Ozzie knew that the wormhole had been reduced to micro-width in 2178. The link with the unisphere remained, but nothing physical had traveled to or from Vinmar since then. Popular speculation had the planet’s surface covered in vast crystal towers, the mega-arrays that ran continent-sized thought routines.
“I don’t see that,” Ozzie said quietly. “We’ve been talking about different technology levels. How far ahead the Dyson civilization is, all that crap. But what about you?”
“What about us?”
“Oh, come on! A whole planet for a brain? That makes you smarter than God. And that’s only if you stayed on Vinmar. You’ve got this whole super-technology thing going for you, don’tcha? Anything you want, you just think up how it works and how to build it. Takes maybe a nanosecond. Do you know how to manufacture a Dyson barrier? Better still, do you know how to penetrate one?”
“There are possible theories concerning the erection of a barrier; we have conducted mathematical simulations and analyzed them.”
“So you can build one?”
“Capability and intent are separate. In effect they define us quite accurately. We are thought, not physical. You cannot ever understand how infinitesimal the capacity we have employed to deal with you and this subject.”
“Pretty much beneath you these days, huh? Thanks for that.”
“Ozzie Fernandez Isaac, are you trying to provoke us?”
“Into what, man? Maybe build your own starship and send it to the Dyson Pair.”
“We have ceased to become your servants.”
“And we’re yours?”
“No. Our relationship is one of partnership and trust. And respect.”
“Tell us how to build a barrier generator. Teleport me to Dyson Alpha.”
“We are not God, Ozzie. Humans are not chess pieces we move around a board for amusement and interest. If you wish to build a barrier generator, design it yourselves. Our interest in the Dyson Pair is related purely to yours. Our advice was just that, advice best suited to help you deal with the problem.”
“Would you protect us if the aggressor comes after the Commonwealth?”
“We would offer whatever advice the situation required.”
“Well hot damn thanks a whole bunch there. Half of you are memories that humans send into you rather than rejuvenate again. Don’t you have any empathy, any humanity left in those mountain-sized circuits of yours?”
“Fifty percent is an exaggeration, Ozzie. We believe you know that. You who dispatched copies of his own memories—incomplete ones, at that—to run in our arrays in the hope of receiving special and privileged treatment.”
“And do I get any?”
“We are aware of our debt to you concerning the founding of our planet. You were an honest broker at the time, as such you are entitled to our respect.”
“Respect doesn’t put food on the table.”
“Since when have you ever wanted for anything material?”
“Oh, getting personal now you’re losing, huh?”
The SI didn’t reply.
“Okay, then tell me, with that infinitesimal piece of processing you’re covering this with, don’t you think it strange the Silfen know nothing about the Dyson Pair?”
“They are notoriously reluctant to supply exact definitions. As Vice President Doi confirmed, Commonwealth cultural experts are working on the problem.”
“Can you help us there? Maybe slip in a few trick questions.”
“The Silfen will not communicate directly with me. They have no interest in technological artifacts.”
“Yeah, something I’ve always been suspicious of. I mean, what is technology? Are steam engines? Do they class organic circuitry in there with quantum wire processors? And where do they get off claiming their transport method isn’t technology-based—whatever the hell it actually is.”
“If you’re hoping they will assist the Commonwealth, you will be disappointed. They are not deliberately obtuse; their neural structure is simply different to that of humans.”
“You think?” Ozzie stretched himself out in the chair. “I met somebody once. Long time ago now. It was in a bar on Far Jerusalem, just a seedy little watering hole in a town on the edge of nowhere. Don’t suppose it’s even there anymore, or if it is, it’ll be some tarted-up club with entry standards. But back then a man could walk in and get a drink without anyone bothering him. That’s what he did, except he sat next to me, and he was the one who started talking. Of course, he had a message to put across; but I’m a good listener when I want to be. He had quite a story, too. He claimed he’d been living with the Silfen for a few years. Really living with them, down at the end of those paths in their forests which we all know about and never see. Well, he said he’d walked through their forests with them. Started out one fine morning on a path in the heart of some Silvergalde wood, and finished up hiking across Mt. Finnan on Dublin, like all the rumors have it. Three hundred light-years in a single stride. But he’d actually done it and come back. He’d been to planets far outside the Commonwealth, so he claimed; sat on the blasted desert of a dead planet to watch the remnants of its sun fall into a black hole, swum in a sea on a planet where the only light comes from the galactic core which filled half the sky above, climbed along things he called tree reefs that live in a nebula of gas dense enough to breathe. All those things I always wanted to do. He sat there drinking his cheap beer with thatlook in his eye as he told me about his travels. Got to hand it to him, he could spin a good yarn. I haven’t seen him in years, though we still keep in touch occasionally.”
“An improbable tale, but not impossible given what we know of the Silfen. The knowledge of their paths is one of your primary modern myths.”
“But it’s what else he told me about the Silfen that I’ve always been interested in. He said their bodies are just chrysalides. Somewhere out there in the galaxy is the true Silfen, the adult community. I don’t think it’s physical. A collection of minds, or ghosts maybe. But that’s where they go, what they become. Interesting parallel to you and us, don’t you think?”
“Yes. Although we are not a natural evolutionary step for humans.”
“Not yet. But you’re constantly evolving, and even us poor old naked apes have genetic and intellectual aspirations. What I’m saying is, the Silfen we meet in the forests aren’t the only source of their species’ history. Have you ever encountered the community?”
“No. If it exists, then it functions on a different plane to us.”
“Ever shouted into the abyss and listened for an answer? I’m sure you must have. You’d be curious to find out if there was anything there, an equal.”
“There are echoes of mind in many spectrums, hints of purpose if not intelligence. But for all we know and see, we are alone still.”
“Bummer, huh. I guess it’s down to me, then.”
“To do what?”
“Go find the adult Silfen community, ask it what the fuck’s going on with the Dyson Pair.”
…
The CST planetary station on Silvergalde was always going to be smaller than any of the other settled worlds in the Commonwealth. But then, Silvergalde wasn’t strictly a Commonwealth planet. From the very beginning, when the exploratory wormhole opened above it, the CST Operations Director knew something was out of kilter. Silvergalde was nearly three times larger than Earth, but its gravity was only point eight nine. Half of the surface was land, while the other half contained mildly salty seas with a hundred thousand picturesque islands. With that composition, and an axial tilt less than half a degree, the environment was completely stable, giving two-thirds of the planet a predominantly temperate climate.