I wake slowly. Very slowly. It takes me at least two or three minutes to marshal the fragments of my consciousness which have been straying all over the place in the night. I’ve been dreaming and dreaming heavily. You could call them nightmares. I’ve always dreamt in colour but here in this place the colours have never been more vivid and more burdened with meaning. Everyone has experienced moments of disorientation which sometimes accompany the rise of the waking mind, made stronger by fevers and moments of emotional stress. This feels like that but multiplied a thousand-fold. Instead of clearing naturally in a few seconds I need to actively struggle to regain control of my mind. It’s a most unpleasant sensation.

I’ve heard it said that dreams are a form of unconscious re-organisation, cleaning away unneeded memories and compacting recent experiences into a more suitable form for long term recall. It seems probably this is associated with some form of transformation, enacted for the purposes of the multiple struggling consciousnesses that make up the committee of the mind. If that’s what this morning is all about there’s a lot of rewiring happening in my head and a lot of struggling. What exactly are these meditations doing to me?

When they led Dovrich Galda away from the violet meditation yesterday she was crying. It satisfied simultaneous physical and emotional needs to purge the tear ducts, bathe the awakened eyes and accommodate her new sensations. I don’t know if she was supremely happy or supremely angry, but I think it might have been both. I didn’t have an opportunity to ask her.

Now the village really does feel empty. I eat a sombre breakfast of toasted grain soaked in a kind of brown milk served by Hessuru. It’s stodgy and plain and it suits my mood as I pull myself together. The salt mother was never one for much talk and today she senses my need for silence. I’m not going to wait for Willow, I decide. There is an urgency to the meditations now and I resolve that I will force the pace. As soon as breakfast is finished, I will make my own way to the Temple.

There are considerably more Light Guards lining the route this morning. They let me pass without comment, although I am flanked by two silent escorts as I pass under the main archway and find the well-trodden steps to the summit. They must know who I am. I am surprised that I can detect their alien emotions and yet I can, and this fact in itself is powerful evidence of the progress I have made in the meditations. Or perhaps I overestimate myself. Anyone could probably guess what the thinderin might be feeling under the circumstances. Let’s call it “nervous” for want of a better word, although they don’t exactly have a nervous system in the way that human’s do.

I’m driving events now, I tell myself, I’m not just a passenger, but I wonder if the thinderin will interfere at this final stage to block the proper course the Amnyine laid out for one such as me. The possibility of their obstruction scares me more than the prospect of failure in the white meditation. Although the stories of the Light Guards record no success in the white meditation for more than five thousand years, I know that I am different. I know that the thinderin know it too.

This is the climax of my pilgrimage on which I must now concentrate all my mind and heart. I hardly notice the rigours of the climb, although it takes as long as ever and is as physically taxing. I’m growing used to these once strange, shadow hung hallways, these intricate long stairways, the dappled light of the great prism on the pools and fountains of the main hall and the arching vaults of Amnyine bridges and buttress stairs leading ever higher.

I pass the furthest zone I have yet reached, beyond the little Violet chapel, and break out into a much larger space. There is more natural light here. Large, pierced stone traceries act as vaulting windows, high above me on all sides of the hill. Soft, bright grey clouds cover the sky and drift languidly across my field of view when I glance at their dizzying height above. For a moment I am not sure how to proceed but then I see the continuation of the endless Temple stairs cut into the wall and winding up to the base of the windows. These are open stairs and not all that wide. It’s not a time for vertigo.

I begin the climb at once, trailed by my guards and eventually I reach a doorway below the first of the windows. It leads out via a short tunnel onto the hillside and it’s the highest accessible point of the interior. The White meditation must be accomplished even higher in the Melding Minster, the external white dome that crowns the summit of the hill. This is the way.

“Halt!”

The command interrupts me as I am blinking in the light and pausing to contemplate a breath-taking view of the jungle and the sea.

“My name is Oak,” the thinderin seedling standing across the path tells me. It’s somewhat larger than Willow and perhaps a little intimidating.

“Come with me Mr. Shankar. The masters of the High Grove wish to communicate with you.”

Well, I can’t go any further without thinderin co-operation so a meeting like this is inevitable. I suppose I’ve done the hard work by climbing to their ground with or without a summons. I must hear what they say whether I like it or not.

The High Grove is impressive, as befits the custodians of the Temple. This is only the third thinderin grove I’ve seen, which is likely three more than most humans, and they have all been different. On Inuwarmah the grove was unobtrusive almost to the point of obscurity, the thinderin blending in with native trees, widely spread, tangled and reclusive. That was a grove assigned to observation and patient, low key aid. The grove where our pilgrims are rehabilitating is tighter and more intimate, a shield from the surrounding forests of Silusia Alpha. It is crooked but strong, obviously ancient but wearing its age lightly and somehow welcoming and nurturing. This grove is as regularly spaced as the gardens of any Earthly aristocrat from the ages of nations. Each tree is given room to grow tall with a carefully tended ring of ground around the complex root systems that break the earth, covered in moss and lichens. It is regal and cool, and one does not need much imagination to appreciate that these thinderin were the most important seedlings in their time as motile agents and have now become their generation’s leaders of the Light Guard.

A thin winding white gravel path leads upwards through the grove, seeming to pay its respects at the base of six particularly expansive elder trees. We follow it for a few minutes before it reaches an open circle, perhaps twenty metres across with the ground dropping gently towards the centre where there is a low inner ring of stone big enough for three seedlings to occupy. Above the stone base, there is a wide circular surface ring looking just the right kind of height and shape for a bar if this had been a human drinking establishment, which of course it very much isn’t, as I remind myself sharply when I’m in danger of smiling at the analogy. Three seedlings do occupy the inner ring, but they are not bar staff. Other seedlings are assembling on the edges of the arena, and one stands just outside the inner ring. I see that the seedling holds large format cards from an especially exotic life deck. As we watch, the cards are delt onto the “bar”, to form a complete ring.

To my immediate left there is a projection screen, presenting a series of changing 3D images which seem to include a schematic of Silusia Alpha as seen from orbit as well as a set of different views which I presume to be live feeds from varying locations. I recognise the Temple itself as well as the spaceport at Rillyon.

“This is the Council of Roots,” Oak tells me. “The interpreters are in the centre and receive the collective wisdom and opinions of the elders through the touch of the roots. They speak a meld language which uses managed chemical imbalances in the soil, constructed over long time scales but adjusted surprisingly quickly when needed. The elders here at the High Grove are kept up to date at all times by a changing watch of interpreters, so they understand the situation. Even so, we must allow them some time to make their will known and in matters that require quicker judgement you see the most high-ranking seedlings around you now. We are the leaders of the Light Guards of the Temple of Chromatic Enlightenment. You must make your case and answer to us.”

“I have come to undertake the white meditation,” I say with a firm voice that I hope conveys humility but determination. To be honest, I suspect this kind of speech management is wasted on the thinderin. They never seem to show much evidence of appreciating the nuance of human vocalisation. And why should they? I don’t appreciate their native languages, except for the extreme technical challenges which thinderin quaternary has put me through. But then again, we must communicate somehow, and they have crossed the linguistic frontier into human territory. I must respect that but not overestimate it.

“Why do you think you should be granted this rite?” Oak says. I’m not sure if he means right or rite, but rite makes more sense.

“It is the logical conclusion of the pilgrimage,” I say simply. “I am the only human in our pilgrim band who has not yet met my chromatic needs. White is my chromatic need.”

“Yet you are not ready”.

The speaker is a thinderin seedling standing inside the central ring, so the voice of the High Grove presumably.

Oak continues with a gesture towards the projection screen.

“Look. Here are two Zeno class cutters from Earth which dropped human ground forces to the north yesterday. I believe you witnessed it. Unauthorised landings made against the protests of the Rillyon authorities. They are on their way south. They are coming to the Temple.”

So, there are Zed men on Silusia-Alpha. They really ought to be careful. Their presence here has already provoked what used to be called a 'diplomatic incident'. They ought to remember that this isn't part of the Solar Group. Humans live here as guests of other authorities and the thinderin and bilachai will not take kindly to an invasion of their temple. But they are Zed Men and their masters have grown reckless and cruel. After the debacle in Antarctica, I know they will not easily be stopped, however stupid their actions may be.

“And here are fields of seeker ships from several branches of the great Thinderin Forest. They circle Silusia-Alpha in an orbital dance with three Abstraction class vessels from the Earth Arm of the Solar Group which arrived whilst you slept last night.”

Abstraction class vessels are not as fast as the Zeno class but more heavily armed. It could get messy in orbit. I wouldn’t like to say who has the greater fire power if it came to a shooting match. There has never been a shooting match between human and thinderin navy vessels. This doesn’t seem like a good time to find out.

“They have come for you,” Oak says. “They make demands that we surrender you. Apparently, they consider your capture an important matter, important enough to risk our displeasure and to threaten the sanctity of the Temple. We do not appreciate their threats.

“You know full well who I am,” I say. “This sort of confrontation was always a possibility if their Majesties learned where I had gone. Now that Zed men are here, that is all the more reason not to delay with the white meditation if it is to be of any use.”

“Yet you are not ready,” a thinderin interpreter repeats for the High Grove. “And so we will NOT let you.”

I draw a deep breath and take a few seconds to consider my response. I must not let my frustration get the better of me.

“Then why am I here?”

“You are here to undertake the white meditation. Understand, we do not wish to obstruct you. It is not our desire that you should come this far and then be prevented because we forbid it. No. We forbid it because you are not ready and if you should rush now you would fail.”

“Then what should I do?”

The interpreter seems to hesitate. There is a rustling of leaves from all around the circle. The seedling that flanks the centre draws cards from the life deck and lays them out. Everything pauses as the cards are read and interpreted. I don’t have a clue what they say. The damned cards! What is it with the thinderin and the life decks?

“It is much better if you come to a proper understanding of what the white meditation needs for yourself,” I am told at last. “Much better for you, much better for the meditation. Much better for everybody.”

Am I imagining a stress on the word “everybody”? This thinderin mode of speaking from a buffet of playback recordings is not conducive to clear understanding.

“Return to your quarters. Study and think. Speak to Willow before you return to the Temple again so that we will know you have gained the necessary wisdom to proceed.”

I sigh, but what else can I do? I want to protest that there isn’t time for delay, but I am sure my protests would make no difference.

Oak is stern with me as I am escorted back down the outside of the hill on a spiral path through a light drizzle. I am sure if the skies were clear I would be able to see Rillyon from this height but only the monotonous jungle is visible, and we descend into a drifting mist enclosed by boughs heavy with dark green leaves and dim ruddy trunks. I’m glad not to go back through the Temple. The damp air helps me think.

“You must respect the masters of the High Grove. It is their judgment which sustains the Temple. Consider their words carefully,” Oak says in a fashion I find frankly patronising.

“I have always respected wisdom where it is in the service of higher needs,” I say, my voice expressionless and my face bland. I’m hiding my emotions behind a deliberately enigmatic front but it’s not blatantly provocative.

“Yet you have shown little humility today when you chose to enter the Temple without a guide,” the seedling reproves me. That seems unjustified to me. What do they expect me to do? I think I’ve annoyed Oak. It’s the closest any thinderin has come to criticism. I decide to ignore it.

I’m utterly despondent when I reach the village. What am I doing here? What’s the point of these meditations? I feel obscurely that perhaps everything has been too easy for me until this point. For the first time in a long while I allow myself to wonder what is happening back on Earth. How is the revolution progressing? Has it ended in an overthrow? Not likely. Is it still burning hot? That seems improbable given the mismatch of forces. Is it smouldering beneath the surface waiting to break out when conditions change? That’s probably as much as can be hoped for if I’m honest. There is a real chance that it’s all over.

It has always been a loose and disparate organisation. Fitararye Wilson my second in command, altering manifests and misdirecting resources. Ochre Jones wielding subtle influence with the Void Priests. Lia Tan Yew Leong working to change policy in the BEA and Alice of course, playing her own double game in alien relations. Then the others who came along since Inuwarmah; Ledrick Mann, in charge of running disaffected military sleeper agents (mostly those opposed to the Zed men), Stefan Eldan overseeing the cells of activists that arranged for everything from protest marches to covert acts of force against selected targets and Quethica Melle, our beautiful media star and openly declared sympathiser working to change public opinion. Hers is the most dangerous role in many ways because her head is above the proverbial parapet but she’s wildly popular and the government must be careful if they want to move against her. These people aren’t just my colleagues and allies, they are my friends. Alice is dead already. What about the others?

Emotionally I feel I am betraying them, here on Silusia Alpha. What do the meditations have to do with the cause? I should be standing with them on Earth. Rationally, though, I know that would be bad tactics. There is nothing I can do to help them on Earth now. Now that the conflict is explicit and I have been identified as the leader, my operation in the shadows is over. My powers have been taken away. On Earth I could do no more than stand as the ringleader for a big show trial. That’s what the government wants now and that’s why they’ve sent the Zed men to get me.

It was better for me to be a hidden symbol of hope, somewhere far away than to be captured. That’s what I believed when I fled into exile. It hasn’t stopped me feeling guilty though and this set back reopens those feelings.

Surely there was more to it than that? Surely, when the Viwodian sent me here, they had more in mind. I could have gone anywhere. I could, perhaps, even have gone outside the Bubble. What would that be like? The first human outside the Bubble and forever beyond the reach of the Zed men. No. They sent me here instead and they advised me to study the Legends of the Chromatic Temple. I have been trying to take it seriously and put Earth out of my mind, without a proper appreciation of what I’m doing and now that lack of understanding is really hurting me. What must I know to undertake the White meditation successfully and what will it do? All I see ahead of me this morning is more time locked away with the Legends, struggling to interpret Thinderin Quaternary. Not fun. But it turns out that there is something more interesting ahead of me.

I see the three of them gathered round the bell tower as I am approaching my quarters. Willow and Hessuru and Tamsin, deep in conversation.

“Tamsin!” I can’t help but exclaim. “What are you doing here? I thought it was forbidden for you to return to the village.”

“Lovely to see you too, Achmed,” she says with a smile, making me feel boorish and flat footed. The she comes over and plants a demure little kiss on my left cheek to pronounce forgiveness.

“The pilgrims are not forbidden from returning to the village,” Willow says. “We do not forbid it because we are not your jailers. We do, however, strongly advise against it for the mental health of the pilgrims meeting their chromatic need and for the ones that remain. The village is a place for refining the mind and spirit for those who will visit the Temple again. It is better that they are not disturbed in this preparation. I was gratified that until this moment your pilgrimage seemed to understand that.”

It’s a prissy little explanation, pedantic and disapproving at the same time. I don’t care. I’m surprisingly happy to see Tamsin.

“Hessuru has some news from our favourite fushem,” she says. “It’s from Frenane and Rahelo!”

The salt mother speaks up.

“They wish to tell you that they have been successfully delivered of three descendants,” she says somewhat formally but clearly delighted with her news. “Two are female and one is male. All hatched successfully and they are now learning the ways of the ocean with their mother and father. All are well.”

“They want us to go to see them in the nursery bay,” Tamsin says, squeezing my hand and unable to contain her excitement.

“Visiting with the new-born is an honourable tradition,” Hessuru says. “Usually this is something restricted to family and close friends. Fernane and Rahelo are far from home and for reasons it is not my place to explain they will be unable to see their own parents. So, we are acting in their stead. I have been there myself, twice now and I can assure you both that you would be most welcome, and they would really like to see you.”

Willow rustles uneasily. “I do not think this wise. We are doubling the Temple guard. We know that there are hostile forces on the way. Straying from the precincts could be dangerous.”

I’m tired of taking thinderin advice.

“Let’s go,” I say.

Of course, it’s not quite that simple.

“The boat is equipped with two suits of air breathing and swimming gear that can serve for you both. It is something we had sent from Earth for human use. Human pilgrims are not common, but we like to be prepared, should a suitable occasion arise to visit underwater sites. Do you know how to use this equipment?”

We both confirm that we do, which is lucky, or this trip isn’t even starting. Tamsin learned to dive from a young age on the Wild World Glitter Coast. I am less experienced, but I’ve been diving more recently. We weren’t always in submersibles in Antarctica. Some of it was free diving in water a lot colder than we will find here.

It takes a few minutes more to finalise the arrangements. Hessuru won’t be coming with us. I know she’d like to, but she is an employee of the Temple and perhaps she feels she’s gone as far as she can, just to relay the message. Willow is fussing about preparations for a staff rota change, new security arrangements and details of another pilgrimage. It will be calming for Hessuru to remain at her post in the village. Calming for Willow anyway.

We get some basic instruction about finding the boat and the diving gear. Apparently, it is easy to operate if you use the autopilot. We’re warned not to try using manual controls and told how to activate a preprogramed route that will take us to a buoy not far from shore above the nursery bay.

I have a question I need to ask - a question of protocol which I now appreciate needs care and tact. Hessuru gives her endorsement, and all is well.

“I have signalled ahead and Rahelo will be waiting for you,” she says. “Now off you go and enjoy yourselves! Come back safe!”

I’m used to seeing the salt mother as calm and unflustered but today she seems strangely emotional. Stressful times for us all.

Just a little way beyond the village and close to the cliffs, there is trapdoor, hinged at both sides which I have never noticed before. It’s easy enough for us to pull back one half each and then a set of stone stairs go down underground to the water level, where there is a small harbour in a cave at the foot of the cliff. Here we find the boat and the diving gear as promised. There’s a small wooden shelter at the back above the water line and we take turns to change quickly. Tamsin seems to think there is something funny in my waddling attempt to stumble towards the boat in flippers because she has a sudden fit of giggles. I try to keep my dignity and she sobers up as we both check over the air hoses and the supply as carefully as we can. It’s bad enough being on an alien planet with Zed men hunting for me without accidentally drowning because we failed to ensure the diving gear was safe.

Hessuru was right about the automatic navigation system. It is obvious what to do and when we press a big square button, the boat releases some magnetic docking lock with a loud click and a small warning beep. After a few more seconds the engines start and we sail smoothy out into the open ocean, relying on hidden computers and discrete guidance systems to take us to the nursery. It’s a little choppy on the ocean but the boat has no problems and picks up speed until the wind blows our hair back and salt spray stings our eyes.

The whole trip only lasts about ten minutes. We’re still within sight of the shore when the boat cuts its engines and a small tether shoots from the bow to be captured by a robotic winding mechanism at the bottom of an unobtrusive grey buoy. A familiar head sticks up from the waves and there is Rahelo grinning and urging us to join him in the water.

We clamp the breathing masks to our face and throat microphones automatically connect to a local broadcast band which allows us to speak to one another and to the bilachai wearing a more lightweight version of the same system. It only feels cold for a very short time. This is a warm climate, and the temperatures must be similar to a tropical ocean on Earth.

Now for the first time I see the true capabilities of the bilachai amphibious breathing systems for myself. Astonishing. Underwater, Rahelo no longer wears the formal clothes appropriate to the land and along the length of his torso a ridged pattern of gills opens, flexing to supply his vascular system with oxygen directly from the water. An intricate muscular structure inside the throat closes the breathing tubes to the lungs to protect them, at the same time as they compress and expel residual air into a set of rapid adsorption sponges, encircling the inner lining of the chest. Within less than a minute he has transformed from an analogue of an Earthly mammalian life form to one far more like a fish. I know this process is reversable at any time. It’s quite remarkable and like nothing evolution has crafted on Earth. There must have been strong selection pressures on Silusia Alpha that favoured the ability to function on land and underwater simultaneously.

We swim down through clear but darkening water to reach the seabed which is no more than twenty meters below the surface here, covered in drifting weed interspersed with some sort of coral. The nursery is directly before us. Whatever unconscious expectations I had they are vastly exceeded by the real thing. It is an intricate open work building designed with a level of architectural sophistication that would never normally be wasted on underwater structures on Earth. Perhaps at the viwodian embassies. Nothing human.

Breathing underwater must make a huge difference to the way the bilachai think about underwater structures. They treat them with the same respect we treat buildings on land and not as some sort of fortress to cower in behind walls that keep the air inside. The stonework is clean and elegant, allowing for the natural flow of local currents. It marks out territory and function in subtle but powerful lines. I know the bilachai have underwater cities, reputed to be as sophisticated as Rillyon. Two of them are part of the Rain Cities league. Now I’ve seen this simple building I am sorry I am unlikely to ever get a chance to see those cities. They must be incredible.

There are two lattice work domes, also carved in stone and acting as an inner and outer screen. These allow the free circulation of water but prevent the entry of any large marine creatures, except via two open offset openings which Rahelo guides us through. The interior is illuminated with subdued red and green lanterns and beyond a triptych of arches we find Frenane and the children. The babies are swimming in a circle with their mother at the centre, in a circular garden of gently waving bright green plants. They are playing a chase game that looks like tag, but as we approach, they suddenly stop and swim quickly behind Frenane, peeking out nervously.

The babies are incredibly cute. They have those big anime eyes, that seem modelled on the same principles common to the young of many Earthly mammals. I had thought that might be a pattern specific to Earth’s evolution but apparently not.

“We’re very lucky to have this place as our nursery,” Rahelo confides as Tamsin swims cautiously over to Frenane and the babies begin to emerge shyly to investigate. “I haven’t explained this before, but we are both exiles from the Sun States. What usually happens is that nursery sites are passed down from generation to generation in a shared group. I don’t know your word for it…”

He hesitates.

“Family? Clan? Tribe?” I offer

“Something like tribe or clan, I imagine,” he says, “but there won’t be an exact word for it. It’s probably an idea only for bilachai.”

“Let’s call it clan then,” I say.

“Yes, alright, we can say clan. But the clan is more like an interest group that all have a share in the nursery site. Whenever any of the members of the clan are giving birth, they can all use the sites of that clan and that right passes down from generation to generation, through the mother. When the clan is too large it may split, and a new nursery is built. Frenane lost rights to her clan nursery when we fled the Sun States and came here.

"Bilachai who have no nursery must find sites in the open ocean. It is thought, if not exactly shameful, well definitely a mark of poverty. It used to be dangerous too when the shelf seas were wilder, although not so much now. That’s why we build the nurseries. However, a nursery like this… well, this is a very special nursery. This is a nursery for a high-born clan with a long history. We are humbled to be allowed to use it and we owe it all to Hessuru. You see the salt mother explained to us that she cannot be a mother of cubs like my Frenane. I do not know why exactly. Perhaps now she is too old. But she was able to transfer her rights to use this nursery to us and it is an unexpected honour! It is almost like, your term is ‘adoption’, I think? Perhaps not quite. We are not adopted into the family, but we are adopted into the lineal rights for the clan that use this nursery. It means that these cubs, when they one day have their own cubs will be able to return here to see them hatch and look after their first feedings as we do now.

"It is truly a wonderful gift at a time when we were in need, and we are so grateful to the kindness of Hessuru!”

This is a side to the salt mother that I have rarely seen. I am used to watching her ruthless efficiency when she organises the acolytes, her stern authority in management and her unbending enforcement of rules, even when it comes to the pilgrims she serves, such as her own upbraiding of my attempt to gift a shell to Frenane. But I can also see that the acolytes are loyal to her as she is loyal to them.

Thinking of that cowry shell, I produce it and present it Frenane, pleased that it can serve a new and cleaner purpose for me.

“Hessuru tells me that now you are no longer working for the Temple, it is quite in order for me to let you have this,” I say with a smile, although the smile does not communicate very well through the breathing apparatus and the bubbles. Frenane’s delight is clearly not feigned and I know that I have done the right thing.

Later Rahelo shows me a bed of waving green fronds which he explains is a place for sleeping, anchored to the lower stems by an ancient unconscious grip. He gives me a little lecture about the way the sleep cycle of the bilachai changes underwater to require more frequent but shorter periods of slumber, often characterised by intense, cathartic visions they call the sea dreaming. Here, he alternates with Frenane so that at least one of them is always awake to look after the babies. I look over to where Tamsin is making friends with them. The triplets have emerged from behind their mother, overcoming their instinctive shyness and are taking a wide-eyed interest in the stream of bubbles emerging from her breathing apparatus. They swim playfully round and about until Frenane has to check them a little to prevent them from coming too close to the critical mechanism. I glance at the gauge on my own suit and realise we can’t stay much longer and at that very moment a double ping alerts Rahelo to an incoming message. Excusing himself, he swims over to a console, set into a low wall whilst I drift, unaccountably uneasy towards the others. He returns less than two minutes later, clearly agitated.

“There’s a problem back at the pilgrim village,” he begins. “More than just there. We must get you both out of here and somewhere safe on land. There’s an invasion underway; an invasion from the Earth star ships.”

Even though a part of me was wondering if the Zed men would push things so far, I’m still shocked and surprised. They are risking much to transgress against a Thinderin protected world. I don’t think they know how much they risk.

“They’ve set down at least three carriers on the coast road only a little way north of the Temple and they have ground forces and air support. No evidence of water borne vehicles. The Light Guards are monitoring their movements. There’s been no direct contact so far, but the advance troops will reach the edge of the village about the time you were due to return. It’d be a bad idea to get mixed up in that.

"Oak has ordered me to get you to safety. We’re going back to the boat together and then I’ll pilot it south to a place where you can disembark and make your way through the jungle to the rehabilitation centre. There’ll be thinderin seedlings waiting for you and they should be able to keep you out of the line of fire behind the Temple if it comes to violence.”

As Tamsin and I swim upwards, trying in vain to keep up with the speeding Rahelo, I consider what this new development means. One thing seems hopeful. I deduce that the rebellion on Earth is biting hard and deep, otherwise why even bother to hunt for me, especially when the hunters are taking such a gamble with interspecies relations? On the other hand, here they are. They will be dangerous, and I’m not exactly prepared to resist them. How will my hosts react when they try to capture me?

We break the surface into a domain of mingled sunlight and shadow propelled by a brisk wind which is driving choppy water. In a few moments more we have scrambled aboard the boat. Rahelo is already at the helm and overriding the preprogramed actions originally set to ferry us sedately back to the village. He gives a brief glace to see that we are both seated and utters a burbling imprecation to secure lap and shoulder belts. Tamsin is confused because in the stress of the moment, the bilachai is not speaking the pan Arabic he would normally use to talk to us but has reverted to his native tongue accompanied by urgent gestures which attempt to bridge the gap in understanding. I don’t know exactly what he’s saying either, but I do know that the dominant bilachai language has borrowed structures and words from thinderin quaternary and even if I wasn’t quicker to see the buttons that activate the safety features on the seats, I find to my surprise that I can work out a little of the sense of the speech. It borrows a doubled modifier that means plural in thinderin quaternary – as in “both of you, do both of these things”. We fumble to comply, but Rahelo doesn’t wait. He guns the throttle and we’re suddenly speeding away from the Temple and parallel to the cliffs in a fast bounce of spray over the whitecapped waves. I feel sick and I feel excited by the motion. But not just the motion. The truth is, I’ve had a revelation.

It’s thanks to Rahelo’s frantic speech. A concept has been lying crosswise in my mind through all the briefings from the viwodian embassy, all the long flight into exile on Silusia Alpha, all the time spent struggling with Thinderin quaternary and reading and rereading the Legends of the Chromatic Temple and all the meditations themselves with our human pilgrim band. Now this apparently insignificant little moment in the boat jogs the rogue assumption loose and a new idea slots into the correct position opening the way to a flow of knowledge that breaks through the previous dam in my understanding. It’s astonishing and so obviously correct! Why didn’t I see it before?

There isn’t much time to contemplate the niceties of thinderin quaternary grammar, though. I’m still marvelling at the implications when Tamsin grabs my arm and motions upwards. She has been the first to hear the chatter of heavy rotor blades which now cuts through the noises of water and wind. I twist my head to see that a scimitar class helicopter has broken through the thin layer of cloud to the north and is heading directly for us. Rahelo is aware of it too and he pushes the engine even harder, taking a shallow turn towards the shore where the line of cliffs is collapsing into a tumble-down bay. The boat won’t be fast enough to outrun the helicopter, which is gaining on us. It’s no mere survey. The crew must have orders to open fire on anything suspicious and with no warning there is a nasty chatter of projectile weaponry spitting in the foam around us. Rahelo swerves, taking tight little S bends in an attempt to deceive the human pilot. The boat may be slower than the aircraft, but it is more manoeuvrable. We dance between the intermittent bursts of bullets in a deadly tango, attempting to reach the shore in one piece as our enemies strive and fail to bring their guns to bear on us. The mistake they’ve made is to get too close, so that the angle of attack is constantly changing. It gives us an advantage.

Now I’m really feeling sick. This is genuine action movie material, but I am not a genuine action movie type. I’m a politician and a fixer. My place is behind the scenes pulling puppet strings, not out in the open facing a swift death if Rahelo gets anything wrong. I fret on how spectacularly annoying it would be to have come this far and have the sudden potential to go all the way to the white meditation only to be killed at this point. Although arguably I’m the only one that would be annoyed, and since I’d be dead it’s not a genuine problem. I’m just distracting myself from the fear with this silly metaphysical musing. It’s not working.

“The next time we come close to the shore, you jump,” Rahelo yells. “Then get out of the shallows as fast as you can and into the trees. You need to be in cover, quickly!”

The last two sentences are unnecessary as it couldn’t be more obvious. The trouble is we’re not dressed for running. There’s been no chance to change out of the wet suits, although we have a few moments now to remove the flippers at least.

“Once you’re on your way, I’ll get back to deeper water then abandon the boat and get back home the slow way, swimming deep below the surface out of harm’s way. I’m going to put this thing on autopilot before I dive, and I’ve set up a couple of delayed distractions. We’re going to need a bit of luck as well!”

Two solid thwacks against the stern are direct hits from bullets which tell me our luck is running out. The boat lurches suddenly to the right and begins a hard pull into a sandy stretch of the bay. If it gets any closer it will surely beach and that’s when I wake up, grab Tamsin’s hand and we stagger overboard and splash into the shallows. The boat pulls away fast, but the aerial gun platform is focusing on us. There won’t be time to get to the tree line, even though it is close.

Something bright red explodes upwards from the bow. It’s a distress flair, I realise, and there is a second one immediately behind it. Even as we stumble onto the shore, I glance behind me and catch this moment. Rahelo leaps into the waves, but in his last few seconds on board he’s launched those flares directly at the turning helicopter. The first one leaves a cloud of red smoke that obscures the view for everyone. The second one scores a direct hit, smacking into the chopper’s glass canopy and forcing the occupants to think about something else besides trying to kill the runaways crossing the sand below them. It gives us time to scramble into the welcoming shadows of a thicket of giant fronds and heavy palm like leaves. These give way to sturdier trunks and the course of a rocky streambed as we try to lose ourselves deeper in the forest over the next few desperate seconds.

The crew of the scimitar, seem intent on sinking the boat once they manage to stabilise their vehicle. If Rahelo has programmed it correctly, it’s just running random patterns in the bay and the fools are wasting their time on it. I guess they don’t know or don’t care, and they’ve decided to eliminate it anyway. It doesn’t take them very long and as they work, we hear the whine of rotors, the heavy beat of broken air, the growl of military engines and the intermittent spitting of high-density projectile weapons as they finish this task in a messy but ultimately successful way.

Meantime, Tamsin and I have been scrambling away from the shore as fast as we can, picking our way up and over the rough ground by the bank of the stream that rises to our left. It’s not easy going. The wet suits are not merely uncomfortable, they’ll soon be dangerous as our body temperatures rise in the humid jungle. At least they have one advantage. They provide some protection from the thorns of a particularly nasty species of tangled vine in the local underbrush that impedes our progress. Any of the flying population of jewelled false beetles that might like to take a bite of our flesh are also limited to the exposed face, feet and hands. We swot these away as best we can, and fortunately their numbers diminish as we reach higher ground.

The cacophony of our bumbling enemies dispatching their maddening distraction in the ocean, dies down too quickly for my liking and there is an ominous smoothness to a relatively silent ascent of the death machine behind us. It’s back on our trail, hunting for the runaways. Tamsin waves me over to an overhang where a large brown rock has tumbled from higher ground. It is now covered in moss and some smaller wild relative of the same nodding purple flowers that adorn the trellises above the main entrance to the Temple. There’s a shady hollow where we can crouch out of direct sight. I force myself not to think about what else might be sheltering there and we wriggle into place, hoping to go unnoticed. Soon there is a systematic thwack of bullets breaking into the vegetation. The scimitar is not being subtle. They are just making a sweep through the trees, firing in a pattern that aims to cover all the ground we might have reached without worrying about whether they can see a target or not. They’ve been profligate with their ammunition. Hopefully, they’ll run out of bullets before they reach us, since I’m not convinced this rock is good enough cover to shield us from a more systematic attack.

Now I realise that I’ve twisted my knee sometime in the last few minutes. The nerves are sending me some painful warnings not to put too much weight on it. I don’t think we can make a break for it. Or rather I don’t think I can make a break for it. Perhaps Tamsin might escape if we split up. She gives me a tight smile.

I’m still thinking about the options when we get a lucky break. There’s a bright flash of silver overhead, almost too swift to follow but burning a brief pattern in the visual purple of my overloaded optic nerves like a swept wing rocket. Whatever it is, it impacts the helicopter with rather more serious consequences than the flare. The scimitar disintegrates with a shattering bang and a brief bloom of orange fire and black smoke, leaving the residue, including the crew, to crash into the jungle below us. It’s uncomfortably close but I don’t think any survivors will be worrying about us. I seriously doubt there will be any survivors at all. My guess is that we’ve witnessed a thinderin antiaircraft defence unleashed by the Light Guards. It came from the north in the direction of the Temple and that’s the general direction we need to travel if we’re to find the rehabilitation grove and the other pilgrims.

“Ready?” I ask Tamsin. She nods and we resume the climb beside the streambed, more slowly now and in a silence broken only by the faint splash of water and a hum of insects. It takes a strenuous fifteen minutes to reach the point where the stream has cut into the top of the cliff line and the land levels out somewhat. We stop to rest and consider our next move and my knee starts to hurt again. It feels like it’s going to be one of those injuries that can be suppressed for a while under stress since it wasn’t too bad whilst we were climbing, but when allowed to complain it’s making its complaint quite clear. It won’t be pleasant to start walking again.

“So which way, now?” I ask. Behind us, the curve of the bay is clearly visible beyond the green jungle patchwork and the crash site of the helicopter, which is still giving off a pillar of oily smoke. Ahead are larger trees, more widely spaced and under a darker canopy. There’s no obvious pathway but it looks like walking will be easier. The stream is now curving to higher land in the south, away from the direction we wish to travel, so we’ll have to strike out on our own.

“We should try and keep close to the cliff edge and look out for the Temple hill, then cut inland before we get too close,” Tamsin says sensibly enough.

“If we cut in sooner, we’ll reach the coast road,” I say. “But perhaps we don’t want to be on that road at the moment.”

“Yes. Although, it’ll be easier to find the way to the rehabilitation village from the road,” Tamsin points out. “That’s the only way we’ve found it before."

We decide to stick with the cliff edge for a little while but if the going gets too tough we’ll head inland and try to reach the coast road which can’t be far. It’s not long before the heat becomes oppressive. I’m pretty sure I won’t be recommending trekking in the jungles of Silusia Alpha in a wet suit to anyone, anytime in the future. I’m getting hungry and thirsty, and I wonder whether a tempting spray of succulent green berries would be edible. The trouble is, I just don’t know much about this jungle preserve area. The Rain Cities League have set it aside for conservation reasons. I seem to remember there are some large predators, but they are rare. Rare is comforting enough when you just have a tiny commute between the pilgrim village and the Temple in cleared and well patrolled land. Right now, though, I’d prefer non-existent to rare.

If only we had our guide. I hope he’s made it back home safely. But then again, even if Rahelo had still been with us I’m not sure he would have been much help. He’s a native of the Sun States, after all, and although he’s been living here for longer than us, he’s a servant of the Temple and probably has no more than a basic knowledge of the flora and fauna of the jungle preserve of South Seldamar himself.

There’s a trackway on the left leading inland and ending at a small cairn on a stubby little headland. It’s clearly been cut through with conscious intent by intelligence and it will be much easier to follow than picking our way along the cliff top. We encounter it at a time I guess is a little after noon. Hard to believe it was only this morning I was receiving my rebuff from Oak at the Council of Roots. It’s been a long day and its only halfway through. Ahead, now, we can see the Temple hill and by unspoken agreement we pick up the new track and move away from the sea.

We haven’t been walking for more than a few minutes when we hear sounds of movement ahead; something or somethings large crashing through the undergrowth. Instinctively Tamsin grabs my hand. I thought all the jungle predators were stealth hunters and lived further inland and south. But really what do I know? There’s nowhere to run and we’re not in a fit state to run anyway. A loud noise behind startles me as something heavy drops from the canopy. It looks like part of the canopy, leafy and chaotic and full of swiftly moving appendages. And up ahead our way is blocked by two more of the same, wielding something that looks like a cross between a machete and a gun. Considering my previous experience, I’m remarkably slow to recognise them as thinderin seedlings. Tamsin must have made the connection first because all at once she starts laughing. Relief and a little hysteria mixed together, I diagnose. I guess it is funny though; two bungling humans in their inappropriate wet suits stumbling through an alien jungle and surrounded by sentient plants with guns. We’ve been captured by Light Guards. I start to laugh too, and once I start, I can’t stop for a very long time...

So now we sit comfortably in the thinderin grove that protects the pilgrim rehabilitation centre, reunited with the other members of the human pilgrimage. The Light Guards escorted us here for our own safety. It turns out those wet suits may have saved our lives. These specific guards weren’t familiar with our pilgrim band or knowledgeable enough in recognising human individuals to know that we were authorised to be here. Fortunately, they had been told of our plight underwater and the plan to return us to land and they understood what we would be wearing. It saved us from an untimely demise at the sharp end of a trigger-happy Light Guard. And they are a little trigger-happy now, I can see that. The patrol we encountered had been sent out to find what remained of the scimitar attack helicopter with only a secondary objective to look for us, so we’ve been a little lucky.

It feels good to have showered and changed into the simple light pilgrim robes we are used to.  Our physical hunger and thirst have been sated by a communal open-air meal of brown bread, soft yellow cheese, and fried fish, washed down with a light beer and apples for dessert. My hunger and thirst for knowledge about what’s happening, however, is less easily satisfied.

We swap stories eagerly. Tamsin and I have the most exciting tale to tell, and I let her relate our adventures without interrupting. I have something critical I want to say soon enough, and I feel I should save my words up, the better to deploy them later. Edulon-602 has gleaned some information from the Light Guards in the grove. He tells us that the invasion has come from the north. The road to Rillyon is blocked now by two encampments of troops from Earth. Advance parties have reached our original village and are occupying it. They’ve set up forward positions not far from the Temple gates but stopped short of a barricade erected by the Light Guards. Hostilities seem to have ceased for the moment pending negotiations, but the invaders seem to have aerial control for the moment, despite the loss of the one helicopter which we witnessed. The details of the negotiations haven’t been shared with us and are very unclear, but of course I can easily guess. The Zed men want me, and they will leave peacefully if I am given up. Otherwise, they’ll make a mess.

I am a little hesitant before I finally make my plea after all the speculation and rumour mongering has died down. “We need to get into the Temple,” I say. “All of us. It’s about the white meditation. I was refused permission to undertake it this morning, and I didn’t understand why, but now I do. I need to know if you’re committed. Do you want to finish this pilgrimage properly or not?”

Ramon Avva frowns. “You’d better explain,” the Void priest says.

“We haven’t understood what these meditations are all about,” I begin. “Not properly anyway. Or I should be more humble and say that I haven’t understood it, maybe some of you have. You see, I’ve been thinking of these meditations as tests which pilgrims pass or fail. I’ve been thinking of this centre here as a way to come to terms with that failure. The thinderin have always said they are helping you to meet your chromatic need, but I didn’t appreciate what that really was. Now I think I do. All those legends about the famous occasions when the white meditation worked, they all use a tense in thinderin quaternary that I now realise means that the meditation worked for everyone and was completed by everyone. The white meditation is a team effort. One entity alone, never completes it. To make the white meditation successful, all the “discarded” pilgrims must be reunited again. That is what the thinderin have been preparing you for here, even if they did not tell you as such. I needed to understand that for myself if I am to lead you. That is what I want to do now. I want to lead us all into the white meditation. Are you with me?”

It’s easier than I expected. I’ve become their unofficial leader by surviving the meditations and in a way I didn’t expect, but which is very promising I’ve found that as part of the wider Solar Group they all share my political persuasions. There’s hardly any discission before I get unanimous agreement. Only unanimous agreement will do, so I am relieved that no-one opposes my plan and they are all remarkably enthusiastic. So, what now?

“I don’t think the light guards will let us back in the temple,” Samsin says nervously. “I mean this is all very delicate. They must think we’re safe here.”

“We’d be safer inside the temple,” Galda answers sharply.

“Better not to even ask,” Edulon-602 says, keeping his voice down to just above a whisper. “If you don’t want to get an outright refusal, don’t ask the question. I suggest we just get ourselves inside the temple before anyone thinks to stop us or considers we might need their approval.”

Galda, Ka and Avva all nod. With those four in agreement, there is unlikely to be any wavering from the others.

“We won’t be able to get into the main entrance,” Talamon Ka observes. “There’s far too much going on there. We don’t want to run into any Zen men. But there’s another way. Do you remember the Black meditation when they took us to the chamber below the base of the hill? There was a secondary gate on this side. I think we could reach that without drawing unwanted attention.”

“But isn’t that chamber disconnected from the rest of the temple,” I ask.

“No.”

It’s Dywhyiss who answers this one confidently. “There’s a staircase at the base of one wall that leads up to a corridor on the ground floor level. I bumped into a guard rail during the Black meditation and later I asked about it. We can get into the main part of the temple that way.”

When we march into the black chamber of the temple half an hour later, I start to have some doubts about the light guard’s security policies. Naturally, I am also wondering about their military capabilities. When their ancestors first arrived as exiles and the last speakers of thinderin quaternary more than twenty thousand years ago, they had been on the losing side of the third thinderin forest fire, after all. Although they brought some of the equipment of a retreating army they didn’t come as conquerors and their descendants only took stewardship of the temple, four thousand years later when the cycle of bilachai civilizations went into one of its periodic collapses. Yes, they have distant military traditions, and they are not toothless. They took down that scimitar helicopter efficiently enough, after all, and their personal weapons look serious. But let’s be honest, if Silusia Alpha was ever a theatre of violent conflict between emergent races, it must have been in times more ancient even than the records of the light guards. They are not exactly practiced, is what I am thinking. Sure, they appear to keep their equipment up to date and seem to take their defensive role seriously, but they’ve only ever had ceremonial duties for much longer than anyone living can remember.

What the Zed men will understand, though, is that the current generation of Light Guards are no longer schismatic exiles. Their rehabilitation into good standing with the Thinderin Forest is complete and we know they maintain excellent relations with important grove worlds not far beyond the boundaries of the Bubble. The military capabilities of the wider Thinderin Forest are certainly much stronger than the simple defences at Silusia Alpha and if the Light Guards call on their allies, the forces from this Earth expeditionary mission will find themselves seriously outgunned. They must be banking on the shock of this raid to briefly overwhelm the local forces so they can retreat with what they came for; me. They must be calculating that reinforcements will not reach the Temple in time. In the longer term, their political leaders must be gambling on not provoking any retaliation. Desperate policies to be sure and full of untested assumptions and gambles, but this is how the Zed men operate now.

I should be careful I’m not making unwarranted assumptions of my own. I’m expecting the Council of Roots to resist. The sanctity of the pilgrimages is a core tenet of Light Guard philosophy, and there are any number of stories in the Legends of how they have protected thinderin, werm and bilachai pilgrims from outside forces who sought to interrupt a lawful pilgrimage in the past. Nothing on this scale, though. Nothing that would threaten the temple itself. Why shouldn’t they just surrender me now? It’s a difficult question with more than one possible answer. Soon I’ll speak to them myself.

Possibly the light guards wouldn’t be so accommodating if we were all trying to leave. I’d like to think so anyway, because they just stand aside with no comment when I declare that we wish to visit the Council of Roots and we descend into the black chamber.

Actually, there is some reaction. We pick up a couple of escorts and they activate that irritating viwodian circuit worm technology that the thinderin seem to like for illuminating the interior of the temple. It lets out a few begrudging photons and the oppressive darkness of our first experience of this room is broken just enough for us to see the stairway Dywhyiss told us about. We climb it without comment and enter a maze of curving corridors at the next level. Navigating by gravity we keep going up, finding some more stairs, and finally emerging in a much wider passageway we all recognise as leading to the Circle Hall. Here there are a lot more light guards than we usually see in the temple and they are armed and alert. I expect all leave has been cancelled. They don’t stop us, though.

I’ve done the remainder of this journey once already today and I’ll say this, I’m certainly getting plenty of exercise. My right knee reminds me that it isn’t in such good condition this afternoon as it was first thing this morning, and we must all keep together, so it’s not such a rapid ascent. I’ll need a rest after this.

Fresh air, scudding low clouds and broken watery sunlight make us all pause when we eventually emerge onto the higher slopes of the temple hill. The pilgrims need time to contemplate the stunning panoramic views on the approach to the Melding Minster and it suits me to slow down and to think about my next words because now we must face the Council of Roots. Over the ocean, I see the distant tracks of warplanes and helicopters, crisscrossing the sea west of the village and above the nursery where Rahelo and Frenane are raising their children. It makes me anxious, although I have no reason to believe the Zed men have any interest in what’s happening below the waves.

“You have arrived at an unfortunate time, Mr Shankar,” Oak begins when the pilgrim band stands in a short arc before the same circle of the interpreters of the will of the High Grove that rejected me this morning. I don’t need to be told. The pace of life on the hill is more urgent than it was when I first stood here. A new projection screen is relaying images from the road to Rillyon and the front line at the Temple door. Armed seedlings move purposefully between raised desks behind the Council that weren’t here this morning. The thinderin have transformed this sector of the grove into an operations room. I expect they have others deeper in the Temple, since we are a little exposed out here. True, there is local air cover in the shape of two hexablade drones of viwodian manufacture, which flit about in a deliberately irregular flight pattern, hovering, swooping, diving and soaring like giant dragonflies, capable of spitting projectile death as they patrol above us. I’m sure there are also ground to air defences like the one that downed the scimitar this morning. Nevertheless, it seems the Earth forces have air superiority out at sea at least and they might decide to try their luck attacking this exposed spot, since they must understand the importance of the High Grove. For the moment, however, we’re in a standoff. The Zed men do not seem to want to test the Temple defences further and the Light Guards are sitting behind their line.

“What are their terms?” I ask, although, I have a good idea of the answer. Instead of replying directly to me, Oak speaks to my companions.

“I believe you all know who Mr Shankar is by now. Adding him to this pilgrim band before the Black meditation was a decision arranged in haste but not without planning. We never intended to keep his identity secret but we have always respected the rights of pilgrims to reveal what they choose to reveal to one another. This is the very essence of the pilgrimages here. They all begin with a band of strangers getting to know one another. Our councillors observe the dynamics of the resulting relationships but do not interfere until each chromatic need is met. Only afterwards, do we step in to offer assistance and perhaps a form of healing at the rehabilitation village.

"Although we knew we were taking a risk in admitting such a controversial fugitive on this occasion, we did not anticipate that Earth’s government would follow him so quickly. Their terms are simple. They promise to withdraw when Mr Shankar is surrendered as their prisoner.”

“So will you?” Edulon-602 asks.

“The Light Guards exist to protect the sanctity of the pilgrimages,” Oak replies. “We have been performing this sacred duty for somewhat more than twenty thousand Earth years since the Temple came under our stewardship. Anyone who is familiar with the chronicles of this place will know that on more than one occasion we have had to face down hostile outsiders seeking to disrupt our meditations. Admittedly, these disruptions have been rare and perhaps none have been as serious as the threat that faces us now, but we do not intend to abandon our traditions, simply because we are confronted with an unusual level of force.”

An acolyte seedling comes at his bidding and presents him with a deck of Life Cards. The cards are shuffled as we wait patiently and then dealt out in front of him. Oak considers their meaning before continuing.

“You may already know that the Temple uses transdimensional blueprints to maintain its integrity against the forces of decay and entropy. Just to be clear, these won’t help us if there is major disruption to the structure such as might be expected from a bombardment. The Zed men are installing heavy artillery. The blueprints aren’t designed to recover from that level of deliberate destruction and we would much prefer this conflict not to escalate to that point.

"You can be assured, however, that we have other allies to call on than the ones stationed here. The road to Rillyon may be cut for now, but our friends in the city are already working on lifting the siege.

"Out at sea, far beyond the bilachai nursery visited by Mr. Shankar so recently, there lies the underwater city of Eastedge which sits above the cliffs at the edge of the continental shelf. We have friends there too - bilachai troops who are pledged to the defence of the Temple if called upon. And we have called on them. The army from Earth will not be able to maintain this balance of force for long. We have the advantage of numbers and superior equipment in the long run.

"Unfortunately, the Zed men have given us a deadline of sunset. That is only two hours away and not quite enough time for our reinforcements to reach us, so it is a delicate situation. But I have spoken enough. Now you must speak. All of you. Tell me exactly why you are here so that I may decide what is to be done with you before and after sunset.”

“I am ready to attempt the white meditation again”, I begin. “But what I really need to say is that we are all ready to undertake it. I’ve figured out what I failed to understand this morning. The white meditation is a synthesis. That’s what the stories in the legends mean when they are properly read. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Just as white is a compound of the pure frequencies, the white meditation must be undertaken collectively. Now I see it, it’s obvious. On the few occasions when a white meditation has succeeded it has always been with the aid of the other pilgrims who met their chromatic need on the same pilgrimage. That’s at least partly why you take such good care of the pilgrims who have failed, isn’t it? For their own welfare, true, but also so that they might be ready if a pilgrimage will reach the white meditation.”

Oak doesn’t respond directly, pausing as if to think, but from his next words I know I am right and I breathe a sigh of relief.

“I must establish that you ALL agree,” the seedling says. “There can be no failures to commit once you are in the Temple. A lack of resolution is fatal at this stage. The white meditation is less forgiving than the others. You will all succeed, or you may all die or be permanently harmed. It is not too late to withdraw.”

But it IS too late to withdraw. Certainly, for me. I can’t be sure how far my fellow pilgrims want to go, though, and my instincts tell me I will need them all to succeed. This is asking a lot. What I’ve not properly considered, though, is that they all came here for their own reasons. It’s not just my role, however much they might now support it, which motivates their desire to attain our shared mystical goal. There are forces of inevitable choice at play now. We’ve all come too far and maybe it is almost impossible for them to decline at this stage. Whatever their reasoning, one by one, as Oak asks them individually, all the pilgrims accept the challenge.

“You must be appropriately garbed to enter the precincts of the Melding Minster,” Oak says.

And so, each in turn, the pilgrims are led to a vestibule where they can change and then regroup and wait for me inside the entrance chamber to the melding minster. I’m last and I’m left alone with Oak for a moment.

“Have you heard from Rahelo and Frenane?” I ask.

“They’re fine,” he says. “We have advised them to move out of the conflict area. Even though the nursery is underwater, we cannot be sure that the environs of the Temple will be safe. Rahelo and Frenane are making their way to Eastedge. It is early to move with the babies, but an escort has been sent to find and help the family to safety. I am confident they will soon be out of harm’s way."

He seems to hesitate. I am not sure how I know this. Thinderin seedlings are notoriously hard to read and even though I have spent more time with them than most people I’ve never really been able to intuit what they are thinking. Perhaps this is a side effect of the meditations, but I am pretty sure there is something else important he is not telling me. Why would that be? Oak wants the meditation to succeed, I realise, and he doesn’t want to disturb me with bad news. I think the Light Guards need the meditation to succeed and I think I know why.

I’m troubled by his silence anyway. What’s he keeping from me? Something is not right. Something more than just the military siege. There’s no time to ask. I must change into my robes and join the others.

The Melding Minster is mostly empty space. The amnyine seemed to like high cavernous ceilings inside the hill and they have followed the same theme with this exterior building. Great soaring arches support transepts leading to the central dome. It could almost be one of those European cathedrals from the renaissance. Some sculpted urns at the steps and pierced stonework add to the resemblance but inside it is more sparse and purely geometrical. Small ceiling lights provide a sense of scale but there is nothing to see inside except for one large dodecahedron under the dome, a room within a room where the final meditation will take place. What is it with these elder races and their geometric obsessions? We get it. You understand mathematics. Big deal. I must be nervous allowing these thoughts to distract me.

I always realised that this meditation would be the sternest challenge; the synthesis point which no human has ever attained and no pilgrim of any kind in thousands of years. It’s only viwodian encouragement which has given me the hubris to think I can succeed. Mastery of the white meditation is all that has brought me here. Yet, whilst I have been thinking so recently only of the role of white as the synthesis of all the other colours, I have been deliberately forgetting something else. White holds a unique danger for me. It is not just the synthesis with all that struggle entails. It has a resonance. It has snow. It has Antarctica. If I thought I could retain some control because of my newfound abstract understanding of the theory of the meditations this is when I realise that the practice of the meditations will still not be so simple and won’t allow it. We’re going back to Antarctica, whether I like it or not.

So finally, I must face the bitterness of my defeat at the southern end of the Earth. I must relive it and I must overcome the memories.

How did I even get there? By accident and design. I took another dangerous step into the heart of power, following the London Grumble. That was when the King of Earth himself moved in support of the BEA to bring an end to the riots that had taken the Disney City out of circulation. It was messy. The plastolithite bomb that entombed the leaders of the rebellion and permanently transformed the Trafalgar square I had known might have silenced the Grumble, but it did not put an end to the feelings of resentment that were spreading over the Earth. People just weren’t happy.

The political fallout resulting from the way the rebellion ended would make an instructive case study for any student of government and its interaction with the media. There had to be blame of course, but where that blame fell bore only the most coincidental resemblance to truth or justice and was instead entirely determined by the dark arts of passing the parcel. By managing confected and real outrage in a dangerous game of suppression, revelation, claim and counter claim, a narrative of responsibility, contrition, redemption and resolution was confected from a carefully cooked mixture of truth, half-truth and outright lies. The winners of this game retained their power and posts, and the losers became the sacrifice for the others. I expect politics has always been like this.

The BEA, being responsible for the Disney Cities was naturally first in the firing line. You might have expected my old boss, Mohamed Janjua the bureau chief to suffer as a result and in a way he did, yet in the most important ways he didn’t. Always a shrewd operator, Janjua managed to deflect the blame onto the head of BEA security, Janson Eltte, whilst avoiding culpability for the circumstances that gave rise to the riots in the first place. Eltte had been a rising star within the BEA and some had suggested he might replace Janjua one day soon. The crisis in London allowed Janjua to undermine his younger rival and ended up cementing his own authority. Eltte was eventually executed, despite the fact that he had no say in the decision to bomb Trafalgar square. Most people understood that the King of Earth had made that decision and it did weaken him, but Eltte paid the ultimate price and received the necessary media opprobrium to deflect attention. Meanwhile, the BEA did have its wings clipped, so whilst Janjua was more firmly in control of the bureau than ever, some of its roles were discreetly appropriated by the BXR. At the same time, the stock of the Queen of Earth rose, which was just as well since I had made some tactical changes to align parts of my own operation more closely with her at just the right time. By doing nothing and having nothing to do with the debacle of dealing with the London Grumble, I came through with my reputation enhanced and my power base increased. Sometimes it is more important not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time than it is to have talent or achieve positive political goals.

Let’s not go into details, it’s sufficient to say I came out of this well. After the London Grumble, I began to move in the kind of circles where orders were given rather than taken. This meant I was able to arrange some specific local matters to my liking. Alice had always wanted to try her skills with direct communication to viwodian subjects. I made that happen. The BXR already had the primary responsibility for looking after the alien embassies on Earth. As they took on new powers and responsibilities changed, I was able to assume the role of supervisor in Antarctica and to bring Alice into the team.

Working with the Queen of Earth wasn’t easy. She is very clever. In fact, Katarina may be the cleverest person I have ever encountered. Just because she won her role in a public poll in which beauty and charisma were ostensibly the deciding factors, that doesn’t mean she hadn’t managed the whole show, and it wasn’t all down to her handlers. The peculiar balance of powers which the fourth dynasty of the resource management world government have conjured into being doesn’t always work in the way its designers intended. The King and Queen of Earth were intended as figureheads for the Bureau to manipulate, expressing the desire for identifiable figures at the apex of society which the people could idolise or hate as they chose without affecting policy in any way. They can be disposed of annually, in one of the great public pageants that grips the planet every June. A new King of Earth is chosen in the odd years and a new Queen of Earth in the even ones.

Except the system has thrown up two individuals who not only do not wish to be deposed this way but have won through by fair means and foul in two successive pageants. Earth has had the same King and Queen for five years. They apparently hate each other, and the world loves it. This is a more complex dynamic than the BEA planned for, but they think they can manage it. Sometimes they can. Katarina (and to a lesser extent, Imran) have accrued real power, though, and they won’t give it up without a fight.

None of this would trouble me, except for the evidence of the obvious harm this populism is inflicting on Earth and on the Solar Group. They are all to blame. The King and Queen of Earth may have started out as pawns but now they are implicated. The BEA and the BXR are so busy fighting one another they don’t even care about the implications for citizens and colonists. They don’t even consider the long-term implications for humanity in the wider galaxy. They are rats fighting over scraps in a dark sack of ignorance. There must be a better way. My way.

I feared Katarina, though. Her whole artfully crafted persona walked a razor-sharp line between a fundamentalist virgin purity and a confident and explicit sexuality. She was a fount of carefully managed contradictions, from the pornographic fishnet veil that was her personal trademark to the laughing pseudo intimacy of her captivating simple singing performances and the polished vulnerability of her interviews. There was no doubt that it was a powerful combination which seduced men and women alike.

In private she was more nuanced and more deadly. She would not let herself be manipulated, a strength I admired, and I respected also her ruthless and accurate calculations as she balanced her team of advisors and allies. She did not tolerate sycophants and I made no attempt to flatter her. It would have been useless anyway. Still, we came to an arrangement. She was using me in her political games, and I was using her to further my own agenda. Mutual self-interest is a sound basis for a relationship as long as it lasts…

We climb a ladder to enter the sanctum of the Melding Minster through a “missing” face in the geometry. Inside it is stepped like an amphitheatre with the altar at the centre, although the steps are on a larger scale than is comfortable for humans. I guess the amnyine were built to a bigger scale but I’ve never really thought about what they looked like. We need to scramble and jump down to reach the bottom row but once there we don’t have to wait long. For a short while we contemplate the mystery of our reunion. It is the first time we have all faced one of these ancient amnyine altars together since the red meditation.

Two thinderin acolytes are ready to start the process and the white meditation begins immediately…

The viwodian embassy in Antarctica is under the icy ancient waters of Lake Vostok where they can sometimes swim in the open for a little while, which they like. It’s as close to an equitable environment for their species as they will find anywhere on Earth, although they need to return to their higher pressure sealed domes on a regular basis. Humans visit in submersibles of various kinds, living in a large research station that has grown up on the surface of the ice above.

The research station is a kind of embassy as well, and firmly under the control of the BXR. Crester Brock, my boss at the BXR wants to keep it that way but such is the state of Earthly politics that even an operation that clearly lies within the formal remit of the BXR cannot go unchallenged by the other forces that struggle for control. On the bedraggled continent of a post dislocations Antarctica, there are two other bases. The BEA has an “oversight” station on the coast which is clearly and unapologetically a spying operation. The Queen of Earth has an independent “monitoring” base on the route to the automated multi-tracking networks at the geographic pole. Of course, they do. It’s surprising that the Imran doesn’t have some of his own people here too, but the King of Earth doesn’t have the capacity or the contacts to establish himself here. Yet.

Duties in North Africa, South & Central America and East Asia, often kept me on the move for my last few years on Earth, flitting from one crisis to the next. Sometimes it was BXR proxy wars which Crester Brock wanted to keep stirring. Sometimes it was a question of being on hand at the Great Court of Extinction to make discrete diplomatic contacts with alien observers, mainly Werm and Viwodian agents. Sometimes it was talks with Truster or Doubter groups. Sometimes it was picking up the pieces after the Zed men had been a little too enthusiastic, although that was also BEA business. In between all the official BXR business I pursued my own unofficial business, building my network and testing it out. These were the times when I established the shell system for communication. Where I had an office, I took the cowrie and the way I oriented it on the shelf was a message to my agents. It told them if it was safe to talk openly or if discretion was required and it also passed more complex messages without needing to talk at all. I was careful, but I wasn’t careful enough.

Antarctica was my primary responsibility, through all this, though. When Crester Brock had promoted me to a position that was effectively second in command at the BXR, he’d made that clear and I made sure I spent as much time as possible in the far south. I was a political functionary, and my task was to keep alien relations on a good basis, whilst at the same time trying to squeeze whatever we could from them and not give too much away. It was the same as diplomacy everywhere and at every age but with the added complication that we were dealing with completely alien psychologies and there was far more potential for misunderstandings. I enjoyed it through; the challenge, the potential for interesting revelations, the sheer weirdness of it all, until it came to a crashing end.

My relationship with Alice had cooled a little over the last few years. I wasn’t clear why at the time. Her initial enthusiasm was infectious, and I always took her ideas very seriously where viwodian relations were concerned, even now, when we had retreated into a frostier formality, but something important had changed and it made me sad. Now she always seemed almost wistful and nostalgic when we talked –not hostile but distanced. I didn’t realise she’d been talking to the BEA. I can guess what they might have been telling her, though. Spin is so important, isn’t it?

I know the white meditation will inevitably take me to my last day at the base, and it doesn’t disappoint. The enfolding white light assumes the form of driving snow and I’m back outside the main building, walking through a heavy blizzard. I was late and it saved my life.

The project was something the BXR called a target of opportunity. A Viwodian messenger drone had suffered a major failure in the G-lift system just after rocketing through a hole in the ice on its way to orbit and onwards via flicker drive, most likely to the colony on Europa but possibly to some interstellar destination. It had crashed back into the snow, not too far from our base and not too badly damaged. Recovery operations were being managed from the embassy, but the rights to fly drones were one of those matters that had been carefully negotiated under the terms of the treaty that let the viwodian live in lake Vostok. Human observers were allowed to monitor and offer assistance in the event of any untoward accidents such as this one. If there had been damage to human facilities or loss of life there would be a compensation claim and political ramifications it would have been my job to deal with, but fortunately that had not happened.

We were desperate to see the drone though.

They’ve been making protocol two flicker drives at the Luminal Forge for more than fifty years now and it’s made a massive difference to interstellar communications. With protocol two, low mass payloads can travel at significantly higher pseudo velocities than under protocol one, allowing for unmanned probes to send messages much faster than crewed ships. Naturally all the members of the society of contemporary races already have protocol two drives and it was no thanks to them that humanity discovered the manufacturing technique independently, although the knowledge that such a thing was possible undoubtably encouraged our researchers.

There is a problem with human built protocol two engines, though. We’ve never been able to incorporate a G-lift engine into the units, because of a combination of technical and theoretical problems related to the total engine mass and proximity field interference issues between the drive types which are more severe and less easy to mitigate under protocol two. This prevents us from being able to send message drones directly from planetary surfaces, they can only be launched from the cargo bay of a ship in deep space. Naturally, it would be exceedingly useful to send message drones directly from colony to colony without needing the intermediate step of a high mass G-lift vessel to get the drone into space. The Thinderin and the Viwodian (and probably the Werm too) have overcome this limitation somehow and the BXR would love to know exactly how.

Under the formal pretext of observing the duties of the Viwodian airspace treaty we went as spies to see what we could learn. The Viwodian knew we would be paying close attention to the design of their drone but there was not much they could do about that. They probably doubted we would learn much and if so, they weren’t wrong. Their own robot agents were policing a small perimeter round the crash site, and we simply stood around the edge taking non too subtle photos and other making such other scientific observations as were possible from a distance.

Alice was out at the BEA base that day, scrounging for some spare standard power couples for the language lab. It’s funny how life in Antarctica was driven more by necessity than politics. Sure, the BEA, the BXR and the Queen of Earth were all at each other’s throats officially, but unofficially Antarctica was a hostile environment and life was a lot easier when we supported each other in small practical matters. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, kind of thing. Not that I wasn’t very careful to check out any equipment we brought in from unofficial sources. Almost everything can and has been bugged.

“Go out in good faith, but come back paranoid,” was my motto. And before Alice had departed, I’d doubled down on that. “Can you be a bit extra paranoid today,” I said. “Mohamed Janjua is visiting the base. It might be routine. They might be interested in what we’re doing at the crash site (in fact I’m sure they are to some extent) or there might be something big going down. My ex-boss never does anything without a reason. I’d like to know what it is. But you just be careful, eh?”

“Oh relax”, she’d laughed. “You’re still feeding him BXR secrets, aren’t you? He’d tell you if it was anything important.”

Today she almost seemed like her old self, but I wasn’t too sure I should ever have told Alice about my peculiar relationship with my old boss. I wasn’t happy about her mentioning it openly either, even though we were alone. This was a BXR base after all, and I was a very senior BXR official. It was getting hard to juggle everything. Too hard as it happened and as I would find out very shortly.

I trudged to the crash site through a flurry of snowflakes that were getting thicker all the time. I was dressed in the standard base gear, grey double padded jacket, thermal boots and on this one occasion just a simple white hood from the peg. Some comedian on the science team had lifted the distinctive red fur cap with the thick ear mufflers and embedded audio headset that I normally wore. That was a consequence of being late and I thought understood the subtext. The cap had been a present from Alice, and it was such a favourite of mine that I’d become identified with it. There was now a standing joke that nothing happened out on the ice unless the cap ordered it. I guessed that someone was making a humorous point at my expense, and I had an idea who’d find that funny. I was slightly annoyed to be perfectly honest but not to the point of losing my sense of humour altogether. We’d laugh about it later and it would all be part of team bonding. I’m always thinking of people management. That’s who I am now.

In the event, the prank saved my life. My team never saw them coming but that was because they were good at their jobs, crack troops, all of them. They simply emerged from behind the seaward ridge and a fold in the land to the east that gave them cover behind a bank of windblown drifts and they were firing before anyone saw them. The first shot missed but the second one smashed through my favourite red cap and the skull of its unlucky wearer, killing him instantly. Then others were dropping, either killed, wounded or simply diving to the ground to reduce their profile and try to find cover as a rapid panic spread. I dropped too, fortunately for the last of those reasons. I knew I was the real target here. This was an assassination mission, and my colleagues were just collateral damage.

I was doubly lucky in those few moments, really lucky, although I wondered later if it might have been better to die there and then. There was a snowmobile with a running engine only a few metres to my left. The driver was face down in the snow. He’d tumbled off the seat with a bullet through his chest. I squirmed along the ground, grabbing the keys from where they’d fallen and working my way round to the far side. When I risked a glance towards the attacking troops I caught a flash of a badge and then another. Not Zed men. It was the identifier for Katarina, the Queen of Earth. There wasn’t time to think about that now, but I did notice that they were a bit sloppy. They weren’t dealing with the surviving members of my team in a systematic way, instead focusing on their first kill to confirm my identity. I had no intention of being there when they found out they’d killed the wrong man. I vaulted onto the bike and kicked the engine, heading away from the base at full speed. A couple of bullets followed me but they couldn’t shoot straight, and I was quickly out of range.

Where to go? The BXR base was out of the question, they’d search it as soon as they found I wasn’t dead, and I wasn’t confident the local security team would win a firefight even if they chose not to surrender. Clearly Katarina’s place was off the agenda and that left the BEA base as the only obvious option. The few snow flurries with which the day had started were now turning into a respectable blizzard but that didn’t bother the navigation systems on the snowmobile. I took a wide arc around the next bay and then set the course, thinking frantically about the implications of this outrage and how I was going to survive it. At least Alice had missed the slaughter on the ice. I went even colder than the freezing wind when I thought that she might easily have been caught in the crossfire. I needed to see her safe now, and then make some plans. Janjua would have to help me.

I recognised Alice’s snowmobile not long after I heard the engine. It had a distinctive red checker pattern on the cowling which she’d painted herself and even though the driving snow I could make it out as it approached me at speed. But I’d learned something from the fatal mistake with the hat and I reserved judgement on who was driving it until we were only ten metres apart and I could see it was indeed her. She was waving frantically, and we both pulled to a halt.

As she staggered towards me, I could see that she was in great distress and clutching her neck. “It’s not Katarina,” she gasped, desperate to communicate. “It’s Janjua. Don't go to the BEA base! He's sent soldiers to kill you under a false flag!”

 She grunted and folded over on the floor as I reached for the hood of her coat and pulled it back. There was a collar round her neck, something metal and nasty and controlling. I’d heard of these things, but I’d never seen one. The Zed men used them.

“It was to stop me coming to find you,” Alice wheezed through tears. “They put it on me. The BEA – Janjua – he's turned against you!”

Those were her last words. I don’t know if it was an automated response to her distance from the base or if some calculating functionary decided, too late, that she would be able to warn me but from some hell came the command to end her life. The collar constricted violently, and my love was decapitated in front of me in a fountain of red blood.

There was so much blood on the snow. I thought I’d seen enough blood for one day at the ambush, but this was a horror beyond compare. I don’t need this level of vivid recall. I spend enough time trying not to recall it. The White meditation is so cruel. This was the moment I’d feared I might fail back in the Red meditation and it’s the moment I fear I will fail now that it confronts me again. There’s a physical sickness and a light-headedness accompanying this memory. My mind wants to shut it down in the way it has painfully learned to do before to preserve my sanity, but here in this meditation it can’t. This is a form of torture and I understand now in a visceral way exactly why the pilgrims all broke away from the meditations at the point of their chromatic need.

There’s something different about my meditation though. I use everything I’ve learned in the Temple to tap into the currents of the field of shared experience in the room. I reach for a stabilising effect which flows from the others. Talamon Ka’s experience teaches me what he learned in the Red meditation and I channel it, riding the wave of overloaded emotion to let it take me into calmer waters. I realise that I could have been stuck in my memory forever if things had gone wrong at this moment. I feel a cool sweat breaking out on my brow at the realisation of what I’ve been risking. My memories stutter and restart, but I am not out of the meditation so simply. The White meditation is not mastered yet and the narrative of that day continues.

I blindly fired the engine without even thinking of where to go, but Alice’s warning made me change course to keep away from the BEA base. It was just like Janjua to come up with a false flag operation. His men must have been wearing fake badges sewn onto their uniforms. Or maybe Katarina was involved as well. Janjua must have known something about how I was operating in a gap between the BEA and the BXR. We’re too much alike in the way we manipulate people, but I’d never have done something like this. Never.

There wasn’t time to think about this. I was running out of allies. The BXR base was unsafe, I couldn’t trust the BEA or the Queen of Earth and even though it sometimes seemed half the world had stations on Antarctica, just dying of exposure would still be very easy and could happen quite quickly if I didn’t get out of the cold. I realised that without conscious thought I was heading for the borehole that sits above Lake Vostok. It would be guarded by now. If there were wider military operations on the continent, they’d be looking for me and anyone staging a takeover would want control of the main access point to the Viwodian embassy. I wondered if the BXR guards would resist BEA troops. If they did, I doubted they’d be able to hold them off. And who knew what the Viwodian themselves would be making of this? No doubt it would be confusing.

That was when I saw the flare, a bright orange rocket out where they were melting a second access point through the deep ice. What the hell, I might as well go there as anywhere else. Normally the surface posts there were unmanned, with just the occasional monitoring visit. Operations were automated. I didn’t even worry about whether this might be a trap. There would have been no time to prepare anything as sophisticated as that. I just accelerated towards the permitter where I knew they were on the point of a breakthrough. There was a tiny figure on the ice. He or she, suddenly jumped to the left, waving frantically at me to slow down. The ice exploded upwards in a fountain of white shards and a submarine coning tower broke through. I stopped at the rim of the new ring of open water, just in time to avoid being carried into the black depths. The conning tower opened, and I recognised a familiar silhouette, in the form of a bright pink Mohican.

“Get on board!” Fitararye Wilson shouted.

 A rope ladder was launched in my direction, propelled by a harpoon that ensured the end gripped the ice and I was able to scramble onto the submarine and haul myself inside without too much trouble. We were underway almost immediately, with a final wave to whoever had launched that flare and was now leaving on their own snowmobile. The conning tower closed, and we descended into the deep black waters below. I saw that Lia Leong was on board as well and I’d thought she was off world.

“We had to move quickly when we got word of what was happening,” Wilson said.

We swapped stories of the coup. Somehow, I got through a passably coherent account of Alice’s death, but I was clearly still in shock, and they sat me down and gave me a hot drink. I think it was medicated because I was numb for a while. All I can remember of the rest of that journey is an ocean of deepening purples and blacks with strange shifting shapes glimpsed through the clear plastic hull. I’d entered an almost trance like state of passive acceptance of whatever was happening, but I know I was crying silently.

Repeating this experience within the Temple, repeats the mild healing effect of that short voyage on another level. The priest who felt the full force of the indigo meditation helps me through this one with its shadows and darkness. Perhaps Ramon Avva also has some of the pastoral skills of his profession as well. At any rate, the danger of this part of the meditation is the opposite to the earlier shock. There is a danger though. I sense that I could sink into a kind of permanent sleep here, wallowing in the numbness.

I need to come back to the present. How much longer will I be stuck in this meditation? Must we go through the interview with the viwodia, the decision to put me aboard one of their ships to get me off world, Lia Long’s coaching in thinderin quaternary, the gift of the thinderin version of the Legends of the Chromatic Temple? That all took two weeks before I escaped the Earth and came here. Is this meditation going to loop back to the Temple itself?

I realise that the White meditation is not like the others. The other meditations provoked a crisis and ejected a pilgrim. This one holds on to the energies of the pilgrim band. It will keep us here forever until we have learned to set it aside, but it is only tissue thin. I try to break out by force of will, but it is like being caught in a web. Then I see it. I see how to take each chromatic thread where it has been woven into whiteness and unfold them. The final meditation has gifted me something the other meditations could not do. The pilgrims are the brightest and most familiar threads. I sense them all and now, through the prism of the chromatic meditations, unified at last, I consider the things they have taught me.

The red thread is Talamon Ka, the security man from Zephyr, unable to face the red meditation. Remorse burns inside him like a fever but he will find no cure for it on Silusia-Alpha. That much is clear to me. He must eventually return to Zephyr and seek forgiveness from his enemies. I cannot say whether he will receive it, when all this is over. But first, he will come with me to Earth.

The orange thread is Dywhyiss, ready to move on to something different. The orange meditation has been healing for her. She’s thinking about what remains for her on Blue Home and what might be ahead. She wants more time to process her experiences with the pilgrim band. I can offer that.

The yellow thread is Edulon-602, still scared by his betrayals but he’s been broken and remade by the yellow meditation and then during his cathartic conflicts with Talamon Ka. They are comrades now in a strange way and I know that they are as tightly bound to the mental field of the meditation as any of the pilgrims. They’ll follow me.

The green thread is Samsin Larivière, resolute and determined. She doesn’t entirely trust me, but she backs her sister. The green meditation precipitated a crisis of maturity for Samsin. She’s moved on from the timid girl confounded by childhood fear and I know she’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

The blue thread is Tamsin Larivière. She is feeling liberated and confident too and she has placed her trust in me. This ought to make me feel uncomfortable because it is not clear that I deserve it, but I can’t deny it makes me happy right now. Tamsin will certainly follow me, and her sister will follow us both.

The indigo thread is Ramon Avva, the Void priest. He thinks of his time in the Temple as an answer to prayer, but one he does not yet fully understand. He wants to return to Issulon in due course, but he has also bonded with the pilgrims even before the special glue of this final meditation. They have come to trust and confide in him. He’s a father figure and one not so ambiguous as me. I value him as a councillor, and I certainly want him to stay with us. I am confident that he will, for now.

The violet thread is Dovrich Galda, ready for anything now. Always the most cynical of the group she has become my most loyal follower after the violet meditation. It’s not just because of her political beliefs or the transformation of her vision, I’m sure. Dovrich just likes a good fight as she always has, and she thinks I can offer that. I most certainly can.

Then finally there’s me. I am exultant at this moment and heady with power. The Temple seems to have given me everything I needed, and I have become the Ultimate Politician. I can touch minds in a direct way. I am all things to all men. I am dangerous. I scare myself a little, which is good because I need to keep my emotions under control and focus on the work that need to be done.

It is over. I am breathing the air of Silusia Alpha. I know where I am. I have transcended in the final meditation and for the first time I can resonate with the underlying chromatic energies embedded in the auras all around me.

Now I sense that beyond the pilgrims there are others; the alien frequencies of the bilachai and the thinderin; opaque, beautiful and harder to study, but clearly visible to me in my new state.

And beyond them? Let’s go out and see!