Benford, Gregory - Tides of Light

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Tides of Light

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Bantam Spectra Books by Gregory Benford

ACIIOSS THE SEA OF SUNS

GIlEAT SKY IllVEil

HEAilT OF THE COMET (with David Brin)

IN THE OCEAN OF NIGHT

IF THE STAllS AIlE GODS

OFTIDES

LIGHT

Gregory Benford

BANTAM BOOKS

TORONTO ° NEW YORK ° LONDON · SYDNEY · AUCKLAND

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This novel is

for two dreamers

who nonetheless get their

numbers right:

Charles

N. Brown and

Marvin Minsky

TIDES

OF LIGHT

A Bantam Spectra Book / February 1989

All

rights reserved.

No part

of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any

means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by

any information storage and retrieval

system, without permission

in writing from

the publisher.

For information

address: Bantam

Books.

Library

of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Benford, Gregory, 1941-

Tides

of light.

I. Title.

PS3552.E542T53 1989 813'.54 88-7545

ISBN 0-553-05322-1

Published

simultaneonsly in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are

published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing

Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books" and

the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and

Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca

Registrada. Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenne, New York, New York 10103.

PRINTED iN THE UNITED STATES

OF AMERICA

WAK 0 9 8

7 6 5

3 2

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PART ONE -- ABRAHAM'S STAR

ON E

The Cap'n liked to walk the hull.

It was the only place where he could feel truly alone. Inside Argo there was always the rustle of

movement, the rub of humanity

kept two years in the narrow though admittedly pleasant

confines of a starship.

And worse, when he was inside, someone could always interrupt

him. The Family was getting better at leaving him alone in

the early morning, he had to give them that. He had carefully

built up a small legend about his foul temper just after he awoke,

and it was beginning to pay off. Though children might still rush

up to him and blurt out a question, lately there had always been

an adult nearby to tug the offending youth away.

Killeen disliked using implied falsehoods--he was no more

irritable in the morning than at any other time but it was the

only way he could think to get some privacy. So no one hailed him

over ship's comm when he was out here. And of course, no ship's

officer would dare pass through the lock and seek to join him.

And now there was a much better reason not to come out

here. Hull-walking just made you a better target beneath the

ever-watching eyes above.

Out here. Killeen had been thinking so firmly about his problems

that he had, as was often the case, completely forgotten to

admire the view. Or to locate their enemy escort.

His first impression, as he raised his head to let in all the

sweep of light around him, was of a seething, cloud-shrouded sky.

He knew this was an illusion, that this was no planetary sky at all,

and that the burnished hull of the Argo was no horizon.

But the human mind persisted in the patterns learned as a

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Gregory Benford

child. The glowing washes of blue and pink, ivory and burnt

orange, were not clouds in any normal sense. Their phosphorescence

came from entire suns they had engulfed. They were not

water vapor, but motley swarms of jostling atoms. They spilled

forth light because they were being intolerably stimulated by the

stars they blanketed.

And no sky back on Snowglade had ever crackled with the

trapped energy that flashed fitfully between these clouds. Killeen

watched a sprinkle of bluehot light near a large, orange blob. Its

wobbly curves fattened like ribbed, bruised sausages. It coiled,

clotted seintillant ridges working with snakelike torpor, and then

burst into luridly tortured fragments.

Could this be the weather of the stars? Snowglade had suffered

from a elimate that could turn suddenly vicious, and Killeen

supposed the same could be true on the unimaginably larger scale

between suns. Since he didn't understand the way planets made

weather, or the complex fabric of tides and currents, air and

water, it was no great leap for him to suppose some similar

shadowed mystery might apply to the raging lives of stars.

Anger forked through this sky. Behind them spun the crimson

disk of the Eater, a great gnawing mouth. It ate suns whole and

belched hot gas. In Argo's flight from Snowglade, which swam

near the Eater, they had beaten out against streaming, infalling

dust that fed the monster. Its great disk was like burnt sugar at

the rim, reddening steadily toward the center. Closer in swirled

crisp yellow, and nearer still a bluewhite ferocity lived, an enduring

fireball.

Looking outward, Killeen could see on the grandest scale the

structure his Aspects told him should be there. The entire galaxy

lurked like a silvery ghost beyond the swarthy dustlanes. It, like

the Eater, was a disk--but incomparably greater. Killeen had seen

ancient pictures of the regions beyond the Center, a lake of stars.

But that lake did not ripple and churn. Here tides of light swept

the sky, as though some god had chosen Center as her final

incandescent artwork. Their target star spun ahead, a mote among

wrack and storm, and all their hopes now bore upon it.

And floating in this seethe, their enemy.

He squinted, failed to find it. Argo was nearing the verge of a

jetblack cloud. The distant mech vehicle probably lay somewhere

within the obliterating darkness there. Abraham's Star was struggling

free of the massive shroud. Soon Argo could peer through

the shredding fringes of the cloud to find her planets.

TIDES OF LIGHT

A notion tugged at Killeen but he shrugged it aside, caught up

in the spectacle all around him. The heavens worked with ribbed

and scaly light, like luminescent beasts drowning in inky seas.

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What were the chances, he wondered, that merely showing

himself out here would tempt the mech vehicle to skewer him

with a bolt? No one knew--which, in the paradoxical logic of

leadership, was why he had to do it.

Killeen had started this hull-walking ritual a year before, at

the urging of one of his principal Aspects, a truly ancient encased

personality named Ling. Revered and respected, the Aspect had

been given to Killeen by the Family with high attendant ceremony

in Argo's central hall. Ling was the last remaining true

starship Cap'n in the Family chip inventory. The micromind had

commanded a forerunner of Argo and had exciting though often

unintelligible yarns to tell.

Yes, and following my advice is bringing a reward.

Thinking about Ling had brought the Aspeet's firm, Cap'nly voice

sounding in Killeen's mind. He let a skeptical frown cross his

face and Ling picked it up.

You make this hull-walk serve the added purpose of displaying

your personal calm and unconcern in the face of the enemy.

Killeen said nothing; his sour doubt would faintly trickle down

to Ling, like runoff from a rainstorm. He kept up his pace, making

sure his boots got a firm magnetic clamp on the hull before he

freed the following leg. Even if he kicked himself free of the hull,

there was a good chance that his low trajectory would carry him

into a strut or an antenna downhull from him. That would save the

embarrassment which he had often suffered when he had started

this ritual. Five times he had been forced to haul himself back to

the ship using a thrown, magnet-tipped line. He was sure crew

had seen it, too, and had gotten a good laugh.

Now he made it a point not to have his line even within easy

reach on his belt. He kept it in a leg pocket. Anyone watching him

from the big agro pods downhull would see their Cap'n loping

confidently over the broad curves of the Argo, with no visible

safety line. A reputation for dashing confidence in his own abilities

might come in handy in the difficult times to come.

Killeen turned so that he was facing the pale yellow disk of

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Gregory Benford

Abraham's Star. They had known for months that this was the

destination of their years-long voyage a star similar to Snowglade's.

Shibo had told him that planets orbited here as well.

Killeen had no idea as yet what kind of planets these might be,

or whether they held any shelter for his Family. But Argo's

automatic program had brought them here, following knowledge

far older than their forefathers. Perhaps the ship knew well.

In any case, the Family's long rest was nearing an end. A time

of trials was coming. And Killeen had to be sure his people were

ready.

He found himself loping harder, barely skimming the hull. His

thoughts impelled him forward, oblivious to his loud panting

inside the cramped helmet. The rank musk of his own sweat

curled up into his nostrils, but he kept going. The exercise was

good, yes, but it also kept his mind away from the invisible threat

above. More important, the hard pace cleared his mind for thinking

before he began his official day.

Discipline was his principal concern. With Ling's help he had

drilled and taught, trying to fathom the ancient puzzles of the

Argo and help his otTcers become skilled spacers.

This was his ambiguous role: Cap'n of a crew that was also

Family, a circumstance which had not arisen in the memory of

anyone living. He had only the dry advice of his Aspects, or the

lesser Faces, to guide him--ancient voices from eras marked by

far greater discipline and power. Now humanity was a ragged

remnant, scurrying for its life among the corners of a vast machine

civilization that spanned the entire Galactic Center. They were

rats in the walls.

Running a starship was a vastly different task from maneuvering

across the bare, blasted plains of distant Snowglade. The

patterns the Families had set down for centuries were nominally

based on crewing a ship, but these years under way had shown

how large the gap was. In a tight engagement, when the crew had

to react with instant fortitude and precision, Killeen had no idea

how they would perform.

Nor did he know what they would have to do. The dim worlds

that circled Abraham's Star might promise infinite danger or easy

paradise. They had been set on this course by a machine intelligence

of unknown motives, the Mantis. Perhaps the dispersed,

anthology intelligence of the Mantis had sent them to one of the

few humanly habitable planets in the Galactic Center. Or perhaps

TIDES OF LIGHT

they were bound for a site which fitted the higher purposes of the

mech civilization itself.

Killeen bit his lip in fretted concentration as he loped around

the Argo's stern and rounded back toward midships. His breath

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came sharply and, as always, he longed to be able to wipe his

brow.

He had gambled the Family's destiny on the hope that ahead

lay a world better than weary, vanquished Snowglade. Soon now

the dice would fall and he would know.

He puffed heavily as he angled around the bulbous lifezones--huge

bubbles extruded from the sleek lines of the Argo, like the

immense, bruised bodies of parasites. Inside, their opalescent

walls ran with dewdrops, shimmering moist jewels hanging a bare

finger's width away from hard vacuum. Green fronds pressed here

and there against the stretched walls--a sight which at first had

terrified Killeen, until he understood that somehow the rubbery

yet glassy stuff could take the pokes and presses of living

matter without splitting. Despite the riot of plant growth inside,

there was no threat of a puncture. Argo had attained a balance

between life's incessant demands and the equally powerful commandments

of machines--a truce humanity had never managed

on Snowglade.

As he slogged around the long, curved walls of the lifezones,

here and there a filmy face peered out at him. A crewwoman

paused in her harvesting of fruit and waved. Killeen gave her a

clipped, reserved salute. She hung upside down, since the life

bubbles did not share Argo's spin.

To her his reflecting suit would look like a mirror-man taking

impossibly long, slowmotion strides, wearing leggings of hullmetal,

with a shirt that was a mad swirl of wrinkled clouds and stars. His

suit came from Argo's ancient stores and had astonishing ability to

resist both the heat and cold of space. He had seen a midshipman

carelessly back into a gas torch in one, and feel not a flicker of the

blazing heat through its silvery skin.

His Ling Aspect commented:

A reflecting suit is also good camouflage against our mech

companion.

This sort of remark meant that the Aspect was feeling its cabin

fever again. Killeen decided to go along with its attempt to strike

up a conversation; that might help him tickle forth the slippery

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Gregory Benford

idea that kept floating nearly into consciousness. "The other day

you said it wasn't interested in me anyway."

I still believe so. It came upon us as though it would attack, yet

over a week has passed as it patiently holds its distance in a

parallel path.

"Looks like it's armed."

True, but it holds its fire. That is why I advised you to hull-walk

as usual. The crew would have noticed any reluctance.

Killeen grumbled, "Extra risk is dumb."

Not in this case. I know the moods of crew, particularly in

danger. Heed me! A commander must imbue his crew with

hope in the mortal circumstances of war. So the eternal questions

voice themselves again: "Where is our leader? Is he to be

seen? What does he say to us? Does he share our dangers?"

When you brave the hull your crew watches with respect.

Killeen grimaced at Ling's stentorian tones. He reminded

himself that Ling had led far larger ships than Argo. And crew were

peering out the frosted walls of the lifezones to watch their Cap'n.

Still, the magisterial manner of Ling rankled. He had lost

several minor Faces when Ling's chip was added, because there

wasn't enough room in the slots aligned along his upper spine.

Ling was embedded in an old, outsized pentagonal chip, and had

proved to be both a literal and figurative pain in the neck.

He gazed once more at the streaming radiance that forked

fitfully in the roiling sky. Therhe saw it. The distant speck held

still against a far-passing luminescence. He watched the mote for a

long moment and then shook his fist at it in frustration.

Good. Crew like a Captain who expresses what they all feel.

"It's what I feel, dammit!"

Of course. That is why such gestures work so well.

"You calc'late everything?"

Nobbut you wished to learn Captaincy. This is the way to do so.

TIDES OF LIGHT

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