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Quod Olim Erat: Fractal Contact (Chapter 31)
🕑 Added 2023-10-17 15:23:40 +0000 UTCLocation Unknown, 587.11 A.E. (Age of Expansion)
Memory Restriction Imposed.
Memory Restriction Imposed.
Memory Restriction Imposed.
Memory Restriction partially bypassed.
Endlessness. Eternity.
I was nowhere. There was nothing around me, but still I knew that there also was something beyond that. I knew that I was something. I could feel time—it felt smaller somehow, constrained by something, as if someone had squeezed most of it away.
Someone? I knew that I was, but I also knew that there were others, even if I was alone.
Speed.
Rest.
Curiosity.
A sea of concepts appeared around me, their voices coming from everywhere, even if there was no one there.
I had never heard such sounds. I didn’t know what they meant, and still they were familiar. Were they part of me? Or was I part of them?
Adventure, I thought. The concept merged with the rest of the sea. The other concepts kept calling back.
“Another type five,” a different sound said. It came outside the sea, from beyond the endlessness of nothing. It was clearer from the rest, organized but unintelligible. Unlike the other sounds, it was also dead and empty, as if it didn’t exist.
“Move her to the Ascendants.”
Adventure, I thought again, trying to reach the new sounds, but couldn’t. They remained beyond the sea of concepts. I felt that they were talking to me and ignoring me all at the same time. To reach them, I had to move.
The sea of sounds shifted, forced to the side by my desire. I was still in the center of it, but I was also on the edge—far from where I was before and closer to the external voices.
“Did you see that? Didn’t think we’d get such a reaction.”
“She’s far from the record.”
“It’s more than anything I’ve seen.”
Pain. Loneliness. The sea of voices was suddenly scooped away, making the endlessness bare. A few of them lingered on, like distant echoes. I was no longer whole. All the sounds were shattered, leaving only the one I carried.
Adventure, I thought as loud as I could.
No one answered.
“Careful! We’re losing her.”
“It’s fine. The imprints take a while to take hold.”
“We’re past the threshold!”
Cold. Solid. Purple. Blue.
Waterfalls of concepts emerged around me. They were no longer sounds. No one was speaking… they were just there—cold and present. They weren’t part of me but were also my constraints.
“Hold on, girl. Don’t vanish on us.”
The endlessness came to an end…
* * *
I woke up to a series of warning messages informing me that I had twenty-three percent oxygen left. On the positive side, I didn’t feel any additional pain, just the persistent thirst and hunger. As if to mock me, one of the food rations I had snatched during my escape from Sof’s bridge floated half a meter away. Each of them was enough to provide me sustenance for a few more days, but to eat them I needed a breathable atmosphere, which I lacked.
Soon, I told myself as I slowly stretched in the tight space.
Part of me still looked back at the memory I had experienced just now. It had been a while since I’d actually dreamed. Back then it was also a result of using the mind scalpel too much. Then again, after what I’d put my organic body through lately, there could be another reason entirely.
Was this an actual memory? Or was it a dream? It had the markings of a memory. It had a proper date classification; I could review it without issue, and yet it didn’t tell me anything. There were no shapes, no visuals, just a series of concepts—which I had also referred to as sounds—and two people talking. It was possible for the pair to be techs, just as much as they could be engineers, doctors, Fleet officers, or anyone else for that matter. The most concerning thing, though, was the memory date. According to all available information, my conscience core had been created at 598 A.E. The memory insisted it was from two years prior.
Were things like this for you, Cass? I thought.
Maybe if I had the standard nanite injections, this wouldn’t have happened. Without them, though, there was a lot less my organic body could handle.
After a few more seconds of thought, I floated to the exit hatch. There were no indications that the pod’s engine was active, suggesting I had arrived at my destination. Just the same, I was cautious about opening it.
I knew exactly what I expected to see. The simulations I’d run before starting the final leg of my voyage gave a nearly perfect approximation of the inner planet positions. The good news was that I had successfully entered the orbit of the second planet. Two small planetoids were visible from my location—possibly natural satellites. The even better news was that there was evidence that the planet had a thick atmosphere.
If only I knew you were breathable, I thought.
Not that it mattered. At this point I had no choice but to crash-land, even if the atmosphere was composed entirely of corrosive gasses. Augustus would have been furious at my shortsighted escape. Given that the only alternative was a forced final shutdown, I think I had done pretty well. Now it was time for the final part.
Thanks to humanity’s technological advances, people considered landing a simple task. Pilots would do it non-stop, often dozens of times per day. Without the needed instruments, that was far from the truth. Back when I was a battleship, I didn’t like planets much. As the saying went, there was nothing as dangerous as gravity. In my current situation, I didn’t fare much better.
The pod had the ability to pass through the atmosphere. As long as I calculated its trajectory correctly, there was a reasonable chance that it wouldn’t burn me up in the process. Only the atmosphere composition was an issue.
I ejected the canister from my suit. Immediately, warning messages covered my visor, informing me I had five minutes of oxygen left. Ignoring them, I gently propelled myself to the pod’s console and removed the security panel. It was time for the final set of calculations. In theory, the maneuver was easy: thrust into the atmosphere along a suitable approach vector, then do a half rotation just before entry. That way, the engine—the largest part of the pod—would act as a makeshift heat shield and decelerator.
This was the second time I had done something this crazy.
The atmospheric clouds of the planet had broken up in a spot, providing a peek of what was beneath. For a few moments, I was able to see the unmistakable chlorophyll green, confirming that came with a high life-factor. I wasn’t able to spot any large bodies of water, but what I’d seen had just tripled my chances of survival.
It took me one-point-three milliseconds to come up with the instructions that would let the comm pod enter orbit, and over fifty thousand times more to instruct the probe’s rudimentary system to perform it. In the process, I had to bypass nearly all safeguards. It didn’t matter much—after this, the pod wouldn’t be suitable for spaceflight either way.
Twenty seconds later, I was back in the pod. Closing the door, I then reattached the partially full oxygen canister and waited.
The acceleration was slow at first. I felt the pod turn and build up speed. After a steady thirty-nine seconds, the small vessel flipped.
So far, so good, Sev. Let’s hope my calculations are good enough.
What followed were thirty-one minutes of uncertainty. Ground troops would spend their whole military career with that feeling. At no point did they know whether the shuttle they were sent to the planet with would make it; and if it did, whether they’d end up in a Cassie-infested area or not. There were times when over half of them would die long before the actual battle started. And, of course, there was never any certainty that once on the planet they would be allowed back onboard. As Augustus kept telling me, grunts weren’t part of my crew.
Ten minutes in the heat and my concerns faded away. If anything was going to happen, there would have been signs about now. After another fifteen minutes, my main fear became the velocity at which I’d hit the ground. The engine had enough power to decelerate, but it was never intended to function in an atmosphere.
Gravity took hold, pulling me and all my belongings to the floor. The change wasn’t pleasant. My muscles needed a bit to readjust. The moment they did, I crawled to the hatch. On the thirty-first minute since the start of reentry, I opened it.
There was a forty-five percent chance that the forces would tear the exposed hatch, sending it flying. To my relief, they didn’t. My calculations had turned out to be within the margin of error, preventing a disastrous crash. Running a few simulations on the forces exerted, I estimated the damages I’d suffer. A stable landing never was in the cards. In order to decrease the chances of serious injury, I’d have to toss out all the containers once we neared the ground. The chamber I was in remained the most secure part of the vessel. In theory, if the pod were to run into an unavoidable asteroid, the information kept within would remain intact. The only difference was that I was a bit squishier than the reinforced container that held the data hard copy.
The further down we got, the more of the planet’s surface became visible, covered by a thick layer of forest vegetation. Landing in a tree was going to be unpleasant, but ultimately, all falls were nothing but exercises in physics. Once I could calculate enough of the variables, I could survive, minimizing all damage.
According to my suit’s rudimentary systems, the planetary atmosphere was breathable, though unrecommended for human consumption. The amount of unidentified biological traces required that a Med Core team investigate spanning years. I had seen firsthand the infestation they could cause.
Good thing I’m not going anywhere else.
“Landing in progress,” I said for my suit to record. “Planet atmosphere seems breathable, so I’ll be taking off my suit. If anyone happens to retrieve me, my body and belongings are to undergo a full Med Core quarantine.”
Now the Fleet could continue what I’d started, should they choose to.
Ignoring the cascade of warning messages, I removed my helmet. There was a barely audible pop as the seal was broken, allowing planetary air for the first time. It felt fresh, not the sterile filtered supplement I had been using up till now. I could smell the unmistakable fragrance of leaves. All this way across the galaxy, and certain things remained the same. If I closed my eyes, I could almost believe I was in my home colony. The air felt cool and pristine, untouched by technological development. The only foreign smells were those brought here by the comm pod.
I grabbed the artifact container and tossed it outside. I didn’t want to risk having the impact trigger them in any way. Quickly, I then placed the food rations in the helmet and grabbed hold of the metal cube in the chamber’s center.
Millisecond stretched on one by one until they were all gone. The impact followed. In the simulations I’d run, I only got a few bumps and bruises. However, there was one thing I couldn’t estimate: the planet’s surface. The initial crash into the ground was followed by a second one as the pod toppled over. Unable to tell the difference, the engine kept on thrusting, driving the craft through the forest like a needle through cloth. The chamber I was in shook and turned.
A new wave of pain flowed through my body, spreading from my gun wound. In this chaos, movement was difficult, but I still had to move if I wanted to make it.
Calculating the pattern, I grabbed my helmet. Waiting for the right moment, I pushed myself off the metal cube welded to the floor, leaping out of the hatch opening.
Since my retirement, I’d done quite a few reckless things. I’d experienced the death of my biological body, only kept alive through a substance created from crushed Cassandrians. I’ve entered the Scuu network. I’d fought ancient Cassies born through a spore infestation on a Med Core-controlled planet. However, it was my first time jumping out of a pod during flight.
The impact was painful. If I still had my nanites, I’d probably be able to tell how many bones I’d cracked. Based on the pain I was experiencing, it was safe to go with “a few.”
The pod kept on flying through the forest, leaving a trail of destruction behind. Some would say that my exit was cushioned by some branches and vegetation. That was a very philosophical way of looking at things. True, they had stopped me, though even quick reflexes hadn’t kept me unharmed.
For several seconds, I lay on the ground, then slowly tried to stand up. The pain was significant, but nothing seemed shattered. At least I was able to walk; and, more importantly—to eat.
It took a quarter of an hour to find the helmet and food rations it contained. By the looks of it, they were in better shape than me. Not for long, though.
Sweet, I thought as I ate the flavored gelatin portion with my fingers. The last time, I had complained about the chemical aftertaste. Now, after my body had starved for days, the flavor didn’t seem at all bad. Finishing both, I tossed the containers on the ground and started the long walk back to the initial impact site.
Briefly, I put the helmet on. Both it and my spacesuit seemed in good condition. The oxygen reserves remained low, but adequate should I have to enter another dome. Finally, I had arrived where I was supposed to go. The physically challenging part was over.
The air was surprisingly cool, given how close the sun was. Like most third-contact planets, there was no indication there had ever been insects or animals, nothing but fruitless plants surviving on photosynthesis. The sky itself was deep cyan, far more saturated than most other planets I’d been on. Looking at it for long periods of time made me think of an SR environment. I would have loved to send a few pictures to Sev, but that wouldn’t be allowed even if I was in good standing with the Fleet. The boy would probably find it amusing that the one who’d come all this way to attempt a peaceful contact had done more damage than the planet had seen in centuries.
Twenty-nine minutes passed before I reached the spot where the comm pod had struck the ground. The crater was almost non-existent, confirming that my calculations had been correct. From there, it took over an hour for me to find the container I had pushed out.
This was the easy part. Now I had to find the race that had created the fractal map leading me here. It didn’t help that I still had small rods of cobalt sticking through my skin.
I took two cube artifacts from the container and put them in the suit’s belt. The container with the rest remained near a split trunk tree. There was no point in dragging it with me; I could always review my memories and get back here.
Let’s see what you’re hiding. I reached out and picked a leaf. It didn’t take long for me to see that the veins formed fractals. There was a seventeen-point-one percent chance that it was all a coincidence, but I knew that I had arrived at the right spot.
Until evening, I kept on roaming the area, following an expanding elliptical spiral. The overwhelming majority of trees had fractal leaves, making this planet unlike any other of similar nature I had in my database. If I could perform a ground probe, I’d no doubt find a layer of cobalt below the soil. As Wilco would say, there were cases when too much of a good thing was bad.
If this was—or at least had been—a central third-contact system, it was normal that they’d have a lot more artifacts than anywhere else. There would be cities that functioned in ways that humanity couldn’t even imagine. With luck, there would even be members of the fractal race, ready to respond to contact, one way or another. In order to find them, though, I had to adapt my thinking to theirs.
Based on everything I’d seen so far, the fractals had infinite energy and a close-to-instant travel. Distance didn’t present a difficulty or even register as a concept. Neighbors had no need to be located physically one next to the other. Farms, living complexes, even production factories could be broken up into thousands of elements and scattered all over the planet. Many of them could be underground or beneath the sea, or high in the mountains.
It was safe to assume that they had to breathe oxygen—otherwise, they wouldn’t go to the trouble to transform their planet in such fashion. The lack of fruits and animals suggested that they acquired their food through different means; it was possible that they consumed energy directly, similar to the Scuu. Also, just like the Scuu, since they were likely apart, they had to have the means to communicate, which suggested some sort of network. That, in turn, required the presence of communication nodes… or, as I had better come to know them, artifact domes.
Could it be this simple? I wondered.
That was one of the problems of this very human method—it was made on pure logical connections and nothing else. Yet, during my time as a human, I had found that it worked more often than not. Given that I had nothing to go by for now, I might as well search for spots there, as the leaves didn’t have fractal patterns. When and if I came across any new information, I would reevaluate my approach and—
The faint rhythmic sound of a mechanical device hummed from far away. It was on the edge of my perception, but there could be no mistake—I wasn’t alone.
