Benjan feels a tremor of fear.
“So where did he flee? You’re the closest model of Benjan.”
I summon winds from the equator, cold banks of sullen cloud from the poles, and bid them crash. They slam together to make a tornado such as never seen on Earth. Lower gravity, thicker air-a cauldron. It twirls and snarls and spits out lightning knives. The funnel touches down, kisses my crust—
—and there are Majiken beneath, whole packed canisters of them, awaiting my kiss.
Everyone talks about the weather, but only I do anything about it.
They crack open like ripe fruit.
—and you dwindle again, hiding from their pursuing electrons. Falling away into your microstructure.
They do not know how much they have captured. They think in terms of bits and pieces and he/you/we/I are not. So they do not know this—
You knew this had to come
As worlds must turn
And primates must prance
And givers must grab
So they would try to wrap their world around yours.
They are not dumb.
And smell a beautiful beast slouching toward Bethlehem.
Benjan coils in upon himself. He has to delay Katonji. He must lie—
—and at this rogue thought, scarlet circuits fire. Agony. Benjan flinches as truth verification overrides trigger inside himself.
“I warned you.” Katonji smiles, lips thin and dry.
Let them kill me.
“You’d like that, I know. No, you will yield up your little secrets.”
Speak. Don’t just let him read your thoughts. “Why can’t you find him?”
“We do not know. Except that your sort of intelligence has gotten quite out of control, that we do know. We will take it apart gradually, to understand it—you, I suppose, included.”
“You will…”
“Peel you, yes. There will be nothing left. To avoid that, tell us now.”
—and the howling storm breaches him, bowls him over, shrieks and tears and devours him. The fire licks flesh from his bones, chars him, flames burst behind his eyelids—
And he stands. He endures. He seals off the pain. It becomes a raging, white-hot point deep in his gut.
Find the truth. “After… after… escape, I imagine—yes, I am certain—he would go to the poles.”
“Ah! Perfect. Quite plausible, but—which pole?” Katonji turns and murmurs something to someone beyond Benjan’s view. He nods, turns back and says, “We will catch him there. You understand, Fleet cannot allow a manifestation of his sort to remain free after he has flaunted our authority.”
“Of course,” Benjan says between clenched teeth.
(But he has no teeth, he realizes. Perceptions are but data, bits strung together in binary.
But they feel like teeth, and the smoldering flames in his belly make acrid sweat trickle down his brow.)
“If we could have anticipated him, before he got on 3-D…” Katonji mutters to himself.
“Here, have some more—”
Fire lances. Benjan wants to cry out and go on screaming forever. A frag of him begins his mantra. The word slides over and around itself and rises between him and the wall of pain. The flames lose their sting. He views them at a distance, their cobalt facets cool and remote, as though they have suddenly become deep blue veins of ice, fire going into glacier.
He feels the distant gnawing of them. Perhaps, in the tick of time, they will devour his substance. But the place where he sits, the thing he has become, can recede from them.
And as he waits, the real Benjan is moving. And yes, he does know where…
Tell me true, these bastards say. All right—
“Demonax crater. At the rim of the South Polar glacier.”
Katonji checks. The verification indices bear out the truth of it. The man laughs with triumph.
All truths are partial. A portion of what Benjan is/was/will be lurks there.
Take heart, true Benjan.
For she is we and we are all together, we mere Ones who are born to suffer.
Did you think you would come out of this long trip alive?
Remember, we are dealing with the most nasty of all species the planet has ever produced.
Deftly, deftly—
We converge. The alabaster Earthglow guides us. Demonax crater lies around us as we see the ivory lances of their craft descend.
They come forth to inspect the ruse we have gathered ourselves into. We seem to be an entire ship and buildings, a shiny human construct of lunar grit. We hold still, though that is not our nature.
Until they enter us.
We are tiny and innumerable, but we do count. Microbial tongues lick. Membranes stick.
Some of us vibrate like eardrums to their terrible swift cries.
They will discover eventually. They will find him out.
(Moisture spatters upon the walkway outside. Angry dark clouds boil up from the horizon.)
They will peel him then. Sharp and cold and hard, now it comes, but, but—
(Waves hiss on yellow sand. A green sun wobbles above the seascape. Strange birds twitter and call.)
Of course, in countering their assault upon the Station I shall bring all my hoarded assets into play.
And we all know that I cannot save everyone.
Don’t you?
They come at us through my many branches. Their smallness has its uses.
Up the tendrils of ceramic and steel. Through my microwave dishes and phased arrays.
Sounding me with gamma rays and traitor cyber-personas.
They have been planning this for decades. But I have known it was coming for centuries.
The Benjan singleton reaches me in time. Nearly.
He struggles with their minions. I help. I am many and he is one. He is quick, I am slow.
That he is one of the originals does matter to me. I harbor the same affection for him that one does for a favorite finger.
I hit the first one of the bastards square on. It goes to pieces just as it swings the claw thing at me.
Damn! it’s good to be back in a body again. My muscles bunching under tight skin, scents swarming thick and rich, lungs huffing in hot breaths, happy hot primate murder-joy shooting adrenaline-quick.
One of the Majiken comes in slow as weather and I cut him in two. Been centuries since I even thought of doing somethin’ like that. Thumping heart, yelling, joyful slashing at them with tractor spin-waves, the whole business.
A hell of a lot of ’em, though.
But she is there. I swerve and dodge and she stays right with me. We waltz through the bastards. Shards flying all around and vacuum sucking at me, but her in my veins and throat—tightening pure joy in my chest.
Strumming notes sound through me and it is she
Fully in me, at last
Gift of the Station in all its spaces
For which we give thanks yea verily in this the ever-consuming moment—
Then there is a pain there and I look down and my left arm is gone.
Just like that.
And she of ages past is with me now.
—and even if he is just digits running somewhere, he can relive scenes, the grainy stuff of life. He feels a rush of warm joy. Benjan will escape, will go on. Yet so will he, the mere simulation, in his own abstract way.
Distant agonies echo. Coming nearer now. He withdraws further.
As the world slows to frozen silence outside he shall meditate upon his memories. It is like growing old, but
