It had been a nice trick, keeping that thing in reserve. He'd been sure Antaea would figure it out: if the dagger-ball came to life, then Candesce had been dialed down too far. The monster was like a mine--set to go off if things in the control room went too far.
It had worked to clear the blockhouse's entrance--for all the good that was going to do. Antaea still stood little chance against Holon and his horrible companions.
One of the soldier's carbines was sailing by with stately slowness. Jacoby eyed it.
He could be out of Candesce in ten minutes. There was an open patch of sky down beneath his feet, and if he avoided those damned lights, he stood a good chance of getting out of this alive. Surely the virtuals wouldn't kill every human being in Virga. They had no need to, and it would be a lot of work. No, Virga would probably survive, just under new management.
He watched himself reach out and pluck the carbine from the air. Then, just in case the dagger-ball was nearby, he sealed the door shut before reentering the maze of the control center.
* * *
'HERE THEY COME,' Holon was saying. Antaea realized where she was, and tried to scramble out of the way--any direction, anywhere but here. She couldn't move; something was holding her.
'They'll have it apart in a few hours,' said Holon. She realized he was talking about something in the command mirror. Scraping clotted blood out of her eyes, she peered at it. Big metal things, like gigantic crabs, had encircled a black oval. Surrounding this tableau were six dormant suns, and, as backdrop, a sky full of laser light and flame.
'I've told Candesce not to come on at dawn,' Holon continued. 'No day today. We have all the time in the world. But I expect that by the time your current body gives out, we'll have figured out Candesce's secret. The question then will be, can we afford to ever resurrect you? The plan, after all, is to erase Candesce, Virga, and any hint that this place was ever here.'
'Why?' she croaked.
His eyeless head turned her way. 'This foolish movement toward embodiment must be stopped,' he said. 'Mind is all that matters. Your people have made themselves enemies of unbounded consciousness. That's evil.'
He came closer to her, and she could see the dry, writhing branches that made up his features rearrange themselves in a smile. 'Candesce is an abomination. It's a machine for erasing consciousness--for suppressing it. Dumb matter reigns in Virga, except for your brief little sparks. And you'd export this horror to the rest of the universe?
'Don't worry, we can work something out,' he soothed. 'What you know can never be allowed out in the greater universe, but we can build a quarantined virtuality for you to live in. Death's not the end for the likes of us.'
'Then you won't mind if I kill you,' somebody said. Holon's body jerked as several bullets hit it.
'Don't be ridiculous, old man,' said the outsider as one of his whiplike arms shot out to wrap around Jacoby Sarto's throat. Holon dragged him over the wall and Jacoby lost his one-handed grip on the carbine he'd fired. As this happened, though, a blur shot across the room from the other direction.
Venera yanked at Antaea's pistol, which was still held in one of Holon's coils. Holon turned, twitched his arms, and sent Venera across the room. She hit the wall, but she'd also held on to the gun, and had managed to turn it. Venera jammed her finger against the trigger and a shot
Then he'd swung Venera and Jacoby, bashing them against one another. The pistol went flying, and the two were shoved violently through a cloud of corpses to fetch up next to Antaea.
'Enough of spectators,' said Holon. 'I'll finish this alone.' He raised four of his branches, their sharp ends hovering like poised snakes. Antaea closed her eyes.
The ever-present hum that filled the command center went silent and so did the red light penetrating her closed eyes. But there was no pain. After a second, she opened her eyes.
'What...?' It was Venera's voice.
The lights came back on, and the command mirror flickered back into life. Holon hung in the middle of the room, frozen in place like some grotesque statue. Beyond him, the mirror showed the metal crab shapes that had surrounded Candesce's generator. They had also stopped moving.
'Get the gun,' mumbled Jacoby. 'And finish the bastard before he wakes up.'
'Good idea,' said Antaea. But it was too hard to move. She felt herself drifting off to sleep, and it seemed like such a good idea that she closed her eyes, and smiled.
* * *
'YOU CAN STOP screaming,' said Keir. Leal coughed and fell silent. A good thing, too: her throat was raw from her performance.
The army engineers had finally dragged her aboard their open-sided vessel, but not before she'd led them on a merry chase around Keir's machine. 'No, don't kill me!' she'd screamed. 'I don't want to die. Get away from me!' She'd played the hysteria to the hilt, while Hayden clambered out of sight of the engineers and fired up his sun's mechanism.
It had started huffing and thrumming now, and the engineers were alarmed. Hayden appeared around from behind it, waving his arms. 'It's okay!' he shouted. 'It's not a bomb!'
'Surrender!' shouted an engineer. The man was trying to sound authoritative, but against this sky he stood little chance. Hospital ships and looters were arriving in equal numbers, and as the last of the smoke drifted away, the sheer monumental scale of the damage was becoming clear. The engineers would be clearing unexploded ordnance from the skies of the principalities for years.
'Look!' Keir pointed. Leal peered at the clots of smoke and fire surrounding Candesce. They were appalling,
