‘I had a partner.’
‘The guy in your head? So we thought.’
‘I have failed then, haven’t I?’
‘Yes. But there is a consolation prize.’
“What is that?’
‘Tell you later.’
‘What happens now?’
‘We listen to the end of the symphony.’ It held out one slim silver hand. ‘Take my hand.’
He took its hand. He was back in the Stullien Bowl, but this time everywhere. He looked straight down, he watched from a thousand other angles, he was the stadium itself, its lights and sounds and very structure. At the same time he could see everywhere around the Bowl, into the sky, out to the horizon, all around. He experienced a long moment of terrifying vertigo; vertigo which seemed to be pulling him not down but in every direction at once. He would fly apart, he would simply dissolve. Stick with it, the avatar’s hollow voice said. I’m trying to.
The music and the sights swamped him, overwhelmed him, ran him through with light. The symphony rolled onwards, approaching a sequence of resolutions and cadenzas that were a small yet still titanic reflection of the whole work, the rest of the earlier concert, the war itself. Those things I Displaced, they are- I know what they are. They’ve been taken care of.
I’m sorry.
-~ I know that.
The music rose like the bulging bruise of water from an undersea explosion, an instant before the smooth swell ruptures and the spout of white spray bursts forth.
The dancers rose and fell, swirled and flocked and spread and shrank. Images of war strobed above the stage. The skies filled with light, flickering staggeringly brief shadows that were obliterated almost instantly by the next detonation in the vast bombardment of fire.
Then all fell away, and Quilan sensed time itself slow down. The music faded to a single hanging line of keening ache, the dancers lay like fallen leaves scattered about the stage, the holo above the stage vanished and the light seemed to evaporate from the sky, leaving a darkness that pulled at the senses, as though the vacuum was calling to his soul.
Time slowed still further. In the sky near the tiny remaining light that was the nova Portisia, there was just the merest hint of something flickering. Then that stopped, held, frozen, too.
The moment that was now, that for all his life had been a point, became that line, that long note of music and that drawing sough of black. From the line extended a plane, which folded and folded until there was space for the viewing gallery again, and there he sat, still holding the hand of the silver-skinned avatar.
He looked into himself and realised that he felt no fear, no despair and no regret.
When it spoke, it was as though it used his own voice.
-~ You must have loved her very much, Quilan.
Please, if you can, if you will, look into my soul. The avatar looked levelly at him. Are you sure? I’m sure.
That long look went on. Then the creature slowly smiled. Very well.
It nodded after a few more moments. She was a remarkable person. I see what you saw in her. The avatar made a noise like a sigh. -~ We surely did do a terrible thing to you, didn’t we?
-~ We did it to ourselves, in the end, but yes, you brought it upon us.
-~ This was a terrible revenge to contemplate, Quilan.
-~ We believed we had no choice. Our dead.., well, I imagine you know.
It nodded. I know.
-~ It is over, isn’t it?
A lot is.
My dream this morning …
Ah yes. The avatar smiled again. ~-‘ Well, that could have been me messing with your mind, or just your guilty conscience, don’t you think?
He guessed he would never be told. – How long have you known? he asked.
-~ I have known since a day before you arrived. I can’t speak for Special Circumstances.
-~ You let me make the Displacements. Wasn’t that dan- gerous?
Only a little. I had my back-up by then. A couple of GSVs have been here or hereabouts for a while, as well as the Experiencing A Significant Cravitas Shortfall. Once we knew what you were up to, they could protect me even from an attack like the one you envisaged. We let it happen because we’d like to know where the other ends of those wormholes are. Might tell us something about who your mysterious allies were.
I’d like to know myself. He thought about this. – Well, I used to.
The avatar frowned. I’ve discussed this with some of my peers. Want to know one ugly thought?
-~ Are there not enough in the world already?
Assuredly. But sometimes ugly thoughts can be prevented from becoming ugly deeds by exposing them.
If you say so.
-~ One should always ask who has most to gain. With respect, Chel does not, in this measure, count.
-~ There are many Involveds who might like to see you suffer a reverse.
One may come on its own; they tend to. Things have been going very well with the Culture over the last eight hundred years or so. Blink-of-an-eye stuff for the Elders, but a long time for an Involved to stay quite as determinedly in-play as we have. But our power may have peaked; we may be becoming complacent, even decadent.
This seems to be a pause I am meant to fill. By the way, how long do we have, before the second nova ignites? -~ Back in reality, about half a second. The avatar smiled.
Here, many lifetimes. It looked away, to the image of the Orbital hanging in space before them, slowly rotating.
-~ It is not impossible that the allies who made all this possible are, or represent, some rogue group of Culture Minds. He stared at the creature. -~ Culture Minds? he asked. Now isn’t that a terrible thing to have to think? That our own might turn against us?
But why?
Because we might be becoming too soft. Because of that complacency, that decadence. Because some of our Minds might just think that we need a bit of timely blood and fire to remind us the universe is a perfectly uncaring place and that we have no more right to enjoy our agreeable ascendancy than any other empire long fallen and forgotten. The avatar shrugged. ~- Don’t be so shocked, Quilan. We could be wrong.
It looked away for a moment. Then it said,
No luck with the wormholes. It sounded sad. We may never know now. It turned to look at him again. There was an expression of terrible sorrow on its face. You’ve wanted to die since you realised you’d lost her, since you recovered from your wounds, haven’t you, Quilan?
-~ Yes.
It nodded. Me too.
He knew the story of its twin, and the worlds it had destroyed. He wondered, assuming it was telling the truth, how many lifetimes of regret and loss you could fit into eight hundred years, when you could think, experience and remember with the speed and facility of a Mind. What will happen to Chel?
A handful of individuals – certainly no more – may pay with their lives. Other than that, nothing. It shook its head slowly.
We cannot let you have your balancing souls, Quilan. We will try to reason with the Chelgrian-Puen. It’s tricky territory for us, the Sublimed, but we have contacts.
It smiled at him. He could see his broad, furred face reflected in the image’s delicate features.
We still owe you for our mistake. We will do all we can to make amends. This attempt does not absolve us. Nothing has been balanced. It squeezed his hand. He had forgotten they were still holding each other. I am sorry.
Sorrow seems a common commodity, doesn’t it?
-~ I believe the raw material is life, but happily there are other by-products.
You are not really going to kill yourself, are you? -~ Both of us, Quilan.
Do you really-?
-~ I am tired, Quilan. I have waited for these memories to lose their force over the years and decades and centuries, but they have not. There are places to go, but either I would not be me when I went there, or I would remain myself and so still have my memories. By waiting for them to drop away all this time I have grown into them, and they into me. We have become each other. There is no way back I consider worth taking.
It smiled regretfully and squeezed his hand again.
I’ll be leaving everything in good working order, and in good hands. It’ll be a more-or-less seamless transition, and nobody will suffer or die.
Won’t people miss you?
They’ll have another Hub before too long. I’m sure they’ll take to it, too. But I hope they do miss me a little. I hope they do think well of me.