Heaven's Reach

Gillian

FOR SOME REASON, THE TUMULTUOUS RED STAR reminded her of Venus.

Naturally, that brought Tom to mind.

Everything reminded Gillian of Tom. After two years, his absence was still a wound that left her reflexively turning for his warmth each night. By day, she kept expecting his strong voice, offering to help take on the worries. All the damned decisions.

Isn’t it just like a hero, to die saving the world?

A little voice pointed out — that’s what heroes are for.

Yes, she answered. But the world goes on, doesn’t it? And it keeps needing to be saved.

Ever since the universe sundered them apart at Kithrup, Gillian told herself that Tom couldn’t be dead. I’d know it, she would think repeatedly, convincing herself by force of will. Across galaxies and megaparsecs, I could tell if he were gone. Tom must be out there somewhere still, with Creideiki and Hikahi and the others we were forced to leave behind.

He’ll find a way to get safely home … or else back to me.

That certainty helped Gillian bear her burdens during Streaker’s first distraught fugitive year … until the last few months of steady crisis finally cracked her assurance.

Then, without realizing when it happened, she began thinking of Tom in the past tense.

He loved Venus, she pondered, watching the raging solar vista beyond Streaker’s hull. Of course Izmunuti’s atmosphere was bright, while Earth’s sister world was dim beneath perpetual acid clouds. Yet, both locales shared essential traits. Harsh warmth, unforgiving storms, and scant moisture.

Both provoked extremes of hope and despair.

She could see him now, spreading both spacesuited arms to encompass the panorama below Aphrodite Pinnacle, gesturing toward stark lowlands. Lightning danced about a phalanx of titanic structures that stretched to a warped horizon — one shadowy behemoth after another — vast new devices freshly engaged in the labor of changing Venus. Transforming hell, one step at a time.

“Isn’t it tremendous?” Tom asked. “This endeavor proves that our species is capable of thinking long thoughts.”

Even with borrowed Galactic technology, the task would take more time to complete than humans had known writing or agriculture. Ten thousand years must pass before seas rolled across the sere plains. It was a bold project for poor wolflings to engage in, especially when Sa’ent and Kloornap bookies gave Earthclan slim odds of surviving more than another century or two.

“We have to show the universe that we trust ourselves,” Tom added. “Or else who will believe in us?”

His words sounded fine. Noble and grand. At the time, Tom almost convinced Gillian.

Only things changed.

Half a year ago, during Streaker’s brief, terrified refuge at the Fractal World, Gillian had managed to pick up rumors about the Siege of Terra, taking place in faraway Galaxy Two. Apparently, the Sa’ent touts were now taking bets on human extinction in mere years or jaduras, not centuries.

In retrospect, the Venus terraforming project seemed moot.

We’d have been better off as farmers, Tom and I. Or teaching school. Or helping settle Calafia. We should never have listened to Jake Demwa and Creideiki. This mission has brought ruin on everyone it touched.

Including the poor colonists of Jijo — six exile races who deserved a chance to find their own strange destinies undisturbed. In seeking shelter on that forbidden world, Streaker only brought disaster to Jijo’s tribes.

There seemed one way to redress the harm.

Can we lure the Jophur after us into the new transfer point? Kaa must pilot a convincing trajectory, as if he can sense a perfect thread to latch on to. A miracle path leading toward safety. If we do it right, the big ugly saprings will have to follow! They’ll have no choice.

Saving Jijo justified that option, since there seemed no way to bring Streaker’s cargo safely home to Earth. Another reason tasted acrid, vengeful.

At least we’ll take enemies with us.

Some say that impending death clarifies the mind, but in Gillian it only stirred regret.

I hope Creideiki and Tom aren’t too disappointed in me, she pondered at the door of the conference room.

I did my best.

The ship’s council had changed since Gillian reluctantly took over the captain’s position, where Creideiki presided in happier times. At the far end of the long table, Streaker’s last surviving dolphin officer, Lieutenant Tsh’t, expertly piloted a six-legged walker apparatus carrying her sleek gray form into the same niche where Takkata-Jim once nestled his great bulk, before he was killed near Kithrup.

Tsh’t greeted the human chief engineer, though Hannes Suessi’s own mother wouldn’t recognize him now, with so many body parts replaced by cyborg components, and a silver dome where his head used to be. Much of that gleaming surface was now covered with pre-Contact-era motorcycle decals — an irreverent touch that endeared Hannes to the crew. At least someone had kept a sense of humor through years of relentless crisis.

Gillian felt acutely the absence of one council member, her friend and fellow physician Makanee, who remained behind on Jijo with several dozen dolphins — those suffering from devolution fever or who were unessential for the breakout attempt. In effect, dolphins had established a seventh illegal colony on that fallow world — another secret worth defending with the lives of those left aboard.

Secrets. There are other enigmas, less easily protected.

Gillian’s thoughts slipped past the salvaged objects in her office, some of them worth a stellar ransom. Mere hints at their existence had already knocked civilization teetering across five galaxies.

Foremost was a corpse, nicknamed Herbie. An alien cadaver so ancient, its puzzling smile might be from a joke told a billion years ago. Other relics were scarcely less provocative — or cursed. Trouble had followed Streaker ever since its crew began picking up objects they didn’t understand.

“Articles of Destiny.” That was how one of the Old Ones referred to Streaker’s cargo of mysteries when they visited the Fractal World.

Maybe this will be fitting. All those irksome treasures will get smashed down to a proton’s width after we dive into the new transfer point.

At least then she’d get the satisfaction of seeing Herbie’s expression finally change, at the last instant, when the bounds of reality closed in rapidly from ten dimensions.

A holo of Izmunuti took up one wall of the conference room, an expanse of swirling clouds wider than Earth’s orbit, surging and shifting as the Niss Machine relayed the latest intelligence in Tymbrimi-accented Galactic Seven.

“The Jophur battleship has jettisoned the last of the decoy vessels it seized, letting them drift through space. Freed of their momentum-burden, the Polkjhy is more agile, turning its frightful bulk toward the new transfer point. They aim to reach the reborn nexus before Streaker does.”

“Can they beat us there?” Gillian asked in Anglic.

The Niss hologram whirled thoughtfully. “It seems unlikely, unless they use some risky type of probability drive, which is not typical of Jophur. They wasted a lot of time dashing ahead toward the older t-point. Our tight swing past Izmunuti should help Streaker to arrive first … for whatever good it will do.”

Gillian ignored the machine’s sarcasm. Most of the crew seemed in accord with her decision. Lacking other options, death was more bearable if you took an enemy with you.

The Jophur situation appeared stable, so she changed the subject. “What can you report about the other ships?”

“The two mysterious flotillas we recently detected in Izmunuti’s atmosphere? After consulting tactical archives, I conclude they must have been operating jointly. Nothing else could explain their close proximity, fleeing together to escape unexpected plasma storms.”

Hannes Suessi objected, his voice wavering low and raspy from the silver dome.

“Mechanoids and hydrogen breathers cooperating? That sounds odd.”

The whirling blob made a gesture like a nod. “Indeed. The various orders of life seldom interact. But according to our captured Library unit, it does happen, especially when some vital project requires the talents of two or more orders, working together.”

The newest council member whistled for attention. Kaa, the chief pilot, did not ride a walker, since he might have to speed back to duty any moment. The young dolphin commented from a fluid-filled tunnel that passed along a wall near one side of the table.

Can any purpose

Under tide-pulled moons explain

Such anomalies?

For emphasis, Kaa slashed his tail flukes through water that fizzed with bubbles. Gillian translated the popping whistle-poem for Sara Koolhan, who had never learned Trinary.

“Kaa asks what project could be worth the trouble and danger of diving into a star.”

Sara replied with an eager nod. “I may have a partial answer.” The young Jijoan stroked a black cube in front of her — the personal algorithmic engine Gillian had lent her when she came aboard.

“Ever since we first spotted these strange ships, I’ve wondered what trait of Izmunuti might attract folks here from some distant system. For instance, my own ancestors. After passing through the regular t-point, they took a path through this giant star’s outer atmosphere. All the sneakships of Jijo used the same method to cover their tracks.”

We thought of it too, Gillian pondered, unhappily. But I must have done something wrong, since the Rothen were able to follow us, betraying our hiding place and the Six Races.

Gillian noticed Lieutenant Tsh’t was looking at her. With reproach for getting Streaker into this fix? The dolphin’s eye remained fixed for a long, appraising moment, then turned away as Sara continued.

“According to this teaching unit, stars like Izmunuti pour immense amounts of heavy atoms from their bloated atmospheres. Carbon is especially rich, condensing on anything solid that happens nearby. All our ancestor ships arrived at Jijo black with the stuff. Streaker may be the first vessel ever to try the trick twice, both coming and going. I bet the stuff is causing you some problems.”

“No bet!” boomed Suessi’s amplified voice. Hannes had been battling the growing carbon coating. “The stuff is heavy, it has weird properties, and it’s been gumming up the verity flanges.”

Sara nodded. “But consider — what if somebody has a use for such coatings? What would be their best way to accumulate it?”

She stroked her black cube again, transferring data to the main display. Though Sara had been aboard just a few days, she was adapting to the convenience of modern tools.

A mirrorlike rectangle appeared before the council, reflecting fiery prominences from a broad, planar surface.

“I may be an ignorant native,” Sara commented. “But it seems one could collect atoms out of a stellar wind using something with high surface area and small initial mass. Such a vehicle might not even have to expend energy departing, if it rode outward on the pressure of light waves.”

Lieutenant Tsh’t murmured.

“A sssolar sail!”

“Is that what you call it?” Sara nodded. “Imagine machines arriving through the transfer point as compact objects, plummeting down to Izmunuti, then unfurling such sails and catching a free ride back to the t-point, gaining layers of this molecularly unique carbon, and other stuff along the way. Energy expenditures per ton of yield would be minimal!”

The whirling Niss hologram edged forward.

“Your hypothesis suggests an economical resource-gathering technique, providing the mechanoids needn’t make more than one simple hyperspatial transfer, coming or going. There are cheap alternatives in industrialized regions of the Five Galaxies, but here in Galaxy Four, industry is currently minimal or nil, due to the recent fallow-migration—” The Niss paused briefly.

“Mechanoids would be ideal contractors for such a harvesting chore, creating special versions to do the job swiftly, with minimal mass. It explains why their drives and shields seem frail before the rising storms. They had no margin for the unexpected.”

Gillian saw that just half of the orange glitters remained, struggling to flee Izmunuti’s gravity before more plasma surges caught them. The three purple dots had already climbed toward the mechanoid convoy, ascending with graceful ease.

“What about the Zang?” she asked.

“I surmise they are the mechanoids’ employers. Our Library says Zang groups sometimes hire special services from the Machine Order. Great clans of oxygen breathers also do it, now and then.”

“Well, it seems their plans have been ripped,” commented Suessi. “Not much cargo getting home, this time.”

Pensive whistle ratchets escaped the gray dolphin in the water-filled tunnel — not Trinary, but the scattered clicks a cetacean emits when pondering deeply. Gillian still felt guilty about asking Kaa to volunteer for this mission, since it meant abandoning his lover to danger on Jijo. But Streaker needed a first-class pilot for this desperate ploy.

“I concur,” the whirling Niss hologram concluded. “The Zang will be in a foul mood after this setback.”

“Because they suffered economic loss?” Tsh’t asked.

“That and more. According to the Library, hydrogen breathers react badly to surprise. They have slower metabolisms than oxy-life. Anything unpredictable is viscerally unpleasant to them.

“Of course, this attitude is strange to an entity like me, programmed by the Tymbrimi to seek novelty! Without surprise, how can you tell there is an objective world? You might as well presume the whole universe is one big sim—”

“Wait a minute,” Gillian interrupted, before the Niss got sidetracked in philosophy. “We’re all taught to avoid Zang as dangerous, leaving contact to experts from the Great Institutes.”

“That is right.”

“But now you’re saying they may be especially angry? Possibly short-tempered?”

The Niss hologram coiled tensely.

“After three years together, Dr. Baskin — amid growing familiarity with your voice tones and thought patterns — your latest inquiry provokes uneasy feelings.

“Am I justified to be wary?

“Do you find the notion of short-tempered Zang … appealing?”

Gillian kept silent. But she allowed a grim, enigmatic smile.