静止的世界 Stop Motion
By Max Gladstone
Translate By Ninesnow
2015-02
彗星科幻
Zhaoying woke before dawn on Beacon Day to stillness, and walked barefoot over moss from her pod to the seashore.
The air tasted of brine. Two moons set and a reddish sun rose. Walkers rambled through the surf: eight-legged human-sized machines overgrown with green save for their lower legs. The moss here hated salt water.
She didn't often see walkers in the ocean, and waded out to join them. The surf was warm as a bath back home, and the sand gave as sand should beneath her toes. She stroked the walker's covering of moss. The walker did not seem to care. She pushed it, playfully, and it steadied itself, kicking up clouds of silt.
The whole world was quiet by agreement. What sounds there were gave one another room: her breath. The waves. The servos in the walkers' joints.
On a human world, on a station even, she'd be boxed in noise by now.
Perhaps the walkers strained the surf for precious metals. Perhaps they liked the feel of waves. Perhaps they came for sunrise, and the unbroken purple-blue of sea horizon.
Zhaoying took samples of the walkers' moss and walked back through the perfect day, humming a childhood tune for which she'd forgotten the words.
Smoke rose from camp. Trace liked fires in the morning; the moss, torn up and sun-dried, made good fuel. Zhaoying found her seated cross-legged by the fire, munching recomb and drinking coffee. Trace had brought sleeves of instant with her personal effects, and parceled them out, one every week for a year.
"Catch anything?" Trace called, but didn't wait for an answer. "Have some coffee. Time to celebrate. We're bound off this rock. One slim bonus for you and me, and better luck next mission."
"You set the beacon."
"You're surprised?" She gnawed off another piece of recomb, chewed, and swallowed. "No distinctive bioforms. Minerals used up. No land fauna. Just moss and more moss over everything, including those damn walkers. We're lucky there's a default bonus for this job."
"We still don't know where the walkers came from."
"Nobody cares. I've taken a hundred of the damn things apart. Every part in there we, or some xenos we know, have had for centuries. They're Markov-chain dumb. I get it, they look goddamn wise until you clean that moss off, but once you do they're just thousand year old junk, barely bright enough to walk in a straight line. Someone will bother with them when there's time, or not. Meanwhile, soon as the Sicily slides in I'm for a hot shower, something to eat that isn't recomb, an ocean of sex, and an assignment hopefully richer than this one." She drank. "Have some coffee, Zhaoying. We're going home."
"The hurricanes finally cleared down south. I'd like to give the shallows another flyby. "
"Sicily slides in at dawn tomorrow," Trace said, "and I plan to meet her. I'm getting little enough bonus off this dirtball without delay-of-transit penalties. Sure you don't want that coffee?"
She did not.
An hour later, Zhaoying's pod coasted over the southern archipelago. She would miss this place as she'd never missed home.
Paint a world in dots of green amid the purple-blue of shallow seas and you'd have Meadow-A320, named for a woman who built a telescope a hundred years back.
Desolation, Trace called it, and at the beginning Zhaoying agreed. The oceans thronged with dumb life, and moss ruled land—moss covered mountains, moss curtains dripped down cliffs, moss nested in the ports and joints of the walkers that crossed and recrossed the land.
She'd grown to think it beautiful. Yes, there was nothing useful. Some old civ had cleaned out the surface metals millennia ago, and the heavy elements, petrochem, wrung the world like a towel and left only walkers behind. The universe was full of planets with more promise.
But none quite so beautifully still.
Trace was expedition lead. Beaconing Sicily had been her call, and she was right. To stay here any longer than the contract year would be a waste of company pods, ships, the recomb machines that kept them fed.
But Sicily meant tiny cabins, and shipping either in to a swollen world or out somewhere new, with carnivorous plants this time maybe, or a hellhole like the broken cityworld she'd found two sojourns back which stank like rotten eggs for her three years' tenure. Nothing so still as this.
She visited each island in the southern archipelago. She'd been here only once: a standard year lasted three quarters of the local season cycle, and soon after they landed on Meadow A320 the hurricanes came.
New sandbar trails were the only sign of the great storms' passing, and moss already colonized those sandbars to the waterline. Zhaoying tested the new moss, but its indicators all blinked green—same stuff as everywhere else.
She ate a picnic on the sandbar's point, moss fed through the recomb. Delicious broken down and rebuilt proteins.
One island had a walker ten stories high, trailing moss curtains that glittered purple. Nice, but nothing new.
She flew one last mournful pass above the archipelago, scanning full bandwidth, just before sunset. And she saw a glint of metal underwater.
"You have to see it," she said when she got back to camp. Her heart beat so hard she felt sick.
Trace was burning moss off the lander. "I will be so happy to be rid of this stuff. It grows on zippers, for Christ's sake."
"There's a ship down in the ocean. We have to tell Central."
She cut the flamethrower. "Let's not be hasty. We knew someone came before us. So you found a crash. That confirms it. No sense bothering anyone."
"You'd hide a discovery from Central?"
"Odds are it's another piece like the walkers—known tech from some backwater empire that juiced this place, flew off, and collapsed without anyone noticing. If we report it Central will stick us here another year to make sure, dock our already meager bonus for diverting Sicily to a bogus pickup, and give us the same shitty thank you for your time payment when we finally do dust off. Why stick ourselves here another year? There are galaxies out there." She pointed up with the flamethrower nozzle.
"But if it's something new—"
"It's not. It never is. You want to make something up to justify the waste of our last year, fine, but, shit, I'm not going to let it keep me down. I have places to go."
"I'll give you half my bonus," she said, "if you come look."
The flames stopped roaring. She turned. The pilot light's reflection glinted in her eyes. "Half."
"Half."
"Guess I didn't need to sleep tonight anyway."
By night the water seemed more alive than the land. Flying by double moonlight and instrument Zhaoying found the crash with ease. Trace threw down a field, and the two of them descended. Water rose twenty meters tall outside the force field. Toothed fishlike things writhed beyond, ghoulish in the field's blue glow.
The ship was bent and broken, three times their lander's length from end to end, ribbed and modular, ringed at points with tiny holes. The alloy hull gleamed in moonlight.
"No marks," she said as Trace walked around the wreck, scanning. The other woman's eyes ghosted green as implants woke and paired with her tools. "Unless they've been washed away."
"No crew compartment, either," Trace said.
"What?"
"There's a lattice inside, hydroponic maybe. Here." Trace tossed her a slate with the image. "And the ship's not just a ship, turns out. The hull's modular. Each of these—" she patted a rib—"unfolds into a walker. Some small, some big. Aside from that, we've got a Laukkanen-effect drive which would have been fancy news to xenosci three centuries back, a bare-bones field generator, and that's it." Trace snapped off her slate, and let her eyes go blue again. "It's a dummy. Slides from system to system until it finds a place to land and unfold walkers. Drops off some seed for slow terraforming, or whateverforming. Looks like the folks who sent your walkers hoped to make a garden world. Either they messed up, or they really like moss. Or the moss took over after they juiced the place and ruined the land biome. Either way, it's nothing we couldn't have guessed without the craft. Looks like you wasted half your bonus. Not that I'm complaining."
"You won't agree to extend our shift."
An almost-eel the size of the broken ship slammed into Trace's field. The whole thing flashed. "I get it—you want to hang out and gum this little mystery another year. But there's a whole universe up there. You can't just put down roots. Someone else will come here in a century or two and figure out what's up with those robots. Or no one will, and what will the world lose?"
Zhaoying ran her hand over the broken ship. A thousand years in water and it still felt smooth, as if grown.
"Okay," she said. "You're right. Let's go."
"Don't feel so bad," Trace said when the field closed behind them and water rushed in to fill the open space. "I might even give you your bonus back."
They returned to base exhausted, but they still broke camp. Trace had done most of the work already while Zhaoying scouted the archipelago. They slept in the pods. Trace slept, that is. Zhaoying could not sleep. She turned and turned in her hammock, missing the wind and the soft light of the double moons.
They'd roll on come the morning, roll from world to world like an unceasing wave, meeting only what they thought to find.
She knew how Trace would respond. What other choice do we have? We keep going because we use worlds up, one after the other. What would staying look like? Lingering until our own shit choked us? If that's what you wanted, you would have stayed home. What would life look like without movement? What would a civilization look like, still?
Outside her window, the moon laid its light on moss.
The launch countdown woke her. Her pod's panel lights blinked on, slaved to Trace's controls. Comms buzzed between the lander and Sicily. Gravity held her close, pressed her down into the hammock.
They rose together from the world. Trace, in her pod, guided the lander through ascent along its calculated path. They gained altitude. Below, Meadow-A320 spread. Moss-covered desolation. And Trace flew them above it, moving on.
No pilot in that downed ship, she thought—no crew compartment at all. Just a hydroponic lattice. A seed-bearing missile, sent from world to world. That ship, or others like it, split to form the walkers. But the walkers themselves were dumb--they look goddamn wise, until you clean off that moss.
What if there had been a pilot after all? What if she, if it, died when the ship crashed in the salt sea where moss couldn't grow?
What would a civilization look like, still?
Sicily waited up there in the black, with the rest of her life.
Acceleration pressed Zhaoying into her hammock. She forced herself against it, and gripped the d-ring that would release her pod from the lander. Exhaled. Pulled.
The pod's engines cut in to break her fall. Sirens squealed altitude warnings. Comm speakers crackled. "Zhaoying, what the hell are you doing?"
"Go back," she said. "Go on. I'm not done here."
"I can't let you stay."
"You don't have a choice. Sicily's waiting. Tell them I'm dead, if you like." She killed the comm, and fell.
She landed near the beach, and stepped barefoot from her cooling pod onto the sand. Above, the lander carved a bright orange wound in the sky, and then Trace was just another light, retreating.
Metal feet approached. The walkers scuttled toward her from up and down the beach. Curtains of purple moss swayed from their bodies.
"I hoped you'd come," she said.
One offered her a limb. She did not know what to do. She'd met nothing like this before. She tore a piece of the limb's moss free, and placed it on her tongue. It fizzed like sugar, and tasted tinny sweet. She swallowed.
The world opened. The world was still. It had been still for a million years and more. It had been still when it landed here, and still when it guided its machines to take the metals and heavy earths of Meadow-A320 and build more walker-ships with lattices inside where it could rest and grow and wait to touch more worlds and be still there as well. It was still and silent across this galaxy, and many others.
It was still, and so was she.
Hello, they said.
昭英在烽火日的破晓之前醒来,先是纹丝不动的躺着,然后赤脚离开单人舱,踩着苔藓来到海岸上。
空气中弥漫着海水的咸味。两轮月亮降下,淡红色的太阳升起。步行者们在浪花间游荡:这是一种一人大小长着八条腿的机器,除了几条下肢外浑身布满青苔。这儿的苔藓讨厌盐水。
她很少见到步行者会下到海里,于是她也蹚着海水加入它们。海浪像家里浴室中的水一样温暖,脚趾下的沙子踩上去也的确是沙子应有的感觉。她抚过步行者表面覆盖着的苔藓。步行者看上去对此并不在意。她玩闹般推了它一下,它用力站稳搅起一团淤泥。
整个世界像是约好了保持沉默。这里只有海浪声和步行者的关节活动时发出的声音。现在加入了她的呼吸声。
在任何一个人类世界,甚至是在空间站里,她现在都会被各种声音环绕。
也许步行者们要通过过滤海水获得某种稀有金属,也许它们只是喜欢在这里感受海浪,也许它们来这里观看日出,观看远处一成不变蓝紫色的海天一线。
昭英收集了一些步行者身上的苔藓。过了美好的一天之后往回走,边走边哼着一首忘了歌词的儿歌。
营地升起一根烟柱。特蕾丝喜欢一大早就升起烽火;撕碎晒干的苔藓是很好的燃料。昭英看到她交叉双腿坐在火堆边,嚼着再生食品瑞科姆,喝着咖啡。她已经把她的个人物品打好包带在身边,这一年里的每一周她都会这么做一次。
“找到什么了?”特蕾丝对她喊道,不过没等她回答就接着说:“来点咖啡。现在是欢庆时间。我们要离开这块不毛之地了。我们两个都能挣到一点点奖金。真希望下个任务能让我们交上好运。”
“你点了烽火。”
“没想到么?”她又往嘴里塞了一片瑞科姆,嚼吧嚼吧咽了下去。“未发现独特的生命形式。矿产衰竭。没有陆生动物群。只有苔藓,到处都长满了苔藓,连这些该死的步行者上都长着苔藓。算我们幸运,这份工作原本就附带一份奖金。”
“我们还没搞明白这些步行者是从哪儿来的。”
“没人在乎这种事。我已经拆了一百来个这种见鬼的东西。里面的每个零件,还有些我们能认出的异星制品都是几个世纪前的老古董了。它们就是一群随机游荡,毫不相关的蠢货。我算是明白了,它们看上去挺他妈的聪明,一旦你把那些苔藓清理掉,它们就是一堆上千年的垃圾,也就是拥有能让自己走直线的智能。也许有人愿意花时间研究它们,也可能根本没有。不管别人怎么做,只要一登上西西里号,我就要洗个热水澡,吃上不是瑞科姆的食物,尽情做爱,最好还能拿到一份比这次更有油水的任命书。”她又喝了一口。“喝点咖啡吧,昭英。我们就要回家了。”
“飓风终于把南部地区清理干净了。我要再飞到那边的浅湾察看一下。”
“西西里号明天清晨抵达。”特蕾丝说。“我要上船。我们干的活已经对得起那点奖金了,上头没理由拖延我们的任期。你真的不想喝点咖啡么?”
她没喝。
一个小时之后,昭英的单人舱在南部群岛降落。虽然她从来不想家,但她会想念这个地方。
在蓝紫色的浅海中用绿点勾画出一个世界,这就是梅朵-A320行星。这名字是为了纪念一百年前修建了一架望远镜的女人。
特蕾丝说这里是个鸟不生蛋的地方,开始昭英很同意这种说法。海洋里充满了低等生命,而苔藓则统治了陆地——山野间长满苔藓,悬崖峭壁上悬挂着苔藓织成的帘子,在陆地上东游西逛的步行者的孔洞和关节处堆积的都是苔藓。
她渐渐觉得它们很漂亮。是的,尽管毫无用处。这里的表层金属,重金属,石油早在一千年前就被某个旧文明像拧毛巾一样洗劫一空。只留下这些步行者。宇宙里还有许许多多更值得开发的星球。
但是哪里都没有这种凝滞的美。
特蕾丝是探险队的领队,是她下令点燃烽火召唤西西里号飞船,她做得没错。超出合同期之外还停留在这里的话,对公司来说就是一种资源浪费:飞行舱,船只,还有保证他们填饱肚子的瑞科姆制造机。
但是登上西西里就意味着狭小的舱室,不确定的目的地:可能是一个过度拥挤的世界,也可能是长着食肉植物的新世界,还有可能是个十分恶心的地方,就像她两个驻留任务之前曾经发现的那个破败的城市世界。她在那个充满臭鸡蛋的气味的世界驻扎了三年。没有哪个星球像这个一样停滞。
她逐个观测群岛中的每一个岛屿。之前她只来过一次:一个标准年在这里相当于四分之三个本地季节循环的时间,她们在梅朵-A320降落后不久就迎来了飓风。
新形成的一道道沙州是那场巨大风暴留下的唯一痕迹。而苔藓已经占据了水线以上所有的沙洲表面。昭英对新的苔藓作了检测,检测器的指示灯都闪着绿光——证明这就是这颗星球上随处可见的苔藓。
她在沙洲的一角进行了一次野餐,吃得是由苔藓制成的瑞科姆。经过分解再构建的美味蛋白质。
一个岛上有一台十层楼高的步行者,身上悬挂着闪着紫光的苔藓帘子。不错,但没什么新意。
在日落之前,她用全部带宽对群岛做了最后一次可悲的检测。她发现水下有闪光的金属。
“你一定要看一看。”她回到营地时说。她的心脏剧烈跳动让她感到一阵难受。
特蕾丝正在燃烧着陆舱上的苔藓。“能摆脱这些东西真是太开心了,看在上帝的份上,这东西见缝插针的能力太强了。”
“海里有艘沉船。我们要通告中心。”
她停下了手里的火焰喷射器。“别那么着急。我们都知道有人在我们之前来过这里。你找到一艘沉船。不过是证明了这件事。没必要大惊小怪。”
“你要向中心隐藏我们的发现么?”
“那很可能是和步行者类似的东西——来自某个落后帝国的已知科技,他们榨光这里的资源,离开这个星球,然后在没人注意的角落里衰落。要是我们向中心汇报这件事,他们就会要求我们再在这里待上一年把事情查清楚。还会因为让西西里号改变轨道执行虚报的接驳任务而扣除我们本就少得可怜的奖金。等我们最终离灰头土脸的离开这里,他们给我们的报酬还会是那句狗屎一样的‘感谢你们的付出’。我们有什么理由还要在这里停留一年?外面可是还有整个星系呢。”她用火焰喷射器的喷火口指向天空。
“但要是有什么新的东西——”
“不会的。绝不可能。你想弄出点什么名堂来证明我们过去的一年并不是一无所获,我没意见,但是,见鬼,我不会让这种事情再把我困在这里。我要去别的世界。”
“只要你来看看,”她说,“我会分给你一半的奖金。”
喷射器收回了火舌。她转过身,眼中放射出信号灯般的光亮。“一半。”
“一半。”
“反正我今晚也没法睡觉了。”
夜晚的海洋看上去比陆地更有生机。在两轮明月的照耀下,再通过仪器搜索,昭英很容易就找到了沉船。特蕾丝扔下一个引力场装置,她们两人降落到海里。引力场外是二十米高的水墙。长着牙的鱼样生物在墙外游来游去,在引力场的蓝光映衬下像食尸鬼一样恐怖。
沉船从头到尾是他们着陆器的三倍长。船体扭曲破损,暴露出船肋和舱室,支离破碎到处是洞。合金船壳反射着月光。
“没有标记。”她对着围绕沉船扫描的特蕾丝说。另一个女人激活眼中的植入装置和她手中的设备进行匹配,看上去像是两眼发绿光的鬼魂。“除非被水冲走了。”
“也没有驾驶舱。”特蕾丝说。
“什么?”
“里面有些架子,可能是用来培养水栽植物的。在这儿。”特蕾丝扔给她一个图像显示器。“而且看起来这不仅仅是一艘船。船壳是模块化的。每个模块——”她拍打着船肋——“展开都是一个步行者。有大有小。除此之外,这里还有个洛克南效应驱动器,倒数三个世纪,这东西倒是能成为外星科技领域的新潮话题。其实就是个最低配的力场生成器,没错。”特蕾丝关掉显示器,她的眼睛又变回蓝色。“模拟器。在星系间飘荡,一旦找到可以着陆的地点就放出步行者。再投放点儿种子进行类地行星改造,或是鬼知道的某种改造。看起来释放出你的这些步行者的家伙们想要创造一个园林世界。他们要么是搞砸了,要么就是把苔藓当成了真爱。也可能在他们把这里压榨干净,灭绝了陆地生物群落后苔藓才占领这里。不管怎么说,有没有这艘船都改变不了我们对这颗行星的勘探结果。你的一半奖金算是浪费了。我倒不是在抱怨。”
“你不同意延长我们的任期。”
一条有沉船那么长的长得极象鳗鱼的家伙闯入了特蕾丝的力场。这东西整个身体都闪闪发光。“我懂了——你想和这个悲惨世界再纠缠一年。外面可是有整个宇宙啊。你怎么能就在这里扎根?一两百年之后还会有人来到这里,他们会查清楚这些机器人的事情。也许没人能搞清楚,那又怎样?”
昭英抚摸着破损的船身。在水里泡了一千年摸上去仍然很光滑,就像它在不断的生长。
“好吧。”她说。“你说的没错。走吧。”
“别不开心,”特蕾丝说。随着力场的关闭,海水涌入,填满了之前的空间。“没准儿我会把那一半奖金还给你呢。”
她们返回基地,虽然疲惫不堪但还是继续拆除营地的工作。特蕾丝在昭英巡视群岛的时候已经做完了大部分的工作。她们睡在个人舱里。实际上只有特蕾丝睡着了。昭英无法入睡。她在吊床上辗转反侧,想着外面的风和双月柔和的光亮。
她们会在清晨起航,像永不停歇的波涛在各种世界间穿梭,见到的只是她们认为要找到的事物。
她知道特蕾丝会怎么说。我们有别的选择么?我们一个接一个的把世界消耗殆尽,我们只能不断的寻找新的世界。停留在这里能得到什么?在这里苟延残喘直到被自己的屎埋葬么。如果这就是你想要的,你就应该留在家里从不出门。如果没有运动,生命将会怎样?如果静止不前,文明将会怎样?
窗外,月光照耀在苔藓上。
她被起飞倒计时惊醒。单人舱控制面板上的指示灯在闪烁,特蕾斯那边的单人舱是主控。着陆器和西西里号之间的通信线路嗡嗡作响。她被重力紧紧地压在吊床上。
她们一同从这个世界起飞。特蕾丝在她的个人舱里指引着陆器根据计算好的路线上升。她们升向高空。梅朵-A320在她们身下展开。覆满苔藓的不毛之地。特蕾丝驾驶飞船飞越陆地,向上移动。
沉船上没有领航员,她想——因为根本没有驾驶舱。只有水溶培养架。一艘充满种子的飞船,在不同的世界间穿梭。那艘船——或是其它类似的东西——分解成步行者。但是那些步行者本身并没有智能——它们看上去见鬼的聪明,可一旦把那些苔藓摘干净就暴露出蠢货本质。
要是原本有个领航员呢?要是她,或它,在船沉入那片苔藓无法生存的海洋时死掉了呢?
文明应该是什么样子的,静如止水?
西西里号在漆黑的外太空等待,同样等待她的还有她的后半生。
加速度把昭英压在吊床上。她努力抗拒这种力量,抓住可以使单人舱脱离着陆器的吊环。深吸一口气。拉下吊环。
单人舱的引擎及时启动止住了她的下落。高空警报尖声响起。通信对讲机传来声音。“昭英,你他妈的到底在干什么?”
“回去。”她说。“继续那里的工作。我还有事要做。”
“我不能让你留在那里。”
“你别无选择。西西里号在等着你。要是你愿意也可以告诉他们我死了。”她关闭对讲机,向下坠落。
她降落在海滩附近,赤脚走出渐渐冷却的单人舱来到沙滩上。头顶,着陆舱在天空盘旋上升,划出明亮的橙色漩涡,特蕾丝是紧随其后的另一个光点。
金属腿向她走来。步行者从沙滩的四面八方向她涌来。它们身上的紫色苔藓挂帘轻轻摆动。
“我想着你们会来。”她说。
一个步行者向她伸出一只金属臂。她不知道该做什么。她从没遇到过像这样的事。她从那条肢体上撕下一片苔藓,放到舌头上。苔藓像糖一样嘶嘶融化,味道有点甜。她咽了下去。
世界对她打开。静止的世界。它已经静止了一百万年,还会接着静止下去。它在这颗星球着陆之前就是静止的,它在指挥机器开采梅朵-A320上的金属和重土并生产出更多的步行者船只时也是静止的。它在船内的培养架上休憩生长,等待触碰更多的世界,在那里它依然会是静止的。它在整个星系内静止,沉默。在其它星系莫不如是。
它是静止的,她也是。
你好,它们说。
「完」
—————————————————————————--
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By Max Gladstone
Translate By Ninesnow
2015-02
彗星科幻
Zhaoying woke before dawn on Beacon Day to stillness, and walked barefoot over moss from her pod to the seashore.
The air tasted of brine. Two moons set and a reddish sun rose. Walkers rambled through the surf: eight-legged human-sized machines overgrown with green save for their lower legs. The moss here hated salt water.
She didn't often see walkers in the ocean, and waded out to join them. The surf was warm as a bath back home, and the sand gave as sand should beneath her toes. She stroked the walker's covering of moss. The walker did not seem to care. She pushed it, playfully, and it steadied itself, kicking up clouds of silt.
The whole world was quiet by agreement. What sounds there were gave one another room: her breath. The waves. The servos in the walkers' joints.
On a human world, on a station even, she'd be boxed in noise by now.
Perhaps the walkers strained the surf for precious metals. Perhaps they liked the feel of waves. Perhaps they came for sunrise, and the unbroken purple-blue of sea horizon.
Zhaoying took samples of the walkers' moss and walked back through the perfect day, humming a childhood tune for which she'd forgotten the words.
Smoke rose from camp. Trace liked fires in the morning; the moss, torn up and sun-dried, made good fuel. Zhaoying found her seated cross-legged by the fire, munching recomb and drinking coffee. Trace had brought sleeves of instant with her personal effects, and parceled them out, one every week for a year.
"Catch anything?" Trace called, but didn't wait for an answer. "Have some coffee. Time to celebrate. We're bound off this rock. One slim bonus for you and me, and better luck next mission."
"You set the beacon."
"You're surprised?" She gnawed off another piece of recomb, chewed, and swallowed. "No distinctive bioforms. Minerals used up. No land fauna. Just moss and more moss over everything, including those damn walkers. We're lucky there's a default bonus for this job."
"We still don't know where the walkers came from."
"Nobody cares. I've taken a hundred of the damn things apart. Every part in there we, or some xenos we know, have had for centuries. They're Markov-chain dumb. I get it, they look goddamn wise until you clean that moss off, but once you do they're just thousand year old junk, barely bright enough to walk in a straight line. Someone will bother with them when there's time, or not. Meanwhile, soon as the Sicily slides in I'm for a hot shower, something to eat that isn't recomb, an ocean of sex, and an assignment hopefully richer than this one." She drank. "Have some coffee, Zhaoying. We're going home."
"The hurricanes finally cleared down south. I'd like to give the shallows another flyby. "
"Sicily slides in at dawn tomorrow," Trace said, "and I plan to meet her. I'm getting little enough bonus off this dirtball without delay-of-transit penalties. Sure you don't want that coffee?"
She did not.
An hour later, Zhaoying's pod coasted over the southern archipelago. She would miss this place as she'd never missed home.
Paint a world in dots of green amid the purple-blue of shallow seas and you'd have Meadow-A320, named for a woman who built a telescope a hundred years back.
Desolation, Trace called it, and at the beginning Zhaoying agreed. The oceans thronged with dumb life, and moss ruled land—moss covered mountains, moss curtains dripped down cliffs, moss nested in the ports and joints of the walkers that crossed and recrossed the land.
She'd grown to think it beautiful. Yes, there was nothing useful. Some old civ had cleaned out the surface metals millennia ago, and the heavy elements, petrochem, wrung the world like a towel and left only walkers behind. The universe was full of planets with more promise.
But none quite so beautifully still.
Trace was expedition lead. Beaconing Sicily had been her call, and she was right. To stay here any longer than the contract year would be a waste of company pods, ships, the recomb machines that kept them fed.
But Sicily meant tiny cabins, and shipping either in to a swollen world or out somewhere new, with carnivorous plants this time maybe, or a hellhole like the broken cityworld she'd found two sojourns back which stank like rotten eggs for her three years' tenure. Nothing so still as this.
She visited each island in the southern archipelago. She'd been here only once: a standard year lasted three quarters of the local season cycle, and soon after they landed on Meadow A320 the hurricanes came.
New sandbar trails were the only sign of the great storms' passing, and moss already colonized those sandbars to the waterline. Zhaoying tested the new moss, but its indicators all blinked green—same stuff as everywhere else.
She ate a picnic on the sandbar's point, moss fed through the recomb. Delicious broken down and rebuilt proteins.
One island had a walker ten stories high, trailing moss curtains that glittered purple. Nice, but nothing new.
She flew one last mournful pass above the archipelago, scanning full bandwidth, just before sunset. And she saw a glint of metal underwater.
"You have to see it," she said when she got back to camp. Her heart beat so hard she felt sick.
Trace was burning moss off the lander. "I will be so happy to be rid of this stuff. It grows on zippers, for Christ's sake."
"There's a ship down in the ocean. We have to tell Central."
She cut the flamethrower. "Let's not be hasty. We knew someone came before us. So you found a crash. That confirms it. No sense bothering anyone."
"You'd hide a discovery from Central?"
"Odds are it's another piece like the walkers—known tech from some backwater empire that juiced this place, flew off, and collapsed without anyone noticing. If we report it Central will stick us here another year to make sure, dock our already meager bonus for diverting Sicily to a bogus pickup, and give us the same shitty thank you for your time payment when we finally do dust off. Why stick ourselves here another year? There are galaxies out there." She pointed up with the flamethrower nozzle.
"But if it's something new—"
"It's not. It never is. You want to make something up to justify the waste of our last year, fine, but, shit, I'm not going to let it keep me down. I have places to go."
"I'll give you half my bonus," she said, "if you come look."
The flames stopped roaring. She turned. The pilot light's reflection glinted in her eyes. "Half."
"Half."
"Guess I didn't need to sleep tonight anyway."
By night the water seemed more alive than the land. Flying by double moonlight and instrument Zhaoying found the crash with ease. Trace threw down a field, and the two of them descended. Water rose twenty meters tall outside the force field. Toothed fishlike things writhed beyond, ghoulish in the field's blue glow.
The ship was bent and broken, three times their lander's length from end to end, ribbed and modular, ringed at points with tiny holes. The alloy hull gleamed in moonlight.
"No marks," she said as Trace walked around the wreck, scanning. The other woman's eyes ghosted green as implants woke and paired with her tools. "Unless they've been washed away."
"No crew compartment, either," Trace said.
"What?"
"There's a lattice inside, hydroponic maybe. Here." Trace tossed her a slate with the image. "And the ship's not just a ship, turns out. The hull's modular. Each of these—" she patted a rib—"unfolds into a walker. Some small, some big. Aside from that, we've got a Laukkanen-effect drive which would have been fancy news to xenosci three centuries back, a bare-bones field generator, and that's it." Trace snapped off her slate, and let her eyes go blue again. "It's a dummy. Slides from system to system until it finds a place to land and unfold walkers. Drops off some seed for slow terraforming, or whateverforming. Looks like the folks who sent your walkers hoped to make a garden world. Either they messed up, or they really like moss. Or the moss took over after they juiced the place and ruined the land biome. Either way, it's nothing we couldn't have guessed without the craft. Looks like you wasted half your bonus. Not that I'm complaining."
"You won't agree to extend our shift."
An almost-eel the size of the broken ship slammed into Trace's field. The whole thing flashed. "I get it—you want to hang out and gum this little mystery another year. But there's a whole universe up there. You can't just put down roots. Someone else will come here in a century or two and figure out what's up with those robots. Or no one will, and what will the world lose?"
Zhaoying ran her hand over the broken ship. A thousand years in water and it still felt smooth, as if grown.
"Okay," she said. "You're right. Let's go."
"Don't feel so bad," Trace said when the field closed behind them and water rushed in to fill the open space. "I might even give you your bonus back."
They returned to base exhausted, but they still broke camp. Trace had done most of the work already while Zhaoying scouted the archipelago. They slept in the pods. Trace slept, that is. Zhaoying could not sleep. She turned and turned in her hammock, missing the wind and the soft light of the double moons.
They'd roll on come the morning, roll from world to world like an unceasing wave, meeting only what they thought to find.
She knew how Trace would respond. What other choice do we have? We keep going because we use worlds up, one after the other. What would staying look like? Lingering until our own shit choked us? If that's what you wanted, you would have stayed home. What would life look like without movement? What would a civilization look like, still?
Outside her window, the moon laid its light on moss.
The launch countdown woke her. Her pod's panel lights blinked on, slaved to Trace's controls. Comms buzzed between the lander and Sicily. Gravity held her close, pressed her down into the hammock.
They rose together from the world. Trace, in her pod, guided the lander through ascent along its calculated path. They gained altitude. Below, Meadow-A320 spread. Moss-covered desolation. And Trace flew them above it, moving on.
No pilot in that downed ship, she thought—no crew compartment at all. Just a hydroponic lattice. A seed-bearing missile, sent from world to world. That ship, or others like it, split to form the walkers. But the walkers themselves were dumb--they look goddamn wise, until you clean off that moss.
What if there had been a pilot after all? What if she, if it, died when the ship crashed in the salt sea where moss couldn't grow?
What would a civilization look like, still?
Sicily waited up there in the black, with the rest of her life.
Acceleration pressed Zhaoying into her hammock. She forced herself against it, and gripped the d-ring that would release her pod from the lander. Exhaled. Pulled.
The pod's engines cut in to break her fall. Sirens squealed altitude warnings. Comm speakers crackled. "Zhaoying, what the hell are you doing?"
"Go back," she said. "Go on. I'm not done here."
"I can't let you stay."
"You don't have a choice. Sicily's waiting. Tell them I'm dead, if you like." She killed the comm, and fell.
She landed near the beach, and stepped barefoot from her cooling pod onto the sand. Above, the lander carved a bright orange wound in the sky, and then Trace was just another light, retreating.
Metal feet approached. The walkers scuttled toward her from up and down the beach. Curtains of purple moss swayed from their bodies.
"I hoped you'd come," she said.
One offered her a limb. She did not know what to do. She'd met nothing like this before. She tore a piece of the limb's moss free, and placed it on her tongue. It fizzed like sugar, and tasted tinny sweet. She swallowed.
The world opened. The world was still. It had been still for a million years and more. It had been still when it landed here, and still when it guided its machines to take the metals and heavy earths of Meadow-A320 and build more walker-ships with lattices inside where it could rest and grow and wait to touch more worlds and be still there as well. It was still and silent across this galaxy, and many others.
It was still, and so was she.
Hello, they said.
昭英在烽火日的破晓之前醒来,先是纹丝不动的躺着,然后赤脚离开单人舱,踩着苔藓来到海岸上。
空气中弥漫着海水的咸味。两轮月亮降下,淡红色的太阳升起。步行者们在浪花间游荡:这是一种一人大小长着八条腿的机器,除了几条下肢外浑身布满青苔。这儿的苔藓讨厌盐水。
她很少见到步行者会下到海里,于是她也蹚着海水加入它们。海浪像家里浴室中的水一样温暖,脚趾下的沙子踩上去也的确是沙子应有的感觉。她抚过步行者表面覆盖着的苔藓。步行者看上去对此并不在意。她玩闹般推了它一下,它用力站稳搅起一团淤泥。
整个世界像是约好了保持沉默。这里只有海浪声和步行者的关节活动时发出的声音。现在加入了她的呼吸声。
在任何一个人类世界,甚至是在空间站里,她现在都会被各种声音环绕。
也许步行者们要通过过滤海水获得某种稀有金属,也许它们只是喜欢在这里感受海浪,也许它们来这里观看日出,观看远处一成不变蓝紫色的海天一线。
昭英收集了一些步行者身上的苔藓。过了美好的一天之后往回走,边走边哼着一首忘了歌词的儿歌。
营地升起一根烟柱。特蕾丝喜欢一大早就升起烽火;撕碎晒干的苔藓是很好的燃料。昭英看到她交叉双腿坐在火堆边,嚼着再生食品瑞科姆,喝着咖啡。她已经把她的个人物品打好包带在身边,这一年里的每一周她都会这么做一次。
“找到什么了?”特蕾丝对她喊道,不过没等她回答就接着说:“来点咖啡。现在是欢庆时间。我们要离开这块不毛之地了。我们两个都能挣到一点点奖金。真希望下个任务能让我们交上好运。”
“你点了烽火。”
“没想到么?”她又往嘴里塞了一片瑞科姆,嚼吧嚼吧咽了下去。“未发现独特的生命形式。矿产衰竭。没有陆生动物群。只有苔藓,到处都长满了苔藓,连这些该死的步行者上都长着苔藓。算我们幸运,这份工作原本就附带一份奖金。”
“我们还没搞明白这些步行者是从哪儿来的。”
“没人在乎这种事。我已经拆了一百来个这种见鬼的东西。里面的每个零件,还有些我们能认出的异星制品都是几个世纪前的老古董了。它们就是一群随机游荡,毫不相关的蠢货。我算是明白了,它们看上去挺他妈的聪明,一旦你把那些苔藓清理掉,它们就是一堆上千年的垃圾,也就是拥有能让自己走直线的智能。也许有人愿意花时间研究它们,也可能根本没有。不管别人怎么做,只要一登上西西里号,我就要洗个热水澡,吃上不是瑞科姆的食物,尽情做爱,最好还能拿到一份比这次更有油水的任命书。”她又喝了一口。“喝点咖啡吧,昭英。我们就要回家了。”
“飓风终于把南部地区清理干净了。我要再飞到那边的浅湾察看一下。”
“西西里号明天清晨抵达。”特蕾丝说。“我要上船。我们干的活已经对得起那点奖金了,上头没理由拖延我们的任期。你真的不想喝点咖啡么?”
她没喝。
一个小时之后,昭英的单人舱在南部群岛降落。虽然她从来不想家,但她会想念这个地方。
在蓝紫色的浅海中用绿点勾画出一个世界,这就是梅朵-A320行星。这名字是为了纪念一百年前修建了一架望远镜的女人。
特蕾丝说这里是个鸟不生蛋的地方,开始昭英很同意这种说法。海洋里充满了低等生命,而苔藓则统治了陆地——山野间长满苔藓,悬崖峭壁上悬挂着苔藓织成的帘子,在陆地上东游西逛的步行者的孔洞和关节处堆积的都是苔藓。
她渐渐觉得它们很漂亮。是的,尽管毫无用处。这里的表层金属,重金属,石油早在一千年前就被某个旧文明像拧毛巾一样洗劫一空。只留下这些步行者。宇宙里还有许许多多更值得开发的星球。
但是哪里都没有这种凝滞的美。
特蕾丝是探险队的领队,是她下令点燃烽火召唤西西里号飞船,她做得没错。超出合同期之外还停留在这里的话,对公司来说就是一种资源浪费:飞行舱,船只,还有保证他们填饱肚子的瑞科姆制造机。
但是登上西西里就意味着狭小的舱室,不确定的目的地:可能是一个过度拥挤的世界,也可能是长着食肉植物的新世界,还有可能是个十分恶心的地方,就像她两个驻留任务之前曾经发现的那个破败的城市世界。她在那个充满臭鸡蛋的气味的世界驻扎了三年。没有哪个星球像这个一样停滞。
她逐个观测群岛中的每一个岛屿。之前她只来过一次:一个标准年在这里相当于四分之三个本地季节循环的时间,她们在梅朵-A320降落后不久就迎来了飓风。
新形成的一道道沙州是那场巨大风暴留下的唯一痕迹。而苔藓已经占据了水线以上所有的沙洲表面。昭英对新的苔藓作了检测,检测器的指示灯都闪着绿光——证明这就是这颗星球上随处可见的苔藓。
她在沙洲的一角进行了一次野餐,吃得是由苔藓制成的瑞科姆。经过分解再构建的美味蛋白质。
一个岛上有一台十层楼高的步行者,身上悬挂着闪着紫光的苔藓帘子。不错,但没什么新意。
在日落之前,她用全部带宽对群岛做了最后一次可悲的检测。她发现水下有闪光的金属。
“你一定要看一看。”她回到营地时说。她的心脏剧烈跳动让她感到一阵难受。
特蕾丝正在燃烧着陆舱上的苔藓。“能摆脱这些东西真是太开心了,看在上帝的份上,这东西见缝插针的能力太强了。”
“海里有艘沉船。我们要通告中心。”
她停下了手里的火焰喷射器。“别那么着急。我们都知道有人在我们之前来过这里。你找到一艘沉船。不过是证明了这件事。没必要大惊小怪。”
“你要向中心隐藏我们的发现么?”
“那很可能是和步行者类似的东西——来自某个落后帝国的已知科技,他们榨光这里的资源,离开这个星球,然后在没人注意的角落里衰落。要是我们向中心汇报这件事,他们就会要求我们再在这里待上一年把事情查清楚。还会因为让西西里号改变轨道执行虚报的接驳任务而扣除我们本就少得可怜的奖金。等我们最终离灰头土脸的离开这里,他们给我们的报酬还会是那句狗屎一样的‘感谢你们的付出’。我们有什么理由还要在这里停留一年?外面可是还有整个星系呢。”她用火焰喷射器的喷火口指向天空。
“但要是有什么新的东西——”
“不会的。绝不可能。你想弄出点什么名堂来证明我们过去的一年并不是一无所获,我没意见,但是,见鬼,我不会让这种事情再把我困在这里。我要去别的世界。”
“只要你来看看,”她说,“我会分给你一半的奖金。”
喷射器收回了火舌。她转过身,眼中放射出信号灯般的光亮。“一半。”
“一半。”
“反正我今晚也没法睡觉了。”
夜晚的海洋看上去比陆地更有生机。在两轮明月的照耀下,再通过仪器搜索,昭英很容易就找到了沉船。特蕾丝扔下一个引力场装置,她们两人降落到海里。引力场外是二十米高的水墙。长着牙的鱼样生物在墙外游来游去,在引力场的蓝光映衬下像食尸鬼一样恐怖。
沉船从头到尾是他们着陆器的三倍长。船体扭曲破损,暴露出船肋和舱室,支离破碎到处是洞。合金船壳反射着月光。
“没有标记。”她对着围绕沉船扫描的特蕾丝说。另一个女人激活眼中的植入装置和她手中的设备进行匹配,看上去像是两眼发绿光的鬼魂。“除非被水冲走了。”
“也没有驾驶舱。”特蕾丝说。
“什么?”
“里面有些架子,可能是用来培养水栽植物的。在这儿。”特蕾丝扔给她一个图像显示器。“而且看起来这不仅仅是一艘船。船壳是模块化的。每个模块——”她拍打着船肋——“展开都是一个步行者。有大有小。除此之外,这里还有个洛克南效应驱动器,倒数三个世纪,这东西倒是能成为外星科技领域的新潮话题。其实就是个最低配的力场生成器,没错。”特蕾丝关掉显示器,她的眼睛又变回蓝色。“模拟器。在星系间飘荡,一旦找到可以着陆的地点就放出步行者。再投放点儿种子进行类地行星改造,或是鬼知道的某种改造。看起来释放出你的这些步行者的家伙们想要创造一个园林世界。他们要么是搞砸了,要么就是把苔藓当成了真爱。也可能在他们把这里压榨干净,灭绝了陆地生物群落后苔藓才占领这里。不管怎么说,有没有这艘船都改变不了我们对这颗行星的勘探结果。你的一半奖金算是浪费了。我倒不是在抱怨。”
“你不同意延长我们的任期。”
一条有沉船那么长的长得极象鳗鱼的家伙闯入了特蕾丝的力场。这东西整个身体都闪闪发光。“我懂了——你想和这个悲惨世界再纠缠一年。外面可是有整个宇宙啊。你怎么能就在这里扎根?一两百年之后还会有人来到这里,他们会查清楚这些机器人的事情。也许没人能搞清楚,那又怎样?”
昭英抚摸着破损的船身。在水里泡了一千年摸上去仍然很光滑,就像它在不断的生长。
“好吧。”她说。“你说的没错。走吧。”
“别不开心,”特蕾丝说。随着力场的关闭,海水涌入,填满了之前的空间。“没准儿我会把那一半奖金还给你呢。”
她们返回基地,虽然疲惫不堪但还是继续拆除营地的工作。特蕾丝在昭英巡视群岛的时候已经做完了大部分的工作。她们睡在个人舱里。实际上只有特蕾丝睡着了。昭英无法入睡。她在吊床上辗转反侧,想着外面的风和双月柔和的光亮。
她们会在清晨起航,像永不停歇的波涛在各种世界间穿梭,见到的只是她们认为要找到的事物。
她知道特蕾丝会怎么说。我们有别的选择么?我们一个接一个的把世界消耗殆尽,我们只能不断的寻找新的世界。停留在这里能得到什么?在这里苟延残喘直到被自己的屎埋葬么。如果这就是你想要的,你就应该留在家里从不出门。如果没有运动,生命将会怎样?如果静止不前,文明将会怎样?
窗外,月光照耀在苔藓上。
她被起飞倒计时惊醒。单人舱控制面板上的指示灯在闪烁,特蕾斯那边的单人舱是主控。着陆器和西西里号之间的通信线路嗡嗡作响。她被重力紧紧地压在吊床上。
她们一同从这个世界起飞。特蕾丝在她的个人舱里指引着陆器根据计算好的路线上升。她们升向高空。梅朵-A320在她们身下展开。覆满苔藓的不毛之地。特蕾丝驾驶飞船飞越陆地,向上移动。
沉船上没有领航员,她想——因为根本没有驾驶舱。只有水溶培养架。一艘充满种子的飞船,在不同的世界间穿梭。那艘船——或是其它类似的东西——分解成步行者。但是那些步行者本身并没有智能——它们看上去见鬼的聪明,可一旦把那些苔藓摘干净就暴露出蠢货本质。
要是原本有个领航员呢?要是她,或它,在船沉入那片苔藓无法生存的海洋时死掉了呢?
文明应该是什么样子的,静如止水?
西西里号在漆黑的外太空等待,同样等待她的还有她的后半生。
加速度把昭英压在吊床上。她努力抗拒这种力量,抓住可以使单人舱脱离着陆器的吊环。深吸一口气。拉下吊环。
单人舱的引擎及时启动止住了她的下落。高空警报尖声响起。通信对讲机传来声音。“昭英,你他妈的到底在干什么?”
“回去。”她说。“继续那里的工作。我还有事要做。”
“我不能让你留在那里。”
“你别无选择。西西里号在等着你。要是你愿意也可以告诉他们我死了。”她关闭对讲机,向下坠落。
她降落在海滩附近,赤脚走出渐渐冷却的单人舱来到沙滩上。头顶,着陆舱在天空盘旋上升,划出明亮的橙色漩涡,特蕾丝是紧随其后的另一个光点。
金属腿向她走来。步行者从沙滩的四面八方向她涌来。它们身上的紫色苔藓挂帘轻轻摆动。
“我想着你们会来。”她说。
一个步行者向她伸出一只金属臂。她不知道该做什么。她从没遇到过像这样的事。她从那条肢体上撕下一片苔藓,放到舌头上。苔藓像糖一样嘶嘶融化,味道有点甜。她咽了下去。
世界对她打开。静止的世界。它已经静止了一百万年,还会接着静止下去。它在这颗星球着陆之前就是静止的,它在指挥机器开采梅朵-A320上的金属和重土并生产出更多的步行者船只时也是静止的。它在船内的培养架上休憩生长,等待触碰更多的世界,在那里它依然会是静止的。它在整个星系内静止,沉默。在其它星系莫不如是。
它是静止的,她也是。
你好,它们说。
「完」
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