Read Online Dominion by John Connolly - Free Book Online

As they turned to look, pinkish gel oozed into the cockpit and began to form a figure before them: first legs and a torso, then arms and a head. Rizzo leaped for the shotgun that was never far from her reach, but Steven shouted at her to stand down, his voice snapping out the command, and the highly trained fighter within Rizzo’s nonchalant, tough-girl exterior had the sense to listen. Finally, a layer of pale skin formed itself over the figure, and it stood naked before them. It was female, and human, or apparently so.
    â€œFollow me,” it said.
    â€œI don’t think so,” said Rizzo instinctively. She had never seen any reason to follow a naked stranger anywhere before, and wasn’t about to start now.
    Suddenly an image of Paul appeared between them and the woman, something like a hologram.
    â€œIt’s okay,” Paul told them. “Just do as she asks. I think you need to see what we’re seeing . . .”

CHAPTER 11
    T he crew of the Nomad stood together at the center of a vast chamber filled with millions of sparkling lights that seemed both part of, and separate from, the alien vessel. As one light appeared, another was extinguished: a constant flickering that dazzled the eye. At first there was only silence, but gradually a low hum could be heard, and as it rose in volume they discerned the babble of an untold number of voices, all speaking in unison. This was the sound that Syl had heard.
    This was the Cayth.
    They were a race without physical form, a species that had long ago abandoned bodies. Bodies wasted away. They contracted diseases. Bones shattered, and organs failed.
    But the mind . . .
    How frustrating, how unjust, that a lively, active consciousness should cease to exist simply because the delicate frame that housed it went into decay. If the mind could be freed from the limitations of the body, then it might become virtually eternal.
    And so the Cayth evolved, but they did not entirely abandon flesh, blood, and bone. They created organic computers, and biomechanical ships, and these they inhabited with their consciousness. They were both individual and collective: billions of distinct minds working together, so interwoven and interdependent that their identities had become, for all intents and purposes, one. Yet, as Fara and Kal had demonstrated, some element of their former individuality still remained, a dream of what once had been.
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    They returned to the observation deck, their eyes and ears still filled with the sight and sound of the Cayth. The hum continued, though, like a soothing white noise. Now they all looked at Kal and Fara differently, knowing that within their temporary physical forms, assumed for the benefit of their guests, they contained multitudes.
    â€œIt is interesting that you call them ‘Others,’ ” said Fara, “while we refer to them as a contaminant.”
    â€œHow so?” asked Paul.
    â€œBecause to them, we are the others. We are the contamination.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œThey are ancient,” said Kal. “They may well be the oldest living beings in the universe. To them, all other life is inferior.”
    â€œTo them,” Fara corrected him, “all other life is prey . They may appear simple—in their most basic form just a spore, a tiny thing—but they are impossibly complex. Within each spore is the potential for any number of evolutionary paths, depending upon the requirement of the species: food, knowledge, reproduction, infection. Destruction.”
    â€œAnd they are in constant communication with one another,” added Kal. “They are not quite a collective, but individual manifestations of the life-form are capable of remaining in contact with others, even when light-years apart.”
    â€œHow?” asked Meia.
    â€œThrough what we believe is a form of quantum entanglement,” said