by David Brin
Time to find out what it was. He worked his way around the observation deck, and at the rearmost pane he saw what prevented a fatal plummet.
The station hung at one end of a narrow, glowing thread, extruded from a hull orifice he’d never seen before. But a familiar blue-striped pattern suggested it must in fact be the reality anchor, manifesting itself this time in a particularly handy way.
At the other end, high overhead, the anchor seemed to be hooked into the lip of a flat plane stretching away horizontally to the right. To his left, an even greater expanse of open sky spread beyond the half-plane. He had an impression of yet more linear boundaries, far higher still.
At least the station hadn’t changed much in physical appearance during passage. Metaphorical stilt legs still hung beneath the oblong globe, waving slowly in space. Something seemed to be wrong with vision, though. Harry rubbed his eyes but the problem wasn’t there. Somehow, all features beyond the windows appeared blurred. He couldn’t recognize the mountainous columns, for instance, though the grotesque things felt somehow familiar, filling his mind with musty impressions of childhood.
This place was unlike anything he’d experienced since personality profile machines on Tanith had selected him to be the first neo-chimpanzee trained as a Navigation Institute Observer. He knew better than to ask any of the onboard programs for help figuring it out.
“The region of E Space where you’ll be heading is seldom visited for good reasons,” Wer’Q’quinn had said before Harry set off this time. “Many of the traits that patrons instill in their clients, through Uplift — to help them become stable, rational, goal-oriented starfarers — turn into liabilities in a realm where all notions of predictability vanish.”
Recalling this, Harry shook his head.
“Well, I can’t say I wasn’t warned.”
He turned his head to the left and commanded—“Pilot mode.”
With a faint “pop” the familiar rotating P materialized nearby.
“At your service, Harvey.”
“That’s Harry,” he corrected for the umpteenth time, with a sigh. “I’m getting no blind spot agoraphobia, so you might as well open the shutters the rest of the way.”
The ship complied, and at once Harry winced at a juxtaposition of odd colors, even though they were muted by the strange haze.
“Thanks. Now please run a scan to see if this metaphorical space will allow us to fly.”
“Checking.”
There followed a long silence as Harry crossed his fingers. Flight made movement so much easier … especially when you were hanging by a rope over miles and miles of apparently empty space. He imagined he could hear the machine click away, nudging drive units imperceptibly to see which would work here, and which were useless or even dangerous. Finally, the rotating P spun to a conclusion.
“Some sort of flight appears to be possible, but I cannot pin it down. None of the allaphorical techniques in my file will do the trick. You will have to think of something original.”
Harry shrugged. That made up a large part of why he was here.
“Have you located our watch zone?”
“I sense a narrow tube of normal space not far away from us, in figurative units. Subjectively, you should observe a glowing Avenue ‘below’ … somewhere in the fourth quadrant.”
Harry went to the window indicated and looked down among the blurry, giant shapes.
“Ye-e-es, I think I see it.” He could barely discern a faint, shining line. “We better try to get closer.”
“Assuming you find a way.”
“Aye,” he agreed. “There’s the rub.”
Harry anxiously ran his fingers through his chin fur and scalp, wishing it hadn’t been so long since he had had a good grooming. Back on Horst, where he and his distracted parents were the only chimps on a whole planet, it had always seemed simply a matter of personal hygiene to keep the insidious dust out of your pelt. Only during school days on Earth did Harry learn what a sybaritic art form it could be, to have one or more others stroke, comb, brush, and tease your hair, tugging the roots just right, till the follicles almost screamed with pleasure. Looking back on those days, the warm physical contact of mutual grooming was the one thing he missed most about his own kind.
Too bad his partners also talked so much — from banter and gossip to inquiries about every personal foible — the sorts of things Harry could never be comfortable discussing. His awkward lack of openness struck Earth chims as aloof, even condescending, while Harry found them overly prying. Invariably, he remained an outsider, never achieving full entry or intimacy in the college grooming circles.
Harry knew he was procrastinating, but he felt uncertain where to start.
“So you are concerned about rumors of unusual detours in hyperspace and disturbed transfer points,” Wer’Q’quinn had replied, after Harry returned from his last mission. “These phenomena are well outside your jurisdiction. But now it seems that a confluence of factors makes it necessary to confide in you.”
“Let me guess,” Harry had asked. “The disturbances are so bad, they can be observed even in E Space.”
“Your hunch is astute,” Wer’Q’quinn agreed, snapping a GalTwo approval-punctuation with his beak. “I can see your recruitment was not a forlorn gamble, but rather evidence of my own deep insight, proving my value to the Institute and my worthiness of rapid promotion
“Your next patrol begins in one-point-three standard days.”
After allowing for briefings, that left just enough time for a bath and a good sleep in his barracks cubby. He had hoped for a longer rest. There was a foruni masseuse in the bazaar whose instinctive understanding of other species’ musculoskeletal systems made the agile creature expert at loosening the kinks in Harry’s spine.… Alas.
While nervously combing his chin, a frayed fingernail yanked some gnarly hair, making Harry twinge. He held the strand up for a close look.
It’s a good thing chimp hair doesn’t keep growing longer, like on the faces of human males who don’t depilate. Back on Horst, he had seen Probsher shamen whose patriarchal beards lengthened over the years till they stretched nearly all the way …
Harry blinked, realizing what his subconscious was driving at. He turned quickly and pressed against the rearmost window, peering at the blue cable — which dangled the station over an immeasurable drop. Stretching upward, it seemed almost to disappear, aiming toward one edge of that far-off horizontal plane.
“Pilot,” he said. “I want to see if we can play out the pseudolength of our reality anchor. Can we unreel any more?”
“It is already at maximum extension,” came the reply.
Harry cursed. It had seemed a good idea.…
“Wait a minute,” he muttered. “Don’t be too literal. Try it another way. All right, so maybe we can’t feed the anchor out any more. But tickle the damn thing anyway, will you? Maybe we can change its length some other way. By stretching it, maybe. Or causing it to grow.”
He knew he was being vague. Flexible thought sometimes meant working your way around an idea’s blurry outlines.
“I will try, and let you know,” the computer replied.
There followed a series of faint humming sounds, then a sudden jar as the platform dropped, weightless again just long enough to make fear erupt in his chest. It jerked short abruptly, sending Harry staggering against his command couch, feeling his stomach keep falling.
“H-h-h-” He tried again. “W-Well?”
“The rules of topology here seem to allow a wide range of flexible conformal mappings. Practically speaking, this means the cable can stretch, adjusting to any length, at almost any speed desired. Congratulations, Commander Harms. You seem to have found a way to maneuver in the subjective vertical.”
Harry ignored the suspicion of sarcasm, which might be imagined. At least this trap had proved easier to escape than the banana peel mesa.
Still, I’ll only feel safe after learning the metaphorical rules that apply
here. There were reasons why patrol craft seldom entered this region. Many that tried never returned.
“Start lowering us then,” he commanded. “Gently.”
The flat half-plane overhead receded as the “ground” approached at a steady clip, reminding him of something — either the inexorable nature of destiny … or else an oncoming train.
While at Kazzkark, there had been time to enquire about the Siege of Earth.
He shouldn’t be interested. Having dedicated his life to the monastic Navigation Institute, Harry was supposed to forsake all prior loyalties of kinship or patron line. But few sophonts could ever transfer natural sympathies completely. Institute workers often discreetly sought news of “home.”
When Harry found himself with an extra hour between briefings, he ventured to the bazaar, where a Le’4-2vo gossip merchant accepted his generous fee and showed him to an osmium-lined room containing a masked Library tap.
It didn’t take long to find the topic — which had risen three more significance levels since the last time he checked — under the heading: “Major News — Quasi Current Events.” The latest word from Galaxy Two was dire.
Terran forces and their few allies had been forced to retreat from the Canaan colonies, which were now provisionally ruled by a Soro admiral.
The beautiful dolphin-settled world of Calafia had been invaded. A third of that water-covered globe was taken over by a mixed squadron led by one faction of the Brothers of the Night, while a different clique from that same race of fanatical warriors fought bitterly to “liberate” the rest.
Earth itself was enveloped and frail Terragens forces would have crumbled by now, but for help from the Tymbrimi and Thennanin … and the way enemies kept fragmenting and fighting among themselves. Even so, the end seemed near.
In a footnote, Harry saw that the tiny Earthling leasehold on Horst had been occupied … by the horrible Tandu.
Shivers ran down his spine. There was mention of an evacuation by the local staff, so perhaps Marko and Felicity had time to flee with the other anthropologists. But somehow Harry doubted it. His parents were obsessive. It would be just like them to stay, assuming that the invaders would never bother a pair of scientists doing nonmilitary work.
Even if all the technicians and Terraformers left, where would that leave the natives? Human tribes that had turned their “probationary” mental status into license to escape the rigors of modern society, experimenting instead with countless diverse social forms — many of them imitating one totem species or another. Some groups purposely modeled themselves on the matriarchal hive societies of bees, while others mimicked wolf packs, or the lion’s pride, or marriage patterns found only in strange, pre-Contact novels. Most of the little Probsher bands had little interest in technology or Galactopolitics.
They would be helpless meat to predatory warriors like the Tandu.
Fleeing the gossip merchant’s shelter, Harry had tried to wipe the news from his mind. Soon victorious eatees would be scrapping over the remains of fallen Earthclan. With neutral governance dissolving all over the Five Galaxies, it should be simple to coerce the Uplift Institute, getting humans, chims, and dolphins declared open for adoption. All three races would be parceled out like spoils of war, each to a new “patron,” for genetic-social guidance across the next hundred thousand years.
That is, if we don’t “accidentally” die off during the confusion. It had happened before, nearly every time a wolfling race appeared, claiming to have raised itself to sapience without help from any other. The amazing thing was that Earthclan had lasted this long.
Well, at least gorillas are safe. The Thennanin aren’t bad masters … assuming you must have a master.
I wonder who will get us chims, as part of the bargain?
Harry’s teeth bared in a grimace.
They may find us more trouble than we’re worth.
During his next briefing with Wer’Q’quinn, he had blurted a direct question. “All these hyperspatial anomalies and disturbances … are they happenin’ on account of the war over Earth?”
Instead of rebuking Harry for showing interest in his old clan, the Survey official waved a suckered tendril obligingly.
“Young colleague, it is important to remember that one of the great mentational dangers of sapient life is egotism — the tendency to see all events in the context of one’s own self or species. It is natural that you perceive the whole universe as revolving around the troubles of your former clan, little and insignificant as it is.
“Now I admit recent events may appear to support that supposition. The announcement of possible Progenitor relics — discovered in a secret locale by the infamous dolphin ship — precipitated open warfare among the most warlike oxygen-breathing clans. Trade patterns unravel as some alliances seize control over local transfer points. However, let me assure you that the energy fluxes released by the battles so far have been much too small to affect underlying cosmic links.”
“But the coincidence in timing!”
“You mistake cause for effect. The angst and fury that now swirl around wolflings had been building for centuries before humans contacted our culture. Ever since the Fututhoon Episode, a nervous peace has been maintained mostly by fear, while belligerent parties armed and prepared for the next phase. Alas for your unlucky homefolk, it is an inauspicious time for innocents to stumble onto the star lanes.”
Harry blinked for several seconds, then nodded. “You’re talkin’ about a Time of Changes.”
“Indeed. We in the Institutes have known for almost a million years that a new era of great danger and disruption was coming. The signs include increased volatility in relations between the oxygen and hydrogen life orders … and there were outbreaks of spasmodic exponential reproduction within the Machine Order — violations requiring savage measures of suppression. Even among clans of our own Civilization of Five Galaxies, we have seen a rise of religious fervor.”
Harry recalled the proselytes swarming the main avenues of Kazzkark, preaching diverse obscure interpretations of ancient prophecy.
“Bunch of superstitious nonsense,” he had muttered.
To his surprise Wer’Q’quinn agreed with an emphatic snapping of his beak.
“That which is loudest is not always representative,” his boss explained. “Most species and clans would rather live and let live, developing their own paths to wisdom and allowing destiny to take its own time arriving. Who cares whether the Progenitors are going to return in physical form, or as spiritual embodiments, or by remanifesting themselves into the genome of some innocent presapient race? While fanatical alliances clash bitterly over dogma, a majority of oxygen breathers just wish to keep making steady progress toward their own species-enlightenment. Eventually all answers will be found when each race joins its patrons and ancestors in retirement … and then transcendence … following the great ingathering Embrace of Tides.”
There it was again — Harry thought at the time. The basic assumption underlying nearly all Galactic religious faiths. That salvation was attainable by species, not individual organic beings.
Except for that Skiano missionary — the one with the parrot on its shoulder. It was pushing a different point of view. A real heresy!
“So, young colleague,” Wer’Q’quinn had finished. “Try to picture how disturbing it was — to fanatics and moderates alike — when your hapless dolphin cousins broadcast images that seemed to show Progenitor spacecraft floating through one of the flattest parts of Galactic spacetime! The implications of that one scene appeared to threaten a core belief-thread shared by nearly all oxygen breathers.…”
At that point Harry was riveted and attentive. Only then, as luck had it, an aide barged in to report that yet another t-point was unraveling in the Gorgol Sector of Galaxy Five. Suddenly Wer’Q’quinn had no time for abstract discussions with junior underlings. Amid the ensuing flurry of activity, Harry was sent to the Survey Department to finish his briefing. There was never a chance to ask
the old snake about his intriguing remark.
What core belief? What about the Streaker’s discovery has everybody so upset?
At last the platform settled down to “earth.”
The surface was relatively soft. His vessel’s spindly legs took up the load with barely a jounce.
Well, so far so good. The ground didn’t swallow me up. A herd of parasitic memes hasn’t converged yet, trying to take over my mind, or to sell me products that haven’t been available for aeons.
Harry always hated when that happened.
He looked warily across a wide, flat expanse covered with limp, fluffy cylinders. They looked like droopy, slim-barreled cactuses, all jumbled loosely against each other as far as the eye could see. He took over manual controls and used a stilt-leg to prod the nearest clump. They squished underfoot easily, rebounding slowly after he backed off.
“Can we retract our reality anchor now?” he asked the pilot.
“No need. The anchor is restored to its accustomed niche.”
“Then what is that?” Harry asked, pointing to the blue cable, still rising vertically toward the sky.
“The ropelike metaphor has become a semipermanent structure. We can leave it in place, if you wish.”
Harry peered up the stretched cord, rubbing his chin.
“Well, it might offer a way out of here if we have to beat a hasty retreat. Just note this position and let’s get going.”
The scout station set out, striding across the plain of fuzzy tubes. Meanwhile, Harry kept moving from window to window, peering nervously, wondering how this region’s famed lethality would first manifest itself.
Rearing up on all sides, at least a dozen of the slender, immensely tall towers loomed in the background. Some of them seemed to have square cross sections while others were rectangular or oval. He even thought he perceived a rigid formality to their placement, as if each stood positioned on a grid, some fixed distance apart.
Harry soon realized the strange blurriness was not due to any obstructing “haze” but to a flaw in vision itself. Sight appeared to be a short-range sense in this patch of E Space.
