Ahead of the Neána insertion ship, Juloss glowed like a sapphire pearl, its vast oceans and small continents wrapped in long, tranquil streamers of cloud. Space around it was speckled with diamond-dust glimmers as sunlight bounced off the orbital forts that guarded this precious world against invasion.
The insertion ship flew in south of the ecliptic, shedding cold mass in irregular bursts like a black comet. By the time it was on its final approach to the unsuspecting planet, it was down to twenty-five metres in diameter. It had no magnetic field and its outer shell was radiation-absorbent, rendering it invisible. Fully stealthed, it eluded the vigilance of the orbital forts to slip past them, discarding the last of its reaction mass in its final deceleration manoeuvre. Now it was basically falling towards the western edge of the largest continent, where a tall mountain range sank into the sea. Tiny course correction ejecta continued to refine the ship’s descent vector, steering it towards the coast, which was still thirty minutes from greeting the dawn. Inland, perched on undulating foothills, lights from the lonely city of Afrata shone brightly across the lush valley.
As it hit the upper atmosphere, the insertion ship peeled apart into six pear-shaped segments. They plunged downwards, aerobraking with increasing severity as the atmosphere thickened around them. The segments were aimed close to a thin spit of land whose rocky coastline was covered in a tangle of vegetation.
A hundred metres from the shore, six large splash plumes shot up into the air like thick geysers, crowning and splattering down amid the startled seabirds flying out to catch the first fish of the day.
The Neána swam ashore. Creatures out of every human’s dark ancestral nightmare, risen out of banishment to stalk the land once more – formidable reptilian bodies moving fast on multiple sinewy limbs, razor claws snapping continuously. They climbed the cliffs at the foot of the mountains and set off in search of their prey.
*
Dellian knew the Neána pack was closing on him. He was in Afrata’s downtown district, lurking in the shadows of a deserted plaza as the hot sun shone down vertically. The creepers that were colonizing the lower floors of the crystal and carbon skyscrapers trailed long strands like a verdant waterfall. It was good cover. He stole through the dangling vegetation, letting their silky leaves slither over his bare skin – a sensation akin to a shower of fine dust.
Somewhere along the avenue he was approaching, a flock of birds took flight, wings pumping hard to create a swirl of bright colours, blotting out the sky. He peered forwards, seeing long shadows slink between the ferns that had conquered the pavements. A fast clattering was just audible above the dumb squawking of the fleeing birds: the gullet rattle Neána packs used to communicate when they were hunting.
Dellian spun around the corner of the building, raising his bow. The lead Neána was closer than he would have liked. When the diabolical thing saw him, it started a kill run. Muscles as thick as his torso flexed along its hind limbs, pounding it forwards, two sets of upper body limbs extended, claws snapping. Its victorious ululation was deafening. Dellian stood still for a second, keeping the bow stable. He let the iron-tipped arrow fly. It split the air like a black laser beam and pierced the Neána’s throat.
The monster lurched to the ground, bile-coloured blood pumping from the wound, momentum tumbling it forwards. The others screamed their fury and charged him, but Dellian was already gone, racing for the other side of the avenue and the tangle of creepers skirting the skyscraper. Dappled darkness closed around him, and the rough leaves clung to his bulky bulletproof vest, slowing his flight. His boots crunched the fronds beneath his feet as he headed for cover behind the building’s entrance portico. Behind him, the Neána were calling to one another, their stark twig-drum rattle reverberating across the plaza.
He reached the portico and crouched down. His breathing was heavy in his ears, heart pounding as he waited . . . but nothing attacked him. He eased his metal helmet up a fraction and sneaked a quick glance around the wall. Two of the Neána were stalking along his side of the plaza, with three more scouring the buildings beyond the central fountain pond.
Dellian gripped his assault rifle tightly and slowly moved clear of the portico, dependent on just a few wispy vines to shield him from the aliens. He brought the muzzle up and opened fire in a blaze of flame and thunderous noise. Recoil hammered into his shoulder, but he kept his aim steady and watched the slugs tear a line through the first Neána’s flesh. The one behind it hesitated, as if cowed by the violence, then it pulled what looked like a bazooka out of its harness.
‘Fucking Saints!’ Dellian yelled. He sprinted forwards, firing as he went, spraying bullets in the general direction of the second Neána. The creature fired its weapon, and the portico exploded behind him.
A blastwave slammed into him, sending him sprawling. The armour suit’s reactive carapace absorbed the brunt of the force while he curled up to roll through the impact. Adaptive musculature brought him back up to his feet fast, and sensor graphics swept across his optik, tracking enemy targets. The micro-missile launch pod snapped up out of his backpack, ready for acquisition data. Four more Neána were powering into the plaza, wearing grey carbon exoskeletons with multiple weapon attachments. Electronic warfare systems went active, blitzing the plaza in a digital haze.
Dellian was about to fire his missiles when the sky overhead began to brighten. His sensor view flipped to vertical. High above, a brilliant golden fireball was punching down through the atmosphere, a rigid amber pillar of overheated air stretching out behind it. He took an instinctive step backwards as the fireball seemed to accelerate. Its radiance flooded the plaza, turning his vision monochrome.
‘Oh, crap.’ He turned to run.
The fireball struck the fountain, and light detonated out, overwhelming everything.
Dellian blinked the glare away and stared through the high fence that guarded the perimeter of the Immerle estate. Twenty-five kilometres away, on the other side of the jungle-clad valley, Afrata shone like the sun, every building gleaming as if it contained a solar flare. He shrugged and jogged on towards the sports fields where his yeargroup should be waiting. They were due to play a football match against the Ansaru clan that afternoon. Personally, Dellian couldn’t wait another eight months until they all reached their tenth birthday, when Alexandre had promised them that they could start training in the orbital arena. He just loved the idea of them flying around in zero gee, somersaulting in slow-mo, bouncing off walls to soar like a bird . . .
A lokak screeched out its hunting cry. Dellian stopped again, scanning the fence. That had sounded very close.
‘There’s nothing there, you know.’
He spun around to see Yirella standing behind him. But this Yirella was fully grown, easily twice his height, and she didn’t have hair any more. Even so, she was wearing a T-shirt and sports shorts, just like him. Yirella always did join the boys on the pitch to play their games, unlike Tilliana and Ellici. He gawped at her for a moment; somehow, this older Yirella was even more captivating than the one he knew . . . although he knew this one as well. I don’t understand.
‘Then what was that sound?’ he asked, smug that he’d outsmarted her, of all people.
‘A memory.’ She went down on her knees, putting her big head level with his, and held both hands towards him. ‘Do you trust me, Del?’
Outside the fence, a whole chorus of lokak screeches began, rising in pitch and ferocity. He knew that meant they were gathering, ready to assault the estate at the bidding of the Neána. Always the Neána, the eternal enemy, tricksters and betrayers.
‘Yes,’ Dellian said nervously, trying to look at her and not out at the tangled jungle beyond the fence.
‘Good.’ She took his hands. Her fingers were cool and dry and immensely strong. Yirella’s presence always made him content, but this time the physical touch was profound. It wasn’t just his skin that was feeling her; the sensation of touch was sinking deep into his flesh, cooling and relaxing his muscles. He hadn’t realized he was so tense.
‘This is important, Del. None of this, what you’re seeing – the estate, Juloss – none of it is real.’
‘What?’ He turned his head a fraction.
‘No. Look at me, Del. Keep looking.’
Her eyes were wide with love and concern. The emotion was so strong that it was all he could do just to stop his eyes from watering. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said miserably.
‘There is one thing I know you do understand: I am here, Del. I am with you. And I will never leave you. Not ever, because I love you.’
The world behind her was vibrating, as if he were shaking his head frantically. But he wasn’t; no way could he shift his gaze from her beautiful eyes.
‘This is like a game, Del. I want you to play it with me. Will you do that?’
‘Yes,’ he whispered. Scared now. The world was shaking so badly he didn’t know why he couldn’t feel it.
‘There are bad things out there, but they’re not the beasts we were always warned about. These bad things are like nightmare monsters, and they invade your head to fill it with really evil ideas. But I’m here with you now, so together we can fight them off.’
‘I don’t want to fight. I want to go home.’
‘We are home, Del. That’s why we’re here in the estate. This is so you – the very start of you, so fundamental they can’t corrupt it like everything else. You belong here.’
‘Yes.’
‘So we have to take away the abuse they’re suffocating you in. Do you remember your yeargroup?’
‘Yes.’
‘They’re your squad now, aren’t they?’
He closed his eyes briefly, seeing the laughing faces of his yeargroup, their features distorting as if they were reflecting off a buckled mirror, changing and ageing. Except – ‘Rello,’ he groaned as his friend’s face blackened, cracks splitting open to ooze slimy blood before the vision shrank away to nothing.
‘I know,’ Yirella said gently. ‘He’s gone.’
‘We killed him. It’s our fault. We’re nothing more than prisoners. They chained us at birth.’
‘Nobody chained us, Dellian. We’re free.’
‘No. It’s the Saints. They did this to us, they took away our choice.’ He snarled. ‘I’m glad they’re dead.’
‘What?’
He stared at her shocked face. ‘I’m glad,’ he told her truthfully. The world around them stopped shaking. A reassuring grey crept into the colours, toning down the harshness of the tropical landscape. The so-called Saints had been killed; he remembered seeing it so vividly. The Olyix had shared their memory of the time when the revered Salvation of Life had arrived back at the gateway star system. The Avenging Heretic, the Saints’ stolen transport ship – which had stowed away on board the arkship for the whole voyage home – had made a sudden dash for freedom, shooting without warning at the harmless Olyix ships nearby. They had no choice but regretfully to return fire, just to protect themselves from such senseless aggression. It remained so vivid in his mind, exploding in nuclear violence, its radiance shimmering off the gateway’s opalescent splendour. So painful, knowing how much he had been lied to . . .
‘Damn it,’ Yirella snapped. ‘That memory route left you open. Sorry, my fault. Dellian, focus, please. Focus on me.’
He smiled weakly at her as the greyness grew around them.
‘I love you, Dellian. Do you remember that?’
‘Of course I do.’
They kissed as the greyness eclipsed the universe. And they fell . . .
. . . into the orbital arena. A place he adored – such a simple place, a padded cylinder seventy metres long with a diameter of a hundred. Above him, drifting through the air, were thirty hurdles: hazard-orange polyhedrons – as familiar as star formations in the night. Oh, the games they’d played in here. The fun; the wins and losses. And early on he’d broken every rule to attack another boy who was going to hurt Yirella . . .
‘Oh, yes,’ he exhaled. And when he looked at Yirella, she was sharing the thrill of all those memories that came swirling out of their shared youth.
Then she let go.
‘No,’ he exclaimed.
Still smiling, she fell away from him. The arena wall behind her attenuated, showing him Juloss far below. It was under attack. Thousands of big Olyix Resolution ships raced in towards it, glowing hazy amber as they cut through the upper atmosphere at terrific velocity. Mushroom clouds seethed upwards from the surface as cities and estates were obliterated.
‘No!’ he yelled. ‘This is not what happened. The Olyix are our friends. They didn’t do this.’
‘I’ve got the flagball,’ Yirella shouted back joyfully. ‘I’m going for the goal hoop.’
Dellian squinted, seeing her in a protective bodysuit, grinning wildly as she clutched the flashing flagball. The opposing team’s goal hoop hung in space, halfway towards the burning planet. The speed she was travelling was frightening.
‘Careful,’ he said.
She laughed delightedly, on course to score the winning goal.
He didn’t see the number eight player streaking towards her. Except it wasn’t the number eight any more, it was an Olyix huntsphere accelerating hard, targeting systems aligning on Yirella’s lanky body as she flew effortlessly towards the goal hoop.
‘No!’ Dellian cried. His armour suit powered him towards the huntsphere. He struck it hard, knocking it off course. His talon-tipped gauntlets scrabbled against the shiny sphere, scoring long marks in the tough shell. Then it began to flex, with bulges pushing up – as if whatever it contained was trying to reach out and wrestle with him. He strengthened his hold, attempting to crush it in his arms. The sphere responded by softening against his chest, letting him merge inwards. He would fit it perfectly, he knew.
Ahead of them, Juloss split open, revealing the end of the universe, where the silver remnants of stars formed elegant rivers of twilight and fell into the nothingness at the heart. Beside it, a golden light was shining, calling him onward.
Yirella landed on the surface of the huntsphere, legs apart, ebony skin alive with scarlet hieroglyphs. ‘This is going to hurt,’ she said sternly.
‘What? Yi, don’t—’ Somehow Dellian was looking down on himself, the huntsphere, with Yirella balancing perfectly on him, reaching down. Her hand punctured the shell, and the pain was incredible. His scream made the dying universe tremble.
The damage she’d caused had opened up long cracks in the sphere. She tore at them, prising up jagged sections and sending them spinning off into the void. He began to struggle, writhing frantically to escape her merciless fingers.
‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘Don’t fight this, Del. I’m stripping out the neurovirus.’
‘What?’ He was sobbing now, the pain was so intense, burning along every nerve to punish his quaking brain.
‘I love you, Del, you know that. Nothing can take that out of you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then say it!’ she demanded.
‘I love you.’
Her hands ripped apart the last of the huntsphere shell to reveal his Olyix quint body.
‘I can’t be that,’ he wailed.
‘I love you, Del. Forever. No matter where that takes us.’
‘Help me,’ he pleaded.
The end of the universe was curving around them, its final fragments forming a fetid vortex that was pulling them down into the death of eternity and the golden god at its side – the one waiting for them. Yirella’s hands sliced into the quint flesh.
Dellian felt fingers closing around his arm. She pulled. Quint flesh stretched like slippery rubber, clinging to him, merging to give him strength. Now he was struggling against it, the foreign thoughts of devotion to the God at the End of Time tearing free in agonizing ruptures.
‘Yirella! Don’t let go.’
The universe rushed to extinction, the vortex walls spinning past in a lethal whirl of nightmares and demons.
‘Please,’ he begged.
Yirella tugged hard, crying out wordlessly at the terrible exertion. Slowly, with stringy alien goop clutching at every centimetre of his skin, she pulled him out of the quint body. He came free with an excruciating tear. The extinct universe vanished.
Dellian juddered wildly. Bright light flared around him. Everything hurt – but nothing like as bad as it had mere instants before. He was waving his limbs around – proper human limbs – though they were wrapped in wires and fibres as if someone had scooped him up in a net. His short hair was on fire as something pulled every last follicle out of his scalp.
His flailing stopped as he ran out of strength, and he flopped down onto the bed. There was no air in his lungs, and his chest heaved desperately, trying to get a breath down his throat. The surroundings swam dizzyingly in and out of view. People in medical robes clustered around, worried faces peering down, talking incoherently fast. There was a curving glass wall three metres away, with the whole squad pressed up against it – mouths open to shout, eyes wet with tears. Janc was pounding on the glass; Uret had sunk to his knees. Tilliana was weeping.
‘What the fuck?’ The words were a rasp. He turned his head.
Yirella was on the couch next to his, propped up on her shoulders, her scalp invisible beneath a fur of silky white strands finer than any hair. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she stared at him.
‘Del?’
‘I love you,’ he said. Then the memories crashed back with the power of a tsunami, knocking him back down onto the mattress. ‘The Saints are dead,’ he told everyone and burst into tears.