10 The Place Where the Heechee Dwelt

When the Heechee hid inside their Schwarzschild shell at the core of the Galaxy they knew there could be no easy communication between their scared selves and the immense universe outside. Yet they dared not be without news.

So they set up a web of starlets outside the black hole itself. They were far enough away so that the roaring radiation of infall into the hole did not swamp their circuitry, and there were enough of them so that if one were to fail or be destroyed-even if a hundred were-the ones that were left would be able to receive and record the data from their early-warning spy stations all around the Galaxy. The Heechee had run away to hide, but they had left eyes and ears behind.

So from time to time some brave souls sneaked out of the core, to find out what the eyes had seen and the ears had heard. When Captain and his crew were sent out to check space for the errant star, checking the monitors was an added duty. There were five of them aboard his ship- five living ones, anyway. By all odds the one that interested Captain the most was the slim, sallow, shiny-skinned female named Twice. By Captain’s standards she was a raving beauty. And sexy, too-every year without fail-and the time, he judged, was getting near again!

But not, he prayed, just yet. And so prayed Twice, for getting through the Schwarzschild perimeter was a brute of a job. Even when the ship had been purpose-built to manage it. There were other can openers around-Wan had stolen one-but those managed the job only in limited ways. Wan’s ship could not enter the event horizon and survive. It could only extend a part of itself there.

Captain’s ship was bigger and stronger. Even so, the shaking, tossing, racking strains of passing through the event horizon threw Captain and Twice and the other four members of the crew violently and hurtingly against their retaining harnesses; the diamond-bright corkscrew coruscated with great fat silent sparks of radiance showering all around the cabin; the light hurt their eyes, the violent motion bruised their bodies; and it went on and on. For an hour or more by the crew’s own subjective time, which was a queer, shifting blend of the normal pace of the universe at large and the slowed-down tempo inside the black hole.

But at last they were through into the unstressed space. The terrible lurching stopped. The blinding lights faded. The Galaxy glowed before them, a velvet dome of cream splattered with bright, bold stars, for they were too far inside the center to see more than the occasional patch of blackness.

“Massed minds be thanked,” said Captain, grinning as he crawled out of his harness-he looked like a med school skull when he grinned-“I think we’ve made it!” And the crew followed his example, unstrapping themselves, chattering cheerfully back and forth. As they rose to begin the data-collection process, Captain’s bony hand reached out to hold Twice’s. It was an occasion for rejoicing-as the captains of Nantucket whalers rejoiced when they passed Cape Horn, as the covered-wagon pioneers began to breathe again as they came down the slopes into the promised land of Oregon or California. The violence and peril were not over. They would have to go through it all again on the way back inside. But now, for at least a week or more, they could relax and collect data and this was the pleasure part of the expedition.

Or it should have been.

It should have been but was not, for as Captain secured the ship and the officer named Shoe opened the communication channels, every sensor on the board flared violet. The thousand automatic orbiting stations were reporting big news! Important news-bad news, and all the datastores clamored to announce their evil tidings at once.

There was a shocked silence among the Heechee. Then their training overcame their astonished terror, and the cabin of the Heechee ship became a whirlwind of activity. Receive and collate, analyze and compare. The messages mounted. The picture took shape.

The last record-tapping expedition had been only a few weeks before, by the slow creep of time inside the great central black hole-decades or so as time was measured in the galloping universe outside. But even so, not much time! Not in the scale of stars!

And yet the whole world was different.

Q.-What is worse than a prediction that doesn’t come true?

A.-A prediction that comes true sooner than you expect.

It had been the Heechee conviction that intelligent and technological life would arise in the Galaxy. They had identified more than a dozen inhabited worlds-and not merely inhabited, but bearing the promise of intelligence. They had made a plan for each of them.

Some of the plans had failed. There was a species of furry quadrupeds on a damp, cool planet so near the Orion nebula that its aurora filled the sky, small quick creatures with paws as nimble as a raccoon’s and lemur eyes. They would discover tools one day, the Heechee thought; and fire; and farming; and cities; and technology and space travel. And so they had, and used them all to poison their planet and decimate their race. There was another race, six-limbed segmented ammonia-breathers, very promising, sadly too near a star that went supernova. End of the ammonia-breathers. There were the chill, slow, sludgy creatures who occupied a special place in Heechee history. They had carried the terrible news that drove the Heechee into hiding, and that was enough to make them unique. More, they were not merely promising but actually intelligent already; not merely intelligent but civilized! Technology was already within their grasp. But they were a longshot entry in the galactic sweepstakes anyway, for their sludgy metabolism was simply too slow to compete with warmer, quicker races.

But one race, someday, would reach into space and survive. Or so the Heechee hoped.

And so the Heechee feared, too, for they knew even as they planned their retreat that a race that could catch up with them could also surpass them. But how could that possibility loom near so quickly? It had been only sixty terrestrial years since the last checkup!

Then the distant monitors orbiting the planet Venus had shown the sapiens bipeds there, digging out the abandoned Heechee tunnels, exploring their little solar system in spacecraft that moved on jets of chemical flame. Pitiably crude, of course. But promising. In a century or two- four or five centuries at most, the Heechee thought-they would likely enough find the Gateway asteroid. And in a century or two after that they might begin to understand the technology- But events had moved so swiftly! The human beings had found the

Gateway ships, the Food Factory-the immense distant habitat the Heechee had used to pen specimens of Earth’s then most promising race, the australopithecines. All had fallen to the humans, and that was not the end of it.

Captain’s crew was well trained. When the data had been accepted, and filtered through the massed minds, and tabulated, and summarized, the specialists prepared their reports. White-Noise was the navigator. It was his responsibility to take position fixes on all reported sources and update the ship locator file. Shoe was the communications officer, busiest of all-except perhaps for Mongrel, the integrator, who flew from board to board, whispering to the massed minds and suggesting cross-checks and correlations. Neither Burst, the black-hole-piercer specialist, nor Twice herself whose skill was in remote handling of slaved equipment, were needed for their specialties at this time, so they backed up the others, as did Captain, the ribbed muscles of his face twisting like serpents as he waited for the consolidated reports.

Mongrel was fond of her Captain, too, and so she gave him the least threatening ones first.

First, there was the fact that Gateway ships had been found and used. Well, there was nothing wrong with that! It was part of the plan, although it was disconcerting to have it happen so soon.

Second, there was the fact that the Food Factory had been found, and the artifact humans called Heechee Heaven. These were old messages, now decades old. Also not serious. Also disconcerting-quite disconcerting, because Heechee Heaven had been designed to trap any ships that docked there, and for two-way contact to have been established meant a quite unexpected sophistication among these upstart bipeds.

Third, there was a message from the sailship people, and that made the tendons in Captain’s face writhe faster. Finding a ship in a solar system was one thing-locating one in interstellar space was distressingly impressive.

There is a possible slight confusion here that I should eliminate. Robinette (and all the rest of the human race) called these people Heechee. Of course, they didn’t call themselves that, any more than native Americans called themselves Indians or the African Khoi-San tribes called themselves Hottentots and Bushmen. What the Heechee in fact called themselves was the intelligent ones. But that proves little. So does Homo sapiens.

And fourth- Fourth was White-Noise’s plot of the present whereabouts of all known Heechee vessels now operated by human beings, and when Captain saw that he squeaked with rage and shock. “Plot it against banned spaces!” he commanded. And as soon as the datafans were in place and the combined images appeared, the tendons in his cheeks trembled like plucked harpstrings. “They are exploring black holes,” he said, his voice thin.

White-Noise nodded. “There is more,” he said. “Some of the vessels carry order disruptors. They can penetrate.”

And Mongrel the integrator added: “And it does not seem that they understand the danger signs.”

Having given their reports, the rest of the crew waited politely. It was Captain’s problem now. They hoped very much that he was going to be able to handle it.

The female named Twice was not exactly in love with Captain, because it wasn’t time for that yet, but she knew she would be. Quite soon. Within the next few days, most likely. So in addition to her concern for this astonishing and frightening news, there was also her concern for Captain. He was the one who had his upper lip in the pincer. Although it was not yet time, she reached out and placed her lean hand over his. So deep in thought was Captain that he didn’t even notice, but patted it absently.

Shoe made the sniffling sound that was the Heechee equivalent of clearing his throat before asking, “Do you want to establish contact with the massed minds?”

“Not now,” hissed Captain, rubbing his ribcage with his free fist. It made a grating noise, loud in the stillness of the cabin. What Captain really wanted to do was to go back into his black hole in the core of the Galaxy and pull the stars up over his head. That was not possible. Next best would be to flee back to that same safe, friendly core and report to higher authority. Higher authority could then make the decisions. They could be the ones to deal with the massed minds of the ancestors, who would be eager to interfere. They could decide what to do about it-if possible, with some other Heechee captain and crew actually dispatched to this terrible swift space to carry out their orders. That was a possible option, but Captain was too well trained to allow himself so easy a way out. He was the one on the scene. Therefore he was the one who should make the first swift responses. If they were wrong-well, pity poor Captain! There would be consequences. Shunning, at least, though that was only for minor offenses. For graver ones there was the equivalent of being kicked upstairs-and Captain was not eager to join that mighty mass of stored minds that were all of his ancestors.

He hissed worriedly and made his decisions. “Inform the massed minds,” he ordered.

“Just inform? Not request recommendations?” asked Shoe.

Firmly, “Just inform. Prepare a penetrating drone and send it back to base with a duplicate of all data.” This was to Twice, who released his hand and began the task of activating and programming a small message vessel. And finally, to White-Noise: “Set course for the sailship interception point.”

It was not the Heechee custom to salute on receiving an order. It was also not the Heechee custom to argue about it, and it was a measure of the confusion in the ship that White-Noise asked, “Are you sure that’s what we should do?”

“Do it,” said Captain, shrugging irritably.

Actually, it was not a shrug but a quick, violent contraction of his hard, globular abdomen. Twice found herself staring admiringly at that fetching little bulge and at the way the tough, long strings of tendon from shoulder to wrist stood out from the arm itself. Why, your fingers would almost meet as you clung to it!

With a start she realized that her time of loving was closer than she had thought. What an inconvenience! Captain would be as annoyed as she, since they had had plans for a very special day and a half. Twice opened her mouth to tell him, then closed it again. It was no time to trouble him with that; he was completing the thought processes that ridged his cheek muscles and made him scowl, and beginning to give orders.

Captain had plenty of resources to draw on. There were more than a thousand cleverly cached Heechee artifacts scattered around the Galaxy. Not the ones that were meant to be found sooner or later, like Gateway; these were concealed under the exterior appearance of unpromising asteroids in inaccessible orbits, or between stars, or among clusters of other objects in dust swarms and gas clouds. “Twice,” he ordered without looking at her, “activate a command ship. We will rendezvous with it at the sailship point.”

She was upset, he observed. He was sorry but not surprised-come down to that, he was upset himself! He returned to the command seat and lowered the bones of his pelvis onto the projecting Y-flanges, his life-support pouch fitting neatly into the angle they enclosed.

And became aware that his communications officer was standing over him, face working worriedly. “Yes, Shoe? What is it?”

Shoe’s biceps flexed deferentially. “The-“ he stammered. “They- The Assassins-“

Captain felt an electric shock of fear. “The Assassins?”

“I think there is a danger that they will be disturbed,” said Shoe dismally. “The aboriginals are conversing by zero-speed radio.”

“Conversing? You mean transmitting messages? Who are you talking about-massed minds!” Captain shouted, leaping out of the seat again. “You mean the aboriginals are sending messages at galactic distances?”

Shoe hung his head. “I am afraid so, Captain. Of course, I do not yet know what they are saying-but there is a great volume of communication.”

Captain shook his wrists feebly to signal that he wanted to hear no more. Sending messages! Across the Galaxy! Where anyone might hear! Where, especially, the certain parties the Heechee hoped would not be disturbed at all might well hear. And react to. “Establish translation matrices with the minds,” he ordered, and dismally returned to his seat.

The mission was jinxed. Captain no longer had hopes of an idle pleasure cruise, or even of the satisfaction of a minor task well accomplished. The big question in his mind was whether he could get through the next few days.

Still, soon they would transship into the shark-shaped command vessel, fastest of the Heechee fleet, filled with technology. Then his options would increase. Not only was it larger and faster; it carried a number of devices not present on his little penetrator-ship. A TPT. Hole cutters like the ones his ancestors had used to scoop out the Gateway asteroid and the warrens under the surface of Venus. A device to reach into black holes to see what could be plucked out-he shuddered. Please the massed minds of the ancestors, that one they would not have to use! But he would have it. And he would have a thousand other useful bits of equipment- Assuming, that was, that the ship was still functioning and would meet them at the rendezvous.

The artifacts the Heechee had left behind were powerful, strong, and long-lasting. Bar accidents, they were built to last for at least ten million years.

But you could not bar all accidents. A nearby supernova, a malfunctioning part, even a chance collision with some other object-you could harden the artifacts against almost all hazards, but in infinite astronomical time “almost all” is little better than “none.”

And if the command ship happened to have failed? And if there were no other that Twice could locate and bring to the rendezvous?

The Heechee learned fairly early in their technological phase to store the intelligences of dead or dying Heechee in inorganic systems. That was how the Dead Men came to be stored to provide company for the boy Wan, and it was an application of that technology that produced Robin’s Here After company. For the Heechee (if I may venture a possibly not unbiased opinion) it may have been a mistake. Since they were able to use the dead minds of Heechee ancestors to store and process data, they were not very good at true artificial-intelligence systems, capable of far greater power and flexibility. Like-welt-like me.

Captain allowed himself to let the depression sink into his mind. There were too many ifs. And the consequences of each of them too unpleasant to face.

It was not unusual for Captain, or any other Heechee, to be depressed. They had earned it fairly.

When Napoleon’s Grand Army crawled back from Moscow their enemies were small harassing cavalry bands, the Russian winter-and despair.

When Hitler’s Wehrmacht repeated the same trek thirteen decades later, the main threats were the Soviet tanks and artillery, the Russian winter-and, again, despair. They retreated in better order and with more destruction to their foes. But not with more despair, or less.

Every retreat is a kind of funeral cortege, and the thing that has died is confidence. The Heechee had confidently expected to win a galaxy. When they found they must lose, and began their immense, star-spanning retreat to the core, the magnitude of their defeat was huger than any that humans had ever known, and the despair seeped into all of their souls.

The Heechee were playing a most complicated game. One could call it a team sport, except that few of the players were allowed to be aware that they were on a team at all. The strategies were limited, but the final goal of the game was certain. If they managed to survive as a race, they would win.

But so many pieces moved on that board! And the Heechee had so little control. They could start the game. After that, if they interfered directly they exposed themselves. That was when the game became perilous.

It was now Captain’s turn to play, and he knew the risks he ran. He could be the player who lost the game for the Heechee once and for all.

His first task was to preserve the Heechee hiding place as long as possible, which meant doing something about the sailship people.

That was the least of his worries, for the second task was the one that counted. The stolen ship carried equipment that could penetrate even the skin around the Heechee hidey-hole. It could not enter. But it could peer within, and that was bad. Worse, the same equipment could penetrate almost any event discontinuity, even the one that the Heechee themselves dared not enter. The one that they prayed would never be breached, since within it rested the thing they most terribly feared.

So Captain sat there at the controls of his ship, while the glowing silicate cloud that surrounded the core dwindled behind them. Meanwhile, Twice was beginning to show signs of the strain that would shortly press her to her limits; and meanwhile, the cold, sludgy sailship people crept through their long, slow lives; and meanwhile, the one human-manned craft in the universe that could do anything about it approached yet another black hole . .

And meanwhile, those other players on the great board, Audee Walthers and Janie Yee-xing, watched their stack of chips slowly disappearing as they waited to make their own private gamble.