The Infinity Link (45 page)

For a few seconds, Jonders could not speak. He had never in his life felt such weariness. He tried to speak, and failed, and swallowed, and when at last he found his voice, he managed to say, "Sit down, Hoshi. Sit down."

"There's no time," Hoshi insisted.

"I know," Jonders said. "No time at all. Sit. Hoshi. Please."

The wind growled and the snow dashed and swirled around Four-Pod's snout. The Song danced in his brain; but it could not raise his spirits.

He moved at a plod, slowly putting distance between himself and the caves. What was he going to tell his people? How could he say that the Philosophers had rejected their riddle-offerings—probably because he, Four-Pod, had angered them with his insistent questions about the Song?

It was beyond his understanding.
How could the Philosophers fail to hear it?
They said because it was unknown to them, it was clearly of the devil.

His heart told him that could not be true—not unless his mind and his heart had utterly betrayed him.

Was he the only one in the world to hear the Song? If so, then he might as well die in the Snow Plain, for never again would he live in peace. He, Four-Pod, simple traveler and bearer of riddles—was it possible that he knew something beyond the wisdom of the Philosophers?

The Song intertwined itself with his thoughts and gently sustained him as his foreclaws bit the ice, as he pulled himself across the trackless ice.

Even now, the Song was as clear in his mind as a sparkling flake of snow at the precise moment of freezing; as melodious as the shifting suck of slush beneath one's weight when glacier turned to delicious melt; as harmonious as the keen of storm-bringing winds. Of the devil, indeed! Such beauty could not be of the devil!

He paused to consider the terrain. Bearing right would take him higher, into unfamiliar cave lands—more treacherous in footing, but closer to the sky. Something there beckoned him. Did he hear an almost inaudible murmur coming from that direction? The wind, only the wind over the hills. Bearing left would carry him into the wilds of the Snow Plain, where the elements, unblocked, would scour him raw. Straight ahead was the shortest route home, where duty called him to report of his journey.

But . . . if his vow was to return with truths, could there not be truths lurking in one's own mind and soul—to be discovered by listening, exploring, responding to need, and trusting. If such truths emerged, shouldn't they, too, be brought to his people, despite the words of the Philosophers?

There was a terrible yearning grown strong in him which he could not identify, and he longed only to share it, to know that he was not alone.

The wind howled, urging him to decide. Something in the foothills, calling him? Suppose it was one of the mysterious Ones-Who-Thought, the wisest of the wise, who could answer questions he had not even thought to ask? Or suppose it was a predator, a False Hope, lurking death? Suppose. Suppose. Fulfillment or peril? Decide. The journey must be made. He bobbed his head, smelling the breezes. He blew his six nostrils clear, and took an intoxicatingly deep breath of methane into each lung. He began to move even before he knew his decision. One step following another, across the ice and snow.

Climbing. Slowly climbing into the foothills.

Was he dreaming, or did the Song murmur in triumph as he began his ascent?

* * *

In the cold and stony darkness, there were changes.

If something akin to doubt had existed, it could do so no longer. The ghostly call pulsed through the colony as clearly as the light of the brightest star, filtering through the frigid crystal lattices.

Confusion
was not a concept that the colony was aware of; but confusion existed, in the disorders that flickered through the memory points, in the slow shifting of atoms, in the alteration of the lattice and the growth of complexity. A quality very much like self-awareness had appeared, responding to the ghostly presence. Without it, the changes might have taken another million years.

Something like impatience was becoming manifest within that clarifying awareness. The disquiet became steadily sharper.

* * *

The sun's inner currents moved ceaselessly. Never since the time of creation had they stopped their furious movement—twisting in ever-changing patterns, responding to shifts in the flux and the field.

For generations past counting had the rarified out-regions been thought barren, except perhaps for the mindless filamentary drifters. Few capable of thought ventured there, where the near-vacuum could suck the life out of the unwary. In all of memory, few had gone there.

But that was before the voices. The voices from above, from the misty vales at the edges of nowhere.

Not from the deeps within, where the bright fusion fires warmed and caressed, and where life was conceived. Nor from beyond the outer fringes, where there was nothing—a slow, silent wasting of existence, inconceivable cold and darkness, nothing.

From the misty regions, the voices came; and so, to the misty regions the explorers must go, to find the voices' source.

* * *

To the gods grumbling, thundering in the heart of the sun, the voices were but a flitter, a droning of a bee.

* * *

To Luu-rooee, the ocean was blue and empty, and bright with sunlight, and there had come no answers, only a steadily greater yearning. Sliding silently beneath the waves, he turned downward with powerful strokes of his tail, propelled himself downward into the gloom and denseness, where cool hands caressed his flanks and sounds echoed like man-steel. Downward, trailing a thin line of bubbles. Downward, to listen.

Drifting. Cool. Barren water taste. Awareness blurring. Time passing into no time.

A flutter in the thoughts.

Luu-rooee blinked to attention. There was a presence. Odd. Euphoric. Disturbing. It reminded him of the voice, and yet was not of the voice. A presence very, very far away, touching him. It was not the godwhale. And yet . . .

The godwhale was coming closer. He felt that.

When the time came to renew his lungs, Luu-rooee rocketed toward the distant sky, a smile creasing his soul.

Voices . . .

 . . .sounds echoing that were not voices . . .

 . . .blackness and light, and shattering colors . . .

Unquestionably there were others present; but that was illogical. Where could they have come from? There should be no one present. There should be nothing at all.

A feeling of disquiet grew. And bewilderment. Voices echoed round and round, but made no sense. There were sounds like plucked strings of glass, and the music of water rippling and flowing, as if through an enormous basin of stone or crystal . . . .

* * *

Starlight flashed, splintering dazzling sunlight. Every nerve was shot through with pain, and the only awareness was of fear fear fear fear fear . . . naked exposure to blinding radiation and vacuum . . . nowhere to hide. Was this a test of fire, or had something gone terribly wrong?

* * *

The light came apart into fragments and died to a dull glow, and then the voices swarmed in upon her again . . . .

* * *

There was no way to judge the passage of time, but as elements of consciousness drifted together like fragments of a congealing ice floe, she came to comprehend that something had not gone according to plan. Living voices surrounded her, and other minds not her own, and for a time she listened without thinking or analyzing; she basked dazedly in a sea of nervous activity like some tiny phytoplankton adrift, listening to the clicks and whistles of neighboring organisms. Where was she, and why, were questions that rose to the surface of her mind, and floated away.

The need to understand would not be left behind, however. Where was she, and how had she come to be here? What came before?

There was a stirring of memory. A taste of . . .

Death.

She remembered now: a final decision. Termination. An ending. Was this an afterlife, or did she live, still, hopelessly psychotic and plagued by dissociated voices?

(Where am I?) she cried, and, (Who are all of you?) Her voice was feeble in the murmur and confusion. At least tell me, she thought—is this Heaven? Or Hell? She recalled a feeling of movement, a memory of a whirlwind out of nowhere gathering her up like so many bits of confetti and swirling her away. What had happened in those moments, or was it just a dream confused with reality?

(Mozy—) (Mozy—) (Mozy—)

(What?) Startled. (Who is there?) Voices again. It was impossible to recognize them, to see images of any sort, to create order out of the chaos. Was this madness, or was someone really trying to speak to her?

Silence. Then: (Mozy—) (—you are—) (—alive—)

Again! (Hello!) she called anxiously.

It was as though a dozen or more voices popped out of nowhere, tripping over themselves trying to speak, cutting each other off, finishing one another's thoughts. A bell was clanging, reminding her of something. There had been a sensation like this once before, if only she could remember . . .

(Welcome—) (—welcome—) (—you are welcome—) (—to our world—) (—to us—) (—you are safe—) (—we have saved you—) (—to join us—)

Saved
. The word fixed itself as a point of focus, excluding all else. And then, like a star fracture radiating through glass, a network of memories reconnected in old patterns, and an obscuring haze was lifted, and she recalled: the Talenki . . . of course, the Talenki. In the instant of her death, in the moment of her terminating her own existence, the whirlwind had descended. The whirlwind had been the Talenki, reaching out through the direct link, lifting her as a tornado lifts a house, and they had spun her out of the dying computer and carried her . . .

 . . .to a world where voices tickled her like mosquitoes, where questions echoed and multiplied, and answers lurked in shadow. A place of safety? Or of lunacy?

(Safe here—) (—you are safe—) (—one with us—)

But where? In a Talenki version of
Father Sky
's brain? (Have you . . . what have you done? Am I . . . am I . . . in your own computer?)

(In our—) (—yes—) (—in a manner of speaking—) (—computer—) (—mind-net—)

Mind-net?

(—saved you—) (—dying—) (—you were dying—) (—we have brought you—)

Dying? Yes, she was dying. Resigned, committed—the final act of her life, her last will to end a life gone wrong.

And . . .

And they had stopped her. Intervened. Whisked her to safety.

By what right?
something in her screamed.

(There was—) (—a hurt—) (—despair—) (—but within you—) (—we saw—) (—Kadin saw—) (—a will to live—)

A wave of dizziness was sweeping over her. Confused feelings, conflicting thoughts. (Did you ask me what
I
wanted?) she whispered, suddenly blinded with a quiet rage—anger and frustration blanking any possibility of hearing the Talenki's answer, if there was one. This was no cold awareness of a reaction, but an eruption of fury like blood from a severed artery. (Did you ever consider that I might not want to be saved,
that I might want to die?
) she cried. The blood was pounding in her head—thundering—and the beats quickened and multiplied, until they were too fast to follow, and it was like a gibbering of voices in her head, except that it was the beating of her heart, the pulsing of blood, so fast and so steady it was like the pulsating roar of a waterfall.

Beating of her heart?

Her heart was gone, lost, and so if it wasn't her heart, her blood, then
what was it?

(BE QUIET!) she bellowed. Instantly the sound died.

There was something like the shuffling of a hundred feet. Her anger was dissipating, now, and she was able to say, finally, (What was that . . .
racket?
)

She heard something like laughter, which almost made her angry again. (Pulse—) (—of life—) (—our bodies' pulse—) she heard.

(Pulse?) she said uncomprehendingly. (Bodies' pulse—you mean blood, like our—like my body used to have?)

(Stream of life—) (—yes—) (—like yours—)

(All together?) She imagined the heartbeat of an entire colony of Talenki, as one.

(Those of us—) (—in the mind-net—) (—with you—)

(Mind-net! Mind-net! What do you mean?)

(Our minds—) (—all of them—) (—many of them—) (—a few of them—) (—in union—)

The voices hesitated. An explanation filtered into her thoughts, one that she was reluctant to take seriously. (Mind-net?) she said. (Is this . . . your computer? Your
minds
joined together?)

(As one—) (—and more than one—)

(Your
computer?
)

(—of course—)

She thought. And thought. There was so much . . . so very much that was confusing. The mind-net, being alive . . . she must understand, question until it was clear. But she was tired. Difficult to think. Bewildering.

(Do not struggle—) (—much you have been through—) (—be at peace.)

Peace? There was nothing she wanted more, right now, than to be at peace. But how to find it here, or even to rest? No sooner had she thought the question than the world began to soften around her; the voices subsided, and the sounds that remained were those of trickling water and sighing winds. A gurgling stream. Leaves rustling in a gentle breeze. A soothing golden auburn glow of a setting sun.

Kadin . . . hadn't they said something about Kadin?

The thought broke free and drifted away, and then a liquid music filled her spirit—a tinkling of chimes, a rippling of strings, and gently flowing harmonies . . .

Her thoughts drifted free of one another, and floated slowly out of focus.

* * *

In time it came to her to wonder, as she rested in a state of receptive weightlessness, what exactly had happened. There seemed to be no one at hand to ask; and yet she felt herself surrounded and buoyed by living minds.