Greg Egan: Incandescence

That was the wrong comparison to make, though. The fact that the Aloof fastidiously repelled any physical intrusion into the bulge was no proof that they'd transformed, visited, or even catalogued every last one of the millions of worlds within their domain. If their refusal to engage with the cultures of the disk had its origins in paranoia, they might have adopted a policy of hypervigilance, scrutinizing every last rock for signs of life lest some interloper arise in their midst. Equally, though, stumbling across the DNA-infested meteor might have been sheer bad luck, an unwelcome find imposing obligations that they would never have actively sought.

He said, «If I took this on, where would I pick up the thread? I can't cross the bulge and simply hope to be singled out to be shown what you were shown.»

«I have the habitat's address,» Lahl said. «The Aloof appended it to my transmission. When you reach the bridge to their network, you could simply name that as your destination.»

«With no guarantee that the request would be honored,» Csi said. He was staring at Rakesh as if his friend had lost his mind.

Rakesh said, «I haven't come to any decision yet.»

Now it was Parantham who was showing disbelief. She turned to Lahl. «If he won't take the address, give it to me! And none of this DNA bigotry. I can only trace my own ancestry back fourteen generations — to a de novo created by a rather hazily documented collaboration — so I can't promise you any mystical molecular affinity. But if the Aloof want someone to hunt down this lost world for them, I'll do it!»

«Hunt it down how?» Csi asked bluntly.

«They recorded the meteor's velocity when they captured it,» Lahl said. «And they provided me with detailed maps of the region. I couldn't literally wind all the dynamics back fifty million years; the region is so densely packed with stars that their motion becomes chaotic on that time scale. But it was possible to generate candidates for closer exploration.»

«How many?» Csi demanded.

«About six hundred.»

Csi groaned and leaned backward on the bench, as if to extract himself from the gathering. «This is insane!»

Rakesh could not deny that, but it was an increasingly enticing folly. Uncharted or not, the center of the galaxy was an exotic, bejewelled place, and if its self-appointed guardians really were inviting outsiders in for the first time ever, that alone was a remarkable opportunity. If the reason for the invitation turned out to be a wild goose chase, or even a complete misunderstanding, that need not render the voyage worthless; it was impossible to rule out danger and disappointment, but at the very least he'd be risking much less than the galaxy-hoppers. How many millennia might he while away before another prospect the equal of this came along?

He said, «I'll take the address.» He glanced at Parantham. «I assume I'm not required to go alone?»

Lahl said, «Take an entourage. Take a caravan.» She held out her hand, the fist closed, then opened her fingers to reveal a glass key sitting on her palm, an icon for all the data she wished to convey to him. As Rakesh reached for it, she said sharply, «This is your duty now. Your burden. You do understand that?»

He hesitated. «What exactly are you asking me to promise? I can't be certain that I'll find this planet.»

«Of course not.» Lahl frowned, perhaps wondering what distortions her perfectly lucid chemical emanations were suffering in translation. «Succeed or fail, though, you'll see it through?»

Rakesh nodded gravely, reluctant to press her for details lest they transform this reasonable-sounding commitment into some far more rigorous obligation.

He took the key from her, and she stood.

«Farewell then, Rakesh.» The scape drew her as almost literally unburdened, her bearing visibly more relaxed and graceful, as if she'd been freed of a physical load.

The four friends rose. As Lahl walked away across the mesa, Rakesh peeked at her version of the scape. A long, translucent, segmented creature pushed its way briskly through a dense carpet of decaying vegetable matter, beneath an overcast sky.

Csi called after her, «Enjoy the reunion!»

Rakesh restored his normal vision and looked around the table. Parantham was jealously eyeing the key in his hand.

Viya smiled. «You're not really going to do this?» She sounded as if she'd be unsurprised if he shook his head and casually pitched the key over the edge of the mesa.

«Of course I am,» Rakesh replied. «I gave my word.»

«To whom, exactly?» Csi asked. «For all you know, she was just some de novo that the Aloof created and spat out as bait.»

« Bait? If they wanted visitors, all they had to do was stop turning us away. We never needed luring.»

«We never would have gone in this way by choice,» Csi said. «With no guarantee of integrity. Once you're in, they can send you wherever they like, and do whatever they want with you.»

Rakesh said, «Why would they want to harm me? Anyway, people taking the short cut have been checked, and there have never been any violations found.»

«What proportion have been checked?» Viya asked. «One in a thousand? And the data passing through the network is classical, remember. Even if the original transmission comes through intact, that doesn't prove it hasn't been copied. If you go in without encryption, there'll be nothing they can't do to you.»

«All right, it's a risk, I admit it. The Aloof might be deranged sadists who clone travelers in order to torture them for eternity.» Rakesh was disappointed. He had no shortage of doubts about the wisdom of his decision, but he'd expected more from Viya and Csi than this timidity masquerading as sophistication.

None of them had come to the node with the intention of staying for a tenth as long as they had. Half their time was spent debating the best way to move on, inventing one fanciful scheme after another, hunting for ways to build up momentum lest they end up stranded, or worse: slinking back to their home worlds with nothing to show for the millennia, or simply drifting aimlessly on through the network.

He held up the key. «This is what I came here for. I'm not going to sit at this table for another century, waiting for something better.»

Csi adopted a conciliatory tone. «We all get bored, Rakesh. We all get frustrated. But that's no reason to fall for the first scam artist who comes along.»

Parantham said, «If it's a prank, what happens? We cross the bulge, the Aloof ignore us, and we end up on the other side of the galaxy. We lose fifty millennia, but we gain new surroundings, and the minor daredevil status that comes from having taken the short cut.»

«And if it's a trap?» Viya asked. «If the Aloof really do mean you harm?»

Parantham hesitated before replying; Rakesh waited gleefully to hear her pour scorn on the idea.

She said, «That's what backups are for.»

As the work party dispersed, Roi headed for the nearest tunnel. The warm buzz of cooperation was fading, giving way to a faint sense of melancholy, and she needed to get away from the wind and the weight to a place where she could rest.

She'd lost count of the number of shifts she'd spent with this team, tending the crops at the garm-sharq edge of the Splinter. It was important work, killing the mites and weeds, keeping the crucial reservoir of food healthy and abundant. If the edible plants prospered here, where the hot, fertile wind blew in from the Incandescence, the seeds that ended up scattered throughout the garmside would give rise to enough secondary growth to feed everyone. If that ceased to happen and people were driven by hunger to feed on the reservoir itself, the initial shortfall could spiral out of control. Roi was too young to have lived through a famine, but some of her fellow workers had survived two or three. The visceral sense of satisfaction that came from acting in unison was enough to keep her working at almost any task, but this one easily stood up to the scrutiny of conscious reflection.