Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [48]
Smiling, Rusa'h reached out to the rest of the people of Dzelluria.
Twenty-seven
Cesca Peroni
After the wentals had spread through numerous gas giants and bottled up the enemy hydrogues, Jess and Cesca returned to the primordial water planet of Charybdis. They finally had each other and looked forward to spending time away from the rest of the Spiral Arm. Just themselves.
As the silvery water bubble descended, the skies were grey and cloudy, gorged with living rain. Lightning bolts skittered like patterns traced by the baton of an orchestra conductor, releasing pent-up wental power. As soon as the sphere touched the steely waves, its surface tension vanished and the entire vessel mingled with the rest of the gathered wentals.
Freed and happy, Jess and Cesca swam together in the alien ocean. Countless essences flowed through them, voices echoing the thoughts of the widespread mind of the wentals. It was unlike anything Cesca had experienced in her previous life.
The hydrogues are not destroyed, hut they are finished. We will contain and control them.
Warm rain spattered Cesca's face, running down her skin. 'I still don't understand what the original war was about. Is the conflict resolved?'
Answers bubbled forth, revealing information that neither of them had heard or understood before. We four manifestations - wentals, verdani, faeros, hydrogues--battle to determine the course of the universe, bending space, time, and physical law to set the cosmos on its future course. We decide whether the universe will expand forever, cool off and die… or eventually draw itself together and collapse.
Shall the universe be the abode of life, organization, and growth--or energy, chaos, and dissipation? That fundamental battle is fought from the nucleus of an atom to the largest galactic supercluster. Life fights beside life, chaos beside chaos.
'So if we destroy the beings of chaos - the faeros and hydrogues - we'll win?' Jess asked.
Chaos can only be controlled, whereas life can be destroyed. The stakes are unequal.
'But life can be renewed,' Cesca said.
And that is what saves you. Most of the hydrogues are bound within their gas giants. If the faeros can be similarly contained, then the balance will be struck again. The universe can return to harmony.
Jess and Cesca could move on with their strange, new lives - lives different from what they had ever dreamed. When she had undergone the deep changes in order to save her life, she had known that she was sacrificing all hope of living normally among humans and did not regret it. Cesca had willingly given that up to be with him.
Yet she missed the Roamers.
Later - they did not know the specific passage of time here -the two of them stood together on a water-slick black rock as the waves danced a joyous ballet around them. By sharing emotions and memories, Jess and Cesca had told the watery elementals what they intended to do. This was what their Guiding Star had shown them.
'It's not at all how I imagined our wedding,' Jess said in a gentle voice. 'No gathering of clan leaders, no elegant clothes, no officials - either legal or religious. Are you disappointed?'
Her heart full to overflowing, Cesca gazed into his eyes. 'How can I be?' She would have liked to share this day with Speaker Okiah, who had wanted to preside at Cesca's wedding. But that had been to a different man - Jess's brother. Both Ross Tamblyn and Cesca's subsequent fiance, Reynald of Theroc, had been murdered by the hydrogues. Even then, Jess and Cesca hadn't dared to admit their love for each other to their families. And once the wentals saved Jess's life by transforming him, it had been too late. Cesca gave him a tremulous smile. There were times I didn't think our Guiding Stars would ever bring us together.'
'This time, nothing will stop us.'
Without words, an understanding passed between Jess and Cesca: the wentals would be their witnesses, and no human 'official' had more power to bind them to each other than what they themselves possessed.
Moisture-laden clouds