Infinity's Shore (107 page)

Sara nodded. The pursuing Jophur battleship would hardly give
Streaker
that much time. Already the mighty
Polkjhy
had abandoned its string of captured decoys in order to focus all its attention on the real
Streaker
, keeping the Earthship bathed in long-range scanning rays.

“Then what does Gillian Baskin hope to accomplish by heading toward a useless …”

She blinked, as realization lurched within her rib cage.

“Oh. I see.”

Sara stepped back, and the display resumed its normal scale. Two meters away, at the opposite corner, neat curves showed the spatial patterns of another transfer point. The familiar, reliably predictable one that every sneakship had used to reach Izmunuti during the last two millennia. The only quick way in or out of this entire region of Galaxy Four.

But not always. Once, when Jijo had been a center of commerce and civilization under the mighty Buyur, traffic used to flux through
two
hyperdimensional nexi. One of them shut down when Jijo went fallow, half a million years ago, coincidentally soon after the Buyur departed.

Sara and her mentor, Sage Purofsky, had nursed a suspicion. That shutdown was no accident.

“
Then we concur
,” said the Niss Machine. “
Gillian Baskin clearly intends to lead the Jophur into a suicidal trap
.”

Sara looked elsewhere in the big display, seeking the enemy. She found it several stellar radii behind Izmunuti, a yellow glow representing the hunter—a Jophur dreadnought whose crew coveted the Earthship and its secrets. Having abandoned the distraction of all the old dross ships, the
Polkjhy
had been racing toward the regular
T-point, confident of cutting off
Streaker
's sole escape route.

Only now, the sudden reopening of
another
gateway must have flummoxed the giant sap-rings who commanded the great warship. The yellow trace turned sharply, as the
Polkjhy
frantically shed momentum, aiming to chase
Streaker
past Izmunuti's flames toward the new door in spacetime.

A door that's not ready for use
, Sara thought. Surely the Jophur must also have instruments capable of reading probability flows. They must realize how dangerous it would be to plunge into a newborn transfer point.

On the other hand, could the
Polkjhy
commanders afford to dismiss it?
Streaker
was small, maneuverable, and had dolphin pilots, reputed to be among the best in all five galaxies.

And the Earthlings were desperate.

The Jophur have to assume we know something about this transfer point that they do not. From their point of view, it seems as if we called it into existence with a wave of our hands—or fins. If we plunge inside, it must be because we know a tube or thread we can latch onto and follow to safety.

They're obliged to give chase, or risk losing
Streaker
forever.

Sara nodded.

“Gillian and the dolphins … they're sacrificing themselves, for Jijo.”

The tightly meshed Niss hologram appeared to shrug in agreement.

“
It does seem the best choice out of a wretched set of options.

“
Suppose we turn and fight? The only likely outcomes are capture or death, with your Jijoan civilization lost in the bargain. After extracting information about
Streaker's
discoveries in the Shallow Cluster, the Jophur will report to their home clan, then take their time organizing a systematic program for Jijo, first annihilating every g'Kek, then turning the planet into their own private breeding colony, developing new types of humans, traekis, and hoons to suit their perverted needs.

“
By forcing the
Polkjhy
to follow us into the new transfer
point, Dr. Baskin makes it likely that no report will ever reach the Five Galaxies about your Six Races. Your fellow exiles may continue wallowing in sublime, planet-bound squalor for a while longer, chasing vague notions of redemption down the muddy generations
.”

How very much like the Niss it was, to turn a noble gesture into an excuse for insult. Sara shook her head. Gillian's plan was both grand and poignant.

It also meant Sara's own hours were numbered.

“
What a waste
,” the Niss sighed. “
This vessel and crew appear to have made the discovery of the age, and now it may be lost
.”

Things had been so hectic since the rushed departure from Jijo, that Sara was still unclear about the cause of all this ferment—what the
Streaker
crew had done to provoke such ire and determined pursuit by some of the greater powers of the known universe.

“
It began when Captain Creideiki took this ship poking through a seemingly unlikely place, looking for relics or anomalies that had been missed by the Great Library
,”the artificial intelligence explained. “
It was a shallow globular cluster, lacking planets or singularities. Creideiki never told his reasons for choosing such a spot. But his hunch paid off beyond all hope or expectation when
Streaker
came upon a great fleet of derelict ships, drifting in splendid silence through open space. Moreover, samples and holos taken of this mystery armada seemed to hint at possible answers to our civilization's most ancient mystery.

“
Of course our findings should have been shared openly by the institutes of the Civilization of Five Galaxies, in the name of all oxygen-breathing life. Immense credit would have come to your frail, impoverished Earthclan, as well as my Tymbrimi makers. But every other race and alliance might have shared as well, gaining new insight into the origins of our billion-year-old culture.

“
Alas, several mighty coalitions interpreted
Streaker 's
initial beamcast as fulfillment of dire prophecy. They felt the news presaged a fateful time of commotion and upheaval, in which a decisive advantage would go to anyone monopolizing our discovery. Instead of celebratory welcome
, Streaker
returned from the Shallow Cluster to find battle fleets lying in wait, eager to secure our secrets before we
reached neutral ground. Several times, we were cornered, and escaped only because hordes of fanatics fought savagely among themselves over the right of capture … a compensation lacking in our present situation
.”

That was an understatement. The Jophur could pursue
Streaker
at leisure, without threat of interference. As far as the rest of civilization was concerned, this whole region was empty and off-limits.

“Was poor Emerson wounded in one of those earlier space battles?”

Sara felt concern for her friend, the silent star voyager, whose cryptic injuries she had treated in her treehouse, before taking him on an epic journey across the Slope and eventually reuniting him with his crewmates.

“
No. Engineer D'Anite was captured by members of the Retired Caste, at a place we call the Fractal World. That particular event—
”

Suddenly, the blue blob halted its twisting gyration. Hesitating for a few seconds, it trembled before resuming.

“
The detection officer reports that something significant has just been perceived.

“
It appears that our instruments were too narrowly focused on the Jophur, and the new transfer point. Until this moment, we missed another phenomenon worth noting. One heretofore masked by the flames of Izmunuti
.”

The display rippled, and abruptly, a swarm of orange pinpoints sparkled into view, residing amid the filaments and stormy prominences of Izmunuti's roiling atmosphere.

Sara leaned forward. “What are they?”

“
Condensed objects.

“
Artificial, self-propelled spacial motiles.

“
In other words, stars hips
.”

Sara's jaw opened and closed twice before she could manage speech.

“Ifni, there must be hundreds! How could we have overlooked them before?”

The Niss answered defensively.

“
Oh great Sage, one normally does not send probing beams through a red giant's flaming corona in search of spacecraft. Our chief attention was rightfully turned elsewhere. Besides, these vessels were not using gravitic engines until just moments ago, when several began applying
gravi-temporal force … in an apparent effort to escape these extravagant new solar storms
.”

Sara stared in amazement.
Hope
whirled madly.

“These ships, could they help us?”

Again, the Niss paused, consulting remote instruments.

“
It seems doubtful, oh Sage. They will scarcely care about our struggles. Indeed, these beings are of another order on the pyramid of life, completely apart from yours … though one might call them distant cousins of mine
.”

Sara shook her head, at first confused. Then she cried out.

“Machines!”

Even Jijo's fallen castaways could recite the Eight Orders of Sapience, with oxygen-based life being only one of the most flamboyant. Among the other orders, Jijo's sacred scrolls spoke darkly of synthetic beings, coldly cryptic, who designed and built each other in the farthest depths of space, needing no ground to stand on, nor wind to breathe.

“
Indeed. Although their presence here is unexplained, it seems certain to involve matters beyond our concern. In any event, the mechanoids will surely perceive us as dangerous, and avoid contact, out of cowardly self-interest
.”

The voice paused.

Fresh data is coming in. It seems that some members of the flotilla are having a hard time with those tempests your Holy Egg lately provoked through Izmunuti's outer shell. In fact, some mechaniforms may be more needy of rescue than we are
.”

Sara pointed at one of the orange dots.

“Show me!”

Using data from long-range scans, the display unit swooped giddily inward. Swirling stellar filaments seemed to heave around Sara as her point of view plunged toward the chosen speck—one of the mechanoid vessels—which began taking form against a backdrop of irate gas.

The blurry enhancement—stretching the limits of magnification—showed a glimmering trapezoidal shape, almost mirrorlike, that glancingly reflected surrounding solar fire. The mechanoid's shape grew slimmer as it turned to flee a plume of hot ions, fast-rising toward it from Izmunuti's whipped convection zones. The display software compensated
for perspective as columns of numbers estimated the vessel's actual measurements—a square whose edges were hundreds of kilometers in length, with a third dimension that was vanishingly small.

Space seemed to ripple just beneath the mechaniform vessel. Though still inexperienced, Sara recognized the characteristic warping effects of a gravi-temporal field. A modest one, indicated the display numbers. Perhaps sufficient for interplanetary speeds, but not enough to escape the devastation climbing to meet it. She could only watch with helpless sympathy as the mechanoid struggled in vain.

The first shock wave ripped the filmy object in half … then into shreds that raveled quickly, becoming a swarm of bright, dissolving streamers.

“
This is not the only victim. Observe, as fate catches up with other stragglers
.”

The display returned to its former scale. As Sara watched, several additional orange glitters were overwhelmed by waves of accelerating dense plasma. Others continued to climb, fighting to escape the maelstrom.

“Whoever they are, I hope they get away,” Sara murmured. How strange it seemed that machine-vessels would be less sturdy than
Streaker
, whose protective fields could stand full immersion for several miduras in the red star's chromosphere, storm or no storm.

If they can't take on a plasma surge, they'd be useless against Jophur weapons.

Disappointment tasted bitter after briefly-raised hope. Clearly, no rescue would come from that direction.

Sara perceived a pattern to her trials and adventures during the last year—swept away from her dusty study to encounter aliens, fight battles, ride fabled horses, submerge into the sea, and then join a wild flight aboard a starship. The universe seemed bent on revealing wonders at the edge of her grasp or imagining—giant stars, transfer points, talking computers, universal libraries … and now a glimpse revealing a completely different order of life. A mysterious phylum, totally apart from the vast, encompassing Civilization of the Five Galaxies.

Such marvels lay far beyond her old life as a savage intellectual on a rustic world.

And yet, a glimpse was clearly all the cosmos planned on giving her.

Go ahead and look
, it seemed to say.
But you can't touch.

For you, time has almost run out.

Saddened, Sara watched orange pinpoints flee desperately before curling tornadoes of stellar heat. In moments, several more laggards were swept up by the rising storm, their frail light quenched like drowning embers.

Gillian and the dolphins seem sure we can stand a brief passage through that hell.
But the vanishing sparks made Sara's confidence waver. After all, weren't machines supposed to be stronger than mere flesh?

She was about to ask the Niss about it when, before her eyes, the holo display abruptly changed once more. Izmunuti flickered, and when the image reformed, something new had come into view. Below the retreating orange glimmers, there now appeared
three sparkling forms
, rising with complacent grace, shining a distinct shade of imperial purple as they emerged from the flames to cross near
Streaker'
s path.

“What now?” she asked. “More mechanoids?”

“
No
,” the Niss answered in a tone that seemed almost awed. “
These appear to be something else entirely. I believe they are …
”