David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

“He stopped the weirders from wrecking the launchers. But they’re tearing up their mountings. Jeffers is furious, but every one’s too exhausted from the fighting, too scared of those crazies, to try to stop them.”

“Well,” Saul muttered. “It’ll sort out.” The display had calmed down a bit. Virginia’s face was smooth again, her agitation betrayed only by her trembling fingertips and a sheen of perspiration.

Lani held out a small record cube. “Ould-Harrad gave me this to pass on to you, Saul.”

He was torn. He didn’t want to divide his attention. But Virginia’s vital signs were stable… for someone who was already effectively dead.

He shied away from the thought. “Play it, please.”

Lani dropped the cube into a reader and a side display lit up.

The face had changed. The black hue was still there, in places where it had been taken up by the soft, dimpled growth that covered all but his eyes, mouth and ears. Elsewhere, the covering was multicolored—purple, blue, yellow—but mostly green.

The brown eyes seemed to flare with a seer’s long, burning look.

“Saul Lintz, you need not have asked Carl Osborn to remind me of my promise to you. The machines have not been harmed any further than they were in the wrath of battle. We of the inner ice have no need to interfere in any way other than in destroying their mountings.

“They are not to be remounted on the equator, or anywhere near it. The south pole, as well, is forbidden. We will permit no impulse to be applied to this fleck of drifting snow below the fiftieth northern parallel.”

“But…” Carl shook his head, fighting off some of the drug-induced rigor. “But that rules out every possible rendezvous we’ve considered! In that case, why should we even bother… ?”

He stopped. There was no use arguing with a recording. Ould-Harrad continued.

“This fragment, this sliver out of time, has no role to play in the realm of the Hot, down where the roar of entropy drowns out even the Voice of God. There will be no encounters with rocky worlds or interference with the plans the Almighty has already made for those places…”

“He’s bonkers,” Carl mused. “Completely crazy.” But he shut up when Saul motioned him to silence.

“You, Saul Lintz,” Ould-Harrad resumed. “You have become many. You may even live forever.” The one-time African’s still-human eyes blinked in wonderment. “Why this was permitted, I cannot imagine. But there remains no doubt of the gifts, the tools that have been placed in your hands.”

The eyes flicked upward. “Perhaps the answer will be found out there, out in the Darkness that awaits us.

“One thing I do know—that my debt and obligation to you has now been paid.

“Do not come down into the deeper chambers, or even call on me during the remainder of my allotted span.” Ould-Harrad’s forehead furrowed. “For I cannot master my jealousy easily—I who wished so much to be Heaven’s instrument, and found that He had chosen an irreverent infidel, instead. Futile as it may be, and even though it damn me, I will try to kill you if—while I live—you ever come down again into the navel of our world.”

The image vanished. Saul shook his head and sighed. Adeal is a deal.

He quickly checked on Virginia, then turned back to Lani. “Sick bay,” he said. “How are things?”

She blinked back to the present. Shivering “Um, your…uh…clones are taking care of things. They’re good doctors, even though they scare the shit out of people.”

“I’m glad you’re alive Saul.”

“So am I, dear. I’ll explain later how all this happened. Meanwhile, you’d better go back and help Jeffers manage repairs. The surviving spacers are needed more than ever.”

“What about… ?” She glanced at Virginia. Saul shook his head. His voice was worn, thin.

“We’ll salvage what we can.”

Lani covered her mouth and let out a small moan. She turned, threw her arms around Carl, and sobbed.

Carl blinked, first in surprise and then wonderment. In his semidrugged state his voice was low. “Lani, it’ll be all right … Saul is doing everything he can … Tell, tell Jeff I’ll be up soon.”

His hands twitched. He fought off the lassitude to bring his arms around her and answer her embrace. “We’ll endure,” he whispered, and closed his eyes.

Later, when she had gone, Carl said to Saul, “You know, she’s quite a girl, that Lani.”

Saul nodded, and smiled faintly. “About time you realized that.”

He had been thinking about poor Paul, the clone who had been damaged, who had grown into a near-perfect replica of him in all but mind… a poor innocent child whose corpse now lay out on the ice, alongside two of his brothers, killed in the fighting.

Should I mourn as a father, as a brother, or as one who has lost a piece of himself?

Soon Carl was walking around again, swinging his arms. He came forward as Saul muttered an oath and bent over the patient.

Virginia’s face twitched. The holo display pulsed dangerous hues and a low, ominous tone began to growl. Saul cursed lowly.

“Damn! I was afraid of this. Back when the Earth missile exploded, it was only a case of disorientation. But now the machine’s being asked to absorb all of her. And there’s not enough room!”

“What can be done?”

“I don’t know! I… I can’t tell the difference between holo-bio memory segments that have been transferred and those that have simply died. There’s no way to do an inventory, because huge parts of her have just been swallowed up by the data net. She’s surging all over the hell and gone!”

He hesitated, then climbed onto the webbing and lifted his own neural tap.

“There’s no other choice. I’m going in.”

Carl’s hand gripped his arm for a moment. Their eyes met.

“Be careful, Saul. Do your best.”

Saul nodded. Their hands clasped.

Then he lay down and closed his eyes.

Wendy whirred to a stop. Clicked. Lifted a claw arm. Hesitated.

The little mech swiveled its turret and scanned.

Its visual system perceived lines, angles, moiré webs of spatial frequencies. Following its programming, it weighed the signals and transformed them into patterns. It recognized things identifiable as machines, instruments, the door, people.

Wendy’s programming had changed many times, recently. Its mistress had always been coming up with new techniques for parsing lines and shapes, new ways to give them names… an ever-growing list of commands to obey and subtly choose among.

Now, suddenly, another flux of new programming flowed into the little mech. This time, though, it came as a torrent.

Chaotic rivers of data poured in, stunning it immobile. The flood was too vast byfar to be handled by Wendy’s systems—like a cup trying to contain the ocean. It was hopeless, impossible.

And yet there came a moment… only an instant… during which the small machine stared at the named sets of lines and shapes, and it saw… whenit stared, and experienced a brief startlement.

What am I? it wondered. What is all this?

Why… ?

But there was simply no room for the program to operate, and the tide gave up trying to squeeze into the tiny space. It surged off elsewhere, desperately seeking a home.

Wendy remained stock still for a long time, even after the rushing streams of data had departed. The flicker of self-awareness was gone—if it had ever been anything more than a phantom. But in its wake something had taken root. A shadow. An impression.