esurgence is the latest installment in Charles Sheffield's Heritage Universe series. In the first episode, Summertide (1990), we learned that in the year 3170, our arm of the Milky Way is populated by dozens of alien races forming several major polities intersecting various human domains. The dominant mystery of this flourishing cosmic arrangement concerns the Builders, a vanished race who have left some 1,200-plus Artifacts scattered from star to star. A cast of adventurers assembles around one such Artifact in the Dobelle system. There is Hans Rebka, wily galactic troubleshooter. Darya Lang, scientific expert on the Builders. Louis Nenda and Atvar H'sial, roguish demi-pirates, and their alien slaves, Kallik and J'merlia. Finally, Julian Graves, Ethical Councilor and possessor of a doubled mind. As Summertide reaches its climax, massive changes are underway in the heretofore quiescent Artifacts.
In Divergence (1991; these first two books are currently available in the omnibus Convergent Series), our team gets an additional member, the "embodied computer" known as E.C. Tally. A visit through Builder transport vortices to an Artifact some 30,000 light-years away reveals that the remaining machines of the Builders are carrying forward schemes that involve resurrecting an extinct race of conquerors, the Zardalu. Transcendence (1992) finds our crew fighting for their lives on the homeworld of the Zardalu, while Convergence (1997; paired in the omnibus Transvergence) dramatically eliminates all Artifacts in a final implosive climax.
The action of the latest volume opens several years later. With the vanishing of the Artifacts, the haphazard team of explorers has no reason for existence and has dispersed. But a summons from Graves reunites them, along with several new members, including a tame Zardalu named Archie. Graves informs his old friends that surviving Artifacts have been discovered in the Sagittarius Arm of the galaxy, a region previously deemed inaccessible, but now, thanks to new knowledge, just a few FTL jumps away. Moreover, an enigmatic plague spreading in this distant region holds the potential to threaten all life in their home space.
Off fly the adventurers, looking for a world named Marglot. Upon their arrival in the foreign district, they are faced with frustrating roadblocks and split into three teams. Two of the teams encounter new Artifacts which behave unlike any others they have experienced, while the third group—Nenda and company—choose social engineering among the natives as their path. Eventually, all three teams end up on Marglot, just in time to experience firsthand a planet-busting assault by the Masters of Cold, whose relation to the Builders is a surprising one.
A uniquely intelligent voice falls silent
Lamentably and frustratingly, Charles Sheffield passed away just a few weeks ago at the unfairly truncated age of 67. We lament the passing of his unique presence and talent as we would grieve the death of any comrade; but a special frustration arises in the fact that Sheffield, as a writer, has been taken from us before he could complete his saga of the Heritage Universe. We have to acknowledge a selfish component of our grief: We want to know how this whole saga resolves, although now probably we never will.
At the close of the fourth book, Sheffield more or less officially signaled an end to his tale, despite many open questions. An unexpected return to this particular subcreation, Resurgence shifts the action to a surprising new venue and supplies several additional puzzle pieces, as well as providing lots of the same thrills found in the original quartet. But the novel ends inconclusively, with a promised second expedition to the Sagittarius Arm, and any fan of the series should prepare himself or herself for a modicum of disappointment.
But ignoring this effect that Sheffield, of course, had no control over, we can enjoy the many pleasures of his tale. Primary among these are the vivid characterization and human-alien interactions and the cosmological vistas. In the first area, Sheffield continues to exploit the original dynamics he set up among his protagonists. All are vividly defined by their pasts and cultures and their various preferred environments, but each is also seen to grow and change. The love triangle among Rebka, Nenda and Lang continues to exfoliate in intriguing ways, while the evolving independence of the more-than-slaves Kallik and J'merlia moves forward as well. Five new characters—a kind of interstellar SWAT team—are roughed in interestingly, and would surely have been developed further.
Sheffield is well known for his expertise in depicting extreme hard-science wonders, and we encounter many such fascinating objects and concepts here. Through homely metaphors and similes ("The Savior was moving along a spiraling orbit that would in time cover Iceworld's whole surface like wool being wound evenly onto a great ball"), he manages to convey vividly things never before seen or imagined. As for Sheffield's plotting, he weaves his tripartite threads into a suspenseful tapestry, inserting cliffhangers and resolutions at just the right moments. And with Vance-like touches in nomenclature and customs, Sheffield does not neglect the exoticism of the best space-opera traditions.
