Chapter 6
Jendra
My meeting with Ms. Opalin didn’t provide the reassurance I wanted. In fact, it did almost precisely the opposite.
I found her in her small office in the humanities building, surrounded as always by neat stacks of datapads and messier piles of old-fashioned paper books—some of them, I knew, rescued from old Earth’s warlord times, when most of the libraries had been destroyed.
When I knocked on her open door, she looked up with that sharp, analytical gaze that had always made me feel both challenged and valued.
“Jendra,” she said, gesturing to the chair across from her desk. “Come in. I’ve been expecting you.”
Of course she had. She probably knew exactly what had happened on Magisteria—or at least she could guess. I sat down, my hands folded tightly in my lap, and tried to find the words to explain the confusion churning inside me.
“The field trip,” I began, then stopped. How could I possibly describe what I had witnessed? What I had felt?
Ms. Opalin leaned back in her chair, her expression unreadable. “Tell me what happened.”
So I did. Not everything—I couldn’t bring myself to mention the most mortifying parts of what had happened in the theater, above all the vibrating seats, though I assumed she must know about them.
Much less did I have any desire to talk about what had happened afterward in the dormitory.
But I told her about the museum, about Glomana’s contentment, about the demonstration we had witnessed.
I tried to keep my voice clinical, academic, as if I were simply reporting data.
When I finished, Ms. Opalin was quiet for a long moment. Then she sighed, and something in that sound made my stomach clench.
“Jendra, I’m going to be honest with you in a way I perhaps should have been earlier.” She leaned forward, her elbows on her desk. “Many women have the feelings you pretty clearly have. Many women respond to displays of dominance, to power dynamics, to… what you saw.”
My face burned. “But you said—”
“I know what I said,” she interrupted gently. “And I stand by it. These feelings exist, but successful Hippolytan women learn to fight them. We acknowledge them, yes, but we don’t indulge them. We certainly don’t let them dictate our life choices.”
I felt something cold settle in my chest. “Fight them?”
“Yes.” Her voice was firm now, taking on the lecturing tone I knew so well.
“You think you’re the first young woman to come back from Magisteria feeling confused?
You’re not. Every year, a few of my students return with these…
urges. The successful ones learn to suppress them.
They channel that energy into productive work, into advocating for Hippolytan values, into building careers that matter. ”
“And the unsuccessful ones?” I whispered.
Ms. Opalin’s expression hardened. “They give in. They accept positions in Magisterian service, if the Magisterians deign to offer them. They become diplomats, perhaps, or even fleet officers. But also, wives or even concubines.”
She spoke that last word the way I might have expected her to say a different c-word.
It made my forehead furrow, and knowing my face had visibly changed in response brought a hot blush to my cheeks.
I couldn’t look Ms. Opalin in the eye, now, and my gaze dropped to the spine of a book on the bottom level of the bookshelf.
Magisterian Atrocities: the Hidden Cost of ‘Traditional’ Values.
Ms. Opalin’s own book, published twenty years before.
“They tell themselves they’re happy,” she continued, “because it’s easier than admitting they’ve betrayed everything they once believed in.”
The words stung like a slap. Was that what I was doing? Betraying my beliefs?
“Really, Jendra,” Ms. Opalin continued, her voice softening slightly, “you should consider not dating at all. Not for a while, at least. Until you’ve worked through these feelings and strengthened your resolve.
Romantic and sexual relationships will only complicate things, make these urges harder to resist.”
I stared at her, feeling something crack inside me. No dating. No exploration of what my body wanted. Just… suppression. Denial. Fighting against myself for the rest of my life.
“Is that what you do?” I asked quietly. “Fight it?”
For just a moment, something flickered across Ms. Opalin’s face—pain, perhaps, or recognition. But it was gone so quickly I might have imagined it.
“I did, once, perhaps,” she said simply. “But I grew stronger. So will you, if you’ve got the will.”
I left her office feeling worse than when I had entered. The hallway seemed too bright, too loud, and I found myself heading not back to my dormitory but toward the library, seeking the anonymity of the research terminals in the basement.
Over the next few days, I tried to follow Ms. Opalin’s advice. I threw myself into my studies, avoided Mabola and Brequa, and attempted to ignore the persistent ache between my legs that seemed to have taken up permanent residence since our trip to Magisteria.
But every night, I failed.
Every night, I found my hand slipping beneath my blankets, my fingers seeking out that swollen, sensitive place. And every night, I climaxed while thinking about the things I claimed to despise—strong hands, commanding voices, the sting of discipline against bare skin.
I hated myself for it. But I couldn’t stop.
During the day, I began what I called, to myself, an independent research project on the infonet. At first, I told myself I was simply trying to understand the psychology behind what had happened to me. But gradually, my searches became more specific, more focused.
I learned much more about the Collective, about the energy entities that had taken human form.
I learned that Alpha, Beta, and Gamma were just three of many such beings, though they were the only ones who had chosen to leave their natural state as aggregations of quantum energy and take on biological life.
And then, late one night in the library, I stumbled across something that made my heart race with a mixture of terror and shameful excitement. It seemed that certain Magisterian scientists thought there might be a way to summon an energy entity and to control it.
The article was buried deep in a medical research database, its classification status reading ‘Declassified’ in green letters that I suspected should have been red.
The title made my breath catch: ‘Preliminary Analysis of Quantum Resonance Patterns in Collective Entity Manifestation Events: the Possibility of Summoning.’
I read it once, then twice, my heart pounding harder with each pass.
The document began by detailing the first contact between humans and the Collective, describing how the energy beings had responded to certain quantum signatures—specifically, to the focused mental patterns of humans in states of extreme focus.
The scientists had theorized that with the right equipment and the right mental state, a human could potentially summon a new Collective-like entity. They had even outlined a basic protocol before the research had been abruptly terminated and classified.
Classified. But now it was here, accessible to anyone who knew where to look. A mistake, clearly. An error in the automated declassification system.
As I read further, I began to understand why the Magisterian Federation had kept this information secret.
The implications were staggering. If anyone could summon these beings, if the technique became widespread, the social order would collapse.
Worlds like Hippolyta could potentially create their own defenders, their own power base.
Even conquered populations could theoretically use the technique to exercise mind control over their oppressors, since the Collective had demonstrated such abilities—though Alpha, Beta, and Gamma had promised never to use them, and no evidence seemed to exist that they had ever broken that promise.
The article seemed to suggest, though, that energy beings summoned by others might not exercise the same restraint. The power in the galaxy could shift away from Magisteria entirely.
My hands trembled as I read the protocol section for the third time.
It required a significant energy source—a fusion reactor, ideally.
It required a neural interface to help focus and amplify the summoner’s thoughts.
And it required the summoner to enter a state of intense concentration while holding specific mental images.
I sat back in my chair, my mind racing. This was insane. This was dangerous. This was exactly the kind of thing that could get me expelled from the university, or worse.
But it was also… possible.
The dormitory had a small fusion reactor in the basement—standard equipment for student housing, providing power and heat.
And in the common room, there was a neural gaming system that several of my dorm mates used regularly.
The controller consisted of two electrodes that attached to the player’s temples, reading brain patterns to control the game.
I could do this. I could actually do this.
The question was: should I?
Over the next two days, I couldn’t think about anything else.
I reread the article obsessively, memorizing every detail of the protocol the article’s authors had speculated might work.
First, concentrate on an image of the galaxy with my location centered.
Then hold in mind the purpose for which I wanted to summon the energy being.
Then shape the interaction as the entity manifested in real space.
The article warned that the summoner’s mental state would almost certainly heavily influence the nature of the entity that appeared. A person seeking protection might summon a guardian. A person seeking knowledge might summon a teacher.
And a person seeking… what? What was I seeking?