The ersatz dolphin rolled on its side, almost languidly, as if relishing a new experience.
“We shall make note of that-t,” crooned a close approximation of Hikahi’s voice, causing Gillian a lonely pang. “Perhaps we’ll take your advice … next time the question comes up.”
She stared for a moment, then gave a low, dry laugh.
“Right. When another rupture comes, in a hundred million years!”
“That’s not so very long, for those of us who make our true homes next to ssssingularities. We who you called ‘cowards’ for biding our time in a black hole’s stretched borderline, rather than plunging into the unknown.”
“Look,” she raised a hand. “I already apologized for that. Right now, though, I think we’d better cut to—”
“The chasssse?” Her visitor rolled the simulated body in a loop.
Gillian raised an eyebrow. “Do you already know—”
“What you are going to say? Your surface thoughts are trivial to read. But even without using psi, we can make good estimates, based on appraisal of your past behavior under varied circumstances. These models were recently revised. Would you like to know what our latest simulations foretell?”
She answered, guardedly.
“I’m listening.”
The imitation Hikahi brought one dark eye toward Gillian.
“You were about to decline the honor of being our emissariessss. You would claim that urgent obligations beckon you elsewhere. Obligations that cannot be ignored.”
Gillian shrugged.
“Anyone could’ve guessed that, after our last conversation. Assuming I did decline, how would you have replied?”
“I would have said that you have no option. A conveyance and shield have already been woven around your ship, ready to clasp the opportunity when a space-time rift opens nearby. With luck, it might carry you safely beyond the limits of known civilization. That kind of investment is not given up lightly. Your request would be refused.”
With her next breath, Gillian exhaled a bitter sigh.
“I guess that answer’s inevitable. So. How do your simulations predict I’d respond next?”
The dolphin-shaped being sputtered laughter.
“With threatsssss!
“You would claim readiness to blow up your ship … or to interfere with the mission in some other way.”
Gillian felt her face grow warm. That really had been her next move. A desperate ploy. But no other tactic came to mind in the short time available.
“I guess it is a bit of a cliche.”
“Naturally, all such possibilities have been taken into account. In this case, our analyses show you would be bluffing. Given a stark choice between adventure, on the one hand, and assured extinction on the other, you could be relied upon to choose adventure!”
Gillian’s shoulders slumped. The Transcendents were quick learners, and with awesome computational power they could simulate whole alternate realities. Small wonder they outmaneuvered any plan she came up with, using her limited human brain.
“Then that’s it?” she asked. “We have no choice. We head for some far galaxy, like it or not.”
“Your linear guess is only partly correct. Indeed, you have no choice. That part of it you have right, Dr. Basssskin. We can compel you and your crew to depart, and that-t would be that.”
The visitor shook its sleek gray head as it began yet another transfiguration. Hikahi’s outlines grew blurry. Her simulated body started stretching.
“But our simulations did not stop with your behavior today. They scrutinized what you might do later … during the weeks, months, and years that stretch ahead, until your people arrive at some distant realm.”
Gillian blinked. “You worked it out that far ahead?”
“To a high degree of probability. And that is where a problem keeps cropping up in our models. Given enough time, something else will occur to you. You will realize that it is possible to have your adventure, plus revenge as well! A way to visit far-off realms, and also retaliate against those who thrust you on so great a voyage, against your will.”
She could only stare, blinking in confusion as the Transcendent finished converting to a different body shape … another dolphin image, a bit longer and stronger looking than Hikahi, with scar tissue covering a savage wound near the left eye.
Creideiki, she realized, with a faint shiver.
“I … don’t … I don’t know what you mean. Unless …” Gillian swallowed, and tried concentrating. It was difficult, under that strangely powerful cetacean gaze.
“Unless you’re concerned about what we’d say about you, to whatever high minds we meet on the other side.”
This time, the visitor did not respond in Anglic. Rather, the facsimile of Streaker’s old commander lifted that tormented head and cast a spray of squealing clicks, filling her office with couplets of ornate Trinary verse.
* What revenge is
more long-lasting
* Than the cruelty
of slander,
* Spoken by outraged
descendants,
* Defaming their
distant parents?
* Would you escape
time’s death sentence?
* Or entropy’s
cruel erosion?
* We know just one
surefire method
* To succeed and
be immortal—
* If you want to
live forever,
* First earn love and
fierce devotion
* From those who will
carry onward,
* They will speak your
name resounding
Even when the stars grow cold. *
Gillian squinted at the replica of her old comrade and leader. The dolphin captain looked so genuine, so tangible, as if she could reach out and stroke his warm gray flank—battered, yet unbowed.
“That’s … the first truly wise thing I’ve yet heard from you gods,” she said. “It’s almost … as if you really are—”
The Transcendent interrupted. Its sleek form began dissolving, folding inward toward a ball of light.
“Are you … entirely sure … that I am not?”
She blinked, unsure what to make of the non sequitur.
“Wait!” she cried out. “What’s going to happen? What are you going to—”
The visitor vanished silently. But in her mind a soft presence lingered for another moment, whispering.
We have much to do … and very little time.…
A shrill whistle filled the air. A holo image of Akeakemai burst in, calling from Streaker’s bridge.
“Gillian! Zub’daki says that mass infall is speeding up! The explosion’s just minutes away!”
She nodded, feeling tired and altogether unready to witness the end of the universe. Or any part of it.
“I’ll be right up,” she said, turning toward the door. But the pilot’s voice cut her short.
“That’s not all!” he added, with frantic tones. “The big needle-gateway … it’s—”
There followed a noisy clatter. Gillian saw a blur of motion on the bridge, as officers dashed in all directions, propelled by agitated tails.
“Niss!” she called out. “Show me what’s going on out there!”
Abruptly, a new holo display opened, presenting a view of nearby space.
The planet-sized Transcendent needle took up most of the scene. One of its flanks was now almost too bright to look at, reflecting angry light from the dwarf star—a fuming conflagration, rapidly heating toward Armageddon.
Gillian quickly saw what had Akeakemai upset. The needle was splitting open. Moreover, as it broke apart, beams of light reached out to seize three nearby objects.
Flashing labels identified the targets.
Streaker was the first. Gillian felt its hull shudder as the beam struck.
The Jophur battleship was next.
Finally—one of the globelike ??
?candidate vessels,” now wrapped in a fuzzy mass of special fabric.
All three were being drawn inward.
Then, as if with a surgeon’s delicate lancet, the light beams started carving all three vessels apart.
“X”
CAN YOU FEEL IT NOW, MY RINGS? AND MY other little selves?
How about you, Lark?
And you, Ling?
Can you sense how Mother—the macro-entity we all joined—writhes with uncertain fear as blades of force cut through Polkjhy’s hull? Can you sense distant walls and bulkheads separate, spilling air, liquid, and creatures into vacuum? For a few moments, it seems our time of destruction has arrived.
Our/My/your end has come, at last.
BUT NOTE! CAN YOU SENSE A SUDDEN CHANGE IN MOOD?
Mother rejoices, as we/I/all realize the truth.
These are scalpel rays, slicing rapidly, selectively. Only a few small segments are being removed from Polkjhy!
Likewise, instruments tell us that just one or two prim holes are being drilled in the Earthship Streaker.
But the third victim seems less lucky!
The nearest mighty globule-vessel—a giant candidate-craft, already prepared for its epic journey—has been torn open and gutted! Horrified and awed at the same time, all our rings and segments watch as the contents are sacrificed … thousands of sapient-hybrid beings, cast aside like the entrails of some fresh-caught fish … leaving behind only a lambent shell of glimmering tendrils.
A living shell that now moves rapidly toward Polkjhy!
AND NOW, ATTENTION TURNS TO THE LIVID SUN.
How long did it spin in peace? A remnant of this galaxy’s earliest days, the dwarf star had long ago finished its brief youth and settled down to placid retirement. Left alone, it might have spent another twenty billion years slowly shrinking as it eked out a flickering white surface flame. Lacking a nearby stellar companion, it would never obtain the sudden infusion of mass required for a more ecstatic death.
Only now that mass infusion comes!
Like pilgrims to a shrine, millions of starships recently answered the Great Harrower’s summons. They came to this place, arranging themselves in polite, crisscrossing spiral queues, seeking redemption and advancement … only to find death on the very threshold of transcendence. Their corpses, compressed into compact balls, now rain upon the star, inciting new ferment, taking its matter/energy balance close to a special value.
An acute point of no return.
MY RINGS … MANY OF YOU ONCE WERE MEMBERS OF ASX, THAT WISE OLD TRAEKI SAGE.
Back on Jijo, you had no need to contemplate such things. Instead of Chandrasekhar limits and radiative opacities, we/you/I used to adjudge disputes among local villages and tribes. We offered marriage counseling to fractious urrish, human, and qheuen families. We would squat for days on some aromatic mulch pile, happily arguing among ourselves.
Now, Mother obligingly makes available vast stores of information, offering free access to Polkjhy’s onboard Library, lately captured from the remnant Jophur.
So it is that I/we/you know all about critical thresholds and the catastrophic collapse that will soon occur, followed by a tremendous “bounce,” expelling much of the poor star at high fractions of light speed.
First will come a burst of neutrinos. Not so many as in a “type two” supernova. But enough so that those phantom particles will impart heat and momentum into any body within ten Jijoan orbits. (We are much closer than that!) X rays and gamma rays will follow … and then other forms of light. So much that the wave-fronts will carry their own palpable gravitational fields as they plunge through this point in space with the brightness of one trillion suns.
Finally, if anything remains of poor Polkjhy, it will be struck by the shock wave of protons, neutrons, electrons, and ions, imparting accelerations of one hundred thousand gravities.
No wonder the Transcendents feel this event will rip holes in the cosmic ylem. Apparently, that is their desire. To kindle a pyre. One bright enough to propel seeds across the greatest desert of all.
DO YOU HEAR THE LATEST, MY RINGS?
Lark and Ling report what they have learned by tapping into the Transcendent Mesh.
An explanation of the recent violent surgery by flashing scalpel rays!
Apparently, the high ones have decided on a last minute change in plans.
Quick improvisation is not their normal habit, but now they labor furiously, redesigning. Reconfiguring.
AND WE ARE OBJECTS OF THEIR SUDDEN INTENT!
Transfixed, we all watch as two slim plugs of matter slide smoothly out of the Earthship and head this way, leaving holes that seal quickly behind them. These slender tubes race toward Polkjhy … even as the gutted shell of the third vessel approaches us from the other side, shimmering and alive.
Dolphins, Ling says, identifying the contents of the cylinders taken from Streaker. About a dozen of them. Volunteers, coming to join us, along with some gene stores, and cultural archives. …
With breakneck speed, the tubes slide into slots prepared for them. Just in time, as the rippling shell wraps around Polkjhy and seals shut with a blaze of energetic union.
All of Mother’s components—even the newly captured Jophur officers—stagger briefly from psychic shock as that mass of luminous tendrils takes hold of our transformed vessel—bonding and penetrating—turning it into a throbbing, vibrating whole.
Something eager. Coiled and ready for what comes next.
CAN YOU SENSE THE NEARBY AGONY OF DYING GODS?
The needle-gateway writhes and flickers as it draws Streaker toward it. Glowing and collapsing inward, the transcendent nexus flexes, creating powerful fields, causing space to warp straight through its innards, generating a tunnel. A lean passageway.
An improvised escape route for the Terrans to strive for.
Will they make it in time?
AND NOW COMES IGNITION OF THE BRIGHTEST COMPACT DETONATION IN THE UNIVERSE.
Perhaps it will not be our knell of extinction, after all.
A poll has been taken, among Mother’s many members. Nearly all agree.
This is what we would have chosen if the Transcendents had asked. (Indeed, with their mighty simulations, perhaps they did.)
Our merged union is a distillation. A combination of life orders. A mélange, filled with hybrid vigor. Laced with special flavors from Jijo and Earth, our community may have the right mix that it takes to succeed at last, where so many others failed.
To bridge what was unbridgeable.
To help unite what was separate.
To bring the cosmos more diversity … and make it one.
We can feel Polkjhy’s new tendrils reaching out, clasping the fabric of space, awaiting the moment when a chaos wave next strikes.
The biggest chaos wave of all.
The Great Rupture.
Have the Transcendents timed things right? Do they really have the skill to trigger their explosion at precisely the moment, so Polkjhy can catch that wave?
Yes, my rings and other selves.
I/we/I/you can hardly wait to find out.
THE WHITE DWARF TREMBLES.
It is just ten thousand kilometers across. Ignition will flow at the speed of sound—a few thousand kilometers per second. That means it should take less than a dura.…
STREAKER LABORS MIGHTILY, STRIVING TO REACH THE ESCAPE TUNNEL.
Go, Sara!
You can make it.
Go!
Each passing second seems an eternity, as the Earthship struggles toward that flickering sanctuary.
ABRUPTLY, OUR SUNWARD SENSORS CATCH A BRILLIANT LIGHT!
A blinding flare that flows and ripples with mad speed across the tormented stellar surface, like the sudden striking of a match.
Then—
CAN YOU FEEL THEM, MY RINGS?
Neutrinos in the wax.
What a strange sensation! Like remembering tomorrow.
And now, here we go—
 
; PART FIVE
THE TIME OF CHANGES
SOME LIFE ORDERS are more communicative than others.
MEMBERS of the Quantum Order have no sense of either place or time. At least, none corresponding with the way we view those properties. Though willing to exchange information, they generally make no sense of our queries, nor do we comprehend most of their answers. There must be some commonality of context in order for the word “meaning” to have any significance. Compared to the Quantum Order, it is almost trivial to converse with hydrogen breathers, machines, or even the most coherent sapient memes.
Once, however, a member of the touvint client race presumptuously interrupted its elders at a D-Space rendezvous, and confronted one of the quantals with a naively simple question.
“WHAT can we expect?”
THE answer has puzzled scholars for a million years. Without hesitation, the strange being replied—
“EVERYTHING.”
Galaxies
THE SUPERNOVA’S PHOTON FRONT CAUGHT Streaker just short of a swirling black tunnel—the escape path promised by cryptic Transcendents.
Alarms wailed and dolphins squalled as waves of searing energy struck from behind, crushing the normal protective fields, slamming each square meter with more heat than a normal sun would over the course of its lifespan. The blast would have evaporated the Streaker of old almost instantly.
But the Earthship was like a whale whose skin was coated with hard-shell barnacles, Streaker toiled under layers of strange stuff—coatings that shimmered in the heat, as if eager for the ruinous light.
Sara held Prity and Emerson. A rumbling vibration rattled her bones and the marrow inside. Blinding turmoil swamped every outside camera, but sensors told of staggering photon and neutrino fluxes as the star passed its limits of endurance … or perhaps ecstasy. In real time, the eruption took milliseconds, but Streaker’s duration-stretched field let the crew witness successive stages, in slow motion.
“Our magic coating’s impressive,” commented Suessi. “But these’re just photons. No way it can handle what’s next. More than a solar mass of real matter … protons and heavy nuclei … leapin’ this way at a good share of lightspeed.”