Glorious--A Science Fiction Novel by Gregory Benford

Author:Gregory Benford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

TWENTY-FOUR

THE INCREATE

The one good thing about stupidity is that it leads to adventure.

—SIDNEY COLEMAN

Beth took Cliff aside as soon as they got into the skyfish. They found a small alcove and she spoke quickly.

“You’ve got to be straight with me—not as my husband, but as a team member. Is my leadership really poor?”

“No.” He kept his voice low, flat. “We’re supposed to be diplomats, scientists, not fighters.”

Beth shook her head angrily, which he knew meant she was angry with herself, not him. “Everybody on board SunSeeker damn well knew the Glory signals were contradictory, by no means always welcoming.”

“They were warning off the Bowl, not SunSeeker.”

“So shouldn’t we have carried heavier arms, with all weapons out and ready to fire the moment we hit the ground?”

“The backfire dragons’ attack was too fast.”

“Okay, Redwing thought the same. But then, knowing how dangerous this place could be, we should’ve kept weapons out.”

“We met Twisty, who gave us no further warnings.”

“Suspicious, isn’t it, that Twisty didn’t show up earlier—a pretty ominous sign.”

“Maybe. He’s alien, so?”

“Then I allowed myself to be drawn into lengthy conversations with Twisty.”

“Yeah, but our charge here is pretty much to figure them out, so—”

“But this semi-philosophical stuff, about Earth customs and all, is distracting at a time when the team should’ve focused on our surroundings, weapons at the ready.”

Cliff saw that the tensions building in her for days were now going to spill out. She had a habit of keeping still too long. He said slowly, “Look, Twisty clearly knows this is a deadly place. So he says nothing to warn us. This is some kind of bizarre test, is all I can think.”

“If I were a sharper leader—”

“Twisty’s pretty damn offhand about death. That’s its clue.”

Beth bit her lip, then clenched her teeth. “I hate this.”

“I’ll call in some others.”

Minutes later, Cliff watched Beth open the meeting with, “Look, I’ve been thinking more and, well—we’ve got to ditch this damn bossy alien.”

“How?” Viviane asked. She had applied salve and some auto-meds to her arms and swaddled them. The burns she got were aching, but she was mobile, at least.

They were hunched together in a pocket cabin off the main corridor. The walls pulsed with a slow rhythm as the skyfish labored away from the mountain. They felt through the walls and floor a slow thrum of whistles, pops, and clicks, an eerie, melancholy song of labor from the great warm beast. Plus a warm breeze of quickening energy.

Viviane’s question made them pause. Ashley Trust finally said, “Yeah, how’s the question. Twisty’s our contact point, seems—but it’s led us into one damn ambush after another. Those damn backfire dragons, the carniroos, and then that weird smartstone, what it called the Increate. Twisty let us walk right into them.”

Best to let them vent first, then let ideas emerge, Cliff noted, a technique he had learned long ago from Beth herself. “No way we could have seen this smartstone thing coming,” he added.

“Agree,” Ashley Trust said, his eyes studying them each in turn.

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