ATTACH A TRACER, TO FIND HIM THE MOMENT WE ARRIVED?”
Emerson nodded. “Something like this seemed likely. The one person you might have altered would be Hannes.”
“WE DID NOT ALTER THE HUMAN ARTIFICER. THOSE WHO REPAIRED HIM WERE SINCERE. BUT WE LATER INCORPORATED THAT FACTION, AND THUS GAINED THE ACCESS CODES. SINCE IT CLEARLY MATTERS TO YOU, BE ASSURED HE HAS NO PAIN. HE PERCEIVES THIS AS JUST A BAD DREAM.”
“How considerate of you!” Emerson snapped.
“YOU THINK US CALLOUS. YET, WITH THE DESTINY OF MANY RACES AND TRILLIONS OF LIVES AT STAKE, WE HAD REASONS—”
“I see only that you’re cowards! You feel drawn by the Embrace of Tides, yet you fear to go in. You worry it may be a mistake!”
“AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION, BUT TRUE ENOUGH.
“THE STORY IS SO BEAUTIFUL, SO PERFECT — WITH OXY AND HYDRO LIFE ORDERS COMBINING IN ELEGANT PEACE, MERGING AMID A GLORIOUS FUNNEL OF TRANSCENDENCE — THAT HARDLY ANY CANDIDATES EVER QUESTION THE GENERAL ACCEPTANCE OF THIS PATH, FOLLOWED BY THEIR ANCESTORS SINCE TIMES IMMEMORIAL. THE EMBRACE IS ALMOST IRRESISTIBLE. DIVING TO TRANSCENDENCE IS AN ULTIMATE ACT OF TRUST. OF FAITH.
“BUT THEREIN LIES THE RUB! TO SOME OF US, FAITH IS NOT ENOUGH. THERE WAS ONCE A MINORITY VIEW, A HERESY THAT LOOKED ON THE EMBRACE OF TIDES, AND CALLED IT SOMETHING ELSE.”
Emerson nodded.
“A recycling system. You’re worried that this white dwarf is just like the oceanic trench on Jijo … the Great Midden. A graceful way to clear away the old and make way for the new! Yeah, that makes just as much sense as a mystical portal to some higher layer of reality!”
Deep sadness filled the alien presence — a fretful brooding that seemed poignant in a species so ancient and learned.
“THE DISCOVERY MADE BY YOUR DOLPHIN-CREWED SHIP IN THE SHALLOW CLUSTER … THE REAL REASON IT CAUSED SUCH CONSTERNATION …”
Abruptly the voice stopped. Emerson crouched nervously as the deck shuddered beneath his feet. Tremors accelerated, growing in pitch and intensity.
“You’re attacking us!” he accused. “All your talk was just to humor me until—”
The voice interrupted.
“YOU ARE RIGHT THAT I WAS PERFORMING A DELAYING TACTIC. BUT FOR A DIFFERENT REASON. THE SHOCKS YOU FEEL ARE FROM STRAIN FRACTURES IN THE VERY FABRIC OF THE COSMOS, CONTINUING THE SAME PROCESS THAT DEMOLISHED OUR HOME THAT YOU CALLED THE FRACTAL WORLD.
“THESE FRACTURES ARE SPREADING AT AN ACCELERATING PACE.”
“Sara thinks—”
“WE HAVE FOLLOWED HER WORK WITH INTEREST. SHE APPEARS TO KNOW WHAT THE TRANSCENDENTS COVERED UP — THAT FATE SEEMS BOUND TO SMASH THE TIES BINDING OUR GALAXIES … INDEED, THE NETWORKS THAT MAINTAIN CIVILIZATION.”
It was an awesome statement. Yet, something else the voice had said bothered Emerson.
“A … delaying tactic? Why? I already stopped Hannes from—”
He shouted an oath.
“Of course. You Old Ones wouldn’t leave anything to chance. You’d have a third option. A backup for your backup! What is it? Tell me!”
“OR ELSE WHAT? WILL YOU SHOOT YOUR FRIEND? WE COULD HAVE SENT HIM CHARGING AT YOU, SEVERAL DURAS AGO. WITH CYBORG STRENGTH AND SPEED, WE CALCULATE THIRTY PERCENT ODDS HE WOULD HAVE PREVAILED BEFORE YOU PUT HIM OUT OF ACTION. A WORTHWHILE GAMBLE, FROM OUR POINT OF VIEW.
“EXCEPT THAT BY NOW OUR THIRD AGENT HAS ALREADY DEPARTED YOUR SHIP.”
“Your … third agent?”
“WE MADE A BARGAIN WITH A YOUNG WOLFLING. IN EXCHANGE FOR COPIES OF YOUR SHIP LOGS, WE WILL TAKE HER AWAY FROM THIS PLACE.
“FROM HERE TO SEE HER GODS.”
Darting past immobile Suessi, Emerson pressed against the laser-window and peered outside.
Streaker’s nose lay to his left, where just one of the airlocks had been cleared of the magic coating to allow egress. Emerson could not see that aperture. But a few hundred meters outward, he glimpsed a stubby vessel — a little escape pod, puffing as it turned toward a dark patch of space.
A black patch that blocked a swath of stars.
Emerson’s brain seemed to spin. His thought processes were much quicker than they had been before his mutilation. Still, it took moments to realize—
“Lieutenant Tsh’t! You sprang her from the brig and helped her escape!”
“A SIMPLE MATTER OF MEME-INFECTING YOUR SHIPBOARD COMPUTERS. MUCH HARDER WAS THE PHYSICAL EFFORT, HELPING HER ENTER PLACES WHERE GILLIAN BASKIN HAD HIDDEN THE SECRETS, WORKING WITH A MIND-CONTROLLED SUESSI TO STEAL THEM, THEN HAVING BOTH AGENTS SMUGGLE OUT THE MATERIAL BY SEPARATE ROUTES.
“AND NOW AT LAST, DESPITE YOUR INTERFERENCE, WE ARE ABOUT TO POSSESS THE DATA NEEDED TO MAKE CORRECT DECISIONS AFFECTING MULTITUDES.
“THIS PUTS US IN A GENEROUS MOOD TO REDRESS YOUR MANY INCONVENIENCES. OUT OF RESPECT FOR YOUR FERAL INGENUITY, LET US MAKE AMENDS. IN DEPARTING WE SHALL LEAVE BEHIND SOMETHING YOU’LL BE GLAD TO HAVE BAC—”
The voice cut off abruptly as another wave of spacetime tremors struck. This one made Emerson’s skin crawl with tingling sensations. Pulsations coursed the length of his digestive system, producing several loud ecruptions.
The stars outside wavered, and the vague black patch he had glimpsed before started to shimmer, revealing a familiar outline.
A galuphin-class sneakboat, he identified. An expensive, but conventional Galactic design.
“Wha—?” uttered a nearby voice. Hannes Suessi groaned, recovering consciousness. “What’m I doin’ here? What’s happening?”
Emerson had other things to worry about than updating a friend. Spatial fluctuations had confused the enigmatic Old Ones. With their cloaking mask disrupted, they dropped all pretense at stealth and made speed toward the little life pod, in order to pick up Tsh’t and the information they prized. But the same tumult that made Streaker’s hull vibrate was causing them trouble, too.
Indeed, the surrounding vast armada of “transcendence candidates” seemed to be breaking up! Wavelets of compressed metric tore through their crowded ranks, pushing one phalanx of great ships toward another. Emerson saw collisions — and sparkling explosions — ripple from one area to the next, as jagged oxy-vessels merged prematurely with hydro-globules, releasing convulsions of raw energy.
Amid all this chaos, something far more disconcerting was going on. At least from Emerson’s perspective. His power of speech kept fading, then surging back again, briefly enhanced beyond all natural ability, causing countless strange associations to spill forth.
The voice was absent, yet he continued getting impressions from the beings he called Old Ones. Sensations of deep concern. Shifting toward worry. Followed by desperation.
Moving in fits and starts, their sneakboat approached the little pod carrying Tsh’t, fighting chaotic disruption waves all the way. While the heavens coruscated with dire accidents — and untold populations died just short of their transcendent goal — Emerson’s erstwhile tormentors struggled to dock with the renegade dolphin lieutenant.
“I feel … like somehow I been used,” murmured Suessi, moving alongside to peer out the window. “I sure wish you could talk, lad. I could do with some light put on the subject.”
Emerson glanced at Suessi, then at the shadowy sneakboat … and then rapidly from his friend to the big comm laser.
