Gillian Anderson - The Sound of Seas

Forming worlds. They moved around the stars so swiftly that they seemed to be circles, snakes chasing their own tails. Stars glowed and grew and turned red and exploded, consuming their worlds.

Over and over the process repeated itself, Caitlin’s point of view changing from the large to the small as her spirit journeyed through the organized chaos, to a point and time in space, to a world that was newly formed, a planet where the strands of light rose from one end like a microbe with many tails.

The world phased from hot and flaming to cooler and inviting. Caitlin plunged toward it, toward the region ripe with the cosmic strings, to a point where they penetrated the surface. She was suddenly below the crust, where the golden light took on a green patina as it threaded through minerals and rested from its billion-year journey.

The “microbe” she had seen from space was replicated around the core, copied over and over, heated by magma, driven up to the light, the crust, to the new continent, to—

A new home , Caitlin realized.

The microbes did not have thought but they had a collective sentience, and that mind was revealed to her. An unfathomable number of ancient essences… souls … had bonded to survive the destruction of their universe, a previous universe. They had formed a collective to survive a big crunch, a snap back from the ultimate extension of matter as gravity reversed their own ancient Big Bang.

Caitlin thought improbably about Jacob playing with a Slinky. One end of the souls had leaped through time to escape the destruction of the cosmos and dragged the other end with it.

Yet was the thought improbable? she wondered. In the spectacle she had just witnessed, even galaxies didn’t carry much weight. The countless lives within them were insignificant, if scale were the only judge. But it couldn’t be, could it? Every part of every string was a piece of something enormous. Without each part, the structure was incomplete. Incomplete, it was not the perfect structure required to make the leap through time and space. Incomplete, every part of the superstring would have failed.

Either everything matters or nothing does , Caitlin thought. Including a boy with his toy.

The microbes moved beneath a world of muted light, of sunlight seen through water and ice. Then they moved on land. Then they moved on legs. Then they moved the arms they possessed and communicated and bonded and reproduced and cleared the ice and built dwellings and spoke.

They found tiles in which the olivine light, the souls of beings—perhaps an assortment of beings—from the previous universe still resided.

The Candescents.

I am Candescent , Caitlin understood with humbling, then terrifying clarity.

The Caitlin on the airship had been powered by the motu-varkas . Through the powerful tiles she had bonded with herself when that other incarnation appeared to control the energies of ascending and transcending souls. She was possessed by the kind of force that countless cultures spoke about, mythologized about when they spoke of gods and demigods, messiahs and prophets, angels and demons.

With that understanding, Caitlin suddenly realized she had control of what she was witnessing. Euphoria filled her soul. In her mind, she raised her arms and pointed her fingers and moved through the world and time. She watched, for a third time, the fall of Galderkhaan. She saw ice cover its remains. She moved her hands and was back in her own life, her own eyes, at NYU, in Phuket, giving birth to her son—

And then she came to a very hard, absolute stop.

The cry had all but died in Caitlin’s throat when she became aware of Ben hovering beside her on one side, Eilifir on the other.

“Jacob,” she said. “Where is he?”

The others looked puzzled. She turned around, past her shadow, at the tile gleaming softly inside the box. Her eyes went to Antoa and then to Casey Skett. They were standing with looks that ranged from puzzlement to concern. She glanced at Madame Langlois, who sat smoking contentedly. Even Enok appeared relaxed.

“You know,” Caitlin said to the woman.

“I know they are satisfied,” the Haitian replied. “I know the snake is pleased.”

Caitlin turned back to Ben. “Call my home now, please! I want to know if my son is there.”

“His—his—”

“His soul, yes. Is Jacob in his body?”

Ben fumbled for his cell phone and made the call. While he did, the Technologist leader approached Caitlin.

“What happened?” Antoa asked.

“I’m still connected to it,” Caitlin answered, pointing at the tile.

“Where is the tile connected?” Antoa asked.

Caitlin regarded him. “Everywhere.”

“Forgive me, but that is a very general term—”

“Everywhere!” she repeated. “With living access to every time that has ever been.” She shook her head. “I am taking it with me.”

“Hello, Mr. O’Hara? It’s Ben,” Caitlin heard her friend say. “Is Jacob awake?”

Caitlin watched Ben carefully as she adjusted to being back in a body after the Candescent limbo, back in her body after being in Galderkhaan. Oddly, she could still feel the kiss of Standor Qala on her lips.

“He is,” Ben said, smiling. “Organizing the drawings into a comic book.”

Caitlin exhaled and stifled a choke of sheer joy. They had both returned. She faced Antoa now. He had moved. He was standing beside Casey Skett, who had retrieved and closed the box. Both men had positioned themselves between Caitlin and the foyer.

“The tile,” Caitlin said.

“It remains with us,” Antoa informed her. “Then, after you tell us what you witnessed, you and the others may go.”

Caitlin walked toward the men. “The tile belongs to another,” she said. “I will hold it for him.”

“Eilifir?” said Antoa.

The man removed a .38 from the pocket of his leather jacket. He leveled it at Caitlin.

“Jesus!” Ben cried. “Eilifir—what are you doing ?”

“Stay where you are,” Eilifir warned him without taking his eyes off Caitlin.

“I posed a question and I require an answer,” Antoa said. “What did you see when you screamed?”

“It was not what I saw but what I was unable to hold on to,” she said. “I think I know how Lucifer felt after the fall. I know I feel like Lucifer now. My higher angels—they’re not present at the moment.” She held out her hand. “The box, Antoa.”

He shook his head.

Caitlin extended two fingers of each hand as she approached. The box shook at once, light pushing thinly from beneath the lid and slashing through the room.

“I came back with a message,” Caitlin said. “Listen to me. It is not through a tile that Candescence will be achieved. You Technologists fought the Priests instead of joining them. Together, you could have achieved Candescence. Not just words, not just the tiles, but a combination of both. Instead, you carved out your fiefdoms and because of that Galderkhaan died. There will be no more death. The tile, Antoa.”

“This stone was crafted by my ancestors, not yours,” he said. “It remains with me.”

In her mind, Caitlin saw those ancestors and had to focus to bring her mind back to the present. “The tile will go to the owner to be returned to its home. That is what they wish.”

“They? Who?” Antoa asked.

Caitlin replied, “The Candescents.”

“And how do you know their wishes?”

“They revealed their journey to me,” Caitlin said. “They are ready to leave this vessel and return to the cosmos.”

“Why would they share that with you?” Antoa asked.