HRVST, Ch.4: The Power To Bring Light To Eternal Night
HRVST, Ch.4: The Power To Bring Light To Eternal Night
The power to bring light to the darkness is the most ancient power of gods and men.
The power to bring light to the darkness is the most ancient power of gods and men.
The centuries passed, empires rose and fell but the old gods remained, remembered by new names, just as Artemis was also Diana, Selene, Luna, and Hecate.
Hecate, or Hekate, meaning “worker from afar”, is one of her most ancient forms.
The ancients rendered images of a goddess who wore hunting boots and held twin torches. She was more than Artemis of the Golden Arrows, and in this earlier form, she carried fire to show the way through the darkness of the deep. In the underworld, a torch was equal to the sun, a candle was like a star.
As Hecate, the triform goddess of the moon not only hunted by moonlight, she also held court in the netherworld as a deity of the crossroads of reality, at the intersections between worlds. Her symbols were torches, portals, and doorways.
This incarnation was so ancient, it predates the Olympian gods.
She was from an earlier generation of beings, the Titans, the only survivor of an eons long war between gods for the cosmos. In the end, Zeus ruled as king of the victors, the Olympians, and most Titans were slain or imprisoned under Tartarus. Only Hecate remained.
Her otherworldly jurisdiction of influence ranged from the heavens, down to the earth and seas, and straight to the underworld. Her domain included the deserted places left for dead, her might was of magic and mysteries. True to form, she worked from afar.
She bridged many worlds as she wielded an other-worldly light in the darkness.
Luna, Aitken Basin, Armstrong Base
“What will you do?”
The administrator looked at the black card, the private key, he gave to the captain.
The captain ran his finger over the letters etched the card’s surface.
“H. R. V. S. T." He looked at the administrator for more.
“Hyperion Research Vessel, Systemwide Transformation.”
“Hyperion. The name of this project about the sun. That one of the founding fathers of the Space Cooperative, has been running, like a private kingdom on the moon.
And they just let him do this. How many people died because of him. He must have the board’s backing or they can’t stop him, otherwise he’d be dead. They would have sent someone like me to do it.
This power from the sun itself, to do, to power whatever he came up with, including the impossible. Systemwide Transformation. Systemwide. That’s pretty much everything, I’m guessing, right. He wants the power to change everything?”
The administrator got up to pour two waters, and gave one to the captain.
“I was saving this for special occasion, it’s sparkling spring water from Earth. Not recycled. Real water from down the well, from a real “well”. The kind of place that had flowers, trees, gardens growing on the surface.
We were going to turn these places into new gardens. We would need domes or dig ourselves a world, deep under the regolith. It would take time but we could do it.
Anyway, that was the plan.”
“Where is this thing? The H, R, V, S, T? This ‘harvest’, it’s a vessel?”
“It’s on its way back. It was orbiting the sun for awhile as part of its trial run.”
“You said he’s going to do this again? Whatever this vessel, this thing does? He’s going to bring it back, and then send it out again? That’s what your old boss was trying to stop, tried to warn you about. Why he gave you this card.
But he was too late.”
The administrator poured two more waters for them to drink.
“How did you know to come up here? Not that it would do you any good.”
“I’ve been on the go since our mutual friend found me to do this thing.
I’ve been to Wellington to see a former co-president of the S.C.’s Triumvirate, under house arrest. He sends me to Nairobi for someone who still holds her seat on the Triumvirate. I hear the craziest things, at least what I thought was crazy before I found you.
I heard about a packet, then a tight-beam to a Luna-bound drone. Nobody would have noticed it before the storms, before the CME, but with comms down, this was strange because it’s the only one that did this.
Sources, friends I pay to keep watch on different things, told me it came from the Grey Verse, off-chain. It passes through the Main Verse like lightning before it went to a node that sent the tight-beam. Every cache, every node involved burned as it passes through. Everybody is too busy after the storm to notice or care.
You don’t know what’s going on Earth. You might have the official story but I know you know better than than to trust the official news oracles.
The Space Cooperative’s “books”, its sentient ledger, has gone missing.
It vanished right around the time of the CME. It was called “ALBERTO”, short for Autonomous Ledger Business Executive Responsibilities, Triumvirate Operations”.
This entity, ALBERTO, was created to oversee the Space Cooperative’s financial operations, including the S.C.’s other business, administration of the Atlanticcoin.”
The administrator looks up from his water and puts down his cup.
“You’re saying you’re chasing this thing, looking for this thing. You think the Ledger is up here? Your story is just as crazy as mine. But it’s all true, isn’t it?
ALBERTO.
This is not a coincidence. His arrogance is unbelievable. He named after himself. He did this too didn’t he? Albert L’Orleans Necker. He came up with a plausible name for the sentient ledger, ‘ALBERTO’. He’s mad.”
The captain nodded, and got to leave.
“Once you lived through the impossible, anything and everything is plausible.
Every single node that it passed through was burned, it did not go bouncing around through networks. Its last identified location before it disappeared was on a diplomatic packet to Luna. Sealed, no questions asked. That’s why I’m here.
No other transmissions, or packets like this, before or since then.
Somebody sent something important up here. Maybe it’s the Ledger.”
“I think I know where. It’s also where the heart of the HRVST was assembled.”
The administrator showed a holo of a building, an octagon shaped complex.
"Before I ask you how to get in there, I’m going to return the favor in advance.
I don’t have to ask, I know you and the others with black cards are being watched.
I’m going to stop them from doing anything more than watching.
Then, you’re going to help me get into that complex.”
notes: AI text prompt, found via Lexica, for Hugging Face
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