strange.
The Dark Ones moved from cold rock to still colder, tasting and examining. Learning. Yet it was not sufficient, as they could sense other worlds in space around them. They learned to build self-contained nests to carry expeditions across great distances in search of knowledge. Such was the curiosity of the Dark Ones that some nests could travel faster than a photon in vacuum.
The Radiants in turn fashioned large structures of gas, dust, and electromagnetic fields. The tenuous constructs were designed to listen to the faint songs of other galaxies, or the brittle noises from the surfaces of neutron stars. Mysteries worth investigating abounded at the fiery centers and great whorls of galaxies.
Much was learned about the new universe by the Dark Ones and the Radiants. That information was carried by the glowing plasma clouds to one of the still wriggling cracks in time and space. The messenger Radiant, bloated with information, would intercalate into the very field lines of the cosmic string, an intimate touch of blended attraction and repulsion. Stretched thin, the intelligent cloud would wrap tightly around the portal between universes, and send the collected information to They Who Pass, dwelling on the other side of the cosmic string. In return, new information and instruction would be transmitted from They Who Pass into the Radiant messenger. The messenger, in turn, would free itself from the cosmic string and spread the new tidings.
So the situation remained for many eons. Until the Conundrum.
They Who Pass ceased to speak to the Radiants through the tortured windows of their cosmic strings. The children they had sired in the new, strange universe were left to their own devices. To find their own destinies without the influence of their creators, fallen silent on the other side of an interdimensional crack between realities.
The strange children of They Who Pass had drive, but no longer purpose. Their drive became their purpose.
The Radiants soon became uninterested in the Dark Ones, focusing instead on issues far from the solid phase of matter. Some Radiants learned how to transform themselves into less delicate forms, able to withstand existence within the cores of suns. Vast communities of the plasma beings lived in the turbulent core of the galaxy, seeking the unknowable. Others remained wrapped and intertwined within the massive lines of force surrounding the now silent cosmic strings, plaintive, hoping for the return of They Who Pass.
After a time the Radiants seldom communicated with their cold servants, made of dull matter instead of lively plasma. The sentient clouds fell as silent as their creators on the other side of the cosmic string.
They had other concerns.
The Dark Ones, too, were forced to find their own destiny in the cosmos. Many of them simply traveled without end, continuing to observe and store data as they had before – even without a recipient to which they could deliver.
Others made a ritual and religion of following precisely the ways of the Old Time, when Radiant and Dark One and They Who Pass were in constant communication – perhaps the Great Silence was due to a lack of following instructions with strictest accuracy. A few Dark Ones developed their own interests among the other, native minds that eventually dwelled in the new universe. These less organized Dark Ones found that their ancient drive to collect information could be useful, and that it was possible to manipulate these new upstart sources of data to acquire still more.
The majority of the Dark Ones – regardless of social structure – would have nothing to do with other, lesser minds which developed in the new universe. They preferred to brood in a silence to match that of They Who Pass.
Those Dark Ones who did upon occasion interact with the new sentients came to be known by many names throughout the galaxies, a name pronounced by a dizzying variety of communication organs.
In one area of space-time, the various inhabitants called them the Outsiders.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rrowl-Captain's dreams were not pleasant.
They stalked him like a loud predator closing confidently on prey. Crippled bleeding prey, limping across a field without proper cover. Without allies or weapons.
There was no escape.
In his dream, he was still a creche-kit, with no name other than Second Son of Graach-Gunner. He and his litter brother, First Son of Graach-Gunner, had been inseparable comrades in creche. In their sleeping lair, after the illuminators were dimmed, they had often hissed and spat about what Hero-Names they would choose when they were both grandly honored for bravery.
As they surely would be so honored. Were they not brave kzinti, as they learned to stalk feral Jotoki in the hunting park?
It did not matter that the creche teachers were guiding the development of their young muscles and growing hunt-skills with great care and attention to tradition. The pair were young, but would grow into an adulthood of honor, recipients of Hero's Blood for more octals of generations than could be counted.
They were kzin, feeders at the apex of the Great Web of Life. Was there any doubt that a Warrior Heart beat within each of their young chests?
First Son of Graach-Gunner wanted to someday take a Hero-Name from their family history, C'mef. Centuries before, another C'mef had died defending a foppish relative of the Riit against an usurping colonist kzin. Honor was more important than details to Graach-Gunner's family line; the Warrior Heart burned bright in all of them. C'mef would be a proud name to weave back into the honored tapestry of their lineage.
Second Son of Graach-Gunner had admired the liver and Warrior Heart of his litter-brother very much, and wished to honor him in turn. He had always followed his elder brother, claw to claw and fang next to fang against their creche-foes. Second Son of Graach-Gunner had secretly chosen the name of C'mef's own litter-brother and duel-ally from that long dead time, Rrowl.
As it had been many centuries in the past, so it would be again, now and in the future. C'mef and Rrowl.
Or so Second Son of Graach-Gunner had thought, until his litter-brother had fallen from a rock castle during agility drills. The impact had broken his neck struts, killing First Son of Graach-Gunner instantly.
Second Son of Graach-Gunner was inconsolable, which was unseemly even for a creche-kit. He had been perhaps too close to his litter-brother, and Graach-Gunner too gruff a father.
But every kzin must stand on his own as he wrestled honor and truth from the jaws of the One Fanged God. Graach-Gunner sent a Stalker in the Night to counsel and correct his second-youngest son's unkzinlike grief.
The Stalkers were priests-of-bad-tidings, coats and thoughts black as their names. They were from every Heroic line, even the Riit, just as the Warrior Heart was part of every kzin lineage.
From time to time, an occasional litter of kits included one or two ebony offspring; the Stalkers of the Night soon took the dark kittens away for training in the priesthood. They stood out in any group of kzinti, the everyday tawny orange with dark patches, spots, and stripes becoming something the eye ignored. A jet black kzin, with eyes the color of an angry sky, was odd and frightening.
Which was, after all, the point of the Stalkers in the Night, They reminded kzinti of the Warrior Hearts devotion to honor and bravery. They were living arbiters of the One Fanged God, much feared and respected.
'So, little one,' the ebony figure had hissed at Second Son of Graach-Gunner that dark day. 'Your litter- brother has fallen in battle. It is the Will and Claw-swipe of the One Fanged God.”
Even frightened by the shadow-kzin priest, the creche-kit had spoken up. 'He fell from a high rock to die! How is that the Will of the One Fanged God?”
The kzin-priest was silent a long moment, then had coughed laughter. 'Your fangs are not blunt, small one. But mine are sharper still.' A black furred hand tipped with gleaming ebony claws appeared in front of his face, almost touching his eyes. 'But you must learn respect to match your liver.”
Second Son of Graach-Gunner had squeezed his eyelids closed in fearful obedience. It was the wrong choice.
'Look at me,' the hissing voice roared, 'Or I will peel your eyelids from your coward eyes like a vatach - pelt!”
