Was true you mean—North America’s gone, incinerated

Those high-burst bombs, just one’ll ignite a continent

Asian mainland took less nukes looks like Swarmers are getting pasted good there thank God

Merde je ne

Those flying things—ugly, you see’em, horrible—an’ that on-site report says the Swarmers don’ reproduce usin’ the flyin’ thing at all they’re some kind of add-on

Damn Swarmers musta planned it from ’way back an’ bioengineered themselves

Point is it’s all linked—the Watchers an’ those gray ships an’ the Swarmers—all in it together

He felt the waters rushing by, gurgling and whispering to him. He was without weight and form and felt himself spreading ever wider, as if his legs and arms were detached, a flag filling. Words and sentences and garbled bits came from Lancer and the submersible, but they seemed hollow and distant and finally irrelevant.

He wondered if the huge creatures perceived him, a falling mote, and puzzled over the brilliant bubble that swam to meet him.

Damfino how it all works but it’s plain as the nose on your face

Goddamn Ted we got to do somethin’

Latest says the deepspace net is sending in fragmentation loads, blow them up ten thousand klicks out and try to knock out some of their ships in orbit

Might get some of the small stuff but those big ones

He saw a faint luminous thread of orange to the left, turning and twisting and darting away, and felt at the same moment a long booming note that tolled through the water like a distant bell. It reminded him of the EMs and their song, and as he lazily plunged toward the heart of this ocean world he saw suddenly how this tied together with the Swarmers, all forms of life victimized and beaten down because in the end the machines could not stop life, could not smother it, could not eliminate forever the endlessly burgeoning forms which competed with the machines for resources and space, and so in the end they enlisted some forms of life to stop their worst competitors, the budding technologies.

The machines had known of Earth for a long time, they had fought some titanic battle there millions of years ago and lost—the Marginis wreck was the only mute remaining testament of that—and in the losing had become fearful of simply blasting it with asteroids or doing anything else which could perhaps be blocked by the Marginis wreck or by humans themselves. If they tried bombardment, as they did with Isis, and the humans captured some of their vessels, deciphered where their centers of power were, then the same crushing warfare might reach across the stars and find them in their lairs, unleash the terrible marriage of mind and instinct—which the machines did not have—and destroy all that the patient and implacable cybernetic beings had built up.

No, it was much easier to use organic forms against each other, to divert their attention, to strike at the weak spot all beings who grew out of chemistry had and which was both biological and social in form, and went by many names: cancer, overreactive immune systems, inappropriate response.

There was the key. Far easier to make humans destroy themselves and Swarmers as well. Far easier to feed on the deep and primordial antagonisms all organic forms felt for the outsider, the intruder, the alien.

Goddamnit I say we got to learn something about these things not just shy away from them

What we learn will help Earthside they’ve got the same kind over ’em right now.

Years ago yeah remember the light travel time we’re talking about a crisis that happened nine years back

Doesn’t change the fact that we’re the only ones know much about these things an’ here right here we have a chance to see what it can take

Light. A faint smudge of phosphors. Growing.

Nigel we’ve got the sac deployed below and with the mouth open

He banked left, sensing the currents, hearing a faint strum like a song of deep bass. His ears popped again. Suit pressure too high, overloaded. Pocks had light gravity, so pressure built only a tenth as fast as on Earth, but now he felt his suit creak. Monitor bulbs below his chin flashed angry red.

He’s dropping too fast, we’re too far away Cut the speed damn it he needs a stationary No got to get closer

“Hold your course!”

A ball of yellow and blue and amber. He thought of himself as a wing, turning and riding in the streams. He tried to catch the turn at the right moment, altering his vector to bring himself down at a steeper angle, then using the medfilter pack to cant himself to the right again—now down, now to the side, the bright ball growing and the big floodlights poking fingers through the silted murk. He grunted with the strain of keeping himself rigid, a hydrofoil. His pulse quickened. He was coming in at a good angle now and ahead he saw the filmy wisp of the sac, its mouth yawning, unexploded floaters weighing down its tail.

I’ve got you on the optical ’scope. How are you doing?

“Rilly trif.”

Drop the pack Nigel you’ll have a better chance of making it without that thing

“I think … I’ll need it …” he panted.

Swooping. Flying. A grain in the deep clotted darkness, insect flying into the harsh glare of the bulb.

The mouth swallowed him.

Seven

Nigel woke as they docked.

Sleep had helped. His vision was nearly right now; quick turns of his head brought only momentary confusion.

Nikka had gotten him to a bunk and he had waved aside all talk. There was more to come, he could sense that in the scattershot babble over the comm lines. So in the long journey floating up through the vent, he had slept. Now he lay resting and listened to the Lancer line.

Goddammit we’ve got to move

Yeah no telling what that thing will do to us if we try to leave after this

Hell yes that Watcher’s got word from Earth sure as we have

Look at it, things moving on its surface again

Just lights looks like to me

Bob you want to send some servo’d squad down there have a look

Naw can’t you get it straight this is no time for half measures

Ted! I say we shouldn’t try anything so dangerous, I mean the Watcher around Isis let us go

Lissen to him crawlin’ on his belly about how the damn thing might let us go if we’re good boys don’t make trouble Jesus

There was no point in trying to intervene in the hubbub aboard Lancer. His stock was at an all-time low, even though Walmsley’s Rule had turned out true.

They left the submersible and crossed the bleak purple ice. Carlos rattled on about the Lancer concensus, the rage, the horror, but the words went by Nigel without stirring him.

He leaned on Nikka for support as they shuffled away from the lake, boots crunching on ice. A finegrained fatigue laced through him, bringing a giddy clarity.

His suit had burnished marks where the big creature had apparently tried to hold onto him. He had never noticed.

Near the fissures something a curious pale gray covered the ice. It stretched across the plain in long fingers. In places it seemed to seek the full sunlight glare from Ross.

“What’s that?” Nigel gestured.

“Some kind of plant that can grow in vacuum, I’d guess,” Nikka said.

Nigel paused to look at the stuff. It was crusty on top. He thumped it with a fist. It clenched. “Grips the ice, looks like,” he said. “Marvelous.”

This thin remnant cheered him. Life had crawled out onto even this blasted, hostile place. Life simply kept on. Blindly, yes, but undefeated.

“Looks a bit like algae,” he said, squatting. “See how it holds onto the ice?” He tried to pry up the edge. With considerable effort he managed to lift an inch-thick slab the size of his fist. The ice under it was pitted. It oozed a filmy liquid. When he let go the pancakelike algae flopped back down onto the ice.