Hours later, they stirred, woke one by one.
Salma, clinging to Feathers, was the last to wake save for Feathers herself.
Doria checked, looked around. Terminus still hovered outside the shelter, motionless.
They washed again, ate again. Vasta made them a kind of hot tea – a gift of the Cronus, Salma learned, packed for special occasions.
Huddled in the shelter, there was little talk.
Vasta seemed the most agitated, the most tense. It had been her idea to take the break, but Salma wondered if she had slept herself at all. Still, she seemed determined, if somewhat dishevelled.
When the various domestic routines were done, it was time to face it all again.
Salma felt oddly queasy. From the mundane to the existentially strange, in a few footsteps. A picnic breakfast to the destiny of the universe. She wondered if she would ever get used to this, despite all her years with the strangeness of Feathers.
Or maybe that was just how it was to be a human being.
Vasta said, ‘Time to suit up again, I guess.’
Meriel and Doria shared a glance.
Meriel said, ‘Elizabeth – I did think we’d take the time to talk this over before we went out there again. I mean it’s a pretty weighty encounter we’re going through, a big decision we need to make. And we’re all exhausted. I think. Overwhelmed—’
‘Maybe,’ Vasta said. ‘But there’s only one question we need to ask.’
Doria frowned. ‘What question?’
But Vasta, cool, determined, didn’t reply to that. ‘No more discussion. Let’s get this finished.’
Meriel hesitated, then shrugged. ‘OK. I hope you know what you’re doing.’
Outside, Terminus was waiting, as far as Salma could tell hovering in the exact same place as before their break. Salma wondered what strange communications it might have shared with its own masters while the group had slept.
She wondered if it ever tired.
Or he, as she persistently found herself thinking of Terminus. If he didn’t sleep, what must he be thinking, when alone?
Did he dream? If so, what of?
Her instinct at moments of doubt like this, through her life, had been to turn to Meriel, as a surrogate aunt if not a replacement for a parent. But Meriel was already marching, with Vasta and Doria, directly towards Terminus.
So Salma hugged Feathers, and followed the rest.
When they reached Terminus, Vasta took one step beyond the others and glared up.
‘We have a response,’ she said. ‘But first we need answers from you. Or from those who control you.’
There is no direct control—
She spoke over it. ‘Your objective, your first objective, in our universe is to transform our own galaxy into a creation node. A super-quasar. Correct?’
Your language is imprecise but not incorrect.
‘And with time, once one node has been established – then you spread further?’
A single creation node is enough to ensure that at least part of a cosmos has become eternal. But, yes, the adaptation would be progressed, to other locations, other galaxies.
Vasta laughed at that, harshly. ‘A pyramid scheme. You sound like the last app that tried to sell me life insurance. And this adaptation – just considering our own galaxy – it will no longer function as a galaxy, will it? As a star-making, naturally evolved machine?’
The normal functions of the Galaxy in that sense would be terminated for a better end.
‘And Earth? Earth, that unique birthing place of life – unique in our universe, anyhow?’
The Galaxy’s transition must necessarily impede the progress of life on Earth—
‘Impede? Ha! There’s a sales app’s euphemistic language if ever I heard it. Earth is already being “impeded” by your clumsy toy quasar, my friend. And now we’ve seen a creation node. A planet like Earth could never survive on the fringe of a formation like that, could it? Even the radius of the Galaxy away.’
Before the node was initiated the planet would be – could be, if chosen by you – evacuated. The inhabitants made safe.
‘As you’ve made Feathers’ people “safe”, have you? Where are they now? Oh, I’m sure there are a few samples safely locked inside some multiversal zoo, with other infant intelligences who have served the eternal ones’ purposes – or might, some day. While you use samples of them, like poor Feathers here, for your ends.’
It would not be—
‘Even if we survived your handling, it would be the end of us as a species, wouldn’t it? In terms of our own development as a civilisation, even our future evolution. And is that not your purpose? To preserve, to sustain – but never allow to challenge?’
She paused, walked up and down before Terminus.
Doria muttered, ‘That grandstanding might work in some government chamber on Earth, but I’m not sure it’s going to work on Terminus and his puppet masters.’
Meriel smiled. ‘But it’s all she’s got. And she’s magnificent. It’s a bluff, but what a bluff—’
‘No!’ Vasta cried now, waving a fist at Terminus. ‘No, we will not cooperate with you! We will not help you set up your eternity machines in our reality. We reject an infinite future as pets of your masters. And we will not allow you to meddle with our own galaxy. If we’re alone in our universe then it’s ours to explore, or not. And to quicken. It would be an unconscionable crime if life were, after all, able to emerge elsewhere in that sea of stars, a possibility wiped out by you, because of our collusion.’ She glared now. ‘I know we don’t have the power to defy you. And I know that I am speaking, without authority, for the whole of our species, past and future—’
‘Not to mention the whole damn galaxy, past and future,’ Doria muttered.
‘You will spare us,’ Vasta said. ‘You will abandon your attempts to build the quasar, the node. You will allow Earth to recover. No. Hear me out. You will also spare our world from twenty-five thousand years of emitted a Galaxy-core heat. All the quasar radiation that’s already crossing the Galaxy towards us. You will fix that too, as paradoxically as you like. And you will let mankind resume its course …’
‘You tell him,’ Doria called.
But now Vasta seemed to be becoming exhausted, running down. Salma, holding Feathers, thought she staggered a little.
Meriel hurried forward, put an arm around Vasta’s waist. She tapped her own helmet. ‘Enough. You made your point to Terminus. And all that’s been recorded. When we get back home, and everybody figures out what you have done today, there’ll be parades in the streets.’ She led Vasta back to the hab, slowly.
‘Huh. You really think so?’
‘I really think so. But it’s done now. Come now, sit …’
Outside the hab’s fabric wall, Meriel helped Vasta settle on a stool. Vasta had her eyes closed.
But she seemed to shudder. Without opening her eyes she murmured, ‘Oh, what have I done? Who am I to have negotiated away the future of the race – the world? I must go back – back to Earth. Explain all this, explain what I’ve done. Take the consequences.’
Doria knelt before her, held her hands. ‘You were the person who was on the spot. You were the person who had to make a choice. Who else but you could have challenged Terminus? That’s who you are. And what you did.’
Salma said, ‘She’s right.’ Hesitantly, she hugged Vasta – but Vasta remained stiff, unresponsive, her head turned away.
‘And,’ Meriel said now, ‘think about what you didn’t do. Maybe you could have parlayed this confrontation into a throne for yourself. There are plenty who would have. Alexander of Macedon. Genghis Khan. Napoleon. Hitler. Lawson of the Appalachians … A throne of eternity.’
‘Huh. I never thought of that,’ Vasta said. ‘I always figured ruling the world is an overrated ambition—’
You will be sent home, if you wish it.
That was Terminus.
They turned to see. That charcoal-coloured sphere still hung imperturbably in the sky.
Vasta seemed almost too tired to speak. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
Salma took a step forward. ‘But what about Feathers? This is her home. Can she stay here?’
That was a sudden impulse on Salma’s part, and the rest looked around at her, perhaps surprised.
If you wish it. If she wishes it.
‘And I—’ She took a breath. ‘I will stay with her.’
Meriel sighed. ‘I was fearing you might say that. Because that means I’ll be staying too.’
‘And me,’ said Doria. ‘Obviously.’ She smiled. ‘When you get back, Elizabeth, give my regards to Jeorg North. The bastard.’
Salma felt overwhelmed.
If you wish it. And.
Vasta looked up. ‘And what?’
If you or your descendants change your minds.
We will be waiting.