The Ascension Factor

"Avata has dismembered the monster that Flattery built out of our people and has taken him prisoner. He will be reeducated, as we have been, in the inviolable rights that the living have to life. Tonight, everyone will eat. Humans are through suffering at the hands of fellow humans."

Everyone in the cavern linked hands, and the light flowed through them from the pool and then flowed back. Figures and faces, bits of imagery tumbled along the brightening stream. Gasps of wonder and cries of delight filled the chamber.

Then the cavern itself dissolved from view. Ceiling, walls, the rock beneath their feet were no longer visible. All Twisp could see was a serpentine of people holding hands surrounded by something he could only describe as a light-mist. All Pandorans were linked with this group and they all stood together on an immense plain of light. It was warm there, and for once there was no fear of demons, or security, or hunger.

Twisp withdrew quietly from the poolside celebration, found his robe in his quarters and sought out his favorite rock overlook above Kalaloch.

Below Twisp's rock outcrop the night air clarified against a glisten of sea. An old tracked vehicle clanked its stubborn way up the trail and at first Twisp's reflexes tightened. A Cushette followed the track, both vehicles piled high with belongings and wallowing with the effort. These people were already leaving Kalaloch, bound for something better with their bedding and their hope.

"Welcome," Twisp whispered. His attitude was exuberant, but his body exhausted.

They will be all right, he marveled.

He thought first of Kaleb, who had left his bitterness behind him in the kelp, who would soon enough bring the grandchildren of Brett and Scudi to hear stories at their uncle Twisp's knee.

He could guess how it would be for the rest from what he'd seen in the kelp.

Ben and Crista were a match made on Pandora, but sealed in Avata, and they would help develop opportunities to improve the lives of Pandorans for many decades to come. Twisp had a feeling, when the light penetrated him, that Rico and Snej would take up housekeeping somewhere nearby.

The Voidship Nietzsche, with Alyssa Marsh at the helm, would speed Mack and Beatriz beyond the limits of light-contact with Pandora. It would take the humans and their new-found symbiote, Avata, to another world, which, if not perfect when they discovered it, would make humans happy with the work toward perfection.

Some new insight told Twisp that Yuri Brood would receive a reprieve aboard the Nietzsche and would acquire the necessary spirituality by tending his mother, the OMC Alyssa Marsh. Through the kelp hookups, Alyssa Marsh had found her new body and her son. Her son would write out the musings of this OMC, which would become the manual for human behavior for generations — A Sociology of Ascension. Their shipload of pilgrims would people a new star, and the sea of a planet of that star.

Raja Flattery would live on in the kelp, his needs met, a prisoner of his own selfishness and greed. People would meet him there from time to time, and legends of him would prevail throughout the generations.

Though Pandora's days were numbered, Twisp would live his days out roaming Pandora, working hard to improve the lot of everyone. He knew now that he would not be the one to see the end, and was happy for that.

I'll be known as "the old man of the high reaches," I suppose, Twisp mused.

All was quiet in the settlement below. The glow that had swelled out of the sea and encompassed Kalaloch now sank back to the sea. A cool shimmer remained, ghostlike, at the surface. Two moons and a skyful of stars beamed down on Twisp's gray head. An occasional cheer broke the silence, and Twisp listened as the tinkling sounds of nighttime laughter rent the ancient cloak of death and fear.