John Maddox Roberts - Space Angel Read online

  "Three million ships from this planet. A million and a half from this hemisphere alone. All lifting off at once." The skipper was awed and said nothing more.

  "Such a massive departure will alter the orbit of this planet forever," Bert mused. As the dots lengthened into fiery trails, the planet became almost painful to look at.

  "Where do they all rendezvous?" Finn asked.

  "They'll mass in a parking orbit near the biggest orbiting station, the one in the 'most distant orbit from the planet—look, the off-planet fleets are moving now."

  Flashes from locations in space near the planet were adding to the dazzling visual effects.

  "We'll pick up the rest from the other planets as we leave the system. Those are already heading for rendezvous along our path."

  "Then what?" Kelly asked.

  "Then Sphere jumps the whole mess into his brand of hyper and we all go pay the Guardian a visit."

  The bridge was quiet. Kelly was standing watch with the skipper, his eyes restlessly moving from one screen to another. He was fascinated by the sight of the massed fleets. Space Angel had rendezvoused with the last divisions and was waiting for Sphere to finish programing the ships. From the bubble, only a few of the nearer vessels could be discerned, but the telescopic screens could scan hundreds of thousands at once.

  Torwald entered, carrying several coffee cups. Kelly felt that he would be happy if he never saw so much as a single coffee bean as long as he lived. The other crew members, Navy veterans all, seemed to require the stuff to live. Torwald handed a cup to the skipper, who sat with her feet propped on a console while she brooded over the sight of the incredible fleet.

  "Your cup, Grand Admiral Gertie HaLevy! How does it feel?"

  "It feels like I'm a passenger, Tor, just like the rest of you." She growled the words around her cigar, her chin sunk nearly into her jacket

  "Must be discouraging."

  "Biggest fleet in the galaxy out there, and I'm not even in control of this little tramp freighter." She snorted disgustedly. "Grand Admiral my—" Her words cut off as the images on the screen flickered, distorted, seemed to lengthen, then disappeared. The screens and instruments went into the familiar convulsions brought on by Sphere's hyperdrive.

  "Last leg of the trip in, folks," Torwald announced.

  The skipper made a sour face. "I wonder if there's going to be a trip back."

  Kelly felt his mouth become dry as he contemplated an unpleasant conclusion to his first space voyage. "What are our chances, Tor?"

  "I'd say just about zero. But, then, I thought that a lot of times during the War, and here I am." The skipper nodded agreement. Kelly had to be satisfied with that.

  Eight

  Kelly was killing time by going over navigation tables when Sphere's "voice" rang through the ship.

  If you wish to view the Core Star for yourselves, you may do so. It is within sight now.

  Kelly swallowed hard. He was not so sure he wanted to see this. It might be like staring back at a firing squad. "Oh, might as well," he said to himself. He slowly rose from his bunk and stepped to the hatch, first checking to see whether his face was too pale. He didn't want to disgrace himself. In the com-panionway he met Lafayette and Achmed. Achmed was still bandaged, but mending fast. At least, Kelly thought, the engineer had an excuse to look a bit shaky.

  They found the others on their way to the Navigation bubble. For once, nobody seemed anxious to see what new wonder the dome was to reveal.

  They filed through the hatch and into the observation chamber. The ship was canted so that they didn't have to crane their necks to see the phenomenon. "Phenomenon" was the only word Kelly could think of for this sight. He had been expecting something blindingly bright, like Earth's sun, only infinitely larger. It was not like that at all.

  What he saw was a flattened ball, taking up much of space in the quadrant visible from the bubble. The ball was not bright, but it was somewhat painful to look at. At first, Kelly thought it looked a dim blue, then he decided on purple, no, gray. He finally decided the thing had no color at all.

  "It's like looking at an ultraviolet lamp," he said. "It's more like I can feel it than see it."

  "What's radiating from that thing isn't properly light at all," Sergei said. "A thing of that mass should suck up light like a black hole. You'll notice that it seems dim, yet we can see no other light source, even though this is the center of the galaxy."

  In his wonderment at the Core Star, Kelly hadn't noticed, but it was true; all of space around the Core Star was perfectly black. Not a star was visible. Within the Core Star, however, an endless play of the nonlight was taking place. It flowed and coalesced in a most disturbing manner, changing intensity from moment to moment. Kelly felt slightly ill watching it.

  "What's keeping us alive?" asked Torwald.

  I am.

  "We were wondering when you'd speak up," the skipper said. "Are you satisfied now? We've taken you where you wanted to go. This seems to be the center of the galaxy. Can you get us back to human-occupied space, now?"

  There yet remains a task.

  "I thought there'd be a catch."

  "We've got a visitor," Michelle said, staring at the hatch. The others followed the direction of her gaze. Sphere floated through the hatch about two meters from the deck. It halted in the center of the chamber.

  "I was under the impression that you couldn't get around by yourself."

  So near the Core Star, I already begin to strengthen.

  "What's this last task?" Anger made the skipper's voice tremble.

  This ship must accelerate directly into the Core Star.

  "Enough!" K'Stin shouted suddenly. "We consent to risk! We do not consent to suicide! You soft ones may accept death at the command of this absurd spheroid, but Vivers do not! He would murder not only us, but all our progeny."

  Simultaneously the Vivers reached for Sphere, then froze in midreach, as if turned to stone.

  Have no fear. They are immobilized to prevent them from doing something foolish. In their dim way, they understand what is transpiring around them.

  "I wish I could do that," the skipper said regretfully.

  "Now, Sphere," said Torwald, "this business about diving into the Core Star. Couldn't you just go by yourself, and pick us up after you've finished your business there?" The others nodded hopefully at this suggestion.

  I fear not. If my protection were removed, you and your ship would instantly be reduced to your component atoms, and the atoms themselves destroyed and transmuted into Core Star matter.

  "Just a suggestion."

  "Sphere," said Homer, "can you tell us why? What events led us to this singular fate? Before we take this ultimate step, please tell us what you are, and what the Guardian is, and the nature of the Core Star." ____

  Very well. But words are a clumsy conceptual tool to convey such information. At best, your minds can perceive only the dimmest glimmer of this tale. When it has been revealed to you, you will be nearly as ignorant as before.

  "Tell us anyway. We deserve at least that much."

  Very well.

  They were the collective consciousness of the crew of the Space Angel, and they were in the center of all matter. This they could not see, but could perceive through knowledge and senses not their own. Here was the one Mass of matter in the universe, formless, without dimension, for there was nothing else in the void with which to compare, only the Mass, and nothing. They knew, as one knows in a dream, that this Mass would create the universe they knew.

  Then, the Mass was not One any more, but an infinity of fragments hurtling in all directions from the center. The fragments split and subdivided, collided and shattered. Gradually, the expansion began to slow. The formlessness of the original Mass, the chaos of the explosion, yielded to a new factor— Order.

  Pieces of matter began to coalesce, larger attracted smaller. Much of the original material was a fine dust that fell toward strong centers of gravity. Dust and chunks o
f undifferentiated matter became roughly spheroid masses. Smaller bodies orbited larger. The systems thus formed arranged themselves in groups of millions and hundreds of millions, billions and trillions around yet a greater center of gravity. These supergroupings evolved into lenses and vast spirals. Still, all was shrouded within a cloud of fine particulate matter.

  Then the crowning transmutation occurred. The masses of matter impacted upon one another with incredible pressure, as the matter tried with mindless intensity to reach the center of gravity. Molecules were crushed out of existence, the atoms themselves compressed so that even these basic units could no longer stand the strain. Collisions began to occur.

  As the reactions took place, one by one, the greater masses burst into a glory of flame. Now they were stars. The first gust of solar wind blasted the clouds of dust from the new star systems. There was light in the universe, no longer formless matter, but stars and galaxies, still expanding, still under the impetus of the great explosion that had created the universe.

  In the very centers of the new galaxies, phenomena were developing that did not obey the rules of the rest of space, rules that had begun with the explosion of the original Mass. These were the Core Stars.

  In the original explosion, not all of the basic matter had been blown to dust and gas. Some accretions of primal mass remained relatively intact, and these had generated the gravitational cores around which the galaxies had formed. The cores existed within real space, yet apart from it, their rules and processes as alien as those of the original Mass. They were too great, too massive, even to exist in real space. Restraints such as mass, energy, time, did not apply to these superstars. In their chaotic wells, amid speeding particles, another, unique factor began to occur: intelligence.

  Within the core of a giant galaxy, a great mind flashed into existence, the inevitable result of an ordered arrangement of waves and particles, an ultimate coherence among the random patterns of the rest of existence. The immense Core Star became self-aware. Shortly afterward, it became aware of another like itself.

  The great intelligences of the Core Stars became known to one another. The basic rules of existence in the universe were apparent to them, so they wasted little discourse on these matters. All of what later and lesser species arising from the primal explosion would call knowledge and culture was self-evident to the beings of the Core Stars. Even so, among them were those who wanted more, beings analogous to the psychopathic members of later, less evolved societies.

  The Guardian was such a being. Once like the other Core Stars, a shining standard of brilliance among the luminous minds at the centers of the great galaxies, it began to crave power. Power was a thing of no account among the Core Stars, for all were of godlike potency. This state was not enough for the one who became the Guardian; he wanted dominion over his fellow intelligences.

  Seeking this power, he committed crimes incomprehensible to creatures of human intelligence, crimes many and heinous. It became necessary for the others to take action. A battle was fought, one on a scale so great and under conditions so alien to human thought that only the fact of conflict was even comprehensible to humans.

  The warped Guardian fled.

  A Core Star mind was appointed pursuer, the being that would one day be called Sphere. Eons earlier the stellar minds had learned to detach themselves from their Core Stars and travel freely among the galaxies and in other-dimensional realms. Mass, energy, time, were things over which the stellar beings wielded almost complete control.

  Sphere searched. But it had one weakness common to all the Core Star minds: Away from his Core Star, he weakened. Slowly but inevitably his powers diminished. One way existed to renew those powers. Though only the greatest galaxies had developed intelligent Core Stars, the smaller ones had lumps of primal matter at their cores. They lacked the titanic stresses that had called into heing the great minds, but possessed sufficient energy to resuscitate a wandering Mind.

  When Sphere felt himself weakening past the point of safety, it was necessary only to bathe in the Core Star of a smaller galaxy. However, on one occasion, Sphere miscalculated and headed into a Core Star, only to find, that the Guardian already occupied it. They fought. In its weakened condition, Sphere could not prevail. While it still had sufficient strength, he had to break off and flee. The Guardian became the pursuer.

  The battle lasted eons by human standards, the flight, further eons. Finally, rather than risk destruction in meeting its enemy too soon, Sphere hid in an insignificant planet with the requisite materials.

  Sphere compressed himself into the smallest practicable size, then embedded himself in a slab of the hardest substance he could create from the materials at hand. After many billions of years, gravity would inevitably draw the planet and its star back into the core. But the unexpected occurred: Tiny beings with just the glimmerings of intelligence found him. His wait might be over.

  "Unbelievable!" Bert exclaimed. "A thinking star! A creature that can wrap a planet around itself like a blanket and sleep for a hundred billion years." He shook his head in amazement.

  They were all a little dazed by the tale. It was as if eons had passed, yet as if no time had passed at all. While lost in their shared vision, they had been perceiving the passing of ages from Sphere's time scale, wherein time had scarcely any meaning at all.

  "Well," said Torwald, "we begin to understand."

  You are scarcely able to understand at all. You have had a tiny glimpse of our existence. Possibly, you understand as much as humans are capable of.

  "What next?" the skipper asked.

  The fleet has been transported to the side of the Core Star opposite us. It is my hope that it will occupy the Guardian long enough for me to join with the Core Star, so that when he finds me, I shall have regained enough strength to do battle.

  The skipper was not pleased. Her face grew red and the forefinger of her right hand tapped impatiently at the staff of the bubble. "And if he's not delayed long enough, if he doesn't fall for the decoy?"

  Then I am doomed.

  "And so, incidentally, are we?"

  Naturally.

  "When does it start?"

  We are accelerating toward the Core Star now. The fleet has already begun its attack.

  "When will we know?"

  It hardly matters. If the Guardian prevails, it shall be as if you had never existed.

  "Nothing like a pep talk from the commander," Torwald muttered.

  Then they were heading in. The Core Star loomed visibly larger through the bubble while the assembly watched. There was no sensation of movement, no vibration within the ship, no sound.

  The silence was broken abruptly by a sudden exclamation from Nancy. "What's happened to Sphere?"

  The others turned from the dome and stared at the spot where they had last seen Sphere, but found instead a nebulous cloud of multicolored flame, rapidly expanding. The phenomenon grew to fill the room, seemed to pass through the viewers without effect or sensation. When the room cleared of the dazzle, they could still see it outside, surrounding the ship and growing ever larger.

  Torwald was the first to recover his voice. "We're inside him now."

  Outside, the fire blazed with ever-greater intensity. On the telepathic level that Sphere had used to communicate with them, they began to experience em-pathetic stirrings, a vicarious sharing of Sphere's sensations.

  There was a tremendous, elated exaltation as the godlike being renewed himself. New strength, new power, surged through his alien fabric. Soon, he would be able to meet his adversary on even terms. Time ceased to have meaning for the "spectators," as it had

  when they had experienced the history of the stellar minds. Without warning, Sphere's exulting ceased.

  "The Guardian is here," Homer announced.

  The conflict began. The strange beings attacked one another on many levels simultaneously—mental straggles, energy clashes on a multitude of levels of reality, some of which the humans were able to perceive o
nly dimly. Psychic skirmishes occurred on planes for which human minds had no concepts, much less words.

  Suddenly the crew members were out of the Core Star, situated on a plane that seemed like their own, amid the close-packed stars of the Center. Occasionally a star would flare nova brilliantly as the two beings drew on them for support in their straggle. The humans realized that this should not be possible; even with the stars so close, they should not be able to see so many explode at once, but in their new reality, time and the speed of light were not as before. Nebulae were sundered like spiderwebs by the violence of the battle. On this level, the beings were not themselves visible, but they were wreaking destruction at the Core that would be visible on Earth in a hundred thousand years. A momentary shift of plane revealed a "place" where the combatants could be seen as two monstrous masses of color that collided and shifted without mingling.

  The warring became chaotic, incomprehensible. In the collective experiencing of the Angel's crew, a new development was taking place. Images dredged from their unconscious minds began to appear. In order to make the battle even marginally comprehensible, their minds began supplying images from the mythic past of Earth.

  On a tremendous plain, as featureless as a floor of glass, an armored figure on horseback warred with a jewel-scaled dragon, whose breath was a noisome, poisonous fog. The dragon's neck arched, its fearsome maw agape to snap at the knight, but a giant lance passed between its jaws and .. .

  Another plain, but one covered with ice and surrounded by tall mountains. In the distance, a great wooden hall could be made out, and a bridgelike rainbow arched away to infinity. On the ice, a huge gray-bearded man, one-eyed and wearing a golden helmet, did battle with a slavering wolf. The wolf's nostrils spurted flame and its eyes were red coals. Where saliva from his gleaming fangs dripped to the ice, clouds of foul steam erupted. Man and wolf fought on interminably, the man's armor unbreakable, the wolf's hide impenetrable. But the man was tiring. Without warning, he slipped, fell backwards, and the wolf was upon him, fangs flashing as ...