Dream Planet. Book 1. Star Maze

Chapter 6. The Vision

The first moments of the trip went by smoothly. The newest system of gravitation was working splendidly. The crystal was in constant rotation, eliminating weightlessness via the pull of centrifusion. It was possible to travel across the ship vertically as well as horizontally. Marcius didn't even feel any bio-rhythmic changes in his own body, and he had to give the Krameans due credit - they really knew how to grow spaceships. And yet it was too early for celebration - the craft still wasn't gaining any speed, moving carefully at the lowest possible setting. It wasn't hard to guess why.

"They don't have the exact coordinates, which means they'll come fetch me soon enough," Marcius thought. Right away, he heard the sound of footsteps.

The door disappeared without a sound, and she entered through the newly formed portal. Slowly and gracefully Atla approached him with a big smile.

Marcius watched her intently and cautiously.

"Will you be the one to do it?" he asked, looking at her carefully.

"Yes," she replied kindly.

The girl was calm, not making any sudden movements.  Stopping within a couple of steps from him, so as not to fluster and irritate him with her proximity, she attempted to take the map quickly, without touch.

"Are you ready?" she whispered slowly and hypnotically.

Marcius nodded and clenched his fists.   

Atla looked at him with a smile, and although she felt that he still despises her and the Kramean people as a whole, they had already formed a sort of connection, which meant it was possible for her to come into contact with his consciousness.

"Very good," she said loudly, and transversed the distance between them with a sudden movement.  

He stepped away from her.

"Sit down," she suggested, pointing to a chair, attempting to relieve the physical tension in his body.

Marcius sat down and tried to relax.

Atla felt the favourable impulse. She walked around the room in a semicircle near the chair, scanning the Tulonian with her gaze, as if choosing where to strike. It was most important not to go behind his back, or else he would shut down completely, and the previous discomfort would return once again.  

"Can you trust me and close your eyes?" she asked, distracted by Marcius' watchful gaze.

Marcius narrowed his eyes:

"Trust you - no. But I can close my eyes."

Atla nodded.

"Let's start from the beginning. Try to imagine your visions in as much detail as possible," she said quietly, looking into his closed eyelids. Closed lids were his weak spot, so that's where she aimed.

Marcius closed his eyes. It was hard for him to trust Atla and relax completely - his body and mind put up an invisible shield despite his desire to give up the map. He persuaded himself to be open with her. Atla saw that he was trying, and hoped to take the map quickly and painlessly.  

Marcius started thinking of his visions, but couldn't quite grasp them. Other thoughts crawled into his mind, blocking the images of the night sky. Focusing on his memories, he all of a sudden saw the Pacifian theatre in his mind's eye. That day's events flooded his entire consciousness.

Atla saw his memories. She read that initial emotion he felt when he first saw the set. His astonishment was so bright that Atla was blinded, as if by a flash of lightning. She squeezed her eyes shut, but didn't stop. Overwhelming delight and a desire to know the whole truth radiated from Marcius so powerfully that they inspired even her.    

"Try to think only of your visions," she corrected him.

Marcius felt himself getting distracted by other memories, and had a hard time leading Atla to the visions. As soon as he thought of the views from the enchanted world, he immediately remembered recordings from the signal. He saw all the slides recorded on Iza's matrix, cycling through them in his imagination. Atla saw everything very clearly - she heard the conversation with Iza, observed as he attained Marcius' ring, caught the sounds of the music.

Atla touched her hand to her lips. She'd already heard this music before - a whole laboratory on Krama labored to decipher and analyze it. The shaman made his best musicians learn it and play it at receptions, showing his find off to his guests, but the way the melody sounded in Marcius' interpretation was completely different. Shivers ran down her spine, and her heart beat so quickly it seemed it would jump out of her chest. She'd never before heard anything this beautiful. Marcius perceived the music in his own unique way, letting it through his soul, enriching it with emotion. The sound was incredibly powerful and deep. If it was possible to describe all the emotions in the world with sound, it would have been precisely this sound, and it ventured from the subconscious of an enemy. Atla's head started to spin. Putting her hands to her temples, she leaned against a wall.  

She had no need for that recording. That's not what she came here for, and yet she'd already lost so much energy.   

"Marcius, if you don't object, I'll take you by the hands - only to strengthen the effect," she asked.

It was clear by his eyes that he did object. His whole being rebelled against the thought of the priestess holding his hands, but there was no other choice. He wanted to find his world very badly, and in order to do so was ready even to bear her touch.

Marcius nodded. Atla came closer, sat beside him and put her palms onto his.

"Please, remember your visions!" she begged.

Marcius chose to focus on the night when the visions came to him the clearest - the night on Krama. Yes, it was then that the starry sky of that world appeared to him the brightest. He started to remember how he lay under the clear cone, relived that state of being half-asleep which triggered the visions, but all of a sudden got distracted by thoughts of the unbearable Kramean heat that tormented him at the time.

Atla saw how uncomfortable and alarming their planet was for him, and her heart went out to him. She was forced to experience all of his feelings herself, and this was so difficult and unpleasant that she had to use every last bit of strength to stop herself from letting go of his hands.  

"Remember, what did you see that night?" she asked, "Concentrate on the images of the sky."

All of a sudden Marcius found himself in that world under the limitless starry sky. Atla began to gradually follow him there, but he threw her out with the sharp, poisonous thought of Karii's betrayal. He felt such piercing pain, yearning and cold that Atla yanked her hands away, unable to bear the depth of his suffering.  

"This is very hard for me," she said, "You're too strongly preoccupied with everything."

Marcius opened his eyes - Atla looked very frightened. She looked at Marcius, full of demand, wordlessly reproaching him for his lack of trust.  

"It's not on purpose!" he said coldly.

"I know!" she said, full of emotion, "Your mind is guarding your visions harder than I thought. Even your conscious agreement to give them up is unable to convince your subconscious to do so. You have an amazing ability to hide your innermost private experiences."

"I've been practicing my whole life," he said. "What will you do now?" he asked her worriedly.

"I'll stay with you and wait until your visions will come to you."

Marcius looked at her in shock.

"You want to stay in my cabin?"

"What else can you suggest?" she said, not understanding his indignation, "Worst case scenario - I'll miss them."

"The visions come to me before sleep and just before waking, but I can't say ahead of time when it will happen."

"Then we'll stake them out together! There's no other choice," said Atla with conviction.

"It can happen in a day, or in three," Marcius clarified.

"Then for three days, or for as long as necessary, we'll have to be together in the same room," she insisted.

Marcius sighed heavily. He didn't like this idea. He needed his personal space, and didn't want to share it with a Kramean. But there was no choice - the coordinates were his number one priority, and he was ready to do what was needed to get them.

"Alright, but let's agree ahead of time that we won't talk to each other," he said sternly, "That's my condition!"  

Atla nodded and walked towards the other end of the room.  

They spent more than a day together in silence, and Atla didn't sleep the whole time. She tracked Marcius' every thought and was especially alert when he was waking up and going to sleep, but the first night brought no visions. The crystal continued to fly painstakingly slow. No one bothered or rushed them - everyone on the ship knew what was going on.  

The whole time Marcius read Karii's journal. He'd never done so before, even though Karii would have let him - the story belonged to them both. Marcius had never suspected that his friend's writing was so engaging and full of humor. The text contained much of Karii himself - familiar sharp expressions, swear words, jokes, and everything with a lot of detail. Marcius laughed out loud several times, but remembering Atla's presence, he'd quickly grow quiet. The more he read, the more he was convinced that this person couldn't have betrayed him. There was something off about the whole thing. The last entry was made before they landed on Girius, and after that Karii wrote no more, or else the Krameans stopped receiving his copies. Marcius doubted he could get a straight answer from Atla, so he didn't ask.      

The second night came. He started to fall asleep, remaining under Atla's vigilant observation. It bothered him, but he put up with it. He slowly got used to her presence, and thanks to her silence, would at times forget she was there at all. This night, falling asleep was easier. He turned his back to her and turned down the lights. Only the faint glow along the edges of the crystal walls remained.

He closed his eyes and was immediately overcome with visions. Half asleep, he saw the outline of Atla's diadem glittering against the sky. She came towards him through the darkness, carefully sat down and took his hand. Marcius could resist neither her nor his visions. He took her with him into his private world. He sat on the snow under the limitless night sky, turned his head and saw her silhouette. He has never experienced anything like this before. He has always been alone in his visions, and now another living being was in here with him. He felt the warmth of her presence, as if she's carried a bit of Kramean heat into his cold world. Music sounded from the hidden corners of his consciousness.   

Atla got what she wanted. The priestess saw the night sky in the full glory of Marcius' visions. She was amazed by the sensations. The sky was so rich and deep that it took her breath away. Now she saw each point in the sky and remembered it, taking a mental photograph with her inner eye. Marcius Appa Laun was unique, there was no doubt about it. The clarity and sensitivity of his open mind was truly remarkable. Atla wasn't able to explain the nature of his visions.  

"How could someone who's never worked to develop the higher abilities achieve such astounding results? Maybe someone from there is sending him an invitation in the form of a vision? In that case, the creatures of that world are immensely powerful," thought the priestess warily.    

She took away her hand.

Marcius slowly opened his eyes. The dream was gone. With a glance, Atla silently thanked him for his trust and apologized for invading his mind. She tried to keep her face carefree and radiant, not a single twitch betraying what she'd just experienced.

"I'll bring the map to our navigators," she said with a smile, got up and turned away.

"Stop," Marcius ordered, pulling out his beam and pointing it at her back, almost touching her skin. "You agreed to tell me the coordinates so that I can transmit them to Tulona," he insisted, gesturing to the impulsator.  

Atla felt a weak electric discharge between her shoulder blades - his beam was very close. He was aggressively predisposed, and no kind intention on her part was able to break through his hatred.

"Stay here. I'll figure out the map and come back to you with the coordinates," she said.

"No way, there's no guarantee that you'll return. I'm coming with you!"

Marcius believed in his invincibility on this ship. His intuition told him that the Krameans still needed him and so won't harm him, but he still had no assurance that they would share the coordinates with the Tulonians.

Having read his mind, Atla declared:

"Alright, you can come with me, but do me a favor and don't wave that beam around for no good reason."

"That all depends on you," said Marcius coldly.

Atla walked forward in quick steps, nodding telepathically at those that passed her by. Marcius was close behind. Not once did she turn around, which was an expression of trust in a sense. Shooting presumptuous sideway glances at passing Krameans, Marcius was quick to turn away. The Krameans, on the other hand, smoldered him with their looks, examining him and smiling. Atla had managed to send a thought wave down the corridors, warning the others that the Tulonian is outside his cabin and is moving with her towards the center. Out of curiosity, everyone ran out to look at him.

Atla knew each of the volunteers personally. They all had tremendous trust in her, and this gave her no right to make mistakes. She understood how important of a mission lay on her shoulders, and was in a great hurry, careful not to miss anything. The soulful music was still with her and it was very distracting; she fought to shut it out. Marcius at her heels did nothing to ease the tension, but she put up with him, understanding that it was best not to argue until she'd managed to load the coordinates into the ship's memory.

In the main cabin everyone was already waiting for her. Marcius' presence, on the other hand, was quite unwelcome, despite everyone's polite smiles and sunny disposition. The dangerous beam in his hands was especially nerve-wracking.

"We begged the psychic to give him a fake - why on earth did she insist on a real one?" thought the Krameans in unison.

There were three people in the room. One was very old, the other - very young, and the third was middle-aged. Their gold headbands were a bit thicker than the rest, and were encrusted with gemstones. They were responsible for navigating the spaceship, and did so telepathically. The bands strengthened their mental signals, but Marcius still couldn't understand how they did this. Tulonians were unfamiliar with this method of navigation.  

The elder stood in the center, his eyes glued to Atla, and the young pilot sat behind a long flat crystal panel. The middle-aged Kramean stood at the back of the room beside three big glass droplets. One of them hung down from the ceiling, and the other two protruded from the floor. They were dark blue, almost black, and about the size of a person. Evidently, they performed some important function.  

Through these strange glass droplets, the man was sorting his thoughts, isolating only those that had to do with navigation. There are too many memories hidden away in the human subconscious - Marcius could now see that firsthand. The man's thoughts were visualized in the first droplet, then got refined and transferred over to the second. The third, in turn, received only a single thought - the navigational command.   

Shadows swirled in the first droplet. Marcius could see the man playing with his daughter and having dinner with his wife. A multitude of Kramean eyes looked back at him from there - another person's whole mind and life were in the palm of his hand. The next droplet only displayed numbers and diagrams, chaotically scattered all around. Marcius recognized among them a map of the Seven Worlds and also one of military bases on Kata, the Tulonian satellite. It was amazing how much was hidden away inside the head of this one little man. The third droplet displayed a clear and distinct image of the square where the impulse originated. This information was used by the spaceship to calculate the direction of flight.  

Atla came up to the three droplets. Even though she told Marcius to stay put, he didn't listen and went after her.

The girl looked into the first drop. It filled with a rich crimson colour, silhouettes, numbers and letters flashing by. The surface reflected her subconscious, and its contents were amazingly diverse. Despite her age, it looked like the young priestess had gone through a lot. There were many tears inside the drop. Marcius recognized one of the faces - it was Tatida. Judging from the sharpness of the outline, the old witch occupied an important role in Atla's life. Among the images were also the dog, her father the shaman, many other unpleasant foreign faces, smugglers, Pacifians, robots and even the perished Oeelians. This pushed Marcius to conclude that she'd managed to travel all over their system, and her life was likely nowhere as simple as he'd initially thought. He saw her as a spoiled heir, knowing no sorrow, but what he saw now suggested a great richness of experience.     

It was bewildering, but he recognized himself in one of the images. He was only ten years old in that memory. It was the day when he and Karii first left the borders of their planet on their parents' ship to see the fair on Sirius. Now, many years, alter, he looked at himself through the lens of Atla's memory. "The Krameans really have been watching me this whole time," he thought with disgust. He was about to turn away when he froze. His own eyes looked back at him from the droplet. She was thinking about him now, which threw his soul into a state of frantic turmoil.    

Atla's eyes were closed. She was silent and still, but it was nonetheless visible how much effort she was putting into sorting her thoughts. Her vibrations echoed warmly through the air. The second droplet slowly came to life. It was dedicated entirely to Marcius, depicting only memories about him. A discernible tension hung about the room. Right behind his back, breathing heavily, stood the elder, to his right - the young pilot, and the middle-aged man was in the corner close by, rubbing his temples. Everyone was looking impatiently at the third drop and then at Atla.       

Out of all the memories about the Tulonian, she chose the vision of the starry sky and placed it into the last drop. Leaning against the glass surface with both hands, without opening her eyes, she started to upload the attained information. The map appeared gradually, as if through a haze. Thousands of starry specks glittered inside the droplet. The view of the night sky from that faraway planet was spread out before them. Now all that was left was to juxtapose it with all the planets in Iza's square and deduce the right one.

Marcius gripped his impulsator with his right hand, holding the beam in his left. He was ready to transmit the message as soon as he got the numbers.   

The Krameans didn't jump to any conclusions and took their time. The received information still needed to be analyzed.

They had studied their galaxy rigorously. They had detailed, holographic models with exact locations of stars, interstellar gas, dust and dark matter. They were very glad that the planet in question was located in their galaxy; it was always safer and more pleasant to stay within the bounds of home. Although everyone knew that their home galaxy contained about two hundred billion stars scattered along the spiral, and the galaxy itself was not exactly minute (twenty thousand light years in width and one hundred thousand in height was no joke), each single heart still had faith that the lifesaving planet would inevitably be found. They'd already prepared a model of the square pointed out by Iza, narrowing the search by a million times.

The Krameans started to check which planets might yield such constellations. They used Ionian equipment in their calculations, relying on the power of artificial intelligence. They must have acquired this device from the old man, since it was very rare and top-secret. The machine took a while to process the data, and finally gave an answer. There were two possible options. Such a starry sky could be seen at one time or another from three different planets, but the nice thing was that all three planets were in the same star system and were neighbors, rotating on the second, third and fourth orbit away from the star. It wouldn't be difficult to determine which one was habitable - the key was to get to that system.      

It was located on the second swirl of the galactic spiral, two hundred and five light years away from the center.

"It really is the other end of the galaxy," said the middle-aged Kramean.  

"Of course it is - had it been right under our noses we would have found it a long time ago," said the young pilot.

"Take out the diagram of magic tunnels," ordered the middle-aged man.

Wormholes connecting different locations in space, or magic tunnels, as the Krameans called them, were well-studied in the Seven Worlds. They were hard to find. Some of them were so small that they were almost impossible to notice, whereas others, on the other hand, were impossible to miss. A tunnel entrance could be the size of a star, a planet, a house or a speck of dust. The Krameans had a rich database of such tunnels, having purchased them from the Guineans - they were smugglers and traveled more than the rest. It was their trade, and each tunnel cost a fortune.  

Wormhole travel was a risky and unpredictable business. You'd often dive out of the hole very far from where you dove in. It could throw you out on the other end of your own galaxy, in a different galaxy or even in a different universe. Nonetheless, unlike deadly black holes, it was possible to come back out from a wormhole, and so the inhabitants of the Seven Worlds used them for travel. Some daredevils risked themselves, but for the most part the Krameans sent their charged crystals into the holes and examined the phenomenon from a distance.

Over thousands of years of study, their database of magical tunnels accumulated close to fifteen hundred, and this was just a tiny fragment of what was possible. For example, the latest discovery was located two light years away from Krama - that is, right around the corner, but it long remained unnoticed due to its miniscule size. It was possible that closer portals existed, maybe even on Krama itself, but they were yet to be discovered.  

All of the known tunnels were mostly intragalactic - that is, they connected different parts of the galaxy.   

"We'll have to jump through three tunnels," said the young Kramean hastily.

"What do we have?" Atla asked the elder, ignoring him.

The old Kramean opened up the magic tunnel map. It was also three-dimensional, occupying the entire room. It displayed their current location as well as their destination. They started to calculate the shortest route, and the system suggested several options.     

"The closest portal to our target planet is called Prime. Its one end reaches the interstellar space close to the target star system, but its other end is in Tron, our neighboring galaxy. In other words, we must first get to Tron and only then to the other end of our own galaxy."

"Where's the closest exit to Tron?" Atla asked, narrowing her eyes.   

"The tunnel Olmeco," said the middle-aged Kramean thoughtfully, "It's located right at the border of the Onyx star system. Then a jump to the tunnel Delos, and only then to Prime."

"That's exactly what I was saying," said the young pilot, slightly offended that no one believed him right away, "We'll have to go through three portals, and that's the shortest possible way. Most of our time will be occupied by flying from portal to portal - travel through the portals themselves will be instantaneous."  

Marcius couldn't hear the Krameans' telepathic negotiation. It just looked like a whole lot of looking back and forth to him, but judging from how long it took, he guessed that they were discussing the route. On the holographic model, Marcius saw how far the planet was from the Seven Worlds, and understood that the journey would be impossible without the tunnels. It would take an eternity to fly there directly. The Tulonians also searched for the tunnels, and their database was admittedly larger than the Kramean one. They greatly valued their knowledge and no sum of money could buy their secrets, just like any other world. A joined effort would have greatly accelerated the search, but no one would agree to such a thing.

Marcius looked at the Krameans impatiently, never forgetting his desire to transmit the message to Ari. He was a criminal kidnapped by the Krameans, and he knew it was unlikely that anyone would believe him, but he also knew his own people. The Tulonians investigated all signals from outside.

"I'm waiting for the promised coordinates!" he insisted, interrupting the Krameans' mental dialogue.

All four of them turned his way, as if just remembering he was still there. They had no further need for him, and their initial friendliness was gone from their faces.

"Soon!" Atla replied.

With a subsequent mental exercise, she displayed the planet's coordinates on a screen.

All Seven Worlds shared the same number system - something they'd agreed upon in ancient times. It was necessary in order to set boundaries and routes in space and was useful in their minimal contact. The yielded digit pointed out the planet's location within the space of the galaxy. This was exactly what Marcius was after.

Three long numbers flashed on the screen, and Marcius carefully transferred them into his impulsator. He'd prepared the text he'd send with them ahead of time - it was a report of everything he'd found out from the Krameans. The message would reach Tulonian satellites with the speed of a magnetic wave. It was sent quickly; the impulsator was in perfect order, but a shadow of suspicion still fell on Marcius' soul. Allowing Tulonians to access the lifesaving coordinates was too generous of a gesture. There was one more charge left in the impulsator. He started to think of ways to test it and didn't come up with anything better than to send a duplicate. The impulsator immediately transferred his message a second time, which couldn't have happened with a real device. Magnetic waves couldn't be reset so quickly, and a greater time gap was needed in between messages.  

"A fake," thought Marcius angrily, squeezing the toy in his hands.

The Krameans tricked him. He could barely hold himself back from grabbing his beam and slashing the scoundrels to pieces. But he couldn't do that - he was trapped on their crystal.

The Krameans read his thoughts, but gave no outward sign that they did.

"Is everything okay?" asked Atla with a smile, understanding that Marcius won't start a conflict. Now his only chance of transferring the coordinates to Tulona was to return there alive after the expedition.  

"Yes, everything's fine," he replied dryly, looking at the deceitful priestess with hatred.

Alta carried herself well, not giving anything away. She was very disappointed that Marcius caught on to the impulsator being a fake.

"Wonderful, now you can go back to your quarters! We have a long journey ahead of us, and it’s most important not to let loneliness get the best of you," she said sweetly.

Marcius understood this well enough. He was to spend many a day in his isolated cabin, and yet between persistent loneliness and community with despicable Krameans he chose the former.  

"Show him the way," said Atla.

Marcius walked to his cabin, ignoring both the hoard of people in his way and the malevolent looks they cast in his direction. The Krameans' deed broke him completely. They had no honor. They didn't know how to stay true to their word. He languished under the injustice and the sense of his own powerlessness. It was unfair that the Krameans reserved salvation only for themselves, not wanting to share the coordinates with others. Yes, Tatida promised that he will be taken to that world and then safely returned, but he'd already grasped the value of Kramean promises. Most likely they'll hold him in his cabin until they reach their destination - they are too reverent of higher abilities, and his visions are still with him. However, it's unlikely that they'd let him return to the Seven Worlds and report everything to his own planet. Upon arrival in the faraway world he'd most likely be killed or abandoned. One Tulonian is no threat. Marcius felt like he miscalculated. Such treasure was hidden in his head, and he'd squandered it. He was utterly defeated. He returned to his cabin, smashed the fake impulsator to pieces against the wall and collapsed face down onto his bed.