ANTARES GLIMPSED MOVEMENT down in the glowing chamber of ice. At first, it was impossible to tell what it was; there were too many confusing reflections. Then the norg said, "I believe I am picking up signs of the Company. Shall we look for a way down?"
Antares stood motionless on the ledge, not answering. Her eyes caught a bewildering array of faceted, broken images. But the norg was right; someone was moving down there. Yes—three bipedal shapes, undoubtedly Ik, Li-Jared, and John Bandicut. So she had found them. What now?
The Maksu whirled out over the edge and hovered, awaiting instructions.
In a momentary reflection, she glimpsed the Human Bandicut stepping cautiously among angular blades of ice. Now he was standing utterly still, at last in her direct line of sight. She watched, astonished, as a cluster of fine ice crystals grew around him like an accelerated image of a plant flowering. The crystals enveloped him almost completely. She felt an impulse to cry out a warning, but kept her silence instead. There was no point in acting in ignorance.
The Maksu drew closer. "There is activity underway: tentative contact with the core of the ice caverns. It may be hazardous to interfere. We suggest you allow us to establish contact for you."
She glanced at the norg, which seemed to know so much more than she did about these people. "Are they expecting me? Should I contact them?"
Copernicus whirred, scanning the strange landscape below. "Lady Antares, I have reached the limits of my knowledge. I am afraid I can offer no useful advice."
So, she thought. Someone wanted me here, but not necessarily those three. But if I interfere at the wrong time . . .
With a throaty hum, she said to the Maksu, "Please. Contact them when it is safe, and ask if I can be of assistance."
The Maksu groaned and whirled. Most of the cloud spiraled away, down into the valley. Instead of approaching Bandicut's group, they spread out among the glowing facets of ice and vanished into the maze.
"Can you reach them?" Antares asked the remaining Maksu.
Before they could reply, the stillness was broken by a cry of pain. It was from the Human below.
*
Napoleon heard Bandicut's shout, and lurched in sideways micromovements, trying to triangulate and analyze the cry. It sounded like a cry of distress, but what was the problem? From his ledge, Napoleon could barely see his companions down among the ice crystals. Bandicut appeared to have been enveloped by an enormous snowflake. It was impossible to judge his condition. "John Bandicut!" Napoleon called. "Please reply!"
There was no answer, at least not from below. But Napoleon's comm circuit awakened, and he heard an unexpected, familiar voice. "Napoleon, Copernicus. I am on a ledge, twenty-five meters above John Bandicut. Is he in danger? What is your position?"
Napoleon activated his beacon. "Transponder on. I too am on a ledge above John Bandicut. Ten meters vertical distance. I am uncertain of his condition, and unable to reach him. Can you assist?"
"I have your transponder, Napoleon. The Maksu are preparing to make contact. Stand by—"
*
The connection was so overwhelming, he had instinctively cried out. Bandicut stood, physically paralyzed among a fantastic, flowering array of ice crystals—but connected internally to a cauldron of activity. He felt in danger of being swept under by a tide far more powerful than any human neurolink. It was the iceline multiplied exponentially, thousands of iceline channels sizzling into the complexity of the icecore, joining faraway parts of Shipworld, and countless peoples. And he was numbly aware that this was just one node of many in the entity known as the Tree of Ice.
He sensed his friends nearby, each caught up by the icecore, but neither so intimately as he; his neurolink experience was enabling him to forge much deeper connections. As the visual input came into focus, so did a view of his friends through the connection: virtual figures of shadow traced in fiery lines. There was Ik, projecting questions in continuous waves of light: Why? / Who are you? / Will you please explain the purpose of our presence here? And in another location Li-Jared, far noisier with inner commotion, ducking about in search of clues. Who will take us away from here, who will take us home . . . ?
But it was clear that they were not finding answers.
Interference from the boojum? No, there was no sign of disruption, nothing indicating an attack had taken place.
The translator-stones did something, and the visual activity changed to something such as Charlie-One had shown him a lifetime ago, while trying to explain his quarxian concepts of meta-views and meta-attractors. He was surrounded by images of converging and bifurcating streams of water, changing to molten metal, then flowing gases, then evolving fractal designs. It was strikingly beautiful—chaotic movements and forces—but was utterly abstract, and still made no sense to him. Maybe Charlie could have understood it, but not Bandicut.
Nevertheless, he felt that the answers were embedded here, waiting to be found. If only he had the quarx! But he did have the translator-stones. Whatever they were doing, the images continued to change; they were woven through now with sounds like the subsea rumble of tectonic shifting, with peculiar vocal choruses, with a fragmented mosaic of musical chords. He smelled the sea; he smelled crushed herbs; he smelled the mingled scents of warm alien bodies . . .
He was being watched from across the datastream.
The realization startled him, but he had no sense that it was a hostile presence, just an alien one. Or more than one; it felt like a collection of presences. He tried to call out a greeting. /Hello?/
There was a hiss like wind over sea. Then:
/We . . . the Mxx . . . sss./
He struggled to interpret. /Say again?/
Something shifted in the datastream, and the sound became clearer. /We are . . . the Maksu . . . sent by the shadow-people . . . to assist . . ./
The Maksu. Their presence became clearer; it was like a cloud of buzzing mosquitoes—or writhing electric wires, highly charged, and joined to something distant and greater. He sensed that they were on the outside, linking to him through the icecore.
/I could certainly use assistance,/ he murmured. /How can you help?/
/You seek information, as do we. You can reach where we cannot. But we do know certain pathways . . . to places where questions can be posed. It is not safe for us there; we are not like you./
Bandicut shivered. /What do you want in return?/
/Information only. Information—if you find it—about the boojum./
His breath went out with a flame of anger, and fear, at the mention of the boojum. /What do you expect me to find? The boojum may be planning an attack here; we want to move quickly./
/Not the boojum itself—but if you find information—/
/Such as—?/
/Its origins, its nature. We could trade such information to others, who might devise defenses . . ./
/All right,/ he whispered, growing impatient. The formations of the icecore twisted and altered shape around him. /Show me how./
The Maksu buzzed incomprehensibly.
Something moved around him, and abruptly billowed out like a great diaphanous curtain in a breeze. Beyond it was the enormous bowl of a cirrus-streaked sky. He floated out, alone in that sky, and gradually became aware that those streaks of cloud were in fact long, complex streamers of data-activity. His translator-stones, like twin stars in his pockets, twinkled as they adjusted his perceptions to the new image surrounding him. There was a shifting of magnitude, and the data-streamers expanded, enclosing him. Their wispy detail hardened, transformed into long ice crystals in a fantastic array, mirroring the enormous snowflake that enveloped his outer body.
He felt the Maksu withdrawing, as pathways opened around him.
He sensed, with rising excitement, that each one of those sparkling slivers contained more information than all of humanity's datanets combined. Perhaps now he was in a place from which he could query and comprehend. He moved tentatively, and discovered that with gentle strokes of thought, he could choose among the spines of ice—and at his discretion, peer down into the crystal slivers and watch flowering images of places, and peoples, and worlds . . .
His translator-stones were afire with wonder. Maybe he could at last—
—learn why he was here—
—see the faces of those who had brought him—
—find a way home for himself, and for Ik and Li-Jared—
The ice slivers divided before him, and he flew through exploding images of structure and information: maps of Shipworld and its subsystems, shaded here where shadow-people maintained the systems, there where others kept it functioning, and flickering boundaries where incompatible ecologies were kept apart. He glimpsed movements of vital resources and services; communications networks, the iceline just one among hundreds; star charts of planetary origins; profiles of scores of races inhabiting the metaship. He began to comprehend at last why it was called a metaship, with layer upon layer of complexity, each layer encapsulating vast systems of activity; it was like fractal images, with constantly changing scales revealing ever more layers of self-similar patterns. Soon he was lost in shifting sands of imagery and information. It was still too vast, too complex; he couldn't find his way to the right questions, the right answers.
/Help!/ he murmured softly. /Is there a help-function here?/
The response was immediate. A new crystal structure flowered open, sparkling out toward him. He heard a voice call tonelessly:
>> Draw close, please. If you wish assistance, you must draw closer. >>
Puzzled, he tried to comply. /What exactly do you want me to do?/
>> Draw closer. To understand your needs, we must have access to your total memory and internal network functions. >>
/Well, I—/ How much did he trust this system?
>> We cannot assist unless you permit access to those functions. If you wish assistance, please move closer. >>
Bandicut shivered. He was already perilously deep in this virtual system, well removed from his physical center. But he hadn't found what they'd come looking for—and apparently he wouldn't find it without taking further risks. He drew his thoughts together, then nudged himself close to the sparkling flower of the help function, and let it draw him down into the flickering magnetism of its inner world . . .
*
Antares peered down into the cavern, trying to get a better look at the astonishing replica of a snowflake that had grown around John Bandicut. He had not cried out again, but he was completely enveloped now, and the snowflake was alive with light—rippling among its spines with a frenetic energy. Bandicut's two companions appeared likewise immobilized but less densely surrounded. It almost looked as if the ice caverns had surrounded those two just to keep them out of the way. What was going on down there?
"Maksu?" she called sharply. A few of them remained buzzing nearby. "Can you get me a window into the activity around the Human? I don't want to interfere. I just want to know what he is doing."
The creatures buzzed, spun out of sight for a moment, then reappeared, winking. "Step down, please."
Step down? She looked and saw a narrow ledge just below her. It couldn't possibly give her a much better view, but it was definitely a riskier place to stand. And it bristled with ice crystals. A medium of contact? She hesitated, ashamed of her own sudden fear. How badly did she want to do this? She glanced at Copernicus, who had been standing silent. The norg clicked and said, "I am concerned for him. I wish I could know if he is in danger."
She answered with a murmur of concern. "I will do what I can," she promised, and climbed carefully down the meter or so to the ledge. It was an awkward place to stand, and she flattened her back to the vertical rock face. "All right," she said to the Maksu. "What now?"
"Wait."
By the time she was aware of what was happening, she could not possibly have stopped it. Crystals of ice crinkled outward from the rock, and pressed against her body—not enveloping her, quite, but bracing her from both sides, catching her arms and prickling against her neck. "Wait. I have not—"
And then her breath went out without words, and her vision seemed to collapse inward, into her own mind. She felt, for a moment, a tremendous vertigo; she saw darkness, then sprinkles of light in the darkness, and at last great swirling swaths of color that she somehow recognized as information being displayed for her inspection. And against the swaths of color was a small silhouette, an inner image of the outer reality: it was the shape of the Human John Bandicut, embedded within a great flickering whirlpool of information. And something was rising up from the bottom of that whirlpool, something dark rising toward him . . .
*
He felt, at last, that he was merging with a responsive intelligence that could help him explore this near-infinity of knowledge. His thoughts began to tumble out, almost without his control. /I have so many questions!/ he was whispering. /It is all so confusing!/
>> What do you wish to know? >>
/I want to know who is in charge here—/
>> In the icecore? >>
/In Shipworld. Everywhere—/
>> Who is in charge? >>
/Yes! Who brought us here! Who is responsible for all this! Why are we here? We want to know if we can go home—/
>> If you can go home? >>
/Yes! We long for our homeworlds! We want to go home! We want to meet the people who brought us here!/
>> You must release all of these thoughts . . . let us see them clearly. Yes, that is better. We see your homeworld. You are far indeed from your home. You were brought here by certain Masters of Shipworld. And your friends? We cannot see their thoughts quite so clearly. >>
/They are far from home, too,/ Bandicut whispered. /We want to communicate with those who are in charge, the Masters of Shipworld—/
>> Those who send you into danger . . . ? >>
There was a subtle change in the tone of the voice that was addressing him. It seemed . . . stronger, he thought, more wiry and unyielding. Not threatening, exactly; but he felt a prickle of fear, nonetheless. He sensed from the voice a ripple of . . . he could not tell what . . . something that was like an emotion, and yet was nothing human, nothing identifiable.
>> We can demonstrate ways to leave Shipworld; but we first require additional levels of access . . . >>
/What?/ he whispered.
>> . . . without which you will never find the answers you seek . . . never return home . . . >>
As the words washed over him, he felt a wave of disorientation. Never return home . . . never find the answers . . . He felt a sudden urgent, compelling desire to do what this voice asked. Was it an aspect of the icecore itself, he wondered, a sentience linked to the deepest inner levels of the Tree of Ice?
>> Open all your thoughts now to descend to the level you desire. >>
The nearest ice crystal splintered open, flickeringly revealing a glimpse of transportation portals, and whispering star-spanners, and shimmering n-space translators . . .
Escape from bondage.
As he gazed, stunned, into the images, he sensed a ripple of a darker color flickering up through the branching crystals. Something was changing around him; he felt like a diver in clear water, descending through a thermocline. It was like a physical shock of deep cold, but more than that. It was not just a new level of access, but something penetrating him from within; he glimpsed his own image, like a dark shadow, stretching out before him, against the flickering light.
He reeled breathlessly. He felt his mind, his thoughts and feelings, his soul, being stretched out, away from his body, into a bottomless sea of knowledge. He thought of Charlie stretching out from his translator into the mind of an alien, a human; and he shuddered, realizing that the icecore was drawing him into as profound a contact . . . and not just contact, but separation from his own mind and body . . .
/Wait—!/
It was out of his control now. The shadowy image of himself stretched out longer and longer, distorting. He felt dizzily faint, as a wave of alternating dark and light rippled up through the connection around him, then caught him and drew him down into itself like an undertow. He desperately wanted to stop that wave, but whatever he had set in motion, it was impossible to stop now.
>> Your knowledge and thoughts are now ours, >> said the voice, much darker and harder than before.
*
Antares' empathic senses were afire. The Maksu were buzzing bewilderingly; they were distressed about something. She was far enough into the icelink that she could dimly discern the emotions of the distant John Bandicut. And he was clearly in trouble.
But what kind of trouble?
She sensed through the connection the Maksu swarming up and out of the link, and boiling around her in the physical reality. Their groaning insect-roar seemed to convey . . . what? Alarm? Anger? Recrimination? She could not quite tell, but even through the welter of alien emotions, she could identify the acid tang of fear.
"We didn't know, couldn't know!" she heard at last. "We should not have come!" they buzzed, their words reaching into the connection through the few that were still linked.
"Didn't know what?" she demanded, struggling to focus on their words and still follow what was happening to Bandicut.
"Danger! Danger!"
"What danger?" she snapped, her own fear crackling in her voice.
"We couldn't have known! We must flee!"
The Maksu were terrified. "Why?" she whispered. "What about the others?" Her words came out in a jumble. "Can you do something to help the others—?" She was half in and half out of the icelink now, and suddenly thought she knew why John Bandicut was in trouble.
The Maksu boiled furiously. "Were not hired to defend—cannot—"
"What?" she demanded, stung by their retreat.
"We have no power—only information—must protect the information—!" The Maksu were swirling behind her now, preparing to flee.
"You can't just leave!"
"Will take you—lead you out—must go now—before we are destroyed—"
Before they were all destroyed? Then she should . . . but no. She had come this far with the norg, to join the others. She couldn't just flee, not without at least trying to help them get out, too. She craned her neck to look back at Copernicus, on the higher ledge. "Can you lead me out of here, if we have to move fast?" she called.
As if he'd understood her mind rather than her words, the norg tapped wildly. "We must find a way to help John Bandicut! I have located Napoleon, on a far ledge! We must stand ready to help!"
"We must flee now!" cried the Maksu.
"Can you at least—send—the shadow-people?" she gasped.
Their groan rose to a shriek. "This we will do!" And they whirled, flashing, out of the cavern.
Antares watched them vanish, and with a shiver let her thoughts sink back down into the surface layers of the icelink. She could see the shadow of Bandicut stretching out, becoming elongated and distorted almost beyond recognition. And something else, deeper in the maze of ice, was rippling around him. That was what had so frightened the Maksu.
She felt Bandicut's fear, but more than that, his confusion. She had to warn him somehow, help him. She drew an inner breath, and focused her thoughts. /JOHN BANDICUT! JOHN BANDICUT! CAN YOU HEAR ME, JOHN BANDICUT-UT-UT?/
Her voice echoed as if down a long, perfectly polished tunnel. There were no words in answer, but she felt a quiver of awareness. /JOHN BANDICUT, BEWARE DANGER-R-R! PROTECT YOURSEL-L-L-F!/
And as her words reverberated, the darkened figure of Bandicut stretched closer and closer to the rising shadow of the boojum.
*
Bandicut struggled to turn from the wave of darkness. There was a terrible ringing in his ears, and he felt something shift around him, like a momentary loosening of a band around his chest. He took a sharp breath—felt a moment of clarity—and heard a distant voice. He could hear only a fragment of what it was saying . . .
/—protect yourself!/
And then he caught the familiar scent—and wondered if it had been hiding there all along—the smell of madness. And he realized in horror what he had done. The wave of dark strength, the boojum, was wrapping itself around him, pulling him deep into the heart of the icecore. It was not here to help him, or even to kill him; it was here to suck him dry, to steal his life and soul and knowledge, to pull him into the core of its being . . . to make him a part of itself.
He reeled with anguish, trying to turn away. But the matrix of ice had darkened around him. And now it abruptly caved in, like a collapsing hollow mound of earth, carrying him down under its own weight.
He could see the boojum's trap everywhere around him now, as he fell through the splintering icelink. And he screamed, as he felt the sinews of the boojum's power closing to cut him loose from his body, to carry him away forever.