“The Olyix truly believe the God at the End of Time to be real. It will coalesce out of the thoughts of every species left as the universe collapses. Because life is so rare, and so many civilizations are destined to fall long before the end of time, the Olyix see it as their duty to carry every sentient species to the apex of evolution. But the God only needs your thoughts, your personality, not your body. The Olyix have been stealing humans right from the start to experiment on. We were the ones who started the rumor about Kcells making brain transplants possible, because we knew that’s what they’d do—allowing a captured, cored-out body to move among you unseen. But their main focus, the reason they snatched so many people, was to research the best way to sustain a human brain on the pilgrimage. Their technology is far more advanced than they have revealed to you.”
“That’s insane!” Callum protested. “Even if the universe was cyclical, and due to collapse, that won’t happen for billions of years. I don’t care how bloody good your technology is; you can’t keep a brain alive for that long.”
“The Olyix’s journey will not take them billions of years,” Jessika said wearily. “Their enclave is an extremely sophisticated manipulation of space-time; minutes pass inside it, while the millennia flow by outside. It is what makes them so difficult to fight.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Kandara asked. “To get us to join you in some kind of galactic war? A counter-crusade?”
“No, you are on your own. I do not know where the Neána are, or even if they still exist. My people fled the Olyix eons ago; there is no knowing how far they have gone now. I know some part of them remains in this galaxy, for that is where I came from. But we were never given any knowledge of them, in case we were captured. My colleagues and I have discussed this many times. We assumed the logical thing for the Neána would be to leave this galaxy altogether. It may be that they just left automated stations behind, alert for new species so they can send guides like me.”
Kandara looked over at Yuri. “Do you believe her?”
He glanced down at the pale alien flesh inside Feriton’s skull. “I believe they caught Feriton when he was on his spy mission. That means Ainsley was right all along. I don’t know what they’ll do, if they’ll elevate us like Jessika claims, or just nuke us back to the Stone Age. But I accept the Olyix are not our friends.”
Kandara nodded. “I agree—until anything better comes along.” Her targeting laser switched off, and she lowered her arm as the flesh resealed over the weapon. “I’m watching you,” she told Jessika.
If it bothered Jessika, she didn’t show it. “If any of you have received Kcell implants, I would advise you to have them surgically removed immediately,” she said. “They can alter and multiply faster than any tumor; that’s why they were given to you. And the
“Yeah? How?” Alik demanded. “I’d like to see them try. The
“I told you,” Jessika said, “the
“Je-zus fucking wept!” Alik snarled. He turned to confront Yuri. “We have to go. Now! We have to get back to the portal and warn Alpha Defense.”
“We certainly do,” Yuri said.
“How the fuck are you so calm about this?”
Smiling, Yuri took a dark ten-centimeter disk from his pocket and placed it on the floor. “Thread it,” he said loudly.
Callum peered at the disk’s eerily black surface and grinned. “I taught you well.”
Yuri gave him the finger as a slim rectangular portal slid up from the disk.
“You son of a bitch,” Alik grunted.
A wider rectangle was threading out. Callum and Loi deployed the short legs on its back, readying it to thread a full-size portal door. “Old times,” Callum said.
“No,” Jessika told him. “They are over. Forever.”
“Ainsley and Emilja are going to love talking to you,” he told her.
“Good. I have a lot to tell them.”
JIO-FERITON QUINT
THE
The Olyix do not have pain. We eradicated it from our new bodies when we elevated to them at the beginning of our pilgrimage to the End of the Universe.
But our human body, Jio-Feriton, experienced a ferocious spike of pain impulses as the female alien’s axe blade smashed into our skull. We were attuned to human thought routines, enabling our responses and reactions to emulate original Feriton Kayne without arousing suspicion.
The nerve signals from the blade cutting into our strange Jio-Feriton flesh and bone was interpreted correctly. It was