Glorious--A Science Fiction Novel

by Gregory Benford

  Beth had to smile. Twisty regarded them all, spread its hands, and said, “In our tongue, our written, or signified, script is that each cycle expresses a whole thought all at once. There is no development of an idea, there is no chronological movement from first letter to last letter, the thought has to be entire in the very moment it is expressed. It is an achronological language. Your tongue is linear and so affects the way you perceive the world. In your language, there are untranslatable concepts, because our view of the world does not map into your mind frame.”

  “You’re saying these deaths are not what we think?”

  “Yes. Your alphabetic language constantly builds up in lattices of linguistic thought. Letters figure eventually into sentences, paragraphs, and so on. This is necessarily chronological. In the time you speak, you can and often do change a sentence’s meaning. The thought your speech expresses is not whole until the utterance is complete. So you cannot fathom that which is not chronological, as for example, the final fate of your now invisible friends.”

  Beth said, “I … don’t follow.”

  “Time will instruct.”

  Viviane said, “What if we have … other plans?”

  Twisty nodded while carrying out a series of swoops and turns with his arms that Beth had never fathomed. “Plans made swiftly and intuitively are likely to have flaws. Plans made carefully and comprehensively are sure to.”

  “You’re going all sphinx on us,” Ashley said.

  “I do see your reference—yes. Your literature and imagery are now quickly available to me, with only the speed of light as a limit to my comprehension.”

  Viviane tried a different tack. “A soiled and savage species, we can still make music when we try.”

  “Yes, and so well you do it. I have spent many moments digesting your Bach works.”

  “We think he’s our best,” Viviane said.

  “Perhaps so. You value your opposable thumbs, tool-making abilities, cooperative hunting, or other common claims to uniqueness. I point to your larynx as the trait that makes you different from all your world’s animals. Humans exert fine control over spoken sounds, which rises above the current clouds in your heads. So music is your fine quality—more than, say, the ship you came to us in. It is serviceable but crude. Without your laryngeal anatomy, you are just another pongid, a useful term in your dictionary—the ‘human chimpanzee,’ I might say.”

  Beth cut off Twisty’s talk with a decisive downstroke of her hand. “We’re on our way to get a better tour of our host skyfish.” Stressing each word separately, she added, “See. You. Later.”

  They got lost, of course. The skyfish titled Conqueror of Clouds became a labyrinth as they approached the head. When they at last reached the broad pilot’s view and helm, Captain Anarok detached from the wall and came over swiftly, hands doing a welcoming fan gesture they now knew well. “Greetings. I wondered if your esteemed selves were in wretched mourning.”

  “Um, we are,” Cliff said. He then swiftly turned Captain Anarok’s attention to the view, asking questions.

  Beth saw he was deflecting pressure from her, sensing that she needed it. She stood in back of the team as the Captain pointed out features in the ample green river valley below.

  Beth knew from her Bowl experience that if you let yourself feel too much in a place that might as well be a war zone, you go nuts. You do the things you have to do and you keep on going. Staying busy in the wake of loss had a way of tranquilizing grief with the pressing demands of practical arrangements—a tranquilizer she took willingly, almost gratefully.

  She had screwed up this expedition so far, no doubt about it. It wasn’t because of belated heebie-jeebies from her traumas on the Bowl, either. In each attack, the aliens had been quick, sure. Her team had weapons readily at hand, but they had not come armed for heavy fighting; this was a diplomatic expedition. And everything here was fast. Unexpected. This latest, smartrock, was a real jolt.

  The skyfish was making a broad turn, majestic in its slow grace. This brought its internal noises that seemed to focus on the bridge. Beth reminded herself that this thing was not like a ship but rather a living system with its own slosh and aches. She could hear the innards seem to growl, to bark, hum, hoot, whistle, pop, and click, then long strumming bass notes coursed in an eerie, melancholy composition like a dirge. Or was she hearing what resonated with her internal mood?

  The skyfish was gliding now over a ridgeline of sharp rocks. Gliding on the wind alongside was a flock of broad-winged, leathery birds in a languid V-formation. They wheeled and banked like an elegant squadron. Standing atop the ridge was a tall angular form with, oddly, three legs. It had squamous dark skin, like a toad crossed with a snake. Its eyelids batted horizontally, while a proud ruff like gills palpated around its neck. It raised three arms in a lopsided salute to the skyfish. Then, just beyond the creature, a zingo rose. It was very close.

  Beth lifted herself away from her frustrations by focusing on the looming huge thing. Traceries of orange fire raced along the tangled and interlaced zingo lines. Beth pointed. “Cliff, you take charge. I want a better look at that.”

  She turned and trotted away, not even looking back at Cliff’s expression. She knew he would frown and shake his head. But her carefully managed inner boiling point was rising, and she needed exercise, escape, something—

  Campbell’s agony in the grip of that flaming backfire dragon—

  Zoyee’s shrill screaming as a carniroo carried her off—

  Jereaminy and Pupwilla, burned to a crunchy black crisp—

  She found a sloping ramp that took her up onto what she knew from their previous “passenger tour” was an observation deck stretched along the skyfish spine. She labored swiftly up it, relishing the effort, looking upward—and here came Twisty, in from the side.

  How did the thing know how to find her? No time to speculate. “Let me alone!”

  “I much like to escort you.”

  “Keep up, then!” Beth sprinted up the slope, hoping to outdistance it, and popped out into bright sunlight.

  The zingo was standing off from the bony upper deck. Orange sparks zapped along the strands.

  “If you wonder, I am a blend of living cells and molecular-scale machinery. There is no major part of me which isn’t both.” Twisty had easily kept up with her.

  “Stop bothering me!”

  Twisty ambled over to the edge and looked down and waved, in a complex arm and hand movement, toward where the leathery birds glided just below, and cawed back to it.

  The view was a breathtaking spectacle of verdant plains leading toward the sweeping slopes of the Cobweb. She ignored it.

  She looked for the zingo. It was below, coming up alongside the skyfish, glowing.

  Twisty turned toward her. “Such sprawl of life is a continuum from microbes to mathematicians. Yet that is not all, as the Increate reminds us.”

  “So that damned smartrock, is it always ‘trying on’ other people?”

  “If it so desires. It is where we all shall go, perhaps?—such is our view of life. You, too, must deal with that solid fact—that the only lasting truth is change.”

  Twisty came nearer, its hands air-dancing as if to distract her. From what? The zingo, probably. “Step back,” Beth said.

  “I assure you we wish you no harm. True, your companions have moved on from this context, but—”

  “Back!”

  Twisty made a grab for her. She had anticipated that. She ducked beneath the stretched arms and backpedaled.

  “I assure you—”

  She knew well that the only fighters who could stand there and trade punches and blocks were young, strong people or, even more likely, drunks. Anyone with skill, not to mention anyone getting on in years, was going to rely on getting out of the way whenever they could.

  “We have captured your party’s members, of course. In time, the Increate will welcome them—”

  Twisty made a lunge but she was quicker. It came ar
ound fast and she leaped backwards, landed evenly, keeping her eyes on the alien.

  Twisty slid sideways. Beth knew that a smaller person could throw a larger one because it was easier for them to get under the big one’s center. Every size had advantages. Twisty was tall and agile but seemed confused now that it hadn’t gotten a grip on her. She knew that a weak person who knew how to grab using their center rather than their arm strength could stop the movement of a stronger person. A grab was best done using the smaller fingers of the hand to grip, not the thumb and forefinger, which were easier to twist away from.

  So when it came at her, she faked a dodge. Then let it come in from her side, hurrying, arms spread, hands twitching. She squatted and lunged up toward the center of it.

  Twisty’s middle was solid muscle. Her fingers dug into its flesh and wrenched. Her shoulder brought a quick huuuh! from it as air rushed out. She had centered her feet, so when she surged up she lifted Twisty and pivoted to throw it sideways.

  The alien’s length gave her torque. She tossed Twisty aside. It landed with a sharp bark, surprised. Beth smiled. So much for Mr. Smartmouth.

  She stepped backwards, away from the alien scrambling to its feet. A quick flicker of alarm sounded in her, but too late. Her left foot came down on … air.

  She snatched at the edge of the skyfish’s platform—and missed. The sudden feel. Of. Falling. Came as she felt her time perception slow. Break this down into moves, came her training. She knew she should turn and pinwheel. She did. The trick was to land right, yes. She tried to relax and focus on rolling with the impact. Take the hit on some meaty part, ass or shoulder, not on hands or feet.

  She gyrated to see what was below her. It was a mud-colored something, blurred by her spinning speed.

  Something slapped at her, a quick impact, a slide down a fleshy surface, slippery-slick—And she was falling again. She had hit one of the birds. Then slid down its long wing and off into the air. Her head whirled. Another dark form below—

  Not enough time to rotate into the best position, so—

  She came in on the balls of her feet—not good! She tucked her chin down. Hugged her chest. Right shoulder forward and down, headed for the brown thing below. In the shock, she felt her right knee go. With that wrenching pivot, she let her forward momentum take her in a shoulder roll.

  The world whirled. She let it go and surged forward, rolled. That brought her right back up onto her feet. She did not especially want to be there. But she knew to take some big running steps to stay up, brake herself—and failed. The right knee shot pain up her leg and went out. Her body got ahead of her legs. She took a long diving plunge at the brown stuff. Her chest huffed out all her air. Akkkk—

  Her mouth hit and popped open somehow and the teeth bit into something firm but not hard. Thud. She tasted … feathers? No, her eyes told her. A feathery-leathery kind of skin.

  She had landed on another one of those big spread-winged birds.

  She came up spitting out the taste. Gagging for air. Stood on the bird. It squawked, with perfectly good justification. She must weigh ten times what it did. It banked at a steep angle. Down she went again, grabbing for purchase in the rubbery, tough hide.

  She held on. Looked up. The skyfish was maybe fifteen meters above her. She glanced to each side. Birds flapped alongside, fore and aft. Their heads were all turned toward her, their big eyes glinting with intelligence.

  They saved me. Their heads bobbed, nodded in unison. They all banked upward, her own bird laboring hard to lift. She could hear the whoosh of its lungs. To the side the zingo hovered, orange sparks shooting along its humming threads. She thought of leaping over to it, confront the thing—and knew she was a fool. Enough danger, for a day.

  As if from some signal, the skyfish descended. Here came the bony upper deck. She simply stepped off onto it. Twisty was nowhere to be seen, but Cliff rushed toward her.

  “What the hell—?”

  “I got a little too aggressive. Twisty irked me.” She shrugged.

  “You fell!”

  “Those birds caught me. Repeatly. They’re a team that talks to the skyfish, looking after us.”

  “Or just you.”

  She started down the ramp, stopped. “Yeah. Twisty didn’t mind the team deaths. But this whole weird place saved me, just now. Um…”

  They reached the bottom and got into the main section of the skyfish, a broad area with transparent walls letting in the views of the lands below. There was a lot of noise as they approached.

  A crowd of skyfish crew filled the area. Captain Anarok stood on a platform, speaking to them in a fast lingo Beth could not follow, with its bunches of spat-out consonants and trilling vowels, something like a punchy birdsong. Angry buzzing tones dominated. Murmurs, rustling.

  Captain Anarok saw them and gestured with all her hands. “The valued guest is saved!”

  Beth called, “Thank those birds.”

  “We collective have mutually decided to no longer work with your most vexing guide,” Captain Anarok said in her halting Anglish.

  Cliff called over the crowd, “You mean, who?”

  “The egregious irritator Twisty, as insightful you have so named it.”

  With this, a gang of several crew thrust Twisty itself onto the platform. It looked wildly around, opened its mouth—and someone behind it slipped a gag into it, tightening it with a flick.

  “What the hell?!” Cliff said, mouth agape.

  Other members of their team came in, drawn by the crowd noise. Alien meetings had alien sounds, all right. Buzzes, mutters, chirps, and keening calls. Now Beth saw among the Twisty-like crew other aliens, obviously enjoying the spectacle. Eyes tracked in faces unlike anything she had seen before. Big angular meaty heads, sitting more than four meters tall, on three legs so thick she could not have put her arms around them. Others were inside a transparent bubble, their bodies huge ovals covered in shaggy green fur. These twirled three snakelike trunks. Their single eye atop the body stood on a short stalk, swiveling constantly, eager to take in the action. Some things vaguely resembling the Twisty body shape stood, tall and in hooded robes, patterned in mournful ruddy and brown tones. Gleaming eyes peered out from the darkness of their massive heads. On their chests were gold and shiny platinum decorations on a shell that might be armor. These were being polished by squads of small servitor beings skittering anxiously like spiders using tools. Passengers, too?

  Captain Anarok called to the crowd, “This tiresome Twisty is”—a guttural blast in bass notes, obviously an insult—“and thus affronts our benignly suffering presences.”

  An answering roar. Throaty calls, hands and tentacles upthrust.

  “What say we all to this irksome Twisty?”

  “Repulse!”

  “Cut clean away!”

  “Expel!”

  “Wring tight!”

  “Annihilate!”

  “Excrete!”

  Beth realized this show was for them, the humans, in glottal-stopped but serviceable Anglish. With slow elegance, Captain Anarok spread all her arms in a broad gesture of coaxing, her hands pulling forth more shouts and obviously rude alien gestures.

  “This tedious Twisty represents meddling eyes and minds swollen with pride, those nefarious ones we find irking in their pompous presumption.” Anarok paused, letting tension build.

  Obviously, Beth reflected, the methods of wordy persuasion were somewhat similar across intelligent species. Why? Because of some long galactic history humans did not yet glimpse?

  “So I echo you—” Hands high, Anarok pronounced a verdict. “—and yes, we shall emit!—Tyrant!—Twisty!”

  Bellows of delighted rage. Beth stepped back, tugging Cliff.

  “Geez, where’d that come from?” he said.

  “Alien justice,” Beth said. The commotion behind them rose in pitch and volume. “Twisty’s our link to whatever manages this crazy contraption place. If we lose Twisty, who do we talk to?”

  “Let’s catch
the ear of Anarok,” Cliff said. “She has something in mind, seems like.”

  “Let’s get below, away from this.” Beth gestured to their team, which had followed them. They headed down through side corridors that pulsed with the skyfish rhythms that now seemed customary—long surges of fluids, a gravitas of labored muscular effort.

  They were passing through the lower chamber with transparent walls, like flexible windows. Beth barely glanced out at the terrain but noted the leathery bird flock coasting below, above the steadily rising flanks that led to the Cobweb base.

  “Hey—!” Viviane called from behind.

  The body falling outside the window took its time. It was worth more than a glance, curling around amid a shower of brown liquid. The long body made delicious dreamy moves, it seemed to Beth in her suddenly slow-timed perception. They all gasped together. The head turned as the body passed below and she could see it was Twisty.

  Viviane called out, “They put it out through the skyfish digestive tract.”

  “Literally excreting it,” someone whispered.

  Twisty managed to flail around in the shit column that fell with it. The long body twisted, and below came the flight of birds. Twisty hit one, slid off another, then another—the birds were braking the fall. Just as for me, Beth thought.

  She turned away from the sight—and there was Captain Anarok, spreading all her arms in a broad gesture of welcome. “The perfidious Twisty our noble selves have banished in a manner most appropriate.”

  Beth looked around at her team. Here comes a leadership moment, she thought self-satirically.

  “Captain, we want to go—”

  “Yes, into what you perceptive primates term the Cobweb,” Anarok said.

  “Uh, how did you—?”

  “It is apparent by your growing indignation at the actions of the tyrannical Twisty. We, too, felt terrible Twisty’s arrogant orders.”

  “So how—?”

  “We will carry you into the Cobweb—which, in our tongue, is”—the Captain gave forth a rattling squawk—“or translated, ‘a solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time,’ as we see the magnificent structure from our far ancestors.”