you?”
The other didn’t hesitate. “Tyrathect, Flenser in Waiting.”
Crypto: 0
As received by: Transceiver Relay03 at Relay
Language path: Samnorsk-»Triskweline, SjK:Relay units
From: Straumli Main
Subject: Archive opened in the Low Transcend!
Summary: Our links to the Known Net will be down temporarily
Key phrases: transcend, good news, business opportunities, new archive, communications problems
Distribution:
Where Are They Now Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group, Motley Hatch Administration Group, Transceiver Relay03 at Relay, Transceiver Windsong at Debley Down, Transceiver Not-for-Long at Shortstop
Date: 11:45:20 Docks Time, 01/09 of Org year 52089
Text of message:
We are proud to announce that a human exploration company from Straumli Realm has discovered an accessible archive in the Low Transcend. This is not an announcement of Transcendence or the creation of a new Power. We have in fact postponed this announcement until we were sure of our property rights and the safety of the archive. We have installed interfaces which should make the archive interoperable with standard syntax queries from the Net. In a few days this access will be made commercially available. (See discussion of scheduling problems below.)
Because of its safety, intelligibility, and age, this Archive is remarkable. We believe there is otherwise lost information here about arbitration management and interrace coordination. We’ll send details to the appropriate news groups. We’re very excited about this. Note that no interaction with the Powers was necessary; no part of Straumli Realm has transcended.
Now for the bad news: Arbitration and translation schemes have had unfortunate clenirations[?] with the ridgeway armiphlage[?]. The details should be amusing to the people in the Communication Threats news group, and we will report them there later. But for at least the next hundred hours, all our links (main and minor) to the Known Net will be down. Incoming messages may be buffered, but no guarantees. No messages can be forwarded. We regret this inconvenience, and will make up for it very soon!
Physical commerce is in no way affected by these problems. Straumli Realm continues to welcome tourists and trade.
CHAPTER 6
Looking back, Ravna Bergsndot saw it was inevitable that she become a librarian. As a child on Sjandra Kei, she had been in love with stories from the Age of Princesses. There was adventure, a time when a few brave Ladies had dragged humankind to greatness. She and her sister had spent countless afternoons pretending to be the Greater Two and rescuing the Countess of the Lake. Later they understood that Nyjora and its Princesses were lost in the dim past. Sister Lynne turned to more practical things. But Ravna still wanted adventure. Through her teens, she had dreamed of emigrating to Straumli Realm. That was something very real. Imagine: a new and mostly human colony, right at the Top of the Beyond. And Straum welcomed folk from the mother world; their enterprise was less than one hundred years old. They or their children would be the first humans anywhere in the galaxy to transcend their own humanity. She might end up a god, and richer than a million Beyonder worlds. It was a dream real enough to provoke constant arguments with her parents. For where there is heaven, there can also be hell. Straumli Realm kissed close to the Transcend, and the people there played with “the tigers that pace beyond the bars.” Dad had actually used that tired image. The disagreement drove them apart for several years. Then, in her Computer Science and Applied Theology courses, Ravna began to read about some of the old horrors. Maybe, maybe… she should be a little more cautious. Better to look around first. And there was a way to see into everything that humans in the Beyond could possibly understand: Ravna became a librarian. “The ultimate dilettante!” Lynne had teased. “It’s true and so what?” Ravna had grumped back, but the dream of far traveling was not quite dead in her.
Life in Herte University at Sjandra Kei should have been perfect for someone who had finally figured out what they wanted from life. Things might have gone on happily for a lifetime there—except that in her graduation year, there had been the Vrinimi Organization’s Faraway Prentice contest. Three years work-study at the archive by Relay was the prize. Winning was the chance of a lifetime; she would come back with more experience than any local academician.
So it was that Ravna Bergsndot ended up more than twenty thousand light-years from home, at the network hub of a million worlds.
Sunset was an hour past when Ravna drifted across Citypark toward Grondr Vrinimikalir’s residence. She’d been on the planet only a handful of times since arriving in the Relay system. Most of her work was at the archives themselves—a thousand light-hours out. This part of Groundside was in early autumn, though twilight had faded the tree colors to bands of gray. From Ravna’s altitude, one hundred meters up, the air had the nip of frosts to come. Between her feet she could see picnic fires and gaming fields. The Vrinimi Organization didn’t spend much on the planet, but the world was beautiful. As long as she kept her eyes on the darkening ground, Ravna could almost imagine this was someplace in her home terrane on Sjandra Kei. Look into the sky though… and you knew you were far from home: twenty-thousand light-years away, the galactic whirlpool sprawled up toward the zenith.
It was just a faint thing in the twilight, and it might not get much brighter this night: Low in the western sky, a cluster of in-system factories glowed brighter than any moon. The operation was a brilliant flickering of stars and rays, sometimes so intense that stark shadows were cast eastwards from the Citypark mountains. In another half hour, the Docks would rise. The Docks weren’t as bright as the factories, but together they would outshine anything from the far stars.
She shifted in her agrav harness, drifting lower. The scent of autumn and picnics came stronger. Suddenly, the click of Kalir laughter was all around her; she had blundered into an airball game. Ravna spread her arms in mock humiliation and dodged out of the players’ way.
Her stroll through the park was just about over; she could see her destination ahead. Grondr ’Kalir’s residence was a rarity in the Citypark landscape: a recognizable building. It dated from when the Org bought into the Relay operation. Seen from just eighty meters up, the house was a blocky silhouette against the sky. When factory lights flashed, the smooth walls of the monolith glowed in oily tints. Grondr was her boss’s boss’s boss. She had talked to him exactly three times in two years.
No more delay. Nervous and very curious, Ravna floated lower and let the house electronics guide her across the tree decks toward an entrance.
Grondr Vrinimikalir treated her with standard Organization courtesy, the common denominator that served between the several races of the Org: The meeting room had furniture suitable for human and Vrinimi use. There were refreshments, and questions about her job at the archive.
“Mixed results, sir,” Ravna replied honestly. “I’ve learned a great deal. The ’prenticeship is everything it’s claimed to be. But I’m afraid the new division is going to require an added index layer.” All this was in reports the old fellow could have seen at the flick of a digit.
Grondr rubbed a hand absently across his eye freckles. “Yes, an expected disappointment. We’re at the limits of information management with this expansion. Egravan and Derche—” those were Ravna’s boss and boss’s boss “— are quite happy with your progress. You came well educated, and learned fast. I think there’s a place for humans in the Organization.”
“Thank you, sir.” Ravna blushed. Grondr’s assessment was casually spoken but very important to her. And it would probably mean the arrival of more humans, perhaps even before her ’prenticeship was up. So was this the
