She looked at Amund again.
The mortal seemed to prefer the shore.
Like muscle, like people, a living river preferred to find easy routes. That’s why their distributions resembled earthly rivers. Born in the sea, lazy flesh was pushed wherever the climbing was easiest, which meant following existing drainages. Living tissues absorbed rain and glacial melt as well as the minerals and every organic treat. Each creature fed on an extraordinary range of energy sources. Sunlight and wild insects were food. Infrared radiation from the ground was food. But the most coveted meals were from beneath the ocean floor and the high mountains. Piezoelectric and geothermal. That’s what delivered true, trustworthy power.
To Mere, this was a wonderland. Regardless of what life brought, death tomorrow or in another ten million years, she might never experience an entity so strangely remarkable as this.
That sounded like belief, didn’t it?
She laughed to herself.
Rococo noticed, and for one reason or many, he laughed with her.
Then both looked at the shoreline, at Amund.
Was he going to balk at the ride? No. His hesitations ended with a few long steps across the river. Then he was standing beside them, saying nothing, letting the pack and kit fall to the deck, but breathing hard while staring at Mere.
Something was different, was wrong.
Possibilities offered themselves. Mere accepted none of them, but her intention was to flat-out ask their companion about his mood.
Except there wasn’t time for questions.
Looking past both of them, Amund called out, “I’m ready.”
The boat that wasn’t a boat shivered.
“And I want this to be a quick trip,” Amund commanded.
Suddenly the boat rose even higher, and they were streaking downstream.
Laughing, Rococo sounded like a nervous boy.
Mere felt warm and afraid.
Meanwhile the man in charge seemed to relish their reactions, stepping between them as a smile came and then faded again, a slight embarrassment offered with the hard words, “For the moment, both of you are under my protection.”
What was this?
And the man in charge said, “Madam, I want you to know. I’m looking forward to sleeping with you.”
7.
Leaving his homeworld, bound for duty aboard the Great Ship, the youngster envisioned his life as a sequence of long leaps through darkness, with spectacles and wonders waiting at the end.
That was a self-absorbed notion, and deserved. The Great Ship commanded respect as well as envy, and it was in the best interest of every world to enthrall the Ship’s diplomats. As the ultimate tourist, Rococo was sure to be afforded every comfort, every grace. Standing on the windswept lip of an endless canyon, walking the sacred glen past the sacred desert, or, if the mood struck, riding what wasn’t a whale into the depths of a frigid methane sea: Those were memorable events from his first thousand years.
But spectacle rises only so high. Even an intensely curious mind grows numb to vistas and symphonies and all of those rich, sweet stinks. And every grand majesty eventually becomes nothing but another good day.
Yet this living river …
The beast was like nothing else.
And their journey to the coast?
Without the high stakes, this voyage would have been momentous. But the perils were close and impossible to forget. Amund, for instance. The man was dying. Age was murdering him, and the omnipresent radiation, and the capricious will of an alien had elevated him to a high, utterly ridiculous station. But for how long? Meanwhile the two immortals were stripped of every resource, nothing to aid them but considerable experience and the fact that one of them had survived worse disasters than this. Which was Mere. Rococo had never experienced any mission this harrowing. But why would he? Diplomats weren’t explorers. The captains didn’t toss his kind into shit-storms. And in particular, they wouldn’t risk Rococo, one of their best. Not for an adventure with less than 2 percent chance of survival. Which was his estimate, weighing what he knew and what his guts said.
“Two percent,” he mentioned to Mere.
She stared at the living river and the swiftly passing shoreline. Having outlived at least one world, he assumed she would generate a more optimistic number. But no, she surprised him.
With confidence, she said, “I don’t know.”
“It’s an estimate,” he allowed.
Then she warned him, “Guesses are just another danger.” And on that cryptic note, she turned away, walking into the cabin that she was sharing with the dying man.
Rococo remained on the bow of what wasn’t a boat. Boats were buoyant, but there was nothing to float on here. What wasn’t a river carried them where it wished, and it was wishing them toward the ocean, usually at speeds that drove strong winds into his face. Everything in sight was one creature, a wonder of salt-infused gel and migrating impulses, bioelectric currents and free oxygen, plus reflexes and crosspurposed desires and whatever memories happened to have survived the recent nightmare. Unless every memory had endured, which was possible. Who knew? A field team and labs and AI savants running free. That’s what they needed, and that was impossible. This river was safe from study, and a man riding the swift nonboat couldn’t understand what he was seeing, much less appreciate what he couldn’t see, and that was another reason why Rococo found himself spellbound.
The beast had grown wider and presumably much deeper over the last few days. More than three kilometers across, the blue-black gelatin appeared slick and dark and exceptionally nonreflective. Water always invited the sky, but this wasn’t water. They rode on a ribbon of meat and reflex and furious power. And where true rivers were flat, this creature made itself tall, flexing into a ridge that carried tiny people and their tiny prison where it wanted, as
