Furious Gulf (42 page)

It would never have happened this way if he had been with the Family or even with Quath. Family kept the sharp edges away.
Family was a fiction, he knew that now. A fiction defending against the furious gulf that yawned in all directions.

But a truthful fiction, too, because the story Families told by their example made it possible to go on. The gulf was always
there and you would see it again, certainly for one last time, but there was no special haste in getting to that moment. After
you had seen the gulf you spent the rest of your time knowing that it was there waiting and would come again. In knowing this
he was now free.

Below all the colossal energies of mechs and matter lay the whole long history of the human Hunker Down. Who had made that
happen? Why had Bishops and all the rest of the Families been condemned to the hard-scrabble skin of planets, when a refuge
like the Wedge was here? While dwarves like that Andro got to enjoy it.

Below that riddle were the Bishops, still alive when plenty of other Families were dead. Just luck, Toby thought. But it made
you wonder.

And finally there was the Calamity. He had fled from that catastrophe long ago, back when he was a boy but did not know what
a boy was. He and his father had lost Abraham that day. But now Abraham was here somewhere. Somehow.

To understand even a little piece of all this, Toby would have to find Abraham. In a place where direction meant nothing and
time was a place.

Partway up he heard footsteps. He was sure they were steps and coming from above. He hurried up the slope. There were level
walkways spaced at even intervals as he went up.

The walkways went off to left and right and he presumed they led all the way around the structure. They curved into the distance
and he could see no one on the ones below. He labored against a steepening incline and reached the next walkway.

No one on it. But the footsteps came slower now. As he climbed farther the footsteps got fainter as though he had left them
behind. They spaced farther and farther apart.

Dopplering in time. Going away into a future or a past, borderlands of the real. As if the walker were slowing, hesitating,
getting sluggish from fatigue. Toby himself began to tire but he could still hear the steps coming in long low notes and so
kept on.

The top was not what he expected. Broad and flat and smooth, the surface flecked with gray dabs. Magnetic field very strong.

No one. He could not hear the footsteps any longer.

He looked down. The walkways were so far away he could not tell if anyone was on them or not. Featureless and unmarred, the
great structure stretched away. In the hazy distance he could make out the endless wrestling forms of the timescape, esty
fighting against itself, Lanes intersecting in wrenching turbulence.

He turned away from the edge as he thought about resting for a while before going back down.

“Where’ve you been?”

The pale-skinned man before him was short and compact. The same size as Andro and the other dwarfs, but wrinkled and completely
nude.

“Understand, do you?”

Toby looked around and could not see where the man had come from.

“Look, we haven’t much time. You’re a Bishop, right?”

Toby’s tongue felt thick and useless. “Uh, yeasay.”

“Good. Latest generation, I’d judge.”

“Yeasay. Who—”

“Come on, get back inside where it’s safer. And warmer.”

The dwarf showed Toby his leathery back as he marched quickly across the smooth plain. As Toby caught up the stone split.
A clean rectangle opened and there was a ramp leading down. “Come on.”

Toby stopped at the head of the ramp. “In my Family you don’t walk into a place till you know what it is.”

“Oh? It’s an operations center.” The dwarf turned to go down.

“Whose?”

“Um? Mine. Ours. Human, if that’s what you mean.”

“And who’re you?”

“Oh. Sorry.” The dwarf walked over and held out a hand. “Walmsley. Nigel Walmsley.”

“What Family’s that?”

“The Brits.”

“How do you know who I am?”

“History. I’ve been waiting for you a long time.”

“How long?”

Walmsley looked as though he were calculating. “I make it about twenty-eight thousand years. Your time frame, of course.”
To Toby’s blank look he volunteered, “Approximately.”

“How come? What for?”

“Come have some tea. You Bishops kept alive that tradition at least, didn’t you?”

“Uh, yeasay.” Toby had not tasted tea since he was a boy. “At the Citadel.”

“I see, the Citadel. Good then. You’re Killeen’s son?”

Startled, Toby gaped. Walmsley nodded. “So I see. Message for you.” He moved his hands quickly and for a flicker one of his
arms seemed to be transparent, showing intricate webs beneath the skin.

Killeen was standing between them both.

His father looked worn, haggard. He was in Family Bishop field suiting, not ship gear. He glanced around and saw Toby. “Son,
I need you.”

Toby did not know what to say. He reached out to touch his father and his hand passed through the image.

Killeen did not react. “I know how hard it’s been. You can have Shibo. I was, well, wrong. I’ve put that aside.”

Toby’s voice was dry, cracked. “You’re sure?”

“Yeasay. I . . . got outside myself.”

“Where are you?”

“No way to tell. I don’t know when you’ll get this.”

Toby frowned and Walmsley said, “He issued this some time ago, local frame.”

Killeen stepped to the side and regarded Toby. “You seem all right. A little thin.”

Toby smiled. “All that ship fat got run off.”

“The mechs have everybody on the run. Plenty dead. Some Bishops, too. They—”

“Besen? Cermo? How—”

“They’re here, still in one piece. Nobody close to us is suredead.”

Toby felt a joyful release, an eagerness to see them all. “Tell me what all’s gone on. Have you seen Quath? Did—”

“Listen, the mechs have scrambled up the Lanes something fierce. Ruptured some. I don’t know where you’ll find this, but we
can patrol for you if you send out a singsay beacon.”

“I will.” Toby whispered to Walmsley, “Is he receiving this?”

“No, only this manifestation reacts to you. This is
a
Killeen, not
the
Killeen. I don’t know where the real article is now. Or then, for that matter.”

“No need to whisper,” the Killeen said. “I’m a limited representation and not ashamed of it.”

“What’re the mechs after? All the time I’ve been running, they’ve been on my heels.”

The Killeen hesitated, started again. “They want you and me both. Dunno why.”

“Want to surekill us?”

“Something more than that. Something funny’s going on with Abraham, but I don’t know what. Watch out for him.”

“Isn’t there a place where we can meet?”

Killeen shook his head. “Remember, I’m on the move same as you. Have to keep looking, is all.”

“The Mantis, it was after me.”

“Us, too.”

“Then we must be close to each other.”

“Naysay. More than one Mantis, I think.”

“The Mantis is a whole class of mechs?”

“It’s like dividing up water. Can’t keep the lines drawn.”

Toby felt a sense of comfort in the simple way his father talked, at the sound of his voice.“Dad, I—”

“Son, I need you.” Killeen said it exactly as he had said it before, same posture and tone. “I don’t know how much more I
can tell you. Just . . . let’s try.”

“Yeasay.” Toby felt an immense relief. “Yeasay.”

“I know how hard it’s been. Look, you can have Shibo. I was—”

“Dad, I . . .” Toby stood mute. It was strange, speaking to a recording and wanting to force more out of it. But he had to
tell the truth. “I had to pull Shibo.”

The Killeen was startled. It shimmied in the air for a moment, as if this news shook the entire representation. “You . . .
don’t have the tools.”

“I know. Did the best I could.”

“She . . . was too much?”

“I couldn’t manage her.”

The Killeen nodded somberly. “She wasn’t easy in the flesh, either.”

“I think I got—”

Beside Killeen, condensing out of the air, was Shibo. She was translucent and her legs were gone but the upper body moved
naturally. Head turning, first to Killeen, then to Toby. A thin smile.

“I . . . am still . . . partially . . . in . . . here . . .”

Walmsley said to Toby, “The reader is picking up fringing fields from you. She must be integrated into your perceptors.”

Toby nodded. “Yeasay, and wants to talk.”

Shibo’s face pleaded. her words sounded faintly in Toby’s sensotium. “I will be here . . . to help. I had to come out. My
dear . . . Killeen . . .”

With small jerky movements and a wrenched face she turned to the Killeen. Toby felt an eerie current between the two. Valences
moved, blunt and blind. They peered at each other a long time in silent, still air. Toby sensed a stuttering, hesitant sensation
pass between them. Small signals across a furious gulf.

Then Shibo lifted one hand, as if in salute—and vanished. Toby did not understand any of it.

The Killeen shook his head and turned to look off into the distance. His face seemed carved with deep, dry ravines.

“Good then,” Walmsley said crisply. “You’ve sucked most of the juice out, I gather. Hurry along—we have work to do.”

When Toby looked back to see his father’s reaction, the Killeen was gone.

The suddenness of loss staggered him. He closed his eyes, steadied himself.

Walmsley waved him on. “I know all this is a bit quick, but there really is pressing business.”

Toby took a last look at the endlessly roiling perspectives and followed Walmsley down the ramp. Into a dark where light sharpened
into hard points like a waiting bucket of stars.

So time had done its work and his father had changed. So had Toby. Who had been right or wrong was nothing now, a dry rattle
among fading facts, lost in the curve of events. The places where the esty had scarred him were firmer and he could take whatever
came without clinging to the past or foreboding for the future. His steps were light and he went forward into whatever would
be.

2019
A.D.
Nigel Walmsley encounters the Snark, a mechanical scout.

2024  Ancient alien starship found wrecked in Marginis crater, on Earth’s moon.

2041  First signal received at Earth from Ra.

2049  First near-light-speed interstellar probes.

2060  Modified asteroid ships launched, using starship technology extracted from Marginis wreck.

2064  
Lancer
starship launched with Nigel Walmsley aboard.

2066  Discovery of machine intelligence Watchers.

2067  First robotic starship explorations. Swarmers and Skimmers arrive at Earth.

2076  
Lancer
arrives at Ra. Discovery of the “microwave-sighted” Natural society.

2077  
Lancer
departs Ra.

2081  Mechanicals trigger nuclear war on Earth.

2085  Starship
Lancer
destroyed at Pocks. Watcher ship successfully attacked, with heavy human losses.

2086  Nigel Walmsley and others escape in Watcher ship, toward Galactic Center. Humans launch robot starship vessels to take
mechanical technology to Earth.

2088  Humans contain Swarmer-Skimmer invasion. Alliance with Skimmers.

2095  Heavy human losses in taking of orbital Watcher ships. Annihilation of Watcher fleet. No mechanical technology captures
due to suicide protocols among Watchers.

2097  Second unsuspected generation of Swarmers emerges.

2108  First in-flight message received from Walmsley expedition: “We’re still here. Are you there?”

2111  Final clearing of Earth’s oceans.

2128  Robot vessels from Pocks arrive at Earth carrying mechanical technology. Immediate use by recovering human industries.

2175  Second mechanical-directed invasion of Earth, using targeted cometary nuclei from Oort cloud. Rebuilding of human civilization.

2302  Third mechanical-directed invasion of Earth. The Aquila Gambit begins successive novas in near-Earth stars. Beginning
of Ferret Time.

2368  First mechanical attempt to make Sun go nova. Failure melts poles of Earth.

2383  Second nova attempt. Continents severely damaged.

2427  Fourth mechanical-directed invasion of Earth. Rebuilding of human civilization.

2593  Fifth mechanical-directed invasion of Earth. Diplomatic ploy thwarted.

2763  Fifty-seventh Walmsley message received: “Are you there?”

3264  First expedition launched toward Galactic Center from Earth.

4455  First appearance of fourth chimpanzee species; clear divergence from host,
Homo sapiens,
the third species.

FLIGHT OF HUMAN FLEET TO GALACTIC CENTER “THE BIG JUMP”

29,079  Formation of added geometries to Wedge space-time around the central black hole. Old One manipulation of local Galactic
Center space-time, apparently in anticipation of further mechanical-Natural violence. Mechanical forms carry out first incursions
into Old One structures.

29,694  Walmsley group arrives at Galactic Center in Watcher craft.

29,703  First human entry into Wedge. Some communication with Old Ones.

29,741  Arrival of Earth fleet expedition at Galactic Center.

29,744  Meeting of Earth expedition and Walmsley group.

30,020- The “Great Times” of human development. Unsuc-34,567   cessful search for Galactic Library. Successive conflicts
with mechanicals. Development of higher layers of mechanical “sheet intelligences.” Philosophical conflicts within mechanical
civilizations. Formation of mechanical artistic philosophy.

34,567- Chandelier Age. Humans protected themselves 35,812   against rising mechanical incursions. Participation of earlier
humans from the Walmsley expedition. Some collaboration with Cyber organic/mechanical forms. Discovery of Galactic Library
in the Wedge.

35,812- The “Hunker Down.” Exodus from the Chandeliers 37,483   to many planets within 80 light-years of Absolute Center.
Includes High Arcology Era, Late Arcology Era, and High Citadel Age as human societies contract under Darwinnowing effects
of mechanical competition.