Authors: Robert Reed
The Well of Stars (36 page)
The avian struck the black face of the water, its body splitting apart, organs tumbling loose, and all of its pieces dissolving in the next wild instant.
Mere was grabbed and nearly crushed. Fractured ribs were twisted and shattered again, cutting into spongy lungs and the soft wet muscle. But she refused to scream. Holding her mouth closed against the fantastic pressures, she felt herself suffocating. But her new flesh was too
weak to endure more than a few moments without oxygen, and she wouldn’t let herself believe that even one breath waited outside her increasingly blue lips.
weak to endure more than a few moments without oxygen, and she wouldn’t let herself believe that even one breath waited outside her increasingly blue lips.
A monstrous force yanked her down and down.
Then despite all of her effort and focus, a single bubble emerged from her mouth, laced with carbon dioxide and other toxins, rising off her face and shattering into a thousand tiny bubbles that were lost instantly among the swirling waters.
Moments later, a second bubble escaped.
Through squinting eyes, she saw the precious air shoot out of her mouth, abandoning her with the most shameless panic. She saw her own arms dangling upward, their flesh pressed tight against the sketch work of bones, the weight of so much water and blood and meat and mind threatening to crush her.
A third bubble started to emerge.
And then, feeling the fire in her chest and too much exhaustion, Mere let the last of the air spring free, carrying with it a sad, long, sorrowful wail.
The air exploded upward, and stopped.
She was staring at a puddle of gas, silvery and buoyant and very beautiful. What had she ever seen that was so lovely? Nothing. As she dipped into unconsciousness, she was marveling at the beauty of a little woman’s final breath as it danced lightly just out of reach.
Her eyes closed.
The bubble expanded and reached down, covering her outstretched hands and the long frail arms, elbows emerging and then her hairless head and the quiet face and a small but always sturdy body with the tiny breasts and the long fat nipples meant for a much larger woman. That body slumped and fell. Obeying some final command, it refused to breathe. But a fingerlike object pushed through the wall of the chamber, poking her; and then it delivered a second poke, along with a burst of blue electricity.
Mere coughed.
She threw up water and blue, oxygen-starved blood.
Before she was completely conscious—even before she could remember where she was and why she was—a familiar voice said, “Listen.”
Again, she threw up.
“Do you hear me?”
A look of understanding swept across her face. First, Tilan-style, with the mouth pulled wide and the tongue displayed. And she gave a human nod, weary but relieved.
“Listen,” the voice said again.
“I am—”
“Nothing.”
“What?” She couldn’t hear what was being said. She had to swallow, purging the water from deep inside her ears, and even then there was a numbing buzz that swept away every other sound.
“I am tiny,” said the voice.
The creature was screaming at her, desperate to be heard.
“Tell them!”
“You’re tiny,” Mere whispered.
“And vast.”
She nodded, understanding exactly how those two statements could be equally true.
“What is tiny might believe,” the voice declared. “But what is vast will not listen to you or to them, and it will not accept what it hears.”
“Eventually—”
“No,” the polypond interrupted. “There is no time for things that are eventual.”
Mere dragged her bony knees to her chest, shivering. Outside the newly made chamber, water was roaring past at a spectacular speed, or she was diving deeper, and while she stared through the transparent wall, she glimpsed something that looked like a tall window behind which stood an assortment of people.
“It cannot be stopped,” the voice warned.
“You can’t end it?”
“Nothing can,” the polypond moaned.
Then with a mixture of deep regret and utter pride, she explained, “I foresaw everything that was possible. I knew you might trick me, or even that you might, in some small fashion, convince me I was wrong. And so what I did—what is vast about me, and all that is small—what I am has worked hard to fashion one good weapon that would survive every doubt.
“Tell them that the weapon cannot be stopped, and if you please, explain that a small piece of me feels remorse.
“Please, will you tell them, please … ?”
A single finger lifted into the gray light, and with an expression that seemed both curious and exhausted, Aasleen stared at the finger’s broad tip, saying, “No,” with a voice that was dry and undeniably old. Then a moment later she said, “Not yet,” with a palpable disappointment. Then after another brief pause, with a grim certainty, she said, “No.”
She looked awful. Washen’s chief engineer hadn’t slept in weeks, or washed, and judging by the sharpened cheeks and the narrowness of the neck, Aasleen must have given up eating, too. Just standing was a burden for the woman. Standing before the First Chair, she rocked gently, shifting her fading weight from one exhausted leg to the other and back again. One last time, she said, “Not yet,” then suddenly, almost unexpectedly, the weary face brightened. Infinite burdens lifted, at least a little, and a voice younger by a hundred thousand years quietly declared, “Now. We’re ready.”
Washen nodded.
To the Master Captain’s image, she asked, “Do you agree, madam?”
The golden face appeared a little better rested, and in certain ways, almost confident. Was it her true face, or was the Master enhancing her appearance? Washen had time to pose the question; the woman was standing on the opposite side of the ship, far enough removed to delay any response by a full luxurious second.
“Agreed,” the Master finally replied.
The ceremony was finished. An order already crafted and agreed upon was left in the First Chair’s hands. The final decision was hers, and what surprised her was the ease with which she said, “Go.”
Aasleen was a projection, but physically closer. “Port Endeavor—?”
“Go.”
The first trace of change came across the nexuses, alarms wrapped around raw data, and that was followed a half moment later by images captured by a circle of immersion eyes. A hatch older than the Earth was opening, its hyperfiber cap separating along a thousand fissures, bending with the hidden hinges, then folding backward with an ease and elegance all the more astonishing because of what lay on top. One hundred kilometers of life squatted on the hatch, pressing down with pressure enough to crush steel and flesh. Water exploded downward into the waiting vacuum. With an expert eye, Washen picked out the shapes of key organs and fusion stomachs and the elastic bands and walls that always weaved their way through the polypond’s body. At Port Gwenth, the body had flowed unimpeded down the great shaft. This time the polypond made adjustments, strengthening the banded tissues and doping its fluids with smart gels, the ocean dropping slower this time, then slowing further, bowing downward in the middle while the edges clung stubbornly to the slick gray face of the shaft.
This time, the alien intended to move slowly, cautiously.
“Good,” Washen whispered.
Closed, the hatch covered hundreds of square kilometers. Even at full speed, the retraction required ninety-one seconds. Eyes emerged from the alien’s leading edge. The darkness beneath would appear cold and apparently empty. Probes and bioluminescent markers were dropped, and for a while they found nothing but an enforced vacuum and a familiar, probably reassuring chill.
Then the first warning came.
Aasleen’s projection had vanished, and the Master’s. Now Pamir showed himself, standing inside another portion of the ship. He was near Denali, inside one of the auxiliary bridges. With a keen amusement, he said, “Look. Our guest is beginning to worry.”
The only visible response from the polypond was a shimmering deep inside the body, bluish and faint.
Someone else said, “Now.”
Aasleen.
And then the shimmer vanished. Suddenly and everywhere, the belly of the polypond turned white. Washen’s view showed only the upper edges of the port, and even if she knew what was to come, the fierce glare took her by surprise. An instant later, the first jet struck, its rising plasma boiling the water and shattering the freshly made steam, then stripping the electrons from the screaming nuclei. The carefully crafted strength of the body was obliterated. Gels vanished. Membranes and carbon fibers surrendered. The sluggish flood turned into a torrent, and then the plunging water met a greater flood rising upward to meet it.
A hundred engines were firing.
And then another hundred joined the wildfire.
Through a tiny, heavily shielded eye, Washen looked downward. The project—a crash program with the emphasis on the ancient word “crash”—had involved the ship’s engineers and technicians. An army of them had fabricated hyperfiber braces and buttresses, testing them on the run, and then fastening to them the most potent engines held in storage. A fortune in starships had been stripped of their muscles, and fuel tanks had been adlibbed,
and a lake of liquid hydrogen had been lifted from the deep tanks, using adapted pumps and empty tunnels.
and a lake of liquid hydrogen had been lifted from the deep tanks, using adapted pumps and empty tunnels.
Again, the Great Ship had an engine.
True, it was a clumsy, low-powered engine. But Washen felt the sluggish kick, and she allowed herself to smile, just slightly, which caused Pamir to shake his head, warning her, “It could all fall apart.”
But it wouldn’t. Aasleen was too smart, and Pamir was too lucky. And for all of her fears and her consumptive gloom, Washen couldn’t see any way that their enemy would be able to counter this very simple response.
Nor fight what was coming next.
Wanting to feed her pleasure, she asked her companion, “How’s your work moving?”
“Along,” he allowed.
“The timetable?”
“Holding.”
Again, Washen looked upward. The cumulative thrust of the stardrives—a carefully layered thrust meant to enhance its power and give its owners many options—was shoving up into the dying water. In principle, one hundred kilometers of liquid
anything
could resist the power and heat for a long while. But the boiled water kept turning into plasmas that expanded with a useful vigor, struggling to find any means of escape. And there was no place to go, save upward. The increasing thrust of the rockets gave the fire no choice, and despite the hundreds of cubic kilometers of water pouring in from all sides, only a tiny portion of that white-hot plasma could be quenched.
anything
could resist the power and heat for a long while. But the boiled water kept turning into plasmas that expanded with a useful vigor, struggling to find any means of escape. And there was no place to go, save upward. The increasing thrust of the rockets gave the fire no choice, and despite the hundreds of cubic kilometers of water pouring in from all sides, only a tiny portion of that white-hot plasma could be quenched.
A scalding bubble formed and lifted, pushing away.
A second, much larger bubble grew in its wake, and feeling the insistent shove of the engines, it rose faster, merging with the first bubble before both of them vanished from view.
Washen allowed herself a small laugh.
AIs had dreamed of this moment, and their dreams weren’t too far removed from the truth. It wasn’t the third bubble that won out, or the fourth. The polypond was
swift enough and clever enough to put up a struggle, at least long enough that Aasleen called the First Chair, warning her, “We’re going to have breaches.”
swift enough and clever enough to put up a struggle, at least long enough that Aasleen called the First Chair, warning her, “We’re going to have breaches.”
There had been too many little hatches to secure inside the port. Without time or enough hands, they had no choice but to risk a thousand fires scorching hallways and the nearby avenues.
“Thrust?” Washen asked.
“Ninety-four percent,” said Aasleen. Said a myriad of AIs and alert nexuses.
Throttle back, or throttle up? Washen posed the question, but she didn’t need to give either command. The next bubble of plasmas not only pushed to the surface, but it pushed down against the fierce pressure of the engines. In an instant, a wide cylindrical hole had been cut through the polypond, and the rising jet—a great cumulative body, stable and relentless—burst out into space.
A millimeter at a time, the ship responded.
With measurements exact and heartening, Washen felt them slowly, slowly changing course. The next black hole would have to match this new trajectory, and none of these bits of degenerate matter could hope to strike the ship’s center. And for as long as the engine blazed, the polypond was being injured—maimed, seared, cooked, and slowly changed into a lifeless vapor hotter than a sun.
Washen reached for Pamir.
The empty air let her hand pass. Then with a harsh little laugh, Pamir’s image said, “Hey. Do you want to see something really incredible?”
An alarm was sounding.
Suddenly an AI sage was calling to her by name.
“What—?” Washen began.
Then, she saw a face.
She saw her.
“Mere,” said a tangle of voices, surprise and amazement mixed with a thousand flavors of doubt.
YET EVERY TEST claimed the same result.
“As far as I know,” said the tiny creature, still naked and dripping, “I am she. And nothing more.”
Mere had appeared at Port Gwenth, emerging inside the chamber where the imprisoned and now-enhanced polypond mind had recently met with its long-lost Ooloo sister. Mere and the mind were at the room’s far end, still isolated by a series of demon-doors and sniffers and sleepless tools that killed everything dirty or suspicious. The polypond mind had fallen into what, for lack of a better word, looked like sleep. The woman needed rest, but she insisted on standing as close to Washen as possible. She was in pain, but it wasn’t just the misery of her wounds that made her wince.
“You need engines,” she muttered.
An autodoc was examining her flesh and broken ribs, measuring her against an ocean of data reaching back thousands of years.
“You have to dance,” Mere said, then she broke into a hard, aching cough.
Her immortal genes had been stripped away, or she had died and been recanted with just her human genes. Washen nodded, and with a genuine satisfaction, she told the creature, “We have an engine now.”
“Yes?”
The First Chair explained what had happened, but only to a point.
“That’s not enough,” the woman interrupted.
Was this Mere? Really?
“It’s not close to enough,” the tiny woman gasped.
Washen straightened her shoulders, and with a stiff, almost offended voice asked, “Why not?”
Mere told her.
And Washen quietly absorbed the news, always reminding herself that they didn’t know if this was truly her old friend or if any of these terrible words could be trusted. This drama might well be nothing but a calculated deception, the polypond throwing a trusted face
and voice at the First Chair, trying to illicit some wrongheaded reaction.
and voice at the First Chair, trying to illicit some wrongheaded reaction.
“Did you hear me?”
Every word, yes.
“Washen?”
That was who I am. But who are you?
Then in a dead language, in Tilan, the little creature said, “Kill this body and look at my brain. If you doubt me—”
“No,” Washen said.
The First Chair stepped backward, and paused.
To nobody, she said again, “No.”
Pamir was standing beside her now, as a projection. And the Master Captain had appeared, along with Aasleen and Conrad and Osmium, and in another moment, the rest of the surviving Submasters. She ignored them. Consciously, she searched the available nexuses, finding the correct eye—one of the security eyes sewn into this chamber’s wall—and she looked herself from that narrow vantage point.
Aasleen looked tired, but Washen looked considerably worse.
Where that woman was thin, the First Chair was thinner. And with a voice that couldn’t sound older, she whispered, “All right then. I believe you. I believe.”
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