Infinity's Shore

With uncanny courtesy, mulc cables slithered out of his path as he hurried after the girl, trying not to splash too noisily. Her apparent objective was the other crashed ship, the once-mighty sky steed Kunn had used to drop bombs into the Rift, chasing mysterious prey. From the dunes, Dwer and Rety had seen the sleek dart overwhelmed and sent plunging to the swamp, its two human passengers taken captive.

That could happen to us, too. More than ever, Dwer regretted leaving behind Rety’s urrish “husband,” her conscience and voice of good sense.

About the interfering light.

I thought you would like to know.

It is being taken care of.

Dwer shrugged aside the spider’s mind touch as he crossed an open area, feeling exposed. Things improved slightly when he detoured to take advantage of two reed-covered hummocks, cutting off direct sight of the untraeki ship. But the robot guardian still patrolled somewhere out there. Lacking a lookout, Dwer had just his own wary senses to warn him if it neared.

While wading though a deeper patch, floundering in water up to his armpits, he felt a warning shiver.

I’m being watched.

Dwer slowly turned, expecting to see the glassy weapons of a faceless killer. But no smooth-sided machine hovered above the reedy mound. Instead, he found eyes regarding him, perched at the knoll’s highest point, a ledge that might have been the wall of a Buyur home. Sharp teeth grinned at Dwer.

Mudfoot.

The noor had done it again.

Someday, I’ll get even for the times you’ve scared me half to death.

Mudfoot had a companion this time, a smaller creature, held between his paws. Some recent prey? It did not struggle, but tiny greenish eyes seemed to glow with cool interest. Mudfoot’s grin invited Dwer to guess what this new friend might be.

Dwer had no time for games. “Enjoy yourselves,” he muttered, and moved on, floundering up a muddy bank. He was just rounding the far corner, seeking Rety in the shadows of the Rothen wreck, when a clamor erupted from behind. Loud bangs and thumps reverberated as Dwer crouched, peering back at the large vessel.

This side appeared undamaged — a glossy chariot of semidivine star gods, ready at an instant to leap into the sky.

But then a rectangular crack seamed its flank above the ramp, releasing clots of smoke, like foul ghosts charging into the night.

The interference is taken care of.

The spider’s mind touch seemed satisfied, even proud.

Dark figures spilled through the roiling soot, then down the ramp, wheezing in agony. Dwer counted three untraeki … then two shambling biped forms, leaning on each other as they fled the noxious billows.

What followed nauseated Dwer — solitary doughnut shapes, slithering traeki rings shorn from the waxy moorings that once united them as sapient beings. One large torus burst from the murk, galloping on pulsating legs without guidance or direction, trailing mucus and silvery fibers as it plunged off the ramp into deep water. Another hapless circle bumped along unevenly, staring in all directions with panicky eye patches until surging black vapors overtook it.

I have not acted thus — with such vigor and decisiveness — since the early days, when still-animate Buyur servant machines sometimes tried to hide and reproduce amid the ruins, after their masters departed. Back then, we were fierce, we mulc agents of deconstruction, before the long centuries of patient erosion set in.

Now do you see how efficient my kind can be, when we feel a need? And when we have a worthy audience? Now will you acknowledge me, O unique young ephemeral?

Dwer turned and fled, kicking spray as he ran.

The Rothen scout boat was a wreck, split in the middle, its wings crumpled. He found an open hatch and clambered inside. The metal deck felt chill and alien beneath his bare feet.

The interior lacked even pale moonlight, so it took time to find Rety in a far corner, taking treasures from a cabinet and stuffing them in a bag. What’s she looking for? Food? After all the star-god poisons that’ve spilled here since the crash?

“There’s no time for that,” he shouted. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

“Gimme a dura,” the girl replied. “I know it’s here. Kunn kept it on one o’ these shelfs.”

Dwer craned his head back through the hatch to look outside. The robot guardian had reappeared, hovering over the stricken untraeki vessel, shining stark light on the survivors mired below. As the thick smoke spread out, Dwer whiffed something that felt sweet in the front of his mouth, yet made the back part gag.

Abruptly, a new thing impacted the senses — sound. A series of twanging notes shook the air. Lines stretched across the water as hundreds of cables tautened, surrounding the skycraft like the tent lines of a festival pavilion. Some vines snapped under the strain, whipping across the landscape. One whirling cord sliced through a surviving stack-of-rings, flinging upper toruses into the swamp while the lower half lurched blindly. Other survivors beat a hasty retreat, deeper into the bog.