The Soul Consortium (35 page)

The smell of ammonia travels on a hot breeze to meet me, reminding me of my previous encounters with him in other lives. Vieta’s gazing up at the sky where the vast spheres of the Soul Consortium have settled in orbit, as if watching for signs of my departure. Even from here I can see the tremendous damage wrought by its journey through the Singularity: rings of debris gathered around the shattered orbs at the outer edge and plumes of fire jetting from the inner spheres. It will take time for the automated systems to repair it all; I only hope the Soul Spheres have not sustained too much damage, or again, my plans will have come to nothing.

So much depends on the next few minutes that I wrestle with the idea of sneaking back inside the abbey to close my eyes and wish this whole nightmare away, but that’s not the Salem Ben I need to be.

I take an extra moment to compose myself, try not to think about the coming confrontation that will make or break billions of future lives, looking anywhere but at the small hunched form. The vision in the sky gives me no courage either. Not just the devastated Soul Consortium, but the goddess beyond it, the vast face of Pandora, with her single star-bright eye looming overhead. It’s as though she’s been overseeing proceedings with sinister interest.

“Vieta,” I call.

Slowly, he turns to observe me. There is no trace of surprise that I have made my entrance from the abbey. His sallow face housing those same bulbous eyes is as eerie as ever. The translucent flesh hinting at a leering skull beneath its surface stretches to attempt a smile as I step into Pandora’s light.

“Here I am,” he says quietly.

“Where’s Qod?”

He moves to one side and with a slow sweep of an arm reveals a figure shrouded in monk robes, facing away from me, seated in the red dust. “As promised.”

Stunned, I stare at the figure as it turns its head, the face momentarily hidden under the shadow of its hood.

“Salem, did you find what you were looking for?” it says.

“Qod?” My voice cracks.

“Of course,” says Vieta. “Who did you expect? I kept my word, no?”

Two slender, bronzed hands move upwards to pull the hood back.

The dazzling hair, the large brown eyes. This is not Qod; this is Queen Oluvia Wade before becoming the All-See.

“Salem,” she says again. “It’s me, Qod.”

“No … you’re … you’re Oluvia—”

“Oluvia Wade. The
real
Qod. Don’t you remember where I came from? How I came to be?”

I search her eyes, now glistening with tears. “But … how?”

“How does not matter,” says Vieta. “She
is
Qod.”

My mind races. This turn of events is not what I expected. The woman before me is not Qod, yet somehow she is. But it changes nothing. Vieta still needs to be dealt with. “She’s not the Qod I know.”

“I am,” she says.

“Prove it.”

She nods. “Look above. Don’t be afraid.”

I do as she asks, and in the sky the face of Pandora takes on new power. The shimmering eye—the star that gives Castor’s World its dim light—blasts outward like a fiery rose, and the nebula surrounding it swells like a burst of blood in stormy waters as if Pandora’s hair has been ravaged by a great wind. Hellish light glares across the land, and I stagger back, shielding my eyes, reeling from the sudden heat.

Falling to the floor I watch Vieta as Oluvia rises. He lifts a finger over her as if to drop her dead.

I cry out, “No! Wait!”

The storm stops. The heat dissipates and the light fades.

They both look at me.

“It is me,” she says.

“Beware, Salem Ben,” says Vieta. “I can snuff your goddess out as if she were no more than the flame of a candle, just as I did before. Now where—?”

“He caught me off guard in the Consortium, Salem. Don’t—”

Still watching me, Vieta lifts his finger. The indigo light in his cane brightens, and Oluvia slumps to the floor, silent.

Breathless and shocked, I shake my head, trying desperately to gather my thoughts.

Before I can take in what just happened, Vieta lifts his finger a second time, and Oluvia jerks and screams back to consciousness. The light in Vieta’s cane fades again. “I was about to ask,” he continues. “Where have you hidden my child? I believed her to be on the Soul Consortium where she was previously out of reach, but I do not think she is there now.”

“Do you think I would have brought that abomination here without knowing you would keep your side of the deal?”

“Perhaps not, but you see now that I have honored our agreement. So take me to her. I know she is still alive somewhere. I … feel her.”

“If I allow you to feed your creation, humanity will—”

“Humanity does not even exist in this universe yet.” Vieta smiles. “What are you trying to protect?”

“The future. Humanity deserves a chance to live and thrive again.”

“And it shall,” he whispers.

“Only until you’ve bled it dry to feed that—”

“Where is she?”

I stare at Vieta. How far can this go before he decides the pursuit of his abomination is no longer worthwhile? “I won’t tell you where she is.”

“What? You are breaking the agreement?”

“That isn’t Qod.”

“You know she is,” he says. “Don’t try to justify your duplicity by claiming I have not delivered my part.”

“I can’t let you have your creation back.”

“Tell me where she is.”

“No.”

“Tell me now or Qod suffers.”

“I can’t.”

He lifts a finger. Oluvia’s body twists like a broken mannequin, and her scream echoes from the walls of the abbey.

“Stop!”

But he doesn’t. Her body continues to contort, the legs and arms snapping against their joints. “Where is she?”

“Please.” I fall to my knees, cover my face in my hands. I can’t watch, but I can hear the crunching and snapping of her bones through the screaming.

“I can make her pain eternal, Salem. I could do the same to you if I wish.”

“Just stop!”

“Then tell me.”

I spit my enraged words out at him, wishing they were poisoned darts. “Beyond the Singularity, beyond the universe. I have her coordinates in a hidden Consortium file.”

My answer is a half-truth. The abnormality is drifting through the void but with no point of reference. There are no coordinates. I avoid looking into Vieta’s eyes in case he can read my deception.

“Good. Take me there.”

I hear Oluvia’s body slump to the floor as Vieta releases her.

“Let her leave first. Promise not to hurt her again.”

“Why should I promise anything to you when your own word means nothing?”

“Just please … let her go.”

“Take me there now or she’ll suffer.”

“I’ll die before I tell you where that thing is.”

“You’d really terminate your own existence for this? For a species that hasn’t even been born yet?”

I look him in the eye. “Yes.”

“But you must know I can begin again.”

“There’ll always be someone to stop you. Dominique Mancini when she accidentally released the power from your cane. Plantagenet Soome when he killed it here in this abbey. There will be others too. This is the closest you’ve ever come to completion, but I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen. Go and create another daughter. You’ve lost this one.”

Vieta’s face twists with anger, his finger lifts, and a ripple of agony burns through my limbs.

“Control,” I manage through the pain, hoping the Consortium’s core isn’t too damaged to receive my signal, “transport me and …” The pain rises like acid through my blood, and I scream before the last words escape me. “ … Oluvia … to the Consortium genoplant one.”

There’s a moment of undreamable anguish before Castor’s World dissolves around me to be replaced by the white walls of a Consortium sphere lit by sporadic arcs of electricity. Oluvia is there too, slumped by my feet, her bloodshot eyes staring up at me in the strobed lighting. Jets of steam hiss above our heads, and electrical fires spit at us as flailing cables writhe like the tentacles of a dying beast. The sphere won’t last much longer, but after Vieta’s torture, neither will Oluvia.

“Hold on, Oluvia. I’m going to reactivate the genoplants and get you fixed up.”

“No … time. Vieta will … come.”

Ignoring the warning and a sudden sparking fiber dropping from above, I lift her gently from the floor and carry her over to the first empty booth, placing her inside. “Control, restore power to this genoplant, and help Oluvia.”

Confirmed. Genoplant power restored. Beginning biological repair of subject 9.81713E+44, Oluvia Wade.

The booth jumps into life, and I’m grateful it’s still working. Immediately the mech-cells go to work restoring muscle, flesh, and bone. She’ll be whole again in less than a minute.

“I’m counting on his ability to get here. I have a plan.”

“Of course you have a plan,” Oluvia says as the bones in her jaw crack into place. “Remember I’m almost omniscient and I know your every move. I know exactly what you’re planning, and it’s insanity … And stop calling me Oluvia. I’m Qod!”

“But can the plan work?” I insist.

“Yes, but—”

“Then don’t argue.”

“You’re sure you want to go through with it?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“Of course I know. It’s you that isn’t sure.”

I stare at her through a haze of steam. “We have to get out of the genoplant before it collapses.”

Oluvia … Qod steps out of the booth, and I take her hand as we move at pace into the passage. Out of the corner of my eye I catch a look from her as our fingers touch, a look I remember from before, both in my lifetime and hers, a look of longing.

“Control, deactivate geno—”

As the door seals I watch through the window as the domed ceiling crumples like a blanket of dry leaves. There’s a moment of fire and lightning, then genoplant one bursts apart into a shower of cables and metal shrapnel into the atmosphere of Castor’s World. The two of us fall back as the pressure difference is buffeted by the door.

Please restate command.

“Disregard,” I say after releasing a breath and turning to Qod. “I much preferred it when you were in charge.”

“Get me to the Control Core, and I’ll be back to my old self in no time,” she says, getting to her feet and pulling me up too. “But we’ll work it all out on the way. We’d better get moving.”

“Control,” I say, heading through another set of doors and pausing at a crossroads, “what is the status of repairs? Are the Soul Spheres and Control Core safe?”

Within two standard hours 96 percent restoration predicted. Within four standard hours 4 percent loss will be reconstructed. Passage must be restricted during that time. Recreational Spheres, Observation Sphere, and Council Spheres have restricted access until repairs and reconstruction completed.

“Fine. Has Keitus Vieta arrived yet?”

Unknown.

“He’s useless.”

“Like I said”—Oluvia nods toward the passage to my right—”if I can get to the Control Core, I can reconnect and take over.”

“Good. I’ll probably need you if my plan has any chance of working.”

“You will.”

“Then go.”

She looks at me and squeezes my hand. “We …”

“No. You know I can’t think what you want me to think or say what you want me to say. If the plan works, I’ll be dead before the day is out.” For a heartbeat I regret my words, but she must know she won’t change my mind now.

Without looking back, she races down the passage.

I head toward the Aberration Sphere. My final destination.

B
ack at the Aberration Sphere. And it’s quiet in here. I almost wish it had been one of the damaged areas after the Consortium broke through the Singularity. It might not have changed my plans, but at least the chaos might have distracted me from thinking about that same empty slot that’s always haunted me.

I’m really going to do it this time, though. Really going to end it. At least my end will have true purpose now. And it won’t really be an end. If my soul, whatever that is, survives in some metaphysical form science has yet to identify, then I’ll find the others who went before me. If not, well, I’ll have a different kind of eternal life keeping the enemy gaoled. With Qod back, I can be confident my plan will work. But I’ll never really know. I’ll just have to hope that what I told Vieta is true—if I fail, others will find his creation and destroy it before it destroys everything else.

“Salem?”

My stomach leaps at the sound of her voice. Qod’s here! “Good to have you back. Everything okay?”

“Yes, everything’s fine, but I’ve lost a lot of data. There’s only so much you can cram into a human brain, even an enhanced one.”

“And Keitus Vieta? Where’s he?”

“On his way in a small transport shuttle.”

“I don’t suppose destroying it will help?”

“It will only delay him. He’ll just reconstruct his form again.”

“Why doesn’t he do that anyway? Why not just deconstruct himself and reconstruct himself over here?”

“From what I found out during my investigations, my best guess is that doing so requires a lot more energy than conventional methods, and he has to leach it from the creature he created. He expended quite a lot of resources with that display of his on Castor’s World. He’ll do things the easy way if he can, which is why he’d rather see if he can get the abnormality back than have to start all over.”

“Is that why he doesn’t do his own killing to get the energy he needs?”

“No.”

I wait for more, but Qod says nothing. “And? You’re not going to tell me why it’s a no?”

“It’s better you don’t know.”

“Whatever the reason is, it can’t be worse than anything else I’ve seen recently. Just tell me.”

“Remember, I know you. Seriously, it might make you change your mind about what you’re about to do, and I’m not sure if I’m right. I don’t have all the facts yet.”

“But I’ll need to know—”

“For just once in your existence, please trust me.”

Though the thought of the secret itches like diseased skin, I hold back. “Okay, you win. For now.”

“Good.” I can almost hear the relief in Qod’s voice.