The Greatship (39 page)

The two AIs were sitting together in the false-forest, in the middle of the main path, a thin coat of new snow obscuring their faces and their high functions removed and burnt to ash.

Six mechanical legs had wrapped themselves around Crockett’s waist, the tip of each leg fused with its mate.  Doom was riding him, the spidery body snug against the small of his back.  The lifeboat weighed almost nothing, and sometimes it was almost possible to forget about the alien.  Crockett could run naturally, long legs slicing through the deep fresh snow.  He carried the bomb-throwing gun in one hand, then the other.  There were moments when he almost forgot why he was running.  Then the plasma weapon discharged somewhere in the Luckies’ forest, and he heard fire and saw a flash of light, followed by the stink of burning wood.

“Who are they?” Crockett whispered.

“Hired killers.”

“I know.  I mean…”  What did he mean?  “They were security officers.  Ours.  Children, nearly—“

“They aren’t young,” the alien warned.

“Okay.”  Crockett was following the narrow, unpopular trail that he once used to carry the telescope to the high shelf.  “The women aren’t what I guessed.  But I want to know—“

An explosion shook snow off the gray roots.

“My body has expired,” Doom reported.  Then with a curiously buoyant joy, he added, “But it did earn us time and distance.”

Crockett stumbled.

“Careful,” said his companion.

“I want to know,” Crockett managed as he stood.  “Who hired your killers?”

“My enemies.”

“Well, yes…”

“If you learned their identities, perhaps you would know too much.”

“So what are you?” Crockett asked.  “And why did you deserve this—?”

“I am nobody, and I did nothing.”  The alien adjusted his grip as the trail began to climb.  “Nobody and nothing,” Doom repeated.

Crockett glanced at the weapon.  Could his hands use this thing?

“I boarded the Great Ship to escape my enemies.”

“That happens a lot,” Crockett agreed.

“But they came with me, my enemies did.  They hate me that much.”

From behind and far below, a woman’s voice shouted out a single word:

“Tracks.”

Crockett muttered, “Shit,” and ran harder.

“Eight centuries, I have been onboard this wonderful starship.  I have made a habit of regularly changing identities and habits.  But my enemies always find me, and three times before, they have sent agents to put an end to me.”

“Go to the captains,” Crockett suggested.  “Can’t they help?”

Silence.

“They won’t, will they?  Why now?  Are you some kind of criminal?”

“If I was,” the alien pointed out, “then my enemies would invite the captains’ aid in finding me.”

Probably so.

“This is a private, difficult concern.”

The trail angled to the right, flattened and then lifted steeply again.  A single plasmatic round passed overhead, near enough that the air warmed, and with the brilliant yellowish glare, the surface of the snow turned to fresh vapor.

“I am sorry to involve you, my friend.”

“We aren’t friends,” Crockett gasped.

“Of course not.”

“Will this be the end?” he asked.  “If you reach the Luckies…will it put an end to everything…?”

“I believe so.”

“Because you’ll be dead.”

Silence.

How much farther?  Crockett had walked this path thousands of times, but never in these awful circumstances.  Never this fast, and never this slow.  He felt as if he was in a nightmare, the snow growing deeper for no reason other than to fight every stride.  He was aching and sick with fear, and sometimes he caught himself wondering what would happen if he just dropped the damned bug.  It would probably crawl after him, he guessed.  So then he’d turn and give the creature a good finishing kick.

Crockett tried to sprint, stumbled and slid backward a few meters.

As he tried to rise, the legs around his belly tightened.  “No,” said Doom.  “Remain where you are.”

Crockett could taste the steam rising off the boiling lake—a rich, acrid scent created by shredded organics and heavy metals.  “Why?” he muttered.

“Here you are invisible to them.”

“But they’re coming,” he pointed out.  “They’re going to find us—“

“Please wait.”

The runaway terror had returned.

A very tiny eye lifted high above the spider’s body.  “Below us stands a substantial rooting body,” Doom explained.  “He is parabolic in shape, and much taller than any of his neighbors.”

“What do you want?”

“With both hands, grasp the weapon’s trigger mechanism.  Yes, that is the technique.  In a few moments, I would like you to sit up and aim at that large root…and please, twist the trigger until the magazine is empty…”

“Will that stop them?”

“With luck, you will earn us more time,” Doom replied.

Crockett took a deep breath, fighting to clear his head.  “Letting the Luckies kill you…” he began.  “Is that a reasonable solution…?”

“I am living in death now,” the creature pointed out.  “By doing this, I will simply be exchanging one afterlife for another.”

Crockett breathed again.

“Now, my friend.  Turn.  Shoot.  And then, please run…!”

Explosions tore apart the dead wood, and secondary charges ignited the airborne chunks and splinters, creating a rolling blaze that pushed its way down the slope, melting and searing all that lay in its brilliant orange path.

Crockett threw down the empty weapon and sprinted uphill, his frantic shadow leading the way.  For an instant, from out of the firestorm, he heard what might have been a single voice screaming in misery.  Or it was random noise.  Then the voice vanished within the boiling crackle of sap, and he reached the crest of the ridge and gratefully started down the other side.

In a few steps, there was no snow underfoot.

The air turned blacker and denser, choked with moisture and a miserable heat.  A quick succession of hard shocks sprang from some deep, angry place.  Crockett stumbled.  He stood and then stumbled again.  From his left came the ominous rumblings of a thick, newborn geyser.  Finding his feet and balance, he warned, “The eruption’s starting.”

“Run,” the alien kept advising.

“Where?”

“To the lake.”

“But the eruption—”

“It has not arrived,” Doom replied.  “My saviors shared with me the moment of the Birth Catastrophe, and we have several minutes remaining…”

Crockett discovered that the air was less awful when he bent low, and that was how he ran—a clumsy pitched-forward stride—and when he could see nothing useful, which was most of the time, he would close his burning, tearing eyes, navigating by a mixture of feel and panicked memory.

The trail suddenly flattened out.

Here was the high rock shelf where he and that odd woman had assembled the telescope.  But the sky was stolen away.  Stars and the elaborate moons were hidden behind a growing flume, superheated vapors rising from the lake’s center, lifting countless spores with them.  Crockett took a step and coughed and managed two more steps before his windpipe began to scald.  Then he paused, kneeling forward for what was supposed to be a brief, brief rest.  But without oxygen, his body was descending into emergency metabolisms.  Energies were dipping, and his eyes refused to stop weeping, and when he tried to rise it was too soon, and he tripped and fell again, losing all sense of direction.

The spidery machine deployed more eyes.

“Let go of me and run,” Crockett advised.

“Quiet,” said Doom.

“I’m slowing you down,” Crockett argued.

Then his companion yanked the jointed legs, threatening to cut his body in two.  And very softly, Doom said, “One is with us.  The tall one is here.”

With both fists, Crockett wiped at his eyes.  Then he forced the lids to open, but he saw nothing except for the perfect blackness.  The universe was him and this apparition that refused to release him, plus nothingness without end or purpose, comfort or hope.  But at least his anaerobic metabolisms were awake now.  He had enough strength to stand, and from that new perspective, he realized that he could hear the boiling lake lying straight ahead.

He took three increasingly small steps, feeling for the edge.

Each motion caused Doom to pull his legs in close again, but the creature didn’t offer so much as a whisper of advice.

With the third step, a new shape appeared before Crockett—a geometrical simple shape composed of dark lines joined together, each line moving slowly according to its own desires.  Too late, he understood what he was seeing.  The beautiful tall killer was standing directly in his path, probably fully aware of his presence and his hopelessness.  Yet Doom chose that moment to speak again—in an abrupt, rather loud voice—telling his companion, “Run.  Past her, and jump over the edge—”

“I’ll die,” he interrupted.

“My saviors will not let that happen.  I promise.”

Even if the alien was telling the truth—if the Luckies would willingly digest his brain and volunteer their computing power to let an extra illusion to walk their nonexistent moon—this wasn’t what Crockett wanted.  Never.  With both hands, he grabbed the encircling legs, hard tugs accomplishing nothing while he cried out, “Get off me.  Drop!”

The alien refused.

Crockett sucked in the hot black air and screamed.  “Here I am!  I’ve got him here.  Here!”

Doom pulled his legs close, crushing the human guts.

The tall girl stepped closer, and then she set off a floating flare that lifted several meters overhead, throwing a hard bluish glare across the black rock of the shelf.  A transparent mask lay over her pretty face, allowing her to breathe slowly and naturally.  As always, she looked like a supremely happy soul.  With a warm joyful smile, she watched Crockett fighting with his companion.  She seemed utterly amused by the situation.  Without question, she had won, but why didn’t she use the plasma gun riding in her long left hand?  Then another figure emerged from the fumes—a short strong human, badly burnt but already beginning to heal.

The second killer said, “Hello,” to her partner.

She wasn’t wearing a breathing mask.  It was lost or destroyed, or maybe she didn’t feel it was necessary anymore.

“I was waiting for you,” the tall girl allowed.

“Thank you.”  That beautiful face had been destroyed, eaten to the bone by the firestorm.  A sloppy mouth remained, withered lips and the stump of a tongue barely able to speak.  “You almost made it,” she managed, studying Crockett with a pair of freshly grown eyes.  But she was speaking to the alien.  She said, “Mr. Doom,” and broke into a mocking laugh.

Too late, Crockett stepped toward the lake.

The tall girl had a second weapon—a tiny kinetic gun that neatly shattered both of his shins, leaving him sprawled out on his right side.

“You want your friend pulled off?” the tall girl asked.

The short girl fell to her knees.  For a moment, she teased Crockett with that brutalized mouth, threatening to give him a dry, sooty kiss.  Then she reached around back and used a special tool, and the machine-spider released its grip and fell helplessly onto its back.

“Make sure,” the short girl advised.

The tall girl deftly opened the armored carapace, and what she saw made her pause.  Crockett couldn’t see the lovely face against the glare directly overhead, and perhaps she couldn’t see anything well enough because of her own shadow.  Then she rocked backward, letting the full light of the flare fall into the cavity—a cavity designed to carry a mind that was most definitely missing.

“The crafty shit,” the tall girl muttered.

“A second lifeboat,” her partner muttered.  “There must have been, and I didn’t notice—”

“You didn’t,” the tall girl agreed testily.

From the beginning, Crockett realized, he had been carrying an empty vessel—a package of programs and contingencies that was masquerading as a poor miserable soul facing death.

“He lied to me,” Crockett complained.

The short girl laughed at him, or herself.

“The shit,” said the tall girl once again.

Then the two of them traded glances, and the short girl climbed to her feet and moved out of the way.  And her partner said, “Nothing personal,” and pointed her plasma gun at Crockett’s cowering face—

The empty spider flinched and leaped high.

When it detonated, the six long legs were driven hard into both women, cutting through spines and bones, leaving them in mangled wet piles…and allowing Crockett just enough time to crawl into a crevice where he wedged his own battered body, the next moment or two spent thanking his own considerable luck.

And with that, the caldera exploded.

Watching the eruption from below, various neighbors recalled having seen three friends accompanying clients to the ridge.  Did they return in time?  No?  Well, incidents like this always seemed to happen, and usually more bodies were involved.  But neither the hottest water or deepest snow could kill, and from experience, they understood that it was best to wait several days, letting the new mountain build itself to where its foundation was stable and as predictable as could be hoped for.

The deep lake continued to explode upwards, and the thick white steam cooled, falling again as waves of snow and delicate formations of ice.  Gas bubbles and volcanic soot complicated the complex, ever-changing layering.  No two mountains were ever the same, and this particular eruption built the tallest peak in memory—a lofty, single-vent ice volcano that looked as if it was willfully reaching for the ceiling, and with that, trying to touch the painted stars.

Steam was still pouring upwards when the rescue party found the burnt out cable car, and shortly after that, the two dead AIs.

What had seemed routine was not.

More volunteers joined in the desperate efforts.  Portable heaters cut half a dozen tunnels up the ridge and down the other side.  Two more days passed before the next body was discovered:  One of the temporary security officers, horrifically maimed but conscious enough to point at her colleague.  “It was the alien,” she managed to say with her frozen, half-healed face.  “Watch for him, and be careful,” she warned.  Then someone asked about Crockett’s whereabouts, and she paused for a moment, in thought, before directing them toward the shelf’s edge, into the scorching depths of the caldera itself.

“The poor bastard,” was the general consensus.

The other officer’s body was dug out of the ice, and both victims were carried back down to the hamlet; and after a full day of intense medical care, the two ageless women got out of bed and grabbed each by the hand, and a few moments later, they walked to the tram and rode away, leaving the habitat for places unmentioned.

A few hours later, one of the local vespers was hired to bring a married couple into the temporary ice tunnels.  It was the woman, Quee Lee, who discovered Crockett’s mangled body.  With her husband’s help, she dragged the lucky man into a convenient chamber.  The vesper wanted to leave Crockett there and chase after help.  But the humans decided to feed the man their modest dinners, and by keeping their patient warm and comfortable, it took only a few hours for him to recover to where he could stand on his own and walk slowly.

Crockett told what had happened.  He claimed that he wanted to go home, but at the last moment, standing inside an empty car, he had a sudden change of mind.

“But I wish to leave now,” the vesper snapped.

“I’m staying here,” said Crockett.  Covering his head with a makeshift cap, he turned to his saviors, adding, “You’re welcome to walk with me.”

“What’s the fee?” asked the husband, with a suspicious tone.

“Perri,” his wife snapped.  “Does it matter–?”

“For nothing,” said Crockett.  Then he smiled weakly, adding, “For the fun of it.  How would that be?”

Tourists were exploring the new landscape—a giant gray-white dome of ice and air pockets and vantage points that would never exist in quite this way again.  In another few weeks, the residual heat of the eruption would begin melting the mountain’s bones.  Small quakes and a few large ones would cause spectacular avalanches.  Eventually the caldera would fill with slush and dirt and the sleeping Luckies too, and the lake would be reborn, and a civilization that was already ancient when Earth was ruled by single-celled life would gracefully begin all over again.

But for this particular moment, three humans could walk safely on the face of the mountain.

Again, Crockett told his story.

Slowly, carefully, Perri and Quee Lee asked little questions, forcing him to explain those points that were hardest to explain.  The sun was down, as it happened.  And the nearest moon had risen just an hour ago—a almost full circle of ice and warm villages and unreal cities and teeming millions.  Assuming that he had reached the lake, Doom was living there now.  Or at least some elaborate bottle of intelligence, with his name and identity, believed that it was living on that spot of light cast up on that finite sky.

“He isn’t safe,” Crockett muttered.

His companions listened patiently.

“His enemies…they won’t stop just because of this…inconvenience…”  A keen sorrow ran through the voice.  Quietly, he said, “One year from now, or in a thousand and one years…somebody will pass through the hamlet, pretending to be like all the others who want the Luckies’ tricks.  The stranger will want to make his family rich, or maybe he won’t have anything else to lose.  The reasons don’t matter.  All that counts is that he’ll walk up a trail and surrender his body to the aliens, and the Luckies will put him up on that moon there, and in another year, or fifty thousand years, he’ll finally accomplish what he was hired to do.”  Crockett sighed, gesturing at that patch of cold light.  “One way or another, Death is going to find its way there.”

“It’s the same for all of us,” Perri whispered.

Crockett glanced at him.  For a moment, his face twisted with genuine horror; but then the horror slowly faded, replaced by a strange, bright expression that looked like pure wild joy.

During the cable car descent, Crockett asked his new friends if they often traveled around the Great Ship.

“Sometimes we stop wandering,” Quee Lee replied with a self-deprecating laugh.

“Name your hundred favorite destinations,” said Crockett.  Then he added, “The warm, bright places, I mean.  Alien and human both.”

Perri quickly supplied a list of more than a hundred habitats.

The car slid into its berth, and Crockett thanked both of them for everything, and then he walked out of the station, past his home and the little party of friends and neighbors who were waiting inside to surprise him…past them and out of the hamlet entirely, stepping onto the first tram available, and without one backward glance, leaving behind the unreal for those things that truly had to matter.