Keith's mind was reeling. So many discoveries, so much happening. He drummed his fingers on his bridge workstation for a moment, thinking.
And then: 'Okay, people, what now?'
The front row of workstations all rotated around on their individual pedestals so that they faced the back row: Lianne was facing Jag, Thor was facing Keith, and Rhombus was facing Rissa. Keith looked at each member of his bridge staff in turn. 'We've got almost an embarrassment of riches here,' he said. 'First, there's the mystery of the stars' erupting from the shortcuts — stars that Jag thinks come from the future.
As if that's not a big enough puzzle to try to figure out, we've also stumbled upon life — life! — made out of dark matter.' Keith looked from face to face. 'Given the complexity of the radio signals Hek's been picking up, there's a chance — a small one, I grant you — that we're even looking at first contact with intelligent life. Rissa, it would have been crazy to say this yesterday, but let's make the dark-matter investigations the province of the life- sciences division.'
She nodded.
Keith turned to Jag. 'The stars coming out of the shortcuts, on the other hand, may pose a threat to the Commonwealth. If you're right, Jag, and they are coming from the future, then we've got to find out why they're coming back. Is it by deliberate design? If so, is it for a malevolent purpose? Or is it just an accident? A globular cluster, say, colliding with a shortcut billions of years from now, and overloading it somehow so that its constituent stars are spewed back to here?'
'Well,' barked Jag, 'a globular cluster wouldn't pass through a shortcut. Only one of its member stars would.'
'Unless,' said Thor, sounding a bit feisty, 'that globular cluster was enclosed in a sort of super Dyson sphere — a shell around the entire assembly of stars. Imagine something like that touching a shortcut billions of years from now. The shell could break apart while traversing the gate, and send the component stars scattering out of different exit points.'
'Ridiculous,' said Jag. 'You humans always reinforce each other in even your wildest fantasies. Take your religions, for instance—'
'Enough!' snapped Keith, bringing his open palm down loudly on the edge of his workstation. 'Enough. We're not going to get anywhere squabbling.' He looked at the Waldahud. 'If you don't like Thor's suggestion, then make one of your own. Why are the stars coming back here from the future?'
Jag was facing the director, but only his right eyes were looking at Keith; the left pair was scanning the surroundings, an instinctual precursor to a fight. 'I don't know,' he said at last.
'We need an answer,' said Keith, his voice still edged.
'Interrupting in all politeness,' said Rhombus. 'Offense not intended and hopefully not taken.'
Keith turned to face the Ib. 'What is it?'
'Perhaps you are asking the wrong person. No slight is intended of good Jag, of course. But if you want to know why the stars are being sent back in time, then the person to ask is the person who is sending them back.'
'You mean ask some person in the future?' Keith said. 'How can we possibly do that?'
The Ib's mantle twinkled. 'Now that is a question for good Jag,' he said. 'If material from the future can exit the shortcut in the past, can we then send something from the past into the future?'
Jag was quiet for a second, thinking. But then he moved his lower shoulders. 'Not as far as I can tell. Every computer simulation I've done shows that any object entering the shortcut in the present gets shunted to another present-day shortcut. Assuming the rogue stars are being sent back by conscious design, I don't know how whoever is controlling the shortcuts is doing it, and I have no idea how to send something forward.'
'Ah, good Jag,' said Rhombus, 'forgive me, but there is of course one way to send something forward.'
'And what's that?' Keith asked.
'A time capsule,' said the Ib. 'You know: just make something that will last. Eventually, without our doing anything special, it will end up in the future through the natural passage of time.'
Jag and Keith looked at each other. 'But — but Jag says the stars are coming from billions of years in the future,' Keith said.
'In fact,' said the Waldahud, 'if I had to guess, I would say they come from something like ten billion years from now.'
Keith nodded, turning back to face Rhombus. 'That's double the current age of any of the Commonwealth homeworlds.'
'True,' said the Ib. 'But, forgive me, despite what you Humans think, neither Earth nor the other homeworlds were created by deliberate design. Our time capsule would be.'
'A time capsule that would last ten billion years…' said Jag, clearly intrigued. 'Perhaps… perhaps if it were made out of extremely hard material, like… like diamond, but without the cleavage planes. But even if we made such a thing, there is no guarantee that anyone would ever find it. And, besides, this part of the galaxy will rotate around the core forty-odd times before then. How do we possibly keep the object from drifting away from during all that time?'
Lights danced on Rhombus's sensor web. 'Well, assume that this particular shortcut will continue to exist for the next ten billion years; that's a fair assumption, since it's here now, and must also still exist at the time the star was pushed through it. So, make our time capsule self-repairing — the nanotech lab should be able to come up with something — and have it hold position near this shortcut.'
'And then just hope that someone will notice it when they come by here in the future to use the shortcut?' asked Keith.
'It may be more than that, good Keith,' said Rhombus. 'It may be that they come by here to build the shortcut. The shortcuts may have been created in the future, and had their exit points extruded into the past. If their real purpose is to shunt stars back here, then that's a likely scenario.'
Keith turned to Jag. 'Objections?'
The Waldahud lifted all four shoulders. 'None.'
He turned back to Rhombus. 'And you think this will work?'
A tiny flash of light on the Ib's sensor web. 'Why not?'
Keith thought about it. 'I suppose it's worth a try. But ten billion years — all of the Commonwealth races might be extinct by then. Hell, they'll probably
Lights moved up Rhombus's web; a nod of assent. 'So we'll have to contrive our message in symbolic or mathematical language. Ask our good friend Hek to devise something. As a radio astronomer involved with searching for alien intelligence, he's an expert in designing symbolic communication. To use an expression that both your people and mine share, this project will be right up his alley.'
The bridge was bustling with activity, and there was plenty of work to be done. But Jag and Hek were visibly flagging.
Although they didn't do the theatrical yawns humans were famous for, their nostrils were dilating rhythmically, a physiological response that amounted to the same thing.
Keith thought for a moment that he could pull an allnighter. Hell, he'd done that often enough at university.
But university had been a quarter century ago, and he had to admit that he, too, was exhausted.
'Let's call it a night,' he said, rising from his workstation.
The indicators on it went dark as he did so.
Rissa nodded and rose as well. The two of them headed toward one of the bridge's hologram-shrouded walls. The door opened, exposing the corridor beyond. They headed down toward the elevator station. A car was waiting for them — PHANTOM had routed one there as soon as they had started down the corridor. Keith got in, followed by Rissa. 'Deck eleven,' he said, and PHANTOM chirped an acknowledgement. They turned around, just in time to catch sight of Lianne Karendaughter jogging down the corridor toward them. PHANTOM saw her, too, of course, and held the elevator door open until she arrived. Lianne smiled at Keith as she got in, then called out her floor number. Rissa affixed her gaze on the wall monitor that showed the current level's deck plan. Keith had been married to Rissa too long not to be sensitive to her body language. She didn't like Lianne — didn't like her standing this close to Keith, didn't like being in a confined space with her.
The elevator began to move. On the monitor, the arms of the floor plan began to contract. Keith breathed
