by David Brin
“How … did you know?” it asked.
I shrugged — a blithe gesture, covering the fact that I had guessed.
“Two line segments meeting at an angle of one hundred and four degrees. That can only represent the bonds of a water molecule. Hydrogen plus oxygen, combining to make the fundamental ingredient of all life chemistry. It’s not so mysterious.”
The spinning lines seemed to sway.
“Maybe for you,” the Niss replied. “Earthling preconceptions are not as fixed, perhaps. But to me this comes as a shock. After all the warnings, the endlessly repeated stories about how dangerous Zang are … how illogical, touchy, and inscrutable they can be …”
I shrugged.
“Young boys call little girls names, and vice versa. Often, they can’t stand each others’ company. At least, till they grow up enough to need one another.”
It was a facile analogy. And yet, the comparison made sense!
I used to wonder about the oxy-hydro antagonism. How, if they are so fundamentally different, so explosively hostile and incompatible, did the Zang and their brethren manage to keep peace with the Civilization of Five Galaxies for so long? Why hasn’t one side wiped out the other, instead of grudgingly cooperating in complex feats of migration and ecomanagement, sharing spiral arms and space lanes with a relative minimum of violence?
How, indeed? It seemed improbable.
That is, unless the whole thing was already worked out at a higher level! A level where both life orders at last matured enough to find common ground.
A consummation, with each side providing what the other lacks.
So.
Here we are, at a place of fusion and consolidation.
A union forged amid strong gravity currents, deep within the Embrace of Tides.
We seem to be invited.
That leaves just one question.
Why?
Harry
HE EXPECTED TO BE WELCOMED HOME WITH congratulations, perhaps by Wer’Q’quinn himself, or at least the old squid’s senior aides, eager to receive Harry’s data and hear about his successful mission.
A damned difficult mission, if truth be told. An epic voyage to one of the worst parts of E Space, where he had prevailed against horrible odds, and even picked up a couple of human-sooner castaways for good measure!
Anticipating acclaim, what he found at Kazzkark Base was chaos.
All the north pole docking bays were full, except a few set aside for official use. Approaching one of those, Harry had to shout his priority code, adding threats until a surly Migration Instituté monitor-drone finally vacated a slot reserved for NavInst craft.
Beyond the starlit scaffolding, he glimpsed myriad sleek refugee ships, tethered in layers from one end of the planetoid to the other, creating a dense, confusing snarl of shadowy forms and glinting strobe lights.
“Ain’t it excitin’, Dwer?” murmured the girl with the scarred face — Rety — whose eyes gleamed at the sight. “Didn’t I promise ya? Stick with me an’ I’ll get you to civilization! That’s what I said. Good-bye smelly ol’ Jijo, and hello galaxy! We’ll never be dirty, hungry, poor, or bored again.”
Harry exchanged a glance with the other human, the tall male. Both young savages were clearly out of their depth. But unlike Rety, Dwer seemed to know it. His eyes expressed worried awe at the view outside.
Kinda like the way I feel, Harry pondered. Starships were packed together like shattered murvva trunks after a bad windstorm on Horst. The disruptions must’ve got a lot worse since I left … especially if folks are choosing dumpy old Kazzkark as a place to run away to!
Magnetic grapples settled snugly around his battered survey station, which at last powered down with a relieved groan. Harry, too, exhaled the tension he had carried in his spine ever since departure, sighing deeply.
Home again … such as it is.
Downloading Wer’Q’quinn’s data to a portable wafer, he turned and ushered his guests toward the airlock. In normal times, returning from any other mission, this pair would have stirred a sensation at the sleepy base. Hints at a newly discovered sooner infestation would spread quickly, and make the arresting officer famous.
Residual loyalty tugged at Harry. Humans were patrons to his own race, after all. Ostensibly, he wasn’t supposed to care about that anymore. But habits were hard to break.
Besides, Dwer and Rety saved my life.
The conflict left him feeling more ambivalent than triumphant as they passed through a short tunnel into the planetoid.
With everything in an uproar, maybe my report about them will just be overlooked.
He decided he could live with that.
The Ingress Atrium was filled with noise and commotion as a mélange of races pushed and jostled, ignoring the delicate rhythms and rituals of racial seniority and interclan protocol as they pressed for admission, hoping for sanctuary from an increasingly unreliable cosmos. Harry’s Institute credentials got him through several gates, moving to the front of the queue with his two humans in tow. Still, it took most of a midura to reach the final portal labeled IMMIGRATION AND QUARANTINE. Along the way, he overheard some of the worry and panic fluxing through the Civilization of Five Galaxies.
“—three out of four transfer points in Lalingush Sector show dislocations, or catastrophic domain recombinations,” hissed a tunictguppit trader in GalSeven, exchanging gossip with a rotund p’ort’l whose chest-mounted eye blinked furiously.
The p’ort’l snorted in reply — a rich sound, with multitoned harmonies. “I hear most of the remaining transfer points have been seized by local alliances, who are exacting illegal taxes on any ship attempting to enter or leave. One consequence is vast numbers of stranded merchants, students, pilgrims, and tourists with no way to get home!”
To Harry’s surprise, the two young humans didn’t seem at all panicky or intimidated by the crowd. Rety grinned happily, stroking the neck of her little urrish “husband,” while Dwer stared at the diversity of sapient life-forms, occasionally leaning over to whisper in the girl’s ear, pointing at some type of alien he recognized — perhaps from legends told around a campfire, back on his tribal homeworld — a more cosmopolitan attitude than Harry would have expected. Nevertheless, Dwer betrayed underlying nervousness in the way he clutched his bow and arrows tightly under one arm.
Harry had considered confiscating the crude archery equipment. In theory, prisoners weren’t supposed to go around armed. Still, he doubted even the most stickling Galactic bureaucrat would recognize the assortment of twigs, strings, and bits of chipped stone as a weapon.
Speaking of rule sticklers, he thought, on reaching the main desk. The same sour hoonish official was on duty as last time, and just as obnoxious as ever. Despite the declared state of emergency, Twaphu-anuph flapped his richly dyed throat sac at anyone who showed even the slightest irregularity of documentation, ignoring their protests, sending them back to the end of the line. The hoon seemed frazzled from overwork and strain when Harry stepped up to the desk.
Get ready for a surprise, you gloomy old bureaucrat, Harry thought, relishing how his new tail and fur color would shock Twaphu-anuph.
To his disappointment, the hoon barely regarded Harry with a quick scan before looking back down at his monitor screens. Apparently, the pale fur coloration did not alter the official’s gestalt of a Terran chimpanzee.
“Ah, hrr-rrm. So it is Observer Harms, once again inflicting his unwelcome simian visage on my tired sensoria,” Twaphu-anuph commented in snidely accented GalSix. “Only this time — equally noxious — he brings along two of his grubby Earthling masters. Have they come to take you home at last, like a truant child?”
Harry sensed Rety and Dwer stiffen. He hurried to respond with more firmness than he might have otherwise.
“Twaphu-anuph, you exceed your prerogatives, which do not include heaping personal abuse on a fellow acolyte of the Great Institutes. However, if you pass us through at once, I may refrain from lodging a for
mal protest.”
Perhaps it was fatigue from a long, successful mission that gave Harry’s voice a more confident tenor. To his surprise, the big hoon seemed unmotivated to continue his traditional derisive taunting. Twaphu-anuph held out a giant hand.
“Hr-rr-r. Show me the humans’ identification tags. Please.”
Harry shook his head.
“They are specimens claimed for observation by the Navigation Institute, entering Kazzkark under my own credentials. You may image both humans and do a bio scan before letting us through. That should take about thirty duras to accomplish. Regulations do not allow a longer delay. Or shall I complain to Wer’Q’quinn?”
Their eyes met. A low, rumbling sound fluttered from below Twaphu-anuph’s chin as the throat sac drummed. Harry knew he was being roundly cursed in a semiprivate racial dialect. Formal insult could not be taken, since no official Galactic language was involved, but several onlookers seemed to grasp the cutting remark, expressing agreement or amusement in their own ways. Ever since the debacle at the NuDawn Colony, centuries ago, malevolence from hoons had been a tedious fact of life to members of beleaguered Earthclan.
Dwer Koolhan abruptly burst out laughing, a sound that cut through Twaphu-anuph’s hostile umble, causing it to trip and founder. The hoon gave up a surprised stare as the young human responded in Anglic — also an unofficial tongue, but one that many sophonts understood these days.
“Ouch, what a good cut! Hold on there a dura, while I explain to this poor chimp what you just said about his body type, his ancestors, and all that!”
Leaning toward Harry, Dwer offered a quick wink and whispered.
“Smile and pretend you’re tellin’ me something to say back at the fool.”
Harry blinked.
“What do you think you’re trying to—”
Dwer stood up straight again, guffawing loudly and pointing at Harry. He made as if to say something to Twaphu-anuph, but was unable to get by gasps of laughter.
“He says … the chimp says …”
Rety wore a sour expression, rolling her eyes. But Harry could only stare in amazement as Dwer gathered a deep breath, looked straight at Twaphu-anuph … and began approximating a deep hoonish umble!
A kind of ferocity seemed to flash in Dwer’s eyes as he threw a belchlike groan at the officious inspector, whose throat flapped with astonishment and dismay.
Abrupt silence reigned when Dwer took a breath and switched to Anglic.
“There, wasn’t that clever? Where I come from, any chimp who said something like that would be called a real—”
Harry grabbed Dwer’s arm and squeezed. The young man was wiry for a human, but no match for chim strength. Obediently, Dwer cut off at once, smiling amiably at the crowd. None had ever heard an Earthling umble before. It sure was a first for Harry!
Then, as if for good measure, Rety’s little “husband” stuck his little urrish head out from her pouch, giving the tall hoon a hiss of raspberry scorn, prompting still more surprised shouts from the throng.
“Enough!” Twaphu-anuph cried, slamming his heavy fist on a switch, causing the portal to fly open. “Hoontalking humans? Earth-talking hoons? Has the whole cosmos gone crazy? Get out of here! Go!”
While the bureaucrat buried his massive head in his hands, Harry kept his grip on Dwer’s arm, pulling until all of them passed safely onto the covered avenues of Kazzkark, letting go only when the Ingress Atrium was far behind them.
Stepping back, he regarded the sooner boy, as if for the first time.
After a long pause, Harry grunted with a brief nod.
“I got just one question for you.”
“Yes?” Dwer replied.
“Can you teach me how to do what you did back there?”
There are ways of reporting an event that make it seem uneventful.
While waiting in Wer’Q’quinn’s lobby for his boss to see him, Harry quickly modified his written account of meeting Dwer and Rety in E Space, removing his surmise that they came from a sooner world. It wasn’t necessary to hide any actual facts. Who else but another Earthling would recognize Dwer’s handsewn buckskins and neolithic weaponry for what they were?
He could rationalize that he wasn’t really breaking his oath. Sort of.
“Your ship broke down and you lost all personal effects before the machine craft picked you up,” he coaxed the pair. “You also suffered brain damage, resulting in partial amnesia. That should qualify you for basic aid, under the Traveler’s Assistance Tradition. Maybe enough to pay for air, water, and protein till you find a way to earn your keep. Got that?”
While Dwer nodded soberly, Rety murmured to the little male urs.
“You hear that, yee? Brain damage? I bet Dwer can fake that real good.”
Her “husband” responded by aiming a swift nip at her left hand, which she yanked back just in time. All at once, Harry decided he liked the small creature.
“I know some people in Low Town,” he said. “Maybe they can find the two of you some jobs you’re suited for. Meanwhile, here’s a data chip with standard information about Kazzkark and the surrounding sector,” he continued, handing over a clear rod, which Rety slid into her prize possession — a rather beat-up-looking tutorial computer of Terran design. “Study hard while I’m inside. When I finish, I’ll take you someplace safe. But in return I’m gonna want your story — the whole story, you understand? About your home and everything.”
Both humans nodded, and Harry felt sure they meant it.
A musical chime seemed to fill the air — a unique rhythm and melody that Harry had been taught to recognize more surely than his own name.
A summons. Wer’Q’quinn’s staff must have finished going through his data, taken by instruments that had peered at the Real Cosmos from the outside.
At last, he thought, standing up. Already the two young humans were immersed in images from the teaching unit, so he left without a word. Hurrying toward his boss’s office, Harry felt growing excitement. With this recent success, he had earned some consideration from the Navigation Institute. Perhaps enough to be let in on the big secret.
Maybe now someone will tell me what in Ifni’s Probabilistic Purgatory is going on!
Several miduras passed before he emerged at last from Wer’Q’quinn’s sanctuary, feeling rather dazed.
He had hoped for an explanation.
Now Harry wondered if it was such a good idea, after all.
Ain’t it always like this? The gods warn us to be careful what we wish for. Sometimes it comes true.
• • •
There was good news, bad news … and tidings that were downright terrifying.
First came congratulations on surviving a hard voyage. The changed fur coloring — plus addition of a new body appendage — seemed relatively mild compared to the afflictions that some other observers came home with. He was given a generous personal compensation allowance, and the NavInst staff said nothing more about it.
As for the mission, Wer’Q’quinn could not be more pleased. Using the peculiar perspectives of E Space to gaze in at the sidereal universe, Harry’s cameras had measured a progressive stretching of the underlying subvacuum. A process that was rapidly nearing rupture. Thanks to his bold mission, Wer’Q’quinn’s local savants knew almost as much about this process as their august superiors, back at Quadrant HQ.
That was also the bad news.
Those superiors must have known for some time what was going on. Yet they had delayed declaring an emergency till the last moment. Even now they were downplaying public fears.
“Could it be a conspiracy?” Harry had asked Wer’Q’quinn, at one point.
The squidlike being thrashed several tentacles. “If so, Observer Harms, this conspiracy includes the topmost beings-in-authority of all major institutes, plus most elder races, as well. In fact, now that we have fresh facts, my staff has been able to coerce better infolink references from our Kazzkark branch of the Great Library, revealing something
so remarkable that we are stunned nearly breathless from the news.”
Harry swallowed, hard. “What is it?”
“Apparently, this is not the first time events such as these have occurred! A lesser version of the same phenomena took place about one hundred and fifty million years ago, associated with the permanent or temporary disfunction of seventy percent of all transfer points! Then, too, society was racked by massive social disruptions and genocidal wars. Galaxy Three, in particular, suffered terribly.”
“But … how could such things be hidden? The Library — isn’t it supposed to be …”
Wer’Q’quinn waved the objection away, as if it were naive. “Few facts were suppressed, per se. Rather, the cover-up was executed more subtly, by emphasizing the significance of some events, and minimizing others out of all proportion.”
Harry felt glad of his fur, covering a blush of embarrassment. This was exactly what he had done, burying the truth about Dwer and Rety under mounds of detail.
“The chaos of that epoch has always been attributed to widespread interclan warfare, which turns out to have been a symptom, rather than the cause,” Wer’Q’quinn continued. “Anyway, people are accustomed to finding historical records murky, clouded by uncertainty, the farther back you go. That may be why a far more crucial event — the Gronin Collapse — gets so little attention.”
“The … what?”
“The Gronin Collapse. Forgive me, you are a wolfling, and your education is deficient. But most Galactic schoolchildren know that the Progenitors returned, in spirit form, approximately two hundred and thirty million years ago, to guide and protect oxy-life during one of its worst crises. Interstellar navigation became tortuous. Conflicts slashed populations. Only a small number of starfaring clans survived to begin renewing the Cycle of Uplift with a fresh generation.”
“I …” Harry frowned. “I think I heard of it. Weren’t machines and Zang supposed to be responsible, somehow?”
“A superficial explanation that most accept without further probing. In truth however, the answer was something else. Something more grand … and far more frightening.”
