Forever Curious, Part 10
Chapter 3: The Fractal Maze
Eight hours later, she wakes up to find that her proud probe has returned. Good job, she sends, even if she’s not sure if the tiny hybrid’s sentient mind can appreciate it. As she swallows the broth, trying to hypnotize her digestive system into thinking it is breakfast, she goes through the Kitti’s data.
It’s gone down quite far, a little bit over three kilometers. Then it must have come very close to the second outermost barrier, she thinks. Indeed, as the camera view from the probe gets darker the further it goes down—only a faint, ultraviolet phosphorescence providing some line of sight. Then the walls of the tunnel begin to emit a faint glow. Probably piezoluminescence, Na-Yeli thinks, as these crystals are under increasing pressure from the weight above. The probe eventually arrives at a sputtering light show that Na-Yeli remembers but all too clearly.
Spaghettification of molecular matter causing—among other things—triboluminescence, she thinks, so the bottom barrier of this layer is slowly eating up the lowest stratum of crystalline matter. But what is keeping the whole thing up? Essentially only the piping hot gasses arising from the spaghettification. Piping hot gasses that wish to go up. Piping hot gasses that are searching for a way out, seeping and brawling in every nook and cranny, permeating every crack. Until, at last, they do find a way out.
Somehow, opportunistic life must have formed around these vents, in the process becoming symbiotic. By controlling the rate of venting, the Nictating Mollusks prevent the build-up to extreme events. Too much pressure build-up will lead to volcanic eruptions with subsequent huge damage and possible extinction events. Too little pressure build-up and the weight of the whole crystalline layer might speed up the spaghettification, leading to an explosive build-up of pressure and even more massive volcanic eruptions. Keep the pressure just right and the whole edifice floats above (and below) the forbidding barriers.
Somehow, the process also charges the crystalline megastructure. Maybe—through the spaghettification process—the barrier absorbs (or otherwise removes) protons or positive ions, as these are heavier than electrons. Until the negative charge of the crystalline megastructure is so high that spaghettified positive ions are attracted—and absorbed—in there rather than in the layer’s barriers, maintaining a certain charge in the process.
The crystalline megastructure that absorbed the electrons, caused—on the one hand—an increased pressure build-up until an equilibrium was reached, and—on the other hand—the repulsive charge of the inner and outer crystalline layers (up and down from Na-Yeli’s viewpoint), thereby keeping the outer from falling onto the inner.
So the Nictating Mollusks keep this place alive, Na-Yeli thinks, quite the feat of alternate evolution. Like everybody else in the Milky Way—and possibly beyond—she doesn’t know how old the Enigmatic Object is. Very old, for certain. Probably old enough for evolutionary processes to take place and establish various equilibria. Maybe this is the equilibrium for this place, not the realm of the fractal queen, neither the hall of the crystalline king, but the dominion of the Nictating Mollusks.
It’s a working hypothesis, Na-Yeli thinks, it’ll have to do. She gets up as the shape-shifting landing gear reduces itself to two soles the size of her feet. Well, I hope it’s a stable equilibrium, Na-Yeli thinks, as I don’t want to be around here when the glass volcanoes start erupting. She bends through her knees, jumps up, and switches on her ion thruster’s afterburner, pedal to the metal until she can catch the first updraft. Gets back to the wall she’s been figuratively touching and is on her way.
Another day where she can’t be sure if she’s taking the scenic route, or the shortest possible way. She suspects the former and sees no way to change it. She doesn’t encounter any Glassamer Butterflies, wondering if they’re rare. She does notice, now that she knows what to look for, several Nictating Mollusks. The colors and patterns are different from the ones she’s first seen—yellow-and-black tiger stripes with white-and-diamond lids; red-and-white dappled boletus caps with viridescent blue lids; pink, twenty-fingered hands with caramel castanets—but their function remains the same. She made sure of that by circling near the first few specimens she found, awaiting the blink. Invariable, within three to five minutes, it came. Maybe the timing depends on the length of the tunnel beneath it? She wonders.
She also notes that she’s counted fewer Nictating Mollusks on the upper crystalline forests than in the lower one. While probably not statistically significant, it does give some support for her theory that there’s probably less spaghettification happening upwards. It almost starts to make sense.
Then again, if these layers grow, fed from the destruction from below and above—recycling by force—then why don’t they grow to each other, merging? So far, they haven’t and Na-Yeli is glad about that. Last thing she wants is to run into a blind wall.
Yet she doesn’t encounter a Crystal Curtain, but rather something else. A huge, bulbous creature, like six caterpillars merged at the tails, or a six-armed starfish mimicking a half dozen caterpillars. She observes it from, what she hopes is, a safe height. It moves, but very, very slowly. In its direct wake, the intensely spiky undergrowth is gone. The surface there is almost flat, gleaming with a glittery sheen varying from polished quartz to shining glassware.
So something is eating the undergrowth and upper foliage, Na-Yeli thinks, and is this the larval stage of the glassamer butterflies? Part of her wants to land next to it, and check how it can digest the razor-sharp crystalline branches. Is it melting them with its breath? Is it dissolving them with its stomach acid? The more practical, safety-first part of her decides to leave that an open question. It’s probably not that important in the grand scheme of things. She carries on, making a mental note to check for these Starpillars before she touches down for rest. Most probably, her exoskin’s metamaterials can withstand whatever these überlarvae throw at it, but she doesn’t want to find out.
On her third day—by human reckoning—in the fractal maze, Na-Yeli spots two more Starpillars, one flock of Glassamer Butterflies—which she, with pain in her heart, only observes quickly—and a plethora of Nictating Mollusks. Nothing else she would recognize as fauna, flora, or otherwise living. Her flight path odometer tells her she’s flown more than thirteen hundred kilometers. The shortest way from pole to pole in this level would be approximately one hundred kilometers, so either she’s chasing her own tail, or the maze changes as she traverses it. It does change, as she carefully observed, but not quite fast enough for that. As despair threatens to raise its ugly head, she sees something in the distance, down below.
A spot of relative darkness in the always flickering, multi-hued light. A shallow cone of twilight, its base at the bottom of a deep valley, lit up by the circular ring of the Diaphragm Gate. It makes sense, as she had the feeling that the gravitational tug was slowly increasing, meaning she had to be going ‘down’; that is, in the direction of the Core.
Coming closer, she sees that it’s indeed similar to the Diaphragm Gate she went through in the previous layer. She’s tempted to dive right in—oh well, after a heads-up from her Kittis, of course—but it’s the end of her third day in layer two, and in here she can rest in safety. She calls it a night and decides to prepare for passage in the morning. As she waits for sleep, she can’t help but feel that something has been observing her, all the time she was in the fractal maze. Of course, there’s the almost palpable sensation of utter alienness throughout the Enigmatic Object, but she begins to suspect there are subtle levels of strangeness throughout. Like wheels within wheels in a spiral array, she thinks, possibly weird within weird in an inscrutable arrangement, as sleep overcomes her.
—or—
Author’s Note: and so ends Na-Yeli’s adventure in the Fractal Maze. What will she find in the next layer? More madness? More chaos? More enemies? Or even, who knows, a friendly alien? Thanks for reading and stay tuned!