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-~ Yes.
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It nodded. Me too.
He knew the story of its twin, and the worlds it had destroyed. He wondered,
assuming it was telling the truth, how many lifetimes of regret and loss you
could fit into eight hundred years, when you could think, experience and
remember with the speed and facility of a Mind. What will happen to Chel?
A handful of individuals - certainly no more - may pay with their lives. Other
than that, nothing.
It shook its head slowly.
We cannot let you have your balancing souls, Quilan. We will try to reason
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with the Chelgrian-
Puen. It s tricky territory for us, the Sublimed, but we have contacts.
It smiled at him. He could see his broad, furred face reflected in the image s
delicate features.
We still owe you for our mistake. We will do all we can to make amends. This
attempt does not absolve us. Nothing has been balanced. It squeezed his hand.
He had forgotten they were still holding each other. I am sorry.
Sorrow seems a common commodity, doesn t it?
-~ I believe the raw material is life, but happily there are other
by-products.
You are not really going to kill yourself, are you? -~ Both of us, Quilan.
Do you really-?
-~ I am tired, Quilan. I have waited for these memories to lose their force
over the years and decades and centuries, but they have not. There are places
to go, but either I would not be me when I went there, or I would remain
myself and so still have my memories. By waiting for them to drop away all
this time I have grown into them, and they into me. We have become each other.
There is no way back I consider worth taking.
It smiled regretfully and squeezed his hand again.
I ll be leaving everything in good working order, and in good hands. It ll be
a more-or-less seamless transition, and nobody will suffer or die.
Won t people miss you?
They ll have another Hub before too long. I m sure they ll take to it, too.
But I hope they do miss me a little. I hope they do think well of me.
And you ll be happy?
-~ I won t be happy or unhappy. I won t be. Neither will you.
It turned more towards him and held out its other hand.
Are you ready, Quilan? Will you be my twin in this? He took its other hand.
If you will be my mate.
The avatar closed its eyes.
Time seemed to expand, exploding all around him.
His last thought was that he d forgotten to ask what had happened to Huyler.
Light shone in the sky above the Bowl.
Kabe, lost in the silence and the darkness, watched the light of the star
called Junce as it flickered and then blazed, close enough to the earlier,
fading nova of Portisia to all but drown it out.
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At his side, Quilan, who had been very quiet and still for some time, suddenly
slumped forward in his curl-pad and collapsed to the floor before Kabe could
catch him. What? he heard Tersono screech.
The applause was starting.
Breath flowed out of the Chelgrian s mouth, then he went quite still. Noises
of shock and consternation built up around Kabe, and - as he hunkered down and
tried to revive the dead alien creature - another bright, bright light
shone above; exactly, precisely overhead. He called
Hub for help but there was no answer.
Space, Time
-fear and the sudden tearing pain, the huge white-furred face suddenly filling
his vision; the despair and terror and the anger at having been betrayed as he
woke and tried - too late, far too late - to bring his hands up in what would
have been a futile gesture anyway, then the ferocious thud as the creature s
huge jaws slammed into his neck, and the agony of the steel-like hold and the
instant constriction, the cutting-off from air, and the shaking; neck
snapping, brain rattling, dislodging him from sense and life
Something rasped against his neck; there went aunt Silder s necklace. The
shaking went on.
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Something thin and broken whipped tinily against his neck as the blood sprayed
out and the breath was worried out of him. You bastard, he thought, slipping
away again from the savage side-to-side thrashing.
The pain went on, fading, as he was dragged now, held by the neck, through the
alien ship. His limbs hung limp, cut offfrom his brain; he was a rag, a broken
puppet. The corridors still smelled of rotting fruit. Eyes gummed with his own
blood. Nothing to be done, nothing to hope for.
Mechanical noises. Then the feeling of being dropped. A surface beneath him.
Released, his head felt barely joined to his body, rolling onto its side.
Sounds of growling and tearing and slashing, sounds he felt ought to connect
to pain, to some sensation at least, but which meant nothing. Then silence,
and darkness, and the inability to do anything but witness this slow
fading-away of sensation itself And another small pain near the nape of his
neck; a final, tiny jab, like an afterthought; almost comical.
Failed. Failed to get back. Failed to warn. Failed to be the hero. It was not
supposed to end this way, dying a lonely, painful death, conscious only of
betrayal, fear and hopelessness.
Hissing. Fading. Cold. Movement; being scraped along inside a sudden, chill
breeze.
Then utter silence, utter cold, and no weight whatsoever.
Uagen Zlepe, scholar, felt cheated that his blood-gummed eyes prevented him
from seeing the distant stars in their vacuum- naked state as he died.
- Great Yoleusenive, this is that which was found in the without by the
servants of the
Hiarankebine six thousand and three hundred beats to aft. It was brought
within the world for the inspection of the Hiarankebine, which sends these
remains with its esteem and compliments, believing that your self might add to
the sum of knowledge with its revered evaluation.
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