Pain. What an extraordinary concept. Prime motiles and immotiles had basic tactile senses, indicating pressure and touch against their skin. But this, this was a physical warning on a scale that took away rationality.

But then, it made sense in a way. Humans were individual. Astonishing though it was, they had no motile/immotile caste. It was a civilization of billions of full-sentience entities, all of them in mild conflict with each other. In some cases, not so mild.

>memory<

The sheer intransigent idiocy of the university board. Every month Dudley spent—wasted!—hours of his valuable time in meetings that accomplished nothing but the perpetuation of bureaucracy and the status quo. His department was always overlooked, always underfunded, always patronized by the larger science departments. Bastards.

>explain<

Because this is worthwhile. This is the expansion of knowledge that has a history back to the dawn of human time. This is pure science, driven not by greed but by nobility.

>motivation not comprehended / memory<

The vice chancellor spoke at length.

>vocalization / aliens communicate via sound / selfmemory<

“Fuck you!” the alien Bose screamed inside its pen as Emmanuelle Verbeke lay strapped down on the vivisection table, blood squirting out of her carotid artery. “Rot in hell you motherfucking bastards! We’ll nuke you to shit and kill your babies when they glow in the dark! We’ll wipe you from this whole fucking universe. Not even God will remember you existed!”

>god / human ally / memory<

Written books, hundreds of them, thousands, all multiplying out from a few ancient sacred texts. Stories of how the universe began, how its creator sent segments of itself to the human homeworld to promise salvation. Salvation that came in many forms for many different human alliances. Divine mythology that as a scientist Dudley Bose knew was fiction. Like the woodland elves, which had turned out to be real. The Silfen. What irony.

>more aliens / classifications/ memory<

Hundreds of worlds each containing tens of thousands of nonsentient aliens. Several sentient species had been discovered by the Commonwealth as it expanded, their status as hostile or allied could never quite be determined. And one non-life world, the SI planet.

>SI / human immotile / explain<

It’s not a human immotile. It evolved out of sophisticated programs. It’s artificial.

>human thought transfer to SI / immotile function / confirm<

No, it’s not like that, like you. Some humans download their memories into the SI when they don’t want to rejuvenate, when they’ve had enough of life.

>paradox / explain<

I can’t. It’s not something I would ever do. People are not the same, we all have different motivations.

>SI involvement with starship flight / memory<

Distant recollections of news reports, blurring into one. Politicians arguing about paying for the flight. Nigel Sheldon being interviewed; Vice President Elaine Doi claiming the SI supported the venture, wanting to know more about the barriers. Never confirmed directly because the SI didn’t talk to individual humans, at least not Dudley Bose.

>clarification of status / inclusion on flight / memory<

From nobody to somebody within an instant as he saw the enclosure. Triumph followed by months of cluttered thought of the striving, clawing his way to get selected for the crew of the Second Chance. Surprising himself with the degree of determination and political maneuvering he accomplished, the suppression of all conscience.

>alienPrime involvement / explain<

Never heard of them. Never heard of you before the barrier came down. We were an exploratory flight. Science only.

>message from MorningLightMountain17,735 / explain<

You’re wrong, there was no alien on board theSecond Chance.

>paradox / explain<

There was no alien on board. Our hysradar scan showed the barrier was still intact around their star.

>barrier construction / memory<

None. The barriers were in place before humans knew how to cross space. Humans did not build the barrier.

>human commonwealth / memory<

Hundreds of worlds linked together by wormhole. Worlds of land and water and atmosphere, warm worlds with clear empty skies. Worlds that would support Prime life. So many worlds that the terrible pressure and conflict between immotile territories would end immediately if they were to become available to Primes.

>wormholes / memory<

Distortions of spacetime that could reduce distance to no length at all. They could be made large or small. The ultimate method of transport. The ultimate method of communication; with immotile units across interplanetary and interstellar space linked through wormholes there would never be divergence. With wormholes, MorningLightMountain could extend itself across the galaxy, with units occupying every star system. It would never die, never be challenged from such supremacy.

>wormhole construction / explain<

I don’t know the technical details of creating exotic matter, but the equations are fundamental.

>commonwealth location / memory<

Right in the core of knowledge that was the remnants of the Gralmond university astronomer Dudley Bose, the name, spectral type, and stellar coordinate of every Commonwealth star glimmered like a precious jewel.

NINETEEN

With its uncomfortably close G1 sun blazing down through a heat-bleached sky, the temperature along the entire one-hundred-fifty-kilometer length of Venice Coast rose uncompromisingly during the day. It didn’t help that the beautiful island city was only just outside what was technically Anacona’s northern polar region, and the planet was also approaching the middle of summer. This mix of geography and calendar was currently giving the city over sixteen hours of intense sunlight every day. In deep winter, of course, the pattern would be reversed, and the sun would only be visible for about six hours a day. Even then the climate would cool down to something like Earth’s Mediterranean temperatures. Anacona’s proximity to its primary star made the planet uninhabitable from the equator out to fifty degrees latitude north and south, most of which was a rocky desert.

From space, Anacona had the same kind of symmetrical banded appearance as a gas giant, with its broad expanse of coffee-colored sands wrapped around the center, and skirted with black and auburn mountain ranges. The planet had kicked off a large, and ongoing, debate among Commonwealth planetologists about how climate could affect topography, or if the symmetry was just a transient tectonic fluke. For it wasn’t just the central regions that were regular; beyond the peaks that bounded each side of the desert, the cornflower-blue waters of annular seas sparked in the strong sun to the north and the south. Both the polar zones boasted continents, although the southern one was smaller, and their coastlines were completely dissimilar. They did share an abundance of emerald vegetation, with rainforests and grasslands nurtured by the heat and daily rains. Both seas shunted long trails of swan-white cloud across the continents where they formed permanent slow-spinning spiral whirls over the actual poles.

The sea gave Venice Coast an indecent humidity. By midafternoon, the siesta was well under way, hustling tourists and inhabitants alike off the streets. Shops shut for four or five hours at a time, waiting until evening and a low golden sun before they opened their doors again. People took long rests in the shaded courtyard gardens to be found at the center of every block. The only service that carried on regardless was the monorail, which linked every district along the narrow city’s hundred-fifty-kilometer length. Even most of the gondolas, water taxis, and little supply boats that swarmed the canals tied up at some quay or other, bobbing about empty while their skippers lounged around in the bars.