Gillian nodded appreciatively. It was very good dolphin imagery.
“Creideiki would be proud,” she said.
Akeakemai slashed with his tail flukes, reticent to accept praise.
Sara Koolhan commented, “Forgive my ignorance of stellar physics, but I’ve been studying, so let me see if I get this right.
“When that big, whirling cloud of dross and corpses finally collapses, it’s going to dump a tenth of a solar mass onto the hot, dense surface of that white dwarf. A dwarf that’s already near its Chandrasekhar limit. Much of the new material will compress to incredible density and undergo superfast nuclear fusion, triggering—”
“What Earthlings used to call a ‘type one’ supernova,” the Niss Machine cut in, unable to resist an inbuilt yen to interrupt.
“Normally, this happens when a large amount of matter is tugged off a giant star, falling rapidly onto a neighboring white dwarf In this case, however, the sudden catalyzing agent will be the flesh of once living beings! Their body substance will help light a pyre that should briefly outshine this entire galaxy, and be visible to the boundaries of the universe.”
Gillian thought she detected hints of hysteria in the voice of the Tymbrimi-built machine. Though originally programmed to seek surprise and novelty, the Niss might well have passed the limit of what it could stand.
“I agree, there doesn’t seem much chance of surviving such an event, no matter how fancy a coating we are given. And yet, the coincidence seems too perfect to ignore.”
“Coincidence?” Suessi asked.
“The cancellation of angular momentum is too perfeet. The Transcendents must have meant this to happen. They slaughtered the remaining candidates for a purpose — in order to trigger the coming explosion.”
“So, yes? Then the big question is — why aren’t we down there now, mixing our atoms with all those other poor bugs, beasties, and blighters?”
Gillian shrugged.
“I just don’t know, Hannes. Obviously, we have a role to play. But what role? Who can say?”
Zub’daki didn’t expect mass collapse to occur for twenty hours, at least. Possibly several days.
“The infall may be disssrupted by outward radiation pressure, as the star heats up,” the dolphin explained. “It could make the whole process of ignition messsssy. Unless they have a solution to that problem, as well.”
He didn’t have to explain who “they” were. The shimmering needle-gateway throbbed nearby, as long as Earth’s moon, spinning webs of mysterious, translucent material near several dozen captive ships.
Assured that the crisis would not come for a while yet, Gillian headed to her quarters for some rest. Upon entering, she glanced across the dimly lit chamber at an ancient cadaver, grinning away in a glass cabinet.
“It seems our torment won’t go on much longer, Herb. The end is coming at last, in a way that should erase all our troubles.”
The gaunt corpse said nothing, of course. She sighed.
“Ah well. Tom had a favorite expression. If you’ve really got to go, you might as well—”
Baritone words joined hers.
“You might as well go out with a bang.”
Gillian swiveled around, crouching slightly, her chest pounding from surprise. Something — or someone — stood in the shadows. The figure was tall, bipedal, with the shoulders and stance of a well-built human male.
“Who … who’s there?” she demanded.
The answering voice came eerily familiar.
“No one you should fear, Dr. Baskin. Let me move into the light.”
As he did so, Gillian’s heart sped instead of slowing down. She stepped back with her right hand pressed midway between throat and sternum. Her voice cracked on the chisellike wedge separating hope from dread.
“T-Tom …?”
His ready smile was there. An eager grin, always a bit like a little boy’s. The stance, relaxed and yet ready for anything. Those well-known hands, so capable at a thousand tasks.
The head — black haired with a gray fringe — tilted quizzically, as if just a little disappointed by her response.
“Jill, are you so credulous, to believe what you see?”
Gillian struggled to clamp down her emotions, especially the wave of desperate loneliness that flooded as brief hope crashed. If it really were Tom, she would already know in several ways, even without visual sight. And yet, the careworn face seemed so real — fatigued by struggles that made her own trials pale by comparison. Part of her yearned to reach out and hold him. To soothe those worries for a little while.
Even knowing this was just a lie.
“I’m … not that naive. I guess it’s pretty clear who you really are. Tell me … did you take Tom’s image from my mind? Or else—”
She swiveled to glance at her desk, where a holo of her husband glowed softly, next to a picture of Creideiki, along with others she had known and loved on Earth.
“A bit of each,” came the answer while Gillian was briefly turned away. “Along with many other inputs. It seemed a useful approach, combining familiarity with tension and regret. A bit cruel, perhaps. But conducive of concentration.
“Are you alert now?”
“You have my attention,” she replied, turning back to face her visitor … only to be rocked by a new surprise.
Tom had vanished! In his place stood Jacob Demwa, elderly master spy of the Terragens Intelligence Service, who had lobbied hard for the commissioning of a dolphin-crewed ship. Streaker was just as much his doing as Creideiki’s. Dark, leathery skin showed the toll of years cruising deep space, among Earth’s many outposts, fighting to stave off the fate suffered by most wolfling races.
“That’s good,” her visitor said, in a voice much like old Jake’s … though it lacked some overtones of crusty humor. “Because I can spare only a small part of my awareness for this conversation. There are many other tasks requiring imminent completion.”
Gillian nodded.
“I can well imagine. You Transcendents must be frightfully busy, slaughtering trillions of sapient beings in order to set off a brief cosmic torch. Tell me, what purpose did all those poor creatures die for? Was it a religious sacrifice? Or something more practical?”
“Must one choose? You might say a little of both. And neither. The concepts are hard to express, using terms available in your discursive-symbolic language.”
For some reason, she had expected such an answer.
“I guess that’s true. But thanks anyway, for not using terms like ‘crude’ or ‘primitive.’ Others, before you,
