Transgalactic (16 page)

He really believed what he was saying, Asha thought. “Sometimes self-evident truths are merely the fires of youth turning to ashes in the old,” Asha said. “Peace is good, and war ought to be avoided at almost any cost. But the Federation wanted war, or, rather, it wanted to bottle up humanity in its own solar system, and if that didn't work, to wipe humanity out as a potential threat to the Federation's stability.”

“Even that,” her father said. “But they wouldn't have done it.”

“It isn't as if they haven't done it before,” Asha said. “Federation history records accounts of worlds that have been destroyed, species wiped out—”

“Stories,” her father said, holding his hands apart to indicate the distance between folklore and reality. “Myths. And anyway, that was long ago. I know them now, better than when I was trying to convince the Council of humanity's basic goodness. They are a kind and generous collection of people, with the terrible burden of preserving the framework that brought peace to a troubled galaxy while humanity was still swinging through the trees. They welcomed me once I revealed my understanding of them.”

“So,” Asha said, not unkindly, “you collaborated with the enemy and earned your place in its councils.”

“I accepted its goals,” her father said, “as you should have. Instead you and Ren sneaked away in the long night with the secrets of interstellar travel. Without those there would have been no war and its terrible destruction could have been avoided.”

“And humanity would have remained Earth-bound peasants dominated by the elite members of the Federation. It isn't as if they came up with the nexus points themselves. They inherited their charts from a more ancient species, who may have got their charts the same way. And the early members of the Federation used that gift, and the fact that they evolved to sapience and technological civilization before anybody else, to grab power and hold on to it.”

“Humanity could have applied for membership like everyone else,” her father said.

“And spent generations as supplicants for the generosity and goodwill of the Federation,” Asha said. “Even if the Federation was wise and good, as you believe, even if it had withheld its force of arms as you think it would have done, do you think that's possible for humanity?”

“That's humanity's fatal flaw,” her father said sadly. “Hubris. That was my flaw, too. I thought I could solve any problem by the force of reason, but I learned and so did Ren, and so could the rest of my fellow humans. Humility.”

“Ren?” Asha said.

“He returned a couple of long-cycles ago, but different, like you, only in another way. He was repentant, humble. Better. Younger, even. Smarter. He made his peace with the Federation, made a position for himself before he moved on.”

“Where?”

“That kind of information is confidential. No one knows except maybe the Pedia, which knows where everybody is. Except you. Until you decided to return, not like Ren, but with a false identity that was revealed only by its DNA. It was different, with some of the junk removed, but it shared enough with mine for me to know that it had to be you or Kip. Kip. What happened to Kip?”

“He was sent on the lifeboat back to Earth with the other children, with women to look after them, and with a few crewmembers to take care of the necessary navigation and maintenance. He'll be a grown man now.”

But she could not yet process the information that Ren had survived and preceded her back into Federation space.

*   *   *

Ren had survived the attacks of the arachnoids and followed her into the Transcendental Machine. Like her, he had been transformed, perfected, transferred somewhere else in the galaxy. And to somewhere with better, more accessible interstellar transportation that had brought him back to Federation Central while she was making her way more circuitously into Federation space and to Terminal, where she had joined the pilgrims gathering to join the quest for the Transcendental Machine. She had wanted to come to terms with the nature of the Machine and with the rumors of its transformative powers that had sprung up around her first incautious descriptions of what had happened to her, and the realities of Transcendentalism, the pseudoreligion that had followed in her wake.

But Ren had made no effort to find her. He must have realized that she had been sent to a different part of the galaxy and, after that, rumors of the Transcendental Machine, Transcendentalism, and its Prophet must have reached Federation Central a long-cycle before the voyage of the
Geoffrey
had been authorized and its pilgrims had gathered. Ren must have understood what they implied. But what had he done? He had not mounted an expedition to get the Machine and put it to his own uses. Which meant that he was content with his own transformation and had no interest in conferring it upon anyone else. And it meant that he had approved the plan to send the war-worn
Geoffrey
on its journey, or channeled the process of approval through the Federation bureaucracy.

But why? Perhaps to draw her into a situation where she could be killed or stranded far from Federation space, where she could do no damage to whatever plans Ren had developed. The journey itself was crowded with perils, and even if she and the ship survived them, the arachnoids on the alien planet provided a likely defense against her return. And then there were the pilgrims, several at least, whose mission was to kill the Prophet—the sly Xi and the ponderous Tordor, and perhaps others, including Riley. Maybe not Riley. Xi and Tordor were both representatives on the Federation Council and would have been easy to recruit and to subvert. Riley had been recuperating on the pleasure-world Dante, far from Federation Central.

Someone in authority had also given instructions to destroy the Transcendental Machine. Maybe Ren? Who could it have been but Ren? Ren, who knew what the Machine could do, who may have wanted to make sure that he kept its transformations to himself, who did not want to share them with others who might provide competition for power or status or wealth, or whatever else Ren valued. If Ren were the only transcendent, it might mean he could take over the Federation and move it farther down the road to domination rather than federation. And if Ren were clever enough, no one would know where the Federation was going until it was too late.

What that meant, Asha realized, was that transcendence was not the panacea that she and Riley had imagined. It was not enough to think clearly and behave rationally. Those were the basic requirements for a decent society, but they were not enough. If the basic nature of the Transcendent was flawed, transcendence only enhanced the worst in creatures it accidentally transformed rather than leading to a saner, more rational existence.

Which made it even more urgent that she find Riley.

“When did you change your mind about the Federation?” Asha asked without a pause. “Before you saw Ren again?”

“I think I've always felt this way,” her father said. “I just didn't know it.” He took a deep breath. “Now I've got to turn you over to Federation justice. I don't know what you're doing here, but it can't be anything good for you or the Federation or peace.”

“I came to find you, Father.”

“You can't have known I was alive.”

“And what do you think the Federation will do to me, Father?” Asha asked.

“The Federation will do what's right.”

“You are willing to turn your daughter over to the Federation to keep the peace?”

“It's not a matter of guilt or innocence. Our talk has been recorded by the Pedia, and you have provided sufficient evidence of your antipeace sentiments and your anti-Federation intentions. I'm sorry, Asha, but surveillance is a fact of life and a necessary ingredient of a lasting peace.”

“I turned it off, Father. Like the new Ren, I can be persuasive, as I think he persuaded you while you didn't notice. Good-bye, Father. I wish you well, but you won't remember that you met me, or who I am. Now I have an appointment to keep.” She could, she understood, have changed him back into his old, earnest, dedicated self, just as Ren had changed him into a true believer in Federation policy and good intentions. But it would not be a kindness to confront him with his apostasy.

Her father looked up. “Who are you?”

“Just someone you used to know,” she said, and slipped behind the desk to give him a final pat on the shoulder as she passed.

*   *   *

There was, as she suspected, a door behind the display against the far wall, and it opened for her as she approached. The bureaucrats who inhabited the top level would not want to mix with the ordinary Federation people who used the public transportation system and the public services, nor to put up with its delays.

Behind the door was a capsule big enough to hold not only a human like her father but most of the larger Federation citizens like Tordor. The capsule's clear plastic door was open. She got into the capsule and closed the door behind her. A seat unfolded from the far side, adjusted to accommodate her, and encircled her with restraints. A schematic map of the planet-sized building appeared, in glowing red lines and numbers, in front of her face. She touched numbers until a Galactic Standard description of the destination she wanted appeared on the map. She tapped twice in the air, and the capsule began to move, slowly at first, and then picking up speed that she experienced as an increasing feeling of weight throughout her body.

The trip to this location had taken hours by monorail. It was a matter of minutes for the bureaucracy's private transportation system, and the walls of the tube that enclosed the capsule went past with blurring speed until the capsule slowed and came to a stop. Asha rose from the seat as it unclasped her, opened the capsule door, and stepped out to face a wall identical to the one behind her father's office. She found the latch button that opened it and stepped out into a space filled with an assortment of aliens—Xifora, Dorians, Sirians, Alpha Centaurans, and several others. But no humans. Humans were still scarce in Federation space.

The air was thick with the mixed scents of aliens from a dozen different worlds. Aliens who had heads turned them to look at Asha. Those whose heads did not turn shifted their entire bodies to see what high official had come through the exclusive transportation system. Those who had no heads shifted whatever organs of perception they possessed. Clearly anyone who arrived in this fashion was someone to be respected, and equally clearly to be human was to be suspect, and to be human and a woman was to be doubly suspicious.

Asha moved confidently to address the Dorian in charge. She knew he was in charge because he reclined on his massive tail behind a desk in which a computer screen was imbedded. Confidence can overcome a multitude of prejudices, skepticisms, and suspicions, she knew, but it came naturally.

“I have authorization for shuttle transportation to my ship in orbit,” she said in Galactic Standard, and provided the Dorian with a string of numbers. He looked at Asha with the serenity of a heavy-planet grass-eater, matching her confidence with his own in-born sense of superiority. She could not help thinking of Tordor, the powerful and dominant Dorian who had died, no doubt, in the jaws of the arachnoids in the city of the Transcendental Machine. But this Dorian, though nourished by the same circumstances of birth and upbringing, did not have Tordor's size and position.

He consulted the computer screen. “The authorization is correct,” he said grudgingly, “but it requires a confirmation.” He tapped the screen. Asha waited without any outward display of impatience. Early in her experience as a transcendent she had discovered that seemingly impregnable and incorruptible computers could be influenced and even, with enough time, corrupted, as if these essential components of a high-level technological society recognized that a new breed of humans had emerged who had to be obeyed rather than dominated behind a façade of obedience.

But she had not had much time, and the Federation's central Pedia was far superior in power and complexity to any she had dealt with before. It had to manage the information and operating directions for an entire galaxy, and, she believed, its operating instructions. The Federation Council thought that it made the important decisions, but she was beginning to suspect that they were made by the Pedia. She did not know when the Pedia would recognize the commands she had given in her father's office as suspect, even spurious. But impatience would only damage her need.

The Dorian looked up. Asha had read enough of Tordor's facial expressions to interpret the look as one of displeasure. It did not like to defer to humans. “The shuttle is confirmed,” he said. He gave Asha the number of the shuttle and the shuttle bay.

Asha started across the room toward the far door that led to one of the few areas open to the sky on Federation Central, where shuttles took off and landed. “Wait!” the Dorian called out. When Asha turned at the door, he continued, “You will need a shuttle pilot.” He called out an identity number and a Xifor detached himself from a group nearby and moved to join Asha at the door.

“You are a lucky human,” the Xifor said, with typical Xifora braggadocio. “You have got the best shuttle pilot on Federation Central.”

“Good,” she said, and moved through the door.

The Xifor led her across the landing field to a shuttle in a bay of the building, pushed a button to bring the shuttle out into the open, and opened a door for Asha to enter. In a few moments, they were in the atmosphere and settled back for the long journey into space. The nexus point system made interstellar travel possible, but the intermediate stages could not be shortened. An alarm was possible at any moment. Asha made time pass by conversing with the Xifor, who was, like all Xifora, talkative and full of gossip about himself, his friends and their perfidy, and Federation affairs about which he knew nothing for certain, but Asha listened for a hint of information that might lead her back to Riley.