Starplex

“No. It’s just time. Lots and lots of time.”

“What about humans? Did humans continue to breed, to have children? Or did that stop when—when life prolongation was discovered?”

“No, humanity continues to evolve and change. New humans—those who’ve been evolving for the last ten billion years—don’t mix much with old humans like me. They’re… quite different.”

“But if you’re me, how did you change? I mean, your body is see-through.”

Glass shrugged. “Technology. Flesh and blood tends to wear out; this is better. In fact, I can reconfigure myself any way I want. Transparent is in style right now, but I think the hint of aquamarine is quite classy, don’t you?”

Chapter XVI

Rissa, Hek, and the rest of the alien-communications team continued to exchange messages with the darmat they’d dubbed Cat’s Eye. The conversation became increasingly fluid as new words were added to the translation database, or old words had their meanings refined. When Keith next came onto the bridge, Rissa was in the middle of an apparently philosophic conversation with the giant being. The usual alpha-shift crew was on duty, except that the ExOps station was vacant: Rhombus was off doing something else, and his position had been slaved to a dolphin floating in the open pool on the starboard side of the bridge.

“We have been unaware of your existence,” Rissa said into the microphone stalk rising from her console. “We knew a large amount of invisible matter was out there, because of the gravitational effects, but we didn’t know it was alive.”

“Two types of substance,” replied the darmat in that French accent PHANTOM had assigned to him.

“Yes,” said Rissa. She looked up and waved a greeting at Keith as he took his seat next to her.

“Not react sharply,” said the Cat’s Eye. “Only gravity the same.”

“That’s correct,” said Rissa. The all-encompassing hologram showed an enhanced view of Cat’s Eye in front of the cluster of workstations.

“Most like us,” said the darmat.

“The vast majority of all matter is like you, yes,” replied Rissa. “Ignore you.”

“You’ve ignored us?”

“Insignificant.”

“Were you aware that part of our type of substance was alive?”

“No. Not occur to look for life on planets. So small you are.”

“We wish to have a relationship with you,” said Rissa.

“Relationship?”

“For mutual benefit. One plus one equals two. You plus us equals more than two.”

“Understand. More than the sum of the parts.”

Rissa smiled. “Exactly.”

“Relationship sensible.”

“Do you have a word for those with whom you have mutually beneficial relationships?”

“Friends,” said the darmat, PHANTOM translating the word the first time it had been received. “We call them friends.”

“We are friends,” said Rissa.

“Yes.”

“The kind of material you’re made out of—the material we call dark matter—is all of it alive?”

“No. Only tiny fraction.”

“But you say there has been living dark matter for a very long time?”

“Since the beginning.”

“Beginning of what?”

“Of—all the stars combined.”

“Of the totality of everything? We call that the universe.”

“Since the beginning of the universe.”

“That’s an interesting point right there,” said Jag, sitting on Keith’s left. “The idea that the universe had a beginning… it did, of course, but how does it know that? Ask it about that.”

“What was the universe like in the beginning?” said Rissa into the mike.

“Compressed,” said the darmat. “Small beyond small. One place, no time.”

“The primordial atom,” said Jag. “Fascinating. It’s right, but I wonder how such a creature would deduce that?”

“They communicate by radio,” said Lianne, turning around at InOps to face Jag. “They probably reasoned it out the same way we did: from the cosmic microwave background and the redshifting of radio noise from distant galaxies.”

Jag grunted.

Rissa continued her dialogue: “You have told us that neither you personally, Cat’s Eye, nor this group of darmats is anywhere near that old. How do you know that darmat life existed all the way back to the beginning.”

“Had to,” replied the darmat.

Jag barked dismissively. “Philosophy,” he said. “Not science. They just want to believe that.”

“We have not existed nearly that long,” said Rissa into the microphone stalk. “We have not found any evidence for life of any type made out of our kind of matter that is more than four billion years old.” PHANTOM converted the time expression into something the darmat could understand.

“As said earlier, you are insignificant.”

Jag barked at PHANTOM. “Query: How was the translation for ‘insignificant’ derived?”

“Mathematically,” said the computer in the appropriate language into each individual’s earpiece. “We established that the difference between 3.7 and 4.0 was ‘significant,’ but that the difference between 3.99 and 4.00 was ‘insignificant.’ ”

Jag looked at Rissa. “So in this context the word might convey a different sense. It might mean something metaphoricai—a ‘late arrival’ could be equated with insignificance, for instance.”