Charles Sheffield: Convergence

Did that mean these were remotely controlled, or were they built of inorganic components? Or could a finite size in time more than make up for a reduced size in space ? What Darya was able to see might be not a whole Builder, but a mere flat projection of it, the tiny slice apprehensible to the senses in what humans described as “the present.” Perhaps total space-time volume was the important parameter for intelligence. From a Builder point of view, humans and their alien colleagues must occupy an infinitesimal region of space-time, with body size in space multiplied by the width of a vanishingly small section of time. Such a small space-time volume, the Builders might argue, did not permit the development of intelligence.

The mini-Phages darted energetically to-and-fro. But that was not what had caused the excitement on the Misanthrope . Darya turned and saw, for the first time, the dark shape hanging beyond the translucent outer walls of Labyrinth.

Another vortex. And not just a vortex. The whole of the space on one side of Labyrinth was occupied by the Grand Panjandrum of all vortices, bigger than the artifact itself. It was slowly swelling. Either it was truly growing in size, or Labyrinth was creeping steadily closer to it. Whichever was true, the end point would be the same. Labyrinth would be engulfed.

Rebka was still gripping Darya’s arm, steering her closer to the hatch. She resisted.

“Why not stay here with them? They’re getting ready to leave Labyrinth.” She pointed to Katerina Treel, suit closed and in place at the ship’s controls. Her two sisters were trying to push people out of the lock. There was too much noise to hear what they were shouting.

“Who?” Rebka had to shout, too, leaning close to Darya’s helmet. A deep, booming noise like the tolling of a gigantic bell filled the cabin with a regular tone. It was coming from somewhere outside the Misanthrope . “Who could stay here? You, me, Tally? What about Nenda, or Atvar H’sial and the other aliens? What about Glenna or Quintus Bloom? There isn’t room in this ship for everyone.”

“My ship!” Darya found herself screaming. “We can use my ship — the Myosotis .”

“You want to bet on finding it, with that lot out there?” Rebka’s gesture took in the swarming chaos beyond the lock. “There isn’t much room on the Myosotis , even if you were sure you could get us there. And Nenda’s ship can’t fly superluminal.”

“So what are you thinking?”

“The same as everyone else.” They had finally reached the lock and struggled through it, Rebka still firmly attached to the arm of Darya’s suit. He pointed to the periphery of Labyrinth, on the side away from the monster vortex. The ships from the interior now hung there in space, a strange mixed fleet that had somehow passed right through Labyrinth’s external wall. “All the ships with no crews seem to have been steered out there. We pick a type that we know how to fly — one with a Bose Drive on it.”

“Those ships weren’t there when we came to Labyrinth!”

“Nor were a lot of other things. They are now.”

“Hans.” She stopped dead, shaking her arm free. “Don’t you see, it proves I’m right. The Builders are here, now — and they are helping. They want anything alive and intelligent to be able to escape before Labyrinth vanishes completely. That’s why they are taking the ships outside, ready for use.”

“Someone is moving the ships, but that doesn’t prove you are right. Maybe the Builders are just making sure that anyone who wants off can get off. Maybe he is right, and we are heading for the future — along with anyone else who stays in Labyrinth.”

Rebka was pointing to the tall figure of Quintus Bloom, floating at the center of a knot of people and aliens. The two Tenthredans had disappeared, but most of the others from the Misanthrope were circling around Bloom as though bound to him by some odd form of gravity. Darya looked for Louis Nenda, and at first could not locate him. Then she saw a dark-suited figure floating toward them from the Gravitas , which had begun its drift toward Labyrinth’s outer wall. A Cecropian was at Nenda’s side. They were towing behind them, trussed tightly in a clumsy, improvised suit, a gigantic tentacled creature. A Zardalu ! Nenda and Atvar H’sial had risked the trip back into the other ship, while all of Labyrinth disintegrated around them, to rescue a Zardalu ? Darya couldn’t believe it, but there was no time to stay and ponder.

She left Rebka to himself and pushed her way through to the center of the cluster. “We have to get out of here fast, on one of those.” She waved at the jumble of ships. Already some of the new arrivals were heading for them, with the urging of the mini-Phages. The steady, booming, bell-like tone filled the whole of Labyrinth. It came from the region of the ships, drawing attention to them. “Look at that vortex. We don’t have more than another ten minutes.”

“Great!” Bloom laughed like a lunatic, audible even without his suit’s transmitter. There was still plenty of air in Labyrinth. “Ten minutes more, and we will enjoy the experience of a lifetime. We will advance to the far future, and meet our own descendants. Who would want to miss that?”

“The Builders don’t come from the future. Those are the Builders, or the servants of the Builders.” Darya pointed to the mini-Phages. “That vortex won’t take you to the future. It will kill you! Look at the way everything is being steered away from it and toward the ships.”

“Steering is for sheep and cattle. The future doesn’t want followers — it wants leaders .” Bloom scanned the group around them. “I’m staying on Labyrinth. Who’s with me? Don’t bother to say anything, Professor Lang. I know your answer.”

“You’re insane! The Builders live on some other plane of existence, a place where humans probably can’t survive for a second.” Darya gestured to the junkyard of ships. Some of them were already edging away from the outer wall of Labyrinth, their hulls and locks swarming with the diminutive figures of humans and aliens. “We have to go and grab a ship for ourselves, while we have time.”

If we have time . She could see the looming vortex on the other side, a swirling mouth holding the whole artifact within its jaws.

No one moved. Darya was in agony. What was wrong with them? Was it the force of Bloom’s personality — fascination at the idea of traveling to the future — simple reluctance to be thought afraid?

As though reading her mind, Hans Rebka moved to Darya’s side. “Sorry, Bloom. I don’t know if you’re right, or if Darya is right. And I don’t really care. I’ve seen hard times, but I like life well enough to want to go on with it. I vote for the ships. I’ll save my trip to the future for another day.”

He moved away from the center of the group and began to study the ships more closely. They were all different, and it wouldn’t do to select one that he did not know how to fly.

“Don’t try to justify cowardice,” Bloom called after him. “It never works.” He turned his back deliberately on Rebka. “Miss Omar? I know that you at least are not afraid. Will you come with me?”

Glenna hesitated. “I’d like to come. If it would please you… Only…” She turned to where Nenda was fighting to control his trussed Zardalu. Despite his previous assurances of its change in attitude, it was far from docile. He had just punched it between its glaring eyes, and it was struggling to free a tentacle big enough to squash him to bloody mush. “Louis, will you be going?”