Further: Beyond the Threshold by Chris Roberson Read Free Book Online Page A

beings like the silver eagle on my shoulder, though in a riot of shapes and forms. And many more besides were of uncertain provenance, strange mixtures of organic and inorganic, of human and animal and machine.
    When we approached, a ripple ran through the crowd, and fingers and appendages and waldos all pointed in my direction.
    “Escort,” I said to the eagle perched on my shoulder, “is there another way around?”
    “Certainly, sir,” the escort answered. “But these would likely follow. You see, they have gathered to see you .”
    “Me?” I stopped a few meters short of the crowd’s leading edge. Halfheartedly raising a hand, I said, “Um, hello?”
    A wall of sound erupted as dozens of the beings gathered began talking at once, while others just stared at me intently, as though expecting me to read their thoughts. In the confusion of tongues, widely disparate sounds collided, such that it seemed that no two individuals were speaking the same language. I didn’t feel threatened, necessarily, as the expressions on those around me—at least those that had recognizable faces—seemed open and happy. They seemed excited to see me, and many of them eager to have some question or other answered, but none seemed to mean me any harm.
    “Ever since news of your return was released to the infostructure,” the escort explained, “interest in you has increased at a steady rate. There hasn’t been this level of excitement since the arrival of the Exode probe, three hundred and fifty-two years ago. These are just the first to arrive, I would suspect.”
    “How many languages is that , anyway?” I said in an aside to the eagle, scanning the crowd.
    “There are countless languages spoken within the Human Entelechy,” the escort explained. “Some are unique to planets or habitats, others to cultural groups, and still others spoken only by families or small groups of individuals. Translation from any language to the listener’s personal standard can be done by their interlink, if they are biological, or by translation subprocesses, if they are synthetic.”
    “What?”
    “Well, there is a lingua franca of the Entelechy that many citizens of the Entelechy can speak and comprehend, the name for which could very well be translated into English as ‘Common.’ There is a symbolic written form of Common as well, which is ideogrammic. Common Symbolic can be read by most in the Entelechy, even those who can’t speak or comprehend spoken Common, since they learn to associate the ideograms with words in their own languages. Common and Common Symbolic employ fifteen hundred root words. If you like, I can—”
    “Enough, please!” I cut the eagle off with a wave of my hand. “That’s all very…fascinating. Really. Now, please, I’m more concerned at the moment what these people want .”
    “Oh.” The silver eagle averted its eyes. A pause led me to suspect I might have hurt its feelings, if such a thing were possible, but after a moment, it spoke again. “Most represent different interest groups with connections to one or more of the following: the Information Age in particular or primitive man in general, space flight, exploration, early colonization, the First Space Age, biological systems in their natural states, the Anachronism movement, mythopoeic re-creationism, or any number of doctrines whose hypotheses or tenets might be supported by your testimony of life in ancient times.”
    The eagle paused and pointed with its beak to a strangely dressed group of humans clustered nearby.
    “Those in particular appear to have come with an invitation.”
    “To what?” I asked. “Or where?”
    The silver eagle waggled its head from side to side in a move that could only have been a shrug. “You would have to ask them, sir.”
    I responded with a shrug of my own, and said, “Well, that seems as good an idea as any.”
    I straightened the front of my robe and strode toward the group. They began exchanging nervous