String Theory_ Fusion (Book 2) - Kirsten Beyer [112]
Janeway considered this and spared a moment of regret for those Suspiria had misled before another question rose to the surface of her mind.
“Did you say Suspiria was a liar…. as in, she is no longer…” Janeway let the thought trail off.
“I can no longer sense her among us.”
“Then she’s dead?” Janeway asked, as the faint hope of ever encountering her again and perhaps helping her to see reason and return Voyager to the Alpha Quadrant started to fade.
“Not as you understand it. But I am confident that if Exosia was her goal, the Others have found a way to put a stop to her efforts that would be more permanent than death.”
Janeway paused and looked again at the tumultuous field. “Is this a vision of Exosia?” Janeway asked, taking in every detail of the field and the outcropping of rock on which she stood.
Phoebe smiled.
“Of course not. You could not survive there in your present form. Our existence there is beyond you. This is the place between… the place where the last battle was fought and lost.”
Janeway struggled to piece together the fragments of information she had gleaned through her journeys with Phoebe.
“Let me see if I have this right,” she said. “You and the Others were once in Exosia, where you discovered the strings. You learned to interact with them and somehow that knowledge allowed you to leave Exosia and enter our dimension?”
“We played with them, as you played with your toys when you were a child. But as you saw, to touch one, was to disrupt them all.”
“So the strings which somehow form the fabric of all space-time were disrupted by your… play?” Janeway asked, incredulous.
“We meant no harm,” Phoebe replied.
Neither would a five-year-old who picked up a phaser, Janeway thought. But that wouldn’t change the outcome at all.
“Be that as it may, you created the imbalance and your choice to remain in our dimension so that you could continue playing forced the Others to close the gateway between Exosia and our dimension to prevent the imbalance from getting any worse?”
“Yes,” Phoebe replied.
“What is the nature of the imbalance?” Janeway asked.
“You have seen part of it for yourself,” Phoebe answered.
Janeway thought back. She had forced the children out of her mother’s home, just as some of the strings must have been forced from Exosia when the opening between Exosia and what Janeway considered normal space-time was created.
The light.
Suddenly she remembered vividly the strange glowing balls that had approached the house once the children were gone, and the icy inexplicable terror their presence created in her.
“It has to do with photonic energy, doesn’t it?” Janeway theorized.
“It does,” Phoebe replied. “There can be no photonic energy within Exosia. It is disruptive to our natural state. Before the gateway was closed, it began to bleed into our existence in a way that was… dangerous.”
Turning again to the battlefield, Janeway realized that the struggle had ended. A host of Nacene-the victors, she did not doubt-were rising into the sky, much like those who had abandoned the fierce and valiant warrior who had tried to lead them. As they did so, the landscape began to take on a form that was somehow familiar. What had been an anonymous rock face and a barren field took on a more specific quality. The colors… the textures… she could not put her finger on this place, but she knew beyond a doubt that the familiarity was real.
A lone figure rose from among the dead. It was the vaguely Monorhan warrior. He cried out in a voice that echoed throughout this new creation. In any language, the sound would have communicated clearly his utter despair.
As his cry died out, two stars rose above the horizon. Janeway had spent several days analyzing them and knew them at once. They were the two suns of the Monorhan system, Protin and the Blue Eye. But even with her naked eyes, Janeway could see that the Blue Eye at its birth in no way resembled