David Brin - Heaven's Reach

One cluster of Old Ones claimed to know a different answer — that most island universes are settled quite suddenly, by the first race to achieve spaceflight. These first races then proceed to fill every star system, annihilating or enslaving all succeeding life-forms. Such galaxies are poor in diversity or insight, having lacked the wisdom that our blessed Progenitors showed when they began the great chain of Uplift.

That is wrong, claimed yet another assembly of venerables in their spiky habitat, huddled amid contemplative tides. The unity of purpose that we sense in such galaxies only means that they have already evolved toward united oneness! A high state wherein all sapient beings participate in a grand overmind …

FINALLY, it grew clear that these conflicting stories must mean just one of two things.

Either the Old Ones really have no idea what they are talking about, or else …

Or else their varied answers together comprise a sermon. A basic lesson.

Other galaxies are none of our business! That is what they are teaching. We should get back to the proper tasks of young races — struggling, learning, uplifting, and striving with each other, gathering experience and strength for the next phase.

Answers will be forthcoming to each of us who survives the testing, when we ultimately face the bright light of the Great Harrower.

IT SEEMED THAT E SPACE WAS NOT THE ONLY realm where ideas had a life of their own. On his return, Harry found Kazzkark Base teeming with hearsay. Strange rumors roamed like ravenous parasites, springing from one nervous being to the next, thriving in an atmosphere of contagious anxiety.

Steering his scoutcraft to the planetoid’s north pole, Harry docked at a slip reserved for the Navigation Institute and cut power with a sense of relief. All he wanted now was to sleep for several days without having to endure relentless exhausting dreams. But no sooner did he debark and begin the protocols of reentry than he found himself immersed in a maelstrom of dubious gossip.

“It is said that the Abdicator Alliance has broken into several heretical factions that are fighting among themselves,” murmured a tourmuj trade representative standing in line ahead of Harry at immigration, chattering in hasty Galactic Four. “And the League of Prudent Neutral Clans are said to have begun mobilizing at last, combining their fleets under pargi command!”

Harry stared at the tourmuj — a lanky, sallow-skinned being that seemed all elbows and knees — before responding in the same language.

“Said? It is said by whom? In which medium? With what veracity?”

“With no veracity at all!” This came from an oulomin diplomat whose tentacle fringes bore colored caps to prevent inadvertent pollen emission. Slithering just behind Harry, the oulomin expressed disdain toward the stooped tourmuj with sprays of orange saliva that barely missed Harry’s arm.

“I have it on good authority that the eminent and much respected pargi intend to withdraw from the League — and from Galactic affairs entirely — out of disgust with the present state of chaos. That noble race will shortly move on to blessed retirement, joining their ancestral patrons in the fortunate realm of tides. Only a regressed fool would believe otherwise.”

It was hardly the sort of speech that Harry would associate with “diplomacy.” The tourmuj reacted by irately unfolding its long legs and both sets of arms so swiftly that its knobby head bumped the ceiling. Wincing in pain, the trader stomped off, sacrificing its place in line.

Oh, I get it, Harry thought, glancing once more at the being behind him, whose grasp of other-species psychology was evident.

Just don’t try the same on me, he thought. I’m not budging, even if you call me a dolphin’s uncle.

The diplomat seemed to recognize this and merely waved two tendrils in a universal gesture of placid goodwill, as they both moved forward.

Harry took out his portable data plaque and stroked its command knobs, swiftly accessing the planetoid’s Galactic Library unit for news. It was an excellent branch, since Kazzkark housed local headquarters for several important institutes. Yet, the master index claimed to know nothing about an Abdicator schism. Moreover, according to official sources, the influential pargi were still active in Galactic councils, calling for peace and restraint, urging all militant alliances to withdraw their armadas and settle the present crisis through mediation, not war.

Were both rumormongers wrong, then? During normal times, Harry would scarcely doubt the master index. In the Civilization of Five Galaxies, it was commonly said that nothing ever really happened until it was logged by the Great Library. A planet might explode before your eyes, but it wasn’t a certified fact without the rayed spiral glyph, flashing in a corner of a readout screen.

Clearly these weren’t “normal times.”

While taking his turn at the customs kiosk, Harry overheard a talpu’ur seed merchant complain to a guldingar pilgrim about how many nauseating thread changes she had had to endure during the crossing from Galaxy Three. Harry found it hard to follow the talpu’ur’s dialect — a syncopated ratchet-rubbing of her vestigial wing cases — but it seemed that several traditional transfer points had shifted their oscillation patterns, either losing coherence or going off-line completely.

The slight, spiderlike guldingar answered in the same rhythmic idiom, speaking through a mechanical device strapped to one leg.

“Those explanations seem dubious. In fact, they are excuses given by great powers, as each attempts to seize and monopolize valuable hyperspatial links for its own strategic purposes.”

Harry frowned. Worry made the fur itch beneath his uniform. If something was happening to the viability of t-points, the matter was of vital interest to the Navigation Institute. Once again, he referred to the Branch Library but found little information — just routine travel advisories and warnings of detours along some routes.

I’m sure Wer’Q’quinn will fill me in. The old serpent oughta know what’s goin’ on, if anybody does.

One topic Harry wanted to hear about, but none of the gossipers mentioned, was the Siege of Terra. Weeks ago, when he departed to patrol E Space, the noose around Earth and the Canaan Colonies had been drawing gradually tighter. Despite welcome assistance from the Tymbrimi and Thennanin, battle fleets from a dozen fanatical alliances had ceased their mutual bickering for a time, joining cause and pressing the blockade ever closer, choking off trade and communication to Harry’s ancestral world.

Though tempted, he refrained from querying the Library about that. Given the present political situation — while his status was still probationary — it wouldn’t be wise to make too many inquiries about his old clan. I’m not supposed to care about that anymore. Navigation is my home now.

After clearing customs, his next obstacle was all-too-unpleasantly familiar — a tall sour-faced hoon wearing the glossy robe of a senior patron. With a magisterial badge of the Migration Institute on one shoulder, Inspector Twaphu-anuph gripped a plaque flowing with data while scanners probed Harry’s vessel. Every time Harry returned from a mission, he had to endure the big male biped’s humorless black eyes scrutinizing his ship’s bio-manifest for any sign of illicit genetic cargo, while that prodigious hoonish throat sac throbbed low rumblings of pompous scorn.

So it rocked Harry back a bit when the brawny bureaucrat spoke up this time, using rolling undertones that seemed positively affable!

“I note that you have just returned from E Space,” the inspector murmured in GalSeven, the spacer dialect most favored by Earthlings. “Hr-rm. Welcome home. I trust you had a pleasant, interesting voyage?”