The Crystal Variation by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Page B

fey fashion the tree had managed to dream too loud , so he had become encompassed as well.
    The chronometer on the wall was adamant. No matter what time the tree—or Jela, for that matter—thought it was, the duty schedule indicated that breakfast, exercise, and classwork were still more than half his sleep-shift away. Alas, the schedule was obviously not designed for the convenience of an M Series soldier, but to fit some administrator’s concept of a busy day, or perhaps to answer necessities a mere M had no need to be aware of.
    Schedule or no schedule, he was awake and likely to remain so. Sighing, Jela stretched and worked with a small weight set, the while trying to diminish the sadness he felt for the winged-things he’d never seen, but whose touch was familiar and missed.
    Despite the exercise, the sadness hung on, threatening to encompass the universe. He knew better than to wallow, and hoped the tree did. But the tree might well still be in some in-between state of its own, and he felt no desire to disturb it.
    Drawing a stim-drink from the small refrigerator, he broke the seal and stood sipping.
    He’d spent the early evening reviewing troop strength charts, the attack patterns in the last wave of the First Phase, the siting of existing garrisons, their commanders, and their loyalties; the trading patterns and names of the major companies and players . . .
    Now, he sat at the computer, and began once again to go over the diagrams and intelligence . . .
    First, though they controlled a good bit of the galaxy, Command was split on how to proceed, with a group allied largely with the Inmost faction attempting to withdraw all forces from the Arm, in order to consolidate a line at the base.
    This dangerously flawed plan had clearly been constructed by someone who had no sense of dimension, and no understanding of the nature of the enemy. For every time the sheriekas had been beaten back they’d surged forward again, each time coming closer to claiming the right to control man’s destiny.
    And now? Now, the more observant of the High Commanders felt the war was almost lost, that the sheriekas were bare years away from being able to go wherever they wished, whenever they wished, to command, enslave, destroy . . .
    Destroy.
    It appeared that the enemy had less and less desire to control mankind and more desire to just be rid of it entirely. More, they seemed willing, or even eager, to destroy everything in existence in favor of some future where the very quarks trembled at their name.
    The intelligence on this was spotty, though an M’s intuition knew it for truth.
    His drink done, Jela closed the intelligence data, and opened what had lately become his most-accessed files. He was in a fair way to becoming obsessed with the problem they’d set him—two so-called math instructors his intuition told him he was unlikely, after all these days of duty, to see again.
    He flicked through his data, frowning. Missing space craft were one thing, missing planets another. Both events were of course disturbing, though ordinary enough in a universe where black holes and novas and other such events were known; in a universe where the math—and hence the weapons—existed that could destroy a world with chain-reacted nuclei or the casual accidental flare of a burping solar-storm.
    But lately, some other events were unfolding, as if space were unfolding, or as if the space where humanity lived among the stars was from time to time . . . dissolving.
    The word unfolding had come from the younger and quieter of the two instructors; and a sharp disagreement had followed its utterance.
    It quickly became apparent to Jela that the disagreement was something more—and more serious—than simple professional sniping. The elder and more voluble instructor believed that the younger’s unfolding was too simple a model; that if certain late developments were mere unfolding , the universe would simply get bigger—well, no, not bigger, not