A malicious grin split Cermo’s face. “Means it’s desperate.”
“Wounded,” Killeen said and picked up his pack where he had dropped it at the first sign of trouble.
They moved faster then and it got worse for Toby. The confusion squall had robbed him of his zest and the dry air sucked sweat from him.
As he loped on Toby thought about but could not truly conceive of the expanses of time and therefore of injury and anguish, of remorse and rage and sullen gray sadness, which the Mantis and its kind had washed over the ruby stars themselves. It had cloaked the galaxy in a wracking conflict that could never be fully over. From this primordial pain there lumbered forward into his own time a heritage of melancholy unceasing conflict that had shaped all his life.
“It’s sick, that’s suresay,” Killeen called as they moved.
“We’re getting closer,” Cermo answered.
<It is trying to cure itself,> Quath said.
“How you know?” Cermo asked, head swiveling in surprise.
<The illness might be arrested if portions of the Mantis, its subminds, can be shed. Once infected, they are ejected.>
“That spool?” Toby asked. “And the hexagon?”
“It hoped we would miss them,” Killeen said. “Dropped that other gear to make us think it was just shedding mass. Yeasay, Quath.”
<So it falters. The killing programs spread through it, despite its higher minds.>
Toby croaked, “Hope it’s getting tired,” but what he had intended to be a lighthearted remark came out desperate.
His father dropped back and studied his face. “Just last out a few more hours,” was all he said.
“I’ll take fore point,” Toby said suddenly.
Killeen looked at Cermo, who nodded. “Keep a sharp,” Killeen said. He went back to sweeping the right, tracking.
The navvy hit them as they came down a narrow draw. It was a fine place for an ambush and if the Mantis had done the job itself several of them would have died or at least gotten scrambled pretty badly. The navvy was a lesser mech that apparently the Mantis had assembled in flight. It looked like that.
Toby saw it just before it fired at them. Its big disks were extruded and the emag burst fried Toby’s left side. His servos froze and his legs locked, chunk and chunk, and then no feeling. He went down hard.
The beam swept across Cermo too but he had been faster and blew a hole in the navvy. That saved them from a real frying.
Killeen was in the clear and took his time and got the navvy square so that the emag reservoirs in it spilled out in one long shriek. Then it was dead.
They rested while Toby got his servos back up and running. Nobody said much but his father helped him with the crisped sockets and remarked casually, “Those navvies aren’t as slow as people think.”
Toby knew what that meant and in recollection knew that the navvy had been pretty slow. He had been loping through his own personal fog and had missed the profile when it popped up on his sensorium. Ignoring signs while on point was stupid.
“Sorry,” was all he could say.
Toby kicked the navvy in exasperation and then bent over the cowling. He popped some seals and rummaged and brought out two smooth ceramic things shaped like lopsided eggs.
“Mag traps,” Cermo said.
“Fine.” Killeen handled one carefully. It had the usual mech slots and looked all right to Toby. “Can we use them?”
“Lemme try,” Killeen said.
“Sorry,” Toby said again.
Killeen slapped one of the eggs into a hip servo. It clicked on. “Good find.” That was Killeen’s way of answering. “Let’s eat.”
SIX
Conceptual Spaces
Nigel felt himself snatched up. Yanked. Hard, head-snapping, neck-wrenching—
—then he was somewhere else.
Shadows on stones. He was walking through a courtyard. The floor was not flagstones but flattened white skulls, skeletal cages of ribs, crushed arms. They snapped as he stepped.
Whispers bubbled from the street of bones. Sharp and bitter words, ripped from throats that had once longed and yearned.
His footing turned soft. He plunged forward helplessly, each step taking him up to the knee in the musty, blood-soaked past.
The stinking street of the lost. The swamp of dead desire.
Darkness streamed from the narrowing walls.
All this, cooking under the thin veneer of the conscious mind.
Luminous impulses fought and scurried across the open stage of the human intellect. Factions shouted and clashed. An inner world of endless combat. Instinct, reason, all shades between.
