candidates toward their goal. But now the immense devices deserted their stations and could be seen climbing away, abandoning the latecomers to their fate!
The gateways shimmered with inconstant colors that made them seem slippery to the eye, reminding Sara of the spectral flow — the desert of psi-active stone, back home on Jijo — where even a single glimpse could send a mind reeling.
Rising steadily away from the dwarf star, each needle plunged through the funnel of descending arks, forcing countless many of them to maneuver wildly out of the way, leaving behind swirls of confusion. Whatever order had remained in the mass pilgrimage swiftly vanished. Massive explosions glittered behind each behemoth, like phosphorescent diatoms, churned in some dark sea when a great beast comes rushing through.
“One of those things is headed almost straight for ussss!” the astrogator cried.
• • •
Gillian snapped an order. “Get us out of here, and to hell with prudence! Maximum inertial speed!”
Akeakemai responded with an emphatic tail slash. “Aye!”
Almost at once, Streaker’s engines began groaning with urgency. Sara felt ominous vibrations underfoot, along with a strange tension in her spine as compensating fields struggled to match acceleration.
“You know this is ffffutile, of course,” commented Zub’daki. “Even if we avoid collisions and the Jophur, we still aren’t going to make it-t. Streaker would have to be several light-years away in order to escape the coming calamity.”
“What are you talking about?” Sara asked. “What’s coming?”
Before the dolphin astronomer could answer, she stepped back with a gasp.
In the holo display, one of the huge, javelin-shaped gateways could be seen rising rapidly, leaving roiling chaos in its wake, on a course that seemed destined to pass nearby. While trillions died from crashes or fiery detonations, the “gateway” surged blithely onward and upward.
Only now Sara also observed—
“It’s shooting at some of the ships!”
Indeed, the needle-artifact was apparently not content with disrupting the migration with its backwash. It also flailed out with beams of force, like cruel, glowing lariats, aiming at specific targets as it climbed.
This was no anomaly. All the other gateways were behaving the same way as they hurried away from the white dwarf.
Sara felt Prity take her right hand. Aghast at the orgy of destruction — vastly more bloody and devastating than what had happened at the Fractal World — she could only stare and wonder.
I wish Emerson were here, so we could watch the end together.
Amid the advancing wave of blinding outbursts and detonations, she had time for one more thought before the shimmering monster lashed one more time, reaching toward Streaker, with dazzling rays of light.
Forgive me for thinking it — but God … it’s beautiful.…
Alvin’s Journal
HOW CAN I EXPRESS THE JOY I FEEL? OR THE sorrow that simultaneously fills my tense and throbbing spines?
Sometimes life seems just too ironic. The universe may be shaking apart around us, and yet I’ve been blessed by Ifni’s own good fortune, to find love and strange-warm acceptance among my own kind. Meanwhile, poor Pincer — whose idea it was to undertake the adventures that eventually brought us here from our wilderness home — met an untimely death at the very threshold of civilization, because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Scout-Major Harry Harms wanted to put out a police alert for the murderer, but Pilot Kaa begged him not to. A full investigation would blow our cover, revealing the presence of dolphins and sooners at Kazzkark. Above all, Huck must be protected, as the only living g’Kek survivor outside of Jijo — though she chafes at being put in such a position. Indeed, Huck is the angriest among us, shouting to avenge Pincer, whatever the cost!
I was forced to agree with Kaa. With law and order starting to crumble, it is doubtful that a “full investigation” would amount to very much, anyway.
“I’ll put out some feelers,” assured Scout-Major Harms. “And unleash ferret programs to look for any Rothen- like images on the monitors, in case Ro-kenn is careless enough to stroll openly along the avenues. But I’ll wager he’s gone underground. Rothen are notoriously clever at disguises and that sort of thing.”
“Or else he may have already taken shelter with one of the great clansss,” added Kaa. “Perhaps he is dickering with them right now, to sell out Streaker and Jijo.”
Against that possibility, Harry asked Kaa to move our little starship over to the docks of the Navigation Institute, sheltering it behind his own, odd-looking craft.
“You must understand, I’d never do this under normal circumstances,” he explained. “I took an oath. My first loyalty is to the Institute, and to the Civilization of Five Galaxies.” Then Harry shrugged expressively. “But right now it’s unclear what that means anymore.”
I confess, it was hard at first to watch him speak without umbling out loud! I know it shouldn’t surprise me so much to see a chimpanzee talk with sober eloquence. Especially one who stood so straight and tall, with elegant white fur and an enviably agile tail. Clearly, his race has benefited from several more centuries of genetic Uplift since the Tabernacle departed Earth, bringing his mute cousins to Jijo.
“In any event,” Major Harms continued. “You have a full set of bio identifications on Ro-kenn, contained in that report you’re carrying for the Terragens Council. Perhaps they’ll put some of their notorious interstellar agents on his trail. I’m sure the bastard will get paid in full for what he’s done. Don’t you worry.”
A bold reassurance. Even Huck seemed a little mollified.
And yet, given what we’ve heard about the Siege of Terra, how likely is it to come true?
Even before Pincer’s death, our glorious fellowship was breaking up.
Last week, Ur-ronn met up with the p’un m’ang owners of a freighter — birdlike creatures with bristles instead of wings and no manipulative organs to speak of, except for their beaks. This crew was in a real fix. Their “hired hand” had left them in order to head home during the crisis. They seemed delighted by the chance to hire an urrish replacement, even when Ur-ronn told them her technical education was somewhat lacking.
Since piloting is mostly automatic along the main trade routes, and robots take care of most ordinary tasks, what the crew really needs is someone with intelligence and tactile agility, to pick up stuff, run errands, and pull levers whenever the machines prove too inflexible. That sounds easy enough for a tireless worker like Ur-ronn, whose nimble hands can wrap around any task. It should be like child’s play, after slaving away for Uriel, back at Mount Guenn Forge.
I asked Twaphu-anuph to look over the contract with a hoonish bureaucrat’s eye for detail, and he declared it satisfactory. The p’un m’ang will drop Ur-ronn off at their third stop, a port where urrish ships stop frequently, and she can make contact with her own kind. Along the way she’ll gain experience while earning some credits to spend.
I hope she doesn’t hector her poor employers to death with questions.
“At least the ship is warm and dry,” Ur-ronn said, after visiting her new employers. “There’s none of the Ifnicursed humidity I had to put up with on the way here! And the p’un m’ang don’t smell as bad as Earthlings, either!”
Kaa answered with an amiably derisive spitting sound. The two of them had spent a lot of time together during the journey from Galaxy Four, talking about technology and diverting each other’s worries. I doubt I’ll ever see a stranger-looking friendship than a water-loving dolphin and a hydrophobic urs, getting along famously.
“I’ll keep all three eyes open for an Earthling or Tymbrimi ship to pass this on to,” she continued, patting the pouch under her left arm. Inside lay a copy of Gillian Baskin’s report, coded for decipherment by the Terragens
