We Leapt Into the Sky
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Explorers Arrive Chapter 2: The Desert Temple Chapter 3: Tall Spires and Strange Dreams Chapter 4: The Fall Chapter 5: Contact and Communication Chapter 6: Shards Chapter 7: We'll Look Out for Each Other Chapter 8: Splinter and Break Chapter 9: This Expedition is Over Chapter 10: In Transit Chapter 11: Limbo Chapter 12: Restoration Chapter 13: Corrosion Chapter 14: Crossing the Desert Chapter 15: Don't Be a Stranger Chapter 16: Extrapolation and Invention Chapter 17: The Shadow Chapter 18: Reconnection Chapter 19: I Thought I Was Alone Chapter 20: Faraway Mountains Chapter 21: When Science Doesn’t Win Chapter 22: Home Chapter 23: Paperwork Chapter 24: Memories Chapter 25: A Colleague and Friend Chapter 26: Distant Clouds and Lost Knowledge Chapter 27: Hope Chapter 28: A Service for a Friend Chapter 29: Together Chapter 30: To Greet the World With Awe Chapter 31: Shadow and Color Chapter 32: A Field of Sunflowers Chapter 33: Embracing the UnknownChapter 26: Distant Clouds and Lost Knowledge
Kendra’s boots crunched against the cavern floor as she approached Aster’s ship. Its towers glowed with soft violet light, illuminating the intricate shapes that wound across them, disappearing into the darkness above.
“Aster, are you here?” she called.
There was no answer, save for the echo of her voice. Kendra passed through the opening between the columns into the interior of the ship. Glassy stone steps led her to a large platform. Atop it rested a row of black columns, each hexagonal in shape. Their position was reminiscent of a control panel, but they were unadorned by any carvings or symbols, and they remained dark and dormant.
The air buzzed with an electric crackle that sent her dashing outside. Aster billowed through the air, collapsing against the outer wall of the ship. Raw power flowed from him, bleeding into the patterns and setting them ablaze. He slid onto the ground in a heap, and Kendra sat beside him. “Are you okay?”
“I am,” he said. “I was in the cave with the deep chasms lined with crystals—I believe it is the one you first encountered with your expedition party. With some effort, I absorbed much of the energy trapped there.”
She suppressed a wince as she remembered falling into those geode-like pits with Antony. Where he had received the tiny wound that led to the loss of his arm, thanks to the caretakers. “You sent that power to the ship?” she asked.
Aster sat upright, his shadows melting and shifting into his physical form. “Yes. It worked … better than I expected.” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “It is gratifying to see success with this process. To know I can do this.”
“I’m glad, Aster,” Kendra said. “The crystals have responded to me before—I dismantled some that contained my colleagues’ memories. Can I help you with this?”
“You are welcome to do so, though I would not ask you to work with any that may cause you distress,” he said.
“You know I like to experiment. If I break them down, will the energy return to you?”
“Some energy may dissipate, but most will return to myself or the ship. I never intended for the crystals to grow in this way; it is better that they be broken down.” He stood and approached a cluster growing from the east wall of the cave. “These contain good memories. Tell me what you make of them.”
Kendra reached out, her hands brushing the glossy surface. It gleamed beneath her fingers, radiating energy and emotion. As she closed her eyes, the thrum of information reached the edge of her awareness. It was like hearing a distant stream; she called it to her, envisioning dipping her hands into the water and opening herself to the memories it contained.
Great clouds of dust appeared before her, swirling slowly beside a vast pool of light. Beings flew through the sparkling dust, their shadows trailing behind them like long scarves in the wind. Within Aster’s memory, she felt new recognition of their forms, in the way their emotions manifested in dazzling color. One neared Aster, glowing with vibrant green in an enthusiastic greeting.
Then he departed the clouds, flying faster until the world bent and stretched around him. He flew into the void, surrounded for a moment by sheer absence. Then, space rippled into existence as glittering stars and distant planets appeared. He was passing through Kendra’s reality, crossing trillions of miles and an unknown number of dimensions in an instant.
Joy surged in her chest, and Kendra’s eyes snapped open as she stepped back from the crystal. It crumbled under her fingers. “This is how it feels when you travel? Aster, it’s amazing.”
“I miss it,” he said. “My world is gone, as is the energy we used to transport ourselves. Of course, there are other forms of energy we can use, but as you concluded earlier, I would need to reach beyond the atmosphere to absorb them in any great quantity.”
“That’s why you were trying to launch yourself up into the sky.”
“Oh, you saw that? Yes, that was the reasoning, not that I was successful.”
“You’re still recovering. You can fly through the desert now when you couldn’t before.”
“It is a relief to make that progress.” He sighed, and a wave of cobalt blue crossed his features. To her surprise, she recognized it as a pang of melancholy. “Though I admit it hurts to be seen as I am now. I fear you can see where I am still tattered and broken.”
“You aren’t broken,” Kendra said firmly. “I see beauty and resilience in you.”
“As I do in you. You are the reason I have recovered to this extent. It is because you inspire me, and I want to see you able to leave this place as well.”
“Goodness knows I want that.” She surveyed the remaining crystals dotting the walls. “Would you show me more of your world?”
He gestured to a long beam jutting out from the ground near the ship, and they rested their hands upon it. A warm glow filled her mind’s eye. From it, soft tufts of clouds emerged, billowing and swaying. The distant glow cast a pinkish haze over the area, rendering the world in pastel hues. A great city rose from the clouds.
“What you see was a massive library. Many of our ships were docked here. Even my ship’s database, extensive as it is, contains only a small fragment of the library’s information.” His voice quavered with wistfulness. “There was so much knowledge in this place. It causes me terrible grief to think of what we lost.”
“I can imagine,” Kendra said. “We’ve lost so much knowledge over the years, since the first spacefaring age. Our databases hold thousands of years’ worth of information we can’t translate and still more hidden away in databases inaccessible with our current technology.”
“It is difficult to fathom the vastness of what was gained and then lost by those before us. Yet, knowledge can be rediscovered,” Aster said. “I wasn’t the only one to flee with one of our ships. Others didn’t make it out. I felt it when they died. The pain that lingered afterward calcified within me—it felt heavier and more substantial than I did in this world. When I slept, there was no holding it back anymore; it turned to stone.” He paused, and they watched the clouds shift around the distant archive, engulfing the buildings in pale orange mist.
“What do you believe happens after you die?” Kendra asked.
“Personally, I’m not sure. We believe it is possible for our consciousness to pass on to another form of existence. Opinions differ on whether that might mean rest or rebirth or perhaps becoming a part of yet another plane that we cannot access while alive. Some say they communicated with those who have passed on, but I have never tried.” He paused, considering her. “Do you believe in an afterlife?”
“I’m not sure what I believe either. My husband believed in something like you said—a place of rest. I liked the way he described it, but I always had a hard time imagining it for myself. Maybe because I’ve historically been a restless person,” Kendra said. She rubbed at the place on her finger where she used to wear her wedding band. “I may have died in the ruins, but the caretakers prevented any permanent damage to my brain. Jerome might have said perhaps my soul never departed my body. All I can say is that I had no experience of an afterlife at that time.” The clouds faded as they returned to the reality of the cavern. “I know I’m not going back to the life I had before I came here. So anything that might come after this place will be, in a sense, an afterlife.”
“I can understand that,” he said. The crystals on the floor crumbled, and energy flowed to the ship, lighting up the columns from bottom to top, where they nearly reached the cavern’s ceiling. She craned her head back, almost stumbling from the immensity of them. As the trapped memories dissipated, the air around the columns crackled, and the stone radiated faint heat.
“I believe the ship is waking up,” Aster said.
As they entered the hollow space within the columns, the interior glowed to life. The ship’s console atop the platform lit up, though Kendra still saw no obvious markings. Aster climbed onto the platform and fixed his gaze on the wall across from the console.
“Ship, do you have medical functions compatible with physical beings?” he asked.
“I possess protocols for preserving the mind of a physical being,” the ship said. It was a neutral voice, with a pleasant lilt.
“Ship,” Kendra said, “My body was modified by the caretakers—the machines that patrol and repair these ruins. I believe I died, and they brought me back to life using their technology. Do you know them?”
“My database has no records of them. However, I see their modifications to your body.”
“Can you reverse them?”
“Unfortunately, that is outside my abilities,” the ship said. “My protocol has been designed to transform a corporeal body and mind into an incorporeal one. The physical body would be lost.”
“But how does it work?”
“Reference documentation is available, based on past research done in collaboration between physical and incorporeal beings. However, the process requires more power than is currently stored.”
Aster stepped forward. “I will do whatever is necessary to get more power.”
“In the meantime, I suggest I conserve energy,” the ship replied. The light faded as they left, and Aster paused at the entrance.
“That was promising,” he said, voice quavering. “Even if such research was conducted long ago, I’m confident it would have been done rigorously.” He clasped his hands. “I will get more power for the ship. At the very least, so that you two can speak at greater length.”
“I would like that.” She turned over the ship’s words in her mind—it wasn’t enough information. But the spark of hope still lit up within her; she wanted to know more, and the desire for that knowledge burned like a distant lantern leading her forward.
His brow furrowed as he considered her for a long moment. “If it becomes possible to change your form, would you consider it? Even if it means losing your physical body?”
“Yes, I’d consider it,” Kendra said. “I want to leave this place. If there is a way for me to exist, to travel and live my life freely in a new form, of course I would consider it.”
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