Infinity's Shore

The next ray from the ship seized this multistriped cone, lifting it into the night air, sweeping the fatty rings toward doors that gaped to receive them.

Oh, how well Asx spoke then, despite the confusion! With surprising coherence for a stack without a master, tapping waxy streaks of eloquence, Asx pleaded, cajoled, and reasoned with the enigmatic creatures who peered from behind glaring lights.

Finally, these beings glided forward. The starship’s hold filled with Asx’s ventings of horrified dread.

How unified you were, My rings! The testimony of the wax is clear. At that moment, you were one as never before.

United in shared dismay to see those cousin toroids your ancestors sought to escape, many cycles ago.

We Jophur, the mighty and fulfilled.

Dwer

THE ROBOT PROVED USEFUL AT HEAPING DRIFTwood onto the seaside shoulder of a high dune overlooking the Rift. Without rest or pause, it dumped a load then scurried for more, in whatever direction Rety indicated with an outstretched arm. The Danik machine seemed willing to obey once more — so long as her orders aimed toward a reunion with Kunn.

Such single-minded devotion to its master reminded Dwer of Earth stories about dogs — tales his mother read aloud when he was small. It struck him odd that the Tabernacle colonists brought horses, donkeys, and chimps, but no canines.

Lark or Sara might know why.

That was Dwer’s habitual thought, encountering something he didn’t understand. Only now it brought a pang, knowing he might never see his brother and sister again.

Maybe Kunn won’t kill me outright. He might bring me home in chains, instead, before the Rothens wipe out the Six Races to cover their tracks.

That was the terrible fate the High Sages foresaw for Jijo’s fallen settlers, and Dwer figured they ought to know. He recalled Lena Strong musing about what means the aliens might use to perform their genocide. With gruesome relish, Lena kept topping herself during the long hike east from the Rimmer Range. Would the criminal star gods wash the Slope with fire, scouring it from the glaciers to the sea? Would they melt the ice caps and bring an end by drowning? Her morbid speculations were like a fifth companion as Dwer guided two husky women and a lesser sage past a thousand leagues of poison grass all the way to the Gray Hills, in a forlorn bid to safeguard a fragment of human civilization on Jijo.

Dwer had last glimpsed Jenin, Lena, and Danel during the brief fight near the huts of Rety’s home clan. This same robot cut poor Danel down with lethal rays, instants before its own weapons pod was destroyed.

Indeed, the battle drone was no dog to be tamed or befriended. Nor would it show gratitude for the times Dwer helped it cross rivers, anchoring its fields to ground through the conduit of his body.

Mudfoot was hardly any better a comrade. The lithe noor beast swiftly grew bored with wood-gathering chores, and scampered off instead to explore the tide line, digging furiously where bubbles revealed a buried hive of sand clamettes. Dwer looked forward to roasting some … until he saw that Mudfoot was cracking and devouring every one, setting none aside for the humans.

As useful as a noor, he thought, quashing stings of hunger as he hoisted another bundle of twisty driftwood slabs, digging his moccasins into the sandy slope.

Dwer tried to remain optimistic.

Maybe Kunn will feed me, before attaching the torture machines.

yee stood proudly atop the growing woodpile. The diminutive urrish male called directions in a piping voice, as if mere humans could never manage a proper fire without urrish supervision. Rety’s “husband” hissed disappointment over Dwer’s poor contribution — as if being wounded, starved, and dragged across half of Jijo in a robot’s claws did not excuse much. Dwer ignored yee’s reprimand, dumping his load then stepping over to the dune’s seaward verge, shading his eyes in search of Kunn’s alien scoutship.

He spied it far away, a silvery bead, cruising back and forth above the deep blue waters of the Rift. At intervals, something small and shiny would fall from the slender spacecraft. An explosive, Dwer supposed, for about twenty duras after each canister struck the water, the sea abruptly frothed white. Sometimes a sharp, almost musical tone reached shore.

According to Rety, Kunn was trying to force something — or somebody — out of hiding.

I hope you miss, Dwer thought … though the star pilot might be in a better mood toward prisoners if his hunt went well.

“I wonder what Jass has been tellin’ Kunn, all this time,” Rety worried aloud, joining Dwer at the crest. “What if they become pals?”

Dwer waited as the robot dropped another cargo of wood and went off for more. Then he replied.

“Have you changed your mind? We could still try to escape. Take out the robot. Avoid Kunn. Go our own way.”

Rety smiled with surprising warmth.