Great Sky River Page 20

  Really, Nialdi, you must stop giving us sermons. I don’t care if you are an ordained philosopher. Can’t you just gaze upon the Chandelier, man, and revel in it? The mechs haven’t devoured it! Think what that might mean.

  Isympathize with you, Arthur. No one wants more than I do the return of humanity—of all trueliving things!—to our original station. Yeasay verily!

  Then stop jawing so much.

  Got to find a way out of here right now.

  Stick to business.

  —So of course the Chandelier era saw a tragic end. We had assumed too much about machines, their rapacity. But that is no reason to indulge in your fevered nightmares about the mechs. We—

  You deny that they chewed most of our original ships? Killed most of our expedition?

  Naturally I—

  —Then later returned, devoured our works again? Leaving—praise God!—this lone Chandelier. Merciful—

  Stop this cheap religious hokum! You won’t win me over with that. No one will be taken in by your—

  See Killeen!

  I know we’re overheated but look, it’s bothering him.

  He reels! He’s caught some of our feelings.

  Your hothouse mind, that’s what’s done it Your blind unreasoning hatred has—watch out!—

  Killeen knew he was undergoing Aspect storm, but he could do little to stop it. He could not control his own body. It was like the woman days ago, her Aspects running hot and wild.

  He felt silver teeth saw through his skull.

  Rasping hornets filled the dusky air.

  He fell on his leaden arm.

  Snow pelted his nostrils.

  Insects ate at his eyes.

  NINE

  The next morning there was what would have been in the old Citadel days a Confluence of Families. Today it was three lean, stringy-muscled men with straggly beards sitting in organiweave chairs inside a dullorange mud hut.

  Killeen heard of it from Shibo, who was taking care of him. It came as thickly spaced words, acoustic wedges, propagating solidly through silted silences.

  He knew they were ruminating on matters he was in no mood to consider. Some thought they should integrate the Families in what was both the fresh new Citadel and also, for the more somber souls, humankind, tenuous redoubt. Others felt there was no real in numbers and they should burrow underground, or disperse into separate villages, or even go back on march.

  Killeen didn’t care. His world had narrowed down to a simple set of intersecting forces, all hinged on definite objects.

  Toby’s legs.

  Shibo’s filmy eyes.

  His own swaying cordwood left arm.

  All solid and specific. He had to concentrate on them to bring back his full sensorium.

  His Aspects had overloaded him. Now they cowered in the remote back shelves of his reverberating, honeycombed self.

  He would heal, yes. A day, two.

  One day passed without his much noticing it except as a bar of Denixlight that slid across the floor and up the far wall. He ate and seemed to sleep for a moment and then the solid yellow-white bar was back on the rough clay floor.

  He sat and thought.

  If the Marauders attacked Metropolis, Killeen would not be of much use in the defense. Even when he recovered, he would not be able to cradle a projector or gun accurately. And if Metropolis fell and there was another in the long series of humiliating retreats, the Family would leave Toby behind.

  His sputtering Aspect voices called him, their thin whispers resounding when he gave them the least chance.

  But they had little useful to say. He had to get his arm function back, they said. Forget Toby.

  Killeen sat in the cramped soil-damp hut, watching Toby sleep. He knew that Fornax and Hatchet and Ledroff were talking only a short distance away about what were for him and Toby matters of life itself. Yet he did not stir.

  Every parent, he realized, knows at some point that his own grip on the future is slippery and must eventually fail. That comes with the weathering of age. In a way children were life’s answer to mortality. Their small but persistent presence was a constant reminder that you were no longer in the frontier generation. That history was preparing to move on beyond you. That for them to flower, their parents finally and justly had to wither and give ground.

  This was natural and proper and came without discussion or even clear thought. Killeen felt it in the pressing quiet of the hut. The random sounds of Metropolis came through the window as from a distant and filmy place, the mumble of activity like a voice that could be heard but never understood. He watched his son and knew he had to do something, but the hinge that would set him in motion refused to budge. It would not deliver him into clear action. He felt this as a sullen knot in him.

  He did not mind giving ground himself. His own life carried as little weight as his own frugal backpack. Years of death and steady retreat had not diminished his opinion of the valor and dignity of humanity, but it had impressed him with the random and uncaring way of things. That he could be obliterated by a casual blow from a passing machine which knew neither pain nor remorse—that was the central fact of the world. But that this world could now so easily annihilate his legacy, Toby—that was a truth he could not allow

  Killeen watched the slow, grave heave of his son’s chest beneath rough tightweave blankets. A fly droned in through the sunstruck window. The tiny circling saw inspected the bare necessities of the hut and then lit on Toby’s hand and wandered busily on it. Killeen let the fly go. It was alive and so carried its own rights. His father had taught him his burden and duty to all lifeforms, as their greatest representative. Humankind spoke for the kingdoms of doomed life. It could not transgress against forms lesser and unknowing. Killeen tolerated the fly until it started to crawl on Toby’s face. Then he scooped it up and carried it to the window and set it upon a passing breeze.

  The rise and fall of Toby’s chest was itself a small, persistent miracle.

  He thought of the mechs and the Citadel and his own mutinous arm as he watched the simple majesty of breathing. He knew he was thinking, but as a man who did not as a matter of habit make his conclusions achieve the solidity of words, he thought without the pressure of any result. There simply came a moment in the tranquil, hovering air when Killeen knew that he would sense what to do when the moment came. Then he watched his son awhile longer for the plain pleasure of it. The thought had struck him that this might well be the last time when he ever could.

  At last Killeen got to his feet, feeling muscles stretch and complain in his legs. From his left arm he felt nothing and expected that he never would feel again. His head swam as Aspect voices rose with their gusty advice.

  He squeezed shut his eyes and forced down the fibrous words. He could understand their worry about their own safety. Still, none of them had anything to say that he had not thought of before, and their incessant talk was a churning irritation worse than the fly.

  He strode toward Hatchet’s picket fence. His unsteady walk stirred dirt into the soft wind. He thought the fence looked even more ridiculous than before, a puny gesture against the silently implacable world. As he approached, the meeting inside broke up and the three Cap’ns came out. Each wore newly cleaned vest and pants and leggings of tightweave. Killeen dimly remembered that he should have cleaned his own, just as he should have tended to his hair. He ran fingers across his scalp and could tell that he sported not an artful cut or wave but a storm-racked sea of knots and spiky tufts.

  Fornax saw him first and chuckled. “Better?”

  “Yeasay.”

  Hatchet studied Killeen with slitted eyes. “Ledroff here says you’re a fast man when you’re not sick or drunk.”

  “So’s he.” This made everybody laugh but Ledroff.

  “Said you got a Face we can use.”

  “What for?”

  Ledroff grinned the small grin of someone divulging a secret and wanting to play it out for a while. “A li’ 1 job. Transla
tion.”

  “I don’t—” Killeen stopped.

  Ledroff grinned wider at Killeen’s evident confusion. “Ever seen a Rennymech?”

  Hatchet had told something important to the other Cap’ns. They’d all been planning together.

  “Heard ’bout ’em.” Killeen was cautious and kept his voice flat and neutral.

  He had never seen a Renegade. They were mechs which had gotten into some kind of trouble with their own kind. Outcasts. Loners. They lived on the outskirts of mech civilization. There were few of them.

  There had been sporadic cooperation between men and Renegades in the past. Contacts occurred by accident, when a Renegade was desperate. Negotiating was difficult because there was no shared language. Relations had seldom gone beyond simple trade. Most Renegades treated humanity as scum. They would deal with men and women only if in extreme need. But Renegades lived longer than men and so their contact with the Families spanned generations and became legend.

  Bud, his Face, had translated when Family Bishop had dealings with two Renegade mechs. That had been long before Killeen was born. There had been a prearranged meeting signal. Both Renegades had vanished inexplicably.

  In the space of a heartbeat Killeen summoned Bud and threw quick questions.

  Both the Bishop Rennies got caught by Marauders.

  Died the suredeath I guess.

  I knew some their mechspeak then.

  Mostly tech stuff though.

  I didn’t understand whole lot mechtalk.

  Hatchet said, “We been using a Renny for two, three year now.”

  “That’s how Family King built this city,” Ledroff said.

  Killeen nodded, even though he was still stunned. This was why the Kings were so sure they could burn uncovered fires at night, too. They had help from a mech itself. Some kind of deal that deflected Marauders from the center of the Splash. He asked, “What kind Renny?”

  “A Crafter,” Hatchet said.

  “Trust it?”

  “Have to.”

  “Why?”

  “So can get any damn help at all, is why!”

  “What kind help?”

  “Information. Supplies, even.”

  “In return for what?”

  Hatchet looked uneasy. “This one know who he is? Rest your people like this?” he asked Ledroff and Fornax.

  “Killeen’s a hardass,” Ledroff said.

  “Better humor him or he’ll never go along with anything you say,” Fornax added.

  Hatchet nodded, looking sour. “We got do some jobs for the Renny Crafter.”

  “What kind?”

  “Steal things, mostly.”

  “From where?”

  “Mech storage tunnels.”

  Killeen didn’t say anything. The look on his face was enough to make Hatchet explain, “Hey, look, we got ways. Tricks.”

  “You better,” Ledroff said flatly. “You heard what we agreed. You better have good ways. Else I don’t send any my people.”

  The three Cap’ns argued a little then, giving Killeen the chance to watch Hatchet’s face. Their words volleyed across the space between them.

  It seemed to him he could see all Hatchet’s inner tightness wound down into the knot at the end of the sharp chin. The little knob of flesh there jittered, as though it weren’t attached to the rest of the face at all and could express whatever it wanted. It was anxious, small, nervous, while the rest of Hatchet’s face was shrewd and sure. The straggles of black hair on the wobbly knob seemed alive.

  Hatchet was plainly the best leader of the three. Killeen was going to have to use him, without being too obvious about it. He had to take the role of a Bishop Fam ily member with a legitimate problem. That would let him deflect Hatchet onto the other Cap’ns.

  Killeen recalled Shibo’s gesture, finger to temple. Hatchet not right.

  Well, maybe Hatchet was a quirky but brilliant leader. The man was certainly clever. He controlled his face well, making it convey what he wanted without giving away what he really thought. He could produce a broad, friendly grin and then slowly cloud it as it dawned on him that his friend wanted something that Hatchet, for the best of reasons, could not give.

  But the face wasn’t perfect. Hatchet’s inner tensions tapered into the waxy ball chin. A drop of sweat formed among the black fuzz and trickled to the underside. It hung there, jiggling as Hatchet’s mouth worked, making hard, savvy points to the other Cap’ns. The fragile drop clung to the oily skin like a desperate man on a ledge. No one else seemed to notice this small drama. Killeen suppressed a smile. Cap’ns had a dignity and position that everyone wanted upheld. Maybe they didn’t even see the drop.

  Killeen waited until the Cap’ns had finished arguing and three or four other people had come and gone with minor bits of business. There were plenty of delicate issues having to do with matters between Families. As hosts of the only human settlement the Kings had the upper hand. But ancient human custom gave the other Families nominal equal status and that was what Killeen had to use.

  At a lull he asked, “Can this Renny Crafter do medical repair work?”

  Hatchet frowned. “I got it to fix something for the woman Roselyn last year. It knows some subsystems. But you’re not—”

  “Sure I am.”

  Hatchet looked at Killeen’s arm and then at Ledroff. Best to let the Bishop Cap’n deal with this.

  “No, Killeen, look,” Ledroff said. “You got an arm out, yeasay. But we can’t be trying patch ever’body up. Go along. Translate some. You can’t carry goods, after all. Don’t ’spect too much.”

  Killeen nodded. This showed that he acknowledged his Cap’n but stopped short of active agreement. There was something more here and he wanted to uncover it, use it.

  In a level voice he asked Hatchet, “How come you don’t use your own translator?”

  Hatchet’s face closed more tightly, making shadows cleave from his high cheekbones. “She’s sick. You know that.”

  “What from?”

  “Aspect problems.”

  “Like what?”

  “King Family business.”

  “Anything she got from the Renegade mech?”

  Hatchet barked, “You forgetting I’m a Cap’n?

  Ledroff started to apologize for one of his Family talking this way. Killeen cut him off with; “Don’t want know who it is, just what’s wrong. I respect King Family matters.”

  Fornax said, “Man’s got a point.”

  “I don’t have to answer questions ’bout Family.” Hatchet’s lips compressed into thin bloodless lines. His face became a mask of adamant withdrawal. But his ball chin let a generous bead of sweat drop.

  Fornax and Ledroff scowled. They looked at each other. They were both less powerful than Hatchet but on this point Killeen saw that they could hold firm.

  “Want help on this job, you’d better,” Ledroff said ominously.

  Hatchet didn’t like this. He studied the two Cap’ns. Keeping his face clear and sure, he said grudgingly, “She had some kind overload. Not like yours, though. You look okay. She just stares at the wall.”

  “What happened?” Killeen persisted.

  “She was on the last contact we had with the Renny. Came back with the others all right. Then she had an Aspect storm and… stayed that way.” He looked away.

  The other two Cap’ns stirred. When things got worse there was more Aspect trouble. Nobody knew what to do about it.

  “I respect your problems,” Killeen said seriously. “I share them. I’ll go, of course.”

  “For your arm?” Ledroff asked. “I know you need it, sure. But chances are you won’t get any help from a Renny. Just you do what you’re told, right? Family can’t let you go if Cap’n Hatchet here can’t trust you. As Cap’n I—”

  “Going for Toby,” Killeen said. “With Toby.”

  He turned and moved off without waiting to hear what they would say.

  There would be no more bargaining now. He had said his piece
and it was time to stay silent. Let Hatchet consider. Let Fornax and Ledroff think a bit.

  They would come around. Killeen had in his Face, Bud, the crucial thing Hatchet needed: translating ability.

  His arm hung slack and dead while the right one took up the pace of his walking.

  PART THREE

  The Dreaming Vertebrates

  ONE

  They had to walk a full day to make contact. Hatchet led their column out of Metropolis.

  Hatchet had let no one witness his transmission to the Renegade mech. A Cap’n’s private rooms were inviolate, by old Citadel tradition, and Hatchet made much of the things he had there. After he had spent fifteen minutes in the small, rock-lined hut he came out smiling. He had a look of pride and some relief and talked to several of his own Family about how hard it had been to arrange everything with the Rennymech, using a prearranged code.

  The Renegade had no way to encode human speech, Hatchet said, and used a system of number-signs. Killeen’s Bud Face reported that this was good. The Renegades Bud had worked with long ago had used a barebone number-code, too.

  At close range, though, Renegades could speak to the Aspects in a human’s head, relaying more complex sentences through the host-sensorium. Killeen had no experience with this and took it as more past lore, a tool, and did not waste time trying to figure what in the distant past would have yielded such a thing.

  Hatchet loped steadily on the move and with surprising grace. He covered ground quickly and was impatient at Killeen and Shibo, who were carrying Toby in a sling. Shibo had found a way to attach the sling to her exskell and this made the going easier. Hatchet took upon himself the job of patrolling, giving his energy over to long sweeps of both sides of the column.

  There were ten in the party. The Cap’ns had agreed that sending members from each Family would help bond the Families together. Hatchet would lead, as he had in all King raids before. Three seasoned Kings came, and three Rooks.

  Ledroff sent Cermo-the-Slow, because he was good at carrying loads. Killeen would have preferred Jocelyn. His old closeness with her was gone, but she was sharp and quick. Killeen refused to go unless Ledroff agreed to send Shibo. She had a quiet, sure way of dealing with mechs that he admired. Without his asking, she volunteered to help with Toby.