435: The Stars Became Their Eyes

Ziggurat #350

The mirror-like perfection of the floor beside the apparition was suddenly marred by a flash of blue flame. The flame traced a straight line across the floor, leaving an angry red trail behind it, until it stopped at the copper-booted feet of Constance, who stood some two yards from the apparition. She watched it defiantly, her feet planted firmly and her fists clenched.

Meanwhile, the shape of the apparition had continued to waver. It appeared to be attempting to form into something else—a large and menacing figure dressed in some kind of coveralls—but the particles that made it up appeared to have minds of their own, like a school of fish scattered by a predator. "How dare you?" It boomed. "Who do you think you are? You need to be taught a lesson, girl."

"There's plenty to be learned," Constance replied in a tone hardly more than a whisper. "But not by you. By them."

As she spoke, Lamont realized that the apparition was not the only thing losing coherence. The panorama of stars and nebula that surrounded them had also begun to shift and change. At first, the changes appeared random, but then they began to coalesce into distinct figures. Shadowy, indistinct, but recognizably human, at least most of them. Hundreds, thousands, and more figures appeared, their bodies formed by the gases of the nebulae, while the stars became their eyes. They were now surrounded by a great multitude of spectral forms, with countless glittering eyes directed unblinkingly toward them.

The cloud of witnesses, Lamont thought.

An unpleasant smell had filled the air from the molten floor that still smoldered at the feet of Constance. "For all these thousands of years, you've had these voices pointed toward her. Toward us. But have you ever listened to what they have to say?"

"No! No!" The apparition entreated. "Attendants, help me! Make them stop!" It was now losing all recognizable shape, like a swarm of gnats.

The dissolution was accompanied by a strangely fitting faint buzzing sound. Lamont realized that the sound wasn't coming from the projection sphere, though. Turning around, he looked through the still-open doors of the shuttle in which they had arrived. The sound was coming from their helmets, which rested on the shuttle's floor. He picked one up, and through its small speakers, could hear a jumbled cacophony of angry-sounding voices, though no words could be discerned. He set the helmet down again and looked at Constance. She was still staring down the wavering ghost, her fists tightly clenched. Her freckled cheeks glistened with tears.

"We did everything," The apparition insisted. "We've given everything we had to give. What more could she want?" It was now nothing more than a thick cloud of dark particles obscuring the projection sphere. Its voice was garbled, indistinct, like a person in the midst of drowning.

Constance strode slowly toward the hovering object. As he watched, Lamont thought that he could see the cold fire in her eyes temper into a warmth resembling pity. She raised her gloved hand to the small, flickering shadow. "She wanted you to live."