At Cochrane’s urging, Stephanie and her friends, along with Sinon and Choma, stepped through the opening. The tubular tunnel had smooth walls of clear crystal, with thin green planes bisecting the bulk of the material around it. After a hundred metres it opened out into a broad lenticular cavern a kilometre wide. Here, the long fractures of light beneath their feet glimmered crimson, copper, and azure, intersecting in a continual filigree that melted away into the interior. There was no sign of the fearsome light emitted by the outer shell, yet they could see out. Ketton island was clearly visible behind them, distorted by the compacted facets of crystal.

One of the red sheets of light fissuring the cavern wall began to enlarge, the crystal conducting it withdrawing silently. Cochrane walked out of the opening, grinning wildly. He whooped and rushed over to his friends. Stephanie was crushed in his embrace.

“Man! It is good to see you again, babe.”

“You, too,” she whispered back.

He went round the rest of the group, greeting them exuberantly; even the serjeants got high fives.

“Cochrane, what the hell is this thing?” Moyo asked.

“Don’t you recognize her?” the hippie asked in mock surprise. “This is Tinkerbell, dude. Mind you, she inverted, or something like that, since you saw us last.”

“Inverted?” Sinon asked. He was gazing round the chamber, sharing his sight with the serjeants outside.

“Her physical dimension, yeah. There’s a whole load of real groovy aspects to her which I don’t really dig. I think, if she wants, she can get a lot bigger than this. Cosmic thought, right?”

“But what is she?” Moyo asked impatiently.

“Ah.” Cochrane gestured round uncertainly. “The information has been kinda flowing mostly one way. But she can help us. I think.”

“Tina’s dying,” Stephanie said abruptly. “Can anything be done to heal her?”

Cochrane’s bells tinkled quietly as he shuffled about. “Well sure, man, no need to shout. I’m awake to what’s going down.”

“The smaller crystals are gathering around Tina,” Sinon reported, looking at what he could see through the serjeants tending the invalid. “They appear to be encasing her.”

“Can we talk to this Tinkerbell directly?” Choma asked.

“You may,” a clear directionless female voice said.

“Thank you,” the serjeant said sombrely. “What are you called?”

“I have been named Tinkerbell, in your language.”

Cochrane twisted under the stares directed at him. “What?”

“Very well,” Choma said. “Tinkerbell, we’d like to know what you are, please.”

“The closest analogy would be that I have a personality like an Edenist habitat multiplicity. I have many divisions; I am singular as I am manifold.”

“Are the small crystals outside segments of yourself?”

“No. They are other members of my race. Their physical dynamic is in a different phase from mine, as Cochrane explained.”

“Did Cochrane explain to you how we got here?”

“I assimilated his memories. It has been a long time since I encountered an organic being, but no damage was incurred to his neural structure during the reading procedure.”

“How could you tell?” Rana muttered. Cochrane gave her a thumbs up.

“Then you understand our predicament,” Stephanie said. “Is there a way back to our universe?”

“I can open a gateway back to it for you, yes.”

“Oh God.” She sagged against Moyo, overwhelmed with relief.

“However, I believe you should resolve your conflict first. Before we began our existence in this realm, we were biological. Our race began as yours; a commonality which permits me to appreciate the ethics and jurisprudence that you observe at your current level of evolution. The dominant consciousness has stolen these bodies. That is wrong.”

“So’s the beyond,” McPhee shouted. “You’ll no’ make me go back there without a fight.”

“That will not be necessary,” Tinkerbell said. “I can provide you with several options.”

“You said you used to be biological beings,” Sinon said. “Will we all evolve into your current form in this realm?”

“No. There is no evolution here. We chose to transfer ourselves here a long time ago. This form was specifically engineered to sustain our consciousness in conjunction with the energy pattern which is the soul. We are complete and essentially immortal now.”

“Then we were right,” Moyo said. “This realm is a kind of heaven.”

“Not in the human classical religious sense,” Tinkerbell said. “There are no city kingdoms with divine creatures tending them, nor even levels of ecstasy and awareness for your souls to rise through. In fact, this realm is quite hostile to naked souls. The energy pattern dissipates rapidly. You are capable of dying here.”

“But we wanted a refuge,” McPhee insisted. “That’s what we imagined when we forced the way open to come here.”

“A wish granted in essence if not substance. Had you arrived with an entire planet to live on, then its atmosphere and biosphere would sustain you for thousands of generations; at least as long as it would orbiting a star. This realm is about stability and longevity. That’s why we came here. But we were prepared for our new life. Unfortunately, you came here on a barren lump of rock.”

“You speak of change,” Sinon said. “And you know of souls. Is your kind of existence the answer to our problem? Should our race learn how to transform itself into an entity like you?”

“It is an answer, certainly. Whether you would be ready to sacrifice what you have to achieve our actuality, I would doubt. You are a young species, with a great deal of potential ahead of you. We were not. We were old and stagnant; we still are. The universe of our birth holds no mysteries to us. We know its origin and its destination. That is why we came here. This realm is harmonious to us; it has our tempo. We will wait out our existence here, observing what comes our way. That is our nature. Other races and cultures would take the path to decadence or transcendence. I wonder which you will select when it is your time?”

“I like to think transcendence,” Sinon said. “But as you say, we are a younger, less mature race than you. Dreaming of such a destiny is inevitable for us, I suggest.”

“I concede the point.”

“Can you tell us of a valid answer to the problem of possession we currently face, how we can send our souls safely through the beyond?”

“Unfortunately, the Kiint were correct to tell you such a resolution must come from within.”

“Do all races who have resolved the question of souls apply this kind of moral superiority in their dealings with inferior species?”

“You are not inferior, merely different.”

“Then what are our options?” Stephanie asked.

“You can die,” Tinkerbell said. “I know you have all expressed a wish for that. I can make it happen. I can remove your soul from the body it possesses, which will allow this realm’s nature to take its course. Your host will be restored, and can return to Mortonridge.”

“Not too appealing,” she said shakily. “Anything else?”

“Your soul would be welcome to join me in this vessel. You would become part of my multiplicity.”

“If you can do that, then just give each of us our own vessel.”

“While we are effectively omnipotent within this realm, that ability is beyond us. The instrument which brought us here, and assembled our current vessels, was left behind in your universe long ago. We had no further use for it, so we thought.”

“Can’t you go back?”

“Theoretically, yes. But intent is another thing. And we don’t know if the instrument still exists. Moreover, you would probably be unable to adapt to such a vessel by yourself; our psychology is different.”

“None of those are very attractive,” she said.

“To you,” Choma interjected quickly. “To most of the serjeants, transferring ourselves into a new style of multiplicity is very attractive.”