Infinity's Shore (14 page)

Another long pause—then a chirping note burst forth. Rety had learned a little Galactic Two during her time as an apprentice star child. She recognized the upward sliding scale meaning yes.

Dwer nodded. “I can't guarantee my plan'll work. But here's what I suggest.”

It was actually simple, almost obvious, yet she looked at Dwer differently after he emerged from the stream, dripping from the armpits down. Before he was halfway out, the robot edged aside from its perch
above Dwer's head.
It seemed to glide down the side of the young hunter's body until reaching a point where its fields could grip solid ground.

All the way across the river, Dwer looked as if he wore a huge, eight-sided hat, wafting over his head like a balloon. His eyes were glazed and his hair stood on end as Rety sat him down.

“Hey!” She nudged him. “You all right?”

Dwer's gaze seemed fixed far away. After a few duras though, he answered.

“Um … I … guess so.”

She shook her head. Even Mudfoot and yee had ceased
their campaign of mutual deadly glares in order to stare at the man from the Slope.

“That was
so
weird!” Rety commented. She could not bring herself to say “brave,” or “thrilling” or “insane.”

He winced, as if messages from his bruised body were just now reaching a dazed brain. “Yeah … it was all that. And more.”

The robot chirruped again. Rety guessed that a triple upsweep with a shrill note at the end meant—
That's enough resting. Let's go!

She helped Dwer onto a makeshift seat the robot made by folding its arms. This time, when it resumed its southward flight, the two humans rode in front with Mudfoot and little yee, sharing body heat against the stiff wind.

Rety had heard of this region from those bragging hunters, Jass and Bom. It was a low country, dotted with soggy marshes and crisscrossed by many more streams ahead.

Alvin

I
WOKE FEELING WOOZY, AND HIGH AS A CHIMP that's been chewing ghigree leaves. But at least the agony was gone.

The soft slab was still under me, though I could tell the awkward brace of straps and metal tubes was gone. Turning my head, I spied a low table nearby. A shallow white bowl held about a dozen familiar-looking shapes, vital to hoon rituals of life and death.

Ifni!
I thought.
The monsters cut out my spine bones!

Then I reconsidered.

Wait You're a kid. You've got two sets. In fact, isn't it next year you're supposed to start losing your first
 …

I really was
that
slow to catch on. Pain and drugs can do it to you.

Looking in the bowl again, I saw all my baby vertebrae. Normally, they'd loosen over several months, as the barbed adult spines took over. The accident must have jammed both sets together, pressing the nerves and hurrying nature
along. The phuvnthus must have decided to take out my old verts, whether the new ones were ready or not.

Did they guess? Or were they already familiar with hoons?

Take things one at a time
, I thought.
Can you feel your toe hooks? Can you move them?

I sent signals to retract the claw sheaths, and sensed the table's fabric resist as my talons dug in. So far so good.

I reached around with my left hand, and found a slick bulge covering my spine, tough and elastic.

Words
cut in. An uncannily smooth voice, in accented Galactic Seven.

“The new orthopedic brace will actively help bear the stress of your movements until your next-stage vertebroids solidify. Nevertheless, you would be well advised not to move in too sudden or jerky a manner.”

The fixture wrapped all the way around my torso, feeling snug and comfortable, unlike the makeshift contraption the phuvnthus provided earlier.

“Please accept my thanks,” I responded in formal Gal-Seven, gingerly shifting onto one elbow, turning my head the other way. “And my apologies for any inconvenience this may have cause—”

I stopped short. Where I had expected to see a phuvnthu, or one of the small amphibians, there stood a whirling shape, ghostly, like the
holographic projections
we had seen before, but ornately abstract. A spinning mesh of complex lines floated near the bed.

“There was no inconvenience.” The voice seemed to emerge from the gyrating image. “We were curious about matters taking place in the world of air and light. Your swift arrival—plummeting into a sea canyon near our scout vessel—seemed as fortuitous to us as
our
presence was for you.”

Even in a drugged state, I could savor multilevel irony in the whirling thing's remarks. While being gracious, it was also reminding me that the survivors of
Wuphon's Dream
owed a debt—our very lives.

“True,” I assented. “Though my friends and I might never have fallen into the abyss if
someone
had not removed the article we were sent to find in more shallow
waters. Our search beyond that place led us to stumble over the cliff.”

The pattern of shifting lines took a new slant of bluish, twinkling light.

“You assert ownership over this thing you sought? As your property?”

Now it was my turn to ponder, wary of a trap. By the codes laid down in the Scrolls, the cache Uriel had sent us after should not exist. It bent the spirit and letter of the law, which said that sooner colonists on a forbidden world must ease their crime by abandoning their godlike tools. It made me glad to be speaking a formal dialect, forcing more careful thought than I might have used in our local patois.

“I assert … a right to
inspect
the item … and reserve an option to make further claims later.”

Purple swirls invaded the spinning pattern, and I could almost swear it seemed amused. Perhaps this strange entity already had pursued the same line of questioning with my pals. I may be articulate—Huck says no one can match me in GalSeven—but I never claimed to be the brightest one in our gang.

“The matter can be discussed another time,” the voice said. “After you tell us of your life, and recent events in the upper world.”

This triggered something in me … call it the latent trading instinct that lurks in any hoon. A keenness for the fine art of dickering. Carefully, tenderly, I sat up, allowing the supple back brace to take most of the strain.

“Hr-r-rm. You're asking us to give away the only thing we have to barter—our story, and that of our ancestors. What do you offer in exchange?”

The voice made a pretty good approximation of a rueful hoonish rumble.

“Apologies. It did not occur to us that you would look at it that way. Alas, you have already told us a great deal. We will now return your information store. Please accept our contrition over having accessed it without expressed permission.”

A door slid open and one of the little amphibian creatures entered the cubicle, bearing in its four slim arms my backpack!

Better yet, on top lay my precious journal, all battered and bent, but still the item I most valued in the world. I snatched up the book, flipping its dog-eared pages.

“Rest assured,” the spinning pattern enounced. “Our study of this document, while enlightening, has only whetted our appetite for information. Your economic interests are undiminished.”

I thought about that. “You read my journal?”

“Again, apologies. It seemed prudent, when seeking to understand your injuries, and the manner of your arrival in this realm of heavy wet darkness.”

Once again, the words seemed to come at me with layers of meaning and implications I could only begin to sift. At the time, I only wanted to end the conversation as soon as possible, and confer with Huck and the others before going any further.

“I'd like to see my friends now,” I told the whirling image, switching to Anglic.

It seemed to quiver, as if with a nod.

“Very well. They have been informed to expect you. Please follow the entity standing at the door.”

The little amphibian attended while I set foot on the floor, gingerly testing my weight. There were a few twinges, just enough to help me settle best within the support of the flexible body cast. I gripped the journal, but glanced back at my knapsack and the bowl of baby vertebrae.

“These items will be safe here,” promised the voice.

I hope so
, I thought.
Mom and Dad will want them … assuming that I ever see Mu-phauwq, and Yowg-wayuo again … and especially if I don't.

“Thank you.”

The speckled pattern whirled.

“It is my pleasure to serve.”

Holding my journal tight, I followed the small being out the door. When I glanced back at the bed, the spinning projection was gone.

Asx

H
ERE IT IS, AT LAST. THE IMAGE WE HAVE SOUGHT, now cool enough to stroke.

Yes, my rings. It is time for another vote. Shall we remain catatonic, rather than face what will almost certainly be a vision of pure horror?

Our first ring of cognition insists that duty must take precedence, even over the natural traeki tendency to flee unpleasant subjectivities.

Is it agreed? Shall we be Asx, and meet reality as it comes? How do you rule, my rings?

Humming a song of overwhelming power, the monstrous vessel descends, crushing every remaining tree on the south side of the valley, shoving a dam across the river, filling the horizon like a mountain.

Can you feel it, my rings? Premonition. Throbbing our core with acrid vapors?

Along the starship's vast flank a hatch opens, large enough to swallow a small village.

Against the lighted interior,
silhouettes
enter view.

Tapered cones.

Stacks of rings.

Frightful kin we had hoped never again to see.

Sara