Chapter 1

Rain Berillian set off for Central Sky Research Laboratories for another day's work. She left her Silver Sun complex, a little startled,as always, by the soft hiss of the Lor-Shield brand doors shutting gently behind her. She stepped carefully over a basking sun-axolotl, its long toes and tail dangling down to the salty water between the boards of the Silver Sun boardwalk, dark red back signalling a foul taste to predators and availability to potential mates. If startled, a sun-axolotl would bite and hold on tight until pried loose. They had been reported to give up on life before letting go and, given the risk of infection, Rain did not want to find out if the rumours were true.

The sun was up early today (she liked to say that when having slept in), she had forgotten to wear protective clothing again and was feeling too lazy to go back and change, so she was careful to remain in the shade as she made her way to Western Forest Channel Station. Blisters were painful, not to mention ugly, and she was only beginning to heal from the last time she had stayed out for more than a few minutes. It was not so bad in winter, but then, it wasn't winter right now, was it? That was still months away.

Arriving at Western Forest Channel Station, Rain groaned softly as she saw a contingent from the Fold – long black cloaks making their bodies somewhat shapeless, some wearing bandages over their faces, some of them even had bionic eyes and other facial implants, which was a stupid idea as the body always rejected those within a few weeks. Like all religious people, they would have their Samuel Religious Transfer Cards, ready to push doom-sayer prophesies onto passer-bys' notepads. She'd never had one do that to her, but what else could be expected of such a new, quickly-growing religion? Rain quickly checked her Salt Mangrove Notepad to ensure it was set to reject incoming transfers. She kept it out and rushed across the gap between the trees and the station. The boardwalk went all the way to the station to ensure the maximum amount of electricity could be extracted, both from the sun, and from the movement of people's footfalls. She swiped her notepad against the door to pay for entrance and tried to ignore the members of the Fold approaching her. One of them smiled at her, ducking his head in a quick bob. His left arm was shorter than the other and she moved away slightly, unable to completely stop her disgust from showing on her face. He noticed and seemed to both understand and be amused, which surprised her a little.

The ferry arrived, and she climbed aboard, others on the platform following, including the strange man. He slapped her elbow as he clambered past on the busy fused-sand gangplank. A shock travelled painfully up her arm, causing her to spin abruptly around.

“Hey,” she shouted, looking for the man, but couldn't see him. Spying the group of them, she headed over.

“What are you doing?” she demanded angrily, their confused faces making her anger all the worse, “where is the other one? The one who hit me?”

She waited impatiently as they looked at each other blankly. One of them spoke.

“I don't know who you are talking about. All of us are here and none of us would hit a person. We are a peaceful people.”

“What do you mean? I know it was one of you, where is he?”

“Please, whole one, it wasn't.”

Disgusted, she tramped off, the thick soles of her laboratory boots thumping on the mangrove-wood deck. After stopping at a few more islands, the boat arrived at her destination and she hopped off, taking care to ensure no-one touched her again.

The station here was covered and there was a walkway to the laboratory. Central Sky Island was one of the largest in this section of the Archipelago, the almost stable continent spanning most of the globe. Smaller islands would sink and rise over the course of a few years, but the middle of the larger islands was usually safe to build on. Central Sky Island was named after its owner – Central Sky Laboratories, dedicated to astronomy and related fields. Her project was investigating the Llul line – a distance beyond which the light from stars seemed to behave oddly, flitting around and fading in and out when measured using certain instruments, but behaving normally when observed with purely light-based telescopes.
She swiped her notepad against the Sunblok door trigger, opening the Sunblok door. Sunblok doors were much quieter than their competitor Lor-Shield but they were quite expensive. Their use was an example of the wealth of the laboratory and its wastefulness.

She took one of her favourite routes through the halls, pausing to watch a giant hydra budding off a child in one of the large raised aquatic study tanks. Budding was a rare process for this species and she felt lucky to witness the birth of such a hardy creature. Like other members of the genus, the giant hydra would reassemble itself if cut into pieces or damaged. The mechanism was not fully understood, and she assumed that was what was under study here.

When she arrived at the laboratory, Hammer was waiting already. A tall man with skin so dark it appeared blue, like most who lived near the tropics, he was naturally resistant to the heat of the sun.

“Slept in?” he asked as she entered.

“I was planning on staying here tonight to get some telescope time.”

Hammer cocked an eyebrow, “you could just preprogram the 'scope and look at it in the morning, you know.”

They had been over this before. “I know. It isn't the same.”

“Suit yourself.” Hammer's heart was clearly not in it today, which was a shame as Rain enjoyed the cheerful banter. Sighing softly, she set down to take another stab at the pile of papers outlining the latest theories that had been proposed regarding the Llul line.

That afternoon she noticed a headache setting in, the wavy lines of a migraine appearing in front of her, wiggling around like a shimmering worm. A gradually expanding ring within which things seemed a little different. The laboratory had a few rooms set aside for people to rest in when doing an all-nighter, and she lay down to sleep it off, hoping to be better by nightfall so she could get some real time on the Llul telescope.

The dream was blurry and ill-defined, out of focus. Something was calling out to her and she turned in that direction. A pulsating orb floated before her, diameter just slightly larger than she was tall, emitting waves of sound that travelled slowly, as if through the thick jelly that collected sometimes between mangrove roots. A deep voice spoke; “it must be severed,” the voice of the orb, but she didn't know what it meant. The dream faded,but she caught the voice again, “the link must be cut.”

She awoke in the dark, headache over, cursing herself for sleeping past the beginning of her telescope turn. It was in high demand and this was a waste. She batted away some glowing insect that was buzzing around her head, wishing it was gone. Its light faded as if on cue and she couldn't see it any longer. Assuming it had flow away, she went up to the telescope.

Hammer was there, of all people, using up her time. Not that she was using it when asleep, but that was beside the point! She gave him a glare.

“What do you think you are doing?”

He replied, “you wouldn't wake up so I came up here. If you had slept much longer I would have contacted first aid.”

“Great to see you're so concerned about my health!” Her migraine was returning; she mustn't have slept it off as well as she'd thought – they usually didn't come this close together.

“Sorry,” she continued, “I guess my headache didn't go away.”

“No problem,” Hammer replied. “Here, take a look at this.”

Rain walked over to the eyelet, and looked in. Hammer had found a star at precisely the right distance for the Llul line to neatly intersect it. Within a few moments the line would have moved further out.

“Are you recording this?”

“I sure am! I guess actually being here pays off, huh?” He smiled.

“Yeah. Listen, I'm pretty zonked, I'm just going to head off. I'll look at this tomorrow, ok?”

“Sure. I'll walk you out, I should get going also.” Hammer flicked the telescope to autopilot, which wasn't all that bad, and they left.