Clarke, Arthur C - Fall of Night 02 (49 page)

 
          
 
Alvin seemed to shake off the torpor which had
possessed him. He stretched his arm experimentally and joints popped in his
wrist and fingers. For a moment he reminded Cley of a teenager testing his
newfound strength. Then he crisply glanced at Seeker and said, "So."

 
          
 
"So what?"
Cley countered. She felt at the edges of perception a darting conversation.

 
          
 
Alvin shook his head and said to Seeker,
"You promised you would help keep her safe."

 
          
 
Seeker yawned. "I did."

 
          
 
"But you did not have permission to take
her away from us.
And certainly not to escape into
space."

 
          
 
Cley had expected anger from Alvin, not this
air of precise displeasure. She was not surprised that Seeker had struck some
kind of deal with them back on Earth, though. Seeker enjoyed wriggling through
the interstices of language.

 
          
 
Seeker said, "I did not need
permission."

 
          
 
"I should think—"

 
          
 
"After all, who could give it?"
Seeker asked lazily.

 
          
 
"She is of our kind. That gives us
rights—"

 
          
 
"You are Homo Technologicus. She is
Ur-human, several species removed from you."

 
          
 
Alvin pursed his lips. "Still, we are
more nearly related than you."

 
          
 
"Are you so sure?" Seeker grinned
owlishly. "I span the genetic heritage of many earlier forms."

 
          
 
"I am quite confident that if I read your
helix I could easily find many more differences—"

 
          
 
"Listen, you two," Cley broke in.
"/ wanted to get away from that Library. So I left. Seeker was just along
for company."

 
          
 
Alvin looked at her for a long moment and then
said calmly, "At least you are safe and have made the journey to where we
need you."

 
          
 
"You intended to bring me here
yourself?" Cley asked.

 
          
 
"Yes, in a ship."

 
          
 
Cley's temper flared despite her efi^orts to
maintain the easy calm of a Supra. "What? I could have zipped out here in
a ship?"

 
          
 
"Well, yes." Alvin seemed surprised
at her question.

 
          
 
She whirled to confront Seeker. "You made
me go through all this?"

 
          
 
Seeker worked its mouth awkwardly. "I
perceived that as the correct course."

 
          
 
"It was damned dangerous. And you didn't
even consult me!"

 
          
 
"You did not know enough to judge,"
Seeker said uncertainly.

 
          
 
"I'll decide that!"

 
          
 
Seeker backed away. "Perhaps I
erred."

 
          
 
''Perhaps?
You—"

 
          
 
"Do not be hasty," Alvin said
mildly. "This animal is clever, and in this case it showed foresight. It
was lucky for you that I did not convey you outward by our planned route. We
thought it intact. Yet several craft carrying needed Ur-human passengers were
destroyed after leaving
Earth,
and you could well have
been among them."

 
          
 
"What?" Cley's flare of anger guttered
out.
"My people?"
Cley was so excited she
lost her grip on a vine and had to catch herself.

 
          
 
"Not exactly.
We
grew them from your helix."

 
          
 
"You mean they're—they're me?""

 
          
 
"Some, yes. Others we varied slightly, to
get the proper mix of abilities."

 
          
 
Cley had feared the Supras would do this.
Would such cooked-up

 
          
 
Ur-humans
be
zombies,
shorn of culture, mockeries of her kind? Such disquiets had propelled her to
escape.

 
          
 
"I ... I want to see them."

 
          
 
"You can when all this is over."

 
          
 
"No! I have a right to be with my own
kind."

 
          
 
"Are you not content with our
company?" Alvin gestured and Cley saw that while she was so intent a group
of Supras had quietly infiltrated the bowers around them. Seranis stood nearby,
one eyebrow cocked, studying the leafy cascades with evident distaste. Her
clothes had been torn and blackened—in the same engagement as Alvin? Already
the rips were healing. Smudges dissolved, digested by the glossy fibers.

 
          
 
Cley sighed. "I'm out of my depth with
you Supras. You aren't human."

 
          
 
We are more than human, in your manner of
speaking, Seranis sent.

 
          
 
"If you have any sense of justice, you'll
let me see my people."

 
          
 
Justice will come in time, Seranis sent with a
tinge of blithe unconcern.

 
          
 
Cley looked at Seeker but it seemed to be
absorbed in picking mites from its pelt. "How long will that be?" she
asked.

 
          
 
"Our struggle has already begun,"
Alvin said. "It is best that you stay with us for the time being."

 
          
 
Cley blinked.
"The
fight's already going on?"

 
          
 
"In a sense it has been going on for long
before your own birth," Alvin said, cooly gentle.

 
          
 
Cley saw the chinks in his armor now, though—a
tilt of his solemn mouth, a refractory glint to his eyes.
"Where?"

 
          
 
"The final engagement has begun on the
outer rim of the solar system. It now converges here, where the strength of the
Jovian magnetic fields can shelter us somewhat, and our reserves are
greatest."

 
          
 
Cley suddenly felt strongly the skittering,
frayed skein of talent-talk that flitted among the Supras from Lys. Time had
enlarged her ability, for she could now trace faint threads of flittering
ideas, currents and implications that came and went in gossamer instants.

 
          
 
"What can I do in all this? I—"

 
          
 
As if years of preparation had focused on a
single point in time, an answer leaped through her mind. Seranis was the
channel for this, Cley felt, but she had a sense of an assembly of voices
behind the massive intrusion. A wedge of thought drove itself through her. They
were telling her much, but it was like trying to take a drink from a firehose.

 
          
 
"I ... I don't understand . . ."

 
          
 
"It will take a while to unsort itself in
your mind, I'm told," Alvin said.

 
          
 
"So much . . . What is the Black
Sun?"

 
          
 
"An ancient term
. '
Black
Hole' is a better one." Alvin carefully chose his words, obviously talking
down to her. "Our legends held that the Mad Mind was imprisoned at the
edge of the galaxy, when in fact the Black Hole sits at the center."

 
          
 
"Pretty big
error."

 
          
 
"A flaw in notation, apparently."
His earnest precision reminded her that his first love had been Diaspar's
library. "History was correct about the Mind's devastation, though. It
knows a way to eat the plasma veils which hang in the galactic arms, leaving
great rents where suns should glow. Legend held that the Mind and Vana-monde
would meet among the corpses of the stars, but we find now that the collision
must occur here, near Earth, where matters started and must finally end."

 
          
 
Cley shook her head, trying to clear it.
"I can't possibly amount to much in all this."

 
          
 
"So I would have said as well,
once."
Alvin
had settled on a branch and even in the low
spin-gravity the lines in his face sagged. "But you do matter. You
Ur-humans had a hand, along with more advanced human forms and alien races, in making
both magnetic entities."

 
          
 
"Us?
Impossible."

 
          
 
"I admit it seems extremely unlikely. Yet
the deep records of Diaspar are clear, if read closely."

 
          
 
"How could we make something like smart
lightning?"

 
          
 
"You may come to understand that in the
fray that approaches."

 
          
 
"Well, even if we helped make V^anamonde,
what's that matter now? I don't know anything about it."

 
          
 
Alvin
looked at Seeker, but the big creature
seemed unconcerned.

 
          
 
Cley got the feeling that all this was running
more or less as Seeker expected, and it was never one to trouble itself with
assisting the inevitable.

 
          
 
Alvin
spread his hands. "Deep in Vanamonde
lies a set of assumptions, of world view. They depend on the kinesthetic senses
of Ur-humans, upon your perceptual space."

 
          
 
"What's that?"

 
          
 
"What matters is that we cannot duplicate
such things."

 
          
 
"Come on," Cley said bitterly.
"I know I'm dumber than anyone here, but that doesn't mean you can—"

 
          
 
We do not delude you. Seranis gazed at Cley
somberly. The makeup of a being circumscribes its perceptions. That cannot be
duplicated artificially. We tried, yes — and failed.

 
          
 
Alvin
said, "We find communicating with
Vanamonde exceedingly difficult. We have struggled for centuries to no
avail."

 
          
 
"Why?" Cley asked. "I thought
you people could do anything."

 
          
 
We cannot transcend our world view, any more
than you can, Seranis sent.