Children of Scarabaeus (39 page)
Her flesh ripped. Now the pain was sharp. Warm blood trickled down between her breasts. Scarabaeus had reclaimed the beetle.
She tried to block out the physical and concentrated on the mental—the link—but still she resisted the datastream. She allowed it no farther than the surface tiers of her splinter.
—Edie, you must give in. Scarabaeus refuses to harm you, so it must be your decision.
“Give me a moment. I’ll give you my mind, Haller, but leave my body until I don’t care anymore. Don’t make me suffer what you suffered.”
—Don’t be scared.
A new song flooded the datastream. It washed through
her, an ocean of sound. Edie skimmed the surface, feeling the currents tug at her mind.
The transition would be easier for her after all, not harder. She understood the ebb and flow of the datastream because her wet-teck interface had spent ten years reorganizing her brain. She would bleed into the biocyph, mentally and physically, lose her sense of self, forget this life and feel no regrets. All she had to do was give herself to Scarabaeus. She could already feel her mind seeping into the datastream. Here, finally, she could truly become what she was meant to be…
She relented and sank into the multi-tiered mesh. The physical structures of the chamber and the living city that Haller had spent a year building, so human in concept, held no more interest for Edie. She heard DNA and chemical reactions, cellular organelles, physiology, blood and sap. Felt the pulses of a billion beating hearts. The temptation to become part of this song overwhelmed her.
Her splinter buckled under the flood. It hardly mattered if it got damaged. Haller wanted her brain and her training, not her wet-teck.
Haller…she had to destroy Haller. She wasn’t here to become one with the planet. She was here to demolish the very structure of the biocyph in order to obliterate Haller, and herself along with him. It would take a simple kill-code. She’d done it before. Only this time, she’d do it right.
First, she had to stop his transmission blast. She searched for the delivery vector he’d been assembling. It was ready to go, complete with cryptoglyph, and he’d put the commsat back online. She was almost too late…
She stalled for time. “Haller, wait. Let me check this before you send it. You don’t know what you’re doing. You need my help.”
No answer.
Edie quickly examined the code packaged for transmission, expecting to find the knots that she’d come to think of as Haller’s combined intelligence and personality. The
knots were there, but they were shrinking. The datastream was being pushed through a four-pointed filter. A diamond formation.
The children had been here.
As the knots hit the filter, parts of the tangle unwound and slid seamlessly between the tiers of the datastream. The rest—fractured pieces and tight nubs that could not be untangled—broke off and floated free and dissolved.
Edie pulled back to view the process from a distance. In a matter of minutes, it would be complete. From the children’s descriptions of the sim they’d played with, she identified the broken bits as Haller’s personality. His desires, his emotions, his petty human concerns—all this was being sloughed off. What remained was his raw intelligence, and this part was being integrated into the datastream. The children had treated Haller’s presence in the datastream like an error log, and had fixed it by removing those parts that would not integrate.
The delivery vector was set to launch in just a few seconds. As she watched Haller unravel, she considered what the transmission would mean to the Fringe worlds. She’d had her first taste of what a planet-sized consciousness was like, and she recognized its potential. With Haller dissolving away, all that was left in the transmission was the integrated intelligence along with the cryptoglyph that enabled the BRATs on other planets to absorb the new data.
She had only seconds to make a decision. She’d already unlocked the Fringe-world BRATs and destroyed the extortion racket that held the Crib together, but she couldn’t prevent the inevitable failure of the biocyph that maintained those planets. Was this consciousness the answer? It had successfully managed Scarabaeus’s ecosystem. Now devoid of Haller’s human foibles and destructive tendencies, could it manage the ecosystem of an entire galaxy?
She did nothing. Haller…No, Scarabaeus—the planet, not the man—released the blast of data to the commsat, which transmitted it into the nearby node at the speed of
light. From there it would travel at impossible speeds through nodespace, and spread across the Reach. It was unstoppable.
“Haller, are you there? Talk to me.”
She kept checking, every few minutes, but she couldn’t find him. She’d intended to destroy Scarabaeus from within, taking out Haller in the process, but instead the children had selectively destroyed Haller and there was no need to worry about the impartial sentience that remained. Edie could hear its song clearly now, a cold, bright, complex music that sounded…
felt
perfect. She
felt
its affinity for life and knew the worlds it was now in contact with were safe.
She felt its affinity for her, too. It recognized parts of her in its deepest, oldest coding, and it wanted her. She could still merge, if she chose.
Her cocoon shook so violently that her joints popped and she was jolted back to physical reality. The vines were slick against her skin, and repulsive. She struggled to not feel sickened by what would happen to her body if she merged.
When
she merged. She wanted it as much as Scarabaeus did.
She buried herself deep in the datastream, drowning in the anticipation of joining with the planet’s consciousness. Her destiny lay here, and she wouldn’t fight it.
Now something grappled with her, clutched at her. The physical conversion was beginning. In a short while the pain wouldn’t matter anymore. Sensations of the flesh would be irrelevant. Her life would become the datastream. She welcomed it.
Fingers of vines curled around her wrist, her arm, gnawing at her newly healed wound. The jolt of pain knocked her out of the datastream. The vines were warm, hard against her bones—not cool and moist as they’d been before. Edie forced open her eyes. A creamy blur of movement writhed around her and it took a moment to focus.
She saw dark hazel eyes, clenched teeth, a creased brow. She tried to pull away but strong arms encircled her and ripped her free from her nest.
She tumbled to the ground, tangled up in vines and tendrils and someone else’s limbs. Fiery pinpoints of pain blazed across her arm and throat and skull as the tendrils were yanked out of her body. Scarabaeus vanished from her mind, suddenly and completely. She dragged air into her lungs and it was agonizing, like taking the first breath after leaving the womb. She mustered enough strength to thrash out at her captor.
“Don’t fight me.” The compelling voice brought to mind visions of loving hands stroking her skin…
…and less pleasant memories of fear and frustration and anger, a terrifying maelstrom of human interactions. She didn’t want that. She wanted the safe familiarity of the datastream that she could control and sculpt.
—Don’t take me away…
She sent the message down the link. But the link was gone. Her human body felt heavy and useless. Some part of her recognized that she had to speak the words out loud.
“Don’t…”
She was maneuvered upright and hauled to her feet. She could hardly make her legs work.
“Edie, you’re coming with me.”
Finn’s voice pulled her back again, and Edie held on while the world shook around them. He pulled her to her feet, his arm around her waist, and dragged her over the shifting ground that spewed jets of sap and bore acrid limbs of leathery stalks.
The tunnel seemed too far away. The mosaic of cells that formed the ground started to break apart. The walls of the cavern crumpled inward in tremendous waves, crushing the resin sheets that fell in shards like icicles. The air filled with wrenching, snapping sounds and a putrid sweet smell.
Edie waited for the inevitable—for the ground to swallow them up—but that didn’t happen.
She jacked into the biocyph commlink and was hit with a screaming torrent.
—You can’t leave. I’ll kill you! You belong here with me.
This was Haller, not Scarabaeus. Somehow he’d hidden the last vestiges of his awareness from her while she’d been distracted by her impending ascension to planethood. Now, as he fractured and dissolved in a scream of fury, he was taking the physical world with him.
But Haller couldn’t kill her, it seemed. Every time the flattened spiky stalks rose up to capture, they were sucked
back under by an unseen force. Vines descended from the ceiling to knock them down, and then retreated, flopping uselessly. She’d programmed Scarabaeus not to harm her and Finn, and despite Haller’s efforts it still protected them. Nevertheless, the chamber quickly disintegrated around them. Before much longer, they’d be trapped by the sticky debris.
Finn locked hands with her, wrist to wrist, and pulled her along.
—Edie, what’s happening? Please, I need you! Help me. Save me.
Haller’s cries tore through her.
“I have to go back…” Her reaction was instinctive. She’d promised to merge, prepared herself for it and accepted it, been seduced by the datastream to the point of longing for it. This planet was hers. She had birthed Scarabaeus, and now it needed her.
She pulled away but Finn was relentless. He yanked her close and grabbed her upper arms, forcing her to face him. Half his skull was still bleeding and bruised.
“I won’t leave you behind, Edie. You don’t belong here.”
His words made no sense. She had to stay, didn’t she? “This is the only place I belong. It needs me.”
“I need you. I won’t let you choose
this
over me.” His face was distorted by raw pain.
She’d chosen him before—his life over the chance to salvage Scarabaeus. Once again, Scarabaeus beckoned and she had to turn away. Finn’s grip on her was real and honest and the only thing she truly wanted. She’d choose life with Finn—complex, painful, joyful, human life.
They turned again to the tunnel entrance, only meters away. A formless mass of tangled vines and resin and sap rose up before them. It morphed into limbs and torso and head. Its arms reached out toward them and twisted in supplication. A gaping misshapen mouth opened up in the head and grimaced in a wordless plea.
They darted around it and more creatures emerged from
the ground and walls. A chorus of wide-mouthed pleas and thrashing limbs.
Edie stumbled out of the cavern with Finn. The tunnel was just as unstable. Its walls shook and crumpled. From outside came a great wrenching sound, growing louder as they drew nearer. Ahead, something fell from above and crushed the tunnel, blocking the way.
They scrambled through a jagged hole torn in the wall, emerging into bright daylight amid the spires of the city, where there was no firm footing. The spires toppled as the caverns beneath them collapsed.
Clear ground was only minutes away. They dodged falling debris and kept moving. Finn never let go of her, pulling her along to match his relentless pace.
They slid down the last embankment and ran over flat rocky ground, leaving behind the chaos of collapsing structures—Haller’s death throes. Only then did they see the black swarm approaching. Hundreds of slaters clambered over the low rocks.
Finn slowed to a walk and unlimbered a rifle from his back. She recognized it as having belonged to Natesa’s merc.
“No,” Edie said. “I don’t think they’ll harm us.”
He glanced at her, clearly not quite believing. She wasn’t sure she believed it, either, but in any case, one rifle was no use. If the slaters attacked, there was nothing they could do.
The habitat was a glint of silver in the distance. The ship was gone.
“Cat was right here…” Finn said.
That ship had been their only ride off the planet. Had Cat seen the city collapsing and given up on them?
“Crib ships will come,” she said, her heart sinking.
Not Natesa, not Theron, but some other faceless ’crat with new plans for Edie…and no plans for Finn.
“We should get back to the habitat,” Finn said. There was nowhere else to go.
The slaters were close enough that she could see their busy jaws working under their carapaces. They circled Edie
and Finn, blocking their way. As one, the creatures reared onto their hind legs, clicking their jaws and waving their forelimbs. Edie pressed her back to Finn’s chest, feeling his arm slide around her protectively. He threw down the rifle, perhaps thinking that was the reason for the aggressive stance. It didn’t help. The slaters slowly closed the circle.
Edie fumbled for the biocyph commlink, but it was gone, torn from her belt somewhere back in the chamber.
Then the city behind them grew calm. The slaters dropped, spun around, and started to squawk and sway.
“What happened?” Finn asked.
“It’s Haller. Or rather, it’s the end of Haller. He’s finally gone. Scarabaeus has full control now.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Yes.”
They watched the slaters warily, neither wanting to take the first step into the fray.
“They won’t harm us,” Edie said again, hoping that by saying the words she could believe them.
She walked forward, tugging Finn along behind her. The slaters scuttled out of the way, left and right, and they pressed on. The sea of black parted for them. The slaters moved off in small groups, chattering and squabbling among themselves, and the way was clear. Edie glanced over her shoulder to watch many of the creatures scurrying toward the city. Its structures stood silent under the noon sun, its silhouette broken and changed after the recent upheaval.
A small shape rose up behind the city. Edie’s mind jumped from one horror to the next—some flying creature left over from Haller’s imagination?
“It’s Cat,” Finn said.
The ship came right at them, tipping its sleek wings to acknowledge them.