Ride the Star Wind: Cthulhu, Space Opera, and the Cosmic Weird Read online

  Back before they’d really gotten their genomeering up to scratch, before they’d spent enough flash on rocketing to get that sci clear, there were others looking into dimensioning. After they had something else that worked, there was no more flash for dimensioning, and they dropped it. But that’s the real way forward, the real future. When the heart is ready, we will use it to open the Saturn Door.

  There was a hex to open the door back in the old, old times, the warm times that no one remembers, that we only know of from stories and from the Eibontext. So long ago, you can hardly even see traces left in the world unless you know how to look. Sci’s no good, too scratched out. You need hex.

  Hex and sci, they’re almost the same thing now. People used to say that—that hex is oldsci, we just don’t understand it yet. And that’s mostly right.

  There’s forces in hex that sci will never clear because they have names and wills of their own, and they don’t conform to sci rules and theories. They used to come to earth, used to fight there, sliced things up in ways even we haven’t cleared. I think—my people think—the newhumes are going to find out sooner then they like. There’ve already been hexed rockets, all the crew gone or gone mad. Old forces are at work, and they’re looking this way. But the high robes in their tower know what’s preach, and they pass on the word and will of Frog. We’re blessed that way, just how we’re blessed to have what we have of the Door and the Eibontext.

  I’ve never seen the physical text, but I know everything that’s in it. It’s part hex, part stories, and part things that slice up into either depending on how you hold the knife. I put it all in my head—the old way, no mind mods—just reading and repeating and copying, letting the high robes ask me questions over and over until I got it all clear. That’s why it’s me here: I can pass, at least as a throwback. I know the Eibontext, and I know the world the newhumes have made. I’ve got enough newsci. This isn’t the first time I’ve been out of hearth, though it is my first time in space.

  I put out the flash for a solo room. There’re lots of reasons for this. I turn off all the scanners I can—I put out flash for that too. The ones left just read vitals and routine ship maintenance, and that’s fine. Nothing I do onboard should trigger the monitors to come check. Nothing I’m doing is unlaw at all; nothing I’m planning once we get to the planet, either. Spacegov doesn’t make laws for things they don’t know or don’t believe in.

  But it’s not the monitors, on the ship or anywhere else, I care about. My people aren’t the only ones with hex, who know a little oldsci. There are other texts, and if they’re not as preach or not as clear as ours, it doesn’t mean they’re scratch. Anyone can slice with a sharp enough blade.

  Despite the discomfort of the shuttle trip, it’s preach out here. I spend a lot of time in the viewhall, just watching the stars as we rocket past. Everything feels clear. Seeing the world through the ports makes me feel blessed, like I’m seeing a whole where the author only had pieces. He knew so many things, so much more about hexes, but for all that, I don’t think he ever got to see the world all at once like this. Maybe after he opened the Saturn Door it was different, but none of that made it into the Eibontext.

  People try and talk to me when I’m at the ports in the viewhall, but I don’t talk back. Maybe they think I can’t parse them, but I’ve got a speaker and learning besides. I can speak in more tongues than most of them know exist, though some deepspace genmods make it just plain hard to understand what they’re saying. There’s a few spacies that scratched up onboard, but only one who tries to talk to me. There’s another who just comes to watch out the ports like me, so modded that they need a breather even for the chemmed air onboard. They seem shaky, like they’re waiting on something. I wonder if I seem shaky. I wonder if they’re a gov monitor—maybe one of the ones that never ground truth—on some mission of their own. We note each other; we never exchange more than looks.

  Galaxy Cruiser has a regular route, stopping at terraed moons and asteroids and the sats around the other planets. Some people get off, some get on. I’m not the only throwback onboard after Mars, and the other—some Left Behind activist—is a lot more social, so the other passengers leave me alone. He tries to talk to me a few times, but eventually, he gives up and hexes me out for not giving sufficient slice, for being radcult scratch. On the whole, Purists have more power and law. More voice. My people don’t care, but since I work out of hearth, I know the politics better. It has nothing to do with us. The encounter is almost enough to keep me in my rooms, but I find the view too addicting. The ship monitors don’t like scenes, so after that, there’s more of them down here. That’s okay. It’s not me they’re watching.

  It means there are more of them around after we hit Jupiter and pick up another Throwback from one of the sats. That’s preach for me because she tries to start a scene as soon as she sees me. Recognizes me. Calls me out by name.

  It takes me slightly longer to recognize her, and by then, the monitors are already moving in, asking her to desist from her screaming. I can smell heavy chems in the air, and I’m out. Probably, it’s just destim to calm her—it might even be preach if it stopped my heart from pounding so fast—but I’d rather put my trust in Frog. Back in my room, and safe for now with a chance to think.

  It was the antlers that threw me off. Probably, she can pass as genned—postnat fashion mods are outdated but not unusual. They’re not pretty, though. Her antlers are a mess of bone prongs spraying up from just above her eyes, covered in some kind of very short hair. But they aren’t genomeering. They’re hex. And unnervingly so. Once I drew my eyes away from them, I recognized the rest of her; that was just as unnerving because I know her.

  It’s been years since Avera defected—Earth years, maybe longer for her. We studied together, and if she hadn’t sliced, she would have been the one carrying the heart for this job. I don’t know what she’s doing here now, but it makes everything a lot more complicated. By rote, I pray. By rote, I check my hexes. The heart is preach. Everything is preach as far as I can tell, except Avera out of nowhere, screaming at me across the viewhall.

  Screaming my name. Screaming that I have to be stopped. That I’m unlaw, a Purist terrorist.

  We were close before she left. I could tell you exactly when she turned from Frog, though I didn’t see it then. She started having questions, and she didn’t like the answers. When she talked to me about leaving—not just going out of hearth but leaving—I couldn’t grasp that she was serious. It was nonsense scratchings. Her being here makes no sense.

  Avera was not the first to leave—it happens, especially with those who never take the robes. That’s okay. If they’re not with Frog, they can’t help us anyway, and it’s no loss if they slice. But Avera had taken robes at the same time as me. She had hex. She knew the Eibontext by learning, same as me. Leaving, for anyone with that level of commitment, was unheard of. The high robes searched, but they left me out of it until I’d proven myself to Frog, unscratched by her heresy. Before this, I’d wished they hadn’t. I knew I could have found her. I guess I was right.

  The door buzzes. It’s courtesy—the monitors can unkey any door on the ship if they feel they have cause. I answer. I’m calm. I appear calm.

  There are two monitors, both newhumes but not spacies. One might be an earther. They’re tall, broad, made for this. They loom as their ID codes chirp. They are concerned about restfulness for me, for the other passengers, on the remainder of the trip. They ask me to come, to answer questions. They ask if I understand.

  Slice their courtesy. I can refuse, but I know I shouldn’t. Slice their restfulness.

  They walk me through backways. Others must not see, must not get scratched. Hex them, I think and try to continue to appear calm. I don’t actually hex them. I am not the one who is unlaw, but I don’t know what lies Avera has given them or what hex. They bring me to a wait room with one chair where I sit. They loom, and they ask my name, my title, my purpose. I can taste the chems in the ai
r, but there is no hex here.

  “I am no unlaw,” I tell them. “Avera Luce, she is unlaw. She is a thief. A record was filed with the Earth Monitors.” I give them the date.

  They do not know Avera Luce. She gave them a different name. Her gen will not match their records, even if they check, because her mods are not sci. Hex changes to your gen can’t be traced through sci tests. They won’t believe me, but maybe they will be unsure. She is unregistered—that skirts the edge of unlaw—and she made a scene to accuse me of lies. The monitors do not apologize, for all their courtesy, but they allow me to return to my room. I know they will pay close attention to us both.

  I do not go back to the viewhall. I comm back to hearth, but it will take too long to relay and to receive a reply because cruiser passengers cannot have access to priority channels no matter how much flash they put out. I could simply return home on my ticket or on another ship back to Earth. I could try and hide out on one of the sats or moons, but that seems less preach as it would be harder to keep the heart safe. I am here now because the timing is right. Avera must know that. She could’ve guessed that it would be me, that this is how I would travel. She could’ve had other ways of knowing. Something about her antlers scratches at me. Fortunately, we are close to Saturn, and I am close to completing my job.

  Saturn is like Earth. In the old, old times, it was something else. It belonged to ancient things—timeless things. Things that had forgotten this piece of the universe. They used dimensioning to come to this galaxy, to the worlds here. From Cykranosh to Saturn, from Saturn to Earth. The oldsci, the hex they used, left echoes in those places. Residual energies that newsci can’t make clear. This is why the storms on Saturn wander, why they change. The hex used by the ancients is grand and mysterious—the Eibontext makes them clear, through the word of Frog, to the favored. We can see the signs, follow the shadows in the stars, know when the alignments are the closest.

  When Eibon made his gate, with Frog’s direction, he used blessed starmetal—a meteorite—that possessed certain properties because it had come from Cykranosh. There were no others like it. Through the ages, we have hunted. Many have hunted. The meteor recovered on Nix is the closest, from all that our sci and hex can clear, to the one used to make that door. But it comes from somewhere else. It is not perfect.

  We have the sci to travel, and we have hex to summon the forces from their echoes on Saturn, and we can transmute the heart into the makings of a new door. That’s my job. When I return it to hearth, the high robes will open the door; we will go to be with Frog in its home, and we will serve and be protected from the ancients awakened by newhumes and their rocketing into the unknown void. We have made ourselves ready for this. Avera cannot be allowed to stop us now.

  Avera cannot stop me now.

  I find my resolve. She’s hex—locating her will be simple. And the text lists ways of slicing one’s rivals. One’s enemies. I’ve worked hard to make clear who Avera is to me.

  This kind of hex requires supplies, including some I didn’t account for or couldn’t risk bringing in my carry because they skirt too close to unlaw, even if they are Frog. For most, I can improvise. I can slice myself with nails or a sharp edge of metal if I have to. I even have a cup—it is invocation and preach that make the objects holy—and now I think of the clerk on the shuttle and smile. It is small, but I can’t risk a more powerful guardian here with so many others on such a fragile thing as a space cruiser. Small will be sufficient.

  I prepare; I speak my hex. Because I know Avera, she’s simple to hunt.

  I go backways. I knew the paths of the ship before I boarded—I put them in my head oldways, too, though now I’ve traveled them and what was image is made real. Maybe Avera has done the same. There are places where I don’t have the ID codes to pass, but codes are just numbers. I know enough newsci to slice them open; I don’t need hex or the guardian, and my passing is unclear.

  Avera is also in a solo room, though I don’t know where she got the flash. Probably, it’s stolen or hexed. I hear nothing inside, but I can feel her. Maybe she is indulging in restfulness. It doesn’t matter. I invoke the guardian and release it. Its dark form oozes through the seal on the door.

  On the other side, there’s a quiet click and chirping. The scanners don’t recognize the chems that the guardian produces, but it doesn’t need long to work. I expect to hear a scream, but there is nothing . . . the door slides open. Maybe my hex failed, and Avera isn’t here; maybe this is just her empty room. Or maybe something else has gone wrong. I recall the guardian. I step inside.

  The door closes behind me. This shouldn’t be alarming as that’s how they’re coded. But this room is darker than I expected, and my hex-heightened awareness tells me other things are scratched as well. I can feel the guardian, expanded beyond its container, returning, but it too is scratched. The door does not open again despite its coding, and I’m pressed back against it. There is a light: it’s Avera, the bony protrusions covering her head glowing pale green. The hairs that cover them seem to dance, muddling the shadows in the room.

  The guardian does not respond to my will. As it puddles around my feet, I see that it is also covered in short, dancing hairs.

  “Etelie,” she says. “My foolish dear.”

  I spit hexes at her, but they are only words. The guardian rises from the floor, a black and furred curtain cutting me off from the heretical light. I expect to die—to have my skin boiled, to be dissolved and absorbed—but instead, I am only trapped. Distantly, I can hear the soft chirping of the scanners coding out that the chem balance here is scratched. My skin burns where it’s covered, but it’s a slow searing. Whatever she has made the guardian into covers my mouth, silencing me. I can feel the hairs sliding across my body, across my lips.

  Avera comes closer. I hadn’t noticed her eyes before—they’re as black as a spacie’s, if not so large. The light from her antlers reflects from their glassy surface. She reaches up to touch my hair, stroking it back from my face the way she used to, tucking it behind my ear. Her fingers are covered in patches of the same bony matter as her antlers; the hairs on them are stiff, scratching on my skin like stubble. I can’t move away. I force my lips apart and gag on the viscous, hairy ichor. It burns, but it doesn’t pursue its invasion.

  “We don’t have much time,” she says, her mouth pressed close to my ear. “I should have come to you first like this—like a friend. I overreacted. But you must listen, Etelie.”

  All her words are heresy, but I can’t hex her with looks alone.

  “Your god sleeps, Etelie. On Earth in ages past, the power of Zhothaqqua died. Your priests have never heard Its voice when they call, only echoes of Its power. The Eibontext tells of its domain beneath Voormis, but that mountain is long ground to dust and ice, and you know this. Zhothaqqua’s power is dead, gone from our world. Eibon was the last of Its great wizards. It cares not for you and yours. Cykranosh offers no asylum.”

  Her words, despite soft tone and touches, are heresy. Lies. She speaks the name of Frog with no reverence, no respect. The high robes live in communion. They speak secrets with Frog and know Its power. Their lives are long and blessed, and they pass on Frog’s wisdom to those who will in time join them. If there was no communion, there would be no design. There would be no hex for opening the door. It’s easy to hold onto my anger through the pain.

  “I left because the high robes’ lies could no longer satisfy me, Etelie. They grow ancient, drinking the lives of believers like you, but their power is stolen. I wanted to find Frog. But Frog is dead, sleeping. I found another—Yhoundeh. It has shown me true hex. Listen . . .”

  She stretches out three fingers, reaching toward my face. I flinch as much as I can and feel them press against my eyelids, and one in the middle of my forehead. The hairs scratch; they slice into me, burning. I hear something like music: sounds and elusive rhythms, an irregular pulse. Within this are whispers, oldways words in a tongue I know but have never heard. This is hex
, what she is doing. The tongue carries hex, too. I can’t fight, can only do as she says and listen.

  You see the worlds. You see space and time. You see forces moving them, moving between them, around them. Gods to you. They ebb and flow, strong and weak, crashing against each other. They act against the world, against each other. Endless.

  Here, one grows strong. It finds servants, its power grows. Another comes. It grows, consumes that power. Another comes. It grows . . . they touch thinking minds, change them, use them. The minds feed, they channel forces. Channel to use. Channel to focus. Channel to control. Channel to constrain. Here in one form, one time, one place, bound by world rules.

  You see them, you name them: Zhothaqqua, Yhoundeh, Nyarlathotep, Kthulhut, Azathoth. They come, they come again, the stars have woken, the channels open, touched by space, through the stars, they come . . .

  I do see. I see Hyperborea, the clashes of priests and the fall of the world under ice in the old, old times. I see great Eibon, pursued by agents of another ancient. I see the world turning. I see Frog! Frozen with the world, out of time, bound. I feel Its power, Its voice in the whispers, silenced by another form, a great antlered form, whispering into the dark, whispering hex and force and power. I see other worlds the ancients have sliced through their clashing. I see them through the stars, I see them turning in space. I see rockets, spacie rockets, racing out to those worlds as the whispers swell into cacophony, a rhythm I can’t follow. I lose all sense of words, of shapes, of myself until another voice rises above the whispers, calling me . . .

  —wake up, wake up, wake up—

  I wake up. I’m utterly scratched—everything hurts, but it doesn’t burn how it did when Yhoundeh’s corrupted guardian held me. My hands are still bound. I’m sitting, slumped against something, and I open my eyes when it moves. It’s Avera.

  My head is on her shoulder. Her hands are the first thing I see, her hex-modded fingers wrapped with mine. Mine look modded, too, blackened and dried. I can hardly feel her touch. Her wrists, like mine, are bound in some kind of metal cuffs. Her antlers no longer glow, and there are new jagged points to them as though they have been shattered in places. The hairs are still. The side of her face is reddened, like a burn. She inclines her head to me but does not turn her face.