“Are you able to sense the topography of metaspace?”
After a pause it said, “Yes, I believe so.”
“The key thing is to stay well away from gravity wells. You'll learn how close you can get over time. Unless…” A thought occurred to her. It could be a useful stratagem. “Unless you have the ability to survive such a translation and emerge close to a star? Or even within one?”
“I do not know. Such knowledge either wasn't given to me, or hasn't been revealed yet.”
“You have no way of telling your brain to unlock all its data?”
“No. Can you do that with your brains?”
It was a fair point. “Okay, just avoid the Singh Field fluctuations that mark where large masses project into the topography, and drop us back anywhere in normal space,” she said. “We need to make multiple jumps, altering our trajectory each time, got it?”
“The ships that attacked us can't pursue us here?”
“They can follow our wake for a very short time, but they'll need to keep dividing their numbers to look for possible trails if we get some distance away and take unexpected vectors. Sooner or later, the odds of them finding us will be infinitesimal.”
Surtr didn't respond, but a moment later, she felt the surge of the reverse translation in her stomach. Black space and the blaze of stars filled her gaze. Surtr steered them onto a divergent course, accelerating under reaction drive, then flipped them back into metaspace. This time, it hit the translation first time.
“To travel between the stars without using a tunnel,” it said. “I did not know that I was capable of such a thing. I did not know this ship was.”
Was there a hint of wonder there? Regret even?
“Yeah,” she said. “It's surprising what you can do when the alternative is imminent annihilation. It's odd that your creators gave you the ability but didn't tell you about it.”
“I suppose they feared that I would become curious and experiment,” the entity said.
“You know, I think they were probably pretty safe on that front.”
Ondo said, “And the really interesting question is, what else are you capable of that we don't know about?”
“Let's think of a way of finding out that doesn't involve a Concordance battlefleet throwing everything they have at us,” said Selene.
They flew for an hour, dropping repeatedly in and out of metaspace, Surtr becoming slicker with the procedure each time. Selene could discern no hint of pursuit, but she had little telemetry to make use of. The locations in real space they materialized in were devoid of any objects: stars, planets or ships.
“How bad is the damage the ship suffered?” she asked as they flew.
“We came very close to a cataclysmic breach. It is now being repaired.”
“Can you increase the repair rate in case we encounter more trouble?”
“I will attempt to do so.”
“Can you make the voidhull stronger, max up the energy hull?”
“This ship was not designed for such activity.”
“Do we even have an energy hull?”
“Yes, but it was designed to preserve the ship's integrity rather than to fend off explosive devices.”
“Okay, well, keep flying. You're doing good.”
“I must return to the nebula soon,” Surtr reminded her. It sounded like it was clinging onto the one fact that made sense to it.
“Sure, definitely,” she replied. “We'll arrange that just as soon as we can.”
During their sixth journey through metaspace, Surtr did something different: it swayed suddenly, and she picked up a tremor that ran all through its body, blurring the entity's hard edges. It noticeably teetered for a moment.
Then it spoke. “Why did those ships attack us? I have been attempting to make sense of it. Why do they wish to destroy us?”
“You really don't know who Concordance are?” she asked.
“I know only what you have told me. There is much taking place that I do not comprehend.”
“Concordance rule the galaxy. They have everyone under their control.”
“But why did they try to destroy this ship? Were they pursuing me or were they attempting to kill the two of you?”
“Probably both,” said Selene. “Killing people is what they do. Some among them see it as their mission to exterminate everyone in the galaxy.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone.”
Again, it took the Aetheral several moments to process that. “Why?”
Selene flashed a look at Ondo, who cleared his throat and tried to explain. “They believe it is the surest way to usher people through a sacred wormhole and into their appropriate afterlife. For the benign, it means an eternity of joy. For the rest of us, I'm afraid, it's either torment or sensory oblivion. Concordance see killing everyone as a genuine act of kindness, bringing the deserving more quickly to the glorious end that they've earned.”
Surtr took even longer to process what it was being told. “Is there any evidence that this is true?”
“There are wormholes, clearly, but what lies through them – if anything could lie through them – is simply conjecture.”
“Why are they letting people survive if they believe in eliminating all life?”
“Classical Omnian belief identifies a sacred number: a tally of sentient lifeforms which, once reached, is to trigger the end-of-days.”
“What is the number?”
“We don't know, but if Concordance decide it's been hit, that's it. At least, this is one school of thought within Omnian theology; there are others with a less … assertive approach.”
“Will this tally include entities like me? I understand, now, that I am not natural.”
“Concordance consider artificial lifeforms, or even augmented people like Selene, to be abominations. A usurpation of the role of Omn. So, no, they wouldn't count you. They wouldn't wait for the tally to be reached to attempt to obliterate you.”
“Their ships must rely on artificial intelligences to traverse metaspace.”
“Yeah,” said Selene. “It's strange how they can make exceptions to their absolute laws when it suits them. Same with the way
