John’s eyelids slid open and his terrible vision came back to him. He stared up at the gas giant hanging in the sky of humanity's new home world and sighed. His fingers scrunched through long grass, transplanted from Earth and supported by Life and the other agrarian minded people who had fled the ruined birthplace of mankind.
He started to move but a slender arm pushed him back down firmly.
“Five more minutes love,” Vic whispered into his ear and he relaxed. His gaze travelled down to the new life in her womb. It would be a boy this time and he looked forward to watching their son grow up as humanity forged its own path among the stars. His left hand rose and gently stroked Vic’s hair as she nuzzled into his shoulder. He lay like that, quietly at peace, for a lot more than five minutes.
“It’s time, Vic,” he said softly but firmly and he slipped sideways to escape her embrace. She rose and blinked large moist eyes at him owlishly.
“Well we’ve got to go back to the others for you to say farewell properly,” she said as clothes materialised over her body. Simple jeans and a hoodie, styled to look like antiques from before the system.
“I said my goodbyes last night. I’ll always be watching over them. And you.” Her eyes filled with tears, she scrambled to pull him close again and they kissed gently. A dragon made of blood and gold rose into the sky in the east trailing purple sparks then the mighty beast headed back to his duties, adapting animals to their new world.
“I love you,” he said as his body dissolved into purple lights that gradually faded into the early morning air. Vic fell to her knees and let out great wracking sobs as tears poured from her eyes.
John felt detached as what was left of him dissolved into the bridge. It didn't remove the sense of loss and pain as he said goodbye so abruptly to his wife. He couldn't fight the pull of the bridge any more. As he flowed out into the gap between reality and the Outside he turned to practical matters as there was nothing else he could do and he reached out to trace all the threads of his species. He examined their pasts and their personalities in an instant. The irredeemable ones trapped in the holds of the Warspite joined him, flowing away as sparks of light and causing the prisoners nearby to panic and scream.
The bridge was everything to him now. It was his entire being. One foot in reality and one Outside. He flowed along it, dragging along his mostly unwilling passengers and began to meld into it. Concepts lurking on the Outside brushed close, to him they seemed like whales being seen from an underwater viewing port at an aquarium. There was a sense of kinship with them, now he had stepped into the gap between order and chaos.
It was a struggle at first as what remained of his mind came to terms with his new state of being. It was impossible to tell how long he hung in limbo trying to keep himself human. He felt the Warspite slip out of reality and start to move towards Bob-World, following the same path between the stars the Kiprgtsek had taken when the Carnival set out to go off world. He was confident they would be fine. Bob and Simon both had the power to grant people access to his bridge and the unrestrained power it offered.
The ancient bridge of the gods began to buckle and shift more aggressively, as if it sensed the new capabilities of his own. He stretched out and wound it in threads of himself, pulling it back towards where he needed it to be. Once it was in the right position he extended a filament of intent and slipped it directly into the alien gods little world.
The world of empty doorways and unreflective mirrors appeared around him but this time he wasn’t in his mortal form. Now he was a swarm of purple sparks that buzzed and flitted, forming a cloud of light. Across from him the black and gold clouds floated and he sensed them turn to him.
“I have an offer for you,” he called out, his voice a cacophony of many voices blended into a single tone. The voices of those he'd subsumed to make himself into this thing. Magic's croaking tone was the most dominant. “A truce for a thousand years. I will release your bridge and you will not interfere with my people across that time.”
“Pah, upstart. You should have remained here the first time you visited our world,” snarled the black cloud.
“You are ancient, impossibly so,” John replied. Now he was here as something approaching an equal he could see fragments of their history written in the air between the motes that composed their bodies. A species with two distinct forms, one black and one gold. A rise to technological perfection millions upon millions of years ago. The brutal wars that fuelled their growth until they began dabbling in science that brushed against the Outside. A Concept stolen and trapped in reality by one black being and one gold being, working together despite their people being at constant war with each other.
They had created the first crude System, sharing the strength of the Concept with each other. Eventually they had conquered their world and looked outwards. They stole more Concepts and sacrificed more of their species to reinforce their nascent bridge and then sought more beings to give their system to, in order to feed the pair of godlings and their ever hungry bridge.
“You see the threads,” said Gold, “but you do not understand. Perhaps I could teach you?”
“No thank you. I want time for my people and in exchange I will leave your bridge alone. If I merge with it, and you know I can, it will unwind almost everything you’ve done.”
“You will cease as well if you do something so foolish!” barked Black.
“Hence I offer a truce. Leave my people alone for two thousand of our years and I will step away from here until you once again send your slaves for them.”
“You said one thousand years before!” snapped Gold. “Already you are seeking to change the deal?” John could not smile in this form but he hadn’t been able to resist the opportunity to tease these arrogant assholes. That much of his humanity still remained and he still carried a grudge from when they had almost harvested him after a rat, of all things, had killed him so long ago.
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“One thousand years. Do you agree?” the John-thing replied. The paired clouds buzzed and shivered as they communicated privately.
“One thousand years before you return here. We shall look forward to it, it has been so long since anything truly interesting happened for us,” Gold said softly. John retreated from their god-world and began creating his own. He pulled the bridge back from the black and gold one but not all the way. A few delicate threads remained attached. He would need to find it again in a thousand years, after all. By then he’d be ready: his friends would have joined him and millions of human souls would have made the bridge their eternal home as well.
He drifted on the bridge for an indeterminable time, watching his family and his species take their first steps into the wider universe, before his intent took form and green grasses spread away from him. A pale blue sky lit by a yellow sun appeared above him and his cloud form condensed back into that of a man. Normanby, the town as he remembered it from before the system grew up from the grass and soil. His bare feet brushed through the grass as he set out to give his species something they’d never had before: a place to rest when the battle was done.
***
Five years later
“Why do you sit up here? I don’t even understand why there's a cockpit!” said Jenny.
“Humans like to feel in control. It will be a while before we trust your kind,” Ryn replied as she stared at the Outside through the viewscreen.
“I’m completely integrated into the ship systems. I am literally the engine! You cannot cut me out without killing me, yourself and the rest of your team!” laughed Jenny, the ship’s Concept.
“I said we like to feel in control. The illusion of it is usually enough. How long until we reach the destination?” Ryn replied with a faint smile.
“Did you just ask ‘are we nearly there yet’, Daughter of John?” Jenny asked in a sly tone.
“No I very much didn’t and don’t fucking call me that! The fact Ascension pivoted from calling Dad a saint to calling him a god doesn’t make it true!”
“Except that they are right. He’s building a world for your souls when you die. And then a greater war awaits you," Jenny said softly from the speaker in the console.
“When I see him again we’re going to have some strong words. Mum was not… Evie will be on my side as well. How long till we reintegrate with the materium?” Ryn changed the subject.
“A few more minutes. You might want to join your team?” Jenny sighed. The way the Concepts learned to mimic human physical reactions had made Ryn feel very uncomfortable for a while but now she was used to it and just rolled her eyes at the dissimilation.
She climbed out of the pilots chair and made her way back into the crew quarters. The ship was small, only a couple of hundred metres long, most of which was filled up by the void engines that housed Jenny. The corridor was made of brassy metal with smooth, organic edges. It felt more like a metallic blood vessel than a part of a machine. Almost all of the new exploration ships were built like this but once a Concept was installed they sometimes went for a more mechanical or an even more organic feel and the ship gradually warped to reflect their preferences.
The passage opened out into the crew section. Small cabins lined each side and the central area was a roomy galley and sitting room. Ryn plunked down into one of the comfy chairs and put her chin on her hands, elbows propped on the table.
“Morning!” called Kev from the galley area. “What do you want for breakfast? If it’s a fry up then you’re in luck!” He levitated a frying pan of possible food off to one side and began floating more ingredients into a pot on another hot plate.
“I ate already,” Ryn replied but her stomach rumbled at the smells coming from the cooking that had filled the room and gave away her lie.
“Bullshit,” muttered Bad as he staggered out of his cabin. Andrea came out after him and tossed a robe at him.
“No one else wants to see that, honey,” she called. “Ryn, you should always eat breakfast!”
“Most important meal of the day!” Ryn said in a high pitched, mocking tone. “Fine, fine. I’ll have a plate of whatever the hell it is today please Kev.”
“How long until we’re out of the slipstream?” asked Sally as she joined them from her own cabin.
“We will reintegrate with mainstream reality in thirty seconds,” said Jenny from the wall speaker.
“Bad, can you take over here please?” asked Kev and Bad moved over to begin flipping what Ryn hoped were hashbrowns made from actual potatoes. The ersatz substitutes weren’t always the best.
“Reintegrating now!” Jenny announced in a sing-song voice.
“Let me guess… Another world either already infected or with no sentients?” said Ryn.
“Wait… Jenny, check for emissions. I’m getting tens of millions of sentients. Weird little dudes. Kids would think they’re cute as hell. Little balls of fluff with big eyes and stubby limbs. Maybe early steam age?” said Kev excitedly. Ryn perked up. The endless boredom of scouting unexplored systems had been dragging her down for the last eighteen months.
“Negative tech emissions. No radio or radar. No orbital installations.” Jenny’s voice was infectious, her excitement coming through clearly.
“Any sign of the System?” asked Andrea as she helped herself to something in the pan, earning a slapped wrist from Bad.
“No. Nothing like that at all” said Kev. “Looks like we’ve got a candidate species. boys and girls! Ryn, throw up a portal. First contact protocols are a go! Someone go wake up Armand, we’ll need his shapeshifting expertise.”
Ryn reached out with her senses and found a locus outside the ship that intersected with the voidline they’d travelled down to get here. With a thought she pushed her power out and tore a hole in space-time that reached back to Bob-World. As soon as the portal stabilised swarms of smaller ships poured through with the diplomatic teams that would observe and in short order initiate contact with this new species.
“Good job, guys,” Bob said through Jenny’s speakers. “That’s number two! You know the rules, if they tell us to sod off we leave them to the system so let’s get it bloody right this time. Kev, we’ll need a psych breakdown of the prospective species ASAP. How long?”
“Give me an hour. You’ll need that long to set up the station anyway.”
Ryn expanded her senses. Mental abilities didn’t suit her. The system her dad had cobbled together was flexible. Anyone could, in theory, learn any of the abilities they’d seen under the Black and the Gold, as the Cult called it, but everyone had different inclinations or affinities. She’d never be as good at remote sensing or psychic powers as Kev and while Kev could teleport relatively short distances of a few thousands kilometres he’d never be able to craft a portal.
Despite her lack of aptitude she was able to reach out to the planet a few hundred thousand kilometres away and pull up some visual and auditory impressions, even if she couldn’t probe the alien minds that she could vaguely sense. They were cute to look at and they seemed to work together well. She couldn’t see any signs of warfare as she panned her perception over the day side of the world facing towards them. The lack of fighting spirit might not bode well for them long term...
However this might just be their first successful integration. Humanity had learned a lot from the cock up with the Hawteenians. This time they’d get it right. She settled deeper into her chair and continued to watch the aliens that would hopefully become humanity's first true allies in the universe wide war that awaited them.