“Because that is where they want to be; like the ghosts wedded to the place of their anguish, they refuse to discard the part of their life which is over. They are afraid, Joshua. From the beyond they can still see the universe they have left behind. All they have known, the condition that they were, everyone they have loved, is still obtainable, so very very close to them. They fear to leave that for the unknown future.”
“All of us are frightened of the future. That’s human nature.”
“But some of you venture into it with confidence. That’s why you are here today, Joshua, that’s why you found me. You believed in the future. You believed in yourself. That is the most precious possession any human can ever own.”
“That’s it? That’s all there ever was? Faith in yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Then why in God’s name didn’t the Kiint tell us that? You said they weren’t malicious. What possible reason can they have for denying us that? A few simple words.”
“Because you have to implement that knowledge as an entire species. How you do that is your own decision.”
“It’s a bloody simple decision. You just tell them.”
“Telling someone not to be afraid is one thing. To have them believe it at an instinctive level is quite another. In order not to be afraid of the beyond you must either understand its purpose, or have the naked conviction to move on once you encounter it. How many of your race are uneducated, Joshua? I don’t mean those of you alive now, I mean throughout history. How many have lived unfulfilled lives? How many have died in infancy or in profound ignorance? You don’t have to tell the rich and the educated, the privileged, they are the ones who will begin the great journey through the beyond of their own accord. It is the others you must convince, the ignorant masses, yet paradoxically, they are the ones hardest for you to reach. Theirs are the minds which, thanks to circumstance, have set and hardened against new concepts and ideas from an early age.”
“But they can still be taught. They can learn to believe in themselves, everyone can. It’s never too late for that.”
“You speak of high idealism, but still you have to implement your ideals in the real, practical world. How will you reach these people? Who will pay to provide every one of them with a personal tutor, a guru who will advance their inner spirit?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. How did other races do it?”
“They developed socially.”
“The Laymil didn’t, they committed suicide.”
“Yes, but by that time they understood the nature of the beyond. Every one of them took the leap forward knowing that they still had a future. Their suicide was not racial extermination, a method of simply thwarting their possessing souls; they carried what they are to the omega point as one. That is what their communal society permitted them to do.”
“I get it. The Laymil possessing souls were from a time before they reached that communal society.”
“Yes. As most of your possessed are from earlier times. But not all, not by any means. Your race has not eliminated poverty, Joshua. You have not liberated people from physical drudgery to develop their minds. If you have a flaw in your nature, then it is that. You cling to what is comfortable, the old familiar. I suspect that is why humans have a slightly higher than average percentage of souls lingering in the beyond.”
“We’ve done pretty well in the last thousand years,” he said, irked. “The Confederation is one vast middle-class estate.”
“The parts you travel to are. And even there ‘comfortable’ does not equate to ‘satisfactory.’ You are not animals, Joshua. Yet the entire population on some of your planets perform mundane agrarian tasks.”
“It costs to build automated factories. Global economies have to develop to a level where it becomes affordable.”
“You have the technology to travel between the stars, and all you do when you get to your fresh world is start the old cycle over again. Only one new type of society has emerged in the last thousand years, the Edenists; and even they participate and perpetuate your economic structure. The nature of society is governed by economic circumstance; and for all of your vast collective wealth, for all your knowledge, you remain stagnant. Throughout your voyage here you and your crew discussed how the Tyrathca were so slow to change compared to humans. Now you have seen the Kiint home system, how far ahead of you do you think their technology lies? It is a small gap, Joshua. Molecular-level replicator technology would bring about the end of your entire economic structure. If you wanted to, how long do you think it would take the combined scientific resources of the Confederation to build a prototype replicator?”
“I don’t know. Not long.”
“No. Not long. The knowledge is there, but you lack the will. Although there is one final inhibiting factor we haven’t incorporated yet into your knowledge base. And it’s an important one.”
“I have my suspicions about you,” Joshua said. “You with your avowed non-interventionist policy.”
“Yes?”
“How did I get here?”
“By chance.”
“A very long chance. A Tyrathca arkship is damaged while entering a star system devoid of any mass. Thousands of years later during the possession crisis we hear about something which might be able to solve the crisis for us. Would you like to compute the odds of that happening?”
“There are no odds, there is only cause and effect. The Tyrathca didn’t inform you of the Sleeping God when you first encountered them, because until the human possession crisis started they had no need to pray to it. You found me because you looked, Joshua. You believed I existed. Quinn Dexter has found his army of darkness, because he too has conviction. Greater than yours, I would suggest. Was he led to them by omnipotent entities playing chess with lives?”
“All right. But you’ve got to admit, having you this close to the Confederation is a hell of a coincidence given there’s only one of you per galactic supercluster.”
“That is not a coincidence, Joshua. I am aware of everything, because I am connected to everything. When you search for me, and have sufficient faith that you will find me, then you will succeed.”
“Okay. Well, if I haven’t said it before: thank you. I’ll do my best to see your faith isn’t misplaced. Now, what was that last factor?”
The singularity showed him, delivering his awareness to the orbital tower down which he rode down to Earth, with B7, Quinn Dexter, and . . .
Joshua’s eyes flicked open. His crew broke off their conversations, looking at him in anticipation.
“Louise,” he said. And vanished.
Thick smoke and blinding yellow flame exploded out of the escape pod rocket motors. The noise was a sheer wall of energy that sent Fletcher and Powel flailing backwards. Light punched down into Fletcher’s eyes as he used the remnants of his energistic power to ward off the blast.
The escape pod wobbled upwards, gathering speed. Flame splayed out from its base, scouring the surface of the ectoplasm pool. Embryonic shapes melted away under the incendiary heat. A cloud of clammy fumes billowed out, hurtling down the nave and both transepts. Brittle, ancient stained-glass windows shattered under the tremendous pressure. Horizontal jets of smoke and ectoplasm smog roared out over the deserted plaza.
The escape pod smashed into the top of the cathedral dome and crashed through into the pre-dawn morning. Its trajectory was given a savage kick by the impact, sending it racing away in a low curve underneath the red cloud, out towards Holborn.
Down on the floor of the cathedral, it was impossible to see anything. The air was coagulated with icy particles and vile acidic smoke. Fletcher sloshed about in the raging ectoplasm pool, trying to find anything that would give him his bearings. His mind could sense the possessed in the nave: their fear-ordered discipline was starting to crumble. Apart from them, nothing was clear. Chunks of debris were whistling down from above, splattering down into the turbid fluid where they immediately cracked open from the cold.
“Anybody left standing?” Powel shouted somewhere in the murk.
A vermilion glimmer began to pervade the churning mist as the light from the red cloud shone in through the gaping windows. Folds of darkness slipped across Fletcher’s vision. He stood still, not daring to move.
