The Helianx Proposition/page 41
It was only very exceptional circumstances that brought all 210 Helianx
physically together in the vast central chamber of the Great Ship.
Their telepathic abilities, although limited in reach to a distance of about half-a-million miles,
allowed them to spend almost all their time placidly basking in their individual baths of nutrient jelly, connected to each other only by the constantly fascinating dynamics of the Web.
The central chamber, filled with sea water of the same chemical composition as the ocean of Womb Planet, formed the nexus of the maze of interconnecting canals which led, in turn, to the nutrient domes, and then on down through a series of waterlocks to the terra-formed simulacra in the nether regions of the craft.
The organic structure of the Great Ship, fashioned from the same basic bioplasm as the Helianx and treated to absorb and dissipate harmful solar radiation, allowed for a high degree of flexibility. The massive chambers, the communication pods, the many nutrient domes, the planetary museums and simulacra, the spider's web of canals, and all the ancillary areas needed for the cosmic gypsy life, would have appeared to an observer every bit like the internal organs of an immense creature. The containing walls could peristaltically expand and contract, gently moving the water to where it was needed, opening and closing valves as required. The temperature and salinity, as well as the precise balance of supplements in the nutrient domes, were all controlled autonomously by the craft's cybernetic intelligence. Because this semi-sentient system had long been linked to the telepathic Web, it permitted the ship to sense in realtime whatever it was that the Helianx needed. Vision screens, apparently unbidden, might ripple down before them when they needed to examine an intriguing planet; bulkheads and dry platforms emerged spontaneously on the rare occasions the Elders had teleported land-based ambassadors aboard; the great wings, stretching endlessly into the galactic night. responded from moment to moment to the vagaries of the cosmic winds; and what the craft could not handle on its own in the tedium of intergalactic space, their prescient computers had well in hand.
Some contemporary exopsychologists have suggested that the act of handing over so much power to their technology, however sentient it might be, greatly contributed to the progressive weakening of the life-force of the Helianx race. Other academics have even speculated that given normal circumstances, the entire species might have died out from terminal ennui well before the anticipated gravitational stresses ever threatened to tear apart their bodies.
On the day of the gathering, however, the Helianx had known that they would have to summon all their inner resources to sing the correct sequence of tones to activate the wormhole. They all understood that it was their last, and if the computers were to be believed, their only chance of survival. It had been this harsh reality, not surprisingly, that had jolted even the most passive Helianx into doing hir passionate best.
