Confusion and fear reigned in Dariat’s mind. He wanted to flee. He wanted to plunge into the glorious star of sensation burning so bright as Kiera and Stanyon forced open a path into Horgan’s body. The beyond withered behind him as he surged along the tear through the barrier between planes of existence.

And how do you control the energistic power?consensus asked.

Dariat gave them a visualization (perfectly clear this time) of desire overlaying actuality. More handsome features, thicker hair, brighter clothes. Like a hologram projection, but backed up by energy oozing out of the beyond to shore it up, providing solidity. Also, the destructive power, a mental thunderbolt, aimed and thrown amid boiling passion. The rush of energy from the beyond increasing a thousandfold, sizzling through the possessed body like an electric charge.

What about senses? This ESP faculty you have?the world around him altered, shifting to slippery shadows.

There were several more questions and observations on the nature of Dariat’s state, which the rebel possessor did his best to answer. In total, the recording amounted to over fifteen minutes.

“Wealth indeed,” Gilmore said when it ended. “This kind of clarification is just what we need to pursue a solution. It seemed to me as though Dariat actually had some freedom of movement in the beyond. To my mind, that implies physical dimensions.”

“A strange sort of space,” Nowak said. “From the way the souls were pressed close enough to overlap, there appeared to be very little of it. I won’t call it a place, but it’s definitely a unified area. It was almost a closed continuum, yet we know it exists in parallel to our own universe, so it must have infinite depth. That’s damn close to being paradoxical.” He shrugged, disturbed by his own reasoning.

“That perception ability Dariat demonstrated interests me,” Euru commented. “The effect is remarkably similar to a voidhawk’s mass perception sense.”

Gilmore looked across his desk to the tall Edenist, inviting him to continue.

“I’d say the possessed must be interpreting local energy resonances. Whatever type of energy they operate within, we know it pervades our universe, even if we can’t distinguish it ourselves yet.”

“If you’re right,” Nowak said, “that’s a further indication that our universe is conjunctive with this beyond realm, that there is no single interface point.”

“There has to be an identifiable connection,” Euru said. “Dariat was clearly aware of the lost souls while he occupied Horgan’s body. He could hear them—for want of a better phrase. They were pleading with the possessors the whole time, asking to be given bodies. Somewhere there is a connection, a conduit leading back there.”

Gilmore glanced round the desk to see if anyone else wanted to pick up on the point. They were all silent, concentrating on the implications Euru and Nowak raised. “I’ve been considering that we might need to approach this from a different angle,” he said. “After all, we’ve had a singular lack of success in trying to analyse the quantum signature of the effect, perhaps we should concentrate less on the exact nature of the beast, and more on what it does and implies.”

“In order to deal with it, we have to identify it,” Yusuf said.

“I’m not advocating a brute force and ignorance approach,” Gilmore replied. “But consider; when this crisis started, we believed we were dealing with an outbreak of some energy virus. I maintain that is essentially what we have here. Our souls are self-contained patterns capable of existence and travel outside the matrix of our bodies. Hemmatu, how would you say they are formed?”

The energy expert stroked his cheek with long fingers, pondering the question. “Yes, I think I see what you’re driving at. The beyond energy is apparently present in all matter, including cells, although the quantity involved must necessarily be extremely tenuous. Therefore as intelligence arises during life, it imprints itself into this energy somehow.”

“Exactly,” Gilmore said. “The thought patterns which arise in our neurone structure retain their cohesion once the brain dies. That is our soul. There’s nothing spiritual or religious about it, the entire concept is an entirely natural phenomenon, given the nature of the universe.”

“I’m not sure about denying religion,” Nowak said. “Being inescapably plugged into the universe at such a fundamental level seems somewhat spiritually impressive to me. Being at one with the cosmos, literally, makes us all part of God’s creation. Surely?”

Gilmore couldn’t quite work out if he was joking. A lot of physicists took to religion as they struggled with the unknowable boundaries of cosmology, almost as many as embraced atheism. “If we could just put that aside for the moment, please?”

Nowak grinned, waving a hand generously.

“What I’m getting at is that something is responsible for retaining a soul’s cohesion. Something glues those thoughts and memories together. When Syrinx interviewed Malva, she was told: ‘Life begets souls.’ That it is ‘the pattern which sentience and self awareness exerts on the energy within the biological body.’ ”

“So souls accrue from the reaction of thoughts upon this energy,” Nowak said. “I’m not disputing the hypothesis. But how can that help us?”

“Because it’s only us: humans. Animals don’t have souls. Dariat and Laton never mentioned encountering them.”

“They never mentioned encountering alien souls either,” Mattox said. “But according to the Kiint, they’re there.”

“It’s a big universe,” Nowak said.

“No,” Gilmore countered. “That can’t apply. Only some souls are trapped in the section we know about, the area near the boundary. Laton as good as confirmed that. After death, it’s possible to embark on the great journey. Again, his words.”

Euru shook his head sadly. “I wish I could believe him.”

“In this I agree with him, not that it has much bearing on my principal contention.”

“Which is?” Mattox asked.

“I believe I know the glue which holds souls together. It has to be sentience. Consider, an animal like a dog or cat has its individuality as a biological entity, but no soul. Why not? It has a neural structure, it has memories, it has thought processes operating inside that neural structure. Yet when it dies, all that loses coherence. Without a focus, a strong sense of identity, the pattern dissolves. There is no order.”

“The formless void,” Nowak muttered in amusement.

Gilmore disregarded the jibe. “We know a soul is a coherent entity, and both Couteur and Dariat have confirmed there is a timeflow within the beyond. They suffer entropy just as we do. I am convinced that makes them vulnerable.”

“How?” Mattox asked sharply.

“We can introduce change. Energy, the actual substance of souls, cannot be destroyed, but it can certainly be dissipated or broken up, returned to a primordial state.”

“Ah yes.” Hemmatu smiled in admiration. “Now I follow your logic. Indeed, we have to reintroduce some chaos into their lives.”

Euru gave Gilmore a shocked stare. “Kill them?”

“Acquire the ability to kill them,” Gilmore responded smoothly. “If they have the ability to leave the part or state of the beyond where they are now, they must clearly be forced to do so. The prospect of death, real final death, would provide them with the spur to leave us alone.”

“How?” Euru asked. “What would be the method?”

“A virus of the mind,” Gilmore said. “A universal anti-memory that would spread through thought processes, fracturing them as it went. The beauty of it is, the possessed are constantly merging their thoughts with one another to fulfil their quest for sensation. En masse, they are a mental superconductor.”

“You might just be on to something here,” Hemmatu said. “Are there such things as anti-memory?”