From the triangle emanates a tension that spreads across the whole tower, then the entire planet. Perhaps throughout the whole solar system, and even beyond.
Perpendicular time.
All light goes out, or almost. The reddened clouds of the setting sun, or the iridescent ones of the northern lights, are barely a black layer reflecting the light of the form-of-three - in this perpendicular time, photons die slowly in mid-flight.
But there are other lights than that of the temporal machine: creatures are present. They are of the exact image of the Wau, and radiate a quiet and faint light like that of fireflies. One creature stands under the form-of-three, directly facing the Wau who is laying Ada on the ground. Six others are behind. When one turns around, there are easily a hundred on the roof of the tower. Others are perched, seated, on the motionless ships.
And there are still others climbing the steps, thousands, millions in the city, and those lights along the crest of the mountains, everywhere - those are more of them still. Others descend from the sky, slowly, like angels.
The closest one, the one beneath the form-of-three, bends down and declares in a perfect language:
- "The human people before their transcendence. I greet you. Humans. And… the messenger."
He turns his gaze toward Alpha, who bows. The creature bows in return.
- "And the Armor."
He looks toward the Wau. He bows.
- "But I do not see the Pilgrim.
- We have failed, again? asks another creature beside him.
- I am the Pilgrim!" declares Ada, raising her hand.
Before the creatures' perplexed silence, she adds:
- "I followed the path. I touched the form-of-three.
- The beacons functioned," declares one of the creatures.
- "That's something, at least. Will we never manage to do everything perfectly?
- I think one must accept that there is no such thing as perfection or perfect imperfection.
- The one you call the Pilgrim," then asks Andreï, stepping forward, "is he the human to whom the End-of-Times Beacon granted transient powers? For he will not come.
- Why?
- Well…"
It seemed more or less intuitively obvious to everyone, but Andreï explained clearly:
- "The ideals of personal freedom of the one you call the Pilgrim, and who among his people calls himself the Aleph, are not very compatible with the fact that you gave him his powers, and that consequently, you can take them back from him."
- "Very curious."
A creature approached the assembly and added:
- "But very human. I confirm."
Ada spoke again:
- "So, where are The Empyrean Gates?"
- "Just above," explained the creature who was their expert in humans, lifting his head.
They all lifted their heads. There was nothing except clouds darkened by the shadows of perpendicular time.
- "You cannot perceive them - they are in higher dimensions that do not spill over into the first three which are, I believe, the only domains in which you evolve…"
All around, other luminous creatures were descending through the cloud cover. They pulled toward themselves other luminous sources, large spheres that recalled the abstract forms affected by Transients.
Despite the majesty of the moment, the Wau let himself drop to the ground, sitting more or less cross-legged, so that his imperfect and exhausted machinery might repair and maintain the worn-out body of Cass.
No one spoke, and hopes as well as disappointments seemed great. Ada once again took the floor:
- "Well, we busted our asses coming here, touching the form-of-three as you asked, and then what? Nothing?! We're supposed to wait doing nothing while you open gates we can't even see? You think it was nothing to make this journey? You could at least tell us your name, for fuck's sake!
- Girl, watch your language," ordered Gulmira, and she knew how to be authoritative. "You are speaking to transients, or even… since it must be said… perhaps the Blind Gods."
- "Oh yeah? They don't look blind to me. Are you the Blind Gods?"
The creatures interacted in mysterious ways. But the first interlocutor, enriched by the explanations of the expert in humans, spoke again:
- "I am not familiar with frustration, anger, or disappointment, but the Human Heir here has enlightened me. We are not the Blind Gods. I am devoid of humor - that pleasant sensation linked to the association of unexpected ideas, and quite useful, moreover, within a process of evolution in terms of innovation and creation - but I understand humor, and this association of ideas is not lacking in it. Humans and Xenos call us the Travelers, and we bear that designation as a mantle, even if the term transient is more accurate. Our usual name, among ourselves, approaches the term Heir."
- "As the religion of the Travelers says, you come from the end of time, then?" asked Salman, curious.
- "And even beyond. I would like to honor you with a human rite, human people. We, the Heirs, formally thank you. Whether you have done little or immensely, each gesture has been useful to us. Most of us do not feel it, but if we could, we would have supreme gratitude toward you."
A stunned hesitation. Receiving thanks was always pleasant, but in view of the sacrifices, it felt like a very meager victory.
The other creature, the expert in humans, spoke:
- "Fundamentally, thanks have no meaning. Each of you here - except the Abandoned One and Admiral Andreï - is in me. I am you."
- "Why not Andreï?" asks Ada.
- "No After for me," declared the admiral, who was beginning to understand the nature of the Travelers.
- "But you yourself, admiral, have theorized the existence in hollow: that idea that a being is missing and that this absence imprints a shape into the social and entropic fabric, a shape as expressive as presence for those who know how to see."
- "If you have time within the framework of your great mystical plans," added Andreï with a hint of bitterness, "may we ask you what The Empyrean Gates are? Where you come from? In the turmoil of events I thought you had come to help us, but I understand that we were tools, animals, beasts of burden, carrier pigeons. Our suffering means little to you so long as the message was delivered, the field plowed."
- "They matter to us, but I do not see what you are referring to."
- "If you did not understand that we had a problem, then there exists no way to make you understand it. On the other hand, you have done nothing wrong. So let us move on. Illuminate us… on all this."
The Human Heir exchanged silently with the one who would be named the Heir of Caliban, who, for the clarity of the discourse, had assimilated human knowledge up to the date of the events.
The wind had fallen, but the temperature remained cold, and though the officers stayed standing, rifles in hand, Andreï, Gulmira, a few captains, as well as Ada and Salman, sat in a semicircle as their primitive ancestors had done around the fire forty thousand years earlier - this time to hear the most fascinating of tales: that of their destiny.