Clarke, Arthur C - Fall of Night 02 (40 page)

 
          
 
As the great bulk glided effortlessly toward
them she surveyed its mottled blue-green skin, the tangled jungles it held to
the sun's eternal nourishing blare.

 
          
 
Cley could not help but smile. "I think I
prefer my lust in smaller doses."

 
          
 
Grand beings communicate through emissaries.
Slow, ponderous oscillations began to course through the Jonah. Cley saw a
watery bubble pop into space from the Jonah's leathery skin nearby. It wobbled,
seeking definition, and made itself into an ellipsoid.

 
          
 
"Hurry," Seeker said.
"Departure."

 
          
 
Seeker adroitly tugged her along through green
labyrinths. When they came to the flared mouth of what seemed to be a giant
hollow root, it shoved her ahead. She tumbled head over heels and smacked into
a softly resilient pad. Velvet-fine hairs oozing white sap stuck to her. A
sharp, meaty flavor clung in her nose. She felt light-headed and realized that
the air was thick with vapor that formed and dissolved and met again in
billowing, translucent sheets. Seeker slapped away a rubbery blob as big as a
man but seemed unconcerned. A hissing began. They were drifting down the bore
of a narrowing tube. The walls glowed with pearly softness and she felt the sap
cloaking her feet and back.

 
          
 
Seeker snagged a shimmering plate and launched
it like an ancient discus toward her. The sticky stuff" wrapped around her
and Seeker slapped the other end against a denser strand. They gathered speed
in a swirl of refracting light. Cley held her breath, frightened by the hectic
hiss around them.

 
          
 
"What—" she began, but a soft cool
ball of sap caught against her mouth when she breathed in. She blew it away and
felt Seeker next to her as the wall glow ebbed. The ribbed tube ahead flexed,
bulged—and they shot through into the hard glare of space. The Jonah had blown
a rubbery bubble. A sap envelope enclosed them, quickly making a perfect
sphere.

 
          
 
"The Jonah is making love to the
Leviathan," Seeker said, holding her firmly.

 
          
 
"We're seeds?"

 
          
 
"So we have deceived it, yes."

 
          
 
"What happens when something tries to
hatch us?"

 
          
 
"We disregard the invitation."

 
          
 
Such politeness seemed doubtful; they were
closing with the broad speckled underbelly, the Jonah already dwindling behind.
The speckles were clusters of ruby-dark froth. The Leviathan was at least ten
times the size of the Jonah, giving the sex act an air of comedy. As they
approached she felt new fear at the enormity of it; this creature was the size
of a small mountain range.

 
          
 
This time they donated momentum to their new
host through a web of bubbles that seemed to pop and re-form as they plunged
through, each impact a small buff^eting that sent Cley bouncing off the elastic
walls of their own seed-sphere.

 
          
 
When they came to rest a large needle expertly
jabbed at their bubble. The ruby light gave a hellish, threatening cast to
everything. The needle entered, seemed to snifl" around, its sharp point
moving powerfully and quite capable, Cley saw, of skewering them both— and
Seeker raised a leg and urinated directly onto it. The needle jerked back and
fled.

 
          
 
"No, thank you," Seeker said. Their
bubble popped, releasing them.

 
          
 
Again Seeker led her through a dizzy maze of
verdant growths, following clues she could not see. "Where're we
going?"

 
          
 
"To find the
Captain."

 
          
 
"Somebody guides this?"

 
          
 
"Doesn't your body guide you?"

 
          
 
"Well, where's this Leviathan
going?"

 
          
 
"To the outer
worlds."

 
          
 
"You think we're safe here for now?"

 
          
 
"We are safe nowhere. But here we hide in
numbers."

 
          
 
"You figure the Mad Mind can't be sure
where I am? It tracked me pretty well so far."

 
          
 
"Here there are many more complex forms
than you. They will smother your traces."

 
          
 
"What about this talent of mine? Can't
this Mind pick up my, well, my 'smell'?"

 
          
 
"That is possible."

 
          
 
"Damn! Wish Seranis hadn't provoked mine
to activity."

 
          
 
"She had to."

 
          
 
Cley had been following Seeker closely,
scrambling to keep up as they bounced from rubbery walls and glided down curved
passageways, deeper into the Leviathan. Seeker's remark made her stop for a
moment, gasping in the sweet, cloying air. ''Had to?"

 
          
 
"You will need it. And the talent takes
time to grow."

 
          
 
Cley wanted to bellow out her frustration at
the speed and confusion of events, but she knew by now that Seeker would only
give her its savage, black-lipped grin. Seeker slowed and veered into crowded
layers of great broad leaves. These seemed to attach to branches, but the scale
was so large Cley could not see where the gradually thickening, dark brown wood
ended. Among the leaves scampered and leaped many small creatures.

 
          
 
She found that without her noticing any
transition somehow this zone had gained a slight gravity. She fell from one
leaf to another, slid down to a third, and landed on a catlike creature. It
died in her hands, provoking a pang of guilt. The cat had wings and sleek
orange fur. Seeker came ambling along a thin branch, saw the bird-cat, and with
a few movements skinned it and plucked off gobbets of meat.

 
          
 
The goal of finding the Captain faded as both
grew hungry. It slowly dawned on Cley that this immense inner territory was not
some comfortable green lounge for passengers. It was a world, intact and with
its own purposes.

 
          
 
Passengers were in no way special. They had to
compete for advantages and food. This point came clear when they chanced upon a
large beast lying partly dismembered on a branch. Seeker stopped, pensively
studying the savaged hulk. Cley saw that the fur markings, snout and wide teeth
resembled Seeker's.

 
          
 
"Your, uh, kind?"

 
          
 
"We had common origins."

 
          
 
Cley could not read anything resembling
sadness in Seeker's face. "How many of you are there?"

 
          
 
"Not enough.
Though the
numbers mean nothing."

 
          
 
"You knew this one?"

 
          
 
"I mingled genetic information with
it."

 
          
 
"Oh! I'm sorry, I . . ."

 
          
 
Seeker kicked at the carcass, which was now
attracting a cloud of scavenger mites. "It was an enemy."

 
          
 
"After you, ah, 'mingled'—? I mean . .
."

 
          
 
"Before and
after."

 
          
 
"But then why did you—I mean, usually we
don't . . ."

 
          
 
Seeker gave Cley a glance which combined a
fierce scowl with a tongue-lolling grin. "We never think of one thing at a
time."

 
          
 
"Even during sex?"
Cley laughed. "Do you have children?"

 
          
 
"Two litters."

 
          
 
"Seeker!
You're
female? I never imagined!"

 
          
 
"Not female as you are."

 
          
 
"Well, you're certainly not male if you
bear litters."

 
          
 
"Simple sex like yours was a passing
adaptation."

 
          
 
Cley chuckled. "Seeker, sounds like
you're missing a lot of fun."

 
          
 
"Humans are noted as sexual connoisseurs
with enlarged organs."

 
          
 
"Ummmm.
I'll take
that as a compliment."

 
          
 
A faint scurrying distracted Cley. She pushed
aside a huge fern bough and saw a human shape moving away from them.
"Hey!" she called.

 
          
 
The silhouette looked back and turned away.

 
          
 
"Hey, stop! I'm friendly."

 
          
 
But the profile blended into the greens and
browns and was gone. Cley ran after it. After blundering along limbs and down
trunks she stopped, listening, and heard nothing more than a sigh of breeze and
the cooing calls of unknown birds.

 
          
 
Seeker had followed her. "You wished to
mate?"

 
          
 
"Huh? No, we're not always thinking about
that. Is that what you think? I just wanted to talk to him."

 
          
 
Seeker said, "You will find no one."

 
          
 
"Who was that? Say, that wasn't an
illusion, was it? Like those who killed my tribe and that Alvin said were just
images?"

 
          
 
"No, that was the Captain."

 
          
 
Cley felt a surge of pride. Humans ran this
huge thing.

 
          
 
"Alvin said my kind was all gone, except
for me."

 
          
 
"They are."

 
          
 
"So this Captain is some other kind?
Supra?"

 
          
 
"No. I do not think you truly wish to
explore such matters. They are immaterial—"

 
          
 
"Look, I'm alone. If I can find any kind
of human, I will."

 
          
 
Seeker tilted its massive head back, raising
and lowering its brow ridges in a way that Cley found vaguely unsettling. "We
have other pursuits."