Metamorphosis, Aer-ki Jyr [best classic literature .txt] 📗

detect no anomalies within you, other than the previous alterations. Nothing akin to a transmitter or foreign coding, yet it still can’t identify the source of the genetic alterations. We may be looking at a natural effect or different form of technology used by the intruder.”

“He also said there were multiple things happening to me at once.”

“If Essence is interfering, then not using it again is the key to continue unlocking the transformation, is it not?”

“A better idea I do not have. I won’t use it again. Hopefully I didn’t permanently lose what was left.”

“An ally?”

“Starting to feel that way,” Paul said, standing up despite a wobbliness from the drain. He didn’t feel more sleepy, but less alive. As if his Essence had been depleted from his body in large amounts, but it hadn’t altered. This was…something else.

“My fatigue,” Paul said, looking down at the sitting Voku’s head. “This part of it may be sourced elsewhere.”

“The same source as adaptation?”

Paul glanced up at the ceiling. “This has to do with the Life Springs, doesn’t it?”

“Very good,” a waspy, almost electronic voice said as Cal-com disappeared. Paul turned to his left to see the Zen’zat, but the voice didn’t match.

“Kosh?” he guessed.

“Your memory of that image is vague, so I must use something more recent to make it appear real,” the Zen’zat said, looking at him through an opaque black faceplate with hints of green worked into the nanite armor here and there. “The longer we speak, the more a toll it takes on your body.”

“What did I do to start this?”

“You cracked the barrier twice. The first time I did nothing, then you lost it when your duty to conquer the delinquent planet overrode your intuition. You cracked it a second time once arriving here, and when you did I acted. I reached across and created a larger fracture, one that wouldn’t so easily seal. I could not risk you losing it again.”

“Losing what?”

“Your first step into a much larger world. You have no idea how important you are, but if I explain further I will do damage to your body. I cannot speak to you again for some time until you heal wounds you do not know exist. Let the changes in you continue. Rest, reflect, explore. Do not train for advancement. The pressure blinds you,” the Zen’zat said before disappearing with Cal-com reappearing, though now standing and looking down on Paul with a concerned look on his face as he spoke, but Paul couldn’t hear the words as one more sentence was spoken by his new contact.

“And so it begins…”

That phrase, and the meaning imbedded in it, sent a chill down Paul’s spine a moment before he collapsed to the ground…except Cal-com caught him before he hit, though he was now limp as a rag doll.

“I think I need to sleep now,” Paul said half sarcastically. “Fill you in…later…”

The Human dropped asleep even as the Voku held him a meter off the ground, scanning him with the Regenerator again and not finding a cause, though the side effects were quite visible. His body was reacting as if it had just run 20 miles, and badly needed refueled.

Paul couldn’t eat when asleep, so Cal-com set him down and used the Regenerator to disintegrate and relocate water and food cubes to where it was needed in his body as he waited for his friend to wake, knowing there was no use in forcing a conversation. Rest was what he needed most, and was least inclined to indulge in given his habits. The best thing Cal-com could do for him now was be patient and watch over him…though it was clear that this entity he was in communication with had a means to hurt him, and it was one that Cal-com could not defend against.

That did not sit well with him, and he spent the next 18 hours trying to search for any knowledge that could give him insight into the nature of the enemy, but he couldn’t find the smallest anomaly to work with prior to Paul suddenly blinking his eyes and sitting up as if he’d heard an alarm.

“How long?”

“18 hours. How are you feeling?”

“I can feel it now. The burning illuminates its presence.”

“What presence?”

“It’s similar to the Essence realm, but different. I can barely feel it, but it’s everywhere in my body…yet nowhere. The doppelganger…who is now speaking in Kosh’s voice…said I broke through the barrier on Ha’shavi, then lost it. He said I broke through a second time here, and he acted to prevent me from losing it a second time. He also said that due to the length of our previous conversation that I’d be on my own for a while. Apparently it does damage to me if contact lasts too long.”

“Contact with him or this other realm?”

“Not sure. He recommended rest and introspection. Not training.”

“Not something an Archon is receptive to,” Cal-com pointed out.

“Which is probably why I didn’t go through this earlier,” he said, getting to his feet and walking outside, having to push his way through a dune that nearly covered the entrance to the tunnel.

When he got outside he looked back, seeing the entire shelter was now buried under sand…while the ground a few meters off was now exposed rock. Everywhere he looked he saw repetitions of this, with the terrain undulating in all directions under the night sky with a small bulge of light on the horizon.

“Dawn or dusk?” he asked.

“Dawn,” Cal-com said as he followed him out, wondering why Paul wasn’t recognizing the cardinal directions.

“Fitting. I just got accelerated into overdrive on my path. I don’t know where it’s going, but from here on out I think it’s going to move rapidly…yet I have to stay low key and observe more than act. I don’t feel