Chapter Fifteen

 

The changing of the guard woke him.Marline was already conscious. Evan blinked sleepily, saw that Prism's intensely bright sun was just beginning to set. Their new guard had familiar features to go with the large needier she wore in her holster.

"Winona, right?"

The woman smiled thinly at him. "Hello again. Give me no trouble and I'll deal you no pain. Shut up and go back to sleep. It'll be easier on all of us." She turned away from him.

A soft voice in his head. "It is beginning."

"What?” In his surprise he spoke aloud. Winona looked back at him and frowned.

"Say again?”

"Nothing," Evan said sheepishly. "Just coming out of a bad dream."

"Better get used to them. I hear they're going to turn you two over to Nodaway."

"They may have restored the station's defensive perimeter," Martine was telling their would-be rescuers. "It's a powerful electric field that runs between pylons, metal posts. You'll have to find some way to avoid it. I'm sure the field is strong enough to wipe your memories if not kill you outright."

"We know about the danger," Azure told them. "We have already bypassed it."

"What?" Evan tried to look over the rim of the wind shield, past their guard. There was no sign that anything was amiss in the camp.

Martine was equally confused. "If the fence is powered up and you came through it you should have set off a flock of alarms."

"We determined not to disturb anything." Library was speaking now. "So we set several of our number to divert the energy flow around us while we walked past."

"That's impossible," Evan said flatly.

"You forget the conduits, my friend. They can carry other things besides water."

Evan tried to envision his friends' approach, several conduits linked together, perhaps forming a neat arch between two charged pylons, diverting the lethal voltage harmlessly through their bodies while the other members of the Associative calmly strolled into the camp beneath this bypass. Since current continued to flow freely between pylons, there would be no interruption. No interruption meant no blaring alarms inside the station compound. It was an elegant solution.

"You still have to watch out for guns," Martine reminded them. "A needier won't disrupt your own personal electrical fields but it will go right through you."

Silence then for what felt like an agonizingly long time. It seemed certain to Evan that the attack had faltered. Had library changed its mind? Had they decided that their human friends were not worth the pain of deaths within the Associative?

Then a pair of warriors clambered over the wind shield and things began to happen very quickly.

One pounced on Winona while the other rushed to free the prisoners. Sharp rotating teeth sliced through the bands that bound Evan at ankle and wrist. He heard a moan from Winona. Thoughts of acid and other local forms of weaponry passed through his mind and he shuddered, not wishing that fate even on an enemy.

As usual, his imagination was worse than the reality. Their guard was lying on the observation deck, her legs curled beneath her, her hands twitching slightly while the other warrior stood nearby. As it worked to free Martine, Evan's rescuer explained.

"No acids. Library forbade it," the warrior told them in its usual clipped, terse phrases. "Been analyzing your old exoskeleton. Gatherers found the necessary ingredients, processors synthesized it. Spray it on your kind of exoskeleton and it kills."

"Kills?" Evan murmured.

"Kills flexibility," the warrior corrected.

Martine bent over the guard, who was still moaning reassuringly. Sure enough, a dark sticky substance now clung to the survival suit at selected points. Where the liquid had hardened, so had the suit, with the result that every joint had been frozen. Their guard could not reach for her gun, could not stand up, could not even run away. Her survival suit had been turned into a straitjacket. And no blood had been spilled.

The warrior reached forward. Winona's moan changed to a whine, but the powerful claws were not reaching for her. They opened the holster and withdrew the needier. The warrior examined it with professional interest. "Doesn't look very dangerous."

"Neither do you."

"Hmph. Own body is better than extraneous supplements." Silicate claws contracted. The metal housing of the needier crumpled like foil.

"What-what are you going to do to me?" Winona blubbered. Her earlier bravado had vanished completely, "What did you do to my suit? Where did these monsters come from?"

"Quiet," Evan ordered her. "And don't call them monsters. They're sensitive." He reached down and shut off her battery pack, eliminating power to her suit communicator. "Don't worry about your suit. You've lived on Samstead too long. The only suit that matters is the one you're wearing next to your bones." He reached down again and unsnapped her hood.

"Please-no," she moaned.

Pitiful, Evan thought to himself. He removed the hood, tossed it over the side of the platform as the sounds of yells and curses began to reach them. All hell was breaking loose below.

He joined Martine at the railing. People were running out of buildings. Some of them were only half-dressed. Every now and then the brief crackle of a needier could be heard.

Initial confusion slowly gave way to a semblance of organization as figures in twos and threes began to gather on the west side of the administration building. Moving in a body and firing as they did so, they began to retreat in the direction of the shuttle.

"Your friends are cutting their visit short," Martine informed her. The guard's eyes went wide.

"No, please, let me go with them! Don't let them leave me here!" She was staring in terror at the warrior who stood over her.

"Why should we let you go?" Martine's reply was cold. "You deceived us and turned us over to Frazier. You'd have shot us without a thought if either of us had tried to escape earlier."

"Please, I was just doing my job."

"I-fell, Martine, let her go. Besides, if Frazier and his people still have any doubts that Prism is home to a Class A population, she should be able to help resolve them."

Martine considered, then turned and bent to grasp their former guard with a sapphire-blue crystalline hand.

"You see that these people, and they are people, are highly intelligent. We told Frazier that and he refused to believe us. Remind him." The woman nodded frantically. "This world is off limits to commercial development."

"Sure it is." Her tone was bitter. "Your own company's just going to give up its investment here and walk out, right?"

""That's right," Evan told her, startled at his own words. "We're going to make sure the proper authorities are notified. There's not going to be any unchecked exploitation of Prism. The native sentients are going to be allowed to develop at their own pace and in their own way until they've progressed far enough to qualify themselves for Commonwealth membership." He blinked, gazed dazedly at Martine. "Did I actually say what I think I just said?"

"You sure did," she told him proudly before turning to address the patient warrior standing nearby. "Loosen her suit so she can walk."

"I am afraid there is no way to do that."

"'Then cut her out of it."

Its teeth a rotating blur, the warrior obediently stepped forward. The air was filled with a high-pitched whine as it went to work on the guard's survival suit. She cringed, but need not have worried. No physician, the warrior nevertheless displayed a touch delicate enough to cut the suit without touching its occupant. In moments it was split neatly down the center.

Like a snake shedding an old skin, the guard kicked the useless garment aside. Without leaving behind so much as a single thank-you, she was out the window and shinnying down one of the supporting girders.

Leaning over the edge of the wind shield, Evan and Martine watched as their former guard sprinted to catch up to her retreating companions. As they stared, it struck Evan that not all the bursts of light that were spotted around the scene of battle were coming from human weapons. He asked the warrior about it.

"The physicians have been very busy. Conduits can carry many things, and lects can concentrate much energy. The physicians conferred with library. As a result, we have a new type of individual in the Associative, one that is part Elect, part conduit, part gatherer, and part warrior-and part something else. Something new." Multiple hands gestured at Martine. "Something akin to what you carry within right upper limb." It moved to the railing and raised itself up enough to peer over the rim. Flat lenses scanned the grounds below. "See, there is one of our new relations at work."

Evan and Martine looked. The warrior was pointing at a shape. It was bright red beneath and silver on top, sliced with grooves of deeper, embedded silver silicate. This new citizen of the Associative resembled a crystalline millipede.

It straightened its tubular body and bent its head. From the back of its neck a thin beam of coherent light emerged to strike at the cluster of retreating humans. The light lasted for several seconds before the head raised. The millipede ducked out of sight as Frazier's panicked troops tried to return the fire.

"I'll be damned." Martine stared wonderingly at this latest product of the physicians' collaborative genius. "A laser with legs."

"So are you, sort of."

"Not quite. I am an intelligence in possession of a weapon, not an intelligence possessed by a weapon."

"Look, there's another one." Evan pointed to where a second millipede was harrying Frazier's staff from the cover of the water purification plant.

There was a great deal of noise and light, but not much death, since it appeared that the humans' survival suits were just able to deflect the attacks, or were the millipedes capable of generating far more powerful effects but holding back under orders from library? The warriors who'd rescued them confirmed that this was the case.

"Library orders that there be as little killing as possible." The warrior sniffed. Such directives were distressing to its karma.

Frazier's people were stumbling into the shuttle now, their panic and confusion evident even at a distance. "They're being herded aboard." Martins was grinning. "Probably don't even realize what's being done to them."

The shuttle's engines coughed, then roared. The comical collection of half-clad humans must be packed in like fish, Evan knew. They'd be forced to suffer one another's stink all the way up to their base ship.

The rumble of the shuttle's engines intensified, rose to a howl. An unexpected pang of homesickness shot through Evan as the craft roared down the landing strip and nosed sharply upward, heading for the ionosphere. He kept staring long after it had disappeared into the clouds, leaving behind only the echo of its departure. That, and some difficult questions. "You think they'll return to try and retake the station?"

Marline looked dubious. "With what? If they'd brought any heavy weapons with them they'd have used them already. I doubt they have any. They came in expecting to find their man Humula in charge or, at worst, trying to deal with a few stubborn holdouts. An intelligent native lifeform capable of defending itself against modern technology is something out of their worst nightmares. They're going to have to completely reassess their intentions here. Frazier's going to have a hard enough time just getting his superiors to believe him." She chuckled softly.

"Oh, they may be having thoughts about returning home to assemble a better-equipped landing party, but by that time we'll have gotten the word out and there'll be a peaceforcer or two standing watch in orbit."

"I wouldn't lay odds on that just yet," he said suddenly, pointing to the far side of the camp. Smoke was rising into the pristine air of morning.

"Oh my God," Martine whispered when she realized where the smoke was coming from, "the nullspace communicator. I didn't think they'd have time to remember that."

"Neither did I" Evan's expression was grim. "We'd better get over there fast and see if we can salvage anything."

While the station and much of its equipment had been built largely of fireproof material, certain components by their very nature contained flammable ingredients. Unfortunately, that included much of the control-and-drive unit for the deepspace communications beam, an intricate farrago of electronics which had been reduced to slag by the time he and Martine were able to bring the blaze under control. It was small consolation to Evan that they could have done little more had they arrived much earlier. Standard-issue fire-extinguishing equipment cannot smother burning magnesium powder, and that was what Frazier's improvising saboteurs had sprinkled liberally throughout the instrumentation before setting it alight.

Buried in its shaft deep beneath the surface of Prism, the beam generator itself was undamaged, but without the means of activating and directing it, it was completely useless.

Evan tossed his extinguisher aside and dropped tiredly into a chair that had so far escaped the attention of both the fare and Prism's voracious scavengers. "That's it, then. We're stuck."

Martine was staring sadly at the still smoldering control console. "I wasn't thinking. We should have told Azure and the others to secure this building first. I didn't think."

"It might not have mattered." Evan rubbed at his eyes. "It only takes a minute to dump some ignition powder and toss a lighter into the pile."

"I'm no engineer, but if the replacement parts were available, I'd say it might be possible to fix this."

"I'm sure it is," Evan replied sardonically, "except that I'm not that kind of engineer either, there probably aren't enough spare parts to repair the damage, and even if we did have the parts and the know-how, we probably wouldn't have the time. Knowing that we're cut off, Frazier and his people will be back here hunting for us as soon as they can acquire some heavy weapons."

Their friends and rescuers gradually trickled into the area, attracted by the twin magnets of lingering smoke and rising despair. Warriors and newly born millipedes took up instinctive defensive positions around the communications building while the physicians moved among them. There were several casualties. Two warriors and one of the new hybrids had been shot up beyond repair.

There was also one possible fatality that instantly roused Evan from his lethargy the moment he heard of it.

"It is to be regretted," the gatherer told him sorrowfully.

"No!" Evan charged outside, was directed to the spot where one of the physicians was working on a motionless, all too familiar shape.

Azure.

Evan fairly shook the ether around him with the force of his mental blast. "He's not dead! Tell me he's not dead!"

"He lingers on the thin line between self and the goingaway," the physician informed him without looking up from its work. Its delicate hands and tentacles were a blur as they worked over the scout's exploded insides. "Go away now, please, and keep your voice down!"

Evan complied, moderating the intensity of his thoughts but refusing to leave. "Azure. Azure! There's no response. Does that mean that-?"

"It does not. What it does mean," the physician informed him, "is that the system has been so badly damaged that all nonvital functions have been shut down by the body. That includes communication faculties. There is heat damage in the area of the brain, though I cannot yet tell the extent of it. Please the Associative, it has not melted the memory cortex. I will tell you once more only: go away."

Evan took a few uncertain steps backward, tried to analyze this wholly unexpected emotional response. Why was he so upset? What was Azure, after all? Nothing but a primitive lifeform composed of hard, inhuman materials. Hardly better than a talking rock. Sure he had individuality, even personality of a sort, but so did certain fish. Was there anything else?

Only that he was a friend.

A nearby voice startled him, because it was a real voice, not a mental projection. "You must be quite fond of him," Martine murmured.

"If it wasn't for him-it, whatever Azure is-I wouldn't be here now. I'd be in pieces somewhere out in the forest, food for syaruzi and their ilk. I don't think fond is a strong enough term."

"What then?"

Evan couldn't meet her eyes, either of them. "I'm not strong enough to say it." He swallowed hard.

She put her human arm around him. "Try not to worry. You've seen what these physicians are capable of."

"I know, but Azure took a needier burst in the head. I don't know if even the physicians can repair that kind of damage."

She pulled gently. "There isn't a damn thing you or I can do about it. Come back inside and let's put our heads together. Maybe there's something we can do about the transmitter."

"Sure there is. We can piss on it. That'll do as much good as anything else." But he let her lead him away.

"One thing's for certain," Martine was telling him hours later, as darkness enveloped the world, "I'm not going anywhere with those bastards. I'll go back into the forest first and live out the rest of my life there. Try and get the different Associatives to work together. It won't be easy. They limit the population of each Associative because they're convinced they've determined the optimum size for dealing comfortably with their surroundings. In that they're probably right, but this is a new threat, something they've never had to deal with before. It's a threat not just to one or two Associatives but to their collective future. The danger is to all of them and it's going to take a united effort to deal with it. The libraries are pretty sensible. If I can convince them I may be able to win the rest over."

"My friend the integrator," Evan mumbled.

"What?" She eyed him sharply. "What did you say?"

"Nothing. I'm rambling."

"You could at least show some interest." When Evan didn't reply she moved to a nearby desk.

Later, with the station's batteries fully charged, they were able to enjoy the luxury of lights and hot water. They were also able to run the station's information through an intact terminal. Library declared himself fascinated and insisted Martine instruct him in the terminal's operation. As it was simple enough for a child to use, or a nonspecialist, library was soon playing with files and diagrams without her supervision.

"Having fun?"

"Considerable," library told her cheerfully. "Your information is couched in simple terms. We interpret them through the terms we have acquired from Evan and, subsequently, from you."

"That's very clever of you."

"You think so?" A small tentacle waved at the screen. "There is a great deal, of course, which I cannot understand. Charts and visual representations are straightforward, but I do not understand your written codes. Tell me, are there codes which describe this communications system?"

Evan brought himself back to reality. "Everything having to do with the establishment and operation of the station is held in storage. Why?"

"Just a thought. If you could direct us by interpreting these written codes, we might be able to fix what is broken." A brace of cilia indicated the blackened console nearby.

"I don't know," Martine said slowly. "That's an awfully complicated piece of equipment."

"More complicated than you? Or Evan? There is no diference. Only in design. Let us try. I will need the help of other libraries, of many gatherers and processors."

"Here's your chance to start a silicate uprising." Evan grinned sideways at Martine. "Go to it."

Once the crisis was explained to there, members of the many Associatives volunteered to help. By the next day there was no room in the communications building for Evan or Martine, so full was it with busy libraries and processors. They moved to the nearest dormitory and tried to relax. There was little else for them to do anyhow and they could interpret designs and images for the libraries just as easily using the dorm terminal as any other. Besides which the dorm was full of stockpiled supplies which Frazier's personnel had abandoned in their rush to escape. For the first time in weeks, Evan and Martine ate properly.

None of which had the impact on Evan that a small blue shape did on the morning when it came waddling into their temporary abode. There was no mistaking that outline, even taking into account the chunk that was missing from its dorsal side.

"Azure!" He rose from his seat, then halted himself. The mental greeting would have to suffice. Azure's shape made him impossible to embrace. Then Evan frowned slightly. There was something wrong with that quaint waddle. "You're limping."

"Damaged motor control, here." He tapped the top of his head. "Impossible to repair it properly without risking injury to more sensitive areas. I will live with the disability, though it will limit my effectiveness. A scout who cannot run must perforce limit its activities."

"I'm sorry. It's my fault, for involving you in our problems."

"Nonsense. As we have discussed already, your problems are ours. Besides, it has been decided that it is more important for me to continue to scout you at close range than to return to my former duties. I am also to act as intermediary between you, your people, and the Associatives when necessary. Have you been outside recently?"

"No." Evan glanced over at Martine, who was lying on her cot balancing a portable tridee viewer on her stomach.

"Come. There is something you should see."

They followed him outside. Their pace was restricted because the paths between buildings were full. Evan counted warriors, gatherers, walls, and flects, even slowly moving towers picking their way carefully through the crowd of their lesser relations. He also noticed a pair of huge, massively built creatures holding enormous hands and tentacles out in front of their bodies.

"Those are builders," Azure explained in response to their query. "They've come here from far away. Only Associatives who cannot make use of walls employ builders to raise artificial walls to protect their members." He pointed out something that looked like an ambling exploding star. "That is a distributor, who works in tandem with the talkers of the largest Associatives. And those over there are excavators, who are close cousins of the gatherers and diggers."

The ground trembled underfoot as the silicate horde surged busily back and forth. Evan took Martine's arm.

"I think we'd better have a talk with library. Things are getting out of hand."

"Which library?" Azure asked. "There are ,dozens at work here."

"Our library."

That individual was lying prone on the desk where Martine had introduced him to the station computer many days ago. The two humans had to pick their way carefully through the herd of newly arrived libraries who were busy exchanging information with one another. Nearby, several of the recently glimpsed exploding stars were juggling dozens of private conversations simultaneously, sorting them out of the extraordinary mental babble.

Beyond the library, the rear wall of the admin building had been torn out. Builders and processors and physicians swarmed over something vast and barely visible. What little Evan could see of this oversized mystery gleamed and glistened like moonstone.

He managed to reach library's table. "What's going on?" He nodded toward the hivelike activity which dominated the missing end of the building. "Just because you can't fix the transmitter controls doesn't mean you have to demolish everything else trying."

"You know, it's strange." Library spoke absently and without shifting his attention from the flashing computer terminal.

Evan did his best not to sound exasperated. "What's strange?"

"How unnecessarily complex superior technology can be."

 

The heavily armed woman put down her high-powered monocular and turned away from the shuttlecraft port. "Looks deserted to me. If they're still alive they probably heard us coming down and ducked into the woods."

Frazier leaned over to look past her. "Doesn't matter. We don't have to find them-though I have personal reasons for wanting to. But it isn't critical. All we have to do is burn the place down. Isolating them's the same as killing them. Oh, and we don't refer to the local flora here as `woods.' Forest is more accurate. You'll see why after we disembark." He straightened, called out to the man standing near the rear of the cabin. "Everything ready?"

"All set back here, sir."

Frazier spoke into an intercom pickup. "Cannon?"

"Heated and ready, sir."

"All right. Unless something shows itself, keep it aimed at that tall observation platform in the middle of the camp." He glanced back to the man standing by the exit. "Open up…

Twenty armed and armored men and women charged down the self extending ramp to take up defensive positions around the ship while the big, turret-mounted laser' on top swung silently toward the center of the research compound. There was no visible reaction to the hostile display.

"There's nothing here to worry about, sir. I don't see what all the fuss is about." The middle-aged woman standing next to Frazier held her rifle cradled loosely beneath her right arm.

"You weren't here last time or you wouldn't be saying that." Frazier darkened his suit visor manually, scanned the grounds as he led the landing party out of the ship and toward the station.

No one challenged their approach as they crossed the inoperative fence. They halted and waited for reinforcements to join them. Among this second group was the tall woman who had been Frazier's second in command during their previous sojourn on Prism.

Her gaze swept over the buildings with interest. "They did a lot while we were away. A lot of the mess has been cleaned up. Maybe we shouldn't raze this site and start over elsewhere. Maybe we'll just set up here again. It would save a lot of time and company money."

"If those two freaks are still around and planning some kind of ambush, that might be just what they're hoping we'll do."

"Then let's oblige them." The tall woman didn't smile often, and she didn't smile then.

They marched toward the old administration building, turned a comer, and came to an abrupt halt. "What's that?" the woman asked, sharply. "I don't remember that being here when we left."

"It wasn't," Frazier snapped. His thumb lightly caressed the trigger of the pistol he was carrying.

To their right, behind the communications building, was a massive, opaque silicate dome three times the size of any of the original station structures. It seemed to change color depending on the angle at which it was being viewed.

"You don't suppose-" Frazier began, but his assistant cut him off.

"Not a chance. I lit the powder in there myself. It would take a shipload of technicians and a supervising communications engineer even to begin to reconstruct the beam controls."

"Then what the blazes is that thing?"

As she had no answers, they changed their course, cautiously approaching the building that fronted on the mysterious dome. The outer double doors were unlocked, just as they'd left them. So was the second inner pair.

Beyond was something they hadn't left there.

"It's been quite a while. We were beginning to think you weren't coming back. Come on in."

"Orgell." Frazier started to raise his pistol.

"Don't do that. We'd rather talk," declared a second male voice.

People emerged from behind storage cabinets and consoles. Not all of them showed weapons, but that didn't mean they weren't carrying any. Of far more concern to Frazier was the confidence they were armed with. And the uniforms they all wore. Most of them were clad in Commonwealth crimson, but a few wore the aquamarine of the United Church. Standing near the back of the room and smiling that unforgettable half-human, half Prismatic smile was Martine Ophemert.

The older man who had spoken last stepped in front of him. He had no hair and wore a black-and-red headband of unrecognizable pattern. "I am Rua Tarawera. Captain to you, Mr. Frazier." He extended a brown hand. "Your weapon, please." When Frazier hesitated the offcer spoke more firmly. "No unpleasantness, please. Your vessel is already docked to the C.P Ryozenzuzex and its crew disarmed and in custody."

Frazier slumped, handed over the needler. There was no place to run.

"How?" the tall woman next to him asked Evan as she turned in her own pistol. "There was no way for you to get word out. No way at all." She looked past him, past Marline, to the gleaming new communications console. "Those terminals were destroyed down to the floor. I know. I took care of it myself. You couldn't rebuild them, you couldn't."

"You're right, we couldn't," Martine admitted readily. "But you forgot about our friends."

"Friends?" Frazier's brows drew together. "What friends? The animals?"

"You saw the dome outside? Yes, of course you did, or you wouldn't have come here first. The `animals' made that. Our friends. When they're given sufficiently detailed diagrams and a little help, they can duplicate anything. It's a game to them, a puzzle, a challenge. They're also capable of making some interesting improvements to whatever they're working on at the time.

"The instrumentation they put together is unorthodox but it works. The message we were finally able to get off with it wasn't too coherent, but it was effective enough."

"It was kind of an explosive, desperate grunt," Evan told them. "What it lacked in eloquence it made up for in strength. It was picked up and recorded, and someone got curious because it was emanating from what was supposed to be an uninhabited region of space. So some official directed that it be checked out. When I find out who, I'm going to nominate him or her for sainthood in the Church."

Frazier was gaping at him in disbelief. "Then you gave it all away! Now that the government knows about this world your own company won't be able to profit here any more than ours, or anyone else's. This place will be put under regulation. Development will be regulated to death."

"It doesn't matter." Evan smiled. "You see, our company isn't our company anymore."

Martine moved to stand close to him. "We've both tendered our resignations. We're going to stay on here to work with the natives. They have a lot of potential and they're very enthusiastic and anxious to learn. They're not interested in joining our mechanical civilization because they don't have to, but they very much want to learn from it. That new beam amplifier out back-that's half alive. It can't walk and it can't talk, but my, can it amplify! It's sort of a superevolved version of the talker towers each Associative counts among its members-but you wouldn't know about that. It wasn't built; it was hatched. These `animals' are going to alter Commonwealth technology in ways we haven't begun to imagine."

"Think what you gave up." The tall woman spoke contemptuously as she was led away. "Great fortunes. Power." She shook her head. "Idiots."

"I think not," replied Martine imperturbably. "Which one of us is under arrest?"

When the last of the landing party had been taken into custody, the representative of the United Church on Prism came looking for them. Manheim had been dispatched along with the rescue party to see to the moral development of the natives-should any such development be required. From what he'd observed so far of Azure and library and the rest of Evan and Martine's friends, any extensive Church presence on Prism would be superfluous at best. He was delighted. The Church hated to meddle.

He found them on the observation platform, gazing out across the forest. Prism's sun was beginning to set. The waning light, harbinger of the long night to come, made the forest resemble more than ever an endless ocean of elfin castles, every tower alight, every rampart a sheet of jewels.

"Hello, Manheim," Evan said absently, not taking his eyes from the view. The Churchman didn't blame him. The sparkling panorama was far more pleasant to look upon than his own pudgy visage. He joined them in drinking in the fiery vista.

"I understand you two want to go back out into the forest to try and establish a native city-excuse me, a large Associative-where other natives can come to partake of humanx philosophy and ideas. You won't be able to give them any more advanced technology, you know. Not yet. Against Church edicts."

"There's no need to hurry the technology. They have to realize the time has come for them to abandon their tribal organizations. That's paramount. Introduction of technology can come later. We have no intention of trying to circumvent Church strictures." His tone was firm.

Manheim smiled. "I didn't mean to imply that you did. I've had a chance to review your preliminary reports, you know. I'd like to see this Integrator thing."

"That might be arranged," Martine told him. "From a distance, of course. The Integrator is no respecter of rank. Or sanctity."

"Knowledge like that is why the outpost that's going to be established here will have to rely on you two to get its people safely through the first couple of years. You're the only ones who know this world. I suppose you qualify as the first colonists."

Martine looked down at her right side. "It's more like Prism has colonized us." Evan nodded agreement.

"It's a wonderful thing you've done for these, uh, people. I intend to recommend that you receive full Church support for any projects you wish to initiate."

"That'll be much appreciated," Evan told him sincerely. "Save us from having to deal with the bureaucracy. "

Manheim nodded knowingly. "If you'll excuse me, I'd love to stay until sundown, but I have business that needs to be taken care of. The matter of cosigning formal indictments and other distasteful things that are best disposed of as soon as possible. I'll see you later."

"Looking forward to it." They watched as he descended from the platform and crossed the shadowy open ground below toward the administration building.

"What do you think?" Martine whispered. "As far as what's being done about Frazier and his people?"

Evan didn't try to keep the sarcasm from his voice. "I've seen much more of how big companies operate in a crisis than you have, Martine. They'll never make any indictments against his employers stick. Frazier and his underlings will bite their lips and suffer whatever punishment the courts mete out. But you'll never see any Directors undergoing Correction. They'll deny everything, claim that Frazier was operating entirely on his own and without official permission from higher up, and produce the documents to prove it. Charges and countercharges will be filed, the media will have a held day, and within two years it'll be business again as usual. You can't imprison a company. You can irritate it, bleed it, aggravate it, but you can't lock it up."

"That's unfair, and immoral."

"That's business."

It was quiet atop the platform for a long time. The sun was almost down when a third figure joined them. It limped out of the newly repaired lift and complained about the inefficient design. The controls were much too high to be useful.

Evan smiled affectionately down at the newcomer. "Evening, Azure."

"Downtime greetings, my friends. How does it proceed?"

"The disturbed members of our Associative have been restrained and will be repaired." Azure would not be able to grasp the meaning of the term "punishment." "We are looking at one small problem, though."

"What kind of small problem?"

"Our greater Associative has laws that govern how much information, how much of our learning we can share with prim-with new friends. We may not be able to help you progress as fast as library and some of the others would like to."

"Martine told us about such laws." Was that a wink? Just the evening light, Evan decided: "The libraries have been busy with the physicians. Already they have absorbed most of the knowledge that was contained within the dead library here. They will hold it for future study."

Evan's eyebrows lifted. "You didn't say anything about that. No one said anything about it to me- until now."

Azure gave a mental shrug. "We saw no need to burden you with trivia while you were engaged in capturing your disturbed relatives."

"I see. And what are library and the others planning to do with this information they've quietly stolen?"

"You cannot steal information, Evan," Azure said reprovingly. "Library says you can only borrow it. The libraries have one or two projects in mind."

"Better battery systems for your bodies?" Martine asked interestedly. "New variations on the -barrean defensive beans?"

"I don't think so. Actually, there is nothing at the moment we want for ourselves. The projects are designed to thank you, for what you have done for us."

Both humans expressed their surprise. "Now what could you be doing for us, Azure?"

"Well, I believe one group is trying to design a device that would replace that gruesome soft sac in your torso, as well as the need to constantly fill it with organic compounds, with a system akin to our own, so that you would be able to live as we do, on the clean food of the sun."

"That was suggested to me before," Evan told him, "by the physicians of your own Associative. It's a quaint thought, but even if they succeed I'm not sure I'm ready to substitute solar power for a good steak. What else?"

"They are working on a way for walls to defend themselves from the devices you call needlers. Lastly is a favorite project which is still only in the discussion stage but which has the physicians and processors in particular very excited. It is only in the discussion stage because it would take the combined efforts of hundreds of physicians and thousands of processors to complete.

"They are also afraid that your own people would not understand it, so I must ask you not to mention it to any among your own kind." Azure's somber tone precluded the possibility that the scout was joking with them.

"Well, that does sound serious. What is it? Some kind of super battery that will enable you to function around the clock? A more refined communications system based on the exploding stars and the talkers?"

"No." Azure sounded at once troubled and excited. "You see, until you came among us, Evan, we had never thought of traveling at night, much less traveling through the night that separates the stars. There was a great deal of information about such matters contained within your machine. So library tells me."

It took a moment for the scout's words to seep through Evan's preconceptions. "You're not telling me," he said laughingly, "that the libraries are thinking of trying to build a starship?"

"No, of course not." Azure was very earnest. "We wouldn't know how to begin building a ship to travel between the stars.

"We are going to try to grow one."

 

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Note: Map of the Commonwealth and its Chronology Published in 05: Flinx in Flux

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