The Namura Stone (The Ammonite Galaxy, book 6)

Chapter 21

BACK ON ENARA, Diva made her move. There was no time to waste. Her friends on Xiantha were in trouble. She had to break the mental attack that was raining down on both the canths and the others from the crystal cavern, and do whatever she could to break up the astrand. Even though she didn't know how she was going to do it, there was nothing to be gained by waiting, and everything to be lost. It was time to put herself in the centre of the Ammonites.

Once she had made up her mind, she wasted no time. It was a moment to float up above the astrand, where she maintained her position for a few seconds, peering down on the assembled Ammonite minds and waiting for her psyche to see through the faint aura and perceive the diamond of diamonds clearly again, to see the individual minds which fitted so effortlessly together into this shining mental shape.

She thought of Six, who would be helping Arcan on Dessia by this time, and smiled to herself. Trust a Kwaidian to be always in the thick of things. She felt her heart lurch just a little as she thought of him, and wondered how a non-existent heart could still lurch. Was it like a phantom limb, which hurt amputees even after a severely damaged leg or arm had been surgically removed? Or was it all a figment of her memory, small threads of moments in the past which occasionally filtered down to her new consciousness? Whatever it was, it still felt real to her, and she had to take a moment or two to calm herself down. It was no good trying to stop the astrand with only half her mind on the job; she would need all of her faculties with her, and even then, it would be an almost impossible feat. There was, after all, only one of her, and thousands of the Ammonites forming the astrand.

She let her mind hover above the diamond of diamonds until she felt calmer, and then closed her eyes, allowing herself to drop slowly into the beautiful geometric structure, to float down inside the boundaries of the diamond star, beginning a slow spin with her physical body as she did.

Immediately, she was electrified by the huge amounts of energy that buffeted her from one side to another. The astrand was humming with power. She felt the increased temperature inside the formation and let herself drift further and further inside it. As she did, the heat rose even further.

And that gave her the answer. She could use second sound to dampen the action of the astrand. All she had to do was transmit this energy out of the diamond of diamonds and away from the astrand. Then it would no longer be able to function, at least not at the strength it was achieving now.

She found herself examining the structure of the astrand from inside and was immediately aware that the canths should also be able to form an astrand. They must simply have forgotten how to do that.

Each individual mind had a place in the mental latticework. She was able to see exactly where each piece fit in, and where the joins between minds had vanished to form a new whole. It was quite remarkable. Because it really had a lower potential than the larger diamond shape which the canths used; it was more energy efficient.

Diva could see how the shape had been formed, starting with one particular joint which instead of continuing horizontally had taken a vertical slant. She felt amazed at the simplicity of the framework for the astrand; it was so obvious now that she had seen the formation that she couldn't see how the lost animas inside the canths had ever managed to forget it.

She closed her eyes further and delved deeper into the minds surrounding her. They were like a patchwork, a sea of individuals who fitted together perfectly. Between them all was the buzz of pure energy which flashed in the mindmerge.

Diva concentrated on this flash, spinning more now, trying to redirect all that energy, take it away from the astrand. Her own shape was becoming more and more electrified and was swelling out with so much light. She could feel the mindmerge of the Ammonites burning through her, singeing her own stability, threatening her very existence. Still she persevered, determined to block the astrand, to stop the Ammonites in their attack on the binary system.