Between the Strokes of Night

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Peron was drowsing when the alert sounded. For a couple of minutes he struggled against awakening, trying to merge the soft, blurred tones into the fabric of his dreams.

roomb… roomb… roomb… roomb…

He had been back on Pentecost, back when the idea of competition in the Planetfest had itself been like a dream. Twelve years old; the first tests, part of the State-wide evaluation of every adolescent. The blindfold maze was presented to them as no more than a game, something that they could all enjoy. He had scrupulously obeyed the rules, mapping his path by ears alone, following the soft, purring will-o’-the-wisp tone of the muted bell.

It was seven more years before he understood the hidden purpose of the maze test. Sense of direction, yes. But more than that. Memory, courage, honesty, and a willingness to cooperate with other competitors when single talents could not provide a solution. It was direct preparation for Planetfest, though no one ever admitted it.

So how was Sy performing in the maze? That was a mystery. Sy was a loner. He didn’t seek partners, even when the task looked impossible for a solo performer. Peron, hauled back to full consciousness, realized that he had been confusing past and present. Sy was here, now, on the ship. When Peron took the maze test, he had never heard of Sy.

But it was still a good question. How had Sy found his way through the preliminaries for Planetfest? That was a puzzle to be filed away and addressed later. Meanwhile, that insistent tone was continuing, summoning Peron to action.… roomb… roomb… roomb.

He sighed. So much for sleep. He had been trying to push the S-space sleep requirement down to its lower limit, to less than one hour in twenty-four. But he had been overdoing it. He stood up unsteadily, noticing that Elissa had already left their living quarters, and made his way to the central control chamber.

Olivia Ferranti was already there, gazing out of the port. Elissa and Sy were at her side, staring out into the formless sea of milky-white that sat outside the ship in S-space.

Except that it was no longer formless. Dark, complex shapes were there, drifting past the window. Peron saw a tracery of wispy rectangles, joined by braided lines of silver. Attendant on them, although not connected to them, were veined doublet wings like giant sycamore seeds.

Olivia Ferranti acknowledged Peron’s arrival with no more than a brief nod. “Remember what I told you when we were heading for Sector Headquarters?” she said. “I’m not sure you believed me. There’s one of the reasons why Rinker didn’t want you messing with his ship. Look at the power drain.”

On the main console, every readout showed energy consumption up near the danger level. Peron glanced at the indicators for only a moment, then his attention was irresistibly drawn back to the shapes outside the port.

“What are they?” he said. “Are they taking our power?”

Olivia Ferranti was keying in a signal to the communications module. “They certainly are,” she said. “That lattice shape is a Gossamere — one of the surprises of interstellar space. You’ll never find one within a light-year of a star. The strangest thing about them is that they’re quite invisible in ordinary space, but so easy to see here in S-space.” She indicated the screen to the left of the port where a frequency-shifted image was displayed, allowing them to see outside the ship at the wavelengths of normal visible radiation. It showed only the star field of deep space. Sol was the nearest star now, nearly three light-years ahead and no more than a faint point of light.

“We don’t know how the Gossameres do it,” went on Ferranti. “But they maintain themselves at less than one degree absolute, well below cosmic background temperature, without emitting radiation at any frequency that we’ve been able to detect. And they suck up all the power that a ship can give out. If you didn’t know that and were in charge of a ship, you could get into terrible trouble.” “But what are they?” repeated Peron. “I mean, are they intelligent?” “We don’t know,” said Ferranti. “They certainly respond to stimuli. They seem to interpret signals we send them, and they stop the power drain on us as soon as they receive a suitable non-random message. Our best guess is that the Gossameres are not intelligent, they’re no more than power collection and propulsion systems. But the Pipistrelles — those bat shapes that you can see alongside the Gossamere — they’re another matter. They ride the galactic gravitational and magnetic fields, and they do it in complex ways. We’ve never managed a two-way exchange of information with them — they never emit — but they act smart. They really use the fields efficiently to make minimum time and energy movements. That could be some kind of advanced instinct, too, the way that a soaring bird will ride the thermals of an atmosphere. But watch them now. What does this mean? Are they saying goodbye? We’ve never been sure.”

She had completed the signal sequence. After a brief delay, one of the Pipistrelles swooped in close toward the ship. There was a flutter of cambered wings, a dip to left and right, and a final surge of power drain on the meters. Then the panels and filaments of the Gossamere began to move farther off. The silver connecting lines shone brighter, while the whole assembly slowly faded. After a few minutes, the winged shapes of the Pipistrelles closed into a tighter formation and followed the Gossamere.

“We had ships drift helpless, with all power shut down for months, until we learned how to handle this,” said Ferranti. “We even tried aggression, but nothing we did affected the Gossameres at all. Now we’ve learned how to live with them.”

“Can you bring them back?” asked Sy.

“We’ve never found a way to do it. They appear at random. And we encounter them far less often now than when our ships first went out. We think that the ‘power plant failure’ on Helena when the arcologies first set out was probably an encounter with a Gossamere. When the colonists turned off the plant to repair it, they couldn’t find anything wrong. That’s typical of a Gossamere power drain. They certainly don’t seem to need our energy, but they like it. The science group in the Jade sector headquarters argue that we’re a treat for the Pipistrelles, a compact energy source when they are used to a very dilute one. We’re like candy to them, and maybe they’ve learned that too much candy isn’t a good thing.”

She switched off the display screen and rose from her seat at the port. “Stay here if you like, and play with the com link. Maybe you can find a way to lure them back. That would certainly please our exobiologists and communications people. I wanted you all to see this, and absorb my message: you can’t learn all about the Universe crouching in close by a star. You have to know what’s going on out in deep space.”

“What else is going on?” asked Elissa. She was still peering out into the milky depths of S-space, watching as the final traces of the Pipistrelles slowly faded from sight.

“Here?” said Ferranti. “Nothing much. On the other hand, we’re not in deep space. Sol is less than three light-years — we’ll be there in less than a week. Now, if we were in deep space, with no star closer than ten light-years…” Olivia Ferranti stopped abruptly. She had seemed about to say more, but thought better of it. With a nod at the others, she turned and left the control room. * * *

“So what do you make of that?” said Elissa. Sy merely shook his head and offered no comment.

“She’s telling us there are more surprises on the way,” said Peron. “I like Olivia, and I think she’s doing her best for us. She knows there are still things she’s not supposed to reveal to us, so she gives us hints and lets us work on them for ourselves. That was another one — but I don’t know how to interpret it. Damn it, though, I wish that the others were here. I’d like Kallen’s comments on the Gossameres. Do you think we made a bad mistake, splitting up like that?”

Peron had been asking himself and the other two that question ever since they left Sector Headquarters. It had seemed like a small thing at the time. Given their experiences after they left Whirlygig, the briefings from the Immortals had been boring rather than thrilling. They had learned about S-space for themselves, the hard way, and what should have come as revelations came merely as confirmation of known facts. The personnel at Sector Headquarters were minimal, little more than a communications and administrative group, and almost all the information was provided through education robots and computer courses — neither of which had been programmed with interest as a dominant factor. As Rosanne had put it, after a long and tedious series of humorless computer warnings about the physiological dangers of frequent movements to and from S-space: “You mean they had to bring us a whole light-year for this? Maybe when you’re an Immortal you don’t live longer — it just seems longer.”

One of their negotiated conditions with Captain Rinker for return of ship control to him had been a freedom to travel after their training and indoctrination. At first he had indignantly refused to consider such a thing. Unprecedented! He at last grudgingly agreed, after Kallen had sent several thousand service robots to Rinker’s living quarters. They cluttered up every available square foot of space, moved randomly about, refused to obey any of Rinker’s orders, and made eating, walking, or even sleeping impossible. When the indoctrination was finally over, each of them was bored and restless. And when they learned that two ships would be arriving at Sector Headquarters within one S-space day of each other, one bound for Earth directly, and the other proceeding there via Paradise, they had split into two groups. Kallen wanted to visit the investigating group of Immortals orbiting Paradise, while Lum and Rosanne were curious to take a trip down to the surface of the planet itself. The computer had contained a brief description of events that led to the extinction of the colony on Paradise, but as Lum had pointed out, that stark recitation of facts was unsatisfying. A healthy, thriving population of over a million humans had died in a few days, with no written or natural record to show how or why. If it could happen so easily on Paradise, why couldn’t it happen on Pentecost, or anywhere else?

Since the whole detour would amount to no more than a week of S-space travel, Elissa, Peron and Sy had taken the ship direct to Sol. Kallen, Rosanne, and Lum went to Paradise; And as Lum had cheerfully pointed out as they were leaving, they would never be more than an S-day apart through radio communications. They could talk to each other any time. Except that their ship’s equipment seemed to be in continuous higher priority use…

Now, Peron at least was regretting their decision to separate. And Sy was looking unusually thoughtful and withdrawn, even for him.

“Perhaps I have everything backwards,” he said at last. “When I said that I wanted to visit the galactic center, I assumed that it would be the place to find new mysteries. Maybe not. Perhaps the true unknown is elsewhere. Should I be looking at nothing, at the regions between the galaxies?”

He stood up abruptly and followed Olivia Ferranti out of the control chamber, leaving Peron and Elissa looking at each other uncertainly.

“More questions,” said Elissa.

“I know. And nobody willing to provide us with answers. I’ll tell you the biggest mystery of all. The society of Immortals has a complicated structure. They have the network of ships linking all the inhabited worlds, they have an elaborate recruiting system to bring people like us into S-space, and they have definite rules for encounters with other societies — even human ones. Lord knows what they’d do if they met aliens who were obviously intelligent and lived close to stars. But with all that, we never seem to get any closer to the Immortals who are in charge of the whole organization.”

“Maybe their society doesn’t operate like that — perhaps it’s a true democracy.” “I don’t believe it.” Peron leaned across and put his arm around Elissa’s shoulders. “Just think about it for a minute. Somebody has to develop rules and procedures. Somebody has to monitor them. Somebody has to arrange for food supplies, and energy, and travel, and construction. You have to have leaders. Without that you don’t have democracy — you have anarchy, and complete chaos. Where is their Government?”

Elissa was absently rubbing the back of Peron’s right hand, as it lay across her shoulder. “Didn’t we conclude that it’s on Earth, or at least in orbit somewhere in the Sol system?”

“We did. But I don’t believe it any more. I told Olivia Ferranti that we want to meet the leaders of the Immortals. She won’t talk about that, but she insists we’ll really enjoy the visit to Earth. How could she possibly say that, if we might be heading for a confrontation there?”

Elissa shook her head. She did not speak, and after a couple of minutes moved out of Peron’s embrace and quietly left the control cabin.

Peron was left alone, gloomily staring out into the pearly blankness of the S-space sky. It felt like only weeks since he was walking through the sticky marshes of Glug, or contemplating the dangers of a landing on Whirlygig. To him, and to Sy and Elissa, it was weeks.

But back on Pentecost, new generations of contestants had won and lost at Planetfest. By now, Peron’s name, along with Kallen, Lum, and the others, was no more than a footnote in an ancient record book. And Wilmer, or some newly trained Immortal, would be down on the planet’s surface, observing the new contestants and reporting back on their behavior.

And everyone they had known on Pentecost, except for Wilmer, was now long dead. Peron wondered about the great centuries-long project to reclaim the southern marshes of Turcanta Province. Was that finished now, with real-life agricultural developments replacing the futuristic artists’ drawings that had illustrated a geography lesson when he was back in school? And what other planet-shaping projects had been developed since then?

He and Elissa had talked of their decision, and there were no regrets. With what they had learned, there could have been no turning back to a planet-bound “normal” life on Pentecost. The idea of visiting Earth had filled them all with energy and enthusiasm; and he and Elissa were ridiculously happy together. And yet…

Peron had a premonition of other travels and troubles ahead, before the true secret of the Immortals was revealed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The deceleration phase of an interstellar journey is normally passed in cold sleep. While the human passengers are unconscious, on-board computers perform the task of matching velocity and position with the target. They awaken the sleepers only upon final arrival.

The alternatives to cold sleep are limited: a move to normal space, followed by full consciousness during lengthy deceleration and final maneuvers; or an immobilized and dizzying ride in S-space. Neither is recommended.… Without discussion, Sy had chosen cold sleep during their approach to Sol. He was planning on using suspended animation techniques extensively in his future travels, and he was keen to gain more experience with them as soon as possible. Peron and Elissa had far more difficulty making a decision. After dreaming for so long of a return to Sol and to Earth, the idea that they would close their eyes, then suddenly find themselves there, was not at all attractive. It missed the whole point of the trip. Earth was a legend, and every experience connected with it should be savored. They had studied the Solar System during the journey from Sector Headquarters, and now they wanted to witness the whole approach. But that meant over a month of subjective travel time during deceleration, or a nauseating hour of slowing and orbit adjustment, tightly strapped in and unable to move a muscle…

They had discussed it over and over, and at last made their decision. Now they lay side by side, tightly cocooned in restraining nets. As a special favor, Olivia Ferranti had placed screen displays so that Peron and Elissa would have frequency-adjusted views both ahead of and behind the ship as it neared Sol. They had entered the nets before deceleration began, when they were still nearly fifty billion kilometers from Sol and the Sun was nothing more than an exceptionally bright star on the displays.

At first, they both felt that all their studies would be wasted. The Sun had grown steadily bigger and more brilliant, gyrating across the sky as their trajectory responded to the System-wide navigation control system. But it looked disappointingly like any other star. In the last five minutes of travel they caught a glimpse of Saturn, and had one snapshot look at the ring structure; but it was a long way off, and there was little detail to be seen of surface or satellites. All the other planets remained invisible.

They could not talk to each other, but they independently decided that the nausea and discomfort were definitely not worth it. Until, quite suddenly, Earth showed in the screen off to one side. The planet rapidly swung to loom directly ahead for the last stages of their approach.

And their sufferings were suddenly of no consequence.

They had been conditioned by the ship’s stored viewing tapes to expect a blue-green clouded marble and attendant moon, hanging isolated in space. Instead, the whole sphere of Earth shone girdled by a necklace of bright points of light, whirling around the central orb like an electron cloud about the central nucleus. There were so many of them that they created the illusion of a bright, continuous cloud, a glittering halo about the planet’s equator. As they watched, smaller units darted like fireflies between Earth and the orbiting structures.

Space stations. They were at all heights, some almost grazing the atmosphere, an entire dense ring at synchronous altitude, others wandering out beyond the Moon. And to be visible from this distance, many of them must be kilometers across. Peron and Elissa were looking at the result of twenty-five thousand years of continuous development of Earth orbit. The asteroid-moving and mining operations that began at the dawn of Earth’s space age had yielded a rich harvest. Before Peron and Elissa had more than a minute or two to absorb the scene, they were homing in on one of the larger structures. It was in synchronous orbit, hovering above a great landmass shaped like a broad arrowhead. A shining filament extended downward from the station toward Earth, finally to vanish from sight within the atmosphere.

Their final approach was compressed to an anxious few S-seconds of blurred motion, twisting a way in through a moving labyrinth of other spacecraft and connecting cables and tunnels. All at once they were docked, and the ship motionless. They were trying to release themselves from the cocoons when a man materialized in the cabin and stood looking down at them.

He was short, pudgy, gray-haired, and precisely dressed, with elaborate jewelled rings on most of his fingers. He wore a flower in his lapel — the first blossom of any kind that they had seen since they left Pentecost. The stern look on his face was contradicted by a pattern of laughter lines around his button-bright eyes and small mouth.

“Well,” he said briskly, after a thorough inspection of Peron and Elissa. “You look normal enough. I’ve been waiting for your arrival with some interest. Neither of you appears to be quite the degenerate monster that Sector reports suggest, and Olivia Ferranti speaks well of you. So let us proceed on the basis of that assumption. Command. Remove the cocoons.”

The restraining nets vanished, and the little man calmly extended a hand to help Elissa to her feet.

“My name is Jan de Vries,” he said. “It is my melancholy duty to approve — or veto — all trips to and from Earth by certain persons living in S-space. Do you still wish to visit Earth, as you had requested?”

“Of course we do,” said Elissa. “Will you be going down there with us?” De Vries looked pained. “Hardly. My dear young lady, my duties are various and sometimes odd, but they have not to date included the function of tour guide. I can, however, dispose of certain formalities for you that would normally be handled otherwise. When were you last in normal space?”

“Not since we were on the way to Sector Headquarters,” said Peron. He was becoming increasingly uneasy. He had been preparing himself for a great clash with the secret rulers of the Immortals, and instead here he was chatting with some apparent bureaucrat.

“Very good,” said de Vries. “Then you can be prepared at once for your visit to Earth. By the way, you will find that the robot services ignore your commands until we have your voice patterns keyed into the station’s computer. That is part of a larger data transfer. It will be complete upon your return here, and we will talk again then. But for the moment you will need my assistance. Command: prepare them for the standard Earth visit.”

“But we don’t — “ Peron stopped. De Vries had disappeared. Then the walls spun about Peron and he caught a glimpse of a long corridor. As the scene steadied again he felt a sharp pain in his thigh. Suddenly it was as though he were back on Whirlygig, experiencing that familiar and disquieting fall into blackness. His last thought was an angry one. It wouldn’t happen again, he had sworn — but it was happening now! Things were out of control. And he had no idea what came next.

Peron and Elissa emerged from the suspense tanks together, into a room filled with a noisy, excited crowd. They knew at once that they were again in normal space — S-space couldn’t offer the sharpness of vision or the bright colors. There was an exhilarating taste to the air, and a feeling of well-being running through their veins. They looked around them curiously.

A loud, metallic voice was booming out directions. “Single file into the cars, please. Take your seats, and don’t overload them — there will be another one along every ten minutes.”

The crowd took little notice, pushing and surging forward down a long broad hall toward a loading area.

“Peron!” Elissa reached out and grabbed hold of his arm. “Keep a grip. We don’t want to be separated now.”

It was like being in a river and swept along by the current. With no effort on their part, they found themselves carried forward into a semicircular chamber and seated on soft benches covered with a warm velvety material. On either side people were grinning at them and staring out of the half-circle of the ports. “Look down!” said a woman next to Elissa. Her accent had peculiar vowel sounds to it, but it was easy to understand. “It’ll give you the shivers. No wonder it’s called Skydown.”

Elissa followed the other’s gesture, and found that the floor beneath their feet was transparent. She was looking directly down toward Earth, following the line of a giant silvery cylinder. As she watched, the doors of the chamber closed and they began a smooth, accelerated descent, their car riding an invisible path along the side of the cylinder.

“Peron.” Elissa leaned close to him so that he could hear her above the clamor. “What’s going on here? Look at them. They’re like the mob at the end of Planetfest. And where are we going?”

Peron shook his head. “It’s our own fault. I realized it as soon as we came out of the tanks there — we should have known we’re no different from anyone else. Don’t you see? Everybody from the planetary colonies and arcologies has been told about Earth since they were small children. They all want to visit. No wonder de Vries was amazed when you asked if he was coming with us — I bet people who live in the Sol system get tired of explaining things to the simpleminded visitors. Better face it, love, we’re just part of the tourist crowd.” Elissa looked around her at the restless, exuberant travellers. “You’re right — but they’re all having fun. You know what? I feel wonderful. I’m going to postpone solving the mysteries of the universe until we get back into orbit.” She grabbed Peron’s arm and pulled him closer. “Come on, misery. Let’s get into the spirit of it. Remember, a week down on Earth will only be five minutes in S-space — they won’t even notice that we’ve gone.”

They bent forward to look down through the floor. Although the cylinder was rushing past them as one continuous blur of motion, Earth was not perceptibly closer. It hung beneath them, a glittering white ball blocking out over fifteen degrees of the sky.

“I wonder how long the journey will be,” Elissa said. She reached out to the miniature information outlet built into the arm of her seat, and switched it on. “Speed, please, and arrival time.”

“Present speed, forty-four hundred kilometers an hour,” said a cheerful voice. The vocal reply system had been chosen with as pleasant and soothing a tone as possible. “Arrival will be three hours and forty-one minutes from now. We are still in the acceleration phase. We have thirty-three thousand four hundred kilometers to go to touchdown.”

“Where will we land?”

“Half a degree south of the equator, on one of the major continents.” Peron was still staring down at the globe beneath them. “This doesn’t look the way I expected — it’s too bright. Why so much cloud cover?”

There was a silence for a split second, as the on-board computer called back up to the synchronous station above them for assistance with the answer. “There is less cloud cover than usual today. You are probably mistaking snow cover for cloud cover.”

“But that would mean there’s snow over two-thirds of the surface!” “Correct.” Again the machine hesitated. “That is not unusual.”

“Earth was not snow-covered in the old days — is this a consequence of the old war?”

“Not at all. It is a result of reduced solar activity.” The information system hesitated for a moment, then went on: “The amount of received radiation from the Sun has declined by a small fraction of a percent over the past fifteen thousand years. The increased glaciation is apparent even from this distance. It is predicted that this Ice Age will persist for at least ten thousand more years, to be followed by an unusually warm period. Within fifteen thousand years there will be partial melting of the polar ice caps, and submergence of most coastal lands.”

Elissa reached out and switched off the set. She looked at Peron. “You don’t mind, do you? I had the feeling it was just getting into its stride. I hate being burbled at — whoever programmed that sequence needs brevity lessons from Kallen.”

Peron nodded his agreement. The view below was enough for their full attention. From the poles almost to the tropics, blue-white shining glaciers coated the land areas. The old outline of the larger land masses was unchanged. Soon Peron could see where the Skyhook was tethered. It met the surface on the west coast of the continent that had been known as Africa. They were descending rapidly toward that touchdown point, a couple of hundred kilometers from the place where the region’s mightiest river flowed to the Atlantic Ocean.

“We ought to decide what we really want to see,” said Elissa. “If we have a choice, I don’t care to travel around in the middle of a mob of sightseers.” “So let’s find out what the options are. Can you stand to have the information service on again for a couple of minutes?”

He touched the switch and spoke into the tiny microphone. “Will we be free to move as we choose when we reach the surface?”

“Of course.” The cheerful but impersonal voice answered at once. “There will be air and ground vehicles at your disposal, and personal information systems to go with you and answer any questions. Your account will automatically be charged for services.”

Elissa looked at Peron. To their knowledge, they had no credit account of any kind. They might have to fight that one with Jan de Vries when they returned from Earth.

“Do you have a site selected?” went on the service computer. “If so, we can schedule something to be available at once upon touchdown.”

“Wait a minute.” Peron turned away from the microphone. “Elissa? Let’s get away from everybody for a while. Maybe we’ll take a look at one typical Earth city, then let’s see some wild country.”

At her nod, Peron relayed their request to the machine. There was the longest silence so far.

“I am sorry,” said the voice at last. “We cannot grant your request.” “It is not permitted?” said Elissa.

“It would be permitted. But the environment you describe no longer exists.” Elissa said, “You mean there is no natural country left, anywhere on Earth?” “No,” said the voice. Peron imagined he could hear an element of surprise in the overall joviality of the machine’s tones. “There is natural country, plenty of it. But there are no towns or cities on Earth.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The steady march of the glaciers had been more effective in the northern hemisphere. In Africa, Australia, and South America, the great oceans had moderated temperatures and checked the spread from polar regions. Occasional snow-free pockets could be found as far as forty degrees south of the equator. But in the north, the glaciers ruled everywhere past latitude thirty-five. Even at Skydown the temperature was chilly. Peron and Elissa emerged from the cable car at the foot of the Beanstalk to bright sunshine and clear skies, but they stood in a blustery east wind that encouraged warm clothing. While most of the visitors headed for a briefing on the sights of Earth, the two took an aircar and flew north.

They spent the first evening on the lush southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea near the ancient site of Tripoli. The information service computer informed them that they had reached the border for true forest land. Farther north, in what had once been Europe, only stunted stands of spruce and juniper persisted, clinging to south-facing slopes.

Night came quickly, sweeping in with a scented darkness across the white sandy beach. The aircar contained two bunks, but they were on opposite sides of the cabin. Peron and Elissa chose to sleep outside, protected by automatic sensors and the car’s warning system. Holding each other close beneath a moonless sky, they watched the wheel of unfamiliar constellations. Against that slow-moving backdrop, the space stations swept constantly overhead, one or more of them always visible. Sleep would not come easily. They whispered for a long time, of Pentecost, Planetfest, and Whirlygig, and of the accident to Peron that had plunged them across light-years and centuries.

The night was full of unfamiliar sounds. There was wind rustling in tall trees, and the steady beat of waves on the seashore. Somewhere to the south a group of animals called to each other, their voices tantalizingly familiar, like humans sobbing and crying out in some foreign tongue. When Peron at last fell asleep, it was to unpleasant dreams. The voices called to him through the night; but now he imagined he could understand their lamenting message.

Your visit to Earth is a delusion. You are hiding from the truth, trying to put off unpleasant actions. But they cannot be put aside. You must return to S-space… and go farther yet.

The next morning they took to the air again and headed north and east into Asia. Two days’ travel convinced Peron and Elissa of two things. Apart from the general location of the land masses, Earth bore no resemblance to the fabled planet described in the old records of Pentecost and the library records on the ship. And there was no chance that they would choose to live on Earth, even if it were to be colonized again in the near future. Pentecost was more beautiful in every way.

They left the information service on all the time. It described a link between the old, fertile Earth of legend and the present wilderness.

The post-nuclear winter had been the first cause of the trouble. It was far more influential as an agent of change than the Ice Age that now held Earth in a frozen grasp. Immediately after the thermonuclear explosions, temperatures below the thick clouds of radioactive dust dropped drastically. Plants and animals that fought for survival in the sunless gloom of the surface did so in a poisoned environment that forced rapid mutation or extinction.

In the air, the birds could not find enough food over the land. A few remaining species skimmed the surface of the tropical seas, competing with sea mammals for the diminished supply of fish. Their high energy-need killed them. The last flying bird on Earth fell from the skies within two years of the thermonuclear blast that obliterated Washington. The penguins alone lived on, moving north from the Antarctic to inhabit the coastlines of South America and Africa. Small colonies of emperor penguins still clung to the shores of the Java Sea and Indonesia.

The larger surface animals — including all surviving members of homo sapiens — were early victims. Long life spans permitted the build-up of lethal doses of radiation in body tissues.

The small burrowers, driven farther underground to seek out deep-lying roots and tubers, fared much better. One circumstance had assisted their survival. The hour of Armageddon came close to the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, at a time when many animals were fat for the winter and preparing for hibernation. They had burrowed deeper and settled in for the hibernal sleep. The ones too far north had never wakened. Others, returning to consciousness in a cold, dark spring, foraged far and wide for food. The lucky ones moved steadily south, to the zone where a pale, sickly sunlight still permitted some plant growth. Of all Earth’s land mammals, only a few small rodents — mice, hamsters, ground squirrels, and woodchucks — lived on to inherit the earth.

Their competition had been formidable. The invertebrates were fighting for their own survival. Insect life dwindled at first, then adapted, mutated, grew, and multiplied. They had always dominated the tropical regions of Earth; now the larger ants and spiders, aided by their formidable mandibles and stings, strove to become the lords of creation.

The mammals took the only paths left to them. The invertebrates were limited in maximum size because of passive breathing mechanisms and their lack of an internal skeleton; and they were cold-blooded. The rodents grew in size to improve their heat retention, developed thick coats and hairy paws, and moved away from the equator to regions where there was no insect competition. Some of them were totally vegetarian, browsing on the sparse, chlorotic plant life that still grew in the dust-filtered twilight. They developed thick layers of blubber, for food storage and insulation. The other survivors became super-efficient predators, preying on their herbivorous relatives. As the nuclear winter slowly ended the insects moved north and south again, away from the tropics. But the mutated mice and woodchucks were ready for them. They had increased in size and ferocity, to become a match for any pre-civilization wolf; and now they wore thick coats of fur and protective fat that rendered impotent the fierce mandibles and poison stings. The insects were a new convenient source of protein. The carnivores followed them back into their tropic habitats, and on to the southern regions.

The changes to animal life on Earth were easiest to see; but the changes to the vegetation were in some ways more fundamental. The grasses were gone; in their place a dwarf form of eucalyptus covered millions of square kilometers with flat, bluish-green leaves. Waving fields of corn and wheat would never be seen again on Earth. Their nourishing seeds had been replaced by the red clusters of berries that hung from every euclypt stem. After being assured that it was safe to do so, Elissa sampled a couple. They were filled with a fatty syrup, and at their center sat an oval, impenetrable seed. The seeds, berries and roots of the euclypts sustained a thriving animal community beneath the foot-high canopy of their leaves, where in the blue-green gloom devolved mice fought finger-long giant ants for the best food and living space.

As they travelled on across the face of an Earth where no vestige of human works remained, Peron became gradually more silent and withdrawn. Elissa assumed that it was a reaction to their surroundings. She was reluctant to interfere with his thoughts. But as they skirted the barren western seaboard of South America, where the continuous line of glaciers stretched down to the Pacific, Peron’s need to discuss his worries became overwhelming.

They had landed in the Andean foothills to watch sunset over the Pacific. Neither spoke as the broad face of Sol, red in the evening twilight, sank steadily past a thin line of clouds far out over the western ocean. Even after the last of the light had faded, they could turn to the east and see the sun’s rays still caught by the summits of high, snow-covered peaks.

“We can’t stay here,” Peron said at last. “Even if we liked it better here than on Pentecost, even if we thought Earth was perfect, we’d have to go back — to S-space.”

Elissa remained silent. She knew Peron. He had to be allowed the time to work his way into a subject, without pressure and with minimal coaxing. That was the way that he had first managed to speak to her of their own relationship, and the way that she had finally learned of his continued doubts over leaving his family to take part in Planetfest.

The last of the light vanished, leaving them sitting side by side on the soft earth next to the aircar. Stars were appearing, one by one, twinkling brightly in the crisp night air.

“We’ve had a great time here,” Peron went on at last, “but for the past two days I’ve had trouble getting a thought out of my head. Remember the colony of mouse-monkeys, the black ones with the fat tails?”

Elissa squeezed his hand without speaking.

“You asked me how the head of the colony could control the others so easily,” he continued. “He didn’t seem to fight them, or bully them, or try to dominate them at all. But they climbed the trees, and brought him food, and groomed him, and he didn’t even have to move to live in comfort. Well, for some reason that reminded me of something my father said to me when I was only ten years old. He asked me, who controlled Pentecost? He said that was the third most important question to answer in a society, and the most important ones were, how did they control, and why did they control? If you knew all three, masters, mechanisms, and motives, you were in a position to make changes.”

“Did he ever tell you the answers?”

“He never knew them. He spent his life looking. The answers were not on Pentecost — we know now that the true controllers of Pentecost are the Immortals, with the cooperation of a nervous planetary government. They control through superior knowledge, and they use the planet — so they say — as a source of new Immortals. Those ideas were beyond my father’s imaginings. But he was right about the important questions.”

Elissa stirred at his side. She was lightly dressed, and the air was cold on her bare arms, but she was reluctant to suggest a move.

“I finally tried to ask the important questions myself,” said Peron at last. “Not about Pentecost — about the Immortals themselves. They have a well-developed society. But who runs it? How, and most of all why? At first I thought we had the answer to the first question: the Immortals were run from The Ship. As soon as I was in S-space, I found that wasn’t true. Then I thought we would have the answer at Sector Headquarters. But we learned that was false — headquarters is nothing but an administrative center with a switching station and cargo pickup point for travelling starships. So what next? We decided control had to be back at Sol, and we came here. But we have no more answers. Who runs the show in the Sol system? Not Jan de Vries, I’ll bet my life on it. He’s a good follower, but he’s not a leader. And even if we find out who, that still leaves how and why.” “So what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. Look harder, I suppose. Elissa, we’ve been on Earth for nearly five days now. How do you feel?”

“Physically? I feel absolutely wonderful. Don’t you?”

“I do. Do you know why?”

“I’ve wondered. I think maybe part of the reason is our ancestry. We come from millions of years of adaptation to Earth as the natural environment — gravity, air pressure, sunlight. We ought to feel good here.”

“I know all that. But Elissa, I think there’s another reason. I think everything is relative, and we had spent over a month in S-space before we came here. I’ll tell you my theory, and it’s one that makes me uncomfortable. I think that S-space isn’t right for humans, in ways that we haven’t been told.” “Even though we will live many times as long there? I don’t just mean long in S-time, I mean live subjectively longer. Doesn’t that suggest S-space is good for our bodies?”

Peron sighed. Elissa didn’t know it, but she was presenting arguments to him that he had wrestled with for days, and found no satisfactory answers. “It looks that way. It seems so logical: we live longer there, so it must be good for us. But I don’t believe it. Think of the way you feel. S-space didn’t give you the same sense of vitality. Think of our love-making. Wasn’t it wonderful on Pentecost, and hasn’t it been even better in the last few days on Earth?”

Elissa reached out and ran her fingers gently up Peron’s thigh. “You know the answer to that without asking. Be careful now, or you’ll give me ideas.” He placed his hand gently over hers, but his voice remained thoughtful and unhappy. “So you agree, some things just don’t feel right in S-space. We’ve known that, deep inside, but I assumed it was all part of the adjustment process. Now I feel just as sure that’s not the case. And everybody who has lived in S-space for any length of time must know it, too.”

Peron rose slowly to his feet. Elissa followed suit, and they both stood there for a few moments, shivering in the seaward night wind sweeping off the snowy eastern peaks.

“Suppose you’re right,” said Elissa. “And you have me fairly well persuaded. What can we do about it?”

Peron hugged her close to him, sharing their warmth; but when he spoke his voice was as cold as the wind. “Love, I’m tired of being manipulated, and I’m tired of blind guesswork. We must go back to orbit now. We must stop allowing ourselves to be fobbed off with sweet reasonableness and bland answers, from Olivia, or Jan de Vries, or anyone else. And we have to push as hard as we can for the real answers about S-space civilization: who, how, and why?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

At Elissa’s insistence, they set a meeting with Sy as their first priority on returning to orbit and to S-space. Elissa agreed with Peron’s ideas, but she wanted Sy’s unique perspective on them.

Their journey back up the Beanstalk took place in a totally different atmosphere from the trip down. The cable car was as crowded as ever, but the travellers were subdued, the mood somber. After a few days on the surface, everyone had sensed at some deep level that Earth was now alien, a world so affected by wars and changing climate that permanent return there was unthinkable. Humanity had left its original home. There would be no going back. The travellers looked down at the planet’s glittering clouds and snow cover, and said their mental farewells.

Olivia Ferranti had mentioned that few people made more than one visit to Earth. Now Peron and Elissa knew why.

When they arrived at the set of stations that formed the upper debarkation point of the Beanstalk, Elissa queried the information system for Sy’s location. While she did so, Peron prepared to transfer them back to S-space. It proved surprisingly easy. Since almost everyone returning from a visit to Earth moved at once back to S-space, the procedure had been streamlined to become completely routine. Peron gave their ID codes, and was quickly offered access to a pair of suspense tanks.

“Ready?” he said to Elissa.

She was still sitting at the information terminal. She shook her head and looked puzzled. “No. Not ready at all. Hold off on booking us into the tanks.” “What’s the problem? Can’t you find Sy.”

“I found him — but he isn’t in S-space any more. He moved to normal space even before we did.”

“You mean he went down to Earth, too?”

“Not according to the information service. He’s been here all the time we were on Earth. And he left S-space a quarter of an S-hour before we did — so that means he’s been in normal space for over twenty days!”

“What’s he been doing?”

Elissa shook her head again. “Lord knows. That information isn’t in the computer bank. But he was last reported on one of the stations here in the synchronous complex. If we want to get our heads together with his, there’s no point in going to S-space yet.”

Peron cancelled the suspense tank request. “Come on then. I don’t know how to do it, but we have to discover some way to track him down.”

That task proved easier than Peron had imagined. Sy had made no attempt to conceal his whereabouts. He had lived in one room for the whole time, with an almost continuous link to the orbiting data banks and central computer network. He was sitting quietly at a terminal when Elissa and Peron slid open his door. He took his eyes away from the screen for a second and nodded to them casually. “I’ve been expecting you for a few days now. Give me a moment to finish what I’m doing.”

Elissa looked curiously around the small room. It was a one-fifth gee chamber, with few material signs of Sy’s presence. The service robots had cleared away all food and dishes, and there were no luxury or entertainment items. The bed looked unused, and the small desk top was completely empty. Sy was neatly groomed, clean-shaven and dressed in tight-fitting dark clothes.

“No hurry,” she said. She sat herself down calmly on the bed.

“Got a message from Kallen,” said Sy, without taking his eyes off the screen. “Lum and Rosanne are delayed, won’t be here as soon as they thought. How was Earth?”

“Thought-provoking.” Peron seated himself next to Elissa, and waited until Sy had completed data storage, signed off, and swung to face them. “You ought to make a trip there, Sy. It’s something you’d never forget.”

“I thought of it,” said Sy. “Then I decided I had higher priorities. Plenty of time for Earth later — it won’t go away.”

“But what are you doing here, in normal space?” asked Elissa. “According to the information service, you’ve been here forever.”

“Twenty-six days.” Sy grinned. “You know what’s wrong with S-space? You can’t get anything done there in a hurry. I had things I wanted to do, and things I wanted to know — fast — and I wasn’t sure that our Immortal friends would give permission. So I came here. I’ve been here for only nineteen minutes of S-time. By the time they register the fact that I’ve gone, I’ll be all finished.” “I had the same feeling,” said Peron. “We’re too slow in S-space. We have a lot less control over what happens to us there. But finished doing what?” “Several things. First, I’ve been testing Kallen’s Law — my name for it, not his. Remember what he said? ‘Anything that can be put into a data bank by one person can be taken out of it by another, if you’re smart enough and have enough time.’ That’s one problem with a computer-based society, and one reason why computers were so tightly controlled on Pentecost: it’s almost impossible to prevent access to computer-stored information. I decided that if there were another headquarters for the Immortals, and one that they preferred not to talk about, there must be clues to its location somewhere in the data banks. Well-hidden, sure, but they should be there. Is there a secret installation, and if so, where is it? Those were two questions I set out to answer. And I had another thing that worried me. When we met the Gossameres and Pipistrelles, Ferranti said that the Immortals couldn’t really communicate with them. But she did communicate with them, even if they didn’t send a message back. And I couldn’t be sure that was true, either. Suppose they did send a message? — we don’t know what the ship was receiving. I’m afraid I don’t have an answer yet to that one. I’ve been working here flat out, but it takes time.”

“Do you mean you have answered the other questions?”

“Think so.” Sy cradled his left elbow thoughtfully in his right hand. “Wasn’t easy. There’s a pretty strong cover-up going on. None of the data that’s available for the usual starship libraries will tell you a thing. I had to get there by internal consistency checks. What do you make of these data base facts? First, the official flight manifests show one hundred and sixty-two outbound trips initiated from Sol in the past S-month. The maximum fuel capacity of any single ship is 4.4 billion tons. And the fuel taken out of supplies in the Sol system in the past S-month is 871 billion tons. See the problem? I’ll save you the trouble of doing the arithmetic. There is too much fuel being used — enough for a minimum of twenty-six outbound flights that don’t show on the manifests.” “Did you check other periods?” asked Peron.

Sy looked at him scornfully. “What do you think? Let’s go on. This one is suggestive, but not conclusive. The navigation network around the Sol system is all computer controlled, and it’s continuously self-adapting to changing requirements. Generally speaking, the most-travelled approach routes to Sol are the ones with the most monitoring radars and navigation controls. The information on the placement of radars is available from the data banks, so you can use it to set up an inverse problem: Given the disposition of the equipment, what direction in space is the most-travelled approach route to and from Sol? I set up the problem, and let the computers grind out an answer. When I had it I was puzzled for days. The solution indicated a vector outward from Sol that seemed to lead nowhere at all — not to any star, or toward any significant object. It pointed at nothing. I was stuck.

“I put that to one side and chased another thought. Suppose there were a hidden Headquarters somewhere in space. It would communicate with the Sol system, not just with the ships — they only travel at a tenth of light-speed — but with radio signals, too. There are thousands of big antennae and phased arrays scattered all around the Sol system, and the computers keep track of their instantaneous pointings. So I accessed that pointing data base, and I asked the computer a question: Of all the places that the antennae and arrays point to, what direction was pointed to most often? Want to guess the answer?”

“The same one as you got from the navigation system solution,” said Peron. “That’s wild. But damn it, how does it help? You have the same mystery.” “Not quite.” Sy looked unusually pleased with himself. For the first time, Peron realized that even Sy liked to have an appreciative audience for his deductions. “You’re right in one way,” Sy went on. “I got the same answer as from the navigation system solution. I had a vector that pointed to nothing. But there’s one other thing about the antennae. The computer points them all very accurately, but of course they’re scattered all over the solar system, from inside the orbit of Mercury to out past Saturn. So if you want to beam a message to a precise point in space, rather than merely in a specified direction, each antenna would be aimed along a slightly different vector. In other words, the computer pointing must allow for parallax of the target. So I took the next step. I asked if there was parallax on the previous solution, for the most common antennae pointings, and if so, what was the convergence point? I got a surprising answer. There is parallax — it’s small, only a total of a second of arc — and the convergence point is twenty-eight light-years from Sol, in just the direction I’d determined before. But when you check the star charts and the positions of kernels and hot collapsed bodies, there’s nothing there. Nothing. The antennae are aimed at the middle of nothing. I called that place Convergence Point, just for lack of a better name. But just what place is it? That was the question. And that’s where I stuck again, for a long time. Know what finally gave me the answer?”

Elissa was sitting on the bed, her expression dreamy. “Olivia Ferranti. Remember what she told us — ‘You can’t learn all about the Universe crouching in close by a star.’ And you, Sy, you said maybe you should be looking at nothing to find new mysteries, rather than at the center of the galaxy. Convergence Point is a nothing point.”

Sy was looking at her in amazement. “Elissa, I was asking a rhetorical question. You’re not supposed to give me the right answer. How the devil did you work it out?”

Elissa smiled. “I didn’t. You gave it away yourself. You’ll never be a good liar, Sy, even though your face doesn’t give you away. It was your choice of words. Even before you knew the distance, the twenty-eight light-years, you said several times that the antennae were pointing ‘at nothing.’ But you couldn’t know there was no dark object there, if you went out far enough. And from your voice, it was the ‘nothing’ that was important, not the coordinates of the target point.”

Sy looked at Peron. “She’s a witch. If she reads you like that, you’ll never keep any secrets from her. All right, Elissa, take it one step farther. Can you tell me what’s so special about that particular nothing?”

Elissa thought for a few moments, then shook her head. “No data.” “That’s what I thought, too. How can nothing be special? But then I remembered what else Olivia Ferranti said: ‘You have to know what’s going on out in deep space.’ So I asked myself, what is deep space? I went back to the star charts and the kernel coordinates, and I asked the computer another question: Give me the coordinates of the point of open space within one hundred light-years of Sol that is farthest from every known material body. Uncertainties in our knowledge of distances make the answer slightly ambiguous, but the computer gave back only two candidates. One is ninety-one light-years away; half a year’s trip, even in S-space. The other is — no prizes for guessing — just twenty-eight light-years from Sol, in the right direction. Convergence Point is a real nothing point. Communication time: five S-days.”

Sy called a holographic starscape display on to the space in front of them. He moved the 3-D pointer to an empty location within the star field. “Would you like to visit the real power center of the Immortals? Then I say that’s where you want to be. Nowhere Station. S-space travel time: less than two months.” Elissa looked puzzled. “But Sy, why would anyone build a Headquarters out there, in the middle of nowhere?”

Sy shook his head. “I can’t answer that.”

Peron was still staring at the display. “We may have to go there to find out. And it won’t be easy. You can be sure that the Immortals don’t want us there — they don’t even want us to know the place exists. You’ve solved the ‘where’ puzzle, Sy, I feel sure of it. But that just leaves a bigger problem: how can we find a way to make the trip, when the whole system is set up to prevent it?”

Sy looked smug. “I told you I’ve been working hard. If we want to make an S-space trip out to Convergence Point, I’ve identified the major problems we’ll have to solve. Solving them, now — that’s another matter, and I’ll need help.” He called out a numbered list onto the display. “First, we have to find the departure time and place of the next starship to Convergence Point. Second, we have to find a way to get ourselves onto that departing starship — preferably in a way no one else will notice. Third, we have to explain our absence, so that no one wonders where we have gone. Fourth, we’ll have to do something with the ship’s crew. Fifth, before we get there we’ll need a plan of action for what we’ll do when we reach Convergence Point. Where do you want to begin?” “Can’t we put the crew in cold sleep and take them with us?” asked Elissa. “That’s my thought. It won’t do them any harm, and it’s a lot better than leaving them somewhere in the Sol system. I’m confident that we can handle the mechanics of the ship — the service robots do almost everything, and we learned the rest on our trip from Cassay. The other problems are not so easy. I’d like your thoughts.”

“The third one — explaining our absence,” said Elissa. “All we need is enough time to get us well on our way to our real destination. Once we’re gone, they’ll never catch us.”

“That’s true. But we don’t want them to know where we’re going. If they find out, they’ll send a radio signal to warn Headquarters we’re coming their way.” “Why should they learn where we’re heading? Jan de Vries already implied that we’re more of a nuisance to him than anything else. If we can show we’ve departed for a plausible place, I don’t think he’ll take much interest. Pentecost would be a natural — it was our home. The most I would expect him to do would be to warn them to watch for our arrival. Can you do a fake data bank entry, indicating that we are shipping out for Pentecost?”

Sy shrugged. “I can try. One nice thing about the information system, it doesn’t expect the sort of changes we’ll be making. The logic is protected against the usual screw-ups and programmer meddling, but not against systematic sabotage. I’ll do it. I’ve learned the software pretty well in the past few weeks.” “Well enough to answer your first question?” asked Peron. “You said it, Sy — the information about starship departure has to be in the data banks somewhere. It’s just a question of finding it. But if anybody can pull it out, you can.” Sy grimaced. “Not without a long, horrible grind.”

“It would be for me or Elissa — but you’ll come up with a smart approach to it.” “Cut out the flattery.”

“I’m serious. And if you can do it, find out when and where. I think I have the key to the problem of how we get on board the starship.”

Sy frowned. “Do you, now? What have I missed?”

“You lack one piece of information. Elissa and I learned this the hard way, and we can vouch for it: there is no way that the crew will stay in S-space for the acceleration phase of their journey. It’s just too damned uncomfortable. They’ll be in cold sleep when the journey begins. See what that means?” He pulled the terminal entry pad closer. “Let me sketch an approach. Then we can look at some timings.”

“T MINUS 4 MINUTES, COUNTDOWN PROCEEDING,” said a disembodied voice. “ — FUEL MASS CHECK IN PROCESS.”

“ — THRUST PROTOCOL COMPLETE.”

“ — CARGO CHECK PROCEEDING.”

“ — OUTBOUND TRAJECTORY TO GULF CITY CONFIRMED AND APPROVED.”

The mechanical voices chimed in one after another. Ward Lunga, ship’s pilot, lay quietly in the suspense tank. He was watching the displays, chatting to co-pilot Celia Deveny and listening with half an ear to the robotic checklist. Full attention was unnecessary. Anomalies would be separately flagged and reported to them.

“T MINUS 180 SECONDS, COUNTDOWN PROCEEDING,” said the voice.

“ — MECHANICAL SYSTEM CHECKS COMPLETE.”

The starship Manta floated in stable orbit about Sol, hovering at a Saturnian Trojan Point. Final countdown for departure was nearly complete.

The nav displays showed a thrust profile that would carry the Manta from the middle Solar System direct to Gulf City, twenty-eight light-years away. The ship still floated in freefall, but in three S-minutes that would be changed to an accelerated outbound trajectory.

“ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS CHECK COMPLETE.”

“ — FUEL MASS CHECK COMPLETE.”

The final few hundred million tons of fuel had now been transferred; the mobile tank was swinging away under robot control toward Sol.

“ANOMALY! CARGO PORT ANOMALY,” said a voice suddenly. “CARGO PORT SEVEN OPEN.” Lunga grunted in surprise. “Damn. All that cargo should have been in and secured by now. Command: display Port Seven.”

Two views of Cargo Port Seven showed on the displays. Lunga looked at them closely. “Bloody thing looks shut to me. Everything else reports normal — see anything odd there, Celia?”

“Not a thing.” She threw a pair of switches. “Command: repeat status check, Cargo Port Seven.”

“CARGO PORT SEVEN CONDITION: CLOSED AND NORMAL. ALL CARGO DELIVERY PODS MOVING NOW TO SAFE RANGE. ALL CARGO SECURE AND BALANCED.”

“ — T MINUS 120 SECONDS, COUNTDOWN PROCEEDING.”

“ — TRANSITION TO COLD SLEEP BEGINS IN THIRTY SECONDS UNLESS ALTERNATE SIGNAL PROVIDED TO CENTRAL CONTROL.”

Ward Lunga’s finger hovered over the button. He hesitated. Unless he took action in the next half minute, the system would initiate the crew’s descent from S-space to cold sleep. “Command: repeat all checks and report any anomalies in condition.”

There was a fraction of a second’s pause. “ALL CHECKS REPEATED. NO ANOMALIES OBSERVED, ALL SYSTEMS ARE READY FOR FLIGHT DEPARTURE.”

“ — T MINUS 100 SECONDS, COUNTDOWN PROCEEDING.”

Lunga moved his hand away from the abort button. He took a last look at the displays, then lay back full-length in the suspense chamber. He started to sit up again, then changed his mind and allowed his body to relax in the tank. The gentle hissing of vapors that would initiate the first phase for cold sleep was already beginning. Time to let the computers and the robots take over, and wake again at Gulf City…

Outside the tank, three figures flickered through the interior of Manta. Peron, Sy, and Elissa were moving cautiously, but to an observer in S-space they went too fast for the eye to follow. The two-hundred-meter length of the ship from cargo hold to control room was traversed in less than an eighth of an S-second, in a flashing blur too rapid for comprehension. The biggest obstacle to even greater speed was the service robots, trundling haphazardly along in their assigned tasks at a slow walking speed.

Ninety-nine S-seconds before launch, they were standing outside the suspense chamber. As a first priority, there must be enough spare tanks to accommodate three extra travellers in cold sleep. If not, there was still time to recall a cargo pod and make their exit from the Manta.

“T MINUS NINETY SECONDS” — the three intruders were now familiar with all the main controls of the ship, had assured themselves of the ship’s immediate destination, and confirmed the trip travel time to the fraction of a second. “T MINUS EIGHTY SECONDS” — after a meal and a four-hour rest period, Sy, Elissa and Peron adjusted the cold sleep settings for the ship’s crew and prepared three unoccupied suspense tanks.

“T MINUS SEVENTY SECONDS” — Sy sent coded messages to Kallen, Lum and Rosanne, one to Earth and one to Paradise, explaining what was happening.

“How confident are you that they’ll know there’s a hidden signal?” asked Peron. “If Kallen receives it, no question.” Sy had smiled grimly. “Sometimes I think he’s as smart as I am. If they can’t find a way to follow us, I expect they’ll send us a message. Want to bet on it with me?”

“Not today.”

“T MINUS SIXTY SECONDS” — every contingency had been checked. Now it was time to settle into their cold sleep chambers, next to the crew members.

“These tanks are set to wake us one S-minute before arrival at Gulf City,” said Peron. “They’ll still be asleep. Sy, are you sure you changed the deceleration profile so that we’ll be in freefall when we wake?”

“Trust me.”

Peron lay in his suspense tank; for the thousandth time his mind ran over the same event sequence. The three of them had reviewed it together until it was totally familiar to each of them.

Arrival time minus one S-minute: They would wake in normal space during the ship’s final approach to Gulf City. One S-minute would give them a little more than one normal day for possible changes to final plans. The Immortals in Gulf City should be in S-space, and unable to formulate a timely response. Arrival in Gulf City; next came control of the service robots. Control of Gulf City itself would follow.…

The cold sleep vapors were hissing about him, and he could feel the cool and unpleasant touch of catheters on his arms and chest. Nothing more to be done now, except to sleep; and wake at Gulf City.

Peron closed his eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Peron opened his eyes, to the immediate knowledge that something had gone terribly wrong.

He should have been in normal space. He was not. The blurred outlines of the objects around him, and their muted colors, told him at once that he was in S-space. And he was no longer in the snug confines of the Manta’s suspense tanks.

He tried to sit up, but could not do it. He was secured by broad straps to the bed that supported him. Worse, he had no feeling or muscular control below the neck. He turned his head desperately from side to side and saw that Elissa lay on his right, with Sy just beyond her. Sy was already fully conscious, looking about him thoughtfully. Elissa’s eyes were just beginning to blink open. Where in Heaven’s name were they? He craned his head forward, and as he did so there was a soft whir of machinery. The bed he lay on was tilting to a semi-upright position, and he was gradually able to see more of his surroundings.

He was in a long, gray-walled room with no windows. Bare shelves lined the walls, and the only other furnishings were three hard-backed chairs, arranged to face the beds. The whole room had a seedy look, of an area poorly maintained. On the chairs, eyeing him curiously, sat three people: a short, powerfully built man with hot, tawny eyes, and two women. One woman was black-skinned, tall, and angular, but at the same time graceful. The other was tiny, plump, and fair. Peron guessed that they were in their thirties, the man a few years younger. “Very good,” said the shorter woman unexpectedly. “All present and correct. I think we may begin.”

Peron caught his first glimpse of her eyes, and it was like a plunge into cold water. They were brown and wide-set, and in them was a disconcerting power and intensity. He felt as though she could see right through him. The forehead above the alert eyes showed a faint but extensive pattern of fine white scars, running up into the hairline.

“You are probably feeling quite surprised,” the woman went on. She turned her attention to Sy, and stared at him closely. He gazed back, the usual expression of cynical abstraction on his face.

“Or maybe not,” she said at last. “But maybe a little disoriented. So let me begin by telling you that you are exactly where you wanted to be. This is Gulf City — your ‘Convergence Point,’ which I rather like as a fitting name for this location. This is also our main Headquarters. You have arrived. No longer need you imagine other gates, still to be passed through.”

Peron looked at Sy, but the other remained silent. He would be performing his own evaluation, and until that was complete he was unlikely to speak. “What happened?” said Peron at last. As usual in S-space, speech was a problem. And there was something in the woman’s super-confident tones that was irksome. “How did we get here?”

“You found your own way here,” said the woman. “Everything else is of lesser importance. Jan de Vries told us about the three of you, and said you had the potential; but we were all surprised — and delighted — at how quickly you came. Only one or two people finagle their way to Gulf City every Earth-year. Three at once is a bonanza.”

“You mean you wanted us to come?”

“Anyone who can find the way to Gulf City is welcome. There is a natural selection process at work. If you lack the necessary qualities, you will never overcome the intellectual and physical barriers, and you will never reach this place.”

“You were playing with us,” Peron said bitterly. He was feeling sick with the sense of failure. “Watching all our moves. When we thought we were so clever sneaking aboard the Manta, you knew we were there all along.”

“We did not.” The woman’s voice carried conviction. “The crew of the Manta is in cold sleep recovery — they still have no idea of your presence on board their ship. Your actual departure from the Sol system also went unobserved. And you made a team of technicians there work for many weeks, eliminating the data system weaknesses that you discovered and ingeniously exploited. You walked through the Sol checkpoints and safeguards. Jan de Vries was appalled at how inadequate you made them seem. You should certainly feel no shame. But we find it expedient to employ our own security system in Gulf City. As I’m sure you know, S-space inhabitants are highly vulnerable to actions in ordinary space. We inspect all approaching ships ourselves, during deceleration, long before they are allowed to dock here.”

Peron realized that Elissa was now fully conscious next to him, and listening intently. “Just who are you?” he said. “And what do you mean, you want us here? Why do you want us?”

“One question at a time.” The woman smiled, and it transformed her face. She no longer looked austere and unsympathetic. “Introductions first: you are Peron of Turcanta, Elissa Morimar, and Sy Day of Burgon.” Her eyes went again to Sy, and there was another long moment of locked gazes. “The Pentecost troublemakers — but also the first people from your planet ever to reach Gulf City. My congratulations. As for us” — she touched the stocky man lightly on the shoulder — “this is Wolfgang Gibbs, Manager of Gulf City. This is Charlene Bloom, my special assistant. And I am Judith Niles.” She smiled again. “I am Director General of Gulf City, and of all Immortal operations. Lie quiet for one moment longer.”

She moved forward and looked at their faces. Then she studied the dials set into the head of the three beds for a second or two, and nodded. “I think we can return you to free mobility. The precautions were for your sakes as much as ours. Command: release these three.”

The straps around Peron at once went loose, and after a second he felt a painful tingling in his limbs and the return of full sensation. He slid forward and stood, making sure of his balance.

“You are impatient for answers,” went on Judith Niles. “As I would be. Very well, we will not disappoint you. Wolfgang, will you begin the explanations and tour? Please summon me at the appropriate time.”

She touched a setting at her belt, and vanished. A moment later Charlene Bloom was gone also. Wolfgang Gibbs stood looking quizzically at Sy, Elissa and Peron. “Well. That’s real nice.” He sniffed. “Yeah. JN says you can go free, then she and Charlene go back to work — so I have to handle you on my own when you go homicidal. All right, then, I’ll trust you. If you feel up to a little walk, we’ll take the old guided tour.”

Wolfgang Gibbs turned casually and ambled toward the door of the room. After a single look at each other, the other three followed.

“We could use the service robots to move us around,” Gibbs said over his shoulder. “I’d normally do that. But if we did, you’d get no feel for the Gulf City layout. Better to do it on your two feet, then you’ll know where everything is for future reference. We’ll begin with the outside.”

“Where are you taking us?” said Elissa, falling into step at his side, while Peron and Sy trailed along behind.

He looked at her appreciatively. To Peron’s annoyance he seemed to be making a close inspection of her face and figure. “Lookout Point. It’s the place where the galactic observations are done — the whole galaxy and beyond. We do a lot of listening and looking in Gulf City. That’s why we’re here, light-years from anywhere you’d ever choose to be. You’ll notice a lot fewer service robots here than usual, and fewer mechanical gadgets. We put up with the mess. When you’ve come all this way to find a quiet place to listen, you don’t want to clutter up the observational signals with your own electronic garbage.”

He led the way along a radial corridor that ran for more than a kilometer outward. The size of Gulf City began to make an impression on the other three. By the time they reached Lookout Point they were moving in total silence, making mental notes of everything they saw. The whole of Gulf City was girded with antennae, telescopes, interferometers, and signal devices. Dozens of exterior ports showed the same blank white of S-space, but screens on the interior walls performed frequency conversions for display. They could observe open interstellar space as it looked at every wavelength range, from hard X-ray to million-kilometer radio waves.

Wolfgang Gibbs paused for a long time in front of one screen. “See that?” he said at last. He tapped the display, where a faint, crablike shape showed dark against a lighter background. “That dark, spirally blob? That’s one of the main reasons we’re here at Gulf City. We’ve been watching them for fifteen thousand Earth years. I’ve been studying them myself for half that time — I came here four S-years ago, with Charlene Bloom.”

“What are they?” asked Sy. His taciturn manner was gone, and there was a febrile excitement in his voice. “That screen shows signals at ultra-long radio frequencies — I didn’t know anything radiated there, except the Gossameres and Pipistrelles that we saw on the way to Earth.”

Wolfgang lost his detached and casual manner. He looked hard at Sy. “Quite right, sport. We started with the same idea. But now we think half the Universe communicates on those long frequencies. Like our friend there. We call that a Kermel Object, but that’s only a name. It’s still a major mystery. We think it’s a sort of big brother to the Gossameres. They all send signals to each other, multi-kilometer wavelengths.”

The displays showed a full three-hundred-and-sixty degree field of view. Sy moved quickly from one to another, checking for the dark, spidery shapes. “The screens show Kermel Objects in all directions,” he said. “How far away are they?”

“Good question,” said Wolfgang. “A long way — a damned long way. We estimate the nearest one at two thousand light-years, and even that nearest one is out of the plane of our galaxy. They’re not galactic objects, generally speaking — they’re intergalactic objects. Unless you get to a quiet place like this, you can’t hope to detect them at all. Come on. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to find out more about the Kermels, but for now I want you to get the ten-cent tour. I’ll tell you one more thing, though: You’re looking at possible intelligence there — and it’s an intelligence that seems to be older than this galaxy.” He continued around the outside of Gulf City, making a circuit that was more than five kilometers long. Sy did not speak again. Elissa asked questions about everything, and Gibbs did his best to answer. Once inside Gulf City, any secrecy toward outside inquirers appeared to vanish.

They saw billions of cubic feet of power generation equipment, and massive drives sufficient to allow Gulf City to cruise where it chose in interstellar space. Near the center of the structure there were food production facilities enough to feed tens of thousands. Most of them stood idle. According to Wolfgang Gibbs, the current population of Gulf City approached seven hundred, though the capacity was more than ten times that.

Finally, after showing them corridor after corridor of living accommodation, Gibbs stopped and shrugged his shoulders. “It will take you a month to see everything, but you should have enough now for a first impression. Take a break, and make yourselves comfortable here. All these suites are fully equipped. The information system will tell you most things about the city that I haven’t covered. I’ll make sure the service robots will accept your voice commands — but don’t expect instant response, we’re always short of service. We have an appointment in JN’s office in three hours. I’ll see you there.”

“Where is that?” asked Elissa.

“Ask the info-system if you want to go there on foot. If you’re feeling lazy, just give the command. If you want me, use the call system.” Wolfgang Gibbs winked at Elissa, manipulated a control on his belt, and vanished. * * *

“So. What do you think?” asked Peron.

Elissa looked up at the ceiling. They were alone at last. Sy had left them a few minutes after Wolfgang Gibbs, saying he needed time to think. Peron and Elissa had wandered for a while along the endless corridors, poking their heads into kitchens, entertainment areas, and exercise rooms. All were deserted. Finally they found a set of living quarters that appealed to them, and decided they might as well move in. Now they were lying side by side on a huge, cloud-soft floor area.

“What do I think?” she said at last. “I think we’re being monitored.” “When in doubt, assume we are. But does it make any difference?”

“I guess not. But I think we’re going to see sparks fly here at the next meeting. Did you notice the way that Sy and the Director General looked at each other?”

“Judith Niles? It was hard to miss it. She’s probably used to a lot of respect. You know old Sy, he’d be rude to the devil.”

“I told him to go easy.” Elissa laughed. “He said she was arrogant.” “Coming from Sy, that’s a bit much. What does he think he is?”

“I told him that. He says that maybe he has ‘the natural suspicion of youth for age’ but that she has the ‘intolerable arrogance of unquestioned authority.’ According to Sy, she’s surrounded by yes-men and yes-women, and she thinks she knows all the answers.”

“When in fact, he does?” Peron was irritated. He was still slightly jealous of Sy — particularly when Elissa sounded admiring.

“No. He says he has a hundred unanswered questions, but he didn’t want to go into them with Gibbs. He’s waiting for a shot at Judith Niles.”

“So am I. But there’s really only one question to be asked. Why does Gulf City exist?”

“You heard what Wolfgang said: to study the Kermel Objects.”

“Sure — but that’s nonsense.” Peron rolled over to face Elissa. “Look, I can imagine a group of pure scientists arguing that it was worth the enormous effort of setting up a research station out here in the Gulf, to decide the nature of the Kermel Objects. But you’ve met Judith Niles. Can you see her swallowing that argument? She’d throw them out of her office in two minutes. I think Sy will ask her the main question — and rather him than me. But if he doesn’t, you and I must do it.”

Peron sounded unhappy but resolute. Elissa said no more, but she snuggled closer to him and took him in her arms.

Almost a mile away, in a secluded area on the other side of Gulf City, Wolfgang Gibbs was engaged in his own secret meeting with Charlene Bloom. They lay side by side in an empty room, in darkness and with all monitors turned off. “You noticed the difference, didn’t you?” he said softly. “I think we caught a new breed of fish this time. Sharks, maybe, instead of guppies.”

“I agree. JN certainly thinks so, too. You could feel the tension between all four of them. Especially with the dark-haired kid — he didn’t give her an inch. I’m not sure I want to be at the next meeting. She’ll have her hands full.” “I sure as hell hope so.” Wolfgang Gibbs smiled bitterly in the darkness. “You know the trouble with the two of us, Charlene? We’re outgunned. JN’s the boss, and we know it, all three. We just can’t argue with her, even when we’re on the right side of the issue. She has too much firepower. I’m sick of this place, and I’m beginning to hate S-space life, but I still can’t tell her I want out.” “You mean leave? Leave Gulf City and JN completely?” Charlene Bloom pulled away from him. “We couldn’t do that. We’ve all been together since the beginning.” “Yeah. And that’s too long. Over fifteen years, most of them in S-space. God, Charlene, don’t you think we need a new look at things here? And I don’t believe we can provide it. Maybe those three kids can. You and I should be off, out to pasture, running a planet contact group or a Sector Headquarters. Maybe we should go to Pentecost, where they came from.”

“Did you tell them about their three friends?”

Gibbs scowled and shook his head. “Not yet. I couldn’t do it. They’re expecting them to roll up here at Gulf City. I’m leaving it to JN to break the news. They’ll hear it soon enough. That’s going to be hard for them.”

There was a long silence.

“Wolfgang?” said Charlene at last.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry you feel the way you do.” Her voice was unhappy and tentative. “I know it’s frustrating here, sometimes. But I’ve been very happy, all these years. I know my limitations. I could never have done what Judith has done, pulling us together and holding us together. Nor could you. And you can say what you like about living in Gulf City, but we’re working on humanity’s biggest problem. If we don’t find a solution, it’s the end of the road for homo sapiens. And if you’re making a sacrifice, JN is making one that’s just as big.” “I know it. But she’s calling the shots. Suppose we’re off on the wrong tack? JN thinks we’re making progress, but as far as I’m concerned we’re in just the same position as when Gulf City was created — that’s over fifteen thousand Earth-years ago. What have we accomplished in all that time? And how long do we have, before it’s all over?”

Charlene did not reply. Wolfgang had sometimes spoken of breaking away from Gulf City, but never before in such strong terms. If he went, what would she do? She could not bear to lose Wolfgang, but also she could not desert her work and Judith Niles.

She was glad of the darkness. And she was more than ever dreading the results of the coming meeting.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Sy hesitated for maybe a minute after leaving Peron and Elissa. Then he moved fast. During their tour of Gulf City they had seen a dozen suspense chambers for movement to and from S-space. Now he headed for the nearest of them and unhesitatingly lowered himself inside one of the tanks. He performed a final check of the monitors to confirm that he was alone and unobserved, then lay back in the casket and initiated the process that would take him to normal space. His eyes closed…

. . . and opened — to find Judith Niles calmly peering in at him through the tank’s transparent cover. She had an unreadable smile on her face, and when he was fully awake she opened the door and helped him out. He looked at her warily. “Come on, Sy Day,” she said. “You and I need to talk, just the two of us. I think my office will feel more comfortable than the chamber here.” And without looking at him she turned and led the way.

She took him toward the main labs of Gulf City, in the very center of the station. Sy soon found himself in a well-appointed set of rooms, with pictures on the walls, shelves of genuine books, and serried ranks of monitors. She waved at them.

“First lesson. I’ll be throwing a lot of lessons at you. Don’t ever assume that you are unobserved in Gulf City. I learned the art of monitoring from a master — the only master I’ve ever known. From here you can watch everything.” She initiated a suite-spin to give an effective gravity about half that of Earth, then sank into an armchair and tucked her feet in under her. She gestured Sy to take a seat opposite. There was a long silence, during which they performed a close inspection of each other.

“Want me to do the talking?” she said at last.

Sy shook his head. “You first, me second. You know I have questions.” “Of course you do.” Judith Niles leaned back and sighed. “I wouldn’t be interested in you if you didn’t. And I think I have some answers. But it has to be a two-way street.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Everything. Cooperation, understanding, brain-power, new ideas — maybe partnership.” She was staring at him with peculiar intensity, eyes wide and unblinking beneath the scarred forehead. “It’s something I haven’t had in all the years since we left Earth. I think you can be a full partner. God knows, we need it. We’re dying for lack of fresh thoughts here. Every time a new arrival finds a way to Gulf City, I’ve waited and hoped.” Her expression had changed, become almost beseeching. “I think you’re different. We can read each other, you and I. That’s rarer than you know. I want you to help me recruit your companions, because I’m not sure I can do that. They’re a stubborn pair. But you think in the same way as I do. I suspected you would come here, to normal space, because it’s exactly what I do myself, when I need quiet time, time to think. You heard that it’s bad to go from normal space to S-space and back too often?” Sy nodded. “That’s what Olivia Ferranti told us. She believes it, but I’m not sure I do. I’ve seen no evidence of it.”

“I don’t think you will. If there are bad effects, they are very subtle.” Judith Niles smiled again, an open smile that lit up her face. “But a system in which people pop into normal space to think is hard to control. You don’t take other people’s word for much, do you?”

“Should I?” Sy’s face was expressionless. “Look, if this is to be more than a waste of time, let’s get to specifics. You’re right, I came here to think before we met with you again. I needed time. Gulf City seemed like a big charade — a place without a plausible purpose. If you want my cooperation, and the cooperation of Peron and Elissa, begin by telling me what’s really going on here — tell me why Gulf City exists.”

“I’ll do better than that.” Judith Niles stood up. “I’ll show you. You can see for yourself. I don’t often have a chance to brag about the work we’ve done here, but that doesn’t mean I’m not proud of it. Put this suit on — we’ll be visiting some cold places.”

She led the way down a long corridor. The first room contained half a dozen people, all frozen in postures of concentration around two beds occupied by recumbent forms.

“Standard S-space lab.” Judith Niles shrugged. “No big mysteries here, and no justification for Gulf City. We still conduct sleep experiments in S-space, but there’s no reason except my personal interests why this has to be here. This is my own lab. I started out in sleep research, back on Earth — it led us to discover S-space. The main center for sleep research is still back in the Sol System, under Jan de Vries. The best protocol we know reduces sleep to about one hour in thirty. Our end objective is still the same: zero sleep.”

She closed the door. Another corridor, another lab, this one entered through a double insulating door. Before they went inside, they sealed their suits. “Temperature here is well below freezing.” Niles spoke over the suit radio. “This one should be more interesting. We discovered it about seven thousand Earth-years ago. Wolfgang Gibbs stumbled across the condition when we were exploring the long-term physiological effects of cold sleep. He calls it T-state.”

The room had four people in it, each sitting in a chair and supported at head, wrists, waist, and thighs. They wore headsets covering eyes and ears, and they did not move.

Sy moved forward and looked at each of them closely. He touched a frozen fingertip, and lifted the front of a headset to peer into an open eye. “They can’t be in S-space,” he said at last. “This room is too cold for it. Are they conscious?”

“Completely. These four are volunteers. They have been in T-state for almost one thousand Earth-years, but they feel as though they entered it less than five hours ago. Their subjective rate of experience is about a two-millionth of normal, roughly one thousandth of the usual S-space rate.”

Sy was silent, but for the first time he looked impressed.

“Mind-boggled?” She nodded. “We all felt the same when Wolfgang showed us. But the real significance of T-state won’t be obvious to you for a little while yet. It’s hard to grasp just how slow time passes there. Let me tell you how Charlene Bloom put it when she and I had our first one-minute experience of T-state: in the time it takes a T-state clock to strike the hour of midnight, Earth would pass through two whole seasons, from winter to spring to summer. A full life on Earth would flash by in half a T-hour. We have no idea of the human life expectancy for someone who remains in T-state, but we assume it’s hundreds of millions of Earth-years.”

“Why the headsets?”

“Sensory perception. Humans in T-state are blind, deaf and dumb without computer assistance. Our sense organs are not designed for light and sound waves of such long wavelength. The headsets do the frequency adjustment. Want to try T-state?” “Definitely.”

“I’ll put you on the roster to spend a few minutes there. That’s enough. Remember the time rate difference — one T-minute costs most of a day in S-space, and nearly four Earth-years.”

Again Judith Niles turned to leave the room. Sy, after a final glance at the four cowled and motionless figures, followed her outside and along another long and dimly lit corridor. He noted approvingly that her energy and concentration remained undiminished.

They finally approached a massive metal door, protected against entry by locks that called for fingerprint, vocal, retinal, and DNA matching. When Sy was cleared by the system and stepped inside, he looked around him in surprise. He had expected something new and exotic, perhaps another frozen lab, full of strange experiments in time-slowing or suspension of consciousness; but this room appeared to be no more than a standard communications complex. And a dusty, poorly maintained one at that.

“Don’t judge by appearances.” Judith Niles had seen his expression. “This is the most important room in Gulf City. If there are any secrets, they’re here. And don’t think that human nature changes when people move to S-space. It doesn’t, and most individuals never question why things are done the way they are in our system. If they do question, they are shown what you are about to see. If not, we don’t force the information on them. This is the place where the oldest records are accessed.”

She sat down at the console and performed a lengthy coded entry procedure. “You should try cracking this, if you think you’re a hot-shot at finding holes in system software. It has six levels of entry protection. Let’s feel our way into the data base gradually. This is a good place to begin.”

She entered another sequence. The screen lit with the soft, uniform white glow characteristic of S-space. After a few moments there appeared on it a dark network of polyhedral patterns, panels joined by silvery filaments. “You’ve seen one of these yourself, I gather. Gossameres and Pipistrelles — possibly the first alien intelligence that humans discovered. We ran into them twenty thousand Earth-years ago, as soon as deep space probes began with S-space crews; but we’re still not sure if they possess true intelligence. Maybe it depends on our definition. Interesting?”

Sy shrugged in a noncommittal way.

“But not that interesting?” Judith Niles touched the control console again. “I agree. Abstractly interesting, but no more than that unless humans learn to set up a real dialog with them. Well, we have tried. We located their preferred output frequencies, and we found that simple signal sequences would drive them away and discourage them from draining our power supplies. But that’s not much of a message, and we never got beyond it. The Gossameres and Pipistrelles proved to be a kind of dead end. But they served one enormously important function. They alerted us to a particular wavelength region. We began to listen on those frequencies anytime we were in deep space and thought there might be a Gossamere around. And that’s when we began to intercept other signals on the same wavelengths — regular coded pulses of low-frequency radiation, with a pattern like this.”

On the screen appeared a series of rising and falling curves, an interlocking sequence of complex sinusoids broken by regularly spaced even pulses. “We became convinced they were signals, not just natural emissions. But they were faint and intermittent, and we couldn’t locate their sources. Sometimes, a ship on an interstellar transit would pick up a signal on the receiver, long enough for the crew to lock an imaging antenna onto the signal source direction. They might receive a faint source image for a while, then they would lose it as the ship moved on. It was tantalizing, but over the years we built up a library of partial, blurred images. Finally we had enough to plug everything into a computer and look for a pattern. We found one. The ‘sightings’ took place only near the midpoints of the trips, and only when the ships were far from all material bodies and signal sources. The signals were received only when we were in deep space — the deeper, the better.

“By then we knew we were seeing something different from Gossameres and Pipistrelles. The new sources were very faint and distant, and the reconstructed image outlines showed a hint of a spiral structure, nothing like those paneled polyhedra. But we were still too short of information. It seemed a fascinating scientific mystery, but not much more. That was when Otto Kermel proposed a series of missions for a long-term search and study of the objects. “I don’t claim or deserve any credit for what happened next. I thought his idea would go nowhere, and gave him minimal resources and support. He did all the pioneer work on his own. We gave him the use of a one-man ship, and he went away to a quiet location about seven light-years from Sol. He argued that the absence of electromagnetic and gravitational fields was essential to studying the objects. Although his first objective was communication with them, he found that a round-trip message to even the nearest of them took two S-years. That limited him, but during his studies he discovered lots of other things.

“First, he found many Kermel Objects, all around the Galaxy. The signals we intercept are not intended for us. We are eavesdroppers on transmissions between the Kermels, and those signals between them are numerous. Based on the length of those transmissions, Otto concluded that the Kermel Objects are immensely old, with a natural life-rate so slow that S-space is inadequate to study them — in thousands of Earth-years, he was receiving only partial signals. Otto claimed that he could partially decode their messages, and he believed that they have been in existence since the formation of the Universe — since before the Big Bang, according to one of his wilder reports. He also suggested that they propagate not by exchange of genetic material, but by radio exchange of genetic information. We have not been able to verify any of those conjectures, and Otto could not provide enough data for convincing proof. What he needed was the T-state, and a chance for more extended study periods on a time scale appropriate to the Kermel Objects. But by an accident of timing, he departed for a second expedition just before the T-state was discovered. And he has never returned.

“By the time he left, though, we had changed our ideas about the practical importance of studying the Kermel Objects. We decided that it is central to the future of the human species. We have continued his work, but without much of his data base. Take a look at this.”

Judith Niles projected another scene onto the display. “Does it seem familiar?” Sy studied it for a second or two, then shrugged. “It’s a picture of a spiral galaxy, looking down on the disk. I’ve no idea which one.”

“Correct. There’s no way you’d recognize it, but it’s this galaxy, seen from outside. That signal was recorded by Otto Kermel, from one of the Objects sitting way up above the galactic plane. And as part of the same signal, this image came with it.” At her keyed command, another picture overlaid the first one. It was the same galaxy, but now the star patterns were shown in different colors. “Keep watching closely. I’m going to zoom.”

The star fields expanded steadily as the field of view moved in to focus on one of the spiral arms. Soon individual stars could be distinguished on the screen. Judith Niles halted the zoom and moved the image to occupy one quadrant of the display. “Once you look at particular stars, you can see what’s going on. The stars in this image have been color-coded according to spectral type. And by looking at the stars in our own stellar neighborhood, it was easy for us to read the code. For instance, Sol is a G-2 V dwarf, and G-types show in pale green. Red giants are magenta, O-type supergiants are purple, and red dwarf stars are shown as orange-yellow.

“There is another important piece of information in this display. Stars don’t sit in fixed positions, they move relative to each other. So by looking at the configuration of stars in the main stellar clusters, you can determine the date of an image. All the evidence was consistent, and told us that this image represented the situation as it was nine hundred thousand Earth-years ago. When Otto Kermel received another signal of the same type, he thought at first that it was just a copy. But it wasn’t. Here it is.”

She brought another image on the screen, placing it in a second quadrant of the display. “For one thing, you can see that the star positions are different. This shows the stellar distribution at a different date. It is still our local arm of the galaxy, but as it was six hundred thousand Earth-years ago. Now watch closely.”

Yet another image appeared in a third quadrant.

“Here’s one which we date at a hundred and fifty thousand years ago. Take a good look at all three — they are the most important pictures in human history.” Sy stared at the screen in silence for a couple of minutes. “Can you display the color key for spectral type again?” he said at last.

Without speaking, Judith Niles flashed a color code onto the screen header. Sy was silent for an even longer period.

“Where’s Sol?” he finally asked.

Judith Niles smiled grimly, and moved the screen cursor to indicate a green star in the field. “That’s Sol, as it was a hundred and fifty thousand years ago; just as it has been for the past few billion years, and as it is today, and as it ought to be a billion years from now.”

Sy nodded. “It hasn’t changed. But you can see there have been changes in the spectral types of other stars. Far too many of them, and far too fast. Stellar evolution is a very slow process.”

“Exactly. And all the changes have been taking place in one direction. I only showed you the situation for three different times, but we have others. We can use them to extrapolate forward. Here” — a new image occupied the final quadrant of the display — “is the local spiral arm, as our projection says it will be a million years from now.”

She moved the cursor to a point of orange-yellow. “And that is Sol.” “But the color code is for a red dwarf star!”

“That’s right. And that’s why we — and you — are here in Gulf City.”

Sy was studying the images. “Red dwarfs. The whole spiral arm is full of red dwarf stars — far too high a proportion of them.” He looked at each image in turn. “This is impossible. There’s no way that stellar types could change so much, and in such a short time. You must be misinterpreting the data.”

“That’s what we thought — at first. Then we began to compare recent star catalogs with ones made in the earliest days of stellar astronomy. There’s no mistake. The main sequence stars in our spiral have been changing. Randomly, with no pattern that we can see, but what used to be spectral classes G and K are becoming class M. We can’t tell when a particular star is likely to change — that’s a guess we made about the future of Sol — but in general — “ “No way!” Sy shook his head vigorously. “Not unless all the astrophysics I learned back on Pentecost is nonsense. It takes hundreds of millions of years at least for a stable star to move from one spectral class to another.” “You know the same astrophysics as we do. And we can only think of one mechanism for change. Class G and class K stars have surface temperatures between about four and six thousand degrees. Class M are more like two to three thousand. You could get those changes in stellar type for dwarf stars, if somehow you could damp the fusion reaction inside them. Lower the internal energy production, and you would lower the overall temperature.”

Sy looked frustrated. “Maybe. But can you suggest any process that could possibly do that? I know of none.”

“Nor do we. No natural process. That keeps leading us to one unpleasant conclusion. The information we’ve received from the Kermel Objects is true — we’ve done other checks on changes in stellar types. And there’s no natural way for these changes to happen. So: some other entity, living in our spiral arm of the galaxy, prefers stars of lower temperature and luminosity.”

“You mean something or someone is inducing reduced fusion reactions through the spiral arm — intentionally.”

“I mean exactly that.” Judith Niles’ forehead filled with frown lines, and she looked a dozen years older. “It’s a frightening conclusion, but it’s the only one. I don’t think the Kermel Objects are doing this, even though they seem to know a lot about it. We have some evidence that suggests they understand the whole process, and they certainly seem able to predict the rate of change in the spiral arm. But I believe the action doesn’t originate with them. What we’re seeing is the work of another species, one more like ourselves — one that has no use for the deep space preferred by Gossameres or Kermel Objects. These other creatures want to live near a star. A red, low luminosity star.”

She cleared the display, leaned back, and closed her eyes. “A long time ago humans talked of terraforming Mars and Venus, but we never did it. Just too busy blowing ourselves up, I guess, ever to get round to it. Now maybe we’ve met someone more rational and more ambitious than we were. What we are seeing is stellarforming. If it goes on, and if we don’t understand it and find out how to stop it, in another million years this whole spiral arm will have few G-type stars. That will mean the end of human planetary colonies. Eventually, that will be the end of humans. Finis.”

Judith Niles paused. She switched off all the displays.

“We think the Kermel Objects hold the key,” she said softly. “Now do you see why we’re living out here in the middle of nowhere, and why S-space and T-state are so important? In normal space, a million years used to seem like forever. But I expect to be alive, ten thousand Earth-centuries from now.”

Sy wore an expression that Peron and Elissa would have found unfamiliar. He seemed uneasy, and lacking in confidence. “I read it wrong. I thought the reason for being here in Gulf City was safety from outside interference, and control of S-space. The whole advantage of being an ‘Immortal’ was presented to us as increased subjective life span — but now I wonder about that.”

“You are right to do so. We have life-extension methods available, ones that came out of S-space research and allow increased life span in normal space. And probably they will let the subject enjoy life more keenly, too. But you can’t solve the problem thrown at us by the Kermel Objects unless you can work on it for a long time. That means Gulf City, and it means S-space.” She stood up. “Will you work on this? And will you help me to persuade your friends to do the same?”

“I’ll try.” Sy hesitated. “But I still need to think. I’ve not had the thinking time that I wanted when I headed for the tanks.”

Judith Niles nodded. “I know. But I wanted you to do your thinking with a full knowledge of what’s going on here. You have that. I’ll head back now. This chamber is self-locking when you leave. And as soon as you’re ready to do it, let’s meet again with your friends.” Now she hesitated, and her expression matched Sy’s for uneasiness. “There’s something else to be discussed, but it’s on another subject. And I want to do it when all of you are together.” She gave him a worried smile and headed for the door. For the first time, Sy could see her as a lonely and vulnerable figure. The power and intensity of personality were still there, unmistakable, but they were muted, overlain with an awareness of a monstrous unsolved problem. He thought of the splendid confidence with which the Planetfest winners had lifted off from Pentecost. They had the shining conviction that any problem in the galaxy would fall to their combined attack. And now? Sy felt older, and a great need for time to think. Judith Niles had been carrying a killing load of responsibility for a long time. She needed help, but could he provide it? Could anyone? He wanted to try. For the first time in his life, he had met someone whose intellect walked the same paths as his own, someone in whose presence he felt totally at ease. Sy leaned back in his chair. It would be ironic if that satisfaction of mind-meeting came at the same time as a problem too big for both of them. * * *

An hour later Sy was still sitting in the same position. In spite of every effort, his mind had driven back relentlessly to a single focus: the Kermel Objects. He began to see the Universe as they must see it, from that unique vantage point of the longest perspective of evolutionary time. With the T-state available, humans had a chance to experience that other world-view. Here was a cosmos which exploded from an initial singular point of incomprehensible heat and light, in which great galaxies formed, tightened into spirals, and whirled about their central axes like giant pinwheels. They clustered together in loose galactic families, threw off supercharged jets of gas and radiation, collided and passed through each other, and spawned within themselves vast gaseous nebulae.

Suns coalesced quickly from dark clouds of dust and gas, blooming from faintest red to fiery blue-white. As he watched in his mind’s eye, they brightened, expanded, exploded, dimmed, threw off trains of planets, or spun dizzily around each other. A myriad planetary fragments cooled, cracked, and breathed off their protective sheaths of gases. They caught the spark of life within their oceans of water and air, fanned it, nurtured it, and finally hurled it aloft into surrounding space. Then there was a seething jitter of life around the stars, a Brownian dance of ceaseless human activity against the changing stellar background. The space close to the stars filled with the humming-bird beat and shimmer of intelligent organic life. The whole universe lay open before it. And now the T-state became essential. Planet-based humans, less than mayflies, flickered through their brief existence in a tiny fraction of a cosmic day. The whole of human history had run its course in a single T-week, while mankind moved out from the dervish whirl of the planets into the space surrounding Sol. Then S-space had given the nearer stars; but the whole galaxy and the open vastness of intergalactic space still beckoned. And in that space, in T-state, humans could be free to thrive forever.

Sy sat back in the chair, drunk with his new vision. He could see a bright path that led from mankind’s earliest beginnings, stretching out unbroken into the farthest future.

It was the road to forever. It was a road that he wanted to take, whatever the consequences. But first, humanity had to find a way to survive the stellarforming catastrophe.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Elissa was the last to arrive at the meeting. As she hurried into the long conference room to take her seat she glanced around the table, and was struck at once by the odd seating arrangement. Judith Niles sat alone at the head of the table, head bowed forward and her eyes on the control console built into the table in front of her. Sy Day sat to her immediate right, and Peron next to him, with an empty chair between them. Peron looked a little uncomfortable, while Sy was obviously a million miles away, absorbed by some private concern. Wolfgang Gibbs and Charlene Bloom occupied seats on the opposite side of the table. They were sitting close together, well away from the rest. Wolfgang was scowling and chewing moodily at a finger nail, while Charlene Bloom glanced from one person to another with rapidly blinking eyes. Elissa looked at her closely. Extreme nervousness? It certainly appeared that way, but for no obvious reason. And the whole room was unnaturally quiet, without the normal casual chit-chat that preceded even a serious meeting. The atmosphere was glacial and tense. Elissa paused, still standing. She had a choice. Sit opposite Sy, and thus be between Wolfgang and the Director? Or next to Sy and Peron; or at the other end of the table, facing Judith Niles. She headed to sit next to Sy, then on some obscure impulse changed her mind and went to the end chair directly opposite the Director. Judith Niles raised her head. Elissa underwent a brief scrutiny from those intense eyes, then the Director nodded briefly in greeting. She seemed as remote and preoccupied as Sy.

“To business,” Judith Niles said at last. “I gather that Sy Day briefed both of you on our meeting and conversation?”

Peron and Elissa looked at each other. “In detail,” said Elissa. She waited for Peron, but he did not speak. “However, we still have questions,” she went on. Judith Niles nodded. “I am sure you do. Perhaps it is best if you first listen to what I propose. That may answer many of your questions. If not, we will consider them later.”

Her words were couched as a suggestion, but her tone of voice showed she expected no argument. No one replied. Wolfgang ducked his head and seemed to be studying the granular plastic table top, rendered a soft continuous blur by the oddities of S-space optics. Charlene looked expectantly around the table at the others, then back to the Director.

“It is interesting that the arrival here of the three of you should coincide with a decision point in my own thinking,” went on Judith Niles. “Although I could argue that your presence in Gulf City precipitated that point. By now you know something of our history. For fifteen thousand Earth years, research work has continued here without a break: monitoring messages from the Kermel Objects; developing new techniques for slowing of consciousness, designed to make us better able to match the Kermel transmission rates; and making many attempts at direct communication with them. Failed attempts, I should add. But we have had some successes. We are assured now of the extreme age of the Kermels; we have learned how to present signals received from them reliably, as one, two, or three dimensional arrays; we have confirmed by independent methods that the changes in stellar types in this spiral arm of our galaxy are real; and finally, we are beginning to see hints of methods to slow subjective experience rates even further, beyond those of T-state.

“These are all major advances. Yet you do not need me to point out that they will all be of no value unless we can learn how to inhibit the stellarforming of G type stars. We face the possibility of greatly extended life spans, with no place to live except far from our home stars. If that happens, we will face the extinction of all our planetary colonies. And that is an intolerable thought, even if we forget recruitment needs from normal space to S-space. “Before you arrived, the senior staff of Gulf City, and in particular Wolfgang, Charlene and I, had worried long and hard about the slowness of our progress. I decided some time ago that the pace of our efforts had to be picked up — by whatever methods. This is an absolute necessity. And to accomplish it, I resolved to take an unprecedented step. You, the three of you, are central to that step.”

Elissa and Peron looked at each other in surprise, then both turned to Sy. He was unmoved, his usual cool self.

“Hear me out,” went on Judith Niles. “Why you? Because you have not yet become locked into our existing ways of thinking about the problem. We must find totally new avenues, create new thought patterns, and explore different options; but we cannot do that. We are too wedded to our existing exploration, and too fixed in the pattern of past analyses. Stay here for a few months, and you will have the same problem. That is why I propose a change at once, before you harden into our ways and ideas.

“What I am suggesting is revolutionary. I propose to establish a completely new facility, similar to Gulf City but in a separate location. It will have independent management, and independent research staff. The preferred location is eighteen light-years from here, and almost twelve light-years from Sol. It does not have quite the same degree of isolation from interference as this site, but signals received here from Kermel Objects will naturally be available to the new facility. There will be cooperation, but strictly limited interchange of information. We cannot afford to inhibit each other’s research.

“And now, here is my specific proposal: you three are invited to go to that facility, with the best support that we can offer from anywhere in our network of colonies and stations. You will not merely be participants in the facility’s research; you will direct it, setting priorities and allocating resources.” She smiled. “I am sure you feel suspicious. Why would I, without taking leave of my senses, entrust a huge new undertaking to three near-strangers? I will tell you why. Your performance to date has been highly impressive, but my real reason is far more compelling: we are becoming desperate here. Something must be done, and something new has to be tried.”

She looked along the table. “You are silent. I am not surprised. I would be silent also. But when you have questions, I will do my best to answer all of them.”

Sy did not move. He had been nodding his head a tiny fraction as she spoke, but now he was motionless. Wolfgang and Charlene were looking at Peron and Elissa, and avoiding Judith Niles’ eye. Charlene seemed more tense than ever. “Why us?” said Peron at last. “Why didn’t you do it with the last group of people to find their way to Gulf City?”

“For two reasons. First, I did not feel they could do it — I feel that you can. And second, I had not yet reached my own flashpoint. Now I feel a great need for action. Our present approach is too slow. We must have at least two facilities working in parallel.”

Peron looked at each participant in turn, taking his time. Finally he turned again to Judith Niles. “When do you propose this would begin?”

She smiled with her mouth, but her eyes remained tense. “I am now about to fail one test of a good manipulator. Take it, if you will, as evidence of the depth of my concern on this issue. The process for creating the second facility has already begun. A station from Sol is on the way to form the facility’s nucleus, and other equipment is in shipment from three Sector Headquarters. If you agree, it will be ready for operation as soon as you arrive there. I hope that you will begin your journey at once. You can become familiar with details of equipment on the way there.”

Peron nodded. “And what experiments would we do?”

“You will tell us that — remember, too much direction from here and the second facility becomes useless.” She smiled again, and this time there was humor there. “Talk to Wolfgang and Charlene, if you want to know how much it costs me to remove myself from the direction of the new effort. All my working life I have insisted in hands-on knowledge of any experiments under my control. Now I am promising to turn my back on you.”

Judith Niles touched the controls on the table top, and the room began to darken. Behind her, panels in front of the display slid open, and a flickering pattern showed on the screen.

“You will need time to make a decision. I expect that, but I urge you to minimize that time. The most important job in human civilization is waiting for you. And for that reason, I do not hesitate to use unfair tactics of persuasion. I have one more argument to present to you. If you are the people that I believe you to be, it cannot fail to sway your opinions.

“A few days ago we received at Gulf City a video message from one of our Sector Headquarters, out near the planet of Paradise. It was sent via Earth, and addressed to you. It appears to be in clear form — though I know your penchant for hiding coded messages in with clear ones. The clear message is quite enough. Watch closely.”

The screen behind Judith Niles showed the image of a man. He was a stranger to Elissa, gray-bearded and balding, with a prominent nose, pale gray eyes, and a craggy, lined face. A faint scar ran across his forehead, diagonally from the upper right to his left eyebrow. He grinned, looked directly into the camera, and raised his hand in greeting.

“Hello again. Greetings from Paradise — or near it.”

Elissa heard Peron grunt, at the same moment as she felt her own rush of recognition. There could be no mistaking that strained, husky voice and precise diction.

“It’s Kallen!” said Peron. “My God, Sy, that’s Kallen.”

“Yes, quite right,” said the face on the screen, exactly as though he could somehow hear the comments in the conference room. He grinned again. “This is Kallen, the one and only. Long time no see. But now get ready for a bigger shock.”

The camera field of view slowly panned across from him to a large photograph, then zoomed in to take a close-up of a group of eight people. In the foreground, sitting cross-legged on cushions, were two teenage girls. Behind them, on a bench, were two men and two women in early middle age. An elderly couple stood at the back in the center of the picture. The old man was white-haired and stooped, with heavy shoulders and a substantial paunch. The woman, also white-haired, was thin and wiry. Everyone was smiling.

“More greetings,” said Kallen’s thin voice. “And also a farewell. From Lum and Rosanne, their children, and their oldest grandchildren. There are four little ones, not in the picture. They are all still living on Paradise at the time I send you this message. When you receive it, they expect to be long dead.” He shrugged. “Sorry, friends, I know we told you that we’d follow you to Earth in a few S-days. As you can see, it didn’t quite work out that way.

“I expect that this will take a while to reach you. I know you’re not on Earth, even though this message will be routed that way. But I’ve heard more than you might think about what you’ve been doing. Sy will tell you that nothing in the universe can travel faster than light, but let me tell him that doesn’t apply to rumors. There are great rumors about you three, and what you did to Sol’s data bases and computer network — I wish I’d been there to help cheat the system. Don’t give up on me, though. I expect that I’ll see the three of you eventually. “Rosanne and Lum asked me to give you their love, and to tell you not to grieve on their behalf. I pass that message, and agree with the sentiment.” Kallen smiled. “I suspect that you are feeling horrified with the way that Lum and Rosanne look in this picture, and probably horrified also with the way that I look. But don’t make the mistake of feeling sorry for them, or for me. Their lives have been the most rewarding of anyone I know. They lived happy, and they are happy now. And if you think of us as old people, remember that we think of you as children. Smart children, sure, and we love you like our own sons and daughters; but still children. Don’t confuse calendar time and experience. While two or three hundred Pentecost years flash by in a month of S-space, you don’t get the knowledge of life that comes with that many years of living. You all have a lot of real living to do.

“I promised Lum and Rosanne that I would tell you what happened here. I’m back in S-space, in orbit around Paradise. I’ve been here for twenty-five Earth years. But I couldn’t persuade them to join me. Sy, do you remember the arguments we had, after Planetfest was over, on the strongest force in the universe? Well, I can tell you now, it’s not gravitation, or the force governing hadronic interactions. It’s a force unique to living organisms. When Lum and Rosanne went down to Paradise, it was a frightening world, where all the humans had died. They wanted to stay there long enough to study the problem thoroughly. And after a few months, Rosanne became pregnant. They wanted the baby, but they knew they couldn’t raise a child in S-space. And the idea of leaving their children was unthinkable to them. They stayed, to raise the family. That’s the strongest force. After a while I joined them, down on the surface. I was there when each of the children was born.

“We were trying to find out what had killed off the previous colony on Paradise, and we had the best possible incentive. Unless we found an answer, we could go the same way, along with the children.

“I won’t bore you with details. It took nearly thirty years, and we felt like giving up a dozen times. But we found the answer. Paradise has a benign protozoan parasitic life form, part of the intestinal flora and fauna that help the animals there to digest cellulose. It usually stays in the alimentary canal, but a few organisms make their way into the blood stream. No problem. The animals remain healthy, and don’t even know the bugs are there. The colonists found that the organisms were inside them soon after they arrived, but all the tests showed that they were just as harmless to humans as they were to the native animals. Paradise has a wonderful climate, and fertile soils. The human colony was doing fine, thriving and growing. Then one day they decided it would be less effort to import food synthesizers, and make most of their food rather than growing it.

“And since humans can’t digest cellulose, the synthetic foods didn’t contain it. An alternative indigestible material was used to provide food bulk. Most inhabitants of Paradise, including everyone in the cities, turned to use of the synthetics. Still everything seemed to be going well, and they were all in good health. But the internal parasites were suddenly deprived of food, and when that happened many of them migrated out of the alimentary canal and into the bloodstream. They starved and died there. Those deaths seemed to produce no ill-effects on the human hosts — they weren’t even aware of it. But one of the decomposition by-products of the parasites has a structure very similar to a human neurotransmitter. So far as we can tell, human intelligence all over Paradise dropped, fifty to a hundred points, from normal range to sub-moron. And it happened quickly. The city dwellers became ferocious animals, not smart enough to operate their own signalling system and call for advice and assistance. And they turned on the few people outside the towns, and killed them as they found them. By the time the next ship touched down on Paradise, it could find no survivors. And since the cause of the problem was still unknown, the ship did not stay long.

“Well, I’ve said enough to make my point. Paradise is a safe, habitable planet again. I helped a little, but it was really Lum and Rosanne who cracked the problem, and pointed out the simple solution: adequate cellulose in the diet. And that’s related to the message that they want to send to you. Back on Pentecost, and later when we were looking at the Fifty Worlds, we had long debates on the usefulness of our lives. Lum and Rosanne feel they found the answer. They wouldn’t put it this way, but they saved a world. Don’t waste your life on small problems, they say. Find the biggest challenge that you can, the hardest one, the most frustrating one, and hit it with everything you’ve got.” Kallen paused. “See, I’ve changed, too. Thirty years ago, the speech I’ve just given was a month’s supply of words. But I’m finished. I told you not to grieve for Rosanne and Lum. I meant it. If you ever have the satisfaction of finding a problem as big as the one they found, and solving it, you’ll have answered our old question about the meaning of our lives.”

Kallen’s face went solemn, and he looked into the screen for a long time without speaking. “I’d like to see you all again,” he said at last. “But the odd thing is, I know exactly what you look like. You won’t have changed a bit since we said goodbye at the Cass system Sector Headquarters. Whereas I…” He shrugged, and ran his hand across his balding head. “Goodbye, old friends, and good luck. Seek the highest, whatever you do.”

The picture on the screen dissolved to a formless flicker of white, then that too faded to leave the room in darkness.

“Bless them,” said Judith Niles softly. “I never knew Lum and Rosanne, but I grieve with you to know that they are dead. They were just the minds and spirits that we need for our problems here. Seek the highest, the hardest, the most frustrating. If you wanted a one-line description of the Kermel Objects and stellarforming, those all apply. I wish we had Rosanne and Lum with us, but there will be others. Kallen may find his way here. He said as much, and from what I have heard of him from Paradise Station, he’ll be hard to stop once he makes up his mind to get here.”

“Impossible to stop,” said Peron softly. “I just wish he were here with us now.” “But he is not.” The lights in the conference room slowly came back to normal intensity, and Judith Niles gave her full attention to Elissa and Peron. She looked from one to the other, meeting their eyes. “You heard your friends. I don’t see how you can resist that message. They saved a world. You have a chance to save every planet that can support human life. Don’t you feel as though they could have been speaking to you about the exact problem we have here, and telling you to undertake it?”

Elissa looked around her. Sy was nodding. She realized that his decision had been made before he heard the message from Kallen — perhaps before this meeting began. She turned to Peron. He was wavering, half-persuaded but still uncomfortable. Elissa was on her own.

“NO!” The word seemed to burst from her, surprising her with its force and intensity. “No, that’s not the answer. You’re missing the point.” There was a ghastly silence. Everyone looked at her in astonishment — even Peron, and she had hoped that he would understand at once.

“Can’t you see it?” she went on. “You’ve missed the real significance of their message.”

“I very much doubt it,” said Judith Niles curtly. Her face was calm, but the scars were prominent on her forehead. “It was clear enough. Work on major problems, and do not let yourselves be distracted with trivia.”

“Yes, certainly — tackle big subjects, there’s no question about that. But look behind the message, at the facts. The problem on Paradise had been known for five thousand Earth years, and no one had come near a solution. Until our friends came along, people were studying it from S-space, and that gave only a couple of S-years of effort. Now look at our situation. We have a hundred thousand Earth-years to learn how to control the changes in stellar types. In that much time, the human race should be able to solve anything, any problem you care to mention. But not if you work in S-space. That moves at a snail’s-pace, two thousand times too slow, when we need fast action.”

“But the messages from the Kermel Objects are absolutely vital.” Judith Niles was leaning back, a perplexed look on her face. “They’re inaccessible from normal space.”

“So somebody must be in S-space or T-state to receive them. But the analysis of those messages must go as fast as possible. That means we must be in normal space. You have to change your system, change it completely. Tell the planet-dwellers the problem, and make them the key to its solution. That’s the real significance of the message from Kallen and the others, the part you’ve been ignoring.”

Elissa leaned forward across the table, her full attention on Judith Niles. “You want us to work on the central problem? I’d love to, there’s nothing in the universe that I’d like better. But in normal space. I know I may never see the solution if we do it this way. But I’ll take my chances, because I feel sure that my descendants will find the answer, maybe a thousand Earth-years after I’m dead. That’s enough to make it all worthwhile.”

She looked at Peron, and drew encouragement from his expression. He was nodding vigorously, his earlier uncertainty gone.

“I agree completely with Elissa,” he said. “Though I didn’t see it until she pointed it out. Let’s go ahead just as you suggest, and set up your second facility. But in normal space, not S-space. You’ll feed us the best information you can collect in Gulf City, as you get it. We’ll be turning that to new theories, two thousand times as fast as you could ever do it in S-space.” Judith Niles had listened closely. Now she was frowning and shaking her head. “It sounds good. But it would never work. Both of you, listen to what else your friend Kallen said. You lack experience. It will take many years to acquire it. You need interaction with us, here in Gulf City, but you could never gain the benefit of our experience if you were in normal space and we stayed in S-space. The information exchange problems are enormous. I said I would leave you free to undertake experiments in the second facility, but you would still have access to us, to talk to and exchange ideas.” Again she shook her head. “What you propose sounds good, but it wouldn’t work.”

“I agree with Elissa,” said Wolfgang Gibbs suddenly from the other side of the table. He stopped, as though amazed at his own outburst. When he continued he addressed his words to Judith Niles, but he kept his eyes on Elissa and Peron, as though drawing support from them. “She’s right. We’ll be able to progress thousands of times as fast in normal space as in S-space — not to mention T-state, and you know that’s my own special baby. I’ve worried the problem for months and years, wondering how to make better progress. But I never thought of two facilities, one in S-space and one in normal space. To us, used to the way things are here, normal space is almost unthinkable. Shorter life span, planet-grubbing, probably never seeing a solution. But I bet it will work.” He paused, hesitated, looked at Charlene and Elissa, then at Judith Niles. His face was pale, but there was only conviction in his voice. “Your point about experience is a valid one. There is no substitute for years of practical experience of our work here. But I have that. If you go ahead and set up a second facility, in normal space, then I volunteer to go to that facility.” “Wolfgang!” said Charlene Bloom. The word came from her unbidden. She bit her lip, and looked down. They were revealing too much — too much new hope in his voice, and too much raw pain in her own.

Judith Niles was sitting bolt upright in her chair. Elissa’s support had come from the place she least expected it. “And you, Charlene?” she said calmly. “Since we all appear to have formed our opinions by now.”

Peron looked at the Director and marvelled. Like Sy, she appeared able to move instantly from one position to another, and be ready at once for the next stage of discussion. It was as though her analysis of Elissa’s and Peron’s remarks had been performed automatically, subconsciously, needing no time for assimilation and full reflection.

“I’ll stay here,” Charlene said after a few seconds. She turned to look at Wolfgang, and her voice was despairing. “My work is here, in Gulf City. I couldn’t do it in another facility. But Wolfgang, if you go — who could do your work on T-state?”

Judith Niles looked at Sy, who gave a fractional nod of his head. “We have a volunteer for that,” she said. “Sy is keen to explore T-state — and beyond. So now…”

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes again. “Now comes the difficult question. You are proposing a radically different approach. Am I persuaded that it will work?”

“Wrong question,” said Peron.

She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “True. I stand corrected. We cannot know in advance what will work, and what will fail. The right question, then: do I think a second facility in normal space has a better chance to succeed than one in S-space? The answer: maybe. Just maybe. I thought of many options, but I never seriously considered the Mayfly solution.”

“You can’t afford not to try it,” said Peron. “Even if you reject it, we’ll attempt it.”

“I know. Bad position for a boss, right?” She smiled, then turned to Wolfgang. “And do you know what you are volunteering for? We can give you an extended life span in normal space, but you will still be dead in less than one S-year.” “Give me credit for something, JN.” Wolfgang’s moment of defiance had brought him a new confidence. “I know exactly what I’m offering to do. I’ll go to normal space, and I expect that I’ll die there. So what? I saw that message from Paradise, too. And now I think about it, I never really wanted to live forever. I just want to live for something. Sy can do my work here at least as well as I can, probably a damned sight better. Let’s get on with it, I say.” He did not wait for an answer from Judith Niles. Instead he turned to Charlene and took her hand in his. The room went silent, with everyone watching closely. Charlene’s mind flashed across the centuries, to the time back on Earth when Wolfgang had horrified her by secretly stroking her thigh in JN’s presence. But this time she did not flinch when Wolfgang touched her gently on the shoulder. Her vision was clouded with tears. She moved to meet him when he leaned forward to kiss her, and put her arms around his neck. The final words had not been spoken, but she knew that the decision was already made.

The departure for a second facility could not happen immediately. She and Wolfgang would see each other many times before there was another parting, formal and final.

But this moment was unique. This was their first goodbye.