Across the Sea of Suns

by Gregory Benford

  It went halfway. Nigel pushed hard and buried it farther. He felt no response, no tremor, no sign of pain. Moving sluggishly, he completed the hookup. Turned on the pumps. Relaxed into a dazed and empty state, a strange pulse flowing in him.

  FIVE

  Inert. Drifting. Disconnected from glands and the singing of blood. Awake but not fully aware.

  This was how it might be for the Watchers, and the machine labyrinths that had made them. Patient and calculating, in principle like life in their analytic function and in the laws of evolution that acted equally on silicon-germanium as it did on DNA, yet they were not fully in the world as life was, they had not risen from the crusted bonds of molecular law, did not thrive in the universe of essences—as the Snark had put it, groping for a human term to tell what it felt lay forever beyond its cybernetic grasp—and thus feared and hated the organic things that had given birth to them and died in turn.

  Or perhaps the words hate and fear could not penetrate the cool world where thought did not stir hormones to love or flee or fight, where analysis reigned and built with bricks of syllogism a world that knew the hard hand of competition but not the organic wholeness that came out of an enduring mortality.

  Yet the Watchers had things in common with organic life. A loyalty to their kind.

  They had destroyed utterly the world around Wolf 359, and patrolled it still. But they did not oversee the dutiful robots who chipped bergs from the outer ice moons and sent them spiraling in, to crash on what was once their home world. A Watcher circled that world, to guard against any organic form that might arise when the vapor and liquid brought sunward finally collected into ponds and seas.

  It would have been simpler to destroy those robots too, leaving all barren and without hope. The Watcher allowed those simple servants to continue, knowing they would someday err in their self-replication as they repaired themselves, and in that moment begin machine evolution anew.

  So the machines wanted their own diversity to spill over and bring fresh forms to the galaxy—all the while guarding against a new biosphere, which the patient, loyal robots labored to make—so that machine societies would not be static and thus in the end vulnerable no matter how strong now.

  They needed the many functions, echoing life—the oil carriers who voyaged to some distant metropolis, the Snarks to explore and report and dream in their long exile, the Watchers who hammered worlds again and again with asteroids.

  Yet they must know of the chemical feast within the giant molecular clouds that Lancer had brushed by. Know that every world would be seeded perpetually by the swelling massive clouds. Know, then, that the conflict would go on for eternity; there was no victory but only bitter war.

  If the machines crushed life where they could, why had humanity arisen at all? Something must have guarded them.

  The Watchers kept sentinel for signs of spacegoing life, signaling to each other as the one at Isis had sent a microwave burst past Lancer, to Ross 128. The Marginis wreck was evidence that Earth’s Watcher had been destroyed by someone, a race now gone a million years.

  The pre-EMs? The race that remade itself at Isis?

  The thought came suddenly. Perhaps. So much was lost in time …

  Whoever had come to that ancient earth had left fluxlife, a sure sign that the Marginis wreck carried organic beings, for only they would use a thing that reproduced itself with a molecular genetic code. And fluxlife was the sign and the gift: an opening to the stars.

  The pulsing in him was becoming a song and the harmonics of it called up the long weary wail of the EMs, in a timeless weave that blended this huge blind creature into the same slow, ponderous hymn of life in the galaxy, weighed and hammered down yet still with an abiding hope, a need, a calling.

  He felt his mind clearing.

  He checked his medcomp. It was good, no trace of the runaway reactions. He gingerly detached from the silent solid mass. Pulled out the sharpened pipe.

  The tendrils holding the frame jerked away in a spasm of rejection. The frame shuddered and came free.

  The medmon tumbled out of the pipe brace. Nigel twisted around and snatched, gasping. Caught it.

  He grabbed for the frame, too, and pain shot through his arm. He held.

  Stretched between two charging horses, he thought wildly. The frame wrenched sideways. His joints popped. Can’t take much of this. By the dim suit lamp he saw the slowly turning struts. Limp bags trailed it. Most of the floaters were crushed.

  Falling. Above, the vast bulk faded in the dimming amber light and yet it was so large that it did not seem to grow smaller as the distance increased. He could not see the sides of it.

  Nigel fought for a hold with his boots. The frame tumbled. Currents plucked at him, trying to snatch away the medfilter, to loosen his hand on the pipe.

  He fought—and then realized he did not need the frame any longer. It was falling too, floaters useless. He simply let go. Darkness swallowed the skeletal shape.

  His final security was gone. He was falling in absolute hard black, clutching his faintly ludicrous filter, invisible currents swirling and gurgling.

  He came back from the blurred pain in his arms, to hear the ragged lines of argument from Lancer’s consensus meeting.

  Swarmers had something to do with it everything to do with it of course don’t be a fool

  But there’s no evidence not clear evidence anyway

  Plain as the nose on your face they were the advance party

  Yeah these ships in orbit now they look like the ones the Swarmers came in just look at the

  All mixed in together

  Nikka’s voice broke in, Nigel! Nigel! Time is “Yes, I hear.”

  You had your reasons I’m sure but too much is happening, I’m frightened, I don’t want you out there when—

  “Of course. I … I’m sorry. I was shagged out, dead bushed, and this seemed the only way to finally … I haven’t been on a planetary surface, I’ve had no chance to ever really, to … I …” His voice trailed away as he felt the old block, the inability to communicate deep recesses that lay beyond language.

  Turn on your tracer. It works, doesn’t it?

  “Done, I’m falling,” he added mildly.

  How did—

  “A boring long tale.”

  We’re coming. You’re picking up the Lancer comm? I piped it through on open circuit.

  “Yes. Dead awful.” He could think of nothing more to say. The full weight of it would come on him later, he knew. The mind did what it must to survive.

  I’ve got you fixed a few klicks away but you’re moving fast nothing nearby

  Jesus we’ll have to catch him how can we

  Nigel relaxed, spread-eagling himself to offer the most flow resistance. His ears popped. Suit adjustment.

  It’s impossible, we don’t have that kind of maneuvering ability

  Shut up, he’ll hear you, Carlos

  But it—look, we can get there but Madre Dios it’ll take ten minutes minimum and we’ll be moving too fast.

  Knobbed joints grumbling with pain, muscles whining, heart thumping dumbly in the converging dark.

  “Get—get under me. Then … deploy … a sac.”

  Gliding in the soft night. Coasting. What was coming depended on relaxation, reaching out with the senses. He could not tighten up or the frail ol’ muscles would tire before they were needed. He had to let go.

  SIX

  Decades ago, after Alexandria’s death, Mr. Ichino had said to him, I wish you the strength to let go.

  He needed that now. Until he saw the submersible and knew which direction to bank toward, there was nothing productive he could do. Either they would snag him in time, or else he would fall farther in this cold murk, into higher pressures, and his suit would fail. He would squash like a grape.

  From the Lancer meeting came

  Obviously those goddamn Swarmers started it Yeah the Trojan horse

  Dunno how the nukes got going but when those Swarmers
started coming ashore what was China supposed to do. Matter of survival if what they say about the Americans is true

  Was true you mean—North America’s gone, incinerated

  Those high-burst bombs, just one’ll ignite a continent

  Asian mainland took less nukes looks like Swarmers are getting pasted good there thank God

  Merde je ne

  Those flying things—ugly, you see’em, horrible—an’ that on-site report says the Swarmers don’ reproduce usin’ the flyin’ thing at all they’re some kind of add-on

  Damn Swarmers musta planned it from ’way back an’ bioengineered themselves

  Point is it’s all linked—the Watchers an’ those gray ships an’ the Swarmers—all in it together

  He felt the waters rushing by, gurgling and whispering to him. He was without weight and form and felt himself spreading ever wider, as if his legs and arms were detached, a flag filling. Words and sentences and garbled bits came from Lancer and the submersible, but they seemed hollow and distant and finally irrelevant.

  He wondered if the huge creatures perceived him, a falling mote, and puzzled over the brilliant bubble that swam to meet him.

  Damfino how it all works but it’s plain as the nose on your face

  Goddamn Ted we got to do somethin’

  Latest says the deepspace net is sending in fragmentation loads, blow them up ten thousand klicks out and try to knock out some of their ships in orbit

  Might get some of the small stuff but those big ones

  He saw a faint luminous thread of orange to the left, turning and twisting and darting away, and felt at the same moment a long booming note that tolled through the water like a distant bell. It reminded him of the EMs and their song, and as he lazily plunged toward the heart of this ocean world he saw suddenly how this tied together with the Swarmers, all forms of life victimized and beaten down because in the end the machines could not stop life, could not smother it, could not eliminate forever the endlessly burgeoning forms which competed with the machines for resources and space, and so in the end they enlisted some forms of life to stop their worst competitors, the budding technologies.

  The machines had known of Earth for a long time, they had fought some titanic battle there millions of years ago and lost—the Marginis wreck was the only mute remaining testament of that—and in the losing had become fearful of simply blasting it with asteroids or doing anything else which could perhaps be blocked by the Marginis wreck or by humans themselves. If they tried bombardment, as they did with Isis, and the humans captured some of their vessels, deciphered where their centers of power were, then the same crushing warfare might reach across the stars and find them in their lairs, unleash the terrible marriage of mind and instinct—which the machines did not have—and destroy all that the patient and implacable cybernetic beings had built up.

  No, it was much easier to use organic forms against each other, to divert their attention, to strike at the weak spot all beings who grew out of chemistry had and which was both biological and social in form, and went by many names: cancer, overreactive immune systems, inappropriate response.

  There was the key. Far easier to make humans destroy themselves and Swarmers as well. Far easier to feed on the deep and primordial antagonisms all organic forms felt for the outsider, the intruder, the alien.

  Goddamnit I say we got to learn something about these things not just shy away from them

  What we learn will help Earthside they’ve got the same kind over ’em right now.

  Years ago yeah remember the light travel time we’re talking about a crisis that happened nine years back

  Doesn’t change the fact that we’re the only ones know much about these things an’ here right here we have a chance to see what it can take

  Light. A faint smudge of phosphors. Growing.

  Nigel we’ve got the sac deployed below and with the mouth open

  He banked left, sensing the currents, hearing a faint strum like a song of deep bass. His ears popped again. Suit pressure too high, overloaded. Pocks had light gravity, so pressure built only a tenth as fast as on Earth, but now he felt his suit creak. Monitor bulbs below his chin flashed angry red.

  He’s dropping too fast, we’re too far away Cut the speed damn it he needs a stationary No got to get closer

  “Hold your course!”

  A ball of yellow and blue and amber. He thought of himself as a wing, turning and riding in the streams. He tried to catch the turn at the right moment, altering his vector to bring himself down at a steeper angle, then using the medfilter pack to cant himself to the right again—now down, now to the side, the bright ball growing and the big floodlights poking fingers through the silted murk. He grunted with the strain of keeping himself rigid, a hydrofoil. His pulse quickened. He was coming in at a good angle now and ahead he saw the filmy wisp of the sac, its mouth yawning, unexploded floaters weighing down its tail.

  I’ve got you on the optical ’scope. How are you doing?

  “Rilly trif.”

  Drop the pack Nigel you’ll have a better chance of making it without that thing

  “I think … I’ll need it …” he panted.

  Swooping. Flying. A grain in the deep clotted darkness, insect flying into the harsh glare of the bulb.

  The mouth swallowed him.

  SEVEN

  Nigel woke as they docked.

  Sleep had helped. His vision was nearly right now; quick turns of his head brought only momentary confusion.

  Nikka had gotten him to a bunk and he had waved aside all talk. There was more to come, he could sense that in the scattershot babble over the comm lines. So in the long journey floating up through the vent, he had slept. Now he lay resting and listened to the Lancer line.

  Goddammit we’ve got to move

  Yeah no telling what that thing will do to us if we try to leave after this

  Hell yes that Watcher’s got word from Earth sure as we have

  Look at it, things moving on its surface again

  Just lights looks like to me

  Bob you want to send some servo’d squad down there have a look

  Naw can’t you get it straight this is no time for half measures

  Ted! I say we shouldn’t try anything so dangerous, I mean the Watcher around Isis let us go

  Lissen to him crawlin’ on his belly about how the damn thing might let us go if we’re good boys don’t make trouble Jesus

  There was no point in trying to intervene in the hubbub aboard Lancer. His stock was at an all-time low, even though Walmsley’s Rule had turned out true.

  They left the submersible and crossed the bleak purple ice. Carlos rattled on about the Lancer concensus, the rage, the horror, but the words went by Nigel without stirring him.

  He leaned on Nikka for support as they shuffled away from the lake, boots crunching on ice. A finegrained fatigue laced through him, bringing a giddy clarity.

  His suit had burnished marks where the big creature had apparently tried to hold onto him. He had never noticed.

  Near the fissures something a curious pale gray covered the ice. It stretched across the plain in long fingers. In places it seemed to seek the full sunlight glare from Ross.

  “What’s that?” Nigel gestured.

  “Some kind of plant that can grow in vacuum, I’d guess,” Nikka said.

  Nigel paused to look at the stuff. It was crusty on top. He thumped it with a fist. It clenched. “Grips the ice, looks like,” he said. “Marvelous.”

  This thin remnant cheered him. Life had crawled out onto even this blasted, hostile place. Life simply kept on. Blindly, yes, but undefeated.

  “Looks a bit like algae,” he said, squatting. “See how it holds onto the ice?” He tried to pry up the edge. With considerable effort he managed to lift an inch-thick slab the size of his fist. The ice under it was pitted. It oozed a filmy liquid. When he let go the pancakelike algae flopped back down onto the ice.

  “Come on,” Nikka said, e
ver the efficient, careful worker. “Let’s get to shelter.”

  “Comin’, luv,” Nigel said in a parody of a British accent.

  He felt oddly elated. Emotional currents moved in him.

  He watched the crews laboring on the plain, beneath a black sky. For an instant he tried to see them as the Watcher would: Bags of ropy guts, skin shiny with grease, food stuck between their teeth, scaly with constantly decaying cells that fell from them as they walked, moving garbage, yellow fat caught between brittle white bones, stringy muscles clenching and stretching to move a cage of calcium rods around, oozing and stinking and—

  He shook himself. The machine cultures had been in the galaxy a long time, since the first inhabited world committed nuclear suicide. They were an accidental fact of the universe, arising from the inappropriate response of the organic beings. But that did not mean they would reign supreme, that their vision was any more true than his own oblique perspective.

  Earth needs all the information it can get

  With nine years’ time delay?

  You heard that message they picked up from the Pacific. People out there afloat, workin’ with the Skimmers, talkin’ to ’em, waitin’ for those gray amphibious things to come up to the surface after they landed—

  He’s right, we got-to get information, figure out what’s goin’ on, how these Watchers work, send it Earthside to help them

  Damn right Ted we got to

  Now listen, I’m as brassed off as any of you at all this delay but believe me I want us to have a full consensus here

  What the hell you saying?

  You don’t act, Ted, we can replace you last, real fast—

  Plenty of people can step right in, take over

  Sure, listen, it could be that Watcher hasn’t gotten the whole story from Earthside yet, from those gray ships, they must be pretty damn busy

  That Watcher’s old, slow

  We hit it now maybe take it by surprise—

  Enough of your waffling Ted

  Yeah you got the sense of the meeting

  You do something and fast or we vote you out, Ted