Heaven's Reach (42 page)

“What about Kaa?” asked Ur-ronn, waving her sleek, long head, speaking with a strong urrish lisp. “It will ve hard to disguise a vig dolphin. Shall we carry hin in our luggage?”

Ignoring urrish sarcasm, Dr. Baskin shook her head.

“Kaa won't be accompanying you all the way to Tanith. He'd be too conspicuous. Besides, I made him a promise, and it's time to keep it.”

I was about to inquire about that … to ask what promise she meant … when Lieutenant Tsh't entered the Plotting Room to say that she'd finished loading the boat with supplies for our journey.

My pet noor, Huphu, rode my shoulder. But her sapient relative, the secretive tytlal named Mudfoot, licked himself on a nearby conference table, resembling that Earth creature, an otter, but with white bristles on his neck and an expression of disdainful boredom.

“Well?” Gillian asked the creature, though he'd refused to speak since we left Jijo. “Do you want to go see the Tymbrimi, and report to them about matters on Jijo? Or will you come with us, beyond anything our order of life normally gets to see?”

When she put it that way, I think Gillian expected one answer from the -curious tytlal. But it didn't surprise me that she got the other.

A tytlal will bite off its own tail for a joke.

I guess I ought to update how we got to this point—hurrying to pack a small boat and send it off toward a place where
Streaker
had expected to be going.

The reason is that Gillian seems to have gotten a better offer.

Or at least one she can't refuse.

How did we get to this parting of the ways?

Where I last left off,
Streaker
was swooping along the complex innards of a transfer point, just a couple of dozen arrowflights ahead of a Jophur battleship that clung to us the way a prairie-hopper holds on to its last pup. It seemed there'd only be one way to shake our enemy, and that was to head straight for one of the huge headquarters worlds of the Great Institutes, where there'd be lots of traffic and other warships around. If everything worked just right, an Institute armistice might be issued in the nick of time, and protect us before a free-for-all firestorm blasted
Streaker
to kingdom come.

All right, it was a flaky plan, for sure, but the best one anybody thought of. And it beat letting the Jophur capture
Streaker
's secrets to use against all other clans in the Five Galaxies.

So there we were, darting along a t-point thread, dodging refugee traffic from hundreds of broken fractal worlds that were falling apart all over Galaxy Four.…

Don't ask me how or why
that
happened, because it's way beyond me. But at least one of us Jijoans had a clue to what was going on. Sage Sara seemed to grasp the meaning when a number of those giant spaceships changed their shape right before our eyes, as well as the symbols on their bows.

As I understand it, some of the refugees were looking for new retirement homes, to resume their quiet lives of contemplation. (Though it seems vacancies were hard to find.)

Others decided to abandon that comfortable existence and head back to rejoin their old oxy-life cousins during the present time of crisis. Dr. Baskin thought we'd slip in among this mob, flooding through the crowded transfer point on their way to populated zones of the Five Galaxies.

There was a third option, being chosen by a smaller
minority—those who thought themselves ready to climb the next rung on the ladder of sapiency, rising out of the Retired Order to a much higher state. But we didn't think that group could possibly concern us.

Boy, were we wrong!

So there we were, diving into the heart of the t-point—a looping, knotlike structure Kaa called a
transgalactic nexus
—that would send us out of old Galaxy Four altogether … when it happened.

Alarms blared. We swerved around another loop-de-loop, and there it was.

At first, I saw just a floating cloud of light, shapeless, without a hint of structure. But as we drew near, this changed. I got an impression of a tremendous
creature
with countless writhing arms! These appendages were reaching down to the converging transfer threads and
plucking starships off like berries from a vine
!

“Uh … is that normal?” Huck asked … unnecessarily, since we could see the looks on the faces of our Earthling friends. They'd never seen anything like it before.

Pincer-Tip stammered in awe.

“Is it a go-go-go-god?”

No one answered, not even the sarcastic Niss Machine. We were heading right for the giant thing, and there wasn't any possible route to jump away from it in time. All we could do was stare, and count the passing duras, plunging toward the brilliance till our turn came.

Light flooded the sky. A tremendous arm of light came down upon us … and suddenly things began moving v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.

Queasy sensations flowed outward from my gut while my skin felt a strange kind of spreading numbness. As
Streaker
was lifted bodily off the transfer thread, her roaring engines muted to an idle whisper. All view screens filled with whiteness, a glow that did not seem to carry any heat. Paralyzed with fear, I wondered if we were about to be consumed by some kind of hungry being, or a dispassionate natural phenomenon. Not that it made the slightest difference which.

The illumination was so perfect in its hue, and
resplendent texture, that I felt suddenly sure it could be nothing other than pure and distilled death.

How long the transition lasted, I have no idea. But eventually the brilliant haze diminished and all the visceral sensations ebbed.
Streaker
's engines remained damped, but time resumed its normal pace. At last we could see clearly again.

Sara was holding Emerson tightly, while the little chimp, Prity, hugged them both. Ur-ronn was huddled next to Huck and Pincer, while Huphu and Mudfoot clung with eight sets of claws to my tingling shoulders.

We all looked around, amazed to be able to do so.

The screens flickered back on, showing that we were still inside the tangled, twisted guts of the t-point … only we weren't in contact with a thread anymore! There seemed to be a fair-sized bubble of true space surrounding
Streaker.

And not only
Streaker.
On all sides of us, arrayed in long neat rows, were ranks of other starships! Most of them much larger. All apparently waiting in still silence for something to happen.

Belatedly, the Niss hologram finally popped back into existence among us. Its mesh of fine lines looked tense, anxious.

“I see just one common feature among all these vessels,”
it said.
“Every one of them bears the Sign of Unity. The symbol consisting of two line segments, joining at one hundred and four degrees. The Emblem of Transcendence.”

Now, looking at the white glow, we could tell that it was somehow
sorting
through the vessels that it plucked up from the travel threads. Some—a majority—were conveyed around its shimmering globe and set back on their way. These vanished swiftly, as if eager to make good their escape to other galaxies.

But every hundredth or so vessel was pulled aside. The white glow seemed to examine each of these closely, then brought most of them over to join our phalanx of selected …

Selected what? Prisoners? Samples? Candidates? Hors d'oeuvres?

To our relief, that last notion was disproved when we saw a nearby starship abruptly pulse with soft fire, undergoing a reversal of its earlier transformation. In moments, the two-legged symbol had changed back into a nest of concentric circles. At once that vessel began slipping out of formation, wobbling as it jetted toward the flow of departing refugees.

“Chickening out,” diagnosed Huck, as always charitable in her evaluation of others. The same thing happened several more times, as we watched. But the white glow kept adding new members to our ranks.

Emerson d'Anite began fiddling with the long-range display, and soon grunted, pointing to his discovery—that our bubble of local spacetime wasn't the only one! There were at least a dozen other assembly areas, and perhaps a lot more. Some of them contained spiky, fractal-shaped spacecraft, like those nearby. Others seemed filled with blobby yellow shapes, vaguely spherical, that sometimes merged or separated like balls of grease.

“Zang,”
identified Emerson, clearly proud to be able to name the lumpy objects aloud, as if that single word helped clarify our confusion.

“Um …,” Sage Sara asked. “Does anyone have any idea what we're doing here? Have I missed something? Have we just been mistaken as members of the
transcendent order of life
?”

Lieutenant Tsh't tossed her great, bottle-nosed head.

“That-t would be q-quite a promotion,” she commented, sardonically.

“Indeed,”
added the Niss.
“Most oxygen-breathing species strive for many hundreds of thousands of years
—
engaging in commerce, Uplift, warcraft, and starfaring—before at last they feel the call, seeking a tame star near which to wallow in the Embrace of Tides. Having joined the Retired Order, a species then may pass another million years until they feel ready for the next step.”

Ur-ronn made a suggestion.

“Should we consult the Livrary Vranch you have avoard this shif?”

The whirling Niss shivered.

“The Galactic Library does not contain much information about the Retired Order, since our elders often say that such matters are none of our business.

“As for what happens beyond retirement … well, now we are talking about realms of religion. Most of the great cults of the Five Galaxies have to do with this issue
—
what it means for a race to transcend. Many believe the Progenitors were first to pass this way, bidding all others to follow when they can. But
—”

“But that doesn't answer Sara's question,” finished Gillian Baskin. “Why have
we
been plucked out to join this assembly? I wonder if—”

She stopped, noticing that the mute former engineer, Emerson d'Anite, was gesturing for attention again. He kept tapping his own nose, then alternately pointing forward, toward the window separating the Plotting Room from
Streaker
's bridge. For a few moments, everyone seemed perplexed. Then Tsh't made a squeal of realization.

“The nose of the sh-ship! Remember how a faction of Old Ones and machines reworked our hull, giving us our strange new armor? What if they also changed the WOM watcher on our bow? None of us has had a good look since it happened. Maybe the symbol is not a rayed ssssspiral anymore! Maybe it'ssss …”

She didn't finish. We all got her drift. Perhaps
Streaker
now wore an emblem identifying its inhabitants as something we're definitely not.

Others seemed to find this plausible … though no one could imagine why our benefactors would want to do such a thing. Or what the consequences might be, when we're found out.

Toward the front of the crowd, I watched Gillian Baskin's face and realized she wasn't buying that theory. The woman obviously had another idea in mind. Perhaps a different explanation of why we were here.

I was probably the only one close enough to overhear the one word she spoke then, under her breath, in a tone I took to be resigned sadness.

I'm writing the word down now, even though I have no idea what it means.

Here was all she said.

“Herbie …”

So, that's how we wound up parting company.

It looks as if
Streaker
may have found sanctuary after all … of a sort. At least the Jophur battleship is no longer in sight, though who knows if it might show up again. Anyway, Dr. Baskin has decided not to fight this turn of destiny's wheel, but instead to ride it for a while and see where it may lead.

But we Wuphonites won't be going along. We're to climb aboard an old Thennanin star boat—which still has the rayed spiral symbol on its prow—and have Kaa pilot us to safety in Galaxy Two. It'll be hard, especially having to latch on to a rapid transfer thread from standstill in this weird space bubble. And that will be just the beginning of our difficulties as we try to find a backwater port where no one would much notice us slipping into the Civilization of Five Galaxies.

Once there, if Ifni's dice roll right, we'll endeavor to act as Gillian's messengers, deliver her vital information, and then maybe see about finding something to do with the rest of our lives.

Like Huck, I have mixed feelings about all this. But what else can we do, except try?

Tsh't has finished loading all our supplies in the hold. Kaa is in the dolphin-shaped pilot's saddle, thrashing his flukes and eager to be off. We've all received hugs and good-luck wishes from those we're leaving behind.

“Make Jijo proud,” Sage Sara told us. I wish she was coming along, so we'd have her wisdom, and so our group would have a representative from all Six Races of the Slope. But if anyone from our little hidden world ought to go see what
transcendent creatures
are like, and have a chance of understanding, it's her. Things are the way they are, I guess.

Tyug, the traeki alchemist, is venting sweet steam. The aroma soothes our fears and qualms at parting. I
guess if a traeki can be serene about entering a universe filled with Jophur, I should be open-minded about meeting long-lost cousin hoons—distant relatives who've spent all their lives with the power and comforts of star gods, but who've never read Conrad, Ellison, or Twain. Poor things.

“We need to name this thing,” Pincer-Tip insists, banging the metal floor of the boat with his claw.

Ur-ronn nods her sleek urrish head.

“Of course, there can ve only one that fits.”

I agree with a low umble. So we turn to Huck, whose eyestalks shrug, conveying some of the unaccustomed burden of responsibility she now carries.