Not the optimum time to confront a crisis unlike any within the last eight-squared of generations. Lifeshaping should be done in peace, but that was not to be Memor’s destiny. He would be female within a few short cycles, but he had not yet lost the male’s sense of reach and joy, the Dancing. He could even smell the seethe of fructifying change within him. Hormones raged; molecules fought for dominance in his bloodstream. Fevers came in like chemical reports from a raging battlefield. These changes had been designed by the Founders and their following generations, now well sanctified by endless eras. Memor knew his shifting moods and jitters paid the cost of acquiring greater wisdom. But the cost was high and hard to endure amid a crisis.

“Order descends,” the Prefect called in ancient tones for the assembly of Astronomers.

“Order prevails,” came the answering chorus as they took their places of rest beneath the great dome.

Memor let the details of unfurling discussion play over him. He kept his body still while his inner mind fretted at the vagrant impulses within his changing self. Even his Undermind, normally serene, showed a surface wrinkled by fretful winds. Waves of knotted concern broke across its steady currents.

The technical summary was as he had heard. A starship of boldly simple design approached from aft. Diagnostics astern had seen it turn and approach, as though their flight had not been directly for the Bowl. Perhaps they were bound for the star ahead, where the gravitational waves emerged?

The audience of Astronomers murmured. Speculation fueled their excited chatter. Monitoring the approaching ship’s transmissions picked up several bursts directed back along the ship’s path. Trailing satellites had picked up these, yet intensive study by the linguist minds gave little more than a simple sense of their grammar and contextual constructions. Their habits of mind as revealed in language did not seem remarkable. Linear logics, few layers of meaning. Indeed, they seemed like their ship—primitive, yes, but ambitious to undertake full starflight in such a flimsy craft. The consultant engineers—small creatures, timid in the presence of full-sized Astronomers—pointed out odd features in the magnetic configuration, and announced that they would like to inspect the long, slim craft. Much sharp discussion followed.

Memor felt distracted by the marinating changes within him. He sat out the usual time-honored dispute, Watchers—pejoratively called Sitters—versus Dancers. The Prefect called up ancient records and even voices from the far past.

Past lore supported the Dancers, Memor thought. Unsurprising—stories of change are always more interesting than stories of stasis. Change is the essence of story, built into the mind by evolution’s strict dictates.

Astronomers of ancient times had fired upon many ships, usually with the Gamma Lance. They had passed by many planets, explored and then ignored. These cases did not have many stories. The Watchers kept referring back to them.

Memor stretched and tried to look alert. Watchers were boring, ponderous. But then, Memor was still male, and like Dancers favored variety, engagement. Wisdom came later. The Watchers were nearly all female.

So Memor was in the middle here. He could sense the change to come, but he hadn’t lost the male’s sense of reach yet.

The assembly took a long, deliberate time to glide through the vast library of the past. Memor coasted through the old records as if they were his own adventures. Zesty, colorful, shot through with ancient exploits. They enthralled him.

The Bowl of Heaven never came too near a sun. It was too ponderous for that, and with its mass could perturb the orbits of life-bearing worlds. They did send ships, of course. But the Astronomers’ telescopes had always been superb; they knew the nature of a world or moon before an exploring ship ever set forth, fired into a solar system from the rim of the Bowl. Voyages to interesting planets always took hundreds of long cycles, aboard one or more great cruisers usually equipped with landers, sometimes with orbital tethers.

Memor sat up, snorted, and focused on what had been mere droning history. Here, in one thrilling tale, the Bowl had come near a heavy world, too massive to support any adventurer. The mother ship hovered in the quasi-stable point beneath the largest moon. Ships angular and strange rose like sparks from the heavy world’s surface, rocket propelled. There was no orbital tether. Simple technologies. This was how the finger snakes had reached them—an artful species indeed.

There followed hundreds of long cycles of negotiation, of studying one another. The little finger snakes had gained from this dialogue some trivial enhancement in their technology, nothing that could threaten the Bowl. The Bowl had learned little from them, of course.

Then 256 finger snakes had returned to the Bowl aboard the mother ship. The small colony had needed little in the way of integration. They were more dexterous than most Bird Folk, good tool-users, and crafty repair artisans. You rarely saw them now; they lived underground. Memor was impressed that such small beings had ever attained spacefaring skills, considering how they loved their buried warrens.

Lessons of ages unwound. The past scrolled on within Memor’s mind. Around him, other Astronomers huffed and grunted as they, too, experienced the deep realms. An elder snored. Out of respect, all let her sleep.

Here, a bandit species had attacked approaching Astronomers’ exploring ships. The Astronomers had retreated. The Bowl’s defenses proved adequate, and so they had continued on, out of their range. A few scores of invaders had landed, been captured, been bred for docility. Four-limbed bipeds, they were, and they made good farmers.

These named Sil had come as plunderers; they’d seen the Bowl as a high-tech civilization and wanted its secrets. Their early days after capture proved turbulent. Training worked its slow magic. The Sil were limber, dexterous creatures, invaluable today. Space suits allowed them to work on the Bowl’s understructure. Their docility was not quite dependable, even now, after twelve million long cycles.

Memor moved on through the stories. Images filled the air around him, long dead voices spoke in somber tones of musty triumphs.

Here, a gas giant planet was home to living dirigibles. Probes managed to scoop up enough infant balloons to make a stable population. They bred in air, seldom touching down. The Bowl’s deep atmosphere gave them free, safe range. The bioengineers deftly tuned their genes for docility and strength. A million long cycles later, they were an indispensable part of the Bowl’s civilization. To take to air without expending fuel was a great pleasure, available to all the master Folk.

Memor moved on through the annals of history, all the while fighting his trembles, fits, fevers. Is it worth all this to become female? Judgment is never wise while in restless agonies. He focused, lifting mind above body. His unmasked Undermind dealt with the aches and fevers, beneath his burrowing consciousness.

Here, alien visitors had failed to accommodate to their new station in life. Genetic trickery had failed them, too … but a life-form derived from that world had become the skreekors, a valuable and tasty prey animal that could be eaten raw for the relishing. Memor hungered for one now, stomach squeezing, just from viewing the savory pursuit-and-devour sense concerts.

Tales of successful change rolled by, all leading to today’s ideal ecological and political balance. The Bowl was a living thing, not a static tool. This incoming visitor was the first in many a million long cycles. Flaming them with the flare would be easy, though not trivial: it demanded managing huge energies with a deft touch. They’d done it before.