Chapter 38: The Return

(If you don’t see the connection with the rest, I invite you to reread the prologue.)

The seat of the Supreme Government of the HS was located on Earth, which many called Mythical Earth, simply because it was a difficult destination to reach. Oh, there was one of the great Entangled Gates connecting it to Prospero, but one needed a good reason to be prioritized on the entry list, and that good reason often concealed injustices. Under administrative pretexts, for instance, it was extremely complicated for a Xeno explorer to gain access, and many had given up.

At the beginning of the stellar age, six centuries ago, Earth already seemed worn down by men and drained of resources compared to a Prospero that kept on giving and simply made a pale figure of a future in contrast to the promise of unknown worlds, richer in resources and adventure.

Over the centuries, Earth had thus been remarkably depopulated, especially of its poorest individuals. Mythical Earth had become the weary theater of immensely wealthy dynastic families, of power, boredom, traditions, discreet white-collar crime, and slow cultural death. Finally, the cradle planet of mankind housed the continental servers of the After, which drew their power from the pressure and heat of the magma, behind a barrier of Kentrochalcum measured in meters of thickness.

Legend had it that the underground continent of Kentrochalcum, in sinking into the magma, had touched another, and studies were underway to determine what it might be. A cautious rumor evoked the fantastical idea that it was another After, one belonging to a civilization that had predated mankind on Earth.

Before the stellar era, humanity was divided into nations; today, the borders of the past only symbolically marked out regions. The cities of the past, preserved in their state from the early 22nd century, were mostly sites of historical tourism.

For the headquarters of the HS Council, a new city had been built, called Origin, placed in the eternal gardens of the Sahara. Origin was a city of polymers and regolith brought from all the celestial bodies of the solar system, of glass and gold, where precious Hyperchalcum was used - ultimate luxury - as decoration. As a tribute to the mythical Atlantis, it was composed of three concentric circles: the residences of high-ranking officials, the commercial areas and spaceports, and finally the administrative center, which itself surrounded a large square - the Square of All - where “every citizen was invited to visit freely one day,” a promise, however, rarely fulfilled due to inaccessibility. At the center of this Square of All stood the complex of the HS Council, towering over the city with a spire rising seven kilometers high.

From the 22nd to the 28th century, the city’s mottos had respectively been “To Prosper,” “To Prosper and Respect,” “To Grow and Love,” “Growth Through Curiosity,” “All United,” “Deserve Our Future,” finally ending with “Become Better,” hinting at humanity’s complex and fluctuating relationship with its Xeno neighbors.

The Square of All hosted street vendors selling treats, as in ancient times: vanilla ice cream, cheese sandwiches, fried insects, noodle broths.

Between two stalls, a figure emerged. A keen eye, though no one was really watching, might have said this figure came from nothingness.

Garen Antor, who had long ago promised to return, was returning.

He walked across the square, and he was naked - which was not an unusual event, as some religions required nudity and freedom of worship was a founding principle of the HS constitution. What drew attention was his natural musculature, his body shaped by a life of adventure.

To enter the city, he had not used a spaceport or one of Origin’s gates, each of which corresponded to a human virtue: Empathy, Honesty, Courage, Fairness, Curiosity, Humility, Generosity, and Endurance. He had materialized from nothingness, a feat that until now had only been accomplished by the Transients.