Chapter 8 #2
Maya tried her own comm with similar results. “The signal’s corrupted. It’s like she’s actively blocking external communication.”
“She wants us to herself,” I said, though the thought didn’t exactly comfort me.
As if responding to our voices, the chamber around us began to brighten slightly.
The walls, which had appeared smooth from above, revealed themselves to be covered in a network of fine ridges and channels that pulsed with faint light.
The bioluminescence was still that sickly gray color, but it was enough to let us see our immediate surroundings more clearly.
Maya frowned at the small screen on the back of her forearm that gave her the conditions of our environment. “It’s cold down here. Below freezing. And the air quality is poor. She can’t maintain an atmosphere, so even though she’s making oxygen for us to breathe, it’s not enough.”
“Helmets stay on,” I said.
She nodded. “Until we can stabilize her.”
The chamber was roughly circular, with three openings leading deeper into the Sola’s interior. Each opening was just large enough for a person to walk through upright, though the irregular shapes and the way they seemed to flex slightly made them look more like orifices than doorways.
Maya winced suddenly, pressing one gloved hand to the side of her helmet. Through the comm, I could hear her breathing become more labored.
“Maya? What is it?”
“She’s trying to communicate,” Maya said through gritted teeth. “The signal is stronger in here. I can feel her trying to push concepts into my mind, but they’re still fragmented. Incomplete.”
“What kind of concepts?”
“Joy, mostly. She’s happy we’re here. Happy that you’re here, specifically.” Maya’s expression was strained with the effort of translation. “But there’s something else. Frustration? Like she’s trying to tell us something important but can’t make the words work properly.”
I tried to open my own awareness to the ancient consciousness, the way I’d been attempting for the past week.
But all I got was static and pressure, which was mostly what I’d been experiencing since this whole crisis began.
No consistent communication, no sense of the Sola’s mood or intentions.
Just the constant background noise of an alien mind trying to connect with mine.
A few times she’d managed to get a message to me, and I wish I knew how to make that happen all the time.
It was frustrating beyond words. Here I was, supposedly the chosen lord of this immense being, and I couldn’t even sense what Maya was picking up through her secondary connection. What kind of lord couldn’t communicate with his own Sola?
But then, just as I was beginning to spiral into familiar patterns of self-doubt, I felt something else. Not words or concepts, but a subtle pull in a specific direction. An instinctual sense that one of the three openings leading out of this chamber was the right path to take.
I couldn’t explain how I knew, but I was certain the leftmost opening would lead us toward the heart chamber.
The feeling was similar to the pull I’d experienced in my transport ship when I’d first detected the energy spike from the crystal formations.
An inexplicable certainty that didn’t rely on logic or conscious thought.
“This way,” I said, starting toward the leftmost opening.
“How do you know?” Maya asked, following close behind me.
“I don’t know how I know. I just do.”
The opening led to a narrow corridor that curved gently to the right.
The walls here were even more obviously organic, with a ribbed texture that reminded me of the inside of some massive creature.
Our footsteps made soft squelching sounds on the floor, and the air inside my suit carried a faint recycled taste that suggested the Sola’s atmosphere wasn’t entirely compatible with human or Destran biology, yet.
As we walked, I became increasingly aware of the tackiness I’d first noticed on the Sola’s exterior surface.
Here, in the narrow confines of the corridor, it was impossible to ignore.
Each step required deliberate effort to lift my boots, and I could hear Maya struggling with the same issue behind me.
“It’s like walking through partially set glue,” she muttered.
“Maybe some kind of defense mechanism,” I replied. “To prevent unauthorized movement through the interior spaces.”
“Wonderful. An immune system that doesn’t want us here.”
“Or she’s just sick.” We walked for a long time.
Long enough for me to hear Maya’s labored breathing on the inclines as she struggled to lift her feet on the sticky floor.
But even as we complained about the difficult conditions, the pull I was following grew stronger.
We were definitely heading in the right direction, toward whatever served as this ancient consciousness’ core.
The bioluminescence in the walls was growing brighter as well, shifting from the sickly gray to something approaching the blue-white glow I associated with healthy Sola interiors.
The corridor opened into another chamber, this one larger than the entry point. Here, the walls curved upward into a domed ceiling, and the light was bright enough that I could see the full extent of the space. But what caught my attention wasn’t the architecture.
In the center of the far wall was a depression about the size of my torso, roughly oval-shaped and smooth. Nothing about it looked special, but even from across the chamber, energy radiated from that spot with a warmth that seemed to penetrate through my space suit and directly into my bones.
“The heart chamber,” I said, though it was barely more than a whisper.
Maya peered in the direction I stared. “Are you sure? I don’t see or feel any different here.”
“This is it.” I started across the chamber, but Maya caught my arm.
“Rykar, wait.” Her voice was serious, almost frightened. “If there’s a heart crystal in there, there’s no going back. You’ll be bound to her for life. Your memories, your personality, everything that makes you who you are might…change.”
I turned to face her, seeing my own fear reflected in her brown eyes.
She was right, of course. The bonding process would fundamentally alter who I was.
I might emerge from this chamber as someone entirely different, someone who didn’t remember the past ten cycles of guilt and grief but also might not remember the week I’d spent getting to know Maya Chen.
The thought of losing those memories terrified me more than anything else about this situation.
Our late-night conversations, the way she’d looked at me when she said she trusted me, the growing awareness that what I felt for her went far beyond mere partnership or physical attraction.
I was falling in love with Maya, possibly had already fallen, and the idea that I might forget her completely made my chest tight with panic.
“I know,” I said finally. “But if I don’t try, you die. This Sola dies. And eventually, the interference destroys the connected city. I can’t live with that. I’m finally doing what I should have done from the beginning. Taking responsibility. Protecting the people I care about.”
“But if you lose yourself in the process…”
“Then at least you’ll be alive to remember who I was.” I reached up to touch the faceplate of her helmet, wishing I could feel her skin beneath my fingers. “Maybe that’s enough.”
Maya’s eyes filled with tears that she couldn’t wipe away through the helmet. “I guess…it will have to be, but, Rykar?”
“Yes?”
She pressed herself against me—body to body with the suits between us—and pursed her lips in a kiss that I’d have rather had on my mouth than the inside of her helmet. “I—I think you’ll make an excellent Destran lord.”
I swallowed hard. “That means a lot,” I got out, though my voice was rough.
“I need you to know that I care about you, Maya. More than I probably should, given the circumstances. If touching that crystal means I forget what it feels like to care about you, then I want you to know, right now, that you’re important to me. ”
Tears trickled over her cheeks. “Rykar…”
“Stay here,” I said gently. “Let me do this.”
I turned away before she could argue further and walked across the chamber toward that unassuming depression in the wall.
Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the Sola’s surface was trying to hold me back.
But the pull toward the heart chamber was stronger than any resistance, drawing me forward with inexorable certainty.
There was a rough bump in the wall that stood out. It was little more than a palm-sized bulge and it was not faceted or glowing, but I could feel the intelligence of the consciousness housed within. Ten thousand years, compressed into a crystalline matrix that pulsed with alien life.
I had to take my glove off, even though I knew it would be cold—not cold like the void of space, but colder than comfortable. I pulled it off and reached out with a bare hand, hesitating for just a moment before making contact.
The moment my fingers touched the crystal, the world exploded into sensation.
Loneliness. That was the first and strongest emotion that crashed through me.
Not the simple solitude of being alone, but the deep, aching isolation of a consciousness that had been cut off from all meaningful contact for millennia.
The pain of it was so intense that I gasped.
My knees nearly buckled under the weight of such profound emptiness.
Love. The second wave was almost as overwhelming as the first. A desperate, all-consuming need to connect, to bond, to finally find the other half of a symbiotic relationship that had been incomplete for far too long.
The ancient consciousness reached for me with a hunger that bordered on desperation, trying to forge the connection she had been seeking since the moment Maya’s scanning equipment had awakened her from dormancy.
Hope. The third emotion was tinged with such joy that it brought an ache to my chest. After ten thousand years of waiting, she had finally found her chosen lord.
The one consciousness that could complete her, allow her to become whole again.
The relief and happiness radiating from the crystal was so pure that it temporarily drowned out every other sensation.
But beneath those overwhelming emotions, the communication remained frustratingly unclear.
Instead of the clear, conversational exchange I’d been told to expect, I received only fragments of meaning, incomplete concepts that felt like trying to understand a language I’d only half learned.
Images flashed through my awareness: star systems, other Solas, moments of connection and growth that stretched back to the dawn of Destran civilization.
But they were fragmented, distorted, like looking at reflections in broken glass.
Broken, the consciousness whispered through our forming connection. Damaged. Cannot speak clearly. Need…bridge… Translator…
I understood then that the ancient Sola’s communication difficulties weren’t entirely due to my inadequacy as her chosen lord.
Something was wrong with her, some fundamental damage that prevented her from establishing the kind of clear connection that other lords enjoyed with their Solas.
She was trying to reach me, but the pathways were damaged, corrupted by the long dormancy or some other trauma.
Behind me, I heard Maya cry out. The partial bond I was forming with the ancient consciousness was affecting her as well, stabilizing some aspects of her condition while creating new complications.
When I turned to look at her, I could see that she was glowing faintly, the same blue-white light that emanated from the heart crystal reflecting in her suit and somehow illuminating her from within.
“Maya!” I called out, but she waved me off.
“I’m okay,” she said, though her voice was strained. “Better than okay, actually. The chaos in my head is settling down. But, Rykar, I can understand her now. I can translate what she’s trying to tell you.”
Yes, the ancient consciousness pulsed with approval. Bridge. She understands. Can help us speak.
I maintained my contact with the heart crystal, feeling the partial bond settling into something more stable but still incomplete.
The overwhelming emotions had subsided to a manageable level, but the communication remained fragmented and unclear.
Whatever damage the ancient Sola had sustained was preventing the full bonding process from completing normally.
“What is she saying?” I asked Maya.
Maya pressed her hands to the sides of her helmet, her expression intense with concentration.
“She’s…grateful. So grateful that you’re here, that you’re trying to accept the bond.
But she’s damaged, Rykar. Something happened to her during the long dormancy.
Her consciousness is fragmented, her memory centers corrupted.
She can’t complete the bonding process properly. ”
Cannot be whole, the Sola confirmed through our partial connection. Broken. But still need connection. Still need lord. Will you stay? Will you accept incomplete bond?
I looked back at Maya, seeing in her eyes the realization that this wasn’t going to be the simple solution we’d all hoped for.
The partial bond I was forming would save her life and stabilize the ancient consciousness enough to stop the interference with the other Solas.
But it wouldn’t give me the clear communication and understanding that characterized normal lord-Sola relationships.
I would be bound to a consciousness I could barely understand, responsible for guiding a ship that couldn’t speak to me clearly. Everything about this situation was exactly as broken and complicated as the rest of my life.
But Maya was alive. The desperate loneliness radiating from the ancient consciousness was slowly being replaced by something approaching contentment. And for the first time in ten cycles, I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I was meant to do.
“Yes,” I said aloud, pressing both hands against the heart crystal. “I accept the bond. Broken or not, I accept you.”
The ancient Sola’s response was a wave of joy so pure and intense that it drove me to my knees. Through Maya, I could hear her trying to speak, to express gratitude and commitment and promises of partnership that transcended the limitations of our damaged connection.
I was a lord, now. Not the kind of lord I’d imagined, not the clear-cut symbiotic relationship described in the histories. But I was bound to an ancient consciousness who needed me, responsible for keeping her stable and helping her find her way back to wholeness.
It would save Maya’s life, and that was worth any sacrifice.