Transformation Space - Marianne de Pierres [122]
What is it? she asked Insignia.
A section of the flesh shifted, an eruption of the mass, and something began to unravel. It was longer than anything she’d ever seen, and sinewy.
It reached out for them across space and she felt Insignia’s searing pain as the gigantic stamen caught and burrowed into the biozoon’s ventral.
Insignia!
Mama! Tasy-al is hurting.
Nova. What can we do? The creature has attached itself to us.
They wish to reach the Entity before us.
Mira’s stomach contracted into a tight fist. How do you know of the Entity, Nova? Or what the Saqr intend?
Wanton told me.
You are speaking to Wanton? Now?
Wanton says the Non-Corporeals are trying to extract its essence. Wanton said I should tell you that the Post-Species wish to destroy the Entity, so that they may control their own evolution. They fear a more evolved being than themselves.
Mira thought wildly about the point of change that the device had shown them. The Saqr were not there. Not in the images she and Tekton had seen. ‘Tekton!’
The Godhead didn’t reply, entranced by his immersion in the DSD.
Insignia moaned. Dearest, I am dying.
Wanton! shrieked Mira to her daughter. Wanton must help us, Nova. Help Insignia.
Nova gave a little cry. Wanton.
‘Mira!’ exclaimed Jo-Jo. ‘Nova is … she’s … convulsing. Mira!’
But Mira could see what Nova was doing, in a way that Jo-Jo could not.
Her daughter projected a wave of electromagnetic rebuke that crossed the space between Insignia and the Saqr, and slammed the Post-Species ship.
The shock caused the Saqr to withdraw its stamen from Insignia, and a myriad of other fissures spread across its surface.
Insignia shuddered at the release, but already the Saqr was self-repairing, the cracks disappearing almost as quickly as they’d appeared.
The biozoon strained to gain distance as the Saqr’s maw opened again, this time unfurling countless stamens and sending them snaking across space, hunting them.
Nova repelled the attack with another EM wave, but she was not strong enough to sustain it and as the wave began to diminish, the hungry stamens pursued them again.
Nova! Wanton! Mira screamed with frustration and powerlessness.
‘Mira. Help her!’ Jo-Jo again.
‘Just hold her, Josef. Let her do what she must,’ cried Mira.
Nova sent another wave out, but her strength had gone and the stamens broke through. Yet this time, as they touched Insignia’s skin, the Saqr ship itself began to buckle.
The stamens retracted from Insignia’s ventral, lashing empty space, convulsing like the legs of an intolerably large spider. Then, slowly, they collapsed back into the Saqr’s maw in a tangled, wilted confusion.
The Saqr ship appeared to lose control of its trajectory, an object the size of a small moon whirling out of control.
But as Insignia gained distance from it, the ship ceased its uncontrolled spin and changed course directly towards Leah’s burning intensity.
Nova?
Wanton says goodbye, Mama. And thank you. Her daughter sounded heartbroken.
What has Wanton done?
Wanton said that I should tell you that it does not wish you to lose your ‘poda’, as Wanton did.
Mira watched the Saqr ship’s trajectory. Leah would envelop it soon; there would be no escape. She was overcome with relief and sadness and loss.
As Insignia took them out past Tiesha, she dwelt on those emotions, let them swamp her.
Mira. Do you see it? Do you see it there?
But Mira had felt it before Insignia spoke. Its presence entered her mind like a shaft rammed along her backbone, a painful, stiffening jolt and a sense of invasion. She’d expected to feel fear as well, but the only thing beneath the pain was a sense of utter inevitability.
I am no one. But this no one would tell you that you must stop what you have started, Mira replied. Your device has predicted the destruction of my species. You