“I’m. straight with that.” She stood less than a meter away from the other. It raised one of its tentacles, manipulating array splayed. It shook it at her urgingly. She raised her own hand and the creature grasped it.
Delia returned the light squeeze with equal gentleness. Its touch felt like warm, animated putty.
“Bleezthed do beed oo,” whispered a soft soprano.
Delia cocked her head for a moment, then smiled and answered. “I am pleased to meet you, too.”
The ghost smiled and let go her hand.
“That is about all they have had time to practice,” the computer whispered. “They spent most of their time modifying the transfer unit.”
Delia looked out the viewing port at Europe. Italy was missing. So was the rest of the Mediterranean. A glacier-crusted mountain range rose in its place.
Something’s wrong with Earth, but just try telling her.
She ran a hand through her hair and smiled. “What next, you overgrown calculator?”
“Nothing. We shall complete the mapping orbits around Earth, pick up the shuttle that carried to the surface a few hardy explorers in anti-gravity suits, then return to the Sphere.”
“Have they met with representatives of Earth?”
“There are none.”
She was silent for a moment. She had not realized that the war had been that bad.
“How about the Belt? Trans-Plutonian orbit? The Oort layer?”
“Delia—” For once, the computer had to pause to search for the right words. “Delia, when Virgil connected the random number generator to the coordinate plotter, he transferred Circus Galacticus to several distant loci. I could not shut down the board because of reprogramming by Jord.”
Jord? she thought. Virgil?
“When we appeared inside a debris belt surrounding the Sphere—the only remnants of the People’s planets after they constructed the shell—micro-explosions damaged the transfer board and I was able to incapacitate Virgil. During those transfers, we had traveled a very great distance.”
“All mankind couldn’t have died! There have got to be human beings somewhere!”
“You are looking at them, Delia.”
“What?” The image of the wraiths before her began to swim, to drift as sinuously as they.
“We transferred over a billion light years. As near as the People and I can determine, they are indeed a race evolved from Earth settlers. One of many, according to them. They are very grateful to me for finding their cradle world.”
She began to smile and cry at the same time. Some of the beings moved toward her, concerned, their hands rising and falling helplessly.
“Then it’s all right,” she said through a sob. “That means we made it out after all. To the stars. to—”
“Did you ever have any doubt, Delia?”
“A billion years!” Some of the People covered their ears. “We’re alone. Where’s. Where’s—His name, his name—you said it once.”
“Virgil?”
“Yes! Virgil! The one I took from DuoLab. The one who saved me from Jord. Jord was. Where’s Virgil?”
Right here.
She whimpered and grabbed at her head. “No God no please no.” She propelled out of the chart room, blinded by tears.
“You killed him,” the computer said.
“No.”
“I leeched the RNA and picotechs out of his body and injected them into you.”
“No.” Yes. “Why?”
“I could predict no certain end to this slaughter in which you three indulged, so I exercised the option of consolidation. And while the picotechs were outside Virgil Baker’s brain, I endeavored to—”
“I’m alone. Alone!” She raced through the corridor, her arms straining to pull her and guide her. She breathed in labored, sobbing gasps. Her head thundered. “A billion years away from anyone!”
“It does not matter. There are new worlds to see, and the People will care for you.”
“As a fossil!” Something roared inside her ears. A kaleidoscope of colors
shimmered at the center of her vision, spreading outward. She no longer felt the handholds, nor the bulkhead against which she slid to a stop.
Alone in blackness, she thought. I am alone.
No.
I hear you, but you’re not part of me.
I am, Dee. You have to learn that as I learned.
Jord?
I am Jord and I am Virgil. After the first day, I was never two separate entities. It was merely an insane battle against the truth. One that kept proving fatal.
I am Delia. Delia Trine. I was born in Denver, February twenty-eighth, Twenty Eighty—
And you are also Virgil and Jord. I am Virgil Delia Baker. I am Delia Jord Trine. I am Jord Delia Kinney. I am you and you are we and we are me and we are all togeth—
No!
Why not, Death Angel? You’ve seen Nightsheet, the ghost of humanity. We shall never die.
You’re still mad!
No, Delia. Mad Wizard is most probably dead by now. Now the rational side of Jord moderates Virgil’s mad side, and Virgil’s gentle nature neutralizes Jord’s violent streak. See? I can talk about them, now. I can see myself from both sides. Now, you’re a third perspective on my consciousness.
It’s all blackness. Can’t you see where we are? Darkness and desolation.
That’s just catatonia. Relax and allow us to merge.
I can’t.
You will...
Delia Diana Trine felt the presence of the other two, as if they were all together in a lightless room. Thoughts and feelings touched her like fingers from the shadows. They caressed her with a lover’s tenderness.
I was born and I was born and I was born.
I meet now, eons late, at the gateway to the Universe.
It stands between me and the door, waiting for a sign. Now I know. I step up and tell it—him, her, whatever its changing aspect is—I tell it that we don’t want each other. That we were never meant to walk through the gate together. That I wanted no field of sleep, no rest eternal. It nods, surrendering so easily I think it must yearn for its own peace.
And I see myselves.
Chapter Sixteen The Infinite Corridor
Delia Virgil Jordan awoke in the medical bay. Everything seemed dim. Thoughts came slowly to her. Sensations felt duller. She drifted among the loose bed straps as in a dream.
Virgil Delia Jordan awoke a short time later. He looked across the room at her and blinked sleepily. His hair flowed in golden cascades around his neck and shoulders down to his waist. His smooth skin was whiter even than Delia Virgil Jordan’s. Her own hair, black and silky, spread weightlessly away from her naked form.
“From here, our consciousnesses will diverge. Even now, with your shifted perspective of five meters, your mind is receiving different information than mine. We aren’t one anymore.” He smiled. I wonder what I’m feeling like inside her now. It’s not you anymore, though.
“How many tries did it take?” she asked, unbuckling and floating away from the bed.
“Only one,” the computer answered. “The People are quite adept at genetic reconstruction. They recovered a suitable cell of Virgil’s from the disposal tank and set it up for cloning, duplicated the picotechs and RNA, and even threw in a few innovations of their own. I transferred eleven-and-a-half light years out and back, so you are the same age. I thought you might appreciate it.”
Virgil Delia Jordan laughed giddily. “So who’s in control?”
I am, of course. We three.
“I would suspect,” the computer said, “that there might be a Virgil-dominant personality in Virgil’s body and a Delia-dominant personality in Delia’s.”
“No,” the pair replied, almost in unison. “I am one.”
He looked at her. “Virgil, Delia, Jord. Three can go into two evenly.”