A clandestine rendezvous seemed easy enough for Tsh’t to arrange …
The drill bit broke through. She commanded the arm back and sent a fiber communicator snaking through the hole, rearing like a cobra inside the sealed room.
It scanned left and right until a lanky bipedal figure came into view, seated on a bench before a small table.
The head lifted, as if reacting to a sound. When the creature turned halfway around, Tsh’t gasped at the sight.
A slanted, narrow face with a jutting, chinless jaw and large, bared teeth.
Yet, the eyes and brow seemed uncannily human, squinting as they caught sight of the spy probe.
Hurriedly, the head turned away again. Shoulders hunched to block her view. Tsh’t saw both arms grope for a box—a bio-support unit designed for maintaining small animals sampled from an ecosystem. Deft hands pulled out something squirmy. She couldn’t follow what was happening, but it seemed as if the biped was eating the wriggly creature, or embracing it.
The shoulders relaxed, arms settling to the tall being’s side as it stood up and gracefully turned around.
The face was transformed. Now it looked more noble than human. More genially amused than a Tymbrimi. More patient and understanding than a god.
Well, well. It is him. The very one.
The Rothen’s face quivered in a few places, where its mask-symbiont was still nestling in—a living creature crafted to become part of his features, providing fine cheekbones, a regal chin, and lips that both covered the teeth and drew a tender, gracious smile.
The Missionary.
Tsh’t remembered his visit to Earth, long ago, when she was still half grown and barely able to speak. It was like yesterday, the image of him preaching in a hidden undersea grotto to a tiny gathering of dolphin converts.
“The universe is a lonely place,” he had said then. “But not as dangerous as it seems. The present government of Earth may consist of Darwinists and unbelievers, but that does not matter. Remember, despite the propaganda of those preaching wolfling pride, that you are not alone. We who crafted the genes of humanity in secret, guiding them toward a great destiny, remain steadfast to that dream. The same glorious goal. We still act behind the scenes, protecting, preserving, preparing for the Day.
“And as we love our human clients, so we also love you. For ours is a special clan, with a future more splendid than any other. Dolphins will play a great role when the time comes. Especially those of you who choose the Danik Way.”
It had felt singular to grow up as a member of an exclusive sect, knowing a great and reassuring Truth. Of course the Terragens Constitution promised religious freedom, but in practice it would only bring on ridicule to reveal too much, too soon. Most dolphins believed the myth that humans must have evolved sapience without intervention from above. An absurd notion, but too strong a current for dissenters to fight openly.
Even among humans and chimps, where Danikenite beliefs were more common, debates raged between conflicting cults. Many had their own candidates for the secret patrons … the mystery race said to have uplifted Homo sapiens long ago. Several Galactic races were called “more likely” than the obscure, secretive Rothen.
So Tsh’t had kept it to herself, through school, training, and early assignments for the TAASF. She bided her time through the disasters at Morgran, Kithrup, and Oakka. Until one day she realized humans just weren’t up to the task. Gillian Baskin was among the best, and could do no more.
It was time to seek help higher up the family tree.
The Rothen would know what to do.
Now her emotions roiled with conflict, complexity, and confusion. She had come here uncertain what to expect.
I knew about the symbiont. The Jijoans saw a Rothen unmasked. It’s all in the reports. And yet, to see that bared face for myself—
The glimpse of Ro-kenn’s natural features had been shocking. And yet, Tsh’t now felt warmed by the same reassuring smile she recalled from childhood.
I can understand the need for a mask. It isn’t necessarily dishonest. Not if it helps them do their work better, guiding Earthlings toward our destiny.
It’s what’s inside that counts.
“Well?” Ro-kenn said, taking a step toward the door. He brought both hands together, his long arms sticking out from the sleeves of a bathrobe made for a tall human. The captive must have been sent in secret by the Sages of Jijo, after capturing him in the highland place they called Festival Glade—perhaps the sole survivor of a mixed Rothen-human expedition that had met treachery and disaster, first from the Six Races and then the crew of the Jophur battleship.
Everything came together in Tsh’t’s heart. The longing she had carried since childhood. The frustration of three horrible years. The guilt over having acted against Gillian’s wishes. The far larger guilt of assassinating two humans—even if it was in the interest of a greater cause.
She had come here intending to confront Ro-kenn. To demand an explanation of what had happened.
The message I sent … tuned to be picked up by a Rothen mind. It told you about Gillian’s destination. You were supposed to come in secret to Jijo … to help us. To rescue us.
Now they say you persecuted the sooners, including Jijo’s human settlers. They say your people sold Jijo to the Jophur for pocket change. They say you are swindlers, who convert gullible Earth lings to follow you, in order to use them as shills and petty thieves.
One of the men I killed—the pilot Kunn—I did it to protect our secret. But how can I be sure.…
None of that came out. The words would not come.
Instead, all the streams coursing through her suddenly combined in an emotional confluence. Despair, which had dominated for so long, cracked and gave way to its only true enemy.
Hope.
Tsh’t had to take several deep breaths, then found the will to speak.
“Massster … there is something I have come to confessssss.”
A look of surprise briefly crossed the Rothen’s face, and his left cheek quivered.
Then a warm smile spread, and with a deep, gentle voice he spoke.
“Indeed, child of the warm seas. I am here. Take your time and I will listen. Be assured that redemption is found in telling all.”
Lark
I WONDER HOW LONG I’VE BEEN IN HERE. IS THERE any way to tell if it’s been hours, days … or months?
If they understand my body chemistry well enough to keep me alive, these beings could turn my consciousness on and off like a lamp. They might change the way I perceive duration, simply by adjusting my metabolism.
That, too, felt like a clue. Lark yearned to compare notes with somebody.
With Ling, the way they used to, when they were wary adversaries, then allies, and finally lovers. He missed her terribly. Her warm skin and rich scent, but most of all her vivid mind. Amid all their ups and downs, it was her unpredictable wit that most fascinated Lark. He would give anything now, just to talk to her.
I was supposed to find a way to rescue her from Rann and the Jophur. Now all I can do is spin fantasies of a space-suited Ling blasting her way through that far wall, lasers in both hands, yanking me out of this awful vault so we can fly off together in some hijacked …
The enticing daydream dissolved as he realized that something had changed. His spine crawled with an uneasy sensation … a feeling of being watched. Lark turned his head … and shuddered reflexively.
A large blobby … thing floated near the membrane barrier, roughly spherical, but with bulges and ripples that swelled rhythmically, in ways that somehow conveyed life … and perhaps even intent. Currents of yellow mist flowed past, but it maintained position with a blur of tiny waving tendrils, as numerous as hairs on the leg of a hoon.
Cilia, Lark thought, recognizing a form of locomotion used by tiny organisms you might see under a microscope. He had never heard of this means occurring on a macro-entity anywhere near this size. As a biologist, he found it quite odd.
> But curiosity turned to amazement when the creature abruptly sucked in all the waving cilia. Ballooning outward to the left, it elongated into a cylinder. Depressions at both ends deepened, penetrating along its length until they met, forming a hollow tube that began flexing longitudinally. Jets of yellow fluid compressed and shot out one opening, propelling the beast rapidly around Lark’s little transparent cell.
Three times it circumnavigated this way. Lark had an impression it was looking him over from all angles.
That’s not any normal gas or vapor out there, he thought. But it doesn’t seem like liquid, either.
He had a feeling that the medium might have something to do with the creature’s flexibility—its knack for switching from tendrils to siphon-jet propulsion.
Wherever it evolved, the environment must be stranger than anything I ever read about in the archives. That is … except …
Lark’s eyes opened in sudden realization, so wide that the lids nudged small, clear cups that arched over them. Till that moment he hadn’t even been aware of the protective coverings, but when his action let a few harsh molecules sneak past, he paid with stinging tears and deep, laryngial moans.
Yet, that hardly interrupted the rapid flow of Lark’s thoughts.
Hydrogen breathers! The ancient scrolls call them one of the great orders of life. Sharing the Five Galaxies with oxy-types, but completely separate from our civilization, sticking to their own worlds and interests as we keep to ours.
Of course that oversimplified matters. Even in the few Biblos texts to mention hydro-life, it was clear that danger stalked each uneasy interaction between the two different molecular heritages. Minimizing contact made up a large part of the duties of the Migration Institute, which designed its leasehold rules partly to protect fallow worlds, but also to lessen the shared space where accidental encounters might take place.
Jijo’s in Galaxy Four. Except for official Institute ships, there aren’t supposed to be any of our kind flying about these spiral arms right now. It’s one reason Jijo was an attractive candidate for the Sooner Path.
One eye was still blurry, but he squinted with the other as the hydro-being slowed to a halt and flowed back into a roughly spherical shape.
Am I looking at their equivalent of a policeman? Or an immigration official?
A hollow-looking vacuole formed under the creature’s surface. Bubbles escaped, glistening with strange surface tension. Lark thought of someone farting underwater, but for all he knew it was actually an eloquent lecture on fine points of interorder cosmic law.
Maybe it’s demanding to know what I’m doing here. Requesting my passport and visa. Asking for my plea … or whether I want a blindfold …
The hollow space within kept growing as the creature grew distended toward Lark. Within the vacuole, he made out several floating objects—each one looking at first like miniature versions of the larger entity. These took up various positions in the void, then began to change, taking on new shapes and colors.
Well I’ll be …
One turned a shade of blue somewhat deeper than the sky back home. It stopped rippling and seemed to harden an adamant shell, covered with symmetrical arrangements of bumps and blisters. Lark even saw a minuscule emblem take form—a rayed spiral insignia near the top of the oblate spheroid. He swiftly recognized a near perfect representation of the Jophur battleship Polkjhy.
I get it. Communication by sign and picture show. And that other glob … is that supposed to be a hydro ship?
The guess was soon confirmed as he watched a growing confrontation between two space behemoths, all played out within a space no larger than a traeki’s topknot. Lark watched with transfixed fascination as the Jophur cruiser blasted away at the yellow globule. At first, its arrows were thwarted by swarms of sudden, flimsy balloons. But then more missiles and fire bolts got through, hammering the onrushing foe mercilessly, until the hydro vessel shredded into ragged pieces that flapped like tattered banners. Yet, several of these still managed to drape across parts of Polkjhy’s hard metal hull.
So that’s how they boarded. It was combat unlike any he had read about, or dreamed of.
Now the blue shell expanded before him, and Lark saw the fight continue within. Yellowish beachheads spread from half a dozen points of insertion, advancing swiftly at first, then meeting stiffening resistance. Lark saw small glitters scurrying near the battlefront, probably representing individual Jophur and their fierce, slashing battle robots.
Sometimes, one or two of those sparks fell into a yellow stain. Instead of being extinguished they were swept toward collection points in the rear.
Captives. Prisoners of war.
When it happened to another pinpoint, Lark felt an abrupt surge of sensation sting his thigh.
That’s me!
It also made him realize something else.
They aren’t just communicating with me visually. There’s a chemical component! Some of my understanding comes by watching the demonstration. But they must also be sending meaning down the nutrient tube directly, into my very blood.
Awareness of the fact might have sickened and repelled him … except that a strange calmness pervaded Lark’s limbs. Another effect of molecular inducement, no doubt. As a biologist, he was fascinated.
Hydros must have over a billion years’ experience dealing with us oxies. That doesn’t necessarily make it easy to bridge the vast gulf between life orders, or else they’d be talking to me directly, in audible words. But they’ve accumulated tricks, I’m sure.
It put a new perspective on things. He had spent his entire professional life entranced by the wild diversity among just the few million oxygen-breathing species prevalent on one part of a single planet. Now he realized there were beings for whom the difference between a Jophur and a human must appear nearly inconsequential.
Have they ever beheld an Earthling before? It would seem unlikely. And yet they can play me like an urrish fiddle.
Lark felt humbled … and contemplated whether that was also a reaction imposed or suggested from the outside.
No matter. The important thing is that they want me to learn. They’re interested in keeping me alive, and making me understand.
For the time being, at least, I can live with that.
Emerson
HE MIGHT NOT BE AN ENGINEER ANYMORE, BUT he could still appreciate good work.
With an excellent view of the vast repair project—from his own private little observation bubble, tucked behind Streaker’s bridge—Emerson could see nearly the whole vaulting edifice, from its central hearth-star all the way to the gaping laceration that now mangled the majestic sphere, exposing a wide swath of untamed stars. Despite frantic efforts by great machines to mend and patch, innumerable lumps of ragged debris still poured outward through the hole, crumbling to dust, vapor, and armadas of radiant comets.
The sphere’s injury reminded him of his own maiming, which also had occurred in this very place.
Trembling, Emerson’s hand raised toward the area near his left ear. A filmy creature quivered at his touch—the rewq symbiont he had brought along from Jijo. Together with unguents supplied by a traeki pharmacist, the rewq was partly responsible for his surviving an injury that should otherwise have left him dead or a living vegetable. The tiny thing released its gentle clasp on a surface blood vessel and rippled aside, letting Emerson stroke the scar tissue surrounding a hole in his head. Not an accidental lesion, but a deliberate hurt.
This was where it had happened, about a year ago. Here—he recalled climbing into a small fighter craft, ready to sacrifice himself and cover Streaker’s desperate escape.
Here—he blazed forth in the little scoutship, shouting defiance at those hostile factions whose demands and extortions disproved their vaunted reputation for wise neutrality … cries that turned joyful when a different clique of Old Ones intervened, opening a door in the great shell to let Gillian and the others escape.
Here—exultation cut off as his tin
y vessel was seized by slabs of force, hemming it in, then abrading and dissolving the armored scout like a skinned pineapple, yanking him to a captivity worse than any he could have imagined.
Emerson was still hazy on what followed. His captors used potent conditioning that made memory excruciating. For most of the last year, he had wandered in a fog of amnesia, punctuated by bouts of searing agony whenever he tried to recall.
Defeating that programming had been his greatest victory. Emerson’s mind was now his own again—what remained of it, that is. Anguish-reflexes still tried to divert his roaming thoughts, impeding him from salvaging further recollections, but he had learned to fight back by not giving a damn about pain. Emerson knew each throbbing impulse meant he was putting another piece back in place, thwarting their purpose.
If only he knew what that purpose was.
Lacking important parts of his old brain, Emerson could not express in words the irony he felt, crouched in his secret little bubble niche, looking across the broad corrugated vistas of the Fractal World. Even mute, his emotions had a complex, fine-grained texture.
For instance, by all rights, he should be experiencing satisfaction from the rack and ruin tearing through this place. As swarms of huge robots poured in through the sphere’s gaping wound, converging to shore up its unraveling rim, he ought to be hoping for them to fail. That would be vengeance—for his tormentors to be smashed, for all their hopes and works to fall like ash into an emancipated sun.
But there was something else inside him, older and stronger than wrath.
Love of a certain kind of beauty.
The gracefulness of artifice.
The glory of something well made.
He could still recall the day—ages ago—when Streaker entered this redoubt of the Retired Order for the first time, full of naive hopes that would soon be betrayed. Awed by the splendor, he and Karkaett and Hannes Suessi had argued ecstatically over the ultimate function of this titanic habitat—to cheat the eroding rub of time, taming the wasteful extravagance of a star. It seemed an engineer’s paradise.