«Why?» The voice came from Nomun’s left. Nomun recognized the resonant tones of Handsome Nomun.
The killmech swiveled to face the speaker, but it made no response.
Nomun heard a tiny sound, close behind his hiding place. He whirled, to see Scar Nomun holding a heavy shard of crystal, his good eye glittering in the blue light. Nomun crouched, his body falling effortlessly into a defensive posture. Pleasurable remembrance swept through him. Yes, this was true, this was right. Nomun felt a humorless smile tighten his face, and Scar Nomun backed away warily, giving him back exactly the same smile.
«So, you claim to be dangerous after all, old one,» Scar Nomun said.
Nomun said nothing. He watched Scar Nomun alertly until the other turned and disappeared into the jungle. Nomun listened to the fading sound of Scar Nomun’s boots, crushing the delicate crystals that frosted the ground.
After a moment Blue Nomun’s mechanical voice boomed out. «A conference,» he called, from a considerable distance. «A truce. Let us confer. Danger exists. One blundering fool could kill us all.» After a pause, Blue Nomun repeated his message, word for word, using the same passionless inflections. Nomun followed the voice through the jungle, stepping carefully around the crystal growths, guided by the faint cold light they emitted.
The jungle was a webwork of inter – connected forms, a tangle of shining tubes. The individual growths varied from faceted cylinders the size of a man’s leg, to great pylons a meter or more in cross-section. There were no true curves in the crystal shapes, but the planar surfaces shifted direction frequently enough that in the distance the jungle seemed full of muscularly sinuous shapes. Nomun had to pick his way carefully; sometimes he had to crawl through tiny openings. The groundcover punctured his hands and knees, and he considered climbing into the upper story, where progress might be easier, but then he remembered Blue Nomun’s warnings. As he penetrated deeper into the jungle, the light grew stronger, the crystal less weathered, and he detected a faint hum. He thought of machinery buried deep. No, a great hive–sleeping memories like sleeping bees, he thought, and it seemed a true perception.
He saw darkness ahead. He moved forward more cautiously, until he reached the edge of a clearing. Inside, the crystal had decayed into glittering black gravel, with a few lightless twisted stumps rising here and there. Blue Nomun stood in the dimness at the center, motionless, still calling out in an amplified voice.
Nomun waited. Minutes passed, and Nomun heard the others moving through the concealment of the jungle.
Abruptly, Blue Nomun fell silent. He turned slowly, as if searching the edge of the clearing. Nomun surmised that Blue Nomun’s vision was augmented into the infrared range. He wondered how many of the others owned dangerous bodymods, and then it occurred to him to wonder about his own body. He looked down at his killer’s hands. Did he feel anything? Frustration? Fear? Anger? His hands knotted. Nothing. He still had nothing but his name. And the conviction that it was his.
Blue Nomun spoke. «Good. We are all here. I called to you not because I was concerned about your counterfeit lives, but because I wish to preserve my own valuable self.»
A piece of crystal sailed out of the jungle and shattered against Blue Nomun’s chestplate. His face showed no reaction. «Childish,» he said. «Listen carefully, if you wish to live. The memwort supports a large population of parasitic organisms. For example: small but dangerous predators hunt the ganglian symbiotes. Avoid open areas such as this.» Blue Nomun swept his arm to indicate the clearing. «After moonrise they become killing grounds. The predators are not formidable individually, but in large numbers they can easily bring down a man. Though of course they would be poisoned by such a meal. This posthumous revenge would be small consolation to me.
«The ganglia are dangerous, as I have already stated, and they will become much more so shortly, when the Blood Moon rises. The ganglia will enter the active mode then, and a misstep by one of us may cost all of us our lives.»
A voice spoke from the other side of the clearing. «How are we to avoid this ‘misstep’?» Nomun recognized Handsome Nomun’s smooth tones.
A look of pedantic irritation crossed Blue Nomun’s face. «Yes. I was just getting to that. Please, no more interruptions; moonrise is near and I, for one, wish to reach the internode with my head attached to my body. To continue: the primary danger is that one of us will stumble against an active ganglion and thereby precipitate a synaptic storm. If that happens, all who remain on the node will be trapped in a memory-fugue. Do you understand? We are threatened by the memories of an unknown being, memories in all likelihood incompatible with our own mnemonic substrates. At best, the fugue would expose us to the predators–or to those among us who recover most rapidly.»
Blue Nomun turned and looked severely at a spot just to Nomun’s left, and Nomun surmised that Scar Nomun lurked there. «At worst, the fugue will be irreversible, an endless loop, and we will all still be standing in the jungle at daylight, trapped in a stranger’s memories, waiting for the killmech and its cabbage knife.»
Scar Nomun stepped from concealment and moved toward Blue Nomun, hands clenched. «Why should I believe you? Perhaps this is all your game, perhaps you’re attempting to amuse yourself at my expense.»
Blue Nomun looked at Scar Nomun without emotion. «Fool,» he said. «You–grotesque corrupt piece of meat that you are–would never understand my amusements. If you will not listen, you could destroy us all.»
Across the clearing, Jade Nomun appeared. «I tend to agree with the halfmech. I have some knowledge of Coal.» Jade Nomun stroked his chin, then the jade in his ear. «The mem-worts are well-known to be treacherous. To all but their owners. We ought to dispose of the ugly one now, before he makes any more trouble.»
Blue Nomun glanced to the east, where a pink luster tinted the darkness above the jungle. «That might be wise, but we have run out of time. The Blood Moon is on the horizon, and I must leave. This is my advice: Do not move in groups, you will attract predators. The safest route is directly over the dorsal ridge of the spine. The predators are most active near the lateral beaches. Above all, do not touch the ganglia; in particular, do not touch them when they are glowing with the pink light. If a storm begins when you are near the intemode, run. Perhaps you can reach the beach before it takes you. And do not dally. Coal is a small world, with a very rapid rotation. The night is short.» Blue Nomun turned and trudged into the jungle. Scar Nomun made no move to stop him; he was watching Jade Nomun. Jade Nomun drifted forward, hands twitching idly at his sides, a look of benign good humor on his face.
Scar Nomun laughed. «No, fop. I won’t give you any easy opportunities. Come after me, if you wish.» He melted back into the blue light and was gone.
Nomun backed away from the clearing. Was it his imagination, or did slender quick shapes flow along the ground at the far edge? He shuddered and moved faster.
The dorsal ridge, Blue Nomun had said. Nomun followed the rising ground, alert for the sound of pursuit or for the pregnant silence of ambush. The crystal jungle was full of small noises, as if a million tiny creatures scratched and crawled, hidden somehow in the cold radiance that coursed through the tangled forms. Once Nomun heard purposeful steps; later he heard a nervous patter as something ran by him, just out of sight. The jungle was disorienting; the shining shapes seemed to twist away from the eye. Whenever Nomun attempted to follow the pulses of light that surged through the jungle, he would lose his purpose, would find himself slowing in his careful movement After he realized this, he kept his gaze directly in front of his feet, slightly unfocused, and was able to maintain his momentum.