2.10 - Void of Secrets

[Transcript]The Methagor Dwarf Galaxy lies about 650,000 light years up linear-y from Apotheosis. Dexikai home world, Dexes, is on the far rim. Zery managed to sweet talk us a job from the Termescash Conclave. They’re trying to establish a new fulcrum diode that goes out beyond the Kedder Void, beyond the Fubrosis Supercluster. The job would take us further away from home than I’ve ever been.We stocked provisions, I sent some final messages to Tod’rish Scar and a few other friends. Hamark left some data packets for his Orware family and Zery wrote a synth entry to her mother. She was sad she might never see the weavers on Hakelm Adi again. But a job’s a job.Termescash Conclave gave us an antique Odo lens. The Seraphim cornea they sculpted it from still had the nictitating membrane over the iris. The antique lens would let us jump straight into the Kedder Void for the survey work. Tasks were simple enough. Take their measurements, collect density data from the void, investigate and dwarf galaxies or other celestial bodies. And then come back. I dipped my hand into Hamark’s micro-colony, Zery’s silken fingers giving my other a squeeze before I set the lens telemetry. Way. Way out there. Into the dark we went.We track our orientation with precision. Most reference Em waves are too redshifted to be of any use to get back otherwise. It’s empty. Blank. A black, velvet sweep of nothingness in all directions for 436 million lightyears. We hurry to get the job done, eager to return to the rest of the Continuum where there’s life, light, and an assurance you are not utterly isolated from the rest of the universe.We’re wrapping the last of the density survey data when Hamark sees something on the scopes. It’s thin maybe no more than 6-10 centimeters wide. But it is long, stretching well beyond sensor or psychic range and off into the null vacuum nothingness. A job’s a job. So we follow it deeper into the void.It goes on and on. Hamark takes exact telemetry notes each time we use the lens to follow this surreal filament deeper into the darkness. At one point he notes it's almost 200 million light years long. And still it stretches before us. We pause, closing in on the strand to get a better look, giving up trying to find the end. Up close it’s a string of nanoscopic beads chained together with the strangest data lacing I’ve ever seen. And there’s something else. Power. 10^40 joules worth of energy flowing through these intergalactic cables. From where to what? We don’t stick around to find out.