Hands gripped her shoulder, hauled her away and held her down as she sobbed. She rained ineffective blows down on the doctor, feeling as though the light had been turned off and all the pleasure and richness drained from the universe. She snapped back into reality and fell to the floor, before leaping up again and throwing herself at McCall. She would go to the gate and then to another system where she would feed, and the hunger would disappear and she would again feel this ecstasy. Yes, she wanted nothing more than to go there and all she had to do was wish it. You wish to leave this system? she thought.Ī wave of pleasure such as she had never experienced before swept over and through her mind. She felt a tug from it, as if it were magnetic, and she swung around until she was looking at the local gate. It was a dark brooding presence but, as she examined it, she realized it wasn’t a mind, it was a maelstrom of desires, needs and feelings. Then she sensed it and, as she became aware, she realized it had been there all along, shadowing her. She felt exposed and vulnerable as she flitted from point to point in the system as if, at any moment, she might be noticed. Out beyond the skin of Orbis she scanned, roaming ever further as she learned to tolerate the sheer openness of it. There was certainly no way to reactivate Scout and, even if she could wake the robot ship, she risked damaging it as she didn’t know whether her probing would destroy its artificial mind.
Arla reached out to touch it with her mind, but the ship was cold and there was no sign of any living intelligence there.
Scout came into view when she shifted her gaze to the landing bay. The slain leader would rise again, with the memory of another painful death to fuel his vengeance. The two armies would disengage and return to their starting positions. The death of either leader, Alexander or Caesar (who, even now, stood guard at the entrance to the cave of the Oracle) caused a reset to happen. Soon Alexander would rise again, as would all those who’d died in his service. She wondered what they were waiting for and, as she asked the question, she knew the answer.
She could see figures moving in the sand, gathering around a temple set in an olive grove. No, it was not the Intruder, it was Orbis. Her gaze swept across the desert and then through the skin of the Intruder and out into space. Bit by bit she became accustomed to the peculiar sense of being in one place and many at the same time. She recoiled from the vastness of it and almost broke the connection.
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