The Infinity Link

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  (None of you were alive, then, when you left the homeworld?)

  (Those who lived—) (—live only in memory—)

  Her vision shimmered, and she was looking out of N'rrril's eyes across a chamber, a congregation of fawns. (Not only you and I look out with these eyes.)

  (Who, then—?)

  New voices answered. (I—) (—and I—) (—and I—) (—and I—)

  (And who are you?) she asked, though she thought she knew.

  Gentle laughter. N'rrril said, (Upon death, our bodies rejoin the fertile grounds from which newer bodies are born and nourished. But the spirits, the memories, what you would call the personalities—)

  (—live on in the net,) she said, completing the thought. A door opened in her mind; and she heard a cacophony of voices, voices from far corners of the net, from minds practically within her own, voices echoing across oceans, and from chambers deep in the heart of the asteroid.

  She closed the door. (Your ancestors,) she said calmly. A song reverberated somewhere in the back of her mind, and she sensed that it was an old song, much beloved by the living-in-mind ancestors.

  (Each—) (—a part—) (—of the others—) (—of the whole—)

  (But . . .) and she paused, thinking. (If each remains alive in the mind-net after death, won't there eventually be too many? Won't there be chaos, confusion, suffocation?)

  A solitary voice tinged with sadness answered. (Precisely true. It is one reason for the homeworld's decay. We have vowed never to allow it to happen here. We must not.) Mozy projected polite confusion. (Our ancestors remain with us for a time, but eventually they must surrender themselves to the greater consciousness.)

  (Then they die after all,) Mozy said softly.

  Another voice spoke. (It is all a step toward the design, toward the greater . . .) The Talenki paused, unable to find a suitable word. (It is sad, as you are feeling, yes. But it is not bad. That which is . . .) another pause, and finally an inexact phrase, ( . . .strongest in spirit of the individual, remains even after the individual is gone.)

  Mozy thought of her own people of Earth, of their fleeting lives—and wondered if they would envy the Talenki their form of immortality.

  (The mind,) N'rrril added quietly, (will contain a part of each of us—and now, you, too—for as long as the mind itself lives.)

  The greater part of the Talenki world was awake now, as the fawns concluded their meditations. Mozy wanted to know more.

  A song which had been a subterranean foundation to her dreams emerged into her waking, conveying a story in words and images. There was much that she could not understand, but much else that flowed by like clear, luminous water. The flight of the Talenki from the homeworld, celebrated in song and legend; memories of a world lost, and longings for worlds to be found. Grief for those left behind, though certain connections remained, thoughts and minds linked. Fear of isolation and loneliness; and yet, overlaid, a sense of peace, and joy of accomplishment. It was a flight with no destination except a need to explore, to enlarge their thought and song, and to touch other peoples.

  Little experienced in the ways of space, they learned with much trial and error how to move their asteroid across the interstellar sea, to take them to new worlds. They knew, of course, that none who began the journey would be alive in the flesh by the time that first new world had been reached; but even so, It was harder than they had imagined, struggling at first against the elements of space, turning their skills to the needs of survival and homebuilding. The early years, indeed the early generations, had been devoted to settling in, to getting the asteroid well out of the home solar system, and setting a course for the nearest star. Expanding and refabricating had come later, redistributing the asteroid's mass to increase the living space. Eventually, the time came to think again of purpose and song, of music and art. Time to create tapestries, to carve stone in intricate patterns, to learn new ways of manipulating time and matter and energy, ways of linking worlds with thought. Creating and expanding the design.

  And always they kept moving through the night of space, through generations of Talenki living and dying, always seeking the next world.

  The song wound about the edges of Mozy's consciousness, the lesser part of her listening now, the greater part dreaming. The years wore long in the song, and the song wore long in Mozy's heart, and the transition from listening awake to listening asleep was a gentle one.

  * * *

  She dreamed of dizzies calling into the night, calling for anyone who could hear, or answer. Lesser-Mozy awoke first, while greater-Mozy dozed in the dream, to find that the dizzies, the deep nodes, were indeed calling even now to life forms in the solar system. Calling to Earth.

  (We are preparing our greeting,) confided someone.

  (Oh?)

  (Would you like to help?) (To compose—) (—a message to your—) (—people—) (—to help us—) (—get it right?)

  Greater-Mozy started awake to thoughts of Homebase—Jonders, Hathorne, and the others—and their propensity for misunderstandings. She began laughing, and her amusement spread through the mind like wildfire.

  (Does this mean—) (—yes?)

  She laughed again, thinking of some things she'd like to say to Homebase, things she might just say between the lines. (Yes,) she said. (Yes, indeed, I would.)

  Chapter 56

  The city of Phoenix is filled with ghosts. He has not yet been able to understand what any of them are saying, though he hears their voices as he moves among them.

  In the infrared afterglow, the ruins dance around him like spirits, luminous among the shadows—shadows in the visible spectrum that have swallowed the world. Shattered walls, rubble, half-standing concrete skeletons of buildings, here and there the desiccated corpse of an animal that has wandered in and fallen, weakened by radiation. Ghosts, lurking. These are his companions as he walks the suburban streets, flanked by the ruins.

  He is well beyond the point, now, where every step is a terrible effort and an agony. His body is numb with exhaustion, weak with hunger and thirst, feverish. He can't go much farther, but while he still can move, he will. Reach the crater, he vows, at least the edge of the crater, where the fireball fused and vaporized soil and concrete, lifted earth into the sky, blasted the land into ruin. Bring life back. Human life. If only for a little while.

  Tried already to go home, to find the old neighborhood. A half day spent wandering among smashed neighborhood blocks, all unrecognizable from childhood memory. Someone with a map could find it, perhaps, someone with eyes that could focus. Someone who could fly overhead. Perhaps. For him, it was a futile effort. Hard enough to keep bearings straight just to try to reach the center of the city. Dark closing in now. Thank God for the infrared glow. For the eyes that can see it. See. But not always focus.

  Stumbles and, flailing, crashes face-first to the ground. For a moment, he lies still, racked with quiet sobs and dry tears, unable to make arms and legs work together to rise. Pain in the center of his face, taste of blood in his mouth. Fall here in the dust, he thinks. Die here, in the dust. Fail here. No. Somewhere he finds the extra bit of strength he needs, and he levers himself up to his knees. A broken building looms overhead, wavering, peering down over his shoulder like a parent, someone else's, scolding every move with its eyes.

  Laughs harshly for comfort. Ghosts. Damn place is full of them. But they're lousy company, lousy conversationalists. Damn lousy conversationalists.

  Forget it, he mutters to himself. He's up off his knees, making his feet move again, his blistered, crippled feet. Dehydration and exhaustion are what's killing him, he knows—not radiation; the radiation would get him in time, of course, but the desert will get him first. There was some satisfaction when he figured that out once, a while back, but then he forgot it, and figured it out again later. Funny the way the mind plays tricks. Hysterical the third time he figured it out and then forgot it a moment later. He'd do anything for a drink of moisture, except he'd forget halfway through what he
was doing, or why.

  Dust and dryness and rubble. All ground into his pores now, this city has become a part of him.

  Keep moving. Just keep moving.

  * * *

  Night shimmers and dances around him, marking his time as he hauls himself with infinite patience, infinite weariness, toward his goal. Cannot be much farther now. Cannot be. He cannot go much farther. Cannot fail. Cannot continue. Cannot give up.

  It must be here, somewhere just ahead. Hunched on all fours now, clawing his way over mounds of rubble. Must be near the edge of the blast zone. Near the crater. No, this is the edge, he's there.

  The ground tips forward under him, and he falls down a slope, skidding, clawing frantically. His hands are feeble, there is no purchase in the slag, it's tearing his face and hands, smashing his shoulders. Rolling, sputtering, he slides finally to a halt, lying motionless on his side, mouth full of dirt, pain splintering through his body. For a minute, two minutes, he lies still, regaining his strength, determined to roll over, to get up.

  Rest, just a minute more. Rest . . .

  * * *

  Awakens out of a kind of delirium to a glow—like dawn, but not dawn. Someone is talking to him. Someone . . . singing.

  Dreams of madness, he has been dreaming of madness, or so he thinks, awakening, but . . . they are with him still, the voices. There is no one here. But there is the glow. A shimmering in the sky, and all around him, the world rippling. Creatures whispering. Something has entered him as he slept, invading his mind and his soul. Voices echo around him and inside of him.

  He gasps and pushes himself upright to a sitting position—shivering, chilled to the bone, shaking. Fumbles in the pouch for the survival blanket, thrashes it open, an eternity later gets it over his shoulder, twisted, only half covering him. He is trembling from the cold.

  But not only from the chill and fever. He is trembling because of spirits alive in his body and his mind, singing. Singing! It is madness. Or is it the spirits of the dead, clustered around him?

  Not human. The words float through his mind without explanation.

  Struggle to be lucid. It is dreadfully difficult, his head is spinning with delirium, he must fight to maintain clarity of any sort. What is the light around him? Not infrared. Not visible. What, then? The radiation of the blast zone, the gamma rays that are slowly devouring him?

  No. No. He cannot say why, but he knows it to be something else. From elsewhere. He does not see the light so much as feel it. The light comes from . . .

  He does not know where.

  With sudden urgency, he fumbles again in his pack, this time for the note-recorder. He cannot see anything except a blur in his hands, but he can feel the keys of the recorder; he must try to put down what he is feeling. Manipulate the keys by touch. Someone . . . some day . . . might find this, read it; probably no one ever will, but he must try, it is terribly important, one last chance to leave something meaningful.

  Though shaking, he has never felt such clarity. In the chill of the predawn, he is filled with an even greater spirit that allows him to see, but not with his eyes—a vision expanding outward from where he sits, outward from his own body and into space, upward and away from the earth, his vision illuminated by a wordless song. Worlds circling in the darkness of the night, suns like glowing drops of honey afloat in a dark, clear sea; and nestled on some of those worlds, and snapping and simmering in the fires of the suns, and radiating through the emptiness of the interstellar ocean: the song, a work of a living consciousness. It touches him now, it was what awakened him, the song that fills these desolate ruins with light, that fills the space between the worlds. If this is the hereafter, he can only welcome what is to come.

  But he has not died. Not yet. Before him are the cratered ruins of a city that was, and he can smell the dust and the grit, and feel the tortured dryness of his skin and the pain of his splitting lips, and the terrible aching in his legs and his back. His fingers grope at the keypad, trying to record his thoughts, his feelings. All of those sensations are alive, he is alive, he can still move—and he must—must always keep moving forward.

  Rising to his feet, tottering, delirious with fever, clutching the recorder, he stumbles ahead, down the side of the vast, shallow crater that was once a city.

  He is haloed with light. Accompanied by a song. And by voices.

  And one of the voices he knows.

  Staggering to a halt, he kneels, trembling with fever and joy. The voice—the voice he recognizes! Mozy? Mozy, is that you I hear?

  MOZY? ARE YOU ALIVE?

  There is a whispering in his head that is not a reply to his words or to his question or even to him. And yet, it tells him what he wants to know. He knows that voice. It is real. His fingers shake uncontrollably as he struggles to record the words.

  Someone must know. Someone must read this! Please. Dear God. Someone.

  Struggles to type, but . . . words . . . cannot make the words . . .

  His fingers are still twitching . . . he is aware only of the voices receding into the distance . . . as he slumps, unseeing, the recorder slipping from his fingers and clattering to the ground.

  Chapter 57

  Alvarest bolted the door to his quarters and took a deep breath, soaking up the feeling of privacy. He rested for a moment, floating in midair in a room two arm-spans wide and deep, and long enough for a man to flip head to toe. The single hologram of a landscape, in one wall, did little to lend an illusion of size.

  Two days of talking and hunting his way around the station had left him exhausted. He was still a little queasy, from lack of rest and from zero-gravity. If only the latter feeling would go away, he'd have a fighting chance of getting some rest. He opened a drawer; a handful of toiletry articles floated out like escaped fireflies. He caught the packet he wanted, pressed out two space-sickness tablets, and swallowed them with water from a dispenser tube before corralling everything back into the drawer. Then he forced his thoughts clear and positioned himself in front of the desk, where his portable computer was clamped into place.

  He folded out the jump seat, buckled himself into place, and inserted a key into the computer. He entered a sequence of security codes, then settled back and closed his eyes.

  How was he going to say this? Tachylab scientists assert that spaceship Aquarius, in defiance of international treaty, is bound, armed with nuclear weapons, for a rendezvous with alien beings.

  That wouldn't be bad for a tabloid news service, but it was hardly suitable for an intelligence report. He had to discuss evidence, or the absence of it, and credibility of sources. And one had to ask, didn't the President know already what was being done here—and if not, why not? Was his job here to evaluate leaks—or to investigate a breach of authority on the part of Space Forces command?

  In the last two days, his notions about his assignment here had undergone drastic change. He understood why these people had been willing to risk their jobs and their freedom for this information. If the evidence supported their assertions, it would represent a damning breach of international law. Since the Great Mistake, few treaties were considered as sacrosanct as the renewed prohibition against placing nuclear arms in space. The defense attorney, Mr. Louismore, had implied that this fact would be the linchpin of their argument. Louismore had interrogated him at length, regarding his own neutrality, before permitting him to interview the scientists.

  Despite the lack of clearcut evidence, Alvarest had found the defendants' case persuasive, their sources credible. He could not help agreeing with them on the public's right to know. Alvarest was no Puritan, heaven knew. But political dirty tricks were one thing; screwing around with the future of the world was another. Dr. John Irwin, the apparent leader of the group, had argued passionately that if people didn't know about the aliens . . . if they didn't know that the most important treaty of the century was being put aside . . . if these decisions were being made in secret at the highest levels of government . . . if the first contact with lif
e from another world resulted in war . . . would the people of Earth even know why?

  In addition to questions about his formal role here, Alvarest realized that he faced another dilemma. This was the sort of information that Joe Payne could use to good effect—if only there were a way of getting it to him.

  Don't torture yourself. You can't do it. That's not your job.

  With a sigh, limbering his fingers, he began typing. He wrote for two hours, then coded the report for transmission. While the encryption routine ran, he sipped a container of lukewarm apple juice, rubbed his eyes, and wished he could sleep for a day. Finally he sighed and sent the report Earthside.

  Minutes later, he was comfortable in his tethered sleeping bag, drifting off.

  No time at all seemed to have passed when he awoke. He blinked, dazedly realizing where he was. A small cubicle, dimly lighted. Weightless. Drugged with fatigue. Something had awakened him. Time: 0540. Asleep for four and a half hours. Listen. Sounds from outside, voices, hiss of the ventilators. That last was a sucking sound, too loud. He couldn't find its source. Slipping out of the sleeping bag, he turned in midair, peering. Everything shadows and gloom. Something was moving; and then he saw it—a scrap of paper caught against the exhaust grill. He pulled it off in relief and secured it under a clip.