by David Brin
Ur-ronn recovered first.
“It sounds … crowded,” she suggested.
“Actually, population levels are constrained by energy and sun-facing surface area. By contrast, volume for living space is not a serious limitation. Accommodations would be fairly roomy. Each sovereign entity could have a private chamber larger than the entire volcano you Jijoans call Mount Guenn.”
“Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh …” Pincer-Tip stuttered from five leg vents at once, summing up my own reaction at the time. “P-p-people made this thing … t-t-to live in?”
The Niss hologram curled into a spinning abstraction of meshed lines that somehow conveyed amusement.
“These inhabitants might consider the term ‘people’ insultingly pejorative, my dear young barbarian. In fact, most of them are classified as higher entities than you or me. Fractal colonies are primarily occupied by members of the Retired Order of Life. In this place — and about a billion other structures like it, scattered across the Five Galaxies — elder races live out their quiet years in relative peace, freed from the bickering noise and fractious disputes of younger clans.”
A nearby dolphin snorted derisively, though at that moment I did not grasp the bitter irony of the Niss Machine’s words.
Sara Koolhan wandered back to join our group.
“But what is it made of?” the young sage asked. “What kind of materials could possibly support anything so huge?”
The pictorial image zoomed, focusing our view on one small segment of a cutaway edge. From a basically circular arc, craggy shapes projected both toward the star and away from it, splitting into branches, then sub-branches, and so on till the eye lost track of the smallest. Faceted chambers filled every enclosed volume.
“The inner surface is built largely of spun carbon, harvested from various sources, like the star itself Hydrogen-helium fusion reactors produced more, over the course of many millions of years. Carbon can withstand direct sunlight. Moreover, it is strong in centrifugal tension.
“The outer portions of this huge structure, on the other hand, are in sub-Keplerian dynamic conditions. Because they feel a net inward pull, they must be strong against compression. Much of the vast honeycomb structure therefore consists of field-stabilized metallic hydrogen, the most plentiful element in the cosmos, mixed into a ceramic-carbon polymorph. This building material was stripped from the star long ago by magnetic induction, removing roughly a tenth of its overall mass — along with oxygen and other components needed for protoplasmic life. That removal had an added benefit of allowing the sun to burn in a slower, more predictable fashion.
“The external shell of the criswell structure is so cold that it reradiates heat to space at a temperature barely above the universal background …”
My ears kind of switched off at that point. I guess the Niss must have thought it was making sense. But even when me and my friends labored through recordings of the lecture later, consulting the autoscribe one word at a time, only Ur-ronn claimed to grasp more than a fraction of the explanation.
Truly, we had arrived at the realm of gods.
I drifted away, since the one question foremost in my mind wasn’t being addressed. It had nothing to do with technical details.
I wanted to know why!
If this monstrous thing was built to house millions of millions of millions of occupants, then who lived there? Why gather so many beings into a giant snowball, surrounding a little star? A “house” so soft and cold that I could melt portions with my own warm breath?
All that hydrogen made me wonder — did the Zang live here?
Above all, what had happened to make the Streaker crew fear this place so?
I observed Gillian Baskin standing alone before two big displays. One showed the Fractal World in real light — a vast disk of blackness. A jagged mouth, biting off whole constellations.
The other screen depicted the same panorama in “shifted infrared,” resembling the head of a garish medieval mace, glowing a shade like hoonish blood. It grew larger and slowly turned as Streaker moved across the night, approaching the monstrous thing at a shallow angle. I wondered how many sets of eyes were watching from vast chill windows, regarding us with a perspective of experience going back untold aeons. At best such minds would consider my species a mere larval form. At worst, they might see us no more worthy than insects.
Our escort, the giant Zang vessel, started spitting smaller objects from its side — the harvester machines it had managed to salvage from the chaos at Izmunuti, carrying their crumpled sails. These began spiraling ahead of us, orbiting more rapidly toward the vast sphere, as if hastening on some urgent errand.
It occurred to me that I was privileged at that moment to witness four of the great Orders of Life in action at the same instant. Hydrogen breathers, machine intelligences, oxy-creatures like myself, and the “retired” phylum — beings who built on such a scale that they thought nothing of husbanding a star like their own personal hearth fire. As a Jijo native, I knew my tribe was crude compared to the august Civilization of Five Galaxies. But now it further dawned on me that even the Great Galactic Institutes might be looked on as mere anthills by others who were even higher on the evolutionary pyramid.
I guess I know where that puts me.
The dark human male joined Dr. Baskin before the twin screens, sharing a glance with her that must have communicated more than words.
“You can feel it too, Emerson?” she said in a low voice. “Something is different. I’m getting a real creepy feeling.”
The mute man rubbed his scarred head, then abruptly grinned and started whistling a catchy melody. I did not recognize the tune. But it made her laugh.
“Yeah. Life is full of changes, all right. And we might as well be optimistic. Perhaps the Old Ones have grown up a bit since we’ve been away.” Her mirthless smile made that seem unlikely. “Or maybe something else distracted them enough to forget all about little us.”
I yearned to follow up on that — to step forward and press her for explanations. But somehow it felt improper to interrupt their poignant mood. So I kept my peace and watched nearby as the harvester robots circled ahead and vanished beyond the limb of the Fractal World.
A little while later, a worried voice spoke over the intercom. It was Olelo, the ship’s detection officer, calling from the bridge.
“For some time we’ve been picking up substantially higher systemwide gas and particulate signaturesss,” the dolphin reported. “Now we’re seeing reflections from larger grain sizes, just ahead, plus entrained ionic flows characteristic of sssolar wind.”
Dr. Baskin looked puzzled.
“Reflections? Reflecting what? Starlight?”
There was a brief pause.
“No ma’am. Spectral profiles match direct illumination by a nearby class M8 dwarf.”
This time, Emerson d’Anite and I shared a baffled look. Neither of us understood a word — he due to his injury, and me because of my savage birth. But the information must have meant plenty to the other human.
“Direct … but that can only mean …” Her eyes widened in a combination of fear and realization. “Oh dear sweet—”
She was cut off by a sudden alarm blare. Across the Plotting Room, all conversation stopped. The image on the main screen zoomed forward, concentrating directly ahead of Streaker’s path, to the limb of the great sphere that was now rotating into view.
Huck spread all her eyestalks and uttered a hushed oath.
“Ifni!”
Neo-dolphins rocked their walkers in nervous agitation. Ur-ronn clattered her hooves and Pincer-Tip kept repeating—“Gosh-osh-osh-osh-osh!”
I had no comment, but reflexively began umbling to calm the nervous beings around me. As usual, I was probably the last one to comprehend what lay before my ogling gaze.
An indentation, interrupting the curved-serrated contour of the sphere.
A wide streamer of faint reddish light, wafting toward the stars.
A scatterin
g of myriad soft glints and twinkling points, like embers blowing from a burning house.
Our Jijoan sage, Sara Koolhan, stepped forward.
“The sphere … it’s ruptured!”
Olelo’s anxious voice reported again from the bridge.
“Confirmed … We’ve got-t a breach in the criswell structure! It’sss a … a big hole, at least an astron or two acrosss. Can’t tell yet-t, but I think.…”
There was another long pause. No one spoke a word or dared even breathe while we waited.
“Yes, it’s verified,” Olelo resumed. “The collapse is continuing as we ssspeak.
“Whatever happened to this place … it’s still going on.”
Gillian
A PANORAMA OF DEATH HAD HER RIVETED.
“I will grant you one thing,” remarked the voice from the spinning hologram. “Wherever you Terrans travel in the universe, you do tend to leave a mark.”
She had no reply for the Niss Machine. Gillian hoped if she kept silent it would go away.
But the tornado of whirling lines moved closer instead. Sidling by her left ear, it spoke her native tongue in soft, natural tones.
“Two million centuries.
“That is how long the Library says this particular structure existed, calmly orbiting the galaxy, a refuge of peace.
“Then, one day, some wolflings came by for a brief visit.”
Gillian slashed, but her hand swept through the hologram without resistance. The abstract pattern kept spinning. Its mesh of fine lines cast ghost-flickers across her face. Of course the damned Niss was right. Streaker carried a jinx, bringing ruin everywhere it went. Only here, the consequent misfortune surpassed any scale she could grasp with heart or mind.
Instruments highlighted grim symptoms of devastation as, escorted by the huge Zang globule-vessel, Streaker entered a ragged gap in the tremendous fractal shell, bathed in reddish sunlight that was escaping confinement for the first time in aeons. A storm of atoms and particles blew out through the same hole, so dense that at one point the word “vacuum” lost pertinence. A noticeable pressure appeared on instruments, faintly resisting the Earthship’s progress.
There was larger debris. Chunks that Kaa moved nimbly to avoid. Some were great wedges, revealing hexagonal, comblike rooms the size of asteroids. Tumbling outward, each evaporating clump wore shimmering tails of dust and ions. Thousands of these artificial comets lit up the broad aperture … a cavity so wide that Earth would take a month in its orbit to cross it.
“Albeit reluctantly, Dr. Baskin,” the Niss concluded, “I admit I am impressed. Congratulations.”
Nearby, a throng of walker-equipped neo-dolphins jostled among the passengers. The Plotting Room grew crowded as off-duty personnel came to gawk at the spectacle. But a gap surrounded Gillian, like a moat none dared cross, except the sardonic Tymbrimi machine-mind. No one exulted. This place had caused the crew great pain, but the havoc was too immense, too overwhelming for gloating.
Nor would it be fair. Just a few factions of Old Ones had been responsible for the betrayal that sent Streaker fleeing almost a year ago, while some other blocs actually helped the Earthship get away. Anyway, should hundreds of billions die because of the greed of a few?
Don’t get carried away, she thought. There’s no proof this disaster has anything to do with us. It could be something completely unrelated.
But that seemed unlikely. Sheer coincidence beggared any other explanation.
She recalled how their previous visit ended — with a final backward glimpse during Streaker’s narrow getaway.
We saw violence erupting behind us, even as someone opened up a door, letting us make a break for the transfer point. I saw a couple of nearby fractal branches get damaged, and some windows broken, while sects clashed over Emerson’s little scoutship, seizing and preventing him from following us.
Gillian’s friend paid dearly for his brave rearguard action, suffering unimaginably cruel torture and abuse before somehow, mysteriously, being transported to Jijo right after Streaker. The speechless former engineer was never able to explain.
Amid the guilt of abandoning him, and our hurry fleeing this place, who would have guessed the Old Ones would keep on fighting after we escaped! Why? What purpose could an apocalypse serve, after we took our cursed cargo away?
But a horrible tribulation must have followed. Ahead lay ample testimony. Plasma streamers and red-tinged dust plumes … along with countless long black shadows trailing from bits of dissolving rubble, some larger than a moon, but all of them as frail as snowflakes.
She pondered the ultimate cause — the treasures Streaker carried, like Herbie, the ancient cadaver that had taken over her study, like Poe’s raven, or Banquo’s ghost. Prizes lusted after by fanatical powers hoping to seize and monopolize their secrets, winning some advantage in a Time of Changes.
It was imperative to prevent that. The Terragens Council had made their orders clear — first to Creideiki and later to Gillian when she assumed command. Streaker’s discoveries must be shared openly, according to ancient Galactic custom, or not at all. Mighty races and alliances might violate that basic rule and think they could get away with it. But frail Earthclan dared not show even a hint of partiality.
In an age of rising chaos, sometimes the weak and friendless have no sanctuary but the law. Humans and their clients had to keep faith with Galactic institutions. To do less would be to risk losing everything. Unfortunately, Gillian’s quest for a neutral power to take over the relics had proved worse than futile.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. After the Great Institutes proved untrustworthy at Oakka, Gillian had what seemed (at the time) an inspired notion.
Why not pass the buck even higher?
She decided to bring the relics here, to a citadel for species that had “moved on” from the mundane, petty obsessions plaguing the Civilization of Five Galaxies. At one of the legendary Fractal Worlds, harassed Earthlings might at last find dispassionate advice and mediation from beings who were revered enough to intercede, halting the spasmodic madness of younger clans. These respected elder sapients would assume responsibility for the burden, relieve Streaker of its toxic treasures, and force the bickering oxygen alliances to share.
Then, at long last, the weary dolphins could go home.
And I could go searching for Tom, wherever he and Creideiki and the others have drifted since Kithrup.
That had been the theory, the hope.
Too bad the Old Ones turned out to be as fretful, desperate, and duplicitous as their younger cousins who still dwelled amid blaring hot stars.
It’s as if we were a plague ship, carrying something contagious from the distant past. Wherever we go, rational beings start acting like they’ve gone mad.
Monitors focused on the nearest edge of the great wound, revealing a shell several thousand miles thick, not counting the multipronged spikes jutting both in and out. Dense haze partly shrouded the continuing tragedy but could not mask a sparkle of persistent convulsions. Structural segments buckled and tore as Gillian watched. Fractal branches broke and went spinning through space, colliding with others, setting off further chain reactions.
The massive spikes on the sunward side glittered in a way that reminded Gillian.
Windows. When we first came here … after they opened a slim door to let us through … the first thing I noticed was how much of the inner face seemed to be made of glass. And beneath those immense panes—
She closed her eyes, recalling how the telescope had revealed each branchlet was its own separate world. Some greenhouses — larger than her home state of Minnesota — sheltered riotous jungles. Others shone with city lights, or floating palaces adrift on rippled seas, or plains of sparkling sand. It would take many millions of Earths, unrolled flat, to cover so much surface, and that would not begin to express the diversity. She might have spent years magnifying one habitat after another and still routinely found something distinct or new.
It was
the most majestic and beautiful place Gillian had ever seen.
Now it was unraveling before her eyes.
That haze, she realized, aghast. It isn’t just structural debris and subliming gas. It’s people. Their furniture and pets and clothes and houseplants and family albums … Or whatever comprised the equivalent for Old Ones. What human could guess the wishes, interests, and obsessions that became important to species who long ago had seen everything there was to see in the Five Galaxies, and had done everything there was to do?
However abstruse or obscure those hopes, they were dissolving fast. Just during Streaker’s brief passage through the gaping wound, more sapient beings must have died than the whole population of Earth.
Her mind quailed from that thought. To personalize the tragedy invited madness.
“Is anyone trying to stop this?” she asked in a hoarse voice.
The Niss Machine paused before answering.
“Some strive hard. Behold their efforts.”
The monitor view shifted forward as Streaker finally arrived at the habitat’s vast interior space.
Just like the last time, Gillian abruptly felt as if she had entered a vast domed chamber of bright corrugated stalactites and measureless shadows. Although the farthest portions of the vault were several hundred million kilometers away, she could nevertheless make out fine details. The imaging system monitored her eyes to track the cone of her attention, highlighting and amplifying whatever she chose to regard.
Directly ahead — like a glowing lamp in the center of a basilica — a dwarf star cast its warming glow. The visible disk was dimmer and redder than the spendthrift kind of sun where nursery worlds like Terra spun and flourished. By stripping the outer layers for construction material, the makers of this place had created a perfect hearth fire, whose fuel ought to last a hundred billion years. To stare straight at the disk caused no physical pain. But its plasma skin, placid during their first visit, now seemed covered by livid sores. Dazzling pinpoints flared as planet-sized gobs of debris tumbled to the roiling surface.
