The walk to the Aberration Sphere seems to take longer than last time, the list of names and the summaries of the lives provided by Qod a lot less inviting—another inconvenient symptom of fear, the debilitating skew of perception leading to the eventual paralysis of will. I have to stay focused on the facts, not my insecurities.
The entrance is wide open, waiting for me to choose a life and see Keitus Vieta again. I still can’t shake the feeling that he is somehow watching me, so I stand and stare, studying the tiny blue lights, wishing I could see the end of each story without actually experiencing them.
“Well? Are you going to choose or not?”
“Yes, but I want to make the right choice, Qod. If I have to face Keitus Vieta again, I’d rather it be the last time.”
“So who is it going to be?”
I pause, thinking again about the small fraction of lives she has offered me out of so many millions from this sphere. “I don’t believe that looking for the soul with the most significant aberration is the right way to approach this.”
“No? Then how would you like to approach this?”
“I think we need to find the very first aberration. If we can locate the life that holds it, then surely we can find out where Keitus Vieta came from and who or what he really is. Can you do that? Can you tell me which soul was the first to have an aberration associated with it?”
“Processing … Ah yes. The first aberration showed up in the life of subject 8.47121E+77, Abbot Thamiel Deepseed, the last leader of a technophobic religious order living on Castor’s World.”
“Castor’s World?”
“You remember the Great Cataclysm?”
“I’d rather not.”
“It happened when the Soul Consortium first broke free from the cosmos to escape the Great AI. The resulting energy imbalance caused unparalleled destruction that devastated almost all the star systems sixty light-years from the center of the universe. It took—”
“Yes, yes, I remember it clearly. I was there, remember? Just tell me about the planet.”
“I was just coming to that. Castor’s World was on the border of the catastrophe, the closest planet to the center of the universe still able to support life. After the holocaust, which killed almost everyone living there, the planet remained isolated from the rest of the colonies for thousands of years. The few remaining survivors chose a simple life modeled on Old Earth. They believed salvation would be achieved by embracing the origins of humanity.”
“And you’re sure that’s where I can find the first aberration?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s so long after the time of Orson Roth and Dominique Mancini. How can this monk be the first person to find Keitus Vieta? Are you quite sure about this?”
“Of course.”
“Despite the fact that the Great Cataclysm happens only a few hundred thousand years before the collapse of the universe too?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re completely sure?”
“I’m running out of ways to say yes.”
“But how is it possible?”
I can imagine Qod shrugging as she answers. “Unknown.”
“Fine.” I sigh. “I’ll just have to find the answers for myself, won’t I? So give me the summary on this monk. Apart from the obvious misfortune of meeting Keitus Vieta, what sort of life am I about to get myself into? It doesn’t exactly sound like a very welcoming place.”
“True, but in fact, Castor’s World was a very sought after destination. Because of their location and lifestyle, the residents were seen as ideal candidates to study the AI Reductionist Codex, so obviously there were many people who wanted to join the privileged few. But the Order of the Codex ended quite suddenly. A man by the name of Plantagenet Matthias Soome was the last person ever to visit the planet, and soon after he went there all communication ceased.”
“Am I going to regret asking what happened?”
“Probably. It’s better you don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“I really don’t think—”
“I can guess what happened anyway. All the monks were killed?”
“Correct. The official reports are inconclusive, but the belief was that they all murdered each other. The most widely accepted theory was that the study of the Codex drove them insane.”
“Sounds possible. After all, the Codex brought on the war that wiped almost everyone out. So who was Plantagenet Soome?”
“The summary shows him primarily as some sort of detective.”
“Ideal. If I’m going to be looking for Keitus Vieta, what better role could I hope for? Forget Abbot Deepseed. I’ll try my next life as Soome.”
“You’re settling for subject 8.47199E+77, Plantagenet Matthias Soome, then?”
I take a deep breath and glance at the blue lights inside the sphere. “Yes. He’ll do. Get the WOOM ready.”