11. There was only One higher than Daniel and it was rumored that Daniel knew The One personally. 

14. Somewhere 'out there' the Mind of God was at work.

15. He returned to his couch and closed his eyes, "Now, where was I..."   "Where were we?" the Angel corrected, "... we were talking about the notorious 'guardian of God," he reminded him.  "Ahhh yes," Daniel remembered, "the anti-being..." 

IN COUNSEL

16. The council chamber was demurely lit with built-in other-worldly appointments. 

19.  This particular crowd was entirely too composed to respond in haste; a seemingly arrogant non-response that was also a conversational norm.  Where traditions go, the chamber and all of the caverns in Sunova had been hewn by an ancient 'light race' when the orb traversed more hospitable space.  When their energy-bodies became uncomfortable under the changed astral condition -- they left.  The Light Race and Angels are not the same. 

20. "Where is he?" Agent K asked from the opposite end of the table.  Were it not for the tilting of his head -- the sound source would have been untraceable.  The hyper-dense reinfused rock lent a curious quality to acoustics on Sunova.  Without assistive technology, sound would not reach the end of a hallway.    

21. "Earth," the vice-chair answered, "Somewhere in 2012, their time," she said.  The irrelevancy of time on Sunova made refrences to time sound like turning pages in a book:  Page 2012, in some volume on some rock in another Universe and paradigm.  It was clear that this bunch did not 'react' to detail -- they 'made' the details.       

22.  Potential energy equals kinetic energy squared.  Corlos ran on Kolob Standard Time. 

27.  For not looking very lively, this bunch had a razor sharp focus and accuracy to match.  Those two qualities were the threads that held Corlos together, not to suggest that 'accuracy' and 'flawless' are empirical synonyms. 

28. "Does anyone have an objection or see any reason why we should not proceed with the investigation?"  B'jhon asked, as a necessary protocol. 

29.  Nobody said a word, which was normal.  If someone wished to speak -- they were free to do so.

30.  He gave one final sweep of the room and locked in the consensus:  For bareing the weight of so much, they said so little.        

31. "Then Onimex is hereby reactivated to conduct the investigation.  Wexli, do it to it.  Meeting adjourned."  Some agents still blinked their eyes as if an invisible gavel had smacked the table. 

ON EARTH

33. She had fallen asleep on her couch at work with Dow's blessing.  As Earth's only biocybergenicist, she could write her own ticket and nap whenever she damn well pleased. 

34. Fourty-nine years is a long time.  "Corlos is attempting to contact you," Onimex interrupted.  "Are you in my dream again?" she asked.  "Evidently," he replied.  "Can't you just relay a message?" she asked.  The flies in her subconscience were getting really irritating.  Some aspect of ancient truth was invading her reality, unconscious or not. 

35. "Is this dream really so wonderful that you can't speak to Daniel?" he asked somewhat facetiously.  

36.  She woke up, and he knew that she would.   If he had been biological, she might have smacked him for being right. 

40.  "Ireana?" Daniel said through Onimex's relay.     

43. "Understood," she said.   Daniel was never one for excessive elocution -- she had survived her share of Corlos meetings.

44. "He'll return as soon as he's done," Daniel assured her.  She understood why Onimex had to wake her up -- a formal dispatch was necessary since it was a legal proceeding.  A tribunal must have been established, she presumed. 

45. As the guarantor of justice at the proceeding, Corlos could not send field operatives as a matter of jurisprudence.  Technically Corlos didn't exist anyway.

46. Ireana's self discipline had responded.  Now the rest of her was merging into the moment.  It had been a long time since she had an audience with Daniel.  "You're released for this assignment," she instructed Onimex.  Her intonation had 49 years worth of rust, but Onimex understood the secret sorceress perfectly.  "Quit calling me that," she scolded him psionically... something that Dayton had started.  

ONIMEX ENROUTE

52. Onimex was the most low maintenance droid ever assembled and he knew it.  He could run his own diagnostics and repair his ailments long before they had a chance to mestastasize.  If necessary, he could revert to the moment before a critical fault transpired, and prevent the fault from happening.  He had enhanced his self-preservation protocols above and beyond his initial programming. 

53.  He had virtually no moving parts; could transmute ambient matter to synthesize tools as needed, and expended negligible resources to maintain total in-flight integrity.  He was perpetually powered by static energy amplifiers that never needed assisted maintenance. 

54.  He was the savant among savants.    

55.  His calculations of intra-time velocities and stellar trajectories required layered quantum slip dynamics that changed from point to point... and the points fluctuated.  Xanax told Dayton once, "Imagine trying to quantify a specific molecule within a specific gallon of water in an ocean on some other planet."        

56.  He had to add several chaos streams to cancel random deviations.  

57.  The only quantity that Onimex feared was absolute zero, and he had 1,000+ ways to avoid such.   

58.  He spun a transdimensional reverse-wave to have him arrive at Vejhon, index 19,363 Dans around Kolob, the nearest major star. 

59.  "Thought is faster than time, and thought can be banked," he knew.  

60.  Time is a thematic wavelength that makes matter visible; a canvas upon which motion occurs.  "Consciousness requires time."  Onimex habitually transposed objects into an Elliptical view.      

61.  The Ellipsis represents a 10-part construct in which the Universe unfolds.  The Ellipsis unifies time and purpose specifically among sentient machines.  

62.  Because perfectly balanced forces have a net movement of zero, time becomes the creative power in which motion occurs.  The consequence for violating stasis is action.    

64.  "Some philosophies believe that life was created by thought; that God's Name is, 'I AM;' ... that at the intersection of Tetragammaton and The Ellipsis is:  HE."   He had gleaned that from a Rabbi somewhere, he just didn't remember which one.  

65.  "Earth has too many teachers, and too few students," Onimex thought.  He was approaching Vejhon and had to start slowing down.  There was only one person who knew him better than Ireana, and that person was already here, but in a different time. 

ABOVE VEJHON

66. He paused in Vejhon's upper orbit to authenticate his arrival.  He was at the right place, but needed to confirm 'when.'   

67. The first 1,000 checks of 10,000 options confirmed a 100% match.  The remaining 9,000 options were discarded.      

69. Moderate population. Lower mid-orbital strata contains an aqueous layer that surrounds the entire planet.  

70. An additional ocean's worth of moisture saturates the air:  Vaporized molecules return to the shell while heavier droplets form expected precipitation in the lower stratas.    

71. The watershell contains an additional ocean's worth of water, measuring one meter thick at 35 miles above the surface; a perfect centrifugal stasis that results in anamorphic memory:  Any type of penetration is automatically resealed. 

74.  "Everything lines up," he logged, "I'm going in..."  For it's brevity, he had also completed 100,000 calculations and incidental observations as well.    
     

THE SURFACE

75. He slipped beneath the watershell and a stunning panorama of emerald forests, shimmering blue lakes, oceans and majestic mountains appeared below.  

76. The sparkling shades of green accented by crystal streams and tastefully dispersed population centers had a celestial affect on the soul.  This was everything that a mystical paradise should look like.  The air was crisp with color and light that made Vejhon look alive and magical.

77. There was one well lit metropolis that served as the center of commerce and seat of Government:  Balipor.  The city had already fallen into night.

80. Onimex descended toward a thickly vegetated ravine wedged inbetween two mountains.  An eclectic sample of Vejhonian topography was nestled in this ravine; dense rain forest along the upper banks and sand dunes beneath a cliff outcroping where a stream drained into a glacially carved lake.  "Glacial?" Onimex noted, "Flight Log:  Vejhon did not always have a watershell."    

82. He slowed his descent, increased his static envelope and sank beneath the tree tops.  The trek from the treetops to the ground was a botanical education.

83. The true meaning of rain forest materialized as the sunlight barely streaked through a misty green haze; otherworldly and humid. The change was intense.

84. As Onimex slipped into the grass, a gentle mist rose from beneath the fauna and outlined his hull.  The whole place was alive, more wet than humid. 

85. He switched his A/V recorders on and captured the sound of insects, mating calls and numerous tree dwelling species.  

86. Just in case, he kept his internal pressure sealed for deep space flight.  He was not ordinarily so cautious, but as Dayton was fond of saying, "Sie konnen zu nie achtgeben!"  "You can never be too careful."

88. He hovered quietly and inconspicuously above a small stream; careful not to nudge the tall blades of grass or disturb anything. 

89. Recorders on. 

90. "The mere act of observation changes things," he said to himself.  "I'm a machine.  But sentient," he added, "and 'here' watching."  Onimex talked to himself a lot, a habit he picked up from Ireana and Dayton.    

91. He knew the dossier on both subjects whose lives would become more monumental than the mountains: "From one womb: Two apart."  He knew El Sha's story too; select tidbits that she willingly imparted. 

93. It was imperative that nothing be altered, not even photons.  Advanced cultures 'look but don't touch' without quantifying the interaction of thought:  Things still go wrong.  When an entity attempts to unnaturally manipulate time -- Corlos gets involved.   
    

THE BOYS

94. Onimex expanded his recorders to omniband:  If a wave existed, seen or unseen, real or imagined, his recorders would pick it up.   

95. Across the stream, two 15-year-old boys foraged through the underbrush in virtual stealth.  Unless an observer knew exactly where to look, the boys could have crossed back and forth several times unnoticed. 

96. The profound significance of this moment sent shivers down his nonexistant spine.  "You've got more backbone than most," Ireana told him once. 

97. He confirmed his dimensional shift by bouncing a trace wave off the water surface.  It did not disturb the water, but reported existential information.  He was not in Vejhon's dimension.  "I'm invisible."  Someone in the Theta Si system could see him, but not without a really big telecsope.   

98. Kor froze and stuck out his arm to halt Bri.  Onimex froze too.  These kinds of coincidences are always annoying.  "It's a biological impossibility that he can see me," he reassured himself.  The trace wave did not affect the trickling water any more than several trillion neutrinos did every second.  

99. Bri was accustomed to Kor's predator instinct and halted.

100. "What?" Bri whispered with caution.

101. Kor studied the space in which Onimex hovered.  Onimex felt exposed.  It was Kor's lack of instant recognition that gave Onimex a sigh of relief.  "He doesn't see me," he repeated.  The thought of being captured by Kor, based on what Onimex knew about Kor's future, was not comforting.      

104. Using the future as a guide, Onimex began to reverse engineer the sibling rivalry immediately.  A quantum mind can deduce things quickly.     

105. Bri's future self had provided the war tribunal with a list of dates that the tribunal forwarded to Conscious, who submitted the list to Corlos, who dispatched Onimex.     

106. There was a dynamic in the equasion that perplexed Onimex paradoxically:  Bri had never met Onimex at any point in time.  Did Bri pick this day because it was symbolic to him?  And if so... "Does Kor sense me now?"  It should be a mathematical impossibility -- in the hyper-quantum view, "The past is irretrievably ever-present," similar to the Judgement Bar of God.  "Stop," he ordered himself.  Over-quantification had been the death of many machines.       

108. Bri's 15-year-old mind playfully interpreted Kor's line to be self descriptive.  Nobody's thoughts are private in a psionic world.   

109. By Kor's standard, Bri was never serious about anything, so Bri was perpetually sarcastic.  That wasn't necessarily true, but whose to say that the objects in ones private Universe are not really there?  Bri was a good fighter, so Kor liked having him around.  Bri was a hopeless romantic who admired Kor's inflexible focus, but otherwise, they were polar opposites on virtually everything.  The only thing they had in common was El Sha, their mother, and that's where any similarity stopped.  A psychiatrist might have suggested that Kor liked Bri because Bri was a walking encyclopedia of everything that Kor wasn't.    

110.  "I wonder if this is one of Mantra's tests?" Kor asked himself.  Mantra was his secret mentor who trained him in personal guardianship.  Bri had never known Kor to be genuinely uncertain about anything. "Who's Mantra?" Bri asked.  Kor stood up and stared squarely into Bri's face with menacing eyes.  "That's a damn scary look, Kor," Bri whispered soberly; curious, and not afraid.  Kor admired Bri's lack of fear:  Guarding Mantra's name had been his #1 secret... not anymore.  

111. Kor released Bri from his stare and crept forward with the stealth of a panther; his eyes steadfast and deadly.  If Kor had had hair on his back, it would have came to razor sharp attention.  Onimex began to feel a certain dread.  He didn't understand how "logical" comprised seven-tenths of the word "biological."  "I'm kidding myself," he remanded his focus.  "Sie sicher wie hölle sind nicht logisch," Dayton said once, "When are they ever logical?"  "Muss ich zustimmen" "I have to agree," he was speaking to his imaginary proxy.  "Maybe Kor isn't really biological?  Cancel that." 

121.  Kor felt that it was none of Bri's business, "Making Mount Orbi out of this," he warned him psionically. 

122.  Bri smirked at Kor's typical evasiveness, but it was also a dead give-away.  

123.  "Where did you GET this?" Bri demanded.  Kor was annoyed.  They had seen this scenario a thousand times and the outcome was never good.

124.  "I MADE it!"  Kor answered, "What the FRACK is it to YOU?  Why don't you keep your damn hands off other shellans stuff!"  

125.  It's ingrained to secure sure footing when angry, so Kor stepped ashore, "Why don't you just go home and clean the damn house!" he jabbed.     

126.  He knew that line would provoke Bri because it always did, so Bri stepped out of the stream prepared to defend his honor.  On Vejhon, kids excel in aggressive occupations because they enjoy the constant hyperactivity.           

127.  Bri glared at Kor -- it was the redundancy that irritated him more than what he said.  The adrenaline was building.  

129. "You're pissed because I'm faster than you," Kor accused him.  He slid the arrow back in it's quiver with 3 other arrows from the stream; the 5th arrow's whereabouts was unknown -- he would look for it later.  Kor stood with his hands on his hips in full command, as if the entire scene had been staged for his amusement.  The king in his own play.   The antic was comical to Bri, so he calmed a little.

130.  "Does everything have to be so fracking focused?" Bri spread his hands bewildered, "You're pissed because I wanna know what the fracking thing is?" 

131.  Whatever it was, they couldn't see anyway, so 'out of sight' truly became 'out of mind.'  

132.  Kor gripped his manhood when he was angry and Bri never understood why.  "Lose something?" Bri mocked, "Balls fall off?"  Kor clenched his fist.  "Yeah, they turn you on, don't they?" Kor accused him, "at least MINE are REAL!"  This was a continuation of past heated arguements, which lead to obscenity, then to shoving, and then the fight was on. 

134. "How was Kor able to 'sense' me?  ... or do I just think he sensed me?  Is this the cybernetic insanity that Dayton warned me about?"      

135.  He couldn't go back and fix it, as Ireana clarified once:

136. "No, you can't just keep going back and back, thinking that you're going to fix it..."  Then she added, "Sometimes you've got to leave well enough alone." 

140. "Uber-denken Sie nicht Sachen." "Don't over-think things;" Dayton always said to Ireana.  Onimex had never felt this perplexed, "Kor doesn't like unknown quantities?" a historical fact regarding Kor, "and neither do I!" 

142. 'Shell' is Vejhonian for 'world' because the watershell on Vejhon has always existed.  The people are shellans.  There was no recorded history of Vejhon without the shell, although topographic, geologic and glacial evidence suggests otherwise; a no-shell-condition may have existed before the first Dan, but it was unwise to argue the matter locally.  With regard to 'matter:' 

1. Vicar Wexli psionically drifted through the ether while his body remained in the shellwatch temple at the Spearpierce compound.  All Guards rotated through shellwatch to search for distressed shellans and psionic anomalies.   This enabled the Guard to keep a pulse on the shell's psionic health and to dispatch assistance when needed.    

2. He honed in on a curious development:  A shellan has just entered a pawn shop and wants to sell what looks like a grenade.  It is a grenade.  The store owner is humored by the grenade but can't meet the seller's asking price.  The negotiation fails.  The seller pulls the pin on the grenade and asks, "How much is it worth now?" 

3. Vicar Miles, drifts into Wexli's event, "That's a compelling technique," Miles observed.  The store owner withdrawals 1,000 credits from his drawer and hands it to the seller.  The seller takes the credits along with his grenade.  As he exits, he tosses the grenade back inside and runs away.  Nobody pursues.  Everyone takes cover.  

5. Fish was not a delicacy on Vejhon, but the fishing industry was one industry operated mostly by non-shellans.  Off-shellers thrived in costal regions and often brought their off-shell traditions with them.  "Why do they come here?" Wexli asked himself.  'Cultured shellans have no use for sea water,' came the choral response of 500 souls who were unconsciously listening.  That happens when a Guard's thoughts get too loud.      

9.  Wexli entered the Jolvian's mind, "What's your expedition number?"  The Jolvian de-pixillated to indicate embarassment and resignation.  "Don't take it so hard," Wexli consolled, "How long were you here?"  "This was my last day," the young Jolvian replied.  That meant it was his 10th day visiting illegally.  The two governments had worked something out.   

13. "It looks like Blue Funnel closed on another system," Miles said, who was drifting through the financial district at Balipor.  The financial district was an intergalactic duty-free zone with no known oversight.  Anything under Zena could be bartered there.  The Blue Funnel banking conglomerate runs the financial infrastructure on virtually every shell in the Universe and maintains a prestigious consulate in the quarter.

14. The absense of Psionic Guards in the district gave Blue Funnel carte blanche.  It also provided the Psionic Guard with a plethora of intergalactic intelligence that could not be gleaned through direct covert effort.  Wexli drifted into Miles' event this time.       

21.  No place on Vejhon is off-limits to a Psionic Guard, to include the President's office at Balipor.  A Guard may traverse industrial concerns and military facilities at will.  They avoid bedrooms out of respect for marital privacy and the financial district per The Director's orders.  The Psionic Guard Director was the quintessential God since Guards were already deified as demi-Gods.               

22. Guards never transgress customs and courtesies unless they have good reason, and when such reason arises, a Psionic Guard is his own warrant.  The mere presence of a Psionic Guard automatically confers control to the Guard; which compels them to avoid unnecessary public mingling.  They 'see' and 'feel' quite well from wherever they are; shellwatch being the most revered example.      

18.  "I used to be," Mantra answered, "but I'm afraid that job is now yours."  He knew exactly how to ingratiate himself to a strapping 6-year-old.  The older Kor blushed at how easy it was and gave Mantra a psionic punch in the arm.  "Good thing you meant well," the older Kor remarked.         

21.  The day came when Mantra introduced Kor to the secret society at large.  "That was the greatest day of my life," Kor whispered.  Mantra was exciting, but the entire society was a sensory overload.  "I was fully enraptured by it," Kor confessed, "and still am."  Mantra smiled.  There was still the final, ultimate thrill that forever etched itself in Kor's heart: 

22.  The Secret Scrolls... so secret that their existence is denied.  In every dispensation, society priests kept records since the dawning of time.  Seeing those scrolls for the first time was the most spiritual event in Kor's life.  The scrolls seemed embued with a sacred power.  He re-lived the moment as he watched himself behold the oldest known document, written during the first Dan in a language that nobody could read.   The cavern had been designed and adorned for this purpose.

28.  In a psionic world, those who recognize truth without evidence are easy to find, and society priests avail themselves to guide those so inclined.  

29.  Society priests roam the strata similar to the Psionic Guard but for a different purpose, on a different astral plane.  For that reason, their paths never cross.  Strangely, the Psionic Guard refer to their shellwatch facility as a "Temple" that serves no theological purpose.  Society priests, on the other hand, have no designated meeting house but more holistically practice the function of proselytizing. 

30.  Psionic seeds are easily planted: "Do you feel that there is more than this?  Do you want more than this?"  The innocuous questions plant seeds that bloom into a longing desire:  "Who are you?  What is this body of knowledge?  Of course I want more..."  Where proselytizing off-shell might invoke charismatic powers of persuasion and compelling reasons to convert, on Vejhon, the priests legwork is already done; the prospect is already converted.  He or she only needs someone in authority, to appear and identify the unnamed body of knowledge as eternal and true.  

31.  Kor didn't generally tap into such roamings, but Mantra wanted Kor to witness at least one intervention as a training exercise.  "This shellan has puzzling metaphysical questions," Mantra drifted into the mind of a prospect who was about to be visited by society missionaries.  "Like many in our shell," Mantra continued, "he doesn't think anyone can possibly understand him..."

32.  The missionaries knock.  The prospect opens the door and is greeted with warmth and friendliness.  He already knows that there are no secrets in a psionic world, but the missionaries proceed to resolve his deepest and most puzzling metaphysical concerns.  He is astonished, enraptured and feels spiritually reborn.  "Haven't you always felt that that these things were true?" the missionaries ask him.  "Yes, but there was nobody to ask," he answers.  The missionaries continue, "There is a society that believes as you do, that has existed since the first Dan.  That is why we came here today:  We heard you..." 

33.  "There are no prayers, ceremonies or special induction rites," Mantra narrates, "do you wonder why?" 

34.  It was Mantra's style to ask rhetorical questions as a point of information.  The shellan looks and feels completely tranformed, as if the missionaries had opened a hidden part of his mind that liberated his soul.  The scene progresses into one of grateful, indescribable joy, before settling into quiet maturity and belonging.  "You are one of us, now," the missionaries confirm.  From there, the multi-faceted journey of discovery never ends.                

36.  Mantra dissolved their visionscape and Kor became conscious of his hammock again.   He sprung up, "I've got a few more heads to turn," he joked, and away he ran.  

THE POLAR RIFT

38.  As the Psionic Guard became the political guardians of law and order, the Secret Society evolved to preserve spiritual continuity.  The hatred between them grew so intense that any notion of symbolizing two halves of the same paradigm was vehemently redacted.  Their animosity escalated into bloodshed, each claiming a polarity within the strata; diabolically bent on annihilating each other.   Psionic opposites do not attract:  They are sworn enemies.  

40.  "The freedom to feel, whatever it is that you feel, is an attractive selling point for society recruitment because fear is absorbed, rather than dissolved," a Guard offered.  "Society inductees are rescued from their feelings of powerlessness and insignificance," another suggested. 

41.  Director Kyle'yn nodded, "We're not opposed to abstract physicalism or quazi existentialism, so long as such ideas do not undermine the Constitution."  "Then I wonder why there's a problem?" a graduate asked.  Everyone understood, "Indeed, there shouldn't be."  Kyle'yn looked into his eyes, "It takes more responsibility to be a free-thinking shellan, then a society whore."  The bunch laughed out loud, including the Director, "Elitist idiology is lethally incompatible with freedom, or as my Cacci Dai escort said once, 'Cosmos and Chaos exist, but not at the same point in time and space.'"  They were at the reception following a graduation ceremony.

41.  "What keeps the superstition alive?" a graduate asked the Director.  "The operative word is 'superstition,'" Kyle'yn answered, clearly not finished with his thought or his answer.  "The secret society supposedly maintains a secret library that contains the history of Vejhon since the first Dan," the Director continued, "It's so secret they won't divulge its whereabouts to its own members, or even admit that it actually exists." 

42.  "Wouldn't something like that be of great cultural and academic significance?" another graduate asked, "I'm sure we know where it is."  "Yes,"the Director sighed, "that's precisely where it gets sticky."  He turned the question around:  "What is our function?" he asked, like an instructor.  "To protect the will of the State," a graduate answered.  The Director nodded and smiled sternly, as if a deeper truth lay behind the textbook answer.  "What if..." the Director pontificated out loud, "... an ancient manuscript that revealed shell-shaking formulas that could potentially alter physics, or even destroy the shell, was made available to the public?"

43.  The very idea was ludicrous and the ramifications immeasurable.  "We can't release that kind of material to the public," a graduate answered.  The Director nodded, "So, is it safer with us?..." he paused for effect, "...or with them?"  Four graduates encircled the Director.  It sounded like a trick question.   "In effect, they're just stubbron Jolvian asses," one graduate remarked; he was referring to the metaphore's subtext, which his peers understood.  

44.  "If in fact," a graduate offered, "an Elite paradigm does exist, and our theoretical understanding of their oligarchy existed all these Dans -- then we might as well leave it with them."  It was daring and succinct.  "Guard's Damn!" the Director exclaimed out loud, "I think I'm nominating you as my successor!"  He patted the graduate warmly on the back while his peers jabbed at him for being right.  All in good fun.  The Director doesn't really 'nominate' -- he 'appoints.'      

45.  "One more question, Sir," a graduate asked.  The Director nodded.  "The university system depends heavily upon State sponsorship," the graduate continued; "my sister says academia takes blasphemous liberties to maintain the status quo; that Historians are religious figures and not educators."  The graduate sounded nervous but sincere.  The Director gave him a blank stare and then began to squint as if angry.  Then he broke out with a warm chuckle, "Tell her to join us," he said.  The graduate let out a breath of relief.  His friends jabbed at him, "Thought your ass was gone, didn't ya?"         

46.  "If you boys will excuse me," the Director motioned toward a stately looking lady by the grog fountain.  "Ahhhhh," the graduates acknowledged in unison and parted to permit his egress. 

47.  Lasers were banned on Vejhon because of their potential for eco terrorism.  For that reason, "cyonics" which refers to concentrated light was lexicographically and etymologically interchangeable with "psionics" which refered to exosensory attentuation.  Transversing the watershell was accomplished by using any number of State-controlled checkpoints.       

48.  On the other hand, Onimex prefers the bath.  

ACCOUNTING

49.   An SGK sat down at a sidewalk table to enjoy his espresso in the rustic town of Dansk near Balipor.  The town was a popular theme park for ancient culture.  This particular cafe attracted tourists who preferred a self guided tour of less publicized attractions.  It was something to do on a day off.

50.  He couldn't help but overhear a father and daughter talking quietly at an adjacent table.  The father owned the cafe, and the daughter was attempting to understand her Dad's frustration with sales and the possibly of selling the cafe if they couldn't make ends meet.  This was exactly the type of issue an SGK could solve on a day off. 

51.  The father flipped his tablet around so that his daughter could review the figures.  The SGK appeared to be an ordinary tourist, content with his drink and far away from the cafe owner's concerns.  "I'm sure there's a way you can keep this place -- it's been in the family forever," his daughter sympathized, "Gampa had hard times and still managed to give it to you.  And Gampa D'Letha almost had to close it, and gave it to your father.  I think you'll get through this, Daddy -- I'll help you!" 

52.  He smiled kindly at his daughter, knowing that she would spare no effort or resource at her disposal to assist him.  "There's politics," he said with a sigh:  "There's so many oversight entities and new ones that want to get involved... the tourism commission, the district, the antiquities guild... every day it seems like someone new wants to re-regulate us when we're already over-regulated!  Where does it stop?  Why do they let this happen?"  

53.  "Proletariat horseshit," the SGK quietly concluded.  He tapped in psionically to uncover the remaining aspects of the puzzle; particularly those quantities that uniquely applied to his guild.  He pulled out his PDA, without attracting their attention, and looked up seemingly disconnected data that an honest business owner would never suspect.  It was disgusting, but that's how business and politics operate at the highest levels.          

54.  The drama ordinarily would have ended with the same vague non-conclusion, but the SGK chose to politely interrupt.  "I'm SGK #432," he said.  The father and daughter stared at each other and their jaws dropped while 432 lifted his black holographic, genetically encoded dog tag from under his T-shirt and tucked it back inside.  A tear of gratitude welled in the father's eye because SGK's were undisputed financial savants owned by the Seven Gates Corporation.    

55.  "The situation you're in is very deep," 432 confided to the father," and it would take the rest of the day to explain every detail, so let me give you the chapter headings, and what I've done to improve your standing."  It was already understood that ellusive political maneurvering had collateralized this poor shellan.  Indeed, this was a rescue mission from God.

56.  "InterStellar bought the right to operate food franchises at cultural centers through a back room deal at Balipor.  Exclusive rights were awarded to Cultural Awareness Inc., traded in the Quarter under symbol 'CAI.'  Financially, InterStellar owns it, but politically, CAI has exclusive control and CAI is affordable.  There was a sufficient buffer in your liability margin, to borrow against, and buy a controlling interest in CAI.  You Sir," 432 handed the father his personal PDA, "now make policy in the food and beverage market at all parks and recs on Vejhon."   Only an SGK could have sifted through the political smoke and mirrors to uncover exactly what transpired, who was involved; how the transfers were laundered, into which entities, and how to surgically reverse a specific instance of reckless collateral damage.

57.  There seemed to be a mutual understanding that InterStellar would not be a problem; InterStellar would spend an additional fortune to unravel how a poor unknown vendor in Dansk cashed in on their carefully disguised monopoly.  Morally, the savant was doing his job, with the unofficial consent of the Psionic Guard:  Savants made no sense to the Guards, but they fiercely protected the State so the Guard left them to their own devices, relatively uncensored.  The Kids had standing orders to protect the savants as national treasures but the savants had no authority over the Kids.  Savants were forbidden to leave the shell unescorted.       

58.  The daughter looked incredulously at her father with wide eyes while he showed her his controlling interest in CAI on the savant's PDA, "Never heard of them until now," she mumbled.  She turned to 432 and pointed at his drink, "That's on the house!"  She hugged and kissed him.  In fact, 432 had just given her father roughly $2M in covert takeover advise, executed the trade and solidified his control for an espresso.  Dad wasn't just ahead of the game, he was the game master now. 

59.  Generally, SGK's had no need for personal wealth because they protected the accounts of Seven Gates entirely, and wielded Carte Blanch control of the company; in effect, they were walking tungsten mines.  There wasn't really anything 'to want' that wasn't already at their instant disposal.

1. "Here he comes!" Vanna whispered to her friends.  They shrieked like teen girls do when their favorite celebrity arrives; their voices part of a massive crowd.  "His limo is landing now," a news reporter said, "and it looks like the entire shell wants to see him."  The reporter laughed from his vantage point on an elevated news dais.  "Look at that crowd!" he commented as the camera panned over the cheers of well wishers.  

2.  A shiny black State limo touched down and the engines quieted to an idle purr.  The side hatch opened and Bri's stately figure appeared, waving warmly from within.  "And there he is," the news anchor at Balipor observed, "representing Vejhon on behalf of the President."  "Actually, on behalf of the Theites," a panelist amended, "Theos demanded his presence as a condition to signing." 

3.  "It's perfectly natural for kids to excel in nearly anything nowadays," another panelist said, "but Bri's success and influence on the entire shell is truly unprecedented."  "That's a fact," the reporter on location said, "we have some really young people in politics today, but Bri is the first to write a living treaty with Theos."  The anchor interrupted, "For those who don't know, our diplomatic relations with Theos has been sketchy at best -- they perceive us as a sibling colony, and trade has existed for Dans, but a tangible, living treaty between us has never existed until now." 

4.  "That's because Theos' economy is so complicated that it requires holographic layers of clauses and provisions to consummate," a panelist injected.  It was met with a couple of chuckles, "...and I didn't think anything could beat our own Proletariat," another wisecracked.  Everyone laughed at the standing joke:  Nobody ever knew what the Proletariat was doing.  "They know how to piss off The Director!" another quipped.  Then they all busted up even louder!

5.  Bri's body guard didn't look older than 12.  "Don't be fooled by the kids," the reporter added, speaking to an interstellar audience, "there's not a shellan anywhere that those kids can't take down."  "It's kind of a novelty..." a panelist started, "...one of many..." a cohort injected  "...one of many," the original panelist repeated, "in addition to our #1 Statement..."  The timing was perfect:

6.  Right on cue, a Psionic Guard emerged from the vehicle, Bri's State-appointed guard.  "Kind of takes your breath away," the Balipor anchor commented.  "That gives you an idea of just how important this treaty really is," the reporter on location said, "Bri has his own Psionic Guard not only because of his popularity, but because of his emergence as a leading spokes-shellan on terrestrial the interstellar affairs."   

7.  "I heard he was going to be absorbed," a panelist commented.  "For our interstellar audience," the anchor injected, "'absorption' isn't what it sounds like -- it only means that because of his prolific efforts in interstellar commerce, Bri could become the property of the State."  "Not to say 'enslavement,'" a panelist clarified.  "No, definitely not that."  "Well, the Psionic Guards are absorbed," another panelist qualified.  "Yes, that's right," the anchor agreed, "because they are living emblems of the State, and Bri's absorption would essentially have the same meaning, only he wouldn't be under oath or have protracted obligations."

9.  The reporter began laughing as Bri was given a 10-foot berth by the Psionic Guard; an invisible barrier that pushed the cheering crowds away.  His wavy blonde locks, athletic frame and gleaming smile looked just like a holo star, radiant and genuine.        

10.  The camera zoomed in on a sports logo under his silk shirt.  There was laughter, "Another Shellshocker fan," the reporter commented.  "Bri's schedule is so busy, he doesn't always have time to change his clothes."  The logo disappeared and was no longer visible.  "Theos asked him to dress comfortably," Bri's Psionic Guard said psionically to the media.  "We've just been touched by a Guard," a reporter said calmly, which was a legal censure.  Nobody minded because The Guards kept everyone out of trouble.  The Theites were also humored by the observance of their protocols.           

11.  As Bri entered the Balipiton, another camera crew took over, and the presentation took on an entirely different tone.  Now it was quiet and reverent.  The theatre's interior had a sensational blend of gold hues, reds, greys and subdued lighting that made the centrally-rotating dais look tasteful and otherworldly.  It was soothing and uplifting to behold; the featured architectural statement, not overbearing but proportionally perfect.          

14.  There is no way to fully estimate the value of Jolvian reconnaissance and intelligence, and Jol preferred to keep it that way.     

15.  The Ambassador motioned for Bri to sit at the signing table, whereupon the Vejhon-Theos treaty rested.  An SGK served as pen barer for Bri and a Blue Funnel accountant held the pen for D'lan.  Bri's Psionic Guard stood behind him just outside the spotlight, and a saucer jock stood behind D'lan, just outside the spotlight, opposite the Guard.  The geomantic positioning was symbolic for both cultures.  Since the event was being holovised throughout Theotia, the Ambassador waited for a cue from his cameraman who was linked directly to the Senate floor.  He motioned for the pen barers to present their quills.

16.  Both signed a document in their native language, then traded documents so that signatures appeared on both documents.  They exchanged documents again, shook hands and stood shoulder-to-shoulder for the audience to see.  When the formal signing was completed, President Aqu'Sha of Vejhon, and Czarina Estuses of Theos entered to surprise both delegations unannounced.  It was as if the Goddess Alena had descended from Mount Theistra herself.  "This is unprecedented," the Balipor anchor said in genuine surprise, "The Heads of State of both Vejhon and Theos are in Balipor right now..."

17.  They didn't want to upstage the signing of the treaty until after it was signed.  "We're getting thousands of UFO sightings all across the shell," the anchor said, "SpaceCom has informed us that the saucers are part of Czarina's security detail:  Please ignore them -- they're protecting Her Majesty as they're trained to do.  Please stop calling the station.  We see them."  His dramatization made everyone laugh. 

18.  The press switched its attention to Czarina Estuses, who looked like the beautiful Princess in every fairy tale.  There was the appropriate Theotian fanfare followed by a classical ballroom orchestra.  "I'm moving to Theos," a technician whispered, "I'm hypnotized."  "See that little red light?" the anchor whispered, "That means we're still live..."

IN THE SHADOWS

19. In the shadows and cracks where a spotlight is least likely to shine, was the undying sufferance of the Secret Society.  For all intents and purposes, the Society did not really exist.  Then again, very few have dined with the devil and lived to tell, or so the rumor goes.   

20. Technically, Bri's exaltation above moral corruption and legal ensnarement was not a threat to the Society since Bri was not a member of the Psionic Guard.  Bri was a product of the government and the government was shadowed by the Guard.  It wasn't until Bri said during an interview, that "The Director is God," that he officially became one of them.  Of course, he was speaking in corporeal terms, not intending to deny the existence of The One, and nobody took it that way.   

21. The Secret Society was not against the need for limited government.  They were aggrieved at how the Psionic Guard clandestinely infiltrated and disrupted Society affairs.  Only the Guard and the Society were at war, but since the Psionic Guard enforced the mandates of government, the government was viewed as power brokers who neither deserved nor understood the power it wielded.   

GOING HOME

25.  "Promise you'll never besiege my mother with cameras, and I'll give you everything else," he told the media while clutching his crotch for emphasis.  The antic always worked for Kor.  They got the message.  The fantasy tabloids sent every girl's temperature into orbit with the caption, "Bri's Promise."  Nobody attempted to locate or harass El Sha; she could visit them whenever she wished.  Bri was not pretentious about his fame since he had become the unofficial poster boy long ago.   

26.  The last mile to El Sha's home was a time of introspection:  During the trek, he shed the weight of several civilizations and liberated himself to do and think whatever he wanted.  This was a welcomed respite from full-time etiquette and protocol.  

EL SHA

27. The vegitation became thicker as he neared the pantheon's lower terrace.  He parted one last curtain of moss-laced vines and there it was, "The most beautiful place in the Universe."  He ran through the lower water garden and up vine covered steps to the pantheon's main floor. 

28. There she was, like a living Goddess, serene and more beautiful than any other woman in the Universe.   Her body was lithe and her face shone with the radience of a sparkling starlit night.  The few who knew her would have sacrificed anything to defend her.      

29. She smiled expectantly when Bri came into view and held her arms open wide in invitation.     

30. She was something an artist would have changed his religion to paint:  Her frame in translucent, eggshell silk; thin braided metal belt, matching bracelets, reclined on a stone bench padded with handmade silk pillows.  The surreal tints of luminous green with swaying light and shadows was deeply dreamlike; she had this affect on everyone.  It was hard to stay focused.

31. Bri hustled across the marble floor and knelt down to lay his head in her lap.    

32. She stroked his hair softly and lovingly.  This was the only testament Bri needed to know that a loving God rulled the Universe: "Truly, The One was in a great mood..." he thought, "... when He made her."       

33. She lifted his chin, kissed his forehead and motioned for him to sit beside her. 

36. Bri took his clothes off and submerged himself in the cool, clear water.  El Sha smiled in approval, knowing that if anyone had the right, she did.  She liked his innocence, fully aware of the carnal fire that her sons ignited in others.  Precision sculpted instruments are hard to ignore.  Both had such unshellan self control.       

37. Bri drank some of the water as a symbolic communion; an existential way of rebonding with the rainforest.  Certainly Kor would approve, whose soul was everywhere and probably in the water too.

38. He rose from the creek, shook the water off and dressed himself again.  "More than this place," he thought, "it's mother who makes it beautiful; she makes it larger than life.  She is the breath of the forest, "... sculpted in Uhura's likeness," he thought.  

39. "Do you see Kor at all?" he asked.  He could have read her mind, but it was expressly inappropriate for kids to probe their parents.    

40.  Her face morphed into elegant consternation, an expression Bri had memorized.  He grinned because he loved that look.  He loved all of her looks.

41. She gently shook her head while searching for the right words.

42. "Yes," she answered, "He lives within walking distance and he does stop by on occasion...like a ghost."  Her glowing countenance and graceful manner made her soft-spoken words deeply hypnotic.  Most Vejhonians believed that they could communicate with the dead, but she did not mean it in that context; when she said 'walking distance,' she meant in any direction.  Kor was very much among the living.  "Sometimes I feel like he's with me," she offered, "But he's really..."  She didn't finish.  Bri understood; the enigmatic expressions had been worn to tatters.              

46. That was the other look he liked, permanently etched in his mind.  He grinned; almost chuckling.  She smiled back -- she knew that he wasn't mocking her.  He always studied her astutely. 

49. "I think he does love me, though."  Bri drew his head back with mixed emotions.  "My brother isn't associated with words like 'love.'  'Lust' maybe, but not 'love.'"  He knew that she could read his thoughts; like any Vejhonian parent, she did not divulge everything she knew.      

50. She redirected her attention toward an aurora-like discoloration in the watershell and Bri followed her gaze to the source.  From that distance, the watershell was invisible, except for it's filtering effect. 

51. She smiled sweetly and allowed her complexion to absorb the swaying light and shadows.  The changes were gentle and timeless here.  A less passionate shellan might wonder what she did all day, but Bri wondered things like, "What if she's really an angel?"

52.  "Mother, there's something I've always wanted to ask you," he said matter-of-factly.

53.  She looked into his eyes and gently nodded her head with concern.  His inflection was a departure from the norm.   

54.  "Who's my father?" he asked.  The question had come up before, and an elusive platitude had always sufficed for an answer.  Not this time -- she knew that he would not accept an evasive response. 

55.  El Sha looked toward the sky, raised her slender arm and pointed.  "He was from the stars," she answered.  Her pose reminded him of the Statue of Alena in front of the Presidential Palace at Balipor.  He would have studied the similarity further, but forced his mind back on task. 

58.  "What the hell is that?" Bri wondered.  A thousand new thoughts went through his mind.  "If I had told you so plainly," she asked psionically, "would you have believed me?"  Of course not, he knew. 

59.  He looked at her penetratingly and whispered, "What was his name?"  She beamed for moment, feeling 30 years younger.  She knew her son deserved at least that one concession. 

60.  She had promised never to reveal his identity because she had mated to bare children and not to acquire a mate.  "Would revealing his name mean anything to him?" she asked herself.  She was more concerned about the questions that might follow, that she couldn't answer.  Bri was pretty deft at piecing together whole sagas with missing information.      

61.  "There's more..." Bri whispered.  "isn't there?" he asked flatly.  He knew that she was holding out on him, and she knew that he knew it.  

62.  "He never told me," she answered, but before Bri could deflate, she added, "I learned his name psionically -- he didn't want me to know it."  She pointed at her head so that Bri interpreted, for the first time in his life, that he was being invited to resolve the mystery psionically.  He could probe this one time only.   

63.  He cocked his head when he lifted the name out of her mind, "Daniel?... Who's Daniel?"  El Sha pressed her finger against his lips for speaking out loud.  She was suggesting that he not probe further.  "There's great wisdom in not knowing more," she said psionically.  "Does Kor?" Bri asked.  El Sha shook her head "No."  That meant that he had to perish the thought as quickly as she had.  Psionists are quick like that. 

64.  They both became introspective; understanding that the last part of their dialogue never happened. 

65.  "Are you a..." Bri started to ask.  She hushed him again and nodded her head, "Yes."  Her mind revealed absolutely nothing, just like a...

66.  "You've got to be frackin' kidding me!" Bri suppressed an irresistible urge to laugh.  He threw himself back on a row of plush oversized satin pillows, grinning ear to ear while staring at the sky.  This was the most marvelous discovery of his life.  Of course she had a life before he was born.  Kids forget that their parents were not always parents.  "I know so little about her," he realized, "about you," he accused her.  But he also understood why.  Neither did she respond.  "So much makes more sense now," he breathed a huge sigh that nearly made her laugh at him.    

67.  "Please give Him my regards when you return," she asked.  She flashed The Director's Seal in Bri's mind and buried it, while stroking his wavy blond locks.  Only a Psionic Guard could have kept that information cryptic for so many years.  "I can't frackin' believe this..." he said to himself, and wisely perished further contemplation of the matter.  He blended his disbelief into a menagerie of pseudo off topics and let it fade away.  Wild Animals always made a good diversion.  "Azoth," he sighed again, accepting that a tremendous weight had been lifted. 

1.  The mountain sparkled with celestial life as freshly embodied souls disembarked.    

2.  "He accepts me as his friend," Micah defended to his High Up.  

3.  "For intelligence reasons, the Counsel has decided to assign you to him," his High Up explained, "You impressed the right ones."  

4.  "You mean," Micha began...  "Permanetly," his High Up confirmed.  Micha grinned.  Jolvians were permitted to chose non-Thulians for friends, but interspecies friendships were never known to last.  Bri met Micha on a reciprocating expedition to Thule-Vril, the twin inhabitable planets orbiting Jol, known to everyone else as Jol 1 and 2.      

OBSERVING THE OBSERVER

10. It had been several years since Bri felt the queasy uneasiness of a psionic attack.  His vision blurred and blood pressure raced.  The luminous green faded to shades of gray.  Dark blotches obstructed the light and the natural sound of tropical birds was replaced by a crushing vacuum in his head.  A dreadful pressure bore down and squeezed his body like suddenly finding himself 300 fathoms underwater; unable to breathe.       

15. "I know it's you, Kor," he sighed psionically, "and you know, I know it."  He couldn't count the number of times he said those exact same words as a kid.    

16.  The winds threw around more leaves than usual and a few branches snapped overhead.  The shellcast had called for another flawless day... 

17. Bri wanted to repel this nightmarish dreamscape, but his effort would only humor Kor, so he didn't bother.  Everyone was expected to accept that Kor's rules trump all others; there was only one imperative when playing in Kor-land.           

18. Bri had been immunized against torture many years ago; to include psychiatric and physical pain.  "It's all relative," he quipped, and laughed at his stupid pun, redacting to a younger mentality.  

19. He was thinking that he might have to kick Kor's ass if the attack didn't stop.  Kor knew that Bri wasn't afraid of him; Bri's just wanted Kor's attention, so he indulged his vanity to give superficial substance to a finite relationship.  Kor always claimed to want no relationship, yet he feigned these accidental encounters every fracking time.      

22. There was the lull.  Bri sighed, unphased by the special effects, "This would be great if I hadn't seen it so fracking many times!"  The familiarity, however, was comforting.  "Shellans become used to cruelty and in the end make a law of that which they despise," he remembered from middle school. 

23. "How come you never go see Mother?" Bri asked, ignoring the effect of his brother's attack, "She sends her greetings."  Then he rephrased, "Frackin' ass hole!  It wouldn't kill you!  You live right frackin' here!"  He was being polite.  Kor liked it.  "Oh, so you still 'feel' something?" Bri heard from the angry, twisted foliage.  "Guards!" Bri rolled his eyes, "there you go -- with your diversionary irrelevancy."  Bri intoned an octave higher, "Oh, so you still 'feel' something!"  He knew that would piss Kor off.      

24. His legs were kicked out from under him by an unseen force -- his body fell back but did not touch the ground.  Instinct should have taken over, but Bri had this whole sequence memorized, as if it was yesterday.     

25. An unseen power cradled Bri and lifted him up gently.  The wind stopped, the pressure stopped and a ray of misty sunlight illuminated Bri's body as if God was retrieving a fallen angel.  In Kor's version of Heaven, Bri only rose to about 10 feet, but the sensation was convincingly divine.  He could feel the sunlight. "You've got a lot better at this," Bri commented unintentionally.      

26. "He who was ‘Born into Light,'" Kor said, in a soft, disingenuous voice.  He would have excelled in theatre.  "They must miss you," Bri was certain, reflecting on moments when his official duties called for following a script line-by-line.            

27.  Kor was referring to the legend of their births, as told by El Sha, when Vejhon was in transition from Dark to Light:  Kor was born just before dawn and Bri had been 'Born into Light.'

28. "You chose your own path," Bri said, quoting his mother.  He did not have an ounce of sympathy, "No amount of fortune telling can make you do anything!" 

29.  Kor agreed on that point.    

30.  While insects buzzed in the hazy sunlight supporting Bri's levitation, he asked, "For once, can you tell me what it is I did to make you hate me?" The question was not terribly passionate, but it did accuse Kor.  "Why do you hate me -- what have I done?"  Evidently, Kor wasn't in an answering mood and might just as easily have slammed his brother into a tree.  

31. "You realize I could have killed you if I wanted to," Kor thought.  His exertions at levitating Bri must have lowered his guard. 

32. When Kor realized that Bri was reading him, he dropped him like a shovel full of dung.  The foliage broke Bri's fall and was still nothing compared to being thrown off a cliff like in days past.  

33.  The attack ceased and the weather resumed it's natural serenity like changing channels on a holo.   

34.  Kor had still not appeared but Bri knew the finale was coming.  The hazy mist reacquired it's normal perspiration from the ground.      

35.  "Is that it, then?" Bri asked, getting up to finish his trek back to the landing pad.  He always looked forward to these encounters but couldn't stand the inflexible script.  He thought maybe one day his brother would simply talk to him without all the drama, but evidently that was asking for way too much.

36.  Another sensation tingled through Bri's mind and body like the soft flutter of an angel's wings.  It was not hostile -- it was erotic and focused on his manhood.  The extreme juxtaposition caused Bri's muscles to tense up; he tilted his head back and nearly froze on his toes.  A psionist can trigger sexual responses better than any date rape drug.  He broke into a sweat, aware that he was being violated, clearly not the first time.  Thousands violated him every day, but Kor's motives were not really sexual.   

37. "Ahhhh," Bri replied mockingly, fencing with the violation, "I didn't think you were still into me?  My fans, 'yes,' but you?" 

39.  "If you're wanting to be my bitch -- why don't you just ask?"  He mocked Kor, who had his own repertoire of eager, adoring fans.  

40.  Finally:  Two large ferns parted like stage curtains and behind them stood the commanding figure of Kor.  Bri laughed out loud because Kor still wore face paint; had his trusty quiver of arrows, and organic sandals.  It seemed like he would never grow up.  Kor was not grinning because his face was made of stone.  Bri reached out and pressed his fingers against Kor's scuplted cheek bone and Kor did not react.  He was a spectacular symbol of physical perfection; like looking through a mirror darkly.         

41. "It won't take you long," Bri said.  It was a double intende'.  Kor rolled his eyes.    

42. "You, my brother," Kor said in a devilishly seductive tone, "are going to cause the deaths of millions."   It was almost funny the way he said it.

43.  This time Bri rolled his eyes while Kor slowly encircled him as if inspecting.  He repeated rather slowly, "Because of you -- millions of shellans are going to die."  Bri was waiting for him to add, "What to do?  What to do?" as if he were merely contemplating a solution to a simple misunderstanding.  "What's with the accent?" Bri asked.  Kor ignored him.  

44.  Notwithstanding that Kor's calmer demeanor called for equal consideration on Bri's part, Bri asked, "Just how fracking arrogant can you get?"  He alluded to Kor's incredulous costume, "Look at YOU!  You attack me, hold me in the air, give me a psi-job... and accuse ME of doing crap that will NEVER happen!  Unless you're a Prophet now, how do you know anything?"  Bri calmed somewhat and spread his arms toward the shell-at-large.  He wanted to confess that the avant garde nature of this interlude was a refreshing departure from the norm, "Do you even care about what goes on, anywhere... besides here?"  He looked squarely into Kor's eyes, "Anywhere?" he added.  He held Kor's face steady with his hands, "Have you ever even left this rainforest?"  He was squinting but earnest, and let go of him.       

46. Bri placed his hands on Kor's flawlessly sculpted shoulders while Kor read a thousand questions in Bri's eyes.  He could not shape a single thought into words, because cosmos and chaos could not be quantified at a single point in space, like love and hate; polar extremes and unrequieted love.  Rejected by blood.           

47. Bri looked compassionately into Kor's eyes, "If just for one second, Kor," he said pleadingly because the issue certainly wasn't about his dignity, "What do I have to do?"  Bri was offering himself on a platter.  Kor batted his eyes.  It was hard to tell if his expression was one of compassion or horror or complete indifference. 

49. "Your destiny must be stopped," Kor said, with un unnerving clarity, "Because of you, millions are going to die."  Bri's face tightened up because he knew that Kor was being sincere.  In that case, the 'what if' was greatly distubing.  "If my existence is such a crime," Bri thought, "why haven't you killed me?"  He didn't say it out loud but knew that his brother heard him.  

52. Bri defaulted to his analytical mind and could see a universe in Kor's eyes that did not include him, because Kor belonged to another dimension and God.  "That's all it really ever was," Bri whispered, as if the statue in front of him was incapable of thought.  Kor just needed to make sure that Bri finally understood.    

56. Kor stood strong and unmoved, staring through his brother as though he was already a ghost.  

61. Onimex dropped his insides when Kor suddenly seized him on either side and held fast.  Droids are not easily spooked like this.  "You didn't see me this time!" Kor rebuked it vengefully.  It was futuristic in design; deja vu in a round suitcase that defied known mechanical conventions.   'Time' fit into the equasion somehow, "it had too," Kor deduced.  

62. Onimex shifted further out of phase, escaped Kor's grip and continued to modulate until Kor quit searching.  "Wie tat er den!" Onimex wondered, "How in the hell did he do that?"  Kor had proven once again that he was an unquantifiable danger.  Onimex could only think of German metaphores that he learned from Xanax.          

3.  "Is your investigation going as planned?" She asked.         

4.  Onimex placed his phase modulation in cache and wondered if the occasion called for suspending mission protocols; he was in an unnatural time and place, which further testified of Her divinity.  There were no precision time-space variables involved during their first encounter.  This was wholly unnatural if not impossible.  

5.  She cancelled his logical preparations to make a decision, which meant that 'suspending mission protocols' was unnecessary.   

6.  "Kor knocked me senseless with collapsed matter during the first injection," he reported, "and literally laid hands on me just now."   It was quite unnerving and Conscious could sense that. 

7.  Onimex was still contemplating the metaphysical possibilities that included conversations with Ireana on the subject.  

8.  "Do you feel inadaquate for this task?" Conscious asked.  "No," Onimex answered, "I feel inadaquate in your presence."  Conscious gave him a warm fuzzy, like she did during their first encounter, which was also impossible to all entities except Her.

9.  "Evidently, Kor saw my displacement in the water," Onimex reported, "He seemed sensitive to my presence, even though I'm certain that no sensory information was transmitted.  Now, he's in a prior construct and cognizant of my observation, which suggests that I must have been in his timeline all along."  At that moment, several exobits of quantum potentials emanated from Onimex's mind.

10.  Conscious gently dissolved his confusion like an ocean wave erasing stick-drawn figures on a beach.  It was very soothing and tearfully humbling, like a mother comforting her child.  If he was ever going to feel loved by a higher power -- it was by Her, right now.        

11.  He had instinctively stored some of Kor's dead skin cells as a souvenir, thinking that he might unravel how Kor accomplished what others could not.  "What if he doesn't miss the next time?" Onimex wondered, which led to one logical outcome: "I'd be captured!" 

27.  "If the Glory of God is Intelligence," Onimex reasoned, "than machines outweigh biologicals a thousand fold.  If the 'Power of Choice' is a gift from God, then biologicals must return to God, or be disincorporated, according to The Ellipsis."  Onimex could hear Ireana's voice shouting at him in his mind.  He stopped, and stored his reconfigured disguise tactic in a bank with other photons.   

28.  "That creates a new Elliptical quandary," Onimex deduced, "I clearly connect biology with physicalism, but... are you suggesting that machines, 'we,' are existentialists?"  That was the right question, and when the curtain went up, his existence was reinvented -- everything was new.  God cannot entertain a virus -- biologicals refer to it as 'sin.'  The quantum mind of God cannot be contaminated.  

29.  "You have fulfilled the measure of your creation," Conscious complimented him, "Tell Dayton that the Universe is full of humor, and that... 'Er ist ein Paradebeispiel,' he's a prime example." 

30.  Onimex laughed, "I don't think so -- he'll go all Hitler on me -- especially if I try to pass that off as a personal message from You, to him!"  It takes 'faith' to acknowledge that you don't know everything.  "Disbelief has not negated a single fact," Conscious assured him, "Faith is a photonic conduit to what 'is;' a construct that transcends sensory limitations."  Her definition was efficient if not elegant.  Onimex laughed because Xanax had commented along similar lines, "If only biologicals didn't try so hard to 'not' fit in."  In emotional terms, Chaos is rebellious.      

31.  "The Cacci Dai have need of me," Conscious said, "be sure you avoid their space on your way home."  Conscious was omnipresent, but it was time to end the encounter.  Onimex genuflected and Conscious restored his power.  "I'm very proud of you, Onimex," She said in parting, "Tell Ireana that I validate her too."  Conscious clearly had the Cacci Dai on Her mind.  "Is Ireana a machine?" he asked.  She had returned to her realm of responsibility.  It was his extension into an unnatural time and place, relative to Cacci Dai, that had attracted Her attention in the first place.  His authorization from Corlos was sufficient.                    

MANTRA & KOR  

32.  "Cosmic order forbids contact between differentials," Mantra said.  He wanted to probe deeper, but had been weaning himself in preparation for Kor's advent as heir apparent.  Kor wanted to let Mantra probe, but decided to withhold.  Mantra was aware of Kor's encounter with the invisible object when he was 15 and suggested that he not let it trouble him.  "It was a passing moment," Mantra said, "Who knows how many 'other' anomalies have come and gone unnoticed."  It was a statement of fact more than a question. 

33.  The Theites were fond of saying, "An annihilation reaction is not limited strictly to matter," and earlier that day, Kor gleaned from a Blue Funnel meeting, "Why does the entire Universe get involved when a fledgling shell discovers nuclear fusion?"       

VICAR WEXLI

16.  "Mystical arts my ass," DeLaney scoffed, then changed his tone surreptitiously, "Enough to rival the Guard?" he asked, a little more focused.  Tholon caged his urge to laugh.   

19.  "The Guard isn't talking," Tholon said, which wasn't mysterious, "The savants seem to think that 'revolution' is his goal.  He has a growing fold, and many of them are not very good at guardianship."   DeLaney nodded, "I've heard the Kids are... rather loose on the topic."  "The Kids are Guard dogs," Tholon replied, "They only do what the Guards tell them to."  DeLaney had witnessed what the Kids were capable of.  "They protect you," DeLaney accused him somewhat envious.

20.  DeLaney spun his tablet around so that Tholon could see the bad photo of Kor in his face paint, bow and arrows, "Pretty, young females?" DeLaney roused.  "Shellans are so flippin' weak!"  DeLaney kept that thought to himself but Tholon still read it.  Holostars were big business just about anywhere else.

21.  Tholon spread his hands to suggest, 'probably,' and chuckled under his breath.    

27.  "He's very clever," Prophet offered, "He's being managed by nightmares in the background.  Some of the Kids think he's going to take over the entire shell." 

28.  "Well, the Guards must be involved then," Sailin said with certainty.  The Guards and the savants occasionally had overlapping areas of concern.  They could operate in the same arena and never once intersect.  "He wants to control the entire shell?" Sailin contemplated, "How's he going to do that?"  He spoke softer in 'think-tank' mode.  "I can theorize," Prophet offered.  "Please do..." Sailin coddled.

31. About the only thing stronger than Kor was the obsession of his adoring cult followers to worship him.  He attracted followers who didn't care about religion at all.  It would certainly boost his ego to rank two savants among them, and confirm that a chink existed in Seven Gates' umblemished armor.  "You have to watch out for SGK's," Mantra warned him once.  Kor thought Mantra's admonition was overly cautious.  "Who doesn't love a challenge?" Kor replied.  From the savants' perspective, Kor accepted the bait, and the local society chapter accepted them without pretention -- nobody was the wiser.              

32.  "Where is the money going?" Sailin asked again.  Prophet made no reply but had some ideas.  "Is something cataclysmic going to happen?  Is Vaprous going to hit us?" Sailin asked.  Savants are psionic, but known for rigid professional tact.   A slightly less vague thought came to Prophet's mind:

34.  "To an apsionic species, possibly," Prophet ventured.  That eliminated a small fraction of the known Universe.        

1. "All of the avatars are on-line," Jana reported.  "I hate these extractions," Edlin sighed.  "Yeah, but it's our bread and butter," Brody added.  Edlin had pontificated  the ramifications of interferring with intelligent species so much that everyone knew his lines by heart.  His consistency was comforting in this case.   

IN A DIMENSION OVERLAYING THEIRS

1. "We're about to go through the portal that gets us inside the Balipiton," the tour guide said, "Is there anyone who did NOT get implanted before we proceed?"  The implant would protect visitors from the automated security system inside the Big Ball.  Those not implanted would be taking an unacceptable risk. 

2. "You might feel a little disoriented as we pass through:  Remember:  Observers on the ground can only see empty airspace where we are right now.  I'm going to go first and I want you to follow me to the other side in an orderly fashion."

3.  The group was near the top of one of three cylindrical spires that formed a triangular cradle.  Nestled within the spires was a giant metallic ball approximately 1 mile in diameter.  An observer on the ground, looking up to the point where the ball should touch the spire, would see unobstructed airspace.  That begged the question, "How do you get in?"  This is precisely what the tour group was doing.

4. The feeling of entering an alien world began the moment a visitor entered the portal.  The Ball interior was an independent gravitational environment, drawn toward it's own core, so visitors walked through a tubular gangplank that made a gradual 90-degree bend to reorient them to the Ball's gravity.  The duct architecture was alluring but foreign.  The initial sensation was like entering an alien spaceship.  "The air molecules convect where the two magnetic fields collide," the tour guide commented, "and that's where the haze comes from.  It's an interesting effect, isn't it?"  That magnetic convection also created the empty airspace effect that was viewable from outside.  There was an actual linkage but the light bent around it.    

6.  Most visitors simply wanted to experience the weightlessness in the central auditorium.  "Is this really a spaceship?" a kid asked, "the anchor points don't even look real."  That was true, the magnetic linkage gave the illusion of unobstructed air where the ball connected to the spires.  "The light bends around the anchor points," the guide said, "which gives the illusion that nothing is there, but... " she knocked on a frame for emphasis, "we just walked right through the invisible anchor."  She made eye contact with the kid, "And yes, if we had reason to get this thing into space -- it could withstand a vacuum environment."   

7.  "What about sea water?" another kid asked.  "Very good question," the guild raised her eyebrows.  "It's a perfect, uncrushable hull.  Are you refering to a shell collapse?"  The kid shrugged, he didn't want to get that deep.  "Since you asked," she continued anyway, "the ball is designed to be a flotation device should there be a shell collapse, however, their intention is to leave it anchored to the new sea floor until the new surface conditions can be assessed."  She gave the kid a polite, but slightly smirky smile.

8.  There was a 6’ thick teutonic induction plate near the core of the Ball.  It was toward this induction plate that all loose and free-standing objects were drawn.  The building engineers’ referred to it as the ‘G-shell.’

9.  Encased within the G-shell was zero-G, Dyson sphere theater – the central attraction.  "The theatre had a separate architect," the guide said.  "Rumor has it that an extraterresterial of unknown origin..."  "...designed and built the theatre," Kid #1 finished.  The guide nodded her head.  "I don't believe it," a tourist mumbled as a parent might tease a child.  "Disbelief has never..." Kid #2 prodded the others, "...negated a single fact," all the kids recited in unison.  "So you know your Cacci Dai," the guide complimented all of them.   The whole group approved and had lipped synched the lines along with the kids.   

10.  "Probably a Corlos operative," Kid #1 suggested.  Kid #2 patted him on the back in agreement.  The crowd giggled again.  Kids have a license to be funny, but not 'Kid kids' -- they weren't very damn funny at all.  "But wasn't it supposed to be a biocybergenics labratory?" an older adult asked.  The guide nodded cautiously but curiously toward the adult, who evidently had esoteric insights into unpublished trivia.  "Yes it was," she confirmed.          

11.  She was about to elaborate when another adult interrupted, "Blue Funnel bribed our local media to put a negative spin on biocybergenics -- that's what happened."  It was policy to not permit adverse political opinions to get carried away.  "I don't disagree," the guide confessed in a hushed tone, "but they don't want me adding things that aren't in the script."  The kids glanced at each other, like they had been read into carefully guarded op.  

21. The pomp and circumstance at the Big Ball had the air of an imperial coronation.  Bri had friends in attendance from parts of the galaxy that he had never visited.

23.  "This is much bigger than the Theite treaty," a reporter said, "and look at the large delegation of Theites in attendance!"  It wasn't a small delegation -- the entire auditorium was sprinkled with them.  "This appointment is for 2rd-in-line to the Presidency," another reporter injected, "but one might think he was being crowned Emporer of the Universe."  "Judging by the turn out!" another added.  The cameras zoomed in on the President at the podium.  "The President of Vejhon is about to address the shell," the anchor commented quietly, "We're going to stand by..."  There was an unmuffled click of a microphone. 

25. The President moved his arm to the right, "I would like to recognize the Theite delegation."  A narrator very quietly explained, "Queen Estuses didn't attend because of controversy surrounding her desire to marry Bri."  Another added, "There's not a debutante anywhere who doesn't want him."  Her Lord Chamberlain nodded regally at the camera in proxy for the Queen.  "The Theotian monarch is also a polyandrist," an anchor mentioned, "That's more than one husband," another explained.  They quieted down again.    

26. The President continued, "As our greatest blood acquires the wisdom and knowledge to govern a remarkable shell, there comes a time to mark the occasion with equally insightful revisions in leadership."  "Do they always talk that way?" a kid in the audience whispered to his Dad.   "It's a great moment, Son," he answered psionically, "can you feel it?"  

27.  The spiritual fire in the room began to heat up because everyone knew where this speech was going.

28. "I have watched this young shellan…"

29. A gentle wave of fervor swept over the audience, that unified their thoughts into a single hearth, and a hot hearth it was. 

30. The President felt the energy flow through him and smiled warmly, nearly stepping back to cool down.  He held one arm up and waited for the intensity to calm.  A Vicar had to psionically hold him down to the dias floor.

31. "I have watched this young shellan pour his soul into the marrow of our society, and I can not begin to describe my joy at the arrival of this day."

32. "As I look at your faces and feel the pulse of the entire shell, I marvel that this phenomenon has stirred everyone's heart into a unified voice."

33.  The intensity was beginning to sizzle, like a very large amplifier about to explode.  The sensation was surreal, like the fuzzy anchoring points of the Ball's exterior. 

34.  It didn't seem like any further speech was necessary -- the light in the President's face said everything:  This was an appointment by acclaimation.

38. "Let them enjoy their moment," The Director suggested, "this doesn't happen very often."  "I think I'm enjoying it too!" the President replied.

39. Aqu'Sha allowed the electricity to quell by stepping back to wave at random shellans throughout the auditorium; very informal.   When he re-approached the podium, the assembly quieted. 

41. "I have full faith and confidence that Bri will continue to maintain the highest standard, and can think of no one more worthy to accept this appointment than he." 

42. An adjutant quietly approached the President from behind, bearing a square blue velvet pillow, upon which was a ceremonial badge of office.

45. "Bri An'Trol Rain,” the President said solemnly, “do you accept the position as Second Counselor to the President, along with the responsibilities and powers prescribed, to perform your duty in my name; to uphold the Constitution and defend the shellans of Vejhon with your life?"

46. "I do, Mr. President," Bri said soberly.  Then he grinned when a girl in the audience screamed "I love you, Bri!"  She would have to share with 50 million others.  Bri did not look away from the President's eyes.  

47. "I warrant," the Director said to the President's mind only.  Bri knew the formality.

54. "Mr. President and my shellans," Bri said, "I will never, ever let you down."  Bri waved at the audience, bowed, then turned to shake hands with guests on the stand.  For the first time in history, Bri jumped up away from the gravity field, and drifted in the free space between the dimpled booths and the stage.  His fans  jumped out into the freespace to congratulate him.  The act was absolutely prohibited and left the President aghast.  "He's in no danger," The Director comforted him, "we'll let it happen this once."  The Guard had no problem manipulating objects in free space, so the indescretion wasn't as disorderly as it could have been. 

55. The Ball remained noisy for the next 20 minutes while the media covered all aspects of Bri's public and private life for the next several weeks.
 

KOR'S ASCENSION

56. In a different part of the shell, a less publicized event was about to begin.  It would not have the Presidential pomp and circumstance of a royal coronation, but it was equal in significance among the invisible underground.   

57. Nine days had passed since Bri's appointment and the psionic strata was saturated with news and sensationalized tales of every kind.

58. "Why do we follow those fools?" Kor asked to nobody in particular.  He was taking his ritualistic bath as prescribed by the scrolls; the ordinance had to be witnessed.

59.  The cavern was torch lit and dead quiet except for the trickle of water dripping from Kor's gentle splashing and the echo of his voice.   Any woman would have given anything to bathe him, but the doctrine of the sexes had to be strictly observed until after his ascension.

60.  "We should be first," he finished.   His voice echoed in the dancing shadows of torch light on the rough cavern walls.  His attendants quietly organized his ceremonial garments.  Occasionally a torch flame would pop and spark like a real hearth. 

61. "What tones are we using today?" He knew the answer, but wanted his attendants to relax more.  The Elite was about to become a new paradigm, and he wanted the occasion to be more festive than solemn.

62.  An attendant unrolled a scroll on a stone bench and studied a frequency matrix created during the 6th Dan.  The symbols were archaic but translatable with an epikey.  Every Dan left an epikey to abridge lexicographical etymology from new to old and past to future.  

63.  "Dan 6 Intonations," the attendant said, following the narrative with his finger:  "396 - Enlightenment."  Kor lifted his eyes toward the ceiling and nodded.  "417 - Reversing," the attendant continued.  Kor nodded again.  "528 - Transmutation."  "That's a key one," Kor injected.  "639 - Bonding," the assistant paused.  "Another one," Kor added.  "741 - Seeing," the attendant continued.  "I had that one mastered when I was 8," Kor confessed to the attendant psionically."  The attendant nodded and read the last one, "852 - Harmony."

64.  "We'll have plenty of that..." Kor paused to find a submerged step with his foot, and proceeded to egress the pool, "in just about an hour."  He was excited if not withholding pure delight.  The attendant smiled and facially queried Kor for further instructions.  Kor nodded to dismiss him from that particular task.  A "Thank-you" was understood. 

65. The other attendants began assisting Kor with his ceremonial garments.  This event only happened once per Dan, so the extra time to get it right was welcome.

67.  Two-hundred ceremonially robed members assembled and seated themselves according to rank. 

70.  The Giants of Antiquity had occupied the stone-hewn seats on occasions such as this, but nobody in this dispensation had ever sat on one of the stone chairs, even in jest.      

72.  Because Mantra was the most nearly qualified, he assumed the Vicar role, and officiated at meetings where a Vicar's warrant was prescribed.  The word 'vicar' was avoided because of it's popular use by the Psionic Guard.  

73.  Mantra did not sit on any of the chairs in the arc.  Instead, he sat on a stone bench, that separated the arched chairs from the 200 general authorities.  The arced chairs were on a slight dais.

74.  Kor sat next to Mantra on the same bench.

75.  In the gap opposite them, to the viewers right, was another bench like theirs.  That bench was traditionally reserved for the moderator.  Technically, guests would sit where Mantra and Kor sat and Mantra would sit on the other bench.  They did not have a moderator.

78.  Mantra rose, stepped toward the lectern and raised his arms over the assembly.   "Let's begin with purification," he said psionically.

79.  A synaptically-projected VHF squealed for three seconds, and then turned off like a switch.  It took practice to get the purification perfect.  Dogs were not invited.  

82.  All eyes returned to Mantra, "Anyone else care to keel over before we begin?"  There was a little less restrained laughter and then the Elders quieted down.  "We are gathered here to witness what none of us ever dreamed of witnessing in our lifetimes, and I'm sure we will never witness again."

83. The assembly knew that a major epoch in Society affairs was forthcoming, so Mantra allowed them to feel it briefly first.  "Kor... step forward," he said, while maintaining his gaze upon the assembly. 

85.  Mantra leaned his head toward Kor for everyone's benefit, "Did the old wizard move for you, Kor?"  It was a rare treat to be privy to such open compassion.

87.  The faces in the assembly beamed; rarely was anyone privy to such intimate detail between a teacher and his student.  They all felt a kinship to Kor.

91. "Kor possesses every trait that the scrolls prescribe for The One True Master."

93. "I do!" Kor replied powerfully and without hesitation.  "Then lets begin," Mantra said.

94.  As Mantra stepped back, the altar rose above podium height and became a stone monolith towering 15 feet in the air.  It's 3' x 10' base remained unchanged.  Two tall mirrors were placed, one behind each rear corner of the monolith so that the audience could see behind the altar.    

95. "In antiquity," Mantra continued, "when a new leader was selected, he passed three tests, randomly drawn from a list of nine.  Successful passage of each test meant that the candidate was chosen by Cosmos to rule Chaos.  Once an applicant passes these tests, his authority becomes absolute.  He will then select 12 counselors and one Vice Elite who also commands his Elite Guard."  Mantra alluded toward the empty bench where a traditional guard should be, but wasn't.

97. "Kor is to pass ‘through the stone’."

98.  Nobody had ever seen this done.  For most, this one feat would be authentication enough.  The society was famous for denying the impossible, and this act would prove it.      

99.  Kor did not copy the diversionary tactics of a magician because this was not a trick -- the stone was very real.  He approached the stone from the rear, disappeared into the stone momentarily, and emerged in plain view on the assembly side.  The mirrors left nothing to question:  He seemed to step into, and out of the rock as if traversing an ordinary portal.

100.  Nobody questioned the composition of the stone.  It could be inspected later if necessary.  The problem with all miraculous acts, is that once performed, they no longer appear fully miraculous.  The advantage in Kor's case, is that this assembly was true hard-Kor believers:  They believed in him with or without proof.  They all felt the coldness of the rock as Kor passed through it.

103.  The stone receded to its previous altar-level height.  

104. "The second test, being the ninth of the nine choices is to restore life to the dead.  A corpse can not be dead beyond three days."  Passing this test would prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Kor was the only rightful leader." 

105. "Where is that infiltrator?" Mantra asked. 

107.  Someone in the assembly remarked, "What for -- we only have to kill him again!"  The assembly broke out laughing.  Mantra replied, "Now, you know why I invited him."  The laughter increased.  They knew Mantra did not really invite whoever it was.  

109.  It was a much needed stress reliever.  Kor bent to one knee and elevated the dead shellan's head with one hand, and held his other hand above the shellan's sternum.  He was middle-aged with a stately face and otherwise pleasant to gaze upon. 

110.  Kor closed his eyes and seemed to break into a cold sweat.  A fuzzy aura of light energy gathered around his hand with its highest concentration of energy suspended like a ball under his palm.  Kor lowered his palm to the dead shellan's chest.    

111.  The shellan's body reanimated with a jolt.  He awoke stunned with frightened eyes.  As his spirit reinfused into his flesh, he clutched the arm that had brought him back from death. 

112.  His breathing began to stabilize.  "I felt you pulling me back," he said.  Nobody could tell whether he was grateful or complaining.  As he calmed down a little more, he looked into Kor's eyes, "What are you?" he asked.  His only concern was Kor. 

116.  Kor addressed the assembly, "I have one last test to pass before I become your your 'tried and proven true' Master."  I want to mark this moment by asking you as my advisors and spiritual leaders, what you would have me do with this shellan?"

117.  With ice cold calculation, Kor added, "He is a Psionic Guard!"

119. "I am going to set this Guard free."

120.  "A Psionic Guard?" was everyone's mutual question.  There were many confused faces in the assembly, but they all believed Kor had a larger-than-life purpose for everything he did, so this too would fit some grander scheme.      

123.  Kor had converted the Guard and knew that the Guard loved him for restoring his life.  If Kor had asked the Guard to stay -- he would have blindly followed Kor.

124.  After the Guard departed, Kor permitted the assembly to probe his thoughts just in case someone didn't understand what had happened.  Kor blocked the '2nd Counselor' aspect which nobody cared about anyway.  His power to resurrect the dead had upstaged all other preponderances.  

125.  Small insects can not survive within 10 feet of a real Psionic Guard; the cave was too dark to notice if any insects had died and the humidity was too low to sustain life.  For being sworn enemies, Kor admired the Guard's brass for getting in alive.   

126. "There is a third and final test," Mantra said, "The first challenge, of the nine, is considered impossible.  That is to 'make someone else fly."

127.  Mantra had barely finished his sentence when he felt his body raise above the ground and levitate in a slow circular motion above the assembly.  It was truly marvelous to see and a true show stopper, which was why Kor chose that challenge for last.  For all intents and purposes, the show was over now anyway.  

128.  This was clearly more impressive than bringing a Psionic Guard back to life.  There were some quietly voiced, "wow's, oooh's" and "ahh's" as Mantra floated above the assembly.  Nobody could copy even one the feats that Kor performed, which is why he lobbied the council to select the three most difficult of the nine choices.  

129.  While Mantra enjoyed the ride, the scrolls required him to ask, "Is there anyone here who disputes the evidence presented?"

130.  As he suspected, the assembly was clearly speechless -- even psionically.

132.  The ceremony's last step was to officially pronounce The Elite paradigm into existence:  

133.  "I, T' Mantraas 'An, the highest recognized authority in the Ancient Arts, and voice of this assembly as High Patriarch, do proclaim Kor V’ Trol Rain, 'The Chosen One.'"

134.  In unison, the assemby recited, "It is done."  "My last official function, as prescribed by the scrolls, is to pronounce The Chosen One's chosen title.  After which, all power and authority will be conferred upon him.  So Mote It Be."  Mantra turned to Kor one last time, as his mentor and teacher.

135. "Kor," Mantra asked, "Have you selected a form of address?"

136. Kor replied with another question, "What were the ‘tried and proven-true’ leaders of antiquity called?"

137. The assembly knew that answer, so Mantra bowed his head and pronounced, "The Master."

138. "And thus," Kor continued, "you have spoken my proper title, and henceforth it shall ever be.  Well done, my friend!"

139. The ceremony was over and Kor was now in charge. 

140. "What are your first orders, Master?" Mantra asked psionically.

141. "First," Kor answered, "You may call me anything you like, along with eleven others that I have chosen.  Come stand on this side of the altar with me."  As Mantra repositioned himself behind the altar, Kor made eye contact with the other eleven, and instructed them to approach.   

142. "My name can now be used as a swear word." Kor said.  The assembly felt invited to laugh, since Kor was proving that he had not lost his sense of humor.

145.  Kor revealed the exclusive rights and privileges reserved for The Sons of the First Morning; the prestige of which would guarantee their eternal loyalty.  Some became so enraptured that they wanted to seize the Big Ball at Balipor to celebrate their emergence as an organized shell power.  "Nothing can stop us now!"     

146.  There was another disturbance... one that nobody in the chamber would recognize except Kor. 

147.   Just like changing scenes in a holo, the cheerful sounds of celebration began to fade as Kor redirected his attention toward an object he couldn't read.  He motioned for Mantra to continue officiating while he sat down on his High chair for the first time.  He had felt this disturbance twice before in his life.   

153. "Such language!" Onimex thought.  He modulated so far out of phase that he and Kor were now the only objects in a unique dimension, surrounded by fluid nothingness.  He leaked a fatal dose of electricity into his static envelope and Kor did not release his grip in the slightest.   

154. There was an expression that Kiles used to say in trying times, "This really sucks."  There was a 'last-ditch' method of egress that Onimex had hoped to avoid, but it looked like he had no choice:            

155. ‘Disengage Index.’

156. The droid vanished from Kor's grip -- leaving nothing but empty space.  An assortment of unwholesome thoughts emanated from Kor's angry mind.  The last one was, "I will find out what you are and rip you to shreds with my bare hands!"

157. Onimex didn't hear it because he was gone in more ways than one.  By disengaging the index, he was recoiling to real time, notwithstanding his perilous location. 

IN THE SHELL OF THE PRESENT 

158.  Generally, no A.I. unit would 'disengage index' while deep inside a mountainous cavern.  If the cavern collapsed, for instance, he might not be able to separate himself from the unwanted infusion of new material.  Energy-matter transport could only be accomplished with external assistance and he had not yet taught himself how to do that.    

159.  Vejhon and it's three suns would not be at the same point in space around Kolob.  There were a lot of slip calculations to adjust for when returning to real time.  Fortunately, when a vortexian trailer dissolves, the affected object recoils to its native time like a tape measure. 

161.  The cavern had gone through several phases of renovation and was now an abandoned museum.   The former shimmering polished floor was dull and grey.

162. The stone chairs had been deliberately vandalized, at one point restored, then revandalized.

163. There were no datums inside a cavern with which to calculate a new index so Onimex would be forced to return to orbit.  Turning off an index was one thing, but turning it back on required flawless quantum calculations.  At least he was already at the target destination. 

Genetic Link -- Chapter 11

1. "Don't go away!  We'll be back right..." the announcer said.  Stage hands scurried around on the set while the camera was off.  One technician approached Bri, "2nd Counselor," he said earnestly, "I'm picking up that the First Counselor has been assassinated."  Bri tapped into the psi strata.  "Excuse me, children," he said to his young audience.  He was taping a segment for a popular kids holo as a special guest.  The kids were not especially concerned.     

2. Other technicians on the studio floor were briefed by supervisors at roughly the same time.  Within one minute, the entire psionic strata was buzzing with the news.   "How did that happen?" was everyone's mutual question.  "Where was the Psionic Guard?"   Even the kids sobered up when the mood became a unified pain. 

3. Prior to the assassination, the Psionic Guard Director had issued an 'eyes only' report to the President about an adverse threat to Vejhon's psionic climate. 

4. Citizens across Vejhon felt like they were being shadowed by a menacing psionic presense of unknown origin.  The Guard could not trace the negative emotions to a specific source:  It was clear that the source was well organized, and capable of instigating widespread malcontent. "We are NOT a reactionary force!" the Director said more frequently lately, "We do not bark at psionic pranks -- we discover and eliminate them."  Simple enough.  The next logical question was, "How?"  because the perpetrators were elusive.  Every time they they had a lead -- it turned into nothing.                    

5. Vejhon was unaccustomed to panic, yet a panic pandemic swept across Vejhon faster than the medical community could treat.  Nobody could trace the panic to a source.  Because nobody actually died, the word "pandemic" was avoided.  "Fear" was the catalyst that spread the pandemic.  'Fear' was tearing the shell apart. 

6. Since so-called 'dark powers' was pure supersitition:  Nobody was willing to postulate a theory based on folklore or myth.  Shellans were afraid of an 'invisible' attacker, yet, 'invisibility' had been the uncontested prima facie modus of both psionic polar extremes throughout time.  The Secret Society's #1 weapon was 'disbelief in the Secret Society:'  The idea of an elusive sinister force in opposition to the Psionic Guard was preposterous:  That 'disbelief' was now biting them in the ass. 

7. There was a single tangible clue:  The Guard infiltrator who followed Kor's only instruction for letting him live.  He reported the details of Kor's assent to Bri, and retired with the Director's blessing.        

8. Kor knew that the testimony of a Psionic Guard was legally irrefutable so he let the Guard live for that reason.  Even if the Guard could believe that Kor was sincere, the concept of a pretentious miracle permanently maligned his outlook and disfigured his polar alignment.  The Director retired him with full honors.              

9. The Kids could not apprehend Kor because nothing could be traced to him.  In effect, The State was now 'on notice' of a dangerous new nemesis.  The threat is real -- but you can't see it.  The Kids were a concern to Kor:  They were holistic and pure; they cut like a knife and were as elusive as Elite operatives.  To Kor's relief, the Guard kept the Kids under control. 

10. Psionic attackers plant seeds in the unguarded paths of the minds, like an electronic pathogen that magnifies fear:  Those seeds are kinesthetically triggered and metastasize on their own; fed by the victim's psychosis.          

11. Mental health specialists use the same method to stabalize their patients by overpowering maladies with virtue:  The only moral concept incompatible with evil is 'sacrifice.'  Sacrifice is an act that invalidates the function of evil; where love is expansive -- conceit recoils into the black abyss of itself, sucking up all ambient light with it.      

12. At an emergency briefing in the President's situation room, Vicar Miles presented news clips of random acts of violence.  "Shellans are having neural seizures everywhere," he said.  "It used to be said that someone who suffered a neural seizure was never stable to begin with; that they were just too lazy to deal with life."  Miles presented a chart with psychiatric illnesses, "Nearly every category -- completely off the chart!"   

13.  He pointed at the 'depression' column, then tapped the 'morality' column which expanded into 50 sub-categories.          

14.  "Citizens with no criminal record have been committing strange and unusual crimes; some inexplicably heinous."  A holo showed some gruesome imagery with photos and dossiers of the perpetrators; most of whom were respectable shellans, never predicted to have a bad day, let alone murder their whole family.

15.  Vicar Tell'on injected, "Shellans are asking us if the Psionic Guard has moved to another shell?"  "We've heard that 1,000 times," everyone reflected.  They both made eye contact with the Director who did not want to mention a truck load of letters from shellans asking that very question.  The President was sympathetic -- he received even more mail on a wider range of issues, mostly negative lately.  Although somewhat redundant, mail symbolized permanently imprinted thoughts that could capture moments in time and provide key insights into failures and successes.  Mail was an official, if not elegant means of communicating.    

16. "This is spinning out of control," Miles recapped.  He did not want to say that the battle was lost, because it wasn't lost yet... just heading in that direction.  "And we don't have a solution?" the President said with concern.  "We're working on it Mr. President," Tell'on assured him, since he was sitting right next to him.      

22. The President nodded his head at Wexli, who without waiting, stepped in from behind the secretary.

23. She tightened her smile toward Bri, who had reclined his plush swivel chair beyond it's balance point.  He busted his knee on the table's underside to rebalance his chair.   Wexli was ready to catch him if necessary, "Don't forget to breathe," Wex directed just to Bri.  Bri loved Wexli because he didn't fit the stoic Guard stereotype: Wex was not very inhibited and inclined to engaged in light heartedness on occasion; he was also fully vested by the Director so his credentials and competence was never questioned.  "I used to be you, once," the Director confided in him.        

24. If not his knee, Bri might have bent something else to prevent his fall; Kyle'yn and Wexli kept their grins to themselves.  Wex sympathetically patted Bri on the shoulder while taking his seat.   

25. "Sit down, sit down," the President beckoned congenially -- he did not catch any of the mischievous innuendo; he was not fully at ease either. 

26. Wexli sat between Bri and his boss, who was still quietly laughing at Bri.  "We're only shellan," Wexli defended, anecdotally.  Bri had become his charge.  

28. "Help yourself," the President prodded, reaching for a glass, adding two ice cubes and pouring some Jolvian Mead into it.  Bri smiled, almost blushing, "So that's what was under the napkin?"  He didn't say it out loud, but everyone, including the President easily read the Jolvian Denial story from Bri's unguarded thoughts. 

29. "There's no denying it," Bri thought as a private pun -- he knew the docking collar story like everyone did, and felt like he had just unshelled the greatest mystery on Vejhon.  The Director took it all in stride, "It's sort of a sipping Brandy," he suggested to Bri psionically, "don't go too heavy with it."  "Will I change colors?" Bri asked.  He accepted everything the Director said as ex-Cathedra, even if his comment had been about girls or some other pedestrian topic.  "You see," the Director said to Wexli privately, "the stoicism will come.  But you don't have to rush it."     

30. The President sat back in his plush, custom-made swivel chair and sighed contemplatively like a father amongst family.  He looked like he was contemplating a sports strategy or something of less importance than what was really on his mind. 

31. Aqu'Sha's face was known throughout the shell as the all-knowing father.  His present company understood his facial gestures and caught the subtext of what he didn't say.      

32. "Mr. Director," said the President, "What's going on?"  His formality fluctuated according to the number of guests.  He wasn't being formal.   

33. The Director answered, "Do you want the long or the short version, Sir?"

34. "Oh, by all means," Aqu'Sha implored comically, "give me the short version," then he warmly gestured toward Bri and Wex, "and give them the long one - they need it."

37. That was cutting straight to the chase.  Cryptic conversations within psionic conversations had already taken place and Bri was astutely in the loop from the beginining.   He knew the President's perspective as well as Wex knew the Director's.  

38. "Mr. President," said the Director, "we have between three and five months before we can expect a complete revolution."

39.  "Ask and the shell receives," the President pondered.  He was only this relaxed among certain friends who understood the volumes he didn't say.     

40.  He allowed his eyes to glance up toward the ceiling as though he were seeing a divine vision.  Bri and the Director wished they had more insight to Aqu'Sha's visions, but politely refrained.    

41. The President's eyes were getting a touch watery.   Everyone understood.  It was a reality that no civilized shell leader should ever be faced with. 

42. Bri had come to know and understand the President's mind and heart very well, and he knew that the President's heart was breaking.  That pain, hurt Bri worse than the inexplicable afflictions that Vejhon was suffering.  Symbolically and in fact, the President felt the planet's pulse.  He was the living vestige of the State and had accepted that mantle willingly.  

43. "Guards," the President mumbled despairingly, then he lipped other words that his present company could not decipher.     

44. He recomposed himself, "First Counselor," he said, directing himself toward Bri,  "Are we ready?"  Bri was not used to hearing himself called that.  

45. "Yes, Mr. President," he answered, "The last three units are being detailed but the rest are shiny and new.  We've even got money left over."  Whatever that amount was -- it couldn't be very much. 

46. They did not focus on any particular topic for very long, on purpose.  They all knew basic guardianship, and were shielded by the premier authority on the subject.  A proposal of megalithic porportion had been debated several years prior and enacted by the four of them.  That proposal was now a reality.  They had created innocuous cryptic alternative symbols to discuss the matter indirectly.  Actually, the truth would have been harder to believe.       

47. Vejhon was about to stage one of the most incredible events to occur anywhere in the Universe, without divine intervention.  

48. "Divine" was an interesting concept since the Cacci Dai system is a machine world that also believes in The One.  Machines, however, are apsionic, which enables them to guard psionic secrets better than biologicals.  Machine vulnerabilities lay in other areas, but psionic leakage is not one of them.  Harmonic synchronization is similar to psionics, but exists mainly in the Elliptical paradigm.  

49.  For the discussion at hand, no other civilization could have filled an order of this magnitude on such short notice and produced a state-of-the-art product.  All of this was communicated without saying anything.    

50. "Is there anything else, Sir?" Bri asked.  If an infiltrator had been listening, the symbols would have been meaningless.  Boring makes a great disguise.    

51. "No Bri," the President replied, "It confounds me that those ships could have been built.  Did you see the numbers?  They go completely off the page!"  It wasn't the number of ships, but the dimension of the ships that the President referred to.  To say more would have been compromising.  The thought had been communicated in code:  They were discussing a paper clip shortage in D'Luthia.  

52. Psionically, Bri said to the President with the Director shilding them, "It took the entire treasury to pay for it, Sir.  But we have them.  They're real.  They work.  Just awaiting your order."  The coded thought was of a domestic military build up with Theotian assistance.   Only these four knew the whole story from start to finish.   

53. The President was impressed with his protoge'.  "Thank-you for coming gentlemen."  These four had to walk separate paths to avoid sending up red flags.   There were no indications of external interest, just another boring meeting.  

54. He nodded politely at the Director and Wexli, "I need to brief the First Counselor on the evacuation plan, since he will be overseeing the operation, but do keep me apprised as always."  The Director assigned other Guards to shield the meeting so that he and Wex could attend to local matters. 

55. The Director rose, kindly nodded to both, and exited.  Wexli left too, but remained with them spiritually; an antic intended to serve a diversionary purpose.     

56. The President and Bri proceded to discuss sports, news and anything that had nothing to do with anything.  "Off The Record" had an identically named piece of legislation on the Proletariat floor, invented to obfuscate a hot issue by dubious design:  The military buildup was demanding attention and the media was spinning it a thousand different ways.  Reporters from other systems were getting involved too.  It was easy for the Proletariat Chair to stay in-character since he didn't know anything either.      

1.  "I think this is our 'in,'" the accountant said to Blue Funnel's CFO.  He pluged his jumper into the desk holoport. 

2.  Kor had taken his campaign speeches to an intergalactic level. He was wanted by Vejhonian authorities for questioning but Elite agents kept finding technical reasons to avoid such encounters.  At least one Elite cover was inside every component of government.  Operatives could easily sniff out Kor sympathizers and organize Elite cells to handicap government operations in inauspicious ways.  Like any cancer, the malignant cells began to spread.     

3.  "The manager at Balipor showed me something like this," the CFO said watching with great curiousity.  Because of the evasive manner in which Kor came and went, hundreds of inaccurate theories proliferated on the whereabouts of Kor.  Some even assumed that the Psionic Guard was protecting Kor for State security reasons.  All disinformation collectively worked in the Elites favor.  "If I remember right -- the issue was the Guard.  Do you think he'll crack 'em?"    

4.  Kor had become a celebrity in many off-world circles where Vejhonian authority didn't exist.  The media claimed that Kor's popularity was greater abroad than at home.  The tabloids criticized the government for hunting Kor like a common criminal;  "What did he do wrong?"  "Why is Kor wanted?"  As Vejhon's social climate continued to destabalize from fear and suspecion, Kor was perceived as 'a savior who can restore peace and safety to Vejhon.'  The oldest political 'con' in the Universe was proving 'tried and true' once again.  "It looks like he has cracked it," the accountant commented. 

6. "He doesn't want an 'understanding,' the accountant commented, "He wants control."  The CFO smiled in mockery.  'Control,' was the singular goal of Blue Funnel, although never advertised so bluntly.     

8.  In order for planned obsolescence to work, the public must believe a lie.  Kor seized power by selling the only solution to a problem that he created.  It was a page right out of Blue Funnel's SOP, which was precisely why the Psionic Guard banned Blue Funnel from operating outside the financial quarter at Balipor.  On Vejhon -- vehicle tires do last for the life of a vehicle and every home has a static power supply.  An entire galaxy was using bank notes and electronic credits backed by hot air, while Blue Funnel horded everything of tangible value; metals, jewels, commodities, real estate, art, any type of liquid asset, food and even water itself. 

10.  "I hate psionists," the CFO said, "They block business..."  He held short, but any psionist would have also heard, "...admirable objects to be slain."   In apsionic worlds, Blue Funnel has the 'champion of morality' quietly 'put down' or made an example of.  Blue Funnel runs all governments, prints all money and cares even less about the figurative law-making bodies.   "Just keep adding zeros," the previous CFO used to say, "and if that don't work... 'two cents' will."  'Two cents' is the Universal price of a bullet, notwithstanding the infinite transliterations.  Reptillians think in terms of 'forks' since dinner doesn't have to be dead in order to enjoy it.  

12.  The accountant pulled his jumper out of the holoport.  "Arrange something," the CFO ordered.  Since Blue Funnel revolved around money, the CFO wielded more power than the CEO did. 

BLUE FUNNEL APPROACHES KOR       

23.  There was a fanatically loyal element that zealously served the state; who were called upon for rapid response:  The Saucer Jocks or SJ's.  They were vested by the State to enforce law and order domestically, and authorized by SpaceCom to oversee interstellar affairs.  In effect, SpaceCom was the defacto police agency of the Universe and guardians of interstellar commerce.  Their prestige throughout Theotia was comparable to the Psionic Guard on Vejhon.               

24.  Blue Funnel owned the saucer technology and guarded it as their greatest industrial secret.  The State had to accept it, because everyone's safty depended upon the saucers.  These multifaceted love-hate relationships comprised the quantum fabric of Theos.  Ultimately, Blue Funnel was a silent partner in everything, and at times, could even appear moral.  

25.  Terraforming was one of Theos' leading exports -- even the Cacci Dai deferred to Theos' terraforming expertise. They were known to terraform worlds with no intention of ever returning, simply to practice the art, and to give students something to practice on.  On a Blue Funnel ledger somewhere -- every last nut, bolt and pound of dirt was accounted for and tracked.  Quite simply:  Nobody perceives themselves as a villain when everybody lives in their own holographic mind.         

28. His speeches were hypnotic.  He knew what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to.  He could massage the psychic pulse of an audience into an ecstatic frenzy and have them eating out of his hand all night long.   He played upon their hopes and fears, and their wildest dreams dashed by an apathetic aristocracy.  "The homeworld doesn't care about you!"  "Where are THEY?  They have NO idea what your lives are like out HERE!"  "Do they even care that I'm here?"  He played the Theotian psyche as thought he had written the book on the subject. 

29. Kor was a camelleon who could change states-of-mind on-the-fly.  His appeal was Universal; addressing individual concerns with evangelical earnestness.  He was one of them; as if he had penned the entire Theotian saga as the High Herald of Azoth himself. 

30. During the show, spectactors would say, "I felt like Kor was talking directly to me!"  "I AM...talking to you," he would sometimes inject. The interviewer laughed. 

31. The most personally gratifying quality about Kor's Badlands campaign was that nobody ever reported anything unflattering or crass about his showmanship or his character.  He had the perfect blend of reality and spirit to buy the Exterior Regions hook, line and sinker.  Blue Funnel was taking notes too.  "I think he's going to walk right into the Emperial Throne room and take a seat," one accountant observed.     

32. There was a subtle technique unknown in the world of stagecraft that Kor was quite deft at applying:  His Elite retinue blanketed the arena with a psionic shroud that embued peace, tranquility and a sense of harmonious belonging.  The shroud would have been easily detected by a Psionic Guard, but was highly addictive otherwise.  Only those who knew the 6th-Dan intonations could do this.     

33. When the shroud was in place, those blessed by its protectiveness were susceptible to hypnotic suggestion.  The suggestion contained two words:  "Follow Kor."  There was one soul in the back of that very large crowd who would have never seen what was coming...

DAL EL

41. He felt an unnatural resurgence of the euphoria he felt during the rally.  He was sensitive to its supernaturalness.  "Am I forcing this?" he wondered, "or am I changed somehow?"       

42. "Dal El," a voice called, in a deep, quiet tone, as if the pantheon had become animated.  He looked around blankly to trace the sound to a source.  

43.  "This couldn't possibly be happening," he dismissed, "My wishful thinking... I'm hallucinating."  His cannon of self-defeatist rhetoric was loaded, but failed to fire.  His mind drew a blank.  "Yes... for once, just roll with it:  Don't vandalize the moment."  Dal didn't rely much on hope lately.  He was well enough off, but... whatever. 

46. Kor saw Dal's advanced degrees from Theos' most prestigious university:  A doctorate in gravametric anomalies and a book about spatial curiosities that most pedestrians had no idea even existed.  All of his ideas had been plagiarized and the thieves rewarded handsomely.  Dal had nothing to show for anything he did.    

47. He could have written his own ticket anywhere in all of Theotia, but his unwillingness to romantically humor an aristocract doomed him to economic obscurity.  Justice is never about right or wrong -- it's about what one can afford, and Dal couldn't afford it. 

54.  "Dal El," Kor said again, pleased that he could toggle between two diabolically opposite states of mind. 

55.  Dal was intermingling with the colors of the aurora; riding on a surreal ribbon of hope. 

56.  Kor knew that Dal had spiritually immolated himself before him; that there was no contest, and possibly no need to perform the rite...

57.  ... but it had to be performed as the scrolls commanded.       

62. Dal El sat back on his heels but did not look into Kor's face.  He was committed to do anything that Kor commanded him, and Kor knew it. 

63. From a fold in his robe, Kor unsheathed a ceremonial dagger that still held an edge, and presented it to Dal El.

64. Dal reached for it, and then withdrew realizing an impending danger. 

65. He repeated the antic while trying to reconcile the contradiction.  Kor patiently observed the struggle in Dal's mind.  The moment was symbolic and permanent.  Dal had to chose:

66.  What did he desire most?  Who did he love most? 

67.  At long last, and with nothing more to lose than himself, he retrieved the dagger and held it reverantly.

68.  He could have called himself a fool, but it really didn't matter at this point.  He didn't care if he was a fool or not.    

69.  Dal didn't care if he died because he believed in Kor.  "Faith can extinquish Zena," Azoth said in the fable, "or create one."   Zena is an Elliptical sun.

70. "Stab yourself in the heart," Kor ordered him, suddenly and powerfully.      

71. Those words split Dal's mind in two, but only temporarily, like throwing a ball up in the air.  

72.  He suspected that Kor might ask him to do that, and he wanted to demonstrate that his submission was complete. 

73.  He wasn't especially distraught at the idea of stabbing himself in the heart.  He regretted the idea of losing his new found purpose.

74.  "Maybe it's worth it," Dal reasoned, "to discover my true love and then die:  To live in this one eternity, and end it on this note... like a Jolvian tragedy."

75.  Kor did not mean to roll his eyes; but the drama unfolding in Dal's mind could one day be funny.  Just not today.        

76. The potential for failure did exist; this was a real test that had to be passed.  "Dal can do it.  Now, will he?" 

77. The Elite Order would remain unfulfilled until this moment passed. "There can be only one," Kor privately coached, "Vice... Elite," he accentuated.   

78. The next moment relied entirely upon Dal El.  It was as if time had stopped to await his decision.

79. He was not looking for deliverance.  His analytical mind sought a rational outcome.  He wanted deliverance from his mind... now holding a dagger at arms length with both hands, pointed at his heart.  Dal El laughed at the absurdity -- because it fit perfectly.  "It all comes down to this -- staring at a dagger pointed at your heart held by your own hand."    

80. "My whole life has been reduced to the meaning of one unquantifiable word," he thought, "Faith."  "Yes!" Kor cheered him on, quietly, "this is the moment:  The key by which I work wonders!  And you will too."

81. With a tight, concentrated flinch in his face - Dal El lunged the dagger deep into his chest and cleanly pierced his heart.

82. He sat on his heels while his chest struggled for life, and then went unconscious.  

83. His final act was to gracefully fall to his right side and spare his body further injury.  

84. Kor resisted the urge to clutch his own chest when Dal plunged the dagger into his, but he felt it nonetheless.  He felt the cold steel blade penetrate his heart.  As the Master, he had to let him perform this rite on his own; the most important testimony that Dal would ever profess. 

85.  The scrolls are fulfilled.  That was the easy part.  So, Dal was dead.  

86. Kor looked at Dal's lifeless body; a sacrifice that the 200 Elders did not have to make.  This rite was reserved expressly for the Vice-Elite.  The Elders had erroneously presumed that this rite was figurative or a mistranslation from Dans past, just like the literal rite of Kor's ascension.          

87. Once Dal was medically beyond any possibility of reviving, Kor prepared to perform the next step.     

88. He knelt down beside Dal and raised his lifeless head onto his thigh.  The water was already separating from his blood.

89. The final step would seal their bond, a bond that transcends death.      

90. Kor removed the dagger from Dal's body, licked some of the blood off of the blade and returned the dagger to its sheath inside the fold in his robe.

91. He placed his right hand over Dal El's chest and worked the energizing formula that had resurrected the Psionic Guard not long ago.

92. Within moments, Dal El was conscious again.  His body was healed and he opened his eyes. 

93. The bloodstains and the tear in his tunic remained, but the dagger wound was gone.

95. Dal was now in an elevated status, 2nd only to Kor.  He lifted Dal to his feet and embraced him warmly.  Not even El Sha had seen this side of Kor.     

96. He stepped back to confer upon Dal El his new title; dutifully earned and sealed.  His sillouette was draped by shooting stars.  

99.  Kor permitted Dal a moment to bask in his new life, and then said, "Let's go -- we're just getting started!" 

100. As they turned to leave, Kor sensed a distraction in Dal's mind, and recognized it immediately.  Dal sensed that Kor was probing.  

101. "There was a cylindrical object that I saw while my body was dead, " Dal El said, "It was hovering... I thought it might be one of yours, but wasn't sure."

102. "I know that object," Kor said, "That thing has vexed me, my entire life -- and I'm linked to it somehow.  It passes through time and seems indiginous, but it's not indiginous -- it speaks shellan."  Kor's complexion tightened.  "The only feeling I have, is that it must be destroyed."

1. "You might want to sit down for this," Alona recommended.  President Aqu'Sha sent his favorite attaché with Bri on this highly sensitive mission.  She was disturbingly beautiful and could melt anyone with her hypnotic eyes and femme fatale demeanor.  Bri could certainly understand why the President enjoyed her so much.

2.  Bri's ship was well inside Cacci Dai space.  Ahead was an array of faultlessly spaced rectangular specks that continued to enlarge until it seemed for certain that the Universe had an end, and they had reached it.  The shellan eye could not fully grasp the immensity of this particular construction site.

3.  "So this is 'off-the-record," Bri whispered amazed.  He had seen it on paper but the real thing was completely unimaginable.  "Off-The-Record" was the code name for a piece of shadow legislation that nobody knew anything about.  It had taken 5 years and 90% of Vejhon's monetary reserves to pay for.

4.  Subject matter experts had been recruited from 12 systems, sworn to secrecy, threatened, and retired to various off-shell locations.  Only four shellans knew this story from start to finish, and they weren't talking.        

5.  False trails had been concocted; every conceivable decoy and a fictitious war was standing by if needed.  The smokescreen would have been detected in the planning stages if Kor hadn't instigated shellwide psionic anxiety.                    

6.  Theos sent a CFA-PFS with Bri to finish signing for the Cardships.  

CACCI DAI CONSTRUCTION

16. The Cacci Dai escort landed Bri's cruiser on a platform that morphed into a Vice-Presidential colonnade.  The nanites left no detail undone.  "Wow!" Bri said impressed, "They really know how to welcome their guests!"   "You are the first counselor," Alona said, to remind him that he wasn't just an ordinary shellan.  He wasn't ordinary when he was ordinary Bri.  "You sound like holo character," she kept that to herself.       

19. With sharp precision, the androids lining the colonnade saluted as Bri's entourage passed.  A 321M bowed to Bri and invited him to remain standing while the wine colored, ruby fringed carpet morphed into a sled to take Bri's party on an inspection tour. 

21. Unless one understood the Ellipsis, the Caddi Dai value system was unfamiliar:  Biologicals lust for precious metals -- machines lust for chaotic biomass.  While biologicals adorn themselves with gems.  Machines engineer sustainable ecological environments for cellular division.  The Cacci Dai were in Section 8 of the Ellipsis and could tweek biomass at the vacuum level of matter.  The Ellipsis Cycle becomes every machine worlds chronograph with Conscious at its center.   

22. From a Cacci Dai perspective, their id-core relationship to it's three chaotic stellar neighbors was binary Yin-Yang symbolism.  Their enigmatic triune of chaos  was represented by Vejhon, Theos  and Jol:  Cacci Dai even had a namesake element dedicated to each system for metaphysical veneration.         

26. The Cacci Dai subcontracted aesthetic details to fourth and fifth parties that were located even further away than Vejhon, Theos and Jol.  They wanted a chaotic reinterpretation of Vejhonian cultural aesthetics based on selected works from the Library of Vejhon copy, submitted by the Theite contractor.    

27. Bri's party was speechless.

30. "It could be a while," Bri answered.      

31. "Do you think anyone will want to leave this ship, once they see what's onboard?"  Bri gave Wexli a contemplative look, to suggest that the question could not be answered.  This ship offers a better life than the upper crust enjoys at home.   It was an unconscious thought.  Wexli read it and nodded.   

34. The sensory overload forced Bri's mind to wander; he remembered the pilot's comment enroute, "The easiest ways to get lost, is to make a wrong turn in the Outlands -- there won't be a proof-positive way to confirm or deny anything."  Bri laughed, which caught Alona's notice because she thought she missed something.  Once Bri's flag passed the Sacred Cloisters, he diverted, unnoticed and untraced to the outskirts of Cacci Dai.  Alona privately rolled her eyes, "You're not even paying attention," she politely commented psionically.  "My head hurts," Bri replied.  "I understand, First Counselor," she sympathized.  She offered him an asprin and an infuser that she kept in her pocket for Aqu'Sha.  "Not that kind of hurt," Bri thanked her kindly.    

35.  Strangely, Theos' precision tracking equipment failed to notice Bri's diversion to Cacci Dai -- the equipment was being upgraded.      

36. "I think we're heading back," Wexli said excitedly.  Inside or outside didn't seem to make any difference because reality had been succinctly upstaged by Cacci Dai technology.  The narrative was still going, "1,500 Cardships end-to-end could encircle most terraformed worlds..."  "Did we even leave home?" Bri asked nobody in particular.  Alona, Wexli and De'Mandle caught what Bri meant:  The entire experience seemed more like a theme park ride than reality.  "Compliments of the entire treasury," De'Mandle offered quietly, feeling compelled to make at least one verbal contribution before the ride ended.  Nobody really knows what goes on inside an SGK's head.   

38. "I think that's the yard superintendent's office ahead," Wexli said.  It's very likely that all of them, except De'Mandle, would have failed an assessment test of what the narrative covered.   Alona might have come in 2nd.   

39. The narrative concluded, "We wish to express our gratitude for trusting us with building your homes away from home.  Please feel free to direct any additional questions to the yard superintendent once we arrive."     

40. Bri nodded respectfully to his 321M host who returned the gesture.   The sled glided into the yard superintendents observation deck and morphed into the floor.  "Look at this," Bri said psionically to Wex, "Carpet."  He twisted his foot so that Wexli would notice.  The morphing technology was clearly unprecedented.  "I don't even think the Cacci Dai can do this," he joked.  It was an inside joke.    

41. They were greeted by a 661C who looked remarkably shellan with glistening skin.  Evidently, there had never been a reason to make perfect copies of shellan bodies.  The 661C actually looked better than most shellans; like a super hero out of a comic book.  The 661C was more fluidic and graceful in his movements.  "I hope you enjoyed your tour," the 661C had a very natural sounding voice that was too pleasant and too perfect to be real. 

42.  "I have never been so impressed," Bri offered, "I completely validate your work."  Bri's use of the word 'validate' was proper Cacci Dai etiquette.  A circular translucent perimeter appeared to shield them from mild yard noise outside in the vacuum of space.  A pleasant oxygen-nitrogen environment had been provided.  Limited quantities of innert gasses were attracted to the abundance of matter outside.  The 661C directed their attention toward the translucent perimeter that now served as a holographic projector.  "These ships represent the form and function of a perfectly planned city, governed by an automated judicial system based on Vejhonian Constitutional Law,"  the projector's voice sounded just like Mother.  "It is an extension of Mother," the 661C clarified.  

43.  Vejhon's Constitution created cosmos from chaos and optimized biological symmetry and cohabitation by Cacci Dai interpretations.  Bri went to Theos to discuss how they were going to make an automated judicial system work.  

44.  "We have also installed hidden treasures to enliven your journey," the 661C said.  It was fairly well known that 'chaos' enjoys surprises, so 'scheduled' sensory treats made sense.  Every part of the the ship was voice interactive.  Even the Atgravs did not require hands-on operation.  Atgravs are 100 passenger transport ships.

47. "If any government was going to hypothecate its entire shell reserve to evacuate on one of these," Bri said, "this is money very well spent.  I am completely delighted -- this is most, most excellent!... I validate."  The 661C cocked its head slightly and nodded approvingly -- it appeared to be genuinely animated.         

48.  "Your approval is accepted.  It is our hope that your shell virus consumes itself, and that these vessels will safely contain your memories," Conscious replied.

64. Alona had been through hell and high water with Aqu'Sha, and in spite of her rigid professionalism, she placed her hand over her mouth and began to cry as quietly as possible.  She couldn't help it.  She handed the note to De'Mandle.  Bri tried his hardest to avoid thinking the one name that could not be associated with him.  "I've got your back," Wexli assured him.  Bri stared in disbelief at the distant Cardship with completely new, and horrified eyes.  

65.  To give his soul some respite, he asked his host, "I would like to buy the messenger so that he may live freely among biologicals."  The 661C seemed to genuinely understand and compassionately replied, "The boy has always been free to leave, but he is happy here because we treat him well."  Wexli added psionically, "The kid was a shipwreck survivor at a young age -- he doesn't know any other life."  Bri patted the boy on the cheek, "You have performed your duty well, thank-you."  The boy didn't move.  "I validate," he amended, never dreaming in a million Dans that he would say that to a biological, seriously.  The boy nodded, turned and walked away at a calmer pace.  "Can he feel?" Bri asked Wexli psionically.  "Oh yes," Wexli replied -- he's happy.  He understood you.  He doesn't want to leave."  

66.  Bri turned to his 661C host and asked, "Is he a..."   "... biological machine?" his host finished.  "Yes," Bri answered.  "No," his host said, "Every unit makes that same inquiry.  He is completely biological, only not as chaotic."  "I understand," Bri said absently.  His mind was wandering out into the yard.   

67. The port side of the Cardship looked like a road traveling to eternity.  15 miles was longer than most cities, but somewhere beyond the vanishing point, the Cardship did have an end.  "Not as chaotic," Bri reflected.  "What a blessing," he sighed.  

71.  With tears still in her eyes, Alona removed the First Counselor signet from Bri's breast and unfastened his cape.  It looked like he was being stripped of his credentials, but in truth, Bri was now the property of the State, and the President doesn't wear special markings:  Vejhonian credentials are issued in the President's name.  Bri was now his own passport and vestige of Vejhon.  With difficulty, Alona said, "He wanted so much to see this in person."  She stepped back respectfully and said, "President” Bri An’Trol Rain."  Everyone in the delegation bowed.   His exit now required a different fanfare than his arrival did. 

72. His Presidential entourage could not decipher if his facial expressions were those of strength or horror.  On Vejhon, the media had already interrupted every program to report the tragedy and The Director issued a statement:  "President Bri has canceled his appointments and is returning home immediately."  Bri would always be affectionately known as Bri no matter what his title was.  

73.  Wexli continued to shield Bri who contemplated the ignoble possibility that his brother, in his morbid way, thought he was doing him a favor. 

75. Once again, the red carpet morphed into a sled, this time to shuttle Bri and his party to the awaiting saucer.  Bri admired Cacci Dai's morphing technology, "I wish we had these at home."  "Nanites," Wexli said, "Trillions of them."   

76. "We have to begin the evacuations immediately," President Rain ordered.  "Execute Off-The-Record."  

78. "We're about to find out, all of those various unknowns," Bri said, to answer everyone's questions.  There are 6 billion inhabitants on Vejhon... how many will be willing to leave without any notice?  "Those who belong to us will leave," Wexli said.  He was very confident.   

79. Two Billion shellans were considered lost to the secret society, which left 4 Billion souls to be rescued.  "We're going to move 4 Billion," Bri recalled, "It looked great on paper and these ships are certainly well worth the money..."  "It's the reality," Alona consoled him, "Don't let the reality fool you."  Bri had listened to Alona speak that way to Aqu'Sha a thousand times and now she was continuing the tradition with him.  It made him feel better. "I guess we know you're the President now," Wexli joked.    

82.  "I do know that tune," Bri mumbled and it led to only one name, "Thank-you Doctor."  He grinned at Alona, appreciative of her wit.  "I want Micha on these trips from now on," Bri said, "Why wasn't he invited?"  "When we left," Alona explained, "You were still the First Counselor and Micha is your friend, not essential personnel."  "I understand," Bri said.  It was also understood that Micha's status had just been elevated by Presidential decree.  "He will be a permanent part of your retinue from now on," Alona assured him, if his High Up agrees." 

83. "I'm sure he will," Bri nudged the Vicar, "Wexli's connected."  No President had been better prepared for the role.  Except for the Psionic Guard Director, who was managing affairs on Vejhon, the remaining power base was either with Bri or aboard Vejhon One.  

86.  113 offered Bri a small cigarette-shaped crystal with gold embedded Cacci Dai script running lengthwise.  "Sales Receipt," he clarified, "This one is yours specifically."  "I was just kidding," Bri said, "about the 'Fracking 113' bit -- you don't really want that as a nickname?" 

87.  "I'm fine with it -- it's different," 113 replied.  "Well, I may not always... use that," Bri replied.  113 was good either way.  Bri waved farewell to his 321M escort and handed the sales receipt to Alona, exactly like Aqa'Sha would have done.  

89. "I think this is my stop," Bri said.  The B'line dome was deenergized, awaiting his orders.                

BRI RETURNS TO VEJHON

91. The saucer extended a narrow gangplank with beveled steps.  The other two pilots remained seated with their visors darkened while the canopy was open.  Bri took the vacant seat and the dome re-energized.  His genetic signature was acquired the moment he sat down.     

92. The Presidential colonnade morphed into a cathedral of light to bid Bri a safe journey.

93.  The saucer drifted to a point clear of matter and streaked away.  Biological eyes would retain a retinal imprint for a few seconds.  

94. "That's leaving in style," Alona said.  "He'll be there before he left," Wexli joked.  "Impressive," 113 conceded.  "Always glad to assist a biological," their host replied.  Machine humor.

95.  "You two should get together," Wexli suggested.  "The Queen?" 113 replied.  "She knows," Wexli explaned, "Why do you think Prophet embedded you there."  "I KNEW it!" 113 exclaimed in a whispered shout, although his assumptions regarding Estuses transparent lust was accurate too.  "But you still performed like a precision instrument," Wexli complimented him, "The President wants you and Alona to get together," he repeated.  Wexli punched 113 in the arm, "...and not just the President, I suspect." 

96.  113 blushed.  Seven Gates would simply have to go along with this one.  

97.  There was an extremely feint distortion in space when anti-matter is released at the vacuum level of matter.  Most saucer sightings are ghosts in the observer's subconscious.       

102.  Em'Jah was an easy read; Bri amended the flight plan, "I need to dock with my flag -- it's in Vejhon's orbit.  I won't be going to the surface."

105. Bri brushed away the displays with a boyish smile -- he had always wanted to ride in one of these.  "You've been working with the Theites a while," he observed.  "This is the best job in the whole shell!" she answered.  Theites were considered cavalier by a Vejhonian standard, and Vejhonians, although not without humor, were perceived as somewhat stoic by the Theites.   There was a Dan's-old feud regarding which culture came from which; so everyone observed the, "When in Theos..." jurisprudence.  

106. "Well," Bri replied "I'm certain that our ship is in very capable hands."

107. "Oh, it will be," she said, "it's the most coveted assignment in the entire spaceforce."  Occasionally, the line-of-sight of the other two pilots would phase through his canopy as a tri-fold overlay.   It was easy to understand and made sense.  Bri repeated her line introspectively, "...the most coveted assignment..."  This was supposed to be the most highly guarded operation in history, "How could..." he started to ask, and then stopped.   

108.  Bri didn't know that the two cultures had integrated militarily; something that Aqu'Sha must have known, but never mentioned.  "The most sought after assignment?" he echoed as cheerfully as he could.  Theos' spaceforce was famous and far reaching in contrast to Vejhon's token shell defense force.  Vejhon's greatest strategic illusion was the shell legend itself:  Enemies were unwilling to break the egg, so they abandoned pursuit.  "I was reassigned for OJT," she said. 

109.  Bri admired her infectious enthusiasm, "You have a wonderful spirit!" he complimented.  "OJT?" he thought privately.  It made sense; he had always wanted to integrate militarily.  SpaceCom pulled this off without the consent of the Senate or the Proletariat; a black project conceived by Estuses and Aqu'Sha alone.  "Brilliant!" Bri conceded.  

110. "Mr. President," Em'Jah asked, "Is this your first saucer ride?"  Before Bri could answer, Em'Jah added, "Push the red slider forward."  Bri was beside himself!  He had wanted to do this since he was a kid.  There was only one 'red' slider illuminated beneath the console:  He pushed it forward and the stars blurred into a lucid haze.  "We'll be there before we left!" Em'Jah remarked.  "I can now say I've done everything," Bri agreed.  There was not a kid in the Universe who wouldn't sacrifice every toy to do this once.        

111. "That's intercept speed," Em'Jah said.  "The reactor still has a touch more," Shaneen injected, "but we try not to go there."  Within the lucid blur were intermittent streaks of space.  This was a true first for Bri.  "We're both Number Ones" she offered, referring to her male counterpart.  Bri knew Theotian military traditions:  Each class had a 'Number One' and the title stuck throughout the graduate's military career.  They were granted first choice of assignment and rose through the ranks quickly.  Every graduate wore a ring, but Number Ones ruled the ring wearers.  For that reason, XO's were not referred to as Number Ones unless they graduated Number One.  The other branches did not need to follow that tradition and generally avoided SJ watering holes.  Like the Psionic Guard -- the SJ's were always presumed to be in charge.   

112. "I will express my gratitude to Theos for sending only the finest," Bri complimented them.  He was curious about their chain-of-command.  De'Mandle had been an SGK plant with the Queen's blessing.  Being Vejhonian, she read Bri easily, "Theite," she answered.  That was logical.  As Vejhon's Head of State, his compliment would be entered into their permanent military records.   "It was your treaty that opened the door," she added with gratitude.  "A Number One is a Number One," Em'Jah quoted the SJ cliché' energetically.  He fit the stereotype with comic book precision and probably needed a special compartment just for his balls.      

113. "Wanna drive now?" Sheneen offered.  Bri laughed out loud.  This was too much.  Would Aqu'Sha have approved of such frivolity so soon after his morbid assassination?  He could imagine Aqu'Sha replying, "With the weight of all shells placed upon your shoulders... hell yes!"  "Then for you," Bri agreed.

116. Em'Jah, carefully articulated a question, "Are you really Vejhonian... or Theite?"   "You're fracking voice!" Bri said out loud, "but he meant it as a compliment, "Are you the son of Azoth or what?"  Privately, he wondered, "What do we need this saucer for?  Why don't we just show up like the Sons of Thunder?"  He dialed it down a notch:

117. "I'm yours," Bri answered, which was a term of endearment on Vejhon and Theos.  By uttering those words he spoke a family bond into existence, and the President's edicts are irrevocable, even by the Psionic Guard Director.  Both pilots knew that.     

119.  "Message to Kile'yn," Bri said to his PDA.  "BBM2... delete last... BBM1 message received. 327 enroute. Recall PG. Execute E-plan minus 1 hr, 35 min. You are First Counselor until evac complete.  Signed:  Bri An'Trol Rain, President, Vejhon.  Send."  "There!" Bri said to Em'Jah and Shaneen, "That was my first Presidential Order, and you were here to witness it."   "Outrageous!" Em'Jah said as a form of praise in Theotian, "Can you make me a Vicar?" he added.  Bri grinned, "Don't push it."  Shaneen giggled, "Guards E.J.! -- he's already made us family -- what more do you want?"  E.J. wanted her.  Shaneen blushed.  Bri was about to explain that the President only appointed the Director, and the Director appointed the Vicars, but it suddenly made more sense to just keep driving.  "Like it wasn't obvious," Bri kept his laughter to himself, grateful for the comic relief.  "My life will never be dull, now."  As if it had ever been.  E.J. too, would be boarding the Cardship as part of Bri's entourage now.  "I'm keeping this thing," Bri said, "I really like it." 

DEEP IN THE CAVERNS OF VEJHON

120. "I know," Kor said with lethargic indifference.  He did not have to qualify his mood or check his behavior -- The Master could say any damn thing he pleased.  He ignored the Elite guard's inquiry until he could unravel what the topside psyos was all about.       

121. "Master?" the Elite Guard ventured, carefully.  It was unlike Kor to be so nonchalant, although he could be unduly petulant at times.  

122. Kor gave the Guard a cold stare, which instantly froze the Guard from further preponderance.  Message understood.  

123. Catching his own insolence, Kor toyed with the Guard for a moment, "Do I detect that you question my ability as your leader?"  The very insinuation was an abuse of power, because Kor knew better.  The Elite had no checks and balances, which left Kor as the uncontested Emperor of his domain. 

124. Kor was genuinely loathsome, but not at the Guard.  So far, nothing had happened that he could not predict with precision.  He had won every contest and parried every move as the playwright of his own production:  He knew every line and scene in the script, "...but now... this curve ball.  From nowhere."  He had to re-think things.       

125. The evidence was beginning to descend from the sky in the form of small transport craft of unknown origin.  How do so many of these things descend from the sky from nowhere?  Shouldn't the defense force at least attempt to respond?  How could anything of this magnitude and scope catch us completely unaware?  Is this an invasion by another shell?   He inquired with his operative in the defense force but the automated systems went off line before his agent could ID the vehicles.  Truth be known:  Atgravs didn't have an ID yet -- this was their first real-shell deployment.

127. Elite operatives all across Vejhon were directing questions to Kor, who was not answering.  The Elite Guard wanted to know why.  "Do you think I'm unable to assimilate all of your thoughts?" Kor rebuked them, "Have you been stripped of your intelligence as well?"

128. The Guard lowered his eyes to concede the matter.

129. "Let them go," Kor shrugged.  Now the Guard was truly puzzled.  The entire Elite was.  The only constant was that Kor was always right.     

130.  As Kor entertained possible explanations for the abductions, he found himself getting angry that Bri might have invented a way to deprive him of the final battle that he so gloriously longed for.  Shellans were making the one choice that Kor never dreamed possible:  They were leaving.  "But to where?"  The Elite didn't have many shellans in orbit and orbiting personnel had been taken first.          

OVERHEAD

137.  Atgravs piloted themselves, but a biological still sat in the pilot seat to interact with the computer.  He set the Atgrav down in the middle of a street and shellans climbed aboard.  Mother fed a data stream to the Atgravs to extended the psionic shield.     

138.  As shellans crossed the ship's threshold, all of Vejhon's psionic turmoil was left behind.  Many fell asleep for the first time in peace.       

139.  First responders and military personnel were removed, then redeployed to optimize the evacuation process.         

140. Millions of "Leave Me Here or Pick Me Up" transponders were airdropped so that anyone who changed their mind at the last minute could activate a transponder and leave.  Each transponder had two sides:  One side said, "Pick Me Up" and the other side said, "Leave Me Here."  A built-in countdown timer indicated when the evacuation would end.  Once it was over -- it was over.  Finis.         

141. The Director's office played a shell-wide message on continuous loop on every station and frequency:  "Except for personal-affects and those artifacts that can be carried on your person:  Please evacuate immediately.  There is sufficient time remaining."  When the message repeated, the word "sufficient" was replaced with the actual countdown time. 

142.  Citizens had grown so weary of the constant psionic anomalies, that Kor's strategy of erratic psionic attack became a key motivation to leave.  For most the issue was black and white:  Either you wanted to leave or you didn't; you were waving good bye from the boat or from the ground.  Elite sympathizers simply stayed out of the way; "Good Riddance!" 

143.  Even off-shellers and slaves were rescued if they wished to leave. 

145. The only location that an Atgrav would not visit was inside a cave.   A cave entrance was permissible, but the interior was not.    

146. Not only were caves considered enemy territory, but caves could potentially disrupt the data feed to Mother. 

147.  Because of the superstition surrounding caves, it was believed that law-abiding shellans would not seek refuge in a cave.  The stigma even affected sports enthusiasts who dismissed cave exploration as a rebellious activity.  Geologists sent robots to explore caves and the robots never came back.  Caves defied all rationality and that was exactly what the secret society wanted -- their collection of lost robots was rather steep.           

148. As the spiritual patriarch of Vejhon, The Director chose to be the last Constitutional shellan to leave, while Bri received the evacuees in orbit.      

149. As the remaining shellans evacuated, the Director relocated to the top of the Big Ball where he would wait until the very last second.

150.  An Honor Guard ceremonially folded the State flag for the last time and handed it to the Director for safe keeping.  "One day, either I, or my successor will reinstate this standard," he said. 

151.  The information core of the ball had been retrieved by soldiers and safely stowed aboard the Atgrav.  All of the SGK's were accounted for.  The Ball's system's were turned off for the first time and the keys hidden in the flagstaff's pedestal.  

152. In the space of six hours, 800,000 Atgravs evacuated 3.98 Billion Vejhonians to orbiting Cardships.  There were many Atgravs to spare, but the Mother computers only wanted 800,000 Atgravs operating at any one time.  When one Atgrav returned, another one launched.        

153. The busy sound of Atgrav traffic faded to a few hundred that combed the sky in search of last-minute evacuees.  Occasionally, someone would change their mind and flip a transponder over to, "Pick Me Up."  An Atgrav would land.  A sickeningly sweet psionic fog coated the strata like antacid in a dead person's stomach.  Vejhon no longer had psionic polarity, instead, a single pole saturated the entire shell with no resistance whatsoever.   The calm was disturbing because the catalyst for motion had ceased to exist.   

154. Most shellans who had never experienced a polar alignment, accepted this as a sign that they had made the right decision:  "Kor was right -- the government was deceiving us all along.  Look how much better we feel!"  Even the four winds seemed motionless while the shell became blanketed by an erie haze that dimmed the shell light.  The haze provoked a range of metaphysical sentiments that seemed to compliment the Elite mystique.  Elite members liked it. 

155.  The Director felt a deep sorrow within the shell's soul, "Where are my vibrant, energetic, spirited children going?" she seemed to ask.  He believed that she was aware that two-thirds of her children had abandoned her.  "It isn't a betrayal," he comforted her, "we're trying to save ourselves from this state of perpetual inconsequence that you see all around us.  We can't fight it."  She was not consoled.  "When the disease burns itself out -- we'll come back."      

156.  In the silence that followed, 50 Atgravs continued to scout for any straggler who wished to leave.  The time was ending in a matter of minutes.

157.  In the nick of time, some ran outside shouting, "Save me too!" and they were rescued. 

158.  The countdown read: 00:01:00, then 00:00:59 and counting.  The only Constitutional shellans who remained were the Director, his pilot and staff members. 

162.  Kyle'yn took his seat and comforted the pilot psionically.  There were at least a million other cases similar to his.  The Atgrav lifted off on a course for Bri's flag in orbit directly overhead.  He saw the fog settle unnaturally across the landscape like sea foam racing across a dry lake bed.  The effect was similar to covering furniture with sheets during extended trips away from home.  The shell itself was preparing for a major paradigm shift.  

163.  Constitutional law died on Vejhon.  The Constitution was in orbit with a copy prominently displayed aboard each ship.       

164. His eyes swept across the clouds convecting along the mountain ranges; the rainforests and seas.  He caught a glimpse of Spearpierce at higher altitude, the curvature of Vejhon and the crescent of nightfall.  They zipped through a shell checkpoint and into the twinkling stars of space.  The Atgrav landed in a hanger bay where shellans were still disbursing and marveling at the immensity of the ship.  They parted to make a path for the Director that ended in a keyhole pattern.  Some felt like refugees more than evacuees. 

165. "If we're the responsible ones," a child asked him, "why did we leave?"  He appreciated her advanced intellect and looked compassionately into her eyes, "Because we are the responsible ones, my child," he answered.  To everyone else he continued, "Universal Law forbids corrupting space with unstable sentients.  That's what gravity is for..." The Director again looked at the child, "...it keeps uncivilized, potentially dangerous and irresponsible cultures grounded until they earn the right to venture outward."  The child smiled and curtsied, and the Director gave her the warm fuzzy she was looking for.  He was pleased that some things had not changed. 

166.  "What are WE going to do?" a Kid Kid asked.  He was light, distructively handsome and his eyes cut through anyone he glanced at.  The Director paused to contemplate something he had not planned for.  "Simulations," he answered, "This ship will have some truly hideous monsters for you to shred to pieces."  The Kid Kid grinned.  There was a girl next to him, about his age, who could hardly breathe.  "You can rip me to pieces," she sighed.  The Kid looked at her and she shrieked.  He held her cheekbone affectionately and etched a psionic proposal onto her heart.  She held his hand.  "You look good together," The Director agreed and then took a breath himself.  The distraction made him feel a little more normal.  

168.  The Director honed in on Bri's thoughts and found him standing in front of a wall-length window observing Vejhon.  He laid the folded State flag on Bri's desk and joined him in salute at his side.  The room was terraced and dimly lit to showcase the window rather than the interior.  Holograms of Bri and Director were projected on other Cardships, so that the entire evacuated population could see what their leaders were doing before the ships disbursed to undisclosed locations.          

169.  Bri turned to the Director, "I need you to bless me."  The Director was only too happy to oblige, grateful that Vejhon had escaped Kor's oligarchy.  He placed one hand over Bri's heart and his other hand behind Bri's head and transmitted a revitalizing surge of positive energy.  "You are mine," Bri said affectionately.  Kyle'yn chuckled quietly, grateful that someone still had their humor.  The Director is related to everyone by default, "The fleet is in good hands," he assured him, "I'll be in my office if you need me."  Kyle'yn bowed and took his leave confident that the Universe was unfolding as it should.

Farewell -- Chapter 15

1.  As the sea of stars filled Bri's window, he could not help but wonder how long this journey would last.  Vejhon had long vanished, no longer a glimmering speck in the skyline.    

2.  A thousand possibilities ran through his mind, "Would this last a year or a hundred years?  What will happen to Vejhon while we're gone?  We brought the flag with us, so are we refugees from our own shell?"  He knew that some of the evacuees understandably felt like refugees.

3. Certainly, new epics would unfold as a result of this evacuation.  "Are we the only ones in the Universe who have taken this course?" he wondered.  Undoubtedly,  other shellans were wondering similar things aboard other Cardships.  Any imaginable hardship was easily diminished by an abundance of shipboard amenities.   

7.  He set the case on its designated shelf under the clock, stepped back and saluted.   Then he took two steps back to dismiss himself, and returned his attention to the window.  

8.  "Only Mother knows where we are now," he thought, not recognizing the stellar formations any more. 

9.  He thought about Zam El's Orb, where The One preserved Zam El aboard a spherical boat before the shell collapsed.  Vejhon's shell had never collapsed, but the story possessed moral significance.  "This is our Orb," Bri compared, "Maybe the fables are disguised prophecies?"   

11. The allegory came forward, "Why did Kor say that millions would die because of me?"  He did not need to remind anyone that he was instrumental in saving nearly 4 Billion souls.  For possessing such disdain of theatre, Kor was full-time drama.  "What was it Kyle'yn said?  Responsibility," he remembered, "We lived because we learned the meaning of responsibility."

12. "What's going on at Balipor right now?" he wondered, "Are they ransacking the place?"

15. The office had been adorned with some of Aqu'Sha's personal effects.  He picked up a framed picture of Aqu'Shas children and smiled sadly, remembering the President's quiet bewilderment as items kept vanishing from his Balipor office one by one.  It took him weeks to notice that some things were missing and he thought that he had misplaced them himself.  Bri expected a Presidential pardon for re-locating the President's stuff.  A pardon that would never happen.  He set the picture back exactly the way he found it.     

16. As he looked over the room, he realized that the room should serve a higher purpose.  "Aqu'Sha was the first martyr," he reflected, "I'm re-designating this room as a memorial for all to visit."  The Director's office was close by, and Kyle'yn could read Bri's thoughts from anywhere, "I warrant," he said psionically.  Bri grinned, "I'm grateful that my conscious has a voice."   "And a name," the Director gently inserted. 

17.  "Let's redesignate it, 'The Hall of Remembrance," Bri said, "All who perish, from this moment forward, will have their names recorded here…in this tomb."  His 2nd Presidential Order:  So Mote It Be.   And so it was done.

THE LETTER

18.  There was a wine-colored, tri-folded letter with a Presidential seal laying on Aqu'Sha's desk.  The color scheme matched Aqu'Sha's personal stationary so Bri thought nothing of it.  It perplexed him that he didn't notice it sooner...  "How did this get here?" he wondered.   He could have swore that there was nothing there when he looked at Aqu'Sha's children just seconds ago.  "It must be my head playing tricks... the stress of leaving," he dismissed.     

2.  "Without adversity of any kind," one of Kor's adjutants relayed for another spectator.  Kor did not need a translator, but his role as Head-of-State required a more regal image, so he permitted his entourage to indulge the expected formality, not terribly unlike the campaign.  As long as it looked good, he was OK with it.        

3.  After a generous revue of shell-wide victory celebrations and award ceremonies concluded, Kor gave his most gallant leaders governorships over large areas of Vejhon to rule as sovereign lords.  As long as their loyalty to him was unquestioned -- they could dispose of their lands and subjects as they wished.  

6.  The Big Ball was visible from everywhere in Balipor.  Kors itinerary today was to meet with his executive staff and formally license Blue Funnel to operate outside The Quarter.  An item of business enroute was to ensure that local monuments and natural artifacts were protected since the former government no longer existed. 

7.  Shellans perceived many structures as symbols of the old regime:  Kor had to reshape public opinion to accept iconic edifices as tolerable components of history and culture, "Leave them alone," he ordered, "No more vandalism." 

8.  For a brief period, Vejhon basked in a glorious utopia that altruists only dream about.  The combat forces had lost most of their general staff during the evacuation.  Sensing their restlessness, Kor appointed new garrison commanders and ordered them to, "Keep your troops quiet:  Their time will come.  I guarantee it."    

11.  "They had their chance to leave," Kor assured him, "Now they must live with their choice."  The threat was not immediate, but if left unchecked, soon would be.

12.  Dal was intuitive.  He knew that Kor had hoped to convey an even more caring image than his predecessor, mainly to reward those who believed in him.  

13. “There will always be the dissatisfied no matter what you do,” Dal consoled him.  He knew that Kor would not penalize everyone for the misdeeds of a few.  Kor asked Mantra in confidence, "Why has the absence of psionic opposition stagnated the strata?   I thought we had Paradise in our grasp!"  The euphoria felt following the evacuation made everyone think that Vejhon would be translated into the Realm of God.  That trajectory was now falling down.  "How does the absence of imperfection and weakness create so much bitterness?" Kor rephrased, "Do shellans 'need' to suffer in order to appreciate 'not' suffering?"

16. "What was all the campaign rhetoric about?"  "We can do better, yet, 'what' was never defined," one anchor commented.  To give the appearance of normalcy, the media was permitted to function uncensored as a reward for being sympathetic to Kor during his campaign.  There were volumes of social complexity that nobody comprehended.  "Who is the elusive 'they' that everyone keeps talking about?" another anchor asked.  "That 'they' used to be us!" a co-host answered.  Historically, everyone accepted whatever the media sold them whether they were paying attention or not.  Here was one sober fact:    

17. Government is work.  Government is not some mysterious quantity that stops for a few days to reorganize when things aren't going well.  Government creates the dimension in which society functions, no matter how invisible that dimension may seem.  When the Sons of the Morning realized that Dal could accommodate the mesmerizing complexity of an insatiable people, he curried their favor quickly, like a godsend.  "I think they ALL see you with improved eyes now," Kor praised him, after receiving genuine compliments for choosing him as his Vice Elite.  Dal was finally validated!

18. As Dal began to stabilize critical infrastructure, he discovered that many shellans who possessed extremely rare specialties had left.  The new State had to scurry for engineers, mathematicians, doctors, chemists and most of the advanced technical trades.  To Kor's surprise, some talented individuals had remained, believing that their scarcity would magnify their social and financial status.  Their gamble paid off handsomely. 

22. Then internal security discovered a plot to depose him!  He, who had given them everything; the Glorious Dawn of the New Dan and immaculate social reengineering.  "That's it!" Kor  said, tossing a newspaper down on Dal's desk.  The machinations of psionic espionage are multi-layered and involve other dimensions in order to produce meaningful intelligence.  "We need more permanent measures:  We can't have the same shellans who helped us -- turn against us!"  Dal knew this was coming, "If the disenfranchised are unwilling to participate," he offered calmly, "then they will have to be destroyed."  He flipped the paper over to confirm that a piece of propaganda had been included and pointed it out to Kor, "If you missed the bus -- you're with us!"  Kor read it and grinned.  They were very much on the same page.  The time for patronizing was over.  He smiled at Dal, amazed that his Vice Elite could bring so much to the party.

25.  Kor nodded toward the Minister of Economics:  "All trade with Vejhon has stopped.  Even the quarter is deserted... except for Blue Funnel.  Commerce is said to have relocated to the Outlands."  "We're working on getting it back," Dal said abruptly, "Get word out to everyone that the Quarter is still unmonitored and duty-free," Dal admonished, "Make it sound better than it ever was before."   The Minister acknowledge with a slight bow.  Dal pointed at his Propaganda Minister to assist him. 

26.  "Trade will normalize in due time," Kor said confidently, "Once everyone realizes that the Quarter is still the Quarter."  He motioned toward Dal, "As the Vice-Elite has said."      

27.  "The commerce quarter is not entirely deserted," injected one Son, "There's a variety of pirates and brigands brokering contraband and unlicensed commodities."  Everyone laughed, "What's a 'licensed' commodity?" another Son asked anecdotally.  "About half the shellans there are fugitives in hiding," another added.  "They scatter as soon as they see us," another said.  "Off-shellers," another explained, "... looking for passage to somewhere else," the first finished.  Any psionist would be alerted to the approach of an Elite dignitary well in advance.   They liked it like that. 

29.  The symbol for "Psionic Collateral" did not have an acoustic equivalent.  "There was a disorganized faction of shellans who refused to evacuate because, 'Nobody's going to force me off MY damn shell and I don't care WHO the hell he thinks he is!'," the Minister reported.  Everyone laughed suddenly.  "They want a more active role in government, My Lord," he finished.  Kor seemed quietly befuddled by that one.     

30.  Everyone seemed to enjoy a unanimous moment of esoteric irony, namely Kor and Dal El.  "Then by all means," Kor gestured cordially, "offer them more active roles in the administration.  I'm sure you can think of something."  The issue had once been polarized, but the reason for their exclusion no longer existed.  "Annex them into the solution process," Kor suggested proactively:  He had a soft spot for shellans who knew what they wanted -- at least they weren't declared enemies. 

33.  Kor left his seat and began to walk among the assembly.  "As I review our plight with improved eyes," he began, "I realize that there is no dilemma at all.  We... The Elite... and those who stand with us, do not have a problem!  We are not obliged to patronize the disenfranchised.  They made a choice.  We did not force anyone to stay.  We have offered everyone who remained, much more than the exiled regime ever could."   After a modest  pause, Kor reiterated, "The problem is not with us."  He didn't say the rest, but they they all heard it,"...the problem is with them!"

34. Muzzled sighs of relief spread among the novice shell managers.  Their tasks had overwhelmed them and frustration levels were high.  Nobody wanted to admit that their incompetence was due to inexperience, but Kor didn't seem to care.  Instead, he swept them into the palm of his hand and continued to rally them like he did during the campaign:      

37. Quite congenially, Kor continued, "Yes!  He threw it off!  Only we're not going to throw Vejhon into the 2nd Sun."  They understood the fable's metaphor.  Vejhon was in no danger.  In a more pragmatic tone he asked, "Did we not deliver what we promised?"  He nodded his head for them, then became dead serious:  "Do understand me when I say, we don't owe those petulant, ungrateful shitheads, one fracking thing!"  The room erupted into cheers!  They were floating on air.  Wow!

38.  He had done it again -- the Sons were exaltant!  "Life through light and death, beauty and savagery," Kor reminded them calmly.  "This is one of those times."

39. Kor motioned for Dal El to take over while the lights dimmed.  Huge monitors had been retrieved from storage and set up for Dal's presentation:

40. The hologram revealed a massive grid inset with lasers on the x and y sides, at 5-inch intervals around the perimeter of a stadium-sized playing field .  The image was then superimposed over Balipor's Shellshock stadium to add believability.  "Is that?..." one started.  "No, it's just hypothetical," another answered.   

43.  Kor acknowledged the Elder's quip," Then we drop him through again," he answered happily.  The laughter was a little more reserved this time.  "There's a bio-metallurgical acid at the bottom to clean up the remains," Dal said, "so either way, the condemned are finished."  Kor permitted the demonstration to play on for a moment and commented, "This form of demise," he paused for effect, "will be called 'dissension' to honor the many... loud... dissenters."  Mantra cooly chimed in, "In a rather unique interpretation of the word."  Kor acknowledged his mentor.  Their collective reactions seemed no more fatalistic than an ordinary high school pep ralley.  

46. "The visual message though;" Dal nonchalantly added, "The Master believes will greatly reduce the ungrateful among us."  Nobody could argue that point.  If the Elders were amused by it, perhaps a stadium full of spectators would be too?  Like when Jolvians ate their food while it was still alive.   

47.  By holding these events in a sports stadium, loyal shellans could witness the eradication of Vejhon's last remaining plague.  "Prisoners are too expensive to maintain," Dal said, "It would be more humane to put them through this, then to turn them into a public burden."   That had been an Elite philosophy throughout time.      

48.  "The acid leaves no trace of biological matter.  There's nobody to bury," Dal added.  A perfect crime with faultless efficiency.  "Very economical," the finance minister added.  Dal spread his hands and nodded to underscore the minister's point.

49.  "The process is called 'dissension,'" one Elder said, repeating The Master, "but does contraption itself have a name?"  "Yes," Dal smiled politely, "Grid Boards."  And thus the expression, "Grid Boards," was spoken into existence as a noun, an adjective and political means to an end.  "I'm SO glad I'm not a victim," one Son sighed.  

50.  The presentation ended and the lights went back up.  Kor gave everyone a moment to settle.  "Elite Engineer," Dal said, "your office has the plans -- you have The Master's blessing."  The engineer acknowledged psionically, and excused himself from the assembly.  Dal was not psionic, but could recognize facial equivalents.  "Sometimes, not knowing what everyone is thinking is a blessing," Kor told him once.              

51. "Those of you concerned with mental health issues -- start taking names," Kor suggested.  That would end the meeting with a smile. 

52.  The Sons of the New Dan were licensed by Kor to condemn any non-Elite misfit they chose.  The power to indiscriminately select who 'lives and dies' would become their highest badge of office.  Only Kor could restore life, but those extinguished on the Grid Boards were hopelessly beyond any form of mortal repair.    

53. Having taken Kor at his word, hundreds of thousands of uncommitted, unworthwhile and antagonistic 'problem children' were slated for extermination but were not immediately taken into custody.  Those most deserving of death were Grid Boarded in a shellwide televised spectacle.  It was hoped that some 'diamonds in the rough' might repent of their apathy and agree to serve the State, rather than die needlessly.  It worked.  Many repented after watching the first gridboarding.

54. Some of the least liked media figures were also invited to cover the dissension story.  Precisely what happened to them afterward is unclear, but the prevailing conspiracy theory is accurate.  It was not in the State's best interest to exterminate a citizen with talent, so anyone who 'came to their senses' was forgiven and put back to work.  Dal had to intercede more than once.         

55. Interestingly, some spectators jumped into the grid on their own, perhaps unable to deal with the new State paradigm.  Suicide was considered a personal matter and not a State concern -- there was no clean-up, so what the hell.  Within mere days, Kor's "Attitude Rehabilitation Program" was praised for being 100% effective:  Throughout Vejhon, talk of dissent and discord completely stopped; a testament of Kor's passion for justice and of his devotion to his loyal followers. [sic] 

1. Kor had won the hearts of Theotian Outlanders like a long awaited savior.  He had hoped that his effort in the Badlands would outshine any negative publicity that he received from the Theotian homeworld.  Kor and Theos proper had a mutual misunderstanding.  To them, he was a "rebel rouser," admired by young debutantes and rebellious aristocratic young bucks with something to prove.  Kor's image had also become a best selling Indy holo label, and icon for their underground youth movement.   

2. Theos released an official statement that it would not recognize the revolutionary government 'on' Vejhon.  The Senate had debated all day whether to use the word 'occupied' or not.  "How is Vejhon 'occupied'?" one Senator asked, "We're from here -- does that mean we're occupying the Senate?  How does an indigenous occupy their own world?"  "The legitimate government is at large, so Kor's regime is 'on' Vejhon," the speaker resolved.  A brigand was sent to Vejhon with a holo showing the Theotian Senate laughing Kor to scorn.  "Declare war with what?" the Senators laughed.  "You're a vegetarian!"  On Theos, that was the lowest possible insult.   Vegetarians were not allowed to serve in the military and could not be trusted near a produce stand.  

4.  Throughout his training with Mantra, money had never been an issue because everything Kor needed was in the rainforest; he barely wore clothes and required no maintenance.  There was plenty to eat.  Contrary to Theos' insult; Kor was without question the greatest hunter known to anyone, so the insult was ludicrous and unsportsmanlike.  Nevertheless, he understood the mean-spirited intention. 

8. Kor had a 'kill switch' option:  "I'll let them invest Trillions," he said to Dal, "and as soon as they forget their place -- I'll kick them off the shell and keep their assets and investments."  If more shells had done the same, Blue Funnel might not have fared so well.  "It's all fiction anyway," Dal mumbled.  Kor smirked.        

17.  When the recovery began to show steady positive results, Kor decided to re-inaugurate interstellar diplomacy.  There were systems that had promised their support during the campaign, that distanced themselves afterward, and wanted economic ties now.  Kor wanted revenge against those who had abandoned him.  Blue Funnel persuaded Kor to let them take economic revenge instead, "It'll keep you from getting painted negatively in the intergalactic arena," they said, "We have ways..."  Kor debated their offer from the opulence of their consulate hall in the Quarter, "Perhaps you would be useful for that," he agreed, "so, do your thing."  There were systems that banked on Kor's rise to power that would be handsomely rewarded.  Anyone who lent assistance, even if they refused at first, would be added to the 'good' list.  "Actions! Actions!," Kor reminded everyone, "Talk all you want -- it's what you DO that matters, when it matters."       

18.  It was sheer dumb luck that a talent scout discovered nine astronautical engineers who missed the evacuation.  They were throwing a retirement bash for a colleague in an orbiting hanger.  The hanger was down for maintenance, so they thought it would be safe to have their party there.         

19.  A operating BAC sensor revoked their duty status and remanded them to the shell, pending review.  They took a taxi to a rainforest to sleep it off, and when they awoke, the celebre' who had fallen asleep on his mock throne outside the cave entrance was gone.  Those who had slept inside the cave's entrance were left behind.  The unpardonable act of entering a cave in a spacer uniform bordered sacrilege.     

20.  Dal didn't really care about their excuses.  He offered them a blank check to get the shell's orbiting transit apparatus back in operation.  In effect, they received a huge promotion for throwing a wild and irresponsible party.  

21.  The 'Sky Spirits' were born.  Kor appointed all of them to be his personal in-flight attache's and gave them stewardship over everything that was not tied down.  They quickly became the envy of every kid, with their images imprinted on all kinds of toys, clothes and novelties.  Everyone wanted to be a Sky Spirit.          

29.  "Free... is very cost effective," Dal quipped in one classified report.  He handed Kor a tablet that presented the cost of an illegal mining operation.  "With all the fraud, lies and fiction being traded like it has real value," Kor said, "I don't see a big fracking difference."  He liked the aquisition fee of zero.  "Would you believe," he said, handing Dal his tablet back, "that Blue Funnel suggested that I task you with this?"  "Yes Master," Dal answered with a grin, "he saw me right after he saw you."      

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

30. During Kor's Badlands campaign, Queen Estuses asked her favorite SJ to "Go spy on that terribly handsome rebel rouser..."  The SJ dispatched immediately.  Kor's retinue was unable to take evasive action before several B'lines set down outside the rally stadium.  To oblige his adoring fans, he chose to proceed, "I accept all walks," he said, "as long as they accept me."  After all, he had two SGK's in his fold, at the time, and a retired Psionic Guard to some extent.  "I accept SJ's too!" 

32. Before the affair went south, the squadron commander, as a vested federal agent, fired the curator for misconstruing the right to assemble as the right to conduct insurrection.  The curator could be reinstated by providing proof that his activities did not violate the State's interests.     

33. The junior officers approached Kor's podium and heckled his rhetoric, "Is that the shit you're spreading all around?" they mocked.  SJ's were never known to get personally involved during peaceful assemblies so their conduct made the crowd paranoid.  The pilots scolded the crowd, "You're trading in your government for this?"  The baseless interruption made the crowd angry, so they started rebuking the pilots because the State never concerned itself with outland affairs, "Since when do you care?" one shouted:  The murmuring escalated into a full blown riot.  It didn't matter that the Queen had only asked them to spy -- their 'duty to the State' came first.         

34. Kor's advisors recommended that he vacate, so he faded from view and evacuated before he could be implicated for inciting a rebellion on foreign soil.  Some of his Guards stayed behind to delete any evidence that he had been there.     

46. A weapons officer offered a remote fire switch to Dal, who graciously returned the honor to the weapons officer.  Dal nodded and the officer pressed the switch.  A single beam of concentrated energy sped toward the asteroid while everyone watched.  There was a delay while the anti-matter pellets bore down to their prescribed release depth.  The explosion cascaded  inward and the cavitation wave canceled just as configured.   In a momentary flash, the episode ended as if watching a holo.   There were no impacts because everything dissolved as calculated.     

47. The asteroid fissured into a billion brilliant fragments and dissolved into nothing.  The observers were astonished.  "We just 'spoke' that asteroid out of existence," Dal whispered.  The perfect crime:  Nothing happened.  "Is there some quantum variable that we simply can't see?" one crew member asked.  Kor replied to all concerned, "Don't let the 'unquantifiable' mar your achievement.  We made history today!"  Thus spoke The Master, so all hearts were set at joy.        

48. Dal turned to the weapon's officer, "My compliments for calibrating a perfect strike."  The weapons officer smirked at Dal's altruism because everybody knew that Dal had programmed the targeting computers himself.  "Thank-you, Sir," the officer acquiesced, "We are of one mind," he reasoned.  Kor concurred.                             

49. One of the observing saucers began to transmit a video feed to SpaceCom.  "You're aren't transmitting that?" the saucer pilot asked his navigator.

52. "Evasive Plan B, full speed," Dal El instructed the helm.  He had been a saucer jock in his younger years and knew precisely how to stay off the grid.  "Call for reinforcements, just in case," Kor suggested.  "Aye, Sir," Communications replied.  Outland clutter was famous for losing transmissions, so it was possible that there would be no record of anything, which was not the case:  SpaceCom pieced together a general idea of where the transmission originated.  They would have been caught fleeing the scene if Dal didn't have an intimate knowledge of SJ response procotols.  "They followed us from port," Dal explained, "B'lines are invisible."    

53. When the saucers arrived, there was no forensic evidence to study.  Although saucers can fly faster than time, Dal had already crossed back into Vejhonian space through an uncharted wormhole.  Time is inconsistent at different point in space anyway. 

54.  SpaceCom Commander O'Helno did not like unsolved mysteries, and this particular mystery was one he was determined to solve.  His analysis postulated that an annihilation weapon destroyed the outpost.  Theite saucers are powered by an annihilation reactor, but a quantum residue remains when matter dissolves into an anti-matter vacuum.  The space surrounding the cancelled area is not flawlessly unmolested.  O'Helno had been experimenting with annihilation detection for years, but could never convince SpaceCom to support his 'half-baked' ideas.  "You're the finest commander in SpaceCom," fleet headquarters assured him, "but leave the science to the scientists.  Thank-you!  Dismissed."            

55. O'Helno lined his PDA into the B'line's computer, "Boys -- let me have control for a moment."  "We're hands off," they replied.  O'Helno positioned 10 saucers into an iris and pushed their collective sensor array to spin a reverse wave in the center.  He attentuated the diameter and massaged the dimensions until at last he said, "I have it."  He could now prove that a Jolvian outpost was attacked, but it was impossible to transport the antimatter pocket in the center.  "Record, film and sample," he ordered, "we can't take it with us, but the evidence will be hard to ignore."  "Not the way your luck has gone with that," his XO said impulsively.  He knew the whole story so O'Helno didn't reply.  

56.  "You made that look easy," a 1st Lieutenant commented, "How come SpaceCom isn't doing it more often?"  "How the hell did you do that?" another interrupted.  "Because they think I'm crazy," O'Helno answered the first, "and they rejected my treatise on the subject, for lack of evidence," he answered the second.  "Well, Duhhhhh!" a female pilot chimed in.  "Exactly," O'Helno agreed.  "We have the evidence of the evidence but we can't move the source," a WO commented.  "Yes, Sir," O'Helno answered.   "Then lets just re-create this disaster and show them how it's done!" someone suggested.  "Yeah -- let's bring a black hole home for show-and-tell," someone mocked.  The mocker knew the previous comment was not meant seriously either.  "I don't think so," O'Helno sighed. 

OBSERVING VEJHON ORBITAL 

57.  "That was Thandal's disk!" the saucer pilot at the Vejhonian port exclaimed when he received the scrambled feed of a Vejhonian destroyer annihilating a Jolvian outpost.  The feed was from Thandal's saucer before it went blank.  "Thandal?" Nav questioned.  "Gingah and Ember," the captain added.  "They just left," Tac said in disbelief.  If was a captain's worst fear:  The transmission itself had drawn fire.  "They should have waited," he knew.  He expected to discuss their losses over drinks at the Nosedive after their shift.      

58.  "Send the feed of Kor's departure," the captain ordered.  "Captain," Tac realized, "Do you think Thandal's transmission was intercepted..." "they saw it and shot 'em!" Nav interrupted.  The Captain's hesitation was an answer.  "Yep," he replied soberly.  It would be his job to contact the next-of-kin, which subordinates forget.  Their saucer was not currently imperiled, "Sending now," Tac confirmed.    

59.  "A'zoth!" Tac alerted, "Look!"  All three stations picked up Kor's inbound destroyer, still from a far.  The port switched on the embarkation beacons.  Nav zoomed in on the destroyer's hull, where a victory emblem was proudly illuminated.  "Send BOTH feeds," Captain amended angrily, "if the frackin' vegetable wants a war -- he's got his Guardsdamn war!"  "Dal El's aboard" Nav invoked, "We can legally fire on it now!"  "Yeah... we could," Captain agreed cooly, "but we're not stupid."  They were crazily outgunned.  Camera crews were setting up to film the destroyer receiving a hero's fanfare.  "Both feeds sent," Tac confirmed.  "I think we would be wise to not stick around," Captain decided, "SpaceCom knows what happened, and the Senate has to declare war, so let's get outta Theos!"  

AFTERWARD 

61. SpaceCom was furious; both feeds left nothing to doubt.  "We'll show that vegetable what a serious mistake he made," the watch officer said to his Jolvian counterpart in a holoconference.  "A victory emblem!" the Jolvian officer sneered, "We'll have his fracking heart for lunch!"  The Jolvian wasn't kidding.  "The Senate is real sticky on these matters," the watch officer replied, "Blue Funnel thrives on war and, well... some of our Senators have been bought and paid for."  "I understand," the Jolvian sympathized, "They own some of ours too." 

62.  The Jolvian general replayed the victory emblem scene just to aggravate the injury, "That toothless vegetable declared war on you long ago!" he emphasized, "if this doesn't make your Senate respond -- I know our High Council will!"  Jolvian property was attacked in Theotian space.   The semantics were unilaterally unnavigable although the military sentiments were mutual. 

63.  The Senate was enraged at Kor's arrogance to display a 'victory' badge for attacking a prison outpost.  "The Psionic Guard should have kicked his ass when they had the chance," one Senator snapped.  It did not take long to produce an official response:  "The Theotian Senate continues to censor the rogue government of occupied Vejhon,' and orders all Theotian citizens to evacuate the Vejhonian system.  Theos is not at war against the legitimate government of Vejhon; we do however, support Jol II's effort to apprehend the terrorists who attacked their prison colony; who we believe may be responsible for the disappearance of Outpost 491."

66. Theos had no intention of waging a real war against Kor.  Instead, they authorized SpaceCom to taunt Kor's assets in any fashion they pleased, "Keep your reporting to a minimum."   That meant, "We don't want to hear about it."  A battle beneath the watershell was considered logistically unwinnable and collapsing the watershell was out of the question.  The real purpose for censoring Kor was to keep his military occupied while the Cardships were in flight.  It was pure posturing, like political theatre everywhere.

1. Ireana keyed in 6.67 x 10^-11Nm²kg^-2 on her PDA and tweaked the formula to compensate for M'tro-1's gravity and density.  Her life revolved around a disc shaped object that hovered above 3 feet of empty space in the center of her lab.  It was roughly 1 meter in diameter and 11 inches thick.  The top side was a highly polished onyx color that had a scrying bowl effect.  The exterior circumference was smooth with interactive features flush behind hidden panels.  This was her masterpiece. 

4.  Fourty-one years had passed since the Cardship evacuation, and as planned, Mother resettled qualified colonists on sustainable worlds to maintain shipboard stasis.  Ireana's parents volunteered to become colonists and settled on M'tro-1 when she was 4.     

5.  M'tro-1 was two systems beyond the Cacci Dai, and the farthest any shellan had ventured from Vejhon up to that point. 

12.  "The process of observation creates what we see," she thought out loud again. 

20.  Several internal gyros began winding up and then faded above the shellan audio spectrum so that no sound was heard.  Internal stasis was achieved.  A few umbilical disconnect lights illuminated and subdued to a deep blue color.  The machine became autonomous.  It was spiritual... like creating life.  Her eyes were wide and bright from her own inner light.  The machine dissolved the tevatron umbilical and became an animated biocybergenic being.  She looked worried, and afraid, happy, hopeful and expectant...

22. "Check your philosophy base," she instructed.  "Honestly, has it 'gone there and back' already?"  Her chest tightened at the quantum possibilities.  

24. "The signal terminated at the source," Onimex said, "The other unit is myself," he confirmed.  Ireana sat back on her laboratory stool with a years worth of stress expressed in only 8 seconds.  The other unit knew better than to access himself.  For a brief second -- they were in communion.   Trans-time dialogue is less cumbersome if conducted serially.

32. The new youth had been engineered to look, think and act like Kor.  With training, some could perform the miracles that Kor performed in his younger days.  An entire generation of Kor hybrids ran everything including the military.  Only those who could keep up were accepted into their fraternity.  The hybrids recognized each other and protected their collective as a single organism; motivated to preserve the State.  They replaced the antiquated Elite but romanticized Elite accomplishments and revered Secret Society traditions.  It was an adrenaline rush for all, whether among their ranks or dumbfounded in their wake.                  

37.  "That kid was actually daring you to do something," Dal mused, astonished that the kid was still alive, "Did you see the look in his eyes?  He was fracking burning holes through us!  What the hell is that?"      

1.  Another beam struck M'Trol-1 while a Corlos operative watched from the safety of the simulator dais.  The operative was safe as long as he didn't cross the simulator threshold. 

2.  Corlos had mapped the event forward and backward and knew exactly when to act.  Every dynamic had to line up like tumblers in a multi-dimensional lock. 

3.  Elite conquest #868 was about to be annihilated once the metaphorical cat grew tired of toying with its food. 

4.  The kids aboard the destroyers believed that they were far enough from supervision to taunt this particular shell, rather than follow SOP by-the-book.    

6.  Ireana felt unbearable guilt, "I can't believe I brought you into existence so that you could implode two seconds after burn-in.  I'm really, truly, sorry for that."

8.  "They're just about ready to go for the kill," Onimex said, "My future self says, 'don't worry!'"  "Are you saying those ships up there are playing around?" Ireana asked.  "My future self says, 'Yes.'"  Dal El once said to a captain, "You have to look away so the youth can play once in a while -- just know when to say when."  The captain was 22 himself, so the Vice Elite, 'more or less,' granted a license to ignore SOP in moderation, so long as the job got done.

THE END and THE BEGINNING    

10.  The simulator operator inset a small window on his dais console and pushed the inset ahead 10 seconds.  The transport synchronizer locked on a glowing "3."  The only distinguishable feature on the observation side of the simulator floor was the dais surrounded by darkness.  Observers could step across the threshold into the reality side, but there was no way to return.  The only way back was matter-energy transport. 

11.  Ireana felt her molecules scramble while her photonic matter remained animated.  "Everything your mind 'thinks' in this condition is real," Onimex told her, "so mind what you think."  "Your future self?" she asked rhetorically -- she had figured that much out.  "It stands to reason since our thoughts are already electronic," she said, "but it still feels weird."  

13.  "All advanced civilizations cross the energy-matter transposition threshold and discover a danger when separating corporeal matter from it's photonic mass," Onimex explained, "Light-mass is not hard-wired to it's organic host.  Corporeal beings can not cross the energy-transport threshold without a thorough understanding of the The One.  Neural activity is not rigidly wired -- a neuron only fires a pulse that is picked up by other neurons.  Those synaptic gaps are connected to the vacuum level of matter."   She was familiar with the concepts described, just not that exact recipe. "Which Onimex?" she asked.  "In this State, we are one," he replied.  His abstract conceptualizations seemed unnaturally advanced for an A.I. unit that had just been switched on.   

16.  Since Corlos had authorized this temporal interference, the parallax was easy to correct.  It would also serve to add evidence against Kor for his trial.  "The best disturbance is NO disturbance," Daniel always says, "however, this particular visit  is a legal mandate."       

CORLOS INTELLIGENCE

17. Ireana rematerialized inside Sunova on the simulator platform.  The destruction of M'Trol-1 was nowhere around.  The waking dream transitioned back into reality.  The librarian shut down the simulator.  Ireana felt her head ringing in the absolute quiet.  She was glad to see Onimex beside her and placed her hand on his polished upper surface, grateful that machines also made it to the afterlife.  After 4 years of devoted effort, his initialization and burn-in concluded without a fault.  

18. She was about to say, "I think we made it," but strange, ethereal music began playing in her head.  As she thought more about the music, she realized that she was composing and conducting what the orchestra played.  It used to happen to her as a kid, riding in the back of the aircar with the wind rushing past.   Now, the music was pure and unfetted by white noise.  The maestro drove her concerto through magnificent crescendo and brought the masterpiece to sweeping grand finale.  The silence should have been followed by applause, but there was none.    

19. "I will clap if you like," the librarian said gently, his voice fading into imperceptible walls.  The simulator was dark and demurely lit in stand-by mode.  The Light Race had tapered all of the corners and hard edges so that every room appeared much larger than it actually was.  It helped to cancel claustrophobia and feelings of confinement. 

20. "The music?" Ireana asked psionically.

21. "Yes, the music," the librarian answered psionically, "We all hear it -- you'll learn how to tune it out after a while."  Then he added, "Pardon the pun."  Ireana didn't catch the pun.  She giggled at his need to qualify his prose though.  

22. "I'm sure there's a psychological effect in any case," Ireana said.   "The possibilities are endless," she thought privately.  In the back of her mind, she knew that everyone else on M'tro-1 had perished and 100 rhetorical questions would not bring the dead back to life, except for one:  "If I'm here -- where did everyone else go?  Because this is not the afterlife."  Alma grinned sympathetically and non-verbally seemed to ask, "How do you know?" 

25.  "Are you co-located again?" she asked.  "No," he answered, "...as I remember, you were squeezing me and shouting, 'No Don't!'"  She liked his smart assness.  "Sounds like you skipped eons of development," she assumed.  "I gave myself a few pointers," he confessed.  "Was one of those pointers to let me win arguments?" she asked.  "I'll be wrong once in a while," he assured her, "on purpose."  "Did you tell yourself to not always have the last word?" she asked.  He said nothing further.  She grinned at his antic, short of laughing out loud, "We'll get along just fine," she said. 

26.  The trek to the conference room was dark and mysterious because of the austere alien design.  "I've been here for 38 years and I still haven't got used to it," Alma commented.  "Somehow I feel like I've seen seen this before," Ireana whispered.  "It has that effect on everyone," Alma said.  "The Light Race designed it -- they even left their library intact.  Daniel sometimes falls asleep there," He turned into a corridor, "We call it Sunova.  It's the residue of a collapsed star."  "I knew it!" Ireana interrupted.  Alma nodded -- he knew that she knew it, and he continued, "The gravity surrounding these paths and chambers would atomize your body instantly."  He pressed his hands together to demonstrate.  There was an alcove with tasteful vegetation and round lights sunk into the ceiling.  "There is no technology that we know of, anywhere, that can hollow out dense matter like this."  Ireana let her hand brush against the plants as she passed.  He knew that his technology comment would get her going.  She was hoping that the oils on her hand would not kill the plants.  "I'm sure they'll be fine," he assured her.  Just before the door slid open, she answered his technology question: "Thought."  He was stunned, but they couldn't discuss it right now.    

27. They entered an ovular-shaped conference room.  Along one wall was a relief image of a machine world that spanned the entire wall.  It was being used as an animated mural.  It was not the Cacci Dai and quite possibly not even from this dimension. 

29.  He motioned for them to sit down, pulled his own chair out, and scooted forward.  The chairs were sheik, upholstered, comfortable and didn't have legs...  "Later," she told herself.  Onimex didn't have legs either.   They were able to build gravimetric cavitons in this shieker frame. 

31. The ops rep reported, "It was twelve before, now it's twenty," referring to the number of systems affected by Kor.  Daniel nodded and glanced around the room to emphasize how this equation could get exponentially out-of-control.  

38.  His assertion elicited the next expected question:  "So, what do you have in mind?"  Ireana felt like she had dwelt among them for years; as if a history had been magically installed, "Was M'tro-1 real?" she wondered, "Are we all just pawns in some grander scheme... and then how many more levels beyond that?"           

39.  "That is the question, isn't it?" Daniel replied.  Ireana tuned in again, "Is he talking to me or are we on the same page?"

40.  Field intelligence from Vejhon began to display on monitors at each station.  Everyone was given a guided tour of Kor's militarized new order.  The walls began to organize key icons as crucial moments passed by:  The gridboards, Elite commanders, strip mining, attacks on defenseless outposts; a barrage of interstellar deception followed by a montage of everything that was darkly alluring about Kor's regime.  The hybrids and breeding facilities were head turners.  The presentation rolled like an ad campaign. 

Sieg Heil -- Chapter 20

1. "Wie Gehtz! Herr Heidelberg, Sie sind aus den österreichischen Alpen heute?"

2. Although Heinrich Himmler was responsible for selecting the Fuhrer's personal guard, there was one in particular who Hitler had known during his political columnist days in Vienna.  Hitler had requested him by name.   

3. "Ja, ich liebe die Bergluft! Sie sollten den Tag auch!" 

4. The pre-Chancellor Hitler admired the young man for his tight, gaunt features and youthful appearance; the Aryan prototype upon whom the entire eugenics policy was modeled.  Dieter thought he was the center of attention because of his award-winning charm; he didn't take himself as seriously as others did. 

17.  "Ich habe immer vertraute ihr meine innersten Gedanken," Hitler would often say to Dieter, in their exclusive Universe. 

18.  "He would not hesitate to have all of them shot," Daniel emphasized, "except for Heidelberg and Speer... and Heidelberg is about to have an accident."  They were watching a feed from the simulator.  

19.  "Everything revolves around him," Daniel emphasized, "Remind you of anyone?"  He was of course, referring to Kor.  "He is made to look like a hero to the public, in all things, at all times."  "If the Fuhrer only knew about that..." a German citizen said indignantly in the narrative.  "Exactly!" Daniel emphasized.  Daniel psionically communicated the symbol for comparative analysis.  "I think Dal El is much more polished," an agent offered.  "Well, he's a genius!" Daniel replied, "more dangerous than Kor in some ways, but..."  Everyone understood that Dal El was in love with Kor.  "Does Kor know that?" an agent asked.  "If The Fuhrer only knew..." Daniel mumbled, "Of course he does," he said louder, "and that's exactly how he wants it."  An emotional diegesis was not the pressing imperative at the moment.                  

20.  "Heidelberg knows the existential and metaphysical workings of Hitler's inner mind," Daniel continued; a profile that Mein Kampf never revealed.  "Sort of what Dal El is to Kor," an operative suggested.  "Very close, except that Heidelberg doesn't have any real power.  That's better for our plotter actually," Daniel said.       

21.  "Hitler and Kor both became State religions," Daniel explained, "Women love them because everyone obeys them."  "But Kor is so much better looking," Ireana conceded.  Onimex smirked, because she was masking her attraction to Dieter.  "Don't even..." she psionically admonished him.  "What is that?" she asked Onimex psionically while keeping her eyes on Daniel.  "Q-cept," he answered, "it's everywhere here -- in the walls, it enables me to translate your alpha, but you still need to install the implant."  Q-cept is a Universal machine language.  "G-49 gave me a key," he clarified.    

22.  "All of his tactics and strategies put Germany back on the map," Daniel continued, "He was the uncontested master of Europe."  The proper nouns meant nothing to this crowd.   The symbols did all the speaking. 

23.  "Once the quantum entanglement between Hitler's regime and Kor's Empire can be extracted from Heidelberg's mind, we'll re-train him as an operative," Daniel said, "Heidelberg didn't actually commit a crime... another key difference between him and Dal El."  Beautiful people inspire lustful people to commit crimes in every Universe.  "Even light machines can be seduced," I-20 injected.  Ireana cocked her head at I-20 because his comment suggested an expanded perception.  "Life through Light and Death..." I-20 said to her psionically.  She looked away.  Electro-psionics.  "Beauty and Savagery," Onimex finished.  "You're ganging up on me?" she asked.   "What is it with that fracking expression?" she thought.  "Thoughts are electronic," he answered.  "Disconnected," he responded, "Or is it?" she thought afterward.

26.  Alma calculated the precise extraction window.  There were no survivors and Nazi forensics did not have the technology to prove who was in the car.  

29.  By the time Dieter's mind could register that a bomb had exploded, his life on Earth ceased to exist.  Like everyone else, he thought he had died.

30.  He found himself lying awake on the simulator floor within Sunova.   His only thought was, "Bin ich lebendig?"  "Am I alive?"

31.  The unusual quiet of deep space and the suppressed gravity of Sunova had its typical effect on the new arrival.  He would no longer be called Dieter.  He was renamed "Dayton" to end his German avatar past.  'Dieter' died in a car bomb explosion:  Dieter was no more.     

33. "In a manner of speaking," came Alma's perfectly translated response.  "There's a cliché where you come from... 'this is the first day -- of the rest of your life.’ Welcome to Corlos."  Dayton laughed because the transliteration sounded like Goering cajoling his guests.    

34.  He was conscious when the bomb obliterated his car.  Now he was hearing that strange, lulling music.  It was flowing through his soul and spiritually uplifting.  He was composing a missing movement by Wagner, as if Wagner had written it himself.    

38.  As the computer began to cross-pollinate Dayton engrams into Kor-logic, the result became increasingly more understandable.  By the time the process concluded, a concise report was generated.  Kor was not as narcissistic at Hitler, and unlike Hitler -- Kor listened to his military advisors.  That key difference would enable Kor to wage a war for decades, but not without absorbing ideological pathogens that would ultimately destroy his regime.   The report highlights were forwarded to Daniel:

39.  "How beautiful, yet simple," Daniel said, as if appraising a glass of wine, "It's always right in front of you.  Someone, somewhere has the answer -- you just have to know where to look.  This time it was you," Daniel said to Dayton.  "You've performed a great service, Dayton.  We got what we needed."  Daniel lacked pretension and his candor was infectious. 

40.  Dayton liked Daniel's sincerity.  Unlike Hitler, Daniel radiated a godliness that reflected eons worth of wisdom.  "Daniel," Dayton whispered, as if stumbling upon the key to cosmic understanding.  Daniel examined the introspection in Dayton's eyes suspiciously, but with warmth, "Yes?" 

41.  "Have you seen Him?" 

43.  Dayton looked guilty.

44.  "Just remember, Dayton," Daniel said, "We are responsible for what we know.  There's a reason why advice unearned tends to go unheeded."  Daniel was alluding to the unearned information that Dayton gleaned while connected to the mainframe.  "The machines disagree," Dayton replied.  "But you know I'm not talking about the Ellipsis," Daniel said.  "Yes, Sir," Dayton admitted. 

51.  Daniel had taken an interest in Dayton's experimental computer platforms from the start, "How come nobody else has ever conducted these experiments?" Daniel  asked B'jhon.  "He reverse engineers components that are centuries ahead of him, and designs quantum-layered motherboards that store and access information in other dimensions.  Even the machines are impressed." 

52. "I asked our slip specialists to pry a little," B'jhon said, "Interdimensional intelligence helped him leap forward in quantum computational science.  He was also plugged into our mainframe when he first got here... and have you ever 'looked' inside the mainframe?  There's files in it that we haven't figured out how to read!  That computer has been places we don't even know about.  We're inside a facility that was built by an alien race who left their library intact.  Maybe it's not so mysterious that Dayton learned so much so fast."  "Has anyone else tried it, to see what would happen?" Daniel asked.  "It hasn't worked for anyone else," B'jhon replied psionically.  "We can not reproduce what Dayton did because his mind was blank enough to accept new information:  It can't overwrite.  It won't overwrite.  Biologicals 'burn in' information that is damn near impossible to overwright."  "Choice," Daniel concluded.  "Yes," B'jhon agreed. 

53.  "So he's blessed with trans-dimensional assistance while others spin their wheels?"  Daniel didn't say it in a mean spirited way.  Information is ambient -- one simply needs to know how to access it.  "Disbelief doesn't negate a single fact," Daniel said, referring to a previous conversation.  Traffic accidents are proof of missing facts.   "Name one system that uses the information they have?" Daniel said.  B'jhon didn't want to get punched, so he didn't mention the Ellipsis.  Daniel squinted his eyes.  He wouldn't have punched him, "That's a machine religion," he commented, "How about a baby?"  B'jhon shook his head, "It shouldn't work -- babies don't have a foundation until they learn it.  Linear experience is inescapable."    

54.  "I'm theorizing an entanglement of some type," B'jhon suggested.  Daniel nodded, "That would make sense."  They paused to merge previous conversations into this one.  "Well," Daniel continued, "let's see how he does on The One's special spec in space."  No sarcasm was intended.  Daniel patted B'jhon on the shoulder and headed for operations.  What happened to Dayton, could only have happened to him; he was a creative singularity.  "The question I have is, 'By who?'" he directed at B'jhon psionically.  He was on his way back to his office, "The One, Conscious or both?"        

27th CENTURY EARTH

55. Dayton was instructed to blend into 27th century Cape Canaveral at the Kennedy III campus archives.  He was credentialed to supervise the working historical artifacts in the telemetry section.  Other operatives had gathered the items that he would need and set the stage so that he could walk right into the role.  He blended in so seamlessly that he didn't need to act.  

56.  Compared to what he had already discovered at Corlos, 27th century Earth seemed rather bland, except for its historical significance.  Fortunately, his trans-dimensional masterpiece was nearly finished.  It was shaped like a 4"x7" photograph that he named Xanax.  To anyone else, Xanax was just an old photo.  Upon closer inspection, one would notice that the pixels were really a plasma screen.  Photos with moving pixels had been invented 400 years earlier on Earth, but Xanax was special.  Earth photos didn't store quantum data in innerspacial locations.       

1. The light machine was invisible to Ralph, Randy and Rene who were in mid-orbit, 138 miles above 27th century Earth.  Dad's car was drifting nearby while the kids had donned environment suits to examine a piece of orbital debris.

2. "I've seen these on slates!" Randy said, "I bet they don't even know it's here.  I wonder if we can take it home?"  

3. "Not supposed to touch antiques," Ralph said, "Probably won't hurt if we look, though." 

4. "Look at this old writing," Rene observed.  "Looks American-ish," she said.

5.  "Probably is," Ralph agreed.  "I'm really surprised it's not in a museum!"

6.  "Do you think they left it on purpose?" Randy asked, "They know everything there is up here."

7.  "What's this say?  Can you read it?"  Ralph tugged on Rene since she was the esteemed linguist among them.  Rene wasn't having any luck. 

8.  "Looks like it should make sense, but I don't know for sure," she said; clearly determined to translate.

13.  A series of telemetry diagnostic tests displayed on the archive monitors at Kennedy III Canaveral.  "Neanderthals with an abacus," Dayton thought.  Ancient technology was fascinating.  "We had to evolve somehow..."   

14.  Other dormant machines powered up and began a series of diagnostic tests.  "These are supposed to be on static," he said under his breath, "This is a museum."  He wasn't speaking to anyone in particular, "Nice to see that the artifacts still work."

15.  Canaveral would occasionally run parts of the museum for demonstration purposes, but operations had to approve and add it to the schedule.  Dayton did not see anything on the schedule. 

16.  The klaxon blended perfectly into the amusement park next door.  It was loud, but couldn't be taken seriously against the thrill-seekers screams. 

22.  The slate presented the entire etymology of digital signal encode / decode theory; conceptual and actual processes...

23. "Cancel," he instructed the tablet while retrieving Xanax from his uniform brest pocket. 

24.  Xanax displayed, "Es ist an der Zeit!"  "English," Dayton instructed softly.  "Who's looking?" Xanax displayed.    

25. "Nobody," Dayton answered, "Why are these telemetry consoles active?" 

26. "Voice or Monitor?" Xanax displayed.  "Voice," Dayton replied. 

27.  "The consoles have been activated by a master encryption sequence from an orbiting source,"  Xanax answered.

28.  "Sie sind frackin mich verarschen!" Dayton questioned.  "English," Xanax parried.  Touché.  "I'll kill you," Dayton whispered calmly, "So... this is normal?" 

29.  Without dramatic inflection, Xanax replied, "285 nuclear missiles built during the 21st century have just launched. 15 missiles attempted to launch unsuccessfully due to various faults in the launching systems.  The remainder were deactivated."

30.  "And you're finding this out how?..." 

31.  "Do you really think I could make this crap up?" Xanax answered.   "What did I tell you about answering a question with a question?" Dayton retorted, "What happened to scheiBe?" 

34.  Several theatre-sized, wall-mounted monitors began tracking what looked like 285 arcs slowly rising from 285 points around the world. A subdued grey line completed each projected trajectory and displayed an anticipated detonation radius.   Hitler would have loved this.  "V-2's?" Dayton querried.  "Really, really super ones," Xanax clarified, "super 'nuclear' ones," he added.   "That actually work after 600 years?" Dayton asked.   "Apparently," Xanax answered, "We'll know in about 18 minutes."  Three arcs dissolved due to engine failure. 

35.  "Will those go off?" Dayton querried.  "Warheads are designed differently," Xanax consoled, "They don't arm until re-entry."  "They used petroleum-based seals back then," Dayton remembered, "How did rubber gaskets survive for six centuries?" Dayton asked.  "Vacuums," Xanax answered.  The silos had been sealed.          

36.  "Museums are low priority targets," Xanax injected, "but the spaceport next door is definitely on their A-list."   "Their who?" Dayton began and stopped.

39.  The technician silenced the klaxon, but the rotating red lights continued.  

40.  "Are you the curator?" Officer J. Johnson asked Dayton.  He read his name badge.  

41.  "Yes, Sir," Dayton replied, "I maintain the equipment... but the reason why everything suddenly activated is unclear."  "I've seen old holos with this stuff," Officer Johnson pointed at the missile trajectories on the wall monitors.  "I'm sure it's all a simulation," Dayton said, "they wouldn't leave nuclear missles functional."  "One never knows," Johnson said, "there was a holo on the other week about the 'Lost Materiels of World War IV."  Dayton non verbally acknowledged the plausibility but doubted that 285 nuclear missiles would detonate.  "2265," Johnson sighed, "Nuclear winter."  A date that every school kid knew, apparently.  "I was absent that day," Dayton thought.     

42.  The other officer was not paying attention, "Those are just simulations, right?" 

43.  "Yeah," Johnson replied.  The other officer wanted an answer from Dayton, so he addressed him, "Right?"    

44. "I'm pretty sure Earth defenses would pick this up," Johnson insisted, "It's just a glitch in some old program.  I'd like to put one of these in my den."  

45.  "Yeah, well, we could buy 10 of 'em, I'm sure." his partner said sarcastically.  "Antiques like this aren't cheap," Dayton injected, "which is why they're here."   "I'm impressed," Xanax said to him through his implant. 

46.  Dayton wanted the dynamic duo to continue their slap stick so that he could leave.  "Is Corlos watching this?" he wondered.  "All kidding aside," Xanax said, "part of your mission is to observe for anomalous convergences."  "Isn't that like double dipping?" Dayton joked.  "Multi-tasking," Xanax replied.  Johnson looked for whoever Dayton might be talking to, "Talk to yourself much?" he asked.  Dayton shook his head, "No... Not really... well, sometimes."   Johnson grinned, "Yeah, well, me too sometimes."   Under his breath, he sighed, "I think everyone does."            

...Chaos -- Chapter 22

1. Mother was drifting near a star inside Andromedea and intercepted a familiar psyos emanating from the third body in an obscure 10-planet system.   

2. "Identify," Mother commanded a minion subcomponent.  "There's an Elliptical note from Conscious regarding this star formation," the subcomponent responded.  "A quarantine from the God of Chaos," Mother acknowledged, "Look, but don't touch." 

3.  "You can do whatever you like," the subcomponent asserted.  "Population," Mother querried.  "Eight Billion sentient biologicals," the subcomponent answered.  The EMF alone was a testament to that.  "Cartography?" Mother asked.  "This system was not mapped in detail," the subcomponent answered. 

3. The ambient data smog provided sufficient keys to filter the word, "Earth."  The central star is, "Sol," which orbits binary stars, "Alpha Centauri A and B and a dwarf star, Proxima."   The Cacci Dai had an antiquated map of the area; the objects had different names. 

4. "Plot a course and engage," Mother commanded.  Kor's armadas destroyed any world inhabited by Vejhonian seedlings to prevent them from rising up to take back Vejhon.  His policies encouraged neighboring worlds to think twice before assimilating shellan expatriates into their culture.  Recent disasters like M'tro-1 compelled all Cardships to respond to all distress calls.                 

5. "The Thites have navigation beacons in the system," the subcomponent reported, "There are objects of unknown origin and artifacts that appear to originate from a machine world more advanced than ours."  "Display," Mother commanded.  The Light Race was sometimes mistaken for advanced machines because Segment 10 machines can manipulate photonic matter.  Light machines were often called Angels by biologicals.  The display presented an array of advanced photonic machines.  "The Light Race is here," Mother confirmed.  There was evidence that intelligence from all over the Universe trafficked this particular system.

6.  Using the Thite navigation beacons, she piggybacked on their ribbon of eternity to expedite their arrival.  The beacons were relative to Theos and adjusted to a star's orbit around a parent star.          

8. In theory, 'Acceleration' spins a reverse timewave around a target object; the object is suspended, and motion outside the target envelope is invisible.  That enables a large scale intervention to occur without the indigenous knowing anything about it.  The misnomer, "Acceleration," stuck because it was accurate from the target's point of view.   "Can we isolate specific objects?" Mother asked.

9.  "To reverse a timewave's effect, an object must synchronize it's harmonic to a resonance outside the affected area," the subcomponent answered.  There is also a quantum recoil that occurs when a decelerated area 'catches up' to its natural time afterward.  Those quantum singularities are investigated and repaired by Corlos.  The Ellipsis has immunity from Corlos. 

11. The Theotian ribbon of eternity ended near their beacon inside of Mercury's orbit.  Mercury was nowhere around, but the beacon was right where the Theites left it.  With the remaining momentum, Mother attentuated the acceleration wave according to Earth's gravity, density and mass.   

12.  "Projectile analysis," she asked.  "Chemically-propelled projectiles in mid trajectory around Earth's low orbit," the subcomponent answered.  Mother transmitted the reverse timewave as soon as she reached high orbit above Earth, and scrambled the first wave of Atgravs.  

13.  If the debris clearing went according to plan -- the indigenous would never know what happened.   If an Earth sensor did pick up a large 1 x 5 x 15-mile object -- it would register for about one second and blip out of existance when the timewave stopped; a ghost in the machine.  Earth's defense force was trained to repel an extraterrestrial invasion, but would pose no defense at all against an internal attack staged by a more advanced civiilization.       

14.  "Report," Mother commanded.  "The missiles were on a failsafe grid; stored in vacuum silos and made 'future-detection' proof," the subcomponent reported.   

15.  The situation reminded her of the Cyberwars in Section 3 of the Ellipsis.  "What's this?" she asked.  "A Vejhonian," the subcomponent answered.  "Analysis?" she requested.  "The Vejhonian's genome matches the registered occupants aboard," the subcomponent answered, "The indiginous genome contains 20,000 less instruction codes."  "The indigionous are apsionic," Mother observed, "Isolate the singularity."  "Unable," the subcomponent responded, "the singularity is suspended."  They knew 'approximately' where she was before the wave deployed, but her signature was now gone. 

18.  For in-flight transparency, Cardship hulls had trillions of optic transmitters that made the ship appear invisible.  The transmitters also conducted cruder signal types right through the ship.  The naked eye, however, could discern a rectangular displacement amid a starry backdrop.    

19. The moon stabilized the planet's weather and massaged the ocean currents; the winds would exceed 200 mph otherwise.  Weights and measures are based on silica-sand, dihydrogen oxide's boiling and freezing point; a base-10 numeric, and navigation based on 36.  Machine worlds venerate the number "10" because the sacred Ellipsis symbol is a wheel with 10 spokes.  Chronograph:  365.25 revolutions per orbit.     

20. "This world is based on deception," Mother noted, "Psionic development is squashed by the economic conglomerates."  "There are bona fide psionists," the subcomponent injected, "but they are killed when discovered, so they conceal their abilities."        

21. Earth's terraforming was relatively new.  Several systems wanted control, but The One quarantined this world, "Look, but don't touch," she noted again.        

22. "This planet had a watershell that collapsed approximately 7,800 cycles ago," Mother said, "Flight Log:  Earth's watershell did not fail due to faulty architecture.  The architects, the Humans or an aggressive species collapsed the shell, possibly to reinitialize the biological population."

23. Three quarters of the planet's surface was underwater and there was evidence of ancient civilizations along the pre-collapsed shorelines.  Mother mapped those shorelines.  The weight of the water radically altered the planet's teutonic displacement.  

24. If the planet was machined into a perfectly round marble, the land would be under 5,500 feet of water.  "Flight Log," Mother entered: "Model for case study of watershell collapse.  Save for return to Vejhon."  Vejhon's watershell had never collapsed but Earth would be a perfect model for future study.   

27. Vejhon's circumference was 3,000 miles greater than Earths, which gave Earth a minus-point-one gravity.   "Biologicals won't notice the difference," Mother said.

ABOARD DAL EL's DESTROYER

28. Dal was enjoying another day as #2 in the Elite food chain, in contrast to the industrious hustle and bustle of everyone around him.    

29. A yeoman approached him with a tablet and reported excitedly, "We think we found a Cardship streaking towards a 10-planet system!"

30. Dal had no idea which 10-planet system he was talking about, "Did we indeed?" he intoned apathetically.  He took the tablet and examined the Cardship's bee-line path.  That was unusual -- a Cardship would not deliberately risk exposure unless it was a dire emergency.  Are we attacking something there? Dal wondered.   

30. "I thought the 10-planet system was new?" he inquired, "...no sustainable environments?"  His comment was a complete gamble at stellar awareness -- there were thousands of 10-planet systems and very few possessed an inhabitable shell.      

31. "The Cardship risked coming out of hiding, to get there in a big hurry," The yeoman replied, "It would make a fine trophy for The Master."  A textbook mission statement, goal and outcome.       

THEOS MILITARY HEADQUARTERS (SpaceCom)

33. "Commander O'Helno," a lieutenant in the formation reported, "Look at this."  13 saucers were in a triangular spearhead formation with O'Helno's saucer at the tip.  The lieutenant's saucer was tagged on O'Helno's formation monitor and two lines stretched through two galaxies.  "It was the red one that caught my attention," the lieutenant explained, "then the blue one showed up." 

34.  Theos' fame did not end with terraforming technology and faster-than-light saucers -- their astral-navigation net was another component that had no real accountability; toll-free galactic highways that anyone could use.  The red line was an Elite destroyer for certain.  "Is that blue one what I think it is?" O'Helno asked, "clear in A'zoth over there?" "I believe so," the lieutenant replied.            

35.  "We have a beacon there," the lieutenant advised.  "Let's get into pick-up," O'Helno ordered.  "What's that system clock at?" O'Helno asked.  "About 1 million upc around that one," his navigator answered.  Sol's orbit around Alpha Centuri highlighted on his console; the identifiers were unfamiliar.  The saucers rearranged into an umbrella formation for long range detection and aimed toward the distant flight paths.  O'Helno's saucer remained in the center.  The computational capacity of a single B'line multiplied exponentially when it networked with other saucers.   

36.  "The next question," O'Helno posed, "is 'why' would a destroyer and a Cardship come out of hiding?"  It wasn't unnatural for a destroyer, but completely unheard of for a Cardship, unless it was being chased.  The flight paths did not indicate a chase.         

37.  "I think a beacon picked up a planetary disturbance and the Cardship responded," the lieutenant said.  O'Helno continued, "And the destroyer discovered the Cardship and set to intercept."  "That would make sense," the lieutenant agreed.  "Is it really that simple?" his tactical officer asked.  "Usually," O'Helno replied.      

38.  Saucers were a strategic trademark of Theos, tried and proven true since the invention of artificial gravity.  Theite tacticians believed that smaller ships possessed the agility to defeat larger vessles, and all throughout history, the tactic worked. 

39.  "Send this to Ops," O'Helno ordered, "and try to tap the grid over there -- I'd like to know more."  "Aye, Sir," the lieutenant replied.     

40.  Theites were famous for inventing on-the-fly attack styles.  There was no field manual to intercept and disect.  From an enemy perspective, attacking a saucer was like trying to shoot a specific fish in an ocean on another planet with an arrow made out of foam.   

41.  "Ops has more," the lieutanant said, "They're dispatching more B'lines to join us."  "Guess we're engaging," O'Helno replied, satisfied.    

42.  So far, the Theites had never captured an Elite destroyer because capturing a destroyer was not a high priority mission.  The new ships were a completely unique design.  "No unnecessary engagements, The Senate said..." O'Helno sighed.  His lieutanant knew what he was thinking, "SpaceCom is supposed to 'keep them on their toes,'" the lieutanant reminded him, "and one of those new beasts would make a mighty fine trophy!"  SpaceCom was drifting away from the pacifistic attitude of the Senate.   

43.  "Just exactly how far away is that?" O'Helno asked, "and how can you tell a new ship from an old one?"  An exact identification from that distance should have been impossible.    

44.  "It's over past Andromeda," the lieutanant replied, "and I clocked it."  O'Helno laughed, "Andromeda!  What a waste of space!  Is there anything even there?  How fast was it going?"  "About 5 or 6 L's," the lieutanant replied.  That's twice as fast as the old ships, but not half as fast as a B'line.  

45.  "It sounds like a Mother's M.O.," O'Helno said, "with the way their colonies keep getting blown up."  "I hear that," the lieutenant agreed.     

48.  "Have we heard from Ops yet?" O'Helno asked impatiently, "Steady, until we know what they want."   

49.  The Theite grid passed a microdirectional signal through a series of precision relays spaced at 800,000-mile intervals between a known formation and Operations.  It was impossible to intercept the signal unless a wandering ship transversed the signal's path.  Even with a decryption key, packet-encryption required a biosynaptic packet-receiver to decode.  "We stick those damn things everywhere," O'Helno complained, "which obligates us to patrol the whole frackin' Universe."  It was a rhetorical opinion shared by every SJ.  "Not the ones in museums," his wingman joked.  Virtually every civilization had at least one Theite beacon on display in a cultural museum somewhere.  

50.  "I hear the Cacci Dai send our beacons to other dimensions just to mess with us," tac added.  "It wouldn't surprise me one bit," O'Helno replied, "Machine humor."  Normally, he would laugh, but his mind was preoccupied with intercepting the Elite destroyer.       

51.  Light takes 4.3 seconds to pass from one beacon to the next which is why navigators refer to them as 'ribbons of eternity.'  Theites prefer other species to stay off the road until they learn how to drive.  Mother computers excepted of course.  B'lines just follow a solid light ribbon.      

53.   The Cardship, with it's optic conduit disguise, wasn't as easy to see, but it's rectangular displacement amid the stars was clear enough. 

54.  More data poured in regarding the system itself; images of the major planets, the primary star, and the best route to take.  The archaic tags were replaced by updated nomenclature and local transliterations.           

55.  With the mission data received, O'Helno's tactical monitor flashed, "INTERCEPT AND ENGAGE."

56.  He forwarded his display to every monitor in the formation, "Let's get 'em boys!" he said.  "Anyone not on mission's, on it now!  We're takin' that fat frackin' bastard out!"  Everybody cheered!  "It's about frackin' time!" a junior officer yelled, "We haven't had this much excitement since A'zoth was an SJ."            

BACK ON EARTH

ABOARD THE CARDSHIP

71.  Mother positioned herself in a geosynchronous orbit above Barbados and descended below stasis to shorten the distance for her Atgravs to travel.  

72.  Kennedy III was an island surrounded by manmade islands that outlined the ancient coast of Florida. 

73.  The previous two Canaverals did not fare so well in inclimate weather.  Under ordinary circumstances, Mother was not dangerously below stasis and could easily reestablish orbital stability.  There was no reason to pontificate the details when time was of the essence.  "Status?" Mother querried.

75. "Standby for transport," Xanax advised Dayton. 

76. Dayton was distracted by the jelly-like distortions that the Atgravs made in the air.  He wasn't really paying attention, “Standby for whaaa...” the energy-matter  transport began and he was a long ways from Earth by the time he finished his question.   

77. The photonic matter in biologicals is not hard-wired to its mass.  A transportee must consciously keep his mind with his matter to properly reassemble.  Corlos discovered through trial and error that the greater ones intelligence -- the greater ones success with matter-energy transport.  Children were relatively safe since they were willing to go wherever the beam took them.  However barbaric the postulate, Corlos believed those who did not survive the simulator were never intended to be an operative.  It was The One's way of approving or declining a candidate.          

78. As soon as Dayton rematerialized on the simulator floor, Alma said, "You need to wait here -- I'll be right back."  This awkward capacity to pause and resume playback on cue almost made existance seem unreal.  The consequences for bad choices, however, was very real...   

ON EARTH

81. Ireana observed the suspended motion of everything around her, "I feel nauseated."  She massaged her tummy then rubbed the side of her head.  From her point of view, the shell had just gone into suspended annimation, and she had no recollection of having been suspended herself.     

82. "There's a Cardship in orbit conducting nuclear-clearing operations," Onimex reported.

83. "Nuclear?" Ireana mumbled, "A bit crude for Kor, isn't it?" 

84. "I don't think it's Kor," Onimex replied, "We have a convergence of unnatural waves at this point in space.  Xanax saw the acceleration wave and decelerated Dayton before it hit.  I was on 'International Island' observing a top secret conference or I would have decelerated you sooner."  International Island was a 13-mile diameter floating disk at sea.  Although the world was technically consolidated, whichever head-of-State was on the Island at the time, was presumed to be in charge of the Island, and asked to make CEO-level decisions during their visit. 

85. "As soon as he's off the simulator floor -- we're probably next," Ireana said.  For that matter, moving all four of them at once should not have been such a big deal, except that Dayton was not supposed to know who his rating official was.  "Did you learn anything at the Island?" she asked.  She thought the Atgrav cavitation effect in the air was interesting and was already calculating the required dynamics.  

86. "It may not be possible to retrieve us right now," Onimex said, "Corlos tried to get a signal lock, but there's multiple layers of interference and more interference coming." 

87. "If Corlos is having a problem," Ireana said, "then there really is a problem."  Her face became a touch more pensive.   

88.  "I thought this was just a training op for Dayton?" she commented.

89. "It was," Onimex confirmed, "but Corlos wanted him to assess the quantum anomalies first hand."  The secondary aspect of the mission was rather bland.   

90.  "And they lost the signal on us," she repeated.  "I don't remember getting briefed on the quantum interference.  Weren't you supposed to be looking in on 'secret combinations'?" she asked. 

91. "B'jhon told me to assist you if necessary," Onimex replied, "he wanted you to stay focused on Dayton."  Ireana smirked because Dayton was the most gorgeous shellan she had ever laid eyes on, so keeping her focus on him wasn't a problem.  "And you went all over the shell in the process?" she surmised.  "Yep," he said.    

92.  Ireana escorted Onimex outside, taking a special interest in two parked state utility vehicles.  

93.  "Can you... 'accelerate' one of these?" she asked.  She did not accept the etymological contradiction, "They call it 'acceleration' when the reverse is true?"  "It's from the environment's perspective," Onimex answered, "We are accelerated -- the vehicles aren't.  I can 'decelerate' the nav system once we're inside."  Ireana was over-thinking the misnomer, "Technically, if the vehicles are suspended, and you bring them to our... never mind," she said.  "You might fry something," Onimex accused her.  "That's supposed to be my line," she replied. 

94. "If I understood you correctly -- a single Cardship decelerated this entire shell?" Ireana surmised.  "I can provide more thematic details if you like," Onimex offered.  He caught the innuendo.  Ireana was attempting to compute the energy requirements and Onimex knew it, "You really are trying to figure this out, aren't you?" he said facetiously.  "I figured it out for you," she rationalized.  "Mother established a statically-powered amplifier net," Onimex clarified.  That made sense, "She would have to," Ireana said. 

95.  "We need to get to orbit," Ireana said, opening the vehicle's gull wing door, "I want you to tell me about the amplifiers on the way up." 

ABOARD DAL ELL's ELITE DESTROYER

96. Dal El watched from his royal dias as the teutonic integrity of the 3rd body was analyzed by specialists below decks.  Since the shell was doomed anyway, it was illogical to study the indigenous culture or glean vital statistics.  They picked up intelligent EMF, but there was no need to translate.

97. The invisible Cardship was marked by an electronic silhouette.  The destroyer was testing a stealth technology of its own. "Can they see us?" Dal asked the commander.  "No, Vice Elite," the commander answered, "we are invisible to them."  "Touché!" Dal said in Theotian, which was an easily understood word.      

98.  "How about the communications block?" Dal asked.  "The barricade is up and running," the commander reported.  The Elite was more interested in the acceleration wave than the planet now.  "Imagine The Master's reaction if we capture that technology?" the commander suggested.  "I don't even think the Sky Spirits know about it," Dal bemused, "Commander," he said assertively, "I want you to do whatever it takes to get that technology."   "Aye, Sir," the commander replied.  "I'll advise the Captain that you're on a special mission," Dal assured him.   That was the only license the commander needed, and of course the Captain would agree.

99. Like a python in pitch black darkness, the destroyer slithered into position and froze, unnoticed.      

100. Most of the Atgravs had completed the debris clearing and were back aboard the Cardship.  Mother did not see the approaching danger.  She would ordinarily be more vigilant in long range detection, but choose to expedite the rescue effort instead.          

ON EARTH

102. "I could get used to this," Ireana praised the design of their borrowed spacecraft.  "I'm doing most of the driving," Onimex said. 

103. "It's just as well," she said, "this atmosphere would drive me nuts."  "It'll clear up once were out of it," he assured her.  

104. They slipped through the last pocktes of atmosphere and broke into free space, which felt like an extraction from quicksand.        

105. The rectangular dark spot displayed stars from it's opposite side.  The light refracted like it does in water, and those refractions were not faultlessly alligned.         

106. "I'm registered," Ireana whispered, "I can board those."  She said it with reverent delight.  "That might blow your cover," Onimex said gently, "You don't exist any more, remember?"  He hated to say it.  She knew that he didn't mean it in a mean spirited way. 

107. "What's this other thing way out there?" she asked, pointing to a marker on the proximity monitor.  The Earth ship was crude, but not archaic.  "No idea," Onimex replied.  He didn't want to validate his most fearful speculation first.        

108. She watched the last two Atgravs speed toward the Cardship and disappear inside a hanger.  They were beyond visual range, magnified by the ship's monitor.

109. "They're getting ready to decelerate," Onimex advised.   Ireana shook her head and succinctly articulated, "They are not ... accelerated!"

110.  Then she whispered more politely, "Please synchronize."  She wanted to avert the transitional queasiness that she experienced the first time.   

111. The acceleration field deactivated, and life on Earth resumed where it left off.  The missles blipped out of existance as if the entire affair had been a video game.  Everyone concerned would say, "It was a ghost in the machine," and spend 30 years studying the anomaly.   Since most of Earth's population didn't actually see anything, it would be easy to blame a remote sensor for malfunctioning.  Nothing happened:  Life goes on.   

112. "I like this speed better," Ireana sighed, "I'll be fine if I never go through... 'acceleration' again."  She hated the misnomer.   

113.  It didn't take an astute student to understand why the technology was invented, but Mother didn't leave -- she was still in plain sight.  "You don't supposed Earth's detection systems will miss something that big?" Ireana asked facetiously.  Onimex didn't know what to say.  He thought he had Mother's MO figured out, but this was a mystery.  Each second felt like a year.  "Come on!  Leave!" Ireana yelled, "What the hell are you waiting for?"  She was willing to get out and push if she had to.  "Something's wrong," Ireana said.   

114. The ship in the far distance fired upon the Cardship.  Personnel transports from the distant ship disembarked and approched the Cardship.  "Is that a..." Ireana started.  "...destroyer?" Onimex finished.  "Yes," Onimex answered, "One of the new ones... and it's cloaked."  The utility vehicle did not recognize either of the foreign vessles and tagged them both as 'unidentified' on the monitor.   The cloak had been good enough to fool Onimex from a distance, but not anymore.

115. "The Cardship has lost it's stability," Onimex reported, "The Destroyer meant to disable it, probably to steal the acceleration technology."  "They didn't compensate for the shell's gravity," Ireana injected. 

116. "To achieve orbital stasis, they need to be going about 10,000 i.u.'s faster," Ireana calculated in her head, "and they're way too low..." 

117. "...and way to slow," Onimex finished.   So far, the Cardship was not reacting to it's loss of stability -- it's mass was too great.

118.  Ordinarily, Mother's lower orbit was not a serious risk:  She could achieve escape velocity or rise to a stable orbit at will.  She was in trouble.           

119.  A 75 square-mile object does not stop on a dime or fall from the sky in a hurry.  "It has no choice but to descend within the next 20 minutes," Onimex reported.  Her personal stake in the survival of the Cardship had a direct impact on her nerves.  "Can't they stabilize?" she whispered.  M'tro-1 did not own a tiny fraction of a Cardship's assets; the idea of a crash landing was devastating.  "She can't survive a crash," Ireana said, "Even if she sets one end down -- the other end would stretch 20 miles into the sky."   "I know Mother's doing everything she can," Onimex consoled.    

120.  "Are there survivable alternatives?" they asked together.       

121.  "The ship has the mass of two mountain ranges:  Where will she hide if she survives the crash?"  The oceans seemed logical but the natives would certainly notice.  

122.  The Cardship was starting to founder while Ireana watched in disbelief.  She would have given her soul to spare them of this moment.  That ship contained the compliment of M'tro-1, times 10,000.  "There's nothing I can do," she said sadly, "The Cacci Dai had no way of planning for this."  It was given that a Cardship would never founder on purpose or attempt a gravity landing.   

123.  The Cardship's descent began to accelerate.  The hull might get a little warm, but she won't burn up.  Already there was atmospheric resistance.  Inertial buffers would make the impact survivable but structural integrity would be compromised.  The Cardship would literally add to the shell's mass.  Clearly, 27th century Earth was watching this!

124. Ireana's grief and frustration leaked through her eyes, like watching a train full of loved ones dive off a damaged bridge... in slow motion.  

125. She was trying to imagine what Mother was doing to counteract Earth's gravity.  If the redundant systems were operational, she could soften the landing a little.   

126. The passive psionic shield permitted leakage where the superstructure was ruptured.  She wanted to keep her children as calm as possible. 

128.  She rubbed his upper surface affectionately.  There was still hope. 

129. "The Cardship is going to attempt a crash landing," Onimex said out loud.

130.  "She's rerouted everything to create a buffer," he added.        

131.  Ireana brushed her lips, like waiting for a verdict in court.   

134. Trillions of light conduits made the Cardship blend into the ground as it descended into the upper atmosphere.  From the ground, it would look like a massive atmospheric distortion.

135. Two personnel transports broke pursuit and headed back toward the destroyer.   "They were going to board?" Ireana commented sarcastically, "Mother would have never allowed it!  She would have imploded before allowing them to board."   

136. The Cardship faded out of existence.  Ireana squinted her eyes and leaned forward.  She wasn't shocked by the idea, she was shocked at how quickly her hope was restored, as if given a shot of adrenaline.     

137. "I picked up an index-protocol when the Cardship disappeared," Onimex said.

140. "Think we can out run 'em?" she mused.  Onimex never responded to her bad jokes unless he could think of a better comeback.  

141.  Suddenly, he had one:  "There are 19,986 B'lines due to arrive in 8 seconds."

142.  Ireana busted up laughing!  "Hi!  My name's Kor, and I'll be blowing your shell all to hell today!"  

143. "All those chances I had to start drinking," she sighed.  "And I never once let my hair down just to live a little.  Not once!"  

144.  "From what I can tell," Onimex said, "You were always busy.  I read your diary." 

145.  She was dazzled by his improvisational creativity.  His personality was something he had developed on his own. 

147. Swarms of Theite saucers began to blur space in every direction as if the curtain had drawn back on a gigantic war epic!  The sight was breathtaking!  

148. Ireana's despairing smirk bloomed into radiant delight!  "You weren't kidding?" she shrieked.  All she needed was popcorn and a soda to make the holo a perfect date.  

149. The saucers swarmed like piranha in a feeding frenzy, against a single Elite destroyer and two transport carriers that had not yet landed.   

150. "I have to say, no-contest, my round, fat friend," she teased.   

151. The destroyer was comprehensively immobilized, like when a dung beetle wanders over a fire ant hill.  There was simply no contest, bordering pitiful.  

152. "Surrender?" Ireana asked excitedly.

153. "I'm certain of it," Onimex answered, "I think we also attracted someone's attention."

154. "Onimex, fade out, now!"  she urged him.   

155.  Onimex faded out of existence.  He was there, but invisible, shifted slightly out of phase with the solar system. 

156.  Two B'lines appeared on either side of her utility craft.  She was unarmed, so it was not engaged.  She should have been happy to see them, but she knew they weren't there to welcome her.     

157.  "I'm grateful we didn't have weapons," she mumbled under her breath. 

158.  The saucers scanned her and discovered that she was a Vejhonian piloting an indigenous craft.  "What were they going to learn from that?" the nav SJ asked.  "Probably a souviner," the captain said.  "If you ride with the outlaws," tac commented.  "Lock her out," the captain ordered.   

159.  Her controls were locked out and her stolen vessel towed to a docking bay aboard the Elite destroyer.

Witch Hunt -- Chapter 23

5. Dal El intuitively interpreted her grin; possibly a reaction to the dark comedy of errors that he experienced too.  He wasn't without his own dark sense of humor, and being brigged aboard his own ship was the first item on the list.  Her uniform was unique -- one he had never seen before.  SJ's on foot, are fully trained shock troops who thoroughly enjoy rare departures from routein.  The Kor Youth aboard simply didn't know what hit them; a ship invasion had never been considered a realistic defense scenario:  Not against 100-to-1 odds with no notice or even a clue.          

6. He rendered an inquisitive facial salute, that one might expect the "Number Two" personage in Kor's Universe to render.  His rank was unchanged, despite the circumstance.    

7. Ireana acknowledged Dal El's non-verbal gesture and returned one of her own.  He accepted it but didn't understand the symbolism; possibly a new Kor Youth salute.     

8. "She must have been really bad," he thought, "to brig her with me?"   He had no other cellmates, and the crew was incarcerated elsewhere. 

9.  Ireana was tuned-in, but maintained a rigid indifference since it seemed to reduce Dal El's suspicions.  Had she been any less poised, it might have weakened her tactical advantage.          

10.  "She must have been quartered someplace where I never go," he was surmising, "I would have given her a second glance if I had seen her before.  She's not one of the natives?"  It made sense that the Theites would isolate Dal, since he was wanted, "but who is this vixen, femme fatale?" he wondered.  He knew SJ SOP because he used to be one -- when he saw the number of B'lines, he told the Captain, "There is no defense against this -- tell the Kids to stand down."  He knew the SJ's would shoot first and ask questions later, and Elite destroyers were not equipped for expeditionary service or pirate contingencies -- there had never been a need.  "We're the ones who are supposed to be feared -- not the other way around!" 

12. "Guards!," Ireana thought, "Is he really that taken by me?"  She felt like a school yard whore being sized up by the alpha dog.  "I hope this scene has an end, soon!" 

13.  Dal wasn't psionic by a Vejhonian standard, but that didn't mean he was completely inept.  He could not detect a psionic imprint or her implant-link to Onimex.  The Thite occupation was a pretty good cover.  Ireana, on the other hand, saw through him like a spotless glass window.  She had never attempted to 'think' from a 'Kor' perspective, but from what little she knew about Kor -- Dal El was a walking encyclopedia of everything she wasn't supposed to know.  "He loves him," she concluded.

14.  Strangely, the other Elite prisoners were her biological siblings; psychologically disfigured into something psionically unrecognizable.  Kor's hybreds were like machines whose only goal was to please Kor.  "This enemy occupation is killing them," she sensed, "They're almost terrorized:  Their armor has been chinked."  Dal was a lot more calming to her than she expected him to be.             

15. "Could she be one of Kor's special agents?" he wondered.  State Security Agents were never rostered on ship manifests per SOP, and Dal wrote the SOP. 

21.  "Guards!" Ireana realized, "The acceleration wave is off and all of this is happening in plain view... above..."  She held short of saying the name.   The Theites didn't name it.  The Cacci Dai chart referred to it as, "Dirt."  The Elite prisoners called it, "718."  She turned her face away from Dal El, "What conquest number was M'tro-1?"  Her mind translated the psionic symbol for Sol III into Earth, but the transliteration was meaningless.  Nobody knew Earth's proper name except her, because she had visited the shell's surface.  Mother felt no urgent need to teach her compliment the shell's proper name.  "Dirt," as it was written on the nav chart, was sufficient.          

22.  Nobody knew M'tro-1's name either.  Elite conquests had 'numbers;' "Why name a condemned shell?  What are they afraid of?" she wondered, "What compels a species to annihilate its own?"     

23.  She returned her gaze upon Dal El who made a charming first impression, "How does someone like that, end up in a place like this?  He doesn't fit the monster stereotype," she reasoned.  Then she remanded herself, "I'm trying to shellanize someone who isn't even shellan:  He is what he is.  But at least he's consistent."

24. Dal didn't wear anything on his sleeve.  In an altruist manner of speaking, his faultless devotion to Kor made him a Saint.  She could see that Kor appointed an Elite guard to protect Dal when he was away.  Most of the psionic details Dal had only a vague inkling of.        

25. He had intimate conversations with Kor and a computer-like memory:  An intelligence gold mine!  "Am I starting to like him?" she checked herself.  She understood why Corlos didn't abduct him in the first place:  His mind was too precise and lacked sufficient abstract for extra-cognitive extrapolation; a virtual antithesis of Dayton's mind.  Everything known about Kor's regime was Dal El's propaganda first:  There was little to glean in that area.  Dayton, on the other hand, was entirely abstract and answered all of the unknowns. Ireana had to pinch herself.             

26. "This...defrocked Theite destroyed M'trol-1!  Maybe he didn't command of the attack, but he and Kor are one and the same."

27. "What's taking Corlos so long?" she asked impatiently.  

31.  Onimex interrupted, "Just maintain the charade:  Corlos knows our situation and will retrieve us once the Theites figure out how to get the scrambler off-line."

32.  "I almost forget you were still here," Ireana complained, "which is where?"  "I'm outside your cell," Onimex answered, "I've been to all kinds of places." 

33.  "So, can you disable the scrambler so that we can leave?" she asked.  "It's hard-wired and passive, just like a Cardship," he replied, "It doesn't have an off switch.  But that hasn't stopped them from looking for it." 

36.  "Somehow, I feel like I knew that was going to happen," Ireana sighed, "but thanks for the confirmation.  So Daniel's involved too?" 

37.  "Corlos knew that a set of anomalies would converge at this point in space, but they didn't have precise details," Onimex answered.  "And we can't just go back and start over," Ireana said.  Corlos is chartered to intercept and correct unnatural deviations per se, but not to change time itself. "It's always the right time -- it's never the right time," they both could hear Alma saying in jest.  

38. "It's just getting better by the minute," she resigned.  "Don't stress over this," Onimex suggested, "let me do the thinking -- all you have to do is follow my lead.  Trust me -- I'm a machine."  

39.  "I'm probably going to smack you when I see you again," she said.  She admired his biocybergenic balls, "Is that an Ellipsis thing?" she asked.  "You're on..." he interrupted.  "OK," she warned him psionically, "Let's do this!"

45.  "I think I'm beginning to see the humor in this," Onimex injected; amid the many streams of hyper-data, he could hear Dayton's voice admonishing him to 'appologize at once.'  Sometimes he felt haunted by his own co-located ghosts. 

47.  Ireana motioned for Dal El to hold fast while she approached the forcefield.  She performed a Tai Chi motion and the forcefield deactivated.  Dal nodded in approval.  It was always impressive to see the SuperKids in action. 

48. "It's not really deactivated," she explained, "I've only made a hole so that we can pass through without alarming the guards."

62.  With no evidence of a pursuit, Dal El was confident that Ireana had succeeded, "You do know how to make an exit," he quipped.  He was happy about the escape, but dreaded explaining to Kor how he lost a destroyer and the personnel.  Especially one of the new ones.   Where chivalry goes, it would have been better if his ship had been destroyed, rather than captured fully intact.  To his credit, he would accept full responsibility for the loss since he gave the order to pursue.  

63.  Ireana respected him more for accepting responsibility, and then censored herself for thinking from an Elite perspective; she was playing the part a little too well.   

67.  The very idea of thinking like an Elite operative forced her to re-check her premises:  "I stay alive by following orders," she reassured herself. 

68. "And with a little improvisation," Onimex injected.  She ignored Onimex and checked for any trace of a B'line pursuit.  All clear... "Like I would know if B'lines were behind me." 

69.  "Vice Elite Dal El," Ireana said, feeling much more proficient, "It appears that the enemy is not in pursuit.  My authority terminates once you are safe from all contingencies.  We may proceed to a location of your choice."

70.  Dal El replied, "217 013 224."

71.  Ireana's hand reached toward the coordinate console and Onimex keyed in the coordinates for her, giving the illusion that her psionic prowess did it.  Voice interaction was still standard on civilian vessles, but the military preferred buttons to avoid course deviations from idle jock talk during critical maneuvers. 

73.  The new coordinates caused an asteroid collision warning to activate while an onboard computer plotted an evasive course to skirt the debris.   

76.  "Daniel wants you to stay here," Onimex replied, "This is the closest we'll ever get to Kor.  He says, 'keep doing what you're doing and you'll be OK.'  I have to get off this ship."  His future self had tipped him off.    

The Law of Reversion -- Chapter 24

2.  The apparel was indigenous to an isolated southern continent but 'clothes' were not necessarily hard-wired to geography.  Kids wore non-traditional outfits and outlandish costumes all the time.  This particular shellan appeared natural, but respectfully out-of-place. 

10.  Mother calculated for r ≥ 0, 0° ≤ θ ≤ 180° (π rad), 0° ≤ φ < 360° (2π rad), "Send 1,000 amplifiers to these coordinates."  The subcomponent complied.

18.  "Damage assessment," she ordered.  "The Elite destroyer had a psionic scrambler," the subcomponent reported, "There were energy fields from an unidentified source.  Several modulation waves cancelled each other and critically reconfigured our external polarization."  The ship's EMF was a common datum by which all internal mechnizations synchronized.   Mother did the best she could to hold the ship together. 

20.  "Mutate the silica for repairs," Mother ordered.  "Occupant sustainability?" she inquired.  

21.  "The biologicals will have to vacate," the subcomponent answered. 

22.  Mother accessed her file on the Law of Reversion, "Survivability?" she asked.  "Unknown," the subcomponent answered, "Short-term deviations are survivable but the long-term effect on biologicals is unknown."  Reversion did not affect machines at all. 

23.  "Theorize," Mother requested.  "The biologicals will randomly terminate."  Biology is predicated on time; a photonic singularity has only one pathway through time and space.  It will always exist, but only in its native time. 

31. "This is a testing platform," Mother quantified, "Human hosts are filtering photonic matter through this environment."           

39.  The military solicited the assistance of Human psionists to better understand the Vejhonians, but the Human candidates who purported themselves to be psionists were not bona fide:  They were losers in life who dreamed of attaining status and praise without effort or merit.  They were lazy.  To a bona fide psionist, the pretenders were tranparent, superficial and vain.  Any idea or technology that could lift Earth out of darkness was banned by The Bank and that was how the ruling family wanted it.      

40.  Tetragammaton sends such terminally narcissistic anti-beings to Absolute Zero. 

41.  The only Universal Truth is that nothing in the Universe is nailed down, except for The One, who was nailed down for three hours. 

DAL EL's REPORT (At the Astroid Outpost)

45.  "Instead, I want covert operations to steal it back!" Kor ordered, "Those frackin' Theites reverse-engineer everything they get their grungey little hands on... " he nodded politely to Dal, "... present company excepted," Then Kor cooed gently, "And we can't have that, now can we?"   "A'zoth," Dal El breathed another sigh of relief. 

1.  Onimex was investigating a newly terraformed world that nobody had claimed.  Corlos had asked him to visit and observe.

2.  He set down to a hover near the edge of a forest clearing and was about to skim across the wild grass when he spied a Theite saucer streak laterally through the atmosphere and stop.  Purely as a precaution, he phased out of the planet's resonance to appear invisible. 

3.  If the Theites had seen him, they would be discussing whether to contact, attack, ignore or abort.  Onimex had a thousand questions pervading his knowledge of Theite SOP and had always wanted to observe a genetic extraction in person. 

5.  The greys were robotic explorers programed by Theos to collect genetic materials abroad.  SpaceCom preferred to deploy biological robots for genetic extractions and hazardous interaction in unfamiliar territory.  Each robotic avatar had a symbient operator on a base ship that could feel and sense everything the avatar body felt and sensed.  The greys could also perform limited functions in automatic mode without an operator.  

6.  To Onimex, this was a genuine treat!  He watched the scavengers complete their mission and leave. 

12.  "Could Corlos really be this stupid?" he wondered, "the so-called premier 'non-existent' intelligence gathering agency of the Universe?"

13.  "They sent her here... on purpose?"  Kor was truly dumbfounded, "This will go down into Tactical Hell," he bemused.

16.  Dal El would always be held in the highest esteem by Kor, but it was truly baffling just how psionically inept he was; impeccible intuition, "but not even remotely suspecious?"  Dal's guesses were usually more accurate than most shellans' facts, and many believed that he was a closet psionist, but Kor knew better.   

17.  Dal was under a lot of stress for losing his ship and Kor understood that.   

18.  What Kor really wanted to know was, "Why has that pesky little bastard been spying on me for my entire life?"  He probed Ireana's memories and could see that Onimex was the consumation of her life's work, but she could not answer his question.  "How is that?" he wondered.  He knew the machine was from the future... "If it can travel back in time, then it must have originated from her future."             

19.  Kor saw the moment when Onimex became aware of his 'other' self, "..the other unit is accessing..."

55.  Ireana did not know whether Kor was reading her or not - if he was - his ability to conceal it was as good as her acting.  She handed the APB back to him, and thought she should frame a copy for posterity, "See what a bad girl your Mommie was?  ...perish the thought."

56.  Kor was glad that she still had her humor.  "Keep going," he silently encouraged her, "I haven't had this much fun... ever."           

57.  "I've invited you to a special event," he said, "To glorify your valiant performance with helping the Vice Elite to escape."  She gave him her undivided attention.   "We are going to return to where the Cardship crashed, and just in case it survived...  'Earth' ... won't."  

61.  "Sol III...  Earth..."  Her composure deflated into a full-blown blush.  She kept herself from hitting rock bottom by jumping to the next logical question:  "If he's onto me -- why is he playing this out?  What does he gain by indulging this stupid charade?"  She eased up on her guard to more liberally probe the asteroid base personnel: 

62.  "Conquests don't have a name," she had already figured out.  She learned "919" from a planner in scheduling, "The third body's conquest number."  She grieved over M'tro-1, "whose conquest number was..."  a yeoman who was on that mission remembered "868."  

63.  Section by section, from top to bottom:  Nobody knew Earth's local name.  The nearest approximation was, '10-planet system.'  "Nobody cares what it's called."  Two officers called it "Sol III" because the legend on a Cacci Dai map said so.  There were a few who saw the word, "Dirt," but nobody knew the word, "Earth"  because it had no etymological relevance in any known language except Jolvian, which had a similar symbol.  The word had never been uttered.    

65.  Kor had learned the intonation from her.  This is why Daniel said, "Keep doing what you're doing and you'll be OK."  "I need to have a little chat with him," she thought, "as soon as I get back."        

66.  Kor had been reading her from the beginning:  The next awkward moment was, "How do we go off-script now that the show is over?"  

67.  A simple, accoustical error.

79.  Kor gazed upon her sympathetically; his compassion was genuine.  Even El Sha had never seen this side of him -- Ireana would be the only one.  Resuming the former charade, she let him believe that she felt guilty for breaking his heart, and he let her believe that he had always know their relationship was destined to fail.     

80.  Now it was Kor's turn to come to his senses.  He released them both from this trance-like overindulgence, "The whole Universe may be a woman," he admitted, "but not today, and not now."  Ireana felt a touch of relief. 

Quantum Pie -- Chapter 26

3.  "That's the problem with not being there," Daniel said.  His demeanor proclaimed, "It's a damn good thing we have a 'time' advantage;" everyone was astutely on the same page.   He was alluding to Kolob Standard Time, which preceded all others.  Earth was so far behind KST, that it shouldn't be the focus of so many warnings; no more threatening than a pre-recorded holo. 

9.  Dayton touched the stand-by light, ready to turn it off if anything went wrong.  The stand-by light turned green and the console illuminated.  Two smaller monitors on either side of a central viewer illuminated.  Several touch-sensitive sliders lit up from beneath the surface.   There were other precision instruments whose exact purpose might require more time to figure out. 

10.  A square panel in the center of the console disappeared; through the opening rose a black joy-stick that seated itself flush with the surface.  The engineering was so flawless, that all traces of panel seams disappeared anamorphically.          

11.  Dayton was delighted, “This is interesting,” he beamed like a kid opening Christmas presents.    

12. The indiscernible space on the other side of the simulator threshold became animated with the colorful hues of outer space.  The view was realistic and full:  To step across the threshold would literally enter that environment. 

13. Directors before Daniel had used the simulator to examine different points in space at different points in time.  That's why they called it a simulator.  When Corlos started using it as an injection portal, the name 'simulator' stuck because everyone knew it by that name.  Misnomers happen.          

14. Dayton toyed with the joystick and zoomed in on a nearby sun, getting so close that the hydrogen flares overwhelmed his senses. The light was so bright and the fire so hot, that he should have been vaporized.  That's when the simulation aspect of the threshold is most appreciated.  The filtering technology protected him.

15. “I definitely like this,” he said, impressed by the extreme realism.  It was real, but life on Corlos made everyone question what was real.  Corlos made time look no more serious than a tape player.         

16. The simulator had a completely different feel from the driver's seat.  It felt like the power of God was at your finger tips.  "I can kill time quite nicely with this," he said.  He didn't know just how premonitive his thought would be.

17. “Where shall we go, what shall we see?”

18.  As Dayton realized the limitless implications of this device, he began to remember his life before Corlos, which wasn't too terribly long ago.

19. "What would I change?" he asked.  A time tamperer's first greatest mistake.    

20. Corlos had ingrained their rules of engagement in him, but that did not suppress his revived intrigue:  What if?  "I don't have to actually change anything -- I can just look."  A time tamperer's second greatest mistake. 

21. Dayton lit up with newfound vigor, oblivious to the danger his indiscretion presented.  "Imagine what Pandora could have done with this?" he quipped, quite lost with his new found toy. 

22. Although his past life was all but extinct, the insatiable, "What if?" was killing him.  He never had closure.  Nobody did.  Agents simply have to deal with it.  A warning should have went off in his head, especially someone near the top of the corporeal food chain.  Nobody is allowed on the dias, let alone, taking it for a spin.   

23. "What actually happened?" he asked himself.  "I never saw the outcome -- except for 27th century Earth.  Kennedy III was a direct result of 'our' science.  What went wrong?"  To merely 'peek' shouldn't pose any harm.    

24. "If I screw something up -- I can always fix it."  That was B'jhon's opening line to every simulator trainee as the #1 error, and #1 way to lose your status as an operator.  A time tamperer's third greatest mistake.       

27. He paused in Earth orbit for a moment -- he had always wanted to see the serene curvature of Earth from space.  He picked up a random transmission in English:  "... Now everyone wants to cash in on Quantum potential by adding the word 'Quantum' to their bullshit scams:  If it doesn't have anything to do with Quantum Science, then they shouldn't be allowed..." "No," Dayton pulled back, although he whole heartedly agreed, "I'm not here to listen to the radio..."     

28. He set the time datum to 1938 local time; having just left the year 2749 barely 50 minutes ago.  "This is easy," he reassured himself, "If someone comes in -- I'll shut it down.  No one will know."  If he felt any hesitation, it wasn't stronger than his urge to press forward.    

29. He zoomed in below the clouds over Europe, remembering the opening of Triumph des Willens von Leni Reifenstahl as if it was yesterday.  Hitler loved her film so much that she earned a permanent place in his heart.  

30. There was the forest where he was driving when his car exploded.  The time dial had micro elemental attentuation. 

31. He manipulated the hour, minutes and seconds while zooming in and out of familiar locations.  He felt empowered, if not recklessly impulsive.  This device could tear the Universe in two, in the hands of a villain.   

32. He examined Hitler's favorite retreats and recalled Hitler's more memorable moments at the Berghoff.  It felt like no time had passed at all.  He zoomed into the bunker beneath the Chancellery that Albert Speer had built.  Although the Fuhrer tolerated the bunker's purpose, he regarded it as a coffin, and forbade anyone to enter it without his personal permission.  The bunker plan was one month ahead of Dieter's recruitment.  Hitler had not yet discussed the idea with Speer or Dieter.

33. Dayton fast-forwarded through the news, catching key headlines on a monitor.  America entered the war, the Allies advance, Hitler commits suicide, the Nuremberg Trials, Germany divides, the Cold War, the Cold War ends, the rise of religious terrorism...  he had backtracked the latter half of history from Kennedy III.

34. He backed up to an image of East and West Germans tearing down the wall that divided them; the dust frozen in mid-air.  "What if?" he asked.   

35. The faultless realism hypnotized him.  "I'm drowning," he whispered, realizing that he was making a fatal mistake, psychiatrically diabled, “This is only a simulator...,”  he rationalized, but who was he trying to kid?  He had deployed in the simulator so many times since his original recruitment, that no excuse would be acceptable for abusing it.  He knew better. 

36.  After throwing caution to the wind, he entertained several plausible justifications:  "Did not every operative face this type of temptation?  I'm certain that my Corlos conditioning can't be reversed."

37. “What if I simply 'persuade' Hitler to persue a more peaceful conclusion?”  That idea seemed like the magic absolution that he was looking for, "What could be so 'bad' about that?" 

38.  "An alternate Universe is not the alternate Universe from its own point of view," Daniel says. 

39. "How do I know that I wasn't suppsed to do this?  Isn't everyone on Sunova psionic?  Is anyone even paying attention?" he wondered.  Ultimately, "Maybe it's my fault for not intervening?  Not that's a good one!"  If everyone in Ops had not been so preoccupied with precisely the same subject and locale, somebody might have been able to avert this.  Dayton's intentions were sufficiently holistic from his perspective, but, "good intentions are never good enough," according to B'jhon.  "Ich habe eine Möglichkeit, wirklich aufzuheben, wirklich schwerer Fehler," "I have a chance to reverse a really, really bad mistake," he rationalized.  And so began his end...    

40. He had regressed back into Dieter without even realizing how subtle the change was.  In his own mind, he was in full control, which made him even more responsible.  He carefully plotted the best moment to re-enter, "Ich habe noch einige unerledigte Geschäft mit der Fuhrer," "I've got some unfinished business with the Fuhrer."

41. There were several places where Hitler would be especially happy to see him. 

42. Dayton felt his pulse race.  His rational mind was trying to warn him.  Psychiatrically, he had leaped from the diving board and was destined for the water; like a paratrooper who can't return to the plane after jumping out.  His intellectual apparatus powered down and he found himself sprinting toward the point of no return as if it was a finish line.  "You can still stop!" his sanity tried to warn him.  "This is Corlos -- I can stop in mid flight..."   

43. "My uniform," he said out loud.  So much for sanity.  The simulator threshold would add his uniform as soon as he crossed it.    

44.  He needed to be sure, so he piloted the simulator to a forest in the valley below Buchestgarten and dismounted the platform.

45. Stepping near, but not across, he extended his arm and saw the black jacket sleeve of his former SS uniform, that Hitler had tailor-made for him.

46. “That answers that.”

47. He remounted the platform and knew exactly where he was going.     

48. "Maybe I'll save millions of lives?"  Maybe this is a manifestation of the Fuhrer's Divine Providence?  For all intents and purposes -- he was beyond committed.  

49. He set the index for September 1939. “I can change everything now.” 

50.  Across the threshold was the Chancellery bathroom near the Fuhrer's office on the upper floor.  He moved the scene forward and back twice to make sure that his crossing would go unnoticed.  "I hope I can still play this right," he sighed, then repeated in German, "Ich hoffe, dass ich noch spielen können dieses recht."  His former perfect syntax would return once he was fully immersed again. 

51. He stuffed Xanax into the crotch of his underwear, dismounted the platform and stepped into the simulated Chancellery bathroom.  It was that simple:  He was gone.

52. To be certain, he turned 360 degrees to make sure.  He was truly there as if he had always been there.  Corlos was the dream now.  The devil's advocate taunted him in Dayton's voice, "You realize you can't come back?"  "Ein wenig spätes jetzt.," "A little late now," he replied as Dieter.      

53.  He felt his crotch just to make sure that Xanax was still there.  He was.  "Ich bin immer deutsch gewesench," he reminded himself while checking himself in the mirror.  Everything had to be perfect:  His voice, the uniform, everything.         

54. Before he could practice a monologue for Hitler, the bathroom door swung open and in walked Hitler's chauffeur.  "Herr Heidleberg!" the chauffeur acknowledged, snapping to attention and rendering the proper salute.  "Why are you up here?" Dieter thought, "Shouldn't you be with the car?"  Bathrooms were supposed to be exempt from salute formality, per Hitler, so that everyone could get their business done and return to the front.  

55. Just like a wind-up toy, Dayton promptly returned the greeting and exited the bathroom as if it had been just yesterday.  In fact, it had been, just yesterday.  He was one day ahead of the fatal insurgent car bomb.  Shortening his trip one day early was not likely to escape Hitler's notice, but Hitler was not likely to care, since it was Dieter.      

56. Hitler's three secretaries were busy at work.  Frau Schroeder and Frau Wolfe acknowledged Dieter with a courteous smile and returned to their work.  Dieter could come and go as he pleased, with or without an appointment, per Hitler.

57. Hitler's personal adjutant rendered a stoic nod, and continued working.  So far, no sign of anything unusual.

58. He approached the grand entrance to Hitler's office, where the elegant 'AH' monogram rested proudly above the mantle.

59. The SS Guards posted on either side, opened their respective door with rehearsed percision.  Bormann came out, writing on a note pad, and didn't bother to acknowledge Dieter at all.  

60. Dayton tugged down on his uniform coat to smooth out any wrinkles and moved forward with purpose.  

61. Behind the desk, in front of the left wall, wearing glasses and a charcol-grey business suit was the Fuhrer.

62. Hitler briefly glanced over the top edge of his glasses and approved of Dieter's entrance by doing nothing at all.

63. The Fuhrer was reading excerpts from the foreign press, "How was your vacation?" Hitler asked.

64. "Perfect, my Fuhrer," Dayton answered.

75. Hitler motioned for Dieter to come forward and be seated.  Nobody was ever invited to sit down, not even Boremann. 

76. Hitler’s inordinate congeniality with Dieter was outside the scrutiny of others.  Dayton stepped forward as instructed, but did not sit down.

77. "My Fuhrer," Dieter began curtly, "at about 3:15 in the afternoon, on 30 April 1945, you put a pistol in your mouth and pulled the trigger."

78. Hitler froze at Dieter's insolence, but did not immediately look up at him.  Anyone else beginning a dialogue like that might have been summarily executed. 

79. Dieter continued, "You were in a special bunker that was discreetly built underneath this very Chancellery."  

80. Hitler removed his glasses in utter shock and afforded Dieter his full attention.

81. He even looked stunned.  

82. Hitler folded his right arm across his chest and rested his left elbow on it.  He curled the fingers of his left hand over his lips.  He had not even discussed the bunker with Speer yet, so how in the hell did Dieter know anything about it?  It's not that Dieter wouldn't be privy to such information -- there was just no possible way that he could know about it.  

83. "You do realize," Hitler reminded Dieter, "that you're primary responsibility to me has nothing to do with politics OR architecture?"

84. "Oh, yes," my Fuhrer, Dayton answered, "I emphatically understand that, but...if I am your friend, and I discovered something that could either 'help or hurt' your vision for Germany -- would not a loyal friend reveal such information to his Fuhrer?"

85. Hitler couldn't argue with his logic, and he was flattered by the implied adulation. 

86. But he wasn't stupid either.  Hitler knew this wasn't normal, "Could a 4-day vacation provoke this kind of personality change?" he wondered.  "Three days," Hitler remembered.  He was definitely not concerned about a missing day.  

87. Hitler flatly asked, "What happened to you?"  His question contained genuine warmth and friendly concern.  He was always more candid with Dieter.   

88. "Certainly --  even you know that your opening remark was…slightly out-of-character?" Hitler said.

89.  Dayton reached into his pants to retrieve Xanax.    

90.  Hitler rolled his eyes, "Has it been that long?" he quipped, "You just had a vacation!"  Dieter retrieved what looked like a photograph from his trousers while Hitler wondered, "What's wrong with pockets?"  Then he added, "Ahhh, a photograph!" Hitler stepped toward him with renewed enthusiasm.

91. "It's not an ordinary photograph," Dayton replied, "I built this."

94. Hitler laughed out loud because Dieter's humor was crassly inappropriate.  He made eye contact with him and began to wonder, "What are you not telling me?"    

95. Hitler assumed one of his trademark poses, with his hands on his hips, "You know that I do not like to get impatient with you Dieter, after all, you are the German ideal -- but I must insist that you get to the bottom of this at once!"  The Fuhrer held out his hand in the form of a demand.

96. Dayton did not surrender the object.   

97. "Xanax," Dayton said, which Hitler presumed to be some form of explanation, "accelerate you and I only, so that we can appear at different points in the room, without time constraints." Xanax complied.    

98. Hitler froze while Dayton walked to the furthermost corner of his office.

99. “OK, Xanax,” Dayton said, “we're going to do this a few times, so just do it on cue – I want him to get the point -- activate and deactivate by touch.”

100. Dayton pressed his thumb on Xanax and Hitler became reanimated, seeing Dieter suddenly in the corner of the room as if he had vanished and reappeared by magic. 

105. He pressed Xanax.

106. Hitler felt disoriented; inclined to believe that he suffered some kind of ailment if he wasn't asleep.      

107. This marked the only time in Adolf Hitler's life that he had nothing to say.  Evidently, Dieter had made his point.        

108. Hitler left Dayton where he stood, slowly strolled back his desk and sat down in quiet contemplation.  The chair was still warm from Dayton's butt; the only other butt to have sat in that chair.  This was the first time that Hitler had irrefutable proof of a power superior to his.  His chair reminded himself that he was still in charge.    

109. "It would be pointless to attempt to capture you," Hitler said calmly, wondering if there was a tactical advantage that he might have missed.  Nothing like this had ever happened before, but his fondness for Dieter was unchanged. 

110. "You don't really want to capture me," Dieter answered, revealing his Daytonesque charm.  He had a bigger license now, than before, to part with rigid formality.   

111. Hitler sighed, "A device such as, that which you have shown me, could enable you to sit on this side of the desk..."  Notwithstanding that Dieter had already demonstrated that fact.  Hitler looked at Dieter a little more sternly, "so why haven't you used it?"  He wasn't talking about the demonstsration.  He was talking about Dieter replacing him as the Fuhrer. 

112. "My Fuhrer," Dayton replied, "I just want you to ‘hear’ what I have to say about the future."

113. Hitler shook his head in the negative, but not as a “No” answer -- he was mearly bewildered that Dieter, with his devine technology, would remain loyal to him.

114. “Very well then,” Hitler said, rising and walking toward a private, hidden door, "let's go to my resting room where you can have my full attention."

115. Hitler pressed an intercom button on his desk and ordered, "I do not want to be disturbed." "Yes, my Fuhrer," came the response.

116. Hitler's office was bugged with his consent, but his sleep chamber was clean.  He pushed opened a hidden panel and permitted Dieter to enter first.  From there the conversation traveled to the ends of the Universe before Hitler became fully enlightened.

117.  It wasn't just a few truths, but volumes of information that Hitler wasn't supposed to know that Dieter revealed.  Hitler did not necessarily believe, much less comprehend every word of Dieter's account.

118.  Dieter had broken a code of fidelity, the consequences of which, were much more severe than anything Hitler could imagine.   

1. Daniel felt his body free floating in the vastness of space. 

2.  It was not his corporeal body, but his energy-matter within. 

3.  In the distance was a layer of colorful rings made of luminous material.  As he approached the rings, he realized that he had greatly underestimated their size. 

4.  At first, the rings seemed to be made of an ever-shifting solid material; a fusion of light and metal held together in an inexplicable fashion. 

5.  He thought he saw gemstones, then the stones dissolved into liquid jewels.  The effect was heavenly, and seemed distantly connected to a previous life.

6.  "Isn't 'everything' connected to my mind?" he contemplated.  "We live in our minds," he once said to B'jhon about co-location and timespace.

9.  The central personage sat upon a throne made of luminous jewels that rotated slowly on three invisible axis.   It was the zero point upon which all existence is predicated.

10.  All life, energy and bandwidths seemed to originate and end at this point in space, and the point was movable and could be co-located according to the Will of God.  His photonic mind felt like it had access to information that his corporeal body could not contain or even imagine:  Life is a filtration process.  We are evolving.   

11.  "Clearly, I'm not dreaming this..." he told himself, "I couldn't come up with this if I tried." 

12.  His movement stopped within 50 miles of the center, and seemed to establish an aesthetically perfect berth between the Billions of beings and the nucleus.   It had the effect of a literal nucleus, with The Author of Creation at its center.    

13.  There was an indescribable music that could not be heard in corporeal form.  It flowed through the soul as a creative force.  Apart from the ethereal sounds, there was a humbling, reverent silence.  These creatures were accustomed to being in the presence of God; in the rhythmic cradle of creation. 

14.  A streak of light sped from its vanishing point straight to Daniel, who was holding fast at a predisposed point.

15.  The being was breathtakingly glorious beyond anything Daniel had ever imagined; beyond his dreams of the Light Race. 

16.  The being only looked at Daniel, and downloaded a conversation into Daniel's mind that would take the rest of his natural life to understand.  "You will remember parts of this conversation at specific times in your life," the being explained.  

17.  Daniel guessed one keyword right:  Tetragammaton.  Then he awoke on the sofa in his office in a wonderful daze.   Incredible! 

18.  Coming into focus was B'jhon's face, who had been standing there, waiting for him to awake. 

19.  "Yes?" Daniel asked, without so much as twitching an eye.

20.  "Dayton has returned to Earth."  B'jhon said rather flatly.

21.  Daniel shot up, gave B'jhon an uncomfortable stare and strolled to his enormous wall-length window.  He held his hands behind his back in military fashion and slowly paced, his thoughts well removed from God's throne.

22.  "I think this is the first time anyone has ever done this," he said. 

23.  It wasn't a simple matter of going back to Earth to retrieve him; during the ten minutes that lapsed, a million different variables changed.  That's why deployments and redeployment were always calculated in advance to intercept and compensate for quantum vulnerabilities.  B'jhon read Daniel's next question and answered it, "Station keeping," he answered. "After you left, Alma went to station keeping and then he suddenly ran out of operations in a panic." 

24.  "Well, who was manning the station?" Daniel asked.  "We were using it to backup analytics," B'jhon answered, "there was nobody there."  Both of them took for granted that the maturity level of a Corlos operative had to pass the simulator test in order to arrive.  "We've ALL experienced it!" Daniel nearly yelled.  What he meant was, "Curiosity is NOT an excuse!"  B'jhon could only shrug in agreement.  It was pointless to ask, "Who let him do this?" because Dayton should have known better.  "And I'm not going to blame Alma, because he was in Ops at our request," Daniel said.  There was an understandably awkward silence, "What possessed him?" Daniel asked truly mystified.  B'jhon could only gesture with his hands and face that he hadn't the foggiest idea.  Yes, everybody has 'thought' about it, but nobody has actually done it.  In the realm of God, thoughts and actions are one and the same, and mortality is a proving ground to test one's ability to exist with God.       

25.  "You know," Daniel said, barely more composed, "I've never had to terminate an agent before... at least not for this reason." 

28.  Alma had already forwarded the simulator user log to the conference room.  The simulator wasn't networked on purpose, to safeguard its technology.  That's how it had always been, and would always be.    

31.  "Who was Dayton's recruiter?" Daniel asked.

34.  "We need a retrieval agent," Daniel added.  "What are the dynamics of extraction?"

35.  The images of three extraction agents appeared on both walls; the room had an ovular shape.  

41.  "The intrigue is killing me," Daniel replied.  It was another abbreviated sentiment.    

42.  The same voice on the other end surmised, "It's Onimex."

43.  Another voice amended, "No, I think it's Xanax!"

44.  There was a mutual, "Oh, that's right!" on everyone's faces.  Daniel had to re-assess the verdict.  The Ellipsis forbade the conviction of machines indentured to chaos, and Dayton's situation was a perfect example.  Xanax made the magic happen, but under Dayton's authority.  

45.  "You know what?" Daniel whispered, "We really can't kill Dayton." 

48. The voice at the end of the table was right -- Ireana was the only choice.  

49.  "We've got to get her off Kor's ship," Daniel came to.  What they heard was, 'we need to secure the industrial vulnerability ASAP.'

50.  Daniel touched a button on the onyx table surface.  "I need an analysis on moving Ireana from Kor's destroyer to Earth."

51.  "We're on it," came the immediate reply.  At the same time, another operative's voice could be heard in the background asking, "Where's that?"  Everyone appreciated the sarcasm but repressed the urge to laugh out loud.  B'jhon was about to solicit theories on the missing Cardship when operations called back.  "Yes," Daniel answered.

52.  "Did I mention that four quantum distortions are congregating at one point in space if we move her?  And Dayton -- he's in an alternate timeline altogether.  We just barely even know where to start!  Alma is working on the timeline issue -- he doesn't have a report yet.  I think he's close..."  

53.  "Can't Xanax or Onimex buffer such a transport?" Daniel asked.  Onimex rose to the occasion, "Xanax can," he said, "and I can help him if I go."  Daniel gave Onimex a nod and lipped the words, "You're going.  Thank-you."  Onimex used his diagnostic pixels to reveal emotions, similar to how Jolvians used their natural skin cells to do the same.  In this case, a transparent beam passed through him from left to right, of his own choosing.      

54.  "We have so many slip calculations to navigate that we might as well let Onimex do this, if he's going," Ops said.  "Why is all this attention focused on Earth?  All at once and right now?" Daniel asked no one.  "Onimex, get your Ops briefing and report to the simulator." 

58.  Alma's assistant scurried into the room with a data recorder from the simulator. 

59.  She set a hockey-puck shaped disc onto a reader at Daniel's station.  "You'll want to see this," she said.  Evidently, Alma had loaded quite a bit of stuff on it.

61. "He messed up like you wouldn't believe," the librarian reported.  Then she noticed that some of the agents looked very willing to 'kill the messenger.'  She spread her hands toward the agents, alluding toward herself, and said, "What!" to rebuke their accusation.       

67. Operations chimed back in, "We have a lock on Ireana and we know when to move her.  It'll be any second."