Infinity's Shore u-5

by David Brin

  What followed nauseated Dwer — solitary doughnut shapes, slithering traeki rings shorn from the waxy moorings that once united them as sapient beings. One large torus burst from the murk, galloping on pulsating legs without guidance or direction, trailing mucus and silvery fibers as it plunged off the ramp into deep water. Another hapless circle bumped along unevenly, staring in all directions with panicky eye patches until surging black vapors overtook it.

  I have not acted thus — with such vigor and decisiveness — since the early days, when still-animate Buyur servant machines sometimes tried to hide and reproduce amid the ruins, after their masters departed. Back then, we were fierce, we mulc agents of deconstruction, before the long centuries of patient erosion set in.

  Now do you see how efficient my kind can be, when we feel a need? And when we have a worthy audience? Now will you acknowledge me, O unique young ephemeral?

  Dwer turned and fled, kicking spray as he ran.

  The Rothen scout boat was a wreck, split in the middle, its wings crumpled. He found an open hatch and clambered inside. The metal deck felt chill and alien beneath his bare feet.

  The interior lacked even pale moonlight, so it took time to find Rety in a far corner, taking treasures from a cabinet and stuffing them in a bag. What’s she looking for? Food? After all the star-god poisons that’ve spilled here since the crash?

  “There’s no time for that,” he shouted. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “Gimme a dura,” the girl replied. “I know it’s here. Kunn kept it on one o’ these shelfs.”

  Dwer craned his head back through the hatch to look outside. The robot guardian had reappeared, hovering over the stricken untraeki vessel, shining stark light on the survivors mired below. As the thick smoke spread out, Dwer whiffed something that felt sweet in the front of his mouth, yet made the back part gag.

  Abruptly, a new thing impacted the senses — sound. A series of twanging notes shook the air. Lines stretched across the water as hundreds of cables tautened, surrounding the skycraft like the tent lines of a festival pavilion. Some vines snapped under the strain, whipping across the landscape. One whirling cord sliced through a surviving stack-of-rings, flinging upper toruses into the swamp while the lower half lurched blindly. Other survivors beat a hasty retreat, deeper into the bog.

  The robot descended, its spotlight narrowing to a slender, cutting beam. One by one, straining mulc cables parted under the slashing attack. But it was too little, too late. Something or somebody must already have undermined the muck beneath the ship, for it began sliding into a slimy crypt, gurgling as a muddy slurry poured in through the hatch.

  “Found it!” Rety cried, rare happiness invading her voice. She joined Dwer at the door, cradling her reclaimed prize. Her metal bird. Since the first time he laid eyes on it, the thing had gone through a lot of poking and prodding, till it could hardly be mistaken for a real creature anymore, even in dim light. Another damned robot, he thought. The Ifni-cursed thing had caused Dwer more trouble than he could count. Yet to the sooner girl it was an emblem of hope. The first harbinger of freedom in her life.

  “Come on,” he muttered. “This wreck is the only shelter hereabouts. The survivors’ll be coming this way. We’ve got to go.”

  Rety had only agreeable smiles descending back into the swamp. She followed his every move with the happy compliance of one who had no further need to rebel.

  Dwer knew he ought to be pleased, as well. His plan had worked beyond all expectation. Yet his sole emotion was emptiness.

  Maybe it’s on account of I’ve been wounded, beat up, exhausted, and starved till I’m too numb to care.

  Or else, it’s that I never really enjoyed one part of hunting.

  The killing part.

  They retreated from both ruined sky boats to the nearest concealing thicket. Dwer was trying to select a good route back to the dunes, when a voice spoke up.

  “Hello. I think we ought to talk.”

  Dwer was grateful to the mulc spider. He owed it the conversation it desired, and acknowledgment of its might. But, he felt too drained for the mental effort. Not now, he projected. Later, I promise, if I survive the night.

  But the voice was persistent. And Dwer soon realized — the words weren’t echoing inside his head, but in the air, with a low, familiar quality and tone. They came from just overhead.

  “Hello? Humans in the swamp? Can you hear me?”

  Then the voice went muffled, as if the speaker turned aside to address someone else.

  “Are you sure this thing is working?” it asked.

  Bewildered, and against his better judgment, Dwer found himself answering.

  “How the hell should I know what’s working, an’ what ain’t? Who on Jijo are you?”

  The words returned more clearly, with evident eagerness.

  “Ah! Good. We’re in contact, then. That’s great.”

  Dwer finally saw where the words were coming from. Mudfoot squatted just above, having followed to pester him from this new perch. And the noor had his new companion — the one with green eyes.

  Rety gasped, and Dwer abruptly realized — the second creature bore a family resemblance to Rety’s bird!

  “All right,” Dwer growled, his patience wearing thin with Mudfoot’s endless games. “We’re footprints, unless you tell me what’s goin’ on.”

  The creature with green eyes emitted a low, rumbling sound, surprising for one so small. Dwer blinked, startled by the commonplace resonance of a hoonish umble.

  “Hr-r-rm … Well, for starters, let me introduce myself.

  “The formal name my folks gave me is Hph-wayuo—

  “But you can call me Alvin.”

  PART SEVEN

  A PARABLE

  “MASTER,” THE STUDENT ASKED. “The Universe is so complex, surely the Creator could not have used volition alone to set it in motion. In crafting His design, and in commanding the angels to carry out His will, He must have used computers.”

  The great savant contemplated this for several spans before replying in the negative.

  “You are mistaken. No reality can be modeled completely by a calculating engine that is contained within and partaking of that same reality. God did not use a computer to create the world. He used mathematics.”

  The student pondered this wisdom for a long time, then persisted in his argument.

  “That may have been the case when it came to envisioning and creating the world, Master — and to foreseeing future consequences in revealed destiny — but what of maintenance? The cosmos is a vast, intricate network of decisions. Choices are made every femtosecond, and living beings win accordingly, or else lose.

  “How can the Creator’s assistants carry out these myriad local branchings, unless they use computer models?”

  But once again, the great savant turned his gaze away in rebuke.

  “It is Ifni, the chief deputy, who decides such things. But she has no need for elaborate tools for deciding local events.

  “In the Creator’s name she runs the world by using dice.”

  Streakers

  Kaa

  THE SUBSEA HABITAT FELT CROWDED AS FIVE DOLPHINS gathered before a small holo display, watching a raid unfold in real time. Images of the distant assault were blurry, yet they stirred the heart.

  While Brookida, Zhaki, and Mopol jostled near Kaa’s left side, he felt more acutely aware of Peepoe on his right — fanning water with her pectorals in order to keep one eye aimed at the monitor. Her presence disturbed his mental and hormonal equilibrium — especially whenever a stray current brushed her against him. To Kaa, this ironically proved the multiple nature of his sapient mind — that the individual he most desired to see was the same one he dreaded being near.

  Fortunately, the on-screen spectacle offered distraction — transmitted by a slender fiber strand from a spy camera located hundreds of kilometers away, on a sandy bluff overlooking the Rift. Banks of heavy clouds glowered low, making twilight out
of day. But with enhanced contrast, an observer could just make out shadows flicking beneath blue water, approaching the shore.

  Abruptly, the line of surf erupted armored figures — six-legged monsters with horizontal cylinders for bodies, flared widely at the back — charging past the beach then through a brackish swamp, firing lasers as they came. Three slim flying robots accompanied the attackers, still dripping seawater as they swooped toward the surprised foe.

  The enemy encampment was little more than a rude fabric tent propped against the lee side of a shattered spaceship. A single hovering guardian drone shrieked, rising angrily as it sighted the new arrivals … then became a smoldering cinder, toppling to douse in the frothy swamp. Jophur survivors could only stand helpless as the onslaught swept over them. Eye cells throbbed unhappily atop tapered sap rings, staring in dazed wonder, unable to grasp this humiliation. August beings, taken prisoner by mere dolphins.

  By the youngest race of the wolfling clan of Terra.

  Kaa felt good, watching his crew mates turn the tables on those hateful stacks of greasy doughnuts. The Jophur alliance had been relentless in pursuing Streaker across the star lanes. This small victory was almost as satisfying as that other raid, on Oakka World, where resolute action took an enemy base from behind, releasing Streaker from yet another trap.

  Only that time I didn’t have to watch from afar. I piloted the boat to pick up Engineer D’Anite, dodging fire all the way.

  In those days, he had still been “Lucky” Kaa.

  Alongside Peepoe and the others, he watched Lieutenant Tsh’t gesture right and left with the metal arms of her walker unit, ordering members of the raiding party to herd their captives toward the shore, where a whalelike behemoth erupted from the surf, spreading mighty jaws.

  Despite thick clouds, the raiders had to make this phase brief to avoid detection.

  One Jophur captive stumbled in the surf. Its component rings throbbed, threatening to split their mucusy bindings. Mopol chittered delight at the enemy’s discomfiture, thrashing his flukes to splatter the habitat’s low ceiling.

  Peepoe sent Kaa a brief sonar click, drawing attention to Mopol’s behavior.

  See what I mean? she remarked in clipped Trinary.

  Kaa nodded agreement. All trace of illness was gone, replaced by primal exultation. No doubt Mopol longed to be on the raid, tormenting the tormentors.

  Peepoe was naturally irked to have come all this way, driving a one-dolphin sled through unfamiliar waters where frightening sound shadows lurked, just to diagnose a case of kingree fever. The name had roots in an Anglic word—malingering. Dolphin spacers knew many clever ways to induce symptoms of food poisoning, in order to feign illness and avoid duty.

  “I thought-t so from the beginning,” Kaa had told her earlier. “It was Makanee’s choice to send a nurse, just in case.”

  That hardly mollified Peepoe.

  “A leader’s job is to motivate,” she had scolded. “If the work is hard, you’re supposed to motivate even harder.”

  Kaa still winced from her chiding. Yet the words also provoked puzzlement, for Mopol had no apparent reason to fake illness. Despite his other faults, the crewfin wasn’t known for laziness. Anyway, conditions at this outpost were more pleasant than back at Streaker, where you had to breathe irksome oxy-water much of the time, and struggle for sleep with the weird sonic effects of a high-pressure abyss surrounding you. Here, the waves felt silky, the prey fish were tasty, while the task of spying was varied and diverting. Why should Mopol pretend illness, if it meant being cooped up in a cramped habitat with just old Brookida for company?

  On-screen, half a dozen bewildered Jophur were being ushered aboard the submarine, while onshore Lieutenant Tsh’t consulted with two native humans draped in muddy rags — a young man and an even younger girl — who looked quite tattered and fatigued. The male moved with a limp, clutching a bow and quiver of arrows while his companion held a small broken robot.

  Brookida let out a shout, recognizing a spy probe of his own design, fashioned months ago to send ashore, snooping in the guise of a Jijoan bird.

  The young man pointed toward a nearby dune and spoke words the camera could not pick up. Almost at once, the three Earthling war drones darted to surround that hillock, hovering cautiously. Moments later, sand spilled from a hole and a larger robot emerged, visibly scarred from past violent encounters. Hesitantly, it paused as if unsure whether to surrender or self-destruct. Finally, the damaged machine glided to the beach, where two more humans were being carried on stretchers by dolphin warriors in exo-suits. These men were also mud-splashed. But under a grime coating, the bigger one wore garments of Galactic manufacture. The captive robot took a position next to that man, accompanying him aboard the sub.

  Last to board were Tsh’t and the two walking humans. The young man held back for a moment, awed by the entry hatch, gaping like the jaws of some ravenous beast. But the girl radiated delight. Her legs could barely carry her fast enough through the surf as she plunged inside.

  Then only Lieutenant Tsh’t remained, staring down at a small creature who lounged indolently on the beach, grooming its sleek fur, pretending it had all the time in the world. Through her exo-suit speakers, Tsh’t addressed the strange being.

  “Well? If you’re coming, this is your lassst chance.”

  Kaa still found it hard to reconcile. For two weeks he had spied on hoonish sailing ships operating out of Wuphon Port, and watched as tiny figures scampered across the rigging. Not once did he associate the fuzzy shapes with tytlal—a Galactic client species whose patrons, the Tymbrimi, were Earth’s greatest friends.

  Who could blame me? With hoons they act like clever animals, not sapient beings. According to the journal of the young hoon adventurer Alvin, Jijoans called the creatures noor beasts. And noor never spoke.

  But the one on the beach had! And with a Tymbrimi accent, at that.

  Could six races live here all this time without knowing that another band of sooners were right in their midst? Could tytlal play dumb the entire time, without giving themselves away?

  The small creature seemed complacently willing to outwait Tsh’t, perhaps testing dolphin patience … until abruptly a new voice broke in, coming from the sub’s open hatch. The camera eye swung that way, catching in its field a tall figure, gangly and white, with scaly arms and a bellowslike organ throbbing below its jaw, emitting a low, resonant hum.

  Alvin, Kaa realized. The young author of the memoir that had kept Kaa up late several nights, reading about the strange civilization of refugees.

  He must be “umbling” at the tytlal.

  In moments the sleek creature was seen perched atop the lieutenant’s striding exo-suit, as Tsh’t hurried aboard. Its grinning expression seemed to say, Oh, well. If you positively insist…

  The hatch swung shut and the sub backed away swiftly, sinking beneath the waves. But the images did not stop.

  Left alone at last, Streaker’s little scout robot turned its spy eye back toward the field of dunes. Sandy terrain swept past as it sought a vantage point — some ideal site to watch over two blasted wrecks that had once been small spacecraft, but now lay mired by mud and embraced by corrosive vines.

  No doubt Gillian Baskin and the ship’s council were deeply interested in who might next visit this place of devastation.

  Gillian

  THE INITIAL EXERCISES ARE COMPLETE. A WARM TINGLING pervades her floating body, from tip to toes.

  Now Gillian is ready for the first deep movement. It is Narushkan—“the starfish”—an outreach of neck, arms, and legs, extending toward the five planar compass points.

  Physique discipline lies at the core of weightless yoga, the way Gillian learned it on Earth, when she and Tom studied Galactic survival skills from Jacob Demwa. “Flesh participates in everything we do,” the aged spy master once explained. “We humans like to think we’re rational beings. But feelings always precede reason.”

  It is a delicate phase. She
needs to release her tense body, allowing the skin itself to become like a sensitive antenna. Yet she cannot afford a complete letting go. Not if it means unleashing the grief and loneliness pent up inside.

  Floating in a shielded nul-gee zone, Gillian lets her horizontal torso respond to the tug of certain objects located outside of the suspension tank, elsewhere in the ship, and beyond. Their influence penetrates the walls, making her sensitized nerves throb and twitch.

  “Articles of Destiny”—that was how an enigmatic Old One described such things, during Streaker’s brief visit to the Fractal System.

  She never got to meet the one who spoke those words. The voice came a great distance, far across that gargantuan edifice of spiky hydrogen ice. The Fractal System was one huge habitat, as wide as a solar system, with a tiny red sun gleaming in its heart. No pursuer could possibly find Streaker in such a vast place, if sanctuary were given.

  “Your ship carries heavy freight,” the voice had said. “As fate-laden a cargo as we ever detected.”

  “Then you understand why we came,” Gillian replied as Streaker’s lean hull passed jutting angles of fantastic crystal, alternating with planet-sized hollows of black shadow. The ship seemed like a pollen grain lost in a giant forest.

  “Indeed. We comprehend your purpose. Your poignant request is being considered. Meanwhile, can you blame us for refusing your invitation to come aboard in person? Or even to touch your vessel’s hull? A hull so recently stroked by dire light?

  “We who dwell here have retired from the ferment of the Five Galaxies. From fleets and star battles and political intrigues. You may or may not receive the help you seek — that has yet to be decided. But do not expect glad welcome. For your cargo reawakens many of the hungers, the urgencies, and irksome obsessions of youth.”

  She tried to play innocent. “The importance of our cargo is overrated. We’ll hand it over gladly, to those who prove impartial and wise.”