Against Infinity (15 page)

“You—Can you—Can I get you—”

“I’m…okay. Okay. Keep after it.”

Manuel studied the creased, tired face for a long moment and then nodded and got to his feet, sighed, picked up the projector, checked the winking diagnostics, looked up—

The Aleph was down. It was on the ice, barely moving. The aura of magnetic flux faded and flickered out as the boy watched.

He yelped in sheer exuberance. The Aleph looked even bigger on the ground, cracking the ice where its great ribwork slid and stopped, slid and stopped.

A hand clapped him on the shoulder and he turned, expecting Old Matt, but it was his father.
“Jesucristo,”
the Colonel said. “Something inside, some electromagnetic thing must have failed.”

“It’s crawling!” Petrovich broke in. “You got it crawling! The foot thing, see? Treads on other side too.”

The long cone came down sluggishly, stolidly, stamping its blunted point into the ice. As the Aleph turned the men could see the treads bite in and push it forward, smacking and splitting the ice and rock in rhythm with the conical extrusion that struck and punched, struck and punched, leaving the delta-shaped print. Manuel felt the ground shake as the Aleph inexorably shoved itself forward, no longer serenely skating above the rough raw land that was the province of mere men and their lanky, scrambling, awkward legs. He stared. It was as massive as he had ever dreamed, and now that he saw it wounded and still struggling on with the same deliberate immemorial energy, as ruthless with itself as it had been with others, he knew it was undiminished by mere injury and still possessed the thing he sought.

Old Matt stood shakily. He merely gave one nod, abrupt and final, a thin drawn smile slowly spreading until it reached the metal of him.

The men were yelling and pounding Manuel on the back and raising their stunners and lasers into the air, and in his ears the human voices rang and clamored like the yips and cries of the animals, echoing on themselves and filling the air of the caked plain, seeming to reflect and re-form and amplify, until the rousing volley of noise fed and built and a shot boomed, then another, now more—lasers and stunners and double-bores all raking the sides of the laboring thing that kept on, oblivious, as now bits and pieces of it began to fly off where the stronger laser bolts hit, alabaster chips spinning away into the clear air, stunners rippling the space between the milling, shouting men and their target, shots steaming off the ice and vaporizing rock and splashing against the intricate groining where colors pinwheeled still. In a moment Manuel stood alone and the fifty-odd men of the party had spread out, firing and running, circling around it.

“Stop! Cease fire!” Colonel López shouted, once, then again, then a third time as his words began to have effect.

“It’s still
movin
’,” a man called.

“You’re just chippin’ away at it,” Old Matt said weakly. “Do no good. Won’t even slow it down.”

A man shouted, “Ha! Chippin’, he says! We’ll see ’bout that,” and he made to raise his stunner.

Colonel López was on the man before he could fire, slapping the weapon down. “We’ll see, eh? You on this, you follow what’s good for us all, use your head,
sí?
”

“Well I don’t see as—”

“Quiet!” somebody shouted.

“It’s not going fast,” Major Sánchez said. “We got time to think.”

“Think what? Shooting it’s all we can do,” a man from Hiruko said.

“Yeah,” another man put in, “us all shootin’, maybe we wear it down.”

“No,” Petrovich said. “E-beam in the dark spots, that works. Nothing else has, ever.”

“Right,” Old Matt said.

“Those spots, there aren’t many of them,” Major Sánchez said, gesturing. There were few of the deeper mottled patches now. They moved in a slow whirlpool churn, deep in the blocks and collars and buttresses of it.

“Hard to hit,” a man said. Others murmured and grumbled. None of them had e-beams. They were poor agro laborers, mostly, minimum-share men, and they wanted to be able to say they had shot the thing on this day and maybe even done something important. “We could sit here forever, waitin’ for a—”

“Manuel’s hit it already,” Major Sánchez said.

Petrovich said, “Yes, too much risk he’s taken. Enough for one day. I do the next.”

“I’d say I know more about projectors,” Major Sánchez said mildly.

Colonel López said, “Knowing projectors isn’t it.”

“Yes,” Petrovich said. “Is hitting at right time that is important. You saw the boy.”

“
Sí
,” Major Sánchez said.

A Fujimura Settlement man demanded, “Seems like that e-beam oughtta be shared out.”

“Yeah, common property, like.”

“Only one, seems like should take turns.”

“Come all this way, don’ get a chance ’less they give us turns at—”

“
Quiet!
” the Colonel shouted. “You’re not getting anything by whining for it.” He glowered at the men and some steam went out of the discussion.

Someone said quietly, “Still, we got to decide.”

Petrovich said, “The boy, he has whole rest of life to hunt.”

“So what?” an agro man put in. “He’s earned it. Him an’ the old one.”

Major Sánchez said, “Could be. Dangerous, though.”

Manuel had been quiet, waiting to see which way the talk would go, but now sensing what his father felt, he spoke up: “Old Matt deserves a try. It’s already hurt him some.”

Heads nodded; the crowd murmured agreement.

Old Matt said nothing, just took the projector and hefted it and ran the winking diagnostics through their cycle. The men watched the Aleph as it labored across the hummocked ground, making fair speed but still a long way from the jutting mesa.

“Why didn’t it burrow?” Major Sánchez asked.

“Hurt,” Petrovich said. “Needs time to fix self, maybe.”

“Crawl away like an animal?” Colonel López said. “No. It’s no kind of creature at all.”

But the thing did have a valiant look to it now, wounded and still keeping on with its same remorseless energy, its deep drive to be forever moving.

Old Matt started forward, moving too with a slow, indomitable certainty, almost ceremonial, but hampered by the awkward bulk he carried. “I’ll help him with that,” Manuel called out, and ran after him.

The men spread out instinctively, forming a sweeping line as their ancestors had a million years before—a good way to flush game from thickets and run it where they wanted. They overtook the lumbering Aleph easily and the ragged line wrapped around, surrounding it. The pile-driving conical thing shook the ground, stamping furiously, and the great body swayed and creaked and groaned with its gravid immemorial momentum.

“Have to get in close,” the old man said.

Manuel followed, carrying the projector. He watched for the blue-green motes that flickered across the flat faces. The motes swam as though the men were seeing them projected on a screen by some interior source of brilliant light, so strong it could illuminate through rock. His mouth filled with the hot coppery taste, now laced with an oily fatigue.

The two of them walked cautiously into the shadow of it. A hexagonal segment rocked from side to side. The land shook and heaved. Manuel gravely gave the projector to Old Matt and saw the deep creases in his dark face, saw the haggard resolve there, and did not understand the thin, quiet smile.

“One good bolt will do it,” the boy said, and felt absurd, giving advice. The old man nodded, still smiling, as bare meters away a great flat side like a wall hammered at the land and to the rear the cone jabbed and a fresh delta-print appeared, sunk deep in the rock, steaming.

“Watch for me,” Old Matt said.

The boy flicked his eyes across the long profile of the Aleph, trying to anticipate where the next blue-green swirl would come, and for a while rested his hand on Old Matt’s shoulder, as if restraining him from going closer, encased in the extended moment, sure that if they waited until the right glancing instant—

Blue-green flecks united just above, at a corner; rapidly grew; split into two larger mottled round, dark openings—

“There!” Manuel shouted.

Old Matt got the snout up and fired at a forming spot The yellow bolt lashed at the edge of it, showering gaudy orange sparks down on them.

“Get it?” Manuel cried. Old Matt shook his head. He fired again. The discharge boomed in the thin air.
Another near miss,
the boy thought, but he could not tell exactly, and a green electric aura now flickered at the mouth of the opening.

The shaking, struggling mountain rocked harder, shuddered, boomed, and leaned over toward them. “It’s…”—and the boy tried to pull Old Matt back, away, seeing the Aleph tip further, the laboring blocks struggling all along its length. Old Matt lurched away, intent, and raised the projector toward the teetering wall. The boy shouted, “Wait—Get out—”

Too late. The Aleph fell. Half-turned to run, Manuel saw the spreading dark blue patch plunge toward him and at the last instant felt a spongy clasp around him as he cringed, braced hopelessly against the weight—

And was encased in a muffled silence, utterly black, even as he felt the shattering crash of the Aleph’s impact through his boots, which still stood on the ice while the rest of him had entered this cottony blank emptiness. He was inside the blue portal; it had fallen on him. He reached out for support and found nothing but a slickness, a resistance that brushed his grip aside and imparted some momentum to him.

He felt his boots leave the ice. Lifted—

He called out, but his comm gave nothing but a hornet’s buzz of static. Ahead—he knew he moved, but could not tell how—a green glow rippled and forked into the mouths of tunnels. He was gliding down a tube. Something dark scissored regularly in the diffuse light and he saw it was a pair of legs, a human form turning in the glow, and as he came closer he saw it was Old Matt, one arm up in what might be a wave, the helmet lit only by the wan green luminescence.

As Old Matt turned, the boy saw the face for an instant, uncreased and pale, smiling, looking straight at him with eyes unblinking. Old Matt said something, his lips moving slowly, silent, and the boy tried to make out the words, but a dull roar came into the tunnels then and disturbed his concentration. He was now smoothly passing by Old Matt in the glow, so he raised a hand and waved in a timeless gliding moment, and then he felt a push, a gathering acceleration, and with rushing speed fell away from the still-turning silent form. He blinked, struggled against unseen forces, and heard random crisp noises swelling as if he were coming closer, yells, swearing—

Dark ice rushed at him and he hit solidly, painfully, rolling, pinwheeling, arms flailing, voices shouting as pandemonium burst in on him. He fetched up against a boulder, slamming his shoulder into it, purpling his vision—gasped, and for a moment could not get his hands and feet under him to get up.

He clutched against the boulder and stood. He was a dozen meters away from the Aleph and could make out the gouge in the ice where he had hit, falling straight down from a yawning green opening in a hexagonal collar. He’d left skid marks. The Aleph lay absolutely still and silent. It rested on ice that had cracked beneath it. The conical delta-puncher was cocked halfway up in the air, pointing at the horizon.

Men ran back and forth around the Aleph, hooting and jabbering and yelling to each other all sorts of claims—“Didja see ’at one I got it smack inna head” despite the fact that the Aleph had nothing you could call a head, and “Shot it three times three good uns” and “—figure it was me an’ Raul did it, see, we timed our bolts so they hit together on that big rib cage up ’ere” and “Damned if I did’n know it, soon’s we opened fire when it was buckin’ aroun’, the sucker just gives up, that’s all it took was some more shootin’—” and “just wore it out is all, nobody’s run it down the way we have, kept after it steady” and so on, the boy standing dazed as this washed over him and the throbbing ache spread in his shoulder. A Hiruko man jumped up on the gray flank of it and stamped down as if to test how solid it was, and yelled, “One small step for a man!” and laughed and climbed on up to the top of the buttress, toting his stunner and jabbing down with his boots. Manuel gazed around. It looked to him as if he had been dropped about a hundred meters from where he and Old Matt had been. He started walking back that way, and that was when he saw the crowd. They were standing around two figures on the ground. One of them was large, an animal. The other was a man, lying face down on the ice and not moving. It was Old Matt.

M
ANUEL STUMBLED FORWARD
and pushed his way through the men crowded around. A jagged tear ran down Old Matt’s suit from shoulder to hip. Somebody had slapped an instant patch on it, and through the translucent gauze Manuel could see blood oozing out. The suit was raked all down one side, too, with shreds of h hanging out and insulation showing and fluids dripping. Gingerly Petrovich rolled Old Matt partway over. There was no damage to the front of the suit. The face was leached of color and the eyes were closed. His backpack showed life functions weak but steady.

“Did he hit on something when he came out?” Manuel asked.

Major Sánchez stared at him. “Came out? It crushed him when it rolled over.”

“No, we both got picked up by it. It fell over on us. The openings, they sucked us in.
Madre.
That must be how Eagle got trapped inside too.”

The men looked at him without comprehension. Colonel López said, “Old Matt’s been here all the time.”

“No! I saw him inside. Then the thing, it spat us out again.”

Petrovich shook his head rapidly. “It started rolling over, we shot. I saw. Aleph hit the old man”—he smacked two fists together—“threw like rag doll.”

“No, it had us both. Inside. It must’ve carried me longer, that’s all. I
saw
him in there.”

The men stared at him again blankly. His father said, “Look, son, you’re shaky. Sit down, take a stim pack. I got to deal with this right now.”

Manuel peered down at Old Matt and tried to remember just what the old man had looked like inside. The same, only not hurt. He was going to say something more when a man came up to him and said emphatically, “
Finito!
”