Thet snorted. “What do you think?”

“It’s one of our standard dating mechanisms. Starting from a common root, the languages of two human groups will diverge by a fifth every thousand years.” Tiny numbers flickered over his nail. “About half of Darby’s vocabulary is close to ours. That makes the colony about three thousand years old… This war has endured for millennia.”

“We know that.” Thet’s brow furrowed as she concentrated on her piloting. “This is actually a bit tricky. The inseparability net is breaking up a little; the guidance beacons are flickering… there are ripples in hyperspace; large mass movements somewhere. A quake on a nearby neutron star?”

Rodi found himself blurting, “Is it always like that?”

“What?”

“Darby…”

“What did you expect? To convert him?”

Rodi thought it over. “Yes.”

She laughed at that. She was still laughing as they passed into the warm interior of the Ark.

Holism Ark was a sphere miles wide. Its human fabric was sustained from huge chambers strung around the equator, where the Ark’s spin gave the illusion of gravity. There were industrial zones, biotech tanks, sim rooms, health and exercise facilities. The weightless axis was a tunnel glowing with light. Tiled corridors branched away to riddle the Ark.

The flitter docked at a pole. Rodi slipped his arms into a set of light wings and swam along the axis. He was due to meet his seminary tutor, Gren, to discuss his voyage, and he tried to lift his mood. He stared around at the bustling life of the Ark: people coasting to and from work, children fluttering stubby wings in some complex game. Rodi felt isolated from it all, as if his senses were clouded by his depression.

There was a free fall common room at the center of the Ark. Gren met him there, tethered to a floating table. Gren was a round, comfortable man. Over a coffee globe he congratulated Rodi. “I was interested by that bit of doggerel Thet picked up,” he said. “Did you know we’ve found similar fragments before?”

“Really?” Rodi hung up his wings and fiddled with his table tether.

“Strange, isn’t it? These scattered bits of humanity slavishly maintaining their scraps of verse. We’ve a data store full of them… But what’s it all for?” Gren put on a look of comic puzzlement.

Rodi drew a coffee globe from the table’s dispenser. “Gren, why are the Ark’s corridors tiled?”

Gren sipped his drink and eyed Rodi. He said carefully, “Because it’s more comfortable that way.”

“For us, yes. But this Ark is a Spline ship. How must the Spline feel? Once the Spline were free traders. Now we’ve sanitized this being’s guts and built controls into its consciousness. Gren, we preach the wholeness of life, the growth to completeness. Is that a suitable way to treat a fellow creature?”

“Ah. Your first drop didn’t turn out as you expected.” He smiled. “You’re not the first to react like this.”

Rodi cradled the coffee globe’s warmth close to his chest. “Please take me seriously, Gren. Is our philosophy, this great crusade to the Ring, a sham?”

“You know it isn’t. The Integrality is a movement based on centuries of hard human experience. It has quasi-religious elements. Even the words we use — ‘seminary,’ ‘mission’ — have the scent of ancient faiths. That’s no sham; it’s quite deliberate. We want the Integrality to be vibrant enough to replace other faiths… especially man’s dark passion to die on a mass scale.”

“War—”

Gren thumped the table, his round face absurdly serious. “Yes, war. And that’s why the resources of planets were spent to send the Exaltation here, to the site of man’s greatest and most futile war.

“Rodi, come to terms with your doubts. Humanity is large: scattered, diverse. You found the Moon people discouraging. Well, they have found their own peace. That is not a threat to the validity of our crusade.”

Another table drifted by. A young couple whispered into each other’s mouths. Rodi watched them absently, thinking of his parents. Both of them worked in the Ark’s biotech tanks. He recalled their pride when he was selected for the seminary, and then for the missionary cohort…

Gren was smiling again. “Anyway, you haven’t long to brood before you go out again.”

Rodi looked up, startled. “You still think I’m suitable?”

“Of course. Do we want ignorant fanatics? We want young people who can think, boy.

“Now. There’s a neutron star, not far from here. Spinning very fast… we’ve picked up a signal from its surface.”

Rodi stared. “A human signal?”

Gren laughed kindly. “Well, of course a human signal. Why else would we send you?”

Rodi finished his drink and pushed the globe back into the table. “I guess I’d better find Thet…”

Gren laid a warm hand on his arm. “Rodi, this time you’re on your own. Go and get some sleep; you’ve a few hours to spare—”

The flitter seemed empty without Thet.

The Spline’s orifice dilated and Rodi returned to hyperspace. He began to thread his way out of the Exaltation, keeping his breath carefully level.

A Virtual sparkled into existence; Thet grinned. “Going solo this time, kid? I just called to wish you luck.” Rodi thanked her. “Listen, Rodi… don’t let me get you down. I rag everybody, and my opinions are my own. Right? And you did okay, down there on the Moon. Be safe.” She winked at him and the Virtual dissipated.

Feeling warmer, Rodi dropped into three-space.

The neutron star was one of a binary pair. It was the remnant of a blue-white giant, once so bright it must have made its companion star cast a shadow. Perhaps there had been planets.

The giant had exploded.

Planets evaporated like dew and layers of the companion star blasted away. The giant’s remnant collapsed into a wizened, spinning cinder as massive as Earth’s sun but barely ten miles across.

The new neutron star dragged down material from its companion and rotated ever faster. The spin deformed it until at last it was virtually a disc, its rim moving at a third the speed of light. Spin effects there canceled out the star’s ferocious gravity and a layer of normal matter began to accrete…

A human ship had blundered here, scarred by some forgotten war; Rodi found a battered wreck in close orbit around the neutron star. The crew had no way back to hyperspace and no way to call for help.

And in this dismal system there had been only one place that could conceivably sustain human life…

In Rodi’s monitors the neutron star was a plate of red-hot charcoal. A point on the rim was emitting green laser light, picking out a message in something called Morse code. The message was one word of ancient English. “Mayday. Mayday…”

Rodi set up a reply, in the same old tongue and code. “I represent the Exaltation of the Integrality. What is mayday?”

The reply came a day later.

“Apologies are offered for the delay. It took time to locate the Comms Officer. I am the Comms Officer. What do you want?”

“My name is Rodi. I have traveled here in an Exaltation of Arks. I have brought you good news of the Integrality—”

“Are you human?”

“Yes, of course. How long have you been stranded?”

“Stranded where?”

Rodi pulled at his chin. “Would you like to hear of events in the galaxies? Of the wars with the Xeelee?”

“What are galaxies? — Cancel question. Please understand that this is the first time the Comms System has evoked a reply—”

“Then why have you maintained it?”

“Because we always have. The role of Comms Officer is handed from mother to daughter. We know we came from somewhere else. The Comms System is the only link with this other place, our origin. How could we abandon it? Are you in this other place?”

“Yes. You are not alone.”

“How reassuring.”