they’ll be happy to see someone who failed to free them?”
“What do you want?”
A circular opening in space expanded behind Joshua. “This leads into Night, Quinn. It’s a wormhole that takes you straight to the time of God’s Brother. I’ll allow you to go through it.”
“Name your price.”
“I’ve told you, lead the damned souls out of the beyond and into your Night. Without them, the human race will stand a chance to grow. They are a terrible burden on any species who discovers the true nature of the universe. The Kiint, for instance, cloned mindless bodies to house their lost souls. It took them thousands of years, but every one was brought back, and loved, and taught to face the beyond as it should be faced. But that’s the Kiint, not us. We’re going to have a big enough task helping the living over the next few decades. There’s no way we can deal with all those billions of lost souls, not for centuries. And all that time, they’ll be suffering and inhibiting our development.”
“My heart bleeds.”
“You don’t have one.” Joshua drifted to one side. There was nothing between Quinn and the opening now. “Now tell me, do you want to meet God’s Brother?”
“Yes.” Quinn stared greedily into the absolute blackness revealed by the opening. “Yes!”
The souls who had been cast back into the beyond brought with them a devastating tide of bitterness and fury as they raged impotently against the atrocity. Freedom existed, it was possible to regain a life. Now there was only purgatory again. No chink existed in the barrier between them and reality. They screamed their wrath, at the same time pleading with those they could dimly sense moving on the other side. Begging to be let back, for just one last taste of sensation. None of the living heard them any more.
A fissure opened. One small precious gap leaking the most gorgeous human sensations into the cursed void. They flocked around it, rejoicing in its magic. And there was enough for all to feast upon. Every lost soul knew the touch of air upon skin, saw myriad constellations shimmering against the night sky.
Quinn screamed himself raw as he was possessed by a hundred billion lost souls. Their violation was total, devouring the import of every single cell that was him.
His body soared through the opening, carrying the burden of humanity with him. The wormhole closed behind them, cutting off the sight of the stars which humans had always known as their own.
Chapter 15
Though it would never be told this way, Louise actually spent most of the summoning ceremony unaware of what was happening. After Courtney shoved her down on the bench she rolled onto her side, fighting the dreadful nausea. Little of anything Quinn said registered through the pain and misery. The backlash from the energistic power marshalled by the possessed set off concussions of fright inside her skull.
Then the solid rocket motors ignited, smothering her in choking smoke. She was on the floor retching desperately as the Orgathe drew up level with the gallery.
She lay there shivering between peaks of flame and ice, crying wretchedly. Then all the external sensations began to die away, abandoning her in a stinking grainy grey smog that obscured everything save a few yards of the gallery.
Footsteps crunched on the powdery debris that’d showered down when the escape pod hit the cathedral’s dome. They stopped beside her. She moaned, aware that the person was bending down. A hand stroked the side of her head, tenderly brushing the hair from her eyes.
“Hello, Louise. I said I’d come back for you.”
It was the wrong voice. An impossibility. But so utterly right. Louise blinked up, and tears flooded her eyes again. “Joshua!”
His arms went round her, and he kept saying: “Shush, it’s all right, it’s all right,” as he rocked her shaking body against him.
“But Joshua—”
He kissed her gently, tapped his forefinger on her nose. “It’s okay, it’s all over. I promise.”
“Quinn,” she gasped. “Quinn, he’s . . .”
“Gone. Over. Finished.”
Her head swung from side to side, seeing the tendrils of smog slowly withdrawing from the gallery. The cathedral below was shockingly quiet.
“Here,” Joshua said. “Let’s get you sorted out.” He pulled the wrapping off a medical nanonic package, and applied it gently to her face where Quinn had struck her.
She realized her neural nanonics were back on-line, and hurriedly put her medical monitor program into primary.
“It’s all right,” Joshua said softly. “Our baby’s fine.”
“Huh,” Louise grunted. “How do you know about . . .”
He kissed her hand. “I know everything,” he said with that beautifully wicked Joshua grin. The very same one which had started all this. Louise thought she might even be blushing.
“If you could hang on to the questions for a moment,” he said. “There’s someone you have to say goodbye to.”
Louise let him help her up to her feet, glad of the assistance. Every part of her seemed to be aching and stiff. When they were standing, she just couldn’t resist giving him another kiss, making sure he was real. And no way was she going to let go of his hand. Then she saw Fletcher standing behind him.
“My lady.” Fletcher bowed deeply.
She drew a sharp breath. “The possessed.”
“Gone,” Joshua said. “Except for Fletcher. And he’s not exactly possessing anybody any more; this is a simulacrum body.” He offered his hand to the solemn naval officer. “I wanted to thank you in person for looking after Louise through all this.”
Fletcher nodded gravely. “I confess I have been curious as to what man might be worthy of Lady Louise. I see now why she speaks of no other.”
Louise knew for sure she was blushing this time.
“Am I now to return to that purgatory, sir?”
“No,” Joshua said. “That’s something else I wanted to tell you. You were there because of your own decency. Leaving your family and your country, mutinying against your king, were all terrible crimes. You convinced yourself of that, and imposed your own punishment. Purgatory was what you believed you deserved.”
Fletcher’s eyes darkened with remembered pain. “In my heart I knew what we were doing was wrong. But Bligh was cruel beyond any man’s endurance. We could withstand no more.”
“It’s over now,” Joshua said. “It’s been over for nearly a thousand years. What you have done for Louise and others this time is enough to pardon a hundred mutinies. Have courage, Fletcher, the beyond is not all there is. Sail through it. Find the shore that lies on the other side. It
“I could never doubt a man of your valour, sir. I will do as you say.”
Joshua stood aside.
“My lady.”
She hugged him tightly. “I don’t want you to go.”
“This is not where I belong, my dearest Louise. I am adrift here.”
“I know.”
“But still, I consider myself privileged that I have known you, however bizarre the circumstances. You will prosper, I foretell, and your child too. Your universe is a many-splendored thing. Live your life in it to the full.”
“I will. I promise.”
He kissed her on the brow, almost a blessing. “And tell the little one I shall think of her always.”
“Bon voyage, Fletcher.”
His body began to attenuate, its boundary dissolving into wisps of platinum stardust. An arm was raised in a farewell salute.
