A Deepness in the Sky

EPILOGUE

The Spiders’ world had a moon; the L1 rockpile had been coaxed into a synchronous orbit on Princeton’s longitude. By the standards of most habitable worlds, it was a pitiful moon, barely visible from the ground. Forty thousand kilometers out, the lump of diamonds and ice glinted dimly in the light of the stars and the sun. Yet it reminded half the world that the universe was not what they had thought.

Fore and aft of the rockpile stretched a string of tiny stars, beads that grew brighter year by year: the Spiders’ temps and factories. In the early years, they were the most primitive structures ever to fly in space, cheap and overbuilt and overcrewed, hoisted on cavorite wings. But the Spiders learned fast and well….

There had been state dinners in the Arachnan Grand Temp before. The King himself had ascended to orbit for the departure of the fleet to Triland. That had been four starships, refurbished by the new capital industries of his empire and the entire world. And that fleet had carried not just Qeng Ho and Trilanders and former Emergents. Two hundred Spiders had been aboard, led by Jirlib Lighthill and Rachner Thract. They carried first implementations of the improved ramdrives and coldsleep equipment. More important, they carried the keys for the encrypted knowledge beamed earlier across the light-years to Triland and Canberra.

For that departure, nearly ten thousand Spiders had come into space, the King on one of the first all-Arachnan ferries, and that “dinner” had stretched across more than 300Ksec. Since that time, there had been more Spiders in near Arachna space than humans.

To Pham Nuwen, that was only fitting. Customer civilizations should dominate the territory around their planets. Hell, to the Qeng Ho, it was the locals’ most important function—to be havens where ships could be rebuilt and refurnished, to be the markets that made trekking across interstellar distances a profitable thing.

For this second departure, the Grand Temp was almost as crowded as at the Triland Farewell, but the actual dinner was much smaller, ten or fifteen people. Pham knew that Ezr and Qiwi and Trixia and Viki had engineered this affair to be small enough that people could talk and be heard. This might be the last time so many of the surviving players might ever see each other in one place.

The ballroom of the Arachnan Grand Temp was something new in the universe. The Spiders had been in space only 200Msec now, scarcely seven of their years. The ballroom was their first attempt at grandeur in free fall. They weren’t up to the bioengineering of Qeng Ho parks. In fact, most Spiders hadn’t yet realized that for starfarers, a living park is the greatest symbol of power and ability in space. Instead, the King’s designers had borrowed from Qeng Ho inorganic construction and tried to adapt their own architectural traditions to free fall. Doubtless, within another century they would regard the effort as laughable. Or maybe the mistakes would become part of tradition:

The outer wall was a tesselation of hundreds of transparent plates, held in a grid of titanium. Some were diamond, some were quartz, some were almost opaque to Pham’s eyes. The Spiders still preferred direct views. Video wallpaper and human display technologies didn’t come close to matching the range of their vision. The polyhedral surface swept outward to form a bubble fifty meters across. At its base the Spider designers had built a terraced mound, rising to the dining tables at the top. The slope was gentle by Arachna standards, with broad sweeping stairs. To human eyes, the mound was a cliff-walled pinnacle and the stairs were strange, broad ladders. But the overall effect was—for humans or Spiders—that wherever you were sitting around the dining table, you could look out on half the sky. The Grand Temp was a long structure, tidally stabilized, and the ballroom was on the Arachna-facing end. To someone looking straight up, the Spiders’ world filled much of the view. To someone looking off to the side, the rockpile and human temps were an orderly jumble, every year longer than before. In the other direction, you could see the Royal Shipyards. At this distance, the Yards were an undistinguished cluster of lights, flickering now and then with tiny flashes. The Spiders were building the tools to build the tools. In another year or so they would lay the spine for their first ramscoop vessel.

Anne and Pham arrived at precisely the appointed time. Small this banquet might be, but the hosts had specified formality. They floated up past tier after tier of the mound, touching the stairs here and there to guide themselves to the circular table at the top. The hosts were already present, Trixia and Viki, Qiwi and Ezr, as were all the other guests, both Arachnan and human. Anne and Pham were last to arrive, the guests of Farewell.

After they were settled, Spider attendants came out from the base of the mound, carrying a mix of Spider and human dishes. The two races could actually eat together, even if each found the other’s food mostly grotesque.

They ate the welcoming appetizers in the Spider-traditional silence. Then Trixia Bonsol rose from her place among the Spiders and made a set speech as stately as anything at Jirlib’s Farewell. Pham groaned to himself. Except for Belga Underville, all here were close friends. He knew they were scarcely more formal than himself. Yet there was a sadness in this occasion and it seemed greater than even a normal leavetaking should be. He sneaked a look around the table. So solemn, the humans in freefall formal dress that went back at least a thousand years. But it was not like they had to follow diplomatic niceties here. Underville was probably the prickliest creature here, but even she wasn’t big on formalities. Now if someone didn’t speak up, they might go the whole dinner without really talking.

So when Trixia finished and sat down, Pham gently dumped a half-liter of wine into the air above his place at the table. The dark red liquid wobbled back and forth upon itself, an embarrassing spill that would be even more embarrassing depending on who it splashed onto. Pham stuck his finger into the bobbling wetness, and wiggled it just so. The blob stretched out, braided itself with its own surface tension. He definitely had their attention now, the Spiders even more than the humans. Pham waved off an attendant who floated close with a vacuum napkin. He grinned at his audience. “Neat trick, isn’t it?”

Qiwi leaned forward, to look across at him. “It’ll be a neater trick if you can land that thing clean.” She was also grinning. “I should know; my daughter plays with her food, too.”

“Yes. Well, I’ll keep it in one piece as long as I can.” His hand formed the spinning braid back into a wobbling sphere. So far he hadn’t even stained the lace on his cuffs. Qiwi was watching with intent, professional interest. This was the sort of trick she had once done with billion-tonne rocks. He didn’t doubt that little Kira Vinh-Lisolet played with her food; Qiwi probably encouraged the little devil.

He left the red bauble floating above his place, and waved for the attendants to bring the next course. “I’ll show you some other tricks later; just watch me.”

Victory Lighthill rose a little from her perch. Her mouth hands modulated her voice into a sad chirping. “Tricks… long sad gone… drexip.” At least that’s what Pham thought she said. Even after all this time—even with the downshifter gadget to make all the phonemes audible—Spidertalk was harder than any human language he knew of. Sitting next to Lighthill, Trixia smiled and gave her own translation. “We will miss your tricks, Magician.” Her voice held the same sadness that he recognized in the Spider’s sounds.Damn. They make this sound like awake.

So Pham smiled brightly and pretended to miss the point. “Yes. In less than a megasecond, Anne and I will be gone.” Along with a thousand others, Emergents, exFocused, even some Qeng Ho. Three starships and a thousand crew. “When we return, perhaps two centuries will have passed. But hey! There are often longer partings among the Qeng Ho. I know there are ships a-building in your yards.” He waved at the flickering in the far sky behind Victory Lighthill. “Many of you will be ’faring, too. Very likely some of us will meet again—and when we do we’ll have new stories to exchange, just like Qeng Ho and people from starfaring worlds always have.”

Ezr Vinh was nodding. “Yes, there will be future times, even if we don’t know quite how we will meet, or where. But for many of us this will be the last meeting.” Ezr didn’t quite meet his eye.At bottom, even Ezrdoubts. And Ezr had given half his mission bounty to help Pham and Anne prepare.

But Qiwi laid her hand on Ezr’s shoulder. “I say we setup some meeting marks, just like the Great Families do.” A time and a place, and a space of life span passed. She looked across at Anne and smiled. Now Qiwi was a mother as well as an engineer. Most times she seemed to be the happiest person around. But Pham still saw a shadow sometimes, perhaps when she thought of her own mother, the other Kira. Qiwiapproved this sending to Balacrea. Hell, he was sure she would be aboard if not for Ezr, and her children, and the new world she was creating here. Ezr had learned much about managing people, even more since he was truly the Fleet Manager for all the humans. But Qiwi’s genius was the framework that Ezr depended on. She was the person who could figure out just what technology the Spiders would value most. If not for the deals she had worked out, the Spiders’ shipyard would still be a dream. Ezr had always thought of himself as a failed younger son.I wonder if he and Qiwi really understand what theyare creating. They had children, and so had Jau and Rita, and many others. Gonle and Benny had built a nursery for all the new little ones, a place where kids and cobblies played while their parents worked together. The human-Spider enterprise grew every year. Like Sura Vinh long ago, Qiwi and Ezr might not fare much themselves, but this end of Qeng Ho space was due for an explosion of light, a nascence that would dwarf Canberra and Namqem.

An explosion of light. Yes! “We’ll set a marker, then! The next New Sun—or maybe a few Msecs after, since I seem to remember things being a bit unpleasant right when the sun lights up.” About two centuries.Thatwill fit well with my other plans.

Victory via Trixia: “Yes, just after the next Brightness. Here in the Grand Temp—however grander it may be.” A gentle laugh. “I’ll make a note not to be asleep or light-years away.”

“Agreed.” “Agreed!” The voices went round the table.

Belga Underville buzzed and hissed, and as usual Pham didn’t understand a thing she said, except that her tone was full of truculent incredulity. Fortunately, as the King’s chief of Intelligence, she rated a full-time translator. Zinmin Broute sat beside her, listening to her with a faint smile. Broute actually seemed to like the old biddy. When she finished, he wiped the smile from his face and put on a good glower. “This is rank foolishness, or human insanity I don’t yet understand. You have three ships, and with them you intend to bring down the Emergent empire? But for the last seven years, you have been saying that we Spiders have nothing to fear from outside invasion, that a planetary civilization with high technology can always mount a successful defense. The Emergents must have thousands of military vessels in their home territories, yet you talk of overthrowing them. Have you been lying to us, or are you just very wishful thinkers?”

Victory Lighthill buzzed a question, put so simply and clearly that Trixia didn’t have to translate. “But, maybe… you get help… from far Qeng Ho?”

“No,” said Ezr. “I… I’ll tell you frankly, Qeng Ho don’t like to fight. It’s much easier just to let tyrannies alone. ‘Let them trade with themselves,’ as the old saying goes.”

Anne Reynolt had been quiet through all this. Now she said, “It’s okay, Ezr. You have helped us….” She turned to Belga Underville. “Madame General, someone has to do this. The Emergents and Focus are something new. Leave them alone and they will just grow stronger—and someday they’ll come to eat you.”

Incredulity was patent in the flick of Underville’s longest arms. “Yes, more contradictions. Over the last years you have persuaded us to go beyond trade in helping to arm and outfit you.” A human speaker might have cast a look in Victory Lighthill’s direction; Victory had the ear of the King in this. “But what does it serve that you commit suicide? That is how I see the odds.”

Anne smiled, but Pham could tell the questions made her tense. Belga had pounded on these questions in more official forums, and it was unlikely she would receive any satisfaction here. The questions haunted Anne as well. But Belga did not understand that, for Anne Reynolt, this mission gave better odds than she had ever had. “Not suicide, Madame General. We have special advantages, and Pham and I know how to use them.” She put her hand on Pham’s. “I employ one of the few commanders in human histories who has succeeded at such a thing.”

Yeah, the Strentmannian thing was similar. God help me.No one said anything for a moment. The half-liter of wine had drifted upward. Pham poked his finger into its center of rotation and slid it gently back in front of where he sat. “We have advantages more concrete than my fearless leadership. Anne knows as much as any Podmaster about how the inner system works.” And their little fleet would carry some surprising hardware, the first products of human/Spider new technology. But that wasn’t the fleet’s greatest strength. The crews of their three ships were mostly exFocused who understood the mechanisms of the Emergents’ automation and who wanted as much as Anne to overthrow it. There were even a few of the original unFocused Emergents. As he spoke, Pham saw Jau Xin watching him intently—and Rita Liao watching Jau. They would come if they didn’t have their three little ones. And even now, there was a chance. Pham still had four days to persuade them. Xin had been Pilot Manager for Nau’s uncle before the voyage to Arachna. And the latest comm from Balacrea showed the Nau clique was back at the top of the heap.

Pham looked from face to face as he described the plans. Ezr and Qiwi, Trixia and Victory, certainly Jau and Rita:They don’t really thinkthis is a wake. They understand we have a good chance, but they worry forus. “And we’ve been studying Nau’s records and the transmissions that he received—that we’re still receiving from Balacrea. We’ve spoofed them into thinking the Emergents won here. We plan on being able to get in-system before they realize that we aren’t friendly. We understand alot about the internal factions at the top of their society. All together—” All together, it might not be something he should undertake. But Anne was right about Focus, and Anne wanted this more than anything. And afterward, well, there washis great project, and having Anne in on that would be worth all the risks. “All together, we have a chance. It will be a gamble, an adventure. I wanted to call our flagship theWild Goose, but Anne wouldn’t let me.”

“Hah!” said Anne. “I thinkEmergents’ Reward is a much more proper name. After we win,then you can name it theWild Goose !”

The first course of the banquet was already arriving, and Pham didn’t have a chance to answer her back. Instead, he showed the others that you really can tuck a half-liter of wine back into a drinking bulb without creating any smaller droplets. He grinned to himself. Even the other Qeng Ho hadn’t seen that. It was just one of the advantages of being well traveled.

The banquet lasted a number of Ksecs. They had time to talk of many things, to remember where they had been and the friends who had died in making the present day. But the greatest surprise didn’t come until right at the end, when Anne pointed out something that none of the Spiders, not even Victory Lighthill, had guessed at.

Anne had relaxed as the dinner progressed. Pham knew she still was uneasy with groups of people. She couldact almost any role, but inside there was a shyness that didn’t come out except when she was being open. She had learned to trust these people; as long as the conversation stayed clear of what she must do with the Emergency, she could genuinely enjoy herself. And Anne Reynolt still had many things that her friends here needed. More than anyone, she understood the exFocused. Pham listened to her chat with Trixia Bonsol and Victory Lighthill, suggesting ways they might get even more translation services.From the first moment I saw you,you seemed very special. The flaming red hair, the pale, almost pink skin. Such a contrast to his own black hair and smoky complexion. On this side of Human Space, her looks were rare indeed. But then he had learned what was behind those looks, the brains, the courage…. Following her to Balacrea would be worth it even if there were no plans for afterward.

After-dinner drinks were floated around to the humans. The Spider equivalent were little black balls to puncture and suck and spit into elaborate cuspidors.

Pham found himself toasting to the success of each group’s endeavor—and the meeting they had set for two centuries later.

Ezr Vinh leaned around Qiwi to look at him. “And after our remeeting? After you free Balacrea and Frenk? What then? When will you finally tell us about that?”

Anne smiled at Pham. “Yes, tell them about your wild-goose chase.”

“Hmmpf.” Pham wasn’t entirely pretending embarrassment. Except with Anne, he hadn’t talked about this. Maybe it was because the scheme was grandiose even compared with his grandiose scheming of the past. “…Okay. You know why we came to Arachna: the mystery of the OnOff star and the existence of intelligent life here. We spent forty years with Tomas Nau’s boot on our necks, but still we learned amazing things.”

Ezr: “True. In one single place, Humankind has never found so many different kinds of wonderful things.”

“We humans thought we knew what was impossible. Only a few nut cases still wondered otherwise, mainly astronomers watching far enigmas. Well, OnOff was the first of those that we’ve seen close up. And look at what we found: a stellar physics we still don’t properly understand; cavorite, which we understand even less—”

Pham broke off, noticing the look in Qiwi’s eyes. She was remembering something from a nightmare. She looked away, but Pham didn’t continue, and after a moment she spoke very softly. “Tomas Nau used to talk like this. Tomas was an evil man, but—” But evil men, the most dangerous of them, often have sharp ideas. She swallowed, and continued more firmly, “I remember when the Focused ran DNA analysis on the ocean ice we had brought up. The variety—it was greater than a thousand worlds. The analysts thought it was caused by the variety of life niches on Arachna. Tomas… Tomas thought instead that there was so much variety because once, very long ago, Arachna had been a crossroads.”

Ezr took Qiwi’s hand. “Not just Tomas Nau. We’ve all wondered about these things. There’s way too much crystal carbon around—the diamond forams, the rockpile. Somebody’s computers? But the forams are too small, and our L1 mountains are too big… and they’re all just dead stone now.”

From across the table, Jau Xin said, “Maybe not quite. Thereis cavorite.”

Belga Underville rasped something that did not sound impressed; Victory was buzzing laughter. After a moment, Zinmin’s translation came. “So the Distorts of Khelm have a new believer, except that now our world is a junkyard and we Spiders are evolved from the gods’ garbage-vermin. If this is true, where is the rest of the super-empire?”

“I… I don’t know. Remember this was fifty to one hundred million years ago. Maybe they had a war. One of the easiest explanations for your solar system is that it was a war zone, with a sun destroyed, and all planets but one volatilized.” And that one survivor protected by some great magic. “Or maybe the empire grew into something else, or is leaving us to develop at our own pace.” Some of the possibilities sounded very foolish when he said them out loud.

Underville’s eating hands spread in a gesture that Pham recognized as a doubting smile. “You do sound like Khelm! But see, your theory ‘explains’ all sorts of things without helping to do anything, much less providing tests for itself.”

Gonle Fong jabbed at the air with her hand, a Spiderish gesture unconsciously adopted. “So what’s to disagree? ‘Arachna was a place where once all the Failed Dreams were true.’ Fine. It’s a simple, unifying assumption. At the same time, we live in the here and now, a few hundred light-years, a few thousand years. Whatever the explanation, there is a lifetime of profit to be made just playing with what we see on Arachna now!”

Pham nodded politely. “Yes. A good Qeng Ho attitude. But, Gonle—I was born in a civilization of castles and cannon. I’ve lived a long time—not counting coldsleep—and I’ve seen a lot. Since the Dawn Age, we humans have learned a little here, a little there—but mainly we’ve learned of limits. Planetary civilizations rise and fall. At the height they’re wonderful things, but there is so much darkness.” Castles and cannon, and worse. “And even the Qeng Ho—we survive and prosper, but we’ve found limits that we can only edge toward, like lightspeed itself. I broke myself on those limits at Brisgo Gap. When I learned about Focus, I thought it might be the way to end the darkness between civilizations. I was wrong.” He looked into Anne’s eyes. “So I gave up my dream, the dream of my whole life… and then I looked around. Here at Arachna, we’ve finally found something from outside all our limits. It’s a tiny glimpse, shreds and dregs of brightest glory. Gonle, there are planning horizons and there are planning horizons…. Ezr asked me what I was going to do after we bring down the Emergents, after we all meet again. Well, just this: I’m going whence Arachna came.”

Trixia’s translation of his words rattled on a moment longer, and then there was absolute silence all around the table. Ezr sat transfixed. Pham had kept this between himself and Anne; considering all else that was happening, it had been an easy secret to keep. But Ezr Vinh had lived his whole life admiring the Dawn Age and the Failed Dreams, and now he saw how they might yet be attained. The boy stared for a moment, enraptured. Then critical thought came awake again. His words weren’t complaints; he wanted Pham’s plan to succeed, but—

“But what bearing will you take? And—”

“What bearing? That’s the easy question, though we’ll have a couple of centuries to think it over. But look, Humankind has been staring at the stars with high technology for thousands of years. At one time or another, almost every Customer civilization has mounted arrays of hundred-meter mirrors, and undertaken all the other clever ways to snoop on things far away. We see some far enigmas. Here and there across this galaxy we see ramscoops and ancient radio transmissions.”

“So if there were anything more, we would have seen it,” said Ezr, but he clearly knew what was coming. The arguments were ancient history.

“Only if it’s a place we can look. But parts of the galactic core are plenty shrouded. If our supercivilization doesn’t use radio, if they have something better than ramscoops… down by the core is the one place they might have escaped our detection.” And OnOff’s eccentric orbit had at least passed through those unseen depths.

“Okay, Pham. I agree, it all fits. But you’re talking about thirty thousand light-years to the core, almost that far to the umbral clouds.”

Gonle: “That’s a hundred times farther than anything the Qeng Ho have tried. Without depot civilizations in between, your ramscoops will fail in less than a thousand years. We can dream of such a mission, but it’s totally beyond our ability.”

Pham grinned at them all: “It’s totally beyond our ability now.”

“That’s what I said! It’s always been beyond us.”

But the light was beginning to come on in Ezr’s eyes. “Gonle, he means that it may not be beyond us in the future.”

“Yes!” Pham leaned forward, wondering how many of them he could capture in this dream. “Do a little mind experiment. Put yourself back in the Dawn Age. Back then, for a few brief centuries, peopleexpected things to become radically improved in the future. With Arachna, you will bring a little bit of that spirit back. Maybe you don’t believe it now. You don’t see the civilization that you are building. Ezr and Qiwi, you’re founding a Great Family that will outshine any in Qeng Ho history. Trixia and Victory and all the Spiders will be the greatest thing that ever happened to our business. And you’re just beginning to understand the contradictions of Arachna. You’re right; today, talk of ’faring toward the core is like a child wading in the surf and talking of crossing an ocean. But I’ll lay you a wager: By the next Bright Time, you’ll have the technology I need.”

He looked at Anne beside him. She smiled back, a grin that was both happy and a little mocking. “Anne and I and those on our fleet of three intend to take down the Emergent system. If we succeed there—whenwe succeed—what’s left will still be a high-tech civilization. We’ll make a larger fleet, at least a fleet of twenty. And Anne will let me rename her flagship theWild Goose. And we will return here and outfit to go… a-searching.” And would Anne really come with him then? She said she would. Would tearing down the Emergents’ tyranny lift thegeas that drove her? Maybe not. Winning would leave whole worlds like the deFocus ward in Hammerfest’s Attic. Maybe she would find it impossible to leave the people she had rescued. What then?I don’t know. Once upon a time, he was very good at being alone. Now,how strangely I have changed.

Anne’s smile was gentle now. She squeezed his hand and nodded at the pact he had just described. Pham glanced from face to face: Qiwi looked stunned. Ezr looked like someone who desperately wanted to believe, but had more than a life-full of other endeavors to distract him. As for the Spiders, their aspects ranged from Underville’s truculent “show me” to—

Throughout his speech, Victory Lighthill had sat still and silent, even her eating hands motionless. Now she spoke, a burring warble, soft and sad and wondering, that needed Trixia to translate the words: “Daddy would have loved this plan.”

“Yes.” Pham’s voice caught. Underhill had been a genius and a dreamer, straight out of the Dawn Age. Pham had long since read Trixia’s “videomancy diaries,” the story of Underhill’s counterlurk. The cobber had dug deep into the Emergents’ automation, sometimes so deep that the Focused Anne Reynolt had noticed the tampering and thought it evidence of human conspiracy. At the end, Underhill knew what Focus was; he knew the humans didn’t have AI or any technology enormously beyond his own. Sherkaner Underhill must have been very disappointed to learn the limits of progress.

Beside him, Anne started to nod, hesitated. And that was when she surprised them all, herself included, but the Spiders most of all. She cocked her head, and a slow smile started across her face. “And what makes you think he didn’t survive? He had as much information as any of us—and a good bit more imagination. What makes you think this isn’t his plan, too?”

“Anne, I’ve read the diaries. If he were alive, he’d be here.”

She shook her head. “I wonder. Wanderdeep is something we humans aren’t built to understand, and Sherkaner thought sure that Smith was dead. But Sherkaner Underhill confounded both humans and Spiders more than once. He took Spiderness in unthought directions—he saw the deepness in the sky. I think he’s down there somewhere, and he intends to outlast all the mysteries.”

“It could be… it could be.” The words, ultimately Trixia’s or Victory’s, Pham could not tell, were spoken in soft awe. “We don’t really know where he landed on the altiplano. If it was something he had scouted out before, he would have a chance.”

Pham looked outward, at Arachna. The planet spread across thirty degrees, a vast, black pearl. Traceries of gold and silver gleamed all across the continent into the southern hemisphere, and across the faint luster of the eastern sea. And yet, there were still large areas of unrelieved dark, protected lands that would remain still and cold until the end of the Dark. Pham felt a sudden thrill of understanding.Yes. Somewhere down there the old Spider might still sleep, waiting for his lady lost… and beginning on his greatest Lurk of all.

So high, so low, so many things to know.