is insignificant."
"I don't feel insignificant." Harper snapped, bitterness evident. Trance reached out and grabbed Harper's hand, her eyes looking first down at where their hands met, and then up in his eyes, hers flickering in the light. If only there were a psychologist anywhere in the Tri-Galaxies qualified enough to take on the darkest thoughts and feelings of his crew. Not for the first time, he wished Rev Bem were still here.
"I do not think you are. That is why I fought so hard to stop the Abyss. All life comes to an end, that is the way of the universe, but it should come to a natural end." She squeezed his hand and let go, then took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. A look, like guilt, passed over her face, a single cloud crossing the summer sun. And then, her default smile snapped into place again.
"In one of these dying universes one species, a powerful species, realized that their society would perish. So, the Vedrans traveled to our universe towards the beginning of this dance, maybe eight billion years ago."
"The Vedrans? You have got to be kidding." Harper's jaw dropped, morphing into a knitted brow an instant later.
"You mean to tell me that the Vedrans, our Vedrans, had the power to move between universes at will, without the Route of Ages?" Sure, Vedrans were travelling the stars when humans were still figuring out that if you rubbed two sticks together you created fire. They were capable of massive technological marvels, as demonstrated by the Seefra system, but Dylan had seen no indication they had been able to cross from one universe to another on a whim.
"No, Dylan, not at all. The Vedrans came to our universe searching for a place where their genetic code could take root and grow. I hardly understand it myself, but organic species cannot survive long in a universe other than that of their birth. Sentient beings that can exist as energy fare better, but still cannot live indefinitely. But, any being can seed a universe with the blueprint of its species and hope it takes root."
"So you're saying the Vedrans just walked in, dropped off some sort of program to make people just like them, and went back to their dying universe?" Harper asked.
"It was more involved than that. The Vedrans understood that the stars were sentient and reached out to them. It horrified them to learn of The Abyss. This universe had everything needed for their species to thrive. So, some of the Vedrans went back to their universe to search for a solution. If the Abyss were defeated, this universe would live until its natural end. They found their solution in an ally called…" Here she sang a few notes reminding Dylan of the captive whales his father took him to see as a boy. Such a beautiful and alien language. His brain translated her words before she did. How? When did he learn the language of the stars?
"Could you repeat that? I didn't quite catch it." Harper joked, ever the sarcastic one.
"I never lied to you when I said you wouldn't be able to pronounce my people's name. The best translation in common is..."
"People of the Light. The Lambent Kith." Two sets of eyes turned towards him, two lined foreheads, two pairs of parted lips. Almost identical expressions of surprise on his crew members' faces. Trance overcame her shock first, forehead smoothing, head tilting to the side, eyes searching his face. He patted his knees and shook his head, no explanation available. She did not to press it though her eyes remained on him as she spoke again.
"Yes, People of the Light. While they started as an organic species, they evolved into a people that could exist in organic form and transform into pure energy. The Vedrans suggested that they might form a symbiotic relationship, a bond, with the celestial bodies of this universe. The Lucifers did not agree at first to share their bodies and minds, but soon saw the benefits of being able to command organic bodies. With organic bodies they could manipulate events in their favor as they unfolded and defeat the Abyss once and for all."
"But, you said even species that can exist as energy can't live in a new universe indefinitely." Harper pointed out.
"No, they can't. The life of a universe measures in billions of years. The Lambent Kith, now avatars of the suns, moons, and planets of this universe would die long before they predicted the Abyss would make its move. Still, they came over, bonded with the suns, and created a society much like the one they left behind, ruled by an Empress. She bonded with the sun that watched over the world the Vedrans planted their DNA on."
"I am having a hard time wrapping my brain around all this. It's remarkable, but I still don't understand why your people would destroy the Magog. How is this relevant?" Dylan asked.
"Yeah, and how does the Nebula play into all this?"
"It is relevant because of what happened next. The Lambent Kith would live only a few billion years at most in this universe. The Abyss wouldn't make its move until much later, so they did what any species does to ensure its continuation, they had children. The Empress conceived first. She gave birth to twins, one male and one female. The Kith bound her son to a star that watched over an important world and her daughter remained bound to her mother's sun—the sun she would be avatar for after her mother's death. They celebrated the birth of the girl destined to rule and defeat the Abyss. But when the twins were still small children, the Paradine appeared.
"They came from a future where the Abyss was winning. They told the Empress that no one foresaw how slow the children born to the First Ones—that is what we call those who traveled here—would age. When the Abyss made its move, the oldest children would be just growing out of adolescence. They would be old, yes, but also childlike, innocent, and chaos loving. The Abyss would use their innocence against them. The children needed guidance, mature adults with their powers who could help them decide the proper moves to make. A combination of wisdom and maturity. Otherwise, it would be like putting 23-year-old Harper in charge of the Commonwealth."
"Hey, I would have made a great leader." They all laughed though more out of expectation than true humor. Here they were, mere mortals, learning the ways of the Gods.
"The solution the Paradine came up with was to engineer avatars who would mature faster. They gave the Nebula life and also created the Council of Moons and the System of Planets to advise them. But something went terribly wrong." Trance's voice cracked, and she coughed. Dylan handed her the cup of water, though he understood that the cough was a cover for her emotions, never as hidden as she thought they were. She took it with a nod and sipped at it, buying time to collect herself. For the most part, Harper was still with them with the telltale lines above his nose that were always present when he processed large amounts of information.
Trance stayed silent, and no one broke the silence, gifting her with a small amount of control in a life she had little control over at the moment. Poor Trance. All those times he'd chided her for giving up, for running away, for not presenting him with a glass half full. He never took the time to notice, or tell her, how brave she was. He assumed the golden warrior who traded places with her younger self didn't have the same vulnerabilities. She came to them a soldier, and he treated her like one, forgetting she was the same person. She put the water down, took a deep breath and started again.
"The Paradine and the First Ones thought the Nebula incorruptible. They didn't understand that the moons and planets were so much weaker than the suns they would have no voice against the Nebula. The Abyss knew. I do not know when Enigma infected the Nebula with its darkness, but I believe it was already there when the heiress and two of her sisters matured enough to take their promised places on the council. The Nebula forced them to become of one mind, taking away their power and individuality, harshly punishing any sign of free will."
"So, your sun destroyed the Abyss, but the Nebula is now, what, carrying its torch?" Dylan asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.
"In a word, yes. Though I cannot tell you what the end goal might be. Perhaps they merely crave power, perhaps something more. I do know that they removed all other Paradine, they removed the heiress' power, they converted and cowed her sisters, and now I believe they have removed the Magog, the last vestiges of the Abyss. Nothing stands in their way. The light of our universe has become its greatest darkness."
"I guess we should be grateful they didn't destroy the Andromeda while they were at it." Dylan grumbled, mind working overtime to try and make sense of everything.
Harper looked to Dylan, then to Trance—her shoulders slumped, eyes downcast, and lips drawn into a deep frown—then back to Dylan again.
"They wouldn't have killed Trance, though. I mean, they would if they wanted to create a martyr, but they don't. Regents can't outright kill their charges, they have to be more creative than that," he said, and Dylan saw he had come to the same conclusion about Trance's identity. The Vedran sun. The daughter of the Empress.
The younger man turned his attention to Trance again. She avoided his gaze. In a much softer voice, one filled with a level of empathy Dylan hadn't realized Harper possessed, he said, "That's why they punished you by taking your powers instead of taking your life, because you are the Queen of the Universe, aren't you?"
A tear slipped down her cheek, followed by another. She blinked to stop more from falling and shook her head, eyes focused on something behind Harper's head. "Not anymore I'm not."
Damnit.
They defeated the Abyss, and as usual, something bigger and badder took its place. 'It's never easy' didn't even seem big enough to cover this.
"Harper," Rhade called as he rounded the corner to see the other man walking the opposite direction. Harper stopped, turning around, posture slumped, head bent, a man with an invisible weight dragging him down. Rhade tapped the flexi he held on his thigh, debating whether this would ease his friend's burden or add to it. Did it matter when he was leaving early in the morning to return to his family? He needed to pass it on now before he left. In any case, Harper's troubles were not his own.
"Rhade, fancy meeting you here at 0100 hours."
"I was working on the backlog of communications data before I left for Tarazed in the morning. I came across something that might interest you. Andromeda told me you were down here with Trance. Is she awake? I fear I will miss her in the morning and would like to say goodbye."
Harper took a few steps towards him, stopping at arms length. He shrugged his shoulders and one side of his mouth twitched into a sad imitation of a smile. "She is and probably will be for a while, but I don't think she's in the mood to talk. She… well... It's nothing. Rommie just brought her dinner and kicked Dylan and I out, but you are more than welcome to try your luck. I'm sure she will want to see your ugly mug before you leave." The insult came out passionless, spoken out of habit.
"Are you okay?" Rhade asked, eyes narrowed, finding this lack of energy unnerving.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Harper kept his glassy-eyed gaze focused on something beyond Rhade's shoulder. Rhade gave up, too tired to pry into the workings of Harper's mind, his own already on Tarazed with his wife and children.
"Well, whatever is bothering you, perhaps this will take your mind off it." He passed the flexi to Harper who scanned it, narrowed his eyes, pulled the flexi closer and scanned again, wrinkles forming on his forehead.
"No way," he muttered, looking up at Rhade as if to confirm his eyes worked. "The Earth Resistance; this is their code, their mark."
Rhade nodded. "I thought you'd want to see it. I found that transmission in the noise following Earth's destruction. We almost didn't notice it was there."
Harper looked down at the flexi again and then back to Rhade. Perhaps all he needed was a distraction, energy levels climbing before Rhade's eyes.
"Hey, um, it was nice knowing you. Have fun at home. Say hello to the kiddies. Give your wife a big kiss. I gotta go!" he said before taking off running. Rhade watched him climb a ladder at the end of the corridor and shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips. Now, to see about saying goodbye to the only person more of a mystery to him than Harper—but not by much.
