flesh and dark blood flying. The wind began to pluck at his clothing. A distant thunder rolled in the dark greenish air.
The Hydra moved with him, sprouting two arms for each Theosus (Bruno) lopped off. It seemed to be laughing at him, an electronic hissing that rivaled the windstorm sweeping the palaestra. Sand from the arena floor blew into his eyes, making him squint.
And for every swing Theosus (Bruno) made, one of the Hydra's arms, snake-quick, snatched a mouthful of memories from him. He began to swing his spatha two handed as the light began to fail, and heads fell into gory piles on the arena floor. But still more arms and heads sprouted, ever hungry for the experiences that made up Theosus (Bruno). Dodging his weary swings, the sharp teeth took and took, a bit at a time.
The puppeteers he had met The name the kzin had given him before he had died.
The name of his university.
Carol's last name.
The name of their spacecraft.
The feeling of Transcendence when he was Linked.
The names of his father and mother.
Everything that he was seemed to vanish into the swelling black shape of the Hydra towering over him, triumphant. Unfeeling, Theosus (Bruno) let his spatha drop from exhausted fingers to the arena floor.
The arms of the Hydra kept him upright as it fed upon his memories. The pain was excruciating. He wanted to scream out a woman's name, but had forgotten whose.
Bruno, whispered a man's voice he did not recognize, it's all right to let go now.
He looked down at himself, past the nest of squirming arms entering his body. His skin was beginning to become transparent. He could see his heart beating within a cage of snakes.
Oh, Tacky, Theosus (Bruno) heard a woman's voice cry from so far away. I love you so.
'I love you,' he croaked. Theosus (Bruno) suddenly remembered something old, massive, powerful. Something the Dissonants had buried deep within him, to use here and now. A weapon.
It was Time.
His beating heart within his chest changed shape, from muscle to jewel to a cylinder of mining explosive. It was the signal and program the Dissonant Outsiders had planted inside him, before setting him against the Zealot spacecraft.
'Now!' he shrieked, and released the fast, slick disease. A distant equivalent of a computer virus, that the rebel Outsiders had planted deep within his brain and circuitry.
A blaze of light seared upward from his chest, burning with a clean, pure fire. The Hydra cried out and tried to withdraw.
Laughing weakly, Theosus (Bruno) hung on to the burning arms, forcing more of the blazing light into the Hydra's heart. It shrieked again, trying to force him away, but he clung to the Hydra. The pure fire raged in vengeance.
The Hydra itself burst into flame, every arm a streak of flame slicing the blackness around him. Clots of fire blazed in the distance. More shrieks joined the din.
The portion of Theosus (Bruno's) mind not trapped within the Dream knew that this was all metaphor and representation; that the computer virus was spreading from Bruno into the group mind of the Zealot Outsiders. The self-replicating pattern would expand and move within each mobile unit of the Zealot mind, erasing and randomizing data packets.
He knew that he would die with the Zealots, lost forever in the other dimension that was hyperspace.
But she would live, even if her name had been torn from him by the Zealots. And perhaps the Dissonants could convince the Radiants… and their Masters… to force other Zealot ship-minds… to leave human space alone.
Pain. So much.
The light became still brighter. Began to pulse like a great heart of flame. The arms of the Hydra, nothing but fire now, still tugged and pulled. But he hung on. Agony could be so pure.
The Dream began to die around him. Bruno could feel his own brain circuitry begin to fail. His biological components burned with eddying currents as the shielding around the Zealot ship began to fail. The twisted space-time of hyperspace began to enter, leaking into the bubble that had been protected by the Zealot equipment.
A soundless explosion filled his sensorium, colors beyond spectrum, sounds beyond pitch, sensations beyond feeling. He could feel his back arch as a soundless keening filled his head. Pain. Everywhere. Bruno finally became One with the All.
11001010001111001010101011011111101010111011010011100
01011101110101111010010111010010011010101100110011110
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Carol and the two-headed puppeteer stood close to one another. They watched the swirling colors and strange shapes of hyperspace through the view hemisphere above them. None of what she saw made sense, even with the Dissonant Outsider enhancements for their benefit.
'I can't see a damned thing,' she whispered. Carol thinned her lips in fatalism. She had seen friends die before, even lovers.
But Bruno?
'They have taken the human ship inside the Zealot main craft,' observed Diplomat, necks weaving as he observed the view portal. His left head dipped into a pouch and emerged, chewing slowly.
'How do you know?' she asked. The alien grass beneath her bare feet was cool and remote. The Zealot spacecraft above her was a blurry, shifting collection of warped geometrical shapes, now close, now far away.
'I will improve the image resolution for your benefit,' replied Diplomat.
If Bruno has been taken aboard the Outsider ship, he must be dead, she thought. Carol's face became hot, and the beginnings of tears stung her eyes. She fought the tide of emotions.
In the back of her mind, Carol saw Bruno's wry smile, his look of surprising innocence in his old, old eyes. Oh, my love, she thought. You were no soldier, Linked or un-Linked. How could you have done this wasteful thing?
She could feel one of Diplomat's heads looking at her curiously, but ignored it.
Through the view portal, she saw the kaleidoscopic image of the Zealot warship shift and smear, colors and shapes distorted by the bizarre topology of hyperspace around them. It was difficult to clearly see the hostile Outsider ship, but Carol's instincts jangled her nerves like an alarm.
A tiny, glittering speck seemed to merge with the collection of shapes and forms that was the Zealot spacecraft.
'Will it all be for nothing?' she asked. 'I think not,' the puppeteer sang in its sultry woman's voice. 'The Dissonants have placed a… trap… within Mr. Takagama.”
'A trap?”
'Yes. A self-replicating pattern that will wreak havoc on the Zealot group mind. It will make more copies of itself, increasing confusion and destruction.' 'But what will happen to Bruno?' Carol asked, knowing the answer. As if in answer, the Zealot ship seemed to shimmer. Waves of darkness passed over it. 'I think,' sang the puppeteer, 'that Mr. Takagama has been successful.' Carol could not look away. The Zealot spacecraft suddenly seemed to have a hexagonal hole in its center. Triangular segments began to vanish along the hexagon, increasing in size. As if the Outsider ship were being eaten. 'What…?' 'When the force-shields are lost,' sang Diplomat softly, 'the matter from our space-time continuum can no longer exist in hyperspace.' 'Where does it go?' The little puppeteer shook his head at Carol. 'Anywhere. Everywhere. Nowhere.'' The Zealot ship was a bizarre
