“There’s been a change of plan,” I said to Vargo.
He eyed me, knowing I was back in Tunde.
“We need to match course with the Augmenter fleet,” I said.
“What?”
“I’m only telling you what I’ve been advised.”
“Forget it!”
“He’s right,” said Marea.
“What do you mean? We need to get the hell out of this! This is our chance to escape.”
Marea shook her head. “If the womb’s there, then I want to know what’s going to happen to it.”
“This is crazy!”
“I lost everything because of it—my husbands, our child. I nearly lost my own life as well.”
Vargo hadn’t expected this. Neither Nina nor I had actually told the others Marea’s story; during our absence, Tunde had explained for Vargo’s benefit how he had acquired the womb, but Marea herself had continued to be unable to say anything about what had happened after he left Mars. Until now. Something, perhaps her escape from Io, had breached the block, and she related how she had found Yuri and Salih murdered, then was arrested and deported to Io on a fabricated charge of murder.
Vargo listened without interrupting; Cori was also agog. When Marea had finished, she went to her side and patted her hand, the child comforting the woman.
Vargo gave a slow, exasperated growl. “You’re out of your mind,” he said to me. “In more ways than one. You want us to get involved?”
“We tail them,” I said. “At a safe distance.”
“And then what?”
I had no answer to that. Chloe and Lucian would give me none.
“Don’t deny me this,” Marea said to him. “We’re here because of the womb. I ended up on Io because of it. They were going to blank me. I can’t let it go when it’s so close.”
Vargo sat back in his seat. He unfastened his tunic at the neck, contemplated the armada ships.
“You want my opinion,” he said to Marea. “We can’t trust them.”
I knew he was referring to myself and Nina.
“You have to let her,” Cori said urgently. “Without her, you wouldn’t be free.”
“You keep out of it!”
“I’ve got as much right to say what I think as you!”
“Is that you speaking? The kid?”
“Of course it is!”
Only then did I realize how Marea had been able to breach her block. Nina was in her.
• • •
Bezile rose from the prayer terminal, bereft of the usual comforts of communion. Her ancestors—tradesfolk and petty civic functionaries, most of them—had proved woefully unequal to the task of providing emotional solace after she had conveyed the abominations she had witnessed on Earth. Their responses had ranged from abject revulsion to outright incredulity—as if she had actually invented it! Most had been so distraught that they had fled from her mindset entirely, shrivelling into the infinite dark. To think that the afterlife was populated with such spineless souls—and every one of them of her own bloodline. It was far worse to have your ancestors fail you than your children. The enormity of it was quite beyond their squeamishness.
Intriguingly, just at the moment when she was withdrawing from her communion, she had felt the immanence of a more robust and unfamiliar spirit, perhaps an ancestor she had never known before; but she was too far gone in exiting to entertain it, too disgruntled with the paltry response from everyone else. Besides, an extended communion was a luxury she could ill afford while the mad Advocates were clearly intent on further insanity.
She paused at the threshold of the shrine, stiff and weary, every orifice sore after a total fluid exchange. Of course she’d requested nepenthe and had drowsed blissfully through much of it, but the enforced intrusion was something she would not readily forgive. Though she had no evidence, she suspected that the Advocates had been secret spectators to the whole procedure, relishing every moment of her evacuation as she lay spreadeagled and naked, catheters snaking from her nostrils to her—
No. It did no good to think about it, though even her eyeballs ached. The doormouth opened. She exited.
Two of the Advocates’ functionaries were waiting for her outside. They led her along the corridor, matching her doddery pace, until they came to a slideway that, to her vast relief, began to whisk them along.
They traversed the long neck of the ship in silence. Bezile had never felt more wretched. Doubtless that was what the Advocates had intended: weak, she was more prey to their manipulations.
The slideway delivered them to the bridgehead of the ship. Julius and Orela sat alone with Leanderic on the topmost skulldeck. The armoured suits were gone and they again wore the Advocates’ robes. Both of them greeted her with ostentatious consideration.
“We trust your prayers have been comforting,” Julius said. “It’s a pleasure to have a Prime Arbiter who is diligent in her observances even under great duress.”
“You look pale,” Orela said. She patted the seat between them. “Sit with us.”
With some reluctance, and even greater delicacy, Bezile lowered herself into it. They were facing the forward eye blister. Directly ahead of them lay the gleaming spiral of the Sanctuary. It was surrounded by hundreds of small craft, as if every plagueship in the Noospace had descended on it.
“Are we going there?” she asked. “To the Sanctuary?”
“It is our destination,” Julius confirmed. He gave an exaggerated sigh. “These are trying times. More than ever we need brave spirits.”
What was this supposed to mean? On the other side of Julius Leanderic sat straight-backed in his seat, his expression blank. He, too, had undergone fluid exchange. They had had no opportunity to speak since their return to the Advocates’ ship.
Bezile felt tired and spirit-sick. Is this what despair feels like? she wondered. Then shook herself mentally. She could not afford such an indulgence. Especially not now.
She tried to keep the weariness out of her voice, saying, “I’d like to know what you intend next.”
“Intend?” Julius turned a solemn gaze on her. “We intend nothing more than the very salvation of the Noosphere.”
“Hundreds of Augmenter ships are even now approaching Earth-orbit,” Orela informed her. “The Gallileans mustered a defensive fleet, but then gave way to the intruders.”
The Sanctuary spun slowly in the blackness. “Gave way?”
“They betrayed us. Allowed the Augmenters unhindered passage.”
“To think that we would face such treachery,” Julius said. “Even Modramistra has failed to rally to the people’s cause, even the arbiters of Mars. All declared their neutrality and refused to dispatch any ships to intercept them. The Augmenters have continued their approach without opposition. There has been no response from Mercury or Venus to our pleas for assistance.”
Despite his words, he sounded quite sanguine. Orela activated one of the optics on the control ridge. The Augmenter ships formed a compact sphere just beyond the gibbous Earth. They were a ramshackle assemblage of vintage and cannibalized craft, but Bezile had never seen so many.
“They’re going to attack?”
“Why else would they have come?” said Julius.
Between themselves and the Augmenters lay only the Sanctuary and its attendant flotilla.
“Was no one prepared to defend the Noosphere?” Bezile asked incredulously.
“Not one,” Orela answered. And immediately brightened. “Yet we have our Prime Arbiter here as our faithful servant, do we not? We are resourceful, steadfast, and we know our cause is righteous. Let’s not be faint-hearted. We shall defend the Noosphere to our very last breath.”
It was plain they were serious. Bezile was compelled to ask: “How? Is the Noosphere mustering a fleet?”
Julius pointed through the blister towards the Sanctuary. “That is our fleet.”
It was a moment before Bezile understood what he meant. The plagueships.
Most were converted cargo vessel
s or refurbished derelicts. None carried any weaponry.
“You’re going to send the plagueships against the Augmenters?”
Orela activated several more of the optics. They showed Dementia victims strapped into pilots’ seats, heads encased in neural hoods.
“They will be our final defence,” she said. “Fearless pilots who will guide their ships straight at the heart of the intruders—”
“Fearless?” Bezile couldn’t contain herself. “They’re mad. Oblivious.”
“We’ve done everything we can for them,” Julius said. “Far better they die a glorious death in the service of the Noosphere than a miserable protracted extinction in a sickbed.”
“They’re diseased! Gibbering travesties of their former selves!”
Julius shook his head patiently, as if she were a stupid child failing to grasp an obvious point. “They’re sedated, stabilized. The ships will be able to access their higher cortical functions without difficulty.”
“Each of their holds is packed with an infant photoplasm,” Orela said in a gleeful manner. “The explosions should make quite a display.”
And she and Julius giggled at the prospect.
Photoplasms were seething blobs of incandescent gas, perhaps the most remarkable products of human bioingenuity. They were regularly harvested from the stellar photosphere, Bezile knew, and transported in magnetic chambers to sustain the radiant envelopes of the gas giants.
“Are you saying this was planned?” she shouted. “You arranged it in advance?”
“A prudent precaution,” Julius told her. “In case the loyalty of our subjects proved uncertain.”
Our subjects. Bezile longed for Luis’s pedantic presence, useless though he would have been in such a situation. He had been sacrificed. As a demonstration. An entertainment, even.
Leanderic would be no help to her. Bezile saw with renewed amazement that he had not even had his scorched hands repaired: they were upturned, charred and festering, in his lap. His face was as still as a corpse’s.
“This is madness,” she said. “You are mad.”
The Advocates were intent on their “fleet”.
“Of course we are,” Orela said conversationally. “Who would not be when they know what we know? When they’ve experienced what we have experienced?”
“Then let go,” Bezile said. “Give way to successors. You can be cured of your sickness, given an honourable translation to the Noosphere.”
Julius laughed and leaned close. “Shall I tell you the greatest heresy of all?” he whispered. “A heresy, and yet a truth. A great and terrifying truth.”
“Better she doesn’t know,” Orela interjected.
“What heresy?”
“You’ll regret it if you ask,” Orela said. “Remain in blissful ignorance.”
Bezile was weary of their blatant theatricals. “What heresy?” she said again.
Julius glanced at Leanderic, as if to check whether he was listening. He did not appear to be aware of any of them. Bezile could feel the heat of Julius’s breath as he whispered straight into her ear:
“There is no afterlife. No real translation to the Noosphere.” He drew back. “Shocking, yes?”
His eyes were like black voids, empty of humanity. Bezile breathed slowly; she could not take much more of this. How was one to respond to such an outrage?
“It’s true,” Orela said brightly. “A truth which every Advocate must carry like a lump of bile which cannot be swallowed or spat out.”
Bezile shook her head. “I will not hear any more!”
“Believe me,” Orela said, “we share your desolation. But we have long been inured to it.”
“Our ancestors were clever,” Julius went on. “They designed the Noosphere to provide universal yet particular comfort by making it a spiritual mirror that would reflect back the secret urgings of the soul in the guise of an individual’s ancestors.”
This was mere babble. How much longer would her punishment continue? Would it never end?
“Do you expect me to swallow this?” she said.
“There is no afterlife,” Julius repeated. “There is no Noosphere—at least not in the sense of an extended realm which the passed-on inhabit. It is merely created, brought into transient life, by each communicant. It takes its particular form from their existing mind state.”
“When you die, you die,” Orela said. “It’s an end of things, just as it was for our primitive ancestors. We know this as a truth, a certitude. Is it any wonder, then, that we should choose to cling to life, to wrest every experience from it while we may?”
There had been Advocates who had retired well before their lifespans, who had lived out their retirements in contented quietude. None had ever even hinted at such an abomination. This was the lie of all lies, an apostasy from which there could be no recovery, no forgiveness.
She made to rise.
“Are you leaving us?” Orela said with apparent surprise.
“Your steward needs attention. I shall take him to the recuperatory.”
“You’ll miss the fun!”
Bezile heaved herself upright. Neither of the Advocates even looked at Leanderic. It was almost as if he was not there.
“It’s a terrifying thing,” Julius said, “to be stripped of one’s most cherished beliefs. It’s a terrifying thing to discover that you are indeed truly mortal, the afterlife a mere chimera. Feel free to cry. Don’t restrain your grief on our account.”
Bezile hauled Leanderic from his seat. His lips parted, but he didn’t speak.
“You must rejoin us before the battle commences,” Orela said as Bezile led the steward away. “And don’t worry—we intend to preserve the people’s illusions, whatever the outcome. Anything is better than a truth without solace.”
None of the crew accompanied Bezile as she joined the glideway to the recuperatory. She was grateful for that. It was hard to tell whether Leanderic was leaning against her for support, or quite the reverse. This, then, was her punishment for failing to deliver the womb to the Advocates. To be trapped with them, their insanity displayed in full bloom, a diseased fleet under their command to defend a people whose entire existences, they claimed, were based on the greatest of deceits. It would have been absurd beyond belief were she not actually living it.
The recuperatory was unattended, and Bezile helped Leanderic undress, ordering his drapery to slide very carefully over his damaged hands. Leanderic responded to instructions but did not react in any other way.
Bezile laid him between the open folds of a sickbed, then told the bed to undertake a full therapeutic session to restore him, body and soul. The bed’s optic blinked on, and then it enfolded itself about its patient, flaps suffusing with a reddish glow.
Bezile perched herself in a recliner and gazed idly at the optic as it began the diagnostic examination. The bed commenced a commentary, but she told it to be quiet and simply do whatever was necessary. She closed her eyes, then said:
“Who are you?”
I jumped at this, only at that moment becoming fully aware that I was actually lodged there in her mind. I had been crouched at the back of her consciousness until now, not realizing that I was living out her experiences as they actually happened.
I knew she was addressing me because the question was directed inwards.
“Speak,” she said. “Are you some spy the Advocates have put inside me?”
I realized she hadn’t spoken aloud on either occasion; but her thoughts were clearly and directly articulated at me.
I hesitated, then said, “I came through the shrine. Through the Noosphere.”
She contemplated this for a moment. “You were the presence I felt on exiting?”
“I must have been.” Once again the transition had been instantaneous, unwilled.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
She had absolutely no fear of me—indeed, her prevailing reaction was one of irritation at my uninvited presence.
Ther
e was nothing for it but to tell her everything. And tell her I did, in as much detail as I could recall. It took a considerable time, but Bezile was patient, the needful patience that comes from a surfeit of horror and physical discomfort. She kept her eyes closed, lay perfectly relaxed, concentrating utterly on everything I told her. I did my best to put everything I had experienced in order while recounting it with as much brevity as I could muster.
Bezile did not once interrupt me. With her eyes closed, I could see nothing, but I was powerfully aware of her presence. Bezile was an altogether different character from Tunde or Imrani or even Marea, a woman of power and influence who was used to wielding her authority. A woman seldom awed and daunted. She had seen the thing in the lake on Earth, and my manifestation must have seemed nothing remarkable by comparison.
“And where is your companion now?”
“Nina?” I realized for the first time that she was not with me. “I don’t know,” I confessed. “She must still be with the others.”
Again Bezile fell into contemplation. She was adept at guarding her thoughts, and I found it hard to read them.
“This is quite a little tale,” she said at last.
“Chloe and Lucian,” I said. “Do you know of them?”
The names meant nothing to her.
“The Noosphere has tens of thousands of servants,” she said. “Are they with you now?” I searched, but there was nothing. “No.” Then I asked: “Is it true that pairs are bred for the Advocacy?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Bezile said. “But it is seldom that simple.”
“I don’t trust them.”
“Trust is a commodity at present in short order. What do they want from me?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know why I’m here with you at this moment. They fling us from one place to another with few explanations.”
“Consider yourself fortunate. Many would relish the opportunity to sample the lives of others.”
“Without real control?”
Bezile was interested in my dilemma only insofar as it related to hers. Her thoughts remained elusive, but I sensed her contemplating her daughter’s fate as a drone pilot aboard Elydia’s ship: there was anger mixed with genuine sadness that she had died without translation to the Noosphere. But Bezile was not one to dwell on personal misfortune.
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