Though strangeness of a comparative sort was implicit in their nature.
However alien, the entities on the other side of the cosmic strings had minds and possessed something much like curiosity. Eventually, they discovered the distorted windows into our reality which are the tattered remnants of creation's first moments of birth. The entities learned that such twists in the fabric of space-time could transmit information.
The minds, completely foreign to any entity living within this space-time continuum, peered dimly through these humming cracks into our own reality. Their curiosity was piqued by this strange place so unlike their own home. That interest kindled and grew as they caught glimpses of a different universe, new modes of existence. Eventually, they wished to explore this alien place, so close and yet so distant.
They could not enter this space-time continuum, any more than a human being could enter and live within a printed page. But they possessed a drive to explore — even by proxy.
The entities investigated this space-time continuum in the only manner they could. Tentatively, they reached out to the cracked windows at the border of their own reality.
And beyond, into our own.
Call the minds that moved in that other universe They Who Pass.
CHAPTER TWO
They were approaching the Outsider ship, and he was so very afraid.
The frightened puppeteer's name was a beautiful symphony of music that flowed from the mouths at the ends of his twin necks. It literally meant 'He Who Gentles Difficult Truths into the Hindmost's Wise Ears', but could be shortened to 'Diplomat'. His lips, knobbed with the delicate projections his race used as fingers, quivered with jangled nerves.
He ignored the pilot of the Wisdom of Retreat's sardonic question for a moment, making a concerted effort to control his breathing. He tried to calm himself by breathing alternatively through his necks. The puppeteer's three hearts pounded in terrified syncopation.
There was drugcud in his personal medical pouch, but he knew better. The Wisdom of Retreat's pilot would not approve.
Diplomat had seen the reports about the vessel they approached during his too-short emergency briefing at the Hindmost's Fortress. The numbers and the reality they represented still burned in his mind like wildfire sweeping across a dry plain.
He fluted agreement to the pilot, steeling himself at last for what he would see with both of his eyes. The pilot snorted amusement and turned back to the command console.
With a single low note of command, the pilot cleared the hullscreen in front of the puppeteer, revealing the strange Outsider vessel. It was worse than Diplomat had expected; a terrifying space-going nest of unknown threats. He fought a yawning sense of unreality and fear. The reports and holograms had not done the frightening artifact justice.
It was almost too much for Diplomat's brain to encompass. Noticing the metric markers the shipboard computer projected next to the image of the other ship, he was again unnerved at the scale of the looming object. It grew visibly on the hullscreens at extreme magnification.
The Wisdom of Retreat's gravity planers performed an unexpected looping course correction, and the startled Diplomat shrieked a siren alarm call. He folded himself instinctively into a protective ball within his forceweb and quivered. Diplomat's mind fled the Outsider threat into comforting darkness.
The peace was interrupted by a lancing pain at the base of his necks. The force of the blow made him see sparks fleeing in all directions.
Not again, Diplomat thought, squeezing his eyes shut and pulling his neck and legs tighter against his midsection. The pain shot through him again, still more intense. Diplomat clenched blunt vegetarian teeth, knowing the blows would not stop until he emerged.
A voice filled with harsh martial music blared a curse in the small lifebubble. Diplomat could feel the electric tingle of the pilot's forceweb being released. There was a clump and snap as the pilot's articulated boots left the control consoles. He could sense the pilot standing over him.
The comforting smell of the Herd emanating from the ventilators was replaced by a stench of dominance and barely harnessed rage. Diplomat gulped and tried to breathe through his mouths to avoid it.
It was the smell of the Wisdom of Retreat's pilot, only stronger and more angry. Diplomat had kept his distance during the voyage, even within the tiny lifebubble of the Wisdom of Retreat. There were limits to the ability of the airscrubbers to remove the pilot's distinctive odor, redolent with attack pheromones.
Besides, the pilot liked 'the smell of battle', as she called it.
The frightened puppeteer wished fervently he was back in the hospital burrow, his tired brain soothed by the psychists' overlay induction devices. Had Diplomat not just returned from his final embassy to the Q'rynmoi? Had not the psychists bluntly stated that he was not ready for another mission? He tightened his necks around his midsection.
Diplomat could hear the angry duet of the pilot's whistling breath above him. She sang an offkey command, and his forceweb vanished instantly. Diplomat was left with an itchy feeling of residual static charge and insecurity.
“Stand up and control yourself, you miserable coward.” The pilot's tones were rich with a symphony of contempt. It made a word honored among the puppeteer race sound like an insult.
“Chew your courage drugs if need be,” her voice continued in disdainful tones. “You are to carry out a task for the Hindmost and the entire puppeteer race. This is more important than your shameful and obvious lack of a notochord.”
The pilot's words stung Diplomat more than the pain at the base of his necks. He prided himself on his rare ability to work with dozens of alien species; why could he not deal as well with a member of his own race?
At least Diplomat thought the pilot was a member of his race.
The frightened puppeteer breathed deeply; it was no use postponing the inevitable. He unwrapped his necks. Opened his eyes one at a time. Moving gingerly, he stood in the small lifebubble. The scent of the pilot prickled angrily over Diplomat, like a swarm of stinging insects.
“No,” he said carefully in measured tones, shoving his fears away as best he could. “I will not be needing the drug at this time.” Diplomat was unsure of the truth of that statement. He looked at neither the hullscreen nor the pilot.
There was a splat of dismissive music.
“Then look at me, Diplomat.” A chord of hard-edged humor entered the pilot's voice, irony dripping from the title. “If you cannot look at me, how will you complete the Hindmost's Commands, let alone look the helium-beasts in the face?”
There was a meditative pause.
“That is,” she continued, “if they can be said to actually have faces.” The pilot hummed and whistled another musical note to her command console. “The hull is opaqued. Control your fear.”
Diplomat finally raised his heads, blinking, and looked up at the pilot of the Wisdom of Retreat.
And up.