Raiders of the universes

In the thirty‑fourth century astronomer Phobar watches a sudden flash of a new fourth‑magnitude star streaking backward through Hercules, a phenomenon made visible only by the experimental four‑dimensional Mercia’s nullifier. Within a day two more identical stars appear, each racing toward Earth at twelve hundred miles per second, and by the end of the week a line of seven blazing suns has formed across the night sky. The unprecedented cascade forces the scattered telescopes of the Five World Federation to turn toward a cosmic firework that seems to be birthing worlds in real time.

Without the nullifier the new stars remain invisible to ordinary eyes, but every scientist equipped with the device tracks their precise motion, noting that nearby constellations also shift erratically. As the seventh star fades and the eighth fails to materialize, Phobar’s patience wears thin, yet a faint, growing haze at the telescope’s center hints that the mystery has not yet run its course. Listeners are drawn into a tense race against an unknown force that could reshape the known universe.