But not much, Renie thought weakly. !Xabbu's hand was holding hers and she was glad of it.
They . . . sense you. The voice came from nowhere, but it was as disturbingly flat as the Klement-thing's. They wait. They wish to be free.
"Demons," cried Nandi in outrage. "You have created demons, Sellars, and now we are to bargain with them?" He turned and whispered something to Bonnie Mae Simpkins, whose eyes were closed and whose lips were moving in what Renie supposed was prayer.
They . . . the next ones . . . wish to be free, the bodiless voice said again. Now that we have brought them what they needed. They understand that they must go as the First People went.
"The First People?" Renie felt !Xabbu stiffen beside her. "Isn't that out of your stories. . . ?" she asked him.
The All-Devourer has gone, droned the weird Nemesis voice, but this is not their place anymore. They wish to go, taking the stories that have given them . . . understanding. Like Grandfather Mantis and Rock Rabbit, like their child Rainbow and his wife Porcupine, they will go on to another place. This is not their place anymore.
"What a thing," !Xabbu said in quiet amazement. "What a thing this is."
"But there is no place for them to go," Sellars pointed out wearily. "They might become a threat to us, even if they do not intend that or even understand it. We cannot release them into the net."
No, the voice said solemnly. Not to the . . . net. Out. They will go . . . out. On the sky-river. The sky-river-of-light. They feel it. It is in your control. Let them go.
"They're talking about your stories," Renie said breathlessly, still agog. "Your stories, !Xabbu! How did they learn them?"
He looked stunned, but something else was at work, too, something in his features that Renie could not read. She took his hand again.
Nemesis turned toward her and !Xabbu. Yes. Your explanations were heard. Before, the next ones did not know why they were, what they . . . meant. Then Nemesis Two heard you speak of Rainbow's shoe-piece and all was understood. We told the next ones of you and your explanation and they wished to know more. The operating system gave them your knowledge of what is and what is meant to be. Now they know. Now they can live.
"What are they talking about, this river of light?" Florimel demanded of Sellars. "The blue river, that's part of the network. You already said they can't be trusted to stay on the network."
"Not just river of light," Martine said. "Sky-river-of-light, it said." She turned to the man in the wheelchair. "You know what that is."
Sellars looked at her, his eyes suddenly wide. "The cesium lasers—the boosted databeams to the Other's satellite. One end is still operating, even though the J Corporation tower and the satellite are gone." He was suddenly excited. "They can ride the laser, of course they can—they're just data, after all!"
"To what?" asked Kunohara. "Out into cold space forever, into death? That is no solution."
"They won't die," Sellars said. "They're information. As long as the light travels, they'll be there. If they intersect some useful medium—a magnetic field, perhaps, even crystalline structures in an asteroid—they'll have a home. And if the light travels long enough and they continue to evolve, they may be able to propagate themselves in some way we can't even imagine!"
"You seem to think this solves everything," Nandi said. "But it does not. These things have no right to be. They flout God's will."
"Could be right, him," T4b added, but not in the firmest of voices. "Maybe God only wants people that wear clothes, seen? People with bodies, like."
Nandi ignored T4b's dubious support. "I will fight you, Sellars. You have no right. . . ."
He was stopped by Bonnie Mae Simpkins' hand on his arm. "Can we be so sure?" she asked.
"Sure? What do you mean?"
"That we know God's will." She looked at the others, then at the glowing figure. "If I had met this thing back on Earth, I'd have been sure I'd seen an angel. . . ."
"It is no angel!" Nandi said indignantly.
"I know. But I'm just showing how far beyond me this is. Beyond any of us. How can folks like us know what God intends?" She spread her hand as if to catch the glowing, pulsating light. "Maybe we're not here to stop this, but to see God's work and marvel!"
"You cannot believe that." Nandi pulled his arm away.
"I can . . . and I can also believe what you say, Nandi. And that's the problem. It's too darn big." She looked around, her face solemn. "All this . . . how can we judge? We came to this place to save the children. But aren't these children, too? Maybe . . . maybe God means these creatures . . . these children . . . to be our children. All of ours. Do we know His will so well? Do we have the right to kill them?" She made a funny little noise, a gasp, a sob. "Even if he didn't know it, my Terence gave his life to save them. And I think . . . I think he would have been proud of that."
To Renie's astonishment, the Simpkins woman was crying. The lights were blurring, blurring. For a moment, she thought the birth was already happening, until she realized that the woman's tears had called up her own.
"I say let them go." Bonnie Mae Simpkins was struggling to get out her words. "I say let them go . . . and Godspeed."
They can wait no longer, the Nemesis voice said, something almost like tension in the inhuman tones. Will you set them free?
"Can you even make it happen?" Orlando asked Sellars. There was a yearning sound in his voice that Renie did not quite understand.
"I can." Sellars' eyes were distant, distracted; he was already at work. "The laser array on Jongleur's end was destroyed, but the Telemorphix end is still functioning—and with the new operating system in place, the uplink isn't being used for anything. it's just pointed out at where the Other's satellite was."
"Must we still vote?" asked Kunohara. He looked around eagerly. "Who would destroy these wonderful things?"
For a long moment nobody spoke. Nandi Paradivash looked at Bonnie Mae, his expression grief-stricken, strange. He turned to T4b. "Will you desert me now, too?"
Javier Rogers could not meet his eye. "But . . . but maybe she's right," he said quietly. "Maybe they're really children, them." He turned to look at the glowing cells and his thin face was splashed with light. "Youth pastor used to say, 'Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God.' Doesn't sound like killing them, seen?"
Nandi made a quiet noise of despair and turned his back.
"Do it," urged Orlando. "They have as much right as I do—more, maybe."
Sellars lowered his head and closed his eyes.
The Nemesis creature stirred. It is time, it said. We will go with them. We have . . . changed. And the glowing triune body disappeared.
"Tell them we send our blessing with you all!" shouted Bonnie Mae Simpkins.
The light flared, became deeper, stronger. The individual cells on the walls abruptly dissolved into a cloud of radiance, diffuse but shot with sparkling points of fire. Renie could make no sense of it—there were colors she felt she had never seen before.