“They were being pursued. Vulpis would have been frantically searching for them. Those were the early days of Concordance, and Vulpis would have been very keen to ensure that the crew members who took the Magellanic Cloud were prevented from spreading their version of events.”
“I do not know who or what Concordance or Vulpis are,” Jalian said.
“Truly?” asked Selene.
“Truly,” said the man. The faintest nod from Hessia indicated that he was telling the truth. Concordance hadn't been to the planet.
“How did the crew members of the Magellanic Cloud know to come here?”
“They carried a navigational bead with them, a red one. Perhaps you have seen something similar yourselves. They claimed they had acquired theirs at a world in the centre of the galaxy. Omn, they called it.”
That made some sort of sense. Before the crew of the Magellanic Cloud split into its two factions, they'd explored the anomalous star system that they'd diverted towards. They might well have picked up navigational beads like the one Surtr had provided. They must have acquired a navigational AI capable of reading the bead, too.
“Why did they come here?”
“They needed answers. They foresaw a war and came in search of allies and weapons. And truth.”
“What did the Gatekeeper of the time tell them?”
“Little of use. Their ship was not adequate for the journey along the path.”
“Where did they go?”
“They saw the need to build an alliance of worlds to face the unfolding threat they perceived. They left for another system where they hoped to find friends, a fact which troubled us greatly at the time as we survive by remaining hidden. You are welcome here, but I'm sure you have detected a certain wariness at your appearance. We begged them that they keep our location a secret, and it appears they were as good as their word. They said they had taken all the beads and other navigational records pointing to our existence away from Omn. We owe them much.”
“Do you know where they went?”
“No.”
“Are they the only other people to have come here?”
“A thousand years ago, two other ships appeared in our sky, also seeking answers. One took the road we showed them and one waited, but their friends never returned. Eventually, they left.”
“A thousand years,” said Hessia. “Do your archives record the name of the two ships?”
“The one that took the road and did not return was the Sephire. The other, the Umwe.”
A look of delight passed across Hessia's features. The names meant something to her. Selene was about to pursue it when Hessia, perhaps picking up Selene's sense of confusion, offered an explanation.
“Those are the two vessels in the origin story of the Omnian faith. The Sephire passed into the realm of Omn, and the Umwe remained to tell the galaxy what had happened. In classical Omnian doctrine, Omn does not reside in this universe; that is a heresy thought up by Concordance. But, originally, there was a herald, a guardian who sat at the entrance to the sacred wormhole, judging who was worthy to pass through into the light of Omn.”
“Interesting,” said Selene.
“Yes.”
To Jalian, Selene said, “You understand starships? I mean, not just that they exist, but how they function, what they're capable of?”
“I do. This world perhaps appears primitive to you, and it is in many ways, happily so. But it's more accurate to say that we are post-advanced rather than pre-advanced. You will doubtless be aware of the tiny devices that are immanent in our environment, keeping us healthy and giving us long lives.”
“Yeah, we spotted them. I assume your culture developed to that point and then regressed to where you are now.”
“Advanced and regressed … these are very linear terms. Our civilization was arranged long ago to be as you see: stable, remaining as it is to survive, generation to generation. Contented.”
“That sounds as though it would get boring very quickly. Don't you ever want to push the boundaries, explore, invent? Break the rules?”
“Some of us, of course. It is allowed. But we also recognize that what we have is some sort of paradise. All our needs are met by our planet's mechanisms. We work as much as we wish to work, play as much as we desire. From time to time, of course, the young become frustrated and wish to travel. We satisfy that need by encouraging them to visit other continents. You will have seen that this is a remarkably varied world, with many different environments. Believe it or not, we even have vast libraries of knowledge and research and speculation, where anyone may go to study or contribute. But, for the most part, we stay as we are.”
“How long have you been here, quietly living your lives?”
The wry smile returned to the man's features. “It's odd, but after a while you stop counting. The passage of each day is important, but the passage of centuries, millennia, whole epochs of time? Less so. But it is millions of years.”
A moment of understanding flashed between Selene and the image of Ondo she carried. Here was yet more proof that they had been utterly wrong about the timescales they'd originally proposed.
“You're sure of that?”
“Our world is contented, and because of that we see little reason to change it. This planet truly is a fixed point in the turning galaxy, in a metaphorical sense. It was constructed very carefully for that to be the case.”
“Constructed by whom?”
“A Gethrem.”
“Is that another name for the Tok?”
He considered for a moment, as if searching his memories for old knowledge. “The Gethrem, the Tok. Before they fled the galaxy, one of them created this world.”
“Why?”
“We are the gatekeepers to the labyrinth, and it is essential that we remain while other things change. If we had advanced into space, engaged fully with interstellar culture, it might have destroyed us.”
Selene could feel her Ondo avatar almost buzzing inside her mind. She understood why. “You mentioned a labyrinth,” she said to Jalian. “What does that mean?”
“We
