The Path to Loss (Approaching Infinity Book 4) Read online

  “For what you can see.”

  She pursed her lips. “A lot of it is ugly.”

  Jav shook his head.

  “No,” she said dropping her eyes briefly then meeting his again. “I can see the Kaiser Bones inside you and the Ritual Mask, too. I can see the Resurrection Bolts inside Raus and the network they’ve woven inside his body.”

  “Are Artifacts so repellant?”

  “It’s just that, when I can see them, it makes everyone seem so frail and vulnerable.”

  “But you know otherwise.”

  “Do I?” She eased through the gravity bubble, reached out from it to take his arm, and let the forces draw them back into the middle together. Their bodies pressed together, each slipping and moving and readjusting, vying for the equilibrium spot, but always together. She stared up at him, he down at her. They knew the curves of each others’ bodies intimately, and neither was the least bit uncomfortable. On the contrary, the contact was causing some physiological stirrings that Jav was having trouble ignoring.

  He gripped her shoulders and breathed heavily, “I could take you right here.”

  She laughed, her cheeks reddening. “Only if I let you. And I would. . . if that’s what you wanted.”

  “It’s what I want right now.”

  “That’s my fault. But you see? This is just one way in which you are frail and vulnerable.”

  Jav nodded and let out a deep breath, attempting to cool down. “That’s fair. It is, however, a vulnerability I’m prepared to live with.”

  “Or die with.”

  “Why not? I can think of worse ways. Much worse ways. Countless thousands of ways.”

  “I didn’t mean to suggest that intercourse would be fatal.”

  “Right. Okay. So what are you trying to say?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve spent several lifetimes trying to get close to you, but now I’m terrified to be near you.”

  Jav cocked his head, studied her. “You don’t appear to be terrified right now.”

  “Do you know how easy it would be to simply pass through you and liberate the Kaiser Bones?”

  “Are you considering this?”

  She lowered her eyes again.

  He nodded, unperturbed. “Why?”

  “Because I love you. You hurt every single day.”

  She started to say more, but he touched her lips with his fingers to shush her and smiled a sad smile. “Hilene. If you decide that that’s what’s right, then take them. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop you. Not anymore. I made a promise to myself a long time ago to regret nothing, no action large or small, good or bad, until something greater than myself showed me that I was wrong, that everything I’ve done has been a mistake. If that is your role, then I welcome release.”

  “Jav!” she blurted, her eyes wet with tears.

  “Shhh. It’s okay. In a way it’s a relief.”

  “A relief?” She shook her head, confused.

  “I have no expectations, Hilene. I trust your judgement. What comes comes,” he said and started peeling away the thin sliver garment that did little to conceal her figure. “Tell me to stop if you want me to stop.”

  Pouting with shame, she answered him with her lips firmly pressed to his.

  • • •

  Raohan La stared through the instrument which showed him what was happening in real time more than two hundred million years in the future. To his back was the apparatus through which his connection to the future was maintained. Stol Kossig stood, combat-ready with his helmet in the crook of his arm, on the other side of the temporal window. Arrayed further beyond him were the Godsorts, six primed and standing by, piloted by the other veterans of the previous war and by one newcomer: his twelve-year-old brother, Temmus.

  The giant reptile, pulled away, bent his neck to scrutinize the readout on another machine, and spoke to Stol without looking at him. “You’d better get to your Godsort,” he said, adjusting a countdown timer that was visible to Stol. “Just in case.”

  “Very well, old friend. I want to thank you again, to let you know how grateful we are for your continued help in prolonging our species. Not a man, woman, or child on Stolom does not know your value, your worth, or your sacrifice.”

  “Your gratitude honors me, Stol Kossig, but it is not for your species alone that I—we—do this. It is for everything that lives, breathes, and thinks everywhere.

  “Now get to your Godsort. My calculations are sound, but there are always variables for which one cannot account. See that the shelters are secure and keep your people confined to them until you hear otherwise.”

  Stol nodded, hesitated for a moment, then turned, and sprinted for his Godsort.

  Raohan La turned from the machine and stared after Stol. That such small, fragile creatures could be capable of such courage still humbled him. “Chushin La,” he cried out. “Why have you not gone with the others.”

  “I will not leave you,” came his mate’s reply. She stood upon two legs, short and stout, her graceful neck gently curving to one side in an air of polite defiance.

  He gave her his full attention now. “You cannot stay, my love. I require all of my faculties for what is coming. There can be no distractions. The time for your efforts and those of our fellows will come, but in this initial task, I must be able to concentrate fully. The machines alone will not accomplish what must be done.

  “I will not leave you,” she repeated.

  With heavy, ground-shaking steps, Raohan La approached her through the clearing, with the machines standing in mute vigil along the jungle perimeter. He brushed his long, sinewy neck gently against hers, bringing their cheeks together. The surrounding treetops swayed in the breeze, just a few meters above eye level, the soughing leaves the only break in the otherwise still silence.

  “I know your feelings, Chushin La. And you know mine. Guard our love, nourish it, and know that I hate sending you from me in any circumstance. But so it must be in this circumstance.”

  She nuzzled closer before getting out half a nod and then she was gone, transported instantly to their waiting fellows several thousand kilometers away by the power of Raohan La’s mind.

  He took a moment to compose himself, then bowed his head upon his trunk neck. The machines, arrayed in a circle as if to ward against all that was verdant and green, sprang to life, each humming with immeasurable power. Broadcast power was of course not unknown on Stolom, but the energy on which these machines now fed came from directly from Raohan La’s mind. Everything depended upon his mind. The machines were really only placeholders and calculators, checks to ensure that he would not fail in his efforts.

  He raised his head and stared up at the cloud-streaked sky. He couldn’t help thinking that it was a beautiful day and was torn by whether that was a good omen or shameful waste. He’d never believed in omens, though. The streaks of clouds began to obey forces that did not include their normal master, the wind. A circle slowly took shape in the sky, growing and spinning lazily, with nothing but whirling cloud vapor to define its edges.

  In an instant, though the sun was still high in the sky, the light was blotted out and the clearing was subjected to a shockwave which flattened the trees at the perimeter for kilometers in every direction. The machinery remained like a stone circle, defying the elements and the ages, helping to define the conduit that Raohan La was creating.

  Darkness shone from the disk in the sky before something far more physical poured through, like the infected blood or bile-laden vomit of the sky itself. Raohan La’s eyes lost their color and flared like twin stars. The wind buffeted the clearing as he pulled the infection down from the heavens with all the resources of his vast and powerful mind. He’d snared it, but grounding it was imperative. The slightest slip in concentration would upset the conduit and his catch would elude him, landing on present-day Stolom instead of here, where it must be confined.

  Raohan La bared his clenched teeth and pushed himself beyond every limit he’d ever known.
The machines began to smoke and short out. Some exploded, some merely burned white hot, but even as they failed, one after another, Raohan La was sure of his success. He was sure that the fact that he was sill standing, exerting his mind, was proof that he’d been successful, for if the threat he expected were to have continued in Stolom’s ancient past, Stolom would not have developed as it had. There would have been no Kossig Engine, no Godsorts, no Raohan La, nothing. But here he was, and some fraction of his awareness acknowledged the Godsorts through the temporal window, still upon the sward, ready for his potential failure.

  The dark, woody mass, kilometers across at its base and rich with life that was not life, fell from the sky. Its capture was a sure thing now, but it was still a danger. An immediate danger. In moments it would crush Raohan La with its size, weight, and velocity, each of which alone would be enough to qualify as a calamity. Taxed further than ever before, Raohan La reacted “physically”. He could have relocated himself to any place he’d ever been upon Stolom of this time or to any place he could see, but instead, he swatted the incoming immensity with his mind. The reaction was unthinking and animal, and so brutal.

  With a boom that echoed for minutes after sounding, the Vine veered suddenly from its course to crash thunderously into the earth at a sixty degree angle, ten kilometers from where Raohan La stood. Though the ground rumbled, rippled, and cracked in all directions, Raohan La remained standing, staring defiantly at what he’d brought to Stolom’s past.

  • • •

  Jav had kept Hilene in the gravity bubble longer than was appropriate. He sighed at the irony of this thought since nothing about what they’d done was appropriate. Their act satisfied a need neither could ignore or deny, but he knew that every time he was weak in this way it hurt her a little more, widened the gulf between them by another degree. He learned a long time ago that the more he tried to be close to her the further she felt from him, but physical contact sometimes goaded him to folly. He hugged her naked body closer, wishing that things could be different. She, in turn, tightened her grip on him, and they spun around in place as all the opposing gravities responded to their slightest movements.

  The spin brought them to a position where he could see their clothes, flung out of the reach the of the gravity generators, strewn upon the floor. He pursed his lips.

  “I guess it’s time,” he said. “Planetfall will be any minute now.”

  She grunted in agreement, but showed no sign of moving from where they were.

  He grinned, stroked her back affectionately, and then the room canted violently.

  The gyroscopes in the arms supporting the gravity generators responded, but not quickly enough. The equilibrium was upset, and every generator flew in a different direction. Two collided, sending a shower of sparks that bent three different ways before burning out. Jav and Hilene were cast against the wall and pressed there by artificial gravity that was no product of any of the generators or of the Vine’s main system. Something had struck the Vine and knocked it off true.

  Jav scanned the space beyond the transparent walls but could see nothing but cloud vapor racing by. He fought the forces acting against them and instinctively took hold of Hilene. “Hold on!” he cried.

  Everything blurred for an eternal instant. Jav’s teeth rattled, his eyeballs shook in their sockets. He and Hilene rose up, along with their clothes, the severed, non-functioning gravity generators, the debris of the ruptured support arms. Then everything came crashing back down upon the wall, sliding down the sharp angle it maintained. The internal gravity was working again, but the Vine remained off true and had made planetfall in that state. Hilene had already become insubstantial and was making her way out of the chamber.

  Jav pawed through the fallen wreckage filling the pit of the floor, raised a silvery garment, and called out to Hilene. “It may be impractical, time will tell, but clothes?”

  She nodded and started back towards him and was nearly swallowed by the floor as another concussive jolt shook the Palace in its entirety. Jav managed to steady himself against a sizable chunk of fallen machinery.

  “Warning,” came a female voice over the Palace-wide public address system. “Root Palace under attack by unidentified threat of vast potential. Gran bays, currently inaccessible. All Shades scramble for immediate intercept. Repeat. All Shades scramble for immediate intercept. Grans will be dispatched as soon as possible.”

  Foregoing his own clothes, Jav flung Hilene’s to her, went Dark, and clambered for the exit.

  “There’s a tether launch bay close by. I’ll meet you outside,” he said.

  • • •

  Jav sprang from the open doors of the tether launch bay, using AI to hurl himself high into the air where he remained, turning slowly to take in his surroundings. The planet appeared to be primitive, with no settlements within view. The sun was high in the sky and fierce winds blew in competing currents. In the immediate vicinity, there was nothing but trees. An impressive range of mountains rose up perhaps a hundred kilometers from where the Vine had—what? crashed? Roughly the same distance away, looking past the crooked Palace, he could see beautiful white coastline with a rhythmic green tide lapping at it. Nowhere did he see any sign of civilization or of anything that might have been responsible for the attack on the Palace. Or did he?

  There was something. It was an area denuded of trees in the thick of the jungle forest. He used AI to augment his vision and stared open-mouthed behind his skull helmet at what he saw. At first, he thought to himself, “Again?” but then he uttered words which he hadn’t realized he knew—at least not in the context which tickled maddeningly at his broken memory.

  “Dyna. . . sore. . .”

  Jav felt his ribs compress, and vomit very nearly squeezed out of him. Along with the sudden, impossibly strong, even force pressing three hundred and sixty degrees around his torso, he became acutely aware of being at the center of the dyna sore’s focus. He felt his head lurch backwards and the scenery flashed by for almost a full second before he realized that he was being reeled in towards what must have been responsible for the assault on the Vine. He was far less capable than the Vine of taking punishment on the scale he’d witnessed, so he wasted no time in exercising his mastery of Approaching Infinity. Jav had learned over time that even extremely powerful telekinesis relied heavily, if not exclusively, upon perspective, so it was not difficult to use AI to create a wedge of “additional” space and slip the monster’s mental grasp.

  Sensitive to it now, Jav felt the TK reaching out for him again, this time to envelop him wholly. He calculated furiously, to avoid capture, darting this way and that. He’d never experienced TK on this order before, wondered fleetingly if the Empire had, but most of his mental faculties were occupied with remaining outside the invisible grasp. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Porta Fighter sail by him towards the dyna sore.

  “Nils, be careful,” Jav said through his Artifact. “Whatever it is, it’s a powerful telekinetic. Powerful enough to upset our planetfall.”

  “Understood, General Holson.”

  It was only then that Jav nearly swallowed his heart in shock. “Hilene!” he cried through his Artifact.

  Silence.

  “Hilene!”

  Jav tried to put her out of his mind for the time being. With Nils already moving to attack, it might be to their advantage to try to overwhelm their assailant. Jav adjusted his tactics, shot forward to trail behind Nils while still fending off the incessant grabbing TK.

  “Nils, the first sign of pressure, break up.”

  As if on cue, the Porta Fighter bobbed in the air as if encountering severe turbulence, but Jav’s advice had come just in time, and the Fighter burst apart to allow the Cloud of Gnats to flow liquidly through the air on the same trajectory.

  • • •

  Raohan La was equally astonished and unimpressed by what had come to Stolom. A giant plant housing some unnatural power which was used to augment tiny humans? This was the e
nd of the Universe? The girl had been immune to his telekinesis, which was a first for him. He’d teleported her to the other side of the planet, to the bottom of Stolom’s deepest ocean. Now this skeleton man was also challenging his power, though in an altogether different way.

  What was it about humans, anyway? How could things so frail be so adaptable? Surely reptiles were more durable, more capable. He fought against his prejudice and knew that he wouldn’t be living in Stolom’s ancient past if humans weren’t in fact the most successful organism in existence. The capacity for genius, tenacity, self-sacrifice: all the things that Raohan La most respected and which he tried with all his being to exemplify were human traits before they were reptile. Perhaps the reptile would have its day, but there was work to do first.

  Another one, even more unusual than the first two, approached now, all spinning blades and deadly force, but there was no doubt that, in spite of the armor and twisted shape, this one, too, was human. Raohan La had not as yet found his limit with telekinesis. He could worry the skeleton man and still ensnare the barbed one. But as he reached out with his power to do so, Raohan La saw the metallic shape burst apart and pour through the air like mercury—no, it was particulate and elusive.

  Raohan La had suffered few bouts of surprise in his life despite all that he and his people had been through. He was surprised now. The particulate matter was still racing towards him, had come too close, and was even now reassembling. His head shot back with the sharp pain of impact, sending up a great wash of red blood into the sky. The barbed thing had entered into his right orbit, ground the contents to thin, watery paste, and hollowed it out. Raohan La bent his neck and raised his short, thick right arm to press against the gaping wound. He pulled his paw away and seemed to draw out a half visible sphere like a giant shimmering soap bubble from the socket. Within the bubble was the barbed man-thing, contained and immobile. Raohan La regarded the thing inside, narrowing his remaining eye, seething and staring death.