Judas Unchained

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Morton’s virtual vision gave him the illusion of light and space. Without that he knew he would have fallen for the Siren call of insanity echoing enticingly at the center of his mind. As it was, spending hours immobile in the armor suit with no external sensor input at all was pushing him closer and closer to all-out claustrophobia. Actually, there had been one thing from outside that still managed to get through to him: the noise of the storm had been reduced to a hefty vibration by the meters of soil on top of him, one he could feel through the suit’s adaptive foam padding. The timer in his grid told him it lasted for three and a half hours before finally fading away.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said to Alic.

“Damn right,” the navy commander agreed.

The two of them had lain there in the darkness with hands clasped together like a pair of scared children. That touch allowed them to communicate. Morton wasn’t sure he could have held out without the contact of another human being. He didn’t even remember much of their conversation; giving each other potted histories, women, places they’d been. Anything to hold the isolation at bay and with it the knowledge that they were buried alive.

There had been no choice.

When the storm appeared from behind the mountains and swallowed the last pinnacles, they’d had four or five seconds at best before it hit them. Alic had fired his particle lances straight into the ground, blasting out a simple crater of smoldering earth. “Get in!” he yelled.

Morton had dived straight into the hole, cramming his suit up against Alic’s. The Cat hadn’t moved.

“Cat!” he implored.

“That’s not how I die, Morty,” she’d said simply.

He didn’t even manage an answer. Alic fired the particle lances again, collapsing the soil around them. The Cat had sounded sorry for him; out of all the weeks they’d spent together, that was the strongest memory he had of her now.

Once they started digging their way out, he began to appreciate her reasoning. His suit power cells were down to five percent, and the soil was packed solid. He vaguely remembered that if you were caught in a snow avalanche you were supposed to curl up, to create a space. There had been time for nothing other than the most basic survival instinct. The hole in the ground offered a chance at survival. The impossible wall hurtling down on him didn’t.

It took a couple of minutes to wiggle his gauntlet about and compact the earth around it. Electromuscles strained on the limit of their strength just to achieve that. After the hand came the forearm, and finally he could move the whole arm in a little cavity. He began scrabbling. It took hours.

“There was never this much soil on top of us,” he kept saying.

“Inertial navigation is fully functional,” Alic would reply each time. “We’re heading straight up.”

The power cells were draining away at an alarming rate as they wriggled and grubbed their way along. Heat was a big problem; the suits kept pumping excess heat onto their external surfaces, but the soil wasn’t a good conductor. It began to build up around them. One more problem Morton could do absolutely nothing about.

Seven hours after the storm arrived, Morton’s gauntlet pushed through into open air. He sobbed with relief and shoved like a maniac, battering the suit forward, no longer caring if it was good technique. Claustrophobia was creeping up behind him, refusing to let go. Soil crumbled away around him and he finally flung himself out of the hole and into early evening sunlight crying out with incoherent relief. He slapped at the emergency locks, shedding sections of the suit as if it were on fire.

Alic came stumbling out on all fours. Morton helped him off with the legs and shoulders. They hugged for a long moment, slapping at each other’s backs like brothers who had been torn apart for a century.

“We fucking did it,” Morton said. “We’re invincible.”

Alic drew back, and finally took a long look around. His expression became troubled. “Where the hell are we?”

Morton finally paid attention to their surroundings. His first thought was that they’d tunneled away for kilometers to emerge in a different place altogether, possibly a different world. They were standing in a desert; it didn’t have sand and sun-blasted stones, but the expanse of raw soil and dark stone fragments that lay all around didn’t have a single blade of grass or tree growing anywhere. Nor was there any evidence that life had ever visited this place.

He looked up at the mountains that barricaded the western horizon, and called up a map file, integrating it with his insert’s inertial navigation function. The peaks corresponded to the eastern edge of the Dessault Mountains just outside the Institute valley. They were in the right places, but they weren’t the right shape at all. Every crag and cleft had been abraded away, reducing them to tall conical mounds of stone. They weren’t as high as they used to be, either. The snow had vanished completely.

“That really was one hell of a storm,” Morton muttered. “I never took Bradley seriously before.” He looked to the east, convinced there should be some sign of it. The horizon was a perfectly flat line between the newborn reddish brown desert and Far Away’s glorious sapphire sky. “Probably gonna go all the way around the world and bite us again.”

Alic was looking at the gentle saddle that used to hold the Institute. “No sign of the Marie Celeste. I guess the planet had its revenge.”

“Yeah.” Morton started scratching the back of his arms. Just about every part of him was itching now. The sweatshirt and thin cotton pants he wore didn’t exactly smell too good, either. “What now?”

“We survived. There’s got to be someone else around here.”

Wilson watched the tail end of the storm flow away into the east. The mountains around the High Desert were hard to see now; they’d become the same color as the land. It was a beautiful view, the air the storm had left in its wake was perfectly clear, there were no clouds anywhere. A doldrum calm had enveloped the whole Dessault range. If he had a regret it was the way the storm had stripped the snow off the eastern mountains. Real mountains deserved snowcaps to complete their majesty.

“It’s over, Admiral,” Samantha said.

“Are you sure? That seems a very bold statement.”

“You didn’t see the starship launch, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.” He smiled at her conviction. “And you’re quite right. I would have seen the fusion drives if they had fired. Your planet had its revenge.”

“Thank you, Admiral, you made it possible.”

“I just hope that storm dies out soon.”

“We think it will break up in the Oak Sea; there’ll be ordinary hurricanes split off from it, but the main body will power down before long.”

“Nice theory. Did the Martian data help you come up with the figures?”

“Yes.”

“That’s very comforting for an old NASA man like me to hear. Thank you, Samantha. My congratulations to you and your colleagues.”

“Admiral, our original observation team should be with you in ten to fifteen hours. They’ll escort you down. If you could make your way to the southern end of Aphrodite’s Seat they’ll rendezvous with you there.”

“That’s very kind of you, Samantha, but I’m just going to stay here. I imagine it will be quite a spectacular sunset.”

“Admiral, uh, I don’t want to…Are you all right?”

He looked down at his legs. The blood had finally stopped seeping around the epoxy foam. They didn’t trouble him anymore; he could barely feel them now. Every now and then a big shiver would run along his torso. The lava he was resting on had become quite cold. “I’m fine. Tell your team to turn back. They’d just be wasting their time. I’m afraid I’m not quite the pilot I used to be.”

“Admiral?”

“You have a lovely and strange world here, Samantha. Now the Starflyer’s gone, make the most of it.”

“Admiral!”

Wilson closed the link. She meant well, but she’d want to keep talking. He didn’t need companionship now. It was quite a revelation after so long, but he didn’t fear death anymore, not with Oscar and Anna showing him the way.

They’d find his body, and extract his memorycell, and re-life him. He was sure of that. But it wouldn’t be him who lived on in the future. He’d never accepted that form of continuation in the way the Commonwealth-born generations did. That old twenty-first-century way of thinking was one very tough habit to quit.

But this isn’t a bad place for it all to end, not after three hundred and eighty years. I flew up the highest mountain in the galaxy and helped defeat the monster. Shame I didn’t get the girl. I suppose she’ll be re-lifed with edited memories. Maybe her clone and my clone will have a beautiful future together. Be nice.

The cold closed in slowly. Wilson kept staring down on the planet. Watching the shadows lengthen and the atmosphere far below haze to gold.

Big black shape sliding through the heavens, blotting out the stars.

This must be the end, then.

Pain, just when he thought it had all ended. Jolting from side to side. Space suits. Low gravity. A long black ellipsoid parked on the gray-brown regolith. Airlock open, stairs extended.

I crashed. On Mars. Is this the rescue party from the Ulysses?

“Admiral, stay with us. Come on. The Searcher’s in orbit, we’ll get you up to their medical facility in no time. Stay with us now. This is Nigel. Remember me? Hang on! Understand?”

What about the flag? There was no flag in the ground. I thought we did that. It’s always the first thing you should do when you land on a planet. Says so right there in the manual.

***

Mellanie didn’t want to open her eyes. She was frightened of what she might see. There wasn’t any pain left, but her body remembered it only too well. It ghosted around her, taunting, threatening to return. So much so she thought its absence might only be an illusion. She could still see the horror on Giselle’s face. The blood that surrounded her like a fine mist as she spun helplessly. Kinetic weapons pulping her flesh.

“Am I dead?”

Nobody told her she was.

There was light now. Dark red of closed eyelids. Sheets touching her skin. Hard patches on her arms. Most of her torso was numb. She could hear her heart beating.

That has to be good.

She drew in a breath, and risked a quick glance. The room was strangely familiar. It took a while for the memory to come back: Bermuda room, the mansion on Illanum. There was a big cabinet of medical equipment beside the bed, tubes and wires led under the sheets.

Oh, well, there are worse jails.

Someone was curled up on the couch in the big bay window, snoring softly. Sunlight filtering through the white gauze drapes shone on his ginger hair.

The sight of him made Mellanie smile fondly. Crazy boy. Why he was here puzzled her, unless he’d been confined to this room by Nigel.

Her virtual vision grid was in peripheral mode. She told her e-butler to refresh it and brought it up to full operative status. A great many squares were dark; mostly her inserts. “What happened to them?” she asked her e-butler.

“You have received extensive clone grafting,” it replied. “Damaged systems and OCtattoos have not yet been replaced. Some functional systems were removed.”

The SI ones, she realized. Then she read the date. “Three weeks? I’ve been out for three weeks?”

“That is correct.”

“Why?”

“Time required for medical treatment.”

“Oh.” Now Mellanie really didn’t want to look under the sheets.

Orion stirred, saw she was awake, and sat bolt upright. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. I haven’t tried to move yet.”

“The nurses said it’d be another few days before you can get up.” He came over to stand beside the bed, gazing down at her in awe. “Are you really all right? I was really worried. They spent so long treating you. The chief doctor said they had to grow new bits. I didn’t know they could do that.”

“They can. Uh, Orion, why are you here?”

“They said I could be when you woke up.” He suddenly became terribly anxious. “Why? Don’t you want me here?”

“No…I’m glad you are, actually.” There weren’t many people she wanted to face right now. The boy was easy, though.

His smile was euphoric. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

His hand crept down to where hers lay outside the sheets, then darted back.

“So are we under arrest?” she asked.

“Huh? Oh, no. The security people weren’t very nice when the ambulance brought you back here. They said Nigel Sheldon was really cross with you. But it’s all been okay since he and Ozzie got back.”

“Back from where?”

“They flew to Dyson Alpha and restarted the barrier generator. It’s been on all the news shows.”

“Oh.” And I missed it all.

“There are Dynasty warships going off on Firewall flights right now. And there’s been alien agents arrested in the Commonwealth, and there was some big storm on Far Away that killed the Starflyer, and lots of other stuff. Tochee and I can hardly keep up with it.”

“Nigel’s back?”

“Yeah. He said to tell you the offer’s suspended. What does that mean?”

“He promised me an interview; that’s all.”

“Okay. And a bloke called Morton stopped by. He said you’d know where to find him if you wanted to.”

“Right.” He couldn’t be bothered to wait?

“Mellanie, where do you want to go when you’re better?”

“It’s a little early to…What did you call me?”

Orion hung his head sheepishly. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. It was heavily creased, as though it had been read a lot.

Mellanie recognized her own handwriting. She’d actually written it in this room.

Darling Orion,

I’m sorry I have to leave you like this. I don’t want to, but I’m not even who you think I am. My real name is Mellanie. One day I’ll explain, if you ever want me to.

“I’ve managed to find out most of it,” he said. “Who you are and everything, that the SI sent you. Ozzie explained.”

Her throat was tightening horribly. “Then why are you here?”

“I told you, they said I could be.”

“But, if you know…?”

He reached out, boldly this time, and brushed some of her hair from the side of her face. “None of that stuff changes the way I feel about you.”

Mellanie started crying. It just wasn’t fair that he was the only one in the universe who truly cared for her. Why couldn’t I have met him before any of the others? “I can’t do this. I’m wrong for you.”

“No you’re not, don’t say that.”

“I’m not a nice girl, Orion, really I’m not.”

Orion gave her a quick devilish grin. “Yeah. I remember. I was sort of hoping you’d go on being like that with me.”

She put her hand around his head and pulled him down for a kiss.

***

The building manager was standing outside the main entrance of the ancient five-story building, supervising the maintenancebot as it removed the sign. Paula watched the electromuscle tentacles drop it into a trolleybot’s wire cage. It lifted out the old sign and placed it on the stone wall, then began to screw it into place. She smiled at the familiar lettering.

“Madame!” the building manager’s face lit up. He bowed deeply. “You are back! Welcome, welcome. The world has regained its sanity.”

“Thank you, Maurice,” she said sincerely. “Slight exaggeration, but it does feel good.”

He kissed her on both cheeks. “Everybody is waiting for you inside. May I carry that?” He indicated the small plastic bag she was gripping in her left hand.

“No thank you, I can manage.” Paula took a breath, and walked up the steps. As the doors opened, the maintenancebot began polishing the letters on the sign. She paused and watched the ancient brass lettering start to gleam again in the Paris sunlight.

INTERSOLAR COMMONWEALTH

SERIOUS CRIMES DIRECTORATE

The first person she met when she walked into the office on the fifth floor was Gwyneth Russell.

“Boss!” Gwyneth exclaimed. “Welcome back. And congratulations. Deputy Director. It’s about time.”

“Yes, well, you can’t spend your whole life in a rut.”

Gwyneth gave her a very startled look. “Absolutely not. I’m footloose and fancy free myself for the next fifteen years till Vic steps out of the Boongate wormhole. Fancy a drink tonight? I know some good clubs with lots of sweet first-life boys.”

“Not tonight, but sometime, yes.”

“Sure.”

Behind Gwyneth the rest of the investigators were standing at their desks, applauding enthusiastically. Paula actually felt her cheeks redden. She looked around at the familiar faces, and nodded her appreciation. “Thank you; it’s nice to see you all back out of uniform again,” she said. They fell quiet immediately, smiling. “It’s customary for the new chief to tell you that there’s going to be some changes around here, but I think we’ve all seen enough of that. From now on it’s strictly business as it used to be. So—I’ll want a meeting of all senior investigators in an hour to establish current case priorities. I shall also be reviewing personnel files today and tomorrow to see how you performed recently, and we need to rebuild teams after the losses we took during the navy days. To which end, I’d like to welcome Hoshe Finn to the office; I’m sure he’ll fit in just fine.”

Hoshe gave her a grin, and raised his cup of herbal tea in salute.

Alic Hogan was in the director’s office, putting his personal effects in a box. He gave Paula a half-guilty look when she walked in.

“Sorry, Chief, I wasn’t expecting you for another hour. How did it go with the Director?”

“Easy. Departmental meetings are a waste of time at best; it’s all politics and budgets. Nothing useful or relevant.”

“You’ll be all right, now you’ve got the Burnelli family backing you. Five years, you’ll be the Director.”

“Humm.” Paula cocked her head and looked out of the big window. “Adopted again.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. I never realized: you can’t see the Eiffel Tower from here. You could from my old office.”

Alic swept the last pile of papers into his box. “Uh, you know that’s the one building management assigned me to.”

“Very symbolic.” Paula sat behind the desk and pulled her rabbakas plant out of the bag. The flower had faded, but another pink shoot was worming its way up out of the black corm. The hologram of the Redhound family was placed next to it. Then she took out a fist-sized perspex cube with a memorycell embedded in the middle. “I’m really pleased you’re staying, Alic,” she said.

“I don’t see a huge future for me with Admiral Columbia. Uh, I was surprised when you agreed to accept me in the Paris office.”

“From what I heard you stood up to him for what you knew was right. That means you’re in the right place.”

“Thanks.”

“In any case, you could have taken your pick of government jobs after Far Away.”

“I quite enjoyed the work here, despite all the politics.”

“Yes, well, that should be considerably reduced from now on; Columbia has his hands full at the moment. He’s pressing the Senate for navy involvement with the CST exploratory division.”

Alic let out a low whistle. “What did Sheldon say about that?”

“Let’s just say he wasn’t very enthusiastic. The two of them are also struggling over who gets the credit for the Firewall. I expect we’ll see Columbia’s bid for the presidency before too long. Now, I’ve got a meeting scheduled with our office’s lawyers and the prosecuting attorney from the Justice Directorate at eleven o’clock, which I’d like you to sit in on.”

“No problem. What is it for?”

Paula held up the perspex cube. “Interesting case. Gene Yaohui, aka Captain Oscar Monroe. Do we re-life him and then hand him over to the Justice Directorate for trial and suspension, or should he sit out his thousand years here?”

Alic gave the cube a startled look. “That’s him?”

“Yes. I recovered him and Anna Kime from Stakeout Canyon. Anna’s being re-lifed, with a suitable memory edit to remove the Starflyer contamination under the conditions of the Doi amnesty. My contacts tell me we’re going to be facing a request from Wilson Kime’s lawyers to hand Oscar’s memorycell over to him for custody on York5. If that happens Kime will undoubtedly re-life him. There will be a lot of political pressure on the Justice Directorate to drop the Abadan station charges; heavyweight character references, emotionally loaded claims of rehabilitation claiming he’s paid his dues to society, the precedent for sentence cancellation set by the navy interdiction troops on the Lost23, that kind of thing. Should be quite an interesting court battle.” She smiled, giving the memorycell a curious gaze. “I might even lose.”

“You? I doubt it.”

***

“The sea’s right outside,” Barry squealed as he ran back through the house. He flung himself at Mark. “Right there, Dad!”

Mark ruffled his son’s hair. “I told you it would be.”

“Can I go in now? Please! Please!”

“No.” Mark gestured at the pile of boxes and crates that the trolleybots had taken off the big removal truck. He could see them through the wide open doors, bringing more boxes. How did we acquire so much stuff so quickly; we lost everything in the Ulon Valley. “You can’t, I’ve no idea where your swim trunks are. And besides, I don’t know what the currents are like.” Which was a white lie; the development company brochure file guaranteed that the beaches of the Mulako Estate had benign weather and tides.

“Where’s the sea?” Sandy demanded as she came in through the front door, holding her backpack.

“Outside, come on!” Barry grabbed her hand, and the two of them raced off through the huge living room and out onto the veranda, Panda barking loudly as she raced after them. The lawn beyond had only just been turfed, gardenbots were still tending the new shrub boarders. It ended with a long dune that topped the private beach of white sand and azure water. A thicket of palms had been planted down one side of the lawn, shielding them from the rest of the estate. Mark had never seen so much civil construction work in one place before, not even on Cressat. That morning they’d driven out of Tanyata station, itself undergoing a massive expansion, and down the coastal road. Outside the burgeoning capital city, the land along the shore was one giant building site, with the developers offering exclusive homes in fifteen-acre private grounds. Mark had bought the plot at the farthest end of the estate, where the national park began. They didn’t need a mortgage, the Sheldon Dynasty had paid for it, although Nigel had wanted him to take something even grander on Cressat—in fact anything anywhere was the offer. Mark said no thanks, living in mansions just wasn’t him. He didn’t want to live off a trust fund, either; he’d seen the way Dynasty children turned out and he wasn’t going to let that happen to Barry and Sandy. So he’d accepted a directorship at the Tanyata offices of Alatonics, the Dynasty’s principal bot manufacturer, which paid him a colossal salary—and the way Tanyata was growing he was going to be earning it. Immigration was running at a quarter of a million a week, mainly refugees from the Lost23. Once all the arrangements had been made, Liz sat down with the architect for a week, designing the big airy house that to be honest was a small mansion. Now they were here, it didn’t seem quite real.

“Don’t go in the water,” he yelled after the kids. “I really mean it.” He looked around the big hall, trying to remember which doors led where. Then he caught sight of the marks that Barry’s sneakers had left on the living room’s polished hardwood floor, and winced. “Find out if there’s a maidbot,” he told his e-butler.

Liz walked in, carrying a box full of crockery. “Guess what?”

“Er…”

“The furniture store just called. They won’t be delivering until Thursday.”

“But that’s two days. What are we supposed to do until then? We haven’t got much furniture.” He still couldn’t believe the size of the rooms; it was like a house made up from aircraft hangars. The few items they had brought with them wouldn’t fill his study, let alone the reception rooms.

“Good question. The marshaling yard at the station is just a mess, the container is there somewhere. They think.” Liz gave the hall lighting a suspicious stare. “Those aren’t the fittings I ordered.”

“Aren’t they?” Mark thought the gold and pearl fittings were quite nice.

“No. Where the hell is that development company rep? She should have been here when we arrived.”

“Yes, dear.”

“What’s that?” Liz was looking back out at the front of the house, where a MoZ Express courier van had drawn up next to the removal truck. “Never mind, I’ll find out.”

“Do you want me to help unpack some of the boxes?”

“No. You watch the show, it’s starting. The portals were all installed—at least they’d goddamn better be.”

Mark hurriedly found a big floor cushion in one of the boxes, and carried it through into the living room. He put it on top of the scuff marks. Liz would kill Barry if she saw them.

He sat down and told the house management array to access the Michelangelo show. The portal projected the image across half of the empty floor. The resolution and color definition was superb, even with the sunlight streaming in through the open veranda doors.

Michelangelo was dressed in a flowing purple silk suit, standing by himself in the middle of the studio. “Hello, one and all. This is the show we’ve been trailing for a couple of weeks now, the one where we promise to give you the real story behind the war. And believe me, I am not kidding. To prove it, we have Nigel Sheldon here in the studio.” The image focus switched to a line of chairs, Nigel sat at one end, and smiled at the studio audience as the applause started. “Ozzie, himself,” Michelangelo announced as if he couldn’t quite believe the guest list. “Retired Admiral Wilson Kime, Senator Justine Burnelli, Chief Investigator Paula Myo, and our two very special visitors, Stig McSobel, spokesman for the Guardians of Selfhood, and a MorningLightMountain motile containing the memories of Dudley Bose.” Michelangelo applauded the line-up, then smiled winningly out at the audience to show how really happy he was with the next announcement. “And although it’s technically my show, the interviewer of course simply has to be our very own Mellanie Rescorai.”

Mark chuckled as the image zoomed in on Mellanie sitting behind Michelangelo’s big desk.

“You should have gone,” Liz told him.

He looked up and grinned. “Not a chance. Remember the last time she interviewed me?”

“Yes,” Liz drawled. “Anyway, the delivery was for you.”

“Oh, what is it?”

Liz gestured at the trollybot. There were ten children’s school lunch boxes resting in its basket. “There was a note.”

Mark frowned as he opened the little envelope. “Fresh from the kindergarten,” he read. “Enjoy your new house. Ozzie.” He grinned and opened the first lunch box. “Hey, champagne!”

“Millextow crab salad,” Liz exclaimed as she opened another. “Thornton’s chocolates. Damn, we need more rich friends.”

Someone knocked on the front door. When they went into the hall they saw three people standing on the shaded porch. Mark did his best not to stare at the tallest of them, a lean man wearing a kilt and white T-shirt. Every part of his exposed skin had an OCtattoo; golden galaxies glowed on his bald head. “Hello there, I’m Lionwalker Eyre, and these are my life partners, Scott and Chi. We’re your new neighbors. Thought we should come and introduce ourselves.”

“Please, come in,” Mark said. He was now having trouble not staring at Chi, who was enchantingly beautiful. “I didn’t know we had neighbors yet.”

“Aye, well, we’ve been here a while,” Lionwalker said in a broad Scottish accent. “Normally I’d have moved planets by now. Don’t like the crowds. No offense. But there are no uncrowded planets anymore. So, best make the most of it, eh?”

“We were just about to open a bottle.”

“In the middle of the afternoon? My kind of neighbors.”

“I know you,” Chi said. “You’re the Mark Vernon.”

“Ah.” Mark casually sucked his belly back in. “Guilty, I’m afraid.”

“Actually,” Liz said, as her arm closed around Mark’s shoulder. “He’s my Mark Vernon.”

***

Bradley Johansson did the one thing he didn’t expect to do: he opened his eyes. “I’m alive,” he exclaimed. His throat had trouble forming the words, they came out very wrong. These vocal cords were evolved for more sophisticated sound, and song.

“Did you ever doubt that?” Clouddancer asked. “We named you our friend.”

“Ah,” Bradley said. He tried to get up. When he moved his arms, the wing membranes came with it, rustling heavily. He looked down in astonishment at his Silfen body. “Is this real?”

Clouddancer laughed. “Hey, pal, if you ever find out what real is, you be sure and let us know, okay?”

***

It had been a long three weeks out in the new desert. Tom was tired and filthy after the endless days scanning the sandy soil and digging endless holes. He also wanted a break from Andy’s constant whining and Hagen’s wretched cooking—say about ten years. Brothers they might be, but that didn’t mean he could stand being cooped up with them for so long.

It had seemed like a good idea after their home had burned down in Armstrong City thanks to the psycho Guardians. The Commonwealth was keen to acquire sections of the smashed alien starship, the navy paid good money for pieces. All you had to do was head out into the new desert that the planet’s revenge had laid across the veldt between the Dessault Mountains and the Oak Sea, swing a metal detector about, and dig where it went ping. A lot of guys were doing it. They claimed to be very rich, not that you’d know it from the way they dressed or the vehicles they rode.

Tom and his brothers had never had any real finds. A few scraps, chunks of twisted metal that truthfully could have been anything. The dealers in Zeefield never offered much. Scavengers said if any true find came along the dealers would bid against each other, bumping the price up. Tom hated the dealers, but the only way to get the true price on the scraps was to drive all the way back to Armstrong City where the navy starship visited every couple of months to see what’d been found. Traveling cost them weeks. They weren’t making enough to do that.

Every time they went out, Tom was convinced that this would be the trip that hit pay dirt. The starship was huge, mostly solid machinery according to the dealers and other scavengers. That meant there should be segments the size of houses buried under the new desert. How difficult could it be?

This had been another washout trip. They had sensors rigged to cables that stretched out for twenty-five meters on either side of their old Mazda jeep. The ends were fixed to small quad bikes that Hagan and Andy rode, keeping the cable taut. That way they could cover big stretches of the new desert driving along together. The guy they’d bought them off swore the system could find metal twenty meters down. The price he charged them for the rig, they should have been able to locate anything a kilometer away.

All they’d got was a battered old pump made of some lightweight metallic composite, which was probably going to fetch a couple of hundred Far Away dollars, and three curving jags of metal that looked suspiciously like wheel arches to Tom. But they had wires and some electronic modules fixed to them. So you never knew…It had taken the better part of five days to excavate them. The trouble with the new desert was that it wasn’t a real desert, especially not now, a year after the planet’s revenge. To start with it had been a naked expanse of sandy soil. But the rains washed over it, and seeds from the buried plants germinated and began to grow. It was a faint green color now, and the soil was claggy, making digging difficult, especially after the rain. Streams and rivers were reappearing along contours. There were some lowlands that were now just bogs, impossible to traverse. Every time they went out, they’d spend hours digging the Mazda out of unexpected patches of mud.

Tom found Highway One just after midday, and turned onto it, heading north. Farther south, where the road ran parallel to the Dessault Mountains, it had completely vanished beneath the soil of the new desert. Here, it extended out in the open, sometimes for kilometers before high dunes covered it again. They slowly diminished the farther north you went, until half a day past Mount StOmer they ended altogether. It was easy to follow the road, though. Every vehicle left tracks along the line of the concrete underneath the dunes. You could even find the road in the dark.

When he was on the crest of one dune, he saw a dark figure by the side of the tracks a few hundred meters ahead. “What the hell is that?”

“What’s what?” Hagen shouted.

“Will you turn your fucking music off,” Tom told him. That was another thing: Hagen played his jazzy rock all day long at full volume.

“It’s a girl,” Andy said. “Yahoooo.”

Tom peered forward. No way you could tell. “Come on, guys, it’s someone with a busted truck, is all.” Not that he could see one. Not anywhere. But how else would anybody get out here?

“I’m telling you, it’s a girl.”

“Hagen, turn you music off right now, or I’m gonna throw that array out of the jeep.”

“Screw you, asshole.”

But he did turn it down. Tom gunned the Mazda down the slope. Not that he believed Andy, but…

“How much do we charge for recovery and taxi service?” Andy said with a laugh.

“Hell, I know what I’m gonna charge her,” Hagen said, and cupped his crotch.

It made Tom realize what they must look like. Filthy overalls and T-shirts, all in raggedy old sunhats, ancient shades. Unshaved for the whole three weeks. And the state of the Mazda was pretty poor. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered as they approached the figure who still hadn’t moved. He slowed the jeep.

“Told you so,” Andy said.

Hagan started an excited heavy breathing laugh as if he were some kind of retard.

“Shut up, Hagen,” Tom shouted. It really was a girl. She had short dark hair under a white peaked cap, and wore a sleeveless orange T-shirt with tight dark pants cut off just above the knees. And she was sitting in a very weird position, with her legs crossed and feet bent back somehow. All he could think of was how supple she must be to do that. A smile was growing on his face. He halted the jeep beside her. “Good afternoon, there.”

“Howdy!” Andy shouted. “Me and my brothers, we’re heading into town.”

Tom jabbed his elbow into Andy’s ribs.

“Yes, ma’am.” Hagan laughed. “We’re gonna have us a party tonight. Do you wanna party?”

To Tom’s complete surprise she stood up and grinned at them.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” said the Cat.

***

As always, lack of sleep made Ozzie testy. He unzipped his tent, flapped his arms against the chill of the early morning forest air, and wandered over to the fire they’d built last night. The Bose motile was standing beside it, feeding small chips of wood to the embers. Flames were starting to flicker again.

“Morning, Ozzie,” the Bose motile said. “I’ll have this going again in a minute. Do you want your hot chocolate?” It was speaking through a small bioneural array attached to the tip of a sensor stalk, a custom-built system that could easily be swapped for a standard Prime interface module.

“Coffee,” Ozzie grumbled. “It’ll help keep me awake.” He glowered at the tent on the other side of the small clearing that Orion and Mellanie shared.

“I’m lucky, this body doesn’t need sleep like humans. A good rest is all it takes to refresh me.”

Ozzie sat down on an ancient rotting tree trunk and started tying his boot laces up. The horses were snorting behind him, impatient for their feed. “Some humans don’t need any sleep, apparently. I mean, did you hear them last night? Man, they were at it for hours.”

“They are young.”

“Huh. They could at least be young and quiet.”

“Ozzie, you’re turning into quite a grump. Did you never have a honeymoon?”

“Yeah, yeah. Throw some eggs on the pan, will you, I’m going to see to the horses.” He busied himself with the nosebags.

Tochee was next up, unzipping the hemispherical tent that it had designed for itself. “Good morning, friend Ozzie.”

“Morning.” The array on his wrist translated his grunt into an ultraviolet pulse for Tochee. It looked like a bracelet with a black stone set in the top, the whole thing was bioneural and custom made. The experts in the CST electronics division had relished the challenge of coming up with bioluminescent ultraviolet emitters; it’d taken them the best part of six months, but the little unit functioned perfectly along the Silfen paths.

The first cup of coffee mellowed Ozzie’s temper slightly. Then the sound of human sex started to echo around the clearing, rising in pitch and intensity. The tent was shaking.

“Why do they both refer to your deity while mating?” Tochee inquired as it munched on some rehydrated cabbage. “Is it a request for a blessing?”

Ozzie shot the Bose motile a look, but of course it didn’t have body language he could read. “Uncontrollable reflex, man, look it up in your encyclopedia files.”

“Thank you, I will do so.”

Ozzie started eating his eggs and rehydrated bread. Trying to concentrate on the food.

Orion and Mellanie appeared a little while later, both smiling broadly. They held hands as they walked over to the fire.

“I boiled some water for you,” the Bose motile said.

“Probably cold by now,” Ozzie muttered.

“Would you like some teacubes?”

“Yes, please,” Mellanie said. They sat on the trunk together. She leaned against him, her hands holding his, and they smiled at each other again. “Do you have to leave?” she asked.

Ozzie chased off his mood; that was really why he was being such a dick this morning. “Yeah, ‘fraid so, man. There’s a split in the path just the other side of the clearing.”

“He’s right,” Orion said. “I can feel it.”

Mellanie gave the tall trees a wistful look. “I wish I could.”

“You’ll learn,” he said adoringly.

Ozzie caught all four of the Bose motile’s sensor stalks waving in unison. He put it down to motile laughter.

They all took a long time to pack up that morning, delaying the moment. In the end all the bags were loaded onto the horses, water canteens filled, lunches made ready in the day packs. Ozzie stood facing Tochee and Orion, feeling thoroughly miserable.

“Tochee.”

“Friend Ozzie, I have dreaded this time.”

“Me, too, man. But you’ll find your way home. We did.”

“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”

“Ha! Don’t believe everything humans tell you, okay?”

“Okay.” Tochee extended its manipulator flesh and shaped it into a human hand. Ozzie shook it formally. He wasn’t quite prepared for the way Mellanie threw her arms around him. There was still a small nagging issue of trust with that girl that he hadn’t resolved.

“You’re seriously going to do this?” he asked.

Mellanie gave him an innocent shocked look, which dissolved into a beautifully evil smile. “Oh, yes, I’m doing this. My inserts can record all the worlds we visit. Are you afraid I’ll beat your record of new planets to walk across?”

“No. But you’re at the top of the unisphere. That interview could have turned Michelangelo into your coffee boy. You knew that.”

She gave him a curious, distant smirk. “Black, one sugar.”

“Excuse me?”

“I thought you’d get it, you of all people. It’s far better to travel than to arrive, right? Yeah, I made it to the top. Now what? Stay there for five hundred years? On the way up I found out what it takes to get there, and what I’ll have to do to stay there. I thought I could do it, I really did. I thought I could be harder and nastier than all the rest. Actually, I can be, which is the really awful thing. But I found I don’t like the price. It’s not who I am—I don’t think. I need a break, Ozzie. I need to sort myself out.”

“Too much too soon, huh?”

“You changed the world with wormhole technology, but it was Sheldon who built the Commonwealth. Why, Ozzie?”

“More fun this way.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to take a look at the galaxy. When I get back I’ll have the recordings to step straight back into the number one slot again if that’s what I want.”

“I hope you find out what you want to be by then,” he said sincerely.

“Thanks, Ozzie.”

“In the meantime, be nice to Orion. He’s a good kid.”

Mellanie batted her eyes. “Not anymore, he’s not.”

Ozzie grinned as she walked away, trying not to stare at her ass. Her jeans were incredibly tight.

“Guess this is it,” Orion said. There was something caught in his throat, making his voice hoarse.

“Are you going to be all right?” Ozzie asked. “Really, I mean?”

“Sure. You taught me how to take care of myself. Except for those pickup lines. They were really crap, Ozzie.”

Ozzie hugged the boy, suddenly afraid he was going to lose it and start crying, which would be seriously uncool. “They’re out there, dude, you know that.”

“I do. Sometimes I think I can see them. They’re a long way away.”

“Well, you be careful, remember you can keep coming back.”

“I know.”

“And have fun on Tochee’s world. I want a full report someday.”

“You’ll get it.”

“Look after Mellanie. She’s not as tough as she makes out.”

“Ozzie, we’ll be fine.” Orion gave him a last hug. “Good-bye, Ozzie.”

“Sure, dude, good-bye.”

Ozzie shouldered his backpack, watching as Orion, Mellanie, and Tochee left the little clearing, leading the three heavily laden horses after them. He had a strong impulse to rush off after them.

“Saying good-bye is always hard.”

“What’s that?” Ozzie looked up at the Bose motile.

“I believe Orion is perfectly capable of surviving out here. He is, after all, a friend of the Silfen.”

“Yeah, but come on, he and Mellanie don’t have a brain cell to rub together.”

“It’s not their brain cells that they’re interested in rubbing together.”

Ozzie laughed. “No, it isn’t. I guess it’s going to take Tochee longer than it expects to get home.” He sighed. “Come on, let’s get going.”

They set off in the same direction as the others, to begin with. Ozzie could see them through the trees for quite a while. Orion and Mellanie would wave from time to time. He raised a hand in reply. Eventually, the undergrowth was too dense.

“Is this really a path?” the Bose motile asked. They were forcing their way through bushes and tall grasses, with the trees clustering close together. The ground was damp underfoot.

“Yeah,” Ozzie replied, knowing, feeling the ancient way stirring out of its sleep. “It just hasn’t been used for a long time, is all.”

***

It took them three more days, pushing through the forest as it turned from doughty pines to lush tropical vegetation that was really thick. On the morning of the third day, the trees began to shrink. They looked malformed, suffering from some kind of disease. Leafless stumps began to appear amid the living trunks, becoming prevalent. The undergrowth gave way to ribbons of slime that covered the ground. It wasn’t long before the dying jungle gave way to a field of boulders. Stone began to rise up on either side, forming gully walls. Thunder echoed around them, growing louder. They were walking into darkness now, with occasional flashes of lightning accompanying the thunder.

“I hear it,” the Bose motile said suddenly.

Ozzie nodded. He walked to the end of the gully, and peered down into the valley below. Overhead, a force field held off the thick black clouds. Lightning scraped across the translucent energy field.

The home of MorningLightMountain was laid out before him. The giant building that had consumed the conical mountain in the center of the valley. Vast rectangular congregation lakes, with their writhing bodies emerging onto ramps where they were marshaled into new regiments by motiles. Industrial buildings mushrooming everywhere.

“I can’t see a single living thing apart from it,” Ozzie said. “Nothing.”

“You won’t,” the Bose motile said. “Not here. There are farms elsewhere. Most of the continental land is given over to agriculture. But there is no wildlife.”

“What’s it doing?”

“Brooding. It thinks it is going to die. Not for millions of years, until the sun expands and fills up the inside of the barrier. But that is all it sees now. It doesn’t believe that any of its interstellar settlements will rescue it, should they survive our nova bombs. It knows they will devolve into independence and thus become its enemy just like all the other immotiles used to be.”

“Morbid son of a bitch, isn’t it? Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Of course. It is only fitting. I was the last thing to escape from Dyson Alpha, it is only right that I bring back a chance, some hope. MorningLightMountain cannot change now. Evolution here has ended. It cannot think differently, not by itself. Somebody must introduce change, for it will never come from within.”

“And you can do that?”

“I can try. I can insinuate questions into its thoughts. Questions it cannot conceive for itself.”

“Isn’t that a bit like making it in our own image?”

“I don’t think you need worry that MorningLightMountain will ever become human in its outlook. For myself, I will consider it simply developing a more rational outlook as a success. It needs to learn tolerance.”

“Good luck. That’s something we don’t do very well ourselves. We nearly killed MorningLightMountain in a knee-jerk reaction.”

“But we didn’t, did we, thanks to you.”

“And a few others.”

“It will take time, centuries I expect, and there’s no guarantee of success.”

“I’ll come back in a few hundred years, check up on your progress.”

“Please do. It will be interesting to see what you have become by then.”