Lady Luna tossed her red hair, saying, “It is not fear. It is to get away from the sight of the endless metal heavens! We are trapped inside a Dyson sphere inside the black interior of a hypergiant star. I, for one, am famished for the sight of stars.”
Aeneas said, “That time is upon us, cousin!”
He stood. He raised his hand. The clouds parted. The rain stopped. The miniature sun had set. Above were stars, shining bright. They glinted like gems.
He smiled. “Urvasthrang, along with all the other Dyson commanders, were ordered by Rhazakhang to leave Ara A and fly toward Coma Berenices, to search for us. It happened as we sat here.”
Lady Luna said, “We are outside the Dyson?”
“We are orbiting it, but still within the warp zone, and are carried along. Our Dyson is currently below our horizon at this latitude.” Aeneas sat again. “Now, my Lords, my Ladies, in celebration of our successful escape, of my fifth year as imperial monarch, and, yes, in celebration of the first moment in five years we have not been under a deadly threat of instant death…”
He raised his hand again. The light touching his throne grew dim as a warp field of unknown import surrounded the seated figure, then utterly black, black as onyx.
It was as menacing as if he had suddenly flourished an energy pistol, or commanded a firing squad to surround them. The Lords of Creation, stone-faced and not showing their alarm, touched their signet rings, readying their many weapons, visible and invisible.
The voice of Aeneas came out of the jet-black shadow.
“…let us discuss the fate of mankind. The floor is open.”
Episode 02 The Great Void
The Lords of Creation summoned their weapons to their hands, and sat in silence, tense and waiting.
In the hands of Lord Jupiter, his lightning bolt crackled and shined, too bright to look upon. Lord Neptune held his trident, and the eddies of gravity around him made the earth below his throne tremble. Lord Saturn held his sickle. Lord Uranus held his lantern in which was what seemed a star burning. Lord Mercury raised his caduceus.
Lady Luna stood and readied her silvery recurve bow, drawing an arrow of insanity from her quiver. Lady Venus remained seated, but now her mirror was in her hands, in which any thought-rays present could be caught. Lady Pallas, in her plumed helm and man’s armor, held an energy javelin in one hand. In her other was her invulnerable shield upon which none dared gaze, for the neuropsionic labyrinth pattern scrambled the visual centers of the brain. Lady Ceres drew no weapon, but the grass around her rustled, changed, and formed bio-weapon spores that rose up and hung in dangerous clouds around her.
Brother Beast, looking calm, folded his hands, because he had no weapons, and Lord Mars, looking bored, folded his hands, because his weapons were irresistible.
As for Aeneas, his throne put forth an antiphotonic shadow to envelop him, black as ink, opaque as obsidian. Reddish distortions from Doppler shift clung to the edges of the shadow, betraying the presence of a spacewarp, a spot where the laws of nature were changed.
Brother Beast said, “Over the last five years, we have all gotten out of the habit of threatening our blood relations with weapons originally meant to destroy planets. Is there no way to retain the civility and goodwill we have enjoyed?”
Lord Mars said, “I notice the kid has not told us to put our weapons away.”
The voice of Aeneas spoke from the darkness. “A wise leader does not give orders he knows will not be obeyed.”
The rain was no longer falling, but the grass blades were wet. The circle of trees surrounding dripped drops from drooping leaves. The sky overhead showed the stars above the Dyson Sphere, and the other recently-made planets and moons of the World Armada gleaming in the light of their miniature suns.
The stars turned red, went dim, and rushed away as the Dyson entered the closed timelike curve segment of a warp channel; during their passage through the channel, they saw overhead what seemed to be their own Dyson Sphere, turned inside-out and englobing them, growing larger and rushing away into darkness; and a moment later, the hemisphere of the sky turned white, contracted, dulled, the scattered stars reappeared, growing blue as they returned to the normal hues, and hurried together like an explosion of sparks in reverse, reestablishing the normal vision of universe above once more.
Lord Uranus looked up first, and noticed what was happening. “Our trip from Alpha Centauri to Ara A took weeks inside the warpchannel! How is it that we are only outside spacetime for a moment between jumps?”
The voice of Aeneas said, “The armatures circling the War Dyson are twice the radius and command core black hole of an order of magnitude more mass than the measly K and G type stars parked at the center of the Centauri system. Also, the undead automatons are a skilled crew working with tools suited to the task to form the warp channel. Thousands of undead crew are available to oversee each aspect, practically each moment, of operation. Of course, they are all familiar with the basics of the warp science. Among mankind, I alone know it, and must do all myself. Which returns us to the question on the floor. What is to be the fate of the human race?”
Lord Saturn said, “Why do you summon a warp here, Your Imperial Majesty? I, for one, have not forgotten that my life, and those of my people, have been saved by you countless times. There is no reason to break the peace now.”
Aeneas said, “The peace we enjoyed, and the obedience you gave me, was due to the immediate threat of the space vampires. Now the threat is suspended, the old nature of my relations erupts back into view, like a spring unnaturally compressed returning to true.”
Lord Neptune stood and the temblors radiating from his feet grew more violent. The grass shook and his throne swayed but such was his fine control that the others there felt only the slightest vibration rippling through the ground. The teeth of his mocking smile, the glint of his eyes, were starkly white against dark blue of his sardonic face. “Well, I have certainly felt compressed these years, paying knee-tribute to a small fry who holds us all in contempt. He thinks we are tyrants! Meanwhile he dreams of nothing but destroying our family power!”
The voice of Aeneas said, “Lord Neptune, if I understand him, makes a motion to preserve the family power. The fate he foresees for mankind is a return to life as it was before the war. Is there a second to the motion?”
Now Neptune looked puzzled. “Are you mocking me?”
The voice of Aeneas was mild. “Probably not, my lord. You seem as eager to throw me off the throne as I am to climb down from it. But climbing off a throne is less safe than climbing off a mad tiger. Mad tigers sleep. The ambitions of Imperial relatives never do.”
Neptune, who had been bracing himself for some sort of fight, felt deflated. He scowled, wishing he could see the expression on the young emperor’s face. He thrust the trident into the ground, tines down, and the ground-vibrations stopped.
The stars overhead changed and changed again. Now the view above was black, with the pale band of the Milky Way, like a white river, crossing one side of the sky to the other, and there were a few pale stars near this white river, bright as diamonds, but no stars elsewhere.
It was a sky without constellations: an appalling blackness.
Lady Luna, now glancing upward also, and shivering in the cold, said, “Where are we?”
Lord Jupiter still held his bolt in one hand, but now he leaned back in a relaxed pose, and poured himself a goblet of wine with his other hand. “We are wherever His Imperial Majesty has pleased to take us, his subjects.”
Lady Venus crossed her shapely legs and settled more deeply into the luxurious pink cushions of her throne. “Lord Neptune seems not to realize that this is not the best time to overthrow the current government, unless we are all content to live here, wherever it is we happened to have halted. Even the nearest star is infinitely out of reach, without Aeneas.”
Lord Mercury said, in a joking voice, but with no mirth in his eyes, “You mean without you, don’t you? You secretly con
trol him, and have done ever since that night you programmed his mind in the library!”
Aeneas said, “Actually, I was the one who put that idea into the fake version of history we showed to Rhazakhang. I thought it was funny.”
Lord Mercury said, “Sire, she programmed you to think it funny! The irony of having you show to the enemy a truth you are prevented from realizing is just the type of cruel joke she enjoys! For the sake of her power, she wants you on the throne!”
Aeneas said, “If so, my mother is behind the times, I fear, Uncle Procopius. Surely I am not the first person to realize that my monopoly on the superluminary science is broken? Did none of you hear what I just said?”
Lord Uranus said softly, “I heard. There are thousands of zombies who know your secret. Any one of us could download the lore from an undead brain. I am sure my brothers are thinking furiously about how to get a trusted servant ninety million miles away to raid the nearest vampire nest or the storehouse of undead. As soon as one of them is sure he has the superluminary science, he will open fire on the rest of us.”
“If Uncle Spyridon is correct,” came the voice of Aeneas from the shadow, “We have only sixteen minutes before someone here opens fire. Eight minutes or so to send a space contortion beam to the nearest vampire nest, and eight minutes to get the signal back of success.” A small object came floating out of the darkness surrounding Aeneas, tumbled through the air, and landed atop the rain-splattered round table. It was an old fashioned hour glass, with a quarter hour of sand in the upper glass.
Then Aeneas said to Lady Luna, “To answer your question, cousin Penthesilia, we have stopped is the inter-arm void between Sagittarius and Perseus Arms of the galaxy.”
Lady Luna said, “Stopped? Here? Why?”
“I selected a spot barren of stars, hoping no enemy would be near. We departed the other searchers. I am awaiting the decision of this council as to our ultimate destination.”
A dumbfounded silence answered him.
Aeneas said in a quiet voice: “This War Dyson can reach any point roughly three times the range of the Alpha Centauri armature, or six thousand light years, before fuel is exhausted. We would need to reduce a star the size of Canopus or Rigel to refuel, roughly 70 solar radii. Whereto, Uncles? Wither away, Aunts, Mother, Cousin?”
Lady Luna said, “The undead do not die back when they overeat their food supply, they simply hibernate. Worlds where all life dies, seas have dried, and atmospheres escape into space, the vampires simply lay, heaped, among the craters and airless hills. Wherever they have a foothold, they do not withdraw. They have had tens of millions of years to spread. Where in the galaxy could we go that they will not find us?”
Aeneas said, “Warpcores can detect warpcores. Detection range depends on the mass. This Dyson of eighteen solar mass can detect an active a warpcore up to nine thousand light years away. The radius of the Milky Way is one hundred thousand light years. That should give you a basis of comparison.”
Lady Pallas said, “What about beyond? The Greater Magellanic Cloud is a satellite galaxy outside the main disk, some one hundred sixty thousand light years away. Out of range. Are the vampires there, also?”
Aeneas said, “None my instruments detect. It would be my choice if we could reach it: but there are no string of Rigel-sized masses in the intergalactic void to use as refueling dumps. This Dyson is simply not big enough to get there.”
Lady Ceres said, “What about staying here? Hiding inside the Dyson? Why do we need a star system?”
Aeneas said, “Artificial suns are short lived, especially to races who know the secret of eternal youth, such as ours. The Dyson core black hole will give off x-rays only as long as we keep dropping solar masses of matter into it.”
No one suggested returning to Sol. It had been a grave risk to stay there as long as they had, long enough for the wavefront to pass Alpha Centauri. They also knew the artificial nova would be shorter lived than a natural one. By the time of the last retreat from Alpha Centauri to Ara A, the whole volume outside the expanding wavefront of Sol’s explosion was even then swarming with myriads of ships, battleworlds, and black suns of the enemy.
Lady Luna said in exasperation, “So we can neither leave the galaxy nor stay!”
Lady Ceres said, “We can find unclaimed worlds around unvisited stars. They are as grains of sand by the sea, uncounted. Among infinity, we can hide.”
Mars said, “Hide? We must destroy these monsters. Each last gram of them.”
Lord Saturn said, “My lords and ladies, the solution is obvious! The return to our old way of life is easy: We must place these new worlds in orbit about some planetless sun, and then command all the warpcores to obliterate themselves, leaving the foe with no way to detect us, and us with no way to reach them. The knowledge of how to build them must be expunged. And, once we have dealt with mad Aeneas in the same way we dealt with the last emperor who went mad, we shall have peace, and our family power will be secure forever. Young Aeneas must die!”
Only Aeneas heard this last word, for as Lord Saturn spoke, his words seemed to grow faster and higher pitched, while the figures around him seemed to slow down. The grains of sand falling from the upper to the lower glass fell as if through molasses, then halted. The light in the area grew blindingly bright, reddened down the spectrum, and went black.
Aeneas started to activate his many defenses, but it was too late even before he began to think. In a blur of unseen, instantaneous motion, the gray-haired graybeard calmly stood, casually walked over to the throne of Aeneas, carefully took energy readings and slowly erected a counteractive time-energy shell.
This time shell did not affect the spacewarp itself. Lord Saturn did not have that power. But it did alter the speed of propagation of the warp, which altered its shape, so that the crowned head and broad shoulders of Aeneas protruded from the shadowy mass. If the youth were blinking his eyes, it was too slow to see. The expression of surprise and shock had not yet had time to form on his face.
With the immeasurable kinetic energy of an object moving at unthinkable speed, Lord Saturn plunged his sickle directly through the middle of the circle of the crown on the motionless head, through the armored skull, and deep into the brain beneath.
Episode 03 Outside of Time
The battle was lost before Aeneas could react.
The tip of the sickle cracked easily through his bio-admantium skull and penetrated his primary brain. The living metal of his skull at the point of contact aged ten thousand years of withering and weakening in the moment of contact. The time-forces issuing from the sickle radiated unevenly into his brain, speeding up neural flows in one lobe while slowing those in another. The automatic failover to his secondary brain was triggered in one part but not in another. The two brains struggled, each unsure which was in charge. The result was epileptic confusion.
Aeneas would have been confused even had his brain been unaffected. Along with Lord Pluto and Lady Luna, Lord Saturn was the one family member he liked and trusted.
Trusted, yes, but he Aeneas had been taken unawares by Lord Saturn once before, and he was no fool. So he had installed precautions. He has programmed military responses into his nervous system against just such an attack. They reacted before he was consciously aware of the assault.
He knew the neurons in his brain could not react quickly enough to a foe who could slow time almost to halting, nor could the high-speed cybernetics, but servominds in remote locations equipped with tachyon circuits could. While the timewarp accelerating Lord Saturn could not be stopped, not by any type of spacewarp known to Aeneas, its properties could be manipulated.
There were seven physical constants the warpcore could warp: lightspeed, the gravitational constant, the Planck constant, the neutrino rest-mass, the fine-structure constant, the permeability of vacuum, and the flux quantum. By careful manipulation of these, other fundamentals could be warped. (Careless manipulation merely shattered matter into a disorganized flood of dark energ
y.)
The range the projectors of time energy used by Lord Saturn, as it happened, was dependent on vacuum permeability. One of the many servominds protecting Aeneas had a reflex that reacted at tachyonic speeds, lowered the vacuum permeability, and increased the range of Lord Saturn’s emitters. So the timewarp around Lord Saturn and the multivariable warp around Aeneas was instantly around them both.
The rest of the family was still frozen. The sand in the hourglass was motionless. The bodies of Aeneas and Lord Saturn were frozen, as time was not passing for either of them physically. Blood and brain matter was gushing up from the atrocious head wound of Aeneas, and droplets hung in midair. Sweat and tears hung near the flushed face of the whitehaired Lord Saturn, drops flung free of eyes and brow by the violence of his motion, and the anger in his blow.
But Aeneas, due to his tachyonic back-up neural system, and Lord Saturn, due to a trick of time energy known only to himself, were still able to think, to send thoughts through their rings, and to manipulate the hidden engines and emitters each had focused on the other. Energy or gravity or anything else that propagated through space was too slow: only changes to the fabric of time and space itself were able to operate within this bubble of frozen time.
Time and space were ultimately one underlying continuum, and so the spacewarps Aeneas folded around Lord Saturn, and the timewarps Lord Saturn folded around Aeneas, the other could indirectly parry, unfold, or collapse.
They dueled. No one saw it. Nothing moved. Time was halted. The forces were invisible, and the fight went on and on.
One second of the time-energy Lord Saturn commanded, like the tip of a spear, twisted through the snakelike coils of space, and struck like a silent thunderbolt, but Aeneas folded space like an origami flower to parry. The warp Aeneas erected to parry it was anticipated. When he attempted to tilt the lightcone of the timewarp, and change the time-axis for the space-axis to neutralize it, it disintegrated and revealed a larger, artificial sub-continuum within. Inside the one second was folded an hour’s worth of time energy, and, within that, a year. The defenseless Aeneas saw the year unfolding asymptotically into an infinite time. At the same time, the operation speed of the timewarp collapsed from a second to a nanosecond to an undetectably small quantum of time.