The Niss Machine’s dark funnel bowed, a gesture of solemn respect.
“As you wish, Dr. Baskin. It will be done.”
While the hardworking bridge crew worked to replace burned-out modules, all the monitors were blinded by a haze of ionized detritus and radiation. The first objects to emerge from the fog were a pair of large gravity wells—modest dimples in spacetime.
Earth and Luna … she realized. We came so close.
Soon other things would show up on the gravity display, objects rivaling moons, majestic in power.
The tense moment harkened Gillian back across the years to the discovery of the Ghost Fleet, so long ago, when she and Tom had been so young and thrilled to be exploring on behalf of Earthclan, in company with their friend Creideiki. It had looked a bit like this. A haze surrounded them as Streaker worked its way slowly through a dense molecular cloud, in that far-off place called the Shallow Cluster.
An interstellar backwater.
A place where there should not have been anything to interest starfaring beings.
Yet, the captain had a hunch.
And soon, emerging through the mist, they glimpsed …
Nothing.
Gillian blinked as stark, astonishing reality yanked her back to the present. A nervous murmur crossed the bridge as crew members stared in disbelief at emptiness.
Laboring mightily, Streaker’s wounded engines managed to pull the ship free of its own dross cloud, clearing the haze far enough to reveal more of nearby space.
There was no sign of any vast, enclosing formation.
No fleet of mighty battleships.
“But … I …”
Gillian stopped, unable to finish the sentence. Someone else had to complete the thought.
“Where did everybody go?” asked Sara Koolhan, whose hand clutched Prity’s with a grip that looked white and sweaty.
No one answered. How could they? What was there to say?
Silence reigned for several minutes while sensors probed gradually farther.
“There’s a lot of debris, but I don’t see any big vessels within a cubic astron of here,” ventured the detection officer at last. “Though I guess they could be hiding behind Luna, getting ready to pounce!”
Gillian shook her head. That armada of giant dreadnoughts would scarcely fit behind the moon’s disk. Besides, why set a trap for prey that lies helpless, already in your grasp? Streaker could not run, and a puppy would beat her in a fair fight.
“I’m detecting a lot of fresh hyper-ripples in the ambient background field,” added Akeakemai. “Engine wakes. Some really big ships churned things up hereabouts just a little while ago. I’m guessing they tore outta here awful damn fasssst!”
While Streaker’s crew continued laboring to repair sensors, the Niss Machine remanifested its whirlpool shape near Gillian.
“Would you care for a conjecture, Dr. Baskin?”
“Conject away!”
“It occurs to me that your little holographic message might have had unexpected consequences. It was meant to enrage our enemies, but please allow me to submit another possibility.
“That it scared the living hell out of them.”
Gillian snorted.
“That crock of bull-dross I cooked up? It was sheer bluff and bluster. A child could see through it! Are you saying that a bunch of advanced Galactics, with all their onboard libraries and sophisticated intelligence systems, couldn’t penetrate to the truth?”
The Niss spiral turned, regaining a bit of its former insouciance.
“No, Dr. Baskin. That is not what I am saying. Rather, I am insinuating that a primitive wolfling like yourself, caught up in the emotions of a transitory crisis, cannot see the essential truth underlying all your ‘bluff and bluster’.”
“The Galactics did perceive it, however. Perhaps only instants after they fired upon Streaker. Or else later, when they sensed we were returning, having survived the unsurvivable … and began broadcasting a simple offer to discuss surrender.”
“But that was—” she stammered. “I didn’t mean their—”
“Either way, the alliance shattered—it flash-evaporated—as each squadron fled for home.”
She stared. “You’re guessing. I don’t believe it.”
The Niss shrugged, a twisting of its dark funnel.
“Fortunately, the universe doesn’t much care whether we believe. The chief question now is whether our foes were sufficiently terrified to completely abandon their goals, or if they have merely withdrawn to reassess—to consult their own auguries and prepare fresh onslaughts.
“Frankly, I suspect the latter. Nevertheless, it seems that something noteworthy happened here, Dr. Baskin.
“By any standard, you must accept history’s verdict.
“The word has a strange flavor, spoken aboard this ragged vessel. So I can understand if you have trouble speaking it aloud.
“Let me coax you, then.
“It is called Victory.”
The forces of Terra emerged, climbing slowly, tentatively from their last redoubts, as if suspecting some deadly trick. Out of seared mountain peaks and blasted lunar craters, stubby ships nosed skyward, bearing scars from countless prior battles. Together they cast beams of inquiry toward every dark corner of the solar system. Distrustfully, they threw intense scrutiny toward the one remaining intruder, whose tattered outlines were not at first familiar.
“Keep well back,” Gillian ordered her pilot. “Make no sudden moves. Let’s be patient. Let them get used to us.”
Akeakemai agreed. “We’re emitting Streaker’s transponder code. But it’ll take a while to get other messages out. Till then, I’d rather not make those guys nervoussss!”
It was an understatement. Those tattered-looking units had managed to keep the terrifying Tandu, and many other allied warrior clans, at bay for two years. All told, Gillian would rather not be fried by her own people, just because they had jittery trigger fingers.
After all this time, she could wait just a little while longer.
Jake Demwa isn’t going to be happy with the condition I’m bringing Streaker home in, she mused. Without two-thirds of its crew, or the Shallow Cluster samples. He’ll grill me for weeks, trying to figure out where Creideiki and Tom went off to, and what strange matters may have kept them busy all this time.
On the other hand, she did come back to Earth bearing gifts.
The secret of overcoming Jophur master rings, for instance.
And information about the Kiqui of Kithrup, whom we may claim as new clients for our growing clan.
And the rewq symbionts of Jijo, which help species understand each other. Plus everything the Niss and I learned by interrogating our captured Galactic Library branch.
And there was more.
The Terragens Council will want to know about the lost colony on Jijo and the Polkjhy expedition. Both groups face great dangers, and yet they seem to offer something the council long sought to achieve—offshoots of Earthclan that might survive beyond reach of Galactic Civilization, even if Terra someday falls.
There were plenty of other things to talk about, enough to keep Gillian in debriefing for years.
Everything we discovered about other life orders, for instance. Especially the high Transcendents.
As powerful and knowing as those godlike beings appeared, Gillian had come away from her encounters with a strange sensation not unlike pity. They were, after all, not the eldest or greatest of life’s children, only the ones who stayed behind when everyone else dived into one-way singularities, seeking better realms beyond.
Cowards, she had called them in a moment of pique. Not a fair characterization, she admitted now, though it held a grain of truth.
They seem trapped by the Embrace of Tides. And yet they are unwilling to follow its pull all the way—whether to a higher place or to some universal recycling system. So they sit instead, thinking and planning while time wafts gently by. Except when it seems convenient to sacrif
ice myriad lesser life-forms in order to accomplish some goal.
All told, they weren’t company she’d look forward to inviting over for dinner.
As the haze of battle cleared, Gillian ordered Streaker’s cracked and fused blast armor sloughed away from the viewing ports for the first time since Kithrup, allowing her to stand before the glittering Milky Way—a spray of constellations so familiar, they would have reassured even some cavewoman ancestor whose life was spent in hardship, grubbing for roots, a mere ten thousand years ago.
Lightspeed is slow, but inexorable, she thought, gazing at the galaxy’s bright lanes. During the next few millennia, this starscape will flare with extravagance. Supernovas, blaring across heaven, carrying the first part of the transcendents’ message.
A simple message, but an important one that even she could understand.
Greetings. Here we are. Is anybody out there?
Gillian noticed Emerson—whose duties down in Engineering were finished at last—hurry in to embrace Sara. The couple stood nearby with their silent chimp companion, regarding the same great vista, sharing private thoughts.
Of course the young woman from Jijo was another gift to Earth, a treasure who, using only mathematical insight, had independently predicted the Great Rupture. That alone was an impressive accomplishment—but now Sara was making further, startling claims, suggesting that the Rupture was only a symptom. Not of the expanding universe, as Earth’s savants claimed, but of something more complex and strange. Something “coming in from outside our contextual framework” … whatever that meant.
Sara thought the mystery might revolve somehow around a race called the “Buyur.”
Gillian shook her head. At last, there would be others to pass such problems on to. Skilled professionals from all across Earth—and dozens of friendly races—who could deal with arcane matters while she went back to being a simple doctor, a healer, the role she had trained for.
I’ll never order anyone else to their death. Not ever again. No matter what they say we accomplished during this wretched mission, I won’t accept another command.
From now on, I’ll work to save individual lives. The cosmos can be somebody else’s quandary.
In fact, she had already chosen her first patient.
As soon as the spymasters let me go, I’ll focus on helping Emerson. Try to help restore some of his power of speech. We can hope researchers on Earth have already made useful breakthroughs, but if not, I’ll bend heaven in half to find it.
Was guilt driving this ambition? To repair some of the damage her commands had caused? Or was it to have the pleasure of watching the two of them—Sara and Emerson—speak to each other’s minds, as well as their hearts.
Watching them hold hands, Gillian relaxed a bit.
The heart can be enough. It can sustain.
Akeakemai called.
“We’re back in two-way holo mode, Dr. Baskin. And there’s a transmission coming in.”
The big visual display erupted with light, showing the control room of an approaching warship. It had the blunt outlines of Thennanin manufacture. The crew was mostly human, but the face in front of the camera had the sharp cheekbones and angular beauty of a male Tymbrimi, with empathy-sensitive tendrils wafting near the ears.
“… that we must find your claims improbable. Please provide evidence that you are, indeed, TAASF Streaker. I repeat …”
It seemed a simple enough request to satisfy. She had spent hard, bitter years striving for this very moment of restored contact. And yet, Gillian felt reluctant to comply.
After a moment’s reflection, she knew why.
To any human, there are two realms—“Earth” and “out there.”
As long as I’m in space, I can imagine that I’m somehow near Tom. We were both lost. Both hounded across the Five Galaxies. Despite the megaparsecs dividing us, it only seemed a matter of time till we bumped into each other.
But once I set foot on Old Terra, I’ll be home. Earth will surround me, and outer space will become a separate place. A vast wilderness where he’s gone missing—along with Creideiki and Hikahi and the others—wandering amid awful dangers, while I can only try to stay busy and not feel alone.
Gillian tried to answer the Tymbrimi. She wished someone else would, just to take this final burden off her shoulders. The ordeal of ending bittersweet exile.
She was rescued by an unlikely voice. Emerson D’Anite, who faced the hologram with a smile, and expressed himself in operatic song.
“Let us savor our folly!
Man is born to be jolly!
“His idle pretenses,
and vain defenses,
trouble his senses, and baffle his
mind.
“Leaner or fatter,
we cavort and flatter,
so let us be cheerful and let us
pretend.
“Fun is the triumph
of mind over matter,
we’ll all get home if we laugh in
the end!”
Destiny
THE ZANG COMPONENTS WERE BETTER prepared to take all this in their philosophical stride. So were the machine entities who helped make up the macrocommunity called Mother.
In both hydro- and silicon-based civilizations, there existed a widespread conviction that so-called “reality” was a fiction. Everything from the biggest galaxy down to the smallest microbe was simply part of a grand simulation. A “model” being run in order to solve some great problem or puzzle.
Of course, it was only natural for both of these life orders to reach the same conclusion. The Zang had evolved to perform analog emulations organically, within their own bodies. Machines did it with prim software models, carried out by digital cognizance. But ultimately, it amounted to the same thing. Joined at last, they found a shared outlook on life.
We—and everything we see around ourselves, including the mighty Transcendents—exist merely as part of a grand scenario, a simulacrum being played out in some higher-level computer, perhaps at another plane of existence—or else at the Omega Point, when the end of time brings all things to ultimate fruition.
Either way, it makes little sense to get caught up in feelings of self-importance. This cosmic pattern we participate in is but one of countless many being run, in parallel, with only minute differences from each to the next. Like a chess program, working out every move, and all possible consequences, in extreme detail.
That was how some of the other Mother-components explained it to Lark and Ling. Even the Jophur-traeki converts seemed to have no trouble with this notion, since their mental lives involved multiple thought experiments, flowing through the dribbling wax that lined their inner cores.
Only the human and dolphin members of the consortium had trouble reconciling this image—for different reasons.
Why? Lark asked.
Why would anyone expend vast resources doing such a thing? To calculate the best of all possible worlds?
Once they find it … what would they do with the result?
And what will they do with all the myriad models they have created along the way?
What will they do with us?
That question seemed to startle the Zang components, but not the machines, who answered Lark with strangely earnest complacency.
You oxies are so obsessed with self-importance!
Of course, all the models have already been run, evaluated, and discarded. Our feelings of existence are only an illusion. A manifestation of simulated time.
To Lark, this attitude seemed appalling. But Ling only chuckled, agreeing with the dolphins who had recently joined the onboard community, and who clearly considered this whole metaphysical argument ridiculous.
Olelo, a leader among that group of former Streaker crew members, summed up their viewpoint with a burst of Trinary haiku.
* Listen to the crash
* Of breakers on yonder reef,
* And tell me this ain’t real! *
Lark felt glad to ha
ve the newcomers aboard, in several ways. They seemed like interesting folks, with a refreshing outlook. And they helped keep up the oxy side of the ongoing debate. There would be plenty of time for give-and-take discussions over the course of many subjective years, until the transformed Polkjhy finally reached journey’s end.
With a flicker of awareness, he cast his remote senses through one of the external viewers, taking another look at the cosmos. Or what passed for one.
It was a perspective few others had ever witnessed. A blankness that was quite distinct from the vivid color, black. None of the great spiral or elliptical galaxies were visible in their normal forms—as gaudy displays of dusty white pinpoints. From this high standpoint, no stars could be seen, except as mere ripples, brief indentations that he could barely make out, if he tried.
Everything seemed flattened, ephemeral, tentative—almost like a crudely drawn rough draft of the real thing.
In fact, Polkjhy was no longer quite part of that universe. Gliding along just outside the ylem, the modified vessel rode atop a surging swell that was composed not of matter, or energy, or even raw metric. The best he could figure—having discussed it with others, and consulted the onboard Library—Polkjhy was riding upon a swaying fold of context. A background of basic law, from which the universe had formed long ago, when a perturbation in Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle allowed the sudden eruption called the Big Bang.
An emergence of Something from Nothing.
What he saw now was not things or objects but a vast swirl of causal connections, linking one set of potentialities to another.
Behind the hurtling ship, diminishing rapidly with each passing dura, several of these junctions could be glimpsed twisting away from a recent, shattering separation. A splitting apart of ancient ties.
He felt Ling’s mind slip alongside his own, sharing the view. But after a while, she nudged him.
All of that lies behind us. Come. Look ahead, toward our destiny.
Though nothing tangible existed on this plane—not matter, or memes, or even directionality—Lark nevertheless got a sense of “forward” … the way they were headed. According to the Transcendents, it was a large cluster of galaxies, lying almost half a billion parsecs away from Galaxy Two. A place where enigmatic signals had been emanating for a long time, hinting at sapient activity. Perhaps another great civilization to contact. To share with. To say hello.