It’s the rift. It’s being moved, painstakingly slowly, by a crew of two dozen people, only some of whom are in LRI uniforms. And it’s active, casting its blue glow across the grass, across the faces of the people moving it.
“Ah, yes.” The camera swings back to show LaRoux, turning to monitor the rift’s progress. From this angle, the device over his ear is clearly visible, masquerading in plain sight as a hands-free comm unit—the little bit of tech, all that’s standing between him and domination by the whisper inhabiting Lilac. “I’d hoped to wait to unveil this new technology until after speaking to the planetary delegates, but in light of this disaster, I think it’s needed now, more than ever.”
He pauses, glancing to the side, eyes finding Lilac—who’s smiling back at him, every inch the adoring daughter. I search her face, trying to find some sign of what’s inside, some hint of the horrifying creature we glimpsed on the Daedalus. But she just smiles, giving her father an encouraging nod. And she never lets go of his arm.
“At LaRoux Industries, we’ve been attempting to tap into a source of clean, renewable power for decades. And finally, at long last…we’ve perfected it.”
The camera shakes, then steadies. Then, the voice behind it stammers, “E-excuse me, Monsieur LaRoux. But are you saying…”
LaRoux nods, his face grave but determined. “Before you is the galaxy’s first stable, safe hyperspace generator. We’ve long been aware of the vast, infinite reserves of energy on the other side of the dimensional fabric separating us from hyperspace—indeed, one of the challenges we face in ship design is how to safely skim through hyperspace to shorten interstellar journeys, without that energy harming us or our vessels. But after decades of experimentation, we’ve finally perfected the process.”
The cameraman is speechless—and so are we, all of us gathered around the glow of the palm pad. When I look up I see only a ring of pale faces.
“That’s not everything,” Lilac says, her eyes on her father. “Tell them, Daddy—go on, tell them.”
LaRoux gives her hand on his arm a pat, smiling. “It may not be the appropriate time for such an announcement, but—it is my intention to share the plans for this device with all planetary delegations. For free. No catches, no favors owed. It’s my belief that sharing this free, limitless power with the galaxy will remove the need for rebellions. All people, whether colonist, citizen, or rebel, will have access to computers, to schools, to hospitals. Terraforming efforts will proceed with unprecedented speed, reducing the period of time before new planets become self-sustaining, self-governing. With education, medicine, and the free exchange of ideas, I am confident we can all finally find peace.”
The camera swings back toward the rift machinery as LaRoux’s people continue moving it, then freezes. A little bar pops up along the bottom of the projection, telling us it’s buffering—then goes gray, showing a dropped connection. The hypernet’s out again.
Silence. Only the distant sirens, and the minute noises of Kumiko’s people in the next room, tell me I haven’t gone deaf.
It takes a seeming eternity before someone—Gideon—moves. He leans forward, reaching for the palm pad, whose image is still frozen on the rift. He zooms in on the picture with a flick of his fingers, and though he can’t make it any less grainy, it’s obvious to everyone what he saw. One of the people helping to move the rift has her head turned just enough that we can see her eyes—empty, black, like starless night.
I find myself shivering and wrap my arms close against my body like I might be able to somehow comfort myself. LaRoux couldn’t have had this go any better for him if he’d planned it. No doubt he planned on trying to send out the rift technology to other planets after the summit—now he can capitalize on the disaster to make it look like a mercy mission. No one will blame him for the crash of the Daedalus if they believe he’s bringing clean, renewable energy to every corner of the galaxy. If they think he’s single-handedly repairing the galaxy, they’ll sing his praises as a hero and remember the Daedalus as the tragic catalyst toward a golden age.
Except that we know what the rift really is. Those black eyes stare at us from the woman’s grainy face on the palm pad footage.
He couldn’t have planned it better.…
The breath goes out of me in a gasp so harsh my throat aches, and I feel all the eyes in the room swing toward me. “One week,” I manage, looking up until I find Gideon’s face. “When we first found this rift at LaRoux Industries, we heard them say they had one week to get it working properly. We thought that they were talking about the Daedalus gala, that he’d planned something for tonight.”