The Soul Consortium (34 page)

“Give her back,” he whispers as if his voice is carried with the wind.

“Who
are
you?”

His hairless head tilts slightly, as if he is calculating something. “We are many. We are one.”

“We are many. You said that before to Soome. What do you mean?”

“Give her back.”

“Her?”

“Yes,” Vieta whispers. “My … daughter. My … offspring. She is near maturity … Give her back.”

“I can’t.”

His eyes continue to pierce me. “You will.”

“I cannot allow that. If your … daughter continues to grow, this universe will end with this cycle. Human life will not be able to continue.”

“Human life is an infestation.”

“No, your offspring is the infestation.”

Vieta’s lips separate to reveal a gray tongue sliding behind decayed teeth. A long and wheezing rasp ends with a gurgling hiss. With a shiver, I realize he is laughing.

“I’ll give you a chance to stop all this. You told Soome you wanted to get back to wherever it was you came from. Well, perhaps I can help you. Maybe we can find another way for you to return without harming the rest of us.”

“No.”

“It can’t be done, or you won’t?”

“Give her back to me.”

I nod slowly, understanding that Vieta won’t be persuaded. “No. I won’t.”

“I could kill you.”

“Then why don’t you?”

Vieta raises a bony finger.

For the next few seconds I fight the surging panic he might actually kill me.

“I removed Qod because she stole my daughter from me.”

I try to disguise the pain in my voice. “I thought so.”

In his eyes I see the same intensity that must be showing in mine. He’s looking for leverage too. A way to bargain with me.

“Would you like her back?”

I feel my pulse quicken. Surely he’s taunting me. “You can do that?”

His head tilts again. “Perhaps.”

Could he be telling the truth? Or is he playing the same game as me, trying to reel me in? If he is, then I can trust him about as much as he can trust me. But this could still be the leverage I need.

“So,” I say, trying to keep my breathing level, “you want your daughter. I want Qod. Can we come to an arrangement?”

Vieta continues to stare, the same sickly smile warping his lips. “Bring the Consortium here to me, and I will return her to you … once you have told me the location of my daughter.”

I stay silent for a moment as if thinking it over, though my decision was made even before he finished the sentence. “Agreed, but where’s here? We’re at the beginning of the universe’s fourth cycle. No stars have formed yet, let alone any planets. There shouldn’t be anywhere for us to meet other than here.”

“You will find me waiting on Castor’s World.”

“How is that possible?”

“I arranged for its protection while the universe collapsed at the end of its third cycle. It was not difficult, but I had to expend some … shall we say, energy, to succeed.”

By energy he must mean the energy he’s been collecting from people’s objects—the energy that created his daughter—or whatever that thing is. A moment of fear tightens my throat. I’m trying to negotiate, even deceive a being with such power he has been able to somehow preserve a small section of space while the rest of the universe condensed back within a singularity. Not only that, he managed to dispose of Qod. Again I wonder how I can possibly hope to defeat Vieta.

“You want me to bring the Consortium through the Promethean Singularity?”

“If you want me to return Qod, yes.”

I wanted him to come to me, but either way, my plan should work. “Very well. It’ll take eighty days for the slipstream drives to power up. I’ll see you then.”

His smile sends a wave of nausea through me. “Yes. I will see you in eighty days.”

“Control, sever transmission.”

Confirmed.

E
ighty days. Less than a blink in the eternity of my life, but now that span of time seems like an age. And it may seem even longer without Qod. I am tempted to visit one more life—a contented soul—during that time, but I cannot give in to the temptation. Nothing should distract me from my new purpose.

Below my feet the steady rumble of the Soul Consortium’s slipstream engines build their gradual crescendo, bringing back memories of the first time they were used. I have no desire to experience another journey through the heart of the universe for the third time. I did it once myself and once as Oluvia Wade, but nobody found out what it would be like to go back through the opposite way. I remember the pain. With the immense power fluctuations at the point of impact, the Control Core cannot suppress the sensations in the human body. But this has to be done.

Ahead of me, still clogging the Consortium gardens, is Vieta’s abnormality, heaving like a restless sea of bone and flesh against the transparent walls of the sphere, crushing the trees under its weight and lamenting its own existence. Outside the boundaries of the universe it seems Vieta is unable to locate his creation, but that may change when we pass through the Singularity again. Just as he has no real intention of returning Qod to me, I have no intention of releasing this abomination to him. Otherwise the consequences for creation would be disastrous, and I would have nothing left with which to bargain. He must know I plan to deceive him, and if I return this monster to him, he’ll simply dispose of me and continue where he left off, ready to celebrate his offspring’s coming of age and the resulting dissolution of my universe.

I take one last look at the gardens I once cherished above all else, then give the order. “Control, detach Consortium Royal Garden Sphere and jettison.”

Please confirm trajectory.

“It doesn’t matter. As far away from the Promethean Singularity as possible. It must never get back into the universe, so just get it away from here. Away from me.”

Calculating … detaching … ejecting.

With a vast shudder, hoses, fibers, umbilicals, and bridges snap away from the sphere, leaving clouds of gas and debris to jet away into the darkness. A pulse of energy buffets the sphere, and a few seconds later it drifts away from the rest of the Consortium—a massive glass ball tumbling into infinity, filled with a living horror I hope nobody ever finds, most of all Vieta.

“Good riddance,” I say, turning my back to return to the Soul Spheres.

D
ay eighty. The final preparations have been made for my final day. After all this time, after all my aeons of existence trying to decide if I should follow the path of my long dead peers, my decision is made but not for the reasons I ever expected. I have finally discovered there is more to life than this universe I have come to know so well, but I must be denied that adventure. To stop Vieta, I must die. At least now I will know what lies beyond. Perhaps the greater adventure is waiting for me there. I will find out soon enough.

To ensure my death I have cut off all power to every genoplant in the Soul Consortium to prevent my resurrection, and now the only remaining risk is a premature death. For my plan to work, my sacrifice must happen at precisely the right moment or all is lost. Facing Vieta is dangerous enough, but if I handle things correctly, he will not kill me. Passing through the Promethean Singularity will be the most dangerous obstacle to overcome. Many people died last time, but I know exactly what to expect and I am prepared.

Adjusting trajectory for final approach to Promethean Singularity.

Contact in sixty seconds.

Please brace for impact.

The Observation Sphere is the best place to be. The velocity as I approach at slipstream speed is breathtaking, and rather than focus the sphere’s viewpoint somewhere within the universe, I have withdrawn it for this occasion to view the approach directly ahead of the Soul Consortium, as if I am looking straight through a massive window. I didn’t see this the first or second time. Back then, both Salem and Oluvia’s eyes ruptured. This time I am wearing protective lens implants.

Contact in forty-five seconds.

Calculating vectors for arrival orbit at Castor’s World.

I cannot help but scream with exhilaration and fear as the universe rushes to greet me. The boiling heart we call the Promethean Singularity is spinning and exploding in bursts of white and gold light, as if all the stars waiting to be born are warring against each other to win the prize of existence. Vast arcs of lightning ripple across the dome above me like white fire, and as we draw closer in the last few seconds, the deep shuddering power of creation rocks the Soul Consortium.

Contact in five … four … three … two …

My ears explode, my bones crunch, my throat collapses, my heart crumples, and my lungs burst as the Consortium punches through the heart of the universe. My restraints are failing, and through a blaze of white, I watch the sphere splinter above me. With an abundant taste of blood in my mouth and throat and the sharp tingle of shredded nerves telling me I won’t survive the next few minutes, my body slams into the glass high above the ground. Debris shrieks through the fracture in the sphere, and the immense pressure smears me across its surface toward the opening. What remains of my corpse will spray into the waiting atmosphere of Castor’s World as the Consortium screams to a halt above the legendary crater.

Though the pain is unendurable, my only thought now is of failure. This is not how I wanted to die. Vieta will go on unhindered. Eventually over the ages, he will build his unnatural child once more, feeding it until the universe eventually collapses. I failed.

A
s if pushing through a heavy curtain of oil and blood, I stagger forward, trying to focus on a less oppressive darkness than the brief blackness of death.

The deep thrumming of power in the room deafens me as my newly formed ear bones adjust, then fluctuates in volume before settling, and I retch as the smell of freshly engineered DNA mixed with ancient decay fills my nostrils and coats my throat. For a moment my head throbs and my lungs ache. Mech-cells make their final alterations to my nervous system, and with a quick twist of my neck and clenching of my fists to test my muscles, strength returns as the nausea fades.

Cellular generation complete.

Circulatory systems stimulated.

Neural transfer complete.

Subject 9.98768E+14 resurrection successful.

I am alive again. But how? I made sure all the genoplants were shut down before the Consortium entered the Singularity. With the next breath I realize this isn’t any of the genoplants within the Consortium spheres; it’s cold and dark in here, the ground is uneven with sharp objects cutting into my feet, and the stench is almost as unbearable as the pain I endured a few moments ago before I resurrected. If not the Soul Consortium, there is only one other place this could be, and the reek confirms it—the genoplant within the abbey on Castor’s World. Vieta must have left it on, and the Consortium must have dropped into range just before I died.

Fumbling through the dust and bone remains of a thousand corpses, I try to find the door. It was a long time ago I lived Soome’s life, but I remember the layout of this room; the awful last scene of his life is still clearly etched into my synapses.

Eventually I find the cold metal of the handle and open the door, struggling against the thick detritus that has held it shut for so long. The familiar blood light of Castor’s World, filtering through the smashed windows of an abandoned abbey, ebbs through the gap in the door. I wish I was unable to see my surroundings; I need to keep my nerve for the meeting that awaits me, and this room is a painful reminder of the power I am about to face.

My rebirth seems to have been the first one in a very long time here. The mindless bodies of the monks who perpetuated a continuous cycle of resurrection and death must have been released in the distant past. There is no evidence of any recent deaths in here, but the sobering remains of mummified corpses carpet the floor. Across the room are the circuits that power the genoplant booths. In order for my trap to work I have to sever these. There must be no resurrection for me, otherwise that empty slot waiting for me in the Soul Consortium will never be filled and there will be no bait for Vieta.

Stepping over the corpses, I pause. Do I really want to go through with this? I thought about suicide so many times before, but in the past it was only my interests at stake. This time the fate of future humanity depends on my success. And there is just a slim chance it will work. If I push Vieta too hard he may kill me before I’m able to do it myself. I have to convince him that the knowledge in my head is crucial to his needs—the key to his success.

I nod decisively to myself, then strip the power fibers.

The genoplant is dead. It’s time to face Vieta.

S
everal robes are hanging on hooks just beyond the door, and I take one to shield me from the cold before making my way cautiously through the abbey to find the main lobby. The passageways are littered with shards of broken pottery, smashed glass, and splintered wood. Dried blood decorates the mildewed stonework, and skeletal remains are scattered throughout.

It is all evidence of a violent battle that took place here, and I feel a moment of sorrow for the monks who fought against Vieta after Soome’s death. I remember the brief information Qod gave me about the abbey before I ventured into Soome’s life; nobody ever came back to Castor’s World after news returned of the apparent madness that occurred there. It was assumed that studying the Codex drove them insane and the result was a horrific bloodbath. They knew nothing of Keitus Vieta.

With no small effort both mentally and physically, I open the great double doors leading to the outside world, and there, as if he has been waiting patiently in the same position for the last eighty days, is Keitus Vieta, hunched in the dry dirt with his back to me, wearing the robes of an abbot.