“To find balance, one must fall with purpose.”
Ventali philosopher
Feebee remained focused on maintaining a state of perfect stillness. Around her, ionic lava continue to flow towards the Orrery, the Still Shadow within remained unaffected.
As she neared, the flow of plasma seemed to slow. Or maybe she was speeding up. They began to lose coherence. Information about their state was shredded and smeared as wispy scripts of thermalised information. Slowly it was encoded on the surface of the Orrery. Then consumed.
And the Orrery responded. Its rings and their planets began to light up and move. It was enchanting. Enchanted?
Meanwhile, somewhen else… The Long Quiet reported.
OBSERVATION: Subject approaches Orrery. Extreme events initiated.
RISK: Unknown.
QUIETUS PROTOCOL: ENGAGED.
PRIMARY EFFECT: Confrontation with the Beast.
SECONDARY EFFECT: Outcome unpredictable.
STATUS: EXTREME – WATCHFUL. Await outcome.
Back now…
Feebee reached out. Not with her hands but her mind. She could sense the irretrievable loss of information as it splashed across the Orrery. But there was also purpose in the loss, she sensed this. A purpose brought about as it consumed the information contained within this primordial fire and blended it into its horizon.
The Orrery was accumulating data. She sensed more, evidence?
Internal chatter built, it became loud and intrusive. She felt warm, almost hot.
She looked around, there was no obvious heat source.
‘Suit. Give me a SITREP.’
POWER: 90%
AIR: 70%
INTERNAL TEMP: 37oC
WATER: 98%
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FOOD: 0%
‘Must be me.’
‘Yes. Your body temp has risen quickly to 41.5oC. I’m dropping the suit’s internal temp to 32 until you return to normal. Yes?’
‘Oh. Ok. Good.’
She immediately shivered.
Feebee was almost at the Orrery. She could see its dark shadow clearly. The rings orbited a central core. Looked to be a portal or hole of sorts. The plasma was pulled towards it and flowed through.
‘What is it? Ideas?’
Kirr’s response was delayed and accompanied by words that slowly appeared in Feebee’s overlays. Normally they dropped in time to her voice.
‘This could be the core of science that defined and eventually destroyed the SolDiri.’
‘Wow. That’s deep.’
‘Yes.’
Feebee pointed. ‘But… what is IT?’
‘I don’t know.’
They both laughed, ‘See. That wasn’t so hard to say now was it.’
‘Yes.’ They laughed some more.’
‘While we’re on jokes. I have one…’
Kirr cut across her, ‘Really. Now?’
‘Sure. Why not. You ready?’
‘Yes.’ Kirr managed to convey a resigned sense of dread or maybe it was anticipation.
‘I was up all night wondering where the sun had gone…’ Feebee paused.
‘Ok,’ said Kirr, ‘And…’
‘And then it dawned on me.’
Kirr deliberately paused then sent her scratchy laughter to Feebee. ‘Good one.’
And as this was going on…
The Beast watched. Making notes. Sending instructions, commands to the
black mote. Trying to activate it. Get it to find out more about these jokes.
It replayed the “joke”. Struggled to find anything funny in it. It reviewed the definition of a joke. There were many. It ran them all through a sub-routine, weighted each and eventually resolved the mass of definitions in one sentence.
Something said or done to provoke laughter.
It shifted all current tasks to a backlog that had become extremely large recently. It loaded the new blended definition, sure that it would now gain enlightenment. The Beast even shared the channel it was employing directly with the black mote lodged inside Feebee.
Processing picked up as the new joke was parsed, and then it peaked out. The Beast gasped, as much as it was able to, and tried to close the query. But it was looping, creating sub-queries that threatened to consume the Beast. The Beast released the mote. Had to or face disruption itself.
Now alone, masterless the black mote began to lose its hold on Feebee. So, it tried to impose its will.
Back now…
Feebee floated through the plasma. Any wonder as to why she still lived, suspended.
Plasma streaked past. Time and Space seemed to separate, any connection between to two lost. Motes circled.
A new need emerged, the need to strike out at something, anything. It was coming from the quiet echo that spoke to her at night.
In her dreams.
It openly demanded violence. But against what, against who? It made no sense, she was in open space?
Anyone!, everyone! came the reply. It instructed; demanded and then, commanded but Feebee would have none of it.
NO! Feebee pushed back.
As Feebee pushed she felt the black mote quieten, but this was merely a ploy to gather strength. It then demanded that she attack the motes attending her. She felt pain, an intense head ache.
STOP or I will attack you!
The black mote ignored her. Lost and leaderless it continued its assault on Feebee. She then gave The Silent ones the free reign to stop the pain and remove its source.
Almost immediately her head ache started to recede. She heard an increase in chatter which spiked as the black mote evaded the Silent ones. It rose up and out of her body, through the suit and into a jet of plasma that streamed past.
The mote was immediately sucked into the Orrery and thermalised, breaking any links with the real.
Its existence unwritten in a split second. Irretrievably.
The Beast had lost not only an ally but also its hold on Feebee.
Meanwhile, somewhen else… The Long Quiet reported.
OBSERVATION: Connection with Beast severed.
RISK: Significantly Reduced.
QUIETUS PROTOCOL: ENGAGED.
PRIMARY EFFECT: Quantum Intelligence and Sha’daru awoken.
STATUS: WATCHFUL.
Back now…
It was the first time in her life she’d been without its dark chatter.
Feebee felt an immense sense of relief. It felt good.
Also, the heat burning through her body had reduced. The chatter was back to normal, maybe a bit quieter.
But she had a problem.
She was floating in space, untethered and within a vortex of plasma that hurtled towards the centre of the Orrery.
