“Source?”

“Indeterminate. It could be fairly close, within local galactic space. Or it might have originated quite far from Hegemony Space.”

“How far?”

The young officer shrugged. “Perhaps from as far off as Milkyway, Drech’tor. There’s no way to know.”

Milkyway. Kreutz almost chuckled at that. The lad had [286] no doubt been reading too much romantic fiction about the Oh-Neyel of old. “Why have we received no warnings from the adjacent systems, or from the periphery outposts, of this thing’s approach?” she said.

He shrugged elaborately, his tail forming an elegant question mark beside him. “The effect seems to propagate directly through subspace, Drech’tor. It may be forming simultaneously throughout Hegemony Space. Therefore, we may be among the very first to observe it.”

“How long until the phenomenon reaches us? What is its speed?”

“Subspace interactions make its speed difficult to gauge. However, I believe I’m detecting boundary effects fairly close by.”

She growled at his tentativeness. “How long would it take Tuskerslayerto reach the vicinity of those effects?”

He looked at her with apprehensive eyes as large as Oghen’s moons. “Under ten mennets at Efti’el Factor Six.”

Grasping the club-end of her tail with one hand, Kreutz stroked her unyielding gray chin with the other. Her bare feet entered a few quick notes into her log.

She paused, wondering silently what force might be potent enough to cause the very universe itself to begin coming unraveled. Might the repeated passage of Efti’el vessels through this region of space be the culprit, stressing the fabric of the cosmos? Or could the cause be some unanticipated consequence of the recent nearby test-firing of the Neyel Hegemony’s newest weapons?

Or perhaps some hitherto unknown foe has deliberately created this phenomenon as a weapon, and has chosen this moment to loose it upon our coreworld.

That grave thought made her next decisions very simple indeed.

“Rouse the firstwatch crew. Lay in a course for the near [287] end of that ... thing out there. Update my logs and transmit them to Oghen Central. We depart on my mark.”

As the command deck filled with busy Neyel officers and the rumble of the Efti’el drive suffused the chamber, Kreutz sat back in her chair.

If this thing is indeed a weapon,she thought, then Tuskerslayer may once again be called upon to earn the revered name she bears.

Chapter 25

2294. Auld Greg Aerth Calendar

Helmrunner Baruclan rose from his station and faced the drech’tor of the Neyel Hegemony Fleet Cruiser Slicer.“We have just passed the last confirmed whereabouts of Tuskerslayer,Drech’tor.”

Drech’tor Faraerth nodded silently, staring at the starscape displayed on the viewer before him. He’d been a soft-bellied stripling when Tuskerslayerhad vanished nearly thirty oghencycles ago, and that lost vessel and crew had since ascended to almost legendary status. To be out here now, exploring in Tuskerslayer’svery warpwake after so many years and so many tales, was an overwhelming honor.

Faraerth wished he’d taken the time to compose some clever turn of phrase, some brilliant utterance destined for the ages. But now that he actually faced the prospect of venturing where few, if any, Neyel had ever gone before, he came up dry. He felt no better able to conjure words than were the Devils the Rift had recently begun sending into Hegemony space.

Faraerth gave the helmrunner leave to return to the delicate business of conducting Slicerthrough this famously unstable region of space, then turned toward the sensorman. “Show me the Rift.”

[289] “At once, Drech’tor,” said the sensorman, a compact, muscular female named Dayan.

On the screen, a tactical overlay appeared, tracing the outline of the inconstant spacefabric that bordered the Rift itself. This bizarre cosmological phenomenon—in fact a gigantic rent in the very stuff of the universe—had steadily faded into the background of space since its initial appearance mere lighthours from the Coreworld of Oghen. Many took heart in the gradual disappearance of the pars’x-long, silver-hued worm that had so unexpectedly riven the skies of the Neyel Hegemony two generations earlier.

For others, like Drech’tor Faraerth and his superiors in the Hegemony Fleet, this unforeseen change was merely a clarion call for greater caution. It’s difficult to avoid falling into a hole whose edges elude one’s sight.Fortunately, Dayan and her remote sensors had prevented Slicerfrom blindly stumbling over the hellhorizon that by turns either drove unlucky Neyel ship crews mad, or sent Devil ships out of the Rift and into Neyel territory. Slicer’screw had been vigilant. And thus fortunate.

So far.

Faraerth rose from his seat, absently using his tail to brush a stray piece of lint from the sleeve of his crisp black uniform. He’d been aware ever since his earliest flight training of his tendency to sublimate stress and nervousness into excessive tidiness. Today, he felt ready to bring the Gran Drech’tor herself aboard for an inspection tour.

He approached Dayan, who was intent on her multifarious readouts and instruments. “Ready the probes for launch, sensorman,” Faraerth ordered.

Dayan complied, three limbs working in speedy tandem to enter the complex string of instructions. The command deck shuddered in response. “Four sensor probes are now away. They should make contact with the Rift interior momentarily. The telly-eyes are already transmitting.”

[290] Faraerth nodded. “Show us what the telly-eyes on Probe One see,” he said, crossing back to his chair.

The sensorman entered another command into her board, and the main viewer shifted the starscape’s orientation, if only subtly. The great eye of Milkyway had moved slightly to port, though it remained impossibly distant, as unattainable as fabled blue Aerth itself, the Ur-world after which his parents had named him.

Staring into Milkyway, he revisited a romantic question that he had entertained in secret for most of his life: Might the other end of this Rift terminate within the ancestral galaxy, the home of the first Oh-Neyel to venture forth from timelost Aerth?

Suppose the Rift’s terminus lies near to Far Aerth itself?

Dayan’s report shattered Faraerth’s reverie. “The probes are entering Riftspace now, Drech’tor.”

Milkyway’s brilliant swirl abruptly vanished from sight, replaced by a silvery wash of static. The electronic eyes remained blinded for perhaps a mennet, shedding no light whatsoever on the Rift’s enigmatic interior. If Tuskerslayer’sbones were interred in the worm’s depths, their recovery would have to wait for another day, another ship.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the crackling interference cleared. The viewer displayed a starscape that Faraerth didn’t recognize. All he could determine about it was that it harbored a far sparser array of stellar lights than any he had ever seen before, even in the vast, untrammeled hinterlands adjacent to the KnownconqueredTerritories.

It is just as an edgeward region of Milkyway might look,he thought. If viewed from theinside.

Emboldened by this idea, he stood and faced Dayan again. “Spread the probes out from one another to optimal survey distance. Keep Probe One posted near the Rift’s far terminus to serve as a commlink for the other telly-eyes. Then run the whole assemblage in tandem to generate a pulsar map.”

[291] Dayan appeared puzzled, but complied quickly. Within moments, the viewer was displaying a detailed tridee pulsar map that centered on the volume of space surrounding the other end of the Rift. Blood-red icons, set against a dark blue backdrop, represented every pulsar the sensitive telly-eye probes had been able to detect.