Two armoured guards stood motionless on either side of the grand entrance doors, holding ornate shields and gleaming swords. They looked like stone statues, but they would come alive if anyone armed approached.
I removed my cowl as I climbed, revealing my face for their ID check. The guards didn’t move, letting me pass. There was more security at the doors, but it was discreet. To prove myself a member of the Guild, I touched my hand to the left door and offered my right eye to a scanner. A micro-needle pricked my palm, taking a blood sample. And a rainbow of lasers pulsed over my retina. My eye watered.
“Identity verified. Access permitted.”
The doors opened silently, releasing a draft of cool, tangerine-scented air. I felt like a million tiny fingers were tickling my body. The tickling ended abruptly once I was inside the antechamber. The doors closed automatically, shutting out the sunlight, and the soft glow of illuminated orbs, set in wall niches, provided a more comfortable light. I removed my suncloak and hung it on a rack with others. My footsteps echoed when I walked along a hall towards a distant archway. My destination was a large chamber deeper in the building, known as the Gate Room.
Gileanor was there, lying on a crystalline couch cushioned by blue velvet pillows. She was one of sixteen senior navigators resting on identical couches circling the monolithic Key Stone, the guild’s interface with the alien machine operating the field generators. Like the other guild members, Gileanor was responsible for maintaining the hyperspace gateways to distant worlds. She was wearing a white ceremonial robe and a chrome skullcap over her long, silver-white hair. Trails of cables connected her skullcap to the Key Stone. Gileanor looked as though she was sleeping–until she opened her eyes and sat up. She smiled as she stood, carefully removing her skullcap. Gileanor was a senior member of the Guild, having joined centuries ago, when she wasn’t much older than I was now. She looked good for someone in her fourth or fifty century.
“Veya, it’s good to see you,” my mentor said. “You seem a little distracted. If you aren’t feeling well, we can postpone your lesson for another week.”
“No, I’m fine,” I said. “I’m ready.”
Gileanor looked sceptical. “Are you sure?”
“There is a personal matter bothering me, but I won’t affect my performance. I am focussed.”
“Very well,” she said. “Put on your skullcap.”
I did so and laid down on the couch, which was more comfortable than it looked. Remembering my training, I closed my eyes and slipped into a dreamlike state. I sensed Gileanor standing behind me, a comforting presence, as I interfaced with the Key Stone, linking my mind into the vast machine running the gateway generators.
I was no longer aware of my body in the chamber.
Instead, I was in a dreamy place where the laws of physics were mutable. Like a god, I was seeing multiple locations on other worlds in remote galaxies. My mind had interfaced with the minds of a thousand navigators from alien civilisations. They were linked to other machines, maintaining a pseudo-telepathic union, expanding our collective consciousness. I was just a small cog in a great wheel keeping the hyperspace network functioning, but I felt like I had infinite power and wisdom. My mind was making subtle adjustments to space-time while thousands of living beings travelled world to world, blissfully unaware of our work. One lapse in concentration would put their lives at risk. It was a huge responsibility, but my training had prepared me well. Being part of the network felt as natural as breathing.
Gileanor’s soft voice guided me, giving instructions I followed precisely. As a test, I opened a brief gateway to a desert planet, where I could taste the hot sand in the air. Then I opened another into deep space close to a colony ship.
“That’s good,” she said. “Now close it and open another one to a pulsar in the Andromeda Galaxy.”
“Which one?”
“You choose.”
I practised for hours, opening and closing small gateways. At the end of the session, Gileanor allowed me to experiment by choosing a few empty worlds. I found it easy to connect to them and create slightly larger, stable gateways. It would take years to make really large ones, like the official gateways, but Gileanor sounded pleased.
“That’s excellent,” she said. “We’re done for today.”
I sighed. I could have spent all day doing it. Idly, I wondered if I could use the network to look for my sister. Would I find her on another world, alive and happy? Would it be possible to search for her, using the interface? As an experiment, I tried to picture my sister. That thought made Marila appear in my mind as real as the last time I had seen her. I saw her smiling, her sun-reddened face basked in golden sunshine. She looked so full of joy that I ached to see her again. Distantly, like the real world was the dream, I felt tears running down my cheeks. My sister. I wanted my sister!
“Veya!” Gileanor shouted. “Concentrate on closing your gateway!”
“What?” I mumbled, realising I had been distracted. There was a feedback fluctuation in the hyperspace near Terminus. Eddies in the energy fields rippled and expanded. I reduced the energy input and stabilised the field strength, but my efforts were inadequate. I was creating more ripples. I didn’t want to panic, but I was losing control. “I can’t do it!”
I felt myself jerked back into the chamber as Gileanor disconnected my skullcap, ripping it off my head, breaking my connection to the Key Stone. My head throbbed. I felt sick. I was back in the chamber, disorientated by the sudden transition. Gileanor pulled me off the couch and took my place on it. Though her expression remained neutral, I could feel her scowling on the inside.
“Veya, you need to leave.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What happened? Did I do something wrong?”
“You are not ready,” she said. “I doubt you ever will be. You must leave the guild now. A sentinel will escort you from the building.”
A sentinel was already in the room, striding towards me.
“You must come with me,” it said.
As I was forced to leave, my mentor closed her eyes and interfaced with the Key Stone, while the other guild members twitched on their couches like they were having a terrible nightmare.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but nobody heard.
The sentinel led me to the main exit. I collected my suncoat, then I was escorted outside and down the steps into the sunny street. The sunlight stung almost as much the tears drying on my face.
I hurried home the quickest way, over the hanging bridges and up the cliff in a cable car. My home was among the suburbs on the western side of the canyon, shaded by spindly solar trees the colour of vintage wine. I called out when I entered, but my parents were not there. I was glad. I didn’t want them to see me in my current state–hot and sweaty and red-eyed from crying.
Detecting my presence, Ava, the house’s AI, welcomed me home. “Veya, you have one new text-only message from the Nova Guild Chancellor’s Office. Shall I read it to you?”
“Yes.”
“We are sorry to inform you that, due to a failure of your duties as a guild member, your apprenticeship with Guild Mistress Gileanor Marko has been temporarily suspended. Furthermore, your guild membership has also been revoked, pending the result of an internal inquiry into this serious matter. The guild will inform you within 90 days, in writing, if your membership will resume, or if it will be permanently revoked. During the inquiry, you must not contact any guild members or attempt to enter the Guild, as this will result in immediate and permanent dismissal.’”
“They’re throwing me out?”