Heaven's Reach u-6

by David Brin

  “Alas, several mighty coalitions interpreted Streaker’s initial beamcast as fulfillment of dire prophecy. They felt the news presaged a fateful time of commotion and upheaval, in which a decisive advantage would go to anyone monopolizing our discovery. Instead of celebratory welcome, Streaker returned from the Shallow Cluster to find battle fleets lying in wait, eager to secure our secrets before we reached neutral ground. Several times, we were cornered, and escaped only because hordes of fanatics fought savagely among themselves over the right of capture.

  “Alas, that compensation seems lacking in our present situation.”

  That was an understatement. The Jophur could pursue Streaker at leisure, without threat of interference. As far as the rest of civilization was concerned, this whole region was empty and off-limits.

  “Was poor Emerson wounded in one of those earlier space battles?”

  Sara felt concern for her friend, the silent star voyager, whose cryptic injuries she had treated in her treehouse, before taking him on an epic journey across Jijo, to be reunited with his crewmates.

  “No. Engineer D’Anite was captured by members of the Retired Caste, at a place we call the Fractal World. That event—”

  The blue blob halted its twisting gyration. Hesitating a few seconds, it trembled before resuming.

  “The detection officer reports something new! A phenomenon heretofore masked by the flames of Izmunuti.”

  The display rippled. Abruptly, swarms of orange pinpoints sparkled amid the filaments and stormy prominences of Izmunuti’s roiling atmosphere.

  Sara leaned forward. “What are they?”

  “Condensed objects.

  “Artificial, self-propelled spacial motiles.

  “In other words, starships.”

  Sara’s jaw opened and closed twice before she could manage speech.

  “Ifni, there must be hundreds! How could we have overlooked them before?”

  The Niss answered defensively.

  “Oh, great Sage, one normally does not send probing beams through a red giant’s flaming corona in search of spacecraft. Our attention was turned elsewhere. Besides, these vessels only began using gravitic engines moments ago, applying gravi-temporal force to escape the new solar storms.”

  Sara stared in amazement. Hope whirled madly.

  “These ships, could they help us?”

  Again, the Niss paused, consulting remote instruments.

  “It seems doubtful, oh, Sage. They will scarcely care about our struggles. These beings belong to another order on the pyramid of life, completely apart from yours … though one might call them distant cousins of mine.”

  Sara shook her head, at first confused. Then she cried out.

  “Machines!”

  Even Jijo’s fallen castaways could recite the Eight Orders of Sapience, with oxygen-based life being only one of the most flamboyant. Among the other orders, Jijo’s sacred scrolls spoke darkly of synthetic beings, coldly cryptic, who designed and built each other in the farthest depths of space, needing no ground to stand on or wind to breathe.

  “Indeed. Their presence here surely involves matters beyond our concern. Most likely, the mechanoids will avoid contact with us out of prudent caution.”

  The voice paused.

  “Fresh data is coming in. It seems that the flotilla is having a hard time with those new tempests. Some mechaniforms may be more needy of rescue than we are.”

  Sara pointed at one of the orange dots.

  “Show me!”

  Using data from long-range scans, the display unit swooped giddily inward. Swirling stellar filaments seemed to heave around Sara as her point of view plunged toward the chosen speck — one of the mechanoid vessels — which began taking form against a backdrop of irate gas.

  Stretching the limits of magnification, the blurry enhancement showed a glimmering trapezoidal shape, almost mirrorlike, that glancingly reflected solar fire. The mechanoid’s outline grew slimmer as it turned to flee a plume of hot ions, fast rising toward it from Izmunuti’s whipped convection zones. The display software compensated for perspective as columns of numbers estimated the vessel’s actual measurements — a square whose edges were hundreds of kilometers in length, with a third dimension that was vanishingly small.

  Space seemed to ripple just beneath the mechaniform vessel. Though still inexperienced, Sara recognized the characteristic warping effects of a gravi-temporal field. A modest one, according to the display. Perhaps sufficient for interplanetary speeds, but not to escape the devastation climbing toward it. She could only watch with helpless sympathy as the mechanoid struggled in vain.

  The first shock wave ripped the filmy object in half … then into shreds that raveled quickly, becoming a swarm of bright, dissolving streamers.

  “This is not the only victim. Observe, as fate catches up with other stragglers.”

  The display returned to its former scale. As Sara watched, several additional orange glitters were overwhelmed by waves of accelerating dense plasma. Others continued climbing, fighting to escape the maelstrom.

  “Whoever they are, I hope they get away,” Sara murmured.

  How strange it seemed that machine-vessels would be less sturdy than Streaker, whose protective fields could stand full immersion for several miduras in the red star’s chromosphere, storm or no storm.

  If they can’t take on a plasma surge, they’d be useless against Jophur weapons.

  Disappointment tasted bitter after briefly raised hope. Clearly, no rescue would come from that direction.

  Sara perceived a pattern to her trials and adventures during the last year — swept away from her dusty study to encounter aliens, fight battles, ride fabled horses, submerge into the sea, and then join a wild flight aboard a starship. The universe seemed bent on revealing wonders at the edge of her grasp or imagining — giant stars, transfer points, talking computers, universal libraries … and now glimpses of a different life order. A mysterious phylum, totally apart from the vast, encompassing Civilization of Five Galaxies.

  Such marvels lay far beyond her old life as a savage intellectual on a rustic world.

  And yet, a glimpse was clearly all the cosmos planned to give her.

  Go ahead and look, it seemed to say. But you can’t touch.

  For you, time has almost run out.

  Saddened, Sara watched orange pinpoints flee desperately before tornadoes of stellar heat. More laggards were swept up by the rising storm, their frail light quenched like drowned embers.

  Gillian and the dolphins seem sure we can stand a brief passage through that hell. But the vanishing sparks made Sara’s confidence waver. After all, weren’t machines supposed to be stronger than mere flesh?

  She was about to ask the Niss about it when, before her eyes, the holo display abruptly changed once more. Izmunuti flickered, and when the image reformed, something new had come into view. Below the retreating orange glimmers, there now appeared three sparkling forms, rising with complacent grace, shining a distinct shade of imperial purple as they emerged from the flames toward Streaker’s path.

  “What now?” she asked. “More mechanoids?”

  “No,” the Niss answered in a tone that seemed almost awed. “These appear to be something else entirely. I believe they are …” The computer’s hologram deformed into jagged shapes, like nervous icicles. “I believe they are Zang.”

  Sara’s skin crawled. That name was fraught with fear and legend. On Jijo, it was never spoken above a whisper. “But … how … what could they be doing …?”

  Before she finished her question, the Niss spoke again.

  “Excuse me for interrupting, Sara. Our acting captain, Dr. Gillian Baskin, has called an urgent meeting of the ship’s council to consider these developments. You are invited to attend.

  “Do you wish me to make excuses on your behalf?”

  Sara was already hurrying toward the exit.

  “Don’t you dare!” she cried over one shoulder as the door folded aside to le
t her pass.

  The hallway beyond curved up and away in both directions, like a segment of tortured spacetime, rising toward vertical in the distance. The sight always gave Sara qualms. Nevertheless, this time she ran.

  Gillian

  FOR SOME REASON, THE TUMULTUOUS RED STAR reminded her of Venus.

  Naturally, that brought Tom to mind.

  Everything reminded Gillian of Tom. After two years, his absence was still a wound that left her reflexively turning for his warmth each night. By day, she kept expecting his strong voice, offering to help take on the worries. All the damned decisions.

  Isn’t it just like a hero, to die saving the world?

  A little voice pointed out — that’s what heroes are for.

  Yes, she answered. But the world goes on, doesn’t it? And it keeps needing to be saved.

  Ever since the universe sundered them apart at Kithrup, Gillian told herself that Tom couldn’t be dead. I’d know it, she would think repeatedly, convincing herself by force of will. Across galaxies and megaparsecs, I could tell if he were gone. Tom must be out there somewhere still, with Creideiki and Hikahi and the others we were forced to leave behind.

  He’ll find a way to get safely home … or else back to me.

  That certainty helped Gillian bear her burdens during Streaker’s first distraught fugitive year … until the last few months of steady crisis finally cracked her assurance.

  Then, without realizing when it happened, she began thinking of Tom in the past tense.

  He loved Venus, she pondered, watching the raging solar vista beyond Streaker’s hull. Of course Izmunuti’s atmosphere was bright, while Earth’s sister world was dim beneath perpetual acid clouds. Yet, both locales shared essential traits. Harsh warmth, unforgiving storms, and scant moisture.

  Both provoked extremes of hope and despair.

  She could see him now, spreading both spacesuited arms to encompass the panorama below Aphrodite Pinnacle, gesturing toward stark lowlands. Lightning danced about a phalanx of titanic structures that stretched to a warped horizon — one shadowy behemoth after another — vast new devices freshly engaged in the labor of changing Venus. Transforming hell, one step at a time.

  “Isn’t it tremendous?” Tom asked. “This endeavor proves that our species is capable of thinking long thoughts.”

  Even with borrowed Galactic technology, the task would take more time to complete than humans had known writing or agriculture. Ten thousand years must pass before seas rolled across the sere plains. It was a bold project for poor wolflings to engage in, especially when Sa’ent and Kloornap bookies gave Earthclan slim odds of surviving more than another century or two.

  “We have to show the universe that we trust ourselves,” Tom added. “Or else who will believe in us?”

  His words sounded fine. Noble and grand. At the time, Tom almost convinced Gillian.

  Only things changed.

  Half a year ago, during Streaker’s brief, terrified refuge at the Fractal World, Gillian had managed to pick up rumors about the Siege of Terra, taking place in faraway Galaxy Two. Apparently, the Sa’ent touts were now taking bets on human extinction in mere years or jaduras, not centuries.

  In retrospect, the Venus terraforming project seemed moot.

  We’d have been better off as farmers, Tom and I. Or teaching school. Or helping settle Calafia. We should never have listened to Jake Demwa and Creideiki. This mission has brought ruin on everyone it touched.

  Including the poor colonists of Jijo — six exile races who deserved a chance to find their own strange destinies undisturbed. In seeking shelter on that forbidden world, Streaker only brought disaster to Jijo’s tribes.

  There seemed one way to redress the harm.

  Can we lure the Jophur after us into the new transfer point? Kaa must pilot a convincing trajectory, as if he can sense a perfect thread to latch on to. A miracle path leading toward safety. If we do it right, the big ugly saprings will have to follow! They’ll have no choice.

  Saving Jijo justified that option, since there seemed no way to bring Streaker’s cargo safely home to Earth. Another reason tasted acrid, vengeful.

  At least we’ll take enemies with us.

  Some say that impending death clarifies the mind, but in Gillian it only stirred regret.

  I hope Creideiki and Tom aren’t too disappointed in me, she pondered at the door of the conference room.

  I did my best.

  The ship’s council had changed since Gillian reluctantly took over the captain’s position, where Creideiki presided in happier times. At the far end of the long table, Streaker’s last surviving dolphin officer, Lieutenant Tsh’t, expertly piloted a six-legged walker apparatus carrying her sleek gray form into the same niche where Takkata-Jim once nestled his great bulk, before he was killed near Kithrup.

  Tsh’t greeted the human chief engineer, though Hannes Suessi’s own mother wouldn’t recognize him now, with so many body parts replaced by cyborg components, and a silver dome where his head used to be. Much of that gleaming surface was now covered with pre-Contact-era motorcycle decals — an irreverent touch that endeared Hannes to the crew. At least someone had kept a sense of humor through years of relentless crisis.

  Gillian felt acutely the absence of one council member, her friend and fellow physician Makanee, who remained behind on Jijo with several dozen dolphins — those suffering from devolution fever or who were unessential for the breakout attempt. In effect, dolphins had established a seventh illegal colony on that fallow world — another secret worth defending with the lives of those left aboard.

  Secrets. There are other enigmas, less easily protected.

  Gillian’s thoughts slipped past the salvaged objects in her office, some of them worth a stellar ransom. Mere hints at their existence had already knocked civilization teetering across five galaxies.

  Foremost was a corpse, nicknamed Herbie. An alien cadaver so ancient, its puzzling smile might be from a joke told a billion years ago. Other relics were scarcely less provocative — or cursed. Trouble had followed Streaker ever since its crew began picking up objects they didn’t understand.

  “Articles of Destiny.” That was how one of the Old Ones referred to Streaker’s cargo of mysteries when they visited the Fractal World.

  Maybe this will be fitting. All those irksome treasures will get smashed down to a proton’s width after we dive into the new transfer point.

  At least then she’d get the satisfaction of seeing Herbie’s expression finally change, at the last instant, when the bounds of reality closed in rapidly from ten dimensions.

  A holo of Izmunuti took up one wall of the conference room, an expanse of swirling clouds wider than Earth’s orbit, surging and shifting as the Niss Machine relayed the latest intelligence in Tymbrimi-accented Galactic Seven.

  “The Jophur battleship has jettisoned the last of the decoy vessels it seized, letting them drift through space. Freed of their momentum-burden, the Polkjhy is more agile, turning its frightful bulk toward the new transfer point. They aim to reach the reborn nexus before Streaker does.”

  “Can they beat us there?” Gillian asked in Anglic.

  The Niss hologram whirled thoughtfully. “It seems unlikely, unless they use some risky type of probability drive, which is not typical of Jophur. They wasted a lot of time dashing ahead toward the older t-point. Our tight swing past Izmunuti should help Streaker to arrive first … for whatever good it will do.”

  Gillian ignored the machine’s sarcasm. Most of the crew seemed in accord with her decision. Lacking other options, death was more bearable if you took an enemy with you.

  The Jophur situation appeared stable, so she changed the subject. “What can you report about the other ships?”

  “The two mysterious flotillas we recently detected in Izmunuti’s atmosphere? After consulting tactical archives, I conclude they must have been operating jointly. Nothing else could explain their close proximity, fleeing together to escape unexpected pla
sma storms.”

  Hannes Suessi objected, his voice wavering low and raspy from the silver dome.

  “Mechanoids and hydrogen breathers cooperating? That sounds odd.”

  The whirling blob made a gesture like a nod. “Indeed. The various orders of life seldom interact. But according to our captured Library unit, it does happen, especially when some vital project requires the talents of two or more orders, working together.”

  The newest council member whistled for attention. Kaa, the chief pilot, did not ride a walker, since he might have to speed back to duty any moment. The young dolphin commented from a fluid-filled tunnel that passed along a wall near one side of the table.

  Can any purpose

  Under tide-pulled moons explain

  Such anomalies?

  For emphasis, Kaa slashed his tail flukes through water that fizzed with bubbles. Gillian translated the popping whistle-poem for Sara Koolhan, who had never learned Trinary.

  “Kaa asks what project could be worth the trouble and danger of diving into a star.”

  Sara replied with an eager nod. “I may have a partial answer.” The young Jijoan stroked a black cube in front of her — the personal algorithmic engine Gillian had lent her when she came aboard.

  “Ever since we first spotted these strange ships, I’ve wondered what trait of Izmunuti might attract folks here from some distant system. For instance, my own ancestors. After passing through the regular t-point, they took a path through this giant star’s outer atmosphere. All the sneakships of Jijo used the same method to cover their tracks.”

  We thought of it too, Gillian pondered, unhappily. But I must have done something wrong, since the Rothen were able to follow us, betraying our hiding place and the Six Races.

  Gillian noticed Lieutenant Tsh’t was looking at her. With reproach for getting Streaker into this fix? The dolphin’s eye remained fixed for a long, appraising moment, then turned away as Sara continued.