Uplift - Infinity's Shore Part 54

Gillian Baskin had the hoons carry out several large crates in exchange. I had seen the contents and felt an old hunger rise within me.

Books. There were hundreds of paper books, freshly minted aboard the Streaker. Not a huge amount of material, compared with the Galactic Library unit, or even the Great Printing, but included in the boxes were updates about the current state of the Five Galaxies, and other subjects Uriel requested. More than enough value to barter for a bunch of grub-eating glavers!

Later, I connected the trade with the dolphins and Kiqui who also debarked in Wuphon Harbor, and I realized, There's more to this deal than meets the eye.

Did I mention the tall prisoner? As everybody moved off to the great hall for a hurried feast, I looked back and glimpsed a hooded figure being led down the pier toward the submarine, guarded by two wary-looking urs. It was a biped, but did not move like a human or hoon, and I could tell both hands were tied. Whoever the prisoner was, he vanished into the Hikahi in a hurry, and I never heard a word about it.

The last reunion took place half a midura later, when we were all gathered in the town hall.

According to a complex plan worked out by the Niss Machine, the whale sub did not have to depart for some time, so a banquet was held in the fashion of our Jijoan Commons. Each race claimed a corner of the hexagonal chamber for its own food needs, then individuals migrated round the center hearth, chatting, renewing acquaintance, or discussing the nature of the world. While Gillian Baskin was engrossed in deep conversation with my parents and Uriel, my sister brought me up to date on happenings in Wuphon since our departure. In this way I learned of school chums who had marched north to war, joining militia units while we four adventurers had childish exploits in the cryptic deep. Some were dead or missing in the smol-' dering ruins of Ovoom Town. Others, mostly qheuens, had died in the plagues of late spring.

The hoonish disease never had a chance to take hold here in the south. But before the vaccines came, one ship had been kept offsh.o.r.e at anchor-in quarantine-because a sailor showed symptoms.

Within a week, half the crew had died.

Despite the gravity of her words, it was hard to pay close attention. I was trying to screw up my courage, you see Somehow, I must soon tell my family the news they would least want to hear.

Amid the throng, I spotted Dwer and his sister huddled near the fire, each taking turns amazing the other with tales about their travels. Their elation at being reunited was clearly muted by a kind of worry familiar to all of usconcern about loved ones far away, whose fates were still unknown. I had a sense that the two of them knew, as I did, that there remained very little time.

Not far away I spied Dwer's noor companion, Mudfoot-the one Gillian called a "tytlal"-perched on a rafter, communing with others of his kind. In place of their normal, devil-may-care expressions, the creatures looked somber. Now we Six knew their secret-that the tytlal are a race hidden within a race, another tribe of sooners, fully alert and aware of their actions. Might some victims of past i pranks now scheme revenge on the little imps? That seemed the least of their worries, but I wasted no sympathy on them.

Welcome to the real world, I thought.

Tyug squatted in a corner of the hall, furiously puffing away. Every few duras, the traeki's synthi ring would pop out another glistening ball of some substance whose value the Six Races had learned after long experience. Supplements to, keep glavers healthy, for instance, and other chemical wonders that might serve Gillian's crew, if some miracle allowed them to escape. If Tyug finished soon, Uriel hoped to keep her alchemist. But I would lay bets that the traeki meant to go along when the Earthhngs de-' parted.

The occasion was interrupted when a pair of big hoons wearing proctors' badges pushed through leather door strips into the feasting hall, gripping the arms of a male human I had never seen before. He was of middle height for their kind, with a dark complexion and an unhappy expression. He wore a rewq on his forehead, and hair combed to hide a nasty scar near his left ear. A small chimp followed close behind, her appearance rueful.

I wasn't close enough to hear the details firsthand, but later I pieced together that this was a long-lost crew mate of the Streakers, whose appearance on Jrjo had them mystified. He had been on Mount Guenn, helping Uriel's smiths work on some secret project, when he suddenly up and tried to escape by stealing some kind of flying machine!

As the guards brought him forward, Gillian's face washed with recognition. She smiled, though he cringed, as if dreading this meeting. The dark man turned left to hide his mutilation, but Gillian insistently took his hands.

She expressed pleasure at seeing him by leaning up to kiss one cheek.

Perhaps later I'll learn more about where he fits in all this. But time is short and I must close this account before the Hikahi sets sail to rejoin the dolphin-crewed ship. So let me finish with the climax of an eventful evening. I A herald burst in. His vibrating sac boomed an alert umble.

"Come! Come and see the unusual!"

Hurrying outside, we found the rain had stopped temporarily. A window opened in the clouds, wide enough for Loocen to pour pale, liquid luminance across a flank of Mount Guenn. Swathes of brittle stars shone through, including one deep red, cyclopean eye.

In spite of this lull, the storm was far from over. Lightning flickered as clouds grew denser still. The west was, one great ma.s.s of roiling blackness amid a constant back-; ground of thunder. In miduras, the coast was really going to get hit.

People started pointing. Huck rolled up near my right leg and gestured with all four agile eyestalks, directing my' gaze toward the volcano.

At first, I couldn't tell what I was seeing. Vague, ghostlike shapes seemed to bob and flutter upward, visible mostly as curved silhouettes that blocked sporadic stars. Sometimes lightning caused one of the objects to glow along a rounded flank, revealing a globelike outline, tapered at the bottom. They seemed big, and very far away.

I wondered if they might be starships.

"Balloons," Huck said at last, her voice hushed in awe "Just like Around the World in Eighty Days"

Funny. Huck seemed more impressed at that moment than she ever had been aboard Streaker, by all the glittering consoles and chattering machines. I stared at the flotilla of fragile gasbags, wondering what kind of volunteers were brave enough to pilot them on a night like this, surrounded by slashing electricity, and with ruthless foes prowling higher still. We watched as scores wafted from Mount Guenn's secret caves. One by one, they caught the stiff west wind and flowed past the mountain, vanishing from sight.

I happened to be standing near Gillian Baskin so know what the Earthwoman said when she turned to Urie the Smith.

"All right. You kept your side of the bargain. Now it" time to keep ours."

PflBHEII Vuboen SMASHED UP. Wheels torn or severed. His braincase leaking lubricant. ,Viotivator spindles shredded and discharging slowly into the ground. '

Vubben lies crumpled next to his deity, reeling lire drain away.

That he still lives seems remarkable. When the Jophur corvette slashed brutally at the Holy Egg, he had been partway around the great stones Hank, almost on the other side. But the moatlike channel of the Nest (unneled explosive heat like a river, outracing his Iruttless enort at retreat.

Now Vubben lies in a heap, aware of two tacts.

Any surviving glxeks would need a new High lay.

And something else. the bgg still lives.

He wonders about that. Why didnt the Jophur (inish It on' Surely they had the power.

perhaps they were distracted.

perhaps they would be back.

Or else, were they subtly persuaded to 30 away The t,gg s patterning rhythms seem subdued, and yet more clear than ever. He ponders whether it might be an artilact of his approaching death. Or perhaps his irayed spindles-draped across the stony race-are picking up vibrations that normal senses could not.

crystalline lucidity calls him, but Vubben reels restrained by the tenacious hold of lite. I hat was what always kept sages and mystics From mlly communing with the sacred ovoid, he now sees. A,iortal beings-even traeki-have to care about continuing, or else the game of existence cannot properly be played. But the caring is also an Impediment. It biases the senses. AAakes you receptive to noise.

Me lets go of the impediment, with a kind of gladness. Surrender clears the way, opening a path that he plunges along, like a youth just released from training wheels, spinning ecstatically down a swooping ramp he never knew beiore, whose curves change in dellghtiulty ominous ways.

Vuboen leels the world grow transparent around him. And with blossoming clarity, he begins to perceive connections.

In legend, and in human lore, G.o.ds were depicted speaking to their prophets, and those on the verge of death. But the great stone does not vocalise. Psio words come to Vubben, or even images. )4t he finds himself able to trace the Lggs torm, its vibrating unity. l_ike a runnel, it draws him down, toward the bowels of Jt)o.

rhat is the first surprise. From its shape alone, the Six saw a.s.sumed the L,gg was sell-contained, an oval stone birthed out of Jijo's inner heat, now wholly part of the upper world. Apparently it still maintains links to the world below. Vubben s da^ed mind beholds the realm beneath the Slope . . . not as a pic!,ure but in its gestalt, as a vast domain threaded by dendritic patterns or lava heat, like branches of a magma (orest, iceding and maintaining a growing mountain range The forest roots sink into [(queried pools, unimaginably deep and broad-measureless chambers where molten rock strains under the steady grinding or an active planet.

,et, even here the pattern tormations persist. Vubben hnds himselt ama?ed by their revealed source.

, Dross!

Deep beneath the Slope, there plunges a great sheet of heavier stone ... an oceanic plate, shoving hard against the continent and then diving deeper still, dragging eons-old basalt down to rejoin slowly convecting mantle layers. The process is not entirely mysterious to Vubben. He has seen ill.u.s.trations in Biblos texts. As it sc.r.a.pes by, the plunging ocean plate leaves behind a sc.u.m, a irothy mix of water and light elements . . .

. . . and also patterns.

latterns or dross! Or ancient buildings, implements, machines, all discarded long ago, ages before the Buyur won their leasehold on this world. Deiore even their predecessors.

I he things themselves are long gone, melted, smeared out, their atoms dispersed by pressure and heat. Yet somehow a remnant persists. The magma does not quite rorget.

Uross Is supposed to be cleansed, Vubben thinks, shocked by the Implications. When we dump our bones and tools in the Midden, it should lead to burial and purihcation by Jijo's lire. I here isn t supposed to be anything lelt!

And yet . . . who is he to question, it Jijo chooses to remember something of each tenant race that abides here (or a while, availing itseli of her resources, her varied liie-iorrns, then departing according to Galactic law'

Is that what you are' tie Inquires or the Holy h-gg. A distillation or memory The crystallised essence of species who came oelore, and are now extinct'

j transcendent thought, yet it makes him sad. Vubben s own unique race verges on annihilation. He yearns ror some kind of preservation, some reluge From oblivion. But in order to leave such a remnant, sophonts must dwell for a long time on a tectonic world.

for most of its sapiency period, his kind had lived in s.p.a.ce. ] hen you don t care aoout us living oelngs, after all, he accuses the Lgg. ,ou are like that craved mule spider of the hills, your lace turned to the past. .

.,Again, there is no answer in word or image. What Vubben (eels instead is a further extension of the sense of connectedness, now sweeping upward, through channels of friction heat, climbing against slow cascades of moist, superheated rode, until his mind emerges in a cool dark kingdom-the seas deep, most private place.

I he ,vildden. Vubben (eels around him the great dross piles of more recent habitation waves. Lven here, amid relics of the Buyur; the Lgg seems linked. Vubben senses that the graveyard of ancient instrumentalities has been disturbed, Heaps of archaic refuse still quiver from some [ate intrusion.

There is no anger over this. iNor anything as overt as Interest. But he does sense a reaction, like some prodigious reflex.

I he sea is involved. Disturbance in the dross piles has provoked shifts in the formation of waves and tides. Of heat and evaporation. Like a sleeping giant, responding heavily to a tiny itch. A ma.s.sive storm begins rolling both the surface and the ocean floor, sweeping things back where they belong.

Vubben has no idea what vexed the ,Vildden so. perhaps the Jophur. Or else the end or dross shipments from the lix Kaces' Anyway, his thoughts are coming more slowly as death swarms in from the extremities. Vvorldly concerns matter less with each pa.s.sing dura.

Jtill, he can muster a few more cogencies Is that all we are to you' he inquires of the planet, An itch'

tic realises now^that l_)rake and Ur-Ohown had pulled a fast one when they announced their revelation, a century ago. The Lgg is no G.o.d, no conscious being. Ko-kenn was right, calling it a particle of psi-active stone, more compact and well ordered than the Spectral Flow. A distillation that had proved helpful in uniting the Six Races.

Useful in many ways ... but not worthy of prayer. We sensed what we desperately wanted to sense, because tfi.

alternative was unacceptable-to face the fact that ive sooners a alone. We always were alone.

That might have been Vibben's last thought. But at the final moment there comes something else. A glimmer of meaning that merges with his waning neuronic flashes. In that narrow moment, he leels a wave of overwhelming certainty.

More layers lie beneath the sleeping strata. Layers that are aware.

Layers that know.

Despair is not his final companion. Instead, there comes in rapid succession-expectation . . . satisfaction . . . awareness of an ancient plan, patiently unfolding.

Kaa CAN'T-T YOU USE SOMEBODY ELSE?" "Who else? There is no one." "What about Karkaett-t?"

"Suessi needs him to help nurse the engines. This effort will be hopeless unless they operate above capacity."

Hopeless; Kaa used to think it such a simple word. But like the concept of infinity, it came freighted with a wide range of meanings. He slashed the water in frustration. Ifni, will you really trap me this way? Dragging me across the universe again, when all I want to do is stay?

Gillian Baskin knelt on the quay nearby, her raincoat glistening. Distant lightning flashes periodically lit up the bay, revealing that the Hikahihad already closed her clamsh.e.l.l doors, preparing to depart.

"Besides," Gillian added. "You are our chief pilot. Who could be as well qualified?"

Gratifying words, but in fact Streaker used to have a better pilot, by far.

"Keepiru ought to've stayed with the crew, back on Kithrup-p. I should have been the one who went on the skiff with Creideiki."

The woman shrugged. "Things happen, Kaa. I have confidence in your ability to get us off this world in one piece."

And after that? He chuttered a doubt-filled raspberry. Everyone knew this would be little more than a suicide venture. The odds had also seemed bad on Kithrup, but at least there the eatee battle fleets'chasing Streaker had been distracted, battling each other. Fleeing through that maelstrom of combat and confusion, it proved possible to fool their pursuers by wearing a disguise-the hollowed-out sh.e.l.l of a Thennanin dreadnought. All that ploy took was lots of skill . . . and luck.

Here in Jijo s.p.a.ce there was no sheltering complexity. No concealing jumble of warfare to sneak through. Just one pursuer-giant and deadly-sought one bedraggled prey.

For the moment, Streaker was safe inJijo's sea, but what chance would she have once she tried to leave?

"You don't have to worry about Peepoe," Gillian said, ' reading the heart of his reluctance. "Makanee has some solid fins with her. Many are Peepoe's friends. They'll scan relentlessly till they find Zhaki and Mopol, and make them let her go.

"Anyway," the blond woman went on, "isn't Peepoe better off here? Won't you use your skill to keep her safe?"

Kaa eyed Gillian's silhouette, knowing the Terragens agent would use any means to get the job done. If that meant appealing to Kaa's-sense of honor ... or even chivalry . . . Gillian Baskin was not too proud.

"Then you admit it-t," he said.

"Admit what?"

"That we're heading out as bait, nothing elsssse. Our aim is to sacrifice ourselves."

The human on the quay was silent for several seconds, then lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

"It seems worthwhile, don't you think?"

Kaa pondered. At least she was being honest-a decent way for a captain to behave with her pilot.

A whole world, seven or eight sapient races, some near extinction, and a unique culture. Can you see giving up your life for all that?

"I guesss so," he murmured, after a pause.

Gillian had won. Kaa would abandon his heart on Jijo, and fly out to meet death with open eyes.

Then he recalled. She had made exactly the same choice, long ago. A decision that still must haunt her sleep, though it could have gone no other way.

Yet it surprised Kaa when Gillian slipped off the stone quay, entering the water next to him, and threw her arms around his head. Shivers followed her hands as she stroked him gratefully.

"You make me proud," she said. "The crew will be glad, and not just because we have the best pilot in this whole galaxy."

Kaa's fl.u.s.tered confusion expressed itself in a sonar interrogative, casting puzzled echoes through the colonnade of a nearby pier. Gillian wove her Trinary reply through that filtered reverberation, binding his perplexity, braiding a sound fabric whose texture seemed almost like a melody.

Amid the star lanes, s...o...b..a.l.l.s sometimes thrive near flame. . . .

Don't you feel Lucky? *

Rety THE DOLPHIN ENGINEER SHOUTED AT HER FROM the airlock of the salvaged dross ship.

"C-come on, Rety! We gotta leave now, t-to make the rendezvous!"

Chuchki had reason to be agitated. His walker unit whined and jittered, reacting to nervous signals sent down his neural tap. It was cramped in the airlock, which also held the speed sled to carry them from this ghost ship back to Streaker. Providing all went according to plan. Only I ain't part of the plan anymore, Rety thought. Stepping in front of Chuchki, with the sill of the hatch between them, she removed the tunic they had given her, as an honorary member of the crew. At first the gesture had pleased Rety-till she saw the Terrans were just another band of losers.

Rely tossed the garment in the airlock.