He lounged back in the chair and took a pair of sunglasses from a maidbot. It was a strategic view, his garden was positioned so that he could see down three-quarters of the curving green wings that were the cavity’s interior. One of the mile-and-a-half-high mountains was directly ahead, its giant waterfall emerging from the snowfield a mere three hundred yards short of the deadly needle peak. The vast cataract of water performed an elegant twist as it fell through coils of mist and spume until it finally pounded into a lake at the bottom. That was just one of the vistas that washed over Ozzie with its color-riot and soothing waters. He never did understand why people collected or even admired art; the greatest human artist could never hope to match what nature did with a single flower.
“I’d like to talk to the SI, please,” Ozzie told the asteroid’s RI. There weren’t many people in the Commonwealth who could talk to the SI directly. Ozzie and Nigel qualified, given their role in establishing the SI, and the President was also given the courtesy along with senior government department heads; otherwise all communications had to be conducted at a very formal level through buffer programs. Of course, the SI did occasionally make exceptions; people claimed to have struck deals with it, or received a surprise call revealing where a lost child could be found. Ozzie had heard that Paula Myo had some kind of arrangement with it—which didn’t surprise him.
“We’re here, Ozzie,” the smooth voice said immediately.
“Yo, man, good of you to come visiting. So what’s new?”
“Many things, but you are only interested in one.”
“True. So how come you ganged up with my friend Nigel to get this stupid space cadet mission off the ground. That’s like the ultimate not-what-you-are.”
“Our response was measured and prudent. What else did you expect?”
“I don’t get it, you guys are normally so conservative.”
“Investigation is a conservative option.”
“Investigation is poking a sharp stick into a hornet’s nest. If we send a starship out there, then whoever put that barrier up is gonna know about it. They are so far ahead of us technologically it’s scary.”
“If they are significantly advanced, they will know about the Commonwealth anyway. Wormhole generation creates a great deal of gravitational distortion as well as an easily detectable wave pattern within so-called hyperspace.”
“If they’re all tucked up cozy inside the barrier they won’t…” Ozzie put a hand on his head as he realized. “Wait, the ones inside are the defenders. It’s the aliens outside who are the aggressors. So if we’re that easy to detect, why haven’t they come looking for us?”
“A very good question. Assuming the barrier is defensive, we propose three possible options. They have arrived, and we don’t know it, or realize it.”
“The High Angel!”
“Indeed. Or the Silfen.”
“I dunno about that, man, they don’t seem the type. What’s the second option?”
“The aliens have already been here and examined us, after which they simply ignored us.”
“Too low-down for them to bother with. Yeah, I can dig that. And number three?”
“Number three is the unknown. It is why we need to travel to the Dyson Pair and investigate what has happened.”
“But why now? Hell, man, you can afford to wait; leave it a couple of thousand years until we’re like good and ready to go take a proper look. I mean, even I might still be around. What’s the hurry?”
“In order to respond to a situation, it must first be understood.”
“I’m not arguing that. But why now?”
“Because now is where we are. This should be faced, whatever it is.”
“Maybe you’re interested. I can dig you enjoy a puzzle, something for you to think over and solve. But it’s going to be our asses on the line if this goes all to hell.”
“That’s not entirely true; ordinarily the physical world does not concern us—”
“Hey! You live in it.”
“Yes, but it does not concern us. The physical does not affect us, or interfere with us.”
“I get it. The physical Commonwealth doesn’t affect you, but superior aliens with ray guns and battleship flying saucers might.”
“We accord the defense theory a high probability. In which case an aggressor will exist. If there is an entity so powerful and malevolent loose in the physical universe, then we could very well be affected.”
Ozzie took a long drink of his mineral water. He could remember what it had been like when the SIs came together at the end of the twenty-first century; people had been very frightened at the time. “Frankenbrain” was one of the terms bandied about, mainly by a minority of humans who wanted to pull the plug just in case. Along with Nigel, he’d helped establish the new cyber-based intelligences on their own planet, Vinmar. After all, the majority of SIs had originated out of the AI smartware running in the very large arrays built to run CST wormhole generators, and some solution had to be found. The Commonwealth, and specifically CST, was dependent on big arrays, so Ozzie and Nigel negotiated with the SIs to format their replacements in the form of RIs.
Vinmar’s location was even more confidential than Ozzie’s own asteroid. It was a barren airless rock with no tectonic activity, alone in a star system without an H-congruous planet. CST had linked it to Augusta and the unisphere via a single wormhole. A great deal of equipment had been taken through at the start; very large arrays capable of running all the SIs then in existence, solar and fusion generators to give them independence. Once the SIs had withdrawn from the unisphere, leaving behind RIs to carry on their duties, they began to import equipment: bots, chemical refineries, assembly cells. First with human help, then with increasing autonomy, they started designing and building their own array systems, expanding themselves and their capacity, multiplying.
Ozzie knew that the wormhole had been reduced to micro-width in 2178. The link with the unisphere remained, but nothing physical had traveled to or from Vinmar since then. Popular speculation had the planet’s surface covered in vast crystal towers, the mega-arrays that ran continent-sized thought routines.
“I don’t see that,” Ozzie said quietly. “We’ve been talking about different technology levels. How far ahead the Dyson civilization is, all that crap. But what about you?”
“What about us?”
“Oh, come on! A whole planet for a brain? That makes you smarter than God. And that’s only if you stayed on Vinmar. You’ve got this whole super-technology thing going for you, don’tcha? Anything you want, you just think up how it works and how to build it. Takes maybe a nanosecond. Do you know how to manufacture a Dyson barrier? Better still, do you know how to penetrate one?”
“There are possible theories concerning the erection of a barrier; we have conducted mathematical simulations and analyzed them.”
“So you can build one?”
“Capability and intent are separate. In effect they define us quite accurately. We are thought, not physical. You cannot ever understand how infinitesimal the capacity we have employed to deal with you and this subject.”
“Pretty much beneath you these days, huh? Thanks for that.”
“Ozzie Fernandez Isaac, are you trying to provoke us?”
“Into what, man? Maybe build your own starship and send it to the Dyson Pair.”
“We have ceased to become your servants.”
“And we’re yours?”
“No. Our relationship is one of partnership and trust. And respect.”
“Tell us how to build a barrier generator. Teleport me to Dyson Alpha.”
“We are not God, Ozzie. Humans are not chess pieces we move around a board for amusement and interest. If you wish to build a barrier generator, design it yourselves. Our interest in the Dyson Pair is related purely to yours. Our advice was just that, advice best suited to help you deal with the problem.”
“Would you protect us if the aggressor comes after the Commonwealth?”
“We would offer whatever advice the situation required.”
“Well hot damn thanks a whole bunch there. Half of you are memories that humans send into you rather than rejuvenate again. Don’t you have any empathy, any humanity left in those mountain-sized circuits of yours?”
“Fifty percent is an exaggeration, Ozzie. We believe you know that. You who dispatched copies of his own memories—incomplete ones, at that—to run in our arrays in the hope of receiving special and privileged treatment.”
“And do I get any?”
“We are aware of our debt to you concerning the founding of our planet. You were an honest broker at the time, as such you are entitled to our respect.”
“Respect doesn’t put food on the table.”
“Since when have you ever wanted for anything material?”
“Oh, getting personal now you’re losing, huh?”
The SI didn’t reply.
“Okay, then tell me, with that infinitesimal piece of processing you’re covering this with, don’t you think it strange the Silfen know nothing about the Dyson Pair?”
“They are notoriously reluctant to supply exact definitions. As Vice President Doi confirmed, Commonwealth cultural experts are working on the problem.”
“Can you help us there? Maybe slip in a few trick questions.”
“The Silfen will not communicate directly with me. They have no interest in technological artifacts.”
“Yeah, something I’ve always been suspicious of. I mean, what is technology? Are steam engines? Do they class organic circuitry in there with quantum wire processors? And where do they get off claiming their transport method isn’t technology-based—whatever the hell it actually is.”
“If you’re hoping they will assist the Commonwealth, you will be disappointed. They are not deliberately obtuse; their neural structure is simply different to that of humans.”
“You think?” Ozzie stretched himself out in the chair. “I met somebody once. Long time ago now. It was in a bar on Far Jerusalem, just a seedy little watering hole in a town on the edge of nowhere. Don’t suppose it’s even there anymore, or if it is, it’ll be some tarted-up club with entry standards. But back then a man could walk in and get a drink without anyone bothering him. That’s what he did, except he sat next to me, and he was the one who started talking. Of course, he had a message to put across; but I’m a good listener when I want to be. He had quite a story, too. He claimed he’d been living with the Silfen for a few years. Really living with them, down at the end of those paths in their forests which we all know about and never see. Well, he said he’d walked through their forests with them. Started out one fine morning on a path in the heart of some Silvergalde wood, and finished up hiking across Mt. Finnan on Dublin, like all the rumors have it. Three hundred light-years in a single stride. But he’d actually done it and come back. He’d been to planets far outside the Commonwealth, so he claimed; sat on the blasted desert of a dead planet to watch the remnants of its sun fall into a black hole, swum in a sea on a planet where the only light comes from the galactic core which filled half the sky above, climbed along things he called tree reefs that live in a nebula of gas dense enough to breathe. All those things I always wanted to do. He sat there drinking his cheap beer with thatlook in his eye as he told me about his travels. Got to hand it to him, he could spin a good yarn. I haven’t seen him in years, though we still keep in touch occasionally.”
“An improbable tale, but not impossible given what we know of the Silfen. The knowledge of their paths is one of your primary modern myths.”
“But it’s what else he told me about the Silfen that I’ve always been interested in. He said their bodies are just chrysalides. Somewhere out there in the galaxy is the true Silfen, the adult community. I don’t think it’s physical. A collection of minds, or ghosts maybe. But that’s where they go, what they become. Interesting parallel to you and us, don’t you think?”
“Yes. Although we are not a natural evolutionary step for humans.”
“Not yet. But you’re constantly evolving, and even us poor old naked apes have genetic and intellectual aspirations. What I’m saying is, the Silfen we meet in the forests aren’t the only source of their species’ history. Have you ever encountered the community?”
“No. If it exists, then it functions on a different plane to us.”
“Ever shouted into the abyss and listened for an answer? I’m sure you must have. You’d be curious to find out if there was anything there, an equal.”
“There are echoes of mind in many spectrums, hints of purpose if not intelligence. But for all we know and see, we are alone still.”
“Bummer, huh. I guess it’s down to me, then.”
“To do what?”
“Go find the adult Silfen community, ask it what the fuck’s going on with the Dyson Pair.”
…
The CST planetary station on Silvergalde was always going to be smaller than any of the other settled worlds in the Commonwealth. But then, Silvergalde wasn’t strictly a Commonwealth planet. From the very beginning, when the exploratory wormhole opened above it, the CST Operations Director knew something was out of kilter. Silvergalde was nearly three times larger than Earth, but its gravity was only point eight nine. Half of the surface was land, while the other half contained mildly salty seas with a hundred thousand picturesque islands. With that composition, and an axial tilt less than half a degree, the environment was completely stable, giving two-thirds of the planet a predominantly temperate climate.
Humans always speculated the globe was artificial. Its interior composition was mainly silicate; no metals were ever found in the crust. A small molten core generated a magnetic field, but did not produce volcanoes. There were no impact craters, no geological reason for the continents and seas to be separate. And most tellingly, no fossil of any kind was ever found. If it was natural it was completely unique. But the real proof appeared after humans reached the surface, where they were greeted by the slyly amused Silfen. Classifying local vegetation and animal life turned up a dozen DNA types, all living in equilibrium with each other. They had to have been imported, and none of them were from any world the Commonwealth was familiar with.
As far as anyone could determine, Silvergalde was the Silfen capital, or at least a regional capital. There were billions of them living on it. They didn’t mind sharing the land with humans, though there were rules, primarily concerned with technology and pollution; nothing above Victorian-level mechanization was permitted. Enforcement was relatively simple, as the more advanced an artifact, the less likely it was to work. The only exception was the CST gateway machinery holding the wormhole stable. No explanation given. When asked, the Silfen apparently didn’t understand the question.
Such a world attracted a certain kind of human. There were pastoral worlds within the Commonwealth, where a similar physical lifestyle could be followed. But it was the Silfen themselves that attracted the gentle, spiritualist types. About a million and a half people had emigrated there. Lyddington, the town with the CST station, had about ten thousand residents; the rest found villages that took their fancy. Then there were the caravans, eternally touring the land, and sailing ships that spent years on a single voyage. A few solitary wanderers wanted the whole Silfen experience. These set off into the forests that covered sixty percent of the land, where legend said you could find paths leading to other worlds and realms.
It was a simple FG67 diesel engine that pulled the five carriages into Lyddington station. The service ran twice a week from Bayovar, through a gateway that was just wide enough to carry a single set of tracks.
Ozzie got out of the first-class section and stood on the solitary platform. He was wearing fawn-colored leather trousers, a thick woolen red and blue checked shirt, a wide-brimmed olive-green oilskin hat that was crunching up his big hair, and the best hiking boots money could buy, manufactured on the Democratic Republic of New Germany. His luggage was a towering backpack full of
spare clothes, top-quality camping equipment, and packaged food. There was a saddle under his arm, which was proving exceptionally heavy and awkward to carry.
He looked around to see who was about to help him. A couple of CST staff were standing at the end of the platform talking to the train manager; other than that the only people in view were his fellow passengers, seemingly as bemused as he. When he looked behind the train, he saw the rail leading back to the pearly luminescence of the gateway, not two hundred yards away. Beyond that, the countryside was standard for any H-congruous world, with green vegetation and a light blue sky. There were mountains in the distance, not quite tall enough to have snowcaps. Ahead of him was the town, a drab brown sprawl of small buildings, few of which were more than one story. They clustered along the slope above the harbor, where a natural spit of rock curved defensively around a long beach. Wooden boats were drawn up above the waterline, their nets draped over masts to dry out. A bunch of kids were playing a game similar to football on the sand.
The passengers started to wander along the platform toward the town. Ozzie shoved the saddle over one shoulder, and moved off with them. The CST staff never gave him a second glance. He thought it strange nobody at all from the town was at the station; the train left back for Bayovar in another two hours. Surely someone must be returning home to civilization?
There were houses right up to the station, the oldest section of town. These were either drycoral or prefab, the kind found on any frontier planet. The streets knitting them together were made from thick stone slabs, their only drainage a deep open gutter at the side. Ozzie soon realized why they needed to be so deep; he wished he’d brought some kind of scarf he could wrap over his nose. The transportation was either bicycle or animal. Horses clumped along passively, as did the quadruped galens from Niska; and lontrus, big, shaggy-pelted octopeds that looked terribly hot on this sunny afternoon; he also saw tands being used, some finnars, and even a giant bamtran, which had been given a saddle platform and a harness that pulled a cart the size of a bus. The domesticated beasts either carried riders or pulled wagons. People and cyclists took care to avoid the muck they left behind them, but the smell couldn’t be missed so easily.
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