Across the Sea of Suns (24 page)

THEN THE SMOOTH STONE GROWS SLOWLY HOT, CRACKS OPEN, SOME OF US DIE, THE SONG DIMS AMONG US, BITTER BLUE CURRENTS DRIVE US DOWN, MORE OF US FALL FROM THE SONG, LONG COLD SOUNDS STAB US, AND MORE FALL, FROM THE SOUR STREAMS COME NOW WAVES, FRESH STREAMS, WE TASTE, SING WEAKLY, SPEAK, IT IS A WORLD LIKE THE ONE WORLD, THE SMOOTH STONE ON ALL SIDES IS GONE, WE BREAK WATER.

THERE ARE WAVES CUTTING WHITE, SHARP, WE FIND SALT FOODS, LEAP INTO HOT AIRS, WAVES HARD FAST, WE CUP THE LIGHT AND SEE BIG STONE IN SKY, FAR STONES MOVING ACROSS THE MANY STONES, LIKE OUR WORLD BUT NOT OF OUR WORLD. THE SONG IS WEAK, WE SEEK TO CROSS THE WORLD BUT CANNOT, WE KNOW WE WILL LOSE OURSELVES IN THIS WORLD IF OUR SONG IS STRETCHED FARTHER.

BUT THE YOUTH HAVE A STRANGE SONG AND THEY GO OUT. THEY FIND FOOD, THEY FIND BIG ANIMALS IN THE WAVES AND BIGGER ANIMALS THAT CRUSH THE WAVES, THEY STRIKE AT THEM IN THE WAY WE ONCE DID LONG TIMES PAST, THROW THEIR WEBS TO BRING DOWN THE CRUSHERS OF WAVES.

THESE CRUSHERS ARE NOT THE BIG ANIMALS WE KNEW IN THE WORLD AND WHEN THE YOUTH DRAG THEM DOWN CLOSER TO THE CENTER THEY ARE NOT RIPE, DO NOT BURST WITH FRUIT, ARE FIERY TO THE MOUTH, AND KILL SOME YOUTH WITHOUT RELEASING THE PODS THAT WOULD DRIVE THE YOUTH TO THE LAND, DRIVE THEM TO THE AIR TO SUCK, DRIVE THE CHANGE TO MAKE THE YOUTH INTO THE FORM THAT WOULD BE US. THESE THINGS THAT FLOAT AND CRUSH THE WAVES WE FEAR AND FLEE, BUT THE YOUTH EAT OF THEM AND YET DO NOT GO TO THE LAND TO CRAWL; WE LOSE THE SONG WITH THEM FOREVER, THEY FLY THE WAVES NO MORE, THEY TAKE THE BIG ANIMALS THAT WALK ABOVE THE WAVES. THE YOUTH HAVE BECOME ABLE TO KILL THE BITTER WAVE-WALKERS, THEY FEAST ON THE THINGS IN THEM. WE SEE FROM A DISTANCE THAT IT IS YOU THE YOUTH EAT, EVEN IF YOU ARE SICK AND DEATH CAUSING, YOU ARE KILLED IN THE SKINS THAT CARRY YOU WALKING THE WAVES. THE YOUTH DO NOT SING, THEY SPLIT YOUR SKINS, THEY GROW AND EAT ALL THAT COMES BEFORE THEM.

NOW YOU ARE GONE LIKE US, NEARLY CHEWED. WE COME TO HERE, WE DRIVE THE YOUTH AWAY, THE ACT CHEWS US BUT DOES NOT FINISH US. WE FIND YOU IN THE SKINS YOU LOVE AND WE CANNOT SING WITH YOU. WE FIND YOU ONE MAN AND IN ONE YOU CAN SING; TOGETHER YOU ARE DEAF. YOU ARE THE TWENTY-FOURTH WE HAVE SUNG WITH ON THE WAVES YOUR KIND CANNOT HEAR UNLESS YOU ARE ONE AND CANNOT SING TO EACH OTHER. MANY OF THE OTHERS WHO SUNG WITH US ARE NOW CHEWED BUT WE CAN KEEP THE YOUTH AWAY FOR A TIME WE GROW WEAK THE YOUTH RUN WITH SORES AND LEAVE STINK IN THE CURRENTS FOUL WHERE THEY GO WE SMELL THEM THE WORLD THAT WAS FALSE WORLD MADE THEM THIS WAY NOT AS THEY WERE WHEN WE KNEW THEM IN THE WORLD THAT WAS OURS THEY CANNOT SING BUT KNOW OF THE PLACES WHERE YOU SING TO EACH OTHER AND SOME NOW GO THERE WITH THEIR SORES MAY BE CHEWED BY YOU BUT THERE ARE MANY MANY OF THEM THEY ACHE NOW FOR THE SKINS-THAT-SINK, BUT THEY ARE MADNESS THEY ARE COMING AND THEY CHEW YOU OTHERS LAST

FIVE

Each night after it got too dark for Warren to write in the yellow firelight, they would move inland. The mosquitoes stayed near the beach and there were a lot of other insects, too. Warren listened to fish in the lagoon leaping for the insects and the splashing as the Skimmers took the fish in turn. He could see their phosphorescent wakes in the water.

They smeared themselves with mud to keep off the mosquitoes, but it did not keep off the ticks that dropped from the trees. There was no iodine in Gijan’s box of random items.

Putting a drop of iodine on the tick’s tail was the best treatment and second best was burning them off. Each morning the men inspected each other and there were always a few black dots where the ticks burrowed in. An ember from the fire pressed against the tick’s hindquarters made it let go and then Warren could pull the tick out with his fingernails. He knew that if the head came off in the skin, it would rot and the whole area would become a boil. He noticed that Gijan got few ticks and he wondered if it had anything to do with the Asian skin.

The next morning Warren got a good catch, and when he brought it in he was sore from the days of work on the raft. After eating the fish he went for more coconuts. The softer fronds were good, too, for rubbing the skin to take away the sting of mosquito bites and to get the salt out. Finding good coconuts was harder now and he worked his way across the island, up the ridgeline and down to a swampy part on the southern side. There were edible leaves there and he chewed some slowly as he made his way back, thinking. He was nearly across a bare stretch of soil when he saw it was the place they had laid out the SOS. The light-colored rocks were there but they were scattered. The SOS was broken up.

Gijan was looking in the storage box when Warren came back into the camp. “Hey!” he called. Gijan looked at him, calm and steady, and then stood up, taking his time.

Warren pointed back to the south and glared at the man and then bent down and drew the SOS in the sand. He rubbed it out and pointed at Gijan.

Warren had expected the man to give him a blank look or a puzzled expression. Instead, Gijan put a hand in a pocket.

Then Gijan said quite clearly. “It does not matter.”

Warren stood absolutely still. Gijan pulled the pistol casually out of his pocket but he did not aim it at anything.

Warren said carefully, “Why?”

“Why deceive you? So that you would go on with your”—he paused—”your good work. You have made remarkable progress.”

“The Skimmers.”

“Yes.”

“And the SOS …”

“I did not want anyone to spot the island who should not.”

“Who would that be?”

“Several. The Japanese. The Americans. There are reports of Soviet interest.”

“So you are—”

“Chinese, of course.”

“Of course.”

“I would like to know how you wrote that summary. I read the direct messages you got from them, read them many times. I could not see in them very much.”

“There’s more to it than what they wrote.”

“You are sure that you brought all their messages ashore?”

“Sure. I kept them all.”

“How do you discover things that are not in the messages?”

“I don’t think I can tell you that.”

“Cannot? Or will not?”

“Can’t.”

Gijan became pensive, studying Warren. Finally he said, “I cannot pass judgment on that. Others will have to decide that, others who know more than I do.” He paused. “Were you truly in a shipwreck?”

“Yeah.”

“Remarkable that you survived. I thought you would die when I saw you first. You are a sailor?”

“Engine man. What’re you?”

“Soldier. A kind of soldier.”

“Funny kind, seems to me.”

“This is not the duty I would have chosen. I sit on this terrible place and try to talk to those things.”

“Uh-huh. Any luck?”

“Nothing. They do not answer me. The tools I was given do not work. Kinds of flashlights. Sound makers. Things floating in the water. I was told they are drawn to these things.”

“What would happen if they did not answer?”

“My job is over then.”

“Well, I guess I’ve put you out of work. We’re still going to need something to eat, though.” He gestured at the raft and turned toward it and Gijan leveled the pistol.

“You can rest,” the man said. “It will not be long.”

PART FIVE

2080 INTERSTELLAR SPACE BETWEEN RA AND ROSS

ONE

I
n 2066, earth had launched a series of exploratory probes to the nearby stars. Now they were arriving, sniffing at the myriad mysteries of Epsilon Eridani, Ross 128, 61 Cygni, and other cryptic names that had once been dry catalog symbols and now were luminous targets. The probes transmitted their data both Earthside and to
Lancer
, to save the years of delay in relay. To filter and understand the multichannel flux, Ted Landon set up teams composed of high-flow data analysts, assorted scientists, and anyone with field experience. Nigel drew a slot. To master the lock-in prosessors he had to be sealed off, open only to the steady drumming hail of probe data, focusing on the ebb and surge of sensation from the probes as they glided through stellar systems, plunged into thick atmospheres, and finally jerked forth from their capsules and clanked across the alien lands themselves.

The first automated probe reached Barnard’s star and decelerated, passing two small planets. The signals arrived only a few months after
Lancer
left Isis. The Mercury-sized worlds were barren, uninteresting. There seemed to be nothing interesting about the stars, beyond the routine measurements of bow shock waves near the planets, asteroid counts, and sunspot analysis. Halfway across the system, the probe stopped transmitting abruptly. It was never heard from again. The astronomers suspected that, since it was crossing the ecliptic plane of the system at the time, the probe had failed to dodge an asteroid.

Nigel drew time in an isolation capsule, monitoring the incoming stream of data from Epsilon Eridani. The probe glided in, spotting the distant moving glimmers that were planets, sampling the ghostly breeze of the solar wind, mapping the plane of the Eridani ecliptic, sketching in the orbital histories with deft Newtonian strokes. The three people in their cool dark pods, laced with holographic, full-senses data, saw the probe flash by a chunky dim gray patch of light.

Before they could piece together their own impressions, the astrometrical programs aboard the probe scanned the nearby volume, listened for infrared mutter of similar dabs of gray, and found four: an Oort cloud of protocomets, making their slow swoops in shrouds of dust. The spidery probe rushed on, following its own logic. Human receptors piped into the flow of numbers and spectra, making a picture with human implications. Star mass: 0.83 solar. Six planets. Spectral type K2, sunspots visible. Two gas giants; one Mars-size world; the rest, mere rocks. No oceans, no life.

Yeah but the terrestrial-type one has an atmosphere, see
as they all felt the probe slowing, maneuvering
Sure no oxy though and no disequilibrium gases far as I can
the world was swelling before them
Point taken, but that’s mere theory
a smattering of jumbled grays and browns and blacks
Look that’s cloud cover all right, the prelim missed it
fields of stone glinting like distant windows of a city reflecting the setting yellow sun
I dunno mica maybe
crumpled mountain ranges, warped valleys
Some signs of tectonics an’ I’d say some volcanic action over there by the terminator
windswept and ruined plateaus, gullied and gray
A trifling planet really, thin atmosphere, about 0.32 Earth mass
no spatterings of green near the carving rivers
Look at that readout, CO
₂
plus the expected traces
howling storms, blue on the rumpled brown lands, no ears to mark their passage
Whole system’s a flop if this is the best
the probe arcing over the planet, pondering to itself the rewards of deploying a surface craft
No wait go back to that last image
the curve of this world a shining silver against black
Right the horizon shot
a sliver of gunmetal gray like a fine wire
Funny planet this small with a ring
glowing softly, but as the probe arcs onward the supposedly straight line it refuses to fatten, to show a disk
Naw look it runs straight down to the surface
pinned to the equator
I’m buggered it it’s not a Skyhook
the chilly, answering silence as they stare at the enormous artifact, its long curve now coming into view, still hairlike, thin and tapering down to the equator
Why why would anybody put up a Skyhook in a barren
nothing moves on the fiber. They can see that in the successive exposures the probe sends, its own judgment centering on the thin wedge of gray against the stars
Mining? Nothin’ else worth a damn down there
the probe backs away now, the view shifts
Perhaps it wasn’t always that way
wheeling across star fields
You mean some life down there, a civilization? But there’s no trace of
a speck that grows
Not now, no
the probe curving around the bleak horizon
On a geological time scale, what would last?
a swelling round dot
For something to, well, there’s no life at all, what could
the crescent flawed, eaten
Yeah if the natives put that up they’ve been gone awhile, we’re talkin’ tens of millions of years easy an’ I don’t believe
irregular, grays and blacks, a side smashed as if by a grazing impact, stress lines in the ancient rock of this world’s small moon
Stands to reason, sure there’s some cratering but not that much and anyway how can you kill a whole biosphere
yet something flares sudden bright orange in the shadowed pits of the moon
Hey you see that
a churning flame
Just like
jetting out, swelling toward the probe
A thing like before, a Watcher
filling the lenses
Must be two hun’red klicks range, more even
orange chaos flecked with angry reds
God I hope
hands clenched though they all knew this happened years before, parsecs away
It’s reached us
but the fast-frames seize them as the orange arms extend and wrap around the disk antennas
Christ if it burns those we’ll
the inboard acoustics register a rippling shock which comes to the three as a rumble
Losing the low-frequency stuff
a searing, sizzling feel
It’ll fry for sure if that hits the equipcomp
plasma ionizing the precisely aligned interferometers
Telemetry’s fluttering
lenses which have faced the high vacuum for a decade—fogged, pitted and fractured
Losing pressure in right cryotank
waning heat splashes through the thin seals
Goddamn goddamn look at ’at
the roiling clouds thin, violet jets flare, ionized hydrogen spits UV and fades
Most a the microwave is out
the stars return
Main functions are truncated
the dwindling dot sucks in its own bloodred tongue
It was ’at flyby velocity an’ rebound, got it up to over nine klicks a sec
the cryptlike worn surface below blurs and shimmers with distance
Just outran it is all
the probe falls starward, blinded in the black, and numb
I wonder why it left the Skyhook
its engines dead
It? What it?
and returns dutifully to measuring the wisps of solar winds
The it that put the boot in on that wasteland, leaving our Watcher behind
the woman pipes his image into her plex, squints at him
Maybe too much trouble to knock it down
they uncoil, each, from the tie-in labyrinth
After doing that to the surface?
sour, haggard, each trembling
God knows how but
green Control queries flashing unnoticed
That’s an assumption sure Okay maybe having an elevator handy
Nigel’s head bowed, his hand rumpling gray hair absently
For what? Work on the surface?
cool enamel glow
Or bring up raw materials, how do I know?
rapping at the hatches of each, the external team worried
It’s been there a bloody long time, to make repairs I’d venture, remember the gouge, passing junk, you have to expect that, so it mends itself
sweaty and close, then the hatch pops
Well could be but why take a shot at us
untangling the electronic spaghetti
When the one back at Isis simply let
Lancer
go you mean? Um, perhaps, perhaps this one felt it had nothing more to learn? Um
.