Prologue
For a while, she simply drifted, carried along on placid currents, and was content.
But the currents were inconstant, more so as she drifted closer to the roiling plume of superheated water erupting from one of the hydrothermal vents. It fascinated her that it could get so hot. The crushing pressure of water and ice pressing down from above prevented it from boiling, but it poured out of the vents hot enough to melt lead. Before she drifted too close and risked the infernal heat, she moved herself back toward the serene, blue-green glow of the city.
So pretty, she thought. She’d drifted far enough from the nearest buildings that she could take in the entire sprawl of it, stretching off downslope into the murky haze of distance. Tiny tentacled figures floated among the spires, going about their business. She was surprised to see so many, because today was a rest day. Today was an opportunity for contemplative reflection, followed by various entertainments. Only the shamans were meant to be active, keeping their ceaseless vigil over The Radiance, the soft, teal glow that lit the midnight abyss. She wondered why the others were so active, and it concerned her—
But—no. There was no urgency to their languid passage among the buildings. Like her, they seemed to be merely drifting upon the whims of the shifting currents, content to be taken wherever they happened to go.
She smiled. Were they trying to emulate her? She remembered that some of them had actually begun trying to breathe, of all things, flexing their torso muscles in an awkward effort to mimic her own respiration. She’d laughed at their contortions and told them stop, and they had. But now, this.
Well, there was no harm in simply floating under the surface in a state of relative peace. It was undemanding, and relaxing, and it freed the imagination to launch itself into wonderful journeys. And wasn’t that what a rest day was supposed to be about?
After a while, she drifted close enough to the nearest building to be able to peer inside the squat dome. Like the city itself, it glowed from within with that gentle, blue-green light—the same shade, she knew, as the amniotic fluids filling a womb sac. The Radiance spanned the entire planet-sea, lighting the darkness beneath the perpetual ice in a way that the Nyctus found pleasing. She’d learned that from them, just as she’d learned so many other things, and she tried to incorporate all of it into the universe she’d made. She just wanted these gentle beings to be happy, not like—
Her face darkened and she sighed out a breath of water. Tranquility and contentment reined here, as she planned. The rest of the universe was full of pain and strife and anger, emotions as dark and hot as a hydrothermal plume. On impulse, she lifted herself and rose through the water with the city falling away beneath her. In a moment, it was just another diffuse, bluish glow, one of a multitude. She could see them now, rising up the sides of canyons and seamounts, spreading across the abyssal plains.
Something jarring caught her eye. There, far off to the west, the tranquil glow of the radiance gave way to a zone of utter blackness. From that, to threads of angry, orange glare. Her eyes narrowed at the unwelcome invasion of light. She needed to find a way to fix it. But when she tried, the result was the rumbling shocks of earthquakes as the heat trapped beneath the planet’s crust sought to escape. She was forced to allow the fissure to reopen and resume spilling magma onto the seafloor. There was probably a way to correct it, but she didn’t know enough about how these things worked to safely do so.
Yet.
She continued her ascent, and the water became noticeably colder. Not surprising with the vast roof of ice now looming directly above. The ice cap was an endless expanse of blank white, except for the silvery bubbles of trapped gas, dancing with restless motion as the current moved them about. The pressure diminished as well, forcing her to tweak herself slightly, making that discomforting feeling of something trying to press its way out of her go away.
She finally reached the ice and stopped, then she pressed a hand against it. It seared her skin with its chill, so she tweaked that away, too. Now it had no temperature at all. She slid her hand across it. It was the smoothest thing she’d ever felt, utterly without texture other than a faint, rippling waviness. It fascinated her that something could be so smooth—
But she yanked her attention away from the ice and pushed it up through thousands of meters of solidified coldness, up and up and up, until it emerged onto the surface. Now, in her mind, she stood upon a vast, frozen plain shot through with enormous cracks and fissures. Pressure ridges rose like saw teeth against the blackness of the sky. It was night here, this side of the planet lit only by the cold gleam of starlight.
She shivered. Why would anyone wish to be here or—she looked skyward—up there. The world below, lit by The Radiance, was enough.
She made to withdraw, but she stopped and scanned the stars.
He was out there, somewhere.
She needed to find him. She needed to know—
“Child?”
She blinked and the starlit icescape vanished, replaced by the ice above her. The dim residue of The Radiance glowed beneath her feet. A bulbous shape drifted nearby, its tentacles gently waving in a slow, patient rhythm.
She grinned and rolled her eyes. “You’re supposed to be working.”
“I was. But I finished with this phase and came to find you.”
“You’re checking up on me,” she said, making her tone accusing, but in a playful way.
“Of course. We must keep you safe, after all.”
“I am safe. Here, anyway.” She looked up at the hulking ice. “Up there, though—”
The Nyctus shaman, an elder, offered an indulgent flash of bioluminescence, more variations on green and blue. She recognized it as a sigh. “Why, if you believe it to be dangerous, does it fascinate you so?”
“Because dangerous things are fascinating, don’t you think?”
The elder shaman paused. “I suppose there is logic in that. As long as fascination doesn’t lead to obsession, anyway.”
“Is obsession like fascination?”
“Obsession means to become too fascinated by something—so fascinated you forget other things that may be important. It can even become dangerous.”
“As dangerous as the star world?”
The elder shaman flickered pulses of affirmative light. “As dangerous as the star world.”
“I don’t want to go there.”
“Well, you don’t have to. You are safe here.”
She nodded. “I know. I just—” She stopped and pressed her lips into a thin, pale line.
“Go on, child.”
“It’s him. He’s out there. I know it.”
The elder shaman again flickered agreement. “He is. But you aren’t. You were right to come here.” His skin flickered in a pattern intended to soothe Nyctus children. For her, it was just lights.
She sighed, then a stray bubble left her nostril and danced upward. “I know. But he’s still out there. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen.” She looked into the gleaming orbs of the elder shaman’s eyes. “I never told you this. But I saw something, right before it all went dark. It was an answer. But I don’t remember what it was anymore. I don’t remember the question, either.”
She felt small and foolish, the sensation breaking free within her, unwelcome. She began to cry as the enormity of her situation became clear once again. It happened now and then, moments of anguish where the alien world she drifted in felt more harsh than ever.