The big man hadn’t been any too happy with Toby’s “running off” with Quath, for starters. Then there was the double embarrassment that the red fluid that they fetched back turned out to be packed with useful nutrients. It was even tasty. He and Quath had stolen Cermo’s thunder.
So they had to sit it out while the Family had quickly raided all along the length of the sail-snake, taking the red liquid where they could. Not too much, though; Family Bishop codes would never allow endangering the life of so vast a living thing.
A few Family went deeper into the inky recesses of the molecular cloud. Besen had been with them, and her tales of the exotic lifeforms there had made Toby envious. This molecular mist was one of the smaller ones, yet it abounded in bizarre shapes. Triple-spined things, with spreading panels to soak up sunlight. Big, billowing beasts that looked like fabled sailing ships. Mean-eyed predators with tight, leathery mouths, stingy with their precious internal gases. Blimps with enormous eyes to find food in the shifting starglow. Tangles of wispy grasses growing from watery pouches. Forests of swaying yellow leaves. Helical rod-trees that telescoped out, seeking more starlight. Warty living skins that wrinkled and stretched to wrap around spindly purple trunks, partners in some mysterious life process.
They found a huge, self-propelled, rust-red pyramid that seemed like a peaceful grazer, feeding on enormous gray cobwebs, sucking in strands like delicious spaghetti. These thin nets collected the drifting molecules of the great clouds. They looked appetizing, but nobody in the Family could stand the stuff. Besen thought maybe they needed some sauce.
Worse, the red pyramid-beast didn’t like tiny creatures picking at its feeding grounds, either. It was as big as the sail-snake and hard to argue with. It chased the offenders all the way back to the ship, veering away only when it saw that Argo was not just a fellow giant.
Besen thought it wasn’t at all obvious who would win, if it had come to a fight between the pyramid and Argo. Who knew what tricks a few billion years of evolution could cook up inside a molecular cloud?
But all this had happened while Toby was confined to the ship. He gritted his teeth, swore a little for the pure pleasure of it, and then went back to work.
When he finished his lessons and Isaac certified his work, he reported to Cermo, got his next-day assignment, and turned to leave.
“Hold on,” Cermo said. “Report to the Cap’n.”
“Huh? I wanted to go outside, get a good look at the Chandelier.”
Cermo said sternly. “Argo’s not run for your amusement. Go.”
Cap’n Killeen stood with hands behind his back, studying his office wall screens. They showed closeup images of the Chandelier being sent back by Argo’s automatic flyers. Massive spiral arms. Swooping webs that, under magnification, proved to be linked apartments. Toby tried to imagine living in such places, amid vast lines that dwindled by perspective toward glowing masses in the immense distance.
“Think it’s inhabited, Dad?”
Killeen turned slowly from the brilliant screens, his face veiled. “No. The mechs stormed all the Chandeliers thousands of years ago. This one is better preserved, so maybe there wasn’t a big fight over it.”
“Are you sure?”
Killeen shook his head slowly, obviously consulting an Aspect. “Must be. Records are poor, though.”
“Somebody must have Aspects from that far back.”
“None from this sector, so close to True Center.”
Toby knew that Aspects got hazy and scratchy with age. Chandelier Aspects had to have interpretation programs added, to understand them at all. And it wasn’t just the shifts in language. The hardest things to convey were the concepts. Nobody could really comprehend how the Chandelier folk thought. “If we could get some idea—”
Killeen shook his head. “Humans were spread all over, back then. This Chandelier, it looks pretty damn fine all right, but it might have been just a minor outpost, for all we know.”
“Huh? But it’s, it’s beautiful.”
Killeen grinned. “Suresay—to us. Maybe it was nothing special to people from the Great Times.”
Toby looked skeptical and Killeen waved at the screens, where wonders unfolded. “Look, once people retreated from their Chandeliers, they went down to live on planets again. Things got rough. We stopped building big, and settled for what we could protect from mechs. The Family of Families spread out among the stars, looking for safe places to hide.”
“That was the Hunker Down, right?”
“The beginning of it. They figured to hide out on planets. Thought mechs wouldn’t have much use for them.”
“Because mechs live best in space?”
Killeen grimaced wryly. “So they thought. On Snowglade and Trump, we first built the Grand Arcologies— cities like little Chandeliers, but smaller because of the gravity. The damn mechs smashed them. Our tech stuff got worse and we built the Low Arcologies. Still pretty damn big places, mind you. I saw the ruins of one.”
“You told me. Big as a mountain.”
“Well, maybe a little smaller. Too big for the mechs, though. They got through our defenses and flattened the little arcologies, too, eventually.”
The ancient anger in Killeen’s voice made Toby say in sympathy, “So we built the Citadels. Kept going.”
“Yeasay—and kept ’em well hid, so we thought. Had to live by raidin’ off the new mech manufacturing complexes. Then the mech city-minds sent rat-catchers to blast each Family’s Citadel. Rooting people out, casting them to the winds. Till only Citadel Bishop was left. Then came our turn—remember?”
Toby recalled with reluctance their flight from Citadel Bishop. He had been just a boy, confused, scared. Fire and smoke and death. His mother, killed by the mechs with merciful, cold swiftness.
He shook himself: “Look, Cermo said to report to you.”
Killeen nodded silently. Toby could tell that he, too, had trouble shaking off the dark past. Killeen abruptly turned and sat behind his broad, uncluttered desk. “I think you’ve been getting out of hand.”
“Oh, the sail-snake thing? Look, it wasn’t my idea.”
“You should not get Quath stirred up. She is unpredictable.”
“Quath carried me out there. There was nothing I could do.”
“You could’ve signaled us, told us what was going on.”
Toby shrugged. “I didn’t think of that.”
“When you get in trouble, consult your Aspects.”
