Stars Rise

LXV. Nova Dasilva Figures Out Nova Potestas-Gloriam

Leander had ushered Nova back out into the hub of rebel activity and then stood in front of the door with his back to it to block her entrance.

He ignored her questions with a blank face and shut his mouth tight. It was excruciating. He was the perfect candidate to tell her everything.

Nova believed Cristo and Stephen were busy talking about important things, and everyone she saw looked preoccupied with coming up with a last ditch plan to save their lives, even Laio Cytheria and Sera Cassus and the other two who came out of Stephen's office had joined the mind meld and Nova didn't want to distract them even though the questions were killing her. 

But Leander wasn't doing anything, he was just standing there!

"You follow orders. Don't you take orders from me?" she tried. It was the first thing that got a reaction out of him: his brows furrowed a millimeter toward each other. "Answer me."

"I don't know if I take orders from you," he said. It appeared to truly perplex him.

"You obey Stephen, and you obeyed Ilan Potestas — the boss practically adopted me. Stephen is like," she plowed into a gross exaggeration, "a little brother to me. A hundred years may have passed, but surely you obey my commands just as you obey Stephen's."

He was shaking his head. "I never met Exqequi Ilan Potestas. I obey Nova Gloriam, but you're not her."

"Gloriam. Nova Gloriam, you say. Interesting. No, I am not her, but I'm going to be in a hundred years. But I thought it was Potestas. Now it's Gloriam? None of this makes any sense. What would make Cristo call me Nova Potestas? Amnesia? Delusions? He's been completely unhinged from reality since the first time I saw him and he keeps saying I'm not real and I'm not Nova Potestas, or Gloriam, which I'm not, but somehow I will be, right? Did the boss adopt me before he died? No, he was supposed to have died last night, wasn't he? Did I marry Stephen? But then why Gloriam?"

She thought momentarily of Calo Gloriam. Would she marry Calo?

"Is Cristo completely insane?"

Leander wasn't answering her any more and continued to shake his head. Nova asked him, "If he's crazy, why is he the person Stephen nominated to send to the past to fix things?"

Leander stopped shaking his head and his expression brightened. "I think I can tell you that."

Nova clapped her hands and almost bounced with enthusiasm. "Please!" she said.

"There are two reasons. Cristo is the only one who could go. First, only he can create a temporal link. Stephen forefronted that technology; however, Marius cast him out and disconnected him from the star dial. Cristo is the only member of the rebellion with a gnomon connected to the current Constellation star dial."

"What's a gnomon?" asked Nova.

"It connects Cristo to the Constellation dial. Try to keep up."

"That little rod thing? But it takes a router to connect to the star dial, like that sundial table in Potestas Tower."

"That was how you connected to the old dial. You had to be connected to a router that transmitted to Constellation's original star dial. Justin Marius built a second star dial that only requires a gnomon to connect to it — the range is infinite, even across time, as long as you're touching the gnomon. President Marius only connects people he likes to the more advanced dial — and there are still different tiers for the capabilities to which each person has access.

"Marius likes Cristo. He's the talented son of his good friend Angelus Gloriam — but he doesn't like him enough to allow him to time travel; in fact, it's illegal to everyone who isn't working on its development. Temporal links need some improvement; there are a few kinks to work out. But since Stephen used to work on that team, he was able to instruct Cristo to gain access to time links. If somewhat illegally, by bypassing the tiers.