by David Brin
Great. All I need is partial blindness in a place where reality literally can sneak up on you and bite.
It should be a short march to where he last saw the Avenue. Awkwardly at first, Harry accelerated his station across the plain of fluffy growths, all bent and twined like tangled grass. These “plants” didn’t wave in a breeze, like the saw-weed of Horst. Still, they reminded him somehow of that endless steppe where dusty skies flared each dawn like a diffuse torch, painful to the eyes. The sort of country his ancestors had sniffed at disdainfully before returning to the trees, ages ago on Earth. Sensibly, they left scorching skies and cutting grass to their idiot cousins — primates who lacked even the good sense to escape the noonday sun, and later went on to become humans.
According to the Great Library, Horst had been a pleasant world once, with a rich, diverse ecosystem. But millennia ago — before Earthlings developed their own starships and stumbled on Galactic culture — something terrible had happened to quite a few planets in Tanith Sector. By the ancient Code of the Progenitors, natural ecosystems were sacrosanct, but the Civilization of Five Galaxies suffered lapses now and then. In the Fututhoon Episode, hundreds of worlds were ravaged by shortsighted colonization, leaving them barren wildernesses.
Predictably, there followed a reactionary swing toward manic zealotry. Different factions cast blame, demanding a return to the true path of the Progenitors.
But which true path? Several billion years would age the best-kept records. Noise crept in over the aeons, until little remained from the near mythical race that started it all. Speculation substituted for fact, dogma for evidence. Moderates struggled to soothe hostility among fanatical alliances whose overreaction to the Fututhoon chaos now promised a different kind of catastrophe.
Into this delicate situation Earthlings appeared, at first offering both distraction and comic relief with their wolfling antics. Ignorant, lacking social graces, humans and their clients irked some great star clans just by existing. Moreover, having uplifted chimpanzees and dolphins before Contact, humans had to be classified as “patrons,” with the right to lease colonies, jumping ahead of many older species.
“Let them prove themselves first on catastrophe planets,” went the consensus. If Earthlings showed competence at reviving sick biospheres, they might win better worlds later. So humans and their clients labored on Atlast, Garth, and even poor Horst, earning grudging respect as planet managers.
But there were costs.
A desert world can change you, Harry thought, recalling Horst and feeling abruptly sad for some reason. He went down to the galley, fixed a meal, and brought it back to the observation deck, eating slowly as the endless expanse of twisted, fuzzy tubes rolled by, still pondering that eerie sense of familiarity.
His thoughts drifted back to Kazzkark, where a tall proselyte accosted him with strange heresies. The weird Skiano with a parrot on its shoulder, who spoke of Earth as a sacred place — whose suffering offered salvation to the universe.
“Don’t you see the parallels? Just as Jesus and Ali and Reverend Feng had to he martyred in order for human souls to he saved, so the sins of all oxygen-breathing life-forms can only be washed clean by sacrificing something precious, innocent, and unique. That would be your own homeworld, my dear chimpanzee brother!”
It seemed a dubious honor, and Harry had said so, while eyeing possible escape routes through the crowd. But the Skiano seemed relentless, pushing its vodor apparatus, so each meaningful flash of its expressive eyes sent a translation booming in Harry’s face.
“For too long sapient beings have been transfixed by the past — by the legend of the Progenitors! — a mythology that offers deliverance to species, but nothing for the individual! Each race measures its progress along the ladder of Uplift — from client to patron, and then through noble retirement into the tender Embrace of Tides. But along the way, how many trillions of lives are sacrificed? Each one unique and precious. Each the temporal manifestation of an immortal soul!”
Harry knew the creature’s eye twinkle was the natural manner of Skiano speech. But it lent eerie passion each time the vodor pealed a ringing phrase.
“Think about your homeworld, oh, noble chimpanzee brother! Humans are wolflings who reached sapience without Uplift. Isn’t that a form of virgin birth? Despite humble origins, did not Earthlings burst on the scene amid blazing excitement and controversy, seeing things that had remained unseen? Saying things that heretofore no one dared say?
“Do you Terrans suffer now for your uniqueness? For the message that streams from that lovely blue world, even as it faces imminent crucifixion? A message of hope for all living things?”
Even as a crowd of onlookers gathered, the Skiano’s arms had raised skyward.
“Fear not for your loved ones, oh, child of Earth.
“True, they face fire and ruin in days to come. But their sacrifice will bring a new dawn to all sapients — yea, even those of other life orders! The false idols that have been raised to honor mythical progenitors will be smashed. The Embrace of Tides will be exposed as a false lure. All hearts will turn at last to a true true faith, where obedience is owed.
“Toward numinous Heaven — abode of the one eternal and all-loving God.”
In response, the bright-feathered parrot flapped its wings and squawked “Amen!”
Many onlookers glowered upon hearing the Progenitors called “mythical.” Harry felt uncomfortable as the visible focus of the proselyte’s attention. If this kept up, there could be martyrs, all right! Only the august reputation of Skianos in general seemed to hold some of the crowd back.
In order to calm the situation, Harry wound up reluctantly accepting a mission from the Skiano, agreeing to be a message bearer … in the unlikely event that his next expedition brought him in contact with an angel of the Lord.
It was about an hour later — subjective ship time — that a blue M popped into place a little to his left.
“Monitor mode engaged, Captain Harms,” the slightly prissy voice announced. “I take pleasure to announce that the Avenue is coming into range. It can be observed through the forward quadrant.”
Harry stood up.
“Where? I don’t …”
Then he saw it, and exhaled a sigh. There, emerging out of the strange haziness, lay a shining ribbon of speckled light. The Avenue twisted across the foreground like a giant serpent, emerging from the murk on his left and vanishing in obscurity to his right. In a way, it reminded Harry of the undulating “sea monster” he had witnessed during his last survey trip, near the banana-peel mesa. Only that had been just a meme creature — little more than an extravagant idea, an embodied notion — while this was something else entirely.
The Avenue did not conform to the allaphorical rules of E Space.
Strictly speaking, it consisted of everything that was not E Space.
Because of that, cameras might perceive it. The tech people at NavInst had loaded his vessel with sensor packages to place at intervals along the shining tube, then retrieve later on his way back to base. Ideally, the data might help Wer’Q’quinn’s people foretell hyperspatial changes during the current crisis.
He pressed a button and felt a small tremor as the first package deployed.
Now, should he turn left, and start laying more instruments in that direction? Or right? There seemed no reason to choose one way over the other.
Well, he was still an officer of the law. Harry’s other job was to patrol E Space and watch for criminal activity.
“Computer, do you detect signs anybody’s been through this area lately?”
“I am scanning. Interlopers would have to travel alongside the Avenue in order to reach an intersection with Galaxy Four. Any large vessel piercing the tube, or even passing nearby, would leave ripple signs, whatever its allaphorical shape at the time.”
The platform nosed closer to the shining tube of brightness. Harry had glimpsed the Avenue many times while on patrol, but never this close. Here it ap
peared rather narrow, only about twice the height of the station itself. The tube shone with millions of tiny sparks, set amid a deep inner blackness.
The narrow, snakelike volume was filled with stars … and much more. Within that twisty cylinder lay the entire universe Harry knew — planets, suns, all five linked galaxies.
It was a topological oddity that might have looked, to its long-extinct first discoverers, like a wonderful way to get around relativity’s laws. All one needed was an intersection near the planetary system one was in, and another near one’s destination. The technique of entering and leaving E Space could be found in any Galactic Library branch.
But E Space was a world of unpredictability, metapsychological weirdness, and even representational absurdities. Keeping the Avenue in view until you came to some point near your destination could entail a long journey, or a very short one. Distances and relationships kept changing.
Assuming a traveler found a safe exit point, and handled transition well, he might emerge where he wanted to go. That is, if it turned out he ever left home in the first place! One reason most sophonts hated E Space was the screwy way causality worked there. You could cancel yourself out, if you weren’t careful. Observers like Harry found it irksome to return from a mission, only to learn they no longer existed, and never really had at all.
Harry didn’t much approve of E Space — an attitude NavInst surely measured in his profile. Yet, they must have had reasons to train him for this duty.
The platform began zigging and zagging alongside the Avenue, occasionally stopping to bend lower on its stilts, bringing instruments to bear like a dog sniffing at a spoor. Nursing patience, Harry watched strange nebulae drift past, within the nearby cylindrical continuum.
A bright yellow star appeared close to the nearby tube edge, against a black, star-flecked background. It looked almost close enough to touch as his vessel moved slowly past. I guess there’s a finite chance that’s Sol, with Earth floating nearby, a faint speck in the cosmos. The odds are only about a billion to one against.
At last, the station stopped. The slanted letter seemed to spin faster.
“I note the near passage of three separate ship wakes. The first came this way perhaps a year ago, and the second not long after, following its trail.”
“A pursuit?” This caught his interest. For the spoor to have lasted so long testified how little traveled this region was … and perhaps how desperate the travelers were, to pass this way.
“What about the third vessel?”
“That one is more recent. A matter of just a few subjective-duration days. And there is something else.”
Harry nervously grabbed his thumbs. “Yes?”
“From the wake, it seems this latter vessel belongs to the Machine Order of Life.”
Harry frowned.
“A machine? In E Space? But how could it navigate? Or even see where it …” He shook his head. “Which way did it go?”
“To the figurative left … the way we are now facing.”
Harry paced on the floor. His orders from Wer’Q’quinn were clear. He must lay the cameras where they might peer from E Space back into more normal continua, offering NavInst techs a fresh perspective on the flux of forces perturbing the Five Galaxies. And yet, he was also sworn to check out suspicious activities.…
“Your orders, Captain Harms?”
“Follow them!” he blurted before the decision was clear in his own mind.
“Sorry. I am not programmed …”
Harry cursed. “Engage pilot mode!”
Almost before the cursive P popped into place, he pointed.
“That way. Quickly! If we hurry we still might catch them!”
The platform jerked, swinging to the right.
“Aye aye, Hoover. Off we go. Tallyho!”
Harry didn’t even grimace this time. The program was irritating, but never at the expense of function. Even Tymbrimi usually knew where to limit a joke, thank Ifni. The station jogged onward in a quick eight-legged lope across the savannah of fuzzy, cactuslike growths.
To his left the Avenue swept by, a glittering tube containing everything that was real.
Sara
THINGS GOT PRETTY COMPLICATED RIGHT after Streaker began navigating the snarled innards of the transfer point.
From his liquid-filled chamber next door, Kaa thrashed muscular flukes, churning a foamy froth while protesting aloud.
“It’sss too damned crowded in here!”
Sara knew he wasn’t complaining about Streaker’s cramped bridge, but the twisted labyrinth outside the ship — a maze of stringlike interspatial boundaries, looping and spiraling through every possible dimension, like the warped delirium of some mad carnival ride designer.
The t-point nexus was rather crowded. During any normal transfer, one might glimpse a few distant, glimmering dots amid the gnarled threads, and know that other ships were plying the same complex junction linking far-flung stars. But this time it felt like plunging through a tangled jungle, with countless fireflies strung out along every branch and vine.
Instrument panels flared amber warnings as Kaa repeatedly had to maneuver around large vessels moving ponderously along the same slender path. Margins were narrow, and the dolphin pilot skimmed by some giant cruisers so closely that Sara caught brief, blurry glimpses in a viewer set to zero magnification. Turbulent ship wakes made Streaker buck like a skittish mount. Her straining engines moaned, gripping the precious thread for dear life.
Sara overheard Gillian’s awed comment.
“All these starcraft can’t be running away from the Fractal World!”
The Niss Machine answered, having managed to regain some of its accustomed saucy tone.
“Obviously not, Dr. Baskin. Only about a million other vessels are using trajectories similar to ours, fleeing the same catastrophe that drove us into panicky exodus. That is but a small fraction of the population currently thronging this dimensional matrix. All the rest entered from other locales. Library records show that this particular thread-nexus accepts inward funnelings from at least a hundred points in normal space, scattered across Galaxy Four.”
Sara blinked at the thought of so many ships, most of them far bigger than poor Streaker, all in an Egg-blessed hurry to get wherever-whenever they were heading.
“I–I thought Galaxy Four was supposed to be deserted.”
That was the image she had grown with. An entire vast galactic wheel, nearly void of sapient life. Hadn’t her own ancestors come slinking this way in camouflaged sneakships, evading a fierce quarantine in order to settle on forbidden Jijo?
“Deserted, yes. But only by two of the great Orders of Life, Sage Koolhan. By machine intelligences and oxygen-breathing starfarers. The migrational treaty did not require evacuation by members of other orders. And yet, from what we are witnessing right now, it would not be far-fetched to suggest that a more general abandonment has commenced.”
Sara let out a soft grunt of comprehension.
“The inhabitants of the Fractal World—”
“Were officially members of the Retired Order, basking in the gentle tidal rub of their carefully tended private sun, quietly refining their racial spirits in preparation for the next step.
“A step that some of them now seem ready to attempt.”
“What do you mean?” asked Gillian.
“It is best illustrated visually. Please observe.”
One of the major screens came alight with a wavering image — greatly magnified — of several dozen ragged-looking vessels flying in convoy formation, skating along the shimmering verge of a transfer thread. As the telescopic scene gained better focus, Sara noted that the ships’ rough outlines resulted from their jagged coverings — a jumble of corrugation and protruding spikes. The very opposite of streamlining.
So, the fractal geometry of the fallen criswell structure carries on, even down to the small scale of their lifeboats, she realized. I wonder how far it continues. To the flesh on their
bodies? To their living cells?
The portrayal magnified, zooming toward the bow of the lead vessel. There, Sara and her companions in the Plotting Room saw a glyphic symbol that seemed to shimmer in its own light — consisting of several nested, concentric rings.
Even a Jijoan savage quickly recognized the sigil of the Retired Order.
“Now watch what I have observed several times already. These refugees from the Fractal World are preparing to declare a momentous decision.”
Sara felt Emerson approach to stand close by. Quietly unassuming, the tall wounded man took her left hand while they both stood watching a fateful transition.
The foremost craggy-hulled ship appeared to shudder. Wavelets of energy coursed its length, starting from the stern and ultimately converging toward the bright symbol on its prow. For a few moments, the glare became so intense that Sara had to shield her eyes.
The glow diminished just as rapidly. When Sara looked again, the glyph had been transformed. Gone were the circles. In their place lay a simple joining of two short line segments, meeting at a broad angle, like a fat triangle missing its connecting base.
“The sign of union,” pronounced the Niss Machine, its voice somewhat hushed. “Two destinies, meeting at one hundred and four degrees.”
Gillian Baskin nodded in appreciation.
“Ah,” was all the older woman said.
Sara thought, I hate it when she does that. Now it behooved her to ask for an explanation.
But events accelerated before she could inquire what the mysterious change in emblems meant. As the camera shifted, they witnessed several more refugee ships undergoing identical transformations in rapid succession, joining the leader in assuming the two-legged symbol. All these separated from their erstwhile companions to form a distinct flotilla that began edging ahead, as if now eager to seek a new destiny. At the next transfer thread junction, they flared with ecstatic levels of probability discharge and leaped across the narrow gap, bound for Ifni-knew-where.