Clarke, Arthur C - Fall of Night 02 (48 page)

 
          
 
"Cor what?"

 
          
 
"Those who have spinal
cords."

 
          
 
Irked, Cley said, "Well, aren't you just
another spinal type?"

 
          
 
"True enough. I did not say I was more
important than you."

 
          
 
"You compared us Ur-humans— me, since I'm
all that's left— with bugs!"

 
          
 
"With no insects, soon there would be no
humans."

 
          
 
Exasperated, Cley puffed noisily, sending her
hair up in a dancing plume. "The Supras sure got along without them,
living in Dias-par."

 
          
 
"The Supras are not of your
species."

 
          
 
"Not human?"

 
          
 
"Not truly." Seeker finished
ministering to her wounds and gave her an affectionate lick.

 
          
 
Cley eased her blouse gingerly over her cuts.
"I have to admit I pretty much felt that way myself."

 
          
 
"They cannot be true companions to
you."

 
          
 
"They're the only thing left."

 
          
 
"Perhaps not, after we are done."

 
          
 
Cley sighed. "I'm just concentrating on
avoiding that Mad Mind."

 
          
 
"It will not care so greatly about you
after you have served."

 
          
 
"Served? Fought, you mean?"

 
          
 
"Both."

 
          
 
She felt a light trill streak through her
mind. At first she confused it with warbling birdsong, but then she recalled
the sensation of blinding, swift thought, conversations whipped to a cyclonic
pitch.
"Supras.
They're coming."

 
          
 
She felt their presence now as several tiny
skittering notes in the back of her mind, mouse-small and bee-quick.
"What'll we do?"

 
          
 
"Nothing."

 
          
 
"They're getting close."

 
          
 
"It is time they did."

 
          
 
Seeker gestured at the intricate whirl of
light visible through a high, arching dome above the tangled greenery. Beyond
Jupiter's original large moons there now circled rich Mercury and shrunken
Saturn. Each was a different hue. But these radiant dabs swam among washes of
bright magenta and burnt-gold—single life-forms larger than continents. Seeker
had described some of these in far more detail than Cley could follow. They all
seemed to be complex variations on the age-old craft of negotiating sunlight
and chemicals into beautiful structures. Seeker implied that these were
intelligences utterly different from Earthborne kinds, and she struggled with
the notion that what appeared to be enormous gardens could harbor minds
superior to her own.

 
          
 
Cley lay back and listened to the steadily
strengthening Supra talk. She could not distinguish words, but a thin edge of
worry and alarm came through clearly.

 
          
 
Languidly she dozed and listened and thought.
The smears of light that swung throughout the great orbiting disk of Jove
reminded her of sea mats formed at the shorelines of ancient Earth. She had
learned of them through tribal legend, much of which dealt with the lean
perspectives of life.

 
          
 
Sandwiched between layers of grit and grime,
even those earliest life-forms had found a way to make war. Why should matters
be different now? Some microbe mat three billion years before had used sunlight
to split water, liberating deadly oxygen. They had poisoned their rivals by
excreting the gas. The battle had raged across broad beaches bordered by a
brown sea. The victorious mats had enjoyed their momentary triumph beneath a
pink sky. But this fresh gaseous resource in turn allowed new, more complex
life to begin and thrive and eventually drive the algae mats nearly to
extinction.

 
          
 
So it had been with space. Planetary life had
leaped into the vast new realm, first using simple machines, and later,
deliberately engineered life-forms. The machines had proved to be like the
first algae, which excreted oxygen to poison their neighbors. Once begun in
space, nothing could stop the deft hand of Darwin from fashioning the human
designs into subtler instruments. For a billion years life had teemed and
fought and learned amid harsh vacuum and sunlight's glare.

 
          
 
In time the space-dwelling machines were
driven into narrow enclaves, like the early algae mats. Out here, bordering the
realm of ice, machines had finally wedded with plants to make anthology
creatures. This desperate compromise had saved them. Cley had seen several of
them enter the Leviathan—beings which looked to her like mossy furniture or
animated steel buildings.

 
          
 
Sometime long ago, spaceborne life had begun
to compete for materials with the planetary life zones. After all, most of the
light elements in the solar system lay in the outer planets and in the cometary
nuclei far beyond Pluto. In this competition the planets were hopelessly
outclassed.

 
          
 
From the perspective of space, Cley thought,
planetary Hfe even looked like those ancient algae mats—flat, trapped in a thin
wedge of air, unaware of the great stretching spaces beyond. And now the mats
survived only in dark enclaves on Earth, cowering before the ravages of oxygen.

 
          
 
Given a billion years, planetborne life had
done better than the mats. Slowly the planetary biospheres forged connections
to space-borne life through great beasts like the Pinwheel, the Jonah,
the
Leviathan.

 
          
 
But was this only a momentary pause, a
temporary bargain struck before the planets became completely irrelevant?

 
          
 
Or—the thought struck her solidly—were they
already?

 
          
 
The Supras boarded the Leviathan after
protracted negotiation. The Captain appeared before Seeker and Cley, buzzing
madly, alarmed for some reason Cley could not understand. She had to reassure
the Captain three times that she was indeed the primitive human form the Supras
sought.

 
          
 
Only then did the Captain let the Supras board
and it was some time before Alvin appeared, alone, thrashing his way through
the luxuriant greenery. He was tired and
disheveled,
his usually immaculate one-piece suit stained and dirty.

 
          
 
Then Clay saw that his left arm was missing
below the elbow.

 
          
 
"What—how—"

 
          
 
"Some trouble with a minor agency,"
Alvin said, voice thin and tight.

 
          
 
She rushed to him. Felt the stub of his arm.
The flesh at the elbow was deeply bruised and mottled with livid yellow and
orange spots.

 
          
 
"A little snarly thing," he said,
sitting carefully in
a vine
netting.
"Came at me as we entered this enormous beast."

 
          
 
"An animal?"

 
          
 
"A concoction of the
Mad Mind."

 
          
 
"What—"

 
          
 
"I killed it."

 
          
 
"What can I do? Didn't you bleed?
What—"

 
          
 
"Let it go," he said, waving her
away, mustering more strength in his voice.

 
          
 
"But you're hurt. I—"

 
          
 
"My arm will take care of itself."
He grimaced for an instant but then recovered with visible effort.

 
          
 
She moved to help him but he turned, keeping
the severed arm away from her. She frowned with concern. "Well, at least
take something for the pain."

 
          
 
"I could release ..." a twinge shook
him "... my own endorphins if I chose. But it would slow regrowth."

 
          
 
The stump of the arm had already formed a
protruding mass of pale cells at its tip. Cley watched Alvin's flesh slowly
begin to extrude from his elbow. The arm seemed to build itself layer by layer
as it bulged outward. Stubs of bare white bone first inched forth. Then
ligaments and tendons accumulated along the bones, fed by swarms of migrating
cells like moving, busy lichen. A wave of denser cartilage followed, cementing
attachments with fibers that wove themselves as she watched. Then layers of
skin fattened in the wake of growth, first a column of pink and then darker
shades. Already Alvin's arm was several centimeters longer. Sweat drenched his
clothes but he clenched his teeth and said nothing, muscles standing out in his
neck.

 
          
 
Cley sat beside him, fetching water when he
asked. A long while passed. He ate some red nuts when she offered them but
refused any more food. He seemed to summon up the materials and energy for
regrowth from his own tissues. His strong legs seemed to deflate slightly, as
though flesh was dissolving and migrating to his wounded arm. His entire body
turned a ruddy pink, flushed with blood. Muscles jerked and filigrees of color
washed over his skin. He moaned occasionally but managed to contain his
torment, breathing shallowly.

 
          
 
His hand formed with quick rushes of matted
gray cells. They flowed directly from his veins, moving to the working surface
and making mats. These gathered into the fine network of muscles that made the
human hand such a marvel of evolution's art. She watched as though this were a
living anatomy lesson. Bones grew to their fine tips, followed by a wash of
cloaking cells. Blue waves of cells settled into place as muscle. Stringy,
yellow fat filled in spaces. Fresh skin had begun to wrap the thumb and fingers
before Alvin blinked and seemed to be returning to full consciousness. White
slabs hardened to make his fingernails, their tips nicely rounded.

 
          
 
"I ... I never saw such," Cley said.

 
          
 
"Usually we would take more time."

 
          
 
"You must be exhausted. I could see your
body stealing tissues to build your arm."

 
          
 
"Borrowing."

 
          
 
"My people have some ability like that,
but nothing nearly—"

 
          
 
"We must talk."

 
          
 
Seeker appeared nearby. Where had it been all
this time? Cley wondered.