The Red King - Michael A. Martin [48]
Frane, once again gripping the red chess piece, seemed to consider all of this for a protracted moment, then shrugged. “That isn’t so,” he said at length.
Jaza’s curiosity was obviously becoming piqued even further. “Excuse me?”
“You say we are witnessing the birth of something new. But uncounted millennia of local legend contradicts this.”
Troi felt Frane freeze as he noticed that the room had again fallen silent—and that everyone’s eyes were suddenly upon him, her own included.
“Go ahead, Mr. Frane,” Troi said.
The Neyel took a deep breath and again set the chess piece down on the table before him. Though Troi perceived that Frane was still nervous, her encouragement had obviously bolstered the younger man’s confidence.
“The rift is not introducing anything new to Neyel space. It merely heralds the long-prophesied return of something unimaginably ancient. Something that may be older than the universe itself. It is the Sleeper, at last awakening.”
Will’s eyebrows rose. “The Sleeper?”
“Apparently a deity in which many of the races indigenous to this region believe,” Donatra said. “This ‘Sleeper’ is said to slumber for billions of years, waking only periodically.”
Frane, still standing, nodded. “And when It wakes, It ceases to dream. But all the worlds that surround it are part of that dream. Like Newaerth, the first world to vanish as the Sleeper begins stirring from its long ages of slumber.”
Vale’s eyes grew huge. “Are you suggesting that this galaxy and everything in it is just a part of this ancient god’s dream?”
“Yes,” Frane said, nodding. “And when the dream ceases…” He trailed off meaningfully.
Despite Frane’s unscientific claims, no one in the room was smiling. Troi realized that everyone present was thinking of the planet that the young Neyel had called Newaerth. The disappearance of Newaerth and its entire system was essentially beyond dispute now. Had some cosmic Sleeper inadvertently destroyed it, simply by rolling over during its fitful slumbers? Would that casual destruction spread farther and wider once the mysterious entity came more fully awake?
Troi recalled a very old story from Earth that her father had told her when she was a little girl. For centuries, the Hindus had believed in a deity known as Brahma, upon whom the existence of the entire universe depended. To Brahma, a day and a night lasted more than eight billion years, far longer than either Betazed or Earth had existed. During Brahma’s periods of sleep, he would dream into existence the entire universe—which would be destroyed each “morning,” setting off the next iteration in an infinite cycle of cosmic death and rebirth.
That story had both frightened and fascinated her on some primal level, perhaps because she was half-human. Maybe it’s no wonder, Troi thought, that a similar belief would be attractive to others who have Terran blood in their veins.
“Ridiculous,” Tchev spat, glaring at Frane. “Mere superstition.”
Donatra chuckled. “That’s a curious observation, coming from one whose people bash each other with ceremonial stun sticks and worship statues of dead warriors.”
Tchev rose, his leather-gloved fists bunched on the table. “PetaQ!”
Will, still seated, moved not a millimeter. “Let’s all settle down, folks,” he said, smiling like a kindly innkeeper. “We all have better things to do than snipe at one other.”
“Agreed,” Donatra said, apparently both unfazed and unchastened.
“You’re not actually giving any credence to this…aboriginal fantasy, are you, Riker?” Tchev said, gesticulating in wild frustration.
“I’m simply trying to learn everything I can, Captain,” Will replied. “Even ancient legends might shed some light on our current situation.”
“Nonsense,” said Donatra.
Jaza cleared his throat, signaling that he was still in charge of the scientific