Conversation overheard at outdoor taverna, Lyceopolis

"Hermy!  I was just looking for you."

"Good afternoon, Aeolus."

"Hey, do you know what's up with Bibs?  She won't talk to me."

"I am fine, thank you, good to see you too."

"Yeah, yeah.  So what did I do this time?  Why's she mad at me again?"

"I assume you demonstrated your usual lack of tact and understanding, and your complete ignorance of the intricacies of her psychology."

"She's a friend, Herm, not a psych experiment."

"Strictly speaking, she is neither.  Biblia is an ally and cohort with deep-rooted antisocial tendencies that have largely prevented her from approaching anybody in the cadre on the level that conventional wisdom would term 'friendship.'  Your constant attempts to... what's the phrase?  'Pick her up?' - only reinforce those tendencies."

"What do you mean, 'pick her up?' I'm just being friendly."

"Of course you are."

"I don't get it.  I just wanted to give her a birthday present.  Is that so wrong?"

"Considering that it proves how little you actually know about her, yes.  She is still coming to terms with the concept of immortality and finds the recognition of the passage of time to be distasteful.  Your ill-considered action may be reinforcing her complex."

"What?  How do you know all that?"

"One of my duties for Lysimachos is censoring her blog."

"She has a blog?"

"I rest my case."

"Sheesh... all right, I think I get it.  I just feel we ought to be more integrated as a team, you know?  I mean, we've all been together for nearly a year now.  We should occasionally meet up outside of work, do fun things, you get me?"

"I am not sure I fully understand the concept of 'outside of work.'  I know Biblia does not."

"Right.  Right.  Just my luck to be saddled with a couple of workaholics.  We're supposed to be taking it easy until the old man decides what to do with us.  It might be the last chance we get to kick back and relax for some time."

"This is relaxing for me.  Third-year graduate papers make a very refreshing change from the constant demands Lysimachos places on the only teleporter in this satrapy."

"Oh, come off it, Hermetios.  I've known you for over twenty years.  We used to go skiing in the Salamopsis every year, remember?"

"And did I ever give you any indication that I enjoyed it?"

"You're impossible, man.  I give up.  I try--"

*phone rings*

"It's him."

"...crap."

"Yes sir.  ... I see.  ... He is with me.  We'll be there immediately."

"The call?"

"Yes.  Shall we go your way or mine?"

"Er... you go, get Biblia.  I'll meet you there.  What's the verdict?"

"I fear it is far, far worse than we had imagined."

Student's answer to test question in advanced physics - The Lyceum, Sokrateia

3. A ship travels from Alexandria to Babylon (10.5 light years) in eighteen hours.  The same ship travels on to Mauryan Space (1,999 light years) and arrives sixty-three hours after it departed Alexandria.  Another ship of the same class travels from Alexandria to Mauryan Space, non-stop, in forty-seven hours.  Explain. (400-600 words - 4 points)

Even in Euclidean space, measurement of time and distance is dependent upon the position of the observer.  What we think of as 'real' space generally has an objective observer - that is, reality itself, which binds itself by the known laws and consistent principles elaborated upon by Aristotle and those after him.

The non-Euclidean space which we refer to as the thalassa, by means of which interstellar travel bypasses the theoretical limit of the speed of light proposed by the natural philosopher Eispetros, has no objective observer.  It is impossible for most humans to even perceive accurately, let alone quantify: some describe it as an infinite blue ocean (hence the name), but most people are unable to see it as anything other than a black void that occasionally sparks lightning.

Within this environment, therefore, the perception of the observer is capable of having measurable effects on the reality of the space.  As travelers cannot see where they are going or judge the speed at which they travel, the only perception that the relativistic geometry of the thalassa can work upon is their expectations of how long the travel should take.  As most people are accustomed to a long journey (on a planetary scale) taking between eight hours and two days, they bring this perception with them, and the average of their perceptions defines the reality of their metaspatial travel, even though speed and distance have no practical meaning in the thalassa.  Nearer locations should, of course, take less time, and so travel between worlds within ten to fifteen light years of one another takes a little over half a day.

It is important to note that while in theory, getting people to believe the trip could be swifter would make it so, in practice this application runs into problems with the human capacity for boredom.  By suggesting that a trip should be over quicker, people naturally anticipate being at their destination sooner.  This leads to impatience as to why they are not already at their destination, and a fixation on the time that has passed - and, as awareness of subjective time causes the passage of objective time within the thalassa, this actively slows transit time between gates.

Certain archons are known to be able to bypass their prejudices and pass instantaneously from one location to another through the thalassa.  The most exceptionally talented of these can, through force of will, override the assumptions of and speed up travel for a small group, but these individuals are rare and precious, and cannot be wasted on conventional travel.  As travel to the edges of the Empire would take over five thousand years in 'real' space, the assumption that it any planet can be reached within two days is quite reasonable.

Essentially correct, but too basic.  You touch on the concept of archon leaching, but fail to explain the mechanisms involved.  Nor do you address the issue of energy current streams and how their gradients are used to navigate the thalassa, nor the dangers involved in incorrect course plotting.  These things are essential for the most advanced sections of this course.  Finally, your transparent attempt at flattery, while cute, will not result in a better grade.  2/4. - Instructor Hermetios

Aeolus' dream journal

I'm falling.  It doesn't bother me at first.  I know I can catch myself.  I even enjoy it for a moment, taking in the visions passing before my eyes and the feel of the breeze, the currents flowing around me.

Then I realize I can't feel the breeze.  There's no air.  I look around and see that I'm falling through the empty void of space.  With no air to command, I feel lost.  I know that if I hit the ground - the ground is there, somewhere, but I can't see it - it will kill me.  I start to flail wildly, but it just makes me fall faster.

I fall past a derelict ship floating in the black.  It's a heavy trireme.  There's a crack across the rear of the hull, and razor-edged pebbles floating in a cloud around it: the ship hit a rock, less than a hand's length across.  I remember: the sensors didn't pick it up.  Dead faces stare back at me from the portholes.  I recognize them all.  They were my crewmates once, on the Dysaeras.  I look closely at the faces as I fall past.  I see them all: Kaoptes, Genimon, Ranjit, Aristotheres, Natlowella... my friends from the survey team.

The last face is my own.

That wasn't the way it happened.  I was trapped in the forward hold.  It was sealed.  There was no way out, but lucky for me because life support failed almost immediately and the others suffocated before the rescue ship could arrive.  They only got to me just in time as my organs were shutting down from hypothermia.  I remember looking up into the light and wishing I could fly into it...

I continue falling.

The ship disappears into the void, and I am lost without a reference point.  I try to identify the stars, but I seem to speed up, and the little points of light begin to blur and swirl before my eyes.  I shut my eyes tight, and when I open them again, I no longer see any stars.  I am surrounded by water - it looks like water, but I can feel an electric thrill as the currents pass over my skin.  I see waves of deep blue in every direction, crested by bright sparks that leap from wave to wave like lightning.  I am floating, not falling now.  I can control my movements again.  I float in the direction of the deepest blue I can see.  I hear voices around me, but I cannot make out what they are saying.  They are speaking a language I cannot understand, and yet... it seems as if I know the voices.

I look around as I swim through the thalassa.  I see the safe currents that ships travel between the gates.  I can also make out smaller currents, roads untraveled by humanity.  Curiosity overcomes me and I make my way toward one, diving into the whirlpool.  I swirl down it, and at the bottom I see the pale, transparent reflection of a world no human has ever seen before.  I come closer.  I can see volcanoes spitting on its surface, sulfur fumes fouling the atmosphere, poison seas and barren land.  And yet there is life here, of a sort: organisms with no dreams or intentions but to eat and reproduce, building as the world builds until perhaps, one day, it leaves its own world and travels among the stars as we have.  I feel as though I have seen this many times before, and am suddenly sad, for I know that it will not come to pass.

I swim back up the waterspout, and as I do, my fingers touch the sides with a jolt.  I look to the side, and realize that I have wings - enormous, fibrous wings that seem to stretch into infinity.  I am startled, and look down at my body.  It is no longer the shape I recognize.  I can see myself as if from a distance, a great black shape like a cross between a moth and a spider, dancing from one stream of energy to the next.  The sight fills me with terror, but at the same time, it feels right.

I feel hunger, a hunger for something I have yet to identify.  My legs - feelers - tentacles reach out, testing the streams.  There is a vibration.  With a single beat of my wings, I move forward, seeking the source of the vibration.  It lies ahead of me.  A ship: enormous, a heavy tetreme, painted in white and gold, with a great gryphon on its prow and a sixteen-pointed star emblazoned on each side.  These symbols mean nothing to me in the dream.  All I know is that I feel the pangs of hunger.  I must have this delicious morsel, caught in my web, its massive engines struggling against the pull of the energy streams.  I reach out one claw to grasp it --

And I wake up.  My memory of the dream fades even as I write these words.  I remember.  I have had this same dream every night for nearly a week.

I cannot even begin to imagine what it means.

Transcript of meeting between Archon Strategos Lysimachos Mikros and Archon Biblia - Lyceopolis, Sokrateia

###BEGIN RECORDING###

L: Biblia.  Finally.  Take a seat.

B: Sir.

L: You have the data I requested?

B: I have fully perused the port records and performed a visual confirmation of the traffic patterns.  I can perform the analysis once you give me the parameters.

L: Good.  Give me the overview first.

B: (very fast) Eight percent decrease in inbound passenger transports over three days.  Point five percent increase in shipments of grain and other necessities recorded in the last fifteen hours, presumed to rise given the logistics of bulk shipping.  Twenty-nine percent increase in local traffic between agrarian zones and the metropoloi, with the most significant increases to Lyceopolis.

L: As expected.  Go on.

B: Twelve percent increase in outbound passenger transit, eighty-nine percent of which is private ships.  I was not able to access passenger manifests, but an examination of the enrollment files at the Lyceum indicate the sudden withdrawal of one thousand, two hundred and fifty-one aristoi students from their programs of study within the last two days.  For such ships as I was able to confirm details of ownership, I can postulate a connection to within ninety-seven percent accuracy.

L: So the sons of the great and the good are being called home.  All right.  Now, given what we know of the situation, postulate probable causes.

B: Without definitive news, I cannot make any diagnosis.

L: An educated guess will do, Biblia.

B: (pause) I guess that the talent of the Megas Basileus is being inhibited, by means currently unknown.  If Alexandros were anywhere within the Empire, his influence would continue to be felt.  If he were in transit between satrapies, the thalassa would of course mask his presence, but the longest recorded transit time between gates to date is only two days, fourteen hours, and thirty-seven minutes.

L: He could be dead.

B: Statistically impossible, as the force required to kill an archon of his potency would fracture the planet of Alexandra.  No other archon, even a diadoche, has the power to wield such a force, let alone any mortal.

L: Aliens?

B: (snort) The statistical likelihood that another intelligent life form, if such a thing even exists, would be able to enter the Empire and strike at the throneworld completely undetected is negligible, unless we postulate that they possess technology significantly superior to our own.  In which case, since we are already within the realms of fantasy, we may as well say that the gods finally decided to take him up to Olympus.

L: I take it you do not subscribe to that possibility.

B: I am probably the most educated woman in the cosmos, and I have yet to find any belief system that cannot be called into question by the Socratic method.  By the Pyrrhonian principle, therefore, since nothing can conclusively be known about the gods, to speculate that any event is a result of their actions is less productive than withholding judgement until we have new information.

L: Fair enough.  All right, enough speculation.  I need you to run some scenarios for me.  Assume that the Megas Basileus remains out of contact for the forseeable future.  Extrapolate based on all current information the likely political situation within two years.

B: Including or discounting rumors?

L: (pause) Include them.  What people believe is as important as what is true.

B: (long pause, then very quickly) Attempted succession of Alexandros Mikros within two months, followed by his imprisonment or assassination within eight months.  Declaration of sovereignty by Perdiccas, Antigonus, Shihuangti and Ptolemaios within ten months.  Declaration of autonomy by Seleucis, Temujin, Cassandros, Huascar, and Pyrrhus between eleven and sixteen months.  Lysimachos Megas, Demetrius, Leonnatus, Peithon, and Krateros will ally with whoever seems most expedient at any given time.  Peucestas, Nox'ajaw, Philippos, and the Bodhisattva Ashoka will remain loyal to Alexandros until they receive definite proof of his death.  The remaining satrapies will take no action unless provoked.

L: Could any of them be responsible for the shutdown of the Nikeon Gate?

B: Any one of them could potentially be responsible.  Which one is most likely depends on whether the gate has been entirely deactivated or whether it has merely been seized.  Any of the major satrapies has the military force necessary to take and hold a gate, although getting it to the Nikeon without official comment would be difficult at best.

L: And the other scenario?

B: In the event of a complete shutdown, the only likely candidate is Ptolemaios.  He could conceivably have built an expeditionary force in secret and sent it from Memphis five years ago with orders to capture Alexandria, seize and shut down the gate to prevent immediate reprisals.  In that event, we should expect an immediate invasion of Babylon, as he will want to capture Alexandros Mikros and secure the crossroads before the proper line of succession can be followed.

L: Makes sense.

B: Of course it does.  However, it does not explain what has happened to the Megas Basileus.  No matter where he is, we should still be able to feel his presence.  Ptolemaios could not mask that, not without help.

L: You have no suppositions?

B: None that fit all the facts.

L: Very well.  Needless to say, your furlough has been canceled.

B: I figured as much.  Do you have another assignment for me, or can I get back to my research?  If the cosmos is going to disintegrate around us, I would rather be doing something actually interesting while it happens.

L: Cheeky.  (pause) Stay within reach for the next few days, or if you have to go anywhere, let Hermetios know where he can find you.  We should know within a week where we'll be needed.  Dismissed.


###END RECORDING###

Biblia's personal log - Skyhook Daimonion, Sokrateia orbit

Most people find the view from the observation deck of a skyhook to be overwhelming.  Those with a tendency for vertigo usually cannot bear the sight of the planet's surface hundreds of thousands of metroi below their feet, with only a pace's width of ectoglass separating them from the abyss.  But it is the only way to make even a half-way accurate record of traffic to and from the planet, and so the scribes sit here, carefully watching and noting each flyspeck that passes over the orb below.

I have never been bothered by the sight.  The deck is perfectly safe.  I can calculate the strength of the observation window at a glance, as easily as I read the positions and trajectories of the four hundred and twelve ships - now four hundred thirteen - currently swarming the astroport at the Lyceum.  An assignment that is knuckle-whiteningly terrifying for most is so profoundly dull for me that I can perform my duties and record this journal while only using .4 percent of my brain.

Three days have passed since communications from Alexandria ceased.  There has been no word from the mission sent to investigate the closure of the Nikeon Gate.  I will likely miss my kid sister's 60th birthday celebration next week, though I doubt she would mind.  I am precisely ten years older than she is, and I look ten years younger than her youngest daughter, something that has never sat well with her.  I stopped keeping count of my own birthdays at forty, once I realized how pointless such things are for an archon: after all, even I cannot count to infinity.

I am up here today because Lysimachos wants a report on how the Nikeon closure has impacted out-of-system traffic.  I personally believe that more accurate data could be obtained directly at the Lyceon Gate, as local transport hardly seems relevant, but Lysimachos is being cautious.  So here I am, bored out of my skull.  At least at Lyceon I could see the ships I'm counting.  I do not think it has occurred to my handler that my visual acuity is hardly any better than a mortal's, and has nothing to do with my processing speed.  From up here, all I see are black dots over the daylit side, the sparkle of sunlight off hulls on the horizon, and the glint of running lights over the sliver of night surface.  I watch, I count, I tally up the numbers, and as I perform this blindingly uninteresting task, I write about how bored I am with one hand while reading a news feed with one eye and an inferior theatrical adaptation of Kalliantes' Deucalion with the other.  I find this current 'retro' vogue to be profoundly irritating.  It's not as if most people are even familiar with the originals anymore.  74 percent of the students at the Lyceum come for the sciences, in spite of Aristotle's insistence that a proper education gives equal weight to all forms of knowledge.

My talents are totally wasted on this work.  Foremost center of learning in the Empire it may be, but even the Lyceum pales in comparison to the Great Library on Alexandria.  I have only been permitted back for brief visits since my awakening, and in the few hours I managed to sneak in the Library I could only read 26,407 of the over fifty billion books.  Lysimachos says he wants to pace me, to make sure I don't burn out my talent, but I have figured the odds at 346,588,724:1 that I would be unable to assimilate the entire Library without causing an aneurism.  What Lysimachos doesn't understand is that my talent does not just allow me to assimilate information quickly, it compels me to.  I have a knowledge addiction, and merely tabulating the traffic patterns of an entire hemisphere is hardly adequate to assuage that.

I have an itch in my mind.  It wants to know what is happening on the throneworld.  The rumors say that the Megas Basileus is dead, which is impossible, or missing, which is merely unlikely.  One of the news reports I am reading at this moment states that the Diadoche of Athens is considering limiting traffic through the Piraeus Gate until there is more news from Alexandria.  This measure would reduce the net mercantile traffic of the entire Empire by 2.1%, resulting in starvation on some of the more heavily industrialized worlds.

Aeolus just messaged me.  Lysimachos wants my report first thing in the morning.  6 hours from now.  It takes 11.2 hours just to get down the lift.  Hopefully Hermetios will be back from his mission by now, and I can catch a ride to the surface.  Suddenly, everybody is in a hurry.