Eternity's Mind

by Kevin J. Anderson

  A sharp pain throbbed in his arms from where he had slashed open his blood vessels, but those were mere physical wounds, and the pain was just physical.

  Something was definitely different about him now. He had been purged, and as thoughts swam in his head, he recalled his despair. He had attacked Nira and so many others when he fell under the influence of the Shana Rei. As his last hope, he had bled himself out, just like the Ahlar Designate had. He’d meant to spill all the darkness, drain the taint out of him and out of the thism. He had intended to die.

  As he became aware again, he blinked his eyes and focused his vision. Medical kithmen surrounded him—but more importantly, he saw Nira, with her beautiful features, smooth green skin, and sparkling eyes. “Jora’h!” She let his name come out with a relieved sigh. “Oh, Jora’h.”

  He lifted a hand to grasp hers, but he could barely move with all the bandages and tubes. He turned his head and saw a familiar young man in the bed beside him. Gale’nh! “What happened? Why am I here?”

  “We saved you, Jora’h,” Nira said. “The Ildiran people need you. They need your thism, and they need your leadership. And I need you.”

  Prime Designate Daro’h also came close. He clutched his father’s shoulder. “You succeeded in purging the shadows, and you’re still alive.”

  “But how?” Jora’h said. “How am I alive?”

  On the adjacent bed, Gale’nh looked as cold and still as a statue. His already pale skin looked even grayer than before, drained of life. Medical apparatus was connected to him as well, and Jora’h saw that tubes joined the halfbreed man directly to him. Their blood was intermingled. The Solar Navy officer had surrendered his blood, his essence, his immunity that had once been strong enough to resist the Shana Rei. Gale’nh had given of himself, and he had saved the Mage-Imperator, but apparently at a tremendous cost.

  Jora’h tried to sit up, felt dizzy.

  Nira leaned close. “Gale’nh gave you his blood. You had drained most of yours, and he offered himself. He believed that with his immunity you might stay pure of the Shana Rei.”

  Feeling the energy inside him, Jora’h pushed himself up. “But what about him? Will he live?”

  “He is strong,” said Prime Designate Daro’h.

  Jora’h narrowed his eyes, not hearing the answer he wanted. “But will he survive?”

  “He is strong,” Nira repeated. “And we think he is strong enough to live. And you will live as well. Can you feel the difference inside yourself?”

  He definitely could. The strands of the thism were no longer just frayed spiderwebs; now they were tight, unbreakable cables, woven together and connecting every Ildiran: all the kiths across all the planets in the Empire.

  He clenched his fists, and his injured tendons shouted with pain. The sutures in the slashed skin tightened, and bolts of sharp agony ran up his arms and into his shoulders and chest. But at least the jolt made him feel alive. He looked over at Gale’nh. “How much blood did he…?”

  “As much as you needed,” Nira said. “And now you’ve expelled all the shadows. You’re pure again.”

  “You are the Mage-Imperator, Father,” Daro’h said. “You are the strength we need.”

  “Yes.” Jora’h gritted his teeth and summoned up his own inner fire. “I am the strength we need. I am the strength Ildira needs.”

  He did feel energized, even though he was weak and drained. This was a different kind of power. The thism web had been reconnected, and he could withstand the creatures of darkness now. The shadows could no longer penetrate him. With his added immunity, they could not steal other Ildirans either, could not possess them and turn them into a murderous mob. The people belonged to Jora’h now. The thism was his defensive shield, and it was also his weapon.

  He could feel Gale’nh’s blood surging through his circulatory system. His head ached, but the throb was invigorating. He could pull it all together. He controlled the thism, and he reached out to touch the members of all kiths, and in return his people gave him a strength that he had always possessed, but hadn’t previously known how to tap. It was a joyous thing. He had not expected to feel such excitement and hope, but there it was inside him, all the strands under his control.

  Through the thism bond, he saw his people and his Empire, saw the spreading shadow clouds, some of them collapsing into newborn stars, while others closed in on populated worlds. In the Fireheart nebula, he connected with Adar Zan’nh, was shocked to see the Solar Navy ships struggling against impossible odds. Over half of the Adar’s maniple had been wiped out already—while he had been gone from them.

  But the Mage-Imperator could help them now. He felt the entire Ildiran race waking up, coming together, and he was doing it. But he could do more, so much more.

  So he did.

  Jora’h called upon his allies, and he made his demands. Before, he had begged them, but haphazardly, weakly. Now the Mage-Imperator was no longer weak. He needed help on behalf of the universe itself, and he had allies who could fight in ways that no Ildiran could imagine. He needed them now. He reached out with his mind, remembering the brief contact he had felt, the searing fire that coursed through the thism strands.

  In the adjacent bed, Gale’nh twitched. The young halfbreed lifted his head. His eyes were dull and weak, but he was overjoyed with what he saw. Gale’nh let out a long weak sigh as he nodded.

  Jora’h pushed forward even harder. He sent out the call—an urgent demand that he knew nothing could resist.

  From out of their hiding places, Mage-Imperator Jora’h summoned the faeros.

  CHAPTER

  121

  LEE ISWANDER

  He did not intend to lose everything—not through misfortune, not through his own bad decisions, and certainly not through Elisa Enturi’s rash stupidity. No matter what Iswander did, no matter how hard he worked, no matter which ingenious plans he developed, he faced setback after setback.

  In the past, he’d been appalled by what Elisa did in his name. A disaster brought about by misguided loyalty was still a disaster.

  He had nothing left but these bloater-extraction operations, and he clung to them with a desperate possessiveness. He’d lost the respect he had built up over years of being a brilliant investor, a talented industrialist, someone whose innovation changed the Confederation. He should have been a Roamer’s Roamer, but now he was holding on by his fingernails. But he refused to let go and plunge down into the black hole of obscurity.

  And yet, Elisa was dragging him down that black hole with the ball-and-chain of her good intentions. When he saw her fly out and make her outrageous bluff—he hoped it was a bluff—to explode all the volatile bloaters, he clenched his fist so hard that he heard his knuckles crack. “Damn her!” He turned to Alec Pannebaker. “Stay here and monitor the operations, but don’t take any preemptive action. There may still be a way to salvage this.”

  His employees needed to hear that there was a chance, but his mind spun as he tried to think of a solution. Lee Iswander was a man with impossible dreams and unlikely solutions. Maybe he could pull it off just one more time.

  He ran down into the launching bay, hoping that a ship would be ready and waiting. The crews were out in their work shifts and many company vehicles had been deployed. Most of the bay was empty, but he spotted an inspection pod parked and available. It was a small, slow, unshielded ship, a little vessel built to hold one or two people. He rarely flew such things himself, but it was exactly what he needed now.

  Elisa’s ship hung among the bloaters, threatening to blow them all up—which would destroy his industrial operations along with the bloaters and everything else. Iswander had to stop her. His inspection pod looked ridiculously insignificant as it moved away from the admin hub, and he knew it.

  It was the same sort of vessel that Aelin had flown out to marvel at the mysterious bloaters. The green priest was eccentric, damaged, and he had believed his contact with the bloaters let him connect to a vast consciousness. The ide
a that there might be some pulsing intelligence inside the gas bags seemed absurd to Iswander, but considering what Garrison Reeves and his crew claimed, maybe Aelin had been right.

  Or more likely they were all insane. Certainly Elisa was on the edge of madness herself, and he had to stop her before she did something even more destructive.

  He flew the inspection pod out toward the bloaters. Elisa had stopped answering his transmissions, but if he dropped directly in front of her ship, she would be forced to respond. He was sure he could convince her to back off. She needed to listen to him—he would make her listen to him.

  In the small pod, he felt unprotected and vulnerable … but that was what he needed. He had to tap into Elisa’s feelings for him, had to make her see that he relied on her protection. If she detonated the bloaters and ignited all that pure stardrive fuel, then they would all die. But if he approached her in just a little, nonthreatening inspection pod, maybe she would hesitate. Maybe she would withdraw.

  Or maybe she wouldn’t.

  As he flew out to the standoff, he transmitted his message again, whether or not Elisa was listening. Her ship faced the Prodigal Son, and her weapons ports glowed. Garrison’s ship hung there in surrender, but did not back away.

  The bloaters drifted around like silent bombs. Iswander flew toward them, broadcasting on all bands. He hoped Elisa was still listening. He doubted she would cut him out entirely.

  He imagined her rationale: Elisa would believe that her actions were for the best. She thought she was making a hard decision that he didn’t have the stomach to make. She believed she was doing the right thing for him.

  And she had been wrong so many times before.

  Iswander knew he was a difficult man, that he pushed people and insisted on getting his way. He’d invested vast fortunes, had taken risks; he had nerves and he had hopes.

  “You’ve got to stop this, Elisa. That’s a direct order. It’s not what I want. I need you to hear me.”

  He flew closer. The pod was just a tiny speck among the huge mottled bloaters. Many were already drained, and their shriveled husks had been towed to the edge of the cluster. Bright lights marked the pumping stations and the tank arrays, but everything would be wiped out if the bloaters exploded. Iswander was in the thick of it now.

  A flicker of light twinkled inside a distant bloater, like a brief newborn star, and then it went dim again. All of the nodules seemed hushed and silent, as if waiting to see what would happen next.

  Garrison transmitted, “Elisa, if you open fire on the bloaters you’ll kill us all, and you’ll kill Seth—and you’re going to harm the only thing that can save the human race from the Shana Rei. Even you wouldn’t do that—I know you, Elisa.”

  “You don’t know me at all,” she retorted. “You thought you did, and I thought I knew you, but you just fooled me. Mr. Iswander needs me, and I’m going to save his operations.”

  Iswander broke in. “Not this way you aren’t! I will be dead, and my memory reviled across the Confederation. Even if we get out of this, I’ll be punished. I’ll be more of an outlaw than I am now.”

  “Only if I fail, sir,” Elisa said.

  At least now he knew she was listening on his channel. “I forbid it! There’s been enough done in my name. Yes, I made mistakes, but I made them on my own. I don’t need other people to make them for me—and you are making a mistake, Elisa.”

  “I will not let you be weak, sir.”

  Iswander summoned all the command he could put into his voice and burned his gaze into the comm screen. “How dare you suggest I’m weak. You have been loyal, and you’ve followed my orders, but you do not understand every aspect of my business, or all of my plans. What you’re doing right now is damaging my future.” He drew a breath and spoke each word as if he were firing a weapon at her. “I need you to back down!”

  “No! Then we’ll lose.”

  “You’ve already made us lose, Elisa. Now I’m just trying to salvage what I can.”

  She remained silent, her ship hanging there, her weapons ports glowing. Even though he had her attention, even though he knew she was listening, part of him realized this was the most dangerous moment of his life. One twitch could make her open fire. If she felt despair, if she refused to surrender, they would all vanish in an expanding ball of ignited stardrive fuel.

  “But … sir!” she beseeched him.

  Two of the nearby bloaters sparkled, bright flashes strobing from their cores. Iswander let out another slow breath.

  Wisely, Garrison Reeves and Orli Covitz remained silent, just waiting.

  Elisa’s voice was filled with anguish. “Sir!”

  As his scout pod drifted close to one of the nodules, the patterns across its outer membrane flexed like some strange and incomprehensible map, and its interior lit up like a tiny nova, a flash of intense light as a chain of thought cascaded along the ganglia of the cosmic mind.

  The nucleus of the nearby bloater flared into blinding light, and the flash slammed into Iswander’s scout pod. Energy flooded through the craft, shorted out all the control circuits, but it kept throbbing, overwhelming him.

  Iswander howled as his cells and his thoughts and his mind exploded in an unbearable surge of power, but his comm systems were eradicated, so no one heard him scream.

  CHAPTER

  122

  SHAREEN FITZKELLUM

  The maneuvers threw Shareen from side to side as Tasia and Robb raced like maniacs away from the Fireheart central complex. The robot attackers could blast the Curiosity into molten debris at any moment.

  The nebula battlefield sparkled and flared with the constant firepower. The Solar Navy ships suddenly rallied as if the Ildirans had snapped out of their stupor, and now the remaining warliners were all flying together in perfect coordination. They lashed out with their laser cannons, deployed their last few sun bombs. General Keah’s Juggernauts and Mantas had depleted all their major weaponry, but they continued to use conventional jazers as they retreated from the nebula.

  “Obviously, they see no point in staying here,” Robb said aloud.

  “Neither do I,” Tasia said.

  On the screen, moments after Shareen saw Declan’s Glory fly away from the terrarium, the dome burst open to release a pair of enormous verdani battleships that soared into the sea of gases, their boughs outstretched. But the remaining shadow cloud expanded like a suffocating blanket, growing thicker and blacker as the Shana Rei filled the ocean of ionized gases.

  “Where do we go now?” Howard said, grabbing a console to keep his balance.

  “As far away as possible.” Robb answered as he tried to coax even more acceleration from the engines. “Heading there now.”

  More than a hundred black robot ships were closing in on them from all sides. No matter how Tasia tried to maneuver, the marauders blocked them off, opening fire. Their shields were about to fail.

  With a sick heart, Shareen remembered how her grandfather had insisted on sending her here so she could study under Kotto Okiah. “It’s a great opportunity,” Del Kellum had said. And she had certainly learned a lot.

  “I’m glad we could be together, Howard,” Shareen whispered.

  “School certainly wasn’t boring,” he answered. “Though I would have preferred a different end.”

  “Don’t distract me, you two,” Tasia snapped. “It’s not over yet.”

  The blue supergiants at Fireheart’s core had begun to pulse and flare. “Look at the core stars!” Shareen said. “Something’s happening to them.”

  They had been so intent on escaping the Shana Rei and the robots that they paid no attention to the heart of the nebula. Now Shareen took over the Curiosity’s sensor package and used the controls to expand the view and zoom in. From the back, the other passengers yelled as Tasia took rough evasive action from a flurry of robot potshots, diving and corkscrewing with nauseating finesse.

  Fighting to keep her balance and focus the image, Shareen gasped at what the sensors sho
wed when she enlarged the view. “Look at that!”

  On the screen, the nebula’s central stars were swarming with faeros! Tens of thousands of the ellipsoidal fireballs emerged from within the hot supergiants.

  Howard was at her side. “All those faeros … what are they doing?”

  Robb said, “The main question is whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

  “They must be trying to help us,” Shareen said.

  Tasia could barely spare a glance at the screen. “How do you figure?”

  Shareen looked at her, swallowing hard. “Because if they’re not trying to help, then we may as well just hit the self-destruct right now.”

  The shadow cloud kept filling the rarefied gases, but the supergiant stars brightened, as if the countless fire elementals were adding fuel, making the central nuclear reactions unstable. The already unstable stars flared brighter, noticeably increasing in magnitude. The faeros plunged into the suns like hornets around a large hive; then they swam around, building up nuclear reactions. They manipulated gravity.

  On a scale of incomprehensible distance and speed, the faeros pulled the already packed stars closer. The fireballs dragged two smaller companion stars into one of the supergiants, pulling them together. The smaller stars swirled around in ever-tightening orbits until they fell into the supergiant’s gravity well. The outer veils of their chromospheres were torn away, large amounts of fuel feeding the monstrous star. The faeros pushed and pulled and dragged in more stellar material. The huge, hot star swelled and flared.

  “They’re doing it on purpose,” Shareen whispered.

  “Are they trying to create a super-supergiant?” Tasia asked. “For what?”

  “No, not that,” Howard said.

  Shareen suddenly caught her breath. “Once they increase the material, when the main star has more mass than its nuclear reactions can support, the core will collapse catastrophically.”