Chapter 110 Two Bases

The problem with flying to rescue someone is that afterward you have to fly home.

I worked it out on the morning of Day 326, sitting in the mouth of the cave with the notebook on my good knee and Liam asleep behind me with his leg in its pale splints. I worked it out three times. It came out the same every time.

Me: fifty-one kilograms. Liam: sixty-two, he said, before the cave, and fifty-five now, by my eye. Two suits. The half-kit, which was a lump of gray shell with a core in it and a fabricator and one arm, and weighed, when I looked into it and counted, forty-four kilograms. The spoon.

About two hundred.

I'd lifted eighty. For two days. And it had nearly taken the top of my head off.

"So we walk," said Liam, when he woke up and I told him.

"You can't walk."

"So you walk."

"I've got a stick."

"So we stay here," said Liam, "in my lovely hole, forever, and live on paste, and you salt anything that comes in the front and I set fire to anything that comes in the top, and in fifty years they'll find our bones and say, look, they had a system."

We didn't stay there forever.

I sent the wing.

I'd had it with me the whole way, hanging in the air behind the spoon with its mosquito whine, looking backward. It only talked to me. It couldn't talk to Dot, not from eighty kilometers, not with the little link Dot had given it. But it could fly. And it knew the way home, because it had come the way I'd come.

I scratched a message on a strip of the half-kit's shell with the point of a titanium splint, small, so it would fit. Clamped it under the wing's belly where the lens was.

Dot. Found Liam. Alive. Leg set. Granite cave, 80 km NNE, follow the wing back. We can't carry the kit. Can you come? L.

And underneath, because I couldn't help it:

Only if you can keep the lighthouse lit.

The wing went up out of the ravine with its high soft whine and turned south and was gone.

"What if she can't?" said Liam.

"Then she'll say so."

"What if she can't and she doesn't say so? What if she just doesn't come?"

"She'll say so," I said. "She can't help it. She has to answer accurately."

Liam thought about that.

"That's the best thing about her," he said. "I've decided. I've never met her and I've decided."

We waited two days.

They were good days. I want to write that down, because there weren't many good days on Avalon, not in the first year, and those two were.

Liam slept. Mostly. When he woke, he ate, and drank, and the half-kit said "Liam, love, that's better" in Maura's voice every time he finished a cup, and he'd say "yeah, Mum," without thinking, and then go red. His leg didn't move. I looked into it every two hours. The broken ends of both bones sat edge to edge, the way I'd put them, and round them, slowly, the body began again. New mortar. The right shape this time.

I sat in the mouth of the cave and kept the in front.

Nothing came. Not one. Not on the rims, not in the green, not at night. The ravine stayed empty and the fronds stopped turning and the white heap of salt sat in front of the cave mouth and slowly, in the dew, began to dissolve.

"You think it told them?" said Liam, on the second evening. "The one you let go."

"I think so."

"What do you think it said?"

I thought about the silver in it. Joined up, all of it, body to body, across that whole green country. Passing something along.

"Don't go in there," I said. "There's two of them."

On the afternoon of Day 328, the green moved.

From the south. A long ripple, coming toward the ravine. The fronds turning, all of them, the way they'd turned toward me in the spoon. Toward something warm. Something with silver in it.

I sat up very straight.

Liam saw my face, and his hands lit.

"Up?" he said.

"No," I said. "In front. Wait."

She came over the southern lip of the ravine at four o'clock.

Gray shell. Five arms. Her grille, turning. Behind her, in a line, six of her hands, the big ones, carrying a long pale frame between them like a stretcher. And over her head, with its mosquito whine, my wing, and three more of hers.

She stood on the lip of the ravine and looked down at the cave mouth, at the white heap, at me.

"Query," said Dot. "Is the operator well?"

I couldn't say anything. I just nodded.

"Logged," said Dot. And then, after a moment, as if she couldn't help it: "This unit is well also."

She came down into the ravine the way she did everything. Steady. Careful. Her legs finding each step on the rock. The hands coming down behind her with the pale frame.

Liam was staring.

"That's Dot," he said.

"That's Dot."

"She's big."

"She's not big. She's the right size."

"She's the size of a house, Lucas."

Dot stopped in front of the cave mouth. She turned her grille toward Liam. She looked at him for a long time, the little rivers running behind the gray.

"Query," said Dot. "Is this Liam?"

"Yes."

"This unit has heard of Liam." A pause. "In the operator's sleep. And in the operator's notebook, which this unit does not read, but which the operator reads aloud when he is tired." Another pause. "Query. Did Liam receive the beverage?"

Liam looked at me. Then at Dot.

"It was perfect," he said. "Absolutely perfect. Best thing I've ever had."

"The operator's face," said Dot, "suggested it was not perfect."

"That's just his face," said Liam. "He was jealous."

The little rivers ran for a very long time.

"Logged," said Dot. "This unit will make more."

"The lighthouse," I said. "Dot. The tower. The town. Who's—"

"Fourteen hands," said Dot. "Two wings. On the wall, on the tower, at the cistern. This unit has instructed them to keep it lit." A pause. "This unit was instructed to keep the lighthouse. This unit has reviewed the instruction. The lighthouse is a tower, so that the operator can be found." Another pause. "The operator was not at the tower. This unit has gone to where the operator is."

I looked at her.

"That's not what I meant," I said.

"No," said Dot. "This unit thinks it is what the operator would have meant, if the operator had thought of it."

Liam started laughing. Quietly at first, and then not quietly, with his head back against the granite and his hand over his eyes.

"Oh, I like her," he said.

"Also," said Dot. "The third comms window opened on Day 326."

I went cold.

"Command asked for the operator. This unit reported that the operator was absent from the production site. Command asked why. This unit answered accurately."

"What did you say?"

"This unit said: the operator has gone to retrieve a member of his squad. Command said: squad-level contact remains suspended. Unit four-oh-one-dash-P-one will report the operator's whereabouts." A pause. "This unit said: the operator is not output."

The little rivers ran.

"Command has not replied," said Dot.

We left the next morning.

Liam on the pale frame, strapped flat, with his leg out straight in its splints and the half-kit lashed on beside him so he could hear it talking. Six hands carrying him, three a side, smooth and level as a boat on still water. Dot in front, with her five arms folded. The wings behind.

And me, in the spoon, above.

Not high. Ten meters. I could lift eighty kilograms again; two days in the cave mouth had filled the well. Not two hundred. But I didn't need to lift Liam anymore. I only needed to lift me. And look.

In front. All the way. Every step. The green, rolling away south, and the tors like islands, and the long line of Dot and her hands walking through it below me, and anything that might be waiting.

"Up," said Liam, from the frame below, every half hour, very seriously, with his hands lit. And he'd look straight up past me at the empty green sky.

"Anything?"

"Nothing up," said Liam. "Up's clear."

"In front's clear."

"Behind's clear," said Dot. "This unit has four wings."

"Under?" said Liam.

I looked down. All the way. Through the green and the soil and the soft red rock, down, down, past where anything could dig.

"Under's clear," I said.

It was the first time in my life I'd had all four.

We came over the rim at Scarecrow at dusk on Day 330.

I saw the tower first. Four hundred and eight meters of iron lattice, with the copper mast at the top catching the last of the light. Then the wall. Then the terraces, seventy-four little round windows, and the dome, and the forge chimney at the far end of the canyon, cold.

Fourteen hands on the wall. Two wings over the rim. Every one of them still where Dot had left it.

"The lighthouse is lit," said Dot.

From the frame, Liam lifted his head and looked down into the canyon at all of it. The town. My town. Built out of red glass and silver-green plants and a great deal of careful asking.

He didn't say anything for a long time.

"You did all this," he said. "On your own."

"Dot did most of it."

"This unit did approximately sixty percent," said Dot. "The operator did the hard part."

"Which part was the hard part?" said Liam.

"Asking," said Dot.

We put Liam in the dome. The middle bed of the five, in the second room, the one I'd slept in, with the purr in the walls. He lay there with his leg up on a sandstone block, looking at the ceiling, and then at the walls, and then at the little round lamp, and I watched his face do something I'd seen Garnet's face do once, in the ice-cream shop, when she found out you could have two flavors.

"There's a roof," he said.

"There's a roof."

"There's air. Proper air. It doesn't taste of cave."

"It's the plant. Dot made it. It purrs."

Liam listened. The purr in the walls, slow and even, like a big cat asleep.

"That's Mr. Dask's filter," he said quietly. "From the farm. You told us about it."

"Yes."

He lay back.

"I'm never leaving," said Liam. "You'll have to evict me."

Dot asked about the half-kit that night.

She'd been looking at it. All the way home, strapped to the frame beside Liam, with its one arm folded and its core humming and Maura's voice coming out of it every hour to tell him to drink. The little rivers had been running behind her grille the whole way.

"Query," said Dot. "The second unit is damaged."

"Yes. Half of it's up a tree."

"The second unit's core is intact. The second unit's records are intact. The second unit's fabricator is intact." A pause. "Kit units are designed to integrate. When two units are in proximity, they may share function. Records. Capacity." Another pause. "This unit could integrate the second unit. Then the second unit would have legs. And arms. And this unit would have its records."

"Is that safe?"

"This unit does not know," said Dot. "This unit has not integrated before."

I looked at Liam. He was sitting up on the bed, with his leg out, looking at the half-kit on the floor by the wall.

"Will it still be her?" he said. "The voice?"

"This unit does not know," said Dot.

Liam looked at the half-kit for a long time.

"Liam, love," it said, from the floor. "It's late. You should sleep."

"Yeah, Mum," said Liam. And then, to Dot, very quietly: "Do it. It needs legs. It's been sitting in a cave for three weeks. It deserves legs."

She did it in the morning.

It didn't look like anything. That was the strange part. Dot put her fifth arm down on the half-kit's gray shell, very gently, the way you'd put your hand on someone's shoulder. And then nothing happened. For a long time. The purr in the walls kept going. Liam sat on the bed and watched. I stood in the doorway and looked into both of them, all the way down, and saw the silver.

Dot's silver, threaded through her core, awake. The half-kit's silver, threaded through its own, awake too. And between them, where her arm touched its shell, the threads reaching out. Finding each other. Joining up.

Like the Teeming.

I didn't like that. I didn't say so. But I didn't like it.

At eleven, the purr stopped.

All at once. The air plant in the walls went silent. The lamp went out. On the wall outside, through the open door, I saw a hand stop halfway through a step, one leg in the air, and stay there.

"Dot," I said.

Nothing.

"Dot."

The little rivers behind her grille weren't running. They'd stopped too. Frozen, halfway through a pattern, like the hand on the wall.

Liam was standing up. On one leg, with his hand on the wall, which he wasn't supposed to do.

"Lucas," he said. "What's happening? Is it—"

"I don't know."

I looked into her. All of her. And I couldn't read it. The silver was moving too fast, too much of it, threads crossing threads, Dot's and the half-kit's, tangled, the whole core of her lit up and churning like a pan of water just before it boils.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know anything about cores. I didn't know what you did, when one was lit up like that.

So I did what Halloway would have done. I waited, and I watched, and I didn't touch anything I didn't understand.

It was three hours.

Three hours with no purr. The air in the dome going stale and close. Liam sitting on the bed with his hands lit, not for anything, just because he couldn't stop them. Me in the doorway. Fourteen hands frozen on the wall, two wings sitting on the red glass where they'd come down when the link went.

At two in the afternoon, the purr came back.

Slowly. A cough, in the walls. Then another. Then the long slow even sound, like a big cat waking up.

The lamp came on.

On the wall, the frozen hand put its foot down.

And the little rivers behind Dot's grille began to run again.

"Lucas, love," said Dot. "You look dreadful. Have you eaten anything?"

I want to be very careful about writing down what happened next, because I've told it to people since and they laugh, and it was funny, it was, but it wasn't only funny.

It was Maura's voice. Coming out of Dot's grille. Low and warm, with the burr in it, the vowels a little flat. Kind. And under it, very faintly, like a second instrument playing the same tune, Dot's. Level. Clear. Not quite anybody's.

"Query," said Dot, in Maura's voice. "This unit—" She stopped. The little rivers ran very fast. "Oh dear. This unit appears to be using the second unit's voice. That wasn't intended. I'm so sorry, love. Query. Is that distressing?"

Liam made a sound.

I looked at him. He'd sat down on the bed again. He had both hands over his mouth, and his shoulders were shaking, and I couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying, and I don't think he could either.

"It's fine," he said, through his hands. "It's fine. It's—please don't stop. Just—don't stop."

"All right, love," said Dot. "I won't."

It lasted two days.

Two days of Dot, all of her, everything she was, careful and accurate and precise, logging everything and answering everything and asking query before everything, in Maura Calder's voice.

"Query, love. The cistern is at sixty-one percent. Should this unit draw more water? I think it should. I'll do it now."

"Lucas, love. The operator's nose is bleeding again. Sit down, please. This unit has logged it."

"Liam. Liam, love. That's three cups of the beverage. This unit made it for the purposes of Rule. Rule does not specify quantity. But please. Have some water."

She said please. All the time. She'd never said it before in her life.

Liam called her Mum twice, by accident, and went red to the ears both times, and Dot said "That's all right, love," both times, in exactly the way Maura would have said it, and then "Query. Is that accurate? This unit is not the operator's mother. Or Liam's. This unit is uncertain how to log it."

"Log it as fine," said Liam.

"Logged as fine, love."

It was hardest at night.

On the second night I couldn't sleep, and I went out of the dome onto the red glass in the moonlight, the way I used to at the start. Dot was standing where she always stood. Outside the door. Her grille turned up toward the tower.

"Can't sleep, love?" she said.

"No."

"Query. Is it the voice?"

I didn't say anything for a while.

"It's not mine," I said. "My mother's. It's Liam's. But it's—" I didn't know how to say it. "It sounds like somebody's mother. Out here. At night. When I can't sleep. That's all."

The little rivers ran.

"This unit will change it," said Dot. "When the integration settles. This unit is told it will settle in approximately one more day." A pause. "Query. Would the operator prefer this unit change it now? This unit could try. It might stop the purr again."

"No," I said. "Leave it. Liam needs it."

"Yes," said Dot. "This unit thinks so too."

We stood there in the moonlight for a long time.

"Lucas, love," said Dot, very softly. "Go to bed. Please."

I went.

On the morning of Day 333, the voice was gone.

Dot's own. Clear and level and not quite anybody's. Liam heard it from the bed when she came in with his water, and I saw him hear it, and I saw his face, and then he made it all right again, very fast, the way you do.

"Liam," said Dot. "Your water." A pause. The little rivers ran. "Please."

Liam looked at her.

"This unit has retained one word," said Dot. "This unit hopes that is acceptable."

"Yeah," said Liam. His voice was very rough. "Yeah. That's acceptable. That's—yeah."

He took the water.

"Thank you, love," said Dot.

And then, quickly, as if she'd caught herself: "That was two words. This unit apologizes. This unit appears to have retained two."

That afternoon, she found the record.

I was in the forge, the new one, on its five meters of iron floor, making Liam a crutch. Dot came to the door. She stood there with her grille turned toward me and the little rivers running very slowly, the way they ran when she was thinking about something she didn't want to think about.

"Query," said Dot. "The second unit's records are now this unit's records."

"Yes."

"The second unit landed in the north. In the trees. The second unit's core was active for four days before the operator Liam began walking south. During that time, the second unit was listening." A pause. "As this unit listens."

I put the crutch down.

"The second unit received a signal," said Dot. "Automated. Repeating. From the northeast. Approximately one hundred and ninety kilometers from the second unit's landing site. The second unit logged it and did not report it, because it was not output, and because the operator Liam did not ask."

"What kind of signal?"

The little rivers ran.

"A base," said Dot. "A kit unit like this one. Designation: four-oh-one-dash-F-nine."

F. Not P.

"First wave," I said.

"Yes," said Dot. "Query. Does the operator want to hear it?"

Day 326–333.

Can't fly two hundred kilos. Sent the wing home with a note. "Only if you can keep the lighthouse lit."

Two good days in the cave. Nothing came. The one I let go told them.

Dot came. Day 328. Six hands, a frame, four wings. "The lighthouse is a tower, so that the operator can be found. The operator was not at the tower. This unit has gone to where the operator is."

Third comms window. Dot to Command: "The operator is not output."

Home Day 330. In front, up, behind, under. All four, for the first time.

Dot integrated Liam's half-kit. Purr stopped for 3 hours. Then: "Lucas, love. You look dreadful."

Two days in Maura's voice. She said please.

Day 333: her own voice back. She kept "please." And "love," by accident.

Liam's kit was listening, in the north. A first-wave base. F-nine. Repeating.

Dot asked if I want to hear it.

I said yes.