He teetered on the edge of an understanding the same way a ship teetered on the edge of foundering.

It was the same. The fabric of space and the currents in Tennal’s mind, in Surit’s own mind. The beings who had become the remnants saw no difference. They had traveled through space, and they had read and written mind-to-mind, and it was all the same—they perceived it all along some axis humans couldn’t comprehend. The reason Tennal’s mind had felt like the universe was because it was.

These thoughts all felt too big for Surit. Tennal caught the edges and followed them, and they were merged; Surit had no way to hide.

And there was no reason Tennal shouldn’t see it. He felt Tennal stumble and flinch as he saw Surit’s conclusions: that the universe was beautiful beyond measure, that Tennal’s mind was the mirrored universe itself.

There was a millisecond of silence that lasted, out here, like an eternity. Then Tennal commented, amused: Can’t believe you never took me out to dinner.

And that was the last human thought they had for a while.

Oma struck at them like a falling star. It was obvious why she’d picked this fight: she was exponentially more powerful than them, not a sync of two but a patched-together composite of hundreds. Her presence slammed into theirs with an energy field like a blast.

The first impact nearly destroyed them. They spun dizzyingly away, their mind ringing in pain, their edges dissolving. Oma drifted away from the collision, into a cloud of rocky shrapnel and regoliths, and turned, lining her great composite presence up for another attack. They both had the impression that she expected this to be easy. She wasn’t wrong.

Fuck, Tennal-Surit said, and fled.

They slid into the currents of space like a fish. The corona of the sun flared to their left, but they fled away, toward the eddies of chaotic space. Like the ghost in their mind, the presence of Surit-and-Tennal knew how these fights went, and they knew they were too small to stand a chance. Remember at the end, when there was no room for more than one in system, Surit thought, then wondered where that voice had come from, and if Tennal had even heard it.

Tennal didn’t seem to register the words. Let’s try and get where she can’t see, he suggested. I need your—

Here, Surit said. He fed his architect powers to Tennal. Even now, they weren’t perfectly unified: Tennal was their eyes and their movement, but their joint presence burned energy, and Tennal—the reader—had almost none, while Surit controlled a deep reserve.

They didn’t have long to work it out. Oma drifted past, silent and intent, like a planet occluding the sky.