Schild’s Ladder

Mariama made a sound that was equal parts delight at this revelation, and disgust at her own slowness. "Of course! Anything static is doomed here. Stable mixtures of vendeks can endure for a while, but in the long run you need all the flexibility and organizational powers of a higher organism, just to keep up with the Bright. An entire xennobe might have managed to cling on to us indefinitely, but it would be a bit much to have to give birth to a dedicated assassin every time someone frightens you."

Tchicaya nodded appreciatively. "That must make technology difficult to get started. Vendeks are the material from which everything is made, so all engineering is bioengineering, but you probably couldn’t expect any artifact less sophisticated than the most primitive xennobe to survive for long."

A crack of sprite-light appeared through the glue. Mariama sighed wistfully and leaned against him, wrapping an arm around his neck. It was the kind of unself-conscious physicality she’d often displayed when they were very young, before they’d even heard of sex.

She said, "Don’t you wish we could have come here with nothing to do but understand this place?"

"Yes." Tchicaya felt no desire whatsoever to add a retort about her old allegiances. The factions belonged to another universe.

"For a thousand years."

"Yes." He put his arm across her shoulders.

Mariama turned to him. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Do you think you would have traveled to the Rindler at all, if it wasn’t for the power station?"

"I don’t know. I can’t answer that."

"But you still feel bad about it?"

Tchicaya laughed curtly. "It’s not relentless crushing guilt, if that’s what you mean. But I knew it was wrong, even when I did it, and I haven’t changed my mind about that."

She said, "You know, I actually expected you to be grateful, because you got what you wanted. That’s the last time I made that mistake with anyone."

"I bet it was. Ouch!" She’d punched him on the arm.

"But you just blamed me for everything, because I didn’t fight hard enough against you."

"I didn’t blame you," he protested.

Mariama gazed back at him neutrally.

Tchicaya said, "All right, I did. That was unfair."

"You made me feel like a murderer," she said. "I was just a child, the same as you."

"I’m sorry." Tchicaya searched her face. "I didn’t know it still — "

She cut him off. "It doesn’t. It doesn’t still hurt me. It hadn’t even crossed my mind for centuries. And it had nothing to do with me coming to the Rindler. I would have done that anyway."

"Right."

They stood for a while without speaking.

Tchicaya said, "Is that it? Are we at peace now?"

Mariama smiled. "Not histrionic enough for you?"

"The less catharsis I can get these days, the better." She’d smuggled in a weapon, she’d been prepared to kill him, and they’d still found a way to go on. But it had taken them until now to speak a few words and untangle the oldest, simplest knot.

"I think we’re at peace," she said.

They continued down along the airflowers' crowded highway. Eventually the creatures began to thin out; presumably the Sarumpaet was approaching the bottom of the vendek current that had attracted them in the first place — or at least the end of the weather conditions that rendered the current detectable from afar.

After the last airflower had disappeared into the haze above them, they tracked the current itself for another hour. When it finally came to an end, there was nothing. Just the Bright itself, empty and shimmering.

Mariama said, "I don’t believe it! A river like that can’t appear out of nowhere."

"We haven’t seen any other currents as long," Tchicaya said cautiously. "But what does that prove? We don’t know the limits of ordinary weather."

"I suppose some vendek mixes are just stable because they’re stable," she conceded. "But xennobes have particular uses for stable combinations. I was expecting at least a pile of decaying xennobe corpses."

They circled around, examining the region with the probes. There was another persistent current, feeding into the first; it hadn’t been obvious immediately, because the transition zone between them was far less orderly than the currents themselves. The vendek mix in the deeper current appeared to be decaying into the mix that had attracted the airflowers, catalyzed by a shift in the ambient weather; as they watched the probe image, they could see the transition zone drifting back and forth.

Tchicaya said, "Well, it’s coming from deeper in. And I’m not going back up to try chasing rabbits."

They followed the river back toward its source. Within an hour, they’d hit a second transition zone — this time forking into two different upward flows.

A third transition.

A fourth.

Mariama said, "At least we’re learning a lot of vendekobiology. Can you imagine the kind of diagrams it would take to describe the Bright? I used to think the fusion reactions in a star were complicated."

"Students will curse our names. What more can anyone hope for?"

A fifth transition.