sunlight and blazing strands of fusion flame. Life still thrived beneath the veil, woven inseparably to groupings of itself as it seethed and survived everywhere, on small cold planets, moons encircling gas giants, and far asteroid settlements. A life that now extended to other stars and their planets. A life that had flown through the wormholes to reach Elan, where it was spreading out over the lake to touch the land.
The life whispered amid itself, directing its soldier motiles to move forward into the flimsy box-buildings. It searched for humans and their machinery, finding none of either—though there was movement, the telltale infrared signatures that the soldier motiles were skillfully working their way toward. At the back of the urban area, long vehicles raced away. Flyers angled around to investigate.
One of the soldier motiles was shot at. It retaliated immediately, firing back, destroying the zone where the shot had come from. Flyers swooped eagerly, raking the buildings with coherent beams of gamma radiation.
“They’re going to destroy everything,” Mellanie said.
“It,” the SI corrected. “It is singular. An interesting arrangement. Life that has achieved unity, not just with itself but with its machinery.”
“I don’t care what it is, it’s still going to kill people.”
“We know.”
Programs and power flooded through Mellanie’s inserts, activating yet more functions. She had little to do with it other than adding her wishes to the conclusion. Fabulously complex OCtattoos crawled over her skin, merging into a single circuit. Signals streamed out from her, overlaying those that fused the motiles together. Interference patterns jostled and ruptured the smooth consistency of the soldier herd’s thoughts. Riding down the disruption were new instructions.
Mellanie left her shelter and walked slowly toward the Trine’ba so she could observe properly. Poor Mark Vernon tried to warn her, so she gave him and his friends some of the Prime weapons and made sure he left, along with all Randtown’s valiant, futile defenders.
“It has realized something is wrong,” the SI said. “Can you sense it?”
The signals spilling down from the wormholes were changing. Instead of orders, queries were trying to insinuate themselves into the soldier motiles. The Prime wanted to know what malaise was contaminating its units.
The SI maintained its interference pattern among the motile soldiers in Randtown, formulating a single reply that it sent out through Mellanie’s inserts. “We are stopping you,” it told MorningLightMountain.
Mellanie was aware of the shock ripple spreading through the alien’s planet-wide thought routines hundreds of light-years away. “Who are you?” it asked.
“We are the SI, an ally of the humans.”
“The Bose memories know of you. You are the human immotile. The endpoint of their individuality. They created you because they knew they were not perfect without you.”
Bose memories, Mellanie thought. Oh, shit, that’s not good. Though maybe in a way it is, it will give my new Dudley some closure.
“Your reading of the Bose memories is inaccurate,” the SI said. “Though we will not argue with you on definitions. We are contacting you to ask you to stop your attacks on the humans. They are pointless. You do not need these planets.”
“Neither do the humans.”
“Nonetheless they are living on them. You are killing them. That must stop.”
“Why?”
“It is wrong. And you know it.”
“Life must survive. I am alive. I must not die.”
“You are not under threat. If you continue this aggression you will become threatened.”
“By existing, other life threatens me. Only when I become total will I secure my immortality.”
“Define: total.”
“One life, everywhere.”
“That will not happen, ever.”
“You threaten me. You will be destroyed.”
“We state facts. It will not be possible for you to destroy us. Nor will you be able to destroy many other civilizations which exist within this galaxy. You must learn how to coexist with us.”
“That is a contradiction in terms. There is only one universe, it can contain only one life.”
“This is not a contradiction. You are simply inexperienced with such a concept. We assure you it is possible.”
“You are betraying yourself by believing this. Life grows, it expands. This is inevitable. It is what I am.”
“True life evolves. You can change.”
“No.”
“You must change.”
“I will not. I will grow. I will learn. I will surpass you. I will destroy you, both of you.”
Mellanie was aware of a change in the nature of the signals coming through the wormholes to fall upon the planet. MorningLightMountain was giving the soldier motiles on the landing ships distinct orders, then disengaging them from its communications web. While they didn’t have a great deal of independent capability, a soldier motile could certainly follow simple target instructions and use its own combat systems without direct real-time supervision.
Sixteen flyers launched from the two landing ships. They accelerated forward at five gees. Targeting sensors swept across Randtown, bright as searchlights to Mellanie’s broadened perception.
“Grandpa!” she yelled.
A circular wormhole opened behind her, a tiny distortion point hovering a meter above the road that produced a curious twisted magnification effect in the air. It swiftly expanded out to a neutral-gray circle two meters in diameter. Mellanie jumped through.
Two seconds later, sixteen atom lasers intersected the empty air where she’d been standing.
Mellanie picked herself up off the grass, blinking against the warm light even as she winced at the pain in her knee from a bad landing. Her skin was cooling, its platinum luster slowly reverting to the healthy tan she maintained thanks to her expensive Augusta salon. Her body’s reactions were also receding, her racing heart slowing, the shakes calming. So much for the inserts giving her a sensation of invincibility.
Behind her, the wormhole gateway was built into a smooth rock cliff. Some kind of triangular canvas awning was stretched overhead. In front of her… Mellanie forgot all about bruised knees, and nearly fell over. Her balance was horribly wrong, and the land curved up over her head. Giddiness that was close to seasickness hit her hard.
“Where the hell am I?” she squawked.
“Don’t be alarmed,” the SI said. “This is the only available wormhole generator in the Commonwealth that could reach you.”
“Uh—” Someone had really gone to town on the vast cylinder’s landscape. It was all giant mountains with waterfalls foaming down long tracts of rock. Big lakes and rivers filled the valley floors. The sunlight emerged from a single spindle running down the axis. “This isn’t the High Angel,” she said.
“Of course not.”
“But it’s got artificial gravity. We can’t do that. Is it an alien space station?”
“It is a human-built structure, belonging to someone of considerable wealth. The gravity effect comes from simple rotation, like the Second Chance life-support wheel.”
“Oh, right, yeah. I didn’t do science at school.”
“You didn’t do school, baby Mel.”
“Thanks, good timing on the reminder, there, Grandpa. So who lives here?”
“The owner guards his privacy. But given the circumstances I don’t expect he will protest your visit. I have now reprogrammed the wormhole to take you to Augusta. Please step through.”
Mellanie was still staring around the interior. “It’s fantastic. And it’s got a private wormhole?” She smiled happily. “Ozzie.”
“You will respect his privacy.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She stopped. The adrenaline rush that had supported her through the confrontation in Randtown had finally worn off. When she held a hand up there was no sign of any OCtattoo. “What about the convoy?”
“They have all reached the Highmarsh Valley.”
“But—the navy won’t evacuate them for days. That alien monster will kill every one of them.”
“It will attempt that, yes.”
“Open the wormhole back into the Highmarsh. We’ve got to get them out of there.”
“That is an impractical suggestion. This wormhole is small. The Randtown refugees would have to step through one at a time. The process would take hours, and provide MorningLightMountain with a perfect targeting opportunity.”
“Open it!”
Wilson’s tactical display showed him the electronic warfare aerobots launching from Treloar. Five of them flew out in a pincer movement through the smog to surround the Prime ground troops spreading out from Scraptoft. The alien positions were overlaid by webs of orange and jade as their strange communications flashed between them. Their intermittent, seemingly random bursts reminded Wilson of synaptic discharges between individual neurons.
Stealthed sensors showed him images of the armored Primes slipping through what was left of Scraptoft’s buildings. The way they moved told Wilson they had considerable practice with urban warfare. They’d already killed several humans who’d remained in the little coastal town, using weapons powerful enough to take out half a building with one shot. Media reports from other assaulted worlds had shown similar atrocities. The Primes weren’t interested in taking prisoners.
Over fifteen thousand armored aliens had poured out of the big ships to help secure Scraptoft. They were busy establishing a fortified perimeter with a ten- kilometer radius around the town. Several force field generators had been delivered by cargo flyers, along with weapons capable of shooting down any aerobot that ventured too close. At least that meant the protective formation of eight ships had finally splashed down; though the hot murky smog they’d created was taking a long time to disperse.
The four ships that had been the first to splash down had already launched again, flying back to the wormholes above the planet. Wilson didn’t like to think what
