by Larry Niven
After a time, a bulbous entity heaved itself out of a pool of liquid helium. It slowly extruded a strand of matter from its center. The tentacle slid along the cold surface, and finally wrapped around a small rock.
Slowly, the dimly thinking coldlife automaton lifted the rock against the light gravity. It waved the prize toward the glittering plasmid cloud orbiting the cold planetoid. The tentacled construct felt something like a frigid triumph, and quested around for new objects to investigate.
Thus were the Dark Ones born.
For many revolutions of the galaxy, the Dark Ones carried out the bidding of the Radiants in the world of cold matter. The Radiants themselves continued their explorations at the other end of the spectrum, basking in heat and light unimaginable. Together, the two classes of Mind explored the new universe, finding things awesome and strange.
The Dark Ones moved from cold rock to still colder, tasting and examining. Learning. Yet it was not sufficient, as they could sense other worlds in space around them. They learned to build self-contained nests to carry expeditions across great distances in search of knowledge. Such was the curiosity of the Dark Ones that some nests could travel faster than a photon in vacuum.
The Radiants in turn fashioned large structures of gas, dust, and electromagnetic fields. The tenuous constructs were designed to listen to the faint songs of other galaxies, or the brittle noises from the surfaces of neutron stars. Mysteries worth investigating abounded at the fiery centers and great whorls of galaxies.
Much was learned about the new universe by the Dark Ones and the Radiants. That information was carried by the glowing plasma clouds to one of the still wriggling cracks in time and space. The messenger Radiant, bloated with information, would intercalate into the very field lines of the cosmic string, an intimate touch of blended attraction and repulsion. Stretched thin, the intelligent cloud would wrap tightly around the portal between universes, and send the collected information to They Who Pass, dwelling on the other side of the cosmic string. In return, new information and instruction would be transmitted from They Who Pass into the Radiant messenger. The messenger, in turn, would free itself from the cosmic string and spread the new tidings.
So the situation remained for many eons. Until the Conundrum.
They Who Pass ceased to speak to the Radiants through the tortured windows of their cosmic strings. The children they had sired in the new, strange universe were left to their own devices. To find their own destinies without the influence of their creators, fallen silent on the other side of an interdimensional crack between realities.
The strange children of They Who Pass had drive, but no longer purpose. Their drive became their purpose.
The Radiants soon became uninterested in the Dark Ones, focusing instead on issues far from the solid phase of matter. Some Radiants learned how to transform themselves into less delicate forms, able to withstand existence within the cores of suns. Vast communities of the plasma beings lived in the turbulent core of the galaxy, seeking the unknowable. Others remained wrapped and intertwined within the massive lines of force surrounding the now silent cosmic strings, plaintive, hoping for the return of They Who Pass.
After a time the Radiants seldom communicated with their cold servants, made of dull matter instead of lively plasma. The sentient clouds fell as silent as their creators on the other side of the cosmic string.
They had other concerns.
The Dark Ones, too, were forced to find their own destiny in the cosmos. Many of them simply traveled without end, continuing to observe and store data as they had before—even without a recipient to which they could deliver.
Others made a ritual and religion of following precisely the ways of the Old Time, when Radiant and Dark One and They Who Pass were in constant communication—perhaps the Great Silence was due to a lack of following instructions with strictest accuracy. A few Dark Ones developed their own interests among the other, native minds that eventually dwelled in the new universe. These less organized Dark Ones found that their ancient drive to collect information could be useful, and that it was possible to manipulate these new upstart sources of data to acquire still more.
The majority of the Dark Ones—regardless of social structure—would have nothing to do with other, lesser minds which developed in the new universe. They preferred to brood in a silence to match that of They Who Pass.
Those Dark Ones who did upon occasion interact with the new sentients came to be known by many names throughout the galaxies, a name pronounced by a dizzying variety of communication organs.
In one area of space-time, the various inhabitants called them the Outsiders.
• CHAPTER EIGHT
Rrowl-Captain’s dreams were not pleasant.
They stalked him like a loud predator closing confidently on prey. Crippled bleeding prey, limping across a field without proper cover. Without allies or weapons.
There was no escape.
In his dream, he was still a crèche-kit, with no name other than Second Son of Graach-Gunner. He and his litter brother, First Son of Graach-Gunner, had been inseparable comrades in crèche. In their sleeping lair, after the illuminators were dimmed, they had often hissed and spat about what Hero-Names they would choose when they were both grandly honored for bravery.
As they surely would be so honored. Were they not brave kzinti, as they learned to stalk feral Jotoki in the hunting park?
It did not matter that the crèche teachers were guiding the development of their young muscles and growing hunt-skills with great care and attention to tradition. The pair were young, but would grow into an adulthood of honor, recipients of Hero’s Blood for more octals of generations than could be counted.
They were kzin, feeders at the apex of the Great Web of Life. Was there any doubt that a Warrior Heart beat within each of their young chests?
First Son of Graach-Gunner wanted to someday take a Hero-Name from their family history, C’mef. Centuries before, another C’mef had died defending a foppish relative of the Riit against an usurping colonist kzin. Honor was more important than details to Graach-Gunner’s family line; the Warrior Heart burned bright in all of them. C’mef would be a proud name to weave back into the honored tapestry of their lineage.
Second Son of Graach-Gunner had admired the liver and Warrior Heart of his litter-brother very much, and wished to honor him in turn. He had always followed his elder brother, claw to claw and fang next to fang against their crèche-foes. Second Son of Graach-Gunner had secretly chosen the name of C’mef’s own litter-brother and duel-ally from that long dead time, Rrowl.
As it had been many centuries in the past, so it would be again, now and in the future. C’mef and Rrowl.
Or so Second Son of Graach-Gunner had thought, until his litter-brother had fallen from a rock castle during agility drills. The impact had broken his neck struts, killing First Son of Graach-Gunner instantly.
Second Son of Graach-Gunner was inconsolable, which was unseemly even for a crèche-kit. He had been perhaps too close to his litter-brother, and Graach-Gunner too gruff a father.
But every kzin must stand on his own as he wrestled honor and truth from the jaws of the One Fanged God. Graach-Gunner sent a Stalker in the Night to counsel and correct his second-youngest son’s unkzinlike grief.
The Stalkers were priests-of-bad-tidings, coats and thoughts black as their names. They were from every Heroic line, even the Riit, just as the Warrior Heart was part of every kzin lineage.
From time to time, an occasional litter of kits included one or two ebony offspring; the Stalkers of the Night soon took the dark kittens away for training in the priesthood. They stood out in any group of kzinti, the everyday tawny orange with dark patches, spots, and stripes becoming something the eye ignored. A jet black kzin, with eyes the color of an angry sky, was odd and frightening.
Which was, after all, the point of the Stalkers in the Night, They reminded kzinti of the Warrior Hearts devotion to honor and bravery. They were livi
ng arbiters of the One Fanged God, much feared and respected.
“So, little one,” the ebony figure had hissed at Second Son of Graach-Gunner that dark day. “Your litter-brother has fallen in battle. It is the Will and Claw-swipe of the One Fanged God.”
Even frightened by the shadow-kzin priest, the crèche-kit had spoken up. “He fell from a high rock to die! How is that the Will of the One Fanged God?”
The kzin-priest was silent a long moment, then had coughed laughter. “Your fangs are not blunt, small one. But mine are sharper still.” A black furred hand tipped with gleaming ebony claws appeared in front of his face, almost touching his eyes. “But you must learn respect to match your liver.”
Second Son of Graach-Gunner had squeezed his eyelids closed in fearful obedience. It was the wrong choice.
“Look at me,” the hissing voice roared, “Or I will peel your eyelids from your coward eyes like a vatach-pelt!”
Rrowl-Captain opened his eyes in fright, the dream dissolving into a chaos of sorrow, lost battles, and green-tinged monkey hell.
His hand leapt to his face, seeking the faint scar that had been left there so many years before by the Stalker in the Night.
He did not know where he was.
A false red sky loomed above him. The air carried odor that seemed right, but were somehow not. White traceries, like chachatta webs, clung to him. He carefully stood brushing the webbing from his body. Sharpened-Fang was nearby, laying on its side on sandy soil.
The air was quiet, but his nose sniffed wetly at danger.
What has happened? Rrowl-Captain wondered to himself. The ugly aliens interrupting the battle with the monkey shot my ship with some form of energy weapon…and then…
Something suddenly occurred to Rrowl-Captain, making him forget the strangenesses around him. All trace of his radiation sickness, a last dark gift from the monkey trap was gone.
Rrowl-Captain felt well fed and healthy. It should not be so.
“Greetings, Honored One,” hissed and spat a voice in the Hero’s Tongue behind him, but pitched as high as a tiny kitten’s. “We must speak to you, having need of your bravery and honor.”
Rrowl-Captain whirled, and saw a hole hanging in midair. No, he realized, more like a window. Through it, he saw strange forms, with three legs and two heads. Rrowl-Captain could see what were surely weapons carried by the larger of the beasts, and smiled a needle grin in challenge.
Then Rrowl-Captain saw the human-monkeys standing behind the alien vermin. The monkeys that had stolen his name and honor. He would taste their blood in his jaws, and that of the other creatures. A holy Rage took him, and he screamed and leaped in fury, throwing himself at his enemies with claws and fangs bared.
• CHAPTER NINE
Bruno stifled a gasp and took a step back as the snarling kzin took flight toward them.
“Wait,” Carol breathed, her hand on his arm. She had not moved, other than to tense into a soldier’s slight crouch of readiness.
The kzin hit the force-wall at the top of his leap—and bounced backwards into a confused orange heap.
“Impressive,” observed Carol. “But not very smart.”
He muttered, “I can’t get used to this sort of thing.” There was some kind of force-shield around their “zoo” enclosure; why shouldn’t there be force-shield windows between cages containing different captive beasts? There was a bitter taste of helplessness in his mouth.
Bruno watched Carol put fists on hips and turn toward the other window, where the three-legged aliens that waited with apparent patience.
“What do you want me to say?” she said. A finger stabbed at the orange-and-black-furred form slowly rising to its feet. “That’s what a ratcat is all about. That’s why we have to fight them.”
“Still,” sang the creature called Diplomat, “it is necessary to involve both of your factions in the solution to this…ah, difficulty, Captain Faulk. It is of concern to both of your species, after all.”
The window displaying the obviously enraged kzin faded, changed into the same false view of distance as the rest of their enclosure.
“How so?” injected Bruno. He scratched the interface plug on his neck. Maybe if he had been “repaired,” it occurred to him, he could Link once again.
Not now.
The larger of the two aliens bugled. The smaller one cocked a head in listening posture. After a moment, it sang back an answer. The musical conversation continued for some time; John Philip Sousa versus Vivaldi.
“My colleague,” continued the smaller of the aliens, turning back to Bruno and Carol, “concurs that I should attempt to be straightforward with both of you.”
“Meaning?” rapped Carol.
Bruno had seen this before. Carol did not like feeling helpless; she was far too action-oriented. And they couldn’t get more helpless: stranded without an interstellar spacecraft, Finagle knew how far from home, in the hands of multiple factions of aliens.
The alien called Diplomat was still speaking. “The pointless battle between your species and the kzin—”
“Wait a second,” interrupted Bruno. “They attacked us, enslaved our people. I would not call our self-defense pointless.”
Carol had nipped his ear between her fingers.
“Tacky, darling,” she whispered sweetly. “Let the nice alien finish, would you? We can defend our actions later.”
Diplomat had craned heads at Bruno and Carol, watching them both at the same time, with the loose-lipped idiot stare that so clearly was misleading.
“Thank you, Captain Faulk,” Diplomat continued. “As I was singing…ah, saying…the altercation in deep space between your warring solar systems has disturbed a rather traditional faction of our hosts.”
Carol pulled at her lip again in thought. “We—the kzin there and ourselves—tread on their territory, perhaps?”
“Excellent simile,” replied the little alien. “It is more accurate to say that this Traditionalist faction holds the spaces between stars rather sacred.”
Bruno began to understand. “So this is a religious issue in deep space?” It was a bit amusing, and he stifled a chuckle.
Both heads swiveled at once to face Bruno. “Mr. Takagama, if that choking sound you are emitting is actually a vocalization of humor, I can assure that this is a grave situation. The Zealots’ so-called religious concerns are based on actual events, from the early era of this universe.”
“We have violated their temple?” persisted Carol.
“More like we have stirred up a hornets’ nest,” added Bruno. He took Carol’s hand in his, running his thumb back and forth against her palm.
Diplomat cocked a head at Bruno. “I do not understand.”
Bruno held back impatience. “Stinging insects that live in group nests on our worlds, Diplomat. If the nest is disturbed, they attack the disturber as a group.”
“Excellent, Mr. Takagama. You grasp the point with both mouths.” Again the twin necks shot up, the heads eye to eye for an instant.
“So we leave their temple alone,” Bruno said. “We didn’t know. Now we do.”
“It is not so simple, Mr. Takagama,” sang Diplomat. “The Zealots now see you—and your whole species—as an irritant to be removed. Our hosts wish to change this potentially destructive point of view.”
“Wait a minute,” asked Carol slowly. “Why are we—or the kzin, or you—important to this faction of Outsiders?”
“They are called Dissonants,” added Diplomat. “They oppose the ancient strictures of the Zealots, and wish to forge their own destiny, sometimes in association with life-forms like ourselves.”
“Whatever. I am glad that we were rescued, but where are we being taken—and why?”
The three-legged alien’s hooves beat a complex pattern. It turned and sang to the larger alien, which blared music back.
“Carol—” Bruno started to ask, but she squeezed his arm to signal for silence.
Diplomat turned to face them again. “
My Guardian has argued for becoming yet more direct.” The heads wobbled a bit. “Let me take the points quickly, as time remains short. There are many things like your species in the galaxy, you know full well, considering your cargo.”
“How do you know about that?” asked Bruno. How could they know about the Tree-of-Life virus still in the hold of Dolittle? They might have found it, of course, but how would they know what it could do?
The puppeteer waved a head in a slow figure eight as if dismissing his comment. “The point is that the Dissonants have worked with your various species many times in the past. Your own…more undomesticated, feral species appeals to them…well, aesthetically.”
“We’ll table that for the moment,” Carol said.
“As you wish,” replied Diplomat. “The Dissonants wish to preserve your species—as well as my own, and the kzin. We are interesting to them, a source of information.”
Bruno broke in, sensing another long speech on the alien horizon. “So where are we now, and where are we going?”
The hemisphere above Carol and Bruno suddenly stopped looking like a sky with fleecy white clouds. It was a bowl filled with a mottled opal radiance that hurt the eyes, Geometrical shapes swam in curdled colors that Bruno could not name. The “sky” twisted and bent, distorted and distorting.
It was like nothing Bruno had ever seen before.
“We are presently,” sang Diplomat quietly in his human-sounding voice, “just over one hundred light-years from human space. And moving at three hundred times the speed of light, in another dimension.”
“Another dimension?”
“Certainly. It is the only way to travel faster than light, is it not?”
“Hyperspace,” breathed Bruno and Carol at the same time.
“Indeed. We are leading the Zealot spacecraft far away from human and kzinti space.”
“And…” Bruno prompted, still in awe of the eye-straining vision above them. A shape seemed to form, shifting and rotating, moving in a stately procession across the false sky. It grew somehow larger and smaller, then faded into the milky clotted strangeness.