by Bob Shaw
"Ice! Or crystal of some kind. I saw it!" The fact that he was being disbelieved did not surprise or unduly disturb Toller, but it caused an uneasy stirring in the lower levels of his consciousness. There was something wrong with the pattern of the conversation. It was not going as it should have gone, but some factor—perhaps a deep-seated unwillingness to face reality—was for the moment paralyzing vital mental processes.
Bartan gave him a patient smile. "Perhaps there has been a major failure in one of the permanent stations, perhaps an explosion which has scattered power crystals over a wide area. They might be drifting and combining and forming large clouds of condensation, and we both know that condensation can give the appearance of being very substantial. . . like banks of snow or—"
"The Countess Vantara," Toller interrupted with a numb smile, keeping his voice steady to hide the fear that had been unleashed in him as certain doors swung open. "She made the crossing only nine days ago—had she nothing unusual to report?"
"I don't know what you mean, son," Cassyll Maraquine said, speaking the words which Toller had already prepared for him on a parchment of the mind. "Yours is the first and only ship to have returned from Land. Countess Vantara has not been seen since the expedition departed."
PART II: Strategies of Despair
Chapter 8
Divivvidiv had had a very good dream, one in which he had savored every diamond-sharp second of a day in his childhood. The day chosen had been the eighty-first of the Clear Sky Cycle. His high-brain had taken his memories of the actual day as the basis of the dream, then had discarded those which were less than perfect and replaced them with invented sequences. The content of the fabricated sections had been excellent, as had been the merging of their boundaries with the rest of the dreamscape, and Divivvidiv had awakened with intense feelings of happiness and fulfillment. For once there had been no undertones, no stains of guilt seeping in from the present, and he knew he would return to the dream—perhaps with minor variations—many times in the years to come.
He lay for a moment in the weak artificial gravity field of his bed, enjoying a mental afterglow, then became aware that the Xa was waiting to communicate with him. What is it? he said, raising himself to an upright position.
Nothing of great urgency, Beloved Creator—that is why I waited until you had achieved a natural return to consciousness, the Xa replied at once, using a mind-color similar to yellow for reassurance.
That was very considerate of you. Divivvidiv massaged the muscles of his arms in preparation for a return to activity. I sense you have good news for me. What is it?
The Primitives' ship is returning, with two males on board, and this time they will not pass beyond my perimeter.
Divivvidiv was immediately on the alert. You are quite positive about this?
Yes, Beloved Creator. One of the males is emotionally linked to one of the females. He believes that she and her companions have damaged their ship in a collision with my body during the hours of darkness, and that they have taken refuge in one of the habitats we found in the datum plane. It is his intention to find and retrieve the female.
How interesting! Divivvidiv said. These beings must have an unusually strong inclination towards single-partner reproduction. First we learn of their mind-blindness, and now this —how many handicaps can a race endure and yet remain viable?
Stated in those terms, Beloved Creator, the question is meaningless.
I expect so. Divivvidiv turned his attention to matters of a more practical nature. Tell me, are the male Primitives becoming aware that you belong to a class of object totally outside their previous experience?
Object? Object?
Being. I should have referred to you as a being, of course. How do they perceive you?
As a natural phenomenon, the Xa said. An accretion of ice or some other crystalline form of matter.
That is good—II reduces their potential for causing damage and at the same time makes them easier for us to capture. Divivvidiv shifted his thinking to the high-brain mode to exclude the Xa from his deliberations. Obtaining specimens of the Primitives for Director Zunnunun's personal study was in a way a frivolity, something quite extraneous to the great project, and if the Xa were to be damaged in the course of it the penalties would be dire. He, Divivvidiv, would almost certainly be subjected to personality modification as a punishment for allowing himself to be diverted from his duties. After all, the project was the single most important undertaking in the history of his people. The future of the entire race. . . .
Beloved Creator! The Xa's call was an unexpected intrusion. I have a question for you.
What is it? Divivvidiv demanded, hoping the Xa was not about to make more of the increasingly tiresome enquiries about its own future. The Xa would not have been able to build itself had it not been provided with a powerful artificial intelligence, but its designers—in the remote high floors of the Palace of Numbers—had not anticipated the development of self-awareness.
Tell me, Beloved Creator, the Xa said, what is a Rope?
The shock of the question was so sudden, so forceful, that Divivvidiv experienced a momentary giddiness and a dangerous weakening of mental control. For one perilous instant he almost gave the Xa access to all high-brain networks, and the effort of closing off hundreds of neural highways left him feeling chilled and sick.
Practicing eye-of-the-hurricane rituals to induce a state of calmness, he said, Who told you about Ropes?
There was a slight delay before the Xa responded. Not you, Beloved Creator. Not anybody. The word has lately begun to exist all around me. It must be continually in the minds of millions of intelligent beings, but the concepts behind it are too elusive to be captured. All I know is that the word is associated with fear . . . a terrible fear of ceasing to exist. . . .
It is nothing for you to be concerned about, Divivvidiv said, using every mental reinforcement technique he knew to give strength to the lie. The word is little more than a sound. Its origins lie in certain aberrations of the human mind— logical lesions, you might say—metaphysics, religion, superstition. . . .
But why has it begun to impinge on my consciousness?
For no particular reason. A tide, a current, an eddy. You trouble yourself with things that do not concern you. I command you to be at peace and concentrate on your given task.
Yes, Beloved Creator.
Grateful for the Xa's compliant attitude, Divivvidiv severed the telepathic link and floated to the airlock which was closest to his living quarters. As he pulled on the suit which would enable him to survive the outer cold he pondered, with some disquiet, on the Xa's acquisition of the term "Rope". Did it simply mean that the Xa's direct communication capability had increased? Or was there a new degree of alarm on the home world, a heightening of fear which had driven telepathic ripples through the surrounding regions of space?
Divivvidiv entered the airlock and completed the inner seal. As soon as he opened the outer door the bitter coldness stung his face and eyes, and breathing became so painful that he almost gasped aloud. The metallic plazas of the station stretched away before him, flat and bare in some places, replete with engineered complexities in others. The antennae of the teleportation unit projected into the sunlit air—slim and delicately curved sculptures—and occasional flickers of green fire at their tips showed that a consignment of the Xa's nutrients was currently being received. Beyond the angular boundaries of the station the Xa's body, now grown huge, formed a sea of white crystalline brilliance stretching into remoteness on all sides.
Divivvidiv's eyes were not able to focus on infinity without artificial aid, and so the universe beyond the white horizon was simplified into a vision of the sun and one of the local planets on a background washed and speckled with blurs of luminance. He was, nevertheless, able to gaze directly at the mote of blue light which was his home world of Dussarra, and within seconds was in contact with Director Zunnunun.
What is it? Zunnunun said. Why do you interrupt my work?
>
I have good news, Divivvidiv replied. II was an unfortunate and freakish circumstance that the sampling of Primitives I supplied to you consisted entirely of females. Also, we were unlucky in that the second ship—containing Primitive males —became aware of the Xa in time to guide their ship successfully past its perimeter.
You said you had good news. Zunnunun tinted the words with the mind-colors of growing irritability.
Yes! The same Primitive ship is now ascending towards the datum plane, and those on board believe—or hope—that the lost females have taken refuge within the habitats I found here. This time, Director, there is no doubt at all that I will be able to send them to you, because—as a simple consequence of previous physical contact—the sole purpose of the males in making the new ascent is to retrieve the females. They will come directly to me.
This is quite incredible, Zunnunun said. Are you sure of your facts?
Absolutely.
You bring me good news indeed—I had no idea that such powerful bonding could exist between individuals of any species. I look forward to receiving the Primitive males and to carrying out appropriate experiments.
It is my pleasure to serve you, Divivvidiv said, pleased that he had regained the Director's approval. While we are in private discourse, may I raise another matter?
Proceed.
The Xa's consciousness continues to reach new levels, and it has just made an initial enquiry about the Ropes.
Does it have any understanding? Any insight?
No. Divivvidiv paused, qualifying the statement. But I sensed undertones . . . Has there been a new development?
I have to say—yes. There was a brief silence, and when Director Zunnunun spoke again his words were clouded with strange colors indicative of doubt and apprehension. As you know, a powerful faction in society has forced those in the Palace of Numbers to carry out a new assessment of the local situation, and the latest data have strengthened the opinion that the Ropes really do exist. It also seems highly probable that as many as twelve Ropes once intersected near our galaxy—compared with the original estimate of seven.
And if that is truly the case, not only will our own galaxy cease to exist—as many as a hundred other galaxies in the cosmic region will be annihilated.
I see. The surrounding cold seemed to invade Divivvidiv's clothing with relentless force as he broke the mental contact. This is strange, he thought. Why should a force which promises to annihilate a million other galaxies be feared more than a force which threatens to destroy only this one—when my personal fate will be exactly the same in either case? And why should I trouble myself over my people's plan to obliterate a pair of undeveloped and sparsely populated minor worlds when the cosmos itself is bent on such monstrous feats of destruction?
Chapter 9
During the last fifty miles of the ascent Toller and Steenameert had turned the ship on its side at frequent intervals. The purpose had been to get an early view of the small line of wooden stations and spaceships so that they could steer directly towards them by countering lateral drift. Even in good viewing conditions the artifacts would have been hard to find, but with a sea of crystal spanning the sky and diffusing the sunlight into a uniform white brilliance Toller had expected his task to be doubly difficult. He had therefore been surprised when, at a range of some thirty miles, he had begun discerning a mote of solid darkness at the center of the translucent disk. As the ship crept closer to it, binoculars revealed that the object—although irregular in its general outline—was bounded by straight lines and square corners. Its silhouette resembled the plan of a very large building to which numerous extensions had been added in quite a haphazard manner.
For a time Toller was able to reject the implication—there simply was no room for it in his scheme of reality—but eventually the painful mental shift took place. . . .
"Whatever that thing is," he said to Steenameert, "I cannot visualize it growing there by itself like a crystal of ice. It has to be a midpoint station of some kind, but. . . ."
"Not built by the likes of us," Steenameert supplied.
"You speak truly. The size . . . We could be looking at a palace in the sky."
"Or a fortress." Steenameert's voice was low, almost furtive, in spite of the fact that he and Toller were alone on the ship in the vast reaches of the weightless zone. "Could it be that the Farlanders have at last decided on conquest?"
"They are going about it in an odd way, if they have," Toller replied, frowning, instinctively rejecting the idea of a military invasion from the third planet. Bartan Drumme was one of the two men still alive who had been on the single epic voyage to Farland many years ago, and Toller had often heard him declare that its inhabitants were insular in their outlook, totally lacking in the colonial urge. Besides, the enigmatic sea of living crystal and the gigantic midpoint station were obviously connected in some respect, and what military commander—no matter how alien his mind—would set about an invasion in such a pointless manner?
"No, this is something new to us," Toller went on. "We know there are many other worlds circling distant stars, and we also know that on some of those worlds there are civilizations much further advanced than ours. Perhaps, my friend Baten, what we see above us is ... is .. . but one of many far-flung palaces belonging to some unimaginable king of kings. Perhaps those reaches of ice are his hunting grounds ... his deerparks. . . ." Toller paused, lost for the moment in the exotic grandeur of his vision, but was recalled when Steenameert posed a crucial question.
"Sir, do we go on?"
"Of course!" Toller pulled his scarf down from over his nose and mouth so that his words could be heard with perfect clarity. "1 continue to assume that the Countess and her crew have taken refuge in one of our stations, but if we fail to find them there . . . Why, we now have one other place to look!"
"Yes, sir."
Steenameert's eyes, peering from the horizontal slit between his scarf and the edge of his hood, gave no indication that anything out of the ordinary was happening, but Toller was suddenly struck by the fantastic import of his own words. His hand dropped of its own accord to the hilt of his sword as he realized that his entire being was awash with dread.
Even as he was first hearing of Vantara's disappearance there had been born in him the sickening fear that she was
dead. He had refused to acknowledge that fear, driving it out of his mind with manufactured optimism and the demanding activities of the hurriedly-mounted rescue expedition. But new elements had been added to the situation —bizarre, monstrous and inexplicable new elements—and it was impossible to see how they could bode anything but ill.
The six wooden structures were known collectively as the Inner Defense Group—a name which had clung to them since the days of the interplanetary war although it had long since lost all relevance.
Toller and Steenameert had located the group on the Overland side of the ice barrier and about two miles out from the alien station. Taking his ship in a wide curve, Toller had approached the wooden cylinders very cautiously from an outer direction, keeping them between him and the mysterious angular outline. He had chosen the course with a tenuous hope of avoiding detection by alien eyes, although it was purely an assumption that the metallic construct housed living beings. It appeared to be embedded in the crystalline barrier, and when viewed through his powerful glasses had something of the look of a vast and lifeless machine— an incomprehensible engine which had been placed in the weightless zone to carry out some incomprehensible task on behalf of equally incomprehensible builders.
And now, as his ship nudged to within a furlong of the cylinders, Toller was developing the conviction that they were empty. They were nestling against the underside of the frozen sea, apparently held in place by slim girdles of crystal which had grown around them. Four of the cylinders were habitats and stores, and two longer versions were functional copies of the spaceship which had once flown to Farland, but they all had one thing in common—the appearance of lifele
ssness.
If Vantara and her crew had been waiting within any of the wooden shells they would surely have been maintaining a watch and by this time would have signaled to the approaching skyship. But there was no sign of activity. All the portholes remained uniformly dark, and the hulls obstinately remained what they had been since Toller first saw them— inert relics of years long gone.
"Are we going to go inside?" Steenameert said.
Toller nodded. "We have to—it is expected of us— but. . . ." His throat closed up painfully, forcing him to pause for a moment. "You can see for yourself that nobody is there."
"I'm sorry, sir."
"Thanks." Toller glanced at the strange alien edifice which projected from the icecap far to his left. "If that had been an aerial palace—as I so foolishly surmised—or even a fortress, I could have clung to some shred of hope that they had taken refuge in it. I would even have preferred to imagine them as the captives of invaders from another star—but the thing looks like nothing more than a great block of iron . . . an engine . . . Vantara could have seen no prospect of a haven there."
"Except. ..."
"Goon, Baten."
"Except in a case of the utmost desperation." Steenameert had begun to speak quickly, as though fearful of having his ideas dismissed. "We don't know how wide the ice barrier was when the Countess reached it, but if she did so in the hours of darkness—and there was a collision which disabled her ship—she would have been on the Land side of the barrier. The wrong side, sir. It would have been impossible to locate or reach our own vessels, and under those circumstances the . . . engine could have seemed a likely place to shelter. After all, sir, it is certainly large enough, and there may be hatches or doors leading to its interior, and—"
"That's good!" Toller cut in as the darkness in his mind suddenly began to abate. "And I'll tell you something else!
I have been treating this whole affair as though the Countess were an ordinary woman, but nothing could be further from the truth. We have been talking about an accidental collision, but there may not have been one. If Vantara had chanced to see the alien engine from afar she would have taken it upon herself to investigate it!
