First Contact

Chapter 945: The Setting Sun

"I like to think of them as a Natural Disaster. If you really piss them off, naturally there will be a disaster." - Lanaktallan historian Suks'tubee'moo

Till brilliant light of Terra-Sol emerges, a dark age upon us.

Curse the irreverent for they deny their elders wisdom.

Pity the innocent for they know not what lurks in the abyss. - Fragment of poetry found on a cave wall. Author attributed to: AnAnonymousSophont

Welcome back, traveler. Are you ready to sing to me your trials, tribulations, and quest? You are? Excellent. I enjoy a good ballad. It is music and literature that continues long after our people have been devoured by the malevolent universe.

Ah, it was a fine song indeed. A tale of woe and of hope. The best kind of tale.

Come, let me give you a tour of my humble home. As you see, I dwell in comfort, although spartan and primitive appearing. This is my library, I am proud of it. Disturb not the librarian, for they are strange and unknowable.

No, it would not speak to you. You lack sufficient privileges. The "End of Line" statement at the end? Well, friend, that is how they terminate their conversation. Where is it from? Where a stone citadel floats where the skies are purple. I journeyed there with Nakteti the Traveler herself.

Yes, I remember her.

The junkyard? The dropships of shuttles of those who came with weapons to force my stubborn knee to kneel and my defiant neck to bend. No, I did not use machinery. Just my hands and the few tools you saw in my workshop was enough to disassemble them.

The lakes around my home? Attempts at orbital bombardment.

I am well defended, friend. I can defend myself.

Ah, your quest.

Heed my words. Continue following this path and you will come to a place with a side path. Smaller, almost never traveled. That leads to red skies and purple that goes on forever. Take not that path. Continue on and you will come to a three way path.

The northern path will take you to the old Verprit Systems. That one is safe. The South one leads to the old Kelkark Sytstems. That too is safe, as far as safe will on this path.

The center one is not one I would advise. It will take you to the old Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems territory. Specifically, the Terran Tomb Worlds. You do not want to go there, friend.

Yes, I know of the Confederacy. I was young when it was old.

You seek weapons, technology, where you should seek wisdom. There is none of that in the old Tomb Worlds.

Merely death. - Magnus Oathsworn, speaking to Grenklakail Archeological Team Seven, 3,805 Current Era.

Nakteti watched as Surscee tossed the ball onto the ground. It hit the rock, bounced soundlessly, then rolled to a stop. After a moment the pinlights went green and the iris opened up, spilling what looked like slightly grainy mercury onto the stone that made up the planet's surface.

The planet's nickle-iron core still rotated. The planet still held atmosphere. It just needed a little nudge to be able to support life. Careful scanning had shown that it was a lifeless rock, it lacked certain requirements to form any of the fifteen types of primordial ooze that would give rise to any type of life form.

Nakteti looked up at the stars for a long moment, then at Surscee.

"This one will take two pitches. One will have to be an elven pitch," she said over the suit comlink.

"You will turn this barren world into one that will be a life sustaining garden?" Surscee asked.

Nakteti nodded. "Each world on this path shall be capable of sustaining life as we know it. This will allow those who follow this path to survive even if they suffer a disaster," she said. "Which is why we put the satellites and stations at the gas giants in these systems."

Magnus shrugged. "I'd have left behind riddles and tests for those who come later. What good is a quest without challenge?"

Nakteti smiled. "I have tests in mind, but they will be later," she told the big Terran.

Magnus just shrugged and went back staring at the sky.

"The Long Dark encompasses this entire section of the galactic spur. There is no going around it. Any traveler runs the risk of running into a legacy of the First Precursor War or an old Atrekna war world," Nakteti said. "There are entire worlds where the Atrekna were destroyed by the shades, where shades still dwell and the servitors live lives of fear and terror."

"Do you seek to save them?" Surscee asked.

Nakteti shook her head. "I will visit the Dark Crusade of Light and ask them to succor those worlds," she said. She waved one catching hand. "I will forge a path through the Long Dark, each one reachable from the other. Each one with instructions showing the way to Council Space or Confed Space, allowing a traveler to go from one side to the other and then back."

She moved over and sat on an outcropping of igneous rock.

"The ansibles are down. The hypercom wave is a horror show. Jumpspace is risky but safe for every form of life we have found (with the exception of digital), hyperspace is a death realm for most species before it was infested by shades," Nakteti said. "A path through the Long Dark for those who travel jumpspace or hyperspace, a path for message torpedoes, with way-stations along the way, should keep everyone in contact with one another."

Surscee nodded and Magnus gave a mostly disinterested grunt.

"But this is not your ultimate goal," Surscee said softly.

Nakteti shook her head. "No, it is not."

She looked up at the stars.

"It haunts my dreams. A red sky that goes on forever. A place where everything is made up of tightly interwoven vibrating strings and threads. A place unending purple. A terrible place where the Terrans slumber," she said softly. "They are out there, your people, and I seek them."

Magnus shrugged again. "They're gone. The SUDS finally fritzed, the clone banks fried. Live cover is the only way to rebuild the species."

Nakteti shook her head. "No. They are out there. Somewhere. I don't know how I know, I just know."

Surscee smiled, turning her attention back to the small orb in her hand. She finished the spell with a sharply uttered word and a twist of her wrist. She lifted it up to the visor of her armor as if she was kissing it, turned, and set it on the ground. She nudged it with a toe, sending it rolling away.

Nakteti saw on her visor when it came online.

PROOF OF WORK: PUDDLEJUMPER

CRC: 4666092

She watched as the ants spilled out, starting work.

"Let's go back to the shuttle," she said, turning and heading for the small, durable craft. A repurposed Confed surplus combat striker, but a shuttle all the same.

"Perhaps there is fruit with dinner?" Surscee asked hopefully.

Magnus just grunted.

-----

Everything was shades of purple. There was no up or down, right or left, forward or backwards, in or out. Protons the size of comets zipped by while antimatter particles bounced off of protomatter without any more reaction than angles changing.

She was without a suit, without clothing. Naked.

She floated in the purple, or perhaps sank, maybe rose, but she moved all the same. She was hyperventilating nothing. There was no air here yet her lungs filled and she screamed without air or wind as she wiggled and twisted, trying to gain her bearings.

An electron whipped by, shining and sparkling, missing her by just a few hundred cubits short of a meter.

She was moving, she knew that, but she was moving in every direction at once even as she was still.

She could see nothing but purple.

Something drew closer. A blot, at first, that slowly resolved into something.

It was as if someone had ripped a chunk of rock from a planet's surface and placed it in unending purple. A low wall of black stone held together with black mortar circled the citadel within.

She found herself rising and falling to crash upon the black cobblestones.

She coughed and choked as dead air filled her lungs.

Slowly, she got to her feet.

In front of her was the only gap in the wall. A gap sealed by a wrought iron gate of twisted black iron and burning warsteel. In the middle was a ring of five closed eyes around a larger closed eye.

Breathing heavy, unable to catch her breath even with the dead air she kept filling her lungs with, she approached the black gate with trepidation.

The outer eyes, each the size of her head, suddenly opened to reveal eyes made of Hellspace fire. They looked around then all stared at her at once.

The middle eye opened, an eye of fire with a black slitted pupil.

A mouth opened beneath the eye. A mouth of rows of fangs, conical teeth, sawtooth teeth, all in purple and red tissue with a long tongue that oozed clear slime. The mouth spoke, but not in a singular voice. The words were spoken, in part or in whole, by different voices, some whispering, some screaming.

"DESIGNATION: TNVARU. IDENTITY: NAKTETI THE TRAVELER" the eye said. "STATUS: VISITOR TIME ALLOTED: TO BE DETERMINED"

A light lanced out, touching the back of her left catching hand. Pain suddenly enveloped her hand.

"IDENTIFICATION REGISTRATION IN PROGRESS. YOU MAY LOUDLY VOCALIZE PAIN INDUCED DISTRESS." the voice screeched.

She gritted her teeth, the smell of burning fur reaching her nostrils.

"IDENTIFICATION REGISTRATION COMPLETE. YOU MAY SHOW SIGNS OF PAIN INDUCED DISTRESS" the eye said.

Nakteti looked at the back of her hand.

There were five eyes set in a ring around a larger eye, all made up of upraised scar tissue that was red and angry looking. Beneath it was a barcode.

"WELCOME, VISITOR: NAKTETI THE TRAVELER" the voice screeched. "END OF LINE"

The eyes closed and the gates opened, the top eye of the circle and the eye in the middle of the ring perfectly bisected by the seam of the gate. The gate squealed as it opened, as if the hinges were rusty.

Beyond was a flagstone courtyard, beyond that a grim citadel of black stone.

She took her first step forward, ignoring the pain in her left catching hand.

Nakteti woke up, gasping. She was cradling her left catching hand, pain making her eyes water as her hand throbbed in agony. She kicked away the sleeping cloths and turned to sit up, her feet touching the deckplates of her stateroom.

"Lights," she ordered.

The lights came on, several red ones but the majority white.

She looked at the back of her hand.

The same scar, upraised and angry looking, was seared into the flesh.

She could still smell burning fur.

She closed her eyes, rubbing them with her gripping hands, then opened them.

The pain, and the upraised scar, were still there.

"Where have I traveled, 'ere I slept?" she asked softly, staring at the scar.

-----

"The sun is setting upon the spur," Nektati said, standing on the loam of another world. She looked around for a moment. "I will travel this path, I will light torches along it to guide those who came after, will put out places for messages to be passed between the starry night," she moved over and bent down, touching the small orb.

"With these small things, I shall blaze a path through the darkness," she straightened back up, her right catching hand moving to rub the back of her left catching hand.

"This is a good thing you do," Surscee said.

Nakteti just nodded, rubbing the back of her hand.

-----

The library was vast, the book shelves soaring high into the air, practically groaning with the weight of all the tomes that they held. It smelled of old books, leather, and ink.

"Verbal request: Assistance," Nakteti said. "End of line."

She was dressed in a black robe, with white gloves and a white mask with a gold sigil on the left cheek. Her feet were shod in slippers of soft white velvet, comfortable and somehow firm and gripping on the polished hardwood floor.

A figure drifted around the corner of the stack, suspended on a cloud of black mist. It was dressed in black, with a warsteel mask, red gloves, with red embroidery on the hems of the robe.

"State nature of request. End of line," the figure said. Its voice was made up of snippets of other voices.

"Lanaktallan tome: Laments of Sunset, author unknown, era unknown," Nakteti said. "End of Line."

"Follow. End of line," the figure said. It turned and drifted away.

Nakteti followed it.

-----

She woke up gasping, soaked in sweat. Her head pounded, she was thirsty, her mouth dry and tasteless.

She pushed away the covers and got up, moving to the nanoforge. She dialed up fruit juice and sipped at it, sitting down in a padded chair that took a moment to adjust to her.

The hard black substance that had covered the scar on her hand glinted in the dim lights of her stateroom.

"I travel far, 'ere I sleep," she said softly.

-----

Nakteti watched through the viewport as the final stages of the station construction took place. Solar panels unfolded, antenna extended. Lights came on and a beacon started to pulse.

She turned away from the viewport.

The automation and mechanization was the best Lanaktallan and Mantid systems that money could buy. The two races known for automation able to stand the test of ages had been happy to help Nakteti design the gas giant resupply stations, the systems she used on the planets.

It is ironic, Nakteti thought to herself, that many of the automation systems I now use are the same type of self-maintaining systems that the Precursor Autonomous War Machines used.

It all worked off of a single tiny creation engine.

She knew that the jumpspace beacon would be next to be manufactured. It would take almost two days, but then it would begin broadcasting.

The limited self-correcting virtual intelligence broadcast proof of life to the ship.

Nakteti nodded to herself.

Time is a flat circle, she thought.