An End (25 page)

The broken man at the table fumbled for the hardlink. Assistant removed the cable and wiped a stream of drool from the creature’s face.

“Can you take much more of the connection?”

“I’m fine.”

Doctor touched the side of Judith’s face, looked into her eyes, but she deflected his hand (
claw
). “I’m
fine
. Have him transported to the council chamber.

“Yes, Medium.”

Roar of dust and wind and something else. His glass shield deactivated, the silver began to tear away at Berlin’s flesh as soon as he walked out of the building.

stupid mistake.

He palmed the bubble control and a fresh wave of gelatin splashed out from his chestplate, semi-solidified around him. Circles and waves, waves and an ocean of more than glass. Glass from trees, metal from air, machines from

The nears followed him as he jogged toward Task’s vessel. They didn’t know what was going on, couldn’t know what was going on, but their movement was hesitant, sporadic. Berlin realized that it was because most of them were being scraped apart by the wind. Not many of the nears had much “flesh” left. He stopped.

“Halt.”

The remaining soldiers stood at attention. Berlin unlatched the force weapon from his holster, shot each of them in the cranial control node in turn. There was no resistance; there were no minds. Non-humans fell non-dead. He couldn’t have taken them with him. He wouldn’t have taken them with him.

Task hovered above the park of skeletal lumbers and nearish dropship. Limbs shattered underneath the slitherjets, danced toward Berlin as he approached. The glass protected him

from what

from the brunt of the impacts. Several smaller twigs penetrated the gelatin and sloshed in slow-motion within the shield. Berlin absent-mindedly batted the debris away, palms touching lumber for the first time since

and this heart, for you

the nights spent under a sky of wooden song, illicit romance in the guise of ambassadorial conferences. They’d harvested the planet, and she’d been broken. A decade and a family and a comfortable position in the system had never made up for that rape of the forest world. She had been broken, and Maire had been the instrument of her vengeance.

Walkway descended from the belly of Task’s vessel. Berlin tripped on his shield, palmed its deactivation at the exact wrong moment: an airborne branch flew past his face, projecting limb carving a deep gash along his left jawline. It became a world of silver and copper as vital black blood erupted from the wound.

He staggered forward as the vessel lifted, looping his right arm through the guardrail as the walkway ascended. Elle met him halfway and helped him aboard. He despised its touch.

They flew.

The chamber door closed with mechanical precision behind her. The headache was bad, but the face of Hannon was worse: Judith remembered the roaming hands and mediocre cock of the young council member. She also remembered punching him in the throat, and the way he’d bitched like a little girl.

“Judith.” His face was grin and acid. “Always nice to see you.”

She closed her eyes, rubbed her temples before taking her seat as far away from Hannon as she could possibly sit. Headache was developing into something worse. Apparently the aether was wearing her down.

“Is everything—”

The tender inquisition of a council member. Judith recognized the voice but opened her eyes to confirm. “I’m fine, Jade. Thank you.”

“Rough interface?”

“Yeah. Must be.” Burning, tugging. Something. Jade smiled sadly. Of all the council members, Judith liked the matronly old woman the most, but that really wasn’t saying much. The other members looked on in varying shades of disdain and nonchalance.

The chamber was circular, fell away in the center to the tube from which the prisoner would emerge and stand before them in due time. Judith peered over the edge just long enough to realize that she’d now added vertigo to headache.

The empty chair next to hers was reserved for God.

“Is he on his way?” Council member Corr, an old man with one real arm left, but they’d held the line.

“The nears are bringing him down. There must have been a fuckup with—”

“Yes, we heard the host body was inappropriate.”

“You could say that.”

that that that

Echo upon echoes as her voice fell down the central tube. Somewhere down there, the young woman who had killed a planet was waiting.

it shouldn’t hurt this much.

[but it will.]

Judith gasped, eyes opening, startled. No one was looking at her. No one was near her.

“Did someone—?”

The chamber hatchway hissed open again. Doctor and Assistant helped God to his chair. The host body looked as if it had been crying.

“What happened?” Hannon stood from his place across the chamber.

Doctor’s eyes darted. “He didn’t seem to want to come. Host body resisted.”

“Will it work?”

“It’s been working.” Judith plugged the hardlink into the host’s chest, pulled her own shirt open in preparation. “We’ve had several successful links so far.”

“It doesn’t look like the thing’s going to last.”

“He’ll last.” Judith wiped the host’s face, patted his cheek. “God’s in there. The host will last.”

“Then let’s begin.”

Judith plugged in.

Coughing so hard that she bent in half, coughing but there was no air. Mouth choked on blood,
red
blood (red blood?) and there were hands, arms, a chest and he was holding her as the ground shifted and

“What the—!”

They tumbled back to the desert hardpan as the mountains ripped from the planet surface and flew into the sun.

“Hold on!” God’s arms were strong and he was bleeding. The sky above was lines of fire, circle of white, approaching. They were flying
into
the (single) sun. Judith screamed and couldn’t stop.

God squeezed her near, smoothed her hair in a gesture too tender for that place. She knew she was crying, screaming, falling, flying, but that gesture: tender and peace. She found peace in His eyes.

“Hold on.” Not shouting this time, the tumult of a shattering landscape and a planetary implosion a dull roar, a hum, a sub-frequency to the beat of two hearts. Not four. Two.

“Hold on.” And it was okay, that approaching fire, the way the sky bent toward the night at its center, the way the desert cracked and they fell and they fell into

the shop, the door slamming behind her. The wind was bad, but not as bad as

Judith stumbled to God’s table. He went to her, helped her sit down. The other patrons looked on with gray rainy day
see-AT-ull
concern.

“What the—What just happened?”

“It’s falling apart. You saw it before. The host body is flawed deeply... Something’s happening, and it fucked with the interface.”

“Are we safe?”

“I don’t know.” God cleared room on the table, shoving aside Demian paperback and now-empty coffee cup. From the inner recesses of his jacket, he pulled out a sheet of paper, unrolled it across the tabletop. “We need to get her off this ship.”

“Those are the plans?”

“She’s already housed in the launch chamber. We’ll be able to allign and exile within the hour.”

Judith’s hand went to her temple again. Brow furrowed in pain and something else. A thin line of red escaped from her nose. God wiped it away with a napkin, but there was more.

“You can’t keep jumping in and out of the flux.”

“I can—”

“You
can’t
. Something with the flawed host—”

“Help me go halfway, then. Use me.”

“As the host?”

“Your word has to be spoken. The flaw won’t do. Just use me.”

“It could kill you, Jud.”

“I’m dying already.” She pressed the napkin to her nose. “Just do it.”

do it, sssss

“Okay. But I’ll pull out before anything happens.”

Judith grinned. “I’ve heard that before.”

“I know.” God’s eyes danced. He leaned forward and kissed her
how long has it been since
and

the medium’s body jumped in her chair, the interface still attached. The flawed host spasmed and lay still. Judith’s eyes opened and there was light from them: silver if light could be silver, white if it could not. She stood, breathing heavily, body slumped forward, hand pressing hardlink securely to her chestplate. The members of the council gazed with fear and fear at the direct link between their deity and the medium.

“Bring her to me.”

The planetship was above them. Berlin was gasping for air, his blood staining his neck, chest, Elle’s hands as she tried to close his wound. Task turned back to the cockpit viewer.

“What should I tell them?”

“They won’t listen to anything we have to say.”

“Well tell me
something
, Commandant.”

“They might not have changed the security codes yet.”

A detachment of fighters launched from the main vessel’s hangar.

“Here they come.”

And they opened fire.

Breath hitching, sheen of sweat developing on forehead and cheeks. The interface wasn’t painful... Not a pain that she would admit. She felt him. Inside. Of her. Soul. God. Inside of her soul. She was replaced and swimming in an ocean of ancient fire. Felt him withdraw, gather himself, emerge again: insertion of thoughts that were not her own, loving touch of electricity and shivering.

rupture rend rive split cleave

“Bring her.”

The voice was not her own, yet it was. Voice like the wind, echoes of the beginning, shimmering of yesterday and some of tomorrow but not quite enough.

Council members fidgeted.

“Open the channel to the homeworld.”

And they were there, the billions.

The hole at the center of the chamber glowed. A cylinder of phased glass formed at the hole’s edge. Sparks and it was melty, solid, non-solid. She was lifted from her prison on wings of the machine universe. She did not resist, and when the shield solidified around her, it only heightened that sense of