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The survivors look up at the sky, expecting Hrockas to reappear to announce
Miracle’s death, like this is some kind of dystopian survival game. He
doesn’t do that, though, and doesn’t need to. They all saw it. Miracle’s
first teleportation could have been a weird trick of the mind, but it’s
harder to explain it away this time. It looks like various forms of time
travel are possible, and that one of these forms killed her. She will
survive, or at least one version of her will. She will have no memories of
her life after she was taken from her hotel room, and thrown out the window
at the start of this. It’s unclear what she’ll think happened, or what
she’ll do now. She may try to fight her way back, but if they really are in
another dimension, that might be impossible.
The stakes have officially been raised. Death is plainly on the table, and
the traps might be unpredictable, and even inexplicable. They have no idea
where any other mines could be hiding. Hrockas wouldn’t have let them get
this far if there were no way out, though. If he actually didn’t want them
to find the treasure, he probably would have simply erased their memories.
That’s not illegal here in the Charter Cloud of the galaxy.
“This is another escape room,” Rage determines. “I’ve even played one very
similar to this before. They were regular land mines, of course, but the
trick is finding the only safe path between them. We need to get to higher
ground.”
“I will take care of that,” Zelda volunteers. She tries to jump up to a beam
attached to the outside of the dome, but she can’t get that high in her tiny
frame.
Minotaur helps her up. They’re taller, so they follow on their own with less
issue.
They can’t climb up too far because they’re constantly curving away from the
street, eventually reaching a point where they would lose the perspective
advantage.
“See anything notable?” Rage shouts up to them. “Darkened squares?
Anything?”
“There’s nothing!” Zelda cries back. “Minotaur is getting nauseated!”
“Come on back down!” Rage tells them. “It’s not safe!”
Everyone has been looking up at them, of course, but Elise has just now
realized that Colley has been looking in the wrong direction. His eyesight
is darting back and forth across the sky, and he sometimes turns completely.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Has anyone here been to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida?” Colley asks.
“I have,” says one of the only two remaining hunters from Miracle’s team.
Elise has not even gotten the chance to learn her name yet, even though it
would have been plastered on her locker at the starting line. “I was born on
a stasis ship that was part of the original fleet because my parents were
awake the whole time as Shepherds.”
“Do you know Bida’s constellations?” Colley presses. “Because I
don’t...except for that one.” He points. “That’s the feather duster, which
is how I know this is a clue, because we’re a hundred light years from Tau
Ceti. It has to be on purpose.”
The girl looks up as well. “Umm...I think you’re right, but I’m not much
into the astrology. Unlike Earth, my ancestors never needed stars to
navigate. Colonists contrived constellations for fun, according to what I
remember. I think that might be the River Dhel, though. It’s the most
important one for many of the world’s superstitions because it reflects the
real river for a brief window every night.”
“When is the window?” Elise asks her. “And does anyone have a watch?”
“I have a watch on my multitool,” Minotaur says as Jolanda is helping them
back down to the ground. “Why do we need it? What did we miss while we were
up there?”
“The window depends on what day of year it is,” Colley explains. “We would
need a Bidan calendar, and we would need to know what time it is—”
“We don’t need a Bidan calendar,” the Bidan girl argues. “I know we don’t
need it because we don’t have it, and had no chance of taking one with us. I
just need to know what time it is right now. It doesn’t even have to be the
right time according to anyone in the outside world. Hrockas would
have accounted for that when programming it.”
“She’s right,” Elise agrees. “You have a timekeeper because he wanted you
to.”
“It’s 20:42,” Minotaur answers. “It’s true, I don’t know what planet.”
“For now, it’s Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida,” the Bidan decides, “and
we’re too late. The reflection happens at the same time as the lunar
culmination every year on the same night between 20:24 and 20:31. It’s a
holiday. We took too long to figure out the clue.”
“Point out the river again,” Colley says. He moves over to stand next to
her. They quietly work out exactly which stars make up the constellation
while he looks down at the ground, a little off to the side, away from
Miracle’s still dead body. “We got it.”
“You remember where the stars were fifteen minutes ago?” Rage asks him.
Colley clicks his tongue and taps on his head. “Hrockas can force me into
any substrate he wants, but he can’t stop me from having an eidetic memory,”
he echoes Miracle from before she hit an apparent teleportation mine and
fell to her death.
Rage takes a breath. “Okay, we’ll draw for lead. Colley, you’re out of the
running this time since you have the map. Our new Bidan friend is too for
the same reason.”
“No, please don’t draw,” Jolanda says. “I’ve not been contributing anything
to the hunt, and need to feel useful. I’ll take lead. I had a conversation
with myself shortly before my consciousness stream was cut. I’m prepared to
wake up without memories.”
“Okay, we have a volunteer.” Rage looks around at the group. “Any
objections?”
No one objects, so Jolanda stands in front. Colley stands behind her, but
far enough away to be hopefully safe from the blast of a land mine. It will
hopefully not happen at all, but they’re not too naïve to be prepared
for it. Everyone else walks in a single-file line behind him and the Bidan.
Colley directs Jolanda slowly. The assumption is that the river mouth ends
at the fountain in the center of the square. It’s less likely that they
would have to walk the entire length of the river in order to perfectly
replicate what the believers on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida would do during
their special annual holiday. They seem to be correct once they reach that
fountain and no one has died yet. Assuming this will lead them further down
the path to their prize, there’s now another puzzle to solve, though. And
they don’t know where to begin.
Zelda sticks her face in the dark water. She then slowly starts diving
deeper and deeper until only her feet remain, which Rage and Elise have to
hold onto so she doesn’t sink to the bottom. After a few more seconds, she
taps on her own hip, which they take to mean it’s time to pull her up. “It’s
bottomless.”
“You don’t know that,” the other non-team member contends.
“I think we’re supposed to get in,” Zelda figures. “A leap of faith.”
The Bidan nods. “In my planet’s origin story, which we all know someone made
up, the creator God takes a leap of faith in the River Dhel where she finds
the energy she needs to conjure the star.” She points to a sculpture. “She’s
represented by a fish.”
That’s all Zelda needs. She jumps in headfirst. Nearly everyone else does
too.
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