Glorious--A Science Fiction Novel

by Gregory Benford

  “Awry?” Redwing moved away by flapping his arms, letting the movement defuse his anger.

  “I was not there,” Twisto said mildly. “I gather the method was hasty and led to overheating.”

  “But why?” Viviane’s voice was flat now but strained.

  “The Increate is not a mere repository. It is an active mind and a method, wedded. It is curious. You are the first such species to come to us in a vast long time.”

  Redwing said, “So we’re parading around so various parts of the Glory system can get a look at us?”

  “Much more than a look. We need to inspect and understand. You came here, seeking—what?”

  Redwing paused. “We want contact with your society. We ran alongside the Bowl by accident, because we were each headed for you, along a similar axis.”

  “Are you sure of that?” Twisto asked with a tilt of his head.

  Viviane said, “Of course—wait. You think maybe…?”

  Redwing snapped his fingers. “The Bowl picked us up from our ramscoop exhaust tail? And maneuvered to come close, so…?”

  “I am not privy to their methods, but the Bowl anthology of intelligences has vast strange experiences to lead them—an advantage from touring this sector of the galaxy. They seldom reveal their true motives.”

  Redwing said, “They built a paradise and stabilized it, dynamically and socially. The price of that was the many adaptations it took.”

  Twisto made an approximation of a frown. “What sort—physical? We did those as well, to inhabit what you term the Cobweb.”

  Redwing said, “They can open their unconscious and watch it work, control it. That suppresses vagrant, sudden emotions. We can’t look at our inner selves. It’s impossible. We don’t have ideas, they have us. So the Bowl species get no big mass movements driven by passion. We humans do—plenty of them. Some back Earthside think our expedition here—the expense and trouble and risk—are just passing fads.”

  Twisto’s head flinched, as if these ideas had a physical impact. Slowly he asked, “So the Bowl Folk undergo no major social change?”

  Viviane said, “So it would appear. You don’t want bursts of creativity in a high-wire act.”

  “Most sobering,” Twisto said, eyes veiled.

  Redwing needed to consider this conversation, the slippery way Twisto revealed things. He hoped he hadn’t given away too much; field diplomacy was not his strong point.

  To relax, he looked around at the constant churn of life streaming past them in the huge volume. He watched a yellow flight of yapping things approaching and immediately named it frozen explosion. Sharp stabber spikes shot out in all directions. It reminded him of thorny black sea urchins that clung to reefs off California, beloved by the Japanese for their orange roe. These propelled past them, their gleaming spikes saying don’t bother me as their narrow beaks slid open and closed, like a sinister threat.

  Twisto said, “I have done back-reading of our monitoring of your world, by visits at intervals of roughly ten thousand of your years. The progress of yourselves—Homo sapiens was sudden and surprising. Visit first summed up: ‘Bands of semi-hairless, upright, nomadic apes foraging for food. Some promise in social organization, as observed occasionally in desert regions.’ I gather this means that only there could your species be seen. No constructions visible.”

  “How many times did you visit?” Viviane asked.

  “Five in all. Our survey craft did not decelerate as they sped through, so results were from a great distance, while dropping small, smart packages to do the close work. The last two noted a few modestly interesting details about changes in your migration. Our craft saw some use of crude tools on one large continent. The last observed some remarkable developments, seen by an aerial vehicle. Many scattered populations had discovered basic agriculture and animal domestication. Some used metal for weapons and tools. Clay pottery was visible then, in large structures of apparent religious use, and so this, too, had advanced considerably. Rudimentary mud and grass shelters dotted some landscapes. But there are no roads, no lasting stone buildings.”

  “Then what?” Viviane pressed.

  “Your species had with surprising speed outrun the earlier form. I believe they were called P. troglodytes in one of your ancient tongues. You then ‘chimpanzees’—which once meant ‘mockman.’ Before your form, that earlier species lived no better on two legs than on four.”

  “We parted company genetically with the chimps six million years ago,” Viviane added.

  Twisto waved away this detail, as if it were a mere tick of time. “Our next probe was planned to inspect your species within a century or three of now. Then we accidentally found your ship, when it appeared in a high-resolution study alongside our true interest, the Bowl.”

  “Ah. If you tried returning to Earthside this time, your ship would doubtless get spotted,” Viviane said.

  “True. That is why you are a most curious group of water-based humanoid life-forms—because you are so curious.”

  Redwing said curtly, “Look, okay—we’re smart animals. We evolved from other animals we now see mostly in cages. They evolved from ever more embarrassing animals, and before that from a humiliating sea of primitive critters in the primordial stew. So what?”

  Viviane chimed in, “Right. Almost everything we take for granted today—technology, prosperity, medicine, human rights, the rule of law, cooperation of millions or billions in societies—is a novel, unnatural environment for humans, created by humans.”

  Redwing leaned in, focused in the weight-free vastness where flocks of beings glided by. “Look, a civilization is simply a story: the tale people tell themselves about themselves. So? Your species—I guess they’re a lot of them—invented all that social engineering, too. You built the Cobweb!”

  “Indeed so.” Twisto frowned, waved hands in a perplexing dance. “We must now decide whether to incorporate you—a hasty species.”

  “Hasty?” Viviane laughed.

  “We evolved social cooperation over several million years. You did this in a small fraction of a single million. This suggests inner energies, deep torrents and tensions—which your species countered with cooperative groups, building from tribes of hundreds of members—on up to tens of billions, spread throughout your entire system solar. In ten thousand years! This troubles us.”

  “Hey, we’re adaptable,” Viviane said lightly, tossing her long hair like a rippling blond fountain in the zero grav.

  “Such rapidity seems unstable. Strange. Your social evolution was surely hasty. Note the enormous wars that litter your past. Often with no true point! Often about religion, which surely has nothing to do with your species’ worldly advantage. Puzzling! We are unable to predict how you will cooperate with our many intelligent species.”

  Redwing said, “History tells us that we adapted when, in polite terms, we met an intersectional moment of feces and fan.”

  Twisto showed a slanted frown. “Much of it self-generated.”

  “True,” Viviane said ruefully.

  Redwing spread his hands in a so what? gesture, which maybe Twisto could read. “We’re the most curious animal that Earth ever made. The other primates, not so much.”

  “You are clad in language. It forms your second skin, determining and limiting your perceptions.”

  Viviane leaned forward with a thin grin as she spoke, clearly liking this. “Apes don’t ask questions, even if they know sign language.”

  “Every word frisks your minds for meaning.”

  “What are your words like, then?” Viviane asked.

  “They convey how we react, not some abstraction. So your insults and gibes, we would call”—Twisto paused to consider—“stingsay, as that is what a saying does. Your way of thinking we term headtheater, as this warning term distances you from what you think about—often an error, to us.”

  Redwing was about to shoot back a reply when he took a blow to the forehead. He spun backwards, smacked into Viviane, and both went t
umbling. Rattled, Redwing remembered to roll left by throwing out one arm, more or less away from the attacker, and felt a heavy blow on his back. A weight pressed him downward. Something was wrapping around him. He reached out, found Viviane, pulled on her. From the grasping muscular mat that was wrapping them up, he breathed in a heavy, musky stench.

  He tried to slip out from it—heaved, butted up, squirmed—but the grip of whatever was on both of them stayed. Viviane gave an “Arrrgh!” as she wriggled around to get a look at what looked like the jowly muzzle of a fuzzy carpet, unfurled. The muzzle and broad yellow teeth drooled on his neck. Big watery eyes gazed into his. The sticky folds of it pinned his arms—

  And a snarling ball of energy hit the creature. Twisto’s fur was ruddy now and seemed to swarm all over the back of the ruglike attacker. Twisto dug his claws into the hide, giving angry shrieks and chatters in a choppy language. The rug-thing hunkered in, pressing into Viviane’s chest, but too late. Twisto had anchored himself. He threw all his arms to one side, prying the fuzzy creature’s mass up and away. The thing snarled and an odd ivory blood oozed from cuts made by Twisto’s fingers, which now sported long, retractable claws. From them dripped more of the ivory stuff, diffusing into the air.

  Viviane flexed and hit the creature straight in its muzzle. It fell away, wheezing. Twisto grabbed a nearby support and arced around it to pursue. Then Twisto stopped, as the carpet creature unfurled itself and caught a breeze. It sailed away, the angular head staring back and still baring its teeth.

  “Damn!” Viviane got up as Twisto released his hold. “What was—?!”

  “One of several factions that fear you,” Twisto said. Redwing noticed that the alien said this in an offhand manner as he swung around on a nearby support strut, giving the move a certain proud saunter conveyed by body alone.

  “Seemed more angry than afraid,” Viviane said.

  “It acted on its own, despite the constraints imposed upon its kind. Pay it no mind for now. We have greater audiences to attend.”

  “Feared us? Why?” Redwing insisted.

  “You bring change. Change means danger, to many here.”

  “What are those so afraid of?” Viviane asked.

  “You travel between stars, radiate copious electromagnetic messages, and now show an interest in our gravitational wave methods. We do not want you to capture our radiator, the work of over a thousand of your years.”

  “That’s it? We’re too curious?”

  “Unstable, more accurately.”

  “What can we do? Aside from promising not to seize your radiator?”

  “Such promises would not be believed.” Twisto paused, as if reflecting, or maybe communicating with some other source. “… As you quite obviously suspect.”

  “You overestimate us,” Viviane said.

  “We think not. It is by well-made fantasy that Homo sapiens shapes the world. This ability we have in mere small measures. You excel.”

  “Hard to believe that.” Redwing was stalling a bit, for time, so he could judge the situation. The sharp, short attack had unnerved him. They were alone here amid myriad threats. Plus, a gentle breeze was blowing them farther into the interior of this immense beast. The air swarmed with pungent odors he could not place. They drifted lazily toward a wrinkled opening with an unsettling resemblance to, he realized, a sphincter.

  Like a voice from an ancient chimney on a gusty October night, Twisto said, “You believe that your minds are merely ingenious, quick. You have profited greatly from your inability to see your full minds working, as well. We and the Bowl species have discarded that hampering long ago.”

  Redwing watched a fat blue wobbly thing that called into the cloying air a song, trilling po-ta-toe in a way oddly similar to the quail hail of chi-co-go he knew from childhood. Other distant blue blobs answered to it and clustered in the air. Grouping in defense against … humans?

  “Humans did not invent tools, tools invented humanity. That shaped you faster and, with your unconscious minds at play, somehow drove you oddly.”

  Viviane pointed to something behind him. He twisted to turn. There hung a luminescent yellow-green thing, huge but somehow insubstantial.

  Viviane’s arms described the sweep of it. “Turn your head … see? Mostly transparent, but it resembles a fish—no, a dolphin. Deliberate signaling?”

  The zingo glowed in ripples, then drifted away with an insouciant flip of what might be its tail.

  “What the hell is that?” Redwing demanded.

  “A manifestation of our general intelligences.”

  Redwing understood better now. The many startling events Beth’s team had encountered, the deaths and injuries, were part of the Glorian way of dealing with intruders. They used an age-old method: Show don’t tell. Plus, Let the chips fall where they may.

  Now they glided directly into the wrinkled opening that parted to receive them. With a pop as their ears adjusted pressures, they were in a large vault filled with a blue-white radiance. At the center was something the diameter of a skyscraper, gray and brooding.

  Twisto said, “This is one such intelligence. It wishes to converse, at shorter range than before.”

  “It was speaking with you all along.”

  “More through me than with.”

  Redwing gaped at the thing, glistening with rivulets of yellow-green moisture. “That’s … smart?”

  “It resembles your fungus.”

  “That’s another phylum to us.”

  “You may speak to it directly.”

  Of all outcomes his expedition might meet, this was one Redwing knew he could not have imagined. He was about to talk with a slime mold.

  THIRTY-ONE

  PLUNGING

  When a dog wags her tail and barks at the same time, how do you know which end to believe?

  —ROBERT SILVERBERG

  Cliff rolled out of the clasping couch and said, “What the hell?! Let’s find Anarok.”

  Beth nodded and they went forward toward the control room of the big skyfish. The pink corridor walls pulsed, as though straining. Tremors ran through the tough red flooring. “How this beast survived those g-forces, I dunno,” Beth said. “Must be some more of this wonder tech we keep meeting.”

  They met Anorak halfway forward. The skyfish captain had a companion. Beth’s stomach lurched: the newcomer was of the Twisty mold, with a altered head, a clear attempt to shape it as human.

  She asked, “Twisty?”

  “Consider me Twisty’s replacement,” the newcomer said. “An improvement, we hope. In this place we must give you a companion. Call me Twister, if you like.”

  “If we must,” Gwen said.

  “Now I can show you the true Glory,” Twister said. Anarok frowned but said nothing.

  Cliff spat out, “We thought we would land on the surface—”

  “The splendid immaculate Glorian surface is forbidden to aliens such as you,” Twister said blandly, hands held strictly still. “I have been delegated to introduce you to those who live below. They are very different from the naturals above.”

  “Best to simply show,” Anarok said. She gestured to a pressure lock, which opened at her bidding. “We will accompany.”

  “Why forbidden?” Beth cried.

  “Some environs must remain beyond contamination,” Twister said. “It is an ancient, venerated policy.”

  Cliff’s ears popped as they stepped out the other side onto a brightly lit platform. Pressure was higher here, his inboards read, the air close to Earth-normal but with more nitrogen. But it smelled like sweetbriar and volcanic fumes, stinging his nose. He had always felt that he could tell when someone was watching him, and now he did. Or some thing.

  They got their party out into the open, including Bemor.

  Cliff thought of a class in biology once, where the instructor said, “A cactus doesn’t live in the desert because it likes things there; it’s there because the desert hasn’t killed it yet.”

  A cautionary note,
funneled up by his subconscious …

  Hills like ash piles mirrored in pale water below. Somehow the straight streets below it, though vacant, no buildings, reminded him of those he saw long ago in Mexico, including a street named Avenida Salsipuedes, the Avenue of Leave If You Can. He had thought it a joke until he came to know the place.

  “Somethin’ here feels wrong,” he whispered to Beth. She was getting her team in order, and he felt rumbles through his boots. The high vault above flickered.

  Beth had rounded up the team literally—they formed a defensive circular perimeter, with Twister at the center. Behind them, the air lock closed. Through a transparent bubble, Cliff saw the vast shape of the skyfish embraced by a web of clasping black threads. These slowly lifted the living craft into what looked like a slingshot array. “They must be getting it ready to insert into that big tube again,” he murmured, lost in the slithering talk on the general comm. But Anarok was with the team on the ground, he saw. The Captain was staying away from her ship. Odd. Looking nervous, too.

  More shakes and murmurs through his boots. He stood very still, getting the feel of this place. We’re finally down to—okay, inside—the planet Earthside astronomers thought was our sole target. Because they couldn’t resolve the two-world system, even using the best, biggest space-based telescopes. The Glory Cobweb confused them even more—giving off odd biosignatures in a whirligig rhythm they took to be just weather. Good guesses, then—but only guesses on best available data. Later, they picked up Earthside the grav wave rumblings … after we’d left. So now we’re under the surface of the planet we figured to settle—after all, no signs of electromagnetic signals, or other tech signatures in the air. Looked promising. Earthside was just plain new to the game, and so were we—so long ago now, thanks to cold sleep … and nothing here makes sense. Why this underlayer?

  The rock nearby popped and surged. It was rising and everyone turned to watch. He had seen this back on that stony landscape of the other world, and now something similar rose—as a greeting?