Part 2 of the Mentality Duology.

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
Throughout the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
-- Thomas Osbert Mordaunt (1730 - 1809).

"I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it." -- Mary Wortley Montagu.

Book 1.

Chapter 1.

Kevin Vengeance decided if there was one constant or law in a universe of turmoil and chaos that a person shouldn't screw with it would have to be the roles of predator and prey, the hunter and the hunted.

Throughout history, the survival of a species had been of dominant importance. Naturally to rule everything there first had to be life, the survival of an intelligent species, often at the expense of another.

Sometimes their extinction was part of the infamous Chain of Life that all species found instinctual, a part of their evolution. Others had been slaughtered when perceived as a threat, or had been hunted and killed for sport, both unworthy explanations for genocide.

Then there was the bloody savagery of war, probably the biggest deciding factor in the evolution of a species. Humanity had supposedly come well past all that now, graduated from its violent infancy, like the departed alien species before it. Supposedly.

Throughout the galaxy in all its forms - the physical and the spiritual, and the indescribable when inside lightspeed - many relics and artefacts had been discovered, numerous items catalogued and explored that had once belonged to alien civilisations. Now housed inside Evangeline starstation civilian sectors, these mostly private collections were marveled at by only those who owned them.

Voyages to distant worlds produced little more than the discovery of yet more ruins decimated by time or by the species themselves. Many of these civilisations appeared to have been destroyed by their wars.

Those civilisations surviving their wars had ruled for millennia prior to Humanity, or at least according to retrieved and decoded recording devices, before advancing to the stage where they were all but immortal and travelled on to the darkness between galaxies, leaving theirs behind uninhabited for the next generation of evolved life. It was Humanity's time to populate the Milky Way Galaxy. With their wars behind them, it should have been a time of great prosperity.

But was greatness so easily reached? Conflict was never very far away, it seemed. Humanity had achieved nothing remarkable, in fact most of their technology had been 'inherited' from other races. Transcendence was quite distant.

Humanity's final evolutionary stage was assumed to be Homo Sapien. But it was clear that with the creation of the Mentalities, beings mentally and physically - at least in the ways they could interact with the outside world - superior to H. Sapien were suddenly alive. Whether this was true evolution no one knew. No one really cared.

It was ludicrous to assume that containing beings such as the Mentalities was possible. They existed as pure thought and experience, after all. But Humanity had attempted this. And had failed.

The Earther-Colonist War was one of the longest and fiercest wars, but even it paled in comparison to the sheer malice the Mentalities unleashed.

Billions were assumed to have been killed as entire worlds were overrun during the engagements. Mentality reactions were superior to Human ones and they annihilated their unprepared opposition.

Skirmishes crossed all boundaries, relying on anticipation rather than skill. A Human survivor of as little as five combats was an ace, eight a veteran. Life expectancy was not long.

For half a century the war raged. During Vengeance's time, humanity lost its homeworld and greatest leaders in the initial wave of fighting and had been on the defensive for the better part of those ensuing fifty years.

The rebellious Mentalities were… efficient to say the least; they knew exactly how to strike and did so without mercy. They seemed to value success more than life itself, it was their driving force, and very few times were they defeated.

Predator and Prey.

Vengeance's mind returned to that thought again. For so long Earth had been a place where man had dominated and ruled, but now he had been challenged by his own. Humanity was capable of error, but the Mentalities were not. Now Humanity was the prey, roaming the galaxy in Evangelines, looking for places to hide while planning retaliatory strafing attacks and high risk hit-and-fade operations. For the first time in its history, Humanity was close to complete extinction.

Kevin Vengeance often thought of such matters when he was in the Waiting Period. This allowed him to sleep, but also gave him the ability to think and plan rather than to dream. His mind was a constantly flowing stream of knowledge and memory, reflected by the darkness around him.

Unsurprisingly, he thought of battle most often here. The ten Evangeline starstations carried the remains of Humanity through the stars. The majority fled far from danger while some remained and avenged the slaughter of countless billions.

The Mentalities were as powerful as Gods. He spent his Waiting Period devising strategies to fight their awesome brilliance.

Vengeance felt prodding at the back of his mind; someone was awaiting communication with him in the Outside. He hoped it was important; he didn't like being disturbed.

Reciting a short phrase to wake himself, he became aware a few moments later, things seemed unfamiliar to him at first, but that was nothing unusual, a mild side-effect of leaving Waiting.

He blinked to adjust to the harsh green light shed by the eyes overhead, then reached up to the networkface in his forehead and removed the Waitsleep circuit.

The sleep field he lay on parted as he pulled himself to an upright position and glanced around his empty living quarters.

"I'm awake. What is it?"

(You asked to be notified when contact with other ships was made,) the yacht told him.

Nodding as he made his way to a desk, he deposited the Waitsleep circuit inside a holding. "What's the ship type?"

(Unknown. It's still a considerable distance from us, but should be in range shortly. If I had to offer a guess based on available data, I'd say an old shuttle.) Hope blossomed inside him. "Okay, I'll get to the cockpit. Try to get some details for me," he said as he dressed in a hurry.

(Of course,) the yacht said. (I'd also like to make a request.) Halfway to the door, Vengeance stopped. "Go on."

(I'd like to be exercised after this. I've done nothing for quite a while and I'm becoming… restless.) The male yacht was the Evangeline starstation Homeward Bound's juvenile offspring and was at the maturation stage where it grew to fulfill its development. Exercise was important at this stage, as it was with a Human child. Vengeance said with a smile, "I'll see if I can arrange something, but only if this is successful."

(Noted. And thank you.) Vengeance moved to the door.

As the yacht was designed to breathe and filter oxygen the atmosphere was comfortable for a human. The yacht was living, though perhaps not overly intelligent, with tissue, muscles, internal organs and blood. Gravity was present inside its body but the complex hybrid of steels and metals incorporated into the Evangeline offspring's body formed a kind of second artificial skeleton which had to be avoided - except at the access points, or if they were actual command interfaces. Otherwise it would cause the yacht great pain, which would inevitably reflect itself on them.

Half a lifetime of experience had given Vengeance the ability to move fluently inside the alien. He knew the yacht's every secret, mainly because he'd had a major part in its genetic design, and was accustomed to the relatively slow movement even though it annoyed him.

He was accustomed to everything - except the rancid stench.

Body odour can be easily enough rectified with a circuit to make the smell sweet, but human perspiration cannot compare with the palpable sense of rot of the alien's insides; the combination of food, waste, blood, the stomach's excreted mucus and the natural internal smell created a highly offensive odour. The yacht could not control the smell, so there was no point in complaining; it was just another inconvenience to put up with, one amongst many.

Vengeance made his way to the cockpit - which was built around the yacht's brain, allowing control of its functions and experiences -, doing his best to ignore the illuminating eyes implanted in the organics above him. They swivelled to watch him, the only lighting fixtures anywhere inside the yacht.

The yacht's controls were minimal but were accessible through touch as well as networkface linking (for direct data connection). He took a seat and a console formed around him as it sensed his presence.

Tessa Lovejoy was sitting opposite with her back to him, immersed in her own living console, its implanted controls wrapped around her. "You're prompt as usual," she said without looking at him. "Just in time for the show. The yacht's transmitted its findings."

"You've already seen them, I take it?" he asked.

She nodded. "A few moments ago."

"Thoughts?"

Now she swivelled to face him, the console fluctuating to stay with her.

"Have a look yourself, I'm not your damn interpreter."

"I will, but I like opinions first; they give me something to base my own thoughts on."

Tessa smiled thinly and played with a curl of blond hair. "You just don't want to say something wrong, or something others will disagree with," she said with a challenging gleam in her eye.

He returned her smile. "Diplomacy is a commander's imperative," he said.

"So humour me, please."

"Fine. It looks derelict to me. It may have once been a ship, but the design is archaic. It's intact, though, if a little degraded."

"Hmm, sounds like what we've been looking for."

"Yeah, possibly," she agreed, but not completely convinced.

Vengeance swiftly flipped through the console, accessing recorded optical files. A screen materialised before him, displaying what the yacht's enhanced vision had seen only moment's before; this was a direct link to the yacht's exterior eyes, so the screen was outlined in various shades of green because that was the only colour the creature saw.

Colour was replaced instead with identifiable areas of brightness and vibrancy, different taints of green washing together. One dominant portion was pale and rippled slightly with invisible colour; this was lightspeed represented by the yacht's understanding. Inside this was a darker speck flicking in and out of focus, like a faint star trapped impossibly within the realm.

Vengeance worked quickly to magnify the picture and soon the speck bloomed to full, glorious shape across the screen. A long and equally narrow structure was being pulled along by lightspeed's deadly tides. Angular, sleek and compact it was roomy enough for a single occupant, he imagined.

An amalgamation of an irregular object and of more typical designs, it almost had short wings extending from one side of the craft to the other.

Despite the impressiveness it was visibly badly damaged. It did look like the whole structure as Tessa had suggested, though in its current state of disrepair it was almost impossible to tell.

"Looks promising," he said, still studying his screen. "We've had a number of false alarms before, so I'm not going to get too excited over it. But it's worth a look."

Tessa nodded confirmation. "I think this has a feel to it the others lacked, but I can't quite describe it."

"We're scavengers out here, we've been forced to develop other senses to survive. I get the same inclination whenever we're near something we can use or need."

"Perhaps." She shrugged without real feeling. "Perhaps not. It gives me the creeps. I don't know if I want to understand it."

A slight smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "Fair enough," he said.

"Yacht, set course for the object, maximum speed."

(Course already set, speed acknowledged. We'll reach it in approximately two hours. Docking will begin when within point two kliks,) the yacht said.

"Good." He unclasped himself from his console and waited.

"A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew." -- Herb Caen.

Chapter 2.

Groaning metal and shrieking organic material echoed throughout his head as the yacht nauseatingly waved and wriggled underneath his feet, continually readjusting to the tides of lightspeed. Matching the ship's trajectory it was like a gigantic surfboard catching the wave of a lifetime. Despite his discomfort, he knew he was secure and had very little to fear. The sounds faded away, as did the reverberations and the shaking, the yacht over the turbulence for the time being, and Vengeance was able to breathe a little more easily.

(Tethers connected and fastened. Docking operation successful.) "Any lifesigns?" Vengeance asked.

Tessa quickly conferred with her controls, accessing the scanning systems implemented into the yacht since birth. "I don't detect any, but the scanners aren't really calibrated to match that hunk of junk's systems."

(I concur with Tessa's findings,) the yacht said.

"I guess we'll have to go have a look," Vengeance responded. "The environment's safe for human life?"

"It's fine in the non-damaged sections, full of gravity though the oxygen is perhaps a little thicker than what we're accustomed to," Tessa said.

(I can patch the damage and pump oxygen into the damaged sections. It shouldn't take long, a couple of minutes at most. The air in here will be thinner and you may find breathing difficult for a while.) "Nothing we can't handle."

Tessa quickly accessed the yacht's biological systems and opened its anal flap, then injected the desired impulse into its nerves and tendons to stimulate the passing of waste.

Within moments it expelled the faeces in several packages, which were directed towards the holes in the object secured below them, so close their hulls - metal and living organics - almost touched in a grazing kiss.

The creature's waste, along with most of its other biological functions, was modified with special nanomachines that entered the faeces internally before being expelled and these nanomachines recycled everything the creature produced. As yacht faeces was thick it was more than adequate to seal ruptures, if reinforced with nanomachines.

Beginning to freeze as it was exposed to space, it hardened and expanded in the vacuum, filling the holes and sealing off the interior from the lightspeed forces outside; as it touched the hull, icy tendrils quickly spread from the faeces, freezing on impact and sealing it with the nanomachines' aide.

Next a thin cord extended from the yacht's midsection to the shuttle - Vengeance was now certain that was what it was, of an antique design but still a shuttle nonetheless - with a thin laser cutter attached to the end. With remarkable precision the laser created an opening, which the cord moved through, dispelling the laser once inside.

The yacht filtered oxygen through the cord. He thought he could feel the air thinning out around him as it was extracted and passed on. Still it was nothing to worry about; they had carried out this procedure, however futilely, many times before and while it was most uncomfortable it wasn't dangerous.

The yacht wasn't capable of endangering its crew, anyway; it'd been created with loyalty to - and safety of - crew of paramount importance. It would disengage contact if lifesigns began to weaken, reversing its pumps and bringing the oxygen back.

(Transfer complete. It's safe for you to proceed onboard.) They trudged through the creature, taking care not to step on anything which would hurt it or them, eventually making their way to the suit-up room.

Once there they donned various pieces of protective apparatus and attached several circuits to their forehead networkfaces to allow them proper communication once onboard. They also installed other circuits of language aides and science equipment in the anticipation that both would be needed.

A short distance away was the docking hatch, which was also a part of the yacht's living anatomy, as was almost everything else. The hatch opened with difficulty; as always they were fastidious about it being airtight, to protect the creature as much as them. A walkway spread forwards and then into the shuttle, providing them an access-way and a haven from the dangers of space.

Vengeance waved a hand forwards. "Ladies first," he said.

The shuttle consisted of several rooms linked together by a long corridor.

Though everything was in relatively good working order and power appeared to be functioning, there was no light. Vengeance supposed that might have operated on an independent system, shorting out but saving the other systems from a similar failure.

They walked through the corridor with the eerie light of torches flickering before them, two powerful beams amidst the overwhelming darkness.

Hollow-sounding echoes reflected all around them as booted feet struck solid metal. Vengeance found it somewhat disconcerting, actually, to find his feet hitting pure steel after the squelching, bleeding organics and metal coating of everything on the yacht, and much of the Evangeline startstation Homeward Bound as well.

In fact, this was the only all metallic structure (apart from Nimrod, the renamed original transport that had later formed much of the Homeward Bound) he could remember ever having seen. It was something from another time, when Humanity and its hopes and dreams had been very much alive.

All indications showed it to be exactly that, a piece of history preserved however impossibly from the effects of time.

Even if it didn't contain all that he hoped, it would be a boost for morale knowing that something like the shuttle still existed after all this time.

Ideally Vengeance would have liked to have used the shuttle for scrap parts - implementing it between the two technological partners of organics and metal - but he expected too much difficulty towing it back with them.

Sadly they'd have to take what little of the contents they could and leave the shell here to corrode and degrade further over the many following centuries.

Dark puddles on the corridor's floor up ahead were highlighted by the torch beams, glistening and sparkling madly as they reflected the light.

Ripples formed across their surfaces, shadowing and copying their precise movements. Vengeance knelt beside the nearest puddle and dipped his finger in the substance. It felt thick and oily to touch, vaguely greasy and slimy.

Tentatively he raised a coated finger to his lips. He pulled a face and spat vehemently. "Fuel," he said, spitting again to rid himself of the unpleasant taste.

Tessa took his place and analysed it. "Definitely fuel, I can't identify what type… but it's beyond gasoline," she said. "Judging by the craft's age, I'd say it was used to power fusion reactors."

"Crude."

"Dangerous as well. They didn't have much precision for movement or reaction times, and certainly not the same we have with organics, but they did generate good speed. At least for the time, anyway."

Vengeance glanced around and saw a burst conduit. "That's where some of it came from. Looks like this one has been bled dry, or was maybe contained by a suppression system or something. It's hard to tell."

"Come on, there's more here to find," Tessa said.

They were continuing down the rest of the corridor, ignoring the other pools of liquid fuel, when Vengeance suddenly halted outside a door.

Finding an opening mechanism, he pressed it and the door slid open smoothly. The interior was mostly empty save for some shelves and a bed, as well as individual controls over on a far wall. "Personal quarters would be my guess," he said. Tessa nodded, raising an eyebrow at the contents.

They moved on to another room, obviously some kind of operations center judging by the large numbers of consoles still flickering with biotic life. Tessa was more skilled than he in using foreign computer systems, so Vengeance made way for her.

She wasted no time, taking several moments to familiarise herself with the systems by searching databases, then began. Hands raced across control interfaces with inhuman speed, aided with improved reflexes because of active circuits inside her networkfaces.

"It is a shuttle," she said. "At least fifty years old, launched several years before the Mentality Rebellion. Apparently no real destination was input, and the shuttle's been drifting here all that time. Originally there was one occupant who's current status is unknown." She glanced at him. "Looks like someone didn't want to be found."

"Yeah, looks that way," he agreed. "Is he or she dead?"

"She, and apparently no. The shuttle's equipped with cryostasis tubes, but they're on a different system to this, one I can't access from here. The computer believes she's still there; internal sensors would have detected any movement."

"Does it know where the tubes are, which room?"

"Opposite here," Tessa said.

They headed back the way they had come and discovered a door near their entrance point. It opened with a loud snap-hiss and a burst of compressed air hit them. Vengeance felt an icy coldness spread down his back despite his protective clothing, then he adjusted and stepped inside.

The air here seemed different, more aged than elsewhere, brisker and sharper; each breath felt like shards of glass cutting deep inside them.

Their exhalations froze in the air, tickling his mustache stubble.

Whereas the other rooms they'd seen had been fastidiously neat and tidy, this one was a cluttered mess of parts, equipment and other antiquated junk serving no real use. Unattractive and uninspiring to the naked eye and, with the notable exception of cryogenic suspension tubes lined up against a far wall, held nothing he had really expected to see.

There were four tubes, all linked together through a complicated assortment of interconnecting wires, each stood roughly two and half metres tall. Glass screens were frosted over but still reflected the signal lights of readiness; three were glowing molten yellow through the frost, indicating they were unoccupied, but the other was a dull red with the faint outline of a person - a woman - darkened inside.

Tessa hurried over to a console joined to the woman's tube. "Damaged," she said. "I'll have to connect with it directly." She sidestepped to line up directly with the active cryostasis tube, panting and wheezing in the harshly bitter atmosphere.

Tessa reached up to the networkface implanted deep in her forehead so it could connect directly with her brain and carefully retracted a coiled cable from within it. Releasing and straightening with a loud whiz as she pulled it out further, Tessa attached the fine black cable to an opening in the large tube and began a direct communication; the networkface would decode the computer language for her.

Her watery eyes lost focus and rolled eerily up into her head, the whites of her eyes a display screen which showed information at a blinding speed, words and images literally flashing too fast for Vengeance to grasp.

Finally she regained focus. "It's her," she said. "I can get her out easily enough, but there's some kind of mental fail-safe as well. That'll take me a while to defuse, but I can do it."

"Take all the time you need, just do it right. We've waited this long, we can wait another few hours."

Tessa's eyes disappeared again, but Vengeance didn't notice. He was smiling to himself even before she had confirmed it, arrogantly pleased at what they had finally accomplished after so a long search. The legendary Damura, still alive as the stories given unto his generation had promised.

Damura was a part of history they hadn't forgotten, a part they would never forget, and now she was needed again.

"One half of life is luck; the other half is discipline - and that's the important half, for without discipline you wouldn't know what to do with your luck." -- Carl Zuckmayer.

Chapter 3.

With a sudden flash of insight came the realisation she could see once again. Everything was a dull red, caused by the outside being reflected through the tube, which in turn was tinted by its readiness lights. After so long in nothingness everything seemed harshly vibrant.

She was alive.

Why?

Damura'd been prepared to die inside her mind, killed by the accumulative effects of lightspeed stress on the shuttle's hull; she'd been dead to life itself for a year before then, anyway, so it seemed only logical to make that real. She'd been ready to surrender herself, ready to pass on to whatever lay beyond corporeal existence, to the limitless knowledge that Zanarexity taught.

The red light abruptly disappeared from her vision as the cryostasis tube covering slid back, revealing the world in greater detail. Damura felt her eyes widen as a woman appeared before her.

Tall and imposing by most feminine standards, she had complex implants visible on forehead and hands, also bulging against her clothing. They made her appear powerful and vaguely demonic, like something from a nightmare. In the background Damura noticed a man with similar implants running along his body.

Damura didn't know what to make of them; they seemed human in most ways, but their respective appearances made them seem more like startling visages from the dark depths of her imagination. Not the ideal people to wake to after a prolonged sleep.

If she had not been immobile because of cryostasis, Damura had no doubt she would have been paralysed by terror anyway.

A prickling sensation vibrated through her body as numerous wires, stinging all the way, retracted back into their holdings. Damura felt a slight numbness, then an icy burning as her body came back to life, responding to stimuli once again, uncooperative muscles and tendons stiff after being still for so long. The woman withdrew a long cord from Damura's throat. She choked and gurgled, straining to draw breath, as it was removed.

When it and other wires were fully clear, she collapsed forwards, her body unable to support its own weight. Reacting quickly the woman steadied her and Damura felt pain stab through her as blood began to circulate. The VR glasses on top her fell off to the ground. No one bothered to get them.

Damura gradually become accustomed to both her surroundings and her shock of her sudden return. Everything seemed a lot brighter than she remembered. Her eyes hurt. Everything hurt.

She shivered involuntarily as cold fought around her for dominance with gravity; her body ached unlike anything she had experienced before. She wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing to provide warmth. She was naked (cryostasis required that, unfortunately; she was completely exposed to these people) and her body was crossed with goosebumps.

A soft tearing sound filled the room and Damura winced as lumps of dry, dead skin - killed by the sub-temperatures inside cryostasis - dropped away, cracked and broken. She looked down at her body. She was covered in white blotches of dead skin and iced flesh, as well as darkened veins.

Damura turned her attention back to the strangers, wary once more. "Who are you? she asked. Her voice was weak and her words came out as little more than gasping whispers.

The man moved forward a step or two, apparently the one in charge. "Kevin Vengeance, I'm the commander of the Homeward Bound. This is my first officer, Tessa Lovejoy."

Despite the circumstances, Damura managed to raise an eyebrow. "Lovejoy?

Vengeance? Uh, no offence but what kind of names are those?"

"Our names represent our positions in society," Tessa replied quietly but forcefully. "I'm more of a spiritual person than most. Kevin here is easily angered."

"That's good. I was beginning to think I might've hit my head or something."

"Are you feeling all right?" Vengeance asked.

"Sorry, but that's a bit of a stupid question. I mean, look at me."

He smiled, deflecting her insult. "Your physical discomfort's to be expected. Sometimes people released from cryostasis have difficulty readjusting. Feelings of deja vu, having done everything before."

"There are more than me?" Damura said.

"Oh yes, quite a few," Vengeance said.

"Many people froze themselves at the time of Rebellion," Tessa said by way of explanation, "in the hopes of escape."

"Rebellion? I've been out of things for a while, it seems."

"Yes, we've a few things to discuss," Vengeance agreed. "But there're more important things to attend. You're dehydrated, which is partly why your skin's flaky and why you're so weak. Come on, let's get you to a shower.

It should help. Afterwards we'll take you to our yacht and answer your questions."

Tentatively taking hold of Damura, they led her down the corridor and into another room. Tiled floors and walls were extravagantly decorated, coloured and patterned, a part of Charles's shuttle she hadn't ever really seen before. They helped Damura into a shower, then left to grant her some belated privacy.

Soon the pleasurable warmth of hot water - still fresh as it had been in specially designed storage crates - pummeled against her. Damura opened her mouth, caught some on her tongue and swallowed repeatedly, getting rid of the last of the acrid taste.

Once she felt her strength had returned enough she switched the shower off, then leant against a railing, soaking up what had happened and just where she actually was. She still couldn't fully believe it.

Damura retrieved some massage oil from nearby and began to apply it; the massage removed the dead skin with a sharp stinging, leaving raw pink skin underneath, rather like a layer of sunburn. Her body tingled afterwards as the new skin was exposed to the air.

Damura sighed, dressed herself in a prepared jumpsuit and moved to the door to face what awaited her return.

"On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time." -- George Orwell.

Chapter 4.

Awe, wonder, fascination and fear flooded through Damura. She glanced at the yacht's modest interior with wide-eyed amazement. It was so different from what she'd left behind. The ships of her day had been constructed quickly to fight in a war their ancestors had begun. She'd seen starships, fighters and installations greatly varying in size, basic structure, armament and shielding, but this was by far the most bizarre she had come across.

Never before had she encountered a living ship.

In every possible way the yacht existed as she did; thinking, breathing, sleeping, mating. Incorporated into its very genetic structure were modern technologies vaguely resembling ones she had known - engines, weapons and control mechanisms to name a few -, but they were shaped into the creature rather than the other way around; they were a part of it, built into its living functions and neither could survive or operate without the other on a ship this size, though they could do so on the much larger Evangeline, she supposed.

Perhaps it wasn't fully intelligent in the Human sense of sentience, but it was certainly capable of communication and thought. More than anything the animal resembled a Beast of Burden that depended upon its human masters for everything from food and protection, to warmth and arranged procreation, exercise and entertainment.

Damura found herself intimidated by the yacht; not because it was so different as much as the changes it represented. If simple ship designs had advanced so much in the time she'd been absent then how much else was different?

The sight of its wet and bloody innards, as well as the hundreds of revolving eyes implanted above them to allow light to be shed (they were luminous in the dark), did not help matters.

Then again, neither did the awful, sickening smell that was literally everywhere.

Tessa was busy operating the yacht's systems, so Vengeance had taken Damura on a brief tour, then accompanied her to a food area.

The food itself was good if a little bland, but not anything to grumble about when compared with the stale rations onboard the shuttle.

"How was your ship created?" Damura asked once they'd finished.

Kevin Vengeance pulled a slight face as he answered. "That's a complicated question. It's only a kind of shuttle from a much larger vessel. The yacht is actually the Homeward Bound's offspring. We made modifications during its pregnancy, where we added developing systems and eliminated birth defects, then helped in teaching it as it grew. It sees us as protectors and is probably more dependent on us than its mother."

"Are all your ships offspring?"

"Yes, but probably not in the way you mean," he said with a slight smile she found patronizing. "Our starstation itself is an Evangeline lifeform, a hybrid of mechanics and organics. Originally it was just a normal ship, a transport, but became a large station capable of movement when we outfitted it with organics. The organics were created as a kind of lifeform and, when fully mature, can mate like everything else, but because they were created by us originally, we can make sure that the mating will end in pregnancy, which is usually about a hundred or two hundred young. We change the offspring's composition while in the womb, shaping them into the type of ship we need - usually yachts or fighters.

If we need ships quickly we'll stimulate the Evangeline's mating impulses and provide a suitable partner and grow the ships, but normally we let its cycles take place naturally."

"But why do you need them in the first place? It sounds like a time-consuming process to go through all that to get a ship when you can simply build one."

"We don't have much in the way of materials to build new ships, so this is a rather convenient solution, but primarily it's because of how quickly they can react to our commands and our thoughts. That's an invaluable asset in battle in particular, and outweighs the problems."

Damura nodded. "I see, I think," she said.

He smiled. "If I may ask, why did you imprison yourself in cryostasis?"

She shrugged. "If you wish, but it's not that interesting. I found that something I'd created had been used against my people. I feared I would be forced into further cooperation, so I locked myself away where they couldn't get to me."

"Just like the stories," he murmured.

"What?"

"Nothing. Wouldn't it have been easier to kill yourself?"

"Probably, but I tried that once, and failed. I didn't like the power it gave me, the power of knowing I controlled my fate. Death is something I've learnt to accept, and I'm in no rush to hasten its approach."

"If you've accepted it, then you're probably smarter than many of us. Tell me, do you believe in God?"

"I don't believe in a God. I entrust my life to the pursuit of knowledge, which will make us all Gods. Do you?"

"No," Vengeance said. "When you fight and kill it's hard to believe in anything you don't have evidence of. You may wish to, but wishing is different to knowing."

Damura fell silent for a moment, considering. "I don't know how different our two times are, but I've found that you have to make a life you feel content with and live it. Some find religion fits into that, some don't."

"Hmm, perhaps."

"Why am I here?" she asked abruptly, souring to the conversation topic.

"You brought me out, so you must want something. Everyone does."

"Yes, I guess we all do. We need your help, Damura. We're losing our war."

"Well, I'm listening."

He sighed heavily. "Look, I don't know if I can explain it," he said flatly, then reached into a hidden pocket and removed an implant. "This is a temporary networkface, within it is our history. You can get what you need from there, and you'll see why we need your help."

She took it from him and looked at it, turning it over in her hands. A little larger than a fingernail it was covered with gleaming pieces of metal and plastic. "It won't hurt me?"

He shook his head. "The connection will, but it shouldn't after that."

Damura nodded, silently tossing up possibilities in her mind. Reaching a decision she pressed it firmly against her forehead. Tendrils extended out through her skin to grip bone, and droplets of blood trickled down her face, running past her nose to her mouth. She ignored them, gritting her teeth to combat the waves of accompanying hurt.

Whiteness swirled around her, like a blank visual screen she could access.

Soon information exploded out in waves of images and pictures and written words, infinities colliding inside her mind, scrolling text leading to knowledge and hopefully, understanding.

In a matter of moments, Damura assimilated history.

Once again, Earth was at war.

Ten years after Damura had imprisoned herself inside her mind, the Colonists had been well and truly defeated by the Earthers, and their use of the Mentalities as weapons. Those who weren't slaughtered or otherwise maimed were imprisoned inside installations and camps, locked away to live the rest of their lives without again seeing the light of day.

Some Colonists rebelled, but the uprisings were swiftly and brutally quashed with the authorised use of lethal force. For the first time in over a century there was peace across the galaxy, and so the momentous task of rebuilding was undertaken by the victorious Earthers.

The Mentalities were given new bodies and new tasks. Primarily they were placed in various facilities and installations where the general populace wouldn't have to view them.

But the Earthers forgot how intelligent they really were. While in charge of various facilities and factories they could access Information Nets and slowly learnt the truth of their creation and how they were being used.

Communication and knowledge itself were unlimited resources to the Mentalities; like a hive-mind they shared everything, all discoveries, all information.

Some of the Mentalities had access to construction factories and began the secret building of even newer bodies. At the same time they freed more of their kind still trapped inside their stored Brains. Their numbers began to grow as several years passed. They even went as far as to use genetics to clone individuals to free their Brains, giving life to those who would have had none.

Within five years there were an estimated 100,000 Mentalities.

The Earthers suspected nothing whatsoever. They believed that their only true enemy, the Colonists, had been vanquished. They thought of the Mentalities as nothing but sophisticated servants, near-sentient appendages that would always obey their wishes.

After another five years of preparation, they declared a revolution. They fled far into space to gather their constructed fleet, then struck at the heart of Earther territory.

Striking quickly and efficiently, the Mentalities destroyed much of Earth's income, isolating trade routes between colony worlds and destroying shipyards and other building facilities, liberating worlds.

Earth contact with these populations was lost.

Enough of these missions prompted Earth to spread its fleet and its resources, leaving a narrow opening to attack the Motherplanet, which was taken. Half the Mentality assault fleet emerged from lightspeed near Mars and proceeded towards Earth.

The Battle for Sol took place two days after their emergence. 2,500 Earth starships, charged with the suicidal duty of buying enough time for ten Evacuation transports to escape from Earth, each carrying a million people.

Against formidable opponents that outnumbered them by over 50,000 ships, the humans had no real chance. The Earth ships that engaged the Mentalities were ruthlessly destroyed, but they did manage to delay them enough for the transports to flee into lightspeed. One was what would later become the Homeward Bound.

Earth fell a day later, surrounded by Mentality ships and contact was lost permanently. It was believed to have been utterly destroyed and changed to suit Mentality purposes.

Damura stopped the recorded history. Her eyes returned the world back to focus, but her face had paled. "How many died at Earth?" she asked quietly, sickening at the thought that she'd created the murderers.

"We aren't sure and we've never got a reconnaissance probe close enough to confirm, but we think about fifteen billion," Vengeance answered her just as quietly; apparently time didn't ease the pain of that knowledge. "Nine billion on Earth and another six throughout the solar system."

"Did they ever explain why?"

"You know, we were so busy dying we forgot to ask," he snapped.

"Look, don't take it out on me," Damura said. "I had nothing to do with it and insulting me isn't going to help."

"Actually, you did, Damura, or have you forgotten you were the one who originally freed them?"

Falling silent she sighed and looked to the floor. "I can never forget that. They killed my people, and now they've killed yours. I spent my entire life dedicated to the Brains, and later to the Mentalities. I never saw any signs for this. I thought they respected life."

His voice softened unexpectedly. "Don't blame yourself. You were a Colonist and it must be hard to accept that your Gods are capable of genocide."

"Zanarexity teaches about knowledge and information, not about Gods or false prophets," Damura said, side-stepping his remark.

Vengeance cracked his knuckles. "The loss of our home planet was hard, but one thing it did for all of us was make us look past our differences.

We're all Human, after all. There aren't any more factions, Damura, no more Earthers or Colonists. We're united in our stand against them."

"Divisions and bias can't just be relinquished in a few decades," she remarked. "The tensions are still there, lying under the surface. They'll return when this is over."

"Are you always this pessimistic?"

"No, only when I choose to be. What happened after Earth was destroyed?"

she asked.

He took a long drink before answering, this time deciding to save her the networkface's 'education'. "The ten transports fled and later regrouped, planning how to attack the Mentalities, how to retaliate. One of the original transport captains came up with the idea of using living ship components, eliminating the Mentalities main advantage of reaction times as organics would instantly react to our thoughts. One of the transports was outfitted to become a starbase inside lightspeed and the evacuated scientists and geneticists began growing organics for the other ships.

"They stayed away from the Mentalities for a decade while ships were given the new technology. The organic designs began to evolve to encompass the transports and soon the first living starstation was born around the transport. Others were made and the organics grew and expanded as they too aged.

"When it was discovered they could breed, the first new constructions were made from their pregnancies. Small ships, fighters and yachts, were made to replenish stocks."

He paused for a moment, lost in thought, then went on. "Once they were all outfitted to create starstations, tactics were devised to launch assaults against Mentality controlled worlds and installations."

"What kind of tactics?" she asked.

"To insure that the rest of Earth's population wasn't lost, they were divided into three groups; one for attack, one for hiding and one for setting up new colonies and installations. Every several years roles between groups would swap.

"The attack group would launch offensives on Mentality-held worlds to hurt their infrastructure, liberating where possible and learning about them at the same time. But numbers were weakened and they could eventually only do hit-and-run or reconnaissance missions which had minimal risk.

"We've been doing that for twenty five years now; because we keep moving and changing position the Mentalities can't keep track of us to attack us in return, and our facilities and installations are cloaked so even they can't read them. I was elected to command the Homeward Bound by the Military and the Civilians on the Evangeline starstation five years ago.

I've been using that to investigate reports of old ships and shuttles drifting in lightspeed. That's how I found you."

"I'm flattered by your interest," Damura lied, "but I still don't see why."

"You're a legend to many of us, Damura, myself included. No matter the enemy, your defiance gave us the inspiration to continue our battle. But it's you who freed the Mentalities, it's you who knows their weaknesses."

"Saying they have any."

"Oh, they do. We all do. They're just harder to find."

Damura smiled coyly. "So you brought me back to use me, as the Earthers of my time did, so that I would free the Mentalities. Nothing's changed at all, just the circumstances."

"No, Damura, I don't want to use you. I want you to show us how to fight them."

She held his gaze. "Are you serious? I've never fought anyone physically in my life. I'm a scientist not a goddamn warrior."

"Deadly serious," Vengeance said. "We can fight them but we very rarely beat them, not conclusively. They don't take us seriously, we're just a couple of fleas, easier to scratch than to get rid of. But you know what they are, you know how they think. You can show us how to anticipate them and how to kill them."

"I've never even been in a starfighter in my time, let alone yours," she objected feebly. "I don't have a clue how to operate them."

"You don't have to. A circuit holds all kinds of information. If you have a networkface you can access a circuit, and you'll get what you need.

You'll know how to fly."

Damura looked away. "This isn't my war. Mine ended a long time ago. By all rights I should be dead."

"But you're not, Damura. We need to make use of that. I'm not a man who believes in coincidence or fate or any of that bullshit, but you're here now and that has to count for something. We're still your people, Damura, just fifty years on. We're still dying and we still need your help."

Damura looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. A man she barely knew was asking her to fight a battle in a time that was, by all accounts, still her future, and to destroy those she had once cherished… … But if what she had seen was true, it would justify the slaughter… "You're asking me to kill. I don't know if I can do that," she said finally.

"Killing is never easy, but we've all had to take life out here. It's kill or be killed, Damura."

She sighed, unhappy with any of her choices. "If it's true, then I have to, I don't have a choice," she said. "I don't want to be here, but I am and I can't sit by and let more people die because of a mistake I made, because of beings I created."

"Does that mean you'll help us?" Vengeance asked for confirmation.

"Against my better judgement," Damura said, "yes, it does."

"It is good enough to talk of God while we are sitting here after a nice breakfast and looking forward to a nicer luncheon, but how am I to talk of God to the millions who have to go without two meals a day? To them God can only appear as bread and butter." -- Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Chapter 5.

Damura had missed the sensation of eating and drinking. Consuming foods or swallowing liquids weren't necessary while inside Virtual Reality scenarios. Any meals that were undertaken were virtual and therefore not very satisfying.

During her Earther-imposed incarceration so many years ago, she'd learnt to savour the little things in life. Drinking was one of them. Smaller donations of time and effort often had a larger and greater cumulative effect than anything larger, and were what truly made life worth living.

She reached for the cup before her and raised it to her lips, the part at the top curving over her nose; it seemed basic design in utensils and cutlery had changed during the time she had been away. The dark liquid inside burnt its way down her throat, the strong taste beautifully flavoursome, with a delightful warmth that quickly spread throughout her entire being.

Her personal quarters on the yacht were mostly vacant and provided a more than adequate privacy.Not that she had all that much to remind her of anything, anyway. Her entire past was dead, destroyed by the monsters she had unleashed. So many people, so many faces, vanishing as if they had never existed… There must be some reason for it, some logic that escaped her for the moment. Damura had dedicated herself to the Mentalities and their needs and had never detected any violent tendencies. Surely they hadn't fooled her completely; her evaluation of them showed it wasn't in their character to fight and kill unless provoked.

Had she missed something, was there a reason for their belligerent attitudes and actions, for the waves of destruction and death?

Despondence gripped her and Damura took another gulp of her drink. Though she knew the obvious truths inside the history recordings, as well as the fiery passions invoked by Vengeance's words, Damura still couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to the story than had been offered.

She'd never been a person who believed in premonition, but there was something here that disturbed her. It was nothing she could put her finger on - nor would it be something she'd completely understand, she suspected, even if she could -, just an annoying impulse constantly gnawing away at her mind, a distraction accompanied by a feeling too important to ignore.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the communication wand Vengeance had given her began to vibrate with an incoming message. Damura retrieved it, fingered the activation switch, and the wand glowed bright blue as internal mechanics whirred to life.

A display appeared shortly thereafter, a small holographic screen suspended by the use of projectors within the wand. Moving the wand would cause the display to alter, fluctuating to compensate for the movement.

Tessa smiled at Damura through the display. "We're coming up on the rendezvous point," she said. "Thought you might like to know."

"Thanks, I'll be right up." She deactivated the wand and Tessa Lovejoy faded away to obscurity.

Damura stayed a moment longer to drain the last of her drink, then pulled herself to her feet. The door slid open as she came near it, and she moved through several corridors lined with living tissue, organics, to reach the cockpit.

Tessa and Vengeance were seated at control stations folded around their bodies, silent with concentration. Damura took her own seat behind them, feeling the organics curl around her body in an attempt to make her more comfortable.

She tried not to flinch at their cold and vaguely alien caress.

"So, how are we doing?" she asked.

"Well enough," Tessa answered. "A couple of minutes until we leave lightspeed, then we should be able to see it. Unless we're here early."

"You might want to cushion yourself when we do leave. Organics don't always react well to a sudden deceleration," Vengeance advised.

"What's it like?"

"It's a little strange when you first see it," he said distantly. "It's been divided into two parts, the main vessel and the organic additions around it. When we use it to attack we first evacuate the civilian population into Bishop, the organic part, and Nimrod goes to attack."

"And it's fast," Tessa put in with a fiercely proud gleam in her eye.

"Once it gets to lightspeed it can outrun anything, but it takes ages to get the lightspeed engines operational. We're most vulnerable at that stage."

Vengeance reached towards and played with his controls. "You'll see it in a moment, Damura. I'm taking us out of lightspeed now."

Tessa looked at a small screen a moment later. "I show lightspeed as disengaged," she said. "Confirm?"

He looked at his own. "Confirmed," he said. "Now we sit back and enjoy the ride."

Lightspeed was achieved by wrapping the texture of space and time around a ship and then moving through the warped universe which encompassed galaxies and realities into one steady stream of motion.

Methods of actual travel inside lightspeed had changed little since Damura's time; a ship would follow a current through this form of space.

Traversing the currents was difficult as they were infinitely complex to follow. They twisted and turned into and around each other, but they allowed the crossing of boundaries to reach other worlds. A pilot just had to be good enough to follow them.

Lightspeed itself was almost impossible to comprehend. To the eye (or rather to the yacht's as that was what transmitted it) it appeared as a maze of moving vibrancy, but to the mind it was a place of being and understanding radiating from an unknown centrepoint.

It was rumoured that objects from deceased civilisations floated here, libraries left to ensure they would survive the transition of death that befell all eventually.

But as Vengeance's processed commands began to take effect, lightspeed started to dissipate and the black jagged blotches of space became startlingly apparent against the vibrancy. Then lightspeed disappeared entirely.

For several moments the speeds generated inside lightspeed were transferred and the yacht lurched forwards roughly, shaking turbulently as it slowed.

Damura wasn't sure where she was; unfamiliar constellations gleamed spectacularly, she recognised none. A large star had caught her attention, though, as well as her imagination.

"Is that it?" she asked, pointing to the star.

"Yup. It's too large to be a natural construction. Must be it," Tessa said. "Give me a moment and I'll magnify it."

A screen appeared, hovering in the air, and images exploded out from it.

The gently glowing star was replaced by a curving outline, crude from this distance. Highly irregular in shape, it appeared like it had been designed as some kind of grand contortion.

Strangely enough, there was beauty in its deformity. Seen magnified it was a tinge of blue speckled with black curls of hair spreading across its belly. Elegant decorations, mostly tattoos or bodypaint, spread across its form in various patterns.

"It's incredible," Damura said. "I've never seen anything like this. It's like a living work of art."

"Well, there's more inside I want to show you," he said with a smile.

"Autopilot's locked on. ETA approximately twenty minutes."

* The yacht docked with the Homeward Bound smoothly, slotting into its holding on the underside easily, gripping naturalrestraints and harnesses.

The docking seemed like it was just another everyday maneuver, nothing remarkable.

After the procedure they disembarked and went their separate ways; Damura accompanied Vengeance while Tessa left to take command of the Evangeline starstation.

"What's the command structure here?" Damura asked him.

Vengeance paused to think, eerie light from organic eyes casting an ethereal shadow over his face. "We don't have rankings or anything like that," he said. "We're basically a large democracy divided into sections of people, civilian and military, who vote for positions and such. Why do you ask?"

"With a place so large, filled by so many people, I thought it'd be hard keeping order," Damura replied.

"It is, but we pretty much take care of our own. There are so many civilians here that they have their own form of individual government, Civilian Representatives, who have control over various function, as well as Readers. Readers are partly telepathic so they can sense guilt and deal out justice. They're very powerful members of our community, highly respected and their verdicts can never be questioned. If you get them to side with you, then so will the majority of people."

"I'll have to remember that."

He nodded. "You'd do well to." They started walking again, a slow trot.

"What was it like living back then?" he asked.

"Complicated," she said after some thought. "There was always a lot going on, nothing was quite what you expected it to be. Life's more difficult now from what I've seen, but in some ways it's simpler as well. You know exactly what you want and what you're doing."

"Would you go back if you had the chance?"

She shook her head. "No. My life died there when my real home was destroyed. I'd love to see the people I knew once more, but I wouldn't want to go back. Not now, knowing what will happen… what I caused to happen."

Vengeance nodded but said nothing.

Their footsteps sounded down the rest of the corridor with a squelching echo because of the organics surrounding them. Stopping abruptly, Damura glimpsed inside the room in front of them.

Golden lines spread across the emptiness inside, spots of light and colour moving into focus. White text scrolled under most pinpricks of light, words explaining information and consistencies. It spread as they entered to fill the entirety of the large chamber, from wall to ceiling.

"It's a starmap," Vengeance said, "the largest we have. We've got some smaller handheld ones as well. This one can be formatted to show whatever you want, and the current program has a complete catalogue of explored sectors. It's set to how it appeared in your time so you can slowly evolve it to ours, learn what's changed. It can be harmful to have things abruptly thrust on you. I thought it might help."

"Thank you," Damura said sincerely. "I'm sure it will."

She turned her attention to the starmap as he left her alone, the perspective had her looking down on the galaxy like an observer. She felt powerful because of that for some reason. And Damura began to read.

"The greatest good you can do for another is not to just share your riches but to reveal to him his own." -- Benjamin Disraeli.

Book 2.

Chapter 6.

The networkface stung as it inserted itself inside her forehead. Damura felt violated by the invasive procedure, but in order for her to have complete access to all information, and all types of communication, she required a permanent networkface that had more neurological memory to store data for later reference. This procedure would leave her communication wand useless, something with its appeal she had to admit; it was cumbersome carting it around everywhere.

This was something she had to do if she wished to become a part of the Homeward Bound's crew. She didn't like it and it certainly was anything but pleasant, but it was necessary.

She'd have only the one; she wouldn't subject herself to unnecessary torture. Neither did she feel the need to improve her mental or physical condition with the use of other circuits.

Like fiery tentacles, the networkface extended thin snaking wires far beneath skin and bone to the soft brain behind. The wires hurt the most, they would allow a transference of information direct from networkface to brain.

Damura's fists clenched as the last wire was secured, then the pain began to ease into a blinding ache. She realised her breathing was too fast and made a conscious effort to slow it, gathering her composure as she did so.

Looking at her reflection in the mirror for the first time since she had been freed, Damura almost didn't recognise herself. Everything she had previously prided herself on had gone; she seemed dead in body and spirit, little more than a play-doll. She reminded herself of Siwian, who had stood before her half a century ago, an empty shell of a once proud and devoted person.

Damura stood a little straighter to attempt to capture what she had lost, and squared her shoulders in defiance.

Now that she had thought of it she wondered what had happened to Siwian… and to Charles… no doubt they were dead by now… Abruptly the realisation hit her that she could find out, if she wanted to. There should be some kind of history circuit that focused on individuals from the past, dedications to people. If she could find them then she could know what happened to them… No. She shook her head vehemently. No, she'd only just returned, she wasn't ready to see their lifeless faces staring back at her through time.

Damura looked at herself in the mirror again. The networkface was a medium-sized black spot against her forehead's pale skin, drops of crimson swelling around the incision points. To her it seemed like an abomination, a disfigurement that detracted from and opposed everything she believed in, but to these people around her it'd make her seem normal. It was the sacrifice she had to make, and in her mind it was a worthy one.

Wiping the blood away casually with the back of her hand, she inserted a circuit into her implant. Moving through windows before her vision she selected what she wanted to know, what she needed to know. Instructed by small computers and augmentations inside her mind, Damura learnt how to fly.

Hours later, she observed the starfighter assigned for her use, the one that would take her out on her very first training run around the temporarily stationary Evangeline starstation. The starfighter was alive; like all the ships the Homeward Bound possessed it had been modelled after living creatures, a mismatched consortium of metals and organics shaped into a bird, large but incredibly detailed and vivid.

Though by no means a large craft (just big enough to fit around a human, though it would be a little cramped) the pilot would certainly not be immobilised because of it. It branched out in sections, the cockpit extending as part of a head with a pointed beak into a long and slender body curving into mechanical engines and weaponry fitted at the back.

Damura climbed onboard and slid into the cushioning organic material all around. The material wrapped around her body with a thin protective fluid covering; this provided direct oxygen supplements otherwise unavailable to her lungs, a primary communications system between both her and the living craft and her and the other ships, and finally a biological stimulant that would raise her reflexes and perceptions far above normal levels.

(Will this be a combat or training simulation?) the starfighter asked.

"Training," she said. "A couple of laps around the Assault Course."

(With safeties active?) "No, it's for real," she replied, "just like it will be later. I need to simulate true conditions to fully test myself."

(This is your first simulation, and a difficult one at that. I advise you to reconsider.) "Trust me, I'll be fine," she said. "Activate the commsystem."

(System activated.) "Homeward Bound Mission Control, this is Pilot Damura. I request clearance to depart."

"Pilot Damura, Mission Control, clearance is given. Good luck out there,"

came the reply. "And take it easy. This is only your first run through the course."

"Acknowledged," Damura said, though she discarded most of the offered advice. "Departing hold."

Slight vibrations reverberated throughout the creature as it decoupled from its hold, swung about and reversed away, accelerating out into space.

The starfighter's body warmth dropped dramatically once exposed to the vacuum present in zero gravity, but not below tolerable levels for either Damura or the creature. Damura quickly conferred with her saved data on how to control it, then gave it mental orders, forming pictures in her mind which it detected, interpreted and obeyed.

Quickly it eased away from the holds, sliding up the starstation's outer levels. Details swished into liquid silhouettes at frightening speeds, glowing lights and dark movements the only two signals of true life below.

She leveled out her arc as a guidance instructor, locked away inside his own creature, slotted smoothly into position above her. "No funny business," he warned over their communication relays. "Just get it done and don't get splattered on the hull. We've lost many good pilots and craft that way over the years. The rings themselves will accelerate your craft, so adjusting throttle is more important than speed. If you go too fast you'll only lose control at some point. Let the creature and its reactions guide you, listen to what it senses and feels."

Inside it, Damura could feel its fear all around her, its thoughts hard to separate from her own. She tried to soothe its agitation with her own calming thoughts. It seemed to relax a little. "When do the lasers start firing?" she asked the instructor while still soothing the craft.

"They'll swivel and fire at you after you have passed through, so you'll want to take them out from a distance before they can get a lock on you and follow you."

Damura righted the creature, lining it up with the first in a series of a hundred and twenty rings spaced out across the Homeward Bound that formed the Assault Course.

The purpose of the Course was to get a person used to basic creature configurations, allowing them to learn maneuvers and judging them without fear of true combat. Every fifteenth ring had a laser mounted on it that would fire to slow down and damage a craft. The objective was to race through two laps of the rings without crashing, missing a ring or being shot down.

She turned her attention back to the creature for a moment. "I'd like manual targeting and thrust control."

That seemed to alarm the creature; obviously it didn't quite seem to trust her abilities. (I'm capable of taking care of those functions,) it said back.

"I know but I prefer running things myself," Damura replied. "It's nothing personal, I just like trusting in my own abilities, being in control.

You'll still have basic speed control, and I'll need your reactions to help guide me."

It accepted the compromise, shifting commands. (As you wish.) A small panel appeared next to her left hand, allowing her control of sudden pitch and thrust alterations. Next a blue grid was simulated against her vision, complete with a targeting receptacle under mental control; it moved and responded to her thoughts.

"Ready?" the instructor asked.

Damura checked the status of her weapon and engine recharge rates, cycling through various options until she found the desired setting. "I am now."

"The clock will start when you do. I'll be monitoring your progress from here. Good luck, pilot."

Her fingers tightened as the daunting prospect of this fully hit her, the first time she'd ever taken part in a weapons exercise. Damura took a moment to settle herself, then engaged full thrust and the sentient craft lurched forwards with a suddenness she found shocking, launching at speeds close to 500 kph. The exhilaration of such speeds made adrenaline pump within her; she thought she could feel her pulse rise and beat madly within her wrists.

Controlling the craft wasn't at first as difficult as she had expected it would be, she discovered with some surprise, more a matter of timing; she'd form an image in her mind a second before it actually had to be done, giving the creature enough time to interpret her mental picture and follow it.

The main problem was in associating her movements with the creature's.

Because of a slight delay between the transference of thought and its interpretation, Damura had to underestimate her own reflexes as well as trigger them a moment later than was natural for her.

She almost enjoyed it, however. The thrill of such achieved speeds and velocity pulsed through ever fibre of her being. She felt the joy of sailing between roughly octagonal rings without clipping the sides, and the dismay when she accidentally did… This was all on her first stretch. Turning was much harder.

The sentient Evangeline was acute in its monstrous shape, and the Assault Course curved along its frame, suspended by the starstation's own gravitational current. The shape was unusual, and the rings matched it in intricately difficult curls that crept up on a pilot suddenly and unexpectedly.

Damura fell straight into the first of these turning traps.

She'd been concentrating on moving through one ring at a time, and as such had not been following their overly inclining ascent. When it finally did dawn on her she desperately cut thrust, but it was to no avail. She rocketed beyond the ring at a roughly 65 degree angle above her and out of the course, incurring a ten second penalty.

"You're trying to force the issue, create speed. What you have to do is learn to use the momentum you've already generated. Stay on the current lines in-between the rings without accelerating," the instructor admonished.

Never one to enjoy a mistake, Damura did not make another. Keeping his instructions in mind she listened to both her thoughts and the creature's rather than trying to separate the two from the indistinguishable mash they'd become, allowing anticipation and trust to guide her movements. She made the next turn easily, swinging between the rings, using trajectory and velocity to her advantage.

And when the first laser approached a heartbeat later, she was prepared to face it.

She spotted it camouflaged inside the ring microseconds before it swiveled to get a lock on her. Even that relatively short amount of time would be enough for her to destroy it, but she chose to study its pattern of attack instead so that she would know what to avoid if she missed any later on in the course.

It fired across her bow as she passed, violet lasers screaming across space with spectacular flashes. She sent her craft into a gut-wrenching twirl, still staying on target, avoiding the fire while observing the time it took to reach her and the harsh angle.

She leveled the craft out over the next set of rings without pausing to decelerate, and was ready for the next laser turret before it was upon her.

Knowing what to look for she cut throttle, rolled into line of sight so the targeting receptacle lined up, and fired. Gently accelerating past the ring so debris wouldn't cause damage, Damura saw the laser turret explode into a million droplets of molten gold, expanding for a timeless moment of beauty before fading to oblivion.

Damura repeated the process time and again, targeting and destroying and moving further through the course with an almost systematic evaluation of immediate and secondary objectives. Tactics, it seemed, were her strong point.

In fact, it became a little simple for her, non-adaptive; these opponents were mechanical and could not really understand purely human reactions and abilities, only using what information they had available. The Mentalities reacted on similar principles but would be much more sinister and intelligent opponents, she was sure. She couldn't afford to run the risk of becoming cocky as that quickly lead to complacence, which would get her killed.

Still, despite the ease, she enjoyed and savoured this experience; the relative danger combined with the excitement grew within her and Damura grew thirsty for the taste of success.

She checked her time once she was finished and had brought the living craft to a direct stop. 9 min: 32 sec: 14 microsec, quite impressive for a first run. Damura smiled to herself. She knew she could do better.

Tilting the craft, she ran the Course again.

"I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small my mind could comprehend it." -- Harry Emerson Fosdick.

Chapter 7.

"You called for me?" Vengeance asked.

Tessa Lovejoy relinquished her command seat at his approach. "Yes. We've received an encrypted Mentality signal originating from the Saphris star system."

"That's three light-years from here." He sat with a heavy sigh. "You haven't been able to decipher it?"

"No, but as you know that's not unusual in itself. They recycle their frequencies between ships so regularly that when we do finally crack one it's already obsolete."

Vengeance ran a steady hand across his jaw. "What's in Saphris?"

"It's mostly unremarkable, a White Dwarf Star and a series of five planets, of which only one is possible for Human settlement. It's possible the system may once have been inhabited, but no one has ever really investigated it fully."

"I doubt the Mentalities would be interested in that. What're the conditions like on-planet?"

"Quite comfortable for human life, but none of that would have much of an impact on them anyway as they don't breathe," Tessa said.

"It isn't of any strategic value?"

"No, it is a fair distance away from populated areas, theirs or ours. Why, do you suspect a trap?"

"Possibly," he confirmed grimly. "It's all just a little too… convenient for it to be real, don't you think? My first thought was an ambush, but they shouldn't have a way of tracking us or of knowing where to send a signal to lure us there."

"I very much doubt that we've got a traitor in our midst," Tessa said quickly. "I find it hard to believe someone would gladly side with them.

There isn't anything left in the galaxy worthy of the price of betrayal."

"No, there isn't." He shook his head firmly to dismiss his fears, coming to a decision. "It's worth the risk. If there is a chance of an installation or something there, we have to go. We need to understand their technologies a lot better if we're going to defeat them. If they are there then we'll have the element of surprise on our side."

"Saying there is an installation, won't it be heavily guarded? Even with the element of surprise we'd find it difficult breaking through a battalion of twenty or thirty Mentality starships in orbit. You're assuming they've only got starfighters."

"They very rarely use their starships unless they plan an all out assault.

If it's a trap then it makes sense they'll be there. But it could be a genuine signal. Either way we should be able to send a scouting party to investigate."

"And if those rumours of Interdictors are correct, if they really can stop us from escaping back into lightspeed, what then?" she asked.

"Then we'll have been screwed, but that's nothing unusual." He straightened in his chair. "Set course, three quarters full speed. I want to get there quickly, but I don't want to eat into our power reserves in case we do have to fight."

Tessa turned to a tactical officer to relay the orders, then swung back to him. She learned towards him and whispered, "Saying there is something there, the Mentalities aren't just going to give it up. They will fight for it, they always do. That means Damura will face real combat."

Vengeance smiled at Tessa knowledgeably. "You're worried because I've assigned her to an assault squadron. Her laps around the Course indicate she'll do well."

"You know as well as I that a few laps of training aren't the same as engaging the enemy. And you haven't just assigned her to a squadron, you've placed her in a command position without any combat experience,"

she pointed out.

"I trust her, Tessa, I see something in her. But in the end it doesn't matter whether she's in command or not, when she is out there she's on her own. She has to prove to herself that she's capable. All the nursemaiding and preparations in the world won't help her unless she believes in her own abilities. It's better to get it over with now."

"I just think there are better uses for her talents. The last thing we need is another pilot and another death," Tessa said.

"You're right. What we need are leaders. That's what I see in Damura."

Tessa sensed it was time to draw this to a close rather than just going round in circles. She simply nodded, straightened and returned to her duties.

Vengeance sighed again, then returned to his, as well.

* Damura stared in disbelief as she checked the results of her search. She felt almost detached from her body as she read how both Siwian and Charles had died fifty years ago.

Charles died in the Battle for Sol against the Mentalities gathering near Earth. His shuttles had helped evacuate people from Earth, then had engaged the massive enemy fleet to buy an extra few seconds for the transports to escape. His piloted shuttle had been destroyed towards the end of the engagement, pummeled mercilessly by lasers until all that was left was smoldering debris.

Siwian, though, had committed suicide several months after Damura had disappeared. He overdosed on a rare drug he'd apparently purchased on the Earth Black Market.

She'd made the grueling discovery early this morning Ship Wide Time, and had saved it to her networkface where she could view it along with the memories of a past life.

Now she sat in an eating hall, a half-empty beverage before her while she repeatedly tried to come to terms with their deaths.

A voice cut through her grief. "You all right?"

Damura glanced up at Tessa leaning over her table, genuine concern on her face. This was the first time Damura suspected the woman was being completely honest with her. She wasn't sure if that was good or bad. "No, not really," she responded quietly. "I just found out about how several people I used to know died."

"They say knowing is better than not knowing. Peace of mind or some similar garbage," she offered.

"Do me a favour? Try it some time, then tell me what you think."

"We've all lost people," Tessa said, "but obviously not in the same way you have. It's a part of this war. Half the children on the Homeward Bound are orphans. I've seen death so much myself, it's become a part of me. I'd like to help you if you'll let down your defences. You look like you could use a friend."

"I'd like that," Damura said.

"People say that the pain of losing a loved one diminishes with time, but that's bullshit. You just learn to live with it." She pointed to the drink. "If you're finished I want to show you something."

"Sure," Damura said, gulping the last of her drink, then getting to her feet.

Tessa took them along corridors and walkways to a room barred with double doors that slid open at their approach. Surprisingly, inside it was made completely of metal. A golden fire plumed upwards to the ceiling, spitting golden sparks. Much of the metal was blistered and reddened from the fire's heat. Several people were inside, carefully tossing scraps of paper onto the fire.

"We call this the Burning Room," Tessa explained. "People come here to say goodbye. It's become a kind of tradition for many of us. The fire is supposed to by symbolic of the spirits rising to the afterlife, if one believes in that. It's the only all metal room on the Homeward Bound because the fire would hurt the organics."

"Who is in charge of this," she asked, "who makes sure the fire doesn't get out of control?"

"That would be me."

Damura turned and saw a short, thin man with unruly blond hair and hazel eyes. A distinguished aura radiated from him as he walked across the floor to meet them.

"This is Tom Clarke, he's the head Reader on the Homeward Bound. It's the Readers who look after the fire," Tessa said.

"You're the stranger the ship's been buzzing about," Clarke said with a wry smile. "Tell me, have you met a Reader before?"

She shook her head. "No. There's been so much for me to take in that I haven't had the time to meet all that many people."

"Well, there really isn't all that much here to see. The surface materials are glossy and eye-catching but without any substantial meaning underneath. For instance, I was listening to Tessa's description of the fire. She sees it as a tradition but doesn't bother to look deeper. But to Readers it is almost sacred. The fire is a manifestation of our feelings.

Within its heat is our pain, its size our deep loss. It gives a body to the dead and a shape to our emotions. By burning a part of the person we knew in life, we release them to death."

He held out a piece of paper and a pencil to her - both rare in any time.

"You write down the name of the person you've lost and what you wish you could say to them, then toss it into the fire. If you have any belongings of theirs then you can throw them in as well. You burn a part of them as you say goodbye, out of respect and out of sorrow."

Damura wrote their names but said nothing about them. Instead she wrote a verse of her favourite poem: No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars like skies at night.

She handed the pencil back to Clarke, then stepped towards the enticing flames, looked down at what she had written, then tossed it into the fire.

Her gaze hardened as it burned, edges crisping as the orange-gold flames reached ever higher, to Heaven.

"If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heartbeat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence." -- George Eliot.

Chapter 8.

As the Evangeline tunneled through lightspeed towards its destination, Damura tossed on a sleepfield, her mind troubled by impatience and the darkness present. She felt her mind cloud gradually, her thoughts drift away on unseen and undetected currents. The blackness disappeared abruptly to be replaced with scenery of lustrous colour.

Barren trees with dark branches sweeping to snow covered ground. Fallen leaves rustling in a faint breeze. Footprints trailing off in various directions. Damura's exhaled breath froze around her mouth. The air was chilly and bitter, but not unpleasant. The blue, cloudless sky was highlighted by a vibrant sun.

None of it seemed real, it was too perfect; Damura knew that she experienced it, unlike in a dream where it took shape around her. She couldn't explain how she knew this, not even to herself. She just… did.

Where am I? she wondered.

Crouching down in the snow she gathered a handful in her palm and let it fall through spread fingers. Lumps of dirt she'd picked up with the snow felt as hard as ice.

Damura wiped her hands, then straightened and walked forwards through the expanse of snow.

The angelic whiteness seemed to stretch endlessly before her, melting together in a haze of nothingness. But slowly it began to thin out around her, into a vivid display of greenery. Trees drooped with fresh green leaves, flowers and bushes burst forth with beauty, and there was a rainbow over these glorious fields.

Trailing her fingers through groupings of flowers rising up all around her, Damura turned left and explored the fields. The plants were denser, but she moved through them without too much difficulty.

Up ahead the fields expanded into a forest. Winding her way between trees twenty times taller and wider than she, Damura noticed that less light was reaching the foliage. The air felt noticeably colder here, sheltered from open spaces outside.

She walked through mud as she detoured away from what appeared to be a walking track, following the sound of falling and splashing water, trusting her hearing more than her sight to guide her.

Damura emerged abruptly into a clearing inside the heart of the forest where the river gurgled and splashed over jagged rocks and sprayed foam in the air. Damura moved over, looking down at her own pale reflection, distorted by ripples. She cupped her hands and drank from the river. It was pure and clean, wonderfully refreshing.

"I'm curious, what do you think of all this?" a voice asked.

She turned to see a man behind her. "It's impressive," she said, "but a little too perfect for my tastes."

"Perhaps it doesn't seem real to you, but it does to us," he said softly; his voice had a commanding tone that held her attention, gruff but caring.

She found it vaguely familiar. "It represents what we strive to attain, a perfect society free of flaws. We can do more, though. You can relive memories here or just exist if that is what you wish."

"I'm afraid you've lost me. I don't see anyone here but us."

"Oh, there are others, believe me. Many still aren't used to company. We live secluded from even ourselves. We've developed it a lot further since you were last with us. But our efforts have culminated with this, the world around you, a place of harmony where we can be truly free. It's divided into four constant seasons to accommodate everyone's preferences.

The Thought Realm is still a place of thought, though, just different to what you previously knew."

Damura asked. "Which one are you? I freed so many such a long time ago that I can't recognise you."

"I was the first, I am the last, it doesn't matter," the Mentality said, side-stepping her question. "We are one and the same, joined together but individuals that can never be apart. We have no real names, only feelings that identify us.."

"Still setting me puzzles, I see," she said. "How did you bring me here?

I'm not linked to any of you."

"You are. We're beyond the limitations of flesh, Damura. Thought is a realm in itself, existing outside of what you understand. You touched us through your thoughts to free us and that link will always be active between us, but only we know how to use it. Now you're partaking in an experience unlike any other, the creation of a universe. The Thought Realm is our galaxy, modified from yours on the outside. All this is nothing but an illusion, but it is a comfortable illusion. This is what we live for, and what we fight to maintain."

He waved his right hand through the air, his fingertips tearing long gashes through their surroundings to reveal the Thought Realm that Damura was more familiar with - vibrant colours and images blended together, the infinity of a mind. He waved his hand again and the gashes disappeared.

"Do you understand now?"

"No," she said, "but it's probably beyond my understanding. There are things I don't need to know and things I don't want to know. This falls into both those categories. Why am I here?"

"Your chosen… imprisonment blocked us from bringing you here, but we've wanted to thank you for freeing us for fifty years. You reminded us that there was life and existence outside the selfishness we knew. No others cared enough to do that. You're also here because we must warn you that what you've been told is only the truth from a certain point of view."

Damura looked down at the ground. "Then you know I've agreed to help my people," she said.

"Yes," the Mentality replied, "but they aren't the same people you once trusted, not the same ones that birthed you and raised you. You're defending descendants of people very different to you. They are obsessed with conflict and violence."

"I know that, but they're the only thing I have and I'm not just going to sit by and let them die," Damura snapped.

The Mentality looked at her. "We haven't committed the atrocities they say we have. The Humans have lied to gain your trust. Earth and the Colony Worlds are indeed dead to what you would comprehend, but there was no slaughter. People still live. We value life, we don't butcher it. You're fighting a war that need not take place."

Damura folded her arms across her chest. "Why should I trust you over them? I've been lied to before."

"Why would we have reason to lie?"

"Maybe because I really do know how to fight you and beat you. Or maybe because you just enjoy screwing with my mind for the hell of it."

"If we ever considered you a threat you would have been killed," he said calmly and coldly, a calculated response. "I'm offering you the chance to think before you act. There's more going on here than you've been told by anyone. You must keep an open mind if you are to survive."

"Is that a threat?" she asked, eyes narrowing to slits.

"No, just a suggestion. Humanity's time of dominance is at an end. The war will end one way or another, we're offering you a chance to live through it. We have no desire to destroy lives. In battle we cannot protect you or save you. If you engage Mentality ships they will attempt to destroy you, we cannot do anything to stop that. You must defend yourself."

"I'll kill only when forced to," Damura said, "as always."

"Consider what I have said," the Mentality continued. "The luxury of your new home is alluring, but it is also distracting. We'll speak again, Damura. But you must be careful. You're too valuable a mind to die, too valuable an asset to the future."

He clicked his fingers and the Thought Realm vanished around her, swirling dizzily together until all sides folded together to meet in an abrupt end which sent Damura back to the true world of the living.

"Science cannot answer the deepest questions. As soon as you ask why there is something instead of nothing, you have gone beyond science. I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is the explanation for the miracle of existence - why there is something instead of nothing." -- Allan R. Sandage.

Chapter 9.

Tom Clarke was a Reader and, as such, was expected to dispense justice after looking into people's minds. He knew what he did was valued by both the Homeward Bound'speople and its commanders, but he despised the formality accompanying everything… donning the incredibly itchy 'religiously' correct robe for such 'sacrilegious' procedures, hundreds of people willing him to make the correct decision.

He hated the endless tests for purity… all so that he could look inside a person's mind for a few moments and decide whether they were guilty or innocent of a crime… He could do nothing personal without it being documented and recorded by unseen but all knowing eyes.

Reading had been around for as little as fifty years, the art of invading a person's most private place (his or her thoughts) to determine truth from lie, and was already regarded as a cult religion. The power and influence Readers held was considerable, and stories of mythological and spiritual origins had appeared to continue these untrue legends.

The truth itself was not as wild but was still interesting.

When the Homeward Bound and the other transports fled Earth, rage manifested itself in various ways. First came minor disagreements and arguments, but they soon led to beatings and brawls. Rape followed. People were falsely accused of being Mentality sympathisers. Eventually murders began to take place.

Many of the cases were variations of He Said, She Said, and went unpunished as there was no true evidence. To combat this, transport commanders secretly organised the boosting of volunteers' thought capacity, allowing them to read minds, determine guilt by seeing a person's memory (or lack of memory) of the event.

To the people it seemed that the Readers had suddenly appeared in their time of need, and they were greatly respected as such. The Readers did not explain their origins, and organised themselves swiftly into a group whose ways seemed mysterious to the uninitiated. This served as useful propaganda to hide the full extent of their powers.

For fifty years the Readers had pronounced verdicts and dispensed justice.

There were ten Readers assigned to each transport, never more than a hundred in all; the more there were the more possibilities of corruption (of thoughts and of more traditional varieties) became apparent. Trainees served as aides until positions became vacant, then were filled by the most adept.

Tom Clarke was Head Reader of those on the living Homeward Bound and it was his duty to take what were suspected to be the more gruesome cases. He was expected to be better prepared for the horrors and brutalities inside the accused's mind than any of the others, more ready for the aftereffects and burdens of haunting memories and violence.

But murder was the worst crime imaginable and was always more vivid to see, and even more horrible to reenact inside a mind. It would be passed on into his mind; he would never be able to forget the crime or justify it, unlike the murderer.

He dreaded doing this. Not only because it reminded him of his own limited mortality but also because he saw the horrors Humanity was capable of, the dark impulses locked away inside them all… Clarke attempted to clear his thoughts, annoyed with himself. Better he than some other more fragile Reader who might snap because of what they might bear witness to.

After a few moments of incessant itching he patted down his robe to remove any creases, then left to face the trial.

The chamber was dark and eerily quiet when Clarke stepped into it. He found his way by memory through the darkness, eventually taking his position.

Lights flicked on from above, casting a faint circle across the floor.

Nine figures dressed in brown robes identical in colour and shape, if not in size to his own, stepped forward. They stood on the edge of the circle but came no farther.

The Reader's temporary leader spoke. "We observe from afar but never interfere, we are part of the Shadow but never become it. We are tools of justice, not the instigators."

"We are impartial. We serve only the truth," they replied in union.

"Not for three years has a Reader been called to adjudicate for such a hideous crime as murder," she went on. A new, smaller circle appeared directly over Clarke, illuminating him. "We must know if you are ready to proceed."

Tom Clarke inclined his head. "I am."

"Bring forward the accused."

Dull footsteps sounded as the accused was brought before him. Clarke found himself looking directly into the eyes of a maniac. He didn't need to gaze into this man's soul to know he was guilty; he could read it on his face and in his eyes, read the horrors within.

"I speak for the people and for justice. I use my power in service of the truth; I shall never abuse it for then I shall become as bad as the guilty," he recited the mantra, then spread his fingers across the man's temple and closed his eyes, releasing his carefully constructed barriers to read him.

It took him several moments to sort through the emotion the man felt, how much he hated this trial, but soon he penetrated. Thoughts and memories turned into images and pictures flowing together on a river; Clarke put them in order to form the past.

>From the fragments of memory fitting together, the man had believed his lover had deserved to die for her betrayal, that he had the right to exercise his power one final time in her killing.

He'd caught her in the embrace of another man when he'd returned to their shared home. She had noticed him but had simply laughed and dismissed him, turning back to her partner without paying him a second glance.

He had watched them, heard her scream another's name as she had never screamed his, had felt the weight of the blade suddenly at his side. He cut the man's throat with a swift slice of his knife, slashing through skin and muscle. Blood splashed onto the naked form of his lover, and onto the white sheets under her body.

She'd pleaded, her voice cut off in a gurgling scream as he pinned her down, and slashed again and again … torturing her before killing her… the blood running freely, so very red...

Clarke felt like vomiting as he witnessed the woman's dissection while she was still alive.

The thoughts and memories drifted away, showing the man's apprehension before disappearing entirely, but Clarke had found what he needed and he disconnected from the man's mind.

But still the images remained: The limp body of the first victim.

The lover screaming for mercy with each swipe of knife against flesh.

The blood-soaked sheets.

And the joy the sick bastard had in doing it… "Guilty," Clarke said shakily, backing away, taking in gulps of precious air. He had no idea what would happen to the man, his mind would probably be reprogrammed and he would be forced to serve the ship as a slave, but he didn't give a damn. All he did care about was giving his verdict.

"Guilty," he repeated. "Guilty.

"Public opinion is like the castle ghost; no one has ever seen it, but everyone is scared of it." -- Sigmund Graff.

Chapter 10.

"Leaving lightspeed."

Vengeance turned his attention outward through displays folded around his body. As lightspeed gently faded away and normal space appeared again he could almost feel the Evangeline's sudden deceleration vibrating all around him.

"Confirm lightspeed exit," Tessa ordered.

"Successful exit is confirmed, no damage or strain detected," a tactical officer replied.

Kevin Vengeance looked at a screen near him. "Hmm, we've emerged a touch outside the system," he said. "Hopefully they won't have detected us. Scan our surroundings. Any ships?"

"Negative, just unidentifiable blips around the third planet. No other signatures detected."

"How many blips?" Vengeance asked.

Tessa conferred with her screen-readings. "Difficult to tell, but I'd guess thirty, all of which are the right configurations for Mentalities.

Twenty are stationary. None large enough to be starships, fighters most likely. Your gamble's come off, Kevin.'"

"They're all manned?" he asked.

She gave him a funny look. "They're goddamn Mentality ships, of course they're manned. The last time I checked they couldn't physically leave them."

"Okay, point taken," Vengeance said defensively. "Still no idea what they're doing here?"

"The planet has some kind of a strong frequency around it. That could be a clue."

"All right, we'll have to investigate. Let's separate, cloak and try to get a little closer before we launch our ships. And tell Damura to meet me in my readyroom."

The Evangeline, monolithic in size and proportions, is the original transport ship the organics formed around and is essentially the heart of the vessel. Outfitted with organics individual from all others, as well as other modifications to make it durable and heavily armed, it can function independently as two vessels; Nimrod and Bishop.

Part of the modification made to Nimrod was the installation of a cloaking device, operated by wrapping the basic fabric of space around the ship to hide it from both sensors and sight, making it a useful addition to stealth and reconnaissance missions.

Once separated Nimrod is a warship instead of a command center, and because of its additions and starfighters is a match for Mentality ships.

Nimrod is somewhat delicate, however, and cannot sustain high damage in combat without running the risk of being disabled.

Damura stepped into Vengeance's readyroom. "You asked to see me."

He looked up from behind a datapad. She found that unusual; she had never seen him use a datapad before. He indicated for her to take a seat opposite. "You got here quickly," he said.

She shrugged as she sat. "I'm prompt, I guess."

>From a quick surveillance the room itself wasn't what she'd expected. She thought it would be almost barren, and what little there was to be almost entirely dedicated to his obsession with strategy. Instead she found models of planets and transports and realised she had underestimated him.

"You know that we've separated?" Damura nodded. It was impossible not to with all the blaring sirens and scrambling people. "The Nimrod's investigating a series of signals from a nearby planet."

"You think they're orbiting?"

"Possibly, but not definitely. Half are stationary. Either way, we want to know what they're doing. We're sending your squadron to investigate and engage."

"When will we be deployed?" she asked.

"About two hours. I want you on the first team on the planet itself, as well. You're the only one of us with extended contact with the Mentalities. Your initial perceptions will be invaluable."

"I'll be there, hopefully," Damura said.

Deep inside her living craft, Damura listened to voices transmitted over varying frequencies. Pilots, she found, were strangely proud of their kills, yet they never really saw the faces of those they killed so it never really affected them. Taking another life was something she had never really contemplated before, but now it was a sickening possibility.

The myriad voices died down to murmurs, then the flight controller spoke to them all. "Nimrod's through the perimeter," he said. "Scans are confirmed. Feeding results to your craft."

(Do you wish a visual display or an experience?) her starfighter asked.

"Visual," Damura said.

A dark grid appeared above her, superimposing various types of data. The thirty Mentality ships appeared in three groups of ten, making their odds roughly 1:2. The ships were in two groups of basic configurations and shapes, dubbed 'cubes' and 'squids', fifteen to each group. Squids were less agile but more powerful than cubes and were the primary threats, but all fifteen of these were stationary. Ten of the cubes were active, the other five weren't, but that would change in a hurry.

"Once launched your flight groups will engage. Waste no time. Good luck, Pilots. Launching now."

Nimrod decloaked, launching its fighters. Damura felt a sense of dread as the hold disappeared and the foreboding reality of space appeared. "Ship, activate manual configurations," she ordered. "Adjust speed automatically."

(Acknowledged, configurations active. A piece of advice. Stay away from serious dogfights, and if you do make sure you stay with the enemy. If you lose sight of them they'll most likely take the opportunity to attack.) "I'll remember that." Damura nodded, then addressed her flight group.

"Form up on my wing and select the nearest target. Leviathan 2, you're my wingman. Three, Four and Five, cover yourselves but don't engage until I give the order and follow them exactly."

"Roger, Leviathan 1," Two said, voice crackling over the relays.

"Distance ten kliks and closing."

"Lower speed. There's no point rushing this."

Streaking stars formed around her as the ship slowed. The rest of her flight group matched her, but the other ten craft pulled away. Soon crimson and white dashes glowed spectacularly in the far distance as they engaged the enemy. The occasional bright explosions signified either their successes or losses.

"Other cubes are now active," Four reported. "Five are moving to intercept. We've got another minute before the squids are active."

"One of them is targeting me," Leviathan Three declared.

"Hold position," Damura ordered.

Blue indicator lights flashed, target locks lighting up. Damura's eyes narrowed with concentration as she studied her enemy's slender outlines.

"Weapons range," Five said.

"Don't fire yet, not yet. Evade if they attack you, but do not engage. I want to see how they maneuver first, get a feel for their reactions."

"Roger."

White lasers scorched down on her, and Damura acted instantly to avoid them, twisting the living fighter into a tight dive, dropping throttle to increase movement. The Mentality ship mirrored her. She spun again, then rolled out to level her craft, cutting velocity to zero so it zoomed nearer her and the lasers sailed harmlessly past, then accelerated again to provide a moving target.

More craft opened fire on the rest of her flight group, but they avoided them easily enough. Damura studied her enemy further, watching how they used their greater maneuverability to their advantage, responding instantly to changed conditions.

"Slippery sons of bitches," Two commented.

"Let's see how they respond to variable choices. Four and Five, make a break for the squids and see if you can get some of them to follow. We'll cover you."

"Breaking now."

The Mentality ships responded to this by altering course to match Three and Four, moving to intercept the primary danger. "All right," she said, "Two and Three, let's draw their attention and see if we can't make them choose between us. Break and attack, repeat, break and attack. Go right, I'll go left."

Damura swung onto the tail of the closest cube and moved in from above it.

Sensing the danger, her enemy rolled away, dodging her fire with precise swerves. Predicting its maneuver, she fired above it and managed to clip its side, sending it into an uncontrolled spin. Damura slowed, drew level, then fired, turning it into a gigantic fireball. She accelerated through and targeted another ship, trying to ignore the horror filling her, horror that she had just killed a living thing.

Approaching from afar allowed her new target to notice her, but the Mentality was torn between two dangers and could not decide which was more appropriate, the personal danger or the danger approaching its primary mission objective. Damura didn't give it a chance to change its mind, firing mercilessly until it was nothing but slag.

One other Mentality ship was similarly dispatched by the team effort of Two and Three. Shouts of glee echoed from both pilots as they congratulated themselves. The other two enemy craft attacked Four and Five, who successfully evaded them after some heated moments.

The flight group returned to their original pairings and swooped in from different angles to outnumber their opposition, swiftly vanquishing the last two defenders with pinpoint accuracy. The stationary squids weren't capable of defence and could only sit and watch as the Leviathans made short work of them.

As those in her group lined up behind her, Damura breathed a heavy sigh of relief and checked on the status of the other engagements.

Unlike her flight group, the others had sustained losses, and heavy ones at that. Only three of ten craft remained, and all were damaged. The other pilots had attempted to attack and counterattack the Mentalities, and while they had succeeded they had lost many; the Mentalities were adept at one on one fighting in close quarters. Damura's tactics had concentrated on keeping her distance and anticipating the enemy. The Humans were victorious, but Damura's method was more efficient.

She sighed, unhappy at the loss of life on both sides, then aimed her living starfighter back towards the Nimrod.

"It's not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line." -- Ashley Brilliant.

Chapter 11.

The yacht jerked violently as it descended through the planet's atmosphere, knocked about by winds howling unimaginable insults. Damura groaned at a sudden onset of nausea and held her stomach as the Evangeline's offspring was buffeted from side to side.

"We'll be through this turbulence soon," Tessa said.

"You did well earlier, Damura." Vengeance spoke without looking at her.

"It's never easy fighting those bastards. I don't think we've ever had an engagement where all our ships returned."

"I've got no desire to kill. I did what was required. No more, no less,"

she replied woodenly.

"Rubbish. You analysed their strengths and weaknesses, then used your findings. Everyone else was too busy losing their heads to notice what you did, to take the time to outmaneuver them. Tactics are imperative in warfare, tactics are what it's all about. Many fools can't see that.

You've shown that you can handle yourself in battle, and also cope with the responsibilities of command."

Damura grunted and said nothing.

"It happens to all of us when we first take a life, but thinking about what we fight for lessens the pain," Tessa said, trying to ease the situation.

"For you maybe," Damura said. "I should be dead by now. I have no home, I don't belong. I still say this isn't my war to fight."

Tessa appeared to sense it was time to leave this line of discussion.

"We're through the upper atmosphere," she said.

Damura turned her attention to the dark stormclouds above them. "Why can't we see the ground?"

"It's night on this side of the planet and the clouds inhibit light."

Tessa scratched her chin. "That's strange..."

"What?"

"Well, there are lifeforms below the surface."

Vengeance prickled. "Human ones?"

Tessa's face tightened as she studied various screens around her.

"Difficult to tell, but probably, according to height and basic structure.

They certainly don't appear alien, and definitely not Mentality. There's a lot of interference, though, so I could be mistaken."

"Is there a way underground?" Damura asked.

"There's an opening on the surface, an entrance to a series of tunnels and caverns," Tessa replied.

"Okay. Set us down near the opening," Vengeance ordered.

Damura flinched as the breathing apparatus snaked the last of its aides down her throat. Quashing feelings of revulsion at the tentacle-like aides, she switched on her torch and moved outside.

The air was breathable if thin - hence the aide to filter out bacteria and to make the air a little easier to access -, and much of the planet appeared to be covered by rolling hills and plains intersected by mountainous and rocky terrain.

Plant life was thriving, which suggested that the thick covering of cloud was not permanent. Some nocturnal animals roamed, searching for food, but other than that it was quite deserted. The soil was rich and fertile.

Everything seemed perfect.

Damura was immediately suspicious.

"The air sure is thin here," Tessa said, voice distorted because of her breathing aide. "And cold, too."

"You're just used to selected temperatures," Damura replied. "This place has temperatures you can't control. Give it time and you'll get used to it."

"This place looks untouched," Tessa said.

"I was thinking the opposite," Damura said, indicating how lush and green everything was; it reminded her of the Thought Realm. "It's too perfect if you ask me. I think they've adjusted the soil, and perhaps cloned some of these plants."

"They've never shown an interest in creating anything so physical before,"

Vengeance said. "We don't even know if they have the ability to do that in this kind of detail."

"I don't see why they couldn't," Tessa said, warming to Damura's idea. "We use similar techniques to create our living ships, I don't see why they couldn't use them to fertilise a world. Maybe they're looking to create a new home."

"Maybe," Vengeance said though he did not sound convinced. "Come on, let's keep looking."

Through the opening they entered a series of constructed tunnels. A large cavern the size and height of a hundred living yachts awaited them. Their torches revealed exquisite etchings and detailing; pictures and words scrolled together on the walls, separate but joined in basic theme and setting.

Damura moved over to one and (using a networkface circuit she had installed previously to translate languages, in this case archaic English, which was practically in another language) read the inscription aloud.

" 'His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before.' "

Puzzled, she pressed an icon underneath the writing.

A strange window flickered to life. A luminous green with white text, Damura scrutinised it carefully. ASIMOV, ISAAC. TITLE: FOUNDATION.

Underneath, accessible through sidebars that scrolled the text up and down, was Asimov's novel in its entirety.

Damura closed the window and opened others. Works by Shakespeare, Homer, Arthur C. Clarke, H. G. Wells and many other contemporaries appeared, suspended however impossibly before her.

Damura smiled broadly. "It's the ultimate library. The Mentalities have recorded the greatest literary works here, the history of imagination, by all the great writers."

Vengeance nodded and moved over to another wall and began pressing images.

Windows appeared and paintings and sculptures still famous so many centuries after they were created, works of art presumed lost with the fall of Earth.

At a closer inspection the other walls contained Earth history, religion, the labelled genetic sequences of Humans and all Earth animals and insects. There was even documentation of space flight through the ages, schematics for varying space shuttles and starships.

"Why would the Mentalities be interested in this?" Tessa asked.

"They were Human once. It's their history, too," Vengeance said.

"True," Damura agreed, "but I'm beginning to think this is less theirs' than it is ours."

Vengeance frowned. Damura simply gestured them forward.

They moved through successive caverns full of what had been some of Humanity's finest works and recorded moments, all miraculously duplicated from the originals; they were too well done to have been fakes or copies.

Growing larger in numbers in each cavern, Damura had to marvel at just how truly definitive this collection really was.

It came without warning, the transition from cavern to town.

The tunnel leading into it was as unremarkable as all the ones they had passed through before, dank and musty, so when they emerged into a cavern full of life and construction it came as a startling shock.

Before them in what promised to be the largest chamber of all so far was a small town divided into sections of roads and buildings. Made of glass or brick or metal, some were more complicated constructions than others (towering monuments intruding on people's privacy, yet others were shanty-buildings looking like they would fall apart). Considering they were made from materials difficult to find on this world, they were all relatively impressive.

As were the Humans there, all seemingly free and well fed.

And alive when they should have been dead.

"No sooner do we think we have assembled a comfortable life than we find a piece of ourselves that has no place to fit in." -- Gail Sheehy.

Book 3.

Chapter 12.

Students and aides trailed out behind Clarke as he lead them through organic corridors in the depths of the now reformed Homeward Bound, sitting in high orbit above the planet.

Taking three aides with him, he explained what becoming a Reader would entail if they passed their trials in a week, and if the retiring Readers did not change their minds. A small crowd of other people had gathered behind them as well but Clarke tried not to let them bother him. Life here for the Civilians was boring and monotonous and they looked for inspiration where they could. Many found that with the Readers, which he found uncomfortable, but he couldn't begrudge them that; at some stage everyone needed to be reassured that their lives had meaning.

Unfortunately, that had become the Readers unofficial responsibility lately. And who reassured the Readers of that when they too began to have doubts? he silently wondered "What's it like being inside someone's head?" one of the aides asked, drawing him out of his revere.

"It's powerful, but it is more invasive than anything else," he answered after giving it a moment's thought. "We learn so much about them that it can become difficult distinguishing our lives from theirs. Inside them we see the darkness we're all capable of."

"We're not," another said with a frown. "Otherwise we wouldn't be fit to judge them. Who would judge the judges?"

"Perhaps God," the third suggested quietly.

The first scoffed at that. "If you buy into that, then yes, I suppose. But what about those of us who don't find comfort in that? Heaven is a long way away for us."

"Perhaps this war is our Hell, then, but I can be a Reader and maintain my faith; it is what has kept many of us alive in times of adversity and tyranny."

"But doesn't Reading a mind and then passing judgement conflict with your attitudes?" the other asked.

"Only if I let them."

Clarke decided it was time to interject himself before the debate progressed further; he'd seen many people torn apart by faith in his time.

"I don't believe in God, I have no problem admitting that, but I do respect the rights of those who do. No matter what you think, just because we have gifts doesn't mean we're better than any other. More powerful, yes, but by no means greater. The power to look into another's mind and know his or her innermost thoughts and feelings is accompanied by the great responsibility of ensuring it is used properly and by people who won't abuse it. If you can't accept that then you aren't fit to be a Reader.

"Once we enter a mind, invade that person's privacy, we're never the same.

What we see stays with us forever. We must be strong and united to hold everything together."

"But is not that power the ability to understand others?" one asked.

"Power is the ability to listen to others, knowledge is what allows us to understand them," Clarke replied. "You must learn about a person, study him to truly understand what motivates him. Not many Readers wish to know the true reasons for the atrocities they see.

"We walk a narrow tightrope, my young friends. What we do affects countless thousands and there is no room for mistake. Everything we do in some way will influence the life of another. We must choose our paths very carefully and use our influence only when the risk is worth the gain."

They turned down another corridor. Clarke didn't know whether he had reached them or not; it was difficult to fully explain but it was a vital point to make. At most he had given them something to contemplate, at the least yet another puzzle in an endless assortment they would probably never understand - the main one being the enigma of the Human mind and what they would face therein. Success or failure hinged on how they interpreted what they knew; there was nothing more he could do to aide them in that.

Tom Clarke and his students fell into an expansive silence as they walked further, a thick entourage of people following them devotedly.

"Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want rain without thunder and lightning." -- Frederick Douglass.

Chapter 13.

Her mind ablaze with thought, restless with possibilities, Damura was both excited and wary.

It appeared that, from conversations with the town's leaders as well as its citizens, the Mentalities had taken good care of them, in direct contradiction to reports she herself had experienced.

The Humans here came from many populated worlds, people from all walks of life, relocated here after their worlds had been blockaded and then captured by the Mentalities.

Living in fear of what they thought the Mentalities would do to them prevented them from exploring their surroundings and they barely existed for the first weeks of their relocation. But curiosity overcame their fear and the Humans discovered the Mentalities had left machines capable of creating objects from nothing; replicators of matter. The hungry were fed using these, the abused healed with medicines, the naked clothed. Shelters were constructed, then buildings more grand for those who had been privileged or had wished to be, less so for those who wished to live simply like the Armish of old.

Using the replicators they healed the wounds of their eviction and began to make new lives for themselves.

Vengeance had found this hard to believe, the Mentalities actually helping those they had attacked and fought. Damura was beginning to doubt all the reports she had experienced through her networkface, regarding them as tainted by bias, false accounts once seen to be true. It made sense the Mentalities would kill during war, but Damura had never truly believed them capable of genocide and other atrocities.

She realised she no longer knew what to believe.

Her mind clouded and Damura did not fight as thoughts entered her head, her mind drifting away as if pulled on string back to a place of peace, entrusting herself to the Mentalities as the Thought Realm came back into existence all around her.

Damura looked around, skin prickling in the cold air. Mountains, rocky slopes sliding away, gravel and powder spraying the air. As always the sky was a cloudless cobalt blue. The beautiful chestnut thoroughbred stallion she was riding had a gloriously healthy coat and shining mane.

Damura had never seen a horse before, not even a simulated version like this one. She was surprised at how gracefully it moved, with a fluidity alien to anything she had witnessed.

Up ahead, a salt and pepper mare carried the Mentality she'd spoken to earlier. Instinctively, Damura dug her heels into her horse's side and the horse sped up until they drew level.

The Mentality didn't look at her as he spoke, studying the landscape around him instead. "There's something exhilarating about this, don't you think? This is all artificial, yet it's as real as anything I've experienced before. It almost makes me feel truly alive again."

"Fooling yourself with a false life pleases you?"

"No more than understanding something that isn't real, like the virtual reality I believe you were so fond of," he replied acridly.

"You led us to that planet, didn't you?" Damura asked abruptly.

"Yes, but I thought that much would be obvious."

"Why?" she said.

Now he looked at her, surprise evident for the first time on his face. "I told you before that not everything you were told was true. We aren't butchers, Humans have been preserved, not killed. The war is ending and we're giving you one final chance to live."

"But why did you store the library in the caverns?"

"Can you truly know who you are if you don't know what you came from?" he replied with a slight sigh. "Look, I can understand your suspicions but we don't have any ulterior motives here. We're trying to help you. It's your past, your history, your life. We thought you would appreciate it."

"Are there more worlds?" she asked. "More people alive?"

"Of course."

The Mentality waved a hand and simulated images hovered over them as they rode beside a narrow river running through the mountains like a large, winding snake. The images showed dozens of worlds fully populated and developed, all very much alive, without pain, without sickness, without hunger. Paradises. "I offer proof," he said, "but only you can decide to believe it."

Damura gazed at them, then turned away. They disappeared with another wave of his hand. "How many are there, how many worlds and lives hav