The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 3

by Neil Clarke

  I was careful not to assume too much from this one glimpse. It might be a living organism, and that would have been worth an annotation or two in any report I ever managed to file back to my superiors. But it could also have been the result of some mineralogical process, owing nothing to metabolic chemistry. Interesting either way, but only a footnote, albeit a curious one.

  I committed to my jump and sailed off into the void.

  4.

  In darkness I watched the maggot crawl into my trap. We were a mountain apart, but within each other’s line of sight. I was labouring up a slope, hardly needing to fake the slow failure of my suit’s locomotive systems. Thermal overload warnings sounded in my ears, forcing me to halt for long minutes, allowing the systems to cool down to some acceptable threshold. It gave me all the time I needed to track the maggot. I had removed all my faceplate notifications apart from a marker showing the mine’s location, and a dim pulsing bracket signifying the alien’s moving position. Everything else–the larger mass of the mountain, the shape of its summit and plunging flanks–I trusted to memory.

  Now the maggot had surmounted the summit and was working down to the same area where I had implanted the mine. Moving quickly, too– even for an Eight-Warrior. I wondered what it made of my painful, halting deliberations. Confusion or some faint flicker of alien contempt? Both our suits must be struggling now, though, even though the maggot had a temporary advantage. I was at one thousand and sixteen atmospheres, already over the thousand-atmosphere design limit for this type of suit.

  “Come on …” I breathed, urging it forward.

  I had been still for some while. Even with the symbols in my faceplate, I became aware that there was a tracery of yellow-green threads around my position. They seemed brighter and thicker than before, more apparent to my eyes, and as I leaned back from the slope I could trace their extent much more readily. The threads wormed away in all directions, forming a kind of contour mesh which gave shape and form to the mountain.

  It was not a mountain, of course. Mountains have foot slopes and bedrock. They are anchored to continents. This was a floating mass, suspended in the air. In our hurried race for shelter, there had been little time for theorising. But since I was obliged to pause, I allowed my mind to skim over the possibilities.

  Nothing like this could ever have formed as a single entity, intact and whole. Nor could the mountain have fallen from space and somehow bobbed down to an equilibrium position in the atmosphere. It would have burned into ash at the first kiss of air, and if a few boulder-sized fragments made their way into the depths, they would have been moving far too fast to ever settle at these levels.

  More likely, I thought, that the mountain had grown into this form by a slow process of accretion. Tiny particles, dust or pollen sized, might be borne in the atmosphere by normal circulation patterns. If those grains stuck together, they might begin to form larger floating structures. Provided the density of the accretion was less than the volume of atmosphere they displaced, they would not sink. But floating at a fixed altitude demanded some delicate regulatory process. If living material infested the whole of the mountain, not just its visible crust, then perhaps what I stood on was better thought of as a creature or colony of creatures that had incorporated inanimate matter into its matrix. Biological processes—the ingestion and expulsion of gases, organic molecules, other airborne organisms, could easily provide the means to regulate the mountain’s altitude.

  So: perhaps more than a footnote. But it would be of only distant interest to my superiors. Simple organisms often did complex things, but that did not make them militarily useful. If a discovery could not be weaponised, or in some way turned to our advantage, it would be filed away under a low priority tag. A useful tactical data point, no more than that.

  My suit had cooled down enough. I turned sharply back to the rock, and in that instant of turning a pulse of animation flowed through the glowing threads, racing away in all directions.

  I had not imagined it.

  The network had responded to my presence. I froze again, watching as the tracery returned to its former quiescence, and then moved again. Ripples of brightness raced through the threads, surging and rebounding. And even as I watched, new veins and branches seemed to press out from the ground. Perhaps they had been there all along, but were only now being activated, but it was impossible to avoid the sense that I had stimulated a spurt of growth, a spurt of interest.

  It was aware of me.

  My heart raced. Much more than a footnote, now. A reactive organism, capable of some low-level of information processing. And completely unknown, too. Had the maggot fleet not decimated ours, not forced our flight to this system, had their pursuit phalanx not chased us into this atmosphere, not whittled our fleet down to a few crippled survivors, and then just the one ailing ship …

  Slowly my gaze returned to the mountain beyond this one. I should have seen nothing of it, across the void of darkness. But there was a faint glowing presence, something I could not possibly have missed earlier. The surge of activity in this living network had drawn an echo from that in the other mountain.

  Call and response. Communication.

  The maggot was as close to the mine as it was going to get. This was my chance, my only chance, to destroy the maggot. All I had to do was voice the detonation command.

  5.

  We regarded each other.

  The alien’s head was hidden inside a flanged metal helmet that had no faceplate or visible sensors, but still I felt the pressure of its attention, the slow tracking of its gaze as it studied me at close range. Even now, our theorists assured us, the maggots knew a lot more about our armour and weapons than they did about what was inside our suits. We had been careful not to

  give them the luxury of prisoners, or too many intact bodies. But exactly what they knew–the hard limits of their knowledge and ignorance–no one could be sure of that, except the maggots themselves.

  But now something scratched across my faceplate. It was a flash of colourless light, emanating from a point just under the Eight-Warrior’s head. I squinted, but the flash was much too dim to be a weapon discharge. And it was organising itself, forming into a pattern of symbols that my brain could not help but imprint with meaning.

  Why?

  “Why what?” I mouthed back, almost without thinking.

  Why did you not kill?

  “You weren’t worth the cost of a mine.” Then I blinked in irritation and confusion. “Wait. Are you understanding any of this?”

  You create sounds. I read the sounds through your glass. I know your tongue. All Eight-Warriors know your tongue. You call us Eight-Warriors. “Yes,” I answered. “But you’re not meant to understand us. No one said you could do that.”

  It is not an advantage we advertise.

  It was just words, spraying across my faceplate. But it was impossible not to read a kind of sardonic understatement into the maggot’s reply.

  “No, you wouldn’t, I suppose. Just as we wouldn’t want you to know if we could read your comms. You’d change your encryption methods and we’d have to … I don’t know, learn a new language or something. But you shouldn’t have told me, should you? Now I know.”

  You know but you cannot report. Your signals will not penetrate this atmosphere, and even if they did there is nothing out there to hear them. Your fleet is dust. You will not see your kind again. Nor I mine. So there need be no secrets between us.

  “You might be planning to die here, maggot. I’ve got other plans.”

  Have you? I should like to hear them. Your squadron was destroyed. You are the last survivor of the last ship–as I am the last of my pursuit phalanx. We are alone now, and our suits are both failing us. We have no weapons, no means of harming each other. We cannot go deeper, and we cannot ascend. Our only fate is to die here.

  “So what, maggot? You were made to die.”

  And you were not?

  “I was born. I have a name, a family. I am
Battle-Mother …” But whatever I had hoped to say beyond that point died somewhere between my brain and my mouth. I had a name, I knew. I had been given one. But it was so long ago it was like some ancient blemish that had almost faded from sight. “I am Battle-Mother,” I repeated, with all the conviction I could find, as if that were indeed my name. “Battle-Mother. At least I have that. What are you, but an Eight-Warrior?”

  I am Greymouth. And you are right, Battle-Mother. I was made for war.

  But then which of us was not?

  “We’re not the same.”

  Perhaps. But you have still not answered my question–at least not to my satisfaction. You set the mine. I found it, of course, but by then it would have been much too late for me had you detonated it remotely. The blast would have destroyed me. So: why did you not kill?

  “You know why.”

  You learned of the native organisms. You realised that destroying me would damage them. But it was just one of these floating mountains. No great harm would have been done to the rest of the ecology.

  “I couldn’t be sure.”

  And if you had been sure, Battle-Mother? Would that have changed things?

  “Of course. I’d have taken you out. I’d been trying to kill you all along.

  Why would I have stopped?”

  Because we are all capable of changing our minds.

  “I’m not. We’re not alike, you and I. We’re different, Greymouth. I’d kill you now, if there was a way. After all the things the maggots have done to us, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

  Crimes of war.

  “Yes.”

  We know well of those, Battle-Mother. Very well indeed.

  6.

  We had been silent for a while. When Greymouth asked me if I had noticed the changes I took my time answering, not wanting the maggot to think I was in any hurry for conversation. But the question nagged at me, because I had been making my own observations and a part of me had been wondering when I was going to get around to asking something similar of the alien.

  “The glowing threads have developed. They seem to be concentrating around us, growing and branching near our bodies. Near us, I mean.”

  Speak of bodies, Battle-Mother. It will soon be the truth. But I am glad we agree about the threads. I have been monitoring them, as best as I am able. They are definitely responding to our presence. We have made a discovery, then–the two of us.

  “Have we?”

  I think so. This is a more complex organism than we initially suspected.

  “Speak for yourself.” But my answer was peevish and I forced myself to admit that the maggot was not entirely wrong. “Fine; there’s more to it than just some glowing infestation. It’s reactive, and obviously capable of fast growth when the need arises.”

  Whatever the need might be.

  After an interval I asked: “Have you encountered anything like this before, Greymouth?”

  They do not tell Eight-Warriors everything, Battle-Mother. We learn only what we need. Doubtless it is different for you.

  “Yes,” I answered, reflexively. But I hesitated. “What I mean is, we’re educated. We have to be, all the responsibility given to us. But I don’t know that much about planetary ecologies. If I could get back to my ship, my fleet, I could submit a query to …”

  Yes, I could ask questions as well. To a Four-Planner or a Three-Strategist, or even a Two-Thinker, if my question were deemed vital enough. But like you I would need to return to my ship, and therein lies a slight difficulty.

  “Neither of us is going anywhere,” I said.

  No. That we are not.

  Yellow light licked at the edge of my attention. I rotated my head, to the extent that I was able. My suit was stiffening up as its power levels faded. Around me the threads were branching and cross-weaving in a steadily thickening density, forming a sort of clotted, blurred outline of my form. The organisms” glow throbbed with strange rhythms, the colour shifting from green to yellow, yellow to green. The same process was happening to the maggot, with fine threads beginning to creep up the sides of Greymouth’s armour, concentrating around the seams and joints, almost as if they were looking for a way to get inside …

  “You spoke of crimes,” I said, pushing aside the thought that the same process of infiltration must be going on with my own suit. “I won’t pretend that we haven’t hit you hard. But let’s not pretend that we chose this war. It was a maggot offensive, pushing into our space, broadcasting your militaristic intentions ahead of your fleets. If you’d kept to your sector there’d have been no war, no crimes of war …”

  Even though I had altered the angle of my head, the maggot’s light was still able to splash across my faceplate.

  We were pushed out of our homeworlds, Battle-Mother. Usurped by an adversary stronger than either of us. We fought back as best we could, but soon it became clear that we would have to move just to survive. But we did not wish for war, and we knew that our encroachment into your sector might appear provocative. Ahead of our evacuation fleets, we transmitted what we hoped would be recognised as justifications. We showed recordings of how valiantly we had struggled against the adversary, proving that we had done our utmost to avoid this encroachment. We thought that the nature of our entreaties would be plain to any civilised species: that we sought assistance, shelter, mutual cooperation. Slowly, though, we learned that our transmissions had been wrongly interpreted. You saw them as threats, rather than justifications. We attempted to make amends–modified our negotiating tactics. But by then the damage was done. Our evacuation fleets were already encountering armed opposition. Merely to survive, we had to shift to a counter-offensive posture. Even then our intention was to hold you at bay long enough for our peaceful intentions to become apparent. But they never did.

  “You can say that again.”

  We were pushed from our homeworlds . . .

  “It’s a figure of speech, Greymouth. It means that I’m concurring with your words, while emphasizing that there’s a degree of understatement in what you say.”

  Then you do agree. That is something, is it not?

  “You’ve been told one story, one version of events. Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t. Obviously I don’t hold you personally responsible for the things your side did to mine …”

  That is a relief.

  “I’m serious.”

  Then I will extend you the same courtesy, Battle-Mother. I do not hold you personally responsible. There. All our differences settled in one stroke. Who could have thought it could be so simple?

  “It’s simple because we don’t matter.”

  If we have ever mattered. I am not so much. For every Eight-Warrior that falls, a billion more are waiting. I suppose you were much more important to your war effort.

  “My children looked up to me. That’s the point of a Battle-Mother.” I brooded before continuing. “But there were always more above me. Layers of command. Superior officers. They gave me a squadron … but it was just one squadron.”

  Which you lost.

  “Which you took from me.”

  We have both suffered much. We have both known sadness. Shall we agree on that?

  “What does a maggot know of sadness?”

  A warning icon sprang up on my helmet. I turned my eyes to it with dull expectation. Hermetic breach, the icon said. Foreign presence detected in suit.

  I thought of the glowing tendrils. They had pushed their way through my suit’s weak points. But the crush and heat of the superjovian’s atmosphere was still being held outside, or else I would be dead by now. The organism, whatever it was, had overcome my suit’s defences without compromising its basic ability to keep me alive and conscious.

  Battle-Mother?

  “Yes.”

  There is something inside my suit now.

  “I’m the same.”

  What do you think it means to do with us?

  “I don’t know. Taste us. Digest us. Whatever superjovian rock creatures do when they’re
bored. We’ll find out in a little while. What’s wrong, Greymouth? You’re not frightened, are you?”

  I have never been very good at being frightened. But you are wrong about us, Battle-Mother. A maggot can know a great deal of sadness.

  7.

  Before long it was in my suit, glowing and growing. It had burst through in a dozen places, infiltrating and branching, exploring me with a touch that was both gentle and absent of thought. A blind, mindless probing. The yellow-green glow was both inside and outside now, and I knew that it must be the same for Greymouth. For all our differences, all the many ways in which we were not alike, we had this much in common. The superjovian had bested us. Our suits were not made for these depths, nor for keeping out this determined, pervasive alien presence.

  Us, I thought to myself. That was how my perception had shifted now. The maggot was no longer as alien to me as this thing that was fighting its way into both of us. The maggot was Greymouth, a soldier just as I was. An Eight-Warrior and a Battle-Mother. Both of us lost now, both of us doomed. All that was left was to bear witness, and then to die.

  The glow had washed out any chance of reading Greymouth’s words. I knew it was out there, almost close enough to touch, that the threads surrounding our two bodies were probably cross-mingled, interconnected. I wondered if it was still trying to communicate with me. Could it still understand my voice, even if there was no way of responding in kind?

  “Greymouth,” I said. “Listen to me. I don’t think you can answer me now, but if you’re still out there, still hearing me … I’m sorry for the things that happened. I can’t know if any part of that was true, what you said about the evacuation fleets, about the messages being misinterpreted. But I choose to believe that it happened the way you said. A terrible mistake. But there’s hope, isn’t there? Not for either of us, I know. But for our two species. One day they’ll realise the mistake, and …” I trailed off, repulsed by the shallow platitudes of my words. “No. Who am I kidding. They’ll just go on making more of us. More Battle-Mothers. More Eight-Warriors. More fleets, more phalanxes, more holdfasts. More war-fronts. They’ll run out of worlds to shatter and then they’ll turn to stars, and nothing that happened here will ever have mattered. I’m sorry, Greymouth. So sorry.”