Against Infinity (17 page)

Eagle was holding steady. Every few hours it would lift its head and wrench the neck around painfully, each turn of angle like a rachet jumping forward a notch. The black eyes peered out at the gathering people and gave no sign of its inner torment. It studied the far hills, not with the ferocity it had shown before, but as if it wanted to be sure the broad, stretching wastes were still there, still lying beyond the ring of human faces. Manuel watched it then, sensing its adamant refusal to compromise, to give any sign of what lay wounded inside. Eagle was not of man and could not be reconciled with man, but was out of Earth and knew that, too. It had done its job, a task in the end self-imposed, and was now free. It died at noon.

M
AJOR
S
ÁNCHEZ WAS
the first to leave. “Got to get back. Work to do. I stayed too long already,” he told Manuel.

“Most of us’ll be hauling out tomorrow,” a Sidon man said.

An engineer from another Settlement put in, “My men are kind of drug out. No more for us.”

Colonel López nodded. “A few should stay with Old Matt until he’s ready to be moved. I’ll do it.”

Manuel watched the people disperse from around the cabin. Most were going back to their Settlements. Some were mounting up to go out to where the Aleph was, though there wasn’t much they could do besides stare at it. “I’ll stay, too,” he said.

“
Sí
, we got it, eh?” Major Sánchez said, slapping Manuel on the back. “After all this time.”

“We’ll have celebration, back at Sidon,” Petrovich said jovially. “We wait for you to come in, though.”

“Fine,” Colonel López said, watching his son. “I imagine it won’t be more than a few days. The med tech says Old Matt’ll pull through.”

Major Sánchez said, “
Sí, sí
. He is a tough old one.” He stamped his boots to warm up, and waved at a nearby crawler. “I want to get going. Need some help getting Eagle back up on the deck and lashed down.”

Manuel asked, “What’ll you do with it?”

“Recycle. It’s Sidon property. Lot of scrap. Some good motors ’n’ servos left for sure.”

“What about the body?” Manuel asked sharply.

Major Sánchez glanced at Colonel López. “Body? Animals, well…”

“Animals, they get organic recycle,” Petrovich said.

Manuel said, “It’s no animal—you don’t know that.”

Colonel López nodded. “As I remember, Hiruko said something about its maybe being human. Or part human.”

“But Dad—”

The Colonel turned to Manuel. “When they open it up, we’ll see. Sure didn’t
act
human, did it?”

“That’s not the point.”

Colonel López smiled. “You know we value human life over everything. We’re going to do all we can for Old Matt. But there was just no way to help Eagle. It was too embedded in the machinery.”

Manuel said nothing. His father had always taken a lot of care with medical monitors. It was part of New Catholicism—that people should be kept alive in whatever form possible.

Major Sánchez shrugged. “A small matter. Probably very little of anything in there. Big machine, was what it was,
sí.
Now, who’s to help? Eh?”

They got Eagle onto the crawler, and by the time the job was finished the field was nearly cleared of people. Most of the main party mounted up then, calling to one another about things they didn’t want left behind and things already lost and who would beat who back to Sidon. The boy heard little of it. He worked at the loading and watched the clear sky. The sun slid behind Jupiter’s rosy clouds, haloing the planet, and then the gloom of eclipse descended. He watched the crawlers roar and buck and start out of camp, Major Sánchez leading. Eagle’s body shook with the vibration as the crawler clattered over an outcropping, and to Manuel the body seemed reduced, loose, a heap of parts. He watched until it was out of sight.

The party left their bedding all rolled on the bunks, ready for next year. The cabin would freeze up solid while they were gone and take a full day to thaw out when they returned, but with everything sealed or rolled tight not much moisture would get in and things would be dry when the next party came to do some pruning. They left some supplies and scraps of past meals, all ready to go on the fire. Manuel helped here and there, always keeping an eye on the grizzled body encased in the gently buzzing medical monitor. The med tech was finishing up the minor injuries and telling them to stay off the gimpy legs and sore backs they had accumulated.

“That was some run you had out there,” Manuel heard the man say to a patient. “All to turn a moving artifact into a dead one, hey?” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Bang yourself up just to add one more. We got plenty artifacts strewed all ’round the moons. Can’t understand a one of ’em. Won’t figure out this one either, I’ll bet.”

Manuel didn’t say anything to that, didn’t even know what he would have said. He just kept hauling and cleaning up and loading and not thinking about much of anything. He helped tamper down the fusion plant, listening to the stutter of it die to a slow
chugg chugg.
The eclipse was deepening as he went back inside. Five Sidon men were staying over until the morning, resting up, and with the med tech and his father, Manuel and Old Matt were all that were left. They had a silent, weary supper and turned in without anybody mentioning smeerlop or liquor. Manuel had scarcely pulled a blanket over himself before he was asleep.

Much later, he heard the dry voice. It called him. At first he thought it was a dream, but then it came again. He got up, feeling aches in his legs still, and moved through the corridors of pipe-framed bunks, feeling his way in the dark. Old Matt called again, and Manuel reached out in the blackness and found the cool hand, the fingers callused and the palm worn to a glassy hardness.

“How long since…since…”

Manuel answered, “Two days, almost.”

“Eagle?”

“Dead.”

“So…it…gave him back too.”

“Just like us.”

“Like…me.”

“Sure scared me, in there.”

“You saw me?”

“Sure I did. The others don’t—”

“Stayed in there long enough… I could tell…feel…you were scared.”

“
Sí
, the ones outside, they think—”

“Stay long enough…scared…it’ll learn you.”

“Won’t be so dangerous next time, though. It’s dead, we got it—you knew that, didn’t you?”

“I know it stopped.”

“Soon’s we get you back to Sidon and move you to Hiruko, get you patched up, you and me can go out there again and have a real look at it.”

A rasping laugh came. It turned into a ragged, choking cough.

Manuel whispered, “Go up in those holes, y’know, see what’s in it, what made it.”

“Not me. You, maybe. If they let you.”

“
Let
me? What the hell, you and me, we
got
the thing, we—But hey, what you mean, not you?”

“I been lying here…feeling…what’s left of this body. Not much.”

“You got your voice back. Other stuff’ll come back too, once they—”

“No, it won’t. I heard the med tech talking…to the Colonel. Too much deterioration. Nerves…muscles in the arms and legs all shot… I’ll never get enough back to run servos, even.”

“Look, if it’s money…”

“That’s part of it. Always is, somebody my age. Sidon can’t sink a big investment into a hanger-on. Times are hard. And I got no shares to sell.”

All Manuel could think to say was “You shouldn’t think that way. Let ’em try at least.”

“And end up a stomach and a brain and not much else.”

Manuel’s hand followed down the old man’s arm until it met the ceramic and metal of the chest.

“That’s right,” Old Matt said. “You’re thinking I’m part replacements already, right? Sure enough. But there’s a point…you don’t want any more.”

“Look, the money part, I can talk—”

“You thought much about what happened, Manuel? Why you figure it let us come back?”

“The others, they were firing at it. Hurt it, must’ve. It couldn’t handle all of us.”

“I figure…it had enough of me. It’s you I’m wondering about.”

Manuel smiled. “We’re both too mean, is all.”

Again the dry laugh. Then the hand Manuel was holding moved, and the voice came, relaxed and solemn: “Think you could fix me something from the kitchen?”

Surprised, for he knew the medmonitor was feeding the body, Manuel said, “Sure. Sure.”

He made little noise in the kitchen, putting together some cold meat and cornbread. He came out with it on a tray and picked his way among the bunks to the wall where the medmonitor was. He put down the tray and was going to click on a small light nearby when he sensed that the monitor was empty. He felt, and the pallet was still warm. A strange foreboding filled him. He should turn on the lights, he knew, but instead he found his way in the near-perfect darkness to the lock at the far end of the cabin. There, by the safety lights, he saw a figure lying on the floor, nearly finished with putting on an emergency suit.

“What the hell are you—”

“The eclipse. I want to see it again.”

“That’s crazy! How’d you get here?”

“Crawled. Legs nearly worthless. Arms not much better.”

“Hold on, now; I’m going to lift you up…”

As Manuel raised the surprisingly light body, Old Matt got the seals aligned on the suit and closed them. The helmet pophole was still open, though, and through it the gravel voice said, “I’m going to ask you now. I want you to think before you do anything. Before you take me…back in there.”

“Listen, I can’t—”

“I’m telling you I want to see the eclipse one more time, from outside. Not on some damned screen, which is the way I’ll be looking at it once they patch me up.”

“But that’s just, just…”

“I…you remember back there, when we went up to it for the last time? Remember what I said? I needed help then. ‘Watch for me,’ I said.”

“Right. Watch for you. I don’t see—”

“Think about that later. When you have time.”

“Yeah, okay, but look, I—”

“Right now I want you to watch for me and be sure nobody stops me when they hear the lock cycle. I can crawl out and down the ramp okay without you. But I’m going to need somebody to stall them if they come looking. For a few minutes, is all.”

Manuel studied the old face in the dim ruby light. The eyes still had that quality of seeming to catch more light, of moving with a refracting, watery intensity. He knew what the old man was saying. He said aloud, but to himself, “Watch for me.”

Old Matt smiled. “That’s it.” The strain showed in his creased cheeks.

“Go on, now,” Manuel said.

He helped the old man get into the lock and put him on the automatic conveyor used to carry goods outside. Then he went back inside and cycled the lock at a low rate, to keep the throb of the pumps down. The outer door opened. The conveyor whined. He waited long moments, facing the control panel, thinking about nothing, and then heard footsteps coming, ringing on the metal deck.

“What—Were you outside?” His father.

He turned. “No. Old Matt’s out there.”

“Old Ma—and you
let
him? Where’s your head, boy?” Colonel López snatched at the control lever. He yanked the outer door to and started a high-speed fill. “Goddamn if I ever—What—why’d you let him? You know he’s…” and then he snatched a suit off the rack and stepped into it, his mouth compressing into a thin line.

Manuel suited up silently. The lock popped open and the two of them went in. Pumpdown started. Colonel López flushed it at fractional pressure to save time. The lock swung open. A wind blew dust past them onto the shadowed plain, howling as it died. The Colonel stepped out first.

The body was sprawled at the base of the conveyor belt, face up, the eyes still glistening, the pophole open, the ice of Ganymede already settling on the ruined face. Old Matt had unzipped the whole front, too, letting in the full dead breath of Ganymede. Coming that suddenly, the awful cold would pop open cells as they froze, riddle him with ruin.

“
Mierda!
Vacced like that, we’ll never get him back!” The Colonel whirled on his son. “Dead! He’s dead! And you helped him!”

Colonel López stopped, eyes suddenly wild. He jerked back to look at the body, stooped to pick it up. Both of them heard it snap as he lifted it, cracking the frozen skin, opening fresh cuts into the body so that a plume of vapor escaped out the pophole, and the ice of this world invaded Old Matt more.

The father stared at the son. “You killed him. For good. Eternal death. You know that, don’t you?”

“I…” He blinked, but the wetness seemed to be coming from everywhere, like sweat. His chest heaved and had no air in it. “I did…” He sobbed.

“You killed him. Just as sure as if you blew him open yourself! An old man, not knowing what he was doing, crazy from being sick. And you helped him!”

Manuel’s body shook and trembled, and the sureness he had carried in him dissolved. “I—Father, I—”

“Killing, that’s it,
sí?
Killing everything that’s old…” He gasped, congested with words. “Yesterday wasn’t—wasn’t enough, uh? You had to—”

“
What?
Kill—you mean Aleph? I was just—”

“We hunt it,
sí,
but to—to—” The Colonel shook off the thought with a physical gesture, pushing it away with his hands. “But to—Old Matt!—”

His jaw muscles bunched. “No son of mine does a thing like that! None of mine!” The eyes were wild and hard, showing too much white, flashing with a rage that once come would not depart. “No son of mine!”

M
ANUEL MADE HIS
way through the slick iceworked corridors, distracted, not thinking about much of anything. He kept his fists balled up and tucked into his jacket pockets, even though it was not at all cold in these places. This section of Hiruko was always well heated, so the women who liked to wear skimpy clothes would be comfortable when they went out for short trips. It was a sign of something—he had never figured out what—for people to go around without the reflex reaching for a coat, casually ignoring the steep temperature gradients.