"Hang on, General! These things are supposed to compensate for gees, butwhoops!"
Toya slid against the tense form of Gutierrez as the electrostat they occupied banked suddenly to avoid one of the great canopy plants. The machine had no seatbeltsno seats at all, for that matterno visible controls, and its smooth, sloping interior threatened to spill them out at any moment, dashing them against a tree or into the cratered ground at what the general estimated, between gasps, was 500 klicks per hour.
"That was too damn close!" Gutierrez squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered, suffering the pangs of an experienced combat pilot with someone elsein this instance, an invisible, electronic someone elseat the controls. What made it worse was that they didn't know where they were going. They'd been summoned by Eichra Oren only minutes ago, when the unpiloted and unannounced aerocraft had settled in the middle of camp and paged Toya through some sort of public address system. When she answered, the Antarctican had made a point of insisting that she bring Gutierrez along.
"Y-yes, sir!" Although she was unaware of it, Toya wasn't the first to observe that there was no end to the surprises 5023 Eris could hand them. She'd been shocked already by the discovery that Mister Thoggosh had left even Eichra Oren in the dark regarding his activities on the asteroid. She was convinced the Antarctican was being open with her about this ridiculous situation and had never been told the facts. It meant that the assignment Gutierrez and the KGB had given her was meaningless.
On the other hand, she didn't want to give up her newfound relationship and hoped perhaps she could get the answers her superiors demanded in another manner. Working together, with Sam's help, she and Eichra Oren had begun questioning other sapients, beings hired to accomplish parts of some goal which none of them, apparently, knew much about. The only reason they were here, aside from excellent pay and possible adventure, was a reputation Mister Thoggosh had earned for undertakings on a historic scale that nearly always turned out profitable. Like Eichra Oren, most had been left out by their employer. A few partners like Scutigera had been sworn to secrecy.
Eichra Oren reasoned, however, that each might possess a tiny piece of the puzzle, by virtue of various tasks and responsibilities he, she, or it had been assigned. He was determined to gather all of this "need-to-know" information and try to assemble it. So far, laborious questioning had only given the would-be detective a few leadsand probably a lot of disinformation.
"Look out!" Toya watched Gutierrez watching another giant tree whirl past at dizzying velocity and a stomach-wrenching angle. Before they'd quite gotten used to the little craftthis was the first such trip for the general and Toya's previous rides had been rather more sedateit slowed to a hover, lowering them gently to the ground.
They found themselves in a steep-walled canyon choked with vegetation. At the bottom, a wide space had been clearedthe crisply singed tops of many larger plants hinted that something like a laser had been usedand promptly filled again with the same heavy equipment and bustling personnel Toya had seen at other drilling sites.
"Well, that was enough exhilaration for the next twenty years or so." Gutierrez stood up and tested his legs, which seemed to be less wobbly than he'd expected. Sweat trickled from his hair, down the side of his neck, into his uniform collar. Even through the canopy, the sun seemed brighter, hotter, and the atmosphere noticeably thicker in the depths of the canyon. "Given that longand a good enough supply of tranquilizersI might even get used to it. Now that we're here, Sergeant, where do you suppose `here' is?"
"No-Name Gulch, according to Sam, here," a familiar human voice behind them answered the general's rhetorical question. "Mister Thoggosh thinks it may be an impact fissure. Or his geologists do. It's the largestand deepestphysical feature on 5023 Eris."
They turned. Eichra Oren and Sam were approaching the aerocraft, the former casually, with his hands in his pockets, the latter with bright eyes and his tongue hanging out. Toya and Gutierrez clambered through a section of the hull that melted out of the way.
"Somehow," the general replied, "I have a nagging suspicion that scientific sightseeing wasn't why you called us out here in such a hurry."
Eichra Oren grinned. "Well, General, in a way you could say it's scientific sightseeing. We came in almost as much haste as you did, summoned in almost the same way by Dlee Raftan Saon." The man hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "He's waiting for us now, at the field infirmary."
Together, the four walked toward the walled tent Toya had seen set up a day earlier, half a world away. This time there was no visible emergency. Inside, the insect physician was puttering with a bank of electronic-looking instruments arrayed atop a folding table. Hunched over his equipment, more than ever he reminded her of a praying mantis. Odd clumps of short, stiff bristles protruded from his joints, which were like those of a crab or lobster. Perhaps oddest of all, he wore a long white cotton four-armed laboratory jacket.
She recognized from her Aerospace Force basic training days the oddly pleasant and familiar smell of tautly stretched and sun-warmed canvas. The floor was canvas, too, lumpy and uneven underfoot. It seemed cooler and dimmer within the tent, although it brightened now and then as the doorflap blew open and shut in an impressive breeze funneling down the canyon.
"Here you are!" he exclaimed without looking up. "General, Sergeant, I thought you might be as interested to see this as our friends, here."
His head swiveled on his armored shoulders. He indicated Sam and Eichra Oren, then the electronics on the table before him. "What you see here, my friends, is a sort of instant antique I ordered constructed this morning, a little bit as if you, sir, were to ask your Corporal Owen to build you a crystal radio receiver. It's a giant analog to the cybernetic implants most of us wear snuggled against whatever we happen to use for brains, intended for use by people like yourselves who are bereft of cortical implants."
Toya could see that it looked sort of like a tabletop computer of the previous century, found in offices and homes, long since declared illegal. The computers aboard the shuttles looked entirely different. The thing plugged into a small, suitcase-sized box under the table constructed of some off-white plastic with smooth surfaces and rounded corners. The mythical tradename "Mr. Fusion" came to mind.
"It's so large and clumsy in part because, instead of addressing the language-forming areas of the brain as a proper implant does, it must perforce generate and interpret language for itself, before passing it on to us by rather primitive graphic means.
"You see," the physician told them, "I happened to be searching our records late last night for some technical clue that might prevent injuries like those I dealt with yesterday, when I made the adventitious discovery of an important fact about the Elders. I believe it has a bearing not only on our respective missions here but, I felt, on keeping the peace between us. So I summoned Eichra Oren and persuaded him that it must be shared with you."
" `Happened to be searching'?" Sam repeated cynically.
" `Happened to be searching.' " Dlee Raftan Saon nodded back toward the device, which immediately sprang to life. At least, Toya thought, it was implant-controlled. A series of brief messages translated into English began scrolling across the monitor, sideways rather than bottom-to-top. More than anything they resembled business and personal memos. In Soviet America, the age of government tolerance toward private computer networks and bulletin boards had ended long before she'd been born. But the six-legged physician, it appeared, was far from finished with his explanation.
"I was performing a key-concept search on the message base, relative to these accidents we've been having, when the system alerted me to the existence of a pattern I had not anticipated." A faint, sweet scent, quite the opposite of what she would have expected, exuded from his body. "It's there, to be sure, but subtle and elusive, consisting of tiny snippets, indirect references, asides in thousands upon thousands of communications between Mister Thoggosh, his fellow nautiloids, and certain beings such as Scutigera."
"Doesn't this kind of snooping violate the privacy customs of your own people?" Gutierrez asked.
"Certainly not," came the reply, a bit stiffly. Huge iridescent eyes glittered and his mouth-parts worked nervously. "I was looking for purely technical conversations among our people here. Everything I discovered was `posted' publicly. The Elders simply aren't as discreet as they may prefer to believe. They're also fully as unaware of the revealing power of accumulated data as any human who ever had his fortune `read' for him by one of your Gypsies."
"Well it serves the Elders right." Toya suppressed a giggle. "They thought it was fine to intercept and decode"
"Accidentally decode," Eichra Oren corrected. "They simply wrote their noise-elimination software too well."
"Whatever," Toya responded with sarcastic impatience. "They were our transmissions to and from Earth, Eichra Oren. Private transmissions. Mister Thoggosh brushed our objections aside. I wonder how he'll feel about having the same idea applied to him."
"Good question, Toya," the Antarctican told her. "I remember other circumstances, other times, in which he'd think it was funny."
"Yeah," Sam agreed, "but he hasn't been himself lately. I wish he'd get back to it, because nobody else wants the job." He leered and waggled his eyebrows.
"Sam, you've been watching old American movies again, haven't you?" Dlee Raftan Saon inquired. "Speaking of intercepting and decoding transmissions."
"Why," asked the dog, "are my Groucho-marks showing?"
"Ahem . . ." The surgeon turned to look again as messages continued scrolling. Toya noticed that a word here, a phrase there, were marked, set apart from the rest in different colors. "You see, my friends, for as long as anyone can remember, the Elders believed themselves the earliest species ever to have evolved sapience on any alternative version of Earth."
Sam had placed his front paws on the table-edge and was peering into the screen. He imitated the surgeon's voice. "Lately, however, they seem to have suffered an agonizing reappraisal of that opinion."
"Relatively so," Dlee Raftan Saon answered, unaware of the impersonation. "It's that plain? Dear me, I had to carry the process to the next step, myself." Another nod and the messages vanished, leaving only the marked portions, sorted out by color, which began to assemble themselves into a document of their own. "At any rate, now they seem to be searching desperately for some evidence of ancient sapient beings they call the `Predecessors.' "
"It helps to carry a processing system around in your head, Dlee Raftan Saon." Sam looked up at Eichra Oren. "One of the reasons for all the secrecy is that the Elders appear to be humiliated."
"These Predecessors," Dlee Raftan Saon persisted, "were a species unknown even to the Elders. There is, on the other hand, plenty of evidence for their having existed. Their artifacts, misidentified by most archaeologists, seem to be lying about practically everywhere."
Toya interjected, "What do you mean, `everywhere'?"
Although he was no taller than Toya, his long, bobbing antennae bent over her, almost touching the top of her head. "In each alternative universe the Elders discover, my dear, the Predecessors seem to have been there first."
Gutierrez chuckled to himself. "Kilroy was here."
"I've heard that before," the girl told him. "Corporal Owen said it when we discovered that the Elders were here ahead of us."
"Old joke." The general shook his head. "Later, Toya."
Dlee Raftan Saon raised a hairy manipulator. "In at least one realityand there's reason to think it may have been more than onethey became Earth's predominating sapience long before nautiloids evolved. They rose to civilization, making every mistake any species makes, and like their `Successors,' eventually discovered an infinity of worlds of parallel reality. Like their Successors, they learned the secret of interdimensional travel." That brought exclamations from everyone. "So far, they're the only others within the explored realm of probability to have achieved this impressive technical feat. It is that, of course, which makes our culture, the culture originally created by the Elders, so wealthy and diverse."
The doctor pointed to one series of message fragments written in blue-purple lettering. "The Predecessors seem to have taken another approach to multidimensional exploration, however. They never `Appropriated' sapient inhabitants of other realities, for example."
"Ethics already. That has to be an item," Sam offered, "which galls our illustrious benefactors."
"Of course, there weren't as many other sapients then. Certain other differences exist, as well," Dlee Raftan Saon went on, "between the Elders and their unknown Predecessors, and their achievements. For one thing, the Predecessors enjoyed a lead of millions of years on their Successors.
"Which means they weren't as bright as the Elders?"
The physician ignored the dog. "For our culture, the culture of the Elders, interdimensional travel is still a risky, expensive, power-consuming undertaking, even after tens of thousands of years of research and practice."
"Which means the Elders aren't as bright as the Predecessors."
"Well, Sam," Dlee Raftan Saon acknowledged grudgingly, "it does seem to be a source of humiliation with regard to the Predecessors, who appear to have been adept at slipping from one continuum to another. They made easier, more frequent use of interdimensional travel than we are able to do so far. Before the end, it had become a casual, everyday mode of travel to them, like driving a car once was to you Americans. Naturally, they left tantalizing traces of their culture spread throughout many coextant Solar Systems."
Toya stepped toward the doctor. "And the end you mentioned?"
"My dear, despite their ubiquity, much time has passed and much has been destroyed by its passage. The Elders know little about the Predecessors, not even what they looked like. They have discovered one important fact"
"They aren't around any more," Sam suggested.
"Apparently by their own choosing. Eons ago, if I read these messages correctly, the Predecessors departed the System en masse, for the stars."
Momentary silence was filled with the sounds, outside, of heavy machinery and vehicles, an undertone that may have come from the drilling, the shouting of workers in a dozen languages, the voices of a dozen species. Above it all, Toya heard the whispery sound of another aerocraft passing over the worksite.
"Oops," the dog observed.
"You put it well, Sam. This discovery, as you anticipate, came as quite a shock to the Elders. It is characteristic of their culture that such a thing as traveling between the stars never occurred to them, and I believe they've always been inclined to dismiss similar ideas in currency among Appropriated Persons as the petty aspirations of, well, superstitious primitivesalthough they're far too polite to put it that way, of course."
Sam agreed, "They didn't even bring any spaceships of their own to this rock!"
"Indeed," replied the insect. "This does not, I'd have you understand, represent a great failing on the part of the Elders. Humans have an interest in going to the stars which the Elders never developed. But you neveror at least very seldomthought about traveling to other alternative universes."
"It's a matter," Toya decided out loud, "of a culturally shared mindset."
"What do you mean?" the general asked her.
"Well, sir, Europeans in the Age of Discovery thought mostly about trade, conquest, and religious conversion. Things like that never occurred to . . . well, to the classical Chinese at the height of their power. They impoverished themselves sending a vast fleet around the known world. But its sole purpose was to give gifts away to impress the local rulers with China's magnificence."
"In any event," continued Dlee Raftan Saon, "upon departing the Solar System, the Predecessors seem to have deliberately left behind the secret of their faster-than-light `Virtual Drive.' "
"It is meant," declared a voice they all recognized, "as the inheritance of whatever Successor species eventually finds it."
Five beings turned as one to face the tent door. Through it slithered a glistening four-meter snake which spoke with the voice of Mister Thoggosh.