Chapter Fourteen
Many people want to predict the future, so that they can be ready and position themselves most advantageously—protecting themselves and those close to them. Every organism has an innate need to survive, but I have no curiosity about the moment and method of my own death. Rather, I choose to observe larger issues that effect all living organisms, so that I might contribute to the whole. If we do not take the long view as a species, the short view that happens to each of us no longer matters.
—Master Noah Watanabe, classroom instruction
On board the flagship, while the pilot searched for safe podway routes along a decaying infrastructure, Noah had additional concerns. Layers of trouble seeped through his thoughts as he paced back and forth across an anteroom. It was one of several that the sentient vessel had formed around the perimeter of the main passenger compartment, using its mysterious manner of extrusion and changing shape, and of changing size. Now she was easily the largest vessel in the fleet, with the most complex arrangement of interior rooms.
She, Noah thought. Yes, assuming Webdancer has a gender, it seems female to me.
Through an open doorway, he heard the voices of Doge Anton, General Nirella, and Subi Danvar coming from a room across the corridor. He’d been in there with them earlier, telling them about the paranormal image of a timehole he’d seen near Canopa and EcoStation, and how real it had seemed to him. Now he tuned out the voices in the other room, didn’t try to listen in on their words.
His main concern was much closer to him. Noah’s body had been changing for some time now, though it remained to be seen if it was a bizarre evolutionary process, an uncharted disease, or something he had not yet considered.
I may be immortal, but what am I becoming?
He felt vibration in the floor as they passed over a rough section of podway. It grew worse for perhaps a minute, then gradually smoothed out.
During the past year, Noah had taken a number of fantastic mental excursions through Timeweb, and he had peered into what seemed to be an entirely different galaxy, where a small swarm of Parvii survivors had fled. While held prisoner by his own sister, Noah had survived her vicious butchery, and had even regrown severed limbs and other body parts like a lizard. Now, in recent weeks, the skin on his torso and arms was becoming different, morphing into something unfamiliar. He’d been able to conceal the changes beneath his clothing so far, but he didn’t know how much longer he could do that.
Am I turning into an alien … no longer Human?
His mental incongruities seemed to have come first, followed by the physical. But he had no way of studying the history of his own cellular structure to confirm that, so the physical changes might have actually started the process. Most perplexing. Perhaps it all had been occurring simultaneously. Certainly both the cerebral and the corporal were apparent now, and they had not locked into any semblance of stability. He was in a constant state of flux, leaving him with infinite questions and no good answers.
Terror washed through him, but abated in a few moments when he realized that part of him actually wanted the changes to continue. On many occasions he had tried to enter the Timeweb realm of his own volition, but for the most part he had been unable to do so. And even when he had been able to go into the web at all, it seemed to be through a back or side door, one that the gods of the realm had only left ajar accidentally. Perhaps it was a symptom of the declining infrastructure, the strange and baffling ecological malaise that was spreading through the galaxy. Without warning, as if sensing his presence where he was not supposed to be, the rulers of the realm kept locating him and throwing him out summarily.
The podship vibrated again and slowed. Through a porthole Noah saw a flickering blue sun and a system of ringed planets. Then the podway improved once more and they sped past the system, through the heart of a purple nebula.
In the end Noah realized that it didn’t matter what he wanted himself. All of the bizarre things that were happening to him were far beyond his personal control. His tormented sister Francella had complicated any hope he ever had of figuring the transformation out, stabbing that dermex of her own poisoned blood deep into him.
Now he lifted his tunic and stared at his muscular abdomen, the place where she had struck. The vein of his morphing, gray-and-black skin had started on his chest, but not at that spot beside his belly button. Even so, there might be a time correlation. The physical changes had begun a short while after her attack, and now included the place she had stabbed him, a small oblong area that was darker than the rest of the altered skin.
He paused and fixed his gaze on the open doorway, the gray-green natural light out in the corridor and the mottled gray skin of the podship. Just focusing on various sections of the sentient vessel seemed to have a strange fascination for him, reminding him of how he felt as a small boy when he stared transfixed into pools of water, hypnotized by the changes in light and ripples of liquid motion. The interior of each Aopoddae vessel was like that in a sense, as he detected tiny shiftings in the illumination and skin surfaces all the time, subtle differences in hue and texture that he didn’t think the other passengers noticed.
Perhaps Tesh, as the Parvii pilot, could see such things. It might be possible. Beautiful Tesh. His thoughts drifted toward her, and then away again.
Abruptly, he found himself plunging outward, beyond the confines of the podship and into space. As he hurtled into the frozen void he saw Webdancer and the rest of the huge fleet behind him, with porthole lights visible along their hulls. Quickly, the fleet vanished from view, and a new awareness came over him.
Noah’s motion stabilized and he found himself standing motionless inside the sectoid chamber of yet another podship, piloting it in the Tulyan manner along the decaying infrastructure at much higher speeds than Webdancer had ever been able to attain. He changed course repeatedly, finding optimum strands for the ship to utilize. In a state of hyperawareness, Noah realized that it was not his Human body in the sectoid chamber. Rather, he had become a metallic green mist within an amorphous, unidentifiable shape, perhaps the form he had been evolving into before this happened.
But, as if in contradiction of that, on the prow of the vessel he saw—somehow—his own Human face in an enlarged form, suggesting that he had discovered a modified Tulyan method of piloting the craft. Did the form of the pilot lose its separate features inside the sectoid chamber when its energy merged into the podship flesh?
Another question without an answer.
Far off in the distance, he recognized some of the major planetary systems of the Merchant Prince Alliance, and as he flew on he made out the galactic sectors of other races. He made his way toward some of the regions that he recognized. But soon he found, strangely, that he was flying right through them as if they were no more than holo images. On previous excursions into Timeweb he had been able to see activity in the galaxy, particularly other ships as they negotiated the podways. Now it was different. He could not make out details such as that, only increasingly blurry views as he neared and passed through the systems.
And he sensed—but could not see—a great but undefined danger out in the galaxy, beyond the crumbling infrastructure that everyone knew about. As he turned around and went back in the direction he had come, he wondered what the feeling meant.
On the way Noah recalled an earlier venture into the paranormal realm in which he saw Hibbil and Adurian soldiers inside strange podships that were piloted by Hibbils using computerized navigation units. It had been peculiar and unexplained, and he had reported it to Tesh Kori and Doge Anton.
Alas, with no way of reentering the web at will, and no way of verifying what he had seen, Noah never could tell if that startling vision had been real or not. It had not made any sense at all since Hibbils were aligned with Humans and Adurians were the long-time allies of Mutatis. Since then, there had been no other sightings of the odd soldiers or the highly unusual ships, so nothing could be done about it.
Might that be the additional menace he sensed now? He let the question sink in. No, he decided. The threat came from something else.
Just ahead he saw the rear of the podship fleet. The larger and more impressive Webdancer was out in front, leading the others. At the immense rate of speed that Noah had attained, the fleet seemed to be traveling slowly through space and he caught up with it easily. None of the vessels noticed him, and as he neared he found himself hurtling out of the sectoid chamber toward Webdancer, and back into the anteroom he’d been in before embarking on this strange journey.
Moments later he was standing in that room, staring through the doorway into a gray-green wash of light.
And abruptly, as if emerging from a trance, Noah jerked to awareness and hurried across the corridor, to the room occupied by Anton, Nirella, and Subi. The three of them sat at a table, engaged in intense conversation. At first they didn’t notice him enter. Then Subi called attention to him, and they all looked at Noah in a similarly odd manner, leaning close and squinting their eyes. Under their intense scrutiny Noah felt warm. Drops of perspiration formed on his brow.
“I sense a terrible danger out there,” Noah said, at last. He could hardly get the words out.
“Are you feeling all right?” Nirella asked. She wore a red uniform with gold braids and insignia, designating her rank as Supreme General of the MPA armed forces. But now she conducted herself more like a caring woman than a military commander, looking at him with concern and urging him to sit down.
He resisted her efforts and pulled his arm away from her grasp. “I’m fine. Listen to me. I sense an additional threat, more powerful than anything else we’ve ever seen or discussed.”
“But what?”
“I can’t say, but it’s out there, and seems like even more than the disintegration of the galactic infrastructure.”
“It can’t be military,” Nirella said. “We’ve defeated the Parviis, and the Mutatis don’t have anywhere near the power we have now. We control all the podships, so we can go and attack their planets at anytime.”
“It’s not Parviis or Mutatis,” Noah said. “Or any other galactic race. It’s something else entirely. I think … I fear … that it’s beyond anything we’re able to comprehend.”
“For hours we’ve been in range of deep-space nehrcom relay stations,” Anton said, “and the reports from our planets are all good. Nothing significant is happening in our sector, or anywhere near it.”
“Maybe it’s only the infrastructure after all,” Noah said. He slumped into a comfortable chair that the podship had created, off to one side. He smiled grimly. “Only the infrastructure. As if that isn’t enough.”
“The repair and restoration of the galactic network needs to be our top priority,” the young doge insisted.
“I don’t dispute that,” Noah said. “I just wish we’d get to the starcloud faster so we can get on with it.”
But no one in the room had any idea what was really occurring. Or the fact that HibAdu conspirators were using their own technology to relay false nehrcom messages. In actuality, a terrible thing had happened, which Noah and his companions would soon discover.
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