The rude scooped-out depression seemed suddenly a small place, a bowl into which the Mantis voice poured, encompassing the human tribe and defining its puny position.

People stirred, fitful expressions of wonder and fear flickering among them like summer lightning. They all knew from their sensoria that this intelligence was massive, complex, vastly calm. From it came tremors of large intent, an impression of solidity and complete, unblinking honesty.

Killeen waited for the effect to wear upon the Families for a long moment. He remembered his father’s old words, back at the Citadel: Thing about aliens is, they’re alien.

The Mantis might be honest and it might not. Any sense of that was a human projection. He had to remember that. He could not assume that he understood the machine. Or that it fully comprehended them.

I ask now that you agree to accept my shelter against these harsh winds which shall continue to buffet you. Agree, and I shall enter into a partnership with you Families. I may be able to rescue other humans still lost in the plains of this planet—though I must tell you there are few such. Agree, now, and we can begin.

Killeen waited again for the effect of the forceful thoughts to disperse. Then he raised one hand in a fist.

The Families noticed him standing there, still at the speaker’s spot. He stood silently and looked steadily ahead, waiting until the tension and focus he felt could spread through his own sensorium and into theirs. Scattered remarks died down. The bowl quieted. He could hear Snowglade’s soft winds stroking the hills. Humanity watched him. He now had to speak of his own vision. He had to make it real to them.

“To follow the Mantis way is to ensure that there will be no true destiny remaining to us now, or our children, or to that long legion which will come forth from us. You can take the Mantis’s shelter, yes. You can hide from the Marauders. Raise your crops. Birth sons and daughters and see them flower, yes. That would be human and good. But that way would always be hobbled and cramped and finally would be the death of what we are.”

Killeen swept his gaze through the ranks of watching eyes, seeming to catch each in turn for a brief moment.

“There is another course. A larger way. One that believes—as you did here today, in your vote for the Witnessing—in the enduring worth of simple human dignity.”

In the sudden alarmed and yet excited looks which greeted his words he saw in the Families, for the first time in his adult years, a heady opening sense of possibility.

THIRTEEN

He had expected the Mantis to respond with an icily reasoned attack. Or some strange mindstorm. Perhaps with an assault on Killeen himself.

He had certainly not expected utter silence.

The Families were apprehensive as they left the bowl. No one knew what the Mantis’s lack of reply meant.

Killeen felt a vast sense of relief as he walked back from the Witnessing.

Toby chattered at his side, eyes dancing with bright visions. Killeen had awakened those thoughts in the Families and the experience had drained him.

Speaking, he had felt for the first time what it was to drive forth into the unforgiving air your own self, projected through the weblike sensorium but riding finally on the resonant tones of pure voice. Words were blunt, blind things to use in aid of the clear way he himself saw the world. He wrestled with them like strange tools, forcing their soft meanings to drive hard facts into the minds of the others. Words not only meant things, they made the mind feel and stretch, the blood pound faster.

He had sketched for them his way, the tale of the Argo. From the Families had come an answering song, a muttered assent peppered by questions, doubts, naysays which bobbed like flecks on a dark ocean. They did not all agree. At best a fraction had the resolve and spirit to follow where the ideas led, to take the first few steps marked in uncertain sands.

But some had it. Some had heard.

He had never thought it could be so exhausting. He had great respect for what a Cap’n had to summon up. His mouth was dry and his legs ached as though he had been marching for hours.

Then he felt the pressing weight of the Mantis mind returning to his sensorium.

Despite your phylum’s limitations, you are capable of surprises.

“Thanks most kindly and fuck you,” Killeen said.

The people walking nearby heard the Mantis as well. They all stopped, heads tilted back. The Mantis seemed to crowd the very air with its presence.

Even given my great abilities, your invitation is at root impossible.

“It’s an expression, not a proposition.”

I see. I have interrogated historical compilations from our cities, circling Snowglade. Among the messy archives of (admittedly, nearly indecipherable) human lore, there are faint traces of such a craft named Argo. It may have been built to reach your Chandeliers. Apparently, when we began to spread over Snowglade and carry out the necessary changes in it, your forefathers elected to store the fast-vanishing human technology.

“You understand my offer?”

Your threat, yes. (Unintelligible.) Indeed, if you attempted to reach the Argo by yourself, I could easily stop you. I can cause Marauders to block your path.

Killeen smiled coolly. “Sure. Stoppin’ us is easy. Just kill us.”

Which is precisely what I do not want, of course. I had believed that I could complete my art in one human generation. I see now this cannot be. You are deeper and stranger than I suspected.

Shibo broke in, “Always be some stay here, in zoo. You use them.”

But do they represent the full range of your odd talents? This I do not know.

“You’ll find out. Just let some of us go.”

A hollow pressure rang through the sensorium, repre senting some alien reaction Killeen could not interpret in human terms.

I will do more than that. I shall even help you.

Killeen did not take part in the cheering that broke out among the Bishops and Rooks nearby. Wary, he wondered what the Mantis’s true thoughts were, and motives.

“Mantis present now?” Shibo asked.

“I can feel it.” Killeen rubbed his face. He had a headache that ran like strips of fire along his brow. He asked her to press the spots behind his ears at the base of his skull. That was the old Bishop way of releasing the pain and it soon brought easing. His senses seethed and sought, awakening. To him her hands were purring ruby-hot.

“It’d always be like this if we stay here,” he said as the warmth crept over him. “Mantis’ll be there in the background.”

“Watching?”

“Wish it was only. Naysay noway we can stop it.”

“Senses us?”

“We could get rid of it if we shut down our sensoria. Went blind.”

“Don’t want.”

“Me either. I… I’ll try…”

Carefully he focused his attention on the points where the faint buzzing presence entered him. He pushed it away. Gently, carefully. Then harder. The subdued hum vanished.

“I think it’ll go if we want.”

She nodded. “I feel too.”

“Still around though.”

“Yeasay. But it goes.”

“I’d’ve never got through the Aspect storm without it. I’d be in a trance, same as that woman Hatchet used have as his translator. Her Aspects must’ve panicked on a raid.”

“Crafter couldn’t fix her?”

“That’s what I figure. Mantis gave me just enough help. It’s some use.”