Infinity's Shore u-5

by David Brin

  Dismayed whistles ensued, accompanied by waves of aromatic stench so overpowering, Lark almost gagged.

  “Why the hell did you—” he began, but Ling tugged his arm.

  “We need a distraction. Come on, now’s our chance!”

  Lark blinked, amazed by the power of habit. He was actually angry at her for throwing away his amulet, and even had to quash an urge to go chasing after the damned stone!

  Leave it, and good riddance, he thought, and nodded to Ling.

  “Right, let’s go.”

  Dwer

  INSIDE THE DECOY SHIP, HE COLLAPSED ON THE deck and retched, heaving up what little remained in his stomach.

  Midway through that unpleasant experience, another, completely different kind of disorientation abruptly swept over Dwer. For a moment, it seemed as if One-of-a-Kind were inside his head, trying to speak again. The strange, heady sensation might have been almost affable, if his body weren’t racked with nausea.

  It ended before he had a chance to appraise what was happening. Anyway, by then he figured he had wasted enough time.

  The Jophur won’t take long picking through my little urrish balloon. They’ll start on this bubble next.

  In full gravity, it might have been impossible to climb along the full length of the captured ship and reach the aft end. But Dwer took advantage of conditions as he found them, and soon taught himself to fly.

  Lark

  THEY WERE DASHING DOWN A SMOKE-FILLED HALLway, chased by angry shouts and occasional bolts of shimmering lightning, when an abrupt detonation rocked the floor plates. A wall of air struck the two humans from behind, knocking them off their feet.

  We’ve had it, he thought, figuring it must be a weapon, used by the pursuers.

  Glancing over his shoulder, however, Lark saw the robots suddenly turn and head the other way! Into a noisome storm of roiling black soot pouring out of the control room.

  “Do you think …?” he began.

  Ling shook her head. “Jophur are tough. I doubt they were more than knocked around by the explosion.”

  Well, he thought. It was only a little piece of rock.

  He felt its absence acutely.

  Lark helped her up, still wary of returning robots.

  “I guess now they know we’re here.”

  They resumed running. But a few duras later, Ling burst out in laughing agreement.

  “Yeah, I guess now they do.”

  Gillian

  A PSI-DISTURBANCE WAS DETECTED, EMANATING briefly from the planet. Soon after that, the detection officer announced a change on the tactics screen. “Will you looka that-t!”

  Gillian saw it. The Jophur configuration was shifting. The bright red disk seemed to shimmer for a moment. Its “tail” of tiny crimson pinpoints, which had been bunching ever closer to the mother ship, now flexed and began to float away.

  “It appears the enemy has jettisoned all the decoys they captured. I can only conclude that they figured out how to scan them quickly and eliminate dross ships from consideration. The decoys will now drift independently toward Izmunuti, while the battleship, free of drag, will catch up with us much faster.”

  Gillian’s hopes, which had lifted when the psi-wave came, now sank lower than ever.

  “We’d better get ready for our last stand,” she said in a low voice.

  From the dolphins there was an utter absence of sonar clicks, as if none of them wanted to reify the moment, to make it real by reading it in sound.

  “Wait-t a minute,” Kaa announced. “The Jophur’s decelerating! Coming about to retrieve the jettisoned string!”

  “But …” Gillian blinked. “Could they have dropped it by accident?”

  The Niss hologram whirled, then accepted the possibility with an abstract nod.

  “A hypothesis presents itself. The psi-wave we detected was far too weak to have any effect on a war cruiser … unless it was direct-causative.”

  “Explain.”

  “It might have served as a trigger that — either by accident or design — precipitated the release of potentialities already in place … say, aboard the Jophur ship.”

  “In other words, the wave might have affected them after all. Maybe it set off events that disrupted—”

  “Indeed. If this caused the Jophur to lose their control over their string of capture boxes, they would certainly go back and retrieve them, even at the cost of some delay. Because they would suspect the string’s release was the intended purpose of the psi-wave.”

  “In other words, they’ll be even more eager to check every box. Hmm.”

  Gillian pondered, then asked:

  “Has their intercept time been delayed much?”

  Kaa thrashed his flukes.

  “A fair amount. Not-t enough, however. We’ll make it to the Izmunuti corona, but the enemy will be close enough to follow easily with detectorsss. The plasma won’t make any a-ppreciable difference.”

  Gillian nodded. “Well, things are a little better. And a trick or two to make the odds better still.”

  The dolphins snickered knowingly and went back to work, emanating confident clicks. Gillian’s last remark was exactly the sort of thing Tom would have said in a situation like this.

  In fact, though, Gillian did not know if her scheme was even worthy of the name.

  Sara

  THEY SAID THAT A PSI-WAVE HAD COME FROM JIJO, but Sara didn’t feel a thing.

  Not surprising. Of Melina’s three children, it always seemed that Dwer had some fey sensitivity, while she, the logical one, possessed none. Till recently, Sara had little interest in such matters.

  But then she wondered. Might this be what Purofsky said we should look out for?

  Sitting at the stateroom’s worktable, Sara addressed the portable computer.

  “About that psi-wave — do we have a fix on its hypervelocity?”

  “Only a rough estimate. It traveled at approximately two mictaars per midura.”

  Sara tried to work out the timing in her head, translating it in terms she knew better, such as light-years. Then she realized the machine could do it for her graphically.

  “Show me.”

  A holo took shape, portraying her homeworld as a blue dot in the lower left quadrant. Streaker was a yellow glimmer to the upper right, accompanied by other members of decoy swarm number two. Meanwhile a crimson convoy — the Jophur ship and its reclaimed captives — resumed hot pursuit.

  The computer put down an overlay, depicting a crosshatching of lines that Sara knew to be wave vectors in level-zero hyperspace. The math was simple enough, but it took her some time to figure out the rich, three-dimensional representation. Then she whistled.

  “That’s not inverse square. It’s not even one-over-R. It was directional!”

  “A well-conserved, directional wave packet, resonating on the first, third, and eighth bands of—”

  The computer lapsed into psi-jargon that Sara could not follow. For her, it was enough to see that the packet was aimed. Its peak had passed right over both Streaker and its pursuer.

  The coincidence beggared belief. It meant that some great power on Jijo had known precisely where both ships were, and—

  Sara stopped herself.

  Don’t leap to the first conclusion that comes to mind. What if we weren’t the beam’s objective at all?

  What if we just happened to be along its path, between Jijo and …

  She leaped to her feet.

  “Show me Izmunuti and the transfer point!”

  The display changed scale, expanding until Streaker was shown just over halfway to the supposed safety of the fiery red giant.

  And beyond it, a folded place. A twist in reality’s fabric. A spot where you go, if you want to suddenly be very far away.

  Although computer graphics were needed to make it out clearly, the transfer point was no invisible nonentity. Izmunuti bulged in its direction, sending ocher streamers toward the dimple in space.

  “When will the psi-wa
ve reach Izmunuti?”

  “It has already arrived.”

  Sara swallowed hard.

  “Then show me estimated …” She dredged memory for words she had read, but seldom used. “Show me likely hyperdeflection curves, as the psi-wave hits the red giant. Emphasize meta-stable regions of … um, inverted energy storage, with potential for … uh, stimulated emission on those bands you were talking about.”

  Sara’s face flickered as manicolored lines and curves reflected off her forehead and cheekbones.

  Her eyes widened, briefly showing white all the way around the irises. She mouthed a single word, without managing to form a voice.

  Then Sara clutched for a nearby pad of paper — no better than the premium stock her own father produced — and scrawled down two lines of coordinates.

  Gillian Baskin answered her urgent call, though the older woman looked harassed and a little irked.

  “Sage Koolhan, I really don’t have time—”

  “Oh yes you do,” Sara told her sternly. “Meet me in your office in forty duras. You are definitely gonna want to hear this!”

  Rety

  A YOUNG WOMAN SAT IN A LOCKED ROOM, ALL alone in her universe, until someone knocked.

  In fact she was not entirely alone — yee was with her. Moreover, the knock wasn’t at the door, but rapped loudly on the window below her feet. Still, the element of eerie surprise was there. Rety jumped back, scurrying away from the sound, which grew louder with each hammerlike stroke.

  “it comes from over here!” yee wailed, pointing with his long neck.

  Rety saw at once the pane he meant. A silhouetted figure squatted below the window, backlit by the golden haze surrounding her useless ship. The figure was distorted, distended, with a grossly bulbous head. An arm turned, holding a blunt object, and swung forward, striking the crystal once again.

  This time, tiny cracks spread from the point of impact.

  “enemy foe coming in!”

  Visions of space monsters filled Rety, but not with fear. She wasn’t about to give up her domain to some invader — Jophur, robot, or whatever.

  Another blow struck the same spot. Clearly it would take several more for the assailant to seriously damage the window. Emboldened to see what she was up against, Rety scooted toward the shadowy figure. After the next impact, she pressed close to the glass and peered outside.

  Things were blurry at first. Then the creature seemed to notice her presence and leaned forward as well. Rety glimpsed what looked like a billowing dome of clear fabric. A makeshift helmet, she realized.

  And within that protective bubble…

  “Yah!” she cried out, twitching reflexively away, more set back than if she’d seen a monster or ghost.

  When Rety went back for another look, the figure on the other side started making frantic gestures, pointing toward the side of the ship.

  “Oh, yeah,” she sighed. “I did lock the airlock, didn’t I?”

  Rety nodded vigorously so the visitor could see, and started scurrying along the canted walls to reach the jimmied door. Rety removed the pry bar she had slipped in place, to keep Chuchki from returning.

  The airlock cycled slowly, giving Rety time to wonder if her eyes had deceived her. Perhaps this was just a ruse from some mind-reading creature, seeking to gain entrance by sifting her brain for images from her past.…

  The inner door opened at last, and Dwer Koolhan tumbled through, tearing at the balloonlike covering he had been using as a crude life-support system. His face was rather blue by the time Rety helped him cut the taped fastenings, scavenged from material found on other decoy vessels during his long journey down the captive string. The young hunter gasped deep breaths while Rety stepped back and stared. Finally, he recovered enough to roll aside, lifting his head to meet her unbelieving gaze.

  “I … should’ve known … it’d be you,” Dwer murmured in a resigned voice.

  At the exact same moment, Rety muttered:

  “Ifni! Ain’t I ever gonna be rid o’ you?”

  Ewasx

  HE MUST WEIGH TRADE-OFFS AND OPTIONS. As Izmunuti commences to roil with an atmospheric storm, our tactics stack declares that we have lost valuable time.

  Three target swarms flee ahead of our majestic Polkjhy.

  The first will enter the storm just as we catch up.

  We will reach the second as it passes through maximum hyperbolic momentum change.

  And the third?

  It will make it to the transfer point, with time enough to jump into the next higher level of hyperspace.

  The sabotage attack on our control room has thus created serious problems, out of proportion to the damage done to our CaptainLeader, whose incapacity should not last long. Meanwhile, however, tactics has come up with a plan.

  WE SHALL JETTISON THE CAPTURE BOXES DRAGGING AT OUR WAKE.

  They are now on course for Izmunuti. If the prey ship lies within one of the glowing traps, it must reveal itself soon, or risk immolation.

  THUS FREED, OUR POLKJHY WILL ACCELERATE DIRECTLY FOR THE TRANSFER POINT!

  In this manner we will be able to interpose ourselves between the prey ship and its escape path. There will be some backlash from such rapid maneuvering, but the result should be an end to all hope for the Earthlings, whichever swarm they are hiding in. Their subsequent activities should enable us to detect which ship is sapient-guided and which operate on mere automatic programs.

  Hunt scents fill our bridge, eagerness for the approaching conclusion to this great endeavor. It will be most gratifying for Polkjhy to achieve conquest of the Earthlings without having to call for help from the great clan. To succeed where battle fleets have failed — this will be glorious!

  BUT NOW TO OUR ASSIGNED TASK, MY RINGS!

  There are vermin loose on our fine dreadnought. Our damaged/soot-stained bridge was dishonored in full view of the librarian/watcher.

  The vermin must be found. I/we am the one called upon as qualified to give chase, by virtue of our/My experience with human types.

  Our first recourse, My rings?

  Collect the remaining human prisoner!

  The one called Rann.

  He will help us find his former colleagues. He is already so inclined.

  REJOICE, MY RINGS!

  In this way we will prove useful, avoiding disassembly. If successful, this master torus has been promised a fine reward.

  Quiver in anticipation, My rings! As Polkjhy chases certain victory through space, we pursue another hunt within.

  Emerson

  ENGINES SING TO HIM IN A LANGUAGE HE STILL UNderstands.

  When he works the calibrators, it seems almost as if he were his old self. Master of machines. Boy mechanic. The man who makes starships fly.

  Then something reminds him. A written status report flashes, or a robot voice runs down a list of parameters. Prity can’t interpret for him — sign language cannot translate subtleties of hyperwave transformatics.

  Emerson’s crew mates respect his efforts. They are pleased and surprised by his ability to help.

  But, he now realizes, they are also humoring him.

  Things will never be the same.

  His long shift ends. Suessi orders him to take a break. So he goes up to the hold with Prity and visits the glavers, sensing something in common with the simple creatures, nearly as speechless as himself.

  Alvin and Huck trade insults and witticisms in Anglic, his own native tongue, but he can only follow the general tone of camaraderie. They are kind, but here, too, Emerson finds no solace.

  He searches for Sara, and finds her at last in the plotting room, surrounded by Gillian’s staff. Fiery representations of a bloated giant star fill the center of the room, with varied orbits plotted through its flaming shell. Some paths slip close, using slingshot arcs to fling Streaker toward the transfer point — a twisted funnel in space. The tactics look challenging, even to a pilot like Kaa. Yet that approach is the obvious one.

  No doubt the enemy
expects just such a maneuver.

  Other orbits make no sense, skirting the red giant to strike away from the bolt-hole. Farther from the only way to exit this dangerous part of a forbidden galaxy.

  Letting the enemy reach the transfer point first would seem suicidal.

  On the other hand, at the rate the Jophur battleship is catching up, Streaker will have little choice. Perhaps Sara and Gillian plan to head for deep space and hide amid the seared rocks that were planets, before Izmunuti burgeoned and consumed its children.

  Emerson watches Sara, immersed in work. No one seems to note the presumption — of a Jijo-born savage directing the endeavors of starfaring sophisticates. At times like these, an idea can count for much more than experience.

  The incongruity makes him smile at last, recovering some of his good mood. His accustomed optimism.

  After all, what have the odds ever mattered before?

  There is an observation dome tucked behind the bridge, accessible only by a twisty ladder with rungs set much too close together. The small room is a leftover from whatever race once owned Streaker, before Earthclan bought the hull, converting it for dolphin use. It takes some agility to worm into the odd-shaped cubby. Emerson’s secret place.

  At one end, a thick bubble of adamantine quartz provides a view outside, where the starry vault is bare, unimpeded, nearly surrounding him with everlasting night. Izmunuti is occulted by the ship’s bow, but vast sweeps of the local spiral arm sparkle like diamonds. Globular clusters are like diatoms, phosphorescent on a moonlit sea. Since waking on Jijo, he never expected to experience this again. The naked confrontation. Mind and universe.

  It pours through him, a surfeit of beauty. Too much. Agonizing.

  Of course, Emerson spent half a year learning about all kinds of pain, until it became a sort of friend. His ally at dislodging memories. And as he ponders stellar fire, it happens again.

  He recalls the stench, just after he crashed into Jijo, clothes aflame, quenching the blaze in murky water, dimly aware of having recently fought a battle. A diversion — a sacrifice to win escape for his friends.