“Oh. Huh.” Puck glanced at his nexus screen. “Don’t get many of those.” He continued to scroll through the holographic display as they walked, expertly sidestepping oncoming soldiers. “Damn, that’s a lot of degrees. How long’d you go to school for?”
Cavalon paused to dodge an approaching soldier, then jogged a few steps to catch back up. “Ten years.”
“Damn,” he said with a laugh, flicking through more pages. “Astrophysics with a minor in ‘gravitational tempology’？ What even is that?”
“A way to stay at university another year.”
“Ahh.” Puck chuckled and closed his nexus. “Well, shit, recruit. Other than Mesa, you’re probably the smartest one here.”
“Mesa?”
“She runs the Viator tech research lab.”
“You’ve got a research lab?”
Puck nodded. “Oh yeah, they love to ship us every piece of random tech they don’t understand and see if it’ll kill us. Gives us somethin’ to do, I guess.”
They came to the end of the hall, which culminated in a wide, circular corridor. Cavalon followed Puck toward a railing overlooking an open atrium, four deep stories descending below them.
“Welcome to the amidship vestibule.” Puck leaned on the rail with both elbows. “There’s one aft and forward as well, but they don’t really bother maintaining the lifts on those. I suggest you frequent these central ones if you don’t wanna get stuck in an elevator for half a day.”
“Uh, good to know…”
Puck gestured over his shoulder. “That was Novem Sector, crew quarters, if you couldn’t tell. Right below us are Octo and Septem—weapons control and the armory, sensors, shields, ECM suites. All the shit we don’t use anymore.”
Cavalon gripped the metal railing, leaning over to peer down the circular atrium as a draft of cool air wafted from below.
“Bottom deck’s Quince,” Puck continued, “home to the hangar where the Tempus docks—that’s the ship that rides the Divide.”
Cavalon quirked a brow. “Ride it? You mean travel along it?”
“Yep.”
“And they’re doing what exactly?”
“Ya know, keepin’ an eye out for all those Viator ships trying to cross over from the other side.” Puck flashed a toothy grin.
Cavalon sighed. Despite things like logic and reason, the colloquial myth persisted that the Viators had “come from” the other side of the Divide when they arrived in humanity’s sector of space thousands of years ago. But the idea that anything lay beyond had been disproved centuries ago when the System Collective commissioned a series of exploration missions “beyond the edge.” Suffice it to say, the contractors were never heard from again. So either there was something really great on the other side and no one had felt like coming back, or, far more likely, they all died.
However, when one of the lucky crews chickened out at the last minute, they discovered that if you flew parallel with it instead of perpendicular, the concentrated gravity comprising the invisible barrier acted like a runway of sorts. They realized it could be “traveled on”—almost like falling into an orbit, albeit a strangely linear orbit that created its own momentum, involving gravity so dense it bent space-time. The phenomenon must have been what this ship of theirs utilized in order to “ride” the Divide.
That anecdote comprised pretty much the entirety of Cavalon’s knowledge on the topic—his formal education had barely touched on that bit of theoretical physics. Back home, back at the Core, the Divide acted as more a vague concept than any kind of reality. Peo ple rarely spoke of it in any tangible way—maybe a passing mention during a drunken philosophical debate, or in a threat from an angry parent to an unruly child. Not a real place, where real people lived. So, despite being here, physically, for many painful and humiliating hours, it all still felt like some kind of hazy dream.