—Dusters tried to smother us, as I remember,— Ledroff said moodily over comm. —Not this.—

“They fight tundra,” Shibo said, her face withdrawn as she studied the spreading mob of noisy machines. She stood erect, composed, all equipment in place. Killeen noticed, though, a scrape on her suit, as if something had tried to hold on.

“How?” Toby asked.

“Grind down rock?” As Shibo shrugged, her exskell whirred and flexed. “Seal in ice?” Another shrug.

Killeen nodded. “Tryin’ repair the damage the Splash did. Stop the greenery.”

Toby asked, disbelieving, “Weren’t after us at all?”

Shibo grinned, shaking her head in a sad, slow way. “We not important.”

“I still don’t understand how it works, these li’ 1 bugs ever’where,” Toby persisted.

“Neither do we,” Killeen said.

SIX

They had lost some gear to the gnawing machines. There were two walking wounded.

A sour brown cloud billowed from the crawling appetite that edged like a locust tide over the hill and began to forage among the rocks of the narrow valley.

Family Bishop linked with Family Rook and they put two ridgelines between themselves and the horde. They settled again for the night and slept in edgy awareness of the blank sky.

They rose and readied themselves in the first glimmerings of the dual sunrise. Denix and the Eater brimmed at the horizon, with Denix showing its soft yellow.

As Killeen and Toby ate chaws for breakfast, Killeen could see the swooping, obliterating clouds that necked into the disk of the Eater. They filled a full quarter of the sky, letting no stars shine through. He tried to think of these shapes as outlines of three-dimensional forms but could not figure why the clouds seemed to narrow down as they neared the Eater disk. Arthur’s prompting voice went on about dustclouds shaped down into the thin disk by the rubbing of tiny particles against one another, but Killeen could follow little of what the Aspect said.

He tried, though, more than he had for many years. Shibo’s simple but clever devices had rendered a fragment of the world comprehensible. He felt concretely a growing conviction: to live, the Families had to imagine, to invent, to change.

Despite the unnerving Duster assault, he had slept well. Around him, Bishops went about their breakfasts with faces unlined by fear. He smiled at this.

Sorrow was the lot of humanity, Killeen knew that bone-deep. All the Aspects’ bragging of past glory could not hide that. The Family’s songs and tales rang with woe—but equally with joy.

In ancient days, when the first mech intruders had attacked the crystal Arcologies, children had played in the shattered ruins even as fresh bombs were on their way. Lovers found each other amid chaos and destruction, and delighted in their discoveries. In besieged Citadels, doomed to fall, romantic ballads were sung in dim cabarets and crowds laughed at the jokes of comedians. Ancient scholars quietly labored to the day of their deaths on the work to which they had devoted their lives. Soldiers and scavengers of the Families had eaten and drunk with relish, mere hours before mustering forth on suicidal attacks. And he and Veronica had celebrated the arrival of Toby as the threat of Marauder assault had closed about the darkening Citadel. Humanity had a gift for finding the persistent glimmer in a pervading night.

Ledroff’s orders rang in the comm, —Form the wedge!—

Killeen took a right-flank edge position. They headed directly toward the apparent Splash center. Green in creased through the morning and Killeen relaxed somewhat. Last night’s wildness and flight slipped away. Killeen let Toby come up from the midranks and take a spot one man inward from him, along the axis of the moving Family arrow. The Rook arrowhead kept good pace a hill’s-width away to right.

They were moving uphill when two things happened at once. Toby called, —Yeasay, I heard somethin’,— in evident reply to a hail from left flank.

Killeen asked, “What’s that?”

—Some piping on the comm. Not from us,— Toby said.

“Rooks?”

—Naysay. Came and went. Not mech, though. Left flank is goin’ out, have a look.—

At that instant Killeen opened his mouth to reply and he saw the navvy. It was nipping to his right down a draw, fast, headed for a saddleback indentation that would take it over the hill. It carried the telltale crosshatching.

Killeen did not think twice or even once. Losing the navvy before had chewed at him and now he took off at a quick pace, boots on full. His alerting yelp rang through the sensorium, less like the call of a man than the blurted cry of an animal in hot pursuit.

His boots dug into the gravel and loose soil as he plunged ahead, angling close to the ground in a running position, tilted forward and thrusting, momentum nearly parallel to the sloping ground. Dimly he sensed Toby churning uphill behind him, Shibo farther back. Even Cermo-the-Slow moved up from rear flank, which was contrary to standing orders. Cermo showed no slowness from hangover, and sent a hunter’s whoop through the comm.

The navvy disappeared over the hillbrow. Killeen ran to cut it off, figuring that it would ease downslope to pick up speed and not simply wrap around the hill. Only when he crested the rise did he think that the navvy might have been with the Mantis, and when the idea struck him he let his momentum carry him down into a sheltering hillock of soft grass.

He closeupped the valley beyond. It was empty. He tried shifting through his filters and jerking his vision to bring out any projected mirages. Nothing. Just the figure of the navvy making good speed downhill, heading right.

That course would take it into the Rook pointwoman within minutes. Killeen checked the valley again. No distortion, not the slightest jigsaw-vision. No Mantis, as near as he could tell. Toby came pounding up and nearly fell over his father.

“Yeasay Isay. Let’s skrag it!”

“Hold a minute.” Killeen carefully studied the fleeing machine.

“Same one’s yes’day?”

“Looks like.”

“Let’s go. They’ll be here in minute.”

Killeen could see the Family drawing up into fight-or-flight formation, blue pips in his right retina.

Toby cried, “The Rooks’ll get it!”

“Let’s try from here,” Killeen said, unclipping his weapon. “Better shoot from shelter, just in—”

The navvy lurched sideways, bringing a jumble of boulders into Killeen’s line of sight. “Damn!”

“C’mon, let’s do it.”

“Wait, I—” But Toby was up and skittering diagonally downhill, going for the maximum angle on the navvy.

“Toby!” Killeen launched himself on the opposite tack, to be sure he had a crossfire position.

All this caution for a navvy would probably make him sheepish later. This might well be a Mantis navvy, but even so, navvys were dumb and vulnerable.

And Killeen wanted to have a close look at one, take it apart, get Shibo’s opinion. They had to learn mechtech, and fast.

Still, Killeen was suddenly acutely aware that Toby would be exposed within seconds. Quickly he fired a burst at the place where the navvy, still out of sight, would probably be. He counted on the heavy rounds at least to confuse the machine.

His boots drummed along a gully, shortcutting through, and leaped some brambles on full power. He began panting heavily.

When he came into the clear he saw the navvy churning away from Toby’s line of sight and into his. Its treads bit heavily, spitting gravel, and it buzzed swiftly away.