Authors: Gregory Benford
“A stable chunk of convoluted esty. Inhabited. Governed. And now that you mention it, I haven’t heard any thanks for pulling
you all in out of the Far Black.”
Killeen said sincerely, “We do thank you. We—”
“You’ll be paying for all this later, Captain, so don’t overdo the sincerity. Right now—”
“Who made this, this ‘esty’ of yours?” Toby burst in. “You people?” He looked doubtfully down at the man.
“Made it?” The dwarf shrugged. “It’s always been here.”
“How could it?” Toby demanded. “I mean, smack up against a black hole, the biggest in the galaxy—”
“Look, there’s things you flatlanders don’t grasp, kid. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to ask who made the esty when it
has its own timeline anyway, see?”
Toby didn’t. “I just want to know—”
“Enough! Come on, you scrimmage, we’ve got to get you filtered.” The dwarf had led them into a narrow little room. “Won’t
take long.”
The walls were porous yellow sponge. Toby was still puzzling over the dwarf’s remarks. When Killeen started to say something
the dwarf stepped lightly outside, smirking. A concealed sheet slid down, clicking shut.
Cermo said with alarm, “He’s trapped us. What if—”
Abruptly the air seemed to compress around them. Then it reversed, screeching down in pressure, popping their ears. An array
of lenses in the ceiling showered them with quick flashes of brilliant, brittle light. Toby squeezed his eyes shut but the
flashes stung his face and hands.
This went on a long while. Bishops shouted, threatened to blow a hole in the wall—but Killeen ordered them to stop. “No obvious
threat here. Stand fast.”
A humming presence seemed to probe at their skins with unseen hands. Blunt inspections traced among weapons, bodygear, clothes.
Toby tried to see where this was coming from. His sensorium told him nothing but a noisy hash of meaningless signals. He was
looking at a spot on the wall when suddenly a circular hole opened in it and rapidly grew. Soon it was a new doorway.
Beyond stood the dwarf, looking bored.” You’re reasonably clean. None of those mech spore-spies we’ve been getting lately.
Where’d you say you were from?”
They bumped and elbowed each other in their haste to get out of the cramped room. From long habit, Bishops preferred the open.
Killeen said with studied neutrality, “Who wants to know?”
“Ummm?” Among a menu of irritating mannerisms, the dwarf had a habit of staring off into space, as if consulting an Aspect.
A polite Bishop would have at least glanced at who was speaking to him. “Oh, I thought I said: I’m Andro, scut-work specialist
supreme. I make sure you don’t drag in too many proffo-plagues, siggos, or microeyeballs.”
“Siggos?” Toby asked.
“You’re post-Arc, right? Still, shoulda heard about this. Siggos are esty bombs, cute li’l mech gizmos. Nasty, about the size
of a skin cell—which’s what they look like. Can blow a hole in just about any esty we got.”
“How many of these esty—?” Killeen began, but Andro was already marching away with dwarf-fast steps. Toby saw that since the
man was closer to the ground, he could just sort of skate along, hardly bothering to lift his feet. The gravity here was lighter
than
Argo
’s, and the officers, abubble with excitement and confusion, bounded too high on each step.
Toby guessed “post-Arc” meant after the Arcology Eras. This impatient dwarf knew their history?
“Where are we going?” Killeen called after Andro.
“Scrub-dub.”
Which proved to be like being held under a microscope and poked at by giants. The dwarf turned toward them, chattering a rapid-fire
explanation, walking backwards—and clapped his hands.
Something scooped Toby up, jabbed and snipped and smelled him. Without any apparent cause, his clothes wriggled and twisted
and got free of him. They vanished, flapping away into the clotted air. He shouted, and heard only an echo. Then a web of
snaky stuff held him upside down while living, sticky strings ran all over his body, into his ears and even more intimate
orifices. Still upside down, with his arms pinned below his head by a soft but insistent clamshell, he got a bath. Fragrant,
flowery, ferocious. It, too, worked into every crevice he knew and several that felt like fresh ideas.
The clamshell let go. He fell—and plunged into a green soup. He emerged sputtering, only to be hauled ashore on a sandy beach
by a pulse of magnetic fields. It seized on his many metal implants and sucked him across the gritty purple sand—which lapped
up at him, murmuring to itself like a microscopic mob. Somehow, being dragged didn’t hurt or even rub his skin raw. It was
as though the sand flowed around him, exerting just enough pressure to keep him where it wanted. The sand-swarm ran all over
his body, probed his nostrils, ears, ass, muttered disagreeably, and then meekly laid back down again, sighing. He stood up
shakily. Grains of the gritty sand ran out his nostrils. It licked off his face and then fled into his hair, chuckling as
it went.
Toby was not in a mood to laugh along. He stalked off the beach, just as Jocelyn fell out of an overhead cloud, tumbling in
air, and splashed into the green soup pond. She shrieked and gasped.
“Just relax and let them do it to you,” Toby advised.
That didn’t seem to do any good. Jocelyn angrily slapped at the green soup. It lapped around her and magnetic fluxes grabbed
her in a rather embarrassing position for a lady. The fluxes wrapped like ropes around her, Toby could see through his Dopplered
sensorium/eye. Jocelyn floundered up onto the sand beach, sputtering.
Toby lost interest in her trials. He climbed over a sand dune and through a wall of pearly fog. Beyond it the dwarf was waiting,
holding a fluffy yellow robe.
“Where’re my clothes?”
“Being reeducated,” Andro said with a distracted gaze.
“Huh?”
“Wear this while you eat.”
“Why?”
“It’s your tutor.”
“I didn’t know I’d enrolled.”
“Anybody comes through Port Athena gets the course, skyscraper.”
“Sky what?”
“Ancient term. Means you’re unnecessarily tall.”
“Ugly word for it. Seems to me you’re too short.”
“A few days of forehead-bashing on doorways will provide useful instruction.”
Toby shrugged and put on the ample yellow robe. It fit nicely, tucking itself in around him. “When do I get my clothes back?”
he persisted.
“When they’ve graduated.” Andro pointed. “Right now you go that way.”
“Why should I?”
“Don’t eat, don’t learn, kid.” Andro yawned and picked up another robe from the neat stack nearby. Jocelyn came through the
fog-wall, muttering, her breasts swaying like two angry red eyes looking for a fight.
“What was
that
?” she demanded.
“Customs inspection,” the dwarf answered, looking over her shoulder at nothing.
“You little worm, don’t talk to me—”
“Cover yourself, madam—”
“Think you can—”
“—or you’ll be cited for false advertisement.”
Jocelyn blinked, turned red, and seemed to be deciding whether to stay angry. Toby got out of the way, trotting down the passageway
Andro had fingered.
A cafeteria, simple and bare. Big tubs of fragrant vegetables, sauteed and fried and steeped in odd sauces. All bubbling under
odd, slanted lamps, served up by auto-arms. To his surprise—and there seemed to be nothing but surprises here, though few
answers—he liked the food. It gurgled and slid around while he tried to bite into it, sending heady aromas shooting through
his sinuses. Enticing. Provocative.
Food it was, he was sure of that, but it wasn’t just difficult to catch with his teeth; it was impossible. The stuff slithered
out of the way, as if it could read his mind. (Later, this seemed a distinct possibility.) He got tired of hearing his incisors
click together uselessly and accepted the situation, just swallowing the smooth, delicious thing. It went down easily—almost
happily
, he thought, a crazy notion. In his stomach it exploded into warm waves of satisfaction. He sat back and enjoyed the sensation,
which was even better than the eating had been. He was still like that, eyes unfocused, when the dwarf sped by, snorted, stuck
a fresh spoonful in his mouth, and said, “Keep studying.”
The other Bishops seemed to be enjoying themselves equally. After hardship and strain, some were celebrating. They sat at
the too-small tables and dug in. Shipboard chow on
Argo
had never been very exciting. Variety lifted the spirits. Chatter, hilarity, cleansing laughter.
This set off Toby’s alarm bells. He wondered if they were being drawn in, doped—but the dwarf seemed bored, not calculating.
And after a while his mind cleared. He felt better—zesty, in fact, filled with bristling energy. And his robe had started
to rub and massage him in very agreeable ways. He rolled up the fluffy sleeve and was surprised to find that his deep tan
was a little lighter. His armpit hair was neatly trimmed back, too. He studied the fabric. Small bits of skin were caught
in its tiny fibers. As he watched, the matted weave of the robe worked away on the particle, until finally he couldn’t see
it. Gone. Digested.
Well, he thought, it was sure a funny way of getting a bath.
Andro came strutting by, stubby legs scissoring fast, saw their bowls were empty, and snapped his fingers. “Now we get down
to business. Who has the license?”
Killeen said, “We bear no authority but our own Family’s.”
“Uh huh. Now, I never held with the whole Family scheme, myself—Cap’n, uh, Killeen, isn’t it?” The dwarf held out his right
hand and Killeen reached to shake it. Instead, the dwarf peered into his own palm, ignoring Killeen. From Toby’s angle he
could see the dwarf’s skin turn into a little screen showing a document. “Ummm. No record of you, I’m afraid.”
“Bishops of Snowglade,” Killeen said testily.
“There are plenty of Bishops, a batch on most planets. Aces and Treys on others, Blues and Golds on more. I’m—”
“Most planets?” Killeen asked incredulously. “You mean we share our
name
?”
“Genes, too.” Andro didn’t look up. He tapped the ends of his fingers on his display-hand. Toby could see the image change
in response, yielding more documents.
“You mean we got relatives on other places?” Jocelyn demanded.
“That was the strategy of the Hunker Down.” Andro sniffed with disdain. “Don’t you people teach history any more?”
The Bishops all looked at each other, startled. Toby said wonderingly, “We thought we were the only Bishops. Our line went
back to the Chandeliers, some said.”
“Oh, you do. But a whole Family line, we couldn’t risk getting it wiped out. So we had to spread it around. Say, you got any
Pawns with you?”
Killeen blinked. “Naysay. They were obliterated by mechs.”
“See, there’s the risk. Too bad, though—I’m half-Pawn myself.”
“You?” Toby could not conceal his amazement. “A short little—”
“We kept to the original specs, kid,” Andro’s mouth twisted with sardonic amusement. “We respect tradition, in case you hadn’t
noticed. You ground-pounder types always pump yourselves up, never fails.”
“Those who didn’t, the mechs got,” Killeen said soberly.
“Yeasay,” Cermo put in. “We needed power, sensos, carryin’ mass, techstuff. Adds weight.”
Andro squinted at Cermo. “As is obvious. Nothing to be ashamed of, I assure you. Most Families go that way when mech competition
gets bad. Hard for them to shed the mass once they get here, though. And they get nasty on their perpetual diets.”
“There are other Families here?” Killeen asked, his skewed mouth giving away his puzzlement.
“We got them all—even the original templates, somewhere.”
“The first Bishops?” Jocelyn asked, awed. “From the Chandeliers?”
“Ummm? Oh, of course—somewhere. And somewhen.” Andro stopped tapping his fingers, read his palm, and slapped his hands together
with a sharp crack. When he took them apart, the screen was gone and his right hand looked just like the other one, lined
and dirty. “That’s it. There’s some kind of hold-for-arrival message for you. Somebody expected you might show up somewhen.”
“From who?” Killeen demanded.
“I don’t know. I’m an inspector, not a library.”
“Where can we find this message?”
“Have to see the Regency.”
“Let’s go, then.”
He eyed them shrewdly. “You’re
sure
you don’t have a license?”
Killeen’s eyes narrowed. “Little one, we have just come through—”
“I know what you’ve come through—
if
you’re who you say you are. Fresh meat, just in from the colonies.”
“Colonies?” Jocelyn was aghast. “We were the last fragments, holding out on Snowglade until—”
“I know,” Andro said, “but it’s a story I’ve heard before. Last off your planet. Point is, you’re the best ones. You got here.”
Jocelyn said, “All the other Families, the mechs got.”
“Just what I said. We can use people who know how to scramble for their supper. Or so goes the official yam-weaving. Me, I
wonder if we got too many already, never mind—”
“Why all this about a license?” Toby asked mildly.
“Kid, you’d be shocked how many traders try to dress up all country and dumb, come through here, think they can just slide
by the tax man.” Andro eyed him. “They pump themselves with bioemergents, so they look big for a day or two. Then they have
to pee it all away. Ummm, you’re the smallest here . . .”
“I’m no phony,” Toby said, offended.
“Um. Suppose not. You don’t look clever enough to fake it, either.”
Toby bristled. “Hey, now—”
“I’ll pass you, then.” Andro wrinkled his nose, seeming to reach a decision, nodding to himself. “You can go through. But
nobody else from your ship until you’ve seen the Regency—that’s the rule.”
“Why?” Killeen’s jaw muscles bunched, visibly containing his irritation. “My crew wants out. All of them. We’ve been cooped
up for years in—”
“Think the Regency wants a mob of club-footed innocents dumped into their city?” Andro waved a hand at the gray walls around
them.