The Sound of Seas (25 page)

CHAPTER 23

M
ikel Jasso got back in the cab of the dead truck. Sunlight scintillated brightly but evanescently on the liquefying surface of the ice sheet. It sparked, then died, flashed somewhere else, then vanished. Thousands and thousands of beads of light appeared as the thin coating of water spread.

“What is going on?” Dr. Cummins asked thickly. “Is it still that portal you opened?”

Mikel watched through the windshield. “Possibly,” he admitted. “The ice should have muted it.”

Dr. Cummins looked out at the nearest column of light. “Maybe this
is
what it looks like muted. These tiles—is that what's causing this?”

“I assume they are, but—”

“But what?” Dr. Cummins hugged herself as she waited for his answer. Without power, the car was cooling very quickly.

Mikel did not seem to notice. “You're right, I think,” he told her.

“God, if only that warmed me! What am I right about?”

“The intensity of the light is the same in all the locations, and the other tiles are still buried,” Mikel said. “This is what the muted light looks like. The question is, will it stay muted for long? The surface of the ice is melting.”

“So the tiles are burning through?” Dr. Cummins asked.

“Perhaps.”

Dr. Cummins made a sour face behind her muffler. “ ‘Possibly,' ‘Perhaps,' ” she said. “Is there
anything
we can pin down?”

“If you'll allow me one more qualified answer, Dr. Cummins, I believe this is true: we are being held here in order to witness this.”

That caused her to pause. “Held here by whom?”

“What I witnessed in the pit was brilliance to smoke, luminescence to death,” Mikel said. “What we're seeing on the surface is the reverse—smoke to light.”

“Which is scientifically impossible,” she said.

“As far as we know.”

“No,” Dr. Cummins insisted. “Smoke does not unburn. There has to be another explanation. I'm guessing that wasn't smoke.”

Mikel considered the possibility. “You may be right. It could be that we're thinking too small, too local.”

“You lost me,” Dr. Cummins said as she tried the engine again.

“It will start later, I'm sure of it,” he said.

“Glad you're so confident. But we only have about twenty minutes until we start to lose fingers and toes.”

Mikel opened the door.

“What are you doing?” Dr. Cummins yelled.

He hopped down, splattering the truck with water. “There's warmth out here,” he said. “Actually, it's more than that—the air is soothing, almost comforting.”

The glaciologist eased from the truck more gingerly than her companion and turned around. “Holy crap. You're right. Dr. Jasso, what is this?”

“If I had to guess? Rebirth,” he said.

“Of what? Of Galderkhaan? Of its people?”

He shook his head. “I don't think so.” His eyes slowly followed the column of light into the fair blue sky. “I think it's a lot bigger than that.”

Mikel began walking forward.

“Dr. Jasso, I wouldn't!” Dr. Cummins said.

Mikel half turned and smiled. “It's what I do,” he replied. “I have to know what's there.” As he moved closer he said, “I have a connection with something on the other side. Something I have felt before.”

Less than a minute later he was inside the dome of light, invisible to Dr. Cummins, with nothing but static on the radio.

CHAPTER 24

I
mpulsively,
Standor
Qala put her arm around Caitlin to steady her as the airship surged forward. Her embrace also had the effect of comforting her at a time when she suddenly felt more helpless and afraid than at any time in her life.

“You will need the tiles of the
motu-varkas
to return home, yes?” the officer asked.

“If they still exist,” Caitlin said. The wind felt good on her face, though it bore a frightening hint of eternity: the abyss in which they would find themselves when they reached Aankhaan. Either they would likely perish in the blast or be stranded in a dead world.

“What caused this to happen?” the
Standor
asked.

“Deceit, mistrust, arrogance,” she said. “I cannot tell you more.”

“Because you're afraid I'll interfere,” Qala said.

“It's too late for that,” she said. “The process has already begun. I felt it before. I feel it now.”

“How is that possible? To have felt it before.”

She regarded the officer. Qala looked proud, tall, majestic in her uniform, in her command. “Where I come from, I am like a physician,” she said. “Galderkhaani tried to burn and
cazh
with souls in my time in order to transcend. To stop them, I had to come here . . . in spirit.”

“Using the tiles?”

“I believe so,” Caitlin said. She smiled. “The
motu-varkas
seems to like me. To want me.”

“The tiles are wise indeed,” Qala replied.

Caitlin felt a surprising response to that—a longing, a stirring, a closeness she had not felt in years.

Qala tightened her grip around Caitlin's shoulder. “What would we find if we turned out to sea?”

“Eventually you'll reach land, a great deal of it,” Caitlin replied. “Most of it warm, hospitable, green, with rivers and lakes filled with freshwater. Soil where you can grow things, instead of in the clouds.” She looked up. “I believe this airship could make the trip,
Standor
. In my time, others have.”

“You will not be there,” she said.

“I pray not,” Caitlin replied. She studied Qala. “That—that wasn't directed at you,” she added quickly. “You're a wonderful soul.”

Qala bent and kissed Caitlin. Caitlin kissed her back, hard. She was surprised but also grateful: until now, she hadn't known whether the act was part of Galderkhaani life. The kiss endured long after it ended; it had not only felt natural, it felt right.

Though it isn't my body
, Caitlin reminded herself.
Maybe this body is different.
Except that her brain liked it too. Maybe even more.

As the airship plowed swiftly toward Aankhaan, the air became more turbulent, the skies less inviting. There was a taste of ash in the wind. While Qala went to the forward command post, Caitlin retired to the sleeping cabin
to be with Jacob, who was still firmly present in Vilu's body.

There was nothing Caitlin could do, nothing she and Jacob needed to talk about. They did what they often did, just enjoyed each other's company. She felt a surprising calm, aware that with maybe only a short time left to them she had to enjoy it. Seated in the hammock, they made up a silly game that involved naming the vials they had seen in the physician's rack. They ranged from Violetamins to Silver
sand, after which they created backstories for each substance. Ruby Pebs used to be Queen Ruby Pebbles, ruler of the Quarry Folk who was ousted by the abrasive Green Salters. Pink Wood grew in the Pink Sea that took its color from the setting sun. Caitlin savored every moment, every laugh, as though it would be the last they would ever share.

Engaged with commanding the ship,
Standor
Qala did not appear until the skies blackened with bloody omen. A dusty, rusty smell accompanied her entry into the cabin. Already, Caitlin could feel the pull of the tiles in the main tower as well as those in the smaller columns that were built in a line to the sea.

“We are within sight of Aankhaan,” the
Standor
said. “The
motu-varkas
is churning smoke from its mouth and from the columns that serve as vents.”

“I know,” Caitlin said. She did not have to see it. The image was still fresh in her mind from her spiritual visit. “What are your intentions?”

“Clearly, we cannot moor to any of the columns,” the
Standor
said.

“Nor should you try,” Caitlin said somberly.

Standor
Qala approached with her hands open, imploring. “Cayta-laahn,” she said with obvious effort and respect, “the citizens below are anxious. They gather in groups and many are leaving the city by cart or foot. A few are trying to get to boats, though the seas are rough. Many wave to us. The colored banners for the Night of Miracles are blowing unattended in the courtyards and from parapets. I see Priests and Technologists conferring—”

“They're too late,” Caitlin said. “Too late.”

“I thought—if you could tell me what I
can
do to help,” Qala said. “We can lower ladders, ropes, but I fear a panic, that people will fall, or that the weight of so many will pull us down.”

Caitlin left the hammock and stood in front of Qala. She looked up into the woman's golden eyes. They glowed hauntingly in the preternatural darkness. “
Standor
, I say again, I
implore
you—take your
crew and head to sea,” Caitlin told her, gesturing powerfully in emphasis. “Do this before—”

An explosion from below rocked the airship hard.

Caitlin knew immediately what it was. She had heard it before. “Go to sea
now
!” she screamed as she pushed past Qala, left the cabin, and braced herself against an unbroken section of railing. She was forced to grip it tightly as the ship shuddered from a second and third shockwave. The sound was loud and ugly, like a clutch of thunderclaps layered one over the other.

Below, Caitlin saw the caldera of a volcano on the outskirts of the capital. It looked more like a sinkhole that had opened up in the foothills of a mountain range. There were low white structures around it—no doubt the control center for the Source, the place where Vol had gone and was still present. These stone buildings were burning and crumbling, falling along the sides of the small volcano like pilgrims before an enraged god.

Red fury rose from that circular mouth, knocking down the first of the long line of tall, glowing columns that led from the volcano to the sea. Some distance away, on the opposite side, the
motu-varkas
had been spared.

Caitlin was looking down at the masses of people, at the terrified groups beginning to
cazh
, at the ritual that brought her here what seemed like ages ago. Houses were burning and collapsing, flaming banners fluttered through the sky and died like exotic birds. Then, slowly, knowingly, Caitlin's eyes were drawn toward the dark heavens, for she knew—and feared—what she would find there.

Qala came up behind her, shouting back for the boy to remain in the doorway.

“No, come here!” Caitlin called over to him, wriggling her fingers toward her son. He dashed forward, awkward on the rocking deck, and clutched her hand to his chest. Caitlin pulled him close as her eyes sought the
Standor
. “He must stay with me.”

“But it's not safe!” Qala said as, suddenly, her own sparkling eyes
followed Caitlin's and were drawn to a glow in the heavens almost directly in front of them. The
Standor
simply stared for a long moment before uttering, “It is not . . . possible!”

Caitlin had to suppress a scream as she tried to process what she was witnessing. There, before them, her back to the airship, hovered the spirit Caitlin O'Hara. She was extending her arms, throwing power toward the ground, disrupting the deadly ceremony. The body of Bayarma reacted strongly to the spirit's appearance, lurching forward as though they were harnessed. Qala had to grab Caitlin tightly around the waist to prevent her from going over the side. The boy dug the heels of his sandals into the deck to keep her close.

“Turn the ship away!” the
Standor
cried to the
usa-femora
. “Head to sea!”

As the young woman acknowledged the officer's command, Caitlin felt herself leaving the grip of the
Standor
, leaving the ship, leaving her body . . .

Magma, boiling water, and ascending souls rose furiously from below, mingling in a holocaust of physical death and spiritual anguish. Caitlin relived the pain. She saw it through familiar eyes, the eyes through which she had seen it at the United Nations . . . when, with the help of Ben Moss, she saved Maanik from an unwanted
cazh
, prevented her from transcending with the dying of Galderkhaan.

She saw her spirit fall away and fade into the churning smoke of a dying civilization. But then the tableau changed. The destruction grew vaporous and unclear. The souls vanished. The fires went from red to orange to gold. There was nothing around Caitlin but light.

I am gone . . . yet I am here
, she thought as the glow coalesced around her. And she was certain she was not alone but she was too rapt to try and penetrate the glow. She let it talk to her.

The light was now a small, brightly gleaming band, a circle that resembled the olivine tiles but had neither substance nor size—it could be a wedding band or a galaxy. Lights glittered within; but they were not anonymous pinpoints, they were pulsing threads. They were
visible but immaterial, undulating and entwining, and growing. Soon she saw other serpentine lights within the outer layer . . . and more within those.

In her mind, Caitlin wanted to panic. But it was only a thought; she didn't seem able to act on it. She tried to look around for Jacob but she had no body to move and there was nothing to see, save the light and the seemingly infinite gleaming parts that comprised it.

Then the light went out. Simultaneously, in its place was a universe. Space, familiar in its parts but unfamiliar in its crisp definition—or composition. There were red stars within twisting galaxies, nebulae paler than she had ever seen yet no vast distances between them. They were like a drawing Jacob might have made, all the pieces densely arranged, arranged like graceful, overlapping lengths of string that had neither beginning nor end.

String
,
she thought.
Superstring
.

Caitlin did not know much about superstring theory, only that some physicists believed that strings were both the smallest and largest structures in existence, and that the small might well be one and the same with the large in some curved concept of time-space.

As she looked out, Caitlin wasn't convinced this mightn't be some form of temporary lunacy, or perhaps a delirium transpiring as she died in Galderkhaan. Not her life passing before her eyes but all life, everywhere, that ever was.

There were sounds created by the moving strings. Notes. They rose and fell, had depth and inflection, changed in time with the movement of the strings. It was almost like the Galderkhaani superlatives, arms moving to support speech. Caitlin did not understand, possibly because there was nothing
to
understand, only to experience.

Slowly
—or swiftly
, she couldn't be sure of time—the strings tightened into a ball that compressed into a spot of light so brilliant that it almost seemed to balance the crushing darkness around it. That light that never quite surrendered its autonomy before erupting again in a flash of hot light.

A new universe is born
, she thought as the strings enlarged and expanded outward and there were once again infinite lights within. And then the lights merged and glowed and burst and caused more small lights as well as dark clouds of early nebulae. The lights—the protostars—writhed around and among the gaseous expanses, burning and dying, exploding and being reborn . . .

Forming worlds. They moved around the stars so swiftly that they seemed to be circles, snakes chasing their own tails. Stars glowed and grew and turned red and exploded, consuming their worlds.

Over and over the process repeated itself, Caitlin's point of view changing from the large to the small as her spirit journeyed through the organized chaos, to a point and time in space, to a world that was newly formed, a planet where the strands of light rose from one end like a microbe with many tails.

The world phased from hot and flaming to cooler and inviting. Caitlin plunged toward it, toward the region ripe with the cosmic strings, to a point where they penetrated the surface. She was suddenly below the crust, where the golden light took on a green patina as it threaded through minerals and rested from its billion-year journey.

The “microbe” she had seen from space was replicated around the core, copied over and over, heated by magma, driven up to the light, the crust, to the new continent, to—

A new home
,
Caitlin realized.

The microbes did not have thought but they had a collective sentience, and that mind was revealed to her. An unfathomable number of ancient essences . . .
souls
 . . . had bonded to survive the destruction of their universe, a previous universe. They had formed a collective to survive a big crunch, a snap back from the ultimate extension of matter as gravity reversed their own ancient Big Bang.

Caitlin thought improbably about Jacob playing with a Slinky. One end of the souls had leaped through time to escape the destruction of the cosmos and dragged the other end with it.

Yet was the thought improbable?
she wondered. In the spectacle she
had just witnessed, even galaxies didn't carry much weight. The countless lives within them were insignificant, if scale were the only judge.
But it couldn't be, could it
?
Every part of every string was a piece of something enormous. Without each part, the structure was incomplete. Incomplete, it was not the perfect structure required to make the leap through time and space. Incomplete, every part of the superstring would have failed.