That was what it felt like.
Feathers squealed, and cowered away from the light.
Salma instinctively grabbed her, put her gloved hand at the back of Feathers’ head, and pressed her face against her shoulder. And she jammed shut her own eyes.
Meriel called, ‘Check that your visor filters are working. Resetting all of your suits remotely. Salma, check Feathers—’
‘I’m on it.’ Salma knew the drill; they had practised for such contingencies often enough. She tapped her own visor to ensure opacity, then opened her eyes cautiously. With the helmet closed, she saw only interior displays. She felt for the test panel on her own chest and tapped it. A display at the base of her field of view showed a mix of amber and green, the amber lights flicking over to green, one by one.
She was still holding Feathers, and when she touched Feathers’ visor with one gloved finger she got a similar display, though the switch to green was a little slower. The human-intended suit, adapted to Feathers’ physiology – hastily, and with much guesswork about the functions of Feathers’ body in extreme conditions – was never going to be as finely tuned as it would be if there was a human inside. But it seemed OK for now, and she called that out.
‘Good,’ Meriel said. ‘Everybody seems fine.’
Doria called, ‘Umm, I’m following the light show with my own external monitors. I think it’s safe to look out now. If you have any trouble seeing, any at all, or if there are any other radiation alarms in your suit—’
‘Got it,’ Vasta said.
Now Salma dared to allow her faceplate to clear to what seemed like transparency, but actually was, she knew, a heavily edited, reduced-intensity rendering of the reality.
The sky, another new sky, was a wash of light.
She saw an array of stars, shining brightly through a gas cloud, which itself was turbulent, frothy, multi-coloured, illuminated from within by yet more stars – as if boiling, but caught in a freeze-frame image. A barrage of stationary light, hanging over the ground of this dull grey, worn-out world, a turmoil on superhuman scales of time and space.
But there was a sense of depth. Some of those embedded stars seemed close, while others shone through layers of the cloud, through curtains of turbulent gas and debris. All frozen still.
And in among that stilled chaos, Salma thought she could see a tinge of green. Starlight, as if filtered through the green of the grasses and leafy plants in Meriel’s hydroponic farm. How could that be …?
It occurred to her to look around at her companions.
Doria, a few paces away, was looking down at the ground, in fact. Tapping her booted foot. ‘Looks like the same unprepossessing planet. A constant in all this – transition. Even colder, if that’s possible. And our heap of gear came with us, I’m glad to say.’
Vasta seemed to chuckle. ‘That’s a lunar for you,’ she said. ‘Always aware of what’s under her feet rather than what’s in the sky.’
Meriel snorted. ‘And that’s an Earther for you, is it? Always categorising, sneering—’
‘Forget it,’ Doria snapped. ‘Offensive she may be, but she does have a point. We all need an anchor in this – unreality. But I have a point too, don’t I? The ground underfoot hasn’t changed so far as I can see. Somehow we’ve been riding this world as it has been brought to – to this place, this other universe, I guess. So at least we have some kind of stability amid all this chaos.’ She seemed to have to force herself to stare up at the stars. ‘Under a sky like a frozen explosion,’ she said softly.
Terminus appeared to have witnessed their emergence calmly. It said, Such transitions can be destabilising. In fact such young universes as yours are more amenable to interconnections through the higher dimensions. Engineering is more feasible—
‘Park it,’ Vasta said.
She lifted her head, and Salma saw how the gaudy stars were reflected in her visor.
‘All right,’ Vasta said now. ‘I’ve managed a quick survey of our latest new sky. And those are young-universe stars, are they not? Just as we saw when we first arrived on Feathers’ world. Or rather, they’re the kind of stars a young universe creates. Though this isn’t my field. Have we gone back in time again?’
Terminus seemed to think that over.
Your thinking is limited.
Vasta frowned. ‘Limited? I’m talking about time travel!’
Salma was still hugging Feathers close, though more gently. She tried to take all this in. ‘So is this … place … very young? Compared to our universe. If those stars are like the early stars at home, Elizabeth … If that’s true, why all the green?’
Vasta frowned, her expression visible through her faceplate. She looked up at the sky – and clearly picked out those huddles of stars Salma had noticed, with the greenish tinge.
Terminus hovered silently.
Salma pressed. ‘Elizabeth, you said that these are very young stars, like the first stars in our universe. But the green – I thought it took billions of years for green life to evolve.’
‘Photosynthesis, yes. On Earth.’
Salma waved a hand. ‘So how come—’
‘How come those morning-of-the-universe stars have their light filtered through the green? Shit. Damn good question, Salma. I don’t know.’ Vasta seemed to be growing agitated. She turned to Terminus. ‘You are showing us these scenes. You want us to work this out for ourselves. Why, I don’t yet understand.’ She pointed accusingly at the sky, with one gloved hand. ‘Am I wrong? Am I mistaken that those stars are like the first stars to form in our universe?’
You are not mistaken. Like those stars.
‘Like them. Then it must follow that this universe is very young – probably not even a billion years old, compared to our universe of thirteen or fourteen billion years—’
You are mistaken.
‘Then what—’
The stars are young.
This universe is not young.
It is infinitely old.
And infinite in extent.
And Vasta just stared. At the sky, at the floating intelligence, at her companions.
At the impossibly young stars in an impossibly ancient universe.
‘Oh … I think …’
Then she crumpled, and fell back heavily on the ground.
Meriel hurried to Vasta. Doria followed, and got down on the ground beside her.
Feathers squealed with fear.
Salma held her tight. ‘Hush. You stay with me. It’s all right …’
Meriel snapped, ‘Lift her head. Just a little.’
Doria got down further and cradled Vasta’s head on her own outstretched arm.
Meriel tapped at a console on the chest panel of Vasta’s suit and interrogated it with barked commands.
Then she sat back on her haunches. ‘I think it’s just a faint. She’s overwrought. I think we all are.’ She glanced back at the floating ball that was Terminus up at the strange, brilliant, green-littered sky. ‘This has been too much. But I think she’ll be OK if we get her into the shelter, out of her suit for a while. Salma—’
‘On it.’ Salma let go of Feathers, pointed to their heap of gear, and, in the mime-and-sign language they had worked out over the years, hastily told Feathers that they had to put the shelter up. They broke away from the group and made for the equipment pile.
Looking back, Salma saw Vasta move a little, lift a hand. Salma heard a whisper, indecipherable, in her own suit’s system.
Meriel bent over Vasta and stared into Vasta’s faceplate. ‘What’s that, Elizabeth? Your voice is very faint …’
Salma heard Vasta draw in a ragged breath and say, ‘Infinitely old and infinite in extent my backside. What about Olbers’ paradox? Answer me that …’
And she fell back, as if succumbing to unconsciousness again.