Bemor was enough similar that Memor could easily read the quick, darting expressions in feather-flutter—quill rattle, spines flexing so hues slid from steel blue to indigo sheen—that bespoke anticipation of an opportunity to make a veiled boast.
Asenath raised some pink neck-rustle as a deft, ironic signal. Memor realized this was what some intimates of the court termed Status Opera, the only true game when the social structure must remain static, for the sake of Bowl stability. Maneuver for position, yes, but carefully, deftly, for the system must always endure, above all.
Bemor was in his element, and so took his fulsome time. “I engaged three other Galactic Web partners, one of whom knew nothing of gravitational waves whatever, and how to detect them. As expected, those who did know had technologies smaller and less sensitive than ours.”
Bemor delivered this in a flat, factual way, almost offhand, and with a subtle wing-shrug—a good precursor to a revelation. Memor appreciated the method, as it was hers as well. They were twins, after all.… Though Bemor seemed to do it with more verve, as if knowing their audience would approve verve.
“I had to trade valuable arts and science to induce their cooperation,” Bemor said. “We barter and gain, delayed for many Annuals, of course. I employed a rich trading language to describe our wants, and used the artificial, intelligent agents we had installed in those societies long in the past.”
Memor was at a disadvantage here, since she had learned little of such distant diplomacies. She did know that the Ancients had seen value in establishing agents, transferred as sealed minds in code, to distant worlds. Interstellar commerce over huge distances made sense only if exchange of knowledge—arts, science, engineering, the equivalent of patents—could be traded for some return value. Such a market occurred, mediated among artificial intelligences run solely inside mutually agreed upon containment: the Mind Province established among alien societies. Elaborate protocols ensured that no artificial intelligences could run outside the Mind Province. They were safe there, too, to run their code without corruption. This protected Bowl secrets from the alien locals, and in turn, the local infosphere from the agent.
“I chose truly distant worlds for two reasons,” Bemor said. “They had to be displaced from our trajectory, so that we could gain triangulation on Glory. I then—”
“You transmitted double-encrypted?” Asenath demanded. “You are sure the gravitational wave signatures were unwrapped in secrecy by our sequestered agent?”
“I received the coded instant return notice, yes. I got it back many Annuals before the official trading partner even acknowledged receipt.”
“Meaning? That they pondered it long before even notifying us?”
Bemor was not disturbed by these thrusts; he seemed bemused. “Caution is admirable, do you not think so? The first reply came from an insectoid civilization, apparently hungry for further astronomical knowledge. They trade such wares eagerly and built the needed detectors with speed.”
“How distant are they?”
“Over a twelve-squared light-Annuals, at a high angle with respect to our trajectory. The second reply came from a similar distance and a different, large angle. We paid them with techno-lore, methods our prior history implied would interest them. These were duly lodged in the host species’ banking system. Credits not spent locally may be transmitted, securely encrypted, between solar systems, of course. Then came a third reply, also willing.”
Bemor made to condense around them a shimmering shell display of the realm around the Bowl. The three agreeable trader stars shone bright yellow, all at considerable angles away. One lay very nearly parallel to the Bowl, along the trajectory axis they followed, ending in Glory. The simulation showed message flags denoting ongoing info-commerce transporting among all three, as well as their links to the Bowl.
“So they set to work, these trade partners—”
“Ran their gravitational wave detectors. Learned our skills. And nailed firm the site of the waves. It is in our destination system—Glory.”
Memor said slowly, “Agents do amass more and more knowledge about their host species. They report back. Do these worlds have any opinion about the cause of the waves?”
Bemor looked pleased, with a body-flutter of magenta flush. To Memor this was a giveaway: a salute, really, as if to say, I recognize!—you can leap ahead, see what’s coming. “They could not resist diagnosing the long wavelengths and their resonances. And … there are messages within.”
Asenath gasped and could not resist: “Saying what?”
Bemor’s elation collapsed, his neck wattles compressing to thin red layers. “We do not know. These, too, are apparently deeply encrypted.”
Memor felt a tremor of awe, that emotion mingling fear and wonder, so seldom sensed in a calm, regular life. It swept her like a tidal slap. “Sending coded messages, by oscillating huge masses to make waves of gravity itself?—in organized ways? That is…” She was about to say, impossible—but caution ruled. “… improbable, in the extreme.”
Asenath added wryly, “We are approaching something strange and perhaps quite dangerous. Glory seems innocuous, but they send gravitational messages—somehow. The escaped primates are headed that way, too—or were, until they decided to land upon the Bowl of Heaven. They seem—” She preened with an oddly insulting fan-gesture, ominous and foreboding. “—ambitious.”
Memor decided not to rise to the bait. “They are able and may be of use.”
Unajiuhanah came in then with a gentle, sad wing-shrug. “I enjoy your sparring, but there are larger issues, you twins.” A nod to Asenath, to proceed. “Our larger cruising agenda, recall?”
Asenath said, “The Glorians, as we term them, have sent an electromagnetic signal.”
“Directed at us?” Unajiuhanah prompted.
“I … suppose.” Asenath looked puzzled.
“There is no distinction in spatial coordinates between the Bowl and the primate star rammer,” Bemor said. “That may explain the content.”
“Which is?” Memor asked, impatient with this parrying.
“Cartoons,” Unajiuhanah said. “Such as primitive cultures employ. They might as well be painted on cave walls, but for the fact that they move. Showing violence, often physically improbable.”
Silence. “I would truly like to know some way to discover if these abject signals are insulting, from a culture that has devolved so deeply that it thinks these are useful, or even amusing.”
Bemor said, “Beings who can hurl huge masses to make messages would not be so. All our knowledge of cultural evolution, gathered in your archives, Unajiuhanah, says so.”
“I would so believe,” Unajiuhanah said simply.
“Or else…” Memor hesitated. “We are mistaken in our assumptions.”
“Whatever can you mean?” Asenath said with a nasty rebuke-rustle.
“Suppose they are not sent to intersect us, or the star rammer.” Memor envisioned the line of sight—Glory, the Bowl, and upon it the alien ship, orbiting above … and beyond, at an unknown distance, farther from Glory … “The Glorians may be transmitting to hail and instruct, and so to warn … the primate home world.”
“But then—” Bemor hesitated. Fevered rattles came from his wing, a note of harried distress at what he glimpsed.
Imagination helps, Memor realized. The insight had come from her Undermind, direct and unsaid until now.… She felt a rumble of discontent from deep within her—of knowledge pent up, unexpressed, and so vagrant and wild. Fear surged in her, but she suppressed it, focused on the moment. She had been in a duel with Bemor here, and now there was a sally she could use, at last, an advantage coming from within, uninspected, yet sure, she felt, sure.