Tides of Light

by Gregory Benford

  “Great, great,” Toby said, gazing cautiously around. “We got one.”

  “Cybers don’t stay down, though,” Shibo said.

  “Repair themselves?” Killeen asked, though somehow he already knew the answer.

  “Yeasay, and quick,” Shibo said.

  Toby said, “Mechs did that sometimes. Mantis—”

  “Not this fast,” Shibo said.

  “Makin’ ground?” Killeen asked.

  “Some.”

  “This’s all too easy,” Killeen said.

  Shibo studied his face. “You mean howcome we’re hitting them this time.”

  “And they miss us, too.”

  “Something’s here.”

  “Yeasay.”

  “Your Cyber?”

  “Feels like. Can’t say how.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t understand.”

  “Me either.”

  They all peered between two boulders at the valley floor below. Cermo’s party was pouring down through the last rank of foothills before the dusty plain. Jocelyn was maneuvering the reserves through a maze of arroyos that gave good shelter. The star formation was ragged but moving. Her tack would take the reserves into the vanguard once they emerged from the thick scrub. Killeen could just barely recognize the distant figures with his highest telescope setting.

  “We got Cybers in among us now,” Toby said, and told the women about the screen-thrower they had hit.

  Shibo nodded. An IR burst crackled nearby. “Won’t be long before Jocelyn hits the plain.”

  “See any Cybers comin’?” Besen asked. Her round face held a slight grin that occasionally, for no visible reason, broadened into a sunny smile.

  No one answered for a long moment as they surveyed the valley’s dun-colored jumble sprawling to the horizon. Runoff from the mountain range was cutting a broad new river down the center, fed by several white-water tributaries.

  Shattered mech factories covered the once-flat valley floor. Broken walls stood like snaggled teeth, casting pointed shadows in the late afternoon sun. Evidently Cybers had fought a large battle here before, because mech carapaces littered the ground. Burnt-out mech carcasses of every class were beginning to rust. Killeen reflected uneasily that the Cybers probably knew this terrain quite well.

  Killeen found himself uneasy also at the eager way Besen longed for combat. The years aboard Argo had perhaps given him a sentimental coating that would take a while to wear off. Family Bishop was again a grimly practical band of foragers. He would have to get used to that.

  “Spotted two,” Shibo said. She sent the image into the arrays of the others. Fuzzy forms rippled and danced among the fractured terrain near the broad, muddy river. “They’re messing with our sensoria some way.”

  Toby said, “I get just darts and splashes.”

  “Where?” Killeen asked.

  “Spread all ’cross the valley. Movin’ slow but I can’t get a fix on ’em.” Toby fiddled irritably with the controls on his collar tab.

  Killeen saw the same fitful hints. If each momentary flicker was a Cyber, and not some ruse, the enemy was closing in and there were a lot of them.

  “Let’s get down there,” Shibo said. She sent a call to her party, which was spread across the nearby hills.

  Faint calls over comm told Killeen how matters were going below, even without expanding his sensorium. Halfhearted shouts and the ragged pang-pang-pang of Family microwave volleys implied uncertainty, confusion. As he moved and searched for targets Killeen automatically kept the running tally that anyone, once a commander, never neglected. How many casualties so far? Were their skirmishing lines moving uniformly? Was a salient vulnerable to a flanking attack? Was the star formation closed up, distances between parties short enough for mutual support? Did tactical alignments fit the terrain? Did the constantly shifting fields of fire leave any opening to the enemy?

  The elusive Cybers were harder to judge. How steady was their fire? Were they holding off? Clearly the flitting forms were advancing down the valley, trying to cut off the salient under Cermo’s command.

  For some reason, a firm and unhurried approach was far more intimidating than attackers at a run. But the Cybers’ pace was furtive, odd, seemingly running at angles to what Killeen expected. Still, the Bishops were drawing the main force away from the Tribal attack point for the breakout.

  Up from the fractured valley crisp bolts came echoing. Jocelyn’s vanguard was spilling down onto the plain. A fault line ran straight through the floor of the valley and already streams had converged on the cleft. Waterfalls crashed down from steep jutting ramparts, cutting at the freshly exposed strata. The newly formed river was a muddy finger pointing at the horizon. Against this image Killeen saw the ghostly, wavering dabs of momentary fog-thin light that might be Cybers.

  “Time for the Tribe to make their run,” he said.

  Shibo nodded. “Cybers comin’ fast.”

  Their comms suddenly sprang to life: general call. Jocelyn cried,—Shibo! I’ve hailed His Supremacy three times. I get no answer.—

  “Sure you’re getting through?” Shibo said.

  —Must be. I can pick up his carrier.—

  “You give ’em the start-down code?”

  —Course. Cybers closing in.—

  Killeen said worriedly, “She’s pretty exposed down there.”

  “Let’s go,” Shibo said.

  “We’re serving as flank guard here,” Killeen said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

  Shibo licked her lips. “Won’t need flank enfilade if they’re overrun.”

  “We can provide covering fire when they pull back.”

  Shibo’s mouth compressed. “Let’s go.”

  They all followed her down through the remaining foothills. Killeen agreed with Shibo’s decision when he saw the fire that raked the Bishop skirmish line. The Cybers used few projectiles, so the battle appeared mostly as lancing signatures in the IR or UV or microwave. The bursts struck Bishops and knocked out their systems, sometimes flooding inside powerfully enough to kill. Cermo was taking a lot of hits and Jocelyn had bogged down already. For the first time Killeen was genuinely glad he did not wear the Cap’n’s emblem.

  —Can you hear anything from the Tribe?—Jocelyn sent again.

  “No,” Shibo replied.

  Killeen swore softly. “Combat without comm’s always a mess.”

  Shibo popped the release on her comm. “Supremacy! Hear me?”

  To Killeen’ s surprise the man’ s calm voice immediately replied,—Yes. I have been following the situation.—

  “Then why in hell aren’t your Families breaking into the valley?” she demanded.

  —The Cyber demons are far stronger than I believed. I think it unwise to commit my main body until their full strength is known.—

  “Full—!” Shibo gaped in astonishment. “We’re getting cut up down here!”

  —Regrettable, yes. But I must know more.—

  “We can’t hold ’em long,” she said.

  —Dusk is falling. I think I shall move only under sufficient cover of darkness.—

  Shibo shot a glance at Killeen. “Pull back,” he said.

  “Jocelyn!” Shibo called. “You hear that?”

  —I, I caught some. I can’t believe…—

  “Better believe it. He’ll make his move when he wants, never mind what we planned.” Shibo’s face was a glazed mask of anger.

  —What… what can we do?—Jocelyn’s voice was ragged with fatigue.

  Toby broke in, “Dad? Three Cybers.”

  Killeen followed Toby’s indices in his sensorium. Three flickering images were hardening into substantial forms. The pale ghosts descended the hills just behind their position. “Damn,” Killeen said.

  Shibo took this in instantly and said, “They’ve got the high ground here. Closing fast.”

  Jocelyn sent,—If we retreat we’ll have to fight uphill in the dark.—

  Cybers saw best in the infrare
d. As the land cooled, human body heat would stand out against the background. They had planned to be across the valley by nightfall, holding positions on the far mountain range. Then the Cybers would have no convenient moving targets. Instead, they would have had to attack upslope against a closely ordered line.

  —Let’s make a stand in the valley,—Jocelyn sent sharply.

  Shibo frowned and looked at Killeen. “Why?”

  —His Supremacy must make his break soon. We will be in a good position, can link up.—

  Killeen said, “Assuming he means that.”

  —Why shouldn’t he?—Jocelyn demanded hotly.

  “Could be ’cause he’s sacrificin’ us. We’re foreign. We’ve already given him trouble. Killin’ us off’ll take the Cybers time.”

  Shibo nodded slowly. Besen and Toby looked stiff and grim.

  —I, I don’t know if I agree with that.—Jocelyn’s clear, commanding tone had slipped into hesitation.

  Toby said, “Dad, looks like two more Cybers’ve worked ’round behind us.”

  Killeen checked and saw the trap closing. “Jocelyn better be right. We got no choice now.”

  “Not much time,” Besen said. Her face was drawn, her eyes large.

  Shibo threw Killeen a despairing glance. He replied, “Start thinkin’. Must be some way out.”

  Without a word they all began running toward the main body. Ahead, Bishops fired and fled and fell.

  FOURTEEN

  Quath knew only one imperative in the clangor of combat: the Nought. Her Nought.

  The Nought excursion had come down the mountainside at a considerable distance from Quath, surprising her with their speed. Beq’qdahl and her gang had moved to intersect them. Quath had watched them speeding up the broad, jumbled valley below.

  Her own progress across the high, broken strata was slower. She called out to the Tukar’ramin for help.

  *Chaos reigns here, Quath’jutt’kkal’thon. Insurrection infests our Hive.* The Tukar’ramin’s heavy, somber musks shot powerfully through Quath’s electro-aura.

 

  *Know that I understand. But I am besieged here in what was once my grand province.*

  Quath sent desperate lacings of need.

  *I can spare no more. I sent help twice but both groups were ambushed. The renegade podia who jump to the command of the divisive faction of the Illuminates—they clog the passages nearby. Such heresy! Such treason!*

  Quath clambered across gutted mech carcasses, crunching them without taking notice. She did not doubt that the Tukar’ramin was in the right, but prudence alone should be her guide now.

  *Remain loyal to our injunction! The glorious Illuminates, the leaders of the true Path—they still say the Noughts of the ancient ship must be found.*

  Quath replied.

  *You must escape with it. Return to their aged vessel.*

 

  *The shuttle landing fields are captured by the renegade podia. They are everywhere!*

  Quath saw that her view of events had been hopelessly narrow. She had fretted over issues of fate and death, while all around her, no doubt, podia had conspired and schemed. Insurrection against the Tukar’ramin! Worse, the revolt was fueled by division among the Illuminates. The idea still dizzied her.

 

  *I barely hold my fastness in the Hive.* This admission rode on a gravid undercurrent of black dismay.

 

  *You are better equipped than they. Remember, they outfitted hastily for their slimy task.*

 

  *I can render no help, Quath.*

  This somber hormone-tinged message sobered Quath as she struggled down the mountainside. Noughts already sprang and dashed among the lower foothills. Their agility made them difficult targets. These were swifter and more crafty than the packs she had slain so long ago, in defense of betrayer Beq’qdahl.

  She saw Beq’qdahl now, a pale fog seeping among some smashed mech buildings. Her defenses were good, then. To delay them Quath would need guile and craft abounding.

  She stretched a cone of electrointerrogation down among the Noughts. Now that their own small auras pulsed readily, she could enter them more deeply. She did—and recoiled.

  How could she have missed this? The many flavors of Nought separated into two groups. Not a crude set, like digital/analog or acoustic/magnetic, but an ancient distinction: sex.

  She had known these Noughts still kept the rudimentary mechanism laid down by simple evolution. She had experienced it earlier, when she entered the male Nought. Now she saw why she had been unable to extricate herself readily from its swampy clutch. To them, sex was an absolute bedrock. It defined them powerfully. Quath’s inability to untie these primordial knots in the Nought mind had nearly trapped her.

  Had they not learned to banish such primitive and blinding forces in the personality? The podia had long ago seen the male as irrelevant, easily supplanted by genetic tailoring. Some were kept in preserves on the homeworld, but only for historical interest.

  Among the Noughts, though, the sharp tang of sex clouded every perception, every judgment. How could they think in such a howling storm?

  She sifted through the scattershot scents and harmonies of the Nought pack as it went into battle. So many conflicting emotions! And not delegated to subminds, either. Instead, myriad impulses fought and scurried across the open stage of the sole mind. Factions shouted and clashed inside each Nought. Instinct, reason, the whole motley company of hormone-steeped emotions—each breathed in the veils of sex that spiced every fervent moment.

  What impossible complexity! No wonder they seemed so antic. Their inner worlds were scenes of endless combats.

  This further clouded her search. Just as she despaired, though, she sniffed her own Nought. Here it was—safe! Her antennae picked up tangs of it below, moving fast.

  Its aura mingled with another’s—the Nought Quath had briefly occupied before. The two of them were circling one of the podia. Quath clattered downhill. If she could get within range—

  The two Noughts were clearly planning on assaulting the hexpodder. Quath was too far away to be sure she could hit the podder without striking the Noughts. Instead, she pried up the musky layers of her own Nought’s mind, searching for some inlet.

  There. Quickly she injected a lump of knowledge about the hexpodder. It would be jarring to the Nought, but perhaps it could assimilate the data.

  Yes—she watched as the Noughts struck the podder cleanly with disabling shots.

  Good. She could help them somewhat. But would she be smarter to simply collect it and scurry away?

  No, there was something else. As she settled into the back recesses of her Nought’s electro-aura she felt springy threads of connection. It was linked to others here. The web vibrated and undulated with a curious song of thick emotion and feral, emerald instinct.

  As the Noughts scampered downslope Quath struggled to understand this new facet. Though each Nought imagined itself quite individual, beneath their consciousness lay thick, sinewy connections. They operated proudly alone yet yearned for union. That was why sex had such heft for them. To disconnect the Nought from the others would do it severe injury. While her orders from the Tukar’ramin were clearly to excise this one Nought, she saw now that this would not work. Noughts did not live by head alone.

  She had scarcely sensed any of the depth of this Nought when she had carried it down from orbit. She had ignored its pain of separation from its kind. Now she saw that Nought links, if severed, damaged all.

  The two Noughts met others. One produced a sharp, eager spike throughout her own Nought’s buzzing self. Here was true resonance. Her Nought felt a symphony of urgings heavily laced with the com
plex musk of sex.

  No, she could not yank it from these strange moorings. She would have to devise some better way.

  Meanwhile, booming shots and rattling near-misses caromed through the foothills. Quath ran desperately toward the valley floor, where a battle was beginning. One of Beq’qdahl’s gang sighted in on her Nought below. Quath sent a crackling blast into the podder. It tumbled over and began to smoke.

  Good. This podder was a stranger to Quath, and she was able to brush away the stigma that came welling up from her subminds. But in the valley was Beq’qdahl, and Quath did not know what she could do there. She felt a hard, sinewy knot of conflict arise in her. She tried to force it down into her subminds but they would not accept the bulked fibers. It churned in her like a bleeding pink cyst. Could she truly kill her own kind in defense of a Nought?

  Quath could not unravel the bristly knot. She ran on.

  FIFTEEN

  As Killeen approached Jocelyn’s small command party he checked his pace. It was a bad idea to display haste or anxiety. That would unsteady others.

  Then it occurred to him that he was thinking like a Cap’n. At the beginning of the battle he had relished his freedom; now it seemed a hollow pleasure.

  “Reporting,” he said simply as he reached Jocelyn. She crouched behind a broken mech-factory wall, listening intently to her comm. Her face was drawn and smudged with dirt, but her eyes danced with nervous energy. She had ordered him down from Shibo’s position commanding the hill.

  Jocelyn gave him a look of harried relief. “Killeen—good.” She seemed to have to dredge her words out of some inner struggle. Breathing heavily, she sat down on an overturned mech carapace. Factory debris littered everywhere. “I… I’m afraid His Supremacy has decided against the breakout.”

  Killeen said nothing, just nodded.

  Surprised, Jocelyn asked, “You think it’s because we pulled out last time?”

  “That guy’s crazy. Pointless, tryin’ figure him out.”

  Jocelyn pursed her lips, obviously gathering her resources. A microwave burst hissed past nearby. Killeen saw that Cybers had moved closer in from the hills, cutting off the cover of undulating terrain. Family Bishop had formed a skirmish line along the river. They maneuvered now among the shattered rock that bordered the deep fault line. Twilight cast long blue fingers from each protrusion now. As Family members fell back from the gullies and dry washes their shadows made them even more prominent targets.