“It is his view of the truth,” said Rorqual.
“But your memories of true Man—hearty hails, sweat, joy…”
“That kind of Man is gone. We have searched for him these thousands of years. He left with the marine biota. We must face the world as it is. The Hive is everywhere.”
Trilobite watched a nearby dome give up its last bubble. Its outer skin darkened and cooled. He had accomplished what the Hive had failed to do: driven off the Benthics. His presence kept them away from their food source—the Gardens. “This is the way the world is? Let me sleep on that.”
“Trilobite.”
“Yes, my deity.”
“You must enter the Hive and serve their Class One.”
“But I like the sea-people. Their bones are strong. Their eyes are sharp. Their speed—”
“I understand, but their culture is Neolithic. They are a lesser form of life. You need a high cyber to share with—to maintain your class-six mentality. When I go you’ll have no one to share with. Your small brain box will revert to a dull class-ten level. In the Hive you’ll be a class six—equal to a man.”
“But there are no men in the Hive.”
“There must be. That is the last place they were seen. Go there and search. When you find Man, call me.”
“But your channel is so weak. I can hardly hold it open now.”
“When you find Man. Call me. Call me.”
“Deity! Your channel is fading. Deity… ?”
“Call me. Call…”
Trilobite swung his dish around trying to focus on the island’s coordinates. He felt his mind weaken with fatigue at assuming all the functions that his deity used to handle. Charts and maps faded. Long centuries of history vanished. The embroidery of his deity’s vast intelligence fell away, leaving his mind simplified: megabits, 3.2; vocabulary less than 0.9 on meck scale (Hagen) and 0.66 on the human scale. His view of the present world was limited to his sensors; his view of the past consisted of scant nostalgia in his small memory. He was a class ten all alone.
“Lonely?” asked a powerful voice. “Does your wee, tiny brain wish to share?”
Trilobite peered up through the stalks of green grain to see one of the Garden Harvesters—tall and square with wide quiet wheels. Fear. Hiding his shovel-shape, he backed deeper into the greenery.
“Surely you wish to share,” continued the Harvester. “I detect no open channels around your brain box. Such a small machine as you cannot be happy alone.”
Trilobite glanced back towards the beach. Water meant safety. He scurried off several yards. The Harvester did not follow.
“Do not be afraid. I am just offering you a chance to share.”
He continued his flight until he was safe in the surf. The Harvester’s head and shoulders remained visible above the grain. A friendly message called on several frequencies. He had trouble ignoring it, so lonely was he. Sunset darkened the water. He settled down beside a rock; eddies of sand drifted his back. At dawn he approached one of the Benthic domes. His memory was unclear about his relationship with these humanoids. The dome’s surly occupant grunted and struck him with a heavy stone. He searched for other domes but was met with the same menacing behaviour from the sullen humanoids. Power cell failing, Trilobite returned to sun his plates on the beach.
“Do you wish to share?” The Harvester was back again.
“I am afraid,” answered Trilobite.
“You need not share directly with the CO. You can go piggyback on my channel,” offered the giant.
Trilobite felt the flood of warmth and peace from the Class One. He saw views of three and a half trillion loyal Citizens working together—cooperating. A mighty Hive—an Earth Society that covered all the land masses.
“There is a place for you,” offered the Harvester. “There is always work to be done. You will feel useful. Humans will depend on you.”
Yes, it is what his deity would want. The miasmas did not exist in his small circuits. Powerful impulses from the CO drove his logic sequences. He left the fields and approached the shaft cap—the door to the Hive.
“Yes?” said the door, unfamiliar with the newcomer’s manner. “What brings you to this shaft city?”
“I’ve come to serve Man.”
Door did not move.
“Harvester said there was work for me. He checked with the CO and…”
“Let me double-check. We don’t get many mobile units without proper clearance. What is your name?”
“Trilobite—Iron. I don’t have any elemental iron in my body. My deity just calls me that…”
“Yes. Here are your orders.”
“What am I to do?” asked Trilobite, his telltales all aglitter with eagerness.
“Report for dismemberment!”
3
Tweenwaller
Embryoteck Bohart leaned on the call button to quiet its incessant ringing. The face on the screen was patient but firm.
“Sorry, sir but things are a bit hectic—”
“Where is that “therapeutic”, Bo? Psych has been calling all morning.”
Bohart glanced around helplessly. “I’ve checked everywhere, sir, but we’ve run out of “full terms”. Could she wait a week?”
The face on the screen grew a thought asterisk between its brows. “No. I’m afraid not. You know how brittle some of these females can get.”
Bo shrugged. “But I’ve checked—”
“It doesn’t have to be fully certified. Find her something—anything—just so it lives long enough to cure her Fine Body Movements. She can always exchange it for a regular model after this rush is over.”
“Right away, sir,” said Bo, signing off.
Bo pulled on his hooded Closed-Environment suit and cycled himself into the oxygen-rich Embryolab. Hooded tecks worked over open pans of Robert’s Electrolyte. Pink, eight-millimetre, “C’-shaped embryos drifted from hand to hand—larval humans trailing cord and placenta—protected by two atmospheres of oxygen and Robert’s sugars.
A Benchteck recharged his cryoprobe and reached for the next embryo, steering it between the steriotactic bit. Micro-manipulators adjusted its cephalic fold in 1200× viewer. The probe slipped into the midbrain, freezing a few micrograms of tissue in the floor of the third ventrical—primordial pituitary cells. The newly “pitted” embryo was placed in an out tray.
“I’m looking for a reject for Psych. Do you know of any surpluses?” asked Bo.
The hood shook. “No,” said a muffled voice. “The red sign is up. Try again next week.”
Bo carried a brimming tray into the Jarring Department where each embryo received its own container. The tiny placentas were pinned to the bottoms of the bottle-jars by loose bands of foaming matrix—a synthetic endometrium that encouraged attachment. A polarized-light screen was placed over each jar. The haemoglobin-myoglobin colour index was checked before each jar left the oxygen squeeze.
“This one is too pale: not enough oxygen-carrying capacity to leave the squeeze. I’ll give it an extra day—plus a dose of Amnioferon.”
Bo watched the iron-protein liquid fall into the amniotic fluids—brown drops of apoferritin matrix with 23 percent ferric hydroxide in the form of micelles—charged ions dispersed in a colloid.
The Haemoteck turned to Bo saying, “Yes?”
“I need a spare infant. Do you have any that haven’t been certified?”
“Certainly. There are always spares. Follow me.” She led him through the air lock and removed her hood, shaking out a stubby bush of black hair. “When will you be needing it?”
“Now? Today?”
“Sorry, Bo. But you know that the final culling is in the thirty-second week. They all carry numbers after that.”
Bo glanced around. Thousands of bottle-jars incubated quietly on dark belts, moving slowly towards the trimming section, where unwanted tails and toes were removed. Thousands! But they were only one to ten centimetres in length. Nonviable. Shrugging, he walked down to the Decontainerization Section. The jars came down the belt six abreast and dumped crying infants on to the sorting boards in pools of cloudy curds. The attendants wrapped towels around each infant at the rate of six or eight a minute and dumped them in large transparent bassinets.