Bishop Wile, Arlyis and Joshua stood before the translator. The overhead view screen showed the distant golden glint of a probe's sail array, a cat's-cradle of woven silk against the ink-black background of space. It glowed with the soft luster of generated power. The Wavies, barely discernible, flitted across it, appearing as small wavering points.

"The mapping exercise was quite revealing." Miss Denis motioned toward the monitor." They see our universe as if it were a matrix of points in Super Space. not as a space-time coordinate."

Joshua pulled his eyes from the monitor. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

Arlyis bit her lip in thought, then said, "Imagine you are seated before a sheet of paper. Suppose the paper surface encompasses all four of our dimensions of height, width, depth and time. It doesn't, I know, but imagine that all four dimensions are squashed onto it anyway. Consider the paper itself to be the Brane or envelope, of our contunua. Movement of the Brane, or matrix of our universe through super-space, is represented by the movement of the sheet. You have a pencil with its point pressed down onto the sheet. The pencil is not a part of our paper universe. Consider it to be one of the Wavies, existing outside of it.

" Move the whole sheet beneath the pencil in such a way that eventually every place on the sheet turns up under the pencil point. This movement is itself outside of time, where the pencil is, not time as we understand it inside our paper universe. So there is no passage of time for this movement to happen as we see it. Effectively, the pencil could be thought of as existing at all points on the paper, at the same time, as far as the 3D paper universe is concerned, but from the pointy pencil's view, its always on only one point. If you want the pencil to be 'at' another place on the sheet, you don't move it there, you 'wait' until the paper sheet turns up under your pencil. I guess if I wanted to finish the analogy, I would have to add a fifth dimension, call it, um, 'When/If'. Once your paper arrived at the proper place, you had to say, spin the pencil. Not up or down, but in some different manner, to 'arrive' at just the right 'When/If'." Remember, to us being on the paper, the pencil point at any particular time is nominally everywhere, it seems to 'resolve itself' at any location it wants to instantly."

"Wouldn't your 'When/If' dimension be guided by historical time?" Joshua looked perplexed.

Arlys shook her head. "Not in the multi-dimensional world of this model. There are writers that specialize in a kind of fiction, called Alternate time line fiction. They base their stories on what the world might be like if this or that historical decision was made differently. In a way, they are right. Every possible outcome exists as an event, somewhere, just not where we are. One theory is that all Branes, or Space-Time Continua, are linked harmonics of each other, related somehow. At any one time, there are a number of possible events. Time is the way we index things, as if one event following another had some great mystic verity. It doesn't. That's just how three dimensional beings within our one Brane experience things.

"We walk about our 3-D universe with a...a stick. We hold our stick up to things and say, that thing is so many sticks away, so many sticks tall, and we can pass so many sticks in a period of time. And time, well, we make up the intervals based on our local experience. We have known for just ever and ever that our time intervals get 'longer' or 'shorter' depending on how fast we are traveling, right? I mean, everybody knows that relative time, our time, slows as we approach light speed in normal space, or are affected by higher gravity - that it's an event relative to the viewer, that it gets warped along with the contunua's matrix, like marks on a rubber sheet do when the sheet gets stretched, right? That's what FTL drive theory depends on, though we don't really travel faster than light, but by crumpling the fabric of space/time. FTL is just a convenient way to put it, not something space drives actually do."

Arlyis swallowed, nervous at lecturing a room full of experts instead of students. "Our concept of 'speed' is just a piece of simple math - Distance divided by Time equals Speed. So all our concepts are, um, self delusional, or at least obviously incomplete. There isn't any ultimate verity of distance in a curved universe, 'cause there is no physical reality of a straight line. All our rulers are crooked, curved and can be flexed. No "speed" because Time and Distance aren't really constant in any all encompassing way, save as we define them within our own Brane. Our stuff only works in the little fragment of eternity we live in. You can't even guide a missile to Andromeda with ordinary math, - just doesn't work. Our whole scheme, just depends - it's relative. Works good enough for us because we spend most of our time moving slowly in a gravity stable three dimensional field. Even cause and effect is a local, in multidimensional terms, phenomena. Our subspace radio systems depend on Quantum tunneling principles to work, a non-local event. That is, depend on changes that happen in no-time between two separated particles, without an intervening energy exchange."

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Joshua shook his head. "I never did understand that Quantum mechanics stuff."

"Few do. Yet it is a fundamental fact of quantum mechanics, and always has been. Think of particles as actually being little standing waves poking up in a field. The little peak doesn't have to 'move' from one place to another, it can just disappear as a wave here, and reappear at some other place where the conditions are right."

Wavies have to learn our system, because they live outside the Brane of our universe. They don't spend their time hanging around in three dimensions. They're visitors here."

Arlyis paused, and all three silently contemplated the rigged gear for a few moments.

Joshua marveled at the concepts presented, and what they meant, in terms of the Wavies. Good grief, here I am, trying to talk sensibly with beings that don't even share the same physical reality as we do, let alone the same language or culture. A new appreciation for the talents of his associates overwhelmed him.

"Conceptually," Arlyis continued, "we talk about here and there; they talk about now and then. I'm stating this badly.... the analogy isn't very close to what I am saying at all, but I am trying to give you a feel for the huge difference between our viewpoint, and what theirs might be.

"Anyway - the point is, there are changes to the translator to accommodate talking about positions. If you need to indicate a place, the program stops, and you have to type in the coordinates here." Arlyis indicated a keypad attached to the console.

"Some math gets done, and the translator spits out the translation, then you continue talking. It's not real elegant, but it's something." Arlyis shrugged. "Our translations are smoother overall, as we continue to add to the database. So you can have more complex conversations than before."

Bishop Wile pointed out an amber light wired up to the console. "We added this to warn when translations have a chance greater than 20 percent of being wrong. Beyond that, we have been able to codify some littorals - ah, specific places, especially planets, where they have been defined before, such as we were able to nail down. Earth for instance, the site we are at presently, the former St Croix facility, and suchlike. The translator logic will sense when you are talking about places that need defining with the keypad."

Joshua nodded. "Very good. Diocullis has uncovered the new bolt hole of Gregory St. Croix. The Earth defense forces are preparing to pay a visit, against Michael's advice. Michael would like a little more information and assurance from our friends here about what he will be up against, now that Gregory knows we are onto him."

Joshua picked up the microphone and keyed on the translator. "I speak to one who listens."

"Your Name?"

Joshua's eyebrows arched, and he threw Bishop Wile a glance. Wile smiled. "I told you we have made progress. Go on."

"My Name is Joshua."

"I/We recognize you, Joshua."

"We spoke before. I was interested in where your queen was. You remember?"

"I/We remember. She is at a moment you call ... (Vega III)."

"Can I Speak with her now?"

"She is in (a)time/space fold. Sometimes she can talk to us, but she does not (sing) with us. She cannot (change) herself, when we approach, she hurts. We move things as she directs, she is better. It is no discontent."

Joshua's face took on a look of frozen concern. "Is there one who speaks with her? One who has talked with your kind before?"

"Yes, Joshua."

"Your Queen is not moving because this other speaker will not let her. He hurts her when he knows you are close. You may be indifferent to where she stays, her tjme/space, but she is not on Vega III of her own will. The other speaker keeps her there."

"Why, Joshua? We only move things. Your kind move things too."

"The other speaker's name is Gregory St. Croix. His hive is lazy. He wants you to move things for him. You must not do this for Gregory. He hurts us when he moves things. You should not move anything the Queen asks for until she can move freely. I can free her with your help. Will you help?"

"I/We do not reference. We do not move things to hurt. Why does Gregory move things to hurt?"

Joshua looked helplessly at Bishop Wile. "I think we need to educate our friends here about human morality and ethics, a little talk about Good and Evil. Are you up to this, Benn?"

Bishop Wile showed more teeth than a horse taking a bit. "The time has come, the Walrus said, to speak of many things. My pleasure and holy duty, Prelate."

Joshua pulled back on the microphone. "They need to understand us as moral beings to be able to judge us as individuals. I can't expect them to sort us out otherwise."

"Just give me the mike." Bishop Wile rolled up his sleeves and pulled over a chair.

"I don't expect a stream of baptisms just yet. The general landscape will do," Joshua warned. He eyed the fussing Bishop, with a growing sense of disquiet.

Joshua handed him the microphone with some second thoughts, reflecting that Benn had not always been a political attaché. Visions of a younger Wile standing behind a pulpit mesmerizing his congregation swam to the fore. Still, he told himself, he had to contact Dio, and after all, who better to deal with the question of Good and Evil than a political linguist and Bishop of the Church?