Cluster (31 page)

Thanks to the ride, Flint was first at the rendezvous. He looked about, concentrating on the ground rather than the sky. Here, more than anywhere, he ran the danger of stepping over a material cliff while gazing at the ethereal heavens, like the Fool of the Tarot deck.

All around were the preserved ruins of an advanced civilization. Not the pottery sherds and stone arrowheads of Earthly archaeological sites, but actual buildings of a former city, no more strange in design than similar constructions of modern Sol, Polaris, or Canopus. It seemed almost as if an Ancient sapient were about to walk out.

Flint had not expected much, knowing that most Ancient sites were evident only to the trained eye: an unnatural mound here, a pattern of odd shaped artifacts there, sometimes a vague depression overgrown by jungle. Or even a mountain slope, the site a victim of orogeny, mountain building, now tilted and perhaps buried or even inverted. Sometimes construction crews discovered deeply covered strata with the Ancient stigmata. But three million years was a long time; it was evident that the Ancients had been phenomenal ground-movers, but that offered little insight into their culture. Until this moment.

There was motion, down near the ground beyond a collapsed building. Flint, suddenly nervous, unlimbered one of his special weapons, a telescoping spear. This required human hands and skill for proper application, and as a Stone Age man and flintsmith, he was expert in its use. It was unlikely that any other creature could turn this against him. He could attack or defend, and if he lost it, he was also adept at defense against it. He doubted that the other creatures would be mechanically equipped to balk it. Of course they would have their own weapons. He wanted no quarrel, for both personal and Spherical reasons. Still, something strange was coming toward him, and he wanted to be ready.

The motion manifested as a traveling patch of brambles. Flint studied its approach, and realized that it had to be sentient and sapient; there was no native life on Godawful Four, as he called this planet. The only things that could move were the mattermitted, spacesuited representatives of the Sphere. He was being unreasonably jumpy. He put away the spear, though his primitive inclination was to step on the thing, squishing it like a centipede.

It was legless and had thousands of projectile-spines, like the barbed quills of an Earthly porcupine or the spurs of sandspur grass. These shot out tiny threads to hook into anything, even the dust of an airless desert. These were then reeled in, winching the main mass forward. At any given moment, a number of tethers were in every stage of the process, retracted, shooting out, catching, drawing in. The overall effect was, once he adjusted to the notion, rather graceful; the creature traveled smoothly across the rock.

It had to be in a spacesuit, for no lifeform Flint knew of existed in a vacuum. But what a suit! Each tiny hook and tether must be enclosed and pressurized. This bespoke a fine technology. Probably those myriad little members had exquisite detail control.

“Hello, comrade,” Flint said. There was no air to carry his voice, but he knew the sound would be transmitted through the ground. He also had a translator keyed into a radio receiver in his suit.

He was answered by a staccato of faint taps, as of tiny anchors dropping. He turned on his unit, letting it orient on whichever language this way. In a moment it spoke. “Sphere Nath.”

“Sphere Sol,” Flint said. His unit did not translate his own words. For simplicity each creature's unit would handle all incoming messages, rendering them into the native language. There had been no direct human-Nathian contact before, though the two Spheres were adjacent. The expense, risk, and delay of inter-Sphere contact had been too great, until this galactic crisis.

“Arrivals?” his unit inquired as the Nathian tapped again.

“Sphere Canopus,” Flint said. “With a flying craft. No others I know of, yet.”

“Message from Sphere Bellatrix. Cannot attend, but information relayed to Sphere Mirzam, who attends.”

Flint visualized the map of the Vicinity Cluster of Spheres. Bellatrix was a small Sphere, about Sphere Sol's size, adjacent to Nath. It was about five hundred light years from Sol. Mirzam was two hundred and fifty light years out. Bellatrix had been invited to attend; Mirzam had not, as contact had not yet been made. Evidently the chain of contacts was still extending, and that was good. Soon this entire section of the galaxy would be alert to the Andromedan threat.

“We of Sphere Nath have held long discourse with Sphere Bellatrix,” the creature continued. Flint knew the translation was approximate, as there had to be fundamental distinctions of concept. “Discourse” could mean war or slavery or cohabitation. But there were limits to what a hastily jury-rigged multiple translation system could do. “They are very wary of strangers, so could not attend. But they are affinitive to Mirzam, with whom their contact parallels ours, so they relayed transfer, and Mirzam attends.”

Could be. On the map, Sphere Bellatrix overlapped both Nath and Mirzam, so that as with Sol and Polaris, they could have had centuries of interaction, cooperative Fringe colonies, trade, and so on. Their refusal to interact immediately with a group of unfamiliar entities was understandable. Flint had seen Solarians as others saw them, there in Sphere Polaris, and it was a lesson he hoped never to forget. He still had trouble adjusting to new forms—in fact was having trouble right now—and he was Sol's most experienced agent.

“We of Sphere Sol understand,” he said. “We appreciate the message.”

“Pull-hook,” the Nathian said.

Oops, a mistranslation. Obviously, to hook and pull was an expression of affinity, of motion or success; acquiescence. But since there were literal meanings to the terms, the machine had oriented on them, taking the simplest route. Which was one reason inter-Sphere relations could not be trusted entirely to machines.

“Perhaps we should wait on the others,” Flint said. “We want to coordinate the search.”

“Meaning clarification: occupy what position in relation to others?”

Flint reviewed his phrasing. “Remain inactive until the representatives of other Sphere's arrive,” he said. Yes, he would have to watch his own language. These literalisms could be troublesome, even deadly. To wait
on
an alien creature might be to squash it, and his word might have been taken as a direct threat. His mass could do a lot of harm to a low-spread-out, thread-limbed creature like this. “We have translation problems; please verify all questionable remarks without taking offense.”

“Pull-hook.”

“Are you familiar with Sphere Mirzam?”

“I would recognize a Mirzam entity by sonar—they are jumpers somewhat like yourself—but we have had very little direct contact. The expense of mattermission...”

“Yes.” That was a universal problem. By the map it was some five hundred light years from Nath to Mirzam.

“Irritation to be avoided,” the Nathian said.

Meaning “No offense?” Probably a personal question. “Comprehended, no irritation.”

“How would you like to bash your head in?”

Hmm. “Clarification,” Flint said.

“Apparent danger of collapsing with damage, perched endwise.”

Oh. “Solarian sapients have a sophisticated balancing mechanism. By being alert, we avoid falling and bashing in our heads. We gain the advantage of perception from a elevation.”

“Credit deserved, overcoming obvious handicap,” it said.

“Pull-hook,” Flint said.

The Nathian rippled its threads in seeming acknowledgment, shooting out burrs and snapping them back unanchored. A nice gesture, or maybe it was merely laughing. Flint saw no sign of eyes, and realized that elevation would have little bearing on hearing, so maybe his explanation had been gibberish to it.

“I understand–” Flint caught himself, realizing what a literal translation would sound like. “I have been informed that Sphere Nath discovered this Ancient site. Why didn't you explore it earlier?”

“There was no need for this technology,” it explained. “Technology in advance of culture becomes detrimental. But when we were apprised of the Andromedan threat, we realized that a preemptive need now existed. So we offered this site in exchange for transfer.”

Evidently Nathians saved information the way Solarians saved money. Well, why not? “It is a fair exchange.”

The Canopian craft reappeared. This time it deposited a creature resembling the business end of an Earth-farm disk-harrow. “Sphere Mintaka,” H:::4 announced.

“Sphere Mintaka!” Flint exclaimed. “I didn't know
they
were in this party!”

“Their invitation was extended by Sphere Mirzam, which borders Mintaka,” the Master explained, using both human sounds and Nathian staccato. “From this chain of contact they have learned the technology of transfer and the communicatory mode of Mirzam, Bellatrix, and Nath. The Mintakan utilizes flashes of light, and will code them in the Nath manner so that your translators can handle it.”

Flint visualized the map again. Sphere Mintaka was just a huge, ill-defined arc in the direction of the galactic rim. Humans had no direct knowledge of it, only that it was big—a radius of some five hundred light-years, larger even than Sador, and far away. Star Mintaka was one of the three that formed the constellation Orion's Belt, and it was fifteen hundred light years distant from Sol. The Sphere might be decadent, like Sador, just the shrinking husk of former greatness. But how then had it been so alert about this expedition? The Sphere Knyfh envoy who had brought transfer to Sol had suggested as much: that it was fading. That might have been an error. Had Knyfh known this region well, it would not have needed to recruit Sol for the coalition mission.

And Flint would have married Honeybloom and been well satisfied in his Stone Age culture. He stifled a sigh.

The Nathian was silent, and Flint felt momentary camaraderie with it, knowing it had similar reservations about the Mintakan. Could they really trust it?

“I shall search out new arrivals,” H:::4 said, and took off again.

That left the three of them. Thu Mintakan rolled forward on its circular blades, leaving deep parallel creases in the dust, and Flint noticed how readily those edges could slice up a spacesuit or anything else. This was a combat creature. Its lights flashed from lenses between the blades, blinking on an off so rapidly it was a mere flickering.

“Greetings, Sol and Nath,” the translator said on the Nath band. “Much appreciation in this invitation, and in the secret of transfer, which transforms our society already.”

With a five-hundred-light-year radius to that Sphere, a thousand-light-year diameter, transfer would be a boon indeed. Regression must be ferocious, Flint thought. A hundred light-years in Sphere Sol carried man all the way back to the Old Stone Age; what would five hundred years do? Homo Erectus? Pre-sapience? How could a Sphere ever achieve such monstrous size
without
transfer? Surely it would soon fragment into smaller sub-Spheres oriented on its most aggressive colonies.
 
As the Earth's British Empire had fragmented into America, Canada, India, Australia and others

That brought him back to this mission: how did the Ancients manage a Sphere that embraced a sizable segment of the Galaxy? Maybe this party was about to find out.

“We welcome any who care to join us in our effort,” Flint answered politely. “Are you acquainted with our larger mission?”

“To save our galaxy from Andromeda, and to utilize whatever Ancient science we can recover toward this end. Sphere Mintaka, though no longer expansive, is quite concerned to protect its continuing well-being. So we participate.”

“A fair response,” the Nathian agreed. “Are there Ancient sites in your Sphere too?”

“Many sites, but all are corroded. We suspect the Ancients spread out not only across our galaxy, but across other galaxies as well. Surely Andromeda obtained its expertise from some similar site as this. We marvel at the Ancients' boundless energy, and desire to know its source.”

“We, too,” Flint agreed. There certainly seemed to be a harmony of motive here, and that was good. “Whoever rediscovers Ancient technology might well achieve power over as great an expanse of the universe as they did.”

“Hence we cooperate,” the Nathian added, “so that no single Sphere may draw in unduly.”

“As one of our luminaries said,” the Mintakan flashed, “if we do not draw in together, we shall assuredly be drawn in separately.”

“Interesting coincidence,” Flint said. “One of our own early philosophers made a similar statement about hanging together.”

“I doubt that they knew each other,” the Mintakan remarked, its lights flashing with evanescent humor.

“A universal truth,” the Nathan said.

Now a new figure rolled up. Flint recognized it with gladness. “Polaris!”

“How circular to meet you, Sol and Nath,” the Polarian replied politely. It was not, of course, Tsopi, the female Flint had known and loved; that would have been too much to ask. But it was like meeting an old friend anyway, and Flint was reassured at its recognition of the Nathians. It was through such intersections of Spheres that they could verify the identity of the members of this crew. If Polaris vouched for Nath, Flint trusted that.

The Canopian craft returned, this time depositing two entities. “Sphere Antares,” the Master announced, and left.

Flint had forgotten about Antares. Sol had dealt with that Sphere long ago, trading controlled hydrogen fusion for matter transmission. Antares had had transfer for centuries, but refused to divulge it to any other Spheres until very recent events had made that policy pointless. There had been no ill feeling about this, as all Spheres had protected their technological secrets until the Andromedan threat had forced better cooperation. Thus the forms of Solarian and Antarean were known to each other. Flint just hadn't seen one of these aliens in the flesh before. And flesh it was: Antareans were protoplasmic entities, moving by extension and consolidation. They were versatile, but lacked the speed and power of the skeletal and muscular creatures.