Диана Дуэйн - Lifeboats

“Oh my God,” Kit muttered under his breath.

“Archivist,” someone behind Nita and Kit said. “A question? Isn’t it normally quite dangerous to have too many world gates open on a planet at the same time, especially if they’re artificial? Something to do with disturbances in the local spacetime continuum?”

“Yes, that’s true,” Mamvish said. “There would always be a question as to whether or not the tectonics of the host body could remain undamaged by the presence of so many gates for very long, due to the gravitic anomalies routinely associated with gate function when portal interfaces are open for prolonged periods. There’ll be an entire team of wizards monitoring the planet for problems of that kind. But right now time is so much of the essence that the presence of the anomalies is a risk we unfortunately must take, because there’s a biological component to this problem that we hadn’t anticipated.”

Silence fell across the room, as no one seemed to have any ideas as to what this might be. “It turns out,” Mamvish said, “that there’s a complication as regards the cooperation of the dominant species.”

Kit could hear people in the audience turning to one another in confusion. Mamvish’s tail had begun lashing, and she sat down rather abruptly again on her back two pairs of legs again, this time apparently in an attempt to get the tail under control. The attempt was only partly successful.

“The Tevaralti are quite scientifically advanced, and perfectly able to perceive what’s going on with their moon,” Mamvish said. “And in the earliest stages of this intervention, they were quite willing to be moved out of harm’s way until Thesba could be stabilized. But when the situation changed, and it became plain that the relocation was probably not going to be temporary, but permanent, the opinion of a significant percentage of Tevaralti regarding the intervention, approaching nearly ten percent, shifted as well.” She blew out a long, annoyed breath. “They have revealed themselves to be far more… attached than anyone anticipated.”

The Speech-word she used for “attached”, lavemuist’hei, was obscure enough that Kit had to pull his manual open to get a reading on it. He blinked at the length of the entry on the faintly glowing page as he realized how profoundly nuanced the word was. Everybody was attached to their homeworld, their own culture, their own “earth”, their own sky: that was naturally taken for granted. But lavemuist’hei indicated something well past that—a relationship that more closely resembled the symbiotic.

“The affected percentage of the Tevaralti have expressed a desire not to leave their home world, regardless of its imminent fate,” Mamvish was saying when Kit looked up again. “While the Troptic Stipulation allows us some latitude in interfering with or constraining the actions of life forms further down on the sentience scale when the system of which they are part is threatened, it does not allow us to force fellow sentients of this level into actions that violate their sense of personal validity or dignity. If they choose to die with dignity, then that’s their right, and we need to leave them the opportunity to do that.” Her face screwed itself into a very pained expression. “And all too soon, those whose intention is bent that way will have more than enough opportunity.”

The room was very still. “As yet we aren’t clear about what has so exacerbated their normal sense of lavemuist’hei,” Mamvish said. “We hope to discover that, so as to make it possible to save more lives. There are some early indications that because the Tevaralti are humanoid, that other humanoids may be able to discover what’s going on with them and share it with us so that we can apply that discovery to this problem and save them all. But in the meantime, we must concentrate on saving those from the planet who presently consent to be saved… And that’s where all of you come in.”

Mamvish gazed around the room. “Each one of you will be either supervising or assisting in managing one of the worldgates presently being installed. Many of you were asked to participate in this in the intervention because you have previous experience, sometimes significant experience, with worldgating in your daily work, especially off planet or elsewhere on the High Road—”

Kit looked over at Nita in shock, suddenly realizing why they were there. Nita looked back at him, shaking her head, and whispered, “We are so screwed.”

“Others of our cousins will either be accompanying you or are already on site,” Mamvish said, “to support you in doing what needs to be done to help you micromanage these gates. I use the word purposefully here, because though they’ll be very automated and carefully tailored to match the locations where they’re installed, they’ll also require constant supervision while in use.”

Mamvish looked around the room in what Kit thought was meant to be a reassuring way. He was not reassured. “All your manuals or other errantry-sensitive information storage instrumentalities will be supplied with a set of nominal-operation parameters for the gate you’ll be managing. If its behavior starts to slide outside those parameters, or exhibits other atypical behaviors, don’t waste time; call for help at once. There’ll be plenty of it around… lots of wizards involved in this intervention who are specialists in gate management. Many members of the four species of the Interconnect Group, specialists in gatings and in rafting projects big and small, will also be on Tevaral, ready to assist. So don’t err on the side of caution, cousins. If something starts looking strange to you, get assistance immediately, as in this situation we have no margin for error. The last thing we need right now is for one gate to start malfunctioning in such a way as to affect those around it with portal contagion.”

The term made Kit suck in breath at a sudden memory. Rhiow had mentioned portal contagion to him once when he’d been passing through Grand Central and they were standing around on Platform 23, idly chatting and waiting for the gate there to go patent. At the time her description of the phenomenon had made him flash on a scene from a long-ago science show he’d seen. It had featured a single ping-pong ball dropping onto a big floor covered with mousetraps all loaded with more ping-pong balls. The dropped ball set one off, and that ball a couple of others, and then ten were going off, fifty, a hundred, more…

The demonstration had originally been a paradigm for nuclear fission, and while it had been amusing to watch at the time, Kit was having trouble finding the humor in it now. Especially when each of those “mousetraps” was a worldgate that had been working correctly a moment before, until the contagion effect from the nearest gate nearest it hit and made the portal explode uncontrollably wide, killing everybody who was near the gate and anyone presently in transit. And the effect would spread and spread—

Kit shivered. “Beyond that,” Mamvish said, “all you have to do is help the Tevaralti who are going through your gates, and keep them going through your gates. We have excellent support waiting for them on the far side, on their new homeworlds. Just help them make it through. That’s the whole of your job in this intervention: keep your gate running, get them through. When we’ve gotten as many people off the planet as will go, our work will be done. If the Powers are kind, it will be everybody, all the Tevaralti; that’s what we’re striving for. But until we find the key to that result—the reason behind the resistance of those who won’t leave—our job is to get the ones out who are ready to go.”

The whole room sat quiet for a few moments.

“You’ll find that your manuals and other instrumentalities have been loaded with coordinates on Tevaral corresponding to the gates you’ll be managing,” Mamvish said. “I regret that some of you who are used to working together must be separately assigned for this work: it’s numbers working individually that we need, with personnel in possession of higher power levels or proficiency levels being assigned to assist those with lower ones. You’ll be assigned gating hexes here to take you within the next hour or so to your initial staging points on Tevaral. Check your various instrumentalities for your gate assignment, and please be patient with us as regards transit times; we’re spacing the traffic load to avoid putting too much stress on the reception area on Tevaral. Down the concourse, close to the gates that have been signed for Tevaral transit, you’ll find a large hologlobe tagged with all the gate locations, both those emplaced and those pending, with coordinates for your own assignment areas so that you can keep in touch with your cousins while we’re all working there. And as I said, any of you can reach me virtually during this intervention; so don’t hesitate. I won’t be sleeping until this business is complete, and your contact will be welcome.” She looked around. “In the Powers’ names, then, and the One’s, let’s go forward and do the work before us.”