Chapter Five, The Book of Dreams
The Book of Dreams, Book One series, in which Kira learns about her first assignment with the Z'Dhia and travels in the nRoom.
Read from the beginning with Chapter 1 of The Book of Dreams.
When you are one with the universe, there is no reason to fear it.
"Keep walking," he instructed.
Kira thought she was crazy. Or maybe, he was the crazy one. She held onto the door frame and refused to let go. She was not where she thought she was. That was well established. She could still breathe, but the room behind her, Dock 13, was gone. In its place was a vacuum that opened like a chasm––but she could still breathe. She had entered a portal––that much she understood on an intellectual level, but her body told her something else altogether. Her heart raced, sweat glands flooded the pores of her skin, and her mouth tasted of iron, a signal that adrenaline had pumped endorphins to her brain. Since her senses had yet to catch up to what her intellect was telling her, she clung to the door frame like the last survivor of a shipwreck clinging to the mast of the doomed vessel. The Z'Dhia continued to motion for her to come forward.
"Tell me: What do you see?"
"Outer space. Endless outer space."
"What is your mind telling you?"
"I…don't know. I don't know what to think. I can breathe, but I shouldn't be."
"Do you trust what your mind tells you?"
She laughed caustically. "Not right now, I don't."
"What is your body telling you?"
"Afraid, my body is telling me to be afraid."
"Your body is adjusting to a different reality. It'll get used to what your mind already knows. Look down. See the walkway?"
Walkway! What walkway? She looked down. A long walkway made of illuminated panels stretched outward toward a rotunda made of glass. On each panel were the bronze engravings of the same spherical symbols she had seen on the Z’Dhia’s hand. She frowned. Nothing made sense anymore.
The Z'Dhia waved to her again. She took a deep breath. She was in the middle of space and yet she could still breathe. None of it made sense. And if nothing made sense anymore, then she couldn't respond to it in a sensible manner. The only response to nonsense was nonsense.
She took another deep breath, then grabbed her belongings. Cautiously she walked toward the rotunda.
Her jaw dropped once she entered. On all sides of the rounded room were doors that peered into white voids, and high above a domed ceiling made of glass rotated slowly, revealing a backdrop of space. Occupying the center of the gallery and standing a story high was a circular platform framed with an ornate guardrail and a staircase of glowing columns spiraling toward the top. Suspended above this was a holographic hypersphere that imploded and mushroomed its many dimensions.
She had slipped into a dream or was the victim of a massive hallucination. Perhaps, in a moment of vulnerability or obliviousness, the Z'Dhia hypnotized her into this dreamlike state for a purpose that had yet to reveal itself. But then she heard a shuffling of feet and the rustling of cloth from above, and knew she couldn't have dreamed or imagined that.
Clutching her belongings, Kira drew a deep breath and began climbing the staircase. Slowly she climbed each step, which seemed to brighten and illuminate her face from below. When she reached the top, she stood just outside the entrance and gaped once more.
In the center of the large platform stood a console the color of onyx and shaped like a bowl. Steel arms that curved along the bottom kept it aloft. Modern Idris-Sarran script etched along its sides. The Z'Dhia stood in front of the console, motioning his hands to open holographic windows.
Kira blinked. A comet streaked above. She felt dizzy.
"It isn't endless, by the way."
"Excuse me?"
He turned. "You said that space was endless. It isn't. As with everything else, it has its limits. Every beginning requires an ending."
"You would know, wouldn’t you? Something tells me you've even been to the end of the universe."
He smiled enigmatically.
She looked around again with still disbelieving eyes. "Where are we?"
"The nRoom." He turned back to the console. "It's how I get around."
"The nRoom," she echoed. "Funny, and here I was thinking we were in outer space. So it's a room and a mode of transport?"
The Z'Dhia grinned and said that the nRoom was not in outer space, but was outside of space. It existed in a pocket or bubble that ran along the spacetime continuum. It could be accessed only through a portal. His people had discovered it eons ago, which allowed them to study the universe and its origins. The nRoom itself opened portals anywhere and anywhen throughout time and space through the console, which he referred to, in Betan-English, as a transdimensional coordinator. The coordinator was an algorithm, an advanced probability machine that calculated thousands of trillions of coordinates across the universes, each coordinate a portal that he could open and exit. He always had access to the nRoom anywhere as long as he had The Key, the round, black instrument Kira saw him handling earlier. Only Z'Dhian had the authority to enter the nRoom, which they used to travel across the galaxy.
"Z'Dhian and their attachés, you mean," she said, still bewildered.
He smiled enigmatically again. "You're a special case."
"I always thought so myself." She smiled nervously. She thought she was taking it all fairly well. Her entire concept of life and reality shattered, but, otherwise, she was taking it all fairly well.
The Z'Dhia glanced at her belongings, which she had dropped at the edge of the platform. "Are you bringing that along?"
She gazed at them in wonder. They seemed so ordinary, so common, so much a part of the world she left behind.
"I don't know. I assumed we'd be traveling…" She took another look around her. There wasn't a single place where she could put her things. Or anything for that matter. Where does a N'Dhia sleep, eat, or do any of the normal things a sentient creature does? "Where should I put them?"
He gestured to the portal door. Back to Dock 13? she thought. To her surprise, the portal was much closer to the rotunda than it was before, at least 152 centimeters away. She gasped. How could that be? How couldn't it be? Anything was possible in this strange universe of his. She gathered her belongings and started back toward the portal.
As she entered it, the thought struck her. She couldn't just leave her belongings in the dock. She'd have to travel all the way back to her quarters on Deck 10. Before she could tell him this, she realized there was no need. She had stepped right back into her old flat in Katua.
Betan sunlight curdled like cream against the familiar sunken furniture and walls. The holographic sunflowers were still on the windowsill. She had asked Bomani and Dada to look in on her flat and restock any organic food in her pantry. She had considered letting out the place when Bomani suggested it to her. Yet she had no idea what her work with the Z'Dhia might entail, how long she might be away or whether she would be back at all. Now stepping back into her old environs, she found the mundane details of her old life curious and silly.
She dropped her bags on the floor and reentered the portal. The Z'Dhia was sitting in a black chair in front of the console. Another chair was on the other side. She frowned. They weren't there before. As she approached, the Z'Dhia kept his head lowered, chin in hand, as he gazed at a holographic grid. He was so lost in his thoughts that he did not notice her watching him. When she cleared her throat, he looked up.
"Finished?"
She pointed back to the portal. "That was my flat."
"Yes."
"You opened a portal to my flat."
He shook his head. "That was a matrix you entered. The nRoom has many matrices. Was it to your liking?"
"It looked just like my flat."
"Your memory is strong, then." He motioned to the chair opposite him. "Please, have a seat. We have much to discuss."
"About the mission?"
He nodded. "If you're going to be my attaché, then you need to know what to expect."
She went to the other side of the console and sat down. He told her to place her hands on the console. She did. It crackled beneath her palms. She thought it should have been painful, like a quick electrical shock, but she felt nothing, not even a needling sensation. The holograph, to her surprise, felt solid and real. Under any other circumstance, she would have thought she had gone insane. Instead, she closed her eyes and felt her body drifting, floating, each piece of her anatomy breaking down under the calm command of his voice.
She listened as he began explaining the Z'Dhia program. His people instituted it after the Crusade of Liberation from the Ro Kan Empire, which had colonized Cassadarmus 3, the constellation where Idris-Sarra was located, and mined the two dwarf planets, Callux a and b, that circled its orbit. The Ro Kannan enslaved his people and forced them to mine the ore, steel, and plutonium that was so necessary for the development of their own planet. They were cold, efficient people who had little respect for the Z'Idrissaran and their history and culture.
But there were others who understood the value of his people's antiquities. They sought permission from the Ro Kannan to raid their cultural resources.
The ransacking of Idrissarra was immediate. They stripped the libraries, museums, and public installations, plundered their most valuable resources.
––The Book of Dreams, Kira said. Her voice sounded faint and distant.
The Z'Dhia nodded solemnly.––Among others.
The Book of Dreams was more than a series of books, but the very soul of his people. Written when the cosmos was still young, by The Ancestors who recorded their observations of the universe into its volumes, the Book of Dreams contained the record of the universe, its expansion, the birth and death of stars, the creation of galaxies and planets, black holes, multiverses, and movement itself. From the tiniest subatomic particles to dark energy and dark matter, the volumes attempted to explain everything that was a part of the universe. Through their work, Z'Idrissarran learned that everything was a part of everything, and everything had a purpose, a reason, an explanation, an endurable fact.
The Ancestors were exhaustive. They took care to record all that they observed. The Book expanded into over five hundred volumes, each containing the knowledge of the macrocosms.
Written in his people's ancient tongue, the Book of Dreams was not widely read on Idrissarra. Only Z'Dradan, or The Guardians, had studied the volumes under the Ancestors. They catalogued the volumes in the Great Library of Mondrava, where Z'Dradan guarded them, until the library was ransacked and nearly destroyed under colonial rule. Thieves stole more than two hundred of the volumes.
––They've been circulating around the galaxy ever since.
His people were determined to recover their stolen artifacts. The Guardians created a group of Z'Idrissarran whose sole purpose was to travel the galaxy and recover them. These Idrissarran were known as Z'Dhian, the Archivists.
As N'Dhia, he sought after the missing volumes of the Book of Dreams. He pursued the volumes wherever they may be and use the nRoom and the Transdimensional Coordinator to recover and return them to his home world. One of these volumes he tracked to the planet Aderna.
This is his mission: To recover the lost Volume 143.
Someone possesses the volume on Aderna, but he does not know who and he does not know its precise location either. The coordinator can send out signals to the volume and it can send them back––
––A book can send out signals?
––It can send out signals, but to do that would jeopardize the mission. No one can know what is within the pages of the volumes and no one can know I am coming for it. I must be like the molecules that flow through your lungs––unseen and ever present. Do you understand, Wood?
––Yes, I think so.
––Now tell me: What do you know about Aderna?
––My father has been there. He was a freighter pilot for the Ministry of Trade on Beta-1 during the war. He visited the planet once on assignment to deliver a payload. It's known for having the largest bazaars in the galaxy. He said it was like a madhouse.
The planet was located in the Zharkassar system, a sister planet of Jendavar, which was over 400,000 kilometers away. Since the war, Aderna had become more aligned with Zharkassar-5, when it became a trading post for the armed forces based on both planets. Though a trading system existed before the war, it exploded in size when hundreds of thousands of soldiers arrived from every part of the four quadrants. IPPA had tolerated the trading posts that developed overnight, providing soldiers with food, entertainment, drugs, and sexual gratifications. When the war ended, the organization shut down the illegal trade and supported the growth of the bazaars, which stretched for hundreds of kilometers in every direction. The bazaars themselves were like large cities where traders hawked wares that were vital to different parts of the IPPA member planets. Most of the vendors came from the Zharkassar planetary system, though there were many Starrians and Najiumian refugees among them as well. They traded everything from technology to transports, pottery, fabrics, dyes, gems, perfumes, and other goods. There was a guild who specialized with collectors alone.
These collectors bought or traded valuable and priceless items from different planets, whether they be Najiumian herding staffs, old-minted aluminum coins from Jendavar, rare gems from Tyrannia, or volumes from the Book of Dreams. It was well known that the collectors, who were often wealthy and, in some cases, even aristocratic, did not place a high premium on whether the items they were collecting were legal. Despite the raids the Security Forces had executed to shut down the markets, the underground continued to flourish, growing more sophisticated in time and making it difficult to crack down whenever and wherever they took place.
––If collectors are illegally trading volumes of the Book of Dreams, then Aderna would be the most likely place to start.
"Kira?"
She opened her eyes and looked around. She was still on the platform, still surrounded by space. Her hands were on the console. She did not remember putting them there. Only seconds had passed since she sat down. Yet it seemed she had traveled through time and space for a millennium.
"What just happened?" She rose from the chair.
"You were debriefed." He was on his feet now, gazing at an interface. "Actually, we both were."
"But...why did it feel...?" She was about to say as if he was inside her head. She sensed she was inside his head as well, as if they had formed a bond of some sort.
She touched her head. Somehow, she had a glimpse of his people's history. She had gazed into the expanse of the universe, saw the dimensions of Idrissara itself, but glimpsed only a mere thousandth of a millimeter of it. The Idris-Sarran were zealous keepers of their world. Yet this Z'Dhia offered her a peek.
"Why?" she started. "Why did you tell me all that?"
He glanced up from the console. "You are my attaché, correct?"
"Yes, but––"
"I gave you the information you needed to help me. If IPPA insists that I bring you along, then I insist on taking advantage of it." He paused, cocked his head. "Unless you've changed your mind."
"No, it's just that Idris-Sarran tend to be…" The Z'Dhia stared at her with an amused expression, as though he were playing a very subtle and harmless prank.
"I have more information for you." He gestured for her to come to the other side of the console.
She gazed at the Z'Dhia before he gestured for her to look down at the interface. The interface projected onto the black surface of the console from an undetectable holographic source. It displayed a map of the galaxy and the four quadrants. Across the chart were various blue pixels flashing intermittently. They were all clustered within areas of Quadrants III and IV. The Z'Dhia ran his hand across the interface. The chart zoomed into the Zharkassar system, where more clusters of blue pixels blinked. He tapped the interface, and the screen zoomed in even closer to a large dot representing the planet Aderna. More blue pixels clustered there as well. Each pixel, he explained, represented the location of a volume of The Book of Dreams. The Transdimensional Coordinator had an accounting of every stolen volume. He pointed to one pixel that was flashing a discordant red.
"This is 143, the volume we'll be recovering. It has been disappearing and reappearing intermittently for the duration of fifteen days and for three or four days between each. The only explanation I have for this is that the volume is being teleported to another location, an interstellar vessel I'm speculating. The readings from the Transdimensional Coordinator have been negative. It seems to be having trouble narrowing down coordinates."
"Any explanation for what's causing those negative readings?"
He shrugged. "It could be anything––solar winds, electromagnetic waves, cosmic rays. They can cause temporary disruptions. The Transdimensional Coordinator usually accounts for those variances and makes adjustments where it can." He shook his head. "The point is: whoever has the volume is transporting it to two different locations. Why?" He darted to a different sector of the console and began fiddling with its instruments. "Why would they do that?"
"It sounds like they're playing some kind of shell game."
"Shell game?" He narrowed his eyes, befuddled by her Betan-English idiom.
"It's an ancient Earth game. It usually involves hiding a pebble or a small ball beneath a cup, then placing the cup next to other similar-looking cups. The dealer switches the cups around so that it's hard to tell which cup has the pebble under it. The object of the game is for the player to guess where the pebble is. What the player doesn't know is that before the dealer began switching the cups, he hid the pebble in his sleeve without anyone noticing."
He still looked baffled. "For what purpose?"
"It's a con game. The player makes a bet she can guess correctly. But since the pebble isn't under any of the cups, she guesses wrong and ends up losing her money."
The Z'Dhia frowned. "So the player never wins the game."
"That's the point."
"That doesn't sound like a very good game."
She laughed. "Well, it wasn't. For the player at least. It was a con job, just a way to rob people from their money."
The Z'Dhia scratched his beard. "So whoever has Volume 143 is deliberately changing its location to make sure that no matter where I look––"
"You'll always guess wrong."
"If that's the case, then this person knows he or she is being followed. I don't like that. We're going to have to get started right away. We've wasted enough time."
The Z'Dhia began tapping his fingers against an interface on the console, his face lit by the strange light emanating from the concave in the center. His expression was intense, focused.
"So where do we even start? Aderna is a big planet."
A sly grin spread across his lips as he pulled The Key out of his cloak. "I've got a few tricks of my own. Tell me, Wood: Do you have a communicator?"
She frowned, puzzled. "Yes."
"Good." He waved his hand over the console's interface. "Do you get dizzy, Wood?"
"I…wait? Why are you asking?"
"Hold on to the guardrail."
Kira turned and grasped onto the guardrail as the stars began to spin around her, streaking against space in one continuous loop. The dome rotated 360º. Particles of gold light streamed from her, amassing into herself again in the space she once occupied. For a split second she gazed at herself. The swift jerk of the platform forced her head back and pressed against her face. She was out of step with time, outside of time by a nanosecond, traveling faster than her body could travel. Yet she could see and think and feel it all. It was a strange sensation, as though she had been spread across the universe by a force so violent it was almost gentle.
It lasted for only a second and yet she felt the expanse of time in her body. She glanced up. Their position in space had changed. A dwarf sun burned in the distance, its corona flaring and arcs of flames spiraling from its surface. Orbiting it were five planets, three of which had blue atmospheres, thick with cloud cover. One of them, she assumed, was Aderna.
The Z'Dhia put the hood of his cloak over his head and asked if she was okay. She nodded, though she was nauseous. Her body had caught up to what her mind had discerned and was reacting with mild rebellion. The Z'Dhia smiled and told her she'll get used to it.
"God, I hope so."
He started toward the portal, which was now even closer than before. The portal door slid open and the sounds and smells of Aderna drifted inside.
Kira’s and the Z’Dhia’s adventures begin when they time shift onto the dusty, market planet of Aderna, but what will they discover once they get there? Come and find out by subscribing to my newsletter, and be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think of the way the Z’Dhia gets around.