Ocean in the Sea Read online

He then explained how to jump and told my people the secret of engaging the Attistar’s jump parameters. But unlike those of us who served Tanandor as disciples, he did not tell them what would happen. He did not prepare them. He did not give them the training to sift through a host’s memories, or even that there would be a host. He did not tell them they would die when they jumped, or that they could not control their destination. He simply gave the power to jump, and then blessed them all. Ten billion Paradisians were freed that day.”

  “So everyone on your world was made a jumper,” said Lewis. “There wasn’t anyone who ignored the, um, broadcast of the message over your Sahrhadree?”

  “It was Tanandor’s wish that we jump,” said Senjiita. “We do not know why. We now believe he was using us for some purpose of his own. Regardless, there were several billion Paradisians who did not participate in the broadcast. He bid me to eliminate them, to scour the world clean. And I obeyed.”

  Herman stared at Senjiita in horror. “You murdered several billion people?”

  “My interface does not work on jumpers,” said Senjiita. “But those without Tanandor’s blessing remained simulants. It was painless and quick, as it always is. They did not suffer.”

  “Cold comfort,” muttered Herman. “What happened after?”

  “Civil war,” said Arsus. “Paradise became perdition in short order. Even an enlightened society can fall to confusion and disorder when the laws they live by suddenly vanish. Now imagine those laws are the laws of physics and take it to that level. Everyone remaining had an interface, and used them. Even simple curiosity now presented the potential for destruction. Cities burned, buildings crumbled, the crust quaked, the sun darkened. Tracts of land froze solid while others melted or changed into unrecognizable shapes. It was the end. Many jumped. Others remained, but not for long. Paradise tore apart.

  “So you jumped too,” concluded Herman.

  “Yes,” said Arsus. “There were only a few dozen jump conduits out of Paradise, and so we were not as separated as we might have been. Perillia, Senjiita, and I found ourselves in new bodies on a world known as… actually, I cannot pronounce it with these lips. Let’s call it Ssaphizia.” He shrugged. “Best I can do. But it doesn’t really matter. You can guess the rest of the story. Eventually we found each other and we found Valruun. He can select the conduits for a jump, turn them on and off, keep us together. And he could feel Tanandor’s touch, track him. So we followed. When we jumped to the next simulation we searched for other Paradisians and found many. They joined us. Most of them were lost over the eons since then – killed before their jump timers had expired, or force-jumped before Valruun was ready, or we simply never found them before we had to leave. Others decided to settle down on various simulations and make lives for themselves. They became Nastarii. But there always remained a core of us. Shanzea, Beloris, Xanatos, Evaeros, Senjiita, Perillia, Valruun, and myself. Jenny is a recent recruit. Heticus is a foundling we discovered some jumps back and tried to repair, but he’s been Nastarii for too long, I’m afraid. Millennia of isolation are difficult to overcome, and his insanity is deeply established.”

  Herman nodded. The story wasn’t much different than he’d expected, though he understood now why they anticipated his condemnation. Arsus had betrayed the trust of his people. Senjiita had murdered billions. They’d all been willing participants in the destruction of their own world. In Garibaldi’s mind, they all deserved a trip to Hell. Maybe their current existence was a form of it.

  “I don’t think I’m qualified to judge you,” Herman told Arsus. “Your crimes aren’t against me, or my people, but if I had to, I’d say you’re crimes warrant a punishment I can’t even imagine. Still, there are mitigating circumstances, and Tanandor is the real culprit. He brought this upon you intentionally to cover his tracks.”

  “Yes, but who is he running from?” asked Arsus. “And why would awakening a single world make any difference to them? We must know his game or we will never know what his true intentions were in destroying Paradise and sending us into the ring.”

  “Questions we must ask,” stated Senjiita.

  “Yes,” agreed Herman. “Once we have him. Until then, I’ve got other questions.” He looked at Jenny. “On my world, Atlantis is a myth, so what’s your story?”

  Freedom-3

  Jennifer Kross would have squirmed uncomfortably in her seat if there’d been any gravity, but in zero-g the best she could manage was a shudder. The others all knew what had happened to her on her first jump, but she still barely knew Lewis. Certainly not well enough to reveal the intensely personal details resulting from that flawed point in her life. Telling him about Tanandor and Atlantis was easy enough, but it would inevitably lead to other questions. She bit her lower lip and looked away, side-glancing back nervously.

  Seemingly sensing her reluctance, Lewis waited in silence. Next to him, Senjiita closed his eyes, sleeping or meditating. Arsus flew into the cockpit to check on their progress. Beloris joined him for the view of the station. In the darkness of space, the distant light gained in visual resolution as it grew closer. Heticus snored in his seat, drugged out of existence by ketamine.

  “I can only tell you what I know,” began Jenny, starting the conversation slowly. “It’s fuzzy. I don’t remember a lot of it – of my first life – and I prefer not to answer questions about why. Are you okay with that?” she asked, nervously concerned that Lewis would be too demanding.

  “Sure,” said Herman. “I’m not as much as an asshole as I might look. Tell me whatever you can. I won’t push.”

  “Good.” Jenny rubbed her hands against her thighs, “because I only have the remnants of a dream. This is someone else’s story, not really mine, just a fuzzy memory of another life. These are things that happened to someone else… someone I used to be, or might have been if I’d worn that skin.” She thought for a moment and continued.

  “It started with my mother’s sixty fifth winter,” she said softly. “Our winters were hard, although it was not always so. Our elders said that the passage of the seasons was once mild, but for my generation, each year was colder than the one before. The snows buried us, leaving us in fear of the summer’s delay, as if it would not come, and the ice stayed later, blocking the ports.

  I was in my thirties I believe,” she folded her arms. “There was a growing bias against our beliefs. I remember that. And we knew what was to come. We’d all read the prophesies –Warwik, the end of our world. The wolves of the north grew closer. The magic of the crystals was fading. Soon even the great Dadea – the crystal skulls given to the lesser kingdoms, would fade to quartz, and the voice of the empire would darken. I felt the doom as it approached. I tasted it on my lips. I listened to the fearful tellings of my elders, though I cannot relate their message beyond that these were the end of times. Our final accounting.”

  “Were they?” said Herman. “The end of times?”

  Jenny closed her eyes for a moment. “That’s something I will never know, Lewis.” Her eyes fell upon him with the weight of recollection and pain. “The magic was fading, but the people may have lived on. After the lives I’ve lived, I no longer care. But you asked for a story of Atlantis.”

  “I don’t want you to suffer this memory.”

  “And your wife, your child,” she asked, “does their story bring you pain?”

  “Of course.”

  “And would you wish to speak of it?”

  “No. But I would. If you needed it”

  “Then we understand each other, and what you’ve asked of me.”

  “We should stop then,” said Herman.

  “No. You will learn eventually. Now is no worse than later. Maybe better now.” Jenny inhaled. “Late at night I awoke to an urgent pounding on my door. There was a man outside. At first, I thought him a mercenary of the Marototh clan because of his uniform and his bearing, and I worried that he might be seeking refuge from the rebel thugs of House Varin. The two were not officially at war, bu
t House Varin hated the clans because they were outlanders, and the Child-King had granted the Marototh the use of Varin lands to camp in – a foolish move, but not surprising. He was, after all, only ten years of age.

  “The visitor spoke with a Marototh accent, but his vocabulary was too extensive for an uneducated outland soldier. He told me he’d brought a message. One meant specifically for me. Ill-suited for the ears of others. Regardless, it was too cold to leave him outside, and we had laws against that. Hospitality required that I grant him entry. My mother insisted on heating something to eat, and we met in the entry vestibule while she prepared his meal.

  There he revealed his ignorance to me. He spoke the truth – or as much of it as one can expect from Tanandor. He gave me his name and spoke if his arrival in the host he wore. To prove himself, he demonstrated his interface to me using my divining totems to evoke messages that only I could understand.”

  “What are divining totems?” asked Herman. “Sorry.”

  “They are used by the Priestess’s of Tamor to commune with the crystals. It is a way to understanding the many songs within them. There is much to this, and it is not import that you understand. Just know that each Priestess attunes herself to her own totems – polished crystal stones. No one else can use them. That Tanandor could speak to me through them was impossible, and proved his power to me. There was no question, so when he spoke further I listened with an open mind.

  “He told me he had come seeking a map that could not be seen or felt, but that was reflected in the union of our crystals. To view it fully, he required help, and of all those dwelling on my world, fate had chosen me.”

  “Not fate,” said Herman. “He pushed the odds of finding the right person and found you.”

  “We know that now,” she agreed. “But fate was an accepted concept among the Atlanteans, so I didn’t consider that he might have control over it, despite knowing he could alter chance. To me, the two were separate things. Chance was natural. Fate was determined by the Gods, not men. Destiny was believed to be pre-determined.”

  “So you didn’t think that Tanandor was a God?”

  “He claimed not to be and I had no reason to doubt him. More likely a man might fake being a God. To be a God and claim to be a man made no sense.”

  “Fair enough,” grunted Herman. “So Tanandor wanted to use you. What did he ask you to do for him?”

  “Bend the light through the crystals in a specific way during a song that he would sing. It would show him a map of simulations in the ring. He could not see these conduits beyond a single simulation, but the crystals were connected to them. With my help, he would be able to plot his way for dozens of jumps, and then he would leave.”

  “That’s it?” Herman looked surprised. “He just wanted a map?”

  With his eyes still closed, Senjiita asked, “If you were lost, would you not wish for a map? Or would you rather travel blindly?”

  Herman shrugged. “I guess if I knew where I wanted to get to I might want a map, but if it’s just a line ending in a dot and another line going to the next dot, then a map is worthless. What does this map tell you?”

  “I wish I could remember,” muttered Jenny. “Tanandor spent the winter with us. We pilgrimaged to the Temple of Tamor not long after the solstice. I introduced him as my personal protector and he was allowed as far as the outer sanctum. To reach the holy vestibule we waited until night when the temple slept. His power – his interface – allowed him to disguise us, distract the guardians, and to reach the vestibule unhindered. There I sang us both into the crystals, and he transferred into me the ability to access the Attistar, gifting me with my interface. When we returned to my mother’s home, he taught me how to project light at the frequencies he needed. At the ending of winter, I returned to the temple with him to complete my part of the bargain.”

  “Wait a second,” Herman raised a finger. “Let me get this straight. You made a deal with Tanandor to give him access to a holy place restricted to your order in return for power?”

  Jenny nodded. “That’s correct.”

  “But what about your duty as a Priestess? Wasn’t giving some weirdo from beyond your world access to your crystals a betrayal? Weren’t you violating some oath?”

  “Indeed, I was.”

  “Then why do it?”

  Jenny looked away. “Because… I was in love with him.”

  Herman felt his jaw drop, which had nothing to do with gravity as there wasn’t any. The look on his face must have been telling, because Jenny flushed and turned away.

  “You…” he struggled to find his voice. “You were Valon’s… Tanandor’s…”

  “Lover,” she stated. “It was winter. We were alone for weeks on end, and his host was attractive, strong, and my age. I remember very little except that I was happier than I’d ever been, and I would have done anything for him. Do you know what it’s like to be lonely, Lewis? The Priestess’s of Tamor were not permitted to… No… never mind. I shouldn’t make excuses. It happened and now it’s over.

  “When he got his map, he jumped and he left me to be captured in the holy vestibule. They found me behind the sealed doors, cradling his corpse in grief, surrounded by our most cherished untouchable crystals, soiled by my hand and useless now. The punishment was death. They stripped me, beat me, and then burned me alive on the sacrificial pyre outside the temple. I was two months pregnant with Tanandor’s child.”

  Herman gasped. “Good God, Jenny, why didn’t you jump!?”

  “Tanandor never taught me how. He never told me that I would live again in another body. He never taught me about host memories. He cared only for his precious maps. The only teaching he gave me was how to evoke the frequencies of light he required, and the promise of more when we were done. A promise he kept, but not in the way I expected. And now we reach the end of my distasteful story, Lewis. The rest I do not wish to discuss.”

  Hearing this, Arsus called back and informed them they were about five minutes from docking. “Make sure Heticus is still under,” he called to Lewis. “And put away anything floating around back there. I don’t want any loose projectiles in null-gravity.”

  Grabbing the medkit, Herman injected Heticus with a second dose of Ketamine. It was about that time.

  Jenny’s story had left a bad taste in his mouth, but as bad as it was, he suspected that what she hadn’t told him was worse. What could be worse than being tricked and betrayed by a loved one and burned alive? He couldn’t imagine. The girl was damaged goods, no doubt about it. Baggage claim weighted down like a black hole. But then, so was he. The others in Arsus’ crew were probably just as bad.

  He wondered what question Jenny would ask Tanandor.

  If he were her... his imagination centered. Yes, Lewis concluded, Jenny would try to kill Tanandor. She only needed to know what his jump-timer was set to. If it hadn’t expired, she’d murder him out of a need for satisfaction, even knowing that it would eliminate him from the ring. It’s what he would do, so he couldn’t blame her. Hell, he might even help. No wonder Arsus was paranoid! The problem was the timing.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  When the X-423’s disconnected crew cabin finally docked with the Freedom-3 station, the recalibration on Earth reached beyond the French border into Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain. Mobilizing against this unknown threat, the governments of the world ceased hostilities and established lines of communication at levels unseen for decades. Japanese overlords rang German Fuhrers. American presidents called their Nazi counterparts. Enemies broke silence. A mutual threat had been found.

  Preparing for the worst, the U.S. Presidential cabinet, and the Third Reich’s Führer and Chancellery Heads, evacuated to space. The Japanese Emperor and Imperial Court were not far behind. Rockets burned skyward on every continent, bearing humanity’s super wealthy and politically powerful to prepared places of refuge. As for the rest of the human race, they could be replaced. The Earth could not.

&n
bsp; To that end, hasty agreements were made. Against this ‘force-bubble’ as it was being labeled, the only untested weapons were nuclear. They would be used in attempts to halt the spread of the energy field. Orders were given and the countdown began. Orbital nuclear platforms recalculated targets. Killer satellites adjusted vectors. Pre-launch ran their diagnostics. The world around the bubble was soon to burn. Not simply by choice, but by necessity.

  Operations officials on the moon and the space stations began emergency war-response protocols and Colonel Markus Barokinte, the commander of Freedom-3, barked orders from the center seat of the control room. “Radar sequence Victor Omega,” he commanded orbital traffic controllers. “Docking stations, prep for multiple incoming shuttles.” He pressed and held a button on the arm of his chair. “Dispatch, give me an ETA for Falcon.”

  Across the room, a young female communication officer wearing enormous headphones keyed her microphone. Her audio response sounded from the Colonel’s left seat speaker. “Falcon will arrive in four hours twenty seven minutes, Sir.”

  The Colonel spun his seat around, addressing the men at the bank of consoles behind him. “Fire control, proximity report.”

  “Tender 9 is bringing the Wolf’s crew capsule from low orbit,” replied a male officer, referring to the NSA ships code name. “Double-D is onboard.” Pushing several buttons and turning a dial he added, “they’re docking now, Colonel.”

  “Good. Keep Tender 9 on standby. All tenders must be ready to assist.”

  Roughly five percent of shuttle launches resulted in some form of failure, and Colonel Barokinte would take no chances with the Vice President. Falcon was his responsibility. Too bad he hadn’t drawn the Eagle, but the selection was randomized for security.

  “Engineering,” commanded the Colonel, “give me a Sit-Rep.”

  Chief Tech Henry Masterson spoke from over the top of a console. “Computer processing shows a spike, Sir. Viral filters are intact. Doesn’t look like an intrusion, but heat’s up seven percent in eight of the CPUs. I don’t like it.”