Prologue
Space! Suns turn in stately motion, incinerating every bit of matter in their path with the shimmering fire of their coronas. Asteroids hum through the void like snowballs fired from a Luger, smashing icy holes in the planets unlucky enough to intercept their deadly trajectories. Vast clouds of loose matter swirl and eddy, enveloping stray shards of debris, along with any vessel whose pilot is not skilled enough to avoid the miasma.
Outer space is indifferent, unknowing, uncaring. It appears cruel to those who do not know its ways, and kind to those who do. These are only illusions, brought on by a strange need to ascribe thought and empathy to something that neither thinks nor feels. How many creatures have cursed the universe with their last breath as their ship drifts, the twisted metal of their broken shells floating around them, the vacuum sucking the very air out of their lungs as their screams fade into nothingness, unheeded by any conscious being? How many creatures have sung of the beauty of the jewel-like night skies as they wait for their loved ones to return from a voyage of almost certain death, hoping that by praising the terrible grandeur of space, they will appease its hunger for living souls?
The ship sails silently through space, the red fire of a million stars flickering dully off its silvery skin. Although its voyage has been a long one, longer than the lifespans of many living things, its surface has not been dented by one of the quadrillion pieces of debris that litter the cosmos. An outside observer might attribute this to the skill of the pilot inside, but there is nothing that might show any conscious effort by anything inside to change the direction the craft is traveling. Indeed, the ship moves with the dignified air of a ship that knows its path to be true. It has not changed its course during the entire 17-year voyage, nor has it encountered any bit of matter that might impede its progress.
Luck? Perhaps. But there are many ways of ensuring a safe voyage through space, other than the brute, swift steering mechanisms that most spacefaring races have depended upon. Space itself may be indifferent, but the more advanced races have made the fortunate discovery that matter, particularly simple, unconscious matter like burning hydrogen or frozen hydrogen dioxide, can be influenced, through careful use of the most subtle forms of telepathy, to gently move itself in certain patterns. Thus, the outside observer (and what in the world is an outside observer doing in the vacuum of space, anyway?) would note the strange way that asteroids alter their paths just the smallest fraction of a degree a few thousand miles before they would hit the ship, missing it by miles in the end, or the way that certain dust clouds part their shimmering veils to allow the ship clear passage through them, or the way a solar flare will subside just as the waves of its heat would touch the skin of the ship.
The lone passenger of the ship sits motionless, his limbs tucked into one another in the most comfortable position for his skeletal structure. His eyes do not open, his ears receive no sound waves; in his present environment, engaging external sensory organs would only expose him to distracting stimuli. He prefers to shut down his senses and send his mind out instead. His mental field can encompass ten thousand miles, creating a safe buffer for the ship.
But there is little in space, even with the ever-present threat of sudden and violent death, and it is easy to get bored; nothing has intruded upon his awareness for a long time. He has sunken into himself, allowing his mind to dwell upon the soft purple deserts, warm golden seas, and majestic crystalline cities of his home planet. He imagines the last evening in his ancient stone villa, sipping the juice of musky fragrant fruits and speaking with his friends, bidding them each a solemn farewell. Friends he knows he may never see again…but that is a chance each pilot must take as he puts out to space. This one has made many voyages, ever mindful of the fact that each may be his last.
Ω
He hears the voices long before the tiny blue orb would have shown itself against the velvet black backdrop of space. They start as tiny whispers at first, sibilant susurrations and drawn-out moans impinging on his consciousness, and barely register on the pleasant fantasy he has concocted for himself to while away the time. He sinks deeper, brushing away the intruding voices like so many motes of dust. They have nothing to do with his memories.
The voices grow louder, and he can no longer support the illusion. The fabric of his fantasy dissolves, the bright colors drifting away like fog to reveal the stark white walls of his chamber. He feels a sharp ache of disappointment at losing the beauty of his home, but it fades as he reminds himself of his mission. His journey is almost over, and there is no time now for nostalgia.
He forces his mind to focus on one area of the planet’s surface, a patch of ground a little more than twenty square miles. Hardly a fraction of the total ground of the planet, but it is this precise area that he is aiming for. It would be most absorbing to sink into the minds of all the conscious beings on this planet, to immerse himself in their culture, their emotions, their experiences, but that is a luxury he cannot afford now. His mission is the most important thing, greater than the pleasure of learning.
The voices sort themselves out into distinct syllables as he draws closer. He inspects each one like it is a precious artifact, assembling meaning from each cluster of phonemes. The words scribble vague pictures inside his head, little flashes of emotion, webs of association. It is a wonder, he thinks, that this species ever manages to communicate anything meaningful among themselves. How frustrating it must be when each being has a different picture for the same word, shades of meaning constructed over the same object like a thousand dusty panes of glass. His species let go of the folly of verbal communication long ago, and speak with each other through telepathy, beaming absolute meaning directly into each others’ brains.
He resolves to bring up this issue the next time he is able to contact another of his kind, an item on the racial to-do list: Teach these creatures telepathy. It may not be a popular idea; there is not a one of his kind who is not painfully aware of the consequences of allowing another species to use the immense power his kind hold, what happened the last time they bestowed such power on the ungrateful, warlike beings that plague the galaxy. The beings that, in fact, he is now traveling to this planet in order to help eradicate.
The idea is filed away in his mind, and he turns his attention to handling the ship. His telekinesis will not work on an entire planet, nor would he wish it to; the slightest artificial change in the planet’s motion could send it spinning off into space, freed from is delicate gravitational web. Instead, he allows a tiny section of his mind to merge with the ship, tilting it slightly this way and that, nudging it ever closer to his target. It will take only subtle movements to be certain that he lands right where he wants to; the ship is good, and the planet is small.
Closer, ever closer. The voices become louder, a babbling wild rush inside his head, drowning out his carefully crafted thoughts, his directions to the ship. He struggles to block them out, steeling his mind against the onslaught of noise, an almost physical effort. He was not prepared, but how could any of his training have prepared him for the wild anarchic babble of this world?
The ship is entering the gaseous atmosphere of the planet. The outside is growing very warm, glowing with friction. The skin is strong, and he knows that he is safe, tucked inside, but the part of him that is merged with the ship shrinks from the pain. He tenses his body and withdraws his mind completely. If he tries to stay in contact any longer, the pain of the heat and the voices will take over his mind. He will lose control of the ship. He has seen it happen before, seen ships twist and jerk in the atmosphere of his own planet as the pilot readjusts to the existence of voices other than his own, veering wildly and landing thousands of miles away from their friends and family waiting on the surface. He must trust in the course he has plotted out, trust that the ship will stay true on land on target. Crashing is not a problem; the ship is designed for such events. The inside is padded, and the skin cannot be punctured by anything softer than the artificial ultradiamonds that the scientists of his planet have developed.
His mind retracts. There is a sudden rush, a sucking, pulling feeling, and for a moment his head feels as though it is going to implode. Then only emptiness, drifting, the subtle webs he has woven across space suddenly severed. All of existence is the blank whiteness of this shell, the soft smooth surface of the inside of the ship. The skin is thick; he can no longer feel the heat, the noise, the vast sucking emptiness of space. It’s soothing, cool, quiet.
It would be tempting, while he is waiting to land, to slip back into the memories of his planet, the fantasy he has built up to sustain him on these voyages. But he is awake now, fully aware, and he knows that the shock of resurfacing would not be worth the few moments he could spend in his mind.
He takes the time to review the information he has gathered from the minds of the beings that populate this planet. It is clear that his own body’s shape will not be accepted on this planet; he must create an illusion to mask his real form. The minds of most conscious beings are not difficult to cloud; the hard part will be coming up with a convincing illusion, applying what he has learned to create an original image. He’s always had trouble with that.
He sends out a tendril of thought, far less expansive than his original mindweb, fearing overloading again. The surface of the planet is getting very close; even the tiny opening in his mind he has allowed himself is letting too many voices in. Soon, he will land. He curls his body into a ball, bracing for impact. Let it fall where it will, and he will survive how he can.