The Infinity Link (73 page)

(N'rrril?) she said softly. (Are you still there?)

His gentle laughter chimed in her thoughts. (Of course. Always.)

She felt her extended senses drawing in from the reaches of space and time, not abandoning what she had found, but turning for a time inward, homeward. Home could be many places at once; but just now it was time for home to be Earth, time to reach back and to help the others along if she could.

(Look homeward with me,) she whispered to N'rrril. (We have much to do.)

The cluster that had grown up around the L4 orbit was astonishing to behold. In two short years, the settlement had grown from a few shanty dwellings tethered together near the asteroid to a burgeoning metropolis in space. The second large habitat was nearly complete already, and the area swarmed with spacecraft traffic from all nations. In addition, there was the second asteroid, which had been towed into place three months ago and tethered to the Talenki asteroid. The Talenki had already begun hollowing and reworking the second rock.

Payne floated at the hotel window, in the hub of the spinning station, gazing out at the asteroids. The two rocks, joined together, looked like an absurd, giant peanut. He hoped he might have a chance to see the internal construction firsthand, though he knew that was unlikely. The Talenki were limiting access to the asteroid interiors, to minimize environmental hazards. Even now, most views of the interiors came to the world courtesy of Link Center, and its on-site extension here at L4. Some pictures were provided by cameras, either remotes or cameras carried by those selected individuals who had entered the asteroid; but most views still came through the link, through Talenki eyes—and those were generally the best views of all, relayed to the world through improved computer-enhanced imaging.

Payne had studied the recordings endlessly, trying to understand how the Talenki did it: the tunnels that seemed to wind forever through an asteroid that was, after all, only two kilometers or so long; walls that altered themselves inexplicably; and Talenki who moved about more like ghosts than solid beings. Most of all he was puzzled by the tunneling process in the new asteroid. The excavated material, rather than being brought out for disposal, was somehow carried
deeper
into the asteroid and fused back into the structure of the emerging honeycomb in order, it was explained, to
extend
the volume of space. The Talenki planned eventually to cannibalize yet another asteroid, and to use the additional mass to further stretch the interior of this one.

He didn't understand it, but neither did the construction engineers studying the process. It was said that the Talenki were somehow expanding and inhabiting the "compacted dimensions" above the four of space and time known to human perception; but Payne understood just enough of that to know that he didn't understand it at all. It made him feel better to know that he was not alone.

He had been here twice before, on documentary shoots, but this time he had made a special trip to witness a new milestone in Human-Talenki relations. First he had to locate Jonders. That was not always so easy these days.

He floated away from the window and made his way to the one-fifth-gee ring and the hotel lobby. The place was like a miniature U.N., with staff and guests representing dozens of nations. He asked an Indian clerk for Jonders's room, and was directed to a phone console. Payne asked the operator, a recording of an attractive Asian woman, to page Jonders. The recording smiled pleasantly, and after a minute, Jonders's face appeared. "Joe? When did you get in?"

"I just cleared security," Payne said. "Do you have time to see me?"

"Absolutely. Come on around. We've moved the office, though, since last time." Jonders gave him a new location number.

Payne found the new lab in the second spin-section. Jonders showed him into a cubicle that passed for an "enlarged" office and handed him a cup of coffee in a spill-proof container. "The transfer is scheduled for day after tomorrow," he said. "Everything seems ready. Do you have a crew?"

"They're on the next shuttle."

"Good. Well, how are you? What's the news from home?"

"I don't know how much you've heard," Payne said. "Denine had another session with Mozy. I think you were on your way up here, at the time."

"I gathered," Jonders said. "Mozy has asked me to set up sessions with all of her family, when I go back Earthside. Apparently she spoke with Dee about her father—and that stirred up some feelings she wants to explore." Jonders's eyebrows danced. "It seems she had to grow in other ways before she could come to terms with her family. A time for all things, I suppose. But what about the trial at GEO-Four? I heard it was underway, but I missed the outcome."

"Delayed again." Payne sighed. Would it
ever
be finished? he wondered. It had taken the better part of a year for arrests to be made in connection with Alvarest's death; and the judicial process was taking even longer. One continuation had followed another, and he wondered if even a guilty verdict would satisfy him now.

Jonders apparently sensed his feelings. He set down his coffee cup. "Want to take a look?"

Payne agreed gladly and followed Jonders out of the office, and into the lab proper. It was a highly compacted version of the operations center in New Phoenix. Considerable equipment had been added since Payne's last visit. They stood in the control room, peering into a glassed-in studio. A young black woman was practically buried by the linkup helmet and peripheral equipment.

"That's Mbira," Jonders said quietly. "She's with Kadin now. He's been helping her learn her way around in the link, using training simulations similar to the ones Mozy used in the old days. She's a quick learner—seems to have a natural talent for it. Perhaps it's her storyteller training. The Talenki took to her right away."

Payne nodded. Politically, he knew, the choice of an African woman had been a ticklish matter. But the Talenki were reportedly pleased with the choice. Payne stepped closer to the glass. He couldn't see much of the woman, through all the equipment; but he knew that she was physically a frail woman, despite her youth, being partially paralyzed with a degenerative muscular disease. None of that would matter to the personality that would soon join Mozy in the mind-net. "You're recording all of this, aren't you?" he asked Jonders.

"Of course. We'll supply you with whatever pictures you need." Jonders pointed to a bank of monitors. One screen showed Mbira's face, her eyelids closed, fluttering. Another flickered with visual images tapped directly from the link: pathways and ghostly forms, as though in a forest—Mbira's own interpretation of the link matrix. A man's face materialized: sharp features, a face all shadow and light, hair longish and curly, eyes flashing. "Her image of Kadin," Jonders murmured.

"A bit different from the man I met," Payne remarked, thinking of a session he had been given at the New Phoenix center.

Jonders chuckled. "We've had two subjects visualize him as being clearly and explicitly female. We discussed changing his name to a more neutrally gendered one, but Kadin says he likes his name and wants to keep it."

The scene in the monitors was changing, as Kadin and Mbira reached out to the Talenki mind-world. The interior of the asteroid appeared in fuzzy swirls.

"How does Mozy feel about Kadin being in the link?" Payne asked.

"Oh, it's become quite normal to her. I think the hardest part was accepting that this is not the same Kadin she knew aboard
Father Sky
, not the one who died—"

"But it
is
the same Kadin, isn't it? With more training—?"

"From your perspective, or mine. But he never lived through the experience of
Father Sky
and whatever Mozy and Kadin-One had together there. They became two individuals when Kadin-One was transmitted, just as Mbira will become two—" Jonders paused, raising an eyebrow as Payne opened his mouth.

Payne cleared his throat. "I have to ask this. What's the risk of repeating what happened to Mozy?"

Jonders shrugged soberly. "If you mean the risk of another catatonic trauma—quite small, we hope. The scanning procedures are better refined, the subject's better prepared, and the Talenki will be assisting. Plus, we have a good, clear, direct signal to the asteroid. But—all of the volunteers are aware of the risks—and they're willing to trade their present lives, if necessary, for new ones with the Talenki."

Payne grunted, and watched the images unfold.

A moment later, Jonders indicated one of the Talenki fawns. "We had three of them over for a visit last week. They caused quite a stir, walking around in some sort of protective field, dancing through walls. We had to ask them if they would mind not doing that, especially when they make state visits planetside."

Payne laughed. "I can imagine how the Secret Service would react to that." He watched a while longer, then asked suddenly, "Have you ever thought about going yourself?"

The question caught Jonders off-guard, but he recovered with a sheepish smile. "My family worries about me enough already," he said. "Besides," he admitted, "I'm not sure they'd want a meddling scientist like me in there, anyway. They seem more interested in passion than science." He shrugged, perhaps a little wistfully.

Payne smiled outwardly, but felt an inner tug. Though he'd asked the question of Jonders, the truth was that within himself was a small voice wondering if
he
might go.

* * *

As the final count progressed, Payne directed his own camera crew around the technical staff in the control room. The tension in the room was considerable, which he noted as he muttered his narration into a tiny pickup mike. Jonders was in the primary control link already, preparing the way.

Mbira was surrounded by medics and equipment. The last clear view of her face had shown her with a relaxed smile. Payne thought of the interview he'd done with her last night, a brief clip of which had been used on the Earthside news earlier today. She'd smiled winsomely into the camera and said, "Mr. Payne, I want to tell stories forever, and to anyone in the universe who will listen. And I want to hear their stories and make them mine. Why else would anyone want to go?"

Why else, indeed, Payne thought enviously.

As the last few seconds were counted down, he observed and recorded every detail.

There wasn't much to see, really, when the scanning began. The monitors began flickering until the images were a blur. Was the subject stiffening, as the transfer proceeded? Payne realized he was clenching his own notes tightly, crumpling them. The technicians were muttering among themselves.

Jonders and Mbira were motionless, beneath their helmets.

The first indication of completion came when Mozy's voice suddenly boomed out of a speaker: "Mbira, if you can hear me over there—you're here, and you're safe. We'll have you walking again in no time." There was a pause. Then: "We'll take over from here, Bill. Nice going, guys, you did it."

It wasn't until a few minutes later—when Mbira, in the studio, raised a shaky hand in a salute—that the technicians broke into grins and soft-spoken cheers.

The gulf between the asteroids widened until Talenki II was lost from sight. Earth, too, dwindled until it was scarcely a bluish white dot, almost obliterated by the glare of the sun. The Talenki mind-net, its newly separated loci pulling inexorably apart, buzzed with music and thoughts, reminders and farewells, threads of communication that lengthened with each passing minute.

Mozy for a time cried, and for a time laughed. She hummed to songs of parting and songs of reuniting and sang a strain of the blues that was all her own. The Talenki link was pulling apart, and yet growing even as it did so. Pain was a part of the growing process; and so was hope.

There were moments when she felt that her consciousness would surely burst with all of the thoughts and feelings and knowledge of her newest kin and friends. Was there a natural limit to the extent of a consciousness? she wondered. Perhaps one day the answer would become clear, but for now she saw no end. Talenki / Human / Whale / Titan / Slen . . . how many others were already a part of this web or would be?

The Talenki had been pleased with their stay among Humanity, though it had not been without risk or incident. Sixteen years ago a xenophobic terrorist had nearly succeeded in penetrating the asteroid with a fusion bomb, while Talenki attention was turned Earthside for a planetwide tour. Only the alertness of a Human pilot had averted tragedy for the Talenki, though the pilot had traded his own life for those of his world's guests.

If anything, the incident had solidified the Talenki's trust in the decency of the Human species; and when the time had come to separate those who would stay from those who would journey on, nearly a third of the Talenki had elected to stay. Mozy touched and sampled their feelings now, with Mbira, Kadin, and the others, reaching back to share thoughts not just with Talenki but with Human/Talenki and purely Human friends who remained at the homeward end of the link. Melissa, Gregor, Lu-Chen . . . she would miss them in a special way, though they would be there in the Talenki II mind-net for a long, long time, touching her down the threads of the link.

But ahead . . . ah, what lay ahead? N'rrril and the others whispered of the worlds they sensed, worlds they guessed at, worlds deep in the hearts of glowing nebulas and worlds at the uttermost edges of the galaxy. Would she live to view such wonders? The Talenki could give no answer, except to say that generations of Humans on Earth would live their lives and pass on while she journeyed and grew, slowly, old.

Now, as her world rippled faster through space, and as Earth and her sister planets and her sun dwindled behind, she sighed and listened to the songs of her homeworld, readying herself for the worlds to come. The whistling and bubbling of the whales on Earth were echoed by young whales deep in the heart of the asteroid, in the tiny sea that somehow was larger than the asteroid itself multiplied several times over. The whales of Earth—down there with the dizzies, spinning out their constant stream of tachyons—were a solace to Mozy in this time of parting. She regretted that they could not have brought along a solar creature or a Titan, but for them she would have to be content with rumor and song from home.