The proud proclamation over the door seemed to speak solely to Sergy Maine, silent whispers reminding him of its promise.

Sergy was an old man, already nearing the male life expectancy of a century in Olde-Time. Life did not last very long in the further reaches of the galaxy – and Far Arm M40 was just about the last outpost of humanity.

Sergy, more commonly known as Doggie Bone, looked with teary eyes at the sign, his wrinkled brow furrowed in thought, it would cost him almost his entire life savings to pay for recoiling.

The door slid open silently as he neared it. Doggie Bone stepped in.

Recoiling, even Sergy knew, could hardly be called high-tech, as could be expected of a backwater planet. Its name was an allusion to the process of nanoscopically recoiling DNA strands to reverse the aging process. Though elaborate – whatwith having to check the DNA for errors, correcting introns and having extrons newly correlated to the main strands – it was a relatively old technique, discovered incidentally when they cured cancer.

A pretty receptionist, an off-worlder from her deviant dress-sense, smiled up at him while he stood gawking at the posh décor of the lobby.

“Do you have an appointment, sir ?” She asked, her voice lilting slightly.

“Yes…” Sergy stammered, “I’m here to see Doctor Winter.”

“And who shall I say is calling ?”

“Sergy, Sergy Maine, call me Sergy, or….” His voice trailed off as he blushed. He nearly said that she could call him Doggie Bone.

She smiled, easing away his nervousness. “We were expecting you, sir.” She gestured for him to take a seat. “The doctor will be with you shortly. In the meantime, please allow me to extract some cell samples.”

Sergy soon found himself in the Doctor’s room, unbuttoning his shirt.

Prufrock Winter, M.D., Ph.D., Na.D, was a young man of about thirty – though, considering his profession, it would be impossible to tell his real age. “Your DNA scans look positively optimistic.” He said, looking through his paper printouts (Olde-Tech paper having become all the rage again). “The chance of rejection is extremely low. I would say something like one in a million.” He looked up and smiled disarmingly at Sergy, “Of course, there is always a small risk of retrograde after the coiling process, you understand.”

Sergy looked pensive. “Will I be young again, doctor ?”

“You will be brand new!” the Doctor said with a winning grin, “I would in fact strongly recommend it, with the earlier qualifiers, of course.”

Sergy lived with his eight-year-old granddaughter. The last planetary assault had crippled his planet, leaving behind little but half-abandoned cities and arid land. Now, with his body weakening daily along with his fading memories, he could no longer work for any of the MegaCorps, and was left to farming at his two acres of land – and farming was physically strenuous, almost too much for a man his age. His only hope was that Emily, his little Emily, could have a decent life. The newly opened recoiling clinic seemed the answer to his fears. Sergy nodded his affirmation.

“Very good!” The doctor beamed, “Target age is thirty – any earlier and recoiling tends to become unstable. The actual process will only take a moment, half an hour at most. Just sign the indemnity form here.”

The paperwork done, Sergy finished undressing as the Doctor prepared the recoiling bath, twisting dials and checking screens. The bath looked like a Jacuzzi with a lid.

As he lowered himself in, Sergy recalled something from his distant past – he was sitting upon the lap of his “Devil Uncle”, a young boy laughing away. He thought it strange to remember that old moment, decades ago, then the doctor was putting an oxygen mask over his mouth, and he slid beneath the cool liquid.

He could hear the gentle beeping of his heart, see its pulsation on one of the screens upon the descending lid of the bath. The inconstant rhythm lulled him gently off to sleep.

Feeling the liquid foaming around him, sinking slowly into unconsciousness, he could hear the soothing litany-like recital of the medical-com…

“Recoiling sequence initiated.”

“Axis rotating to 90°.”

“Scanning DNA strands.”

“Introns located. Checking for lost codes and errors.”

“Replacing lost extrons with postulated permutations.”

“Deossification of calcium deposits in patient’s skeletal components… completion in 10 minutes.”

Forcing his eyes open, he saw the screens above him flashing with rows of numbers – zeros and ones in the spontaneous dance of creation. He could no longer feel the foaming liquid, his body felt numb, then his eyes slammed shut again.

“DNA introns recovered 100%. Extrons fully degaussed.”

“Recoiling 10% and double climbing.”

“Host RNA template matches the postulated permutations IS34657. Sequence initiating ATAC.”

“Translation at 5% and climbing. Recovery process stage completed.”

He heard his heart rate increasing smoothly as fell into a dreamless slumber.

Sergy awoke, sat up, and promptly collapsed back.

Twisting his head, he found himself lying in a dim room, his mind slowly reconciling itself with the events of the past hour. The air had an organic scent – at once pungent and strangely pleasant.

Nearly stumbling, he sat up again, amazed at the clarity of his surroundings, the wrinkles on his hands were gone, replaced with pink, taunt skin. He brought his right hand up for a closer look, and nearly hit himself in the face, his body ill adjusted to its newly returned vigor and overcompensating the movement.

Carefully returning his hand to his side, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. All his geriatric pains were gone, in their place, an unknown numbness was throbbing, but even that was smoothly receding. His skin tingled.

The door opened and clean light streamed into the room, a grinning Doctor Winter at its nucleus.

“It was an absolute success! Get up, my good man, get up!” The doctor motioned urgently with hands, his smile widening as Sergy stood up straight, leaving behind his hunch with the rest of his old age.

With a hand gently supporting Sergy, the doctor brought him before a full-length mirror.

Sergy was speechless – a young man, no older than the doctor, stood where his reflection should be, his built so robust one could almost feel his heart pounding like a drum. A full mane of dark hair was on his head. It was a face Sergy barely recognised as his own, as if time had reversed for him.

“You will need some time to adjust to your rejuvenated body.” The doctor continued, “Understand that it is no different from getting a new body, in fact, some parts had to be locally cloned to re-create you. Fixing the DNA was only the beginning, we had to rebuild the housing from scratch – all done intro vivo, of course!” Doctor Winter’s pride in nanoscopic science was obvious.

Sergy had lost track of what the doctor was saying, though neither honestly cared.

“Go easy for a week,” the doctor resumed, “I have a list of exercises to help you adapt. Do not do anything even mildly strenuous, give your body a chance to re-establish its equilibrium.”

After flexing his hands and one last look at the mirror, Sergy turned to the doctor and beamed with child-like contentment.

Back in the lobby, he happily paid the fees, barely noticing as the screen declared his remaining credit, though his new eyes caught the badge proudly pinned upon the receptionist’s blouse – “I’m 90 years old – Believe it!”

He practically leapt out of the Clinic, excited and elated – as one just released from New Alcatraz. Oblivious to the bewildered looks he was getting from passers-by, he brightened up as he thought of his granddaughter.

“I’ll work hard at the farm and perhaps get a job in the city. I’ll be able to send Emily off-planet to a good college.” His mind was racing as he began the walk back to the farm. Though it was a good 20 klicks from the city, he had already spent enough, and did not intend to further stretch his finances by taking a wind cab.

A solitary figure on the road, he turned and looked around, enjoying the vivid colours he could not even remember. The city behind him was little more than a few blocks of grey concrete reaching out for the unforgiving skies. Testament to the recent planetary assault, the glass dome that had once blessed the city with a false habitat was broken, now giant shards in the dying sun, the vibrant gardens it had once permitted dead. On the blasted earth without, wreckage of huge space vehicles littered the red landscape, so much snuffed out cigarette butts, scavenged and worthless. They shimmered as if they would dematerialise, translucent one moment, solidifying again the next. Ships capable of faster than light travel were made of depleted Iotian alloys, and light warped around them in strange ways.

“Grazed pudding. I will go to town and buy grazed pudding for little Emily. Her favourite.” He smiled at the thought.

The town was about five klicks from his farm, and as Sergy approached, people started looking at him, scanning him from head to toe. Strangers rarely visited, and when they did, they were viewed like fish from an off-world ocean.

McNeil was the first to realise who Sergy was.

“Doggie Bone! Damnit! It’s Doggie Bone!” McNeil was pot-bellied, good-natured and loud.

“What didya do to yerself ? Drank from the Fountain of Youth ?” The burly man threw a friendly punch at Sergy.

McNeil’s voice started to draw a crowd. It was a small town, and everyone knew each other.

Old Mary Stuart could be heard above the din, “Doggie Bone gone did it fer his ’lil Emily. Ah knew it. She’s his life and soul, bless her.”

“Doggie Bone yer swandy youst! Now that yer gone and made yerself an young ’un, show us some respect like we old folks deserve!” Ray Boswell said with a chuckle.

Sergy simply grinned at them, in his child-like manner.

After the jesting had died down, Sergy stepped into the store and bought Emily’s pudding. Seeing a crystal pendant hanging for sale, he bought that for her as well, then headed for home, smiling all the while.

His farm consisted of a little shanty and two acres of arable land. Around it, the arid landscape was littered with space wreckage, inclement weather threatening continually to overrun this little haven.

Little Emily was running across the farmland. She had espied him from afar, recognising him from his clothing.

“Grandpa!” Her shrill little voice reached him across the distance. Running alongside her was Sammy, their mongrel dog, which was barking excitedly with its deep canine voice.

He ran and met Emily halfway, catching her in his arms and swinging her around a few times, nearly losing his balance in his new body.

“Grandpa! You look just like your old picture!” the little girl exclaimed.

“My little Emily!” Sergy cried, and hugged her closer.

Emily was a small girl, bright-eyed, with a doll-like countenance. She had the kind of sweet face that made strangers walk, nay, run across the street just to exclaim “What a sweet little girl!”

Sergy smiled and dangled the pendant before her, the crystal twinkling in the light. “How pretty!” She exclaimed, her face brightening further when he opened the bag with the grazed pudding.

“Oh! Grandpa!” she hugged him again, the joy upon her face simple and innocent. Sergy knew that he would do anything just to see her smile.

The next few days went tremendously well.

Sergy had bought several bags of terraform seeds from the market on credit and began his battle against the desiccated landscape in earnest. With his youth came new confidence, and he could be seen in his terraforming tractor, chugging across the farmland, seemingly inexhaustible.

Emily would go to school in the mornings, and when she returned, she would “help” him in every little way she could. Life was uncomplicated and peaceful.

Two weeks after the recoil, Sergy was sitting atop his tractor when calamity struck.

Sergy did not realise he was falling until he was on the ground, badly bruised. A moment ago, it seemed, he had been resting atop his tractor, looking back across the land and admiring his work.

Sharp pain raged through his entire being. His bones seemed to have outgrown his flesh, striving painfully to break through his skin.

His consciousness was fading fast. He looked at his hands; they were leathery and wrinkled. He could hardly see them through the tears in his eyes.

RETROGRADE!

The word clouded his thought with increasing horror, and then, the sudden realisation; “I’m dying.”

Through sheer force of will, ignoring the increasing pain, he half crawled, half limped his way to the shanty, focusing his mind on Emily. Emily. Emily.

He stumbled into a chair and voice-dialled the Clinic. The holophone’s display shimmered into the slowly rotating words “Account Not In Use”, while a female voice repeated the same.

Disallowing himself any grief, he connected with the network operator. No such clinic listed, never was, no Dr. Prufock Winter either. The automated response seemed almost taunting in its unsympathetic cheeriness.

His eyesight was going. Retrograde was a very rapid process, the suddenly aged body collapsing quickly upon itself. It was a miracle he even survived this long.

His Devil Uncle. He reactivated the phone and dialled an off-world number.

The world had become darkness, he thought he heard a voice.

“Uncle, this is Sergy. I’m dying. Come and see me please…”

He neither saw nor heard the phone’s reply: “Number out of range.”

The pain was increasing, he felt himself fading fast.

He imagined hearing the sound of Emily singing happily in the distance, and saw her skipping home from school.

He wished he were well, if only to make her unafraid. The pain had gone, and he felt really tired.

It was very cold.

I wish I were well.

It was a singularly unusual event.

Firstly, the call was sent to a non-existent account in New Greenwich, and no one had dialled that particular combination of digits for twenty years.

Second, the source of the call, in the Far Arm, halfway across the galaxy from Terra Arcadia, was obviously too distant for a holophone connection.

Third, the call came through.

The recipient of the call, a man in his twenties, yet with hair entirely white, dressed in a suit fashionable maybe six tears ago, was looking impassively at the image of the old man.

“Come and see me please…”

A long time ago, a Commander, attached to the Battlecruiser Brunhilde, had a nephew, a small little boy, who worshipped him. “Sergy, don’t forget, now, I’m your Crazy Uncle. No, I’m your Devil Uncle.”

That was before the Brunhilde went down with all hands. That was a long time ago.

Adepts do not have kin. Such Adepts never lasted. Having kin was a weakness that killed you.

SoulKnife wearily closed his eyes and said, “Prepare the cruiser.”

The only other man in the room, his butler, Littimer, was in his early forties, with an impeccable demeanour.

“Very good sir, I shall inform Captain Heyland to ready the crew.”

SoulKnife nodded, “Departure in thirty minutes. All haste.”

Littimer did no more than raise an eyebrow. “I shall inform the Captain, sir. Your bags are packed, and the jet can leave in ten minutes.”

The butler briskly left the room, unruffled despite his alacrity.

Alone, SoulKnife opened a drawer and took out his 0.45 Cheng & Weissman Double Special pulse gun, tucking it into his jacket. It was his lucky gun.

This may be the end of the Duel.

Though he had been engaged for more than two tears now, he did not know who his opponent was, as was usually the case with Duels between Adepts.

His challenger was as accomplished as he was, maybe more so. With that sombre thought, he flicked his right hand and opened a portal.

99 glyph-like symbols shimmered into existence within a hole in reality, about the size of a paper notebook. Deftly passing his fingers over the symbols like one would keys on an Olde-Tech computer, he invoked a sequence known solely to himself.

A window appeared, hanging in the air before him, like a picture on an invisible wall; Sergy’s room was framed within. The old man was clearly dying.

“Arrest Death. Stall and Reverse Retrograde.” His voice was calm as he invoked a 104 sequential line-code.

Almost 50,000 light years away, Iotians shifted, merging and falling asunder to obey his behest. Reality split – leaving behind what was, and turning into what could be.

The window closed in upon itself with a slight pop while the portal shimmered out. SoulKnife slumped backward, spent. His brows were covered in sweat, furrowed with thought. The distance was vast, maybe too far for the invocation to work. He hoped otherwise.

In his enervated state, almost unconscious, a vision; three men were digging a grave, guiding their actions by the light of two moons, both full. They took the coffin out and emptied its contents upon the earth, a grisly collection of dusty remains. Robotic, they scrapped the bones clean. A face appeared, its features unclear, then a voice uttered, “Spring”, and it was over.

He was taken aback. Prescience, like dreams, tended to be difficult to interpret. He had no way of telling if this was a premonition regarding his unseen opponent, or merely random images flung into his exhausted consciousness by the Iotian currents.

He got up and hastened to his jet. He was feeling his age.

The Andrean was officially designated as a civilian cruise liner. Currently anchored at Dock 91, it was built with a Bon Homme heavy cruiser hull, and had had all its gunnery turrets removed and replaced with a civilian defence system. Or, at least, as far as the official records were concerned.

SoulKnife stepped onto the bridge, nodding in reply to Captain Heyland. A slim woman in her early thirties, she was, like most of the crew on board the Andrean, formerly of the United Human Fleet.

“Destination ?” She asked in an even tone.

“Eriste, Neo-Sol system. More commonly known as Red Dust, Far Arm. ETA ?”

“Fifteen major jumps, about four days.” The navigation officer advised from his console.

“Head for the Baturu jump-point. We will use a wormhole. Exit directly at 30 AU from planet Eriste.” SoulKnife continued.

“There isn’t a worm hole at Baturu.” The Captain replied.

“No, there isn’t. But there will be.”

The Captain nodded, allowing herself a slight smile. “Well, let’s get this bucket on the road then. Helm, get us under weight.”

“I will be drawing power directly from the ship’s furnace.” SoulKnife informed the Captain, as the Andrean left Dock 91.

Onscreen, portside, they could see the menacingly handsome hulks of Battle Squadron 18; the Deng Xiao Ping, the Emperor Meiji, the De Gaulle and the Washington. Beyond them docked Battle Squadron 19, another four Super Battleships, their powerful Tachyon stardrives clearly visible, the fastest and most powerful space vessels built by man.

Further out lay three battlecruiser squadrons, twelve sleek giants in fleet formation.

The big boys were all here, ready for the big push. The Galaxians will pay for their attack on Far Arm M40.

The Andrean surged forward, headed for deep space.

In twelve hours, the Andrean was in orbit around Eriste.

“Ford! This planet looks like it went twenty rounds with the Galaxians!” The Captain exclaimed, “I knew the Far Arm star systems had it bad, but this bad ?”

No one replied. “Run a resonance scan,” Captain Heyland continued.

“No abnormal Iotian activity.” The Scanner Officer advised in a moment.

“And our energy status ?”

“Quite dry, Captain,” the Helm Officer reported, “Mister SoulKnife practically drained our Furnace and battery for the wormhole. It will take us four hours to recharge and be fully online.”

“Keep the shields on.” SoulKnife interjected, “Activate the Time Shield as soon as the batteries are ready. I’ll be taking the phase transit communicator, keep the line open. I’m going down to the surface.”

The Captain nodded as SoulKnife pocketed his subspace communicator and headed for the hanger.

Walking to his jet, he staggered as he received another vision; He saw himself in a small hut, viewing his image as if he were floating above himself. He was violently rent limb from limb, torn to pieces by an unknown force, his body slumped down, its life blood draining away. The vision pulled backward, becoming smaller, yet his body remained at its locus, the centre of his viewpoint as it receded through the roof of the hut, and further back, gathering speed, till even the hut was a little dot upon the surface of a red planet – Eriste – and still he saw his dismembered form, and further back, the planet shrinking from distance as the star system whirled by, and he was out of the galaxy, in deep space, the universe itself seemed to become smaller, until it was swallowed, disappearing into a crystal ball. A woman was peering into the glass, a sneer on her face. He heard the word “Summer”, and then he was back in the hanger, a hand holding onto his jet for support.

“So this is how it ends.” He knew now that the duel was nearing its fatal conclusion. Resolutely, he stepped into his jet and strapped himself in.

Sergy Maine was lying upon his bed. The retrograde had creased, somehow, and he was back in his aged body. Emily had stopped crying, and was holding his hand.

“Stop your worrying, sweet Emily, I’m all right now, really, I am.” Sergy’s feeble voice beseeched her through toothless gums, “Grandpa will never leave you.”

“That beastly doctor did that to you,” She replied, “We’ll go back and demand that he make things right again.”

She stopped talking when she noticed a shadow cross the room. A man stood at the door, simply dressed, tasteful, and looked, in spite of a full head of white hair, to be no older than twenty years. Looking straight at Sergy, the stranger stepped in and crouched down before the bed.

“Uncle.” Sergy said, weakly, when he finally recognised his visitor.

SoulKnife nodded.

Sergy recalled the last time he had seen his uncle. His family had gone to Starport Florida to see off Commander Lin Chang, as SoulKnife was known then. Huge military starships, of various classes, could be seen taking off, crossing space to fight the invading Galaxians. His uncle looked dashing in full military regalia, in the sunlight of that bright afternoon. It was an eternity ago.

“Ah, Sergy.” He took the old man’s hand, “I came as soon as I received your message.”

Sergy smiled in reply, and looked with fondness upon Emily, “My granddaughter, Emily. She is everything to me.”

SoulKnife nodded, feeling a sadness creep through him, the extinction of his line is at hand. “I could not return home. I had become an Adept during the war. The Galaxians, there were so many of them, even now, the war rages on in the Near Arm.”

“I hoped you would come. They said you died when your Battlecruiser went down, ‘all hands’, they said. I didn’t believe them.” Sergy smiled, “I was right.”

SoulKnife simply nodded, then looked about the room. “I’m weak here. Coming here drained most of my reserves. I’ll get you back to health in no time, though. I just have to be sure of the line-code.”

His eyes settled on the mongrel Sammy, sitting at the foot of the bed. He waved his right hand and a portal opened, its 99 glyphs arrayed before him. Smiling at Emily, he ran his fingers over the symbols, and Sammy’s fur turned purple.

Emily laughed aloud, “Hey, how did you do that ?”

“Magic.” SoulKnife smiled, as he changed the colour of the dog back to normal. He nodded once to himself before running his fingers over the glyphs again.

The dog shrank in size and became a young pup. It yelped in confusion.

“Does he have a name ?” He asked the girl.

She nodded.

“Call him to go to you.”

She did as told, and the young Sammy promptly leapt into her knees.

SoulKnife smiled. “Memory is retained. Yes, this is the code.” He said to himself as he invoked a new sequence.

Sergy became sixty years younger. For the third time in his life, the second in two weeks, he was thirty years old.

“And that was when I called you, I don’t know how I knew you were still alive.” Sergy said. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, SoulKnife was in the only chair. Sergy stretched his arms, enjoying again the feel of youthful strength.

SoulKnife was listening intently, his face deep in thought, “the doctor’s name was Winter, you said ?”

Sergy nodded his reply.

“A damned trap. Yes, I know exactly what is going on now.” SoulKnife retrieved his communicator, addressed it immediately. “Andrean.”

“This is the Andrean. Getting you loud and clear, Sir.” The voice was warped slightly by static.

“Give me an immediate surface resonance scan on the planet. Nukes, singularity bombs, that sort of thing. Low-tech.”

“At once, Sir.”

SoulKnife was already summoning his portal. He intoned the word “Shield!” running his hand over the glyphs. A shimmering green canopy enveloped the shanty, Emily looked out the window in awe, keeping Sammy close to her.

“Not strong enough. I lack the power here, in this place.” SoulKnife muttered to himself. He knew the shield was barely enough to obscure his position and, maybe, deflect the fallout from a missed line-coded attack. It will be a low-tech attack, though, he was sure of that. This Dr. Winter was the key, if not actually his unseen opponent. Whoever it was had contrived to get him to Eriste, to this exact location, obviously for a strike from afar. What, then, would be the mode of attack ?

His eyes settled on Emily’s crystal pendant. Everything fell into place. Resonance. Of course. The crystal ball in his vision was an allusion to Teryllium. His adversary had been exhuming the remains of his kin in order to extrapolate on his genetic makeup. If, as was most likely, Winter was involved, his opponent also had Sergy’s genetic code. There was enough information to theorise a genetic makeup similar enough to SoulKnife’s own to make a virtual resonance copy upon Teryllium cells. Death by resonance. A technological voodoo doll. Dammit, he should have known.

He had too little left in him to create a line-coded shield against such an attack. He needed a Counter-Resonance Device. And he needed it fast.

“Andrean, come in.”

“Sir ?”

“Stop the scan, it’ll come up dry. Drop the shields for thirty seconds. I’m returning to the ship, get ready to get the hell out of the system.”

“Shields dropping in ten seconds, mark.”

He ran his fingers through the glyphs of his still-open portal. A window appeared, hanging in the air before him, the Andrean within. He barely noticed Sergy holding onto both his granddaughter and the puppy, comforting them both. Sergy had a look of grim determination, whatever it was that was happening, he knew SoulKnife could handle it. Wishing he had such faith in himself, SoulKnife’s eyes focused on the Andrean’s CRD and his mind translated its code. As the window disappeared, he invoked the line-code to create a copy of the device.

The moment it appeared, a small pod upon three legs, its surface covered with dials and lights, upon the floor in the centre of the room, SoulKnife started the programming to block out all resonance within a twenty-foot radius.

Even as he turned the device on, the attack came.

His right eye exploded as he heard his right ear go silent after an echoing pop. His right hand was sheared off at the wrist, and his right foot was shattered, a mess of blood and bone shards.

The CRD went online with a purr.

As his right leg gave way beneath him, SoulKnife collapsed into Sergy’s reaching arms.

“I’m not dead.” He whispered after a moment. The left side of his body was still intact, in contrast to the mangled flesh of his right, even now dripping blood. The CRD had activated just in time to deflect the full force of the resonance attack.

Sergy was silent, carefully carrying him to the bed. SoulKnife collapsed immediately upon it, his full will concentrating on remaining conscious. “Don’t come near me,” he whispered, “It’s far too dangerous.”

Sergy looked about to protest, then nodded before he took Emily and Sammy into a corner.

The Duel was almost over. The initial resonance attack may have been deflected, however partially, but SoulKnife knew he was now too weak to survive a line-coded follow-up. His opponent would now have his exact location, the coup de grace will arrive in a split second.

Another vision formed in his mind; a woman, thousands of light-years away, invoking a line-code, drawing power from an Iotian furnace behind her. She had sent this image, gloating. Through smiling lips, he saw her mouth one word, “Fall”.

In that moment, SoulKnife’s mind concluded her location. Ignoring the pain, his left hand reopened his portal, its fingers moving inhumanly fast over the glyphs, line-coding a 999 line sequential attack.

Exactly 8,524.03 light years away, a tiny blackhole opened. His adversary imploded as she was sucked into the freak darkness where her furnace used to be. She didn’t make a sound. Spent, the singularity winked out.

Final confrontation between Adepts usually take place in a few seconds and ended with a murmur.

It was over.

Less than fifteen seconds since the first resonance attack. She should have finished him off instead of gloating, one bare second was enough to cost her her life. The only question left; where had he drawn the power to line-code his attack ?

Strangely glad to be alive, SoulKnife smiled weakly to himself, invoked one final line-code, and restored his body.

About a week later, SoulKnife bid farewell to his nephew. In spite of protest, he had purchased the land adjoining Sergy’s farm, and hired workers to terraform the arid earth. It was the least he could do. Away from the shanty, his jet stood waiting to take him back to the Andrean.

“Well, this is it, Sergy. Take care of yourself, and little Emily too.” He smiled at the child, the puppy in her arms. “Are you really sure you wouldn’t rather come with me to Terra Arcadia ?”

“Thank you, Uncle, but this is my home.” He looked a little upset, “Will I ever see you again ?”

SoulKnife hesitated. Adepts do not have kin. Having kin was a weakness that killed you.

At last he said, smiling, “Yes, Sergy, I should think so. I believe we are indeed destined to meet again.” He reached out and encompassed Emily’s pendant in his hand. When he released it, it held within its crystal a perfect image of the shanty, three small figures standing outside it, “Home.” He said.

SoulKnife reached into a pocket and handed a small box to his nephew. “And Sergy, for you. Open it only in a time of difficulty. You will know when the need arises.”

Sergy carefully took the box, then muttered a quiet “thank you,” as SoulKnife walked the distance to his jet.

During the past week, he had come to realise that Sergy was an unawakened Adept. He had drawn upon the untapped power in his nephew to fuel the last line-coded attack. He sighed, the day will come when other Adepts will appear to challenge him. Let’s hope my gift will prove useful then.

And SoulKnife’s jet lifted, disappearing into the sky, while Sergy and Emily waved him goodbye, two little figures on the red earth.