Erwal reflected how young Sura looked; it was as if the warm safety of the Rooms, the ship, had restored to her the youth rubbed away by the cold of the village. “…I’m not sure. I suppose I miss it.”
Muscles in the girl’s cheeks stood out like ropes. “Well, I don’t.”
“I want to… ah, walk the window back to the village. But I’m not sure if I can find it again.”
“I’ll help you.” Sura sat on the floor, folding her legs beneath her. “You go south from the Rooms. Look for the tree where we found Teal’s marker.”
“South… yes.”
The focus moved at little more than walking pace over the icescape. Erwal and Sura peered at the screen searching for pointers in the blank terrain. Gradually Erwal learned to sweep the focus through miles in a few minutes, stopping occasionally at some vantage point to gain fresh bearings.
It was so easy, compared to the deadly pain of the real trip, that Erwal felt ashamed.
As the hours wore by other villagers observed what she was doing. Slowly a circle of them built up; some of them offered bits of advice while others preferred to keep their distance, simply watching. Erwal made no comment.
Eventually they found the treestump to which still clung a flap of cow skin. Sura placed her hand on Erwal’s back; the fingers pinched painfully at Erwal’s muscles. The villagers stared at the rag, subdued and silent.
After another day of surrogate traveling, with Erwal’s hands aching, the panel-eyes came at last to the village.
Snow lay in drifts against the crushed teepees. No smoke rose. Mummy-cows lay in great mounds of snow, exposed flesh frozen to their bones.
Erwal snatched the viewpoint into the air, so that it was as if they were looking down at the ruins of a toy village.
Humanity’s last enemy, winter, had won. Somewhere Sand lowed softly. Arke gently laid his palm on Erwal’s head. Erwal probed at her emotions, seeking grief. Then she turned the panels opaque and drew her hands from the gloves.
The villagers were quiet, but after a few hours they returned to their lazy, peaceful shipboard life. Erwal found herself relaxing with the rest, and soon it was as if the images on the panels had been no more than a feverish dream…
Later, though, Erwal climbed alone through the Rooms to the first and pushed open the door. The cold air sliced into her lungs. Barefoot, dressed only in a tunic, she staggered into the knee- deep snow. Suddenly her grief was as tangible as the frozen ground beneath her feet. She gave herself to it and tears froze to her eyes and cheeks.
His scheme, his sub-units concurred, was as unlikely and improbable as any of the wild ventures undertaken by humans in the past. Its only merit was that it was better than allowing the Qax simply to crush the Xeelee ship.
His plan hinged on the fact that the humans faced two dangers: from the Qax and from the dark matter photino birds. The photino birds were vastly more powerful, but the Qax, with their unswervable intent, represented the greater immediate danger. Clearly the humans could not fight through either — let alone both — of these great powers to the goal of the Ring.
Well, then: the foes must be diverted.
Paul withdrew subtly from the Jovian world. He was aware that the Qax were watching him, but they did not try to interfere. He diffused the foci of his awareness and spread himself as thinly as possible along the quantum world lines. He organized the data comprising his consciousness into a particular configuration, an empty, interrogative form.
Like a child seeking its mother he called the antiXeelee.
The antiXeelee had left the Universe at the launch of the Sugar Lump seed fleet. It had traveled back in time with its fleet, and — simultaneously, and without paradox — had dissolved into countless melting fragments of awareness. So the antiXeelee had gone… but Paul inhabited a quantum Universe in which nothing was ever final. With patience and watchfulness he maintained his call.
…Fragments of the antiXeelee replied. It was like an echo of a lost voice. A pale outline of the awareness of the antiXeelee was reconstructed in response to the demands of Paul, and again Paul was surrounded by its vast, passionless humor. He responded as best he could, endeavoring to strengthen the presence of the antiXeelee.
He sensed confusion in the hierarchy of the Qax, but Paul ignored them.
At last the response he was waiting for came. Spectral ships miles wide coasted through the Jovian’s system.
The presence of the antiXeelee might signify to an alert observer that the Xeelee had returned to the cosmos, and — as Paul had hoped — the Xeelee nemesis, the dark matter photino birds, had come to find out what was going on.
Paul, straining, maintained the illusion/substance of the antiXeelee. At length the dark matter ships departed with, as Paul intended, a new purpose.
He relaxed and the antiXeelee outline subsided into the quantum hiss of the Universe.
The photino birds, convinced that the Xeelee might reinvade the Universe from which they had been driven, would abandon their projects and focus their energies on Bolder’s Ring. They’d already set in place long-term mechanisms to destroy the Ring. But now the closure of that gateway had to be accelerated; the Ring must be closed before the Xeelee could use it to return.
…But if the Ring were closed the Qax would be trapped in a dying Universe, their dream of species immortality threatened. So, Paul calculated, the Qax would have to get to the Ring and stop the photino birds from destroying it. With a sense of amusement and fascination he watched the urgent debate of the Qax, data and propositions chattering across all the scales of space and time.
Forgotten, Paul allowed himself to exult. His scheme seemed to be working. If so he had not only afforded the remnants of humanity a chance: he had also changed the species imperatives of two great races.
He slid along the quantum net to his little band of humans.
Across the Universe vast forces began to converge on Bolder’s Ring.
The Friend had returned. And the visions were so vivid she could hardly see.
…A place, unimaginably far away, where a Ring, sparkling and perfect, turned in space; a place where all the starlight was blue…
“Erwal? Are you all right?”
The fantastic pictures overlaid Sura’s concerned face. Erwal rubbed the leathery skin around her eyes. Her sight clouded by other worlds, she clung to comforting fragments of reality: the sound of children’s laughter, the sweet, milky scent of the mummy-cow. “I’m all right. Just a little dizzy, perhaps. I need to sit down…” With Sura’s help she touched the warm, soft wall of the Room and, as if blind, worked her way to the floor and sat down.
…She soared over the vast, tangled Ring; her fingers trembled in the glove-controls…
She opened her eyes, shuddering.
Sura sat down beside her, still holding her hand. “It isn’t just dizziness, is it?”
“…No.” Erwal hesitated, longing to unburden herself. “Sura, I think we have to travel again. Go away from here.”
Sura’s grip tightened. “Brave the snow again? But—”
“No, you don’t understand. In the ship. We have to travel in the ship.”
“But where to?”
Erwal said nothing.
Sura said slowly, “Why do we have to go? I don’t understand. How do you know all this? You’re frightening me, Erwal.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. But I don’t think I can explain. And…” And I’m frightened, too, she told herself. Not by the mysterious visions — not anymore — but by what they represented: a journey the likes of which no human had undertaken for a million years.
She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay here, in the warmth; she didn’t want to face anymore danger and uncertainty. But the visions were powerful, much more so than before; it was as if the Friend were screaming into her face.
The Friend was frightened, she realized suddenly. And what could such a godlike creature be fearful about?
“We have to go,” she said. She could feel Sura’s hand grow stiff in hers. “You think I’m mad, don’t you?” she asked gently.
“No, Erwal, but—”
“For now you’ll have to trust me,” Erwal said, keeping her voice as steady as she could. “Look, I’ve been right in the past. About the healing panels, and the food boxes. Haven’t I?”
“…Yes.”
“Well, now I’ll be right again. We’re in great danger. And to escape it we have to go to this other place.” The visions cleared briefly — miraculously — and she was afforded a glimpse of Sura’s wide eyes. “Sura, we’ll be safe in the ship. We’ll be warm and dry.”
Slowly the girl nodded. “It can’t be worse than the snow.”
“That’s right,” Erwal said firmly. “Not as bad as the snow.”
After a time Sura said: “What do you want me to do?”
It took the fattened, slow-moving villagers several days to organize themselves to Erwal’s satisfaction.
Not everyone was willing to come, of course. Some decided to stay behind in the Eight Rooms, unwilling to gamble their security and warmth on Erwal’s unexplained visions. The ship’s food lockers would provision the travelers, and so Sand, the last mummy-cow in the world, was left behind to sustain the rest.
Erwal found it hard to blame the stay-behinds.
After so much hardship together the leave-taking was protracted and difficult, each villager sensing that there would never be a reunion. Erwal stroked the stubby hairs at the root of the mummy-cow’s trunk; huge, absurd tears leaked from Sand’s eyes.
At last it was over. The stay-behinds gathered in the Eighth Room. Arke was among them, and Erwal studied his round face, trying to imagine his future, locked up in these tiny Rooms. The children would grow, of course, and perhaps have children of their own — why not? The bones of the dead would be laid in the snow outside, in rising heaps, and time would pass without incident; until finally the faithful mummy-cow would succumb to age, and the last people would die with her.
Abruptly Erwal felt restless, anxious to depart. Surely the human story was not meant to end like this, with the last of them hiding away in a box.
Arke pushed at the door control; the crystal panel slid across the face of the Eighth Room. The ship was cast free. Erwal’s group gathered in a nervous huddle at the center of the ship’s chamber. Erwal, self-conscious, walked across the cabin to her familiar seat and slipped her hands once more into the magical gloves.
The ship unfurled its night-dark wings. She closed her eyes, feeling a surge of exhilaration. The Friend was with her: the barrage of visions had mercifully ceased, but she could sense his presence, as if he were standing behind her, grave and quiet.
It was time.
She summoned up a memory of the shining Ring—
— the ship quivered—
