Bear, Greg Eon 3 Legacy

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knowledge bases, and also made direct internal connections to City Memory, to millions of individuals
and thousands of libraries.
To pass undetected among the Lenk divaricates, who carried no such implants, I had been stripped
of my extra voices and eyes and minds. Within my thoughts there was only my own self now. I felt a
peculiar embarrassment: I was naked in a way that had nothing to do with clothing or revealed flesh.
The flawship began its long, gentle deceleration. Barely four meters from where I sat, the flaw
glowed pink, brightening as the clamps spaced within the middle of the ship applied pressure. It was not
friction that slowed the ship, but the clamps' intrusion into a forbidden region of space-time.
"Greetings, Ser Olmy Ap Sennon." Gate opener Frederik Ry Ornis, tall and thin as a praying mantis,
stretched and bent himself into the blister beside me, slid his trunk into the seat and let its plush white
cushions enfold his hips and chest. "How long since you've hugged the flaw?"
Whatever my concessions to progressive Geshel fashions and technologies, I had at least kept my
natural body plan. Ry Ornis was of the new breed that explored more radical shapes.
"A few years. And never this far north," I said.
"Not many of us have been this far," Ry Ornis said with a rueful look. "Not recently. The Jarts are
less than a million kilometers from here." He stretched a long, five-jointed finger and pointed elegantly
ahead.
Gate openers such as Ry Ornis had acquired immense power and prestige. Part of me envied him.
"One hour until we go down to the wall," Ry Ornis said. "I'm not looking forward to this."
"Why?" I asked.
Ry Ornis gave me a dour glance. "Anxious to begin your first mission?" he asked.
"I suppose," I said, grinning.
"Ready to show your loyalty to the Hexamon Nexus ... Ripe for adventure?"
My grin faded at his sardonic tone. I shrugged against the green and purple glow of the tracting
fields.
"You don't have to _find_ this place again," Ry Ornis complained. He grimaced ruefully. "It's been
accessed by amateurs. I can imagine what they did to isolate and pull up the right world-line. They've
probably mangled the embryonic gate and reduced our accesses to at most three or four. So ... I have no
room for error. If I fumble a few world-lines, it's a one-way trip for you, and Lamarckia is of no use to
anybody."
I did not like Ry Ornis much; most gate openers made me nervous. Their talents were on such a
different plane, their personalities radically opposed to my own.
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The minutes stretched. Ry Ornis seemed mesmerized by the endless spectacle outside the blister. He
leaned across the gap between our seats. "Frankly, the council members and administers have too much
on their minds. If Lamarckia was really important, don't you think they'd have expended more effort than
sending just you?"
My emotions burst forth in a wry laugh. "The thought's occurred to me," I admitted.
"Why did you agree to do this?"
"It suits me," I said. "Why did you?"
Ry Ornis grimaced again, his face contorting like a circus mask. "Among the gate openers,
advancement comes at the expense of obedience. Is it the same in Way Defense?"
"I don't know," I said, not entirely truthful. "I'm only a seven."
Ry Ornis stared at me. "Even so," he said.
"Can you get me to Lamarckia?"
"Blunt questions deserve blunt answers," he said. He took a deep breath. "Unfortunately, I don't
know." The flawship had slowed to a few thousand kilometers an hour; soon it would come to a
complete stop. "It's not an exact science. Every gate opener has illusions. My illusion is that the more I
know about a place, the better I'm able to sniff out its world-lines."
"In some ways, it resembles Earth," I said.
"I've read the Dalgesh report. I know the size and rough characteristics. I'm asking for a personal
opinion. What makes it so _interesting?_"
I didn't understand what he was getting at. "There are humans on it now..."
"The story about our being able to sniff out humanoid life is quite wrong. That's not what a gate
opener looks for. We look for _interest._"
"What do you think is interesting?" I asked.
Ry Ornis leaned his head to one side. The tracting fields had withdrawn. We were moving at less
than a hundred kilometers an hour and the flaw no longer glowed. "Lamarckia defies all we've learned of
evolution and the origins of life."
"The informer seems to think it does. He called it a 'New Mother.' He thought the immigrants would
destroy it."
"Now that's _interest._" Ry Ornis nodded approval. "Big events mark world-lines. If Lenk's people
are going to reshape the history of a planet ... I'll get you there," he said.
The flawship pilot pulled herself forward and poked her head between us. "Enjoying the view?" she
asked.
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"Immensely," I said.
"We're both nervous," Ry Ornis said. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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