"I want to use the Bruno transmitter to send a signal," Pacey replied. "Obviously it can’t go through the delegation, so we’d have to go to Malliusk directly to take care of the technical side. He’s a pain, but I think we could trust him. He wouldn’t respond to an approach from me alone, but he might from you."
Sobroskin’s eyebrows raised a fraction in surprise. "Why did you not go to the American girl?"
"I thought of it, but I’m not convinced she’s reliable enough. She’s too close to Sverenssen."
Sobroskin thought for a moment longer, then nodded. "Give me an hour. I’ll call you in your room then, whatever the news." He sucked his teeth pensively as if weighing up something in his mind and then added, "I would suggest taking things easy with the girl. I have reports on Sverenssen. He can be dangerous."
They met Malliusk in the main-dish control room after the evening shift was over and while the astronomers booked for the night were away having coffee. Malliusk agreed to their request only after Sobroskin had consented to sign a disclaimer stating that the action was requested by him, acting in his official capacity as a representative of the Soviet Government. Malliusk locked the statement among his private papers. He then closed the control room doors and used the main screen of the supervisory console to compose and transmit the message that Pacey dictated. Neither of the Russians could understand why Pacey insisted on appending his own name to the transmission. There were some things that he was not prepared to divulge.
Chapter Fifteen
Monchar, Garuth’s second-in-command, was visibly tense when Garuth arrived in response to the emergency call to the Shapieron’s Command Deck. "There’s something we’ve never seen before affecting the stress field around the ship," he said in answer to Garuth’s unvoiced question. "Some kind of external bias is interfering with the longitudinal node pattern and degrading the geodesic manifolds. The gridbase is going out of balance, and ZORAC can’t make sense of it. It’s trying to recompute the transforms now."
Garuth turned to Shiohin, the mission’s chief scientist, who was in the center of a small group of her staff, taking in the information appearing on a battery of screens arrayed around them. "What’s happening?" he asked.
She shook her head helplessly. "I’ve never heard of anything like this. We’re entering some kind of spacetime asymmetry with coordinates transforming inversely into an exponential frame. The whole structure of the region of space that we’re in is breaking down."
"Can we maneuver?"
"Nothing seems to work. The divertors are ineffective, and the longitudinal equalizers can’t compensate even at full gain."
"ZORAC, what’s your report?" Garuth called in a louder voice.
"Impossible to construct a gridbase that couples consistently into normal space," the computer replied. "In other words I’m lost, don’t know where we are, where we’re going, or even if we’re going anywhere, and don’t have control anyway. Otherwise everything’s fine."
"System status?" Garuth inquired.
"All sensors, channels, and subsystems checked and working normally. No-I’m not sick, and I’m not imagining it."
Garuth stood nonplussed. Every face on the Command Deck was watching and waiting for his orders, but what order could he give when he had no idea what was happening and what, if anything, could be done about it. "Call all stations to emergency readiness and alert them to stand by for further instructions," he said, more to satisfy expectations than for any definite reason. A crewman to one side acknowledged and turned toward a panel to relay the order.
"Total stress-field dislocation," Shilohin murmured, taking in the latest updates on the screens. "We’re dissociated from any identifiable reference." The scientists around her were looking grim. Monchar nervously gripped the edge of a nearby console.
Then ZORAC’s voice sounded again. "The trends reported have begun reversing rapidly. Coupling and translation functions are reintegrating to a new gridbase. References are rotating back into balance."
"We might be coming out of it," Shilohin said quietly. Hopeful mutterings broke out all around. She studied the displays again and appeared to relax somewhat.
"Stress field not returning to normal," ZORAC advised. "The field is being externally suppressed, forcing reversion to subgravitic velocity. Full spatial reintegration unavoidable and imminent." Something was slowing the ship down and forcing it to resume contact with the rest of the universe. "Reintegration complete. We’re in touch with the universe again . . ." An unusually long pause followed. "But I don’t know which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the starfield surrounding the ship. It was nothing like that visible from the vicinity of the solar system, which should not have altered beyond recognition since the Shapieron’s departure from Earth.
"Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," ZORAC announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but they are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have been intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown. Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious."
"Show us the constructions," Garuth commanded.
Three screens around the Command Deck displayed views obtained in different directions of a number of immense craft, the like of which Garuth had never seen, moving slowly inward from the background of stars. Garuth and his officers could only stand and stare in silent awe. Before anybody could find words, ZORAC informed them, "We have communications from the unidentified craft. They are using our standard high-spectrum format. I’m putting it on the main monitor." Seconds later, the large screen overlooking the floor presented a picture. Every Ganymean in the Command Deck froze, stupefied by what they saw.
"My name is Calazar," the face said. "Greetings to you who went to Iscaris long ago. Soon you will arrive at our new home. Be patient, and all will be explained."
It was a Ganymean-a slightly modified Ganymean, but a Ganymean sure enough. Elation and joy mixed with disbelief surged in the confused emotions exploding in Garuth’s head. It could only mean that. . . . the signal that the Earthmen had beamed outward from their Moon had been received. Suddenly his heart went out to the impetuous, irrepressible, unquenchable Earthmen. They had been right after all. He loved them, every one.
Gasps of wonder were erupting on every side as one by one the others realized what was happening. Monchar was turning circles and waving his arms in the air in an uncontrollable release of emotion, while Shilohin had sunk into an empty seat and was just gaping wide-eyed and speechless up at the screen.
Then ZORAC confirmed what they already knew. "I’ve matched the starfield with extrapolations from records and fixed our location. Don’t ask me how, but it seems that the voyage is over. We’re at the Giants’ Star."
Less than an hour later, Garuth led the first party of Ganymeans out of the lock of one of the Shapieron’s daughter vessels and into a brilliantly lit reception bay in one of the craft from Thurien. They approached the line of figures that were waiting silently, and went through a short welcoming ritual in which the dam finally broke and all the pent-up anguish and hope that the wanderers had carried with them burst forth in a flood of laughter and not a few tears. It was over. The long exile was over, and the exiles were finally home.
Afterward the new arrivals were conducted to a side chamber and required to recline on couches for a few minutes. The purpose of this was not explained. The Ganymeans experienced a strange sequence of sensory disturbances, after which all was normal again. They were then told that the process was complete. Minutes later, Garuth left the side chamber with his party to reenter the area where the Thuriens were assembled . . . and suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes popping in disbelief.
Slightly ahead of the Thuriens, grinning unashamedly at the Ganymeans’ total bemusement, stood a small group of familiar pink dwarves.
Garuth’s mouth fell open, hung limply for a moment, and then closed again without making any sound. For the two figures moving toward him, ahead of the other humans, were none other than-
"What kept you, Garuth?" Hunt asked cheerfully. "Did you miss a sign somewhere along the way?"
"Do forgive my amusement at your expense," Danchekker said, unable to suppress a chuckle. "But I’m afraid the expression on your face is irresistibly provocative."
Behind them Garuth could see another familiar figure-stocky and broad, with wiry hair streaked with gray and deeply etched features; it was Hunt’s superior from Houston, and next to him was the red-haired girl who also worked there. Beside them were another man and woman, neither of whom he recognized. Garuth forced his feet to move again, and through his daze saw that Hunt was extending a hand in the customary manner of greeting of Earth. Garuth shook hands with him warmly, then with the others. They were not optical images of some kind; they were real. The Thuriens must have brought them from Earth for this occasion by methods unknown at the time of Minerva.
As he stood back to allow his companions to surge forward toward the Terrans, Garuth spoke quietly into the throat microphone that still connected him with the Shapieron , riding not far away from the Thurien vessel. "ZORAC, I am not dreaming? This is really happening?" ZORAC could monitor visual scenes via the miniaturized TV-camera headbands that Ganymeans from the ship wore most of the time.
"I don’t know what you mean," ZORAC’s voice replied in the earpiece that Garuth was also wearing. "All I can see is a ceiling. You’re all lying in chairs of some kind in there, and you haven’t moved for almost ten minutes."
Garuth was at a loss. He looked around and saw Hunt and Calazar making their way toward him through the throng of Ganymeans and Terrans. "Can’t you see them?" he asked, mystified.
"See who?"
Before Garuth could answer, another voice said, "Actually that wasn’t ZORAC. It was me, repeating and imitating ZORAC. Allow me to introduce myself-my name is VISAR. Perhaps it’s time we explained a few things."
"But not in the lobby," Hunt said. "Let’s go on through into the ship. There’s quite a lot that needs explaining." Garuth was even more perplexed. Hunt had heard and understood the exchange even though he was not wearing communications accessories and the exchange had been in Ganymean.
Calazar stood waiting until the rest of the welcomes and introductions had been completed. Then he beckoned and led the mixed group of Ganymeans and Terrans into the body of the huge spacecraft from Thurien, now only a matter of hours away.
Chapter Sixteen
Hunt and Danchekker were somewhere out in the vastness of space. Around them was a large, darkened area made up of walled enclosures that looked like booths and interconnecting stretches of open floor, extending away beneath pools of subdued local lighting into the shadows on all sides. The dominant light was a soft, ghostly whiteness coming from the stars overhead, every one bright and unblinking.
After the reception of the Shapieron some distance outside the system of Gistar, Jerol Packard, by then his normal self once more, had decided to leave the two groups of Ganymeans alone for some time without Terran intrusion. The others had agreed. They seized the opportunity thus presented to make some instant "visits," courtesy of VISAR, to experience other parts of the Thurien civilization. Packard and Heller went to Thurios to learn more of the system of social organization while Caldwell and Lyn were taken on a tour of light-years between stops to observe more of Thurien space engineering in action. Hunt and Danchekker, intrigued after following the operation that had been mounted to intercept the Shapieron , were curious about how the energy had been generated to form the enormous black-hole toroid thrown in the ship’s path, and how it was hurled across such an immense distance. VISAR had offered to show them a Thurien power plant, and an instant later they had found themselves here.
They were beneath a huge, transparent blister that formed part of some form of construction hanging in space. But what scale of construction was this? To left and right outside the blister, and in front and behind, the external parts of the structure swept away and upward in four gently curving arms of intricately engineered metal architecture that shrank into the distance to give an impression of immensity that was almost frightening. They seemed to be standing at the crossover point of two shallow crescents that met at right angles like sections of the equator and a longitude line drawn on a globe. The tips of the four crescent arms carried four long, narrow, cylindrical forms whose axes seemed to converge on some distant point like those of four gigantic gun barrels trained to concentrate fire on a remote target. How far away they were was impossible to guess since there was nothing familiar to give any visual cue of size.
Farther away and to one side, positioned almost edge-on to their vantage point, was another structure identical to the one they were in, comprising a similar cruciform of two crescents and carrying its own quadruplet of cylinders, details of its far side losing themselves in foreshortening and distance. And on the other side of the view was another, also edge-on, and another above, and yet another below. The whole set of them, Hunt realized as he looked, was positioned symmetrically in space around a common center to form sections of an imaginary spherical surface like parts of an engineer’s exploded drawing, and the gun barrels were pointing inward radially. And far away at the focus of this configuration, an eerie halo of blurred, scrambled starlight was hanging in the void, tinted with a dash of violet.
After giving them some time to take in the scene VISAR informed them, "You are now something like five hundred million miles outside the system of Gistar. You’re standing in something called a stressor. There are six of them, and together they define a boundary around a spherical volume of space. Each of the arms outside is of the order of five thousand miles long. That’s how far away those cylinders are, which should give you some idea of their size."
Danchekker looked at Hunt dumbfounded, raised his head again to take in the scene above, then looked at Hunt once more. Hunt just stared back glassy-eyed.
VISAR continued, "The stressors induce a zone of enhanced spacetime curvature that increases in intensity toward the center until, right at the focus, it collapses into a black hole." A bright red circle, obviously superposed on their visual inputs by VISAR, appeared from nowhere to surround the hazy region. "The hole is in the center of the circle," VISAR told them. "The halo effect is distorted light from background stars-the region acts like a gravitic lens. The hole itself is about ten thousand miles from you, and the space you’re in is actually highly distorted. But I can censor confusing data, so you feel and act normal.
"Behind the shell defined by the stressors are batteries of projectors that create intense beams of energy by matter annihilation and direct them between the stressors and into the hole. From there the energy is redirected and distributed through a higher-order dimension grid and extracted back into ordinary space wherever it’s needed. In other words this whole arrangement forms the input into an h-space distribution grid that delivers to anywhere you like, instantaneously, and over interstellar distances. Like it?"
A while went by before Hunt found his voice. "What kinds of things hook on the other end?" he asked. "I mean, would this feed a whole planet. . . or what?"
"The distribution pattern is very complex," VISAR replied. "Several planets are being fed from Garfalang, which is what the place you’re at is called. So are a number of high-energy projects that the Thuriens are engaged in at various places. But you can hook smaller units into the grid wherever they happen to be, such as spacecraft, other vehicles, machines, dwellings-anything that uses power. The local equipment needed to tap into the grid is not large in size. For instance the perceptron that we landed in Alaska was powered from the grid on the conventional stage from its exit port to Earth. It would have had to be much larger if it carried its own on-board propulsion source. Hardly any of our machines have local, self-contained power sources. They don’t need them. The gr
id feeds everything from large centralized generators and redirectors, like the one you’re in, located far out in space."
"This is unbelievable," Danchekker breathed. "And to imagine, fifty years ago people were frightened of their energy sources being exhausted. This is stupefying. . . . quite stupefying."
"What’s the prime source?" Hunt asked. "You said the input beams were produced by matter annihilation. What gets annihilated?"
"Mainly the cores of burned-out stars," VISAR answered. "Part of the energy generated is tapped off to drive a network of transfer ports for conveying material from the remote sites, where the cores are dismantled, to the annihilator batteries. The net production of useful energy fed into the grid from Garfalang is equivalent to about one lunar mass per day. But there’s plenty of fuel around. We’re a long way from any crisis. Don’t worry about it."
"And you can concentrate the energy from here across lightyears of space through some kind of . . . hyperdimension and create a transfer toroid remotely," Hunt said. "Is it always as elaborate as the operation we watched?"
"No. That was a special case that required exceptionally precise control and timing. An ordinary transfer is pretty simple by comparison, and just routine."
Hunt fell silent while he took in more of the spectacle overhead, and went back in his mind over the details of the operation he had witnessed.
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