“You’re undermining my Cap’ncy,” Jocelyn said, panting, as she approached.

Killeen shook his head, not trusting himself to say any- thing. From downslope came crashes and shouts. A deep, slow rumbling swept up the mountain, as though the whole were breathing in painful gasps.

—Assemble! Assemble!—came the harsh call of His Supremacy.

“Let’s go!” Jocelyn cried to the Bishops.

“Safer stay here,” Killeen said.

“You’ll do as His Supremacy orders!” Jocelyn snapped.

Toby and Besen had gotten their boots and packs in shape. The four of them set off across a granite plain scarred by rockslides. The tremors muted somewhat, as though the gnawing at the center of this world had ceased. Killeen studied the shimmering curtain of gold overhead but could see no sign of the extruded core metal. Something dark moved high up, a mere scratch against the glow, but nothing more.

When they arrived at the next broad rock shoulder His Supremacy was already speaking to the Families that were raggedly assembling before him. “This is yet another attempt by the demons and devils released upon us, a failed attempt to make us disperse, to miss our conjunction with our sole remaining thread of hope. The Skysower shall arrive soon, my Aspects calculate. Prepare!”

The other Families began to gather gnarled branches and bushes for a large fire. They stumbled and fell as the ground shook, but they kept on. Killeen and the others stared in disbelief.

Then His Supremacy cried, “Behold! The moment is upon us!”

Killeen looked up. A thin band hung above the mountain, visible only as a black segment against the glow. It moved. The nearly straight line slowly shortened and grew wider.

Killeen had the sense that he was looking along the length of something far larger than it appeared. The band curved slightly with an almost languid grace. The gossamer glow behind it added to the perception that the band was moving rapidly, sweeping across the sky like a black finger that turned adroitly, serenely. Killeen thought that it looked absurdly like a stick thrown so high that, twirl as it might, it would never come down.

Then the sound of it came. At first Killeen thought he was hearing a deep bass note that came up through the soles of his boots, but then he realized that the slow, gravid sound came pressing down from the sky. It boomed, a single note that frayed into a chorus of shifting overtones, plunging deeper and deeper into frequencies that he felt rather than heard, wavelengths resonant with the entire length of him, so that he listened with his whole body. It was like the beating of great waves from space itself, driven by tides of light to hammer against the small pebbles of planets and stars, washing over them in rivulets.

Something came climbing down the sky.

The slow, rolling notes brought long-reverberating fears. The rock below them had betrayed its ageold promise of solidity and now the strange dark ribbon above opened its own chasm of doubt. Killeen wondered if the thing could be some Cyber device, like the cosmic string. If so, there was no escape. Clearly it was headed down toward them here on the bald, exposed crown of the mountain. He sensed the immensity of the thing without being able to see any detail in it.

Then he began to hear strumming notes that hung in the air. They rose like the sound of wind streaming through tall trees, as though a gale swept the huge thing above, as though it were made of wood and leaf.

His Supremacy was shouting something, religious phrases that ran together and made little sense to Killeen.

“Behold, a sower went forth to sow. And to those chosen it was given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, brought by the sower. And to all things mechanical it was not given!”

He saw suddenly that the ribbon above, expanding gradually, was slowly curving down to point its long, tapered end directly at the ground. At them.

Now that it drew closer, Killeen could make out details lit by the skyglow. Great sinews like cables stretched down, interrupted by knobby bulges, like the vertebrae of an immense spine. It groaned. The thing rushed down the sky at them, emitting vast twangings. Taut strands split the air with great hard cracks. A symphony of snappings and protracted pops sounded, building to a torrent of noise—

—and something smacked into the rock near them. It smashed open, showering Killeen with aromatic juice that caught in his beard. He jerked back, but the smell was pleasant, sweet, cloying.

Another slammed into the mountain, then another. They pelted the whole mountainside. Families shouted with glee, not terror, as more of the big, oblong shapes rained down on them.

Killeen dimly realized that he had not felt fear as the band rushed toward them. Somehow he had quickly sensed that this was not a Cyber machine, not a threat.

Pops and cracks still rained down, but ebbing now, as he saw the long thin line, slightly curved, drawing away again. It had seemed to come nearly straight down, spearing through the sky as though to point a finger of accusation—or beckoning?—at the huddled humanity upon the mountaintop.

Wonderingly, he walked over to the nearest fallen object. The egg shape had split, spattering moisture everywhere. Small gray spheres were mixed in with the juice. Killeen scooped some up and smelled a light sweetness. Without thinking, his normal caution swept away, he bit into one. A pleasant, oily taste flooded his mouth.

“No! No!” A Trey rushed up to him. “Save—for the cooking.”

Killeen watched as the man gathered up the split pod and staggered off with it, scarcely able to carry the weight. Everywhere on the mountainside people ran to collect them. Others stoked the growing fires. Some already spitted the pods on sticks and began roasting them over dancing flames.

Killeen let himself be caught up in the jubilation. The Tribe, worn down by its long retreat and short of food, needed a celebration. Without questioning why, he knew that this manna brought literally from heaven was good, healthy. The thick, heady aroma of the roasting promised delights to the nose and mouth. Even the continuing shocks that surged through the mountain did not bother him.

He watched the dark blade that had cut the sky recede farther, making the sky shudder, curving slightly as it rose. It had spent only a long moment at its farthest stretch, hovering over the mountain summit as though to deliver a benediction—which it had.

EIGHT

Through the cold mountain night Quath felt a massive presence descending.

She had taken shelter in a fissure beyond where the Noughts lurked. From this vantage she could pick up their effusions and leakage radiation. They plainly thought their small bubbles of electric perception, damped to the minimum, could elude the podia. Quath penetrated the tiny, wan spheres with ease, inspecting the fitful firefly radiances that simmered there.

But she could extract little of use to her this way. Certainly she learned nothing that went beyond her scorching revelations while actually encased in the Nought. Rivulets of Nought thought slipped through the chilly air and snagged in Quath’s electro-aura, flapping like tiny flags in the perception-breeze. And the telltale she had planted on her Nought was silent.

Still she was reluctant to approach the mountaintop. Another incident might alert them fully, scattering them and making Quath’s quest harder.

Then she had felt the first high, tenuous note sounding down from far to the west. The high treble skated on the air, pursued by booming bass notes. They rolled like steady thunder. The source came down and forward at a speed that Quath thought at first must be an illusion. Stuttered Doppler images came too fast for her. Old fears welled up.