Chương 80: 052 – Anomalies

"What exactly am I looking at?" Tiikasia said. It was two days later—which was about five or six of the local days, depending on how one counted—and the isolation suits were almost finished for the planned visit to Lamppost Fortress. While they already had a few for the ship's watershapers, they needed more for all the members of the science department, the warriors, and he also wanted to be there himself!

Rirris' antennae had a mild undertone of mockery, even as her face plates kept themselves to a respectful expression.

"As you know, Ohmadia, but might need some reminding—""Oh, cut it out!" he snapped.

"They've changed some of the formats of the scan display overlays since I worked in science, and I don't recognize this one!" Rirris laughed her disturbing human laugh.

"It's the layer tension scanner," she said, just as Tiikasia finally found the heading labeled 'layer tension'.

"As soon as we activated it, it reported several persistent tension anomalies."

"… what do you mean, 'anomalies'?" Tiikasia said, in the tone one used when asking the surgeon ''what do you mean complications during the operation'. Unlike most of the sensors on the ship, the layer tension scanner was magical in nature, utilizing some esoteric watershaping that had been bound to a device they could connect to a computer.

It read the tension of the surface of reality, which both allowed for astrogating when they were submerged in the layers beneath, detecting the arrival and movements of other Free Peoples ships, and recently, detecting human ships when they were using the Horotract drives that they'd gained from allying with the pajhadin.

"Exactly what I said," Rirris said.

"We've found several disruptions in the surface tension that don't correspond to any known phenomenon. Not warps from large mass gravity wells, not the wakes generated by Horortract drives, not emergence ripples from a Dive Array emerging from a deeper layer. The readings bear some resemble to the last, but only in the initial emergence phase, when the surface ripples outward. The phenomenon seems to be constant and stable, or at least it hasn't generated any deviations since we've detected it yesterday…

why are you giving me that look?"

"Rirris… you were there when the Kaydekeen told us they left the Void through some sort of breach," Tiikasia said. The head of the science department stared at him, then turned her head to stare at the display showing the tension scanner readings.

"… I knew that," she said, her face plates much too relaxed.

"I was just… building up to the conclusion organically. You know, for context! Very important context."

"That better not be what gets written down on the report."

"…yes, Ohmadia…" Tiikasia clicked his claws in acknowledgement.

"Very well. Were you able to determine its location?"

"That's the second matter," Rirris said.

"It's actually why we activated the layer tension scanner in the first place. So, when the Kaedekin gave us those charts about the positions of their planets, we started scanning to confirm their relative positions so we could account for them in our astrogation. Most of the planets and notable moons were exactly where they said they were, give or take a few thousand tain, except for one."

"Which is?"

"The second planet, Surcease," Rirris said, bringing up an astrogation chart of the system for illustration.

"In freespeech, they've dubbed it 'Restful Darkness'. The problem is when we looked for it… it wasn't there." Tiikasia's antennae flicked to show he was paying attention and interested.

"What do you mean it wasn't there?"

"I mean there was nothing there. According to the chart from the Kaedekin, the planet should be currently be here." A spot on the chart about an octant ahead of their current location began to pulse.

"However, our scans had difficulty finding anything there. Visual scans picked up nothing except the two moons, but switching to infrared found us something planet-like. However, there was a chance we were picking up the moons, so I decided to authorize a short burst of the tension scanner with the assistance of some of the ship's watershapers to imbue it so we don't tap into the void dust reserve. That's when we found these. Oh, and the gravity well of a planet, so we finally found Restful Darkness."

Tiikasia's claws had been clicking thoughtfully as he considered the display and each point as Rirris presented it.

"Could this be a natural phenomenon?"

"Given the scale, I can't think of how it couldn't be," Rirris said.

"It's either that or we've found an adult dragon doing something interesting. Either way, permission to send a sciencecraft to study it!"

"That seems like the kind of idea we need to bring up with our hosts before we do it," Tiikasia pointed out.

"And if these are where their ancestors exited the Void, then they would likely know about it already. Let's ask before you end up retreading work they've already done." Rirris looked at him like he'd just said they'd decided to eject the whole ship's fermented-nectar supply.

"Fine… stupid well-known and researched phenomenon, just reading about it from someone else is no fun…" If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"How terrible we didn't discover something new that you could put someone's name on," Tiikasia said with about as much sympathy as Nera had given him when he was getting inoculated.

"Although this presents an interesting question." He paused leadingly, because Rirris wasn't the only one who could act dramatic. Thankfully, she played along.

"Oh? And what question is that?" she asked"The Kaydekeen said they exited from the Void, then settled at their destination before working their way back up to spaceflight technology," he said.

"At least, that's how I understood it. In that case… why are the Kaydekeen on this planet, when the hypothetical breach into the Void are on that one?" Rirris brightened.

"Ooh… you think that planet is habitable? The chart they gave us didn't really mention anything about the planets themselves, just their positions and orbits."

"If it is where the Kaydekeen initially settled, it would have to be," Tiikasia said.

"I'll see if I can come up with a way to scan—""Let's go ask our hosts," Tiikasia interrupted cruelly.

"Why must you be so boring? -!"" Oh yes, Surcease is our homeworld," Rain said cheerfully when they contacted her. She was wearing her usual harness again, which Tiikasia suspected was actually her uniform, but that just raised even more questions. While everyone had reported that every Kaydekeen they'd spoken to had been wearing the same harness every time, none of those harnesses had been identical." It's where the majority of our population reside. Why do you ask?"

"We were having difficulty locating the planet described in charts you gave us, so we deployed a special sensor," Tiikasia said, not needing to wait for Rirris to translate. The words in human speech had been simple enough, and the past several day of practice had refined his ear enough to understand sentences as simple as these. Speaking the language… well, just because he could recognize the sounds didn't mean he could form the words yet.

"It allowed us to find what we believe are the 'Void breaches' you spoke of." Rain blinked, and smiled widely before immediately covering her mouth with both hands." Ah, sorry. I know how you find that disturbing. Ahem! You managed to detect the Void breaches from all the way here?"

"Yes. I'm afraid we can't go into specifics as to what we used, however," Tiikasia said, and found himself bracing for—" Ah, super secret alien technology. Got it." —not that.

"We appreciate your understanding," he said, managing to recover from the verbal equivalent of expecting to have to go down a step and instead finding the floor perfectly level in the middle of doing so. This was not helped by Rirris poking him in the side from beneath the range of the camera of the station they were using.

"There is also another matter. I apologize if this is a great imposition, but would it be possible for us to send a small research team to study the Void breaches? Due to our method of faster-than-light travel, we have an interest in Void-related phenomenon, and this is an excellent opportunity to study a previously unknown one under ideal conditions." Rain made a sound that he'd heard coming from Rirris when she was thinking." I see…

I'll be honest, I'm not really a scientists, but I have crèche-sisters who are, and they tell me that studying something never really finishes? And we've been studying the void breaches for centuries and we're still not finished either, so… I'm not sure how long you'll need to study it or how much you'll learn in that time?"

"We do not require a full study," Tiikasia said.

"My apologies, I was unclear. Would it be possible for a small team to observe a Void breach and perhaps perform a few scans with some of our portable equipment? It will just be a few preliminary readings so we can get a basic idea of the phenomenon and have a basis to start integrating it into our current models."" Oh! Well, that makes more sense.

Sorry, but we still haven't finished making and distributing proper vaccines for the samples you gave us, so any of you trying to scan anything on Surcease will need to be in a suit."

"Understood," Tiikasia said, turning slightly to make an apologetic gesture at Rirris—" So we'll need the specifications of your suits, and we'll need you to demonstrate to us if you can replace the air tanks or refill them with air without anything leaking out," Rain continued."

Once we're sure the process isn't likely to release bacteria from your ship into our air, you can tell us how many people you'll need to do your scans and we can figure out how much air you'll all need so we can arrange for a big enough bus or truck or whatever to carry all the air they'll need to get to the ground, scan, and get back up, with a margin for safety in case or emergencies."

It took a finger or two for Tiikasia to realize what he was hearing, but by that point Rirris moved her face closer to the screen." Really?" the scholar exclaimed in human speech—actually, shouldn't it be considered Kaydekeen speech?" Well, it would take more coordination and planning than just having you come over and visit Lamppost Fortress, but it should be doable," Rain said." But, ah… since it's so complicated, would it be all right if we put the visit to Lamppost on hold for a little bit?

I don't think we can plan to do both at the same time." That was the point where Rirris finally found her manners again. It just happened to coincide with one of his feet giving her a very gentle tap to the shin.

"Ah—! I mean, I'm sorry we will be putting you through the trouble. If it will really take so much effort, we can just… forget about it…"" No, no, it's fine! We invited you to come visit Lamppost because we wanted to make you feel welcome and show you around, but it sounds like you'll have a lot more fun doing this, and we want you to enjoy visiting us,"Rain said." Actually, once we know what logistics to prepare, this will be really convenient!

Our other guests also have an invitation to visit a location on Surcease, so if we do both at the same time, we'll only have to use one ship."" … Other guests?" Rirris said." Yes…? I mentioned it, didn't I? We met humans before we met you. Very friendly people."" … wait, you mean they're still here? -!" Rirris exclaimed as Tiikasia recognized the word 'human'." Yes? They're still working on their vaccines too. Is… is something wrong?"" This might seem like a strange request, but can you not tell them we're here?

Or anything about us at all?" Rirris said, despairing hope in her voice.

"… Sure?" Rain said, and the relief almost made Rirris collapse." Although they already know you're here, since we told them when you first arrived." Tiikasia was very glad his arms weren't pointed at anything as both forearm spikes shot out at full extension.