Worlds Aplenty
And stars. Such were his expectations. More than a man could count in a thousand lifetimes. But Ryan wasn’t that ambitious. He didn’t expect solid terrain despite the proliferation of worlds, but rather an expanse through which he could pass, a medium not dissimilar from interstellar space.
The apparent dimensions of the Axis as seen from outside were deceptive. He had never believed in the theory of a single universe, a single eon beginning with the Big Bang and ending with the Big Crunch. Many worlds implied many dimensions, certainly more than the twelve they had so far discovered. And each of those extra dimensions might prove to be a doorway, a refuge offering escape from the apparent inevitability of the universe’s eventual contraction and collapse. Genesis was not a story to be told only once, but rather a tale to be retold with each new beginning, at the birth of each new cycle. At the dawn of each new universe.
Perhaps it was no mistake that they’d discovered the Axis in deep solar space; in a galaxy where one could observe first-hand the complete cycle of stellar evolution in all its totality, from the birth of a new star to its fiery death as a supernova. The cosmic loop. And what were worlds within worlds if not circles within circles, one loop within another, ad infinitum. Ryan knew he had nothing to fear from such configurations. The universe was essentially benign. Only some of the creatures it contained were malicious, fuelled as they were by the basest of emotions and the meanest ambitions. There had to be more to life than that. The secrets of creation were not to be found in an office block. Only pure thought could grasp reality, just as Einstein had always believed. And few of history’s great thinkers had been department heads, company executives or salesmen.
The nearest Ryan had ever come to an office block was the apartment tower he’d lived in on Earth. He’d spent most of his time there, he now realised, in some sort of fugue. A state of forgetfulness in which his own identity had gone unremembered. He’d forgotten himself. What he was. Who he was. What he was meant to be. And what he was meant to do. All gone in the waking dream that had been his existence at that point in his life. A pale reflection of the image he’d once projected. The shadow of a shadow.
By degrees he’d come back to himself, recovering first on the long outward journey, and then in the many dimensions of Saturn lunar space, where his sensorium had been rekindled. And finally here, now, standing before the Axis, contemplating the journey that lay ahead. He knew it was one Tanya wanted to share. He also knew she was stronger than he was. Stronger and smarter. And he had no doubt they would need every ounce of their combined wits to get through what lay ahead.