They formed a link with their deeper matter so that Hod could lead her safely away from the Verge. Without the instruments a spacecraft or a construct like him had, one would assuredly get lost in the absolute dark that surrounded the mystic veil between the planes. So he led her free to healthy, living, natural space, where the beauty of Briah was unhindered, and from there he lengthened the tether until Imogen could fly all on her own. She was beautiful, this maiden made of light, and Hod grew sad to see such a sight as the wake of ohr her body left as she moved.
“You look radiant,” he said.
She shook her head, laughing despite her own taste in humor.
“Do you suppose…” her voice trailed off.
“What?”
“Could we go to a planet? I’d like to know what an atmosphere feels like.”
Hod turned as they traversed and watched her for a moment. He hadn’t considered it before, but it must have felt claustrophobic inside that suit.
“Sure,” he said. “Do you have one in mind?” He had grown to expect her to know things she didn’t know.
She answered with coordinates.
“You don’t know its name?”
She shook her head inside her helmet. “Nobody’s been there.”
“Sounds fun.”
He plotted the course, then went as fast as he could go. But the planet was far, and Imogen was showing signs of temporal fatigue, a quirk of the organics.
“It’ll be a long trip,” he warned her.
“I’ve been thinking about that.”
Hod felt confused. “You’ve been thinking about A.U.s?”
“No. How to move faster.”
“I move as fast as anyone can move.”
“There’s ways of going faster.”
“None of them feasible.”
She was quiet for a moment, and Hod could occasionally hear her grunt from some imperceptible exertion. Then, with no warning, she zipped past him.
Hod didn’t even know what to think. “He called her name, wondering if she was still in communications range. The array built into her helmet was limited at first, but she’d managed to reconstruct it over time. He called to her, but heard no response, so he slowed to a halt and waited.
“How did she do that? Did I ask that out loud? I guess I’ve gotten used to having someone to talk to. Whatever power animated her, it’s amazing. She fabricates solid objects from light, and she seems to either have, or draw from, a near limitless supply. I gotta admit, I feel a little silly calling it ohr. But I think Dr. Yamin would agree with my reverence. It’s no ordinary light. To be able to weave and mold photons into solid matter... Her abilities seem almost acausal. Oh snap! She warped spacetime! How did she... when did she... how could... What IS this girl?!”
He didn’t have to wait long to get some answers. She found him only moments later.
“Why didn’t you keep up?”
“Oh hardy har har.”
“I’m serious. You’re made of light. You can do anything I can do.”
Hod projected a face that shook from left to right.
Imogen laughed. “You know, I wish you always had a face. Not that those aren’t pretty symbols.”
“You prefer I have a face?”
“Yeah. Whenever you make one, I feel better. It seems more like there’s a ‘you’ in the universe than when I just see your name floating around.”
“I’ll make you a deal. You teach me how to warp spacetime and I’ll let you choose my face. You let me pick your name, after all.”
“You’re on.”
“One thing, though. I may not be able to do what you do. I’m holographic. You’re... something else.”
She made a funny face. “You ready for this?”
He projected arms and shrugged.
Her suit unraveled and she wore only the skin-tight underlay. And to Hod’s surprise, she was able to speak.
“What? Imogen, tell me what’s going on. What are you? I think I deserve to know.”
She seemed to slump, and the vac suit formed around her again. “You do. And I wish I could tell you. You’d think I’d remember, given what I can do.”
“Maybe we’ll learn something at this planet we’re going to.”
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“I hope so.”
Hod made a cartoony smile. “Of course you will. Why else would you have those coordinates in your head?”
She smiled but didn’t look hopeful. “We’ll see. But first we gotta get you up to speed.”
So she explained to him in technical terms what she did, and while Hod knew the words she used he could not fathom how she bridged the gap from theory to action, as no material he knew of could have such a direct effect on the fabric of time and space. At least, no science he was aware of had learned to do so. And Imogen, she was not a creature of science. Time and again she left him in her stardust, and after a while their frustrations mounted.
“Let’s take a break,” she said, and they cruised for a hundred hours or more at the fastest speed Hod could manage.
“It seems like to you this planet’s close,” he said when they stopped to observe a supernova.
“If I can teach you to warp, we’ll be there in months instead of decades.”
“Imogen,” guilt and sorrow welled within him.
She turned to face him. “What’s up, buddy?”
“Let’s go ahead and do this now.” He began cycling through faces.
“Aw, come on. Don’t give up so easily.”
“Just pick a face. Please.”
“Allright, all right. That one.”
He paused the instant she spoke. His reflexes seemed a little too quick, as instead of a discernable face, he had instead a series of circles; two where eyes would be, a circle within a circle on the brow, and a solid circle instead of a mouth.
“Wait,” she said, before he had a chance to fix it. “That’s kind of cool, actually.”
“But it’s not a face.”
“It’s unique, though. And it’s something you did, not something you were programmed to do. I like it.”
“Well, I gave you the choice.” He searched through his many functions and found a way to imprint the image over his original Hebrew letters.
“I like it. Okay, next lesson?”
“No.”
“Hod. Buddy...”
“I can’t. It’s beyond what I can do. But it’s okay. You go on without me. I can go back to the Orion Spur and resume my post, and if you want, you can come find me, after you’ve checked out these coordinates. And if you don’t, it’s okay. I’ll be happy that I met you.”
“You idiot. I can carry you the same way you carried me.”
“I thought about that, dummy. But I don’t think I’d survive. Travelling faster than light goes against my very nature. You wear a human skin, but you’re so radiant you don’t understand what it’s like to be all blood and bone. Everything they do is fleshly. They can develop an awareness of spirit, as that aspect of their makeup is housed in their brain. But their body is flesh, and so they need to consume the flesh of plants and animals to survive. And they need to armor themselves or ride in vessels when they move beyond the limits of their flesh, or their bodies will be destroyed. I know I’m horribly oversimplifying this, but do you see my point?”
“Yes. You would need a vehicle to survive travelling faster than light.”
Hod nodded.
“Do you trust me?”
He regarded her briefly, confused as to why she would ask such a question. “With what?”
“If you trust me, I can make it possible for you.”
“Why do I need to trust you?”
“Because you’ll be changed.”
“I trust you. I just can’t figure you out. Why you wear that suit, for example.”
She sighed. Hod knew more by the sudden blast of condensation on the inside of her visor than the soft exhalation of her breath.
“I don’t want you to worry,” she explained, “but I am not forever. Many things are so well within my power that the energy they cost is so negligible it is almost instantly restored. But there are things that only take. That is why I wear this suit.”
“And warping space?”
She nodded.
“What if you found a way to shed your body? Maybe it’s causing the problem.”
“Why would you even think that?”
“Well, it might act as a barrier. When you expel energy, then it can’t come back in?”
“No. I need a vehicle too. And that’s what this body is. I can’t change myself, but I can change you. But I’ll be a little less.”
“So you want me to trust that you won’t over tax yourself?”
“I will. I’m not forever. When my work is done, I will be too.”
“Imogen, what work?”
She began floating closer to him. “The Great Work.”
“I…”
She raised her arms till her hands were on either side of him. The gloves of her vac suit unraveled, and her fingertips glowed hot and bright. He felt the self-emitting, self-perpetuating holographic nucleus that was his heart being pulled apart sub atomically. Somehow, it didn’t hurt.
“You are a miracle, Hod. And we’re much more alike than you think.”
He was surprised to find he could still speak.
“Doctor Yamin and his team were the smartest humans that ever lived. It got the better of them, in the end.”
Her fingers intermittently twitched, causing spikes of heat and brightness. “How so?”
“Well, remember what you said about too much power? That’s what happened to them. It’s too bad, really. If the team that engineered their DNA had done just another test or two, they would have seen the flaw and dialed their IQs down a little. But, they had more processing power than they knew what to do with, and they all went insane from the things they discovered.”
“That is sad. Were they cared for?”
Hod hesitated to reply, partly because he was worried that his matrix was going to shut down from the stress Imogen was causing.
“In a way,” he said at length.
Suddenly he felt relief, and a sensation spreading through his photons like nothing he ever felt. In base terms it was warmth, but a warmth that transcended a mere physical or emotional sensation. He was radiant.
“How…”
She put a finger to his holographic mouth. “I don’t know. I will never know. I just looked at you and I knew what needed to be done. And now that it is done the knowledge is gone.”
The particles of space were no longer materials to be observed. He felt them, understood them, sensed them far in every direction as they rippled along the inner walls of Briah.
“Okay, Imogen. No more questions.” He said this, because sudden knowing was upon him as well. “We need to get to those coordinates so we can build that ship.”