“To what end?”
“Does the universe have an end?” Apollo challenged. “Everything appears to be continuous, and your theory suggests the same.”
“Did your mission have completion potential?”
“We do not know. We have never been able to fully articulate the mission, though our knowledge of it has advanced over time. But as long as the toxicity remains, we cannot engage this galaxy on the level we should be…but we will also not abandon it entirely. Wisdom is our only weapon now, and will be until the toxicity is removed,” he said, looking back at Davis.
“We have located the source, but we cannot get at it,” the Director said apologetically. “The Jedein have negotiated a treaty with the Naivra and others to leave us alone as we deal with the Hadarak, and part of that deal is that we avoid their territory. The source is inside Naivra space.”
“And?” the Gahana demanded.
“And we quietly took a look anyway. It is emanating from a tetrahedral star group that is gravitationally impossible, with an object at the center that is not Naivra. Our scouts could not get any further information without risking detection, and without that treaty the Core would turn into an even greater bloodbath. I’m sorry, we can’t get to it now.”
“Why have I not seen this data?”
“I sent a new ship to try and get a closer look. It hasn’t returned yet, and I was waiting for at least an image of the object at the center.”
“There is only one?”
“Yes. It is dark and non-reflective, but it appears to be a single object and not biological.”
“The source of the toxicity is a single point?”
“Yes. Did you expect otherwise?”
“We could not pinpoint it, and we assumed it was an intersection of multiple sources.”
“Mercury said as much,” Davis said, referring to another Gahana. “But if there are others, then they are not currently active. There is a single source according to the sensors you taught us to build.”
“How close did you get them to the source?”
“We got one within 8 lightyears, after following the others.”
“How long did deterioration take?”
“Too fast for us to calculate. But we narrowed its location down via a grid of 6 detections within 28 lightyears, and that led us to the tetrahedron. Each of those deteriorated within .38 seconds,” Davis said, referring to the Essence bubbles used to take small ‘blood’ samples from the Gahana closer to the source to act as divining rods, for they did not break down uniformly. They wore away as if burning under sunlight with the outer layers flaking off to reveal the others beneath. In this way a Gahana would not die all at once, but would gradually diminish in side until its interior regions were exposed to the toxicity as well…but in their shadow the radiation would not exist…and this allowed for basic directional finding that the Gahana had never been able to do within the Core, for their probes could not utilize Essence technology to get the samples close enough to be of use.
“That is too low,” Apollo said, visibly confused. “Radiation levels here do not correspond with the distances involved to the Core.”
“Perhaps it’s not mathematically predictable.”
“All things are with the proper data,” the Gahana said dismissively.
“Is the Tri’vey always constant?”
“It’s proximity to the source determines its intensity.”
“The Tri’to,” Davis said, referring to the Saiolum in the Gahanan term, “moves in currents that increase or decrease based on other factors.”
“We have never observed this in the Tri’vey, but since there are so few of us that produce it, it’s possible we have not observed large scale interactions…yet that would require the source of the toxicity to also be a producer of the Tri’vey, or an intermediary between us and it to alter the concentration. We have never detected any such concentration of our type of lifeforms. Have you?”
“Only the PanNari.”
“They are not truly Tri’vey, and only emit the faintest energy. If there is no medium between us and the Core, the mathematics would be linear. The source should be producing more in order to generate the levels we are reading out here.”
“How often do you check those levels?”
“Every 823 years. The last was 221 years ago.”
“Perhaps you should try again.”
Apollo suddenly melted, but not into the same goo. His body kept its particulate nature, but flowed like sand up and into the egg, which then sealed up and a countdown timer ensued to give him enough time to return to near stasis.
When it completed Davis was able to return them to the normal realm, and through his painfully slow connection to the Maty, Apollo ordered an additional radiation check using a small piece of his own body.
The Maty took it into a nearby analysis chamber and studied its decay rate, with the results returning to Apollo as well as being shown in holo in front of Davis.
The radiation levels had dropped considerably, but not enough for the Gahana to emerge. Not even close enough for that, but something had changed within the galaxy. Something big.
A prompt requested Davis return them to the Essence realm, and he did so, with Apollo slowly coming out of his stasis in what was not a quick procedure, made even slower by the rapid transitions, but he eventually came out of his egg and regained bipedal form, with his mechanical face showing utter shock.
“This has never occurred before,” he said flatly. “What have you done?”
“Unless the Hadarak are linked somehow, I have no idea,” Davis admitted. “Has the rate ever varied?”
“None,” Apollo said firmly.
“Has the Galactic Core been depopulated at any point during that time?” Plausious asked as his preborn knowledge again surged forth, showing him a vision of a higher level form of war. And when it manifested inside his mind, a chunk
