David Brin - Heaven's Reach

Harry blinked, startled by the tone of informal friendliness. What happened to the usual snub? he wondered.

It was normal for Migrationists to act high and mighty. After all, their institute supervised matters of cosmic importance, such as where oxygen-breathing starfarers might colonize, and which oxy-worlds must lay fallow for a time, untouched by sapient hands. In contrast, Harry’s organization was a “little cousin,” with duties resembling the old-time coastal guardians of Earth’s oceans — surveying hyperlink routes, monitoring spacetime conditions, and safeguarding lanes of travel for Galactic commerce.

“E Space is a realm of surprises,” Harry responded cautiously. “But my mission went as well as can be expected. Thank you for asking.”

A small, furry rousit — a servant-client of the hoon — moved alongside its master, aiming a recorder unit at Harry, making him increasingly nervous. The inspector meanwhile towered closer, pressing his inquiry.

“Of course I am asking purely out of personal curiosity, but would you mind enlightening me on one matter? Would you happen to have noticed any especially large memoid beings while you patrolled E Space? Hrrrm. Perchance a conceptual entity capable of extending beyond its native continuum, into … hrr-rr … other levels of reality?”

Almost instinctively, Harry grew guarded. Like many oxy-races, hoons could not bear the ambiguous conditions of E Space or the thronging allaphors inhabiting that weird realm. Small surprise, given their notorious lack of humor or imagination.

But then why this sudden interest?

Clearly, the awkward situation called for a mix of formal flattery and evasion. Harry fell back on the old yes bwana tactic.

“It is well known that meme organisms throng E Space like vacuum barnacles infesting a slow freighter,” he said, switching to GalSix. “But alas I saw only those creatures that my poor, half-uplifted brain allowed me subjectively to perceive. No doubt those impressions were too crude to interest an exalted being like yourself”

Harry hoped the warden would miss his sarcasm. In theory, all those who swore fealty to the Great Institutes were supposed to leave behind their old loyalties and prejudices. But ever since the disaster at NuDawn, everyone knew how hoons felt toward the upstarts of Earthclan. As a neo-chimpanzee — from a barely fledged client race, indentured to humans — Harry expected only snobbery from Twaphu-anuph.

“You are probably right about that” came the noon’s response. “Still, I remain interested in your observations. Might you have sighted any memoids traveling in company with transcendent life-forms?”

The inspector’s data plaque was turned away, but its glow reflected off a patch of glossy chest scales, flashing familiar blue shades of approval. All checks on Harry and his vessel were complete. There was no legal excuse to hold him anymore.

He switched languages again, this time to Anglic, the tongue of wolflings.

“I’ll tell you what, Twaphu-anuph. I’ll do you a favor and make an official inquiry about that … in your name, of course.”

Harry aimed his own plaque and pointedly took an ident-print before the warden could object.

“That is not necessary! I only asked informally, in order—”

Harry enjoyed interrupting.

“Oh, you needn’t thank me. We are all sworn to mutual cooperation, after all. So shall I arrange for the usual inter-institute discount and forward the report to you in care of Migration HQ? Will that do?”

Before the flustered hoon could respond, Harry continued.

“Good! Then according to the protocols of entry, and by your exalted leave, I guess I’ll be going.”

The little rousit scurried out of the way as Harry moved forward, silently daring the barrier to prevent him.

It swished aside, opening his path onto the avenues of Kazzkark.

Perhaps perversely, Harry found it exciting to live in a time of danger and change.

For almost half a galactic rotation — millions of years — this drifting, hollowed-out stone had been little more than a sleepy outpost for Galactic civil servants, utilizing but a fraction of the prehistoric shafts that some extinct race once tunneled through a hundred miles of spongy rock. Then, in just the fifteen kaduras since Harry was assigned here, the planetoid transformed. Catacombs that had lain silent since the Ch ’th ’turn Epoch hummed again as more newcomers arrived every day. Over the course of a couple of Earth years, a cosmopolitan city came to life where each cavity and corridor offered a melange for the senses — a random sampling of the full range of oxy-life culture.

Some coincidence, Harry thought sardonically. It’s almost as if all this was waiting to happen, until I came to Kazzkark.

Of course, the truth was a little different. In fact, he was one of the least important free sapients walking around these ancient halls.

Walking … and scooting, slithering, creeping, ambling … name a form of locomotion and you could see it being used. Those too frail to stand in half an Earth gravity rolled everywhere on graceful carts, some with the sophistication of miniature spaceships. Harry even saw a dozen or so members of a long-armed species that looked something like gibbons — with purple, upside-down faces — leaping and brachiating from convenient bars and handholds set in the high ceiling. He wanted to laugh and hoot at their antics, but their race had probably been piloting starcraft back when humans lived in caves. Galactics seldom had what he would call a sense of humor.

Not long ago, a majority of those living on Kazzkark wore uniforms of MigrInst, NavInst, WarInst, or the Great Library. But now those dressed in livery made a small minority, lost amid a throng. The rest sported wildly varied costumes, from full body enviro suits and formal robes carrying runes describing their race genealogy and patronymics, all the way to beings who strode unabashedly naked — or with just an excretory-restraint cloth — revealing a maximum of skin, scale, feather, or torg.

When he first entered service, most Galactics seemed unable to tell a neo-chimpanzee from a plush recliner, so obscure and unimportant was the small family of Terra. But that had changed lately. Quite a few faces turned and stared as Harry walked by. Beings nudged each other to point, sharing muted utterances — a sure sign that the Streaker crisis hadn’t been solved while he was away. Clearly Earthclan was still gaining a renown it never sought.

A venerable Galactic expression summed up the problem.

“Look ye to peril — in attracting unplanned notice from the mighty.”

Still, for the most part it was easy enough to feel lost in the crowd as he took a long route back to headquarters, entranced by how much busier things had become since he left on patrol.

Using his plaque to scan immigration profiles, Harry knew that many of these sophonts were emissaries and commercial delegates, sent by their race, alliance, or corporation to seek some advantage as the staid routines of civilization dissolved in an age of rising misgivings. There were opportunities to be gained from chaos, so agents and proxies maneuvered, playing venerable games of espionage. Compacts were made and broken. Bribes were offered and loyalties compromised in double-cross gambits so ornate that the court intrigues of the Medicis might have occurred in a sandbox. Small clans, without any stake in galacto-politics or the outcome of fleet engagements, nevertheless swarmed about, endeavoring to make themselves useful to great powers like the Klesh, Soro, or Jophur, who in turn spent lavishly, seeking an edge over their foes.

With so much portable wealth being passed around, an economy flourished serving the needs of each deputy or spy. Almost a million free sophonts and servitor machines saw to the visitors’ biotic needs, from distinct atmospheric preferences to exotic foodstuffs and intoxicants.