The Helianx Proposition/page 42
Having arranged themselves in the three concentric circles
they used on the rare occasions they gathered for collective ritual,
the Elders placed Noe in the center of the innermost circle.
The young Helianx had been extensively briefed on what was required of hir.
While the remaining 209 of hir race balanced and harmonized the Web
prior to giving themselves collectively over to the ecstasy of the Hub,
Noe was required to focus hir entire energy on what they all had traditionally
most disdained, that of maintaining the integrity of hir individual consciousness.
To any telepathic species the joy and stimulation of a group mind
was a powerful and addictive draw and the Helianx were no exception.
Any idea of breaking completely free of the Web had become anathema to them.
It had been this taboo that originally so concerned the Elders, when they had observed
Noe's proclivity for hir lengthy visits to the desert simulacrum.
As the Web was brought into equilibrium and the songs of the Helianx gained in passion and momentum, the psychic potency of the Hub started blossoming open, forming a glowing sheath of ultimatonic energy that revolved around Noe at an ever-increasing speed. These particular moments, according to the computer analysis, were the most crucial, as the emerging wormhole had to be held open and stable long enough for Noe to make the transition to hir new destination.
Wormhole manipulation and the art of folding the space-time continuum was a relatively recent discovery and had emerged naturally, as the Helianx gained confidence in working with the Hub. During their long, last tour of the early superuniverses, the Hub, apparently responding to necessity and the pressure of time, had introduced them to the technique of co-creating sufficiently dynamic wormholes to move the Great Ship light -years across intergalactic space in a single moment. But it was one thing to transport the craft, and themselves, to the other end of the same superuniverse and quite another to focus specifically on a single individual and consign them to another superuniverse entirely. This was to be the first and last time, hopefully, that such a ritual would have to be used. Realizing this deepened the trance and helped empower the Helianx to maintain the needed momentum and purity of tone.
For Noe, at the center of all this psychophysical activity, hir struggle to retain an individuated consciousness, while the rest of hir race melded with the Hub, was perhaps the most difficult state of mind sHe had ever attempted. SHe knew from the ship's previous hyper-spacial jumps that the transition was extremely rapid. At one moment sHe would be on the Ship and the next sHe would find hirself deposited on the surface of a strange new world. Nurturing this thought and willing hirself to relax became the key to holding onto hir individuated consciousness, while the surrounding vortex spun faster and faster.
Noe closed hir many eyes to shut out the dizzying spectacle, and drawing deeply into hirself sHe turned hirself over to ministrations of the Hub. Whatever was to happen next would seal hir fate and ultimately that of hir entire species.
