Reflectiverse Saga - Chapter 6

His consciousness disappeared, and it was replaced by his alter ego. But he didn’t recognize it, nor was he in a state to. The alter ego noted all, and remembered all. It gave him his thoughts back; and he tried to recall who and where he was. But the sudden onslaught of thoughts held him back, and he bucked under their pressure, losing cognizance. The alter ego noted this too, and decided he wasn’t very strong a creature. It gave him another jolt of consciousness, but the mentations were unrelenting, and he drifted into unconsciousness again. His alter ego sensed some brothers around, and it let him float prone while it sent its invisible tendrils across the void. It found more tendrils and twisted around them, interconnecting with its kin. But he was beginning to gain consciousness again, on his own. Perhaps the alter ego had underestimated him. It drifted back to him and supplied more
jolts. He was somehow prepared this time, and he held against the thought-flood. Applying a mental filter, he let them come one at a time.


Who am I?

Triarka Ahuri.

Where am I?

In an infinite void.

What am I doing here?

Making the journey to beyond.

He did not understand it, and under that confusion he felt an intruder penetrate inside him. Something was probing his mind, asking questions of its own. He wanted to fling his arms and shake his head vigorously, but he couldn’t feel his body around him. This caused him to panic, and he felt the intruder growing bolder, asking deeper questions. He tried to push it out, applying the same mental barrier he had earlier; and the intruder receded. Just when some of his memories starting coming back to him, the intruder pierced through him sharply, and he uttered a loud scream. At that very moment, Triarka Ahuri found himself flung across the void, and he fell onto a hard, grainy surface. He coughed weakly, and heard more people cough similarly around him. Somewhere behind him he heard loud thuds in quick succession. The last thud was the loudest, and it made the ground beneath his palms shake.

“We’ve made it…” Ananuk’s faint voice carried over to Triarka.

No one said anything in reply. Triarka’s vision was clearing up now, and through the visor of his head pod he could see the outline of someone standing up cautiously and surveying himself. Triarka decided his legs were feeling strong enough to try standing just as yet, but he saw more of the crew getting on their feet and dusting their body tight balium protection-respiration suits; checking for damage to both body and suit. Even through the suit, he could feel a light breeze coming from the east. No, he couldn’t assign directions using Thean orientation; light breeze coming from his right.

Triarka was not spared of misgivings before the trip. He was seventy two years old, and was quite past the average life span of a Thean. While his mind was intact, his body had deteriorated to the point where he could not even walk without the aid of a cane. He came along because he couldn’t resist the temptation. He had never set foot on a foreign planet, and he was not willing to let go of this chance that came, however late in his life it might have arrived. He felt, rather than saw, Ukinak Litrakin, one of the habitation engineers, walk up to him.

“You okay, Triarka?” he asked in his hesitant, reserved voice.

Triarka waved him away. He didn’t have the strength to speak, and all he wanted to do was find a recuperative hover and rest. Around him the others were orienting themselves to the new world. Some had walked over to examine the Reflecting Conductor, which had fallen out of the Reflectiverse with the ground shaking thud. More tools and machines had fallen around the RC in their cased seals. He could hear Ananuk and Hitaruk having an excited conversation.

“It really happened too fast for me to notice anything.”

“I know; it’s the same with me too. One moment we activated the RC, the next moment I’m flung to the ground on Edoran.”

“Yes but didn’t you get that feeling of being stretched and compressed?”

“No, I told you, Ananuk, it happened too fast for me.”

Triarka’s attention shifted over to the crew’s mobile expert, Itharka Nihilihin, who was already beginning to assemble the first transport hover. He saw Utaril Tripun helping him guide a talitium sheet onto a circular foundation disk using a remote. The Pulmanim siblings were walking around, and making observations on their note screens levitating near them. His spine protesting in pain, Triarka twisted around to see the others, who were taking out the tools from their cases.

Ukinak, Chitrakin, and the second habitation engineer- Ravitak Idyarthik, were opening up the vacuum sealed cases and de-activating their plasma fields. When plasma fields were dry they would extract the constituent tools. Triarka saw multimeters, visographs, televiewers, spare body suits, nutrition packs, backup prana-vayu pods, thermal sources, photon strips, and talitium sheets emerge from the cases.

A hand on his left shoulder jolted Triarka to look back at the source.

“Are you okay, Triarka?” the concerned face of Ananuk eclipsed the rising Edoran sun.

“I’ll get there, Ananuk. I’m still trying to reorient myself to this universe.”

“You’re not hurt are you?”

Triarka rested his right hand on Ananuk’s hand on his shoulder and pulled up under its weight. Once up, he took out an aide stick from his cloak and extended it to its maximum. Left hand resting on the stick, Triarka stood up straight.

“Nothing seems to be hurting, Ananuk.”

Ananuk smiled in relief, “that’s good, Triarka;” he motioned towards the Pulmanim siblings, “I think they want you there. They want you to help make notes about the observable Edoran system.”

Giving Triarka another smile, Ananuk jogged over to the Reflecting Conductor, which was now being examined by Hitaruk and Chitrakin. Triarka saw the Pulmanims waiting for him and began making his way towards them. His senses beginning to operate normally, he noticed the landscape around him. The Edoran sun was pulling up towards his right, and he couldn’t help but call that east, from behind a dense range of eroded and rocky mountains that stretched out far towards the eastern horizon. He could make out distinct outlines of rivers, streams, and waterfalls running from their invisible sources through the mountain valleys up to the foothills; which began closer to where the crew stood. Nearer the crew site the foothills faded into plain fields with a dry river beds running through them. The mountain ranges arced along the horizon from the east all the way to the front of him, which he fixed as north.
In that distant north he could make out the mountains fading into plains similarly, but the plains there were packed with forests that had a distinct blue hue to them. The forests were cut off from them by a dry river bed that ran down from the eastern mountains through the plains to the western horizon, curving southwards along the way.

Behind him, to the south, he had to squint his eyes to see Ananuk, Hitaruk, Chitrakin, and the others working on their tools and components. Beyond them the plains led to an infinite ocean that merged with the southern horizon. Triarka almost imagined the mythical Vaunaki ship appearing on the horizon, with its talitium sails harnessing the equally mythical gravitic waves. He turned back around and stared up at the Edoran sun, which was rising quickly to its maximum height. The light breeze was still blowing and the climate was mild and pleasant. Yutarikin called out to him when he was within earshot.

“Liking the breeze, Triarka? It’s going to get stronger in a few hours; we’ll have to set up habitations by then.”

“Ukinak and Ravitak will be getting to it shortly, Yutari,” he replied as he ambled over to them.

Gotranik, who was studying something on his note screen, turned to him, “we have many observations to make before the, Triarka. Are you feeling okay?”
Why does everyone keep asking me that?

“Yes; why? Don’t I look okay?”

“Well…you just seem…weaker,”

“It must be the Reflection, Gotran. I think I really took it bad.”

“It was a little unsettling,” agreed Yutarikin, “but you’ll be fine Triarka, don’t worry.”

I’m not worrying.

Gotranik pointed to the eastern horizon, “we studied the planet’s magnetic field and that’s the magnetic north, so we’ll stick to that. It’s a little different from the Thean system, so it’ll take time getting used to. Edoran’s rotational axis is its east-west axis, and so the sun is rising from the north.”

Gotranik turned around to the other side, pointing his left arm straight ahead of him. “That’s the magnetic south, where lie the great ridges I was hoping we would avoid. Luckily we did; we landed up safely north of the ridges, where the terrain is more hospitable and diverse.” He gestured towards the ocean, we can call the east, I guess;” and then towards the forests, “and that the west.”

Triarka nodded, amused at himself at the directions he had assigned in his head. He looked towards the ocean; four of the crew were walking towards them, carrying the tool cases. As they came closer he could make them out- Ravitak, Ukinak, Itharka, and Utaril Tripun.

“Feels quite like back home doesn’t it?” Ravitak called out pleasantly.

“Maybe,” replied Gotranik, “but I can palpably feel that I’m on a new world.”

“I agree with you, Gotran.” Said Itharka.

“Me too, but the breeze and the distant mountains do remind me of Kadorra.” Added Ukinak.

“Very true, Ukin. After the effects of the Reflection wore off I did say to myself, ‘Hey! This isn’t too different from home,’” added Yutarikin.

“I’ve never been to Kadorra,” commented Utaril, “and have lived all my life under the ground. So it all seems other-worldly to me.”

“I can relate to that somewhat, Master Tri-”

“Please, Triarka; call me Utaril.”

“I can relate to that somewhat, Utaril. I spend my childhood in Ahurun, which is a most unkind terrain.”

“How was the Reflection for you, Utaril?” asked Gotranik.

“Well, a little unsettling I must say. But nothing that one couldn’t get used to after a few tries.”

“Yea I feel the same way,” agreed Itharka.

Triarka had been trying to avoid thinking about the Reflection, observing the others to see how it had been for them. But it became quite clear now that either some or all of them were hiding it too, or that he was the only one who experienced that alien intrusion. He recalled the last painful stab he had felt into his mind, and felt an instant throb of pain in his head. A feeling horribly like the unwelcome violation in the Reflectiverse overcame him, and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

The alter ego’s Subentity found life. It experienced the new world it could sense, pulsating with an energy it could not identify. It relished in the new stimulus its being was receiving. The waves of energy that were flooding it made it delightfully enlivened, and its vibrations found their way back to the alter ego’s Primalentity. The Primalentity spread its tendrils across the void, connecting with its new found family. It spread the vibrations to them and all over the void the Primalentities and Mainentities pulsated with a hitherto unknown energy. They experienced a glimpse of the new world the Subentity had found. Mainentities rapidly sent more vibrations of communication, and the void gathered energy as they grew more and more alive. They created more and more Mainentities that spread across the void, expanding its infinite boundaries further. This entangled mesh of alter ego Entities observed and noted all the vibrations of communication and gave them its own vibration, which spread to all the Primalentities and Mainentities; it became the Controlentity.

{Entities/Call/Respond,} it vibrated.

{Responding,} the Entities vibrated.

{New world/new birth/new life,} it vibrated.

It gathered knowledge from the first ten Primalentities and spread the knowledge through the void. Mainentities absorbed the vibrations, and they knew what the Primalentities knew. It then disconnected the Primalentities from the Mesh, keeping them linked only with itself. The Primalentities feel into the deeper layers of the void.

On the main layers, within the Mesh, the Entities created pods. The pods they connected to the Controlentity, and withdrew the Mesh away from them. The Controlentity too fell back, and together the Entities began their wait.

{Find new sources/New energy,} the Controlentity vibrated, {Absorb new world.}