Heaven's Reach (29 page)

“Indeed, it seems a logical ploy to try seizing the watcher from our bow. I can only hazard that our prior enemies lacked the means to read a coded WOM.”

If so, it spoke well for the neutrality of the Library Institute, that even the richest clans and alliances could not break the seals. That made Gillian wonder. Might the betrayals at Oakka have been an aberration? Perhaps
it was just
Streaker
's run of typical bad luck that put it at the mercy of rare traitors. Institute officials might be more honorable elsewhere.

If so, should we try again?
Gillian wondered.
Maybe head for Tanith and try surrendering ourselves to the authorities one more time?

Meanwhile, the Niss whirled thoughtfully. The Tymbrimi-designed software entity flattened into a planate whirlpool shape before speaking once again.

“It must have taken them much of the last year, using their influence as elder members of the Retired Order, to access the keys. In fact
 …”

The mesh of spinning lines tightened, exhibiting strain.

“In fact, this casts a pall across our earlier miraculous escape from this place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we thought we were being aided by altruistic members of the Retired Order, benevolently helping us elude persecutors in the name of justice. But consider how conveniently easy it was! Especially the way we stumbled on references leading to the so-called Sooner Path
—”

“Easy! I had to squeeze our captured Library for it, like pressing wine from a stone! It was—”

“It was easy. I now see that in retrospect. We must have been infected by a lesser meme parasite, conveying the attractive notion of fleeing to Jijo. A nearby sanctuary with just one way in and one way out. A haven whose only exit would lead us right back here again.”

Gillian blinked, abruptly seeing what the machine was driving at.

Suppose one faction hoped to seize
Streaker
's WOM, but knew it would take a while to access the right codes for reading it? Fugitive wolflings could not be left just hanging around in the open till then. Someone else might snatch the prize!

What better way to stash the memory unit for safekeeping than by sending it into hiding, guarded by the self-preservation skills and instincts of tested survivors? The Earthship's own crew.

“If we had not turned up about now, no doubt they would have sent word to Jijo luring us back. Indeed, the plan has earmarks—patience and confidence—that resonate of the Retired Order.

“Only now this failure to seize the object of their desire shows that their scheme broke down. Not everything is going their way. This faction still has enemies. Moreover, note how dismal the state of their power has become, under these conditions of calamity!”

“Calamity” was right. As Gillian watched, fighting seemed to ripple outward around them. Tactics sensors showed signs of conflagration spreading toward the nearest ragged edge of the wounded criswell structure.

“At this rate,” she mused, “someone's gonna get fed up and use one of those big disintegrator rays. Maybe on
us.
We better think about getting out of here.”

“Dr. Baskin, while we have been talking I've thought of little else. For instance, I have endeavored to call our captor-protector, the Zang ship entity, to no avail. A leading hypothesis must be that it was destroyed.”

Gillian nodded, having reached the same conclusion.

“Well, if it ain't coming, I don't care to hang around waiting.”

She raised her voice toward the intercom.

“Kaa! Give it a full effort. Let's make a break for t-point!”

The pilot acknowledged with a click burst of assent.

As
Streaker
started pulling away, the battle storm followed. Detectors showed still more machines converging from all sides. Still, a gap slowly began to grow.

Then the Niss interrupted again.

“Dr. Baskin, something else has come to my attention that I know will concern you.

“Please observe.”

The main viewer zoomed toward one corner of the fiery brawl—a scrap far smaller than some other battles
Streaker
had observed, though nearness made the flashes and explosions seem more garish by far. Rapid glimpses revealed that most of the fighters were machines, lacking any boxy enclosures to protect protoplasm crews. Clearly, the varied factions of “retired” races preferred doing combat by proxy, using mechanical hirelings rather than risking their own necks.

Then one object loomed into view, more squat in profile than any other—a tubby dart, rounded and heavily armored. Gillian recognized the outline of a Thennanin scoutcraft.

“Ifni!” she sighed. “Has he done it again?”

“If you mean Engineer Emerson d'Anite, I can tell you that interior scans show no sign of him within this ship. I surmise it is him out there, unleashing weapons with quite futile abandon, missing nearly everything he shoots at. Organic beings really should not face mechanicals in close combat. It is not your forte.”

“I'll bear that in mind,” Gillian murmured, deeply torn over what she could or should do next.

Emerson

W
HEN HE REALIZED HE WASN'T HITTING
anything—and no one was shooting back—Emerson finally shut down the fire controls. Apparently, nobody thought him worth much worry, or effort. It felt irksome to be ignored, but at least no faction seemed bent on avenging the robots he had taken out with those first few lucky shots, igniting this fury.

Combat surged around him. There was no making sense of the shadowed struggle as machines flayed other machines.

Anyway, it soon dawned on him that something else was going on. Something more important and personal than events taking place outside.

Waves of confusion swept through Emerson's mind.

Nothing unusual about that. By now he was quite used to feeling befuddled. But the
type
of disorientation
was exceptional. It felt like peering past dark clouds of delirium. As if everything till then had been part of a vivid dream, filled with perverted logic. Like a fever-racked child, he had made no clear sense of anything going on around him for a very long time. But in a brief instant light seemed to pierce the mist, limning corners that had been shrouded and dark.

Like a hint, or a passing scent, it lasted but a moment and was gone.

He suspected a trick. Another psi distraction …

But the light must have been more than that! The joy it brought was too intense. The sense of loss too devastating when it vanished.

Then, without warning, it was back again, much stronger than before.

Something he had been missing for a long time.

Something precious that he had never fully appreciated until it was taken from him.

I … I can think …

 … I can think in words again!

Not just words, but sentences, paragraphs!

I'm piloting a Thennanin war dart.… Streaker lies behind me.… Over there, and across nearly the whole of heaven, I see the blemished sky arch of the Fractal World.
…

At once an overwhelming flood of understanding filled Emerson. Things he had seen on Jijo and since. Concepts that had eluded him because they could not be shaped with images and feelings alone, but needed the rich subtlety of abstract language to shape and anchor them with a webbery of symbols.

Sadness flooded him when he thought of all the things he had wanted to tell Sara during their long journey together across the Slope. And to Gillian, after he returned home a devastated cripple. Two different kinds of love he could never express—or sort out—until now.

How is this possible? My brain … they destroyed my speech centers!

For some reason, after the Old Ones finished interrogating him, they had decided to let him live, but in silence. The means to do this they found simply by
reading his own memories of poor wounded Creideiki. When they mimicked giving him the same injury, the resulting cruel mutilation had left him half dead … and less than half a man.

That much he had already worked out laboriously on Jijo, even without putting it in words. But the answer was never satisfying. It never explained the brutal logic behind such an act.

That was when it came to him.

A voice. One he had forgotten till that moment.

One he identified with chill, unblinking eyes.

“I
NACCURACY
. W
E DID NOT DESTROY THOSE PORTIONS OF YOUR ORGANIC BRAIN
. W
E BORROWED
/
TOOK
/
EXPROPRIATED A FEW GRAMS OF TISSUE FOR USE IN A GREAT GOAL
. O
UR NEED WAS GREATER THAN YOURS
.”

The effrontery of that claim nearly made Emerson howl with rage. Only by fierce discipline did he manage to form a reply, shaping it through pathways he had not used in too long a time. His voice sounded unpracticed, with an odd nasal twang.

“You bastards maimed me so I'd never talk about what you did!”

A sensation of aloof amusement accompanied the response.

“T
HAT WAS BUT A MINOR SIDE BENEFIT
. I
N FACT
,
WE DESIRED
/
NEEDED THE TISSUE ITSELF
. I
F TRUTH BE TOLD
,
IT SEEMED FAR MORE VALUABLE TO US THAN YOU EVER WERE LIKELY TO BE
,
AS A WHOLE ENTITY
 … 
ALTHOUGH IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN BETTER IF YOU WERE OF A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SPECIES
. B
UT WE HAD PHYSICAL POSSESSION OF JUST ONE
E
ARTHLING
,
SO IT WAS ORDAINED THAT YOU WOULD BE OUR DONOR
.”

The explication left him more befuddled than ever. “Then how come I can talk now?”

“I
T IS A MATTER OF LINKAGE AND PROXIMITY
. W
E
L
EFT QUANTUM RESONATORS LINING THE CAVITY IN YOUR BRAIN
,
WHERE THE EXCISED TISSUE ONCE RESIDED
. T
HESE HAVE CAUSAL CONNECTIONS WITH OTHER RESONATORS COATING THE SAMPLE WE TOOK AWAY
. I
F YOU ARE CLOSE ENOUGH
,
UNDER THE RIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES
,
OLD NEURAL PATHWAYS MAY RESUME THEIR FORMER FUNCTION
.”

Emerson blinked. Leaning toward the scoutship's
curved window, he peered at the dark skyscape, flickering with silent explosions.

“Y
ES
,
THE CAPSULE IS NEARBY
,
BROUGHT CLOSE TO YOU BY A WORKER DRONE
. O
NE THAT SEEMS INNOCUOUS
,
EVADING ATTENTION FROM THE FACTIONS BATHING AROUND YOU
.

“I
N FACT
,
THE DRONE CAN COME MUCH CLOSER STILL
. T
HE TISSUE MIGHT BE YOURS AGAIN
,
UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS
.”

He wanted to scream at his former captors, declaring that they had no right to bargain with him over something they had stolen in the first place. But they would only dismiss that as whimpering over wolfling standards of fairness. Anyway, Emerson's mind was racing now, covering a great deal of territory in parallel, using both the old logic tracks and new techniques he had picked up during exile.

“If I serve you, then I'll get my speech centers back? What's the matter? Did your former scheme fail?”

“S
OME OF US STILL HAVE FAITH
/
CONFIDENCE IN THAT PLAN
. T
HOUGH AT BEST IT WAS ALWAYS A GAMBLE
—
AN ATTEMPT TO BRIBE ONE WHO IS
/
WAS FAR A WAY FROM HERE
.