“Naaah,” Oscar told it. “Not me. I’m not quite ready for that yet.”

Inigo gave the Firstlife a thoughtful look.

“No,” Corrie-Lyn entreated. She took his hands and pressed herself against him. “Don’t. I can’t become that, nor can I lose you again.”

“There’s going to be Honious to pay when we get home.”

“I’ll face it with you.”

“All right.” He reached out a hand to Edeard. “And you?”

“I have to see the worlds you gave me a glimpse of. And …” Edeard grinned sheepishly. “And there are many things I would like to do.”

“Anyone else?” Inigo inquired.

“Justine?” Corrie-Lyn said uncertainly.

Justine rubbed the moisture from her eyes. “No. It’s over. Let’s go home.”

The Wall stars now shone with a brilliance equal to the rest of the galaxy, a blue-white collar shackling the Gulf. Inside, the containment shell was almost complete. The bands of dark force produced by the Raiel defenses had merged together. Only a few gaps remained, and they were reducing fast.

Within the dark shell, automated Raiel monitors continued their observation of the Void boundary as they had done for the last million years. It had remained quiescent since the Pilgrimage fleet had passed through.

“It begins,” Qatux whispered.

Paula tried to get a grip on her dazed thoughts. Gore’s dream had left her reeling, delighted and awestruck. For an instant she wanted to be there, standing in Sampalok with the Firstlife, telling the Heart she would join it. Thank you, she told the aching absence in the gaiafield where the Third Dreamer once had been. Despite everything, you deserve to be the first of our species to achieve transcendence. I just hope it’s not too lonely out there.

She drew a deep breath and focused on the display that dominated Qatux’s private chamber. The surface of the Void boundary was changing. A thin ridge rose out of the equator, extending all the way out to the glowing loop. As before, the dying mass of broken stars fell into the event horizon.

“This time it will be different,” Paula promised. “This time it will absorb the energy to power evolution.”

“I feel you are right,” Qatux said.

The entirety of the loop was taken, absorbed below the boundary. The ridge began to retreat. Then the Void itself was shrinking. Gravity, the boundary’s primary enforcer, lessened. The impenetrable cloak that had defeated nature for so long fell away, and the Void lay naked at the core of the galaxy.

“Oh, my,” Paula said in wonder.

The Void reached transcendence.

After it was gone, after normal spacetime reclaimed all it had lost, the vast warships of the warrior Raiel flew in to examine the darkness their great enemy had left behind. Virtually no matter existed in the Gulf now, no radiation, no light. No nebulae.

Right at the center they found a single star shining bright, with a lone H-congruous planet in orbit. And one of their own.

THE RAIEL WARSHIP slipped out into spacetime above Icalanise, dwarfing the High Angel five hundred kilometers away. Qatux and Paula teleported over, materializing in a circular compartment over a hundred meters wide. Like the Raiel quarters on the High Angel, the ceiling was hidden from sight, giving the impression the compartment extended upward forever.

Paula regarded the waiting warrior Raiel with interest. She’d assumed they’d be bigger than Qatux. Instead they were only two-thirds his size, but where his hide was leathery, theirs was made up of hard neutral blue-gray segments. Small lights twinkled under the surface, making her think it was artificial armor. Or perhaps by now it was sequenced in like macrocellular clusters in humans.

Neskia stood between them. Her neck waved fractionally from side to side like a snake rising vertically, its casing of gold rings sliding over one another without revealing any human flesh. The metallic-gray surface shimmer of her skin was subdued. Big round eyes blinked once as Paula appeared. That might have reflected puzzlement; Paula wasn’t sure. She had certainly been startled by the news that the Accelerator agent had surrendered herself to the warrior Raiel without any fuss.

“You were complicit in the establishment of the Sol barrier,” Paula said.

Neskia said nothing.

“I would like the deactivation code now, please.”

“And then what?”

“You will face an inquiry into your actions.”

“By ANA itself. So there’s really not much of an incentive to hand over the code, is there?”

“A memory read is never pleasant.”

“A mild discomfort. But you would never be able to extract the code. I have several self-destruct routines embedded in my biononics.”

“So you are in an invincible position. Congratulations. Curious, then, that you allowed yourself to be intercepted. Your ship has a superb stealth capability, yet you chose not to use it. Why?”

Neskia’s neck became rigidly straight. “I have nowhere to go.”

“She didn’t take you with her.”

“Obviously.”

“But then, ascension to postphysical status through Fusion was never her aim.”

“I am aware of that now.”

“What deal are you looking for?”

“Total immunity. The right to settle on whatever world I select. And I retain ownership of the ship.”

“No to the ship. You are forbidden from taking part in any subversive activity ever again. You will permit removal of all combat-enabled biononics. You will not reinstate them or any further weapons enrichments. You will report any contact by criminal or proscribed organizations to my office immediately.”

“Free political association is the fundamental right of the Greater Commonwealth.”

“Without ANA, the Commonwealth as we know it cannot exist. I fully intend to protect it from extreme ideologues.”

“Will it ban the Accelerators?”

“I suspect those members involved with illegal activities will be suspended. The rest will be free to pursue and continue lobbying for what they believe in. As is their right.”

“Very well. I agree.” Neskia’s u-shadow sent the code to Paula, along with instructions for applying it to a specific coordinate outside the Sol system.

“Thank you,” Paula said. “So you’re pissed at her, then?”

“To put it mildly. I risked everything, devoted my life to the cause, and now I find it never actually existed.”

“What will you do?”

“I will found the real Accelerator faction. I still believe in human evolutionary destiny.”

“Of course you do.”

The Elvin’s Payback sank down out of the low gray clouds that were drizzling steadily across the rumpled verdant countryside. Oscar directed it to land on the grass next to the spinney of gangling rancata trees. He floated down out of the airlock and looked around contentedly. Seeing the raised circular house just as it always was kindled an unexpected bout of homesickness. While he’d been away, he’d thought of it and Jesaral and Dushiku and Anja less and less, so much so that he’d started to believe he didn’t care about any of them anymore. Now he was here, and he didn’t want to leave again.

Wild emotions of surprise and trepidation burst into the gaiafield. Oscar grinned wryly as Jesaral charged down the spiral stairs in the house’s central pillar and ran across the lawn.

“You’re back,” Jesaral yelled. He flung his arms around Oscar and began kissing him with youthful eagerness; rampantly erotic thoughts came percolating out through his gaiamotes. “Oh, Ozzie, I missed you.”

“Good to be home,” Oscar admitted.

Dushiku and Anja hurried up.

“I couldn’t believe it when you showed up in Gore’s dream,” Dushiku murmured as he hugged Oscar tight. “You were in the Void! That was you in Makkathran right at the end.”