For several long seconds he flew, watching a sea of carpet pass below … so high that he began worrying about the descent, especially when his path seemed headed dangerously close to the glowing Avenue.
I’m not ready for reentry here! The odds of surviving a random collision were not good.
Fortunately, by making the station writhe to one side, he managed to just miss the shining tube. But landing came unbalanced and hard. Harry flew against the nearest bulkhead, taking a painful blow to his right shoulder. Worse, the cabin filled with sounds of something shattering. An alarm blared. Red lights flashed.
Wincing, he scrambled back to the control panel, where he learned that two legs had snapped in the fall and a third was badly twisted. His trusty vehicle limped badly as it stood to meet new challenges.
Still, Harry felt aflame with adrenaline, baring his teeth and loosing a savage, chimpanzee snarl.
Three down. Two to go, he thought, hopefully.
Unfortunately, the next fight wouldn’t be as easy.
One of the remaining predators could be seen just ahead, already pouncing on its hapless prey, tearing metal pieces off the giant machine, dismembering it with happy abandon. The other memoid turned to face Harry. Alert and fully prepared, its form had fully adjusted to this realm, and now resembled just the sort of feral insectoid you’d most hate to find crawling under the furniture — something many-clawed and stingered. He got an impression of savage joy, as if the adversary facing him was the essence of combativeness.
Dribbles of foamy disputation frothed at the memoid’s mouth, then flew toward Harry.
Leaping out of the way was impossible this time, so he tried to dodge left, then right. But despite desperate zigzagging, one of the blobs struck his forward window pane, spreading to coat it with a glimmering slime.
Harry averted his gaze, but not before waves of apprehension flooded.
What the hell am I doing here? I could be safe in bed. If I stayed on Earth, I might’ve had the company of lovers, friends, instead of coming all this way to die.…
Regret caused bitter pangs, even though he knew the source was an alien assault. Fortunately, the emotion was diffuse, generalized. The memoid didn’t know what kind of creature he was, so its thought-poisons weren’t specific. Not yet. Alas, predators at this level of sophistication had remarkable sensitivity, adapting quickly to their victims’ weaknesses.
Harry didn’t plan on giving it the chance. He triggered another entanglement ray, and once more his station flung webs of gooey argument. This time, however, his target agilely evaded the trap — perhaps by assuming some unique and unrelated axioms. The few strands that touched just slid off, unable to impeach exotic postulates. Only briefly inconvenienced, the memoid flexed its back and charged — flowing toward Harry so fast he could never hope to retreat.
Its maw gaped, but instead of teeth there gleamed rows of pointy, spiraled screws, turning rapidly as the creature rushed to attack. The sight was fearsome and unnerving.
It’s gonna board me!
Harry reached for the weapons console, stabbing a button labeled DISTRACTION FLARES. They had saved his hide on other missions, creating dazzling displays of confusing data, like floating clouds of chaff, enabling his escape from even bigger monsters.
Only this time the effect was disappointing. Clouds of mist erupted before the charging predator, but it barely slowed.
When in doubt, get physical, he thought, activating the minigun. Vibrations rattled as high-velocity bullets launched toward the attacker, who reared back, bellowing and clawing at the air. But hope soon crashed as Harry realized the impacts weren’t doing harm. Rather, the creature seemed to snatch and grab at the projectiles, incorporating the material into its information-based matrix! The rotating screws changed color, from a simulated pastel blue to a dark, metallic gray.
Harry shut the gun down, cursing. He had just improved the enemy’s chances of getting at him.
The station barely shuddered when the memoid struck, clambering on top for a close embrace. A complex rarefied idea had little weight or momentum. But ideas could wear at you, and this one did so pointedly, chomping with those spinning drill bits, tearing through the vessel’s hull.
Harry tried other buttons and levers, but nothing worked. Each weapon was dead, or else reformatted in some way the adaptable memoid shrugged off.
In E Space, an object made solely of atoms could not stand for long against living ideas.
Several dimples appeared in the walls … which then burst inward as whirling conical blades drilled through. Moments later, the screws began changing shape, taking form as little creatures. Mites, Harry thought, knowing that even little insects and spiders had parasites. The predator had figured out an excellent trick, using the logic of this subrealm against Harry.
He stabbed a final button, meant for desperate situations like this one.
Instantly, the control room filled with holographic images, a crowd of milling beings, mimicking various kinds of oxy-, hydro-, and machine life. A few slithered. Others walked, or rolled, or stomped, resembling some pangalactic, cross-temporal, omnireality cocktail party.
A dozen or so mitelike invaders spread out, seeking the station’s conceptual core — Harry himself. The nasty little things flashed horrid pincers, while sniffing through a crowd of imitation sophonts. One of them chose an ersatz Zang to attack, hurling itself at a floating yellow blob that shivered when struck. At once, the hologram collapsed inward around the mite, enveloping it in a crushing layer of antimemes. The resulting implosion finished with a burst of light, followed by a thin trail of dust falling to the deck.
They contain some real matter, Harry realized. These things are freaking dangerous!
If one bit him, it might not just assail his mind. It could also chew away at his real body.
Two more times, invaders got suckered into attacking wrong targets, and were destroyed. But Harry could tell they were growing more cautious. Gradually, the mites learned to ignore hydro-and machine forms, and began zeroing in toward his type of oxy-based organism.
I’ve got to act first. But how? What can I do to fight my way out of this mess?
If he ever made it back to base, he’d have suggestions for the crews who maintained the weapons systems. But for now, Harry saw just one hope … to shake the parent memoid off, breaking its control over the mites. That would also leave holes in the station’s hull. But one problem at a time.
He didn’t dare take up manual controls which would give him away. So instead he called up pilot mode.
“Yes, Herman?” the floating P answered.
“Don’t hover close to me!” Harry whispered through gritted teeth. “Keep your damn distance and listen up. I want you to send the station jiggling and swerving about … random action … try to shake the Ifnicursed alien off our hull!”
“That would violate safety parameters.”
“Override!” Harry growled. “Emergency protocols. Do it now!”
The scout platform began moving. Though hampered by two broken legs, it was not much burdened by the big memoid, whose total real mass was probably only a few hundred grams, even after eating Harry’s bullets. The limp even helped a bit, getting a swaying motion started as the station began shifting left, right, forward, and then spinning around, commencing a drunkard’s walk across the carpeted landscape.
Despite its low inertial mass, the big memoid clearly did not like this. After all, movement was a form of information. Harry heard faint mewling sounds as it scrambled for a better grip, holding on to keep contact with its mites.
Unfortunately, the zigzagging also affected Harry, pushing him to and fro. The holograms automatically emulated his movements, but he knew this would give him away soon.
Through one window, he caught a blurry glimpse of the metallic machine entity, the big interloper he had followed earlier, who had no business coming to a realm where thinking made things so.
It had already been dismembered, carved into several chunks by the last predator, which was now working its way toward the habitat bulge—
A rolling motion yanked Harry from that dolorous scene, throwing him against another window. The one still coated with tincture-of-regret.
Oh, I regret, all right.
I regret not coming here armed with some real memic weapons! True wolfling brain poisons. Sick-sweet ideas that hypnotized millions, fixating them on just one view of reality, making flexible minds as rigid as stone.
