Ces Ambre leaned forward and touched the Templar womans knee. I apologize for being flippantI know the important role that Raul Endymion played in all of our historybut it was long ago, there was much confusion, and at that time on Vitus-Gray-Balianus B I was a rebellious teenager who wanted to leave my community of the Spectrum and accept the cruciform in some nearby Pax city.
The other three visibly leaned back now. The two faces that were readable registered shock. You wanted to accept that that parasite into your body?
As part of Aeneas Shared Moment, every human everywhere had seenhad knownhad felt the full gestalt of the reality behind the immortality cruciform"a parasitic mass of AI nodes creating a TechnoCore in real space, using the neurons and synapses of each host body in any way it wished, often using it in more creative ways by killing the human host and using the linked neuronic web when it was at its most creativeduring those final seconds of neural dissolution before death. Then the Church would use TechnoCore technology to resurrect the human body with the Core cruciform parasite growing stronger and more networked at each death and resurrection.
Ces Ambre shrugged. It represented immortality at the time. And a chance to get away from our dusty little village and join the real worldthe Pax.
The three Ouster diplomats could only stare.
Ces Ambre raised her hands to her robe and slipped it open enough to show them the base of her throat and the beginning of a scar where the cruciform had been removed by the Aeneans. I was kidnapped to one of the remaining Pax worlds and put under the cruciform for nine years, she said so softly that her voice barely carried to the three diplomats. And most of this time was after Aeneas shared momentafter the absolute revelation of the Cores plan to enslave us with those despicable things.
The True Voice of the Tree Reta Kasteen took Ces Ambres older hand in hers. Yet you refused to become Aenean when you were liberated. You joined what was left of your old culture.
Ces Ambre smiled. There were tears in her eyes, and those eyes suddenly looked much older. Yes. I felt I owed my people thatfor deserting them at the time of crisis. Someone had to carry on the Spectrum Helix culture. We had lost so many in the wars. We lost even more when the Aeneans gave us the option of joining them. It is hard to refuse to become something like a god.
Far Rider made a grunt that sounded like heavy static. This is our greatest fear next to the Destroyer. No one is now alive on the forest ring who experienced the Shared Moment, but the details of itthe glorious insights into empathy and the binding powers of the Void Which Binds, Aeneas knowledge that many of the Aeneans would be able to farcastfreecastanywhere in the universe. Well, the Church of Aenea has grown here until at least a fourth of our population would give up their Ouster or Templar heritage
and become Aenean in a second.
Ces Ambre rubbed her cheek and smiled again. Then its obvious that no Aeneans have visited this system. And you have to remember that Aenea insisted that there be no Church of Aenea, no veneration or beatification or adoration. That was paramount in her thoughts during the Shared Moment.
We know, said Reta Kasteen. But in the absence of choice and knowledge, cultures often turn to religion. And the possibility of an Aenean being aboard with you was one reason we greeted the arrival of your great ship with such enthusiasm and trepidation.
Aeneans do not arrive by spacecraft, Ces Ambre said softly.
The three nodded. When and if the day ever comes, broadcast Far Rider, it will be up to the individual conscience of each Ouster and Templar to decide. As for me, I will always ride the great waves of the solar wind.
Dem Lia and the other three returned.
Weve decided to help, she said. But we must hurry.
There was no way in the universe that Dem Lia or any of the other eight humans or any of the five AIs would risk the Helix in a direct confrontation with the Destroyer or the Harvester or whatever the hell the Ousters wanted to call their nemesis. It was not just by engineering happenstance that the three thousand life-support pods carrying the 684,300 Spectrum Helix pioneers in deep cryogenic sleep were egg-shaped. This culture had all their eggs in one basketliterallyand they were not about to send that basket into battle. Already Basho and several of the other AIs were brooding about the proximity to the oncoming harvesting ship. Space battles could easily be fought across twenty-eight AUs of distancewhile traditional lasers, or lances, or charged particle-beam weapons would take more than a hundred and ninety-six minutes to creep that distanceHegemony, Pax, and Ouster ships had all developed hyperkinetic missiles able to leap into and out of Hawking space. Ships could be destroyed before radar could announce the presence of the incoming missile. Since this harvester crept around its appointed rounds at sublight speed, it seemed unlikely that it would carry C-plus weaponry, but unlikely is a word that has undone the planning and fates of warriors since time immemorial.