by David Brin
The disguise was pretty good by now. It ought to be. She had been perfecting it for well over a year.
“Gr-phmph pltith,” Gillian murmured.
When she first started pulling these charades, the Niss Machine used to translate her Anglic questions into Thennanin. But now Gillian figured she was probably as fluent in that Galactic dialect as any human alive. Probably even Tom.
It still sounds weird though. Kind of like a toddler making disgusting fart imitations for the fun of it.
At times, the hardest part was struggling not to break out laughing. That would not do, of course. Thennanin weren’t noted for their sense of humor.
She continued the ritual greeting.
“Fhishmishingul parfful, mph!”
Chill haze pervaded the dim chamber, emanating from a sunken area where a beige-colored cube squatted, creating its own wan illumination. Gillian could not help thinking of it as a magical box — a receptacle folded in many dimensions, containing far more than any vessel its size should rightfully hold.
She stood at a lipless balcony, masked to resemble the former owners of the box, awaiting a reply. The barredspiral symbol on its face seemed slippery to the eye, as if the emblem were slyly looking back at her with a soul far older than her own.
“Toftorph-ph parfful Fhishfingtumpti parff-ful.”
The voice was deeply resonant. If she had been a real Thennanin, those undertones would have stroked her ridge crest, provoking respectful attentiveness. Back home, the Branch Library of Earth spoke like a kindly human grandmother, infinitely experienced, patient, and wise.
“I am prepared to witness,” murmured a button in her ear, rendering the machine’s words in Anglic. “Then I will be available for consultation.”
That was the perpetual trade-off. Gillian could not simply demand information from the archive. She had to give as well.
Normally, that would pose no problem. Any Library unit assigned to a major ship of space was provided camera views of the control room and the vessel’s exterior, in order to keep a WOM record for posterity. In return, the archive offered rapid access to wisdom spanning almost two billion years of civilization, condensed from planet-scale archives of the Library Institute of the Civilization of Five Galaxies.
Only there’s a rub, Gillian thought.
Streaker was not a “major ship of space.” Her own WOM units were solid, cheap, unresponsive — the only kind that impoverished Earth could afford. This lavish cube was a far greater treasure, salvaged on Kithrup from a mighty war cruiser of a rich starfaring clan.
She wanted the cube to continue thinking it was on that cruiser, serving a Thennanin admiral. Hence this disguise.
“Your direct watcher pickups are still disabled,” she explained, using the same dialect. “However, I have brought more recent images, taken by portable recording devices. Please accept-and-receive this data now.”
She signaled the Niss Machine, her clever robotic assistant in the next room. At once there appeared next to the cube a series of vivid scenes. Pictures of the suboceanic trench that local Jijoans called the “Midden”—carefully edited to leave out certain things.
We’re playing a dangerous game, she thought, as flickering holosims showed huge mounds of ancient debris, discarded cities, and abandoned spacecraft. The idea was to pretend that the Thennanin dreadnought Krondor’s Fire was hiding for tactical reasons in this realm of dead machines … and to do this without showing Streaker’s own slender hull, or any sign of dolphins, or even revealing the specific name and locale of this planet.
If we make it home, or to a neutral Institute base, we’ll be legally bound to hand over this unit. Even under anonymous seal, it would be safest for it to know as little as we can get away with telling.
Anyway, the Library might not prove as cooperative to mere Earthlings. Better to keep it thinking it was dealing with its official lease-holders.
Ever since the disaster at Oakka, Gillian had made this her chief personal project, pulling off a hoax in order to pry data out of their prize. In many ways, the Library cube was more valuable than the relics Streaker had snatched from the Shallow Cluster.
In fact, the subterfuge had worked better than expected. Some of the information won so far might prove critically useful to the Terragens Council.
Assuming we ever make it home again …
Ever since Kithrup, when Streaker lost the best and brightest of her crew, that had always seemed a long shot, at best.
In one particular area of technology, twenty-second-century humans had already nearly equaled Galactic skill levels, even before contact.
Holographic imagery.
Special-effects wizards from Hollywood, Luanda, and Aristarchus were among the first to dive confidently into alien arts, undismayed by anything as trivial as a billion-year head start. Within mere decades Earthlings could say they had mastered a single narrow field as well as the best starfaring clans—
Virtuosity at lying with pictures.
For thousands of years, when we weren’t scratching for food we were telling each other fables. Prevaricating. Propagandizing. Casting illusions. Making movies.
Lacking science, our ancestors fell back on magic.
The persuasive telling of untruths.
Still it seemed a wonder to Gillian that her Thennanin disguise worked so well. Clearly the “intelligence” of this unit, while awesome, was of a completely different kind than hers, with its own limitations.
Or else maybe it simply doesn’t care.
From experience, Gillian knew the Library cube would accept almost anything as input, as long as the show consisted of credible scenes it had never witnessed before. So Jijo’s abyss flashed before it — this time the panoramas came over fiber cable from the western sea, sent by Kaa’s team of explorers, near the settled region called the Slope. Ancient buildings gaped — drowned, eyeless, and windowless — under the scrutiny of probing searchlight beams. If anything, this waste field was even greater than the one where Streaker took refuge. The accumulated mass of made-things collected by a planetary culture for a million years.
Finally, the cascade of images ceased.
There followed a brief pause while Gillian waited edgily. Then the beige box commented.
“The event stream remains disjointed from previous ones. Occurrences do not take place in causal-temporal order related to inertial movements of this vessel. Is this effect a result of the aforementioned battle damage?”
Gillian had heard the same complaint — the very same words, in fact — ever since she began this ruse, shortly after Tom brought the captured prize aboard Streaker … only days before he flew away to vanish from her life.
In response, she gave the same bluff as always.
“That is correct. Until repairs are completed, penalties for any discrepancies may be assessed to the Krondor’s Fire mission account. Now please prepare for consultation.”
This time there was no delay.
“Proceed with your request.”
Using a transmitter in her left hand, Gillian signaled to the Niss Machine, waiting in another room. The Tymbrimi spy entity at once began sending data requisitions, a rush of flickering light that no organic being could hope to follow. Soon the info flow went bidirectional — a torrential response that forced Gillian to avert her eyes. Perhaps, amid that flood, there might be some data helpful to Streaker’s crew, increasing their chances of survival.
Gillian’s heart beat faster. This moment had its own dangers. If a starship happened to be scanning nearby — perhaps one of Streaker’s pursuers — onboard cognizance detectors might pick up a high level of digital activity in this area.
But Jijo’s ocean provided a lot of cover, as did the surrounding mountain of discarded starships. Anyway, the risk seemed worthwhile.
If only so much of the information offered by the cube weren’t confusing! A lot of it was clearly meant for starfarers with far more experience and sophistication than the Streaker crew.
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Worse, we’re running out of interesting things to show the Library. Without fresh input, it might withdraw. Refuse to cooperate at all.
That was one reason she decided yesterday to let the four native kids come into this misty chamber and visit the archive. Since Alvin and his friends didn’t yet know they were aboard an Earthling vessel, there wasn’t much they could give away, and the effect on the Library unit might prove worthwhile.
Sure enough, the cube seemed bemused by the unique sight of an urs and hoon, standing amicably together. And the existence of a living g’Kek was enough, all by itself, to satisfy the archive’s passive curiosity. Soon afterward, it willingly unleashed a flood of requested information about the varied types of discarded spaceships surrounding Streaker in this underwater trash heap, including parameters used by ancient Buyur control panels.
That was helpful. But we need more. A lot more.
I guess it won’t be long until I’m forced to pay with real secrets.
Gillian had some good ones she could use … if she dared. In her office, just a few doors down, lay a mummified cadaver well over a billion years old.
Herbie.
To get hold of that relic — and the coordinates where it came from — most of the fanatic, pseudo-religious alliances in the Five Galaxies had been hunting Streaker since before Kithrup.
Pondering the chill beige cube, she thought—
I’ll bet if I showed you one glimpse of ol’ Herb, you’d have a seizure and spill every datum you’ve got stored inside.
Funny thing is … nothing would make me happier in all the universe than if we’d never seen the damned thing.
As a girl, Gillian had dreamed of star travel, and someday doing bold, memorable things. Together, she and Tom had planned their careers — and marriage — with a single goal in mind. To put themselves at the very edge, standing between Earth and the enigmas of a dangerous cosmos.
Recalling that naive ambition, and how extravagantly it was fulfilled, Gillian very nearly laughed aloud. But with pressed lips she managed to keep the bitter, poignant irony bottled inside, without uttering a sound.
For the time being, she must maintain the dignified presence of a Thennanin admiral.
Thennanin did not appreciate irony. And they never laughed.
Sooners
Ewasx
YOU MIGHT AS WELL GET USED TO IT, MY RINGS.
The piercing sensations you feel are My fibrils of control, creeping down our shared inner core, bypassing the slow, old-fashioned, waxy trails, attaching and penetrating your many toroid bodies, bringing them into new order.
Now begins the lesson, when I teach you to be docile servants of something greater than yourselves. No longer a stack of ill-wed components, always quarreling, paralyzed with indecision. No more endless voting over what beliefs shall be held by a fragile, tentative i.
That was the way of our crude ancestor stacks, meditating loose, confederated thoughts in the odor-rich marshes of Jophekka World. Overlooked by other star clans, we seemed unpromising material for uplift. But the great, sluglike Poa saw potential in our pensive precursors, and began upraising those unlikely mounds.
Alas, after a million years, the Poa grew frustrated with our languid traeki natures.
“Design new rings for our clients,” they beseeched the clever Oailie, “to boost, guide, and drive them onward.”
The Oailie did not fail, so great was their mastery of genetic arts.
WHAT WAS THEIR TRANSFORMING GIFT?
New, ambitious rings.
Master rings.
LIKE ME.
Alvin
THIS IS A TEST. I’M TRYING OUT A BURNISH-NEW WAY of writing.
If you call this “writing”—where I talk out loud and watch sentences appear in midair above a little box I’ve been given.
Oh, it’s uttergloss all right. Last night, Huck used her new autoscribe to fill a room with words and glyphs in Gal-Three, GalEight, and every obscure dialect she knew, ordering translations back and forth until it seemed she was crowded on all sides by glowing symbols.
Our hosts gave us the machines to help tell our life stories, especially how the Six Races live together on the Slope. In return, the spinning voice promised a reward. Later, we’ll get to ask questions of the big chilly box.
Huck went delirious over the offer. Free access to a memory unit of the Great Library of the Five Galaxies! Why, it’s like telling Cortes he could have a map to the Lost Cities of Gold, or when the legendary hoonish hero Yuqwourphmin found a password to control the robot factories of Kurturn. My own nicknamesake couldn’t have felt more awe, not even when the secrets of Vanamonde and the Mad Mind were revealed in all their fearsome glory.
Unlike Huck, though, I view the prospect with dark worry. Like a detective in some old-time Earth storybook, I gotta ask—where’s the catch?
Will they break their promise, once we’ve shared all we know?
Maybe they’ll fake the answers. (How could we tell?)
Or perhaps they’ll let us talk to the cube all we want, because they figure the knowledge won’t do us any good, since we’re never going home again.
On the other hand, let’s say it’s all open and sincere. Say we do get a chance to pose questions to the Library unit, that storehouse of wisdom collected by a billion-year-old civilization.
What on Jijo could we possibly have to say?
I’ve just spent a midura experimenting. Dictating text. Backing up and rewriting. The autoscribe sure is a lot more flexible than scratching away with a pencil and a ball of guarru gum for an eraser! Hand motions move chunks of text like solid objects. I don’t even have to speak aloud, but simply will the words, like that little tickle when you mutter under your breath so’s no one else can hear. I know it’s not true mind reading — the machine must be sensing muscle changes in my throat or something. I read about such things in The Black Jack Era and Luna City Hobo. But it’s unnerving anyway.
Like when I asked to see the little machine’s dictionary of Anglic synonyms! I always figured I had a good vocabulary, from memorizing the town’s copy of Roget’s Thesaurus! But it turns out that volume left out most of the Hindi and Arabic cognate grafts onto the English-Eurasian root-stock. This tiny box holds enough words to keep Huck and me humble … or me, at least.
My pals are in nearby rooms, reciting their own memoirs. I expect Huck will rattle off something fast-paced, lurid, and carelessly brilliant to satisfy our hosts. Ur-ronn will be meticulous and dry, while Pincer will get distracted telling breathless stories about sea monsters. I have a head start because my journal already holds the greater part of our personal story — how we four adventurers got to this place of weirdly curved corridors, far beneath the waves.
So I have time to worry about why the phuvnthus want to know about us.
It could just be curiosity. On the other hand, what if something we say here eventually winds up hurting our kinfolk, back on the Slope? I can hardly picture how. I mean, it’s not like we know any military secrets — except about the urrish cache that Uriel the Smith sent us underwater to retrieve. But the spinning voice already knows about that.
In my cheerier moments I envision the phuvnthus letting us take the treasure back, taking us home to Wuphon in their metal whale, so we seem to rise from the dead like the fabled crew of the Hukuph-tau … much to the surprise of Uriel, Urdonnol, and our parents, who must have given us up for lost.
Optimistic fantasies alternate with other scenes I can’t get out of my head, like something that happened right after the whale sub snatched Wuphon’s Dream out of its death plunge. I have this hazy picture of bug-eyed spiderthings stomping through the wreckage of our handmade vessel, jabbering weird ratchety speech, then jumping back in mortal terror at the sight of Ziz, the harmless little traeki five-stack given us by Tyug the Alchemist.
Streams of fire blasted poor Ziz to bits.
You got to wonder what anyone would go and do a mean thing like that for.
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br /> I might as well get to work.
How to begin my story?
Call me Alvin.…
No. Too hackneyed. How about this opening?
Alvin Hph-wayuo woke up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant …
Uh-uh. That’s hitting too close to home.
Maybe I should model my tale after 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Here we are, castaways being held as cordial prisoners in an underwater world. Despite being female, Huck would insist she’s the heroic Ned Land character. Urronn would be Professor Aronnax, of course, which leaves either Pincer or me to be the comic fall guy, Conseil.
So when are we going to finally meet Nemo?
Hmm. That’s a disadvantage of this kind of writing, so effortless and easily corrected. It encourages running off at the mouth, when good old pencil and paper meant you had to actually think in advance what you were going to sa—
Wait a minute. What was that?
There it goes again. A faint booming sound … only louder this time. Closer.
I don’t think I like it. Not at all.
…
Ifni! This time it set the floor quivering.
The rumble reminds me of Guenn Volcano back home, belchin’ and groanin’, making everybody in Wuphon wonder if it’s the long-awaited Big O—
Jeekee sac-rot! No fooling this time.
Those are explosions, getting close fast!
Now comes another noise, like a zookir screeching its head off ’cause it sat on a quill lizard.
Is that the sound a siren makes? I always wondered—
Gishtuphwayo! Now the lights go dim. The floor jitters—
What is Ifni-slucking going on!
Dwer
THE VIEW FROM THE HIGHEST DUNE WASN’T PROMISING.
The Danik scout craft was at least five or six leagues out to sea, a tiny dot, barely visible beyond a distinct line where the water’s hue changed from pale bluish green to almost black. The flying machine cruised back and forth, as if searching for something it had misplaced. Only rarely, when the wind shifted, did they catch the faint rumble of its engines, but every forty or so duras Dwer glimpsed something specklike tumble from the belly of the sleek boat, glinting in the morning sun before it struck the sea. Ten more duras would pass after the object sank — then the ocean’s surface bulged with a hummock of roiling foam, as if an immense monster suffered dying spasms far below.