The Stirring of the Stellar River Star Map Draftsman II: Fate of the Galaxy

Jonathan knew now that Kukra City was a ship with a mission of its own—or rather a temporary base—and the general headquarters of the Great Migration to a new universe. The people talking to him had no names; collectively they called themselves the Shepherds of the Cosmos. What they told him was plenty for him to digest. As it turned out, the universe the Orion Arm belonged to was the universe bubble numbered Bc1qqkf26g, and the number of galaxies it contained was beyond Jonathan’s imagination. When Jonathan asked the Shepherd about the Datheon, he was told only that the Datheon were something like sheepdogs for these civilizations and peoples of different levels. Every galaxy like the Milky Way had its sheepdogs. They looked after only the civilizations in their own galaxy and made sure those civilizations didn’t cross into another galaxy and cause trouble. That had been agreed on, and that was why the Datheon had given the Moreth Federation Star Bridge technology—but Star Bridges could only be used in the Orion Arm; they couldn’t cross to other spiral arms, let alone other galaxies. The Shepherd also showed him the whole of this universe bubble. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a regular sphere; it looked more like a huge trumpet. Jonathan could understand that: everything began when the universe exploded from a single point in one direction, so a trumpet shape wasn’t strange. The Laniakea Supercluster had shrunk to a white dot, blinking, to show where they were now. The Milky Way couldn’t be seen at all; it was only one disk-shaped galaxy within the Laniakea Supercluster.

“So what do you want with me?” Jonathan asked, looking at the Shepherd.

“We like Jonathan Moreth Steader’s proactive character. Allow me to say a few more words. We’ve been through the Great Migration many times. To us, it’s like a fixed holiday, nothing more. But even a well-planned holiday can have small hiccups that spoil the mood, so we need someone like Jonathan Moreth Steader, who has armed forces, to keep the Great Migration running normally—to keep anyone from doing something foolish. After all, there’s only one chance at the Great Migration. If it doesn’t succeed, then it simply doesn’t get done.” The Shepherd kept the same smile as before.

“I see. You just need security.” Jonathan smiled, then his face turned serious. He stared at the Shepherd and asked, “Why me?”

“Jonathan Moreth Steader is the only one in the Orion Arm who fits. Lord Winifred is as good as useless, and besides…” The Shepherd blew through his nose, and his smile turned a little mocking. Looking toward the other side of the room, he went on, “Madam Winifred found an excuse to send him away. She thought that with the Star Map Draftsman’s ship technology, she could catch up with the Great Migration. Too bad—someone found out long ago. If things went as expected, he has already been intercepted by the people Hamilton sent, and the ship seized. As for the two princes of the Strath Federation, they actually knew about the Great Migration long ago. They attacked the Ashton Federation for the ship technology—a ship technology that could join the Great Migration. Now they’re obsessed with building ships, so they aren’t suitable for keeping order either. That leaves Jonathan Moreth Steader as the only suitable candidate. Besides, you have the reliable Centaly people behind you.”

“What makes you so sure I’ll agree to your idea?” Jonathan asked, hands clasped behind his back, looking toward the far end of the room.

“Jonathan Moreth Steader is a man of ambition. A great leader lives inside him, and he is the person in the whole Orion Arm best suited to be a ruler. True, we considered others—a certain new leader in the Solar System, for example, or General Duncan of the Ashton Federation. But on the whole, we would rather have a new leader in the future to make sure the Milky Way can complete the Great Migration safely.”

“The Milky Way?” Jonathan raised his voice.

“Yes. Managing the migration of the entire Milky Way,” the Shepherd answered firmly.

“Managing the entire Milky Way?” Jonathan could hardly believe what he was hearing. After all, although their goal was to rule the whole Milky Way, that was surely a long-term goal, one that couldn’t be reached in the short term and perhaps never could. He would be content to rule the Orion Arm. Now, hearing the Shepherd say this, he swallowed nervously, then tightened his throat and went on, “Why would they listen to me? Besides, the Milky Way is so big—would the civilizations on the other spiral arms listen to me? They may be even more developed than the Moreth Federation.”

“Jonathan Moreth Steader really is thorough. We’ve thought all this through for you. At present, each of the other spiral arms is led by one civilization, so you only need to win over the leaders of four civilizations. When the time comes, we’ll use a super Star Bridge to send you to the gravitational depression points of their core star regions. Then you just take the materials we give you and show them. At that point you’ll be the Shepherds’ messenger, and they will naturally listen to you. No matter how advanced their civilizations are, they’ll have to obey you. After all, you have us behind you.” “Why don’t you go yourselves?” Jonathan asked.

“There isn’t time. There are still some galaxies we need to attend to; we can’t go and notify the people on every spiral arm one by one.” The Shepherd kept smiling, and Jonathan wondered whether these so-called Shepherds might be advanced robots.

“Then what did you mean when you said you’ve been through the Great Migration many times?”

“Oh, Jonathan Moreth Steader, the universe is not only as big as what you can see. Out there are many more universe bubbles, and inside each bubble is another complex system of galaxies. If you were a Shepherd and could look from another angle, you would see that these universe bubbles are like grapes hanging on the vines of an endless vineyard. The principle of universe bubbles isn’t like grapes, though. Some universe bubbles have just been born, and some are already old, but we have no choice but to put the dark matter inside them to use again. That’s all I can tell you.”

“What should I do next?” Jonathan asked, looking at the Shepherd.

“Eat these.” The Shepherd took a White Crystal from behind him, held it out to Jonathan, and went on, “With an ordinary creature’s lifespan, you can’t join this migration. So you need to extend your life.”

Jonathan looked at the crystal-clear gem. It was a treasure countless people fought over, but Jonathan had always believed the thing was poison. If life were extended so mechanically, he would forget his dreams; he would get lost in the long river of time, drift with the current, and finally rot. Jonathan clenched his jaw and lowered his head to think. In the end he stepped back and firmly shook his head at the Shepherd.

“Jonathan Moreth Steader, have you made your decision?” The Shepherd held the White Crystal out farther, almost to Jonathan’s mouth.

“I don’t take White Crystals.” Jonathan turned his head a little away.

“It won’t do you any harm, and if you take it, you can quickly fulfill your dream. We’ve looked into you; your dream of ruling the Milky Way is plain for all to see.”

“That is indeed my dream, but I don’t take White Crystals.”

“Oh, that’s a pity.” For the first time, the Shepherd put away his smile. He drew the White Crystal back behind him, then turned and went to sit in his own seat.

“In that case, I suppose there’s nothing more for me here.” With that, Jonathan headed out.

A low murmur of discussion began in the conference room. Jonathan noticed that the low-level contact who should have led him out hadn’t moved, but stayed where he was, watching every move in the room. Jonathan had gone only a few steps when the Shepherd called out to him, and the discussion in the room stopped abruptly. Jonathan turned around. The Shepherd beckoned him back to the seat he had just left, and without thinking much, he did so. As it turned out, asking Jonathan to take the White Crystal had been only a test; if he had eaten it, there would have been nothing further. Jonathan listened to the Shepherds’ plan. They knew that Hamilton’s laboratory had already found the boundary of the universe and had already let the news out. Before long, other civilizations would discover the secret of the dark matter leak too. What came next was easy to understand: they would look for the source, or simply do whatever they pleased, and some would even make themselves out to be saviors and put on a brief circus. Strictly speaking, what the Shepherd described was already happening. Life has always been so colorful and dazzling, and the things that seem illogical yet make perfect common sense are, if anything, proof of life’s diversity. As Sakya’s experimental results spread through the Orion Arm, ambitious men began crowdfunding galaxy coins to build the Noah’s Ark of human legend; military men began rallying more troops, hoping to swallow up other political forces; artists finally seized a once-in-a-millennium chance to sing of the crisis and the hope it held. Wars across every star region were like a cold virus, doing harm here and there in humanity’s blood. No one could look out for anyone else, no one knew what tomorrow would bring, and they didn’t even have a concrete plan for getting through today.

The Great Migration was real. Everyone believed it without a doubt, and it was a fact. The Shepherds appeared in the media of every civilization for the first time to tell everyone. They put it tactfully, saying only that time was short and urging everyone to cherish it. In a few scattered words they told of the loss of dark matter and of the fact that the present universe—the universe bubble numbered Bc1qqkf26g—would soon return to cold darkness, and they mentioned that a long-planned Great Migration would take place so that life could continue in another universe bubble. The Shepherds said nothing at all about who could take part in the migration or how the list was decided. They gave the people here no chance. People searched for hope in their panic, consoled themselves that there must be a way while running into walls and powerlessness everywhere, and finally harvested despair in their tears. It ended very much as a poet’s lines put it: the answer to life will in the end be only a tombstone. Dawn Lucius and Sandra met up and hurried back to the Solar System. They urged Stacean Lucius to build ships quickly and had the ten scientists scan and store the Sane ship’s data, hoping that with their help they could develop ships capable of escaping to a land of hope. Dawn Lucius broadcast the complete data of the Sane ship, hoping everyone in this universe would receive it and be able to develop their own ships from it. Maybe it would be of no use, but maybe it would.

Using the strength of the Defenders’ Alliance and spending a great deal of manpower and money, Hamilton finally recovered Lord Winifred’s ship. He put everyone aboard on the nearest planet, and the ship was flown away. Hamilton’s goal was to get the coordinates of the ship’s destination. As for using dark matter as fuel to drive a ship, Hamilton no longer cared about that; his team had already mastered it. Minister Zhou Qing had once suspected that Hamilton was after the ship’s materials. But if it came to how tough the ship’s materials were, Zhou Qing was underestimating Hamilton. After all, he was one of the Ashton Federation’s most important scientists. Apart from not knowing how White Crystals were made, neither materials nor ship technology were beyond him. Once he had the result, Hamilton contacted Zhou Qing right away and shared the information: the destination of Lord Winifred’s ship was an ordinary star system in the Sagittarius Arm. It looked as though the secret of the Great Migration might well be hidden there—most likely a super Star Bridge, or else a station where the Great Migration began. Zhou Qing asked Hamilton whether he had questioned Lord Winifred. The answer was that there was no useful information. Besides, that ship was still at the edge of the Orion Arm, and if Madam Winifred learned that her son had been hijacked and decided to look into it seriously, the Defenders’ Alliance probably wouldn’t have any peace. Hamilton reminded Zhou Qing to be careful.

“What are we still missing?” Zhou Qing’s hologram asked from behind Hamilton.

“Time and place.”

“Mm, that really is tricky. When the Great Migration will begin, and where it’s going—no one really knows.”

“You’re wrong,” Hamilton said, turning to face Zhou Qing’s hologram. “The Great Migration began long ago. The moment dark matter started leaking must have been when the first wave of migration happened. What we need more now is the time when this universe goes out—which is also all the time we have left, the only time in which we can save ourselves.”

“Has Sakya worked out anything about the timing?” Zhou Qing went on.

“No. He still insists that the shape of the universe bubble he simulated is wrong—that it isn’t a sphere—so he’s still repairing his model.”

“A waste of time.” Zhou Qing sighed angrily.

“Not entirely. That’s the interesting thing about science: there’s no target, but in the course of the research, the truth comes out.”

“Fine. Is the super Star Bridge going smoothly?”

“Yes. The energy is stable, and so is the distance. We’re improving the ships now. We’ve cracked the material of the Star Map Draftsman’s ship.”

“Good. Ah, it’s sad.” Zhou Qing couldn’t help growing sorrowful and let out a deep sigh.

“There’s nothing I can do about your family matters,” Hamilton said seriously.

“I really wish I’d known about Kukra City sooner. I would have blown it up in advance, and my daughter wouldn’t have lost her chance. Or I could go blow it up now,” Zhou Qing said through gritted teeth.

“Kukra City isn’t the culprit. The people who led your daughter to take White Crystals are. The first day I met you, I warned you not to take White Crystals. Besides, Kukra City is now under Jonathan’s protection. The Centaly people have turned out almost their entire army, and with the Shepherds’ technology backing them, no military power would dare to have the idea you just had.”

“If Jonathan Moreth Steader doesn’t stand on our side, what do you plan to do?”

“I don’t know. What’s happening now has upset my plans. Originally I meant to develop that device for Jonathan to boost his strength, so he could protect us while we finished the super Star Bridge, until we settled on a migration plan. I never expected the Shepherds to come and win him over. What worries me most is that the Shepherds only want to complete the migration mission they’ve already laid out and won’t allow anyone else—you and me, for instance—to migrate. If they send Jonathan to stop us when the time comes, then we may truly have no hope. I need to think it over again.”

“Surely not. How could we affect their migration?”

“My guess right now is that the number of people the Great Migration can hold is limited, and they won’t allow extra people into the destination. Or else they won’t allow that many super Star Bridges to link to the destination.” At the mention of super Star Bridges, Hamilton didn’t go on, because the super Star Bridge he was developing now could only work within the known universe. Where was the Great Migration’s destination? If it wasn’t in the known universe, then everything he had obtained from the Defenders’ Alliance would be counted as sunk cost, and if those people came to settle accounts with him, it was a debt he couldn’t carry.

“We can’t worry about all that now. Kukra City has handed out White Crystals to nearly every corner. Only a rare few who still have some faith in life haven’t taken them—that, and chosen ones like you and me. I’m worried the Shepherds will start the Great Migration early. If they leave, we really are beyond saving. The whole Orion Arm is in chaos right now. From the information I’ve gathered, the Strath Federation has abandoned its outer star regions and concentrated all its forces on that experimental zone. So cunning. They must have known about the Great Migration all along, so they attacked the Ashton Federation to get ship technology—I’d guess the technology for building ships like the Star Map Draftsman’s.”

“Mm. But now the Star Map Draftsman has published all the data on the Sane ship, which will no doubt speed up the Strath Federation’s migration. Since they’re hiding away researching super Star Bridges, they must already have mastered the use of dark matter. Keep monitoring them, and tell me right away if there’s any news.” Hamilton grew alert.

“Also, Madam Winifred still hasn’t left Visadio Planet, and Visadio Planet hasn’t slowed down. Ever since she sped up its rotation during that great battle, the acceleration should have been switched off, but the speed seems to still be increasing.” As Zhou Qing said this, he too had some doubts.

“Still accelerating? That makes no sense.”

“It is. You need to be careful too. The Orion Arm is in chaos again. I hear some people are already talking about seizing your laboratory. Probably another rabble hoping to use the chance to loot something.”

“Minister Zhou, what I’m afraid of is someone pretending to be a rabble and using the chance to seize the laboratory. We have neither the resources nor the time to build another super Star Bridge.”

“All right. Then I’ll send three more armies over, and the two warships Chairman Layte specially approved for me—I’ll send those too.” Zhou Qing clenched his fist.

“That would be best.”

“As for the Star Map Draftsman, the scientists I sent helped them build ships and passed on everything we’ve accumulated, holding nothing back. I only hope he can help us someday.”

“Mm. He’s a kind man and not as scheming as we are. Just keep the relationship going, but know your limits. Don’t get any more ideas about his son.”

“I won’t. We have all the Star Source data; there’s no need to stir up more trouble.”

The effects of the dark matter loss were growing more and more obvious for Dawn Lucius. The Star Source on his arm was always inexplicably cold, leaving his whole body weak. He told Sandra it seemed there was no chance to turn any of this around, yet he wasn’t willing to accept it. “No one is willing,” Sandra comforted him. At least, apart from Jonathan, no one in the Orion Arm knew that the Datheon would not be appearing. In the Shepherds’ words, the Datheon had long since stationed themselves along the route the Great Migration had to take; they were the hardest-working laborers of the Great Migration. There were still people in the Orion Arm hoping the Datheon would appear and save them as they had in past eras. The most typical was Duncan. It took Sandra a long time to persuade her stubborn brother to stop pinning his hopes on the Datheon: the Datheon must be taking part in this Great Migration; if not, with the Orion Arm in this state, they would have come long ago. Dawn Lucius remembered something he had heard before—that the Star Map Draftsman was an abandoned project. Back then Sandra had comforted him and told him not to be sad; after all, not just anyone could become a Star Map Draftsman. Dawn Lucius thought of it the other way around: if not for the Star Source, he would have died aboard the Sane ship long ago from malnutrition and severe internal injuries, let alone seen Stacean Lucius again or met Sandra. Thinking of this, he felt that perhaps nothing was beyond saving after all. He had to try hard, and even if the result really was bad, he would have no regrets. Dawn Lucius found Stacean Lucius and told him what he was thinking. He urged Stacean Lucius to step up security—better yet, to go into hiding. Even though he had shared all the technology of the Sane ship, there was no guarantee no one would covet the ship itself; someone might try to take the Sane ship by kidnapping Stacean Lucius. Sandra also told Katherine what she thought: many civilizations stay at Level Zero forever until they vanish, because they can’t break through the upper limit of their knowledge. Now was a good time for the Solar System to break out of Level Zero, and they had to concentrate on spreading and applying knowledge. As for everything else, she told Katherine not to worry. After a brief farewell, Dawn Lucius and Sandra left the Solar System.

Hamilton had been very proactive lately, sharing the laboratory’s research results with Jonathan from time to time. He also said that, for Jonathan’s sake, the laboratory had gone to great lengths to upgrade its dark matter refining technology: the device no longer needed to go back to Planet Vonia to recharge, and he had prepared a smaller unit for Jonathan that only had to be installed on a ship. Jonathan knew what Hamilton was after. He simply wanted to find out from Jonathan what arrangements the Shepherds had made for the Great Migration, and better still, to get the coordinates of the destination. Jonathan really did want the Star Source that Hamilton had built, but at this point he held the upper hand in the negotiation, and there was no need to show weakness. So every time, Jonathan turned Hamilton down on the grounds that he had new arrangements. He even hinted that Hamilton should stop contacting him; it wouldn’t be good if the Shepherds learned he wasn’t focused on the “plan.” Jonathan stressed the word “plan” again and again. In fact, he just wanted Hamilton to know how much weight he carried in the Shepherds’ eyes; he was no longer that defeated Moreth Steader. Still, Jonathan really had been busy lately. More and more people were besieging Kukra City. At first it was only a few extremists coming to seize White Crystals, willing to take their chances even against Kukra City’s powerful firepower, but such attacks were few. Then the Shepherds ordered all the security personnel to start expelling people from Kukra City—the people who had come here looking for opportunities—and after that the flying fortress came under attack more and more often. Once the people in the octopus-leg halls that had once been so lively had all been driven out, Kukra City was surrounded so tightly that not even a drop of water could get through. They had probably guessed that the Shepherds were hiding in Kukra City, and that made it worth a try. No one knew what surrounding it like this was supposed to achieve. Every army of any strength in the Orion Arm had come too, and everyone was discussing how to knock out the few huge cannons on Kukra City, but no one was confident.

Jonathan was worried by such a show of force too. No matter how brave and skilled in battle the Centaly people were, they couldn’t handle so many. In front of the Shepherds he occasionally let his worry show, but the Shepherds always kept that smile that hadn’t changed in a thousand days and reassured Jonathan: be patient. They only needed a little more time, and the mission would be complete. Then Jonathan could take all these armies outside and lead the entire Milky Way. He only had to hold on a bit longer; perhaps by the next time the two of them met, the present siege would be over. When the Shepherd finished speaking, he went back to the cabin at the top of the ship. Only the Shepherds could enter it; ordinary people couldn’t withstand the pressure of a star that huge compressed together as a power source. The Datheon were only the Shepherds’ sheepdogs, so these people—or rather, these things—had long since gone beyond any energy level. Jonathan could only go back to the command room and stare blankly at the dense swarm of warships in space outside. The marks of time moved forward, and the situation outside changed too; some ships came, and some left. The newly arrived ships were always the bravest—or the most foolish—sending small craft to probe Kukra City. Only after those craft vanished under Kukra City’s cannons did no one dare come probing again. Jonathan was a little worried: if the Shepherds didn’t provide the military power or privileges they had promised, what was he doing wasting his time here? In truth he didn’t want the Great Migration to happen. He briefly thought that after the Great Migration, this universe would be nothing but darkness—so what meaning would there be in ruling anyone?

In his time of indecision, Jonathan thought of Hamilton’s proposal. At least he could take that device modeled on the Star Source and accomplish something. Jonathan had a chance to join the ranks of the Great Migration. The Shepherds had never published a list or the scope of who would migrate, but Jonathan figured that if he pushed for it, the Shepherds would most likely agree to let him bring the Centaly people along to keep order for them. In fact, he had another, crazy idea: if he could bring that device with him, then once they had migrated into the new universe bubble, he could use the chance to rule the new universe. Jonathan was shocked by his own idea. He had spoken privately with King Theobald, and the answer was the same as ever: Jonathan would always be their Moreth Steader. That truly gave Jonathan courage. But the problem now was that he had no way at all to get the complete device from Hamilton. Kukra City was surrounded so tightly that no one could get out or in. Another, riskier option was to have it delivered by a small disguised attack craft. It would exchange passwords with the security personnel in the command room in advance, and once it was a certain distance from Kukra City, it would speed up and charge in, so that other ships couldn’t use the chance to get close to Kukra City. That seemed workable. The tricky problem in front of him was that the people in the command room were Shepherds. Jonathan couldn’t think of any reason that would persuade them, nor any suitable excuse to get them to hand command over to him, or to the Centaly people. Desire is a frightening thing. Once a thought takes hold, it is like a thorn driven into the flesh, leaving a person unable to sit still.

Dawn Lucius and Sandra decided to go back to Planet Gorov and work with Sakya and the steadfast scientists to find the secret of the Great Migration. As soon as they arrived, they flew the Sane ship into the laboratory. Dawn Lucius allowed any scientist to go aboard and study it, and from time to time he guided dark matter to start the ship and demonstrated the Star Map Draftsman’s abilities to the scientists. Sandra suggested that the scientists record all the data and broadcast it to the entire Milky Way. Everyone was delighted with such progress—everyone except Hamilton, who couldn’t be happy about it; he didn’t want anyone else to be able to join the Great Migration. On the surface, he said “let’s see how it goes,” but behind their backs he was planting ideas of a looming crisis in the minds of the wavering scientists. He led them to believe that the Star Map Draftsman had failed to fulfill the duty the Datheon had set for him and had instead made all this information public, letting people pry into the Datheon’s secrets. This, he suggested, might well bring the Datheon’s revenge; the fear was that before this universe went dark, they would vanish at a mere flick of the Datheon’s finger—and all of this would be the result of the Star Map Draftsman’s current mad behavior. Before long, the laboratory split into two factions, and the war of words eventually escalated into violent conflict. It was hard to imagine: when a group of people who revered culture rather than force came to blows, the scale was every bit as fierce as a regular army’s. Finally Sandra felt it necessary to take charge of the research, and with the Defenders’ Alliance soldiers stretched too thin to keep order, the troops Sandra had asked Duncan to bring arrived. They didn’t come down to the surface, but a large fleet of Ashton Federation warships was parked in low orbit, and the armed clashes on the ground decreased. The war of words, too, turned into nothing more than angry glares.

The overall situation was far from hopeful. The military forces of the Orion Arm were beginning to gather around Kukra City and Planet Gorov. What Hamilton cared about more was how to keep the laboratory safe, and even if it couldn’t be kept safe, he hoped to get the destination’s coordinates before conflict broke out. The super Star Bridge had been upgraded continuously, and the man who came to report showed Hamilton its range: at the very least, it could cross the boundary of the universe Sakya had described and reach another, new universe. That pleased him greatly. Lately he hadn’t been so angry, and he would greet the scientists in the laboratory. Sometimes, though, Hamilton felt melancholy too. Seeing the dense swarm of ships in Planet Gorov’s orbit gave him an anxious feeling that the next time he opened his eyes he would be lying in a sickbed for the wounded—or that once he closed his eyes, he would never get the chance to open them again. He reached out to Jonathan more readily. The interests the two of them shared had grown larger than before: Jonathan also wanted to find out the destination, and at the same time he wanted the device Hamilton had custom-built for him. Their exchanges became more equal; they would even tease each other a little. Every time before signing off, they reminded each other, “Time is running out.” Sadness spread over both of them again, and it seemed the whole Orion Arm could feel it.