"But they are clear about one thing. Those who follow 3340 will gain the power of gods. All we have to do to achieve this power is abandon the realities we've been building all our lives."
9
Livia watched the action with a resigned sense of detachment. "Such a lot of effort," she heard herself saying, "for a day or two's reprieve."
Aaron scowled at her. "What else are we supposed to do? If you're right, there's nowhere to run to."
She shook her head. "I never said that" She turned to Raven. "There is an alternative, isn't there? You knew this attack was coming."
Raven shrugged. "We didn't know. We ... saw some signs. We were worried that we'd gone too far in our isolationism. So we decided to take steps."
"In secret?"
"The other founders would never have agreed to it."
Aaron looked from Livia to Raven. All three of them turned to look past the chaos of running people, to where Aaron's experimental barrels sat in a far corner.
Livia walked over to one of the barrels. When she tapped it, it sounded hollow. "So you and Maren Ellis inspired Aaron here to experiment with space travel," she said to Raven. "Aaron, last time I talked to you it sounded like you'd succeeded." She looked up, expecting to see the light of understanding in his eyes. Instead she saw disappointment.
"Theoretically, yes," he said, shaking his head. "Sure, we've sent cargoes ... even round-tripped them, but "
"Round-tripped? What do you mean?"
He gazed at her evenly. "It doesn't matter. You know the difference between running away here, within Teven Coronal, and running away out there? If we run here, we can always change our minds. Always come back. But nobody ever responded to the messages we put in the barrels. We don't even know what's out there." He waved at the glass-walled end of the workshop, where the stars slowly wheeled past
"Raven knows," she said. "Don't you?"
To her surprise, the old man shook his head. "I know what was out there two hundred years ago. I've tried to contact my mother, but only get her anima. And it claims to know no more than we do. We
can't help you much, I'm afraid."
"But you know what caused the accident that stranded Aaron and me outside of inscape," she accused. "You all knew, but you never told us. There was a name for the thing that caused the accident, Aaron."
His eyes widened. "Livia, I don't want to "
"The anecliptics, Aaron. You know that word, don't you?" she said to Raven.
The old man shrugged. "I know we bought this world from them. They were our friends. But my mother never told me more than that."
"Your mother?'
"Maren Ellis." Seeing their astonished expressions, Raven laughed. "Yes, my mother. We've had our differences over the years ... I guess you could say Raven's people is one of them. But she's one of the originals, and I'm not. And the originals don't talk about the time before the manifolds. I don't know any more about what's out mere than you do."
Livia glared at the barrels. "You'd think she would have told you. Or told somebody what she knew. She knows more about what's happening than she's told any of us.
The one thing we know, though, is that Ellis and the other founders came from there." Livia nodded at the stars visible past the diamond-glass far wall of the workshop. "They built this world with the help of the anecliptics. Another thing I know is that this 3340 who is attacking us is not one of the anecliptics. It's an interloper, a trespasser, where our real ancestors were invited in."
Raven nodded. "Mother told me that the anecliptics agreed to shelter us from outside influences. I do agree mat if these so-called ancestors are invaders on our territory that they're also invading the territory of the anecliptics ... but ... "
Shouts from below, then tense silence. Then the deep crump of a distant explosion. As dust filtered down from above, bom of them turned to watch the stairwells that led to the outer doors.
"What are you suggesting?" asked Aaron after silence returned.
For a moment she was afraid to say it But they were just standing there; nobody had a plan beyond simple survival. What was needed right now was a countermove whose audacity matched that of the attack against Teven. None of the peers seemed ready to think on that scale, and Livia didn't feel worthy of doing it either. But she had a reputation for heroism even if she didn't remember being that hero. For her, audacity was permitted.
Her eyes on Raven, Livia said, "We have to leave the coronal. Find these anecliptics. Tell them about 3340. Maybe they'll evict everybody; maybe they'll kill us all, I don't know. But Aaron, I'm betting they won't be indifferent."
They stared at her in shock for a moment. Then Raven shook his head. "Well, Maren and I talked about this kind of travel ... We commissioned the space-travel research project. But, Livia, leaving Teven is a worse suicide than what we face here. We isolated ourselves in this place for a reason: because the outside world is full of enemies."