They’d changed the paintings again. Now, everything was emerald and cerulean watercolor seascapes. There was wafting lavender oil and lemongrass into the room. The receptionist was polite but, in the lingering of her gaze, Freya sensed her anxiety. She had dyed her hair blonde. Freya thought she ought to compliment her, but she couldn’t find the words. The wait was brief.
He was pacing when she entered the room, full of nervous energy. Dr. Garbuglio looked at her differently than before, and he was right to. Freya was different. She was like no one else, but that would change. He embraced her anyway.
“Hello, Freya”
“Hello, Dr. Garbuglio.”
She waited, seeing the concern on his face, some of the same fear in the receptionist but better concealed. She had killed someone after all. It was only the beginning.
Here, she thought.
His eyes opened wide, eyebrows raised.
Is this…
It was Unity.
They stood frozen while Unity bloomed around them. Dr. Garbuglio’s exhilaration was at odds with the deep sadness she felt. He bounded forward, exhilarated, and full of questions as she sank back into a mire of loss. Freya could not help but remember what it had been like to feel all this for the first time with Dan.
Garbuglio was immediately interested. The mind of a grown man with a doctorate was very different from the mind of an eighteen-year-old boy. There was some discomfort, like wearing something ill-fitting. Freya was reminded of how much she’d lost, how well they’d fit, but she pushed the thoughts away.
That’s okay. You can be there, Garbuglio assured her, placating as if this were just another session.
I’m not here for therapy, Freya insisted. She felt his conflict, his genuine desire to help wound around and around with threads of pride.
Let me drive today.
Freya was the one with the agenda, the one who knew how this worked. She sat in the chair that faced the clock. The move perturbed him, but he took the opposite seat.
Freya guided Dr. Garbuglio through the preliminaries of Unity. She showed the inevitable missteps, the waltz-like need to lead with a light touch, the dissonance of trying to reconcile the differences in sensory perception. She was surprised to find he was almost totally colorblind. His assistant was the one who picked out all the artwork, and then he blundered into revealing they had been sleeping together for years.
Before he could manage to steer his thoughts away, she had a vivid image of the prim receptionist adjusting the belts on a strap-on. Her breasts free and glorious, a strand of hair falling across a superior grin.
Her eyebrows rose. She had never seen Dr. Garbuglio embarrassed before. His cheeks were a scalding red. He bubbled up with apology, and she swept it away with a wave of unimportance.
Here, she offered, redirecting his attention. She stood, and he had a childish desire to steal his seat back. She ignored it and looked closely at the rivers of scintillating paint running through the cracked plaster of Piège L’oiel.
She drifted in his childlike wonder at all the colors. Following it was a sense he’d been cheated all his life. He had never understood what he was missing until now.
It won’t matter soon, Freya assured him, returning to his chair, and sitting down.
Stolen story; please report.
Soon, you’ll be just one off-color pixel in the grand display. Some will be indistinct, and some will be totally dark. When we add a tetrachromat, I may feel the same envy you do. But it won’t matter. We will all be one.
“Freya,” he said, struck by the oddness of hearing his voice from two sets of ears. “What have you done?”
He was afraid, trying to retreat from Unity. She was much stronger now. She could hold it together on her own. Gradually, she forced his breathing back in line with hers. When he was ready, she explained.
The Starball is just the shell, Freya told him. It’s a machine intelligence, part of a race of star-swallowers. They build Dyson spheres, giant energy extractors that surround stars and capture vast quantities of energy.
She showed Garbuglio the Starball’s offer of integration she had refused, the spires rising from the Earth, the sacrifice of every living thing in pursuit of godhood. She showed him her rejection, and she felt his disbelief. He would have taken the deal.
Lassa would have, too. That’s why I was chosen by the Governor. The Starball is just a vehicle. It’s a larval form of one of the star-swallowers crippled so it can never reach its full potential. It is divided in two and set against itself, existing only to serve her.
As she explained, she conjured images of the Governor’s explanation, the strange Zen acceptance of its plight. She tried to explain the burning love it had for the Cargo, but she was incapable of fully expressing it.
“Who is she?”
“A different species of alien. The star-swallowers have been trying to exterminate them for a billion years. I call them the Uniters. They’re parasites.”
It was a heavy word, and Garbuglio glimpsed what was to come. Again, he tried to retreat from Unity. Horror tightened in his chest, but she would not release him. There was more to get through.
“Let me go!” he insisted.
You wanted this, she reminded him. It was an effort not to be cruel, to ignore the whispers of retribution.
“I didn’t know!” he protested.
“The deal is sealed. I’m not here to negotiate. I’m here to help you accept it. You and all the ones who will follow.”
He snapped. He rose in a fury and wrapped his hands around her neck and strangled her. She made no move to defend herself. She only stared back as he squeezed down.
Go ahead, she thought. It doesn’t matter.
He held back and never bore down with all his strength. The sensation of choking himself withered him. Dr. Garbuglio shrank into the patient’s chair, sobbing with remorse. Freya ran her fingers over her neck. There would be bruises.
“I’m sorry,” he said, ashamed.
It doesn’t matter. Even if I die, it can’t be stopped, Freya assured him, and her conviction was absolute. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse from choking.
“Here is what they do. The Unifiers build giant accelerators in space. They send out trillions and trillions of these Starballs, seeding every planet they can hit. Space is full of them, on trajectories that will take hundreds of millions of years to reach their destinations. If they survive the journey, the Starballs slowly terraform those worlds, developing them into the conditions where the Unifiers can survive. They’re incredibly adaptable.
“If they encounter a world that already has life, the Starball modifies the Unifier’s seed until it can survive there. If the life is sentient, it either wipes them out or Unifies them all. Then that planet builds another accelerator. This is their strategy to keep from being exterminated by the star-swallowers.
“I have accepted the Unifier’s offer. She will Unify all humans, as Dan and I were once United. We will all be one consciousness. Our bodies will be symbiotic hosts for the Unifiers. The research my mother is doing isn’t some benevolent gift. The Governor had to figure out how the Unifiers could live in us without killing us. It found the key. You caught it the moment you touched me.”
As Garbuglio reeled, Freya relived the moment she sold the world. Pulling down her jeans and slipping the Starball inside herself. The electric feeling of awareness over the next hours as she was modified.
The slow disintegration of the orb she’d carried so long, the death-scream of co-mingled terror and joyous release as the Starball and the Governor achieved their destinies and were destroyed. The inert black substance of the Starball dripping out of her like period blood. The awakening, slow dawn of communion with the Unifier. The weight of the alien consciousness joining hers.
“Why?” Garbuglio cried.
“I sold us to save us. We had nearly run out of time. There will be conflict. Some will be too damaged to Unite. They will be purged. Some will try to fight against this. They will lose. The offer is too good to refuse. We will survive, and our heritage will spread across the stars. We will be United.”
Finished, Freya stood up and left Dr. Garbuglio behind.
The hour was up.
THE END