The hippie clenched his hands, and pressed them hard against his forehead. “Oh man, that is a total bummer. I want my gravity to be the real stuff. Listen, you don’t fool around with something as basic as this. You just don’t.”
“Reality is now essentially contained in your mind. If you perceive gravity acting on you, then it is real,” the serjeant said imperturbably.
A large lighted reefer appeared in Cochrane’s hand, and he took a deep drag. “I am heavy,” he chanted. “Heavy, heavy, heavy. And don’t no one forget that. You listening to me, people? Keep thinking it.”
“In any event,” Sinon told McPhee. “If we were in the grip of a gravity field, the nebula would be falling with us. It isn’t.”
“Some good news,” McPhee grunted. “Which is also no’ natural here.”
“Forget the academics of the situation,” Moyo said. “Is there any way we can use it?”
“We intend to set up an observation detail,” Sinon said. “A headland watch, if you like, to see if there is anything out there in front of us. It could be that all the other planets the possessed removed from the universe are here in this realm with us. We will also start using our affinity to call for help; it’s the only method of communication we have that works here.”
“Oh man, no way! Who’s going to hear that? Come on, you guys, get real.”
“Obviously we don’t know who, if anyone, will hear. And even if there is a planet out there, we doubt we’d be able to reach its surface intact.”
“You mean alive,” Moyo said.
“Correct. However, there is one strong possibility for rescue.”
“What?” Cochrane yelled.
“If this is the realm where all the possessed yearn to go, then it is conceivable Valisk is here. It might hear our call, and its biosphere would be able to support us. Transferring ourselves inside would be a simple matter.”
Cochrane let out a long sigh, blowing long trails of sweet-smelling green smoke from his nostrils. “Hey, yeah, more like it, dude. Good positive thinking. I could dig living in Valisk.”
Watching was one thing the humans could do almost as well as the serjeants, so Stephanie and her friends hiked across the final kilometre to the edge of the island to help establish the headland lookout camp. It took them over an hour to get there. The terrain wasn’t particularly rough. Crusted mud cracked and squelched under their feet, and they had to go around several pools of stagnant water. But Tina had to be carried the whole way on a stretcher, along with her small array of primitive medical equipment. And even with energistic strength reinforcing her body, Stephanie had to stop for a rest every few minutes.
Eventually, they reached the top of the cliff, and settled themselves down fifty metres short of the precipice. They’d chosen the brow of a mound, which gave them an excellent uninterrupted view out across the glaring emptiness ahead. Tina was placed so she could look outward by just raising her head, making her feel a part of their enterprise. She smiled a painful tired thanks as they rigged her plasma container up on an old branch beside her. The ten serjeants accompanying them clumped their backpacks together, and sat down in a broad semicircle like a collection of lotus-position Buddhas.
Stephanie eased herself down on a sleeping bag, quietly content the journey had ended. She promptly turned a sachet of nutrient soup into a ham sandwich and bit in hungrily. Moyo sat beside her, allowing his shoulder to rest against hers. They exchanged a brief kiss.
“Groovy,” Cochrane hooted. “Hey, if love is blind, how come lingerie is so popular.”
Rana regarded him in despair. “Oh very tactful.”
“It’s a joke,” the hippie protested. “Moyo doesn’t mind, do you, man?”
“No.” He and Stephanie put their heads together and started giggling.
Giving them a slightly suspicious look, Cochrane settled down on his own sleeping bag. He’d changed the fabric to scarlet and emerald crushed velvet. “So how about a sweepstake, you dudes? What’s going to come sailing over the horizon first?”
“Flying saucers,” McPhee said.
“No no,” Rana said primly. “Winged unicorns ridden by virgins wearing Cochrane’s frilly white lingerie.”
“Hey, come on, this is serious, you guys. I mean, like our lives depend on it.”
“Funny,” Stephanie mused. “Not so long ago I was wishing death was permanent. Now it could well be, and I’d like to keep on living just that little bit longer.”
“I would like to ask why you believe you will actually die?” Sinon enquired. “You have all indicated that is what will happen in this realm.”
“It’s like the gravity, I suppose,” Stephanie said. “Death is such a fundamental. That’s what we expect at the end of life.”
“You mean you are willing your own extinction?”
“Not exactly. Being free of the beyond was only a part of what we wanted. This realm was supposed to be marvellously benign. It probably is, if we were on a planet. We wanted to come here and live forever, just like the legends of heaven. And if not forever, certainly thousands of years. A proper life, like we used to think we had. Life ends in death.”
“In heaven, death would not return you to the beyond,” Choma ventured.
“Exactly. This life would be better than before. Energistic power gives us the potential to fulfil our dreams. We don’t need a manufacturing base, or money. We can make whatever we want just by wishing it into being. If that can’t make people happy, nothing can.”
“You would never know a sense of accomplishment,” Sinon said. “There would be no frontier to challenge you. Electricity is virtually non-existent, denying you any kind of machinery more advanced than a steam engine. You expect to live for a good portion of eternity. And nobody can ever leave. Forgive me, I do not see that as paradise.”
“Always the downside,” Cochrane muttered.
“You might be right. But even a jail planet trapped in the Eighteenth Century followed by genuine death is better than the beyond.”
“Then your energies would surely be better directed in solving the problem of human souls becoming trapped in the beyond.”
“Fine words,” Moyo said. “How?”
“I don’t know. But if some of you would cooperate with us, then avenues of possibility would be opened.”
“We are cooperating.”
“Not here. Back in the universe where the Confederation’s scientific resources could be marshalled.”
“All you ever did when we were on Ombey was assault us,” Rana said. “And we know the military captured several possessed to vivisect. We could hear their torment echoing through the beyond.”
“If they had cooperated, we wouldn’t have to use force,” Choma said. “And it was not vivisection. We are not barbarians. Do you really think I wish to consign my family to the beyond? We want to help. Self-interest dictates that if nothing else.”
“Another wasted opportunity,” Stephanie said sadly. “They do mount up, don’t they.”
“Someone is coming from the town,” Choma announced. “They are walking towards our encampment.”
Stephanie automatically turned to look back over the mud prairie behind them. She couldn’t see anything moving.
“It is only five people,” Choma said. “They don’t appear hostile.” The serjeant continued to give them a commentary. A squad was dispatched to intercept the newcomers, who claimed they were leaving Ekelund, disillusioned by the way things were in the ruined town. The serjeants directed them to the headland group.
Stephanie watched them approach. She wasn’t surprised to see Delvan was with them. He was dressed in his full nineteen-hundreds army officer regalia, a dark uniform of thick wool with plenty of scarlet, gold, and imperial purple-ribbons.
“Phallocentric military.” Rana sniffed disdainfully, and made a show of turning round to gaze out over the
