Chapter 43
Here are some of the minds I have felt, Tryphon interfaced with my skull, strapped to a Pilot’s chair:
In a bunker made of sickness and stone, her name was Jaikyun, had been Jaikyun but now was
Jaikyun Yunnji Therhas Lusina Luchia Markis Hand Kereena Kao Augustin.
All of them, all of them screaming, all of them calling out where are you, where are you, help me, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here where are you?
These were not minds joined in harmony. They did not open themselves up for scrutiny, but rather their darkest secrets were dragged out in shame and horror to be seen by others who were as mad as themselves, glimpses of souls blossoming and burning out in the endless dark like lightning that you turn to see and is already gone
Already gone
Is anyone there can anyone help me help me help me
In time, I learned to ignore the worst of the weeping, the great sloshy drenching of minds being torn apart, and listen for the drone of transmission. It echoed like across the dark, a single voice constantly intoning numbers, numbers, numbers.
87,543,821
61,000
137,839
15
2,187,356
Sometimes the numbers stopped, and actual words were barked.
“571: station 3!”
But usually they just droned on, and on, and on.
11,451
98,762,145
451
9
9
8
It was Rencki who worked out why.
“It’s to keep the connection going,” qe declared. “To keep the link between the transmitter in blackship command and the receivers open. The randomness is deliberate. If you don’t know what is next, you will always be curious.”
For the first time in a long time, I felt hate again.
I tried to touch the mind of the broadcasting mind, chained in a command centre.
Whispered: Where are you? Where are you? Show me where you are…
But they were too far gone.
Sometimes, a Pilot died.
I felt it, and it was not sad.
Their deaths were a sigh, a breathing-out, a letting-go.
The Shine noticed me after a while.
Perhaps some of the Pilots on the blackships, those who were meant to receive the numbers and relay them, chanting eternally whatever the command centre transmitted, began to blurt some of my words.
Perhaps they punctuated their endless babble with a whisper of Let go, let go, do not be afraid or a muttered Show me where you are!
and their operators began to notice, and someone put two and two together.
Perhaps it was Valans who realised what was happening.
Perhaps Riv.
Either way, they couldn’t do much about it. They didn’t understand enough about the dark, about the place where time runs out, to dislodge me from it. I was the worm in the machine, the ever-watching eye, an invader come from the dark.
Despite this, I was not making progress.
The minds I reached for were too broken, to hollowed out to tell me anything particular, and over time the Shine grew better at keeping their Pilots numb and dumb, so even when I did manage to establish meaningful connection, slip for the briefest of moments into their eyes, there was nothing to see.
Just a different kind of dark. A dark that scared me far more than the void.
Occasionally, of course, another presence.
Not a mind.
Not a soul.
Not a thing nameable with words.
It lay across the blanket of the dark, watching.
Sometimes a coil of it slithered into my soul, through my soul to the places beyond, and the Pilots of the blackships screamed, how they screamed, how they screamed and howled and wailed at a thing they could not name. I did not. I watched it as it watched me, and it felt…
Curious.
So very, very curious.
And I knew that it, the thing that slunk through the dark, that was the dark, found me really rather boring next to these screaming, broken minds.
Or no, not boring.
Familiar.
And thus not worth any more of its attention.
Then, nine years after I first wired my mind into the blackship interface, first connected with the Pilots in the black, the signal stopped. I sat in the Pilot’s chair, and reached out, and there was nothing there.