The Champion (9 page)

To put it simply, a Rewall is a bacterial colony so large it can literally grow legs and walk.

CELLULAR COMMUNICATION

The Rewall’s nature as a collective organism is unique among the known sentient races. The Prawatt have some similarities, in that small independent organisms join together to make a larger, more complex individual. The Prawatt “minids,” however, combine permanently; if a minid falls off the main body, that minid dies. In direct contrast, each cell of a Rewall zoon remains an independent organism, capable of surviving if separated from the larger colony. What’s more, a zoon is also capable of changing its function
within
that colony.

For the purposes of this explanation, we will compare Rewall biology to that of a Human. Humans are made up of specialized cells that perform specific functions within the context of the larger organism: muscle cells contract and work in unison to exert force; nerve cells communicate information to and from the brain; brain cells integrate to regulate the body’s automated systems and to create conscious thought. Rewall also have specialized cells, including functionally identical muscle, nerve and brain cells. The key difference is this: Rewall cells can change from one type to another depending on the colony’s needs.

Rewall brain cells can alter their structure and become muscle cells. Nerve cells can morph into bone cells, and vice versa. Complex internal organs needed to supply gasses, provide nutrients and remove waste can be assembled as needed and disassembled when they are not. This level of plasticity is unheard of anywhere else in the galaxy.

MEMORY AND SIZE

The Rewall have something else in common with the Prawatt: the more brain cells an individual has, the more information it can process. In other words, the same rule of thumb holds true for both species — the larger the colony, the
smarter
the colony.

The Rewall memory process is far more complex than that of other higher-level sentient organisms, because each individual cell carries its own individual memories.
All
cells contribute to the greater consciousness of a Rewall zoon, not just those that are in the “brain.”

If you cut off a Human’s arm, that grievous wound has no measurable effect on memory or the individual’s concept of “self.” That is not true for the Rewall. A limb of any kind might constitute 10 to 20 percent of the colony’s mass. Cut off that limb, and the colony correspondingly loses 10 to 20 percent of its “self,” including collective memory.

Therefore, the more cells a Rewall colony has, the larger and more comprehensive its memory. More cells mean more experience with different physical forms, types of work and labor, survival strategies and cultural interaction. The phrase “the more the merrier” seems to be the rule among the Rewall: the more successful a colony, the bigger it gets.

Up to about 9,000 kilos in size, a Rewall is a highly functional colony of individual cells. When colonies grow beyond that mark, however, they cease to function as a collection of cells and begin the change into a single unified macroorganism.

IDENTITY

What makes the Rewall truly alien is the rarity of individual identity.

The species grows like a typical bacterial colony: cells in the colony split, doubling in number, and the colony grows progressively larger. If that colony is divided into two or more pieces, each piece is a new colony containing some — but not all — of the memories and skills of the original. There is a brief period during which divided colonies can be rejoined, but after that period has expired, chemical imprinting occurs that prevents the divided parts from joining an existing colony.

When a colony moves past the 9,000-kilo mark, however, things start to change. That amount of mass marks a successful colony that has not only survived, but stayed largely intact for a length of time usually around thirty standard years. The organism goes through a phase change: individual cells cease to have individual identity. Scientists have dubbed this phase of the Rewall life cycle the
elevation phase
, and the members who have reached that phase are known as the Elevated.

REPRODUCTION

While Rewall colonies can multiply by splitting into smaller pieces, only the Elevated can reproduce in the traditional sense of the word. Elevated breed by “budding,” or breaking off pieces of themselves known as “larvae.” Larvae are small colonies that are more animal than sentient. A larvae feeds to stay alive but has only one biological imperative: find the larvae of another Elevated, and join with it. When this happens, the cells of the two individual Elevated combine to create a new colony, providing genetic diversity that helps the Rewall survive and evolve.

A CASE FOR SPACE

The growth process doesn’t stop when a colony elevates. In the Rewall’s ancient historical records, there are stories of ocean-borne colonies weighing 150,000 kilograms — larger than the blue whale, the largest creature to ever live on Earth, and almost as large as a fully grown Quyth aquatic predator commonly known as a Kraken.

On a planetary body, the maximum size of a Rewall colony is limited by gravity, air pressure and other physical forces. In space, however, most of those external forces are no longer present. Once the Rewall achieved sustainable space flight, something drastic happened that changed their species’ fortunes forever — once free of their home planets, the Rewall just kept getting
bigger
.

LEVIATHAN

Shortly after developing ships capable of carrying the Rewall off their home planet, a new kind of cell function evolved. The function enabled a cell to bind tightly with its neighbors, creating a pressurized “skin” that allowed the cells beneath it to function as they normally would without risk of decompression or freezing. With those environmental dangers removed, the Rewall were able to survive outside of ships and without the protection of any extravehicular suit or container. The only limitations on Elevated size became how much food the colony could acquire.

Because of this unique biological phenomenon, Rewall have become the largest organisms in the galaxy, possibly even in the universe. Surviving in the vacuum of space created a third phase in the Rewall development, a form called Leviathan.

THE TERROR IN THE VOID

Leviathans can create their own relativistic thrust. They also have a biological punch drive, the mechanics of which are still not understood by the scientists of any other species. Unlike the technology held by the other sentient races, a Leviathan can travel from one end of the galaxy to the other in a single punch, or pop out anywhere in-between. This makes the Leviathans a potential threat to every governmental system: territory must be protected, but the Leviathans have the ability to bypass the shipping lane “choke points” that allow for the creation of fixed territorial borders.

And yet, governments have a far greater fear than violation of territorial integrity — the fear of “spawning.”

Leviathans can travel between the stars. They reproduce just as the Elevated do, by budding. That is how the Rewall colonize planets: Leviathans travel to an unoccupied planet, seed that planet with their larvae, and wait for the larvae to populate the surface.

The fear is, of course, that there is nothing to stop the Rewall from doing this on
inhabited
planets. The species is capable of traveling anywhere and bypassing military forces, which means the Rewall are capable of colonizing each and every inhabited planet in the galaxy. While this has never occurred, the threat is ever-present.

7

The Biggest Ship

QUENTIN WASN’T SURE
if the room had existed before he and his friends boarded Rosalind, or if she had grown it just for them. There was a nice table, along with couches and chairs that were surprisingly comfortable considering she had extruded them from the floor. The room even had something Quentin would have never expected from a Prawatt ship:
color
. Strange abstract maroon patterns decorated pale blue walls. Rosalind had even gone so far as to splash a Krakens logo on the ceiling.

John and Ju were sleeping on the floor, Becca on a couch. All three were out cold. George sat quietly by himself. Quentin had made sure the man took his scheduled meds; right after taking them, George got kind of introspective and didn’t talk much.

Quentin, Kimberlin and Doc Patah were doing what they’d done for most of this journey: studying. Their messageboards flared with pictures, holos and text about the Rewall. To Quentin, most of what he learned about that species simply didn’t make any sense. He shut off his messageboard.

“This can’t be real,” he said to Kimberlin. “Colonies of bacteria that walk around? No way.”

The lineman smiled. “Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because ... well, you can’t even see bacteria without a microscope or eye-mods. They’re
little
.”

Kimberlin raised one eyebrow. After months of tutoring, Quentin knew that expression; Kimberlin wanted terminology more accurate than
they’re little
.

Quentin sighed. “Fine. I don’t believe that millions of single-celled organisms can work collectively as one great big animal ... I mean ... as one
macroorganism
.”

“Trillions,” Kimberlin said.

“What?”

“It’s not
millions
of single-celled organisms, Quentin, it’s
trillions
. The typical Rewall has anywhere from fifty to two hundred trillion zooids, and for the largest of their species, exponentially more.”

“Fine,
trillions
. Even harder for that many to work as one big thing.”

“I see,” Kimberlin said. “And how many cells do you think there are in
your
body?”

The HeavyG only asked questions like that when the answers would help prove his point. The guy knew so
much
; it really got to be annoying after a while.

“Judging from that smart-ass look on your face, Mike, I’ll guess
hundreds of trillions
.”

The lineman’s smile widened. “Excellent deduction. And, also, fairly accurate. Hundreds of trillions of individual cells make up Quentin Barnes and all his parts. You can’t see any of
your
cells without a microscope or eye-mods, so why is it so hard for you to believe that a Rewall colony can collectively achieve a similar level of organization?”

Quentin didn’t have an answer. He was more than just a collection of cells ... wasn’t he? Science and the High One weren’t
mutually exclusive
(another phrase Kimberlin had taught him). In fact, Quentin believed that science was the tool High One used to create all things. He existed because High One wanted him to exist, but if a slimy mat of
bacteria
could eventually “come alive,” so to speak, did that mean intelligent life could occur without the High One’s hand?

The walls let out a now-familiar heavy sigh, saving Quentin from further dealing with those uncomfortable thoughts.

“Everyone to the bridge,” Rosalind said. “Bumberpuff thinks you’ll all want to see this. As for what I think? Not that anyone cares, really, but if someone asked me, and I wasn’t just minding my own business — which I always do — I’d tell them—”

“We’re on our way,” Quentin said. Damn but this ship was long-winded.

The walls sighed again. “If that’s what makes you happy.”

Kimberlin cleared his throat, then turned off his messageboard. He looked nervous.

“I hope this goes well,” he said. “The Rewall are as militaristic as any other sentient race. They protect their territory. If something goes wrong, I’m afraid we’re all going to die.”

“You say that a lot, Mike.”

The lineman shrugged. “That doesn’t make it any less possible.”

Quentin stood and thumped his lineman’s huge shoulder.

“Tell you what, big guy, when the regular season starts, I’ll put you in charge of halftime pep talks. You just
fill
people with confidence.”

QUENTIN HAD READ
about the Rewall, but some of that information hadn’t sunk in — this was
space
, after all, and he’d automatically expected to see a ship.

But there wasn’t a ship. No ship at all. Just a ... a
thing
, hanging out there in the void.

Rosalind had grown a clear viewport bubble in the bridge, or whatever this central room was called. Quentin walked into that bubble. His brain struggled to find definitions for what he saw beyond the clear material.

Tendrils of some kind, reaching out for miles. Not “tentacles,” exactly, but rather long strands of something that looked about as resilient as the algae ropes he’d seen back on Stewart: long things that only
seemed
solid until you reached into the water to touch them and your finger slid right through.

Those extrusions reached out from an irregular sphere, lumpy in some places, indented in others. Light from a nearby star played off the thing’s brown hull.

Skin
, Quentin reminded himself.
It’s not a HULL, because that’s a living thing out there. It’s SKIN
.

The center of that sphere looked like a meteor had smashed into it, creating a deep, conical impact crater that glowed yellow, brighter the farther in it went — at the bottom, it blazed like a tiny sun.

Other spots on the sphere shimmered with different colors: glimmering reds, flickering blues, jewel-bright greens.

Quentin didn’t need anyone to tell him the obvious: that thing out there was even larger than the
Grieve
. Quite a bit larger.

“High One,” Quentin said. “That’s a living being?”

“It is,” Rosalind answered. “I’ve met this one before. I call it
Joey
.”

“
Joey
?” Quentin pointed at the monstrosity. “You
met
that?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Rosalind said. “We had a little disagreement.”