Glorious--A Science Fiction Novel

by Gregory Benford

  Beth was running now and calling out on comm. Her team had bunched up as the big muscular gray things circled.

  Twisty called, “I will halt this!” but she didn’t look around.

  The big alien sped up, bounding off with the woman in its grip. It scooped out long leaps, getting away quickly. It headed for a copse of zigzag trees. The woman in its grip hung lifeless. Now laser carver fire came faster from her team. She knew better than to call out to them. They knew how to defend, forming a tight group. Quick hard raps of laser fire caught the alien animals by surprise. She saw the animals’ heads jerk, swivel, duck. One of them staggered, tail flapping wildly—and smacked down.

  She had her own laser out now and got off two shots. She aimed at the animals farthest from her people. Not expecting to hit them, just use the pop and sizzle of a laser bolt to distract them.

  The animals had been silent till now. Now they called, a long hooting sound. A signal, all together, as if agreeing on what to do. They all turned and made off to her right. Now they were ever faster. Their big heads swiveled as they looked around, assessing the situation. Within seconds, they were into a stand of leafy plants like tough cabbages. Then gone.

  She reached the team, called, “Who was that, carried off?”

  Viviane said, “Zoyee Wilansky. That damned thing punctured her lung. I saw her blowing blood when she yelled.”

  Beth said, “We’re going after her.”

  Twisty came bounding up. “I will adjust this incident.”

  Cliff shot back, “Incident? Some pack animals just killed—”

  “Not animals,” Twisty said quickly. “Are intelligent.”

  Beth stuck her face forward, gazing into Twisty’s eyes. “Those? They just killed a woman and carried her off. To eat?”

  Twisty backed off. “That will not happen.”

  “But that’s what they were after, right?” Cliff was thin lipped, eyes bulging, barely containing his rage.

  The team had clustered around them. Beth saw this could turn ugly fast. Ashley Trust was nursing a slash on his upper arm. Viviane quickly pulled out a smart bandage, cut open his uniform sleeve with a short knife, and smacked the activated bandage over the wound. Her team was fidgeting, itching to get at Twisty.

  “Form a perimeter!” Beth called. She marched over to the alien. “Twisty, you fix this. Get her back.”

  Twisty turned and loped away without a word. It was fast, heading the way of the attackers.

  “Let’s see what we’re dealing with,” Beth said, walking over to the dead alien.

  It really did look a lot like a giant kangaroo. She bent and moved the head around. Roolike, but short faced, with a deep ridge behind, recessed forward-facing eyes above a strong chin. Both upper and lower incisors, apelike molars in the back. Omnivore, it seemed.

  The thing had a burn hole in its chest. She sniffed the trickle of bright red blood. It was iron rich, just like many animals on Earth and Bowl. A second laser burn had hit beside its spine. White bone gleamed. Its fur had a fusty, dry tang.

  She inserted a biodoc into its midriff. The needle went in and snapped back out, thin and quick. She thought three commands at it, and it hummed. On its face popped a symbol analysis in five images. The symbols meant there were too many genetic differences in DNA, proteins, RNA elements for it to be from Earth.

  She could check the results more finely later. Beth stood and snapped, “Not our biosphere.” Another hum and she glanced at it. “Not known elements from the Bowl, either.”

  “So convergent evolution?” Viviane asked, feeling the musty, ruffled fur and thick muscles.

  “Must be.”

  “Kinda advanced skull,” Cliff said, squatting beside her. “Big cranium. Could be smart.”

  “Their attack was expert,” added Viviane. “There was a loud, odd noise from our left—like a melodious clarinet. We all turned to look for the source. They hit us from our right. Fast as hell.”

  Ashley stood beside her, his arm bandaged. Beth noted the smartpack had already sent med details to her inboards. Nothing major, at least.

  She picked up the beast’s foot. Four large toes, outer two with hooked claws. Big hands with two long, clawed fingers, plainly for attack. But also two shorter, outer fingers, multiple-jointed with ordinary nails at the end. Plus large opposable thumbs that looked as though they retracted. An interesting variation on a gripping hand, different from anything Earthside or on the Bowl. She recorded, “The critters can hunt and kill with the claws. But finer detailed work they do with these fingers and thumbs, not too different from ours.”

  She stood, noting that her team had formed a defensive perimeter as she did her science. Good. “This thing is a versatile anthology of tricks. Based on my Earthside and Bowl experience, I’d say it’s an omnivore, plus opportunistic carnivore—those claws are nasty! Able to eat insects, prey, possibly carrion, fruits, and soft leaves.”

  “Like us,” Viviane said.

  Cliff nodded. “But uses the mechanics of a kangaroo—which in Australia are vegetarians. Look at those small arms below the big ones. Maybe useful for small detail work? Seems like many-armed is a theme here and on the Cobweb layers. This thing’s a hundred kilos mass, easy. Muscular, smart carnivore. Let’s call it a carniroo, huh?”

  They all nodded. Beth’s Artilect-assisted inboards, ever helpful, poked up in her lower left eye: AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL PEOPLE STILL RECOUNT STORIES OF A LARGE, LONG-ARMED, AGGRESSIVE KANGAROO THAT WOULD ATTACK PEOPLE. She didn’t know what to make of that until, stimulated by her attention, and from its links to SunSeeker, it delivered:

  PROCOPTODON GOLIAH (GIANT SHORT-FACED KANGAROO) IS THE LARGEST KANGAROO TO HAVE EVER LIVED (PLEISTOCENE ERA, 2.5 MILLION YEARS AGO TO 11,000 YEARS AGO). IT GREW 2–3 METERS (7–10 FEET) TALL, AND WEIGHED UP TO 230 KG (510 LB). NOTED TOP PREDATOR IN CONTINENT’S HISTORY.

  She got the point. “This thing may have come from Earth long ago.”

  Ashley asked, “When the Bowl revisited?”

  “Could be,” Cliff said. “Long way back, millions of years. It got here somehow. Then got smart. Same as we did.”

  “And grew two extra arms? No,” Beth said. “It’s Glory life. Sculptured.”

  “It’s science, so use longer words,” Viviane said with a sad smile. “So, hypothesis.”

  “Or maybe just good ol’ convergent evolution,” Cliff added. “That energy-storing strategy, between tail and legs—efficient. Got selected for here and Australia.”

  “Always possible,” Beth said, and caught sight of Twisty coming out of the stand of zigzag trees. It was carrying a limp body, Zoyee Wilansky.

  Twisty laid the body at Beth’s feet and backed away. All were silent. Beth had spent maybe an hour with Zoyee, quick interview after she emerged from cryo. The woman had been groggy from the frost but game to go, a “boots firm on the ground” type.

  Now Beth could see the killer had plunged its claws into Zoyee and severed veins and arteries, killing quickly. Deep plunging cuts in both lungs. Blood all over the face. It had bubbled out in the final seconds of life. Probably a simple stabbing by the claws. From the bloodstains that covered half the body, Beth gathered Zoyee had been strung upside down to drain her before gutting, clearing, and then slicing her into meat. Twisty had probably interrupted a butchering amid the zigzag trees. Bile rushed into Beth’s throat and she fought to suppress it.

  Okay, stand straight, get her voice under control.

  She started with a mild though strangled voice, “Twisty—”

  But Cliff surged forward, his face mottled with rage. “Bastard—” he shouted, and punched at Twisty’s triangular head. The alien quickly stepped back on its lower legs, so Cliff’s right cross zipped by, missing entirely. Twisty then flexed its legs to trip Cliff. As the man toppled, four arms whipped out. They caught Cliff and spun him in air, like a wheel. The arms were muscular, sinewy as it lifted Cliff—and then dropped him. Cliff hit facedown, went huff.

  Twisty back
ed off two paces. “I understand your emotions. They are common, yes. But I urge learning here, not mere feeling.”

  “Easy to say,” Viviane shot back, pointing at Zoyee. “Your wildlife just killed one of us for no damned reason.”

  “Not wild. Glorians they are, a species with some intelligence. They are living as animals by preference, after a long era spent helping build what you call this—” Two arms gestured. “A Cobweb. Without a spider, until now. You have brought your own.”

  Beth was helping Cliff to his feet. Twisty had knocked the wind out of him. “What’s their intent now, then?” she asked.

  “Their intent is to get fed. The joy of pack hunting.”

  Beth shook her head. She pulled her team away from Twisty by getting them to carry Zoyee into a copse of trees, away from the zigzags where she supposed the attackers still were. In a short, terse talk with Twisty, she got agreement that there would be no more carniroo assaults.

  “We’ll bury our dead. You police this area, make damn sure there are no other predators near us.”

  Twisty agreed and she went with her team. Best to do the funeral right away.

  NINETEEN

  Two dead in two days. Worse than she had done as team leader on the Bowl. Much worse.

  She talked to her team as they dug a grave with their pop-out shovels. Then talked with Cliff and Ashley and Viviane, hashing over next steps. She went through the burial, thinking. Or trying to. The words did not come easily but she said them. Eulogy is invariably dull. Especially when she knew the deceased so little.

  Redwing had decreed, after their Bowl experiences, clear limits on every ground team. No powered armor or neuropharmacological enhancements—too hard to deal with and deal with utter unknowns at the same time. No deep Artilect engagement—the AIs had proved their uses were limited in the field, more like on-call librarians than actors.

  No robotic aircraft and swarms of autonomous fighting machines, then, though in some situations they could do the dirty work faster, cheaper, and with inhuman precision. But those lacked versatility.

  Of course, the Artilects had their own ambitions, since they kept up with AI advancements back home. Earthside had long past moved to a war world where programmers set up battles conducted between machine armies without immediate oversight, not a single soldier on the field.

  Vulnerable civilians were still there, of course, on the still super-crowded Earth. It was far more peaceful than the twenty-first century, but there were still Great Leaders who ordered machine invasions of weaker nations, certain of no risk of creating grieving parents on the home front. Robosoldiers were still available to anyone with the money. But Redwing had long before decided, free of Earthside control, to avoid loosing forces that could execute orders without the hesitations and ethical qualms that can plague merely human explorers. Plus, Beth found fighting machines terrifying; she was decidedly old-fashioned.

  Burial and funeral over, she led them back to the rooms where they had slept. It seemed a long time ago, but was only half a day. She watched the sky, the lands, wary. Twisty hung back, following them but realizing that the humans were deeply angry. The alien was learning about humans, and knew its limits. She decided to leave the obvious question for later: Why did only one Glorian of Twisty’s species meet them? No welcoming party, brass bands, ceremonies. Just one irritating, offhanded Twisty. Strange indeed.

  She gazed into the sky, trying to get her bearings in this odd, clocklike astro machine. And there was a zingo … or rather, two. They twisted, their spidery lines joining in the dance. A big flapping creature, maybe a smackwing, flew behind them, so she got perspective. They were maybe a hundred meters away, she judged. Watching the humans? But they were in 0.83 gravs here. How did they stay aloft?

  The sun had tilted down a bit in the sky, as Honor orbited out of the Glory eclipse, arcing along the slow circle it obeyed. Within less than two Earth days, long shadows would grow as Honor swept into a two-day night for its inner half, where they were. They were at the base of the Cobweb, at what would be the terminator. So they could choose to be on the sunward side, or the nightward. Sunny seemed better, given that predators prowled here. So they should move away from the Cobweb, toward the sun.

  What could come in the night here was a subject she didn’t want to think about right now.

  TWENTY

  HUNTER’S BREAKFAST

  Does everything need an explanation? Some people think so. I wonder how they endure looking at the stars.

  —ROGER EBERT

  When Beth woke up, she held still and did her quick sight-sound perimeter check. She saw something new in their room. Soft gray fabrics were waiting inside their door in a neatly folded array. The walls gave forth a dim dawn blush color when she moved. Apparently the room believed they were awake. Cliff wasn’t; his buzz saw snore fluttered as he rolled over. His arms groped vaguely for her and she slipped slowly away.

  Time to get to work. They were wrapped in alien strands of strangeness here. Be alert, yes.

  Naked, she headed first for the simple toilet room—an efficient water swish-away. She had brought sanitary gear, as her period was just ending—compact, self-cleaning, reliable, less than a gram. One of the best benefits of civilization, she felt.

  Her muscles resented her moving them much, recalling in their aching fibers the exertions of the last few days. She had trained diligently on SunSeeker, but real trekking in the field always provoked muscles she hadn’t heard from in a great while.

  Coming out of the shower, she saw a flicker of movement outside, on the balcony. She peered through the transparent wall, and another flicker of movement caught her eye. Something bobbing up from below?

  She watched more but saw nothing but the remarkable alpine view. Above, wispy white clouds tumbled in billows over sharp peaks, fattening as they fell, like cotton candy being whisked into existence at a fairground.

  She thought of getting Cliff awake, but he had been up late, talking to the team about how to handle the Glorians, especially Twisty—to no result, he said. When he came back, she had deftly pointed out that she needed a bit of erotic distraction, as befitted their schedule, and to his credit, he complied. Artfully so, as well. He had collapsed soon after, as she worked out how to whistle out the light oozing from walls and ceilings. The room seemed to know a lot about them.

  So from curiosity, she picked up the gray stuff. Separate clothing layers slid beneath her fingers. When she slipped one over her legs, it seemed to know how to join up and surround her body. Her inbodies told her this trick came via magnetic closures along the seams. The pants became comfortable. So did the next soft sheet, making itself into a blouse. As the stuff moved over her breasts, distracting her, she mistakenly stepped onto a sheet. It shaped itself into some ingenious dark shoes that wrapped around her feet, like bandages. Then the other sheet slipped around her feet and both grew heels, rugged and broad, good for hiking. Smart, alien stuff.

  She wore them outside. Three steps onto the balcony, buzzing came in a swarm singing of something. Beth yelped and tried to dodge, futilely. Small brown birds fluttered, cawing and twittering. Once they had a sniff of her, they wrapped around in a murmuring doughnut shape, like a crown overhead. Were they sent by some Cobweb ambassadors? For surveillance? Or were there smart swarms here, humming their messages, alien discourse in flight? She had to keep her mind open—but, hey, answers would be nice, too.

  The lush land spreading away looked like layers of farming and pastures. Some fields had canopies—perhaps to ward off flying eaters, or filter the sunlight for max growth?

  Suddenly, Twisty came arcing up into the air. It came from below, contorting its body—all arms out, as though it was flying. Then a midair bend, a rotation, a snap-out to full extension. It came arrowing in—made a last twist—and landed. It didn’t even have to take a step forward to check itself. A two-point landing, like an Olympic athlete. Beth blinked. No human could have done that, leaping up from the ground four meters
below.

  “Hello. You are wearing your ancestral phenotype,” Twisty said.

  “And you aren’t?” Beth shot back.

  “I choose to. Simpler for you to understand.”

  “What do you have planned?”

  “The species you term the carniroos wish to present you with the gift required of their code.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I have learned, dealing with them, to smile politely and shut my earlids. They respect movement, action, more than words. They wait below and will come now.” It gave a long trilling note.

  Three of the carniroos sprang up from below. They landed on the broad ledge bordering the balcony. The middle one landed badly. Its companions supported it. Like some other carniroos, as she had learned by reviewing the team videos of yesterday, these wore belts and short aprons that doubled as carry bags, plus covered genitals. Twisty had said that roos made these from the skin of a rabbitlike herbivore they sporadically hunted.

  Then, with a jolt, Beth saw that the middle one was dead: the dead roo shot the day before, held by the other two. Its wound had turned brown and black.

  A shock ran through her, a massive premonition. She kept her face from revealing anything.

  “They present their gift. You may devour their friend.”

  “What? No.”

  “They understand that you prefer to uselessly bury the dead of your kind. They, however, feel that prey must be made useful.”

  The two live roos dropped adroitly to the balcony, holding their dead tightly. The body was stiff, eyes glassy. Beth backed away from them. She recalled the eager note in the carniroo baying, on the attack, as though they thought what they did was music. The joy of the hunt, the song of the kill. “We weren’t hunting them as prey—they attacked us!”

  “Nonetheless, this is their way of achieving peace with you.”