Cosmic Tales - Adventures in Sol System

by T. K. F. Weisskopf

  Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;

  Breath's a ware that will not keep.

  Up, lad: when the journey's over

  There'll be time enough to sleep.

  —A.E. Housman

  Dawn and Searcher had been on the run for days. Hart days.

  Before that, an enemy had killed all Dawn's tribe—her Meta, as the lingo had it—and driven Dawn into the forests of old Earth. But Searcher stayed with Dawn, scampering along as well as an augmented racoon could.

  They had made steady progress climbing the flanks of the saw-toothed mountain range, and now the terrain and rich fauna resembled the territory where Dawn had grown up. She searched the distant ridgelines for hints of lookouts. Hers was not the only tribe of Original humans, and someone else might have escaped. She asked Searcher to tune its nose to human tangs, but no traces stirred the fitful breezes.

  Twice they sought cover when flying foxes glided over, their ballooned arm-wings shining against the sky. By this time surely the Supras—advanced humans, superintendents really, but not the enemy who had smashed Dawn's people like a fist from the sky—would have sent their birds to reconnoiter, but in the blank blue bowl above neither her nor Searcher's even sharper vision could make out any of the ponderous, wide-winged silhouettes.

  They watched a vast covey of the diaphanous silvery foxes bank and swoop down the valley currents. Distant rumblings came, as though the mountains above them rubbed against a coarse sky. The foxes reacted, drawing in their formation like silver leaves assembling into a ghostly tree.

  Blue striations frenzied the air. Clouds dissipated in a cyclonic churn.

  Dawn began, "What—"

  Sheets of boiling yellow light shot overhead. A wall of hard sound followed, knocking Dawn against Searcher. She found herself facedown among piney needles without any memory of getting there.

  All around them the forest lay crushed, as though an enormous thing had trampled it in haste. Deep booms faded slowly in the sky. An eerie silence settled. Dawn got up and inspected the wrenched trees, gagging at fumes from a split stinkbush. Nearby two flying foxes lay side by side, as though mated in death. Their glassy eyes were still open and jerked erratically in their narrow, bony heads.

  "Their brains still struggle," Searcher said. "But in vain."

  "What was that?"

  "Like the assault before on your people, yes." Searcher lifted a snapped wing. "The foxes took the brunt of it for us."

  "Poor things . . ." Her voice trailed off as the animals' bright eyes slowed, dimmed, then closed. "They died of electrodynamic overload, I guess."

  "Our pursuer does not know precisely where we are, so it sends generous slabs of electrical energy to do its work."

  Searcher gently lifted the two foxes and made a slow, grave gesture, as if offering them to the sky. A long moment passed. When Searcher lowered its claws Dawn could not see the foxes and they were not on the ground or anywhere nearby. Searcher said crisply, "I judge we should shelter for a while."

  They climbed swiftly up the rough rise to a large stand of the tallest trees Dawn had ever seen. Long, fingerlike branches reached far up into the air, hooking over at the very end, as if blown by a wind on high. Yet there was no breeze at all here. She felt exposed by moving to higher ground, closer to the sky that spat death. From here she could see distant banks of purple clouds that roiled with spokes of virulent light. Filaments of orange arced down along long curves.

  "Following the magnetic field of Earth," Searcher said when she pointed them out. "Probing."

  Dawn saw why the Supras had sent no -searching birds. Far away quick darts of blue and orange appeared. "The Talent," she said. Searcher looked quizzically at her. "I can feel . . . emotion." She remembered Searcher once remarked, You do not have emotions, emotions possess you. "The Supras are fighting . . . worried . . . afraid."

  "The being above keeps them busy while it searches."

  They moved on quickly. Dawn had always been a good runner, but Searcher got ahead without showing signs of effort. When she caught up it had stopped beside a big, gnarled tree and was sniffing around the roots. Searcher took its time, moving cautiously, and Dawn knew enough by now to let it have its way.

  So she stuck to what she knew, as they moved quickly through the shrouding forests, hiding from the flitting ships above. They passed by colonies of plants that had a social life, communicating through pollen-sprays their needs and distresses. Dawn could read these from childhood on, and was pleased to find that Searcher asked for instruction. Some of these signals her Meta had adjusted, and seen propagated around the globe by genetic invader-seed. These were the long crafts her Meta had cherished. They were part of a philosophy the Originals had brought to the world, and with Supra help, had been applying to this latest of many revivals old Earth had seen. In the millennia since the Techno Age, much had been lost.

  Dawn knew these lessons deeply. The chant of her Meta had ingrained them:

  Fast learns, slow remembers. The quick, small things instruct the slow and big by bringing change. The big and slow controls by constraint and constancy. Fast gets all the attention, slow has all the power. A robust system needs both.

  They had recited it every day at breakfast. She yearned for those lost days.

  Both she and Searcher sensed an ominous tone flavoring the air. "Time to move on," Dawn said.

  "I agree. We have a meeting."

  "With whom?"

  "With what—but you shall see." Searcher eyed the sky. "Abominations are up there—the Malign." Searcher stopped, opened the side of a large tree. The horny bark peeled back in curls and light seeped from within.

  This was no surprise to Dawn, whose people had often sheltered in the many trees 'teched for just such use. She squeezed through the narrow slit and soon the bark closed upon them, crackling, leaving only a wan phosphorescent glow from the walls to guide them. The tree was hollow. All trees were dead inside, anyway, just big cylinders of cellulose with living skins. Someone long ago had engineered this form that built an interior from the compacted dead matter.

  She looked up. In this variation there were vertical compartments connected by ramps. U-shaped growths grew all along the walls. Some creature had nearly filled the compartments with large containers, grainy packages of rough fiber.

  "Storage," was all Searcher would say in answer to her questions. "Come."

  Using the U-growths they climbed up through ten compartments. All were crowded with stacks of oblong, crusty containers. Sweating, Dawn hoisted herself up into a large vault, completely empty, with a wide transparent wall. Dawn thumped the window-wall and the heavy, waxy stuff gave with a soft resistance. She watched the still trees outside, stately cylinders pointing up into a sky that flickered with traceries of quick luminescence.

  The Supras were still searching. Something else, too. A bright flare of momentary combat spoke of a conflict she had seen too much of already. She turned away, glad to be in a shelter.

  This place might be safer; she let herself relax slightly. As a girl she had camped among trees something like this. They had eaten—

  They were all dead.

  The impact of this stunned her. She froze. And then slowly she recalled what her dear lost Mom had always said. Head's too full? Use your hands.

  She took out a knife and gouged the wall. A piece came off with some work. As a girl, she had eaten this way. She took a tentative bite. It tasted surprisingly good. She ate a while and Searcher took some. Patches on the walls, ceiling and floor were sticky, without apparent scheme. The compartment smelled of resin and damp wood.

  She chanced to glance out the big window as she chewed and that was why she saw it coming.

  Something like a stick poked down through high clouds, swelling as it approached. Perspective told her that it was enormously long. Coming straight down. Its ribbed sinews were knobbed like the vertebrae of a huge spine. Groans and splitting cracks boomed down so loudly that she could hear them here, insi
de. Curving as it plunged, the great round stalk speared through the sky like an accusing finger. Her jaw dropped. As she watched, frozen, the very end of it curved further, like a finger beckoning upward.

  "Time to lie down," Searcher said mildly.

  A sonic boom slammed through the forest. The window-wall rattled. She hastily flattened herself on the resilient green floor of the compartment and gazed up through the big window.

  "It's falling on us!" she cried.

  Searcher grinned, right beside her. "Its feat is to forever fall and forever recover."

  "It'll smash these!"

  "Lie still."

  Something immense, whirling through the air. It rushed toward them. Graphite-dark cords wound across the deep mahogany of the huge, trunklike thing.

  A high, supersonic shriek rose. Fingers of ropy vine unfolded from its tip as it plunged straight downward. The vines flung themselves toward the treetops. Some snagged in the branches there.

  "Grapplers," Searcher said over the shrilling howl.

  A hard thump ran through their tree.

  She just had time to see the thick vines snatch at the branches of neighboring trees, grip, and tighten.

  The broad brown nub hung in air for a long moment. As if, she thought, it was contemplating the green skin of the planet below it and selecting what it liked. It drifted eastward for one heartbeat. Then snatched upward.

  Heavy acceleration pressed her into the soft floor. They were yanked aloft. Popping strain flooded their compartment with creaks and snaps and low groans.

  Out the window she could see a nearby tree speed ahead. Its roots had curled beneath it, dropping tumbling brown clods behind. The forest dropped away. Other trees dangled from vine grips beside theirs. On one, the uppermost branches sheared off where several thick vines had clutched together. Unable to take the acceleration, it dropped away to crash into the forest below.

  She could only lie mutely, struggling to breathe. A flock of tree trunks rose beside them, drawn up to the great beckoning finger. The stalk now retracted up into the sky with gathering speed. It swept them eastward. Their tree lashed in air turbulence. She saw the other trees outside, flapping. As if shaking themselves free of the grip of gravity, and of dirt.

  She watched, flooded with fear. Hopeless to try to get up—and what would be the point? They were helpless.

  Searcher was enjoying the ride, its tongue lolling, eyes alight. She grimaced. Did nothing bother the beast?

  Their tree groaned in long bass notes. She watched the nearby trees to see what was happening. The sight of one falling away had not given her great confidence.

  Against the steadily increasing tension the ribbed and polished vines managed to retract. They drew their cargo trees up, turbulence diminishing as they all rose into the upper atmosphere. The trees nuzzled into a snug fitting at the base of the blunt, curving rod.

  "What . . . is . . . it . . . ?" Even grunting out a word at a time was hard against the punishing -acceleration.

  "Pinwheel," Searcher said. "The center . . . rides high in space . . . and it spins as it orbits. The ends rotate . . . down . . . through the air . . . and kiss the Earth."

  Searcher's calm, melodious voice helped stave off her rising panic. They were tilting as they rose. Cloud banks rushed at them, shrouded the nearby trunks in ghostly white—and shredded away as they shot higher. She glimpsed the underside of the Pinwheel itself, where corded bunches of wiry strands held the vines in place.

  "What . . . is . . ."

  "We spin . . . against Earth's pull. But will slip free."

  She sent a query to her inboards, and instantly they gave her an image.

  She was looking down on the planet from a pole. An enormous rotating stick orbited it. This rod slowly dipped down into the planet's air, one tip touching the surface at the same moment that the other end was farthest out in space. It was in orbit, but reached down to the surface six times as it circled. At each touchdown, the stick's tip moved backward at a speed equal to the whole shaft's orbital velocity.

  Briefly, its ground-track velocity was zero. As it touched down, it could lift the trees with its vines, making a pickup. And move, in a few moments, cargo from one part of the globe to another.

  The scale was dizzying. She had thought little about anything beyond the envelope of Earth's air; forest folk lived in the local. The sole Supra craft she had ridden in seemed capable of going into space, and she had supposed that was all there was. But this . . .

  This vast thing was far longer than the depth of Earth's air itself. And they were fastened to one end of it, soaring along on an arc that would take them into space.

  Still, she could barely conceive of the scale. This creation was like a small, slender world unto itself. Rolling bass wrenchings strummed through the walls and floor. Her heart thudded painfully and wind whistled in her ears. Pressures adjusting.

  She could see outside that the strain of withstanding the steadily rising acceleration warped the vines. They stretched and twisted in their own agony, but held the long, tubular trees tight to the underside. Shrubs and brush festooned the nub. The Pinwheel stretched up into blue-black vistas as the air thinned around them. Hopeless, she realized, to try to see the end of it.

  The wind in their compartment wailed and she sucked in air, fearing a leak. Searcher patted her outstretched hand. It lazed, eyes closed as though asleep. This startled her and a long moment passed before she guessed that Searcher had done this before, that this was not some colossal accident they had blundered into.

  As if in reply Searcher licked its lips, exposing black gums and pointed yellow teeth.

  Her ears popped. She looked outward again, beyond the nearby slow buffeting of tree trunks. "Upward" was now tilted away from the darkening bowl of sky. But their acceleration still lay along the chestnut-brown length of the Pinwheel, as they rotated with it. Black shrubs dotted the great stretched expanse of the length that dwindled away, gray laminations making the perspective even starker. Cross-struts of cedar-red tied the long strips into an interlocking network that twisted visibly in the howling gale that tore along it. The Pinwheel was flexible, bowing like a tree in a hurricane.

  They smacked into the nearest tree and a big, sharp branch almost punched through the window. But in the buffeting wind their tree wrenched aside and the impact slammed against another part of the wall. Could the window hold against such impacts? She did not want to find out.

  Her ears popped again and her breath came raggedly. Along the Pinwheel's length great strips of lighter wood rose, with walnut-colored edges.The great shaft canted, sculpting the wind—and the roaring gale subsided, the twisting and wrenching lessened. Pops and creaks still rang out but she felt a subtle loosening in the coupled structure. It was flying itself.

  The last thin haze of atmosphere faded into star-sprinkled black. The floor vibrated. She felt that an invisible, implacable enemy sat on her chest and would forever, talking to her in a language of wrenching low bass notes. Cold thin air stung her nostrils. She almost panicked, but found that there was enough if she labored to fill her lungs.

  As she panted the ample curve of the planet rose serenely at the base of the window. Its smooth ivory cloud decks seemed near enough to touch . . . but she could not raise her arms.

  Along the tapering length of the Pinwheel, slow, lazy undulations came marching. They rushed toward her, growing in height. When the first arrived it gave the nub a hard snap and the trees thrashed on their vine-tethers. Turbulence, she guessed, summed into these waves, which dissipated in the whipcrack at its ends. Tree trunks thumped and battered but their pressure held.

  Searcher licked its lips again without opening its eyes.

  They revolved higher. Now she could see the complete expanse of the Pinwheel. It curved slightly, tapering away, like an infinite highway unconcerned with the impossibility of surmounting the will of planets. Vines wrapped along it and near the middle a green forest flourished.

  They were
arcing up over the planet. The far end was a needle-thin line. As she watched, its point plunged into the atmosphere. Undulations from this shock raced back toward her. When these reached her the buffetings were mild, for the trees were now tied snugly against the underside of the Pinwheel's nub end.

  Deep, solemn notes beat through the walls. The entire Pinwheel was like a huge instrument strummed by wind and gravity, the waves singing a strange song that sounded through her bones.

  The Pinwheel was now framed against the whole expanse of Earth. Dawn still felt strong acceleration into the compartment's floor, but it was lesser now as gravity countered the centrifugal whirl. Their air, too, thickened as the tree's walls exuded a sweet-scented, moist vapor.

  The spectacle of her whole world, spread out in silent majesty, struck her. They were nearing the top of their ascent, the Pinwheel pointing vertically, as if to bury itself in the heart of the planet.

  She wondered what would happen to them next. If they stayed here, their trees would be dropped onto the surface partway around the world. Was that why Searcher had met this whirling machine?

  The Pinwheel throbbed. She had felt its many adjustments and percussive changes as it struggled against both elements, air and vacuum, so this latest long undulation seemed unremarkable. Only a short while ago she had thought that the ravenous green, eating at the pale deserts, waged an epic struggle. Now she rode an unending whirl of immeasurably greater difficulty.

  The kinetic whirligig of all these events dizzied her. The last few days had stripped away her comfortable preconceptions, leaving her open to naked wonder. She was beyond fear now, in a curious calm. Ideas floated through her mind like silent fireworks. She looked down and in a glance knew that the Earth and the Pinwheel were two similar systems, brothers of vastly different scales.

  The Pinwheel was like a tree, she guessed. Quite certainly alive and yet also a dead spire, cellulose used and discarded by the ancestors of the living cells that made its bark.

  "How can this thing be so strong?" she whispered.