Pain dulled by exhaustion slowed his movements, blunted his thoughts; he struggled to keep his mind on edge, to focus on the plans and his own strategy. Concentrate on the mission. That way, he wouldn't have to think about MOMO and Juli and the others. Concern for what was happening outside would only distract him, and his distraction might get them killed.

When he encountered guards he tore through their ranks with the AEWS' sword, disabling them without staying to fight. Even if he could finish them all off alone, he didn't have time, and he stood a better chance of outrunning them; the AEWS was smaller and more agile than the AMWS units.

Near his destination he reviewed the layout of the fortress one last time. Sector 365, the main control room, stood about halfway down the central shaft between Sector 364 at the top and Sector 182 at the midpoint. In the sector adjacent to the control room another formation of auto-techs flew at him. He left their smoking shells in the main passage and turned down a side corridor, barely stopping at the doors that sealed off the first security checkpoint before he blasted them apart.

By the time he broke through the last set of doors, he detected another group of signals approaching from below. He wouldn't have much time to disable the third weapon before they arrived, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about finding an escape route afterward. As he piloted the AEWS through the doorway his sight dimmed, and his surroundings telescoped into the void until his life-support machinery kicked in and the world rushed back and left him reeling with vertigo. Memento mori, Doctus might have called it. As if a dead man needed any reminder that his time was running out.

Darkness surrounded him. He looked back, but he could no longer see the doorway behind him and even the faint red-glazed light from the passageway had gone. Only the dull glow from the instrument panels told him he was still inside the AEWS, but he might have been adrift in an abyss; there was no way to tell whether the world around him even existed anymore. As his heart rate slowed back to normal, no longer racing to catch up with the beats it had missed, the howling in his ears gave way to silence, disturbed only by the hiss of static from the AEWS' monitors and the pervasive thrumming heartbeat of the fortress itself--its pulse stronger and steadier now than his own.

Uncertain of his surroundings, he climbed down from the pilot's seat and found a solid floor below, although he couldn't see it. He didn't seem to be in the control room anymore; the place felt vast and empty, and the echoes of his footsteps returned from a long way off.

In the distance ahead a light gleamed, a white-gold star that pierced his heart with trepidation, though he couldn't explain the instinct or the visceral dread that seized what was left of his organic body and screamed at him to retreat. He shuddered with the effort to repress it, and the halting machinery that strained even now to preserve his life carried him forward.

A few strides brought him closer to the light, and suddenly it surrounded him. As his sensors adjusted he made out as if from memory the intricate vertical lines of the stonework, the monolith of the altar, the unbearably bright form inscribed in it, no longer a solid object but a negative space, an opening through which that world flowed into this one--

--and standing below the altar, silhouettes burned white by the light pouring down from above, their backs turned, their heads upraised in reverence, in rapture, now in agony, the light burning through them, burning them to dust--

--and he forgot his mission, forgot where he had come from, forgot that a hundred years had passed since that day, and as he had done countless times in his nightmares he rushed forward, knowing this time it would be different, this time--

I'll save them.

--and collapsed to his knees as their blood shot red through the whiteness and their flesh and bone dissolved to ashes.

He staggered halfway to his feet and fell, the world flashing black-red-white before his eyes; exhaustion overwhelmed him and he didn't try to stand again.

"Look at you," whispered a soft voice above him, mocking in its pity, "reduced to this. Condemned to walk the world as a shell of what you were, reliving your nightmares forever. And it could all have been avoided if you'd listened to me the first time."

"What is it you want from me?"

The voice broke into laughter. "I'm sure you'll figure it out. You've arrived just in time for the holy sacrament to begin."

Ziggy lifted his head from the red-washed floor. A cloaked silhouette stood in the way of the light: a shadow that was more than mere absence, an opening into darkness. "What are you planning to do?"

"You're too late, you know," said Voyager. "Once the sacrifice is made, I'll have enough power to reach across the universe--even to Lost Jerusalem. Everything will be drawn into that singularity. I'll encompass everything, and then I'll determine what is real."

"So that's why you caused all of this to happen?" The terrorist incidents, the war, and now the attack on Second Miltia--Voyager had orchestrated all of it, just so he could offer an illusion to end it. Fighting weakness, Ziggy pushed himself to his knees. "You said you wanted to save this world. But if you don't stop this, you'll destroy everything. Is that really your intention?"

"You can't save what you're unwilling to destroy. And I intend to do both." Voyager lifted his gaze to the luminous outline above, and the light carved shadows on his face. "Haven't you ever wondered why humans put their faith in God? It's not because they're satisfied with their lives. They believe in God because they suffer, and they beg for the mercy of an illusion to save them from their suffering. It's in moments of desperation that people turn to God. They rely on their gods to save them when no one else can. And in their despair they'll turn to me. And I will lead them to a new world--one of my own creation, under my control. The compassion of the gods is often seen as cruel from the point of view of mortals, but the fact remains that this world will have to be shattered before it can be reborn. Just as you yourself had to die before you could be given a chance to redeem your life." He laughed again. "Although it seems you didn't make very good use of that chance, did you? Tell me, what happened to the people you tried to protect? Are any of them still alive to thank you for your efforts?"

Ziggy was silent. For the first time he allowed himself to consider what had happened to MOMO and Doctus after they had escaped, or where Juli and the others were now, and he realized he didn't know. He didn't even know where he was anymore--somewhere between real and imaginary space, he thought, but that could be anywhere, or nowhere. He hauled himself upright, forcing himself to stand although everything in him felt broken. "Where are we?"

Voyager furled out a black-draped arm to describe the space within the cathedral walls, the soaring lines of the vault, the red spilling down the steps before the altar. "Look around you; this is the eternal prison you've been trapped in for a century. And the world you left behind, the bloodstained, war-torn world outside, that's the new world you were fighting for. Is one any better than the other? A recurring nightmare, or a world destined to destroy itself? Perhaps I'll leave the decision to you."

The white light from the Zohar faded to the muted gleam of the emulator, a ray of sunlight caught in a dull mirror, and the cathedral sank back into darkness until only the altar remained. A red-tinged glow strained down on it from an unseen place, illuminating two figures in the shaft above the stone; they hung there in stasis like specimens preserved in a fluid, joined to each other by a helix of translucent cords, their bodies warped and distorted but not altogether transformed. Unlike the seven he had encountered in Sector 364, they still held some resemblance to their former selves.

"Do you want to know why I've brought them here?" said Voyager, in a tone of patient condescension that barely contained his triumph. "What you see is the entity that controls Yaldabaoth, the final weapon of Apocryphos. They are no longer as you remember them, but they remember you."

Ziggy said nothing. The revelation passed through him like a voice in the vacuum of space, a soundless wave like the cry of an imploding star.

"When my consciousness was scattered in the imaginary domain, they managed to escape from my control for a short time thanks to the intervention of a certain being, and there they encountered the truth of what they had done. They realized they had betrayed you, and they also knew that you failed to save them from the fate they had chosen. For almost two years their consciousnesses lingered in this world, trapped at the moment of their death. But because they had surrendered themselves to me once before, they couldn't escape my influence, even when my mind was in fragments. Unlike your little Realian doll, they have nothing left to bind them to this world, except for my will. They continue to exist by the grace of God alone. And now that I've regained my power, they'll do exactly as I command. Even if it means unleashing destruction on their own people, the descendants of the Immigrant Fleet and the blood of Abraxas." He paused, let the last words hang suspended like a death sentence. "Unless you grant me one small favor--and I'm sure you know what that is."

Ziggy stared at the altar in silence. When he first recognized his wife and son in the transfigured creatures before him, he thought he would never speak again, but now his voice came back thin and broken as if his throat had been crushed. "Tell me."

"You haven't figured it out yet?" The soft ingratiating tone turned sharply menacing. "It's true, you're all but worthless to me. In my exalted state, I hardly have any reason to concern myself with something as low and pathetic as you. But there's still one thing you have that I don't, not yet. I didn't realize it until I watched you end your life. And then I heard you declare it in your final breath, I saw it etched in your eyes as the life ebbed away from them. And I realized I had to possess it, even if I had to follow you to the ends of the universe. Even if I had to pursue you for a hundred years. Do you understand now, Jan Sauer?"

He pulled his eyes from the horror on the altar, back to the shrouded figure standing beneath it, and suddenly he knew. He would have laughed if he knew how anymore, if he didn't already feel as though his heart had turned to ashes--not because he found any humor in the truth, but because it was so awful, so unbearable, that it had to be absurd. "Death," he said. "You're still afraid of it, aren't you? Even as a Testament, you couldn't escape it. Even now, if this world really is headed for destruction, then you'll die with it, no matter how powerful you are. Even if you're a god. Is that all you've wanted from me all this time? The answer to your fear of death?"

"Yes," said Voyager. "That's what I wanted to understand. The fear of death saved me two years ago, but it also keeps me trapped here in the lower domain. You saw for yourself what happened to Dmitri Yuriev when he tried to ascend to the realm of U-DO. He's the one who told me that fear is the creative force that drives the fight for survival. But he saw the conquest of fear as an end in itself, rather than as a means to a greater purpose. He failed to conquer his fear before he reached the upper domain, and that led to his downfall. I don't intend to make that mistake." He moved closer, fixed his gaze on Ziggy. "That's why I require your assistance. You were the only one who ever refused the salvation I offered, and you chose death instead. Why is it that you alone, of all the souls I've encountered, could stare into the face of death without fear? It's not that you're fearless in any other way; in fact, you're something of a coward. But you have no interest in preserving your own life, except out of some sense of obligation to others. You see it as a kind of duty."

"That's correct." His composure had returned, but as Voyager had said, it wasn't because he was without fear. He was more afraid than he had ever been in his life, in this life or the one before it, but it didn't seem to matter anymore. "I've survived this long because I had no other choice. It wasn't because I had anything to live for. The only reason I'm still here is because it's my responsibility to protect this world. After all the pain and suffering you've caused, do you really think I'll ...."

"I advise you to consider it." He raised a hand to the altar in the manner of a prophet gesturing heavenward, but Ziggy couldn't bring himself to look again. "Because if you don't, I'll annihilate Second Miltia. Along with everything you've been fighting to defend."

The ashes settled inside him. He had known this was inevitable, although hadn't been willing to admit it until now: there was nothing he could do to stop Voyager. All he could do was make the same choice he had made for himself a hundred years ago--but now he would be deciding on behalf of innumerable living souls, not just his own. And the choice was between one form of death and another, between illusion and oblivion. Regardless of his actions here, MOMO and Juli and the others would perish when Voyager unleashed his power on the Immigrant Fleet and Second Miltia, and Ziggy could only hope to determine the manner of their demise, as if it made any difference. All he had to live for, the fleeting moments of happiness he had barely grasped as he neared the end of his life a second time--everything would be swept out of existence like flowers after a late frost.

"Even if I give you what you're asking for," he said, "you'll just destroy everything anyway. And then you'll rebuild the world as a prison to trap all the people you've killed. So the decision you're asking me to make ... isn't really a choice at all."

"At last, you understand my intention." Voyager smiled now; he already knew he had won, and he knew Ziggy realized it as well. "I'm afraid this isn't quite what you expected, was it? You're used to following orders, so you came here thinking you could just complete your assignment and go home to your well-earned rest. You didn't think you'd be called to make such a crucial decision, did you? But those who decide the fate of the world don't have the privilege to refuse that calling; it's ordained by the gods. And since I'm the closest thing the lower domain has to a god, I've decided to let that responsibility fall to you. Now, what will you decide? Will you abandon your world to its end, or will you permit me the authority to rule as I deserve?"

Ziggy willed himself to look back at the altar. Despite the mutations they had undergone, their faces seemed tranquil, as if they were asleep. Even if they weren't human anymore, they didn't appear to be in any pain, or at least none that they were aware of. "I don't know," he said, without taking his eyes away from their unseeing ones. "Does it even matter? Either way, you'll ...." He shook his head. "I can't make that decision."

"Just as I expected of you, Jan Sauer." Voyager strode back in front of the altar, the black silhouette of his robe streaming as he raised himself into the air. "Presented with two outcomes you can't accept, you'll always choose the one that isn't offered. But I'm afraid you'll find there is no other way out this time, except to let the inevitable take its course. I'll leave you to say goodbye to your dearly beloved--if they'll even speak to you anymore."

Then he had gone, and a single transparent column replaced the altar, and the flickering red lights of the control room cut luminous patterns in the dark.

There was no way to shut down the system from here. Ziggy tried it as a last resort, without expecting it to work, and it didn't; the shell of glowing holographic readouts that encircled the central platform also marked the boundaries of a force field as solid and substantial as a wall, and he couldn't reach the controls, let alone figure out how to disable them.

And there was no other way to get through to the entity inside the column. Any conversation he held with them would be one-sided; he didn't know what he would have said anyway. Ninety years ago, fifty, even two years ago he might have known, but he had run through all the possibilities in his mind, exhausted all the outcomes, and now he had nothing left to say. If MOMO and the others were here now .... But he didn't allow himself to pursue the thought any further; they were beyond his reach, as he was beyond theirs. Perhaps it was best that he'd never had a chance to say goodbye properly. He wouldn't have to face them, to admit one last time that he had failed.

And he had only minutes left before the guards arrived. Time had passed differently--stopped or slowed--while he confronted Voyager in the other place, but now their signals had reached the first security checkpoint.

There was only one thing left for him to do. He stepped out in front of the AEWS, between the column and the doorway, and waited. This time, no programmed survival instinct would override his intentions, no artificial reflexes would throw him out of the way at the last second. He would show Voyager what it meant to have no fear of death: a useless demonstration, because Voyager would never understand. In his own experience, Ziggy knew only two ways to overcome that fear. One way was to lead a life so abject that its end came as a mercy. The other way was to die.

The first AMWS units burst through the shattered doorway and moved aside for the others to follow. They leveled weapons at the modified AGWS and at the smaller figure standing in front of it, their sights intersecting where he stood. A whine of static swelled as the cannons charged, the glow from their barrels a cold relief after the fevered light of the column. Warnings flashed through the noise and blind spots in his visual field, but he didn't bother closing his eyes or clearing the interface behind them. There was nothing to see, nothing to look away from. Nothing he hadn't seen before. The face of death was featureless, impassive as the ranks of mobile weaponry staring him down. The glare from the cannons eclipsed him in an arc like a sunrise seen from orbit, igniting the curve of a horizon all at once.

And the world turned red.

After--

After?

There should have been no after. There should have been nothing after, nothing ever again.

But he was. Here, after. After the light dimmed and receded from the black walls. After the AMWS units surrounding him buckled at the knees and collapsed, swept down in the wake of an invisible wave. The darkened passage gaped beyond them, unobstructed now except for the wrecked shells of machinery in front of the doorway.

Get out, Jan.

He stood as if turned to salt. He couldn't move forward, and he was afraid to turn back.

We'll shut it down from inside. Just go while you still have time.

Hurry, Dad. We can't ....

Another flash of red, and alarms shrieked from the terminals behind him. The vast inhuman heartbeat stalled, shuddered through the floor.

"Anomaly detected in core unit. Initiating containment procedures."

He felt his own heart beating slow and strong against his will; the pulse rang inside his chest as some part of him fought in defiance for the life he had left. He found he could move again, and without looking back, he climbed into the AEWS and vaulted over the fallen AMWS units. Tremors shook the walls and floor of the passage as he made his way past the ruined security checkpoints and out to the corridor.

Why?

Sector numbers flashed by in descending order, alternating with the glare of red bars and the black of the walls. His vision had slipped out of focus again, and he realized it wasn't just due to exhaustion; when he brushed a hand against his face, the fingers of his glove came away damp and shining, and the knot of grief he had been fighting back since he left the control room suddenly came loose and he choked behind clenched teeth.

Why do I have to go on living now, after all this?

When he reached a section of the passage that ran close to the outer wall, he stopped and charged the AEWS' blade again, preparing to break through the hull as he had done earlier. The targeting interface wavered under the static and he wiped his eyes again.

"Why didn't you let me die?"

He didn't realize he had spoken aloud until he heard the answer.

"Because it's your duty to survive, Jan Sauer. You said it yourself."

He swung the AEWS around. "You ... knew they were going to do that?"

Voyager advanced, wading through red lights that swelled and lapped around the folds of his robe like a tide of blood. "You didn't really think I was going to make the same mistake twice, did you? I just wanted to see it again--that defiant look in your eyes when you thought you were facing your own death. As if you had a secret you'd kept hidden from me all this time. And I'm not about to let you take that satisfaction with you to your grave."

Another shock jolted through the fortress. "Containment failure in core unit. Switching to emergency lockdown mode."

"It seems your plans aren't going entirely as you expected," Ziggy observed flatly. Unless you planned it this way all along. He couldn't tell whether Voyager was bluffing, stalling until he figured out a way to turn the situation to his advantage. If he was, it wouldn't be the first time.

Behind Voyager, the lights in the passage blurred and darkened as if seen through smoke. "It doesn't matter now. My will has already begun to awaken in this world. The shadow network is merging with the physical domain. Even if you resist me, there's nothing you can do to stop this. And even if you die, I won't let you go. I'll pursue your soul to the depths of the collective unconscious. I'll bring you back to life a hundred times if that's what it takes. I'll trap you in your own eternal recurrence and make you relive your nightmares forever." But as he spoke his outline wavered, his face grew hazy and lost focus, like a malfunctioning hologram.

"You can't do it, can you?" said Ziggy, so quietly the AEWS' transmitters barely registered his voice. "You can't become a god until you abandon what you were. And as long as you hold on to your conflict with me, you'll never be able to let go of what made you human. That's why you've followed me for so long, isn't it? Because I'm the only thing left to stop you from obtaining absolute power."

"That's absurd." Even his voice sounded insubstantial now, transparent against the background noise and the rumble of disturbances elsewhere in the fortress. "I told you, I'm already too powerful for you to stop me."

Ziggy stared past him into the encroaching wave of darkness. "But you can't even control the power you have anymore."

"This is your last chance, Jan Sauer." Voyager extended the suggestion of a hand, the fingers unraveling into smoke and shadow. "My final offer of salvation."

His insistence betrayed him at last, the desperation in his voice as it faded, the panic he tried to keep from his eyes as his face blurred into obscurity. His salvation was no offer but the plea of a drowning man to one who had already surrendered to the waves and washed ashore without a struggle. What salvation could a god promise to a man with no desire to save himself?

Ziggy turned away, although there wasn't much left to turn away from. "You already know my answer."

Bracing himself against the recoil this time, he swung the AEWS around and smashed its blade into the wall. The explosion tore a rent in the hull, and the AEWS plunged through at the head of a boiling mass of shadows that pursued it blindly, mindlessly, closing in from the outside to meet the darkness and vertigo rising inside him. The world tunneled away, and Ziggy let go and slipped down into nothingness.