perceptibly warmer. Dom relaxed. The Bank was hiding something, though.
'I thought you were the most incisive mind in the galaxy,' he said.
'A COMMON MISTAKE. ALAS, I AM NO MORE INTELLIGENT THAN THE AVERAGE CREAP, OR HUMAN GENIUS. MY BULK ALLOWS, SHALL WE SAY, FOR BREADTH OF INTELLIGENCE RATHER THAN HEIGHT. I WAS REFERRING TO CHARLES SUBLUNAR.'
' "Poet, polymath, soldier of fortune",' quoted Dom, 'Was he the man I saw in the hotel? Scarred, he was, with an early Class One robot?'
'HE DOES NOT ALLOW HIS LIKENESS TO BE PUBLISHED,' said the Bank, and there was a hint of laughter in the voice.
'Uhuh. I'm getting the hang of things. I don't think seeing him was an accident. I thought he recognized me. He looked rather self-satisfied, so...'
'DOM, BECAUSE YOU ARE MY GODSON I WILL RETAIL TO YOU A CERTAIN FACT. YOUR GRANDMOTHER IS AT THIS MOMENT IN ORBIT ABOVE US, REQUESTING CLEARANCE TO LAND.'
A screen by the robot's arm flashed into life and Dom saw the familiar shape of his grandmother's personal MFTL barge
Drunk With Infinity
drifting against the stars.
'SHE HAS JUST REFERRED TO ME AS, I QUOTE, A "DISEASED BALL OF ROCK".'
'I'm not certain I want to meet her,' said Dom. 'Mysself neither, my word!'
'this could be exciting.'
A panel in the rock wall ground back. 'this
is
an inspection shaft. leave this
WAY. WHERE WILL YOU GO WHEN YOU LEAVE ME?'
'To Band, then, to see this person who is old.'
'as old as the hills, as OLD
...' the Bank paused. There was no sound, but Dom got the distinct impression it was laughing,
'... as the sea. move! '
Take the Creapii.
Take them as the Jokers. It was an old theory.
They were an ancient race, and they were adaptable. Literally so.
Once there had only been one kind of Creap, the silicon-oxygen Creaps of low degree, living in barbarism and molten phosphorous sulphides on a small world hugging close to the fires of one of the 70 Ophiuchis. Seventeen light-years away, a brighter than average ape was seeing real possibilities in banging two stones together.
The Creapii were kindly, patient, and intensely curious. They were also pathologically humble. When they spread into space, they changed the Creap to fit the situation.
Half a million years of gene-manipulation and radical molecular restructuring produced the middle-degree Creaps, based on a silicon-carbon bond, a dynamic species that lived happily enough at 500°. Soon afterwards the vats stabilized the intricate aluminium silicon polymers of the High-Degrees, the ones that occasionally floated their rafts on cool stars.
There were others, including even a boron sub-species. Wherever a star warmed a rock beyond the melting point of tin, there was a Creap to bask in its beneficence.
The Creapii had a long history. They sought knowledge as other, cooler animals sought game. They were polite, and gentlemanly in their dealings. They mixed well. They lived in heat, but had no sexes.
Dom had liked Hrsh-Hgn's theory.
There are many binaries in the galaxy. And often they are an ill-matched pair, one small, dense and actinic, the other huge and red. There is day on the red stars, just occasionally. And there is night on the hemisphere where the bright star does not shine. Dark? There can only be darkness on a sun by contrast.
On this sun the Jokers lived. They
... would have to be like Creapii, with an armoured integument. Certainly the huge rafts, poised on a heat-contour, would have to be protected. Before the Creapii discovered matrix-power their rafts floated on a downdraft of oxidized iron, but the Jokers must have been more inventive .
.
. a race that twisted the Chain Stars would have to be inventive.
Power would be no problem. Power enough would be very close indeed... but it was only a theory...
Take men. The Jokers had ceased to build their strange artifacts long before man arose, brother to the apes, but who knew where men had come from? And men were adaptable, or could adapt
'I thought you were the most incisive mind in the galaxy,' he said.
'A COMMON MISTAKE. ALAS, I AM NO MORE INTELLIGENT THAN THE AVERAGE CREAP, OR HUMAN GENIUS. MY BULK ALLOWS, SHALL WE SAY, FOR BREADTH OF INTELLIGENCE RATHER THAN HEIGHT. I WAS REFERRING TO CHARLES SUBLUNAR.'
' "Poet, polymath, soldier of fortune",' quoted Dom, 'Was he the man I saw in the hotel? Scarred, he was, with an early Class One robot?'
'HE DOES NOT ALLOW HIS LIKENESS TO BE PUBLISHED,' said the Bank, and there was a hint of laughter in the voice.
'Uhuh. I'm getting the hang of things. I don't think seeing him was an accident. I thought he recognized me. He looked rather self-satisfied, so...'
'DOM, BECAUSE YOU ARE MY GODSON I WILL RETAIL TO YOU A CERTAIN FACT. YOUR GRANDMOTHER IS AT THIS MOMENT IN ORBIT ABOVE US, REQUESTING CLEARANCE TO LAND.'
A screen by the robot's arm flashed into life and Dom saw the familiar shape of his grandmother's personal MFTL barge
Drunk With Infinity
drifting against the stars.
'SHE HAS JUST REFERRED TO ME AS, I QUOTE, A "DISEASED BALL OF ROCK".'
'I'm not certain I want to meet her,' said Dom. 'Mysself neither, my word!'
'this could be exciting.'
A panel in the rock wall ground back. 'this
is
an inspection shaft. leave this
WAY. WHERE WILL YOU GO WHEN YOU LEAVE ME?'
'To Band, then, to see this person who is old.'
'as old as the hills, as OLD
...' the Bank paused. There was no sound, but Dom got the distinct impression it was laughing,
'... as the sea. move! '
Take the Creapii.
Take them as the Jokers. It was an old theory.
They were an ancient race, and they were adaptable. Literally so.
Once there had only been one kind of Creap, the silicon-oxygen Creaps of low degree, living in barbarism and molten phosphorous sulphides on a small world hugging close to the fires of one of the 70 Ophiuchis. Seventeen light-years away, a brighter than average ape was seeing real possibilities in banging two stones together.
The Creapii were kindly, patient, and intensely curious. They were also pathologically humble. When they spread into space, they changed the Creap to fit the situation.
Half a million years of gene-manipulation and radical molecular restructuring produced the middle-degree Creaps, based on a silicon-carbon bond, a dynamic species that lived happily enough at 500°. Soon afterwards the vats stabilized the intricate aluminium silicon polymers of the High-Degrees, the ones that occasionally floated their rafts on cool stars.
There were others, including even a boron sub-species. Wherever a star warmed a rock beyond the melting point of tin, there was a Creap to bask in its beneficence.
The Creapii had a long history. They sought knowledge as other, cooler animals sought game. They were polite, and gentlemanly in their dealings. They mixed well. They lived in heat, but had no sexes.
Dom had liked Hrsh-Hgn's theory.
There are many binaries in the galaxy. And often they are an ill-matched pair, one small, dense and actinic, the other huge and red. There is day on the red stars, just occasionally. And there is night on the hemisphere where the bright star does not shine. Dark? There can only be darkness on a sun by contrast.
On this sun the Jokers lived. They
... would have to be like Creapii, with an armoured integument. Certainly the huge rafts, poised on a heat-contour, would have to be protected. Before the Creapii discovered matrix-power their rafts floated on a downdraft of oxidized iron, but the Jokers must have been more inventive .
.
. a race that twisted the Chain Stars would have to be inventive.
Power would be no problem. Power enough would be very close indeed... but it was only a theory...
Take men. The Jokers had ceased to build their strange artifacts long before man arose, brother to the apes, but who knew where men had come from? And men were adaptable, or could adapt
Similar Books
