Under a Starless Sky novel 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.

“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.”