It was just a shame that there was no way he could act on that decision, trapped as he was in the halo worlds.
"Come on!" Barendts shot away into the submerged streets of the cavern settlement. Michael followed, trying to ignore the way this place reminded him of Dis.
Those dire kami seldom visited him these days. He felt he was, if not getting over that experience, at least slowly reaching an accommodation with it. Unfortunate, then, to have to swim past these empty facades and hear the kami whisper in the back of his mind, so strong, so sad.
"Heads up!" That was Barendts, his voice suddenly urgent. Suddenly, all the bots went dark, leaving Michael staring into the narrowed cone of light from his own headlamp— light that showed only grainy water, and the corner of a long-abandoned building.
Prudently, he tuned that light down to a vague glow, and switched on his goggles' light amplifiers. "What is it?" he radioed.
"Visitors," said Barendts curtly. It took Michael a few minutes to find the marine in the speckly gray shadowland of the now-dark town. Barendts was hovering behind a half-fallen wall that might once have defined someone's garden, back when the invisibly distant ceiling held sunlamps and there was air here instead of water. Barendts pointed over the wall as Michael slid next to him.
Lights wavered in the distance. Michael counted seven sources, about half a kilometer away. This cavern was indeed huge. From here, all he could see was diffuse greenish lozenges slowly moving around the abandoned buildings.
"I'll send a bot," said Barendts.
"No." Michael put a hand on the marine's shoulder. "I want to see this myself."
Barendts started to protest, but Michael ignored him, kicking strongly into the darkness beyond the wall. It made sense to send the bots ahead, but Michael had never been one to hide behind remotes— a trait he'd picked up from Herat, most likely. Better to do fieldwork yourself.
Anyway, he had not ceased to be a scientist by choice. Michael was still welcome at the university, but he couldn't work with Laurent Herat, because the professor had signed some kind of secrecy deal along with Rue Cassels. Whatever the secret was, it was paid for by turning their backs on the struggles of the people in the Rights Economy. Michael was surprised and hurt that Herat of all people should be willing to do that— the Cycler Compact might be a declining power, but its decline was slow and graceful. It didn't involve the deaths of millions.
Michael had petitioned the Compact to allow Barendts and himself to return to the R.E. It was absolutely critical that the rebels learn about the weapon Crisler hoped to find at Osiris and Apophis. Rue knew that, and she had the ear of the highest officials in the government.
The petition had been turned down, without explanation.
Every day that passed, Crisler drew closer to the Twins, and to escaping with the Chicxulub weapon. Frustration had drawn Michael back to the autotrophs as much as curiosity. Frustration drove him now as he closed in on the distant lights, for the university had refused to allow him to visit the green men again. Herat could; Michael was only partially mollified by the knowledge that even Herat had not been allowed to visit the autotrophs themselves.
He took a roundabout route, hiding behind the softening outlines of buildings, confident in his destination because the glow was constantly visible. Finally only one building separated him from whoever it was; he took a chance, and swam into the crumbling structure itself.
The walls were peeling, the floor covered in a layer of hazy mud. The feeling of desolation here was overwhelming, and he could feel his NeoShinto implant stirring, finding echoes of the kami of lost lives here. Michael ignored it, and made his way to a room at the front of the building.
The wall here had numerous holes in it. Light shone strongly through them, and he could hear a thrumming sound through the water now. Michael swam slowly over and put his goggles against one of the lower holes.
Not three meters away, a thing like a giant silver scarab was lowering boxes and canisters off its back, and arranging them carefully in the silt. There was no recognizable head to the thing, nor any sense organs he could see. But drifting around and above it were hundreds of tiny bright beads.
Michael recognized them: They were like the ones that had swarmed around him and Herat during their visit to the autotrophs four months ago. The swarm had spoken to them; it was an integral part of the autotrophs' artificial intelligence.
Michael had recovered some dead beads from other autotroph trash sites. He'd taken one apart, and figured he knew how they were powered. And the aliens didn't seem to keep good track of the things— which sparked an idea.
Some of the beads were hovering very close to the wall. Michael rose up on his haunches and peered through another crack. One hovered not twenty centimeters away. Its little black head was pointing down and away— watching the silver thing deposit its cargo, no doubt.
Months of anger at his betrayal by his companions made Michael unwilling to hesitate: He simply reached out and grabbed the bead, popping it into the metal mesh bag he carried at his waist. Then he put his eye to the crack and watched to see what would happen next.
Nothing happened. He heard a faint bzzt come over his radio, but the beads outside didn't move and the silver thing went on arranging its trash. The metal mesh probably blocked the thing's signal. And there were more of the beads hovering within reach.
In seconds he had a dozen of them in his sack. They circled lazily inside it, as if made lethargic by the cold water and high pressure. Maybe that was true. Michael eased back from the cracked wall and made his way to another building some distance away. There he found an interior room and turned up his headlight.
He opened the sack while tuning his radio across frequencies. The beads swirled lazily inside the mesh; after a minute he hit on the right frequency. A complex, sonorous hum came from the little things.
"Hello?" he said through the radio. "Do you guys speak Anglic?"
"Ph-ph-ph-phage," said a pipsqueek voice in his ears. "You eat us now."
"No," he said. "I just want to talk."
"No talk," said the tiny AIs. "We leave now."
"I'll let you go after we talk. How's that?"
"No. We leave planet. Ancient weapon in hands of phages. Must warn others of the Real."
"You're leaving Oculus? Leaving this planet?"
"Here to make preparations. Leave caches where phages not find."
Michael chewed his lip, thinking hard. "You know there's humans going after the Chicxulub weapon. You're going to pull up roots here— warn the autotroph empire?"
"We warn. Destroy phages before weapon built."
Michael raced back to where he'd left Barendts. The marine was startled when he ducked back over the wall; Michael had come from an unexpected direction.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"We're done here, at least for now," said Michael. "We've got to get these things back to Lux."
"But there's a veritable trove of stuff there—"
"Which we can come back for later."
"Are you crazy? The green guys might find it."
Michael swam determinedly toward the black maw of the elevator shaft. "Forget about the trash. Something more important's come up."
As he swam, he heard faint flashes of radio from the mesh bag. The little beads were clamoring to be let out.
Soon, he thought. When we have the right audience.