Heaven's Reach (51 page)

There was good news, bad news … and tidings that were downright terrifying.

First came congratulations on surviving a hard voyage. The changed fur coloring—plus addition of a new body appendage—seemed relatively mild compared to the afflictions that some other observers came home with. He was given a generous personal compensation allowance, and the NavInst staff said nothing more about it.

As for the mission, Wer'Q'quinn could not be more pleased. Using the peculiar perspectives of E Space to gaze in at the sidereal universe, Harry's cameras had measured a progressive
stretching
of the underlying subvacuum. A process that was rapidly nearing rupture. Thanks to his bold mission, Wer'Q'quinn's local savants knew almost as much about this process as their august superiors, back at Quadrant HQ.

That was also the bad news.

Those superiors must have known for some time what was going on. Yet they had delayed declaring an emergency till the last moment. Even now they were downplaying public fears.

“Could it be a conspiracy?” Harry had asked Wer'Q'quinn, at one point.

The squidlike being thrashed several tentacles. “If so, Observer Harms, this conspiracy includes the topmost beings-in-authority of
all
major institutes, plus most elder races, as well. In fact, now that we have fresh facts, my staff has been able to coerce better infolink references from our Kazzkark branch of the Great Library, revealing something so remarkable that we are stunned nearly breathless from the news.”

Harry swallowed, hard. “What is it?”

“Apparently, this is not the first time events such as these have occurred! A lesser version of the same phenomena took place about one hundred and fifty million years ago, associated with the permanent or temporary disfunction of seventy percent of all transfer points! Then, too, society was racked by massive social disruptions
and genocidal wars. Galaxy Three, in particular, suffered terribly.”

“But … how could such things be hidden? The Library—isn't it supposed to be …”

Wer'Q'quinn waved the objection away, as if it were naive. “Few facts were suppressed, per se. Rather, the cover-up was executed more subtly, by emphasizing the significance of some events, and minimizing others out of all proportion.”

Harry felt glad of his fur, covering a blush of embarrassment. This was exactly what he had done, burying the truth about Dwer and Rety under mounds of detail.

“The chaos of that epoch has always been attributed to widespread interclan warfare, which turns out to have been a symptom, rather than the cause,” Wer'Q'quinn continued. “Anyway, people are accustomed to finding historical records murky, clouded by uncertainty, the farther back you go. That may be why a far more crucial event—the
Gronin Collapse
—gets so little attention.”

“The … what?”

“The Gronin Collapse. Forgive me, you are a wolfling, and your education is deficient. But most Galactic schoolchildren know that the Progenitors returned, in spirit form, approximately two hundred and thirty million years ago, to guide and protect oxy-life during one of its worst crises. Interstellar navigation became tortuous. Conflicts slashed populations. Only a small number of starfaring clans survived to begin renewing the Cycle of Uplift with a fresh generation.”

“I …” Harry frowned. “I think I heard of it. Weren't
machines
and
Zang
supposed to be responsible, somehow?”

“A superficial explanation that most accept without further probing. In truth however, the answer was something else. Something more grand … and far more frightening.”

Which brought Harry to the third, and most worrying, bit of news.

“Apparently, these recent convulsions are part of a
natural catastrophe
whose proportions have not been seen since the Gronin Collapse. And we will face far worse calamities during the duras and piduras to come.”

“H … how much worse?”

Wer'Q'quinn twisted several long, suckered tendrils around each other in a grasp strong enough to bend steel. The elderly sophont, normally as unshakable as a neutron star, seemed to shiver, as if it took strong will to utter the next words.

“It seems that our civilization may be about to lose a galaxy.”

Harry reached the anteroom still in a daze.

Wer'Q'quinn had indicated that he already had an assignment planned for Harry, whose promotion would take effect along with those new duties, starting tomorrow.

Something about a message, just recently broadcast from besieged Earth. A warning, aimed at all Institute outposts. Senior officials have squelched it, wherever possible, but rumors of its content are already spreading panic through several quadrants.

It all sounded fascinating. But right now Harry's exhaustion showed even to his normally oblivious boss. His head was in a muddle, and Wer'Q'quinn had ordered him home for some well-earned rest before starting anew.

Entering the richly paneled outer chamber, Harry stood for a long time, blinking, wondering what was missing.

Dwer and Rety
, he realized at last.

They were supposed to stay here, waiting for me.

He peered left and right.

They were gone!

Hurrying through the far portal, he stood on the topmost step of Navigation Institute headquarters, staring at the teeming crowds, wondering where the two humans
might have run off to. Humans never before exposed to the intricate dangers of Galactic culture, with no idea what hazards lurked out there among several hundred temperamental species … many of whom hated Earthlings on sight.

Sara

I
T ALL BOILED DOWN TO A MATTER OF LANGUAGE
.

You can only contemplate what your mind is able to describe
, she thought.

The system of organized Galactic dialects had helped oxy-races communicate with minimal misunderstanding for two billion years—a primly logical structure of semantics, syntax, grammar, and meaning. But now she figured it had a double purpose—to
obscure.
A sophisticated culture of technically advanced and deeply intelligent beings was channeled away from pondering certain topics. Certain possibilities.

This could be the real reason wolfling races wind up being annihilated
, she thought.
They may more readily look past the blind spots. See what mustn't be seen.

That cannot be allowed.

Through a crystal pane, Sara glanced at swarms of gigantic, needle-shaped habitats orbiting a dense relic star at furious speed. Lined up along the radial path followed by escaping rays of light, their inner points seemed almost to brush the intensely bright surface. Anyone living down there—perched deep within the white dwarf's steep gravitational well—would experience profound tidal forces, tugging and stretching every living cell.

Of course, that was the whole point of living here.

Unlike the Fractal World, mere hydrogen metal could not survive the glare or tortuous strain of this place. Hannes Suessi had tried to explain what kinds of field-reinforced
materials might withstand such forces, but Sara's mind only reeled at his cascade of obscure terms. The technology, far beyond her barbarian education, seemed altogether godlike.

Ah, but
math
 … that was another story. Even back home, with just pencil and paper as her only tools, she had learned all sorts of clever shortcuts to describe the countless ways that
space
might fold, flex, or tear—analytical methods that lay outside the normal Galactic tradition.

Now, with some of
Streaker
's onboard wizard machines to assist her, Sara found herself performing extravagant incantations. By word and gesture, she caused glorious charts and graphs to appear in midair. Tensors cleaved before her eyes. Tarski transforms and Takebayashi functions dealt handily with transfinite integrals at her merest whim, solving problems that no mere numerical processor could calculate by brute force alone.

Her little chimp assistant, Prity, helped by silently molding shapes with agile hands, fashioning outlines that became equations.

Equations portraying a cosmos under stress.

I wish Sage Purofsky could have seen this
, Sara thought.

It was as if both calculus and computers had been waiting to achieve their potential together. Joined now under her direction, they were already making her old teacher's dream come true, proving that the ancient concepts of Einstein and Lee had relevance, after all.

Perhaps experts on Earth had already accomplished the same thing, either openly or in secret. Still Sara felt as if she were exploring virgin territory. Those concepts cast light upon the future—revealing a calamity of untold magnitude.

Well, at least now we know—we weren't at fault for what happened to the Fractal World. Gillian will find that comforting, I guess.

Dr. Baskin clearly felt guilty over contributing to the havoc that had struck the vast, frail shell of hydrogen ice, crushing billions of inhabitants when it collapsed. It
had seemed to be a direct result of
Streaker
's presence—like a snake corrupting Eden. But Sara's evidence now pointed to natural phenomena, ponderously inevitable, as impersonal as an earthquake. Far more unstoppable than a hurricane.

No wonder so many other refugee arks joined our convoy. Delicate criswell structures must be shattering all over the Five Galaxies, forcing members of the Retired Order to choose quickly whether to rejoin oxy-civilization or transcend to the next level … or else stay where they are, and die.

Unable to bear even a brief separation from the Embrace of Tides, many chose to remain huddled next to their little red suns, even as the continuum shivered around them, crushing their brittle, icy homes into evaporating splinters.

Looking down at the brilliantly compact white dwarf, Sara wondered. Would the same worsening conditions also affect this crowded realm—where sparkling needle shapes whirled quickly around a superdense star? It was a far mightier place than the Fractal World, occupied by ancient, revered races, combining the best of hydrogen and oxygen cultures.

Surely members of the Transcendent Order must know what's coming. We are like ants compared to such wise beings. They'll have means of protecting themselves during the Time of Changes.

It was a reassuring thought.

Unfortunately, Sara could not keep from worrying.

She worried about the Buyur.

Her news got a sober reception at the next staff meeting. Even when Sara exonerated
Streaker
from the Fractal World tragedy, Dr. Baskin seemed more concerned with understanding what might happen next.

“You're saying that all these disruptions are a natural result of the
expansion of the universe
?”

“That's right,” Sara replied. “The spacetime metric—including the underlying ylem—stretches and weakens, eventually reaching a fracture point. Domain boundaries
abruptly snap and reconnect. A bit like pressure building underground for release in a quake. So-called threads, or flaws in the original matrix, can be pinched off, turning transfer points into useless maelstroms, isolating whole sectors, quadrants, or even galaxies.”

The older woman shook her head. “Cosmic expansion has been going on for sixteen billion years. Why should all this come to a sudden head now?”

The Niss Machine interjected at that point.

“The simple answer to your question is that this occurrence … is not unique.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this sort of thing has happened before.

“Let me illustrate by asking a question, Dr. Baskin. Does this symbol have any meaning to you?”

Sara watched an image take shape above the conference table—a complex form with thirteen spiral rays and four ovals, all overlaid.