Edges

Chapter 43

Each day, at least twice a day, Fortuna’s DI directed the telescope to seek out Dragon. For many, many days the only visible change was the slow closure of the dark hull scars.

Then a day came when the newest image showed the bright sparks of navigational jets firing alongside the hull. The conclusion was inescapable: Dragon was changing course. It was no longer bound for Tanjiri System.

The courser’s new heading could not be calculated from a single image. Urban needed to observe the ship over several days to confirm Verilotus was its destination—but to get there first he had to act now.

He summoned the ship’s DI. “Redirect our course to intercept the object MSC-G-349809-1b.”

“Confirming course redirection,” the Dull Intelligence responded. “Target heading is star system MSC-G-349809. Specific destination is the inner-system object 1b, labeled as Verilotus.”

“Correct,” Urban said. He’d designated the immense luminous ring—so thin, graceful, perfect—that surrounded the world of Verilotus as Object 1a. Lezuri had called it a blade. He’d described it as an intrusion of another Universe and he’d admitted, It could be used as a weapon.

“Course modification underway,” the DI informed him.

The simulated reality of the library did not replicate the sudden harsh radial motion as navigation jets fired in calculated sequence, but Urban was able to watch the ship come about through a three-dimensional projection posted by the DI. Fortuna was small, nimble. The adjustment did not take long. Infinitesimal odds that any watching eyes aboard Dragon had detected the brief spark.

Lezuri had said the flow of time was accelerated at Verilotus, that a year played out on that artificial world as days passed outside. An effect of the blade? Perhaps.

Urban was days closer to Verilotus than Dragon. If he could maintain that lead through the coming years, through the time it would take him to reach the system—and if Lezuri had been telling the truth—then Urban would arrive there with an interval to explore and to prepare.

It would be a long voyage, but he’d endured such before. He knew the tricks.

He would not allow himself to think too hard on his present existence: less than a mote, an aberrant spark in the immensity of the void, light years of emptiness all around him and centuries of travel time separating him from any known human presence.

He would not allow himself to dwell on what he’d lost.

Such thoughts he locked away behind artificial barriers.

He adopted a routine of switching off his consciousness, rousing only twice in every twenty-four hours to check the ship’s status and to view new images of Dragon presented to him by the DI. Each image confirmed its revised course.

After a time, he discovered a slight increase in Dragon’s velocity. He matched it, then exceeded it. This raised his risk of obliteration in a random collision, but it would do no good to reach Verilotus after Lezuri.

He instructed the DI to devote all remaining telescope time to a detailed survey of the MSC-G-349809 system. It soon confirmed the presence of two gas giant planets in the outer system, then began a slow meticulous search for minor bodies.

Urban wakened for only brief periods, but he perceived no interval between them so it felt to him as if he was constantly awake, rocketing at mad speed toward Verilotus.

To endure it, he adapted the calm demeanor, the machinelike patience of the persona he called the Sentinel. But dark thoughts whispered deep within the architecture of his ghost.

What if? What if?

A constant, haunting refrain.

What if he had passed the beacon without visiting it? What if he had scuttled Dragon that day the entity infested it? What if he had forbidden Riffan to share his tablet with Lezuri? What if he had agreed to take Lezuri to Verilotus? What if Clemantine still lived?

Did she?

Had she made an alliance with Lezuri? If that meant she still lived, he hoped it was so.

What if he reached Verilotus and found a hostile goddess?

Or what if he found nothing? No way to level up, to gain the strength and knowledge needed to face Lezuri.

More frightening: What if he did find those things? What then? Who would he become?

The answers lay ahead.