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CRYSTAL EXPRESS

by BRUCE STERLING (1989)

[VERSION 1.1 (Jan 23 04). If you find and correct errors in the text, please update the version

number by 0.1 and redistribute.]

CONTENTS

SHAPER/MECHANIST

SWARM [ The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , April 1982]

SPIDER ROSE [ The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , August 1982]

CICADA QUEEN [ Universe 13 , edited by Terry Carr, Doubleday, 1983]

SUNKEN GARDENS [ Omni , June 1984]

TWENTY EVOCATIONS [ Interzone #7, 1984]

SCIENCE FICTION

GREEN DAYS IN BRUNEI [ Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine , October 1985]

SPOOK [ The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , April 1983]

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE SUBLIME [ Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine , June

1986]

FANTASY STORIES

TELLIAMED [ The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , September 1984]

THE LITTLE MAGIC SHOP [ Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine , October 1987]

FLOWERS OF EDO [ Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine , May 1987]

DINNER IN AUDOGHAST [ Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine , May 1985]

We cannot separate the historic accidents of the society in which we were born from the

axiomatic bases of the universe.

--J. D. Bernal, 1925

The deadliest bullshit is odorless and transparent.

--Wm. Gibson, 1988

SWARM

First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , April 1982.

"I will miss your conversation during the rest of the voyage," the alien said.

Captain-Doctor Simon Afriel folded his jeweled hands over his gold-embroidered waistcoat.

"I regret it also, ensign," he said in the alien's own hissing language. "Our talks together have

been very useful to me, I would have paid to learn so much, but you gave it freely."

"But that was only information," the alien said. He shrouded his bead-bright eyes behind thick

nictitating membranes. "We Investors deal in energy, and precious metals. To prize and pursue

mere knowledge is an immature racial trait." The alien lifted the long ribbed frill behind his

pinhole-sized ears.

"No doubt you are right," Afriel said, despising him. "We humans are as children to other

races, however; so a certain immaturity seems natural to us." Afriel pulled off his sunglasses to

rub the bridge of his nose. The starship cabin was drenched in searing blue light, heavily

ultraviolet. It was the light the Investors preferred, and they were not about to change it for one

human passenger.

"You have not done badly," the alien said magnanimously. "You are the kind of race we like

to do business with: young, eager, plastic, ready for a wide variety of goods and experiences. We

would have contacted you much earlier, but your technology was still too feeble to afford us a

profit."

"Things are different now," Afriel said. "We'll make you rich."

"Indeed," the Investor said. The frill behind his scaly head flickered rapidly, a sign of

amusement. "Within two hundred years you will be wealthy enough to buy from us the secret of

our starflight. Or perhaps your Mechanist faction will discover the secret through research."

Afriel was annoyed. As a member of the Reshaped faction, he did not appreciate the reference

to the rival Mechanists. "Don't put too much stock in mere technical expertise," he said.

"Consider the aptitude for languages we Shapers have. It makes our faction a much better trading

partner. To a Mechanist, all Investors look alike."

The alien hesitated. Afriel smiled. He had appealed to the alien's personal ambition with his

last statement, and the hint had been taken. That was where the Mechanists always erred. They

tried to treat all Investors consistently, using the same programmed routines each time. They

lacked imagination.

Something would have to be done about the Mechanists, Afriel thought. Something more

permanent than the small but deadly confrontations between isolated ships in the Asteroid Belt

and the ice-rich Rings of Saturn. Both factions maneuvered constantly, looking for a decisive

stroke, bribing away each other's best talent, practicing ambush, assassination, and industrial

espionage.

Captain-Doctor Simon Afriel was a past master of these pursuits. That was why the Reshaped

faction had paid the millions of kilowatts necessary to buy his passage. Afriel held doctorates in

biochemistry and alien linguistics, and a master's degree in magnetic weapons engineering. He

was thirty-eight years old and had been Reshaped according to the state of the art at the time of

his conception. His hormonal balance had been altered slightly to compensate for long periods

spent in free-fall. He had no appendix. The structure of his heart had been redesigned for greater

efficiency, and his large intestine had been altered to produce the vitamins normally made by

intestinal bacteria. Genetic engineering and rigorous training in childhood had given him an

intelligence quotient of one hundred and eighty. He was not the brightest of the agents of the

Ring Council, but he was one of the most mentally stable and the best trusted.

"It seems a shame," the alien said, "that a human of your accomplishments should have to rot

for two years in this miserable, profitless outpost."

"The years won't be wasted," Afriel said.

"But why have you chosen to study the Swarm? They can teach you nothing, since they

cannot speak. They have no wish to trade, having no tools or technology. They are the only

spacefaring race that is essentially without intelligence."

"That alone should make them worthy of study."

"Do you seek to imitate them, then? You would make monsters of yourselves." Again the

ensign hesitated. "Perhaps you could do it. It would be bad for business, however."

There came a fluting burst of alien music over the ship's speakers, then a screeching fragment

of Investor language. Most of it was too high-pitched for Afriel's ears to follow.

The alien stood, his jeweled skirt brushing the tips of his clawed birdlike feet. "The Swarm's

symbiote has arrived," he said.

"Thank you," Afriel said. When the ensign opened the cabin door, Afriel could smell the

Swarm's representative; the creature's warm yeasty scent had spread rapidly through the starship's

recycled air.

Afriel quickly checked his appearance in a pocket mirror. He touched powder to his face and

straightened the round velvet hat on his shoulder-length reddish-blond hair. His earlobes glittered

with red impact-rubies, thick as his thumbs' ends, mined from the Asteroid Belt. His knee-length

coat and waistcoat were of gold brocade; the shirt beneath was of dazzling fineness, woven with

red-gold thread. He had dressed to impress the Investors, who expected and appreciated a

prosperous look from their customers. How could he impress this new alien? Smell, perhaps. He

freshened his perfume.

Beside the starship's secondary airlock, the Swarm's symbiote was chittering rapidly at the

ship's commander. The commander was an old and sleepy Investor, twice the size of most of her

crewmen. Her massive head was encrusted in a jeweled helmet. From within the helmet her

clouded eyes glittered like cameras.

The symbiote lifted on its six posterior legs and gestured feebly with its four clawed

forelimbs. The ship's artificial gravity, a third again as strong as Earth's, seemed to bother it. Its

rudimentary eyes, dangling on stalks, were shut tight against the glare. It must be used to

darkness, Afriel thought.

The commander answered the creature in its own language. Afriel grimaced, for he had hoped

that the creature spoke Investor. Now he would have to learn another language, a language

designed for a being without a tongue.

After another brief interchange the commander turned to Afriel. "The symbiote is not pleased

with your arrival," she told Afriel in the Investor language. "There has apparently been some

disturbance here involving humans, in the recent past. However, I have prevailed upon it to admit

you to the Nest. The episode has been recorded. Payment for my diplomatic services will be

arranged with your faction when I return to your native star system."

"I thank Your Authority," Afriel said. "Please convey to the symbiote my best personal

wishes, and the harmlessness and humility of my intentions...." He broke off short as the

symbiote lunged toward him, biting him savagely in the calf of his left leg. Afriel jerked free and

leapt backward in the heavy artificial gravity, going into a defensive position. The symbiote had

ripped away a long shred of his pants leg; it now crouched quietly, eating it.

"It will convey your scent and composition to its nestmates," said the commander. "This is

necessary. Otherwise you would be classed as an invader, and the Swarm's warrior caste would

kill you at once."

Afriel relaxed quickly and pressed his hand against the puncture wound to stop the bleeding.

He hoped that none of the Investors had noticed his reflexive action. It would not mesh well with

his story of being a harmless researcher.

"We will reopen the airlock soon," the commander said phlegmatically, leaning back on her

thick reptilian tail. The symbiote continued to munch the shred of cloth. Afriel studied the

creature's neckless segmented head. It had a mouth and nostrils; it had bulbous atrophied eyes on

stalks; there were hinged slats that might be radio receivers, and two parallel ridges of clumped

wriggling antennae, sprouting among three chitinous plates. Their function was unknown to him.

The airlock door opened. A rush of dense, smoky aroma entered the departure cabin. It

seemed to bother the half-dozen Investors, who left rapidly. "We will return in six hundred and

twelve of your days, as by our agreement," the commander said.

"I thank Your Authority," Afriel said.

"Good luck," the commander said in English. Afriel smiled.

The symbiote, with a sinuous wriggle of its segmented body, crept into the airlock. Afriel

followed it. The airlock shut behind them. The creature said nothing to him but continued

munching loudly. The second door opened, and the symbiote sprang through it, into a wide,

round stone tunnel. It disappeared at once into the gloom.

Afriel put his sunglasses into a pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pair of infrared goggles.

He strapped them to his head and stepped out of the airlock. The artificial gravity vanished,

replaced by the almost imperceptible gravity of the Swarm's asteroid nest. Afriel smiled,

comfortable for the first time in weeks. Most of his adult life had been spent in free-fall, in the

Shapers' colonies in the Rings of Saturn.

Squatting in a dark cavity in the side of the tunnel was a disk-headed furred animal the size of

an elephant. It was clearly visible in the infrared of its own body heat. Afriel could hear it

breathing. It waited patiently until Afriel had launched himself past it, deeper into the tunnel.

Then it took its place in the end of the tunnel, puffing itself up with air until its swollen head

securely plugged the exit into space. lts multiple legs sank firmly into sockets in the walls.

The Investors' ship had left. Afriel remained here, inside one of the millions of planetoids that

circled the giant star Betelgeuse in a girdling ring with almost five times the mass of Jupiter. As a

source of potential wealth it dwarfed the entire solar system, and it belonged, more or less, to the

Swarm. At least, no other race had challenged them for it within the memory of the Investors.

Afriel peered up the corridor. It seemed deserted, and without other bodies to cast infrared

heat, he could not see very far. Kicking against the wall, he floated hesitantly down the corridor.

He heard a human voice. "Dr. Afriel!"

"Dr. Mirny!" he called out. "This way!"

He first saw a pair of young symbiotes scuttling toward him, the tips of their clawed feet

barely touching the walls. Behind them came a woman wearing goggles like his own. She was

young, and attractive in the trim, anonymous way of the genetically reshaped.

She screeched something at the symbiotes in their own language, and they halted, waiting. She

coasted forward, and Afriel caught her arm, expertly stopping their momentum.

"You didn't bring any luggage?" she said anxiously.

He shook his head. "We got your warning before I was sent out. I have only the clothes I'm

wearing and a few items in my pockets."

She looked at him critically. "Is that what people are wearing in the Rings these days? Things

have changed more than I thought."

Afriel glanced at his brocaded coat and laughed. "It's a matter of policy. The Investors are

always readier to talk to a human who looks ready to do business on a large scale. All the

Shapers' representatives dress like this these days. We've stolen a jump on the Mechanists; they

still dress in those coveralls."

He hesitated, not wanting to offend her. Galina Mirny's intelligence was rated at almost two

hundred. Men and women that bright were sometimes flighty and unstable, likely to retreat into

private fantasy worlds or become enmeshed in strange and inpenetrable webs of plotting and

rationalization. High intelligence was the strategy the Shapers had chosen in the struggle for

cultural dominance, and they were obliged to stick to it, despite its occasional disadvantages.

They had tried breeding the Superbright -- those with quotients over two hundred -- but so many

had defected from the Shapers' colonies that the faction had stopped producing them.

"You wonder about my own clothing," Mirny said.

"It certainly has the appeal of novelty," Afriel said with a smile.

"It was woven from the fibers of a pupa's cocoon," she said. "My original wardrobe was eaten

by a scavenger symbiote during the troubles last year. I usually go nude, but I didn't want to

offend you by too great a show of intimacy."

Afriel shrugged. "I often go nude myself, I never had much use for clothes except for pockets.

I have a few tools on my person, but most are of little importance. We're Shapers, our tools are

here." He tapped his head. "If you can show me a safe place to put my clothes...."

She shook her head. It was impossible to see her eyes for the goggles, which made her

expression hard to read. "You've made your first mistake, Doctor. There are no places of our own

here. It was the same mistake the Mechanist agents made, the same one that almost killed me as

well. There is no concept of privacy or property here. This is the Nest. If you seize any part of it

for yourself -- to store equipment, to sleep in, whatever -- then you become an intruder, an

enemy. The two Mechanists -- a man and a woman -- tried to secure an empty chamber for their

computer lab. Warriors broke down their door and devoured them. Scavengers ate their

equipment, glass, metal, and all."

Afriel smiled coldly. "It must have cost them a fortune to ship all that material here."

Mirny shrugged. "They're wealthier than we are. Their machines, their mining. They meant to

kill me, I think. Surreptitiously, so the warriors wouldn't be upset by a show of violence. They

had a computer that was learning the language of the springtails faster than I could."

"But you survived," Afriel pointed out. "And your tapes and reports -- especially the early

ones, when you still had most of your equipment -- were of tremendous interest. The Council is

behind you all the way. You've become quite a celebrity in the Rings, during your absence."

"Yes, I expected as much," she said.

Afriel was nonplused. "If I found any deficiency in them," he said carefully, "it was in my

own field, alien linguistics." He waved vaguely at the two symbiotes who accompanied her. "I

assume you've made great progress in communicating with the symbiotes, since they seem to do

all the talking for the Nest."

She looked at him with an unreadable expression and shrugged. "There are at least fifteen

different kinds of symbiotes here. Those that accompany me are called the springtails, and they

speak only for themselves. They are savages, Doctor, who received attention from the Investors

only because they can still talk. They were a spacefaring race once, but they've forgotten it. They

discovered the Nest and they were absorbed, they became parasites." She tapped one of them on

the head. "I tamed these two because I learned to steal and beg food better than they can. They

stay with me now and protect me from the larger ones. They are jealous, you know. They have

only been with the Nest for perhaps ten thousand years and are still uncertain of their position.

They still think, and wonder sometimes. After ten thousand years there is still a little of that left

to them."

"Savages," Afriel said. "I can well believe that. One of them bit me while I was still aboard the

starship. He left a lot to be desired as an ambassador."

"Yes, I warned him you were coming," said Mirny. "He didn't much like the idea, but I was

able to bribe him with food.... I hope he didn't hurt you badly."

"A scratch," Afriel said. "I assume there's no chance of infection."

"I doubt it very much. Unless you brought your own bacteria with you."

"Hardly likely," Afriel said, offended. "I have no bacteria. And I wouldn't have brought

microorganisms to an alien culture anyway."

Mirny looked away. "I thought you might have some of the special genetically altered ones....

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