Jason Cassidy stood and peered through the pale-yellow translucent barrier from his own holding at his incarcerated partner. “Kione!”
On the deck of his spartan accommodation, Kione’s head slowly turned to the sound of Jason’s voice. With the long leverage of his limbs, he pulled himself up and touched his nose at the dried blood around his nostrils. “You…were on…Orion V?” he stammered, holding his skull as if a bell were ringing inside it.
Jason nodded. “That’s right.”
Kione leaned on the doorframe of the cell to keep himself from falling. “How did you find me?”
Ever since Jason had arrived and waited for Kione to wake, he’d tried to understand what lay opposite him. So unhuman. So alien. But from what he’d seen of Kione on Orion V, he had the same mannerisms any other human would, while speaking the English language.
It was quite a contradiction.
“When we got back to the Argo, we discovered a buildup of Iota particles. At its heart was a vortex which pulled us in and dragged us all the way to the Psi-Aion System, three hundred light-years away from Orion V.”
Kione’s focus narrowed. At that moment, Jason lost himself in the being’s eyes. It was almost hypnotic. Then, just as it began, it stopped.
That was weird.
“The Argo got caught in a trans-space corridor the Seekers had opened… That’s at least what Professor Petit theorized,” Kione said, almost robotically.
“How could you know that?” Jason furrowed his brow. “You weren’t there when he—”
“I’m sorry. I—”
“You were in my head.” That’s what that strange sensation was. “How—?”
Kione raised a hand. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to—”
“You’re telepathic?”
“No.” Kione paused and considered before continuing. “Well, I never used to be.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” Kione winced in pain. “When the Seekers took me out of the cryogenic chamber and forced my contact with the sphere, something happened. It changed me. I’m not sure how, but it awakened something in me. I seem to be able to look at people and see the inside of them. Not what’s physically inside them. But their feelings and their memories.” His eyebrows raised. “You fear me?”
“Did you take that from my mind as well?”
A small smile formed on Kione’s face. “No, I was raised by humans. I’ve seen the reaction before many times.”
Jason wondered if it was an ancient prejudice that bubbled beneath the surface in all humans when they met something new or someone different. “It’s not fear,” he tried to explain. “It’s the unknown. If someone told me I’d be in this situation a few days ago, I wouldn’t have believed it. Since then, I’ve had to reevaluate everything I know about…well, everything. And to find out successive governments have covered this up for so long—”
“My study of your history has many examples of governments covering up knowledge because they believe it to be in the public’s best interest.”
“When in reality it’s in the government’s best interest so they can maintain a status quo and their grip on power.” Jason shook his head. “Have you ever wanted to escape the Institute?”
“Would I have liked my freedom? Yes. But where would I have gone?”
Jason wondered if humanity was ready for Kione. Even if they weren’t, he shouldn’t have to sit in a lab. In reality it was a glorified prison. “Doctor Tyrell obviously wanted to reveal your identity.”
“I believe Doctor Tyrell became distrustful of the current administration in office and wanted the project out in the open. He was no rebel.” There was a fondness in his voice for the doctor. “His fears never came to fruition, and ultimately—”
“He may still be out there. All these years later, he’s never been found.”
“Perhaps.”
“And what about all of this?” Jason asked. “The sphere? The Seekers? What do they want with you?”
“And what have they done to Nash?”
The question caught Jason off guard. “Are you still reading my mind?”
“No. But I saw a lot in those few seconds earlier. You came investigating the dark side of the moon because of him. You didn’t come here with a grand plan to rescue me.”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t apologize, I realize what his friendship means to you. I saw what happened that day on the Raptor and the guilt you’ve carried with you since.” He stopped, seemingly not wanting to embarrass Jason any further.
“Unfortunately, it’s a question I don’t have an answer to. Whenever I try to probe the mind of your friend or any of the other Seekers, I find them hard to penetrate. There’s a lot of conflict going on inside them. They may be blocking me. I’m not sure. You must understand I’m new at this.”
“As to what they want with me, you probably know by now that Professor Petit had theorized a certain DNA code held the key to opening the sphere. He was right. For a reason I can’t comprehend, I was that key. But there’s more to it than that. The Seekers are using me to ‘activate’ it.”
“Activate it?” Jason didn’t like the sound of that. “For what purpose?”
“When I’m in contact with it, I see images. Flashes of its memory.”
“It’s alive?”
Kione shook his head. “Not alive. At least not in the way we perceive life. But it holds stories.” He shrugged. “I can’t explain it any more than that.”
“What do you see?”
“Stars.” Kione’s voice lowered. “Dying stars.”
Jason definitely didn’t like the sound of that.
“In a blink of an eye, stars that were once ten times brighter than Sol’s go cold. The planets orbiting them become balls of ice. The voices of the people on them disappear as if they never existed.”
A lump formed in Jason’s throat. “So, it’s a weapon?”
Kione seemed unsure. “I think it’s a power source. A potent one.”
“In my experience, most power sources are eventually used as weapons. Uranium, fusion, tritonium, just to name a few.”
“Yes, and the power of the sphere is infinitely greater than anything mankind could ever fathom.”
Jason gestured to his surroundings. “Then if the sphere is the arrow, perhaps this ship they’re building is
