“This time I speak for myself,” Melody said in her turn, suddenly appreciating how well the Service of Termination served to ease its participants. “March’s sacrifice was not wasted. Because of the discovery he made, the segment’s highest Kirlian aura was summoned, drafted against her preference to fight for her galaxy. I am that entity, and though the effort may have failed, we believe we came close to repelling the Andromedan takeover. It was worth the effort, and now it is an honorable demise. I thank you all for showing me the nobility that exists in your several species. I was near death anyway; this is a better termination than I would otherwise have had.” And why not accept it, remaining here, instead of going out again in transfer to witness the humiliation of her galaxy?
Their statements complete, they paused for another period of meditation. Then, slowly, guided by a common impulse, they turned inward. Those in Solarian form reached out their arms to touch their neighbors. The men on either side of Slammer touched his surface with their fingers, and it was the same with Llume.
“God of Hosts, be with us yet,” Melody said with feeling. Slowly, in the course of this adventure, she had come to believe in this concept.
“Lest we forget, lest we forget,” the others responded sincerely. Lest we forget our galaxy!
Now Melody projected her aura along the channels provided by the touching bodies. It merged with Llume’s aura, and with Slammer’s magnetism, and as the song had done, it expanded in circuit. The trifling auras of the three Solarian males were magnified beyond anything they could ever have experienced. Like an invisible flame it rose, like the glow of sunrise on a planet, transformed into ethereal radiance, health, joy.
This is nirvana! Melody thought, and felt the agreement of the group. The failings of her body and of her mind faded, replaced by exhilaration, by perfect health and beingness. Nirvana—the final unity of all sentience, in which self did not exist because self had become the universe. It was not bliss so much as fulfillment, that fulfillment that sexual congress only hinted at. It transcended male-female mergence, because it was the mergence of life itself. We are all siblings, she thought, and felt the concurrence of the service.
For a moment that was eternal it remained, this holy unity, this fragmentary vision of identity; then the glow subsided. Melody opened her eyes again, feeling her body and mind healed, and saw the face of the man across from her, shining wet. Then she became aware of her own face, soaked with tears.
Their hands dropped. The service was over.
Melody felt clean.
Then she stood and turned to face the waiting ring of magnets. “I think there is little we can do,” she said. “But we have to try. To what extent are you capable of making this ship function?” She felt no particular emotion; she was satisfied to allow her life to end, now. But as a matter of consistency, it was necessary to explore all available avenues.
Beside her, Slammer hummed. Llume translated: “We can activate magnetically controlled systems and manual systems. These include life-support and weaponry.”
“Let’s go back to the control room and see what we can do,” Melody said, putting a positive face on what she knew remained disaster. They were all doomed, and had accepted that doom. She herself might escape it, but for what purpose, if the galaxy had fallen? Only by saving this ship, it somehow seemed, could she save the galaxy.
Now there was some light from lens-vents in the hull; the slow turn of the ship had brought this side sunside. But even though rotation was greatly reduced, they would be darkside again in due course. And there would be no lenses in the interior levels.
So first they needed light—reliable light. The power remaining in storage had to be conserved for emergency life-support, or they would perish as the quality of air in the ship deteriorated and the temperature changed. Unable to rotate the vessel, they could not get the solar collection system functioning properly; there would be no power renewal. But there were so few breathing entities aboard now that the reserves could be made to last for a long time. A worse problem might be the interior weather caused by the uneven heating and cooling of the hull. Hot air was already beginning to push through to the cold side, making vague howling noises in the distance. A true poltergeist—a noisy ghost. The ship was a haunted tomb.
“There are lamps at the hobby shop,” Llume said. “Antique fossil-fuel devices for novelty parties, cumbersome and inefficient, but self-contained.”
“Excellent,” Melody said. “Will you fetch some for us?”
Llume’s glow disappeared down the hall. Melody watched it fade with mixed emotions. She liked the Andromedan, but still could not afford to trust her completely. If this dead ship should not be the end for them, would they be enemies again?
“We’d better get some emergency supplies, too,” March said. “Food, water.”
“Yes,” Melody agreed. It was amazing how the acceptance of death had stimulated them to handle the little details of life! “I’ll wait here.”
They departed, using oddly gliding steps. Melody was alone with the magnets, who simply hovered in place. She started for a sanitary cubicle; tension and exertion had a certain effect on the Solarian body. But with her first brisk step she sailed into the air so forcefully she banged her head on the ceiling. Without her foot-magnets she’d have to watch her step, literally! She rubbed her hurting human head as she bounded-glided the rest of the way to the cubicle and used it.
Too late she realized that, in the absence of power, the refuse could not be pumped up to the reclamation unit. Well, no help for it. The functions of life continued unremittingly while life endured.
The men returned with packaged supplies, forming a pile on the deck. Llume rolled back with a contraption of metal and transparent glass.
“I recognize that!” Yael exclaimed. “It’s an old-fashioned kerosene mantle lamp! My folks used them all the time.”
Melody gave her rein, and Yael removed what she termed the “chimney”—a glass tube open at both ends —turned up the “wick”—a fiber tube whose top end was barely visible as it projected from the body of the lamp —struck a “match”—a tiny stick of wood with a dab of frictive flammable substance on one end—and touched it to the fuel-soaked wick. When it ignited the whole way round, she turned it to a low circle and replaced the chimney above it. The whole thing was so incredibly complex that Melody wondered how the primitive Solarians had ever managed after the sun subsided.
Yael turned up the flame, slowly—“so as not to crack the glass,” she explained—and abruptly the suspended mantle—an inverted cup of webbing—glowed with a pure white light. The transformation was miraculous; from a flickering yellowish flame had issued a steady, strong, beautiful illumination.
“That’s lovely!” Melody said appreciatively. “This is a Tarot analogy. Solid circular shape like a Disk, liquid fuel, using air to make flame, and from it emanates a brilliant aura. The light seems a thing entirely apart, yet it is dependent on the crude material body.”
But she would have to meditate on the significance of these things another time. Gravity was still declining, and she wanted to get to the control room while she still had weight enough to walk. If she had to, she could use the net to summon help. Now that the ship really was a derelict, why not say so?
But if a rescue craft came, and lifted off the flesh-entities, what of the magnets? Could Melody accept her rescue, knowing she was leaving these loyal allies to slow death?
The men fashioned packs and bags, and the group started the trek toward the officers’ section.
Motion was easy, too easy. They took increasingly long strides despite their loads. When they ascended the ramp to the next inside level, their weight diminished further.