Ragnarok

Chapter 31 - Omen

The silence between Smith, Micah and Rei stretched on for far longer than was comfortable, but before he could come up with a way to break the tension, two things happened nearly simultaneously.

The first was that there was an excited murmur among the cosmonauts, drowning out Mia's muttered translations. Micah looked around, the walls of the shuttle dissolving around him, as he looked around for the source of the commotion. They were still coming up on Ragnarok's night side, matching velocities before they swung into an orbital path. The Sun was blocked by the super-Earth's massive silhouette, the first eclipse he had seen with his own eyes. It seemed ominous, the gigantic alien world swallowing the light of his birth star.

Then he noticed that what light there was had been dimming even further. He looked in the opposite direction of the giant planet, and swallowed. Spica's supernova had left a lingering cloud of luminous gas and storms of atomic plasma, and the mottled light of its grave site was almost equal to the Milky Way around them. Up until now, it had been giving a dim sort of light to the planet's night side, but as he watched, a planetary conjunction seemed to have started.

He knew that some of what he saw was computer-enhanced; from here, he would see little more than a number of black dots covered by blazing coronas. But the Sephirot's sensors were far above what human senses could detect, and his view was zoomed in thousands of times. "That's Nemesis, isn't it? And ... Neptune?" He peered at the hazy blue cloud, and the massive black spheres that floated in front of it, casting their tremendous cones of shadow across the retreating back of Ragnarok.

Even as he was talking, he noticed that Rei had gone stock-still as soon as he'd started speaking, a far-off look in her eyes. He waved his virtual hand in front of her face, and she didn't react, as though she were paralyzed by fear. He started to reach out to touch her, but Smith blocked him, grabbing his wrist firmly and shoving it away. "Wait," is all he said, and then turned to study her himself. Her posture was rigid, stiff, her fingers splayed at her sides. Rei seemed oblivious to everything around her, and seemed to lose control of her new form, turning back into a silver sculpture of a woman. As Micah stared, befuddled by what was happening, his oldest companion hugged herself and trembled.

But why?

*      *      *

Rei was suddenly whisked out of the Sephirot, her body left to shiver behind. She had been called the moment Neptune and the Nemesis twins had begun their conjunction; they were still closing together, Neptune slowly catching up to its slower-moving siblings, blocking out more and more of Spica's light; when it disappeared completely, Rei was no longer on the ship.

She was back in the Void Without Time, and this time, the Jade Emperor did not deign to appear. Instead, Jupiter seemed to erupt from a fiery vent that opened up in front of her, and off to her left. Like the planet itself, he looked battered from the bombardment, but as yet unshaken. He seemed preoccupied with the huge planetoid Rei was approaching, and only afforded her the briefest of glances.

Rei waited expectedly for a messenger to arrive, but there seemed to be some delay. Finally, a familiar young face formed out of the billowing smoke created by Jupiter's entrance, and out of the smoke and flame walked Fortuna. She seemed unaffected by the heat, and her tiny bare feet seemed both unblistered by the heat, and resistant to the gray ash that fell around her. The molten light gave Fortuna's emerald mane an eerie glow, and Rei started to back away, but Fortuna was faster. She grasped Rei by the arm, and drew her in close, pinning her with those chaotically shifting eyes.

"There is little time," Fortuna whispered. "While Neptune and the Nemesis twins block Spica's light, the planet's energy source is momentarily blocked. Once the planets pass once more, we will be unable to communicate further."

Rei nodded, a thousand questions brimming at her lips, but a touch of Fortuna's delicate fingers sealed her lips. "Do you recall the worm that attacked the Jade Palace? Back when this all started?" Rei nodded, and Fortuna swept the area around her for watchful eyes. She seemed particularly concerned by something behind Rei, and her unerring sense of location reminded her that Ragnarok itself lie in that direction. "Don't turn around; it seems to be sleeping, while the signal is interrupted.

"The worm was more insidious than we realized. It had seeped into the Jade Palace's subroutines, corrupting the very stone upon which the Emperor rests. We were only recently able to purge the last of it." The young girl looked more serious than she had the first time the two had met; there, she had been coy, flirtatious, full of charm and vigor. Now she looked terrified.

"It's Smith, Rei. Some of the corruption was waiting, a Trojan horse, until we started assembling the new-model roboforms. They must have known we'd been designing prototypes for years; it was only now that we were desperate enough to make use of them." Fortuna whispered directly into Rei's ear. "The worm ... it's inside him. Corrupting the data that Micah gave him. Twisting it. He sees humanity with an incredible contempt. And here, the source of his corruption is calling him. Calling him home."

"But ... what about the Three Laws?" Rei whispered back. "Shouldn't they stop him from doing anything to betray us?"

"That seems to be all that has saved you, so far," Fortuna replied warily. "That and my own blessing of luck. Though even my luck will be strained by what you have to do next."

Rei waited, expectantly, and Fortuna stared at her. She hesitated to speak, but there was no time to waste. Smith would already be suspicious, and Micah would be worried.

"Micah ..." Rei whispered. "Is he in danger?"

Fortuna looked at her sadly. "My sweet young girl," she sighed, which was a bit jarring coming from a child goddess, "we all are."