The Fractal Continuum

[Cydnar Yrene]

“Impulse drives fuelled by high-density renewable fuel cells.” She chuckled. “Thin of them as endless energy crystals. Regardless of how advanced technology becomes though, we still need sails to outmaneuver the winds, so the planetary ships don’t look too dissimilar to naval vessels.”

The ship had two horizontal fins extending a hundred feet out on either side, and a single mast holding a solar array aloft. It lurched forwards and veered away from the landing platform. Each sail tilted and guided the ship out onto the strong wind currents. A dull roar Cydnar had not noticed grew louder as the twin engines on the rear of the ship fired.

“I am failing to see what my talents can offer such industry.”

“Ah, well,” Larisa leant against the railings and looked out over the sea of clouds. “The Andoria is a space vessel, it’s a whole new branch of technology that has been met with…challenges.”

Cydnar stood besides her and held on to the cold railings. He leant overboard and gasped. Denisha sprawled out beneath them.

“Yrene’s teeth,” he mumbled.

“I did say it was a city-state…” She smiled.

As far as he could see Denisha unfurled over the landscape, a tapestry of districts and disaster that dwarfed even Althanas’s greatest civilisations. A black, calloused blight on the landscape, the city was half clouded by the movement of ships over it’s skies, like a swarm of flies hovering over a carcass. Overhead larger vessels clung to the high winds and here and there, vast ships launched skyward and exploded through the atmosphere into the stars beyond. His mouth hung slightly open with surprise and wonder.

“How many people live here?”

“In Denisha alone there are roughly six million. It rises and falls depending on deployment of troops and the rotation of the merchant calendar, sometimes it’s closer to eight.” Whilst this was the largest city on the planet, Larisa had travelled throughout the galaxy and walked the streets of cities that covered entire worlds. Still, she could see how this would be a hammer blow to her guest.

“I can’t begin to imagine…” He stepped away. “I can’t begin to imagine something so grand existing in my time.”

“You can’t imagine it because it never happens. Rightly so, something like this would consume more resources than the Forgeworld could create.”

“Forgeworld?”

“Ah, sorry. It’s what we call Althanas. It’s the world that forged the galactic empire. All things stem from it, and few get through life without at least learning something of our collective past.”

“That means there’s an archive…” Cydnar’s wizened senses made him curious.

Larisa folded her arms across her chest.

“The Rosary Datacore.” She frowned. “The Administrate take the past a little too zealously if you ask me. It’s a stuck-up temple like building on Denisha’s largest moon.”

Cydnar composed his thoughts to make sure he understood what this meant.

“You’re telling me there’s an archive of my world’s future…your past within reach?”