by David Brin
What the—
… and kept going, sweeping past with a roar of displaced air.
Blade felt hooks of urrish steel yank his carapace at all five suspension points. One anchor broke free, tearing chitin armor like paper, then flinging wildly as the balloon was sucked after the skyship’s wake.
The world passed in a blur, teaching him what real flying was about.
Then the Jophur vessel was gone, ignoring balloon and passenger with contempt, or else indifference. He glimpsed it once more, still climbing steadily toward the Rimmer peaks, leaving him swirling in a backwash of confusion and disturbed air.
Vubben
AFTER A TIME, VUBBEN FINALLY SUCCEEDED IN quelling his busy thoughts, allowing the tywush resonance to pervade his soul, washing away distractions and doubts. Another midura passed, and another prayer circuit, while his meditation deepened. After Loocen set, a vast skyscape of constellations and nebulae passed overhead. Twinkling abode of the gods.
As he rounded back to the west side, another kind of winking light caught one of Vubben’s eyes — a syncopated flash unlike any gleaming star. Still wrapped in his trance, Vubben had to labor just to lift a second stalk and recognize the flicker as coded speech.
It took more effort, and yet a third eye, to decipher it.
JOPHUR SMALLSHIP/DEATHSHIP IN MOTION, flashed the lantern on Mount Ingul. HEADING TOWARD EGG.
The message repeated. Vubben even glimpsed a distant sparkle, echoing the words on a farther peak, and realized that other semaphore stations must be relaying the message. Still, his brain was tuned to another plane, preventing him from quite grasping its significance.
Instead, he went back to the sensory phantasm that had been drawing him inward — an impression of being perched atop a swaying ribbon, one that slowly yawed and pitched like some undulating sea.
It was not an unpleasant feeling. Rather, he felt almost like a youngster again, growing up in Dooden Mesa, zooming recklessly along a swaying suspension bridge, feeling its planks rattle beneath his rims, swooping and banking without a safety rail while lethal drops gaped on both sides. His taut spokes hummed as he sped like a bullet, with all four eyestalks stretched wide for maximum parallax.
The moment came back to him whole — not as a distant, fond memory, but in all its splendor. It was the closest thing to paradise he had ever experienced on Jijo’s rough orb.
Amid the exhilaration, part of Vubben knew he must have crossed some boundary. He was with the Egg now, sensing the approach of a massive object from the west. A deadly thing, complacent and terrible, cruising at a leisurely pace uphill from the Glade.
Leisurely — according to those aboard, that is.
Somehow, Vubben could sense gravitic fields pressing down, tearing leaves from trees, scraping and penetrating Jijo’s soil, disturbing ancient rocks. He even knew intuitive things about the crew within — multiringed entities, far more self-assured and unified than traeki.
Strange rings. Egotistical and driven.
Determined to wreak havoc.
Blade
THE BALLOON’S ALTIMETER MUST BE MALFUNCTIONING, he realized. Or else the fuel tank was running low. Either way, the automatic adjustments were growing more sporadic. Unnerving sputtering sounds accompanied each burst of heat, and the pulses came less frequently.
Finally, they halted altogether.
The lake had vanished behind him during those frantic duras when the spaceship’s wake dragged the balloon behind it, past the ruined Glade into a narrow pass, toward the Rimmer heights. Also gone was Blade’s last chance to pull the rip cord and land in deep water. Instead, trees spired around him, like teeth of a comb you used to pluck fleas from your pet lornik.
And I am the flea.
Assuming he survived when a forest giant snatched him from the sky, someone might hear his cries and come. But then, what will they think when they find a qheuen in a tree?
The phrase was a popular metaphor for unlikeliness — a contradiction in terms — like a swimming urs, or a modest human, or an egotistical traeki.
This appears to be the year for contradictions.
A branch top brushed one of his claw tips. Blade yanked back so reflexively that his whole body spun around. All five legs were kept drawn in after that. Still, he expected another impact at any moment.
Instead, the forest abruptly ended. Blade had an impression of craggy cliffs, and a sulfurous odor stroked his tongue. Then came a sensation of upward motion!
And heat. His mouth feelers curled in reaction to a blast from below.
Of course, he realized. Go east from the Glade for a few leagues, and you’re in geyser country.
The balloon soared, its drooping canopy now buoyed by a warm updraft.
The Jophur ship must have dragged me into a particular canyon. The Pilgrimage Track.
The path leading to the Egg.
Blade’s body kept spinning, even as the gasbag climbed. To other beings, it might have been disconcerting, but qheuens had no preferred orientation. It never mattered which way he was “facing.” So Blade was ready when the object he sought came into view.
There it is!
The corvette lay dead ahead. It had stopped motionless and was now shining a searchlight downward, circling a site that Blade realized could only be the Nest.
What is it planning to do?
He recalled Ovoom Town, where the aliens chose to attack at night for maximum terror and visual effect. Could that be the intent, once again?
But surely the Jophur would not harm the Egg!
Blade had never shown the slightest psi-ability. Yet it seemed that feelings now crept inward from his extremities to the flexing lymph pump at his body center. Expectation came first. Then something akin to intrigued curiosity.
Finally, in rapid succession, he felt recognition, realization, and a culminating sense of disappointed ennui. All these impressions swept over him in a matter of moments, and he somehow knew they weren’t coming from the Jophur.
Indeed, whatever had just happened — a psi-insult or failed communication — it seemed to anger those aboard the cruiser, goading them to action. The searchlight narrowed from a diffuse beam to a needle of horrific brilliance that stabbed down viciously. It took duras for sound to follow … a staccato series of crackling booms. Blade could not see the obscured target, but glowing smoke billowed from the point of impact.
A shrill, involuntary whistle escaped Blade’s vents and his legs tightened spasmodically. Yet there was no impression of pain, or even surprise. It will take more than that, he thought proudly. A lot more.
Of course, the Jophur could dish out whatever it took to turn the defenseless Egg into a molten puddle. Their intent was now clear. This act, more even than the slaying at Ovoom Town, would tear the morale of the Six.
Blade urged his windblown vehicle onward, hoping to arrive in time.
Lark
THREE HUMANS IN A PRISON CELL WATCHED A PANorama of destruction, reacting in quite different ways.
Lark stared at the holoscene with the same superstitious thrill he felt months ago, encountering Galactic tech for the first time. The images seemed to demand habits, ways of seeing, learned at an early age. Things he should recognize — the Rimmer mountains, for instance — possessed a slippery quality. Odd perspective foldings conveyed far more than you’d see through a window the same size … especially when the scene hovered over the Holy Egg.
“Your obstinacy — joint and particular — brought your people to this juncture,” the tall stack of rings said.
“Destroying mere towns did not sway you, since your so-called Sacred Scrolls preach the futility of tangible assets.
“But now, observe as our corvette strikes a blow at your true underpinnings.”
A glaring needle struck the Egg. Almost at once, waves of pain engulfed Lark’s chest. Falling back with a cry, he tore at his clothes, trying to fling away the stone amulet hanging from a thong around his neck. Ling tried to help, but c
ould not grasp the meaning of his agony.
The ordeal might have killed him, but then it ended as suddenly as it began. The cutting ray vanished, leaving a smoking scar along the Egg’s flank.
Ewasx burbled glad exhalations about “a signal” and “gratifying surrender.”
Lark bunched the fabric of his undershirt around the Egg fragment, wrapping it to prevent contact with his skin. Only then did he notice that Ling had his head on her lap, stroking his face, telling him that everything was going to be all right.
Yeah, sure it is, Lark thought, recognizing a well-meant lie. But the gesture, the warm contact, was appreciated.
As his eyes unblurred, Lark saw Rann looking his way. The big Danik had cool disdain in his eyes. Scorn that Lark would react so to the superficial wounding of rock. Contempt that Ling would soil her hands on a native. And derision that the Six Races would give in so easily, surrendering to the Jophur in order to salvage a mere lump of psi-active stone. Rann had already proved willing to sacrifice himself and all his comrades, to protect his patron race. Clearly, he thought any lesser courage unworthy.
Go kiss a Rothen’s feet, Lark thought. But he did not speak aloud.
The corvette had turned away from the Egg. Its transmission now showed the camera gaining altitude, sweeping above dark ridgelines.
The country was familiar. Lark ought to recognize it.
Lester Cambel … They’re heading straight toward Lester … and the boo forest.…
So. The sages had chosen to give up whatever mystery project kept them so busy at their secret base — the work of months — just in order to safeguard the Egg.
It shouldn’t be surprising. It is our holy site, after all. Our prophet. Our seer.
And yet, he was surprised.
In fact, it was the last, thing he would have expected.
Blade
SILENTLY, BLADE URGED HIS WINDBLOWN VEHICLE onward, hoping to arrive in time.…
To do what? To distract the Jophur for a few duras
while they burned him to a cinder, giving the Egg just that much respite before the main assault resumed? Or worse, to float on by, screaming and waving his legs, trying futilely to attract attention from beings who thought him no more important than a cloud?
Frustration boiled. Combat hormones triggered autonomic reactions, causing his cupola to pull inward, taking the vision strip down beneath his carapace, leaving just a smooth, armored surface above.
That instinct response might have made sense long ago, when presentient qheuens fought their battles claw to claw in seaside marshes, on the distant planet where their patrons later found and uplifted them. But now it was a damned nuisance. Blade struggled for calm, schooling his breathing to follow a steady rhythm, sequentially clockwise from leg to leg, instead of random stuttering gasps. It took a count of twenty before the cupola relaxed enough to rise and restore sight.
His vision strip whirled, taking in the dim canyons that made a maze of this part of the Rimmers. At once, he realized two things.
The balloon had climbed considerably in that brief time, widening his field of view.
And the Jophur ship was gone!
But … where …?
Blade wondered if it might be right below, in his blind spot. That provoked a surging fantasy. He saw himself slashing the balloon and dropping onto the cruiser from above! Landing with a thump, he would scoot along the top until he reached some point of entry. A hatch that could be forced, or a glass window to smash. Once aboard, in close quarters, he’d show them.…
Oh, there it is.
The heroic dream image evaporated like dew when he spied the corvette, diminishing rapidly, heading roughly northwest.
Could it have already finished off the Egg?
Scanning nearer at hand, he spied the great ovoid at last, some distance in the opposite direction. It lay in full view now, a savage burn scarring one flank. The stone glowed along that jagged, half-molten line, casting ocher light across jumbled debris lining the bottom of the Nest. Still, the Egg looked relatively intact.
Why did they leave before finishing the job?
He tracked the corvette by its glimmer of reflected starlight.
Northwest. It’s heading northwest.
Blade tried to think.
That’s where home is. Dolo Village. Tarek Town.
And Biblos, he then realized, hoping he was wrong.
Things might have just gone from bad to worse.
Ewasx
THE THREAT WORKED, MY RINGS! Now our expertise is proven. Our/My worth is vindicated before the CaptainLeader and our fellow crew stacks. As I/we predicted, just as our bomber began slicing at their holy psychic rock, a signal came!
It was the same digital radiance they used last time, to reveal the g’Kek city. Thus, the savages attempt once more to placate us. They will do anything to protect their stone deity.
OBSERVE THE HUMAN CAPTIVES, MY RINGS! ONE OF them — the local male whom we/Asx once knew as Lark Koolhan — quailed and moaned to see the “Egg” under attack, while the other two seemed unaffected. Thus, a controlled experiment showed that I/we were right about the primitives and their religion.
Now the female comforts Lark as our cruiser speeds away from the damaged Egg, toward the signal-emanation point.
What will they offer us, this time? Something as satisfying as the g’Kek town, now frozen with immured samples of hated vermin?
The chief-tactician stack calculates that the sooners will not sacrifice the thing we desire most — the dolphin ship. Not yet. First they will try buying us off with lesser things. Perhaps their fabled archive — a pathetic trove of primitive lore, crudely scribed on plant leaves or some barklike substance. A paltry cache of lies and superstitions that simpletons dare call a library.
You tremor in surprise, O second ring-of-cognition? You did not expect Me to learn of this other thing treasured by the Six Races?
Well be assured, Asx did a thorough job of melting that particular memory. The information did not come from this reforged stack.
Did you honestly believe that our Ewasx stack was the only effort at intelligence gathering ordained by the CaptainLeader? There have been other captives, other interrogations.
It took too long to learn about this pustule of contraband Earthling knowledge — this Biblos—and the exact location remained uncertain. But now we/I speculate. Perhaps Biblos is the thing they hope to bribe us with, exchanging their archive for the “life” of their Holy Egg.
If that is their intent, they will learn.
We will burn the books, but that won’t suffice.
NOTHING WILL SUFFICE.
In the long run, not even the dolphin ship will do. Though it will make a good start.
Blade
NORTHWEST, WHAT TARGET MIGHT ATTRACT THE aliens’ attention that way?
Nearly everything I know or care about, Blade concluded. Dolo Village, Tarek Town, and Biblos.
As pale Torgen rose behind the Rimmer peaks, he watched the slim ship glide on, knowing he would lose sight of it long before the raider arrived at any of those destinations. Blade no longer cared where the contrary winds blew him, so long as he did not have to watch destruction rain down on the places he loved.
A chain of tiny, flickering lights followed the cruiser as scouts stationed on mountain peaks passed reports of its progress. He deciphered a few snatches of GalTwo, and saw they weren’t words, but numbers.
Wonderful. We are good at describing and measuring our downfall.
With combat hormones ebbing, Blade grew more aware of physical discomfort. Nerves throbbed where one of the urrish hooks had ripped away skin plates, exposing fleshy integuments to cold air. Thirst gnawed at him, making Blade wish he were a hardy gray.
The balloon passed beyond the warm updraft and stopped climbing. Soon the descent would resume, sending him spinning toward a landscape of jagged shadows.
Wait a dura.
Blade tried to focus his vision strip, peerin
g at the distant Jophur vessel.
Has it stopped?
Soon he knew it had. The ship was hovering again, casting its search beam to scan the ground below.
Was I wrong? The next target may not be Biblos or Tarek, after all.
But … there’s nothing here! These hills are wilderness. Just a useless tract of boo—
He was staring in perplexity when something happened to the mountain below the floating ship. Reddish flickers erupted, like marsh gas lit by static charges, at the swampy border of a lake. Sparklike ripples seemed to spread amid the dense stands of towering boo.
What are the Jophur doing now? he wondered. What weapon are they using?
The flickers brightened, flaring beneath scores of giant greatboo stems. The ship’s searchlight still roamed, as if bemused to find slender tubes of native vegetation emitting fire from their bottoms … then starting to rise.
The first thunder reached Blade as he realized.
It’s not the Jophur at all! It’s—
The corvette finally showed alarm, starting to back away. Its beam narrowed to a slicing needle, sweeping through one rising column.
An instant later, the entire northwest was alight. Volley after volley of blazing tubes jetted skyward in a roar that shook the night.
Rockets, Blade thought. Those are rockets!
The vast majority missed their apparent target. But accuracy seemed of no concern, so dense was the missile swarm. The retreating corvette could not blast them fast enough before three in a row made glancing blows.
Then a fourth projectile struck head-on. The warhead failed, but sheer momentum crumpled one section of starship hull, tossing it spinning.
Other warheads kept going off ahead of schedule, or tumbling to explode on the ground, filling the night with brilliant, fruitless incandescence. So great was the wastage that it looked as if the Jophur ship might actually limp away.
Then a late-rising rocket took off. It turned, and with apparent deliberation, drove itself straight through the groaning corvette.
A dazzling explosion ripped its belly open, cleaving the skyship apart. Blade had to spin a different part of his half-blinded visor around to witness the two halves plummet, like twin cups filled with fire, to the forest floor.