“The space-time distortions have damaged normal causality in this region,” said Tuvok. “The message Captain Fortis just broadcast is the one that Titanreceived four days ago.”
Four days, thought Riker. Have we only been at this for four days?It didn’t seem possible. Staring at the flat black panel of the main viewer, feeling his own vessel buffeted both by the ongoing chaos outside and the slowly contracting Orishan grappling field, all he could hold in his mind was that what had happened to Charonhad also happened to the Ellington. That and the people who were responsible.
“Captain Fortis was correct, however,” said Tuvok. “This flux effect is expanding. It will grow past the boundaries of this system within three standard days.”
“Tuvok,” said Riker after taking time to digest the full meaning of the Vulcan’s words. The particular timbre his voice had acquired mandated silence in the bridge personnel. “I want to talk to the Orishan captain.”
“Channel open,” said Tuvok.
“This is the captain of the Starship Titan,” said Riker, standing and facing the flickering image of the Orishan vessel that had appeared on the main screen. “We didn’t come here to fight you, but if you don’t stop your attack on my ship I will be forced to respond in kind.”
He waited precisely ten seconds for the response he knew wouldn’t come.
“Catastrophic shield failure in one hour, forty-five minutes,”said the computer.
“Right,” he said. “Your choice.” He signaled for Tuvok to kill the broadcast and contacted the sensor pod.
“Roakn here. Go ahead, sir.”
“Tell Cadet Dakal he can launch when he’s ready.”
“ Yes, Captain,”said Roakn.
Riker swiveled to face Tuvok. “I’ll want to see this,” he said.
The Vulcan, recognizing the expression on his captain’s face and its promise of a bleak future for their assailant, tapped the appropriate keys to display the probe telemetry on the main viewer.
“If this works,” said Riker in a glacial tone that none of them had ever heard or hoped to hear again, “that thing is either going to be shunted fully into whatever dimension it’s straddling or it’s going to become solid and be subject to the same effects that have been hitting Titan. Either way, we’re finishing this.”
“Your hypothesis is sound, Captain,” said Tuvok. “As is your attack strategy. However, it is my duty to remind you that disrupting the systems of a vessel utilizing so much unknown technology may have unforeseen consequences.”
If the captain heard Tuvok’s warning, he gave no indication of it. “I want a boarding party ready to beam over to that ship the second it’s in phase,” he said in that same iron voice. “Then we’ll show them some consequences.”
“I presume the captain will be leading this team?” said Tuvok.
“You’re damned right he is,” said Riker, and in his mind, the image of his wife as she died screaming played over and over.
Chapter Fourteen
In the centermost eave, nestled safe in webbing that linked her body with that of the great vessel around her, A’churak’zen watched the approach of the tiny metal object through the lens of her despair.
Even as she marshaled the waves of the vessel, closing the fist she had formed around those who had caused Erykon’s wrath to fly howling and burning down on her people, she sent other waves out into the void to search for a sign that any of them might have survived.
It was the eleventh time she had done so since Orisha had been consumed, and with each failure to find even a single breeder male or larva sac floating in the aether, her despair darkened and grew.
She was only two things now: rage and sorrow. At first the rage had driven her and she was happy to do as it commanded. She had seen the wave, one bigger than anything anyone had ever conceived, explode out from Erykon’s Eye, consuming everything in its path.
Its first meal was the little metal box that had served as a home for those newcomers whose blasphemous work had woken the eye from its ten-thousand-cycle slumber. It and the creatures inside had been sucked up into the vortex of wrath in less time than it took to imagine.
That was Good and she had rejoiced in its Goodness. Erykon’s judgment was final and Just in all ways. This thought pleased her briefly and so she flexed the bit of her mind that controlled the wave around the thing called Titan, increasing the pressure on the spindly sheet of protection it had managed to erect.
Why Erykon had spared them the worst of the destruction was a mystery, but it was not her place to question the ways of her god. Erykon’s will, Erykon’s wish, Erykon’s judgment, Erykon’s wrath all were the same and all were equally perfect and immutable.
Though she had questioned in the past, hadn’t she? She had questioned everything early on and had been punished whenever those questions ranged too far. She had spent too much time with the Dreaming caste before being taken by the Guardians and the center of the Dreaming was the questions.
How does this chemical reaction progress? When was thathukka vine first fertilized? Where is the heart of creation?
So many questions, and often, even more answers, but when the question was Why?The answer was always the same.
Why does the Daystar shine? Erykon’s will.
Why do the Children thrive? Erykon’s will.
Why did the lightning strike my Mater’s nest, incinerating her and all my sisters?That too was Erykon’s will, they told her. Rejoice.
She couldn’t at first. After her family had died, she couldn’t even believe, though she knew enough to pretend. All she really had left were her questions and the punishment for asking.
Then the Guardians took her, telling her that her mind was right for a working they had made, a great woven working that was as much alive as it was mechanical and as large as any of the Spires that the Guardians made home.
“It needs a mind to move it, A’churak’zen,” the Guardian Mater had said. “Yours may be the one. Will you try?”
She asked questions then, many, about the nature of their working, about their intention for it, about the particulars of mind that would be necessary to be chosen to be its mistress.
The Guardians didn’t punish her for those, only kept silent and told her to proceed with her work. They would inform her if she was or was not the one.
She did as she was told, running their mazes, taking their tests, eating the strange lichens they had grown exclusively for this purpose.
They never showed her the working though. The sight of it was only for the one who would one day bond with it and bend it to its unknown purpose. But she knew where it was kept, all the Guardians did, just as they knew to stay well clear unless their Mater told them otherwise.
But the question burned in her, What was it they had made? Why had they kept knowledge of it from the rest of the Children? How did this new working serve Erykon’s will?
The need to know burned so hot in her she was sure its fire could be seen and smelled for hectares in every direction. She was a beacon of desire, and yet none of them, not even the Mater, could see.
She was just a Hunter to them, a Hunter who had been raised by Dreamers, a Hunter who had enough evolutionary variance from the rank and file to warrant inclusion in their secret plan. Yet they knew nothing of her thoughts and less of the questions to which she must have answers. And, even more significant than the ignorance of her fellow Guardians, was that of Erykon.