Infinity's Shore

PART EIGHT

ILLEGAL RESETTLEMENT OF FALLOW WORLDS has been a predicament in the Five Galaxies for as far back as records exist. There are many causes for this recurring problem, but its most enduring basis is the Paradox of Reproductive Logic.

ORGANIC beings from countless diverse worlds tend to share one common trait — self-propagation. In some species, this manifests as a conscious desire to have offspring. Among other races, individuals respond to crude instinctive drives for either sex or xim, and spare little active attention to the consequences.

However different the detailed mechanisms may be, the net effect remains the same. Left to their own inclinations, organic life-forms will reproduce their kind in numbers exceeding the replacement rate. Over periods of time that are quite brief (by stellar standards) the resulting population increase can swiftly overburden the carrying capacity of any self-sustaining ecosystem. (SEE: ATTACHED SORTED EXAMPLES.)

Species do this because each fecund individual is the direct descendant of a long chain of successful reproducers. Simply stated; those who lack traits that enable breeding do not become ancestors. Traits that encourage reproduction are the traits that get reproduced.

To the best of our knowledge, this evolutionary imperative extends even to the eco-matrix of hydrogen-based life-forms that shares real space in parallel with our oxygen-breathing civilization. As for the Third Order — autonomous machines — only the relentless application of stringent safeguards has prevented these nonorganic species from engaging in exponential reproduction, threatening the basis of all life in the Five Galaxies.

For the vast majority of nonsapient animal species in natural ecosystems, this tendency to overbreed is kept in check by starvation, predation, or other limiting factors, resulting in quasi-stable states of pseudo-equilibrium. However, presapient life-forms often use their newfound cleverness to eliminate competition and indulge in orgiastic breeding frenzies, followed by overutilization of resources. Left for too long without proper guidance, such species can bring about their own ruin through ecological collapse.

This is one of the Seven Reasons why naive life-forms cannot self-evolve to fully competent sapience. The Paradox of Reproductive Logic means that short-term self-interest will always prevail over long-range planning, unless wisdom is imposed from the outside by an adoptive patron line.

One duty of a patron is to make certain that its client race achieves conscious control over its self-replicating drives, before it can be granted adult status. And yet, despite such precautions, even fully ranked citizen species have been known to engage in breeding spasms, especially during intervals when lawful order temporarily breaks down. (SEE REF: “TIMES OF CHANGE.”) Hasty, spasmodic episodes of colonization/exploitation have left entire galactic zones devastated in their wake.

By law, the prescribed punishment for races who perpetrate such eco-holocausts can be complete extinction, down to the racial rootstock.

IN comparison, illegal resettlement of fallow worlds is a problem of moderate-level criminality. Penalties depend on the degree of damage done, and whether new presapient forms safely emerge from the process.

Nevertheless, it is easy to see how the Paradox of Reproductive Logic applies here, as well. Or else why would individuals and species sacrifice so much, and risk severe punishment, in order to dwell in feral secrecy on worlds where they do not belong?

OVER the course of tens of millions of years, only one solution has ever been found for this enduring paradox. This solution consists of the continuing application of pragmatic foresight in the interests of the common good.

In other words — civilization.

— from A Galactographic Tutorial for Ignorant Wolfling Terrans, a special publication of the Library Institute of the Five Galaxies, year 42 EC, in partial satisfaction of the debt obligation of 35 EC

Kaa

THEY MADE LOVE IN A HIDDEN CAVE, NESTLED BENEATH seaside cliffs, while tidal currents pounded nearby, shooting spume fountains high enough to rival the craggy promontories.

At last! Booming echoes seemed to shout each time a wave dashed against the bluffs, as if everything leading up to that moment had been prelude, a mere transport of momentum across the vast ocean, passed from one patch of salt water to the next. As if a wave may only become real by spending itself against stone.

Rolling echoes reverberated in the sheltered cave. That’s me, Kaa thought, listening to the breakers cry out their brief reification. As a coast fulfills a tide, he now felt completed by contact with another.

Water sloshed through his open mouth, still throbbing with their passion. The secret pool had her flavor.

Peepoe rolled along Kaa’s side, stroking with her pectoral fins, making his skin tingle. He responded with a brush of his tail flukes, pleased at how she quivered with unguarded bliss. This postcoital affection had even deeper meaning than the brief glory dance of mating. It was like the difference between mere need and choice.

Can the burning stars

Shout their joy more happily

Than this simple fin?

His Trinary haiku came out as it should, almost involuntarily, not mulled or rehearsed by the frontal lobes that human gene crafters had so thoroughly palped and reworked during neo-dolphin uplift. The poem’s clicks and squeals diffracted through the cave’s grottoes at the same moment they first resonated in his skull.

Peepoe’s reply emerged the same way, candidly languid, with a natural openness that brooked no lies.

Simplicity is not

Your best-known trait, dear Kaa.

Don’t you feel Lucky?

Her message both thrilled and validated, in a way she must have known he’d treasure. I have my nickname back, Kaa mused happily.

All would have been perfection then — a flawless moment — except that something else intruded on his pleasure. A tremor, faint and glimmering, like the sound shadow made by a moray eel, passing swiftly in the night, leaving fey shivers in its wake.

Yes, you have won back your name, whispered a faint voice, as if from a distant seaquake. Or an iceberg, groaning, a thousand miles away.

But to keep it, you will have to earn it.

When Kaa next checked the progress of his spy drone, it had nearly reached the top of the Mount Guenn funicular.

At the beginning, Peepoe’s decision to stay with him had been more professional than personal, helping Kaa pilot the special probe up a hollow wooden monorail that climbed the rutted flank of an extinct volcano. While the bamboolike track was a marvel of aboriginal engineering, Kaa found it no simple matter guiding the little robot past sections filled with dirt or debris. He and Peepoe wound up having to camp in the cave, to monitor it round the clock, instead of returning to Brookida and the others. A fully autonomous unit could have managed the journey on its own, but Gillian Baskin had vetoed sending any machine ashore that might be smart enough to show up on Jophur detectors.

A moment of triumph came as the camera eye finally emerged from the rail, passed through a camouflaged station, then proceeded down halls of chiseled stone, trailing its slender fiber comm line like a hurried spider. Kaa had it crawl along the ceiling — the safest route, offering a good view of the native workshops.

Other observers tuned in at this point. From the Streaker, Hannes Suessi and his engineering chiefs remarked on the spacious chambers where urrish and qheuen smiths tapped ominous heat from lava pools, dipping ladles into nearby pits for melting, alloying, and casting. Most questions were answered by Ur-ronn, one of the four young guests whose presence on the Streaker posed such quandaries. Ur-ronn explained the forge in thickly accented Anglic, revealing tense reserve. Her service as guide was part of a risky bargain, with the details still being worked out.

“I do not see Uriel at the hearths.” Ur-ronn’s voice came tinnily from Kaa’s receiver. “Ferhafs she is ufstairs, in her hovvy roon.”

Uriel’s hobby room. From the journal of Alvin Hphwayuo, Kaa envisioned an ornately useless toy gadget of sticks and spinning glass, something to hypnotize away the ennui of existence on a savage world. He found it puzzling that a leader of this menaced society would spare time for the arty Rube Goldberg contraption Alvin had described.

Ur-ronn told Kaa to send the probe down a long hall, past several mazelike turns, then through an open door into a dim chamber … where at last the fabled apparatus came into view.

Peepoe let out an amazed whistle.

Advance description

Leaves the unwary stunned by

Serendipity!

Yeah, Kaa agreed, staring at a vaulted chamber that would have been impressive even on Earth, filled with crisscrossing timbers and sparkling lights. Alvin’s account did the place injustice, never conveying the complex unity of all the whirling, spinning parts — for even at a glance one could tell that an underlying rhythm controlled it all. Each ripple and turn was linked to an elegant, ever-changing whole.

The scene was splendid, and ultimately baffling. Dim figures could be glimpsed moving about the scaffolding, making adjustments — several small, scurrying shapes and at least one bipedal silhouette that looked tentatively human. But Kaa could not even judge scale properly because most of the machine lay in deep shadows. Moreover, holovision had been designed to benefit creatures with two forward-facing eyes. A panel equipped with sono-parallax emitters would have better suited dolphins.

Even the normally wry Hannes Suessi was struck silent by this florid, twinkling palace of motion.

Finally, Ur-ronn cut in.

“I see Uriel! She is second fron the right, in that group standing near the chinfanzee.”

Several four-footed urs nervously watched the machine whirl, next to a chimp with a sketchpad. Random light pulses dappled their flanks, resembling fauns in a forest, but Kaa could tell that gray-snouted Uriel must be older than the rest. As they watched, the chimp showed the smith an array of abstract curves, commenting on the results with hand signs instead of words.

“How we gonna do this, Streaker?” Kaa asked. “Just barge in and start t-talking?”

Until lately, it had seemed best for all concerned that Streaker keep her troubles separate. But now events made a meeting seem inevitable — even imperative.

“Let’s listen before announcing ourselves,” Gillian Baskin instructed. “I’d rather conditions were more private.”

In other words, she preferred to contact Uriel, not a whole crowd. Kaa sent the robot creeping forward. But before any urrish words became audible, another speaker interrupted from Streaker’s end.

“Allow me this indulgence,” fluted the refined voice of the Niss Machine. “Kaa, will you again focus the main camera on Uriel’s contraption? I wish to pursue a conjecture.”

When Gillian did not object, Kaa had the probe look at the expanse of scaffolding a second time.

“Note the stretch of sand below,” the Niss urged. “Neat piles accumulate wherever light falls most frequently. These piles correlate with the drawings the chimpanzee just showed Uriel.…”

Kaa’s attention jerked away, caught by a slap of Peepoe’s tail.

“Someone’s ccoming. Peripheral scanner says approaching life signs are Jophur!”

Despite objections from the Niss, Kaa made the probe swivel around. There, framed in the doorway, they saw a silhouette Streaker’s crew had come to loathe — like a tapered cone of greasy doughnuts.

Gillian Baskin broke in. “Calm down, everyone.… I’m sure it’s just a traeki.”

“Of course it is,” confirmed Ur-ronn. “That stack is Tyug.”

Kaa recalled. This was the “chief alchemist” of Mount Guenn Forge. Uriel’s master of chemical synthesis. Kaa brushed reassuringly against Peepoe, and felt her relax a bit. According to Alvin’s journal, traeki were docile beings quite unlike their starfaring cousins.

So he was caught completely off guard when Tyug turned a row of jewel-like sensor patches upward, toward the tiny spy probe. Thoughtful curls of orange vapor steamed from its central vent. Then the topmost ring bulged outward…

… and abruptly spewed a jet of flying objects, swarming angrily toward the camera eye! Kaa and the others had time for a brief glimpse of insects—or some local equivalent — creating a confusing buzz of light and sound with their compound eyes and fast-beating wings. A horde of blurry creatures converged, surrounding Kaa’s lenses and pickups.

Moments later, all that reached his console was a smear of dizzying static.

Gillian

AMAGNIFIED IMAGE FLOATED ABOVE THE CONFERENCE table — depicting a small creature, frozen in flight, whose wings were a rainbow-streaked haze, painful to the eye. By contrast, the Niss Machine’s compact mesh of spiral lines seemed drab and abstruse. A strain of pique filled its voice.

“Might any of you local children be able to identify this bothersome thing for us?”

The words were polite enough, though Gillian winced at its insolent manner.

Fortunately, Alvin Hphwayuo showed no awareness of being patronized. The young hoon sat near his friends, throbbing his throat sac in the subsonic range for both noor beasts, one lounging on each broad shoulder. To the machine’s sardonic question, Alvin nodded amiably, a human gesture that seemed completely unaffected.

“Hrm. That’s easy enough. It is a privacy wasp.”

“Gene-altered toys of the Vuyur,” lisped Ur-ronn. “A well-known nuisance.”

Huck’s four eyestalks waved, peering at the image. “Now I see how they got their name. They normally move so fast, I never got a good look before. It looks kind of like a tiny rewq, with the membranes turned into wings.”

Hannes Suessi grunted, tapping the tabletop with his prosthetic left arm.

“Whatever the origins of these critters, it seems Uriel was armed against the possibility of being spied upon. Our probe’s been rendered useless. Will she now assume that it was sent by the Jophur?”

Ur-ronn shrugged, an uncertain twist of her long neck. “Who else? How would Uriel have heard of you guys … unless the Jophur thenselves sfoke of you?”

Gillian agreed. “Then she may destroy the drone, unless we make it speak Anglic words right away. Niss, can you and Kaa get a message through?”

“We are working to accomplish that. Commands rise from the control console, but the bedlam given off by these so-called wasps appears to swamp all bands, thwarting confirmation. The probe may be effectively inoperable.”

“Damn. It would take days to send another. Days we don’t have.” Gillian turned to Ur-ronn. “This might make our promise hard to keep.”

She hated saying it. Part of her had looked forward to meeting the legendary smith of Mount Guenn. By all accounts, Uriel was an individual of shrewdness and insight, whose sway on Jijoan society was notable.

“There is another off-shun,” Ur-ronn suggested. “Fly there in ferson.”

“An option we must set aside for now,” replied Lieutenant Tsh’t. “Since any aircraft sent beyond these shielding waters would be detected instantly, by the enemy battle-ship-p.”

The dolphin officer lay on the cushioned pad of a sixlegged walker. Her long, sleek body took up the end of the conference room farthest from the sooner youths, her left eye scanning the members of the ship’s council. “Believe it or not-t, and despite our disappointment over the loss of Kaa’s probe, there are other agenda items left to cover.”

Gillian understood the lieutenant’s testy mood. Her report on the apparent suicide of the two human prisoners had left many unanswered questions. Moreover, discipline problems were also on the rise, with a growing faction of the dolphin crew signing what they called the “Breeding Petition.”

Gillian had tried boosting morale by getting out and talking to the dolphins, listening to their concerns, encouraging them with a patron’s touch. Tom had the knack, like Captain Creideiki. A joke here, a casual parable there. Most fins grew more inspired and devoted the worse things got.

I don’t have the same talent, I guess. Or else this poor crew is just tired after all the running.

Anyway, the best workers were all outside the ship now, in gangs that labored round the clock, while she spent hours closeted with the Niss Machine, eliminating one desperate plan after another.

At last, one of her schemes seemed a bit less awful than the rest.

“Tasty,” the Niss had called it. “Though a rash gamble. Our escape from Kithrup had more going for it than this ploy.”

Ship’s Physician Makanee raised the next agenda item. Unlike Tsh’t, the elderly dolphin surgeon did not like to ride around strapped to a machine. Naked, except for a small tool harness, she took part in the meeting from a clear tube that ran along one wall of the conference room. Makanee’s body glistened with tiny bubbles from the oxygen-packed fluid that filled Streaker’s waterways.

“There is the matter of the Kiqui,” she said. “It must be settled, especially if we are planning to move the ship-p.”

Gillian nodded. “I’d hoped to consult about this matter with—” She glanced at the staticky display from Kaa’s lost spy probe, and sighed. “A final decision must wait, Doctor. Continue preparations and I’ll let you know.”

Hannes Suessi next reported on the state of Streaker’s hull.

“Weighed down like this, she’ll be as slow as when we carried around that hollowed-out Thennanin cruiser, wearing it like a suit of armor. Slower, with all the probability arrays gummed up by carbon gunk.”

“So we must consider transferring to one of the wrecks outside?”

That would be hard. None had the modifications that made Streaker usable by an aquatic race.

The mirrored dome containing Suessi’s brain and skull nodded.

“I have crews preparing the best of the drossed star-ships.” A chuckle then escaped the helmet speaker vent. “Cheer up, everybody! With Ifni’s luck, some of us may yet make it out of here.”

Perhaps, Gillian thought. But if we get away from the Jijo system, where will we go? Where else can we run?

The meeting broke up. Everyone, including the sooner kids, had jobs to do.

And Dwer Koolhan will be waiting in my quarters, asking again for passage ashore. Or to swim, if necessary.

To go back to a savage place where he’s needed.

Ambivalence filled her. Dwer was hardly more than a boy. Still, in all the years since Streaker was forced to abandon Tom on Kithrup, this was the first time she felt anything like physical attraction to another.

Naturally. I’ve always been a sucker for hero types.

It brought to mind the last time she had felt Tom’s touch — one final night together on a metal island, set amid a poison sea. The night before he flew away on a solarpowered glider, determined to mislead great battle fleets, thwart mighty foes, and make an opening for Streaker to get away. Gillian’s left thigh still tingled, from time to time … the site of his last loving squeeze as he lay prone on the flimsy little aircraft, grinning before taking off.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Tom said — a metaphysically strange expression, when you thought about it. And she often had.

Then he was gone, winging north, barely skimming the waves, just above the contrary tides of Kithrup.

I should never have let him go. Sometimes you have to tell a hero that enough is enough.

Let someone else save the world.

As Gillian made ready to leave the conference room, she saw Alvin, the young hoon, trying to collect both noors. The female was his longtime pet, to all appearances a bright nonsapient being, probably derived from natural tytlal rootstock, dating from before their species’ uplift. The Tymbrimi must have stockpiled a gene pool of their beloved clients here on Jijo, as insurance in case the worst happened to their clan. A wise precaution, given the number of enemies they’ve made.

As for the other one, Mudfoot, Dwer’s bane and traveling companion across half a continent, scans of his brain showed uplift traces throughout.

A race hidden within a race, retaining all the traits the Tymbrimi worked hard to foster in their clients.

In other words, the tytlal were true sooners, another wave of illegal settlers, but guarded by added layers of camouflage. So disguised, they might even escape whatever ruin lay in store for the relatives of Alvin, Huck, Urronn, and Pincer.

But that can’t be the whole story. Caution isn’t a paramount trait in Tymbrimi, or their clients. They wouldn’t go to so much trouble just to hide. Not unless it was part of something bigger.

Alvin had trouble gathering Mudfoot, who ignored the boy’s umble calls while wandering across the conference table, poking a whiskered nose into debris from the meeting. Finally, the tytlal stood up on his hind legs to peer at the frozen projection last sent by Kaa’s probe, the image of a privacy wasp. Mudfoot purred with curiosity.

“Niss,” Gillian said in a low voice.

With an audible pop, the pattern of whirling, shifting lines came into being nearby.

“Yes, Dr. Baskin? Have you changed your mind about hearing my tentative conjectures about Uriel’s intricate device of spinning disks?”

“Later,” she said, and gestured at Mudfoot. Gillian now realized the tytlal was peering past the blurry display of the privacy wasp, at something in the scene beyond.

“I’d like you to do some enhancements. Find out what that little devil is looking at.”

She did not add that she had detected something on her own. Something only a psi-sensitive would notice. For the second time, a faint presence could be felt — vague and ephemeral — floating ever so briefly above Mudfoot’s agitated cranial spines. She could not be sure, but whatever it was had a distinctly familiar flavor.

Call it Essence of Tymbrimi.

Kaa

THERE WAS NO MORE TO ACCOMPLISH IN THE CAVE. The probe appeared to be dead.

Even if it came back to life, any conversation with the natives would be handled from Streaker’s end. Meanwhile, it was past time to return to the habitat. Kaa had a team he had not seen in days.

A human couple might have paused before exiting the little grotto, looking around to imprint the site of their first lovemaking. But not dolphins. Neo-fins experienced nostalgia, just like their human patrons, but they could store sonar place images in ways humans had to mimic with recording devices. Streaking outside, joining Peepoe under bright sunshine, Kaa knew the two of them could revisit the cave anytime they chose, simply by bringing their arched foreheads together — re-creating its unique echoes in that ancient gulf of memory some called the Whale Dream.

It felt good to dash across the wide sea again, with Peepoe’s lithe body sharing every kick and leap in perfect unison. Motion equaled joy after any long confinement to machinery and closed spaces.

On the outward trip, their swim had been exquisite, but tempered by a taut, sexual tension. Now there were no secrets, no conflicting desires. Most of the return journey was spent in silent bliss — like a simple mated pair from presapient days, free of the gifts and burdens of uplift.

Finally, with the habitat drawing near, Kaa felt his mind slip reluctantly back into Anglic-using rhythms. Compelled to speak, he used the informal click-squeal dialect fins preferred while swimming.

“Well, here it comes,” he sonar-cast during the underwater phase of their next splash-and-surge cycle. “Back to home and family … such as they are.”

“Family?” she replied skeptically. “Brookida, perhaps. As for Mopol and Zhaki, wouldn’t you rather be related to a penguin?”

Is my opinion of them so obvious? After breaching for air, Kaa tried making light of things with a joke.

“Oh, I give those two some credit. With luck, they won’t have set the ocean on fire while we’re gone.”

Peepoe laughed, then added, “Do you think they’ll be jealous?”

Good question. Dolphins could not conceal interpersonal matters like humans, with their complex games of emotional deceit. By sonar-scanning each other’s viscera, one seldom had to guess who slept with whom.

Envy wouldn’t be a problem if I established clear authority from the start, both as an officer and as senior-ranking male.

Unfortunately, chain of command was a recent, human-imposed concept. Underneath, bull dolphins still felt ancient drives to jostle over status and breeding rights.

In fact, Peepoe’s choice might reinforce Kaa’s position atop the little local hierarchy. Though I shouldn’t need help. Not if I were a real leader.

“Jealous.” He pondered, thrusting harder with his flukes, till his beak pushed their shared shock wave, drawing her along in his wake. “Those two are highly sexed, so maybe they will be. But at least this way Zhaki and Mopol should stop bothering you with hopeless propositions.”

The young males had made relentless crude suggestions toward Peepoe from the first day she arrived, even brushing lewdly against her until Kaa had to rebuke them. While it was true that dolphins had a far different scale of tolerance for such behavior than humans — and Peepoe was capable of taking care of herself — in this case the pair were so persistent that Kaa had to dish out tail whacks to make them back off.

“Hopeless?” Peepoe asked in a teasing tone. “Now you’re making assumptions. How do you know I’m monogamous? Maybe a little harem would suit me fine.”

Kaa spread his jaws and aimed a nip at her nearest pectoral fin … slow enough for her to slip aside, laughing, before his teeth snapped.

“Good,” she commented. “Pacific Tursiops go in for that kinky stuff. But I prefer a nice and conservative Atlantean.

You’re from Miami-Under, no? Born into an old-fashioned line marriage, I bet.”

Kaa grunted. Even the sonar-based dialect of Anglic wasn’t easy while speeding at full throttle.

“One of the Heinlein family variants,” he conceded. “The style works better for dolphins than humans. Why? You looking for a line to marry into?”

“Mnn. I’d rather start a new one. Always hankered to be the founding matriarch of a nice little lineage — if the masters of uplift allow it.”

That was the eternal Big If. No neo-dolphin could legally breed without permission from the Terragens Uplift Board. Despite the unusual freedoms humans had given their clients — voting rights and the trappings of citizenship — Earthclan was still bound by ancient Galactic law.

Improve your clients, went the basic code of uplift.… Or lose them.

“You gotta be kidding,” he answered. “If any of us Streaker fins ever do make it home somehow from this crazed voyage, we’ll never face another sapiency exam from the masters. We may be sterilized on the spot, for all the trouble we caused. Or else we’re heroes, and it’ll be sperm-and-seed donations for the rest of our lives, fostering almost the whole next neo-fin generation.

“Either way, it won’t be cozy family life for any of us. Not ever.”

He hadn’t expected it to come out that way, with an edge of ironic bitterness. But Peepoe must have seen he was telling the truth. She continued keeping pace alongside, but her silence told Kaa how much it stung.

Great. Everything felt so fine … this wonderful water, the fish we snatched for breakfast, our lovemaking. Would it have hurt to let her stay in denial for a while, dreaming of happy endings? Holding on to the fantasy that we might yet go home, and lead normal lives?

“Kaa!” Brookida’s cry made the tiny habitat reverberate. “I’m glad you’re back. Did your mission go well? Wait till you hear what I discovered by correlating passive seismic echo scans from here to Streaker’s sssite. I fed the raw data into one of Charles Dart’s old programs to get tomography images of the subcrustal zone!”

All that, on a single breath. It was what humans would call a “mouthful.”

“That’s great, Brookida. But to answer your question, our mission didn’t go as well as we hoped. In fact, we have orders to pack everything up and break camp. Gillian and Tsh’t plan to move the ship.”

Brookida shook his mottled gray head. “Won’t that risk giving away Streaker’s position?”

“The site’s already compromised. Dr. Baskin suspects the Jophur may be p-preoccupied, but that can’t last.”

It had been Kaa’s mission to find out what the sooners knew about such things. Perhaps Uriel the Smith had some idea what the Jophur were up to. No one had blamed Kaa for the failure — not out loud. But he knew the ship’s council was disappointed.

I warned them to send someone better trained at spying.

He looked around. “Where are the others?”

Brookida let out a warbled sigh.

“Off joyriding on Peepoe’s sled. Or else vandalizing the fishing nets of local hoons and qheuens.”

Damn! Kaa cursed. He had ordered Zhaki and Mopol to stay within a kilometer of the dome, and restrict themselves to monitoring spy eyes already in place at Wuphon Port. Above all, they were supposed to avoid direct contact with the sooners.

“They got bored,” Brookida explained. “Now that Streaker has Alvin and other local experts aboard, our team is a bit redundant. It’s why I’ve been tracing the subduction-zone magma flows. My first chance since Kithrup to test out an idea I had, based on Charles Dart’s old research. You recall those strange beings who lived deep under Kithrup’s crust? The ones with the weird, unpronounceable species name?”

Peepoe spoke up. “You mean the Karrank-k%?’

She did a creditable job of expressing the double-aspirated slide tone at the end, sounding like a steam kettle about to explode.

“Yes, quite. Well, I’d been wondering what kind of ecosystem could support them down there. And it got me thinking …”

Brookida halted. Then all three dolphins whirled around as the wall segment behind them began emitting a low, scraping hum. The grating vibration hurt Kaa’s jaw.

Soon, the entire habitat groaned to a rasping sonic frequency Kaa recognized.

It’s a saser! Someone’s attacking the dome!

“Harnesses!”

At his shouted command, they all dived toward the rack where heavy-duty tool kits were hung, ready for use. Kaa streaked through the open end of his well-worn apparatus, and felt its many control surfaces slide smoothly into place. A control cable snaked toward the neural tap behind his left eye. Robotic arms whirred as he jerked the harness free of its rack. Peepoe’s unit popped loose just half an instant later.

A rough rectangle crept across the opposite wall, above and below the waterline, glowing hot.

“They’re cutting through!” Peepoe cried.

“Breathers!” Kaa shouted. From the back of his harness, a hose swarmed over his blowhole, covering it with a moist kiss and tight seal. A blast of canned air tasted even more tinny than the recycled stuff within the dome. Kaa sent a neural command activating his torch cutter and saser, tools that could second as weapons in close combat.…

But they didn’t respond!

“Peepoe!” He shouted. “Check your—”

“I’m helping Brookida!” she cut in. “His harness is stuck!”

Kaa slashed the water with his flukes, squealing a cry of frustration. With no better options, he interposed his body between theirs and the far wall…

… which abruptly collapsed in a wave of pummeling froth.

Gillian

I HAVE DISCOVERED SEVERAL THINGS OF INTEREST,” the Niss Machine told Gillian, after she wakened from a brief induced sleep. “The first has to do with that wonderfully ostentatious native machine, built and operated by the urrish tinkerer, Uriel.”

Sitting in her darkened office, she watched a recorded holo image of wheels, pulleys, and disks, whirling in a flamboyant show of light and action. Not far from Gillian, the ancient cadaver, Herbie, seemed to regard the same scene. A trick of shadows made the enigmatic, mummified face seem amused.

“Let me guess. Uriel created a computer.”

The Niss reacted with surprise. Its spiral of meshed lines tightened to a knot.

“You knew?”

“I suspected. From the kids’ reports, Uriel wouldn’t waste time on anything useless or abstract. She’d want to give her folk something special. The one thing her founding ancestors absolutely had to throw away.”

“Possession of computers. Good point, Dr. Baskin. Uriel could aim no higher than to be like Prometheus. Bringing her people the fire of calculation.”

“But without digital cognizance,” she pointed out. “An undetectable computer.”

“Indeed. I found no reference to such a thing in our captured Galactic Library unit. So I turned to the precontact 2198 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. There I learned about analog computation with mechanical components, which actually had a brief ascendancy on Earth, using many of the same techniques we see in Uriel’s hall of spinning glass!”

“I remember hearing about this. Maybe Tom mentioned it.”

“Did he also mention that the same thing can be achieved using simple electronic circuits? Networks of resistors, capacitors, and diodes can simulate a variety of equations. By interconnecting such units, solutions can be worked out for limited problems.

“It provokes one to consider the military potential of such a system. For instance, operating sneak-attack weapons without digital controls, using undetectable guidance systems.”

The Niss holo performed a twist that Gillian interpreted as a shrug.

“But then, if the notion were feasible, it would have found its way into the Library by now.”

There it was again. Even Tymbrimi suffered from the same all-pervading supposition — that anything worth doing must have been done already, over the course of two billion years. The assumption nearly always proved true. Still, wolfling humans resented it.

“So,” Gillian prompted. “Have you figured out what Uriel is trying to compute?”

“Ah, yes.” The line motif spun contemplatively.

“That is, perhaps.

“Or rather … no, I have not.”

“What’s the problem?”

The Niss showed spiky irritation.

“My difficulty is that all the algorithms used by Uriel are of Terran origin.”

Gillian nodded.

“Naturally. Her math books came from the so-called Great Printing, when human learning flooded this world, most of it in the form of precontact texts. A mirror image of what Galactic society did to Earth. On Jijo, we were the ones to unleash an overpowering wealth of knowledge, engulfing prior beliefs.”

Hence also Gillian’s recent, weird experience — debating the literary merits of Jules Verne with a pair of distinctly unhuman youngsters named “Alvin” and “Huck,” whose personalities had little in common with the stodgy Galactic norm.

The Niss agreed, bowing its tornado of laced lines.

“You grasp my difficulty, Doctor. Despite Tymbrimi sympathy toward Earthlings, my makers were uplifted as Galactic citizens, with a shared tradition. While details of my programming are exceptional, I was designed according to proven principles, after eons of Galactic experience refining digital computers. These precepts clash with Terran superstitions—”

Gillian coughed behind her hand. The Niss bowed.

“Forgive. I meant to say, Terran lore.”

“Can you give an example?”

“I can. Consider the contrast between the word/concepts discrete and continuous.

“According to Galactic science, anything and everything can be accomplished by using arithmetic. By counting and dividing, using integers and rational fractions. Sophisticated arithmetic algorithms enable us to understand the behavior of a star, for instance, by partitioning it into ever-smaller pieces, modeling those pieces in a simple fashion, then recombining the parts. That is the digital way.”

“It must call for vast amounts of memory and raw computing power.”

“True, but these are cheaply provided, enough for any task you might require.

“Now look back at precontact human wolflings. Your race spent many centuries as semicivilized beings, mentally ready to ask sophisticated questions, but completely lacking access to transistors, quantum switches, or binary processing. Until your great savants, Turing and Von Neumann, finally expressed the power of digital computers, generations of mathematicians had to cope by using pencil and paper.

“The result? A mix of the brilliant and the inane. Abstract differential analysis and cabalistic numerology. Algebra, astrology, and geometrical topology. Much of this amalgam was based on patently absurd concepts, such as continuity, or aptly named irrational numbering, or the astonishing notion that there are layered infinities of the divisibly small.”

Gillian sighed an old frustration.

“Earth’s best minds tried to explain our math, soon after contact. Again and again we showed it was self-consistent. That it worked.”

“Yet it accomplished nothing that could not be outmatched in moments by calculating engines like myself. Galactic seers dismissed all the clever equations as trickery and shortcuts, or else the abstract ravings of savages.”

She acceded with a nod.

“This happened once before, you know. In Earth’s twentieth century, after the Second World War, the victors quickly split into opposing camps. Those experts you mentioned — Turing and von Whoever — they worked in the west, helping set off our own digital revolution.

“Meanwhile, the east was ruled by a single dictator, I think his name was Steel.”

“Accessing the Britannica … You mean ‘Stalin’? Yes, I see the connection. Until his death, Stalin obstructed Russo-Soviet science for ideological reasons. He banished work on genetics because it contradicted notions of communist perfectibility. Moreover, he quashed work on computers, calling them ‘decadent.’ Even after his passing, many in the east held that calculation was crude, inelegant … only good for quick approximations. For truth, one needed pure mathematics.”

“So that’s why many practitioners in the Old Math still come from Russia.” Gillian chuckled. “It sounds like yet another inverted image of what happened to Earth, after contact.”

The Niss pondered this for a moment.

“What are you implying, Doctor? That Stalin was partly right? That you Terrans were right? That you were onto something the rest of the universe has missed?”

“It seems unlikely, eh? And yet, isn’t that slim possibility the very reason why your makers assigned you to this ship?”

Again, the meshed lines whirled.

“Point well taken, Dr. Baskin.”

Gillian stood up to start moving her body through a series of stretching exercises. The brief sleep period had helped. Still, there were a hundred problems to address.

“Look,” she asked the Niss Machine. “Is there some point where all this is heading? Haven’t you a clue what problem Uriel is trying to solve?”

She gestured toward the recorded image of pulleys, leather straps, and spinning disks.

“In a word, Doctor? No.

“Oh, I can tell that Uriel is modeling a set of simultaneous differential equations — to use old wolfling terminology. The range of numerical values being considered appears to be simple, even trivial. I could outcalculate her so-called computer with a mere one quadrillionth of my processing power.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because to me the problem first calls for unlocking the code of a lost language. I need an opening, a Rosetta stone, after which all should be instantly clear.

“In short, I need help from an Earthling, to suggest what the expressions might be for.”

Gillian shrugged.

“Another tough break, then. We’ve plumb run out of mathematicians aboard this crate. Creideiki and Tom both used to play with the Old Math. I know Charles Dart dabbled, and Takkata-Jim.…”

She sighed.

“And Emerson D’Anite. He was the last one who could have helped you.”

Gillian moved toward her reference console. “I suppose we can scan the personnel files to see if there’s anyone else—”

“That may not be necessary,” the Niss cut in. “It might be possible to access one of the experts you already mentioned.”

Gillian blinked, unable to believe she heard right.

“What are you talking about?”

“You assigned me another problem — to find out what the feral-sapient tytlal named ‘Mudfoot’ was staring at, after the council meeting. To achieve that, I enhanced the spy camera’s last scene, before the privacy wasps closed in.

“Please watch carefully, Doctor.”

The big display now showed the final clear picture sent by the lost probe. Gillian found it physically painful to watch the insect’s beating wings, and felt relief when the Niss zoomed toward a corner of the field, pushing the privacy wasp off-screen. What ballooned outward was a section of the ornate contraption of Uriel the Smith — a marvel of pure ingenuity and resourcefulness.

I did take one course in the Old Math, before heading to medical school. I could try to help. The Niss can supply precontact texts. All it wants is insight. Some wolfling intuition…

Her thoughts veered, distracted by the vivid enhancement. Looming around her now was a maze of improvised scaffolding, filled with shadows that were split, here and there, by glaring points of light.

All this incredible activity must add up to something important.

Gillian saw the apparent goal sought by the Niss — a set of shadows that had the soft curves of life-forms, precariously balanced in the crisscrossing trusswork. Some figures were small, with snakelike torsos and tiny legs, brandishing tools with slim, many-jointed hands.

Miniature urs, she realized. The maintenance crew?

A larger silhouette loomed over these. Gillian gasped when she saw it must be human! Then she recalled.

Of course. Humans are among Uriel’s allies, and skilled technicians. They’re also good climbers, perfect to help keep things running.

The Niss must now be straining its ability to enhance the grainy image. The rate of magnification slowed, and remaining shadows peeled grudgingly before the onslaught of computing power. But soon she knew the human was male, from the shape of neck and shoulders. He was pointing, perhaps indicating a task for the little urs to perform.

Gillian saw that he had long hair, brushed left over a cruel scar. For an instant she stared at the puckered wound in his temple.

A moment later, the image clarified to show a smile.

Recognition hit like a blast of chill water.

“My God … It can’t be!”

The Niss crooned, expressing both satisfaction and intrigue.

“You confirm the resemblance?

“It does appear to be engineer Emerson D’Anite.

“Our crew mate whom we thought killed by the Old Ones, back at the Fractal System.

“He whose scout vessel was enveloped by a globe of devouring light, as the Streaker made its getaway, fleeing by a circuitous route toward Jijo.”

The Tymbrimi machine shared one trait with its makers, a deep love of surprise. That pleasure it now expressed in a hum of satisfaction.

“You ask frequently how anyone could have followed us to this forlorn corner of the universe, Dr. Baskin.

“I believe the question just acquired new levels of cogency.”

Kaa

HE NEVER GOT TO PUT UP MUCH OF A FIGHT.

How could he, with all his weapons sabotaged from the start? Besides, Kaa wasn’t sure he could bring himself to harm one of his own kind.

Clearly, the assailants who attacked the dome had fewer scruples.

The ruined habitat lay far below, its pieces strewn across the continental shelf. Along with Peepoe and Brookida, Kaa barely dodged being pinned by the collapsing walls, escaping the maelstrom of metal and froth only to face the gun barrels of well-armed captors. Herded to the surface, he and the others panted in nervous exhaustion under the waning afternoon sun.

In contrast, Mopol’s sleek form rested almost languidly atop the speed sled that Peepoe had brought from Streaker’s hiding place, governing the engines and armaments with impulses sent down his neural tap. Swimming nearby — wearing a fully charged tool harness — Zhaki explained the situation.

“It’s like this, p-pilot-t.…” He slurred the words in his eagerness. “The three of you are gonna do what we sssay, or else.”

Kaa tossed his head, using his lower jaw to splash water at Zhaki’s eye.

Silly threats from one

Who’s watched too many movies!

Just say it, fool. Now!

Mopol hissed angrily, but Peepoe laughed at Zhaki’s predicament. To continue his menacing speech now would be an act of obedience to Kaa’s command. It was a minor matter — not exactly a logical checkmate. But Kaa felt it valuable to recover even a little initiative.

“We …” Zhaki blew air and tried again. “Mopol and I are resigning from the Streaker crew. We’re not going back-k, and you can’t make us.”

So that’s what it’s about, Kaa thought.

“Desertion!” Brookida sputtered indignantly. “Letting your crew mates down when they need you mossst!”

Mopol let out a skirl of rejection.

“Our legal term of ssservice ended almossst two years ago.”

“Right-t,” Zhaki agreed. “Anyway, we never signed on for this insanity … fleeing like wounded mullet across the galaxies.”

“You plan to go sooner,” Peepoe fluted, her voice bemused. “Living wild, in this sea.”

Mopol nodded. “Some were already talkin’ about it, before we left-t the ship. This world’s a paradise for our kind. The whole crew oughta do it!”

“But even if they don’t-t,” Zhaki added, “we’re gonna.”

Then he added a haiku for emphasis.

Six or seven clans

Did this already, on shore.

We have precedent!

Kaa realized there was nothing he could do to change their minds. The sea would answer his best arguments with its fine mineral smoothness and the enticing echoes of tasty fish. In time, the deserters would come to miss the comforts of civilized life, or grow bored, or realize there are dangers even on a world without big predators. The water had a faint, prescient choppiness, and Kaa wondered if either of the rebel fins had ever been outside during a truly vicious storm.

But then, hadn’t other waves of settlers faced the same choice? The g’Keks, qheuens, and even human beings?

“The Jophur may make it hard on you,” he told them.

“We’ll take our chancess.”

“And if you’re caught by the Institutes?” Brookida asked. “Your presence here would be a crime, reflecting badly on—”

Mopol and Zhaki laughed. Even Kaa found that argument easy to dismiss. Humans and chimps were already on Jijo. If Earthclan suffered collective punishment for that crime, a few dolphins living offshore could hardly make things worse.

“So, what do you plan to do with us?” Kaa asked.

“Why, nothing much-ch. You and Brookida are free to swim back to your precious Gillian Basssskin, if you like.”

“That could take a week!” Brookida complained. But Kaa struggled against involuntary spasms in his harness arms, set off by Zhaki’s implication. Before he could unstrangle his speech centers, Peepoe expressed his dread.

“Jussst Kaa and Brookida? You’re insisting that I stay?”

Mopol chittered assent with such glee that it came out sounding more like gutter Primal Delphin than Trinary.

“That’s the p-plan,” Zhaki confirmed. “We’d make a poor excuse for a c-colony without at least one female.”

Kaa abruptly saw their long-term scheme. Mopol’s spell of malingering sickness had been meant to draw one of Makanee’s nurses out here from the ship. Most were young females, with Peepoe the best catch of all.

“Will you add kidnap-ping to the crime of desertion?” she asked, sounding as fascinated as fearful.

Kaa’s blood surged hot as Zhaki flipped around to streak past Peepoe, gliding along her belly, upside down.

“You won’t call it that-t after a while,” Zhaki promised, leaving a trail of bubbles as he rolled suggestively. “In time, you’ll c-call this your luckiessst day.”

At that point, Kaa reached the limit of his endurance. With a lashing of flukes, he charged—

• • •

There was a blank time after that … and some more that went by all in a haze — half-numb and half-pained.

Drifting, Kaa was sustained by instinct as his body performed the needed motions. Staying upright. Kicking to bring his blowhole above the watery surface. Breathing. Submerging once again. Allowing his unraveled self to knit slowly back together.

“C-come on now, my boy,” the helper told him. “It’sss only a bit farther.”

Dutifully, Kaa swam alongside, doing as he was told. You learned this at an early age … when injured, always obey the helper. It might be your mother, or an auntie, or even some older male in the pod. Someone always was the helper … or else the sea would claim you.

In time, he recalled this helper’s name—Brookida. He also began recognizing the peculiar lap and texture of littoral water, not far from shore. Kaa even recalled part of what put him in this condition … a state so dazed that all speech thoughts were driven from his mind.

There had been a fight. He had charged against harsh odds, hoping to take his enemies by surprise … by the sheer audacity of the attack.

It took just one blast of concentrated sound to knock him in a double flip, with tremors shaking every muscle. Paralyzed, he distantly sensed the two male foes move off … taking his love with them.

“You feeling better now?” Brookida asked. The older dolphin cast a sonar sweep through Kaa’s innards, checking on his progress. Some mental clouds were parting. Enough to recall a few more facts. The shattered habitat — not worth revisiting. The hopelessness of pursuing a speed sled, even one burdened with three passengers, since night was soon approaching.

Both arms of his harness twitched as his rattled brain sent spasmodic commands down the neural link. Kaa managed to lift his head a bit, the next time he breathed, and recognized the shape of nearby coastal hills. Brookida was herding him closer to the native fishing town.

“Mopol and Zhaki wrecked the cables and transmittersss, back at the dome. But-t I figure we can find the lines leading to the spy drones in Wuphon Port, tap into those, and contact the ship-p.”

Some order was slipping into Kaa’s chaotic thoughts. Enough to comprehend a bit of what the old fin said. This return of sapiency left him with mixed feelings — relieved that the loss was not permanent, plus regretful longing for the simplicity that must now go away, replaced by urgent, hopeless needs.

Trinary came back more easily than Anglic.

We must pursue the—

Spawn of syphilitic worms,

While their sound spoor’s

fresh!

“Yes, of course. I agree. How awful for Peepoe, poor lass. But first let’s contact Streaker. Maybe our crew mates can help.”

Kaa hearkened to the sense in that. One of the first principles of human legality that dolphins clearly understood was that of a posse, which had analogies in natural cetacean society. When an offense is committed against the pod, you can call for help. You should not face trouble alone.

He let Brookida lead him to the site where fiber cables from the onshore spy eyes all converged below. Booming surf reminded Kaa unhappily of this morning’s lovemaking. The sound made him squeal a Primal protest, railing against the unfairness of it all. To find a mate and lose her on the same day.

The water tasted of qheuens and hoons … plus wooden planks and tar. Kaa rested at the surface, sifting his mind back together while Brookida dived down to establish the link.

A saser … Zhaki shot me with a saser beam.

Dimly he realized that Zhaki might have saved his life. If that bolt hadn’t stopped him, Mopol would surely have fired next, using the more powerful unit on the sled.

But saved me … for what?

Ifni tell me … what’s the point?

Kaa didn’t figure he still had his nickname anymore.

A few hours … now it’s gone again. She took it with her.

Brookida surfaced next to him, sputtering elation, having achieved quick success.

“Got it-t! Come on, Kaa. I’ve got Gillian on the line. She wants to talk to you.”

Sometimes life is filled with choices. You get to select which current to ride, which tide to pull your destiny.

Other times leave you torn … wrenched apart … as if two orcas had a grip on you, one biting hard on your flukes while the other plays tug-of-war with your snout.

Kaa heard the order. He understood it.

He wasn’t at all sure he could obey.

“I’m sorry about Peepoe,” Gillian Baskin said, her voice crackling over the makeshift comm line, conveyed directly to Kaa’s auditory nerves. “We’ll rescue her, and deal with the deserters, when opportunity permits. Believe me, it’s a high priority.

“But this other task is crucial. Our lives may depend on it, Kaa.”

The human paused.

“I want you to head straight into Wuphon Harbor.

“It’s time one of us went to town.”

Ewasx

MY RINGS, IT HAS FINALLY HAPPENED. Rejoice! Your master torus has ultimately managed to recover some of the fatty memories you/we/I had thought forever lost! Those valuable recall tracks that were erased when brave-foolish Asx melted the wax!

That act of wrong loyalty stymied the usefulness of this hybrid ring stack for much too long. Some of the Polkjhy crew called us/Me a failed experiment. Even the CaptainLeader questioned this effort … this attempt to convert a wild traeki into our loyal authority on Jijoan affairs.

Admittedly, our/My expertise about the Six Races has been uneven and fitful. Mistakes were made despite/ because of our advice.

BUT NOW I/WE HAVE REACQUIRED THIS SECRET! This conviction that once filled the mulch center of the diffuse being called Asx.

Deep beneath the melted layers, a few memory tracks remained.

DO NOT SQUIRM SO! Instead you should exult in this recovery of something so important.

The Egg.

So far, we have seen only insolence from the sooner races — delays and grudging cooperation with the survey teams we send forth.

No voluntary gathering of g’Kek vermin at designated collection points.

No migration of traeki stacks for appraisal-and-conversion.

Swarms of supervised robots have begun sifting the countryside for groups of g’Kek and traeki, herding them toward enclosures where their numbers can be concentrated at higher density. But this task proves laborious and inefficient. It would be far more convenient if the locals were persuaded to perform the task on their own.

Worse, these fallen beings still refuse to admit any knowledge of the Earthling prey ship.

IT PROVES DIFFICULT TO COERCE GREATER COOPERATION.

Attacks on population centers are met with resignation and dispersal.

Their dour religion confounds us with stoic passivity. It is hard to deprive hope from a folk that never had much.

BUT NOW WE HAVE A NEW TARGET!

One more meaningful to the Six Races than any of their campsite villages. A target to convince them of our ruthless resolve.

We already knew something of this Great Egg. Its throbbing radiations were an irritant, disrupting our instruments, but we dismissed it as a geophysical anomaly. Psi-resonant formations exist on some worlds. Despite local mythology, our onboard Library cube can cite other cases. A rare phenomenon, but understood.

Only now we realize how deeply this stone is rooted in the savages’ religion. It is their central object of reverence. Their “soul.”

How amusing.

How pathetic.

And how very convenient.

Vubben

THE LAST TIME HIS AGED WHEELS HAD ROLLED along this dusty trail, it was in the company of twelve twelves of white-robed pilgrims — the finest eyes, minds, and rings of all six races — winding their way past sheer cliffs and steam vents in a sacred quest to seek guidance from the Holy Egg. For a time, that hopeful procession had made the canyon walls reverberate with fellowship vibrations — the Commons united and at peace.

Alas, before reaching its goal, the company fell into a maelstrom of fire, bloodshed, and despair. Soon the sages and their followers were too busy with survival to spend time meditating on the ineffable. But during the weeks since, Vubben could never shake a sense of unfinished business. Of something vital, left undone.

Hence this solitary return journey, even though it brought his frail wheels all too near the Jophur foe ship. Vubben’s axles and motive spindles throbbed from the cruel climb, and he longingly recalled that a brave qheuen had volunteered to carry him all the way here, riding in comfort on a broad gray back.

But he could not accept. Despite creakiness and age, Vubben had to come alone.

At last he reached the final turn before entering the Nest. Vubben paused to catch his breath and smooth his ruffled thoughts in preparation for the trial ahead. He used a soft rag to wipe green sweat off all four eye hoods and stalks.

It is said that g’Kek bodies could never have evolved on a planet. Our wheels and whiplike limbs better suit the artificial worlds where our star-god ancestors dwelled, before they gambled a great wager, won their bet, and lost everything.

He often wondered what it must have been like to abide in some vast spinning city whose inner space was spanned by countless slender roadways that arched like ribbons of spun sugar. Intelligent paths that would twist, gyre, and reconnect at your command, so the way between any two points could be just as straight or deliciously curved as you liked. To live where a planet’s grip did not press you relentlessly, every dura from birth till death, squashing your rims and wearing away your bearings with harsh grit.

More than any other sooner race, the g’Kek had to work hard in order to love Jijo. Our refuge. Our purgatory.

Vubben’s eyestalks contracted involuntarily as the Egg once again made its presence known. A surge of tywush vibrations seemed to rise from the ground. The sporadic patterning tremors had grown more intense, the nearer he came to the source. Now Vubben shivered as another wave front stroked his tense spokes, making his brain resound in its hard case. Words could not express the sensation, even in Galactic Two or Three. The psi-effect provoked no images or dramatic emotions. Rather, a feeling of expectation seemed to build, slowly but steadily, as if some longawaited plan were coming to fruition at long last.

The episode peaked … then passed quickly away, still lacking the coherence he hoped for.

Then let us begin in earnest, Vubben thought. His motor spindles throbbed, helped along by slender pusher legs, as both wheels turned away from the sunset’s dimming glow, toward mystery.

The Egg loomed above, a rounded shelf of stone that stretched ahead for half an arrowflight before curving out of sight. Although a century of pilgrimages had worn a trail of packed pumice, it still took almost a midura for Vubben to roll his first circuit around the base of the ovoid, whose mass pressed a deep basin in the flank of a dormant volcano. Along the way, he raised slender arms and eyestalks, lofting them in gentle benediction, supplementing his mental entreaty with the language of motion.

Help your people.… Vubben urged, seeking to atune his thoughts, harmonizing them with the cyclical vibrations.

Rise up. Waken. Intervene to save us.…

Normally, an effort at communion involved more than one suppliant. Vubben would have merged his contribution with a hoon’s patience, the tenacity of a qheuen, a traeki’s selfless affinity, plus that voracious will to know that made the best urs and humans seem so much alike. But such a large group might be detected moving about close to the Jophur. Anyway, he could not ask others to risk being caught in the company of a g’Kek.

With each pass around the Egg, he sent one eye wafting up to peer at Mount Ingul, whose spire was visible beyond the crater’s rim. There, Phwhoon-dau had promised to station a semaphore crew to alert Vubben in case of any approaching threat — or if there were changes in the tense standoff with the aliens. So far, no warnings were seen flashing from that western peak.

But he faced other distractions, just as disturbing to his train of thought.

Loocen hovered in the same western quarter of the sky, with a curve of bright pinpoints shining along the moon’s crescent-shaped terminator, dividing sunlit and shadowed faces. Tradition said those lights were domed cities. The departing Buyur left them intact, since Loocen had no native ecosystem to recycle and restore. Time would barely touch them until this fallow galaxy and its myriad star systems were awarded to new legal tenants, and the spiral arms once more teemed with commerce.

How those lunar cities must have tempted the first g’Kek exiles, fleeing here from their abandoned space habitats, just a few sneak jumps ahead of baying lynch mobs. Feeling safe at last, after passing through the storms of Izmunuti, those domes would have enticed them with reminders of home. A promise of low gravity and clean, smooth surfaces.

But such places offered no reliable, long-term shelter against relentless enemies. A planet’s surface was better for fugitives, with a life-support system that needed no computer regulation. A natural world’s complex messiness made it a fine place to hide, if you were willing to live as primitives, scratching a subsistence like animals.

In fact, Vubben had few clues of what passed through the original colonists’ minds. The Sacred Scrolls were the only written records from that time, and they mostly ignored the past, preaching instead how to live in harmony on Jijo, and promising salvation to those following the Path of Redemption.

Vubben was renowned for skill at reciting those hallowed texts. But in truth, we sages stopped relying on the scrolls a century ago.

He resumed the solitary pilgrimage, commencing his fourth circuit just as another tywush wave commenced. Vubben now felt certain the cycles were growing more coherent. Yet there was also a feeling that much more power lay quiescent, far below the surface — power he desperately needed to tap.

Hoon and qheuen grandparents passed on testimony that the patterns were more potent in the last days of Drake the Younger, when the Egg was still warm with birth heat, fresh from Jijo’s womb. Compelling dreams used to flood all six races back then, convincing all but the most conservative that a true revelation had come.

Politics also played a role in the great orb’s acceptance. Drake and Ur-Chown made eager proclamations, interpreting the new omen in ways that helped consolidate the Commons.

“This stone-of-wisdom is Jijo’s gift, a portent, sanctifying the treaties and ratifying the Great Peace,” they declared, with some success. From then on, hope became part of the revised religion. Though in deference to the scrolls, the word itself was seldom used.

Now Vubben sought some of that hope for himself, for his race, and all the Six. He sought it in signs that the great stone might be stirring once again.

I can feel it happening! If only the Egg rouses far enough, soon enough.

But the increasing activity seemed to follow its own pace, with a momentum that made him feel like an insect, dancing next to some titanic being.

Perhaps, Vubben suspected, my presence has nothing to do with these changes.

What happens next may not involve me at all.

Blade

THE WINDS WERE BLOWING HIM THE WRONG WAY.

No real surprise there. Weather patterns on the Slope had been contrary for more than a year. Anyway, metaphorically, the Six Races were being buffeted by gales of change. Still, at the end of a long, eventful day, Blade had more than enough reason to curse the stubbornly perverse breeze.

By late afternoon, slanting sunshine combed the forests and boo groves into a panorama of shadows and light. The Rimmers were a phalanx of giant soldiers, their armored shells blushing before the lowering sun. Below, a vast marsh had given way to prairie, which in turn became forested hills. Few signs of habitation could be seen from his great height, though Blade was handicapped by a basic inability to look directly down. The chitinous bulk of his wide body blocked any direct view of the ground.

How I would love, just once in my life, to see what lies below my own feet!

His five legs weren’t doing much at the moment. The claws dangled over open space, snapping occasionally in reflex spasms, trying futilely to get a grip on the clear air. Even more disconcerting, the sensitive feelers around his mouth had no earth or mud to brush against, probing the many textures of the ground. Instead, they, too, hung uselessly. Blade felt numb and bare in the direction a qheuen least liked being exposed.

That had been the hardest part to get used to, after takeoff. To a qheuen, life’s texture is determined by its medium. Sand and salt water to a red. Freshwater and mud to a blue. A world of stony caverns to imperial grays. Al though their ancestors had starships, Jijo’s qheuens seemed poor candidates for flight.

As open country glided majestically past, Blade pondered being the first of his kind in hundreds of years to soar.

Some adventure! It will be worth telling Log Biter and the other matrons about, when I return to that homey lodge behind Dolo Dam. The grubs, in their murky den, will want to hear the story at least forty or fifty times.

If only this voyage would get a little less adventurous, and more predictable.

I hoped to be communicating with Sara by now, not drifting straight toward the enemy’s toothy maw.

Above Blade’s cupola and vision strip, he heard valves open with a preliminary hiss — followed by a roaring burst of heat. Unable to shift or turn his suspended body, he could only envision the urrish contraptions in a wicker basket overhead, operating independently, using jets of flame to replenish the hot-air bag, keeping his balloon to a steady altitude.

But not a steady heading.

Everything was as automatic as the smiths’ technology allowed, but there was no escaping the tyranny of the wind. Blade had just one control to operate — a cord attached to a distant knife that would rip the balloon open when he pulled, releasing the buoyant vapors and dropping him out of the sky at a smooth rate — so the smiths assured — fast, but not too fast. As pilot, he had one duty, to time his plummet so it ended in a decent-sized body of water.

Even arriving at a fair clip, no mere splash should harm his armored, disklike form. If a tangle of rope and torn fabric pinned his legs, dragging him down, Blade could hold his breath long enough to chew his way free and creep ashore.

Nevertheless, it had been hard to convince the survivors’ council, ruling over the ruins of Ovoom Town, to let him try this crazy idea. They naturally doubted his claim that a blue qheuen should be their next courier.

But too many human boys and girls have died in recent days, rushing about in flimsy gliders. Urrish balloonists have been breaking necks and legs. All I have to do is crash into liquid and I’m guaranteed to walk away. Today’s crude circumstances make me an ideal aviator!

There was just one problem. While hooking Blade into this conveyance, the smiths had assured him the afternoon breeze was reliable this time of year, straight up the valley of the Gentt. It should waft him all the way to splashdown at Prosperity Lake within a few miduras, leaving more than enough time to dash at a rapid qheuen gait and reach the nearest semaphore station by nightfall. His packet of reports about conditions at ravaged Ovoom would then slide into the flashing message stream. And then Blade could finally scratch his lingering duty itch, restoring contact with Sara as he had vowed. Assuming she was at Mount Guenn, that is.

Only the winds changed, less than a midura after takeoff. The promised quick jaunt east became a long detour north.

Toward home, he noted. Unfortunately, the enemy lay in between. At this rate he’d be shot down before Dolo Village ever hove into view.

To make matters worse, he was starting to get thirsty.

This situation — it is ridiculous, Blade grumbled as sunset brought forth stars. The breeze broke up into rhythmic, contrary gusts. Several times, these bursts raised his hopes by shoving the balloon toward peaks where he spied other semaphore stations, passing soft flashes down the mountain chain. There was apparently a lot of message activity tonight, much of it heading north.

But whenever some large lake seemed about to pass below the bulging gasbag, another hard gusset blew in, pushing him at an inftiriating angle, back over jagged rocks and trees. Frustration only heightened his thirst.

If this keeps up, I’ll be so dehydrated that I’d dive for a little puddle.

Blade soon realized how far he had come. As the last light of day vanished from the tallest peaks, he spied a cleft in the mountains that any Sixer would recognize — the pass leading to Festival Glade, where each year the Commons of Six Races gathered to celebrate — and mourn — another year of exile. For some time after the sun was gone, Loocen’s bright crescent kept him company, illuminating the foothills. Blade expected the surface to draw closer as he was pushed northeast, but the simpleminded urrish altimeter somehow sensed changing ground levels and reacted with another jet of flame, preventing the balloon from meeting the valley floor.

Then Loocen sank as well, abandoning him to a world of shadows. The mountains became little more than black bites, torn out of the starry heavens. It left Blade all alone with his imagination, speculating how the Jophur were going to deal with him.

Would there be a flash of cold flame, as he had seen darting from the belly of the cruel corvette that devastated Ovoom Town? Would they rip him to bits with scalpels of sound? Or were he and the balloon destined for vaporization upon making contact with some defensive force field? The kind of barrier often described in garish Earthling novels?

Worst of all, he pictured a “tractor beam,” seizing and dragging him down to torment in some Jophur-designed hell.

The cord — should I pull it now? he wondered. Lest our foes learn the secret of hot-air balloons?

Qheuens never used to laugh before coming to Jijo. But somehow the blue variety picked up the habit, infuriating their Gray Queens, even before hoons and humans could be blamed as bad influences. Blade’s legs now contracted, quivering as a calliope of whistles escaped his breathing vents.

Right! We mustn’t allow this “technology” to fall into the wrong hands … or rings. Why, the Jophur might make balloons of their own, to use against us!

The upland canyons answered with faint repetitions of his laughter — echoes that cheered him up a little, as if there were an audience for his imminent parting from the universe. No qheuen likes to die alone, Blade thought, tightening his grip on the cord that would send him plunging to Jijo’s dark embrace. I only hope someone finds enough shell fragments to dross.…

At that moment, a faint glimmer made him pause. It came from dead ahead, farther up the narrowing valley, below the mountain pass. Blade tried focusing his visor, but again had to curse the poor vision his race inherited from ancient times. He peered at the pale shine.

Could it be …?

The soft rays reminded him of starlight, glancing off water, making him hold off yanking the cable for a few duras. If it was an alpine lake, he might have just a little time to estimate the distance, include his rate of drift, and guess the right moment to pull. With my luck, it will turn out to be a mulc spider’s acid pit. At least that would take care of the mulching problem.

The glimmer drew nearer, but its outline seemed strangely smooth, unlike a natural body of water. Its profile was oval, and the reflections had a convex quality that—

Ifni and the ancestors! Blade cursed in surprised dismay. It is the Jophur ship!

He stared in blank awe at the size of the globular thing.

So huge, I thought it was part of the landscape.

Worse, he measured his course and heading.

Soon, I’ll be right on top of it.

If anything, the wind stiffened from behind, accelerating his approach.

At once, Blade had an idea. One that changed his mind about the cruelty of fate.

This is better, he decided. It will be like that novel I read last winter, by that pre-contact human, Vonnegut. The book ended with the hero making a bold, personal gesture toward God.

The point seemed apropos then, and even more so now. When faced with casual extinction by an omnipotent force, sometimes the only option left to a poor mortal is to go out with defiance.

That proved remarkably feasible. Qheuen mouth parts served many functions, including sexual. So Blade made a virtue of his exposed posture, and got ready to present himself to the enemy in the most deliberately offensive manner possible.

Look THIS up in your Galactic Library! he thought, waving his sensor feelers suggestively. Perhaps, before he was vaporized, the Jophur would call up reference data dealing with starfaring qheuens, and realize the extent of his insolence. Blade hoped his life would count for at least that much. To be killed in anger, not as an afterthought.

Waves of tingling sensation coursed his feelers, and Blade wondered if danger was provoking some perverted version of the mating urge. Well, after all, here I am, veering toward a big, armored, dominant entity with my privates bared.

Log Biter would not approve of the comparison, I suppose.

As the wind pushed him toward the battleship — a thing so huge it rivaled nearby mountains — all sight of it vanished beneath the forward edge of his chitin carapace. It would be out of sight during final approach, an irony Blade did not find amusing.

Then, to his great surprise, there rushed into sight the very thing he had been longing for — a lake. A large one, dammed up behind the great cruiser, drowning the Festival Glade under hectares of cool snowmelt.

If they don’t shoot me down, he could not help speculating. If they fail to notice me, I might yet reach…

But how could they not spy this approaching gasbag? Surely they must already have him pinned by star-god instruments.

Sure enough, the tingling of Blade’s exposed feelers multiplied in rapid waves, as if they were being stroked — then stung — by a host of squirming shock worms. Not a sexual stirring, though. Instead the sensation triggered foraging instincts, causing his diamond-tipped incisors to snap reflexively, as if grabbing through mud at armored prey.

The feelers pick up magnetic and electric vibrations from hidden muck crawlers, he recalled.

Electromagnetic … I’m being scanned!

Each time he panted breath through a leg vent, another dura passed. The lake swelled, and he knew the ship must be almost directly below by now. What were they waiting for?

Then a new thought occurred to Blade.

I’m being scanned … but can they see me?

If only he had studied more science at the Tarek Town academy. Although grays tended to be better at abstractions — the reason why they took real names — Blade knew he should have insisted on taking that basic physics course.

Lets see. In human novels, they speak of “radar”… radio waves sent out to bounce off distant objects, giving away the location of intruders, for instance.

But you only get a good echo if it’s something radio will bounce off. Metal, or some other hard stuff.

Blade quickly pulled his teeth back in. Otherwise, his bottom was his softest part, featuring multifaceted planes that might deflect incoming rays in random directions. The gasbag, he figured, must seem hardly more dense than a rain cloud!

Now, if only the urrish altimeter would wait awhile longer before adjusting the balloon’s height, shooting hot flame with a roar to fill the night …

The tingling peaked … then started to diminish. Moments later, coolness stroked Blade’s underside and he sensed the allure of water below. Tentative relief came accompanied by worry, for cold air would increase his rate of sink.

Now? Shall I pull the cord, before the flames turn on and give me away?

Water beckoned. Blade yearned to wash the dust from his vent pores. Yet he held back. Even if his sudden plummet from the sky didn’t draw attention, he would land in the worst lake on Jijo, deep inside the Jophur defense perimeter, presumably patrolled by all sorts of hunter machines. Perhaps the robots had missed him till now because the possibility of floating qheuens had never been programmed into them. But a swimming qheuen most certainly was.

Anyway, the water gave him a strange feeling. There were flickerings under the surface — eerie flashes that reinforced his decision to hold back.

Each passing dura ratified the choice, as a separation slowly increased between Blade and the giant dreadnought, reappearing behind him as a dark curve with glimmering highlights, divided about a third of the way up by a rippling, watery line. It made him feel distinctly creepy.

Abruptly, a pinpoint of brilliance flared from the side of the globe ship, seeming to stab straight toward him.

Here it comes, Blade thought.

But the flaring light was no heat ray. No death beam, after all. Instead, the pinpoint widened. It became a glowing rectangular aperture. A door.

A mighty big door, Blade realized, wondering what could possibly take up so much room inside a mammoth star cruiser.

Apparently — another star cruiser.

From the gaping hangar, a sleek cigar shape emerged with a low hum, moving gradually at first, then accelerating toward Blade.

All right then. Not extinction. Capture. But why send that big thing after me?

Perhaps they saw his obscene gesture, and understood better than he expected.

Once more, Blade readied the rip cord. At the last moment, he would plummet from their grasp … or else they’d shoot him as he fell. Or hunter robots would track him, underwater or overland. Still, it seemed proper to make the effort. At least I’ll get a drink.

Again, night vision gave him trouble. Estimating the corvette’s rate of closure proved futile. In frustration, Blade’s thoughts slipped from Anglic and into the easier grooves of Galactic Six.

This specter of terror — I have seen it before.

This thing I saw last — as it burned down a city.

A city of felons — of sooners — my people.

His legs flexed spasmodically as the ship rushed toward him without slowing…

What the—

… and kept going, sweeping past with a roar of displaced air.

Blade felt hooks of urrish steel yank his carapace at all five suspension points. One anchor broke free, tearing chitin armor like paper, then flinging wildly as the balloon was sucked after the skyship’s wake.

The world passed in a blur, teaching him what real flying was about.

Then the Jophur vessel was gone, ignoring balloon and passenger with contempt, or else indifference. He glimpsed it once more, still climbing steadily toward the Rimmer peaks, leaving him swirling in a backwash of confusion and disturbed air.

Vubben

AFTER A TIME, VUBBEN FINALLY SUCCEEDED IN quelling his busy thoughts, allowing the tywush resonance to pervade his soul, washing away distractions and doubts. Another midura passed, and another prayer circuit, while his meditation deepened. After Loocen set, a vast skyscape of constellations and nebulae passed overhead. Twinkling abode of the gods.

As he rounded back to the west side, another kind of winking light caught one of Vubben’s eyes — a syncopated flash unlike any gleaming star. Still wrapped in his trance, Vubben had to labor just to lift a second stalk and recognize the flicker as coded speech.

It took more effort, and yet a third eye, to decipher it.

JOPHUR SMALLSHIP/DEATHSHIP IN MOTION, flashed the lantern on Mount Ingul. HEADING TOWARD EGG.

The message repeated. Vubben even glimpsed a distant sparkle, echoing the words on a farther peak, and realized that other semaphore stations must be relaying the message. Still, his brain was tuned to another plane, preventing him from quite grasping its significance.

Instead, he went back to the sensory phantasm that had been drawing him inward — an impression of being perched atop a swaying ribbon, one that slowly yawed and pitched like some undulating sea.

It was not an unpleasant feeling. Rather, he felt almost like a youngster again, growing up in Dooden Mesa, zooming recklessly along a swaying suspension bridge, feeling its planks rattle beneath his rims, swooping and banking without a safety rail while lethal drops gaped on both sides. His taut spokes hummed as he sped like a bullet, with all four eyestalks stretched wide for maximum parallax.

The moment came back to him whole — not as a distant, fond memory, but in all its splendor. It was the closest thing to paradise he had ever experienced on Jijo’s rough orb.

Amid the exhilaration, part of Vubben knew he must have crossed some boundary. He was with the Egg now, sensing the approach of a massive object from the west. A deadly thing, complacent and terrible, cruising at a leisurely pace uphill from the Glade.

Leisurely — according to those aboard, that is.

Somehow, Vubben could sense gravitic fields pressing down, tearing leaves from trees, scraping and penetrating Jijo’s soil, disturbing ancient rocks. He even knew intuitive things about the crew within — multiringed entities, far more self-assured and unified than traeki.

Strange rings. Egotistical and driven.

Determined to wreak havoc.

Blade

THE BALLOON’S ALTIMETER MUST BE MALFUNCTIONING, he realized. Or else the fuel tank was running low. Either way, the automatic adjustments were growing more sporadic. Unnerving sputtering sounds accompanied each burst of heat, and the pulses came less frequently.

Finally, they halted altogether.

The lake had vanished behind him during those frantic duras when the spaceship’s wake dragged the balloon behind it, past the ruined Glade into a narrow pass, toward the Rimmer heights. Also gone was Blade’s last chance to pull the rip cord and land in deep water. Instead, trees spired around him, like teeth of a comb you used to pluck fleas from your pet lornik.

And I am the flea.

Assuming he survived when a forest giant snatched him from the sky, someone might hear his cries and come. But then, what will they think when they find a qheuen in a tree?

The phrase was a popular metaphor for unlikeliness — a contradiction in terms — like a swimming urs, or a modest human, or an egotistical traeki.

This appears to be the year for contradictions.

A branch top brushed one of his claw tips. Blade yanked back so reflexively that his whole body spun around. All five legs were kept drawn in after that. Still, he expected another impact at any moment.

Instead, the forest abruptly ended. Blade had an impression of craggy cliffs, and a sulfurous odor stroked his tongue. Then came a sensation of upward motion!

And heat. His mouth feelers curled in reaction to a blast from below.

Of course, he realized. Go east from the Glade for a few leagues, and you’re in geyser country.

The balloon soared, its drooping canopy now buoyed by a warm updraft.

The Jophur ship must have dragged me into a particular canyon. The Pilgrimage Track.

The path leading to the Egg.

Blade’s body kept spinning, even as the gasbag climbed. To other beings, it might have been disconcerting, but qheuens had no preferred orientation. It never mattered which way he was “facing.” So Blade was ready when the object he sought came into view.

There it is!

The corvette lay dead ahead. It had stopped motionless and was now shining a searchlight downward, circling a site that Blade realized could only be the Nest.

What is it planning to do?

He recalled Ovoom Town, where the aliens chose to attack at night for maximum terror and visual effect. Could that be the intent, once again?

But surely the Jophur would not harm the Egg!

Blade had never shown the slightest psi-ability. Yet it seemed that feelings now crept inward from his extremities to the flexing lymph pump at his body center. Expectation came first. Then something akin to intrigued curiosity.

Finally, in rapid succession, he felt recognition, realization, and a culminating sense of disappointed ennui. All these impressions swept over him in a matter of moments, and he somehow knew they weren’t coming from the Jophur.

Indeed, whatever had just happened — a psi-insult or failed communication — it seemed to anger those aboard the cruiser, goading them to action. The searchlight narrowed from a diffuse beam to a needle of horrific brilliance that stabbed down viciously. It took duras for sound to follow … a staccato series of crackling booms. Blade could not see the obscured target, but glowing smoke billowed from the point of impact.

A shrill, involuntary whistle escaped Blade’s vents and his legs tightened spasmodically. Yet there was no impression of pain, or even surprise. It will take more than that, he thought proudly. A lot more.

Of course, the Jophur could dish out whatever it took to turn the defenseless Egg into a molten puddle. Their intent was now clear. This act, more even than the slaying at Ovoom Town, would tear the morale of the Six.

Blade urged his windblown vehicle onward, hoping to arrive in time.

Lark

THREE HUMANS IN A PRISON CELL WATCHED A PANorama of destruction, reacting in quite different ways.

Lark stared at the holoscene with the same superstitious thrill he felt months ago, encountering Galactic tech for the first time. The images seemed to demand habits, ways of seeing, learned at an early age. Things he should recognize — the Rimmer mountains, for instance — possessed a slippery quality. Odd perspective foldings conveyed far more than you’d see through a window the same size … especially when the scene hovered over the Holy Egg.

“Your obstinacy — joint and particular — brought your people to this juncture,” the tall stack of rings said.

“Destroying mere towns did not sway you, since your so-called Sacred Scrolls preach the futility of tangible assets.

“But now, observe as our corvette strikes a blow at your true underpinnings.”

A glaring needle struck the Egg. Almost at once, waves of pain engulfed Lark’s chest. Falling back with a cry, he tore at his clothes, trying to fling away the stone amulet hanging from a thong around his neck. Ling tried to help, but could not grasp the meaning of his agony.

The ordeal might have killed him, but then it ended as suddenly as it began. The cutting ray vanished, leaving a smoking scar along the Egg’s flank.

Ewasx burbled glad exhalations about “a signal” and “gratifying surrender.”

Lark bunched the fabric of his undershirt around the Egg fragment, wrapping it to prevent contact with his skin. Only then did he notice that Ling had his head on her lap, stroking his face, telling him that everything was going to be all right.

Yeah, sure it is, Lark thought, recognizing a well-meant lie. But the gesture, the warm contact, was appreciated.

As his eyes unblurred, Lark saw Rann looking his way. The big Danik had cool disdain in his eyes. Scorn that Lark would react so to the superficial wounding of rock. Contempt that Ling would soil her hands on a native. And derision that the Six Races would give in so easily, surrendering to the Jophur in order to salvage a mere lump of psi-active stone. Rann had already proved willing to sacrifice himself and all his comrades, to protect his patron race. Clearly, he thought any lesser courage unworthy.

Go kiss a Rothen’s feet, Lark thought. But he did not speak aloud.

The corvette had turned away from the Egg. Its transmission now showed the camera gaining altitude, sweeping above dark ridgelines.

The country was familiar. Lark ought to recognize it.

Lester Cambel … They’re heading straight toward Lester … and the boo forest.…

So. The sages had chosen to give up whatever mystery project kept them so busy at their secret base — the work of months — just in order to safeguard the Egg.

It shouldn’t be surprising. It is our holy site, after all. Our prophet. Our seer.

And yet, he was surprised.

In fact, it was the last, thing he would have expected.

Blade

SILENTLY, BLADE URGED HIS WINDBLOWN VEHICLE onward, hoping to arrive in time.…

To do what? To distract the Jophur for a few duras

while they burned him to a cinder, giving the Egg just that much respite before the main assault resumed? Or worse, to float on by, screaming and waving his legs, trying futilely to attract attention from beings who thought him no more important than a cloud?

Frustration boiled. Combat hormones triggered autonomic reactions, causing his cupola to pull inward, taking the vision strip down beneath his carapace, leaving just a smooth, armored surface above.

That instinct response might have made sense long ago, when presentient qheuens fought their battles claw to claw in seaside marshes, on the distant planet where their patrons later found and uplifted them. But now it was a damned nuisance. Blade struggled for calm, schooling his breathing to follow a steady rhythm, sequentially clockwise from leg to leg, instead of random stuttering gasps. It took a count of twenty before the cupola relaxed enough to rise and restore sight.

His vision strip whirled, taking in the dim canyons that made a maze of this part of the Rimmers. At once, he realized two things.

The balloon had climbed considerably in that brief time, widening his field of view.

And the Jophur ship was gone!

But … where …?

Blade wondered if it might be right below, in his blind spot. That provoked a surging fantasy. He saw himself slashing the balloon and dropping onto the cruiser from above! Landing with a thump, he would scoot along the top until he reached some point of entry. A hatch that could be forced, or a glass window to smash. Once aboard, in close quarters, he’d show them.…

Oh, there it is.

The heroic dream image evaporated like dew when he spied the corvette, diminishing rapidly, heading roughly northwest.

Could it have already finished off the Egg?

Scanning nearer at hand, he spied the great ovoid at last, some distance in the opposite direction. It lay in full view now, a savage burn scarring one flank. The stone glowed along that jagged, half-molten line, casting ocher light across jumbled debris lining the bottom of the Nest. Still, the Egg looked relatively intact.

Why did they leave before finishing the job?

He tracked the corvette by its glimmer of reflected starlight.

Northwest. It’s heading northwest.

Blade tried to think.

That’s where home is. Dolo Village. Tarek Town.

And Biblos, he then realized, hoping he was wrong.

Things might have just gone from bad to worse.

Ewasx

THE THREAT WORKED, MY RINGS! Now our expertise is proven. Our/My worth is vindicated before the CaptainLeader and our fellow crew stacks. As I/we predicted, just as our bomber began slicing at their holy psychic rock, a signal came!

It was the same digital radiance they used last time, to reveal the g’Kek city. Thus, the savages attempt once more to placate us. They will do anything to protect their stone deity.

OBSERVE THE HUMAN CAPTIVES, MY RINGS! ONE OF them — the local male whom we/Asx once knew as Lark Koolhan — quailed and moaned to see the “Egg” under attack, while the other two seemed unaffected. Thus, a controlled experiment showed that I/we were right about the primitives and their religion.

Now the female comforts Lark as our cruiser speeds away from the damaged Egg, toward the signal-emanation point.

What will they offer us, this time? Something as satisfying as the g’Kek town, now frozen with immured samples of hated vermin?

The chief-tactician stack calculates that the sooners will not sacrifice the thing we desire most — the dolphin ship. Not yet. First they will try buying us off with lesser things. Perhaps their fabled archive — a pathetic trove of primitive lore, crudely scribed on plant leaves or some barklike substance. A paltry cache of lies and superstitions that simpletons dare call a library.

You tremor in surprise, O second ring-of-cognition? You did not expect Me to learn of this other thing treasured by the Six Races?

Well be assured, Asx did a thorough job of melting that particular memory. The information did not come from this reforged stack.

Did you honestly believe that our Ewasx stack was the only effort at intelligence gathering ordained by the CaptainLeader? There have been other captives, other interrogations.

It took too long to learn about this pustule of contraband Earthling knowledge — this Biblos—and the exact location remained uncertain. But now we/I speculate. Perhaps Biblos is the thing they hope to bribe us with, exchanging their archive for the “life” of their Holy Egg.

If that is their intent, they will learn.

We will burn the books, but that won’t suffice.

NOTHING WILL SUFFICE.

In the long run, not even the dolphin ship will do. Though it will make a good start.

Blade

NORTHWEST, WHAT TARGET MIGHT ATTRACT THE aliens’ attention that way?

Nearly everything I know or care about, Blade concluded. Dolo Village, Tarek Town, and Biblos.

As pale Torgen rose behind the Rimmer peaks, he watched the slim ship glide on, knowing he would lose sight of it long before the raider arrived at any of those destinations. Blade no longer cared where the contrary winds blew him, so long as he did not have to watch destruction rain down on the places he loved.

A chain of tiny, flickering lights followed the cruiser as scouts stationed on mountain peaks passed reports of its progress. He deciphered a few snatches of GalTwo, and saw they weren’t words, but numbers.

Wonderful. We are good at describing and measuring our downfall.

With combat hormones ebbing, Blade grew more aware of physical discomfort. Nerves throbbed where one of the urrish hooks had ripped away skin plates, exposing fleshy integuments to cold air. Thirst gnawed at him, making Blade wish he were a hardy gray.

The balloon passed beyond the warm updraft and stopped climbing. Soon the descent would resume, sending him spinning toward a landscape of jagged shadows.

Wait a dura.

Blade tried to focus his vision strip, peering at the distant Jophur vessel.

Has it stopped?

Soon he knew it had. The ship was hovering again, casting its search beam to scan the ground below.

Was I wrong? The next target may not be Biblos or Tarek, after all.

But … there’s nothing here! These hills are wilderness. Just a useless tract of boo—

He was staring in perplexity when something happened to the mountain below the floating ship. Reddish flickers erupted, like marsh gas lit by static charges, at the swampy border of a lake. Sparklike ripples seemed to spread amid the dense stands of towering boo.

What are the Jophur doing now? he wondered. What weapon are they using?

The flickers brightened, flaring beneath scores of giant greatboo stems. The ship’s searchlight still roamed, as if bemused to find slender tubes of native vegetation emitting fire from their bottoms … then starting to rise.

The first thunder reached Blade as he realized.

It’s not the Jophur at all! It’s—

The corvette finally showed alarm, starting to back away. Its beam narrowed to a slicing needle, sweeping through one rising column.

An instant later, the entire northwest was alight. Volley after volley of blazing tubes jetted skyward in a roar that shook the night.

Rockets, Blade thought. Those are rockets!

The vast majority missed their apparent target. But accuracy seemed of no concern, so dense was the missile swarm. The retreating corvette could not blast them fast enough before three in a row made glancing blows.

Then a fourth projectile struck head-on. The warhead failed, but sheer momentum crumpled one section of starship hull, tossing it spinning.

Other warheads kept going off ahead of schedule, or tumbling to explode on the ground, filling the night with brilliant, fruitless incandescence. So great was the wastage that it looked as if the Jophur ship might actually limp away.

Then a late-rising rocket took off. It turned, and with apparent deliberation, drove itself straight through the groaning corvette.

A dazzling explosion ripped its belly open, cleaving the skyship apart. Blade had to spin a different part of his half-blinded visor around to witness the two halves plummet, like twin cups filled with fire, to the forest floor.

More dross to clean up, Blade observed, as fires spread across several mountainsides. But his body was content to live in the moment, shrieking celebration whistles from all his breathing vents, competing with the gaudy fireworks to shout at the stars.

With qheuen vision, he could witness the corvette’s destruction while also following as most of the missiles continued their flight — those that did not veer off course, or explode on their own. Dozens still thrust noisily into the upper sky, spouting red, flickering tails.

Blade screamed even louder when they finished their brief arc and turned back toward Jijo, plummeting like hail toward Festival Glade.

Lester Cambel

THE FOREST ERUPTED IN FLAME AROUND LESTER. Failed missiles crashed back amid the secret launching sites, setting off explosions of withering heat and igniting tall columns of boo. South, a searing glow told where the shattered spaceship fell. Still, Lester held fast to the clearing where he and a g’Kek assistant had come to watch the flickering sky.

An urrish corporal galloped to report. “Fires surround us. Sage, you must flee!”

But Lester stayed rooted, peering at the fuming heavens. His voice was choked and dry.

“I can’t see! Did any make it to burnout? Are they on their way?”

The young g’Kek answered, all four eyes waving upward.

“Many flew true, O sage,” she answered. “Several score are airborne. Your design was valid. Now there’s nothing more to do. It’s time to go.”

Reluctantly, Lester let himself be pulled away from the clearing, into the planned escape route through the boo.

Only they soon found the way blocked by fierce tongues of fire. Lester and his companions had to retreat, back past sheltered work camps whose blur-cloth canopies were ablaze, where vats of traeki paste exploded one after another … along with some of the traeki themselves. Other figures could be seen fleeing through the clots of smoke as all the labor of months, spent creating a hidden center of industry, was consumed in a roiling maelstrom.

“There is no way out,” the urs sighed.

“Then save yourself. I command it!”

Lester pushed her resisting flank, repeating the order until the corporal let out a moan and plunged toward a place where the flames seemed least intense. An urs just might survive the passage. Lester knew better than to try.

Alone with his young assistant, he huddled in the center of the clearing, holding one of her trembling wheels.

“It’s all right,” he told her, between hacking coughs. “We did what we set out to do.

“All things come to an end.

“Now it all lies with Ifni.”

Lark

THE EARLIER HOLOSCENES HAD BEEN CONFUSING, but these new images left Lark stunned, breathless, confused. He had no way to grasp the blazing spectacle … mighty tubes of boo, their bottoms explosing in flame … scores of them, jetting upward like a swarm of angry fire bees.

The distant camera veered as the corvette struggled to evade a volley of makeshift rockets. The view lurched so suddenly, Lark’s stomach reeled and he had to look away.

The others seemed just as amazed. Ling laughed aloud, clapping both hands, while Rann’s face mixed astonishment with dismay. Then what’s happening must be good. Lark allowed a spark of hope to rise within.

Ewasx, the Jophur, vented gurgling sounds, along with snatches of Galactic Two.

“Outrageous … treacherous … unexpected … unforeseen!”

Tremors shook its composite body, quivering from the peak down to its basal segment. Most of the elderly, waxy toroids were familiar to Lark. Once, they composed a friend, a sage, wise and good. But a newcomer had taken over — a glistening young collar, black and featureless, without appendages or sensory organs.

Both Ling and Rann cried out. But when Lark turned around, the holoscene was all white — a blank slate.

“The corvette,” Ling explained, her voice awed. “It’s been destroyed!”

A shrill sigh escaped the Jophur. The tremors turned into convulsions.

Ewasx is having some kind of fit, Lark thought. Should I attack now? Strike the master ring with all my might?

Ling was babbling excitedly about “the other rockets—” But Lark had decided, striding toward the shuddering Jophur. His sole weapons were his hands, but so what?

Lester, you pulled off a fantastic wolfling trick. Asx would have been proud of you.

Just as old Asx would have wanted me to do this.

He brought back a fist, aimed at the shivering master ring.

Someone seized his arm, holding it back in a fierce grip. Lark swiveled, cocking his other fist at Rann. But the bull-headed Danik only shook his head.

“What will it prove? You’d just make them angry, native boy. We remain trapped here, at their mercy.”

“Get out of my way,” Lark growled. “I’m gonna free my traeki friend.”

“Your friend is long gone. If you kill a master ring, the whole stack dissolves! I know this, young savage. I’ve put it in practice.”

Lark was angry enough to turn his attack on the burly Danik. Sensing it, Rann released Lark and stepped back, raising both hands in a combatant’s stance.

Yeah, Lark thought, dropping to a crouch. You’re a star-god soldier. But maybe a savage knows some tricks you don’t.

“Stop it, you two!” Ling shouted. “We’ve got to get ready—”

She cut off as a chain of low vibrations throbbed the metal floor — mighty forces at work, growling elsewhere in the vast ship.

“Defensive cannon,” Rann identified the din. “But what could they be firing—?”

“The rockets!” Ling replied. “I told you, they’re coming this way!”

Realization dawned on Rann, that sooners might actually threaten a starship. He cursed, diving for a corner of the cell.

Lark allowed Ling to lead him as the battleship shivered, its weapons firing frantically. A mutter of distant detonations crept closer as they held each other. The moment had a heady vividness, a hormonal rush, mixing the pleasure of Ling’s touch with sharp awareness of onrushing death.

Yet Lark found himself hoping, praying, that the next few moments would end his life.

Come on. You can do it, Lester. Finish the job!

The fragment of the Egg lay against his chest, where its last outburst had left seething weals. He clutched the stone amulet with his free hand, expecting throbbing heat. Instead, Lark felt an icy cold. A brittleness that breath would shatter.