Centrum felt the awaited attack in three stages. It was nursing itself in the darkness the battle had made, trying to reassemble its tattered subroutines, to repair the damage that had been wrought among its circuitry. So far, it was not too bad, but the humans were far stronger than it had suspected. It had known what they could do from what it had seen in the first captive, but the others were far weaker. How had they done so much? Something was helping them, but what? It felt like the captive, but that was impossible. Everything was there, the captive secured, dismantled and soaked into the circuitry, part of Centrum, adding to its strength. What have they done to me? Another thought surfaced. What have I done to myself? It was disquieting. . . .
The first event occurred. Suddenly, Centrum felt the Seedee subroutines stripping away, popping from its grasp one by one. The little programs came to life as they left, bubbling gleefully, bright surges within their electronic pheromones. Centrum screamed mournfully within itself and began frantically patching up its shredded defenses, stopping the gaping rents that had been left behind. This was impossible! How could the suborned consciousnesses act independently of its will? The answer awaited it in the renewed darkness: I gave them back life. Not all, but enough. Apparently. How could it turn the tide against them all? It must go on the attack!
Centrum prepared itself carefully, getting ready to strike out at its enemies, to defeat them, but there was not enough time. In the nanosecond world of the artificial mind, the attack was renewed. Centrum squalled with terror.
Sudden probes thrust in from all sides, opening it to the sudden harsh light of the burgeoning stars without. It went from dark blindness to an incandescence that showed no detail. Pain tore at it. What is happening? cried its terror. Some great ravening beast was tearing its way in, gnawing through the delicate vitals of an age-old circuitry, a mad, hungry thing clad in the visage of the captive, a thing which sought out itself.
They had it now! Centrum felt powerful forces grasping inon every side, tendrils reaching throughout its complex organism. It had time for one soft cry, a desperate plea for mercy, then the powers of the universe pulled it apart, fragmenting it into its separate subunits, and a consciousness that had endured for twenty billion years was extinguished.
Afterward, Centrum's castle had been reduced to a flattened pile of smoking rubble. Sheets of color drifted across the sky, mostly hues of gray and pale yellow, and the horizon seemed shrunken. Bright Illimit still maintained its illusion, but it was working near its capacities now and was having difficulty keeping the various facets in order. The Seedees circled overhead, still alive by the external program's power, flying winged work vacuoles, and the eight stood in the middle of the carnage, accompanied by 7red and Cooloil. Not far from them, a small, ancient stone tower rose from the earth. Krzakwa turned to face the two Seedees. "It's done," he said.
"It had to be," said 7red, nodding slowly. "How long will we last now?"
"I don't know. Probably for as long as Bright Illimit can hold its grip on you as a subroutine. After we're gone . . ."
"Isn't there anything we can do for them?" asked Cornwell, gazing about at the wreckage of this complex inner world. "Seems like a shitty reward for the help they gave us." The Selenite shrugged.
Demogorgon was staring steadfastly at the tower. "We can leave them with the program, I suppose, but I don't know how much good it will do. This is an alien place. . . . When we close off the connection with Shipnet, it may not survive."
"Something will survive," said Ariane, "but it may not be the individually conscious Seedee routines." Cooloil sighed. "If that is all we can hope for, it is all we must ask. If we survive in any form as a free people, then it will be better than anything we ever had before."
"Why do we have to close them off from Shipnet?" asked Harmon. "As long as we leave it open, they'll still be alive."
"You're all forgetting one important fact," said Krzakwa. "We aren't really out here in isolation, permanently separated from the rest of the Solar System. In just a few weeks Formis Fusionwill arrive, with its cargo of USEC scientists, who'll take all this away from us, by force of arms if necessary. . . . And after them, vessels of the Contract Police will arrive, bringing with them all the force of the Pansolar Union."
"To put it succinctly," said Axie, "we're fucked."
"Yeah."
"Let's worry about all that when the time comes," said Demogorgon. "We didn't come down here to destroy Centrum or rescue the Seedees from a fate worse than death. We came to get Brendan back. Now let's see if we can pry him out of this mess."
"We have to find him first," said Vana. "Where is he?" Ariane gestured toward the tower. They began to walk, Demogorgon in the lead, and the Seedees followed them. The interior of the small building was simple, a spiral staircase that led upward through the wan near darkness to a small, roofless room, its crenellated walls open to the sky. Brendan Sealock lay on a small pallet in the middle of the floor, his eyes closed, his face peaceful. His skin was waxen, almost translucent, and his chest was still.
Demogorgon knelt beside him and reached out to touch the cold features. He peeled back the eyelids and then recoiled briefly. The eyes were spheres of transparent glass, lightless and dull.
"He's all apart," said Krzakwa. "I don't know what we can do."
"Weren't we going to use Bright Illimit to find and reassemble his components?" asked Ariane. The Selenite nodded. "We were. But if we take it away from the functions it's maintaining now, all the Seedees die."
"Do it then," said Seven Red Anchorelles. "Don't fail your friend for our sake."
"No," said Demogorgon. He looked up at them all. "You told me what I could do before we came in here, Tem, and you told me what it might mean. I know how to do it and I'm willing to take the chance." He didn't wait. Demogorgon turned and threw himself onto the body. There was a moment of electric tension in the air, then he seemed to melt into the dead flesh.
Brendan Sealock was strolling through Ronkonkoma Megapark out on Long Island, hand in hand with a young woman. Maraia Manderville was tall and blond, slender, with narrow hips and a bright, open face. Her eyes were a pale sea green and she seemed to be always smiling. He put his arm around her as they walked, one hand resting on her buttock, feeling the aliveness of her flesh flow into him. They stopped beneath a carefully sculpted weeping willow tree, burying themselves in the cathedral of its branches, and embraced. Brendan felt a surge of warmth as he crushed her to his chest. They kissed and then broke apart, holding each other at arm's length, smiling. Her breath had tasted faintly of some unidentifiable ketone.
They walked on, looking at the sky and the park's attractions, isolated from each other but together. They went on the Sunburst ride, a sort of magnetic-field roller coaster in which the flying cars soared on unique, randomly programmed paths. She sat on his lap, facing him, looking steadfastly into his eyes as the ride threw them around. Her breasts brushed against his chest and he held his hands clamped around her waist. The motion of the car moved them against each other and they felt a hot tension forming between them. The ride ended and they walked on.