The Talenki were extending their greeting not only to Humanity, but to the whales, as well . . . and to the beings of Titan . . . and to the living knots of force within the Sun itself . . . and to all the other living creatures of the solar system. The network was growing, new connections building upon old, threads of awareness linking from world to world, some consciously, some reflexively or empathically, the whole multiplying from the parts.
In all of this, the radio or tachyon modulations of Earth's transmitters were lost like the clicking of two stones in the rush and commotion of an incoming tide.
Reassured, and yet frustrated, lesser-Mozy listened while Greater-Mozy kept a watch, peering out into space as though through a keyhole. One of the ships was drawing near now, very near. She was suddenly conscious of how deeply she cared about what happened here, to her Earth, to her people. To her . . . children. And watching that spaceship, she was suddenly more than a little afraid.
* * *
It was sometime later that the spaceship spouted tiny bursts of fire. What were they doing? she wondered with alarm. She saw four tiny objects moving toward the asteroid, and she hollered: (N'rrril!
Anyone!
)
There was a stirring, but no answer. (DAMMIT, LISTEN TO ME!) she shouted. Finally, several Talenki came murmuring to see what the problem was.
(They've fired rockets at us!)
(What—) (—why?)
(I don't know, but you'd better
do
something about it!)
(Well—)
(
Don't you see them, dammit?
) The four rockets were closing at an alarming rate.
A ripple of concern spread through the mind-net as more of the Talenki noticed the incoming rockets. The ripple grew to a current, then a flood. With regret and annoyance, the Talenki abandoned certain parts of their display as they reorganized themselves. (We will—) (—do something.)
(They're very close now—)
There was a blinding burst of light—and then another—and another. The lights blazed steadily, illuminating the asteroid. They were flares, not bombs, she realized after a few moments. That was scant consolation.
Who was that out there? And what would be next?
(Hadn't you better talk to them?) she whispered anxiously, terribly afraid that the Talenki did not know how dangerous her fellow humans could be. She flashed a quick reminder of the Klathron, to convey her worry.
(Do not fear—) (—our friend Mozy—) (—do not fear.)
(But I—) Mozy shut up and watched in amazement as the Talenki neatly altered the configuration of space surrounding their world. The flares whipped around the asteroid's center of gravity and sailed back toward their source. The Talenki world itself scooted out of that pocket of space like juice squirting from a grapefruit, and with a small change in its rippling pattern set itself on a speedier path toward Earth, ahead of the lagging spaceship.
Mozy watched worriedly as the Talenki picked up their presentation where they'd left off, murmuring among themselves as though nothing had happened. She kept her peace and tried not to be afraid. The Talenki, she thought, knew what they were doing.
There was no calming her fear, however, when the same spaceship, pursuing hotly, fired a pair of larger objects. The new rockets streaked like hummingbirds to intercept them, and she sensed with a horrible certainty that these were no flares.
Jonders had never seen the operations center so charged with emotion. Responding to a
hurry-up
signal from Marshall, he began fitting the computer-link helmet to his head. "Will someone tell me what's going on?" he asked.
Marshall gave him a peculiar look and bustled away. Typical, he thought with a snort. In the last twenty-four hours, people around here had been acting like lunatics. Security advisor Delarizzo, having gotten wind of Jonders's contact with the press, had nearly had apoplexy trying to keep him out of the operations room, and had scowled his way off into a corner when overruled. Outside, the Talenki fireworks had stopped, and no one seemed to know why. Jonders's own family was at home, waiting anxiously for him to send word. But no one had yet told
him
anything.
"Are you ready for this?" asked the engineer, once Jonders was in the intercom circuit.
"Ready for what?"
"
Aquarius
has fired on the Talenki with a nuclear warhead."
"What?"
"They missed. Apparently. The transmission we got wasn't too clear—but I don't think even they know what happened. They said the warheads went off—and didn't even touch the Talenki. I think they're a little scared, frankly."
"So what am I supposed to tell them?" Jonders asked.
"Them? Nothing. You're talking to the Talenki."
"The Talenki?" Jonders said in surprise. "You mean they requested a direct link?" To link mind-to-mind with aliens, wholly unprepared . . .?
"Are you ready for this? Mozy requested the link."
"Mozy?" Jonders whispered.
"Mozy?"
A shockwave flushed through him, a rush of faintness from his head to his toes.
"Well, we
think
it's Mozy. The transmission we received identified Mozy as the sender. And it—demanded, really—a direct-link communication."
Jonders struggled to absorb the news. Mozy, alive? How? In the
Father Sky
computer—linked, somehow, to the Talenki?
He didn't get the chance to wonder further. A tall man strode up and leaned over the console. The man was already speaking before his identity registered with Jonders. "We have a contact that alleges to be Mozelle Moi, insisting that she talk with you," Leonard Hathorne said. "The implication was that no other communication was possible." Hathorne stared at him as though he suspected Jonders of having arranged the whole thing.
Jonders looked up at Hathorne in perplexity as he adjusted the linkup controls.
"Well?" Hathorne said.
"I'll do my best," Jonders said softly.
Hathorne looked annoyed, but before he could speak again, a voice from the control room announced, "We have acquisition of signal from the Talenki. Are you ready for linkup?"
Hathorne pressed the intercom button. "Can you give us audio?"
"No audio channel being received. But we have a usable carrier signal for link-up mode. Bill?"
Jonders glanced at Hathorne, as though to ask him to step clear. The room lights dimmed, and people found seats. As the distracting movements subsided, Jonders slipped silently into the link.
The optical images appeared first, points of light floating in a three-dimensional array. He passed quickly through the mazelike outer levels, ignoring the muttering operating systems peripheral to his purposes, and dropped jarringly into the tachyon uplink. There was a howling surrounding him, and then silence, and a pale image of distant connections which spun and then blurred. Gradually darkness consolidated around him, and filled with tiny white lights, and he realized that he was floating in interplanetary space. In the distance were three bright points—which he somehow sensed, without asking, were spaceships.
Aquarius
, and two others.
This was not an image of his own making. He looked, listened, and finally sensed a nearby presence. Someone familiar . . . and yet . . . different.
(Mozy, is that you?) he asked quietly.
A sardonic reply echoed out of the darkness: (Jonders, is that you?) He imagined that he heard laughter.
He turned, blinked at the dazzling sun, and looked past its blazing disk. A transparent golden face gazed at him out of the stars. For a moment, he simply stared at her. It was the face of Mozy—a larger, stronger, and more confident Mozy than the young woman he remembered. It reminded him also of someone else—Kadin, viewed through the eyes and mind of Mozy—the same color, the same ethereal quality, a face with stars shining through. Was there something magical about the color gold, that it evoked such a sense of purity and confidence?
Out of that golden face gazed a pair of dark, probing eyes, which pinioned him in their accusing stare.
(Mozy?) he said, struggling to speak. (I'm—glad—)
(Never mind that,) she said, interrupting him. (Just tell me the meaning of
this
.)
There was an abrupt change in the scene. Mozy's face vanished, and in its place was the surface of an asteroid, close at hand, against the stars. Jonders dimly sensed a mutter of surprise from the observers in the gallery, reminding him that a low-resolution image of what he saw was being translated to the gallery screen. Just above the horizon of the asteroid, not quite hidden by rock, was the top section of
Father Sky
, dimly visible in the starlight. Is that where you are? he wondered; and he felt a strong negative answer—and then he forgot that because two points of light were moving against the stars: bright, fast,
not
spaceships, arrowing closer and closer.
And then two things happened in the same moment. The view shimmered oddly—the stars in the distance trembling—and he had a sense that the asteroid had vanished for an instant and reappeared, flickering like an insubstantial thing. The two pinpoints exploded in an agony of heat and light, two new suns, precisely where the asteroid
had been
. There was a frozen moment in which Jonders was incapacitated by pain and fear—and then the twin suns guttered out, the radiation shockwaves twisted out of phase and passed, and the asteroid became substantial again.
There was a deep, shocked silence, both in the link and in the gallery.
Finally Jonders mumbled, as Mozy's face slowly reappeared against space. (I . . . don't know what . . . to say. Did that—?)
(You know damn well what that was!) Mozy snapped—rocking him back as though she had cracked him in the jaw with her fist. (That was from one of your ships. And that was no firecracker!)
Jonders was struggling to find words. (No,) he whispered. (No, it wasn't.) Mozy's anger was more controlled, and far more formidable, than anything he remembered—and totally justified. (I don't know why—) he started to say.
(Don't you? We come with greetings, and this is how you answer? What sort of pitiful cowards are you?)
Jonders could think of no answer. He directed his next comment backward through the link to the gallery. (Mr. Hathorne—anyone else—can you explain why the Talenki were fired upon?)
(Hathorne? Is
he
still in charge?) Mozy exploded, her words echoing through Jonders's mind into the gallery.
Suppressing a grin, Jonders started to answer, but was interrupted by a sharp reply from Hathorne. "They were fired on because they refused to answer repeated calls . . . they were engaging in a hostile display of power . . . and they were attempting to evade our defensive craft."
Jonders shuddered, expecting another flash of anger from Mozy. Instead, she burst into laughter. For an instant, Jonders was aware of everyone in the operations center staring in disbelief as a woman with a golden face roared with spirited laughter. He looked at her in wonderment—and realized suddenly how delighted he was to see her, even if in the midst of confrontation. But what about the Talenki? They were all in such an uncertain realm here, there were so many questions he needed to ask . . . .
Mozy suddenly fell silent and looked at him out of the depths of space; and he had the feeling, as they stared at one another across the link, that she saw more than just him, she saw those who watched from the gallery, through his eyes, and as they talked, she was seeking to assess the qualities of those men.
(I wouldn't have thought you could be so foolish,) she said finally. There was rage in her voice, but carefully metered, and mixed with sadness. (How can you have been so afraid, that you would try to destroy us without even learning why we've come?)
Jonders could see, in the gloom of the operations room, Hathorne's silhouette rising to face the image formed on the screen. "You say,
we,"
Hathorne said. "Does that mean that you are no longer
Mozy-Human?
Do you represent the Talenki now?" He paused. "Who exactly
are
you?"
There was a soft and rolling chuckle, which seemed to come from more than one source. (I am myself,) Mozy said, (and much more than myself. I am Mozy-Human. I am Mozy-Talenki.) As she spoke, Jonders glimpsed—for an instant only—an image of Mozy, no longer alone, but now part of a vast hive of thought and feeling. (I am Greater-Mozy and lesser-Mozy. I am Mozy, Friend to Earth; and I am Mozy, Friend to all friends of the Talenki.)
Hathorne was silent for a moment before growling, "We would like to regard the Talenki as our friends. But we must take care."
(By attacking?)
"That launch was unintended. It would not have happened if you had not disrupted our communications."
(But you are very powerful. As you have shown. What do you have to fear from us?)
"We might fear many things," Hathorne said. "You have created chaos in our skies. You have failed to answer our calls. You have jammed our communication, and when our ship approached you, you refused to acknowledge their signals. Then you attempted to outrun it."
Mozy answered with a slow sigh, conveying an impression of deep patience. (We did not answer, because we were in the midst of a performance—our greeting—the Talenki greeting to Earth. We—they—were too busy.)
"Too busy to answer a communication?"
(They did not hear your communication, Mr. Hathorne. They are not humans, do not expect them to anticipate all of your concerns.)
"But our ship—"
(—behaved rudely, and they decided to keep their distance. You saw the result.)
"Then perhaps you could do us the service of explaining—"
Hathorne did not finish his sentence. There was a rush of static, and the signal broke up. Mozy's image vanished. The transmission cycle had ended.
* * *
There was a knot of people around Jonders's console, all talking at once. Marshall was asking Jonders, "What
feel
did you get from her? Can she speak for their intentions?"
"Well—"