Extremis (93 page)

“I am—quite well. This is a fascinating sensation, and I will reflect upon it later. But now, where are my manners? Please be seated. May I offer you refreshments?”

Sanders shook his head. “No, thank you, Councilor—or do you prefer Ambassador, now?”

Although she did not smile, the voice that emerged from the vocoder seemed rich with wry amusement and self-effacing wit. “I should think Ankaht will be quite sufficient. And before we go any further, I must thank you, Mr. Sanders, for ensuring that the final version of the truce included an explanation of how and why my people had such profound initial difficulties in understanding your people.”

Kevin answered with a slow, gracious nod. “But of course, ma’am. The cascading misinterpretations that led to our tragic first contact were truths that had to be included. As did mention of Admiral Narrok’s exemplary actions in both repelling the Tangri and providing aid and assistance to the human worlds savaged by that now-mutual enemy. I dare say those deeds went a long way to silencing some of the less congenial members of my species’ delegation.”

“Very true, Mr. Sanders. But I could not help but notice that your senior delegates kindly
omitted
one key fact that sheds a less favorable light on the war between our races in general, and our conduct of it, specifically.”

“I presume you are referring to the caste-specific xenophobia some Arduans displayed toward human communities?”

“Your diplomatic generosity is outdone only by your tact, Mr. Sanders—but let us speak plainly. The most aggressive of the
Destoshaz
, who ultimately became part of the Martyrs’ Movement, would still gladly exterminate your species in its entirety. This is a unique cultural aberration in our long history, and—as my delegation promised yours today—we are resolved not to allow it to occur again. However, I must share with you my personal reservations regarding our ability to make good on that promise.”

“Oh? Why so, Ambassador?”

“Regrettably, it seems likely that the radical
Destoshaz
represent a devolved version of their caste. Which presents my race with a problem that may persist for quite some time.”

Sanders cocked his head. “Perhaps not, ma’am. Our sociologists have pretty conclusively shown that, once freed from the constant trauma of a crisis, both individual and social evolutionary structures begin to return to their pre-crisis norms.”

Ankaht’s eyes were lidded. “I fear it may prove otherwise with Arduans. Our advances in evolution—both physiological and social—are directly tied to increases in our memories of past lives and in our
selnarm
. Unfortunately, these increases have never been uniformly distributed among Arduans. For
shaxzhu
such as myself, and the
Selnarshaz
caste as well, our personal identity largely arises from our memories of the totality of our species and therefore cuts across the boundaries of caste and gender and even epoch. Conversely, while the
Destoshaz
have always
derived their identities mostly from personal experience, their post-Dispersal predominance has been paralleled by dramatic changes in behavior. They are more reactionary, less nuanced, more susceptible to charismatic leaders, and deeply suspicious of anything that they consider abstract or intangible. This means they are not only supremely dismissive of
shaxzhutok
but even spurn participation in the communal meditations that are the very core of our race’s
narmata
. So, they who need the leavening effects of our mental community the most are the most closed and resistant to it.”

Kevin stroked his prominent chin. “So you fear that you won’t be able to control the regressed
Destoshaz
enough to ensure compliance with the terms of the truce.”

“The problem is ultimately more serious than that—because it now seems certain that our entire species is undergoing regression.”

“Even you
shaxzhu
?”

“Yes, although our regression is not detected as changes in individual qualities, but rather in generational quantities.”

Sanders frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The
shaxzhu
that are born today are personally no different than those I remember on Ardu. But the
numbers
of us born now have declined to historical lows. And since the
shaxzhu
trait is random and inborn, rather than caste-conferred, we are powerless to change this demographic trend—which is ominous. Our historical studies show a very marked correlation between the growth of the
shaxzhu
population and proportionate increases in our social and individual evolution. We are now trapped in an inverse process of decline.”

Wethermere understood. “And since you have no way to create more
shaxzhu
, you can’t alter the rate at which your race can return from its regressed state.”

“You see it with all three eyes, Ossian Wethermere.”

Sanders nodded, following the logic. “And this also means that your society is poised on the brink of bitter class warfare—a resentful
Destoshaz
majority ready to slap down the
shaxzhu
elite who enjoy their social status by genetic accident.”

“Yes, Kevin Sanders. Amongst the radicals, this attitude already exists.”

Wethermere nodded. “And so you need our help to reverse these trends.”

Ankaht’s eyelids cycled slowly. “So you see it then.”

“Yes,” answered Wethermere, who felt the pieces falling together even as he articulated them. “You need our general expertise in genetics—which we’ve necessarily pursued more assiduously than you. You’re hoping that we can identify whatever genetic code—or complex of codes—creates a
shaxzhu
. Because if we can, then you could selectively breed a higher proportion of
shaxzhu
and accelerate your recovery from regression.”

“Just so. But the mere act of doing so could generate a civil war.”

“Only if the process were conducted openly,” Sanders observed mildly.

Ankaht closed all three of her eyes. “It does not please us to work in secret from the others of our race, but the alternative—an increasing dominance of the
Destoshaz
radicals—could lead to further conflicts with humans. Ultimately, you might be justly compelled to exterminate us in order to save yourselves. Assuming, of course, a deeper social schism does not consume the Children of Illudor first.”

Wethermere frowned. “What kind of schism are you referring to?”

Ankaht spread wide the tentacles of both clusters: it was like an open-armed appeal from a pair of immense sea anemones. “My apologies. I shall explicate. Contact with humans has challenged our view of the universe. Simply put, if we are not the only intelligent beings in existence, then what of our status as the only and chosen Children of Illudor and the monotheistic cosmology we have built upon it? A sustained analysis of this quandary portends a catastrophic theological dispute.” And Ankaht visibly shuddered.

And for a reason, and by a process, he could not identify, Wethermere knew what distressed her so profoundly. “You are having your first crisis of faith—and most of your race doesn’t even know it yet.”

“Exactly. But that is, as your saying has it, only the tip of the iceberg. If Illudor is not the One Deity, then we are not the elect of creation. If we are not the elect of creation, then our
narmata
—our link with each other—is not a divine gift. Perhaps, therefore, even our concept of Illudor is but a confection.”

Sanders frowned. “But then where would your memories of past lives come from?”

“Perhaps rather than being a deity, what we call Illudor is our label for a collective entity made up of all our consciousnesses yet greater than the sum of its parts. In that event, it may use us as the repository of its collective memories. And so we must therefore ask this terrifying question: Do we Arduans truly have immortal, reborn souls—or are we constructs summoned into brief existence by some macroentity which uses us as both its body and its living memory archive? This is our own version of what your late-Industrial-era philosophers and novelists labeled an existential crisis.”

Sanders nodded sagely, even as he changed the topic. “Ambassador, I can see that these issues warrant a long—and involved—discussion, so I am going to suggest that you continue them with my nephew here. He will be your confidential strategic liaison, and in that role will have reason to coordinate with you on all cultural and political affairs as we jointly formulate plans for dealing with other Dispersates. And it is to that latter issue that I would like to address my final questions.”

“Of course, Mr. Sanders.”

“What might the Arduans of later Dispersates know of this war? And of our technology?”

Ankaht’s tentacles rose and drooped. “Probably very little, if anything—but it is difficult to speculate on this with any precision. Firstly, although
selnarm
is superluminal, clear transmission of specific thoughts is only possible within the same heliosphere.”

“Why?”

Ankaht’s tentacles reprised their earlier motions, which Wethermere read as a dismayed shrug. “We do not know why the precision of our messages decreases when they are sent across interstellar space. Before we left Ardu, we had no awareness of this phenomenon. And once we had left, it was too late to conduct any effective research into it.”

“So, if you are unable to communicate precise information across such distances, what is the nature of your exchange?”

“We
shaxzhu
, and those of the
Selnarshaz
caste, can feel a great wave of death or suffering at almost any range. But that is, of course, a collective transmission of shock or emotion. Individual relay of data is far more restricted—perhaps because the signal of a single sender is so much weaker. Consequently, individual sendings take the form of invocations of collectively held memories.” Ankaht either sensed, or saw, their puzzled expressions. “We
shaxzhu
concentrate upon and send the memory of a particular evocative moment in our shared history. The message is, by implication, related to a broadly accepted race lesson associated with that event. That lesson is the message. Obviously such sendings are very imprecise and subject to all sorts of misinterpretation.”

Sanders tapped his telescoped cane against his knee. “So it is unlikely that other Dispersates, even if they somehow learned of this war, would have any reason to change their intended destinations.”

“Not as a result of our signals. But they could have had other reasons to do so, such as improved long-range sensing that shows which systems in this region of space have planets with biospheres and which do not. And given the advances in drive technology that followed our departure, they would have had the ability to act upon that information.”

Wethermere leaned forward. “So, by logical extrapolation, later Dispersates are not only able to change the destinations of their journeys but are also able to change the duration of their journeys as well—which is why the Second Dispersate invaded the Zarzuela system only a few months after you landed on Bellerophon.”

“This is correct.”

“So, given that many of the stars in our warp-point network lie just a few degrees off the same course followed by your Dispersate, it seems that if they wanted to, the subsequent Dispersates could conceivably coordinate themselves to arrive in any of a dozen of our systems, and to do so at roughly the same time.”

Ankaht’s eyes turned toward Ossian slowly, half-lidded. “This is my single greatest fear—particularly if the trend toward racial regression is as prevalent in these later Dispersates as it has been in our first two.”

Sanders shifted uneasily. “Ankaht, this raises my final question—one which my government specifically tasked me to ask.”

“Please proceed.”

“What of the later Dispersates’ communications with your own fleet? Can you not infer some of their intents from the shared race memories they must have sent out during the course of their travels?”

“I’m sure we could, Mr. Sanders—except that, long before we reached the halfway point of our own journey, all the other Dispersates fell silent within a span of five decades.”

“But—why?”

“We do not know, and at that time, the crew of the First Dispersate did not task their
shaxzhu
to ask.”

Wethermere leaned farther forward. “But
you’ve
been asking, haven’t you, Ankaht?”

She turned back slowly in his direction. “You do indeed see with all three eyes, Ossian Wethermere. Yes, even before your Resistance reclaimed Jennifer Peitchkov from our custody, I had decided that the silence of the other Dispersates had to be explored. I gathered several of our most powerful and experienced
shaxzhu
, and together we attempted to reach out to the other Star Wanderers, to learn what had caused their silence, to determine where they were destined, and especially to inquire why the many earlier generations of their journeys had left no new memories for us, and why none of the souls that had lived and died in their fleets had ever become carnate in ours.”

Wethermere nodded and spoke as a fact what he had originally conceived as a question. “And there was no answer.”

Ankaht’s eyes met his. “There was no answer. Despite our daily attempts, which we continue even now.”

Wethermere looked out the window at the self-climbing cranes and grav-platforms which denoted Melantho’s energetic self-resurrection. “I think the coming years may be busy ones for us, Ambassador.”

Ankaht’s eyes closed wearily. “I think so, too, Ossian Wethermere. I think so, too.”

APPENDIX

Arduan Terms and Concepts

Terms rendered in the Arduan tongue throughout the novel are shown here (and in the body of the text) in italics. The transliterated forms of the terms are presented here in normal typeface.

’ai
:
the way (or path or calling or discipline or spiritual domain) of something; used solely as a modifying suffix.

almgr’sh
:
an Arduan scavenger that was capable of both self-fertilization and fertilization by a wide number of related species. It gave forth litters of 10–12, amongst which there was often arresting genetic and physical variation. Its unusual combination of pronounced concupiscence and plentiful, chaotically diverse offspring, made it a natural object of ridicule and contempt for Arduans (who despise both disorder and sexual indiscriminacy). The term, applied as an epithet, has a meaning roughly equivalent to “skank-whore.”