They were inside the Cyber. A cutting reek swarmed in his nostrils. Again he felt the mucous-moist compartment close about him. Shibo’s grasp eased and she lay back into the foamy stuff. A blur of mad acceleration took them away.
Killeen saw that Shibo was bleeding. It hadn’t been only a tech hit, then. He cursed himself.
Her eyelids fluttered and her system indices rolled meaninglessly, so her internals were damaged as well. He ignored the thumping progress of the Cyber and slapped a quick patch on her belly where the rich blood oozed forth.
“Toby! Got a stim bulb?”
“No… no, I—”
“Damn!” He had used his last on Besen.
“You… hang on. I’ll get…” He could not finish because he had no idea what he could do.
Shibo heard him and turned. She could not speak. Fresh light broke across her dazed features.
Killeen turned to find that the entire wall of the Cyber’s body had gone transparent.
The Cyber covered ground with lurching strides. They were already beyond the frantic running forms of the battle. It carried them jolting down the ridgeline. He saw Tribe members fire at the Cyber but the shots had no impact. The Cyber reached the tree line and plunged into the cloaking shelter.
Killeen saw now that the apparently glassy wall was in fact a projection, an image. He watched the forest shoot by. His sensorium still functioned, though it was fuzzed by errant stripes and flecks. He reached out—and felt something high and massive.
“Damn,” he said, disbelieving.
“What?” Toby asked. He held on to the moist webbing that enclosed them.
“Something above us. In the air. The Cyber’s ’fraid.”
“Mech?” Toby braced himself against the fast, rocking pace. The Cyber’s many legs came slamming down in a strong, rippling cadence.
“Naysay—” Killeen’s throat tightened, squeezing off his breath.
He could speak no more. Swelling anxiety reached him, punching through all insulation between his mind and the other’s.
The Cyber was terrified of what it had to do next. Yet a sense of duty propelled the thing swiftly forward.
They suddenly swerved. The wall scene of rushing emerald veered upward. The trees’ symmetrically spreading limbs crisscrossed the blue above like cabling. And in that deep blue a dark spot grew.
The great long stripe came down the sky like a plunging rod. Out of the west the slim shape swept, poking at them like an enormous pointing finger. Now they could see that the Skysower had the color of ancient wood. Along its length carbon-dark veins laminated the deep mahogany. Vines wriggled over the great stretched slabs that gleamed like polished teak.
All this Killeen took in in an instant as his Aspects cried out. Grey said:
It moves… around the equator… so comes down… different spot each time… sowing…
Killeen felt the Cyber gathering itself around them. He held Shibo and whispered to Toby, “Lie down.” He worked himself flat on the spongy cushion.
So large… a third of the planet’s radius… although is spinning… looks to us… as though… it falls straight down… and lifts off… nearly vertically…
Killeen caught the tightwound anxiety that permeated the Cyber, its struggle to quell an ageold terror. The conflict seemed like a babble of separate voices at cross-purposes. Ancient alarms rang and reasoned tones urged caution, while others adamantly urged the Cyber to do what it knew it must. A cacophony beset it.
No, not it—she. He intuitively sensed that the thing was female. Yes—but in a strange, dry, mechanical sense of the term.
He sent blunt encouragement to her. She faced a challenge, he knew.
Go, he sent. Do it.
And in the quick-swimming thoughts of the Cyber he felt its victory over its own primordial fears. One solemn, clear voice towered above the mad crosstalk.
Her triumph over herself was announced by a throaty roar that burst under their compartment. Thrust pressed them deep into the folds of foam. The Cyber was flying.
The wall showed a swooping view of trees as great thick trunks rushed past. The Cyber rose through them on its flaring jets. In a moment they banked and soared across a broad leafy plain that was the top of the forest. Killeen looked down on the huge platter of the world below, scarred and stained and cut. The treetops were bare. Their thick branches curled over to form the familiar umbrella effect.
The view tilted again, veering around to peer upward. The stubby nub end of the Skysower came rushing toward them.
But no seeds popped forth. Instead, long ropy vines curled out. They descended with blurring speed.
Killeen watched one flash past the Cyber. It was close enough for him to glimpse smaller black strands that coiled helically around each other, like the strong ropes he had known in the Citadel.
Dozens of these tendrils shot toward the forest below. The Skysower’s downward speed flung them into the tree-tops. Some snagged in the bare branches there. Along these a reflexive tension ran. They suddenly tightened.
Killeen watched great undulations ripple down the snagged vines. He sucked in his breath as he saw what was about to happen—and before he could breathe again it was done.
Each caught vine heaved upward. Simultaneously, alongside the Cyber, the Skysower’s tip reached its lowest point. For a prolonged instant of popping strain the great broad nub hung in the air, drifting eastward. Then it began to rise with gathering momentum.
At this instant the whiplash effect sent a surge along the extended vines. They yanked the trees upward. Some upper branches split and gave way. But others held. With a sudden lurch the trees came free of the soil.
They shot up from the forest, trailing their root systems. As if shaking themselves free of their planet, the trees lashed at the end of their tethers, spraying clods of dirt. Retracting vines brought the trees into a herd below the Skysower’s blunt end.
As this happened Killeen felt a solid thunk. The wall screen veered again. They were attached to the side of the Skysower. The Cyber’s legs extended grapplers and clung to the surface.
Killeen could see bushes and shrubs nearby. The Cyber grabbed these tufts. It also quickly bored shafts into the knotty surface.
He felt immediately the reason why. The air in their cramped compartment seemed to gain a weight of its own, pressing them down. His Arthur Aspect said:
You should be prepared for substantial acceleration. Grey calculates that we must endure over two normal gravities within a few more seconds.
A vast hand mashed Killeen into the floor. It grasped his chest and would not let him breathe. Toby lay pale and drawn on the other side of the compartment. “Shibo…” he got out, but no more. She lay still and white.
Time slowed to a plodding succession of painful heart thuds. Killeen’s sensorium seemed filled with wet sand.
Hollow, drawn-out thumps and pops reverberated through the compartment. He tried to reach for Shibo’s hand. Even with his motored right arm his fingers could not crawl across the slight space between them.
This acceleration is partly gravity and partly centripetal. As we rise, the gravitational component lessens as the inverse square. The centripetal fraction, however, is constant and—
Killeen moved his lips soundlessly. “How… long…”
I estimate from observation (not that Grey is any use in this—she is really quite spotty in her recollections) that the object touches down into the atmosphere roughly every twenty minutes. We should experience less than two gravities for one-quarter of this period, as we swing up. That will occur in about five minutes. However, we face a worse problem before that. In fact, the effects are becoming apparent.
Killeen’s ears popped.
We are leaving the atmosphere.
It was hopeless. His arms were leaden logs. He could not reach his helmet to twist the screw-seal. And he did not know if the rugged treatment of the last few days had kept the O-rings intact.
Wind whistled th
rough the compartment.
The shrill sound came from hair-thin seams in the wall.
For a long moment as the immense hand continued to squeeze him, Killeen could think of nothing. Then he marshaled his thoughts and let a pointed, simple message sit solidly in the forefront of his mind.
A strumming answer came. Cloudy, diffuse, as if it issued from several throats at once. The Cyber’s voice.
Yes. We will try.
Something slapped against the outside skin of the Cyber. A sticky blue glob oozed out along the seam lines. The whistling died. An acrid smoke rose from the blue fluid. Killeen knew it was some internal pap the Cyber used. It gave off a foul odor. He fought an impulse to cough and retch. But the seams held. The screech of escaping air died away.
The immense weight now lessened. Killeen could turn his head a fraction and see the screen wall.
Outside, the Skysower stretched up into blueblack emptiness. He was looking along the great chestnut-colored length of it. Shrubs nearby were flattened against the rough bark. The wind’s high bowl tore fruitlessly at them.
Skysower was a great cable stretching into the steadily darkening sky. Ebony laminations reached along it. Ash-blond segments like cross-struts connected these into a grid. They hugged the woody curve of the bark and the fierce gale could find no edge to pry them up.
The solid, implacable roar made their compartment vibrate like a living thing. Its hammering ferocity rose. Killeen wondered how long even the Cyber’s strength could hold it moored there.
Suddenly the noise muted as though someone had thrown a switch.
We are exceeding the speed of sound, I believe.
Along the towering length Killeen saw thin hickory-colored edges rise. They were like ailerons, sculpting the air. Long, strumming notes came through to Killeen.
It appears to be guiding itself like a giant flying wing. Net acceleration is lessening as we rise into the upper atmosphere. The structure is relaxing.
Pops and creaks rang out.
“I… what’s…” Toby got out between clenched teeth.
“Hold on.”
“Besen…”
“She’s quick.” Killeen tried to fill his voice with reassurance. “She’ll get away from that fight.”
Shibo’s wound was worse. He tightened her bandage but working against the heavy acceleration made him clumsy. The systems damage worried him most. He wished he could tell Toby something to relieve the anxiety he read in the boy’s face. He had no idea where they were going.
If the Cyber can cling to this for another fifteen minutes we may be able to leap off. Then we will be one-sixth of the way around the planet’s equator and quite beyond the dangers of the other Cybers.
“Yeasay,” Killeen managed to say. “And we’ll slam into the ground.”
True, our total acceleration downward will be considerable, about 2.4 gravities. But at the optimum moment, as the tip hovers over the surface, we can in principle simply step off, with only a net sidewise velocity. Then perhaps the Cyber can fly us to safety.
Such theoretical events seemed far away compared with the cycling of Shibo’s indices. Her face was untroubled and chalk white.
Outside, the last haze of blue faded into hard black. Nearby stars bit brightly at his eyes. Molecular clouds gave their gauzy wash to the vault.
Killeen’s thoughts came like thick syrup. The immense hand that pressed him to the floor had eased for a while. Now it leaned harder. His chest ached with the effort of breathing. He wondered distantly how long their air in the cramped compartment would last.
We shall be in high vacuum for about eight minutes more. I believe you can survive easily.
But Arthur did not feel the gathering ache that spread from his chest and into his arms and legs. Much more of this and Shibo would lose consciousness—which might not be a bad idea, except that Killeen did not know what they would have to do to survive. If the Cyber failed…
He could no longer afford the luxury of speculation. Living was labor enough. He turned his attention to the increasing effort of forcing breath into his lungs. His heart thudded in slow, tortured beats.
He grasped with leaden fingers for Shibo. A slight labored heave told him she still breathed.
Sluggishly he formulated a question and displayed it across his fevered and frayed consciousness.
We are Quath’jutt’kkal’thon. We carried you before.
“What… happens…”
We must cautiously adjust our dynamics.
Killeen could not understand. As he watched, the ivory curve of the planet rolled up in the wall screen. Farther away the cosmic string hung unmoving, a dull amber arc.
He felt the Cyber sway and rock in slow undulations. He could see great long swells racing toward them from the center of the Skysower. Waves excited by the air turbulence. As they reflected at the tip they gave it a sharp snap, like a whip cracking. The Cyber held on grimly.
Vibrations had moved his hand away from Shibo. He rolled to look at her and pain lanced into his shoulder. Her eyelids were sunken. He could not tell if she was still alive.
As they rose farther above the planet the whole disk became visible. Repeated sucking of the core metal had smashed the outlines of mountain ranges. Rivers now cut fresh paths. Lakes had spilled into new muddy reservoirs, leaving enormous bare brown plains.
He could see all of Skysower now. It curved like a slender snake that smoothly turned head over tail. The far end was just piercing the atmosphere. Undulations ran like waves in a long string, driven by the supersonic collision of this gargantuan living being with its blanket of air.
As he watched he slowly realized that some of the thicker vines nearby were throbbing. Bulges in them contracted rhythmically. It came to him that Skysower had to circulate its fluids, like any living thing. These coarse, chestnut-brown tubes were like vegetable hearts, working against the eternal outward thrust that came from Skysower’s spin. Somewhere beneath the grainy bark something like muscles must be sliding and clenching, to righten displacements and masses and maintain the even turning of the huge whirling organism.
Suddenly, at the edge of his vision, he saw plumes of gas burst forth at the nearby teak-colored horizon. Luminous geysers caught the sun’s rays. From the Cyber he caught a thread of understanding. To keep itself rotating, this huge thing breathed in air during its passage. Then it exhaled, perhaps burning the gases in some fashion to gain added thrust. This paid back the momentum stolen by the atmosphere’s supersonic turbulence.
All this came to him as he fought the sure rise of pressure against his chest. He thought distantly now, barely able to hold on to consciousness against the worsening weight.
Then something rushed by them and caught his attention. A second tubular shape passed nearby and he saw that hot yellow balls burned at regular intervals along its length. He remembered the forest fire. These were the trees that the vines had snagged from the forest below.
Against blurring pressure he still managed to feel surprise. The forests of umbrella-topped trees—they must have grown from the Skysower’ s own seeds. Snatched up on the harvesting vines, they had now been ćarried aloft. Some deep biochemical command had activated their stores of fuel. Far from being a mech energy resource, as Killeen had guessed, these trees were now expending their stored chemical energy to launch themselves away from their mother plant.
Another tree shot past. Yellow plumes pushed it to high velocity. It hurtled after its fellows, which were already shrinking logs.
After conferring with Grey (not an easy business, I assure you) I calculate that our speed exceeds thirteen kilometers per second. In your terms—
“Skip the techtalk,” Killeen muttered. “What’s it mean?”
This creature—and I do not necessarily agree that it is simply a plant, given its many animallike functions, including an active circulation system—is spreading its progeny. They leave it here, at the top of its arc, with maximal velocity. They can easily reach the out
er precincts of this solar system. From there they can drift to other stars. Seeding, pure and simple.
Killeen stared at Shibo and thought fruitlessly, rummaging for some way to repair her systems’ failure. She grew whiter.
I am repeating the speculations of the Grey woman, of course. I have done the calculations and what she proposes is marginally within possibility.
“So… so in every one of those trees there’s a seed for another Skysower?”
Killeen could barely breathe. He watched the trees jet away on their columns of flame. To swim the sea of stars. To grow into more Skysowers. Life persistent and undeniable. They hung within view over the still body of Shibo.
His bones seemed to stretch. He grasped for Shibo and could not reach her. Distant bass notes came strumming through the Cyber’s body as waves made the woody surface thrash and twist.
Suddenly the Cyber freed its hold on the bark. All of its visible legs withdrew their steel grapplers and instead pushed against the brown surface. Instantly the oppressive weight lifted. Killeen floated in complete freedom.
“Are you—” He hugged Shibo. Did her eyes flutter?
In complete silence the Cyber rose away from Skysower’s slim silhouette. The turning ribbon now pointed straight down into the wounded planet.
They shot out along a tangent to Skysower’s whirling arc. Soon it had rotated below them. It was again a thin line cutting across the face of the ruined world.
We are properly pointed, the strangely liquid thoughts of the Cyber came. My sisters have stilled the Cosmic Circle so it presents no obstacle. We are entering a rendezvous orbit.
“Where?”
Close to the station. Your vessel lies there. There is a task awaiting your kind.
“Hurry! There’re medical supplies on Argo—”
Killeen peered ahead and saw a glimmering that beckoned and promised.
But Shibo died long before they could reach it.?
EPILOG
SAILING WITH THE TIDE
The Cap’n walked the hull again.
A long time seemed to have passed since he last was here. Only a few weeks, he knew. But time was not truly measured by the ticking of unseen arbiters. It made its lasting marks in the soul.
Tides of Light Page 37