Jane spun joyously through this body, so different from any she had ever remembered before, but within moments she realized that the aiъa she had recognized, the aiъa she had followed here, was not willing to give up even a small part of itself to her. Wherever she touched, there it was, touching also, affirming its control; and now in panic Jane began to sense that while she might be inside a lacework of extraordinary beauty and fineness — this temple of living cells on a frame of bone — no part of it belonged to her and if she stayed it would only be as a fugitive. She did not belong here, no matter how she loved it.
And she did love it. For all the thousands of years that she had lived, so vast in space, so fast in time, she had nevertheless been crippled without knowing it. She was alive, but nothing that was part of her large kingdom was alive. All had been ruthlessly under her control, but here in this body, this human body, this woman named Val, there were millions of small bright lives, cell upon cell of life, thriving, laboring, growing, dying, linked body to body and aiъa to aiъa, and it was in these links that creatures of flesh dwelt and it was far more vivid, despite the sluggishness of thought, than her own experience of life had been. How can they think at all, these flesh-beings, with all these dances going on around them, all these songs to distract them?
She touched the mind of Valentine and was flooded with memory. It had nothing like the precision and depth of Jane’s old memory, but every moment of experience was vivid and powerful, alive and real as no memory had been that Jane had ever known before. How can they keep from holding still all day simply to remember the day before? Because each new moment shouts louder than memory.
Yet each time Jane touched a memory or felt a sensation from the living body, there was the aiъa that was properly the master of this flesh, driving her away, asserting its control.
And finally, annoyed, when that familiar aiъa herded her Jane refused to move. Instead she claimed this spot, this part of the body, this part of the brain, she demanded the obedience of these cells, and the other aiъa recoiled before her.
I am stronger than you, Jane said to him silently. I can take from you all that you are and all that you have and all that you will ever be and ever have and you can’t stop me.
The aiъa that once had been the master here fled before her, and now the chase resumed, with roles reversed.
In the starship orbiting the planet of the descoladores, everyone was startled by a sudden cry from Young Val’s mouth. As they turned to look, before anyone could reach her, her body convulsed and she flung herself away from her chair; in the weightlessness of orbit she flew until she struck brutally against the ceiling, and all the time her voice came out as a thin ribbon of a wail and her face held a rictus smile that seemed to speak at once of endless agony and boundless joy.
On the world Pacifica, on an island, on a beach, Peter’s weeping suddenly stopped and he flopped over in the sand and twitched silently. “Peter!” cried Wang-mu, flinging herself onto him, touching him, trying to hold the limbs that bounced like jackhammers. Peter gasped for breath, and, gasping, vomited. “He’s drowning himself!” cried Wang-mu. In that instant huge strong hands pulled her away, took Peter’s body by its limbs and flopped it over so that now the vomitus flowed out and down into the sand, and the body, coughing and choking, nevertheless breathed. “What’s happening?” Wang-mu cried.
Malu laughed, and then when he spoke his voice was like a song. “The god has come here! The dancing god has touched flesh! Oh, the body is too weak to hold it! Oh, the body cannot dance the dance of gods! But oh, how blessed, bright, and beautiful is the body when the god is in it!”