had not prepared as best we could. Even to the point of waking-as you say-a power like the Vay’en and seeking their alliance.”
“Foolish. Very foolish.” Gretchen buried her head in both hands. “At least this temptation is banished-none of the sleepers will return from the pit.” She made a casting-away motion. “The balance in the system has been destroyed. Structures you cannot perceive have descended deep into slow-time, quite close to the event horizon of the singularity. The tidal stress on the Thread broke apart the Chimalacatl -the Pylon, the great chrysalis chambers, the warehouses for the hosts-all gone.”
“We saw.” Helsdon sounded sick, but his face was alight with interest for the first time. “How-how did they do it? Hold something in balance deep in the gravity well? A platform-for the Vay’en themselves?”
“There were two lattices,” Anderssen replied, growing weary. What little strength had returned to her while recuperating in medbay was beginning to flag. “One fell while the other raised-not much, in the scale of their works, but enough. Enough for them to feel time quicken again.”
“Who?” Helsdon frowned, glancing to Kosho for support. “You said the Vay’en fell to oblivion-but something else rose up out of slow-time? What else was dwelling in this place? Something that will issue forth, as these Vay’en would have done?”
“Not yet, maybe never.” Gretchen made a vague motion towards the floor. “Eventually they might escape the gravity well, as their ancestors did. Or not. They have”-a small, fierce smile flitted across her face-“free will at least. They’ll have to choose, just like the rest of us.”
“Who? If the Vay’en perished in the singularity, what was on the other structure?”
“Their children.”
Helsdon and Susan stared at her, uncomprehending.
“That clever little bronze tablet Hummingbird gave me? He must have thought it a personal comp, or a ship- comm of some kind. But it was a teaching device for immature Vay’en. It tried to reprogram my mind and failed because my poor old ape brain just wasn’t capable of following the lessons. But it was a piece of the puzzle-and a twisty, nasty one at that. You see, the tablet was very old, even to the Vay’en. It was something they’d put aside-a failed, melancholy experiment-in favor of another, more promising way to cheat death.”
Kosho said nothing, hands clenched tightly behind her back. The Swedish woman’s voice had a queer, atonal quality and her face seemed marked by some last remnant of a hot golden glow. Helsdon drew back, shaking hand reaching for his sidearm.
“The Vay’en were-are-energy creatures,” Gretchen continued. “We would consider them sentient wave structures. And I would guess they could manipulate electromagnetic fields in close proximity to themselves with great dexterity. But in turn, their own physicality could be manipulated by quantum resonance. With the tablet, they were trying to bring their offspring ‘up to speed’ by exposing them to the already established mentation pattern of an accomplished elder. The mind in the tablet had been a poet, I think. Some kind of great artist. They wanted to keep his essence alive, even when chaos claimed him at last.
“In the beginning, the Vay’en evolved in the interface around a black hole. They could live far beyond its confines, but from all we saw, it seems they returned there to breed.” Gretchen halted, watching her two companions digest what she’d said.
Susan spoke first, musingly. “It was a nursery.”
Anderssen nodded, digging around for a threesquare in her blankets.
“They were betrayed, then,” the Nisei officer continued. “Their most loyal servants turned upon them at a most crucial juncture-their great fleet shattered by their own weapons. The Vay’en had to descend into the singularity to birth a new generation? But the Hjogadim trapped them too close to the event horizon, in slow-time. Then the treacherous Hjo abandoned the artifact and fled-to assume custody of the Vay’en dominions-to become Gods themselves.”
“Plagiarists,” Anderssen mumbled around the chewy bar. “Doesn’t sound like the traitors told anyone, though. A ‘Guide of Thought’ still rules the Hjo, from what I gather. But the Guide is not a Vay’en anymore, just some old fart of a Hjogadim pissing around a palace. So do the great powers pass!”
During this Helsdon had said nothing, but now the engineer stirred, moistening his lips before venturing: “You are saying the elder Vay’en had discovered how to live forever by impressing their memories and personality patterns upon the newborns of their own kind as they emerged from the birth-caul. They murdered their own children, so they might live on themselves?”
“Not just kin-murderers, either. They had no care for others of any race.” Gretchen’s voice was flat with anger. “You saw how Sahane viewed us. A pale echo of the attitude of his Gods. I think when the Vay’en departed their puppets en masse and descended to renew themselves, the Hjo rose up, seizing their one moment to escape. We have stumbled across the traces of a successful slave revolt.”
“But they didn’t all rebel, did they?” Kosho lifted her chin at the nav plot, where the vast shoals of broken leviathans still drifted in the abyss. “Even within the shield-reed, there must have been those who remained true to their masters.”
“Yes, many remained loyal. Quite a vicious little struggle they had. It was brother against brother… so much for the legacy of the glorious Vay’en. A squalid play of infanticide, kin war, and murder played out on a galactic scale, just to forestall death one more day. ”
“And now? What will happen to the children you’ve released from slow-time?”
Anderssen shrugged, managing the faintest smile. “I don’t know. It’s not much of a gifting day present, but they are freed from a cruel past.” And free of Lord Serpent, I hope. A nagging feeling of unease began to steal over her. Did that one escape the rebellion? How would you kill something like that? How long do they live?
“Was that what Hummingbird wanted?” Susan’s old anger began to return, thinking of the old Nahuatl. “Was that the choice of a nauallis? You said the end result was much as he desired-”
“His desire?” Gretchen snorted incredulously. “No, this was a tired mother’s choice, one who has seen both happy children and sad in full measure. No child was ever so blessed as to grow without the hand of expectation on her neck! Those which are let be, flourish, while those who are pressed hard wither. The Crow had no comprehension of what I felt, holding any of my babies in my arms. This was his great failing, I think, having no children of his own.”
With this, Anderssen finally lay back on the bed, her eyes turned to the ceiling and some distant vision. Kosho watched her for a minute, and then for five. But the Swedish woman said nothing more. At last, the Chu-sa turned away, motioning for Helsdon to follow.
When the door had cycled shut, Susan tapped open a comm channel to Oc Chac, who was acting duty officer on the bridge. “ Sho-sa, can you connect me to Captain De Charney aboard the Pilgrim? Extend my regards and let him know we’re ready for the rest of the wounded to come aboard.”
Then she turned to the engineer, who was waiting silently, head slightly bowed as he tried to digest all they had heard in the medbay. “ Kikan-shi, find Hennig and let him know we’ll be underway and out of this cursed place as fast as his crews can get the hypercoil in operation.”
Kosho’s face was calm and composed but her eyes were dark with troubled thoughts as Helsdon departed in haste. She could think of only one thing to do, given the intricacy of the situation. It’s at least seven days to get in range of one of the big t-repeaters on the Rim. If we push it, six. If I can manage a secure channel to Obasan Suchiru, then perhaps an accommodation can be made between the Mountains. Emperor Ahuizotl cannot be pleased to learn I’ve lost his son-not even an honorable corpse to bring home-as well as any possible prize from this tar-pit.
The thought of facing her grandmother with a disaster of this scale made Susan’s stomach clench, but despite this she walked steadily to the nearest lift, nodding to the doctors and corpsmen hurrying here and there in the medbay. When the doors cycled closed, she was perfectly composed, her white uniform shining in the gleam of the overheads.
“Main Command,” she requested.
Hadeishi pressed two fingers against a battle-steel door and heard, muted and distant through the metal, a chiming sound. A moment passed as he stood at ease, hands clasped behind his back, and then the door receded into the bulkhead with a soft hsst! Within, kneeling behind a low desk of teak and rosewood, her fine-boned face
