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 shifting 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.

That was how they had given Mach the slip. Always before, OX had made certain preparatory circuits, which the machine had sensed. This time Cub had had OX make spurious shoot-circuits, deceiving Mach. Thus, when they were ready to move, the machine had thought it was another bluff and had not appeared.

But soon Cub became bored with flexing oases. Let's cut across the alternates, he signaled. See some really different variations. We can go anywhere now...

Another test -- but OX obliged. The oasis in sight stopped growing and started changing. The green leaves on the trees turned brown; the brown bark turned red. The bases thickened, became bulbous. Creatures appeared, rather developed from the semisentients already present. Like Ornet but with different beaks: tubular, pointed, which they plunged into the spongy trunks of the trees, drawing out liquid.

This was more like it! Cub watched, fascinated by sights he had never seen before and hardly imagined. A feast of experience!

The trees flowered, and so did the creatures. The flowers expanded until there were neither trees nor creatures, only flowers. The oasis itself expanded until there was no desert at all, only large and small flowers.

A streak appeared. Cub couldn't tell whether it was a wall or a solid bank of fog. It cut off some of the flowers. They did not wither; they metamorphosed into colored stones. The fog-wall increased until it concealed everything. Then it faded, and in its wake were planes, multicolored, translucent, and set at differing angles. Machines rolled up and down them, chipping away here, depositing there, steadily altering the details of the configuration without changing its general nature. Cub hardly bothered to question why; he knew that there would be too many whys in all alternity to answer without squeezing out more important concerns.

The planes dissolved into bands of colored light, and these in turn became clouds, swirling in very pretty patterns, developing into storms. Rain came down, then snow -- Cub recognized it, for snow fell on the enclave seasonally, forcing him to fashion protective clothing. But this was not only white; it was red and green and blue, shifting as the alternates shifted.

In due course it solidified into walls of stone: They were pa.s.sing through a cavern, a huge hollow in the ground. Cub recognized this also, for last season he had fashioned digging and chipping tools and dug deep, deep into the ground, trying to ascertain whether there was any escape from the enclave in that direction. He had, in fact, made a small cavern. But it was useless, and he had given up and closed it over. Now they used it for winter storage and occasionally for shelter from storms.

A tremendous room opened out on one side, far larger than the cave Cub had made. Then the stone closed in again as though the very walls were moving.

Wait! Cub signaled. I saw something. Go back.

The shoot gave a controlled fadeout equivalent to the drooping of Ornet's tail feathers or Cub's own shrug of the shoulders. The moving walls reversed, opening into the cavern.

There! Cub indicated. Geographically -- move over.

Now the others spotted it. In the center of the cavern a creature was doing something. It was working on some sort of machine... no, the thing was too simple to be a machine, merely a mechanical device, perhaps the ancestor of a machine. Sound emerged, pleasant, harmonious. The thing was playing music, similar to that Cub himself could make with voice and the beat of his hands on a log, but smoother, prettier. The creature's tentacles touched the device here and there, and the melodious sound issued.

Follow that frame, Cub directed, as though the other members of his party had no preferences. But they were content to follow his lead in this. In physical motion, Dec was supreme; in memory, it was Ornet. In imagination, it was Cub, and they all knew it.

OX oriented -- and the single alien musician became two, then eight, and then a myriad of players. The music swelled resoundingly. Then the creatures changed, becoming humanoid, and finally human.

Your kind! Ornet squawked.

Startled, Cub examined them more carefully. My kind!

They changed to tall green plants, playing the instruments with leaves and roots. Wait! Cub signaled, too late.

But OX was already backing up. The Cub-type players re-formed, went alien, returned, went naked, elaborately clothed, and finally focused on a compromise.

My kind! Cub repeated, half dazed. But what are those others? He gestured toward some individuals that differed slightly. They resembled him, but their torsos varied, and their faces were bare as though they were not yet grown.

Female of your species, Ornet squawked. Show the natural version, OX.

OX obliged, shifting to the unclothed players.

Mam females lack the urinary appendage, Ornet explained, gesturing with his beak. But they possess structures for the nursing of infants. My ancestors have not observed your particular species, but these are merely modifications of the type.

Cub stared at the nursing structures, appalled yet fascinated. I would like to put my hands on those, he signaled.