Galactic Center - Furious Gulf Part 16

198.

Phase Creatures Above the disk nothing made of metal or ceramic can survive.Perpetually the great turning disk grinds down the stuff of stars. Tides suck inward, shredding.The Eater itself holds eternally captive the gathered ma.s.ses of a million dead suns. The ancient matter itself vanished in seconds of stretched agony, drawn down the steepening slide of s.p.a.ce-time. But the memory of these transient ma.s.ses lingers in curvature.To the outside, a ghost warp testifies to the dead. Ten billion years of sacrificed matter--stars and dust, planets and cities, lost civilizations and their records, their hopes--have their single tombstone in the mute remaining distortion. A galaxy's ancient pain persists as silent gravitation.Blobs of already incandescent matter spiral in, skating on the curvature at speeds higher than found anywhere else in the galaxy. Incessant pull whirls doomed matter in a final frenzied gyre.The blobs collide, smash, reform, rub. Magnetic fields mediate the friction. Snarls of plasma stream and whirl. Currents churn.Magnetic vortices grow. The fields twine and loop through the condemned kernels. In tight collisions, fields themselves annihilate against each other. More energy flares forth.Above such brutal furnaces skim the phase creatures.They had once been of the mechanicals. Now they exist not in hard circuits or ceramic lattice-intelligences. They have evolved out of self-directed necessity. To drink more energy they have learned to dissolve.i As torrents of hard radiation lance through them, they are plasmas. This ers in fluxes and stores them in long-range correlations.When the flood ebbs, the phase creatures change. In the cooler spots above the disk they can condense. Lacy filaments become gaseous discharges.

The power so generated they broadcast outward, to lesser ranks whocan store it.The phase creatures themselves use these fluxes to organize themselves into free-floating networks. Circuits without wires. Electrons flowing only in their own self-consistently generated magnetic fields. Pinched currents thatsnake and flare. Voltages and switches. Light-quick, gossamer-thin.Lively intelligences dance there. Inductive, silent, invisible.They enter the discussion that has been teeming above them, in the cooler realms. With silky elegance their thoughts merge with the hard beings who are the cruder, earlier forms of mechanicals.But the phase creatures still know their origins. They share the thought patterns of the metallic forms. They converse.

199.I/We do not understand why these odd, primitive primates should be studied at all. And what is this arrival?You/I summoned ]>A<], who="" was="" concluding="" the="" elimination="" of="" remaining="" organic="" life="" on="" the="" planet="" of="" these="" primates'="" origin.this="" [="">A<] is="" a="" strange="" mixture="" of="" intelligences.i/we="" know.="" tolerate="" it.="" here:greetings.="" i="" employ="" the="" single-consciousness="">

This you may find uncomfortable.Regard: How narrow.We/You tried it before and found it stifling.We should accommodate *>A<.very well.="" but="" what="" a="" demented="" limitation!bear="" with="" ]="">A<[ for="" a="" moment.to="" plumb="" the="" recesses="" of="" primate="" thinking="" such="" strictures="" are="" necessary.why="" study="" them,="" then?their="" sense="" of="" beauty="" is="" like="" no="" other.="" variant="" organics="" are="" unique,="" as="" well,="" but="" these="" have="" long="" duration="" here="" at="" true="" center.beauty?="" we="" are="" arbiters="" of="" that.i="" seek="" to="" find="" wholly="" fresh="" reaches="" of="" grace="" and="">

These are species-specific, lavish in lore.A needless luxury. We face sterner issues now.

200.Beauty is as vital to our being as any of your raw pursuits.Is that an insult?

Never--but a fact.

Careful, then.

I intend no offense. I am a specialist intelligence, with my own drivers. Let me point out to you gathered minds what a richness these primates have! These are the creatures who developed the Five-Digit Motif. It grips the perceptual centers as can no other! And then there are their inner, colorful emotion-curtains. Wondrous! Their Subverted-Maximal Abstractions. All wonderful creations!

I/We are more concerned with their possible danger to us. All because of some semi-mythical knowledge they carry.

But without knowing they carry it.

That is important. They must not learn what they possess!

I believe they sense some special destiny which they carry. But they do not know its nature, that is clear. Such beings carry deeper knowledge as narratives. To primates, a myth is a deep story which answers the difficult questions of their lives.

I/You thought that myths were simply someone else's religion.

Of course, but I speak of primates. I have studied themwell.

Then you are the one who must enterthe Wedge and act for us there.

Why? I have other matters-- You know them best.

201.But I have never been to the Wedge.I do not wonder, with your time spenton the beauties of underlife.

The Wedge is treacherous.

Indeed. But we/you have breached it with minor forms. Even now the tiny informants have filtered into their portal city. They are keeping close watch on the primates of the ship--those we allowed to enter.

A move you/I opposed.

It gained us valuable information. This Legacy of theirs--it hints at much we do not know.

We/I would not need to know it if wehad expunged the primates.

No! You should not think this way. The primates are a valuable form, approaching extinction. Protect such beings for their last moments.

That is a luxury.

We command you to follow close upon the important primate members which their own Legacy has identified.

The Wedge is perilous. I cannot even be sure, entering it,where I shall be. Or when.

We/I shall give you/I resources.

I could become lost in the chaotics.

A risk we/you must take.

I have heard that there are agencies in the Wedge whichcan harm even higher systems such as ourselves.

202.True. We do not know what they are.But I am in single-consciousness mode! If I perish, the "I- form" shall vanish!IWe cannot help that.You/We elected this state.,,':,.

Though of course we will archiveyour present state. A copy of you willcarry on.,.To venture into such turmoil--I am not qualified.'i You/We seem reluctant. Yet youwehave trained in the most importantil skill--you have dealt with primates.I!':,.

You moved them to their intersectiont,i with the quasi-mechanicals.

Very adroit.And we/you have other motivations. What motivations? To risk so muchm Think of beauty. C)f art.

Part IV

G RVI'IS G U LLET.

I.

The Esty indThe city of the dwarves slipped away behind them.

Toby and Quath moved quickly, using scattered buildings for cover and then a dense grove of curious spindly trees. These rose to greater and greater heights as they fled into a gorge of arched and tangled rock. Toby's attention fled as well, veering away from the confrontation with his father, taking refuge in the pure bliss of flight. He ran hard.

"More dangerous to stay back there."

Dangerous? Toby asked himself. To whom? The word was wrong but he was not going to inspect his inner feelings now. Time to act.

"Great help, those [untranslatable]s."

Quath sent.

"Hey, leave me alone, yeasay?"

"Humans aren't so easy to figure, you said once."

"Me either. Some way he needs it, more than the Legacy... or me."

He swallowed hard but the lump in his throat would not go away.

Into his mind sprang scattershot images, ripples of sensation, rushing fragments of ideas briefly glimpsed and then tumbling away. Shibo lurked just behind his nervous eyes.

206.

You cannot understand what is going on here and neither canKilleen. I urge you to relax into it, not strive so hard.

Toby felt a hot flare of indignation. "Look, it's your a.s.s I'm saving."

From the erosions of real life, yes. Do not think I cannot feelappreciation for that. And it would be best for us to be togetherfor at least a while longer.

His hurt irritation swerved to grateful warmth. "You want it, I want it.".

My father, he can't see that."

Do not suppose this relieves you from your Family obligations.Shibo's whispery words carried a flinty edge. "What obligations?"To find Abraham. To carry forward the Family ways.Ii.

To this he had no reply. Shibo's Personality engulfed him, cool andlofty. She spoke in longer sentences than the real Shibo ever had. Her.,.

Personality had begun picking up the jittery anxieties of chip-boundselves, a flavoring utterly unlike the living Shibo.Was she learning from Isaac and Zeno and the others, taking on somei"i old-timey warp? He vaguely sensed her changes but he hoped they were!:ii not important.He loped with easy grace through stands of trees, bounding overgnarled briars, making Quath clack and clang her scissoring legs to keepup. Out, away, free.

H,e had shucked off the flexmetal husk of Argo, peeled away hisfather s iron hand--and the heady rush of it sent spurts of driving energyinto his legs. As a boy he had learned the hammering arts of flight, ofhardship in constant movement, and now the joy of it returned. So he was . totally unprepared when the ground began to slip and twist beneath hiscrunching boots."Quath! Something's--""What's happening?"Frayed air, sudden rushing mists. The s.p.a.ce around Toby had a give and tremor to it, an unsettling porosity. It was as if the molecules of the leaden air were sucking substance out of him, tiny mouths making his skin p.r.i.c.kle and jump.Skinny trees whipped at him as if lashed by a fierce wind. Yet Toby felt only still air.

207.

Then a churning wrench at his feet, his knees--and he was flying, no weight, the trees now dim blue shadows raking past. Quath was a blob, brown-soft and pooling into a teardrop.Illusion? He could not tell, but a fist was knotting and unknotfing itself inside his stomach. The issue resolved as Quath swelled, stretched into shimmering dirt-colored droplets--then slammed into him, a hard sharp crack in the chest."Ah! What's going--" "What's the d.a.m.ned [untranslatable] mean?"

"Stocas what?"Toby wrapped arms around a burnished coppery shank. Purple air-whorls and raking winds s.n.a.t.c.hed at his legs, worried his boots. A screeching red patch of steaming air streaked by, growing dirty roots as he watched, a plant being born from nothing.He clung with all his strength and felt his joints pop. Seals in his microhydraulics yearned to open. He expanded his sensorium.Howling vagrant senses flooded him. Plucked at his eyes. Tilted his sense of balance until he was convinced that he was somehow holding Quath aloft with his arms, a vast weight plunging down upon his neck and shoulders--and then in a flicker he was holding Quath above a pit, a black yawning abyss of red-tinged fires and sputtering wrath.He had to keep Quath from falling! He felt his ankles strum and stretch, metal-hot and elongating into impossible cords of frayed muscle --Then he was simply plunging, walls rushing past. Down a tube that snaked and grew shiny ribs as Toby watched, still spinning. Quath whirling by.--and her shank sheared off. It rang hard against him. "Ow!"She orbited him on a long tether. It was one of her telescoped arms.

Torn free of her, and used to connect them. As Toby inhaled, it stretched--and he smelled his own acid-sharp fear."Quath!"--but the ivory head that swiveled to regard him was a whirling ma.s.s of bulging sockets and wiggly stalks, deeply alien face-scapes, not one expression but many. Eyes and lurching mouths and planes of cheek and jowl all working against each other, the personalities of his friend spattering across the great head.Unreadable. This, more than the slamming colors and ripping winds, frightened Toby and sent a chill through his aching, straining joints.Quath's rasping was harsh and yet calm, resigned. < p="">

This is the stochasticity. The random esty's laborings.>A pearly fog dispersed, blown by some unseen wind, and Toby saw far below them--though they were not falling toward any place now--a 208.ma.s.s of pinhole openings in a broad plain. The pinholes danced, refractedby great distance.They flew along the plain as though blown by a wind, soundless butfor a soft chime almost like tiny voices. One pinhole swelled and he couldmake out small b.u.mps on it. Toby closeupped the nodules and found theircrests crowned by dashes of white--and then realized that these weresnow-capped mountains.Toby saw the size of the thing he was witnessing--a plain sprawlingaway into hazy infinity, a whole flat world. Seething with pores. Pockets. 4.

that opened and closed like slippery mouths. Quath called.They lurched sidewise, Toby barely keeping both gloved hands on..

Quath. Rushing winds, hard-slamming acceleration.:.

The mountaintops streamed by like tiny ridges. Something slammedthem forward with a rude kick, up and away from a yawning cavern thatchurned with brooding shapes. A sudden veer, and they were back abovethe plain. The mult.i.tude of other pinholes churned and jostled like an..

angry crowd. Gravity's gullet.I!:.

"What... what are they?" Toby called. "Places to go?""Where are we going?":.

"I'm rethinking this whole idea, buggo.".,.

I.

Something somber and yet matter-of-fact in Quath's tone was chilling.ioby held tight to the alien's leg and watched as a particular pinhole begano grow nearby. He realized that they were speeding toward it, turning at angles and spinning in a random dance, while vagrant forces plucked at his fluttering legs, his painful arms, and gurgled the fluid in his ears. He forced away bitter nausea but it hovered in the back of his throat.

Hold. Just a little longer. If you lose Quath- The hole puckered. Toby had the unpleasant sensation that it was preparing to swallow them--and then it did.

In a blur of wrenching speed they rushed through gauzy s.p.a.ces, his eyes filming and suddenly thick with tears. Then he heard a rasp, felt a thump--and they were on a field of ropy, tough gra.s.s. He felt himself gingerly and sat up.

"Uh!" Muscles complained. No bones seemed to grind against themselves.

Quath was already surveying the curved bowl that arced away in all directions--though she moved a little unsteadily on her feet. Toby could not see where they had come from, but a small dappling in the sky flickered, hinting at a huge s.p.a.ce above--and then was gone.

209."That like to pulled me apart."

"That was weather?"

He felt bruised. "I don't get it. What happened?"

"That's happening now? How come?"

He remembered how this whole esty place had swelled up out of the ergosphere. Worlds within worlds, all moored somehow. "What holds it together?"

"Start with the esty then. What keeps it ridin' around near a black hole, when that hole's supposed to eat stars for breakfast?"

"Huh?" Toby rubbed his shoulders, fighting cramps. His muscles were bunched hard and he had to pound on them to free them up any. He lay back, tired. "So this esty, it's written into the, the--"

< p="">

A well. A refuge.> Toby brushed at the soft, moist gra.s.s. At first it moved away. Then it caressed his fingers. "This gra.s.s--it's esty-stuff?"

"Ummm. Good to know gra.s.s is still gra.s.s."

Toby lay back and let Quath go on. She was trying to get across slippery ideas. He fumbled with them and finally decided to simply accept.

Primates, Quath had once told him, liked to reason by a.n.a.logy, like holding up an orange and seeing how it was like a planet. Here something like that was needed. Capillaries, arteries, the esty as flow.

But the feel of this place was off balance, not like anything he had ever known. Pressing textures played along his skin. The air kept stretching and relaxing, rubbery. Tremors beneath him radiated upward into the cottony blanket above. The esty, adjusting itself? The waves were just below the edge of hearing--yet he felt them through his bones, a heavy pulse.

210.

And on top of this, the troubled sense of being watched. Scrolling feelers in his sensorium. When he focused on them they dispersed.Toby stared up in wide-eyed awe. "Land as fat as G.o.d's pocket." A cloud dissipated and he saw high above a vast curving green mat, spotted in vibrant yellows and purples. Land, far away.The roof of this Lane arced over them, as if they were in a huge spinning cylinder, pinned to the sides by centrifugal force. But there was no spin, Quath told him. Or nothing that would seem to humans like spin.

Instead, the esty held itself together with its own curvature of... itself. He struggled with the idea, got nowhere, so tossed it aside.And tucking up and away from him, to all sides, the speckled forests.

He had seen ancient pictures like this, sights called up by Aspects and sent into the Family sensorium for entertainment after a long day's foot travel, but he had always figured they were figments, artworks, mere fancies of a dead past. Lush green unending.< p="">

>."Huh? To doubt again?""Hmmmm ..." Light seeped from a rocky hill nearby. Toby got up, edgy despite the embracing calm here. He walked over to the shining stone and kicked it with a boot.Try as he might, thunking his sharp-toe into it jarred loose no chips.

An ivory radiance oozed from the layers. Knots of gaseous esty floated, spitting beacons. They lit the shadowy reaches with probing beams, like mry lanterns drifting on unseen winds.Slowly the soft light ebbed. The seemingly solid rock grew shadows, as if a sun were setting somewhere deep in the foggy stone. Blades of sunlight radiance danced deep within it, like summer's promise cutting deeply into a watery cavern. He felt himself suspended above an abyss of nothingness, a mere crust keeping him from plunging down into--what?Unease crept up his spine. Luminosities played far down inside the seemingly solid rock. Like a gulf of nothingness. He hung above sulky depths.He shook himself. No time to fall into abstracted moods. He called up a smattering of geology from Isaac--who, predictably, wanted to discourse on the slip and slide of planets. Toby cut him off."This stuff, it looks like, uh, a funny kind of limestone."