Live Without a Net Read online

  Chellapilla chuckled. “Are you sure you didn’t put Sylvanus up to this? You know the one exemption from cohabitation is the period of parenting. This is all a scheme to get me to clean your hutch and cook your meals on a regular basis for a few years, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I admit it. There’s never been a universal proseity device made that was as nice to hold as you.”

  “Well, let me think about it for the rest of this trip, before I go off my pills. It’s true that you and I are not getting any younger, and I am inclined toward becoming a mother, especially if our child will help ease Sylvanus’s old age. But I want to make sure I’m not overlooking any complications.”

  “My ever-sensible Chell! I could have dictated your reply without ever leaving my hutch.”

  Chellapilla snorted. “One of us has to be the sobersided one.”

  The two lovers rejoined their fellow stewards. Tanselle immediately took Chellapilla to one side, in an obvious attempt to pump her friend for any gossip. The feminine whispers and giggles and sidewise glances embarrassed Pertinax, and he made a show of engaging Cimabue in a complex discussion of the latter’s researches. But Pertinax could lend only half his mind to Cimabue’s talk of fisheries and turtle breeding, ocean currents and coral reefs. The other half was still contemplating his exciting future with Chellapilla.

  Eventually Sylvanus roused them from their chatter with a suggestion that they resume their journey. Bix, Flossy, Amber, Peavine, and Peppergrass bore their riders north, deeper into the already encroaching forests of the Great Lakes region.

  When they established camp that evening in a clearing beneath a broad canopy of lofty treetops, Sylvanus made a point of setting up a little hearth somewhat apart from his younger comrades. Plainly, he did not want to put a damper on any romantic moments among the youngsters.

  The five shared supper together, however. Sylvanus kept wrinkling his grizzled snout throughout the meal, until finally he declaimed, “There’s a storm brewing. The tropospheric mind must be performing some large randomizations or recalibrations. I suspect entire registers will be dumped.”

  Baseline weather had been tempered by the creation of an intelligent atmosphere. Climates across the planet were more equitable and homogenous, with fewer extreme instances of violent weather. But occasionally both the moderately large and even the titanic disturbances of yore would recur, as the separate entities that constituted the community of the skies deliberately encouraged random Darwinian forces to cull and mutate their members.

  “I packed some tarps and ropes,” said Cimabue, “for just such an occasion. If we cut some poles, we can erect a shelter quickly.”

  Working efficiently, the wardens built, first, a three-walled roofed enclosure for their hardy hoppers, stoutly braced between several trees, its open side to the leeward of the prevailing winds. Then they fashioned a small but sufficient tent for themselves and their packs, heavily staked to the earth. A few blankets strewn about the interior created a comfy nest, illuminated by several cold luminescent sticks. Confined body heat would counter any chill.

  Just as they finished, a loud crack of thunder ushered in the storm. Safe and sound in their tent, the wardens listened to the rain hammering the intervening leaves above before filtering down to drip less heavily on their roof.

  Sylvanus immediately bade his friends good night, then curled up in his robe in one corner, his back to them. Soon his snores—feigned or real—echoed off the sloping walls.

  Swiftly disrobed, Cimabue and Tanselle began kissing and petting each other, and Pertinax and Chellapilla soon followed suit. By the time the foursome had begun exchanging cuds, their unashamed mating, fueled by long separation, was stoked to proceed well into the night.

  The reintegrational storm blew itself out shortly after midnight, with what results among the mentalities of the air the wardens would discover only over the course of many communications. Perhaps useful new insights into the cosmos and Earth’s place therein had been born this night.

  In the morning the shepherds broke down their camp, breakfasted, and embarked on the final leg of their journey to Chicago. Pertinax rode his hopper in high spirits, pacing Chellapilla’s Peavine.

  Not too long after their midday meal (Tanselle had bulked out their simple repast with some particularly tasty mushrooms she had carried from home), they came within sight of the expansive lake, almost oceanic in its extent, that provided the human settlement with water for both drinking and washing, as well as various dietary staples. Reckoning themselves a few dozen kilometers south of the humans, the five headed north, encountering large peaceful herds of elk and antelopes along the way.

  They smelled Chicago before they saw it.

  “They’re not burning petroleum, are they?” asked Cimabue.

  “No,” said Sylvanus. “They have no access to any of the few remaining played-out deposits of that substance. It’s all animal and vegetable oils, with a little coal from near-surface veins.”

  “It sure does stink,” said Tanselle, wrinkling her nose.

  “They still refuse our offer of limited universal proseity devices?” Pertinax inquired.

  Sylvanus shook his head ruefully. “Indeed. They are stubborn, suspicious, and prideful, and disdain the devices of the Upflowered as something near-demonic. They claim that such cornucopia would render their species idle and degenerate, and destroy their character. When the Upflowered stripped them of their twenty-second-century technology, the left-behind humans conceived a hatred of their ascended brethren. Now they are determined to reclimb the same ladder of technological development they once negotiated, but completely on their own.”

  Cimabue snorted. “It’s just as well they don’t accept our gifts. The UPDs would allow them to spread their baneful way of life even farther than they already have. We can only be grateful their reproductive rates have been redacted downward.”

  “Come now,” said Chellapilla, “surely the humans deserve as much respect and right to self-determination as any other species. Would you cage up all the blue jays in the world simply because they’re noisy?”

  “You don’t have any humans in your bioregion, Chell. See what you think after you’ve met them.”

  The pathless land soon featured the start of a crude gravel-bedded road. The terminus the travelers encountered was a dump site. The oil-stained ground, mounded with detritus both organic and manufactured, repelled Pertinax’s sensibilities. He wondered how the humans could live with such squalor, even on the fringes of their settlement.

  Moving swiftly down the pebbled roadway, the wardens soon heard a clanking, chugging, ratcheting riot of sound from some ways around the next bend of the tree-shaded road. They halted and awaited the arrival of whatever vehicle was producing the clamor.

  The vehicle soon rounded the curve of road, revealing itself to be a heterogenous assemblage of wood and metal. The main portion of the carrier was a large wooden buckboard with two rows of seats forward of a flatbed. In the rear, a large boiler formed of odd-shaped scavenged metal plates threatened to burst its seams with every puff of smoke. Transmission of power to the wheels was accomplished by whirling leather belts running from boiler to wood-spoked iron-rimmed wheels.

  Four men sat on the rig, two abreast. Dressed in homespun and leathers, they sported big holstered sidearms. The guns were formed of ceramic barrels and chambers, and carved grips. Small gasketed pump handles protruded from the rear of each gun. Pertinax knew the weapons operated on compressed air and fired only nonexplosive projectiles. Still, sometimes the darts could be poison-tipped. A rack of rifles of similar construction lay within easy reach. The driver, busy with his tiller-style steering mechanism and several levers, was plainly a simple laborer. The other three occupants seemed dignitaries of some sort. Or so at least Pertinax deduced, judging from various colorful ribbons pinned to their chests and sashes draped over their shoulders.

  Surprised by the solid rank of mounted wardens looming high over the car like a li
ving wall across the dump road, the Overclockers reacted with varying degrees of confusion. But soon the driver managed to bring his steamcart to a halt, and the three officials had regained a measure of diplomatic aplomb. The passenger in the front seat climbed down and aproached Pertinax and friends. Leery of the stranger, the Kodiak kangemus unsheathed their long thick claws a few inches. The awesome display brought the man to a halt a few meters away.

  He spoke, looking up and shielding his eyes against the sun. “Hail, wardens! My name is Brost, and these comrades of mine are Kemp and Sitgrave, my assistants. As the mayor of Chicago, I welcome you to our fair city.”

  Pertinax studied Brost from above, seeing a poorly shaven, sallow baseline Homo sapiens with a shifty air about his hunched shoulders. Some kind of harsh perfume failed to mask completely a fug of fear and anxiety crossing the distance between Brost and Pertinax’s sharp nostrils.

  Sylvanus, as eldest, spoke for the wardens. “We accept your welcome, Mayor Brost. But I must warn you that we are not here for any simple cordial visit. We have good reason to believe that certain factions among your people are planning to tamper with the tropospheric mind. We have come to investigate, and to remove any such threats we may discern.”

  The mayor smiled uneasily, while his companions fought not to exchange nervous sidelong glances among themselves.

  “Tamper with those lofty, serene intelligences, who concern themselves not at all with our poor little lives? What reason could we have for such a heinous assault? No, the charge is ridiculous, even insulting. I can categorically refute it here and now. Your mission has been for naught. You might as well save yourself any further wearisome journeying by camping here for the night before heading home. We will bring you all sorts of fine provisions—”

  “That cannot be. We must make our own investigations. Will you allow us access to your village?”

  Mayor Brost huddled with his assistants, then faced the wardens again. “As I said, the city of Chicago welcomes you, and its doors are open.”

  Pertinax repressed a grin at the mayor’s emphasis on city, but he knew the other wardens had caught this token of outraged human dignity, as well.

  With much back-and-forward-and-back manuevering, the driver finally succeeeded in turning around the steamcart. Matching the gait of their hoppers to the slower passage of the cart, the wardens followed the delegation back to Chicago.

  Beginning with outlying cabins where half-naked childen played in the summer dust of their yards along with mongrels and livestock, and continuing all the way to the “city” center, where a few larger buildings hosted such establishments as blacksmiths, saloons, public kitchens, and a lone bath house, the small collection of residences and businesses that was Chicago—scattered along the lake’s margins according to no discernible scheme—gradually assembled itself around the newcomers. Mayor Brost, evidently proud of his domain, pointed out sights of interest as they traversed the “urban” streets, down the middles of which flowed raw sewage in ditches.

  “You see how organized our manufactories are,” said Brost, indicating some long, low, windowless sheds flanked by piles of waste byproducts: wood shavings, coal clinkers, metal shavings. “And here’s the entrance to our mines.” Brost pointed to a shack that sheltered a pit-like opening descending into the earth at a slant.

  “Oh,” said Cimabue, “you’re smelting and refining raw metals these days?”

  Mayor Brost exhibited a sour chagrin. “Not yet. There’s really no need. We feel it’s most in harmony with, uh, our beloved mother earth to recycle the buried remnants of our ancestors’ civilization. There’s plenty of good metal and plastic down deep where the Upflowered sequestered the rubble they left after their redesign of the globe. Plenty for everyone.”

  “And what exactly is your population these days, Mayor?” inquired Tanselle.

  “Nearly five thousand.”

  Tanselle shook her head reflectively, as if to say, thought Pertinax, Would that it were even fewer.

  After some additional civic boosterism, the party—considerably enlarged by various gawking hangers-on—arrived at a large, grassy town square, where goats and sheep grazed freely. Ranked across the lawn, tethered securely, were several small lighter-than-air balloons with attached gondolas of moderate size. The shiny laquered patchwork fabric of the balloons lent them a circus air belied by the solemn unease which the mayor and his cohorts eyed the balloons.

  Immediately, Pertinax’s ears pricked forward at this unexpected sight and the humans’ nervous regard for the objects. “What are these for?” he asked.

  Mayor Brost replied almost too swiftly. “Oh, these little toys have half a dozen uses. We send up lightweight volunteers to spy out nearby bison herds so that our hunting parties will save some time and trouble. We make surveys from the air for our road-building. And of course, the children enjoy a ride now and then. The balloons won’t carry much more weight than a child.”

  “I’d like to examine them.”

  “Certainly.”

  Pertinax clambered down off Flossy. Standing among the humans, the top of his head just cleared their belt buckles. He was soon joined by his fellow wardens, who moved through the crowd like a band of determined furry dwarves.

  The balloons featured no burners to inflate their straining shapes. Pertinax inquired as to their source of gas.

  Highlighting the mechanisms, Mayor Brost recited proudly. “Each balloon hosts a colony of methanogenic bacteria and a food supply. Increasing the flow of nutrients makes more gas. Closing the petcocks shuts them down.”

  Pertinax stepped back warily from his close-up inspection of the balloons. “They’re highly explosive, then.”

  “I suppose. But we maintain adequate safety measures around them.”

  The wardens regrouped off to one side and consulted quietly among themselves.

  “Any explosion of this magnitude in the tropospheric mind would do no more damage than a conventional rain squall,” said Cimabue.

  “Agreed,” said Chellapilla. “But what if the explosion was meant to disperse some kind of contaminant carried as cargo?”

  “Such as?” asked Tanselle.

  “No suitably dangerous substance occurs to me at the moment,” Sylvanus said, stroking his chin whiskers.

  “Nonetheless,” cautioned Pertinax, “I have a feeling that here lies the danger facing the tropospheric mind. Let us continue our investigations for the missing part of the puzzle.”

  Pertinax returned to address the mayor. “Our mounts need to forage, while we continue our inspection of your town. We propose to leave them here on the green. They will not bother people or livestock, but you should advise your citizens not to molest them. The kangemu are trained to deal harshly with threats to themselves or their masters.”

  “There will, of course, be no such problems,” said the mayor.

  Sylvanus advised splitting their forces into two teams for swifter coverage of the human settlement, while he himself, in deference to his age and tiredness, remained behind with their mounts to coordinate the searching. Naturally, Pertinax chose to team up with Chellapilla.

  The subsequent hours found Pertinax and his lover roaming unhindered through every part of the human village. Most of the citizens appeared friendly, although some exhibited irritation or a muted hostility at the queries of the wardens. Pertinax and Chellapilla paused only a few minutes to bolt down some cold food around midafternoon before continuing their so-far fruitless search.

  Eventually they found themselves down by some primitive docks, watching the small fishing fleet of Chicago tie up for the evening. The fishermen, shouldering their day’s bounty in woven baskets, moved warily past the weary wardens.

  “Well, I’m stumped,” confessed Pertinax. “If they’re hiding something, they’ve concealed it well.”

  Chellapilla said, “Maybe we’re going about this wrong. Let’s ask what could harm the virgula and sublimula, instead of just expecting to recognize the agent wh
en we see it.”

  “Well, really only other virgula and sublimula, which of course the humans have no way of fashioning.”

  “Ah, but what of rogue lobes?”

  The natural precipitation cycles brought infinite numbers of virgula and sublimula down from their habitats in the clouds to ground level. When separated from the tropospheric mind in this way, the components of the mind were programmed for apoptosis. But occasionally a colony of virgula and sublimula would fail to self-destruct, instead clumping together into a rogue lobe. Isolated from the parent mind, the lobes frequently went insane before eventually succumbing to environmental stresses. Sometimes, though, a lobe could live a surprisingly long time if it found the right conditions.

  “Do you think local factors in the lake here might encourage lobe formations?”

  “There’s one way to find out,” answered Chellapilla.

  It took only another half hour of prowling the lakeshore, scrambling over slippery rocks and across pebbled strands, to discover a small lobe.

  Thick intelligent slime latticed with various organic elements—pondweeds, zebra mussels, a disintegrating bird carcass—lay draped across a boulder, a mucosal sac with the processing power of a nonautonomous twenty-second-century AI. The slime was liquescently displaying its mad internal thoughts just as a mail cloud did: fractured images of the natural world, blazes of equations, shards of old human culture ante-Upflowering, elaborate mathematical constructions. A steady whisper of jagged sounds, a schizophrenic monologue, accompanied the display.

  Pertinax stared, horrified. “Uploading this fragment of chaos to the tropospheric mind would engender destabilizing waves of disinformation across the skies. The humans don’t even need to explode their balloons. Simply letting the mind automatically read the slime would be enough.”

  “We can’t allow this to happen.”

  “Let’s hurry back to the others.”