by Sara Creasy
Half an hour after leaving the habitat, she entered the outskirts of the city and her perspective changed. Details became clearer. Each structure was created from a vast rib cage of organic scaffolding that defined its shape—rounded bulges, terraced and truncated pyramids, twisted spires. These “bones” were entwined with dozens of other species—slabs of glistening fleshy moss dappled with lichen, delicate vines, multicolored funguses, and patches of brightly colored buds.
Everything twined together into clotted masses and the air hummed with the rustling and chirping of animals. Creatures clambered in and out of pockets in the scaffolding—much smaller than the slaters, many of them resembled insects but with soft, amphibianlike flesh that bulged out from between the ribs of their exoskeletons. They looked like they’d been turned inside out.
Edie waded into the undergrowth. It first clustered around her with trembling tendrils and then pulled back. The ferny growths had thick translucent stems that reminded her of the vines she and Finn had battled a year ago. Their movement was controlled by the ebb and flow of the fluid within them.
She could’ve camped on the edge of the city for a week, happily logging species and observing interrelationships. Finding the BRAT and persuading it—or whatever it was that controlled it—to return control of the commsat to humans seemed like a mundane task when confronted with this awe-inspiring, living city. But the BRAT was the priority.
There was no way of knowing where to start or which was the quickest route to the seed, so she stepped into the nearest tunnel. Its pale, damp inner walls felt sleek under her hand, like satin. Running under the surface of the walls was a network of tubules, barely visible because they were as pale as the lining of the tunnel. Edie laid her palm flat over the tubules and felt the ripple of fluid flowing through them.
The humidity was noticeably higher, although the perforations in the walls made the tunnel feel airy and light. She moved forward. Ahead, the tunnel branched into two.
Without warning, the left side of the branch began to collapse. A dark substance flowed into the tubules like poisoned blood through veins and capillaries, and the tunnel crumpled in on itself. Edie resisted the urge to turn and run. She took the other branch, which remained untouched, and continued on.
At every intersection, all tunnels but one caved in as she approached. The veins of side passages turned black, threatening to do the same, so Edie stayed out of them. She knew she was being driven in one direction. Was this sentience, or nothing more than the reflexes of a Venus flytrap?
Heading deeper into the organic city, the tunnels darkened as the sheer volume of vegetation outside blocked the sunlight. The veins in the tunnel walls glowed with soft purple phosphorescence, lighting the way. As she rounded a corner, the tunnel widened ahead. Beyond that was a wall of patchy light.
Edie approached the end of the tunnel slowly and allowed her eyes to adjust. Only when she stood on the very edge, at the top of a gently sloping ramp, did she realize she was looking into a vast cavern. Its curved walls were created from the same scaffolding as she’d seen outside. Thick curtains of semi-opaque resin dangled from ceiling to floor. It looked like partially dried sap, and divided the cavern into random smaller chambers. Suspended in these syrupy stalactites were irregular patches of phosphorescent cells. More cells covered the uneven floor in a haphazard, lumpy mosaic, glued together with matted twine. Some cells glowed with soft violet light while others lay dormant, exuding a pearly gray sheen.
Edie felt like she was on the stage of an amphitheater. No, it was the other way around. This was the exhibition and she was the audience.
Hiding in the center of the dome, draped in garlands of glistening sap, the metal casing of the BRAT was just visible. The cavern’s overwhelming size rendered it trivially small, but clearly it was intended to be the focal point. Soft folds of lush pink moss cascaded around its base like a flower in bloom.
The children would love this. That thought popped into Edie’s mind as she looked around the cavern in awe. To them, this was the true face of Macky—beauty and whimsy, with plenty of nooks to explore.
Pulsing beneath the matted floor and twisting behind the walls were the same glowing tubules from the tunnels. They were thicker here and formed raised channels. Edie stepped out of the tunnel, careful to walk between the veins. Dodging the sticky resin drapes or pushing them gently aside to clear the way, she approached the BRAT. The ground under her feet vibrated in anticipation.
CHAPTER 29
Edie climbed onto the mossy petals to reach the access port of the BRAT, and used the softlink in her fingers to jack in.
The datastream rushed across her splinter. Resisting the urge to pull away, she kept her focus steady. The cacophony was a hundred orchestras, each playing a different symphony. Each time she managed to decipher a familiar cadence, the surrounding music drowned it out. Yet each thread of music held a vague familiarity—all stemming from the song she recognized. Overlaid on that foundation was the same tangled code she’d found in the isolated sim, and it buzzed with the same unsettling intensity. It didn’t have complete control. It didn’t control the main subroutines at all. It redirected and molded aspects of the biocyph’s calculations—a drumbeat that tried to make everything else play in time, even while its own rhythm was unsteady.
Someone or something had injected that code and imprinted that beat. Edie let the beat trickle through her splinter, searching for a hint of where it came from. It wasn’t the work of a cypherteck. She would’ve recognized that. Maybe an infojack had planted a worm or a virus, but why? Edie could only imagine—and nothing she imagined was good. Scarabaeus had demonstrated aggressive wildlife and mali cious intent when it killed Theron’s entire crew and most of the Molly Mei’s as well.
Yet it had also created a peaceful oasis, whimsical little creatures, soaring spires, and this beautiful cavern.
Edie felt dizzy from the effort of keeping the datastream in some semblance of order in her splinter. She closed her eyes and sank to the ground, leaning against the cold metal casing of the seed. For a moment, her mind relaxed as she lost concentration. That’s when she noticed the knots of code untangling, as if it, too, was relaxing. The knots unraveled and laid themselves across the datastream and melded with it. The threads began to weave together, each riff and beat gradually coming into line, until in one swift, final moment, a new song of Scarabaeus coalesced into a perfect form.
Gasping at the beauty of the music, Edie was compelled to listen. The melodies flowed through her mind like a narcotic, blanking out rational thought.
—Beautiful, isn’t it?
Edie opened her eyes and looked around for the source of the voice. There was no one there.
—I did this. Do you like it?
The words were in her head, flowing through the music. A million questions came to mind.
“Parts of it are beautiful,” she replied honestly. She spoke the words aloud as well as transmitting them down the link.
The melodies fractured, the beat strayed like a skipped heartbeat, and the knots of code tightened and tangled until they were as dense as they’d been before.
—Sometimes it all comes together, but I can only hold it for a moment. I need your help, Edie.
“Who are you?”
—You call me…Scarabaeus.
“How do you know my name, and the name I invented for this world?”
—I know you, Edie Sha’nim.
It didn’t make sense. Biocyph didn’t use names. She’d never used names while jacked into the BRATs on this world. Biocyph didn’t speak Linguish—the standard language used across the Reach—either. There had to be a prankster on the other end of the line. Well, she’d play along—for now.
“Why do you need my help?”
—You know biocyph. You can show me what I’m doing wrong. In here, all alone, I can’t think straight. I can’t tell my voice from the echoes.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re killing people. The
slaters may have acted on instinct, but you took control of the commsat and crashed two ships.”
—We both know what kind of people were on those ships. They came to steal from me. They tried to interfere with me, but I fought them off.
She started to wonder if whoever was talking to her was even sane. Regardless of how this deception was being carried out, the entity, or whatever it was, managed to sound perfectly earnest. Edie pushed aside her uneasiness for now.
“What makes you think I can help you control this ecosystem?”
—You created it. If you can’t help me, no one can.
“What will you do for me in return?”
Another hesitation. Edie’s suspicions twinged as she waited.
—I offer you the chance to create a glorious new world with me, Edie. Why would you ask for anything in return?
There was a time when she’d wanted nothing more than to fix Scarabaeus, to make it whole and peaceful again. That time was past. There were people on this planet. Friends and innocent children. They were more important than this.
“Your offer is intriguing,” she lied, “but I need your help, too. There are survivors on the planet, in a habitat nearby. They need access to the commsat so they can call for help. And when that help comes, the ship needs safe passage.”
Another hesitation. When the voice returned, it seemed distracted, aloof.
—These things don’t concern me. You’ve no idea how it feels to have an entire planet’s blood running through your veins. To design new life, to start the heartbeat of a delicate animal, to build entire cities. Together we can rebuild this world exactly as we want it. We will control it all. We will create something so beautiful, you’ll never want to leave.
Her spine tingled, and she was unable to decide if the idea was sinister or bizarrely tempting.
“I’m not sure it can be controlled.”
—You can do it. We can. Disarm the security protocols on your splinter and I will show you.
“I won’t agree to anything until you restore the commsat and my friends are safe—inside and outside the habitat.”
—I can’t control the slaters’ innate behavior.
“Then change it. Look at the instructions I programmed into the biocyph a year ago. I convinced the wildlife and the retroviruses to leave me alone.”
—That’s why I need you. You, of all people, understand this stuff.
“You claim you’re Scarabaeus—the whole planet. Now you talk as if you’re a low-grade amateur hacker. Which is it?”
Yet another pause before the response came.
—I am the evolved awareness of Scarabaeus. I am your creation, Edie. I thought I could do it alone, but I can’t. Help me.
“Like I said, put that commsat back online and stop killing people. Then I’ll consider it.”
—Very well. The commsat is functioning again—for now. There is a ship approaching. I will allow it through. You can send your friends away on it.
Edie went cold. “Who? Can you talk to them?”
—I seem unable to talk to anyone without a biocyph link. I’m not even sure I am using words. You may be the only person who can hear me.
She realized there was some truth to that. She was communicating through the biocyph, hearing it as a voice the same way she heard the tiers as music. It wasn’t like a regular commlink. If she wasn’t experiencing it right now, she probably wouldn’t have believed it was even possible.
She didn’t have time to be amazed. She hit her commlink.
“Cat, the commsat is back up and there’s a ship out there. Is it Natesa?”
Cat answered a few seconds later. “Edie, where are you? The scope is barely picking up your signal.”
“I’m deep inside the city. I’m fine. Just…please, find out who’s on that ship.”
“Okay. Stand by.”
Edie jumped back into the datastream. “I’m returning to the habitat for a while.”
—I would prefer that you stay.
“I’ll come back. Maybe we can figure out a way to hook up a remote patch through a commlink, so we can talk any time.
—Talking won’t change anything. I need to show you the glory of this world.
Edie felt an uncomfortable tickle in her mind. The tangles of code unraveled, sending out strands to tap at the matrix of her splinter. There was a cohesive intelligence behind the intrusion. Could it invade her if it wanted to? The tapping was cautious, not insistent, but definitely deliberate. If she didn’t let it in, would it become more forceful?
“I’m not ready,” she said. “I need rest and food. I need to make sure my friends are okay.”
She pulled her fingers free from the port without waiting for a response. The datastream dissolved, leaving behind a killer headache to remind her how much concentration the interaction had required.
As she emerged from the city, Cat called. “The ship isn’t responding to hails, which makes me think it’s not Fleet. It’s squawking an ident from Port Trivane. I sent out our distress call. Don’t know if it got through because now the commsat’s dead again.”
Trivane…the science station O’Mara had mentioned. Probably the nearest port to Prisca, and the logical place for Natesa to contract a ship to bring her to Scarabaeus.
Cat winced as Edie pulled apart the med-teck unit.
“We have another one in the other lifepod,” Edie reminded her.
“You mean our backup. Now we have no backup.”
“This is important. I need to keep in contact with Scarabaeus and I don’t want to spend all my time out there in its lair.”
She reached into the guts of the unit and pulled out a wafer of biocyph matrix—a slice of plaz the size of a small belt buckle. Before Cat could protest again, she took it into the other pod, where Finn fiddled with a commlink and a receiver taken from the pod’s console. He’d pried open the receiver to make use of its port and power traces.
Beside him, Galeon sat on the floor intent on his own project. Finn had shown him how to make a new set of Pegasaw pegs from wire and pieces of colored food wrapping. The pair of them were fast friends again.
Edie handed Finn the biocyph wafer. “Do your Saeth magic.”
The intention was to convert a commlink into a biocyph conduit. The idea of a remote biocyph communication interface was nothing new, but in this case they had to create one from salvaged parts.
“Any news on that ship?” Finn said as he got to work.
“The commsat’s still down.”
“But it’s Natesa, right?”
“I think so.” It had to be. Any other ship would’ve responded to their hails and reassured them that rescue was near. Natesa was acting outside the Crib’s jurisdiction, running silent, formulating her plan to take back the children—or Pris, at least.
“We need the commsat back up,” Finn said. “There’s a chance the Saeth could make it here before the Crib.”
A slim chance. Scarabaeus was nearer to the Fringe than it was to Crib Central, but Central must’ve been aware of something wrong on Scarabaeus for several days now, ever since the Plantagenet went down. It had a head start.
“If the Saeth do get here first,” Edie said, “we can still save the children from Natesa.”
“You still want to take them—without a supply of neuroxin?”
She shook her head miserably. “No, you’re right. We can’t risk their lives.”
What about her life? Would she take the chance and escape, knowing she’d have to steal neuroxin again in a few months or return to Talasi herself, tail between her legs, and beg for it?
She left Finn working on the devices and went back to the other pod to organize a meal.
“It’s my turn to do that.” Pris had joined her.
“Let’s both do it.”
As they sorted through packets of pro-bars and freeze-dried fruit, Pris kept looking through the open hatch to watch Finn work.
“Is he still sick?”
“He’s almo
st better. He’ll be fine.”
“He’s not fine. My m—Natesa did something to him, didn’t she?”
Edie kept her eyes focused on the food. She didn’t want to be responsible for causing any disillusionment in Pris. “Why do you say that?”
“I told you, I heard her talking. She said he was a bad man. Galeon told us the stories he told him. I don’t think he’s so bad.”
“He’s not. He’s a good man.” She managed a smile. “What stories?”
“About when he was a little boy. The big house he grew up in, in the middle of fields of barleat, with trees to climb and a river. Did you know he had a dog who could fish?”
“Yes, I heard about that.” Edie’s throat tightened.
“So why does Natesa want to kill him?” Pris asked quietly.
Disillusionment be damned. Edie couldn’t invent a comforting lie. “It’s not because of who Finn is. It’s because of who Natesa is. Finn is important to me, so she knows she can use him to control me. Ever since I was your age, she’s controlled my life—or tried to.”
“Isn’t that what parents do?”
“I don’t know.” Edie shook her head. “Like you, I never had parents. Maybe she tried to be my mother, but implanting things in my body, isolating me, training me for one purpose, using me to further her career…I don’t think that’s what real mothers do.”
Pris helped in silence for a while.
“Natesa used to tell me about you,” she said at last.
“She did?”
“She said you were talented, the very best, and she was proud of you. But that you didn’t believe in what you were doing. She tried to make you believe, but you wouldn’t. She said you wanted something else—she didn’t know what. The Talasi were cruel to you. She rescued you, but it wasn’t enough.”
“She’s right. It wasn’t enough. What I wanted was the chance to choose which way to go.” Edie looked at Pris, at the wan face and troubled eyes she recognized so well. Her younger self. “What do you want, Pris?”