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    Heaven's Reach
    Heaven's Reach
    Heaven's Reach
    Ebook680 pages11 hours

    Heaven's Reach

    By David Brin

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Prepare for a harrowing ride through the universe by the New York Times–bestselling author of Startide Rising and The Postman.

    Book Three in the Uplift Storm Trilogy

    The peaceful existence of six outcast races on Jijo has ended. Ancient enemies, the Jophur, have discovered them, preparing to subject the refugees to their dark, perverted plans.

    The Jijoans’ only hope is the same ship that accidently led their foes to the planet. The Earthship Streaker, with its crew of uplifted dolphins and a human commander, must somehow lure the Jophur into a chase through space . . . into the unknown. And then into the weird.

    More than just the fate of Jijo—or that of distant Earth, also suffering a deadly siege—hangs in the balance. Some believe a terrifying prophecy is about to come true, one that involves Streaker’s trove of artifacts coveted by factions throughout all Five Galaxies. As countless white dwarf stars verge on unexpected explosion, all sentient life in the universe appears to be at risk unless someone can save them.

    Praise for the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning Uplift Saga

    “The Uplift books are as compulsive reading as anything ever published in the genre.” —The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 

    “An extraordinary achievement.” —Poul Anderson, award-winning author of Tau Zero,on Startide Rising

    “An exhilarating read that encompasses everything from breathless action to finely drawn moments of quiet intimacy.” —Locus on The Uplift War 

    “Tremendously inventive, ambitious work.” —Kirkus Reviews on Brightness Reef

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateMay 25, 2021
    ISBN9781504064705
    Author

    David Brin

    David Brin is an astrophysicist whose international-bestselling novels include Earth, Existence, Startide Rising, and The Postman, which was adapted into a film in 1998. Brin serves on several advisory boards, including NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC, and speaks or consults on topics ranging from AI, SETI, privacy, and invention to national security. His nonfiction book about the information age, The Transparent Society, won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association. Brin’s latest nonfiction work is Polemical Judo. Visit him at www.davidbrin.com.

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    Reviews for Heaven's Reach

    4/5

    9 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I consider David Brin one of the three best genre writers among those who started writing after 1970 (the other two are Lawrence Watt-Evans and Steven Brust; Barry Longyear might be on that list except I think he started writing before 1970, and I haven't seen anything new from him in quite a while. Barry Hughart would be on that list if he hadn't had to give up writing due to his idiotic publishers).

      I'm a huge fan of a lot of his work. His original Uplift trilogy is a favorite of mine. But I was disappointed by the first two books in his second Uplift trilogy. Heaven's Reach represents a significant improvement on those books.

      It might get a bit too cosmic (in the same way that his Kiln People did, towards the end), but it's a solid, intelligent, imaginative, and well-written book. Perhaps I like it more because the action takes place out on the space lanes, rather than being cooped up on the sooner planet of Jijo.

      Many mysteries are explained, and the resolution, while by no means tying up all the threads of the Uplift series, is quite satisfying. I plan to go back to the first two books in the trilogy to see if I like them better in the light of this book.

      And I'll be re-reading the entire first trilogy before too long, of course.
    • 4/5
      Everything, almost, seems to come together to cause a galactic disaster in this book. Can the long lost natives, fighting amongst themselves, survive the problems to come, and just what, exactly, is going on in a universe gone crazy? Planetary and galactic politics cause all sorts of chaos.
    • 4/5
      Tasty morsel of a novel. Completes the Streaker journey. But we still don't know anything about Herbie and the Progenitors, dammit.
    • 4/5
      The final part of the second Uplift trilogy. A real space opera, developing the themes in the earlier books and set off Jijo. Interesting astrophysical ideas and clever tying together of the plot lines. Lots of loose ends at the end though - some return to an uncertain future of Jijo in Galaxy 4 now split from the other 4 galaxies. The Streaker returns to Earth and Larl gets sent beyond the known galaxies.
    • 4/5
      This review covers all three books in the 2nd Uplift Trilogy, (Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore, and Heaven's Reach).At the end of the day, this rather long story, (nearly 2,000 pages over three volumes), is a good book that leaves some big openings for more adventures in the Uplift Universe. With that said, I really enjoyed the first three Uplift books, (Sundiver, Startide Rising, The Uplift War), more than I did this second trilogy. I think that is due to the stand-alone nature of the initial three volumes. I liked that each of those books told a relatively complete story that was set against a larger backdrop that stayed mostly in the background. Further, this fourth installment, (again, I'm talking about three books here), could have stood some editing. There is quite a bit of repetition of information - and not all of that can be attributed to getting the reader up to speed with what happened in the preceding volume. Rather, it sometimes felt as though Brin had lost some threads and was reminding himself, (and the reader), of where things stood. At times, he was (validly) revisiting a situation from the perspective of a different character - but often it felt like redundant info-dumping. Yes, we know most of the Galactics are against the upstart human 'wolflings' and their client species, the neo-chimps and neo-dolphins - please stop hitting us with that particular truncheon!On to the good things: The overall story is really pretty great. As an unabashed and unapologetic Space Opera tale, this 2nd Uplift Trilogy does not disappoint. Throughout these Uplift books, Brin has taken a 'kitchen-sink' approach to the science, (he even says so in the afterword). He throws one big idea on top of another on top of third and a fourth. And then keeps doing it! His position as consultant for NASA is showing here in a big way - and that's a good thing because the ideas are grand and he does a good job of laying it out for us lay-people. Among all that science and big ideas, there are also a wide variety of characters to track - and there is a fair amount of head-hopping as a result - but Brin is a talented enough writer that he pulls off that aspect quite well. Helping to ease the transitions, most perspective shifts happen at logical chapter breaks. Now, with such a large cast of players, some are bound to be more interesting than others and a handful of characters do seemingly get short shrift - but I can see where Brin might re-visit some of them in order to explore their stories in greater depth. There are also other characters from the first three books that don't show up here at all, (most notably the ones left behind on Kithrup at the end of Startide Rising - which was, for me, the standout book of the entire Uplift series). I hope Brin's future plans include coming back to tie up some of those loose ends.Having finally finished this trilogy, I feel like I have completed a marathon. Not that I've ever run a real marathon! LOL! Still, with the unrelenting onslaught of difficulties that every character seemed to be going through, always battling uphill against incredible odds. Facing implacable enemies. Managing one hair-breadth escape after another... it's nice to call this one done - at least for now.Next up, I might have to try a nice post-apocalyptic story - just to lighten the mood! ;)
    • 3/5
      * Listen to the crash* Of breakers on yonder reef,* And. tell me this ain't real! * So says Olelo, a dolphin crew member on one spacecraft on the last pages of the book, Heaven's Reach.This is a difficult review for me. Brin's book, Uplift War is one of my favorite science fiction books. Heaven's Reach, continuing the same story three books later is a very difficult read. As other reviewers have said, there are way too many POVs.Let me itemize the evidence for the crime of excessive POVs: Harry Harm, ASX/EASX, Sara, Emerson, Lark, Gillian Baskin, Tsh't, Rety, Dwer. Have I left out some POV characters, who knows, who cares.I found about the first 100 pages to be highly readable. Then around page 100 I started getting confused by the quick jumping from POV to POV. I started skimming hard. After about another 100 pages I found interesting answers to the questions in the stories. There are about 100 pages starting around page 200 that give answers to why the find from 4 books ago has started an all out attack on Earth. There is information about the older races who are on their path to leaving the physical realm. I find the the author does answer the questions raised in the series if you carefully read pages 200 - 300.After page 300 I went back to skimming until about 50 pages from the end. The book does a complete job of detailing the fate of each of the separate POV characters in this one book.So, in conclusion, this book has serious problems. There are some interesting storylines: Harry's adventures in E-Space, Gillian's conversations with the old ones, how galactic civilization is changing over millions of years. I would not generally recommend this book for people to read. I had read all of the first Uplift series and the first of this series. so I was interested in finishing the series for myself. Some other people who have read and enjoyed other titles in this series might want to read this one.

    Book preview

    Heaven's Reach - David Brin

    Cast of Sapient Species

    g’Keks—the first sooner race to arrive on Jijo, some two thousand years ago. Originally uplifted by the Drooli, the g’Kek have biomagnetically driven wheels and four eyestalks rising from a combined torso-braincase. Due to vendettas by enemies, the g’Kek are extinct throughout the Five Galaxies, except on Jijo.

    glavers—the third sooner race to reach Jijo. Uplifted by the Tunuctyur, who were themselves uplifted by the Buyur. Glavers are partly bipedal with opalescent skin and large, bulging eyes. Roughly a meter tall, they have a prehensile forked tail to assist their inefficient hands. Since illegally settling Jijo they devolved to a state of presapience, dropping out of the Commons of Six Races. To some, glavers seem to be shining examples, having shown the way down the Path of Redemption.

    hoons—the fifth wave of settlers to arrive on Jijo, bipedal omnivores, with pale scaly skin and woolly white leg fur. Their spines are massive, hollow structures that form part of their circulatory system. Hoons’ inflatable throat sacs, originally for mating displays, are now used for umbling. Since their Uplift by the Guthatsa, this race have found widespread service as dour, officious bureaucrats in Galactic culture.

    humans—the youngest sooner race arrived on Jijo less than three hundred years ago. Human wolflings evolved on Earth, apparently achieving technological civilization and crude interstellar travel on their own, or else assisted by some unknown patron. Passionate debates rage over this issue.

    Jophur—semicommunal organisms resembling cones of stacked donuts. Like their traeki cousins, Jophur consist of interchangeable spongy sap-rings, each with limited intelligence, but combining to form a sapient community being. Specialized rings give the stack its senses, manipulative organs, and sometimes exotic chemosynthetic abilities. As traeki, this unique species was originally gentle and unaspiring when first uplifted by the Poa. The zealous Oallie later reinvented them by providing master rings, transforming the traeki into Jophur, willful and profoundly ambitious beings.

    qheuens—the fourth sooner race on Jijo. Originally uplifted by the Zhosh, qheuens are radially symmetric exo-skeletal beings with five legs and claws. Their brain is partly contained in a retractable central dome or cupola. A rebel band of qheuens settled Jijo attempting to hold on to their ancient caste system, with the gray variety providing royal matriarchs while red and blue types were servants and artisans. Conditions on Jijo—including later human intervention—provoked the breakdown of this system.

    Rothen—a mysterious Galactic race. One human group (the dakkins or Daniks) believe the Rothen to be Earth’s lost patrons. Rothen are bipeds, somewhat larger than humans but with similar proportions and charismatic features. Believed to be carnivores.

    traeki—second illicit settler race to arrive on Jijo. Traeki are a throwback variant of Jophur, who fled the imposition of master rings.

    urs—the sixth sooner race on Jijo. Carnivorous, centauroid plains dwellers; they have long, flexible necks, narrow heads, and shoulderless arms ending in dexterous hands. Urs start life as tiny, six-limbed grubs, turned out of their mothers’ pouches to fend for themselves. Any that survive to childhood may be accepted into an urrish band. Urrish females reach the size of a large deer, and possess twin brood pouches where they keep diminutive mates, who are smaller than a house cat. A female with prelarval young ejects one or both husbands to make room for the brood. Urs have an aversion to water in its pure form.

    Glossary of Terms

    allaphor—the metaphorical interpretation made by sentient minds of certain features in E-Level hyperspace.

    Anglic—a human language created in the Twenty-First century, using many English words, but influenced by other pre-Contact tongues and modified according to new understandings of linguistic theory.

    Buyur—former legal tenants of Jijo, froglike appearance, known for wit, foresight, and gene-crafting of specialized animal-tools. Departed when Jijo was declared fallow half a million years ago.

    client—a race still working out a period of servitude to the patrons that uplifted it from presapient animal status.

    criswell structures—fractal shells designed to surround small red suns, utilizing all light energy. The fractal shape allows maximum possible window area, unlike a simple Dyson sphere.

    Daniks—a vulgarized term for Danikenite, a cultural movement dating from humanity’s first contact with Galactic Civilization. Daniks believe Earthlings were uplifted by a Galactic patron race that chose to remain hidden for unknown reasons. An offshoot cult believes Rothen are this race of wise, enigmatic guides.

    dura—approximately one-third of a minute.

    E-Level hyperspace—a dangerous hyperspatial region in which the distinctions between consciousness and reality become blurred. Self-consistent concepts may exist without a host brain or computer to contain or contemplate them. See allaphor.

    Earthclan—a small, eccentric Galactic family of sapient races consisting of neo-chimpanzee and neo-dolphin clients, along with their human patrons.

    Egg—see Holy Egg.

    Embrace of Tides—a quasi addiction that causes elder races to seek the sensation of gravitational tides, close to very dense stars.

    er—genderless pronoun, sometimes used when referring to a traeki.

    fen—plural of fin, Anglic shorthand for a neo-dolphin.

    Fractal World—a place of retirement for races that have nearly transcended the Civilization of the Five Galaxies. (See criswell structures.)

    Galactic—a person, race, concept, or technology deriving from the aeons-old Civilization of the Five Galaxies.

    Galactic Institutes—vast, powerful academies, purportedly neutral and above interclan politics. The Institutes regulate various aspects of Galactic Civilization. Some are over a billion years old.

    Galactic Library—a fantastically capacious collection of knowledge gathered over the course of hundreds of millions of years. Quasi-sapient Branch Libraries are found in most Galactic starships and settlements.

    Gronin Collapse—historical name given to the last time in Galactic history when the expansion of the universe caused transfer points between galaxies to pull apart, thus fragmenting Galactic society.

    Holy Egg—a mysterious mass of psi-active stone that emerged from a Jijoan volcano a century ago, accompanied by widespread visions.

    humicker—slang term for someone who mimics humans, because Earthling texts dominated literate life on Jijo after the Great Printing.

    Ifni—a vulgarization of Infinity. In spacer tradition, a name given to the goddess of luck. Personification of chance or Murphy’s Law.

    Izmunuti—a red giant star close to Jijo’s sun; spews a carbon wind masking Jijo from supervision by the Institute for Migration.

    jadura—approximately forty-three hours.

    Jijo—a planet in Galaxy Four. Home of seven sooner races: humans, hoons, qheuen, urs, g’Kek, the devolved glavers, and demodified Jophur known as traeki.

    Kazzkark—a space station operated by the several major Galactic Institutes, including the Institute of Navigation.

    kidura—approximately one-half second.

    Kiqui—an amphibious presapient race native to Kithrup.

    Kithrup—a water world rich in heavy metals.

    Midden—a vast undersea crevasse, or subduction zone, formed by plate tectonics, running alongside the Slope on Jijo. All dross generated by the inhabitant races—from skeletal remains to the hulls of sooner spacecraft—is dumped into the Midden, where natural forces will carry it below Jijo’s crust for melting.

    midura—a unit of time, approximately seventy-one minutes.

    Morgran—a transfer point where Streaker was first attacked by warships of the most fanatic religious clans.

    neo-chimpanzee—humanity’s first clients. Fully uplifted neo-chimps can speak; the unfinished variety that accompanied humans to Jijo are mute, but able to communicate with sign language.

    neo-dolphin—uplifted dolphins; clients of humanity.

    noor—a Jijoan term for tytlal, a Galactic species uplifted by the Tymbrimi, and living on Jijo in secret sapient form. To Jijoans, noor are bright, dexterous, mischievous otterlike creatures. Noor cannot be tamed, but the patient, good-natured hoon are able to employ some on their ships. Noor are considered pests by other sooner races.

    NuDawn Colony—a world colonized by the Terragens before contact was made with Galactic Civilization, in unknowing violation of migration laws. The inhabitants were forcibly and violently evicted by hoonish bureaucrats, supported by Jophur and other vigilantes.

    Oakka—a regional headquarters of the Institute of Migration.

    Orders of Life—seven types of sapient life are known among the Five Galaxies:

    1. oxygen breathers—members of Galactic culture, including humans.

    2. hydrogen breathers—utilize reducing atmospheres, having slower metabolisms. Most inhabit giant gas planets, drifting among the clouds, performing internal simulations of the world.

    3. the retired order—former patron races that have reached senescence and retired from Galactic affairs, taking residence in fractal structures, amif the gravitational tides close to red dwarf suns.

    4. machine—self-replicating sentient machines. Generally confine themselves to high-radiation areas or zones of deep space unwanted by either hydrogen or oxygen civilizations, though a few types are tolerated for their usefulness.

    5. transcendents — even older than retired, these are races that have passed on to a higher plane, having melded or merged with other orders. Mere Galactics are riven by many beliefs about this stage of life. The first to transcend (it is assumed) were the Progenitors.

    6. memetic—bizarre thought organisms residing primarily in E-Level hyperspace.

    7. quantum—organisms discovered only during the last 100 million years, existing between the interstices of the universe, making scant contact with Galactic society. Their way of life seems to depend on macroquantum uncertainty.

    There is widespread disagreement over whether the number of life orders should equal eight. Even more are suspected. Contact between life orders is dangerous, and widely discouraged.

    patron—a Galactic race that has uplifted at least one animal species to full sapience.

    pidura—six to the eighth power duras, or approximately four hundred days.

    Polkjhy—the name of the Jophur battleship that landed on Jijo in search of the fugitive Earthship Streaker.

    Primal Delphin—semilanguage used by natural, nonuplifted dolphins on Earth.

    Progenitors—the legendary first spacefaring race, who began the cycle of Uplift two billion years ago, establishing Galactic society.

    rewq—quasifungal symbionts that help the Six Races read each other’s emotions and body language.

    sooners—outlaws who colonize worlds designated fallow by the Galactic Institute of Migration. On Jijo, the term means those who try to make new illegal settlements, beyond the confines of the Slope.

    Streaker—a dolphin-crewed Terran starship. The Streaker’s discoveries led to unprecedented pursuit by dozens of Galactic factions, each seeking advantage by possessing the dolphins’ secrets.

    stress atavism—a condition found among newly uplifted species, which tend to lose their higher cognitive functions under stress.

    Terragens Council—the ruling body of humanity’s interstellar government, in charge of matters directly affecting relations between Earthclan and Galactic society.

    toporgic—pseudomaterial substrate made of organically folded time.

    transfer point—an area of twisted spacetime that allows faster-than-light travel for vessels entering at a precise angle and velocity.

    Tymbrimi—a humanoid species allied with Earthclan, known for cleverness and devilish humor.

    Tytlal—see noor.

    Uplift—process of turning a presapient animal species into a fully sapient race ready to join Galactic society. Performed by a patron.

    wolfling—a derogatory Galactic term for a race that appears to have uplifted itself to spacefaring status without help, or else to have been abandoned by its patron.

    ylem—the underlying fabric of reality itself.

    Zang—a phylum of hydrogen breathers consisting of single cells, often spherical or blobby but sometimes organized to resemble huge squids. They live in the atmospheres of gas giants. Jijo’s entire region (Galaxy Four) has been leased to hydrogen breathers by the Institute of Migration.

    Part One

    The Five Galaxies

    What emblems grace the fine prows of our fast ships?

    How many spirals swirl on the bow of each great vessel, turning round and round, symbolizing our connections? How many are the links that form our union?

    ONE spiral represents the fallow worlds, slowly brewing, steeping, stewing—where life begins its long, hard climb.

    Struggling out of that fecundity, new races emerge, ripe for Uplift.

    TWO is for starfaring culture, streaking madly in our fast ships, first as clients, then as patrons, vigorously chasing our young interests—trading, fighting, and debating—

    Straining upward, till we hear the call of beckoning tides.

    THREE portrays the Old Ones, graceful and serene, who forsake starships to embrace a life of contemplation. Tired of manic rushing. Cloistering for self-­improvement, they prepare to face the Great Harrower.

    FOUR depicts the High Transcendents, too majestic for us to perceive. But they exist. They must! Making plans that encompass all levels of space, and all times.

    FIVE is for the galaxies—great whirls of shining light—our islands in a sterile cosmos, surrounded by enigmatic silence.

    On and on they spin, nurturing all life’s many orders, linked perpetually, everlasting.

    Or so we are assured. …

    Harry

    ALARMS SING A VARIETY OF MELODIES.

    Some shriek for attention, yanking you awake from deathlike repose. Others send your veins throbbing with adrenaline. Aboard any space vessel there are sirens and wails that portend collision, vacuum leaks, or myriad other kinds of impending death.

    But the alarm tugging at Harry Harms wasn’t like that. Its creepy ratchet scraped lightly along the nerves.

    No rush, the soft buzzer seemed to murmur. I can wait.

    But don’t even think about going back to sleep.

    Harry rolled over to squint blearily at the console next to his pillow. Glowing symbols beckoned meaningfully. But the parts of his brain that handled reading weren’t perfectly designed. They took a while to warm up.

    Guh. … he commented. Wuh?

    Drowsiness clung to his body, still exhausted after another long, solitary watch. How many duras had passed since he tumbled into the bunk, vowing to quit his commission when this tour of duty ended?

    Sleep had come swiftly, but not restfully. Dreams always filled Harry’s slumber, here in E Space.

    In fact, dreaming was part of the job.

    In REM state, Harry often revisited the steppes of Horst, where a dusty horizon had been his constant background in childhood. A forlorn world, where ponderous dark clouds loomed and flickered, yet held tightly to their moisture, sharing little with the parched ground. He usually woke from such visions with a desiccated mouth, desperate for water.

    Other dreams featured Earth—jangling city-planet, brimming with tall humans—its skyscrapers and lush greenery stamped in memory by one brief visit, ages ago, in another life.

    Then there were nightmares about ships—great battlecraft and moonlike invasion arks—glistening by starlight or cloaked in the dark glow of their terrible fields. Wraithlike frigates, looming more eerie and terrifying than real life.

    Those were the more normal dream images to come creeping in, whenever his mind had room between far stranger apparitions. For the most part, Harry’s night thoughts were filled with spinning, dizzying allaphors, which billowed and muttered in the queer half-logic of E Space. Even his shielded quarters weren’t impervious to tendrils of counterreality, penetrating the bulkheads, groping through his sleep. No wonder he woke disoriented, shaken by the grating alarm.

    Harry stared at the glowing letters—each twisting like some manic, living hieroglyph, gesticulating in the ideogrammatic syntax of Galactic Language Number Seven. Concentrating, he translated the message into the Anglic of his inner thoughts.

    Great, Harry commented in a dry voice.

    Apparently, the patrol vessel had run aground again.

    Oh, that’s just fine.

    The buzzer increased its tempo. Pushing out of bed, Harry landed barefoot on the chill deck plates, shivering.

    "And to think … they tell me I got an aptitude for this kind of work."

    In other words, you had to be at least partway crazy to be suited for his job.

    Shaking lethargy, he clambered up a ladder to the observing platform just above his quarters—a hexagonal chamber, ten meters across, with a control panel in the center. Groping toward the alarm cutoff, Harry somehow managed not to trigger any armaments, or purge the station’s atmosphere into E Space, before slapping the right switch. The maddening noise abruptly ceased.

    Ah … he sighed, and almost fell asleep again right there, standing behind the padded command chair.

    But then … if sleep did come, he might start dreaming again.

    I never understood Hamlet till they assigned me here. Now I figure, Shakespeare must’ve glimpsed E Space before writing that to be or not to be stuff.

    … perchance to dream …

    Yup, ol’ Willie must’ve known there’s worse things than death.

    Scratching his belly, Harry scanned the status board. No red lights burned. The station appeared functional. No major reality leaks were evident. With a sigh, he moved around to perch on the seat.

    Monitor mode. Report station status.

    The holo display lit up, projecting a floating blue M, sans serif. A melodious voice emanated from the slowly revolving letter.

    "Monitor mode. Station integrity is nominal. An alarm has been acknowledged by station superintendent Harry Harms at 4:48:52 internal subjective estimate time. . . ."

    "I’m Harry Harms. Why don’t you tell me something I don’t know, like what the alarm’s for, you shaggy excuse for a baldie’s toup … ah … ah …"

    A sneeze tore through Harry’s curse. He wiped his eyes with the back of a hirsute wrist.

    The alarm denoted an interruption in our patrol circuit of E Level hyperspace, the monitor continued, unperturbed. The station has apparently become mired in an anomaly region.

    "You mean we’re grounded on a reef. I already knew that much. But what kind of … he muttered. Oh, never mind. I’ll go see for myself."

    Harry ambled over to a set of vertical louvered blinds—one of six banks that rimmed the hexagonal chamber—and slipped a fingertip between two of the slats, prying them apart to make a narrow slit opening. He hesitated, then brought one eye forward to peer outside.

    The station appeared to be shaped in its standard format, at least. Not like a whale, or jellyfish, or amorphous blob, thank Ifni. Sometimes this continuum had effects on physical objects that were gruesomely bizarre, or even fatal.

    On this occasion the control chamber still perched like a glass cupola atop an oblate white spheroid, commanding a 360-degree view of a vast metaphorical realm—a dubious, dangerous, but seldom monotonous domain.

    Jagged black mountains bobbed in the distance, like ebony icebergs, majestically traversing what resembled an endless sea of purple grass. The sky was a red-blue shade that could only be seen on E Level. It had holes in it.

    So far so good.

    Harry spread the slats wider to take in the foreground and blinked in surprise at what he saw. The station rested on a glistening, slick brown surface. Spread across this expanse, for what might seem a kilometer in all directions, lay a thick scattering of giant yellow starfish!

    At least that was his first impression. Harry rushed to another bank of curtains and peeked again. More starfish lay on that side as well, dispersed randomly, but thickly enough to show no easy route past.

    Damn. From experience he knew it would be useless to try flying over the things. If they represented two-dimensional obstacles, they must be overcome in a two-dimensional way. That was how allaphorical logic worked in this zone of E Space.

    Harry went back to the control board and touched a button. All the blinds retracted, revealing an abrupt panoramic view. Mountains and purple grass in the distance. Brown slickness closer in.

    And yes, the station was completely surrounded by starfish. Yellow starfish everywhere.

    Pfeh. Harry shivered. Most of the jaundiced monsters had six arms, though some had five or seven. They didn’t appear to be moving. That, at least, was a relief. Harry hated ambulatory allaphors.

    Pilot mode! he commanded.

    With a faint crackling, the floating helvetica M was replaced by a jaunty, cursive P.

    Aye aye, o’ Person-Commander. Where to now, Henry?

    Name’s Harry, he grunted. The perky tones used by pilot mode might have been cheery and friendly in Anglic, but they came across as just plain silly in Galactic Seven.

    Yet the only available alternative meant substituting a voice chip programmed in whistle-clicking GalTwo. A Gubru dialect, even. He wasn’t desperate enough to try that yet.

    Prepare to ease us along a perceived-flat course trajectory of two forty degrees, ship centered, he told the program. Dead slow.

    Whatever you say, Boss-Sentient. Adapting interface parameters now.

    Harry went back to the window, watching the station grow four huge wheels, bearing giant balloon tires with thick treads. Soon they began to turn. A squeaky whine, like rubbing your hand on a soapy countertop, penetrated the thick crystal panes.

    As he had feared, the tires found little traction on the slick brown surface. Still, he held back from overruling the pilot’s choice of countermeasures. Better see what happened first.

    Momentum built gradually. The station approached the nearest yellow starfish.

    Doubt spread in Harry’s mind.

    Maybe I should try looking this up first. They might have the image listed somewhere.

    Once upon a time, back when he was inducted as Earth’s first volunteer-recruit in the Navigation Institute survey department—full of tape-training and idealism—he used to consult the records every time E Space threw another weird symbolism at him. After all, the Galactic civilization of oxygen-breathing races had been exploring, cataloging, and surveying this bizarre continuum for half a billion years. The amount of information contained in even his own tiny shipboard Library unit exceeded the sum of all human knowledge before contact was made with extraterrestrials.

    An impressive store … and as it turned out, nearly useless. Maybe he wasn’t very good at negotiating with the Library’s reference persona. Or perhaps the problem came from being born of Earth-simian stock. Anyway, he soon took to trusting his own instincts during missions to E Space.

    Alas, that approach had one drawback. You have only yourself to blame when things blow up in your face.

    Harry noticed he was slouching. He straightened and brought his hands together to prevent scratching. But nervous energy had to express itself, so he tugged on his thumbs, instead. A Tymbrimi he knew had once remarked that many of Harry’s species had that habit, perhaps a symptom from the long, hard process of Uplift.

    The forward tires reached the first starfish. There was no way around the things. No choice but to try climbing over them.

    Harry held his breath as contact was made. But touching drew no reaction. The obstacle just lay there, six long, flat strips of brown-flecked yellow, splayed from a nubby central hump. The first set of tires skidded, and the station rode up the yellow strip, pushed by the back wheels.

    The station canted slightly. Harry rumbled anxiously in his chest, trying to tease loose a tickling thread of recognition. Maybe starfish wasn’t the best analogy for these things. They looked familiar though.

    The angle increased. A troubled whine came from the spinning rear wheels until they, too, reached the yellow.

    In a shock of recognition, Harry shouted—"No! Reverse! They’re ban—"

    Too late. The back tires whined as slippery yellow strips flew out from under the platform, sending it flipping in a sudden release of traction. Harry tumbled, struck the ceiling, then slid across the far wall, shouting as the scout platform rolled, skidded, and rolled again … until it dropped with a final, bone-jarring thud. Fetching up against a bulkhead, Harry clutched a wall rail with his toes until the jouncing finally stopped.

    Oh … my head … he moaned, picking himself up.

    At least things had settled right side up. He shuffled back to the console in a crouch and read the main display. The station had suffered little damage, thank Ifni. But Harry must have put off housecleaning chores too long, for dust balls now coated his fur from head to toe. He slapped them off, raising clouds and triggering violent sneezes.

    The shutters had closed automatically the instant things went crazy, protecting his eyes against potentially dangerous allaphors.

    He commanded gruffly, Open blinds! Perhaps the violent action had triggered a local phase change, causing all the nasty obstacles to vanish. It had happened before.

    No such luck, he realized as the louvers slid into pillars between the wide viewing panes. Outside, the general scenery had not altered noticeably. The same reddish blue, swisscheese sky rolled over a mauve pampas, with black mountains bobbing biliously in the distance. And a slick mesa still had his scoutship mired, hemmed on all sides by yellow, multiarmed shapes.

    Banana peels, he muttered. "Goddamn banana peels."

    One reason why these stations were manned by only a single observer … allaphors tended to get even weirder with more than one mind perceiving them at the same time. The objects he saw were images his own mind pasted over a reality that no living brain could readily fathom. A reality that mutated and transformed under influence by his thoughts and perceptions.

    All that was fine, in theory. He ought to be used to it by now. But what bothered Harry in particular about the banana allaphor was that it seemed gratuitously personal. Like others of his kind, Harry hated being trapped by stereotypes.

    He sighed, scratching his side. Are all systems stable?

    Everything is stable, Taskmaster-Commander Harold, the pilot replied. We are stuck for the moment, but we appear to be safe.

    He considered the vast open expanse beyond the plateau. Actually, visibility was excellent from here. The holes in the sky, especially, were all clear and unobstructed. A thought occurred to him.

    Say, do we really have to move on right away? We can observe all the assigned transit routes from this very spot, until our cruise clock runs out, no?

    That appears to be correct. For the moment, no illicit traffic can get by our watch area undetected.

    Hmmph. Well then … He yawned. I guess I’ll just go back to bed! I have a feelin’ I’m gonna need my wits to get outta this one.

    Very well. Good night, Employer-Observer Harms. Pleasant dreams.

    Fat chance o’ that, he muttered in Anglic as he left the observation deck. And close the friggin’ blinds! Do I have to think of everything around here? Don’t answer that! Just … never mind.

    Even closed, the louvers would not prevent all leakage. Flickering archetypes slipped between the slats, as if eager to latch into his mind during REM state, tapping his dreams like little parasites.

    It could not be helped. When Harry got his first promotion to E Space, the local head of patrollers for the Navigation Institute told him that susceptibility to allaphoric images was a vital part of the job. Waving a slender, multijointed arm, that Galactic official confessed his surprise, in Nahalli-accented GalSix, at Harry’s qualifications.

    "Skeptical we were, when first told that your race might have traits useful to us.

    "Repudiating our doubts, this you have since achieved, Observer Harms.

    To full status, we now advance you. First of your kind to be so honored.

    Harry sighed as he threw himself under the covers again, tempted by the sweet stupidity of self-pity.

    Some honor! He snorted dubiously.

    Still, he couldn’t honestly complain. He had been warned. And this wasn’t Horst. At least he had escaped the dry, monotonous wastes.

    Anyway, only the mad lived for long under illusions that the cosmos was meant for their convenience.

    There were multitudes of conflicting stories about whoever designed this crazy universe, so many billions of years ago. But even before he ever considered dedicating his life to Institute work—or even heard of E Space—Harry had reached one conclusion about metatheology.

    For all His power and glory, the Creator must not have been a very sensible person.

    At least, not as sensible as a neo-chimpanzee.

    Sara

    There is a word-glyph.

    It names a locale where three states of matter coincide—two that are fluid, swirling past a third that is adamant as coral.

    A kind of froth can form in such a place. Dangerous, deceptive foam, beaten to a head by fate-filled tides. No one enters such a turmoil voluntarily.

    But sometimes a force called desperation drives prudent sailors to set course for ripping shoals.

    A slender shape plummets through the outer fringes of a mammoth star. Caterpillar-­ribbed, with rows of talon-like protrusions that bite into spacetime, the vessel claws its way urgently against a bitter gale.

    Diffuse flames lick the scarred hull of ancient cerametal, adding new layers to a strange soot coating. Tendrils of plasma fire seek entry, thwarted (so far) by wavering fields.

    In time, though, the heat will find its way through.

    Midway along the vessel’s girth, a narrow wheel turns, like a wedding band that twists around a nervous finger. Rows of windows pass by as the slim ring rotates. Unlit from within, most of the dim panes only reflect stellar fire.

    Then, rolling into view, a single rectangle shines with artificial color.

    A pane for viewing in two directions. A universe without, and within.

    Contemplating the maelstrom, Sara mused aloud.

    My criminal ancestors took their sneakship through this same inferno on their way to Jijo … covering their tracks under the breath of Great Izmunuti.

    Pondering the forces at work just a handbreadth away, she brushed her fingertips against a crystal surface that kept actinic heat from crossing the narrow gap. One part of her—book-weaned and tutored in mathematics—could grasp the physics of a star whose radius was bigger than her homeworld’s yearly orbit. A red giant, in its turgid final stage, boiling a stew of nuclear-cooked atoms toward black space.

    Abstract knowledge was fine. But Sara’s spine also trembled with a superstitious shiver, spawned by her upbringing as a savage sooner on a barbarian world. The Earthship Streaker might be hapless prey—desperately fleeing a titanic hunter many times its size—but this dolphin-crewed vessel still struck Sara as godlike and awesome, carrying more mass than all the wooden dwellings of the Slope. In her wildest dreams, dwelling in a treehouse next to a groaning water mill, she had never imagined that destiny might take her on such a ride, swooping through the fringes of a hellish star.

    Especially Izmunuti, whose very name was fearsome. To the Six Races, huddling in secret terror on Jijo, it stood for the downward path. A door that swung just one way, toward exile.

    For two thousand years, emigrants had slinked past the giant star to find shelter on Jijo. First the wheeled g’Kek race, frantically evading genocide. Then came traekis—gentle stacks of waxy rings who were fleeing their own tyrannical cousins—followed by qheuens, hoons, urs, and humans, all settling in a narrow realm between the Rimmer Mountains and a surf-stained shore. Each wave of new arrivals abandoned their starships, computers, and other high-tech implements, sending every god-machine down to the sea, tumbling into Jijo’s deep midden of forgetfulness. Breaking with their past, all six clans of former sky lords settled down to rustic lives, renouncing the sky forever.

    Until the Civilization of the Five Galaxies finally stumbled on the commonwealth of outcasts.

    The day had to come, sooner or later; the Sacred Scrolls had said so. No band of trespassers could stay hidden perpetually. Not in a cosmos that had been cataloged for over a billion years, where planets such as Jijo were routinely declared fallow, set aside for rest and restoration. Still, the sages of the Commons of Jijo had hoped for more time.

    Time for the exile races to prepare. To purify themselves. To seek redemption. To forget the galactic terrors that made them outcasts in the first place.

    The Scrolls foresaw that august magistrates from the Galactic Migration Institute would alight to judge the descendants of trespassers. But instead, the starcraft that pierced Jijo’s veil this fateful year carried several types of outlaws. First gene raiders, then murderous opportunists, and finally a band of Earthling refugees even more ill-fated than Sara’s hapless ancestors.

    I used to dream of riding a starship, she thought, pondering the plasma storm outside. But no fantasy was ever like this—leaving behind my world, my teachers, my father and brothers—fleeing with dolphins through a fiery night, chased by a battleship full of angry Jophur.

    Fishlike cousins of humans, pursued through space by egotistical cousins of traeki.

    The coincidence beggared Sara’s imagination.

    Anglic words broke through her musing, in a voice that Sara always found vexingly sardonic.

    "I have finished calculating the hyperspatial tensor, oh, Sage.

    "It appears you were right in your earlier estimate.

    The mysterious beam that emanated from Jijo a while ago did more than cause disruptions in this giant star. It also triggered a state-change in a fossil dimension-nexus that lay dormant just half a mictaar away.

    Sara mentally translated into terms she was used to, from the archaic texts that had schooled her.

    Half a mictaar. In flat space, that would come to roughly a twentieth of a light-year.

    Very close, indeed.

    So, the beam reactivated an old transfer point. She nodded. I knew it.

    Your foresight would be more impressive if I understood your methods. Humans are noted for making lucky guesses.

    Sara turned away from the fiery spectacle outside. The office they had given her seemed like a palace, roomier than the reception hall in a qheuen rookery, with lavish fixtures she had only seen described in books two centuries out of date. This suite once belonged to a man named Ignacio Metz, an expert in the genetic uplifting of dolphins—killed during one of Streaker’s previous dire encounters—a true scientist, not a primitive with academic pretensions, like Sara.

    And yet, here she was—fearful, intimidated … and yet proud in a strange way, to be the first Jijoan in centuries who returned to space.

    From the desk console, a twisted blue blob drifted closer—a languid, undulating shape she found as insolent as the voice it emitted.

    Your so-called wolfling mathematics hardly seem up to the task of predicting such profound effects on the continuum. Why not just admit that you had a hunch?

    Sara bit her lip. She would not give the Niss Machine the satisfaction of a hot response.

    Show me the tensor, she ordered tersely. "And a chart … a graphic … that includes all three gravity wells."

    The billowing holographic creature managed to imply sarcasm with an obedient bow.

    As you wish.

    A cubic display, two meters on a side, lit up before Sara, far more vivid than the flat, unmoving diagrams-on-paper she had grown up with.

    A glowing mass roiled in the center, representing Izmunuti, a fireball radiating the color of wrath. Tendrils of its engorged corona waved like Medusan hair, reaching beyond the limits of any normal solar system. But those lacy filaments were fast being drowned under a new disturbance. During the last few miduras, something had stirred the star to an abnormal fit of rage. Abrupt cyclonic storms began throwing up gouts of dense plasma, tornadolike funnels, rushing far into space.

    And we’re going to pass through some of the worst of it, she thought.

    How strange that all this violent upheaval might have originated in a boulder of psi-active stone, back home on primitive Jijo. Yet she felt sure it all was triggered somehow by the Holy Egg.

    Already half-immersed in this commotion, a green pinpoint was depicted plunging toward Izmunuti at frantic speed, aimed at a glancing near-passage, its hyperbolic orbit marked by a line that bent sharply around the giant star. In one direction, that slim trace led all the way back to Jijo, where Streaker’s escape attempt had begun two exhausting days earlier, breaking for liberty amid a crowd of ancient derelicts—ocean-bottom junk piles reactivated for one last, glorious, screaming run through space.

    One by one, those decoys had failed, or dropped out, or were snared by the pursuing enemy’s clever capture-boxes, until only Streaker remained, plummeting for the brief shelter of stormy Izmunuti.

    As for the forward direction … Instrument readings sent by the bridge crew helped the Niss Machine calculate their likely heading. Apparently, Gillian Baskin had ordered a course change, taking advantage of a gravitational slingshot around the star to fling Streaker toward galactic north and east.

    Sara swallowed hard. The destination had originally been her idea. But as time passed, she grew less certain.

    The new transfer-point doesn’t look very stable, she commented, following the ship’s planned trajectory to the top left corner of the holo unit, where a tight mesh of curling lines funneled through an empty-looking zone of interstellar space.

    Reacting to her close regard, the display monitor enhanced that section. Rows of glowing symbols described the local hyperspatial matrix.

    She had predicted this wonder—the reawakening of something old. Something marvelous. For a brief while, it had seemed like just the miracle they needed. A gift from the Holy Egg. An escape route from a terrible trap.

    But on examining the analytical profiles, Sara concluded that the cosmos was not being all that helpful after all.

    "There are connection tubes opening up to other spacetime locales. But they seem rather … scanty."

    Well, what can you expect from a nexus that is only a few hours old? One that was only recently yanked from slumber by a force neither of us can grasp?

    After a pause, the Niss unit continued. Most of the transfer threads leading away from this nexus are still on the order of a Planck width. Some promising routes do seem to be coalescing, and may be safely traversable by starship in a matter of weeks. Of course, that will be of little use to us.

    Sara nodded. The pursuing Jophur battleship would hardly give Streaker that much time. Already the mighty Polkjhy had abandoned its string of captured decoys in order to focus all its attention on the real Streaker, keeping the Earthship bathed in long-range scanning rays.

    Then what does Gillian Baskin hope to accomplish by heading toward a useless …

    She blinked, as realization lurched within her rib cage.

    Oh. I see.

    Sara stepped back, and the display resumed its normal scale. Two meters away, at the opposite corner, neat curves showed the spatial patterns of another transfer point. The familiar, reliably predictable one that every sneakship had used to reach Izmunuti during the last two millennia. The only quick way in or out of this entire region of Galaxy Four.

    But not always. Once, when Jijo had been a center of commerce and civilization under the mighty Buyur, traffic used to flux through two hyperdimensional nexi. One of them shut down when Jijo went fallow, half a million years ago, coincidentally soon after the Buyur departed.

    Sara and her mentor, Sage Purofsky, had nursed a suspicion. That shutdown was no accident.

    Then we concur, said the Niss Machine. Gillian Baskin clearly intends to lead the Jophur into a suicidal trap.

    Sara looked elsewhere in the big display, seeking the enemy. She found it several stellar radii behind Izmunuti, a yellow glow representing the hunter—a Jophur dreadnought whose crew coveted the Earthship and its secrets. Having abandoned the distraction of all the old dross ship decoys, the Polkjhy had been racing toward the regular t-point, confident of cutting off Streaker’s sole escape route.

    Only now, the sudden reopening of another gateway must have flummoxed the giant sap-rings who commanded the great warship. The yellow trace turned sharply, as the Polkjhy frantically shed momentum, aiming to chase Streaker past Izmunuti’s flames toward the new door in spacetime.

    A door that’s not ready for use, Sara thought. Surely the Jophur must also have instruments capable of reading probability flows. They must realize how dangerous it would be to plunge into a newborn—or newly re-awakened—transfer point.

    Yet, could the Polkjhy commanders afford to dismiss it? Streaker was small, maneuverable, and had dolphin pilots, reputed to be among the best in all five galaxies.

    And the Earthlings were desperate.

    The Jophur have to assume we know something about this transfer point that they do not. From their point of view, it seems as if we called it into existence with a wave of our hands—or fins. If we plunge inside, it must be because we know a tube or thread we can latch on to and follow to safety.

    They’re obliged to give chase, or risk losing Streaker forever.

    Sara nodded.

    Gillian and the dolphins … they’re sacrificing themselves, for Jijo.

    The tightly meshed Niss hologram appeared to shrug in agreement.

    "It does seem the best choice out of a wretched set of options.

    "Suppose we turn and fight? The only likely outcomes are capture or death, with your Jijoan civilization lost in the bargain. After extracting Streaker’s secrets, the Jophur will report to their home clan, then take their time organizing a systematic program for Jijo, first annihilating every g’Kek, then turning the planet into their own private breeding colony, developing new types of humans, traekis, and hoons to suit their perverted needs.

    "By forcing the Polkjhy to follow us into the new transfer point, Dr. Baskin makes it likely that no report will ever reach the Five Galaxies about your Six Races. Your fellow exiles may continue wallowing in sublime, planet-bound squalor for a while longer, chasing vague notions of redemption down the muddy generations."

    How very much like the Niss it was, turning a noble gesture into an excuse for insult. Sara shook her head. Gillian’s plan was both grand and poignant.

    It also meant Sara’s own hours were numbered.

    What a waste, the Niss commented. This vessel and crew appear to have made the discovery-of-the-age, and now it may be lost.

    Things had been so hectic since the rushed departure from Jijo that Sara was still unclear about the cause of all this ferment—what the Streaker crew had done to provoke such ire and pursuit by some of the great powers of the known universe.

    It began when Captain Creideiki took this ship poking through a seemingly unlikely place, looking for relics or anomalies that had been missed by the Great Library, the artificial intelligence explained. "It was a shallow globular cluster, lacking planets or singularities. Creideiki never told his reasons for choosing such a spot. But his hunch paid off when Streaker came upon a great fleet of derelict ships, drifting in splendid silence through open space. Samples and holos taken of this mystery armada seemed to hint at possible answers to our civilization’s most ancient mystery.

    "Of course, our findings should have been shared openly by the institutes of the Civilization of Five Galaxies, in the name of all oxygen-breathing life. Immense credit would have come to your frail, impoverished Earthclan, as well as my Tymbrimi makers. But every other race and alliance might have shared as well, gaining new insight into the origins of our billion-year-old culture.

    "Alas, several mighty coalitions interpreted Streaker’s initial beamcast as fulfillment of dire prophecy. They felt the news presaged a fateful time of commotion and upheaval, in which a decisive advantage would go to anyone monopolizing our discovery. Instead of celebratory welcome, Streaker returned from the Shallow Cluster to find battle fleets lying in wait, eager to secure our secrets before we reached neutral ground. Several times, we were cornered, and escaped only because hordes of fanatics fought savagely among themselves over the right of capture.

    Alas, that compensation seems lacking in our present situation.

    That was an understatement. The Jophur could pursue Streaker at leisure, without threat of interference. As far as the rest of civilization was concerned, this whole region was empty and off-limits.

    Was poor Emerson wounded in one of those earlier space battles?

    Sara felt concern for her friend, the silent star voyager, whose cryptic injuries she had treated in her treehouse, before taking him on an epic journey across Jijo, to be reunited with his crewmates.

    No. Engineer D’Anite was captured by members of the Retired Caste, at a place we call the Fractal World. That event—

    The blue blob halted its twisting gyration. Hesitating a few seconds, it trembled before resuming.

    The detection officer reports something new! A phenomenon heretofore masked by the flames of Izmunuti.

    The display rippled. Abruptly, swarms of orange pinpoints sparkled amid the filaments and stormy prominences of Izmunuti’s roiling atmosphere.

    Sara leaned forward. What are they?

    "Condensed objects.

    "Artificial, self-propelled spacial motiles.

    In other words, starships.

    Sara’s jaw opened and closed twice before she could manage speech.

    Ifni, there must be hundreds! How could we have overlooked them before?

    The Niss answered defensively.

    Oh, great Sage, one normally does not send probing beams through a red giant’s flaming corona in search of spacecraft. Our attention was turned elsewhere. Besides, these vessels only began using gravitic engines moments ago, applying gravi-temporal force to escape the new solar storms.

    Sara stared in amazement. Hope whirled madly.

    These ships, could they help us?

    Again, Niss paused, consulting remote instruments.

    It seems doubtful, oh Sage. They will scarcely care about our struggles. These beings belong to another order on the pyramid of life, completely apart from yours … though one might call them distant cousins of mine.

    Sara shook her head, at first confused. Then she cried out.

    Machines!

    Even Jijo’s fallen castaways could recite the Eight Orders of Sapience, with oxygen-­based life being only one of the most flamboyant. Among the other orders, Jijo’s sacred scrolls spoke darkly of synthetic beings, coldly cryptic, who designed and built each other in the farthest depths of space, needing no ground to stand on or wind to breathe.

    Indeed. Their presence here surely involves matters beyond our concern. Most likely, the mechanoids will avoid contact with us out of prudent caution.

    The voice paused.

    Fresh data is coming in. It seems that the flotilla is having a hard time with those new tempests. Some mechaniforms may be more needy of rescue than we are.

    Sara pointed at one of the orange dots.

    Show me!

    Using data from long-range scans, the display unit swooped giddily inward. Swirling stellar filaments seemed to heave around Sara as her point of view plunged toward the chosen speck—one of the mechanoid vessels—which began taking form against a backdrop of irate gas.

    Stretching the limits of magnification, the blurry enhancement showed a glimmering trapezoidal shape, almost mirrorlike, that glancingly reflected solar fire. The mechanoid’s outline grew slimmer as it turned to flee a plume of hot ions, fast rising toward it from Izmunuti’s whipped convection zones. The display software compensated for perspective as columns of numbers estimated the vessel’s actual measurements—a square whose edges were hundreds of kilometers in length, with a third dimension that was vanishingly small.

    Space seemed to ripple just beneath the mechaniform vessel. Though still inexperienced, Sara recognized the characteristic warping effects of a gravi-temporal field. A modest one, according to the display. Perhaps sufficient for interplanetary speeds, but not to escape the devastation climbing toward it. She could only watch with helpless sympathy as the mechanoid struggled in vain.

    The first shock wave ripped the filmy object in half … then into shreds that raveled quickly, becoming a swarm of bright, dissolving streamers.

    This is not the only victim. Observe, as fate catches up with other stragglers.

    The display returned to its former scale. As Sara watched, several additional orange glitters were overwhelmed by waves of accelerating dense plasma. Others continued climbing, fighting to escape the maelstrom.

    Whoever they are, I hope they get away, Sara murmured.

    How strange it seemed that machine-vessels would be less sturdy than Streaker, whose protective fields could stand full immersion for several miduras in the red star’s chromosphere, storm or no storm.

    If they can’t take on a plasma surge, they’d be useless against Jophur weapons.

    Disappointment tasted bitter after briefly raised hope. Clearly, no rescue would come from that direction.

    Sara perceived a pattern to her trials and adventures during the last year—swept away from her dusty study to encounter aliens, fight battles, ride fabled horses, submerge into the sea, and then join a wild flight aboard a starship. The universe seemed bent on revealing wonders at the edge of her grasp or imagining—giant stars, transfer points, talking computers, universal libraries … and now glimpses of a different life order. A mysterious phylum, totally apart from the vast, encompassing Civilization of Five Galaxies.

    Such marvels lay far beyond her old life as a savage intellectual on a rustic world.

    And yet, a glimpse was clearly all the cosmos planned to give her.

    Go ahead and look, it seemed to say. But you can’t touch.

    For you, time has almost run out.

    Saddened, Sara watched orange pinpoints flee desperately before tornadoes of stellar heat. More laggards were swept up by the rising storm, their frail light quenched like drowned embers.

    Gillian and the dolphins seem sure we can stand a brief passage through that hell. But the vanishing sparks made Sara’s confidence waver. After all, weren’t machines supposed to be stronger than mere flesh?

    She was about to ask the Niss about it when, before her eyes, the holo display abruptly changed once more. Izmunuti flickered, and when the image reformed, something new had come into view. Below the retreating orange glimmers, there now appeared three sparkling forms, rising with complacent grace, shining a distinct shade of imperial purple as they emerged from the flames toward Streaker’s path.

    What now? she asked. More mechanoids?

    No, the Niss answered in a tone that seemed almost awed. "These appear to be something else entirely. I believe they are …" The computer’s hologram deformed into jagged shapes, like nervous icicles. I believe they are Zang.

    Sara’s skin crawled. That name was fraught with fear and legend. On Jijo, it was never spoken above a whisper. "But … how … what could they be doing. . . ?"

    Before she finished her question, the Niss spoke again.

    "Excuse me for interrupting, Sara. Our acting captain, Dr. Gillian Baskin, has called an urgent meeting of the ship’s council to consider these developments. You are invited to attend.

    Do you wish me to make excuses on your behalf?

    Sara was already hurrying toward the exit.

    Don’t you dare! she cried over one shoulder as the door folded aside to let her pass.

    The hallway beyond curved up and away in both directions, like a segment of tortured spacetime, rising toward vertical in the distance. The

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