Clarke, Arthur C - Fall of Night 02

by Beyond the Fall of Night

  Small crawler forms healed the torn skin with their sticky leavings. Others seemed to ferry materials from distant parts of Leviathan to the many lacerations. Strange oblong creatures scooted in from distant places, trailing bags of fluids and large seeds.

  She slowly caught the sense of Leviathan, its interlocking mysteries. The carcass of a skyshark, gutted by its own internal fires, became food for the regrowth of myriad plants. The armies which distributed skyshark parts showed no malice or vindictive anger as they tore the body to shreds, sometimes stopping to eat a morsel. They were intent upon their labors, no more.

  Though much could be repaired, clearly the great world-creature was badly hurt. Long chasms yawned where skysharks had ruptured enclosed pressure zones, spilling wealth. Whole regions were gray with death. The reek of bodies drove Cley and Seeker from the once-tranquil groves of ropy, banyanlike trees.

  But the true sign of the enormous damage came when Cley felt a slow, steady gravity pushing her toward the aft layers.

  "We're moving," she said.

  "We must." Seeker was carefully picking the briars from a pretty bunch of red berries. It assured her that the thorns were quite tasty, whereas the berries were poison; the bush was a master of sly deception.

  "Where to?"

  "Jove. Events accelerate."

  "Is the Leviathan dying?"

  "No, but its pain is vast. It seeks succor."

  "From this Jove thing?"

  "No, though it expends its fluids to take us there. It can receive the aid of its many friends as we travel."

  "Us? We're so important?"

  When Seeker said nothing, Cley scrambled away. After getting lost three times she found a translucent bubble that gave an aft view.

  Long pearly plumes jetted from Leviathan. They came from tapered, warty growths that Cley was sure did not poke from Leviathan before. They had been grown with startling speed, and somehow linked to a chemical system which was fed in turn by the Leviathan's internal chemistry. Her nose prickled at the scent of peroxide, and the thunder of steady detonations made nearby boughs tremble.

  Even as the immense bulk accelerated, Cley could see groups of spacelife detach themselves and spurt away. Some species seemed to be abandoning ship, perhaps sensing that something dangerous lay ahead. They spread broad silvery sails which reflected images of the shrinking sun. Others had sails of utter dull black, and Cley guessed that these might be the natural prey of skysharks. Reflections would attract unwanted attention, so these oddly shaped creatures deployed parachute-shaped sails which absorbed sunlight, and then contrived to shed the build-up of heat through thin, broad cooling vanes.

  Such adaptations led to every conceivable arrangement of surfaces. Creatures like abstract paintings were quite workable here, where gravity had no hand in fashioning evolution's pressures. Their struts, sheets, tubes and decks made use of every geometric advantage. Pivots as apparently fragile as a flower stem served to turn vast planes and sails. Transparent veins carried fluids of green and ivory.

  Yet as these fled the wounded giant, others flocked in. Great arrays swooped to meet the Leviathan, things that looked to Cley like no more than spindly arrays of green toothpicks. Nonetheless these unlikely-looking assemblies decelerated, attached themselves to the Leviathan, and off-loaded cargoes. It struck Cley that the Leviathan played a role with no easy human analogy. It cycled among worlds, yet was no simple ship. Fleets of spaceborne life exchanged food and seeds and doubtless much more, all by intersecting Leviathan's orbit, hammering out biological bargains, and then returning to the black depths where they eked out a living. Leviathan was ambassador, matchmaker, general store and funeral director, and many other unfathomable roles as well.

  Yet the vast beast was deeply damaged, and a fevered note of anxiety layered the air around Cley. She idly turned away from the sunlit spectacle of the aft zones and just had time to glimpse a small, ruddy disk coming into view. Then the hackles on her neck rose and she whirled, already knowing what she would see.

  You brought this upon me, the Captain sent.

  It towered above her. Its thumb-sized components hovered as though full of repressed energy, giving the stretched human shape the appearance of a warped statue across which dappled light fell, like the shadows of leaves stirred by fitfull breezes.

  "I didn't know the skysharks even existed. You've got to understand, I—"

  I understand much. Toleration is what I lack.

  Cley ached to flee. But how could she elude this angry, swift swarm? Better to keep it talking. "It wasn't my idea to come here."

  The elongated human form bulged. Its left arm merged with the body. She sensed a massive threat behind these surges, underlined by spikes of anger that shot through the murky talent-voice of the Captain. Nor mine. I shall rid myself of you.

  "I'll leave as soon as I can."

  The Mad Mind sends tendrils everywhere. They snake into me.

  "Do you think it can find me?"

  The constantly shifting form curled its legs up into the body, as though its components had to be brought closer to ponder this point. Soon, yes. It probes me.

  "How much time do I have left?"

  It would have tracked you by now, were it not opposed by another and similar skill. I cannot predict the outcome of such large collisions.

  Cley tried to make herself think of this thing as a community of parts, not simply an organism. But the moving cloud seemed to purposefully make itself humanlike enough to send disturbing, atavistic fears strumming through her. And she wondered if that, too, was its intention.

  "What other 'skill'? Another magnetic mind?"

  Similar in power, and winging on the fiexings of the fields. It is called Vanamonde.

  "Is it dangerous to you?" Despite herself Cley edged away from the shifting fog of creatures. She resolved to stand straight and undaunted in the slight pseudogravity of Leviathan's acceleration, to show no sign of her inner fear. But how much could the Captain sense from her unshielded thoughts?

  I do not know. I despise all such human inventions.

  This startled her out of her apprehension. "Vanamonde—we made it?"

  In typical human fashion, as a corrective to your earlier error — the Mad Mind.

  "Look, even Leviathans must make mistakes," Cley said giddily.

  Ours do not remain, encased in the lace of magnetic fields, while the galaxy turns upon itself again and again. Our errors die.

  The cloud-Captain buzzed and fretted with agitation. Its head lifted into the air, its mouth gaping like a bullet hole that ran completely through the head, so that Cley could see the vegetation beyond. Angry waves roiled up and down the torso.

  "So we build things to last," Cley said with airy abandon. She was not going to let this talking fog intimidate her. "Can't blame us, can you?"

  Why should we not?

  "We don't last long ourselves. Not ur-humans, anyway. Our creations have to do our living for us."

  Nor should you endure. Time once honored your kind. Now it drags you in its wake.

  Despite her fear, this rankled Cley. "Oh, really? You seem pretty scared of stuff we made."

  The Captain lost its human shape entirely, exploding like shrapnel into the air. Components buzzed angrily around Cley. She stood absolutely still, remembering the time on Earth when she had sealed her nostrils against a cloud. But that would be of no use here. She stared straight ahead and kept her mind as steady as she could. Small and limited her brain might be, but she wasn't going to give the maddened cloud any satisfaction. The Captain's flyers brushed her like a heavy moist handclasp—insistent, clammy, repulsive. Tiny voices shrieked and howled in her mind and slapping her hands over her ears would be no help.

  "You will kindly go about your task," Seeker's voice came cutting through.

  Cley jumped, startled by the smooth, almost liquid quality to the sound. Seeker hung by one claw from a strand, peering at the center of the ire-fog. "Now," it added.

 
Slowly the components steadied, whirling in a cyclone about both Seeker and Cley, but keeping a respectful distance. I suffer agony for you!

  "As you should," Seeker replied, "for you must."

  Be gone!

  "In due time," Seeker said.

  With that the components streaked away, as if called by numberless tasks. Cley felt a spark of compassion for the strange things, and their even stranger sum. She supposed in some way she was also an anthology being, and her cells suffered in silence for her. But the Captain was a different order of thing, more open to both joy and agony in a way she could not express but felt deeply through the talent.

  "Thanks," she said in a whisper, her throat still tight.

  Seeker coasted to a light landing near the transparent bubble. "Even a great being can harm in a moment of self-loss."

  "Getting mad, that's self-loss? Funny term."

  "For Leviathan, the pain is of a different quality than you can feel. Never think that you can sense its sacrifice."

  Cley did not know what to say to that. She had seen the terrible damage, the shriveled zones, the creatures which had died as their blood boiled, and worse.

  "Meanwhile," Seeker said in the way it had of changing the subject without notice, "enjoy the view."

  The ruddy disk was much larger now. It was a planet of silver seas and rough brown cloud-shrouded continents. As they approached it rapidly Cley saw that a circle hung over the equator like a belt. It seemed to be held aloft above the atmosphere by great towers.

  These thin stalks were hke the Pinwheel she had ridden, but fixed. Their centers orbited, with feet planted in the soil, while their heads met the great ring that girded the planet. Each tower could remain erect by itself, and perhaps they had stood alone once. Now the ring linked each to the others, making the array steady.

  Leviathan was intended to sweep by the great circle, Seeker told her. Even at this distance Cley could see compartments sliding up and down the towers, connecting the spaceborne to the worldborne. And larger shapes shot along the ring itself, bringing their stores to the tower nearest their eventual destination. This was how the Leviathan and its myriad passengers merged their fortunes with the spreading green surface below. Some towers plunged into the silver seas, while others stood at the summits of enormous mountains.

  "What is this place?" Cley asked.

  "Mars," Seeker answered.

  "What about Venus?"

  Seeker gestured at a blue-white dot. "Nearby. We do not need it now, so I directed the Captain to bring us veering close to Mars. We shall gain momentum, stealing from the planet's hoard, and hasten on."

  "Either we're moving very fast, or these places aren't very far apart."

  "Both. All the ancient worlds are now clustered in a narrow zone around the sun, each finding its comfortable distance from the fire."

  "Looks better off than Earth."

  "True, for no humans have meddled with it for over a billion years. Once it too was desert."

  This Cley flatly refused to believe, for Mars was a carpet of rich convolutions. Without the Supras and their desert-loving robots, she imagined, Earth might have been like this. "Can we live there?"

  "We must pass on. It is too dangerous for us."

  Seeker pointed. Along the ring, filaments of orange and blue twisted. They shot up and down the towers, as though seeking a way in. Cley could make out the texture of the towers now and with surprise saw that they were the same woody layers as the Pin-wheel—indeed, that the entire ring system was a like living, balanced suspension bridge, cantilevered by Mars out into the great abyss of vacuum.

  Cley whispered, "Lightning."

  "It searches," Seeker said.

  She could see magnetic storms rolHng in from beyond Mars, blowing against the ring like surf from an immense ocean. "Can it damage the ring?"

  "It may destroy all of that great creature, if it thinks you are there."

  "The Mad Mind is everywhere!"

  "Spreading, always spreading. When we left Earth it had penetrated sunward only momentarily, and at great cost. Now it hunts amid the worlds. It roves and probes and has even learned to muster packs like the sky sharks."

  "Things are getting worse fast."

  "This is as we wish," Seeker said mildly.

  "Huh? Why?"

  "If it hid among the stars we could ever be sure of its demise."

  Cley shook her head. "You think you can kill it?"

  "Not I."

  "Who can?"

  "Everyone, or no one."

  33

  They arced starward.

  The original solar system had been a hostile realm, with all worlds but Earth ranging from the dead to the murderous. Then came the fabled, eon-old reworking. That had left Earth as the nearest child of the sun, Venus next, and then Mars. All were ripe gardens now.

  Beyond Mars lay the true center of the great system, the Jove complex. Its gargantuan hub had once been the planet Jupiter. The swollen, simmering superplanet which now sat at the center of Jove glowed with a wan infrared sunshine of its own. It had fattened itself by gobbling up the masses of ancient Uranus and Neptune. The collisions of those worlds had been one of the spectacular events in human history, though it lay so far in the past now that little record remained, even in Diaspar.

  After its deep atmosphere had calmed, bulging Jupiter's steady glow had warmed the chilly wastes of its moons. Then Saturn, cycled through many near-miss passes around Jupiter, had been stripped of much of its mass. This gauzy bounty was spread among the ancient moons. A shrunken Saturn of cool blue oceans now orbited Jupiter. After all this prodigious gravitational engineering, the Saturnian rings were replaced, and looked exactly like the originals.

  The baked rock of Mercury had arrived then, spun outward from the sun by innumerable kinematic minuets. Light Hquids from Saturn pehed the hardpan plains of Mercury for a thousand years, and now the once barren world swung also around Jupiter, brimming with a curious pink and orange air.

  All this had come about through adroit gravitational encounters consuming millennia. Carefully tuned, each world now harbored some life, though of very different forms. The Jove system hung at the edge of the sun's life zone, Jupiter adding just enough ruddy glow to make all the salvaged mass of the ancient gas giant planets useful. Beyond Jove wove only the orbits of rubble and ice, and further still, comets under cultivation.

  Cley watched with foreboding the approach of the Jove system's grand gavotte. About her the Leviathan regrew itself, but the springlike fervor of its renewal did not lighten her mood. Seeker was of little help; it dozed often and seemed unworried about the coming conflict. To distract herself, she peered from the transparent blisters, trying to fathom the unfolding intricacies outside.

  She had to overcome a habit of thought ingrained in all planet-borne life. Space was not mere emptiness, but the mated assets of energy, matter, and room. Planets, in contrast, were inconvenient sites, important mostly because on their busy surfaces life had begun. After all, unruly atmospheres whip up dust, block sunlight, rust metals, hammer with their winds, overheat and chill. Gravity forced even simple landrovers to use much of their bodies just to stand up. Even airless worlds robbed their surfaces of sunlight half the time. And nothing was negotiable: planets gave a fixed day and night, gravity and atmosphere.

  In contrast, sunlight flooded the weatherless calm of space. Flimsy sheets could collect high-quality energy undimmed by roiling air. Cups could sip from the light brush of particles spewed out by the sun. Asteroids offered mass without gravity's demanding grip. Just as an origin in tidepools did not mean that shallow water was the best place for later life, planets inevitably became backwaters as well.

  Biological diversity demands room for variation, and space had an abundance of sheer volume to offer the first spaceborne organisms. These had sported tough but flexible skins, light and tight, stingy with internal gas and liquids. Evolution used their fresh, weightless geometries to design shrewd alternativ
es to the simple guts and spines of the Earthborne.

  Cley expected to see fewer of the freeroving spaceforms as the Leviathan glided outward. Instead, the abundance and pace of life quickened. Though sunlight fell with the square of distance from the sun, the available volume rose as the cube. Evolution's blind craft had filled this swelling niche with myriad forms. Spindly, full-sailed, baroquely elegant, they swooped around the Leviathan.

  Her explorations took her into odd portions of the Leviathan, along shallow lakes and even across a shadowy, bowl-shaped desert. She found a chunky iceball the size of a foothill, covered with harvesting animals. The Leviathan had captured this comet nucleus and was paying out its fluid wealth with miserly care.

  She paid a price for her excursions. Humans had not been privileged among species here since well before Diaspar was a dream. Twice she narrowly escaped being a meal for predators which looked very much like animated thornbushes. She found Seeker just where she had left it days before, and the beast tended to her cuts, bites and scratches.

  "Why are you helping me. Seeker After Patterns?" she asked as it licked a cut.

  It took its time answering, concentrating on pressing its nose along a livid slash made by the sharp-leaved bushes. When it looked up, the cut had sealed so well only a hairline mark remained.

  "To strengthen you."

  "Well, it's working. Weightlessness has given me muscles I didn't know I had."

  "Not your body. Your talent."

  She blinked in the pale yellow sunlight that slanted through the bowers. "I was wondering why I keep hearing things. That last thornbush—"

  "You caught its hunt-pleasure."

  "Good thing, too. It was fast."

  "Can you sense any humans now?"

  "No, there aren't. . ." She frowned. "Wait, something . . . Why, it's Hke . . ."