Perhaps it had something more?
What could that be? What could that be?
Beside them lay the finespun latticework of calcium rods that had been a rib cage. They sprawled amid meat and mess.
The shattered creature seemed to still embody a secret the dying alien struggled to grasp.
Structures unraveled. Currents ran down.
On the barren plain only a single plaintive voice now called.
What could that be? What could that be?
PART FOUR
Sense of Self
Nature does not err, for she makes no statements.
—BERTRAND RUSSELL
ONE
Melted Portals
He crawled down a muddy slope and hoped that he would not stand out against the thermal background. The air was thick and moist and that was of some help. Maybe.
Killeen thought again about the fact that he had been running away from ruined cities most of his life.
Retreating from the burned and smashed ruins of the Citadel—yeasay, that he remembered sharply. That day seemed to lie far down a corridor of ruin and destruction stretching back longer than any man could live. To him came the names of favorite places where he had played as a boy and learned as a man: The Broadsward, Green Market, the Three Ladies’ Rest. All that remained of them now were the jagged teeth of broken walls, whistling in cold winds.
This time was no different. The mechs had ripped the portal city apart the way a seamstress would tear the arms off a dress—professionally, swift and sure.
—Cermo!—he sent on low comm.
No answer. Probably smart not to answer, anyway.
The mechs who came spilling through the portal were like nothing Killeen had ever seen before and they could do a lot of deadly things. He had no idea how they had shut down all the Bishops’ circuitry. Then the control lifted and somebody lost and confused was babbling on all bands, panicked. A flash condensed out of the air quick as a gasp and that Bishop was dead.
Killeen reached concealment under some widespread fronds. The trees here were like none he had ever seen on Snowglade. They angled their broad shelves in the direction of the bright timestone. When one area faded the trees turned their attention to the next radiant patch. They moved like great wise creatures with many hands, palms cupped up to the shining.
He wormed his way under them and in time over a low saddle-back. Here he could get a look back at the vast complex where the Bishops had entered the esty.
He edged up over a rock rim. Through long years on the run he had learned to never expose himself to detection. Not if he could wait it out and let the enemy move away. But he had to find Bishops. Nobody else would pull the Family back together. Jocelyn and Cermo were good under-officers but they would spend their time trying to find him.
He bobbed his head up over the rim and quick-tapped his right incisor twice and ducked back down. That froze the image on his retina so he had time to study it.
The portal complex was bigger than any construction he had ever seen, except the ruin of a Chandelier. It worked in intricate fashion, amazing the Bishops, but it had blown to splinters when the mechs erupted into it. Now the remaining hexagonal matrices were liquefying. Their huge slab walls bubbled and slid and fumed a brown vapor.
He watched the still image but no Bishop telltales throbbed in it. Then he heard a noise.
He rolled left and sent an interrogating pulse toward the sound.
“Ah!” A thin cry.
He brought a bolt antenna around on the cry and saw that it was Andro. “Damn! That hurt!”
“You’re lucky you’re alive. I could’ve just fired.”
“That was an inquiry? It might have killed my inboards.”
“You’re too flimsy,” Killeen said, scanning the territory behind Argo. Coming up behind approaching humans was an old mech trick.
“Less circuitry for mechs to sniff.”
Killeen looked at the scrawny man. Andro was nearly naked and without visible augmentations. “No weapons either, looks like.”
“I’m a legal man, not a bone crusher.”
“Try using your laws here. Or collecting a tax.”
“Your bang-bang didn’t cut thick air back there either.”
They were immediately back on the same tack as before, Killeen noted abstractly. Because they couldn’t talk right away about what had happened. “Have you seen any of my people?”
“Thought I did.”
