Part 26 (1/2)

Chapter 12.

CUB.

Cub finished his meal of fruit, roots, and flesh. He had gorged himself in case it were long before he ate again. Beside him Ornet preened himself, similarly ready.

Dec sailed in from his last survey. By minute adjustments of his mantle he made the indication: All is well.

Cub raised his wing-limb, flexing the five featherless digits in the signal to OX: We are ready.

OX expanded. His sparkling presence surrounded them as it had so many times before. But this time it was special. The field intensified, lifted -- and they were moving. Not through s.p.a.ce; through time.

At first there was little change. They could see the green vegetation of the oasis and the hutch they had built there for shelter and comfort. Farther out there were the trenches and barriers they had made to foil the predator machine.

The machine. Mach, they called it. The thing had grown right along with them because it was part of the enclave OX had aged. It was a constant menace -- yet Cub respected it, too, as a resourceful and determined opponent. Had it been in his power to destroy it, he would not have done so because without it the group would be less alert, less fit, and bored.

Do we need adversity to prosper? he asked himself, linking his fingers so that he would not inadvertently signal his thoughts to the others. Apparently so. That ever-present threat to survival had forced them all to advance much faster and better than they would have otherwise. Perhaps, ironically, it was the machine more than anything else that was responsible for their success as a group. This was a concept he knew the others would not understand, and perhaps it was nonsensical. But intriguing. He valued intrigue.

Then the hutch vanished. The trees changed. They expanded, aged, and disappeared. New ones grew up, matured, pa.s.sed. Then only s.h.i.+fting brush remained, and finally the region was a barren depression.

Cub moved his digits, twisting them in the language that Ornet, Dec, and OX understood. Our oasis has died, he signaled. The water sank, the soil dried, the plants died. We knew this would happen if we were not there to cultivate the plants and conserve the water they need. But in other frames water remains, for OX's elements remain.

A shoot formed within OX's field. This is temporal, it said, using its blinker language that they all understood. All alternates extend forward and back from any point. All are distinct, yet from any point they seem to show past and future because of the separation in duration between frames.

Obvious, Cub snapped with an impolite twitch of his fingers.

Ornet made a m.u.f.fled squawk to show partial comprehension. He was a potent historian but not much for original conjecture. His language, also, was universally understood: Cub could hear it, Dec could see it, and OX could field the slight variations it caused in his network of elements.

Dec twitched his tail in negation: The matter was not of substantial interest to him.

I would include a geographic drift, OX's shoot flashed. But I am unable, owing to the limit of the enclave.

Nonsense, Cub responded. We're all advanced twenty years. In terms of real framework, we exist only theoretically -- or perhaps it is the other way around -- so we can travel on theoretical elements.

Theoretical elements? the shoot inquired.

Your elements were cleared out by the external patterns, Cub signaled. Once they were there, and once they will be there, instead of mere threads. They still exist, in alternate phases of reality, serving as a gateway to all the universe. Use them.

Theoretical elements? The shoot repeated.

Cub had little patience with the slowness of his pattern-friend. Make a circuit, he signaled, much as he would have told Ornet to scratch for arths if he were hungry. a.n.a.lyze it. Accept this as hypothesis: We can theoretically travel on theoretical elements. There has to be an aspect of alternity where this is possible, for somewhere in alternity all things are possible. To us, geography may be fixed, for we are restricted to the enclave. Theoretically, that geography can change elsewhere in relation to ours just as time does. We have merely to invoke the frames where this is so.

Uncomprehending, OX made the circuit. Then he was able to accept it. Such travel was possible. And -- it was.

The geography changed as they slid across the aging world. They saw other oases growing and flexing.

Cub was surprised. He had been teasing OX, at least in part. He had not really believed such motions would work; the enclave isolation had prevented any real breakout before. But when OX made a circuit, OX became that circuit, and his nature and ability were changed.

Perhaps OX had at last transcended the abilities of the outside patterns. If so, a genuine breakout was now feasible. But Cub decided not to mention that yet, lest the outside patterns act to remedy that potential breach. It was not wise to give away your abilities to the enemy.