Eternity's End (67 page)

Insignificance
.

The word flickered in his awareness like a sparkle of light at the boundaries of infinity. It danced, twinkling, along the great ribbon of light...

It was, Palagren knew, the most astounding thing he would ever see, the quantum flaw stretched out in multicolored glory: at one end the past, dwindling into the deepest infrared, and at the other end the future, vanishing into an ultraviolet diamond. The present loomed in a golden haze, within which possibilities danced like motes of dust against time and space.

Among the possibilities, Palagren saw a precious few that contained images of himself. He felt unutterably lonely as he glimpsed those. How could a single Narseil matter in the face of such cosmic history?

Something tattered was billowing around him; it was the rigger-net, coming undone. Electroquantum technology did not work well here; and yet
something
had been holding the net together. But if it wasn't the fluxfield generators...

Palagren saw the net quiver, as though in response to his uncertainty. And then a fragment of the Wisdoms echoed in his thoughts:

"The Whole survives in unity with the One, and the One with the Whole. In all of the Rings, nothing can exist apart from the Circle except that which would break it... the Destroyer..."

The Destroyer...

The quantum flaw?

Or his own doubt?

Palagren drew a breath and stretched his arms wide, and turned his will toward holding the net together...

Who are these beings that you are mindful of them
...

The question sparkled in Legroeder's thoughts like a sunbeam through a window; it was a line from an ancient human text... but he hadn't heard it from a human, had he? It had been Com'peer, the Narseil surgeon.

But hadn't he heard it somewhere else, long ago? The memory was beginning to come:

What is man that you are mindful of him?

That was it: an earlier form. A poem, or a psalm. But what did it mean?

Skating across the sea of spacetime, his thoughts spun around, and the word "insignificance" twinkled back to face him. He laughed suddenly, and then cried. Who was he,
what
was he, to be here in the midst of this—surrounded by a shimmering net that was beginning to come apart like an old spiderweb?

The net... if they couldn't hold it together, they would cease to exist.

What is man—?

He was man, human, individual—like his fellows, and yet one of a kind, unique. Did that matter, his uniqueness?

He gazed into the sea of eternity, churning with chaos and uncertainty, and thought perhaps it did matter, very much so, right now.

To Palagren, the waves of uncertainty brought hope. Hope for the integrity of his own being, and of the net itself. He thought of the old human story: Schrodinger's cat in the box, its life or death decided by a single quantum event. And more than that, the life and death coexisting in one; it took the glance of an observer to force reality to crystallize.

Just as a rigger's thoughts forced the uncertainty of the Flux to transmute into the desired form...

That's it,
Palagren thought.
We must see ourselves holding the net together... finding our way through
...

Around Legroeder, the net was twanging out of tune as it shredded. He was aware of the thoughts of the other riggers, but all in a jangling chaos. He was in a sea of consciousness, struggling to pick out the voices closest to him. He had to; only
they
, together, could hold the net together...

Was it even
possible
to contest infinity this way?

Why shouldn't they? If quantum events could link across spacetime—why not their own thoughts reaching out to critical points in this zigzag ribbon of spacetime? Perhaps they could even steer themselves through a window of their choosing in this cosmic chaos.

It came to him in a rush of understanding as he gathered the net around him like an enormous billowing bubble, and pulled it in close... and peered down and out through the beautiful and mysterious ribbon of fire, looking for the place to fall through... first riggers to sail the quantum flaw...

Alongside him, Palagren did likewise... and at last, following their lead, Cantha and Ker'sell.

And fire blossomed around them, filling the net with a cosmic glare....

Chapter 33

Hunted

It was the damnedest thing.

With the other riggers and crew on KM/C
Hunter
, Jakus Bark had been keeping an eye on the intermittent signs of the snark,
Impris
—mostly just the occasional ghostly glimmer on the deep-layer instrumentation. Every once in a great while the riggers in
Hunter
's net caught the even more ghostly glimmer of the actual ship, or heard the low, mournful trill of its distress beacon. They followed it relentlessly as it wandered on its erratic course, presently taking it back toward Golen Space. But lately, the readings just hadn't seemed right. It was as though something were disturbing it in its ghostly flight. And now...

Jakus strained to focus into the distance.
What the hell is that over there?
he asked his co-riggers, pointing down through the gauzy layers of the Flux. There was something in those layers that looked like a ship. But it didn't look like
Impris
.

Another ship?
said Cranshaw.
It looks like another ship!

Don't it just,
Jakus breathed.
What's another ship doing down there?
That was not a layer of the Flux where any other ship should be. How would it even get there? Jakus called on the bridge com,
What are you guys gettin' on the deep-layer, thirty down and twenty t' port? Do you see what we see?

As he waited for an answer, Jakus tried to adjust the image. Now the ship was gone, like a puff of vapor. But there was no question he'd seen it. Right in the fold haunted by
Impris
. And so had Cranshaw and the others.

This is really strange,
said Nockey, from the bridge instrumentation crew.
We've lost it now, but there was definitely another ship there for a few seconds. Not in our layer. Down there with the snark. Someone call Captain Hyutu
.

Yah,
said Jakus.
I wonder if someone else got lost like Snarkie. Maybe we've got two of them now
. He chuckled at the thought. Even as one who thought this was a pretty wimpy way to snatch targets, it was amusing to think of another lure just dropping into their laps.

We're trying to refine the signal,
said Nockey.
Maybe we can get some kind of an ident on the thing. The captain will love it
.

Yah,
said Jakus, settling back into watchful mode. He checked the time. He'd be going off shift soon. If the normal pattern of sightings held true, that was all the excitement they could expect for a while.

By all accounts, nothing new had happened in the meantime, but when Jakus stepped into Captain Benadir Hyutu's office before his next shift, Hyutu was scowling. That in itself didn't mean much, since Hyutu had generally the disposition of a Kargan rattler; but it didn't take long to deduce that the captain was even more displeased with life than usual.

"What's wrong, Ben?" Jakus asked, dropping into a seat across from the captain. Having known Hyutu since the old days on the
L.A
., he allowed himself more familiarity than most of the crew.

Hyutu's right eyebrow twitched fiercely. The old man was a stiff prig, anyway—and under strain, his augments tended to go a little flaky. Jakus was sure it was some kind of a malf, but Hyutu refused to have them looked at. "You see the report on that sighting?" Hyutu said sharply.

Jakus shrugged. "I've been off duty. Why, is there something new?"

Hyutu's face tightened with disdain, which was a good trick with that eyebrow still going. He muttered something under his breath that Jakus couldn't quite hear, then grunted, "Bark, that's why you're never going to get ahead in this organization. An ambitious man is
never
'off duty.' "

Jakus shrugged at the rebuke. He hated it when Hyutu got on his high horse. He'd been like that even back on the
L.A
., before any of them were pirates. But it had gotten worse since Hyutu'd become an augmented captain in the KM/C navy. Still, the man was a powerhouse, and Jakus had good reason to stay loyal to him. "Okay, okay—so what did they find out?"

"You tell me. They got some readings on that ship you saw."

"Yeah?"

"It's
Kyber
, Hyutu said impatiently.

Jakus stared at him, stunned. "Kyber?"

"Not just Kyber." Hyutu turned away for a minute, rubbing his eyebrow. He swiveled back. "It looks like it's one of Ivan's."

Jakus whistled.

"I presume that means something to you? You've paid that much attention, anyway?"

"Of course it means something," Jakus said defensively. He didn't actually know much about Ivan, but he knew KM/C and Ivan together spelled bad blood. Not that anyone ever briefed him on this stuff. "I work to find out these things," he added. "We and Ivan don't like each other. At all."

Hyutu almost smiled for the first time. "Don't like each other. That's one way to put it. How about, what other Kyber boss'd be—if I may be vulgar for a moment—
asshole
enough to mess with
Impris
when it's not his turn." Hyutu paused, and for a moment actually broke into a grin. "And I can't think of anything that would make Carlotta smile more than for Ivan to get caught out here with his genitalia where they don't belong." He chuckled, and his other eyebrow started twitching.

Jakus frowned. "What d'you think they're up to? Some kind of sabotage? Maybe they got caught by accident."

"Well, what do
you
think? Why else would they be sneaking around out there? Of course, they're probably regretting it now. They'll never get out, any more than
Impris
did. But if they do..."

Jakus waited.

For a moment, Hyutu looked like a cruise ship captain getting ready to make nice with the passengers. "If he does come out again?" Hyutu's phony smile broadened. "I'll put a flux-torpedo up his shiny ass."

Jakus grinned.

Hyutu's sharp black eyes focused inward in contemplation. "Because I think it's time," he said, "that we made an example of people who interfere with the rightful order of things in the Kyber Republic. Wouldn't you agree, Rigger?" He nodded decisively, not waiting for a reply. "Of course you agree. Now, let's go to work, shall we?"

Jakus got up and followed Hyutu out of the office.

As they approached the rigger-stations, Jakus heard a shout from the instrumentation section. "We're getting some activity out there! I don't know what's happening, but it's pretty damn strange. Skipper, I think there may be something coming
out
of the underlayer!"

"Move it, people!" Hyutu snapped, clapping his hands. "Sound battle stations! This could be the fun we've been waiting for."

The fire roared around
Phoenix
, a diamond inferno. They were falling, burrowing through the inferno, a storm of tangled thoughts enveloping them as intensely as the fire itself. For a moment, an eternity, it was impossible to tell whose thoughts were whose, and where any of them were going.
We're alive alive are we third ring second ring alive first alive burning can't hold on
...

Am I palagren?... legroeder...?

It was beginning to sort out. Legroeder saw images flickering explosively around him, little windows opening through the flaw, the Flux, maybe reality itself—not memories this time, but something else. The glimpses came so fast he could not absorb them instantly, but only a heartbeat or two after—

—an unfamiliar nebula, roiling with fire and starlife—

—where is that? did you see—? yes, I—

—a place of deep stillness, where the streams of space came to a stop—

—where we were? or are? a singularity? no, I don't—

—a startling array of connections, flashing open like wildfire across the cosmos, light splintering off into infinity—

—everywhere? riddled with them, space is riddled—

—loops of movement, a circuit of motion in timelessness, an eternal damnation in which four hundred and some souls had been trapped—

—look, the openings—

—scattered like shards of light, hidden nexus points—

—through! we can go through!—

—in the shifting layers, a rigger ship, visible for an instant, then gone... mists of endless Flux...

—and somehow in the shower of images, Legroeder registered something about that glimpse of a ship; there'd been something Kyberlike about it; and he thought,
One of the escort ships?
Not quite right... and yet such a fleeting glimpse, who could tell. But it hit him again, just possibly they could exert some control over where they were going if not headlong into insanity...

And if that
had
been one of their ships? They'd lost contact way back before turning to the Sargasso, but what if—?

Focus on that ship! Focus on it! We're riggers, damn it—riggers!

And even as he thought it, he felt them beginning to find a course through the twisted tangle of spacetime, through the unraveling skein...

And then the inferno suddenly blew itself out, and the ship fell through darkness for endless heartbeats, leaving the quantum splinter behind. Legroeder and the Narseil felt their minds and bodies and souls reconverging, knitting themselves back together again, becoming whole.

Phoenix
fell like a meteor out of the folds of the underflux, and burst into the normal Flux with a blinding flash. The net was shaking like an aircraft on the verge of stress failure, the four riggers nearly paralyzed by the shock of the passage. Legroeder shouted hoarsely,
Where are we?

And Palagren,
I can't tell!