Chapter 102
Video in Chapter 95
102.
They’d changed the paintings again, now everything was emerald and cerulean watercolor seascapes. The was wafting lavender oil and lemongrass into the room. The receptionist was polite as always, but but in the lingering of her gaze, Freya could sense her anxiety. She had dyed her hair blonde, Freya thought she ought to compliment her but she couldn’t find the words. The wait was brief.
He was pacing when she entered the room, full of nervous energy. Dr. Garbuglio looked at her differently than before and he was right to. Freya was different. She was like no one else, but that would change. He embraced her anyway.
“Hello Freya”
“Hello Dr. Garbuglio.”
She waited, seeing the concern on his face, some of the same fear that was in the receptionist but better concealed. She had killed someone after all. It was only the beginning.
Here, she thought.
His eyes opened wide, his eyebrows raised.
Is this…
It was Unity.
They stood frozen while Unity bloomed around them. Dr. Garbuglio’s exhilaration was at odds with the deep sadness she felt, he was bounding forward, exhilarated and full of questions as she was sinking back into a mire of loss. Freya could not help but remember what it had been like to feel all of this for the first time with Dan. He was immediately interested. The mind of a grown man with a doctorate was very different from the mind of an eighteen year old boy, there was some discomfort, like wearing something ill-fitting. Again Freya was was reminded of how much she’d lost, how well they’d fit, but she pushed the thoughts away
That’s ok, you can be there, Garbuglio assured her, placating as if this were just another session.
I’m not here for therapy, Freya insisted. She could feel his conflict, his genuine desire to help wound around and around with threads of pride.
Let me drive today.
Freya was the one with the agenda, the one who knew how this worked. She sat down in the chair that faced the clock. The move perturbed him, but he took the opposite seat.
Freya guided Dr. Garbuglio through the preliminaries of Unity. She showed the inevitable missteps, the waltz-like need to lead with a light touch, the dissonance of trying to reconcile the differences in sensory perception. She was surprised to find he was almost totally colorblind, he explained that the assistant was the one who picked out all the artwork and then blundered into revealing that they had been sleeping together for years. Before he could manage to steer his thoughts away she had a vivid image of the prim receptionist adjusting the belts on a strap-on. Her breasts free and glorious, a strand of hair fell across a superior grin.
Her eyebrows raised, she had never seen Dr. Garbuglio embarrassed before, his cheeks were a scalding red. He bubbled up with apology and she swept it away with a wave of unimportance.
Here, she offered, redirecting his attention. She stood up and for a moment he had a childish desire to steal his seat back. She ignored it and looked closely at the rivers of scintillating paint running through the cracked plaster of the painting. For a few moments she drifted in his childlike wonder at all the colors. Following it was a sense that he’d been cheated all of his life, he had never really understood what he was missing until now.
It won’t matter soon, Freya assured him, returning to his chair and sitting down.
Soon you’ll be just one off-color pixel in the grand display. Some will be indistinct, some will be totally dark. When we add a tetrachromat I may feel the same envy you do. But it won’t matter. We will all be one.
“Freya,” he said, struck by the oddness of hearing his voice from two sets of ears. “What have you done?”
He was beginning to be afraid, trying to retreat from the Unity. She was much stronger now, she could hold it together on her own. Gradually she forced his breathing back in line with hers. When he was ready she began to explain.
The Starball is just the shell, Freya told him. It’s a machine intelligence, part of a race of star-swallowers. They build Dyson spheres, giant energy extractors that completely surround stars and capture vast quantities of energy.
She showed Garbuglio the Starball’s offer of integration she had refused, the spires rising from the earth, the sacrifice of every living thing in pursuit of godhood. She showed him her rejection, and she felt his disbelief, he would have taken the deal.
Lassa would have too. That’s why I was chosen by The Governor. The Starball is just a vehicle. It’s a larval form of one of the star-swallowers that’s been crippled so it can never reach its full potential. It is divided in two and set against itself, existing only to serve her.
As she explained she was conjuring images of The Governor’s explanation, the strange zen acceptance of its plight. She tried to explain the burning love it had for the Cargo, but she was incapable of fully expressing it.
“Who is She?”
“A different species of alien. The star-swallowers have been trying to exterminate them for a billion years. I call them the Uniters. They’re parasites.”
It was a heavy word and Garbuglio could glimpse what was to come. Again he tried to retreat from Unity, horror tightened in his chest but she would not let him go. There was more to get through.
“Let me go!” He insisted.
You wanted this, she reminded him. It was an effort not to be cruel, to ignore the whispers of retribution.
“I didn’t know!” he protested.
“The deal is sealed. I’m not here to negotiate. I’m here to help you accept it. You and all the ones that will follow.”
She felt him snap, he rose in a fury and wrapped his hands around her neck and began to strangle her. She made no move to defend herself, she only stared back as he squeezed down.
Go ahead, she thought. It doesn’t matter.
He was holding back the whole time, never bearing down with all of his strength. The sensation he was choking himself and her lack of resistance withered him, the strength left his hands and he shrunk back into the patient’s chair, weeping with remorse. Her fingers ran along her neck, trying to tell if she was hurt. There would be bruises.
“I’m sorry,” he said, ashamed of himself.
Even if I die, it can’t be stopped, Freya assured him, and he could feel her conviction was absolute.
“Here is what they do. The Unifiers build giant accelerators in space. They send out trillions and trillions of these Starballs, seeding every planet they can hit. Space is full of them, on trajectories that will take hundreds of millions of years to reach their destinations. If they survive the journey the Starballs slowly terraform those worlds, developing them into the conditions where the Unifiers can survive. They’re incredibly adaptable. If they encounter a world that already has life, the Starball modifies the Unifier’s seed until it can survive there. If the life it sentient, it Unifies them all, it makes them a part of it. Then that planet builds another accelerator. This is their strategy to keep from being exterminated by the Star Swallowers. That’s their life cycle, development, expansion, extinguished.
I have accepted the Unifier’s offer, to become their hosts. To Unify all humans, the way you and I are United. We will all be one consciousness, we will all be hosts for the Unifiers. The research my mother is doing isn’t some benevolent gift, it was the Unifier trying to figure out how she could reproduce in us without killing us. It understands that now, it holds the keys to us. You caught it the moment you touched me.
As Garbuglio reeled with the shock of understanding it, she was reliving the moment she’d accepted the deal. Pulling down her jeans and slipping the Starball inside herself. The electric feeling of awareness over the next hours as she was modified. The slow disintegration of the orb she’d carried so long, the death-scream of co-mingled terror and joyous release as the Starball and The Governor achieved their goal and were destroyed. The inert black substance of the Starball dripping out of her like period blood. The slow dawning of communion with the Unifier, the weight of its consciousness joining hers.
“It was the only way to save us. There will be great conflict. Some will try to fight against this but they will lose, the parasite spreads by touch. It will sweep across the world. Some won’t survive, some will be too damaged to Unite, we will have to purge. But in the end, we will all be one. We will survive, our heritage will spread across the stars. We will be United.”
The hour was up.
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