“Except that Periarch survives. Your people are subjugated but still alive.”
“Forgive me, yes. That was a stupid thing to say. My people are not in a good way, but they are still there.”
“We need to quarantine the Radiant Dragon, and make sure Concordance don't have their claws in it. Will you help us?”
“Now that I get to know you, and I understand you a little better … yes, I will. I didn't intend to, you might like to know. I was intrigued, but I'd decided to keep my distance as much as possible. I think, though, that Magdi, if she were still around, would have agreed to help.”
“Do you know of a world we can go to?”
“It's a long way from my version of the Refuge, but I've used it once or twice to make repairs. The planet of Fenwinter. Misecera III.”
“If it's high-tech enough to have the facilities we need, Concordance must be there.”
“They were, once, but not anymore. This is another world that they blasted back into the stone age. Not with a shroud; there is still life on this planet, but by force-of-arms and, basically, brutality. The people there became too rebellious, so Coronade dismantled their society, destroyed their economy. They killed all the scientists and medics and then unleashing a virulent pathogen that wiped out 98% of the population. Going there is hard: hard for anyone, but especially for an empath, as perhaps you can imagine. But there are abandoned spaceports and repair facilities that can be useful.”
“Fenwinter, thank you, I know its coordinates. What will you do? I'm not an empath, but even I can see there's a look about you. You're ready to take up the fight again.”
Hessia smiled at that, and it was an expression that clearly meant trouble for someone. “Yes, time I stopped hiding away. Time I played my part. Perhaps I knew that, deep down, and that was why I agreed to meet. I'd chosen to dive into the deep ocean – bury my head in the sand as you might say – but now it's time for me to resurface and find out what Concordance are doing. I also noticed their recent mobilisation. If this is some plan of Godel's, then I need to know, and I need to do what I can to stop them.”
“Will we see you again?”
“No, we endanger each other too much by meeting up. I'm grateful to you, not least for letting me meet an Aetheral and see its ship. I feel a renewed sense of hope, but it's best we go our separate ways. Unless, at the end, we succeed.”
Hessia stood and gripped Selene's forearm in a gesture that was, presumably, common on Periarch.
“I'm tired of losing, tired of the bad people winning,” said Hessia. “I'm tired of the truth being buried. Let's go and destroy the bastards.”
Selene found herself grinning in reply.
Beside them, Surtr finally spoke. “I, too, would like to participate in the process of destroying the bastards.”
The two women tried and failed to stop themselves laughing while the Aetheral regarded them.
8. Fenwinter
Selene stood with Ondo on the blasted, windswept plain, staring at the numbers projected onto the sheer cliff face in one hundred metre characters.
Seventeen digits. Seventeen sevens. Up above them, an array of atmospheric drones hovered, generating the display. The digits were bright enough to be visible by day. By night they cast shadows, glowing on the horizon for fifty kilometres around. Fenwinter lay in ruins, yet the devices propagating the numbers remained fully-functional, drawing in enough solar energy by day to maintain their output.
Selene thought she knew what the numbers represented. “This is the sacred tally; the count of sentient lifeforms that Concordance believes marks the end of days. The trigger to kill everyone.”
“I think it must be,” said Ondo. “Seventeen sevens: it makes sense in their terms. Older Omnian theology is obsessed with numerology, and the number seven has particular significance to them.”
“I thought they were preoccupied with the number three.”
“They are, or some factions are. I believe the fascination with trinities is from a more recent manifestation of Omnian thought, whereas a concern with septads is older.”
“Do we have any way of knowing if the number is accurate? If the galactic population did hit this size?”
Ondo shook his head. “It seems high – it's a huge number, nearly seventy-eight quadrillion – but we have no way of making the calculation for ourselves. I've sometimes wondered if that's another thing all the Cathedral ships are doing, maintaining this tally, but then there are all the lower-tech systems they don't watch. The point is, they can come up with this number and claim it's reliable, and no one can contradict them. And I don't think Carious or any of the recent Primos put much emphasis on numerology. They think it's primitive.”
“Whereas Godel and her tradition are all over it.”
“Fenwinter – and all the planets and moons in this system – are her work. I watched what she did to it. Five years ago, this was a high-population, advanced civilisation. Then Concordance ramped up its activity, Godel's ship the Storm Gatherer leading the way, and the result is as we now see. This society has been so shattered that Concordance don't even bother to watch over it anymore. They left these displays as warnings, or taunts, or justifications, and abandoned the planet to its collapse.”
The numbers were replicated elsewhere around the world: projected into the night sky and broadcast on multiple radio frequencies. Not that there were many people left with the functioning technology to pick up such messages. The planet's societies teetered on the brink of elimination. Scattered individuals clung to life, living hand-to-mouth, but barbarism and brutality were everywhere. The mountaintop facility was thankfully removed from it all, just as Hessia had promised. It had been built as the tether point for a space elevator, which had either never been completed or destroyed as the conflagration overcame the
