Uplift - Infinity's Shore Part 51

While Ling examined the metal spool, Lark felt a change in the low vibration that had been growling in the background ever since they escaped their prison cell. The resonance began to rise in pitch and force, until it soon filled the air with a harsh keening. "Something's happening," he said. "I think-" Just then the battles.h.i.+p took a sudden jerk, almost knocking them both to the floor. Ling dropped the cable, barely missing her foot.

A second noise burst in through the open door of the airiock. An awful grinding din, as if Jijo herself were complaining. Lark recognized the sc.r.a.ping of metal against rock.

"Ifni!" Ling cried. "They're taking off!"

Helping each other, fighting for balance, they reached the outer hatch and looked down again, staring aghast at a spectacle of pent-up nature, suddenly unleashed.

Well, so much for jumping in the lake, he thought. The Jophur s.h.i.+p was rising glacially, but the first few dozen meters were crucial, removing the dam that had drowned the valley under a transient reservoir. At once, the Festival Glade was transformed into a roiling tempest. Submerged trees tore loose from their sodden roots. Stones fell cras.h.i.+ng into the maelstrom as mud banks were undermined. While the battlecruiser climbed complacently, a vast flood of murky water and debris rushed downstream, pummeling everything in its path, pouring toward distant, unsuspecting plains.

Too late, Lark realized. We were too late making our escape. Now we're trapped inside.

As if to seal the fact, a light flashed near the open hatch, which began to close. An automatic safety measure, he figured, for a stars.h.i.+p taking off. Lark barely suppressed an overpowering temptation to dive through the narrowing gap, despite the deadly chaos waiting below.

Ling squeezed his hand fiercely as they caught a pa.s.sing glimpse of something s.h.i.+ny and round-shouldered-a slick, elongated dome, uncovered by retreating waters. Even under pale predawn light, they recognized the Rothen-Danik s.h.i.+p, still shut within a prison of quantum time.

Then the armored portal sealed with a boom and hiss, cutting off the all-too-fleeting breeze. Trapped inside, they stared at the cruel hatch.

"We're heading north," Lark said. It was the one last thing he had noticed, watching the ravaged valley pa.s.s below.

"Come on," Ling answered pragmatically. "There must be someplace to hide aboard this bloated s.h.i.+p."

Ncl CLO STILL A FEW LEAGUES SHORT OF THEIR GOAL, THE zealots realized they were surrounded. They spent the night huddled in the marsh, counting the campfires of regiments loyal to the High Sages. Squeezed between militia units from Biblos and Nelo's pursuing detachment, the rebels surrendered at first light.

There was little ceremony, and few weapons for the rabble to give up. Most of their fanatical ardor had been used up by the hard slog across a quagmire where mighty Buyur towers once reared toward the sky. Already bedraggled, Jop and his followers marched in a ragged column toward the Bibur, enduring taunts from former neighbors.

"Go ahead an' look!" Nelo pushed the tree farmer toward a bluff where everyone could look across the wide river at s.h.i.+mmering cliffs, still immersed in dawn's long shadows. Oncoming daylight revealed a vast cave underneath, chiseled centuries ago by the Earths.h.i.+p Tabernacle. Two dozen huge pillars supported the Fist of Stone, hovering like a suspended sentence, just above a cl.u.s.ter of quaint wooden buildings, each fas.h.i.+oned to resemble some famed structure of Terran heritage-such as the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and the Main Library of San Diego, California.

"The Archive stands," Nelo told his enemy. "You wanted to bring the Fist cras.h.i.+ng down, but it ain't gonna happen. And in a couple o' years I'll be makin' paper again. It was all for nothin', Jop. The lives you wasted, and the property. You achieved nothing."

Nelo saw Jop's bitterness redouble when they reached a new semaph.o.r.e station, set up directly across the water from Biblos, where they learned about the rocket attack, the destruction of one Jophur s.h.i.+p, and the rumored damage of another. Young militia soldiers shouted jubilation to learn that last night's distant "thunderstorm" had instead been the unleashed fury of the Six Races, taking vengeance for the poor g'Kek.

A few older faces were grim. The militia captain warned that this was but a single battle in a war the Commons of Jijo could hardly hope to win.

Nelo refused to think about that. Instead, he kept his promise to Ariana Foo, by handing over her message for transmission. Light-borne signals flew better at night, but the operator refired his lamp when he saw Ariana's name on the single sheet of paper. While that bulletin went out, the captain looked into getting transportation across the Bibur, where showers and clean clothes waited.

And sleep, Nelo thought. Yet, despite fatigue, he somehow felt younger than he had in ages, as if the tiring chase through swamplands had stripped years away, leaving him a virile warrior of long ago.

Leaning against a tree, Nelo let his eyes close for a little while, his mind turning back to plans for a rebuilt paper mill.

Our first job will be helping the blues put their dam back together. Do it right, this time. Less worrying about camouflage and more about getting good power output. As long as I'm at Biblos, I might as well look.into copying some designs. . . .

Nelo's head jerked up when a carpentry apprentice from Dob shouted his name. The lad had been reading last night's semaph.o.r.e messages, affixed on the wall of the relay post.

"I just saw your daughter's name," the young man told him. "She's on Mount Guenn!"

Nelo took three jerky steps forward ... as Jop did exactly the same thing. The farmer's expression showed the same surprise. His shock and dismay contrasted with Nelo's joy at hearing that one of his children lived.

Sara! The papermaker's mind whirled. In the name of the founders, how did she find herself on Mount Guenn?

He hurried over to the shed, eager to learn more. Perhaps there would be word of Dwer and Lark, as well!

At that moment, a shout erupted from one of the operators inside the semaph.o.r.e hut. While the sender kept on clicking his key, transmitting Ariana Foo's message, the receiver burst out through the door, a middle-aged woman waving a paper covered with hurried scrawls.

"Mess . . . mess . . ." She ran for the militia captain, gasping urgently.

"Message from lookouts," she cried. "The Jophur . . , i the Jophur s.h.i.+p is coming this way!" i It did not swoop or plummet. The star vessel was far too vast for that.

A haze of suspended dust accompanied its pa.s.sage above forest or open ground, but when the immense sky mountain moved ponderously over the Bibur, the waters went Ominously still. The gla.s.sy-smooth footprint spread even wider than its shadow.

Keep going, Nelo prayed. Just pa.s.s us by. Keep going. . . .

But the great cruiser evidently had plans right here, arresting its forward momentum directly over the river, in plain sight of the Great Archive.

Now it was Nelo's turn to glower as he glimpsed grim satisfaction pa.s.s overJop's face. Someone must've snitched, he thought. Rumors told of Jophur emissaries, establis.h.i.+ng outposts in tiny hamlets, imperiously demanding information. Sooner or later some zealot or scroll thumper would have blabbed about this place.

No slas.h.i.+ng rays fell from the mighty battles.h.i.+p. No rain of bombs, taking vengeance for its little brother, lost the night before.

Instead, a few small portals opened in its side. About two dozen robots descended, fluttering lazily until they reached hoon height above the water, where they turned in formation and streaked toward Biblos.

A second wave emerged from the great s.h.i.+p, floating down more slowly on wide plates of burnished black. Tapered cones rode those flat conveyances, like stacks of glossy pancakes, each pile on its own flying skillet.

Even before the Jophur party reached the walls of the hidden city, the s.p.a.ce dreadnought began moving again, turning its ma.s.sive bulk to head back the way it came, roughly south by southeast, gaining alt.i.tude at an accelerating pace. By the time Nelo lost it in the glare of the rising sun, the cruiser had climbed above the highest clouds.

Crowds gathered at the riverbank, peering at the opposite sh.o.r.e. Biblos still lay immersed in nightlike shadows. By contrast, the robots glittered till they pa.s.sed under the Fist of Stone, followed by their Jophur masters.

After that, Nelo and the others had to rely on the militia captain, peering through binoculars, to relate what was' happening.

"Each Jophur is entering a different building, guarded by several robots. Some use the front door . . . but one just sent its servants to smash open a wall and go in that way.

"They're all inside now . . . and people are running out! Humans, hoons, qheuens . . . there's a g'Kek . . . his left wheel is smoking. I think he's been shot."

The crowd murmured frustration, but there was nothing to do. Nothing anybody could do.

"I see militia squads! Mostly humans with some urs and hoons. They've got rifles . . . the new kind with muletipped bullets. They're running toward the Science Building!

"They're splitting up, skirmish style, using opposite doors to sneak in from both sides at once."

Nelo clenched his hands as he stared across the Bibur. At the same time, he wondered why the great battles.h.i.+p would come all this way, yet not tarry to destroy the center ofJijoan intellectual life.

I guess the cruiser bad other matters to attend to. Anyway, it'll be back to pick up their foray party.

There was one hope. Maybe there are some rockets left after last night. Perhaps they'll catch the cruiser, before it can return.

There was always that hope-though it seemed unlikely the Jophur would be fooled a second time.

Across the river he could see a flood of refugees-scholars, librarians, and students-pouring out of sally ports and over the battlements. There weren't many g'Kek among the fugitives. Nor traeki. Both races appeared doomed to stay within, destined for different fates, both of them unpleasant.

He wondered, What do the aliens want with our Library? To check out some books and take 'em back home to read?

In fact, that bizarre notion made sense.

I'll bet the rocket attack made 'em realize we have trick up our sleeve. Suddenly they're interested in what we know, and how we know it. They'll scan our books to find out what other nasty surprises we might come up with.

Something was happening in the shadowed cave. Distant popping sounds carried across the river, doubtless from within the Hall of Science.

"They're coming out!" the captain announced. His grip on the binoculars stiffened. "The rifle squads . . . they're in retreat . . . dragging their wounded, trying to cover each other. They're ..."

He lowered the gla.s.ses. The officer's eyes were bleak and he stood silently, completely overcome.

A corporal gently took the binoculars and resumed reporting.

"Dead," was the first word she said.

"I see dead soldiers. They're all down."

A hush settled over the crowd. Across the Bibur nothing I seemed to be moving anymore, except an occasional ' sharp-edged machine shape, flitting underneath the Fist of Stone.

The explosers . . . Nelo wondered. Why didn't they set off their charges?

The greatest secret of the Six Races. The most secure fortress of humankind on Jijo. Biblos had been captured in a matter of duras. Its treasured archive lay in the tight grip of Jophur invaders.

wasx IS IT SETTLED THEN, MY RINGS? HAVE WE ROOTED out the last corners of your clandestine resistance? Can we a.s.sume there will be no more episodes of surrept.i.tious rebellion?

The Priest-Stack threatened to dismantle us/me after the last embarra.s.sment, when you silly rings foolishly,cleverly managed to perform a vienning without your master torus knowing. The priest aimed to sc.r.a.pe every drip trail of waxy memory lining our core, seeking clues to the whereabouts of the pair of wolfling vermin you (briefly, mutinously) released into our glorious Polkjhy s.h.i.+p.

But then the stack in change of psychological tactics reported telemetry showing that Lark and Ling almost surely departed the s.h.i.+p when instruments showed an airiock hatch anomalously opening.

Humans are good with water. No doubt they imagined themselves safe after entering the lake, never suspecting that they were about to be swept downstream into a vortex of ruin when our majestic Polkjhy took off!

The droll appropriateness of this fate-the dramatic irony-so pleased the Captain-Leader that a ruling was made, overturning the Priest-Stack's desire. For the time being, then, our/my union is safe.

DO NOT COUNT ON CONTINUED TEMPERANCE, FORGIVENESS, MY RINGS! Forgiveness for what, you ask?

Now you worry Me. Is the shared wax so badly melted? Did the Asx personality so damage us, with its second attempt at suicide-by-amnesia? Must I provide memory of recent events through the demi-electronic processes of the master torus?

Very well, My rings, I shall do so. Then we will begin again, restoring the expertise that made us useful to the Jophur cause.

Together we watched while a party from our s.h.i.+p took possession of the so-called Library used by the savage Six Races. Though it contains a pathetically small amount of bit-equivalent data, this is the source,font of their wolfling trickery.

Feral scheming that has cost us dearly.

A fine thing happened when we/i caught sight of those crude buildings made from sliced trees, sheltered in an artificial cave. Many hidden waxy trails resonated with sudden recognition! Accessing these recovered tracks, we were able to tell the Captain-Leader many secrets of this trove of pseudo-knowledge. Secrets Asx had meant to render inaccessible. ; Slowly, we regain our former reputation and esteem, Does that make you glad, My rings?

How gratifying to feel your agreement come so readily now! That brief rebellion, followed by a second suicide amnesia, appears to have left you more docile than before. No longer sovereign traeki rings, but parts of a greater whole.

Now regard! Leaving a force behind to secure Biblos, our Polkjhy turns to its main task. Too long have we let ourselves be diverted/delayed. There will be no more negotiating with Rothen sneak thieves. No more d.i.c.kering with savage races. Those six will meet their varied fates from land forces already scattered across the Slope.

As for Polkjhy, we cruise toward that continental cleft, that ocean abyss. Estimated locale of the dolphin s.h.i.+p.

IT IS DECIDED. THE ROTHEN HAD THE RIGHT IDEA, AFTER ALL.

We'll bombard the depths, putting the fugitive Earthlings ' in peril. To preserve their lives, they will have no choice but to rise up and surrender.

Until now, the Captain-Leader preferred patience over rash action. We did not want to destroy the very thing we seek! Not before learning its secrets. Since no competing clan or fleet has come to Jijo, we appeared to have a wealth of time. '

But that was before we lost both corvettes. Before postponements stretched on and on.

Now we are resolved to take the chance!

With depth bombs ready in great store, we plunge toward the zone known as the Rift.

WHAT IS THIS? ALREADY? DETECTORS BLARE.

IN THE WATERS AHEAD OF US-MOTION! Joyous hunt l.u.s.t fills the bridge. It must be the prey, giving away their location as they scurry in search of a new hiding place.

Then remote perceptors cry out upsetting news. No single s.h.i.+p is making the vibrations we detect.

THERE ARE SCORES OF EMISSION SITES . . . HUNDREDS!.

Sara EMERSON SEEMED CHEERFUL DURING THE LONG ride down from Mount Guenn, pressing his face against the warped window of the little tram, gazing at the sea. How would he feel if he knew whom we were meeting? Sara wondered as the car zoomed down ancient lava flows, swifter than a galloping urs.

Would he be ecstatic, or try to jump out and flee? Far below, a myriad bright sun glints stretched from the surf line all the way to a cloud-fringed western horizon. Jijo's waters seemed placid, but Sara still felt daunted by the sight. A mere one percent ripple in that vastness would erase every tree and settlement along the coast. The ocean's constancy proved the ample goodness of this life world-a nursery of species.

I always hoped to see this, before my bones went to the Midden as dross. I just never figured I'd come by horseback, across the Spectral Flow, over a volcano . . . and finally by fabulous cable car, all toward confronting creatures out of legend.

Sara felt energized, despite the fact that n.o.body on Mount Guenn had slept much lately. n Uriel had finished using her a.n.a.log computer barely in time. Just miduras after sending the ballistics calculations north, semaph.o.r.e operators reported breathless news about the consequences.

Stunning rocket victories.

Discouraging rocket failures.

Forest fires, dead sages, and the Egg-wounded, silent, possibly forever.

Flash floods below Festival Glade, leaving countless dead or homeless.

Nor was that all. Throughout the night, tucked amid other tidings from across the Slope, came clipped summaries of events bearing hard on Sara.

Elation surged when she learned of Blade's unqheuenish aerial adventures. Then her father's report triggered overpowering images of the destruction of Dolo Village, forcing her to seek a place to sit, burying her head in her hands. Nelo lived-that was something. But others she had known were gone, along with the house she grew up in.

Lark and Dwer . . . we dreamed what it might be like when the dam blew. But I never really thought it could happen.

Waves of sorrow kept Sara withdrawn for a time, till someone told her an urgent message had come, addressed specifically for her, under the imprimatur of a former High Sage of the Six.

Ariana Foo, Sara realized, scanning the brief missive, Ifni, who cares about the dimensions of the s.h.i.+p that crashed Emerson into the swamp? Does it matter what kind of chariot he used, when he was a star G.o.d? He's a wounded soul now. Crippled. Trapped on Jijo, like the rest of us.

Or was he?

After so many shocks that eventful night, Sara was just lying down for a blotting balm of sleep when events close at hand rocked Uriel and her guests. I At dawn, the captains of Wuphon Port sent word of a monster in their harbor. A fishlike ent.i.ty who, after some misunderstandings, claimed relatedness to human beings. Moreover, the creature said it bore a message for the smith.