Ever.
‘What’s her name?’ asked Josef Rasterovich as he came in behind her.
‘Nova,’ said Mira.
Josef moved closer, his face flushed. ‘She’s beautiful.’
Nova reached out and caught his finger. He is sweet, Mama, can I go with him? Secondo vein will care for us, and you can carry Vito.
Mira laughed. ‘She likes you. You should hold her for a while.’
Jo-Jo took Nova carefully from her, as if the child might disintegrate under his touch. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To Semantic.’
‘The bigger moon?’
Mira nodded. ‘Nova told me that she would like to travel there with you—in the Secondo vein.’
His mouth fell open. ‘She told you that?’
‘Si,’ said Mira as she lay herself and Vito down in Primo. ‘Nova knows what she likes.’
THALES
‘Thales!’
Thales stared at the person entering the command brief chamber on Lasper Farr’s ship. Bethany Ionil looked exhausted, but her embrace was fierce and full of relief.
Behind her, Thales saw Samuelle and the old fellow that Thales had met on Edo, Jelly Hob. Three other ‘esques followed them in, and they gravitated straight over to Balbao.
With Petalu Mau, the Feohte injured leader and several of Lasper’s mutinous soldiers, the chamber was suddenly full. One of the soldiers passed around rehyd-tubes and some jerky.
After they’d drunk and eaten a little, Bethany sent the soldiers out. She identified each remaining person for the benefit of them all and told everyone to sit. Then she took up a position in the centre and encompassed them all with her gaze.
Thales thought she looked older, more worn, but there was a tautness to her body, a resolution that comes with assuming responsibility. He’d seen it before in Lasper Farr, and the mercenary Rast Randall. And now he saw it in Bethany Ionil.
‘You’ve closed the sphere?’ she said to Fariss and Thales.
‘Yeah,’ said Farris. ‘And you’ve taken command of the ship.’
Samuelle moved next to her. ‘Not just the ship. Consilience too. Some of our ships have survived. We’ll rendezvous with them soon.’
‘My brother was a brilliant man but he risked too much for personal ambition,’ said Beth wearily, and that was all.
Thales could see how close she was to tears but she kept them at bay. ‘We’re prepping to leave, an hour at most. Word’s out that the sphere is closing. Things will get worse. Will you come with us?’
Thales couldn’t bear to look at Farris as he shook his head. ‘I’ll stay here. The virus has spread among the Sophos. I must find a way to right things.’
‘With the sphere shut you’ll be cut off from the rest of Orion. Possibly for ever,’ said Beth.
Before Thales could respond, Balbao spoke up. ‘Would this be a virus that affects humanesque behaviour? One that alters the processes in the orbito-frontal lobe?’
Thales stared at him, astonished. ‘You know of it?’
Balbao’s thick-skinned face became unreadable. ‘Not only do I know of it, but I can introduce you to the person who developed it and can, no doubt, negate its affects.’ He gestured at the female tyro.
‘You!’ exclaimed Bethany. ‘Do you realise what misery you’ve caused?’
Thales touched his scarred skin.
The tyro, a fleshy female with trembling lips who’d identified herself as Miranda Seeward, opened her mouth and shut it again. ‘I needed lucre for my research, so I sold it,’ she said finally. ‘I never expected it to... You must understand that what we were doing was very important. I needed funds.’
Bethany’s face set in a grim expression reminiscent of her dead brother. ‘If your intention was not malicious then you’ll have no qualms accompanying Thales back to Scolar to reverse what you’ve done. Janne will... escort you.’
The injured Feohte leader shifted closer to Miranda.
Seeward grasped the hand of the male tyro next to her and nodded mutely.
Bethany looked to Jelly Hob. ‘Jeremiah, can you go to helm? I would be happier if you were there. Leaving here will be fraught.’
Jelly Hob’s old face lit with pleasure. Before he left he shook hands with Thales and then Balbao. ‘Farewell,’ he said with feeling, and left.
Bethany surveyed the rest of them. ‘Those of you staying on Scolar must leave now. Petalu Mau will show you off-ship.’
The teranu waved his arm meaning that they should move. Janne, Miranda Seeward and Jise went first. But the other tyro held back. He looked at Bethany almost shyly, Thales thought.
‘I would stay if I could, Captain Ionil.’
She regarded him with curious eyes. ‘Why would you do that? We will be on the run.’
Labile Connit licked his lips.
‘Cos he’s your nephew, Beth. Mebbe he thinks some family’s better than none,’ piped up Samuelle.
Bethany stared at him in shock. ‘You’re Lasper’s son? I never believed the rumours.’
Connit couldn’t meet her gaze. ‘I never knew him, but I am genetically his son. That is all,’ he added quietly. He waited then as if fearing a death sentence.
But Bethany was not, and would never be, her brother. She held out her hand. ‘You are welcome on my ship, Labile Connit.’
Relief smoothed the distress from his expression.
‘Sammy, find him a cabin and report back to helm,’ said Bethany.
‘Aye, Captain,’ said the old woman with a bright-eyed gleam.
And then only Thales, Bethany and Fariss were left.
Bethany broke the silence by embracing Thales again. ‘I will miss you.’
This time he returned her hug fully—for what they’d shared and what she’d done for him.
‘Goodbye, dear Thales,’ she whispered.
* * *
As he followed Fariss to the docking tube, neither of them spoke.
When they reached it, the last of the Feohte were disembarking. They waited for them on station-side with the tyros and Janne.
‘Thales!’ Janne called. ‘We must get back to Ling-Ma.’
Thales waved a hand to acknowledge her and finally lifted his gaze to Fariss. She returned it steadily, her expression infused with conflicting emotions.
‘You’ll stay with the ship,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘And you’ll stay with your world.’
Thales felt his heart tear into pieces. He’d not known what she would choose, not until now, when he’d seen her face.
‘I’d cause trouble for you down here, Thales. You’d grow to hate that.’
He didn’t know what to say. So he let her kiss him one last time, a lingering, deep, breath-robbing kiss.
‘When we’ve beaten the Post-Species, I’ll be back to see you,’ she said.
He nodded, believing her. ‘I’ll be waiting.’
MIRA
Mira?
Primo vein’s attention to Vito’s nutritional deficiencies had engrossed Mira as they left Araldis, but the biozoon’s anxious tone dragged her attention back to their task. What’s wrong?
See—this.
An image slowly bloomed in her mind, an object seemingly half as large as Tiesha or Semantic, burning its way out of Araldis’s ionosphere.
The Post-Species Saqr ship.
It pursues us.
Insignia...
What do you want from me, dearest?
The Entity is out beyond Tiesha. I’ve seen it in Lasper Farr’s device. I must reach it. The Saqr mustn’t stop me. Mira put all her desperate need into her thought.
I am not equipped to combat the creature that pursues us. I’m not even sure what it is.
It is fast?
Yes. I’m at full propulsion and it gains on us easily.
Mira felt Insignia’s desolate certainty.
How much longer?
Moments only.
No!
‘No!’
Mira’s cry was
echoed by Tekton, who had settled in the Autonomy nub. Only Josef, cradling a peaceful Nova in the Secondo vein, seemed unaware.
‘Mira?’ he called softly as he rocked the baby. ‘What is it?’
But Mira was transfixed by the image of the approaching Saqr. How enormous it had grown. As she watched it through Insignia’s corduroy perspective, she saw a crack appear in the forward section of its body. It began as a large fissure in the gleaming carapace, which elongated and widened until the split was wider and longer than Insignia.
The Saqr ship was so close now that she could see inside the split to a frightening and immense mass. At first she thought it to be some type of vegetation, grown within the Saqr’s body, but as it closed on them, she realised it was something else—a jungle of coiled flesh that rippled as though underwater.
What is it? she asked Insignia.
A section of the flesh shifted, an eruption of the mass, and something began to unravel. It was longer than anything she’d ever seen, and sinewy.
It reached out for them across space and she felt Insignia’s searing pain as the gigantic stamen caught and burrowed into the biozoon’s ventral.
Insignia!
Mama! Tasy-al is hurting.
Nova. What can we do? The creature has attached itself to us.
They wish to reach the Entity before us.
Mira’s stomach contracted into a tight fist. How do you know of the Entity, Nova? Or what the Saqr intend?
Wanton told me.
You are speaking to Wanton? Now?
Wanton says the Non-Corporeals are trying to extract its essence. Wanton said I should tell you that the Post-Species wish to destroy the Entity, so that they may control their own evolution. They fear a more evolved being than themselves.
Mira thought wildly about the point of change that the device had shown them. The Saqr were not there. Not in the images she and Tekton had seen. ‘Tekton!’
The Godhead didn’t reply, entranced by his immersion in the DSD.
Insignia moaned. Dearest, I am dying.
Wanton! shrieked Mira to her daughter. Wanton must help us, Nova. Help Insignia.
Nova gave a little cry. Wanton.
‘Mira!’ exclaimed Jo-Jo. ‘Nova is... she’s... convulsing. Mira!’
But Mira could see what Nova was doing, in a way that Jo-Jo could not.
Her daughter projected a wave of electromagnetic rebuke that crossed the space between Insignia and the Saqr, and slammed the Post-Species ship.
The shock caused the Saqr to withdraw its stamen from Insignia, and a myriad of other fissures spread across its surface.
Insignia shuddered at the release, but already the Saqr was self-repairing, the cracks disappearing almost as quickly as they’d appeared.
The biozoon strained to gain distance as the Saqr’s maw opened again, this time unfurling countless stamens and sending them snaking across space, hunting them.
Nova repelled the attack with another EM wave, but she was not strong enough to sustain it and as the wave began to diminish, the hungry stamens pursued them again.
Nova! Wanton! Mira screamed with frustration and powerlessness.
‘Mira. Help her!’ Jo-Jo again.
‘Just hold her, Josef. Let her do what she must,’ cried Mira.
Nova sent another wave out, but her strength had gone and the stamens broke through. Yet this time, as they touched Insignia’s skin, the Saqr ship itself began to buckle.
The stamens retracted from Insignia’s ventral, lashing empty space, convulsing like the legs of an intolerably large spider. Then, slowly, they collapsed back into the Saqr’s maw in a tangled, wilted confusion.
The Saqr ship appeared to lose control of its trajectory, an object the size of a small moon whirling out of control.
But as Insignia gained distance from it, the ship ceased its uncontrolled spin and changed course directly towards Leah’s burning intensity.
Nova?
Wanton says goodbye, Mama. And thank you. Her daughter sounded heartbroken.
What has Wanton done?
Wanton said that I should tell you that it does not wish you to lose your ‘poda,’ as Wanton did.
Mira watched the Saqr ship’s trajectory. Leah would envelop it soon; there would be no escape. She was overcome with relief and sadness and loss.
As Insignia took them out past Tiesha, she dwelt on those emotions, let them swamp her.
Mira. Do you see it? Do you see it there?
But Mira had felt it before Insignia spoke. Its presence entered her mind like a shaft rammed along her backbone, a painful, stiffening jolt and a sense of invasion. She’d expected to feel fear as well, but the only thing beneath the pain was a sense of utter inevitability.
I am no one. But this no one would tell you that you must stop what you have started, Mira replied.
Your device has predicted the destruction of my species. You have brought this upon us.
The device has shown me outcomes and your hand in their making.
Anger surged through Mira. The Entity was more obtuse than Insignia. You have given extraordinary powers to your tyros, encouraged them to venture in certain directions. One has infected our greatest thinkers with a virus that impairs their decision-making, another has used your device to his own gain, passing it to a man who would cause further division between Post-Species and OLOSS under the guise of keeping peace.
No, she shouted. Not little problems. You’ve given us the tools to create our destruction and we’ve followed your intentions perfectly. You play a cruel game.
Mira felt its indifference, felt its withdrawal from her mind, the shaft softening in her back.
No! Wait. You must listen to me.
Mama, said Nova. Let me.
The Entity’s withdrawal halted and a sense of curiosity seeped through Mira’s being. Sole’s curiosity.
I am Nova, said her daughter. You seem alone. Is that why you have made these things happen?
Like this... Nova projected a grave melancholia, a vast emptiness without end that made Mira want to weep.
We all know. Do you feel it too?
A cold tingle shot through Mira as though she’d been injected with a drug.
Come, Mama.
Mira fell into a dizzying whirlpool of consciousness; was consumed by it and carried an immense, unfathomable distance to a place of dust and dust between galaxies. A place of cold mystery. A place of dark energy. Many Entities. Countless. Roving in their dark playground.
Yet only one of them asked a question. Only one of them cared to know. Sole.
You’ve come to us looking for your origins? Nova was gentle, soft persistence. No anger.
Mira felt the rightness of Nova’s statement. The tightness of Sole’s accord. You believe your origins are with us? she asked.
The sense of rightness came again.
I am young and don’t understand. How do our deaths serve you? Nova, so sweet and simple.
Mira imagined that at the corporeal level she was holding her breath, clenching her hands, waiting for Sole’s answer. Yet she felt nothing of her body.
Then understanding began to wash through her in little waves, like an incoming tide of knowledge that she could only truly grasp when it was high enough to drown her.
And she saw it, the life energy from billions and billions of dead sentients released into space, combining with all matter, colliding and transforming into dark energy.
You wanted to prove that you came from us, from our destruction?
Rightness. Complete and utter.
The i
dea numbed Mira. She revisited it, toyed with it, tried to read all its sides. You believe this has happened before?
Rightness.
She continued to think around it. But you are matter as well. Which means, if you are correct, that we are you and you are us. And if you are considered God then God is...
Si, Mama, Nova said. God is us. Or that is what Sole wishes to prove.
You would have billions of sentients die to know... that?
Rightness without remorse.
Mira sank under Sole’s answer, was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of its callousness. She floundered to stay afloat in the present, her daughter’s voice her only lifeline.
Look to the future for your answer, not the past, her infant told the Entity. Let me come with you, help you.
Hesitation. Interest.
I give you willing energy, not stolen. I give you company.
We’ll find the answer together. Without destruction.
Nova! You cannot! Mira panicked.
Mama, it is how it will be. Sole must have company. Nova was definite.
Then let it be me. She felt the Entity’s focus on her like a pouring of molten metal.
But Nova addressed the Entity again, ignoring her. In exchange for my company, you will make amends to our kind. Or at least... halt our extinction.
Now! insisted Nova.
Nova, I forbid—
But the encompassing warmth of Nova’s love and affection silenced Mira, choking her words and dissolving her protest, softening and comforting her fear.
And before she could further protest, she found herself propelled away from the vast spaces, back into the whirlpool, spinning slower and slower until, eventually, she opened her eyes.
‘Mira!’ Josef’s voice was hoarse and brimming with emotion. He sat on the edge of Secondo, rocking back and forth, holding Nova’s body in his arms. ‘Something’s wrong. I can feel it. Her energy is...’
You cannot let her die. Insignia’s words crushed Mira.
She climbed from Primo, leaving Vito in cushioned sleep. ‘The Entity is here, Josef, close to us. It believes our extinction will offer proof of its origins. Nova has convinced it to consider another way. She’s bargained her companionship—her life—for ours. For all of Orion. I must get back to them.’
Transformation Space (Sentients of Orion Book 4) Page 29