The Firstlife"s farsight probed around again, its extraordinary reach allowing it to scan the city and delve down into a fair percentage of the warship"s main body. It also attempted to examine Ilanthe, who deflected it effortlessly.

"You are the omega?" it asked in surprise.

"No," Inigo said. "We originated outside the Void."

"How can that be? There is nothing outside, only dead matter."

"Are you the creators? Did your species build this?"

"Yes."

"We and many others have been pulled inside so you could exploit our rationality."

"That is not so. You cannot exist unless the omega formed you."

"We do exist, and the Void did not make us. The Void is killing us."

"You do not understand your purpose. This is why I was brought back." The Firstlife was uncertain.

"No. You can communicate with the Heart, the mind that envelops us. This is why-"

"Wait," Troblum said. He ignored the looks everyone gave him. "In your time, were there any other sentient species in the galaxy?"

"There is only us. We are first, and when we achieve omega, we will be last."

"First life," Oscar said in wonder. "The first race to evolve in the galaxy. How old is this thing?"

"Ancient," Justine muttered. "More ancient than we ever thought possible."

"Since your time, countless species have evolved right across the galaxy," Inigo said. "You were first, but you are no longer alone."

The Firstlife"s thoughts reeled in astonishment. "You are not us? You are original?"

"We are."

The black membranes flapped about in agitation. Glistening honey-like droplets appeared on their tips. "Why are you here?"

"This thing you built, this Void, now threatens the entire galaxy," Gore said, climbing to his feet again. "I understand why you built it, to evolve into something new, something exquisite. You haven"t. Instead it has absorbed thousands of other types of minds which have pulled it in every direction. It cannot evolve, not in this state."

"Exactly," Ilanthe said. "Ask these creatures what they would have you do. They want you to stop; they want all you have achieved on the way to your omega to wither away and die. They have nothing else to offer you. I do."

"Is this why you brought me back?" the Firstlife asked. "To end our evolution?"

"It cannot continue in its current form," Inigo said. "It is consuming the ma.s.s of the galaxy in order to power its existence. Every star will ultimately be devoured, and the species they have birthed will die with them."

"Unless you act now," Ilanthe said. "Communicate with the amalgamated mind; tell it to adopt my inversion."

"What is your inversion?"

"I will take the composition of the Void and implant it within the quantum fields which structure the universe outside. This core will ignite the chain reaction which will disseminate change across the entirety of s.p.a.cetime. Entropy will be eliminated. Mind will become paramount. Every sentient ent.i.ty will be given the opportunity to reach its own omega as you antic.i.p.ated for yourselves. Your legacy will be the birth of a new reality."

"You have got to be f.u.c.king joking," Gore gasped. "Any quantum field transform wave will simply reverse once it expands past its initial energy input zone. All you"ll be left with is a collapsing microverse that seals itself off from reality as soon as the implosion is complete."

"Not if entropy is eliminated."

"You can"t eliminate entropy across infinity. That"s the f.u.c.king point of infinity. It"s forever and always."

"Ask the amalgamated mind to give me the Void"s governing parameters," Ilanthe said to the Firstlife.

"Do not!" Gore shouted, thrusting his arm out at the Firstlife. "Do not even think it. You will destroy this entire supercl.u.s.ter with her insanity."

"And what do you offer?" Ilanthe mocked. "The end of their journey to omega?"

"Since you built the Void, hundreds of species have evolved to postphysical status, what you call omega," Gore said. "It can be done, but not like this. I"m sorry, but you have made a mistake by building the Void. You have to get the Heart to stop the boundary"s ma.s.s devourment, suspend the Void"s functions, become stable. We"ll show you how to achieve true evolution in a different way."

"You can"t," Ilanthe said. "Every species has to find its own way."

The Firstlife didn"t reply. A whistling sound was coming from the thin fronds around its mouth as air gusted in and out past the teeth. Edeard was aware of its thoughts pulsing out to be absorbed by the Heart. It wasn"t anything he could copy; he knew he could never communicate with the Heart directly.

"Darkness eclipses us," it said eventually. "Something is growing outside our frontier, a shroud which would deny us the universe."

"The warrior Raiel," Ilanthe said. "Sworn to destroy you. Ask this wretched remnant of their invasion if you require confirmation. They seek to cut you off from your source of energy, to starve you to death. They will be rendered irrelevant by the change I can instigate. In time, in the new universe, they will learn to celebrate your liberation."

"Do you seek to destroy us?" the Firstlife asked.

"We require you to end your absorption of this galaxy and the threat of extinction it brings to all life," Makkathran said. "If you will not undertake this freely, we have the right to stop you."

"You don"t have to stop," Ilanthe said. "Inversion circ.u.mvents everything. All of us will achieve the promise of our evolution. Give me your governing parameters."

"Wait!" Gore demanded. "I think my alternative just became available." He lifted his golden head and gave Ilanthe a sweetly evil grin. "And guess who made that happen." And he dreamed of his life back outside the Void.

The Delivery Man watched in horror as the twin quantum signatures expanded at hyperluminal velocity. Marius had fired novabombs into the star. He couldn"t believe it. This was genocide.

Diverted energy functions absorbed the energy liberated from the first activation pulse, modifying it to expand the annihilation effect. A volume of the star"s interior the size of a super-Jovian gas giant converted directly into energy. The convection zone bulged around the periphery. It was the first act in a sequence that would see the star"s core squeezed beyond stability.

Monstrous shock waves raced toward the Last Throw Last Throw at close to lightspeed. "Ozzief.u.c.kit!" at close to lightspeed. "Ozzief.u.c.kit!"

By the time he"d said it, his accelerated thoughts had ordered the smartcore to trigger the ultradrive. It was never designed to operate within a stellar gravity field, but he was dead, anyway.

The universe clearly hated such an aberration, sending a vengeful force to tear savagely at the perpetrator. Finally the cabin was alive with noise and shaking and alarms just as he"d thought he wanted. Bulkheads split, hundreds of tiny cracks ripping open. Sparks and sprays of gooey fluid shot through the air, churned by a cyclone of gravity waves that pulled the Delivery Man violently in every direction. He screamed in terror- Two seconds. The time it took the ultradrive to claw the Last Throw Last Throw out of the star"s stupendous gravity gradient. The time in which an astonishing amount of pain went surging along the Delivery Man"s nervous system. The time the ship"s overstressed components had to hold together. Most of them did. out of the star"s stupendous gravity gradient. The time in which an astonishing amount of pain went surging along the Delivery Man"s nervous system. The time the ship"s overstressed components had to hold together. Most of them did.

The Delivery Man"s world steadied. Gravity stopped its wild fluctuations. The vibrations beating the starship"s fuselage faded away. His screaming dribbled off to a whimper.

And far away in a dream Ilanthe was entreating the Firstlife to give her the key to the Void"s nature.

"Gore!" he called.

"What"s happening?" the golden man asked. "There"s a power surge from the siphon."

"h.e.l.l, you mean it"s survived that?"

"Survived what?"

"Marius! Sweet Ozzie, he used novabombs. Gore, the star is going nova. It"s already begun. That f.u.c.king deranged maniac has killed everything in the system. Tyzak! Warn Tyzak. I"m coming to get you." Already the Last Throw Last Throw was approaching the Anomine homeworld. The Delivery Man was designating a vector to take him around to the city where he"d left Gore. was approaching the Anomine homeworld. The Delivery Man was designating a vector to take him around to the city where he"d left Gore.

"They know," Gore said.

The Third Dreamer had abandoned Makkathran to dream of the Anomine city. The fantastical lights within the empty buildings were blazing with solar glory now. In its last minutes the city was waking defiantly to face its doom. Gore turned to Tyzak, who was staring straight up at the few quiet stars still visible directly above the plaza. The small remaining patch of dark sky was fading away as the light of the buildings grew ever stronger. Finally the old alien"s thoughts were slipping through whatever variant of the gaiafield was establishing itself around the planet. Every system and device the ancient Anomine had left behind was coming alive. Thousands of borderguards were materializing into orbit.

The Delivery Man knew it was all useless. Nothing could save the planet now.

"It was us," Gore told Tyzak. "Humans. We did this. I"m so sorry."

"You did not," Tyzak replied. "Your song remains pure."

"I have failed so many times today."

"I believe you are to have your greatest success. They seem to think so."

Gore saw that the plaza was now lined with hundreds of Silfen, all of them keeping back from the rim of the elevation mechanism.

"This is the fate our planet has brought us to," Tyzak said. "I did not expect this, but what is, is. And perhaps the planet knew all along what it would be called upon to do. I will depart believing this one thing."

Anomine began teleporting in, appearing all across the plaza. Hundreds, then thousands. Youngsters were agitated, squeaking loudly. It was happening in every city on the planet.

"Gore?" the Delivery Man asked. "What"s happening?"

Gore smiled at Tyzak even as he was being jostled by Anomine who were crowding in. "Go home," he told the Delivery Man. "You deserve it."

"Gore-?"

Gore shut down the TD link. He folded all his secondary routines back into his mind. There was only one consciousness now, making him as close to human as he"d been for many a century. His dream showed him Justine with an expression of alarm spreading over her beautiful face. She knew.

Tyzak called for the elevation mechanism.

"I feel you," the elevation mechanism said. "You are Tyzak."

"I am."

"Do you wish to attain transcendence from your physical existence?"

"Yes."

"Dad?" Justine asked.

Gore"s thoughts had calmed. He brought his arms out and glided gently across the square to the waiting Firstlife. "This is evolution," he told the giant alien. "The omega you have sought for so long."

"No, Dad, you can"t. You"re not Anomine." Justine started to run. Edeard"s third hand caught her.

"Today I am," Gore said benignly.

"No!" she sobbed. "Dad, please."

Far outside the Void"s boundary the elevation mechanisms on the Anomine homeworld absorbed the power thundering out of the escalating nova. They adapted it and offered it up to the remainder of their species and one other who waited with them.

Gore felt his mind began to change, to rise. His perspective of the universe grew elegant.

"This is how it is done," he told the Firstlife as they grew apart, gathering up everything the elevation mechanism was performing, the method and the outcome he now rushed toward. The union was so tenuous now, infused with the poignancy of Justine"s grief as she stretched herself between the two. "This is what you can become. This is destiny. Leave your past behind and reclaim the dream you started with. Like so ..." He gifted the whole experience of his elevation to the Firstlife, who in turn shared it with the Heart. And after a while he was gone.

Edeard stood at the head of the group, facing up to the Firstlife. "You must choose," he said to the daunting alien, aware of the Heart focusing on him. And Ilanthe.

"We do," the Firstlife replied. "We choose evolution. It is why we created this place; it is what we aspired to so long ago. Anything else would betray all we were, all we aspired to. It could never be any other way."

"Thank you."

"It is the wrong choice," Ilanthe declared.

"You should go with the Heart," Inigo told her in disgust. "There is no place for you in this universe. You wanted to be a G.o.d; this is your chance. If it will take you."

"You many come with us," the Firstlife told the inversion core. "We offer to take all of you."

"Naaah," Oscar told it. "Not me. I"m not quite ready for that yet."

Inigo gave the Firstlife a thoughtful look.

"No," Corrie-Lyn entreated. She took his hands and pressed herself against him. "Don"t. I can"t become that, nor can I lose you again."

"There"s going to be Honious to pay when we get home."

"I"ll face it with you."

"All right." He reached out a hand to Edeard. "And you?"

"I have to see the worlds you gave me a glimpse of. And ..." Edeard grinned sheepishly. "And there are many things I would like to do."

"Anyone else?" Inigo inquired.

"Justine?" Corrie-Lyn said uncertainly.

Justine rubbed the moisture from her eyes. "No. It"s over. Let"s go home."

The Wall stars now shone with a brilliance equal to the rest of the galaxy, a blue-white collar shackling the Gulf. Inside, the containment sh.e.l.l was almost complete. The bands of dark force produced by the Raiel defenses had merged together. Only a few gaps remained, and they were reducing fast.

Within the dark sh.e.l.l, automated Raiel monitors continued their observation of the Void boundary as they had done for the last million years. It had remained quiescent since the Pilgrimage fleet had pa.s.sed through.

"It begins," Qatux whispered.

Paula tried to get a grip on her dazed thoughts. Gore"s dream had left her reeling, delighted and awestruck. For an instant she wanted to be there, standing in Sampalok with the Firstlife, telling the Heart she would join it. Thank you Thank you, she told the aching absence in the gaiafield where the Third Dreamer once had been. Despite everything, you deserve to be the first of our species to achieve transcendence. I just hope it"s not too lonely out there Despite everything, you deserve to be the first of our species to achieve transcendence. I just hope it"s not too lonely out there.