Welcome back to our Serial Sunday, featuring Superluminary, a wonderful science fiction tale by John C. Wright that we’re pleased to present as a serial each Sunday here on Fandom Pulse.
Episode 08: Mistress of Dreams and Delirium
Inside the cabin of the multi-configuration aerospace craft, was a table and chair. The cabin was spherical. The inner surface carried images of the craft’s surroundings. Gravity and disinertia fields prevented any sensation of motion. The chair and table seemed to hang in midair, rushing along with no wind or noise, yards above the sea. The moon with its lethal beam was below the horizon.
Aeneas was safe.
The Imperial tri-wolf adorned the table linens and silverware. But no personal insignia were visible: no Mirror of Venus, Trident of Neptune, Sickle of Saturn, nor Caduceus of Mercury.
“Identify this craft! Who sent you?”
The voice of the machine intellect pilot replied, “I may not say, sir. I must react with lethal force if you attempt escape.”
Aeneas scowled. Not so safe, after all.
He ordered the table to produce a large meal, as well as medical materials, flesh, bone marrow, blood plasma, and so on. Next came linens, doublet, pantaloons, jerkin, hood, mantle and boots in his enormous size. It felt more human to be clothed again.
Normal objects put halfway through a contortion node occupied a locationless metric called nullspace, and so could be stored without regard for mass or volume. Hence the table could bring anything stored in its nullspace warehouses. Specialty items could be assembled by molecular engines from bricks of raw, pure elements stored in there.
It took him a long time to reassemble his body in its remembered nine-foot tall form, expel all radiation-damaged cells and irreclaimable plutonian organs. He also fed his depleted cells, cleared his body of fatigue poisons, and fill information into his empty primary brain.
Next he armed himself with electric organs wired in parallel, magnetic accelerators, metal wings cunningly hidden, biometallic tentacles folded into his rib cage, hollow needle-claws beneath his fingernails and toes, spinnerets for various substances, retractable elbow-spikes, antigravity cells, and other tools and weapons made of his living flesh.
Surprisingly, the craft pilot did not interfere.
He examined the defenses hidden behind the image screens lining the cabin. The sheer number of weapons, energetic, gravitic, sonic, chemical and so on, pointed at him was disheartening. No wonder the pilot had allowed himself to repair and rearm.
His signet ring suggested, Sir, shall I attempt to jam the pilot’s thinking process? Perhaps you could escape before the craft struck ground.
Aeneas looked below. The craft had soared over Lemuria and Indochina into Yunnan, where giant arcologies reared their crowns into the stratosphere, and thence into the gardens of Gobi, the dinosaur parks of Bengal. Now the craft was speeding over the Lesser Himalayas, past the lights and radio noise of Darjeeling, heading toward the Greater Himalayas.
Toward Mount Everest.
Aeneas mindspoke, “No, Sigs. If whoever sent this craft meant me ill, why rescue me in the first place? And maybe my secret protector will be waiting to greet me when I land.”
The signet ring answered, By the same logic, if whoever has been protecting you meant to show himself, why hide in the first place?
“Someone will meet me.”
A puppet just as you are. I mean no offense.
“None taken. Maybe we can trace the string back to the finger of the puppeteer.”
Unlikely, given the level of technology each of your Uncles controls.
“But if I wrecked the ship and bailed out, what then? It is nearly moonrise in this longitude. I could hide in a convenient mineshaft, or join the amphibians in their seabottom cities. I can go nowhere without being recognized.”
Had you peopled 1172 Äneas, you would now have a retreat.
Aeneas had no retort.
All too soon the jewel-like lights of Ultrapolis were underfoot, the glorious towers and the luminous zones and curtains of various forces. And in each direction, bejeweled, bedizened and gilded muzzles pointed, and apertures, rails, antennae, bores and emitters of various heavy and superheavy weapons.
The force curtains parted. The craft, now orb-shaped, and was lowered on a beam of force like a bubble in a searchlight.
But he was not drawn into the aerodrome. Instead, a space contortion twisted the outside scene into a pinpoint, opening elsewhere. Had he traveled hundreds of miles, or only a few yards? Had it been only a moment? Or had he been preserved in nullspace as probability wave for centuries?
Like a clamshell, the smartmetal hull, with all its deadly weapons, released him. He stood beneath a roof of transparent energy in a walled garden. Stars were above, grass below. Water from marble basins leaped and danced, woven into fantastic sculptures by kinetic rays. Scent breathed from the multicolored blooms and blossoms, leaves and lianas gathered from the fields of eight planets, fifty wordlets, ninescore moons.
Through the clear roof, he could see familiar towers and cupolas. He was in the eight-sided High Central Palace of Ultrapolis, in the wing set aside for Lord Jupiter. Lord Jupiter was the most powerful of the Sons of Tellus. Was he behind this?
Aeneas saw a light glinting through the leaves. A few steps down the marble path brought it into view.
A young redhead in a silky green robe of woven energy-strands was seated in a curule chair. His other senses told him the strands were woven tractor-presser fields of immense potential. She could knock down a skyscraper with her dress, or deflect a mortar shell.
The garment hung from one shoulder, leaving her arms bare, and fell to her emerald-studded sandals in elegant folds. She had freckles on her cheeks and shoulders which she was not vain enough to have removed. Her red hair was intertwined with pearls, one or two of which glowed the dangerous black of an unstable node. Her coronet was a glowing crescent, horns pointed upward. Her eyes were as green as her dress, and regarded him with a mocking twinkle.
He stood in shock. She was the last person he expected.
“Hello, Peanut,” he said, smiling. “What is with the get up?”
She said, “It’s Lady Luna these days, little cousin.”
“What? I cannot call you Penthesilia any more?”
“After you blew up the Old Wing of the palace in an apparent act of fiery self destruction three days ago, along with the disappearance—no pun intended—of Lord Pluto, the conclave decided not to wait, but to elevate me to the official rank of Lady of Creation. The first of our generation!”
Aeneas said sourly, “So you are the thirteenth member of the Twelve. Now you can trample commoners like the rest. Congratulations are in order.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I knew your brain’s mainspring was wound wrong, Aeneas. With your mother, Lady Venus, who can blame you? Who knows what she did to your mind? But I did not think all your mental gears and flywheels would spin away out of control. Trample? We abolished war and crime, aging and starvation.”
“And abolished hope. So the Moon is now officially your fiefdom?”
“Well, I did terraform it, fill the seas with water and the skies with air, and fill the silver hills with gardens and arbors, white deer and pale hounds. You know how many years I’ve been running it. This is long overdue.”
“It’s not a planet.”
“It’s larger than Lord Pluto’s real estate, and better located! Within Sol’s water ring, but lighter weight than Earth, so the energy cost to orbit is lower. I left the natural gravity at the launch sites.”
“Being the daughter of Lord Jupiter has its privileges, I suppose.”
Annoyance flickered through her green eyes. “I have sixty-six brothers and sisters, all older than I, who were not so honored. Those who prove themselves diligent and useful to the Imperial Family can expect reward from the Family!”
“Expect ever, achieve never!” said Aeneas with scorn. “Not for any work is your reward, but for your pliancy.”
Lady Luna said, “Do I wear a leash…? You once thought highly of me.”
“Some powerful patron wants one family faction to outweigh the others, and helped you. Who? My guess is Lord Neptune: he thinks you will side against your own father.”
“Not him. You helped me.”
“What?”
“Having your assassin set off a bomb in the Old Palace startled The Twelve. The elders are finally are scared of us children. They fear long frustration will make us end our endless intrigue-games, and start a very uncivil civil war. Or one of us will?”
Aeneas said, “Then you should be more grateful. To what do I owe your sudden, unprovoked, unannounced, lethal attack with an interplanetary beam weapon?”
She shook her head. “Not I. Some cousin or uncle established a zone of death-energy in my Sea of Tranquility fortress. All within died suddenly, hundreds of my handmaidens. My instruments detected the emotional echo of their death-screams on the subconscious frequencies of the mental spectrum, and so I knew an enemy was framing me. So I sent a dream to one of Grandfather’s superdreadnaughts he built to awe the world. The ship sacrificed itself to save you.”
“Why should I believe you, Peanut?”
“Why should I lie, Annoyance?”
“Because everyone in this family lies, Lady Luna.”
“Not everyone.”
Aeneas said in exasperation, “Did the Twelve share any secrets with you on your coronation day, so-called Lady Luna? No. You were imprinted with dream-reading, one branch of neuropsionics my Mother said she was not using at the moment. They will never give more.”
Lady Luna smiled, and glanced at him sidelong. “I enjoyed those days on Ishtar Plateau, learning your mother’s lore, the little part she was willing to impart. Walking by the scented sea beneath a sky of bright, eternal cloud was pleasant, and talking with a gawky teen who never stopped tinkering with his own genetic code.” Her smile vanished. She continued: “But you impose too heavily on our friendship if you think I would protect a traitor.”
He scowled. “Friendship? Is that all…?”
“You smuggled in a jammer to block all our mindlinks. Who else beside the Son of Venus would have access to such a toy? And the assassin, Thoon, was a democracy cultist—one of yours!”
“No more. He came to kill me.”
Lady Luna favored him with a withering glance. “And who filled his head with hate for us? Democracy! Did your mother teach you brainwashing? Why else would someone yearn for mob rule?”
“Grandfather forced the family to make new races like mad toymakers turning out talking dolls and tin soldiers!”
“You’re one to talk. You burn your toys when they bore you!”
“It was self-defense.”
“Says he who said we all lie.”
“It’s truth.”
“But not the whole truth! Someone breached the neurotech thought-barrier around the Mountain. My instruments detected a massive beam carrying a library’s worth of information—enough to implant a stratonic science—just before your explosion. Who sent it?”
Aeneas said, “How could thought-detectors operate in a thought-proof field?”
“Your machine suppressed conscious thoughtcasts. My machines work at deeper levels. The library beam was tuned to the subconscious, to the levels of dream and madness, the darkness of the undiscovered mind, where I alone am queen. I doubt anyone else detected it.”
“How is it that you set up a detection grid when we were all abed?”
“A strange dream woke me. I sought to find if it were external. Imagine my surprise at the readings. Someone had vast learning poured into his unconscious mind. Was it you? Answer honestly! I can give you one and only one chance.”
Aeneas probed the garden with his multiple senses. He detected no energy echoes, no trace of spy-rays. He needed an ally. But…
She leaned forward, eyes bright and urgent, “Aeneas! I cannot shield you if you lie! Is the secret of superluminal science yours?”
Aeneas felt grim. He wanted Lady Luna with him. But at what risk? The superluminal technology could overpower all the other stratonic technologies combined. It was that fundamental.
Grandfather had never shared the secret. Aeneas realized Lord Tellus, then, had been afraid. Simply afraid.
As was he.
He said, “No.”
Lady Luna leaned back, sighed, eyes half closed. “Well, you all heard me. I tried. Take him! Do as you like with him!”
Nine of the pearls in her coiffure blazed with space-contortion. Nine regal figures snapped into existence around him.
The Lords of Creation had him surrounded.
He snapped his hidden armor shut, unfolded hidden wings, and charged his energy-control organs for battle.
Support John C. Wright’s current work, Starquest by picking up the first book in his new series, The Space Pirates of Andromeda.
Space Opera must be Great! Gallant! Gigantic! Grandiose!
This tale told by a Grandmaster vows to return the glory that was lost!
Remember the days gone by, when science fiction was fun?
Now new hope is here!
If you are weary of weak, wan, woke and wasted works, your wait is ended!
Here is an epic, as grand as any tale of old -- here you will hear wonders told!
Of course there is a Space Princess, and Space Pirates galore, and an Evil Galactic Empire.
Of course there is a super-weapon known only as the Great Eye of Darkness!
Here meet Athos Lone, Ace of Star Patrol, in his one-man mission of vengeance!
The Ancient Mariner, like an iron ghost, when slain, seems to rise again!
The mysterious spymaster called Nightshadow walks in dark worlds but serves the light!
An Imperial Deathtrooper must reverse his loyalties, and fight his own clone-brothers!
Fate has set these unlikely heroes against the Four Dark Overlords
An utmost evil the unwary galaxy thinks long dead!
Can Darkness fail and Light prevail?
Read On! For All True Tales are but Part of a Greater!
I think you republished the last chapter by mistake. Chapter 8 was already published on November 9:
https://fandompulse.substack.com/p/serial-sunday-superluminary-the-lords-493