“YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO HOLD BACK. THE GRAVITATIONAL TUG AND STRETCH ARE VOLUPTUOUS IN A MANNER THAT NO WORDS — NO MERE PHYSICAL SENSATION — CAN DESCRIBE.”
“Go ahead and try,” Emerson urged. “What is the big deal about the Embrace of Tides?”
“YOU ARE TOO YOUNG TO UNDERSTAND. WITHIN THE EMBRACE, ONE FEELS UNION WITH THE WHOLE COSMOS. IT IS COMPORTING PHILOSOPHICALLY, AS WELL AS ON THE LEVEL OP FAITH. THERE IS WISDOM HERE, AND KNOWLEDGE VASTLY BEYOND THE GREAT LIBRARY, OR EVEN WHAT WE KNEW IN THE FRACTAL WORLD.”
“Really? Then why not just go?” Vehemence filled his voice, now echoing off the pale walls. “Do the wise and noble thing. Accept your diploma. Graduate, dammit! Gimme back my brain. The life you stole from me. Go down to your paradise with clean karma and a clear conscience!”
When the meddlers replied, there seemed almost to be a note of contrition.
“UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, YOUR PLEA MIGHT HAVE ETHICAL MERIT. BUT NOW FAR GREATER ISSUES ARE AT STAKE THAT FORCE US …”
There was another pause.
“JUST A MOMENT. WE DETECT SOMETHING IN YOUR EMOTIVE TONE. IN YOUR MANNER …”
Emerson felt strange, tickling sensations, as if the left side of his brain were being scraped or probed. When the voice resumed, it had a new, resentful tone.
“YOU HAVE LEARNED TRICKS OF DECEPTION AND DISTRACTION. CLEARLY, IT IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE TO SCAN YOUR THOUGHTS SIMPLY BY MONITORING WORDS AND GLYPHS. THE THINGS YOU SAY APPEAR ARGUMENTATIVE, BUT IN TRUTH THEY ARE MEANT TO DEFER. TO DELAY.
“REVEAL WHAT YOU ARE HIDING! REVEAL, OR EXPERIENCE PAIN!”
Emerson gritted his teeth as he ran, trying hard not to laugh out loud or show the depth of his contempt. But a little leaked out as blankets of concealment were assailed by ancient skill. While the Old Ones could not draw facts out of his reluctant mind, they got a good picture of his attitudes.
“WE PERCEIVE THAT ALL FORMS OF BASIC COERCION ARE OBSOLETE OR INAPPLICABLE IN YOUR CASE. YOU HAVE GONE PAST PAIN, A LESSON THAT MANY RETIREES SPEND AGES OVERCOMING. NOR DO YOU WHIMPER AND CLASP AFTER WHAT WAS TAKEN FROM YOU NO INDUCEMENT OR BRIBE WILL CAUSE YOU TO BETRAY FRIENDS AND CLAN MATES. YOU HAVE NOT EVEN TRIED TO STEAL THE DATA WE ASKED FOR.
“ALL OF THIS MAY BE ADMIRABLE, ESPECIALLY IN A WOLFLING. INDEED, UNDER OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES, WE MIGHT TAKE PLEASURE IN COMPENSATING YOU FOR YOUR TRIALS, AND CONVERSING FURTHER ABOUT THE VIRTUES OF UNCERTAINTY.
“BUT THE ISSUES WE FACE ARE TOO DIRE, AND TIME IS SHORT. THE INFORMATION MUST BE OURS!”
The telltale in Emerson’s hand flashed a new direction. Up. He halted below a ceiling hatch that lay cracked open. Light streamed from within.
Still hoping for delay, he blurted aloud.
“Let me guess. You had a backup plan, in case I wouldn’t do as you asked.”
“CALCULATIONS BASED ON EARLIER NEURAL SCANS PREDICTED ONLY A MODEST CHANCE YOU WOULD COOPERATE. SURELY YOU DON’T THINK WE WOULD COUNT ON SUCH A SLENDER HOPE?”
Letting the voice jabber on, Emerson slipped his tracker in a pocket and leaped, catching the rim of the hatch and writhing his legs to haul himself into a maintenance conduit. Silently blessing the low ambient gravity, he consulted the device again before heading aft along a tube lined with ducted cables.
“… NATURALLY WE WERE NOT SO FOOLISH AS TO RELY ON YOU ALONE.”
Fearing the Old Ones were about to break contact, he blurted.
“Wait! I still may be able to help you. But you gotta understand … we humans hate being kept in the dark. Can’t you tell me why you need Streaker’s data? What’s so damn special about that stupid fleet of ancient ships we found?”
That was the chief perplexing quandary dogging the fugitive Earthlings for three long, hellish years.
Oh, the superficial answer was easy. When Creideiki and Orley beamed images from the Shallow Cluster, they triggered religious schisms across the Five Galaxies. Rival clans and alliances, who had controlled their feuding for ages, sent battle fleets to secure Streaker’s samples — and especially the coordinates of the derelict fleet — before their rivals could acquire them.
Some said the Ghost Armada might be blessed Progenitors, returning to survey their descendants after two billion years. But if so, why react violently? Wouldn’t all dogmatic differences be worked out, once truth was shared by all?
Emerson sensed hesitation. Then a faint perception of agreement, as if the voice was waiting for something else to happen. Meanwhile, it might as well converse with a bright wolfling, to pass the time.
“ALL OF THIS HAS TO DO WITH THE EMBRACE OF TIDES. THE DELICIOUS TUG THAT EACH OLDER RACE BEGINS TO FEEL AFTER LOSING INTEREST IN DASHING ABOUT ON MANIC STARSHIPS. WE ALL FOLLOW THIS ATTRACTION, DROPPING OUR FORMER DIFFERENCES TO ASSEMBLE TOGETHER NEXT TO LITTLE RED SUNS, WHERE OUR MINDS MAY GROW AND PURIFY.
“THEN, FROM SUCH PLACES OF RETIREMENT, MANY PROCEED TO SITES LIKE THIS ONE, WHERE OXYGEN AND HYDROGEN MERGE PEACEFULLY, UNITING IN COMMON APPRECIATION OF THE STRENGTHENING EMBRACE, PROVING THAT A PLAN IS AT WORK, MAGNIFICENT AND BEAUTIFUL.…”
Emerson heard a low clattering, coming from somewhere just ahead. Softly, he laid the tracker down, then hurried toward the rustling sounds. From another pocket, he pulled a slim device — one he had stolen days ago from Gillian Baskin’s office.
“… THOUGH WHERE THE COMBINED RACES GO FROM HERE — TO WHAT DESTINY — HAS ALWAYS BEEN A MYSTERY. YOUNGER CLANS DEBATE IT ENDLESSLY, BUT TRANSCENDENT LIFE-FORMS NEVER EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. ALL WE HAVE ARE HINTS AND STRANGE EMANATIONS FROM …”
Concentrating hard to blank his thoughts, Emerson rounded a corner and abruptly saw starlight ahead, glimmering through a crystal pane. He knew this place. It housed the main communication laser, a wide-barreled tube occupying most of the available volume, aimed through a broad window.
Streaker’s magical coating lay beyond, a meter thick but utterly transparent, covering nearly all of the ship in a layer that was both miraculous and deadly.
A figure stood nearby, working at an open access panel. Emerson recognized the fluid skill of those hands, using tools to perform rapid modifications on the laser system. One arm was clearly artificial, while remnants of the head lay encased in a mirrorlike dome. Cyborg components like these had saved the life of Streaker’s chief engineer, back at the Fractal World. Generosity, from a different, more kindly faction of Old Ones — or so the crew thought at the time.
Next to Suessi lay a large data reader and several crystalline knowledge cells — enough to hold all of Streaker’s hard-won discoveries.
“Hello, Hannes,” Emerson said aloud.
The instant he spoke, several things happened at once.
Servos whined as the figure spun around, raising a cutter torch whose short flame burned blindingly hot. Without his old friend’s face to look at, Emerson could only assume the man meant to use it.
Meanwhile, the voice interrupted its explanation with a hiss of surprise that seemed to shoot through Emerson’s head like an electric jolt. He cried out, instinctively grabbing at his temples. But that reaction lasted just an instant. Gritting his teeth, he aimed the stolen plasma pistol past Suessi’s shiny dome.
“Stop it, or I shoot the laser right now! You know pain won’t work on me.”
The lightning ceased at once.
“IN TRUTH, WE NOW BELIEVE IT, HAVING FOOLISHLY REPEATED THE ERROR OF TAKING YOU FOR GRANTED. OUR COMPUTER MODELS CONSISTENTLY UNDERESTIMATE YOUR FERAL CLEVERNESS. COULD THIS ADAPTABILITY HAVE BEEN FOSTERED DURING YOUR EXILE ON THE SOONER WORLD?”
“Flattery’ll get you nowhere. But yeah, I learned some new ways of thinking, there. You should hear me curse, sometime. Or sing.”
“IN ANOTHER LIFE, PERHAPS. SO YOU FIGURED WE WOULD HAVE AN ALTERNATE AGENT. DID YOU
