by Ian Douglas
The image of one of the Glothr, presumably their equivalent of an ambassador, had just materialized off to the right side of the virtual classroom. Three meters tall and very roughly resembling a terrestrial jellyfish, the being stood on a writhing mass of tentacles, with a filmy mantle at the top, like a parasol. Much of the being was transparent or translucent; you could see the brain within a circle of twenty-four jet-black eyes. Its body, a column intermittently glimpsed behind the tentacle mass, was transparent, encasing its translucent internal organs.
Gray was glad that the writhing tangle of tentacles usually hid the being’s interior from view. Those tentacles—the thicker ones used for locomotion, the thinner ones for manipulation—tended to be translucent near their bases, but shaded into opaque grays and browns. The translucent parts shimmered with rainbow colors, like a shifting, oily sheen, and clusters of blue and green lights gleamed and winked within the glassy depths of the body. The Glothr, Gray knew, communicated with others of its kind by changing color. Translation to a spoken language could be a real bear . . . but one of the numerous Agletsch trade languages had been designed for beings that communicated visually. You just needed a computer to handle the actual color-to-speech part.
“That’s a Glothr?” McKennon asked. She seemed intrigued. But then, in her line of work, she would be.
“Yeah. That’s the Agletsch name for them, anyway. We ran into them something like twelve million years in the future.”
“You mean twelve million years after 2425?”
“That’s right.”
“We need a special grammar to handle time travel.”
“We certainly will need one.”
She laughed. “Okay. I downloaded one preliminary report, but I haven’t had a chance to follow through on them, yet,” McKennon said. “What are they like?”
He thought about the Glothr.
Twelve million years in the future—counting Gray’s home time as the present—a rogue world had given rise to a spectacularly advanced technic civilization. Sunless—adrift in emptiness with no star to call its own—the world named Invictus by humans was frigidly cold, at least on the surface, and eternally dark. Five times the mass of Earth, its surface chemistry was similar to that of Titan, based on liquid methane and ethane; a radioactive core kept a vast and lightless ocean liquid beneath many kilometers of ice as hard and as solid as rock.
And that’s pretty much all they knew. They were still a complete enigma, so far as Gray was concerned. They were apparently connected, in some way not yet understood, to the Sh’daar of Earth Tprime, though they’d come from 12 million years further up the line. When Gray had managed to make peaceful contact with the Glothr out beyond the edge of the galaxy in future deep time, there’d been hope that perhaps the Glothr could communicate with the Sh’daar of the remote past, and end their attempts to tame and assimilate Humankind. The oddly shaped ship that had brought this Glothr to the Sh’daar capital, the Nameless, was a Glothr time-bender ship, brought back across the eons to attempt just that. Gray didn’t know for sure, but he was pretty sure that Konstantin had been the one who’d thought of the idea.
“Hard to understand,” was all Gray could say at last. “They’re not at all like us. They’re actually colonial beings, kind of like the Portuguese man-of-war in Earth’s tropics. Lots of different organisms working together. And whatever they have for emotion . . . well, it doesn’t come through the translators very well.”
“The report I saw said they’re from a Steppenwolf.”
Steppenwolf world was a slang term for a rogue planet, one without a star . . . a lone wolf wandering the galactic steppes.
“That’s right. Invictus. It must have been flung out of its original star system billions of years ago, and has been wandering on its own ever since.”
“Huh. Daar N’gah is a rogue.”
“I saw when we entered orbit. I understand the Sh’daar—well, we would say terraformed—basically created it. They made the planet habitable using quantum power taps, or something like them.”
“That’s right. I don’t see a direct connection between the two, though. Daar N’gah was dead and frozen until the Sh’daar—or possibly the ur-Sh’daar—reworked it.”
“Well, they would have had lots to choose from.” Gray chuckled. “They’re estimating that there are more Steppenwolf worlds floating around in the galaxy than there are stars.”
“Yup. Four hundred billion plus. Apparently, every planetary system spits out a bunch of rogues early on, when the planets are starting to settle down into neat orbits. Most rogues are frozen and dead, of course. . . .”
“But given the right conditions,” Gray said, “with enough internal warmth to allow liquid oceans and carbon chemistry for a few billion years, some of those billions are certain to evolve life, like Invictus.”
She nodded. “Or permit large-scale colonization, like Daar N’gah.”
Their conversation moved on to other things as more and more attendees, both human and not, appeared within the simulation. Newly arrived humans materialized on the benches. Others stood on flat areas between the benches . . . or the imagery was rewritten to eliminate sections of the benches entirely.
Gray and McKennon began discussing the Sh’daar of Tprime as compared with those of T-0.876gy . . . what President Koenig had once called late Sh’daar as opposed to early Sh’daar. After fifty-eight years of intermittent warfare, humans still weren’t sure if the various species arrayed against them—the Turusch and the H’rulka and the Slan and all the rest—were themselves Sh’daar or were merely manipulated by the Sh’daar. It seemed a small distinction, but it was a damned important one. How committed were, say, the Turusch to forcing Humankind to give up their beloved advanced technologies? Could they be convinced to turn against their alien masters from out of deep time?
And as they talked, Gray studied the woman with growing interest . . . and felt a pang of . . . what? Loneliness? Wistfulness? Possibly . . . guilt?
For a couple of years, now, Gray had enjoyed a close relationship with Laurie Taggart, America’s weapons officer . . . but Laurie had been offered a chance to advance her career, as exec on board the new battle carrier Lexington. It was an excellent opportunity for her; in a couple more years, she might have a chance at her own command.
But it left Gray missing her—and Angela—more than ever. Damn, damn, damn . . .
He considered asking if McKennon wanted to come over to America for dinner later . . . then sharply cut the thought off. He would be returning to Tprime soon, while she stayed here, 876 million years in the past. That was a hell of a burden to put on any relationship.
An Agletsch materialized in the room just a few meters from where Gray and McKennon were sitting, intruding on Gray’s increasingly unhappy thoughts. Her ID tag, which popped up in Gray’s mind alongside her image, identified her as Aar’mithdisch, one of the spidery, four-eyed Agletsch liaisons who’d come in on board the Glothr vessel. He knew it was a her; Agletsch males were small, leechlike creatures that adhered to the female’s body, like male anglerfish on Earth. After a time, they actually became a part of the female’s body, and eventually were absorbed completely.
At least, he thought, they didn’t have to worry about courtship and dating.
“Admiral Gray!” the translated voice of the being said when she swiveled an eyestalk in his direction and saw him. “The great moment is upon us, yes-no?”
The Agletsch had been the first nonhuman civilization encountered by humans as they spread out into interstellar space, an encounter in 2312 in the Zeta Doradus system, just 38 light years from Sol. Zeta Doradus was not their homeworld. No human knew where they’d come from originally; the price the Aggies put on that piece of information was literally astronomical. Called spiders or bugs by many humans, their oval sixteen-legged bodies vaguely resembled some terrestrial arthropods . . . in a bad light, perhaps, or after too many drinks.
Few humans trusted them. Some of that was
due to their phobia-triggering looks, true, but for most Navy men, it was the fact that many carried nanotechnic storage and communications devices called seeds planted by the Sh’daar, which made them little better than spies. Gray had worked with them on numerous occasions, and didn’t think they would willingly betray their human clients, but he also knew that understanding nonhuman motives and mores was a tricky bit of guesswork at best. For a time, human warships had stopped carrying Agletsch advisors despite their obvious usefulness as translators and as sources of Sh’daar insight and galactography.
But Gray had insisted that Agletsch be brought along on this mission to assist in translating for the Sh’daar. The Joint Chiefs and President Koenig had agreed, but only if the beings were restricted to the Glothr vessel. That suited Gray just fine. He’d wanted someone over there that he could trust handling translations between humans and the Glothr anyway.
“The great moment is indeed here, Aar’mithdisch,” Gray replied. “I’d like to stress that it is vitally important that we have accurate translations of both sides of the negotiations. This may be the most important bit of diplomacy in my world’s history.” He grinned. “No pressure.”
“We do not understand this last comment,” the alien said. “The gas-filled portions of the Glothr vessel maintain an internal pressure of—”
“Never mind, never mind,” Gray said. “It was just a humorous expression.”
The Agletsch’s four weirdly stalked eyes twitched in complicated patterns, a rapid semaphore of sorts. Gray still couldn’t read the emotional overtones that eye movements conveyed to other Agletsch. No doubt, they had the same difficulty understanding human facial expressions, like the grin he’d just tossed into the conversation when he’d said “no pressure.” The Agletsch built very good electronic translators, but no translation system or artificial language could possibly take into account all of the subtle differences among cultures, biologies, and worldviews.
Considering how truly alien different species were when compared to one another, it was a wonder anyone could understand anything that another species was trying to say.
“We translate, Admiral Gray. Accurately . . . though we note that humans sometimes have trouble understanding other humans even when they share the same terrestrial language.”
“You understand us disturbingly well,” Gray said.
The being responded with a dip in two of its eyestalks—a gesture, Gray assumed, of agreement or, possibly, one simply of acknowledgement. Two more Agletsch materialized alongside the first, and the three of them appeared to be in close conversation among themselves.
“Look what just dropped in,” McKennon said, nodding toward the front of the room. The image of another being had just materialized. It looked like a stack of starfish three meters tall, smaller at the top, larger—almost a meter across—at the bottom. Several skinny arms with multiple branchings, like the branches of a tree, emerged from different points along and around that body, while eyes gleamed at the tips of myriad highly animated tendrils.
“Well, well,” Gray said, his eyes widening. “My software is flagging it as Ghresthrepni . . . one of the Adjugredudhra.”
“One of the senior spokesbeings for the Sh’daar,” McKennon said, nodding slowly. “And commander of the Ancient Hope.”
“Ah. That’s the ship that warped us in here. Big sucker.”
Like so much about this mission, not a great deal was known about the Adjugredudhra. They’d been prominent, Gray knew, among the ur-Sh’daar before the Transcendence . . . a species that had delved deeply into advanced nanotechnology. From what few records he’d seen, acquired during America’s visit to the N’gai Cluster twenty years before, the original Adjugredudhrans had developed nanotech to an astonishing degree, building smaller and smaller machines of greater and greater power, machines that allowed them to transform their own bodies molecule by molecule, to literally remake those bodies into any shape or form they desired.
But very few galactic cultures, it seemed, were completely monolithic. Some species organized along the lines of ant or bee colonies, perhaps, could maintain a laser-sharp focus in the way they saw themselves and the universe . . . but for most, sapient cultures usually contained diversity and variability, subcultures and factions, even misfits and renegades, refusers who did not drink too deeply of the background culture of their civilization. When the Transcendence came . . . the Schjaa Hok, the Time of Change, there were millions of refusers left behind. Their civilization collapsed, technologies were lost, and wars—survivor remnants squabbling in the ruins of a galactic civilization—destroyed what was left.
Over the course of thousands of years, however, those who remained pulled together and rebuilt much of what had been lost, including worldviews, traditions, and imperial ambitions . . . until the Sh’daar rose anew from the wreckage that the vanished ur-Sh’daar had left behind.
Another nonhuman being had appeared alongside the first . . . a huge squid standing on its head was Gray’s first thought, its tentacles spread across the floor holding semi-upright a two-and-a-half-meter brown-mottled body curled at the end. A single saucer-sized eye—plus other sensory organs of more dubious uses—peered out from the base of the tentacle mass. Those tentacles flashed and shifted in their color patterns and textures; like the Glothr, they communicated with color and light in vivid visual displays.
Gray’s in-head database filled in the Agletsch name of the species: Groth Hoj. According to what humans had learned with the Koenig Expedition, the Groth Hoj had been masters of robotics, manufacturing massive robotic bodies for themselves . . . imitations of their natural bodies, at first, but then more and more outlandish machine designs.
Not all Groth Hoj had followed that route, which many apparently thought to be an evolutionary dead end. The refusers had stayed behind. And that must be who was here, today.
Another nonhuman appeared . . . but with this entity Gray drew a complete blank. He’d never seen anything remotely like it in any downloaded report or description of the N’gai civilizations.
His first impression was that it was a dinosaur—a long-necked sauropod—but it was held off the ground by six legs, not four. No tail, either, and the extra legs were unusual, set along the being’s center line, one behind, and one ahead; its walking pattern, Gray thought, would be . . . odd.
The hide looked like broken rock, the flanks like the side of a cliff, the neck like a cantilevered crane.
Most of all, the image he saw before him looked like it must be of a creature absolutely titanic in size, hundreds of meters long, perhaps, and massing tens of millions of tons. The head, broad, flattened, and wide, like the head of a hammerhead shark, swung ponderously at the end of that massive neck. Eyes—Gray thought they were eyes—glittered within the shadows underneath the head. A forest of what might have been a tangle of hair hung from the head’s underside like an unkempt beard. As the hairs twitched and writhed, Gray realized that they were manipulatory appendages. They almost hid a pulsing, V-shaped orifice that might be a mouth. . . .
No. Not a mouth. A breathing orifice, perhaps? A creature that huge would have to eat continuously to feed that ponderous bulk, and a mouth that small just wouldn’t be up to the task. So how did the thing eat? And what?
For some reason, he really didn’t want to find out.
“What,” Gray said, “is that?”
“The Agletsch call it a Drerd,” a voice in his head said, and Gray realized it was Konstantin speaking to him through his implants, not McKennon.
“Hello, Konstantin,” he transmitted. “Getting settled into your new base of operations okay?”
“Everything is most satisfactory, Admiral,” the AI replied in its maddeningly calm and precise voice. “I have managed to interface with the Sh’daar systems of data storage and begun downloading information on their civilization. There are a number of species here in the files which we have not previously encountered.”
“I suppose that’s to be expe
cted,” Gray replied. “When America paid her last visit here, we didn’t hang around for very long.”
“No. There are some hundreds of mutually alien species that evolved within the N’gai Cloud over the course of some billions of years. We knew of only a handful.”
Gray looked at the gathering aliens in the virtual meeting space and wondered why they had been chosen, as opposed to, say, the F’heen-F’haav symbiote pairs, or the sluglike Sjhlurrr.
It begged the question: who the hell was calling the shots for the Sh’daar?
Before he could figure that out, he realized the Drerd appeared to be speaking:
We give formal greeting to our visitors from the future. . . .
The voice was a deep baritone and clearly human, or more likely an AI human avatar. According to data now appearing in side windows in Gray’s consciousness, the huge being was rumbling at infrasound frequencies, producing sound waves down around 8 or 10 Hertz, well below the 20 Hz limit of human hearing.
Ghresthrepni, the Adjugredudhran ship captain, responded, in a smoothly blended medley of clicks, chirps, trills, and tinkling bells.
We note, too, the being said in translation, the presence of an associate from our Collective’s future, whom the Agletsch name Glothr. We would know the reason for this conclave.
Lights shimmered and pulsed within the Glothr. We bring warning from your future, ran the translation.
We would hear, rumbled the Drerd, from the humans. It was they who requested this gathering of Mind.
“You’re up,” McKennon said.
“I guess so.” And Gray stood.
The virtual image around him shifted as he did so. Rather than in a classroom of some sort, he now stood on an endless flat plain. The sky remained the same—vast clots of stars, nebulae, and scattered artificial worlds. Now, however, a circle of beings stood on that plain, facing one another. The Drerd, Gray saw, was bigger than he’d even imagined—a ponderously mobile mountain, a mountainscape all in its own right. He was the only human, and the other species were represented by just one apiece. The Glothr, he saw, was standing a couple of meters to his right, an Agletsch just to his left, while the Drerd towered above him perhaps fifty meters ahead, on the other side of the circle.