Far Frontiers Part 15

"Here are your stars," the representative said, and a familiar sliver turned yellow. "Here are ours," and a broad expanse of blue covered perhaps a third of the galaxy-but only a third, a huge crescent around one side of the galactic disk, the yellow sliver a patch on its outer edge.

"This is the Oneness," the representative continued, and a great broad ring of red appeared, nested against the blue crescent and centered on the old Sagittarian sector. "And this last portion," it said, as the white patch in the middle of the ring turned orange, "we call theTranscendence."

"The what?"

"The Transcendence." The representative sighed, and explained, "the Oneness experimented, as well. The Transcendence came into existence about a century ago."

"What do these names mean?" Shmit demanded. "Aren't they just Links that for some reason separated from yours?"

The representative shook its head. "No," it said. "The Link is a group mind. Each of its const.i.tuent parts is linked to the whole, but we are still separate minds, even if we aren't individuals by your standards. We share data and sensation and memory, and a given consciousness may not be attached to a specific body, but there are still multiple consciousnesses in the Link, even if the boundaries between them are weak and variable. A fives.p.a.ce datalink is fast, but it's not instantaneous. We can't maintain a true single consciousness across interstellar distances.

"But the Oneness can. We don't know how; we don't understand it. It's as alien to us as we are to you. I was able to detach myself from the Link and come here to talk to you; I don't think a const.i.tuent body of the Oneness could do that, any more than you could take off one of your fingers and send it to do an errand. And the portions of the Link that have tried to communicate with it have been absorbed into it."

Lee looked around the table at the faces of the others, and could see that they were all thinking the same thing she was-that the Link was getting a demo of its own programming.

"And the Transcendence?" w.a.n.g asked.

"The step beyond the Oneness," the representative explained. "We really don't understand that one. It seems to be something that combines s.p.a.ce, time, and consciousness into a single ent.i.ty-and it's the only thing that scares the Oneness, which means it terrifies us.,, "Wheels within wheels," Lee said, looking at the galactic map.

"So this Oneness is taking the galaxy away from you?" Shmit asked.

"Gradually, yes. And the Transcendence is then taking territory from the Oneness. Waves of expansion, spreading outward-a very, very old story."

"So you intend to push us out of the galaxy entirely to buy yourselves a little more breathing s.p.a.ce," Kita said.

"More than that, we hope," the representative said. "It's not your s.p.a.ce we need-it'syour worlds. It's ma.s.s, in big convenient chunks."

"You have half a galaxy!" w.a.n.g protested. "What do you need with a few hundred rocks?"

"You haven't been listening," the representative said. "We don't have half a galaxy, not for long. We need to get out of here while we still can."

"I don't understand," Lee said.

The representative looked about as if seeking inspiration, then said, "It's a long way between galaxies. You couldn't make the jump without us because you don't have enough energy, enough technology, to ramp entire planets into fives.p.a.ce before we overrun your territory, and nothing less than a planet can safely sustain your civilization for so long a journey.

Well, we have the same problem many times over. We are the Link-we are all joined into our single community by fives.p.a.ce datalinks, and without that connection we're nothing-or at least, we aren't what we want to preserve. And a fives.p.a.ce datalink can't function over intergalactic distances."

"So you'll send a community to another galaxy, and build a new Link there," Kita began.

"No!" the representative protested. "No! We don't want another Link; we want our Link, our life. It's the difference between sending your children to safety and saving yourself-we'll settle for creating a new Link if it's the best we can do, but we want to live, not die. We want to stay Linked."

"Well, how can you.. ." Shmit began.

"A bridge," the representative said. "A bridge of planets, s.p.a.ced at distances that allow proper Linkage, stretching out from this galaxy to another. And when it's complete, we'll transfer whatever is left in this galaxy to the other. It'll take thousands of years, of course, but we can handle that."

The sheer audacity of the concept left the humans stunned.

At last, Lee spoke up.

"You have millions of planets already," she said. "You don't need to buy ours."

"It's a long, long way to the next galaxy," the representative said. "And we're steadily losing planets to the Oneness. Even a few hundred could make the difference between success and failure."

"It's more than that," Lee said."Of course it is," the representative said. "Believe it or not, we like you. You're family."

"The idiot cousin," Kita suggested.

The representative flushed. "Well, yes," it admitted. "Or maybe the dotty old uncle would be a closer comparison. We'd like to see you have a chance at survival, and we really don't want to fight you on one side and Oneness on the other if things turn nasty."

"And we're your test pilots, aren't we?" Lee asked. "To see if there are any unforeseen problems in ramp- planets into fives.p.a.ce and sending them out be-galaxies."

"That, too," the representative admitted. "We don't to risk detaching an entire inhabited planet from the Link."

Lee nodded thoughtfully. "I like it," she said. "On iehalf of the Purists, I vote to accept the Link's offer."

Several of the others stared at her in astonishment. Clearly, they had expected the Purists to put up unreasoning resistance to anything so radical.

"A bridge between galaxies," Lee said, musing aloud. 'That's quite a proposal. I wish you luck with it, so long as it's not our galaxy you aim it at."

'Thank you," the representative said.

Lee smiled. "There's one thing that puzzles me," she said.

"Oh?"

"I wonder what method the Oneness will use to reach a new galaxy, when it flees from the Transcendence?"

FORGOTIEN.

by Peter Schweighofer

Peter Schweighofer lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he works at the Omohundro Inst.i.tute of Early Amencan History and Culture and continues his freelance writing and editing projects. He's written material for the Star Wars roleplaying game, published several science fiction and historical fantasy stories, edited two Star Wars anthologies, and reported for a newspaper in Connecticut.

Grampa gazed past the platform railing, watching the gas giant's clouds towering in the afternoon sunlight. The plumes formed animals, colors, fuzzy words, and fantasy landscapes. He saw the faces of friends long gone whose names and memories had pa.s.sed into the shadows enshrouding his mind. The vapors often turned back into the bodies of children, dogs, starships, and plants, all playing effortlessly and free in the sky, waving to Grampa, inviting him to join their adventures. He strained to raise his hand and tried waving back.

Someone asked if he was okay out here in the sun, or would he rather go under the veranda for some shade?

He turned to see Sharon, the young friend who took care of him. She wore a pastel- colored uniform dress-Grampa had long forgotten exactly what the color was called, and had no idea what profession wore such a uniform.

"I'm looking for the companionway ladder to my quarters," he replied. "I couldn't find the command deck or the engineering bay. Is it this way?" He pointed~ over the balcony at the whispering clouds.

Sonya turned his glide chair away from the railing and back toward the platform. He watched others like him wandering the quaint gardens, patios, and lawns. Some huddled around the fountain, splashing their frail hands in the liquid. Everyone mumbled quietly to themselves like those bubbling waters. Sanitary white building with arches and tall windows rose in the dis- tance. Anyone with half their brain intact would have found the environment similar to somepleasant alpine resort. But those people left here were lucky to possess even half their minds.

Years ago Grampa would have known this platform served as a medical holding facility, an idyllic paradise floating in orbit through the gas giant's habitable stratosphere. Sometimes the trees, flower beds, buildings, and people turned into piles of trash in his mind, a junkyard where folks dumped their debilitating elders. With science focusing on s.p.a.ce travel, colonization, and warfare, n.o.body cared about medical research to improve hopeless human conditions. Here they lived out their remaining days. months, sometimes years, in a miasma of fused memories and blurred images.

Sondra pushed his glide chair past trimmed hedges and onto a shaded veranda. She smiled at him and brushed the hair from his face. He settled his chin into his hands like some pampered but aging dog too old to bound carefree across the lawn. Grampa heard her say how much more comfortable he'd be spending the afternoon here.

She was Grampa's friend, some might say his a.s.sistant or nurse. He wasn't quite sure if her name was Sandra, Sonya, or Shannon. One day part of his mind returned, insisting she looked like a friend from his teenage years named Jenny. Grampa decided to call her Jenny as a nickname, entertaining Sondra with a story about his boyhood infatuation with the girl. Then that part of his brain went off-line again, and he was stuck with the impression that her name really was Jenny. Or Sandy.

Grampa liked to think Sharon had a crush on him, too, and that's why she spent so much time making sure he was okay.

She sat next to his glide chair and watched the sun playing off the clouds. Grampa wanted to leave the chair and go touch the light, frolicking with the friendly children and dogs it formed in the distant stratosphere. But he couldn't walk on his own anymore-he couldn't do much of anything without Sandra's help.

Bits of his consciousness and memory kept blinking in and out, some gone for weeks on end, most gone forever. He frequently stared at his bed, wondering what it was for. Grampa forgot how the sky worked and how music smelled. He worried he was speaking some foreign language, like Swahili, blue, or enemy. He might spend all afternoon on the veranda, but would still become frightfully lost in the labyrinth of his mind.

It was a sad fact of life-a fading brain, a body degrading with old age, never to recover.

Grampa felt like he waited on a wounded starship. His adversaries had destroyed the engines, andthe cruiser drifted aimlessly through s.p.a.ce. The atmosphere leaked out very slowly. It was only a matter of time until death. Not that Grampa could recall how time functioned anymore.

Sometimes he became angry, running alone through the vessel's corridors, throwing his tools at blown capacitors, molten coupling boxes, and dead power conduits. "Darn these old parts," he'd shout. "The captain should have ordered them replaced long ago." At about that time Jenny would find him and calm him down. Her soft words and a gentle hand on his shoulder eased him into a resigned melancholy, knowing he couldn't fix anything. Grampa slumped back into his glide chair and sadly surveyed his derelict cruiser.

He gazed at the grounds and the people staggering aimlessly through them. Some used glide chairs like him, others pulled themselves along on crutches. A few shuffled along, fortunate to cling to some dignity of independence. The imnates wandered into flower beds, embraced bushes, argued with trees, and asked the fountain for directions. They all wore concerned ex- pressions, like they were looking for something they'd lost, but seeing only the emptiness of their minds. Many searched their flimsy gowns for pockets, hoping to find a watch, some change, or their ticket to the star-ship away from here.

One woman tottered up to the railing where he'd spent the afternoon watching the clouds play. Her brittle body leaned over and she peered into the dark vapors below. Grampa often saw people looking into the distance there. Maybe they thought it was some ocean, their favorite restaurant, or the way back to their quarters. The woman clawed at the railing, sc.r.a.ped her feet on it, slowly pulling herself over. No attendant rushed to stop her, and only a handful of other patients watched her, muttering insanities to themselves. After a moment her body toppled over the edge and fell into the gaseous plumes below.

Grampa wanted to ask Sharon what happened to the ,~' woman, but the words pa.s.sing his lips made no sense.

"Can you help me find the ladder to my cabin? I'm lost in these pa.s.sageways." When he looked at her face, he saw a tear rolling down her cheek.

He frequently wandered the gardens looking for the companionway ladder to his quarter.

Not that he could have climbed it, but he would bridge that gap when he came to it. Grampa's search often brought him to the railing, where he'd sit for hours watching the clouds. Sometimes he found Jenny sitting alone on a nearby bench, taking one of her breaks. Even his blurred senses could tell she wept softly to herself. He moved closer to comfort her, tell her everything would beokay, but it came out all wrong. "What do they see?" he asked, pointing at the edge. "I want to see, too."

She dabbed her moist cheeks with a handkerchief, moved Grampa's glide chair closer, then helped him out and up to lean on the railing. He peered over the edge into a storm far below, its festering red-and-orange clouds fascinating his simple mind, calling to him. The vapors and lightning surged in waves of emotion: love and hate, happy and sad, ugliness and enchantment.

The colors and lights filled him with wonder and fear, seducing his heart and rejecting his body.

When the electrical discharges flashed orange, Grampa thought he saw people down there dancing in the storm-among them all those wretched souls who'd jumped. He once knew all about gas giants, atmospheres, s.p.a.ce travel and propulsion drives. Grampa imagined the pressure crushing their bodies, lightning blasting them to pieces, and gales blowing the bits to all points of infinity. But then all that faded into some dislodged part of his brain. He only remembered Jenny holding his hand while it trembled with excitement.

He'd prop himself up there as long as his weaiy arms could manage, staring into the tempest far below. When his strength finally failed, Sharon helped him slump back into his glide chair. Grampa looked longingly at the clouds. "Can I play, too?" he asked.

At that point Sandra always turned his chair away and guided him back toward the gardens. "I'm looking for the ladder to my cabin," he'd mutter. "Please help me find it." Grampa couldn't see her behind him, but he heard her sniffing, like she was sick with a runny nose. Sharon put a gentle hand on his shoulder, whispering that there was no ladder, but she'd take him back to his room anyway.

Grampa's mind turned the trip through the landscaped grounds into a shopping excursion to buy Jenny a new dress for some holiday-exactly which celebration he couldn't recall.

The despondent patients around him transformed into vibrant young shoppers purchasing gifts for their loved ones. A pa.s.sing nurse looked like an attentive sales girl. Trees and bushes became clothing racks displaying party dresses, evening gowns, even those frilly skirts designed to float seductively in zero-gee. He reached out and ran his hand through one shrub's leaves, feeling the shimmering silk of the dress, glancing at the price marker. Grampa fumbled through his shabby gown, looking for his ident card and finding only a tuft of lint. He handed it to the tolerant sales girl. "I'll take this one," he told her.

When Sharon helped him back into his bed, he smiled at her. "I bought a new dress foryou," he said. "I had it gift-wrapped and delivered to your apartment. I hope you like the flowers, too." Shannon patted his head and thanked him. Before leaving, she wiped away the tear rolling down her face.

Grampa felt most helpless in that nest of sheets, blankets, and puffy things synthetically soft to the touch. Sondra often fluffed them, but they never offered quite enough comfort as he liked. From his window he could look out at the clouds, but he felt isolated from them. He couldn't touch them in here. The sun's sharp light couldn't penetrate the dingy viewports, couldn't disperse the fog of artificial illumination from square ceiling panels.

When the lights powered down, Grampa cowered in fear among the shadowy forms surrounding him: billowing plastic curtains, gas tanks and tubes lurking in the corner, electronic monitors staring with gla.s.sy, empty faces. They watched over him like silent mourners at his funeral looking down into his grave. He choked on unseen odors: stale air, old grease, am-monia leaking from somewhere.

Grampa dreamed that Jenny came to rescue him, sweeping him off his feet for an evening of dinner and dancing. She'd wear the dress he bought her, and he'd compliment her as the fabric shimmered over her body. During dinner she'd keep one hand affectionately on his knee, rea.s.suring him with a smile over a gla.s.s of wine. They'd order one dessert, sharing the rich confection like two lovers. As he fed her a mouthful, he'd watch her lips linger on the sweetness as if she were savoring a kiss.

Finally, some part of his mind woke up and realized he was trapped on that dying starship. He wrestled in the tangled conduits, squinted against the sudden emergency strobes, and threw himself against the myriad enemy arms restraining him.

Grampa looked in the darkened viewport and watched a wretched old cripple thrashing around in his bed. "Who is that man?" he asked Sharon. "Why is he so angry?"

She only shushed him and tried calming his nerves. Grampa relaxed as she stroked his hair and whispered gentle words in his ear. He felt she was with him in bed, holding him close, to wake with him in the morning and start a new day together.

Sandy stood by his side when he stumbled from sleep, senility, or dream-he still couldn't distinguish between them. Grampa never quite figured where his consciousness went.

He just knew he wanted to find the ladder back to his quarters, to run off and play with his friendsin the clouds. He often mumbled such sentiments to Sonya. She looked at him like he was sick and there was nothing she could do. But she always knew how to cheer him: Jenny pointed to the window, out at the puffy stratosphere where the air didn't choke him and the light shone pure and steady.

Several times Grampa noticed a huge metal creature descending from the sky and landing on the station's docking platform. People emerged, many smiling, some crying. They surrounded the deteriorating inhabitants and shoved things into their hands, then took them back and opened the gifts for them. They decorated a shelf in Grampa's room with these offerings: sonic shavers and cheap chronometers. He had no use for clocks, since he couldn't tell time anymore, and if he could, it would only frustrate him. He frequently thought the numbers ran backward, or in some random order, or turned into letters which spelled out cryptic messages: "Go to Mars," or "Gardens no dog Sandra under."

He'd long since forgotten how to shave. Jenny did it for him. Sometimes Sharon shaved him.

The visitors did not shave Grampa. Few came close enough to touch him. Some haunted the perimeter of the room, staring blankly at his bedridden body. Others wept when Grampa said anything, then excused themselves and hurried away. Strangers carried on animated conversations with him like they were old acquaintances, chattering at him despite his cryptic responses. Once a sweet Little girl climbed onto his bed and kissed him on the forehead, saying she loved her Great Grams. She obviously mistook him for someone else.

After the people left, Sandra came and took the numerous shavers away, though she began crying softly to herself as she left. He thought she was taking away his guns, and that was fine by him; Grampa had seen enough of the war humans brought to s.p.a.ce. He figured they reminded Jenny of her parents-who might have been killed by guns during some battle-and that was why she wept.

Grampa supposed it was just easier this way, leaving folks like him on some beautiful, deserted cloud-world at the edge of known s.p.a.ce. n.o.body would miss them if the enemy slaughtered the colony, or if the rest of the galaxy blew up, or if they just waited here forever.

Maybe they had all become immortal and didn't know it. Grampa hoped not-he wouldn't mind being immortal, but not like this.

His body transformed into that crippled starship, no weapons or engines, the air leakingout slowly-incapable of anything but watching himself corrode from inside. Grampa could accomplish little on his own. Sharon bathed him, changed his clothes, tidied up that thing in which he slept, and helped him relieve himself. Grampa struggled to continue feeding himself, but only because he didn't want a nutrient tube surgically inserted into his stomach. Eating by himself remained Grampa's one last wisp of dignity. n.o.body would feed him, shoveling food- mush into his face like an infant.

At least his glide chair afforded him some mobility. Grampa enjoyed sitting in the gardens, ignoring the other inmates as they floated about him. He gazed over the flower beds and shrubs-beyond the fountain and the railing-and lost himself in the clouds. They didn't care if he mumbled incoherently, wandered around the trees, or lived out delirious fantasies in his head.

The tall plumes simply smiled back at him and danced in the sunlight. Grampa yearned to leap from his chair, run across the lawns, and join the friends he saw playing there-jumping, laughing, singing-savoring life in one endless, ethereal picmc.

Instead he pushed himself around in the glide chair, peering under bushes, searching the fountain, asking everyone he met-even some of the trees-if they could point him toward the companionway ladder back to his cabin. Eventually he'd find himself at the railing, gazing at the clouds again. He didn't always see her, but Grampa knew Jenny sat nearby, watching him, weeping quietly to herself.

During those rare moments when he became slightly more lucid, Grampa often wondered how Sandra managed among so many people like him. Some had already died inside and were just roaming, mindless husks of flesh. Maybe Sonya spent her nights crying in her quarters, like Grampa often imagined her, weeping away the stress and sadness of working with folks like him.

Perhaps she was dead inside, too, but he didn't think so-her smile and warm brown eyes showed some kind of soul lived in there.

Grampa turned away from the sunlit plumes dancing beyond the railing. Sharon sat on a stone bench nearby, blinking her eyes to hide her tears. "Did someone leave you here, too?" he asked. "You always look sad. . bad reports from the command deck, the enemy surrounding us, nothing working in the engineering bay, no hope for relief, no chance for retreat."

Eventually Grampa got so worked up he tried pulling himself from the glide chair. Jenny came to his side, trying to calm him down and ease him back into the chair. Grampa touched hercheek, wiping away the moisture there. Her anns steadied him, and he looked into her eyes, silently pleading to her. Grampa pointed out to the clouds, to the faces and memories he saw out there. "Cant go play with my friends?" he asked. "I'm damaged. I can't do it without your help."

Sharon touched Grampa's wet face, then guided him to the railing. He slumped over it, steadied by her hands and what remained of his suddenly focused willpower. Grampa gazed into the swirling vapors below. His friends from the clouds had all descended into the storm to play.

They ran with the gales, laughed at the incredible pressure, and tossed bolts of orange energy to each other. Someone sang a childhood song, its words mumbling in the back of his mind. The storm intoxicated him with awe and fear, a euphoria of raw emotions he hadn't enjoyed in many years.

Grampa decided he was going to touch those storm clouds, no matter what it took. If his friends could do it, so could he. Grampa had some idea he'd die, but his mind could no more comprehend the concept of death ~ than it could understand the humiliating delirium called life.

He suddenly felt Jenny beside him, holding him up against the railing, patiently standing at his side. His body's weakness pulled at him, threatening to drag his frail form, his mind and his spirit back to the glide chair. With each breath the atmosphere gradually leaked from his body.

"Help me evacuate the ship," he begged Sharon. "If we escape the enemy now, we can return with more cruisers and stop this senseless slaughter." Grampa pulled at the railing, trying to climb over the edge and reach his friends.