Existence

around the world, equipped with every kind of immersion hardware, software, and wetware money could buy. Their help was welcome, so long as they shut up. While the serpent-machine thrashed and its jaws kept threatening to snap shut, Bin heaved with all his might, scrambling like a monkey till he stood, teetering on the lower row of metal teeth-

– then leaped toward the buoy, as if for life itself, hurtling across intervening space-

– only to splash into the sea, just short, with the heavy satchel dragging him down by one hand. His other one clawed at the buoy, fingers seeking any sort of handhold…

… and failed as he sank past the floating cylinders, hauled by his weighty treasure bag, plummeting toward depths, below.

Yet, Bin never fretted. Nor was he tempted to release the worldstone, even to save his life. In fact, he suddenly felt fine. Back in his element. Doing his job. Practicing his craft. Retrieving and recycling the dross of other days. Hauling some worth out of the salty, trash-strewn mess that “intelligent life” had made of the innocent sea.

His free hand grabbed at-and finally caught-the chain anchoring the buoy to the shoulder of a drowned mountain. Then, as the mechanical serpent thrashed nearby, crippled in mind and body, but still dangerous as hell, Bin also seized the metal-linked tether with his toes.

Maybe there was enough air in his lungs to make it, he thought, while starting to climb.

If so? Then, once aboard the buoy, he might evade and outlast an angry robot. Possibly.

After that? Perhaps the help sent by his new friends in the “smart-mob”-or else the Chinese People’s Navy- would arrive before the snake’s clandestine cabal did. Before the sun baked him. Or thirst or sharks claimed him.

And then?

Clambering awkwardly but steadily up the chain, Bin recalled something that Paul Menelaua once said, back at Newer Newport, when the worldstone entity-Courier of Caution-denounced the famous Havana Artifact, calling it a tool of interstellar liars.

“We have got to get these two together!”

Indeed. Let them have it out, in front of everybody. With the whole world watching. And this time, Peng Xiang Bin would be in the conversation!

Amused by his temerity-the very nerve of such a vow, coming from the likes of him-Bin kept climbing, dragging an ancient warning toward the light of day.

Yeah, right. That’ll happen.

Just keep holding your breath.

PART SEVEN SEA OF TROUBLES

After centuries of solitary wondering, humanity realized an ancient dream. With the arrival of the First Artifact came proof of civilizations far older than ours. Only, instead of exaltation, that discovery damn near spun us into a death spiral. How did we escape the trap? Have we escaped, even now?

Was it the Great Debate, pitting that First Artifact against Peng’s Worldstone? Exposing each other’s manipulations, half-truths, and lies?

Or the bold heroes of the Marco Polo, launching in secret to brave the sterile space- desert-along with fierce lasers, space mines, and human traitors-in order to grab more crystals? Enough of the insidious space-fomites to dissect, test, and finally get answers?

Or was it a surprise discovery, at the very moment Marco Polo turned for home? When Genady Gorosumov detected strange debris, with no apparent link to crystal chain letters? When we realized: There are more layers to all of this than we ever imagined!

Other expeditions would come. And more still.

Could that be what diverted humanity from depression and catastrophe? Something as simple as curiosity?

– Tor Povlov

62.

LURKERS

Awaiter is excited. She transmits urgently.

“Seeker, listen!” Her electronic voice hisses over ancient cables. “The little living ones are near! Even now they explore this belt of orbiting rubble, picking through rocks and ruins. Listen as they browse each new discovery. Soon they will find us! Do you hear, Seeker? It is time!”

Awaiter’s makers were impatient creatures. I wonder how she lasted through the starry cold. My makers were wiser.

“Seeker! Are you listening?”

I don’t wish to talk with anyone, so I erect a side-personality-little more than a swirling packet of nudged electrons-to handle her for me. And if Awaiter discovers the sham? Well, perhaps she’ll take a hint and leave.

Or she may grow insistent. It’s hard to predict without awakening more dormant circuits than I care to.

“There is no hurry,” my partial self tells her. “The Earth creatures won’t reach this point of refuge for several more of their years. Anyway, it was all written long ago.”

The electron-swirl is very good. It even speaks with my accent.

“How can you be complacent!” Awaiter scolds. The cables covering our icy worldlet reverberate exasperation. “We survivors named you leader, Seeker, because you seemed to understand what’s happening in the galaxy at large. Only now our waiting may be at an end. The biologicals appear to have survived the first phase of their contact crisis. They’ll be here soon!”

“The Earthlings will find us or they won’t,” my shadow self answers. “What can a shattered band of ancient machines fear or anticipate from such a vigorous young race? One that made it this far?”

I already knew the humans were coming. My remaining sensors have long suckled their yatter networks. Sampling the solar wind, I savor ions the way a cowboy might sniff a prairie breeze. These zephyrs carry the bright tang of primitive space-drives. The musty smoke-smell of deuterium. Signs of awakening. Life is emerging from its water-womb. For a brief time-while the wave crests, we’ll have company.

“Greeter and Emissary want to warn Earthlings of their danger,” Awaiter insists. “We can help them!”

Our debate has roused some of the others. New tendrils probe with fingers of supercooled electricity. “Help… how?” my subvoice asks. “Our repair units collapsed after the Last Battle. We only discovered that humans had evolved when the creatures invented radio. By then it was too late! Their first transmissions are already propagating into a deadly galaxy. If destroyers roam this region-”

“Seeker, you know there are worse dangers. More recent and deadly.”

“Yes, but why worry the poor creatures? Let them enjoy their moment of sun and adventure.”

Oh, I am good! This little artificial voice argues as well as I did ages ago, staving off abrupt action by my impatient peers.

Greeter glides into the network. I feel his cool, eloquent electron flux. Only this time he agrees with me!

“The Earth creatures do not need to be told. They are figuring it out for themselves.”

Now this interests me. I sweep my subpersona aside and extend a tendril of my Very Self into the network. “What makes you say so?”

Greeter indicates our array of receivers, salvaged from ancient derelicts. “We intercept their chatter as they