Under a Starless Sky

Chapter 41

They arrived at a computer room. High Tech Computer towers, super computers standing in rows,

pillars of salt rock that were visually stunning as lights moves as if there was cyclone of lights inside.

The pillars were not all made from local salt. Some were black towers with blue lights. Some were

marble. Some were gleaming metallic. Some cylinders contained enough pixels to create a virtual

image and make the tower seem as if wasn’t there- or make it shine like Christmas, tiny hexagon

pixels, hexagon diodes. Banks of monitors, control panels from light switch size to flat screen television

size. Work stations with chairs and monitors, and the glass desk was the interface, mouse and

keyboard. A central chair, less like a captain’s chair and more like a dentist’s chair was prominent in the

room. She brought him to the far window. He looked down on a room that had one artifact, a giant

moon gate. Orbs were busy at work, scanning, cleaning, or something business like- something that

resembled important work, but could have just been orbs running around in play like bees that were

having a time out or quarrel with a peer. One orb became human long enough to extract a plate from a

wall, traced gold filaments and chip patterns. She placed it back and withdrew into her orb and was off.

Crystal of every sort comprised the inner working, diamonds, emeralds, rubies… There was enough

treasure here to satiate any dragons’ desire to horde. The dialing device in the gate control room

reminded Shen of the Pylon technology from the original ‘Land of the Lost.’ A pedestal holding glowing

crystals with runic type markings. A strip attached to the pedestal had twelve indentions that clearly

were intended to cradle the crystals. There were 64 crystals- 27 of them had distinct colors and rune

symbols drawn on them- the others remained unquantified and were clear.

“A star gate?!” Shen said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s just now completed,” TL said.

“It’s operational?” Shen asked.

“I have every reason to believe it is a fully operational portal,” TL said. “It has not been tested.”

“Open a portal to MyEnterprise,” Shen said.

“No,” TL said.

“No?!” Shen said.

“You don’t just magically open a portal to wherever you want to go,” TL said.

“Yes, you do,” Shen said.

“Okay, yes you do, and yet you don’t. I definitely don’t,” TL said. “You’re the magician, you open one.”

“I don’t know how to do it,” Shen said.

“Yes, you do. This is not rocket science. It’s magic, and art, and science, just not rocket science,” TL

said. “Look, I can start pushing energy and see if something catches. It will be random. If I find a place,

I can hold the coordinates and return to that place, or reasonably close if the interval of reconnecting

isn’t too great. Ideally, linking to a second moon gate, or attaching to any permanent structure,

especially an arch, fortifies a link. A permanent link can be maintained for the lifetime of the structures.

Obviously, gates on the same planet will be easier to catch and maintain than gateways connecting two

astronomical bodies. Destroy the structure, or this gate, the connection is lost. Planet bound or not, you

will not likely regain that gateway through random energy searches.”

“So, how do we connect to the MyEnterprise?” Shen asked.

“Complicated. One way to establish link between two specific destinations is remote viewing,” TL

explained. “Remote viewer sits here, I monitor brain functions, derive essential coordinates, and we

establish a presence at the remote place through bilocation; we, together, can forge a link. If you were

able to remote view the ship, put yourself next to the ship’s portal, we could forge a link.”

“If I could bilocate, I wouldn’t need a portal. I’d just go there and stay there,” Shen said.

TL nodded. “With caveats, yes. May you someday be so skilled,” she bowed.

“I’ve been there. I’ve connected with High Counsel since being here,” Shen said.

“High Counsel is not the ship, it’s the virtual space in conjunction with the ship,” TL said. “However, if

you’re sitting here the next time you log in, and Loxy is physically in the equivalent gate chair, your

virtual link coupled with your telepathic bond with her will provide both gates a vehicle for establishing

coherence.”

“So, I just have to sit here until I log in,” Shen said.

“That, or remote view the ship and bilocate,” TL said.

“I am not fucking Skywalker,” Shen said.

“I thought you liked her slave outfit,” TL said.

“Ha ha,” Shen said.

“Jon, you are not Skywalker. But you are Preston G Waycaster. And he was bi-locating before Luke

manifested that ability,” TL said. “That is established fact, defined by publication date. Waycaster was

the first Jedi to bi-locate.”

“Not cannon, or legitimized…”

“Not relevant…”

“He was a character, something imagined…”

“You experienced it as a download,” TL agreed. “All conscious memories are downloads, Jon- they

come from the field. Preston was you, another aspect of you; that life was real, and came from a

deeper source of you into your conscious mind. You are that.”

“I don’t believe that,” Shen said.

“And that is why you still don’t achieve magic on demand. Seriously, Waycaster’s problems with his

mother is a reflection of your relationship with your own mother, from a symbolic perspective,” TL said.

“Humans have been trained to ignore intuition. You have been taught to stop daydreaming and pay

attention. I am telling you, the knowledge you need to leave this place is within you- you get it by

accessing your brain, not ignoring it.”

“So help me, if you make a Dorothy reference I will…”

“Jon,” TL interrupted. “You know everything you need to know.”

“So, you’re blaming me for being stuck here?” Shen asked.

“No. It’s not blame,” TL said. “Whether you believe it or not, your subconscious knows the answer,

which means, by definition you know it. Now, either you can do what you need to do to access that, or-

there is a reason for not knowing. You have something to learn or to gain from not knowing. The

Dorothy metaphor, the same as the Luke Skywalker metaphor- they are the most appropriate

explanation for not knowing what you always knew. The journey is important. The friendships you make

along the way are important. Because it’s not just about you. Constellations, context, relationships…”

“You’re clearly not paying attention. I have no friends here,” Shen said.

“Seriously?” TL said. “You have no one here?”

“Forget it,” Shen said.

“No. I won’t forget it,” TL said.

“I was wrong. I have you,” Shen said. “I am sorry. I am angry.”

“A lot,” TL said.

“Well excuse me for being homesick,” Shen said.

“I don’t think this is homesickness,” TL said.

“Well, maybe I am fucking bipolar,” Shen said. “Label me with a mood disorder NOS and give me a

psychotropic.”

“You want me to medicate you?” TL asked.

“No! I want you to get me home!” Shen said. “Look, if we wait for me to channel Waycaster so that he

and I can switch, we’ll be here forever. There’s got to be another way.”

“There is,” TL agreed. “Another way to establish a remote gate is to entangle objects with our gate,

take them to a remote place, and I can open a gateway to that object. We could in theory entangle an

object, put it through the black hole, and if even one particle of that entrained object was ejected and

captured by the ship, it will be sufficient to link our two gates.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Shen said.

“I agree. Highly implausible. However, there are ships assigned to black holes that sort the data stream

ejected looking for entangled particles in order to open gateways to other universes,” TL said. “Loxy

knows we’re here. They’re likely monitoring the particle emission stream from the black hole in hopes

of finding entangled particles and or communication signals.”

“Can we transmit a signal through a black hole?” Shen asked, hopeful.

“Not at this time. I have established sustainability threshold,” TL said. “If I focused all of my energies on

building a ship, we’re looking at thirty year completion date, assuming no difficulties. That ship would

not have power to transmit signal through the whole, but it could sort incoming particle streams for

entangled particles, and on finding that, we increase the potential for establishing communication and

or a gateway out. The thing is, if there is an entangled particle on the other side, it’s likely in orbit

around the black hole, scheduled for consumption. Unless the entangled particle’s twin was

miraculously ejected, which could happen, but again, not likely, you could be going from the pan into

the fire.”

Shen was trying to do the math. He couldn’t do the math. TL could do the math. Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

“How big a spaceship?” Shen asked.

“Something big enough to shift through an ionized beam of particles accelerated to relativistic speeds?”

TL asked. “We’re discussing Enterprise D level tech and relative size.”

“Thirty years?”

“Give or take,” TL said. “We’d need that ship to sort particle emissions, and or to deliver material to the

black hole to hope to get a single particle out the other side.”

“Even if they could find a needle in the haystack, how do they know it’s my needle?” Shen asked.

“Hence the phrase, highly unlikely,” TL said. “Capturing and sorting particles from an ion stream is

solid, risky work. At the proximity required to perform the task well, shields failing means ship and

people are cooked. Remote viewers sorting for coherence in a random collection of samples might help

narrow it down. Your odds are better with the lotto. And that isn’t even factoring in how approaching

that close alters the flow of time. We start messing with time, you risk not seeing Loxy again.”

“This is hopeless,” Shen said.

“Not hopeless,” TL said. “You’re not great at remote viewing, but you can do it, and we could work

together to improve your skills. And, if we bring in a Sleeper Tree, we might be able to enhance your

abilities through a partnership.”

“Can’t we assume that there is already a gateway on that side? I mean, Oa brought me here, so she

was already out there?” Shen said.

“It’s reasonable to conclude that somewhere on this planet is a portal that opens up to our universe and

another to Oa’s universe,” TL agreed. “But then again, she didn’t bring you here by portal, did she?”

“They wanted the time dilation, reversed entropy effect of going through the hole,” Shen said. “The

caryatids temple!”

“Those portals are likely local. It is my opinion they don’t have the power capacity to push, much less

maintain, a superior connection,” TL said.

“Okay, so there are local portals, which means a network. Log onto their network and map out there

gate system,” Shen said.

“This is not SG1. There isn’t a network of gates with one gate to rule them all. There is no wormhole

special effect, water slide feel. I open a gateway, you step across to there, instantaneous,” TL said. She

mused, though. “It wouldn’t hurt opening a gateway Matsu’s temple, though. Having one solid

connection is a good start and will allow us to test our gateway.”

“Okay. Let’s do that,” Shen said. “Take me there.”

“Jump,” TL said. He gave her a look. “I don’t want you messing up my floor. Jump.”