It’s been hours, and nothing has happened. “Why don’t we go get something to eat?” asks Blackjack. I think he’s realized the complete futility of my staring at him, trying to will him into not vanishing.
We go down into the lower gardens, the public ones which allow tours. There’s a little café there, with unbelievable food and even more unbelievable prices, the sort of prices people pay when they’re hoping to get a glimpse of the rich and famous. And it’s unexpectedly crowded today, which means that someone rich and famous is there. Not that it matters. I will always get the best table in the house, and I won’t have to pay for the food, either, because I’m the best draw they have.
Or not. “OHMIGOD, IT”S BLACKJACK RIORDAN!!!” In two seconds, the room is swarming with teenage fangirls – not bad for a star whose last record is over four years old. Also, a smattering of devout Archonists have fallen to their knees, making it difficult for the servers to pass through.
While BJ signs autographs, I realize why the place is crowded in the first place – at one of the better tables is Lady Claris, leader of the Cu’enmerengi, member of the High Council, and festival cousin of the Matriarch, and she’s accompanied by the mysterious and dangerous Terran dissident, Clive Rivers. It’s a windfall for the papis.
Claris is eating a gigantic chocumber sundae, which pisses me off. Clive never once took me out for ice cream. And then she waves at me excitedly. That’s when I know something is wrong. When is Claris ever happy to see me?
“We’ve got something important to tell you. That thing up in the room isn’t a SongLuminant at all. It’s just a recorder. The real SongLuminants never leave their home planet. The Floatfish told us that, and a lot of other junk that isn’t too important. But here’s the thing: the SongLuminants are so powerful because they can get everyone else to do anything they want by using super-strength telepathic mind-control.”
“And why didn’t you come to tell me that immediately?” I ask, in what I feel is a reasonable tone of voice.
“Well, I had more important things to do. Like getting laid by my new boyfriend.”
“I’m going to cunt-punt you to Volparnu,” I say, in a not-so-reasonable tone of voice.
Suddenly, BJ’s hand is on my shoulder. “What’s the unimportant junk?” he asks.
“Stuff,” says Claris, looking irritated, by which I know she didn’t understand a word of it. “I’ll let Clive tell you.”
“It concerned the relationship of the SongLuminants very unique existence to an obscure branch of theoretical physics,” says Clive smugly. “If Cuinn were here, I would bother to explain, but since Blackjack is incapable of understanding, I won’t waste my time.”
“New plan,” I say. “I’ll cunt-punt, you prick-kick.”
“Tempting,” says BJ, “but it wouldn’t make a good photo-op. Clive, why don’t you try? Tara is a scientist, after all.”
“Tara is a xenobotanist. Theoretical physics were always her weak point.” But I think Clive can read the message in my eyes. The message in my eyes is K-I-L-L. “Very well,” he says, sighing for dramatic effect. “The SongLuminants are an energy-based life-form who have solved the entropy/continuity problem by taking advantage of a naturally generated sonoluminescence phenomenon on their homeworld. Since under the right conditions, the temperature within the cavitation spheres can rise to above one million degrees Kelvin, they have plenty of energy to utilize the phenomenon known as quantum tunneling for their telepathic communiques. In theory, their range is limitless.”
“You’re telling me that they’re giant glowy bubbles?”
“Actually, each individual is probably comprised of thousands, perhaps millions, of microbubbles which coordinate much like the cells in your body.”
Wow,” says BJ. “That’s so weird. Hey,” he motions towards a server. “Can you just pull another table over here? Her Eminence will have chocumber torte with custard ice cream and seedless redberri sauce, and I’ll take a javamelon frappe.”
“You think it’s weird?” says Clive. “How many personalities did you have at last count, you animal-plant-extrauniversalenergy-mutant?”
I yank my chair out of the surprised hands of our server, who was preparing to elegantly seat his ruler. “But what do we do about it?” I ask, plopping down at their table.
“Probably nothing,” says Clive. “That’s why we were in no rush.”
My dessert appears instantly, one of the benefits of being Matriarch. I plunge my fork into a seedless redberri and point it accusingly at Clive. “Liar,” I say. “I know you. You’ve got an angle on this that you’re not telling us.”
Claris looks surprised. She’s not as smart as everyone thinks she is. “Is there an angle on this, Clive?”
“Not really,” he says, shifting his eyes down to his own frozen treat. It’s a dingy, off-shade of green.
“What the hell is that, asparagus sorbet?”
“Greengrain gelato, with a light sprinkling of Buddha’s hand citrine syrup. It’s full of nutrients – vitamins, intelligence-enhancers, antioxidants…”
“Aren’t you gonna just nudge his diet?” says BJ, turning to Claris.
“I wouldn’t waste the effort,” she sniffs.
“What effort? It’s like lighting a match. Oh, I forgot. You’re a small tree. A small Cu’enmerengi tree.”
“I may lack the raw power to do parlor tricks,” says Claris, smiling sweetly, “but then again, I don’t need to do tricks at all. I’m no one’s lapdog.”
“It’s a good trick,” I say, sticking a huge forkful of torte into my mouth. “Mmmm, chocumber. Actually, the chocumber itself was a pretty good trick. Davy does all sorts of things like that. Genetic engineering ex nihilo.”
There was a lot of hostility at our table, and the papis were starting to notice. I smiled. Unfortunately, I’d never been good at girly fake maneuvers, like Claris. My pleasant smile looked more like the insane grin worn by my ancient Tiki letter-opener.
And then Blackjack falls face forward into the table. His frappe jumps a bit, but Claris grabs it before it can splash onto her dress. For a horrible moment, I think the worst has happened, but then BJ pulls himself up, shaking his head. “We’ve got contact again,” he says.
“Is it over?” I ask. “What happened?”
“No, it’s not over. But they’ve got a question for Clive. Something about whether there’s been any theoretical speculation about trans-universal quantum entanglement. Don’t look at me, I’m only the messenger.”
“What the actual fuck?” I say. “Is this some kind of test he has to pass? Like one of those quiz shows where you can message your friends for the answers?”
“Um, yes and no. Yes, it is a test, but no, it’s not a quiz show. Part of the test seems to be being able to figure out the rules.”
“Great,” I say. “It’s just like life then.”
But Clive has perked up enormously. “It’s funny that you should ask that, because just last week there was a groundbreaking article in the Journal of Trans-Universal Physics. It proved that some quasimatter taken from Universe 317b was able to enter into a relationship with electrons from our universe.”
“Big deal,” I say. “People from different universes enter into relationships all the time on Dolparessa.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Clive huffs. “I meant on a particular level. The particles interact, and then even when separated by enormous distances, something acting on one particle causes the other particle to react. I’m oversimplifying. It’s very basic quantum mechanics. But it has nothing to do with sex or marriage or anything like that.”
“Um, actually,” says BJ, “It does. They want to know whether quantum entanglement with nultrons could affect a Cu’enashti’s Chosen.”
“Nultrons?” asks Clive. “Did Cuinn make that up?”
“We know that it has to,” I say, “because the human offspring of the Cu’enashti emanations appear completely normal to a bioscan, and yet they evidence mild prophetic and alchemical abilities. Something is being passed on.”
“St. John studied Dolparessan biology for years without noticing any anomalies,” Clive replies. “Except that St. John wasn’t around by the time we truly started to understand the rip.”
“Nul-energy scans are a fairly new technology. We can find it if we look for it, but under normal circumstances, why would we look for it? We’ve started using that tech to monitor the grid, but outside of the Domha’vei, there isn’t any nul-energy. So there isn’t a lot of demand for the scans.”
“Do we know that the Domha’vei is the only place where nul-energy occurs?” asks Clive. “Could there be other rips that are either so small or so remote that we haven’t noticed them? Space is very big and very empty.”
“And each one could be an energy source,” I muse, “if only we had the crystals.”
“Oh, Cuinn says to say that he’s solved that problem,” Blackjack remarks. “He says that he was trying to figure it out by backtracking to the technology and research available to the 4th Matriarch. So once he realized that it was an alien technology, it all made sense.”
“Alien technology?” I ask. “When did he come to this conclusion?”
“Yesterday. The SongLuminants confirmed it. They said the mine was left by the original inhabitants of the Domha’vei. The SongLuminants kind of missed it when they erased that civilization.”
“Well,” says Clive drily, “that frames our dilemma in a whole new light.”
“How often do the SongLuminants do this sort of thing?” I ask.
“Um, let’s see. The SongLuminants wiped out 11, and of the 19 sentient species there are 9 that haven’t reached the judgment point, and us who are at that point, which means 9 who passed…except that the SongLuminants didn’t judge themselves, of course. Oh, and there are two species who won’t have anything to do with the SongLuminants. So that’s six passes and 11 failures.”
“That’s a 35.29% rate of surviving judgment by the SongLuminants,” says Clive. I can tell he wants us to be impressed by his ability to do math without calcsoft.
“Oh wow, he did that without calcsoft!” Claris fawns. This is why I hate her.
“Well, it’s pretty clear that the SongLuminants have got to go,” I say.
“That’s not what Clive thinks,” says Blackjack. “Cillian says that Clive is prioritizing their survival over ours.”
“What?” say Claris and I simultaneously.
“Clive is afraid that without the SongLuminants to babysit the other sentient species, humanity will be smashed back to the Stone Age. So it’s not like he wants us to die, but if push comes to shove, he’ll pick the SongLuminants.”
BJ’s frappe was still sitting in front of Claris. Now she dumps it over Clive’s head.
“Hey!” says BJ. “I wanted that!”
I can barely make out about a million soft clicks in the background, which I recognize as the activation of microcameras. I know exactly what is going to be the big story in the tabloid push tonight.
Claris exits, fast, even faster than the server who is replacing BJ’s drink.
“That is the shortest relationship I’ve ever engaged in,” says Clive.
“It’s not going to be that easy,” I say. “It’s that quantum entanglement thing. Why do you think I can’t get rid of you?”