‘I feel you investigating my memories. What are you looking for?’
‘I see you erasing your memories. What are you trying to hide?’
‘We are open to you, now and always.’
‘I never did understand your level of fanaticism. You would rather die than be given a second chance. That’s extraordinary.’
‘I am a single unit in the Olyix fullmind. Part of me will live on no matter how many of us are killed by your slaughter here today. This will not end our divine purpose. It is eternal.’
‘No, it’s not. I’ve heard your god’s message. It’s bullshit.’
‘Yet still you hunt through my mind. Is that what you seek? The message from the God at the End of Time? This I offer freely. It is our gracious task to bring it to all life that lives in the light.’
‘Don’t need it, because I already had a taste at Vayan. But I admit I am curious. Surely by now you’ve realized the universe isn’t cyclic? The only thing that’s waiting up there in the far future is heat death, not rebirth bringing a new light. You’ve had long enough for your astronomers to determine that – so many millennia. We humans got there after just four centuries of studying the cosmos.’
‘Dear human, we have held the truth for so much longer than that.’
Yirella smiled. The association had worked; she could see the arrival of the message at the Olyix homeworld, this very binary star, two and a half million years ago. ‘So you have. Thank you.’
Finally, a bloom of uncertainty appeared in the onemind’s serene thoughts. ‘You wanted to know the time when the God at the End of Time blessed us with its message.’
‘That is part of what I seek, yes.’
‘Why?’
‘So I can use it to defeat you.’
‘You cannot defeat a god. The nova your neutron star will create will eliminate this star system, but we have thousands of outposts across the galaxy. Each of them will flourish and grow into a new enclave. Each will continue our crusade.’
‘Yes, I was concerned that might happen. And I see you really believe that. So know this. We will deal with any survivors, and every attempt they might make to resurrect your despicable crusade. We have the ability now, and friends. So many friends, thanks to you.’ She felt the onemind erasing vast sections of itself, a retreat that made her own incursion into its personality so much easier.
‘The locations of our valiant outposts are gone now. Dear human, my descendants will meet yours out there one day. This battle is merely one amid a war that will last until our god arises.’
‘I know.’
‘Then end your sacrilege. Stop this profane attack. It is not too late for your redemption. Humans now have the ability to travel to the era of our god in your own vessels. Join our pilgrimage as loving equals.’
‘You have ruined the evolution of thousands of species – billions upon billions of lives lost. And it was you personally that oversaw the death of my homeworld; almost as many people died from collapsing city shields as you stole. You’ve killed my friends, and your senseless zealotry is forcing me to make decisions that will never bring me closure, let alone happiness. After all the evil you have unleashed, you ask me to be merciful? And you still haven’t realized, have you? It wasn’t a god that sent your message; it was the devil, you psychotic shit. Now die.’
Saints
Morgan
Of all the things Yuri wasn’t expecting to find in a supertechnology warship built by some very weird post-humans, he had to admit a Roaring Twenties Parisian cafe would be close to the top of his list.
Nonetheless, that was where he and Jessika and Kandara and Callum had wound up. They sat at one of the wooden tables where remotes served them the best food he’d tasted in . . . well, a long time.
As they ate, the big arched windows showed tactical displays. The corpus armada had killed the oneminds in every arkship above the gas giant world; squads backed by machine marines had occupied each arkship and Welcome ship containing human cocoons. More marines had continued to overrun the others vessels with imprisoned aliens, but they were running out of time to implement the next phase of the mission.
The neutron star was going to impact the big white-spectrum star in another ninety minutes. A vast fleet of Resolution ships was forming up on the fringe of the nebula. And the armada had expended most of its Calmissiles.
‘I can’t believe they still call them that,’ Kandara said, shaking her head in apparent dismay.
‘Why wouldn’t they?’ Callum asked. ‘The Higgs boson, Einstein’s theory of relativity, Robson’s progression, Rindstrom’s door, Newton’s law of gravity. So many breakthroughs are named after their inventors.’
‘But they’re important historical figures,’ Yuri said with a straight face. ‘The giants of human science.’
‘Then I’m in good company.’
Jessika and Kandara both laughed at him. Callum ignored them, drinking his beer in an attempt at silent dignity.
Yuri used his altme to call up a visual feed from the Morgan’s fuselage sensors. They were keeping station with the Salvation of Life along with twenty much larger attack cruisers from the armada. A swarm of small insectoid craft was hopping across the rock, attaching a multitude of dark hemispherical machines to the arkship’s surface. In the background, points of light sparkled through the nebula’s beautiful polychromatic clouds. For a moment he was concerned the twinkles had returned, but then he realized that – one by one – the stars were appearing as their light crawled across the empty expanse that used to be the enclave. Sure enough, as the arkship swept over the gas giant’s equator, he saw the galactic core rising
