Lewis watched the solid blade curve round towards his fingers. He dropped the knife with a yell. It vanished before it reached the floor, making as little fuss as a snowflake landing on water. “What do you want with me?” He raised his clenched fists, knowing that it was all futile. He wanted to pound his knuckles into the concrete.
Laton took another few paces towards him. And Lewis came to realize just how imposing the big Edenist was. It was all he could do not to back away.
“I want to make amends,” Laton said. “At least part way. I doubt I will ever be fully forgiven in this universe, not for my crime. And it was a crime, I admit that now. You see, from you I have learnt how wrong I was before. Immortality is a notion we all grasp at because we can sense that there is continuity beyond death. It is an imperfect realization due to the weakness of the fusion between this continuum and the state of emptiness which follows. So much of our misunderstanding of life is rooted in this, so many wasted opportunities, so much religious claptrap born. I was wholly wrong to try and achieve a physical life extension, when corporeal life is but the start of existence. I was no better than a monkey trying to grasp a hologram banana.”
“You’re mad!” Lewis shouted recklessly. “You’re fucking mad!”
Laton became pitying. “Not mad, but very human. Even in this hiatus state I have emotions. And I have weaknesses. One of them is the desire for revenge. But then you know all about that, don’t you, Lewis? Revenge is a prime motivator; glands or no glands, chemical fury or otherwise. You burnt for it in the empty beyond, revenge on the living for the crime of living.
“Well, now I shall have my revenge for the agonies and degradations you so joyfully submitted my kind to. My kind being the Edenists. For I am one. At the end. Flawed, but proud of them, their silly pride and honour. They are a basically peaceful people, those of Pernik more than most, and you delighted in shattering their sanity. You also destroyed my children, and you revelled in it, Lewis.”
“I still do! I hope it fucking hurt you watching! I hope the memory makes you scream at nights. I want you in pain, you shit, I want you weeping. If I’m part of your memories then you won’t ever be able to forget, I won’t let you.”
“Oh, Lewis, haven’t you learnt anything yet?” Laton drew his own knife from a scabbard he brought into existence. Its wickedly thrumming power-blade was half a metre long. “I’m going to free Syrinx and warn the Atlantean consensus as to the exact nature of the threat they face. However, the remaining possessed do present a slight problem. So I need you to overcome them, Lewis. I shall consume you, completely.”
“Never! I won’t help.”
Laton took a pace forwards. “It isn’t a question of choice. Not on your part.”
Lewis tried to run. Even though he knew it was impossible. The concrete closed in, shrinking the warehouse to the size of a tennis court, a room, a cube five metres across.
“I require control of the energistic spillover, Lewis. The power which comes from colliding continua. For that I must have the you which is you. I must complete my possession.”
“No!” Lewis raised his arms as the blade came whistling down. Once again there was the dreadful grinding sound as bone was pierced and fragmented. A flash of intolerable pain followed by the devastating numbness. His blood spilled onto the floor in great spurts from his elbow stump.
“Goodbye, Lewis. It may be some time before we encounter one another again. But none the less I wish you luck in your search for me.”
Lewis had collapsed twitching into a corner, soles of his boots slipping on his own blood. “Bastard,” he spat through white lips. “Just do it. Get it over with and laugh, you shithead prick sucker.”
“Sorry, Lewis. But like I told you, I shall consume you in your entirety. It’s almost a vampiric process, really—though I expect that particular irony is sadly lost on you. And in order for the transfer to work you must remain conscious for the entire feast.” Laton gave him a lopsided, half-apologetic smile.
The true meaning of what the Edenist was saying finally sank in. Lewis started to scream. He was still screaming when Laton picked up his severed arm and bit into it.
Pernik’s illumination returned to normality with eye-jarring suddenness. The accommodation towers blazed with diamond-blue light from every window, winding pathways through the park were set out by orange fairy lanterns, circular landing pads glowed hotly around the entire rim, the floating quays were like fluorescent roots radiating out into the opaque glassy water.
Oxley thought it looked quite magnificent. So cruelly treacherous, that a creation of such beauty could play host to the most heinous evil.
Land immediately please, Oxley,laton said. I don’t have much time. They are resisting me.
Land?oxley felt his throat snarl up as outrage vied with a shaky form of laugh. Show me where you are, and I’ll come to you, Laton. I’ll be doing around Mach twenty when we embrace. Show yourself!
Don’t be a fool. I am Pernik now.
Where’s Syrinx?
She lives. Oenone will confirm that. But you must pick her up now, she requires urgent medical attention.
Oenone?he sent the querying thought lancing upwards, while at the back of his mind he was aware of Laton delivering a vast quantity of information to the Atlantean consensus.
The voidhawk registered as a subdued jumble of thoughts. It had stopped its crazed descent; now it was rising laboriously up out of the mesosphere, its distortion effect generating barely a tenth of a gee.
Oenone, is she alive?
Yes.
The emotional discharge in the voidhawk’s thought brought tears to his eyes.
Oxley,ruben called, if there’s any chance . . . please.
OK.he studied the island. pinpricks of light were blooming and dying right across it, stars with a lifetime measurable in fractions of a second. It looked quite magical, though he didn’t like to dwell too hard upon what their cause would be.
Consensus, should I go in?
Yes. No other spaceplanes can reach Pernik in time. Trust Laton.
That was it, the universe had finally gone totally insane. Oh, shit. OK, I’m taking the flyer down.
Fires had taken hold in the central park when Oxley piloted the flyer down onto one of the pads. He could see a spaceplane further along the row, wings retracted, lying on its side with its undercarriage struts sticking up in the air and its fuselage cracked open around the midsection. Bodies were sprawled on the polyp around the base of the nearest accommodation tower; most of them looked as though they had been caught in a firestorm, skin blackened, faces unrecognizable, clothes still smoking.
An explosion sounded in the distance, and a ball of orange flame rolled out of a window on the other side of the park.
They are learning,laton said impassively. Grouped together they can ward off my energistic assaults. It won’t do them any good in the long run, of course.
Oxley’s nerves were raw edged. He still thought this was some giant trap. The steel-clad jaws would snap shut any second; conversation might just be the trigger. Where’s Syrinx?
Coming. Open the flyer airlock.
He felt the consensus balance his insecurities with an injection of urbane courage. Somehow he was giving the order to cut the ion field and open the airlock.
Faint shouts and the drawn out screeching of metal under tremendous stress penetrated the cabin. Oxley sniffed the air. Mingled with the brine was a frowsty putrescence which furred the roof of his mouth. With his hand clamped firmly over his nose he made his way aft.
Someone was walking towards the flyer. A giant, three metres tall, hairless, naked skin a frail cream colour, virtually devoid of facial features. It was holding a figure in its outstretched arms.
“Syrinx,” he gasped. He could feel Oenone pushing behind his eyes, desperate to see.
Three-quarters of her body was engulfed by green medical nanonic packages. But even that thick covering couldn’t disguise the terrible damage inflicted on her limbs and torso.
The nanonic packages do not function well in this environment,laton said as the giant mounted the flyer’s airstairs. Once you are airborne their efficiency will recover.
Who did this?
I do not know their names. But I assure you the bodies they possessed have been rendered nonfunctional.
Oxley backed into the cabin, too shaken to offer further comment. Laton must have loaded an order into the flight-control processors, because the front passenger seat hinged open to form a flat couch. It was the one designed for transporting casualty cases. Basic medical monitor and support equipment slid out from recesses in the cabin wall above it.
The giant laid Syrinx down gently, then stood, its head touching the cabin ceiling. Oxley wanted to rush over to her, but all he could do was stare dumbly at the hulking titan. Its blank face crawled as though the skin was boiling. Laton looked down at him.