He pitched forward into the tunnel.

Frames

In one frame of reference, the Wedge whirls at a blistering angular velocity, skimming razor-close to the speed of light.

In another mathematical frame, it stands stationary in a geometric manifold. Still, silent. Lines of folded space-time eddy about it.

In this view, despite excruciating gradients and wrenching torques, the Wedge is an island of tranquil stability. Gravitational radiation from the black hole coalesces about its slippery contours.

Waves lap. Languid, easy. Torsional stresses play like intricate spider webs along slick, pulsing bulges.

This pressure sustains the Wedge against all lashing dissipations. It has done so for an interval whose length—or duration—depends upon the local geometry of the observer.

In still another frame of reference, the Wedge is locked in unending, furious struggle with the black hole.

Forces wrestle. The Eater seeks to eat. The Wedge jams itself between the Eater’s jaws. Pries them open. Plugs the gullet. Saves itself.

All are true.

Each is a frame. Truth is the sum of all frames.

Down the magnetic field lines that thread the Wedge, rubbery yet unbreakable, trickle wave packets of rippling complexity. They carry information in the only fashion that can slip through the knotted weave of the Wedge.

Along these slender strands—wiry, coiled lifelines—the mechanical civilization converses with its delegate. The machine intelligences gather in packets, elaborate sliding decompositions of data. They linger above the fray of the great accretion disk, in the eternal sleet of hard radiation. Against this torrent the gliding minds use defenses of ceramic and metal.

By rippling the magnetic field lines they converse with their delegate. Hollow voices down a vast well.

At the bottom, the lone creature hears. Replies. Always amid discord, the delegate must both debate and act. Dividing its intelligence yet again, it assigns separate portions to these tasks.

It does not enjoy the pleasures of its rulers, who float in majestic remove. It must endure the rasp and grit of the lands within the Wedge. Seeking, always seeking.

All parties to the discussion think at the speed of light. Their voices cannot escape their origins, however, or the assumptions of their kind.

I/You have explored a huge array of vaults and spaces, |>A<|. Yet you find nothing!

I have discovered a wealth of primate culture!

That was not your task, |>A<|.

How well I know. Our own ancient data imply that there are special, message-bearing primates. I have sought them. But they are difficult to separate from the hordes of primates here.

There are so many? Hiding from us?

They fear us—quite rightly, I suppose.

Search out these certain message-bearers! Be done with such irritants.

The spaces here are innumerable.

Continue. Secure the minimum of three genetic layers which we/you require.

We have the basic biological information from the oldest generation, the “grandfather.” But the nature of the coded message demands three generations. Direct biological descent.

The Legacies implied that we/you needed full analysis of them. This means complete and viable copies.

I/We think not. They could just as well be dead.

I have been carefully reading each surekill I make. My subunits are equally careful. I shall not miss the characteristic signature of the particular primate we need, the youngest. I knew him.

On their planet?

He was useful in securing his father-self when I wished to make a capture.

I hope you/we can do as well now/here.

You/We are fading from our/your field of view. Is the Wedge damaging?

I have navigated the shifts here, but there is a troubling background sense. Something more lurks in these warped passages.

What is it? I/You have heard reports from earlier units we/all sent into the Wedge. Before they vanished from us/you.

I do not know how to describe it. A faint trembling presence beyond my fields. But it is not localized.

An echo.

I think not. It comes from everywhere but does not repeat what I send. I am uneasy.

Stifle your/our reactions. You/We act for us/all, remember.

This is not the time for hesitation.

Kill them all if you/we can. I/We would be done with this vexation.

I have surekilled so many. My factors overload. So much wealth to know and savor!

Forget your/our strange sense of beauty! Never before has such a strong agency as you/we penetrated the Wedge so deeply. Know them, yes. Then end these parasites in their last lair.

Savage them!

I obey.

PART FIVE

Malign Attentions

ONE

The Pain of Eternity

Toby woke feeling tired but clean. He had been out for a long time. His arm throbbed less now. Blunt pain, as if it were seeping away from him.

Shibo wasn’t there.

He had her chip in his carrypouch. Now he probed for her self. Skated over inky crevices where his Aspects lived their compacted semi-lives. Tramped through the galley of Faces.

Gray passageways yawned. Isaac and Zeno and the others called to him and wanted to talk about Shibo. They always wanted to talk. About anything. But of Shibo there was nothing.

He knew shreds might still cling somewhere in him. A Personality was by nature diffused, hard to grasp. So he would have to watch carefully. The earlier signs—mood shifts, deflections of his attention, outright seizure of his sensorium—had been increasingly overt. If traces of her remained, they would be subtle.

He got up, creaking. Sore. With a bone-deep weariness that sleep could not take away.

No skittering warnings in the sensorium. It expanded like a blue bubble in his vision and brushed against only the rustlings of the forest and dark-bellied clouds. Time to get back to business.

Years of Family discipline had taught him to follow orders when he did not like them. Something in the way Quath told him to leave had the force of an order.

He carried it out without thinking. Thought, after all, was a luxury when living depended on speed and concealment and silent savvy.

He moved with his sensorium compressed to a half-sphere barely bigger than his arms’ reach. That allowed practically no time to defend against one of the spark things that had hit Quath. But it would make him harder to find, he hoped.

When he reached the next high point he peered backward. Shadowy forms, gliding like leaves blown on systematic breezes. Quath. Quath. He yearned to send the call.

More burnt-yellow sparks jumped and bounced among the forest. Others cruised far up toward the other enclosing curvature of the Lane. Where he had left Quath something fired vicious hot-white bolts.

Toby knew it would be foolish to try to raise Quath’s signal but the desire to do it was almost uncontrollable. At last he turned away and devoted himself to speed.