Of yourself. They will help us all.
“To find Toby and Abraham?”
Toby is the most important. He carries information we need relevant to the Pleasure Plague.
“That’s what you call it?”
Our sparse data suggests that this Disorder of Desire can communicate, much as a disease does among you. This is another curious feature which we must investigate.
“Sounds to me like you’d better leave it alone.”
I believe even you can see that we cannot allow a basic feature of our makeup such as this to elude us. We know all of ourselves—that is the nature of higher intelligences. You do not know yourselves. Much of your antic artistry and chaotic creativity stems from that, I feel. But you must admit that you are an early, malformed stage of development. Systems with no “subconscious” or ungoverned elements are far more functional. Thus they must learn all facets of themselves, to improve.
Killeen snorted with contempt. More empty talk.
I do not deny that I/we have used you to our own ends.
“Even when we thought different, right?”
You refer to how you escaped from Snowglade in the Argo?
“We blew you all to smash and scatteration in our exhaust wash.”
That manifestation of me, yes. I thought it would give you some pleasure of your own. And strengthen your own stature within your tribe.
“I figured it was biggo bogus anyway.” Killeen remembered the celebrating Bishops after they had played raw hard plasma over the Mantis below. Satisfying, but he had always wondered.
That role devolved upon me. I had studied you as artworks for many generations. When the Exalteds decided to assemble the existing fragments of the Plague puzzle, they delegated to me the stimulation of your flight. The Argo would have destroyed itself if we had attempted to read its Legacies ourselves. Still more difficult would have been moving Argo here to the esty, and bringing the knowledge of the Myriapodia as well.
Andro was getting frazzled with the climbing and Killeen did not like the deranged, white-eyed look on the sweating face. Andro was used to cities and the mechs had brought all that down in minutes. It would take him a while to get his mind around that. That was the difference between a life spent on the move and one with feet sunk in the sod, bound up with buildings and possessions and the fat habits of mind. Killeen reached the last rough rim of the gully and rolled onto the plain above, gasping.
“They’re all part of it? Seems complicated.”
History is. The Myriapodia were—as the Exalteds predicted—essential in your reaching this place. They do not carry the Way of Three but they are a useful mixed-organic form. Some of us believe the Myriapodia may recapitulate a transitory mode of life which gave birth to our Phylum, a bridge between us and you. In any case they have now done their essential task for us and shall be eliminated, as they do consume resources.
“Pretty tough on the competition.” Killeen was trying to figure a way out of this and keeping the Mantis talking was all he could think of.
There is no need of deception between us. You know that you shall go the way of all fleshlife. Though as I have offered before, you can/should/will be enshrined in my/our artistry. This is the highest fate you dreaming vertebrates can cherish.
“I think we can do better than that. At least we’ll be doing it. You wouldn’t understand that, though.”
Andro trembled with fatigue and could not haul himself up the last steep slope. Killeen rolled to his left and grasped his hand. Andro got over at the rim and gulped in air, face red, eyes white.
As a collector and artist I much desire to sample and record both Abraham and Toby. That is the Way of Three the Exalteds have discerned in the scattered, archaic data. The Pleasure Plague somehow intersects certain genetic lines of your lowly Phylum. I already have your own genetic record, of course, as part of my research for the Fanny sculpture. I then attempted—
“You got me?” Killeen felt a hot anger. His Arthur Aspect spun a picture of two helices wrapped around each other and began a droning lecture about genes but he brushed it aside.
Of course. I scoured the Argo for flakes of skin, human dander, but could confirm no such from Toby. And your father we failed to find at your Citadel.
Killeen looked quickly around. Nothing on the arid plain. The esty curvature loomed above, distant and filmy. No escape anywhere. “I couldn’t find him either. Figured he was in one of the collapsed buildings.”
We excavated fruitlessly. We have no reliable method of searching out his DNA and knowing it was Abraham’s. But the Magnetic Mind carried signals from him, coming from somewhere in this place.
“How’d he get away from you, if you’re so all-fired powerful?”
There are other forces afoot here—to use an image your Phylum would employ.
“Glad to hear it.” Did this thing understand sarcasm?
Something concentrated an energy density at the Citadel of the Bishops exceeding our capabilities. It transported Abraham away, apparently intact.
“Nice trick.”
Killeen helped Andro to his feet. The man looked wildly into the distance and mumbled. Killeen followed Andro’s line of sight and caught a glimmering of structure. Lacy lines, straight but shifting with uneasy energy.
Andro seemed all right now. His systems seemed jumpy but better than Killeen’s. He pointed.
Something there now. Swift. Jerky. Mobile lattice more than a structure and parts went away for a while and came back and he could not see how that happened.
Andro had some sort of weapon hidden in his elbow. Killeen had not even recognized it. He sent something at the form on the horizon. Killeen saw it as a flash in his sensorium.
Andro sat down suddenly. Without a sound he kicked his heels savagely against the ground. It was as though he were dancing and had just made the mistake of lying down first. His face showed no concern. Hands cupped together as if he were praying. His legs drummed on frantically. Sweat jumped out all over him in seconds and he breathed heavily and still not a flicker in the impassive face. He began to blink fast and then faster.
He stopped. Legs and arms went limp. A long sigh escaped his chest and his eyes closed.
Killeen listened to the Mantis go away as his sensorium drained of color and calmed. He did not move until the presence was gone and then Andro began to speak. He went on for a long time and none of it made any sense of course.
FOUR
