The Children Star (23 page)

As the slope steepened, other samplers appeared, some with various tire-shaped creatures in nets, others full of helicoids. Only one had stalled in those pesky looproots. Nibur's own nanoservos kept in touch with his brain, but his main interest now was the esthetic challenge: to immortalize Spirilla as an incarnation of the
Proteus
.

They at last touched down on the path, as far as the large transport craft seemed safe. To the left rose sheer cliffs; to the right, the underbrush cascaded down to an echoing river. Nibur stepped outside, feeling oddly unclothed without his talar and train, but no matter. An insect alighted, but it could not penetrate the skinsuit. Nibur took a deep breath through his mouth plate. Few odors came through for him, but enough penetrated to interest Banga, who scampered ahead, sniffing here, there, and everywhere. The dog acted as if he had never smelled a scent before. There was little to smell within the
Proteus
.

With Nibur came Iras, and a dozen specially trained octopods fanning out around them, to prevent accidents.
From around the hill echoed the muffled crunching of the samplers.

Nibur's critical eye scanned the cliffs, which were bursting with unsightly looproots. Those would need to be tidied up in his virtual vision. Ahead of him stretched a gaping valley between Mount Anaeon and Mount Helicon, an arrangement too shameless for his taste. The mountains would be rearranged so as to appear shyly one by one, for “hide and reveal” experiences. The arching trees, too, would be placed artfully, none too close together, and, of course, none of the cluttered understory. A few hoopsnakes would be put in to drop from trees now and then, keeping visitors off guard.

“Extraordinary,” exclaimed Iras, craning her neck upward, then down. “The trees—the rushing river—it's enough to take your breath away.”

The singing-trees gave way to bushes past their prime of bloom, their browning petals strewn down toward the river. In Nibur's vision, the flowers would be ever-blooming, with no faded petals. He whispered detailed instructions to his servos recording the scene.

Around the mountain, the waterfall came into view. Nibur stopped. Despite himself, he was impressed. Kilos upon kilos of water tumbling forever out of the mountains, thrusting their steam back upward toward the snow-covered peaks. This scene would be hard to improve.

“Warning,” called an octopod from ahead. “The path has changed. Time needed to retrace.”

“Very well.” Nibur frowned, irritated at the inconvenience. The old Sharer could wait long enough; it was her own fault for refusing contact. He would make good use of his time, recording the mountainside, the chattering of helicoids, and the more graceful varieties of vegetation, all to
be sorted later. He whistled for Banga—where had that pesky dog got to?

“Curious.” Iras bent down to pluck a leaf. “I thought there were no true ‘leaves' on Prokaryon, only loopleaves.” She held it out to show him. It certainly looked like an ordinary green leaf, pear-shaped, with branching veins.

“Warning, warning!” One octopod called, then another.

To his horror, Nibur saw an octopod dragged off its feet. Its lasers aimed out in several directions, charring the path. But something twined up to catch the octopod by another limb and fling it down the path. Its nanoplast fell apart into blobs that crawled away and lost themselves in the brush. Another octopod followed, landing in the arch of a stunted tree. Half its nanoplast split off and crazily tried to climb, losing itself in the loops.

Something tugged at his foot. It was a green vine, with the same pear-shaped leaves.
“By Torr!”
He tried to pull it off, but it held fast. The whole path was crisscrossed with them. The best he could do was to run along with the tugging vine, until it tripped him up and knocked the wind out of him. Sky and mountains lurched around him crazily, as the vine dragged him onward, more slowly now, but still inexorable. Gradually the vines all converged into a huge thicket beside the waterfall.

The vines met, enfolding him into darkness. Then, just as he was convinced he would suffocate, all the vines relaxed their grip and slunk away.

In the darkness Nibur caught his breath. “Emergency, emergency,” he gasped. “Bring ten lightcraft with reinforcements, immediately. . . .”

But no answer came. His cerebral nanoservos had no octopods nor lightcraft to contact. He was cut off. He would rather have lost his arms and legs than his link to
Proteus
.

“Nibur?” called Iras from somewhere. “Are you intact,
Shon
sib?”

“Of course I'm intact.” Calming himself, Nibur let his breath return to normal. To his right, Banga whimpered for comfort. He was still intact, and
Proteus
would find him soon. Then, whoever had done this would pay.

A light filled the cavern. Nibur blinked to adjust, scanning the crystal-studded ceiling of the cave. There stood a naked Sharer with an enormous clickfly perched on her scalp. It was Sarai, the eccentric researcher whose lab he had to relocate. Was this insolence her work?

“You're here,” Sarai noted flatly, a clickfly perched on her head. “I would say welcome—but you're not. Be glad you got less than what you gave the western coast.”

“You will pay,” he exclaimed hoarsely. “You will pay the cost of my octopods—I'll put you out of business.”

“Oh, no,” said Iras, sweeping forward grandly.
“I'll
pay the damage. Why, Raincloud would have done the same—and my heart hasn't raced so in decades. Sarai—it's you at last! I didn't even have a holo, but you're just as I imagined.” Iras stopped, catching sight of a little girl trying to hide behind the Sharer; a L'liite waif.
“Bluesky-wind!”
she exclaimed at the waif. “Sarai, your ancestor, Raincloud's daughter eight generations back, looked very like her.” Iras tossed a holocube to the floor, and the image of another curly-haired waif appeared, playing with a legfish. “You see, you had a Bronze Skyan ancestor. But she grew up and mated a Sharer, Weena of Shri-el, and their daughter Ryushu . . . ” The descendants appeared in succession, each with less hair and more fingerwebs than the last.

Sarai stared openmouthed at this performance. “Take care, Ushum,” she warned the waif beside her. “Elysians are truly mad.” But when her own mother and mothersister
appeared, she paled, her purple limbs whitening from the fingers upward.

“Oh,” said Iras, “don't do that. Or the child will have to wake you.” Only a child could safely waken a whitened Sharer. Nibur hoped she died.

Instead, Sarai caught herself, and the purple returned to her limbs. “The two of you are children enough. They should have kept you in the
shon.”

“Now then.” Iras assumed her business voice. “How much will it take to set up your new lab in Chiron? Will a megacred do, or perhaps ten?”

“Do you think this planet cares about your megacreds?
They
are waiting for you. They've been trying to reach us for years—and finally we hear them.”

“Oh yes.” Iras suppressed a yawn. “The hidden masters. And who might they be?”

Sarai paused. “Whoever they are, they've gotten their messengers into humans. I know—I can prove it.”

“Indeed. Can anyone else?”

Very reluctantly, Sarai said, “The others haven't found them yet. They don't know . . . about the little diving suits the microzoöids wear, to avoid the body's defenses.”

Nibur laughed. “ ‘Diving suits.' That takes the prize.”

“Sarai,” said Iras sympathetically. “You really love this world, don't you. Though it's so unlike Shora.”

“The Sharers of Shora are fools,” said Sarai. “They don't understand what your kind has done to them.”

“Sharers understand that no material home is permanent. Someday, every raft falls apart in the storm. I've helped many of your sisters find a new home.”

“After first destroying their old one?”

“Proteus here,”
called the nanoservos inside Nibur's head.
“Coming to pick you up, Master.”

“Stay well outside,” he warned the calling lightcraft. “We're coming out. Let's go, Iras.” He whistled to Banga and strode outside without a glance backward.

In the sunlight his eyes blinked rapidly. He found himself shaking with anger and delayed shock. That such indignities could befall him, his own person, was intolerable. As he glanced around now, at the mountains full of singing-trees, their aspect took on a cast of malevolence. That this world might trip him up—such a thought had never occurred to him. But now that it had, he would make his preparations, just in case. A plan shaped itself in his mind, and he whispered brisk instructions. Whatever befell himself,
Proteus
would know what to do. This cursed world would not outlive him.

At the lightcraft Nibur had to whistle three times before the dog obeyed, reluctant to leave this odiferous place. Nibur grasped his collar and twisted it briefly, to show his annoyance. Iras joined them at last, uncharacteristically silent. As the door closed, their skinsuits opened and crept down off their bodies.

“I've been thinking,
Shon
sib,” said Iras, as the craft soared toward Station. She did not look at Nibur, but adjusted the folds of her talar after her skinsuit receded. “I'm not so sure that a full cleansing of the continent is really needed. After all, on Urulan, they only cleared the tops of mountains. Here, why not all
but
the mountains?”

His eyes narrowed. “The contract is signed. Is this how Bank Helicon does business?”

“Annihilating unique ecosystems is not good for business. I've heard, from back home.” She looked at him. “You haven't answered my question. Why must you clear every last mountain?”

“The poisons wash down from the mountains. The
more thorough the cleansing, the greater the yield of the land. Besides, the mountains hide the richest ores.” Nibur let his voice soften. “The mountains are important to me, too. But their material existence is nothing. I will create virtual mountains, greater than any on this poor world. They will form my next vision of
Proteus
. And I will pass the construct on to you—with my compliments.”

She did not reply. The offer would be hard to refuse, Nibur knew, for his virtual worlds were one of a kind. Still, for a moment he wished he had taken the bid from the Bank of Bronze Sky instead. They had less capital, but were more predictable.

When Rod returned to the Spirit Colony, he sought Mother Artemis alone. “I can no longer call the Spirit properly,” he told her. “All I can think of is that Elysian, how I wish he were dead.”

The Reverend Mother's hair strands knotted and unknotted. “That's too bad. The Elysian could use your prayers.”

“If I can't pray for him, how can I pray for anyone?”

She thought about this for some time. From outside, the roar of jet transport set the walls vibrating, as it bore equipment for cleansing to sites across the continent. “Keep trying,” she told him. “These things take time. Think of this, Brother Rod: You are being tested.”

In the meantime, a tumbleround had migrated to visit yet again, nearly up to the nursery window. No one felt like dealing with it; Rod certainly wanted to keep his distance. So he boarded up the window to keep out the whirrs and left the beast alone. What matter—they would soon be leaving. On the holo they viewed the site for their new
farmstead in Chiron. The land looked similar to their own, the brokenhearts drooping from their loopstems, the singing-trees stretching alongside the wheelgrass.

The babies fretted, despite Geode's attempts to cheer them, while the older children grew quiet and listless without knowing what was wrong. Gaea took to her old habit of following Rod wherever he went. Haemum and Chae were withdrawn, even surly. They kept up their chores, but Haemum avoided Rod's eye.

One night Rod awoke to hear pounding at the door. He was up in an instant, knowing it would take Brother Geode and Mother Artemis longer to “waken” from their recharge.

There stood two octopods, each with a bundle wrapped up in four arms. One bundle was Haemum; the other was Chae.

“What have you done to them?”
Rod threw himself onto the first octopod and tried to pry the arms of the octopod off of Haemum's face. As his fingers grasped the nanoplast, an electric shock jolted him off. He flew backwards, stunned. Inwardly Rod cursed his own stupidity. His hands and forearms were numb, but with an enormous effort he roused himself to stand.

“The two
shon
lings tried to escape.” The octopod opened its arms, releasing Haemum. She was awake enough to raise herself on her hands. By now Brother Geode had arrived, and he helped her and Chae back inside. Each had a pack of water and medicines; they must have planned their break well.

As Haemum lay exhausted on her bed, Rod found little to say. “It's not easy, Sister, for any of us. But you must trust the Reverend Mother.”

Haemum looked up at him. Her eyes were those of a
stranger. “What good is Reverend Mother? What good did she do?”

No definite date was set for departure, but the four-eyes meat was gone, and they were dipping into their emergency supply of dried brokenhearts. Every day now the sky was marred by the transporters of death. Whenever Gaea heard them she ran over to cling to Rod's legs.

One afternoon a strange greenish light came in the window. The tint of the sky was somehow familiar to Rod, though he had not seen it in years. He leaned out the window to look.

Iota Pavonis had hidden behind a cloud, a dense, round cloud shaped like a pancake. The edges of the cloud ruffled, dissolving and re-forming themselves. It was a storm cloud.

Rod could not take his eyes off the sight. He had seen storms in the mountains, and he had heard of weather putting out fires, but this was the first storm cloud he had seen right here at the colony. Its shape was perfectly symmetrical, not like the misshapen storm clouds that used to chase up the Valan coast.