Infinity's Shore (85 page)

“The Archive stands,” Nelo told his enemy. “You wanted to bring the Fist crashing down, but it ain't gonna happen. And in a couple o' years I'll be makin' paper again. It was all for nothin', Jop. The lives you wasted, and the property. You achieved nothing.”

Nelo saw Jop's bitterness redouble when they reached a new semaphore station, set up directly across the water from Biblos, where they learned about the rocket attack, the destruction of one Jophur ship, and the rumored damage of another. Young militia soldiers shouted jubilation to learn that last night's distant “thunderstorm” had instead been the unleashed fury of the Six Races, taking vengeance for the poor g'Kek.

A few older faces were grim. The militia captain warned that this was but a single battle in a war the Commons of Jijo could hardly hope to win.

Nelo refused to think about that. Instead, he kept his promise to Ariana Foo, by handing over her message for transmission. Light-borne signals flew better at night, but the operator refired his lamp when he saw Ariana's name on the single sheet of paper. While that bulletin went out, the captain looked into getting transportation across the Bibur, where showers and clean clothes waited.

And sleep
, Nelo thought. Yet, despite fatigue, he somehow felt younger than he had in ages, as if the tiring chase through swamplands had stripped years away, leaving him a virile warrior of long ago.

Leaning against a tree, Nelo let his eyes close for a little while, his mind turning back to plans for a rebuilt paper mill.

Our first job will be helping the blues put their dam back together. Do it right, this time. Less worrying about camouflage and more about getting good power output. As long as I'm at Biblos, I might as well look into copying some designs.…

Nelo's head jerked up when a carpentry apprentice from Dolo shouted his name. The lad had been reading last night's semaphore messages, affixed on the wall of the relay post.

“I just saw your daughter's name,” the young man told him. “She's on Mount Guenn!”

Nelo took three jerky steps forward … as
Jop
did exactly the same thing. The farmer's expression showed the same surprise. His shock and dismay contrasted with Nelo's joy at hearing that one of his children lived.

Sara!
The papermaker's mind whirled.
In the name of the founders, how did she find herself on Mount Guenn?

He hurried over to the shed, eager to learn more. Perhaps there would be word of Dwer and Lark, as well!

At that moment, a shout erupted from one of the operators inside the semaphore hut. While the sender kept on clicking his key, transmitting Ariana Foo's message, the
receiver
burst out through the door, a middle-aged woman waving a paper covered with hurried scrawls.

“Mess … mess …” She ran for the militia captain, gasping urgently.

“Message from lookouts,” she cried. “The Jophur … the Jophur ship is coming this way!”

It did not swoop or plummet. The star vessel was far too vast for that.

A haze of suspended dust accompanied its passage above forest or open ground, but when the immense sky mountain moved ponderously over the Bibur, the waters went ominously still. The glassy-smooth footprint spread even wider than its shadow.

Keep going
, Nelo prayed.
Just pass us by. Keep going.…

But the great cruiser evidently had plans right here, arresting its forward momentum directly over the river, in plain sight of the Great Archive.

Now it was Nelo's turn to glower as he glimpsed grim satisfaction pass over Jop's face.
Someone must've snitched
, he thought. Rumors told of Jophur emissaries, establishing outposts in tiny hamlets, imperiously demanding information. Sooner or later some zealot or scroll thumper would have blabbed about this place.

No slashing rays fell from the mighty battleship. No rain of bombs, taking vengeance for its little brother, lost the night before.

Instead, a few small portals opened in its side. About
two dozen
robots
descended, fluttering lazily until they reached hoon height above the water, where they turned in formation and streaked toward Biblos.

A second wave emerged from the great ship, floating down more slowly on wide plates of burnished black. Tapered cones rode those flat conveyances, like stacks of glossy pancakes, each pile on its own flying skillet.

Even before the Jophur party reached the walls of the hidden city, the space dreadnought began moving again, turning its massive bulk to head back the way it came, roughly south by southeast, gaining altitude at an accelerating pace. By the time Nelo lost it in the glare of the rising sun, the cruiser had climbed above the highest clouds.

Crowds gathered at the riverbank, peering at the opposite shore. Biblos still lay immersed in nightlike shadows. By contrast, the robots glittered till they passed under the Fist of Stone, followed by their Jophur masters.

After that, Nelo and the others had to rely on the militia captain, peering through binoculars, to relate what was happening.

“Each Jophur is entering a different building, guarded by several robots. Some use the front door … but one just sent its servants to smash open a wall and go in that way.

“They're all inside now … and people are running out! Humans, hoons, qheuens … there's a g'Kek … his left wheel is smoking. I think he's been shot.”

The crowd murmured frustration, but there was nothing to do. Nothing anybody could do.

“I see militia squads! Mostly humans with some urs and hoons. They've got rifles … the new kind with mulctipped bullets. They're running toward the Science Building!

“They're splitting up, skirmish style, using opposite doors to sneak in from both sides at once.”

Nelo clenched his hands as he stared across the Bibur. At the same time, he wondered why the great battleship would come all this way, yet not tarry to destroy the center of Jijoan intellectual life.

I guess the cruiser had other matters to attend to Anyway, it'll be back to pick up their foray party.

There was one hope.
Maybe there are some rockets left
after last night. Perhaps they'll catch the cruiser, before it can return.

There was always that hope—though it seemed unlikely the Jophur would be fooled a second time.

Across the river he could see a flood of refugees—scholars, librarians, and students—pouring out of sally ports and over the battlements. There weren't many g'Kek among the fugitives. Nor traeki. Both races appeared doomed to stay within, destined for different fates, both of them unpleasant.

He wondered,
What do the aliens want with our Library? To check out some books and take 'em back home to read?

In fact, that bizarre notion made sense.

I'll bet the rocket attack made 'em realize we have tricks up our sleeve. Suddenly they're interested in what we know, and how we know it. They'll scan our books to find out what other nasty surprises we might come up with.

Something was happening in the shadowed cave. Distant popping sounds carried across the river, doubtless from within the Hall of Science.

“They're coming out!” the captain announced. His grip on the binoculars stiffened. “The rifle squads … they're in retreat … dragging their wounded, trying to cover each other. They're …”

He lowered the glasses. The officer's eyes were bleak and he stood silently, completely overcome.

A corporal gently took the binoculars and resumed reporting.

“Dead,” was the first word she said.

“I see dead soldiers. They're all down.”

A hush settled over the crowd. Across the Bibur nothing seemed to be moving anymore, except an occasional sharp-edged machine shape, flitting underneath the Fist of Stone.

The explosers…
Nelo wondered.
Why didn't they set off their charges?

The greatest secret of the Six Races. The most secure fortress of humankind on Jijo. Biblos had been captured in a matter of duras. Its treasured archive lay in the tight grip of Jophur invaders.

Ewasx

I
S IT SETTLED THEN, MY RINGS? HAVE WE ROOTED out the last corners of your clandestine resistance? Can we assume there will be no more episodes of surreptitious rebellion?

The Priest-Stack threatened to dismantle us/Me after the last embarrassment, when you silly rings foolishly/cleverly managed to perform a vlenning without your master torus knowing. The priest aimed to scrape every drip trail of waxy memory lining our core, seeking clues to the whereabouts of the pair of wolfling vermin you (briefly, mutinously) released into our glorious
Polkjhy
ship.

But then the stack in change of psychological tactics reported telemetry showing that Lark and Ling almost surely departed the ship when instruments showed an airlock hatch anomalously opening.

Humans are good with water. No doubt they imagined themselves safe after entering the lake, never suspecting that they were about to be swept downstream into a vortex of ruin when our majestic
Polkjhy
took off!

The droll appropriateness of this fate—the dramatic irony—so pleased the Captain-Leader that a ruling was made, overturning the Priest-Stack's desire. For the time being, then, our/My union is safe.

DO NOT COUNT ON CONTINUED TEMPERANCE/FORGIVENESS, MY RINGS!

Forgiveness for
what
, you ask?

Now you worry Me. Is the shared wax so badly melted? Did the Asx personality so damage us, with its second attempt at suicide-by-amnesia? Must I provide memory of recent events through the demi-electronic processes of the master torus?

Very well, My rings, I shall do so. Then we will begin again, restoring the expertise that made us useful to the Jophur cause.

Together we watched while a party from our ship took possession of the so-called Library used by the savage Six Races. Though it contains a pathetically small amount of bit-equivalent data, this is the source/font of their wolfling trickery.

Feral scheming that has cost us dearly.

A fine thing happened when we/I caught sight of those crude buildings made from sliced trees, sheltered in an artificial cave. Many hidden waxy trails resonated with sudden recognition! Accessing these recovered tracks, we were able to tell the Captain-Leader many secrets of this trove of pseudo-knowledge. Secrets Asx had meant to render inaccessible.

Slowly, we regain our former reputation and esteem. Does that make you glad, My rings?

How gratifying to feel your agreement come so readily now! That brief rebellion, followed by a second suicide amnesia, appears to have left you more docile than before. No longer sovereign traeki rings, but parts of a greater whole.

Now regard! Leaving a force behind to secure Biblos, our
Polkjhy
turns to. its main task. Too long have we let ourselves be diverted/delayed. There will be no more negotiating with Rothen sneak thieves. No more dickering with savage races. Those six will meet their varied fates from land forces already scattered across the Slope.