Colliding Galaxies

  ***

  After the seamothers came, the base at Kinlok Island was nearly destroyed. The one who drove them up to the surface, the one who commanded them in the assault was called Bikloo ank kel:Om’t.

  Bikloo was both warrior and outcast. He had gained a great victory over the Umans, over their infernal machines which had been devastating Seome for years with its vibrations, its whirlpools, its turbulence and noise. It was a great victory indeed, even though such a victory only doomed the world to a greater catastrophe later.

  But no matter how great the triumph, it couldn’t make up for the loss of Kolohee…Kolohee, the only one Bikloo had ever loved. He had to accept the truth now…Kolohee was gone, lost in the great vortex they called Farpool…vanished forever.

  Only the memory of her remained.

  The Umans had no time to stand and marvel at the spectacle of a sea serpent who had disgorged a living symbiant when hit with suppressor fire. They left Bikloo to die in the sand, dispersing to make a feverish attempt at repairing the Time Twister. Everyone who had survived the attack of the seamothers, crippled or not, was put to work. The skimmer at the end of the dock was quickly loaded with tool packs and replacement gear for the trip out to the Twister platform. Umans piled on board and the craft sped out of the bay.

  Only Nico stayed behind.

  She had overcome her initial shock and was utterly fascinated with Bikloo. Leeve had taken her on several dives into the bay and there had been the time she had fallen overboard on a routine servicing trip to the Twister. She had never imagined that Storm harbored a being like this. For that was the only thing she could call it: a being. It was clearly dying and Nico sought some way to keeping its attention, partly to ease its obvious discomforts and partly to—

  Why?

  Nico studied her companion closely. Her eyes roved the contours of his body and stirred a fleeting memory trace.

  The thick beak—the twin dorsals—yes—the armfins, webbed to ligaments in the pectoral—yes—the vertical flukes—Yes!

  She grasped at a memory but it eluded her. Nico pitied the thing. If only there were some way she could maneuver it into the water. She held out her hand and lightly stroked its fins, careful not to hurt it. Somehow, she knew the fins would be sensitive to her touch. They were such large, rugged-looking fins, ominous, yet captivating, all at the same time. Immediately, she christened him Bigfin.

  “Bigfin,” she said to herself, “you don’t have any idea of what you’ve done, do you? I suppose the Twister disturbed you but—“

  She stopped because Bigfin had moved a bit, his gills rasping for relief, and he brushed her leg with an armfin. She flinched at the cold feel of his skin but stayed next to him and let him run his fingers around her ankle. Nico shuddered for a moment, then placed her own hand on top of his. His armfin stiffened.

  For an instant, they shared a thought.

  The feeling lasted for only a few seconds, and Nico wasn’t sure it had ever happened. But she bent down to cradle Bigfin’s beak in her hands and she caught a glimpse of his black, fathomless eyes. They were watching her with a kind of affection, something more than just interest. He had no fear of her, not as she had of him. Startled, Nico let go of his beak and it struck the ground hard. She stood up.

  Why did she want to run? Bigfin was no different from the rest of the marine life on Storm. He couldn’t even survive outside the water. The Umans had much more reason to fear them. They’d trashed the local life for months…fish, they were called, worthless sea slime, pets for lonely hearts. Yet she couldn’t just leave him lying there. She felt things, which she had no words for—responsibility, foreboding, curiosity, a dozen others, none of them strong enough to dominate her thinking. Yet she could do no more than stand there and look at him.

  A simple hunger finally won out, a longing for something that she couldn’t even express. Nico sat down slowly. “Bigfin,” she said, “you have the answer. You can tell me what I have to know.” He didn’t move and she leaned over to touch the cold skin again. No response. Only stillness.

  Nico cried out and bent over, poking at him, trying to get some reaction. There was none. He was dead, impossibly dead. No breath, no writhing anymore, nothing but quiet and the lap of the waves against the shore.

  Mindless, wordlessly, she stood up. She stared out beyond the sand reefs, to the bay beyond. He belonged out there. They both did. There was still a chance, if she could get him into the water quickly enough.

  Nico took hold of Bigfin’s tail and lifted it. He was heavy, incredibly heavy, massive, blubbery, yet she moved him, inch by inch, toward the shoreline. She saw only him and nothing else. Slowly, gradually, inexorably, she dragged Bigfin to the edge of the sandbar, then slid into the water and pulled him after her.

  He floated ponderously, apparently lifeless but she would not give up. Somehow, she found the strength to nudge him across the pool, over another sandbar and into deeper waters. She slipped on the second sandbar and splashed into the water beside Bigfin. She came up for air instinctively, and floated for a moment, studying the texture of his skin, the proportions of his body, chasing an elusive memory. Then she ducked under again. The water was murky and green but she could still see him, now a sinking hump. Only his fins and a tiny oval of skin around them showed above the surface. Underneath, even in death, he was sleek, supple, strong. It was his world. On land, he was clumsy and awkward. Down here, he was master.

  Nico envied him that.

  She strained for enough breath to stay under, wishing Leeve had agreed to make her an aquadapt, and toyed with the idea of lingering long enough to be with him forever. But her instincts took over and she had to go up. She heaved in huge gulps of air, disgusted with herself. Air which was life to her and death to Bigfin. It cleared her mind somewhat.

  She felt something brush her legs. An instant later, Bigfin breached the surface, his tail thunking the water hard.

  He was alive!

  Nico reached out and took his armfins. He lifted his beak out of the water and pulsed her. He is so beautiful. He’s what I dreamed of. Even Leeve isn’t so majestic in the water as Bigfin.

  Nico struggled to calm him. He tried to thrash away from her and seek deeper water but he was too weak to make it over the last of the sand reefs. He was dying and she couldn’t prevent it.

  She helped Bigfin situate himself as comfortably as he could. He rolled listlessly in the waves, still alive, barely, but without interest in surviving. Nico sensed that. The last sandbar was too broad and he was too heavy for her to move again. Death would come here, when it came.

  Nico hoisted herself out of the water and sat on the reef, knees drawn up to her chin. She watched Bigfin glumly.

  Since emerging from voidtime, her memory had been paradoxical and inconstant. She had long been uneasy with her Uman comrades, sensing that she didn’t belong with them, that she was different in important ways. Leeve had tried to explain that it was only a normal reaction to voidtime and that it would pass. But it hadn’t. If anything, the disparity had grown, until it could no longer be explained at all.

  She was a creature of this world. Storm was home. There could be no other explanation.

  Nico watched Bigfin watching her. “You and I are related somehow,” she told him. He seemed to understand that. “We’re more alike than the Umans. If only I could find the key—“ She stopped when Bigfin wedged his beak into the sand beside her, glaring up at her with eyes of stone. “What is it, Bigfin? What are you trying to tell me?”

  --the thought-bond can work…opuh’te is not wrong—

  She watched in amazement as Bigfin nestled his beak against her thigh and closed his eyes. He wasn’t dead—she saw his armfins still twitching but he seemed to be asleep. Nico found that idea appealing and closed her eyes too. She let the fatigue of the last few days take over.

  --do you remember—

  Nico sti
rred uneasily as her mind spun dreams out of the haze. “I need some rest,” she muttered to herself. “The Twister has aged all of us a hundred terrs the last few days.”

  --by Tchet’onk, by the Eeskork Current, you roamed the repeater’s path for Ork’et—

  “I was so tired and confused when Leeve found me on this beach, Bigfin. I felt like I had lived for ages and she said I had, in a manner of speaking. Voidtime is like that. Seconds pass like centuries, minutes like millennia. The first thing I saw was Leeve’s face—her bill was bent with worry—everything was so…wrong, somehow. I was dizzy and—“

  --and I stalked you for so many days, across the Serpentines, through Pul’kel, pulsing you, enchanted by the most splendid voice ootkeeor has ever heard, until you took pity on me and—

  “Gave you my food…what? Yes, I did, didn’t I? I remember now. So persistent, so lonely. I couldn’t get away from you.”

  --I was jeeot, ready to die, and you gave me life—

  “It was what I had to do. I couldn’t help pulsing you—you weren’t like the others. You distracted me and I had to do something.”

  --we roamed to Kok’t and you introduced me to Ork’et—

  “They hated you. They hated me for bringing you. ‘The kel forbids’, they said. ‘He pulses too violently, too differently.’ What could I do?”

  --you gave me food, and work as a repeater, to help me forget jeeot…and then you left—

  “I…my memory is unclear, Bigfin. An em’kel, near Kinlok, made holdpods. Good for repeaters. I went there to buy and…there was a terrible noise, and something pulling me, I couldn’t fight it, I was drawn upward, to the surface. Terrified…I couldn’t get away. A great machine, big as Kinlok itself, captured me and I was spinning…falling…and I was cold—“

  Nico started violently and woke up. She looked down at her hands. One of them had gouged its way into the sand. The other clutched Bigfin’s armfin tightly. Slowly, she released it. She examined the hand carefully.

  “I must have dreamed, Bigfin. I was so tired I fell asleep and dreamed.” She watched him come awake too. “It seemed so real, like a memory almost.”

  Bikloo backed off the sandbar and submerged. His body throbbed in pain and, for a moment, he wished death would take him and end the agony. I am no kek’ot, Shooki. I can’t breathe the Notwater. Look at me. I don’t even have the strength to hold good shoo’kel. What will the aliens think of me? Notwater throws everything into turmoil and the humiliation, I can no longer bear that. Even the thought-bond can’t be trusted any longer.

  The whine of the skimmer brought Bikloo back to the surface. The alien had stood erect and was waving at the craft. It entered the bay and was circling to make an approach to the dock. The alien ran off to meet them and Bikloo watched the reunion as well as he could. Low pressure had already distorted his vision and pulsing was useless. He was strong enough to endure short trips into the Notwater unprotected but his margin was gone and he felt his strength ebbing. Before long, Notwater would squeeze all of his body fluids out of solution and he would suffocate. He tried to hear the Tailless speaking, just to last a little longer, but understanding their language was beyond him.

  Nico helped make the skimmer fast to the moorings. She started to ask how the repair mission had gone but when Leeve climbed out onto the planking and shook her head, she didn’t have to ask.

  Dringoth explained. “The whole place is in ruins. That pack of serpents or whatever they are destroyed everything, leveled the whole platform. Eighty percent of the displacement nodes are beyond any kind of repair.”

  Acth:On’e agreed. He hauled a heavy satchel of gear out of the cabin and slung it angrily onto the deck. “Even if we had a full terr, we wouldn’t have long enough to make the Twister operational again. It’s hopeless.”

  Leeve unloaded a box of test equipment into Nico’s arms. “Come on. We’ve got to get the jumpship loaded up.” She took off for the ship, which was parked at the far end of the beach. Nico hustled to stay up with her.

  “Did you learn anything about that…thing, that came out of the serpent’s mouth?”

  “Yes,” Nico said, stumbling to balance the heavy box. “It has some intelligence. We might be able to establish some kind of communication with it.”

  Leeve laughed. “You expect me to believe that?” They had reached the jumpship, where Leeve punched a few buttons, then pulled Nico out of the way before the ramp landed on her feet. “That serpent probably swallowed it the day before. Bad food gets vomited up, that’s all it was.”

  Nico took her by the arm. “It’s alive now.”

  Leeve stared, not believing her. “You’re sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure. I’m telling you, Leeve, it’s an intelligent being.”

  Leeve rubbed her bill and squinted at Nico. “How do you know that?”

  Nico had no real answer. She bit her lip and said, “I know, that’s how. I feel it.”

  Leeve shrugged and waddled up the ramp. She motioned for Nico to push the box up behind her. “Well, it doesn’t make any difference now, does it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look around, Nico. We’re getting ready to leave. We’re pulling out. Dringoth ordered an evacuation from Storm. With a fleet of Coethi starball ships headed this way, we can’t stay here. The whole place, the whole Sigma Albeth system, is as good as rubble.”

  Leave Bigfin? No, she couldn’t do it, she could never do that. Bigfin has the answer, Bigfin knows the truth.

  “I can’t leave.”

  Leeve had managed to get the box into the hold. She turned. “What did you say?”

  “Where’s Dringoth now?”

  “How should I know? Probably rummaging through the ruins of the command shack. Why?”

  Nico didn’t reply. Instead, she whirled and dashed off to find him. The Ultrarch-Major had to understand. They were only protecting themselves. The Time Twister disrupted the oceans and threatened their survival. They responded as any intelligent race would.

  Dringoth was with Acth:On’e, combing the debris for anything intact. Piles of smashed equipment attested to the wrath of the seamothers. Nico rushed up.

  “Ultrarch-Major,” she wheezed, out of breath, “Ultrarch-Major, I have a request.”

  Dringoth was annoyed. “I’m busy, Nico. Can’t you see that? The Twister’s gone and we have to get the hell out of here in a hurry. I’m looking for any file-crystals that may have survived this holocaust. We can’t leave anything behind for the Coethi to study. The Twister’s the only way we can push them out of the Halo.”

  “Major Dringoth, I have a request to make.”

  Dringoth was kicking through each pile as he came to it. “I only hope the destruct pack wasn’t crushed. Command will have my neck if I let the Twister fall into Coethi’s little metallic hands. What is it, Nico?”

  Nico spied a crystal half hidden under some broken wall partitions. She stooped down and snatched it up, handing it to Dringoth. The Ultrarch-Major turned it end of end, frowning before putting it in a bag.

  “I would like to request permission to stay behind, sir.”

  Dringoth halted in mid-step and wore a puzzled look as he surveyed her face. Beside him, Acth:On’e could only shake his head.

  “Stay behind? Are you ill? What’s the matter with you, Nico? Of course you can’t stay behind. Go over there and search through that pile.”

  “Please, Ultrarch-Major, I have a reason.”

  Dringoth paid her no attention. He plowed through a mound of rubble with his boot, swearing to himself. “What a mess. Of all the luck, we have to pick a planet like this, with dragons as big as jumpships. I never did like this hellhole of a place; the base was doomed from the beginning. Now I’ll have to explain to Timejump how I let a herd of demented reptiles demolish the one operational weapon that might have stopped the Coethi expansion. Got
any ideas, Acth?”

  “Ultrarch-Major, please!”

  Dringoth said, “All right, Nico, what is it? Why do you want to stay behind? So you can be blasted into voidtime again?”

  “No, sir. I request permission to take the creature that came out of the serpent with us when we leave. If that is impossible, then I wish to stay behind.”

  “And I thought you were completely recovered. Nico, we don’t have room for something that big. He’s biologically incompatible with us. You don’t have any idea of what he requires to live. And besides that, he’s dying anyway. Even Leeve understands that. We’ve got enough to worry about just getting away from Sigma Albeth before the starballs hit.”

  “He’s an intelligent being, Major Dringoth. “We could learn so much from his race.”

  Dringoth scoffed. “Speculation. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t make this War. Even if he does come from a race of sentients, he can’t stop a Coethi attack.”

  “He can stop a Time Twister.”

  That made the Ultrarch-Major scowl. “You think he was responsible for the rampage? Are you telling me he sent those serpents up to take out the Twister?”

  “It was self-defense.”

  “Some self-defense. They’ve probably just doomed themselves to obliteration. And maybe all the Uman races with them.”

  Nico withstood Dringoth’s scrutiny. How can I explain these feelings to him? “I wish to remain on Storm, sir.” I know that I’m one of them. I’ve lived here before.

  A flicker of sympathy crossed the Ultrarch-Major’s face; his eyes softened their hard gaze. “This is a serious request?”

  “Yes, sir. It is.”

  Dringoth took a deep breath and looked to Acth:On’e for some kind of support. “You…Nico, you understand what this means, don’t you? The Coethi, I mean—“

  “I understand, sir. I’m prepared to absolve you of any official responsibility.”

  Dringoth stared blankly out to sea, watching the surf pile up around the headlands that guarded the bay. “No, no, I didn’t mean that.” He reached for Nico’s hand and held it tightly. “I suppose you never did really fit in that well.” He shook his head sadly. “Casualties of war…voidtime does that to people. I lost a friend that way—an Elamoid fellow, you know how they are, half machine and half lizard. We blipped into voidtime together and both took a hit from a Coethi timecrasher. I blipped back to truetime. He never returned.” Dringoth relived the experience and sighed. “I guess you’ve gone through enough, Nico. Three hundred plus terrs in voidtime is enough sacrifice for any warrior. Timejump shouldn’t keep sending them out like that.”

  “Then I can stay with Bigfin?”

  Dringoth laughed in spite of himself. “Bigfin? Is that what you call him?” He scooped up some rubble and let it sift through his fingers. “How can I say no? You’ve earned the right to die with whatever dignity you can find on this sewer of a world. Where better than on good old solid ground, where the sun comes up and goes down every day and nothing ever changes? It’s the least anybody can do—to grant someone the chance to choose when and where they’ll die. But there’s just one question, Nico, that I’d like to have answered. Why?”

  What could she say? “I belong here, Major Dringoth. I’m a part of all this and don’t ask me to explain. It’s something I’ve felt ever since Leeve found me. My memory is fairly clear from that time. But there have been moments when I remember other things, things that don’t quite make sense unless—“

  “Yes?”

  “—unless there is another explanation. I had one of those moments when you took the skimmer out to the Twister, when I was on the beach with Bigfin. I know now that I have to stay here, with Bigfin and his people. They’re my people. I’m sure of it. Maybe I’m just projecting sympathy for them, but I think that somehow, in some way, I’m one of them. I don’t completely understand it yet.”

  Dringoth was watching others carry gear to the jumpship. “Neither do I. But then that’s voidtime for you. In and out, back and forth, flitting across the ages, without any thought for what it might be doing to us—it’s no wonder nothing makes sense. For all I know, you and I might be fighting different wars. We might have just crossed paths, on this world, in this time.” He stood there before Nico and held out his hand. “From the beginning, I had doubts about just how Uman you really were. Like you, I had a feeling. Now, I think it doesn’t matter so much. Even if you aren’t Uman, then whatever you are, the difference between us is small. Probably trivial. The Uman races keep on adding new peoples. One day, perhaps, you’ll be among them.”

  There was an awkward silence, during which Acth:On’e stole away discreetly to help with the loading. Dringoth toed the sand for a moment, gouging a shallow trench around himself. He looked up at the gray clouds, studying their ever-shifting forms as if seeking a portent of what Time would bring them next. At last, he lowered his gaze to Nico’s face.

  “The Coethi are coming,” he said. “There isn’t much time.” He turned to leave but stopped when Nico reached out and touched his face.

  “Thanks,” she said. Her hands dropped away when she saw Leeve running toward them, motioning for the Ultrarch-Major to hurry. “Thanks for understanding.”

  Dringoth broke into a run and met Leeve halfway. They conferred for a moment, then headed for the ramp of the jumpship. Neither of them looked back.

  Nico watched them disappear into the hold. When the ramp was retracted, she went into the water and found Bigfin again, still alive, drifting helplessly in the shallows of the reefs. She rubbed his back gingerly and pushed him around to the other side of a low sand bank. It would make a good bunker to protect them from the effects of the jumpship’s launch.

  For the first time, she noticed that the water seemed warmer than before. Pockets of heat swirled around them and steam vents had already blown open holes in sandbars nearby. Above, the clouds seethed under the lash of strong winds. High in the cliffs behind the beach, towering fumaroles whistled in the air. It could only mean one thing.

  A Coethi starball had already been fired.

  Nico wrapped her arms around Bigfin, as far as they would go, and hugged him. She could feel the hollow rasping of his gill membranes. He was struggling for life and slowly losing the battle. She silently wished that the starball would hit soon and end his agony.

  She heard the low whine of the jumpship and saw it disappear momentarily in a haze of whirling sand. On the ground, rockets were the rule. Displacement engines tended to drag whole planets into voidtime if they were used too near to them. A parabolic orbit was needed first, to take advantage of Sigma Albeth’s enormous gravity well.

  The jumpship rode a spear of flame into the heavens and soon vanished in the clouds. The thunder of her rockets pealed across the beach and echoed off the cliffs, resounding for several minutes afterward. Nico let the image settle in her mind.

  The sea was rising in the bay and swept over the beach with scalding, hissing breakers, quickly erasing the last evidence of the Uman camp. Beyond the headlands, heavy swells boiled and dense hot mist soon blanketed everything. Nico found the water too hot to stand and climbed out onto the sand bank, itself slowly crumbling under the relentless assault of the surf. A dull red glow glinted off the rock cliffs behind her, diffusing in the mist like a false sunset.

  Within the hour, she knew the starball would have reduced Storm to molten slag. Already, it outshone the sun; in a quarter of the sky from which Sigma Albeth never gleamed, a broad swath of light burned a blinding radiance. Facing it, Nico felt the heat and radiation immediately. She turned away and cupped water over her eyes, heedless of the way her skin flushed in the heat. She fanned herself dry.

  --the vision of opuh’te is fulfilled—everything is exactly as it was revealed—

  Bikloo watched the alien carefully. A look of intense concentration came over her and she lowered her eyes, watching
him with bewilderment.

  --the thought-bond still survives—do you sense it, Kolohee?—

  Nico squinted at him. She had sensed something –a thought not her own. She leaned forward, tenderly easing herself into the boiling water. It was too hot for her and she clawed her way back onto the sandbar, part of which gave way. She rubbed her arms painfully.

  --you are Kolohee—I know that you are—something has happened that I cannot explain but the thought-bond is still intact—

  Nico seemed afraid. She huddled in a tight ball, shaking her head. “What are you, Bigfin? Who are you?”

  --you are Kolohee—somehow, the wavemaker has made you over into another race, accelerated evolution so that you’re not one of us anymore—you’re more Tailless than Seomish—this is terrible to see the difference between us now—

  “You’re wrong—it can’t be.” Nico stared vacantly into the blazing pool, trying to remember. She shook her head. “I don’t understand anything anymore.”

  An enormous wave pitched over the little reef, knocking Nico into the water. She cried out and Bikloo grabbed her arm before the backwash could carry her out into the bay.

  --you don’t belong here, Kolohee—

  He rolled in such a way that she was forced to cling to his back, bracing herself for the next wave by clutching his mid-dorsal. It came, rising to a high, foaming crest, before curling over and crashing down on them. For a few moments, they were underwater. Nico lost her grip and was dragged away. Bikloo summoned the last of his strength and pulsed for her. He found her thrashing wildly at the surface, her skin badly scalded. He bumped her to let her know he was there and she gratefully climbed onto his back again, exhausted and frightened.

  --is this what the Seomish people will be like someday?—she’s undergone a billion generations of change in the opuh’te, but pulse her: she’s more helpless in the sea than a glow-weed—

  A strong tide was pulling them toward the mouth of the bay. He had no strength left to fight it and wasn’t sure that he wanted to.

  --if this is our fate, to give up our ancient heritage, our sense of t’shoo, our vishtu, our love for the sea, in order to survive in such a harsh and brutal world, then I mourn what is to come—perhaps somehow we will learn to live in Notwater someday—perhaps, we will follow Puk’lek but not this way—the sea is home for all Seomish—Longse was right in that—it must always be so—

  Bikloo found the steaming waters almost comfortable now; there was little feeling anymore, anywhere in his body. He could still pulse the bottom of the bay, enough to know that the smoldering fires of the submerged volcanoes had been awakened. Huge gouts of lava issued from fresh fissures in the seabed. Beyond the headlands, the heat of the approaching starball had whipped the ocean to a frenzy. Steam spirals danced across the bay and what remained of the rocky cliffs of Kinlok began to flow sluggishly down to the sea.

  --the vision of opuh’te is fulfilled—

  Bikloo closed his eyes and let the waves pull them farther out into the bay, toward the inferno beyond. He felt Kolohee’s fingers digging into his back but there was no pain.

  --I don’t know what opuh’te will bring to Seome—perhaps the Tailless are the future for us, but Kolohee is lost to me and I’m to blame—the gulf is too great to overcome…there is no time, no way to follow—

  Nico felt the life flow out of him and cried when it was done.

  She clung tenaciously to his corpse as the tide carried them inexorably out to sea. When they were finally abreast of the molten headlands, she watched without emotion as the rock promontory collapsed and sank. The first swells rolled under them and they were quickly snatched out of the bay, riding along the rim of a whirlpool that had formed at the mouth. It cleaved the ocean all the way to the bottom, where the vortex was now gathering the remains of Kinlok Island.

  The vortex was called Farpool.

  Nico never let go on the way down.

  END