If so, then the thralls at Straumli Realm might just wither away and the original human culture there reappear. A number of items suggested that the attack had been aimed at stealing Relay's archives,
复件 (88) air max1, but only one or two claimed that the Blight sought to recover an artifact, or prevent the Relayers from recovering one. Those assertions came from chronic theorizers,
复件 (48) air max, the sort of civilizations that get surcharged by newsgroup automation. Nevertheless, Ravna looked through those messages carefully. None of them suggested an artifact in the Low Beyond; if anything,
复件 (6) 复件 air max2, they claimed the Blight was searching for something in the High Beyond or Low Transcend. There was network traffic coming out of the Blight. The high protocol messages were ignored by all but the suicidal, and no one was getting paid to forward any of it. Yet horror and curiosity spread some of the messages far. There was the Blighter "video": almost four hundred seconds of pan-sensual data with no compression. That incredibly expensive message might be the most-forwarded hog in all Net history. Blueshell held the OOB on the trunk path for nearly two days to receive the whole thing. The Perversion's thralls all appeared to be human. About half the news items coming out of the Realm were video evocations, though none this long; all showed human speakers. Ravna watched the big one again and again: She even recognized the speaker. ?vn Nilsndot had been Straumli Realm's champion trael runner. He had no title now, and probably no name. Nilsndot spoke from an office that might have been a garden. If Ravna stepped to the side of the image, she could see over his shoulder to ground level. The city there looked like the Straumli Main of record. Years ago, Ravna and her sister had dreamed about that city, the heart of mankind's adventure into the Transcend. The central square had been a replica of the Field of Princesses on Nyjora,
复件 (46) air max, and the immigration advertising claimed that no matter how far the Straumers went, the fountain in the Field would always flow, would always show their loyalty to humankind's beginnings. There was no fountain now, and Ravna felt deadness behind Nilsndot's gaze. "This one speaks as the Power that Helps," said the erstwhile hero. "I want all to see what I can do for even a third-rate civilization. Look upon my Helping...." The viewpoint swung skywards. It was sunset,
复件 (16) air max2, and the ranked agrav structures hung against the light, megameter upon megameter. It was a more grandiose use of the agrav material than Ravna had ever seen, even on the Docks. Certainly no world in the Middle Beyond could ever afford to import the material in such quantities. "What you see above me is just the work barracks for the construction that I will soon begin in the Straumli system. When complete, five star systems will be a single habitat, their planets and excess stellar mass distributed to support life and technology as never before seen at these depths -- and as rarely seen in the Transcend itself." The view returned to Nilsndot, a single human,
mbt changa, mouthpiece for a god. "Some of you may rebel against idea of dedicating yourselves to me. In the long run it does not matter. The symbiosis of my Power with the hands of races in the Beyond is more than any can resist. But I speak now to diminish your fear. What you see in Straumli Realm is as much a joy as a wonder. Never again will races in the Beyond be left behind by transcendence. Those who join me -- and all will join eventually -- will be part of the Power. You will have access to imports from across the Top and Lower Transcend.