Seek the Traitor’s Son

Before

The man kneels in the dark and waits.

Then: a creak. The sound of a bent stem.

And a shiver, right through the middle of the teardrop.

The man suppresses a gasp as the plant splits open and peels apart, the leaves unfurling all at once. Then in the center of each one, a vein of light. Of color.

It’s only a plant, but the gentle pulse of its light is almost like a heartbeat.

“Are you ready for the hardest part of our journey?” he says to it, his voice gentle.

He reaches into the water to run a fingertip along one of the leaves. He checks that the lattice is secured to the tank. Then he replaces the lid, locks it down, and steps out of the room and into the main deck of the ship.

There, looming huge in the front windows, is a gate. The sight fills him with dread. He’s passed through so many gates, spent more time in the Manifold than most people ever will, but still: that dread. It’s primal.

A gate is a strange--looking thing. A spherical warping, almost like a soap bubble.

At the edges of it he can see pieces of other universes—-a streak of starlight, the sliver of a planet, or a moon, or a planetary ring.

As his ship draws closer, all those pieces swirl together, as if he’s going down a drain.

He wishes he’d taken a sedative.

He sits and straps himself in.

The ship passes through the threshold, and the gate in front of it splits in two. Two identical soap bubbles. Then three. Then four. The sight makes him dizzy, so he closes his eyes. The ship chimes at him when the array is complete: twelve universes, each with an identical yet distinct gate.

He’s already programmed the ship for the correct one, the second from the left. Passing through that gate is punishable by execution without a trial. It leads to the Cloistered Planet, the one that once refused the offer to join the greater order.

The Cloistered Planet is also the only safe place left. The only place where they won’t look for him.

So he watches as that gate draws closer—-or rather, as he draws closer to it, his ship creeping across the vast space that separates them.

When the gate is so large it seems to engulf him, he sees it: the edge of a massive planet with a bright red eye swirling along its belly. It’s not his destination, just a waypoint, but still, his body trembles at its size.

The gate swallows him, and in the instant before the wormhole rips him to shreds, he screams.