by David Brin
Of course we risk drawing the attention of even more powerful enemies. But with the odds already against us, it seems a worthwhile effort.
Meanwhile, our dolphin astronomer, Zub’daki, has more bad news to report about the swarm of incoming Candidate vessels.
He knows and cares little about hyperspatial disruptions tearing the fabric of reality. That is Sara’s department. Zub’daki’s interest lies in the white dwarf itself, and the sheer amount of matter approaching it like flotsam in a whirling drain.
“What if most of the arks misssss their target?” he asked. “What if they fail to rendezvous with the needlegatewayssss?
“What if the needles are no longer there to collect them?”
I fear that my initial response was callous, asking why we should care if a stampede of giants go tumbling into a grave of their own making. As mere ants, it is our duty to escape. To survive.
But I will go and hear what he has to say.
What will one more worry matter? I’ve long passed the point where I stopped counting them.
Lark
THE REUNION WAS BIZARRE, JOYOUS, AND rather unnerving.
Having long dreamed of this moment — being reunited with his lover — Lark now stared at Ling across a gulf far wider than the few meters separating them.
She floated in a blobby stew, a dense swarm of writhing, pulsating objects that moved languidly within a vast, transparent membrane — a bloated mass that filled most of this large chamber and extended through several hatchways into more of the ship beyond.
In addition to Ling’s human form, he glimpsed at least one wriggling qheuen larva, plus several animal types from Jijo and other worlds. Lark recognized a multitude of traeki rings, plus countless twining green things that must have once been plants.
Bubblelike forms also crowded throughout the teeming life-brew, rippling like amoebae, or bobbing gelatinous balloons. Though colored and textured differently than the Zang creature he carried about like a suit of clothes, Lark could tell they were related.
Despite the family resemblance, his passenger reacted violently to sighting these “cousins.” The Zang tried to make him flee. But Lark was adamant, willing both stiff legs to stride forward, to Ling.
Her naked form was draped with various throbbing creatures. Symbionts, Lark thought. Some of them covered her mouth and nose, while others penetrated flesh directly to the bloodstream. Weeks ago, the sight might have sent chills down his spine, but by now the concept was familiar as breathing. Simply a more extensive version of the arrangement he had made with the Zang.
Moving closer, he sought Ling’s eyes, trying for contact. Had this vast cell simply incorporated her for some crude biochemical purpose, as an organelle, to serve a minor function for the whole? Or did she retain her essence within?
Lark’s passenger extended a pseudopod over his left eye, creating a vacuole in front of his field of view. Inside that small space, hundreds of tiny “deputies” budded and performed gyrations, mimicking shapes and playacting a suggestion that Lark should turn around and get the hell away from here!
“Oh, stop bellyaching, you coward,” he replied with disgust. “On Jijo we learned you can make friends out of old enemies. Besides, have you got anything better to do right now?”
His meaning somehow got through, causing the Zang to retract its deputies, resorbing them into its body and pulling back sullenly.
Indeed, there would be no going back to the creature’s base, on the opposite side of the battleship. In between them lay a huge wilderness. Polkjhy now swarmed with things, crawling through the hallways, chewing through compartments and walls, transforming them into grotesque shapes and outlandish forms. So far, essential systems seemed to have been spared. Those were still under control of the remaining Jophur crew — who seemed to grow ever more shrill and panicky in their communications — but for how much longer?
He felt a large presence come up alongside. The third member of their party.
“You are right, Lark,” murmured the stack of glistening rings, whose throbbing mass quivered as its components debated among themselves.
“This vast macro-entity appears foreordained to expand until it fills Polkjhy entirely. We might flee, but to what end? Our trail has brought us here. Our/My/your/our destiny clearly lies within. Let us find out what it wants. What are its aims. What it came here to accomplish.”
Within the gelatinous mass, Lark saw signs of change. Ling’s eyes, which had been dismayingly vacant, now seemed to clarify, gradually focusing past the membrane, toward him.
All at once, a light of recognition shone! Though her mouth was covered by a symbiont, the squint of a smile was unmistakable, and her arms moved forward, reaching out. Joyful at the sight of him. Reaching in welcome.
“Well, look at the bright side,” he commented, although the Zang passenger shivered with fearful resignation. “It looks kinda interesting in there. Maybe we’ll learn a lot, eh?”
The giant membrane did not try to grab or seize them when they approached. Rather, it recoiled a bit, then seemed to sniff cautiously, as if deigning to be wooed. Lark extended his arm, brushing the surface. It felt chilly, and yet electrically pleasant in a way he could not quite fathom.
The Zang quivered, then seemed to change its mind. Lark had an impression of surprise. This was not the deadly foe it had expected, but a distant relative, greater and more kindly.
Decision came. A cavity formed, shaped like a tunnel, or a doorway.
Lark didn’t hesitate. He strode forward, to his love.
It seemed that his instinct was correct. There was something deeply natural about this merging.
In theory, the hydro-and oxy-orders were incompatible, using disparate chemistry, different energetics and existing at widely distinct temperatures. But life is very good at problem solving. Symbiosis enables two or more organisms to pool abilities, accomplishing what one alone never could. It happened when early cells joined together in Earth’s oceans, creating unions that were more competent than their separate parts.
Lark soon got used to the idea that this could take place on a much more sophisticated level, especially when guided by sagacious intelligence.
Anyway, while a teeming swarm of other “organelles” surrounded him, he cared about just one, whose caress made him feel more at home in this strange place than he ever had in his bed, on Jijo.
I’m glad we’re still functional in all the ways that really matter, he commented.
Ling curled her body alongside his, maximizing contact between their drifting bodies. Her answer came not as sound, but directly, as if conveyed by the fluid surroundings.
Typical male. Nothing else matters, as long as your sexual organs are satisfied.
He blinked.
Weren’t yours?
She replied with a languorous squeeze, evidently content. Her skin still trembled slightly with the rhythms of their intense lovemaking.
A part of Lark — the restless thinker — wondered what possible use the macrobeing could make of human sexual passion. Not that he was ungrateful for this new phase of existence. But once his thoughts began spreading outward, they would not stop.
Whatever happened to Rann? he inquired.
The one other human aboard, a fierce Danik warrior, had turned his talents to helping the Jophur. Lark would not relax knowing that enemy was out there, somewhere.
Don’t worry about Rann. He won’t be bothering us.
When he glanced at her, Ling shrugged, causing bubbles to flurry off her shoulders.
He was absorbed also. Mother must not have liked how he tasted. But she doesn’t waste good material, so she put him to work in other ways. I saw a couple of Rann’s parts a while ago — a leg and a lung, I think — incorporated in some organelle.
Lark shivered, feeling grateful that his “taste” met the macrobeing’s approval.
You call it Mother?
She nodded, not having to explain. The name made as much sense as any
other. Though nurturing kindliness was clearly just one aspect of its nature. There was also a brutally pragmatic side.
He sensed agreement from the Zang, his longtime companion, who now existed as a compact globule, floating nearby. Their sole remaining link was a narrow tube connected to his left side, and even that might dissolve soon, as they learned their separate roles in this new world. The Zang was still deeply uncertain, though one might have expected it to be more at home in this world of drifting shapes, where bulbous deputies swam back and forth, performing gaudy simulations.
In the murky distance, he saw that someone else was having a better time adjusting. The stack of waxy traeki rings — who had once been Asx, and then the Jophur called Ewasx — stood planted on the floor, surrounded by clusters of bubbles, membranes, and crawling symbionts. From waves of color that coursed across its flanks, Lark could tell the composite creature was having the time of its life. What could be more essentially traeki than to become part of something larger and more complex, a cooperative enterprise in which every ring and particle played a part?
Lark still wondered about how it all was organized. Did there exist an overall controlling mind — like a Jophur master ring? Or would every component get a vote? Both models of symbiosis existed in nature … and in politics.
He had a feeling such details were yet to be worked out. “Mother” wasn’t finished taking form.
Come along, Ling urged, taking his hand. I want to show you something.
Lark needed a little while to get used to locomotion in this new medium. Much of the time, it involved movements akin to swimming, though in other locales the surrounding density changed somehow and their feet met the floor, allowing a more human mode of walking. There were no clear transitions, as between sea and shore. Rather, everything intermingled and merged, like the thoughts he and Ling shared.
Guiding him along, she finally pointed to a vast nest of tendrils that spread outward from a central point, waving and twisting. Many were linked to wriggling forms — Lark saw another larval qheuen, a couple of traeki stacks … and a form that resembled a centauroid urs, curled in a fetal ball, protected by something like an embryonic sac. He did not recognize the tawny figure, though urrish “samples” had been taken by the Jophur, on Jijo. Its flanks heaved slowly, as if calmly breathing, and Lark saw intelligent clarity in the triple set of eyes.
There were other oxy creatures. Some he identified from images on paper textbooks he had skimmed long ago, back home in the Biblos archive, while others he did not recognize. All were entangled with symbionts linking them to hydro-globules and other blobby things. The most eerie thing about it was that none of them seemed particularly to mind.
Mother taps the data mesh here, Ling explained, pointing to where the tendrils converged. Peering to look past the murk, he made out one of Polkjhy’s main computer panels.
Ling reached for three writhing tentacles, offering one each to Lark and the Zang.
Let’s take a look at what’s happening elsewhere.
It was a strange way of taking information. Partly neuronal and partly visual, it also involved portions of the mind that Lark customarily used for imagination, picturing an event with that tentative what-if sensation that always accompanied daydreams.
That made sense. For all hydro-beings, thinking was a process of simulation — spawning off smaller portions of themselves to play roles and act out a scenario to its logical conclusions. Helped by his prior experience with the Zang, Lark soon caught on, learning how to reach out and pretend that he was the object of his attention.
I am Polkjhy … once a proud battleship of the haughty Jophur nation.
Now I am divided … sectioned into many parts. My Jophur crew — doughty but distraught — have cleverly sealed off what they consider to be the most essential areas … engines, weaponry, and basic life support.
Driven by single-minded, purposeful Master Rings, they prepare for a last stand against loathsome invaders … while continuing to pursue their grudge hunt. Chasing the Earthling ship, whether pursuit leads them to Hell, or Heaven itself.
Lark felt a wash of strange emotion — grudging respect for the dauntless Jophur. Their resiliency, in the face of one catastrophe after another, showed why their kind had gained power and influence among the vigorous, starfaring oxy-clans. That they could manage, even temporarily, to stave off powers much older and stronger than themselves was an impressive accomplishment.
Even so, Lark hoped they would fail soon.
Ling guided his attention, nudging it gently outward, beyond the battered hull.
He briefly staggered at a sudden impression, like that of an immense tornado!
A giant cyclone surrounded them, a swirling crowd of massive objects, sparkling and flashing while they spiraled down a condensing funnel toward the dim white fire of a tiny star.
Lark quickly found that his knowledge base was no longer limited to the narrow education of a Jijoan sooner — a rustic biologist, weaned on paper-paged books. It took only a slight effort of will to slip into Ling’s mind and perceive facts, correlations, hypotheses to explain what they now saw. And beyond Ling, there were other archives — less familiar, but equally available.
Abruptly, he reached outward to the immense cyclone of descending spacecraft, identifying with them.
I am the Candidates’ Swarm, a migration of the elect, chosen from among retirees of both oxygen-and hydrogen-breathing civilizations.
Elated to be here, at long last.
Fatigued by the pointless struggles and quandaries of flat space and real time.
Lured and allured by the seductive enchantments of the Embrace of Tides.
Fully aware of the disruptions now coursing through the Five Galaxies.
Cognizant of dangers lying ahead.
Nevertheless, I draw inward. Merging my many subunits. Creating unique blendings out of what was merely promising raw material. Integrating the best of hydrogen and oxygen.
Hoping and wondering what comes next …
Lark now saw a context for what had befallen Polkjhy. It was part of a much larger process! The same blending of life-forms must be happening on each of the millions of huge vessels out there … only perhaps more peacefully, with less resistance by the resident crews, who would be much better prepared for it than the poor Jophur.
And yet, he could not help but grasp a background tone of desperate worry. This majestic ingathering of transcendence candidates should have been smooth and ordered. But instead it grew more ragged and disrupted with each passing dura. The sparkles that had looked so gay earlier were now revealed as fiery impacts. Violent death spread ever more rapidly among the converging ships.
Again, Ling pointed and his mind followed. Instead of outward, their shared attention plunged down, toward the source of gravity and light, where immense slender edifices whirled in tight orbit around a compact star.
To initial appearances, the needle-habitats were also suffering severe strain. As he and Ling watched, chunks larger than mountains shattered or fell off, dissolving under the shear force of intense tides.
And yet, Lark felt no anguish, worry, or sense of imminent danger.
No wonder! he realized. The needles aren’t habitats at all! They are gateways to another place!
Ling nodded.
Actually, it is predictable, if you think about it.
Lark sent his mind swooping like a hawk toward one of the fast-revolving structures, long and narrow, like a javelin. Though portions of its skin were flaking off — torn loose by chaotic hyperwave disturbances — he somehow knew those portions were unimportant. Mere temporary abodes and support structures. As these sloughed away, they revealed a shimmering inner core, luminescent and slippery to the eye.
His image-self arrived just as one of the “candidates”—a fully transformed globule-ark — finished its long spiraling migration and approached the needle at a rapid pace, skimming just above the white dwarf’s licking plasma fire. The great hybrid
vessel — now a completely blended mixture of hydrogen and oxygen civilizations — fell toward the exposed gateway, accelerating as if caught in some strongly attractive field.
Abruptly, the globule-ark seemed to slip sideways, through a narrow incision that had been cut in space-time.
The opening lasted but a few moments. But it was enough for Lark to perceive.
His first impression from the other side was of dense spinning blackness. A dark ball that glimmered with sudden, bright pinpoints. Somehow he could sense the twist and curl of vacuum as space warped around the thing, distorting any constellations that lay beyond.
It is a neutron star, Ling commented. Long ago it used up or expelled any fuel it had left. Now it has self-compressed down to a size far smaller than a white dwarf — less than ten kilometers across! The gravitational pressure is so great below the surface that atomic nuclei merge with their surrounding clouds of electrons, forming “degenerate matter.”
Those sparks you see below are gamma ray flashes — translated into visible range by the transcendent mesh for our convenience. Each flash represents a grain, perhaps as small as a bacterium, that quickened up to near the speed of light before striking the surface.
There are half a billion of these dense relics in any galaxy … and a new one produced every thirty years or so. But only a few neutron stars have the narrow range of traits needed by the Transcendent Order. Well behaved. Rapidly spinning, but with low magnetic fields.
Lark overcame his surprise.
I get what’s going on. The process continues!
How could a growing appetite for tides be satisfied by a mere white dwarf star? Of course, they’ll migrate to a place where the fields are even more intense.
So, the myriad candidate vessels surrounding Polkjhy right now are only passing through! They use the white dwarf as an assembly area — a place to merge and transform, getting ready for the next phase.