Tropic of Creation (37 page)

But did the bot remember anything, regard anything, she said?

Just before the machine disappeared into the forest, Sascha called out to it, through the silver wash of rain, “Bot of Congress Worlds!” Her voice sounded like the screech of a bird, high-pitched and nonsensical. From below, Demon raised his face to stare at her, rainwater cascading off his huge face.

She thought she saw the bot stop by a stand of trees. In the distance its dark matte housing looked like water in shadow, like a tunnel in vines. She imagined it turned around to regard her, but logically she knew it had no need to turn around to see her.

“Remember me!” she called out.
Remember me
.

The flash of undergrowth, the parting of vines. The bot was gone.

Later that day, when Sascha tried to nuzzle against Watchful’s shoulder to drink, the Singer gently but firmly pushed her away. The push was a light one, but Sascha found herself sprawled on the floor of the sodden nest. When she tried again a few minutes later, Watchful pushed again, eyeing her with annoyance, humming a new tune.

But then, when Sascha looked more closely, she saw that there was no milk in the grooves of the Singer’s skin anyway.

Eli and his squad stood on the bank, gazing at the river. It was more of a slow-moving flood than a river. But they would have to cross it.

Each hour the water rose, as the barrage of rain added
tons of water to its volume. Carried along on its surface was a dense cargo of leaves and vines and shards of fruit, and an occasional animal passenger.

Bad enough, the crossing of such a wide expanse of water, and now there was Pig’s injury to compound their dilemma. Pig had made the mistake of sitting on a rock to rest. When the rock unrolled its carapaced surface, the animal whose shell it was had time to latch on to Pig’s hip before he bolted. Despite the fibrin patch with its clotting agents, their hard march kept the wound ripped fresh. The smell of his blood drew attention, though Pig dutifully stuffed himself with yellow polyps. Vecchi now went armed, with Pig struggling mightily to keep up, with a makeshift crutch. Nazim kept the domino gun, though it was nearly as big as she was.

But the bot took no interest in bridge-building, despite the pointed suggestions of the enlisteds. Nazim coached it with her repertoire of mind-curdling epitaphs, but nothing could force the construct to depart from its own AI logic. The gist of it seemed to be:
River. Dangerous
.

Eli peered through the lashing rain to look up at the steep hills, considering a trek closer to them, where the river might be narrower. Juric said the hills did have narrower streams, but they were also deeper, cradled in the folded gullies.

It was at that moment that they saw the ahtra. Appearing out of the foliage on the other side of the river, the figure stopped and gazed at them through a tight scrim of rain.

Vecchi’s gun snapped into position, but he stood behind the others and delayed his shot.

“Easy now,” Eli said. He nodded at Vecchi, and the man lowered his weapon with insolent slowness.

The ahtra looked small at this distance—all muscle and dark hide, like an animal, but in torn clothing, carrying a mav. Eli squinted hard to see its facial markings,
scanning for the cheek swirls of Maret Din Kharon, but such detail was lost at this distance. No reason it should be Maret.

The ahtra stood still, watching them. Then the individual raised a hand in a sideways salute and set off again. In another moment the figure was gone. Though he couldn’t be sure, Eli thought the raised hand was a gesture of greeting aimed at him.

When he turned to face his four companions, there was no doubt
they
thought it had been for him.

Juric’s face streamed water as he gazed at the place where the ahtra had disappeared. “Now, that was a right friendly gesture.” His voice was casual, unlike his stare.

“Pocks for friends,” Vecchi mumbled.

“Twenty-three,” Pig’s voice came, causing Vecchi to twitch.

Nazim was still pointing the domino across the river, as though she expected a swarm of ahtra to appear. By her expression she had the same doubts as the rest of them about why the ahtra were here. Eli’s explanation of the ahtran tradition of mating Up World left out the role of the vone, but it was all they needed to know right now of information that was for Command’s ears, first. They all knew there was more than he was telling. Their worst suspicion might be that he’d made friends with pocks. It left an uneasy feeling among them, but the river was their problem now, not personal regard for their commander. They didn’t have to love him, just follow him.

He peered at the moving green hide of the river. Eli guessed that the river was shallow enough to wade. But even if forced to swim, they must cross it, and soon. So far the only initiative the bot had taken was to incinerate any creatures floating by within jumping distance. A bot on automatic was no strategist. Lacking any clear enemy it took a strictly defensive posture. If the AI programming couldn’t formulate a sensible goal besides
preserve, protect,
they might well sit at the river’s edge until starvation—or something worse—took them.

He made up his mind. He’d force the issue with their metal bodyguard.

Juric, also staring at the river, muttered low, “Too bad that pock didn’t throw us a rope.”

Eli let Juric’s comment pass. “We’ll cross, Sergeant.”

Nazim overheard, giving him a nervous look.

“It’d take the bot all day to build a bridge, if it ever does. So we’ll have to wade.”

He challenged Juric to say something. If the man was going to break ranks, he’d rather know sooner than later. But the sergeant’s bifurcated gaze was steady, both sides.

“I’ll go in first,” Eli said. “Maybe the bot will figure out how to defend me.” He turned to the quiescent AI. “Let’s see what it’s got in its toolbox.”

Nazim stepped forward. “Begging the officer’s pardon, but why not send Vecchi? He’s useless, anyway.” As if in proof of her statement, Vecchi lay face-first in the mud, exhausted from his push-ups.

Eli answered, “Because I’m the only one that doesn’t smell like liver pâté to the sharks, Corporal. I might walk out alive, but he won’t.”

Vecchi turned a muddy face to Eli, looking startled at his good fortune.

Juric muttered, “You go down, that dog can’t help you.”

“That happens, Sergeant, you will carry out my orders in all detail. That includes not firing on the ahtra.” He figured Juric might need reminding.

“Sir.” The sergeant nodded, scowling in what might have been pain from his lacerated arm, or simple contempt.

Trying to defuse the tension among the five of them, Eli repeated the old army maxim, “A good plan now is better than a great plan later.” By the expressions on their faces,
he could see they rated his plan something lower than
good
.

The bot was still watching where the ahtra had last been seen. Eli gave a whistle, and the bot turned its head, surprisingly like a dog.

“Sir.” Nazim’s voice, behind him.

He turned.

After a pause she mumbled, “Good luck, sir.”

He nodded at her, grateful for the goodwill. Then he waded into the pulpy water.

The bot trundled closer to the shore, watching. It whirred—Eli could hear it whirring as he pushed through the mat of vines at the surface. The river pushed at his legs, embracing him, sending a chill through him. Surprisingly cold, that water. Things brushed against his submerged shins as he pushed farther in, going deeper than he hoped he’d have to.

To kick-start the AI’s thinking, Eli shouted and waved his arms.

In the next instant the bot laid down a salvo of pellets that hit the water in a pattern around Eli. He just had time to plug his ears with his fingers when the brindled hide of the river clutched into a convulsive seizure from the sonic blast.

Eli staggered, and fell to his knees. His ears reamed out and aching, he tried to turn around as he heard thrashing noises behind him. Then he felt himself lifted up, Juric on one side, Nazim on the other. They dragged him along, his legs useless beneath him. Before them, Pig was clearing a swath, like an icebreaking vessel through an arctic shelf.

Alongside, the bot had extended an extra dozen legs, daintily tiptoeing atop the river’s green lid.

V
od rushed up to PrimeWay to see if the rumor was true.

With Zehops by his side, he saw that it was: a procession of the dead wound its way down the center of PrimeWay, against all tradition.

It was a long procession, for the jaws of DownWorld had swallowed fifty lives. Rolled rugs on the shoulders of diggers told, in clear and ancient patterns, the lineage of those gone to live in the great Well. The PrimeWay fell to silence. The tread of those bearing rugs thudded in unison, like a drumbeat.
Rugs we will never see again … never see again
. Dwellers turned from the data nubs, and even the data stewards stood at full respectful attention. Some bystanders averted their eyes, unaccustomed to displays of death. But no one could escape the heavy tread of the long parade.

Then, as Vod and Zehops watched, the gomin began to proliferate.

White robes flickered throughout the Way. A few more than usual, more than might normally be seen in the Way
at any one time. Here a cluster of white, there another pocket, and there.

Zehops noticed it first. “Cousins I never knew I had,” she whispered.

From many portals flowed streams of white. Colors winked in the folds of fabric, charging the Way with a nontraditional glitter.

Seeing some of the gomin at closer range, Vod said, “No cousins of yours, Zehops-as. These are diggers.”

“But cousins indeed,” she chided him. All the packages of robes given out, that Vod had thought were cast away, were now in full use. He saw diggers he knew well: Ooan, Belah, Hute, Irran … and joined by gomin now, all surging into the crowd, saying, better than any speech,
As dwellers, we are one
.

Zehops gripped Vod’s arm. “Now we begin.”

Vod couldn’t have been more astonished if the dead had rolled out of their rugs and walked in the way. It had always been said,
Dwellers do not change their patterns
. Now it might be said,
Tradition must give way to necessity
.

In his excitement, Vod found he had embraced Zehops, and she clung to him in turn. For his own part, it was with some heat. He inhaled her response, backmind saying,
Gomin, gomin
, foremind saying,
And so?

Zehops pushed him away with good humor. “Later,” she said. She pulled him into the crowd to join their white robes with the others.

Harn hailed them from-a distance away, working the crowd—Vod’s good lieutenant, now that Vod was the general. Or, as Zehops insisted, the Prime To Come.

The Way filled with voices. No one could be silent. Some gambled frantically in the wager fields, but most turned from the data plugs and spoke to their neighbors, their kin, every passing robe of white. Here and there insults
pierced the clamor, and angry responses hurled back. These were no timid dwellers of the SecondWay to be censored and silenced.

Then every data screen within Vod’s view went blank.

Hemms Pre Illtek appeared. A hundred faces of Hemms Pre Illtek, repeated down the Way in decreasing size.

Dwellers turned to stare. It had been long and long since the Extreme Prime had been seen in such a display. His face was puffy with distress. Though his markings were surely of the highest degree, it must be admitted that they were unfortunately pale for the season. His data tendril drifted to one side, sucking on a plug by which he dominated the flow, as was his extreme privilege.

He was pleading for calm. Vod saw how the Way deepened into quiet, dwellers mesmerized by the spectacle of Hemms condescending to speak so publicly.

Vod grumbled, “This will tend against us. Oh, to shut the fool up!”

Zehops set her mouth, watching the nearest screen.

“…  through normal streams in the flow,” Hemms was saying. “So we have our immemorial converse in dignity and inwardness. No need, attend me, to drift toward such things as white robes and unnatural inclinations. Now, then. You will all tend to resume your normal clothing, as you are predisposed to be my faithful adherents, despite what one’s servants may whisper in one’s ear.”

He closed his eyes, murmuring, “Rumors and lies …” Opening them again, his color improved. “But one knows that you love us, and would not flaunt my will. So then, one will be waiting to see such things relent, and you all return to your places and your habitual garments. Though where such robes can have come from deeply disturbs one.”

His tendril jerked, as though in a spasm. “Yes, white robes … While one thought you had been content with your natural work and the exigencies of the Season, now
one finds looms have been busy with white robes. Gomin robes!” The Extreme Prime’s color faded to chalk. “This, one will not tolerate. No looms will produce white cloth. That is what one meant to say from the first. No looms will produce unnatural cloth. Perhaps if one had made this clear earlier, one could be spared such an aggravation.” His voice swerved upward. “One will know what colors your looms bear. My servants will inspect all looms, and we must find no white cloth, attend me!”