The Ascension Factor

"Crista Galli," she gasped. She looked around for sign of another figure, for Ben, but all she saw was the translucent sphere that held them.

"Don't worry, Beatriz, Ben and Rico are with me. As you and Dr. MacIntosh are with the Orbiter crew. What they see now are the shells of our beings, the husks of ourselves. What we meet here is the being itself."

"But I can see you, hear you," Mack said. "Beatriz and I actually touched."

Crista laughed again, and Beatriz felt a giggle coming that she couldn't suppress.

I am safe here, she thought. Brood, Flattery, they can't get me here.

"That's right, we're safe," Crista said. Beatriz realized then that thought was as good as speech in this strange place. Or is it a place?

"Yes, this is a place. It is a who as well as a what and a where. Dr. MacIntosh, we have substance because our minds have made a perceptual jump along with the light. Things change to accommodate our differing subconscious. Did you see a lot of hatches?"

Beatriz watched him hold out his hands, look down at his feet, puzzled.

"Yes, I did, but. "

"And one reminded you of something pleasant, so you opened it?"

"Yes, and I wound up here."

"So did I," Beatriz said. "But an earlier one led me. back. Back to my family years ago."

"It was Avata's way of reassuring you," Crista said. "It took you to a familiar, comfortable place. You have been terrified lately. Avata does not want your terror. She wants your expertise."

"Expertise?" Beatriz swept a hand out to indicate their surround. "After this, what could I possibly offer?"

"You'll see. Think of this as Shadowbox, as the biggest holo studio in the world, with nearly the whole world as its stage. We will put Flattery at its center, show him off to the world. What then?"

"Stop people from destroying each other," Mack said. "They have not been able to get at him, so they will destroy his engines of power. If they do that, they endanger all of us, Avata included. Exposing Flattery might be more dangerous than you think."

"But look at our method," Beatriz said. "It's incredibly powerful. It will appear as a message from the gods, a vision, a miracle."

"I saw light shimmering above all kelp stands from Current Control," Mack said. "Is that really happening?"

"Yes," Crista nodded, "it is."

"Then we already have the world's attention, right? Everybody must've stopped in their tracks to take a look."

"My people stopped long enough to enjoy the light show," someone said. "They're heading for Kalaloch with everything they have."

Another figure precipitated out of light, a muscular male figure with red hair. Though Beatriz had never met Kaleb Norton-Wang before, she realized that she knew his past nearly as well as her own. At the same moment, she realized this was true of Crista Galli and Mack, as well.

Then they know me, too, Beatriz thought, and saw Mack's responding grin.

"We are part of Avata, now," Crista said. "Others float this drift, too, but we are Avata's ambassadors to our own kind. You, Dr. MacIntosh, believed me to be a manufacture of the kelp. Until this day I, myself, did not know my origins. I owe my life to Avata, my birth to humankind, and my allegiance to both. Are we all not of the same mind?"

Beatriz agreed. "We are. Flattery must be stopped, the killing must stop. Can we do it without becoming just another death squad?"

Beatriz paused, felt a surge of light within her and watched a replay of the encounter with Nevi on the beach. Then she discovered something interesting about being one with Avata — all of them could talk at once and she could follow everything perfectly.

Kaleb said, "I can speak to all of my people, using the kelp. I mean, Avata, as you used it to beat Nevi. Who could ignore a giant holo in the sky?"

"I didn't use it to defeat Nevi," Crista said. "I was merely a witness. Avata and Rico worked out a magic between them, but neither used the other."

"I stand corrected," Kaleb said, and bowed slightly. "How are we to cooperate with Avata?"

"We initiated it by seeking contact with Avata in the first place. Each of us has done that, for our own reasons, which we all now know," Crista explained. "Where there is kelp, Avata can project holos. As you can see, these are being refined even at this moment. Our holo selves, here, can hug each other and we can feel it!"

"Our problem is Flattery," Mack said. "He has never been easily persuaded, and now that he's made an emperor of himself he believes only himself capable of rational decisions. Anything else is a threat. He is paranoid, therefore it's a given that he's set traps of one kind or another to protect himself from attack. Remember, he's a psychiatrist, too. He can defend himself from both emotional and physical attack. The ultimate threat, of course, is that if he dies, Avata and, eventually, all humans die as well. We can't have him panic and start lighting fuses."

"Why can't Avata just. capture him, as it has taken us?" Kaleb asked. "He's not the type to kill himself, and it would buy us some time."