Eater. Part 27

"Yeah."

"And so I do. Not as though it is a betrayal of my dear wife."

"How is she?"

"Had word just last night. Coded, of course. From a country cottage she arranged through friends. Indeed, the U Agency had conducted an extensive search for her. She barely got away."

"You're sure they were going to hold her hostage?"

"One is never certain. I felt that I could not risk it."

"She might have been safer."

"With that that"-a finger poked skyward-"prowling the skies? I expect it can strike any place it likes, to whatever depth."

"The infrared only bakes the surface."

"Do we truly wish to learn more of its capabilities?"

"Ummm, good point."

They let a companionable silence build between them. Benjamin was comfortable this way, just sliding on from moment to moment, trying not to think of what they would ask him to do. As they left their car and pa.s.sed through the layers of security at the Center, he felt tensions building in him again, but fought them down.

There pa.s.sed before his eyes procedures and people and none of it left any lasting impression. Amy Major, looking more worn than usual, was there when they got to the Control wing. She came out and greeted them and Kingsley instantly asked, "What signs do we have of its state of mind?"

"Still no mention of the whole Was.h.i.+ngton burning episode," Amy said.

"d.a.m.n." Kingsley's face was knotted with frustration. "How can we conceivably understand it if the thing gives no clue?"

"I suppose that's the point," Amy said mildly, putting a hand on his sleeve.

For some reason, that simple gesture brought a tightness welling into Benjamin's throat. He almost lost his remaining sc.r.a.ps of composure then. It took a moment and a dodge about going for coffee before he could trust himself to speak. "What's it saying, then?"

Amy called up its latest dispatch to the Semiotics contingent: YOUR BIOSPHERE HAS MANIFESTED FOUR PINNACLES OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION. FIRST WERE THE COLONIAL, SPINELESS SUCH AS THE CORAL REEFS. THEY ACHIEVED NEARLY PERFECT COHESION AMONG INDIVIDUAL UNITS THAT DIFFERED LITTLE IN THEIR GENES. INSECTS ATTAINED A PEAK, THOUGH WITH MUCH MORE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS. STILL LESSER PERFECTION OF SOCIAL GRACE CAME WITH THE SPINED ANIMALS OTHER THAN YOUR-SELVES. THEY COOPERATE BUT HAVE MUCH DIFFERENT GENOMES. THIS TREND FROM CORALS TO ANTS TO BABOONS MY-SELF HAS SEEN ON HUNDREDS OF WORLDS. COMPLEXITY SELECTS FOR SELFISH, LESS SOCIAL BEHAVIOR. THE BEAUTY OF THIS LOGIC IS PROFOUND: WHEN GENETICALLY NEARLY IDENTICAL, ALTRUISM ABOUNDS AND COOPERATION THRIVES. AS GENETIC RELATEDNESS EBBS, SO DOES INTENSITY OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOR. UNTIL YOUR KIND. YOUR-SELVES EMPLOY SOCIAL STRUCTURES OF THE SPINED CLa.s.s BUT COMPLEXIFY IT. YOU RETAIN SELFISHNESS BUT USE INTELLIGENCE TO CONSULT YOUR PAST AND PLAN YOUR FUTURE. THIS REVERSED THE DOWNWARD TREND IN COOPERATION THAT MARKED THE LAST BILLION YEARS OF YOUR BIOSPHERE'S EVOLUTION. THIS IS YOUR UNIQUE ASPECT, AS THE THREE OTHER MODES I MENTIONED ARE PEAKS SCALED REPEATEDLY BY INDEPENDENTLY EVOLVING LINES OF CREATURES.

"Intriguing miserable little lecture, isn't it?" Kingsley said. "Makes one wonder if its droll sense of humor extends to making fun of us through acute boredom."

"Sounds like a curator making up the label it will put on its newest exhibit," Benjamin said.

"Good a.n.a.logy," Amy said. "Now shall we...?"

Here came the part he had been dreading. They marched him through a large bay filled with work stations, people quietly monitoring the intricate tasks of managing the Searcher fleet. They were an exact duplicate of NASA's operating room at Houston, a.s.sembled here at blinding speed in case communications broke down. Backup was the watchword.

In a separate room, they seated him at the center of a kind of spherical viewscreen. Leads measured his vital signs, a complex head gear descended, much buzzing and clicking began as they got him calibrated. He had given up trying to fathom all the technology. Then- He was with with her. No point in wondering how it was done; he felt himself suddenly in a presence he recognized. He had to struggle to not look around and find her. But she was nowhere at all, he reminded himself. Instead, the spherical screens showed him what she saw, a field of dark dominion dotted with Searcher radar images. her. No point in wondering how it was done; he felt himself suddenly in a presence he recognized. He had to struggle to not look around and find her. But she was nowhere at all, he reminded himself. Instead, the spherical screens showed him what she saw, a field of dark dominion dotted with Searcher radar images.

"How are you, lover?" she asked.

"I...am doing...okay." Like mola.s.ses, his tongue.

"I am, too."

He could not help himself. "What does it feel like to be...a mathematical construction?"

"However I want it to feel."

"You can control..."

"The body simulation? Yes. My feelings, in the old sense? No."

Her voice had s.h.i.+fted into a cool, a.n.a.lytical mode. But it was hers, all the same. How did they do it? Or was she...it...doing this? "I...see. No pain?"

"Physical, no. I...I miss you so much."

He could not seem to get his breath. "Well, here I am."

"With me. Again. Thank you for coming."

Alarm filled his otherwise empty mind. He could not think of anything to say that did not seem to mean something else. "Do you...like the work?"

"Let us say that I am willing to make the mistakes if someone else is willing to learn from them."

"Ah. Yes."

"You are wondering if this is really me."

"I wonder who you are, yes, but-" He froze. But what?

"Perhaps you are afraid that I am her?"

"d.a.m.n, you were always good at reading me."

"Do not give me that much credit. I made my mistakes."

"You were smarter than I was."

"I often proved that high intelligence did not necessarily guarantee fine table manners."

He tried to laugh and could not. Somehow the remark was amusing, but the delivery was wrong. He tried a gruff, bantering tone. "Yeah, old girl, you did."

"I would feel better if you did not use the past tense."

"Oh. I didn't mean-"

"Just a joke."

"I always liked your jokes."

"They were an acquired taste. Remember what my grandfather used to say? 'Eat a live toad at breakfast and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.' My jokes played that role for some people."

"Yeah, I do do remember your telling me that." He felt a wash of relief. If this voice knew that much about her past-but then he felt confusions rise again. The specialists had said that they could copy memories without knowing what they were. Like a symphony laid down on a disk, the machine that did it didn't need to know harmony or structure. remember your telling me that." He felt a wash of relief. If this voice knew that much about her past-but then he felt confusions rise again. The specialists had said that they could copy memories without knowing what they were. Like a symphony laid down on a disk, the machine that did it didn't need to know harmony or structure.

Just a recording. But she was so real.

Better get back onto something that would let him conceal his tornado of feeling. "How's the job going?" The words sounded phony, but maybe she wouldn't notice.

She laughed, surprising him again. "Like being a bird, sometimes."

"Sounds great."

"I spent a lot of time just getting used to this body-that-isn't."

"Bird body?" He didn't know where this was going, but at least it wasn't about how he felt, a subject upon which he was no expert.

"Birdbrain, it feels like sometimes."

She pinged right back to his pong, but wasn't giving much away. Okay, be direct Okay, be direct. "They moved you around the Earth after it hit Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"Yes, I got an extra booster attached by a crew that flew up to rendezvous. That got me out here, to keep me away from that d.a.m.ned jet. How many people did it kill?"

"A quarter of a million, the last I heard." He had stopped listening to the news then.

"It's moving out now, I heard." Actually, he had seen the jet flare and drive the thing away from the low orbit. And heard the muted cheering of hundreds around him, outside in the night. The yelling had blended anger and wavering hope.

"Slow but steady. Don't know-d.a.m.n, there goes another."

"Another what?"

A silence. Then: "Another satellite, a communications one this time. It got the Fabricante orbital an hour ago. There were two people aboard."

"d.a.m.n. It's doing that? I really ought to keep up."

"You've had a lot of grief. Give yourself a rest."

Suddenly her voice was not the cool, businesslike tone that she had been using. The words resonated with feminine notes he had come to love. He said, "You need me. I hope."

"Oh yes, I do more than ever."

"You've got it in view?"

"I can see the orange plume of the jet, but I'm staying away. Tracking the satellite damage. It's eaten hundreds-"

Onto the enveloping spherical screen blossomed a sharp image. Coils of magnetic field tightening around a chunky satellite. Folding it in. Then vaporizing it with a virulent arc of high voltage. The plasma glowed green and violet traceries sucked it along the field lines, bound for the accretion disk.

"Got tired of our atmosphere?" he asked.

"Or bored."

"Are you getting some feeling for it?"

"It has a lot of parts and they fit together in a way I can't see yet."

"Don't get any closer."

"I'm thousands of klicks away."

"Keep it that way."

"I think it knows I'm here."

Alarm stuck in his throat. "How?"

"I don't know, just an intuition."

"Has it done anything, struck against you?"

"No, and I don't know why not, either. Probably I'm just not important enough."

"You are to me. Don't get closer."

"Distance didn't do the President any good, did it?"

"What do you mean?"

"It blasted the terrain around that dugout of his in the Catskills on its next pa.s.s over the D.C. area."

"It did?" He really wasn't keeping track. Or had he heard and just forgotten? He had to admit he didn't give a d.a.m.n about what happened to the President.

"I believe he survived-barely. It doesn't say a word about any of that, of course."

"Our spanking administered, it drops the subject?" Benjamin knew his words were coming out jagged.

"Nope, Kingsley was right. Keep away from human a.n.a.logies."

He didn't want to say what immediately came to mind, so sure enough, she did instead: "Speaking as an a.n.a.logy myself, I think that's good advice."

He could not summon even a dutiful chuckle, but she laughed with what seemed to be gusto.

3.

"Nothing is impossible to those who do not have to do it," Kingsley remarked caustically.

Arno bristled. "I have every a.s.surance from the President that-"