Great Sky River

by Gregory Benford

  “The second part!” he demanded.

  Oh, yes. It is ambiguous. I do not understand how this can be true. The message comes from a solid craft voyaging somehow through the strange seas of time within the Eater. Yet it is addressed to you, the lowest form I have ever witnessed. I must not have fathomed its true import.

  “Let me have it!”

  Very well. I go now in haste. Your message says:

  Do not rebuild a Citadel. They will crush you there. Believe you this of me, for I still live, and I am your father.

  ELEVEN

  They came straggling into Metropolis. The last distance they had covered on foot through a brisk warm wind, and that was when the fatigue came on. Killeen had managed to doze a bit on the Crafter’s hull after the magnetic being had gone away. Then he had fallen asleep, like everybody else, in the Duster that brought them all back to the original landing plain.

  The Mantis had come with them. It had necked itself down to a tight assembly of rods and oval compartments in order to fit inside the Duster. Now it wanted to stay beyond the range of hills ringing Metropolis until the right time to appear.

  The magnetic being had said no more after delivering its strange last message. Killeen did not think about that or anything else. He was tired. He carried Toby piggyback for the last part because the boy had finally given out. The aftereffects of Toby’s injury and the mech treatment came home and he could barely stay awake.

  The Kings had gotten everybody fancied up for their arrival. Evidently Hatchet had always made an event out of his return from a raid. So as soon as people in Metropolis picked up the party’s scent in their sensoria, Kings and Rooks and Bishops flocked to greet them.

  As the party trickled in, not talking and not carrying much booty, the cheering died away. After they saw that Hatchet was not in the party, none of the Kings had much to say. Killeen just kept walking, carrying Toby through the dusty dawn light. Jocelyn and some of the Bishops came out and tried to talk but he carried Toby into his small hut and put the boy to bed.

  By that time Ledroff and Fornax were speaking with the rest of the party but Killeen did not go out to them. He sat for a moment on his own bed, his thinking going like gravel sliding downhill. Then he was blinking awake hours later with blades of yellow Denixlight striking him in the face.

  He judged the time by where Denix hung against a distant backdrop of dark stardust. Though he had not slept more than a few hours, he felt rested. What was left of the fatigue became a mildness that he could feel giving him a sure sense of purpose. He checked on Toby, who slept sprawled open and easy.

  Seeing his son, he remembered when the spectacle of Toby’s breathing had transfixed him in this room. It had been so long ago. Seeing Toby again, but this time knowing his son would come bounding up as soon as he awoke, was worth every bit of what had happened. And worth what would come next.

  Then he went outside.

  It went with Ledroff much the way Killeen had expected it. He listened, nodding every once in a while to show he was paying attention, but thinking ahead. There would have to be a Witnessing, yes, he saw that. No, he didn’t want to say that he had shot Hatchet by mistake while he was trying to hit the other thing. Yes, he was sure of that. Of course he understood that this was a serious matter. Yes, the others were right, the Mantis was staying out of Metropolis. There was no threat from it right away No, Killeen did not want to see the woman Hatchet lived with and explain to her how it had happened. That would come out in the Witnessing. He would speak for himself and didn’t need Ledroff to say anything much or make a plea to the assembled Families. Of course he saw that this was a serious matter. Of course.

  Ledroff had Killeen’s hut searched. Just a precaution, Ledroff said. He confiscated the small flask of alcohol in Killeen’s carrypack. Killeen chuckled quietly when Ledroff stalked out with the flask held contemptuously at arm’s length. He understood that the Cap’n meant it to be both a humiliation and a way to undercut Killeen’s status with others. What Ledroff did not know was that such things did not matter to Killeen anymore.

  He went back inside but Toby wasn’t awake yet. Killeen watched his boy for a while, thinking. His Aspects sent tinny voices lacing through his sensorium, plucking at his attention. He could feel their anxiety building.

  Shibo came by. They rounded up some food for their carrypacks and checked out their equipment. This habit came from the years of running; you got ready to move again, first thing after you stopped.

  Toby woke up and wanted to go out. Reluctantly Killeen went along, but guided them away from Metropolis. He did not want to meet people and talk about what had happened.

  They strolled into the nearby hills, saying little. Shibo confirmed Killeen’s guess. While they had slept, she said, the Mantis had spoken to Ledroff and Fornax. It had offered to shelter them in Metropolis.

  The Mantis knew something of human psychology. It framed its arguments as an even bargain.

  The Mantis said it would protect Metropolis, using artful deception of its superiors. It would deflect Marauders away. It would only “harvest” old people, when they were near death anyway.

  In return—and here the Mantis revealed its understanding of human pride—the Families would undertake raids on selected mech cities. What they stole would provide the Mantis with barter goods. These it could use to amass wealth in mech society. Finally, neatly tying the loop, this added power of the Mantis would enable it to in turn cover the presence of the vermin humans.

  Killeen was numbed by Shibo’s clear explanation. The proposition was clever. It let humanity retain some of its dignity. To a Metropolis still shocked by the loss of Hatchet, it would seem a godsend.

  And Killeen could see no way to counter it.

  They walked through low canyons between steep hills. Toby showed no fatigue and even dashed about, chasing the vagrant small animals who lived beneath scrub bushes.

  Shibo said little, just reported what people were saying. Ledroff and Fornax had told several of the Mantis’s presence beyond Metropolis, and rumors spread everywhere.

  The Witnessing to come would first take up Hatchet’s death. Then it would move to the discussion of the Mantis’s proposal.

  Killeen said sourly, “I think I can predict what they’ll decide.”

  “Yeasay,” Shibo said forlornly.

  From up a nearby arroyo came a woman’s shout. “Hail! Killeen, Shibo—is that you?”

  From behind a knot of bushes came a mech. Killeen automatically reached for a weapon and then saw that it was the manmech, last seen back at the mechplex.

  “I have journeyed far, pursuing you,” the womanly voice called.

  The mech was dusty, dented, and marred. Broken links hung from its treads.

  Shibo gaped. “How… ?”

  “I attached a tracer to Toby’s ankle. See?”

  The mech gestured with an extruded arm at Toby’s boots. A tiny patch no larger than a fingernail was stuck there. “I know the ways of mech transport. I followed your trail until I saw that you had returned to your Duster. It took a while to find an air-hauler I could assume command of. But I did, and have followed you. Ruff!”

  Toby laughed. “The dog mech.”

  Killeen shook his head wonderingly “I’m afraid things’ve changed since we saw you.”

  The woman’s voice was incongruous, coming from the mech’s speaker. “I sighted a large mech as I approached. I believe it could be quite dangerous. It moves among these hills. You should alert the human community here—”

  “We know,” Toby said. “It’s the Mantis.”

  The manmech went on enthusiastically, “Very well then. Still, I must follow my time-honored injunction. I remind you, humans, that I need only the correct key to deliver to you information.”

  Killeen shook his head tiredly. “Don’t think old lore’s much use now. See, we—”

  “No, wait,” Toby said. “Dad, ’member what that thing in the sky said?”

  “What
—the magnetic mind? Listen, I didn’t understand much what it said either, and—”

  “We figured it said somethin” ’bout old things,” Toby said earnestly. “A city or somethin’, right?”

  Killeen frowned. “I doubt it, but… let’s see, what’d it say…?”

  Shibo said precisely, “Do not build a Citadel.”

  Killeen smiled without humor. “Good advice, but too late. Citadels draw Marauders. Metropolis isn’t any Citadel, but it’s already built.”

  Toby added, “There was somethin’ else. Right—it said. ’AskfortheArgo.’”

  Suddenly the manmech cried, “Ruff! The sanctioned key! Thank you! Thank you!”

  They all stared at the mech as it spun with joy on its treads, barking.

  “Argo! Argo! This word is my key. It licenses me to deliver my message at last.”

  Killeen asked, “Argo? Some old human city?”

  “Oh no! Argo is a ship. Long ago my brothers and I concealed it. I know the place. I know where the Argo lies!”

  Toby said wonderingly, “A ship…”

  Killeen consulted his Face, Bud, and asked, “For oceans?” He shrugged. “No big water left on Snowglade.”

  “No! It navigates between stars. The craft was completed long ago. I helped bury it. It can sail toward the Mandikini.”

  “In the sky?” Shibo asked doubtfully.

  “Yes! Humanity made the Argo especially to accept only human-tinged commands. I and a hundred of my brothers were charged with carrying information of its location. If humanity ever needed a long-voyager, and could not fashion one themselves, we were to speak. But only to the descendants of those who made the Argo—such as are you, since you know the key word, the ship itself!” The manmech finished with a resounding bark.

  The three humans stared at one another, startled.

  The manmech spun again, rattling and churning. “Ruff! I stand ready! Ruff. Message ends! Ruff!”

  He had no warning. The attack came as he walked back into Metropolis with Shibo and Toby. They were talking to the manmech, which ground along on noisy, grating treads.

  Toby chattered at his side, eyes alive with bright visions.

  In a distracted moment, Killeen’s own Aspects struck at him.

  He wavered, stumbled, and fell in what felt to him to be a pinwheel dive forward into a thin patch of aromatic grass.

  A tide rushed in him. All his Aspects and Faces yammered at once. Quick hot spikes of protest shot up from an undercurrent of low moaning fear.

  It was a chorus that swelled into a lifting, surging wave. Each voice lapped over others. They invaded his arms, legs, and chest with icy rivulets. His muscles jerked. The hammering shouts coursed through his veins and struck coldly into his tightening gut. He opened his mouth to cry out and they jammed that, too, lockjawing his aching hinge joints.

  They had seen what he was thinking.

  Aspects and Faces were old, conservative, wedded to Snowglade.

  A wave of shrill fear broke through him. His heels drummed against the grass. Milky white flooded his eyes, blotting out Toby and Shibo, who were reaching for him, their mouths moving soundlessly like fish behind glass. Killeen fought against the swelling ancestral yammering.

  He tried to slip away from them, escape down into his sensorium. They followed everywhere, striking chilly spikes into the crevices where he fled.

  Don’t risk us! a dozen voices cried. Never leave the homeworld!

  He writhed. He felt his body only distantly, through a narrow gray tunnel. His feet and hands scrabbled at the soil. These came as slow percussions, as though he was numbed by creeping cold.

  And still the high-pitched babble washed through him. Burnt-yellow anxiety spurted, yowling. Below it groaned a mad bass undercurrent of foreboding.

  Coward! Do not flee!

  The shouts came to him through watery light.

  Rebuild the sacred Citadels. The Holy Clauses demand it!

  Killeen struggled against a downsucking wave of anger. He was drowning in a sea of insects.

  They splashed against him and crawled into his nostrils. Tiny shouts plucked at his skin. Pincers stung his flesh. He tried to breathe and inhaled a tickling, tinkling chorus.

  Fool! Ingrate!

  Traitor you are!

  Centuries labored we here. Dare flee it now? Think not of us?

  We belong here. Snowglade is humanity’s true home.

  Run now you would with tail between legs? Coward!

  He felt himself weakening.

  Tiny feelers plunged through his sinuses. Antennae choked him.

  His lungs filled with a black army.

  Then his furiously kicking heels nicked something solid.

  The waters were a living mass of tiny scrabbling legs.

  He rolled in a crashing insect wave. He struggled for air and his legs sought the firm rock beneath.

  Caught it again.

  Pushed down. Stood.

  Wriggling masses lapped at him.

  Plucked at his skin.

  Swarmed and cried and splashed.

  He was standing in the wash of a pounding storm that blew in from far offshore. The waves of tiny voracious minds came steadily, shouting at him, licking mouths in every droplet. Moist tongues lashed at him. But he dug in his heels and the next wave did not overpower him. He fought against the swirling currents. Then the riptide tried to draw him away, tugging at his feet.

  If he had been standing on sand, the rushing insect waters could have undermined him, cut away his footing.

  But it was rock. Hard and solemn stone.

  And it carried the stiff, brittle feel of the Mantis.

  He backed toward the shore, always keeping his eye on the incoming toppling combers of mad mouths. They sucked at him with bloody lips. He stepped carefully, always gripping the rock with his toes, feeling his way, the stone his true anchor.

  The currents lashed and fought and then finally ebbed. He struggled ashore against a strong tide. Then he puffed and coughed, spitting out the motes, blowing his nose clear of sticky mucus. As the slimy stuff struck the rocks it cried out sharply in vain tenor despair.

  Cool droplets of tiny biting pincers oozed down his legs and puddled on the crisp warm sand. He shook the screaming insect minds from his hair, cricked them forth from the corners of his eyes. Their wails dwindled.

  He looked at a yellow glow high up the sky. It dried him.

  Then he was staring faceup into slanting blades of pale pure Denixlight.

  Shibo said, “He’s blinking. Are you… ?”

  “Yeasay. I’m here.”

  “Aspect storm?”

  “Yeasay. I… something…”

  He felt the solid stone still pressing against his heels. He glanced at the circle of anxious faces peering down at him.

  “It was… the Mantis,” discovering this and saying it in the same instant. “It came, gave me a standing place. Leverage. So I could fight them down.”

  “Mantis?” Shibo asked wonderingly.

  He was still panting and the air cut clear into his lungs. Memories of the horde seeped away. “It… knows about… what it calls ’sentient information.’ Can keep subsystems… Aspects… in line.”

  “You can stand?”

  “It did somethin’ more, too. When the Aspects opened up, the Mantis could reach them. And farther in, too. Undid some stuff I got in there. I can feel it… different.”

  “You need rest.” Shibo wiped his brow with a cloth and he was surprised to see it come away sopping wet.

  “The Aspects, they… saw what I was thinking.”

  Shibo frowned. “Did Mantis?”

  “Don’t think it had time.”

  “You think there’s… hope?”

  “Yeasay.”

  Shibo’s face of planes and angles showed relief and lingering puzzlement.

  I can solve that puzzle, he thought. The abrupt idea seemed both odd and yet certainly right, obvious.

  Then Toby was hu
gging him and sobbing with long-stored tears that seemed to patter down on Killeen from the limitless sky. Arms wrapped around him. Hands helped him up. The manmech barked. They crowded around, talking and patting and asking.

  TWELVE

  There was not much time to rest before the Witnessing. Killeen lay for a while thinking and then people came knocking tentatively at the door of his hut.

  They were Bishops. Killeen talked to them in turn, not being too specific but telling them the outlines of what he had learned. He spoke calmly and with assurance, feeling a certainty he never had before.

  But not true assurance, he reminded himself. When he momentarily wondered what to say, he would ask himself what Fanny would have done. Often he was not sure but he got through the difficult points somehow.

  He could see in the faces of the other Bishops a surprise that evolved into interest and then agreement. A grudging agreement for some of them, but he sensed that it would stick. As word had spread about the Mantis, about Hatchet and what the man had been doing, everyone in the Families was sobered. Some Rooks came by, too.

  After they had eaten some baked sharproot, Shibo and Toby and Killeen went for another walk around Metropolis, just exercising the boy’s legs. They left the manmech sitting inert, its solar panels repowering. Killeen was afraid the Mantis could interrogate it from a distance if it was running normally. The information about the Argo was best kept secret for a while longer.

  Kileen deflected people who came up to him and wanted to discuss things. A clammy fog shrouded the growing fields to the south of Metropolis. They walked among towering fragrant corn. Toby had never seen cultivated plants so high and couldn’t recall even the long rows of tomatoes where he had once played near the Citadel. The Eater rose and cut through the thin fog, bringing a crisp savor to the air. Killeen went back to the hut and slept easily until the Witnessing.

  The Kings spoke against him.

  They had worked on their arguments, using testimony from the Kings in the raiding party to good effect. They made a simple case, plainly thinking that the facts would be enough.

  Fornax presided, since he was the Cap’n who had been in power longest. The Kings were deferential to him. They would choose a Cap’n soon after the Witnessing, but until then Fornax was in nominal control of the Cap’nless Family. And he would be a good ally to have later.