The Fleet of Stars Read online

  "Where are we going?" she asked breathlessly.

  "Out to admire Phobosrise while the sky is this clear. And with luck—Eyach, here we be."

  They had reached a public garage. In a city like Cronimelin it would have been locked, with a recognition key for tenants, but here the identity of a thief would soon have become known and that person soon be dead. Elverir led the way into the lighted interior and on among the parked vehicles. They passed Kinna's flitter—its cabin canopy bulged out from it like a slightly reproachful eye watching her—and came to a groundcycle, little more than a motor, controls, locker, and two saddles. He gestured for her to mount.

  She hesitated. "We're heading into the desert? Aren't you going to enter a travel plan?"

  "Why?" She heard the bravado. "Await you we'll come to harm?"

  "Well, uh, nobody ever knows what can happen— help the rescue corps—the law—"

  "Here we are not under Terran law, but Lunarian honor," he reminded her.

  She stiffened at the condescension. "I'm not afraid!"

  "Then get aboard."

  She couldn't well turn around and go to bed, could she? Kinna settled herself behind him. He started the motor and steered forward. The door retracted for them. It closed at their backs with a kind of finality.

  Kinna shoved her qualms aside. This was a fantastic night. They had not far to roll before they were out in the open, with nothing to block off sight of the stars.

  At first they took a road, northbound through a plantation. The cultivars weren't the same as at home. Of course, here too a buried network of aquaria, with its ice worms and other symbionts, supplied a mat of low-growing solaria. Here too roots, bacteria, agrichemistry, and machines had created a layer of soil, which incorporated clathrated water as well as minerals and humus. But Lunarians didn't raise many plants requiring intensive attention. They preferred things like ironroot, am-berwood, and ramalana, trading the yields for materials produced by fields elsewhere. Trees and shrubs hulked black on either side. Kinna did spy a stand of pale Mars corn and an eerie sheen where the translucent cowl of a vaquetilla sheltered a vegetable community. Then they were beyond it all, on the overpass-above a drift fence, down again and out upon the barren.

  Elverir left the road. At reckless speed he wove among boulders, across dunes, on toward higher ground. The cycle throbbed. Dust smoked in its wake. The landscape reached stark, ashen in this light, altogether still except for these two.

  He stopped. The abruptness threw her against him. She clutched with knees and hands. "What's the matter?" she cried.

  He pointed upward. "Hoy-a. Yonder. A ship?"

  Her stare followed his finger. A glint traversed Orion. "No," she mumbled. "Can't be. We'd know if one was coming." When had the last, other than the annual transport vessel? Five years ago? And that was a brief scientific expedition, entirely sophotectic, though it sent the House of Ethnoi a courtesy message.

  He twisted about to glance at her. His teeth gleamed in something like a snarl. "Not from Earth," he said. "Proserpina."

  For a moment she tumbled through wildness. All those stories of secret landings—and communication definitely went to and fro across the gulf, encoded, but bits of information escaped—somebody had heard somebody else who claimed to have been told by a third party—contact with Alpha Centauri, new kinds of spacecraft, unidentified comings and goings, and, vaguer yet, mention of an unrevealed discovery a gravitational lens was supposed to have made—The stars whirled dizzily through her head.

  Elverir regarded the sky afresh. His shoulders slumped, his tone flattened. "Nay. See how it fares. A relay satellite, small and in high orbit, so we see it not when the air is dusty."

  Kinna's world steadied. I should have known that right away, she thought. He should have. "What made you think anything else?" Hopes that he hadn't shared with her?

  "Eyach, I've overheard scraps of tales out of the Threedom—" The words snapped off.

  Her skin prickled. "What, the outlaws in Tharsis?"

  He was silent for a few seconds before he replied, "I must not tell you."

  He can't, Kinna realized. Who'd trust a boy with a big secret? Like he said, he'd overheard a few snatches. But I won't say that to his face.

  Nor did she want to pursue the matter, on this night that had been so magical. It was too much like times at home when Father was in a bad mood and his suspicions broke loose from his tongue. Sure, she thought, peculiar things were astir, but probably the Lunarians on Mars didn't know a lot about it themselves, and certainly they'd passed very little on to any Terrans; and if the Synesis wasn't issuing warnings or taking action, there couldn't be a terrible threat, could there? Maybe it was something wonderful getting ready to happen.

  Elverir restarted the groundcycle, driving more cautiously now, making for a ridge up ahead.

  Phobos rose in the west and all magic returned.

  The moon was dwarfish, dun, lumpy, nothing like Luna above Earth, but it climbed rapidly and cast faint shadows—a faerie sight. She lost herself in it.

  On the crest of the ridge Elverir stopped, got off, stepped behind her, and opened the locker. For a moment, half thrilled, half terrified, she wondered about his intentions. Then he came to stand beside her and scan through a photoamplifier he'd taken out.

  She peered in the same direction. The terrain rolled away as before, except where a ravine cut a black gash and two craters lay abrim with darkness. "What are you searching for?" she asked.

  "Hsss.... Hai-ach!" broke from him. "Yonder. See!"

  He gave her the instrument. She brought it toward her eyes till it clicked against her helmet. A rock, magnified in the screen—She moved it through an arc. Wait—yes, there. Half lost to sight among boulders and shadows, the metal shape moved on eight legs. Glitters near the front might be sensors. She guessed it was about the size of a man, and far more massive. "What is that?"

  "A beast. What else?" he snapped. "You have heard."

  Yes, and seen images. She bridled. He needn't take that tone. She'd just been surprised. "Primitive robots," she said, as stiffly as she was able. "They charge their accumulators by sunlight till they have the energy to wander around for a while. Lunarians hunt them for sport."

  "Sieval u zein—I was hoping one would be afoot." His voice shook.

  "I didn't know there were any hereabouts."

  "The phratry imported some lately."

  Eagerness lifted. "Can we drive closer?"

  "Nay. It might bolt. Or it might charge. They are meant to be dangerous." Elverir slipped back to the locker. He returned carrying a long-barreled object. "A gun for beast," he said, mouth stretched in a grin.

  "No!" she protested, dismayed.

  "Await me," he ordered. "I will bring you a trophy."

  He sped off, running, leaping, down the slope, on over the treacherous ground by the ravine, toward the great steel thing that would soon detect him. She remembered imagings of leopards going after their prey.

  That poor robot, she thought crazily. No, it's only a robot, a machine; it's not aware like a sophotect or even an animal. But it's meant to be dangerous. Don't get hurt, Elverir! Don't!

  He didn't really want to show me the landscape and moonrise. That would have been all right if nothing else came along, but what he really wanted to do was hunt. Oh, he's glad I'm seeing his—his prowess, but—Yes, he'll take the usual trophy they take before they repair the dead robot and set it loose again. He'll have me smuggle it out, he's not supposed to do this at all, but someday he'll take it back from me.

  The beast halted. Through the optic she saw it turn oonderouslv about to confront the oncoming boy.

  "Elverir!" Kinna screamed. "Be careful! Shoot fast!" She didn't feel sorry for the beast any more. She wanted it killed. She wanted Elverir to return to her, and they would rejoice together.

  Through a corner of her consciousness flashed a question. Is this in our nature? Father thinks the Teramind doesn't quite trust us humans. Is this wh
y? Could it be— no, it's impossible; it can't be that the mighty Teramind fears us.

  6

  THE NOISE HIT Fenn as he was on his way home after a day watch of topside duty. He stopped in midstride. The noise loudened, shouts, screams, thuds, an underlying ragged growl. He had heard it once before in his life, and more than once in training vivis. The hair stood up everywhere on his body. "Santa puta," he whispered. A mob had begun to riot.

  He broke into a run, the Lunar gallop that sends a strong man forward like a thrown rock. Pedestrians scattered to right and left. He sped past apartment fronts draped in flowering vines, little specialty shops, a cantina. At the intersection with Ramanujan Passage, he swung left. Duramoss gave way to pavement and to walls farther apart. Vehicles regularly used this thoroughfare. All that were in sight had pulled over. Frightened faces peered from doorways and viewports. The figures in a lightsign above a joyhouse danced, insanely irrelevant, against the overhead simulation of a blue sky where summer clouds wandered at peace.

  About fifty men and a few women crowded together. They milled, shoved, yelled defiance and obscenities. Most were armed—pry bars, hammers, stones, whatever the bearer had snatched up, including a few large knives.

  At the center of their pack, clubs rose and fell, metal banged and groaned. A tall, skinny man with sandy hair and a ski-jump nose stood aside, waving his fists on high. "Get it!" he shouted. "Wreck the vile thing! Go, go!"

  Fenn had not worn a patrolman's uniform since he went into the detective division. His garb was a plain tunic and slacks. He had his badge, though. He whipped it out, lifted it above his head, and thumbed the switch. It flared as if ablaze and shrieked. His roar went beneath: "Hold! Break that up! In the name of the law!" He repeated the Anglo command in Spanyol and Sinese before he clapped the badge against his chest to cling and flash. Its alarm ceased. He slipped forth the small'shock pistol that was his sole weapon. "Quiet down!"

  Some on the fringe gaped and fell silent. He was a daunting sight, a hundred and ninety-three centimeters tall, more than broad and thick enough to match. From under bushy brows as yellow as the bristling mane and beard, blue eyes glared in a countenance heavy-boned and hook-nosed, ruddy now with anger. The pistol swung slowly to and fro, as if deciding whom to strike first.

  Most hadn't yet noticed. Lost in hysteria, they howled, kicked, and battered. This would be touch and go, Fenn realized.

  He knew these people, several of them by name. Marginals, none too clean, none too bright, unable to come to terms with what they were. Not quite so slack that the gratifications they could afford on citizen's credit glutted them, they had no other interests to pursue; nor had they a subculture or a faith or even a lodge, such as might have given shape to their lives. Petty crime in the service of petty ambitions was as far as any of them got. You found their sort huddled in its own quarter in many towns, because among each other, they could hope for acceptance. Sometimes a clot of them formed and strayed around looking for trouble. Then they could be dangerous. The thin man stretched an arm to point at Fenn. Hatred howled: "Get him, camaradas! Get the filthy gozzer!"

  It was a woman who first yelled and charged. Her hair tossed wild, the locks of a greasy Medusa. A man took fire and came after her, another, another.

  Fenn shot. They dropped, yammering and jerking in tetany. Those behind curbed themselves. The noise diminished. One by one, they in the mob turned to stare at him. For a few heartbeats nobody stirred.

  "See what he did!" cried the thin man. "Get him before he gets you!"

  Help wouldn't arrive fast, since it hadn't already. Fenn's gun would account for just a few more before they were upon him. And whoever they were lynching needed immediate aid, supposing he was alive yet.

  A red joy surged up. Slag and slaughter, here was a real fight! Even as he stuck the pistol back under his tunic, into a recognition holster from which none of them could snatch it, he sprang. "Whatever you want!" he bellowed.

  His fist smote a stomach. The man doubled over and flew two meters before he crashed. Fenn had already pulped a nose. From the corner of an eye he saw an iron bar swung at him. He blocked the blow, forearm meeting wrist, and drove a knee into the groin behind it. Whirling, he grabbed a shirt and smashed its wearer against somebody else.

  Given training and discipline, they would have overwhelmed him; but they were a rabble. Moreover, he had forged an Earthling's body for himself. They could not be bothered with boring exercises in a centrifuge.

  When he had cleared a space, Fenn seized the nearest man, raised him on high, and hurled him into the middle of the rest. At that they broke. Wailing weak curses or wordless panic, those ran who could. The shot ones, partly recovered by now, and the injured limped after. The ringleader screamed at Fenn, then helped two who were dazed make their escape.

  Give the slimeworm credit for that much, thought Fenn amidst thunder.

  A part of him remembered to aim the camera ring on his left hand and try for a picture. He had more urgent things to do than chase them.

  The battle fury ebbed. He didn't actually like hurting people; he worked off tensions in the dojo or on mountaineering expeditions topside. Still, this had been a grand brawl in a good cause. His breathing slowed, his heart slugged more steadily, the heat left his skin. He grew aware of wetness and a sharp smell, sweat. A couple of spots where he had taken blows began to ache a little, but it was nothing serious, no blood drawn.

  Meanwhile, he went over to the victim. A low whistle escaped him. "By all the dead down under," he muttered, "it's the local counselor."

  He knew that boxy body, four-legged, six arms sprouting from a torso capped by a turret that held sensors and electrophotonics. It lay sprawled, spindly limbs twisted, bluish organometallic frame dented, retractable communications dish half out of its housing and broken. This was a machine built for precision and sensitivity, not physical stress, most absolutely not violence.

  Fenn knelt beside it. "How are you, Benno?" he asked hoarsely. That was the name it had acquired hereabouts. He didn't know how or why, but the intent was affectionate. "Are you—functional?"

  Dimness glimmered in the turret screen. It could no longer generate a proper image of a human face. "Considerable damage," a baritone answered in the same Anglo. "I don't... see you. But you're a police officer, no?" Other sensors must have reacted to the badge. "Thank you."

  "My duty, uh, sir. I'll call for help."

  "I too, if possible. A proper terminal—"

  Fenn nodded. Benno didn't want to make a phone call. It wanted to remerge its personality with the cybercosm: or. at least, with the regional node of that vast mind. He wondered momentarily whether it needed comfort, assurance, a soothing of pain and shock. But no, you couldn't read human feelings into a sophotect.

  Yet, by death, sophotects had feelings of their own. Whatever his attitude toward the cybercosm as a whole, Fenn had come to like Benno. The counselor was a totally decent person. It was made that way.

  And when those pusbrains invaded this neighborhood and chanced on it out in the open, they attacked like pathogens.

  With the thoroughfare cleared, vehicles began to roll again on their various errands. People were coming out of refuge. Some approached. Fenn rose and glowered. "Keep aside." His harsh bass halted them. Most seemed half numbed. In their lives, lawlessness had been confined to historical shows. "Get on about your business. If you've something to tell, flick the police line and enter it."

  Glancing around, he saw what to do next. Above an entrance a few meters off shone a Soulquest mandala. Fenn hunkered.back down, got his arms under Benno, and lifted the counselor. It wasn't too heavy, especially under Lunar pull. Why waste powerpack on moving unnecessary mass, such as armor plating? Benno's turret had barely reached to Fenn's shoulder. He carried it to the door, which retracted and murmured, "Welcome" in several languages.

  The chamber beyond stretched cavernous, high-vaulted, dusky except where screens glowed in consoles along the sides and anothe
r mandala radiated softly on the far wall. It was almost empty. Music and fragrances wove through the hush, nearly subliminal. Two persons in simple white robes scurried slipper-footed to meet him. The first was a young woman, the second an old man of small stature but with huge water-hoarding buttocks pushing out his garment—a Drylander, among the very few human metamorphs other than Lunarians who remained alive. None of those sad races were keeping up their numbers; Fenn guessed that the last member of any would be gone inside a hundred years. Nevertheless, the man took the lead. "Welcome, officer," he said in muted Spanyol. "This is terrible. How can we help?"

  Fenn explained curtly. The response was as prompt as he hoped. He had come here because every Soulquest center was well outfitted with communication and computer equipment, and its bonzes were skilled in the use thereof. The Drylander led him to a special station, directed the placing of the crippled machine at it, and figured out how to bypass dead circuits. The woman said she would tell the Prior, who was meditating, and departed by a rear door. Fenn sought an ordinary eidbphone and put a call through to police headquarters.

  He got a harried captain, who told him, "Fine work. We had reports of the situation, but couldn't dispatch anybody. A monster of a riot had already begun around Johann Berg Place and a lesser uproar in the Amravati district. We'd all we could do to get them under control. The last I heard, there was still some commotion."

  "Buddha's balls!" Fenn exclaimed.

  "Oh, 1 gather we've gotten off easy compared to Port Bowen. They're having trouble in Tychopolis and Tsu-kimachi too, and I don't know where else. No clear word yet from Earth, but I hate to think what it may be like some places there."