Ian Douglas - Dark Mind

He found the Agletsch’s channel. “Aar’mithdisch? I’m not following the translation.”

“The human brain has limitations,” she replied. “It is unable to follow multiple threads, it seems.”

“Are you telling me these beings can?”

“To an extent. All have been enhanced to one extent or another. You will be able to use the translation software to pick out separate threads and hear them in isolation, perhaps at a later time.”

Which didn’t help him understand what was going on now .

He tried to tune in on different threads.

We do not know if these images represent non-Sh’daar manipulation of the galaxy …

We do not know that these images represent reality …

If the Glothr flee …

The ephemerals distort the truth …

… has nothing to do with us …

… ephemerals do not …

… a billion years …

… afraid …

“What are they saying?” McKennon asked on a private channel, and for the first time, Gray realized that she had been experiencing this virtual reality as well, even though he didn’t see her avatar here.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Our translation expert says human brains aren’t good enough for us to join in.”

“Some Sh’daar brains and nervous systems have been artificially enhanced,” she told him. “The Adjugredudhra … the Zhalleg …”

“I thought these species were all Refusers?” Gray replied, a petulant edge to his mental voice. “No GRIN technologies, no genetics, no robotics—”

“As far as we’ve been able to determine,” McKennon told him, “that was almost never an absolute for them. If humans gave up all technology, that would include fire, sharpened sticks, and the hand ax. The most virulent Luddite wouldn’t demand that .”

“I suppose not. It just seems … I don’t know … hypocritical , I guess, for them to demand we give up certain technologies while they continue using them.”

“They’re also alien , Admiral. By definition, that means they don’t see things the same way we do.”

“I’ve heard that one before.” He laughed. “And I still think that’s a piss-poor excuse that explains nothing.”

“Well, excuse me … ”

“Oh, I wasn’t picking on you . They have different worldviews, a different context. I get that. But if this were a virdrama, having the villains do something weird just because they’re alien wouldn’t cut it.”

“Maybe the problem is that this isn’t a virdrama,” she told him. “Real life is never as neatly ordered—or as explicable—as fiction.”

… the Six Suns of the future …

… the Spinning Gateways …

… if the ephemerals upset the balance of …

… we must not …

… they must not …

“Are you recording all of this?” Gray asked McKennon.

“Of course. Aren’t you?”

“I am. It’s good to have a backup, though. You may be picking up pieces that my hardware misses.”

“Good thought.”

“Konstantin should be able to untangle it all later. But I do wish we knew what the argument was about now .”

“Ask the Agletsch.”

“Damn it. Of course …” He shifted channels. “Aar’mithdisch? What are they arguing about? Explain it for my poor, underdeveloped human brain.”

“They do not argue … not precisely. There is doubt that the imagery you bring from the remote future represents what is really happening. Two—the Adjugredudhra and the Baondyeddi—think it likely that the galactic Dyson sphere you’ve imaged here is in fact something built by the farfuture descendents of the Sh’daar Collective. If that is true, of course, there is nothing about which they need to be concerned … yes-no?”

“The Glothr records show Sh’daar species fleeing the galaxy.”

“The term ‘Sh’daar’ may have no meaning—or pertinence—in another four Galactic rotations.

“Too, others continue to insist that a billion years is too long an expanse of time for anyone to worry about what lies beyond. Those inhabited worlds fleeing into intergalactic space could be the future equivalent of Refusers, for example, or a defeated faction … or almost anything else at all. Nearly a billion years is a very long period of time, in which cultures will likely evolve and change out of all recognition.”

“How … ephemeral of them …”

“Some Sh’daar species are extremely long-lived,” the Agletsch said. “They tend to take what you humans call the long view … and with good reason. But most feel the problems of today are more than enough to occupy their full attention … yes-no?”

“Time travel rather puts a different spin on things, though,” Gray pointed out. “What the Sh’daar do here, in the N’gai Cluster, has spread to my own time.”

“Of course. But of greater moment … the technically advanced species of the remote future may be able to travel back in time and affect what happens here. The Glothr, clearly, can do this. You humans have done it, by means of the TRGA cylinders. What terrifies the decision makers of the Collective is the possibility that someone … you, the Glothr … the Rosette Aliens will come back to this time or before and wipe out all that they have built here.”

“Why? What are they building that is so damned important?” He meant the words lightly, a kind of joke.

The Agletsch liaison answered him, though. “They seek to undo the Technological Singularity, which destroyed their former totsch .”

The Agletsch word was not easily translated. According to Konstantin-2’s database, though, it carried elements of the words “glory,” “reputation,” and “effectiveness.” Gray decided that a good fit might be the Asian concept of face .

Could that be the answer? The Sh’daar had set out on their anti-singularity jihad because they were embarrassed ? Because they felt they’d lost face ?

It didn’t seem reasonable. And yet, knowing the human causes for so much of their own history, maybe that shouldn’t be surprising.

“The war itself may be an emergent phenomenon,” Konstantin-2 whispered in Gray’s thoughts, almost as though reading them.

“What do you mean?”

“The Collective consists of several diverse species, each with its own agenda … and with numerous individual members of each species with their own goals and desires, all interacting with one another in essentially unpredictable ways. The pro-singularity Sh’daar who attacked us upon our arrival are a case in point.”

“So?”

“Emergent behavior is defined as a larger pattern or behavior arising from interactions among smaller or simpler entities which may not, themselves, display that behavior. Mind arising from trillions of neural synaptic connections would be one such. Life itself, emerging from the associated cells of an organism, is another.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. But war ?”

“It seems evident that no one of the Sh’daar species rules or dominates the others. All do fear a repeat of their singularity event, however, and seek to prevent this. Their interaction with one another, however, might have led to a social acceptance of warfare as a means to an end, and the attitudes of other species would reinforce the emerging group ethic.”

“Like a lynch mob,” Gray said slowly.

“Precisely. One human alone might be unwilling to execute another human, but a large group, with the members exciting one another, would not hesitate. Humans have demonstrated this principle time and time again, in Nazi Germany, in Soviet Russia, in the Chinese Hegemony …”