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We can decode it, I think, in time, Sunless answered. See you, it is not too greatly different from the
orderings we receive in the startalk frequencies. There is a mathematical ordering here. If we can find its
cues ...
Do this work, yes, Sunless, Forceful said. There must be sense to all of this.
Recorder sent a long, thoughtful roll of waves, whose import was, Do we think-is it possible?-this an
intermediary from Incursor?
Mirth greeted this. Impossible! Forceful said.
Dusk dismissed the idea. Such as we surely cannot grow from tiny cold kernels.
We came of grander stuff, Ring added. And not cold! Not solid!
Recorder recoiled a bit from the chorus of derision. But these come from inward, and so may know how
Incursor fares-if he lives, still.
Such motes? Forceful said. What could they know?
Dusk added, No true intelligence can reside in chilly specks!
Someone farther out sent, without an identity signature, The Laws of Beings do not permit it. Obviously.
Recorder said patiently, We should always ask ourselves how to use any new thing, to gain access to the
Well.
Forceful sent striations red with disagreement. We are living in a fortunate time. The Cascade presses in
toward the Hot, as it has not done for a long era. Let us take advantage of this moment! Use it to destroy
the tiny life on the inner worlds. Stop them from coming out here, or else we shall share Chill's fate.
Recorder's aura became uneasy. I remind us all that the last time the Upstream delivered such high
flows, forcing the Cascade inward, we made no progress in learning of that fearsome region. We surely
do not want to venture so far in that we would meet Incursor's fate.
Forceful bristled, shimmering its outline. Past failure is not an arguments.
We have experienced many of these inward incursions of the Cascade. Recorder sent them all a picture
of past ages. Images laced among them all-of eras when, under the Upstream's rising pressure, the
Cascade had pressed in upon the orbits of the giant worlds. Each time, we venture a bit inward but fail to
learn much that is useful.
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Remember those who became trapped inward, Dusk added, and are lost to us.
We have not forgotten, Ring sent mournfully, tinged with a sad aura.
They all knew that Ring was the closest relation to Incursor, lost long ago to inward, near the Hot-a
tragic, historical agony.
Do not forget our successes, Instigator insisted. Remember how we pushed some of the little iceballs
inward, carefully targeting them to strike the inner worlds. That was a triumph!
So from the flares of the iceballs' impact, we learned some of this 'chemistry' you love so much, Ring
said adamantly. I am not impressed with knowing such dirty facts.
All learning can be useful, Instigator said firmly. Will be useful, in time.
Dusk sent, Far better to learn at a distance, never venturing Inbound. Instigator learned much of
chemistry that way. Incursor sent us the molecules that can copy themselves, recall. That was a triumph!
For which it paid dearly.
Instigator said, Without those I could not have assembled and tuned my experiment on the small, near
world. Even with them I had to resort to electroshaping them. Then I was forced-with noble Chill and
sly Crafter-to devise the Darksiders, all to prune and tune my little coldworld experiment. Troubles, yes-
but knowledge demands this.
Into the middle of this came a long, pleading note. I petition to address you all. It was Chill.
Forceful sent, as custom required, Approach and speak.
I apologize for my failure in our engagement with the small, cold, solid thing. I am humiliated by my
wounds and ask to be Diminished.
A rustle of concern washed among the Beings, who had drawn nearer.
Forceful said, We need your abilities, not merely your presence. Diminished, you would be of less use to
us at this pressing time.
Chill replied with a clear shame aura. I have begun to compose my poem-song, that by custom I should
create.
Consternation swept through the Beings. This was a major step, one that left no doubt about Chill's
resolve.
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Oh no, please do not! Dusk sent.
I must.
Beings could fray, dissipate, then recompose. Feeding lustily in the Cascade ran the risk of such
erosions. This was where the more primordial of Beings had learned the arts of suffering loss and then
rebuilding themselves. By oozing soft currents, carefully using the eternal laws of induction and
conduction, those early, rather dim intelligences had with agonizing slowness mastered Resurrection
over Diminishment. The galaxy had spun in its eternal gyre fully fifteen times before the Beings had
fathomed how to become immortal.
But only if they wished. Resurrection soon-on a time scale whose long unit was that gyre-became of far
greater significance. The Resurrection skills allowed Beings to manifest in fresh form. To choose
Diminishment-not merely to suffer it from the outrageous surges of the Cascade or the magnetic insults
of a passing molecular cloud-was an act of nobility and honor. It could lead to the highest status among
all Beings, near and far.
One's fate in life, all Beings held, was set by deeds performed in past Manifestations. Previous wise acts
yielded, in time, superior magnetic shapes in this present life. Bad or stupid acts gave the reverse-poor
character, low status, even ruin.
Since the Origin, Beings had passed through many Manifestations. Some traces of these past lives and
deeds still lingered in core memory. Those feather-light remembrances were the breath of eternity, the
high wisdom of previous selves.
How beautiful life therefore was, and how sad. How fleeting, suspended in a limitless now that
embodied all that had come before, but was still now, the only time one could change. Eternity stretched
away in both time directions, while a Being was pinned to the moment. Such was the state of Being.
I forbid it! Forceful sent.
Chill insisted. I ask permission to subtract by humble self-reconnection.
We need you now, Dusk said anxiously.
I could use a time, going into the great void before Remanifestation.
Recorder said, Permission refused.
Might you approve later? Chill asked plaintively. I beg again to end myself.
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Recorder said, You are needed.
Then I apologize. Allow me to do something of hazard, that I may redeem myself.
Instigator fizzed with excitement. I do have an idea, one you could aid in. Chill, you are a smaller Being-
deft, agile. If Crafter's arts can be brought to bear, you might be able to insert yourself into these tiny
solid bodies. Thinly. It would be dangerous. But we need now to make direct contact, to test if
intelligence lurks in such microscopic scales.
The other Beings sent cries and shimmering auras of alarm. Some fizzed with anger at the very idea.
But Chill answered, Show me how.
13
BURNT-YELLOW FINGERS
In THE AFTERMATH OF the assault, Julia retreated into her meditations. After time in the sliding
vapor world of her Japanese garden she knew what to do next.
Years before, while adapting to Mars, she had discovered by Web browsing the melancholic poetry of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]