An End tst-2

by Paul Evan Hughes

  take me with you to the and there we will the nighttimes of

  and this heart, for you

  i love

  He wondered if any of the featureless voices screaming in his mind belonged to Kath. Botanist.

  Bent to her (not her) form, kissed as gently as he could her cheek. No longer softest. Tickle of grit and smell of copper (blood) taste(?). He knew it would happen, but when the cheek collapsed under the lightest pressure, his breath still stuck in his throat and the sobs came. One, another, his hands moving to cover face from gaze of creatures of biologic who neither cared nor could care.

  Lightest touch, but the cheek collapsed, cheek and skull, neck and chest. Lightest touch and she was gone, not gone, but gone: pile of silver dust that danced in the empty air of a dead room. He inhaled deeply

  take me with you a part of me forever with you take me and coughed, violently. Metal scoured his mouth, throat.

  is this all there is?

  He reached into the pile of silver, withdrew the locket from where her neck had been: sliver of wood, taken from the last of those magnificent flora after the planet had been harvested. He held the locket to his face. Her scent was there, faint, masked in that blood echo.

  Rumble of

  the time when we first laid by the fire and i explored every inch of your face with my lips because we were both too terrified to kiss

  slitherjets above. Task and Elle.

  Berlin turned from what had been his wife and walked away.

  *snap* and she was out of the reverie, hardlink cable falling from limp hand and sparking the metallish floor as she slumped forward into Assistant’s arms. She was exhausted, but adapting. She fought off the sleep that her mind was struggling to impose.

  “Now. Call them together. God’s ready for sentencing.”

  The broken man at the table fumbled for the hardlink. Assistant removed the cable and wiped a stream of drool from the creature’s face.

  “Can you take much more of the connection?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Doctor touched the side of Judith’s face, looked into her eyes, but she deflected his hand (claw). “I’m fine. Have him transported to the council chamber.

  “Yes, Medium.”

  Roar of dust and wind and something else. His glass shield deactivated, the silver began to tear away at Berlin’s flesh as soon as he walked out of the building.

  stupid mistake.

  He palmed the bubble control and a fresh wave of gelatin splashed out from his chestplate, semi-solidified around him. Circles and waves, waves and an ocean of more than glass. Glass from trees, metal from air, machines from

  The nears followed him as he jogged toward Task’s vessel. They didn’t know what was going on, couldn’t know what was going on, but their movement was hesitant, sporadic. Berlin realized that it was because most of them were being scraped apart by the wind. Not many of the nears had much “flesh” left. He stopped.

  “Halt.”

  The remaining soldiers stood at attention. Berlin unlatched the force weapon from his holster, shot each of them in the cranial control node in turn. There was no resistance; there were no minds. Non-humans fell non-dead. He couldn’t have taken them with him. He wouldn’t have taken them with him.

  Task hovered above the park of skeletal lumbers and nearish dropship. Limbs shattered underneath the slitherjets, danced toward Berlin as he approached. The glass protected him

  from what

  from the brunt of the impacts. Several smaller twigs penetrated the gelatin and sloshed in slow-motion within the shield. Berlin absent-mindedly batted the debris away, palms touching lumber for the first time since

  and this heart, for you

  the nights spent under a sky of wooden song, illicit romance in the guise of ambassadorial conferences. They’d harvested the planet, and she’d been broken. A decade and a family and a comfortable position in the system had never made up for that rape of the forest world. She had been broken, and Maire had been the instrument of her vengeance.

  Walkway descended from the belly of Task’s vessel. Berlin tripped on his shield, palmed its deactivation at the exact wrong moment: an airborne branch flew past his face, projecting limb carving a deep gash along his left jawline. It became a world of silver and copper as vital black blood erupted from the wound.

  He staggered forward as the vessel lifted, looping his right arm through the guardrail as the walkway ascended. Elle met him halfway and helped him aboard. He despised its touch.

  They flew.

  The chamber door closed with mechanical precision behind her. The headache was bad, but the face of Hannon was worse: Judith remembered the roaming hands and mediocre cock of the young council member. She also remembered punching him in the throat, and the way he’d bitched like a little girl.

  “Judith.” His face was grin and acid. “Always nice to see you.”

  She closed her eyes, rubbed her temples before taking her seat as far away from Hannon as she could possibly sit. Headache was developing into something worse. Apparently the aether was wearing her down.

  “Is everything—”

  The tender inquisition of a council member. Judith recognized the voice but opened her eyes to confirm. “I’m fine, Jade. Thank you.”

  “Rough interface?”

  “Yeah. Must be.” Burning, tugging. Something. Jade smiled sadly. Of all the council members, Judith liked the matronly old woman the most, but that really wasn’t saying much. The other members looked on in varying shades of disdain and nonchalance.

  The chamber was circular, fell away in the center to the tube from which the prisoner would emerge and stand before them in due time. Judith peered over the edge just long enough to realize that she’d now added vertigo to headache.

  The empty chair next to hers was reserved for God.

  “Is he on his way?” Council member Corr, an old man with one real arm left, but they’d held the line.

  “The nears are bringing him down. There must have been a fuckup with—”

  “Yes, we heard the host body was inappropriate.”

  “You could say that.”

  that that that

  Echo upon echoes as her voice fell down the central tube. Somewhere down there, the young woman who had killed a planet was waiting.

  it shouldn’t hurt this much.

  [but it will.]

  Judith gasped, eyes opening, startled. No one was looking at her. No one was near her.

  “Did someone—?”

  The chamber hatchway hissed open again. Doctor and Assistant helped God to his chair. The host body looked as if it had been crying.

  “What happened?” Hannon stood from his place across the chamber.

  Doctor’s eyes darted. “He didn’t seem to want to come. Host body resisted.”

  “Will it work?”

  “It’s been working.” Judith plugged the hardlink into the host’s chest, pulled her own shirt open in preparation. “We’ve had several successful links so far.”

  “It doesn’t look like the thing’s going to last.”

  “He’ll last.” Judith wiped the host’s face, patted his cheek. “God’s in there. The host will last.”

  “Then let’s begin.”

  Judith plugged in.

  Coughing so hard that she bent in half, coughing but there was no air. Mouth choked on blood, red blood (red blood?) and there were hands, arms, a chest and he was holding her as the ground shifted and

  “What the—!”

  They tumbled back to the desert hardpan as the mountains ripped from the planet surface and flew into the sun.

  “Hold on!” God’s arms were strong and he was bleeding. The sky above was lines of fire, circle of white, approaching. They were flying into the (single) sun. Judith screamed and couldn’t stop.

  God squeezed her near, smoothed her hair in a gesture too tender for that place. She knew she was crying, screaming, falling, flying, but that gesture: tender and peace. Sh
e found peace in His eyes.

  “Hold on.” Not shouting this time, the tumult of a shattering landscape and a planetary implosion a dull roar, a hum, a sub-frequency to the beat of two hearts. Not four. Two.

  “Hold on.” And it was okay, that approaching fire, the way the sky bent toward the night at its center, the way the desert cracked and they fell and they fell into

  the shop, the door slamming behind her. The wind was bad, but not as bad as

  Judith stumbled to God’s table. He went to her, helped her sit down. The other patrons looked on with gray rainy day see-AT-ull concern.

  “What the—What just happened?”

  “It’s falling apart. You saw it before. The host body is flawed deeply…Something’s happening, and it fucked with the interface.”

  “Are we safe?”

  “I don’t know.” God cleared room on the table, shoving aside Demian paperback and now-empty coffee cup. From the inner recesses of his jacket, he pulled out a sheet of paper, unrolled it across the tabletop. “We need to get her off this ship.”

  “Those are the plans?”

  “She’s already housed in the launch chamber. We’ll be able to allign and exile within the hour.”

  Judith’s hand went to her temple again. Brow furrowed in pain and something else. A thin line of red escaped from her nose. God wiped it away with a napkin, but there was more.

  “You can’t keep jumping in and out of the flux.”

  “I can—”

  “You can’t. Something with the flawed host—”

  “Help me go halfway, then. Use me.”

  “As the host?”

  “Your word has to be spoken. The flaw won’t do. Just use me.”

  “It could kill you, Jud.”

  “I’m dying already.” She pressed the napkin to her nose. “Just do it.”

  do it, sssss

  “Okay. But I’ll pull out before anything happens.”

  Judith grinned. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “I know.” God’s eyes danced. He leaned forward and kissed her how long has it been since and

  the medium’s body jumped in her chair, the interface still attached. The flawed host spasmed and lay still. Judith’s eyes opened and there was light from them: silver if light could be silver, white if it could not. She stood, breathing heavily, body slumped forward, hand pressing hardlink securely to her chestplate. The members of the council gazed with fear and fear at the direct link between their deity and the medium.

  “Bring her to me.”

  The planetship was above them. Berlin was gasping for air, his blood staining his neck, chest, Elle’s hands as she tried to close his wound. Task turned back to the cockpit viewer.

  “What should I tell them?”

  “They won’t listen to anything we have to say.”

  “Well tell me something, Commandant.”

  “They might not have changed the security codes yet.”

  A detachment of fighters launched from the main vessel’s hangar.

  “Here they come.”

  And they opened fire.

  Breath hitching, sheen of sweat developing on forehead and cheeks. The interface wasn’t painful…Not a pain that she would admit. She felt him. Inside. Of her. Soul. God. Inside of her soul. She was replaced and swimming in an ocean of ancient fire. Felt him withdraw, gather himself, emerge again: insertion of thoughts that were not her own, loving touch of electricity and shivering.

  rupture rend rive split cleave

  “Bring her.”

  The voice was not her own, yet it was. Voice like the wind, echoes of the beginning, shimmering of yesterday and some of tomorrow but not quite enough.

  Council members fidgeted.

  “Open the channel to the homeworld.”

  And they were there, the billions.

  The hole at the center of the chamber glowed. A cylinder of phased glass formed at the hole’s edge. Sparks and it was melty, solid, non-solid. She was lifted from her prison on wings of the machine universe. She did not resist, and when the shield solidified around her, it only heightened that sense of

  Jade coughed from across the room, poured a glass of water. Cough, sip. Cough.

  Waves in that solid expanse: she was between worlds, held just close enough to reality to see the council, to see God in the form of Judith. Maire: Nude form floating, hair lazy and dark. Eyes. Her eyes were

  “There is a place for you.”

  Both nacelles were shattered at the hubs as the fighters strafed Task’s vessel. The lifting body of the slither flipped end-over-end at the planetship.

  “They don’t want to talk.” Task wrestled with the controls, used maneuver jets to stay on-course.

  “New plan.” Berlin spoke through teeth clenched, his lacerated jaw now tacky with blood.

  The fighters strafed again. The slither body held, but the gelatin shield was starting to fail.

  “Head for the launch tube.”

  “The what?”

  “On the top of the ship. There’s a liquidspace launch tube.”

  “That’s new.”

  “It’s meant for Maire.”

  “Exile through liquidspace?”

  “Sending her far, far away.”

  Flashes of forcefire. Gelatin scraped away. They were losing speed.

  “Position the vessel in front of the pipe.”

  “But we’ll—”

  “I know.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “Just do it.”

  when and when and when and called upon again to wake and wake and wake and be with my children again JudithGod reached out, touched that fury mind of frozen silver. Maire looked at them without emotion. Maire looked at them with

  She saw that day again clearly: the vessel in the sky, blue sky. Cities below: people laughed and walked and sat on green grass of a pathetic excuse for a forest (park) and on blankets they ate sandwiches and apples (from trees) and there was music (do you remember music?) and underneath shade they fucked, fluids (liquid) exchanged in (final) bliss.

  She saw that day again: the vessel in the sky, dissemination ports opening with ratchet and squeal, scream of machines. Cities below: men in black suits walked between buildings, weapons on their belts. Sound in the sky made them look up: black object where there should have been none. Hands went to weapons on their belts; nothing would save them. Nothing could save them.

  She saw that day: the vessel in the sky, snap crackle and pop of phase waking the silver. Cities below: fighters roaring from defense facility, weapons ports opening: futile. Futile. Screams of children and mothers, children and fathers. She would end them.

  She saw that: the lurch of the ship and it began. Cities below: the shadow of their end expanding. A quiet before

  She saw: ring of metal, piercing the light, blue turns to gray to silver to. Cities below: suffocation and

  Judith sobbed. God’s inner embrace was not enough. Such pain. And something.

  “Do you have any defense?”

  Maire’s lips remained closed, not from nearsolid prison but from

  [you know why i did it.]

  They all felt it this time; several members of the Council jolted in their chairs.

  Something.

  “The evidence speaks for itself. For your crime, you are sentenced to—”

  Maire’s hands clenched to fists and it began.

  suffocation and the world became solid. air of metal, skin replaced with, eyes bursting, screams cut off before, final glances: fighters caught in mid-flight, sun fading to gray, grass of metal blades, inhalation impossible, exhalation a reflex suicide. universe of silver: machines within, machines replace, machines of dust and the places between the stars where no one dared

  Judith saw it from the corner of her eye. The host body beside her stood with force enough to topple his chair, innocent bald old man with too-few hearts and too much iron in his bloodstream. He screamed a human scream with a deity voice as he tore t
he flux interface from his chest.

  “No—”

  All of God, all of God within her, slamming home, replacing Judith with and overflowing and drowning, sudden, yet not without uncertainty or a measure of peace.

  The host’s eyes opened and they were

  “Get her out of here!” Hannon and the council dove into action. “Activate the launch sequence!”

  Jade was the first to fall: matron.

  The host’s body cleaved into two: emerging light, burning light, silver hidden within unsuspecting flawed body. Halves of red stinking biology splashed to the floor as silver escaped its delivery vessel. Maire’s lips curved into a smile.

  “Activate the fucking launch sequence!”

  Her smile became forever as her prison solidified. Hannon and Corr went to Jade, but it was too late: silver replacing flesh, flesh turning to dust, mercury dust, silver pile. Corr fell under the invasion of his own flesh. Hannon looked down and saw the lace of his death begin. Palm to chestplate, body enveloped in a sea of protective gel is it too late?

  Maire’s prison was a cylinder of glass within steel, steel within phase. The tube dropped away before her as the planetship aligned itself with God’s vision, as launch doors opened, as universes dissembled within the pipe and

  “Just do it” and the doors below them opened, throwing forth light that was metal, metal that was light: Maire asleep, Maire imprisoned.

  Task had no time to react. Maire’s prison vessel tore through and through them and

  Judith couldn’t stop screaming, couldn’t breath, couldn’t

  Palm to chestplate. That was God’s touch: gelatin enveloped, then steel, then the floor dropped away as they were purged from

  Council, dead. Council, dust: silver all at once, silver hidden within a flawed host body. Maire had known. Maire had planned it that way.

  Is it too late? but the lace had stopped spreading under the pressure of glass. Gravity was gone. Hannon was being pulled into the tube. He sloshed to an escape port, waited for steel enclosure, dropped away from that room and into space.

  The planetship imploded with the force of the reaction.

  Hannon spun, saw JudithGod’s escape bubble spinning away, saw the halo link to the homeworld.

  Oh my God—

  A line of silver and fire: as Maire’s exile vessel lit into the night, the halo comm flared with something