The Island on the Edge of Forever (The Epic of Aravinda Book 2) (18 page)

CHAPTER
29

ABERRANT READINGS

Asha felt a chill sweep through her body.

In her mind’s eye, she thought she saw Zahn, but the image faded, soon replaced by a feeling of soreness. She was lying down on a platform that was remarkably soft, quite unlike what she had grown accustomed to these past few days.

The familiar sound of a low whistle permeated the air around her, but she kept her eyes shut tight. Even through her eyelids, bright light filtered in, and she waited for her eyes to adjust.

Another low whistle.

She opened her eyes and beheld the late afternoon sun peering out from behind a patch of clouds above her.

“Asha? Asha, are you cohesive? Your vital signs have stabilized. How do you feel?”

She pushed herself up and took a deep breath. Her feet were now bare and her pants had been pulled up to her knees, presumably so Liila could examine her injuries. As she swung her legs around to the edge of the bed, her right foot felt strange. Yet before she examined it, she was distracted by something on the edge of her vision. Just to her right, she could see the end of the tunnel that overlooked the enormous gash which led into the planet. Yet to her left was the command chair, floating in midair slightly above her. In fact, when she looked down, she gasped to see that they were now suspended in the air over the Rift.

“Liila, you saved me.”

“Heard your signal. Vociferous! Like a siren on the sea. Glad I found you when I did.”

“Me, too.” Asha’s gaze drifted down to the hole below them, etching down through hundreds of layers of rock, dissolving into darkness with the distance.

Asha tried standing up, but immediately felt that something was wrong. She couldn’t balance normally and realized that her right foot was completely numb.

“Liila, what’s wrong with me?”

“Nerve damage. Doing all I can.”

Terrifying images flashed into her mind. The Žha creature had grabbed her foot. She had been paralyzed by it. If Liila hadn’t come along, she would probably be dead.

“Why can I move my legs but not my foot?”

“You are resilient! I was able to counteract the neurotoxin, but despite treating you and restoring nerve connectivity, you continue to experience difficulty. Curiouser and curiouser!”

“Can you do anything about it?”

“By medical standards, your foot should be quite nominal.”

“Nominal? Why don’t you just say my foot would feel fine? Why do you have to refer to my body like it’s some kind of machine? I’m not a machine.”

“Is that so? Sometimes I wonder if we are all merely different kinds of machines. Alas, Mira becomes agitated when I mention it, so I won’t. I’ll remember your preferences. In the meantime, you may want to try standing and practice walking. If you can, that is.”

Asha tried standing up again, and found it quite difficult. She was just able to hobble over to the command chair and plop down. Once she did, the bed transformed itself back into a reclined chair.

“You did that transformation thing again.” She paused and took a breath. “Why?”

“For when we retrieve Mira, of course.”

“Right. Hold on, I’m going to try something.”

Still sitting on the command chair, Asha pulled her bare foot up to her lap and rubbed it with both of her hands for a few moments, making it warm. Then she closed her eyes and put pressure on the space between her heel and toes, focusing on light flowing to that part of her body. She pulled fresh air into her lungs and felt her foot becoming warm and infused with light. Still, the numb sensation remained. She tried again, and although the numbness reduced, it did not go away completely.

She stood up again and walked around slowly.

“My records show that you began your healer training on Amithya rather recently. I am curious how that has helped you.”

“Began is the key word. I still have so much to learn. Anyway, walking is still a challenge, but it’s better than it was. Any idea what’s causing this?”

“If you’re still having difficulty, it could be something blocking your will that I cannot detect. I will keep you apprised if I learn more. Until then, I suggest we contact Mira. Have you seen her?”

She bit her lip. “You’re not going to like it.”

As Asha slipped her uniform and boots back on, she told Liila of all that had happened since they’d been apart. At first, Liila wanted to race back to the Temple to see Mira, but Asha reiterated that Mira had said the Kiss of Life was more important. She also asked what happened to Liila after they had been swallowed by the sea.

At first, Liila was reticent to reveal what had happened, but after some coaxing and reminding her that they were in fact on the same mission, Liila relented and told Asha how they had been separated. Somehow, the waves of jellyfish they’d both encountered had developed the ability to exploit a weakness in the cloaking field to create an energetic feedback loop on Liila’s systems, allowing them to open the hatch and temporarily disable her impulse drive and weapons systems.

Liila had been enraged and even a little embarrassed. She explained that she had done everything in her power to save Mira, but by attacking the one remaining weakness in the cloaking layer, the jellies had overpowered her, and Liila had watched in horror as they took Mira away. By the time her weapons systems had recharged a few minutes later, Mira had sent Liila a final message instructing her not to follow, but instead to find Asha.

“But to send you after me? That’s crazy.”

“Crazy and genius are often bedfellows. So I looked for you, until I realized that the jellies wouldn’t let me get within a half-klick of the complex. If I did, they would use their epsilon pulses to disable my systems again, each time doing more damage. They’re more dangerous than they appear. And in the end, I decided to search for the Kiss of Life itself. After all, if I were to find it, I knew that your death would not have to be a permanent condition.”

“So you were looking for it when you found me?”

“I have been bent on it, searching these caverns thoroughly. Inauspicious chances. I also explored several million fractal variations in the meantime. Do you like fractals, Asha? I’ve been thinking a lot about fractals lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re a metaphor for something. I’m just not sure what for yet.”

“I do like fractals, but stop changing the subject. Do you mean you searched all of the tunnels and couldn’t find anything?”

“Well, I did triangulate one energy reading with an epicenter roughly one hundred klicks below our current position. Already investigated. Aberrant readings. More like a ghost than an object.”

“Liila, can you be more specific? What did you find?”

“Only a shadow of where something should be, and I located another gate in the process. At first, I wondered if the gate was generating the strange readings, but they are emanating roughly two meters above the gate aperture, which is closed. Highly anomalous.”

“We should contact Mira. She’ll know what to do. Can you establish a secure connection?”

“Yes, her wristcomm is in range. That’s peculiar; her wristcomm wasn’t responding before. Analyzing. Yes, somehow this planet is creating an intermittent timespace disruption. That would certainly explain some of the phenomena we’ve observed. The timespace comm seems to be nominal now. Secure connection established.”

Mira’s voice filled the cabin. “Asha! Does my comm tell the truth? Did you actually locate Liila? Where was she?”

“Liila found me, actually. She saved me.”

“Saved you? From who? Surely not the Vakra—”

“No, no, nothing like that. She saved me from one of the Žha creatures. No doubt you’ve heard of them by now. The islanders seem to be pretty scared of them, and after what just happened, I understand why.”

“Are you all right? Liila should be able to help you recover.”

“She did. I’m okay, but I am not fully recovered quite yet. I think there’s something we’re missing, and I’m going to have to take it easy on my right foot until we can have it looked at by a true healer; no offense, Liila.”

“A true healer.” Mira paused. “I hope you find that person, Asha. And have you made any progress with the Kiss of Life?” Mira’s voice grew serious. “Have you found it?”

Asha looked down, through the transparent floor, to the chasm just below, fading into complete darkness in the distance. “No. Liila has located the epicenter of an energy anomaly far underground, but she couldn’t find anything.”

Asha heard Mira groan in frustration.

“All right,” Mira said. “Here are your orders. I want you to examine every square picometer of the chamber containing the anomaly. There must be something Liila is missing, some clue. Should you need extra firepower, there are high-yield plasma rifles aboard the ship. If you head out, ask Liila to give you one. For the purposes of this mission, I now grant you status of acting captain until you are able to retrieve me. This status gives you new privileges, including access to the weapons aboard Liila.”

“Thank you, Mira. But how have
you
been? Are they taking care of you?”

“They’re doing all they can. They seem to use water itself as a healing tool. More than once, some of the elders have formed a circle and used blessed water on me. Somehow, it does reduce the pain, but I can feel my strength fading. Still, don’t worry about me. Just find the Kiss of Life. You can do it, Asha.”

“I will find it, Mira. No matter how long it takes, I promise you, I will find it.”

“I know.”

Asha’s eyes became wet. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yes. Yes, you will. Goodbye.”

Liila cut the transmission, and Asha found herself sitting in the relative silence of the central cabin once again. The only sound was the faint warbling hum of Liila’s impulse drive, still holding them above the Rift that led down into the planet.

“Liila,” Asha said. “Can you contact my father? Maybe he can bring help.”

“Sorry, Asha. I’ve already tried contacting the Confederation for support, but it seems that none of my signals are leaving this system, like a ship in a bottle. I thought my comm systems might be malfunctioning, but our conversation with Mira shows that obviously isn’t the case.”

“What is going on with this planet?” Asha shook her head. “First these disappearing and reappearing villagers, and now this comm problem. Even this lake disappears and reappears. How? And for that matter, why? It was here last night, and now we’re floating here, in the midst of where it should be. How does a nearly bottomless lake disappear?”

“An extremely large and thirsty creature? I don’t know, Asha.”

Asha leaned back in the command chair and cupped her palms over her eyes for a while. She had learned this many years before, back when she had first done research on different healing techniques. This technique, called palming, had the dual benefit of channeling energy directly into her eyes as well as blocking out all light so that all of her eye muscles could completely relax. In the total blackness, she imagined Zahn there, sitting beside her on the newly-formed chair. She wanted to apologize for yelling at him, to hear his voice again. Imagining his feathery blond hair blowing in the wind helped her feel better, and she got lost in her thoughts, until Liila’s voice shattered her reverie.

“Asha, while I value time for private reflection as much as any other reconstituted consciousness construct, I would urge you to make a decision soon. Need I remind you that you are acting captain? What are your orders?”

“Sorry, I was just calming my mind.” Asha looked up, noticing the afternoon colors in the sky above her. “You know, Liila, you’re right. Even though I have no way of knowing how this will end, it’s time to make a decision with the limited information we have. But first, can you send Zahn a message? I know we have no idea where he is, but it’s worth a try.”

Liila was silent for some time.

“No signal, the same problem we were having before. Judging from everything we’ve seen up to this point, I doubt he’s even within a thousand light-years of our position.”

“All right. Then take me to the epicenter, and be stealthy about it.”

“Of course, captain. Like a wily prowler.”

Liila shot downward into the Rift, and all around her Asha watched as untold millennia of geological layers flashed by. As they plummeted down into the darkness, Asha reflected on how the Rift branched out along the edges the deeper they went, like the roots of a tree. Even though they were in complete darkness, Liila displayed an outline of the surfaces as they zoomed past them, and the deeper they got, the narrower the Rift became.

Over time, the darkness gave way to a faint orange glow. At first, Asha wondered if there might be phosphorescent life down here, until the narrow tunnel finally ended and opened up into a huge chamber. They had emerged from the center of the ceiling, and just below them was a hideous black mound surrounded by a seething lake of orange, glowing lava.

CHAPTER
30

THE EPICENTER

The lava rumbled with a sound that Asha had never heard before. The rumble was like a low roar from a terrible beast, and the surface of the lava formed glowing cracks that expanded gradually as the height of the lake rose and fell from minute to minute. The mound itself was a few dozen meters wide, covered in sharp boulders of various sizes.

This alone wasn’t especially surprising. What shocked Asha was the elevated platform in the center of the mound with an interstellar gate lying horizontally across the platform’s surface. The aperture was closed, and the controls that wrapped around the circular platform appeared ruined from millennia of neglect.

“Whoa.”

“As stated, the epicenter is just above the gate. Also, the magma is superheated. We would be wise to avoid it, lest we incur permanent damage. At this range, shields are holding easily.”

Asha was silent for some time as she studied the ebb and flow of the crackling lake of fire. “Liila, do you ever wonder why these gates end up where they are? Such a strange place to hide a gate.”

“I’m not so sure this one was hidden. As you know, this island is delightfully unstable. During my survey, I detected dozens of lava craters, no doubt formed when magma receded from subterranean lava tubes, resulting in a collapse of the land above. And while it is unlikely that such a collapse could cause a gate to fall over one hundred klicks, it is nonetheless possible that this gate was not always this deep. Would you like me to run some simulations on how it may have arrived here?”

“No, that won’t be necessary. Can you show the energetic epicenter in the view ahead?”

“Certainly.”

A crisp, white ring hovered just a short distance above the inactive gate, and Asha stared at it in silence for a few moments.

“Liila, do the void suits have a high tolerance for heat?”

“Yes. Although I wouldn’t go poking the lava with a stick, if that’s what you had in mind. Just keep a safe distance.”

“Okay.” Asha smiled as if she knew a great secret. “Then set us down beside the gate and prepare a void suit for me.” She stood up. “And while you’re at it, a plasma rifle would be just wonderful. Can you do that?”

“Of course, captain.”

When Asha once again stepped outside, she was wearing a thick void suit with a long, violet plasma rifle slung onto her back. From this close, the gate loomed under her. Somehow she’d forgotten that even the smallest rings were around ten meters wide. The last time she’d used a gate, it was to escape a Vakragha prison moon, but that gate was small in comparison.

Cautiously, she walked up to the curving console and examined the controls inlaid on its stone surface. They were reminiscent of gate controls she’d seen in the past, with the obvious difference that completely different planets were carved into the stone console. A recognizable ring shape was carved into the upper left corner of the central panel, and Asha touched it. As she suspected, it didn’t respond.

“Liila, can you broadcast Avani DNA to this gate?”

“Stand by.”

As Liila did this, Asha looked over and watched as the air rippled over the roiling lava surface.

“How disenchanting; no response whatsoever. I wonder what would happen if I broadcast the lambda formula to it. Do you want to hear my latest theory about the fractal metaphor?”

“Sorry, Liila, but not right now,” Asha said. “Just hold on.”

“Hold on to what?”

Asha planted her vacuum-sealed boot onto the control console and pulled herself up onto the edge of the gate. Carefully, she climbed over the edge of the ring and dropped down onto the ring’s aperture with a thud, her eyes studying the center where the fins of the aperture met.

“Liila,” she said over the comm, “I know you might think I’m crazy for this, but don’t fret over what I’m about to do.”

“I don’t like the sound of that. What are you doing?”

“Don’t get your nucleus in a knot. I’ll be right back.”

“Please be careful, Asha. Need I remind you that Mira’s life is in our hands?”

Asha gingerly made her way over to the center of the closed aperture surface, feeling for any weaknesses in the material as she walked. She wondered how many years it had been down here, enduring the heat. Still, it was completely solid.

Once she was about a meter away from the center of the aperture, she reached out with both hands and felt all around and above, as if she were blind.

“Asha, are you feeling all right? Did you eat any of the native plants, by chance?”

“Hah!” Asha called out. “I knew it.”

“What?”

“I can feel something.”

“My angle of view is obstructed down here beside the gate. I will move to record what you’re seeing for future analysis.”

“Yes, do that.”

Liila didn’t respond, instead rising into the air in silence, only to see nothing of much interest. All she could see was Asha standing atop the dormant gate.

“I detect nothing new, and I question your mental state.”

“You can’t feel what I’m feeling! There must be an invisible support beam here. Can’t you detect it somehow?”

“Running full system diagnostics. Disquieting. My radiation detection subsystem is behaving erratically. It could be due to the strong magnetic fields being generated by the lava flows within this chamber. Analyzing.”

Asha jumped up and down seeing if she could feel the invisible pillar widen or change above her. It did. Roughly two meters above the aperture’s surface, she felt the bottom of an invisible platform.

“Well, there’s definitely something there. Must be some powerful cloaking mechanism that—”

Asha had no time to finish before Liila interjected.

“Asha, I’m detecting a considerable amount of water heading this way. A wild current, enough to submerge this chamber completely. You need to get inside. Immediately!”

A rumble directly above her filled Asha with a creeping dread. When she looked up, she could scarcely believe her eyes. In the long tunnel above the chamber, a swirling shape was rushing down to them at terrific speed.

Liila darted toward Asha to scoop her up. But moments before she could dive through the ship’s circular opening, utter chaos ensued as the wave met her body.

When Liila played back her mission logs later, several astute observers remarked that, while Asha’s sprint to the ship was impressive, it was also futile given the speed of the water that was rushing into the chamber. In fact, the torrent was not only coming in from above. Several other passages nestled in the darkness on the far edges of the chamber also gushed with water.

Of course, when the water touched the raw, superheated surface of the lava, a tremendous amount of steam was the instant result, and they were both swept up into a wild torrent of energy which spun them around the chamber in a mad vortex. Asha completely lost track of which way was up, and struggled to avoid vomiting in her suit.

In just a few short seconds, the entire chamber was submerged. The surface of the lava rapidly blackened over, and Liila managed to avoid the brunt of the wave by maneuvering behind a low rock wall.

Asha didn’t fare as well. Despite the suit’s life support systems, she was flung to the wall with such force that her helmet cracked open, flooding her face with water.

Liila struggled to fight against the tide to reach Asha’s limp body, aiming to suck her up through the main hatch before she landed on the blackened surface of the lava, still hazardously hot.

But before Liila could reach her, Asha tilted her head and activated her suit’s propulsion systems.

“Asha, you’re breathing! How?”

“Breathing here isn’t a problem for me right now. Forget about that. Look above the gate! It’s changed!”

Liila stopped and observed as Asha headed toward the center of the chamber, appearing to breathe underwater without any trouble whatsoever.

The source of Asha’s excitement was clear.

Embedded into the floor of the circular platform was the ghostly outline of a remarkable object, and Asha used her suit to propel herself over to it as fast as possible.

Like a ball of light, the sphere’s outline wavered as it sat atop the platform, and when she knelt down to touch it, her hand passed through it easily, as if she were touching a hologram.

“Come on!” Asha’s frustration grew. “If you’re the Kiss of Life, then let me use you to save Mira, to save millions!”

She struggled to get a hold of it any way she could, but it was like a mirage within the water, just on the edge of existence.

Asha shook her head in disappointment, crossing her legs to be more comfortable as she sat on the platform. “Liila, can you detect any object here? I see something, but it’s either an illusion or something non-physical.”

“Mystery. I detect an energy shadow. It could be a non-physical entity. Since we can see it, then it’s already partially in our realm. Perhaps the flooding caused it to bleed through, but I don’t know how to bring such an object completely into our reality.”

Asha peered into the wavering light. “I’ve come this far. It can’t end here.”

Instinctively, Asha held out her open palms to each side of the spherical mirage, and closed her eyes. She scanned her palms and fingertips for subtle sensations caused by the sphere. It didn’t take her long to find a point on the right side of the object that made her fingers tremble, and she did the same with her left.

Asha said a short prayer the Amithyan healers had taught her and focused her mind once more. Lakshmi’s words came back to her. She wasn’t the one doing the healing. She was only an instrument allowing the healing to come through. Instead of seeing herself as the source, she imagined pure light coming down into her head, through her heart, down her arms, and through her fingertips. Within her mind’s eye, she saw that a haze was surrounding the sphere. The light coming out of her fingertips shot little holes into the haze, and she moved them around until the haze faded to almost nothing.

Sensing that there was more to be done, she imagined her chest filling with light and then let that light flow all around her, out of her mouth, eyes, and hands.

She gasped, realizing that she suddenly felt faint. Something inside told her she had done everything she could, yet she was afraid to open her eyes. What if nothing had changed? How would she explain it to Mira? How could Asha tell her that, after all this, she was still going to die?

“Please,” Asha whispered. “Please, let this work.”

Gradually, she opened her eyes and looked ahead.

At first, she only saw a blurry circular shape. She blinked to bring her eyes into focus.

A feeling of awe washed over her as she beheld the object of their long search, embedded neatly into the circular platform she was sitting on. Now a completely solid sphere, the Kiss of Life seemed somehow smaller, about as wide as her hand outspread. Its otherworldly surface was iridescent, resembling a huge, polished pearl that glowed with a bluish light.

“Liila,” she whispered. “I did it.”

“How positively… inevitable.”

“The Kiss of Life. We found it, Liila!” Asha’s voice filled with a mixture of shock and pure laughter. “I almost can’t believe it! We found it.”