'I do. The changes I've made in Bright Illimit should be enough to get the ball rolling along, then Demo can take over and organize things to his own satisfaction. He'll know what to do. Shall we get started?'
'Whenever you're ready . . .'
They plugged in, went under, and down, riding the black winds of eternity like velvet eagles on a dark, fluid tide,
The instructions that they went in on were simple, the symbolism that they led to was not. The process counter fed in through the quantum conversion scanner and began tabbing across the bare tag ends of data that it was able to touch, inspecting, identifying, looking for the one thread that would allow it to begin untying the snarled knot that it faced. The hunting went on and on until all the candidates were identified. Any remaining consciousness in Centrum or its subroutines would have helped, but there was nothing left. The place was grave-silent. The machine paused, watching its timer count away, considering its options, then it fell down all the trails at once, following the delicate spoor down an endless series of branching trails, coming ever closer to some kind of center, like a nut caught in a swift whirlpool. The great drain approached.
Far below, the dark sea of Iris waited. It was, as it had been, a flat, black, dead surface, quiet, tideless, engulfing a moonless, starless sky. The data were puddled into a formless mass. Though there was nothing present to look upward, noliving thing to see, still the scenery was there. Ghost clouds formed above, faint luminescences that swirled and moved, presaging some unknown event to come. The clouds took on form, bringing order to the void, little silvery masses in which some kind of grainy structure could be seen. Streamers of vague light reached out from each cloud, wafting across the sky in webworks of ever increasing complexity until the skies were linked together. On the surface of the sea, patterns of restive wavelets began to form. Energy accumulated as the Searcher came in on its guidepath
.
A spot of dim, golden light appeared in the heavens and waxed, watching its own reflection in the mirror surface of the sea. Agitation on the water disturbed it, throwing off majestic scintillae that conspired to drown out the heavens. The golden spot continued to brighten, growing ever larger behind the silver clouds, discoloring them, peeling them back layer after layer, reversing the gauzework process that had enveloped this world so long ago. The aeons reversed themselves, and the tension became a palpable thing.
The sky broke open. The heavens around the golden spot, now a molten pool of brassy, burnished metal, were riven by a diamond flash of light, soundless, hazy rays flashing briefly away in all directions. A beam reached down, slowly, like cold fire streaming toward the surface of the dark sea. It stretched out, with agonizing slowness approaching the ebony waters, now thrashing about beneath the lash of an infinite energy. It touched.
The sea contracted suddenly, drawing the darkness inward from all directions, pulling the cosmic-event horizon in upon itself to form a dimensionless point, filling its surround with a heavy wash of gray static, a flannel screen upon which all images could then be drawn. The beam vanished, leaving the black spot alone in all of creation.
It waited, gathering its strength, and considered what it might do. The internal timers found themselves and began to tick away of their own accord. Given a structure, the program counters began to process their work, sort through the data in their channels, seeing what might be done to resume their long-forgotten tasks. GAM-and- Redux awoke and began looking for a host to parasite itself upon, and succor.
The black spot contracted itself to that unimaginable density beyond which it could not go, and then it exploded. The gray world fragmented, glassy shards roaring away to the far reaches of space, colliding with a faint, melodious tinkling, smashing into ever smaller pieces, filling the universe with light and life. Riding the bow shock of a fleeting electromagnetic wave, all the entities that had ever been came alive, awakening, and fled outward in a great host to populate a multitude of worlds. He awoke, dark eyes opening on the dim, swirling canvas of an interior existence, and in a soft, wondering voice whispered, I still live. . . .
Achmet Aziz el-Tabari.
I can hear you, Brendan. Thank you for calling me. I miss you.
I know. I too.
Can you still not say it?
No. I'm sorry. Believe me.
I do.
Do you understand what has happened?
I think so. What am I going to do?
Whatever you want. Fly. Live. Be happy.
You almost said it, didn't you?
Yes. Almost. Are you ready?
