Or perhaps she was seeing what she wanted to see. When she’d discovered what had happened to Scarabaeus, the mutated disaster her kill-code had wrought, she’d wanted to repair the damage and had failed. Now, in this oasis anyway, something beautiful had evolved out of that mess.
She was tempted to linger at the lake, but the city beckoned. That was where the BRAT seed lay hidden. If she was to talk to Scarabaeus, she needed to find it. She reported briefly to Cat before moving on, skirting the banks of the lake to get back on course.
The afternoon shadows of the towering structures ahead grew longer. The largest structures were dozens of meters wide at the base, rising up from an undergrowth of ridged folds. Smaller versions were dotted around the larger ones, some malformed and lumpy, others elegant and smooth, filling every cubic meter. Edie wondered how she would ever penetrate the dense growths until she drew nearer and realized the ridges covering the ground were hollow and pierced all over with large holes ripped in the sides, like irregular windows. This was a system of tunnels, tall enough for her to stand up in.
Half an hour after leaving the habitat, she entered the outskirts of the city and her perspective changed. Details became clearer. Each structure was created from a vast rib cage of organic scaffolding that defined its shape—rounded bulges, terraced and truncated pyramids, twisted spires. These “bones” were entwined with dozens of other species—slabs of glistening fleshy moss dappled with lichen, delicate vines, multicolored funguses, and patches of brightly colored buds.
Everything twined together into clotted masses and the air hummed with the rustling and chirping of animals. Creatures clambered in and out of pockets in the scaffolding—much smaller than the slaters, many of them resembled
insects but with soft, amphibianlike flesh that bulged out from between the ribs of their exoskeletons. They looked like they’d been turned inside out.
Edie waded into the undergrowth. It first clustered around her with trembling tendrils and then pulled back. The ferny growths had thick translucent stems that reminded her of the vines she and Finn had battled a year ago. Their movement was controlled by the ebb and flow of the fluid within them.
She could’ve camped on the edge of the city for a week, happily logging species and observing interrelationships. Finding the BRAT and persuading it—or whatever it was that controlled it—to return control of the commsat to humans seemed like a mundane task when confronted with this awe-inspiring, living city. But the BRAT was the priority.
There was no way of knowing where to start or which was the quickest route to the seed, so she stepped into the nearest tunnel. Its pale, damp inner walls felt sleek under her hand, like satin. Running under the surface of the walls was a network of tubules, barely visible because they were as pale as the lining of the tunnel. Edie laid her palm flat over the tubules and felt the ripple of fluid flowing through them.
The humidity was noticeably higher, although the perforations in the walls made the tunnel feel airy and light. She moved forward. Ahead, the tunnel branched into two.
Without warning, the left side of the branch began to collapse. A dark substance flowed into the tubules like poisoned blood through veins and capillaries, and the tunnel crumpled in on itself. Edie resisted the urge to turn and run. She took the other branch, which remained untouched, and continued on.
At every intersection, all tunnels but one caved in as she approached. The veins of side passages turned black, threatening to do the same, so Edie stayed out of them. She knew she was being driven in one direction. Was this sentience, or nothing more than the reflexes of a Venus flytrap?
Heading deeper into the organic city, the tunnels darkened as the sheer volume of vegetation outside blocked the
sunlight. The veins in the tunnel walls glowed with soft purple phosphorescence, lighting the way. As she rounded a corner, the tunnel widened ahead. Beyond that was a wall of patchy light.
Edie approached the end of the tunnel slowly and allowed her eyes to adjust. Only when she stood on the very edge, at the top of a gently sloping ramp, did she realize she was looking into a vast cavern. Its curved walls were created from the same scaffolding as she’d seen outside. Thick curtains of semi-opaque resin dangled from ceiling to floor. It looked like partially dried sap, and divided the cavern into random smaller chambers. Suspended in these syrupy stalactites were irregular patches of phosphorescent cells. More cells covered the uneven floor in a haphazard, lumpy mosaic, glued together with matted twine. Some cells glowed with soft violet light while others lay dormant, exuding a pearly gray sheen.
Edie felt like she was on the stage of an amphitheater. No, it was the other way around. This was the exhibition and she was the audience.
Hiding in the center of the dome, draped in garlands of glistening sap, the metal casing of the BRAT was just visible. The cavern’s overwhelming size rendered it trivially small, but clearly it was intended to be the focal point. Soft folds of lush pink moss cascaded around its base like a flower in bloom.
The children would love this.
That thought popped into Edie’s mind as she looked around the cavern in awe. To them, this was the true face of Macky—beauty and whimsy, with plenty of nooks to explore.
Pulsing beneath the matted floor and twisting behind the walls were the same glowing tubules from the tunnels. They were thicker here and formed raised channels. Edie stepped out of the tunnel, careful to walk between the veins. Dodging the sticky resin drapes or pushing them gently aside to clear the way, she approached the BRAT. The ground under her feet vibrated in anticipation.
Edie climbed onto the mossy petals to reach the access port of the BRAT, and used the softlink in her fingers to jack in.
The datastream rushed across her splinter. Resisting the urge to pull away, she kept her focus steady. The cacophony was a hundred orchestras, each playing a different symphony. Each time she managed to decipher a familiar cadence, the surrounding music drowned it out. Yet each thread of music held a vague familiarity—all stemming from the song she recognized. Overlaid on that foundation was the same tangled code she’d found in the isolated sim, and it buzzed with the same unsettling intensity. It didn’t have complete control. It didn’t control the main subroutines at all. It redirected and molded aspects of the biocyph’s calculations—a drumbeat that tried to make everything else play in time, even while its own rhythm was unsteady.
Someone or something had injected that code and imprinted that beat. Edie let the beat trickle through her splinter, searching for a hint of where it came from. It wasn’t the work of a cypherteck. She would’ve recognized that. Maybe an infojack had planted a worm or a virus, but why? Edie could only imagine—and nothing she imagined was good. Scarabaeus had demonstrated aggressive wildlife and mali
cious intent when it killed Theron’s entire crew and most of the
Molly Mei
’s as well.
Yet it had also created a peaceful oasis, whimsical little creatures, soaring spires, and this beautiful cavern.
Edie felt dizzy from the effort of keeping the datastream in some semblance of order in her splinter. She closed her eyes and sank to the ground, leaning against the cold metal casing of the seed. For a moment, her mind relaxed as she lost concentration. That’s when she noticed the knots of code untangling, as if it, too, was relaxing. The knots unraveled and laid themselves across the datastream and melded with it. The threads began to weave together, each riff and beat gradually coming into line, until in one swift, final moment, a new song of Scarabaeus coalesced into a perfect form.
Gasping at the beauty of the music, Edie was compelled to listen. The melodies flowed through her mind like a narcotic, blanking out rational thought.
—
Beautiful, isn’t it?
Edie opened her eyes and looked around for the source of the voice. There was no one there.
—
I did this. Do you like it?
The words were in her head, flowing through the music. A million questions came to mind.
“Parts of it are beautiful,” she replied honestly. She spoke the words aloud as well as transmitting them down the link.
The melodies fractured, the beat strayed like a skipped heartbeat, and the knots of code tightened and tangled until they were as dense as they’d been before.
—Sometimes it all comes together, but I can only hold it for a moment. I need your help, Edie.
“Who are you?”
—You call me…Scarabaeus.
“How do you know my name, and the name I invented for this world?”
—I know you, Edie Sha’nim.
It didn’t make sense. Biocyph didn’t use names. She’d never used names while jacked into the BRATs on this world.
Biocyph didn’t speak Linguish—the standard language used across the Reach—either. There had to be a prankster on the other end of the line. Well, she’d play along—for now.
“Why do you need my help?”
—You know biocyph. You can show me what I’m doing wrong. In here, all alone, I can’t think straight. I can’t tell my voice from the echoes.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re killing people. The slaters may have acted on instinct, but
you
took control of the commsat and crashed two ships.”
—We both know what kind of people were on those ships. They came to steal from me. They tried to interfere with me, but I fought them off.
She started to wonder if whoever was talking to her was even sane. Regardless of how this deception was being carried out, the entity, or whatever it was, managed to sound perfectly earnest. Edie pushed aside her uneasiness for now.
“What makes you think I can help you control this ecosystem?”
—You created it. If you can’t help me, no one can.
“What will you do for me in return?”
Another hesitation. Edie’s suspicions twinged as she waited.
—I offer you the chance to create a glorious new world with me, Edie. Why would you ask for anything in return?
There was a time when she’d wanted nothing more than to fix Scarabaeus, to make it whole and peaceful again. That time was past. There were people on this planet. Friends and innocent children. They were more important than this.
“Your offer is intriguing,” she lied, “but I need your help, too. There are survivors on the planet, in a habitat nearby. They need access to the commsat so they can call for help. And when that help comes, the ship needs safe passage.”
Another hesitation. When the voice returned, it seemed distracted, aloof.
—These things don’t concern me. You’ve no idea how it feels to have an entire planet’s blood running through your veins. To design new life, to start the heartbeat of a delicate animal, to build entire cities. Together we can rebuild this world exactly as we want it. We will control it all. We will create something so beautiful, you’ll never want to leave.
Her spine tingled, and she was unable to decide if the idea was sinister or bizarrely tempting.
“I’m not sure it can be controlled.”
—You can do it. We can. Disarm the security protocols on your splinter and I will show you.
“I won’t agree to anything until you restore the commsat and my friends are safe—inside and outside the habitat.”
—I can’t control the slaters’ innate behavior.
“Then change it. Look at the instructions I programmed into the biocyph a year ago. I convinced the wildlife and the retroviruses to leave
me
alone.”
—That’s why I need you. You, of all people, understand this stuff.
“You claim you’re Scarabaeus—the whole planet. Now you talk as if you’re a low-grade amateur hacker. Which is it?”
Yet another pause before the response came.
—I am the evolved awareness of Scarabaeus. I am your creation, Edie. I thought I could do it alone, but I can’t. Help me.
“Like I said, put that commsat back online and stop killing people. Then I’ll consider it.”
—Very well. The commsat is functioning again—for now. There is a ship approaching. I will allow it through. You can send your friends away on it.
Edie went cold. “Who? Can you talk to them?”
—I seem unable to talk to anyone without a biocyph link. I’m not even sure I am using words. You may be the only person who can hear me.
She realized there was some truth to that. She was communicating through the biocyph, hearing it as a voice the
same way she heard the tiers as music. It wasn’t like a regular commlink. If she wasn’t experiencing it right now, she probably wouldn’t have believed it was even possible.
She didn’t have time to be amazed. She hit her commlink.
“Cat, the commsat is back up and there’s a ship out there. Is it Natesa?”
Cat answered a few seconds later. “Edie, where are you? The scope is barely picking up your signal.”
“I’m deep inside the city. I’m fine. Just…please, find out who’s on that ship.”
“Okay. Stand by.”
Edie jumped back into the datastream. “I’m returning to the habitat for a while.”
—I would prefer that you stay.
“I’ll come back. Maybe we can figure out a way to hook up a remote patch through a commlink, so we can talk any time.
—Talking won’t change anything. I need to show you the glory of this world.
Edie felt an uncomfortable tickle in her mind. The tangles of code unraveled, sending out strands to tap at the matrix of her splinter. There was a cohesive intelligence behind the intrusion. Could it invade her if it wanted to? The tapping was cautious, not insistent, but definitely deliberate. If she didn’t let it in, would it become more forceful?
“I’m not ready,” she said. “I need rest and food. I need to make sure my friends are okay.”
She pulled her fingers free from the port without waiting for a response. The datastream dissolved, leaving behind a killer headache to remind her how much concentration the interaction had required.