“… What I am about to tell you is to be kept between us. You will spearhead the operation. Any other Generals I involve will be fed different information from you. Do you understand?”

Lucina matched her niece’s serious attitude. “Yes. I understand.”

“I recently saw a disturbing vision. Another rogue inventor slips through our net. In a century of Portum’s time, our Empire will be wiped out, and all of humanity will be lost. Unless we do something.”

“‘Lost’? What do you mean by that?”

“I’m not sure if I’m capable of fully comprehending it, but it's like a fundamental law of nature is changed. Reality ends. Everything comes apart. The universe itself becomes completely unrecognisable. Indescribably so. I don’t know what else to say, other than the obvious; it’s a catastrophe. The worst-case scenario. Irreparable.”

“A hundred Portum years... For most of the Empire, that would be over a thousand years.”

“Yes. But we must act quickly, the longer we tarry, the more widespread the problem becomes.”

“Do you know where it originates? Who is the inventor?”

“I’ve managed to narrow it down considerably. I do not know specifically who the inventor might be, but I know that they must be related to someone born three Portum days ago. That was when the visions started. I also know that the root planet is Garacleus Delta III in sector WX-8 of the Supermilky Cluster. It’s one of the designer planets left over from the Folly.”

Lucina pursed her lips. Catherine mirrored the action.

“I know. It’s a shame. But no price is too great to pay for the salvation of literally everyone and everything that has ever existed.” Catherine said.

“You’re telling me that Garacleus Delta III must be destroyed.”

“Yes.”

Lucina fell silent. She knew that this was a possibility. Similar things had been done in the past. Rogue planets were wiped out after being investigated as existential threats. Sometimes entire Incandestine cities, depending on the output of their greatest artificial intelligences. But an entire Incandestine Planet? A designer planet no less? This was the worst-case scenario. It would take considerable effort to cover up a genocide on that scale. Not to mention the loss of billions of innocent lives.

“Is there any other way?” Lucina asked. “I know I’m asking to gamble with the fate of everyone and everything, but if we can save even one person, that would be something worth praising.”

“That attitude is precisely why I called you specifically, dear Auntie. I don’t want anyone to die if I can help it, but I doubt any other General would entertain that romantic notion, other than you. Everyone else would undoubtedly authorise a neutron burst to wipe Garacleus Delta III clean.”

“So, what do you have in mind, Empress?”

“We’ll travel to Garacleus Delta III together. I shall stay in orbit aboard the Owl, The reduced time dilation will allow me to parse more information and more time for us to find our person before it’s too late. You will lead a small team to investigate GD-III and update me moment-by-moment. As soon as we find our person, I will let you know what must be done.”

“We’ll be looking for an infant,” Lucina noted.

“Yes. They’ll be barely two weeks old.”

“And if it comes to it, the infant must be killed?”

“That seems like a likely solution to our problem. But fate is a fickle mistress. The more information I have, the better I can inform you what must be done. It is possible that killing the infant inspires a relation or stranger to creating the invention. It is possible that we may be able to prevent that invention from being made by the infant, whether by tuition or repossession. The course of action we must take will only be clear once I have more information.”

“Understood.”

Lucina sat in silence. She has decades of military experience, she had quelled uprisings and annihilated rogue planets. She was no stranger to espionage and gathering intelligence. She had investigated and surveilled dozens of individuals and organisations. She had surreptitiously restructured governments and corporations and plotted and carried out assassinations. But never had she done any of these things with the express intent of identifying a newborn child. An innocent, newborn child that may well have to be killed for the sake of everyone and everything.

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“I know what you’re thinking,” Catherine said. “But just like how the course of our conversation changes because I speak based on my visions of the future, what we learn and what we do can change the future I have foreseen. That is why you are doing this; to try and save lives… to save someone’s life.”

An hour later, Lucina was on the surface of Garacleus Delta III.

It was a designer planet from the era of the Folly when the use of probability-altering technology ran rampant; that meant that it had been created by a particular designer, rather than being built according to the Incandestine Empire’s standard protocols for terraforming. From a certain perspective, GD-III was a rogue planet, however, the planet’s natural laws and flora and fauna all abided by the Incandestine Empire’s standards for Creation. This had spared it from being expunged.

GD-III’s main quirk as a designer planet was its atmosphere. It was dense enough to swim through, though it still contained enough oxygen to breathe freely. Although there were trees of green as one might expect from a human planet, the most iconic landscapes of Garacleus Delta III were pink, cyan and bone white; with coral forests and moors, spread across hundreds of acres. Bird species were rare, and a far cry from what would usually be encountered on a stereotypical Incandestine planet. Instead, the local wildlife had been designed for and evolved into creatures with fins and long, wide, muscular tails. There were creatures of dense bone and carapace that crawled, squirmed, wriggled or skittered along the planet’s surface. Rocky plains and fields of grass and sand and ice were all commonplace. The planet’s position relatively close to its star made the planetary temperature of Garacleus Delta III far warmer and more stable than any conventional planet with a thinner atmosphere.

The great amount of energy and nutrients available in the atmosphere led to the evolution of uniquely gigantic flying creatures that left many tourists and children slack-jawed in awe, terror or both.

Much like other planets under Incandestine rule, one did not have to work to make a living; resource management and automated farming and agricultural technologies allowed all basic human necessities to be produced reliably and without the need for any human interference on a local level.

So in short, GD-III was a paradise.

And it was in this paradise that Lucina was leading a small but loyal team of twenty-one individuals. They were not Chimaeras, just regular humans, born from a long line of genetically robust individuals, just like the rest of the Incandestine Empire’s subjects. Genetic diseases had long since been eradicated from the general populace, and lifespans far exceeded the pittance of a century on ancient earth.

Lucina and her team were operating on a list of 1.3 million potential subjects. That was how many babies had been born on the planet within the week surrounding the time Catherine started having her calamitous vision.

That was a number far too large to investigate in person, but that did not strictly matter. What mattered most was conveying the most relevant information to Catherine, who would be able to render great sections of the list irrelevant based on geography, gender, time, or some other as-of-yet-unforeseen factor.

The precise mechanisms of Catherine’s power were unknown, even to her, but the details of destiny could be better resolved if she had more precise information, like a new lens bringing an image coming into focus or the fine features of an abstract painting being filled in by an AI.

Moment by moment, brain-download by brain-download, the size of the list was cut down as Catherine explored her visions further.

“Ignore the entire region of Chamsey. Nothing happens there for more than a century. If our culprit is an explorer of heretical sciences, I would expect to see some evidence of experimentation or even inexplicable advancement.” Catherine ordered.

Lucina relayed the Empress’ orders to her squad. Then, she relayed new concerns to the Empress. “Your Radiance, The team is asking: If we are expecting some form of advancement, should we be investigating rural areas?

“Continue exploring everything else. I am looking for aberrations in the usual rate of development. It is normal for unprotected rural areas to become urbanised.”

“What kind of aberrations are you searching for?” Lucina asked.

“I am unsure… but I’ll know when I see it. Continue.”

And so Lucina and her team continued to work, sending Catherine pieces of information based on a machine learning algorithm that analysed the results of her future vision.

A first-person video that had been taken by an air-swimming enthusiast. A photograph of a small-town museum exhibit about the migration of shrimp-like creatures. The ten most played songs in each country. The movement data from a tracking beacon attached to a male specimen of a species of large, island-like creature that soared through the skies high above. A list of the most purchased food items by state and city. A picture from each site in a city pending construction or development.

“Ignore Hespar.”

“Ignore the Arch of Dunnaly.”

“Ignore the Elbrect Mounds.”

Slowly but surely, Catherine narrowed down the possibilities. Everything she had seen so far of Garacleus Delta III’s future was relatively normal. But no matter where she looked, cataclysm eventually arrived with little warning.

“Ignore the King’s Dermis.”

“Ignore Esperon City.”

“Ignore the nation of Selen.”

It was exhausting work. The use of the Empress’s powers greatly fatigued her, but she continued to push herself. The future was unpredictable. If Catherine did not nip this problem in the bud, it was possible for its nature of it to change, requiring greater ‘correction.’

“Ignore Grilkesorg.”

“Ignore Kuingowel’s Rest.”

“That rules out the southern hemisphere...”