by Neil Clarke
Ghosts were the remnants of the long-dead past, and one thing they—or at least all the ones I had encountered—could not do, was evolve, learn, grasp something new. This one had not only learned a song in a few heartbeats, but even how to mold it in the unique way of my tribe. And I finally had my classification and my name, and the absolute certainty that I would not be the one to lay this ghost to rest, or any of its manifestations, for that was what I faced: one vast ghost of many forms, one fabled entity that ruled this whole place. An annihilator of tribes. A Clusterhaunt.
“What an amazing talent,” it said, lifting its hand to its chest, where of course no heart resided. “Thank you!”
I tried to swallow against my dried-up throat, but only produced a strangled squawk. When I fled the dome, the ghost called after me: “Little explorer Mink, do you really have to leave already? You haven’t seen the stars yet!”
Terrified as I was, I would have crashed into the grating panes of glass. But the ghost moved this extension of itself out of my way, and I stumbled out before it could reconsider.
This was what was going to happen: the camp would be left to the winds, half-shaped pots and tents melting into the ruined landscape. The marrow of our wounded would feed whatever happened to stumble upon this site, our crippled gearbeast would hold its lone wake. I would paint the warning sigil of our tribe on a nearby wall in green permastain, so that no scout in their right mind would ever set foot in the dome again. And we would flee this place, maybe leave a trail of our injured as we ran, and we would never look back, never wonder what we had lost, not only in lives, but also in not taking the rare materials from the dome, in not observing the Clusterhaunt and learning about its ways.
Or at least try to coexist. I had fled on impulse, fueled by the horrors our lore spoke of. It didn’t seem so bad now that I had time to think and didn’t see a spectral host coming after me from the dome. But how could I suggest this to a tribe who, by that very same lore, left its weakest members behind to die? I would be declared suicidal, a menace, unheard.
For we were survivors, mere survivors; we never managed to be more than that, and some didn’t even manage that much. We told ourselves that we made a difference, that we shaped a world, but one look at this ruined vastness told the truth: we didn’t change a thing, and all our sacrifices were just to survive another day. It was enough, mostly, as long as we pretended it didn’t tear our hearts out.
I was perched on the remains of a toppled roof structure and looked at the bug-catcher lights dotting the camp’s perimeter in the dark. They would glow long after we were gone.
When I finally trotted over to the ring of lights, I vocalized a lesser warning sequence. “Scout incoming,” I saluted the guard I knew would wait in the shadows beyond. “I need to see Truss. Get someone to apply the dread-screen on him. I’m unclean.”
She hissed gruff acknowledgement, and by the time I entered the camp proper every weaver had been moved out of my way, as well as sleeping mats and cooking utensils for good measure. A young herder still gesturing her weaver backwards lifted the eight-legged metal creature up into her arms and staggered away under its weight, even if it was far out of range of whatever evil emanations of mine she might fear. I saw Asper, too, hovering on the fringe of the camp and obviously eager for news, his weaver easy to spot because he was the only one to dread-screen its carapace for extra security. At Truss’ resting place, one of the hunters simply smeared the remaining paint in her hands onto her face and throat before I came too close.
On Truss, the swirling white patterns had been applied with more care. He looked bad underneath, skin sagging in stiff folds, eyes sunken. His side was bandaged, the color of the rust-like substance eating away at him already bleeding through.
“Teacher,” I said, kneeling next to him.
He lifted one feeble hand, as if to keep me from propping him up. “Talk to the elders, little foster-hatch. Why come to me? They are the ones who decide our way.”
They knew only one way, but I didn’t say that. “You’re one of them, old man. How are you? I was gone so long, and I was afraid you wouldn’t . . .”
“Warden told you that, didn’t she?” He coughed, and I watched the stains on his bandage deepen. “To keep you on your toes. She knows you’re prone to getting distracted.”
At that, he winked weakly at me. We had always kept my bolder adventures between the two of us, as we had our differences. I wanted badly to take his hand, to feel if there was any strength left in him, but he had never been fond of touch. Or sympathy.
“I’m not dead yet.” His voice was a low rasp. “Won’t run for days, but if the winds are willing and you’re keeping us safe, I’ll eat the stuff that’s trying to eat me . . . just you watch.”
At that, I felt all color bleed out of my skin and fought hard to keep Truss from noticing. I had been selfish to come here, just so that I could say goodbye. “It might not happen,” I offered softly. “It might not happen fast enough. And so many of us are wounded and exhausted. Even I would be hard-pressed to run now.”
Part of me wanted to tell him about the Clusterhaunt. But he hadn’t scouted for years, and in his day Truss had never been one to indulge in the presence of ghosts. I knew what he would have to say, and I didn’t want to hear it.
He said it anyway. “Don’t concern yourself with our weak and wounded, little foster-hatch. We’re prepared to stay behind, knowing the tribe will survive. The elders are aware of that. They know how to handle it.”
“But they don’t have to handle it,” I whispered.
Suddenly I felt Truss’ hand on mine, cold and brittle. He started to say something, but in this moment, Renke strode up to us, the windreader and the other two elders in tow.
“What news do you bring, Blessed?” she asked. “Is your work done?”
I looked up at her, then back to Truss. There were days when I found joy in my job, when I felt I brought peace to the ghosts of old and betterment to the brand-new world. Today it felt like laying to rest everything I loved. “My work is never done.”
Renke came closer than most dared when I was unclean, to stare down at me. “The herders are awaiting my command. Is it safe now, or do we move?”
There was no invitation to debate, no room for experiments. I only needed to utter the word; the decision was already made, had already been made since the day we set out to wander the wastes.
I fought to keep my unruly colors under control. None of the tribe could actually read them, but Truss had seen most of the spectrum while teaching me, and even with eyes half-closed he might be watching.
Renke’s crest rose halfway in impatience. I could feel the eyes of the herders on me, all prepared to set out, their weavers protected in the crooks of their tails. They would never admit that survival was not always enough.
I squeezed Truss’ hand one last time and finally got up to look the Warden in the eye. “Send them out,” I said. “This place is safe.”
The night sky was a black abyss sucking my gaze upwards, and with it went my bravado and determination. No veiled moon shed its light upon the ruins; the stars, its fabled lesser cousins, were nothing but a story to ease the weight of the dark.
I did not deserve to even think of a soothing story, because I had embarked on the darkest of tales.
Clusterhaunt. Few claimed to have seen one, the even fewer reliable witnesses weren’t keen on telling what they had seen. Clusterhaunts were said to be the rarest and mightiest of ghosts, spiteful of the living, and oh-so-strong, the most powerful ghost-shifters, heart-concealers, mind-mimickers.
Tribe-vanishers.
But I had told my lie, and I needed it to turn into truth. So instead of getting back to my lonely resting place, I went to the dome once more. “Residual energies” would keep the herders from entering only for so long; then I would either have found this heart or failed them all.
First I jammed a stone I had brought under the glass panes of the entrance. I didn’t want
to get trapped inside, and disabling the ghost’s extensions piece by piece was one way I figured I could counter its Clusterhaunt abilities. I took my lamp into the pitch-black dome and began to turn over every larger piece of rubble to find a hint of ghostly veins, organs, anything.
All too soon a familiar pale glow came up behind me.
“Little explorer Mink! What a pleasant surprise to have you back!”
I looked up at the bowl-shaped head bobbing above the silvery suit. Why would it choose this appearance when it ruled so many forms? Why not a more threatening one?
It hovered closer. “You were gone so fast last time, I thought you maybe didn’t like it. But you’ve got them both—Curiosity and Spirit. Want to see them? They’re right here, brought back to Earth after their duty was done.”
Wraithlight flared to life halfway through the dome to illuminate the shapes of two battered gearbeasts. Their odd wheel-legs seemed sturdy enough, but after a closer look, I found them to be perplexingly impractical: their broad backs were plastered with strange contraptions, no room for stowage at all. They wouldn’t carry even one of our wounded.
“You’ll find the whole story of Curiosity and Spirit on your personal Memory Vault,” the ghost went on. “Please don’t forget it next time you leave. It helps you relive your whole experience in here at home.”
I ignored the gearbeasts, but the ghost kept following me. “Have you lost something?” it wanted to know. “May I help you? Just ask away!” as if it was a game Clusterhaunts liked to play. I wasn’t here to talk, though.
There were just not that many alternatives. No wall panels to peel off the glass-like sides of the dome, no secret compartments embedded in the smooth, hard floor. The rubble under the fallen tail of the metal tube the ghost had called a rocket was a big pile of shards, and even the bases of the undamaged tables and cases were solid. So maybe talking was how I’d get to the heart of this ghost.
I turned very slowly. “You’d answer all my questions? Really?”
“Sure. That’s what I’m here for.” The ghost hovered expectantly.
I swallowed. I was a scout, not a master of eloquence. This could go horribly wrong. “Where is your heart?”
Among all the reactions I had anticipated, I surely hadn’t expected the ghost’s pronounced shoulders to sink. “Ah,” it said in a somewhat small voice. “Well, you already saw on your first visit that I am not like you. And a heart is among the things that separate us.” Its light grew dim. “Alas, I guess one could say my heart is up among the stars? That’s where I always wanted to be, so maybe that’s a justified notion.”
So the ghost really liked its tall tales, liked them so much it spun its heart-concealing fabrications around them in a way that made me feel all wistful. I could have asked about its veins and lungs next, or any other part of ghost anatomy a good scout knew to look out for. But the only thing I seemed to remember was how it had tried to comfort me earlier, and somehow that made everything much more complicated.
It had diligently shuffled after me, and I was looking at its blurry form through a thin sheet of clear material mounted on a table between us. “What are you called, then?” I asked finally.
The ghost lifted its hand and dropped it again. “Oh, I . . . nobody ever calls me anything. I’m just here for your service. And on a better day, this should display the orbits of the main celestial bodies. It’s in maintenance mode. I apologize for your inconvenience.”
“Nonsense.” I felt angry all of a sudden, and not just because I wasn’t making any progress here, apart from trying to befriend a ghost. “People also don’t call me anything since the Blessing came upon me. But I’m more than the service I render.”
“I’m afraid that I am not.”
I crossed my arms and hissed in frustration. Even those old gearbeasts had been named, however strangely. I could do better. “I’d like to call you Orion, then, if I may.”
It just hovered there, frozen.
“I mean, we’re not close enough for me to know your gender,” I added. “So it’s just a suggestion, yes?”
“It’s a brilliant suggestion!” The ghost beamed, radiating brightness. “Orion . . . that’s very considerate!”
I thought so myself. It was a name from the same old tales that told of the stars.
“Thank you, little explorer Mink. I’m attaching my name to all Memory Vaults now.”
And in the newly brilliant light of Orion I saw something, off to the side. Something that shouldn’t have been here, and yet there it was.
Inside one of the glass cases, bathed in wraithlight and completely still, sat a weaver.
“Don’t touch the exhibit, please!”
I had taken the weaver out and set it on the floor, where it had very frus-tratingly not shown the slightest inclination to move. Clearly, it hadn’t been able to bask in a long time.
“Little explorer. Your interest in this ATU shows how bright you are. But I counted 384 defects in here already, and you really shouldn’t add . . .”
I gestured at the weaver. “What did you call that?”
“People call them space spiders, but officially it’s an Advance Terraforming Unit.” Orion drifted to another thin glass-like sheet, this one larger, mounted on the floor. “Come along! See them in action.”
The weaver sat motionless. I would fetch this prize for my tribe, a new heirloom to complement our herds. But I also wanted to know how it had ended up in a glass case. Reluctantly, I followed the ghost.
“Still no music.” Orion contemplated the large glass-like screen. “I’m sorry.”
“I am sorry for adding another defect,” I said, and I meant it. As much as Orion tried to make up for his failing contraptions with enthusiasm, I could still sense his distress. “Shall we sing again?”
I did not feel like it. I couldn’t see any horizons manifesting themselves in my near future. I was still here to lay Orion to rest, the sooner the better. Had I stumbled upon him while advance-scouting, I would have turned my back and looked for another harvesting ground. But this was not an option with the tribe camping on the threshold, cultivating their superstitions.
“Maybe later, little explorer Mink. For now it will do, the display works just fine. Look.”
At first, I saw nothing; nothing I hadn’t seen before with minor ghosts. Ephemeral colors danced through the glass, almost too quick for the eye to follow. Then the whole screen, larger than myself, was filled with the image of a weaver. I sat on my haunches to get a better look. I understood now: Orion was showing me a vision.
“Moving mode; printing mode; charging mode,” Orion said while the weaver flickered through a series of motions, completely translucent, so I could see its intricate inner workings. This was followed by an impossibly long line of weavers scuttling up a smooth ramp, then fire and smoke. “When the ATUs set out to terraform other worlds, they are equipped to deal with every hostile surrounding, to transform every unusual or even hazardous material into something useful,” Orion said, and I slumped to the floor, curling my tail around my legs. “They are constructed semiautonomous, with modes to work on individual projects, to collaborate, or to be operated by a higher-level controller.”
I must admit I wasn’t able to follow his tale, but then I had never worked with a weaver, so what did I know? The images drew me in. Weavers glinting like gems in front of a profound blackness. Weavers swarming at structures I had never imagined. Weavers working away at something that looked like the dome I found myself in, but under two bright bluish suns.
“These are other worlds?” I asked. I saw them, but I couldn’t believe they were real. New worlds, worlds not poisoned by a violent, unholy past.
Orion’s head bobbed enthusiastically. “Yes, little explorer. There are many upon many, scattered among the stars. Everything you see in here, including the visitor center itself, was built to get there. Maybe you will travel to one of them yourself one day?”
I stood fascinated, watching, and I felt
fear clamp down on my heart even as it soared. This, I knew, was ghost-shifting: ghosts telling about great things, about possibilities, about progress. It was not true, it just didn’t happen, and when it happened, it was bad. This kind of thinking had destroyed the world. We were careful now, and we didn’t pursue any stupid ideas.
But it was beautiful, and that had always been my weakness. I was transfixed by the images as they flickered by, bathing me in the brightness of distant suns. My gaze drank up the swarms of weavers spinning things far greater than we had ever dreamed of. And I realized they were so much more than what we had been using them for. This would be invaluable knowledge, if the tribe could accept it. I wondered if they would even accept a ghost-touched weaver, and resolved to tell them I had found it far from the place of the haunting.
I turned to look at the creature with renewed awe. But my colors flared in alarm at what I saw.
The first light of the day filtered in through the ceiling, and I realized I had lost the track of time over the ghost’s stories. Several figures were clustered together near the entrance, shuffling and whispering. Among the dozens of weavers at their feet, the one marked white with dread-screen clearly stood out in the front row. Asper and his fellow herders had come to harvest. They craned their necks, staring at me. Staring at Orion.
“Visitors!” The ghost began to drift closer. “Are these your friends? More little explorers? I’d love to welcome them.”
“No, Orion!” I tried to prevent what could only end in disaster. “Stay back, will you?”