by Sue Burke
“Why would the corals want to fly a heli-plane?” I ask, more to myself than anyone else.
“Huh? The pilots would know,” Ernst says.
The last pilot to fly was Darius. In the clinic, he is awake and better but confused.
I find Ladybird and ask her to go to the clinic. “Please send Darius to the greenhouse. We need help. Here, I can protect him from what caused the seizure. He will likely be glad to fight against whatever tried to kill him.”
In the east field, the lights flash on the heli-plane, and the engine starts to operate. I know it needs to warm up. I describe what I see to Ernst, and he is worried. I remind him that it is not the network but the corals who are trying to fly the plane, and we agree they will need time to learn how. We cannot guess how long. They have shown terrifying intelligence, and they have direct access to the network’s memory.
Darius is brought in and sits drooping in a chair. Karola hands him a glass of tea and explains that the area is jammed from the network and what happened to it.
“This is Arthur,” I say through the speaker in his voice and in Earthling language. “I have a radio, too. What can a heli-plane do to damage us? The network is trying to fly it, and the network is controlled by the corals, and the corals are trying to destroy us.”
“Is that what hit me? But when I was in the fields, Pollux was asking me all kinds of stupid questions about who wanted to go home and all about the Mu Rees. Where’s Pollux?” He is hostile.
“Under guard and protected,” Karola says. “I know this sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. The corals are attacking all of us with the network.”
“The engines have probably warmed up now,” I say, “and we need to act quickly. How can we interfere with the remote control of the heli-plane?”
He sighs and thinks. I am about to ask again when he says, “We need to be able to send instructions. We can’t do that without the network.”
“We have a transmitter,” I say. “What is the frequency?”
Darius and Ernst answer at once with the same number. I tune in to that frequency and hear a squeal of information too fast to interpret. I let them hear it.
“That’s it,” Darius says. “You can cancel those orders verbally. This is what you say.” He recites some numbers and letters to send. I do that. The engines turn off. The engines immediately turn on again, but they seem to need to go through another cycle from the sound they are making.
“What is the worst that the plane can do to us?” I ask.
Darius hesitates. “There’s no military payload. Haus is the only one with weapons. Uh, but you can crash the plane deliberately, and it will do lots of damage, especially the engines because they’ll explode. They’re ready for travel, and they’re fully charged, so they could take out most of the city.”
But maybe the city is not the target. Maybe it is the forest. “Can you set a fire with the plane?”
“No. Well, yes. Normally the exhaust is supercooled. The engines are made to be efficient. You can set the engines on minimal utilization, and that sends out burning exhaust. It’s good for lowering charge levels if you need to do that for some reason, but you can’t fly like that.”
I send the code to turn off the engines again. The engines turn back on again immediately. “Is there a way we can keep the corals from controlling the heli-plane?”
“From here? No.”
“From anywhere else?”
“Not by transmission. There’s an override on the control panel. Manual. You have to physically hit a switch.”
“So all we have to do is get there?”
I turn the engine off, and the engine is turned back on.
“Well, and unlock the doors. I can do it. Can I leave here?”
“No, you can’t. The corals will attack you. We have to send someone else.”
“Another pilot?”
“They’re in the same situation as you.” I think a little. “We’ll send Cawzee.”
“Cawzee can’t fly a plane!”
“Cawzee can run fast, open the door, and flip a switch.” I believe that is the correct term, flip a switch. “We can remain in contact with him by radio. My own radio.”
“The bugs are too stupid to do that.”
There is much I could say, but I only say, “Cawzee learns quickly.”
“They can’t fly a plane,” he says.
“You and I will fly the plane.”
I turn the plane off again. The corals turn the plane’s lights and engine on again.
I contact Cawzee by radio and give him instructions. As is proper, I also tell Arthur about his assignment, because Arthur is his queen.
“I’ll go with him,” Arthur says.
“You cannot be there fast enough.”
Cawzee is already gone, galloping, now on the far side of the river. He talks to Arthur and to me as he runs. I pass on information from Darius about how to open the door on the heli-plane.
Chut and Ernst have been talking quietly about what they need, a piece of radiology equipment the zoologists used. They can turn it into a broadcast transmitter.
“We will go to their workshop,” Chut says. “You are my prisoner.”
“Will that work?”
“I perhaps kill you.” A sweet scent gives away the joke, but I do not know if Ernst will understand.
“It’s heavy equipment.”
“I can carry what you need. Fast.” They leave, she pulling him by the arm as he shouts and sends, melodramatically, “Don’t hurt me! Please, don’t hurt me!”
In the east fields, to open the door, Cawzee must first open a hatch, then push a series of buttons on a pad in a particular order. Darius gives the instructions for the hatch slowly. I repeat them in Glassmade to Cawzee.
“What buttons?” I ask Darius.
“He’s ready for that? Well, push number three.”
“And?”
“Now press the four exterior buttons all at once, the first and last ones on each row.”
“And?”
“How fast is he?”
“Fast enough.”
Darius rushes through the rest of the instructions. Cawzee says the door has opened and he is inside.
“What should he do at the control panel?”
“Is he there already?”
I wish I had a face so I could frown at him. “Just tell us.” So he does. Although he thinks Cawzee will not find the correct switch easily, he spots it immediately and pushes the button. The engines turn off for good.
“Now can I go?” Darius says.
“You will not be safe.” I have also thought of another worry. There are three planes.
I am correct. Soon, the engines go on in another plane. I can hear them and see them, and Cawzee also warns me. I ask Darius about the other plane in the same way.
“It is, but the code is different to get in. Mosegi flies it. He’d know it.”
“Karola, can you shield Mosegi long enough to get the code from him?”
She shouts “Yes!” as she is running for the door, Honey following. I tell Cawzee to get out of that plane and get ready to enter the other one as soon as we have the codes. I try to turn off the engine in that one, and I cannot.
“It’s a different code for transmitting instructions,” Darius says. “Not much different. We can try different combinations. Each plane is a little different for security reasons.” He starts to name different codes, and I try them, and one after another they fail.
Karola stumbles soon after she leaves the greenhouse.
“I’ll catch you!” Honey shouts. “You’re my prisoner! You can’t escape! Stop!”
Karola looks back. She waves a hunter’s gesture for understanding. She shouts, “I’m escaping! You can’t capture me! I’m going to kill everyone here! I’ll kill you!” She suddenly runs more easily.
When she arrives at the clinic, Honey has almost caught up to her. She gestures to the medics, who let both women enter. Karola runs to Mosegi.
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The second heli-plane’s engine is almost ready for takeoff. Honey relays instructions to my nearest stem. I send them to Cawzee, whose hands are waiting over the lock. The door opens, he jumps through, and then just as quickly the door closes automatically because the plane is taking off.
Then he says, “Door be-it locked. Door to the pilot area.”
I ask Darius how to open it.
He closes his eyes. “You have to ask the other pilot. It’s his plane. Probably his kid’s birthday or some number like that.”
I radio Ladybird to ask the question of Honey.
Jose and Arthur are planning to attack the network workshop. The first step is to evacuate the area because we do not know what weapons they have.
I get a message from the network. “If you take the heli-plane, I will kill all the Earthlings.”
Is this the corals? Can I speak with the corals? Or rather, do they wish to speak with me? In a better moment, initiating communications with another species would be a cause for joy. I must deal with this difficult moment, however, as best I can. “Kill them and you will have no one to work for you. So please, please kill them.”
I wonder how much intelligence the corals have. Enough to interpret sarcasm, I hope. Or enough to be confused by such a counterintuitive remark. Confusion would aid our side. I especially wonder how much they can do at once. I can do many things. I am in contact with some people by radio and observing many others through my stalks. I am monitoring the fires to the south, and I am terrified to be aware that there are now two more of them. And yet, I can have another conversation. With the corals.
“How did you learn to take over the network?” I wish we could have a long, slow discussion. That is not going to happen.
“I am Abacus.”
“You are the corals. You are in communication with the network and have overcome it. I understand that your purpose is to destroy us. We have been at war with the corals for a long time. Is this not true?”
The heli-plane is slowly starting to rise. Perhaps I can distract the coral. Or learn something useful.
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
“We will create a home. More home.”
“What would a home be for you? What do you need?” No answer. I say, “You are not of this planet. How did you get here?”
“We fly.”
“Like the Humans or the Glassmakers, then. Are you separate individuals or are you all one animal?”
“We are not an animal.”
“But you are a we.”
They do not answer.
The plane is now approaching the city, low in the sky. Cawzee has been trying to pry open the door with some tools, to no success. Karola and Honey get the information from Mosegi, tell me, and I tell him how to open the door.
In the greenhouse, Darius is drinking juice and suddenly stops. “Is the plane in the air? Because if you turn off the override, it’ll crash without a pilot. That bug can’t fly a plane.”
The heli-plane is headed toward the city. I have an anguishing thought. “It is going to crash somewhere. Perhaps we can choose the place to crash. Can we help Cawzee crash the plane?”
So that becomes our plan. Cawzee opens the door, rushes to the panel, and pushes the button.
“Cawzee,” I say, “you are now the pilot.” I do not tell him it is a suicide mission, but if I did, I am sure he would accept it.
“I be-me pilot?”
Darius says the fastest thing would be simply to gain altitude. He explains how to do that.
I tell Cawzee, “You must turn the knob on the lever in front of you to the right, then pull it out. Now pull the lever toward you. Gently.”
He does this very slowly. I can tell because I see the plane slowly rise up. It is not going to crash into the city. But where should it go?
Then I remember that I can block the network in a certain area. If we can maneuver the heli-plane into that area, we can allow it to accept outside instructions from me, since I control that area, and I can take over. But the area I can shelter is small, even with the main antenna cut down. Cawzee must turn the heli-plane around.
The controls are made for Humans. Cawzee cannot sit in a Human chair. I suspect he is standing on the chair. Darius could explain better if he could see what the plane is doing, but he tries hard to imagine the situation and provides instructions to turn the plane.
“Cawzee,” I say, “you must turn two levers at once.”
“This be-it simple,” Cawzee says. But his voice is very nervous.
The heli-plane is now flying steadily and starting to turn, but it is a very wide turn that will take a long time to get back to the area I can use to protect it. And as it flies, Darius says, “If it’s far enough away, maybe you should just crash it.”
“I see lights south,” Cawzee says.
Yes, the fires. If we crash the heli-plane, we will have no means to reach the fires, and we must put them out as soon as we can. I say, “We need the heli-plane. And without it, you cannot get to Earth. So we must try to save it.”
It takes several tries to get to the right place, and once Cawzee does that, I relate the codes that Darius gives me to turn off the override. On a machine frequency, I am asked for identification. I am not sure what to do, so I give my identification as Beluga. The plane accepts that.
Then I feel as if I had released my entire being and sent it into another body. Like a new grove, but nothing like a bamboo. Because I can move, physically move. Like an animal. Like a machine.
“Darius, I feel that I am the heli-plane. What does this mean?”
“I don’t know. You’re not a machine, are you?”
“I am a man,” I lie.
“Well, you shouldn’t feel that.”
But I think I understand. It is simply a matter of speed. I am very fast, and so are machines. And because I am fast, the machine treats me as an equal. But I have never been in a body before. I have seen young animals learn to walk. They fall down a lot. I do not wish to crash this plane. I wish to fly. Like a bat.
I try a small maneuver to begin to learn. I make it rise a little. That works well. I make it lose altitude a little. The heli-plane falls rather than descends, and Cawzee squeals. Still, I have made it go up and down. And it has remained in place otherwise. I have moved my new body. I tell Cawzee to find a secure place to sit. “This will be a rough ride.” This will be an amazing ride. I can fly.
“I perhaps say goodbye to my queen.”
“You have made Arthur proud.”
Ernst and Chut have created a radio designed to interfere with the corals. It can detect and produce signals at the right frequency, and a booster will make them strong enough to override the signals from the south. They connected several machines and are bringing it to the best place on the city wall, ported on Chut’s back, such importance does she give it. Ernst, as a diversion, has returned to his place as a prisoner in the plaza, feigning a struggle as he is taken away.
We have a plan. When the interference radio is in place, they will turn it on. Then Arthur will storm the workshop where Abacus is, staffed by five technicians, but we are not sure if the interference will work or how fast it will have an effect.
“I’m ready for anything,” Arthur says.
Chut checks the connections and wires, and turns on the power. I hear a warble almost like an injured, terrified bat, so loud it hurts. I stop listening immediately, aware that I may never speak to corals again. That is lamentable.
Arthur signals to start the attack. He is carrying one of Haus’s guns, and he is backed up by three Human and four major hunters. The men ram down the door with a log. The majors are the first inside, followed by Arthur.
“Put your hands up!” Arthur shouts in Earthling language. He has learned that this is the traditional thing to say. “One, two … three, four, where is five? You, tell, where is five? There? You! Stand! Put your hands up.”
Earthlings ask questions, all of them all at once,
and majors screech.
“The network is ours,” Arthur says. “Now we need to turn it off.”
Ladybird sends a message. “This is Ladybird. Everyone here says they don’t hear the network anymore. They want to be let loose.”
“Not quite yet,” Arthur says. “We need to turn it off.” Soon he adds, “The technicians here won’t help us with that. I don’t know why they love that machine so much.”
“I understand why,” I say, “but we should turn it off.”
“I’ll find someone to help,” Ladybird says. Om volunteers. She sends him there.
I center my attention on the heli-plane. I turn the plane north, then south, but I do not wish to go far until the network is safely inoperative. And I discover that flying is the most delightful sensation. And disorienting. I move in space. Of course I know that animals do this by definition. But knowing is not doing, and I am moving like an animal now. Like a bat.
In some ways this heli-plane is alive. With its cameras I can see, and with its internal sensors and external sensors, I can feel. The full charge feels like roots in moist soil. The fluctuation in external temperature is like light and shadow, and the wind makes the plane sway slightly, a familiar feeling, like branches in the wind. But rather than tug, the wind provides power, and I can move with the wind, and when I move, my surroundings shift. The world has dimension and I can move through it. I feel unsteady, almost bewildered. I have never had eyes like this. And these visual sensors are not exactly like eyes because I can see a wider variety of light wavelengths. This is machine vision, not organic vision, and machines can do many more things much faster than living things. What they lack is the will to decide what to do, and I have all the will I need.
“Ladybird?” It is Om’s voice on our radio.
“Yes,” she answers.
“I’ve borrowed Arthur’s radio to talk to you. I turned off the machine, and then I disconnected the power, and then I disconnected the antenna, and then I disconnected the input and output, and then some parts with other parts and broke some, so no one can use it without reconnecting everything.”
