Standing in his glass case, Herbie smiles at me across my desk. The mummy’s eerie humanoidal rictus has been my most intimate companion, ever since Tom went away. Sometimes I find myself talking to him.
Well, old fellow? Is this the big joke? Have I at last figured out why you’ve been grinning all this time?
Or are there more layers yet to peel away?
More terrible surprises to come.
It isn’t easy trying to work our way out of this trap with our two best pilots gone. The swarm of arks and globules appears to extend endlessly above us, reaching far out beyond the range of any solar system. The sheer amount of mass involved approaches macroplanetary scales! Like the accretion disk surrounding a newborn star.
Where could all these “candidates” have come from?
Might the same thing be happening elsewhere? A lot of elsewheres? If even a small fraction of older white dwarves are home to such convergences, that would mean millions of sites like this one, surrounded by migrants eager to enter paradise, despite a growing gauntlet of collision and fire.
On a practical level, Streaker cannot attempt any hyperspace jumps till we’re clear of all these massive ships, and the rippling effects of their mighty engines.
Even if we do succeed in working our way outward, the Jophur dreadnought is still out there. We detect it from time to time, tracking us like some tenacious predator, crippled and dying, with nothing else to live for anymore beyond finishing the hunt. If we make it to open space, there will be that peril to contend with.
If only we could rid ourselves of this deadly coating and restore Streaker to her old agility!
Hannes has been working on a new idea about that, alongside Emerson D’Anite. Something involving the big Communications Laser.
Poor Emerson struggles to explain something to us — humming melodies and drawing pictures, but all we can tell so far is that he managed to defeat yet another meme-attack on Streaker a while back, and destroyed the renegade — Tsh’t — in the process.
I cannot help it. I grieve for my friend. The sweet comrade who was by my side through crisis after crisis. Poor Tsh’t only thought she was doing the right thing, seeking help and succor from her gods.
Now another wraith follows through the night, surging like a porpoise through my restless dreams.
The big news is that the Niss Machine lately made a breakthrough. It managed at last to tap into what passes for a communications network among the Transcendents.
As one might expect, it is a dense, complex system, as far beyond Galactic-level technology as a hand computer exceeds an abacus. It was invisible for so long because only small portions on the fringes use classical electronics or photonics. The core technique appears to be quantum computing on a scale so vast that it must utilize highly compressed gravitational fields.
“Such fields are unavailable here,” commented the Niss. “Even among the needle habitats, whirling just above the compact star core, the potentials are many orders of magnitude too small.
“We must be picking up the margins of something much greater. Something with its center located far away from here.”
Of course it occurred to us that this might be our chance. Our hope of communicating with “higher authorities,” as ordered by the Terragens Council. The creatures who betrayed us at the Fractal World — those so- called Old Ones — were like infants in comparison to the minds using this new network. Indeed, all signs suggest they are the pinnacle that life achieves.
Yet, I’m reluctant to just hand over our data from the Shallow Cluster. We’ve been disappointed too many times. Perhaps the Transcendents also suffer from the same fear — that a deadly trap underlies the Embrace of Tides.
If it entered their thoughts to be vengeful toward us, we’d have all the chance of a hamster against a bolo battle tank.
“Let’s ask simple questions, first,” I said. “Any suggestions?”
Sara Koolhan burst forth.
“Ask about the Buyur! Are they down there? Did the Buyur transcend?”
Lately, she’s grown obsessed with the last species to have leasehold over Jijo. A race of genetic manipulators, who seemed to know in advance that sooners would invade their world, and about a coming Time of Changes.
“Even such a simple query will be hard to translate. It may be impossible to slip within the matrix in such a way that anyone will notice, or bother answering,” warned the Niss. “But I will try.”
Of course we risk drawing the attention of even more powerful enemies. But with the odds already against us, it seems a worthwhile effort.
Meanwhile, our dolphin astronomer, Zub’daki, has more bad news to report about the swarm of incoming Candidate vessels.
He knows and cares little about hyperspatial disruptions tearing the fabric of reality. That is Sara’s department. Zub’daki’s interest lies in the white dwarf itself, and the sheer amount of matter approaching it like flotsam in a whirling drain.
“What if most of the arks misssss their target?” he asked. “What if they fail to rendezvous with the needlegatewayssss?
“What if the needles are no longer there to collect them?”
I fear that my initial response was callous, asking why we should care if a stampede of giants go tumbling into a grave of their own making. As mere ants, it is our duty to escape. To survive.
But I will go and hear what he has to say.
What will one more worry matter? I’ve long passed the point where I stopped counting them.
Lark
THE REUNION WAS BIZARRE, JOYOUS, AND rather unnerving.
Having long dreamed of this moment — being reunited with his lover — Lark now stared at Ling across a gulf far wider than the few meters separating them.
She floated in a blobby stew, a dense swarm of writhing, pulsating objects that moved languidly within a vast, transparent membrane — a bloated mass that filled most of this large chamber and extended through several hatchways into more of the ship beyond.
In addition to Ling’s human form, he glimpsed at least one wriggling qheuen larva, plus several animal types from Jijo and other worlds. Lark recognized a multitude of traeki rings, plus countless twining green things that must have once been plants.
Bubblelike forms also crowded throughout the teeming life-brew, rippling like amoebae, or bobbing gelatinous balloons. Though colored and textured differently than the Zang creature he carried about like a suit of clothes, Lark could tell they were related.
Despite the family resemblance, his passenger reacted violently to sighting these “cousins.” The Zang tried to make him flee. But Lark was adamant, willing both stiff legs to stride forward, to Ling.
Her naked form was draped with various throbbing creatures. Symbionts, Lark thought. Some of them covered her mouth and nose, while others penetrated flesh directly to the bloodstream. Weeks ago, the sight might have sent chills down his spine, but by now the concept was familiar as breathing. Simply a more extensive version of the arrangement he had made with the Zang.
Moving closer, he sought Ling’s eyes, trying for contact. Had this vast cell simply incorporated her for some crude biochemical purpose, as an organelle, to serve a minor function for the whole? Or did she retain her essence within?
