Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

its thinking. The Wolflings were really just a mistake; amplifying Mankind's animal heritage, looking back instead of forward."
    Cathy leaned forward, her eyes fixed on Owen's. "Humanity must evolve; become more than it is, achieve its full potential. You have to. Something awful is coming, from far beyond your galaxy. It's not life as you know it; it's strange and terrible, awful and mighty, totally destructive and utterly unstoppable.
    They destroyed most of my species. A great and ancient civilization, blown away to dust, and less than dust. Just a few of us escaped, and fled here, to your galaxy. They had no name for themselves that we could understand. What we called them translates simply as, the Terror.
    "They move slowly. Because of their size and nature they don't need or use starships or stardrives, so they move at less than light speed. But the Terror destroyed every living thing in our galaxy, and they are coming here. Slowly, but they are coming, and you must be prepared and ready to meet them. As you are now, you have nothing that could stand against them. The Recreated in their insanity are but the merest glimpse of the true horror of the Terror. They eat souls, and their young incubate in suns. They are extradimensional creatures,
    beyond your comprehension, and all of Space and Time is their prey. As flies to wanton boys are we to the Terror.
    "You are not the first species we have tried to raise to a higher level. We've been here in your galaxy for some considerable time. We tried with a species on the world you call Wolf IV. We taught them to transform themselves as we do, but they gave in to their own inner demons, and destroyed themselves. We tried again, with another species, on the planet you call Grendel. They transformed themselves into living killing machines, in their fear, and placed themselves in suspended animation in their Vaults, to await the coming of the Terror. This was not what was intended. Next, we created the metallic forests on Unseeli, for the Ashrai, and they became… farmers, interested only in preserving the trees, instead of using them to spur their own evolution. Finally, we turned to Humanity. Small as you were, we saw the potential for greatness in you.
    "This time, we decided not to just give you the benefits we brought. Instead, we created the Maze, and left it for you to search out and investigate for yourselves. Hopefully that would make you value it more. And eventually, after many false starts, you and your companions came to the Maze and passed all the way through, and emerged transformed. The first butterflies from a race of caterpillars. It had taken a while, but at last the Maze had found the right sort of people; intense, focused, determined people."
    "But… what did the Maze do to us, really?" said Owen. "I thought at first we were some kind of super-esper, but we're not. What are we, now?"
    "You are what Humanity would have become, in its far and distant future. The Maze just speeded evolution up a bit. A shortcut. You have the power to change reality itself through force of will." Cathy smiled at his expression. "Didn't any of you ever realize? It expressed itself differently in each of you,
    according to your individual needs and propensities, but really any of you could have done anything the others did. If you just had faith. Only your own limited thinking held you back. Of course; you were all supposed to stay and work together. The whole would have been far greater than the sum of its parts. But you insisted on going your own, separate ways. Humans… That's why so many people died or went insane trying to pass through the Maze. It could only help and change those flexible enough to change their thinking. Those too rigid in their thoughts, too unworthy or too scared to change, broke rather than be transformed. Their madness and death came from inside themselves, not from the Maze."
    "Let's talk about the baby," said Owen. "What's his part in all this?"
    "When Giles died, the baby somehow knew it," said Cathy. "He began to wake, drifting slowly up from the protecting depths of sleep. The Recreated sensed this, and became desperate. If the baby were to wake, then the source of their power, their very existence, was under threat."
    "Is that what triggered the Recreated's great assault on Humanity?" said Owen.
    "By killing Giles, am I responsible for their attack?"
    "No. They started out of the Darkvoid after Captain Silence destroyed the Maze.
    In