Forty-seven
The courier passed from an empty region of space,
through the all-too convenient rent into a crowded universe. Myla cried
out in astonishment at the panorama of stars like glowing dust and dense
scatterings of bright jewels against a greatly diminished background of
night.
They had no time to contemplate their surroundings.
"Somebody is here to meet us," Jeremy said.
They looked like needles, countless millions of them,
gleaming in the reflected light of the new universe. Jeep turned to Myla
and chattered. Jeremy gawked at the little alien. "She just spoke to
you!"
"I think she said she's home. Look. Her hands are
trembling."
Jeep's attention was fixed dead ahead, her stick-like
arms crossed against her chest.
Myla increased speed, assuming she would receive
navigational clues as they were needed. "Dikki, are you getting
something from those other ships out there?"
"Not vessels," Dikki said.
"Phenomena. They vanish
in our wake and appear before us. Otherwise, they do not move. I believe
they control our trajectory."
The slender objects stationary in the dark of space
would never have been visible to their unaided eyes. The visual screens
fought a hard battle to compensate for the frequency distortion incurred
at hyperlight velocity. Even nearby stars moved past the courier at a
numbing pace. The vaguely glimmering tunnel subtly altered the space-time
terrain. Myla could feel its steering effect upon the courier.
They moved into the brilliant core of a galaxy. It
appeared as if they were falling into the heart of a sun. The courier penetrated bands
of glowing nebula only to emerge into even greater radiance.
"Are we certain this is going to be a healthy
experience for an ordinary human?" Jeremy said. "Galactic cores generally
harbor black holes, you know, and even those carbon fiber bones of yours
aren't up to tidal forces of that magnitude."
"I don't know where we're going," Myla confessed.
"I'd appreciate it if you'd access that information
really quick and give it due consideration."
Myla peered deep into Dikki's overburdened sensory
apparatus. "I guess we are approaching a gravitational source of about
five hundred million solar masses." She reduced the brightness of the
view again and again, and the tunnel of needles guiding their way now
appeared incandescent, becoming solid-seeming walls guiding their way ever
downward.
For the first time in her experience aboard a
spacecraft, Myla felt a sudden wrenching to one side. Jeremy lost his
balance and fell against a bulkhead. Jeep had somehow anticipated the
turn.
"Dikki, I'd appreciate a running commentary," she
said aloud so that Jeremy would be able to follow whatever explanation
Dikki might have for their experience.
"We approached the center of the galaxy above the
plane of the ecliptic," Dikki said. "We are now descending from the
direction of the polar region and traveling in a region of high
cyclotronic radiation. We are decelerating."
The courier passed through a region of dense clouds
and stars wheeling by at high velocities, many of them distorted in shape
or pulled entirely apart by the close proximity of their neighbors.
Abruptly, the courier passed into a region clear of debris and looked down
upon a strange sight, a black ring centered by a gold sun of immense
proportions.
"That's a gravitational singularity!" Jeremy cried.
"That configuration is not possible! And that..."
Jeremy pointed at the star in the middle.
"That's where Jeep lives," Myla said with quiet
confidence.
The black ring was larger than their minds could
register. It took long minutes for the gold star to become a visible
sphere. By the time it had managed that minor feat, they were within the
plane of the ecliptic and seeing the black ring edge on. It become
invisible, and the gold star appeared to be alone in a void glowing in
hues of beige and metallic yellow, brighter at the polar regions and much
darker across the plane of the ecliptic where the disk of collapsed matter
lurked on all sides.
The guiding tunnel of needles ended. Now, the
courier was accompanied by three spheres the size of small worlds, and the
space ahead became crowded with geometric arrangements of worlds clearly
artificial in origin. "Space and time are being shaped by these artifacts
which tap sources of power of unknown origin," Dikki announced. "In this
region of space, unprotected matter would be converted to energy and added
to the spin of the rotating black hole in trillionths of a standard
second.
"Nothing can live here," Jeremy said, almost at the
same moment Dikki announced the detection of worlds around the golden sun.
"Habitable worlds?" Myla said with a raised eyebrow.
"Many."
"How many is many?"
"One hundred and thirty seven."
The outer worlds were frozen balls of gas and ice,
and yet their surfaces were covered in geometric patterns of artificial
constructs, as were their moons, and their skies filled with orbiting
cities themselves the size of small worlds. Entire fleets of vessels rose
from the closest of these worlds and paced the courier for a time.
Gas giants were next, the first smaller than the
latter ones, many ringed by vast flat sheets of ice and frozen gas. Here,
too, Myla saw evidence of extensive life, most of it invisible until Dikki
pointed out the clues to its existence.
From one place to the next, the technology she saw
differed radically. "They must be species native to these environments,"
she said to Jeremy, hardly able to accept her own sudden insight. "This
place is filled with stargods from all over the universe."
Approaching the inner system,
Myla saw brief arcs she suspected were actually unbroken rings of cities
orbiting the star, each discrete artifact the size of the Earth, more of
them than she could have counted in an ordinary lifetime.
After that, the first of the
conventional green worlds appeared. Dikki used an overhead screen to
project views of those on the far side of the sun. Most were ringed
by artificial structures. All bore evidence of extensive life on the
surface. Open space itself seemed filled with platforms and sweeping
arcs and clusters and spheres of organic matter of natural origin thriving
in the vacuum of space, forms of life to rival the life on the surface of
any world.
With the golden sun growing inexorably in size, Myla
finally caught sight of their destination. Jeep stared raptly at the dark
bauble in the glowing heavens slowly resolving itself into a cloud and
ocean swirled world of blue and green showing no evidence of technological
structures. A single large vehicle now attended the courier, and Dikki
announced that he no longer had navigational control.
"It's okay," Myla said. "We're in good hands."
"Or appendages of various sorts," Jeremy murmured
unhappily.
The skies of Jeep's world were empty of artifacts.
The courier, not normally a craft to pilot to the surface of a world,
floated endlessly down through clouds of one type and then another,
drifted steeply off the coast of a dark water ocean, and then down into a
forest of deep emerald. The craft set down on a knoll that may have been
intended for that purpose. Around them towered rather ordinary looking
trees. "Gnarled old oaks from old Earth," Jeremy said, enraptured by the
natural beauty of the scene. Except that the oaks stood several hundred
feet high with trunks as wide at the base as a small mountain and a
surrounding, partially exposed root system that rendered the terrain
impassable.
Jeep turned away and hurried to the airlock.
"Let her out," Myla said.
"Wait!"
Too late. The airlock opened even as Jeremy held his
breath, uncertain whether he had a viable atmosphere to breath. He took a
cautious breath of the untested air and gave grinning Myla a reassuring
nod. "I'll live."
Jeep started out across the uneven ground overgrown
with tangled weeds and bushes and protruding root nodules like rounded
boulders. Myla tried to follow, but had no way to duplicate the manner in
which jeep leaped and bounded through the obstacle course and quickly
disappeared into the wilderness. She glanced back at Jeremy, appalled
that Jeep had fled as abruptly as a bird released from a cage.
Jeremy shrugged helplessly. Myla surveyed the beauty
of their surroundings and eyed the nearest of the vast oaks. "I wonder if
they mind if we stick around and explore on our own for a time. Dikki, is
anything happening?"
"Much is happening."
Myla sighed again in dismay.
"That's not what I
meant. Let me know if you detect a problem, a threat or something we
might be interested in investigating, or a communication of some kind."
She started off between two roots forming a gloomy
canyon filled with riotous vegetation. Jeremy turned instead to the root
itself and tested the rough bark for footing. He scampered to the top and
turned to look down at her with a self-satisfied grin. "It's easier going
this way."
Myla clambered after him and
let him take the lead. Jeremy rested often, interspersing the labor of
climbing up and down the protruding roots when necessary, with rest periods at the highest
altitudes where they had the best view of surrounding terrain.
Jeep's world hummed with wildlife, insects and small
animals that paused to survey the newcomers before moving on. Flights of
insects moved in unison, and even the smallest of animals had rounded
skulls and oftentimes, human-like faces. "What does it tell you?" Myla
called out to Jeremy.
"They're smart."
"Not much less intelligent than we are," Myla said,
"which means we fit right in with the fauna around here. That puts us
terribly low in the scheme of things in this part of the universe, I
imagine."
"Near the bottom," Jeremy said, although Myla assumed
that the wildlife of the massive glen was not smart enough to be a
tool-using or technological intelligence. That assumption ended when she
caught sight of her first utility belt around the midriff of a
squirrel-like creature that leaped across the root ahead of them, and then
became airborne upon a set of membrane wings spread between arms and
body. Jeremy didn't see, and Myla didn't try to bring it to his
attention.
It became apparent in time that the sun was setting
rather than rising. Beige and crimson light speared with shades of
lavender along the horizon captivated their attention until dark. They
sat huddled side by side on the summit of a ground root and watched the
movement of the planets in the sky for some clue as to the length of the
night to follow. The heavens glowed a strange blend of peach and metallic
gold light with a dark band arcing across the firmament. Occasionally,
something large and bright passed slowly overhead. Shadows careened
through the trees.
The undergrowth beneath them made up for the lack of
starlight. Much of it glowed phosphorescently in a variety of hues, and
countless mobile sources of illumination moved through the foliage and
fluttered through the air, some of it emitted by the phosphorescent
creatures that inhabited the nocturnal realm of Jeep's world and other
sources emitted by devices the diminutive creatures carried.
Jeremy finally took notice of subtle but extensive
evidence of technology in use. "I think we're further down that ladder
than we may have assumed."
He curled up and slept. Myla enjoyed the long, peaceful night
alone. At daybreak, Jeremy slid down the root to the dense tangle of
ground vegetation where he drank dew from broadleaf plants in the cool
dawn and tested a wide assortment of berries for palatability. One
species quickly caught his attention. He tossed a specimen up for Myla to
taste. Although she appreciated the sweet, meaty flavor of the fruit, she
had no hunger or thirst to contend with, and she turned her back on the
boy when he attended other duties required by a flesh and blood body.
The child she had been had never paid much attention
to eating and drinking. Khalin Nome had kept her far more isolated than
she had ever suspected. She still had no way of knowing if she had been
an avatar before the death of her parents. Either she was a copy of a
little human girl who had died, or she had always been nobody but herself,
an artificial life-form with no biological bonds to the human species.
Jeremy gestured when he was ready to move on. Myla
followed patiently. They reached a point by midday where the jumbled root
system arced upward toward the main body of the tree. Here, they saw
their first evidence of Jeep's people. The little green creatures
squatted here and there on low hanging limbs, staring at them, seldom in
motion. Myla paused when she saw one vanish into the trunk of the tree,
not through a hole in the tree, but apparently absorbed by the bark
itself.
She studied the trees more carefully. "They're not
like oaks at all," she said to Jeremy, and waited until he had seen for
himself. An approaching jeep-type creature would lean against a fold in
the bark and throw its head back. The fold would open to reveal a pale,
moist interior. It was like watching the jeep be devoured.
"We're in over our heads," Jeremy said. "Nothing
here is what it seems to be."
From her vantage point so far beneath the canopy of
the tree, Myla studied the underside more carefully and took notice of
clusters of green fruit, each a half meter across. The fruit had
transparent membranes and something curled up inside them. An unfamiliar
emotion, a genuine sense of dread, sluiced through her like ice water when
she saw an unmistakable outline within each of the green fruit, the
outline of insect-like eyes on bulbous heads.
The great oak absorbed Jeeps, and it was growing
Jeeps. Myla sat down on the rough bark to cope with her disorientation.
Their exploration had just ended. They weren't going to find their own
special Jeep, and it would take a lifetime to explore this fascinating new
world without understanding any of it.
Jeremy sat at her side. "Give up?"
She nodded in defeat. "She's gone. I was hoping to
establish some kind of rapport with her, at least enough of one to tell
her that I thought she was cool and that I was glad to have known her.”
“And maybe thanks for saving our lives and maybe the
entire human species in this part of space,” Jeremy said. “We all tend to
put a human face on the universe. Smart little monkeys aren't all
that common, apparently."
Myla stood impatiently, anxious to return to the
courier. "I don't feel particularly welcome here. Let's go back."
The return journey was downhill all the way, and they
reached the courier before dusk. Floating just off the ground, the ship
looked like a giant mirrored ornament.
"I have been given navigational coordinates,"
Dikki announced when they had sealed the ship behind them. Myla relayed
the news to Jeremy.
"Coordinates to where?"
Myla asked, but Dikki had no way of knowing. Once
aboard, Myla spent quiet moments surveying the surrounding terrain, hoping
to see a pair of dark eyes watching from nearby, and maybe a skinny hand
raised in a gesture of farewell. "Let's go," she said to Dikki with
disappointment sounding in her tone of voice. "Engage those coordinates
as soon as we're clear of the planet."
Jeremy watched the panoramic view of the green world
dropping below in the courier's screens, and then their ascent into the
starless, glowing heavens. The courier accelerated and the world of the
jeeps dwindled and vanished in an instant. "I wish I had somebody to
tell," Jeremy said quietly. "Who would ever believe me?"
Dikki was soon plunging through ordinary clouds of
stars. "Coordinates translating into the field of space-time," he said
aloud,
and the sky went dark, twisted, and reformed into another star pattern.
Both Myla and Jeremy were afraid to ask. Dikki did
not volunteer the information.
"Where are we?" Myla finally said.
A dark shape against a thinner background of stars
took form on the screens dead ahead. Myla felt sudden despair. Jeremy's
expression grew pale and tense. "I hope that's not what I think it is."
"Alliance dreadnought Amikol transmitting to
unidentified Hive vehicle in all formats. You have been targeted. Do not
attempt to move from your present position. Identify yourself."
Myla sat staring into space, lost in a world of her
own confused thoughts.
"Countdown to target destruction commencing, five,
four..."
Jeremy put his hand on her arm. "Myla?"
She looked around with a listless gaze. "Dikki, give
them what they want."
"What are you going to do?" Jeremy said anxiously.
She rolled her head back and forth on the headrest
of her seat.
"Nothing. I'm tired of all the hate and fear. They can have whatever
they want."
Jeremy stared at her for a time. "They want to kill
you."
She raised a curious eyebrow. "How am I going to
stop them?"
"Aren’t you going to try?"
"Dikki, what can we do?"
"We are being held within a magnitude thirty field of
an Alliance dreadnought," Dikki said. "We can do nothing."
"Radio Bolphan!" Jeremy said in rising anger.
Dikki responded to Jeremy's suggestion when Myla
prompted him. "We do not have communication beyond the field of the
dreadnought" the MI announced.
"You can't just give up!"
"Jeremy, I didn't put myself in this situation, and I
can't keep it from happening!"
Jeremy shot to his feet and danced about on the verge of panic.
"Jeremy, don't look so scared. Don't you
understand? Jeep put me here."
Jeremy didn't know what that was supposed to mean.
From his point of view, it meant absolutely nothing.
