She had put everything into what She was trying to project, but it was not enough. Although the white light still filled the Bridge, the figure failed to re-form out of it, and the beams were still reaching for Her. Eventually She gave up, and routed power back to Her drives and flickerfields. Her stern drives stuttered and refired and She began moving through the Gulf at thirty percent—Kaang matched Her speed and course—and Her fields redeployed. Cyr continued firing, but Her fields held firm now. The white light drained from the Bridge. So did the figure which had tried to form.
Stalemate again.
The Bridge returned to its normal subdued lighting. The screen displayed the latest analyses of what She had attempted, but they added nothing new. What had entered the Bridge—Entered The Bridge, Foord read aloud, in outrage—was an electromagnetic signal which acquired physical substance. It was unreadable. Almost certainly, announced Smithson sonorously and unnecessarily, another example of Her superior use of MT physics.
“And that’s it?”
“Of course not,” Smithson snapped. “Commander, whatever She wanted to say to us, She still wants to say it. She endangered Herself to say it. She won’t give up.”
“And how will She not give up?”
“She didn’t have enough power to put that thing on the Bridge and fight our beams. So…”
“So She’ll find more power. And you know where She’ll find it, don’t you?”
Unusually, Smithson said nothing.
“You’re always right,” Foord told him, almost as an aside while motioning Thahl to divert power back to their signal-blocking, “but you’re not always right at the right time. Thahl! That figure will be back again, and this time it will…”
The crater in Her midsection started to glow, not with the cold white light but with the unnameable colour, the colour which hid inside the normal spectrum. In whatever universe it came from it might be familiar and everyday, perhaps the colour of sky or grass. In this one it was many words, all beginning with Un.
There was an explosion in the midsection crater. She rolled with it, presenting Her undamaged underside and starboard and dorsal surfaces, and then, as She completed the roll, Her port side again with the midsection crater facing them. Headups crowded the Bridge screen, telling them what they expected and could already see. The midsection crater was two percent larger but exactly the same shape, lit with the colour which burnt steadily and patiently inside it.
Perhaps it was only another millionth of what She had taken into Herself—including their five simulations, and their spiders and hull-plates, as well as pieces of Her—but She was consuming it, and turning it into power which partly fed Her flickerfields, partly Her drives, but mostly this projection of white light into the Bridge which, this time, trampled down their defences and solidified into the figure standing in front of them. Not a simulation in silver and grey but a real figure, with real flesh tones, blinking in the light of the Bridge as it looked round at each of them, its breath frosting in front of its face like theirs.
•
Aaron Foord stood in the middle of the Bridge, blinking. He was about thirteen, dark-eyed and quiet. He wore the orphanage uniform, a white shirt and dark blue trousers. He felt cold.
He looked at Foord.
“Are you what I became?”
“Are you what I grew out of?”
Aaron Foord again gazed round at the others, and stopped at Cyr. “You’re a bit old to be wearing that,” he said, “but it looks good on you. You’re really beautiful.”
He turned back to Foord, and asked “Who are these people with you?”
“Weren’t you told, before you were sent here?”
“No.”
“They’re like me,” Foord said.
“The ones who sent me, the ones in that ship over there…”
“We call it Faith. Or Her.”
“…seem to know you.”
“What do they look like?”
“They wouldn’t let me remember.… You don’t know anything about them, do you?”
“No.”
“Later you will.”
“I must admit,” Foord said, “you’re even more convincing than the figures in the crater. But you’re still made by Her.”
“What do you mean, figures in the crater? I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re not me. You’re not even yourself. She made you, you’re a simulation of me when I was younger.”
“What did you mean, figures in the crater?”
“How do you think you got here from the orphanage? Why do you think you’re here?”
“I don’t know. They wouldn’t let me remember.”
“You’re not me. You’re not even yourself. She made you, and when you’ve spoken to me, and said whatever She told you to, She’ll unmake you. Your life exists only between being made and unmade, and it’s short and pointless.”
“And you’re not me. How much do you remember about me?”
“I remember nothing about you because you’ve only just been made and soon you’ll be unmade. About me, I remember.”
“No you don’t. Maybe that’s why I’m here, to tell you what you’ve forgotten.”
(“Ghost of Christmas Past,” Cyr whispered.)
“Ah,” Foord said. “This is it. We’ve been circling around it, but you’re right, this is why you’re here. To tell me how I went into the orphanage and turned away from people and made my life tight and tidy and made myself unreachable and became Commander of a ship full of loners and outsiders like me, and I’m the loneliest and furthest outside of all of them. Because all the other circles of Hell get hotter and hotter, but the final circle is cold and quiet and sterile, like me. Is that what She sent you here to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re done. She’ll take you away from here and unmake you. Your life has been short and pointless.”
“Cold and quiet and sterile…”
“What?”
“Cold. Quiet. Sterile. If you’re what I became, it has been short and pointless.”
Foord did not reply.
The next time Aaron Foord spoke, it was to someone else.
“I want you to take me away from here, please. I want you to unmake me.”
Foord began “I shouldn’t…”
Aaron Foord’s figure stood there, but Aaron Foord was gone from inside it. Something moved across its surface: a swirl of silver, from its head down to its feet, washing away his features and colours and shape.
“I shouldn’t…” Foord tried again. “I shouldn’t have said that to him. But he...”
“He’s gone, Commander,” Thahl said. “Let it go.” He reached out to put a hand on Foord’s shoulder. They both drew back; he had not retracted his claws.
“I’m sorry,” they both said, each for several different reasons.
The figure remained in the middle of the Bridge, blank and unmoving. It changed its shape and posture, growing slimmer, and standing at an awkward angle. Features pushed out from inside it, reached its surface, and stabilised. Colours and flesh tones followed. It had a new inhabitant.
•
Susanna Cyr stood in the middle of the Bridge. She did not blink, and as for feeling cold, she always felt cold. She was over ninety. She looked round at them one by one, until she found Cyr.
“Are you what I grew out of?”
“Are you what I became?” Cyr answered.
“Yes, exactly right, this is what you became. Look at it.”