I spotted my E on the deck and tried to reach it, but my limbs were out of control, twitching wildly.
"…holos, repeat holos," Sweety said. "These O's are artificial energy images, source unknown. They are projecting vac force! They have the power to affect material objects."
Tell me something I don't know, Sweety! I was on my back flapping my arms, trying to crawl to the nearest wall for some leverage. Gildron stood up. He still had his E.
"Fire, Gildron! Fire!" I was pleased to see I still had my voice. But Gildron did not fire. He just stood there, loosely holding the E at waist level.
Another O paused by the door. Smoke swirled lazily around him. I had lost track of events—I believe there was another O, carrying away the last body, but this one was not carrying anything. An officer, I thought—supervising.
My skin crawled as I focused on his awful head. He wore some kind of chest protector and he was clothed in a dark metallic material. He looked at Gildron.
Willard cried, crawling towards Tara. I can't say I blamed him. Tara twisted her body around, trying to find Gildron.
"Don't fire, Gildron!" she shouted. "Put down the E!"
"Fire, Gildron!" I countered. "Shoot him!"
Gildron dropped the E, deliberately. He stood there like a great stone statue, a mighty man-beast, a great God. The O's hand went up. He gestured towards Gildron. A little star came out of his palm, a hot white sparkling star. It floated lazily towards Gildron, spitting silent sparks, passing right over Tara.
"Look out!" I shouted. "Don't touch it!" Willard screamed and cried, totally hysterical. Gildron stood right in its path, making no attempt to avoid it. The star paused before him, hovering in the air, faintly crackling.
And the O snapped out of existence with a sharp bang. One instant he was there, the next he was gone.
"Omni targets are no longer present within the ship," Sweety reported. The door glowed and smoke hung in the air. The little star hovered before Gildron, blazing away. All was quiet except for Willard's whimpering. He wrapped himself around Tara like a constrictor. I struggled to my feet and recovered my E. I stepped gingerly into the room where we had stashed the dead O's, past the melting doorframe. They were gone—all three of them. I felt good about that—good. I returned to the corridor, still glassy-eyed with shock, and raised my E to target the star.
"Don't you dare!" Tara pounced on me like a bloodcat, forcing the barrel up to the ceiling. "Are you crazy?"
"Are we going to just let it hang there?" I objected. "It could explode!"
"It's not going to explode! I can feel it, from here. It's not going to hurt us. Put the E away, Wester! The fighting is over."
###
"Countdown!" Tara's lovely face shone with excitement. She was activating the drive, trembling with energy and confidence. Gildron was by her side and the little star was hovering right above them. It had her, even then. I knew it was going to transform our lives. I huddled with Willard in a corner of the bridge. I didn't want to go anywhere near the damned thing. Tara had given herself to it, completely. Her visions were a lot grander than mine. All I wanted at that point was to be left alone.
"We would have blown ourselves all to hell, Wester," she said excitedly. "But you were right, about the colors. You were basically right. It's fantastic, what it really is. Fantastic! It burnt a hole in my mind, Wester. It's going to kill me, I know it, but I don't care. I don't care!" She had cried and screamed. Now she was laughing. "Don't you want to know, Wester? I know everything now! You know why the launch was delayed? Why we wound up on the far side of the galaxy? The stardrive is defective, Wester, just as we thought. It doesn't work! Know where they got the D-neg, Wester? Do you want to know?"
"No. I don't. Just get us home, all right?"
"They weren't on their regular drive, Wester. They were on D-neg all right, but for them it was an emergency procedure—an escape. The drive wasn't working, from their point of view. Do you know where they would have gone had the drive been working correctly?"
"No. Another galaxy?"
"No! They would have gone into another universe, Wester. Another universe! That's where they're from, Wester! That's where they got the D-neg! They're visitors from another universe! That's where the O's come from—an alternate universe! Plane Prime, they call it. And our universe is Alternate Two—that's what they call it. They're visiting another universe, here. That's why we were never able to track them, why we never knew where they had come from! That's where they got the D-neg!"
"Deadman." I was stunned. Another universe! D-neg drive was an inter-universe drive! The secrets of creation were ours, right in this ship. Ours—and the Legion's. I saw it all in a flash. The System was doomed. And the Legion would own the future, forever, triumphant and invincible—assuming we could make our way back and hand over the Ship and the star to the Legion. ConFree had been absolutely right—nothing would stop the Legion, with the secrets of the Ship.
"That's right, Gildron, that's right," Tara was saying. "Lord, he knows it better than I do. Energy, discharge, shields, pros on, antis on, hot report…what's the reading? Deadman, it's so easy—so easy!" Gildron's fingers flew over the controls—he knew exactly what he was doing. It was the Star—it was going to change us all.
"It's a gateway, Wester—a wormhole in spacetime, all the way to another universe. The Omega Spiral was just an emergency escape, for the O's. A gateway—think about it! It's always been theoretically possible to break through, to make your own wormhole into another universe, with enough power. But antimat won't do it. With antimat, you only get sucked into another universe if something goes drastically wrong—if another universe is in the vicinity and you don't know it and you power right in. And if you do that, you don't ever get out. It's the D-neg, Wester. It's real—they've done it! Without the D-neg you could never do it, you'd never have sufficient negative pressure. A grain of D-neg to send you on your way to the future. It's a time drive, as well. And we're delivering it, to the Legion! You stay alert, trooper! This ship determines the future of our species. And it goes to the Legion—nobody else! The first ConFree rep sets foot in here, you shoot him dead. Do you hear me, trooper?" Her face was twitching, and her eyes were blazing. Absolutely right—ConFree's analysis was perfectly correct. We were certainly far more dangerous than the System.
"Tenners," I said. I wouldn't mind killing ConFree reps—not at all. I had a few scores to settle with ConFree.
"Are we going home?" Willard asked quietly.
"Yes. We're going home." For the first time, I believed it.
"Why is Cinta angry? Is it angry with us?"
I allowed myself a smile. "No, Willard. She's not angry with you—she loves you."
"We love it," Willard replied. "We love Cinta and Gildron, too."
"Good. That's good." I squeezed him tight. He was a good kid.
"I know so much, Wester," Tara said suddenly. "So much! It's knowledge, Wester—a knowledge star! The secrets of the stars, Wester—it's all there! There's so much, it flashes past, I don't dare go into it, I can't take too much at once. Just a little, just a little taste, and it fills your mind. The O's know so much! Come on over here, Wester—try some!"