They think this means Polkjhy may never report on Jijo. The weird, miscegenist society of sooner races might yet be left in peace, if this battleship never makes it home.
Is that what you hope/believe, my rings?
I would discipline you now, with jolts of loving pain, to drive such disloyalty out of our common core, except —
Except that now the Harrower appears to have finished its task! The armadas it collected in pockets of coiled space have begun moving at last … in rows, columns, regiments … all pouring along special transfer threads that glow hot with friction.
Vibrations and sudden swerves shake Polkjhy so powerfully that swaying motions penetrate even our mighty stabilizing fields.
And now, as if none of that were enough, the sequence of upsetting surprises continues.
• • •
Robots continue tending the incubators, wherein juvenile rings of many shapes, attributes, and colors thrive on distilled nutrients, growing into components to make new Jophur stacks.
Soldiers keep coming for repairs, seeking to replace damaged walker-rings, sword-manipulators, chem-synth toruses, and even mortally wounded Master Rings. Clearly, the battle against the Zang rages on with deadly fury.
Meanwhile, on monitors, I/we watch Polkjhy emerge in some far star system, part of an orderly swarm of transcendence candidates — ranging from conventional-looking starships and spiky fractal shapes all the way to quivering blobs that appear horridly Zangish before our appalled gaze!
For several jaduras, this bizarre armada uses B-Level hyperspatial jumps to cross a gap of several paktaars, skirting around a vast glowing nebula in order to reach the next transfer point. Finally, the convoy dives into this nexus and another thread-ride commences, swooping along multidimensional flaw boundaries where space itself condensed long ago from the raw essence of an expanding universe.
While all this activity continues, we/I remain in a dim corner of the nursery chamber, hiding from our/My own crewmates … until the unexpected once again forces its way into our shock-numbed consciousness.
We stare at a new interloper.
A recent arrival, standing before our disbelieving senses.
The strangest being that I/we/I have ever seen.
It came just moments ago, arriving via an unconventional route — by supply tube — conveyed to the nursery in a slender car designed for transporting raw materials and samples, not sapient beings!
Crawling out before we could react, it unfolded long limbs, revealing a shape with proportions like a Homo sapiens. Indeed, the head protruding atop looked completely human. And familiar.
I/we stared, did we not, my rings? Several of our cognition-memory toruses exclaimed, releasing recognition vapors and causing words to vent from our shared oration peak.
“Lark! Is … it … really … you?”
Indeed, the face cracked open with that unique human-style smile. When it/he spoke, the voice was as we knew him from olden days, on Jijo.
“Greetings, reverend Asx … or shall I say Ewasx?”
While several of our components wrangled over an appropriate reply, others stared at the transformed body below the neckline. Lark’s bipedal stance was similar, striding on stiff, articulated bones. Only now translucent film enveloped his flesh, ballooning outward like profoundly baggy garments, billowing and throbbing with a sick, semiliquid rhythm that sent quivers of nausea down our/My central core. An especially large bulge distended from his back, like a tumor, or a great burden he showed no sign of resenting.
Our chem-synth rings detected several awful stinks, such as methane, cyanogen, and hydrogen sulfide gas.
Sure stench-signs of Zang!
Surprise made our reply somewhat disjointed, to say the least.
“I/we … cannot say what … name … would best apply to this stack … at this time. Voting commences/continues on that point.… And yet … it can be said in truth that certain parts of us/Me/I/we recognize certain … parts … of you/You.…”
Our shared voice trailed off. Neither Anglic nor GalSix seemed well suited to convey appropriate/accurate levels of astonishment. Emotional pheromones vented … and to our surprise, the “Lark/Zang” entity answered in kind!
Molecular messages puffed from his new outer skin, triggering instant comprehension by our/My pore receptors.
MUTUAL RECOGNITION
AMICABLE INTENT
WILLINGNESS TO FIND RESOLUTION
Seeking the source of these scent messages, our/My sensors now locate a toroidal-shaped bulge, situated near Lark’s chest.
Purple colored.
A traeki ring, incorporated in the group entity across from us!
At once, we/I recognize one of the small rings Asx secretly created, without knowledge of the Ewasx Master, to help Lark and his human companion escape bondage several jaduras ago.
Stroking memory wax from that time, I/we now realize/recall — there had been a second cryptic ring.
“I left the other one here,” Lark explains, as if reading My/our thoughts. “It was wounded. Ling hid it in this nursery, to get care and feeding. That’s one reason I came back. My new associates want to find the little red ring. They want to know its purpose.”
He does not have to explain his “associates.” A Jophur instinctively knows — as most unitary beings do not — that it is possible to blend and mix and match disparate components to make a new composite being. In this case, the chimera is an amalgam of human, traeki, and Zang … a terrifying union, but somehow credible.
“You … wish to have our/My help recovering the red ring?” I ask.
Lark nods.
“Its powers may bring peace to this vast vessel.…”
He pauses for a moment, as if communing with himself, then goes on.
“But there is something else. The price I demanded for cooperating in this mission.
“We’re going to rescue Ling.”
Harry
VOICES ENCROACHED ON HIS LATEST NIGHTMARE, pushing past a delirium of jibbering voices and scraping agonies.
“I think he’s coming around,” someone said.
Harry thrashed, shaking his head from left to right.
For what seemed an eternity, his mind had felt stripped, laid bare to E Space, fertile ground for colonization by parasitic memes — intricate, self-sustaining symbolic entities unlike anything conceived on Earth, invading to expropriate his incoherent dreams. Even now, as something like consciousness began to dawn, eerie shapes still thronged and cackled, more bizarre than anything born in an organic mind.
Somehow — perhaps by force of will, or else plain obstinacy — he pushed most of them aside, clawing his way toward wakefulness.
“Are you sure we oughta let him get up?” asked another, higher-pitched voice. “Look at those teeth he’s got.
