Eat yer hearts out, Harry thought, and used the tail to smooth his pelt of sleek, ivory fur. Poor humans. Stuck with those bare skins … and bare butts.
Then he had no more time for whimsy.
Out there amid the haze, he spied movement. Several dark gray entities. Huge ones, far larger than the megapedes he had fought before. Through the mist, these looked sleek and rounded, nosing along the vast carpet like a herd of great elephants.
Then Harry realized. That was the wrong metaphor. As they drew nearer, he recognized their rapid, darting motions, their earlike projections and twitching noses.
Mice … goddamn giant mice! Ifni, that’s all I need.
He felt a shiver of dismay as he realized — they had spotted the station.
To the pilot mode, he gave an urgent, spoken command. “Increase speed! We’ve got to climb the leg before they reach us!”
Amber and red lights erupted across the control board as the jarring pace accelerated. A great woodlike pillar loomed before them, but Harry also sensed the memes scurrying faster in pursuit. Self-sustaining conceptual forms far more sophisticated and carnivorous than any he had seen. It was going to be tight. Very tight indeed.
God. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
PART FOUR. CANDIDATES OF TRANSCENDENCE
OUR UNIVERSE of linked starlanes — the Five Galaxies — consists of countless hierarchies. Some species are ancient, experienced in the ways of wisdom and power. Others have just begun trodding the paths of self- awareness. And there are innumerable levels in between.
THESE are not conditions in which nature would produce fairness. There would be no justice for the weak, unless some code moderated the raw impulses of pure might.
WITH this aim, we inherit from the Great Progenitors many traditions and regulations, formalizing the relationships between patrons and their clients, or between colonists and the nonsapient creatures that inhabit life-worlds. Sometimes these rules seem so complex and arbitrary that it taxes our patience. We lose sight of what it is all about. Recently, a savant of the Terran starfaring clan — (a dolphin) — suggested that the matter be viewed quite simply, in terms of respect for the food chain.
ANOTHER Earthling sage — (a human) — put it even more simply, expressing what he called the Meta Golden Rule.
“TREAT your inferiors as you would have your superiors treat you.”
From the Journal of Gillian Baskin
I WISH TOM COULD HAVE BEEN HERE. HE WOULD love this.
The mystery.
The terrifying splendor.
Standing alone in my dim office, I look out through a narrow pane at the shimmering expanse of raw ylem surrounding Streaker — the basic stuff of our continuum, the elementary ingredient from which all the varied layers of hyperspace condensed, underpinning what we call the “vacuum.”
The sight is spine-tingling. Indescribably beautiful. And yet my thoughts keep racing. They cannot settle down to appreciate the view.
My heart’s sole wish is that Tom were sharing it with me right now. I can almost feel his arm around my waist, and the warm breath of his voice, urging me to look past all the gritty details, the worries, the persisting dangers and heartaches that plague us.
“No one said it would be safe or easy, going into space. Or, for that matter, rising from primal muck to face the heavens. We may be clever apes, my love — rash wolflings to the end. Yet, something in us hears a call.
“We must rush forth to see.”
Of course, he would be right to say all that. I’ve been privileged to witness so many marvels. And yet, I answer his ghost voice the way a busy mother might chide a husband so wrapped up in philosophy that he neglects life’s messy chores.
Oh, Tom. Even when surrounded by a million wonders, someone has to worry about the details.
Here aboard this frail dugout canoe, that someone is me.
Days pass, and Streaker is still immersed in this remarkable fleet. A vast armada of moving receptacles — I hesitate to call the spiky, planet-sized things “ships”—sweeps along, sometimes blazing through A-or B-Level hyperspace, or else turning to plunge down the throat of yet another transfer point … an immense crowd of jostling behemoths, racing along cosmic thread paths that correspond to no chart or reference in our archives.
Should I be surprised by that? How many times have I heard other sapient beings — from Soro and Pila to Synthians and Kanten — preach awe toward the majestic breadth and acumen of the Galactic Library, whose records encompass countless worlds and more than a billion years, ever since it was first established by the legendary Progenitors, so long ago.
We younger races feel the Library must be all-knowing. Only rarely does someone mention its great limitation.
The Library serves only the Civilization of Five Galaxies. The ancient culture of oxygen-breathing starfarers that we Earthlings joined three centuries ago.
To poor little Earthclan, that seemed more than enough! So complex and overpowering is that society — with its mysterious traditions, competing alliances, and revered Institutes — that one can hardly begin to contemplate what else lies beyond.
But more does lie beyond. At least seven other orders of life, thriving in parallel to our own. Orders that have wildly different needs and ambitions, as well as their own distinct kinds of wisdom.
Even the ever-curious Tymbrimi advised us to avoid contact with these ultimate strangers, explaining that it’s just too confusing, unprofitable, and dangerous to be worth the trouble.
To which I can only say — from recent experience — amen.
Of course, it’s common knowledge that the oldest oxygen-breathing races eventually die or “move on.” As with individuals, no species lasts forever. The cycle of Uplift, which stands at the core of Galactic society, is all about replenishment and renewal. Pass on the gift of sapiency, as it was passed to you.
Being new to this game, ignorant and desperately poor, with our own chimp and dolphin clients to care for, we humans focused on the opening moves, studying the rules so we might act as responsible patrons, and perhaps avoid the fate that usually befalls wolflings.
Beginnings are important.
Yet, each alliance and clan also speaks reverently of those who came before them. Those who, like venerated great-grandparents, finished their nurturing tasks, then turned their attention to other things, maturing to new heights and new horizons.
After we fled treachery at Oakka World, I decided not to trust the corrupted Institutes anymore and to seek advice instead from some of those learned, detached elders we had heard about. Beings who had abandoned starfaring for a more contemplative life in the Retired Order, cloistered near the fringes of a dim red star.
Events at the Fractal World soon taught us a lesson. Aloofness does not mean impartiality. The so-called
