quality to the reconstruction, a near resurrection of her longtime companion, the antediluvian cadaver.
“Well … are you going to protect us?”
“Do you ask for our protection?”
In amazement, she could hardly speak.
“I thought … you put so much effort into choosing and preparing us …”
The Niss Machine whirled in perplexity.
“Are you talking to me? Is someone in there with you? My sensors seem unable to—”
With an irritated hand gesture, Gillian caused her artificial assistant to vanish from sight. She gazed in wonder as the Transcendent seemed to shimmer, growing brighter by the instant.
“Such investment merits confidence, Dr. Baskin. Can wolflings survive the vast gulf between heavens? Have you the fortitude to endure all the cryptic challenges that await you? And the denizens you’ll meet, when you arrive at some distant galactic realm?”
Her guest became radiant, completing the transformation from cadaverous mummy into something truly like a god.
“It occurs to us that one final test might be called for. In the interest of verifying your mettle.”
Gillian covered her eyes, and yet the glare soon grew too bright to endure, outlining the bones of her hand. The visitor’s words pierced her skin, vibrating her soul.
“One more trial to pass … in the slim moments that remain … before our universe changes.”
Lark
DESPITE OCCASIONAL GAPS, A DISTANT VOICE came through clearly, resonating in his mind.
“… there are further matters to discuss … precautions you should take, for comfort during transition … the new coating will protect you as backlash … throws you to a hyperlevel well beyond those commonly used by starfaring races.”
Working together with Ling and other members of the Mother Consortium, he had labored hard to achieve this — sifting through the incredible complexity of the Transcendent Mesh for something simple enough for mere organic life-forms to understand. After all their efforts, this was the best result so far. An explanation, in plain Anglic, of what the great ones hoped to accomplish from all the recent violence and turmoil.
Apparently, they would take advantage of rare cosmic conditions to launch specially modified ships, sending messenger-envoys hurtling on one-way voyages across the immense gulf separating clusters of galaxies.
“By adding wolflings to the mixture, we may … prevent the failures that plagued past efforts … when we tried to … cross the vast flat deserts between our galactic nexus and the myriad spiral heavens we see floating past, tantalizingly out of reach.…”
Lark felt growing agitation in the surrounding watery medium, where he and Ling floated amid a jostling throng of symbiotic organisms. “Mother” was clearly both excited and worried by this news. He knew this, in part, because his own fretful thoughts helped shape the overall mood.
Ling’s presence made itself known. Turning around, he saw her swim toward him through the living murk, reaching out to clasp his hand. At the instant of contact, he felt her mind stroking his own, bringing dire news.
Can you feel it? The master rings have decided to assail and destroy Streaker, no matter what the repercussions!
Lark blinked in surprise. Putting out his own mental feelers to probe the data network of starship Polkjhy, he tapped the Jophur command frequencies and soon confirmed the worst.
The priest-stack and the new captain-leader were in complete accord. With stark decisiveness, they had sent Polkjhy careening on a new, deadly course. Attacking, heedless of the consequences.
What can they hope to accomplish? Interfering with the Transcendents will only invite those mighty ones to swat this ship — and all of us aboard — out of the sky like annoying insects!
Ling nodded, and Lark saw that he had just answered his own question. From the Jophur leaders’ point of view, this offered a last chance to wipe out the hybrid oxy-hydro superorganism that had taken over most of their ship. Apparently, the Jophur would rather go out in a blaze of glory than surrender.
The suicidal decision saddened Lark. If only they would simply wait for the supernova! He had a hankering to watch the run-up to that gaudy event. To feel the first hyperdense flux of neutrinos sleet through his body, heralding a crackling dawn. One that would illumine night on myriad worlds.
Of course, Mother wasn’t about to take this lying down. With approval of every sapient member, the community launched an immediate, all-out assault against the remaining vital strongholds held by unconverted Jophur. Soon Lark began sensing the fractious fury of combat, as both sides flung deadly bolts along stained corridors, further melting Polkjhy’s already tortured walls. Lark’s nerve endings responded, turning each injury or death into a pang, physically painful. Personally intense.
Mother is about to break into the engine compartment, Ling noted. But we may not be able to cut power in time to save the Earthlings … or to prevent angering the Transcendents.
Indeed, resistance was bitter as ring stacks and robots stubbornly held their ground against the costly assault. But Zang globules and other members of the Mother Consortium kept up the pressure, storming Jophur defenses with spendthrift courage.
We’d better go help, Lark thought, and Ling nodded. They both had a sense of how drained Mother’s reserves were. This was no time to hang back.
And yet, even as they made ready to join the fray, something restrained both of them. A resistance that stopped Lark in his tracks.
Not a command, as such. More like a consensus decision — a general feeling among other components of the symbiosis. An agreement that the two humans should not be risked right now.
They would better serve the whole with their intelligence and knowledge, by probing through the Mesh, trying once more to communicate.
With some reluctance, Lark accepted the wisdom of this. Together with Ling, he went back to work, reopening the channels they had discovered before.
“It occurs to us that one final test might be called for … verifying your mettle.
“One more trial … before our universe changes.”
Lark exhaled a sigh that formed bubble trails in the frothy medium.
So. The Transcendents were still tinkering, trying to optimize their experiment till the very last moment. Or else the “gods” were amusing themselves at the expense of those poor Earthlings. Either way, they weren’t about to defend Streaker with omnipotent power. Instead, they would let Polkjhy attack, evaluating the results.
There wasn’t much time left for exploration. With one part of his mind, Lark tracked the great mass-infall of collapsing debris.
Already the white dwarf surged and boiled as the cloud’s inner fringes struck its surface at high velocity. Concentric waves of actinic blue fire crisscrossed the ancient, tormented surface, spouting gaudy flares of plasma back toward space, hinting at far greater fireworks to come.
Meanwhile, uncoded insults hurled from Polkjhy’s bridge, taunting Streaker’s crew as their hull was turned into a betraying antenna, forced to siphon heat from other folded layers of space.
At that point a familiar voice joined in.
It was Lark’s old friend, the traeki from Jijo who had once been Asx, then Ewasx, and now was a wise, multicomponent being, simply called “X.”
