Transformation Space (38 page)

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?

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.

<
never must>

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?

<
lonely? strange little?>

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. show>

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.

<
where do we come from?>

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 rightness 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 idea 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?

<
what other way?>

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.’

‘Sole promised Nova?’

Mira nodded, distraught.

Josef’s face hardened. ‘Take her.’

With surprising tenderness he kissed Nova’s forehead and handed her over, then he lay back down in Secondo.

‘What are you doing?’ Mira started forward.

He took her hand and buried his face in it the way he had on Araldis. His lips burned against her palm in a devoted and passionate
kiss that told her the depth of his feelings for her. Then slowly his grip faded and the pressure of his lips slackened.

Jo-Jo had never tried to reach out to the Entity before; it had always sought him. He wasn’t sure how to draw its attention,
other than to demand.

Sole! Fuck you, Sole!

But Sole did not respond.

Desperate, he cast back to the occasions that Sole had spoken directly to him and tried to re-create the same division in
his mind. He’d thought of it like sliced fruit, a kind of soft and slightly messy process. But this time he tried something
different; this time he forcibly shrank his emotional centre into a tight and unreachable orb, leaving only the logic side
of his brain functioning.

Sole entered the accessible side like a thrown spear.