The Infinity Link (46 page)

A most curious sensation.

Her consciousness slowly altered, as though awakening from a trance. She spiraled upward, layer after layer of consciousness blooming open, until she began to hear voices again.

They were speaking among themselves in a Talenki singsong, little of which she could understand. Eventually they greeted her in a jovial, mutually interrupting fashion, and she was able finally to ask what was on her mind. What had become of Kadin, and of Mother Program, and the spacecraft itself? Had they spoken with Homebase?

The Talenki buzzed among themselves. (Such a great many questions—) (—how shall we—) (—which shall we—) (—answer?)

(Tell me please, I want to know about Kadin,) she said softly. (And Mother Program. Tell me if you know what happened to them.)

There was a rumble of subdued voices, and the ones that emerged to answer her seemed muted and sad. (Of Kadin—) (—we cannot—) (—be sure—) (—we felt nothing of him—) (—when we—) (—reached for you.)

The memory crystallized. She had grieved for Kadin once already, years ago, it seemed. Remembering, she felt a spike in her heart. (He was silent,) she said softly. (I thought he was dead. I knew he was.)

(Silent—) (—beyond our reach—) (—but not dead.)

Not dead? (What do you mean?) she said slowly. (What do you mean, "not dead"? He was dead—
I know he was dead, he wouldn't speak to me or answer!
)

(Not dead—) (—but dying—) (—he spoke—) (—to us—) (—asked us—)

The story came tumbling out, then: Kadin calling out to them with his last strength and asking their help in saving her. And they had seen within her a need, a desire to live, far deeper than her despair, and they wished only that they could have saved him, too, but it was too late for that—and the story was confusing enough in itself as she listened, or tried to, but to hear it told as the Talenki told it, as a stream of interruptions and digressions, she thought she was going to go mad before it all became clear.

Sadness and grief and anger and gratitude all began to churn inside of her, along with astonishment that such a thing could have been done without her knowledge; and the sensation was dizzying, like nothing she had felt since she had been in a body of flesh and blood, with nerves and hormones, and lungs and a pounding heart, and why was that feeling coming back to her here, in the Talenki mind-net?—and now she felt a rushing and queasy sensation, and of course, how could she be so stupid, she
was
a part of an organic life again, she lived in the brains of the Talenki, in a chemical stew that flushed and surged; and that realization made her feel, of all things, seasick, and now there was something new, which she could not identify, until she realized that it was the Talenki, dozens of Talenki, all together trying to ease her down gently. Mozy, Mozy, they were calling, like a mother cradling a baby.

She was a part of them now, and each of them shared her sadness a little, her grief and her hurt.

They wept with her for Kadin. Sharing the terrible . . .
hurt
 . . . the mixture of gratitude and grief for Kadin, who had given the final moments of his life for hers, and not even let her know he was doing it. They shared the pain of that knowledge with her, they could not help doing so.

She was
of
them now. One with them, for whatever was to come.

* * *

(What of Mother Program?) she asked later.

(Failing—) (—failing—) (—we scarcely knew her—) (—nothing we could do—)

(Yes.) She absorbed that without surprise, thinking that perhaps really it was not so important anyway; Mother Program was only a teaching program designed by Homebase. And then she remembered that what was Kadin if not a program designed by Homebase, and she began to weep again, for Mother Program as well as Kadin.

Talenki minds rustled around her. (We will answer some of your other questions—) (—and perhaps that will ease—) (—your sorrow.)

(Please do,) she whispered at last.

They spoke to her, in jabbering crosstalk, and in comforting melodies more song than story. The pictures seen through the eyes of the probe had been shadows compared to those that filled her now. Images of a people wandering the emptiness between the stars, searching for something they could not define, the years and the silence of space echoing with their sadness and the music; and in the mind-net, memories of works of art, and stories told and retold, of joys and tragedies. The images were strange to her, shimmering from one to another. After a time, it was too much to absorb.

She asked if she might see this world more fully, the asteroid in which they lived, and at once new visions whirled, dozens at once, until she cried out, (One at a time! Please!)

The voices rumbled and debated, and then one voice said, (With me, for now.) There was a curious readjustment, and she found herself looking out through the eyes of an individual Talenki. Torrlllik, was the name she heard. Hi, Torrlllik. There was an odd warmth in the perception.

She was peering through a hazy, reddish golden glow, into the interior of a chamber, where more Talenki were gathered than she could count; it was a scene out of a cubist painting, bodies merging and overlapping; and then the smell hit her, the richness and the moisture, and it was no smell she had ever encountered before. She knew without asking what this was; she had viewed it once before.
The heart of our mind
, they had called it. The center of the mind-net. The source.

The Talenki were clustered around large bodies, shaped like toadstools, and she had seen those before, too; but now she perceived that, far from being inert, those bodies were living creatures, a vital part of the union. And somewhere, here, in this scene of quiet confusion . . .

(Here live our memories,) said Torrlllik softly.

And here she lived, as well. Her thoughts, her memories, her soul.

* * *

A hallway adorned with carved stone and hanging tapestries. Her host—Clnay'na, now—ran her fingers along the edge of the tapestry. It had a soft, ropelike texture; the colors were earthtones; its smell reminded her of tobacco.

Walls shimmering and dissolving. Low-ceilinged rooms, Talenki dining or relaxing. Tended gardens, a glimpse only, stretching out of sight. Curiously shaped acoustical spaces, reverberating with music.

Looking out of an older Talenki's eyes, Roto-something, a ledge overlooking a small meadow. A sense of oddly twisted geometry, nothing quite flat or straight. And then a surprise. Beside her and her host, silent and unobtrusive, another Talenki was carefully polishing an ungainly metallic object with wiry balloon wheels and shiny lenses. Something in her went cold and still, and she felt her host's breath stop, and for a frozen instant, she simply stared at the spacecraft's probe, sadness and fascination rising together to fill her thoughts. And then her host began breathing again, and she sighed, letting the pain go.

It was now only a memorial, she thought. A piece of Earth's technology, a bit of her former home, former life. A memorial to a failed mission.

(No—not failed!) Her host stamped its foot.

She was startled by the voice—it had been more than one voice, many more. She had scarcely been conscious of her own thought. (But it did fail,) she said. (Unless you mean—well, I wouldn't be here, otherwise, I guess. Is that what you mean?)

She sensed a flow of satisfaction, as her host turned away from the probe.

* * *

With the passage of time came a need for rest, and she blinked and found herself looking through the eyes of a young and cheerful Talenki named N'rrril. (To rest we will, in the center of our world,) he said, and stepped through a reddish lenslike wall, and emerged into a vast cavern.

The salt smell touched her first, and then the sound of water hissing over sand, and the sight of the ocean—or if not an ocean, at least an impossibly large body of water. In the center of an asteroid? The water rippled in a gentle breeze and lapped at a narrow stretch of shoreline before them; but the surface of the sea curved away from the shore like an enormous billiard ball. Overhead, the ceiling of the cavern grew indistinct and bluish as it arched up and out over the water, and somewhere beyond the horizon a sun must have been shining, because both water and "sky" were brightly illuminated.

An optical illusion? she wondered.

N'rrril answered, (No illusion. The seas occupy the center of our world.)

(Nine of them—) interrupted an eager voice. N'rrril hushed the other.

(Nine seas?) she asked in disbelief.

(Each, at its root, flowing down through arched passageways to the central wellspring,) said N'rrril.

She felt an image: cupped basins radiating in multidimensional space, from a central cavity, all interconnected by honeycombed arches of stone. (This . . . wellspring. May we see it?)

She felt a gentle laughter, the friendly laughter of a dozen Talenki. (Perhaps one day you will enter the soul of a sea creature,) N'rrril said. (Air does not reach to the center, where the dizzies live.)

(Dizzies?)

The other voices could not contain themselves. (The dizzies—) (—the deep nodes—) (—the source of what you call—) (—tachyons—)

(Thank you,) N'rrril said to the others, with a trace of grave humor. (The dizzies are . . . deep within our songs, they are a part of what drives us—)

(—sustains us—) (—in our journey—)

(They are creatures, these dizzies? Thinking beings?) Mozy asked. (You say . . . they are the source of your tachyons?) She was suddenly aware of a faint, low moaning sound radiating from the water. A sound like strained harps. Or whales.

(They carry our songs to the universe,) N'rrril said, and this time it was Mozy who laughed, because she was suddenly impressed by her host's solemnity—and youth. (Do they feel?) N'rrril continued. (That is harder to say.)

(Our songs—) (—emerge—) (—from their souls—) offered the other voices.

Mozy gazed at the light glimmering through the depths—and felt a sudden longing, and without knowing why, was laughing and crying all at once, pounding on the inside of N'rrril's mind. N'rrril barked in alarm, but she wept and said that nothing was wrong, but there was something she wanted to do. Almost shyly, she asked it. (N'rrril? May we walk along the seashore? And wade, just a little? Feel the water between our toes? And then sit by the sea—just sit?)

The Talenki laughter was a rippling of chimes. N'rrril laughed a little less than the others, and Mozy sensed that he was hesitating—afraid, just a little, of the water.

She was about to withdraw the request, when N'rrril stepped forward. He walked to the edge of the water and tentatively, gingerly put one foot in, then another, and let the water ripple up between his toes. Mozy felt the inside of his mind gasp nervously, but with pleasure—and echoes reverberated through her own mind, memories half stirring. He waded a little deeper, all four feet, now, the water rising over his ankles with an invigorating tingle. Laughing self-consciously, Mozy joining in the laughter, N'rrril turned and trotted along the shore, his feet splashing in the warm, clear, luminous sea.

Payne cut the outboard motor and allowed the boat to drift fifty feet off the tiny island's shore. The boat rode the swells as it was overtaken by its own wake, water slapping the aluminum hull. When the movements had died away, Payne raised a hand to shade his eyes and scanned the shore. Gravel beach, rocks, trees; no sign of another boat.

He loosened his jacket, patted the pockets bulging with the recorders. The sky was clear, bits of cloud scooting on the wind. The surface of the lake was rippled and ragged with the breeze. He rested his forearms on the steering wheel and wondered what to do besides wait. He couldn't think of anything, so he laid his head down on his forearms and rested to the gentle sway of the boat and the mingled smells of gasoline and water.

There was a shout, and he raised his head. A man in a brown jacket was waving at him from the shore of a small cove. Payne turned around to tilt the motor out of the water and moved forward to ship the oars. With care, and a bit of trial and error, he brought his bow around and rowed, with frequent glances over his shoulder, toward shore.

The hull rasped on gravel; and then the other man grabbed his bow line and steadied the boat while Payne stepped out. Together, they dragged the boat onto the beach. They shook hands. "Joe Payne."

"Jonders. Did you have any trouble?"

"Well, I banged a couple of pilings getting out of the marina—after that I was fine." Payne studied his counterpart, a man of medium build, wearing a suede jacket that seemed a bit dressy for boating and hiking. He seemed less distant, friendlier than Payne had expected. "Where's your boat?"

"Other side of the island." Jonders hooked a thumb toward the trees. "I didn't want anyone to see us arriving together."

"I gathered. This isn't my usual way of meeting for an interview." Payne's tone of voice conveyed his curiosity.

Jonders shrugged in what might have been embarrassment. "Let's not stand on the beach," he said. He pointed into the woods. "I guess it'll be comfortable enough up here."

Payne gestured. "After you."

They selected a patch of ground carpeted with needles and canopied by tall pines through which they could just see the tip of Payne's boat, the water sparkling, and the dark line of the mainland. Their eyes met for a moment; then Jonders grunted and looked away. Payne suddenly realized that Jonders's outward calm was misleading. It might be a more difficult interview than he'd expected. He took out a memo-recorder. "Shall we?"

Jonders nodded, but instead of speaking, squinted up into the trees with a scowl.

Payne waited patiently, then prompted: "What did you want to talk to me about?"

Jonders lowered his eyes and hunched forward, picking up a pine cone and turning it in his hand. "I really shouldn't be here talking to you. That's the problem."

Payne blinked. "You must have had something to tell me, or you wouldn't have called." Nod. A brief glance. It appeared, Payne thought, that his man was going to have to be coaxed, after all.