Furious Gulf

by Gregory Benford

  “I’m not here to give away the whole store, Cap’n,” Monisque said skeptically.

  Killeen was in no mood to start haggling right away, and Toby shared his impatience. “First, we want to know what this place is—how it works, its history, who made it. Second—”

  “We can tell you what we know. I do not speak for the Lanes, though.”

  “Lanes?” Killeen looked blank.

  “Other axes of the esty. Didn’t Andro go through this?”

  Andro himself stood up, in a crisper, cleaner coverall. “I tried to tell them, but they just don’t have the concepts.”

  Toby couldn’t abide that. He shot up and charged, “The entire time you were on board Argo you kept trying to trade us for our gear. I didn’t hear you giving lectures on—”

  “Okay, so I shaved a little time off the docket for my hobby. Still, your honor, these rubes don’t grasp a fraction of the topological fathoms necessary to—”

  “Sit down, both of you,” Monisque snapped impatiently. “We’ll give you the standard Remedial Intro, no problem.”

  “Second,” Killeen said mildly, as though he had a long way to go on his list, “I wish to know the location of my father, Abraham of Bishop.”

  “Relative-tracing, huh? My tourist friend, that’s a major cottage industry around here.” Monisque made a notation by passing her hand over the dais top. “You’ll have to commission a search yourself.”

  “You must know where your citizens are, who they are.”

  “Oh, must we?” She arched an eyebrow. “There are more slippery Lane-vectors than you have hairs on your body, Cap’n—and they curl more than yours, too.”

  The audience laughed, but no Bishops. Killeen’s mouth tightened and he sent on closed comm, “She can’t see my really curly ones—and not damn likely she will.”

  To this the Bishops answered with a volley of hoots and snickers. The dwarves looked puzzled, as if trying to decide whether they’d been insulted.

  Toby grinned. He wondered if these people had the tradition of Ranking, a round-robin of cutting humor, sarcasm, and insults both veiled and naked. On the run, such quicksbot talk could amuse and abuse—ideally, both. Its essential function was to defuse tensions, let grudges out in allowed ways. Toby realized that they had not had a Ranking for a long time. Maybe that was why Killeen seemed distant and awesome to so many of the crew now—they had not seen him humbled with a well-flung jibe.

  “I respect the snarled-up way you kinsmen live here.” Killeen was being his affable best. “You can understand that we need to reunite with our forebears.”

  She peered at them shrewdly. “You’re sure that’s all?”

  “Your tribe’s advanced and all, but some things don’t change,” Killeen said sternly. “Family’s one of them.”

  “Fair enough. You should realize that we see a lot of people passing through. We hear stories. Prophecies. Outright lies. We get plenty of hands held out to us—to take, not to give. So we get maybe a little narrow-eyed.”

  “Try runnin’ from mechs for a generation or two,” Killeen said, careful and measured. Toby could tell his tone was just a cap on a slow-building inner pressure.

  “I bow to your superior experience. Still, my authority goes only so far. We deal with people from trans-history in a fair, just manner. Bartering, that’s fine—we’ll trade square with you. Anything more—”

  “We’re from Snowglade, not some ‘trans-history.’”

  The judge waved a dismissive arm, her robe flapping. “A term from people out of the wild esty. See, we can’t assume you’re from the place and era you say, because there’s really no way to check that. The esty turbulence blots out all backtracking. If we can, we go on a strictly cash basis—only there’s no cash between trans-histories, so that means plenty of dickering and swapping.”

  Killeen dropped his amiable mask. He rose up, shin-servos whirring, using his height to come nearly level with Monisque. “I’ll trade for news of my father and a map to find him with.”

  “That’s it? Most visitors want food, fuel, maybe recro-credits.”

  Killeen snorted. “We’ll look after ourselves.”

  “I suppose I could call it square if we had, say, full rights to interrogate the Myriapod.” Monisque glanced casually at Quath, the first time she had deigned to notice her huge presence.

  “That was just openers. We want more. We found an inscription in a dead Chandelier, about ‘we all who plunge inward to the lair and library.’ I want to ask questions about that.”

  She shifted in her shimmering blue robes, as though she heard the tension that Toby did behind Killeen’s words. “There were a lot of Chandeliers. I—”

  “Are there people here from that era?”

  “In some sense, only ‘here’ isn’t a useful word when you’re talking about the esty. If you want, we can offer history data—”

  “No data, no—not now.” Killeen swept the air clean with one hand, his voice deepening, the words growled out. “I want to find people.”

  She eyed him skeptically. “Is that ‘I want’ or ‘we want’?”

  “We—Family Bishop. I—their Cap’n. There is no difference.”

  “So I gather,” Monisque said dryly. “Very well. The ‘library and lair’—well, this is one way into the esty, so I suppose this counts as their ‘lair.’ As for the library—that’s not data anybody’s ever going to hand you on a platter.”

  “Why not?”

  “Andro—you were right. They truly know nothing.” She cocked an eye at the audience, which chuckled. “Nobody’s going to tell you our greatest secret, even if you are a ground-pounder giant. If you want to talk to ancients of the Chandeliers, or this Abraham, I’d recommend the Restorer. It’s a kind of library, too, come to think of it.”

  Toby didn’t follow this at all, but Killeen just nodded curtly, as though hearing confirmation he expected. He said forcefully, “The inscription, it mentioned a heroine, unnamed. ‘She is as was and does as did.’ Does that refer to this place, this Restorer?”

  “I am not an expert in linear history, much less trans-history. This subject smacks of both.”

  “Then let us know the way to this Restorer, its price—”

  “You couldn’t afford it.”

  “I have not taken every jewel from my bag, Lady Justice.”

  “So I know. I was waiting for the next round.”

  “You know so much, maybe you can tell me what I’ll offer?”

  “Andro? The possibility you mentioned?”

  Andro appeared in front and tapped his third fingernail. A wall flashed with sharp light behind the dais—a full, 3D picture of a passageway in Argo. Toby recognized the spot and gasped. “The Legacy! We let him get near it.”

  Andro didn’t even glance at Toby’s outburst. “They’re flying a Class VI, Judge. Standard deck design, pretty beat up. I couldn’t get into the nexus, but from the way they protected it, I figure there’s a slab there. This kid”—he jerked a thumb at Toby—“just proved it.”

  She frowned. “From that age? I thought few such ships survived.”

  “The mechs nabbed most of them. The Bishops say this one was buried on their planet. Mechs must’ve overlooked it.”

  “A slab from that when . . .” Monisque touched her dais, muttered to herself, and seemed to be calculating.

  “Yeasay,” Killeen said. Toby saw that the Legacy was indeed what Killeen had meant to bargain. His mind spun in a cold, furious vacuum.

  Andro, too, had his distracted look. Toby realized they were both communing with some distant intelligence, maybe a data bank. His Isaac Aspect put in,

  There were such linking abilities in the High Arcology Era. They greatly increased the effective, acting intelligence of all. They also led to data-immersion ailments, and the dissipations such addictions are prone to.

  Toby shrugged aside this useless history. He watched the judge, who nodded—to herself, or to some far away presence?—and said, “
I am prepared to bargain. Services—very limited services—in return for a thorough inspection of your ship.”

  Several Bishops shouted, “No!” Toby’s surprise struck him silent, his throat full of cotton stuffing.

  “I will have to know what services you mean,” Killeen said, all business. “I have some in mind.”

  “Dad, we can’t!” Toby finally got out. “The Legacies, they’re ours. We can’t let anybody else have them.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” Killeen scowled. “We have business here, and these good folk deserve to know of us, just as we want to know of them.”

  “No!” Toby shouted. “We don’t know what the Legacies have in them! Family Bishop secrets, maybe. History, lineages of all the Bishops there ever were, could be. Even data from the Great Epoch! You—”

  “We can’t read more than a jot or two of them,” Killeen said sharply, turning on his son angrily. “We need help figuring what they mean. This way we’ll get it.”

  “But who knows what they’ll do with our secrets?”

  “They’re old, so old the language doesn’t even make sense. Chandelier Age stuff, maybe even older. From a time we know only as legends. All those dots and squiggles.” Killeen turned to take in all the Bishops and Trumps present, and Toby realized that he was silencing any objections before they could arise in the others. He said firmly, “I’ll gain us what we need, trading the Legacies—and get them read into the bargain.”

  Murmurs of agreement came from Aces and Fivers and some Bishops, though a few averted eyes hinted that others weren’t so sure.

  Toby said hoarsely, “At least wait a while, Dad. Take this ‘remedial course’ of theirs. We’ll learn more about this place, get a better idea what our Legacies are really worth, see if Abraham’s here, maybe figure a better deal—”

  Killeen’s eyes quickly raked the room. A momentary suggestion of uncertainty in his mouth was swept away by a slight smile, a pleased arching of his eyebrows. Toby, too, saw that he had the backing of the others, the weight of his office and past telling strongly now. He gave Toby a searing glance and turned back to the judge, opened his mouth to speak.

  “Dad, we shouldn’t just—”

  “Cermo—take him outside.”

  “But you can’t—”

  “I’m Cap’n, son. Cermo!”

  Toby opened his mouth, words not coming—and felt Cermo grab him firmly from behind, pinning his arms. He wrestled, shouted, swore, tried a back-kick that found only air. Cermo had the reach on him. The whole room was watery, clogged with heavy air that did not seem to carry his words, his shouted words, as Cermo pulled him strongly backward, backward down a long aisle. Little pale dwarf faces looked bug-eyed at him, all hiding behind the stuffy air of this strangely rippling room. Toby’s throat filled again, this time with a thick, sour taste, a bitter black draft of foreboding.

  SIX

  The Charm of Commerce

  Toby spent two days under lock in a small bunk room, subject to strict ship’s discipline. This meant that he saw nobody, knew nothing. Not even Quath could visit. The room wasn’t big enough, anyway. Food and study materials were all he got, so he boned up on math and history, listening to Isaac’s drone more than he ever had. He spent time doing exercises in the tiny cell. Cermo brought the chow, reluctantly keeping silence, following orders, even when Toby joshed him about it.

  This meant that he didn’t get to attend the general education sessions, explaining how this place worked. Which rankled him so much he worked out his frustration on the room, doing servo’d exercises by rebounding from the ceiling, scuffing the walls, slamming into the floor and then back to ceiling again. He tried to figure out how this place worked by himself, using Isaac, but nothing made much sense as he reviewed it. The deepest mystery was how this impossible solid ground existed at all, whirling around the razor edge of a black hole.

  After two days Besen wangled a visit somehow. Her hair shone with fresh highlights—something in the water here, she said—and she beamed. He held her in his arms, kissed her, murmured of his cares and worries . . . but something was wrong. He felt himself stiffen as she touched him provocatively, a palm sliding confidently up his thigh, nestling on his hip.

  —slick skin sliding—

  Her kiss seemed metallic, an oxidizing flick of her tongue.

  —musky warmth spilling over her in the fitful dark—

  And her hand fell leaden on him, inquiring into his hardness.

  —light laughter as the two of them rolled, leg over leg—

  He stiffened in her grip, found it tight and close and hot.

  —startled yelp of pleasure and pleased surprise—

  She frowned as he pushed away, slapped away her hand. “What, what—”

  “I don’t feel like that right now.”

  “Huh?” Stricken eyes.

  “I’ve got things on my mind,” he said lamely, confused.

  “Well, this sure isn’t like the Mr. Anytime I knew.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Toby, maybe if you talked some, we—”

  “Look, I—come back tomorrow, okay? Something isn’t sitting right with me just now.”

  She went, frowning, mouth quivering uncertainly. He felt sad and angry with himself the moment the door sealed. But then he started talking to Shibo about it and the whole thing didn’t seem so important anymore.

  Besen didn’t come back. He exercised, slept, thought fruitlessly.

  By the time Cermo unlocked the cell, Toby was going buggy. Besen was there to embrace him, giving a soulful kiss that promised more than talk ever could. This time it didn’t bother him . . . but it didn’t kindle much reaction in him, either. Not Mr. Anytime, no—and he didn’t know why.

  First, he was in a mood to splash around in a shower—the natives here had tapped Argo into their own apparently plentiful supply—and get outside. The stubby city was more open than the ship’s helical corridors, and he needed spaces, range. He got himself spruced up as fast as he could.

  He had expected to be summoned to see the Cap’n, but his comm line was silent. As he strode through the sloped corridors, fidgety from confinement and depressed in general, nobody seemed interested in talking to him. Teams worked to flush and fix up Argo; even in port, ship work was never finished.

  When he struck up a few conversations, crew members discovered pressing business elsewhere. Finally he decided to not call Besen. She might not understand that he just wanted some distance for a while, a few hours.

  As he approached the main lock something looked funny. There were a dozen of the dwarf natives talking to the watch under-officers, haggling and trying to cull favors—and they all stopped abruptly as he came near. The Lieutenant in charge stiffly told Toby that there was a hold on his movements. He wasn’t to leave the ship.

  That got his back up, of course. He mulled over going to see Quath, to get the drift of what was happening, and then he remembered the damaged farm domes. In the big balloon-shaped dome devoted to grain crops, he had once tried to fix a small personnel vent that didn’t seal quite right. It probably still didn’t, but now there was positive pressure outside.

  He got there without anybody paying any obvious attention. Sure enough, the vent popped free with just a little wrench work. Somehow the docking fields held the ship delicately isolated from nearby decks. Soft, but firm if you pushed on them. They brushed him gently aside, like a good-natured wind holding him aloft.

  He slipped down, around the bulging slick skin of the dome, and dropped into shadows below Argo’s hovering hulk. Within moments he had made his way through the reception area, nodding to the bored attendants—and was out, away, into the gray city.

  It was a shock. Rather than the glum, sour streets he remembered, these thronged with life—stalls and shops and incessant chattering that ricocheted from every avenue. This showed how stilted and planned their reception had been before, all part of their bargaining strategy.

  Toby wandere
d, stunned. He had spent days worrying and fretting, and now all that seemed to drop away. It had been many years since he had simply let himself go, ambling aimlessly. Then it struck him—not since the Citadel. Not since the spring celebration when his grandfather Abraham had financed a ball-throwing contest between the generations, at a sports booth in the Citadel Square. Sweaty work, cheering and catcalls, itchy dust from many feet. And there had been hot, piping sweet-churns in paper bags, cool drinks, laughter, grins.

  The memories made him bite his lip, and he plunged into the busy crowds. A few people gave him startled looks, but most ignored his size and strange jumpsuit. It took a while to get used to markets, deals, the quick calculus of value. What Toby thought of as just plain things had a special word, making them somehow better—“goods.” You got “goods” with money, then had to make some other “good” to replace the money you spent. He wondered how you got a “bad” or maybe a “better,” but nobody spoke of such things.

  He had credit, it seemed, from a first payment the judge had given all Bishops days before. He minded it wisely. This wasn’t like the bartering between Families he had known back on Snowglade. There you could get a syntho-shirt in trade for two of your self-made, gleaming carbon-steel knives, say. Then you had to find somebody who needed knives before you could get something else. Money was easier, really—you just decided whether the “good” was worth so many of the little round coins, or not. Simple.

  But the bustle this conjured up here! The place was aswarm to bursting with shopkeepers and hawkers, fortune-tellers, merchants, the nimble-fingered and sadly wise, peddlers, grifters, senso artists, back-alley investment counselors, doxies of sullen smiles, men and women with “goods” hidden in their shirtsleeves or ballooning pantaloons, and “bads” alike in their hearts. You could buy anything, from a yellow powder that addicted you for life inside of two minutes, to a strange, luminous alien glassware—which proved to be the alien itself, when he touched it.