emerges in a cool dark kingdom-the sea’s deep, most private place.
The Midden. Vubben feels around him the great dross piles of more recent habitation waves. Even here, amid relics of the
Buyur,mbt shoes, the Lgg seems linked. Vubben senses that the graveyard of ancient instrumentalities has been disturbed, heaps of archaic
refuse still quiver from some late intrusion.
There is no anger over this. Nor anything as overt as interest. But he does sense a reaction, like some prodigious reflex.
The sea is involved. Disturbance in the dross piles has provoked shifts in the formation of waves and tides. Of heat and
evaporation. Like a sleeping giant, responding heavily to a tiny itch. A massive storm begins rolling both the surface and the ocean
floor, sweeping things back where they belong.
Vubben has no idea what vexed the Midden so. Perhaps the Jophur. Or else the end or dross shipments from the Six Races.
Anyway, his thoughts are coming more slowly as death swarms in from the extremities. Worldly concerns matter less with each
passing dura.
Still, he can muster a few more cogencies. Is that all we are to you? he inquires of the planet, An itch?
He realises now that Drake and Ur-Chown had pulled a fast one when they announced their revelation, a century ago. The Egg
is no god, no conscious being. Ro-kenn was right, calling it a particle of psi-active stone,ugg usa, more compact and well-ordered than the
Spectral Flow. A distillation that had proved helpful in uniting the Six Races.
Useful in many ways… but not worthy of prayer. We sensed what we desperately wanted to sense, because the alternative was
unacceptable-to face the fact that we sooners are alone. We always were alone.
That might have been Vibben’s last thought. But at the final moment there comes something else. A glimmer of meaning that
merges with his waning neuronic flashes. In that narrow moment, he feels a wave of overwhelming certainty.
More layers lie beneath the sleeping strata. Layers that are aware.
Layers that know.
Despair is not his final companion. Instead, there comes in rapid succession-expectation… satisfaction… awareness of an
ancient plan, patiently unfolding.
Kaa
“CAN’T-T YOU USE SOMEBODY ELSE?” “Who else? There is no one.” “What about Karkaett-t?”
“Suessi needs him to help nurse the engines. This effort will be hopeless unless they operate above capacity.”
Hopeless; Kaa used to think it such a simple word. But like the concept of infinity, it came freighted with a wide range of
meanings. He slashed the water in frustration. Ifni, will you really trap me this way? Dragging me across the universe again, when
all I want to do is stay?
Gillian Baskin knelt on the quay nearby, her raincoat glistening. Distant lightning flashes periodically lit up the bay, revealing
that the Hikahihad already closed her clamshell doors, preparing to depart.
“Besides,” Gillian added. “You are our chief pilot. Who could be as well qualified?”
Gratifying words, but in fact Streaker used to have a better pilot, by far.
“Keepiru ought to’ve stayed with the crew,classic mini ugg, back on Kithrup-p. I should have been the one who went on the skiff with
Creideiki.”
The woman shrugged. “Things happen, Kaa. I have confidence in your ability to get us off this world in one piece.”
And after that? He chuttered a doubt-filled raspberry. Everyone knew this would be little more than a suicide venture. The
odds had also seemed bad on Kithrup, but at least there the eatee battle fleets chasing Streaker had been distracted, battling each
other. Fleeing through that maelstrom of combat and confusion, it proved possible to fool their pursuers by wearing a disguise–the
hollowed-out shell of a Thennanin dreadnought. All that ploy took was lots of skill… and luck.
Here in Jijo space there was no sheltering complexity. No concealing jumble of warfare to sneak through. Just one pursuer–
giant and deadly–sought one bedraggled prey.
For the moment, Streaker was safe in Jijo’s sea, but what chance would she have once she tried to leave?
“You don’t have to worry about Peepoe,” Gillian said, reading the heart of his reluctance. “Makanee has some solid fins with
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