Tides of Light (44 page)
Authors: Gregory Benford
Quath clambered across gutted mech carcasses, crunching them without taking notice. She did not doubt that the Tukar’ramin
was in the right, but prudence alone should be her guide now.
*Remain loyal to our injunction! The glorious Illuminates, the leaders of the true Path—they still say the Noughts of the
ancient ship must be found.*
Quath replied.
*You must escape with it. Return to their aged vessel.*
*The shuttle landing fields are captured by the renegade podia. They are everywhere!*
Quath saw that her view of events had been hopelessly narrow. She had fretted over issues of fate and death, while all around
her, no doubt, podia had conspired and schemed. Insurrection against the Tukar’ramin! Worse, the revolt was fueled by division
among the Illuminates. The idea still dizzied her.
*I barely hold my fastness in the Hive.* This admission rode on a gravid undercurrent of black dismay.
*You are better equipped than they. Remember, they outfitted hastily for their slimy task.*
*I can render no help, Quath.*
This somber hormone-tinged message sobered Quath as she struggled down the mountainside. Noughts already sprang and dashed
among the lower foothills. Their agility made them difficult targets. These were swifter and more crafty than the packs she
had slain so long ago, in defense of betrayer Beq’qdahl.
She saw Beq’qdahl now, a pale fog seeping among some smashed mech buildings. Her defenses were good, then. To delay them Quath
would need guile and craft abounding.
She stretched a cone of electrointerrogation down among
the Noughts. Now that their own small auras pulsed readily, she could enter them more deeply. She did—and recoiled.
How could she have missed this? The many flavors of Nought separated into two groups. Not a crude set, like digital/analog
or acoustic/magnetic, but an ancient distinction: sex.
She had known these Noughts still kept the rudimentary mechanism laid down by simple evolution. She had experienced it earlier,
when she entered the male Nought. Now she saw why she had been unable to extricate herself readily from its swampy clutch.
To them, sex was an absolute bedrock. It defined them powerfully. Quath’s inability to untie these primordial knots in the
Nought mind had nearly trapped her.
Had they not learned to banish such primitive and blinding forces in the personality? The podia had long ago seen the male
as irrelevant, easily supplanted by genetic tailoring. Some were kept in preserves on the homeworld, but only for historical
interest.
Among the Noughts, though, the sharp tang of sex clouded every perception, every judgment. How could they
think
in such a howling storm?
She sifted through the scattershot scents and harmonies of the Nought pack as it went into battle. So many conflicting emotions!
And not delegated to subminds, either. Instead, myriad impulses fought and scurried across the open stage of the sole mind.
Factions shouted and clashed inside each Nought. Instinct, reason, the whole motley company of hormone-steeped emotions—each
breathed in the veils of sex that spiced every fervent moment.
What impossible complexity! No wonder they seemed so antic. Their inner worlds were scenes of endless combats.
This further clouded her search. Just as she despaired,
though, she sniffed her own Nought. Here it was—safe! Her antennae picked up tangs of it below, moving fast.
Its aura mingled with another’s—the Nought Quath had briefly occupied before. The two of them were circling one of the podia.
Quath clattered downhill. If she could get within range—
The two Noughts were clearly planning on assaulting the hexpodder. Quath was too far away to be sure she could hit the podder
without striking the Noughts. Instead, she pried up the musky layers of her own Nought’s mind, searching for some inlet.
There. Quickly she injected a lump of knowledge about the hexpodder. It would be jarring to the Nought, but perhaps it could
assimilate the data.
Yes—she watched as the Noughts struck the podder cleanly with disabling shots.
Good. She could help them somewhat. But would she be smarter to simply collect it and scurry away?
No, there was something else. As she settled into the back recesses of her Nought’s electro-aura she felt springy threads
of connection. It was linked to others here. The web vibrated and undulated with a curious song of thick emotion and feral,
emerald instinct.
As the Noughts scampered downslope Quath struggled to understand this new facet. Though each Nought imagined itself quite
individual, beneath their consciousness lay thick, sinewy connections. They operated proudly alone yet yearned for union.
That was why sex had such heft for them. To disconnect the Nought from the others would do it severe injury. While her orders
from the Tukar’ramin were clearly to excise this one Nought, she saw now that this would not work. Noughts did not live by
head alone.
She had scarcely sensed any of the depth of this Nought when she had carried it down from orbit. She had ignored its
pain of separation from its kind. Now she saw that Nought links, if severed, damaged all.
The two Noughts met others. One produced a sharp, eager spike throughout her own Nought’s buzzing self. Here was true resonance.
Her Nought felt a symphony of urgings heavily laced with the complex musk of sex.
No, she could not yank it from these strange moorings. She would have to devise some better way.
Meanwhile, booming shots and rattling near-misses caromed through the foothills. Quath ran desperately toward the valley floor,
where a battle was beginning. One of Beq’qdahl’s gang sighted in on her Nought below. Quath sent a crackling blast into the
podder. It tumbled over and began to smoke.
Good. This podder was a stranger to Quath, and she was able to brush away the stigma that came welling up from her subminds.
But in the valley was Beq’qdahl, and Quath did not know what she could do there. She felt a hard, sinewy knot of conflict
arise in her. She tried to force it down into her subminds but they would not accept the bulked fibers. It churned in her
like a bleeding pink cyst. Could she truly kill her own kind in defense of a Nought?
Quath could not unravel the bristly knot. She ran on.
As Killeen approached Jocelyn’s small command party he checked his pace. It was a bad idea to display haste or anxiety. That
would unsteady others.
Then it occurred to him that he was thinking like a Cap’n.
At the beginning of the battle he had relished his freedom; now it seemed a hollow pleasure.
“Reporting,” he said simply as he reached Jocelyn. She crouched behind a broken mech-factory wall, listening intently to her
comm. Her face was drawn and smudged with dirt, but her eyes danced with nervous energy. She had ordered him down from Shibo’s
position commanding the hill.
Jocelyn gave him a look of harried relief. “Killeen—good.” She seemed to have to dredge her words out of some inner struggle.
Breathing heavily, she sat down on an overturned mech carapace. Factory debris littered everywhere. “I… I’m afraid His Supremacy
has decided against the breakout.”
Killeen said nothing, just nodded.
Surprised, Jocelyn asked, “You think it’s because we pulled out last time?”
“That guy’s crazy. Pointless, tryin’ figure him out.”
Jocelyn pursed her lips, obviously gathering her resources. A microwave burst hissed past nearby. Killeen saw that Cybers
had moved closer in from the hills, cutting off the cover of undulating terrain. Family Bishop had formed a skirmish line
along the river. They maneuvered now among the shattered rock that bordered the deep fault line. Twilight cast long blue fingers
from each protrusion now. As Family members fell back from the gullies and dry washes their shadows made them even more prominent
targets.
He watched a running woman retreat under covering fire from the Family. A UV bolt struck her in the lower back, bathing her
in crisp darting fireflies. Dying blue sparks glowed in the gloom. She fell. It was Lanaui, an old friend. Too far away for
him to do anything. He strained forward, watching, hoping that the shot had not damaged her major systems. Twangs and booms
came as Family hammered away at Cyber targets. Lanaui moved. She rolled over and
hobbled to the shelter of a burntout mech transporter. From her gait Killeen could tell her power systems were dead. Now she
would have to flee using only normal human strength. A Cyber could run her down easily.
“What”—Jocelyn bit her lip—“can we do?”
He said carefully, “Can’t make the hills, not without cover from the Tribe.”
“I agree.” From her stiffness he saw that she was having trouble yielding enough even to ask advice from him.
“Can’t keep goin’ either.”
“No.”
Microwaves rattled through Killeen’s sensorium. Nearby Family members ducked, but he just leaned against the smashed factory
wall. He was afraid that if he sat down his legs would refuse to get up.
“Night comes, we’ll stand out by our body IR.” Killeen felt an idea percolating somewhere and the only way he knew to get
it out was to keep talking, let his subconscious send it floating free.
Jocelyn’s eyes kept darting as she surveyed the combat grids in her eyes. She was having trouble keeping up with the situation
as parties of Bishops fell back toward the rough, gullied terrain opened by the recent quakes. “Right Think maybe we should
send the fastest out? Leave the rest, have ’em provide cover?”
This violated all Family combat doctrine and she knew it. Her eyes fixed on him for an imploring moment.
“They’d just hound us down,” Killeen said curtly. No reason to let her know how much this proposal disgusted him.
“I… I guess we’re stuck here. If we can hold our lines through the night—”
“Never happen. We don’t even know if Cybers sleep.
Once they got us pinned, they can call in whatever they want”
“Then… then…”
Since there was no point in making matters worse, he hid his irritation by flicking his sensorium to infrared. It might give
him an idea of how Cybers saw their situation. He remembered the time in their Hive, how they automatically interpreted objects
as though illumination came from the floor. Yet obviously they had adapted well to the surface.
As night thickened, the ground shone more fully, brighter than the mottled molecular clouds above. This resembled the Hive
lighting and probably gave them some further advantage. The cool, splashing streams were darker than the land now. The forested
hills were holding their heat well and glowed like soft green carpets. He turned toward the fault line and saw a slight brightening
where apparently lava coursed beneath. As if to confirm his guess, the ground trembled slightly, like a beast shaking off
a fly. Beyond the fault cleft he could see the black ribbon that was the new river. It frothed as if excited to be cutting
a fresh bed through the valley, running dark and swift.
“Wait,” he said. “Wait just a minute.”
He watched the night cautiously. A Cyber had been moving to their left and now it was gone. Was it beyond view, or had it
simply tuned to his sensorium so well that he now missed it entirely?
He fired a short microwave pulse toward where he thought it might be and then crawled around the shelf of broken rock that
sheltered him. Shibo was already moving back to the next line. Killeen ran heavily along the shelf and then angled in toward
a gully. Something sang past him as he sprawled down the slope. Dirt jammed in his shin shocks
and he had to stop to work it out. By the time he looked up, Shibo had ordered another fallback.
—New drill! Toby!—Shibo called.
Killeen saw his son’s signifier move back toward the river. The boy was running fast.
—Carmen!—Shibo sent.
The woman broke from cover and dashed. She had to leap over the fallen body of a Bishop man who had been hit only minutes
before. The man’s suit gave no life signs so nobody had tried to retrieve his body. They were leaving everything now, even
supplies and ammo. This was the rear guard and it had to stay light and quick.
Killeen called to Jocelyn, “We’re comin’ in soon.”
—Give us a li’l bit time,—she answered.
“Damn little left,” he said.
Nearly all of Family Bishop was evacuated. But among the factory walls and gullied land many bodies lay, too many.
—Killeen!—Shibo ordered.
He heaved himself up on weary legs and plunged across the dry wash. It was a hard run to the next skirmish line and his eyes
began to cloud with the exertion. Blue dots danced at the edges. The cool air cut in his throat.
He tumbled over an outcropping of sharp stones and rolled into the dry wash beyond. He fetched up against a pile of mechmess.
In the rolling his vision had clicked back to normal human and he lay for a long moment, gasping in total darkness. He switched
back to IR. Shibo crouched nearby but she did not even look at him.
—Besen!—she sent.
Killeen got up on his knees, his shocks wheezing as loudly as he did. The gritty soil got into everything and he had to clear
his suit collar in order to turn his head and watch Besen angling in from a factory ruin. She came into the dry
wash at a dead run and was nearly under its edge when something orange struck her helmet. She seemed to fly forward and hit
the ground solidly. She did not move.
—Toby!—Shibo sent as though nothing had happened.
Killeen reached Besen and tapped in the codes at the back of her neck. Her running numbers all read zero.
Toby loped into the gully, moving easily. A microwave bolt hummed harmlessly over his head.
He saw Besen. “What—what—”
“She’s…” Killeen could not make himself say it.