Both parasites leaped.
The big meme predator clinging to the outer hull screeched dismay.
His wildly gyrating station collided with the Avenue, a glancing blow, with the big memoid pressed between, giving it a taste of the Reality Continuum.
Tormented ululations filled Harry’s brain as the predator burst asunder, spilling its complex conceptual framework in explosive agony.
Deprived of its parent, one of the mites shattered just before reaching his throat. But the other held cohesion long enough to strike him from behind.
It was Harry’s turn to scream. He howled as something fluxed into his body. Pain yanked away all rational thought, piercing his buttocks and spine, then coursing along his outer flesh like searing fire. Meanwhile, deep within, qualms and uncertainties began attacking every belief, every assumption he had ever held dear.
Suns and galaxies loomed around Harry as the station leaned into the Avenue, pushing against the membrane separation, threatening to trigger a reentry transition.
Machinery wailed, joining his bellow of despair.
All the memes and holograms had vanished. Air leaked out of the station through a dozen small holes. But he hardly noticed. Teetering between one realm of living ideas and another of harsh, universal rules, Harry fought to hold on to something. His essence. His sense of inner being.
Himself.
Ewasx
THIS IS NOT THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE HIDING places.
Then why did we/I choose it, my rings?
Out of all the twisty crannies that make up the great battleship, why did we take shelter in this chamber of glass-sealed walls and bubbling incubation cells?
Because it is “home”? The place where we began?
Our second torus of cognition refutes this with a reminder that most of our component rings had their origins elsewhere—in pungent mulch pits filled with delicious rotting vegetation, at a crude settlement called Far Wet Sanctuary, on lonely Jijo.
It is true. Only three present members of our shared stack started here, aboard the Polkjhy, in this sterile nursery, where infant rings are nurtured to perfection with computer-controlled drips of synthetic nutrients. But they are three of our most important parts, yes?
Our muscular torus-of-movement, with agile legs.
Our donut-of-smells, making us recognizable to the Jophur crew.
And, of course, your Master Ring, most precious of all. The essential (Me) ingredient, needed to transform modestly diffuse traeki into gloriously focused Jophur.
Is that not reason for nostalgia? Enough to call this darkened chamber home? (Though it appears to have suffered damage recently, and been repaired with hasty patching.)
Yes, go ahead. You may stroke the wax of memory. Recall the way things used to be on Jijo, before the change. Recollect how we/I learned to understand alien forms of parenthood, from close association with five other races.
During our prior incarnation, as the beloved traeki sage, Asx, we/I used to hold qheuen grubs and g’Kek larvae in our gentle tentacles, as well as hoon and human babies, rocking them, or spilling sweet aromatic mist-lullabies, crafted to bring happy dreams.
These recollections are preserved, not melted by our violent transformation into Ewasx. And yet, I am confused.
What point are you trying to make, my rings?
That we should be jealous?
That no ring stack—traeki or Jophur—can ever know a parent’s love?
We are piled up from parts. Assembled. Made, like some machine. Perhaps that is why other races hate/envy us so.
What? you say there is no such hatred on Jijo? Ah, but consider the price you colonists paid for likability! To live in brute ignorance. Worse yet, afflicted to remain placid traeki, almost inert with lack of ambition. Won’t you admit, at last, that life was never this vivid when you comprised poor compliant Asx?
You will? You will? you’ll concede that much?
Well, then. Perhaps we are making progress.
WHAT? WHAT’S THAT?
You would have Me, the Master Torus, confess something in return?
You wish me to admit that we have lately also seen some drawbacks—some disadvantages—to the mono-maniacal way Jophur behave.
No, you needn’t stroke recent wax, or replay those horrid events we observed before fleeing the control room. Foul-tempered, aggrieved and violent, the actions of our leaders were hardly inspiring. They don’t exhibit great progress toward enlightenment.
But what choice is there? We of Polkjhy must pursue the dolphin-crewed ship! Its secrets may shed light on a time of changes, now convulsing the Five Galaxies. If Earthlings truly did find Progenitor Relics in a shallow globular cluster, what might that say about the way Galactic Civilization has been run for a billion years? Could it imply that our entire religious-and-genetic hierarchy is upside down?
WHAT IS THAT YOU SAY?
Our second ring of cognition asks—so what?
so what if ancient beliefs about the Progenitors prove wrong!
so what if we were lied to about the Embrace of Tides!
so what if some other clan manages to seize Streaker, and read its information first! Why should any sensible sapient get into a grease-lather over matters so obscure and trivial?
I … hesitate to answer.
The question seems so jarringly incomprehensible … like asking why we breathe oxygen, or metabolize food, or procreate, or express loyalty to kindred and posterity! It disturbs Me gravely that you/we could even raise such doubts!
PERHAPS I/WE SHOULD NOT HAVE FLED THE CONTROL ROOM, AFTER ALL.
(Seeking sanctuary in this dim/familiar hiding place.)
Indeed, our shared core roils with mad, provocative thoughts, questioning central Jophur beliefs. Moreover, since becoming a fugitive, I no longer seem to have the Masterful force of will that once let me squelch such ponderings.
PERHAPS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER TO LET THE FOLLOWERS OF THE HIGH PRIEST DISASSEMBLE US/ME FOR SPARE PARTS.
That might have been My greatest service to Polkjhy, and to the great Jophur clan as a whole.
The chief advantage of this refuge is that ship sensors will be unable to detect our body traces, masked by row after row of transparent growth cabinets, filled with juvenile rings of all types. Of course, there are robot nurses here, tending the young. These slave-drones would report me, but only if someone on the bridge asks. Unless or until a specific enquiry is made, I/we can probably remain safe here, emitting authority pheromones, giving the machines orders, pretending to be in charge of the caretaking facility.
There is another danger. At random intervals, various Jophur ring piles come to the door demanding spare parts.
Mostly, these are soldiers. Tall, formidable warrior stacks, bearing wounds and horrid stains from their ongoing struggle to expel Zang invaders from the battleship. That infestation currently blights a third of Polkjhy’s decks and zones. Some recent progress has been made against it, but our fighters show the cost, seeking replacements for rings damaged in close combat with the hydrogen breathers.
Fortunately, none of their caste seems inclined to question our/My presence here … and we mostly stay out of sight.
Yes, my rings. It is only a matter of time till we/I are caught. Soon we will face disassembly. I wonder if they will bother salvaging any of our toruses or waxy memory beads for use elsewhere.
Probably not.
During long, idle moments, we/I linger before vision-odor displays, captivated by events that have enveloped Polkjhy since our captain-leader was killed.
Do you recall, my rings, how our great ship swooped through the twisted bowels of the transfer point, following the Earthship so closely, and with such skill, that they could never get away?
From the Research Department, crew-stacks reported progress understanding the Streaker’s strange protective layer—the coating that prevented our rays from stopping the dolphins earlier. That veneer seemed to offer invincibility, but according to our
onboard Library we learn the technique was abandoned by most Galactics long ago! The tactic is quite easily defeated, once an opponent knows how. Only surprise made it effective back at the Fractal World.
The librarians promised a recommended countermeasure, shortly.
Meanwhile, the transfer nexus grew crowded with refugee ships, not only from the dissolved retirement community behind us, but from hundreds of others! Each emigrant vessel decided among three choices—to remain in Galaxy Four and seek room in some other cloistered shelter, or else to change life orders. To go back to the starfaring Civilization of Five Galaxies … or possibly forge deeper into the Embrace of Tides. It was enthralling, and a great honor, to watch so many exalted Old Ones make this fateful judgment, though it did not affect our tenacious pursuit of the Earthlings.
That was when we encountered the Harrower.
A thing of legend.
A rare phenomenon of destiny.
A cloud of light that sorted through the agitated, thronging vessels. Choosing some. Sending others along their assigned ways.
DO YOU RECALL OUR SURPRISE, MY RINGS, WHEN THE HARROWER PLUCKED UP THE EARTHLING SHIP, AND GENTLY PLACED IT AMONG THOSE AIMED FOR TRANSCENDENCE?
Stunned amazement filled Polkjhy’s halls and chambers. Who could have imagined this would happen? Dolphins are the youngest licensed sapient race in the Civilization of Five Galaxies. Whether by trickery or merit, this was the last thing any sane entity would expect!
At that point, our new captain-leader gave in to the inevitable. Commands were given. Polkjhy must give up the chase!
Instead, we would aim for Galaxy One, toward a Jophur base, to be cleansed of infesting Zang, and to report all we had learned. Even without the Earthship in our grasp, we would be able to tell its fate, and that data should be valuable.
Moreover, there is Jijo, an excellent consolation prize! When we reveal its location to the home clan, that little sooner world will make an ideal outpost for genetic experimentation/exploitation. A source of wealth for the race. Final destruction of the g’Kek, alone, would make our travails worthwhile.
Perhaps the clan would be so joyful over those achievements that allowance would be made for this crude, hybrid stack—for this Ewasx—if we/I manage to avoid capture-disassembly till then.
Thus the crew rejoiced, despite apparent failure of our central mission. Although the Streaker had escaped, it seemed to be no fault of our own. We had accomplished more than any other ship in known space. Now we could go home.
Only then the truly unexpected happened.
Do you recall, my rings? Or is the wax-of-surprise still too fresh and runny for true-memory to congeal?
We faced our own turn before the Harrower, expecting to be conveyed routinely, like so many others, on a swift path toward Galaxy One.
Strange light filled the ship, and we/I felt scrutinized. Some of our/My rings—former parts of Asx—compared it to communing with Jijo’s wonder stone, the Holy Egg.
Then, to our/My/everyone’s amazement, Polkjhy was lifted off the transfer thread and placed amid a row of the elect! The chosen! Those whose emblems marked them for great honor and enlightenment, far down amid the Embrace of Tides.
Thus we learned the wondrous glory of our new honored state … and the pain yet to be endured.
What no one could explain, from our senior priest-stack on down to the lowest warrior, was why?
Why were we chosen for this honor?
One we never sought.
One that brings no gladness to any Jophur stack aboard this noble ship.
I/we stand corrected.
ONE STACK EXPERIENCES GLADNESS.
Some of the cognition rings left over from Asx rejoice at the news!
They think this means Polkjhy may never report on Jijo. The weird, miscegenist society of sooner races might yet be left in peace, if this battleship never makes it home.
Is that what you hope/believe, my rings?
I would discipline you now, with jolts of loving pain, to drive such disloyalty out of our common core, except—
Except that now the Harrower appears to have finished its task! The armadas it collected in pockets of coiled space have begun moving at last … in rows, columns, regiments … all pouring along special transfer threads that glow hot with friction.
Vibrations and sudden swerves shake Polkjhy so powerfully that swaying motions penetrate even our mighty stabilizing fields.
And now, as if none of that were enough, the sequence of upsetting surprises continues.
Robots continue tending the incubators, wherein juvenile rings of many shapes, attributes, and colors thrive on distilled nutrients, growing into components to make new Jophur stacks.
Soldiers keep coming for repairs, seeking to replace damaged walker-rings, sword-manipulators, chem-synth toruses, and even mortally wounded Master Rings. Clearly, the battle against the Zang rages on with deadly fury.
Meanwhile, on monitors, I/we watch Polkjhy emerge in some far star system, part of an orderly swarm of transcendence candidates—ranging from conventional-looking starships and spiky fractal shapes all the way to quivering blobs that appear horridly Zangish before our appalled gaze!
For several jaduras, this bizarre armada uses B-Level hyperspatial jumps to cross a gap of several paktaars, skirting around a vast glowing nebula in order to reach the next transfer point. Finally, the convoy dives into this nexus and another thread-ride commences, swooping along multidimensional flaw boundaries where space itself condensed long ago from the raw essence of an expanding universe.
While all this activity continues, we/I remain in a dim corner of the nursery chamber, hiding from our/My own crewmates … until the unexpected once again forces its way into our shock-numbed consciousness.
We stare at a new interloper.
A recent arrival, standing before our disbelieving senses.
The strangest being that I/we/I have ever seen.
It came just moments ago, arriving via an unconventional route—by supply tube—conveyed to the nursery in a slender car designed for transporting raw materials and samples, not sapient beings!
Crawling out before we could react, it unfolded long limbs, revealing a shape with proportions like a Homo sapiens. Indeed, the head protruding atop looked completely human. And familiar.
I/we stared, did we not, my rings? Several of our cognition-memory toruses exclaimed, releasing recognition vapors and causing words to vent from our shared oration peak.
“Lark! Is … it … really … you?”
Indeed, the face cracked open with that unique human-style smile. When it/he spoke, the voice was as we knew him from olden days, on Jijo.
“Greetings, reverend Asx … or shall I say Ewasx?”
While several of our components wrangled over an appropriate reply, others stared at the transformed body below the neckline. Lark’s bipedal stance was similar, striding on stiff, articulated bones. Only now translucent film enveloped his flesh, ballooning outward like profoundly baggy garments, billowing and throbbing with a sick, semiliquid rhythm that sent quivers of nausea down our/My central core. An especially large bulge distended from his back, like a tumor, or a great burden he showed no sign of resenting.
Our chem-synth rings detected several awful stinks, such as methane, cyanogen, and hydrogen sulfide gas.
Sure stench-signs of Zang!
Surprise made our reply somewhat disjointed, to say the least.
“I/we … cannot say what … name … would best apply to this stack … at this time. Voting commences/continues on that point.… And yet … it can be said in truth that certain parts of us/Me/I/we recognize certain … parts … of you/You.…”
Our shared voice trailed off. Neither Anglic nor GalSix seemed well suited to convey appropriate/accurate levels of astonishment. Emotional pheromones vented … and to our surprise, the “Lark/Zang” entity answered in kind!
Molecular messages puffed from his new outer skin, triggering instant compreh
ension by our/My pore receptors.
MUTUAL RECOGNITION
AMICABLE INTENT
WILLINGNESS TO FIND RESOLUTION
Seeking the source of these scent messages, our/My sensors now locate a toroidal-shaped bulge, situated near Lark’s chest.
Purple colored.
A traeki ring, incorporated in the group entity across from us!
At once, we/I recognize one of the small rings Asx secretly created, without knowledge of the Ewasx Master, to help Lark and his human companion escape bondage several jaduras ago.
Stroking memory wax from that time, I/we now realize/recall—there had been a second cryptic ring.
“I left the other one here,” Lark explains, as if reading My/our thoughts. “It was wounded. Ling hid it in this nursery, to get care and feeding. That’s one reason I came back. My new associates want to find the little red ring. They want to know its purpose.”
He does not have to explain his “associates.” A Jophur instinctively knows—as most unitary beings do not—that it is possible to blend and mix and match disparate components to make a new composite being. In this case, the chimera is an amalgam of human, traeki, and Zang … a terrifying union, but somehow credible.
“You … wish to have our/My help recovering the red ring?” I ask.
Lark nods.
“Its powers may bring peace to this vast vessel.…”
He pauses for a moment, as if communing with himself, then goes on.
“But there is something else. The price I demanded for cooperating in this mission.
“We’re going to rescue Ling.”
Harry
VOICES ENCROACHED ON HIS LATEST NIGHTMARE, pushing past a delirium of jibbering voices and scraping agonies.
“I think he’s coming around,” someone said.
Harry thrashed, shaking his head from left to right.
For what seemed an eternity, his mind had felt stripped, laid bare to E Space, fertile ground for colonization by parasitic memes—intricate, self-sustaining symbolic entities unlike anything conceived on Earth, invading to expropriate his incoherent dreams. Even now, as something like consciousness began to dawn, eerie shapes still thronged and cackled, more bizarre than anything born in an organic mind.