<You seek the Bishops.>
“You’re their . . . ally?”
<My species is, now.>
“I know your Phylum.” No point in taking any defensive measures against this many-legger; it could kill him in a twinkling. He noted abstractly that he felt no fear; if he allowed himself, he might even feel a nostalgia for that emotion. It came infrequently now. “I remember your Illuminates, their elaborate hive-mind diplomacy—yes, I was involved with them once.”
<They sent me here.>
“They always had good judgment.”
<You know our past so well?>
“Reasonably. And I read a lot.”
<The Library.>
“A part. Most of it I can’t fathom.”
<Do you know . . .>
“Yes?” The huge thing’s transmissions had an odd, many-layered flavor. It was gingerly touching a deep, ancient question.
<You know who blended us?>
“Your interspecies merging? That was a fair time back.”
<Before our history.>
“As I recall, it wasn’t us.”
Involuntarily, it radiated confused reactions: relief, excitement, all underlaid with a wistful sadness.
<I have come to understand your kind. I had hoped—>
“Sorry, no. We came later. Recent uninvited guests here, we are.”
<Who, then?>
“There’s a word for the organic, Natural races which haven’t been domesticated by the mechs—extinct.”
<I had feared such. But . . . we are not extinct.>
“We’re different. You’re harder to kill, and we’ve been kept alive in the Center because the mechs don’t know quite what to make of us.”
<Now they do.>
“Um, dead right. Cat’s out of the proverbial.”
<You carry the Codes.>
“Even dilapidated old me, yes—though only partially. Genetic glide or drift or some other jargon I’ve long since forgotten.”
<I can be of aid in this. My full lineage burrow-name is Quath’jutt’kkal’thon.>
“Nigel Walmsley. Your name means something, I’m sure, but mine is just a sticker slapped on me.”
The killing was still going on across the plain below but they both had blocked it out. Now the gyre of broad-winged mechs came lower, finishing up their business. Nigel pointed. “They’ll go for me if they sniff me out. I haven’t got your defenses.”
<Nor I yours.>
An intriguing jibe. But the birdlike mechs were getting closer. “What are those?”
<They have been hastily adapted to these pseudo-planetary environments. Once they were the light grazers.>
“Ah. Photovores.”
One shot at him then. The burst ignited a tree and Nigel survived only because Quath instantly sent out a blanketing shield. It was an intense bubble of electromagnetic energy, veining the fractured air. Enough for the instant, but— “Afraid I have to call on those hidden reserves, Quath.” Nigel sent a signal, warbling oddly in his sensorium. He had been given a calling circuit and of course did not have a clue as to how it worked.
<I cannot protect you very much longer—>
The filmy bird was enormous this time. At first he thought it was a mech, but as it came flapping over the trees he saw it was translucent, a delegate of the Highers. It hovered and piercing eyes gazed at them.
Nigel took its quick bleep of information and said, “Their wings are still light-sensitive, these photovores?”
Quath was still peering up at the huge nonbird of shifting, buzzing parts. It was clear in such a gross manifestation that millions of tiny motes made up the thing—whether insectlike motes or something odder, Nigel could not tell. He never had been able to figure it out, though it chose this manifestation often recently. He knew the physical form was meaningless and that whatever lay behind it was trying to make this easier for him and for Quath. “Quath?”
<I . . . yes, they do.>
