An End tst-2

by Paul Evan Hughes

  They said nothing. They looked at me blankly. They knew.

  And I met God.

  please protect my loved ones from the evil that is all around us. please help us to be strong. please help us to do the right thing. please help us to persevere. please help us to understand why there is pain, why there is loss, why we must suffer in this existence you’ve made. please help us to see the beauty in simple things. please help us know Love. please help me to understand that which i cannot: your existence, your eternity, your endless reach. please cast away that which would do us harm, so that we might live out our lives in peace. please give me solace. please give me silence. please understand that i am trying. please help me to find home again. amen.

  Prayer, incantation, beseeching, pleading, those whispers behind my eyes each and every night since I could remember. Those words kept me from

  She was younger than me.

  Huddled, fetal position, shivering. Not what I expected. So young, so fragile. Eyes of pure silver, the lattice crawling freely beneath her skin.

  So this was Heaven, a shell carved from a blackened world drifting lazily around a hidden star. This was Heaven: no angels, no clouds, no shining halos or golden gates or harps. Silent men afflicted with a silver plague, watching a young girl die.

  Hannon went to her side, stroked her face. She smiled. Blind, but she knew. Of course she knew.

  She struggled to sit up. So weak. Hannon helped her, held her. Both afflicted, neither caring about the possibility of cross-contamination. This was a race that acknowledged its impending extinction. He helped her sit up, and she motioned for me to join them.

  you’ve been touched

  And she touched my face, my neck and face. Silver eyes seeing but not seeing, looking into and through my own.

  this is the one?

  And I told her. Everything, although she knew. She was God. Judith.

  No words, but I felt her pull those memories from my mind: my mother’s affliction, my father leaving for war, the attack on Earth, leaving on Arch into the Outer. Growing and learning and fighting. Killing. Soldats perdus. She knew all that I knew: of Lilith, of the stillness, the silver, our escape from Maire’s jihad, our separation complete. She knew that I’d had the silver within me always, but only through contact with Lilith was it activated. She knew that I was dying just as certainly as she.

  your father…the exile used your father

  And I saw his death, collapsed bubble, ejected into space in the binary system. The wounded system within which I had killed Tallis and the angels, from which we ran, from which we had hoped to escape Maire forever.

  I saw the species reacting to Joseph Windham’s advance force. They knew that Maire’s vengeance would soon arrive, so they took what they could and ran. Megascale engineering: the construction of Hannon’s systemship, the gentle nudging of a star out of orbit, planets, enveloping all in glass and metal, hiding. They could re-align the night sky, but they couldn’t stop a little girl with an alien disease.

  Her touch like fire and

  Tears of pain and frustration. Her hand fell from my face as she slumped back, exhausted.

  what do you want?

  to go home

  what do you need?

  lilith

  Such weakness in her blank eyes. Ancient eyes housed in a dying body. Never believed in God. Never believed in anything more than that which I could see and hear, taste and smell: lips and sweat and blood and eyes. Lilith. I never believed, but she was there, right there, resonating with

  she’s coming. the exile will be here soon

  My heart dropped. I knew that Maire sought her final vengeance. She would destroy this place, this hidden Heaven. She would kill Hannon, Judith, God. I knew that Lilith and the painter, the cowboy and my ghost would be with her, unwilling participants in this end.

  music?

  And God’s hand grasped mine, touch like fire and silver, burning, burning, and I saw, and I knew. You know. You do. That touch…For the first time, I believed.

  soon, it ends

  and I felt the struggle within her touch, not just the dance of silver beneath flesh, but the war inside of God, striving to defeat that crawling metal, that substance without explanation or purpose. Ancient, tired eyes. Tired of fighting, but knowing that she must. Knowing that she couldn’t let the silver consume her until

  she’s almost here

  and I saw the warship Guerra, weapons charging, felt at its center the child grinning, ready, smug. Vengeance.

  For the first time in

  I felt Lilith.

  it’s you. you have to end this. You

  Hannon closed his eyes with interior communication from his ship. Incoming vessel. But we knew already, and there was nothing we could do.

  Gary sliced through the systemship hull, venting an ocean of phased silica into the void. A vessel studded with weapons, erupting in fire, cutting through Hannon’s civil war. It didn’t matter. Gary killed without politics.

  Judith shuddered, gasped. Such despair in those eyes. Lines of tears that weren’t tears: silver, running down her cheeks. She pulled me close.

  remember. remember this. you have to end this. You.

  She motioned to one of her guards, who pulled his weapon out of its holster and handed it to her. She opened the charge corridor, ejected the round. Shaking hands stumbled over smooth cylinder.

  She used the nails of her right hand to slice into her left palm, let the now-silver blood wash over the round. Faint mist, smoky dance into the still chamber, dissipate. She chambered the round, handed the weapon to me.

  you know what to do with this

  Hannon exhaled. I looked at him and he nodded. we have to go.

  I studied the heft of the weapon, the same weapon I still hold. Cool, featureless black, the round in the corridor now imbued with the blood of the ancient, tainted and perverted into something more than a phase slug. So much power in my hand. No longer helpless for the first time in

  I began to stand but Judith placed her hand on my shoulder, pulled me into an embrace. Shaking with pain. She whispered. I felt her sobs as it all came apart.

  my son…know that you avenge more than just your own species

  i know

  and she fell silent, motionless, slumping into my embrace.

  God was dead.

  I remember numbness, the not-knowing as I gently, tenderly laid her body down to sleep. Silver tears from her eyes, mouth open but silent, pale skin fading to gray as silver catalyst solidified, deprived of her bioelectricity. I don’t know if God perished with its host, but Judith was no more. Hannon closed his eyes.

  All vessels, open fire.

  Hurried to the tube, hurried to the surface to find the sky on fire, a new moon hanging in orbit around the imprisoned system’s first planet: Gary. Guerra. Mother had brought her war to Hannon’s world at last.

  Gary engaged the fleet of destroyers and planetships. Hannon’s men had waited for centuries, millennia for this moment, and they fought with unmatched ferocity, but they were no match. One by ten by a hundred, they fell. They’d struck, and struck hard, but

  Into orbit, into the fray. I knew that Mother would escape from her wounded vessel, that she’d take Lilith and the others. Hostages? Guarantee. That we wouldn’t just kill them in orbit.

  Judith’s weapon burned at my side.

  I saw planetships crumble under Gary’s fire, great swarms of tiny vessels erupt into light. Fireworks. Splashes and ripples of dissolving phase. It reminded me of the day my mother died, the way the sky had looked. It would have looked like that if it had been night instead of morning.

  I felt it about to

  and then it did. Gary opened up and the combined silver of Maire and Lilith lanced outward, punching into and through the Heaven planet. Hannon deftly maneuvered away from the line of fire, but many of his vessels were caught in the backlash. The planet below glowed with Catalyst, shimmering, glittering Catalyst.

  She
thought that she’d killed Heaven, but I knew that God had died in my arms. I knew that Maire’s was an empty victory.

  Planet venting plasma into orbit, but the silver strike wasn’t enough. I saw a slither detach from Gary’s underbelly, tiny dot compared to the warship, which increased speed and slammed down onto Heaven, shattering into fire and ash, sending great chunks of continent into the sky.

  I knew that Lilith was safe on that slither. It entered the burning atmosphere. Landing? The touch of her

  my lips remember the echoes of

  I saw the webs then, the faint tendrils spreading out from Heaven, tearing through the silica expanse of the systemship. Like the halo spreading from Berlin’s vessel to all of the original worlds, it was happening again.

  It’s not at all like Ender, like science fiction books or movies. War isn’t that glorious. It’s a series of shocking images slamming into your mind one after another, giving you no time to react. There is no glory in this, only loss, only raw despair as you just try to survive, to inhale and exhale one more time. Everything becomes that singular goal of seeing her again, holding her hand, kissing her. Everything becomes survival until you detach, watch it all in silence, and just breathe.

  I saw the shell of the systemship crack from the silver pressure, plates the size of planets lift and spin away. I saw stars outside, more and more stars. And I saw the silver, spreading like spiderwebs, forever outward, forever

  I knew there would be no escape for anyone out there. This time, the silver won.

  A shard of Gary cut through the atmosphere and impaled our slither. Phase flak. The side of Hannon’s head erupted and we began to depressurize before I even knew we were hit.

  He slumped forward in his vacuum chair. Alarms roaring to life, protective bubble washing over me. I saw his jaw move on unspoken words and his eyes blink once. He died.

  Chaos to order to chaos: life dissembles. We lose humanity in those moments between and

  We lose them all in time, those we love, those whom we’ve learned to love. I didn’t stop to think about the dead mass of flesh in the cockpit next to me. I knew that I owed him my life; he could have killed me immediately upon removing me from Machine, but he didn’t. He knew. And now

  He’d given so much, lost so much. I hoped that he was now somewhere better than this dying universe, somewhere beyond the reach of a child, of silver, of loss. I hoped.

  I took over the shiver controls and followed Maire’s slither down to the surface. It was time.

  No way to stop it now. With this much phase packed into such a convenient containment, I don’t know how far the silver will spread. I have no hope of ever finding anyone else out there. There is only this desert plain, this little girl. And me. Only this, and soon, nothing.

  It’s won, but not before I

  landed the shiver on the ravaged surface, illuminated by the false incandescence of the silver in the atmosphere, wind still blowing over the scoured expanse. I landed near them but not too close.

  They got out of their slither one by one, Whistler helping the child down, then Hank. The ninth incarnation of Hunter Windham. And then

  She

  saw me from across the winds and dust. Looked from Nine to me to Nine to me. Started running toward me.

  Hunter!

  but Maire reached out and her footsteps stopped, dust still swirling up from the impact.

  The child continued forward.

  I remember that tugging, the sensation of silver speaking without words, without even the whispers. It was everywhere, everything, and we were the focal point. We were everything on that barren plain, the beginning and the end of the war. We were

  you’ve come to kill me, yes?

  One.

  Whistler and the cowboy Hank stood on either side of Lilith. Hank lit a cigarette and I shot him.

  Moving between times and places, speed beyond vision or comprehension, even too fast for Mother to see. I was becoming, and still am, and the last of her is within and I can be

  Hank’s projection dissembled from the phase slug. A tiny silver marble fell to the desert hardpan. No place for a cowboy, not on this world, not in this story.

  I saw Whistler swallow hard.

  He had no idea, this ghost of a painter, stalked on Paris streets eons before by a woman from below, chosen for his personality and code, not knowing that he would be resurrected again and again to serve her purposes, never knowing that she loved him as a child although she was now the child, a dying child, and the mind dissembles in this, under this sky.

  He was probably the best of us. At least he had created something beautiful in his life. Les soldats perdus had only destroyed, had only mindlessly spread the contagion throughout systems, following orders they were born with, living lives pre-determined by a criminal child from another galaxy.

  I saw him reach inside of his cloak for his weapon. He paused, cape billowing out in the gusts, had poised, but then it fell to his side. He looked at me with tired eyes and nodded. I pulled the trigger and Whistler was no more.

  Maire clapped her hands. Big smile. She was enjoying this. She’d won. She knew that I would kill her and her pain would be gone before the silver consumed her entirely.

  Such peace in that moment. Six reduced to four, but not really four. Nine looked at Mother, as if he expected her to order him to kill me. I was the only one with weapon drawn. I was the only combatant in this final battle.

  Such peace in that moment. I looked at Lilith and she looked at me. There was nothing more we could do. There was no reason for Mother to kill me now. She’d won. I had the gun, but she’d won. Gary’s attack had been successful. She thought she’s killed Heaven, killed God. She knew that the silver was sweeping out across everything.

  Such peace in that moment, in her gaze. We were together again, no matter what. It didn’t matter how much time we had left; we were together, separated by only feet of gravel and dust and sand, not thousands of years of space. We were together, and that’s all that mattered.

  Nine pulled his weapon.

  No she shouted and grabbed him from behind, tiny hands latching on to black folds of cloak and

  I remember Maire smiling. Knowing. You know, you do and

  I remember trees and

  I remember singing and

  I remember

  the stillness between us, that warm and best place, the moment before kissing her for the first time, the time we spent curled together, just Us, just. Us. and the laughter and how it was forbidden and We were forbidden, love growing between two kids trapped on a metal box flying off to war, and the fence that kept her safe, Mommy’s hand holding mine tightly through black glove that concealed her disease, the same plague that was now complete, and Daddy buying my Honeybear Brown, spoiling me because he knew he’d have to leave, that he’d die between stars, and Hannon, how I mourned then for that innocent, for that species, for Judith and Berlin, for the unnamed dead, trillions and the way she would hold my shaking, clumsy, rough hand in her own, kissing knuckles as I lay with eyes closed, just Us, just Us. Just. Us. and I see now the coffee house, a marble, a pack of cigarettes and i Know. I Believe.

  the child begs me

  there is no more resistance. no more time. it is

  I don’t remember the weapon firing, but it did.

  how she begs me. dying

  i train the weapon on her heart

  I only intended to hit Nine.

  because i had to say this, because i needed you to know, because this can’t be the end, because this can’t be, not the end of Us, not now, please not now. i believe in forevers, in all of this, all of this can’t be the end, it can’t, and i know now that we are as one, one decentralized soul taken apart by time and circumstance, allowed to find itself once again even if only for a moment, and i know that we will meet again, and we will just be. just Us. please know. you know. you do. you

  so many questions left unanswered, this war, this plague. i am only a lost soldier, lost b
ecause of

  this war, this plague. i am only a lost soldier, lost because of

  i am only a lost soldier, lost because of

  lost because of

  “Hunter?”

  the

  Nine spun around, his face a mask of horror. He clutched his chest, rapidly dissembling from the EM slug. His mouth opened to form her name, but it was too late. Nine flashed from his illusion in a burst of silver.

  the stillness

  Zero ran to Fleur, her crumpled form leaking a steadily-growing puddle of red onto the hardpan. “Lilith…Oh no. No. Oh god. Lilith.” The weapon dropped from his hand, clattered to the ground.

  She smiled, mouth moving to speak, but there was no time. No life. The slug had passed through Nine and torn through the right side of her chest. Struggle to breathe, struggle to hold on to Hunter, Hunter, not Zero. Not that person at all anymore, or ever again.

  “Lilith?” he sobbed, stroked her face, so white now. He didn’t look at the fine mist of crimson on her neck. He pushed the unruly curl back behind her ear, touched her face, the life draining from her skin, the silver crawling just underneath the surface.

  the stillness lost

  “Let her go.” Maire stood over them, her black robe whipping in the breeze, hair untied and dancing to the song of the wind, hands still bloody. “There’s nothing we can do now.”

  Hunter reached out and grabbed the weapon before Maire could stop him, raised the barrel to target, just inches from her forehead. The child didn’t flinch.

  “Do it. You know you want to.”

  Lilith slumped in his arms. Silver ran from her eyes.

  “You know you have to.”

  Hunter cried out in frustration, in grief. He pulled Lilith’s limp form closer, keeping his weapon trained on Maire.

  “If I don’t—”

  “Do it.” She took a step closer to the tip of the weapon. “End it now.”

  He closed his eyes, saw the image of her face burned into that perfect darkness.

  “End it.”

  he is knowing… and this heart i contain for You i have come again to zam zam? rupture rend rive split cleave please don’t let it—is it too late? he knew what she couldn’t believe. she knew very little, but she knew beyond a doubt that she loved chocolate milk.