'I...'.

The Doctor moved closer, took Sam's chin in his hands. 'And there's another thing. You keep using this pretension to the first person that really isn't necessary any more. Not for any of you. Is it?'

Suddenly the Doctor's fingers dug into Sam's face. She gasped with pain but did not pull away. The Doctor stepped back. Watched as the wounds his fingers had left in her flesh healed; the skin reforming, the bruises fading from black to healthy perfection in a matter of seconds.

'How much of Sam is left in there?'

Sam stood slowly. She seemed to be a little taller than he remembered. 'I am all Sam. Sam I am. Sam made perfect in the light of my own divinity.'

The Doctor sighed. 'I want to tell you a story.'

He waited. Nothing. He said,'Once upon a time there was an old star. Old, red, dying. Its planets dying too. Any intelligent species born within this star's solar system had long since left. There was a storm coming, you see. A storm called nova. The only life remaining in this system was the shabby remnants of a once technologically proud civilisation eking out a pitiful existence on the bleak tundra that were the inner worlds. That and a handful of creatures so old, all they had left to experience was death.

'And that's how it was... until they arrived. No one knows who they were. No one knows why they picked this solar system in which to incubate their infant. They were as big as worlds. Ent.i.ties whose age was almost immeasurable. Ent.i.ties to whom time itself was a meaningless concept. Perhaps they weren't even from this universe at all. It doesn't matter. What mattered was that they changed things around here. They put their newly conceived infant into the old red star and gave it new life to nurse the infant.

'The result: a new, yellow sun. An impossible sun. A lease of new life running to millions of years.

'There were changes, obviously. New sun, more energy, more stable ecosystems. Evolution started all over again. This time it had two starting points: the decaying tool users... and on an inner world, a world on which radiation and heat from the newly reborn sun had wreaked unimaginable changes... the tool of the user.'

The Doctor waited. Sam was utterly still - perfection personified. She was like a Dresden china doll.

He said, 'It's you, Sam. Microtechnology. Molecule-sized machines. Designed to build, to repair, to renew, to alter things on a molecular level, to remove disease, to repair chromosomes... unimaginable power... trapped in the gravity well of a world close to the sun... close to dysfunction... close to death... and then... the sunchanges . Suddenly there's heat, light, radiation, power. Billions of generations pa.s.s. Evolution takes hold here as elsewhere, life forms itself from the primeval broth. This life has self-awareness. It processes energy. It builds copies of itself. By any definition of the word it is... alive . But it is trapped. Trapped in the gravity well of this dying world. Trapped as the sun swells and grows even hotter, trapped on the world that gave it birth... and which now must surely bring death.

'And then you arrive. Humans. Saketh.

'You bring the possibility of life. Of further evolution to a higher plane.

'It has found G.o.d.

'You are it, Sam.

'It saved all of you to be its G.o.d.'

He waited. Again Sam said nothing, though now there was a kind of distant look in her eyes, as though memories were surfacing there. Thoughts and images no longer her own.

The Doctor said, 'Interesting, isn't it? But this is the really important bit. Like all intelligence, this microtechnology - this microlife - has struggled to attain perfection. But evolution comes at a price. Energy is required. Huge amounts of energy, far more than could ever be produced by mere human bodies... even by planetary outputs. This new life needs more. You know what it needs, don't you, Sam? You know what frightful fiend doth this way tread. Don't you, Sam? '

Sam shivered.'The sun...'

"That's right. Thesun . All the energy you could ever want is right there, if it's released in the right way. Do that and the human hosts will no longer be required. The evolutionary destiny of the life you carry within you will have been achieved. But the cost... Oh, Sam, the terrible cost...' He waited. She seemed to be trying to speak. He uttered the words for her.'You have done what every intelligent creature has ever done. Created a G.o.d, and allowed that G.o.d to be destroyed in your name. The cost of your evolutionary destiny issupernova. The death of every living thing in this system.'

Sam touched her cheek, the spot where the wound inflicted by the Doctor was no longer in evidence.

'Even now, Saketh is reprogramming the gravity stabilisers I designed. But not to protect the worlds for which they were made. Oh no. He learned from Major Smoot. It took me some time to realise his intentions. By then it was too late. I can't stop him, Sam. n.o.body can. He wants to use my force for life as a weapon. A weapon to destabilise the sun. You thought he was a proponent of a Life Cult, didn't you, Sam? You were wrong. All the time you were so, so wrong. But I was wrong too. I let him use you as a weapon against me. Just goes to show you can never ignore your roots. Saketh was born in a death cult and now he'll die in one: he's holding the biggest suicidal sit-in ever. The guest list numbers two hundred billion and attendance is compulsory!'

He waited.

n.o.body said anything.

Distant waves slapped against the beach.

Gulls screeched insanely as, immortal, they dived for fish they no longer needed and could not kill anyway.

Sam touched the silver dish on the table in front of her. The reflection of her finger wrapped around the metallic curve and fell out of sight. She looked up. Perfect eyes. Windows to a perfect soul?

'Do you have G.o.ds, Doctor?'

'Doesn't everyone?'

'What would you do if you ever found them? Would you question them? Doubt them? Allow them to be fallible? Would the frail vessel that is your ego allow you to interact with them at all?'

The Doctor frowned.'I'm not sure I understand your point.'

'Would you distrust them, like you distrusted your parents, your family, your world? Would you leave them? Confront them? Force them to conform to your newly developed philosophical sophistication?' Sam waited. The Doctor said nothing. Sam continued,'After all, people grow. Why shouldn't their G.o.ds grow with them? Should everything be destroyed in childbirth? That is not the way of the universe. If you weren't the orphan you claim you would know this.'

The Doctor said importantly,'What I said was a metaphor .'

Sam said quietly,'What I said was a metaphor too.'

The Doctor opened his mouth to make an indignant reply -then closed it again. He stared at Sam, then a thoughtful expression haunted his face. 'All right.' The Doctor's voice was low, a humble acknowledgement. 'I made an a.s.sumption about Saketh. Maybe I even made a mistake. But, if he's not planning for doomsday, what is he planning for?'

The Doctor found his own reflection in the silver dish -distorted, wrapped around and partially merged with the thin crescent of Sam's reflection.

'All right,' he said.'What if I do nothing? What if I don't "poke my nose into other people's business"? What then?'

Sam sat motionless, unbreathing, her chest still, her skin perfect. 'Possibilities,' she said softly, drawing breath only to utter the word.

'Meaning?'

'Perhaps we'll die.'

'Or?'

'Perhaps we'll live and our G.o.ds will die.'

'Or?'

Sam waited. 'We couldbecome our G.o.ds. Merge. Evolve. Give birth to a new life form. One the universe has never seen before.' She waited. 'It's just a matter of how well we understand what we are doing.'

'And what are you doing?'

Sam bit one perfect lip. The pearl of blood was perfect, and stained perfect teeth. 'What any parent would do for its child. Ensuring our future.'

The Doctor said, so softly that his voice might have been obscured by a single breath if any near had drawn one,'And what if I can't trust you?'

Sam smiled.'But you can.'

'But how do I know that?'

"That statement is the statement of a child. You are no longer a child. You see the possibilities. If you didn't there would be no question to ask.'

'True enough,! suppose.' The Doctor licked his lips.'What if you make a mistake?'

'G.o.ds do not make mistakes.'

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. 'Sam thought she was in telepathic contact with the Hoth. That was a mistake. The Hoth only remember backwards.'

Sam opened her mouth, closed it, said nothing.

Waves lapped.

The gull screeched.

Inside the silver cover, the flutter of wings grew.

The Doctor lifted the cover. The seagull burst upward. The Doctor tilted his face up to follow its movements. When he looked at Sam, she was still watching it rise into the pale, hot sky. 'Tell me your plan.'

Sam said without any preamble, 'We let the aliens bring their foetus to term and then use your devices to stabilise the sun when it goes nova. We use the energy to evolve, and leave the sun as it was when we were born - a red giant. Old, dying, true; but still capable of supporting our G.o.ds for the rest of their lives.'

'And what about Samantha Jones? The body you are in?'

'We are in many billions of bodies'

'I only care about one! '

'That is a lie.'

'Is it?'

'Yes.'

'All right... yes. It's a lie. But I do care about her. Very much. She's my... she's very young.'

Sam said nothing.

'She's myfriend '

'She's ova: G.o.d: 'What if I told you she was insane?'

"The price paid by a G.o.d to become mortal is high. But then that's hardly something you're unused to. Is it?'

The Doctor opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. 'What if -'

Sam put a perfect finger to his lips. "There are no alternatives.'

'But -'

Again Sam silenced him.'Growth. Adulthood. It's all a matter of perception. Understanding. You and I were the same for a while. You have a littie catching up to do, that's all.' She paused, then added, very quietly, "There is only one Truth and that Truth is Endless... and that Truth... is life . Sanity, like immortality, is just the price we have to pay.'

Chapter Ten.

Riding the gravity compensator down towards the solar photosphere, Saketh gazed at the hugely swollen Bel with eyes alternately blinded and all-seeing.

He knew he had only moments to live. He had many regrets. And fears. He was Endless. He wanted to remain that way. He knew he could not. As a man he could want and fear and need. As a G.o.d, he must surrender everything he was for those who worshipped within him.

He spared one glance for the glowing dots of light that were two s.p.a.ce-navy fleets moving rapidly away from him, the madly fluctuating Bel, the new planets even now moving to join as a precursor to the birth of their infant.

Saketh gazed into the molten light of the sun, his face shredding and reforming, his body frozen and molten, all shape and meaning lost, except to those who prayed within.

What would happen to him at the moment of birth?

Would he at last a.s.sume an Endless State?

The proper Endless State?

Did it really matter?

Did anything matter beyond this moment?

Saketh peeled his hands from the frozen metal of the gravity stabiliser. He wanted to see them one last time. One last time before - - the sun swelled suddenly.

Then just as suddenly contracted, sheets of flame darkening to black incandescence, invisible, ghost radiance, a final birthing scream.

His time had run out.

Amused at the ironic contradiction, Saketh laughed as he slammed his frozen, healing hands down across the control panel. He stared up at the sun, wanted to scream, knew the lack of air would prevent it.

Then the shock wave ripped across him and through him and there were no more desires, or wants, or needs or confusion.

Just his Endless State.

A state even Denadi would have accepted.

Denadi lay upon the beach of Belannia Vin and watched the sky rain sheets of fire. Beside him, ten or fifteen thousand others; beyond them, a world. More than a hundred million. All watching the sky. All waiting for their own sacrifice.

Were they all wondering, as he was, whether they would ever know anything again? Maybe today was the day they would all attain their Endless States, whether they wanted to or not.

Was that a good thing?

Who could say what good and evil were any more?