Empire of Light

She stared at him slack-jawed, then dropped her head towards her knees with a groan. 'I'm sorry, but it's so hard to take all this in.'

He smiled sympathetically. 'There's a lot more to explain, and we're going to give it to you gradually. But here's what you mainly need to know: the Mos Hadroch was discovered, and used to stop the war between the Shoal and the Emissaries. That was followed by the Great Diaspora, as the human race scattered across the galaxy.'

'So you brought me back,' she said, raising her head slowly up again. 'Why?'

'Because we need you. The Accord of Worlds is a successor of sorts to the Consortium, but it's facing its greatest threat since the Emissaries. A Shoal fleet is currently heading for the Greater Magellanic Cloud, intent on building an empire.'

'The Accord of what?' Dakota asked weakly.

'I played a small part in its creation, towards the end of my sixth iteration.' He pointed up: 'If you will.'

Dakota glanced up to see an image of the Greater Magellanic Cloud materialize overhead, filling the space directly beneath the onion dome.

'A few decades ago,' Lamoureaux continued, 'a small fleet, led by Shoal-members intent on recreating the Hegemony, left our galaxy on a secret mission for the Cloud. There's now reason to believe there's more than one Mos Hadroch. If they do find more, they'll have the means to cripple the Accord. So we have to stop them.'

'And what does this have to do with me?'

Lamoureaux smiled. 'If there was ever a time we needed you, Dakota, it's now.'

She felt like weeping. 'I can't tell you how out of my depth I feel, just being told all this. I mean, Jesus and Buddha…' She laughed. 'I don't know what else to say.'

'The Accord is something special. It's much more than the Hegemony ever hoped to be. And its name is no accident – would you like me to show you why?'

Dakota nodded warily.

A moment later she found herself bathed in the sound of a hundred trillion voices, all talking at once. But, rather than cacophony, it was more like a single, infinitely complex piece of music constantly mutating and shifting. She saw through a million eyes, heard a million voices. She felt the touch of an untold number of lovers, smelled the air of a thousand worlds. She felt alien limbs sprouting from her body; tasted the armoured chitin of her brood with her long tongue; swam through sentient corals, sniffing out delicious plankton with a nose resembling a flower.

'There's a lot more I have to explain,' he said, reaching out his hand as he stood up. His movements were fluid, not at all those of an old man. And a lot for you to see. But, if we're going to get started, I don't see any reason why we should delay.'

She licked her lips and glanced around the onion dome, then reached out tentatively and took his hand.