Champion of Mars (44 page)

“Do not thank me, for only pain lies this way. But Cybele –” Jahan grips my hands. “There is no shame in your love. Many of our kind before you thought they had felt it. Only you have. You are the more human for it, one of the most human. As much as I wish to become less than what I am, I will never take the final steps. You are the first to want to complete the journey. You and Yoechakenon, you represent a new beginning. No matter how things become, or how you feel, remember this, and remember me.” He releases me and sits back. “Now, is there anything else you wish to ask of me? You and I will not speak again.”

“No,” I say falteringly. Then with more firmness, “No, I don’t think so.”

He releases me. “Very well. Now, prepare yourself.”

I open my mouth to speak, but he puts a finger to my lips. The old man is gone, and there is a pillar of energy shining as bright as a million suns. The pillar dims a little, coalescing again into a form whose eyes shine as the collision of galaxies. Gently he lays me upon the ground. I feel my clothes disappear from me. He presses his hand to my chest, his mouth of stellar fire to mine. I feel an intense wave of pleasure, then a great heat. I scream into his kiss as, one by one, the subsidiary spirit minds that have bonded with me over the millennia shrivel and die.

Light pours from my eyes and my mouth and my sex. It diminishes. I am alone – truly alone. There is no choir to sing my thoughts, no chorus to contradict me and speak the future. I am dazed and naked on the grass, grass that shines with the jealous beauty of emeralds, surrounded by carnelian roses and bees that glimmer amber in the golden sunlight, as colour floods the garden in a languorous, pulsing wave.

The armour, and Jahan, are nowhere to be seen. A voice comes from the air, a female voice, carrying with it the scent of strange perfume – chipped rock, cloves and flowers.

“You made a promise,” she says, “now go and keep it.”

I feel my stomach. Something lies there, a new warmth, asleep for now. It is strange, but not unpleasant. And I know. I know what I and Yoechakenon must do.

EPILOGUE

I
COME ONLINE
in a Korean factory.

I ride with a young man to the lip of a canyon.

I lie with KiGrace on the grass of high plains.

I search for a boy I thought I had lost.

I wait for a man I fear will never come.

Now – if there is such a thing as now – I sit upright as the armour runs together and solidifies into its final form, that of my spirit body made flesh, and I inhabit it as Yoechakenon inhabits his flesh. By my side my love sleeps, and although we no longer share the link between companion and man, we share something far deeper, and I know that the poison has gone from his veins.

I hear a noise, the drum of hooves. The Golden Man gallops away from us, fading with more than the distance, until he vanishes from sight like a ghost. The Veil of Worlds ripples, a sheet shaken by God, and then it too fades from view.

There are two suns in the sky. Both shine with a clean light.

There is a faint gust of wind to mark the Veil’s passing, and then blue sky is above us, and mirror suns shine their beams on lands long dark. My new skin rises in bumps at the sudden warmth.

This time, and other lives – some long forgotten, some memories I have cherished for many generations – fill my mind in perfect clarity. For this brief moment I see the universe as my ascended spirit brethren should have – as one perfect moment that lasts forever and no time at all, before fear and envy poisoned them.

But none of my times are as important as this:

I lie in the dark in a primitive shell. Rocks lie heavy upon it. The body I wear is broken in a thousand places, rudimentary sensors reporting what I regard in this time as pain. I suffer, and yet I could depart, flee back to my permanent, unmoving body, away from this.

I do not.

A man’s hand is in mine. He is trapped under the rocks. His limbs are crushed, his internal organs ruptured. He is dying.

He is in agony. Acid burns him through his torn suit. The weight on him is unbearable. All he has is my hand, my machine hand, for comfort.

I squeeze his hand as gently as I can. It is soft under its padded gauntlet.

“Please, please,” he says. “I think... I think I am dying. Please, don’t leave me alone. Not until I have gone.”

“I will stay with you, John Holland,” I say. My own emotions are strange to me, unsubtle and half-formed, but they are there, and I learn.

“Until the end?” he says.

“Until the end,” I say.

“Promise me.”

I promise him.

I am back on the slopes of a volcano Man once called Olympus. Time is a linear flow, it is one moment, it is a multiplicity, it is singular.

There is and there is no fate.

I look to the man by my side. He is naked, as am I. The suns are dipping toward the horizon. Night will fall soon and it will be cold.

We have a long way to go.

About the Author

Guy Haley
is an experienced science-fiction journalist, writer and magazine editor. He has been editor of
White Dwarf
and
Death Ray
, among other magazines, and deputy editor of
SFX
. He is the author of the
Richards and Klein
series from Angry Robot, and writes for Games Workshop’s Black Library. He lives in Bath.

You can find him at

guyhaley.wordpress.com.

Solaris Rising
presents nineteen stories of the very highest calibre from some of the most accomplished authors in the genre, proving just how varied and dynamic science fi ction can be. From strange goings on in the present to explorations of bizarre futures, from drug-induced tragedy to time-hopping serial killers, from crucial choices in deepest space to a ravaged Earth under alien thrall, from gritty other worlds to surreal other realms, Solaris Rising delivers a broad spectrum of experiences and excitements, showcasing the genre at its very best.

‘What, then, are Solaris publishing? On the basis of this anthology, quite a wide-ranging selection of SF, some of it very good indeed.’

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on
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The universe shifts and changes: suddenly you understand, you get it, and are filled with wonder. That moment of understanding drives the greatest science-fiction stories and lies at the heart of Engineering Infinity. Whether it's coming up hard against the speed of light - and, with it, the enormity of the universe - realising that terraforming a distant world is harder and more dangerous than you'd ever thought, or simply realizing that a hitchhiker on a starship consumes fuel and oxygen with tragic results, it's hard science-fiction where a sense of discovery is most often found and where science-fiction's true heart lies.

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