"My bag?" Bandicut crested the hill. Sure enough, Napoleon was crouched over his missing backpack, examining something on top of it. "What the hell? Is that my scribblie pad?" Bandicut picked up the two objects the robot had found. One was indeed his notepad, which he had been carrying in his backpack; the other was a computer datachip. From Copernicus? He turned it over in his hand. Black, spherical, with nublike silver connectors—and markings in English.
His friends caught up. "What have you found?" asked Ik.
Li-Jared looked around. "I see no robot."
"Cap'n, I judge that Copernicus has been here," Napoleon said.
Bandicut peered at the notepad. "There's a note from him here. It says, 'Face-to-face meeting impossible at present. I have encoded on the accompanying datachip all the information I have gathered on the boojum's plans. An attack may be imminent on a critical ecologic reserve for this continent. Please review this information at once!' " Bandicut paused, thinking: And how do we know this chip isn't infected? He shook his head and continued, " 'The notepad has insufficient capacity to convey the full information. Regarding the safety of attaching this chip to Napoleon's memory bus, I append here guidelines for the safe attachment of the unit. Napoleon, please use the following protocols before accessing the contents of the datachip—' " Bandicut looked at Napoleon. "There's a bunch of code here. Can you understand it?" He held up the notepad for Napoleon to scan.
Napoleon grasped it, tilting the screen. "I'll have to download it, Cap'n." The robot opened a small access port on his right side, turned the notepad until he had it oriented correctly, then held it up to the access port. "I have the optical link."
"Do you need any help?"
"Negative. Finished." Napoleon handed the notepad back to Bandicut.
"And?"
"I am evaluating the protocols."
"Well, take all the time you need to be sure." Bandicut glanced worriedly at Ik and Li-Jared.
Napoleon stirred. "Cap'n. It is a so-called condom protocol, designed to insulate my bus from dangerously active elements of code. I estimate its protection level as ninety-eight percent reliable. Do you consider that sufficient?"
Bandicut frowned.
/// May I? ///
Charlie inquired, nudging his hand slightly toward the robot.
/Huh? Sure./ Bandicut touched his fingers to Nappy's upper casing. "Hold still for a second, Nappy. We want to check something."
"Affirmative. Permission granted for Charlie to come aboard."
Bandicut blinked.
/// Thank you, Nappy.
Okay, I see the layout pretty well.
I'd agree with Nappy's assessment.
The condom protocol looks like
a genuine effort.
It's very good—but it's impossible
for it to be foolproof. ///
Bandicut considered. /But probably Coppy's not infected, because if he were, he wouldn't have made a genuine effort. Right? Did it look like Coppy's work, and not the boojum's?/
/// I'd say so. ///
/Well, then—I guess you gotta take chances in life./ He breathed a silent prayer and said to Napoleon, "Let's give it a try."
The robot snapped shut the small access port and opened a larger one. "If you would hand me the chip . . ." He took the black marble from Bandicut and deftly maneuvered it into an empty port. "Checking. Establishing protocols. I have a working connection."
Bandicut rubbed his jawbone anxiously.
/// I could monitor for you. ///
/That might put us at risk. Let's wait a little longer./
"Captain," said Napoleon, his voice suddenly altered, deeper. "Information coming in. I am developing a picture . . ."
"Picture of what?" Bandicut's hands were clenched in front of him, as if to wrestle the information from the robot.
"He sounds different. What's happened?" Li-Jared dropped to a defensive crouch.
Change of voice? Change of personality? "Nappy—?"
"Whreeeek! Whreeeek!"
Bandicut jumped back, startled. The sound had come from Napoleon, but the robot was frozen, unmoving. "Napoleon?"
For a moment, he thought he heard Copernicus' voice coming from Napoleon's speaker. "—unclear, say again—" The voice sped up to a chirp, then a squeal, interrupted twice by blasts of staccato noise that might have been static, or harsh, compressed voices. Abruptly, the sound cut off. Napoleon remained frozen.
/// Is he—? Should we—? ///
/I don't know. Wait—/
Napoleon suddenly began swiveling his head, scanning the landscape, up and down in all directions. A small indicator light was flickering at the base of his sensor array; he was transmitting signals.
"Napoleon!" Bandicut barked. "Answer me! What's happened?"
Napoleon's sensors swung to peer at him. "John Bandicut, the danger is imminent! We must act quickly. I am searching for Copernicus, but he is not answering!"
"The message, Nappy! The message!" Bandicut reached out to the robot, then drew his hands back. /Wait, Charlie! Not yet. He's acting too weird. It could leak over./
/// But you can deal with it!
It's just like your datanet back home. ///
/My datanet back home didn't have fucking boojums in it trying to kill people./
/// No, but what is the boojum
but a complex operation in a fancy datanet? ///
/It damn near killed us!/
/// But you gotta take chances.
You said that, right? ///
Napoleon was rasping and clicking, and having trouble speaking. "Must go—now—shadow-people—"
"Damn it, Nappy, are you hit with the boojum? Talk to me!"
"Negative, negative, negative—the shadow-people—" Napoleon clicked helplessly, his upper sensors still swinging.
"Kr'deekin' hell." /Okay, Charlie—do it!/ Bandicut slapped his hands onto the robot's body and shut his eyes, willing himself to see what the quarx was seeing. He reeled with a rush of dizziness; he saw a racing expanse of black and white dots.
/// This is bewildering . . . ///
He gulped back nausea.
/// Wait, there's the message. ///
/Did it get him?/ Bandicut whispered in fear.
/// No . . . ///
/Then what—?/
/// Mokin' foke— ///
/What?/
/// He's just confused, that's all.
Too much input; he needs help . . .
Ah. ///
/Explain!/
/// He's not infected.
He's struggling with ambiguity—
torn between concern for Copernicus
and concern about the danger.
If I can get his mind off Copernicus—
okay, I think he can talk now. ///
"Nappy?" Bandicut said hoarsely, lifting his hands away.
"Hrahh!" cried Ik. "Is he—?"
"I am unharmed," said the robot suddenly, in a normal voice. "I was having . . . difficulty absorbing the data. It included not just communications from the shadow-people—"
"The shadow-people!"
"—but also Copernicus's own perceptions and thoughts. It was as if I could almost touch Copernicus. But he was not there, and he would not respond. I found it most disconcerting. I apologize."
"The danger!" Bandicut shouted. "What is the danger?"
"Captain, if these communications are genuine—and I believe they are—this entire continent is in peril. The boojum's interest has focused on a massive storage-tank farm, containing roughly a planet's worth of atmospheric reserves."
"Atmospheric reserves? Explain."
"It is a supply of oxygen, nitrogen, and other reserves in solid, liquid, and gaseous form needed for maintaining atmospheric equilibrium throughout the continent. The shadow-people believe that the boojum intends to destroy that depot." Napoleon's sensor-eyes seemed to probe them each in turn, as he swiveled. "They say they cannot protect it without our help."
"T
his is extraordinary!" growled Ik. "Is there no defensive guard for this tank farm?"
"There is," said Napoleon. "But the boojum may have discovered a way to neutralize it."
Li-Jared's eyes were pulsing with fire. "What can we do that the shadow-people cannot?"
Bandicut squinted. "That's a good point, Nappy. Do the shadow-people maintain the tank farm?"
"Negative," said the robot. "It is outside their territory. The shadow-people can work only within critical range of the n-space activators that join the shipworld continents. They cannot exist far from the open space-time interstices created by the activators. They can guide us toward the endangered area, but they cannot get to it themselves."
"Just like the factory floor," Ik muttered darkly.
"Christ, Nappy! You mean we're supposed to fly off on some wild posse-chase with no more evidence than that?" /This is weird, even for the shadow-people./
/// But you did something like it once before. ///
Bandicut thought of a spacecraft rocketing toward collision with a comet. The memory made him shudder.
"I believe we must go," insisted the robot.
Bandicut swallowed. "You . . . believe . . . we must go?"
"The evidence is in the datachip: Copernicus's memories of the shadow-people's messages. And their messages are highly persuasive."
"So you're convinced it's real?"
"I am convinced," said the robot.
*
Copernicus watched from above as his companions discussed the message. His evaluation of Napoleon was positive. His friend showed no sign of contamination by the boojum. He seemed stronger, more self-confident, more complex; but he still seemed to be Napoleon.
This was good news. Copernicus had been alone now for what seemed a very long time, in a very strange world. At last he felt he could answer Napoleon's call, and reveal himself. And be reunited, finally, with all of his friends.
A soft blatt of static interrupted his thoughts.
>> . . . require your assistance elsewhere once more . . . request that you go, at once, to another place where we cannot . . . >> It was the shadow-people. But he seemed to have caught only a fragment of their message.
>> This is Copernicus of Triton Station. Was preceding transmission addressed to me? >>
The reply was faint but audible: >> . . . Copernicus of Triton station . . . urgently request your assistance . . . request you delay contacting your companions . . . >>
For a few moments, Copernicus considered the request in dismay. Delay contacting his companions? Back on Triton, such a request would not have troubled him in the slightest. But now? He had been waiting so long. And there was the question of John Bandicut's safety, his first priority.
With a flush of uncertainty, he spoke to the distant shadow-people. >> Please clarify, what is the nature of your urgent request . . . ? >>
Chapter 21
Into the Belly of the Whale
ANTARES STUDIED THE message she had just received. It was from a Stendart she knew, an associate of the Maksu. It reported that a group of the Maksu had contracted to guide a small company of outlanders to a place known colloquially as the "ice caverns." The apparent purpose: to attempt direct contact with a primary knowledge-node of the Tree of Ice, in hopes of discovering a way to leave Shipworld and return to their homeworlds.
Antares had, from time to time, heard of the ice caverns— always in casual conversation, and never very informatively—and she had never been able to learn whether they were anything more than legend. So a report of an expedition to find them would have been interesting in and of itself. But what really caught her notice was the identification of the company involved. A "Hraachee'an" named Ik. A "Karellian" named Li-Jared. And a "Human" named John Bandicut.
John Bandicut. How extraordinary.
This man, this Human, certainly kept himself busy. New to Shipworld, he had already come out of two deadly battles with the iceline demon. (Or boojum—his name for it. According to her knowing-stones, the name had mythical overtones in his language that matched its reputation for stealth and treachery in the iceline.) But one thing about this John Bandicut: although he seemed to have a knack for bringing the boojum down upon himself, he also seemed to have a knack for surviving it.
During their brief contact, Antares had found herself hesitant about being drawn too near to Bandicut's sphere of activity, without first knowing more about him. She was not exactly regretting that choice now, but she was wondering if she had been too cautious. It was reasonable prudence. You felt his need, his longing. You were right to be wary—you've given in to longings before, and paid for it. But remember your need, too. Don't be a slave to it, but don't be afraid of it, either. She still knew next to nothing about his species; but the empathic sense had been strong, the sense that they were alike in striking ways, if different in others. And, he had knowing-stones. And now here he was, off on a quest for the ice caverns.
The ice caverns! The talk of them had always made her think of Thespi legends of long-lost "wisdoms," mythical grails of power. She'd long ago put out feelers to see if anything might be learned about the ice caverns—thus the message from the Stendart. She'd done so in the faint hope that somewhere in the legend there might be clues to who the masters of this Shipworld were, and how she might contact them, and perhaps learn why they had brought her here, from almost certain death at home. Why did they care that she was sentenced to die? She had never spoken directly to the Maksu, those reclusive dealers in information— partly because she had little knowledge of them, but also because she had nothing to trade. But now, to learn that the Human and his friends would soon be en route to the ice caverns, with the Maksu!
Antares touched her throat, where her knowing-stones pulsed, as she pondered the matter. Did she want, one more time, to risk friendship with someone who so clearly signified danger? She thought of Ensendor—companion, teacher, lover, and witness against her in trial—and her lips turned up in pain and fury. But this Human was not Ensendor; and anyway, did she really want to continue her exile in solitude? And suppose these aliens really found a way to leave Shipworld; would she want to go? She wasn't sure. But she knew she'd rather have the chance to make that decision.
With a soft murmur of resolution, she crossed the grottolike room to the iceline terminal, and began composing a message to the one known as Bandie.
*
After consulting with Ik and Li-Jared, Bandicut touched Napoleon again. He wanted the quarx to take a closer look at the memory-recordings from Copernicus.
/// They seem genuine to me, ///
Charlie opined, as he opened a window for Bandicut to glimpse the transmissions from the shadow-people.
It was a bewildering swirl of input: some of it auditory, some of it transformed to a visual landscape. The visual part was incomprehensible; it looked like mountain peaks rushing past a spinning airplane, the mountains alight with blotches of incandescent danger. He caught enough in verbal form to recognize the voices of the shadow-people. The words came too fast to follow, but they were filled with shrieks of urgency and need. /Charlie?/ he asked dizzily.
/// There's a lot here, and it is confusing.
But I believe the shadow-people. ///
/But how can they possibly know what the boojum is planning? Do they say?/
/// They observe patterns.
They say they listen to the iceline,
and talk to the Maksu and to other data-merchants;
and they know people who can hear
the Tree of Ice. ///
A roar rose in Bandicut's mind as he saw a dozen streamers dancing, a dozen rivers converging at a waterfall. As he watched, the waterfall froze; and he heard a low, secondary thrumming, which he sensed was a growing composite of many views of the boojum's activities.
/// They're good at putting things together.
Like the translator. ///
The waterfall erupted into motion again. The roar became unbearable. /Enough!/
he cried, and the window closed to silence.
Staggering back from the robot, it took him a moment to recover. "It's real—" he gasped "—as nearly as I can tell. The shadow-people are scared of this thing. If they're right, then this whole continent really is in danger. Maybe the whole Shipworld. They say there's no one else in a position to help. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think we should do what they ask."
"Hrrrrl," Ik growled. "We will have to contact the Maksu, and hope they will accept a delay."
"Charlie says the shadow-people talk to the Maksu. They can probably get a message to them."
Li-Jared was still in a crouch, swinging his head from side to side as if studying a large map on the ground. "All right." Bwonng-ng. "Krikey damn shit. Let's go, then." He rose. "Where do we meet the krikey damn shadow-people?"
"Granite-Three-Down on the streakline," said Napoleon.
Bandicut gave him a startled glance. "Is that a station? You know where it is?"
"Yes," said Napoleon. "Are we agreed, then?"
Bandicut put away his notepad and hefted his backpack over his shoulders. "Yeah. Let's move." And together they started down the hillside.
*
Copernicus watched his friends' departure with regret. He had accomplished the most urgent part of his mission here. But it pained him to let his friends leave without contact. Was he making the right choice? Would this other mission help to assure John Bandicut's safety, in the end? The shadow-people had argued that it would. He had no evidence of this; and yet, it was a logical extension of his decision to collaborate with the shadow-people, with Hroom and his friends.
The shadow-people had promised to send representatives to his companions, to guide them to whatever awaited. But Copernicus was aware of—no, he felt—a sense of loss, almost a wistfulness, in their departure. He decided finally to do one last thing here.
He waited until the westbound train arrived. Then he transmitted: >> Napoleon: I am sure now. Thank you for trusting me. Urgent business calls me away; but if you prevail in your mission and I in mine, we may yet meet again. Godspeed. Copernicus. >>
He broadcast the message twice, then switched off his receiver while he settled down to wait for the opposite-bound train. If Napoleon protested his departure, he didn't want to hear it. He turned his thoughts instead to how he was going to accomplish his next job, of which he had only the sketchiest understanding.
The Chaos Chronicles Page 57