He wondered briefly what those blisters on the hull were. They couldn’t be seen from within the Ark…
The flitter receded rapidly. Hyperspace smeared the Ark’s image.
Now more Arks came into view. The flitter skirted islands of huge flesh as it worked its way through the fleet.
At last the flitter surged into clear hyperspace; Thet swung the flitter about.
Holism Ark was lost in a blurred wall of ten thousand Arks that cut the Universe in half. This was the Exaltation of the Integrality. Rodi imagined he could hear a thrumming as the great armada forged onwards; flitters skimmed between the huge hulls and rained into three-space.
“We’re privileged to see this,” Rodi said.
“Definitely,” said Thet laconically. “A sight that hasn’t changed for three thousand years.” She snapped the flitter away; the Exaltation became a blur in the distance. Her shaven head gleamed in the cabin lights. “I’ll tell you how we’re privileged. After a hundred generations it’s us who are around as the Exaltation reaches Bolder’s Ring, the true Prime Radiant of the Xeelee. And so the sky here is full of lost human colonies. Bits of ancient, failed assaults. Instead of a dozen missionary drops a century we’re getting a hundred a year. Which is why they’re pressing almost anybody into service.”
“Thanks,” he said drily.
She grinned, showing teeth. “So I’m your tutor on your first drop. And I’m not what you expected. Am I?”
Rodi said nothing.
“Look — I’m resourceful, a good pilot. I’m no great thinker, okay?… but you’re different. Top marks in the seminary, Gren tells me. You should soon surpass me. And with all that understanding you should have no fear. The Integrality says that the death of an individual is unimportant.”
“Yes.” That was a child’s precept; he clutched the thought and felt his anxiety recede.
“And you do believe in the Integrality. Don’t you?” Her voice was sly.
Was she mocking him? “Of course. Don’t you?”
She didn’t reply. She stabbed at the control panel. The flitter popped out of hyperspace.
Stars exploded around him. Half of them were colored blue.
He gasped. Thet laughed.
It’s a simulation, he told himself. Just another sim.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Thet watched with amused contempt. “Get your bearings.”
The stars blurred together. Behind him they were tinged china blue. Ahead of him they formed a mist that hid… something, a hint of a torus shape—
“Bolder’s Ring is ahead,” he breathed.
“How do you know?”
Because that was the way everything was falling.
Thet said, “We’ve been space-going for a hundred and fifty millennia, probably. And yet we’re still children at the feet of the Xeelee. Makes you sick, doesn’t it?”
Rodi shrugged. “That’s why we’ve been trying to wreck that thing for almost as long. Envy.”
Thet paged through images on her monitor. “Shocking. And of course we of the Integrality are here to put it all right… ha! There’s our goal.” The screen contained a single spark of chlorophyll green. “Human life… or near enough to show up. A worldful of straying lambs. Right, Rodi?” And she drove the flitter through the crowd of stars.
On Holism Ark there were sim rooms of Earth. This little world, Rodi decided, was like a folded-up bit of Earth. They swept over oceans that sparkled in the jostling starlight — and then flew into an impossible dawn.
It was impossible because there was no sun.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Thet murmured. The light was diffusing down from a glowing sky. “Where’s that damn sunlight coming from?… And the planet’s only a quarter Earth’s size, gravity a sixth standard — too low for this thick layer of air…”
Rodi smiled. The little world was like a toy.
Thet poked buttons in triumph. “Contact! About time…”
A Virtual tank filled up with a smiling male face, long and gracefully austere. He spoke; Rodi picked out maybe one word in two. After a few seconds he flicked the translator button mounted in his thumbnail.
“…this equipment’s a little dusty, I’m afraid; we don’t get too many visitors. It’s only chance I was in the museum when the alarm chimed—”
“We represent the Exaltation of the Integrality,” said Thet formally. “We come from beyond the stars. We are human like yourselves.”
The man laughed; his eyes’ folds crinkled. “Thank you, my dear. You’re welcome to land and talk to us. But you’ll find we’re quite sophisticated. Use this signal as a beacon. The name of this area is Tycho…”
Thet let Rodi pilot the flitter out of orbit. Fifty miles above the surface the little craft shuddered; Rodi’s palms grew slick with sweat.
“That wasn’t your fault, surprisingly,” Thet said calmly. “We just passed through a kind of membrane. It’s — healing — behind us. Now we know how they keep the atmosphere in. And maybe this is where the sunshine comes from. Interesting.”
The Tycho museum perched at the summit of a green-clad mountain. A tall figure waved. The mountain was at the center of a plain which glistened with lakes and trees. The plain was walled by a circle of jagged hills. As they descended the hills dipped over the horizon.
Rodi landed neatly.
The air carried the scent of pine. Through the day-lit membrane Rodi could see stars; towards the horizon they were stained blue. He breathed deeply, invigorated.
Thet whooped. “I love this dinky gravity.” She did a neat double back somersault, her long legs flexing.
Their host walked around the curve of the little museum. He wore a white coverall and he was at least eight feet tall. He smiled. “Welcome,” he said. “My name is Darby.”
Thet landed breathlessly and introduced herself and Rodi. “Come to my home,” said Darby. “My family will be more than excited to meet you. And you can tell us all about your… integrality.”
Rodi looked around for a transport. There was none.
Darby said nothing. He held out his hands. Like children, Rodi and Thet took hold.
Rodi saw Darby’s coverall ripple, as if in a sudden breeze.
The museum, the flitter slid away.
Rodi looked down. He was flying, as if in a glass elevator. He felt no fear. Hand in hand they soared over the curves of the little world.
Darby’s home was a tentlike, translucent structure; it was at the heart of a light-filled forest. The days were as long as Ark days, adhering to some ancient, common standard. Thet and Rodi spent four days with Darby’s family.
Thet looked out of place in all this domesticity: squat, brusque, embarrassed by kindness. She let Rodi talk to the adults while she sat on the leaf-strewn ground telling Integrality parables to Darby’s two children. Each child towered over Thet. Their earnestness made Rodi smile.
On the final day Darby took Rodi by the hand. “Come with me. I’d like to show you a little more of our world.”
They flew soundlessly. Houseboats floated on circular oceans; clumps of dwellings grew by the banks of rivers. Everywhere people waved at them. “This is a peaceful place, you see, Rodi,” Darby said. “There are only a few thousand of us.”
“Yes. And this orderly world has risen from the debris of war… just as the Integrality teaches us to expect. As I’ve told you, the Integrality is a movement based on the inter-meshing of all things. Local reductions in entropy occur on all scales throughout the Universe, from the growth of a child to the convergence of a galaxy cluster. Order is to be celebrated…”