No wonder things were so screwed up. Even the Quintara had their weakness. Respecting only power, they had to be coerced into doing anything together.
If all four were aspects of their creator’s image, he reflected, that Ship was never going to get anywhere at all.
That was perilously close to blasphemy and it disturbed him to think it. No, he finally decided, not in their image—tools, utilities for the Creator. Tools that were built to be used left in the yard to rust when the work was done. Waiting for somebody else to pick ’em up and use them if they needed, but not tools that could use themselves.
And that, he realized, was the key. They, five Terrans, were supposed to use the tools this time. The race on the move. The race with the big future. The race that could wind up ruling at least the entire galaxy someday. The race with a more than merely survivalist stake in the outcome of this battle.
“Here are the tools,” the Executive Officer as much as said. “Pick them up, put them together, and use them to take what’s yours. And, oh, yes, we lost the instruction manual.”
In nine more days they would reach the rendezvous point.
THE FIVE
ARE THREE
ARE ONE
“CAPTAIN!” MODRA RAN TO GUN ROH CHIN AND hugged him. “You’ll never know how happy we were when we heard you were coming back with good news!”
“It was no easy thing,” he responded, a bit embarrassed by the emotion of the greeting. “They hemmed and they hawed and they took forever to recognize the obvious. And, it’s not ‘Captain’ any more, just ‘Gunny’, or ‘Chin’ or ‘Hey you!’ I fear they demoted me to priest.” ‘ She was shocked, even though she’d seen his robe. “Oh, they didn’t—”
He pulled out a cigar. “Thankfully, they left me blissfully alone in those areas. Not alone in others, although it did not at the time seem a sacrifice. To be working with and under Krisha is a joy that compensates for the loss of command, but I fear the joy will have to be after this is finished.”
She frowned. “Why? What’s the matter?”
“At the moment, she’s not quite herself. She seems normal, but she is possessed. Within her is a Presence, perhaps an Angel, perhaps something that the Angels created, but there is Another there. Most times it is dormant, but when it comes out it can be a bit frightening, and even when it appears to sleep it is really there. We played Go on the way. I am a Grand Master of Go. Krisha never even learned the game. She defeated me. Easily. Every time. It was child’s play. I wasn’t playing Krisha, you see. Perhaps it is a test to see if I can truly be made humble.”
She sighed. “Well, I don’t have that kind of presence, but I’ve got some sort of company.” She pushed her hair back and pointed.
“Good heavens! It appears as if you have a tiny jewel in the center of your forehead!”
She nodded. “Jimmy, too. They can’t talk to us directly, but they’re getting everything we see, hear, think, even dream. Jimmy has these nightmares that it can grow, take as much of us as it wants. Sometimes I do, too. Those images of Tris at the end. …”
He nodded. “Don’t worry. Uh—I’m told you are with child. I know it is probably Josef’s, but …”
She grinned. “I don’t know, either. I didn’t have the full battery. And it’s still kind of up in the air as to whether any children should be bom in the future, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps. I have hope now. We have managed to sort of convene all of the Higher Races here, and that is in itself a miracle. Krisha just ignored the blackness. It couldn’t touch her. I, of course, assisted by taking out the four Qaamil fighters that jumped us. It was a very sinful feeling for a priest. Like I was back at the Academy in the simulators, taking out the enemies of the Mizlaplan although outnumbered and outgunned. I enjoyed every minute of it.”
She grinned. “I think, deep down, you were born for our descent, Chin, and perhaps for this moment. Not that we enjoyed losing our good comrades, or seeing the terrible things the Quintara can do, but, well, you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I fear you are right. I honestly and truly wish all this had never come about, had never been necessary. That is sincere. But, if it had to happen, I should have felt most terrible had I been left out of it.” He paused. “Um, I assume Josef could not be kept from knowing about the child?”
“Hardly. As soon as I did, he did, more or less. He wants me to have it removed and given to be developed in the lab so it won’t be harmed.”
“And what did you say?”
“It is not something I tell just any priest, but it had to be very strong. After all, I considered just telling him to go to hell, but he’s already been there!”
Chin looked over her shoulder. “They are signaling for us to come. I do not think now that they wish to waste any time at all on this.”
Modra saw just what Chin meant about Krisha. She talked normally, and seemed all right, but she moved her head in an odd, unbalanced manner, as if she expected it to fall off, and the blast of pure power radiating from within her was no Krisha that Modra had ever known.
The ward room of a Mycohlian heavy cruiser had been transformed. All furniture had been unshipped and removed; the shiny polished floor had been painted with a great tricolored design, one they now all recognized, and it was large enough for them all to enter.
Tobrush was essentially in charge as host. “We apologize for the rush, but we have received word of a large Qaamil rebel task force heading towards us,” the Mycohlian told them. “Considering its origin and likely course, I needn’t tell you who, or rather what, is probably in command. Due to the distance, we are in no immediate danger, but the closer they get to us the more we will have to consider defenses, and the Great Gathering should have as much time as it requires.”
“How long will it require, Tobrush?” Gun Roh Chin asked.
“It is impossible to know. Perhaps hours. Perhaps nanoseconds. There is no memory of this in any of our collective minds. Although it did happen before, in what must have been in some ways an even greater drama, considering that the Mizlaplan and Guardians were asked to trust my own people when there was little basis for that trust in past behavior, it is, for all practical purposes, unprecedented. We do not know what will happen. We do not know what we are all about to find out. In any event, the speed and possibly volume of data exchange will probably be too much for your Terran minds to absorb. Our experts believe that you will essentially black out. Do not worry. We will tell you what you need to know—when we know it. Now, each of you take one of the five remaining points, but remain inside the circle. Yes, you too, Chin. For some reason all three parties believe that you are an important element in this.”
They moved down and did as instructed.
“Cymol, the level of power you require to maintain full two-way contact is being diverted from the ship’s auxiliary engines to this transformer. Come inside the circle, make your full contact with the Guardians, and then with your two representatives. Modra, take the point to my right. Jimmy, next to her. Then you, Captain—sorry, Reverend Chin. Krisha, to my left. Josef, between Krisha and Chin. Everyone make physical contact with the person on either side of them. Hold hands, tendrils, whatever, but flesh against flesh. We tried to calculate the size of the seal so that it would be little effort for anyone. Good. Now, as you might notice, a very tiny chip on the seal is left open behind me. I shall now connect the last millimeter or so of the circle. From this point, do not leave or break the circle or contact. Good. Now, cymol—your power sufficient? Very well. Make the connection. You Terrans, just let your minds go as blank as possible and just relax.”
Telling any of them to relax was like telling somebody not to think of the word “Quintara,” but they tried as best they could and braced themselves for the inevitable shock and disorientation.
After a few moments, when nothing happened, many of them relaxed just a bit.
There was a sudden, violent shock so powerful it stunned them all, coming not from any one of them but seemingly from the design itself, linking them through its interconnections as if each were touching the other. The energy field was so strong and so sustained that none of them could have let go if they retained enough wits to think about doing so. A surge jumped from Jimmy and Modra into the cymol; the transformer smoked, and the cymol. fell in the center as if dead.
All sense was lost. Colors were solids. Blue leaped from Modra and Jimmy and met gold at Krisha, then collided with red at Tobrush.
Gun Roh Chin felt the shock, too, and saw the colors in a way he had never been able to see before, although he was too stunned to even realize it.
Other Mycohl, monitoring from beyond the circle, gasped as the colors on the seal began to glow and then flow with a pulsing life of their own, while pulses of all three colors now ran round and round the exterior enclosing circle as if chasing each other endlessly around the loop.
The inner colors flowed like mercury, collided, but would not mix; again and again the combinations attempted and failed, until, by random selection, all three converged at a single point and flowed inward.
Flowed into Gun Roh Chin.
There was one Mind, one thought. Within the body of the Guardians, within the Gathering of the Mycohl, within the interlinked minds of the Holy Angels, there was One. Information was assembled, sorted, collated, interpreted at speeds approaching the infinite, linked through dimensional passageways undisturbed for millennia. Data was linked; files were reconstructed and gaps filled rapidly.
And from it all came the one path, the bizarre mechanisms by which the Engineer could be taken. And, grasping only the procedure, not the incredible logic behind it dictated on a plane and from a vantage point beyond all the abilities of the Grand Gathering, a single, nagging thought emerged in the One, a disturbing but very comprehensible one.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
Before, the Mycohl had taken the path, but they had an easier time, for not even the Engineer suspected that there was treachery in their progress until too late. Now the Mycohl could not go again, for they would be the first to fail. The Mizlaplanians could not go because they lacked the mobility to get to the Engineer. The Guardians could not go because it would be nearly impossible to notice a planet moving toward you.
The Terrans had to go. They could get there and get in. They would not be considered a serious threat, particularly after having faced the Quintara before. And, as the Guardians could not believe that mere Terrans could have gone to the Underworld and emerged other than slaves of the Quintara, so the Engineer and his chieftains would be unable to believe that they might harm him.
But no conditioning, no rebuilding, no hypnotics or grand designs could be upon them. They would bring the power and the knowledge with them, but the will to use the tools and do the job must be their own.
It was finished. The great link was formed, the chain was complete. The rules and the players had now been set.
They suddenly felt free; free not only in the sense that the forces were gone as suddenly as they had come, but also free of any and all controls upon them. The Higher Races were their masters no more, but their tools.
Several of them collapsed in shock and exhaustion; Josef breathed in and out very heavily but for some reason was afraid to open his eyes. Nobody really wanted to move; the stunned shock was within them all.
Suddenly Gun Ron Chin jumped up with a holler and began clawing, pulling at his robe, finally getting it off and throwing it out of the circle. It landed nearby, and the observers noted that it was smoking.
They all felt as if they had undergone a massive ordeal, but Krisha called, “Gunny! What happened?”
“The cigars!” he shouted, rubbing his leg. “Darned stuff must’ve lit every one of ’em that was in my pocket!”
They were brought food and drink, but mostly just sat on the floor. Chin’s burn looked mean but wasn’t all that serious, and a quickly applied medical ointment had removed the pain.
Greta Thune, however, was now beyond anything. She was dead, her cymol brain blown as surely as the aux engines were blown. She had served her purpose, but it was a shock.
“Does anybody remember anything of what went on?” Josef asked incredulously.
“It was as if, suddenly, all the answers were clear, but now I can make little sense of it,” Tobrush told them.
They all spoke pretty much the same way except for Chin, who was silent, drinking some wine. Finally, he said, “I know.”
For a moment they hardly heard, then they were suddenly quiet.
“What do you know, Gunny?” Krisha asked, the link or whatever it was with the Angels now completely vanished, although, apparently, she hadn’t been aware of it while it was there.
“It’s just us five. We’re it. We represent all thirty-plus trillion Terrans and sixty-odd trillion non-Terrans, as well as the Three Races. It is almost a wager. They have given us powers, and a very big gun which we can use not to kill, but at least force back, even the big one himself, but it’s entirely up to us, as sure as if we were still on the road to Hell.”