Goddess of the Braided Light
Fiction - by Daniel Ausema
A braided time ship does not, in fact, travel faster than light. Rather it twines light into coils and knots and intricate braids without impeding the vacuum of its route. When that light travels its natural speed, the drive unbraids around it, pushed along farther than the light, rather than faster.
This, anyway, is as close as Tycha and the other light braiders understand it. The effect is, of course the same, at least as far as the people onboard experience it. Her job on the Three Fibers is to select the right braids from the light room to send the ship where it needs to go.
Right now, that means she has no responsibility, except to be ready. The Three Fibers coasts toward battle on momentum and less exotic engines. No need to outrun light, for now.
A glow fills the room, coming from the many strands of captured light. Not from every strand, though. Some braided light originated so far from here or had a path too distant that she can't use it in this region of space. In time the Three Fibers will doubtless move into other regions, where those strands will light up and others turn dark.
Oddly, battle is the calmest place to be. The entire ship might be destroyed without harming the light room. A star might explode and not harm the ancient walls of her room. To keep it safe, the doors must be perfectly sealed throughout the battle. Not even communication lines are supposed to be allowed to cross from room into ship, so she knows nothing of the battle outside. Though in truth, she can't bear to seal herself that completely. So unless the battle gets too dangerous, she allows one line to remain open. If the danger becomes great enough, it will burn itself shut. Most light braiders do the same. A little less standard, she keys the door to let the captain enter—if necessary, and safe. It eases her mind to know that there is a little connection, still, to other people. Otherwise she scarcely feels human herself. No blasts rock her walls nor shake the room.
The light room, in fact, is far older than Three Fibers. Some of its strands are older than many civilizations. Millions, even a billion years old, sketching out potential routes across the galaxy. If the ship falls, the enemy will swoop in to protect it and take it over. And Tycha will be absorbed into their forces, her abilities too valuable to be lost.
She spends the time braiding new light, strands that might not be of any use for a million years. She imagines the light braider a hundred thousand generations from now taking out that light to guide some successor ship along the routes that light would take from here. She—that future light braider—might need to carry trade goods or people beginning new lives on new planets. Or he—no reason to assume it will be only women who braid light at that time, despite the current traditions—he might push the ship as close as the captain dared around a neutron star, giving those future scientists the chance to sample new and exotic particles.
But not for war. Tycha makes each braid a prayer into the prayer-less cosmos that it not be used in war.
Braids such as these are not the only way to bind light, but the best way. Other, more esoteric light bindings that involve the non visible spectrum, cause as much harm as use, damaging the ship around the light room as they unwind. Or damaging the light braider herself. Some of the higher frequencies could push a light room at unimaginable speeds and trajectories, but the one who tied into that light might find her hands crippled beyond use, her light braiding days done.
She sticks with visible light and the traditional braids, whether simple or more difficult to weave. Tycha has made seventeen simple braids and one more complex one when suddenly the ship's captain bursts in.
"Is the battle over?" She jumps to her feet.
The captain shakes her head. "We need to get out of here. Fast."
Tycha draws on all the authority of her position. "If the battle is still extent, then you must not be here. You break—"
"I'm leaving, I'm leaving." The captain holds up her hands. "Just get us out of here. I don't think even you are safe, if we stick around." She sweeps her arms around as if to include the whole room in that you.
Tycha pushes the door shut and secures it. The seal, as impermeable as anything in the universe, wraps around the room, protects Tycha and the knots of braided light. Completely cuts her off. Her pulse races. How close had they come to compromising the light room itself? A billion years of light, made vulnerable by a frightened captain.
No one broke that taboo, no matter the battle. How could the captain do so? Fear, panic. Mindless impulses that have no place in today's universe.
Yet...is the captain one to scare easily? No, the times Tycha has interacted with the captain she's seemed perfectly level headed. A captain who's earned her rank by skill and smarts under pressure. Would she be likely to just panic?
The anger is at least as much against herself as at the captain. She knows not to trust anything, not even the most unshakeable taboo. It's her own weak need for a connection that let her trust that no one would come. The air has that sealed-in quality she's always hated, fresh and yet distant, reminding her with every breath of her distance from any others. It is the one part of being the light braider, set apart so, that she hates.
The light room shakes, as if hit by a huge blast. But no weapon should be able to, no matter how powerful. It can withstand, well anything. But the captain's words echo. Not even you...
Tycha races to the knots. She strips open a simple braid of three beams of light. She can't feel the acceleration inside the room, but she knows the ship is already traveling away from there very fast. But is it fast enough?
The captain wants something faster. There is no longer any direct communication, but Tycha knows it's true. She searches among the braids for something more elaborate than a triple weave.
Another jolt shakes the room, knocking Tycha to the floor. She scrambles up and dashes toward the back of the room, brushing aside dangling strands of braided light. One strand gets caught in her hair. When she yanks free, the braid pulls down and falls to the floor, unraveling. A million-year-old light beam wasted.
No time to lament. She reaches the wall where the most elaborate braids hang. Antique works of art. Many are dark, not because the light is no longer within, but because these braids require a very precise location in space to work. She grabs one of the few that glows. It is an ancient braid, maybe half a billion years old. The style is unlike any she's noticed before, so full of twists and cross weaves. A full lightyear wrapped into every centimeter. It will surely take them fast and far.
She wastes no time, grabs it free, then unweaves it. Her fingers tingle to feel the threads come free. The light tugs at her for the barest flicker of a second before it catches the room and the ship built around it.
Usually there is no whiplash when she unbraids. This knot flings her first forward and then back. Her head rings with the violence of it, and somewhere in there she slams into something—or something slams into her side. She can't remember exactly when it happened or how, but the pain is a very present proof that it did. Beyond the light room the forces must be immense as the ship leaves enemies and planets and stars far behind. A significant portion of the nearby galaxy too, no doubt.
No knock comes on the door of the room, so she keeps unbraiding, less frantically now that there are no jerks and jolts. The braid leaves a faint glow on her fingernails.
Awfully silent out there. That's normal in battle, but usually as they draw away from danger, the connections return, automatic lines she has no control over, and the noise of ship life with them.
Tycha undoes the last of the knot then slips to the floor to rest. She sleeps on a bed of unraveled light and wakes to a very dark room. She stretches and walks to the door. The sensors read fine. Good air on the other side. Power and heat. A ship, in other words. A light braider's fear is always that their light room will be the only wreckage after some space tragedy. Hurtling along, with only the gross power of the light braids to steer and maneuver. Which means waiting for rescue, never knowing the manner of ship that might find them.
She takes a welcome breath of air, deep and calming.
But in that case, what does explain the silence? She connects a line of communication. "Hello?" She calls through the intercom. She peers into the screen, but there's no image there. When no one answers, she calls again.
The screen crackles and comes to life. A man's face appears in it, an unfamiliar face, and he peers at the screen as if confused. "Light Braider?" He makes it into a name rather than a title. "Is that you?"
He isn't wearing a ship uniform, at least not one she recognizes. Has the ship been taken over, after all? She'd been angry with the captain for breaking into the light room, but to fail to protect her anyway makes Tycha close her eyes. She doesn't want this stranger to see her upset. Especially if he's now in charge.
"Where is the captain?" She keeps her voice calm and commanding. "Did we escape the weapon?"
The man blinks. "Yes, I suppose we did escape it. The captain, I'm afraid, did not survive, though."
Tycha meets his eye through the screen. He looks away. Didn't survive because he killed her? Because his soldiers or followers attacked and defeated hers?
"How did it happen?" Gently, not accusing. A light braider must serve the strands of light first, above any allegiances.
The man runs a hand through his unkempt hair. "In the initial fighting, we think. There's so much confusion about that." He frowns and hesitates as if not sure whether to say more. Finally he asks, "You...you are the Light Braider, right?" Again as if it were a name.
"I'm Tycha. This ship's light braider, yes." The only way to know would be to ask. "Is this still the Three Fibers, or am I on a new ship?"
"A new ship? No." He sounds surprised. "This is the Three Fibers. But, well..."
A thought occurs to her to explain his awkwardness. "Is there something you're only supposed to tell the light braider, some secret?"
"Yes, something like that, I guess." He let's out a big breath. "Many crew members died in the fighting. Many others died when we fled so fast. It was, well, the speed knocked people down, tipped things that should have been secure. Parts of the ship just couldn't handle the speed."
Tycha's stomach clenches. She'd caused some to die? Not just some but many? "I see. So I may have killed her, actually. In a sense."
And the cautious way he broached the subject...do some blame her, perhaps?
"It's possible that's how she died. But you should know, most of the rest of the original crew has died since then as well. Of old age."
She takes a step away from her screen. "Is that the weapon we were fleeing? Something that ages people fast?" And light, too? Could that explain why even her room was threatened?
But he's shaking his head. "No. We're the children of the survivors. You've been in there for fifty years."
Fifty years. Tycha stumbles backward. Light and time and speed have weird effects on each other, but she's never heard of such a happening. Any strangeness should have been shielded from the entire ship. Unless something in the braid shielded only her room. She touches her face. Are there wrinkles? New lines? Did she sleep for fifty years, or did they pass while she was unweaving?
Back to the screen she asks, "Where are we now?"
"We're still going too fast to tell."
That meant the unbraiding took fifty years, not the sleep. Good to know that much, at least. "Well, it may take a day or two from our perspective to slow down enough to know. So take this time to get everything ready..." She pauses. "You do know how to work everything?"
He holds himself upright. "Yes, of course."
"Good. Run through all your tests and make sure all engines are in working order."
"We will do that. Will you come out to inspect everything?"
"Will I? No." She wouldn't have a clue what is right and what is wrong. "I'll be looking through the light braids in here."
The man dips his head to her. "It was good to finally meet you, Light Braider. I will get the crew to work."
When the screen is blank, Tycha turns around and remembers how dark the room had seemed when she woke up. The glow is gone. Lights still shine overhead, two banks of lights let her see a little, but not one of the strands of braided light glows.
Not possible. Fifty years was nothing to light. They can't lose their potential power just because the room went through some sort of strange time anomaly. The only other explanation is that they are too far from any of the light represented by those strands.
Is that possible? Out of a hundred thousand braids, traded back and forth and collected from many places in the galaxy, could the Three Fibers be beyond even their reach?
There must be some strands that will still work, even way out here, wherever here proves to be.
She sits down to sort through the collection, letting the process of organizing keep her calm and focused.
Later in the day, a knock comes at the door. She hasn't unlocked it yet.
She climbs to her feet, leaving behind the many inert strands of light, and walks to the door. "Yes? Is it the captain?"
"Please." It is an unfamiliar voice. "The captain tells us nothing, but we've heard you're back. That you're the Light Braider."
"Yes, I am." Why hasn't the captain told them? That seems odd.
"Can we see you, Light Braider? We've heard of you, since we were babies, but never seen you."
Again the title as a name. And added to it, a weird sort of reverence. Tycha runs a hand through her hair. Maybe not so weird, come to think of it. All their lives they've thought of her as some mythical sort of being, hurtling their ship through space, manipulating light. All while being absent. No wonder they think of her as some sort of god-like being.
In a flash of pity, she says, "Yes, I will open the door. But only for a moment. I have other work to do."
Tycha opens the door. A small group stands there, wearing a mixed assortment of old uniforms and off-duty clothing. The men and women look weak, sickly, with caved in chests and spindly arms. Was the man she spoke to earlier the same? She realizes she never looked that carefully at him.
"Here I am. Real, just a normal person. My name is—"
"I was on the crew in the battle," an old man says. His voice is calm, almost flat, despite the rudeness of his interruption. "One of the last ones left. Never met you then, either."
"Umm, no, I guess you wouldn't have. I didn't have much time to meet the crew."
Without any change in his voice, the man says, "This is for leaving us alone all these years." He swings a fist at Tycha. She sees it coming, doesn't believe it's happening. Doesn't duck or try to avoid it at all.
He punches her in the side. Calm and perplexed, she analyzes the pain as she staggers sideways. More painful than she would have guessed with how weak they all look. She doubles over.
"And this is for sending us to this hell," a younger woman says, striking the back of her head with something heavy.
She falls to her knees, no longer able to analyze anything. Blood trickles down her neck.
"For trapping us." Another voice, another blow, this one to her face.
She falls to the ground.
"Now into the Light Room," the first man says.
Tycha groans and rolls over to see the room. They can't get in. But she can't stop them either. She tries to scramble toward the door and falls onto her face.
As they race toward it, the doors slam shut on their own initiative. One man gets clipped by the doors. He screams. The doors don't bounce back or merely brush him aside. They tear right through him. Blood covers the door, and one of the man's arms is gone.
The doors seal with a hiss. The injured man writhes and screams. Everyone else is silent.
Two of the crew members bend down to help the wounded man. The others stare at each other until, as if in cascade, one and then another, then finally all of them are staring at Tycha.
Anger and violence are thick in the air. And hatred. So strong she feels it in waves. She doesn't see the first kick. It strikes her lower back. Then she has a clear view of the foot that kicks her face.
She curls up and covers her head as more kicks come. They stop suddenly. Nearly smothered by the wounded man's screams of agony are many footsteps approaching through the ship's central hallway.
"Let's go," someone says.
Someone else mutters, "He's too loud. That's why they're coming."
"Have a little compassion. He's dying."
It sounds like they might be picking him up to take him away. Tycha doesn't open her eyes to see where they all go.
"Yes, because of her." The voices are fading away down the hall.
And the footsteps approach from the other way. It will be the captain. He will have his medics carry her to the sick bay, if they still use them as sick bays. She can't let him. She has to be back inside her room.
Scrambling and clawing, she reaches the door just as the newcomers round the corner. They stop.
The door recognizes Tycha, opens for her, and she crawls straight through.
"Light Braider?" The words come from behind her. The voice might be the one she heard on the screen, but she doesn't look back.
The doors shut behind her. Stretching up to reach the keypad from the floor, she seals them so no one can enter. Fool that she is. So witless to go out and meet that group. And why, just because they feigned awe? Was she so desperate to be...worshiped? No. It was the same need that had almost doomed her and the light room originally, fifty years ago. The need to connect, to be a part of the people and events around her. To be human.
The screen immediately turns on. "Light Braider, are you well? There's blood all over out here, and we heard screams."
Left unsaid that they certainly saw her scrambling inside. Probably is afraid that admitting it is undignified, with the reverence that they view her with.
Tycha speaks without turning on her camera. "Send some painkillers. Leave them at the door. With food. That will be all."
The light room provides her food and medicine, but she's curious at the state of their food generators and other supplies. That might tell her something about the condition of all their systems, after fifty years.
"At once, Light Braider." The man rubs his cheek to buy time. It has a slight reddish tint, as if he's just shaved before coming to an official audience with her. "We've done our analysis of our location. It's possible as we slow down that we might know better. But for now we can only say that none of our methods reveal anything. The navigational markers are too distant or obscured."
The only way they can be that far... "So you mean we're beyond the edge of that galaxy?"
"Well beyond, I'd guess. Even the signals from the oldest signposts haven't reached this region yet. We're trying to establish a visual reference back the way we've come, but those are not the most reliable. The ship is not equipped with a telescope with a wide enough range to reveal much."
So far. What light is there even here to braid? Ancient light that's diffuse with distance. X-rays and gamma rays from the earliest stars. Still as fast as when it left its star, so she can make braids that might serve the light room in a million years. Not much good for getting them out of here.
"I see. You'll have to tell me if you learn anything more."
"Of course." The man looks over his shoulder. "Your medicine is here. Please let us know if you need anything else."
The room is still dim. Not a usable light braid to be seen. She will need the painkiller before she decides anything. And food and probably a time to rest. She can only hope another fifty years doesn't pass while she sleeps.
The food tastes like her own room's food tastes, bland but filling. No sign that the food generators are failing, which should be a good sign for the rest of the systems. The painkillers too test as fully potent. She swallows them and falls asleep in a haze of medicine and the feeling of being well fed.
When she wakes, she's thought through her choices. They can continue along, under normal propulsion, and hope they come across a braid of light old enough and oriented right that they intersect it. Not entirely impossible—as the braids get older, they lose some speed but grow more forgiving of place and direction. But if they're as far as the captain thinks, the chances are still slim.
Which leaves only the esoteric braids. Or not braids, exactly. It is a way to unbraid a light beam not yet braided, if she can catch a pulsar at the right angle or cross the path of other, high-energy patterns. The process is grueling and risky, even from inside her light room. She might maim her fingers or blind her eyes, never braid or unbraid light again. For the rest of the ship, the forces might tear it apart if any section of the outer shell is in poor repair.
The only other choice is an emergency weave that latches onto dark energy forces. The light room will survive, and Tycha herself, though she will have no control over guiding the ship, no way of knowing how long, subjectively, she will be traveling or if her mind will still be intact when she arrives, alone in a ship-less light room. The ship around her will be ripped to shreds.
She might save a few of the crew, if she trusts them enough to let them inside. The captain, perhaps, and his most trusted subordinates. Let her attackers die. No heartbreak there. But many others will die, too.
And will he even go along with such a plan? Depends on what sort of leader he is. He might insist on staying out with the rest of the crew. Will certainly do so, if he's the kind of leader who ought to be trusted. She may have to trick him inside.
Tycha decides to give herself a few days. By then she will know more about the condition of the ship, the character of the captain and some of the crew, and maybe even a clearer idea of their location.
She passes her time braiding new strands of light, weak ones of scattered waves, but within a generation or two, they will be useful for a huge portion of the settled galaxy. The pain returns and fades away, and she weaves that pulse into the light as well.
Late on the second day, the screen crackles and spits, surprising her from her braiding. She crosses to the door. "Captain?"
There is no image coming through, but a voice says, "Oh, is he the captain now? I thought we didn't have a captain anymore."
"I didn't vote for him," another voice says.
After this, the image appears. Her attackers, five of them. No one is missing an arm. Did he die? Is he still in some sick bay being treated?
"I have nothing to say to you."
"Oh, come now. Won't you at least turn your image on? Much easier to chat that way."
The silence stretches between them. When she still won't answer, one of her attackers says, "We only wanted to show you something."
The man she thinks of as captain appears in the screen. Stumbling, falling to the floor. His arms are bound behind him, so he can't catch himself. There is blood on his forehead.
"It looks like the ship is without a captain now. Oh, alas."
Her attackers laugh and walk away—or at least out of sight—leaving the captain lying there in the middle of her screen. Is he even alive?
She watches long enough to see him squirm and groan. He looks as weak and sickly as her attackers did. Nothing to show he's trustworthy as an ally, except that he brought her the medicine.
So a lure, then. They hope she will come out to tend him, and when she does, they will attack her, again. Playing on her need to be a part of the ship, as if they'd so easily guessed her weakness.
Nothing she can do. She tears herself away. The air tastes stale, cloying, and she nearly relents. Must he suffer because she fears an attack? But it isn't only her, she reminds herself, but the entire stock of light weaves, useless as they may be at the moment.
She should just do the dark energy weave. The captain is probably dying anyway, and who knows how many others they've killed?
She can't bring herself to do it, though.
The captain is pulled away when the screen is dark, and the mutineers take to pounding at her door. As if that will do anything. They turn on the lights and gesture rudely at her screen, taunt her. The dark energy grows more attractive.
They bring back the captain. He looks as rough as them, sits between two captors and begs her to open the door. "They have a plan to get us going again, but they need to get inside and use the old strands." Later he says, "Please, they will torture me if you don't come speak to them."
They have clearly already tortured him. She speaks this time, though. "Getting us out of here is my job. They know nothing of light, nothing of braiding. If they set you free, I will work to save us all. If not, I will leave them all behind."
The threat achieves nothing. Later, the one-armed man approaches the screen. He is in obvious pain, but the way he looks at the door gives her an idea. Anger, certainly, the anger of powerlessness and memory. But awe as well. He still sees her as something close to divine, her room as the dwelling place of gods.
Well, then, let her claim that mantle rather than trying to get them to see her as a flesh-and-blood human. All that did was get her attacked. A human needs connections. She will give that up, give up any claim to humanity. She will be the Light Braider to them, and not Tycha at all.
"Come," she says through the screen. She switches her settings to speak to every remaining screen in the ship. "I wish to speak to all your leaders."
"And attack us?" one answers, and then to her companions asks, "What kind of weapons might she have in there?"
Tycha gives them no answer, but repeats herself again a few minutes later. Let them fear the light that comes from the screens as her divine weapons.
They gather before the screens. Not all of them, no doubt, but enough. She twists a strand of light, not quite unbraiding it, but letting its latent glow light up her face from below. She makes them wait until they are almost ready to leave again. Then she speaks, and her voice doesn't come only from the screens before them but from every speaker in the outer ship.
"I am the Light Braider, the bringer of speed, the one who crosses time and space. You have spoken with my human avatar. Some of you have touched her, kicked her. Now I am here in truth to deal with your ship. I have prepared the path for us to return to our home." No, not strong enough, and meaningless to those born on the ship. "To a galaxy of many stars, a space flowing with planets and spaceships. Before we can leave, though, you must inspect the shell of the ship. If it is compromised, it will not survive the journey. You will not survive it, not one of you. Though I will. I give you seven days to report back to me."
That will give her enough time to prepare the difficult braid to carry them. Perhaps more important, it sounds like a mystical number.
"If you believe the ship is ready, we will leave. If you need more time to repair something, let me know. If you do not report, I will assume something has happened to you, and I will leave on my own."
But what if the journey again ages the rest of the ship by fifty years? It's such a strange thing to have happened the first time that she can't predict what will happen this time. A deity can't admit to not knowing, though.
Instead, she says, "The path is a strange and holy one. If there is division and enmity within the crew, you may be forced yet to wander another generation as we make our way back. Fifty years out may be answered by fifty years back. So prepare for that. Set yourselves up so your children will live to see the new galaxy. There is great enmity within the crew now. If that can be healed, if your people can be restored before we leave, it may be enough to shield the full ship from those years of wandering."
No sign of her own powerlessness in there. She will braid them back and only learn which was true when they get there.
"I will repeat these instructions each day until the seventh, when you will report to me. Until then, do the tasks I have given you."
Tycha shuts down her screen and all the screens in the ship. Then she settles down on the floor to piece through the discarded strands that once held an elaborate, impossible knot of light and begins the painstaking task of weaving a new, far more dangerous braid to bring them home.
THE END