He knew what must happen soon, before Streaker arrived. He had worked hard to prepare.
Crippled without speech, Emerson had only a rudimentary grasp of why Streaker was here, or what it meant for Zang vessels to mix amicably with some of the same oxygen breathers they used to shun … or sometimes fought bitterly. Watching Gillian and Sara converse, their brows furrowed with a blazing intensity of focused thought, he had tried to sift amid the “wah-wah” sounds for hints of meaning. But many of their oft-repeated phrases — like “the Embrace of Tides”—evoked no response from his wounded mind. Unless it had something to do with the increasing tendency of his body to twist and stretch in a preferred direction, with his feet aimed toward the white dwarf star.
At least some individual words seemed to resonate, just a little.
“Embrace,” he whispered, relishing its sensuous quality.
A few hours ago Emerson had been sitting beside Sara, with her head resting against his shoulder while they enjoyed a quiet moment together. Stroking her hair had become his normal way to help ease the tension of her daily struggle — Sara’s ongoing effort to wrestle truth out of the universe by sheer mathematical force. His duty was a pleasant one. He would gladly provide anything she needed or wanted.
That is, except for the one thing she desired this time.
With gentle hints, Sara had shyly made known her willingness to reach new intimacy … but he was forced to turn her down. Peeling away from her warm clasp, Emerson saw questions in her eyes. Worry that he might not find her arousing. Worry that his wounds had robbed him of manly desires. Worry that there was so little time left for two to become one.
How could he explain? It would take words, sentences, volumes to justify thwarting such a natural desire, for bodies to follow where hearts already had gone. Frustrated, he sifted memory for a song that might suffice, but came up empty. All he could do, before fleeing to his star-covered sanctuary, was touch Sara’s cheek and let his eyes express the trueness of his love.
In fact, there was nothing wrong with Emerson’s sexuality. He longed to prove it to her. But not now. A confrontation loomed, and he needed every resource. Strong animal cravings might help keep him anchored through the coming showdown, reminding him of priorities that more advanced minds had forgotten.
His plan was necessarily crude, since thinking came so hard without words. By visualizing certain acts, body movements, emotions, and images, he had a general idea what to expect, and how to react when the time came.
It must be soon. Emerson could still discern meaning from a spatial diagram, and one truth grew plain as Streaker gyred into the white dwarf’s gravitational funnel. A point of no return would come when the convoy of immense spacecraft got so closely packed that no single ship could escape on normal engine power. Gillian would have to break out before then, or risk forever abandoning the outer cosmos — the realm of open vacuum where young races thrived. Where blazing spaceships crossed star-speckled skies.
The same logic applied to the secret faction of Old Ones.
They have to act soon, or else he trapped along with …
Emerson stopped short — then resumed his thought, warily.
… or … else … be … trapped along with us, down among the Transcendent habitats, unable to intervene any longer in the affairs of the Five Galaxies.…
A low grunt escaped his throat. Despite expecting it this time, the sudden return of speech filled him with aching mixtures of sorrow, joy, and fear.
The words … the words are back again!
At least Emerson was better prepared now. For many days he had been storing memories, laboriously freezing snippets of speech that others said, in hope of fitting the pieces when this moment came.
“Let me conjecture. The emblem stands for a union of hydro-and oxy-life, coming together at last.…”
“… those derelict ships we found in the Shallow Cluster must have come from our past … when more than five galaxies made up this nexus-association.”
• • •
“… suppose older, wiser spirits asserted themselves after each disruption … controlling the Great Library … to erase and adjust archives … or divert blame …”
“… So this is transcendence. Every species that was uplifted … and survives to adult phase … winds up in such a place.…”
“Whoever gave Streaker this coating not only saved our lives … they made sure we must stay with this convoy, all the way to the bottom.…”
“… no way to get rid of the heat …”
So many ideas, converging at once! It might seem like this for a blind man to have cataracts removed from his eyes, revealing vistas of utter clarity where there had been fog. And yet, many concepts also felt somehow familiar! As if they had been lurking close to comprehension for quite some time, massaged and predigested by undamaged portions of his brain, awaiting only clear sentences to make it all come together.
Emerson would gladly have spent hours just standing there, letting gravitational tides align his head toward the heavens while he grabbed and combined notions from cascades that seemed to roar through his mind like a pent-up flood. But he was not given the leisure.
A voice interrupted — at once both remote and mocking. Distant, yet derisive.
“WE NOTE THAT YOU DID NOT CALL US, DESPITE HAVING BEEN SUPPLIED WITH A CODE TO USE, WHEN READY TO ACT ON OUR OFFER.”
Emerson scarcely bothered peering amid the glittering lights outside. A dark ship must have drawn nearby in cloaked secrecy, and trying to spot it would be futile. Instead, he went into rapid motion, squeezing his body out of the narrow crystal dome, then sliding down the rungs of a ladder designed for another race, in a far different time.
“I was curious to see just how badly you want the goods you asked for,” he replied in a low mutter under his breath. Sound wasn’t the medium of communication here. Rather, the Old Ones were monitoring a stolen plug of his own gray matter they had somehow kept in quantum contact to the rest of his brain. When brought close enough, it flowed with words. His words.
Words they could instantly read.
“WE DO NOT HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO THE LIKES OF YOU. IT IS ENOUGH THAT WE SEEK, AND YOU SHALL PROVIDE.”
Jogging down a hallway, Emerson pulled from his pocket a small handmade instrument with a flashing indicator. No words had been needed to construct the simple tool, nor did he contemplate its meaning.
“Aren’t you guys running out of time?” he asked his tormentors — members of the Retired Order, whose homes had vanished in the ruin of the Fractal World. Retirees whose vaunted detachment had failed under testing.
“If you wait much longer, you’ll transcend, whether you like it or not. The data you seek won’t do you any good. There’ll be no way to tell your friends, back in the Five Galaxies.”
Icy tones echoed in his head.
“WE HAVE SPENT AEONS CULTIVATING PATIENCE. ALL THIS RACING ABOUT, TAKING FIERCE ACTIONS … IT IS UNPLEASANT WE HAD FORGOTTEN HOW QUICKLY DEEDS ARE FOLLOWED BY EFFECTS.”
Emerson rounded a corner and passed through a hatch, guided by the telltale marker.
“Yeah, all the uncertainty must be driving you nuts. So tell me, how does it feel to almost gain entry to the Transcendent Order, your goal for a million years, only to sneak away at the last, moment, just to carry off a few bytes of data stolen from a miserable Earthship? Aren’t you tempted just to let go of all those old obsessions? To give in and embrace the tides?”
The reply came only after a long pause, while he raced down Streaker’s long, almost-deserted hallways.
