Maybe if she got the interface away from him, he would stop berking. Half-awake, she put her hand out and touched it. He swatted her away in his sleep, striking her hand so hard that she bit back tears.
Other options . . . Her mind wasn’t working well, but she couldn’t seem to make it be quiet, either.
There was only one other chance. She had to interface. If Marcsson could do it, so could she — right? Even the slightest contact, a quick verbal exchange or a few images, could make all the difference. Experimentally, she changed the setting on her interface from radio to Dream mode, hoping for a link to her node — to any node of Ganesh. She had never interfaced this way before. There had never been any need to. As long as she’d remained in First, she had been able to wave directly into Ganesh through any of the sensor points. But she knew that it was possible to do a remote radio feed to the Dreamer units, and she was beginning to think she had nothing to lose.
She leaned into the face. At first nothing happened; then the interface found the boat’s signal amp and started picking up radio. There was wholesale panic on all frequencies. She could hear it, but there was no way she could transmit via interface without verbing through Ganesh, because interfaces were designed to be used in First, where there was no need for audio pickup, or physical speech at all.
She searched for a channel that would take her into Ganesh. The only one not occupied by audio coms was channel four.
Witchdoctor Radio.
As before, it was a storm of deconstructed sonic jetsam.
When Tehar had made her listen to it, Kalypso had found the experience unpleasant but bearable. She had only been hearing it with her ears, though. Now she was hearing it with her entire being.
Simple displacement of objects she could handle. If her foot turned into a raincoat and down was up, the shotgun in Kalypso was well within her tolerances for chaos. To a lesser extent, she could manage time-scrambling. But she couldn’t accept the fact of one sense transposed for another, of time looped and braided so that paradoxes lay six deep. Nonsensical narrative was the norm in Kalypso’s Dreams: but she now found herself in a sensory and cognitive environment that defied the very idea of narrative — even of sequence.
Yet somewhere — somewhen in the musical and spatial and olfactory decomposition of her body, in its unribboning according to rules she couldn’t begin to infer—somehow there lurked a Math, and it wasn’t friendly. As she interfaced, Kalypso’s body reacted as if she were running for her life. She couldn’t see what wanted her; she didn’t know where she was going; but her respiration and heart rate shot up, her legs stiffened and twitched spasmodically, and she fell out of interface to find herself on her feet as if shot out of a cannon. The boat rocked wildly.
Marcsson still slept. Mere seconds had passed. She had no idea what had just happened to her.
“How can you stand it? How can you stand it?” she demanded, but he didn’t wake.
It took her a long time to go back to sleep after that.
Her suit nudged her with a first warning for air, and she sat up suddenly, confused. The seals had been broken open; whatever air the boat had gathered as they slept was gone. Marcsson wasn’t in the cockpit. She poked her head out and saw the Wild on all sides.
A line snaked from the boat to the clayfields, miles of weathered undulations resembled half-submerged animals dozing beneath the shadow of the volcanoes. The distant black range rent the fabric of shifting sea and sky like vulpine teeth. A cinder cone smoked idly. There was a harsh, grainy wind. Steam slithered in rippling veils across the surface of the sea, where filamentous m. krepez lay in silver tracery not unlike ice; but of course the water was scalding.
The clayfields and the luma deposits bordering them constituted a major remote research zone, containing as they did some of the last accessible clay deposits above the surface of the water. The rest had been flooded eons ago when changes in atmospheric chemistry had raised the temperature of the planet and melted the ice caps. But the clay of this field had migrated from the granitic floor, driven by thermal currents, and now it was quite deep in its own right, rising with the slope of the cinder cones like a thick garment bundling the base of the volcanoes. The ground was too soft to permit construction of any oxygen facilities, and so most of the data on the clayfields had been gathered remotely. No one ever came here. The luma around the perimeter of the fields tended to remain at the consistency of quicksand: locomotion was difficult, and, in places, treacherous.
Yet life thrived, much of it phylogenetically distinct from the sophisticated aquatic systems which made up the bulk of T’nane’s biomass. For this reason, the clayfields had been the focus of considerable scrutiny. Probe-gathered data had been fed into Ganesh by the boatload; Alien Life had whole nodes devoted to the clayfields, for they were believed to have been the source of T’nane’s earliest life forms. Early in her career, Kalypso had personally shotgunned a Mother called Miruel through an extended project on this region, but the experience provided no insights now. Miruel had Dreamed the science of the clayfields in the form of a long, intricate saga of eighteenth-century Russia in which, to the young Kalypso’s delight, horse-drawn sledges sometimes unfolded to reveal staggeringly illogical molecular structures; duels could become battles for thermal energy; and trysts in beds of white fur rolled over to accommodate population mechanics flowing too fast and hot to see.
Miruel, Kalypso recalled, could Dream with the best of them. But the Mothers had seldom Dreamed in recent years, and Miruel always groused that try as she might with the clayfields data, she had nothing on Sieng when it came to evaluating the relationship between the simpler forms of the clayfields and the mind-boggling luma.
She had been half-hoping Marcsson had thrown himself into the luma while she slept, thereby relieving Kalypso of her obligation; but she had no such luck. He was motionless, lying flat on his belly on the bow, dangling what looked like a collection filament over the side.
She turned on the radio, listened to static and snatches of words, and picked up the tail end of a looped message.
“—amnesty for returning now provided you assist with repairs and cease immediately all subversive acts against the greater good. We will come to the table with an open mind, but let us at least come to the table. End of transmission. Kalypso Deed and Azamat Marcsson, we are aware of your position and will take steps to retrieve you unless you come voluntarily. You cannot run. We recognize that one or both of you may be lesser accomplices in a larger crime, and we are prepared to offer amnesty for returning now provided. . .”
She switched it off. Amnesty? Enough of this. She had to get Marcsson back before the Mothers’ paranoia made them do something drastic. She climbed out of the cockpit and made her way along the hull toward Marcsson. She could see he was interfacing and felt deprived. She wanted Ganesh and had to forcefully remind herself of what had happened to her last time. What had happened to Jianni.
“That’s disgusting and impossible,” he remarked by way of greeting. His tone was milk-bland. “Each cell spins on its own axis but together they are doing a kind of flamenco. Dance, dance. Declassify yourself. Imagine each bit of you is interchangeable with the next. Imagine each cell capable of any task. Imagine memory expressed in terms of potentials among cells.”
Kalypso touched his arm. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re distracting me. I’m not ready for you yet. There are holes in the picture. Historical links. I need more. Detail is essential. Then I can use you.”
“Yes, but this isn’t the best time for you to be picking up samples. We don’t have time.”
“I would follow you to the ends of the earth,” he said dreamily. “It does me no good.”
“Azamat, come out of that interface and look at me.”
He didn’t. He only licked his lips, his cheeks smooth as distance.
“How can you stand it? I’m a shotgun, and I can’t go in there.”
“Is it true she said and the oc
ean stroked her legs, she is unheeding of its filth and the smell of tourists with their sunscreen everywhere. I could try to find you in your impressions but you aren’t there, she said and she was right. Where and what you have been, passively, does not predict where you will go. You believe. Do you. Go. Beyond algorithms — are they bricks and is this architecture? But that would imply a stasis. What if the building invents itself and we view this through the net of time standing next to but never touching causality?”
His proximity had begun to make her uneasy. She didn’t bother to say anything. The most important thing would be to get to Oxygen 2. And not to take any of this too seriously, if possible. She would treat him like a difficult child, a dynamic she was familiar with from being on the receiving end of it for so many years.
“How many hours from here to Oxygen 2?”
He ran his hands over his body as if questing for some instrument, then drummed his fingers on his thighs and gazed out across the sea ahead. She could detect subtle counter-rhythms beating in the tendons of his body, as if he were vibrating to some internal metronome. It was an odd mannerism, one he’d never affected before, and it stuck in her mind.
“You know that perfectly well,” he said in a clipped tone. “Don’t toy with me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” He stared at her in shock. “When in your life were you ever sorry about anything? When did you ever notice how anyone felt but yourself?”
Kalypso felt wounded. She knew this was untrue, but still she quailed before his anger. He caught himself.
“Never mind,” he said. “We all must make allowances for greatness, right? So how long are you going to hold out on me? Tell me tell me tell me. Just because you’re dead, you have no right to deprive the rest of us of a life.”
She was trembling. He pointed out over the water.
“They will be angry when they find I have stolen you,” he said. “See? They will not let you go so easily.”
“Let’s move on, Azamat,” she said impatiently, but he grabbed her hand and pointed again. He’s like a big child, she thought. If only to appease him, she looked.
A figure glided toward them, seemingly unsupported on the still water. Kalypso stared for several seconds before she realized that it was a woman standing on a boat that barely protruded above the surface. She had a long pole in her hand, and a faint yellow light surrounded her body. As she drew closer, Kalypso saw that her suit had been modified — in fact, most of it was missing. A hood covered her head, shoulders, and back, but there was no faceplate, only a webbing of flexible, fine tubing that emitted a haunted yellow radiance. The tubing also seemed to reach around to the back, to what purpose Kalypso couldn’t guess. Otherwise the woman wore minimal nylon strapping that appeared recycled, and low boots. Her skin was patchily dark and light, and what looked like old welts striped her arms and legs like a tiger’s fur. This woman was at least as old as the Mothers, but there was nothing soft or maternal about her. She had the look of a bird of prey, some combination of keenness and bored dissatisfaction that immediately intimidated Kalypso.
“What the fuck is that? Where did it come from?”
He didn’t speak right away. When he did, it wasn’t a real answer.
“Tiera del Fuego. The bottom of the world. It’s so cold, and they live on the sea, but they go naked. They could get leather or fur or feathers if they wanted to, but they live in their skin. They keep warm by burning fires in their boats. But that was a long time ago and you can only get there through Ganesh.”
Marcsson let go of her hand and stood up. “Is that—is she—” Kalypso began sidling back weak-kneed. She couldn’t say what she was thinking, what she suspected, because she was too scared. She tripped backward into the cockpit and lay there, stung, while the woman drew silently closer. The boat came within a meter of Marcsson. The woman extended the pole and caught hold of their boat. For several seconds, nothing seemed to happen. Then Kalypso realized that Marcsson and the woman were exchanging subtle gestures. Kalypso knew Sign: it had been taught to her in childhood, as a preparation for life in the Wild where oxygen was at a premium and talk was expensive. But this wasn’t the Sign she knew. It was subtle and seemed to involve primarily facial cues. Which didn’t make sense. You’d have to be in very close proximity to the other speaker in order to read his expression, and the Wild didn’t lend itself to this kind of contact.
Marcsson appeared defensive — possibly even afraid of the creature. What had Lassare said? “Don’t listen to them.”
The woman pointed at Kalypso. There was a further exchange of signals. Marcsson came back along the hull and stepped into the cockpit. He picked Kalypso up.
“She is blind to everything but you,” he said. “I tricked her. I have bought time. Maybe when I return, you’ll be glad to give me your secrets.”
Kalypso struggled wildly. The boat rolled from side to side, bumping the other vessel. The next thing she knew, Marcsson had her wrapped up in a neat ball, her limbs trapped by each other so that she was tied up with her own body. She glimpsed bright blue colonials heaving beneath her as he passed her to the other boat and dropped her. In the next instant, the woman had taken in the pole that had held the two boats together. Kalypso was in the bottom of the other boat, and Marcsson, only two meters distant, might as well have been ten kilometers away for all her hopes of reaching him. Even if she dared try swimming, the luma would pull her down like quicksand.
“Marcsson! What are you doing? We had an agreement. You said you’d take me to Oxygen 2. You need me, Marcsson!”
It was sheer bluffing, of course. He looked at her and shook his head.
“I’m just a Grunt. Right? Just a Grunt.”
Her voice shrieked through the suit’s speaker.
“What is this thing? Don’t do this. Marcsson! Help me! Don’t. .
But the woman had engaged the drive on the boat and it peeled away, leaving a cobalt wake of disturbed luma. Marcsson waved to her.
“Goodbye, Sieng,” he called.
TIERA DEL FUEGO
KALYPSO HAD NO IDEA HOW TO REACT. IN this situation, she could easily imagine Ahmed standing up and confronting the creature Marcsson had called Sieng; Liet, on the other hand, would probably be fascinated but wholly unaware of her danger. X would play it cool and quiet until he had assessed the situation. Tehar would probably do the same. Sharia would almost certainly berk. So what option was left for Kalypso? Defer making a decision.
She took in her surroundings. The boat was Earth-made: this much was obvious right away. It was far more sophisticated than any of the T’nane boats although it was so laden with equipment and stores, Marcsson’s boat could probably outrun it. The bottom of the cockpit was lined with transparent matting containing a milky gel that was faintly radiant and, according to her suit, cold. Other evidence of unfamiliar biotech abounded: the capillaries surrounding the canopy like a brake of thorns; greenery like the ceiling plants used in First’s cells, only with purple-edged leaves; some mysterious rigging built into the bow containing pipettes filled with fluid of various hues, which reminded her of the Works.
Despite all this, the boat was remarkably uncluttered. Tools and supplies must be stowed out of sight: their absence contributed to Kalypso’s growing conviction that she was hallucinating, since her upbringing did not allow for the idea that anybody could live in the Wild permanently, without Ganesh. How would you manufacture anything, she wondered. How would you manage to eat, even, without Ganesh? Plants couldn’t withstand the temperatures of aquatic thermals; there wasn’t proper soil on the clayfields; the light was poor and the atmosphere would need to be filtered of CO and other poisons before anything would grow well. Farming was labor-intensive, too, if you didn’t have the benefit of automation.
If you were Dead, of course, presumably you didn’t have to eat. Not that there was much of Sieng to feed. She was oversized, but gaunt: where Marcsson’s structure was dense, this woman’s body sprawled all ove
r the place as if unable to make up its mind which direction it was growing in. She had a large, bony head matched by her hands; she was narrow and would probably take a long time going around corners, like a train. She must be the same age as Marcsson and the Mothers, but she looked much older, and paradoxically more electric, as if all excesses had been polished away leaving little of her but the shine. She raised the canopy now and the chamber began to fill with oxygen. The headgear came off and was tossed carelessly aside. Her hair was thin and white. All Kalypso could think was that she did not look like her picture.
Beside this wizened, strangely vital creature, Marcsson had been a slug. How had Kalypso had such trouble managing the scientist? He was just a big oaf. Whereas when this woman turned eyes on Kalypso, the latter had the unsettling notion that she was about to become lunch. She’s old, Kalypso told herself desperately. She’s probably weak and undernourished. She can’t be all that strong. And anyway —
She bit off her thought. The Dead woman was trying to communicate, using the same subtle version of Sign she’d shared with Marcsson. Kalypso couldn’t understand the shifting expressions, the weather of the face. If only the creature would use real language, Kalypso would be able to operate within the realm of reason. If not, she would have nothing but the growing restlessness in her legs and abdomen, the urge to run that she knew had to be telegraphing itself to Sieng. But she couldn’t run. Running was an Earth phenomenon. She was trapped.
“I can’t understand you,” she said. “Why don’t you speak?”
The woman’s hand went to her throat. She shook her head.
“You have no voice? Use Sign. I can understand Sign.”
The lips flattened with what Kalypso supposed must be displeasure.
“Do you understand me now?” There was a bored sarcasm in the exaggerated gestures of standard Sign.
Kalypso nodded.
“There is no reason for you to fear me, so long as you serve me as Azamat says you will. I will use you, and when I am done, I will return you to your nest. Assuming it’s still there. Change is in the wind, and when you see Sieng, you may find that she can offer you more than your Mothers.”
Dreaming in Smoke Page 13
