The Dark Side of the Sun

9

'They should not exist. They are theoretically possible, but so is balancing a needle on the end of a hair. Faced with something like the Chain Stars a man must either bow the knee, or else get good and worried.'

Charles Sub-Lunar, Galactic Excursions

Dom wondered what was so impressive. That was when the Chain was still twenty AUs away, and side on.

Then the Creapii shuttle came in closer.

Imagine a doughnut, three million miles across. Imagine another. Link them.

The Chain Stars. And tumbling around them, Minos - a planet formed from thousands of asteroids, dragged across the light years and fused into a world. That was another Joker achievement, the Maze on Minos.

The cabin was empty except for shape-adaptable seats and the screen. From outside it had appeared gigantic, several times bigger than an average cargo ship and surprisingly streamlined. Dom knew that most of the bulk must be shielding, plus an engine big enough to lift the ship up against the crushing pull of a sun. But the streamlining puzzled him.

Until he realized. Even suns have atmospheres.

The glowing, linked rings grew rapidly in the screen, until the outer edges slipped away. It was no comfort to know the image was just that, an image darkened and screened down until it was merely bright. Instinct said they were plunging into the heart of a star.

'Born of the sun, we travel a little way towards the sun,' misquoted Isaac, tactlessly. Dom relaxed, and laughed. He thought he could hear a muted thunder, not unlike the roar of star flames. It was impossible, of course. It was just that he thought he could hear it. Of course, it was impossible.

Finally all definition was lost, and the screen became a painfully white rectangle. Hrsh-Hgn was trembling with a phnobe's instinctive fear of naked sunlight. Dom pictured the ship coasting over a glowing sea, one with no horizon, and stopped his imagination resolutely when he thought of all the little mechanical things that could go wrong.

Something was drastically wrong with the raft when it appeared.

Artists and the eye of imagination portrayed a raft only a few steps removed from the log platforms that dagon fishers used, with perhaps a few Creapii slithering nonchalantly across the deck, and it was open to the - sky, with a class of a yellow ocean a long way beneath. But even High-Degrees could not survive in the open except on near-cinders stars, and the Chains Raft was one of the first on a hot star. It was just a blank hemisphere, hovering flat side down in what appeared on the screen as a thin mist.

The shuttle docked gently, and a section of wall slid back to reveal a circular grey tunnel. A friendly mechanical voice invited them to follow it. Dom led the way, warily.

The sound he heard hit him like a club. He ran forward, unbelieving.

It was the sea.

His Furness CReegE + 690° rolled down to the beach on bright caterpillar tracks. He was big, much bigger than the low-degree Creapii that lived on Widdershins. His egg-shaped suit was golden. A fawn pranced by his side, and a small blue singing bird was perched on his tentacle. His Furness stopped at the surf line and waited patiently.

Dom felt his toes touch the sand and waded through the waves. Some of the strangeness of the Creap was gone now. He knew that he was looking at a creature who was the leader of the most advanced sub-species of a race ten times as old as men. Was the featureless ovoid looking at him? What did it see?

An armoured tentacle handed him a towel. It was rough and smelled of lemons.

'A pleasant swim?' The light tenor voice materialized without visible means of support.

'Thank you, yes,' said Dom. He opened his hand, and showed the Creap a small purple shell.

'Trivia monarcha sinistrale,' said the Creap. 'The Widdershine ink cowrie. Beautiful in its simplicity. How did you find my ocean?'

Dom looked back at the waves. The surf was faked. The horizon was a masterpiece of illusion, and was a hundred metres from the shore. An artificial sun set in a splendour that was real. An evening star hung in the crimson glow.

'Convincing,' he said.

The Creap laughed pleasantly, and led him slowly up the beach.

There was more land than sea in the sanctuary. Again, the Creapii had only erred on the side of generosity. On one side a plain of golden grass rippled all the way to distant mountains, crystal clear. Gods might live on those towering peaks. On the other side the forest began. A respectable stream gushed from an outcrop and meandered between root-buttressed banks; a dragonfly, one of the large Terra Novaean aeschans, skimmed over the water. Short turf grew between the trees, studded with gentians. Rabbits had left signs of their passing. There was a stand of fragrant fennel, and a vine twisted itself among the nearest trees. In the far distance was a volcano.

'Shall I speak to you of back projection, hidden devices, artificial irrigation?' asked His Furness innocently. Do m sniffed the air. It smelled of rain.

'I won't quite believe you,' he said. 'If I dug in the soil here, what would I find?'

'Topsoil, a fossil or two, carefully selected.'

'And?'

'Oh, rock. Limestone to a depth of three metres.'

'And then?'

'Alas for illusion: in this order, the machine level, a metre of monomolecular copper, a mere film of oxidized iron, a suspicion of a matrix field. Shall I go deeper?'

'That's deep enough, your Furness.'

'Shall we continue our walk, then? I must feed the carp.'

Later, when the golden fish had flocked to the ringing of a little brass bell, he said: 'Must there be a reason? Then let it be that I study humanity. Earth humanity in particular. Although in saying that, I am aware of a misapprehension. Let it be said, instead, that in applying myself to the study of Totality I endeavour to do so from the human viewpoint, do you understand? It is a truism that the environment moulds the mind, and so...' he waved a tentacle to include the sea, the forest, the distant mountains. 'Of course, it would be easier to move on to a human world, but not so convenient.'

Dom reminded himself, forcibly, that beneath his feet burned a natural furnace. But the Creapii also studied the Chain Stars, from real close up, and His Furness had hinted that there were a number of other experiments taking place on the raft.

'The Jokers?' said the Creap. 'Certainly I will help if I can. You are our first non-Creap visitors. Do you know of any prophecies in your culture concerning a green man with the sea in a bottle?'

'No,' said Dom, suddenly alarmed. 'Are there any?'

'Not that I know of. It sounds the very meat and drink of prophecy, however.

'You must realize that we are in no position to offer much advice, we need several tens of thousands of years of study. Have you any specific questions?'

'The Creapii were not the Jokers.'

'True. But that was a statement.'

'Very well. You are the oldest race, as a race. You can't count Chatogaster or the Bank, they're individual organisms. So it should follow that you are the most like the Jokers. Mentally, I mean. No, not even that. I mean in outlook.'

The Creap laughed. 'And what is our outlook?'

'You study other lifeforms. Man the Hunter, Creap the Information-Gatherer. May I be personal?'

'Please do,' said the great golden egg, and Dom blushed.

'Well, I've met Creapii before. Do you know what has always struck me as odd about them? And about you, your Furness. You're so human.

'Hrsh-Hgn is my friend, but he is a phnobe. He gives himself away all the time, and he's lived on Widdershins, among Earth-stock humanity, for most of his life. Little things - ways of looking at life, like when we both look at the same thing and I know he's seeing it from an entirely different racial viewpoint. But all the Creapii I have met don't give that impression.'

'We live on hot worlds. We are sexless, octopoid. Human?' said CReegE + 690°

'Chel! Humanity is a state of mind, not body. But that is a point. I wondered, why do they seem so like me, when they must be so alien? I think it's because all the Creapii I've met have consciously tried to adopt the human viewpoint. They're Humans first, Creapii second. '

Dom faced the egg, except that it had no face. At length the disembodied voice said: 'There is a great deal in what you say.'

'I think you do this to gain a greater understanding of the universe,' said Dom. 'Men see a different universe to phnobes. I'm sorry, I keep picking the wrong words. They experience a different universe. Is that right?'

'That is very sapient. Before we dine with the others, would you like to see something?'

They found him an eggsuit, fitted out for visitors with a simple control panel. It was like riding in a small, vertical tank. In Dom's case it was to keep the heat out, rather than in. Then he ventured into the main section of the raft.

He couldn't remember very much afterwards. Individual experiences blended into a montage of heat, large, slithering galaxy-shaped monsters, the thunder of the sun and a strange flickering in the air. He did remember being led to an observation platform, set in the middle of a matrix-coil, and being invited to look up.

The circular star on which the raft was moored was just passing under the arch of its twin. On a cooler world the experience would have been enough to inspire a dozen religions.

A shining arch, only marginally brighter than the sky around it, moved across the solar sky.

He didn't know if the other Creapii were aware that the clumsily-driven suit held a young man rather than a drunken Creap, if Creaps drank. Probably they didn't. After an hour of it he felt drunk.

It lasted for several minutes after he was back in the sanctuary. CReegE did not have to point out the lesson. By something like osmosis he had been given just a feeling of Creapiness. The Creap had been trying to tell him that he was right. The world of the Creapii was a Totality away from the world of men. So the Creaps tried to think - to feel - like men. Only thus could the whole nature of the universe be comprehended, they said.

With a new understanding Dom realized that the official view of the Creapii was wrong. They were said to be the race born to science. Creapii were the cool-heads of the universe, the ultimate analysers, a race of intelligent robots, had robots been what the first robotic pioneers considered them to be. It just wasn't true. What was it one of the pre-Sadhim sects had striven for? Ultimate reality? That was it. The Creapii were the mystics of the universe.

They ate at a table under a spreading pear tree. A stew of slightly rotting oily black toadstools, a real delicacy, had been provided for Hrsh-Hgn. Isaac ate Whole Erse potatoes for energy. There was a sea-food soufflée for Dom, expertly cooked. He was beginning to realize too that Creapii were experts automatically. His Furness sucked something from a pressurized cylinder into an airlock approximately where his stomach should have been.

'Where is your next port of c all ?' he asked,

'Minos, if you can take me there,' said Dom. 'I have to get another ship, and I know there is a multi-racial settlement there. I could take a look at the Maze, too.'

'Do you think there might be a clue in the Maze?' asked the Creap politely.

Isaac chortled, and nudged Dom heavily in the ribs.

'That was a clever literary allusion, that was,' he said. 'Even the name of the planet is—'

'I know,' said Dom. 'I shall look forward to meeting the minotaur. Hrsh?'

'Oh, nothing,' said the phnobe, looking up. 'I was jusst reflecting that I sseem to be insside a legend.'

He called the ship One Jump Behind. It was the best the small yard on Minos had to offer. It lacked even an autochef, which was a point in its favour, but its matrix was carefully calibrated and the cabin was at least larger than a closet.

'Why One Jump Behind?' asked Isaac.

'Relativity,' said Dom. 'It's full name ought to be A Jump So Far Ahead That If Einstein Had Been Right It Would End Right Behind You. Try getting that on the ident panel. Do you think you can handle it?'

'It'll do,' said Isaac ruefully. 'It's hardly a thoroughbred.'

They walked through the human scientific colony towards the Maze, the nearest wall of which loomed over the low domes.

'What did you think of the High-Degrees?' said Hrsh-Hgn.

'Remarkable,' said Dom noncommitedly. 'What about you?'

'I met several while you were taken on that tour. I wass sstruck by their phnobisshness, ass you might expect, and your ssuggesstion that each race ssees itss reflection in the—'

A small silver egg rolled up to them at the Maze entrance, waving a sheaf of papers in a tentacle. The reddish tint of its eyeshield said it was a very low-degree Creapii indeed.

'Psst!' hissed a non-directional voice. 'Wanna buy a map? Can't see the Maze without a map. Compiled by my brood-brother from genuine aerial photographs!'

'Sod off, cinderbrain!' screamed a larger Creap, thundering towards the group. 'Now, sir and frss, you are obviously discerning people and you want a map. Now I have a map, sir and frss, the like of which is seldom seen.'

'Do I need a map?' Dom asked.

'Not precissely,' said the phn o be, who had visited the Maze before. 'But they do make good souvenirss!'

A dozen other map-sellers lurched and rolled after them as they strode into the Maze.

The Jokers had their little joke. Occasionally a researcher would point out that the Maze was probably never designed as a maze at all, but none could come up with a believable alternative use. Dom wasn't surprised when his two companions faded away on either side of him - Hrsh-Hgn had warned him of the Maze effect.

Something in the monomolecular walls created a separate universe for every individual. That was why all maps and aerial photographs ceased to be useful. Dom's own map of the maze could be perfectly accurate - for Dom.

Once he saw a shadowy outline of Hrsh-Hgn walk out of a wall and disappear into another. Dom thumped the wall good and hard and then, glancing around to make sure that no one was watching, played a stripper beam over the white surface. It didn't even get hot. As an illusion it was pretty solid.

He found the centre after ten minutes' brisk walking. He had the memory-sword still turned to the stripper setting, and his finger hovered on the stud as Ways turned round and smiled.

'I see you were expecting me,' he said pleasantly.

Dom fired. Ways gave him a hurt look, and extended a hand. A growing, light-bending sphere bounced towards Dom and disappeared.

'Round One,' said Ways. 'Now I've a resonance-dampening matrix, but what have you got?'

'Who are you?' said Dom. He thumbed the weapon to its knife setting.

'Ways of Earth.' He stopped and tossed the knife back to Dom. 'I'm afraid you have blunted the blade,' he continued, 'but that was a pretty smart throw.'

'My next question was have you come to kill me, but that's not intelligent, is it?'

'No,' said Ways, 'I don't seem to be achieving anything, but I must keep trying otherwise what is free will for?'

'Do I get any explanations?'

'Sure. You must realize that the universe is too big to hold us and the Jokers. Some people are afraid that the Jokers might turn up any day now.'

'Do they expect some kind of big-brained monsters?'

'I think gods are what they are expecting. You know where you are with big-brained monsters, but gods are another matter. No one wants to be a slave race. Oh, I've got a couple of things for you.'

The robot slide aside his chest panel and threw Ig at Dom. The little animal screamed vengeance at Ways from the safety of its master's shoulder, then dived inside Dom's shirt.

'And there was something else...' said the robot. He patted his carry-all, and felt around behind his chestplate. 'Sorry for the delay, you know how it is, thing wanted never there. Ah, here.'

Dom caught the small grey sphere before he could stop himself. It was warm. Ways watched him closely.

'That is a matrix engine without a coil,' he said. 'By now it should have blown your head off. Crude, I know.'

Dom hurled the globe over the nearest wall. It sparkled briefly under the light of the Chains before landing with a thud in the next avenue. Then Ways cannoned into him.

The robot had weight behind him. Dom rolled backwards and tried to throw his attacker, and had to jerk aside as a fist struck the Maze floor by his ear. The blow split the artificial skin. Ways turned the punch into a sideswipe, and a fingertip scored a cut across the boy's head.

Ig erupted straight for the eyes. Ways brushed him off lightly, and leapt back, flexing his fingers.

'I refuse to believe in invulnerability,' he said. 'Let's get down to the real thing.'

The matrix engine exploded. The Maze thumped.

Ways was picked up like a doll and hurled at the wall, one flailing leg catching Dom across the chest.

And a long way overhead a ship was coming in to land.