Diaspora

There was no such thing as an "isotope" in the macrosphere, but the Transmuters had marked their exit point with a giant slab of implausibly pure refractory minerals, originally covering Poincare's rotational "pole"—the two-dimensional sphere on the hypersurface that stayed fixed in space as the star rotated. The entire polar continent had since drifted and broken apart, but the marker had neither melted nor sunk, and once the Hermit ambassador had described its composition it had been easy enough to find. The long nucleons in the rock carried the same map of the Milky Way as Swift's neutrons, followed by a catalytic sequence designed to interact with the vacuum of the second macrosphere. Bombarding the nucleons with antileptons energetic enough to overcome electrostatic repulsion would cause the singularity in "U-double-star" to emit particles of ordinary matter; conversely, any particles fired back at the singularity would modify the same nucleon-anti lepton interaction.

Paolo, Elena, and Karpal were standing beside a metaphoric gateway leading into the second macrosphere, wearing their old 3-bodies, joking with the friends they were leaving behind. Most of the forty-six second-level expeditioners had decided to freeze their Poincare selves, to be revived only if they failed to return. Orlando approved; he was weary of bifurcations.

Paolo saw him, and approached. "You haven't changed your mind?"

"No."

"I don't understand. This is three-space/one-time, ordinary physics. Galaxies, planets… everything from the old world. And if it turns out that the core burst can't be survived—"

"Then I'll go back to Earth by maser, and put the evidence before the whole Coalition in person. Then I'll come through. Not before."

Paolo seemed bemused, but he inclined his head in a gesture of acceptance. Orlando recalled the time when mind grafts had been fashionable, and they'd had to formally compose little packages of emotion to pass to each other; what a nightmare that had been. He embraced his son, briefly, then watched him walk away.

The first of his bridger clones appeared beside him—actually inhabiting the realistic 5-scape, but casting a shadow here, just as Orlando's own 3-body was rendered visible as a thickened version in the 5-scape.

The clone said, "They'll find the Transmuters, and come back with the physics of Lacerta and the core burst. People will be persuaded. Lives will he saved. You should be rejoicing."

"The Transmuters could be a million light years from the singularity by now. And the physics of the burst will probably turn out to he incomprehensible."

The clone smiled. "Nothing is incomprehensible."

Orlando waited for the forty-six to file through the gate. Yatima raised a hand and called out, "Ill save a planet for you, Orlando! New Atlanta!"

"I don't want a planet. A small island will do."

"Fair enough." Yatima walked into the migration software's icon and vanished.

Orlando turned to the clone. "What now" The Hermit ambassador had become uncommunicative; after learning of their plight ve'd been happy enough to tell them everything they needed to know to follow the Transmuters, but once the xenologists, via the bridgers, had started pestering ver for historical and sociological details, ve'd politely suggested that they go away and mind their own business. Idle, many of the bridger clones were growing anxious and depressed.

The clone said, "That depends on what you want."

Orlando replied immediately, "I'll take back all of you. I'll merge with all of you."

"Really?" The clone smiled again, face shimmering. "How much weight can you bear? How much longing for a world you'll never see again? How much claustrophobia? How much—" He waggled his fingers, like batons. "Frustration at the words you can no longer speak?"

Orlando shook his head. "I don't care."

The clone stretched hyperal shoulders; the of his extra pair of arms shrank, then re-grew. "The seventh clone wants to stay on Poincare. Using the robot for now, until ve can synthesize a proper body."

Orlando was not surprised; he'd always expected the lowest part of the bridge to fall to the hypersurface. "And the others?"

"The others want to die. The Hermits aren't interested in a cultural exchange program; there is no role for translators here. And they don't want to merge."

"It's their decision." Orlando felt a surge of guilty relief; he might have gone mad with his head packed with Hermit symbols, and he would have felt an obligation never to edit them out, never to excise the selves he'd re-absorbed.

The clone said, "But I do. I'll merge with you. If you really are willing."

Orlando examined his strange twin's face, wondering if he was being mocked, or tested. "I'm willing. Are you sure it's what you want, though? When I merge with the other thousand, what will a few megatau of your experience in 5-scapes amount to?"

"Not much," the clone conceded. "A tiny wound. A subtle ache. A reminder that you once embraced something larger than you thought you could."