‘It gets worse.’
‘No plan of battle survives contact with the enemy.’
‘Exactly. An active combat environment is perpetually fluid. It needs a commander who can make choices. You, perhaps, could contribute.’ Immanueel bent forwards, spine curving so their tail stood up in a fashion that Yirella found oddly disturbing. They leant against the wall, pressing hard against the asymmetric contours. The shiny purple components began to move around their body, creating an alcove that fitted like a glove. Nozzles clicked smoothly into the sockets down Immanueel’s spine, incorporating them into the wall’s constitution.
‘No thank you,’ she said, ‘Tilliana, Ellici, and the other tactical teams might provide you with an alternative viewpoint if we come across something unexpected, but I really don’t do well in high-stress situations.’
‘I understand, and even sympathize. We will not call upon you for instant opinions, but we would welcome your participation in overall strategy preparation.’ With their motionless body embraced by the centrex, Immanueel’s voice became omnidirectional.
‘Well, at least you didn’t say you’d be honoured.’
‘Nonetheless, you know we would be. It would be fitting for you to accompany us; that way you may witness your triumph. You are the architect of the true FinalStrike, Yirella. Forgive the presumption, but given that the enclave is forty thousand lightyears away, if you don’t come with us, you will never know the outcome. That is not what you want.’
‘Oh, Saints!’
‘May they rest in peace.’
‘You’re right, of course. All the original Morgan squads are hungry for payback. After all, it’s what us poor binaries were born for. Even I have trouble shaking my conditioning.’
‘Life is to be rejoiced. The reason for birth, good or bad, should not be part of its consideration.’
‘You really are different.’ Yirella started to walk around the centrex, hunting for a pattern in the shapes and flow of lights that made up its curving sides. ‘But I’m glad you and the other history faction corpus members think we should make the effort to liberate our species.’
‘Not just ours. If the Neána are correct, the Olyix hold many races hostage for their god.’
‘Ah. Now there we have the puzzle at the heart of this problem.’
‘The God at the End of Time.’
‘Yes.’ She turned from examining a silhouette that was like an elongated combustion chamber ribbed with slim heat fins. It took a moment for her eyes to find Immanueel’s body on the wall. The mottled black and blue of their skin was changing colour, deepening towards the imperial purple sported by the rest of the shapes. ‘Before he left to escort the seedships, I asked Ainsley to make a request of whatever society arose here.’ She cocked her head to one side, regarding the chameleon body with detached interest. ‘Did you build it?’
‘Yes. We built your tachyon detector.’
‘And? Does it work?’
‘Theoretically, yes.’
‘Theoretically?’
‘It has not detected any tachyons.’
‘I’m seriously hoping that’s because there are none directed at this star.’
‘So are we. The proof will come, of course, when we deploy it at the reception point.’
‘Yes.’
‘I feel obliged to point out there are problems with this path you wish to take.’
‘Such as?’
‘We believe we understand why you want it. We cannot concur your idea will work.’
‘I heard that message when I was inside Dellian’s brain; the Olyix neurovirus implanted it deep and hard. In fact, it was close to being the core of the neurovirus, because it justifies what they have done. Bring me all of your life, bring me all of your light. Together we will see the universe reborn out of us. It really did come from somewhere in the future. So if the tachyon beam is travelling back from that point to where and whenever in history the Olyix picked it up, it should also exist in this time. In fact, it should exist in every time before the moment it was sent.’
‘And as it travels faster than light, it creates a constant shockwave of Cherenkov radiation as it cuts through spacetime.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Which I’m hoping will allow the detector to track where it will come from.’
‘We understand your reasoning, but first we have to confirm the location of the reception point – information that is presumably available to whatever onemind rules the Olyix enclave. Yet even if we manage to extract that data, we are then left with the task of determining the spatial location of the receiver point when the message first reached it. If the Olyix received it a million years ago, that reception point will have moved a phenomenal distance over the intervening time. Everything in the universe is in motion relative to everything else. This neutron star is currently orbiting at two hundred kilometres per second in its journey around the galactic core. On top of that you have this galaxy’s relative speed to the local supercluster, and then the great attractor mass on top of that – and those are only two factors to be taken into account. Frankly, the further in the past the message was received, the less chance we have of finding the course of the message in our current time.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But with the proper knowledge, it will be possible to intercept it, right?’
‘Theoretically what you want to achieve is possible, but there are considerable practical problems.’
‘Ten thousand years ago the Olyix invaded Earth, and our ancestors set out to find them and bring our people home. And now here we are, you and me, finally getting close to achieving that goal. So surmounting considerable problems seems to be what humans are getting really quite good at.’
‘And what happens – what is your endgame – if you find the message tachyon stream?’
‘Go to the source – in this time.’
‘Again, we anticipated this would be your strategy. You think that by eliminating the source – a planet, a star system, a species – in the present, the message will never be sent from the future. The Olyix will not become religious fanatics, and Earth and all the other worlds will not be invaded.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And what
