She thought of the cosy house by the Emerald Lake, and nostalgia filled her small body. She could almost smell the mellowbells around the water’s edge, could see the house, could see Six and Raven playing beneath the huge trees, could see them splashing in the water.
And, as she pictured them, she felt a strangeness take over her body. She had the sensation of being spread out through a huge area of space, searching for one particular place. It made her feel dizzy.
As if she were a free spirit, sailing above everything else, she seemed for a second to experience the whole visible universe before she found the exact spot she was looking for. Then it was easy; she simply thought herself down to it, and concentrated all her attention on that one spot. The waveform which was Diva decohered at that exact point. It felt rather like being dragged down a funnel. For a tiny moment she had been everywhere; now all her being was concentrated on that particular spot.
She glittered and checked her shape. She was all there, but where? Then her heart gave a jerk, followed by a huge leap. She was here, on Xiantha! She had transported herself from Pictoria 30,000 light years across the galaxy! She felt dizzy, but gave a spin of delight. She could do it!
Diva gave a mental shout.
“Six! SIX!”
Then she waited, looking around at the familiar landscape with fondness. She had missed it so much.
A pounding was coming in her direction. She spun to face it. Six was running towards her, as fast as his legs could carry him. She flashed with happiness.
“Six, Six! I have managed it! I know how to come here!”
He reached her side and grabbed ahold of her, burning himself when she automatically spun slightly, and taking no notice at all of the heat searing his flesh. She could feel his emotion washing over her, welcoming her home. She blazed with light, and he let her go, hastily.
“About time you decided to make an appearance,” he told her, with a broad grin on his face. “Raven and I had just about given you up.”
Diva looked around. “Is she here?”
Six pointed behind him, and tried to catch his breath. “I left her by the water, with Tallen. I just came running as soon as I heard your voice.”
“Then let’s go see them.”
“You know the way.”
So they made their way back to the water’s edge, Diva taking in every single thing and storing it up to think about later. The tall trees, with the iron stakes set into them at regular intervals, the fish jumping far out in the lake, the small huts set into the tree tops, the luxurious growth all around them, the lazy summer sun overhead in the sky. She felt it all differently now; it was as if she were particularly conscious of this shining moment of space-time, as if she were seeing it with clearer eyes. Everything looked brighter, felt warmer, blinded her. It made her breathless. Then she laughed inside herself, because, of course, it couldn’t make her breathless; she didn’t need to breathe any longer. Yet that was the feeling it gave her; just as if she were still in a fully corporeal body, still bound to the ground and moving jerkily on legs.
By the time they reached the shore, Tallen and Raven were not the only ones waiting for them. Grace had appeared, with Temar beside her, already able to walk, Diva saw, although he still wobbled precariously in the soft sand and was prone to falling. Bennel was nearby with his family; Diva recognized them from Coriolis.
Then her eyes went to Raven. The little girl came running up to them, her legs pumping, throwing up sand, her eyes full of excitement.
“Is it you?” she asked, her sharp eyes scanning the small sphere hovering in front of her. “Are you my mother?”
Diva edged closer to her daughter’s face, until just the outer edges of her new body were touching the soft skin, like a kiss.
“Yes. I am.”
“Can you fly? Can you transport people, like Arcan? Are you going to stay? Will you watch me swim?”
Diva sparkled. “Yes. No. Yes. Yes.”
The girl squirmed with delight. “You are going to stay!” She ran down to the sand. “Watch me, Mummy – I can swim underwater!”
Six smiled as Raven threw herself into the lake, determined to show her mother how much she had progressed. The little girl seemed not at all phased to see that her mother now had a different shape. Like all children, she had simply accepted the change and moved on. He wished he could do the same thing; his own feelings were far more complicated.
Grace was approaching the sphere. “Diva? Is that you?”
Diva spun and then flashed around Grace’s head three times.
“How do you like my new body, Gracie?”
The Sellite girl laughed and stretched out her hands. “You look very impressive. I have missed you.”
“I know. It is all … a bit … strange, isn’t it?”
“You’re not kidding!” Grace stared at the morphic shape. “I can hardly believe it is you. Do you have all your memories? Do you still think the same?”
Diva twinkled in and out of existence. “I can remember every single thing, and I feel just like the same person. I don’t even notice I am a morphic. I feel just as if I were still in the same body as before.”
“What is it like?”
Diva coloured. “It was a bit frightening at first, but decohering felt great. It was as if I could see the whole of the universe, could choose exactly where I wanted to come down. It gives you a lot of options. There are so many things to see out there; it is a bit overwhelming. It makes you feel very small. I sort of came here by mistake, though. I was thinking about you all, and something came over me. I think I almost ended up her by sheer chance. I am going to have to practice, because it is scary. The visitor says it is much easier for us to travel through the ortholiquid. I should have started with that, really.”
Tallen was staring up at the new morphic, his expression unreadable. “Valhai Diva,” he said, inclining his head formally. “I am happy to see you again.”
“Even if I am a meritocrat?” she asked.
He smiled, and it illuminated his face, changing him completely. “You know I stopped thinking of you as a meritocrat a while ago. You could almost be a Namuri.”
“Thank you.” She knew what a compliment that was meant to be, but it amused her to think what her reaction might have been to that comment when she was the age Tallen was now. She spun, shining in the sunlight of the beach, and then turned to Bennel, who was waiting silently. He bowed his head so steeply that she could see the taut muscles along the back of his shoulder. “Valhai.”
Grace stepped forwards. “Sorry, Diva. Have you met Bennel’s family?”
Diva moved instantly to face Lannie. “Yes, on Coriolis. How are you? Six told me how much you have done to help Raven. Thank you very much.”
Lannie looked somewhere between delighted and horrified to be talking mentally to a floating spherical being. She dropped a small curtsey and mumbled something about being welcome, very grateful for the chance, then got caught up trying to explain that she didn’t mean to suggest … that under the circumstances … that she was very sorry. She went pink.
Grace stepped in to save her. “Lannie takes care of all the children when we are all away. She does a great job.”
Diva spun again. “Poor Lannie. Does she never get to go anywhere?”
Grace laughed. “Try to tear her away from here, if you will!”
Lannie bobbed another curtsey. “Begging your pardon, V-Valhai Diva, but I just want to stay here beside the Emerald Lake. It is like living in paradise for me; you can go gallivanting all over the galaxy if you want, but I am better off here. You leave me out of it!”
Sanjai and Quenna bobbed low too, and looked so much in awe of this new apparition that Diva couldn’t help grinning.
“I hear you two have been kind to Raven too. Thank you.”
Sanjai smiled, remembering meeting Diva on Coriolis. She had caused an indelible effect on him. In fact, he had nurtured a secret crush on Valhai Six’s wife ever since, something he had been at some pains to hide. She had been the most magnificent being he had ever seen: fine, ferocious, loyal. But now … he found that it was impossible to have the same feelings for a morphic that he had for a Coriolan. He felt let-down, almost disappointed.
Six made a movement, as if to touch her, and Diva immediately went over to him.
“I told you I would come as soon as I could.”
“I have to get used to seeing you like this.”
“Bet you can’t catch me now!”
His hand snatched at her in the open air, but he was too slow. She had already darted out of reach, pulsating with laughter.
“See, no-name? Your reaction time is too slow.”
“I’ll give you reaction time,” he promised. “Just wait and see.”
“Bah! I’m morphic now. There is very little I can’t beat you at.”
“Make the most of it, then! We may all be like you at some stage. You are just a bit ahead of the rest of us.”
For a moment, even Grace could tell that a wave of fear had swept through Diva. The thought that she might have to live out life alone for hundreds of thousands of years, had been almost too much for the new morphic. Grace bit her lip.
Diva was silent for a moment, and then pulled herself back together again. “We had better call Arcan. He will be furious if we don’t tell him I have come over.”
Grace signed on the bracelet of orthogel she now wore all the time, and there was an almost immediate swishing sound as Arcan appeared.
He and Diva stared at each other for a long time. Six wondered if they were communicating on some other level, it went on for so long.
Then he realized that they weren’t. It was just such a huge moment for both of them that they were taking their own time about saying anything to break the silence.
Finally, it was Diva who spoke first. “Quantum decoherence is awesome,” she told Arcan.
“You are a category 2, like me, now.”
She nodded. “I feel there is a part of you in me, Arcan. Can you tell?”
“Yes. I am aware of … a … bond between us. It is quite remarkable.”
“I can sense the canth part of me too, and the lost anima, and even the ortholiquid. Yet I am still completely myself. I still have the same body – to my perception, anyway, and I haven’t retained any of the other memories. At least, I don’t think I have. I just feel the same as I used to: like Diva always did.”
Arcan scintillated “I will have to study the process, see what the factors are. We need to know how the transformation takes place. This will require much study.”
“We will all help,” Six told him. “Well, Grace, what are we to call this new form of life? Quadrimorphs?”
Grace wrinkled her nose. “Sounds a bit clumsy, especially for someone like you, Diva. Err… there are other words for four in the binary system, you know: ‘fier’, ‘fire’, ‘tesa’, ‘tetra’ … any of those would do.”
“I like the second: ‘firemorph’,” said Diva, flashing. “Or ‘tesamorph’, if you prefer.”
Six didn’t hesitate. “If Diva has anything to do with it, there will be plenty of fire about whatever morphic she is in, so my vote goes to ‘firemorph’. I like it.”
Grace stretched out her hands. “Firemorph it is, then.” She grinned at Six. “I bet she causes just as much havoc as a firemorph as she did as a Coriolan!”
Diva gave an indignant shimmer, but Six nodded.
“More. Much, much more.” He looked suddenly sad. “I just wish I could be a firemorph too.”
Arcan darkened. “There is much to discover before we can be sure that we know how to make morphics,” he said. “It would be very dangerous to try to make another just now. I need to understand the process fully. It may take me years to gain the necessary knowledge.”
“It’s a start, anyway,” said Six. “And if anyone can do it, you can.”
“It is a pity that the original Arcan amorphs were unstable, that the presence of the canths and even of you flimsies in the mix seems to stabilize it.”
“Yes. It must be hard for something as timeless as you to realize you need the help of feeble creatures like ourselves.”
“Indeed.” Then Arcan caught Six’s raised eyebrows. “Why are you looking at me like that? As transients, you are weak. I did not make you so. You can’t help it, I know.”
“Do you think you will be able to find out what conditions are necessary to form morphics?” asked Grace. “Because, if you could, it means that everybody who is linked to a canth might, in principle at least, become a firemorph, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” said Six with a straight face. “I mean, Ledin might not want to spend millions of years with you. That is an awful long time to put up with anybody, especially you, Gracie.”
“Of all the …!” Grace gave him a hard push and he took a couple of half-steps to keep his balance, laughing.
“Stop! I give up!”
Grace was so happy to see him laughing again that she did as he asked.
Arcan had ignored their antics.
Six realized that he was in a sort of mental waiting room. He would have to live his life here, as best he could. She would be there for him when his time came. What more could he ask? If Arcan could find out how to safely create the morphics, that would make him – Six – one of the luckiest people in the universe! Providing the orthogel entity found the physics behind the transformation during his own lifetime, he would be able to join her. Arcan was right; they couldn’t continue to rely on fate to produce the firemorphs, and there was a part of Six which was absolutely determined to become one – he wasn’t about to lose Diva without a struggle, not now, not ever.
Arcan was explaining to Diva how the namura stone seemed to be able to break the carbon nanographite trap, and Diva shimmered.
“Then you can use that to escape if they try to pull you over again! That is terrific news!” She danced around the edge of the lake, spinning and changing colour.
Arcan scintillated too. “I heard this morning from the sibyla; they have already collected enough namura dust. I am going over to the Namuri village after I have transported some students from Kwaide to an immersion course on Cesis. I have to pick them up from the Kwaide Orbital Space Station in a few moments.”
Diva looked up quickly. “The space station above Kwaide? I was going to stay here with Raven and Six for a little while, but I think I will come with you to Kwaide first, just for a few minutes. I don’t want to go back to Pictoria without seeing Ledin – and this way you can keep an eye on my transporting. I am not too confident about this quantum decoherence thing yet. I don’t want to end up in the middle of a blizzard in the mountains north of the black peak.”
Arcan said nothing, though Six got the impression that the orthogel entity was not particularly keen on being a nursemaid to morphics.
The new firemorph hovered for a moment over Raven’s head. “Stay with your father, Raven. I will be back again in a few minutes, all right?”
The little girl nodded solemnly.
Arcan vanished. Diva gave a flicker before she, too, disappeared. There was a slight wobble in the firemorph; she clearly didn’t quite dominate this way of travel yet.
Six sighed. He had the distinct feeling that having a morphic wife was going to prove wearing. He took Raven’s hand. His daughter was still staring at the space Diva had occupied only seconds before, her mouth gaping open. “Come on, princess. Lannie will give you something to eat.”
Raven took her father’s hand happily. “Mummy came home!” she said, skipping along the beach beside him.
/> Six smiled down at her. “Yes. Mummy came back to us. Just as soon as she could. Now, what do you want to do until she gets back?”
“Sandcastle!” the little girl said happily. “Temar can play, too.”
DIVA AND ARCAN appeared in the Kwaide Orbital Space Station just as Ledin was escorting Tartalus and a party of Kwaidian Elders towards the shuttles.
As soon as Diva saw who was with him she gave a hiss of disapproval and stopped dead in her tracks. Tartalus turned around at once, but didn’t notice the firemorph, who was so much smaller than Arcan.
“Ah,” he said, walking towards them and addressing the only creature he could see. “You must be the orthogel entity. I have heard much about you. I believe some exchange of ideas could be of mutual interest.”
Diva had ducked quickly behind Arcan, even though she knew that she ran no risk of being recognized by the Coriolan meritocrat. She found she was actually shaking with dislike for the man. It seemed that becoming a firemorph had not changed her reaction to her cousin.
Arcan shimmered, having picked up her opinion, which she was not attempting to dampen. He gazed at the Coriolan.
“I do not think we could have anything in common.”
“No? Well, your loss. I would have thought there might be quite a lot I could … show you.” Tartalus smiled condescendingly at the alien in front of him. “Although, if I remember rightly, you are not allowed down to the surface of Kwaide, are you?”
Arcan swelled, rather menacingly, and the Coriolan meritocrat moved a step or two backwards. Diva giggled to herself. He was still a coward, she thought.
Tartalus gave one of his smiles, obviously under the impression that it made him more attractive. He was wrong. “A pleasure.”
Arcan stared at this biped. He was aware of the intense dislike emanating from Diva, behind him, but also that Ledin was devoutly hoping there would be no incident on the space station. He turned a vague brown. “I will remember you,” he told the Coriolan.
The Namura Stone Page 28