Hé genuinely wants to know.
There is something repulsive about it, something that sickens me in its familiarity. I turn to go, cannot imagine anything good coming from staying.
“Wait.”
Hé doesn’t raise hís voice; hé has no need. Years of being obeyed has resulted in an assumption that obedience will come, and that assumption lends an authority to hím that cannot be replicated by effort or affectation. I hesitate just a moment, then keep striding towards the door, sheer spite keeping me in motion, until hís voice rings out again, stopping me dead.
“Did you actually join Sarifi im-Yyahwa in her rebellion, or were you just standing by? The court documents said you were a traitor, but in the transcript you denied it, and there were so many people swept up in those days, grabbed because the opportunity presented itself. You strike me as the latter – just an angry little nobody, Shineless, who could not handle the betrayal he felt whenhis world came apart. Had thought, perhaps, he had some kind of agency, and never got over the shock of realising he did not. Is that you? Am I right?”
Hé is so curious. It glows upon him, exciting, bright, enthralling. I hate hím for that more than anything else, feel the edges of my reality growing thin, think I can smell electrons, taste the popping of photons against my teeth. Hé should be scared of me, should coil back in dread at theothernessthat creeps into the edge of my soul, at the way the sharp lines of my physicality start to grow a little weak, a little thin. Hé does not. Hé leans forward, leans in, fascinated. Simply fascinated.
“There it is,” hé breathes. “There it is. There’s the ghost of Hasha-to.”
Adjumiri songs – the walking songs of the earth and the sky; the songs of ceremony and binding, of becoming one-who-is-bound, two-who-are-binding; the prophecy songs, sung to the stars, secret and sacred and soon to be lost – they are building new spires in new places but the acoustics aren’t quite right
and I want to rip Theodosius Rhode’s heart out.
Not just because I am curious, or can hear the soft pulsing of its valves within hís chest. Not just because I want to dip my fingers in hís blood and see if I can taste the genetic alterations that keep hím youthful, the pinched-off ends of the telomeres, the reinforced cell walls and nano-bonded cellular nuclei. These things would be fascinating, for a little while, and then I would grow bored.
Rather, I want to kill hím for me.
Just for me.
I am loosely aware that the room is growing darker. I have never had such an effect on my environment before, never been so unstable in the presence of so much light. I could, if I wished, pull back, remember I am human, but in this moment I think I would rather be something obscene. Photons are veering off-course, pulled towards me, into me, my breath starting to puff as the temperature drops. Outside the room people are shouting, reaching perhaps forweapons, but Theodosius just watches, enthralled, still smiling – perhaps the smile is genetically woven into hím too, perhaps I shall eat it, spit out the teeth and see if, like particles beamed one at a time through a slit, they form a grin as they land. By now Rencki would have shot me, called for more light, light, look at him and believe, believe with all your heart that he is human and can be harmed!
Theodosius does not believe that I am human, knows me to be a monster, and is not afraid.
(Gebre would be horrified to see me now.)
(Maybe not. Maybe te would shrug and say: well, none of it’s going to matter anyway, is it, once the stars go out?)
Someone has opened the door behind me, someone is making threatening noises – never a good idea, that – the sound travels as if through water, either shoot me now and believe – oh but do believe – that it’ll have an effect, or get out of the way.
Theodosius Rhode stands.
Walks towards me.
Reaches out with one long, white finger.
Runs it across my chin.
The atoms of my composition are a little frail. I feel hís flesh pass through me, through the vast empty space that is all most of us are most of the time, electromagnetic and nuclear forces tangling with each other in mild indignation. Usually these forces would be enough to keep us apart, repel each other with the illusion of solidarity, but the copy of myself that I am wasn’t wholly accurate in its re-creation, and so, with a little gasp, a little intake of surprise and awe, Theodosius touches me, then pushes hís finger, ever so slightly, into me, into the cold, black hollow of my flesh, hís eyes bright with wonder.
“Incredible,” hé breathes. “Incredible.”
I decide to reach into hís skull too, just to see what it’s like in there, but someone shoots me in the back before I get the chance.
The good news is that the shooter doesn’t know enough toimagine that shooting me won’t have an effect. The bad news is that some of the shot passes straight through me and into Theodosius Rhode’s chest, and together we drop, as the light rushes back to this strange, breathing world.
Chapter 45
In the darkness, in the mad place where voids screamed across the tendrils of Tryphon
I thought I saw a mind.
It was not there because it was chained.
It had not been dragged there kicking and screaming, not had radiation blasted into its skull nor mechanical cables drilled into its brain.
