David Brin - Heaven's Reach

Those sparks you see below are gamma ray flashes — translated into visible range by the transcendent mesh for our convenience. Each flash represents a grain, perhaps as small as a bacterium, that quickened up to near the speed of light before striking the surface.

There are half a billion of these dense relics in any galaxy … and a new one produced every thirty years or so. But only a few neutron stars have the narrow range of traits needed by the Transcendent Order. Well behaved. Rapidly spinning, but with low magnetic fields.

Lark overcame his surprise.

I get what’s going on. The process continues!

How could a growing appetite for tides be satisfied by a mere white dwarf star? Of course, they’ll migrate to a place where the fields are even more intense.

So, the myriad candidate vessels surrounding Polkjhy right now are only passing through! They use the white dwarf as an assembly area — a place to merge and transform, getting ready for the next phase.

The next time a slit-passage opened, Lark once again cast his thoughts through, riding the carrier wave of a vast information-handling system, like a sea flea surfing atop a tsunami, seeking to learn what kind of life transcendent beings made for themselves in such a strange place.

A fog seemed to envelop the neutron star, like a dense haze, whirling just above the surface.

Habitats, Ling identified.

Lark tried to look closer, but was stymied by how fast the objects sped by, just above the sleek black surface. Each orbit took minuscule fractions of a second, racing around a course where gravity was so intense that tidal forces would rip apart any physical object more than a few meters across.

Even with his perceptions enhanced by Mother, there were limits to what his organic brain could grasp.

But … Mentally, he stammered. When hydro-and oxy-life merge, the result is still organic … based on water. Bodies with liquid chemistry. How can beings like us survive down there?

As if his question were a command, the focus of their attention shifted outward, to surrounding regions of space, further from the neutron star, where an enormous throng of dark, spindly objects could now be made out, parked in stately rows.

Lark sensed metallic presences, each waiting its turn with a patient silence that could only originate in the vast depths of interstellar vacuum.

Realization struck.

Machines!

A third life order had arrived. Answering some compelling call, the best and highest of their kind assembled to participate in a new union.

Another kind of marriage.

A narrow slit appeared in space, allowing ingress from a white dwarf assembly zone. One more globule-ark popped into the twisted sky, bringing its cargo of merged organic life-forms.

Several dozen of the waiting mechanicals converged around it, weaving a cocoon of fibrous light.

There was no resistance. Lark’s expanded empathic sense picked up no dread, or resignation. Only readiness for metamorphosis.

The biologist in him recognized something elegant and natural looking about the process, although soon the details grew too complex and blurry even for his enhanced perceptions to follow.

All at once, amid a burst of actinic flare, everything was transformed. Consumed.

What fell away from the flash seemed like no more than a rain of glittering specks, plummeting eagerly toward the comforting squeeze — the intense embrace — of gravitational fields just above the neutron star.

Lark’s head whirled in awe. He pulled back his attention, anchoring it to the real world by riveting on the soft brown eyes of Ling.

Is that it? Is that where everything culminates? With hydros, oxies, and machines merging, then orbiting forever next to a dense black sun?

Ling shook her head.

That’s as far as I’ve been able to probe. But logically, I’d guess otherwise.

Think about it, Lark. Three life orders coalesce. The three who are known as the fiercest. The most potent at manipulating matter and energy. At last we know why hydros, oxies, and mechs have been able to coexist for so long … since they share a common destiny, and none can thrive without the others.

But there are more orders. More sapient styles than just those three! Quantals and Meta-memes, for instance. And rumors of some that have no mention in the Great Library. Simple logic — and aesthetics — make me imagine that the process continues. Others must join as well. At some level beyond the one we just saw.

Lark blinked.

Some level beyond? But what could lie beyond …?

Then, all at once, he knew.

Sharing his realization, the little Zang next to him vented foul-smelling bubbles — the equivalent of a dismayed wail — and shrank inward. But Lark only nodded.

You’re talking about black holes.

An unbeckoned flood of information crowded his thoughts, revealing many different types of “holes” known to science — sites where the density of matter passed a point of no return, wrapping gravity so tightly that no light, or information of any kind, could escape. Only a few of the deep singularities would do for the purpose Ling described. Smaller ones, mostly — massing up to just a few dozen times a typical sun. Bottomless pits, whose steep fringes would have the greatest tides of all … and where time itself would nearly stand still.

In such a narrow zone, just outside the black hole’s event horizon, distinctions of matter and energy would blur. Causality would shimmer, evading Ifni’s grasp. Under the right conditions, all of life’s varied orders might merge, creating a pure sapiency stew. Intelligence in its most essential form.

If everything worked.

• • •

You’re right, it’s logical and aesthetic. Even beautiful, in its own way.

But I have one question, Ling.

Where do we fit in this grand scheme of things?

I mean you and I!

All the beings on these arks and globules surrounding us may be ready for such a destiny … assuming they survive the disruptions and chaos in order to reach the next level. After all, they’ve spent ages refining their souls, getting ready for this transformation.

But you and I were caught up in it by accident! Because we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. We don’t belong here!

Ling’s hand slipped into his, and Lark felt her warm smile inside his mind.

You don’t like our new nest, love?

He squeezed back.

You know I do. It’s just kind of hard to look forward to the next step — being “merged” with some star-computer mechoids, then squished down to the size of a pea, and finally—

She stopped him with a light mental touch, a calming stroke that brushed away incipient panic.

It’s all right, Lark. Don’t worry about it.

I very much doubt we’re going to proceed much farther down that path.

Not if the Jophur have anything to say about it.

GETTING AN ANSWER TO HER QUESTION DID not settle any of the worries plaguing Sara.

While the Niss hologram gyred nearby, her forehead creased with concern.

“Damn! I hoped to learn the bastards had transcended.”

The computerized voice replied with puzzlement.

“Might I ask why you are concerned about the fate of any one particular elder race?”

Her frown deepened. “The Buyur weren’t just any race. Back when they held the lease on Jijo, they were renowned for cleverness and wit. You might say they were the Tymbrimi of their time, only far subtler at playing games of manipulative politics and power … and they had a much longer view of what it took in order to execute a good joke.”

“In the name of my Tymbrimi makers, thanks for the compliment,” the Niss replied sarcastically. But Sara had learned to ignore its feigned moods, designed to irk people in the short term. She was concerned about a race of jesters whose notion of a punch line could easily span a million years. Patient comedians whose intended victims might include her own folk — the Six Races of the Commons of Jijo.