“‘She shall rise as shall we all who plunge inward to the lair and library.’”

Killeen stood on a raised platform, dominating the crowd. His voice became more powerful, not by trick of timing but from a fullness of conviction. “They went there. Long ago. Even though she and they were ‘fevered still in ardor for humanity’s pearl palaces’—they left.”

Voices rose in agreement. There was in them a plaintive note, calling for connection with their own fabled history. Some sobbed. Others cursed.

“We are now besieged by mechs. They bear down upon us. True”—Killeen gestured to Quath—“we have allies. Quath’s species is following us, too, carrying that huge device of theirs, the Cosmic Circle. Powers we do not master, yes. Methods we cannot comprehend, yes. They are living creatures and offer us aid because of that holy connection, a sharing of all those who arose naturally from the very atoms of the galaxy itself.”

Hoarse calls of thanks to Quath. Of sputtering, cold-eyed rage against mechs.

He paused, fury trickling away, reason returning to the strong face. “But even with their help, only we can decide where we shall go.”

Killeen slowly cast his gaze across the faces he knew so well, over three hundred strong. “We all had relatives who died fighting Quath’s kind. That time is over. Now we fight alongside those we called the Cybers, and now term the Myriapodia.”

Something in his bearing called up that past, and used it in Killeen’s cause. Toby could see the effect on the crowd. Killeen was the man who had plunged through a Cyber-carved hole, clean through a planet—and lived. Killeen had ridden inside the Cyber Quath, prisoner—and had gotten away alive. He had talked with a magnetic being who spoke through the sky itself. And still earlier, Killeen had dealt with the Mantis and won them their freedom.

Now all that weight of history pressed down in Killeen’s favor. His eyes burned. His grave manner commanded. His people heard.

“We have a choice of turning to fight, against odds we do not and cannot know. Or we can choose to run and hope to escape.”

Glittering eyes sweeping them all in. “Is that it? Is that all?” Scornful curled lip. “No! No! I say there is a third way—a way opened by this tablet from our own distant ancestors.”

Toby growled, seeing how firmly the Cap’n held the room in his grasp. The rolling voice that lapped across Family Bishop was sure, certain—but Toby was not. He saw what was coming with a sense of helpless dread.

“We can follow them—the ancients. Into whatever lair they sought. It may still be there!”

Family stirred, murmured.

“Again, they had powers we cannot match—yeasay. Methods we cannot comprehend—yeasay. So their descendants—our cousins!—could still be there. The Family of Families—‘where eternity abides.’ What can that mean? What does it promise? Let us go—go and find out!”

From the roar of hot assent that rose and vibrated hard around him, Toby knew they were bound on a desperate course, and though he loved his father and wanted to follow him, the fear that coursed cold through him brought a shameful weakness to his knees.

Why was his father doing this? Where had his caution flown? He’s risking the Family to find out . . . what? About the past. What the Family means.

His Shibo Personality came forward unbidden. Her pale presence was a soft voice against the hubbub of white-eyed celebration that bubbled joyous all around him, jostling elbows and happy sweat and wrenched mouths.

They do not know what he fully wants. Does even he? I love that man, as much as this shaved-down self I have become can love. I fear him now, too. He promises a lair. He may bring them only a liar.

Frozen Star

Angular antennas reflect the bristling ultraviolet of the disk below. Shapes revolve. They live among clouds of infalling mass—swarthy, shredding under a hail of radiation. Infrared spikes, cutting gamma rays.

Among the dissolving clouds move silvery figures whose form alters to suit function. Liquid metal flows, firms. A new tool extrudes: matted titanium. It works at a deposit of rich indium. Chewing, digesting.

The harvesters swoop in long ellipticals high above the hard brilliance of the disk. As they swarm they strike elaborate arrays, geometric matrices. Their volume-scavenging strategy is self-evolved, purely practical, a simple algorithm. Yet it generates intricate patterns that unfurl and perform and then curl up again in artful, languorous beauty.

They have another, more profound function. Linked, they form a macroantenna. In a single-voiced chorus they relay complex trains of digital thought. Never do they participate in the cross-lacing streams of careful deliberation, any more than molecules of air care for the sounds they transmit.

Across light-minutes the conversation billows and clashes and rings.

They persist, these primates.

We/You did not attempt their extinction.

Yet.

True; we/you must learn more first.

The trap worked?

The engagement functioned as planned. We/You learned their craft’s position accurately when they visited the hulk of their former dwelling.

I/You were right to preserve that structure for these long eras.

It made simple the successful attachment of microsensors.

Direct infiltration?

They were blown onto the primate craft in the explosion. Then they burrowed inside.

This seems a needless bother.

We/You were too hasty, in the past, to merely erase such expeditions which ventured toward the Frozen Star.

A dislikable term. The black hole is far more noble than these words imply.

Yet even it began in the early eras of the galaxy from the seed of a single supernova. It has grown by a million times that original mass, but that does not change its nature.

But frozen? It lives in fire.

Only its image in space-time is frozen. To you/us, the swallowed mass takes forever to make its final descent into the throat of oblivion.

Very well; such technicalities bore more than they illuminate.

True, for some portions of you/us.

Yet the primates are still drawn to this nexus. What was that language you/we cited earlier, to illustrate how they think?

The image was like moths to the flame.

Bio logics are so simple. So linear. How can we/you be sure of their processings? Know their minds?

You/We cannot.

But with resources—

As you/I must face, there are matters which you/we cannot know even in principle.

Memory returns—yes. Some truths can never be proven within any logic system.

I/We did not refer to so obvious a theorem. Blind spots lurk in our very way of comprehending the universe. For these no one can compensate.

Surely you/I do not suggest that our/your kind share blindnesses with such as these primates!

All sentient forms have ways of filtering the world. In this all are alike.

Surely this does not mean that you/we cannot understand lesser forms and their primitive worldviews in their entirety?

Perhaps it does.

Lack of comprehension in such a grave matter is troubling.

Enough musing. As a practical matter alone, you/I oppose destroying this latest primate incursion. It would cost greatly.

This refers to the quasi-mechanicals.

They follow the primate craft and protect it.

We/You have dealt with their kind before.

They have greater craft than the humans. You/We have suffered from their skills.

They are tools! We/You use the quasi-mechanicals to track the humans.