Credible Prime

Chaos

The Hammerlight's  reverse engines howled as it strained against the chaos of Kalus.  Even the best navigators could not just land on the planet without a fight.  Maneuvering around so the ship could land on a relatively small landing pad was a nearly futile  task.  But with expert piloting,  the ship teetered one way and then the other, back and forth in a drunken hover. The instability of the approach had little to do with the prowess of the person at the helm of the ship and everything to do with the conditions surrounding the LZ.
     Kreed was no newbie when it came to piloting. But he had never approached a landing zone like this one. As he worked the throttles like a magician,  the ship began to settle into a more stable hover. The moaning and groaning of stress on the Hammer light's  hull seemed to lend life to the ship. It creaked and growled like a monster that had been awakened from a deathlike sleep.  Little by little,  the ship began its descent upon the landing zone and finally settled in on the spot with mechanical grace.  And a jet of steam shot from exhaust ports as the gangplank lowered and spilled out the Hammerlight's passengers.  Rather than a cautious walk down the landing ramp, the group toddled down the decline to the sound of Kalus's magnetic atmosphere.  A hum and low pitched whir surrounded and immersed them,  and that interference tilted balances.  It made walking a challenge at first. Kreed and Krux looked desperately  dumbfounded.  But, for Krux,  the Beacon soon voided all trace of the magnetic footprint.  He was overwhelmed with a sensation of instant knowledge and determination. What they were sent to Kalus for was calling to him.  In the echoed chambers of a part of his mind that couldn't be expressed, he felt the draw towards an unknown but familiar destination. This is the strongest he'd ever felt it. He was two people - the Beacon Hunter being beaconed by the Zed, double imposed upon the Krux Koda who was a simple shopkeeper on Credible Prime.
Kreed seemed amused.
"It screams out your name, doesn't it?"

Krux looked at him, perplexed.
" How do you know what I'm feeling?"

Kreed smiled.
"I've been looking for Kalfate for longer than you've been alive.  I know that look because I've seen it on the faces of others who felt a similar calling. But your calling is the strongest I've ever seen. Your calling has gotten us the farthest.  We've wandered criss cross among the Vast with other Beacon hunters but none were able to pinpoint it like you. It's part of you and you cannot ignore how it summons you."

"But the traps are many," Koda whispered vacantly. He continued.
"But the journey to the answer starts on Kalus, the armament of the truth."

Krux shook his head a little as if he were rejoining the others in the present and sloughing away the haze of his involuntary , and momentary, departure.

Krux, fully conscious and grounded in the moment turned to Kreed and nodded.
" I can feel it yes. The thing that won't let my mind rest is so expansive that it's the scaffolding of the vast itself and that knowledge unlocks righteousness."

And the legend is that Kalfate hid it here, on this planet, somewhere among the debris and refuse and chunks of long dead stars.  Finding it would be the first step in finding the Answer.  The Zed, the beacons, the whole algorithm of creation would be revealed.