David Brin - Heaven's Reach

Lark still wondered about how it all was organized. Did there exist an overall controlling mind — like a Jophur master ring? Or would every component get a vote? Both models of symbiosis existed in nature … and in politics.

He had a feeling such details were yet to be worked out. “Mother” wasn’t finished taking form.

Come along, Ling urged, taking his hand. I want to show you something.

Lark needed a little while to get used to locomotion in this new medium. Much of the time, it involved movements akin to swimming, though in other locales the surrounding density changed somehow and their feet met the floor, allowing a more human mode of walking. There were no clear transitions, as between sea and shore. Rather, everything intermingled and merged, like the thoughts he and Ling shared.

Guiding him along, she finally pointed to a vast nest of tendrils that spread outward from a central point, waving and twisting. Many were linked to wriggling forms — Lark saw another larval qheuen, a couple of traeki stacks … and a form that resembled a centauroid urs, curled in a fetal ball, protected by something like an embryonic sac. He did not recognize the tawny figure, though urrish “samples” had been taken by the Jophur, on Jijo. Its flanks heaved slowly, as if calmly breathing, and Lark saw intelligent clarity in the triple set of eyes.

There were other oxy creatures. Some he identified from images on paper textbooks he had skimmed long ago, back home in the Biblos archive, while others he did not recognize. All were entangled with symbionts linking them to hydro-globules and other blobby things. The most eerie thing about it was that none of them seemed particularly to mind.

Mother taps the data mesh here, Ling explained, pointing to where the tendrils converged. Peering to look past the murk, he made out one of Polkjhy’s main computer panels.

Ling reached for three writhing tentacles, offering one each to Lark and the Zang.

Let’s take a look at what’s happening elsewhere.

It was a strange way of taking information. Partly neuronal and partly visual, it also involved portions of the mind that Lark customarily used for imagination, picturing an event with that tentative what-if sensation that always accompanied daydreams.

That made sense. For all hydro-beings, thinking was a process of simulation — spawning off smaller portions of themselves to play roles and act out a scenario to its logical conclusions. Helped by his prior experience with the Zang, Lark soon caught on, learning how to reach out and pretend that he was the object of his attention.

I am Polkjhy … once a proud battleship of the haughty Jophur nation.

Now I am divided … sectioned into many parts. My Jophur crew — doughty but distraught — have cleverly sealed off what they consider to be the most essential areas … engines, weaponry, and basic life support.

Driven by single-minded, purposeful Master Rings, they prepare for a last stand against loathsome invaders … while continuing to pursue their grudge hunt. Chasing the Earthling ship, whether pursuit leads them to Hell, or Heaven itself.

Lark felt a wash of strange emotion — grudging respect for the dauntless Jophur. Their resiliency, in the face of one catastrophe after another, showed why their kind had gained power and influence among the vigorous, starfaring oxy-clans. That they could manage, even temporarily, to stave off powers much older and stronger than themselves was an impressive accomplishment.

Even so, Lark hoped they would fail soon.

Ling guided his attention, nudging it gently outward, beyond the battered hull.

He briefly staggered at a sudden impression, like that of an immense tornado!

A giant cyclone surrounded them, a swirling crowd of massive objects, sparkling and flashing while they spiraled down a condensing funnel toward the dim white fire of a tiny star.

Lark quickly found that his knowledge base was no longer limited to the narrow education of a Jijoan sooner — a rustic biologist, weaned on paper-paged books. It took only a slight effort of will to slip into Ling’s mind and perceive facts, correlations, hypotheses to explain what they now saw. And beyond Ling, there were other archives — less familiar, but equally available.

Abruptly, he reached outward to the immense cyclone of descending spacecraft, identifying with them.

I am the Candidates’ Swarm, a migration of the elect, chosen from among retirees of both oxygen-and hydrogen-breathing civilizations.

Elated to be here, at long last.

Fatigued by the pointless struggles and quandaries of flat space and real time.

Lured and allured by the seductive enchantments of the Embrace of Tides.

Fully aware of the disruptions now coursing through the Five Galaxies.

Cognizant of dangers lying ahead.

Nevertheless, I draw inward. Merging my many subunits. Creating unique blendings out of what was merely promising raw material. Integrating the best of hydrogen and oxygen.

Hoping and wondering what comes next …

Lark now saw a context for what had befallen Polkjhy. It was part of a much larger process! The same blending of life-forms must be happening on each of the millions of huge vessels out there … only perhaps more peacefully, with less resistance by the resident crews, who would be much better prepared for it than the poor Jophur.

And yet, he could not help but grasp a background tone of desperate worry. This majestic ingathering of transcendence candidates should have been smooth and ordered. But instead it grew more ragged and disrupted with each passing dura. The sparkles that had looked so gay earlier were now revealed as fiery impacts. Violent death spread ever more rapidly among the converging ships.

Again, Ling pointed and his mind followed. Instead of outward, their shared attention plunged down, toward the source of gravity and light, where immense slender edifices whirled in tight orbit around a compact star.

To initial appearances, the needle-habitats were also suffering severe strain. As he and Ling watched, chunks larger than mountains shattered or fell off, dissolving under the shear force of intense tides.

And yet, Lark felt no anguish, worry, or sense of imminent danger.

No wonder! he realized. The needles aren’t habitats at all! They are gateways to another place!

Ling nodded.

Actually, it is predictable, if you think about it.

Lark sent his mind swooping like a hawk toward one of the fast-revolving structures, long and narrow, like a javelin. Though portions of its skin were flaking off — torn loose by chaotic hyperwave disturbances — he somehow knew those portions were unimportant. Mere temporary abodes and support structures. As these sloughed away, they revealed a shimmering inner core, luminescent and slippery to the eye.

His image-self arrived just as one of the “candidates”—a fully transformed globule-ark — finished its long spiraling migration and approached the needle at a rapid pace, skimming just above the white dwarf’s licking plasma fire. The great hybrid vessel — now a completely blended mixture of hydrogen and oxygen civilizations — fell toward the exposed gateway, accelerating as if caught in some strongly attractive field.

Abruptly, the globule-ark seemed to slip sideways, through a narrow incision that had been cut in space-time.

The opening lasted but a few moments. But it was enough for Lark to perceive.

His first impression from the other side was of dense spinning blackness. A dark ball that glimmered with sudden, bright pinpoints. Somehow he could sense the twist and curl of vacuum as space warped around the thing, distorting any constellations that lay beyond.

It is a neutron star, Ling commented. Long ago it used up or expelled any fuel it had left. Now it has self-compressed down to a size far smaller than a white dwarf — less than ten kilometers across! The gravitational pressure is so great below the surface that atomic nuclei merge with their surrounding clouds of electrons, forming “degenerate matter.”