Anvil of Stars

by Greg Bear

  “Thousands of questions,” Martin said. “There just isn’t time to ask them all.”

  “I we have one question,” Eye on Sky said. “Is this planet natural, or artificial?”

  “Both,” Salamander said. “Once it was a small star. We have been changing it for thousands of years. First it was used as an energy and fuel source. Now, the easiest answer would be to say that it is artificial. It supplies commodities to the rest of our system.”

  The ocean filled more and more of their view, until only a line of black cliffs separated ocean from lurid, cloud-stripped sky.

  “We are now on the platform. Your suits are in another room. We will leave the craft when you are prepared. At no time will you be exposed to the actual atmosphere, which is not suitable for your biology, and rich with small organisms that might be dangerous to you, besides.”

  Part of the wall moved aside and they stepped carefully, aided by the fields, into another room, this one equipped with a low stage. The skeletal suits hung from the ceiling above the stage.

  “Do you think we’re alone?” Paola asked. “Everything projected, remote-controlled?”

  “Could be,” Martin said.

  Eye on Sky produced a smell of tea and soil. “Useless to make guesses,” he said.

  Salamander’s voice instructed them to stand on the stage. Wrapped by their fields, they moved, with some difficulty, to spots marked by faint glows of light. A small, perfect image of each of them appeared next to the appropriate suit, like a nametag. Martin stood before his suit, facing it. “Turn around, please, with your backs to the suits.”

  He turned. The suit whispered behind him and his neck hair bristled. Its fluid “bones” wrapped around him, gripping him comfortably.

  He moved experimentally. The suit moved effortlessly with him.

  Useless to make guesses. Everything a mystery. Ants in a kitchen.

  “You will be surrounded by invisible barriers when outside. Your breathing should be natural, and you should not worry. We caution against these things only: do not move rapidly, and do not move away from the path or away from your group.”

  “Right,” Martin said. He watched the Brothers getting used to their suits, flexing them, raising three fourths of their lengths from the stage. Ariel lifted her arms experimentally, cocked her head, looked at Martin sidewise.

  “Comfortable?” he asked. Ariel and Paola nodded; Strong Cord and Eye on Sky put their suits through more tests before concurring. “We’re ready,” Martin told the unseen Salamander.

  “The ship will debark you in an open area. You should enjoy experiencing the surface as directly as possible. It is quite beautiful. There is no danger, but if you would like to avoid this, we can remove this part of your journey.”

  Eye on Sky answered, “We we would like to see the surface.”

  Martin didn’t disagree, but he was not enthusiastic. He had seen enough marvels and spectacle already to be spiritually exhausted.

  The spacecraft opened around them and stowed itself like a folding screen, leaving them on the white stage, surrounded by an immensity of gray and black sky, midnight blue ocean, dark cliffs rising thousands of meters above the sea. He could feel the flesh-thumping sound of distant explosions, grindings of crust; hear noise like giants groaning and whistling. The sudden openness was unnerving. His hands trembled within the pliant grip of the skeletal suits.

  “Wow,” Ariel said, her face pale. The air within Martin’s field was self-contained, and he could not smell the Brothers. But he could smell his own reaction—rank fear.

  The weight on his stomach and lungs gave him sharp twinges of pain, as if strings tied to pins in his organs were being tugged. Martin doubted he would want to spend more than a few hours on the surface of Sleep.

  A causeway reached across the sea to a broad white disk. Salamander’s voice spoke in his right ear: “Your suits will walk you over this distance. The disk is a kind of ferry. You will be taken to a shore station, and there will meet with more of our representatives. Are you experiencing discomfort?”

  “I’m fine,” Martin said.

  The suit nudged him and he tried to walk but it resisted. Finally he relaxed and the suit did all his work for him, moving him like a puppet, a sensation he did not enjoy. They were all guided over the causeway to the disk, which promptly disengaged and moved smoothly through the thick, rapid waves.

  Martin’s vision coarsened and the landscape became more vivid. This might have been an effect of gravity; it also might have been an effect of the field containing his atmosphere.

  Useless to make guesses.

  The ferry skirted a thick mass of green covering a few hundred square meters, undulating on the seas, large bubbles rising and breaking through like explosions in fibrous mud.

  “One of our types finds these waters comfortable,” Salamander said. “An individual would enjoy seeing you. Is this okay with you?”

  “Acceptable,” Eye on Sky said.

  Seconds later, a bright red nightmare of jointed arms pushed through the water and heaved part of itself onto the ferry. Paola gave a little squeak and backed close to Martin. The Brothers seemed frozen in place, making no comments, weathering this surfeit of experience.

  The nightmare’s arms parted with a motion combining the curl of a squid’s tentacles and the up-and-down pistoning of a spider’s legs. A remarkable “face” appeared, four glittering egg-shaped eyes in a mass of glossy black flesh, surrounded by alternating fleshy rings of yellow and gray.

  “This type serves a capacity like a farmer in these seas, but makes many decisions in our political framework,” Salamander explained. “Its kind denies the value of artificial enhancements. Like you, it eats, and is very strict about what it eats, and when, and how. Perhaps in the future you may hold discussions. You may share sympathies.”

  “Sure,” Martin said dubiously. He very much wanted it to go away.

  The simple expansiveness of sea and sky bothered him more than he could have imagined. He was so used to the confines of the ships, enclosed universes…

  To his relief, the creature pushed away from the raft and vanished into the waves.

  “It had at least thirty arms,” Paola said. “I couldn’t count them all!”

  Another voice spoke in his ear: Erin Eire on Double Seed. “How’s the trip, Martin?”

  He stuttered for a moment, surprised by the communication. “We’re healthy,” he said. “It’s big down here. Wide open spaces.”

  “Sounds lovely,” Erin said. “You look a little tied up in those suits. We’re all watching here—both crews. The transmissions are clear. We’re overhead now. Look up and you might see us.”

  Martin looked up but saw nothing in the muddy blackness. “No visual,” he said.

  “Too bad. Don’t feel lonely.”

  Salamander’s voice returned. “We will pass around this promontory.”

  Waves slid up against jagged blocks of crust with tremendous force but little spray, rivulets of water fleeing quickly back to the ocean. The ferry came within a hundred meters of the turmoil, and passed around a high point of black and brown rock rising like a squat tower.

  Beyond the promontory, at the far side of a deep harbor, three rocky tunnel mouths opened, each about fifty meters high and perhaps forty wide. Square tongues of polished gray stone pushed out of the tunnels into the harbor.

  Even from a few kilometers, Martin heard the deep breath of the tunnels, felt the airborne shudder of water rushing in, pushing out.

  The ferry crossed the harbor quickly and the tunnels loomed, making sounds such as Odysseus might have heard approaching Scylla and Charybdis. The light of Leviathan fell behind the headland now, and murky shadow surrounded them, broken by the white luminosity of their ferry. Ariel’s face appeared ghostly, shadows of cheeks, chin and nose rising across her eyes.

  “Are we going in there?” Paola asked.

  “Yes,” Salamander answered. “We will dock at the second tunnel from
your left. Transportation will arrive soon. Within the station, there are type individuals of some of the beings occupying our system. They will speak with you.”

  “Martin,” Paola said, “I think the Brothers are having problems.”

  Martin looked at Eye on Sky and Silken Parts, both shivering within their suits. Strong Cord seemed fine, sliding beside his companions with solicitous sounds, squirks and clatters. “What’s wrong?” Martin asked.

  “This is what is seen when disassembled,” Eye on Sky said, voice harsh and uneven. “This is the cave of youth on the shore, where young come together as braids after cords fight.”

  “Paola, what do you know about this?”

  “Something about adulthood rituals…Nothing in their literature that I’ve found. Maybe it’s deep memory.”

  “It is intimate,” Strong Cord said. “Difficulty buried in minds of cords. I we are disturbed, but we we more disturbed.”

  “Salamander, some of us are having problems,” Martin said.

  “How may we help?” Salamander’s voice asked.

  “Can you block off the view, cover us?” Martin asked. A white canopy rose from the disk like a pleated piece of paper and unfolded over them, blocking the sky but not the view ahead.

  Eye on Sky’s trembling stopped. Silken Parts continued to shiver for a few more seconds, then writhed spasmodically and became still, again in control.

  What else can go wrong? Martin faced the immense tunnel openings without the Brothers’ deep-seated concerns, but also without any enthusiasm. This entire journey seemed calculated to overawe, and despite Eye on Sky’s agreement to this journey, that said nothing good about their hosts. Rather than manufacture comfortable surroundings, they seemed to want to test their guests—

  Test. Gather information about reactions to strenuous conditions. The Killers had done that on Earth with even less mercy.

  The disk bumped gently against the edge of the dock. A ramp smoothed out to join with the disk.

  “You may walk by yourselves,” Salamander’s voice informed them. Eye on Sky went first, skeletal white suit rippling. Paola followed, then Martin, and finally all stood on the hard dark gray surface.

  The disk sank beneath the fast thick waves. No way back—is that the meaning? Is there any meaning, or just insensitivity to aliens whose psychology they know nothing about?

  The tunnel’s ceiling hung over them like the edge of a black void. The floor beneath advanced into shadow.

  Silken Part’s dark cords became part of the obscurity beyond; his suit seemed to stand by itself, moving like a cartoon spook. Ariel stepped closer. “I think we should get back to the ship in a couple of hours,” she said to Martin.

  A tiny simulacrum of a bishop vulture—Frog or Salamander—appeared in the tunnel, perfect in every detail. Martin adjusted his focus to learn whether the image was floating deep back in the tunnel, or nearby, and found it was only a meter from his face, a few centimeters in size. Surprised, Ariel dodged the simulacrum as if it were an insect. She straightened in her suit with a pained expression.

  “Salamander, we need to be back in our ship within two hours,” Martin said. The simulacrum grew larger, like an object seen in a zoom lens. Martin heard Salamander’s voice from that direction.

  “The meetings will last only twenty minutes this first time,” it said. “You will be returned to your ship after that, and other meetings will be planned.”

  A bright red circle appeared deep in the tunnel. “Please move toward the circle. You will see,” Salamander assured them.

  The three Brothers slithered ahead, apparently recovered from their initial difficulties.

  At first, Martin could see nothing beyond their immediate surround. The six of them—and Salamander’s floating image—were clearly visible. As his eyes grew accustomed, he made out more and more, seeing first an uncertain wavelike motion on the distant walls, then shades and details.

  The walls churned. Blocky shapes crawled up in lines like geometric slugs, deflected by obstacles that extruded into their paths. Near the edge of the floor, splashing, sucking sounds told him that water flowed either in hidden gutters or through deep channels beneath.

  “What is it?” Paola asked. Martin had no answer. The red circle grew. Spots of dim green and blue light appeared on the walls, moving with the blocky shapes but not issuing from them.

  “What are those?” Paola asked.

  “Living machines that process and store chemicals made in the seas,” Salamander said. “The seas are factories. There is much traditional industry on this world.”

  The red circle faded. “You may stop now,” Salamander said.

  This is it. They’ll kill us now, then dissect the ship at leisure, torturing, misleading, learning what they can.

  Walls lifted from the floor around them, bright blue like clear sunny skies on Earth, and a kind of music played, without melody but very pleasant.

  “You will meet first with four representatives,” Salamander announced. The simulacrum vanished and Salamander entered, full-sized, through a door in a luminous wall.

  “Is this your physical form?” Eye on Sky asked, head-cords splayed wide, the eyes on each cord glittering.

  “This is my form,” Salamander said. “Individuals are not limited to single bodies. There are many versions of myself working. This is true of nearly all the type individuals you will meet.”

  Safety in numbers. No sense attacking—you can’t kill us all, we have copies, back-ups stashed everywhere.

  Martin pretended to be impressed, but in fact the children had been told about this early in their voyage, along with other facts about advanced technological species.

  The surprise was that given their abilities, the inhabitants of these worlds still had physical form at all.

  Their hosts fit few norms.

  “Are you prepared to meet with these representatives?”

  “Yes,” Martin said.

  “Yes,” Eye on Sky said.

  Martin felt a sting of anticipation.

  Through the door came a being with two elephantine legs, two three-jointed arms emerging from a barrel chest, and a small, eyeless head. Despite having seen it in still images before, Martin’s throat tightened and his heart-rate increased. The creature stood at least three meters high, well-adapted to this kind of gravity, moving with a curious waddle like the gait of a fat human combined with the ponderous grace of an elephant. It wore no clothing and carried no equipment.

  Salamander walked beside the thick-legged elephantoid, striding on four limbs, bat-like, crest rising and falling.

  The door widened and a tube of fluid pushed through, forming a cube beside the elephantoid. Within the cube floated two creatures, elongated, shark-shaped, with broad wing-like fins along their sides. Their heads were pointed, sensory organs arranged in rings back from the snout. Fins just behind the head ended in radiances of finger-like tentacles. Martin had assumed these creatures were related; their appearance in the same field seemed to support that opinion. The cube of water arranged its passengers beside the others.

  Last to enter was a second bishop vulture. The door closed. To Martin, the assembly seemed hasty at best, not what he would have expected for a historic moment; not a first meeting with a newly arrived race of intelligent beings, more like a gathering of executives to iron out business matters.

  Ariel rubbed the palms of her hands together, glanced at Martin with a wry expression, and dropped her hands to her sides. Paola seemed transfixed, eyes wide, looking from one being to the other. Eye on Sky, Silken Parts, and Strong Cord at least seemed calm and in no difficulty.

  “I am Frog, who first spoke to you,” the second bishop vulture said. “Are you well?”

  Eye on Sky slid across the gray surface to raise himself beside Martin. “We we are mystified,” the Brother said. “What is your purpose?”

  “Your deceit is more than matched by our own,” Frog said. Martin’s chest went hollow and he held his breath
, waiting for extinction; he had known it would come, that childsplay would not suffice.

  “We exist at the sufferance of greater powers,” Frog said. “Since we are neither of us anything more than surrogates, there is no need for ceremony.”

  Paola closed her eyes. Ariel’s lips moved, her face ashen.

  “It is no coincidence that your ship arrives in the train of destruction from an exploding star. You represent higher powers as well. Your artificial construction is convincing, but the coincidence is too great to be accepted.”

  Do they know about the other ships?

  “We serve as extended eyes,” Salamander said, lifting its crest. “Do you have access to your creators?”

  Martin tried frantically to understand what they were saying. They seemed to believe that Brothers and humans were themselves created, artificial…

  “We we do not understand,” Eye on Sky said.

  “You are representatives of higher intelligences, as are we. Are we communicating clearly?”

  “We’re still confused,” Martin said. “Are you saying others control you, like puppets?”

  “We are not puppets. We have a separate existence,” Frog said.

  The elephantoid stepped forward. “There are four hundred and twelve types of intelligent being in this planetary system.” Its voice sang high and rough, but intelligible. “Those of us before you serve political and other roles. We speak with our creators and represent the other types. Do you have a direct connection with your creators?”

  “We we are autonomous,” Eye on Sky said.

  “But you are created,” Salamander continued. Martin’s body ached as if with fever; they might be undergoing the interstellar equivalent of interrogation, the third degree.

  “We understand now,” Martin said, hoping Eye on Sky and the others would let him take the lead, catch on to the implications. “If the time has come to drop all pretense, we are ready.” Ariel’s face stiffened with apprehension. Paola closed her eyes languidly, as if ready for sleep.

  “It is clear that precautions are necessary in high-level interstellar relations,” the elephantoid said.