Звездопад / Starfall: Глава 27

Chapter 27

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:35

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Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:35

Down below were hills in broken labyrinths of ruins with gray bristles of germinated forest melting beneath the dark clouds of their crowns, with occasional bright reflections of metal wreckage breaking through them. At this speed, the atmosphere was pleasantly rough, sheltering her from the transparent void of space and the treacherous glow of the stars that filled the red abyss of the sky with restless black dots.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:37

Taer had seen this memory probably a thousand times already.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:37

// "Maybe not exactly a thousand, but certainly hundreds." - When the other didn't want her presence, she'd squeeze her here, into this memory. Or rather, memories.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:38

There were many such memories, changing landscapes, weather, and star patterns, and several times, she found herself gliding through the atmosphere of a gas giant. But the essence of the memory remained the same - flight, emptiness, and calm, peaceful anticipation.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:39

And there must have been millions of hours of such memories. One day, Taer tried to "watch" the memory, just to see what would happen next, at the end. But there was no end to it. She flew on and on in her calm serenity. A local star swept across the sky in a dazzling black ball and disappeared again. The weather changed, and Taer wasn't sure, but perhaps even under the inexorable pressure of time, the landscape changed, and only her flight remained unchanged.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:41

She stopped and didn't "watch" for fear of going mad:

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:42

// I mean even more so.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:42

This peacefulness and monotony put her in a stupor. Her mind shut down, and her "Self" sought to dissolve into contemplation.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:43

And Taer had doubts that she would be able to pull herself back together after that:

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:44

// Maybe there won't be anything there to start thinking about again?

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:44

So it was understandable why the "other" had thrown her here since it looked like there was no coming back from here.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:45

What was happening was also quite understandable. She was controlling some kind of flying machine through a direct input interface. In fact, she felt the roughness of the atmosphere on her "own skin" and the intermittent intake of the working mass as one long breath.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:49

This was abandoned after the war. The connection of the machine directly with the pilot's brain gave certain advantages, but there were more disadvantages:

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:50

// "But maybe it was during the war? Or even before? If the donor of the guider was indeed the Countess's mother. The Countess must have been in her thirties when the war began. It's quite possible...".

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:54

The strangeness of the pictures that appeared before her was also easily explained. It was clearly a synthesized image from some sensors. Judging by the bright shine of metal and translucent organics something in the electromagnetic spectrum. Variable aperture wave stations were giving off something similar. Red skies and black stars? Also, some kind of electromagnetic filter, but obviously a different one.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:57

It was understandable, except for two inconvenient details: first, what was the point of circling a devastated planet? Second, despite her service in Fleet Intelligence, Taer couldn't remember a vehicle capable of flying for years in the atmosphere at a decent speed. The longest-lasting was the Ghost Spark scout droid, which could stay in the upper layers of the standard atmosphere for a couple of decades at a speed of one and a half comers per second, maybe a couple of times longer if you put an auxiliary bubble reactor in place of the payload. But here we were clearly talking about years...

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:03

// "It's not it's beyond the realm of possibility... Just why? And what was she waiting for?" - These questions occupied Taer the first few times, then she ignored what was happening and tried to get to the surface of her mind as quickly as possible, for fear of getting lost in these memories forever.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:05

This time was different. This time, she came here on her own.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 17:55

// "She didn't come. She ran away." The attempt at self-torture was sluggish, not sincere. It did not touch her. She would not be attracted to it, even with all the self-torture inherent in her.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:33

// "Not run away, but exhausted." - She contradicted herself tiredly. - "Overstretched..."

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:37

It was pure truth. She now knew from experience that perception could be overstressed:

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:10

// "It's like pulling a leg. Except instead of a leg, it's a brain." - And the brain does not like to be "pulled," it causes panic, it starts to do stupid things, it starts to go where it should not:

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:38

// "For example, here." In her memory, she was now flying over the sea. It looked to her like an immense blot of ink.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:38

// "Maybe the guider kept me out on purpose. So I wouldn't tire myself out? - It was a strange thought, but fresh in its own way:

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:42

Never had the control of the guider been as strong as it had been with the lord. Taer struggled just to see what was happening, to realize herself in the body, let alone to influence it.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 19:15

// "So she was protecting me?" - She let that thought hang around for a moment to think it over from all sides.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 19:15

"Nah... She doesn't care... She doesn't care about me." - Taer couldn't distinguish between the thoughts of the guider, who seemed to be thinking too fast. But she could already sense her mood, her emotions, her attitude. She treated her with condescension, even bewilderment, sincerely not understanding how such a ridiculous creature as Taer could exist.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 19:17

It was noticeably better than her attitude towards other people, though.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 19:16

Other people bored her with their predictability and annoyed her with the desire to maintain that predictability. The need to interact with people bored her to death. And the more bored she became, the more easily she gave up control, sometimes even shutting down completely. It was almost always like that. The more she had to interact with people, the easier it was for Taer to gain control of her body and keep it as long as her actions didn't interfere with the guider's plans. She always sensed this beforehand and immediately took control of Taer. But if she didn't try to call for help or kill herself, she could keep control of her body for hours, if not longer.

Camrad_RIP 01.10.23 в 18:02

But Lord Cassard was different. He was the exception for some reason. There was another, someone in the imperial palace, a woman, it seems. She, too, was treated differently, patronizingly protective, like a child.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 19:18

The Lord, on the other hand, guider feared...

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 19:19

// "Well maybe she wasn't feared." - Taer corrected herself, remembering her own dream under the Fenot and the phrase, "I can't be feared."

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 19:20

But at least she was on guard with the lord. Focused, concentrated, as if on an exam. It was almost impossible to take control of her body in such a condition.

Camrad_RIP 01.10.23 в 18:04

// "Maybe it's because of what I saw?"

Camrad_RIP 01.10.23 в 18:04

Taer didn't know what she'd seen, but she'd already learned how to "see possibilities for the future," and if she wanted to, objects or events would be drawn out and scattered in a kaleidoscope of possible versions of themselves. She couldn't manipulate these versions yet, of course, unlike the guider, and it wasn't even clear how to approach it. But watch? Watching she could...

Camrad_RIP 01.10.23 в 18:05

// "So much for looking...". - Her head ached at the mere memory of what she'd seen, not physically. Physically, she didn't really have a head right now, but mentally. It was like she'd failed to exercise an already pulled muscle from practice again. "Saw, some kind of ....-"

Camrad_RIP 01.10.23 в 18:06

Taer didn't know what to call what she saw.// "Some kind of environment...Turbulent..."

Camrad_RIP 01.10.23 в 18:08

In fact, at first, she didn't see anything at all. She was very surprised, and she stared at it despite the guider's insistence on pushing her away. And her attempts to see the lord's "future options" succeeded, albeit not immediately. But instead of the usual kaleidoscope of options that stretched out in copies from the most likely to the least, she saw a bubbling fractal environment, like those shown in hypernavigation lessons about multidimensional objects, in which the more you look, the more details appear, and so on endlessly.
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Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 19:37

The mind is not very friendly with infinity. She'd learned that the hard way. Her attempt to realize the chaos she had seen, which was seething with an infinity of equally probable options for the future, had ended in a complete loss of the crumbs of awareness she had followed by panic and an instinctive "flight" into the depths of the strange memories of the guider.

Camrad_RIP 01.10.23 в 18:10

// "At least it's peaceful here." The ocean in this memory had already been left somewhere behind, and now she, or rather "guider," was flying over the gray ridges of mountains under black caps of snow in absolutely serene tranquility.

Camrad_RIP 01.10.23 в 18:11

Taer watched the flight for a while longer, hoping at least some of the serenity the guider felt would be transmitted to her, but no:

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:19

"It's not transmitted..." - It wasn't that she was still panicking, but rather a restless curiosity. She wanted to know what she'd seen and what it meant.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:20

Taer had an idea, and concentrating, she reached back to the surface of consciousness:

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:18

// "If you're treated with leniency, why not take advantage of it?

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:18

After climbing back out and getting used to the fact that she now had a body and senses of perception, Taer found herself sitting in a shabby robotaxi with the orange throat of the tunnel winding through the windshield.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:13

It was a marked change of scenery. Lately, if Taer had found herself in a vehicle, it had been a very fancy executive aircar with a live driver in an Imperial Intelligence uniform. The lights of the illumination panels whizzed by, flashing orange, then plunged the cabin into darkness. In those moments, her reflection appeared in the dark windshield, slim, austere, with the faint glint of gold earrings at her neck and a sleepy, relaxed smile on her tinted lips to match the pale purple pantsuit. The rounded metal case of a folded medical droid, a compact model of the kind used by the emergency services, was heavy in his lap, and a turquoise iso-container with white "sterile" lettering on the sides sat on the seat beside her.

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:17

// "It's really possible to fall asleep." - Taer thought as she watched the tunnel's lights pulsate and began to get more comfortable in her mind so as not to catch the guider. It hadn't disappeared yet; the cold flow of its presence was still there, but it was fading fast. The Other seemed to be falling asleep, retreating somewhere deeper.

Camrad_RIP 01.10.23 в 18:12

Normally, Taer would only be happy about this, but now she had other plans:

Camrad_RIP 26.09.23 в 18:11