Free Helix Wars by Eric Brown

just as broad, it was fashioned from ancient silverwood and even in the half-light of the corridor gave off a lambent lustre, a vitality she knew had lasted for over fifteen millennia, for the door had been brought all the way from their ancestral homeworld.
    Every Diviner and Healer, with death approaching, was allowed to lay a hand upon the door which, over the thousands and thousands of years on New Phandra, and for countless aeons on Old Phandra, had accepted the touch of every dying Healer. This ritual would commence the Healer’s final week of life.
    She wondered if this was why she had been brought to the Retreat; perhaps she had miscalculated, and did not have a year to live, but much less. But why then had Diviner Tomar summoned her? That was not established practice.
    She reached out and placed her hand flat against the warm wood. She closed her eyes, gasping, and felt the cumulative touch of the myriad others who had laid hands on the sacred timbers before her.
    At her touch, the door swung open, and, trembling, she stepped through.
    The door, hallowed as it was, gave no clue as to the dimensions of the room beyond. The Council chamber was five thousand paces long and half as broad, lined along its length with timber pews said to have been brought from Old Phandra along with the silverwood door. Draped hangings, representing every family on New Phandra, covered the walls on each side, and at the far end, diminished in the perspective, was the Southern Window.
    It blazed with the light of the setting sun, filling the chamber with a million polychromatic patterns like a kaleidoscope made gargantuan
    She knew the protocol of a summoning to the Council chamber. She was to walk half its length, towards the circular reception area, and there wait for Diviner Tomar to beckon her the rest of the way.
    She set off, her light footsteps whispering over the polished stone. She stared ahead, her breath tremulous, and drank in the details of the sacred chamber, the ranked pews, the ancient hangings, and the coloured glass window.
    Ten minutes later she came to the pews in the reception area and took her seat.
    From here she could just make out the distant circular arrangement of padded benches in the Council area at the foot of the Southern Window. Seated on the benches were two figures, one large and one small. They were too far away for her to detect the flow of their thoughts, and she had to rely on visual clues only. She knew that the man on the left was a Diviner, for he wore the green robes of his calling and, even seated, was stooped with great age. She thought she recognised, from his posture, Diviner Tomar. But the second figure...
    Her breath caught as she realised, with a start, that the second figure was an alien.
    He or she was twice the size of Diviner Tomar, and garbed from head to foot in red. The figure was bending towards Tomar, and seemed to be speaking in lowered tones to the venerable Diviner.
    She wondered if this audience had anything to do with the arrival of the violent aliens.
    And she wondered again why she had been summoned here.

 
     
     
     
    3
     
    S HE WAITED A further hour, every minute filled with the miracle of her presence here, and then realised that the audience between the Diviner and the off-worlder was drawing to a close.
    The tall alien stood, and reached out and touched Diviner Tomar’s hand. They spoke again, and the alien turned and walked away from the Council area, striding down the central aisle towards her. She held her breath, then released it in a rush. Soon, within minutes, the alien would pass within metres of her. She had never before set eyes on a being from another world – the closest she had come to doing so had been the previous morning, when she had beheld images of the aliens in the minds of those she healed.
    But now the tall alien was striding towards her.
    A minute later he was within hailing distance, and Calla stared in wonder.
    What struck her initially was