The Fugitive Worlds (25 page)

"I believe, I
believe,"
he breathed. "But—between us— nothing has changed."

You disappoint me, Toller Maraquine.
Divivvidiv stepped over his discarded suit, which had been drawn to the floor by air currents, and moved closer to Toller.
Where is your curiosity? Where is your spirit of scientific enquiry? Do you not wish to know why my people embarked upon such a mammoth venture? Do you think it is a commonplace thing for the members of an intelligent species to transport their home world from one part of a galaxy to another?

"I have already told you—those things are no concern of mine."

Oh, but they are! They are also the concern of every living creature on every planet of this system.
Divivvidiv's mouth underwent further asymmetrical changes, tugged by the invisible tides of emotion.
You see, my people are fleeing for their lives. We are fugitives from the greatest catastrophe in the recent history of the universe. Does that fact not make you the least bit inquisitive?

Toller glanced at Steenameert, who appeared to have frozen halfway through the task of removing his skysuit, and

for the first time in days his preoccupation with Vantara and her fate began to loosen its hold on his mind.

"Catastrophe!" he said. "But the stars are billions upon billions of miles apart! Are you talking about some manner of great explosion? If it ever happens I cannot see how—"

It has already happened,
Divivvidiv cut in.
And it matters
little that stars are billions of miles apart
—
the scale of the
explosion was such that upwards of a hundred
galaxies
will be destroyed by it!

Toller tried to conjure up a mental image to go with the alien's words, but his imagination baulked. "What could cause such an explo. . . ? And if it has already happened why are we still here? How can you know about it?"

Divivvidiv was now very close to Toller, and his sweet body odor was thick in Toller's nostrils.
Again, the concepts are beyond you, but.
. . .

The slewing beam from the lighthouse was fiercer this time, and Toller's instinct was to shrink away from it, but there was nothing he could do to protect himself. He shuddered as, within a tiny fraction of a second, his inner model of reality was torn apart and rebuilt, and he found that his newly vouchsafed vision of space as an emptiness riddled with transient wormholes of greater emptiness was a simplification. The cosmos—he now knew, or almost knew—was born in an explosion which was inconceivable in its ferocity, and within a minute its entire volume was permeated by seething masses of
ropes.
The ropes—comparatively ancient and decaying relics of a period of cosmic history which had spanned a length of time equal to one human breath—had a diameter approximating one millionth of that of a human hair, and were so massive that a single inch weighed as much as an average-sized planet. They writhed and twisted and oscillated, and in their blind contortions they decided nothing less than the disposition of matter throughout the universe: the patterns of galaxies, the patterns of clusters of galaxies, the patterns of sheets of clusters of galaxies.

As the universe grew older—and intelligent life made its
first appearance—the ropes grew fewer in number. Their incredible stores of energy squandered by their frenzied
threshings and twistings, by the propagation of gravitational waves, they became more of a cosmic rarity. As they slowly erased themselves from existence the universe became more
stable, a safer place for frail biological constructs such as
human beings—but it was not homogenous. There were anomalous regions in which ropes remained plentiful, so
plentiful that interactions and collisions were bound to occur,
with consequences beyond the descriptive powers of any
system of mathematics.

At one location no less than twelve ropes had intersected and yielded up their total energy in an explosion which was
destined to annihilate perhaps a hundred galaxies, and to
have a profound effect on a further thousand. No living
creature would ever
see
the explosion, so close was the speed
of its fronts to that of light, but intelligent beings—using
data gathered by subspace probes—could deduce its exist
ence. And once the deduction had been made there was only one thing left to do.

Flee!

Flee far and fast.
. . .

Toller blinked vigorously, momentarily certain that a
watery ripple had passed across his vision, but he realized
almost at once that the effect had been subjective and illu
sory. His internal model of the universe had been torn
asunder and rebuilt in drastically different form, and now
he, too, was different. A quick glance at Steenameert's
pale face and blanked-out eyes confirmed that he also had undergone a similar chastening metamorphosis.

A voice from Toller's distant past whispered a warning:
Your defenses have been breached! Should he choose to do
so, grey face could overwhelm you in this very instant!

Responding to the warning, Toller alerted himself. He
triangulated his gaze on the alien's face and saw nothing

there but a growing display of relaxation and satisfaction. There was no sense of physical threat, but that in itself might have constituted another kind of menace. They were in Divivvidiv's stronghold and there was no telling what semi-magical forces the alien might be able to summon to do his bidding without so much as having to raise a finger.

Striving to assimilate all that he had learned, Toller shook his head as though recovering from a blow. His mind had been swamped in the influx of pure knowledge—to the extent that all normal thought processes were being prorogued— but, even so, he had a dim awareness that one great question remained unanswered. What could it be? He had been told too much in too short a time, and yet he was troubled by a nagging conviction that he had been told too little. And, all the while, the hideous alien in his costume of wafting black rags gave the impression of being more and more content with the situation. . . .

"Why do you seem so pleased with yourself, greyface?" Toller growled. "After all, nothing has changed between us."

Oh, but it has,
Divivvidiv assured him, shading his words with a kind of glee.
You are not immune to reason, and
therefore in this situation logic has to work for me and against
you. Without admitting as much to yourself you have already
begun to realize how pointless it would be for you to pit
yourself against representatives of the greatest civilization in
the galaxy.

"I refuse to. ..."

And now that you have come so far,
Divivvidiv went on
relentlessly, I
will complete the edifice of logic which to me is
an impregnable defense and to you an insurmountable barrier.
You were on the verge of asking why your insignificant pair
of little worlds had to become involved with Dussarra's flight
from annihilation.

The answer is that binary planets sharing a common atmos
phere are extremely rare. Dussarran astronomers are aware
of only three other examples in this galaxy
—
all of them very distant and less well matched than Land and Overland. As you already know, we can move our home world instantaneously from star to star, but energy limitations prevent us
from leaping more than a few light years at a time. That fact means that the annihilation front, which even now is roiling
outwards through this region of the galaxy, would always have
been at our heels . . . unless
. . .
unless, Toller Maraquine . . . we found the way to make the leap to another galaxy.

Toller became aware of his own breathing, a regular and impersonal sound, like waves subsiding on a distant beach.

We designed a machine which was capable of transporting the home world across the required distance, but for its con
struction the machine required a very special physical environ
ment. There had, of course, to be freedom from gravity to
prevent the machine from distorting under its own weight
—
a
factor which posed us no problems. There also had to be a
limitless supply of oxygen and helium to facilitate accretive growth of the machine
—
and that is why we chose to position
the Xa at the very center of your two worlds.

In addition to all the other knowledge which I have impressed on your mind, Toller Maraquine, it is necessary for you to appreciate that the Xa is almost complete. It will be
activated in approximately six days from now, and when that
happens the planet Dussarra will simply vanish from your
sight. It will have been instantaneously relocated in another
galaxy
—
one which is nine million light years from here.

Absorb what I am telling you, Toller Maraquine—for your
own sake, for your own peace of mind.

There is
nothing
you can do to retrieve your females. The
massed resources of a thousand civilizations like yours would
be powerless in this situation. I urge you
—
accept what I say
and return to your home world in peace and with no qualms of
conscience, knowing that you have done all that any individual
could possibly do. . . .

Toller stared into the black-drilled orbs of the alien's eyes,

tranced, communing with himself and with another—that heroic figure from heroic times past whose example and
counsel, although inferred, he prized above all else. "What
would the real Toller have done?" he asked himself, silently
moving his lips to frame the words. He remained immobile
for several seconds, half-seduced by the blandishments of
the alien logic, then he recoiled, eyes widening, like a man
evading the jaws of a steel trap.

'Take this pistol from me," he said to Steenameert. "And
give me my sword."

I
have lost you again.
Divivvidiv cowered back from him.
You are acting without thinking. What are you going to do?

Toller accepted the weapon from Steenameert, closing his
fingers around the familiar moldings of the haft, and pressed
the tip of the blade to the alien's throat. Crimson stars sparkled across his vision.

"What am I going to do, greyface?" he whispered. "Why,
I am going to part your head from your foul body unless you
stop telling me what
you
want me to hear and start telling
me what I want to hear. Has your wonderful intellect ab
sorbed that message? Tell me—
now!
—how I can rescue our
women." He bored with the steel blade into Divivvidiv's
throat.

The alien's black-rimmed mouth distorted and his frail
body began its convulsive trembling, but this time the threat
of instant death did not entirely destroy his self-control. I
have told you all there is to tell. You have to understand the
situation
—
there is nothing you can do.