Chapter 1: Chapter 1 A long trip

Nathan twisted the key to his apartment’s front door and felt the heavy bolt clunk back. He took three steps into the darkened single-room studio, swinging the door closed and shucking his backpack into the center of the bright carpet that took up most of the open floor space. Then he flopped into the overstuffed armchair that was the largest piece of furniture in the place, aside from the bed.

It had been a nightmare to get the chair up the stairs and into the apartment, but Nathan’s friends had earned their pizza for helping him move out of the graduate student dorms a few years ago. Besides, he’d found the comfortable chair marked ‘up for grabs’ on the street when somebody had moved out. On a graduate student’s stipend it was hard to turn down comfortable furniture for the low price of free.

Sighing, Nathan fished his phone from underneath his wallet and keys, pulling up the meditation app. He’d started doing mindfulness meditation almost a year ago to help deal with the anxiety of graduate school. To his surprise, it had worked. Or at least helped.

Nathan started the session, listening to the soothing voice through his earbuds as he relaxed deeper into the cushions. He let his mind relax, stilling his inner voice and focusing on the sensations of breathing, of gravity pulling his body into the chair.

Time passed, and Nathan didn’t focus on anything. He didn’t plan, and he especially didn’t worry about the fellowship application due soon or tomorrow’s experiment that would cap off the last two months of work. If that experiment worked, it would be a big step forward towards his doctorate. If it didn’t… well. It depended on how it didn’t work. Nathan realized he was spiraling, and with a moment of attention the worries dissipated like smoke.

Some more time passed, and another thought intruded on Nathan’s mind. [A kinnar avi, nukol ad kayikxrokko, dlan avail-xalark da dhak!]

He was confused.

The words had emerged clearly in his consciousness in a deep, booming voice, but he didn’t understand where they’d come from or what language it was. He was pretty sure they hadn’t come from the earbuds - the words seemed injected directly into his brain. He was about to stop meditating early and start making dinner when it happened again, the words more forceful this time. They pressed against the inside of his head, grinding and overwhelming. [A KINNAR AVI. DANO DA NO JAILROAV UDLAKK DHO XAAK. A KINNAR AVI]

Nathan’s eyes snapped open and he tore off his earbuds, exhaling with frustration. He didn’t need this now, whatever it was. Could it wait a few days? Until after his big experiment? As he started to stand the voice crashed into his skull again, wiping out thought.

[DANO DA NO]

Nathan didn’t feel the chair under him anymore, or the clothes on his skin. His eyes were open and saw nothing but black. Air tore itself from his open mouth and his ears spiked in pain.

This must be what being in vacuum feels like. Why aren’t there any stars?

Nathan flailed, accomplishing nothing but feeling the vacuum pulling on his lungs and eyes and the spit in his mouth boiling away. He tumbled in absolute darkness, with no reference point and no sense of anything other than himself.

After what must have been mere seconds but felt much longer, he tumbled into brightness, landing on his butt on smooth stone. With vision tunneling, he heaved deep breaths, paying attention to nothing but pumping air in and out of his abused lungs. After a minute of slowing breaths, he looked around the room.

He was completely naked, and sitting in a shallow stone bowl in the center of a large square room. The entire room - all of the same smooth pale stone - was lit evenly by a grid of bright lights in the ceiling. It looked like a cleanroom done in pale marble. The bowl was only a foot deep and several feet wide, so he could see out easily. The room in front of him was decorated with several pedestals capped with orbs shining in muted purples, yellows and blues. They were linked together by a complex grid of brightly glowing metal that looked like nothing so much as multiple overlapping circuit boards. As he watched the metal started dimming in color, losing the bright radiance.

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The formation wasn’t centered on Nathan, but all the lines of metal lead right behind him. He scooted his butt on the cold stone to turn around and saw a metal filigree arch supporting a horizontal disk of exquisitely carved metal eight feet across. Multicolored lights emanated from enormous gemstones inlaid into the arch. Over the disc hovered a horizontal portal into darkness, rapidly shrinking until it vanished with a tiny ‘pop’.

Nathan stared blankly at the disk, losing himself in the fractal-like carvings for a moment. Then Nathan’s attention was drawn to movement beyond the arch. There was a man on a low dais at the edge of the room, and it looked like he was concluding a victory dance, pumping his fists and bouncing like somebody who had just won the lottery, his orange robe flapping around him. Just beyond him were a pair of humanoid statues with eerie detail, flanking the door out of the room.

The orange-robed man saw Nathan looking at him, and held out his palm, the semi-universal gesture for ‘stop’. He busied himself at what looked like nothing so much as a wide control panel, complete with flashing lights. The grid surrounding Nathan dimmed even faster, quickly turning into a mix of shiny metal in steel, copper and gold tones. The shining orbs lost their glow, some of them cracking apart with a faint tinkling sound.

The man hopped down from the dais, nearly skipping over to Nathan’s bowl. He kept his attention fixed on Nathan, not sparing a second glance for the apparatus that he carefully maneuvered through.

He looked to be an average height man in late-middle age, a bit pudgy, with a full head of black hair and a wide, stubbly face. His eyes were orange (what?) and gleamed with excitement as he stopped in front of Nathan. He clapped his hands together and spoke in a low, fast voice. “Dhak ak ka odadark!”

It sounded like the same deep voice Nathan had heard in his head earlier, and Nathan looked up at him dumbly and spoke with a raw throat. “Excuse me, sorry, but what?” The man slapped one hand across each eye in a gesture that looked like a facepalm, before stepping forward and quickly laying a hand on Nathan’s forehead.

[Ankiko Rurkiuko]

Light emitted from his mouth with the words - and from the hand on Nathan’s forehead - which dazzled him. Nathan's head spiked in pain, a pressure and tightness squeezing down behind both temples like double the worst migraine Nathan had ever had. His eyes slammed shut and Nathan collapsed sideways. After a brief moment he heard the man’s voice again, and not long after cold and unyielding hands slid underneath him, lifting him gently off the floor as he tried to curl into a ball around the pain in his head.

Whatever was carrying him felt more like a statue than a person. Nathan felt its steps carry him across the room, down a staircase and through a hallway. The pain in his head receded rapidly, and he blinked teary eyes open. He was being carried by a humanoid statue made of the same sand-colored marble as the walls. A multicolored opalescence shone from its eyes. Then a blue box flashed in Nathan’s vision, front and center.

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