Page 121 of Defiant

“Bring back the thirteen you sent to the somewhere,” I said to the eyes. “Show me you’re willing to deal.”

Something happened then. I could sense the somewhere, where the thirteen delvers had created bodies for themselves. Vast planet-size mazes full of dangerous bits they could break off to form fleets. They held off their assault at my request. They didn’t return to the nowhere, but they…peeked in. Like I was doing at the moment.

Now,the greater group said,give yourself to destruction.

“I will not,” I told them, “because it wouldn’t stop you. I’ve seen the way you deal, heard you admit to wanting to immediately break your word. If I give myself up to you, that won’t remove your pain. Even if I vanish, you’ll still lash out at the somewhere. You know this to be true.”

It is your fault,they thought.You noises. You pains. Leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone.

“Not possible,” I said. “This place isn’tyoursjust because you’ve decided to claim it. It’s part of the taynix, part of me, part of our verybeing.We can’t stop coming here, because not all of us can control our powers. Even if we could, we couldn’t leave it any more than we could leave off breathing. We would come by accident, in dreams, in moments of panic, in times of exploration.”

Then we will destroy you.

I formed a sword from nothing and held it up before me. Things like that just…worked in here. “So be it. M-Bot?”

Like this,he said, and showed me.

The explanation defies words. He sent me the information—similar to the way people would send me coordinates so I could hyperjump. He fed me a pathway. You might call it a code, or a program, but I preferred to see it as a tactical battle map for destroying the delvers via the pain in their souls.

Within me, Chet vibrated with horror, determination, pain.This will work,he thought to me.It is terrible. A weapon only you can wield.

I was a being between two worlds. This let me draw the ability tochangefrom the somewhere, but manipulate the essence of this eternity inside the nowhere. And it madesense.The pain the delvers hated was the somewhere—time, change—leaking into their world. The more powerful the cytonic, the more leaked through.

And having melded as I had, I was the most powerful they’d ever seen. I focused that power into the blade I had conjured, then thrust it forward with all of my might—and itrippeda hole into the somewhere.

Time entered this place of timelessness. A wave of it that exploded from me like a sphere of green light, washing over the delvers, tearing away the patch they’d put onto their souls to hide away their pain. Flawed as it was, the patch came off easily—as easily as a strong wind from a passing starship pulled the dust up off the ground, stripping the top layer of soil.

This was what they’d feared. The power I’d gained by merging with Chet, by traveling the nowhere, by learning of their past. I knew that deep down, they were actually very weak. They’d fled herebecausethey were weak. Scud, they’d always known. Otherwise, after patching up their pain, they could have stayed in the somewhere.

They’d come here. Because they’d known their solution wouldn’t last. Not unless they found a place where everything lasted. In the face of rawchange,that temporary solution wore away.

The delvers howled in agony, their wound exposed. They vibrated, reaching for each other, searching for one of them that wasn’t hurt—one they could copy, to take away the pain. There was no such refuge. Now, all I had to do was pop back into the somewhere, leaving them consumed by this agony.

Except, would that be enough?

The somewhere would occasionally still leak into here. The delvers could perhaps claw their way free, and create another patch for themselves. Or worse, delete those memories entirely. Finally purge themselves of this weakness. Feel no pain at all.

Then they’d be able to rampage against us without cost. In military action, you had to be careful not to create a greater threat by accident. Striking a neutral party, pushing an enemy into a corner, taking away opportunities to surrender…these were all things that could backfire very easily. What if, by showing the delvers how weak they were, I prompted them to eventually jettison that weakness and attack us? So far, the only reason we’d survived was because coming to fight us hurt them so badly.

As they cowered and cringed before me, mighty though they’d once been, Ihadto ask the question. Could I destroy them forever?

Yes,Chet said softly from beside me,you could.

How?I asked.

The infinite loop that M-Bot suggested before would most likely work,he explained.Though we are no longer AIs, we are susceptible to some oftheir maladies. Just as you, though no longer amoebas, can dehydrate. See how they search one another for relief? If M-Bot were to imitate one of them that had peace, but secretly sent them in a circular loop of thought…it could trap them in their pain forever. Even if the somewhere leaked in, it might take them millennia to escape. Longer.

Trapped all that time, though?M-Bot asked.In agony?

It was what they deserved for all the people they’d killed. I stood over them, the executioner with her axe, ready to strike.

And scud. I hesitated.

Such pain. In the face of it, my anger faded, and I saw them as theytrulywere. Essentially newborns. Entities that had never been given a chance to grow, to learn. Toddlers with the power to annihilate planets.

In that moment, I felt sorry for them.

That’s what you did to me,Chet thought.

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