her personally, he’d said it wasn’t a matter of personal like or dislike. He’d managed to give the impression he was answering the question while in fact he was doing nothing of the kind.
He’d played me very well. He’d sensed my misanthropy and played up that aspect of his own personality. He’d even accused the Porrinyards of the same failing. But was that just the typical gamesmanship of a habitual manipulator, or the obfuscation of a sociopath?
The sense of something undone, that had bothered me for days now, flared yet again. My fingers trembled. I looked down at my hand, covered as it was by Skye’s own, and saw the cords in my wrist twitching, as if urging immediate action but unable to relate exactly what they had in mind.
I pulled my hand out from under Skye’s, and studied it the way I’d study an alien form of life. The lined palm, the thin hairline scar at the wrist, and the abused fingertips, complete with raw skin where I chewed the skin at moments of deep concentration.
It was remarkable how much the chewed places were healing.
What had that Brachiator I’d spoken to called the AIsource?
The Porrinyards said, “Are you all right?”
I wasn’t sure. The blood was pounding in my ears so hard that I could barely hear anything else. But then I managed, “Lastogne’s going to have to wait.”
They said, “What?”
“I need to become a Half-Ghost.”
20. SUSPENSION
In the indirect light of our skimmer, the eyes of the Brachiators seemed saturated with that ineffable quality that leads human beings to label other beings as wise.
It helped me not at all to know that this was a totally subjective quality, which had no bearing to actual, measurable wisdom, to know, in fact, that human beings, have been known to perceive that quality shining from the eyes of terrestrial creatures as varied as owls, orangutans, and even dogs. Much as I tried, I couldn’t resist my own involuntary reaction to a Brachiator face that rang the appropriate cues.
The Porrinyards had described Friend to Half-Ghosts as an old acquaintance, taking pains to stress that this was not the individual of the same name who lived near Hammocktown. I could have guessed that much. Hammocktown was many kilometers port and spinward, far too distant for even the speediest Brachiator to travel in these past two days. This Brach also looked different, its fur bearing a mottled, grayish pattern that may have been inborn or the effects of advanced age, and its face marked by the scars of several past battles, including one that intersected an eye opaque from time or trauma. “We are surprised at this visit.”
Skye spoke alone: “Why?”
“Because we have been told that all the Ghosts have left the world.”
That would be a reference to the evacuation of Hammocktown. Skye said, “That’s very recent news.”
“It is old news,” the Brachiator said. “It happened the night before this. We have known since before the suns came on, the next morning.”
“How did you get the news?”
“The creators wanted us to know, so we knew.”
This made sense. Considering the Brachiator rate of travel, the news couldn’t have been passed along by word of mouth. But which AIsource had told them, the majority or the ones I knew as the rogue intelligences? Would Brachiators even be able to tell the difference?
I whispered a question to Oscin, which emerged from Skye’s mouth. “Do your creators often bestow knowledge?”
The answer came at once. “They bestow knowledge every day.”
Another question whispered to Oscin and asked aloud by Skye. “Did they let you know what happened to Warmuth and Santiago?”
A pause. “We were told of one who seized Life and another joined by Death.”
“Does this make you sorry?”
“You are Ghosts. You drift between Life and Death. It is nothing new for you.”
I thought about that longer than I had to, reflecting on a next step that could not be avoided.
At a whispered request, we descended.
A thousand meters below the Uppergrowth, the darkness swallowed everything in the world the AIsource had made. Everything above us, below us, and to either side of us was an identical shade of black. Even the storms that so often lit up the clouds had quieted, leaving us adrift in what was, for the moment, a cocoon of penetrating darkness.
The Porrinyards sat opposite me, watching me tremble. Neither offered a comforting touch. Given how much they’d offered already, any time I showed even the slightest need, this seemed well out of character until I realized they probably realized how little I wanted their sympathy right now.
Somehow, they could see even that.
They allowed me several minutes of measured breath before they shifted position, in a way that preserved the nature of the space between them. “You don’t have to do this.”
I studied my hands. “I do if I want to feel it.”
“And how necessary is that? Can’t you understand it from a distance? Put what you know up against what you can figure out?”
“Not if I want to be sure.”
Skye moved from the seat beside Oscin to the seat beside me, the transition so graceful and so smooth that it was done before I could even register what was happening. Her eyes, dark in the uncertain glow of the instruments, glistened more than Oscin’s, seeming close to tears in a way that his did not. But when her lips moved, the voice that emerged was still mostly his. “Watching your back against Gibb was one thing. But this is another thing entirely. This is just taking risks for no good reason.”
I shook my head. “I warned you this was coming.”
It was the second time I’d seen them show anger. Like most elements of their personality, it seemed to exist not in their bodies but in some undifferentiated place between them, and it was palpable, burning with resentment and hurt. “You told me something was coming. You didn’t specify what. But you knew all along, didn’t you? How long were you on-station before you realized you were going to do this?”
I should have informed them that I didn’t need their permission. “The first day. When Lastogne introduced me to a Brachiator.”
Skye bit her lower lip, leaving Oscin the primary speaker. “But you knew Gibb and Lastogne would never authorize it. They’re responsible for your safety, and they know you’re untrained and psychologically unfit; you knew they’d pull rank on you the second you even suggested doing such a thing. Which means you needed other allies willing to arrange it behind their backs. Allies who could be counted on to break the rules when nobody else was around.”
Skye spoke alone. “That’s why you dumped Lastogne as your guide.”
Now both of them. “It’s been about more than just making friends, isn’t it? You’ve been testing us. Seeing how far would we go, to give you what you need.”
It had been a long, long time, maybe years, since I’d worried about hurting anybody’s feelings. I hadn’t imagined myself capable of wounding the Porrinyards, who between them seemed mounted on foundations stronger than my own had ever been. But damned if the two of them hadn’t turned brittle all of a sudden. And damned if they weren’t good about inflicting guilt. I needed several seconds to frame a satisfactory answer. “The first time I found my life in your hands, nobody asked my opinion first. The second and third time, I chose to have you along. That much wasn’t testing you, or using you. It was relying on you.”
They indicated the Uppergrowth with a roll of their eyes. “But it was always about this.”
“It’s been about more than just that for some time now.”
