Heaven (3 page)

The exceedingly mobile males were also part of that network, communicating with their wives using a language of molecules.
Every wash of the waves brought news from the boats, the bars, and the trading posts of the seaports. Crooked Atoll sensed
the pulse of the planet; by communicating with her fellow atolls she could make herself aware of almost everything that was
happening in the oceans and ports of No-Moon. And, by picking up gossip from the spaceport bars and swimways, she could also
keep tabs on what was happening off the planet.

Only the mariners knew that their wives possessed such an ability. It was a racial secret, and the polypoids never talked
about it around other sentient species. Not that they would have been believed if any of them had accidentally dropped hints.
An intelligent reef? Nonsense. Just another typical sailor story.

The reefwives had an unbroken history of collective perception that went back half a billion years, and they remembered all
of it.

And now the reefwives were becoming concerned. Some of the Neanderthal traders were telling the males about a large space
fleet that might be heading their way—purpose uncertain. In a corner of their perception the reefwives watched potential events
unfolding that would have dire consequences for their mates and their world. And the group mind could segregate itself into
separate entities so that different parts of the reef could “discuss” their perceptions and compare them.

The reefwives had an unusual sense of time. They perceived an “extended present” which caused them to “see” in a single “timechunk”
about two weeks either side of what other beings, including their husbands, were aware of as “now.” However, they did not
know the future; they foresaw it, constantly and unconsciously extrapolating from the first two weeks of the timechunk, which
they updated from sensory input and relayed news and gossip. To them the future was as real as the past, and distinguished
only by its position within the static expanse of frozen time.

Now, in one corner of the “future” section of their perception, they saw events unfold that disturbed them on an atavistic
level.

Not because they were unfamiliar events. On the contrary, the reefwives had witnessed this menace many times before, in many
forms. Now it was happening again. The inbound fleet was host to a religion. Not just any religion—a special kind. A benevolent
memeplex, a mental hook baited with tolerance and love, which, as it gained adherents, would sometimes rigidify into pure
evil. How far along that path had this particular memeplex progressed? It might still be benign, but it might be malignant,
well into its runaway phase. The reefwives could not yet decide which; they needed more detailed information. But there was
no sense in being complacent—not when they remembered what had happened when a benevolent memeplex had tried to infiltrate
their previous homeworld of Three-Moons.

Age-old contingency plans flashed across their collective consciousness. For a fraction of a second, the collective mind that
was Crooked Atoll debated a million alternatives, and came to a decision.

Implacable resistance
.

The rigging was a tangled mess, and the garden was a wreck.

No one knew which mariner had first decided that it would be a good idea to grow plants in the otherwise useless ’bovedecks
area. The fashion probably started out as decoration—a few salt-tolerant flowers and trailing vines. The polypoids had long
grown fruit trees on the more accessible shores of their islands, especially the Isles of the Heliponaise. They had bred them
for more succulent fruit, tended them with loving care. Fruit trees were symbols of an untroubled life. Later, various types
of root and grain had augmented their horticultural repertoire. Add to that the obvious point that the flat upper surface
of a boat was otherwise mostly wasted space, and matters arranged themselves. Gardening quickly gained popularity: It was
a relaxing hobby on a long voyage. Of course, it had to be done in a suit, but every boat had at least one of those. And the
garden had to be carefully laid out so as not to obstruct the rigging. But those were minor details and easily taken care
of.

Second-Best Sailor had specialized in fruit: every spare yard of the above-sea deck of his vessel was crammed with stumpy
trees that grew lumpish blobs of concentrated
taste
that were rather like lemons. These “lemon trees” were planted in tubs, and apart from twice-yearly pruning they needed little
attention. Mariners adored lemons, and any surplus could easily be traded for cash or kind in the ubiquitous sea bars and
markets of the ports.

Second-Best Sailor felt his propulsive organs tighten involuntarily. His garden had been comprehensively ruined. Most of his
lemon trees had been washed overboard, and those that remained had lost most of their fruit. They were covered in sticky squidlike
creatures, which were common in surface waters around the time of the Change Winds. Second-Best Sailor uttered a robust mariner
curse and set to work.

Before the wind could get up again, or other calamity befall, he made a series of observations of the sun’s position, the
directions of wind and waves, and any visible landmarks. When these were combined with underwater observations of the ocean
floor, it should not take him long to work out the boat’s position. He was pretty sure he recognized two of the distant islands
anyway, particularly the one with the three jagged cliffs, a small one between two larger ones.

Then he began to pluck the dead but still-sticky squid from the branches of the lemon trees, tossing them over the taffrail.
Soon a herd of spiny tallfins gathered in the boat’s wake, attracted by the prospect of an easy meal. They were harmless unless
they in turn attracted one of the large predators, but shugs and gulpmouths were unlikely in these latitudes at this time
of year.

He hoped.

Once the squid were cleared away, it became possible to disentangle the rigging from the trees. Second-Best Sailor could see
at once that there was no point in trying to save any of the lines except for the main halyards, which had been coiled and
secured when they lowered the mainsail. Those apart, the whole boat would have to be rerigged, and that required a wet-dock
and a week’s hard work. But the mainmast was still standing, and he could jury-rig the mainsail by running staylines out along
the cross-pole. This temporary fix would last until they reached their scheduled destination, and proper repairs would have
to wait until then.

He busied himself with the crumpled mainsail, pulling it flat and inspecting it for rips. When he was satisfied, he looped
runners from the staylines through metal-rimmed sockets in the edge of the sail, thumped the deck twice to alert Short Apprentice
to the need to turn the boat into the wind, and hauled the makeshift sail into place. The sailor suit, sensing the heavy forces
acting on his muscles, reconfigured itself to take most of the strain.

Second-Best Sailor tied off the halyards to a convenient cleat and ran his eye over the jury-rigged sail as a final check.
He made a few more navigational observations—the way the sun’s angular height changed with time, for instance. Then he stepped
off the side and swam back through a sallyport to the main cabin.

He regretted having no lemons to trade, but those were of small importance. He usually traded them to other mariners or used
them as gambling tokens when the mood took him, though he’d intended on this occasion to give a few to the Neanderthal women
to lubricate the trading. Tough.

For a moment he wondered if it would be worth trying to sell his small but exquisite collection of fanworm tubes. It was a
kind of coming-of-age ritual for the most daring mariners. The beautiful secretions were to be found in the ocean depths near
No-Moon’s rare volcanic vents, where superheated mineral-laced water spouted from the sea bed. Here, in the eternal darkness,
lived dense clusters of delicate fanworms, which peeped from protective tubes and flashed colored lights at one another. The
tubes were convoluted and roughly square in cross-section. Each tube bore intricate patterns of colored deposits, no two the
same, and they were prized as natural works of art.

A sufficiently bold polypoid, equipped with a suit, could dive to the bottom of the ocean, brave the dangerously hot waters
near a vent, and liberate a few fanworm tubes. Second-Best Sailor had done just that, on a dare, and he kept his treasures
locked away on his boat.

They were valuable. Could he bear to part with one?

No. Trade was important but not
that
important. Even though the damage to his boat would set his income back considerably, this was going to be a very profitable
voyage, as long as he could reach port before the Neanderthals moved on. Based on past performance, he was sure that Smiling
Teeth May Bite would wait for him, provided he didn’t take
too
much time. And, safely stowed away in a locker of solid metal, he had the stack of datablets that the reefwives had extruded,
containing valuable simulations for offworld customers. The reefmind traded in information, and the Neanderthal women would
pay enough for it to outfit his boat for a dozen voyages.

The Neanderthals thought that the mariners prepared the simulations themselves, no doubt using some high-powered Precursor
computer, and the mariners made no attempt to disabuse them. The secret of the reefmind must be
kept
a secret.

Later, when night had fallen, Second-Best Sailor made another excursion ’bovedecks to observe the stars. Their positions would
confirm his navigational calculations, but mostly he just got a kick out of stargazing. So many worlds, so much life. And
tonight there was a bonus, a sight so rare that he knew of it only through legend.

Stretched across a huge arc of sky were hundreds of lavender lights, arranged like beads on strings, forming a fan that pointed
straight toward the horizon, where the sun had just set. He knew what they must be, and excitement surged through his whole
body. He had been waiting all his life to witness the passage of the fabled magnetotorus herd. It was even more beautiful
than he had imagined from the stories—bejeweled patterns of living light, emitted by streams of wild magnetic creatures migrating
under the guidance of their inscrutable herders. He gave thanks to the Maker and counted it a privilege to be alive to witness
the herd’s arrival.

To an observer on the outer fringes of the system, the herd announced itself as a faint patch of monochromatic lavender light.
As it approached the outermost world of the No-Moon system, an outpost of loose rubble held together by nitrogen ice, the
patch resolved into a sprinkling of random spots, all glowing with the same spectral hue.

Seen from the side, as they passed, the spots became chains of glowing pearls, neatly stacked in line astern, all pointing
straight at the nearby star, Lambda Coelacanthi. Although they varied in size, every pearl was ring-shaped, aligned at right
angles to the axis of the chain, with their matter—if it was matter—spiraling smoothly into the central hole and out again.

There were hundreds of these chains, irregularly distributed in a teardrop-shaped cluster, and each chain contained anywhere
between eight and sixty pearls.

The pearls were magnetotori, primitive organisms made from magnetic plasma, living Bussard ramscoops that devoured the thinly
spread hydrogen of the interstellar medium, sucking it up atom by atom, fusing the atoms into helium to create energy. Every
two hundred thousand years this herd of wild magnetotori repeated the same nomadic cycle, migrating from star to star in a
pattern whose origins were lost in the abyss of deep time.

Elsewhere, other herds followed their own cycles, longer or shorter. And for the past few million years, all of the migrating
herds had been accompanied and regulated by itinerant herders, whose physical form was a pattern of standing electromagnetic
waves confined in cocoonlike metallic nets. The herders drew sustenance by absorbing radiation from their toroidal “cattle.”
Without this life support, the herders could never have survived in the dark voids between the stars.

They accompanied their herds in ramshackle ceramic vessels, floating junk piles assembled according to rules that only a herder
could comprehend, and controlled their beasts with pulses of magnetic force. The herders could not change the migratory routes,
but they could make sure that the journey was timed to their own advantage.

The magnetotori were coming to graze in the photosphere of the system’s sun, where the local plasmoids were roosted.

The herders had a longstanding arrangement with the plasmoids. They could direct their beasts to feed on selected regions
of magnetic vortex-fields, where their presence would be most beneficial to the dynamics of the star. There, too, the magnetotori
would mate. Before the fields became overgrazed and turned into sterile magnetocrystals, a process that took a few centuries,
the herds would move on to the next star in their itinerary.

At this distance from the star, their passage was slow and leisurely. As they neared their destination, their speed would
pick up. Now they sailed gracefully past two moderately sized gas giants: the enigmatic green mist of Ghost and the blotchy
blues and purples of Marsupial. Next they traversed a dangerous belt of rocks and snowballs to cross the orbit of Bandicoot,
timing their passage to stay well clear of its fuzz of radio noise. Bandicoot, too, was a gas giant, a protostar that had
failed to ignite. It was made of hydrogen, helium, and a hundred other gases. It spun so slowly that the normal equatorial
bulge was distinctly subdued, and its clouded atmosphere crackled with electrical discharges as a matched pair of never-ending
storms circled its north and south equatorial zones, pursuing each other as if in some bizarre ritual hunt.

The next three planets were tiny, all much the same size but differing wildly in physical constitution. Baugenphyme was a
sulfur desert, pockmarked by the calderas of long-dead volcanoes. Hilary was a cracked ball of ice, coated in a thick layer
of dust, dominated by a spectacular impact crater whose radiating arms wrapped themselves right round the little world, overlapping
one another in a fishnet pattern. Jones was a mottled ball of pink and lemon, with pale gray lakes of frozen phosphorus hydride.