“I don’t know. Not long.”
“No. Not long. The knowledge is there, but you lack the will. Although there is one final inhibiting factor we haven’t incorporated
yet into your knowledge base. And it’s an important one.”
“I have my suspicions about you,” Joshua said. “You with your avowed non-interventionist policy.”
“Yes?”
“How did I get here?”
“By chance.”
“A very long chance. A Tyrathca arkship is damaged while entering a star system devoid of any mass. Thousands of years later
during the possession crisis we hear about something which might be able to solve the crisis for us. Would you like to compute
the odds of that happening?”
“There are no odds, there is only cause and effect. The Tyrathca didn’t inform you of the Sleeping God when you first encountered
them, because until the human possession crisis started they had no need to pray to it. You found me because you looked, Joshua.
You believed I existed. Quinn Dexter has found his army of darkness, because he too has conviction. Greater than yours, I
would suggest. Was he led to them by omnipotent entities playing chess with lives?”
“All right. But you’ve got to admit, having you this close to the Confederation is a hell of a coincidence given there’s only
one of you per galactic supercluster.”
“That is not a coincidence, Joshua. I am aware of everything, because I am connected to everything. When you search for me,
and have sufficient faith that you will find me, then you will succeed.”
“Okay. Well, if I haven’t said it before: thank you. I’ll do my best to see your faith isn’t misplaced. Now, what was that
last factor?”
The singularity showed him, delivering his awareness to the orbital tower down which he rode down to Earth, with B7, Quinn
Dexter, and…
Joshua’s eyes flicked open. His crew broke off their conversations, looking at him in anticipation.
“Louise,” he said. And vanished.
______
Thick smoke and blinding yellow flame exploded out of the escape pod rocket motors. The noise was a sheer wall of energy that
sent Fletcher and Powel flailing backwards. Light punched down into Fletcher’s eyes as he used the remnants of his energistic
power to ward off the blast.
The escape pod wobbled upwards, gathering speed. Flame splayed out from its base, scouring the surface of the ectoplasm pool.
Embryonic shapes melted away under the incendiary heat. A cloud of clammy fumes billowed out, hurtling down the nave and both
transepts. Brittle, ancient stained-glass windows shattered under the tremendous pressure. Horizontal jets of smoke and ectoplasm
smog roared out over the deserted plaza.
The escape pod smashed into the top of the cathedral dome and crashed through into the pre-dawn morning. Its trajectory was
given a savage kick by the impact, sending it racing away in a low curve underneath the red cloud, out towards Holborn.
Down on the floor of the cathedral, it was impossible to see anything. The air was coagulated with icy particles and vile
acidic smoke. Fletcher sloshed about in the raging ectoplasm pool, trying to find anything that would give him his bearings.
His mind could sense the possessed in the nave: their fear-ordered discipline was starting to crumble. Apart from them, nothing
was clear. Chunks of debris were whistling down from above, splattering down into the turbid fluid where they immediately
cracked open from the cold.
“Anybody left standing?” Powel shouted somewhere in the murk.
A vermilion glimmer began to pervade the churning mist as the light from the red cloud shone in through the gaping windows.
Folds of darkness slipped across Fletcher’s vision. He stood still, not daring to move.
Powel bumped into him. Both of them jumped.
“I’ve got to get up to the gallery,” Powel said. “This is our chance, he’ll be as blind as us.”
“I think the door is this way,” Fletcher told him. Even using his energistic power to bolster his legs, they moved reluctantly.
He could feel nothing below his knees.
The mist began to scintillate with white light. It abruptly turned heavy, sighing as it sank to the ground. The rumpled upper
surface descended around Fletcher, leaving him totally exposed. A wide beam of red light shone down through the hole in the
dome, illuminating the whole ectoplasm pool. On the other side, Dariat and Tolton were caught in the act of trying to reach
the north transept.
“Going somewhere?” Quinn asked. “There’s nowhere to run. The warriors of the Light Bringer are here.” With a theatrical motion,
he gestured at the pool, conjuring its inhabitants up.
A vast upwelling of ectoplasm sent waves of the fluid pouring lazily down the nave and transepts. The crown of an OrgathÉ
slipped smoothly upwards, emerging into the crimson light.
Quinn laughed uproariously as the monster rose into the universe. Possessed fled screaming through the cathedral doors. Powel
and Fletcher were drowning in undead sludge that sent out eager pseudopods to smother their heads. At his feet Louise and
Greta lay broken and defeated, shedding tears for the torment to come. It was Night as he’d always dreamed it would be.
Something
happened
far above him. His head jerked up. “Fuck!”
______
Andy Behoo had spent the whole time pressed against his window, watching the ugly red cloud creeping across London. Hot air
helped to magnify the incursion with awful clarity. Above the arcology’s crystal dome, the stars shone down with cold beauty
through a storm-free sky. It would have been a lovely dawn.
Now he knew he wouldn’t even see that. His neural nanonics had crashed. The front edge of the cloud was less than a quarter
of a mile away. Underneath it, the eerily pervasive red light helped to illuminate the vacant streets.
He’d clung to this window when she left, staring after her mutely; so he knew which street she’d taken. If she came back,
he would be able to see her. That alone would give him the courage to leave the tenement. He would go out and fetch her home.
Louise would make the end liveable.
The crimson light inside the cloud flickered and died. It was so sudden Andy thought there was something wrong with his eyes.
All that remained of the frightened city were outlines so faint he could be imagining them. He scoured them for signs that
the SD weapons had begun their slaughter.
Nothing moved in the dead silence. He looked up.
There were no stars anymore.
______
The wormhole interstice opened a million kilometres above the sun’s south pole. Its edges immediately expanded. Within three
seconds it was over one and a half billion kilometres in diameter, greater than Jupiter’s orbit. Fifteen seconds later it
reached the size Joshua had designated: twelve billion kilometres across, just wider than the entire solar system. It moved
forwards, enveloping star, planets, asteroids, and comets alike.
The interstice contracted to nothing.
All that remained was a single human figure in a black robe, tumbling wildly through space.
______
In Tracy’s lounge, Arnie got up and thumped the top of the television. The picture didn’t return.
“What’s happening now?” Jay asked.
“Corpus doesn’t know,” Tracy said. Her hands trembled at the revelation.
______
Over seventeen million possessing souls in various arcologies were exorcised from their captive bodies as Earth moved into
the wormhole. Joshua arranged its internal quantum structure in a fashion similar to the conditions Dariat and Rubra had used
to expel the possessors from Valisk. There was one difference: they didn’t become ghosts, this time they were torn cursing
in anguish straight back into the beyond. From Earth, orbiting thirty thousand light-years from the centre of the galaxy,
the glorious blaze of the core stars had never been visible. There was too much dark mass spread throughout the spiral arms,
interstellar gas clouds and dust storms absorbing the light spun off from the densely packed supergiants. Astronomers had
to turn their telescopes outwards, studying other starpools to see what such a spectacle might be like.
You had to be a lot closer in towards the centre to see the core’s corona starting to expand over the shielding plane of dark
matter. Even then, it would only be an exceptionally bright crescent nebula stretched across the night sky. To witness its
full glory, a planet needed to be perched right at the root of the spiral arms where the core appeared as an iridescent cloak
of silver-white light across half of space, outshining the local sun. Regrettably, such a place was lethal; a fierce outpouring
of intense radiation from the tightly clustered stars would immediately sterilise any unprotected biological life.
No, to gain a full appreciation of the galaxy’s native beauty, it had to be observed from outside. Above the spiral arms,
and away from the radiation.
Joshua chose a location 20,000 light-years out from the core and 10,000 to the north of the ecliptic. The solar system emerged
there to be greeted with the sight of a majestic bejewelled cyclone shining fiercely against a blackness devoid of any constellations.
The Kulu system was the next to arrive. Then Oshanko. Followed by Avon. Ombey. New California. They no longer emerged one
at a time. The singularity was capable of creating wormholes simultaneously. Joshua shifted his participation to the executive,
selecting what was to be taken. Gateways were opened into the realms where the possessed had fled with their planets. Lalonde,
Norfolk, and all the others were returned to their stars, then moved out of the galaxy.
The Confederation soon formed its own unique, isolated stellar cluster sailing serenely through intergalactic space. Eight
hundred stars orchestrated into a classic lenticular formation with Sol at the centre, and the rest never more than half a
light-year from each other.
Other, more subtle, astronomical modifications were made, seeds of the changes to come.
______
Quinn didn’t understand why he was still alive. During the cataclysm, Edmund Rigby’s pitiful soul had been wrenched from the
prison he’d forged at the centre of his mind. He no longer had any contact with the beyond, no interdimensional rift to bestow
his fabulous energistic power. No magical sixth sense. And he was floating through empty space, with air to breathe.
“My Lord,” he cried. “Why? Why did you take the victory from me? Nobody has served you better.”
There was no answer.
“Let me go back. Let me prove myself. I can make Night fall. I will ride the dark angels into heaven, we will tear it down
and sit You upon the throne.”
A human figure appeared in front of him, bathed in gentle starlight. Quinn drew in an excited breath as he drew closer. It
was spat out in disgust as he recognized the face. “You!”
“Hi, Quinn,” said Joshua. “Ranting won’t do you any good. I resealed the opening to the dark continuum, the fallen angels
aren’t coming to rescue you. Nobody is.”
“God’s Brother will win. Night will fall with or without me at the head of His army.”
“I know.”
Quinn gave him a suspicious glare.
“You were right all along, though not in a way you imagined. This universe ends in darkness.”
“You believe that? You accept the gospel of God’s Brother?”
“Your gospel is a load of shit, and you’re the only arsehole to squirt it out, Quinn.”
“I will find your soul in the beyond. When I do I will crush your pride and—”
“Oh, shut up. I have an offer for you. In words you’ll understand, I want you to lead the lost souls to your Lord.”
“Why?”
“Many reasons. You deserve to be erased from time for what you did. But I can’t do that.”
Quinn started to laugh. “You’re an angel of the false Lord. That’s why you have the power to snatch me away from Earth. Yet
He won’t let you kill me, will He? He is too compassionate. How you must hate that.”
“There are worse things than death and the beyond. I can deliver you to the fallen angels. Do you think they’ll be happy to
see someone who failed to free them?”
“What do you want?”
A circular opening in space expanded behind Joshua. “This leads into Night, Quinn. It’s a wormhole that takes you straight
to the time of God’s Brother. I’ll allow you to go through it.”
“Name your price.”
“I’ve told you, lead the damned souls out of the beyond and into your Night. Without them, the human race will stand a chance
to grow. They are a terrible burden on any species who discovers the true nature of the universe. The Kiint, for instance,
cloned mindless bodies to house their lost souls. It took them thousands of years, but every one was brought back, and loved,
and taught to face the beyond as it should be faced. But that’s the Kiint, not us. We’re going to have a big enough task helping
the living over the next few decades. There’s no way we can deal with all those billions of lost souls, not for centuries.
And all that time, they’ll be suffering and inhibiting our development.”
“My heart bleeds.”
“You don’t have one.” Joshua drifted to one side. There was nothing between Quinn and the opening now. “Now tell me, do you
want to meet God’s Brother?”
“Yes.” Quinn stared greedily into the absolute blackness revealed by the opening. “Yes!”
The souls who had been cast back into the beyond brought with them a devastating tide of bitterness and fury as they raged
impotently against the atrocity. Freedom existed, it was possible to regain a life. Now there was only purgatory again. No
chink existed in the barrier between them and reality. They screamed their wrath, at the same time pleading with those they
could dimly sense moving on the other side. Begging to be let back, for just one last taste of sensation. None of the living
heard them any more.
A fissure opened. One small precious gap leaking the most gorgeous human sensations into the cursed void. They flocked around
it, rejoicing in its magic. And there was enough for all to feast upon. Every lost soul knew the touch of air upon skin, saw
myriad constellations shimmering against the night sky.