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Veronique was sobbing softly. Hiroshi jumped up and turned in all directions
but could see nothing to do. Somehow there was in the space an aching sense of
vacancy.
Viktor patted Veronique on the shoulder, her mouth open and working but unable
to say anything.
Hiroshi said, "They ... want to talk?"
"Talk?" Julia recalled what Viktor had said: This
God might show up in person sometime.
She laughed with a high, nervous edge.
14
STICK-OUTS
They are truly tiny! Chill cried, awed.
Who? Crafter's tones were, as always, somber and of exceptionally long
wavelength. The other Beings had to strain to hear them.
Chill's voice wavered up the narrow spectrum. Long tones came from the blanket
Chill had formed around the solid, moving ships. It kept a gingerly distance
from the spewing plasma plumes. The motes.
I slipped in-such small spaces!-and framed my eyes into receiving antennas. I
saw them! Shaped so odd.
Not like a classical figure at all. Not elegant, like us. Is there such a
thing as a chemical shape, Instigator?
I have no idea, Instigator sent, deeply confused. Chemistry was the province
of itself and of Crafter, because they were the only ones who cared for such
ugly, liquid matters. But a chemical shape?
What would masses driven by such blundering energies make themselves into? It
strained the imagination.
Send describing images.
Five stick-outs from a rectangle-I can say picture no better. I saw four of
these shapes.
A chorus of disgust, wonder, alarm. How did they change? Ring asked.
Chill's aurora surged with excited puzzlement. That is the oddity. They kept
shape! Instead, one of them moved one of its stick-outs.
Instigator was beginning to doubt all this. Chill might be merely having
delusions, brought on by the extremity of what it had attempted. Even with
Crafter's help the task was probably impossible, after all.
How?
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They hold to shape, Chill answered. They could all see that he had unwrapped
from the speeding mote, careful not to diffuse into the plume of hard plasma
that bloomed behind it. Sticks-outs upon stick-outs-
very strange. Then it moved. I moved to echo. It did, too!
Chemical intelligence? Forceful fumed redly. Nonsense.
Not! Mirk shot back. Chill has redeemed itself supremely. Has discovered more
than even Instigator.
Forceful said, I will go into the thing. I do not like these motes. Crafter!
Come-help me.
Crafter was silent.
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Chill sent, alarmed, Do not!
Ring screamed, I can't go with you. She fearfully unlinked from Forceful.
Must. Forceful made its way toward the flaring, killing plume. Must.
15
THE VIOLENCE OF THE AMPERES
They were standing around, babbling in the way people have when tension is
suddenly released, an aroma rising from them, all nervous and quick-eyed and
chattering. Primate patterns.
Then the alarm clanged again. Hair stood on end.
Julia dove for the floor. Veronique did, too, but she was the last to do so,
and she paid for it.
The burnt-yellow discharge surged from the antenna board, snarling. The air
bristled. A tendril shot forth and caught Veronique as she fell. She crackled
with the violence of the amperes that surged through her. Julia watched as
Veronique's mouth opened, a shrill shriek escaped-and then the mouth locked
open, frozen. Smoke fumed from her hair.
Veronique jerked, screamed. Her blue coverall sparked at the belt. She struck
the deck, tiny fires arcing from her fingers. Her hair burned away in a flash.
She shuddered, twitched-was still.
A vagrant spark struck Hiroshi. He jerked, screamed. His jaw slammed shut,
opened, yawned, slammed down again.
"Ahhh !"
-
Again the electrical energy vanished.
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Seared silence. The acrid air stung their nostrils.
Viktor said bitterly, "They want to talk, do they?'
Hiroshi's breath whistled between broken teeth.
Julia sobbed beside Veronique's singed body.
16
TUBE WORM
Shanna flinched. The video feed was all too clear.
"The damned thing's invisible!" Jordin said. "I can pick it up on all the
low-frequency bands, sure. But it's not even plasma."
On-screen, Shanna gazed at the charred lips of Veronique's corpse as the
High Flyer
crew lifted it, carried it away. The whole face was swollen, bruised, already
darkening. The fingers were blackened by the discharge. Only a few days
before, she had seen that mouth lifting in a smile, laughing, sipping
expensive champagne that fusion power had hauled 100 million miles.
"It's whatever holds plasma," Shanna said. "See? Those strands, they're
confined by magnetic fields. Just like our plasma receiver net. Currents lock
in the ions and electrons."
Jordin nodded. "A magnetic intelligence?"
"Thousands of kilometers long," Shanna said. "And we thought the zand was a
strange form of life!"
"It was-is. But this..." Jordin stared at the video feed, then looked over at
the multiple screens that showed the sources of the low-frequency waves they
were receiving. "I've got that new software running, pulling these weak
cyclotron harmonics out of the noise. Look-"
Shanna had trouble focusing on what he was saying. But indeed, there were
images, flickering at the very edge of detectability, on the whole-space
screens.
Jordin's hands swept the air, sharpening the images. "There's a shape that's
making those waves.
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Wrapped around
High Flyer.
Look-"
Once he pointed it out, Shanna could see the filmy, foggy form. A long tube
with many small openings,
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puckers or pores. And a big tubular opening-a mouth?-at the head it. Head?
Yes, it moved of forward, and the front weaved as if it was scanning its
surroundings. A huge magnetic tube worm.
"So that's what they look like," Jordin said wonderingly. "But look beyond-in
the higher cyclotron harmonics."
Shanna felt a visceral nausea. "Disgusting."
He upped the register and drew out of the background more faint traceries.
"Those are much farther away. My God, they must be huge."
"This one's closer, smaller." Shanna's mouth narrowed, lips pressed pale.
"Yeah, it's wrapped around in a closed shape."
"Let's give it some of what it gave us," Shanna said bitterly. She had met
Veronique when
High Flyer
arrived and liked her immediately. Hiroshi, too. His front teeth were
shattered, only stubs left. The medical team was patching him up.
She grabbed the controls. "Where is that bastard?"
17
SUDDEN PRIDE
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