hundred light-years), it would likely be several hundred light-years across—that in keeping with the scaling laws of historical precedent. There was only one trouble with this reasoning: they were beyond all precedent. For the most part, zone boundaries followed galactic mean density. There was virtually no change from year to year, just the aeons’ long shrinkage that might someday—after the death of all but the smallest stars—expose the galactic core to the Beyond. At any given time, perhaps one billionth of that boundary might qualify as being in a “storm state'. In an ordinary storm, the surface might move in or out a light-year in a decade or so. Such storms were common enough to affect the fortunes of many worlds every year.
Much rarer—perhaps once in a hundred thousand years in the whole galaxy—there would be a storm where the boundary became seriously distorted, and where surges might move at a high multiple of light speed. These were the transverse surges that Pham and Blueshell made their scale estimates from. The fastest moved at about a light-year per second, across a distance of less than three lights; the largest were thirty light-years high and moved at scarcely a light-year per day.
So what was known of monsters like the thing that had engulfed them? Not much. Third-hand stories in the Ship’s library told of surges perhaps as big as theirs, but the quoted dimensions and propagation rates were not clear. Stories more than a hundred million years old are hard to trust; there are scarcely any intermediate languages. (And even if there were, it wouldn’t have helped. The new, dumb version of the OOB absolutely could not do mechanical translation of natural languages. Dredging the library was pointless.)
When Ravna complained about this to Pham, he said, “Things could be worse. What was the Ur-Partition really?”
Five billion years ago. “No one’s sure.”
Pham jerked a thumb at his library display. “Some people think it was a ‘super supersurge’, you know. Something so big it swallowed the races that might have recorded it. Sometimes the biggest disasters aren’t noticed at all—no one’s around to write horror stories.”
Great.
“I’m sorry, Ravna. Honestly, if we’re in anything like most past disasters, we’ll come out of it in another day or two. The best thing is to plan for things that way. This is like a ‘time-out’ in the battle. Take advantage of it to have a little peace. Figure out how to get the unperverted parts of Commercial Security to help us.”
“…Yeah.” Depending on the shape of the surge’s trailing edge the OOB might have lost a good part of its lead… But I’ll bet the Alliance fleet is completely panicked by all this. Such opportunists would likely run for safety as soon as they’re back in the Beyond.
The advice kept her busy for another twenty hours, fighting with the half-witted things that claimed to be strategy planners on the new version of the OOB. Even if the surge passed right this instant, it might be too late. There were players in this game for whom the surge was not a time-out: Jefri Olsndot and his Tinish allies. It had been seventy hours now since their last contact; Ravna had missed three comm sessions with them. If she were panicked, what must be like for Jefri? Even if Steel could hold off his enemies, time—and trust—would be running out at Tines’ world.
One hundred hours into the surge, Ravna noticed that Blueshell and Pham were doing power tests on the OOB’s ramscoop drive… Some time-outs last forever.
CHAPTER 34
The summer hot spell broke for a time; in fact, it was almost chilly. There was still the smoke and the air was still dry, but the winds seemed less driven. Inside their cubby aboard the ship, Amdijefri weren’t taking much notice of the nice weather.
“They’ve been slow in answering before,” said Amdi. “She’s explained how the ultrawave—”
“Ravna’s never been this late!” Not since the winter, anyway. Jefri’s tone hovered between fear and petulance. In fact, there was supposed to be a transmission in the middle of the night, technical data for them to pass on to Mr. Steel. It hadn’t arrived by this morning, and now Ravna had also missed their afternoon session, the time when normally they could just chat for a bit.
The two children reviewed all the comm settings. The previous fall, they had laboriously copied those and the first level diagnostics. It all looked the same now… except for something called “carrier detect'. If only they had a dataset, they might have looked up what that meant.
They had even very carefully reset some of the comm parameters… then nervously set them back when nothing happened. Maybe they hadn’t given the changes enough of a chance to work. Maybe now they had really messed something up.
They stayed in the command cubby all through the afternoon, their minds cycling trough fear and boredom and frustration. After four hours, boredom had at least a temporary victory. Jefri was napping uneasily in his father’s hammock with two of Amdi curled up in his arms.
Amdi poked idly around the room, looked at the rocket controls. No… not even his self-confidence was up to playing with those. Another of him jerked at the wall quilting. He could always watch the fungus grow for a while. Things were that slow.
Actually, the gray stuff had spread a lot further than the last time he looked. Behind the quilt, it was quite thick. He sent a chain of himself squirreling back between the wall and the fabric. It was dark, but some light spilled through the gap at the ceiling. In most places the mold was scarcely an inch thick, but back here it was five or six —wow. Just above his exploring nose, a huge lump of it grew from the wall. This was as big as some of the ornamental moss that decorated castle meeting halls. Slender gray filaments grew down from the fungus. He almost called out to Jefri, but the two of him in the hammock were so comfortable.
He brought a couple more heads close to the strangeness. The wall behind it looked a little odd, too… as though part of its substance had been taken by the mold. And the gray itself: like smoke—he felt the filaments with his nose. They were solid, dry. His nose tickled. Amdi froze in shocked surprise. Watching himself from behind, he saw that two of the filaments had actually passed through his member’s head! And yet there was no pain, just that tickling feeling.
“What—what?” Jefri had been jostled into wakefulness, as Amdi tensed around him.
“I found something really strange, behind the quilts. I touched this big hunk of fungus and—”
As he spoke, Amdi gently backed away from thing on the wall. The touch didn’t hurt, but it made him more nervous than curious. He felt the filaments sliding slowly out.
“I told you, we aren’t supposed to play with that stuff. It’s dirty. The only good thing is, it doesn’t smell.” Jefri was out of the hammock. He stepped across the cubby and lifted the quilting. Amdi’s tip member lost its balance and jerked away from the fungus. There was a snapping sound, and a sharp pain in his lip.
“Geez, that thing is big!” Then, hearing Amdi’s pain whistle, “You okay?”
Amdi backed away from the wall. “I think so.” The tip of one last filament was still stuck in his lip. It didn’t hurt as much as the nettles he’d sampled a few days earlier. Amdijefri looked over the wound. What was left of the smoky spine seemed hard and brittle. Jefri’s fingers gently worked it free. Then the two of them turned to wonder at the thing in the wall.
“It really has spread. Looks like it’s hurt the wall, too.”
Amdi dabbed at his bloodied muzzle. “Yeah. I see why your folks told you to stay away from it.”
“Maybe we should have Mr. Steel scrub it all out.”
The two spent half an hour crawling around behind all the quilting. The grayness had spread far, but there was only the one marvelous flowering. They came back to stare at it, even sticking articles of clothing into the wisps. Neither risked fingers or noses on further contact.
Staring at the fungus on the wall was by far the most exciting thing that happened that afternoon; there was no message from the OOB.
The next day the hot weather was back.
Two more days passed… and still there was no word from Ravna.
Lord Steel paced the walls atop Starship Hill. It was near the middle of the night, and the sun hung about fifteen degrees above the northern horizon. Sweat filmed his fur; this was the warmest summer in ten years. The
