Outside of Space

Outside of Space

By Timothy Burns

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Timothy Burns

Dedicated to Connor Scott & Paxton Cole

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the author

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Comments about this book are welcomed by the author.

Please direct all emails to:

TyrBerBooks@gmail.com

Cover Background Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, SAO, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and J. Hughes (Rutgers University)

Prologue

Human-occupied space is vast. Although data flows constantly and instantaneously across and through our culture and our lives, leading us to forget the physical dimensions that we occupy, the actual ships and crew that cross those same distances are very much aware of this fact. Virtual-reality sets can and do make us think we have been transported to any of the thousands of planets or habitats that we could choose, and for most of us that is enough. There being so many destinations to choose from, we tend to think there are already too many for any individual to ever tire of the variety. We take for granted that everything interesting has already been discovered, cataloged, and virtualized. We forget, in our complacency, that there is more to our universe than what exists within the datanet; and we ignore those few people who actually physically travel out among the stars, who collect the raw data that becomes our comfortable, livable virtual universe. We shun them if we encounter them, we poke fun at them always; we consider them deranged or insane.

This is their story.

Chapter 1 Discovery

The announcement was one that general-technician Tobar Rus would never forget. It was informal, like all such happenings aboard the generational starship Zaspar’s Pride, but no less life-altering for all the casualness of it. He was in the main dining hall when it came, for the work day was over and he had been looking forward to enjoying the company of his friends during dinner, and that was where food and fellowship were to be found.

He had arrived a few minutes before Stef and Jin, with whom he had agreed to dine that evening, so he was able to get a table near one screen-wall. There were no special programs scheduled for that night, so he’d had no particular reason to choose to sit there other than force of habit; the first few rows being the tables of choice whenever entertainment was being offered. Much later, whenever he thought back on that night, he wondered how much everyone’s lives might have been different had he sat elsewhere, anywhere else at all.

The dining hall filled slowly, but eventually most of the off-duty crew wound up there; that being the usual situation when the Pride was in transit between star systems and there was time for the traditional social dinners. Tobar and his two companions had nearly finished eating and were about to start on their after-dinner coffees when it happened.

One instant the wall screen was showing its usual view of the space they were traveling through, stars both near and far in all their glorious colors lighting the nebulous gasses between, and the next it flashed the priority attention pattern that every man, woman, and child aboard knew to pay heed to. At the same moment, audible alerts sounded, ensuring everyone’s complete attention. The only sounds to follow that were those of cutlery and glasses being set down and of people hastily turning to face the screen.

The alert pattern flashed one final time then faded out to be replaced by a three-dimensional view of Captain Markus seated at the central station in Control Ops, the tactical heart of the great starship from where all commands were issued and every aspect of its operation was monitored. Tobar’s first panicked thought, that something Very Bad had happened, was dispelled almost instantly as he took in the expression on the captain’s face. Instead of the calm alertness that would have been expected in a catastrophe of any sort, a huge smile lit the smooth, well-aged features of the man responsible for the lives and well-being of every member of the huge extended family that was the compliment of the ship.

Attention, attention, Captain Markus speaking. Long-range sensors have detected what is preliminarily being identified as a gravitational anomaly of the type associated with the Traveler Artifact. I don’t think it’s premature to say that Zaspar’s Pride has just discovered the second alien artifact known to humanity!

At that, a roar of cheers sounded that reverberated from one end of the mile-long starship’s hull to the other. The captain seemed to have been expecting this, for he wisely waited a few moments for the spontaneous outpouring of happiness and delight to peter out before continuing.

Tobar’s first thought, that he immediately censured himself for as being extremely unfair and unkind, was that this would show the v-heads that there was more to their cozy little universe than humans and what they had brought to the stars and the non-thinking life forms on the other living planets found so far. Maybe this discovery would be the one that brought the starfarers back into popularity with the trillions of planet-bound and sedentary, non-exploring, barely-living v-heads. Perhaps this would jolt at least some of them back into a more active mentality; get them interested in progress and expansion again like what drove their distant ancestors.

Even as he thought it he knew it was not fair to fault the thousands of billions of people who were addicted to virtual reality when their entire culture was based upon the illusion of instant travel. And the almost universal dislike and sometimes even hatred of starfarers was viewed by them as natural, as a just part of life. Centuries ago, during the Plague Years when rogue starship AI’s spread so many killer viruses and nanotech weapons, physical isolation was logical and, indeed, mandatory to the survival of the diverse settled planets. And the attitudes that developed then and which became entrenched in the cultures of the time survived and even flourished, and no-one seemed to care or to want to change anything, except the relatively few starship crews who still plied the interstellar depths. Maybe this discovery will be the one that leads us to an alien civilization; one that we can understand and relate to, one that will shake them out of their lethargy and re-spark the human spirit. Maybe.

As the captain continued speaking another picture coalesced into being. We are just now receiving optical images, I am being told. My family, we are witnessing history.

What is that? asked Jin. She was trained as a medical technician and nurse, and had been a friend to Tobar since their childhood and an occasional lover later on; they were very nearly the same age. And while she was known as a highly intelligent person, she had no frame of reference with which to evaluate what was being shown on the screen. Her mindset was oriented more toward biological, and thus chemical, reactions; and the more human interactions that were involved in her chosen profession. Tobar, conversely, had pursued studies more widely varied, in line with his interests in all things physical, including such practicalities as electronic and optronic engineering, gravitonics, and multi-dimensional spaces. It was to him, then, that his friends turned to help them understand what they were being shown.

Along the bottom edge of the display was a scale marker that at first glance appeared to be unaccountably toggling swiftly between stellar scale and the microscopic. As more graphs and data displays appeared to accompany the visual imagery, Tobar began to make sense of what they were seeing. The object pulsated, seeming to appear and disappear in sync with the scale display. It was, in fact, rapidly expanding and contracting in size, from a singularity out to the size of a red giant star, with a frequency that was shown to be thirteen times a minute. Strangely, it remained at its smallest for the same length of time it took to expand and contract, as if what was visible was only half of its cycle.

The artifact’s shape was spherical, and its outer boundary was seemingly composed of a multitude of jet-black lines interconnected in a vast hexagonal grid. These lines, or possibly voids, overlaid something that resembled an incredibly complex interweaving of Cerenkov-glowing blue threads, somewhat like the mother of all yarn balls. It emitted very weakly in the visible and near-visible spectrums, and slightly more so I the x-ray, but very strongly in the gravitic but only when its apparent size was the smallest. At its largest it appeared to have no mass, and therefore imposed no gravitational distortion on space/time, which went against all common sense.

Tobar took in all the data and pieced together the disparate elements into an understandable whole. It looks just like the artifact the Traveler found. I know, I know, that doesn’t sound like it means much, but think: now we know for sure that the first wasn’t some cosmic fluke. Do you remember back, oh, about fifteen years ago when the other one’s discovery made the news? There was all this talk about how it might be proof of an intelligent civilization, but then the clamor died down to nothing because the investigators were saying how it might have a natural origin, just one we don’t understand. The Traveler didn’t really have time to investigate it as it passed. People said that only if another one was found, and in a different stellar environment, would they believe it to be manufactured - to be the product of an alien intelligence. Well, here it is!

The view was captivating. Every time it reached its largest size the interior was slightly different. Seemingly the entire inner surface was writhing in perpetual motion, as if it were impossibly composed of millions or billions of living creatures, each slithering and sliding over and under each other. Although each string or particle trail glowed with the blue light of Cerenkov radiation, there were variations in the intensity of the emissions which appeared to give the whole a ghostly, somewhat unreal appearance.

Among the assembled observers there quickly arose the sound of various exclamations. Some claimed to see the faces of dead relatives or friends, others visions of places or things lost long ago, while yet other people screamed in terror at what they perceived. Stef, whose talents lay in musical composition and performance, asked, Do you hear that? It’s like I’m hearing it with my eyes. Oh… Her voice trailed off into silence as she apparently lost herself in something only she could hear.

Tobar, too, was as captivated by what he saw as everyone else appeared to be. If not for the combination of his study of trans-dimensional topography and his observational position relative to the three-dimensional projection of the object he probably would not have recognized what he saw. As it was, it took him but a few seconds of subconscious data processing before he realized what was happening.

As he explained it much later: It took me a few moments before I was really sure of what was going on. See, to everybody else the thing looked like it was shrinking and expanding but staying centered in the same spot in space. But to me, from where I was standing there at the edge of the screen, I could see that it was actually staying the same size the whole time. It was really moving into and out of our brane, the surface on the bubble of multi-dimensional topography which we here perceive as physical reality. I don’t know what was so special about where I watched it from - what made me see the connection from there and only there - but watching replays from other angles I only saw it shrink and enlarge, just like everyone else. And I still don’t understand the illusions some of them say they saw. Maybe we’ll never know what caused them.

All he said at the time was, It comes and goes but it’s always there!

At the same time as other people were commenting on what they thought they were seeing, Tobar’s analytical mind was already devising ways to measure and learn more about the artifact. He took a step to the side to compare viewing angles just as the display suddenly vanished.

The captain’s image came back on. Wow. Alright, folks, I think it’s best if we don’t look at that thing too closely, at least not without being better prepared. There were a few groans and mutters of disapproval uttered here and there, but for the most part the prevalent attitude was one of relief, as people who just moments before wouldn’t have been able to force themselves to look away were now freed to return their attention to their immediate surroundings.

Captain Markus went on speaking. I’m sorry about that, folks. I, we, sure didn’t expect that… whatever that effect was. There was no mention of anything like that in any of the Traveler’s reports about the other artifact, I’m being told. He looked down at a data display before him for a moment, then directed his gaze again into the camera and thus back to his audience. No, not a thing. This is apparently a new phenomenon.

The aged captain straightened a bit in his command seat. We know that our story is sure to be scrutinized by the media, so let me suggest that each and every one of you take the time very soon to record exactly what your first impressions and thoughts were when you first saw the artifact, especially those of you who perceived any, shall we say, visions or mental pictures. Save your records to shipnet.discovery so that we have a clear and timely account. Include all your impressions and speculations, even things you think might not mean anything. As you well know, no detail is too small or irrelevant when it comes to creating a virtual, and we can be sure that our experiences right here, right now, will be recreated and relived on the datanet.

I have taken it upon myself, under the provisions of the Powers of Captaincy which deal with extraordinary discoveries, to alter our course to bring us nearer to the object. Navigation estimates a transit time of three months and eighteen days until we reach its near vicinity. All information collected will be posted on shipnet as it becomes available. That’s all I have for now, so I will bid you all a pleasant evening and good night. Captain out.

The screen reverted back to its previous view of the star field. With the end of the captain’s speech the din of innumerable conversations erupted. Still dazed by what he had seen, Tobar didn’t even notice Stef trying to talk to his until she stood right in front of him and shook his shoulders. With a shake to clear his head, he said, Sorry. I’m still trying to make sense of what I, we, saw.

Stef is a petite, red-haired beauty two years the senior of Jin and Tobar. Her skill with nearly any musical instrument she could lay her hands on was uncanny and placed her much in demand among the crew. Tobar had developed a deep and abiding friendship with her as a teen and, although their relationship was not exclusive and neither one was possessive of the other, they often found pleasure in each other’s bodies. In this instance, however, it was his mind she wanted the use of. What did the captain mean when he said we were changing course? I thought we could only do something like that close to a star.

Tobar considered answering her right there in the dining hall, but the hubbub of competing conversations was, if anything, growing worse; so instead, he told her, I think I know, and I’ll explain if you want, but not here.

Including Jin in his invitation, he gestured toward the main door and said, Why don’t we go find us somewhere quieter. And I need to get to a dataport soon and get my thoughts logged in before I forget anything.

Well, that settles it then, announced Stef. Since most single people aboard had private but small cabins, social custom dictated that they not invite more than one guest into the already cramped spaces, unless they intended to get very close to one another. However, rank hath its privileges, and among the few serious musicians in the Pride’s compliment Stef was unanimously accounted the best and so had first right of claim to the practice and recording studio. The others knew that this was where she meant for them to go, and so agreed without another word. The trio turned and made their way through the crowded cafeteria and out into the main open thoroughfare of the great ship, called Broadway.

Zaspar’s Pride was one of the last of that class of starship commonly known as a ‘slagger’ to have been built, so called because of its origin as a remnant of the mining of an asteroid. Several centuries ago, the great rock that was to become the Pride was an enormous free-floating mountain of nickel/iron which had also contained carbon and various impurities in minute amounts, one of the last remnants of the early solar system left in Sol’s asteroid belt. When its time came, vast swarms of microscopic robots called nanobots were deposited on it. Within a few weeks most of the usable metals and other elements had been extracted and recovered by other spacecraft, and what was left had been re-formed into a nearly hollow cylindrical body slightly over a mile long that had a diameter of almost 1000 feet. Structural struts that were a combination of nickel steel and carbon lattices spanned its length and breadth, and a yards-thick skin of the carbon matrix known as diamond covered it all. A large percentage of the interior volume was taken up by the leftover rocky material of the original asteroid, threaded throughout with caverns and tunnels. After the mining and re-forming stage was completed, the new hull was maneuvered into Mars’ orbit, and over the course of the next year or so everything necessary to outfit a mobile city was grown and installed.

This type of ship was designed to be a self-sufficient habitat perpetually, whose purpose was to travel to distant star systems, catalog its resources, and strip it of certain extremely rare but invaluable elements. These uncommon isotopes, called as a class Higgsbanes, are the lifeblood of a vast interstellar civilization, for they are what make possible the mass-cancellation field which makes practical star-flight doable on a human timescale. Within an M-C field it is possible to accelerate a massive object up to velocities of a few times that of light without relativistic effects multiplying its mass to an infinite amount, and to do so very quickly. And all without turning it into a very, very thin pancake. But producing the field slowly consumes these elements, necessitating the constant search for more, and this is the ultimate reason for the existence of starships like Zaspar’s Pride.

When a ship of this type has collected a sufficient quantity of Higgsbanes, a drone carrier is manufactured and the cargo is dispatched to any one of a number of distribution hubs scattered throughout human space. Such was the Pride’s original mission. Over the last few centuries, though, the number of operational starships of any kind has decreased dramatically; and thus the demand for constant supplies of Higgsbanes has dropped accordingly.

For the past century or more the Pride has done more extensive survey work, gradually working herself in closer to the galactic core. Due to time dilation effects, the crews of starships are prevented from forming planetary ties of a personal nature and are forced to form their own self-contained community. Thus, a voyage of centuries is no hardship when there are no ties or obligations to keep anyone bound to known space and settled worlds. And since superspace communications allow instant data transfer regardless of physical location, such a ship’s crew is still not cut off from the rest of humanity.

And so the crew of Zaspar’s Pride wended their way star to star, stopping in most systems to survey what there was to see, easily replacing the inevitably lost consumables of all sorts from the boundless plenty of nature. At each system they left behind a number of datanet-linked drone ships which could send data to and be remotely operated by persons physically located anywhere; ships capable of interacting with their environment and even, if desired, reproducing themselves.

Comfortably seated in the Pride’s music studio, Tobar, Stef, and Jin were each coming to terms with what the discovery of the alien artifact meant to them. On their way there they had encountered Jason, one of the Pride’s propulsion techs and another mutual friend, and invited his to join them. It was he who ended up answering Stef’s question about the ship’s maneuvers, while Tobar busied himself at a dataport and half-listened in on the conversation.

You’re right that we can usually not maneuver when we’re between stars, as we are now. That’s because our gravity drive has to have a significant concentrated mass to push off of or pull against. So what we usually do is activate the M-C field, which nullifies the effect of the Higgs background field and therefore renders us massless, then fire up the main gravitic drive, which is just a scaled-up version of the same gravity manipulation that gives us our shipboard gravity and keeps us from floating around in here. We point it toward the star we are departing from and push ourselves off against it, and keep pushing until we get so far away that the effects diminish to the point where the grav drive needs more energy than we want to feed it. And since the Higgs field still doesn’t affect us, neither does the relativistic mass increase. That’s how we can travel at several times the speed of light.

Now here’s what you’ve been told all your life, that we spend most of a transit coasting along because there are no mass-bearing objects for us to push against. And that’s usually true out here between the stars. Normally we would have to wait until we got relatively close to a star to be able to alter our course or decelerate.

When Jason paused, Jin asked, What about dark matter?

It’s true that dark matter permeates interstellar space, and in fact makes up 80% of the entire universe, but it is spread out so diffusely that for our purposes it might as well not even exist. You see, we need a concentrated point mass for our gravity drive to react against to change either our velocity or trajectory. So yeah, whatever course Navigation sets us on when we leave a star, we’re stuck with until we coast close enough to another to be able to push against it by reversing the grav beam polarity and either slow ourselves down or change our heading.

Jin and Stef sat side by side on one of the studio’s couches as they listened to Jason’s explanation. Neither of them had ever made a study of the mechanics of star-flight, and in this they were among the overwhelming majority of all starship crew members. Jason, though, was one of the Pride’s senior propulsion technicians, and so was well versed in all matters relating to both gravitics and mass-cancellation. The look shared by the two women confirmed each one’s opinion that Jason might well be too knowledgeable in matters technical to know when a simple answer would suffice.

Unaware, or uncaring, of how his mini-lecture was being received, he blithely continued. Until now, that is. Did you notice that the captain described the artifact as a gravitational anomaly? What that means is that it was not accounted for by the navigation department as we left the last star system. And the measurements that I saw show that it is more than massive enough for us to use as a maneuvering anchor. So I assume we can treat it like any other large stellar mass, as long as we allow for its variable mass. Hey, Tobar…

Jason looked over to see if the fourth member of the group was paying attention. When the technician spun his chair around in response to the hail, Jason asked, So what’s the deal with that, anyway? Got any ideas?

Actually, I do, the other replied. I’ve been running a few calculations, and I think I can account for it. It looks to me like the artifact isn’t really changing its size or mass at all.

The others look puzzled when he said that, as he’d known they would. Both Stef and Jason looked like they were going to say something, but Jin beat them to it. But we saw it, everybody saw it growing and shrinking like that. And what about the sensor feeds? They showed it changing its mass. Are you trying to say that the sensors and computers are wrong?

No, no, not at all. Everything we saw was right as far as it goes; for our dimension, that is. See, the artifact exists in more than just our familiar four dimensions. There are actually thirteen, you know. So what’s happening is, it’s oscillating back and forth between what we call normal space/time and some other dimension, but none of its fundamental qualities are changing at all.

Jason understood - it was obvious from the way a grin stole across his face. Just as obvious was the women’s lack of comprehension, so Tobar tried again. Okay, let’s try this. Imagine a ball hanging by a piece of string from the top of a door frame, swinging back and forth. On one side of the doorway is a dark room and on the other a well-lit one in which you sit. You can see the ball when it swings into your room, and it will even appear to grow larger as it approached you. When it reaches the end of its arc it reverses direction and swings into the darkness out of your sight.

Oh, right, I get it now, Stef said, leaning forward from her reclined position on the couch. Sort of, anyway. But still, why is it such a big deal? Didn’t the Old Man say it was just like the other one? But it’s not, is it? What I want to know is how it made me hear it when I looked at it. That really freaked me out.

Yeah, what was that all about? Jin asked from beside her. It was, like, everybody saw something different. How could that be?

Neither of the men answered right away; instead they glanced at each other, as if each was hoping the other would tackle the question. When Jason shook his head, Tobar spoke up. I have no idea. Maybe… no, that’s crazy. His voice trailed off into uncertainty.

No, what, man? Jason prompted, with a playful slap of Tobar’s upper arm. We all know your guesses are worth more than most eggheads’ sure things, so give.

Oh, it’s just that I remember hearing a while back that some supposed experts were speculating that human consciousness had a multi-dimensional basis, something about it being the result of quantum fluctuations that extend across a bunch of dimensions. They were trying to explain ESP and that kind of stuff. I didn’t pay too much attention to it, really. He laughed. He was well known for his outspoken opinions about the impossibility of all things metaphysical.

So you’re saying what, that the artifact’s dimension-hopping somehow affected our minds? asked Jin. Like some big psychic broadcaster or something?

Tobar looked slightly flustered from her teasing. No. Or, well, I don’t know. Probably not. How can anybody believe in anything that can’t be detected or measured, like all that psychic stuff?

He was saved from both the necessity of further speculation and any more teasing from his friends by the voice of the ship’s AI, Ozzy, telling him that the captain was requesting his presence in the conference room adjacent to Control Ops at his earliest convenience. He acknowledged smartly, saying that he was on his way. When the captain of the ship requested someone’s presence it was smart to make oneself available immediately, despite the politeness of his phrasing; especially since this was the first time Tobar had ever been summoned in such a manner.

Stef gave him an admiring glance, with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. Wow. Someone seems to be important all of a sudden. And to think, we knew him when he was just a humble crew member.

That garnered a laugh from the others. Tobar promised to fill them all in later on whatever happened as he left them with a wave.

The interior volume of a ship the size of the Pride is immense. Although the areas frequented by the crew are generally located fairly close together, there can still be a considerable distance to travel from some of the outlying compartments to the centrally located control section. A network of dedicated transport tunnels solves this problem neatly. All anyone has to do is step into one of the large-diameter arteries and speak a destination or touch a display to make their preference known, and the ship’s gravity field is computer-directed to whisk them along. The rider feels nothing, of course - no acceleration or inertial effects - but some cannot make use of the system with their eyes open without serious vertigo problems.

Tobar had never been one to experience any discomfort when riding the flyway. Sometimes, when the mood struck, he would still revert to the common children’s practice of pretending he was really flying under his own power, even to the extent of turning himself horizontal in the classic hands-forward pose. This time, though, he remained upright; his thoughts focused on why the captain had summoned him.

He had met Captain Markus on any number of occasions, as had everyone else on the ship. Always before it had been something either informal or, a couple of times, the more formal occasions of his school graduation and work promotions. It was not common at all for a general technician, a mid-ranking member of the ship’s maintenance division, to be summoned in such a manner. He thought over anything he might have done to call the captain’s attention to himself.

If there was anything amiss with any of his work he would expect his shift supervisor to call him on it; not that any problems came to mind from anything he had worked on any time recently. He had never been a troublemaker, so it wasn’t like he had done anything wrong to get caught at, either. Fortunately for him, the trip to Control Ops didn’t take any longer than it did, so he was spared from any further speculation by his arrival there.

The flyway deposited him directly between the entrances to Control Ops and the captain’s conference room. Before he had taken two steps the captain himself strode into view, apparently on his way to the conference room also.

Well, merry met, Mr. Rus. And impeccable timing, I might add. The others I asked to join us are already here, so let us not keep them waiting any longer, shall we? with that, Captain Markus led the way through the automatic door and into the meeting.

None of those present were unknown to Tobar. Indeed, there were very few among the nearly 1000-member ship’s compliment that he didn’t have at least a passing acquaintance with, which was only to be expected considering that he and nearly everyone else aboard had been born on the Pride. Standing just to the left of the doorway were Travis Roberts and Donna Sylvestri, the heads of the navigation and data-services departments, respectively. Already seated, and intently studying the hologram of the artifact which hovered above the central table, were Vivian Turner, Antoine DeBusie, and Johp Felps, representing fabrication, survey, and security. And seated a few seats on around on around the large oval was Tobar’s own supervisor Connor Scott of engineering and the starship’s propulsion wizard Paxton Cole, engaged in an animated discussion of their own.

All the various conversations ended as the captain entered. Please be seated, everyone, he said. With a gesture towards one of the empty seats, he added, And you also, Mr. Rus. As I am sure you already know who we all are, we’ll get right down to business.

Tobar sat down beside Connor, the only person in the room he knew more than casually. As he did, his boss smiled at him, which had the effect of lowering his anxiety level about 200%. He couldn’t be in trouble if Connor was acting so at ease.

Don’t worry, son, the chief engineer told him, you’ve done nothing wrong. In fact, you may well have done what no-one else in all of human space has been able to.

The look of puzzlement on the junior engineer’s face was obvious to all. He glanced around the room, seeking any clue as to what Connor was referring to. He knew he was being tested. One of the hallmarks of star-faring society was an emphasis on self-reliance, and this characteristic was encouraged on all levels. He was well aware that everyone present but him knew exactly why he had been called; and also that they expected him to reason it out for himself. no-one said a word; they all just looked at him expectantly.

Over the course of his education and experience working on the various subsystems of the great starship he had suggested several minor improvements to the design or operation of various pieces of equipment that had been approved and implemented by his superiors, but he didn’t think any of them especially worthy of such high-level attention. Neither did he rate any of the theoretical abstracts he had written and posted on the datanet worth such, either. Then it all of a sudden dawned on him that there was a giant clue literally staring him in the face. He imagined the classic image of a light source suddenly turning on as it floated above his head. Apparently the change in his expression betrayed him, because several of the department heads nodded at him them and smiled.

Exactly, said the captain. Evidently using his implanted computer control interface, he caused a copy of Tobar’s recent work dealing with the artifact to suddenly appear in place of its image. Naturally we had data services on the lookout for anything useful in relation to the discovery, and your work stood out like, well, like the artifact itself in supposedly empty space.

A couple of them politely chuckled at the captain’s analogy, and he paused a second before continuing. So what I’d like now would be for you to tell us your thoughts on it. Keep in mind, please, that we are not all as well versed in the multi-dimensional math that I see you’re using here.

Okay, I’ll try. Tobar was nervous about being put on the spot like this, but he told himself to be a professional and not let that affect what he had been asked to do. He briefly explained how his chance observation had led him to the realization of the artifact’s dimension-hopping, then went on to summarize his later calculations and what their implications were. He even managed to stop himself from delving too deeply into the higher math by sticking to simple explanations and omitting the details of the more esoteric aspects of his work.

More observations and modeling will need to be done to verify it, but everything I see so far suggests that it might just be possible for us to learn how to cross the dimensional barrier ourselves. I think this discovery may very well open up a whole new branch of physics and cosmology for us, he concluded.

Stunned silence greeted this last statement. Finally Paxton, the only one who had been able to follow all of Tobar’s mathematics, and who was probably more knowledgeable about the higher dimensions than anyone else aboard, asked, But what might we find there?

Chapter 2 The Trackless Depths

In the deep forest there be ogres and dire wolves and worse; and spirits that will lead a man right to ‘em. I tells ya’, them who be goin’ in don’t be a’ coming back out. So had spoken the farmer at the edge of Warven’s Deep, where the great plain of Salakoor ended and the continent-spanning forest began.

That had been two days ago. The first day in the woods had not been too bad, even for a woman born and raised on the Great Plains. Sure, the lack of visibility for any appreciable distance was something new and more than a little discomforting, but at least she had expected that and been able to prepare herself mentally for it. Even camping in the forest that first night had proven a lot less disturbing than she had feared it would at the beginning of the expedition.

Of course, having three Artagi warriors along for protection was bound to give anyone a certain sense of security. The Artag nation was respected all across the world, according to popular wisdom. And for good reason, thought Sapphire D’roa. With as many enemies as they have made over the centuries, they have to be exceptional warriors.

The second day things had gotten steadily worse. As the small band forced their way deeper into the forest, the undergrowth had steadily gotten nastier. At first it had been just thick but harmless greenery; sometimes a hassle to hack through or go around but still basically benign. But as the canopy above their heads thickened, the lower levels grew steadily worse.

The least of it were the sticky, clingy vines that when touched emitted the vilest and most wretched odor that could be imagined. Then there were the razor-edged leaves that several species of vegetation sported, which could open up a nasty gash in the skin of the unwary traveler. Worse yet was the fungus to be found anywhere there was shade, which was very nearly everywhere. It shot poison darts at them. The poison wasn’t necessarily fatal, but no-one wanted to find out just how many burning, fist-sized welts someone could survive.

And that was just the plant life. Sapphire had long since given up counting how many types of insects and small animals wanted to feast on her, scare her, or just plain make the journey through the Deeps even more miserable than it already was. She thanked the Goddess quite often that they had been able to hire Norna, a logger who had grown up hunting and exploring the near edge of the great forest. Without his copious knowledge of the dangers and perils it held, she wondered if any of them would have lasted even this long.

The worst part of it all, though, had to be the loss of the sky. Never in all of her 33 years of life had Sapphire been unable to see the sky. Being in buildings or under a shelter was one thing; you still knew the sky was out there and you could look out a window or something and prove it. And storm season, well, that was the sky. All the while this expedition was being planned, as long as she had had to prepare, the thought had never occurred to her that, once deep in the forest, the sky would no longer be visible no matter how much she longed to see it.

Always, her entire life, her world had been the grass underfoot, the far-distant horizon, and the great bowl of the sky which bound it all together. Goddess and God, earth and sky, and the source of her magic the interactions between the two. Oh, she accepted that the sky was still up there above the tops of the towering trees and the interlocking canopy of all their branches; she knew that in an intellectual way. The trouble was that her heart just wasn’t nearly as sure of it as her head was. She secretly worried that if she found herself needing to work any of the greater magics she might not be able to because of the niggling doubt in her heart.

And now it seemed that she might indeed have to.

Their group had been plodding along ever since they had broken camp as soon as it had grown light enough to see, slowly wending their way through the ever-denser, ever-nastier ground cover. All morning the sounds of the multitude of forest-dwellers had accompanied them, the various bird calls competing with the hoots and cries of other types of creatures to become an ever-present background din, which they had all but ignored.

They had settled into what had become their usual traveling order almost immediately upon entering the woods, with Norna the forester leading the way and followed by one of the three Artagi warriors. Sapphire and her long-time companion and husband Kyri, the winged Frell, traveled in the center; followed by the remaining pair of Artagi. The first clue the lone woman had that anything was amiss was the rapid dying-out of the usual forest animal’s vocalizations. Norna had warned them that if that happened they were to also go silent, for it would almost always signal the presence of something ominous and most likely dangerous.

The trio of lithe, cord-muscled warriors closed ranks around their charges, each drawing his preferred weapon noiselessly. Klori’s choice was a pair of hand-axes, with which he could fight close-in or throw with deadly accuracy. Cron armed himself with bastard sword and long dagger and made himself ready to engage anyone or anything. The eldest of the three, Pihn, knocked a stip-tipped arrow to the short bow he habitually carried strung and ready. Stip is the Artagi nation’s greatest weapon, and the method of its creation is their greatest secret; known only to their most experienced and skillful battle-mages. It is a highly-concentrated explosive that is contained in a very lightweight pod the size of an acorn. Harmless until activated by an Artagi mage, once primed it will explode violently when struck sharply. This makes it perfect for missile