by MadMaxAU
—And the vent valves. — Lani nodded. —Right, Saul. I know the drill by now. —
In the thin, chill air the mech’s motors gave off a low, brittle rumbling. As the carrier passed, he glanced at the cold cargo strapped to its back…the corpses they had found late yesterday and early today.
One was a spacesuited woman, still twisted in a frozen backed body arch, as if cold and rigor had taken her in the midst of an agonized spasm. Bulging eyes and a swollen tongue disfigured her nearly out of recognition, but Central had identified her as a Power and Propulsion tech, missing three days now.
The other corpse was clothed only in insulstat coveralls. Saul and Lani had found him in the embrace of a lifeform Virginia had called a hall anemone. Bits of flesh had torn off as they tried to tug the body free. They’d had to readjust the beamer and blast the writhing colony creature to bits in order to recover and bag the poor fellow’s remains.
Who could tell why a man had died out here, so far from Central and all alone? Until they could do tissue analysis, nobody would even know who the unrecognizable jumble had been.
It was a troubling pattern. Other parties had found dead men and women in outlying tunnels. More seemed to be dying in solitary, during their off-duty hours, than suffered casualties during the hall fighting.
At first I thought it was like the way a wounded animal will sometimes drag itself away from the pack, seeking a hole in which to die. l wondered if, maybe, sick, feverish people just crawled off to be alone.
But that wasn’t it at all.
He drew his sheath knife and picked away at a mosslike growth next to the intersection code sign. The gunk was hiding something else.
Green stuff floated away from his vibrating blade, and there it was . . . a circle with an arrow coming off to the upper right the symbol of maleness with a stylized flower within.
It was the third type of graffito they had found. In this quadrant the most common had been the Arc of the Living Sun—symbol of radical Orthos from equatorial belt countries. But there had been others as well, including the P and infinity cartouche . . .
. . . the Sigil of Simon Percell.
—Finished with that tunnel, —Lani announced. —Good thing we checked. The pressure release was stuck. Could’ve caused problems. —
“What do you make of this one?” he asked Lani, pointing to the uncovered circle and arrow symbol.
There was a long silence. Her face seemed pale under the helmet highlights.
—Every variety of crank was sent on this mission, Saul. Even we spacers have ours, I guess. That’s the sign of the Martian Way. —
Saul nodded. His suspicion was growing more firm.
“Clan marks. People really have taken to living out here. At first I couldn’t believe it.”
Lani explained, —It’s picked up since people have grown a little less spooked by the purples. Those guys we met down on Level K . . . from Madagascar and Fiji . . . they do their jobs at Central but they’re terrified of Percells. Refuse to sleep in the same chamber with ‘em. —
“Terrified,” Saul repeated. He found it amazing that modern men and women would behave this way. He had been astonished by it all his life.
It wasn’t the Percells’ fault that they seemed more resistant to the comet diseases than unmodified humans…or at least showed fewer superficial signs of illness. But that didn’t stop the irrational myth.
During the Middle Ages the same thing happened to the Jews of Europe. Because they killed rats on sight and washed their hands, they tended to suffer less from the Plague. In the end, though, their clean habits made little difference. Enough died at the hands of enraged mobs to more than balance the toll.
Never underestimate the potential for human stupidity. It seemed that more and more crew were taking to sleeping in their spacesuits, in outlying tunnels. And sometimes, out there, the sicknesses got them and they died, horribly and alone.
—I’ve asked people in the different faction territories to try to report if somebody’s missing. I don’t know what good it’ll do. —
Faction territories, Saul mused. “Everyone still talks to you, don’t they, Lani?”
She looked back at Saul, perhaps a little nervously.
—Well, I guess nobody feels threatened by me. I’m a pretty innocuous type. People tend to tell me things. —
Saul smiled. The Amerasian girl had depth, perhaps more than she realized.
“No. That’s only part of it. You’re a bridge of sorts, Lani, an Ortho, but one who likes Percells. A . . . what’s it called?”
—A Percephile, Saul?
Her laughter had a dry, nervous edge to it.
He nodded. “You’re the only one of us survivors from First Watch that most of the wakers seem to trust.”
—Mostly ‘cause they know I was just a grunt. Had nothing to do with deciding who to thaw. That’s what they blame poor Carl for . . . . —
She shook her head.
—Anyway, you’re wrong about that, Saul. Folks are pissed off right now, but if they had to pick three indispensable people out of the whole expedition, it’d have to be you and Carl and Virginia. —
Saul laughed. What a sweet child! She reminded him of what little Rachel might have been like, had she grown up. But with deep almond eyes.
He almost asked her how things were going with Carl. Rumor had it they were getting together at times . . . though obviously on less of a committed level than Lani would prefer. Too bad. It would be good to see something going between them, if for no other reason than because it might ease Carl’s stubborn anger over Virginia
Saul decided against bringing up the subject. Probably I’d just put ol’ foot squarely into mouth.
“Heigh-ho,” he said, lifting his portable beamer carefully to compensate for inertia. “Back to work, kiddo.”
Lani smiled and started up the mech. He hung on in front as they moved down a long stretch of tunnel, watching the close, green tinged walls warily.
Up at A Level the chamber scheduled to be the launcher factory gaped like an antediluvian tomb. The aft end of the sail tug Delsemme lay in the center, amid a scattering of unopened crates and machinery. Colored threads festooned the sides of the cargo vessel, giving it a faintly fuzzy outline. The cavern looked as if it had been abandoned for years. It was hard to imagine it humming with bright lights and activity—as it would have to if they were ever to get home again.
Carl’s friend, Jeffers . . . he’s been too busy to come up and look at this. I wonder if it would be a kindness not to tell him.
“Let’s give the place a zap on disruptor frequencies three, five, and ten,” he told Lani. “Then we’ll hurry through that inventory Betty wanted us to do up here.”
—Right, Saul. — Lani’s mech moved out under her delicate control. Soon a tiny series of clicks was accompanied by rising clouds from all over the chamber as the Hallivirens algoid blew apart under microwave disruption.
Saul pondered. If only treating the diseases were as simple. He took out a light pen and began scanning boxes, letting his Portable computer take inventory of the contents of the chamber.
—Saul, — Lani whispered. He turned from a scraping he had been taking, and saw that she was at the other end of the chamber pointing down one of the side passages. When he arrived where she was standing, his first reaction was one of quick combat adrenaline. For there was a telltale squirming ripple that told of purples, grazing on the gunk lined fibersheath.
Then he saw something else. A hundred meters or so down, near one of the fungus dimmed glow bulbs, an indistinct figure floated.
“Another deader?”
She shook her head.
—No. I . . . I think it’s Ingersoll! —
Saul cursed the scratchy, intermittent blurriness caused by the antihistamines. He peered down the tunnel. The dim figure was moving.
Ingersoll. Everyone simply assumed he was dead, by now. At first he thought the missing madman wore a green spacesuit tint
ed to match the growth-lined hallway. But then…
“What on Earth?” Stunned, he realized that the figure was not wearing clothing.
—That’s dried gunk he’s covered himself with! What’s he picking of the walls, Saul? What’s he doing? —
Fortunately, their suit helmets contained the sound of their voices. Saul tried to float closer quietly, using an awkward puff of his gas jet. “I think . . “
The man must have heard something in the thin air. He whirled, and Saul saw that only his face was not coated by a thick layer of green, living growth. He cried out, eyes clouded with madness. Saul could make out only a few words.
“. . . Perfect! . . . Sweet, sweet, sweet an’ warm! . . . You’ll know, know, no, no, no! . . .”
It was hard to pay close attention when one saw what hung dripping from the man’s mouth . . . a purple bleeding mass.
Then in a sudden spin and kick, Ingersoll was gone. Lani and Saul could only stare after him, momentarily too stunned even to think of giving chase.
Finally, Lani broke the silence.
—Yuk, — she sent. Even through her suit he could see her shudder.
Saul nodded.
“Well, that’s one fate I’ll be spared. If it were me, I’d probably be allergic to the stuff.”
He touched Lani’s arm and winked at her. Finally she smiled.
Then Saul sneezed.
‘These damn antihistamines are wearing off again. Come on, Lani. Let’s mark this passage and go home.
With a backward glance down the purple lined hallway, they turned and headed back, alone with their separate thoughts.
An hour later, they had looped around toward Central again and were approaching the worst area—the Border—where the warmth and air and moisture of human habitation most excited the comet forms. Lani was tuning the disruptor back to settings deadly to the purples, in case they had to fight their way through. Saul, though, felt his spirits rise. Beyond No Man’s Land, he knew, there was warmth, and food, and one special person waiting just for him.
His thoughts were a mix of shapes. The frankly sexual image of one of Virginia’s nipples, warm from his hand and stiffly erect. Her soft breath in his ear and the electronically enhanced tendril-touch of her emotions, channeled directly to his own…
And yet his mind kept drifting back to the little cells, multiplying in profusion, growing in mottled, many-hued hordes, forming cooperative macro organisms where no one with any common sense would have expected them to exist, let alone thrive.
There was a common chord to the images. A symphony of self-replicating chemistry . . . a young woman’s sexual flush, her deep currents of love, the surging tide of Comet Life, rising to meet waves of heat from a spring that came but once every seventy six years . . .
Only indirectly, without malice, did the native forms wreak havoc on the visitors—killing them, and bringing retaliation in turn. Saul might have felt guilty over inventing weapons for such a war. But guilt would miss the point. Nothing we do here will set the Comet Life back. We are like the summer. And we, too, shall pass.
The speaker above Saul’s right ear crackled.
—Lintz, this is Osborn. You awake up there? —
Saul nodded. “Yes, Carl. What’s up?”
—There’s been some developments, Saul. Can you come to Shaft Four, K Level? I . . . We may need your help. —
“Oh? What’s happened?”
There was a pause.
—I want to talk to you privately, if possible. —
“Why’s that?” Saul frowned. “Is it something you can’t mention on a coded channel?”
There was another pause.
—No, not exactly. But . . . Well, I think I know where the missing slot tug is. I’m pretty sure I know what’s happened to the Newburn. —
Now it was Saul’s turn to stop, blink.
“We’re on our way in. Lintz, over and out.”
VIRGINIA
“JonVon,” she said pensively, “I can feel what you’re doing.”
HIGHLY UNLIKELY.
“No, really. There’s a tingling, a tickling.”
THE NUCLEAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE SCANNING PROCESS MOVES NOTHING. IT DOES NOT EVEN TOUCH YOUR SKIN.
“I can feel it.”
THERE ARE VERY FEW SENSORY RECEPTORS INSIDE THE SKULL.
“Well, something’s moving. Like fingers dancing on my scalp, only . . . deeper.” The sensation was unsettling, like tendrils lacing through her head. She stirred uneasily on the webbing. Only a thin buzzing came from the banks of equipment that ringed her.
THE MAGNETIC FIELD, PERHAPS.
“Can people feel magnetic fields?”
STRONG ONES, YES. I AM APPLYING 7.6 KILOGAUSS TO THE ZONE OF STUDY. UNIFORMITY ERROR IS LESS THAN ONE HUNDREDTH OF ONE PERCENT.
Just like the pedantic program—and she should know, she wrote it—to throw in an irrelevant detail.
Or maybe it wasn’t irrelevant. The tumbling of infinitesimal spinning electrons inside her skull demanded fine tuning of an order unusual even in research. She quelled the temptation to slide her eyes sideways to see the poles of the big superconducting magnet. Even that much movement would set up unwanted trembling in her head.
I AM ACCESSING THE LATEST DATA BASE ON HUMAN NMR. I WILL INVESTIGATE POSSIBLE UNANTICIPATED EFFECTS.
“Do. It itches inside my head.”
SEARCHING AND INTEGRATING NOW.
“Did Saul mention any effects?”
HE SUPPLIED SAFETY MCROS WHEN HE BROUGHT THIS NMR UNIT DOWN FROM MED CENTER, BUT STATED THAT USE WAS HARMLESS WHEN INSIDE THE INDICATED OPERATING RANGE.
“Ummm. Maybe I should’ve done this sedated.”
NONSENSE. I WOULD NOT WISH TO UNDERTAKE THIS TASK ALONE.
Just like me, she thought. Anxiety loves company.
THAT IS QUITE TRUE.
There was virtually no difference now between JonVon’s grasp of her surface thoughts and her speech, since JonVon read both directly through the neural tap. Still, it felt different to her. Her mind processed the words in subtly different ways. The pre-speech processing center in her brain gave its own pacing to the phrases, feeding the words “forward’ in the unconscious cadence that made her own speaking style. When she thought without the subtle intention to speak, there often were no words at all. A quick. almost holographic perception of the idea shot through her. She wondered if JonVon could tell the difference.
OF COURSE.
“Of course,” she said/thought ruefully.
I DO NOT DETECT THIS TINGLING YOU MENTION. THOUGH OF COURSE I CAN PERCEIVE AN ECHO OF IT IN YOUR GENERAL STANDING WAVE PATTERNS, NOW THAT I KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR.
JonVon’s words came to her in two steps—the flash of their general sense, followed an instant later by an arranged sentence. That was her speech center operating in reverse, taking a series of swift, fleeting inputs from JonVon and forming them into prim, linear sentences.
“What a work of art we are,” she said.
SHAKESPEARE?
“Taken vaguely from him, yes.”
UNTIMELY RIPPED.
She constantly forgot how quickly JonVon could search out and scan a vast literature. “I’ll have to keep up your poetry lessons. You show a certain aptitude.”
YOU HAVE MADE ME . . . There was a true hesitation in the transmission, Virginia noted with surprise. It was not part of the simulation, but real uncertainty .... PERCEIVE THE AMBIGUOUS SENSE OF SUCH LINES THE VIRTUE OF INDEFINITENESS.
She guessed that the program was reluctant to use feel and chose perceive only after a long comparison search and an inner struggle. Machines did not share a human’s casual confusion of senses and thoughts, since their input paths were vastly different. JonVon, though, could fool laymen into thinking he was a real person by using the terms in the normal, slippery human way. People commonly said I feel for I think; machines usually kept ironclad walls between the two meanings.
Which was one of the reasons she was doing all
this, as well. Throw a rock at a woman and she could quickly digest the information incoming on sense channels, process it into intuitive vectors, speeds, and angles—then race forward, project, make approximate solutions all to see where she should dodge.
Silicon based machines could do that, but quite differently. They much preferred—meaning, humans were far better at programming them to—taking it as a problem in introductory physics, setting out the initial conditions all neat and clean, then integrating the equations of motion forward to see the exact result. Fine. Only by then you’re dead.
THAT IS A DRAWBACK.
“Another spurt of humor! You’re doing that more often now.”
YOU DID NOT LAUGH.
“That was irony you used, not yuk yuk.”
OH. I ONLY DIMLY SEE THE DIFFERENCE.
She suspected JonVon used dimly see as a speaking convention. He did not have real power of language metaphor yet. “Well, all humor is based on two elements—ridicule and incongruity. Irony has . . .” She frowned.
YES?
“There are some things . . .”
MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO KNOW?
“Nope, wrong cliché. There are some subjects beyond explanation.”
A RIDDLE WRAPPED IN AN ENIGMA?
“Boy, you’re fast accessing today. Can you do that and monitor this experiment at the same time?”