by Eric Brown
Singh said to the drone, “Ah-cha,” and Parveen knew she was dead.
The drone fired. She saw a bright flash and felt a sudden, leaden blow to her stomach. Singh moved away, out of sight around the fountain. The drone remained watching her, mocking her with its mechanical dispassion.
She looked across at Rab’s body, and wept. She wondered if he had really, truly loved her.
Perhaps, after all, he had.
It was her very last cogent thought.
She looked down in disbelief at the slippery warm mass she was cupping in her hands. The drone’s laser had opened a wide slit in her abdomen, and the pain was becoming unbearable.
* * * *
TWENTY-SEVEN
COSMOPATH
Vaughan followed the twelve robed aliens down the flight of sweeping steps. They came to a piazza paved in what looked like marble, which scintillated with a million tiny, multicoloured lights. A round table of the same substance, surrounded by similar chairs, stood beside a wide canal. The water was mirror-flat and reflected something vast and banded - and only then did Vaughan look up and notice, behind the arching portal through which he had just passed, a huge gas giant filling half the night sky, encircled by a series of rings canted towards Vluta.
Vaughan felt like laughing at the magnificence of it all.
The council had seated itself, and the tall, robed alien likewise. The latter gestured to the only vacant seat, and Vaughan fell into it as if in a daze.
He felt the combined attention of a dozen pairs of dark, insectile eyes on him. I should, he thought, feel something like trepidation. The fact was that he experienced only a sense of calm, a feeling of inevitability as if the events of the preceding few days had been somehow pre-ordained.
“You must,” said the tall alien, whom Vaughan took to be the council’s leader, or at least their spokesperson, “have many questions.”
He stared at the great metropolis surrounding the portal. There was much familiar in the vista; that was, his senses recognised those features which had analogues with Earth: towering obelisk-like buildings, and the lighted wedges of air-cars flitting through the indigo night sky like so many polychromatic tropical fish, and the reticulation of shimmering canals... But there was much that, though registered by his senses, he was unable to decode: filaments of golden light, so faint and fast, that flashed between the strolling citizens of the city across the canal; balls of light like corposants, which hovered ten metres from the ground; and an odd sound which repeated itself with regularity: something like the boom of a distant and sonorous gong which sounded in mystifying syncopation with a swelling, heady scent that swept across the piazza, like juniper-scented incense, he thought.
But the chief wonder of all was the rearing portal, which dominated this part of the city, magnificent in both its architectural aesthetics and in what it represented: the annihilation of the space-time continuum for the purpose of instantaneous travel.
Where to begin?
He gestured towards the portal and said, addressing the tall alien, “On first coming upon your race, in my ignorance I thought you to be a simple people... My apologies. This is beyond anything my race might create.”
Instantly, a dozen quick golden filaments shot between the council, connecting their heads. The leader said, “But, Vaughan, we like to think of ourselves as a simple people. That is, uncomplicated, honest, sincere. And the portal...” it raised a thin-fingered hand to the membrane, “is not the work of the Taoth.”
A silence followed these words, and Vaughan could only stare. “It isn’t?” he said at last.
“It is the creation of a race of beings known as the Krevala. They are ancient. They attained sentience - that is, true sentience, the way of peace and non-conflict - more than a million of your years ago. They originated on a planet of one of the hub stars, and now occupy half the galaxy. They are, individually, vast beings, not unlike the creatures you call cetaceans. From time to time we are lucky enough to meet a travelling Krevalan, though it is a rare event indeed.”
“And they created the portals,” Vaughan said, “and gave them to the Taoth?”
The alien turned its hand. “Not so much gave,” it said, “but granted, as the Krevala has granted eleven other races down the years the secret of the portals.”
Vaughan looked up at the stars. “A dozen?” he said. “But there must be countless races out there?”
“Thousands,” the leader agreed. “But only the Krevala, ourselves, and ten others make up the Krevalan Concordance.”
Vaughan shook his head. “And these races?”
“Are those which the Krevala, in their wisdom, deem have attributes worthy of their being admitted to the Concordance.”
Another series of lightning-fast filaments connected the council, and before Vaughan could ask what these ‘attributes’ might be, the leader said, “They are old races, and very different in type - humanoids, avian, piscine, and some which have no Terran equivalents. But they have several things in common: they have all outgrown the petty, factional disputes which destroy most races before they attain the stars; they are philosophical races, peace-loving, bent on understanding the ways of the universe.”
The alien was silent for a time, and Vaughan said at last, “In other words, very much unlike the human race.”
More golden lights connected the gathered assembly.
Vaughan said, “I thought, when you mentioned the Concordance, that you might be considering the admittance of the human race...”
The alien said, “You mean, Vaughan, a part of you feared the idea.”
He stared at the alien. “So you are telepathic?”
The leader gestured with its hand, turning it delicately palm-upwards. “Some of us possess the limited ability to apprehend the minds of alien races, yes.”
Vaughan said softly, “Then you must know how unsuited we humans are to the aspirations of the Concordance.”
A silence followed his words. A golden nexus connected all the Taoth then, including the leader. At last it said, “We were first made aware of the human race twenty-five of your years ago, when the starship landed on our planet - though the Krevala have known of you for aeons. When human colonists came to Kalluta, and found the caverns, we studied them from afar at first, watched their disputes, read their complex motivations. After a period we contacted the colonists, helped the more peaceful elements in their society gain ascendance, showed them how to farm and maintain the caverns - for without our knowledge they would have perished. Kalluta is a harsh world, as you know.”
“But you were taking a risk,” Vaughan said, “in allowing humans knowledge of your existence.”
He felt, then, that if the alien could have smiled, it would have done.
“But Vaughan,” it said, “we made contact only with the approval of the Krevala, after we had apprised them of the situation, that the colonists needed our help in order to survive. We made contact, and awaited your arrival.”
Vaughan opened his mouth. “Our arrival...?” he echoed.
“The Krevala,” said the alien, “are wise beyond our comprehension. It was they who... suggested, shall I say... the strategic withdrawal of the Taoth from Kalluta. They foresaw the arrival of the human race. It would be only a matter of time, they said, before more humans followed the first wave, intent on taking what they could from the planet, and from us.”
Vaughan nodded. “A wise move,” he murmured, more to himself.
“It is a sad fact,” the leader went on, “that Homo sapiens must be contained. The slow diaspora of your people through the void to the near stars can be tolerated, but you cannot be allowed to learn the secret of the space-time portals. That would be a calamity beyond imagining. I can see into your mind, Vaughan, and read your contempt for your own race. Your experiences have left you with no love for what your people are capable of... though paradoxically you bear great love for certain of your kind, which,” it went on with what Vaughan thought of as fatherly a
musement, “is to be condoned. Many people in your situation would have turned to hate.”
A frenzied reticulation of golden threads connected every alien then, and another Taoth leaned towards Vaughan and spoke.
“It cannot be stressed too forcefully, Vaughan,” it piped in a tone higher and more urgent than the leader’s, “how immature is the human race. You have barely evolved. You are still at that stage of your growth where the dictates of your historical survival govern your motivations on personal, societal, and governmental levels. You are a venal, untrustworthy race - which, it has to be said, all races are at certain times of their evolution. The Taoth are no exception, and nor are the Krevala, hard though that is to believe.”
The leader resumed, “All of which is to say that for the foreseeable future, for millennia, even more, there will be no contact between the Concordance and your race.”
Vaughan indicated the portal. “And that?” he asked.
“Will be closed down soon,” the leader said. “The procedure is already under way. There will be nothing left for Chandrasakar, or others of his ilk, to discover and attempt to emulate.”
Vaughan nodded. He understood the reasoning behind the Krevalan injunction. A part of him even revelled in the fact that the likes of Chandrasakar and Das’s government would be denied the opportunity to exploit and plunder, but a part of him also felt shame.
At last he looked up and said, “But why did you bring me here? Why tell me this?”
He recalled the alien’s words in the cavern, its dismissal of Das as unsuitable.
So why was he suitable?
Then he thought he knew why. He had no vested interests; he belonged to no regime, no government. “I’m a messenger?” he said. “You want me to return to Earth, to tell my people of the Krevala and the Concordance. To warn them off seeking contact...?”
Something about the silence that greeted his words told him he was wrong.
The alien said at last, “We wish you to tell no one about these things, Vaughan.”
“Then why...?” he said.
“Vaughan...” the alien said. “There are many races like your own in the galaxy, races which show potential and promise but which at the moment are immature. Among these races we have... let’s say that we have people who we can trust, people who like you possess a telepathic ability. These people, these aliens, are the subjects through whom we monitor the state of the respective race-”
“You mean... you’re in telepathic contact with them?”
“That is so. They are... allies in our bid to monitor the races who one day we might see fit to admit to the Concordance. We might not be in contact with them for many of your years at a time; then again, we might contact them several times in a year.”
Vaughan considered the implications of the Taoth’s words. He, among the tens of thousands of telepaths on Earth and across the Expansion, was being singled out as the representative of his race. The idea was almost too much to contemplate.
“And you want me to be your human contact?”
The alien turned its thin hand. “Vaughan, you are loyal to no one but yourself and your family. We find your suspicions, your dispassion, an admirable trait. You have risen above the petty divisions that render your race so untrustworthy. You will be an ideal contact. We call the trusted ones, of the various races across the galaxy, Cosmopath.”
Cosmopaths. Vaughan smiled to himself. He was to become a Cosmopath...
“How will this work?” he asked. “What do you require from me?”
Instead of speaking, the alien merely looked at Vaughan with its great eyes. A second later he heard a voice in his head. >>> We will give you a code, and a program, which will allow you to contact us. More often, we will contact you. We will require information about the expansion of the human race, and developments in your sciences. We will also require information about the political situations which prevail upon Earth and across the Expansion. With this information, we can assess your race, its ambitions, its trustworthiness. It is a task not to be taken lightly, and of course you will be free to relinquish it at any time.
Vaughan considered what he was being asked. He wondered if someone more suspicious than himself might question the motivations of the Taoth, their need for this information.
The alien reached out, touched the crimson scab that sheathed his handset. Instantly the scab dissolved, deliquesced, and ran in globules like mercury from his arm and to the ground where it seemed to soak into the glittering marble slabs.
>>> Vaughan, said the voice in his head. >>> Access your tele-ability; send forth a probe. We are open to you...
Hesitantly, Vaughan tapped the enable code into his handset, wondering what he might encounter in the minds of the assembled Taoth.
He sent a probe towards the alien leader.
He expected to read, if anything, mere abstract emotions and memories from the alien, incomprehensible to the human mind. What he encountered, instead, was not one mind but a million, a gestalt ocean of thought and sensibility.
>>> This, said a voice in his head, is the collective unconscious of the Taoth. We are not a hive mind as such, though we do have a pooled cerebral cache which underpins and gives meaning to our individual identities. Revel in this, Vaughan, and behold the sincerity of my race...
Vaughan found himself sinking into a great ocean of pacific sensibility. Much of it was abstract to him, merest sensations of mentation and emotion, as comprehensible to him as a complex abstract hologram might be to a child... and yet he did sense the sincerity the alien mentioned, the underlying... he almost thought of it as thehumanity of the alien race... but rather the underlying sense that its individuals had outgrown such material concerns as personal gain, had banished the demon of the ego.
He knew, after just minutes of bathing in this alien ocean, that the Taoth could be trusted.
He rose, emerged from the alien collective unconscious and took possession once again of his own identity. He disabled his tele-ability and felt suddenly, oddly, very alone.
The alien said, “You will consent to be our human contact?”
Vaughan saw that the head of every council member was turned his way; he felt the regard of a dozen pairs of great, black eyes.
“I would be honoured to be your contact,” he said.
Instantly a frenzy of golden filaments connected the heads of the aliens in a visually dizzying permutation, and Vaughan sensed delight in the air.
“This is the code,” said the alien, and relayed a six-digit number to Vaughan.
“But...” He looked at the alien. “There are telepaths on Earth who use viral programs... What about the danger that I’ll be read, my status as a Cosmopath compromised?”
The alien said, “Do not concern yourself on that account. The harn - what you called the crimson scab - secured your program with a shield which cannot be bypassed. Any knowledge you possess will not be read.”
Vaughan nodded, reassured. A thought occurred to him.
The alien said, forestalling his question, “Yes, you can tell Sukara. If you connect your handsets, the harn will access her program and provide an unreadable shield.”
Vaughan smiled and looked around the gathered Taoth. “Thank you,” he said.
“We will return you directly to Earth, to Bengal Station,” the alien said, “as your standing with Chandrasakar might now be... shall we say, problematical.”
He stared at the alien. “You can do that?” he asked, then smiled at the stupidity of the question.
He thought of Sukara, and her delight at having him back so soon.
Then he considered Parveen Das, back on Delta Cephei VII and facing Chandrasakar and his henchmen alone.
He said, “I need to go back to Delta Cephei VII, briefly. Parveen Das, the telepath you found unsuitable, is still there. With your permission I’d like to fetch her so that-”
The leader reached out his hand and touched Vaughan’s arm. “We understand. She is in danger. B
y all means bring her to this sanctuary, and we will transfer you both to Earth.”
The council stood as one, and eleven members moved off along the canal while the twelfth, the leader, gestured Vaughan to accompany him up the plinth of steps to the arching portal.
Vaughan climbed the steps, wondering what he might find on Delta Cephei VII. Would Das believe him when he told her that they would soon be transferred to Earth? He wondered, also, what story he might concoct to explain why the Taoth had required his presence on Vluta.
They approached the membrane of the portal side by side and Vaughan stared through.
The chamber on the other side was empty; there was no sign of Das or Connor.