Artemis Invaded (7 page)

“I'll adjust,” he said, “faster than you might think. I knew I was coming to a planet where many of the settlements were near or within mountain ranges. Among the preparations I dosed myself with was one to trigger my body to produce extra oxygen if the conditions warranted it.”

Griffin spoke of such “doses” routinely, Adara mused, but the capacities of the adapted still surprised him, whether adapted humans like herself or adapted animals like Sand Shadow.

Of course,
Adara thought, sharing the image with Sand Shadow,
my eyes and claws are more showy than Griffin's tiny lung bugs.

In return, Sand Shadow sent an image of her own fingered paws. The puma had recently made a breakthrough in knot tying and was quite pleased about it. One of her goals was to learn how to set snares and make fish traps, for the large game her kind usually hunted was not always available in the places her bond with Adara took her.

When the companions reached Maiden's Tear, they set up camp in a cluster of evergreens, even though the alpine meadow near the lake provided inviting camp spots.

“We'd be more visible,” Terrell said. “The prohibition regarding Maiden's Tear is still in effect, but we don't know how strictly it is enforced. We're reaching the time of year when shepherds will be taking their flocks higher for the best grazing. Best if a shepherd going after a strayed lamb doesn't glimpse a cluster of tents. Humans will be much harder to spot, especially if we practice some elementary concealment.”

“And the horses and Sam?” Griffin asked. “They're pretty big.”

Adara replied, “Sand Shadow scouted out some sheltered vales with excellent grazing and water. One of the good things about this area being restricted is that the grass is thick, belly deep even on Midnight and Sam in some places.”

*   *   *

The first night in their new camp, Adara took herself up into a long-needled pine to sleep, this despite the fact that evergreens were far from her favorite sleeping trees, since the bark was prickly and tended to shed. In warmer weather, sticky sap could soil her clothing. Still, sleeping in an evergreen was better than watching the men looking sidewise at each other as bedrolls were spread.

Adara liked both Terrell and Griffin, but evenings were when the awkward question of who slept near/with whom became a forever undiscussed but omnipresent issue. Along the trail, the question had diminished, but now that they were “in residence,” Adara noticed each man looking to see where she would bed down, hoping for an excuse to pick a spot nearby.

Making matters worse was that spring was giving way to summer. Traditionally, midsummer and midwinter were times when usual restrictions on sexual dalliance among adults were suspended. Most who had married did not abuse their vows (although couples who were feeling dull had been known to exploit the occasion), but these festivals were very good times for young, unattached people to experiment without incurring a commitment thereafter.

Although that “no commitment” is not always remembered afterwards,
Adara thought, settling herself comfortably into place.
Terrell has clearly never forgotten our tryst. How I wish he had! Though I blush to think of it, maybe Julyan felt the same about me. We also first made love in midsummer, though Julyan was certainly more than happy to continue after, whereas I have not teased Terrell.

She let her mind wander, shutting out Sand Shadow's lewd commentary from where the puma hunted not too far away. Eventually, Adara drifted off. When she did, she dreamed again of tears.

She awoke to find a pale yellow fairy circle surrounding the base of the tree in which she had fallen asleep. Silver grey shelf fungi with pale lavender undersides made a spiral staircase around the trunk of the tree, ending level with where her head rested against the trunk. Adara turned her head and saw, picked out by starlight, a delicate female face sculpted from minute, lacy threads. Unsettled, Adara was trying to still her suddenly wildly beating heart when the planet's voice spoke within her mind.

“Adara? Huntress? This place. You are in. One place. This one place. It makes me … I cannot see, taste, hear, touch, smell…”

The words were less words than a sense of agitation, disorientation, near panic. Adara had felt many emotions from the entity she thought of as Artemis. Curiosity, certainly, puzzlement, often, but panic? What could frighten a world?

“Do you know where I am?”

“You are where if you were not there I would not know it was there. Where I must make mycelium feetholds to stand, else, like water on rocks on shore, I flow around, pass over, perhaps … If you were not there, would I know it is there?”

“What is there?”

“The where you are. The where where killer of many, drinker of blood, is also. Until you went there, I did not know it was there.”

“Wait … How much of the world can you ‘see'?”

How Artemis perceived the world that was herself was something Adara had wondered about for a long time, but she hadn't been able to figure out a constructive way to ask. Intuition rather than logic had led the huntress to the realization that the thoughts flowing into her dreams were those of the planet upon which she lived, a planetary intelligence that had been put out of commission, along with the rest of Artemis's peculiar technology, by an attack that heralded the destruction of a great interstellar empire.

But although Adara acknowledged that Artemis existed, she didn't understand exactly what was entailed in being a planet with a sense of personal identity—with a soul.

A fresh wave of panic was the only reply to Adara's question. Burying the thought as deeply as she could, lest she frighten Artemis further, Adara considered.
How can a planet without a heart or lungs or glands feel afraid? How can it feel fear without a heart to pump wildly, breath to come short, adrenaline to course like fire through the brain? Is fear separate from the sensations of feeling afraid?

The answer came instantly, whether from her own soul or a flicker from Artemis, Adara didn't know.
Artemis has been dead and come to life. How could she not feel afraid that something will make her unalive again? Of course it is possible to feel fear without sensation—and who is to say Artemis does not experience sensations of her own?

Much as she would stalk wary game, the huntress tried to lead Artemis away from her fear. Adara might not have much in the way of what Griffin thought of as education, but she had patience in abundance.
“Let's think back to before you were afraid. Yes?”

Adara sculpted a picture in her mind, retracing steps along a trail, walking to where all was still and tranquil. As she shaped the image, Adara felt a thrumming purr join her words and knew that Sand Shadow had joined them and was helping enforce the image with her own calming presence. Adara's relationship with Artemis was not a partnership but a tripartite bond. The planet had touched their minds when woman and puma had been practicing to strengthen the nonverbal communication that was crucial to the demiurge relationship. Artemis had slipped into the link, spoken to them both, then bound them together, a three who remained three, but could share as if one.

Once they had walked the path toward tranquility, Adara tried again.
“To understand what is different about this place where I am, I need to understand what is the usual for you.”

Sand Shadow sent a visual image, her own idea of contrast: two snakes, very similar at first glance, yet the one deadly poisonous, the other good, if a bit tough, eating. In response to these clarifications, Artemis sent an image of her own, so vast and vivid that Adara found herself gripping the tree limb lest she fall.

What Artemis shaped for them resembled a spider's web, thin lines joined at points of overlap, sticking one to the other. Initially, the joins were far apart, the junctions separated by such great distances that they were out of sight of each other. Then, more lines filled in, more joins were established. The spider's web became less tenuous, the original lines stronger, the junctions more frequent, new lines filling the space between. There was still a great deal of emptiness, but the sense of connection was there. Through each wider line, each new bit of mesh, information crashed and trembled, overwhelming the huntress with sheer quantity until Artemis took mercy and damped that particular element.

Then, suddenly, in the midst of this vast web, a hole appeared. Or rather, two tiny dots of awareness entered the hole, making awareness of the hole manifest to the web. No longer could the web be sure that it was strong and solid. The belief that the web was all-present vied against the undeniable realization of the hole's existence. Finally, dusty spores erupted forth, swirled through the hole, took tenuous anchor. Sprouted near the dots.

Adara understood. Artemis had been rebuilding her connections throughout the planet that was herself. From the start, Artemis had defined herself as a neural network. The rebuilding of that network was far from complete, but she had believed the process to be methodical and thorough. Only when Adara and Sand Shadow had entered a place in which Artemis had failed to establish connections had Artemis realized such places existed. Somehow, using her link to Adara and Sand Shadow, Artemis had pushed through and made contact.

“No wonder you're afraid,”
Adara said imagining herself caressing, patting, hugging, offering physical comfort.
“You've just discovered a great big numb spot in your body—and you don't know what other ‘numb' areas there might be. Or how large this one might be.”

She rose from her perch, dusted tree bark off her back, then swung lightly to the ground.
“That last, at least, we can resolve. Can you continue to ‘see' me if I move from this place?”

“I will flash/scream/alert/storm if I feel you grow thin.”

Adara nodded.
“Good. Sand Shadow and I will walk. You will tell us how strongly you feel us. In this way, we can learn the boundaries of this numb spot, this hole within your web.”

The process was slow, although it sped up once Artemis understood what was wanted from her. After that Adara and Sand Shadow split up. The mental link supplied by Artemis expanded their usual communication range so that, by dawn, Adara had constructed a tidy little map of the surrounding area with special attention to those parts Artemis could not “see” without considerable effort.

The smell of applewood smoked bacon sizzling over the fire drew Adara back to camp. Sand Shadow, yawning hugely enough to show off every one of her teeth, from fangs to molars, joined them soon after.

“Cook more bacon, please,” Adara said to Griffin, who was handling the pan. “We're both starving. We were out all night.”

“Not hunting,” Terrell said, taking out his knife and slicing some generous pieces. “If you had been, at least Sand Shadow wouldn't be hungry.”

“For her the bacon will be mostly for taste,” Adara admitted, though the puma's moonstone gold eyes were fastened on the frying pan in a manner that made very clear she expected her share.

“Well,” Griffin said, reaching and rubbing the puma behind one round ear, “she shares her venison. We can share our bacon. What had you out all night? Last I saw, you were settled comfortably in that tree.”

Adara told them about her odd conversation with Artemis, noting as she did so that the mushroom ring, along with the step fungi on the tree trunk, had faded away. Did this mean that Artemis was having trouble maintaining a “feethold” in this place?

Feeling anxious, Adara drew out the map and talked more quickly, as if words and pictures could make more real a place that felt increasingly tenuous to her.

*   *   *

Griffin listened with increasing amazement as Adara unfolded her tale. His bond with Terrell made it easier for him to believe what Adara said about her and Sand Shadow's link to the planetary intelligence, but belief made the reality no less astonishing.

“These,” Adara said, tracing her fingers along the edges of the map she had drawn in the little notebook she carried everywhere, “are the boundaries of the area within which Artemis has difficulty ‘seeing.' There are some interesting complexities. For example, she is aware of the mountains that surround this vale, but not of the vale itself. Even when I pressed her to admit that the slope of the mountain all but established the vale, she could not see it without her link to us.”

“How about the lake?” Terrell asked, gesturing to where the Maiden's Tear glistened in the morning sunlight. “It's not large for a lake, but it's certainly larger than a pond. I haven't had a chance to go out on it yet, but I'm guessing it's fairly deep as well.”

“She can't see it,” Adara said. “Nor can she ‘see' that little building the seegnur left. Here's what's even stranger. Her normal perceptions don't just involve the surface. They can extend to the depths as well. But her blindness involves both surface and depth.”

“We guessed,” Griffin said, sliding bacon from the pan onto thick slabs of slightly stale bread, “that the seegnur left a complex here—underwater or underground or both. The extent of Artemis's blindness seems to confirm that.”

“But ‘blindness,'” Terrell put in, “is a deceptive term. A blind person has the other four senses to compensate. Artemis's blindness extends to all her senses.”

“I think,” Adara said, “we will eventually find that only a few of her senses match our own. She awoke in dreams. Part of what she wanted from me and Sand Shadow was a means of anchoring herself in the sensory world. I think she's managing to build her own senses now, so that when she found there were things we could sense that she could not, she panicked.”