"But space does have a structure. It isn't a seamless nothingness; it is something like a collection of tiny, Planck-length cells. Sometimes we call that basic, underlying structure of
everything 'the spacetime foam,' because at those very early epochs we can't even distinguish the dimension of time from the spatial dimensions.
"So that's the GUT era. It is the time of ultraheavy particles and spacetime foam; and that's all we need to say just now about Ancient History."
And the aiodoi sang sweet and complimentary songs of how pretty that song was, as a human might of a two-year-old's first attempt at carrying a tune ... and how childishly wrong.
6
If Kiri Quintero had been allowed the control of his own body he would have delighted in what he was doing. He was flying! After four grueling days in California, doing some sort of research for the great, golden Turtle they called Yellow Bird— his proper title was Defender of God—he was on the way home, but rest was still forbidden. Kiri was under the memo disk. He wasn't released until the big Turtle aircraft was already settling in for a landing at the Kansas City skyhook compound, and then he was too bone weary even to glance out the window at the scene beneath.
He got up wearily as the plane's doors opened, and was pushed rudely out of the way by Yellow Bird. With a hostile squawk the great Turtle shoved past him and disappeared. Kiri Quintero followed more slowly, stretching his aching limbs. It was already dark, and a hot, muggy night, with no stars in the skies. He wanted to go to bed, but he wanted even more to see his brother and the woman they loved.
He suspected he knew where he could find them both, and he was right.
As he walked along the hall toward Sue-ling's apartment he heard his brother's voice, crackling with anger, then almost drowned out by the shrill squawks of a Turtle. That was odd; Turtles rarely came into human quarters. But when he reached the door, there the Turtle was—Litlun—hard arms waving, squawking furiously at Sue-ling and Sork through his trans-poser. "Do you pretend you do not have recorded blasphemous material? You cannot, for one knows this to be true, so you must not refuse to sell it to me! Come, set a price, for one wishes to have it!"
Sue-ling put a quieting hand on Sork's shoulder and addressed the Turtle herself. "I don't know anything about blasphemous material, Facilitator," she said steadfastly.
"It is," he blared, "infuriating when a reasonable commercial offer is rejected for no reason! If you behave so badly we must reconsider whether your services will continue to be needed here."
Sue-ling shrugged. "That's up to you," she said. Then, studying him, "It might help if you told me why you want it."
"That is not your concern!"
"And it isn't your material," she pointed out.
Litlun glared wordlessly at her with both yellow eyes, his claws drumming angrily on his belly shell. Then, with a frustrated hiss, he turned and stalked violently out of the room.
Sue-ling followed him with her eyes, then shook herself. "Hello, Kiri, dear," she said belatedly.
It was a greeting, at least, and more than Kiri got from his twin. Sork, too, was gazing after the Turtle. "He really wants those astrophysics chips," he said thoughtfully.
"I see that," Sue-ling said. "But why?"
"It has to be something to do with what happened to their Mother. Maybe they think she fell into a black hole or something-"
"The whole planet?"
"Why not? It couldn't be just that one Mother died. That happens over and over, and they just let another one take over. I'll bet that they want to know more about black holes, and they think human science can tell them what to do." He grinned savagely, delighted at the thought of Turtles conceding they needed human aid. Then he added, "But if that's what really happened, I think she's gone. Nobody on the lecture chips ever said anything about a way to get out of a black hole."
Sue-ling nodded doubtfully, then was distracted by the fatigue lines on Kiri's face. "WhereVe you been?" she asked. "You look like you've been working too hard!"
"I was. Yellow Boy commandeered me," Kiri said. "We've been in California for five days, at a hospital, checking out a lot of old research material in the medical records—I think."
Sue-ling looked puzzled. "What did a Turde want with human medical records?"
Kiri spread his hands. "How can I know? I was under the disk the whole time, almost. Yellow Boy had me going through all the records of the hospital genetics department—I didn't know what I was doing, of course, but from things the Turtles were saying to each other on the way back I think that was what it had to be. And—" Kiri hesitated, always unsure of offering his intuitions to others—"I do have a theory. A guess, anyway."
"Which is?" Sue-ling demanded.
"It's only an idea—but what I think they were trying to figure out was whether there was some procedure that could recreate a female Turtle by modifying a male Turtle's genes."
"But that sort of thing is just another kind of sacrilege to them!" Sork said wonderingly.
Kiri grinned wearily. "So the Exarch told us when he found out what we were doing," he agreed. "I never saw the
Turtles so upset! They were squawking at each other on the phone like back-fence tomcats."
Sue-ling said, thinking it out as she spoke, "I don't think trying to modify a male into a functional female would work, anyway. I'm pretty sure the Turtles have never done that kind of work themselves and, although genetics isn't my field, I never heard that anybody on Earth ever managed to create a female out of male genes for any kind of animal. Maybe they really are getting desperate."
"You bet they're desperate!" Sork said with glee. "And we're not going to help them! I'm going to take the lecture chips away and hide them, in case Lidun figures some way of getting them away from you. They're human science, not Turtle, and we're going to need all the human science for ourselves!"
Kiri looked at his brother. "What are you talking about?"
Sork said, "Don't you understand? What's the life span of a Turtle?"
"How would I know? I think somebody said around seventy-five years, but—"
"But that's only a guess," Sork agreed. "All the same, we know they die some time. And in seventy-five years—maybe less!—they'll all be dead. There won't be any Turtles any more. Well, a few—as they keep coming back from rime-dilated trips, now and then. But they won't matter, and then who's going to be the dominant race in this galaxy?"
Kiri blinked at him. "You mean—us?"
"Who else?" Sork demanded. "The Turtles are going to die out. Whatever future there is in this galaxy, it belongs to us!"
Kiri stared at his brother, trying to make all these concepts fit together. "But we can't travel around the galaxy," he said reasonably. "How could we? We don't know how to operate wave-drive spaceships."
"We'll learn. Besides, some human beings can already!" Sork said triumphantly. "Francis Krake, for one, and Sue-ling had a message from him yesterday. He's driving back here right now."
"Driving?" Kiri asked, astonished.
Sue-ling shrugged. "Don't ask me why, but yes, that's what he said. I expect he'll get here tomorrow. Only—" she bit her lip—"I wish I had better news for him about his crew. The Turtles in the orbit station are all going crazy, too—they aren't really attending to business. I hope his crew's all right."
"Is something wrong with them?" Kiri asked.
Sue-ling spread her hands. "I don't know. Last time I tried I couldn't get an answer from the orbital station at all," she said, "and that has never happened before."