Chapter Fifteen: Exodus

“I should die now!” Konzor cried out, “because there is nothing I could ever witness – ever! – That could top what I just saw.”

“Why thank you,” I said, “I worked hard for it. But I think I can top it.”

“How?”

“Ever seen someone pull a new universe out of the bag?”

I was already spinning the ring, warming up the whipdrives, searching the multiverse for exactly what I needed. Zanzekai was right, in his egotistical little way. The multiverse was like foam, with universes of all shapes and sizes pressed tightly together in a matrix. Old universes and young universes. Most were old, having spent trillions or quadrillions of years as empty starless husks before finally fading into the background. The youngest were completely inhospitable, dense clouds of energy with the first stars still millions of years from forming. I needed something young, but not that young, with countless galaxies and a bright future ahead.

The fleet ahead was ready, with new ships still jumping in from the furthest reaches of the solar system, everyone scrambling to reach this location before it was too late. I didn’t know any of them, and even collectively they were less intelligent than I was now, but I could feel the sheer significance of each and every life before me. They were universes too, in their own right, young and old, each completely unique and special. They’d been born into this dying universe, and now it was time to say goodbye.

“I have to say,” Dagger said, “I didn’t expect any of us to make it back here. And I certainly didn’t expect, well, I didn’t expect all this.”

“Neither did I. But I’m glad it happened.”

“I kinda expected you to turn evil or something, or to be corrupted by the Arkolt.”

“Because it’s so unthinkable that anything truly good could just happen?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth, Greenie.”

“Well, maybe sometimes good things do happen. I’m attached to the largest repository of information in the universe, and I see no such lore forbidding it. Maybe sometimes there is a ‘happily ever after’.”

“Yeah,” she said, but sounded a little unsure, “how long can you stay in control of that thing?”

“A while. Maybe a few more hours.”

“That’s not very long.”

“Long enough.”

“So, you have the keys, Greenie!” Konzor pumped his fist, “where we gonna go?”

“Somewhere with a beach, and a bright orange sunset, maybe an aurora,” the side of Dagger’s mouth twisted upwards a little. Hope looked good on her. “Somewhere I can forget all this and just smell the roses for a while.”

“I think I can manage that… Let’s see…”

A young universe, less than two billion years old. Not a single yellow-dwarf star had died its natural death yet, and the sky was splattered with galaxies. Wherever I looked, there was nearly no life even bordering on intelligent, and only a precious few planets had even evolved beyond the cell level. We wouldn’t be gate-crashing an active universe, dumping billions of migrants on another civilisation’s lap. We’d have everything to ourselves, and space to grow.

“Here we go. No holding back.”

My ring-body span faster, even faster, and then jolted to a sudden stop. Energy cackled and drained, the wall of reality crumpling like wet clay as I punched a tunnel through the eye of infinity.

Our universe had existed for billions of years.

Entire species had evolved and died.

Entire civilisations had arisen and died.

Entire lives had been lived and died.

And now, at the very end of everything…

One last marvellous thing would happen.

One final thing.

It was done. The portal was open.

“Go!” I broadcast to the entire fleet.

They were rightly hesitant at first, sending a few little probes to begin with, quickly to be followed by scout ships. Then a single battlecruiser, to be sure. They only found what I knew they’d find, a quiet little yellow-dwarf system, with two asteroid belts and a handful of exploitable planets, including one habitable world in the midst of a temperate period. After that they were like ants to sugar, taking advantage of the impossibly wide tunnel opening to flee through this dead plane of existence. I felt a surge of utter satisfaction as they poured through the wormhole, knowing that with every ship that crossed the threshold, more people were saved. Every second was an entire species that wouldn’t go extinct. Every moment was a family that wouldn’t be broken up. Every instant was a child that wouldn’t live in darkness.

A large chunk of the fleet remained behind for now, monitoring the traffic and ensuring everyone made it safely through the breach. The Ultimatum of Infinity sat amongst them, waiting for the others to pass before reaching safety for themselves.

“That star is yellow,” Dagger sniffed, “I’ve never seen a yellow star before. I thought it was, you know, hyperbole.”

Konzor pat her on the back.

“I heard they come in all sorts of colours. Blue, yellow, red.”

“I can see them! Whole galaxies of them. It’s, it’s so beautiful.”

“You don’t need to wait,” I told them, “I think I can hold it open, but I can’t promise anything. You should all leave now.”

“Not until the last ship is through,” Dagger promised, “I left so many to die last time. Never again.”

“You’re so stupidly stubborn.”

“Said the pot to the kettle.”

“Fair.”

But it was true. I could feel the Arkolt working its way around me, gently pulling at the controls like a rug from beneath my feet. Dagger and Konzor couldn’t know it, but all around the ring, robots were fighting each other for supremacy on continent-sized battlefields as the entire superstructure slowly pulled itself apart. There was only so long I could do this, and then I’d be gone.

Over the next ten hours, I watched as the ships and stations passed into the safety of the second universe, all while I could feel myself slowly fading. It wasn’t painful, quite the opposite. If anything, it was more like anaesthesia, the definite feeling of drowsiness as my mind consciously shrank. Not fast enough to lose, but fast enough to know I couldn’t win.

This wasn’t a permanent arrangement, and I couldn’t change that, even with so much power.

I was going to die.

Eventually, the final civilian ships surged through the opening, and the final military warships began their own transit. The Ultimatum of Sapius remained right through to the end, now a symbol of the new beginning I’d given everyone. The last ship to transit was a final Terminator dreadnought, and then finally it was just them and I, drifting together in a lightless void.

“You’ve done it,” Konzor said, “I don’t know how, but we’ve saved everyone. You saved everyone.”

“Yes,” I said, and then retracted it, “no. Not yet.”

“Greenie?”

“How many people were left on Enfirnia?”

“Less than a quarter of the population, I think.”

“I haven’t saved them yet.”

“There weren’t enough ships,” said Dagger, “I can’t think of a way to get them off-world.”

“Me neither. But that isn’t good enough.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Follow.”

I grabbed them with a tractor beam, and for the first time since I’d conquered the Arkolt, activated the ring’s own engines.

“This thing can move?” Konzor asked, bewildered.

“Course it can,” sighed Dagger, “they didn’t always have it around Vlissik, you know.”

“What a way to ride!”

“I think I know what you have in mind,” Dagger said slowly, “and I don’t know what the effects of that would be.”

“Better than the alternative.”

“Oh, no doubt.”

I could see Enfirnia in the distance, a nearly pitch-black orb lit only by a handful of city-dots scattered across the surface. Soon enough, the clouds would fall and the oceans would freeze and the remaining power supplies would fade until the last people were fighting over the final candle. I could scarcely imagine the existential terror of the huddled survivors as they watched the sky fall black, knowing that they and their children were doomed to die in darkness. It must have been a completely different type of terror as the colossal alien ring approached their planet, glowing with stars from the other side, lighting their sky up once more like the faint glow of moonlight.

Slowly, I wrapped myself around the planet, which fit more snuggly than the smaller world of Vlissik had, the sky slowly turning blue once more as I brought it through to the system beyond. The planet would live to see another lifetime of dawns and dusks. I was mostly doing this for the people left behind, but I knew it would be far easier for the others to survive with the infrastructure on the surface, rather than as a loose fleet of random spaceships. For good measure I swallowed the moon too, careful to maintain its orbit around Enfirmia. I’d been careful to place them both in such a way that their impact on the structure of the rest of the system should be minimal. For all intents and purposes, it was as if Enfirnia had been a part of the system all along.

And then it was done. Everyone in the entire system had been evacuated. Only one ship remained.

“It’s time,” I said to the tiny Ultimatum of Infinity as it hung before me, staring down the very centre of the portal. A new universe beckoned them.

“It is,” Dagger said, not sounding as happy as she should, “I’m trying to think of a reason to stay. There might be more people out there, stranded in broken ships or stations.”

“We can’t scour the entire universe for stragglers. You know that.”

“Knowing that fact and liking it are whole universes apart, Greenie,” she said, and then paused, “damn, what a bad turn of phrase that was.”

“Your body might still be in there!” Konzor said, refusing to give up, “we could take you with us.”

“My flesh body was destroyed by the Arkolt hours ago.”

“Then take over one of those robots and join us!”

“I can’t risk spreading the Arkolt to another universe. Already I can feel them growing stronger. Soon I will be gone. This all dies today.”

“I,” Konzor choked with pure emotion, “I don’t want to leave you.”

“It’s an honourable death.”

“To hell with that,” Konzor bashed the controls hard enough for me to worry he’d somehow broken the ship, “an honourable death is good. An honourable life is better, especially when there’s actually something to look forwards too. For the first time in my life, I have a reason to live. Don’t leave us. Please.”

“I won’t leave you, but I can’t come with.”

Konzor screamed, a pure shout of anguish, and he bashed the wall once more.

“It’s not fair,” he said quieter than I’d ever heard him.

“It’s what it is. Please go now, before the moment passes.”

Slowly, then faster, the last ship sped towards me, ready to remove the final scraps of life from the void. I wanted to cry, but I had no eyes, no tears to shed. I wanted to hug them, but I had no arms. The absolute best I could do, was save their life.

“I…” Dagger choked, “I’d love to be a Vendoriian Soul, with guns of brass, and skin like stone…”

I heard Konzor sob and laugh in equal measure.

“Day ‘fore was war, tomorrow’s more, today’s the day I call my own…” He sung heartily, following on from the commander.

I reached into the Arkolt databanks and found the lyrics.

“The battle’s is done, the peace, we’ve won, though ashes around, I stand in pride.”

Dagger continued, stronger than before.

“I stand up tall, I will not fall, a Vendorrian soul, still glows inside.”

We sang the next lines together, as the old warship drew nearer and nearer.

“The skies above scream victory,

The sun rises for destiny,

The wounds and cuts, don’t take their toll,

For I have, I have, a Vendorrii soul.”

“Goodbye Greenie!” Konzor shouted as he passed the threshold between universes. “Goodbye.”

I could feel it stronger than ever, the encroaching Arkolt. They’d take the portal from me, rebuild it, and take over a new universe without the mistakes of today. I couldn’t allow that. I simply could not.

“Live well, friends,” was my final broadcast, as the Arkolt ring exploded with the force of a star, and with that, the story of this universe was told.