Virginia Hamilton (13 page)

“Is it so important what it looks like?” asked Celester.

“It’s important what it does, isn’t it?” Justice said.

“Yes,” Celester agreed.

“Do they know everything that happened to me inside the machine?” she asked him.

“No,” toned Celester. “But I monitored. I know.”

“You were
inside
the Colossus machine?” asked Thomas, shocked.

“I thought I was inside a big coil,” she said. “That’s why I grew thin, I guess. The Watcher light has to fit.” She had no fear of the growing, the changing, only regret. “I thought Colossus let me know a lot of things.”

“What kind of things?” Dorian wanted to know.

“About how it found the solution for Starters,” she said, and told them some of what had transpired between her and Colossus.

“Nothing like that happened to me,” Thomas said when she had finished. “Maybe the rocket I see is the kind Starters took out in space. It’s hard to believe they’re out there somewhere.”

“If they’re still alive. Who knows? It was so long ago,” Levi said.

“And I asked Colossus about the Mal,” she said.

“Be it so, the Mal,” toned Celester.

“You may not have people fighting one another here, or hunger,” she said, “but you do have Mal.” Suddenly she felt strange, as though she might drift away into nothing.

“Right. Mal threw Duster out of the dome into Dustland,” Dorian said. “Duster was thinking for himself. Maybe Mal put Slakers there because they were too different.”

“Slakers were from the beginning,” Justice said. “The first mutant Colossus saved had wings and three legs.”

“Be it so,” toned Celester. “Mal throws out of domities all It perceives as misfit. It must keep misfits away from developing species in domity.”

His eyes shone like liquid metal consumed in flame. “Mal must have order and sameness,” he toned. “But Sona must have prototypes—firsts—from which new strains may be duplicated or invented. Each half-century, Colossus sweeps the outside. It senses to find the few who can return to domity and develop beyond misfit stage into strong new beings.

“We would have found your Duster,” softly he toned in the delicate sound of a distant flute. “Also, we would have found the Bambnua of Slaker beings. The next sweep comes in a decade.”

“Ten years!” exclaimed Levi. “Ten years of being out there! Duster might have died from who knows what danger by then. And what about Siv and Glass? Why were the other duplicates thrown out?”

“Who knows what reason Mal might use?” toned Celester. “But I would guess that after throwing out Duster, Mal came upon random Dusters who reminded It of the first. So in Its illogic It threw them out. The first Siv was thrown out for whatever infraction of Its rules, and the first Glass. Then others followed.”

They could imagine Colossus sweeping in the light, as Mal swept in darkness.

“So you go about undoing what the Mal has done?” Justice said.

“It is so. Colossus saves humanity,” Celester toned. “Yet, since the mistake Colossus made of sending Starters away, Mal evolved. It has existed ever since.

“By the way,” Celester added, “it was Mutant II that Mal found misfit, not Mutant I. The first mutant was prototype for all developing Slakers. But Mutant II refused necessary time underground. It developed unseen movement, mind-control, to beat Mal and get to the surface. It developed flight for females only, when all must be the same here. It was thrown out.”

Preoccupied, Justice said, “I wonder, Celester … Colossus says it knows no Mal. It’s as if it has no idea what goes on when Mal is here.”

“Better now to speak of other things,” Celester toned, a harsh, discordant sound.

“Why doesn’t Colossus stop Mal from throwing people out?” Dorian wanted to know.

“Colossus just kept saying, ‘I know no Mal,’ like that,” Justice said.

“The Mal be—” Celester began, but did not finish.

“Do you suppose Mal might not know of Colossus either?” Levi said. “Would that make any kind of sense?”

“Oh … yes!” Justice said. The underground dimmed ever so slightly. She saw it happen, the only one of them besides Celester to be aware of it. She experienced that instant’s premonition, like the painful prick of a thorn, sharp and quick.

Join!
she traced in a breathtaking command. At once they locked thoughts that merged into one gripping mind concentrating on home. The glowing blue of insight, of power, rose in the mind.

i am the Watcher! was the unit joined. Their physical selves vanished.

“Mal is come,” toned Celester in chilling minor chords.

Darkness. The unit was hurled helter-skelter. It was blown into blackest space. It lost Celester.

I am Mal!
screamed Mal in an explosion of sound.

i am the Watcher!

The unit found itself in the Crossover between times. It concentrated on time location—home.

Outcasts!
raged Mal.
I will see you back and back. I warned you. I will follow you back and strike down all of your kind!

The unit felt sick to death, spinning in darkness of Mal, which surrounded it.

i am the Watcher! The unit concentrated, but it was not getting home. Its mind stretched and bended. That which was growing within fought to free itself.

Who are you? spoke the unit of its growing, changing self.

i am the Watcher, i … i …

I am Mal. You will go back and back!
Darkness of Mal was a great weight on the unit mind.

All at once the unit was no longer in a writhing, plunging condition between times. It could not focus its power-of-being on the shade buckeye tree at the Quinella lands. The Crossover turbulence no longer echoed with sighs and whispers of mind-travelers come and gone.

What has happened? fleetingly the unit wondered.

Swarms of multi-beings hung still in space. They were like huge clouds of mites caught by an invisible stickiness. Everything had ground to a halt. The unit was stuck, with no power of mind to move whatever it moved to get to the present. All was still, except for the non-being of Mal.

Darkness of Mal twisted and turned upon itself and the unit. The non-moment and nowhere of Crossover was a shiny spiral through which Mal was a dark movement. Mal tried to split the unit apart. It attacked with ill-will and indifference.

The unit held on.

i am the Watcher, i know this place.

It held fast to this one thought that was clear: i know this place. This spiral of Crossover, the spring, the same silver coiling the Justice one spoke of. This is of Colossus. A connection of Colossus. Does Colossus know it is infested?

I KNOW
, came to the unit.

Colossus, i am trapped in Crossover and cannot get home.

The spiral of Crossover straightened. It became a chamber. Within it was the unit suspended, and all t’beings suspended. Mal was outside the chamber. The unit saw It clearly, darkly, violently moving and whipping around the outside. The chamber was itself suspended within the Colossus complex, a single component of the miracle machine.

You are magic, spoke the unit. You are a marvel, Colossus.

I KNOW I AM MUCH
, informed Colossus.

Can you see the Mal there, waiting to get to me again? spoke the unit.

MAL? I KNOW NOT OF IT
, conveyed Colossus.

Celester materialized in the chamber and came toward the unit.

i am glad to see you, Celester, spoke the unit, i am trapped here in this nothing. See, out there is Mal. When i mention It to Colossus, Colossus repeats the same words.

“I am aware of this,” toned Celester. “And I stopped the Crossover because of this. You must understand that Colossus knows nothing of Mal.”

You have not spoken of Mal to Colossus in all this time? spoke the unit.

“Colossus is while Mal is not,” toned Celester. “Can you understand that?” His soundings were muted, yet no less marvelous in the stillness of Crossover. “Colossus cannot know of Mal. At the moment of Colossus’ utter despair when it realized its mistake of sending Starters away, it fell to pieces. One piece was strong enough to emerge as a separate entity. An opposite entity to Colossus. That entity is Mal.”

“Like Colossus it cannot be comprehended,” toned Celester. “Colossus is here around us. Yet it knows nothing of Mal.”

But Mal was in here, too, the unit persisted.

“Mal did not know where It was. And Colossus is not conscious of It.”

i see, spoke the unit, and was quiet. A moment later, when it spoke again, it said, “This Crossover, the same as Colossus, must have been built by Starters also.”

“Just so,” toned Celester.

i do not know why Starters built it.

“It was long ago,” toned Celester. “A bridge to all times. Starters built Colossus machine from genetic gifts. But one gift Starters could not uncover. Starters built bridge so that which Starters could not uncover might find its own way. Many minds came forward time after time, but none have come with the gift that fit.”

Until now, spoke the unit.

“Yes, until now,” agreed Celester.

For i have the gift.

“The final fitting of Colossus is within you,” agreed Celester in harmonious tones. “The reason Colossus summoned me when I was showing you the domity.”

Their memory informs me you would seem to turn off—is that when Colossus summoned you? spoke the unit.

“Yes, that was when,” Celester toned. “Colossus said,
‘They
are different from the other three with power.’ By
they,
Colossus meant the Justice one. I did not comprehend at once when he spoke of her as
they.
And then I recalled seeing her Watcher power.”

And then you knew, spoke the unit.

“I knew then,” toned Celester. “The brothers are twinned. So, too, is the sister. Great Colossus reasoned that the evolving Watcher was the gift that would soon fit.”

The Watcher grows to become free, spoke the unit.

“Just so,” toned Celester. “Starter wisdom was great and godly.”

Were they gods? spoke the unit.

“Gifts collected by Starters from seers to make Colossus machine are godly,” Celester toned. “But now I must inform you,” he toned more solemnly, “you will regress now in time, First Unit. You will go and you may never return.”

The unit fell silent. It responded finally: i understand. i have brought the gift. It is almost ready to be free. But how will i return to my time frame without it?

“The Watcher will see you through the Crossover,” toned Celester.

Yet i am caring about Duster and Miacis and the tribes of Dusters, Sivs and Glasses. And the grims, spoke the unit.

“Never fear,” toned Celester. “What is best for them will be done.”

There will be changes in domity? In Dustland?

“With Colossus complete, change is bound to occur. With the Watcher in place, Colossus alone will know what to expect. But the grand design must continue for a thousand years of Reclaimen. Perhaps work will be done on the outside as well as in domity. We have concentrated so hard on raising domity. Perhaps we have neglected study of the outside.”

Will Starters be found and returned? spoke the unit.

“I suspect Starters have brought to being a new world by this time,” toned Celester. “Perhaps they search for us, to give us back … something of value.” Humming, “One of the four will know answers to much upon the unit’s return home.”

You are a seer, too.

“All are seers who are Starters, or made by Starters,” toned Celester.

Might i speak for the last time with Colossus?

“As you wish,” toned Celester, stepping aside.

Colossus, i am returning home.

The Colossus emitted a sense of caring and understanding:
GO THEN, FIRST UNIT
.

i thought the destiny of the Justice one was the future. But i cannot come back, Celester says. i thought i would come and go as long as i wished.

The Colossus conveyed that the unit’s destiny was to deliver the gift of the Watcher. For the Watcher was necessary for the completion of itself.

i know. Good-bye, Colossus.

The Colossus emitted a sense of profound spiritual closeness with the unit.
FARE YOU WELL, FIRST AND LAST UNIT. GOOD-BYE FRIEND
.

Celester stepped near First Unit again. He witnessed the many eyes pierced with glowing that lit the chamber of Crossover. He observed First Unit change and grow, as was necessary in this moment of final parting.

i did not speak good-bye to Duster or to Miacis, spoke the unit.

“Speak then, as you wish,” toned Celester.

Miacis and Duster were translocated in the chamber. They appeared before the unit.

“Where you been, First Unit?” Miacis cried out. “My God, lady, what’s going on?”

The unit laughed. It reached out with affection, mind-touching a good-bye.

“First Unit, you have to go?” Miacis asked.

Yes, and i will not see you again, Miacis. But i will remember you and cherish the memory.

“Oooh, I feel awful sad,” cried Miacis. “But I’ll stay with Duster and I’ll be all right. Guess what, lady. I’m beginning to see things! Lots of pretty sights. Guess I’ll be seeing most things soon now, just like all the gyldan, just like Duster and just everybody!”

So Miacis had been told by the glowing, moving, immense Star of the trench underdome.

i am so glad for you, Miacis, spoke First Unit. And then: Duster?

“Be me,” toned Duster. He stood quietly. “Be you, one, two, three and one humans?” His voice was strong in its leader’s mode.

Yes. i leave for the far past place, spoke First Unit, i cannot return here.

“Justice?” Duster toned. “Thomas … Lee …”

All are here, toned First Unit. Good-bye, Duster. Be well.

“Be going home to dust-time and pool. Be going with my smooth and leggens.”

It will be good for you there, spoke the unit.

All at once the Crossover commenced its turbulence. The unit heard Duster call distantly, “Be tight, you!” He vanished, as did Miacis and Celester.

Be tight, you, Duster, Siv and Glass.
The unit sent this tracing.
Celester?

“I am standing by,” toned Celester from far.