More than the failure and the loss of the ships, it troubled her that Omn had not seen fit to grant her full knowledge of the workings of the gateways. She'd been given clear glimpses of how the structures could be used to tip stars into supernova. She'd seen with her own eyes that more than one system had been devastated in the distant past. What was that, if not a sign?
She'd worked tirelessly for years, without the approval or even the knowledge of the Primo, to map out the pathways criss-crossing the galaxy. The glory of it was that she'd identified seventeen gateways lurking beneath the surfaces of seemingly-normal stars. The ancient records she'd uncovered from the ruined temple, sun-baked and sand-blasted, were incontrovertible, although it had taken her three years to interpret them correctly and map the stars identified onto the present-day galaxy. Seventeen systems connected by tunnels built through the void, joining one star system to another, or to seemingly insignificant patches of interstellar vacuum. Seventeen systems, and no fewer than seven with inhabited planets orbiting them. The figure was a wonder to Godel. There had to be a reason for them being there. Seven galactic civilisations whose stars were connected to a network that could be used to destroy them.
False believers like Carious talked only of triads in their apostasy. The triple stars, the three aspects of Omn, the three divine attendants that wait upon him. But she knew the older scriptures, and in those, seven was the number that recurred again and again. The seven eyes of Omn, the seven galaxies, the seven sacred roads. And, of course, there were the seventeen sevens of the sacred tally. The significance of that could not be denied; the numbers did not lie. How glorious the sight of them had been over the surface of Fenwinter.
It had troubled her that some of the tunnels she'd identified opened into regions of space that the Cathedral ships refused to fly into. The Walker's ships, also, had been incapable of making the journey, at least at first. Something in their navigational systems had simply refused to pass through the void to the designated areas. She'd wondered if some unseen hand was acting against her, attempting to thwart her plans. Omnian theology described hosts of malignant entities that would delight in sending the righteous off the true path. She'd overcome the limitations of the technology by forcing the ships to fly where she wanted them to go. Doing so had involved crippling the machines, delving into their workings and excising certain components from them. She'd lost a total of eleven Cathedral ships during her attempts to force the ships to fly to where she wanted. It was almost as if the vessels were fighting back, refusing to be forced to enter the forbidden zones.
But, of course, no one could explain to her why the regions of forbidden space even existed. There appeared to be nothing different about them. Her suspicion was that they were nothing more than an attempt to hide the truth about star systems set aside for mass supernova.
She was being tested, that was it. Omn had known what would happen, but he had directed her to make the attempt anyway. It could only be because he wanted to know if she would be crushed by the defeat, or would learn from it. Yes. A test of her worthiness and her resolve. Only the truest of heart could be granted the burden and glory of completing Omn's work.
The Walkers were on the ship now, awaiting her orders to attend the convocation circle. She instructed them to enter. If they were surprised that only she was there, they did not show it. She noted that the other four Walkers all looked to Kane to speak for them as they approached, even though he was the youngest of them.
She glanced to the backs of her hands and noted with satisfaction the richer, darker purple that had returned to her colouring.
“Tell me what happened,” she said. She already knew the facts, but she let Kane talk anyway, listening to the way he spoke. He looked directly into her eyes as he delivered his report, not hesitating, barely blinking. He was loyal. The changes she'd worked in his Anointment ceremony had made sure of that. He was hers. Even though she'd instructed him to lead suppression operations against his own people on Migdala, he'd followed her orders unquestioningly.
He left nothing out in his story. The facts were simple: they had been on the point of activating the device. They had taken every precaution, followed every rule, but the machine had simply exploded when they spun it up to full power. The fleet had been swept away in that single, huge detonation.
When he had finished, she held his gaze for long moments, letting her eyes narrow slightly to show that she was assessing him carefully. He didn't look down or away.
Finally, she said, “Did the mechanism give you any warning that it was about to fail?”
“None. All was proceeding as expected, and then it exploded.”
“Why is it that you were able to escape but all the other ships were not? The fact seems very convenient.”
Kane didn't look offended in any way at her insinuation. “We detected two incursions and were leading the intercept arrays. They fled before we arrived, but we remained in case they returned. And, also, to watch for Cathedral ships unaware of our activities, as you commanded. Our ships were rapid enough to accelerate ahead of the blast wave as it expanded outwards. We received a brief warning from a vessel near the gateway, and it was enough for us to manoeuvre onto escape trajectories.”
“You didn't think to fly inwards, towards any possible attack?”
“The explosion was cataclysmic; we couldn't possibly have survived, and our work is not yet complete.”
It was a good answer, the
