Heaven

by Ian Stewart

  To an observer on the outer fringes of the system, the herd announced itself as a faint patch of monochromatic lavender light. As it approached the outermost world of the No-Moon system, an outpost of loose rubble held together by nitrogen ice, the patch resolved into a sprinkling of random spots, all glowing with the same spectral hue.

  Seen from the side, as they passed, the spots became chains of glowing pearls, neatly stacked in line astern, all pointing straight at the nearby star, Lambda Coelacanthi. Although they varied in size, every pearl was ring-shaped, aligned at right angles to the axis of the chain, with their matter—if it was matter—spiraling smoothly into the central hole and out again.

  There were hundreds of these chains, irregularly distributed in a teardrop-shaped cluster, and each chain contained anywhere between eight and sixty pearls.

  The pearls were magnetotori, primitive organisms made from magnetic plasma, living Bussard ramscoops that devoured the thinly spread hydrogen of the interstellar medium, sucking it up atom by atom, fusing the atoms into helium to create energy. Every two hundred thousand years this herd of wild magnetotori repeated the same nomadic cycle, migrating from star to star in a pattern whose origins were lost in the abyss of deep time.

  Elsewhere, other herds followed their own cycles, longer or shorter. And for the past few million years, all of the migrating herds had been accompanied and regulated by itinerant herders, whose physical form was a pattern of standing electromagnetic waves confined in cocoonlike metallic nets. The herders drew sustenance by absorbing radiation from their toroidal “cattle.” Without this life support, the herders could never have survived in the dark voids between the stars.

  They accompanied their herds in ramshackle ceramic vessels, floating junk piles assembled according to rules that only a herder could comprehend, and controlled their beasts with pulses of magnetic force. The herders could not change the migratory routes, but they could make sure that the journey was timed to their own advantage.

  The magnetotori were coming to graze in the photosphere of the system’s sun, where the local plasmoids were roosted.

  The herders had a longstanding arrangement with the plasmoids. They could direct their beasts to feed on selected regions of magnetic vortex-fields, where their presence would be most beneficial to the dynamics of the star. There, too, the magnetotori would mate. Before the fields became overgrazed and turned into sterile magnetocrystals, a process that took a few centuries, the herds would move on to the next star in their itinerary.

  At this distance from the star, their passage was slow and leisurely. As they neared their destination, their speed would pick up. Now they sailed gracefully past two moderately sized gas giants: the enigmatic green mist of Ghost and the blotchy blues and purples of Marsupial. Next they traversed a dangerous belt of rocks and snowballs to cross the orbit of Bandicoot, timing their passage to stay well clear of its fuzz of radio noise. Bandicoot, too, was a gas giant, a protostar that had failed to ignite. It was made of hydrogen, helium, and a hundred other gases. It spun so slowly that the normal equatorial bulge was distinctly subdued, and its clouded atmosphere crackled with electrical discharges as a matched pair of never-ending storms circled its north and south equatorial zones, pursuing each other as if in some bizarre ritual hunt.

  The next three planets were tiny, all much the same size but differing wildly in physical constitution. Baugenphyme was a sulfur desert, pockmarked by the calderas of long-dead volcanoes. Hilary was a cracked ball of ice, coated in a thick layer of dust, dominated by a spectacular impact crater whose radiating arms wrapped themselves right round the little world, overlapping one another in a fishnet pattern. Jones was a mottled ball of pink and lemon, with pale gray lakes of frozen phosphorus hydride.

  Fourth from the sun was No-Moon, a typical aqueous planet with extensive oceans of liquid water surrounding five large island continents, liberally sprinkled with archipelagoes. Unusually for a planet of its size and position, it had no naturally occurring satellite, hence its name. It had a flourishing biota, including a variety of sentients, mostly nonnative. For most of them, the spectacular appearance of the herds against the night sky was a deeply spiritual experience.

  The herd sensed the gradual steepening of the sun’s gravitational gradient and plunged onward, seeking pasture. The herders’ only remaining task was to make sure that they chose the pasture that the plasmoids preferred.

  It was Stun who spotted the sail first. May was busy arguing with a couple of suited mariners who thought that she was interested in scrimshawed bottlewhale teeth, and who wouldn’t accept that she wasn’t. She finally got rid of them by criticizing the carvings, pointing out that they were primitive and poorly formed. They were, but there were plenty of worlds on which these features would have been a virtue—indeed, the sole reason for owning such artifacts.

  When Stun shouted the news of Second-Best Sailor’s arrival, May unslung her ansible and selected the correct encryption disk. There was an exactly matching disk among those in Will’s ansible. All ansible communication required such disks—not for security per se, but because that was how the Precursors in their wisdom had built them. Security was a side effect. Another side effect was that although an ansible link conveyed messages instantaneously, the link could not be set up any faster than a ship could carry an encryption disk—unless you used a transible, but those were prohibitively expensive. Anyone with an ansible could receive messages from anywhere in the Galaxy, but the only messages they could understand were those that came from a disk that matched their own.

  Now set up for instant communication, May signaled to the orbiting starship that was their home: “I have just spotted a sail. It is ripped to shreds, but the colors look very familiar.”

  Her mate, Sharp Wit Will Cut, responded after a few seconds’ delay: “He must not have been diverted too far from his course by the Change Winds, then.” Over the ansible, May could hear mewling sounds from the furry crevit that habitually draped itself across Will’s broad shoulders. It was a handsome beast, like its master. By Neanderthal standards, anyway.

  “No, he is several days earlier than I expected,” said May.

  “At least we know he did not sink.”

  “Apparently not. He really is a very good sailor, you know. Just irresponsible.”

  Sharp Wit Will Cut reviewed what May had just said. “I am not sure that those two sentences go together.”

  She decided not to rise to the bait. “I hope he carries the datablets; otherwise this will have been a wasted trip.”

  “Not entirely,” said Will.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have been picking up transmissions from some distant craft that seem to be approaching this world.”

  “The wild magnetotori and their herders?”

  “No, the herd passed by last night, on their way to the sun. This is something else. The rumors have been circulating for a while. Now they have been confirmed.”

  May’s sense of foreboding heightened. This would interest the mariners, assuming they didn’t already know it. “Craft? Do you know how many, or what size?”

  “A fleet. We think there are between sixty and eighty of them, all powered by tame magnetotori. There seem to be a dozen command vessels, among them a mother ship, about the same number of heavy transports, and a lot of smaller support craft. The command vessels are big—conveyor-class, top of the range. They are making no attempt to conceal their approach. Some of our fellow nomads picked up bits of their interfleet communication traffic when they passed nearby. Radio messages, some unencrypted. They have sent me copies by ansible.”

  “Can we put names to any of them?”

  Will snorted. “No, the messages mention no individual names. But they repeatedly use a collective name. It is almost a chant, a mantra.”

  “What is it?”

  “They call themselves ‘Cosmic Unity.’ Ever heard of them, May?”

  “Possibly. Does Ship have any records under th
at heading?”

  “Yes, it has. Lots. We are reviewing them now.”

  “Copy them to me immediately, Will. I think my sailor friend will place high trading value on a datablet containing information about this fleet.”

  As his boat drifted slowly into port, Second-Best Sailor left most of the handling to his apprentices. They knew the routine, they knew the port, and if anything went wrong, then he could blame them for it. They in turn were well aware of this tactic, which had been used against them many times, and were careful not to make any errors.

  “Luff the mainsail,” Second-Best Sailor commanded at the precise moment that Short Apprentice was moving to do just that. It was always a good idea to remind subordinates who was in charge. “Neatly done.” It was also a good idea to praise them when they performed unusually well. Second-Best Sailor had learned such tactics from his mother, who had passed them on from Talkative Forager as part of a routine method for maintaining cultural continuity among the males.

  The waters around the shore of the port were a jumble of docks, boat’s chandlers, warehouses, and bars—all b’low-water, naturally, but most had ’bove-water extensions for commerce with landlubbers. These extensions could be used by polypoids wearing simple water-masks, provided they slipped back into the water at frequent intervals. Longer periods out of the water required suits, but the duplicators had made those widely available—though still quite pricey. Duplication was not cost-free. It took time, raw materials, and most of all, expertise.

  The boat slid neatly alongside two others moored to the posts of a dock. Short Apprentice went through the side to tie it up securely. Fat Apprentice began to stow any gear that wasn’t needed in port. Second-Best Sailor went to his private cabin, convinced himself that the two fragments of his wife were in good health, and checked the fan that would ensure a continuing flow of fresh water to their polyps. Then he rummaged in the cupboards until he found the datablets that his Neanderthal contacts were expecting.

  He locked the cupboard and left the datablets where they were. He would come and get them once trade negotiations were completed. Then he grabbed a water-mask and headed for a bar he particularly liked, known as Wild Weed Wasted. Smiling Teeth May Bite and Eyes That Stun the Unwary would meet him there shortly. He’d looked through the periscope and seen them on the pier as he approached.

  The underwater parts of the bar were crowded with sailors celebrating landfall in the traditional manner. Several were obviously getting very high on sticks of concentrated algae, and at least three had lost consciousness altogether and fallen into a stupor. He slipped underneath a group of mariners from the Sharptop Peninsula who were playing a raucous game of float-the-cube, and located the up door at the far corner of the bar. Pulling on his water-mask, he headed toward the surface.

  He emerged in what appeared from above to be a small swimming pool—impossibly blue water contained by tiled walls and floor. But the tiles were ceramic shells, imported from the Cool Isles, where they were extruded by trained mollusks. And the blue was mostly the effect of squads of cleaner-algae.

  May and Stun were already there, sitting on dockchairs beside the pool.

  “Late again, I see” was May’s greeting.

  “Not my fault,” protested Second-Best Sailor. “Change Winds come early this season.”

  “Again.”

  “Yeah. Funny, that. Don’ understand it at all. It ain’t normal.” He gestured with splayed subtentacles, as if struck by a thought. “Do ya think the arrival of the torus herders might ’ave something to do with it? Some say their animals can disrupt normal weather patterns.”

  “Not the timing of the Change Winds, Second-Best Sailor.”

  “Oh. But did you see them? Amazin’! Makes ya realize what an astonishin’ universe we live in!”

  The Neanderthals, too, had seen the strings of magnetotori, but they were unmoved by events that stirred most other species’ spirits. “An unusual sight,” said May, as if it were an intellectual proposition. “Pale violet lights in a fan. Pretty.” She didn’t sound very enthusiastic.

  “You guys just don’t appreciate the finer things of life,” the mariner stated with mock disapproval. “You need educatin’.”

  With a quick glance at Stun to confirm tactics, May decided to cut short the banter and get down to the trading. It might just throw Second-Best Sailor off his guard. “We trade information for the edification of the mariners of No-Moon. What do you trade?”

  “Information? What kind of information?”

  May sighed. She’d known it was pointless. Nothing could throw Second-Best Sailor off his guard when he was sober. And there was no point in offering him anything to eat: He’d save his eating until he had clinched the deal.

  “First tell us what you have to trade. Then we will describe the nature of our information. Do you have the datablets?”

  “Might have. I was gonna throw in a few lemons, for free, but the airstorm destroyed most of ’em.”

  Stun giggled. “Just like last year.”

  Second-Best Sailor failed to see the joke and looked hurt. “Well, ’smatterofact, yeah. I suppose I might have a datablet or two somewhere, if that’s what grabs ya. . . .”

  The bargaining began.

  Not only were the reefwives highly intelligent, they had long ago evolved the ability to extrude ceramics, metals, and minerals to any desired pattern, right down to the molecular level. They had developed this ability by modifying the chemical systems and genetic controls that enabled their distant ancestors to make carbonate solids to construct their own hard parts, just as mollusks can secrete shells that are virtually monocrystalline. But the reefmind was intelligent, so the reefwives’ extrusions could be deposited according to a plan. They could make ceramic insulation, impervious to water, one molecule thick. The datablets, capable of cramming huge quantities of information into a very small space, were constructed in the same way. And the datablets could be read by land-entity computers, suitably programmed and equipped.

  The reefmind made many other kinds of ceramic, waterproof electronic circuitry, too. Some of the best electronics in the Galaxy were reefwife extrusions, though they were universally assumed to be of mariner manufacture. The most widely accepted theory was that the mariners had stumbled across some hitherto unknown Precursor gadget. All attempts to steal it had failed, but this was attributed to the high security of an underwater lifestyle, not to the gadget’s nonexistence.

  In this manner the reefwives, using their husbands as a front, could market their most important product: simulations. The same ferocious computational abilities that powered their remarkable timechunk extrapolations could be turned to other tasks, and routinely were. The reefmind placed great value on information, and to its delight, so did the rest of the Galaxy. The datablets still on board Second-Best Sailor’s vessel were accurate simulations of the forest ecosystem of the aqueous planet Beta-2 Tigris, which was suffering from an epidemic of tuber rot and in serious danger of ecological collapse. The simulations offered guidance on management strategies to eradicate the infection and return the forests to their former state, including all the important subecosystems, from microorganisms to ponderous fellingtooths.

  In return, the reefwives wanted information about Galactic politics and society. Inside information, the kind of thing they could not get from public sources. With this, their extended-present perceptions of wider events would be more accurate.

  They were especially interested in anything the Neanderthal computers held relating to new arrivals in the vicinity.

  And so it was that a rambling, confused dossier on Cosmic Unity was handed over to Second-Best Sailor, and the forests of the aqueous world Beta-2 Tigris were thrown a lifeline.

  But before the deal could be concluded, Second-Best Sailor had a private request. “May, what I really need right now is new lemon trees ’bovedecks. Mine were wasted.”

  “You can buy those from many sources.”

  “Yeah, but you
Neanderthals can work in air, so ya could plant ’em for me a lot more easy, and a lot better, than most jobbin’ gardeners.”

  Stun feigned reluctance. “We could, if offered sufficient inducements.”

  “Oh, I can pay.”

  “With what? You have already agreed a trade for your datablets. The lemon trees were your spare trade goods.”

  Second-Best Sailor laughed. “Lemons—they’re nothin’. I got somethin’ better. Somethin’ no one has ever offered ya before. Somethin’ I wants ya to hold in sacred trust for me, until—if ever—I ask for ’er back.”

  Her? The lion-headed Neanderthal women were intrigued. This was no bargain; if anything, it was an obligation. But their sense of empathy was screaming at them: accept, accept. “What?”

  “I want to lend ya a piece of my wife.”

  2

  COSMIC UNITY MISSION FLEET

  Wickedness, selfishness, vanity, greed, arrogance . . . Yes, I have known all these, have been guilty of all these . . . But they are obvious faults, easy to recognize and to combat. They are nothing compared to the evils that have been inflicted by sincere bigots obsessed with their own version of Good Works.

  The Wisdom of Chalz

  The galaxy was a mere stripling.

  But despite its comparative youth, it had already accumulated dangerous residues of its past, and it could not be rid of them. There were idiosyncrasies and anomalies, complications that would not normally have been expected in such a young specimen. Not just the gross effects of gravitational disruption, which could afflict even a young galaxy. These peculiarities were subtler, and they normally took a long time to develop.