by Ian Douglas
Which didn’t quite answer the question.
There was no personal name attached to the image; like the Vulcans and numerous other species, Cynthiads either had no concept of names for individuals, or their personal identifiers were meaningless to outsiders. A screech of broad-spectrum radio static was tough to translate into syllables that could be reproduced by the human voice. Even translating the general meaning of their speech presented unusual problems, simply because of the way they saw Reality.
Another being—an amphibious juvenile N’mah—was speaking now, but Rame was no longer paying attention. His essistant would catch anything of which he needed to be aware and bring it to his attention later. For the moment, he was interested in the Cynthiads, and in the problems of mutual understanding.
According to their entry in the Conclave library, their view of the night sky, for half of each long, long year, looked Coreward into a flattened, dust-mottled mass of stars and nebulae that, ages ago, their ancestors had interpreted as the principle sensory organ of their God. The Cynthiads viewed themselves as the slaves of an ever-watching God, and for thousands of years had been broadcasting their version of the Gospel out into the Galaxy. They’d been extremely fortunate that the Xul had never zeroed in on those transmissions. Their homeworld was the tide-stressed moon of a superjovian gas giant well outside of their star’s habitable zone, and had, therefore, been repeatedly overlooked by searching Xul hunterships.
Cynthiads took this as yet another sign of divine providence; Rame had decided that they were in for a rude shock when the Core Detonation reached their system, perhaps eight thousand years from now. The Cynthiads had an annoying tendency to twist the words and realities of other species into bizarre caricatures of what others accepted as fact, and it was always a challenge to follow their lines of thought.
And that, Rame thought, was the big difficulty in all interspecies communication within the Associative Conclave. With a few notable exceptions, group minds like the Havod and hive species like the Saarin Queen, no two members of a single species thought in precisely the same way, or saw their surroundings in exactly the same way. When you brought together the individual representatives of some thousands of mutually alien species, not even the best translation AIs could bridge the gap between one view of the cosmos and the next. Humans with their narrow sensory range and monkey curiosity; placid, gas-giant balloonists suspended above bottomless and storm-wracked gulfs; knots of organized plasmas riding the magnetic loops of stellar coronae; tentacled, mathematically oriented Eulers lurking within the eternal night of the benthic abyss; scaly, invertebrate Cynthiads squirming in their own shit…true understanding between such mutually alien beings demanded far more than simple translation. The general meanings of concepts expressed through separate languages might come across more or less precisely…but the worldviews of the creatures expressing them could be so bizarrely shifted in meaning that they made no sense to others whatsoever.
In most cases, difficulties in communication could be ignored. The Associative was designed to be gently inclusive; membership was completely voluntary, and there was little in the way of government in the traditional sense. The Conclave itself existed for the most part strictly as an advisory group on matters of interspecies trade, information exchange, and defense. The wildly differing ecologies, biochemistries, and cultural preferences of the member races guaranteed that no one species would try to dominate the others.
At least, that had been the idea behind the Associative in the eight centuries of its existence so far. None of the member races really cared about the worlds of other species; the benefits of trade and data exchange far outweighed any possible profit arising from invasion, conquest, or coercion.
But the Xul presented the Galactic community with a special challenge. Hardwired to see any sentience other than itself as a threat, crafted by evolutionary imperatives to eliminate anything perceived as a threat, the Xul were uninterested in trade or data; their worldview demanded xenocide on a galactic scale, which to human sensibilities was about as serious a threat as it was possible to imagine.
Unfortunately, not all members of the Associative could see it that way.
The N’mah had finished speaking, and Rame’s essistant gave him a quick, catch-up synopsis. The N’mah had survived for almost ten thousand years as rats in the walls, occupying the internal structures of several stargates, escaping the Xul’s notice by giving up star travel and much of their once highly advanced technology. The answer, the N’mah representative had just suggested, was simply to lie low, adopt a low technological profile, and wait for the Xul threat, if any, to pass.
Rame shook his head. For humans, that would mean giving up their implants, which appeared to be how the Xul were transmitting their emomemes. And that simply was not a viable option for the far-flung worlds of Humankind.
Through his personal essistant, Rame tried to judge the overall mood of the Conclave. So far, three other species had sided with the human representatives calling for direct action. Fifteen had come out in opposition, including both the s-Human and t-Human reps, and the AI serving as the Conclave’s moderator, all of them insisting either that there was no threat, or that the threat was a minor one, a nuisance as Valoc had called it.
There were seven hundred eighteen other representatives currently linked in to the Conclave. None of them had expressed any opinion yet, one way or the other.
It was becoming increasingly clear that any action against the Xul would have to be the responsibility of humans, and perhaps a few others. This bunch couldn’t even agree that a threat existed, much less what to do about it.
The argument was continuing—in fact, now that one of the slow-thinking, slow-speaking, methane-drinking gh’Vrl’jrd’dvre was addressing the group, the debate promised to stretch on for many hours more—but there was no reason for Rame to stay. He’d had his say, and he’d heard all that was worth hearing in response.
This would have to be done another way.
With a thought, he disconnected from the government node, and the thousands of shining pillars with their wildly differing occupants winked out. He was lying in a recliner within the Conclave chamber. There were fifty other recliners arrayed about the floor; eight were actually occupied.
The dome overhead no longer showed the deadly blue blossom of the Core Detonation, but looked down instead on the more serene blues and whirling whites of a half-phase Earth. This particular node of the Associative government was located in Earthring, a band of some billions of habitats and large-scale structures in geosynchronous orbit, some forty thousand kilometers above Earth’s equator. Several hundred elevators connected various portions of the Ring with the planetary surface, slender spokes made invisible by distance and scale. The nearest, descending to an artificial island on the outskirts of Greater Singapore, was just visible as a wisp-thin thread of light in the distance. It was night over half of the visible hemisphere; cities gleamed like thick dustings of stars across the Chinese Hegemony, the squabbling nations of the Indian subcontinent, and the sprawling oceanic megopoli of the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.
“Giving up?”
He turned. The speaker was Star Lord Tavia Costa, who represented the million or so s-Humans living on Earth’s moon. Despite being one of his political opponents in numerous recent debates, Tavia was a friend. They’d even been lovers for a time, a strictly recreational liaison since for the two of them there could be no thought of children. The genegineering that had created Tavia’s species had caused too much genetic drift for offspring to be naturally possible…or desirable.
“I don’t think there’s any point in carrying on the argument,” he told her. “I’m afraid this is going to be Humankind’s problem.”
“And what makes you think it is a problem, my Lord?”
Rame stared at her for a long moment. He did find her attractive, in an exotic way, despite the elongated skull. Her golden cat’s eyes stared back, unblinking and enigma
tic.
Then he sighed. “Damn it, my Lord, are you going to make me go through the whole argument again?”
“No. But your proof is weak, don’t you see? A chance that the Xul are infecting our networks with some unspecified, invisible virus? You must know that no local government will be willing to shut down the e-networks long enough to be sure they’re clear. And the Associative Conclave certainly won’t take the responsibility, even if they had the power to do so.”
“No.”
“And you didn’t make many friends with your decision to bring in the Globe Marines. Some in the Conclave see that as a power play on your part, a means of throwing your mass around.”
“I am not here to make friends, my Lord.”
“Then why? Power? Glory? Those notions are as antiquated as your ancient Marines.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I thought you people were supposed to be smart.”
“That’s unfair!”
“So is the idea of me doing this for glory,” he snapped. The words sounded more bitter than he’d intended. He turned away again, staring out at the Earth hanging some forty thousand kilometers below.
He felt…old. He was well into his 224th standard year which, by the standards of current nanomedical art, put him solidly into the early chapters of middle age, but his ragged emotions and bitterness had nothing to do with the calendar.
Star Lord. That concept was antiquated as well. The title had evolved with the rise of the Associative. At first, the term had identified men, women, and AIs appointed by their governments to represent various populations within an electronic legislature called the Conclave. Later, as more and more of the routine was taken on by AIs, the term had become a mark of the new aristocracy, whether they represented anyone or not. By tradition, the title of Star Lord now was hereditary, with Conclave representatives chosen from among their conceited and self-preening ranks.
When Lord Rame had received his appointment to the Conclave over a century ago, he’d actually believed he could make a difference. His constituency was the s/h-Human inhabitants of Earthring 4, which had a population of over three billion, a number roughly equivalent to the current population of the entire Earth. He’d held within his cerebral implant the power to do good for that many people.
It had taken him what—twenty years? Thirty?—to lose that first, idealistic flush. Everything since had been a long and rather dismal slide into murky disillusion. The Conclave of Associative Lords could no more agree on solid action than they could stop the expanding wave front of the Core Detonation.
“Garrick?” Tavia was saying. “Garrick? Are you okay?”
He turned back to face her. “Yes. Sorry. Just thinking….”
She reached out and lightly touched his arm. “Why are you doing this to yourself, Garrick? You’re trying to save the Galaxy. It doesn’t want to be saved.”
“Then what the hell are we here for, Tav?”
“You can’t help anyone—people, beings, cultures—that don’t want help.”
“I’m just talking about making a difference.”
“Maybe you have. By reviving the Globe Marines.”
“We’ll see. I don’t know if this is their kind of mission. If they’ll even be able to do what we’re asking of them.”
“These…old-time warriors of yours. These Marines. They mean a lot to you, don’t they?”
“I suppose.” he gave a thin smile. “They’re in my blood.”
Garrick Rame had long been a student of history—in particular the military history of his species. According to the historical records, a number of his ancestors had been Marines, back in the days of the Commonwealth, and even before. His family name had been Ramsey once. A Marine Gunnery Sergeant named Charel Ramsey had made first contact with the Eulers, back in 1102 of the Marine Era. A few years later, as a junior officer, Ramsey had taken part in the Navy-Marine expedition to the Galactic Core.
Eleven hundred years ago.
“You realize, I trust,” Tavia told him, “that you’re trying to compensate.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your ancestor. What was his name?”
“Which one?” He knew she meant Charel.
“The one who made contact with the Eulers by pounding out prime numbers on his chest.”
“Charel Ramsey.”
“That’s the one. He’s the reason the Galactic Core is exploding, isn’t it? Are you trying to…I don’t know…make amends for what he did?”
“He made contact with the Eulers, and from them we learned how to blow up stars,” Rame said. He shrugged. “And that technology triggered the Core Detonation, sure. But I don’t see that as my responsibility.”
“It’s not. But I wonder if you really know that, deep down inside.”
“Damn it, Tavia, it was the Euler trigger ships that let us stop the Xul in the first place! Without the Eulers, the Xul might still be dominating the Galaxy, stomping out emerging technic species, and the Associative never would have happened! That’s a good thing!”
“I wasn’t saying otherwise.”
He glared at Tavia. Like all s-Humans, she was tough to read sometimes. Homo superioris had ten separate intelligence factor quotients in the 160 to 200 range or better, and two more in the range of 120-plus. By the standards of most Homo sapiens, each and every one was a genius, a stable genius, able to think and talk rings around most Homo saps. The brighter ones were tough to talk with at all; it was just too hard to follow their lightning thought processes. Worse, they tended to think and speak in layers, and you could never quite be sure whether or not there were hidden layers of meaning in an otherwise uncomplicated sentence.
He remembered again why he’d broken off the physical relationship with Tavia months before. He’d never been certain if he was really hearing her…or an outer shell masking deeper levels of thought and meaning. It was tough to really trust someone like that.
“I’m not trying to make up for anything some long-ago ancestor did or didn’t do, Tavia,” he told her at last. “The thing is…that ancient Marine did make a difference. The Core Detonation wasn’t his fault. No one could have foreseen the collapse of the Xul Dyson structure at the center. By making contact with the Eulers a few years earlier, though, he gave us a weapon powerful enough to wipe out Xul nodes wherever we found them, even if it meant blowing up entire star systems.”
He didn’t add that the Eulers themselves, thousands of years earlier, had held the Xul to an uncomfortable draw by using their trigger ships on their own stars, incinerating their own worlds. He wondered if humans had the same cold and mathematical reasoning power if they were ever faced with a similar threat.
“And you want to make the same sort of difference,” Tavia said. “I suppose I can understand that. But you have yet to convince many of us that there is a threat. Emomemes? The Xul are somehow causing changes in normal human emotional make-up? That’s just too much of a stretch, Garrick.”
“And how would s-Humans explain the rising incidence of…of madness on planetary scales? Revolutions. Riots. Whole populations that have lived in peace for millennia suddenly and irrationally at one another’s throats? Gods, Tavia…the idiots used tactical nuclear weapons on Kaleed, a wheelworld! The damage to the structure may be bad enough that the entire world will have to be evacuated! And they did it to themselves!”
Tavia looked away, as though studying the distant Earth suspended in space within its far-flung, thread-slender ring of habitats and orbital manufactories. “These things can happen in cycles. Sociology has never been an exact science. There are elements of chaos that do not lend themselves to rational investigation or measurement, even with large populations.”
“Chaos is right.”
“I spoke in the mathematical sense.”
“I know. But it’s not enough to just say these things go in cycles. There’s got to be a reason. And we have hard evidence of Xul code broadcast from various stargates…and now from the Great Annihilator
.”
“So…what? You would have us shut down all of our electronic nets and systems? Stop using the stargates? Perhaps you favor the N’mah suggestion, and give up all information and space-faring technology.”
“Nonsense.”
“It worked for the N’mah and the An.”
“At what cost to them? And if we withdraw, allow the Xul to regroup and grow strong again, in another thousand years or two we’ll be right back where we started. No, we must isolate the Xul threat once and for all, and eliminate it!”
“By sending Marines who’ve spent the past eight centuries in cybernetic hibernation into a black hole? Our technology may not be up to that.”
“It probably isn’t. But what other choice is there?”
“Bombardment.”
He considered this. The option had been floating about within the Conclave for weeks, now, ever since the confirmation from Night’s Edge that the Xul were broadcasting from within the Great Annihilator black hole had been received. Someone had suggested sending robotic antimatter bombs down the black hole’s throat, hoping to hit whatever base or complex the Xul might have hiding down there. That plan had been discarded early on; the Great Annihilator was huge, and there’d be no way of ensuring the bombs would even come close.
And, so, the planners had scaled their destructive vision higher. The same thing that had caused the collapse of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Galaxy could be tried on the far smaller Annihilator: an Euler trigger ship could partially explode a nearby star, sending it falling into the singularity and flooding the black hole with infalling mass and radiation. Unfortunately, the nearest star was three light years away.
“There are just too many unknowns,” he told her. “And the star option just won’t work. We give that nearest star a nudge, and it would still take thousands of years for it to reach the target. And besides…when the Core Detonation wave front reached the Annihilator, it hit the thing with way more radiation and plasma than you could get out of a mere star.”
