by David Brin
The ring stack shivered. Trails of waxy pus trickled from twin wounds on either side, where the vlenned rings had made their escape.
I could try to find out.… Try talking to—
But Lark saw an orderliness to the trembling toruses. A systematic rhythm. Almost regimented. Warbling sounds escaped the speaking vent.
“H-h-h-alt, humans.… I/WE COMMAND … obedience…
The voice wavered unevenly, but gained strength with each passing dura.
Ling met his eyes. There was instant rapport.
Asx had gone to a lot of trouble to provide gifts.
Time to give them a try.
“STOP THAT!” Ewasx adjured. “You are required to … desist.…”
Fortunately, the Jophur’s limbs were still locked in rigor. The lowermost set shivered with resistance when the master ring tried to make them move.
Asx is still fighting for us, Lark realized, knowing it could not last.
“Use the purple one,” he told Ling, who cradled the larger newborn torus. “Asx said it opens locks.”
She lifted her eyes doubtfully, but presented the ring to a flat plate beside the door. They had seen Ewasx touch it whenever the Jophur wanted to leave the cell. Meanwhile, Lark used his frayed shirt as a sling to carry the smaller, crimson traeki. The one cruelly injured by Rann. The one Lark was supposed to deliver to the High Sages — an impossible task, even if the mangled thing survived.
A moan echoed from behind Ewasx. It was the Danik warrior, rousing at last. Come on! Lark urged silently, though Ling almost surely had never used such a key to force a lock.
The purple ring oozed a clear fluid from pores near the plate. Clickety sounds followed, as the door mechanism seemed to consider.…
Then, with a faint hiss, it opened!
He hurried through with Ling, ignoring bitter Jophur curses that followed them until the portal shut again.
“Where now?” Ling asked.
“You’re asking me?” He laughed. “You said Galactic ships are standardized!”
She frowned. “The Rothen don’t have any battlecruisers like this beast. Neither does Earth. We’d be lucky to glimpse one from afar … and even luckier to escape after seeing it.”
Lark felt spooky, standing half-naked in an alien passageway filled with weird aromas. A Jophur might enter this stretch of corridor at any moment, or else a war robot, come to hunt them down.
The floor plates began vibrating, low at first, but with a rising mechanical urgency.
“Just guess,” he urged, trying to offer an encouraging smile.
Ling answered with a shrug. “Well, if we keep going in one direction, sooner or later we’re bound to reach hull. Come on, then. Standing still is the worst thing we can do.”
The hallways were deserted.
Occasionally, they hurried past some large chamber and glimpsed Jophur forms within, standing before oddly curved instrument stations, or mingled in swaying groups, communing with clouds of vapor. But the stacks rarely moved. As a biologist, Lark could not help speculating.
They’re descended from sedentary creatures, almost sessile. Even with the introduction of master rings, they’d retain some traeki ways, like preferring to work in one place, relatively still.
Lark found it bizarre, striding past closed doors for more than an arrowflight — then another, and a third — using their passkey ring to open armored hatches along the way, meeting no one. Asx must have taken this into account, giving us even odds of reaching an airlock and…
Lark wondered.
And then what? If there are sky boats or hover plates, Ling might understand their principles, but how will she operate controls made for Jophur tentacles?
Maybe we should just head for the engine room. Try to break some machinery. Cause some inconvenience before they finally shoot us down.
Ling picked up the pace, a growing eagerness in her steps. Perhaps she sensed something in the thickness of the armored doors, or the subtly curved wall joins, indicating they were close.
The next hatch slid aside — and without warning they suddenly faced their first Jophur.
Ling gasped and Lark’s knees almost failed him. He felt an overpowering impulse to spin around and run away, though it was doubtless already too late. The thing was bigger than Ewasx, with component rings that shimmered a glossy, extravagant health he had never seen on a Jijoan traeki.
The way Rann compares to me, Lark thought numbly.
During that brief instant, his companion lifted the purple ring, aiming it like a gun at the big Jophur.
A stream of scent vapor jetted toward the stack.
It hesitated … then raised up on a dozen insectoid legs and sidled past the two humans, proceeding down the hall.
Lark stared after it, numbly.
What was that? A recognition signal? A forged safeconduct pass?
He could imagine that Asx — wherever the traeki sage had concealed a sliver of self — must have observed all the chemical codes a Jophur used to get around the ship. What Lark could not begin to picture was what kind of consciousness that implied. How could one deliberately hide a personality within a personality, when the new master ring was in charge, pulling all the strings?
The Jophur rounded a corner, moving on about its business.
Lark turned to look at Ling. She met his eyes and together they both let out a hard sigh.
The airlock was filled with machinery, though no boats or hover plates. They closed the inner door and hurried to the other side, applying the trusty passkey ring, eager to see blue sky and smell Jijo’s fresh wind. If they were lucky, and this portal faced the lake, it might even be possible to leap down to the water. Surviving that, their escape could be cut off at any point, once they passed into the Jophur defense perimeter. But none of that seemed to matter right now. The two of them felt eager, indomitable.
Lark still cradled the injured red ring, wondering what the sages were supposed to do with it.
Perhaps Asx expects us to recruit commandos and return with exploser bombs, using these rings to gain entry.…
His thoughts arrested as the big hatch rolled aside. Their first glimpse was not of daylight, but stars.
An instant’s shivering worry passed through his mind before he realized — this was not outer space, but nighttime in the Rimmers. A flood of bracing, cool air made Lark instantly ebullient. I could never leave Jijo, he knew. It’s my home.
A pale glow washed out the constellations where a serrated border crossed the sky — the outline of eastern mountains. It would be dawn soon. A time of hopeful beginnings?
Ling held out her free hand for Lark to take as they strode to the edge and looked down.
“So far, so good,” she said, and he shared her gladness at the sight of glinting moonlight, sparkling on water. “It’s still dim outside. The lake will mask our heat sign. And this time there will be no computer cognizance to give us away.”
Nor convenient breathing tubes, to let us stay safe underwater, he almost added, but Lark didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm.
“Let’s see if there’s anything we can use to get down to the lake, without having to jump,” Ling added. Together they inspected the equipment shelves lining one wall of the airlock, until she cried out excitedly. “I found a standard cable reel! Now if only I can figure out the altered controls …”
While Ling examined the metal spool, Lark felt a change in the low vibration that had been growling in the background ever since they escaped their prison cell. The resonance began to rise in pitch and force, until it soon filled the air with a harsh keening.
“Something’s happening,” he said. “I think—”
Just then the battleship took a sudden jerk, almost knocking them both to the floor. Ling dropped the cable, barely missing her foot.
A second noise burst in through the open door of the airlock. An awful grinding din, as if Jijo herself were complaining. Lark recognized the scraping of metal against rock.
“Ifni!�
�� Ling cried. “They’re taking off!”
Helping each other, fighting for balance, they reached the outer hatch and looked down again, staring aghast at a spectacle of pent-up nature, suddenly unleashed.
Well, so much for jumping in the lake, he thought. The Jophur ship was rising glacially, but the first few dozen meters were crucial, removing the dam that had drowned the valley under a transient reservoir. At once, the Festival Glade was transformed into a roiling tempest. Submerged trees tore loose from their sodden roots. Stones fell crashing into the maelstrom as mud banks were undermined. While the battlecruiser climbed complacently, a vast flood of murky water and debris rushed downstream, pummeling everything in its path, pouring toward distant, unsuspecting plains.
Too late, Lark realized. We were too late making our escape. Now we’re trapped inside.
As if to seal the fact, a light flashed near the open hatch, which began to close. An automatic safety measure, he figured, for a starship taking off. Lark barely suppressed an overpowering temptation to dive through the narrowing gap, despite the deadly chaos waiting below.
Ling squeezed his hand fiercely as they caught a passing glimpse of something shiny and round-shouldered — a slick, elongated dome, uncovered by retreating waters. Even under pale predawn light, they recognized the Rothen-Danik ship, still shut within a prison of quantum time.
Then the armored portal sealed with a boom and hiss, cutting off the all-too-fleeting breeze. Trapped inside, they stared at the cruel hatch.
“We’re heading north,” Lark said. It was the one last thing he had noticed, watching the ravaged valley pass below.
“Come on,” Ling answered pragmatically. “There must be someplace to hide aboard this bloated ship.”
Nelo
STILL A FEW LEAGUES SHORT OF THEIR GOAL, THE zealots realized they were surrounded. They spent the night huddled in the marsh, counting the campfires of regiments loyal to the High Sages. Squeezed between militia units from Biblos and Nelo’s pursuing detachment, the rebels surrendered at first light.
There was little ceremony, and few weapons for the rabble to give up. Most of their fanatical ardor had been used up by the hard slog across a quagmire where mighty Buyur towers once reared toward the sky. Already bedraggled, Jop and his followers marched in a ragged column toward the Bibur, enduring taunts from former neighbors.
“Go ahead an’ look!” Nelo pushed the tree farmer toward a bluff where everyone could look across the wide river at shimmering cliffs, still immersed in dawn’s long shadows. Oncoming daylight revealed a vast cave underneath, chiseled centuries ago by the Earthship Tabernacle. Two dozen huge pillars supported the Fist of Stone, hovering like a suspended sentence, just above a cluster of quaint wooden buildings, each fashioned to resemble some famed structure of Terran heritage — such as the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and the Main Library of San Diego, California.
“The Archive stands,” Nelo told his enemy. “You wanted to bring the Fist crashing down, but it ain’t gonna happen. And in a couple o’ years I’ll be makin’ paper again. It was all for nothin’, Jop. The lives you wasted, and the property. You achieved nothing.”
Nelo saw Jop’s bitterness redouble when they reached a new semaphore station, set up directly across the water from Biblos, where they learned about the rocket attack, the destruction of one Jophur ship, and the rumored damage of another. Young militia soldiers shouted jubilation to learn that last night’s distant “thunderstorm” had instead been the unleashed fury of the Six Races, taking vengeance for the poor g’Kek.
A few older faces were grim. The militia captain warned that this was but a single battle in a war the Commons of Jijo could hardly hope to win.
Nelo refused to think about that. Instead, he kept his promise to Ariana Foo, by handing over her message for transmission. Light-borne signals flew better at night, but the operator refired his lamp when he saw Ariana’s name on the single sheet of paper. While that bulletin went out, the captain looked into getting transportation across the Bibur, where showers and clean clothes waited.
And sleep, Nelo thought. Yet, despite fatigue, he somehow felt younger than he had in ages, as if the tiring chase through swamplands had stripped years away, leaving him a virile warrior of long ago.
Leaning against a tree, Nelo let his eyes close for a little while, his mind turning back to plans for a rebuilt paper mill.
Our first job will be helping the blues put their dam back together. Do it right, this time. Less worrying about camouflage and more about getting good power output. As long as I’m at Biblos, I might as well look into copying some designs.…
Nelo’s head jerked up when a carpentry apprentice from Dolo shouted his name. The lad had been reading last night’s semaphore messages, affixed on the wall of the relay post.
“I just saw your daughter’s name,” the young man told him. “She’s on Mount Guenn!”
Nelo took three jerky steps forward … as Jop did exactly the same thing. The farmer’s expression showed the same surprise. His shock and dismay contrasted with Nelo’s joy at hearing that one of his children lived.
Sara! The papermaker’s mind whirled. In the name of the founders, how did she find herself on Mount Guenn?
He hurried over to the shed, eager to learn more. Perhaps there would be word of Dwer and Lark, as well!
At that moment, a shout erupted from one of the operators inside the semaphore hut. While the sender kept on clicking his key, transmitting Ariana Foo’s message, the receiver burst out through the door, a middle-aged woman waving a paper covered with hurried scrawls.
“Mess … mess …” She ran for the militia captain, gasping urgently.
“Message from lookouts,” she cried. “The Jophur … the Jophur ship is coming this way!”
It did not swoop or plummet. The star vessel was far too vast for that.
A haze of suspended dust accompanied its passage above forest or open ground, but when the immense sky mountain moved ponderously over the Bibur, the waters went ominously still. The glassy-smooth footprint spread even wider than its shadow.
Keep going, Nelo prayed. Just pass us by. Keep going.…
But the great cruiser evidently had plans right here, arresting its forward momentum directly over the river, in plain sight of the Great Archive.
Now it was Nelo’s turn to glower as he glimpsed grim satisfaction pass over Jop’s face. Someone must’ve snitched, he thought. Rumors told of Jophur emissaries, establishing outposts in tiny hamlets, imperiously demanding information. Sooner or later some zealot or scroll thumper would have blabbed about this place.
No slashing rays fell from the mighty battleship. No rain of bombs, taking vengeance for its little brother, lost the night before.
Instead, a few small portals opened in its side. About two dozen robots descended, fluttering lazily until they reached hoon height above the water, where they turned in formation and streaked toward Biblos.
A second wave emerged from the great ship, floating down more slowly on wide plates of burnished black. Tapered cones rode those flat conveyances, like stacks of glossy pancakes, each pile on its own flying skillet.
Even before the Jophur party reached the walls of the hidden city, the space dreadnought began moving again, turning its massive bulk to head back the way it came, roughly south by southeast, gaining altitude at an accelerating pace. By the time Nelo lost it in the glare of the rising sun, the cruiser had climbed above the highest clouds.
Crowds gathered at the riverbank, peering at the opposite shore. Biblos still lay immersed in nightlike shadows. By contrast, the robots glittered till they passed under the Fist of Stone, followed by their Jophur masters.
After that, Nelo and the others had to rely on the militia captain, peering through binoculars, to relate what was happening.
“Each Jophur is entering a different building, guarded by several robots. Some use the front door … but one just sent its servants to smash open a wall and go in t
hat way.
“They’re all inside now … and people are running out! Humans, hoons, qheuens … there’s a g’Kek … his left wheel is smoking. I think he’s been shot.”
The crowd murmured frustration, but there was nothing to do. Nothing anybody could do.
“I see militia squads! Mostly humans with some urs and hoons. They’ve got rifles … the new kind with mulctipped bullets. They’re running toward the Science Building!
“They’re splitting up, skirmish style, using opposite doors to sneak in from both sides at once.”
Nelo clenched his hands as he stared across the Bibur. At the same time, he wondered why the great battleship would come all this way, yet not tarry to destroy the center of Jijoan intellectual life.
I guess the cruiser had other matters to attend to Anyway, it’ll be back to pick up their foray party.
There was one hope. Maybe there are some rockets left after last night. Perhaps they’ll catch the cruiser, before it can return.
There was always that hope — though it seemed unlikely the Jophur would be fooled a second time.
Across the river he could see a flood of refugees — scholars, librarians, and students — pouring out of sally ports and over the battlements. There weren’t many g’Kek among the fugitives. Nor traeki. Both races appeared doomed to stay within, destined for different fates, both of them unpleasant.
He wondered, What do the aliens want with our Library? To check out some books and take ’em back home to read?
In fact, that bizarre notion made sense.
I’ll bet the rocket attack made ’em realize we have tricks up our sleeve. Suddenly they’re interested in what we know, and how we know it. They’ll scan our books to find out what other nasty surprises we might come up with.
Something was happening in the shadowed cave. Distant popping sounds carried across the river, doubtless from within the Hall of Science.
“They’re coming out!” the captain announced. His grip on the binoculars stiffened. “The rifle squads … they’re in retreat … dragging their wounded, trying to cover each other. They’re …”
He lowered the glasses. The officer’s eyes were bleak and he stood silently, completely overcome.
