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Dark Mind
Dark Mind
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Dark Mind

“This is the ultimate fate of your Six Suns,” Gray told them. “Six black holes spinning in a rosette. Those masses, rotating that quickly, distort spacetime in the same way as the TRGAs … what you call the Spinning Gateways.”

Gray knew, though, that the most intriguing part of the images humans had recorded weren’t the black holes themselves, but what was within the central opening at the Rosette’s heart: starscapes.

Different starscapes.

They changed with the changing angle of the recording sensors as they passed the opening, and Gray thought about how a slight change in the angle of approach through a TRGA cylinder could change your destination in both time and space. Here, one view of a sparseness of stars—a stellar desert—gave way to the teeming myriads of suns at the heart of a cluster or a galaxy, which in turn gave way to tangled, knotted curtains of nebulae … to the emptiness of intergalactic space … to a view of a binary star from relatively close … to a view of a spiral galaxy—quite possibly the Milky Way—seen in all of its spectacular beauty from Outside.

Some of those different views, those different realities, were alien in the extreme. One appeared to be a realm of searing, white-hot energy … the core of a sun, perhaps … or the chaotic incandescence of an instant after the big bang … or even a cosmos of completely different laws and makeup.

Cosmologists studying the changing scenes had concluded that each different starscape was looking into a different universe—alternate, parallel realities, some very like this one, some completely other.

“We believe the Rosette Aliens came through this gateway,” Gray told the assembly. “They might be from the remote future. More likely they’re from an alternative universe, a different reality. Some of our cosmologists have speculated that they’re from a universe that is nearing the end of its lifetime, a universe in the final eons of cold, entropic decay. If so, the Rosette Aliens might be seeking a younger, healthier universe. They would be migrating here to escape their dying cosmos.

“But we don’t know. We haven’t been able to establish communications with them. We don’t know what they are, what they’re thinking, where they’re from. They may be so far advanced that they literally do not, cannot notice us.

“Some human xenosophontologists have begun speculating,” Gray went on, “about the galactic Dyson sphere we glimpsed in the far future … eight hundred eighty-eight million years after this epoch you inhabit here. It seems statistically unlikely that we’re dealing with two Kardashev-III species here—one entering my time as the Rosette Aliens, and a different one building a galaxy-sized Dyson sphere just twelve million years later. If these two … manifestations are in fact the same species, we need to confront them before they become well-established and begin cannibalizing the entire galaxy. This is completely beyond the scope and capabilities of Humankind. But if it is of interest to the Sh’daar, perhaps an alliance between humans and the Sh’daar is a possibility after all.”

Gray hated saying that, hated the necessity of stating it. He’d spent most of his adult life fighting the Sh’daar. He’d started off as a fighter pilot off the America, then gone on to flying a console at Navy HQ Command. He’d served as CAG on board the Republic, as skipper of the Nassau and then as XO back on board the America once more, before eventually moving up to becoming America’s CO.

And now he was a fleet admiral in command of the America battlegroup, with orders from the president himself to forge an alliance with the federation of alien cultures he’d been fighting now for twenty … no, twenty-four years.

No … he didn’t like that one damned bit.

Hell, the whole point of the war had been to maintain Earth’s sovereignty against a coalition of beings determined to incorporate Humankind into their own order. But now here he was, with orders from President Koenig to explore the possibility of recruiting those same beings into an alliance with Earth. Could the Sh’daar be trusted? Could they even be understood?

Were humans going to lose their independence after all, after nearly sixty years of bitter and bloody conflict?

It tore at him, knowing so many of his soldiers—so many of his friends—had died because of these beings, and now he was essentially here, begging for their help.

He’d stopped speaking, his message delivered, and he realized that all of the gathered aliens were discussing it now with considerable animation. Gray found that he was unable to follow more than a fraction of what was being said. It was like being in a conversation where everyone was talking at once, and hearing only a word here and there.

He found the Agletsch’s channel. “Aar’mithdisch? I’m not following the translation.”

“The human brain has limitations,” she replied. “It is unable to follow multiple threads, it seems.”

“Are you telling me these beings can?”

“To an extent. All have been enhanced to one extent or another. You will be able to use the translation software to pick out separate threads and hear them in isolation, perhaps at a later time.”

Which didn’t help him understand what was going on now.

He tried to tune in on different threads.

We do not know if these images represent non-Sh’daar manipulation of the galaxy …

We do not know that these images represent reality …

If the Glothr flee …

The ephemerals distort the truth …

has nothing to do with us …

ephemerals do not …

a billion years …

afraid …

“What are they saying?” McKennon asked on a private channel, and for the first time, Gray realized that she had been experiencing this virtual reality as well, even though he didn’t see her avatar here.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Our translation expert says human brains aren’t good enough for us to join in.”

“Some Sh’daar brains and nervous systems have been artificially enhanced,” she told him. “The Adjugredudhra … the Zhalleg …”

“I thought these species were all Refusers?” Gray replied, a petulant edge to his mental voice. “No GRIN technologies, no genetics, no robotics—”

“As far as we’ve been able to determine,” McKennon told him, “that was almost never an absolute for them. If humans gave up all technology, that would include fire, sharpened sticks, and the hand ax. The most virulent Luddite wouldn’t demand that.”

“I suppose not. It just seems … I don’t know … hypocritical, I guess, for them to demand we give up certain technologies while they continue using them.”

“They’re also alien, Admiral. By definition, that means they don’t see things the same way we do.”

“I’ve heard that one before.” He laughed. “And I still think that’s a piss-poor excuse that explains nothing.”

“Well, excuse me …

“Oh, I wasn’t picking on you. They have different worldviews, a different context. I get that. But if this were a virdrama, having the villains do something weird just because they’re alien wouldn’t cut it.”

“Maybe the problem is that this isn’t a virdrama,” she told him. “Real life is never as neatly ordered—or as explicable—as fiction.”

the Six Suns of the future …

the Spinning Gateways …

if the ephemerals upset the balance of …

we must not …

they must not …

“Are you recording all of this?” Gray asked McKennon.

“Of course. Aren’t you?”

“I am. It’s good to have a backup, though. You may be picking up pieces that my hardware misses.”

“Good thought.”

“Konstantin should be able to untangle it all later. But I do wish we knew what the argument was about now.”

“Ask the Agletsch.”

“Damn it. Of course …” He shifted channels. “Aar’mithdisch? What are they arguing about? Explain it for my poor, underdeveloped human brain.”

“They do not argue … not precisely. There is doubt that the imagery you bring from the remote future represents what is really happening. Two—the Adjugredudhra and the Baondyeddi—think it likely that the galactic Dyson sphere you’ve imaged here is in fact something built by the farfuture descendents of the Sh’daar Collective. If that is true, of course, there is nothing about which they need to be concerned … yes-no?”

“The Glothr records show Sh’daar species fleeing the galaxy.”

“The term ‘Sh’daar’ may have no meaning—or pertinence—in another four Galactic rotations.

“Too, others continue to insist that a billion years is too long an expanse of time for anyone to worry about what lies beyond. Those inhabited worlds fleeing into intergalactic space could be the future equivalent of Refusers, for example, or a defeated faction … or almost anything else at all. Nearly a billion years is a very long period of time, in which cultures will likely evolve and change out of all recognition.”

“How … ephemeral of them …”

“Some Sh’daar species are extremely long-lived,” the Agletsch said. “They tend to take what you humans call the long view … and with good reason. But most feel the problems of today are more than enough to occupy their full attention … yes-no?”

“Time travel rather puts a different spin on things, though,” Gray pointed out. “What the Sh’daar do here, in the N’gai Cluster, has spread to my own time.”

“Of course. But of greater moment … the technically advanced species of the remote future may be able to travel back in time and affect what happens here. The Glothr, clearly, can do this. You humans have done it, by means of the TRGA cylinders. What terrifies the decision makers of the Collective is the possibility that someone … you, the Glothr … the Rosette Aliens will come back to this time or before and wipe out all that they have built here.”

“Why? What are they building that is so damned important?” He meant the words lightly, a kind of joke.

The Agletsch liaison answered him, though. “They seek to undo the Technological Singularity, which destroyed their former totsch.”

The Agletsch word was not easily translated. According to Konstantin-2’s database, though, it carried elements of the words “glory,” “reputation,” and “effectiveness.” Gray decided that a good fit might be the Asian concept of face.

Could that be the answer? The Sh’daar had set out on their anti-singularity jihad because they were embarrassed? Because they felt they’d lost face?

It didn’t seem reasonable. And yet, knowing the human causes for so much of their own history, maybe that shouldn’t be surprising.

“The war itself may be an emergent phenomenon,” Konstantin-2 whispered in Gray’s thoughts, almost as though reading them.

“What do you mean?”

“The Collective consists of several diverse species, each with its own agenda … and with numerous individual members of each species with their own goals and desires, all interacting with one another in essentially unpredictable ways. The pro-singularity Sh’daar who attacked us upon our arrival are a case in point.”

“So?”

“Emergent behavior is defined as a larger pattern or behavior arising from interactions among smaller or simpler entities which may not, themselves, display that behavior. Mind arising from trillions of neural synaptic connections would be one such. Life itself, emerging from the associated cells of an organism, is another.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. But war?”

“It seems evident that no one of the Sh’daar species rules or dominates the others. All do fear a repeat of their singularity event, however, and seek to prevent this. Their interaction with one another, however, might have led to a social acceptance of warfare as a means to an end, and the attitudes of other species would reinforce the emerging group ethic.”

“Like a lynch mob,” Gray said slowly.

“Precisely. One human alone might be unwilling to execute another human, but a large group, with the members exciting one another, would not hesitate. Humans have demonstrated this principle time and time again, in Nazi Germany, in Soviet Russia, in the Chinese Hegemony …”

“So what do we do about it?”

“Unknown. Improved lines of communication will help.”

“Of course it would. The problem is we can’t even understand them now.”

The ephemerals try to deceive us

The ephemerals are of no consequence

We should investigate the Rosette intelligence

Who’d said that? Gray checked the datastream, and had Konstantin-2 tease out the tagline on the statement. It was the Sjhlurrr.

The Sjhlurrr posed an interesting problem for those studying the Sh’daar Collective of species, Gray thought. According to the data acquired twenty years ago, the red-golden slugs appeared to be less psychologically attached to a particular body image than were humans. Evidently, they’d used advanced genetic techniques to alter their ponderous and often inconvenient forms, transferring their considerable intellects into other, smaller and more mobile organic bodies in myriad shapes and sizes.

“I wonder,” McKennon said, “if that’s the Sjhlurrr’s real shape.”

She seemed to be reading his thoughts. “I thought the Refusers rejected the idea of genetic manipulation.”

“Some did. But just as not all of the ur-Sh’daar went along with the technologies that kicked off their singularity, not all members of a species buy into a single ideology or meme. Think of how diverse human beliefs are.”

“I guess so. It’s easy to see all aliens as alike …”

“There are some. One F’heen is pretty much identical to every other F’heen in its swarm, both genetically and in its worldview. They form telepathic group minds, so they kind of have to all look at the world the same way, not only within their home swarm, but among all swarms. But for most other species? No, they’re as much individuals within their own groups as are humans.”

Gray thought about that statement for a moment. While he agreed in principle, he was not completely convinced. For a long time, humans had assumed that the near-mythic Sh’daar were a single alien species, the monolithic power behind an alliance of galactic species within the Tprime epoch that they’d set to attacking humans. When the America battlegroup had first traveled back in time to the N’gai Cluster, Humankind had discovered that the Sh’daar were, in fact, an assembly of several dozen star-faring species working together … an empire of sorts, spanning both space and time, united in the need to stop other species from entering their own technological singularities.

And something about that idea simply did not make sense. Gray felt like he was tantalizingly close to seeing a larger picture, a motive behind Sh’daar decisions and actions, something that humans had not yet grasped. It had to do with what McKennon had just said about diversity within the separate species … but he couldn’t quite grasp it.

With a mental shrug, he decided to look at it later. Maybe Konstantin-2 would be able to help pin down what was bothering him.

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