“The Shrouding”
by Kevin Moriarty
November 12th, 2186
Miranda Kurtz watched the stars disappearing one by one as a black blanket twenty-nine thousand miles across rose above the horizon. She took a deep breath and lifted little baby Christov, gurgling and alert, into her arms. He made a tiny fist in the air. Smiling, she tucked the blanket under his chin before reclining into her pillows.
The bubble-shaped penthouse windows faced the eastern night sky. There were no clouds, no stars, no Moon. There was only the approaching 'Shroud'.
Every single person in the silent, glittering city – sixty five million people – closed their eyes and concentrated, some holding hands, all holding their breath. The necklace of skyscrapers along the coast grew dim and vanished. The curved, rising wall of darkness raced towards her. The Shroud approached the entire, glittering globe, united in silence.
It did not hurt. There was no transition. She was simply there, as in the last moment she was here. And now was then. And 'The Shrouding' passed, all done for another year.
She spoke the hallowed words: “I am Miranda Kurtz and I am awake.”
She was left with new memories, the next possible year of her life, her year as it would be if she did nothing to change it... And it was all rage, exquisite grief and self-loathing. Feeling sick, she looked down at Christov. He was unconscious, his mouth agape as if caught by surprise.
She started screaming.
#
Caltech, (OIR) Instrumentation Group, Pasadena, California
August 16th, 2019
Professor Dekcanski sipped his coffee with care and followed the rhythmic sound of a rubber ball hitting brick as he made his way deeper into the computer lab in the Grace building. He knew what he’d find: Nathan, his best student, feet on the desk, surrounded by monitors coursing green and yellow graphs and charts across his long face, disguising its ashen colour and the black bags under his eyes.
“Nathan. Why are you so early?”
Nathan caught the ball and spun in his chair. “Early? Yeah.” He frowned at the metal floor.
“For goodness sake, Nathan! Another all nighter? What happened? Are the backups ok? We’ve talked about this.”
“Yeah. I’m toast, sorry. The backups are fine. I’ve been working on that... that transient we found last week. Echo-1625.”
“I told you. We can give it to the software team, remember? They have more free time. You have much more important things to be studying. That’s why you joined my team, remember? You’re wasting your time and mental abilities on what’s probably a software glitch.”
“Professor. I have a feeling about this thing. There’s something definitely wrong about it. Something interesting. I couldn’t get away.”
The Professor picked up the writing pad on Nathan’s workstation. It was covered in orbital mechanics and doodles.
“Well. Did you find anything?”
“No.”
Dekcanski sighed. “Well, what’s left?”
“Nothing. That’s the thing. I’ve checked every single catalogue. There is nothing like this. This is new.”
“We’ll have the software team debug it. Go home. Now. Come back later.”
“OK. I will. Don’t touch my stuff.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to mention your name when the Gruber is handed out.”
“Cool. Ha, ha.” Dekcanski watched him gather his gear and walk away. He stopped and turned. “Oh, yeah. There was one small thing I was able to prove. There, on page fourteen. I’ve signed it, just in case.”
Professor Higgins flipped through the notes.
“Yeah. There’s a detectable doppler, right on the edge, right up in the one thousand megahertz range. It’s barely there. It’s almost non-existent. So whatever this thing is, there’s no way it’s in Virgo. It’s local.”
“Local?”
Nathan threw his backpack and walked away. “It’s on this side of the Kuiper Belt.” He raised his voice as he disappeared towards the lifts. “It’s right on our doorstep. Weird, right?”
#
Two American men dressed in blazers sat in deep leather chairs. The club crest etched into the heavy glass tumblers refracted the light from the fireplace as each man swirled his close to the heat.
“I am just not sure if what you're asking can be done.”
“It’s not a question of ‘can’. It is an imperative. It must be done.”
The elder of the two – and he thought of himself as such – gazed out the window over the perfect manicured golf course. The flag on the eighteenth green hung limp in the bright illumination cast from the club-house. “The Chinese are already in pre-production. Whoever gets there first gets the biggest slice of the pie.”
“We have Orion. It can be re-tasked. But the cost will be staggering.”
“You’ve known me for forty years, Prescott. When have I ever given a shit about the cost?” He leaned forward and stabbed his cigar at the smaller man. “Now, look here. Get them moving. Tell them it is happening. You start tomorrow morning.”
“What about Congress?”
He waved his hand, leaving a drifting circle of smoke above his head. “That’s the President’s problem. We have to get this done, with or without them. The future of this country is at stake. The people demand it.”
“You speak for them now?”
“Prescott. The people are too scared to even think straight. That’s our job.”
A lingering silence flickered in the firelight.
“This thing.” He spoke as he raised the glass to his lips. “It scares the living Texas shit out of me.”
#
“Welcome back. We’re joined now by Professor Jones from Oxford University and he’s here to help explain what all the fuss is about.”
“Good morning, Professor.”
“Good morning, Dianne.”
“For the last few days, there’s been quite a lot of excitement and indeed confusion about exactly what has been discovered out in space. Is it aliens?”
“Ha. No Dianne, it almost certainly is not. We call it the Dekcanski Anomaly 3728. It’s not a spaceship or a weapon. And it’s not coming to Earth to devour us.”
“How can you be so sure of those things? When you have no idea what it is?”
“We know a considerable amount, actually. It is roughly ten thousand kilometers wide. It does not shine. There is no radiation from it whatsoever.”
“How was it discovered?”
“It blocks a considerable about of light. When it moved in front of distant stars, our telescopes detected it as a dimming of the light from those stars. We’ve actually traced it back several years.”
“Why did it take so long to be noticed?”
“Well, it’s an extremely large sky out there, Dianne, ha ha.”
“We got lucky?”
“Actually, no. It appears to be growing. Now, as far as we can measure…”
“Sorry. Growing? What do you mean, growing?”
“Slightly. Very slowly. It’s absolutely noting to be alarmed about.”
“Well, how dangerous is this object?”
“It is very far away at the moment, Dianne. And as I said…”
“‘At the moment’, I’m sorry, Professor. What do you mean, ‘at the moment’.”
“Well as objects such as comets and asteroids transverse space, they sometimes are captured by the Sun’s gravity. And they fall under it’s ‘spell’, if you like. These objects fall towards the Sun, accelerating the entire time. And then they gather so much speed that they are flung around it and back out into interstellar space. This object, wherever it came from, is heading the same way.”
“So what you’re saying is that it’s headed for Earth.”
“No, I didn’t say that.”
“People want to know if they should be worried or anxious. They are hoping that you can allay their fears. Can you, Professor?”
“There is absolutely nothing to worry about. As this object falls deeper into the gravity well of the Sun, it will be spun out and away from us altogether. There only exists so much interest from the scientific because it is our job to determine what it is. This really is the most exciting time to be an astronomer. Curiosity drives us.”
“What else have you learned, Professor?”
“Well, we can see light through it. It appears to stop about seventy three percent of light.”
“It’s translucent?”
“Yes.”
“You mean, like a funeral shroud?”
#
January, 2032
“Victor, I really don’t have…” The woman tried to step around her old lover in the stairwell. He moved again to block her.
“Please, Margot. Please. I am begging you. Just check these figures. I will do anything. Anything, I swear. I am going mad.”
“Anything? How about never contacting me like this again? I am married now.”
“Yes. I swear I will never contact you again if you just take this data, review my assumptions and run the numbers. Please.”
“Never, ever again?”
“Yes, I swear!”
His name was Victor Bereskin and he was not even 20 years old. He would win the Gruber Prize – the highest prize in Cosmology – for discovering that ‘The Shroud’ was accelerating. He used the term ‘parking’. It was joining the Earth on the same orbital plane. Some believed that, because we had failed to rendezvous with it, it was coming to us.
Humanity fired a flotilla of robotic emissaries into slingshot orbits, riding waves of radio messages in every language – including Mathematics – begging for mercy. The probes passed straight through The Shroud. There were no discernible course corrections. It glided on a perfect parabolic slide. It knew exactly where the Earth would be. The final confirmation, announced to the world at a press conference in Delhi, was news that most of the literate world had been expecting: The Earth would pass through The Shroud in fourteen weeks.
A global countdown started and hysteria was instantly fashionable.
#
December 15th, 2186
Miranda’s Entangled Destination arrived with a ‘ping’ on her skinfone. She swiped the message and read:
Borneo. Departs from Miami Flingport at 020016122186
She showed her husband and he kissed her. “Borneo? Not bad. We can make that work for a year.”
She kissed him back and turned to their families waiting in the living room. “Come visit us in Borneo!”
They cheered. Someone fired off a champagne cork and it hit the ceiling. It returned at an angle and bounced like a bullet off the edge of Christov’s crib. Her scream might have cut glass. Christov woke to the sound and joined in. Miranda howled at everyone to get out and then fell into her husband’s arms. He soothed her, stroking her long hair and shaking his head as her worried father approached. It was going to be a long twelve months.
#
September, 2043
The Chinese took the rest of the world by complete surprise. With 'The Shroud' less than six weeks away, a Long March 3C rocket roared, shook and illuminated the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre with a ferocious, licking tail of flame and nine million tons of thrust. The Heavy Lift Vehicle unfolded in low Earth orbit to reveal twined, heavily modified Shenzhou orbital and service modules responding to the call-sign ‘Zhong Kui’. Onboard, three volunteers from the elite regiment of the Chinese military, the Flying Dragons, sat with their pilot. It powered away from the Earth after just four-and-a-half orbits. The Chinese Premier sent a message of goodwill and wished them good luck. A female voice replied, promising to continue transmitting for as long as possible.
Media outlets around the world scrambled to learn more. “Zhong Kui” was a Chinese mythical figure who vanquished ghosts and evil spirits. Experts noted that the vehicle had no external tank and no re-entry module. Some news anchors struggled to keep their composure. The “Zhong Kui” was on a one-way trip.
#
Colonel Zhang Wei had enjoyed the roar of the engines permeating the structure around him. His anti-space-sickness pills made his stomach feel like a blocked drain. He sipped some water and glanced into the mirror on his sleeve. His two counterparts – also retired Colonels but, more importantly, very old friends – waved back and returned his A-OK sign.
He keyed his mike. “Nothing else for us to do, gentlemen, than enjoy the view. Our pilot has all the work now.”
The pilot, a frowning, deeply focused woman called Wang, nodded in an absent-minded way as she watched data tumble across the monitors. He noticed she was counting the kilometres from Earth. He squeezed her arm and spoke into the cabin air. “Stop looking back. We go forward. We go first. For China’s glory.”
She shook off his arm.
He tried again. “‘Live as Special Forces soldiers, die as Special Forces spirits.’ Remember?” Their motto.
After a few moments, she sighed. “I just wish I had something to do.”
“Everything is automated now?”
She grimaced. “Yes. The Americans had a good phrase for it: ‘Spam in a can’.”
“I have something for you to do.”
“What?” The wariness in her voice made him laugh.
“Dear Captain Wang. I want you to pick the music.”
Later, with some melodic Cantonese folk music tinkling around them, she eventually joined the others in looking out at the circle of darkness ahead. The unblinking stars crowded around it, like drooping willows of snow around a deep, freezing lake in winter.
#
The US Vice President knew he had made a mistake as soon as he nodded to the young woman with the blogger hashtag on her cap. She was as surprised as everyone else and almost, barely, caught her breath in time to marshal her thoughts into a question. Reporters had been warned not to ask about it, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. She keyed her mike and lifted the recorder under his chin.
“Mister Vice-President, given the prolonged and very strained relationship between the USA and The People’s Republic of China in recent years, do you have any opinion about their sudden and unilateral launch of a manned spaceship to rendezvous with The Shroud?”
She had given him an opening. That morning, he and his team had agreed and rehearsed a few simple remarks in case something like this was asked. He had a line about how any attempt to send more soldiers into space by China could lead to further sanctions. He was to recall for the benefit of the gathered media that the Long March rockets had ballistic missile applications. He formed a response as she spoke and then opened his mouth to speak.
Something kicked back in his mind. A basic, primal instinct refused to surrender to all the political spin and he paused, for the first time in his career, with his mouth open. His team weren’t even watching him. He would normally knock this kind of question out of the park. For some bizarre reason, he remembered being terrified of the dark as a child.
“On behalf of the United States, I wish the crew of the Zhong Zui Godspeed and good luck.”
He turned to go as the room erupted with more questions. He felt better as he strode through the kitchens towards the waiting motorcade and discovered a spring in his step.
His Chief of Staff, Paul, glowered at him as he approached. “What the hell was all that?”
This guy is a real pain in my ass, the Vice President thought to himself. Probably should never have married him, then.
Paul gave him a furious look. “And what’s so funny?”
#
The Americans coaxed heat and power back into 'Olympus One' to help relay as much telemetry as possible from 'Zhong Kui'. The frozen Orion spacecraft and her tiny flotilla of relay satellites had stayed with the Shroud during its descent to Earth orbit. They now defined the exact position of the Shroud for the approaching Chinese astronauts. Transponders on each formed a well-defined ring around it as, one by one, the stars before them had vanished and now The Shroud loomed.
“3000 kilometres. 10 Seconds. Good luck, everyone.” Wang raised her voice over the recording of The Dadao March playing over the speakers.
“It has been an honour.” The three soldiers voiced in unison, and this made Colonel Wang smile. He felt overwhelming relief. There was to be no failure, no disaster or disgrace. Nothing could stop them now. In moments, they would make contact with whatever Fate awaited the rest of Humanity. He realised he didn’t care about being first or memorials or how history might remember his sacrifice. This was for all of China. And, he had to admit, the entire world.
The red transponder readings tumbled towards zero and the radio doppler reached a whine. Wang flicked it off and sat back, making herself as comfortable as possible. She stared into the pitch black as if it contained all the colours of the rainbow.
He had planned a remark. Now was the time. It was a line from an ancient and much-loved lyrical poem from General Yue Fei, a true warrior poet from the Song Dynasty, called ‘Man Jiang Hong’. Every child in China knew of it. He mashed the transmit button.
"Lifting my eyes,
Towards the sky,
I let out a battle cry!”
His heart was pounding. He filled his lungs and roared his kiai. The others joined him. The black swallowed them whole without even a wink.
#
Static hissed from the speakers in the Operations Room, like a viper teasing its prey. For several agonising seconds, that was the only sound.
“Signal! We have signal capture!” The Communications team punched the air and their leader pointed across the Operations room at Captain Yang Junlong, CAPCOM for the Zhong Kui Mission. The room erupted with fragmented excitement.
Captain Yang Junlong had been standing at his Flight Controller station for over an hour. As his friend, Captain Li Xiu Wang, approached the anomaly, he had felt it impossible to remain sitting. Now the Zhong Kui had passed through to the other side. They had not vanished or exploded or turned to dust. Keeping his voice as calm as possible, like a reverse mirror on his anxiety, he keyed his mike.
“Zhong Kui. Come in.”
Static.
“Zhong Kui. This is Flight Operations. Do you copy? Radio check, over.”
The chief medical officer nodded with excitement and waved to get Junlong’s attention. “Go ahead, Medical.”
“I have four strong life-signs. Four, I repeat, four strong life signs. But I think they are all asleep. Unconscious.”
A murmur rippled through the room.
“Be quiet, everyone! Medical, are they unconscious or in some kind of coma?”
“Brain activity indicates simple unconsciousness. But there is no REM. They are not asleep.”
“They were all conscious when they passed through?”
“Of course. We could hear them all shouting their kiai.”
Junlong considered it. “Services. Did we lose pressurization? How’s the O2?”
“All normal, sir. The only telemetry we lost occurred during the signal context switch. Less than a second. The Services Module reports are all nominal.”
“Less than a second? That’s --”
“Flight Controller, excuse me. We have visual feed returning from the internal cameras.”
“Main wall, please.”
The Services Team Lead grabbed a virtual framed window of footage and threw it at the wall. The image was live and showed four individuals slumped in their harnesses. Junlong scanned the bodies. There was no sign of injury. He checked the condition of the cabin. It looked completely intact.
“The rats are awake and moving around.” Someone from Medical zoomed in on the rat enclosure. Both animals were alive and, more importantly, awake.
"Onboard chronometers match and are in sync with us."
“Medical, can you rouse the crew?”
“Not medically, no. But there is a wake-up alarm. And we can increase O2 into the cabin. We have to wait for them to recover by themselves. If they ever do.”
“Do it. Do it now.”
A pulsating klaxon growled over the internal microphones. The Services team increased the oxygen levels in the cabin. Everyone watched like statues. The picture fizzled with static as the Orion communications module struggled to keep a bead on the speeding Zhong Kui.
“Order the Americans to boost power to the antenna. Give us everything they’ve got.”
“They have already done so, sir.”
A figure moved in the cabin. It was Wang. She was raising her hand to her face. The sight sent an electric shock through the room. Everyone in the Operations Room rose from their seats.
Wang looked around. She reached forward and switched off the klaxon and spoke into the VOX. “Yes, I am here. I am Captain Li Xiu Wang of the Chinese Air Force and I am awake.”
Junlong mashed his key. “Wang, this is Junlong. Can you hear me?”
“Yes, I copy you, Junlong.” She smiled at the camera. “How long was I out?”
“Only a few minutes. Can you wake the others?”
She stretched across the cabin arm-rests and checked the Colonel’s pulse. She shook him. “Colonel, Colonel Wie, can you hear me? Wake up. We have passed through The Shroud… I mean, the anomaly.”
The man opened his eyes and wiped his mouth. He seemed to check himself for injury. He and Wang shared an awkward embrace before he spoke. “How long?” He asked her.
Junlong was distracted by the Communications officer dashing up the steps with an urgent whisper. “Sir. The Americans are saying that we have only a few seconds left.”
A gasp filled the room. Junlong looked back at the main viewer. The other two old soldiers in the back seats were moving, looking around. The two old men smiled and shook hands as the image blurred and lines of static flooded the screen. The image vanished on four smiling faces.
Wang’s voice: “We are all unhurt and feel fine. We are A-OK.”
The Colonel spoke. He was smiling; Junlong could hear it in his voice. “So. There is your answer, my brothers and sisters. You will live. We came here and with the...”
Interference pulled the weakening signal like the bow of a bass.
“... learn the Fate of Humanity. You will live...”
Static washed across the signal like a rising tide now. They caught a last few words.
“... Wang, more music please...”
They listened to static for another five minutes before Junlong dropped into his seat and put his face in his hands.
#
Six weeks after losing the Zhong Kui to the vast ocean of space, the first Shrouding of Earth occurred on October, 24th, 2043.
Humanity prepared. All forms of vehicular travel were phased out by law until after the event. Sales in alarm clocks, batteries, torches, klaxons and oxygen tanks soared. The ISS was not evacuated. Although, of course, ‘The Shroud’ would swallow them along with the Earth, the crew volunteered to stay aboard in the interests of science and general goodwill. Ships made for the nearest home port. Martial law was declared in almost every country and borders closed. With 72 hours remaining, even daylight was reduced to a sickly brown fog, and with half the night sky blackened, authorities did their best to follow United Nations guidelines which ordered all roads closed. Sandbags, gates and barriers were erected in order to prevent looting. Cults around the world fell silent.
The island of Yap, a flyspeck in the western Pacific, was identified as the last point of the Shrouding. It had to mine its runway to stop private jets from trying to land. Around the world, street parties became riots. Riots became street parties. Prices were fixed and a black market on alcohol, drugs and fire-works flourished. Then, as the sky turned black as tar, most of the world went home and locked their doors.
In the end, when the time finally came, where possible, Humanity watched it come for them from their beds.
#
October 24th, 2043, The Gobi Desert
As Gabriel helped his father over the last rocks, the wind coursing over the summit knifed him through the sweat on his exposed chest. He folded his thin cotton shirt over and re-buttoned it. The idea to climb had not been his but almost everyone had agreed to witness the black curtain in the sky from this vantage point on top of the hill. It was a spectacular view, usually. But tonight the valley below was a bowl of empty darkness, seamlessly blending with the black curtain approaching from the east. Light was hard to come by in recent days.
Gabriel remembered his duty. “Sit, father. We’ve made it.”
His father nodded, trying to hide his breathlessness. Gabriel masked his amusement as he lowered their backpacks and chairs. His muscles ached but his blood was flush with a giddy excitement. He looked around the summit. Familiar voices whispered on the wind. Flashlights swept back and forth amid faces illuminated by golden, flickering campfires. Music from different sources mingled in the air. Someone was cooking a goat.
“It... it is a party.” Gabriel told his father.
“So dark!” His father managed.
Gabriel helped him into his lawn chair. “Yes.”
The sky was now almost completely black. Only a narrow cone of starlight remained to the west. Even as he watched, Sirius vanished as if pinched between the finger and thumb of God.
The black arch -- the ‘terminator’ (he remembered the word used by the UN man who had come to their village) -- was creeping forward slowly towards the other horizon. More than half the stars had disappeared.
“Not long now, father.”
Dabria appeared by flashlight. “Hello, Gabriel. You came up, too.”
Her long brown hair was pulled into the wind like a sail, forming a cone around her face from which her eyes sparkled. He didn’t know what to do with his hands or feet. “Dabria, hello. Yes. I brought chairs for us to sit on.”
She bent to kiss his father on the cheeks. Gabriel could smell almond on the breeze as she straightened up. “Yes, my father did the same.”
“Your... your father is here?” He took a step back.
She laughed. “Don’t worry. He and my brothers are over on the other side. And they’ve been drinking since morning.”
“I don’t drink.” Gabriel heard himself speak like a robot.
She touched his hand. “I know. I like that about you.”
A cry rose from the hillside, climbing over the wind. Gabriel followed the torchlight as they all turned to point eastward. Dabria clutched his arm. “Oh God, Gabriel. Here it comes! Here it comes! My family!” She pulled away and tried to start running. But Gabriel remembered what the man had told them and he snatched her back, pulled her into his arms.
“It’s too late. Quickly, sit here. Do what I say!” He pushed her into his chair and knelt at her feet, placing his hands on her waist. He was facing the wrong way. He looked into her brown eyes as they grew wide with terror, staring over his shoulder. Then she gripped his face and stared back with furious attention.
"I love you." He blurted.
“It’s here. It’s time.” And then she kissed him.
He was here and now there was here.
... One of her brothers had broken his nose but it had healed. She was now his bride. They were moving to a new pasture, one their fathers had not been to in several years. They had bought a new truck. She was pregnant.
They were happy...
He opened his eyes and looked straight into hers. The wind around them howled. She pulled away, staring at him in wonder. She tasted of honey.
“We... marry?” She asked in shock.
“Was that a dream?"
She frowned but then laughed.
Gabriel shook his head. "But... I don’t have the courage to ask for you.”
She smiled. “Yes, I think you do.” Then she tore her eyes away from his and gasped. “Look. Look behind you.”
All the stars in the east blazed and the Moon filled the valley with white, milky light. To the West, stars ignited against the receding arch, shrinking towards the black horizon. Sirius winked back into existence.
“It has passed.” Gabriel was a man of few words.
“But... what happened? It was different. They told us we would sleep, pass out.”
“Yes. We are awake.” Everywhere, families embraced and smiled in the firelight. Some stood and watched the stars appearing. It took a few moments to remember his duty.
“Father, what do you think happened?”
But his father was slumped against the canvas of his chair, as if someone had hooked him in the chin. He was out cold.
#
“Professor, seriously. We can all agree on those simple points. It is very likely. But that doesn’t explain why some perfectly healthy, young and vital people also collapsed during this event.”
“I’m afraid that there is one very strong possibility. These particular people may die for some unknown reason, perhaps unnatural, such as a car-crash or sudden illness. That position is backed up by simple statistical analysis.”
“Preposterous.”
“Not at all. And it is a finding endorsed by this Interim Report to the United Nations.”
“Ah, yes. This report which you yourself have authored. How convenient. Other studies refute that correlation. You’ve jumped to conclusions. There are forty pages of assumptions.”
“Lies, damn lies and statistics, Dianne?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, we’ll know in a year, won’t we?”
“Yes, we will, Professor. Let’s take a message from our sponsor. Back, with more, and the weather, after these.”
“Were you awake, Dianne?”
#
Borneo, November 13th, 2187
Miranda and her husband clung to each other while Christov gurgled happily between them. He had grown strong over the twelve months, despite the siege mentality surrounding him. He had been kept indoors almost the entire time. His mother barely left his side or line-of-sight. The beautiful and well-appointed apartment – it was really a bunker but her husband had stopped using the term – was fifteen feet underground, several hundred miles from Kuching, the capital city.
The room was dark save for a projection on the ceiling above them, counting down the Shroud terminator. Her heart pounded in her chest.
“Nearly there.” Her husband whispered. She could feel his pulse like a rabbit in his wrist. She felt an urge to pray to some deity and searched her panicking brain for the right words. The five second warning sounded. She closed her eyes, squeezed them shut.
She was here and now there was here.
... They were in London, shopping for her parents wedding anniversary. She was alone. Her feet ached in high heels. Her husband was pulling the car around and she was slightly irritated about how long it was taking… and… and… and… he had taken Christov with him...
She opened her eyes. Christov had stopped making noise. He was looking around with a very confused expression. She squealed and squeezed him, wrapping her child into a deep, long embrace. She felt her world re-opening, petals of possibilities unfurling.
Sobbing with relief, she struggled to speak. “My name is Miranda Kurtz and I am awake.”
Her husband’s own voice was thick and tears rolled down his cheeks. “You better swipe your parents. I’ll open the champagne.”
#
“The Shroud is a machine for presenting the most likely probability, Dianne.”
“You have no evidence for this, Professor.”
“If you would allow me to finish? Like any probability, the simple act of observing it will force that future to change. The real trick is to change it enough.”
“But the government is suggesting that everyone must remain calm and stay…”
“No. Anybody rendered unconscious during a Shrouding must change the course of their lives enough to avoid death. Some will change their diet. Some will have heart transplants or other operations. Many will change jobs.”
“But you cannot know what will kill you. This thing does not guarantee anything. It makes no promises, am I right, Professor?”
“A few super-rich, having eliminated the most obvious possibilities, will do the only logical thing: run for it. They will get the hell out of Dodge. I am forming a specialised agency which will pick - free of charge - a completely random destination for each individual. They can hot-foot it and leave everything else behind. This profound, random change will be enough to eliminate accidents. That can usually do the trick.”
“No guarantees from your either, Professor?”
But still, some ignored it. Those prone to a violent death rarely had the resources or the inclination to change enough about their lives to improve their chances. Gang members still died. Soldiers had a duty but the military machine found it hard to adapt to the probability, rather than just the possibility, of death. Conversely, it made it harder to plan a war, let alone execute one.
The elderly, poorly and frail often accepted it. They would – mostly – recover after falling unconscious and smile and say, “I am awake.” The Shroud presented them with a bead on their own personal event horizon.
#
February 22nd, 2303
The consciousness of Admiral Christov Kurtz could see in infrared. He was more a machine than a Human now. He pondered the view presented by their mission probe. A binary star system bathed the crystallized structure in a milky white light.
-- Everyone hold position, he sent.
He directed his main array to reach out towards the first extremity. The filament opened, twisting several folds of blue glass to reveal an illuminated platform.
-- I will go alone. Be ready to retreat.
He descended to the platform and waited. He did not have to wait long.
-- You have a question.
He was not startled. The voice was received on the hydrogen frequency, exactly where they had expected it. He widened the beam and sent his first question.
-- Why did you send The Shroud to our world?
-- We did not send The Shroud to your world.
There was no delay in response. It was like listening to pre-recorded answers.
-- Who sent it?
-- That is the Last Unknown.
Christov could not believe that they had travelled so far and gained so little.
-- Will you help us understand?
-- Yes. You and your kind are welcome to join us.
-- Thank you. How does The Shroud function?
-- Our efforts to understand The Shroud ceased millennia ago. There is nothing more to know of it.
-- It is a technology beyond our understanding. Can you help?
The pause lasted for less than a second but it still shocked Christov. Was that doubt? Was there a consensus sought? Christov grew wary. The voice continued.
-- We do not believe it is technological.
-- But it has a function. And it has purpose. And it is not sentient. For us, this defines technology.
-- It is not technology. It is not an alien artefact. It is the function itself.
-- Explain, please?
-- The Shroud spontaneously seeks out any group of sentient life and promotes commonality and enlightenment. There is no way to stop it. It is akin to gravity and energy, light and matter. It is built into the fabric of our Reality. There is nothing to study. Nothing to control. No influence available to apply to it.
-- There must be more.
-- It is a manifestation of the purpose of the Universe.
Christov was staring Mission Failure in the face. He transmitted questions to buy time.
-- When did your Shroud arrive?
-- We are many worlds. But a single answer will suffice: Eons ago. The most recent arrival was one hundred and seventy nine galactic cycles.”
-- Do you have a record of its origin?”
-- None. It appears at a distance and approaches. Then, in every recorded event, it translates to the most populous orbits. And integration occurs.
Data streamed into the link. Masses of planetary information, statistics, facts and figures, a torrent of galactic history. It distracted Christov; he shunted the stream into the last available transmission bands and shared it with the others. They consumed it like addicts. He gathered his thoughts…
-- Integration?
-- It is a process, over many cycles, where the sentient life-forms grow towards enlightenment.
-- Wait. How many recorded events?
-- All of them.
-- Explain?
-- All sentient life of sufficient quantity is visited by a Shroud. This function is an effect of sentience upon the fabric of our Reality.
The sheer volume of data he was receiving staggered him. He could feel his processing matrix venting heat into the vacuum, opening petals around it’s equator to compensate.
-- Every planet?
-- Every populated world.
-- Do you pray to it?
-- It is not a deity. It does not possess whims or favour. It acts upon the subjects own needs. It makes the global, personal.
-- But it can be avoided. We have colonies. They are not visited by a Shroud.
-- They lack sufficient density of sentience. It differs for each race. Also, these subjective life-forms have made a choice to be excluded. Will you share?
Christov had no choice. He let his own stream of data flow between his lattices and down the gravity well. Everything the Human Race had ever recorded.
-- You were once like us. Violent and lost. Fixed to the past. Your back was once turned to the future.
-- Yes. We have a shameful past.
-- These colonies. They suffer, they struggle?
-- Yes. They say we are in thrall to 'The Shroud'.
-- No. It is they who are enthralled. To the past.
-- I understand.
-- The Shroud makes one look ahead. Join us, facing the future. You are awake.
The End
