—and someone took his and another took hers and the roaring doubled and tripled and she felt her strength slipping away and through her blurring vision she saw Jeanette free one of her hands from gripping Kate's and reach it out to another hand, the last free hand in the world, and Kate saw them touch, closing the circle—… and suddenly all is peaceful.
Kate's vision blurs as she descends into a deep pool of tranquillity, leaving no ripples, no trail of bubbles as she sinks.
There, says a soft, sexless voice that seems to come from within and without, from nowhere and everywhere. Isn't this better? Isn't this wonderful, the most wonderful feeling you've ever known?
And it is wonderful, a feeling of complete acceptance, of absolute belonging, of soft arms lovingly enfolding her and drawing her to a motherly bosom.
Her vision clears and she sees the others, the eight who've formed the hand-holding circle of which she is now a part.
Is this why Jeanette was sneaking off to the Bronx? she wonders. Is this what she was experiencing when I watched her through the window?
The Everywhere Voice answers. Yes. That was when The One Who Was Jeanette was like you and could experience oneness only by touch. Now that she is of the Unity she is with us always, dwelling within the oneness.
Kate isn't sure she follows that but it doesn't matter. What does is this glorious feeling of peace, of belonging. All the anxieties and uncertainties these past few years about the course of her life and where it will lead her, all the fears about revealing her true self to the children are gone, vanished as if they've never been. She can barely remember them.
Unconditional love and acceptance, simply for being. This is the way all of life should be, all the time.
And it will be.
No, Kate thinks. You've got it wrong. It's human nature to fear what's different.
Human nature can be changed.
Kate is about to laugh at the absurdity of this when a thought strikes her. The Voice reminds her of Jeanette's, but Jeanette's lips haven't moved.
"Who are you?" she says aloud. "Whose voice is this?
It is us, all of us. The Unity.
"Then why do you sound like Jeanette?"
Because that is who you feel most comfortable listening to. But it's not the One Who Was Jeanette. It is all of us.
Kate looks around and sees the eight of them, Jeanette, Holdstock, and the rest, nodding in unison.
Kate senses an alarm bell trying to ring, to warn that this is all wrong, that she should not be conversing with voices in her head. But the cotton-thick ambiance of peace and harmony smothers it, and all that seeps through to her is confusion.
"I don't understand."
We have been united. We are one. We are the Unity. We know each other as no others have known us, even more intimately than we have known ourselves. Every thought—
"You can read each others' minds?"
We are each others' minds. We share every thought, every emotion.
Kate feels a twinge of fear. Is she crazy? Are they?
Don't be afraid.
And now a stab of terror. They know what she's feeling!
You need not fear the Unity. We love you. You are our sister.
"But why me? And how—?"
And then Kate knows.
The virus. The mysterious contaminant in Fielding's cultures.
Yes! It brought us together, repairing the faults in our brains, linking our minds into this glorious Unity.
"And me?" She looks at Jeanette. "I was infected, wasn't I. Why?"
You were following the One Who Was Jeanette, spying on her—
"I was concerned!"
And we sensed that. But we also feared that your loving con-
cern might turn into interference, and since we are at a delicate stage of development, we brought you into the Unity.
"But I wasn't asked! You had no right!"
The niggling alarm sounding within Kate has escalated, clamoring through the swaths of bliss, but still so faintly.
It was never a matter of i/, Kate; merely a matter of when.
"What do you mean?"
We are the future, Kate. You are witnessing the conception of a new day for humanity. This is where the new world will begin—with us, with the nucleus of the Unity. And you will be part of it, Kate—a part of the Cosmic Egg that fuels the Big Bang. As we gather more and more minds to expand the Unity—
"Wait. Gather how?"
Infiltrate their nervous systems, just as we've done with you.
"You're not going to ask them either?"
Of course not. They'd never agree.
"How can you justify—?"
We know what is best, Kate. The Unity is the future. Disconnected intelligences running loose are the past. Now that we exist, they are as relevant as dinosaurs: too prone to conflict, too inefficient.
"We haven't done so bad. Look at the diseases we've conquered. And now that we've mapped the human genome, there's no telling what miracles we can accomplish."
But at such a cost! War, racism, hatred. And no matter what your science can do, it cannot mend the basic flaws in human nature.
"You've got something better?"
Yes! A world where all minds are united, where differences in race and gender no longer matter because all minds are equal."
A vision takes shape before her eyes, a sunny landscape checkered with fields of wheat and corn. And closer in, people working those fields.
A world where hate and suspicion disappear because every thought is known, every lie is exposed.
The vision shifts to a factory where contented workers operate weaving machinery and clothing production lines.
Where no one is a stranger and no one is an outsider because no one is excluded. Because all are one.
And now Kate sees a cluster of buildings, a classic Midwest small town with people walking on the sidewalks and in the streets, dropping off produce and picking up clothing. And though no one's smiling, no one looks unhappy; merely intent, industrious.
The Voice glows with anticipation. Won't that be a wonderful world?
"World? That's not a world. That's a hive."
A long pause as Kate feels her thoughts and feelings being sifted. Then…
We understand. You are not yet far enough along for full integration. But as days pass you will learn, Kate. You will come to appreciate our benefits, just as you will come to accept our inevitability… the Great Inevitability.
Inevitability… she wonders about that. She thinks about Fielding and about the CDC and NIH and feels those thoughts sucked from her mind, like a shucked oyster slurped from its shell.
Yes … Dr. Fielding… we owe him much and yet… he knows so much about us… too much perhaps. We heard what he told you yesterday.
Suddenly she's listening to Fielding's voice repeating his parting words in his office yesterday…
IfVm going to get stuck with the blame for the contaminant, then I might as well take the credit for discovering how to control it. You watch. Before the CDC has even begun to roll, I'll have the solution for you.
Startled, Kate says, "Did you just take that from me?"
We could have, but no… we were there, listening ourselves.
In my head… listening. Kate is too stunned to respond.
You had an opportunity then to help the Unity, Kate. You did not have to insist on Dr. Fielding immediately contacting the Center for Disease Control. We tried to tell you, tried to make you see that bringing in government agencies so soon was not in the Unity's best interest, but you wouldn't listen.