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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.
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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
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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.
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