The Effectuators were laid out to form a six-armed star, heads together in the centre of the dome. Their attendants ministered to their needs, washed down their bodies, ma.s.saged them, murmured mantras or prayers.

Ghaine crossed to where four Lho sat beneath the crystal convexity of the dome, cross-legged, their folded shanks jutting. He knelt and spoke to the four, and as he did so they turned their heads and stared across at Mirren.

He remained by the sliding door, something about the unfamiliarity, the sheer strangeness of the scene before him, causing him to have second thoughts about the process of communion. There was something so primitive, almost shamanistic, about the tableau, that he was given to doubt any truth espoused by the aliens - then he recalled Bobby, and what the Effectuators had done for him, and he realised that as crude and primitive as the aliens seemed to be, they were in contact with something that had taken humankind millennia, and the advent of technology, to discover.

For so long Mirren had poured scorn on the tenet of the Disciples, considered it the superst.i.tious belief system of weak-minded people, that to give credence to such belief now, when faced with the prospect of his death in the not too distant future, seemed to him an act of contemptible heresy. Which, he thought, was an admission of weakness in himself. Surely, when faced with the truth, he should be strong enough to admit that he was wrong.

Ghaine stood and rejoined Mirren. The other Lho followed him, gathered around Mirren, staring at him with their odd, up-blinking eyes. One or two reached out, touched his silversuit. Another took his hand and examined his fingers. The fourth alien moved around him, and he felt cold fingers probing the base of his skull above his occipital console.

"Do not be alarmed," Ghaine said, in response to Mirren's reaction. "They are merely a.s.sessing your receptivity. Communion is not a process undertaken lightly by anyone involved. It is the most ancient and sacrosanct act known to my people."

Mirren felt the fingers on his skull, but refused to believe that this a.s.sessment a.s.sessment was anything more than meaningless ritual, a superst.i.tious performance that preceded each communion. After a minute the aliens stepped back and spoke to Ghaine in their high, piping voices. was anything more than meaningless ritual, a superst.i.tious performance that preceded each communion. After a minute the aliens stepped back and spoke to Ghaine in their high, piping voices.

They retreated to their former position across the astrodome, sat in a circle and busied themselves in the shadows with implements that Mirren could not make out.

Ghaine said, "They have decided. You may experience communion. They consider it your reward for saving the Lho, and also the honouring of the promise made by Rhan."

Mirren inclined his head. "Please convey my grat.i.tude," he said. "How...?"

"I will explain the process in due course, Mir-ren. You are only the third human to commune. The first, a Major in the Danzig Organisation, was adversely affected by what he experienced. Hunter, on the other hand, was stronger, and though he found what he looked upon terrifying in the extreme, he overcame his fear, as he had to, and the very fact of your presence here today is testimony to that fact, and the culmination of a long process which began many years ago with his communion-"

"Why is it terrifying?" Mirren asked. "What happens?"

"You will see for yourself," Ghaine said. "This way." The alien led Mirren to the centre of the astrodome where the six Effectuators lay head to head, their emaciated bodies describing the spokes of a wheel. Ghaine spoke to the attendants, who re-arranged the crude wooden stretchers. There was now a s.p.a.ce in the arrangement for Mirren.

"Sit down," Ghaine said. "Cross your legs."

Mirren sat as instructed between two rec.u.mbent Effectuators. They seemed to be in a trance, perfectly motionless, eyes closed. Their ancient, l.u.s.treless skin was like weathered bronze.

Ghaine sat before him, cross-legged too, their knees almost touching. "Soon the process will begin," he informed Mirren. "You will drink haar haar, which I am informed tastes vile to humans. This will prepare you mentally for contact. Please do not be disturbed by the strange effects brought about by the drug. You are in safe hands."

Mirren merely nodded, unable to find the words to express the mixture of curiosity, antic.i.p.ation, and apprehension he was feeling.

"For fifteen minutes you will be conscious," Ghaine went on. "Then you will lose consciousness, we will lay you out, and you will commune."

Mirren was aware of activity in other parts of the 'ship, the vibration of elevator pads, pneumatic sighs and clunkings from outside as the Sublime Sublime went through the involved process of pre-flux flight checks. Beyond the hemisphere of the dome, along the length of the 'ship, safety lights flashed. went through the involved process of pre-flux flight checks. Beyond the hemisphere of the dome, along the length of the 'ship, safety lights flashed.

One of the four Lho who had inspected him earlier now approached, bearing a thick stone bowl. He pa.s.sed it to Ghaine, who raised it to his forehead and murmured a litany of near-silent words.

Then he pa.s.sed the bowl to Mirren.

He put his lips to the wide stone rim and tipped the bowl. The thick, white liquid rolled smoothly into his mouth. It tasted, as Ghaine had warned him, vile: at first sweet, and then burnt-bitter in aftertaste - but it was the texture that Mirren found especially unpalatable. It was as thick and cloying as rubber solution, and it slid down his throat in one continuous length that almost made him retch. He closed his eyes and forced down the contents of the bowl.

Ghaine was regarding him, nodding as if in satisfaction. "Good," he said. "Now, relax, empty your mind, wait..."

Mirren tried to do as he was commanded. He was aware that the four Lho, positioned now around the astrodome, were humming deeply within their throats, producing a continuous ba.s.s note.

He stared at his upturned palms in his lap. The haar haar seemed to be having an effect already; he felt relaxed, lethargic, heavy of limb. Then he noticed that its effect was not just physical. He found the act of concentration impossible: he could not follow through a logical course of thought. He stared across the dome to the lights on either side of the sliding door, and wondered what they were, what purpose they served - while he was aware that another part of him knew full well the purpose of the lights, but he could not access this information. He was aware of his time-sense becoming warped. He thought that surely the seemed to be having an effect already; he felt relaxed, lethargic, heavy of limb. Then he noticed that its effect was not just physical. He found the act of concentration impossible: he could not follow through a logical course of thought. He stared across the dome to the lights on either side of the sliding door, and wondered what they were, what purpose they served - while he was aware that another part of him knew full well the purpose of the lights, but he could not access this information. He was aware of his time-sense becoming warped. He thought that surely the Sublime Sublime should have phased-out by now, should almost be home, as surely hours and hours had pa.s.sed while he'd been sitting here, even though Ghaine had told him that he would be conscious for just fifteen minutes... should have phased-out by now, should almost be home, as surely hours and hours had pa.s.sed while he'd been sitting here, even though Ghaine had told him that he would be conscious for just fifteen minutes...

Then his vision blurred. Shapes and colours ran into each other in a diffuse, impressionistic abstraction. His last sense to go was that of touch; he felt hands on him, the floor beneath his body as he was laid out, and then nothing. He was cradled in a comforting limbo, aware only of his own tiny ident.i.ty. He had half expected the process of communion to be similar to that of fluxing - but there was no sudden rush of wonder... it came slowly, gradually, and the wonder, when it arrived, was of a degree far greater than anything he had experienced in flux.

At first there was only darkness. Mirren felt six forces drawing him from the physical prison of his body. He was aware of a deep thrumming somewhere within him, like the lingering resonance of a plucked string. Then this vibration slowly intensified until it seemed that his whole being, his every cell and molecule, was oscillating in harmony with some cosmic tempo - and as the vibration reached such a pitch that he thought he must surely explode with the sheer o.r.g.a.s.mic pleasure of it, he was flooded with a divine rapture, a sensation of overpowering well-being, and the awareness - surely not visual - of brilliant light. There was no way of comparing what he had experienced in flux with what he was going through now: he was aware of being blessed, of achieving something ultimate. The light in which he bathed was not blue, as it was in the nada nada-continuum experienced through the medium of the flux-tank, but a scintillating riot of every colour imaginable - a billion tiny sparks of glowing, fizzing, darting colour that a.s.saulted his mind and filled him with a sense of being accepted, a feeling of union such as he had never known before.

He made out a voice, or a thought, which seemed to emanate from the vastness of the continuum without, and at the same time to manifest itself within his consciousness.

-- Ralph...

He recognised the thought, the cerebral signature.

He responded. He thought: Bobby Bobby.

-- Apprehend the joy, Ralph. The ecstasy. Consider what it must be like for me, who is fully part of the continuum now.

I can't. I can't imagine a joy greater than this.

-- You have that to antic.i.p.ate, Ralph. When you finally leave behind your self, when Ralph Mirren finally succ.u.mbs to Heine's, consider the wonder of what awaits...

Something manifested itself 'before' Mirren then, a spark of golden light, comet-like, brighter than those around it.

Bobby? Mirren thought. Mirren thought.

-- To give your still-human thought processes something on which to focus, Bobby thought at him. -- Consider the light as me, your brother, while I show you the wonder of the realm you call the nada nada-continuum; a misnomer, of course. The continuum is not a realm of nothing, but is full full, bursting with energy and vitality. Come!

Mirren was aware of himself then as a fiery comet very much like that which was now his brother, and he obeyed Bobby and swam, or dived or fell, with him through the vast sea of light and energy.

Bobby maintained a running commentary.

-- The continuum is certainly Sublime, but it is not, despite what the Disciples think, Infinite. It is the size of the physical universe, and expanding with it to fill the emptiness beyond. It is still, nevertheless, vast - far larger than you have the time in this communion to experience.

Mirren, or rather the ball of light that was now his point-of-view, followed the comet that was his brother, dashing in and out of the fiery sparks of his tail.

Where are we going? Mirren asked. Mirren asked.

-- I am taking you beyond what in this realm corresponds to the Rim sector of your galaxy; out beyond the very edge of the 'galaxy' across the interstellar gulf to an area that would be Andromeda in the physical realm.

Even as these concepts formed in Mirren's consciousness, he became aware of a change in the sector through which he was pa.s.sing. Until now, the substance of the continuum had seemed to be made up wholly of the countless points and sparks of light - as closely-packed as grains of sand. But the further they progressed from this sector, the less frequent the points of light became, until they were pa.s.sing through a familiar field of harmonious blue that Mirren recognised as the nada nada-continuum. Only an occasional spark inhabited this area, and these seemed to be in transit, as they were themselves, between one 'galaxy' and the next. As they went, Mirren experienced a diminution of the sense of rapture which hitherto had filled him, and was filled instead by a strange plangent sadness at leaving in his wake so much energy.

The lights, he asked. What are they? What are they?

-- What do you think they are, Ralph?

Mirren thought: Beings who have pa.s.sed on? The life-forces of everyone who has ever existed?

Bobby was a while before answering, as if contemplating his reply. His golden light raced through the cobalt radiance of the continuum. Mirren followed patiently.

-- They are not beings, though I suppose they could be described as life-forces. When one transcends, one begins existence in this realm in much the state you are in now, but one soon leaves this stage and joins with all else, melding with the fundamental fabric of the continuum. These lights, these sparks, however, remain. They are no longer individual beings, but carriers of pure information, experience, history, knowledge, memory; in these particles of energy are contained the history of the universe, and everything that has ever existed as a dynamic, living force within it.

So... the light I am following is not really Bobby?

Mirren felt Bobby's amus.e.m.e.nt. -- No, not as such. I am everywhere, united, one with the continuum; however, the light you follow was me, it still could be said to be me, my essence, my history, experience, memories... it is the essence 'I' access when I wish to join with another essence and experience existence as, say, a sundiver in the far galaxy you know as NGC-5194, or experience the life of an amoeba on Mars... This realm makes possible a universal understanding, permits every essence the ability to access every other essence. It takes time, of course; there are trillions of trillions of essences of everything that has ever existed in the long history of the universe, but the comprehensive understanding of everything is the goal of every essence in this realm. After all, what is the purpose of existence, but the transmission and reception of information, in whatever form that information might take?

It seemed mere seconds since they had departed the crowded energy field. Now, as Mirren followed the light that had been his brother and attempted to absorb what he had been told, the blue expanse through which they were travelling once again became populous - with a scattering of essences at first, then more and more, until the blue radiance disappeared and it seemed that the very medium they were pa.s.sing through consisted of nothing but such essences, vessels, as Bobby had said, of pure information, storehouses of every fact that had ever been.

-- These essences tend to remain in the region of the continuum which corresponds to the sector of s.p.a.ce where they existed in real-time. Thus, the essences you first encountered were those of our galaxy, humans, aliens, animals, plant-life specific to the Milky Way.

-- The essences here, Bobby went on, once lived out their lives in Andromeda. I will now access one, attempt to transmit to you my ability to experience life far away, long ago. Pick a light, Ralph.

Mirren cast about him. That one - the magenta beacon describing a helix around the slowly rising orange light... That one - the magenta beacon describing a helix around the slowly rising orange light...

No sooner had the thought been thought, then the light that was Bobby swooped upon the magenta beacon. Their union produced a small explosion, and then Mirren made out two lights. Bobby's golden comet joined with the pulsing magenta life-force. They spun, embraced in mutual attraction, the helix they described becoming tighter, faster.

-- Come closer, Ralph.

Mirren propelled himself closer to the rotating binaries, felt himself attracted - and in a sudden rush he experienced a dizzying overload of information: he knew, in an instant, what it was to be a one thousand tonne gastropod floating in the methane sea of a vast gas giant orbiting a sun going nova. He experienced the creature's emotions, accessed its memories, understood the complex society in which it functioned; for as long as he maintained the contact, he was was the creature. He could skip through its life, like fast-forwarding a disc, experience its birth, then live through the pain of its death as it was ripped apart by the blast from the exploding sun, and then he was one with the creature's joy as it transcended... the creature. He could skip through its life, like fast-forwarding a disc, experience its birth, then live through the pain of its death as it was ripped apart by the blast from the exploding sun, and then he was one with the creature's joy as it transcended...

Then Bobby parted company with the pulsing magenta beacon and swirled around Mirren. -- Did you feel it, did you experience its pain, and then its rapture as it transcended?

Mirren was hardly able to respond, which was response enough.

-- Come, Bobby commanded, and led the way through the spa.r.s.ely populated region of blue light between the real-time galaxies, towards the ma.s.sed essences that existed in the continuum's a.n.a.logue of their home galaxy.

-- Do you begin to apprehend the magnificence of this ultimate state, Ralph? Can you understand that the concerns and preoccupations of the humans who still exist as such are petty, trivial, beside the vaulting ambitions of the beings we become?

Of course!

-- And yet, Bobby said, something melancholy in his tone, the concerns of the human race are bringing about, albeit unwittingly, the gradual annihilation of this realm. Until now we have existed without threat, free to access and experience the totality of everything everything.

As he followed his brother's golden comet from the barren interstellar gulf towards the teeming pointillism of life-forces, he wondered how humankind might pose any threat to the continuum.

They pa.s.sed through the sector where the sparks of light were as tightly-packed as atoms, and came to a margin where the blue of the underlying continuum could be seen between the dancing life-forces. As they continued, the last of the lights pa.s.sed beyond them, so that soon they were travelling through an expanse of blue radiance even emptier than the last one Mirren had experienced.

Are we going to another galaxy? he asked. he asked.

-- We are still in what corresponds to the Milky Way, Bobby told him. -- In fact, this area corresponds to the Rim of our galaxy.

Ahead, or below, or at any rate in the direction Mirren was moving, he perceived a fading of the blue of the continuum. At the same time, as he flew towards and then into the sky blue field, he became aware of an aura of hostility, a sudden iciness which chilled his essence to its very core. Before him, the comet which was Bobby lost its golden glow and its darting vitality.

-- Look, Bobby thought at last.

Before them, in the distance, Mirren made out a vast area of what could only be described as anti-energy, black and lifeless. It was growing - even as he hovered, observing, the circ.u.mference of the vast amorphous cloud bloated outwards, expanding in great billowing explosions like ink in water, eating up the pale blue of the continuum around it.

-- Come, Bobby commanded, and flew ever closer to the cloud.

Mirren balked, hanging back. He recalled what Ghaine had told him about facing terror, and understood that what was before them was the source of that terror.

-- Follow me, Bobby exhorted. -- Until you have fully experienced what is happening here, you will be unable to appreciate the true wonder and worth of the continuum.

Mirren hurried to his brother's side, so as not to be alone before the relentless approach of the negative force. Side by side they hovered closer to a great rearing, blooming tumour composed of the very absence of everything that made the continuum what it was: light, life, vitality... They hovered like two mayflies before a thunderhead, their very presence taunting the awful immensity of the invader.

On the edge of the continuum, where the black cloud impinged, Mirren perceived what looked like lengths of rope, or roots, leached of colour, lifeless.

-- The fabric of the continuum itself, Bobby explained. -- The matter which absorbs us upon transcendence, which stores our essences and makes us one. It is dead, killed by this force.

From behind them, Mirren saw a dense flight of united life-forces, like a swarm of hornets or a well-drilled squadron of fighter planes: they swooped, dived at the swelling tumour of cloud and vanished within it, causing the cloud to writhe, to momentarily cease its advance. Then it swelled again, moving ever outwards in its insatiable appet.i.te for more energy.

-- They think that by attacking it like this, they might defeat it, but all they succeed in doing is halting its progress for mere seconds, and sacrificing themselves.

A lobe of cloud erupted suddenly, almost swallowing them up. In that second, as they fled to a safe distance, Mirren knew true terror. The very core of his being was shaken as he perceived the heart of the cloud in its essence, looked into it and experienced only a terrible absence.

What is it? he cried at his brother as they retreated. On all sides, the fabric of the continuum squirmed and writhed as the cloud reached and rendered dead all before it. he cried at his brother as they retreated. On all sides, the fabric of the continuum squirmed and writhed as the cloud reached and rendered dead all before it.

-- This is not the only one, Bobby reported. -- Across this sector of the continuum over two thousand of these monstrosities continue to grow, feeding without cessation on the energy of the realm.

But what is it? Mirren screamed. Mirren screamed.

-- It is entropy, Ralph. In time, if it and the others like it are allowed to expand, they will infect the whole continuum. Then, all life as we know it in its higher form will cease to exist. In the physical realm, life will be born, only to face the terrible extinction of absolute death.

-- The continuum, Ralph, exists as an eternal ma.s.s of light and energy, comprised of vital forces that are the transcended essences of every being that has ever lived and died. The continuum is everlasting, a phenomenon that does not know or suffer the ravages wrought in normal s.p.a.ce and time by entropy; the heat death of the universe, the gradual falling apart of the structure of reality.

-- Or, rather, the continuum did not suffer entropy...

But what is causing this? Mirren asked. Mirren asked.

-- The interfaces, Ralph. The continuum did not suffer entropy until the first of the interfaces was opened. You see, knowledge of the nada nada-continuum allowed the scientists working on the interfaces to tap into the vast reserves of energy within the continuum. With this almost limitless supply of power, they annihilated s.p.a.ce between the planets and successfully created the portals through which matter could pa.s.s instantly from one world to the next. When deactivated, the mechanical systems of the interfaces recharged themselves by leaching energy from the continuum: but the process was not just one way, Ralph. From the two thousand-plus separate interfaces around the Expansion, entropy seeps from the universe which humanity inhabits and spreads throughout the nada nada-continuum.

-- You see before you the consequence of the interfaces. This is just one; there are many thousands more, and every further second they exist, they bring annihilation to the continuum. Now do you understand why it is so vital that the interfaces be shut down? You understand why the mission must succeed; to evacuate the Effectuators and their attendants so that the people of the free universe can come to understand the terrible cost of humankind's folly...

As he spoke, a billow of the giant cloud belched towards them, bringing death further into the continuum. Again, a flight of lights made the ultimate sacrifice, bringing about only a temporary cessation of the monster's irrevocable advance.

-- They, the life-forces who give themselves, are manifested as the 'ghosts' which sometimes appear around interface portals in the physical universe, and I suppose 'ghosts' is an appropriate definition of these doomed souls. Come, look, all around us the cloud advances.

He was right. Mirren saw that, like an incoming tide, the cloud had edged around them on every side. They sped back the way they had come, the cloud giving chase as if intent on swallowing them. Mirren surged forward after his brother, aware of the dark cloud closing in. As he struggled to save himself, he felt the energy bleed from him, his vitality strangulated by proximity of the decay which abounded and multiplied. He had looked upon energy everlasting in that sector of the continuum so far uncontaminated - here, by contrast, he experienced the ultimate malignancy of death, or rather non-life, and realised that what was all the more frightening was the fact that it was spreading, insatiable, intent on conquering the realm of light, stopping only when the entirety of the continuum was defeated, a lifeless, moribund, burned-out ash of its former self.

His essence was filled with the terror of total oblivion, such as he had never experienced in his human form, an oblivion that, in its hostility to life was the epitome of all that was diabolical.

He screamed...

... And was still screaming when the encompa.s.sing darkness faded, and he found himself in the restricted confines of his physical form.

He was sitting up, and Ghaine was kneeling before him, grasping his hands. Mirren ceased his shouting, worked to regain his breath. "It... it was-" Words could not describe the horror of the experience, the residual sense of desolation that lingered in him still.

For the first time, Mirren became aware of a distant rumble, a shudder that shook the Sublime Sublime.

Ghaine responded to his alarmed expression. "The militia have been attacking us for the past thirty minutes," he said. "They cannot know precisely where we are, just approximately. They are levelling the mountainside. Many of the Temple's upper chambers have been destroyed, but we are deep within the mountain. With luck-"

"How long have I been under?" Mirren asked.

"Almost two hours."