As they passed the clump of officers around His Supremacy, the man gave Killeen a pinched, assessing look, eyes narrow and dark. “We will speak to you later, Cap’n,” was all he said. Then he turned away sharply and stalked off.
Killeen’s Grey Aspect said:
Yon Supremacy…has a lean and hungry look. Such men are dangerous…as the ancients said.
Killeen nodded, but compared to what the Bishops had just lost, the opinions of mere men seemed quite trivial.
Skysower
ONE
Twilight seeped through grimy clouds, casting pale blades along the hillside where Family Bishop retreated. Killeen stopped and looked back. The tail guard had just reached the foothills of this slumped ridge and would stop there to defend their rear.
“Hold till we clear the summit,” he sent to Cermo.
—Yeasay,—Cermo replied at minimal comm level. They were keeping their transmissions few and weak, to avoid detection by Cybers in pursuit.—Running low on ammo.—
Killeen did not answer because there was nothing he could do. There was no more ammunition with the main body of the Family, where he was. Given the Cybers’ ability to attack from any direction, there was no point in reinforcing either the advance guard or the rear party.
Cermo had been forced to use arms and energy-store to pick off the small, tubular things that were trailing the Family. These dog-size creatures seemed to be miniature Cybers, with reddish carapaces and aluminum-sheathed legs. Unarmed, they had followed the Family ever since the disaster at the magnetic generating stations. And they had proved smart, too; they hung back and scattered when Cermo sent people to pick them off, delaying the Family still further.
Even one of the cyborged insects could give away their position, and there were thousands of hiding spots in the jumble of the valley they had just left.
He walked up the steep hillside. His feet were blistered and he favored his left, hobbling slightly. Some water had gotten into his thigh sleeves and had dribbled down into his webbing socks. All the boot- and compressor-shock tech in the world could not keep pressure off the sore, inflamed tissue of his heels.
The water had come from geysers bursting suddenly from a sandy canyon. They had been crossing it at full speed after the battle. There had been no time to stop and check, and now dozens of Family limped along with the same ailment.
—I’ve found Jocelyn’s beeper,—Shibo sent. She was already over the summit, leading the advance guard. Killeen sent a quick trill note as acknowledgment, hoping that would be less telltale than a human voice if the Cybers picked up the transmission.
The message brought a glimmer of cheer. Jocelyn led the Family’s other party, cut off during the battle. Their fallback plan of retreat was working, then; she had found a way along parallel ridgelines and passed through the low canyons beyond, leaving a signifier, as planned. That meant they hadn’t been forced to skirt around any Cybers, which in turn implied that perhaps the aliens were not following the Bishops at all. Slim evidence, but Killeen grimly allowed himself that hope. At this point, hope was as vital as energy.
But then Shibo sent,—More dead,—and Killeen’s mood darkened.
He cut in his reserves of power, and bounded up the last long shelf of shattered rock before the summit. A red sunset cut momentarily through the smoky cloud deck, casting stark shadows in the rutted arroyos beyond. He reached the top, panting. He expanded his sensorium momentarily and picked up Shibo’s green tracer. Closeupped he saw her dispersing her party to the flanks, where they took up defensive positions.
Killeen boosted off on full power and made his way down the steep slope in a series of jumps. His compressors wheezed and he let his calves take most of the shock, but his feet howled in pain.
Strangely filigreed foliage cloaked the arroyos. He slowed to get through it. Spindly trees formed a green canopy over him as he passed Family members in the shadows. The tough, warped trunks still clung to the ruptured soil and already had begun to correct their slant, turning to seek the sky along new verticals. Though there were wide swams cut in the willowy, silent forest by hillslides and fresh, carving streams, life seemed able to hang on tenaciously. Sharp paw prints testified to the survival of large animals, though Killeen seldom saw these except at great distances. They were wary of mechs and Cybers and men alike.
He found Shibo sitting at the base of a rise, staring upward. He followed her gaze and saw a body hanging from a large, gnarled tree. “Any of ours?”
“Naysay,” she answered. “Looks like a Jack.”
Several Family members followed them as they approached the tree. The woman’s gaunt body swayed on fiberweave ropes, expertly trussed. Her entire chest and stomach bulged with one of the glassy, opaque blisters Killeen had seen before. This one was oozing milky fluid from its peak.
“Looks ’bout ready. It’ll pop soon,” Shibo said.
“Right. How long ago did Jocelyn come by here?” Killeen asked.
“I figure couple hours. Her beeper was pretty played out.”
“Where was it?”
“Down where I was sitting.”
“So either she left it here so we’d see this…”
“Or somethin’ left this by the beeper.”
“Yeasay—after she’d gone on.”
Shibo peered at him, the blades of bone beneath her cheeks seeming to stretch her browned skin taut and shiny. “Which?” she asked uncertainly.
Killeen tried to figure how a Cyber might think. “Why’d Jocelyn point out this? More likely she’d steer us away.”
Shibo nodded. “So some Cyber found her beeper and left this.”
Killeen stood back and watched ants swarming over the face of the body as it turned slowly in the wind. “Wonder if it’s s’posed to scare us.”
“See that?” Shibo pointed.
The hands and feet were pierced. From the bloody wounds protruded green stalks ending in fully opened yellow blossoms. The flowers seemed to grow out of the woman.
Killeen felt a sick chill spread through him, remembering the grotesque sculptures of the Mantis. The same horribly rendered theme. “Why’d a Cyber do that?”
“Combined plant and animal,” Shibo said.
“Some kind of message?”
“Why’d it do that?”
“Thing ’bout aliens is, they’re alien.” He spat on the ground in exasperation. Why did both Mantis and Cyber make this “art” warping humans and plants?
A man nearby moved toward the body and extended his knife to cut the ropes.
“No!” Killeen knocked down the man’s hand.
“I’s just fixin’—”
“Don’t touch it.”
“—get it down, poke the thing that’s livin’ inside it.”
“It’s prob’ly tagged. You cut it down, alarms go off, Cybers come running.”
The man looked outraged. “You let it grow in there, come out, it’ll be one more Cyber!”
Shibo said, “Naysay. They grow their li’l helpers in us, not themselves.”
The man blinked and then a pale, washed-out expression stole over him and he turned away. Killeen looked down the rise to the forest, where Bishops were straggling in from the long retreat. They slumped down, not even bothering to lean against trees, and lay with their heads resting on their carry-packs.