PART THREE. THE GREAT HARROWER
TO OUR CUSTOMERS ACROSS THE FIVE GALAXIES—
THE Sa’ent Betting Syndicate has temporarily suspended accepting wagers concerning the Siege of Earth. Although we still predict imminent collapse by the affiliated forces defending the wolfling homeworld, conditions have once again become too fluid for our dynamical scrying engines to project reasonable odds.
For those already participating in a betting pool, the odds remain fixed at: twenty-to-one for the planet’s conquest within one solar orbit (three-quarters of a Tanith year); fourteen-to-one for surrender within one-quarter orbit; five-to-two in favor of a “regrettable accident” which may render the ecosystem unstable and lead to effective organic extinction for the wolfling races; seven-to-two in favor of humans and their clients being forcibly adopted into indenture by one of the great clans currently besieging the planet, such as the Soro, Tandu, Klennath, or Jouourouou.
Despite these deceptively steady odds, several fluctuating factors actually contribute to a high level of uncertainty.
1) Betrayals and realignments continue among the mighty clans and alliances now pressing the siege. Their combined forces would have easily overwhelmed the human, Tymbrimi, and Thennanin defenders by now, if they could only agree how to distribute the resulting spoils. But instead, violent and unpredictable outbreaks of fighting among the besiegers (sometimes incited by clever Terran maneuvers) have slowed the approach to Earth and made odds-scrying more difficult than normal.
2) Political turmoil in the Five Galaxies has continued to flux with unaccustomed speed. For instance, a long- delayed assembly of the Coalition of Temperate Races has finally convened, with a remarkably abbreviated agenda — how to deal with the unbridled ambition shown lately by more fanatical Galactic alliances. Having dispensed with preliminary formalities, the League may actually file official warnings with the War Institute within a Tanith year! Assembly of their coordinated battle fleet may commence just a year after that.
In addition to the League, several other loose confederations of “moderate” clans have begun organizing. If such haste is maintained (and not disrupted yet again by Soro diplomacy) it would demonstrate unprecedented agility by the nonzealous portion of oxy-society.
Naturally, this will come about too late to save Earth, but it may lead to rescue of some residual human populations, after the fact.
3) No one has reported sighting the infamous dolphin-crewed starship for half a Tanith year. If, against all odds, the fugitives were somehow to safely convey their treasures to an ideal neutral sanctuary — or else prove the relics to be harmless — this crisis might abate before igniting universal warfare throughout oxygen-breathing civilization. This would, of course, end our present policy of accepting bets only on a cash-in-advance basis.
4) Commercial star traffic, already disrupted by the so-called “Streaker Crisis,” has lately suffered from “agitated conditions” on all interspacial levels. At least thirty of the most important transfer points have experienced thread strains. While the Institutes attribute this to “abnormal weather in hyperspace,” some perceive it as yet another portent of a coming transition.
5) The continued upswell of socioreligious fanaticism — including sudden resurgence of interest in the Cult of Ifni — has had a deleterious effect on the business of bookies and oddsmakers all across the Five Galaxies. Because of added expenses (defending our own settlements from attack by fleets of zealous predeterminists) we have been forced to increase the house cut on all wagers.
Even the Sa’ent Betting Syndicate cannot continue business as usual in the face of a prophesied Time of Changes.…
Harry
UH-OH, HE THOUGHT. THIS IS GONNA BE A rough one.
Harry nulled the guidance computer in order to protect its circuits during transition. Window covers snapped into place and he buckled himself in for the shift to another region of E Space. One that had been declared “off- limits” for a very long time.
Well, it serves me right for volunteering. Wer’Q’quinn calls this a “special assignment.” But the farther I go, the more it seems like a suicide mission.
At first nothing seemed to be happening. His official instruments were useless or untrustworthy, so Harry watched his own little makeshift verimeter. It consisted of an origami swan that shuddered while perched on a tiny needle made of pure metal that had been skimmed directly from the surface of a neutron star. Or so claimed the vendor who sold it to him in the Kazzkark bazaar. Nervously, he watched the scrap of folded paper twitch and stretch. His mind could only imagine what might be going on outside, with objectivity melting all around his little survey ship.
Harry’s jittery hands scratched the fur of his neck and chest. The swan quivered, as if trying to remember how to fly.…
There came a sudden dropping sensation. The contents of his stomach lurched. Several sharp bumps followed, then violent rocking motions, like a boat swept by a storm-tossed sea. He gripped the armrests. Straps dug fiercely into his lap and shoulders.
A peculiar tremor jolted the deck under his bare feet — the distinct hum of a reality anchor automatically deploying. An unnerving sound, since it only happened when normal safety measures were strained near their limits. Sometimes an anchor was the last thing preventing random causality winds from flipping your vessel against shoals of unreined probability … or turning your body into something it would rather not be.
Well … sometimes it worked.
If only there was a way to use TV cameras here, and see what’s going on.
Alas, for reasons still not fathomed by Galactic savants, living beings entering E Space could only make sense of events firsthand, and then at their own considerable risk.
Fortunately, just as Harry feared his last meal was about to join the dishes and cutlery on the floor, the jerky motions began damping away. In a matter of seconds things settled to a gentle swaying.
He glanced again at the improvised verimeter. The paper swan looked steady … though both wings seemed to have acquired a new set of complex folds that he did not remember being there before.
Harry cautiously unbuckled himself and stood up. Shuffling ahead with hands spread wide for balance, he went to the forward quadrant and cautiously lifted one of the louvers.
He gasped, jumping back in fright.
The scout platform hung suspended — apparently without support — high over a vast landscape!
Swallowing hard, he took a second look.
His point of view swung gently left, then right, like the perspective of a hanged man, taking in a vast, blurry domain of unfathomable distances and tremendous heights. Gigantic spires, sheer and symmetrical, could be dimly made out beyond an enveloping haze, rising past him from a flat plain far below.
Harry watched breathlessly until he felt sure the surface was drawing no closer. There was no sense of falling. Something seemed to be holding him at this altitude.
Time to find out what it was. He worked his way around the observation deck, and at the rearmost pane he saw what prevented a fatal plummet.
The station hung at one end of a narrow, glowing thread, extruded from a hull orifice he’d never seen before. But a familiar blue-striped pattern suggested it must in fact be the reality anchor, manifesting itself this time in a particularly handy way.
At the other end, high overhead, the anchor seemed to be hooked into the lip of a flat plane stretching away
