Below that riddle were the Bishops, still alive when plenty of other Families were dead. Just luck, Toby thought. But it made you wonder.
And finally there was the Calamity. He had fled from that catastrophe long ago, back when he was a boy but did not know what a boy was. He and his father had lost Abraham that day. But now Abraham was here somewhere. Somehow.
To understand even a little piece of all this, Toby would have to find Abraham. In a place where direction meant nothing and time was a place.
Partway up he heard footsteps. He was sure they were steps and coming from above. He hurried up the slope. There were level walkways spaced at even intervals as he went up.
The walkways went off to left and right and he presumed they led all the way around the structure. They curved into the distance and he could see no one on the ones below. He labored against a steepening incline and reached the next walkway.
No one on it. But the footsteps came slower now. As he climbed farther the footsteps got fainter as though he had left them behind. They spaced farther and farther apart.
Dopplering in time. Going away into a future or a past, borderlands of the real. As if the walker were slowing, hesitating, getting sluggish from fatigue. Toby himself began to tire but he could still hear the steps coming in long low notes and so kept on.
The top was not what he expected. Broad and flat and smooth, the surface flecked with gray dabs. Magnetic field very strong.
No one. He could not hear the footsteps any longer.
He looked down. The walkways were so far away he could not tell if anyone was on them or not. Featureless and unmarred, the great structure stretched away. In the hazy distance he could make out the endless wrestling forms of the timescape, esty fighting against itself, Lanes intersecting in wrenching turbulence.
He turned away from the edge as he thought about resting for a while before going back down.
“Where’ve you been?”
The pale-skinned man before him was short and compact. The same size as Andro and the other dwarfs, but wrinkled and completely nude.
“Understand, do you?”
Toby looked around and could not see where the man had come from.
“Look, we haven’t much time. You’re a Bishop, right?”
Toby’s tongue felt thick and useless. “Uh, yeasay.”
“Good. Latest generation, I’d judge.”
“Yeasay. Who—”
“Come on, get back inside where it’s safer. And warmer.”
The dwarf showed Toby his leathery back as he marched quickly across the smooth plain. As Toby caught up the stone split. A clean rectangle opened and there was a ramp leading down. “Come on.”
Toby stopped at the head of the ramp. “In my Family you don’t walk into a place till you know what it is.”
“Oh? It’s an operations center.” The dwarf turned to go down.
“Whose?”
“Um? Mine. Ours. Human, if that’s what you mean.”
“And who’re you?”
“Oh. Sorry.” The dwarf walked over and held out a hand. “Walmsley. Nigel Walmsley.”
“What Family’s that?”
“The Brits.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“History. I’ve been waiting for you a long time.”
“How long?”
Walmsley looked as though he were calculating. “I make it about twenty-eight thousand years. Your time frame, of course.” To Toby’s blank look he volunteered, “Approximately.”
“How come? What for?”
“Come have some tea. You Bishops kept alive that tradition at least, didn’t you?”
“Uh, yeasay.” Toby had not tasted tea since he was a boy. “At the Citadel.”
“I see, the Citadel. Good then. You’re Killeen’s son?”
Startled, Toby gaped. Walmsley nodded. “So I see. Message for you.” He moved his hands quickly and for a flicker one of his arms seemed to be transparent, showing intricate webs beneath the skin.
Killeen was standing between them both.
His father looked worn, haggard. He was in Family Bishop field suiting, not ship gear. He glanced around and saw Toby. “Son, I need you.”
Toby did not know what to say. He reached out to touch his father and his hand passed through the image.
Killeen did not react. “I know how hard it’s been. You can have Shibo. I was, well, wrong. I’ve put that aside.”
Toby’s voice was dry, cracked. “You’re sure?”
“Yeasay. I . . . got outside myself.”
“Where are you?”
“No way to tell. I don’t know when you’ll get this.”
Toby frowned and Walmsley said, “He issued this some time ago, local frame.”
Killeen stepped to the side and regarded Toby. “You seem all right. A little thin.”
Toby smiled. “All that ship fat got run off.”
“The mechs have everybody on the run. Plenty dead. Some Bishops, too. They—”
“Besen? Cermo? How—”
“They’re here, still in one piece. Nobody close to us is suredead.”
Toby felt a joyful release, an eagerness to see them all. “Tell me what all’s gone on. Have you seen Quath? Did—”
“Listen, the mechs have scrambled up the Lanes something fierce. Ruptured some. I don’t know where you’ll find this, but we can patrol for you if you send out a singsay beacon.”
“I will.” Toby whispered to Walmsley, “Is he receiving this?”
“No, only this manifestation reacts to you. This is a Killeen, not the Killeen. I don’t know where the real article is now. Or then, for that matter.”
“No need to whisper,” the Killeen said. “I’m a limited representation and not ashamed of it.”
“What’re the mechs after? All the time I’ve been running, they’ve been on my heels.”
The Killeen hesitated, started again. “They want you and me both. Dunno why.”
“Want to surekill us?”
“Something more than that. Something funny’s going on with Abraham, but I don’t know what. Watch out for him.”
“Isn’t there a place where we can meet?”
Killeen shook his head. “Remember, I’m on the move same as you. Have to keep looking, is all.”
“The Mantis, it was after me.”
“Us, too.”
“Then we must be close to each other.”
“Naysay. More than one Mantis, I think.”
“The Mantis is a whole class of mechs?”
“It’s like dividing up water. Can’t keep the lines drawn.”
Toby felt a sense of comfort in the simple way his father talked, at the sound of his voice.“Dad, I—”
“Son, I need you.” Killeen said it exactly as he had said it before, same posture and tone. “I don’t know how much more I can tell you. Just . . . let’s try.”
“Yeasay.” Toby felt an immense relief. “Yeasay.”
“I know how hard it’s been. Look, you can have Shibo. I was—”
“Dad, I . . .” Toby stood mute. It was strange, speaking to a recording and wanting to force more out of it. But he had to tell the truth. “I had to pull Shibo.”
The Killeen was startled. It shimmied in the air for a moment, as if this news shook the entire representation. “You . . . don’t have the tools.”
“I know. Did the best I could.”
“She . . . was too much?”
“I couldn’t manage her.”
The Killeen nodded somberly. “She wasn’t easy in the flesh, either.”
“I think I got—”
Beside Killeen, condensing out of the air, was Shibo. She was translucent and her legs were gone but the upper body moved naturally. Head turning, first to Killeen, then to Toby. A thin smile.
“I . . . am still . . . partially . . . in . . . here . . .”
Walmsley said to Toby, “The reader is picking up fringing fields from you. She must be integrated into your perceptors.”
Toby nodded. “Yeasay, and wants to talk.”
Shibo’s face pleaded. her words sounded faintly in Toby’s sensotium. “I will be here . . . to help. I had to come out. My dear . . . Killeen . . .”
With small jerky movements and a wrenched face she turned to the Killeen. Toby felt an eerie current between the two. Valences moved, blunt and blind. They peered at each other a long time in silent, still air. Toby sensed a stuttering, hesitant sensation pass between them. Small signals across a furious gulf.