Chapter XIII11.VIII.2024
Yi Felani. Vatis. Sixteenth Lightyear. Elanox. Candence. Harrowrack. Lickoris. Eomanis. Seventh Lightyear. Ygovina Prima. Utharidka. Yazhover-3. Tredeis. Titurnalia. Lumi.
The train was approaching the Lumi system from the side of the Koris sector, weaving its way from one star system to the next (visiting some interstellar stations as well). Ancient outposts, rich with traces of very diverse cultures from eras past - no wonder with how long and rare travels between them were at the dawn of civilization - some of their names Tayne even recognised from popular fiction. And some more modern settlements tucked in-between - these were sprinkled all over the Origin-adjacent sectors in the third decamillenium, when terraforming technologies were outrunning the transportation ones.
The travel itself was routine almost to the point of being boring. Exit from the cosmic gate - immediately dive into a wormhole connected to the planet below to pull up to a station - wait a couple minutes for the boarding to finish and the cosmic gate to recalibrate - reverse, turn around and plunge back through the wormhole into the gate. Cutting greatly on commute time, but also on vistas compared with Vatravishna Yadi. Sure, viewing a dozen planets from orbit was cool, but these glimpses were brief, and nothing compared to the awe of rising from the ground - both the process itself and seeing stuff on the ground from a bird's eye view. Being that removed from the surface was turning the grandeur of cosmic bodies negligible and the experience mundane.
At least the stations themselves were quite interesting to look at - being the forefront of local culture for all passersby to observe, they were all very unique. Wood, marble and granite, concrete, metal, radiant glass and a plethera of composite materials replaced each other station after station; one had about a hundred bronze statues lining up its walls, another had pairs of columns twisted into double spirals, a third was a hanging garden. And between them - rushing swirls of subspace. Which bizzarely were drawing Tayne's attention way more than anything to do with actual space. Each jump she locked gazing into the railway tunnel beyond the window for minutes while hours were ticking outside the train due to time dilution…
The railcar was slowly filling with passengers, who many of them exited at Lickoris - the heart of the Koris sector and an intersection point between several infrasectoral and long-distance routes. But even there the archon streams weren't as numerous as Tayne thought them to be. A rare planet in the Cosmos, not even Lickoris itself, had a population over a few dozen million, and many - substantially less than that.
The Lumi system, though, was a different story: the cradle of civilization had half a dozen settled planets and several giant space stations, all with history tracing back to the first decamillenium - and in that time, the place was crowded. So much so they counted the system as an ersatz sector of its own as soon as the notion of sectors arisen - this tradition continuing to the modern day, as even with its population cut over tenfold it was still home to the most densely inhabited planets in the Cosmos.
As they were approaching the last stop, Tayne took a couple photos of the subspace and got up to pull her bags from under the seat, stretching after almost two hours of idleness. Naia, catching wind of this, popped out of the scroll - which they went into the get some sleep, or rather, some time to sort out new info which entered their mind, as arcana have to do from time to time. A process officially called defragmentation but dear stars was that term disturbing, like what mad scientist even coined it?
"Is everything alright?" - Naia asked, after silently yawning and stretching as well (not that the holographic body needed it, but most arcana and Naia especially liked holding onto corporeal habits). - "How do you feel, darling?"
Tayne hanged over that question for a good minute, inspecting all aspects of "feel" she was able to think of, before summing it up with a quiet:
"… fine. I think."
Naia sat down on the seat near her and gave her a comforting hug, and somehow, even though Tayne never would've guessed it herself, it was exactly what she needed in the moment.
They got the backpacks, Naia agreeing to carry Tayne's old one ("not insisting or anything, but i think it might come handy if you start using the eigenspace!" - "eh, maybe one day…"), and then the train pulled into the station.
The Ulthimetula Railway Terminal was one of five hubs for handling trains coming to and from the Lumi system - less numerous in this day and age compared to, say, twenty thousand years ago, but the most populated system in the world was still a busy passenger interchange even after millenia of distributing population and traffic. Located in a stable point between Lumi's and Origin's gravitational pull, it was a space station providing interchange to the other four terminals and onto local bus routes… at it was about all Tayne knew on it before that day.
Tayne was a village kid from a far sector. She haven't ever been to a sectoral center or any planet really with population over ten million. She travelled by train with her mother once, but that was ten years ago and within the Lynx sector. So to see Ulthimetula with its ten-kilometer-wide tunnel, rotating to provide artificial gravity - a station which made several cosmic gates look like interior decor - a station which had a kilometer-wide window of transparent crystalcomposite material letting the Lumi shine through - a station with literal forests growing inside, filling fresh air with a gentle scent of grass - was enough to hit her with a wave of excitement.
"This feels like I'm in a movie!" - Tayne pitched to her mom. - "You know these second-decamillenium space operas? With space ships and stuff?"
"Oh, I'm more than sure all that was constructed way back then," - smiled Naia. - "Without wormholes, or arcane, or modern power solutions the ancients had to go real big on everything they did"
Tayne turned to look at the cosmic gate for one last time - it was powering down, but the swirling beuty of ten thousand colors still shined through - and went to the edge of the marble platform to reach for a tree branch. Interesting leaf shape, like a paw with five long fingers with jagged edges, she never saw that plant before. She grabbed a couple seeds hanging from the branch, whichever wanted to get off their stalks easily - may be useful for the garden - and they continued their way to the bus.
"Wait," - Tayne was still thinking of one question and finally caught it by the tail. - "Why would the ancients build a railway terminal in the first place? We didn't have cosmic gates until the late thirty-thousands, did we?"
"...and modern railway terminals came even later, yes," - Naia replied, - "but who said this was made to be a railway terminal? You know folk used to live in habitats like this?"
"Yeah, saw it in movies. But this looks nothing like! You remember the Tensor series, where they had these... stacks and stacks of metal blocks in square towers in a dark spinning cylinder and it was all very dystopian?"
"The Tensor is a bit of an exaggerration, if I'm not mistaken, it is a dystopia after all. But yeah. I would not be surprised if some forty-thousand years ago all this" - they waved their hand, encircling the greenery around them, - "was tip to toe in skyscrapers. So what? Origin folk were always masters in transforming their land and assets. Though if we wander deep enough in this forest, I'm sure we'll find at least some trace of what it once was."
"So it's hiding ancient secrets?" - Tayne jokingly asked.
"In a sense, yes!" - Naia exclaimed, - "as almost everything in this system is. An archeological expedition is destined to find a lot of really old junk underneath all that hovewer many meters of soil."
"Huuh..." - drawled Tayne tentatively, tempted by a sudden new idea. - "You think we can actually go there and check?"
"If you want to, why not? Just let me double-check the time" - Naia went silent for a second, closing their eyes to indicate that they are shutting down external visual input, and reached out with their mind, communing with the local network to reattune their inner clock - and then reaching to a different place to get a map of the station's inner surface. - "Yes, we still have about an hour and a half until Komi's train arrives. It's scheduled to this same terminal, but to a different platform, about five kilometers from here", - Naia gestured to the left and up in the air, and sure enough, after making some effort, Tayne saw some buildings popping out of the greenery on a curving-up cylinder wall. - "We can go there through the forest if you don't mind a long walk."
"Oh, I'd love a long walk!" - smiled Tayne. She hadn't gone strolling through nature with Naia for so long, instead staying at home low-functioning, scrolling and reading fanfiction - maybe it's about time to bring back having actual fun.
Besides, she'll be able to sneakily grab some more plant samples for the collection. If Naia won't notice, she'll be able to arrange them a pleasant surprise gift!