by Ian Douglas
Back in the late twenty-first century, St. Clair knew, the purely theoretical science of exobiology had become rock-solid with the discovery of microbial life not on, but in Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Other discoveries had followed—in Enceladus, orbiting Saturn; on Titan’s surface, also at Saturn; under the ice at Jupiter’s Ganymede; and even within the vast, freezing sub-ice ocean beneath the surface of cold and distant Pluto. Indeed, it had begun to appear that if liquid water existed above a rocky core, life sooner or later evolved, even if it was shut away from the sun by dozens of kilometers of ice.
None of the alien life-forms discovered within the solar system had been anything like intelligent. The ecosystems beneath the surfaces of Ganymede, the Neptunian moon Triton, and within the permafrost of Mars were multicellular, similar to terrestrial protozoa, but none were larger than the period at the end of a sentence, and most were microscopic. The life discovered deep within Pluto was simply . . . strange: huge, but single-celled syncytia, vaguely like the plasmodial slime molds of Earth.
And by 2124, of course, life—intelligent life—had been discovered exploring the space near Sirius. In the heady excitement of First Contact with the Galactic Coadunation, most people forgot all about the Leeuwenhoekian wee beasties locked away within the icy darkness of a dozen frozen moons and dwarf planets.
Na Lal was still lecturing. “Marine species, as you might imagine, suffer a serious disadvantage as they develop their version of civilization. Living under water, they can never develop fire . . . or learn to smelt metal. Some do learn to manipulate metals and develop plastics technology by utilizing the intense heat around sea-floor thermal vents.
“But species that evolve within world oceans beneath deep surface ice face a second disadvantage. They may never see the stars, develop astronomy, or even be able to conceive of traveling to other worlds.”
“If they don’t know other worlds are up there,” St. Clair said. “If all they can see is an ice ceiling . . .” He let the thought trail off.
“That applies as well to benthic species, which may not be biologically capable of moving up the water column into regions of lower pressure. And to species that evolve on worlds with thick, cloudy atmospheres.”
“But there are lots of intelligent species that are aware of the stars,” St. Clair said. “And they have fire and metalworking. . . .”
“Those that have oxygen atmospheres,” Na Lal said, “yes. Others learn to use high-temperature volcanic vents for heat, like their abyssal, deep-ocean counterparts. But less than 10 percent of all intelligent species learn to leave the surfaces of their worlds and venture among the stars.
“And those that do reach the stars tend to become immortal.”
That startled St. Clair. “Excuse me?”
The white octopus had given way to a view out in space, looking toward a sun-like star shrouded in billions upon billions of dust motes arrayed in countless orbital; shells. The clouds were so thick that the sunlight from deep inside was deeply attenuated, wan and weak.
“Is that a Dyson sphere?” St. Clair asked.
“A Dyson cloud,” Newton said, correcting him. “Possibly a matrioshka brain.”
“Species that succeed in achieving space travel tend to develop certain key technologies,” Na Lal was telling him. Scenes shifted and flowed through St. Clair’s mind, showing examples of what Na Lal was describing. “Nanotechnology and microassembly. Star lifting. The ability to disassemble entire planets for raw materials. Vacuum energy, which translates as essentially unlimited power for industrial and environmental applications. Powerful AIs on planetary and super-planetary scales. Control over gravitational singularities. Gravity control. . . .”
The megastructures St. Clair was witnessing were staggering in their scale and scope. Worlds were taken apart . . . vast streams of white-hot plasma were channeled up from the surfaces of stars . . . stars were circled by artificial habitats.
“Ultimately,” Na Lal told him, “they become what you might call godlike, capable of reworking both space and time. At some point in their apotheosis, they learn how to upload living minds into computer realities. And for many, this marks the end of any exploratory or dynamic aspect to culture.”
“I understand that,” St. Clair said. “Why go out and explore the Galaxy when you can stay inside a nice, safe matrioshka brain and enjoy any illusion you can imagine? Maybe even illusions you can’t imagine. Like the Kroajid paradise.”
“The Kroajid are one species that have chosen this path, yes,” Na Lal said. Again, as megaengineering structures as big as entire solar systems faded away, St. Clair looked out into the two galaxies, approaching one another now and almost in contact. Hundreds of green stars appeared, scattered through two of the spiral arms of the Milky Way, and with a few popping up along the near edge of Andromeda.
“This is the Kroajid Collective,” Na Lal told him. “Eight hundred twelve systems, most of them re-engineered into what you call matrioshka clouds. The vast majority of them are intrascended—digitally uploaded—and are rarely aware of what is happening in the universe outside.”
“I’ve seen the encyclopedia data,” St. Clair said.
“Indeed. Well, you can apply the same pattern, or something very similar, to most of the other space-faring and technologically advanced species.”
“‘Most’?” Why would an advanced species choose not to create its own heaven? Then he saw it. “Ah! The Tchagar.”
Newton had mentioned that the Tchagar did not comprehend nonmaterialistic ideas or philosophies. That might mean that they rejected the idea of a noncorporeal existence as part of an elaborate computer simulation.
“An accurate insight, Commander. They do not, as a species, digitally upload themselves.”
“Do not? Or can not?”
“Any mind can be replicated digitally,” Na Lal explained. “But there are species with a worldview that precludes virtual existence. The Tchagar don’t possess visual organs like humans or Kroajid or Dhald’vi. They ‘see’ themselves as a part of their own electrical fields. If they attempt to digitally replicate themselves using electromagnetic fields alone, they swiftly lose the ability to relate to reality, whether in the outside world or within a digital illusion. In your terms, they go insane.”
They’re already there, St. Clair mused with a wry bitterness. But he kept the thought to himself. With the combatively uncooperative Tchagar absent, he was actually getting some useful knowledge from the Cooperative beings, and he wanted to keep the information coming.
On the immense display overhead, the full panoply of galactic civilization was again displayed, an ocean of stars swarming with points of brilliant emerald light. St. Clair could see the spiral of Andromeda moving steadily closer, could see points of green beginning to spread across the near edge of the intruder as civilization bridged the narrowing gap between galaxies.
He wondered if what he was seeing was purely an AI simulation . . . or based on actual visual records of the collision with the timescale compressed by many millions of times. It didn’t matter, he supposed. The outermost spiral arms of both galaxies interpenetrated, setting off a firestorm of starburst activity, new suns blazing out of the darkness as gas clouds collided and compressed. The cores drifted slowly toward one another. . . .
And as the collision continued, a new factor was added to the display . . . a vast surge of blackness swiftly growing to fill Andromeda . . . then spilling across into the Milky Way. The green points of light were winking out—a few at a time, at first, but then by the hundreds . . . the thousands . . . the tens of thousands. . . .
“We face a cataclysm, a true existential crisis unlike anything faced by galactic civilization in the past,” Na Lal told him. “The Cooperative is not an empire such as your Empire of Earth. Indeed, many of us are having trouble understanding your AI when it tries to describe your social organization. Most civilizations that make up our Cooperative, the vast, vast majority, are residents of artificial realiti
es within the near-infinite depths of computer networks—what you call matrioshka brains or Dyson clouds, J-brains or computronium megastructures. And we find it difficult . . . extremely difficult, to leave our virtual worlds to deal with the encroaching Dark.
“And of those species that maintain a corporeal existence, most are otherwise solitary, limited to one degree or another to the worlds of their birth, and many can’t even share the understanding star-faring species have of the true nature of the cosmos. They see it, like the Tchagar, as the mathematically intricate modulations of an EM field . . . or like the B’hal, as a watery abyss roofed over with ice.”
“It’s more than that,” a different voice intoned within St. Clair’s head. Gudahk had just reappeared. Had ey been listening in from outside the simulation? Or had ey simply decided to return to the meeting and pick up the conversation?
“The various species of the Cooperative,” Gudahk continued, speaking with an air of finality, “long ago evolved beyond the need for naked aggression. Artificial intelligences developed and deployed various instrumentalities for the security of the larger group. For various reasons, those instrumentalities have proven ineffective against the Graal Tchotch. We find ourselves unable to address this threat.”
Gudahk, St. Clair thought, must have struggled to transmit those words—a frank, even blunt admission of failure on ey’s part, and on the part of the Cooperative.
“You and yours,” the Thole intoned, “are outsiders, a species unconnected with our Cooperative. As outsiders, you must have abilities, insights, strategies, and weapons that we lack.”
“And,” the Kroajid Speaker added, “you are not, like so many of us, trapped within our illusory realities. Some of us, a few, can move between the worlds of reality and illusion, between what you might call heaven and hell. But it is . . . difficult.”
“I think I understand,” St. Clair told them. “And I appreciate your . . . candor. Why didn’t you tell us before?”
“We told the human Ambassador Lloyd,” Speaker said.
“We determined,” Gudahk said, “that humans were not capable of a full understanding.”
“Maybe not,” St. Clair said. “We do get there in the end, usually.”
“Will you help us?” Na Lal asked. “Freely . . . not as tools?”
“The question is can we? What we’ve seen of the Dark so far is . . . is so far beyond us, we don’t even know how to approach the problem.
“And I don’t understand yet why you need us. When the needleships were in close to Ki . . . when they were trying to block our approach to Ki, you used a nanotech weapon against them, something that drove them off.” As he spoke, Newton fed them all imagery recorded by the Ad Astra earlier . . . of a cloud of something like graininess moving out from the rings . . . tiny disassemblers like a cloud of smoke that began taking the attacking needleships apart molecule by molecule. “Why can’t you use that?”
“If you’ll notice, ephemeral,” Gudahk said, “the Dark world-ship you call Bluestar has been quite cautious in its approach. It does fear the power of the Living Gods. It fears what we might do to it.”
“More important to its way of thinking, we believe,” the Kroajid Speaker said, “the Dark Mind does not wish to destroy the computronium networks that make up the bulk of our worlds. It wishes to use them, subvert them, adapt them to its own purposes. It can’t do that if they are destroyed.”
“Yet the range of our nanotech weapons is rather sharply limited,” Na Lal noted. “They are directed by an AI swarm mind, a part of the local planetary network, so proximity—even in astronomical terms—is necessary. More important, perhaps, is that the Dark is adept at subverting minds, both organic and artificial, and turning them to its use. We can maintain control across relatively short ranges—several tens of thousands of kilometers. Farther than that, the Dark has ways of taking them over, and we find ourselves facing our own weapons.”
St. Clair nodded his understanding, though none of the beings in that virtual hall would have understood the gesture. He trusted Newton to get the idea across. The Cooperative had been fighting the Dark for longer than any human could imagine—for hundreds of millions of years if he was understanding what he was being shown—and now he was beginning to comprehend the difficulties they faced.
“I hate to tell you this,” he said, “but you people are going to have to learn to fight your own battles. There may be ways that we can help, but we can only do so much. At some point—and sooner rather than later—you’re going to need to come out of your virtual shells and take on the responsibility for your own survival. Do you understand that?”
“We have tried,” the Speaker said. “We have tried time upon time upon time across the millennia. But how does anyone escape paradise?”
“If you want to survive, in paradise or anywhere else, you’re going to have to find a way.”
“We have,” the Thole said. “You.”
At first St. Clair almost screamed in frustration, but instead took a deep breath. As he thought for a moment, an idea began to form. On an in-head display, he could see the scene from a camera on board the Ad Astra, one showing the red-ocher loom of the Wrath of Deity, and its attendant moons. What the hell? All he could do was ask.
“We might be able to help you with the Bluestar,” he said. “Maybe. But we will need your help.”
“How can we help you?” Na Lal asked, and inwardly, St. Clair exalted. It was the first solid offer of help from these beings that he’d received that didn’t seem to include abject servitude.
With Newton’s help, he called up another image, projecting it into the virtual room at the center of the ring of disparate beings. The scene was one from Ad Astra’s external cameras, showing the ocher face of the Wrath of Deity, plus four tiny moon-ships. “We need one of your mobile worlds,” he said. “How about one of those out there?”
“Not the Wrath of Deity!” Gudahk said.
“Those smaller moons,” St. Clair said. “They belong to the Kroajid?”
“And others,” Speaker said.
“How many live aboard one of them?”
“If by ‘live’ you mean how many organic beings inhabit one . . . the answer is none. They are inhabited by digital uploads within a computronium matrix.”
“So the population could easily be shifted to another matrix?”
“Not easily, but—”
“Commander,” Newton whispered in his mind, interrupting. “We have a problem. The Bluestar is accelerating in our direction.”
“What, now? Damn it. . . .” He broke the link with the conference. “Show me.”
Newton produced an in-head display, a schematic of the Ki system. The Bluestar object was traveling in rapid, sporadic jumps, angling toward the tight little cluster of worlds and megastructures closer in toward the local sun. St. Clair watched the icon marking the Bluestar wink out . . . then reappear an instant later practically on top of Ki.
“ExComm!” he called.
“I see it, Lord Commander. I was about to call you.”
“Launch fighters! All stations to General Quarters!”
“Way ahead of you, my lord. . . .”
The Andromedan Dark . . . Dhalat K’graal, the Minds from Higher Angles. What, St. Clair wondered, was the damnable thing thinking? What did it want? Its strategic thinking, so far at least, seemed scattered, even fragmented. Sudden attacks without clear focus, with each just as suddenly broken off. It made no sense. . . .
And then something struck the Ad Astra, a savage shock that threatened to fragment the delicate colony and its tug.
The lighting failed, and somewhere close by, in the passageway outside his office, people screamed.
Chapter Nineteen
Major General Wilson was in his C3 on board the Vera Cruz with Nathan Deladier when the Bluestar made its final jump. With horrifying suddenness, the situation went from standby to red alert, and things were falling apart in an eye’s-blink transition into utter chaos.
“Get the division off the ship!” Wilson yelled. In fact, half of the Tellus First Division was already in space with the rest in reserve on board, but Wilson wanted to save them all if he could. That giant Dark world was entirely too close, and getting closer. It was still over 6 million kilometers out, well beyond Ki, well beyond the nearby blue gas giant . . . but its size alone made it a terrible threat. If it got close enough to Ki that its gravity began distorting those rings, then the local population would be lost without a shot being fired. Hell, that thing was large enough it could swallow the Ki Rings and all in a single gulp and without effort.
And from this perspective it appeared to be bearing down on both Ki and upon the twin cylinders of the Tellus colony. The Marine transports had been ordered to hold position close by Tellus Ad Astra as the cluster of recently arrived Cooperative world-ships had approached, but that, of course, meant that all three transports were closely bunched up with the Tellus Ad Astra . . . a bad tactical position in the face of this new threat.
The Bluestar was huge in comparison to Ki, dwarfing the ringworld into toy-sized insignificance. Once again the Bluestar’s central sphere seemed to pulse, expand, and fold into itself, continuously turning itself inside out as it approached. Wilson watched its advance with growing concern.
“Let’s get clear of the Ad Astra,” Wilson told Deladier. “We don’t want that thing to get us both.”
“Roger that, General,” Deladier replied, and the transport began moving clear of the far larger colony modules. The other Marine transports were accelerating now as well, the smaller Inchon and Saipan with the Second Division slipping smoothly clear of Tellus’s shadow. Surrounding space was becoming crowded as fighters dropped into the void, and MCA-clad Marines began joining them.
