Tides of Light (49 page)

For a long moment as the immense hand continued to squeeze him, Killeen could think of nothing. Then he marshaled his thoughts
and let a pointed, simple message sit solidly in the forefront of his mind.

A strumming answer came. Cloudy, diffuse, as if it issued from several throats at once. The Cyber’s voice.

Yes. We will try
.

Something slapped against the outside skin of the Cyber. A sticky blue glob oozed out along the seam lines. The whistling
died. An acrid smoke rose from the blue fluid. Killeen knew it was some internal pap the Cyber used. It gave off a foul odor.
He fought an impulse to cough and retch. But the seams held. The screech of escaping air died away.

The immense weight now lessened. Killeen could turn his head a fraction and see the screen wall.

Outside, the Skysower stretched up into blueblack emptiness. He was looking along the great chestnut-colored length of it.
Shrubs nearby were flattened against the rough bark. The wind’s high bowl tore fruitlessly at them.

Skysower was a great cable stretching into the steadily darkening sky. Ebony laminations reached along it. Ash-blond segments
like cross-struts connected these into a grid. They hugged the woody curve of the bark and the fierce gale could find no edge
to pry them up.

The solid, implacable roar made their compartment vibrate like a living thing. Its hammering ferocity rose. Killeen wondered
how long even the Cyber’s strength could hold it moored there.

Suddenly the noise muted as though someone had thrown a switch.

We are exceeding the speed of sound, I believe.

Along the towering length Killeen saw thin hickory-colored edges rise. They were like ailerons, sculpting the air. Long, strumming
notes came through to Killeen.

It appears to be guiding itself like a giant flying wing. Net acceleration is lessening as we rise into the upper atmosphere.
The structure is relaxing.

Pops and creaks rang out.

“I… what’s…” Toby got out between clenched teeth.

“Hold on.”

“Besen…”

“She’s quick.” Killeen tried to fill his voice with reassurance. “She’ll get away from that fight.”

Shibo’s wound was worse. He tightened her bandage but working against the heavy acceleration made him clumsy. The systems
damage worried him most. He wished he could tell Toby something to relieve the anxiety he read in the boy’s face. He had no
idea where they were going.

If the Cyber can cling to this for another fifteen minutes we may be able to leap off. Then we will be one-sixth of the way
around the planet’s equator and quite beyond the dangers of the other Cybers.

“Yeasay,” Killeen managed to say. “And we’ll slam into the ground.”

True, our total acceleration downward will be considerable, about 2.4 gravities. But at the optimum moment, as the tip hovers
over the surface, we can in principle simply step off, with only a net sidewise velocity. Then perhaps the Cyber can fly us
to safety.

Such theoretical events seemed far away compared with the cycling of Shibo’s indices. Her face was untroubled and chalk white.

Outside, the last haze of blue faded into hard black. Nearby stars bit brightly at his eyes. Molecular clouds gave their gauzy
wash to the vault.

Killeen’s thoughts came like thick syrup. The immense hand that pressed him to the floor had eased for a while. Now it leaned
harder. His chest ached with the effort of breathing. He wondered distantly how long their air in the cramped compartment
would last.

We shall be in high vacuum for about eight minutes more. I believe you can survive easily.

But Arthur did not feel the gathering ache that spread from his chest and into his arms and legs. Much more of this and Shibo
would lose consciousness—which might not be a bad idea, except that Killeen did not know what they would have to do to survive.
If the Cyber failed…

He could no longer afford the luxury of speculation. Living was labor enough. He turned his attention to the increasing effort
of forcing breath into his lungs. His heart thudded in slow, tortured beats.

He grasped with leaden fingers for Shibo. A slight labored heave told him she still breathed.

Sluggishly he formulated a question and displayed it across his fevered and frayed consciousness.

We are Quath’jutt’kkal’thon. We carried you before
.

“What… happens…”

We must cautiously adjust our dynamics
.

Killeen could not understand. As he watched, the ivory curve of the planet rolled up in the wall screen. Farther away the
cosmic string hung unmoving, a dull amber arc.

He felt the Cyber sway and rock in slow undulations. He could see great long swells racing toward them from the center of
the Skysower. Waves excited by the air turbulence. As they reflected at the tip they gave it a sharp snap, like a whip cracking.
The Cyber held on grimly.

Vibrations had moved his hand away from Shibo. He rolled to look at her and pain lanced into his shoulder. Her eyelids were
sunken. He could not tell if she was still alive.

As they rose farther above the planet the whole disk became visible. Repeated sucking of the core metal had smashed the outlines
of mountain ranges. Rivers now cut fresh paths. Lakes had spilled into new muddy reservoirs, leaving enormous bare brown plains.

He could see all of Skysower now. It curved like a slender snake that smoothly turned head over tail. The far end was just
piercing the atmosphere. Undulations ran like waves in a long string, driven by the supersonic collision of this gargantuan
living being with its blanket of air.

As he watched he slowly realized that some of the thicker vines nearby were throbbing. Bulges in them contracted
rhythmically. It came to him that Skysower had to circulate its fluids, like any living thing. These coarse, chestnut-brown
tubes were like vegetable hearts, working against the eternal outward thrust that came from Skysower’s spin. Somewhere beneath
the grainy bark something like muscles must be sliding and clenching, to righten displacements and masses and maintain the
even turning of the huge whirling organism.

Suddenly, at the edge of his vision, he saw plumes of gas burst forth at the nearby teak-colored horizon. Luminous geysers
caught the sun’s rays. From the Cyber he caught a thread of understanding. To keep itself rotating, this huge thing breathed
in air during its passage. Then it exhaled, perhaps burning the gases in some fashion to gain added thrust. This paid back
the momentum stolen by the atmosphere’s supersonic turbulence.

All this came to him as he fought the sure rise of pressure against his chest. He thought distantly now, barely able to hold
on to consciousness against the worsening weight.

Then something rushed by them and caught his attention. A second tubular shape passed nearby and he saw that hot yellow balls
burned at regular intervals along its length. He remembered the forest fire. These were the trees that the vines had snagged
from the forest below.

Against blurring pressure he still managed to feel surprise. The forests of umbrella-topped trees—they must have grown from
the Skysower’ s own seeds. Snatched up on the harvesting vines, they had now been ćarried aloft. Some deep biochemical command
had activated their stores of fuel. Far from being a mech energy resource, as Killeen had guessed, these trees were now expending
their stored chemical energy to launch themselves away from their mother plant.

Another tree shot past. Yellow plumes pushed it to high
velocity. It hurtled after its fellows, which were already shrinking logs.

After conferring with Grey (not an easy business, I assure you) I calculate that our speed exceeds thirteen kilometers per
second. In your terms—

“Skip the techtalk,” Killeen muttered. “What’s it
mean?
”

This creature—and I do not necessarily agree that it is simply a plant, given its many animallike functions, including an
active circulation system—is spreading its progeny. They leave it here, at the top of its arc, with maximal velocity. They
can easily reach the outer precincts of this solar system. From there they can drift to other stars. Seeding, pure and simple.

Killeen stared at Shibo and thought fruitlessly, rummaging for some way to repair her systems’ failure. She grew whiter.

I am repeating the speculations of the Grey woman, of course. I have done the calculations and what she proposes is marginally
within possibility.

“So… so in every one of those trees there’s a seed for another Skysower?”

Killeen could barely breathe. He watched the trees jet away on their columns of flame. To swim the sea of stars. To grow into
more Skysowers. Life persistent and undeniable. They hung within view over the still body of Shibo.

His bones seemed to stretch. He grasped for Shibo and could not reach her. Distant bass notes came strumming
through the Cyber’s body as waves made the woody surface thrash and twist.

Suddenly the Cyber freed its hold on the bark. All of its visible legs withdrew their steel grapplers and instead pushed against
the brown surface. Instantly the oppressive weight lifted. Killeen floated in complete freedom.

“Are you—” He hugged Shibo. Did her eyes flutter?

In complete silence the Cyber rose away from Skysower’s slim silhouette. The turning ribbon now pointed straight down into
the wounded planet.

They shot out along a tangent to Skysower’s whirling arc. Soon it had rotated below them. It was again a thin line cutting
across the face of the ruined world.

We are properly pointed
, the strangely liquid thoughts of the Cyber came.
My sisters have stilled the Cosmic Circle so it presents no obstacle. We are entering a rendezvous orbit
.

“Where?”

Close to the station. Your vessel lies there. There is a task awaiting your kind
.

“Hurry! There’re medical supplies on
Argo
—”

Killeen peered ahead and saw a glimmering that beckoned and promised.

But Shibo died long before they could reach it.?

EPILOG

T
he Cap’n walked the hull again.

A long time seemed to have passed since he last was here. Only a few weeks, he knew. But time was not truly measured by the
ticking of unseen arbiters. It made its lasting marks in the soul.

In that distant time he had watched the approach of the station, wondering what forces marshaled there. Problems of command
had vexed him. He had fretted over whether to assault the huge, silvery construction. He could see the station now, too—a
platinum-hard dab of light swimming near the brown crescent of New Bishop.

The name mocked him. The Bishops had found the same ageold trials here. This place had meant more struggle, not a peaceful
destination. And losses. Huge, bitter losses.

“Shibo,” he said. “Is this link working?”

The light voice came hesitantly.—I, I, yeasay.—

“Toby?”

—I’m here, Dad.—

Yes
, Killeen thought,
we’re all here. Together in the only way possible now
.

Toby lay in the control vault with complex apparatus enclosing
his head. Close comm link brought his voice to Killeen. And Shibo… she was only an Aspect of Toby’s now.

“You sure this won’t do you harm?” Killeen asked.

—No, Dad. I trust her techcraft.—

Through Toby, Shibo had engineered this union. Normally an Aspect could never speak through its host. The term for that was
“Aspect storm” and Family would take immediate measures to pull the offending Aspect chips from the host’s neck.

But this was different. Killeen was tapped directly into Toby’s sense of Shibo. The intricate meshing was Shibo’s invention
and, used cautiously, might extend the Family’s abilities. She had modified techniques known to Family Pawn, she said. There
had been no call for such a trick before, one that verged on Family taboos.

Now it was pure necessity. Only Shibo’s deft command of
Argo
could save them.

“Any better fix on that Cyber ship?”

Shibo’s wispy Aspect voice replied,—It has executed another dodging maneuver.—

“Damn! What’s Quath say?”

Toby answered,—She’s calibratin’ somethin’. You want, I can tap her in here.—

“Naysay, let her work. Her last estimate said we still got a few minutes before they start firn’.”

—
Argo
is ready,—Shibo sent reassuringly.

He still had trouble getting used to her voice. It was a fully incorporating Aspect and gave every appearance of a complete
operating personality. He and Toby had managed to get Shibo’s body into the recording room of
Argo
before there was significant damage from oxygen loss. The machines had spoken of potassium balances and digital matching
matrices but it had all taken place someplace far from him, under glass.

He knew from sad experience that some people survived grotesquely bloody wounds while others seemed to die of a scratch. That
had not helped when Shibo had slipped away from them, her systems simply tapering to zero.