When I was thirteen, I started having strange dreams. Dreams of the dying sun and of artifacts I somehow knew had never been made by humans. Of flying through space when I’d never been on a spaceship. I told my father, and he told me to keep the dreams to myself. I’m not sure why; maybe he thought my mom wouldn’t like it. She can be a little strange about me on my good days—the last thing she needed was a reminder that I’m less than perfect.
My father was assassinated two years later—the worst day of my life—and I’ve still never told anyone else about the dreams.
The sphere is about the height of a three-story building, and not opaque, as I first thought, but vaguely translucent, though I can’t see inside. There’s a motif right in the center facing me—it looks like a star surrounded by a circle. I’ve dreamed of that image before as well, and a shiver of something ripples through me.
The laboratory is filled with technicians in form-fitting black lab suits, all moving purposefully around the sphere. Guards are stationed at regular points at the periphery of the room, and they all have laser pistols and electric batons—is the doctor expecting trouble?
Scaffolding has been set up beside the sphere. Technicians swarm over it, taking readings from various points of the surface. Others are moving around it with equipment and HUDs. More techs bearing the insignia of the Corporation work at consoles around the room.
It’s the most intense laboratory I’ve ever been inside, and I can’t help wondering what exactly it is Dr. Veragelen thinks she has here. Or, more important—what she thinks it does.
Is that why all the guards are so heavily armed? Because she thinks it’s valuable enough to be dangerous?
A combination of fear and excitement skates along my spine, has my breath catching in my throat. Is this it? Is this sphere, or whatever it is, what we’ve been looking for all along?
Lara must be thinking the same thing, because she leans close to my ear and whispers, “What do you think it is?”
“I have no clue.” But that’s not entirely true. It’s an alien artifact. A big one.
This is freaking amazing. And suddenly, my fingers itch with an almost overwhelming urge to move closer. To touch it.
“Well, it’s clearly very impressive,” Ambassador Kellarp says, smiling to show her red-stained teeth. “But what is it?”
“It’s a heptosphere,” the man accompanying the high priestess answers in a voice devoid of emotion. “It’s from the Ancients.”
I’ve never heard the term heptosphere before, but hearing him confirm what I already suspected about the Ancients has me turning to study him. And I’m not the only one. For the first time since we got to the Caelestis, Dr. Veragelen looks almost…pleased.
“It is, indeed.” She beams at the man like he’s her star pupil. “And you are?”
“I’m Merrick, ma’am. Of the Sisterhood of the Light. Secondary delegate from Serati.”
I cast him a quick glance. Up to now, I’ve avoided looking at him too closely, scared I’ll end up staring. Because with his tall, lean body, tan skin, and platinum hair, he reminds me so much of my father that it makes my heart ache. My father was the best person I’ve ever known, and I still miss him every single day.
I push the memories to the back of my mind and drag myself into the present. “Where did you find it?” I ask.
And why haven’t I heard of it before? Surely my mother would have told me about something as amazing as the heptosphere if she’d known about it. And if she doesn’t know that it exists, then Dr. Veragelen is about to have a lot of very uncomfortable questions to answer.
“It was discovered on Askkandia nearly twenty years ago,” she answers me. “Deep in the Rodos Mountains. For some reason, after what we believe is centuries—if not longer—hidden underground, it started emitting some sort of signal, which we picked up. Excavating it and getting it off-planet was quite the challenge. The Empress had to send in her best research and construction teams to help us. The Caelestis was designed and built specifically to conduct research into the heptosphere.”
So my mother does know about it. But why wouldn’t she tell me before now? She knows how interested I am in the Ancients—and in finding a way to save our system.
Then again, the Empress does whatever the hell the Empress wants to do. Maybe she had a reason for not telling me, or maybe she didn’t. All I know is that this trip is raising a lot more questions than it’s giving answers.
“But what does it do?” Ambassador Terra demands.
The entire room seems to hold its breath as we wait for the scientist to answer.
For the first time, she looks a little unsure. “We don’t actually know.” She holds up a hand as murmurs of disappointment ripple through the lab. “But our research has strongly suggested that it holds the key to revitalizing our dying sun.”
“So this is it?” Ambassador Kellarp says. “This is what you’ll use to save us?”
“It is,” Dr. Veragelen confirms, her tone confident. “We are at the point of uncovering all its secrets, and soon we’ll be in control of its formidable powers.”
“Good luck with that,” Merrick mutters.
His voice is emotionless, but his hands are fisted at his sides, and I sense he’s more shocked than he wants to give away. Of course he’s upset. The Sisterhood of the Light has spent the last several millennia praying for nothing more than the dying of the sun…so they can save us all. Now everyone else is trying to stop it first.
It’s the central tenet of their religion—the welcoming of the Dying Sun—derived from the civilization that seems to have inhabited this system before us. The Ancients, as the Sisterhood calls them, left remnants of an advanced civilization across the nine planets, though mainly concentrated on Serati, the closest planet to the sun and the one most…uncomfortable for human life.
From their studies of that alien civilization, early Seratians deduced that the Ancients were the creators of the system, and they came to believe that at some point, the sun would fail but the Ancients would return to our system in order to bring it back to life and save us all. A religious group developed, the Sisterhood of the Light, claiming the Dying Sun would bring a time of great change and enlightenment, even foretelling the return of the Ancients.
Of course, no one actually knew when the sun was supposed to die—but no time soon. And so, not worth worrying about. In truth, many planets—especially the ones more hospitable to human life, like Askkandia—didn’t have much of a Sisterhood presence at all. While Askkandian children grew up with legends of the Dying Sun, they were considered more fantasy than prophecy. Then, two decades ago, everything changed. Was this around the time the heptosphere turned up? I wonder.
Even though the consequences were immediate and dire, like destruction of ecosystems, declining agriculture, and increasing solar flares, the Sisterhood proclaimed it a miracle, the answer to their prayers, and that we needed to have faith and all would be revealed. People from across the seven inhabited planets started converting in droves.
The Sisterhood isn’t commenting on that.