Great Sky River

by Gregory Benford

  Toby’s mouth twisted, his eyes narrowed. Killeen saw that rather than being scared, the boy already considered the Mantis an irritant. He understood this but knew it was dangerous. They were getting used to the Mantis. Thing about aliens is, they’re alien.

  “So what you do, huh? Don’t sleep?” Toby demanded.

  We process information in parallel systems while remaining conscious. Such clearing mechanisms as sleep and laughter we do not need.

  Toby said derisively, “Must get on your nerves.”

  Killeen said, “Don’t have any. Nerves, I mean.”

  Toby shrugged. “Can’t be much fun.”

  “Prob’ly isn’t,” Killeen agreed.

  Toby chuckled. “Prob’ly don’t know what fun is, right?”

  Not precisely, no. It has to do with your downtime processing mechanism, of that I am sure. You accumulate your curious dynamic tensions through conscious operations. Some of these discharge during your downtime processing, your sleep. (Unintelligible.) Others escape with the venting of the reflexive sounds—

  “Laughin’?” Toby asked in disbelief.

  Yes. There are also accumulations of identity-signifiers. You must continually maintain your self-knowledge, your interior image of your essence, in order to keep your subprograms working property. We have similar systems, of course. Yours, though, appear to be keyed to your sexual identity. Internal questionings accumulate. Only by reaffirming your sexual self, by uniting with an opposite member, can you resolve and discharge these accumulated signifier problems—tensions, I suppose you would call them. Curiously, this can occur with only a small sample of the available candidates, often merely one candidate. For example, your father has, once I released him of some crude internal programming, formed with Shibo a—

  Killeen said sharply, “Don’t go talking dumb ’bout things you don’t know.”

  I see. Yes, I take your point.

  A fitful tang pervaded Killeen’s sensorium. He had the distinct impression that the Mantis was politely backing away from the subject. Killeen felt a mild outrage at a mech intruding into things so fragilely human, talking to a boy about his own father’s sex life. He said, “You mechs got no balls.”

  Not in the sense you mean.

  Toby laughed. “What’s that mean?”

  I will not discuss the implications of our lives, for you are a lower thing. Do not mistake your value as a phylum for more than it is. We have studied others of your sort, elsewhere in the Galactic Center.

  “Where?” Killeen asked intently.

  Do not think you can easily deceive me about your intention to find your father. I understand these primitive motivations.

  “Dammit, I want know where other humans are.”

  The original ones, the builders of the Taj Mahal—I do not know. But the later group, from which you descend—they are spread in several spots. I enjoin you, however. I have adjusted the Argo. (Unintelligible.) It cannot sail inward toward the Eater. We will not tolerate lesser forms interfering there. You must chart outward. There you may find humans. There are other forms in that region, as well.

  “Sure you don’t want come along?” Toby asked, suspicion tightening his mouth.

  I wish the laughing, dreaming vertebrates to retain some freedom. Otherwise they will not remain in the wild state. As curator of such forms I shall preserve them.

  “We’re gettin’ away,” Toby countered.

  You will remain within reach of the Center. The Argo cannot voyage far. It can reach at most a few hundred stars in the Center. If I wish more specimens of you in the natural state, I can come and harvest some. To leave you here, wild, would be to see you become extinct.

  “Don’t look like you could catch anythin’,” Toby said with thin bravado. Killeen gave him a warning glance.

  You do not know of what you speak. I require from you, however, a pledge that you will not seek the one who spoke to you through the magnetic creature.

  Killeen looked back to where the Argo lay in a glare of working lamps. What strange code made the Mantis believe he would honor a promise to a mech?

  “Sure, I pledge,” he lied.

  He and Shibo took their food to eat down by the stream. It splashed over ebony rocks and Killeen hoped that this murmur would make them hard for the mechs to overhear.

  “Good food,” he said. “Never ate such.”

  “Soft,” she answered. They smacked their lips with relish, eating with their hands the first product of the Argo’s automatic kitchen. The ship converted raw materials into warm, spicy, aromatic wonders of layered and moist richness. The tastes kindled in Killeen old memories of his mother’s cooking.

  “Tonight we bed early,” she added, looking at him with a distant mirth. He saw that she intended to have some fun with their talk.

  “Yeasay. Tomorrow night we either sleep among the stars or we sleep forever.”

  “Tonight I get on top.”

  “Taking over already?”

  “Ground rocky.”

  “Ah. You were always on top with the other men?”

  “Which?”

  “You must’ve had some.”

  “None.”

  “Sounds like you’re lying.”

  “Yeasay.” Her slight smile brimmed.

  “Keep right on lying. I want it that way. Fill me with lies. Yeasay. Were they all Knights?”

  “Never had any, on top or on bottom.”

  “I understand. Were they ugly, like me?”

  “Never had any. I was ugly, too.”

  “We were made for each other. Uglies attract uglies. How many?”

  “How many what?”

  “Knights you had.”

  “There weren’t any and I didn’t count.”

  “Yeasay. Do Knights take their boots off first?” She laughed. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “I heard Knights were always run-ready.”

  “One on top keeps boots on.”

  “Why?”

  “Might need run fast.”

  He looked shocked. “Even inside shelter?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m always on march.”

  “On the march nobody’s inside.”

  “Not inside me anyway.” She grinned.

  “With all those big Knights around? You must be fast.”

  “I fast all right.”

  “Hafta be.” He looked at her steadily and tipped his head slightly toward the big floodlit work zone where the Mantis moved among its mech army. “Big problems take quick reflexes.”

  “Little ones too.”

  Killeen glanced toward the Argo. “I count plenty little problems.”

  “Have to be fast, is all.”

  “No rush, I guess. Can take care little problems later.”

  She nodded. “Everybody knows that.”

  “Yeasay, even the manmech.”

  She nodded again. “Want be on top, be fast, wear boots.”

  “You’re learning.”

  “Good teacher.”

  “Seems like you learned somewhere before.”

  She gave him a silky, sideways glance. “Never learned your moves, naysay.”

  “I like that. Keep lying and I’ll keep liking it.” He finished his food and licked his hands and the plate.

  “I’ll try.”

  “Yeasay. Tonight you can get on top.” He grinned.

  “Not sure I want.”

  “Why not?”

  “Have wear boots.”

  “You get the point.”

  “That’s what I want.”

  TWO

  In the long stretching moment before the Argo lifted off Killeen felt a dim red pressure.

  It was the mass of humanity at his back, on decks below. Their sensoria linked and intermingled like sliding soft fluids. Never had he felt them this way. Skittering tension shot through them but there was a calm smooth undercurrent too.

  The long years on the march had hardened them. They could wait, knowing that their lives depende
d on their speed, and yet not permit this knowledge to tighten or distract them. Those who had not learned this had fallen somewhere back along the bleak and desolating train the Families had now left behind. So the Mantis, who had surekilled so many in that panicked state, would not sense in the sensorium today a premonition of what was to come.

  Good. He nodded to Shibo. “Yeasay.”

  “Ummm. I like being on top.”

  He laughed. She began the launch.

  The couch enveloped her. This was a last precaution against mech control. The laminated layers of the couch responded only to human inputs. Shibo worked within it, arms extended to the canted surfaces before her. Her hands moved in an exacting blur. Her exskell hummed and buzzed like an earnest animal.

  He felt the ship gently lift from its mount. Thrumming strength beat through the air.

  The wall opposite them wobbled. It gave a panoramic view of the site. Legions of black mechs ringed them.

  The Mantis stood at the base of the ruined, scooped-out hill. Its myriad knobbed joints made it seem like a half-finished construction beside the broad blue stream.

  Shibo took them up. The Argo leaned over, preparing for full boost. A rumbling came through the deck. He watched her intent face and saw there no trace of fear or doubt.

  Behind him Toby called out, “Heysay yeasay. Go!”

  Calls answered him down through the bright tapestries of the sensorium. All this legacy now rode on a single turning moment that came rushing toward them. Yet he found no panic or unsteadiness among them. They were an instrument honed by harsh years and ongoing tragedy and nothing could deflect them now.

  —Boots on?— he asked them. They answered the code word with raucous and joyful affirmations.

  The Mantis sent from below:

  I wish you good voyage. You shall hear from me and my tributaries again.

  “Yeasay!” Killeen answered.

  “Go!” Toby called.

  Shibo threw the Argo into full thrust. A hammering roar burst upon them. The Argo arced up and away. Sudden weight pressed them into their couches.

  The ship rammed up into the hard sky.

  And then it failed. Engines fell silent. The craft flew on, whistling and weightless.

  They began falling. The view-wall cleared as their exhaust blew away. Far below, the mechs were a black ring.

  Killeen felt a sudden vacancy of a kind none of them had ever known. The fall seemed infinitesimally slow. Every sense in him cried in shrill panic.

  The Argo plunged aft-down toward bare rock. The plain rushed at them.

  Killeen bit his lip to stifle a cry. He knew he could not let his fear leak into the sensorium but it threatened to overwhelm him. He saw Shibo pause in her feverquick movements, judging, pacing, listening to the ship’s own small ancient minds.

  The Argo veered. No lifting pressure slowed them but they did drift in their fall. Toward the hard blue stream that snaked like a cutting wire through the weathered stone.

  —Now.—

  Shibo’s call came at the same instant that a brutal hand slammed them hard.

  Killeen saw the stream below, its surface a reflecting glare. The Ship’s exhaust played upon it, driving waves. The Argo turned toward the shore.

  The Mantis saw them coming and had only an instant to move. It lifted a turret weapon—

  And was blown to fragments as spurting exhaust showered down on fragile structure.

  Struts and rods and polished chromed complexes—all jerked and dissolved and scattered like useless random junk on the burnished rock.

  The Argo hovered for a long moment. Its hot gases played with loving, lingering detail on the scattered, melting parts.

  —Let’s see you recover from that!— Killeen thought, and his bottled-up rage burst the words crimson through the sensorium.

  —Feel what it is to die. Even if you come back, if you’re saved somewhere else and can be regenerated, feel it now.—

  Hails and gleeful cries answered him all through the Argo.

  —Feel it! For Fanny. For what you did to her. For every one you surekilled and forced to live again as your grotesque artworks. Feel it!—

  A punch drove Killeen down into his couch.

  The Argo lifted at tremendous acceleration. It shot up from the plain and into an empty sky, leaving a towering yellow exhaust trail. Streamers of hot gas pointed back like an arrow toward the still-exact circle of black mechs. Severed so surgically from their master, none had fired at the lifting ship.

  Killeen let the heavy weight press him without resistance. He had prayed that the Mantis could not read his emotions any better than he could read its. The Mantis’s cozy use of Arthur’s Aspect had made it seem almost human. Killeen would never know how close to the truth that was. Could a vastly intelligent mind, reduced to their level, mimic humanity?

  It made no difference. The Mantis had violated the dignity of living things and by human standards that was enough to know. Nothing else mattered.

  Little problems. That had been their code for the micromechs who infested the Argo. Who now ran mad through the ship, attacking it, cutting and searing.

  And as they moved from their hiding places the Families cut them down.

  The humans poured from their couches.

  Boots on. Their running equipment gave them the power and agility to move through the Argo, even though the ship was under hard boost.

  The micromechs were engineered to work in steady gravity. So Shibo rammed the Argo to high thrust, then backed off, then ran it high again.

  The surges tumbled the micromechs from their holds on cables, pipes, circuitry. Bishops and Rooks swung through suddenly full-lit corridors, nerves quickened for the hunt. They shot and stabbed at the small creatures. Sudden surges slammed them against bulkheads but they kept on, relentless. The hunt sang in them. Micromechs scurried and fled and tried to hide. Boots stamped them into oblivion. Hands ripped them in half.

  Where they did flee the humans had allies. The manmech pursued them, wise in the ways of these small microbots. It ground them under steel treads. Toby followed it down the lurching, careening corridors of the Argo. He shot micromechs but took more pleasure in pounding them with the butt of his e-beam gun, feeling the crunch of collapsing metal, of shattered microcircuits.

  They hooted and called and yelled, this fevered mob, as they spilled like an avenging flood through the big ship. Old blood-songs sprang to their lips. Glee and rage echoed savage and pitiless through the metal warrens.

  By the time the Argo had achieved a staging orbit the micromechs were smashed and riddled.

  “Got ’em all,” Toby said. His eyes were big and bright. “W’out Mantis tellin’ them what’s up, they’re not so smart.”

  Shibo nodded, distracted by her work at the board. They began boosting at steady acceleration on a course the Mantis had plotted. She was going to follow the course, find out where it led. She understood by feel only a minute fraction of the ship systems, but now she could rely on them. With the Mantis control gone, they were free.

  Killeen asked, “Any casualties?”

  Toby sobered immediately. “Jocelyn got hit in the leg.”

  “How’s she?”

  “They’re workin’ on her.”

  He grimaced. Every loss was irreplaceable, final. Now that they were his responsibility, they cut even more deeply. He saw that he was always going to have doubts afterward, questions, second thoughts, regrets. Always.

  “We got ’em all, though,” Toby said confidently.

  “Maybe.”

  “Naysay, we did. Honest.”

  “If the Mantis had some fixed so they’d hide when things went wrong, we’d miss ’em,” he said mildly. He didn’t want to take the steam out of Toby so fast—the boy needed a victory—but he might as well start now in showing how you had to look at every side of mechs if you wanted to guard against them. That was the way the world was. The boy had to learn.

  “Well… maybe,” Toby allowe
d. Then he brightened. “Want we look some more?”

  “No, get some food. Any mechs hiding, maybe they’ll come out in a li’l while. Keep somebody watching all the time.”

  “Yeasay. The manmech’ll be good for that.”

  “It work out okay?”

  “Sure. Wish it’d cut out that barking, though.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “Well, that’s not so bad. Sounds funny with the woman voice, though. Was there really an animal made that noise once?”

  Killeen smiled. “So I hear. Worked for us.”

  “Did all the animals?”

  “Some. What my Aspects tell me is, we got more and more of them working for us. Or we ate them, which is another way of working for us I guess.”

  “Are ’em?”

  “Yeasay. First food humans ever had, I s’pose.”

  Toby’s forehead wrinkled in doubt. “Thought we just ate plants.”

  “Aren’t animals left on Snowglade big enough for eating. We would if we could find some, prob’ly.”

  “Sounds funny. Not sure I’d like eating somethin’ that was movin’.”

  “We’d cook it first, the way we do most plants. Aspects say there was a time when we took animals and put them in fact’ries. Made them grow fast and didn’t let them get out or move much, so they’d grow faster. Then we’d eat them.”

  Toby looked at Killeen in flat disbelief. “We’d do that?”

  Killeen opened his mouth to say something and suddenly saw in his mind’s eye the grotesque scenes in the mechplex.

  The pumping legs. Racks of bulging, muscular arms. The vaults of glazed human parts. The Mantis-made sculptures. And finally, the shambling monstrous Fanny.

  Had humans ever done that to lesser forms? Used them for parts of manufacture or casual amusement?

  He found it hard to believe humans would do that to animals. Box and gouge and use them like machines. As though they were not part of the long chain of being that united life against mechanism.

  Killeen remembered the gray mouse that had peered up at him so long ago. Between them had passed a glimmering recognition of joined origins and destiny. Cruel need might force Killeen to eat the mouse—though he could not imagine the act—but never would he hurt or degrade it. Not the way the Mantis had eaten the essence of Fanny and made it into something terrible.