“Isn’t that our best chance? To head for a crowded place, with lots of traffic and possibly ships big enough to balance that imposing cruiser out there? Besides, there is a possibility that Oakka was an exception. An aberration. Maybe officials at Tanith will remember their oaths.”
The Niss expressed doubt with an impolite sound.
“There is a slim chance of that. Or possibly sheer surprise might prompt action by the cautious majority of Galactic clans, who have so far kept static, frozen by indecision.”
“That’s been our dream all along. And it could happen, if enough synthians and pargi and their allies have ships in the area. Why wouldn’t they intercede, in support of tradition and the law?”
“Your optimism is among your greatest charms, Dr. Baskin — to imagine that the moderates can be swayed to make any sort of decision quickly, when commitment may expose them to mortal danger. By now it is quite clear to everyone that a Time of Changes is at hand. They are pondering issues of racial survival Justice for wolflings will not take high priority.
“Far more likely, your abrupt appearance will provoke free-for-all combat above Tanith, making Kithrup seem like a mere skirmish. I assume you realize the armadas who are currently besieging Terra lie just two jumps away from Tanith? In less than a standard day they would likely converge—”
“Abating the siege of Earth? That sounds worthwhile.”
The Niss hologram tightened its clustered, spinning lines.
“We are dancing around the main problem, Dr. Baskin. Our destination is moot. The Jophur will not allow us to reach Tanith. Of that you can be sure.”
Sara Koolhan spoke up for the first time.
“Can they stop us? They tried once, and failed.”
“Alas, Sage Koolhan, our apparent invulnerability cannot last. The Jophur were taken by surprise, but by now they are surely scanning their onboard database, delving for the flaw in our wondrous armor.”
They referred to the gleaming mantle now blanketing Streaker’s hull. As an ignorant Jijoan, I couldn’t tell what made the coating so special, though I vividly recall the anxious time when swarms of machine entities sealed it around us — dark figures struggling enigmatically over our fate, without bothering to seek consent from a shipload of wolflings and sooners.
The final disputants were two sets of giant repair robots, those at the stern trying to harvest carbon from Streaker’s hull for raw materials, and the other team busy transforming the star soot into a layer that shimmered like the glassy Spectral Flow.
Lightning seemed to pass between the groups. Meme-directive impulses, the Niss identified those flickering bursts, advising us not to watch, lest our brains become somehow infected. In a matter of duras, the contest ended without any machines being physically harmed. But one group must have abruptly had its “mind changed.”
Abruptly united in purpose, both sets of robots fell to work, completing Streaker’s transformation just in time, before the first disintegrator ray struck.
“Who says there has to be a flaw?” Dr. Baskin asked. “We seem to be unharmable, at least by long-range beams.”
She sounded confident, but I remember how shocked Gillian, Sara, Tsh’t, and the others had seemed, to survive an instant after the attack began. Only the crippled engineer, Emerson d’Anite, grunted and nodded, as if he had expected something like this all along.
“There are no perfect defenses,” countered the Niss. “Every variety of weapon has been logged and archived by the Great Library. If a technique seems surprising or miraculous, it could be because it was abandoned long ago for very good reasons. Once the Jophur find those reasons, our new shield will surely turn from an advantage into a liability.”
The humans and dolphins clearly disliked this logic. I can’t say I cared for it myself. But how could anyone refute it? Even we sooners know one of the basic truisms of life in the Five Galaxies—
If something isn’t in the Library, it is almost certainly impossible.
Still, I’ll never forget that time, just after the big construction robots finished their task and jetted away, leaving this battered ship shining in space, as uttergloss as any jewel.
Streaker turned to flee through the great hole in the Fractal World, and suddenly great spears of destructive light bathed her from several directions at once! Alarms blared and each ray of focused energy seemed to shove us outward with titanic force.
But we did not burn. Instead, a strange noise surrounded us, like the groaning of some deep-sea leviathan. Huck pulled in all her eyes. Pincer withdrew all five legs, and Ur-ronn coiled her long neck, letting out a low urrish howl.
All the instruments went crazy … and yet we did not burn!
Soon most of the crew agreed with the initial assessment of Hannes Suessi, who decreed that the disintegrator beams must be faked.
A showy demonstration, they must be meant to frighten off our enemies and let us escape. No other answer seemed to explain our survival!
That is, until the Jophur pounced on us a short time later, and their searing rays also vanished with the same mysterious groan.
Then we knew.
Someone had done us a favor … and we didn’t even know who to thank. Or whether the blessing cloaked more misfortune, still to come.
A voice called over the intercom.
“Transfer point insertion approaching in … thirty ssseconds.”
Those in the Plotting Room turned to watch the forward viewer, looking ahead toward a tangled web of darkness — first in a series that would carry us far beyond Galaxy Four to distant realms my friends and I had barely heard of in legend and tales about gods. But my hoonish digestion was already anticipating the coming nausea. I remember thinking how much better it would suit me to be aboard my father’s dross ship, pulling halyards and umbling with the happy crew, with Jijo’s warm wind in my face and salt spray singing on the sails.
Back at the hyperwave display, I found another person less interested in where we were going than the place we were leaving behind. Emerson, the crippled engineer, who wore a rewq over his eyes and greeted me with a lopsided human smile. I answered by flapping my throat sac.
Blurry and wavering, the image of the Fractal World glimmered like an egg the size of a solar system, on the verge of spilling forth something young, hot, and fierce. Red sunlight shot through holes and crevices, while cruel sparks told of explosions vast enough to rock the entire structure, sending ripples crisscrossing the tormented sphere.
Emerson sighed, and surprised me by uttering a simple Anglic phrase, expressing an incredible thought.
“Well … easy come … easy go.”
Mudfoot chittered on my shoulder as Streaker’s engines cranked up to handle the stress of transfer. But our attention stayed riveted on the unlucky Fractal World.
The globe sundered all at once, along every fault line, dissolving into myriad giant curved shards, some of them tumbling toward black space, while others glided inward to a gaudy reunion.
Unleashed after half a billion years of tame servitude, the little star flared exuberantly, as if celebrating each new raft of infalling debris — its own robbed substance, now returning home again.
Free again, it blared fireworks at heaven.
My throat sac filled, and I began umbling a threnody … a hoonish death requiem for those lost at sea, whose heart-spines will never be recovered.
The chilling words of Gillian Baskin haunted me.
“You’ll get used to this after a while.”
I shook my head, human style.
Get used to this?
Ifni, what have the Earthers already been through, to make this seem like just another day’s work?
To think, I once gazed longingly at the stars, and hankered for adventure!
For the very first time, I understood one of the chief lessons preached by Jijo’s oldest scrolls.
In this universe, the trickiest challenge of all is survival.
