Up the Walls of the World

Chapter 26

In the heart of power, amid the gathering energies, the configuration that had been a human woman fights for understanding. Action that was hers and not-hers has occurred; aligned with her but still closed to her a great will functions. A perception has opened, meaning has come into the universe carrying with it a huge imperative which she shares but does not comprehend.

She could flow with it, allow it to unroll into whatever grand and somehow sad dimension it is destined. Almost she yields. But a spark at the core of her demands enlightenment.

On TOTAL’S small screen words show:

/ / SUBPROGRAM*COMPLETE/ /

Define subprogram, she commands it.

/ / LIFE*IS*PRESERVED/ /

Yes; That was what she felt when she reached out to the world crying in the fires of the exploding star. And life has come here, to the spaces beyond her stronghold. She can detect its hum, an intricate small vividness like a Brownian dance of particles. It is no longer threatening or displeasing to her; instead she feels an undefined large satisfaction. She is no longer merely a single vulnerability to be impinged on; she is impregnable, part of a hugeness whose proper function has wrought this. That life is nearby is, she feels, correct.

And something else: A sense of life’s preciousness that her human mind never knew seems to have pervaded her. Perhaps it has come to her from the vast entity whose perceptions she shares. Coupled with it is a sense of mission. A vague benevolent thought of carrying this life to some proper discharge-point brushes her mind. Is this what she should do next?

No. Something has intervened. Another reality has intruded into the cloudy centers so close to hers, bringing an overriding command. The Task, she thinks. I must follow, I must search. The words seem to call her to the limitless void. But her still-human part resists: Not without understanding. Display overall program.

At this command the screen expands out to images of exploding holocausts, of arrays of supernal entities deployed in cosmic combat against cosmic fires. But these visions dwindle to one recurrent image: a fleet of dark beings, their work done, closes ranks and speeds out and away, vanishing to a point in ultimate darkness. The immensity around them holds only a few faint smudges of light, unknown galaxies seen from very far. Urgency floods her. My race—she must follow and find them though it take forever.

I MUST FOLLOW—I MUST SEARCH— She can feel the great will taking hold. Outside her fortress, energy-levels are changing, ebbing. Preparation is being made for the plunge out into the void, for an endlessness in which time has no meaning. She can feel the pull, the inevitability. Even her mortal part feels the sad seduction; the fatalism that lurks under human will almost betrays her to the imperative.

But—to exist forever among nothing, sensing nothing; all gone, the beauty of the stars and the hum of life? To become only a blind eternal quest in emptiness? Deep inside her a thirteen-year-old child wakes and screams, seeing the descent of a great knife cutting her forever from all life and light. No! No! Help me! Stop it!

But there is no help here. The part of her that is almost merged with unhuman power broods unmoving.

HELP ME! The child wails.

And slowly, in answer, help does come: the cool mind of Margaret Omali, computer programmer, awakens again. To that mind even the most powerful programs are the phenomena of circuitry. It senses that the immaterial will gathering strength around her is in some sense a program. And programs can be changed, canceled. This program is senseless, should be nulled.

She summons TOTAL, defines exit sequences and all-inclusive holds, probing at half-sensed massive complexities. When all is ready, her fingers go to a key and she wills a strong command.

Return to operator. Cancel Program TASK.

But to her dismay the key blurs, melts away under her touch, while on TOTAL’S screen the gigantic letters resume their march-by.

I MUST FOLLOW—I MUST SEARCH—

She has demanded too much, she sees. The small sentience has no such powers here. The child sees the knife come closer, screams desperately. In the shadows her other self is sad and still against the stars, accepting fatality.

But in the mind of Margaret Omali there rises suddenly a tearing anger, the deep unadmitted rage that has lain by her heart and given her the strange power of her will. She has still one weapon left.

TOTAL. Display program address.

And that the small thing appears able to do. Onto the screen comes a shadowy multidimensional glimmer, vectors of directionality or code. She studies it with raging intensity: there access lies, there is the address of this mad program!

All in one mental blow she sends her imaginary hands out, batters with her will against the invisible film that separates her from the cloudy imperatives around her. The barrier yields, gives—and she seizes—something. Her fury is so great that she does not bring the impression clear, but only knows that she got hold of vitals, whether a power input or the ganglia of a living brain. Whatever she can feel the current of energy within, the program carrying her forever to the void. With a vague fierce image of pulling open a great switch, or tearing loose a neural circuit, she grasps with both dream-hands, focussing all her unleashed power, and convulses in a great jerk that will yank it open.

Cancel! Kill it!

But the thing does not give, she collapses forward against barriers, still holding tight to the great alien nexus.

Again she tries, sending all her life into her phantom grip; image of a woman outlined in fire, streaming sparks.

But her power is not enough. Again she fails, falls athwart the implacable thing, feeling the program flow steadily on. She has in her hands the means of control, but all the strength of her life is not sufficient to open the connection and kill the circuit.

More, the child wails. Help, more life!

The mind that had been Margaret Omali’s considers, still holding fast to the immovable power’s heart. Could she gain help by opening her stronghold, by letting the life outside in to aid her while it still has energy? She is sure TOTAL can do that, as it brought her here.

But no. The face of her other self turns away coldly in the shadows. This cannot be. She will have no more of the hot closeness of life even if it means an eternity of emptiness— So be it. Out there she can sense now the quieting-down, the deactivation progressing. It is almost too late. The child sobs unassuaged. So close, she was so close to success and salvation.

It is then that the strange call comes. Faintly from outside she hears her name.

Distraught, she puzzles; it is not Ted, she has forgotten him. It is someone else, someone gentle who… Slowly she remembers a kindness that had eased her pain and told her of stars. Now it is offering help.

Without letting go on the great nerve or switch, she frames the circuits to the outside and lets the child in her reply.

Yes, it is he, Daniel Dann. She doesn’t wonder how he has got here, only remembers a grey voice saying “I’ll never do anything you don’t want.” Here is one life she might bear to let close enough to help her, if she is not to be carried to eternity in the void.

For a moment she struggles mentally. The face in the shadows frowns. But outside she can feel life dimming and slowing inexorably. The child pleads. Slowly, that which was Margaret Omali makes up her mind. To this small, precise extent she will rejoin the humanity that had harmed her so.

She orders TOTAL to shape the access by which this single life can come in.

She waits, feeling his frightened presence making its way to her. As it nears, the ghost of her painful life stirs again, and almost she wills the channel to close. But the pain is too faint now; it is all right. She waits, gripping her hold.

Visionary reality is strong here. Presently she sees his upper body emerge as if from a tunnel, grey hair disordered, face strained with fright. In his eyes is the same deep offer of help. He seems to “see” her as well; his phantom hands go at once to hers as if to help her pull. But he has no power over matter; it is his living strength she needs to draw on.

Before she can manage to explain, in the thrumming, energy-filled chamber, her desperate need comes plain. The child has flung herself against his breast and she feels, feels the inflowing of his life-strength to hers.

Her grip tightens on the nexus of real power, her fingers strengthen, and the great busbar or nerve yields minutely. But it is not enough. More! More! the child cries recklessly.

Her desperate cry is echoed. She understands that he has some real connection with outside. And in an instant more help does come, a tumultuous surge of living energies rushes up into her so that she rides a crest of brief violent power. The strain on her dream-fingers is all but mortal. Now! Pull now!

She pulls.

With a silent jolt like a tremendous arc of great circuits violently broken, the thing in her dream-hands yields, crashes emptily open and vanishes. Around her the last imperative of the great Task is stilled forever.

In total disorientation Margaret Omali collapses or fragments backward through or onto Dann, knowing she has done it. Everything has changed. She has power here now. But she is at last truly and inextricably merged with the vast entity in which they ride.

Dann, she finds, is still here, or part of him, being hugged by the child. Through him she can sense the commotion outside, as human and alien entities reel backward in disorder. And more: All over the great space outside, the power is rising again, the hum of life stirring again to be as it was before.

But one thing has not changed. As the living energies within the nucleus come slowly to a new organization, the figure against the stars is still there. Presently it half-turns; its carven lips no longer sad but only grave. A voice of silence speaks:

I WILL FIND A NEW TASK. PERHAPS… IN TIME… I WILL TAKE COUNSEL WITH LIFE.