Gillian squinted at the replica of her old comrade and leader. The dolphin captain looked so genuine, so tangible, as if she could reach out and stroke his warm gray flank — battered, yet unbowed.
“That’s … the first truly wise thing I’ve yet heard from you gods,” she said. “It’s almost … as if you really are—”
The Transcendent interrupted. Its sleek form began dissolving, folding inward toward a ball of light.
“Are you … entirely sure … that I am not?”
• • •
She blinked, unsure what to make of the non sequitur.
“Wait!” she cried out. “What’s going to happen? What are you going to—”
The visitor vanished silently. But in her mind a soft presence lingered for another moment, whispering.
We have much to do … and very little time.…
A shrill whistle filled the air. A holo image of Akeakemai burst in, calling from Streaker’s bridge.
“Gillian! Zub’daki says that mass infall is speeding up! The explosion’s just minutes away!”
She nodded, feeling tired and altogether unready to witness the end of the universe. Or any part of it.
“I’ll be right up,” she said, turning toward the door. But the pilot’s voice cut her short.
“That’s not all!” he added, with frantic tones. “The big needle-gateway … it’s—”
There followed a noisy clatter. Gillian saw a blur of motion on the bridge, as officers dashed in all directions, propelled by agitated tails.
“Niss!” she called out. “Show me what’s going on out there!”
Abruptly, a new holo display opened, presenting a view of nearby space.
The planet-sized Transcendent needle took up most of the scene. One of its flanks was now almost too bright to look at, reflecting angry light from the dwarf star — a fuming conflagration, rapidly heating toward Armageddon.
Gillian quickly saw what had Akeakemai upset. The needle was splitting open. Moreover, as it broke apart, beams of light reached out to seize three nearby objects.
Flashing labels identified the targets.
Streaker was the first. Gillian felt its hull shudder as the beam struck.
The Jophur battleship was next.
Finally — one of the globelike “candidate vessels,” now wrapped in a fuzzy mass of special fabric.
All three were being drawn inward.
Then, as if with a surgeon’s delicate lancet, the light beams started carving all three vessels apart.
“X”
CAN YOU FEEL IT NOW, MY RINGS? AND MY other little selves?
How about you, Lark?
And you, Ling?
Can you sense how Mother — the macro-entity we all joined — writhes with uncertain fear as blades of force cut through Polkjhy’s hull? Can you sense distant walls and bulkheads separate, spilling air, liquid, and creatures into vacuum? For a few moments, it seems our time of destruction has arrived.
Our/My/your end has come, at last.
BUT NOTE! CAN YOU SENSE A SUDDEN CHANGE IN MOOD?
Mother rejoices, as we/I/all realize the truth.
These are scalpel rays, slicing rapidly, selectively. Only a few small segments are being removed from Polkjhy!
Likewise, instruments tell us that just one or two prim holes are being drilled in the Earthship Streaker.
But the third victim seems less lucky!
The nearest mighty globule-vessel — a giant candidate-craft, already prepared for its epic journey — has been torn open and gutted! Horrified and awed at the same time, all our rings and segments watch as the contents are sacrificed … thousands of sapient-hybrid beings, cast aside like the entrails of some fresh-caught fish … leaving behind only a lambent shell of glimmering tendrils.
A living shell that now moves rapidly toward Polkjhy!
• • •
AND NOW, ATTENTION TURNS TO THE LIVID SUN.
How long did it spin in peace? A remnant of this galaxy’s earliest days, the dwarf star had long ago finished its brief youth and settled down to placid retirement. Left alone, it might have spent another twenty billion years slowly shrinking as it eked out a flickering white surface flame. Lacking a nearby stellar companion, it would never obtain the sudden infusion of mass required for a more ecstatic death.
Only now that mass infusion comes!
Like pilgrims to a shrine, millions of starships recently answered the Great Harrower’s summons. They came to this place, arranging themselves in polite, crisscrossing spiral queues, seeking redemption and advancement … only to find death on the very threshold of transcendence. Their corpses, compressed into compact balls, now rain upon the star, inciting new ferment, taking its matter/energy balance close to a special value.
An acute point of no return.
MY RINGS … MANY OF YOU ONCE WERE MEMBERS OF ASX, THAT WISE OLD TRAEKI SAGE.
Back on Jijo, you had no need to contemplate such things. Instead of Chandrasekhar limits and radiative opacities, we/you/I used to adjudge disputes among local villages and tribes. We offered marriage counseling to fractious urrish, human, and qheuen families. We would squat for days on some aromatic mulch pile, happily arguing among ourselves.
Now, Mother obligingly makes available vast stores of information, offering free access to Polkjhy’s onboard Library, lately captured from the remnant Jophur.
So it is that I/we/you know all about critical thresholds and the catastrophic collapse that will soon occur, followed by a tremendous “bounce,” expelling much of the poor star at high fractions of light speed.
First will come a burst of neutrinos. Not so many as in a “type two” supernova. But enough so that those phantom particles will impart heat and momentum into any body within ten Jijoan orbits. (We are much closer than that!) X rays and gamma rays will follow … and then other forms of light. So much that the wave-fronts will carry their own palpable gravitational fields as they plunge through this point in space with the brightness of one trillion suns.
Finally, if anything remains of poor Polkjhy, it will be struck by the shock wave of protons, neutrons, electrons, and ions, imparting accelerations of one hundred thousand gravities.
No wonder the Transcendents feel this event will rip holes in the cosmic ylem. Apparently, that is their desire. To kindle a pyre. One bright enough to propel seeds across the greatest desert of all.
DO YOU HEAR THE LATEST, MY RINGS?
Lark and Ling report what they have learned by tapping into the Transcendent Mesh.
An explanation of the recent violent surgery by flashing scalpel rays!
Apparently, the high ones have decided on a last minute change in plans.
