David Brin - Infinity's Shore

“Maybe. But I’ve been watching. Remember when a herd of bog stompers sloshed by, munching tubers torn up by the crash? Large critters passed both hulls and were ignored. I’m guessing the guard robots will take me for a crude native beast—”

“You got that right,” Rety muttered.

“—and leave me alone, at least till I’m real close.”

“And then what? You gonna attack a starship with your bow and arrows?”

Dwer held back from reminding Rety that his bow once seemed a treasure to her — a prize worth risking her life to steal.

“I’m leaving the arrows with you,” he said. “They have steel tips. If I take ’em, they’ll know I’m not an animal.”

“They should ask me. I’d tell ’em real fast that you’re—”

“wife, enough!”

The reedy voice came from Rety’s tiny urrish “husband,” who had been grooming her, flicking sand grains with his agile tongue.

“have sense, wife! brave boy make ship eyes look at him so you and me can get away! all his other talk-talk is fake stuff nice-lies to make us go be safe. be good to brave boy-man! least you can do!”

While Rety blinked at yee’s rebuke, Dwer marveled. Did all urrish males treat their wives this way, chiding them from within the heavy folds of their brood pouches? Or was yee special? Did some prior mate eject him for scolding?

“Iz’ at true, Dwer?” Rety asked. “You’d sacr’fice yourself for me?”

He tried reading her eyes, to judge which answer would make her do as she was told. Fading light forced him to guess.

“No, it’s not true. I do have a plan. It’s risky, but I want to give it a try.”

Rety watched him as carefully as he had scanned her. Finally, she gave a curt laugh.

“What a liar. yee’s right about you. Too dam’ decent to survive without someone to watch over you.”

Huh? Dwer thought. He had tried telling the truth, hoping it would convince her to go. Only Rety reacted in a way he did not expect.

“It’s decided then,” she affirmed with a look of resolve he knew too well. “I’m coming along, Dwer, whichever way you head. So if you want to save me, we better both get on west.”

“This ain’t west!” she whispered sharply, half a midura later.

Dwer ignored Rety as he peered ahead through the swampy gloom with water sloshing past his navel. Too bad we had to leave yee behind with our gear, he thought. The little urrish male provided his “wife” with a healthy dose of prudence and good judgment. But he could not stand getting wet.

Soon, Dwer hoped Rety’s survival instincts would kick in and she’d shut up on her own.

They were nearly naked, wading through the reedy marsh toward a pair of rounded silhouettes, one larger — its smooth flanks glistening except where a sooty stain marred one side. The other lay beyond, crumpled and half-sunk amidships. Both victor and vanquished were silent under the pale yellow glow of Passen, Jijo’s smallest moon.

Colonies of long-necked wallow swans nested in the thickets, dozing after a hard day spent hunting through the shallows and tending their broods. The nearest raised spear-shaped heads to blink at the two humans, then lowered their snouts as Dwer and Rety waded on by.

Mud covered Dwer and the sooner girl from head to toe, concealing some of their heat sign with steady evaporation. According to ancient lore, that should make the patrolling guard machine see them as smaller than they really were. Dwer also took a slow, meandering route, to foster the impression of foraging beasts.

Slender shapes with luminous scales darted below the water’s surface, brushing Dwer’s thighs with their flicking tails. A distant burst of splashing told of some nocturnal hunter at work among the clumps of sword-edged grass. Hungry things moved about in this wet jungle. Rety seemed to grasp this, and did not speak again for some time.

If only she knew how vague Dwer’s plan was, Rety might howl loud enough to send all the sleeping waterfowl flapping for the sky. In fact, he was working from a hunch. He wanted to have a closer look at the untraeki ship … and to check out his impression of this swamp. In order to test his idea, he needed to attain a particular frame of mind.

What was I thinking about, that day when I first contacted — or hallucinated — the voice of One-of-a-Kind?

It happened some years ago. He had been on his first solo trek over the Rimmers, excited to be promoted from apprentice to master hunter, filled with a spirit of freedom and adventure, for now he was one of the few Sixers licensed to roam wherever he wished, even far beyond the settled Slope. The world had seemed boundless.

And yet…

And yet, he still vividly recalled the moment, emerging from a narrow trail through the boo forest — a cathedral aisle as narrow as a man and seemingly high as a moon. Suddenly, the boo just stopped, spilling him onto a bowl-shaped rocky expanse, under a vast blue sky. Before Dwer lay a mulc lake, nestled in the mountain’s flank, surrounded by fields of broken stone.

What he felt during that moment of disorienting transition was much more than welcome release from a closed space. A sense of opening up seemed to fill his mind, briefly expanding his ability to see — especially the tumulus of Buyur ruins. Abruptly, he beheld the ancient towers as they must have stood long ago, shimmering and proud. And for an instant, Dwer had felt strangely at home.

That was when he first heard the spider’s voice, whispering, cajoling, urging him to accept a deal. A fair trade. With its help, Dwer might cease living, but he would never die. He could become one with the glorious past, and join the spider on a voyage into time.

Now, while sloshing under starlight through a murky bog, Dwer tried again for that feeling, that opening sensation. He could tell from the texture of this place — from its smell and feel — that mighty spires had also pierced the sky, only here they were much grander than at any mountain site. The job of demolition was far advanced — little remained to tear down or erase. Yet somehow he knew what stood where, and when.

Here a row of pure-white obelisks once greeted the sun, both mystical and pragmatic in their mathematically precise alignment.

Over there, Buyur legs once ponderously strode down a shopping arcade, filled with exotic goods.

Near that translucent fountain, contemplative Buyur minds occupied themselves with a multitude of tasks beyond his reckoning. And through the sky passed commerce from ten thousand worlds.

Down the avenues were heard voices … not just of Buyur, but a myriad of other types of thinking beings.

Surely it was a glorious time, though also fatiguing for any planet whose flesh must feed such an eager, busy civilization. After a million years of heavy use, Jijo badly needed rest. And the forces of wisdom granted it. All the busy voices moved on. The towers tumbled and a different kind of life took over here, one dedicated to erasing scars — a more patient, less frenzied type of being.…

…?

Yes?

Who … goes …?

Words slithered through Dwer’s mind, hesitantly at first.

Who calls … rousing me from … drowsy musing?

Dwer’s first urge was to dismiss it as merely his imagination. Had not his nervous system been palped and bruised from carrying the robot across icy streams? Delusions would be normal after that battering, followed by days of near starvation. Anyway, his habitual defense against One-of-a-Kind had been to dismiss the mulc spider’s voice as a phantasm.

Who is a phantasm?

I a being who serenely outlasts empires?

Or you, a mayfly, living and dying in the time it

takes for me to dream a dream?

Dwer held off acknowledging the voice, even casually. First he wanted to be sure. Wading cautiously, he sought some of the vines he had glimpsed earlier, from the dune heights. A nearby hummock seemed likely. Despite covering vegetation, it had the orderly outlines of some ruined structure. Sure enough, Dwer soon found his way blocked by cables, some as thick as his wrist, all converging on the ancient building site. His nose twitched at the scent of dilute corrosive fluids, carried by the twisted vines.