Bowl of Heaven

THIRTY-SIX

“Slow down!” Cliff called out.

His stomach wobbled and lurched as the magnetics torqued them. The motors surged, growled, hummed. He held on as Aybe wrenched the magcar around, spinning it hard, testing its abilities. Up, down, around — surges faster than some damned amusement park twister, and not amusing.

Terry stood up to restrain Aybe, and a swerve sent him halfway over the side. Irma grabbed his arm and hauled him back in. “Damn it, stop!” she shouted.

Aybe brought the craft out of its spinning mode and the motors beneath their feet eased. “We gotta know what this baby can do!” Aybe laughed with glee. He took the magcar up and it slowed, stopped.

“Careful,” Howard said. Terry and Irma did not look pleased.

Aybe’s engineer eyes widened as he took the craft up. He pushed a simple control yoke forward to the max, and the magcar slowed against gravity, then stopped. “Looks like we can’t go above six meters.” He moved it forward, and the speed crept up.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Terry said. Cliff nodded.

Aybe took them down to near the ground and then away in a fast horizontal path. Cliff looked back at the bloody sprawl of bodies. Leaving these aliens was a dividing point, he felt. Once this incident became known, from here on the natives would probably give no quarter.

Aybe experimented with altitude and speed, getting the feel of the magcar. They got ten kilometers away before they found a narrow gulch that concealed them among billowy trees, swaying in a steady, strangely musky wind.

The others went through the dead aliens’ gear while Cliff stood watch. He scanned the sky for pursuit. Nearby, undisturbed by the magcar passage, birds in flight broke from their immense, triple-decked formation. They curled in banks, forming a sphere, cawing and yawing in squawking concert. The sound was a rolling skkkaaaaa! and distracted him so he did not see coming from above the cause of it all. A huge slender shape shot down from a cloud and dived into the bird ball. Its jaws opened and scooped up several birds at once. He lost it in the thickness of the swarming birds. It poked out the far side an instant later, jaws closed now and turning away. Like a shark, he thought. A sky shark.

Irma sat beside Cliff and asked Aybe, “This wind is too much. Can’t we shield it?”

“Yeah,” Aybe said brightly, always happy to greet a new problem. “There must be…”

After a few minutes of his trying the oddly shaped controls, a narrow pole abruptly poked up from the magcar center, where the engine housing bulged, humming as Aybe drove them forward. It rose to three meters’ height, and suddenly the wind pressure and sound eased away. They were all impressed. Aybe figured it was some field effect, and when Howard poked a finger over the car lip he got a shock. “Defensive, too,” Howard said, nursing the finger.

Irma said, “We should decide where we’re going.”

“Shelter, I guess,” Terry said.

“We have to think long term,” Irma said. “What’s our goal?”

Howard said, “Learn and stay free.”

Aybe shrugged. “Learn what? How to find Beth’s group? Or get back to SunSeeker? Or — what?”

Irma looked around at them. “Once I was supposed to meet a friend in Old New York. The whole comm grid was down, so I couldn’t reach her — and she was a Primitivist anyway, so usually didn’t carry tech or have any embedded. So how was I to find her?”

“Go to obvious places,” Howard said.

Irma brightened. “Exactly!”

Howard nodded. “So you went to the Empire State Building museum, and there she was.”

“No, Times Square, but — yes. Let’s do the same.”

“So what’s obvious here?” Aybe barked as he steered, never taking his narrowed eyes from the landscape.

Everyone thought, looking at the alien landscape whipping by. They were going up a slight slope, and low hills framed the steel blue horizon. Green and brown vegetation clumped at the bases of hills and in the erosion gullies where Cliff knew predators would be waiting.

Terry said, “The Jet. It’s the engine moving this system, and it passes closest to the Bowl at that opening, the Knothole.”

“Ah!” Irma nodded. “So maybe whoever runs this place lives near there?”

Shrugs answered. “Seems dangerous,” Howard said. “If that Jet breaks free — and why is it so straight? — I wouldn’t want to be near it.”

“Okay, but look.” Irma called up on her phone a picture taken from SunSeeker. The big band of mirror territory gave way near the Knothole to a green zone. In a close-up view they could see complicated constructions nearer still to the Knothole. “Somewhere in there.”

Aybe shook his head. “That’s maybe a million klicks from us!”

“I’m not saying we fly there in this little car,” Irma said. “But look, we’re living in a building. There must be some big, long-distance transport around this place.”

“Where would it be?” Cliff said, face blank. He had no idea, but ideas came out in talk like this and Irma was right to kick it off.

“Something obvious,” Howard said. “This place is so big, there’s got to be some structure that contains transport. To be large range, it’s got to be large. Irma’s right, it’s a building.”

“Okay, let’s look for structures.” Irma held up more views from SunSeeker.

Looking at them, the angled views of the Bowl, Cliff recalled what was now a distant life. He had lived for only weeks after revival on SunSeeker and now — he checked his inboard timer — months here, on the run. Somewhere up there, SunSeeker soared serene and secure. If we could get more than spotty contact …

All this experience was new, while decades of growing up and getting educated in California were the true frame of his life. Yet that world was gone forever from him. In a moment, the entire prospect of his life — finding Beth, setting sail to Glory on SunSeeker to explore a world and make a whole new life for humanity — all collapsed around him. Beth. God, I miss her.

All his past life was a dream, one that had to be tossed aside now for a frank reality on an enormous construct. He sat, speechless.

“What’s that grid?” Terry pointed at Irma’s small flat display.

Cliff looked, trying to yank himself out of his reverie. Redwing had talked of “morale problems,” but this was more like a moral problem. What did any of their grand plans matter, against this brute reality?

Irma was responding to Terry by refitting her map with keystrokes and voice commands, using elevations gotten from SunSeeker. As SunSeeker approached the Bowl, they had made a clear mapping of the near-hemispherical crisscross weave on the Bowl’s outer skin. Those features stood out, a knitted basket that supported the enormous centrifugal forces caused by the Bowl’s spin. A miracle of mechanical engineering carried out on the scale of a solar system.

She flipped the display over to view the living zone of the Bowl’s interior. These maps were much more complicated, since huge continents, seas, and deserts overlaid everything. But clearly, as Irma worked the analysis, a cross-mapping of the outer grids had their parallels on the inward face.

“Ridgelines, that’s it,” she said. “There’s a consistent matching of the support structures. The Bowl’s ribs are big curved tubes. We find them on both sides — the mechanical basis of ridges here in the life zone.”

Howard said, “Where’s the nearest?”

“Ummm, hard to tell.” This went back to the whole problem of conformal mapping of the Bowl’s curves and slants that had bored Cliff on SunSeeker and did now, too. When he came back to the Irma–Aybe–Howard conversation, they seemed to have resolved the issue and Irma said adamantly, “I’m sure it’s at least a thousand klicks, that way — ” and pointed.

Aybe had another objection and Cliff went back to watching the terrain. Aybe could fly the magcar around obstacles with the surprisingly simple controls, and still keep up a steady stream of disputation with Irma. Cliff got bored and rode shotgun in the sense of watching for trouble to their flanks. They were gently rising over terrain that got more bare and stony.

While the three argued, they came upon some hills of actual rock — cross sections of layers, some showing rippled marks that bespoke the eddies of an ancient sea. There were hollowed-out openings, some big enough to walk into. Parts of the walls had the curved sheets that meant sand dunes, each seam of differently colored red and tan grains sloping smoothly, an echo of where ancient winds blew them. These rocks had to come from some planet’s surface.

“Hey, I’d like to look at those,” Cliff said. “Let’s take a break.”

The tech types broke off and Irma surged up. “Yes! Need to pee anyway.”

They came behind as he scrambled up the slopes. Puffing, he scaled a climb into one of the caves. So the Bowl builders had kept some of their home world? Intriguing —

He blinked. Pink paintings marked the cave roof and walls. Simple line drawings showed lumpy animals. One was clearly a running stick figure like the Bird Folk, a slender long neck and arms carried forward. Before it ran smaller animals. The Bird carried a … spear? Hard to tell.

Something told him these were truly ancient. They reminded him of the aboriginal paintings he had seen in Australia. Those showed kangaroos and fish and human figures. Not as sophisticated as the French cave paintings, but very much older, dating back to fifty thousand years.

But these — these were alien artworks of … how long ago? Impossible to tell. The Bowl builders had brought this here, perhaps — these hills stuck out above the bland rolling terrain below. Probably this was an honored remnant of whatever world the Bird Folk came from. Their planetary origin, lost in time.

The others came up and all stood, silent before the strange artwork. There was a dry smell here, like a desiccated museum.

They left it silently, as if afraid to disturb the ghosts from far away in the abyss of time.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Memor made her clattering ritual steps and buzzing feather-rush display, bowing as she took her seat. Warm waters played down the walls of the huge chamber, tinkling and splattering on rocks, which calmed her for the duel to come. Though this was to be a small meeting — the better to get things done — the Minister had chosen to use this largely ceremonial hall, perhaps to stress the gravity of Memor’s errors.

Her only friend here, Sarko, hurried forward, hips swaying. “Welcome, one-under-scrutiny. Let me help you.”

Sarko was tall and elegant compared to the more pyramidally shaped Folk. Theirs was an unlikely friendship, since Memor was more the grave, solemn type. Yet both realized that the other had needed social skills. Sarko’s willowy manner made her an excellent social guide. She made a point of knowing everyone and let Memor know just what intrigues were afoot. In return, Memor shielded Sarko from complaints that she seldom really contributed ideas to the general purpose. Social gadflies were useful, after all, to lubricate the grinding machinery of Folk hierarchy. Sarko’s friendship with Memor went back to the ancient times when they had both been male. Such scandals they had narrowly averted! Gossip they had barely survived! The rich old days.

“Thanks, fond one,” Memor said. “What can you tell me?”

“There’ll be the usual minor business you’ll sit through, of course. The Adopted — not that your primates are, ey? — fall under the Code, nominally. Especially if — ” Here Sarko gave a flare-flutter of mirth. “ — they are rampaging over the landscape.”

“They are clever,” Memor allowed herself.

“And hard to catch! We had abundant testimony to that last meeting. Pity you weren’t here — exciting. I gather these primates are not like ours, not simpletons hanging around in trees. Anyway, no wonder they escaped, they seem quite clever. Tricky! I gather they got away from several large search parties, and now have — ” Sarko paused in her usual headlong talking. “ — have killed several Folk?… And captured a car?…”

Memor gave an assenting wave of feather-fan. “True enough. Word leaks out, I see. They have made the case against their kind quite well.”

Sarko peered into Memor’s face. “You do fathom that the best way to save your career is to agree that they must be exterminated.”

“Oh, quite.”

“So you will? Please.”

“I think we play with fires we do not know here, and should be careful.” Memor had planned that sentence; might as well try it out on a friend.

“That will not go well with the Profounds, old friend.”

A slow side glance. “Friend, I can count on your support?”

A humble bow. “I have little power, alas.”

“Use what you have. I have survived the Citadel of Remembrance, though not without scorn.”

“May you do so well here!” Sarko said, her expression returning to her usual happy state, with blue eye-feathers furling.

Memor followed Sarko’s guidance through the formal labyrinth, enjoying her quick, birdlike movements. Sarko was a quick but not deep intelligence, open to larger mental vistas but preferring the light joys of the social give-and-take.

As an Ecosystem Savant approached, Sarko fell back. “Would you have sustenance?” came the customary offer.

“Not before any other,” Memor made the usual counter. The Ecosystem Savant ruffled colors of routine admiration and the introductions were complete.

At this formal moment, a Packmistress entered, seated herself, and nodded to all with a fluttering plumage neck-arc of authority. “We will commence.” A flutter of acceptance ran round the moist chamber.

The first item was an anticlimax. An ecosystem engineer presented the latest problem. In Zone 28-94-4578, water temples controlled flow to terraces, preventing Folk tribes upstream from using it all, and so avoided impoverishing those below. Yet rainfall had slackened, despite the best Eco management. To prevent the highlands from withholding water without conflict demanded social cement. These Moist Temples used customary subak rituals to link the communities with full mingling ceremony and mandatory cross-breeding. Otherwise, they would be snatching at one another’s feathers. Absent such community, crops would fail. Ancient forests would be overrun with loggers, potters, shepherds, and thieves, seeking what they could wrench forth. This evolving crisis challenged lands larger than whole planets.

The biology of all lands shifted in time, of course — nature’s restless seekings making species that, in the evolutionary sense, pass by each other on their way to somewhere else. Adapt, evolve, or die — the eternal rule. But drought hastened nature here.

Memor watched as several Profounds tossed the problem among themselves. Much verbal artistry could not conceal the hard choices. There seemed no merciful solution. Accordingly, the Packmistress let each side play out, stating cases, pleading for more aid.

Then the Packmistress showed a crescent display of resolute judgment — a bad sign. She said, “No extensions for longevity throughout the threatened domain. No appeals, no exceptions.”

There it was. A hush fell upon the chamber. Memor could hear the gentle splashing of the calming waters on the walls. The Packmistress had condemned millions to their natural extinction. They could not claim special aging preventives.

The Packmistress ordered a recess for contemplation. Sarko immediately appeared at Memor’s flank. “Perhaps such stern justice will be of help.”

“Or set the tone,” Memor said dryly.

“I have been circulating.…” Sarko always opened with a teasing promise, fluttering side feathers near her eyes. “Some say you know the most of these aliens, so should lead the hunt.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, those who spoke at all seemed quite friendly to your cause.”

“I do not seek to lead a hunt.”

Feathers ringing Sarko’s neck fluttered. “But you fathom these strange — ”

“Has it occurred to you that I could fail?”

“Ah, no. You have such a sterling record — ”

“This is the first alien invasion in countless twelve-cubed Cycles. We are inexperienced. As well, no one has ever dealt with such evil little creatures.”

Sarko’s elegant head jerked, weaved. Feathers fanned the astonished violet-rimmed eyes. “But you! Everyone says — ”

“Everyone hasn’t walked in my path. I do not wish to exchange one route to death for another. This hunt could fail, the aliens could do much damage — and there will be victims among us, then.”

Sarko’s joyful face collapsed. “Surely you can’t — ”

The summoning chimes sounded, reverberating in the high chamber. Memor drew in the soft air, but tasted a bitter hint — her own bile?

Back in chambers, more Eco deliberations droned by. Movements of the Folk were not following the Design. Memor let her Undermind rove as she half listened.

All life was properly in movement, on the grand plains of the Bowl World. But the bigger, lower-grade-intelligence Folk, who lived as primitives and augmented their diet browsing shrubs and trees, were to move on — to give grazers a chance to live on the grasses that followed the loss of shrubs. These primitives were not crop-raising Folk, and should remain in their wild condition.

So populations had to be forced to move, and not set up camps and villages. The Packmistress made quick work of this matter, directing Suborns to destroy the primitive camps and force the subFolk to move on. They had their role in the Design, and should be reminded of it.

She reminded them all that the Originals had learned the Great Truth that governed all: that given vast new lands, the Folk then quickly invade these spaces, wreak destruction, and when resources grow short, fight with neighbors for more. Under the first rush of exploding populations in the Original Times, wildland had to pay or perish, to persist. Poachers and loggers turned lands into battlefields.

Only after much strife that threatened the Bowl itself did the Codes come, managed by the Savants. There was no alternative to a constant, assuring order. Another revelation was that death did not permit one to stay out of the Cycle. In some Bowl societies, the Folk tried to deny their own role, and so put their dead into coffins and mausoleums, burned themselves in pyres, even suspend themselves in cold for future resurrection. All were a wrongness, for the Bowl needed these bodies.

“Mites and worms should have us,” the Packmistress said. “This is the Cycle and it must be obeyed. Such is the Design. The Code does not protect lands and seas from the Folk, but rather for the Folk — by taking the long view. The Code teaches humility, because it engages us with Nature in the eternal dance with all other species.”

Memor bowed her head at this obvious platitude and wondered how it would affect her — well, trial was not quite right, but the stern faces of those around her did not bode well.

At this moment Sarko piped forth, “I suppose the message here is, just remember that you can never predict the behavior of a system more complex than you. And if you want a project to stay on track after you’re gone, you don’t give control to anything that’s guaranteed to develop its own agenda.”

Ah, Memor thought. Sarko was drawing fire to defuse the tension in the room. And it worked. Those clustered around made derisive noises, though some just fluttered their feather-fans. “Surely that is too simple,” an elderly Savant hooted. Others just laughed.

The Packmistress allowed a flicker of irritation to ripple through her feathered corona. “For we — Savants, Profounds, all those in the tier below Astronomers — corruption of purpose means simple bribery, graft, or nepotism. But for lower Folk who enjoy their lives in the unchanging state our Bowl ensures, corruption has an entirely different meaning. It is the failure to share any largesse you have received with those with whom you have formed ties of dependence.”

Sarko said, “Surely that is predictable, my — ”

“Our view of corruption makes sense in a culture of laws and impersonal institutions,” the Packmistress rolled right over Sarko. “But theirs is a small world whose defining feature is the web of indebtedness, of obligations that ensure the social order. So to them, not to give a job to a cousin is corrupt, even if others are better qualified. Not to do deals with tribesFolk because better terms may be found elsewhere is also corrupt. Reducing corruption of this sort demands — ” The Packmistress let her voice fall to a grave tone. “ — resolve.”

A sobered silence from those who saw what was going on.

“It is useful to recall the full brunt of our measures,” she began, displaying a somber arc-pattern of grays and pale blues. “I remind us all that while such social dissension occurs on occasion, there is a rogue element afoot, and not far from these territories where the water temples are failing to make a benign equilibrium.”

With this she cast a significant long look at Memor. “Witness, I bid you, the current state of those we have condemned for committing offenses of this type.” With a great sway of her body, she signaled the attendants. The dome over their heads surged with popping energy, and a wide image played upon it. Memor shivered with fear when she recognized the context.

The greatest preventive the Astronomers had, used against only those whose actions threatened the Bowl’s environment and fate, was the Perpetual Hell. Mention of its very existence could silence a crowd.

Those who violated the Code could face having their very minds mapped, and their bodies then executed. They would then awake suspended in a virtual, mental Hell from which none escaped. Ever.

Memor had gone through the mandatory sampling of a mere single Hell, and would never forget it. And now here it came again, splashed across the ceiling.

A glowering sky, shot with red and amber. Beneath lay a vast swamp flooded with fuming lava, the stench — the Packmistress had ordered the full sensorium to come into play across the chamber — so strong, it now crawled into her nostrils and stung throughout her head.

“Attend!” the Packmistress commanded. Heads had already averted the images, eyes snatched away.

Memor looked up against her will. Rooted in this acrid slime were … the doomed Folk. They writhed and screamed in tiny shrill voices. Fires danced upon them as they twisted. A din of shrieking pain played across the bodies. They could not wrench free of the fires and so endured it like trees whipped by winds of agony. Eyes pleaded with them all — for those in this place knew they were watched; it was part of the torture — begging for release from agonies she could see but do nothing about. Rocks fell from the smoldering sky and smashed the fevered mud.

The first time she had to watch this, the intent was to educate her, and the lesson never left her mind for long. Now the Packmistress meant to instill discipline. Memor trembled, for the message was clearly focused on her.

At a nod, the image and scents fled. Sighs and worried murmurs laced the air as the Packmistress settled herself, looking satisfied.

All waited and the Packmistress let tension build. She’s toying with me, Memor thought. At last the Packmistress said slowly, “The Bureau of the Adopted had as its Research Minister a Profound of the most high stratum. He will present their views now, and our guest, Memor, will answer. Attend — these are the firm results of our global staff, an analysis of the nature of these … aliens.”

Memor watched as the Profound — a male, of course, since males push at the boundaries, as a rightful, youthful function — gave a rather hurried talk. He swept his great head about to stress his points, feathers ruffling constantly at his neck for emphasis. Masculine energy surged through his sentences.

“These are clever creatures, a form we never saw evolve in the Bowl.” The Profound tipped his head at his audience, mirth playing in his eyes. “This may come from their tempting role as game — ” This brought a storm of laughter, obviously a release from the tension of watching the Hell. “ — but we can deduce aspects of their evolution from their surprising intelligence.”

Memor knew where this was going. She was not so far from the male phase; she could still anticipate the channels of their thoughts; after all, that was a core female talent. Evolutionary theory would predict a clear pattern in the aliens, and males loved the mechanisms of theory. Selection pressure on some world had favored the climbers of trees, and then had somehow shifted, so the climbers came down to the ground. There they learned to hunt. As strategies go, hunting in groups compelled social communication, to find prey and coordinate attacks. That drove speech and language. In turn, intelligence acted on social cues so that group survival became enhanced, in conflict with other hunting groups of the same species. That drove cooperation. Particularly, selection would favor both the charismatic minds that could lead, and the analytical ones, which would see deeper. The social pyramid would have a bulge in the middle, of the variously competent.

“But this is a commonplace,” Memor injected, a calculated move whose risk made her heart pound. She tasted in her breath the tang of her own sour apprehension. “We can all see where the argument goes. We ourselves evolved in something like this manner, in the Home.”

Invoking the Home was a bold move, but she had to make it. Memor made a fan display of rattling colors. “But these creatures are tiny! They would lack the advantage of size, and so should not be very successful.”

The Profound gave a jut of his head and a jaunty spray of derisive colors. “Size can become an instability, as surely even nonspecialists must know.” This dig provoked a titter among some. “It is simple to grow large and dumb, yet remain secure. We — the Folk — found a balance. We became smart and yet our size let us develop the civilized arts. Our societies matured. We learned to sustain, the greatest of virtues. We learned to Adopt other species through modification of their genes, our great skill — though, of course, even the Adopted at times need recalibration.”

Memor rose to her full height to challenge this. Rising was a risk, for it could offend. But her life was at stake here. Plainly, the Packmistress had chosen to subject them to the Perpetual Hell to make this point without speaking of it. “You speak of strategies we do not in fact know at all. Adopting is our method here, yes. But, I might remind the Profound, we do not know how we evolved!”

Memor had not expected this sally to deflect the Profound’s argument, and it did not. He said, “Standard theory declares that this skill, plus our extraordinary social coherence, was decisive. I am not surprised you do not know this, for you are untutored in the evolutionary arts.”

“Do you know what sort of world we came from?”

“Of course. The best parts of it were much like our Bowl.”

“You like mean the Great Plain, the Knothole, the Zone of Reflectance, or — what?”

He shot back, “That is a specialist question, beyond the concerns of — ”

“You do not know, do you?”

“I did not say that. I think it beside my point.”

“Let us note the Profound did not answer the question.”

“Halt!” the Packmistress ordered. “We are getting away from the reason for your appearance here, Memor, and I note you are using this diversion to delay our proper considerations.”

Memor saw she had gone too far and so made the ritual bow with coronations of dutiful apology — three fan-trills and a rainbow display of self-dismay. The attendees nodded in approval and a few even sent quick fan-toasts at Memor’s performance of a difficult salute. That seemed to calm everyone, but Memor knew it was mere polite manners.

The Profound said slowly, voice filled with deep sour notes, “Memor here has allowed to escape the only of these aliens our Security had captured! They are far away from the other primates, who escaped immediately when they entered.”

“How did that occur?” a senior figure asked.

“Inexcusable oversight. I might add that the commanders responsible have been recycled.”

“That seems brutal,” a voice at the back called. “We are unaccustomed to invasion, and do not have anyone living who has experience.”

The Profound said slowly, “As well it might, but word of recyclings spreads, and aids in discipline.”

Silence. A senior member said, “We still cannot find those, the ones who got away at the air lock?”

“No, and that is the salient threat. These primates are vicious — they have killed some of us! — and at a demonstrably lower stage of evolution. But they are infernally hard to find, catch, and kill.”

“We have none in captivity?” The senior figure rustled head feathers in surprise.

“Exactly so — ” The Packmistress’s head swiveled. “ — due to Memor. The only dead primate we have found, left behind by his companions as they fled, apparently died from a large predator — which the other primates then killed. All this occurred during their escape from Memor.” She ended with a long stare at Memor, aided by fan stirring of rebuke at her shoulders.

Memor disliked such smug orations but kept still.

The entire body turned and looked at Memor. She decided the best tactic was to stare right back.

The Profound did not hesitate. “There is a further issue. These are not truly rational minds. They cannot view the Underminds and so do not know themselves.”

Gasps, frowns. Memor started to object to this intrusion into her own area. “Ah, I — ”

The Profound waved her off. “For these primates, there is always a silent partner riding along in the same mind. It can get in touch with their Foreselves. Yes — we do owe this discovery to Memor, I’ll grant. But! Their Underminds can speak to them only through dreams during sleep. Memor showed that they have ideas that come to them out of ‘nowhere.’ Not words or exact thoughts, just images and sensations.”

“Surely these cannot be significant ideas?” a senior asked. “They are unmotivated.”

The Profound shook his head sadly, a theatrical move that made Memor grind her teeth. “Alas, I must report to you — again, due to Memor’s work — that this primate ‘silent partner’ is the wellspring of their primitive creativity.”

“But that is inefficient!” the senior Savant insisted.

“Apparently not, on whatever strange world these tree-swingers came from in their crude ship. Evolution must have preferred to keep their minds divided between the conscious self and the silent.”

The Savant looked incredulous — eyes upcast, neck-fan puckered red, snout cocked at an angle. “Surely such disabled creatures, even if they have technologies, are no threat to us.”

The Profound flicked a command, and the dome above them popped with an image — the alien primates gathered around a campfire. The audience rustled. “These look quite helpless,” the Savant said.

“They are not,” the Profound said, and cut to an image of three Folk sprawled, their bodies stripped of gear. Burns at their necks and heads had singed away many feathers. Brown blood stained the sand around them, and surprise lingered in their staring eyes.

“And now we turn to the cause of these events,” the Profound said quietly.

Memor recognized the images she had sent in reports. Of course, the Profound had put his own interpretation on her brainscan data, slanting it to his pointed ends. Memor stood. “I am not the cause, my Profound. I am the discoverer.”

“Of what?”

“The sobering implication that these primates undermine our understanding of our own minds.”

“That is nonsense.”

“You are a male, my dear Profound, and so should be more open to ideas, since you are young as well. These events imply a painfully fresh insight. These creatures somehow avoid the risks of an unfettered intelligence. The implications — ”

“Are many, but the threat is clear,” the Profound snapped. “You let them escape. The only concrete knowledge we have comes from the single corpse they left behind — being primitives, I would have expected them to at least try to bury it. Studying that body explains their archaic origins. They have organs that barely function, some clearly vestigial, particularly in their digestive tracts. Natural selection has not had time to edit out these simple flaws. And, tellingly, there is no sign of artificial selection.”

Clucks of doubt greeted this news. An elder asked, “How could they become starfarers without tailoring their bodies?”

“They were in a hurry,” Memor said dryly.

The Profound’s eyes narrowed. “They must come from quite nearby, to reach us in such simple craft. Yet I checked with the Astronomers, and there are no habitable planets within several light-years.”

Memor saw this digression was to mollify the crowd, by seeming reasonable. She said, “They caught up to us and slowed to board. They obviously do not come with an attitude of awe, as with prior aliens. Customarily we pass by a star, and any intelligent, technological life-form comes to us with great respect for the Bowl, its majesty. I doubt these, who apparently found us by accident, will join the Adopted without great trouble.”

The Profound’s eyes glistened as he saw an opportunity. “Then you agree they should be killed?”

“Of course. But the implications they bring — ”

“Will not matter when they are dead, yes?”

“You speak of that as an easy thing. My point is that it will not be simple. They have resources I cannot fathom.”

“But that is subject to demonstration, yes?” The Profound yawned elaborately, amused.

“If we muster — ”

“I assure you we are receiving reports from varying Folk communities. I have not gotten reports from the party you let escape, alas.” With this, he gave a derisive feather-flicker. “But other Folk do glimpse the primates who stole an aircar. They’ve been sighted as they pass in the distance.”

“Then you — Wait, why do the Folk not attack them?”

“They proceed through a zone of low habitation. None who sighted them had weapons of such range, for obvious reasons.”

The Folk communities had only low-power armaments. Large explosives could breach the shell and open the Bowl to vacuum. If such were used by the infrequent Adopted rebellions, disaster would follow.

Memor could sense the shift in the audience. A senior Savant said, “If you are correct, our Profound, we must use those who know these strange primates.”

The Profound turned, puzzled. “I have made a case for extermination — ”

“But only Memor knows how they think, yes?”

Memor said, “I cannot pretend to know, but I can at least sense how they respond.”

The senior was puzzled and asked for explanation with a classic ruffle and coo.

“I can predict many actions of these primates, yet without understanding their motives.”

The Profound sent his crown feathers into a circling pattern of blue and gold. “I think Memor has proved she does not know how — ”

“She is what we have,” the Packmistress said suddenly. “She studied these aliens.”

“But the risk!” the Profound said, turning to make the strut-challenge to the entire room. “We know from prior eras that aliens drawn to us from planets arrive with a planetary view of life. This cripples them. Of course, once having seen and lived upon the Bowl of Heaven, they saw their errors and found a quiet equilibrium. The Adopted have been quite useful to us and, once rendered docile, improve the lives of us all. Yet inevitably such aliens suffer for reasons built deeply into their genes — a nostalgia for planets that necessarily suffer the pains of days and nights, of axial seasons, of uncontrolled, hammering weather. So the Adopted are susceptible to incitement. These Late Invaders could excite such nostalgia into rage, vast violence, and then — ”

The Packmistress held up her arms, and the room fell silent. She did not react visibly, but turned to Memor and gazed steadily. “You will find a way to draw them out.”

Memor hesitated. “But … how can I…”

“You know them. You have seen their ways of bonding, of talking with those curious faces of theirs. The idea of an intelligence that does not fully control expression, showing all to any who see — and so lets others know what emotions pass within! Use that! You have two bands of aliens moving across the majesty of the Bowl. They are communal animals, yes?”

“True, they daily meet and speak and — ”

“Good. Use that.”

“Lure them?”

“If you can devise a way, surely.”

“May I have use of the Sky Command? I can cover territory quickly with the fliers. And especially the airfish.”

“I suppose.” A sniff.

Memor hesitated, then bowed. Her caution warned her not to go further, but — “What of their ship?”

“Eh?” A Packmistress is not used to being questioned.

“Their starship orbits about our star. Suppose it has some powers we do not know?”

“That is for the Astronomers, surely.” The Packmistress stirred, as if she had not considered the issue. “I heard at Council that our mirror complexes probably cannot adjust quickly enough to focus on their ship. It has capacity to maneuver, and could evade a beam.”

A senior Savant added, “No small ship could damage the Bowl, in any case.”

“Ah, that is consoling,” Memor said with a bow and a humble submission-flurry of crest feathers. Then, as she rose, she had an idea.

THIRTY-EIGHT

When they stopped for a rest after a long journey in the magcar, Cliff searched for food. It felt good to get out of the car and into the “sorta-natural,” as Irma called it.

There was little of animal prints or scat here, he noticed automatically. He found ripe berries, spotting them from experience. Some large trees had fruit growing off their trunks, an oddity that he used. With Howard he shot several of them off the bark by laser. He had developed a small poison detector, using the gear he had brought. That time of their landing — going through the air lock and then on the run — seemed far in the past. He had expected a few days on the Bowl, mostly doing bio tests, then back to SunSeeker.

The fruit was a succulent purple and tested okay.

But the purple sap drew tiny flies that went for the fruit and then tried to suck the moisture off his eyeballs. They darted into his ears and dwelled there, prying deep inside. Dozens of them danced in the air, looking for suitable targets. Only running left them behind, and not for long.

This just led the flies to the others, who batted at the buzzing irritants. It got bad and they decided to fire up the magcar and flee. Aybe was irritable; they had stung him on the neck repeatedly. He took out his ire by “trying out the dynamics.” This meant more acrobatics. Howard had measured the magnetic fields around the magcar and found it was an asymmetric dipole, with field squeezed tight under the car. With all aboard, the car sped faster by hugging the ground, so they skimmed along at only a meter in altitude. The more weight, the faster they could go. “Counterintuitive,” Howard said. “Must be the fields grip the metal belowground better.”

Aybe nodded. “I figure the Bowl underpinning is metal with magnetic fields already embedded.”

Irma said, “Maybe those big grid lines we saw on the outer skin? Could be enormous superconductor lines. Howard, what’s the magnetic field intensity at ground level?”

“Strong — so much, I can’t measure it with my simple gear. At least a hundred times Earth’s, maybe a lot more.”

Soon a ridge of mountain loomed before them. Aybe took them straight at it and Irma said, “That’s not far from the gridding I found. Maybe it’s a city?”

“Then let’s not go there,” Howard said.

But under binocs, the rising ridge looked like bare rock and there were no signs of locals. Aybe worked them around the narrow canyons that led to the base.

“No signs of life,” Aybe said. “Maybe it has some structural role?”

“We can get some perspective from up there,” Cliff said mildly. He had wanted to see further around this immense place but until now could not think of a way to do it, short of capturing an aircraft. Yet they had seen few of those in the skies.

They started up the slope of the spire. It was mostly bare rock, but here and there they could see in the gullies some metal, as if the frame were showing through. The magcar handled well.

Howard said, “I think the magnetics are getting stronger.”

Aybe nodded. “I’m feeling more grip now. We can go uphill pretty fast.” He brought the magcar down even lower to the rock face and they lifted steadily.

Cliff watched the terrain fall away. Forest, grasslands, rumpled hills. The spire steepened steadily but somehow the magcar held on, groaning, and propelled them up its flanks. He wondered what drove it — a compact fusion scheme? The oscillating rumble under his feet suggested that, but alien tech could — no, would — be alien.

As they rose he saw immense decks of clouds rising like mountains in the distance. The atmosphere was so deep, such stacks could form and drift like skyscrapers of cotton. The Bowl rotated around in about ten days, and this drove waves and eddies in the huge atmosphere. The clouds followed this rhythm in stately cadence. He had seen the effects on the thin film that capped the atmosphere, and in the deep air below — ripples that shaped the winds, tornados here and there spinning like vast purple storms, resembling a top on a distant table. How could anyone predict temperature and rainfall in something this big?

Aybe had taken them far up the spire now. It felt like climbing a building with no safety net. They were above the layer of air where small clouds hung, and now the view reached farther. Opposite the clouds was a clear zone. He was looking away from the rim of the Bowl, toward the Knothole. The Jet slowly wrapped and writhed, a slender red and orange snake. He followed its dim glow toward the Knothole but could not see past the foggy blur there. But nearer, beyond the vast mottled lands, lay a strange, huge curved zone — the mirrors.

He was about to turn away when he saw something new.

Glinting pixels struck his eye. The whole zone seemed to teem with activity — winks and stutters of light. Were the mirrors adjusting to tune the Jet, to stop the snarling waves that rode out on it?

“Let’s go there.” Cliff pointed. “That’s got to be where whoever runs this place lives.”

“Up to high latitudes?” Howard said. “We haven’t any idea what’s there!”

“We haven’t got any ideas!” Irma burst out.

“Then we need some,” Aybe said.

They kept moving up the rocky flanks of the immense tower, then had another sleep stop. At their rest site were some of the helically coiled, willowy paper bark trees they had found before. These they used for toilet paper, but they also cooked fish wrapped in it. Terry discovered a local herb that, roasted inside the fish, gave a pleasant taste to the big slabs of white meat. Cliff gutted the fish they caught in the surprisingly rich streams and ponds, and kept notes on his slate about their guts. There were oddities to the usual tubular design, such as one that excreted to the sides, not at the tail, and another with a circular comb around its flanks. Disguise? Defense? Hard to know.

They all enjoyed the view. To one side, a gunmetal blue sheen of sea yawned in the distance. The seemingly flat horizon to either side disappeared into a haze; the water gave no impression of being concave, only vast. Here, Cliff mused, masts would not be the first sign of an approaching ship.

There were a few Earthly analogues to this place, he reflected. Earthside, deep sea creatures lived in constant darkness, the opposite of this steady daylight. Here the sun stayed put in the sky, so animals could navigate by it. They all hid away to sleep, except for some lizard carnivores he saw dozing in the eternal sun. Beyond those bare facts, Cliff could not see how to generalize.

Terry came and sat beside him to admire the views. They walked around a bluff to see the other side, silent. They had exhausted their small talk long ago. The unending days were wearing on them all. Their clothes, though of Enduro cloth, showed popped linings and ragged cuffs. They stopped whenever they found a stream or lake but often smelled rank. The men had ragged beards, and Irma’s hair kept getting in her way. They didn’t cut hair, though, because it kept their UV exposure down. Though everyone with a SunSeeker berth was exceptionally strong and tough, living in the open wore them down. Worst of all was the strong expectation that none of this was going to change soon.

“That way,” Terry said, pointing, “that’s up-Bowl, right?”

“You mean to higher latitudes?” Cliff tossed a rock onto the steep slate gray rock below them and watched it bounce and scatter until he lost track of it in mist below.

“Yeah, past the mirrors. Must be a hundred million klicks away from here.”

“Pretty far, right,” Cliff said, distracted by something he had glimpsed. He brought up his binocs and close-upped the mirror zone. It was flashing rainbow colors, tiny pixels of blue and white and pink rippling. He had seen that before, but this time whole regions of mirrors were forming the same color, making — an image.

He stared at it, mouth open.

“Look up close,” he whispered to Terry. “What do you see?”

“Okay, I — good grief. It’s … a face.”

“Not just a face. A person — human.”

“What?” Terry grew silent. “You’re right! A woman.”

“Moving, too — it’s … it’s Beth.”

“My God … yes. It’s her.”

“And her lips are moving.”

“Yeah. I used to lip-read, let me … She’s saying ‘come,’ I think.”

Cliff found he had been holding his breath. “Right.”

“Come … to … me. Repeats. That’s it.”

The face on the mirrors repeated the words over and over. Her face rippled and snarled in spots where wave coherence failed.

Terry said, “Does that mean they have her?”

“These are aliens. Maybe their contexts are different. It could mean they want her to go to them. Or it’s directed to us, and me, and says, go to Beth.”

“Damn,” Terry said.

Cliff stared at the repeating pattern and frowned. He seemed to float on the shock of it, suspended, seeing a face he had longed for. He had dreamed of her so much through these desperate days, imagining her dead or in some alien hellhole.…

“Unless … it could be Beth sending the message.”

THIRTY-NINE

For Cliff, dreams made it all worse. The next “day,” he awoke with the scent of roast turkey in his mind. When he was a boy, his idea of heaven was Thanksgiving leftovers. He had loved chopping onions beside his mother, stuffing the bird with green cork tamales instead of regular stuffing, as Grandmother Martínez did. The other side of the family did ground lamb, rice, and pinyon nuts. Drifting up from sleep, he tasted the Arabic stuffing flavored with prickly spices and a little cinnamon. He blinked into the constant dappled sunlight, not wanting to leave the dream. His stomach growled in sympathy.

Food dreams … He had them every sleep now. They ate simply here, but his unconscious didn’t have to like it.

He got up, yawning and reaching for some fragrant fruit they had found the day before. They managed to get enough small game, shooting from the magcar, and they all gathered berries and herbs to avoid hunger here — but his sleep turned to fragrant feasts nearly every “night.” He suspected food stood in his dreams for some deeper yearning, but could not figure out what it might be.

He mentioned this to Irma as the “day” was drawing to a close, and she said immediately, looking him in the eye, “Beth. Obviously.”

This made him blink because it was obvious and he had not seen it. “I … suppose so.”

“Just as I miss and want Herb.” Still the direct stare.

“Of course.” That was his filler phrase while he tried to think, but Irma wasn’t having any.

She shot back, “You don’t remember Herb, do you?”

“Uh, engineer, right?”

“No, he’s a systems man.”

“Well, that sort of engin — ”

“Redwing was going to revive him to work on the drive problem, but we got too busy.”

“And you miss him.…” Cliff resorted to a leading phrase to get away from the Beth issue, but it didn’t work.

She said, “We’re helping each other through the hard stuff, Cliff. I want you to know that’s all it is.”

“Of course.” Pause. “Not that I don’t have, well, real feelings toward you.”

She smiled. “I do, too, but they’re — how to say? — not deep.”

“Sex does have what the psychers call a ‘utility function,’ yes.”

“As long as we both know that. And speaking of it, I’m not really tired … yet.”

This was clearly a lead-in, so he smiled and said, “I’ve got to take a stroll before settling down.”

The team followed a set procedure when they slept. Find a secure place, often one that surveyed the land around them but was in shadow. Be sure nothing could approach silently by rigging lines that would rattle some gear if tripped. Post a guard if the situation looked risky. Have a spot where people could retreat for a toilet, perhaps even fresh water.

Today — the term meant nothing more than their awake interval — they camped under a broad canopy of tall trees. Wildlife chattered and jeered above as they walked through dense vegetation. Cliff always kept aware of his flanks and regularly turned to look back, to recall the path. They kept silent, wary. What he called a smokebush bristled with its tiny branches, easing slowly toward them as it sensed their motion. It could snare only insects and small birds, but a moving plant still gave him the creeps.

Irma checked above, head swiveling regularly, and they were a few hundred meters from camp when she abruptly turned and kissed him. He responded to her quick kisses and short, panting breath, and only when her clothes were mostly off did he notice that there was no comfortable place to lie down. “Maybe we should walk some more that — ”

“There’s a slanted tree, see?”

“Yeah, those zigzag trees. I think exploit the sun’s constant position. See, they stage tiers of upward-facing limbs and leaves, to cup the sunlight. Each layer is staggered to the side, so a single tree, seen from above, makes a broad emerald area, captures more sun.”

“Faaaa-scinating.”

Her dry tone made him turn and she kissed him hard and deep. Oh yeah, we came here to —

She backed him onto the broad, slick-barked wood. He shucked his trousers down to his ankles, and she smiled when she saw he was ready.

“There.” She settled on him. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Lots better.”

“Stay still.”

He wheezed with her weight as she moved. “Oh … kay.”

“Hold me … here.”

In the long moments he felt the breeze caress them with soft aromas and listened for any sound that might be a threat. Fidget birds that were always chattering and scattering chose this moment to go jumping through a nearby bush. He glanced to check, then focused on her eyes, which were drilling into him with concentration.

You’re never off duty, he thought, and she whispered, “Slow. Don’t rush it. Slow. Keep doing that. Oh yes. God, Herb, yes, that’s it. Just like that.”

He said nothing about the name, just concentrated. A small tremor came from branches above, then stopped. Wind whistled, wood creaked. “Lift up a little.”

“That?” he gasped out.

Then it got fast and intense and he lost all sense of place. When he came, it was hard and the scents of the woodland swarmed up into his nostrils.

“Ah … Okay.” She exhaled a long, fluttery sigh and something fell on them.

“Snake!” she cried, and rolled away. So did the snake. It was long and fat and slithered away.

Cliff stood and snatched up his pants, which were caught in his boots. Not smart, he thought just before the second snake appeared. It paused, rearing up to a meter height on a fidgeting stand of short tails. The beady eyes jerked around, studying them. It’s smart, he thought, and saw two more snakes come weaving out of the leafy background. They smelled like grease and ginger. Their eyes yawned wide in surprise.

Then they all paused. Cliff could now see all four snakes, taking their time as they studied Irma. He plucked his laser from his belt and said, “Just stay still. Don’t look threatening.”

“Me don’t look threatening?”

This provoked some signals between the snakes, their slim heads jutting as they rasped out soft sounds. Do they recognize that we’re using a language? Their sibilants also seemed like words, modulated with clicks and head-juts. He noticed suddenly that two snakes had a belt tightened near their heads, and small slim things like tools tucked into loops.

The moment hung in the soft air. The snakes eyed one another, heads jerked back to regard the humans, they rapped out a few more short bursts — and then darted away.

Cliff started after them and Irma called, “Let them go!”

He didn’t fear them somehow. They hadn’t bitten. Maybe this was just an accident.

They were just strange enough to make him follow the wiggling shapes through the understory of thrashing green limbs, long stems with leaves, and flowering plants. After thirty meters he was going to give up, but the snakes, moving in parallel now and weaving in sequence like a wave, turned toward an out-jut of dirt. They went into a hole about twenty centimeters across, each taking a turn while the others turned to confront Cliff. The last one hissed something loudly, turned, and slipped quickly inside.

Irma came up beside him. “What the — ?”

“I want to know more about those.”

“Hell, they made me wet myself.”

“They’re tool users. I — ”

“Snakes? Come on.”

“And they’re smart.”

“Snakes!”

“They got away from us, didn’t they?”

FORTY

They came down the spire easily, cushioned on magnetic fluxes that Aybe treated like a rubbery ski slope.

They got him to slow down, but he always took a slide when there was a catch basin below. Then he would fetch them up against the opposing slope, braking with the magnetic fields that were surprisingly strong within one meter of the rock.

Most of the catch basins held deep blue water. The look of mountain lakes rimmed by trees reminded Cliff of hiking in the Sierras, which were much the same as centuries ago, judging from the Ansel Adams photos he had studied.

After all, humans had restored the ancient world they destroyed in the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries, the Great Rewilding. In Siberia, people had even carried out a Pleistocene rewilding, bringing back wolves, lynx, cougars, wolverines, grizzlies, and sea otters — top carnivores driven nearly to extinction. Once the human population fell back to two billion, there was room.

Cliff had helped in that when a boy. Nothing biotech or major, just clearance of invasive species. He left near dawn in summers, wearing oiled pants to fend off chaparral scratches, carrying a big knife, a pick mattock, and binocs. Who meets the dawn owns the day, his father always said — and remembering this, he felt a pang that the father who had said good-bye to him with a firm handshake at their parting was now dead over a century.

In those bright summer days, he had killed invasive pampas grass, flamboyant blond plumes that sucked nutrients from the California soil and fed nothing. He cut and gouged down stands as big as his house. He was a bio-bigot supreme, angry at tough, foreign plants that took all and gave nothing. Far better than going after trout or deer, and better, rougher exercise. It felt good to yank pampas grass up. Then the chem death — spray the roots and dug-out ground with an herbicide sting.

The memory made him think of how any mind could build this Bowl and make it work. It was millions of times larger in area than the whole Earth. How did they deal with species and change?

Even California was hard to manage, demanding lots of gut labor. The golden hills where he grew up were in fact an outcome of invasive Spanish grasses. Those outcompeted the native bunchgrasses, whose deeper roots kept them green through the year. But the climate warming of the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries favored the feisty, talented travelers people called weeds — which just meant a plant someone didn’t like — that were more robust compared to the local Spanish grasses. So change came again, and the Bowl would face such sweeping alterations, too.

Moodily mulling this over, he hardly noticed when Terry nudged him. “Something big.”

Aybe saw it, too, and angled them over into shelter below a ledge. A long blue green tube was drifting high up across the sky. It was partway through a turn, coming around so the nose pointed their way.

“It’s seen us,” Terry said. “And coming down. Speeding up.”

Aybe said, “Same old deal — you trade altitude for velocity.”

“So they’ve got blimps,” Terry said. “Makes sense, with this deep an atmosphere.”

“Yeah,” Aybe said. “Got no fossil fuels, hard to run a plane without ’em. Might as well float.”

Irma pointed. “Not a blimp. Fins moving. Rowing in the sky? Look — ” She close-upped with her binocs. “ — it’s got eyes.”

“A living blimp,” Cliff said. “That’s one adaptation I didn’t think of.”

Through his binocs he close-upped the warty hide of the thing. Bumps and gouges expanded into turrets and sealed locks. Yet the thing had big eyes and ample fins like the sails of a fat ship. They canted to catch the wind and he saw other eyes toward the stern of it.

How could such a thing evolve? He had seen floating birdlike things with big, orange throats they could expand. But he’d guessed that was just a sexual display, not a navigational trick. There were odd slits in its side. At extreme magnification he saw things moving along there and abruptly knew he was seeing through a transparent window. The tiny shapes visible there looked like the Bird Folk. “Living, sure. With passengers.”

Irma said, “I can see the tail as it comes around. Big! It’s sure hard to judge distance here. From the detail, I can see it’s a long way off, ten klicks at least.”

Terry said, “So it’s really large.…”

“We’d better run,” Aybe said, and took the magcar whooshing down the slope. He popped up the field screen to deflect the wind.

Terry said, “Circle round, block their view so they can’t see us as they approach.”

“Right,” Cliff said, thinking. “Run into those canyons and stay low. We’ll be hidden then.”

They continued down, Aybe deftly buffeting them against the magnetic fields. This took them frighteningly close to the sheets of rock that made up the spire. “Stay near the trees, at least!” shouted Terry. “If we smack those rocks at these speeds — ”

“Don’t bother me!” Aybe shouted, and narrowed his eyes, gripping the yoke tightly. Sweat ran down his brow and dripped off his chin.

They got into a narrow canyon just as something came arcing through the sky. It was a slim airplane with visible pilots. “Should’ve known they’d send something faster. Think they saw us?”

“We were visible only a few seconds — ”

The canyon wall exploded. Shards and chunks of rock rained down. The windshield proved to be better than that. Cliff jerked his head up at the wham of impact and saw a rock larger than his head fall, tumbling, then sag into the field shield and bounce off.

Aybe threw the yoke forward and they accelerated, a meter above the rough ground. The car jittered as the magnetics dealt with the onrushing shelves of rock in the canyon floor.

Carl heard somebody’s breath rasping in and out. He had heard it before. It was his. The others were hanging on as Aybe made a hard left into a narrow side cut. What if this is a box canyon? Cliff thought but decided not to say. It was too late. They rounded the sharp curve and another wham behind them threw rocks and gravel against the magcar. Cliff looked up but could not see the plane. Aybe took a hard right into a passage that angled steeply up so only a sliver of sky showed.

Irma said, “If we get trapped in here — ”

“We’re not running, we’re hiding,” Aybe said flatly. “I don’t think they can see us this far down in a crevice.”

Terry said, “You decided that without a word?”

“There wasn’t time. They threw missiles at us so fast, I could barely stay out of their view. They’d catch us eventually.”

Irma said, “You’re right. Or anyway, we have to stick with this now.”

Terry hunched down and twisted his mouth skeptically. “What if they just use bigger warheads?”

“I doubt they can. Punching away at the understructure of this Bowl is risky,” Cliff said. “I’d bet they don’t use heavy ordnance.”

“Let’s hope,” Terry said.

So they sat. They kept the screen up, which in turn muffled outside sounds. They sat so they could watch in all four directions, including up at the crooked line of blue sky. That soon went white from clouds scudding in. They could hear no sounds of the plane or the colossal balloon creature, and neither crossed the crack of sky.

Purple clouds slid across the narrow slit above. For a moment they drew down the windscreen and listened. A breeze stirred the sand nearby but they could hear no odd sounds. “We’d better just stay here, lie still, draw no fire,” Aybe said.

So they waited a long hour. Then another.

Terry got impatient. They dropped the screen again, and everyone got out to pee. Cliff squatted in a side passage and had just finished up using the paper tree bark to clean himself when suddenly big raindrops smacked his head. More spattered down as he ran back, getting soaked. By the time he got there, torrents were hammering on the magcar and bringing a prickly tinge of ozone as lightning forked and crackled. He was last and they all got more wet when Aybe dropped the screen to let Cliff in.

They sat and watched noisy water splash down the rock walls. Streams rushed by, gathering force and lapping at the car.

“We’d better get the hell out of here,” Terry said.

Aybe scowled skeptically at the rushing water. “Okay. I’d rather get caught than drown.”

“If water gets drawn up into our undercarriage — ” Cliff stopped. “Never mind, we don’t really know how this thing works anyway.”

This had been bothering him, but it did no good to say so now. You learn more with your mouth shut, he thought. Amazing, how often that’s the right way to go. No one said anything as streams slid down the screen, blurring the view.

“Somebody could come up on us here and we’d never know,” Terry mused. “But movement draws attention,” Terry added.

Cliff recalled his father saying, The early bird may get the worm, sure, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

“We can’t just sit here,” Aybe said adamantly. “That living balloon will come looking, use a search grid.”

Irma nodded, her hair bedraggled. Aybe tried the controls and got a comforting hum from the floor. He lifted them above the muddy, frothing waters. Gingerly he found a side channel and went up it. After cautiously following that for minutes, Aybe paused to see if any danger lurked. A broad canyon yawned ahead, ghostlike in the sleeting rain that blew by in gusts. “This is a real break,” he said, looking back at the others, who were still wringing water out of their clothes. “Looks like a long valley. I think I’ll make time up that canyon so that air whale can’t find us.”

“Unless they can look through rain in nonvisible wavelengths,” Terry said. “Then we’ll be a nice fat moving target.”

Irma said, “And we are a target. Aybe, don’t worry — you won’t get caught. They’re shooting to kill.”

Silence as this sank in.

“Um,” Aybe said. “I’ll hug the walls, then.”

“Might help,” Terry said, “but — ” He glanced up at an angle, saw nothing through the hammering downpour. “ — we don’t know where that sky whale is.”

“And we won’t know,” Cliff said. “That’s our problem.”

Aybe grinned. “Indecision may or may not be my problem.…” They all laughed, breaking the tension.

Out they went. The canyon snaked a lot and through the screen looked like dim blobs. Without saying anything, Aybe turned up the speed, elevating another meter for safety. At a speed Cliff judged to be at least sixty klicks an hour, the driving rain seemed to miraculously go away. Water swept around the sides and Cliff realized this was from the speed, clearing the view far better than wipers could.

They sat and pretended not to worry, which only lengthened the silences between them. Cliff realized that while they had been running from aliens for long weeks now, the odds had changed. The birdlike aliens were trying to kill them now. If cornered, what should he do?

He knew he wouldn’t beg. That would be an insult to all humanity. He felt this immediately, without thinking.

The others were probably thinking about this, too. He could see the strain in their averted eyes, the sagging lines of fatigue in Irma, who was still futilely trying to wring out her hair. How much longer could they take of this?

Aybe concentrated, flying them past rock walls, which zoomed by like ghosts that slid out of the storm, flashed by, and then fell away into mist. Cliff realized that rain was the only cover they or any living thing had here. No creature could take advantage of darkness, ever. He saw some animals running nearby and wondered if they, too, were repositioning themselves. Or using the rain as cover to mate?

“Y’know, maybe it’s no accident that most people have sex at night,” he said suddenly. “Or at least indoors.” He had to get them out of this funk, if only because he had to get out of it.

“What?” Irma shot him a sharp warning look.

So he told them in roundabout fashion. Start with fear of attack while coupled, so do it in the dark and under shelter. Then frame it as really important to everyone. Give social signals, so nakedness implied you were willing to have sex — why else were people so embarrassed to be seen nude, as though they had revealed some deep secret? Set up tribal rules so couples don’t get disturbed then. Make it important, not just a quick jump-on in the dark. It was a contrived theory, made up on the spot, but it did its job.

As he had guessed, Aybe made the first joke. It wasn’t a very good one, but Terry followed that with a real groaner. They got to laugh and sport, and the lines in their faces faded. Talk came fast, short, punchy, delicious. Their group training came out unself-consciously — how to lift the mood, knit up the small abrasions of working together.

Cliff knew he had droned on during the long times they were sand sailing, and now in the mag car for days, so he made use of that history.

After the laughing, he went on just to distract them from the danger they were in and could take only so much of, and still stay steady and focused. So he told them what he thought about this strange huge place. He noticed that there were flowers, pretty unsurprising as a convergent evolution — but here they always bloomed. Trees didn’t drop leaves unless they were dying, since no chill was coming, ever. Animals had no downtime — so burrows where they rested were large, and guarded. Small animals defended their nests ferociously since they had to have a sheltered spot in near darkness to rest, recuperate, and, of course, mate.

Irma gave him a skeptical look and he knew his little seminar was boring them again. When he paused, she said, “Why’s this so big? And why’s nobody here?”

Terry said, “You mean, why so much open land?”

Aybe said, “They don’t like cities, maybe? We haven’t seen anything more than towns.”

Cliff nodded. “Even from SunSeeker we didn’t see big metro areas.”

“Maybe the Bird Folk like countryside, not cities,” Irma said. “I know I do.”

They came around a long curve and suddenly the rain died. Without prompting, they all stood and surveyed as far as they could. Terry called, “It’s there!”

The balloon creature was a distant tube hanging above a rocky headland. Cliff hadn’t thought till now that the balloon was subject to the winds that brought the storm. It was plain bad luck that the wind moved the creature to block their path.

Looking through his binocs, Terry called, “They just dispatched one of those silent planes. It’s turning back toward us.”

Only then did Cliff glance in the opposite direction and see that the spire lay behind them. “Damn!” he said. “We have to go back where we were.” So much for running away.

Aybe expertly turned the magcar and took them away, using the canyon walls to keep them screened from the airplane’s view. They ran hard for the spire canyons, which were deeper and afforded more shelter. They all sat in silence. Being hunted was now a gray fear they all carried at the back of their minds, with no letup.

Aybe slowed a bit and let out a yelp. “I got it! I’ve been wondering about that spire. Cliff, check me. We saw a pattern of them from SunSeeker, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“I know why. They’re in a grid because they’re part of the construction. They’re stress juncture points!”

They looked at him blankly. “They’re like counterweights, see?” Aybe took his hands off the yoke and gestured, palms perpendicular to each other. “They draw support cables and pair them off against each other in bridges, see?”

Irma said vaguely, “This spinning bowl, it’s like a bridge?”

“Yes,” Aybe said eagerly, “one with both ends tied to each other.”

“Why’s it a spire?” Terry asked.

“I’ll bet there’s a counter-spire on the outside of the bowl, too. It’s all about matching stress.” To their hesitant looks, he added, “Think of it as like an arch, each side supporting the other.”

“An arch works against gravity — ,” Terry began.

“And this place works against the centrifugal force — which we feel as gravity,” Aybe said triumphantly.

Cliff liked Aybe’s getting them out of their funk, but had to ask, “So what? I mean, that’s cute but — ”

“Don’t you see?” Aybe asked, wide eyed. “The natural place to lay out a transit system is along the stress lines. That’s where the heavy mechanics gets resolved. Plenty of support for rail lines, things like that.”

Cliff thought he got it, but — “So some transport stops here? Like a train station?”

“Or elevator,” Aybe said. “Same thing, really, in a damn weird contraption like this.”

Cliff called up some pictures he had from the SunSeeker surveys. Under high resolution, he could make out the tiny needle points jutting off the back side, pointing at the stars. They formed a grid around the hemisphere and had seemed unimportant at the time. He had been overwhelmed with the whole idea then, just getting his head around it.

“So?” Terry asked. “We’ve got airplanes looking for us — ”

“And we can hide, but who knows what kinds of detectors they have?” Aybe rushed on. “So we have to go to ground, get out of their view — ”

“Into that subway system you think correlates with the spire, right?” Irma said brightly.

Aybe jerked a thumb up. “Yep! You’re right, it’s more like a subway, buried below us.”

“And where is it?” Cliff said soberly.

“At the spire, of course. Makes engineering sense. I was stupid not to see it before.”

They were all standing and Cliff slapped him on the shoulder. “Great! Sniff it out, then.”

Irma hugged Aybe, and Terry shook his hand, but as he did so, they heard a distant whispering burr. Terry jerked his head. “The plane. It’s coming.”

“We’d better find this subway pretty damn soon,” Cliff said.

They set off, moving fast.