By the following morning, Vanta-3 had become a different station.
The black contamination had stopped spreading, but nobody was pretending the danger had passed.
The atmospheric processors were running at reduced capacity.
Entire sections of the ecological district had been sealed.
Teams of engineers were dismantling the contaminated intake systems while medical crews continued treating the affected wildlife.
The rescued animals, meanwhile, had become the most troublesome residents on the station.
Not because they were dangerous.
Because they were everywhere.
One of the small horned creatures had escaped from the medical wing and was currently hiding inside a maintenance compartment.
Another had followed a technician into the cafeteria and refused to leave.
Three silver-furred creatures had discovered that the emergency transport crates were warm and had decided they were sleeping chambers.
And one particularly energetic blue-winged animal had somehow managed to activate the station’s public announcement system.
Its chirping echoed through half of Vanta-3.
Potter stood beneath a speaker, staring upward.
“Can someone please explain why the station is announcing breakfast?”
Bonita didn’t look up from her scanner.
“It probably pressed something.”
“It has wings.”
“Then it pressed something while flying.”
Potter considered that.
“That actually makes it worse.”
Ron laughed.
The little silver creature sitting on his shoulder chirped.
“You agree with me, don’t you?”
The creature rubbed its head against his cheek.
Potter pointed at it.
“Don’t encourage him.”
The relocation teams arrived three hours later.
Mokshabhumi had offered temporary ecological habitats for several of the rescued species.
Other stations had volunteered facilities suited to particular environments.
The decision was made quickly.
Vanta-3 was not stable enough to house the animals.
The contaminated atmosphere had also disrupted several of the station’s ecological systems.
The animals needed somewhere safe.
They were divided into groups according to their biological and resonance requirements.
The silver-furred creatures were being sent to Mokshabhumi.
The floating golden creatures were going to a station with a controlled spiritual ecosystem.
The horned herbivores were being transported to an agricultural habitat.
Several larger species would be transferred once their original habitats were identified.
And the blue-scaled wolf that Riyansh and Sia had saved was being moved to a secured wildlife sanctuary.
Ron watched the animals being loaded.
“So that’s it?”
Riyansh glanced at him.
“What did you expect?”
“That we’d keep them.”
“Where?”
Ron opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
“Good question.”
Sia smiled.
“You don’t have a home.”
Ron frowned.
“I have Mokshabhumi.”
“You have a room in Mokshabhumi.”
“That counts.”
“Does it have enough space for a wolf?”
Ron looked toward the massive blue-scaled creature being carefully loaded into the transport.
“Maybe not.”
Potter passed behind them.
“Definitely not.”
Ron sighed.
The little silver creature on his shoulder made a soft sound.
He looked at it.
“You don’t count.”
Potter stopped.
“Why doesn’t it count?”
“Because it’s small.”
Bonita glanced at the creature.
“It will grow.”
Ron looked at her.
“How much?”
Bonita scanned it.
Her expression became slightly uncomfortable.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s reassuring.”
They were preparing to leave Vanta-3 that evening.
The station had been stripped of anything the team needed for further investigation, and the surviving records had been copied to secure storage.
But Aryaan remained in the ecological sector.
He stood beneath the artificial trees, looking at the place where he had found the boy.
There was no sign of him.
That bothered Aryaan more than it should have.
The boy had been taken into protective custody earlier that day.
He had been medically examined.
No one had found a trace of the contamination in his body.
His biological age appeared to be approximately ten years.
His genetic profile matched none of the known databases.
His blood contained compounds found in several species native to different Lokas.
And his brain activity was unusual.
Very unusual.
Riyansh had told Aryaan that the boy’s neural activity sometimes stopped completely.
Not slowed.
Stopped.
Then resumed several seconds later.
As if the boy’s mind had briefly ceased to exist.
Aryaan had asked whether that was dangerous.
Riyansh had answered honestly.
“I don’t know.”
That answer had become increasingly common.
Aryaan heard footsteps.
Lane approached.
“You came here again.”
Aryaan smiled.
“You noticed.”
“I always notice.”
Lane stopped beside him.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Aryaan said,
“Do you believe him?”
“The boy?”
“Yes.”
Lane looked toward the trees.
“I believe that he believes what he’s saying.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
Lane’s eyes narrowed.
“But I don’t think he’s lying.”
Aryaan nodded.
Neither did he.
The problem was that truth itself seemed unstable around the boy.
A sound came from behind them.
Small footsteps.
Aryaan turned.
The boy stood between two trees.
He had somehow slipped away from the medical team.
Again.
Lane stared.
“How did you get here?”
The boy shrugged.
“I walked.”
“This area is restricted.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
The boy looked at Aryaan.
“I wanted to see you.”
Aryaan crouched.
“Why?”
The boy didn’t answer.
Instead, he pulled something from his pocket.
A small metallic bead.
He placed it in Aryaan’s palm.
Aryaan looked at it.
“What is this?”
The boy shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You gave it to me.”
Aryaan’s fingers tightened around the object.
“I never gave you this.”
The boy frowned.
“You did.”
“When?”
The boy thought for a moment.
“Later.”
Aryaan stared at him.
“Later when?”
The boy looked toward the artificial sky.
“After the station breaks.”
Aryaan’s heart sank.
“When does the station break?”
The boy looked at him.
“You haven’t seen it yet.”
Lane stepped forward.
“Seen what?”
The boy’s expression changed.
He looked frightened.
“Don’t ask me.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me before.”
Lane frowned.
“When?”
The boy whispered,
“And then you died.”
Silence.
Aryaan felt the air leave his lungs.
Lane’s face remained calm, but the mist around him suddenly thickened.
The boy looked at Aryaan.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
Aryaan stood.
“Who are you?”
The boy stared at him.
“I told you.”
“You told me you don’t remember.”
“I don’t.”
“Then how do you remember us?”
The boy’s eyes filled with confusion.
“I remember things that haven’t happened.”
Aryaan looked at Lane.
Lane looked back.
Neither knew what to say.
Then the station lights flickered.
The boy disappeared.
Not ran.
Not vanished behind the trees.
He simply wasn’t there anymore.
Aryaan rushed forward.
Nothing.
Lane activated his spatial perception.
The mist spread across the entire clearing.
His expression changed.
“He’s gone.”
“Where?”
Lane shook his head.
“Not somewhere.”
Aryaan understood.
“Somewhat.”
They found the boy twenty minutes later.
He was sitting in the medical wing.
Exactly where he had been told to remain.
The doctors insisted he had never left.
Aryaan didn’t tell them what had happened.
Not yet.
He looked at the boy from across the room.
The boy smiled.
As though nothing unusual had occurred.
Aryaan touched the metallic bead in his pocket.
He could still feel it.
It was real.
That was the part that frightened him.
The following day, the rescue transports departed Vanta-3.
The animals were loaded into separate ships.
The silver-furred creatures were among the first to leave.
Ron stood beside their transport.
His little companion refused to enter.
Two technicians tried.
It bit both of them.
Ron sighed.
“Come on.”
The creature immediately climbed onto his shoulder.
One of the technicians looked relieved.
“We can sedate it.”
Ron shook his head.
“No.”
The creature curled around his neck.
“I’m taking this one.”
Potter walked past.
“You don’t even know what it eats.”
Ron looked at the creature.
The creature looked at Ron.
They both seemed equally uncertain.
“How hard can it be?”
Potter stopped.
“That’s exactly what people say before adopting children.”
Ron stared at him.
“You’re comparing this to raising a child?”
Potter pointed at the creature.
“It already has the same level of chaos.”
The creature chirped.
Ron smiled.
“Then we’re keeping it.”
Bonita had a different problem.
The small metallic-organic fox that had been rescued from the ecological sector had somehow gotten into her equipment again.
She pulled it out by the scruff of its neck.
“You.”
The creature blinked.
“Out.”
It reached toward the Myth-Tech interface.
Bonita pulled the device away.
“No.”
The fox whined.
Bonita sighed.
“You cannot eat ancient technology.”
The creature sneezed.
A tiny spark jumped between its whiskers.
Bonita stared.
She scanned it.
The readings changed.
Her expression became thoughtful.
“Wait.”
The creature sneezed again.
A resonance fluctuation appeared on her scanner.
Bonita looked at the animal.
Then at the scanner.
Then back at the animal.
“You’re detecting the formation.”
The fox tilted its head.
Bonita smiled.
“Fine.”
She placed it carefully inside a small carrier.
“But you’re not a pet.”
Potter walked past.
“Of course.”
Bonita ignored him.
“You’re a research assistant.”
The fox chirped.
Potter smiled.
“Whatever helps you sleep.”
Not everyone was interested.
Mitchell refused to take an animal.
Saiyuki refused even more firmly.
Pointy had accidentally agreed to foster one before discovering that it shed luminous hair.
Riyansh insisted he couldn’t keep one because his medical equipment already occupied most of his quarters.
Sia quietly took responsibility for a small floating creature whose spiritual resonance responded to her presence.
She never called it a pet.
She simply let it follow her.
Aryaan remained without a companion.
Lane did too.
Neither seemed interested.
At least for now.
The transport fleet departed Vanta-3.
From the observation deck, Aryaan watched the station become smaller.
The industrial remains that had once seemed insignificant now looked different.
They had uncovered an ancient formation.
An Orion extraction mechanism.
A temporal anomaly.
And evidence that someone had manipulated the station’s systems long before any of them arrived.
Yet the greatest mystery remained the boy.
Aryaan touched the metallic bead in his pocket.
A faint pulse travelled through it.
He froze.
The pulse wasn’t coming from the bead.
It was responding to him.
For an instant, the glass of the observation window reflected someone standing behind him.
Aryaan turned.
Nobody.
He looked back.
The reflection was gone.
Then a voice came through the ship’s communication system.
Not a transmission.
A recording.
Devdutt.
“Some things are safer when they remain unknown.”
Aryaan stared at the speaker.
The recording continued.
“But there is a difference between ignorance and protection.”
A pause.
“If you have begun finding things I never told you about, do not assume I hid them from you.”
Aryaan listened carefully.
“Some of them were hidden from me as well.”
The message ended.
Aryaan remained still.
For the first time, he understood something about his Guruji that he had not considered before.
Devdutt didn’t know everything.
Perhaps none of them did.
And somewhere beyond the loop, something existed that even Devdutt had never been able to see.
MOKSHABHUMI
The first animal transport arrived six hours later.
Mokshabhumi’s ecological dome opened to receive them.
The rescued creatures were transferred into controlled habitats designed to resemble the environments they had come from.
The little silver creature was released first.
It took three steps.
Stopped.
Looked around.
Then ran straight back toward Ron.
Ron caught it.
“You don’t want to stay?”
The creature shook itself and curled against him.
A nearby technician laughed.
“Looks like you’ve been chosen.”
Ron smiled.
“Apparently.”
He looked toward the enormous ecological dome.
“Welcome home.”
The creature chirped.
Behind them, another transport descended.
Then another.
The heroes watched as Vanta-3’s rescued wildlife slowly found new homes across Mokshabhumi.
For the first time in days, the station felt peaceful.
Then the sky above the ecological dome flickered.
Aryaan looked up.
A faint image appeared across the transparent ceiling.
Not a ship.
Not a projection.
A planetary map.
One world was highlighted.
Then another.
Then another.
Three distant planets.
All marked with the same symbol.
A black circle surrounded by eight points.
Bonita stared.
“That’s the Planetary Formation.”
Aryaan’s stomach tightened.
“But those planets aren’t connected.”
Lane stepped closer.
The mist appeared around him.
He looked at the three worlds.
His expression slowly changed.
“They are.”
Ron looked at him.
“How?”
Lane pointed toward the space between them.
“Not through space.”
Aryaan understood.
“Through resonance.”
The three worlds began glowing simultaneously.
A fourth point appeared.
Then a fifth.
Then a sixth.
Bonita’s scanner screamed.
The little silver creature on Ron’s shoulder suddenly became still.
Its fur rose.
Sia’s floating companion fled beneath her cloak.
Riyansh looked toward the animals.
“They can feel it.”
Aryaan stared at the map.
The Orions were not harvesting Vanta-3.
They had been testing their method.
And now they had moved on.
Somewhere across the Lokas, the next harvest had already begun.
Aryaan’s temporal sight opened without warning.
He saw a planet beneath a red sky.
Cities burning.
Millions of people running.
And beneath the planet— a vast formation.
Hundreds of resonance nodes.
Thousands of them.
All connected.
Then he saw something else.
A figure standing at the centre.
A boy.
Older now.
Looking directly at him.
The boy raised one hand.
And behind him stood another Aryaan.
The older Aryaan smiled.
Not at the boy.
At him.
Then the vision broke.
Aryaan staggered.
Ron caught him.
“What did you see?”
Aryaan looked toward the stars.
His answer came quietly.
“The next world.”
Lane waited.
Aryaan’s face hardened.
“And someone is already there.”
The lights of Mokshabhumi dimmed.
Far away, beyond the Milky Way and beyond the familiar boundaries of their loka, something ancient answered the awakening formation.
The hunt had begun.