An End

act as medium, though…Squeezing an ancient being into one-hundred eighty pounds of flesh and bone always brought with it a few communications problems; the grunting, guttural verbal langage of his primary pets was difficult to master. He would solve that in the upgrade.

Flickering of electrons, muscles come to life again. A finger twitches.

“We have movement.”

Doctor joined Assistant at the static tube. “It’s about time. Takes Him a while to get His bearings.”

“Do you think He’ll ever just stay in the sleep and refuse to come up for air?”

“He likes it down there…This might be the last time we ever see Him.”

“What would they do without Him?”

“Carry on. God’s dead to them as is. They have us now.”

“I feel so special.” Assistant’s mouth turned up at the corners. “Ha ha HA!”

Doctor looked at Assistant with disdain. “Stop that. You look like a fool.”

Hand of God clasped through the gelatin, of its own power.

“He’s ready. Let’s fish him out of there.”

“Still nothing.”

“Why are we wasting our time?”

Task grasped the hemispheres of his observation environment and pulled them apart with the click of mechanics and hiss of dissipating interface flux. He rubbed his eyes and pulled himself out of the bubble. Elle was waiting with smoker in one claw and igniter in the other.

Task swam past his co-pilot to the underside viewer. “Best view we’ve had all day.”

“Of what?”

“The delivery vehicle. We’re over the impact site right now.”

Elle was hesitant.

“Not much to look at. Can’t believe that it did all this.”

The crater that the impact of the starship had carved into the surface of the planet was the most impressive part of the spectacle. Not a circle…The vessel had hit at such an acute angle that most of the debris had been cast hundreds of miles in front of the actual strike, covering City Four completely in a blanket of shattered stone.

“How did she survive the fall?”

“She didn’t. They picked her up in a slither in upper orbit.”

“She was trying to escape?”

“She wasn’t trying to do anything…The slither was harddocked to the delivery vessel. It released automatically when the carrier hit critical gravity.”

“Escape system.”

“She probably didn’t know that she was going to escape. She wasn’t even alive when they found her.”

“The catalyst?”

“It came from her.”

The delivery vessel was a giant half-buried in the surface, one nacelle towering thousands of feet into the atmosphere, the other snapped off and flung miles from the impact site, now resting in the ruins of a village. The conical body of the vessel itself now stuck from the desert hardpan like an addict’s needle. Many of the dispersion ports had bent or torn off completely from the collar upon impact. Elle noted the empty slither-shaped port just above the collar at the vessel’s top. The rest of the ship dwarfed the slot from which Maire had poisoned the atmosphere of the planet with a universe of machines.

“She wanted to die on that ship.”

“They won’t let her die now.”

Beeping alert. Elle swam to the cockpit.

“Action above City Seven.”

“Visual.”

A flurry of lights erupted from the surface, arced upward to strike the underside of the main planetship. It solidified into a tightbeam linking the vessel to the planet.

“Is that weapons fire?”

“No.” Elle adjusted the viewer. “It’s a halo. Comm nanos. Someone must have deactivated their link.”

“Berlin’s the only one down there. Nears wouldn’t switch off.”

“Why would Berlin turn off his link?”

“Could be dead.”

“Could be.”

“Could be the silver.”

“Could be.”

“He might need help.”

“He might.”

“What should we do?”

“Let’s listen to what they’re saying.”

Task switched in.

Dark room.

Elle reached out to take Task’s hand. He hadn’t expected the contact. In this flux, Elle’s projection was a female, green eyes instead of white, tan flesh instead of gray, black hair instead of none. She smiled, blushed. Task squeezed her hand, but placed one finger to his lip to signal silence.

They walked forward into the ambiguous expanse. There was a table at the room’s center, two men on opposing sides, faces contorted in angry conversation, hands animated in frustrated fists.

subvocal: no sound?

i’m surprised we’re in this far. atmosphere must be interfering with the audio.

compensating.

“And what does that mean?”

“Maire’s taking a little trip.”

“And I’m going with her?”

“You could have been a brilliant leader. Such a waste.”

“She killed my family!”

“You should have considered that possibility before helping her.”

“I never—”

“You did. Helped her just enough.”

what are they talking about?

looks like berlin was in on it.

“We didn’t help her do this.”

“Guilt by association. You should have told us.”

“The machines would never have believed it.”

“But we might have.”

“And we’re the ones in control?”

Hannon slammed his palm to the table. “The war is over. They won. We have to live with that.”

“And what does God think about all this?”

“I’ll tell you in a few hours.”

Berlin’s lips parted but the words remained lost inside.

they woke up god.

we shouldn’t be listening to this.

“That’s right. He’s awake.”

Berlin studied the featureless tabletop.

“Make your peace with your family. I’ll be in touch.” Hannon waved his hand before his face, shooing the nanos away. His image disappeared.

let’s get out of here.

“Don’t.”