Heaven's Reach

Gillian

LIEUTENANT TSH’T REPORTED FROM THE bridge. Turbulent bubbles fizzed as her tail slashed through oxywater.

“Engineer d’Anite is back aboard. Sh-shall we accelerate again?”

Gillian felt indecision like a heavy beast, clawing and dragging at her arms, her shoulders.

“Have sensors picked up any sign of the Zang?”

The Niss hologram expressed worry with taut lines.

“The hydrogen-breathing entities may be destroyed, along with their vessel. But even if the Zang are preoccupied elsewhere, some of these battling factions will surely unite to prevent our departure.”

“We don’t know their motives, or even how many cliques—”

“By appraising tactical patterns I count at least five different groups. Their forces are mostly robots of the sepoy-soldiery type, receiving instructions from various sectors of the Fractal World, working for local associations of the Retired Order.”

The Niss paused for a moment, then resumed.

“Let me revise. I perceive SIX battle patterns. One seems aimed toward opening an escape path for us. So it appears we do have allies among the combatants.”

“It appeared that way last time, too,” she replied. “These helpers — are they strong enough to protect us?”

“Doubtful. The crucial moment will come when we pass through the narrowest part of the gap that’s been torn in the Fractal World. Any group might choose to destroy us at that point, using the defense beams we saw earlier.”

That was a cheery thought to dwell on as Streaker reentered the gaping corridor filled with evaporating debris and shimmering artificial comets. Only this time a sparkle of battle also followed the Earthship, ebbing and surging around it.

Gillian had Kaa steer just half a million kilometers from one ragged edge of the great wound, threading a path between the stumps and stark shadows of titanic, brittle spires.

“Maybe someone will think twice about shooting at us with those big guns, if we’re so close to the shell itself.”

From here they could make out some of the giant machines striving to shore up the torn criswell structure, using nets woven from great spools of carbon thread to arrest its decay. These were a completely different order of mechanism, autonomous and sapient — hired workers, not slaves.

In fact, though, most of the supply spools looked nearly empty. They are running short of raw materials, Gillian thought. All their efforts may fail if this keeps up … especially if bands of Old Ones fight instead of helping.

A dolphin’s joyful shout erupted behind Gillian. She turned in time to see Emerson d’Anite enter the Plotting Room, his head and shoulders slumped in apparent depression.

“Well, there’s our hero—” Gillian began. But Sara Koolhan rushed past with a glad cry to embrace her friend. The little neo-chimpanzee, Prity, leaped among them, and soon Emerson was enveloped. Dolphins gathered around, clicking excitedly while their walkers hissed and clanked. The Jijoan youngsters — Alvin and his friends — slapped Emerson’s back, shaking his hand and telling him how wonderful he was.

Even if their words made no sense to him, the air of approval seemed to wash away some of the man’s dour mood. His eyes lifted to meet Gillian’s, and she returned his tentative smile with one of her own. But then the Niss cut in.

“Two new swarms are approaching, Dr. Baskin.”

She turned to look. “More sepoy robots?”

“No … and it worries me. These fresh arrivals are much more formidable beings, Gillian. They are independent constructor-contractors. Autonomous members of the Machine Order of Life.”

“Show me!”

The fresh arrivals were already near, coming in crowds of about a dozen each from opposite directions — one depicted as a cluster of red dots, the other green. Each group swept imperiously through the battle zone. As evidence of their status, none of the combatant robots fired on the newcomers. Instead, most scurried out of their way.

This looks bad, Gillian thought as the fierce green sparkles entered visual range. Each of the leaders resembled a giant spiny sea urchin, almost a tenth as long as Streaker, though most of that was in spindly leg-appendages that writhed as the mechanism flew toward Streaker’s tail.

“Impact-t in thirty secondsss!” called Tsh’t from the bridge. “Shall we open fire?”

“Negative!” Gillian shouted. “No one has used a beam or particle weapon on us yet. I’m not about to start. Let’s see what their business is first.”

One swarm converged near Streaker’s aft end. Several of the big, spiky mechs clamped on. Soon, a bright, shimmering glow began to float around them.

“They are dissolving the ship!” the Niss cried out. “Matter removal rates exceed thirty tons per second … and rising. We must fight them off!”

Tsh’t reported targeting one of the machines with a laser turret, but Gillian countermanded the fire order.

“Don’t do a thing till I say so! Akeakemai, give me a zoom focus on the machines that are still floating out there, behind the ones that landed!”

It was hard to peer past the fog that was being kicked up. But Gillian thought she made out a giant cylinder. A hooplike shape.

“It’s a spool! Like the ones they unreel when they weave repair nets.” She turned her head and cried, “Quick. What is the spectral signature of the removed material? Is it pure carbon?”

A brief pause. When the Niss spoke again, it sounded subdued.

“Carbon it is.”

“How pure?”

“Very. The vapors contain no metal from Streaker’s true hull. How did you know?”

Gillian’s throat still felt as if her heart was beating there. But some of the panicky feeling ebbed.

“These big guys don’t give a damn about petty bickering among hot-tempered oxy-life-forms. They have a job to do, and they’re running out of raw materials. Their best supply of carbon was already disrupted when the Jijoans somehow triggered flares on Izmunuti. But we carry layers of the same material sought by the harvester sail-ships! This work team must have sensed us passing nearby and sent machines to fetch more for repairs.”

“Confirmed,” said the Niss. “As they move slowly along the hull, evaporated material is being sucked up and spun into polycarbon fiber, leaving the fuselage beneath intact.”

Hannes Suessi called jubilantly from Engineering, clearly delighted to learn how the machines swiftly removed a coating that had stymied him for months.

“At this rate, we’ll shed several megatons in no time,” he added. “It’s gonna make us much more nimble.”

By now the second swarm — shown as red pinpoints — arrived in the vicinity of Streaker’s nose. Another set of enormous mechanisms clamped onto the bow. These huge visitors showed no special interest in the area around the rayed spiral symbol.

Gillian nodded.

“I guess they’ll strip us from both ends now. Let’s pray this really does leave the hull itself intact. If our luck has turned, their presence may deter anyone else from shooting at us till we’re near the t-point.”

The Niss whirled thoughtfully.

“Of course there is another danger. If law and consensus are totally broken throughout the Fractal World, nothing prevents the various ‘retired’ factions from getting in touch with their younger cousins, via hyperwave or time drop.”

“In other words, we might see battlefleets of Soro, Jophur, or Tandu come boiling through at any minute. Great.” She sighed. “All the more reason to get the hell—”

The spinning moiré patterns suddenly ballooned outward — an expression of surprise.

“Something is different,” the Niss announced. “The group at the bow … it is not doing the same thing as those at the stern.”

Gillian took a step forward.

“Show me!”

At first the scene looked similar. Several long-legged machines clung to Streaker’s soot-covered hull, plying the black surface with shimmering rays. Only this time no milky haze of vapor poured toward mouthlike collectors. No streams of dark fiber spun out the machines’ back ends, to collect on huge spools. Instead, something weird happened to the dense coating Streaker had picked up during its passages through Izmunuti’s atmosphere. A rainbowlike sheen rippled and condensed slickly behind the great mechanisms as they marched a spiral pattern along the hull.

No one spoke for several minutes. So unexpected and unexplained was this behavior that Gillian had no idea how to react.

“They’re … not taking the carbon away. They are—”

“Transforming it, somehow,” agreed the Niss.

At last, Suessi called. The chief engineer’s cyborg image appeared on a secondary screen. Although his head was now a mirrored dome, Gillian could tell from the old man’s body language that he had a theory.

“The soot poured out by Izmunuti … the phases that condensed on us were mostly carbon, all right. But a large fraction consisted of fullerenes — so-called ‘buckeyballs’ and ‘buckeytubes.’ There were a lot of Penrose diamond states, too. The material had some mighty strange properties, as we found when we tried cutting it, back on Jijo. All sorts of caged impurities give it traits like a high temperature superconductor, plus an altered coefficient of friction—”

“Hannes!” Gillian interrupted. “Please get to the point.”

The silvery dome nodded.

“I’ve scanned the surface these new machines are leaving behind. The coating is far more uniform than raw star soot. The buckey states intermesh with each other in ways I’ve never seen. I’d have to guess the properties we observed before would be enhanced by many orders of magnitude.”

One of the dolphins muttered.

“Oh great-t. Now it will be even harder to ssscrape off!”

Gillian shook her head.

“But what are they trying to accomplish? To seal us inside?”

If so, there might still be time to evacuate the ship, sending the crew scrambling for airlocks at the stern. Perhaps they might find shelter among the first group of machines.

“Our forward laser turret has a clear line of fire,” announced Tsh’t.

Gillian motioned with her right hand, restraining any action for now.

One of the kids from Jijo spoke up then. The little wheeled g’Kek, who called herself Huck, made a good lookout, since she was able to scan four screens at once with her waving eyestalks.

“Uh-oh,” she remarked. “It looks like our new visitors are gonna start fighting, too.”

She pointed to where support vessels from both groups could be seen drifting toward each other. Barely constrained energies crackled as a showdown developed. Scanners showed that many of the lesser war machines were withdrawing from this confrontation.

They’ll use us as a battleground. How could things possibly get any worse?

Gillian knew it was a mistake to put it that way. One should not tempt Ifni, the goddess of luck, who could always come up with one more ratcheting of fate.

The Niss hologram coiled nearby. Its voice was low, resigned.

“Now we are being scanned from the Fractal World itself. Those controlling the great disintegrator beams have turned their targeting apparatus our way. We may soon go the way of the late Zang.”

“They’ll risk hitting the habitat, right where it’s most vulnerable!”

“Apparently, some think it worth the risk, in order to intimidate us. Or else they would destroy what they cannot keep.”

Gillian had seen those shafts of annihilation in action. Streaker could be vaporized in seconds.