CHAPTER FIFTEEN: COMFORT AND DISCOVERY

Yesui fled from her grief and found both comfort and love within a single week. For one week she'd remained in her room to stare at the walls, eating little, caring nothing about herself or her work and refusing to answer Mengjai when he called with a new idea or something he'd seen in his travels.

But then her mother had returned and the evening they'd spent crying together had seemed a relief for both of them. Feeling her mother's pain had somehow diminished her own, and then there was the talk about what they'd seen and what it might mean. Was Abagai truly dead, or had she been changed into another form and rushed away to begin a new existence elsewhere? The force they'd encountered, what was it? She had sensed an incredible energy density in that brightly glowing ellipsoid born of Abagai's manifestation. Light from the gong-shi-jie had been sucked into it, and then it had moved with direction and purpose, as if alive.

The thing that had swallowed Abagai's remnant had twisted the threads of the fabric of space into a vortex, then a singularity at the instant the ellipsoid had disappeared. Her mother hadn't seen it, could not see it. Yesui tried making a sketch of the thread pattern for her, but the drawing was crude, only a hint of what she'd seen. And when Mother said she would await her own death in the gong-shi-jie, it had only made Yesui cry hysterically again.

They talked out their grief, their hopes that Abagai still lived happily in a new and wonderful form, and then Mother went back to her desk to resume the duties Yesui would someday have to face, but not yet. Yesui went her own way, drowning her grief with the work that was her life, and again spent most of her time in the gong-shi-jie. Play or work, it was all the same to her, and, as usual, in her enthusiasm she went rapidly from one thing to another.

Mengjai nagged her about folding space to move their ship faster and said she should experiment more with the threads. Father even joined their conversation, amused by it and taking nothing they said seriously. His reaction only made her more eager to try it, and she did, but on a grand scale near the galactic edge, bringing in the violet light to form mass and making a little dimple in the pattern of threads there.

But the mass was fixed, and a dimple was not a folding, like holding a sheet of something and bending it to bring the two ends together. Yes, the fabric of space was distorted by mass, but only locally. To truly fold space, she must somehow work directly with the threads as if they were physical things, with real, elastic properties. But it seemed they were not physical things, only strange indicators of the presence of mass, or the lack of it.

How to manipulate them remained a mystery to her, and so she cleaned up her experiment by flashing the mass she'd created into light, and bringing it back to the gong-shi-jie where it was again violet and quiescent as before. Even that process she did not understand, for it was only necessary that she think it, and it would happen. The fabric of space, however, continued to disobey her mental projections of its folding, and so her interest waned and wandered.

It was then that she returned to Lan-Sui.

Mass transfer to the planet had become a regular routine over the past two years, but now it was more delicate, for Yesui was nearing the mass Mengjai had calculated for her. She could only estimate the mass she transfered each time, her accuracy little better than Shanji's mass, and in the end it would be the surface temperature that would tell her how close she'd come. Compression had most certainly begun, but heat transfer from the dense interior was a slow, convective process dependent on the distribution of mass she brought to it. She had argued with her brother for hours over it.

"So, give me a model for where the new mass is going."

"It goes everywhere. It follows the threads."

"Then most of it is very deep. It could be thousands of years before we see an effect."

"But the surface is covered with new storms, with the majority now appearing near the equator!"

"Helium condensation. That's more transient. I'm talking about compressional heat production."

"But the helium is a part of the mass. It must not be so deep, if things are already happening at the equator!"

And so on.

It could be a week, a year, a thousand years before Lan-Sui's surface was truly warm again. It was now at one hundred eighty absolute, and steady, yet the surface was dramatically changed, huge hurricanes ten diameters of Shanji across forming each week, monstrous ovals in red, yellow and blue. Even the storm below the city had changed. Once blue, it was now red, the center of the vortex seeming to fill with new gases, a ring of boiling clouds billowing higher at its rim each time she saw it. Yesui had had a dream of those clouds reaching up towards the city, touching it, tumbling it, the city sinking deeper and deeper and Nokai calling out to her as the storm swallowed him up.

Yesui dipped into real space to see her handiwork, then to the interface of the gong-shi-jie to examine the threads. The violet light came to her, went to her focus and continued to come until the ripple in the threads was the size she wanted. She released it, then watched the ripples flow into the depression of the thread pattern that was Lan-Sui. Only then did she flash again into real space. There was no visible effect from what she'd just done, yet the mass was now very close, no more than one, perhaps two transfers left to do, and the planet was still too cold.

Two frustrations in one day, and so she went to Nokai.

Hello. I'm back again. What are you doing? 

Reading a book and missing you, wondering if you're still sad. 

It's better, especially when I stay busy. I'm trying some new things with the threads, and I'm just about finished with your planet. Mengjai says the mass is just about right for a thousand degree surface temperature at equilibrium. What are you reading? 

A history written by an old priest around a thousand years ago. It's something for class. He talks about The Mother here. Did you know that in the beginning She created many universes, not just one? 

Really? 

Yes, many universes, all at the same time, all expanding but somehow separated. 

I'm sure Mengjai has heard all about it. Do you really miss me? 

Yes. I think about you all the time. Now that you've nearly finished with Lan-Sui, will you be going away? I've been thinking about that, too. 

Well, I have many other things to do, but I can come back to visit if you want me to. 

Yes, I want you to come back. I—I— 

What? Your mind is stuck again, Nokai. You can't hide from me. 

All right, I don't want to lose you. I don't want you to go away at all. 

Why? 

A ten beat pause. There's a twinkle in the eyes of the image you show me. Am I amusing you? 

Yes. You have such a hard time saying what's in your heart, and I have to torture it out of you. Why don't you want to lose me? 

You know why, and it's not fair. You see everything in me, while I can only sense your emotions, not your thoughts. 

Yesui concentrated hard. Here's something that's deep in my heart. Can you feel it? 

Oh, Yesui. 

Do you feel it, Nokai? Do you know what it means? 

Yes—I mean, I feel it. I want to believe I know what it is, but a part of me is saying it's not possible. 

Then I will say it, but only if you tell me what's in your heart, Nokai. I want to hear the words that say what I also feel for you. 

The floodgate was opened by the last thing she'd said, a sweet, mental flood washing over her. Oh, Yesui, Yesui, by The Mother, I have no right, but I love you! I love you with all my heart and soul, but you are the Mei-lai-gong. 

And you are my love, Nokai. I love you very deeply. Believe me, it is real. She had never felt so wonderful.

You have such power, and I'm so ordinary, and we can never meet face-to-face. I—I want to touch you, hold you—kiss you. When I say it, it seems like blasphemy to me. You are like The Mother. 

I'm a woman, my love. When you touch your face, like now, I feel it. I feel your cheek, your lips, so warm, your soft hands. They say I'm the Mei-lai-gong, Nokai, but she is also a woman who loves a man and desires him. I want your arms around me, your lips on mine. I want that very much. 

I cannot touch you, he said mournfully.

I'm not so terribly far away. There's a constant stream of freighters between Meng-shi-jie and Shanji. As I recall, the current travel time, one way, is approaching nine years. 

NINE YEARS? 

Well, yes, that is a long time for us. The military ships do it in six, but that still won't do. I'm working on that, love. If I can get the threads to fold for me, travel distances can be considerably reduced, and I know I can do it. 

Oh, Yesui, would you wait even six years for me, wait for an empath you've never really seen, when there are probably suitors all around you? 

I have no suitors, Nokai. I've been too busy for that, and besides, it's you I want. Don't you believe me? Again she focused hard, to show him her deep love.

Yes, but I think we're dreaming dreams. Meng-shi-jie's military vessels are all readying for war now. They've blockaded our moons. Things are very bad here. 

Yesugen has told me. She wants me to stay around until things are settled. I think she sees me as a secret weapon she can use. The purple light, you know, very powerful. I've ionized small moons with it during my experiments. I'm a strategic weapon, it seems, but Mother has more practice with that. 

We could use some of your ionizing right now. There's a constant rain of debris hitting the city shields, and it sounds like a thousand hammers pounding in unison all the time. Sleep is impossible, and I had to close the windows just to be able to think when you arrived. 

I thought you had debris control ships to take care of that. 

We do, but their numbers have been cut in half by the blockade, and the rest aren't working very hard. We're all sitting around waiting for a really big rock to come in and crack the city dome, but so far it's all been small stuff. 

Would you excuse me for a moment? 

She flashed into real space before he answered, but targeted on him, coming out a thousand kilometers from the city. Tengri-Nayon was shining brightly behind her, and she saw a fan of dust swirling towards the city, tapering to a point near the distant, yet innermost ring of Lan-Sui. A simple task, something she could do while hovering in real space.

I call the light, and it comes to me, and—goes—right—there.

Space exploded in purple brilliance as far as she could see along the fan of dust; there were flashes of red and green, even gold within it, and then it was dark again, distant stars now steady spots of white and blue, no shimmering fan left to be seen.

She returned to the gong-shi-jie, then to Nokai. Back again. The debris comes from the inner ring, and if— 

It stopped! The noise just stopped! What did you DO? 

It's only temporary, Nokai. I ionized everything as far as I could see, but you were right. The source is the inner ring, and more debris will be coming. If it gets too bad, I'll just remove the ring. It's only a decorative thing, anyway. What's wrong? Nokai—don't you dare think of me that way! 

I can't help it! Your powers aren't human! 

STOP IT! I LOVE YOU! 

Oh, Yesui, I love you too. What are we going to do? 

Get you to Shanji as soon as possible. Trust me, Nokai. I'm getting to work on it right now. I just had an idea about the threads. Get some sleep while you can. That banging on the city's shields will probably start again in a few hours. Gotta go. Loveyouloveyouloveyou. 

Me too. 

Swirling purple and violet all around her, and the giddyness of love in her soul. The idea had come out of nowhere, while they were talking. To work the threads, she must truly understand them, understand their structure and dynamics, and she didn't. The idea had been a vision of those threads, recalling the time she had first really looked at them a long time ago.

Mengjai had been with her, and with his scientist's mind he'd noted details in the threads that she'd somehow forgotten in working with them. Now she remembered the threads were not continuous, but a series of points, closely spaced, glowing green. To see that, she had to be close to them, and for years that had not been necessary, had not even been desirable, for her work had required that she see the whole pattern of threads on a large scale and that meant working far from them.

Yesui went to the vortex of Tengri-Nayon in the gong-shi-jie and paused there to relax herself. Playtime, she thought. This is when I have fun, and just let things happen. Slowly, now. 

She eased herself slowly through transition, the thing her mother and even Abagai had never been able to do. The web of green threads was instantly there, far off, spreading in every direction. For the first time, she noticed that the matrix of purple lights had not yet appeared. There are two boundaries here, she thought, and they're not together. 

But when she thought of the purple matrix, it was there, flashing once, and she found herself back in real space, the huge disk of Tengri-Nayon glaring at her.

Oops. Mustn't think of the purple matrix. This is very delicate. Why was it so easy when my brother was with me? 

She tried again and kept the purple matrix out of her mind. The threads were there again, but looked solid. She thought them larger, focusing on one of them, and it rushed towards her, or she towards it, she didn't know which. Glowing points of light, then fuzzy patches, then—

Flash—purple matrix—flash again, and Tengri-Nayon was again there.

Ooooo! If she had hands to throw something with, she would have thrown it. With Mengjai, I did it the first time! 

He was a distraction for you. You're trying too hard, and must be patient with this. Don't think so much! 

Thank you, mind, for that sage advice, and now I've started talking to myself. 

You're welcome. Now try again. 

She did that, and the threads were there again.

Easy, now. Focus on a point, and relax. You're drifting, drifting, slowly, slowly coming in. One point. Forget the rest. There it comes. See? Not one point, but a cluster of little ones, very close together. Stop here. Look at it. 

It was like a globular cluster of green stars, and it was flickering.

Why is it flickering like that? 

Energy comes to it in pulses from the Other Side, and sustains it. 

The Other Side? 

Another universe, next to yours. This is the boundary between them. 

And where did I come up with that idea? 

You didn't. I did. 

Suddenly she was a little girl again, and felt like giggling at her invention of an imaginary playmate who could share her travel in the gong-shi-jie. Perhaps it was her missing of Abagai, or wanting again to be with Nokai, or wishing that Mengjai were here with his nagging insights on things.

Okay. What's your name? 

I don't have one. You can call me Mind if you like. 

Okay, Mind, what do I do now? Yesui was now amused at herself and having fun, letting herself totally go with what was happening.

Make the cluster of lights glow brighter by bringing more energy to them. 

From the gong-shi-jie? 

No, silly, from the Other Side! That's where the energy for the threads comes from. It's purple beyond purple, just like you're used to, but once on This Side, it's green. Call out the green light, and the rest will follow it. 

Silly, indeed, but she was still having fun with this wild fantasy of hers, and she had never been so close to the threads before. Whatever she was doing, it was working for her.

All right. I call the green light, from each point that I see, and it comes to me—right—here! 

The cluster of green blazed forth so brightly it was like a single star, growing in size large enough to nearly envelope her, and she was frightened by it, her call forgotten and instantly there was only a cluster of green points flickering dimly as before.

What was THAT? 

That was very good. You can do it at any distance, if you just focus on one point. Two or more will not do. Let's back off a little, so you can see what happens. 

Anything you say, Mind. This was really getting interesting, now. Yesui drifted away from her chosen thread, until she could barely see the fuzziness of each point within it.

Far enough. Now focus on one point, and call the light again. 

Yesui did it without hesitation. A single point flashed brightly, but as it dimmed she noticed a circular wave of flickering lights moving out from it, across many threads, not just one responding to the initial disturbance she'd created. But the wave seemed to quickly dissipate.

All the points are connected, you see, and there is a leakage of energy back to the Other Side. The more energy you bring to a single point, the further the wave will travel, and it moves very fast. The wave you just created moved perhaps a light month in real space in only an instant of time. 

Mengjai should be here to see how quickly I'm figuring things out, thought Yesui. He'd be amazed at my genius. 

We give you the answers because it will soon be necessary for you to put them into practice. 

Um? We? Well, she thought, if Mind wanted to be multiple Minds, why not?

I'm sorry, Mind. The credit of discovery goes to you. 

That's better. Now let me show you the use of this. We need to find a small object in real space, a small asteroid, perhaps. 

The rings of Lan-Sui are full of them, Yesui said, wondering, What am I up to now? 

No. Something more isolated, said Mind.

Well, there are many icy moonlets in a great cloud far out from Tengri-Nayon, and some move quite independently of the others in eccentric orbits. 

Let's try that, then. 

So Yesui took herself to the icy cloud that was like a spherical shell some light minutes thick and half a light year in radius, surrounding the Tengri-Nayon system. Wandering a little, she finally found a little snowball some kilometers across, moving outwards from the cloud and alone, probably the recent victim of a collision.

That's a nice one, said Mind. Can you target it for us? 

Of course. We're here, aren't we? 

Yes, but it's vital that we remain here in space-time. 

Excuse me? 

We're going to the threads at the location of your little snowball, and you'll bring energy there to produce a wave. The snowball will move with it along a straight line defined by its motion at the instant the wave is produced. 

I wish Mengjai were here to see my incredible insights, thought Yesui. He would not be so cocky with me about his mental prowess. 

Please, said Mind. Actually, the snowball will not move, relative to space. It's the space it occupies that will move. Now make your transition. 

She did it, but it took her four tries before she came close enough to the local thread. You only need practice, Mind assured her.

Yesui called the green light to her, and it obeyed. There was a flash, as before, dimming quickly.

She returned to real space.

The snowball was not there.

It's GONE! Where is it? 

Out there somewhere, said Mind, likely far enough to be difficult for you to find. You moved the space occupied by the snowball and they went away together. The coupling between them is complicated and involves the exchange of a very massive particle that formed at the birth of time, but you don't need to know about that now. The point is, you've moved mass without accelerating it in local space. I believe that's what you were looking for, and now all you need is considerable practice. 

She could move a moon, a ship, anything, and without acceleration. Yesui was thrilled. I must tell Mengjai and Nokai right away. It's amazing how suddenly this has come to me. My subconscious must have been working on it for a long time. 

My gift to you, said Mind, and you're ready for it. There are other things we can teach you, but that will be in the future. 

How many minds do I have? wondered Yesui.

Oh, there are many of us, said Mind. Goodbye, now. I have other assignments besides you. Use what you've learned here. And Yesui, it's very important that you come together with Nokai on Shanji. There is another step in your lineage to be achieved. I'll be back when you need me. 

For one instant, Yesui's mind seemed fuzzy, as if a part of her had wandered away, and when clarity returned it was with a sense of loss, of being alone again in the blackness of space. What an experience, she thought. I've actually touched the creative part of my mind. What insights could I achieve if I could control its comings and goings? 

She was happy and excited. She rushed first to Nokai, then to her brother, telling them about what she'd done. Nokai listened quietly without understanding, but putting his faith in her and showering her with wonderful feelings that held her lovingly for long moments. Mengjai was truly excited, but busy, and their conversation was short.

You've probably been developing this for years, Yesui, and now that it's ready, you're conscious of it. I must give you credit for a marvelous achievement. Now, when can we try it on my ship? 

I have to practice first. The range of the wave is energy dependent and I have to learn how to gauge and control that. Do you think a lifeform could be hurt by moving it this way? 

I doubt it, not physically, anyway. There's no real acceleration involved. When you're ready, we'll start with a little jump, if Father will agree. I'll talk to him. 

Mengjai was gone, and Yesui went back to play in the great cloud of icy debris surrounding Tengri-Nayon, but as she searched for a new toy there was once again a sense of loneliness. She had touched a part of herself she had never experienced before, and already she was missing it.

 

Nine wedge-shaped ships assembled in a vee formation spanning a hundred kilometers, and began moving towards Lan-Sui City only twenty hours after Lingdan Zedenbal had received his call. Each ship pushed a small mountain of rock, iron, and frozen gases twice its size, while on-board computers calculated and refined trajectories. After four hours of constant pushing, the ships moved back from their missiles, then went in several times to nudge them into corrected trajectories convergent on the city. Now they were backed off again, flying in formation with mountains.

Lingdan Zedenbal sat in the Captain's chair to eat a light lunch and keep his eyes on the forward observing screen, now filled with the roiling surface of Lan-Sui. Intercept time was less than forty hours away. "The planet looks ready to boil," he muttered. "There's the real threat to the city."

Ral Darpo, his co-pilot, chewed thoughtfully. "I can think of safer places to live, but the moons should be safe, don't you think?"

"Sure, once we stop Yesugen. Thinking of your wife again?"

"Yes—and the kids. You don't have a family, Captain?"

"Not yet," said Lingdan, "but I've got my eye on a little brunette in Lan-Sui City."

Darpo frowned at him. "Don't you worry about her? I mean, what we're doing here, you know, it could—"

"Yesugen's ships will take these big rocks out long before they reach the city, Ral. Don't worry about it."

A long pause, then, "The men are talking. Some say we're on a suicide mission."

"Hmm," said Lingdan. "I'd better talk to them again. Orders are to fly escort until Yesugen's ships move, and then we get out of there. I thought I made that clear. Do you believe in what we're doing, Ral?"

"Yes, sir! I don't want my family touched by those monsters!"

"Try not to think about it, and relax. About another thirty-six hours should do it, and then we'll get the—"

The entire observing screen was suddenly filled with incredibly bright, purple light that illuminated their compartment without shadows, and seared their eyes.

Lingdan's eyes watered, and he closed them tightly, bright spots of purple and blue floating in darkness. When he opened them again, all seemed normal: Lan-Sui's roiling surface there, the distant edge of the inner ring disappearing behind it, otherwise only black space.

"What in Mother's name was that!" said Darpo, rubbing his eyes.

"I don't know," said Lingdan, his fingers moving over his console. "Sensors okay. Something internal, maybe. A power surge."

Everything checked out, and Lingdan relaxed, but then the other pilots called in to say they'd seen the same thing on their screens, and it bothered him.

It bothered him a great deal for the rest of their mission.