Heaven (4 page)

Fourth from the sun was No-Moon, a typical aqueous planet with extensive oceans of liquid water surrounding five large island
continents, liberally sprinkled with archipelagoes. Unusually for a planet of its size and position, it had no naturally occurring
satellite, hence its name. It had a flourishing biota, including a variety of sentients, mostly nonnative. For most of them,
the spectacular appearance of the herds against the night sky was a deeply spiritual experience.

The herd sensed the gradual steepening of the sun’s gravitational gradient and plunged onward, seeking pasture. The herders’
only remaining task was to make sure that they chose the pasture that the plasmoids preferred.

It was Stun who spotted the sail first. May was busy arguing with a couple of suited mariners who thought that she was interested
in scrimshawed bottlewhale teeth, and who wouldn’t accept that she wasn’t. She finally got rid of them by criticizing the
carvings, pointing out that they were primitive and poorly formed. They were, but there were plenty of worlds on which these
features would have been a virtue—indeed, the sole reason for owning such artifacts.

When Stun shouted the news of Second-Best Sailor’s arrival, May unslung her ansible and selected the correct encryption disk.
There was an exactly matching disk among those in Will’s ansible. All ansible communication required such disks—not for security
per se, but because that was how the Precursors in their wisdom had built them. Security was a side effect. Another side effect
was that although an ansible link conveyed messages instantaneously, the link could not be set up any faster than a ship could
carry an encryption disk—unless you used a transible, but those were prohibitively expensive. Anyone with an ansible could
receive messages from anywhere in the Galaxy, but the only messages they could understand were those that came from a disk
that matched their own.

Now set up for instant communication, May signaled to the orbiting starship that was their home: “I have just spotted a sail.
It is ripped to shreds, but the colors look very familiar.”

Her mate, Sharp Wit Will Cut, responded after a few seconds’ delay: “He must not have been diverted
too
far from his course by the Change Winds, then.” Over the ansible, May could hear mewling sounds from the furry crevit that
habitually draped itself across Will’s broad shoulders. It was a handsome beast, like its master. By Neanderthal standards,
anyway.

“No, he is several days earlier than I expected,” said May.

“At least we know he did not sink.”

“Apparently not. He really is a very good sailor, you know. Just irresponsible.”

Sharp Wit Will Cut reviewed what May had just said. “I am not sure that those two sentences go together.”

She decided not to rise to the bait. “I hope he carries the datablets; otherwise this will have been a wasted trip.”

“Not entirely,” said Will.

“What do you mean?”

“We have been picking up transmissions from some distant craft that seem to be approaching this world.”

“The wild magnetotori and their herders?”

“No, the herd passed by last night, on their way to the sun. This is something else. The rumors have been circulating for
a while. Now they have been confirmed.”

May’s sense of foreboding heightened. This would interest the mariners, assuming they didn’t already know it. “Craft? Do you
know how many, or what size?”

“A fleet. We think there are between sixty and eighty of them, all powered by tame magnetotori. There seem to be a dozen command
vessels, among them a mother ship, about the same number of heavy transports, and a lot of smaller support craft. The command
vessels are
big
—conveyor-class, top of the range. They are making no attempt to conceal their approach. Some of our fellow nomads picked
up bits of their interfleet communication traffic when they passed nearby. Radio messages, some unencrypted. They have sent
me copies by ansible.”

“Can we put names to any of them?”

Will snorted. “No, the messages mention no individual names. But they repeatedly use a collective name. It is almost a chant,
a mantra.”

“What is it?”

“They call themselves ‘Cosmic Unity.’ Ever heard of them, May?”

“Possibly. Does Ship have any records under that heading?”

“Yes, it has. Lots. We are reviewing them now.”

“Copy them to me immediately, Will. I think my sailor friend will place high trading value on a datablet containing information
about this fleet.”

As his boat drifted slowly into port, Second-Best Sailor left most of the handling to his apprentices. They knew the routine,
they knew the port, and if anything went wrong, then he could blame
them
for it. They in turn were well aware of this tactic, which had been used against them many times, and were careful not to
make any errors.

“Luff the mainsail,” Second-Best Sailor commanded at the precise moment that Short Apprentice was moving to do just that.
It was always a good idea to remind subordinates who was in charge. “Neatly done.” It was also a good idea to praise them
when they performed unusually well. Second-Best Sailor had learned such tactics from his mother, who had passed them on from
Talkative Forager as part of a routine method for maintaining cultural continuity among the males.

The waters around the shore of the port were a jumble of docks, boat’s chandlers, warehouses, and bars—all b’low-water, naturally,
but most had ’bove-water extensions for commerce with landlubbers. These extensions could be used by polypoids wearing simple
water-masks, provided they slipped back into the water at frequent intervals. Longer periods out of the water required suits,
but the duplicators had made those widely available—though still quite pricey. Duplication was not cost-free. It took time,
raw materials, and most of all, expertise.

The boat slid neatly alongside two others moored to the posts of a dock. Short Apprentice went through the side to tie it
up securely. Fat Apprentice began to stow any gear that wasn’t needed in port. Second-Best Sailor went to his private cabin,
convinced himself that the two fragments of his wife were in good health, and checked the fan that would ensure a continuing
flow of fresh water to their polyps. Then he rummaged in the cupboards until he found the datablets that his Neanderthal contacts
were expecting.

He locked the cupboard and left the datablets where they were. He would come and get them once trade negotiations were completed.
Then he grabbed a water-mask and headed for a bar he particularly liked, known as Wild Weed Wasted. Smiling Teeth May Bite
and Eyes That Stun the Unwary would meet him there shortly. He’d looked through the periscope and seen them on the pier as
he approached.

The underwater parts of the bar were crowded with sailors celebrating landfall in the traditional manner. Several were obviously
getting very high on sticks of concentrated algae, and at least three had lost consciousness altogether and fallen into a
stupor. He slipped underneath a group of mariners from the Sharptop Peninsula who were playing a raucous game of float-the-cube,
and located the up door at the far corner of the bar. Pulling on his water-mask, he headed toward the surface.

He emerged in what appeared from above to be a small swimming pool—impossibly blue water contained by tiled walls and floor.
But the tiles were ceramic shells, imported from the Cool Isles, where they were extruded by trained mollusks. And the blue
was mostly the effect of squads of cleaner-algae.

May and Stun were already there, sitting on dockchairs beside the pool.

“Late again, I see” was May’s greeting.

“Not my fault,” protested Second-Best Sailor. “Change Winds come early this season.”

“Again.”

“Yeah. Funny, that. Don’ understand it at all. It ain’t normal.” He gestured with splayed subtentacles, as if struck by a
thought. “Do ya think the arrival of the torus herders might ’ave something to do with it? Some say their animals can disrupt
normal weather patterns.”

“Not the timing of the Change Winds, Second-Best Sailor.”

“Oh. But did you
see
them? Amazin’! Makes ya realize what an astonishin’ universe we live in!”

The Neanderthals, too, had seen the strings of magnetotori, but they were unmoved by events that stirred most other species’
spirits. “An unusual sight,” said May, as if it were an intellectual proposition. “Pale violet lights in a fan. Pretty.” She
didn’t sound very enthusiastic.

“You guys just don’t appreciate the finer things of life,” the mariner stated with mock disapproval. “You need educatin’.”

With a quick glance at Stun to confirm tactics, May decided to cut short the banter and get down to the trading. It might
just throw Second-Best Sailor off his guard. “We trade information for the edification of the mariners of No-Moon. What do
you trade?”

“Information? What kind of information?”

May sighed. She’d known it was pointless. Nothing could throw Second-Best Sailor off his guard when he was sober. And there
was no point in offering him anything to eat: He’d save his eating until he had clinched the deal.

“First tell us what
you
have to trade. Then we will describe the nature of our information. Do you have the datablets?”

“Might have. I was gonna throw in a few lemons, for free, but the airstorm destroyed most of ’em.”

Stun giggled. “Just like last year.”

Second-Best Sailor failed to see the joke and looked hurt. “Well, ’smatterofact, yeah. I suppose I might have a datablet or
two somewhere, if that’s what grabs ya. . . .”

The bargaining began.

Not only were the reefwives highly intelligent, they had long ago evolved the ability to extrude ceramics, metals, and minerals
to any desired pattern, right down to the molecular level. They had developed this ability by modifying the chemical systems
and genetic controls that enabled their distant ancestors to make carbonate solids to construct their own hard parts, just
as mollusks can secrete shells that are virtually monocrystalline. But the reefmind was intelligent, so the reefwives’ extrusions
could be deposited according to a plan. They could make ceramic insulation, impervious to water, one molecule thick. The datablets,
capable of cramming huge quantities of information into a very small space, were constructed in the same way. And the datablets
could be read by land-entity computers, suitably programmed and equipped.

The reefmind made many other kinds of ceramic, waterproof electronic circuitry, too. Some of the best electronics in the Galaxy
were reefwife extrusions, though they were universally assumed to be of mariner manufacture. The most widely accepted theory
was that the mariners had stumbled across some hitherto unknown Precursor gadget. All attempts to steal it had failed, but
this was attributed to the high security of an underwater lifestyle, not to the gadget’s nonexistence.

In this manner the reefwives, using their husbands as a front, could market their most important product: simulations. The
same ferocious computational abilities that powered their remarkable timechunk extrapolations could be turned to other tasks,
and routinely were. The reefmind placed great value on information, and to its delight, so did the rest of the Galaxy. The
datablets still on board Second-Best Sailor’s vessel were accurate simulations of the forest ecosystem of the aqueous planet
Beta-2 Tigris, which was suffering from an epidemic of tuber rot and in serious danger of ecological collapse. The simulations
offered guidance on management strategies to eradicate the infection and return the forests to their former state, including
all the important subecosystems, from microorganisms to ponderous fellingtooths.

In return, the reefwives wanted information about Galactic politics and society. Inside information, the kind of thing they
could not get from public sources. With this, their extended-present perceptions of wider events would be more accurate.

They were especially interested in anything the Neanderthal computers held relating to new arrivals in the vicinity.

And so it was that a rambling, confused dossier on Cosmic Unity was handed over to Second-Best Sailor, and the forests of
the aqueous world Beta-2 Tigris were thrown a lifeline.

But before the deal could be concluded, Second-Best Sailor had a private request. “May, what I really need right now is new
lemon trees ’bovedecks. Mine were
wasted
.”

“You can buy those from many sources.”

“Yeah, but you Neanderthals can work in air, so ya could plant ’em for me a lot more easy, and a lot better, than most jobbin’
gardeners.”

Stun feigned reluctance. “We
could
, if offered sufficient inducements.”

“Oh, I can pay.”

“With what? You have already agreed a trade for your datablets. The lemon trees were your spare trade goods.”

Second-Best Sailor laughed. “Lemons—they’re nothin’. I got somethin’ better. Somethin’ no one has ever offered ya before.
Somethin’ I wants ya to hold in sacred trust for me, until—if ever—I ask for ’er back.”

Her
? The lion-headed Neanderthal women were intrigued. This was no bargain; if anything, it was an obligation. But their sense
of empathy was screaming at them:
accept, accept
. “What?”

“I want to lend ya a piece of my wife.”

Wickedness, selfishness, vanity, greed, arrogance . . . Yes, I have known all these, have been guilty of all these . . . But
they are obvious faults, easy to recognize and to combat. They are nothing compared to the evils that have been inflicted
by sincere bigots obsessed with their own version of Good Works.

The Wisdom of Chalz

T
he galaxy was a mere stripling
.

But despite its comparative youth, it had already accumulated dangerous residues of its past, and it could not be rid of them.
There were idiosyncrasies and anomalies, complications that would not normally have been expected in such a young specimen.
Not just the gross effects of gravitational disruption, which could afflict even a young galaxy. These peculiarities were
subtler, and they normally took a long time to develop.