Isak said, “That suggests the web couldn't give them what they wanted. It provided access to the cosmos, but not to the mystery behind its existence, and became a useless possession.”
Yerik laughed in the darkness. “I can't believe that with all this they couldn't get to the bottom of things and just died away.”
Juan looked at him as the golden glow lit up the dome. “Imagine the frustration of accumulating endless details about the universe without learning the basic why of it.”
“Are you suggesting,” Dita said, “that they became despondent over the failure of their science and committed suicide?”
Juan turned toward the brown-eyed woman. “Magnus had ideas that might be more plausible,” he said, realizing too late that he was thinking of discussions with the other Magnus, and glanced at him apologetically.
“Do go on,” Magnus said. “What did I say?”
“You speculated that they might have gone forward in time by circling black holes and slowing their bioclocks, hoping to find the truth of the universe in those extreme conditions at the end of time. Or they might have escaped our universe through black holes.”
“We have to see a lot more,” Isak said, “before we can even begin to guess.”
“So much may be ours to learn,” Dita added.
“It may be beyond us,” Juan said. “I sometimes feel that something better than a human being is needed to benefit from this alien technology.”
“If we don't try to understand it,” Dita said, “then we'll certainly fail.”
“I agree,” Isak added. “We must take an enterprising attitude.”
Yerik said, “First they built their costly relativistic ships, and reached nearby stars by slowing time. Then they developed jump ships, and powered them with the energy of their sun, transmitted through the same jumpspace.” The red-haired man rubbed his chin. “And then they sent themselves through directly, leaving the ships for maintenance and establishment of new frame bridges. The energy for their web would last for as long as the universe existed, although a sun would be exhausted here and there. They certainly knew what to do with the energy of a star.”
“And they solved their material and medical needs,” Dita added. “What was left except to answer the ultimate questions? But if they failed at that, what would be left for them? You may be right, Juan.”
“Unless I'm only projecting human tendencies,” he said.
“They may still exist,” Magnus said, “living in web-linked habitats throughout the galaxies, carrying on their quests. We may never find them. They might have no use for natural worlds, or for travel. The web might simply be an earlier stage of their civilization, now abandoned.”
Juan nodded. “It's still probably their source of energy, but one which they don't have to tend, since the suncore stations seem to run themselves.”
“Perhaps they now use energy differently, without the suncore technology,” Dita added. “Perhaps, as suggested, their whole culture is now made up of a handful of individuals, carrying all their past within them.”
Isak said, “We have to see more of the web's connecting worlds. Something will reveal itself.” The plump man looked at Juan. “What about this mental contact that we've all experienced?”
“I don't know,” Juan replied. “It seemed that bits and pieces of personalities were crowding into our minds. At other moments it sounded as if people were talking about us behind our backs. Was it that way for you?”
“No,” Dita said. “We had headaches and felt uncomfortable. Did it happen again?”
“No,” Juan replied, “not even a hint, in any of us.”
“What do you think this place was for?” she asked.
“A staging area, maybe for the transfer of populations. The domes seem usable as living quarters, with built-in display and communications devices.”
“Were they preparing populations for new worlds?” she asked. “Why would they want to move large groups?”
“We're groping in the dark,” Isak said.
“I wonder what they were like,” Dita said.
“Oxygen breathers, humanoid, from the images we've seen, but we can't be sure we weren't making up the images ourselves. It's possible that we're all that's left of them.”
Dita looked surprised. “Are you serious?”
“Earth might have been colonized as part of these population transfers.”
“I'm not sure I would like that to be true,” Magnus said.
“Why else have a station in our sun, and three ships on Earth?” Juan asked.
Dita looked puzzled. “It would seem they abandoned us.”
Juan said, “Maybe the population transfers were part of an early project.”
“I have an idea,” Isak said, “that they left the ships and stations for us to learn from in time.”
They were silent for a few moments, gazing around the dome.
“There's nothing here,” Yerik said, “except for a floor, light, and ventilation, and old maps.”
* * *
The dwarf had set by the time they came out. Sand blew across the complex of domes, shaking the tree. The globular cluster burned overhead. A black dust storm was moving toward them from where the sun had set.
“Hurry!” Juan shouted over the wind, lowering the faceplate on his helmet. Roachlike insects scurried around his feet as he led the way toward the rise. Static flashes discharged in the approaching dust cloud. Fear slipped through him as he remembered how the alien presence had begun to pull memories at random from his mind.
Magnus steadied him as they scrambled up the rise and went over the top. The shuttle lay ahead, a giant beachball left behind on the shore of an alien sea, yellow-orange light streaming from the open lock.
They moved toward it against the rising wind. Lena and Malachi met them at the lock. Juan picked up the pack he had left to keep the lock open and followed his companions up the curving passage. The lock doors glowed shut, silencing the wind's howl.
Everyone was seated when he entered the small drum-shaped chamber. He stepped into the center circle, dropped his pack, and sat down on it.
“Find anything new?” Lena asked as the amber glow faded and the viewspace lit up overhead.
“Same as before,” he said as the planet fell away. In a moment it was a brown shrinking globe. The white dwarf appeared as the ship oriented itself and rushed at the star.
They watched as the burst of blue light marked the craft's shift into otherspace.
Gray light streamed into the small pit as the shuttle crept toward the suncore station. The black globe appeared, filling the viewspace. Once again Juan was struck by the magnitude of the power core's function: It drank the star's strength, shared it with far-flung ships, and kept the frames open. He watched as the equatorial lock opened and the guide beam reached out. The shuttle passed inside, seeking the mother ship.
* * *
The suncore missed a beat, alerting the child of the starcrossers that the star might become unstable. A quick search locked in the next attainable sunport.
As it prepared to depart, the child of the starcrossers received no directives from the colloidal minds within its field. Yet there was in them a persistent questioning impulse that demanded to be satisfied.
26. NOMADS OF KNOWLEDGE
Juan finished his second cup of coffee and looked around at his companions as they sat at the tables in the cafeteria near the drum-shaped chamber. Lena was withdrawn and nervous. Malachi looked dour as he played cards with Ivan, who seemed absorbed in the game; Dita stared absently at the two men. Yerik had complained of headaches, and had stayed behind when Isak and Magnus went out to explore chambers in the passage.
“Now I have a headache,” Lena said, rubbing her forehead. Juan felt a sudden pain behind his eyes, and wondered if something was trying to listen to his thoughts. “Dita, do you feel it, too?”
The brown-haired woman nodded. “Maybe it's the blue light in here. Makes the food look unappetizin
g, too.”
The entrance glowed. Isak and Magnus came through, panting a little. “The outside lock is closed,” Magnus said. “We failed to trigger it. Then we heard the departure sound.”
“I guess we're going for another ride,” Lena said.
Dita leaned forward at the table. “Strange,” she said, “no matter how far we go, we'll be only a step away from. . . Earth.”
Ivan looked at her uneasily, and Juan realized that she had avoided saying home.
* * *
Down in the drum-shaped chamber, they stepped into the circle and the amber glow faded. The massive black globe of the station was already far behind. There was a flash of blue and the dwarf star appeared in normal space.
“What happens now?” Dita asked.
Juan said, “The ship accelerates to a noticeable fraction of light speed within a few hours, then jumps to its destination, wherever that might be. We suspect that we're far from our own galaxy. The dwarf we're leaving is one of the old halo stars in this galaxy, which may be at the red limit of the universe in relation to Earth.”
“But the frames will bridge any distance,” Dita said.
“Presumably,” Juan answered. “We've seen nothing to the contrary.”
“I wonder,” Isak said, “how the web actually exists. While we experience displacements in probability, lapses of time between variants have been nil. Perhaps the web exists simultaneously—a permanent bridgespace—peace be to Einstein!”
“I wonder if it can be shut off?” Dita asked.
Isak chuckled. “I don't expect to find such a switch. Why would there be one?”
Juan gazed at the dwindling dwarf, which was already starting to red-shift. “We'll get some rest,” Lena said.
As they went to their packs, Juan noticed that Ivan was trembling.
* * *
Blue-white flashes woke Juan.
“We're jumping,” Magnus said softly.
“How many?”
“Two, so far.”
The silhouettes of his companions sat up around him and gazed upward. A yellow sun blazed suddenly in the view-space. It grew larger, filling the chamber with light. A black line crossed the star, then slowly broke up into disks. The star, Juan realized, was ringed by habitats.
“So many!” Dita exclaimed.
“This could be it,” Malachi said. “We'll meet the builders at last.”
The view flashed blue and became gray. Once again the destination star became a diffuse patch as the ship penetrated toward the core station.
* * *
The lock was open when they came up the passage. They emerged into a vast blue space. Juan gazed up through the electric brightness and imagined the seething star enveloping the ghost of the otherspace station.
Dita looked around. “Deserted, like the others.”
“We must explore,” Isak said. His blue eyes widened as he gazed at the expanse.
As they started across the seemingly endless amber floor, Juan realized that his own love for discovery had diminished. He stopped and looked back at the ship. Most of it lay below the floor, but the visible portion of the dome still rose at least a hundred meters into the station, turned on its axis to keep the lock level with the floor.
“Look!” Isak shouted.
Juan turned and caught up with his companions. They approached a half circle of frames facing the ship.
Malachi said, “These may be entranceways into the worlds we saw on the way in.”
“Of course!” Isak said. “But there can't be as many frames as worlds, which means that other connections probably exist in the worlds that can be entered. At least a million habitats fill the orbit we saw.”
“Will the ship leave without us if we go exploring?” Dita asked.
“It might,” Juan said, “and we'd lose our source of provisions and our only known link with home.”
“What home?” Ivan muttered suddenly. “I'll stay with the ship and catch up on my sleep.”
Juan said, “We should stay together.”
Ivan laughed. “Don't worry about me. I'm tired, and I don't care at this point if you all come back slightly different.”
“Juan's right,” Dita said.
Malachi asked, “Why introduce even more complications, Ivan? If the ship decides to leave, you might not be able to stop it anyway, even if you sit in the lock. Leaving a pack there may do just as well. We've never been certain.”
Isak asked, “Do we want to explore or hide out in the ship?” He pointed to one of the frames. “Think of what may be through there—alien humanities inhabiting these million worlds. What knowledge we might gain—alien logics and mathematics, systems of physics based on the perceptions of alien physiologies, chemistries of the impossible!”
Juan stepped close to Ivan and said, “I know how you feel, but if you stay here you'll risk being left alone. As soon as we step through one of those frames, the variant effect may put you in a probability in which we don't come back. We may return to a variant where you never came with us at all.”
“Or you'll come back with small changes,” Ivan said. “I don't much care. We've lost our world. There's no going back, ever, and maybe all the variants have destroyed themselves.”
“That's unlikely,” Juan said. “Are you coming?”
Ivan gave him a hopeless look, then nodded.
Juan said, “We'll take all our gear.”
* * *
They joined hands and approached the center frame. Juan tightened his hold on Lena's hand and stepped through into a dark tunnel.
His eyes adjusted, and he went forward toward what seemed a circle of white light. He came to the opening and stepped out onto a harshly lit surface, then let go of Lena's hand and moved aside as the others came out. Looking up, he saw that they were standing at the base of a tall white column. The surface curved away from it and shot upward in the distance.
“We're inside a hollow ball!” Isak exclaimed.
A dark blue globe hung in the center. It seemed very near. For a moment it seemed that it could crush them against the inner shell. Lines of light flickered across its cracked, dry surface.
“It seems trapped in this space,” Lena said nervously.
“It doesn't seem real,” Dita added.
Magnus asked, “Why is it here?”
“My guess,” Isak said, “is that this body was brought here to be taken apart, to be used as raw materials. You can see where large pieces have been cut away. Notice also that this surface we're on may be within Roche's limit, yet it's not breaking up from the gravitational stresses of that body. And we feel gravity, at least three quarters normal, I would say. I'll wager it's not centrifugal spin either, because if they can overcome Roche stress, they don't need simulated gravity. They generate a g-force directly, just as in the starship.”
“A very thin shell would not break up inside Roche's limit,” Juan replied, “so we might be feeling centrifugal acceleration.”
Isak took off his helmet and let go. It dropped straight down and hit the surface at his feet. “No obvious coriolis force, unless this place is very large. I'd say we're not spinning.”
“Who cares,” Ivan said.
They all stared at him, startled by the derision in his voice. Earth's destruction, Juan realized, had affected them all, in different ways, but Ivan could only see it in himself. His mouth trembled as Juan looked at him.
“We understand,” Lena said softly.
“Do you?” Ivan asked.
“We all feel,” Dita said, “but what can we do?”
“We'll try to go back,” Juan added, “but not yet.”
Ivan seemed to pull himself together “I'm sorry,” he managed to say.
Isak picked up his helmet and looked up at him. “Do you think I don't know this exploration is at least in part a distraction?'
“I'm sorry,” Ivan repeated. “We've all lost friends and relations. I will not give in to my feelings again.
Juan turned back towa
rd the tunnel. “Let's try another frame entrance.”
Isak chose the frame to the right of center and led the way through. Here the planet at the center of the shell was divided into four large pieces. A faint cloud of dust enveloped the shattered globe.
Isak said, “They must have stripped this whole solar system for this construction project. But why did they stop and leave it all like this?”
“Something came up,” Yerik said.
Isak stared into the brightly lit space. “What pride! What skill! How they must have raged against the tyranny of space-time, and set themselves to bend it to their will.”
“I would like to ask,” Ivan said, “what we can learn here?”
As Juan gazed up at the four fragments at the center of the shell, he imagined that they might have been intended as the materials for a series of diminishing shells within the large one, until all the space to the center was used up; and outside, just next door, was another in the long string of worlds filling the orbit around the star. He took a deep breath. Ivan was right. Awesome as it was, it all seemed for nothing. The air was breathable, if a bit thin, the surface had been prepared for development, but there was no one here.
Magnus shook his head. “It appears that one day they all just disappeared.”
“Let's try another,” Dita said.
* * *
The next space held a dozen asteroidlike bodies, all linked by what seemed to be green-glowing cables.
“Look there,” Isak said to Juan, pointing. “Structures, where the lines connect.”
Juan saw green nodes on the gray-brown bodies. “Over there!” Isak shouted, pointing into the brightness. Juan squinted and noticed a dark line reaching from the curving surface of the shell to one of the asteroids overhead.
“I see it,” Lena said.
Isak started toward the line. Ivan frowned, then followed him; Yerik, Magnus, and Malachi fell in behind him. Juan shifted his pack and started after with Lena.
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