The Outsiders knew that this, too, would pass.
Some of the factions of the diverse Outsider society would interact with these upstart, reborn children of stellar heat. They would occasionally trade a tiny portion of data collected over billions of years for chemicals, cold-world facilities, or still more information. The coldlife beings were shrewd traders and negotiators, having lived through eons of time, and dealt with the many thousands of faces intelligence can assume.
To the Outsiders, little was new. Even less was interesting.
The Outsiders themselves seemingly remain unchanged, eternal, just as their cold realm has existed relatively unchanged since the galaxy was freshly forged in the fires of the strong nuclear force. To be sure, the great clouds of dust and simple molecules were pruned away, collapsing into suns. This left the interstellar reaches thinner, easier for the Outsiders to negotiate, for plasmas to form and self-organize. But these were slow shifts. Warmlife was a buzzing, frantic irritant.
The coldlife traders intimidate the warmlife races. Outsider ships are works of incomprehensible art, both their aesthetics and functions strange and perplexing.
Even the Outsider form is coldly beautiful; their bulblike bodies and weaving tentacles gracefully flow like a dancing cryogenic liquid. And there is something in their manner when dealing with warmlife races that suggests immense distance. Outsiders had freely roamed the galaxy while the most advanced warmlife creatures consisted of single-celled pond scum.
The warmlife races know nothing of the Outsiders beyond their form and their penchant for trading. Scholars of many races wasted entire lives pursuing questions, speculating, debating — all without adequate data, talk leading nowhere. The Outsiders never spoke of themselves.
Where and when did they evolve to intelligence — and from what less advanced form? Were they somehow exempt from the deft hand of natural selection? What did they value and what did they spurn? Did Outsiders have hopes, or worse still, fears? Did Outsiders have societies, or were they all of one vast, icy mind?
The Outsiders, as always, kept their own counsel.
But there are other minds than the Outsiders dwelling in the eternal Deep — much older and still more alien — who might understand. In the black gulf between the stars, strangeness waits.
CHAPTER TWO
Bruno Takagama looked out at the twisted starscape on the command screen, and shivered at the prickly sensation of unseen eyes on him.
He had awakened with the Dream once again that watch, stifling a shout, drenched with sweat and unspoken fear. Now the stars themselves seemed to threaten him, and perhaps with good reason. He rubbed his temples and peered more intently into the screens.
As observed from the navigation deck of the Sun-Tzu, the ghost of Einstein was squeezing the universe in the implacable fist of his ancient equations, making it seem more eerie and disturbing than Bruno would have thought possible.
The Earth vessel was traveling at just over seventy percent of light-speed, seemingly alone in the vast darkness of interstellar space. Physics had begun to compress the usually unchanging starfield forward and aft of the ship, distorting the one rock-steady constant of space travel. Relativity Doppler-shifted the stars directly in front of the Sun-Tzu into a handful of blazing blue diamonds, while Sol was reduced to a dull red gleam behind them, lost in the hellish wash of the antimatter drive.
In the back of his mind, he saw the hand from the Dream on his shoulder, brown and leathery, knuckles the size of walnuts. Alien, but still familiar. He shivered, pushing the memory away with effort.
One thing could always exorcise his demons, Bruno reflected, and keyed the ship commlink. He hoped that the captain was in the mood for a bit of banter.
“Carol, you there?” Bruno licked his lips a bit nervously, waiting for the reply. Sometimes the emptiness around the ship wore her down as well.
There was a faint crackle over the deck speakers, static born from the relativistic impact of bits of interstellar dust against the eroding forward edge of the Sun-Tzu.
“No, I'm lying on a beach in Australia.” Her voice on the commlink was clear, immediate, though she was half a kilometer away on the other side of the iceball that was the interstellar warship.
He smiled despite himself at her flippant tone. A good sign. “You couldn't find Australia on a map.”
“Map, schmap. I saw it once through a scope out Ceres way. Big brown-and-tan dot in the Pacifist Ocean.”
“That's Pacific Ocean.” She was baiting him a little, Bruno knew. Belter impudence against Flatlander tradition.
Carol's tone remained airy, unimpressed. “Big diff, Flatlander. Looked like a dog turd, actually.”
“What would a Belter know about dogs?” he replied, amused.
“Saw one once, in a Luna zoo. Wear their hearts on their sleeves, don't they?” Pause. “Okay, okay, Mr. Precise. They wear their hearts on their forelegs. Happy?”
“Ecstatic. Anyway, we so-called Flatlanders bred dogs that way. Who wants a pet that's hard to read?”
“Explain cats, then.”
“Ummm — point conceded.” Bruno smiled again, the beaked face and sad liquid eyes of the Dream receding still further with Carol's banter. The captain of the Sun-Tzu was better therapy than all the psychists with whom Bruno had worked downside on Earth.
Her conversation was filled with typical Belter logic and twisty changes in subject. Practical, ever looking for the loophole. But then, he reminded himself, Carol had smuggled a cargo or three past the goldskin UN police back in the Belt.
Before the kzin came, and everything changed.
“Turds,” Carol's voice continued on the commlink in a patently false academic tone, “are a subject I know — I worked recycler maintenance for years before earning my pilot chip.” There was a pause for effect. “And of course, I worked with men a lot.”
“You have such a winning grasp of the language,” Bruno sniffed in mock insult. “And oh so diplomatic, too.” He could feel the worry lines around his scalp scars smooth. He had taken this momentary break to snap out of his mood, and it was working gloriously.
Carol was not to be outdone, however. “You should talk. What's next — flowers?”
“Well, flowers spring forth from turds…”
She snorted. “An overstretched metaphor, and poorly chosen besides. I was hoping this talk of flowers was turning to romance.” A wounded pause. “Are you attempting to romance me, shipmate? You should read my poetry sometime.”
“What? All these years together and you've been writing poetry in secret?”
“Ummm. You're surprised an old smuggler like me can have a secret or two, Tacky?”
“No, pleased. Not that you're old. But maybe you have crannies and crevices I haven't explored yet.”
“I hope that's a metaphor, you primate.”
“I guess it is — whatever a metaphor might be. Besides, you are the boss. I wouldn't want to be too forward with a superior officer.”
Carol ignored his sally. “A lady has to keep some of her crannies entirely metaphorical.” Again she paused for an overdone dramatic effect. “After all, Sun-Tzu is a bit on the small side.”
He laughed. Concerns about privacy from a Belter? “I'm more interested in their, ah…”
“Capacity? Circumference? Hard to put such matters in my usual dainty, ladylike fashion.” Her tone had become arch, as usual. There was a pleased purr behind her smoky voice.