Linda Nagata - Memory

My eyes went wide in surprise. I huddled deeper in my sleeping bag. Then I opened the book again.

The pages made their own light, a lovely, light green glow that left the letters standing out in crisp silhouette. I turned to the first page and read the title: Known Kobold Circles . There was an introduction before the listings of configuration codes. I rubbed at my eyes and told myself to close the book and go to sleep. But the introduction was short; only a few sentences. I decided I would read that, no more. Eagerly, I started puzzling out the unfamiliar words. The meaning I gleaned was close to this:

Ours is a world of tricks and complications. Who made it so no one can say, but all tricks must unravel in time if we work together, and share what we know. This book is dedicated to that end. Herein are summarized the findings of seventy-three temple keepers, all of whom dedicated many years to the puzzle of kobold circles. All the circles listed here are based on the Pythagorean series. No doubt other combinations of zero exist, but at the time of this writing they are unknown. New solutions should be reported to the keeper of Temple Choff-en-Oreone, for inclusion in future editions of this book.

If Ki-Faun had counted years according to the same calendar we used, then this writing was more than eight thousand years old.

Forgetting my resolve to read only the introduction, I turned the page, puzzling over the lists of configuration codes. It was too bad Ki-Faun had not bothered to explain what a kobold circle was, or for that matter a Pythagorean series. Maybe my savant would know?

I stuck my head out of my sleeping bag to whisper a quiet summons. That’s when I saw Moki standing over me, stiffly alert, his ears pricked toward the top of the tree trunk beside the heater where I had made my bed. I followed his gaze. Between the trunk and the collar that ringed the hole in the ceiling, I could just see the tiny head of the worm, glittering in the faint light of the drifting savants. Moki growled, and the worm’s head emerged a little farther. It looked at us with its empty white eyes.

I reached for my rifle. Without sitting up I raised it slowly, slowly to my shoulder. Then I lifted my head, just far enough to peer along the sight. The worm didn’t shy at my movement. It hung motionless against the tree trunk, its white eyes fixed on me… as if it was daring me to take the shot.

That first night Liam had shot it in the body, and it had immediately repaired itself, but I knew I could hit it in the head… and maybe that would finish it.

I held my breath; my finger tightened over the trigger—

Then, as if some ghost had whispered a warning in my mind, I realized what I was about to do. I would hit the worm, yes, and maybe destroy it, but the bullet would carry on into the trunk of the tree and then the forest mechanics would surely come.

I collapsed back to the floor, holding the rifle against me, my eyes closed and a cold sweat beading my skin. Sweet silver. I had nearly repeated my mistake of this afternoon. I could hear Liam again, his disappointment, Learn to think first, Jubilee .

He didn’t trust me. I wasn’t sure anymore I trusted myself.

I laid the rifle on the ground. Then I looked again for the worm, but it had withdrawn. I watched for it to return. Only after a long time, did I fall asleep.

The table lamp was on again when Udondi nudged me awake. “Time to rise, wayfarer, the road awaits us.”

“You found a road?” I asked around a yawn.

She grinned. “Where we step, that is our road.”

I groaned and tried to wriggle deeper into my sleeping bag. “It’s too early to quote classics. Are you sure it’s even morning?” There was certainly no evidence of daylight in the temple’s well room. The lamp on the table burned just as it had last night, casting the same illumination. I squinted at the tree trunks, but could see no sign of the sun winking through the narrow gap in the ceiling.

“It’s morning by the clock,” Udondi assured me. “And even better the rain has stopped. Do you feel all right today? Has the worm poison finished with you?”

I considered the question. I felt tired, hungry, sore, but what else could be expected? “I feel all right.”

“Good. Come have some breakfast. We want to be ready to leave at first light.”

I gave in, and crawled out of my sleeping bag. A glance around the room showed the other bags were already gone, packed on the bikes I supposed, along with the savants. Of Liam and Nuanez and even Moki, there was no sign. “How long has everyone been up?” I asked, collapsing onto the bench beside the table.

Udondi set a bowl of kibble in front of me. “Not so long.”

They were babying me. She and Liam had probably been up for an hour, packing, and making plans. I scowled at the kibble. I didn’t want to be the cargo, the human baggage on this journey.

Udondi chided me: “The kibble will not be improved, no matter the stern looks we give it.” She put out a glass, and a pitcher of water. Then she sat down across from me. “You’ve been sick with the worm’s bite. It would have affected any of us in the same way.”

I nodded, though I couldn’t help but think she and Liam would have shown more fortitude.

I commenced my duty with the kibble, while Udondi spilled three snub-nosed bullets onto the table. Picking up the first, she opened it at the base, revealing a hollow chamber inside the ceramic jacket. Next she took out the vial of metal-eating kobolds. With ceramic tweezers she carefully transferred seven kobolds into each of the bullets, sealing them shut when she was done.

“Going worm-hunting?” I asked.

She smiled.

Liam had been out with Nuanez, scouting about for the worm. He had hoped to try a head shot. But though Moki found scent trails that excited him, he did not find the mechanic, and Liam returned with his rifle unused.

Then it was time to leave.

Nuanez stood with us on the stoop, his boy-face looking all the more forlorn for the brave smile he tried to put on. “Take care on your journey,” he told us. “It’s a long way to the end of the eastern spur. Be cautious all the way. Don’t make fires. Don’t harm the trees.” Then he turned to me, still with that questioning look in his eyes. “Keep that book close to you, Jubilee. And if you ever come back here, you must visit, and tell me if it was worth Mari’s cat.”

I thought my heart would break. “Why don’t you come with us?” I blurted. “I think you should. We’re not the perfect companions, I know. That worm’s not a pleasant shadow, but you’d probably be okay with us to the edge of the Crescent. You could use my bike. I could ride with Liam.”

“Jubilee’s right,” Liam said. “Come with us. Let the matchmakers help you find your Mari.”

Nuanez shook his head. “I thank you for your kind offer, but I can’t go. Mari and I, we made promises. She said she’d come back here, and I know she will.”

We argued with him some more, but he had his faith and he would not come. So we left him some of our food packets as a parting gift, and we said good-bye. Afterward I thought of him as a kind of ghost, for although he was not dead he did not seem truly alive either. The past owned him, and he had not the heart to ask it to let him go.

We left Temple Li heading east, but after several miles we turned in a more southerly direction. This spur of the Kalang Crescent reached deep into the desert, and it was our plan to follow it for as long as we could, but first we wanted to find our way to the remote southern side.

The Iraliad was really two deserts. The northern expanse was renowned as a harsh land, with few settlements and no permanent highways, where the silver was said to rise almost every night of the year. But the southern basin was worse. The silver storms there were so bad that few players had ever survived it, and what little was known was mostly rumor. We reasoned that if we kept to the southern escarpment, there would be no highways, and no settlements below us, and the worm would have no way to make radio contact with its masters, and give us away.