by John Clute
—I escaped just in time then.
—No. Not quite. Homo sapiens are not eaten. That is where you and Mamselle Cunning Earth Link began to misunderstand one another.
—You mean there may be survivors on Trencher?
—Almost certainly. Homo sapiens seems to be indigestible.
—And on Human Earth?
—Aye.
—Somebody up there must like us.
—I’d rephrase that, Stinky. Something up there finds you inedible. We’re pretty convinced it’s because of the pong.
The blood choir of the ship Mind stopped short.
The spider in the corner of Freer’s eye blinked alive, began agitatedly to point limbs.
—Mayday! purred the Uncle Sam. —Bogeys.
Teardrop mated with the screens, which traced a swarm of converging points.
—Defend! vocalised Freer.
A dataglove ate his right hand.
—Already begun, said the Uncle Sam. —You never dismissed me.
—Identity?
—Insort Geront folk police signature. No voice. I guess eidolons, no flesh, except in command ark, sublight, upwind, ambush configuration.
—Where’s Vipassana?
—I have wedded Vipassana, said the Uncle Sam. —Tile Dance is our bridal suite. We will not fail.
—Where is he?
The screens began to dazzle.
—Mine eyes dazzle, murmured Freer.
—As I foretold you, the Vipassana carolled alto as the screens stabilised at the heart of the hornet’s nest of bogeys, —I am maintaining a profound awareness of absolute location. We cannot be dislodged from here. Enemy confetti is helpless to hoodwink us. Uncle Sam has freedom to aim. He cannot be misguided. We are wed. Tile Dance knows us. We are safe. KathKirtt is interrogating all that can be interrogated. We are profoundly safe.
—If you say so, Vip.
Within a mask somewhere, a lion coughed with rage.
The antigravs kept Freer stable in the clutch of his chair, but the screens twisted violently.
The universe shook.
The dataglove fed him pie-pieces of the shaking.
—Nix nix nix safe, thrummed KathKirtt, facing him as the face of glory of a lion with medusa hair. —Yet. We have sustained damage.
The bogeys began to disappear more and more rapidly.
Within a few Heartbeats all but the largest and most distant point, presumably the ark flagship, blinked out.
—Kathkirtt? said Freer.
—We live.
—We are absolutely here, crooned Vipassana.
—I killed them all, said Uncle Sam.
—We live but we are hurt.
—Tell me, my dears.
—We have come out in blisters. There is a hole in the flesh abaft the entry port. We have applied antiseptics. We have sutured against fluid loss. But we cannot heal alone.
—So, my dears, said Freer. —Sounds like time for a little mothering. Where are we? Can we reach a free station?
Mamselle Cunning Earth Link opened her eyes.
‘Where are we?’ she pealed gently, from within her chair, which gradually freed her.
‘Tile Dance cocooned you automatically when the attack came,’ said Kath, with some truth.
‘I shimmy uncontrollably with apprehension.’
‘Nix,’ said Kirtt. ‘We’re safe now. But we have been wounded.’
‘I grieve.’
‘It was an Insort Geront action.’
Silence bristled, like a premonition.
The blood pulse of the ship seemed to hover.
‘They hunt lenses, I aver,’ said Mamselle Cunning Earth Link, finally.
She opened another breast, extracted a capsule.
‘Within,’ she said. ‘Our lens. We thought it was fully shielded.’
She touched the capsule, which glowed.
KathKirtt coughed in her ear.
Her head disappeared utterly.
The Sniffer came to life and whuffed sotto voce to Freer. Then it whimpered softly, as though it had shifted somewhere deep within a dream; and hushed.
—It tingles, Stinky, whispered KathKirtt, in a multi- chambered voice. They were the voices of fauna given first sight of Bambi, in the Universal Book.
Their masks were as still as water in a well.
‘Mamselle,’ said Freer to the invisible head, the quivering torso, ‘you have put us at risk. But KathKirtt will agree, I am sure, that you did not deliberately take passage on a ship you had targeted for destruction. Raise your head- knot, please.’
Very slowly, the tuft of head came into view.
The masks of KathKirtt began to turn again.
—We’re stable, KathKirtt said to Freer. —The light hit us for a fraction. The lens is light.
‘Okey,’ they rumbled in acoustic basso, beginning to sound like themselves again in normal time, ‘dokey, mamselle.’
‘If, in fact,’ Freer continued, ‘your shielding was not complete, could this perhaps explain the godzilla suicide assault that holed Trencher? How desperate, would you guess, mamselle, is Insort Geront’s need to destroy any lenses your cohort sent up-galaxy? Did you follow me after the show? Were you anywhere near me when the grunt attack began? Would Insort Geront sacrifice a planet to block our mutual venture?’
Mamselle Cunning Earth Link put a hand to her mouth.
‘I think, mamselle, you were bird-dogging me for Insort Geront. All utterly, of course, unbeknownst.’
‘O impromptu woe chez moi!’
‘I think, inadvertently, we may have caused the loss of Trencher. Several billion fatalities, as I now understand.’
His face was ruddy, but white showed beneath his eyes.
‘Billions,’ he said.
Mamselle did not utter a word, no lamentoso warble, no peacock spiel.
‘More billions than the Heartbeats of my life,’ said Freer.
—We have had a message, KathKirtt murmured. —On all waves. We dried Teardrop and shut your glove, so you could concentrate on the Route-Only.
Freer shook himself.
His chair softened very slightly, comfortingly.
—From? he mouthed.
—Insort Geront ark responsible for recent fuckhead failed assault.
—Content of message?
—Demands destruction of potential contaminant artefacts whose presence on Trencher is claimed responsible for plaque seizure. Demands destruction of lens virus suspected of infecting Trencher planetary Minds with Alzheimer plaque.
—Their authority?
—Homo sapiens genome trustees. Force majeure. Vigilante handfast from God almighty. Who knows, Stinky?
—Tell them suck dust.
Teardrop blinked an intrusion.
KathKirtt rendered in silhouette on a nearby screen the progress of a humanoid shape up the spiral corridor towards command country.
Freer turned in his chair to watch.
‘Now who in the world could that be?’ he said. He waved for sight, and Teardrop revealed a sigillum standing, arms akimbo, at the top of the lacquer and mahogany access corridor. The sigillum wore a slightly spoofish air, and a Trencher beanie.
—It’s being ridden, murmured KathKirtt.
The portal opened.
‘Hi, Pops,’ said Number One Son, with its wooden grin.
‘Come on in,’ said Freer. ‘And tell us how it all was for you.’
Number One Son’s foot caught on the sill, where the brass iris flattened, below the words Ynis Gutrin. He stumbled into the misty star-lit control centre and fell on his face.
‘Gawsh,’ said Number One Son, its eyes reddening.
It fell silent, tongue chewing slowly.
‘So then,’ said Freer. ‘Who’s there?’
‘We demand instant destruction of lens virus,’ said Number One Son in an uninflected version of Freer’s voice. The sigillum’s eyes were round and fixed. Instantly, its lips had become terribly parched.
—Its
failsafes are fighting the Insort read-over, said KathKirtt. —Your sigillum’s in pain, Stinky.
‘What’s your authority?’ said Freer.
‘As designated universal quarantine monitor for this sector, we are sanctioned to invigilate ship sanctum. We enact—’
Freer felt augment hit him.
‘—instant destruction—’
The Uncle Sam spider in Teardrop signalled mayday.
‘—of virus—’
—Booby trap! barked Uncle Sam.
—Eject it, vocalised Freer as fast as thought, his fingers echoing the command within the dataglove. —Get it off ship! Cancel it.
A concave web which throbbed and glittered coated the sigillum faster than the unaugmented eye could see, and a portal opened, and the web-enshrouded sigillum shot through, out of sight, into vacuum.
This took a fraction of a Heartbeat.
—One hundred kilometres, said Uncle Sam. —One thousand. It’s blowing.
Tile Dance rode the shock.
—Now the ark, said Freer. His blood was up, he rode it.
Within milliseconds he sobered down.
—Cancel, he said. —Cancel augment as well.
He slowed down to realtime.
—We did not initiate, thrummed KathKirtt. —We do not add more deaths.
—Are we safe?
The spider in Freer’s eye signalled successful englobement of the Insort ark with gum, confetti, shit. It was tarred and feathered. It could not see or hear a thing.
—Thank you, Uncle Sam.
The spider’s bushy eyebrows seemed to glow.
—We are here. We are nowhere to be found, crooned Vipassana.
—All the same, said Freer. —We carry a live lens, one of those the cohort of the ilk of Mamselle sent to Westron to underline the urgency of their cry for help. We seem to be the focus of a certain degree of attention. How else can we understand the events on Trencher?
—No other way, purred KathKirtt.
—Mamselle has never been to Eolhxir, has she?
—Nix, we figure, sirrah.
Freer turned to the headless Mamselle.
‘Have you ever been to Eolhxir, Mamselle Cunning Earth Link?’
But her grassy topknot simply shivered. No head came back up.
—We figure, said KathKirtt —after some hours of realtime assessment, that Mamselle is a member of a species that goes to ground under excessive stress. We figure she will sleep deeply, while her juices sort. In her slumber, it is likely she’ll give birth to a few shrubs.
—Edible?
—O sophont with big prick, I audit lamentoso floccinaucinihilipification! You barrack the atriums of my heart! You boil my blood freemartin! I, broken, peeve!
—Shut up, KK. Can we do greenhouse?
—Of course.
—You will be a fine Pop.
—She will almost certainly awake mannish. We can do odd couple.
Freer smiled, then fingered his dataglove, which gave him a sensory holo of Tile Dance. He queried Teardrop, which poured readouts into his head. They were starred, arrows pointed.
The ship was bleeding.
—It’s nothing, said KathKirtt gruffly. —I told you. Just a scratch.
—Bullshit. I need you whole. Are there any Free Stations in reach, with facilities to handle highly sensitive old-growth ship Minds, dearest?
—One, crooned Vipassana before KathKirtt could utter. —Station Klavier.
—Ten parsecs inwards, continued KathKirtt.
A sector map blossomed in command centre.
It showed Station Klavier pathing at half light-speed down Maestoso Tropic, on the downward lap of her regular run — a Hundred-Billion-Heartbeat circuit (whispered the sector map subtext) from the up-Spiral outer regions down to the innermost sector flesh sapients could tolerate, and back again.
—Who owns it? Who runs it?
—No record of any change.
—Who’s the owner then?
—No record.
—How far back?
—All the way back. Station Klavier is freehold; Law Well does not bind. Ownership status and internal operation protocols of Station Klavier were grandfathered into Law Well Concordat at its inception. There is no record of any change. Age of Station Klavier is not on record, not known, not guessed, but clearly ancient. This is convenient for Tile Dance, we hope. We may be able to do some deep repair work that’s been in abeyance since before you came to us, Stinky. The staff of Station Klavier is a normal waif biota sort, mostly bilaterals; the population, including families and wayfarers and the residents of an extremely large pack park, amounts to about thirty thousand. Non-bilaterals have access to fully braided facilities. There is no homo sapiens braiding, however; presumably because Station Klavier predates incursion of homo sapiens into civilised space. Homo sapiens are asked to refrain from mating in public.
—So. Vipassana? Do you know the way?
The Planisphere dimmed austerely, Vipassana being profoundly humourless.
—We are on course for Station Klavier, crooned the voice, stiffly.
—Thank you, most excellent Planisphere, said Freer. —Uncle Sam?
The spider drew to attention.
—Lay down chimeras, please.
A dozen chimera Tile Dances dispersed, leaking fake blood to draw pursuers.
He turned back to a flyting mask, which purred.
—Odd name, Klavier.
—The name is unpathed, said KathKirtt. —We embrace no nimbus of association down-galaxy. It must be random syllables.
—No, KathKirtt. I don’t think so . . .
Freer shrugged in frustration.
—I don’t think so . . .
He swivelled in his chair, which became a chair designed for swivelling. He caught sight of the totally immobile Eolhxiran.
The blood left his cheeks.
—KathKirtt! he bellowed inside his head.
—Hush, you’ll wake the babies.
But KathKirtt were reading their human, whose fingers were twitching.
He was very pale.
—No joke. Fast. On Trencher, while I was at the genitalia masque, you were blocked from me for a bit. I activated the Sniffer, which cleared the air. Please access Sniffer’s readings from that point.
—Here we are, said KathKirtt.
A hologram took shape at the heart of control centre, showing the stage, the tin robots of recent vintage continuing to dismember each other, the pianist at his replica grand piano from Human Earth, performing music from below the well of the past. His hands slid and danced.
—Tell me I’m wrong, KathKirtt. What’s he playing?
—I have played it for you more than once. It is a piano sonata, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, Common Era, a late work of the great pre-Well composer, Ludwig van Beethoven. It is his sonata number 29, opus 106.
—Continue. Please.
—We are sorry, Stinky. We were remiss in failing to review the Sniffer’s records for the time we were blocked. The sonata, as you know, did of course have a nickname. It was called the Hammerklavier.’
The krewe was as silent as stone.
Finally, Freer spoke.
—Thank you, KathKirtt, he said. —Hammerklavier. Some coincidence. Conclusions?
—That there is always a joker in the pack. We have not only been played with; we have been herded. In a way, this simplifies matters. Insort Geront should not have had sufficiently advanced technic to block us — even Kirtt alone — from you. We do not now estimate that they did so.
There was silence in the control centre.
—We are perturbed, Stinky, spoke KathKirtt in grating voices.
The masks coughed, very deep in their throats, hollowly. The spider sat still in Freer’s eye. The Planisphere hovered mutely.
—So, said Freer. —Should we accept the invitation?
—Tile Dance is hurt, Stinky. We should stop at Station Klavier.
—Okey dokey, sai
d Freer, —maintain course. Shit.
—Sirrah?
—Who was the fucking piano player?
Within the hologram the pianist grew larger.
—From the beginning, please.
He flicked on and off, and began again from the start of the Sniffer’s records, hands dancing and pummelling the vast, black, gleaming instrument.
—Freeze.
The pianist stopped in mid gesture. His peculiar interface helmet — presumably an archaic multi-talented version of the Sniffer — partially obscured his face. Frozen, he seemed no more than what he had seemed originally to Freer: a sawn-off scrawny homo sapiens, of typical waif biota lineage, maybe freelance, possibly enfeoffed to Trencher. The satchel on his back was almost raucously colourful, seemed to have been patched together from a variety of scruffy fabrics. His clothing, too, was motley.
—Conclusions, KathKirtt?
—This is a full flesh sentient homo sapiens, no sign of gene twist, no singularities, no cul-de-sacs. Propagated straight out of Human Earth stock, like you, Stinky. He is profoundly waif. Bone wanderer. Absolutely not native to Trencher. He may have taken one or more course of anti-agathics; his true age is not readable. He suffers from no ascertainable sickness. His right arm may be augmented.
—Unlock, said Freer.
—No, murmured KathKirtt. —There is one thing more. Look at his collar. Do you see a tithe sigil?
The collar was bare.
—Fuck.
—Either he owns Insort Geront, or he’s a freehold grandfather.
—Fuck that. Freehold grandfathers are mythical. They don’t exist. Unlock.
The pianist began again to play the Hammerklavier; the music thrust forward as before, sorting the octaves with great sad muscles.
—Let me see his face, as close as you can, slo-mo.
The face was singularly lined, but seemed healthy. What of the hair could be seen under the helmet seemed genuine. The pianist was frowning, perhaps in concentration. He looked up, with almost tortured reluctance under slo-mo retard. It was almost as though he were resisting the passage of the tape. His eyebrows were unplucked, his teeth were crooked. His eyes were amber, slightly bloodshot. He had copious laugh lines, seamed with dirt. His face was in fact astonishingly dirty. He seemed to be scanning his audience. He seemed extremely alert, but relaxed. Suddenly - though very slowly in realtime - his gaze fell on Freer, and tracked him.