“We used to go looking for them, these formations,” the robot continued. “But they would always disappear: we thought our mind was playing tricks on us. But in actuality we were passing through the formations, the Fold, like a mirage. Passageways through space. But we didn’t realize the truth for a long time, and Daley spent weeks searching for the mountains again. And again. He thought they were physical things that could be mined.”

It cocked its head at her. “It wasn’t until we’d been assimilated that we were able to go and study them for ourselves. You were partly right. The Fold is an anomaly where something—we don’t know what—causes particles to behave strangely. Particles born in a single instant, then split in that same instant, usually exist in different dimensions, you see; but in the Fold, their longing to be whole again is so strong that they collapse the dimensions between them. The dimensions subsequently merge into one, or are bent into unrecognizable shapes.”

“I . . . see,” Park said hesitantly, feeling lost. She thought again of what Wick had told her: what would happen if figures on a 2D, flat piece of paper found their plane of existence rolled into a tube. Or bent into an origami crane. How incomprehensible that would look to the figures that had always been flat.

Taban plowed on. “But that anomalous behavior isn’t restricted to the area you call the Fold alone. Sometimes it causes planet-wide ripples—quantum events—like storms, where whatever is causing particles to behave oddly in the Fold also surges out across Eos in a wave. A ripple effect, all across the planet. This is what we call the unity rain.”

Park kneaded her temples. “So you’re saying—what happens in the Fold also happens elsewhere? The dimensions fold together?”

Taban nodded. “For a temporary time, yes,” it said. “It might even be affecting the space around the planet: our ship might have fallen through one such fold. We were flying outside of Vier and suddenly found ourselves here.” It paused. “And once we were here, it happened to our ship, the Wyvern, too. And the land around our ship. The terrain . . . changed. Or shifted around us.”

“Then—our ship has been affected, too?”