Great Sky River (12 page)

“You mean he can
talk?”

“His ass knows more words than his mouth does.”

“Pronounces better, too.”

“Don’t drool as much either.”

“It’s your
mother
can’t talk, when I’m telescopin’ her.”

“Heysay, ’least I’m kind. I give your mother somethin’ nice and fresh to eat.”

“Soundin’, you are!”

“Your wife, she like a doorknob, ever’body gets a turn.”

“Damnsight right!”

“Your father never try. He so ugly, he crawl up to your mother, she think it’s a navvy.”

“Yours, he got so many wrinkles in his head, he has to screw his helmet on.”

“Well, ’least he can screw
that.”

“Sad man, screw his helmet.”

“You rankin’ right!”

“Your dad, he so ugly, when he cries tears run down his
back.”

“Oooooo!”

“Heysay! Heysay!”

If the rounding did not channel the aggression of a particular pair, the group would force the two to confront each other.
By using passing-phrases, or encouraging calls, they could finesse competition onto the pair. This
time the anger Killeen felt for Ledroff—suppressed and slowbuilding for days—came out in a few moments of flashing jibes,
ending with Killeen’s holding his hands up, palms forward, and shaking his head wisely.

“Let’s get off the subject of mothers, Ledroff… ’cause I just got off yours.”

“Oooo-ee!”

“Rankin’!”

“Drive
that nail!”

—and they all got up, chuckling and slapping one another on the shoulder in a bittersweet calm of aired troubles. Family members
who had drifted in to witness said nothing. They embraced others in turn, laughing and joshing still, the chatter now aimless
and merrily undirected in purpose yet no less effective in healing. The Family could not afford unaired anger. The ranking
round, once a pleasant social convention in the Citadel, was as unremarkable and vital in the Family as a handshake.

When Ledroff came to Killeen in the embracing, he said easily, “Could be you’re right. Let’s get clear this ’plex.”

Killeen nodded, grinned, slapped the man hard on the back, and for the first time honestly thought of Ledroff as his Cap’n.

Killeen found it easier to talk to Ledroff, once they were on the move.

—You think that fact’ry means the mech’re using the Splashes now?— Ledroff asked as they puffed along, skip-walking with a
low line of hills between them.

Toby was on Killeen’s right, holding one space in from the edge of the moving triangle. They were crossing a brown plain of
dried mud. Giant flakes of it reared up,
curled by the searing glare of the Eater overhead. The great clay-red fans were thinner than a man’s wrist, yet reared taller
than a building. Killeen had the sensation of walking over a brown, storm-shredded lake, somehow frozen as it tossed. He came
down on one huge mud sheet and it crumbled around him like a rotten leaf. He spilled through the dissolving cloud and landed
with a thump, boot-deep in cloying dust.

He sneezed violently and called, “Arthur says everything we saw in that ’plex was made from plants.” He leaped out of the
dust-hollow into clear, thin, dry air.

—And I found some navvys loading seeds,— Toby broke in. —’Member that.—

Ledroff’s voice sounded troubled. —So maybe mechs’re moving into the Splashes, too?—

“Looks like.”

—Damnall! Why can’t they stay in their fart-fat cities?—

“Arthur thinks they plan take over all Snowglade.”

Ledroff said, —Yeasay, one my Aspects been sayin’ that, too. Damn Aspects worry ’n’ talk, worry ’n’ talk, that’s all they
got time for.—

Killeen sent an agreeing grunt. “Mechs may be just gettin’ ready for when the Eater gets closer.”

Toby asked, —Closer? Will it stay in the sky?—

“Remember the orbits I drew?” Killeen reminded him.

—Some.— The boy was not used to his interior world of projected images, lines and curves hanging in air, cascades of once-intelligible
data bequeathed by forefathers who had never imagined that their descendants would see it as nonsense. Toby preferred the
grip of the real.

“Arthur says things’re changing. Eater’ll get bigger.”

—So?—

“The mechs’re changin’, too.”

Toby laughed derisively. —Aw, that Arthur’s an old fart.—

Killeen chuckled. Let the boy stay that way for a while. No harm.

Since leaving the looted factory he had been telling his son Arthur’s information. Better to put it in simple terms than to
have Toby get it in the stilted talk of the Aspects. That would come soon enough.

Killeen did not want Toby to carry an Aspect yet, though he was of an age when the Family would permit it. Aspects rode a
young mind harder. In the old Citadel days, the Family would have waited until Toby was full-grown. Now every adult carried
the maximum Aspect load. These living presences kept their covenant with the past, made them the heirs of a grand race, and
not merely a ravaged, fleeing band. This now loomed as the practical opening to past lore and crafts. Continuity with humanity’s
prouder days meant more, since few Family had time to learn from their Aspects and Faces while on the run.

Ledroff panted as he kept up their long-leaping, trotting pace, —If we knew what they’re doin’,
why
… aghhh!—

The wordless grating sound that came from Ledroff needed no interpretation for Killeen. The Family had never known why the
mechs suddenly destroyed the Citadel, just as in earlier ages the Clan had never suspected what the mechs planned for Snowglade.

All attempts to reach the higher levels of mechs, to talk, to negotiate, had failed. Few humans knew how to communicate with
mechs in even crude fashion. Moase, an old woman now riding on the transporter mech, had
done some translating while a girl. The Family had not had opportunity to use her craft for a long time; they were too occupied
with the simple task of running and eating and running again.

Killeen had an older presence, a Face named Bud, who had been a master translator long ago. But Killeen had never used Bud
that way, relying on the ancient engineer only for simple tasks. He called up the Face and asked, “You know anything ’bout
weather changes?”

The Bud Face’s reply came in stubby units, since Faces had only limited chunks of the original personality.

1. In my day air warmer.
   
2. I translate once for Crafter.
   
3. Crafter say Snowglade get cooler.
   
4. Need me translate again?
   

“Naysay, sorry,” Killeen answered the Face gently, touched by the plaintive small voice as it volunteered. He had not called
on Bud for a long time. It was hard to release even a simple Face and remain alert, while on the move.

He pondered Bud’s question. He called up Arthur and got a rapid summary of ancient methods of talking to mechs. Much of it
was incomprehensible.

When humanity had been forced from the sprawling Arcologies, it had tried shrewdly to market its scavenging skills among the
mech cities. Teams would raid far cities, then leave the best loot outside a nearby mech enclave. Done regularly, such peace
offerings enticed the neighbor enclave to stop assaulting the human Citadels. This policy worked for a while. Humans thought
their
Citadels, smaller and less conspicuous than the large Arcologies, were safe.

Some Family Citadels built upon this, specializing in talking to mech envoys and arranging trades. Family King had been best
at it, but even their expert translators had been betrayed and killed at times. It was a risky life.

1. I would do again though.
   
2. Let me work.
   

Killeen noted wryly that it would be his skin risked this time. Bud caught this and retreated, cowed. Aspects and Faces had
a curious isolation from the consequences of their advice, since they did not feel Killeen’s pain or hardship. But they would
die if he did.

Undaunted, a biting, acerbic Aspect piped up. Killeen gritted his teeth.

The unholy trafficking with mechs met the fate it deserved. Compromise with the unliving is impossible. Surely history has
taught you that!

The Aspect named Nialdi forked through Killeen’s sensorium like yellow storm lightning, releasing its years of pent-up frustration.
Nialdi was truly ancient, from the days when humanity had spread effortlessly over the temperate zones of Snowglade. He had
been a famous priest of that era’s religion.

“I’m tryin’ think of ways savin’ our ass, you old bastard!” Killeen blurted out loud. He mentally grasped at the Aspect but
it slipped away, fanning out like a flock of angry orange birds.

You reject the Word? Has not the savage mech fury taught you at last that there can be no staying of our hand? The Grail speaks
through me!

“Get back in!” Killeen shouted. He snatched after flapping threads of Nialdi. The Aspect kept hurling religious jargon at
him, fluttering through his sensorium. Killeen was so intent on snaring the Aspect that he himself stumbled. Fell. His curved
helmet plate was thrown back and he got a mouthful of sand. He came up swearing.

—Can’t keep your Aspects down?— Ledroff sent derisively.

—Man’s got feet like rocks,— Jocelyn jibed.

Irked, Killeen forced Nialdi back into a far cranny of his mind and slammed the hornet’s buzz into a silencing, encapsulating
crack. Aspects were getting harder and harder to control for everyone in the Family. Another reason not to burden Toby with
one, he thought sourly.

They left the mud plain and mounted an eroded ridge-line. Denix and the Eater cast their stark, separate glares on the land.
Bushes dotted the shadows. They were pushing farther into the Splash. Creekbeds were damp, as though rain had come within
the last few days. Occasional puffball clouds skated high up, pushed by fast winds. Great fans of smoothed pebbles and sand
spoke of torrents which had once rushed down from the slumping clay hills.

The Family was well dispersed. Even if a mech flyer spotted them and dropped an explosive bomb or a jammer, only a few could
be within range.

“Lookleft,” Ledroff called to Killeen. “See some-thin’?”

The landscape leaped into bright focus as Killeen landed atop a rust-riddled hulk. It had been a crawler. Ancient in design,
stripped of ore-rich parts, it rattled like a forlorn drum as he studied the far horizon.

“Looks to be mechs, only…”

“What’s your Far-Ranger say?”

“Mechmetal, sure plenty that. But I’m not smellin’ mechthink.”

Killeen’s sensors had a library of typical mech electronic signatures, and they sampled the tiny sputterings of unshielded
emission ahead. Killeen could neither have read nor understood a graphics display detailing which signals were mechlike. The
data flowed to him as cloying scents, laced with crisp darting odors.

“Could be they’re downwindin’ you?”

Killeen bristled. “I can tell a mechfart faster’n any,” he said. This was not true—Cermo-the-Slow had a better nose. But the
big man lacked judgment and speed.

Killeen reluctantly called up Arthur and asked for help.

You ask if mechs could hide like this? No, I doubt they could fully shield their transmissions. Nor could they fully elude
the sensors we carry.

“You sure?”

I participated in the development of these techniques, I’ll remind you.

“If we let that many get within scannin’ distance…”

I assure you—

—Dad, I hear talking,— Toby called.

“What kind?”

—Some kind strange voices, I dunno who.—

Ledroff sent, —Could be a mech trick.—

Killeen was confused. His instincts said
Run!
—and he automatically bent down to check-tighten his boots, running gloved fingers along glassy fiberseals. He turned his
head. A small shift in the capacitance of his sensorium brought him a tinny chime of talk. He froze. Overlapping, garbled,
human voices:

—They’re comin’.—

—Too many. Can’t pick ’em off.—

—I say we cut right now.—

—Checkleft. Any sign they’re surroundin’?—

—Might just be navvys.—

—Naw, they step too high.—

—I smell plenty mechmetal in ’em. Stinks powerful.—

Toby cried, —They’re people!—

And here they were, a thin wedge straggling across the deep-rutted plain. Killeen’s mouth formed an incredulous O.

A distant ringing voice demanded, —What Family? What Family?—

Ledroff answered, —Bishop! Six years from the Citadel!—

A woman’s voice answered, —We’re Rooks.—

—We have kin here, kin of yours.—

—Cousins and uncles and aunts!—

Boots dug into timeworn sand and the two triangles on the plain rushed at each other. Pellmell running, shouting.

Questions about lost relatives yelled into the sensorium, and hoarse answers calling back. Windmilling of legs at the high
point of high leaps. Then the tips of the spear-points met and men and women flung themselves at each other. Behind scratched
helmets were faces half-remembered, people who were until a moment before only faded images from a wondrous life that had
ceased to be. The faces carried furrows and brownscabbed rashes, sewn-up cuts and even hollowed-out eyesockets where no replacement
parts could be found. Mouths showed ruined gray-stubbed teeth, blood-rimmed lips. They barked and called to one another, even
though most of them in fact knew only a few of the bobbing faces coming across the broken plain. The Citadel had held thousands.
They had gone so long in their own close and knotted company, their memories had been overladen by such a weight of daily
terror, that any face was a sudden reminder, undeniable and fleshy, of the collectivity of their kind. Lost friends embraced.
Shouts laced the air. Abruptly they saw themselves as far more than a straggling band of hunted creatures. Their yelps and
startled joy celebrated humanity itself.

Toby found immediately a boy and two girls, who came bounding out in front of even the fleetest of running men. They embraced
and jabbered and capered and even wrestled in their unthinking frenzy, while about them the two Families collided, two long-separated
fluids flowing in a throughstreaming torrent of bodies and talk and simple mindless whoops and cries and sudden tears.