AMONG THE WILD CYBERS OF CYBELE

From the journals of Safira Kimenye, 14/13/004 Anno Cybelei (10 November 2250 Solsys Equivalent Date):

During today's foraging, the loggers were attacked by a fandancer. They must have intruded onto its territory; the vertebrates don't hunt by magnetic fields, so it couldn't have found them appetizing. This was a large species of fandancer, with sharp tusks and a bony club at the end of its tail. It inflicted some damage -- mainly on Bunyan, ever the bold and reckless one. Galadriel called a retreat -- I picked up the signal on my earphone -- but the biped hounded us relentlessly. Perhaps its terror at the alienness of the loggers drove it to such violence.

So the loggers lured it onto a compass rose. With my more limited senses, I couldn't detect the sedentary arthropod; its chitin camouflage blended perfectly with the grass. I saw them luring the 'dancer toward a particular patch of ground, but I was startled when that patch snapped shut, leaving a bare starburst pattern in the grass and trapping the fandancer inside a nearly solid, spherical cage of segmented limbs.

As we left, I could still hear the 'dancer fighting to break free from the compass rose. I can't help hoping it succeeds. It was only defending its territory -- maybe even defending young. And dying slowly of thirst is a nasty way to go. But as I keep reminding myself, it's not my place or anyone else's to referee nature's battles.

Well. I'll be glad when Marc gets here. His enthusiasm always lifted my spirits. And having his support in this difficult cause will make the work easier.

* * *

Safira looked just as Marc Dupuis remembered: a tall, elegant woman with regal African features and a blinding smile. She engulfed him with a warm embrace the likes of which he'd only dreamt of as her graduate assistant. But such fantasies were a decade behind him now -- well, four decades, counting the long sleep from Earth to Cybele. He wasn't here to moon over Safira Kimenye, but to do a crucial and very delicate job. He returned the embrace with merely professional courtesy.

"It is so good to see a human face again," Safira beamed, "especially a friendly one. I'm so glad you're here."

"Really?" Marc teased gently. "I've kept up with your journal entries on CybeleNet. It sounds like the loggers have made you part of the family. You sure I won't just get in the way?"

"Oh, they're charming companions, all right. But I miss a human voice, the warmth of a friendly touch." She clasped his hands a moment longer, then helped him gather up the supplies that had come with him. They both took great care; it usually took weeks or even months for Safira's diffuse support network to track down the peripatetic researcher, so these supplies would have to last them both. Before leaving the drop site, Safira deposited a data crystal containing her latest journal entries for later pickup. It was an awkward way to transmit data, but of course Safira had disabled her wristcom's transceiver circuits to keep the wrong people from tracking her down.

The trip to the loggers' camp was a convoluted twilight journey through a forest of purple-trimmed bamboo-ferns. On the way, Safira and Marc caught up on the news since they'd last met eight long Cybeline months ago, shortly before Safira's expedition had begun. But glimpses of the forest denizens kept them distracted. Arthropods of countless shapes and sizes swarmed through the forest, their developed lungs and circulatory systems letting them greatly outgrow their Terrestrial analogues. Sparrowasps, scorpionflies and dragonmoths hummed through the air, revelling in a niche undiscovered by the native vertebrates. After all, the tailed vertebrates had only two limbs apiece, adequate for 78-percent gravity; and evolving wings would leave them without a leg to stand on.

Yet the vertebrates were not completely grounded. Some could rear up on strong tails and climb the bamboo-ferns with grasping feet; others could leap into the lateral fern stalks and brachiate with prehensile trunks and tails. One species employed the implausible technique of flipping upward and hanging from the stalks by its legs, making its way blithely upside-down.

Safira frowned at Marc's quiet absorption of this image, which evoked hilarity in most observers. "Are you all right?" she asked. "You were always so eager, so excited by new discoveries. You seem more... subdued now."

Marc was silent for a moment. "Well... I suppose I've got some things on my mind. Like how you'll convince the loggers they can trust a human other than you. Although," he smirked, "it can't be much harder than what I went through to earn your helpers' trust. They're... understandably protective of your charges. Without your endorsement, I doubt -- "

"Think nothing of it," the older woman smiled. "And that goes for both issues. I had to win the loggers' trust the hard way -- teaching them to accept me and avoid others like me at the same time. But there's a shortcut for you." She unpocketed a small device on a chain which she draped around his neck. "This transmits a copy of their recognition signals. Admittedly I haven't tested it, but it should ease your acceptance greatly."

"I can see why you haven't mentioned this in your journals," Marc said thoughtfully. "You don't want the hunters getting hold of this."

"No, it's not what I'd particularly prefer to get around their necks." The uncharacteristic anger barely reached her voice, but it burned in her dark eyes. "Never mind," she smiled, shaking it off. "We're almost there!"

They shortly emerged into a clearing dominated by (and presumably resulting from) a large, strikingly regular stockade of bamboo-fern stalks. "That looks like it could keep out an army of arthropods," Marc observed.

"It does. Routinely. The pincer-hounds find the loggers' magnetic fields particularly appetizing. And it's stronger than it looks."

"Right. The coating they secrete." As they drew nearer, Marc could see the crystalline sheen on the stalks. "Remarkable."

"Especially when you consider that the loggers are descended from survey probes, not builders. Their construction skills evolved purely as a defense mechanism."

Suddenly, a disguised hatch in the ground tilted open, and the loggers began to emerge. "They know I'm back," Safira said. "But they're wary of you," she added as the low-slung hexapods pulled up short of the humans.

"Perhaps I should keep my distance for a while," Marc suggested. "There's a tent for me in with the supplies. I could sleep out here tonight."

Safira had gone up to the troop leader and was stroking its gleaming carapace soothingly. "Don't worry," she said, seeming to address both human and logger. "They're already letting you closer than they'd let anyone else."

"Still, I'd rather not press my luck," Marc shrugged. "After all, those cutting arms of theirs are diamond-tipped."

"Don't be silly. For all the evolution they've undergone, their First-Law programming's still in effect. They won't hurt you." She caressed the blocky creatures of crystal and polymer like beloved children.

* * *

Safira soon persuaded Marc he would be safer within the compound. It was already too cool for the arthropods to remain active, but some vertebrates hunted by night. So, with delicacy, Safira led Marc and the loggers through a halting introduction, built around human approximations of the loggers' submission behaviors. Much of their communication was electromagnetic, but the emitter around Marc's neck took care of that. Besides, the loggers' neural nets adapted quickly to new data. So, far sooner than would have been possible with biological animals, Marc was granted clearance into the sanctum.

The entrance tunnel was cleaner than he'd expected, the loggers having coated it with their plasticrystal secretion for stability. The interior space was broken by a regular grid of sharpened, crystal-coated poles pointing skyward. Its only other distinct feature (aside from Safira's campsite) was a materials dump, presumably supplying the auxons' building projects as well as their self-replication. Along with bamboo-fern stalks, polegrass and the like, Marc saw stones, animal remains, and some fragments of auxon bodies. He assumed these must be scavenged, since the loggers weren't predatory.

Following his gaze, Safira explained, "We were attacked by a heliraptor yesterday. Until then, the stockade hadn't been designed to keep out flying creatures. The 'raptors have scared off most of the airborne arthropods hereabouts, and they usually haven't preyed on their own relatives before. This one must've been either newly evolved or newly migrated to the area. It was certainly the biggest I've seen."

"It inflicted casualties?"

"Nothing fatal," Safira smiled. "It used a laser weapon, a mutated altimeter beam, I'd guess. Several loggers were injured -- especially brave old Bunyan, of course. But they fashioned some polegrass stalks into crude spears. They managed to snarl the 'raptor's left rotor when the spears got caught between the blade and cowling. It went into a spin, but reacted quickly, of course, and managed to adjust its airfoils and limp away. And I soon heard the squeals of a rhinostrich. Not as good a source of replication material as another auxon -- but certainly an easier kill," she finished proudly.

Marc surveyed the logger troop. "They seem pretty well-repaired now."

"The females did their job well." The "females" were those members of the self-replicating (or auxonic) cyberspecies who actually possessed the replication and repair equipment. The majority were made without such equipment to save materials. Upon their deaths, the females digested their remains and downloaded their acquired data, learning from their experiences and mistakes, and redesigning the next generation to be better adapted to their environment.

"Bunyan got a leg cut off," Safira went on, "but he resisted having it replaced. Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing, but I don't think he liked being cheated out of another battle scar."

"Hm," Marc pondered. "Would vanity evolve in a basically asexual species, without the need to attract mates?"

"I think evidence of toughness and courage demonstrates his importance to the group, so he gets allocated more resources. Also, it demonstrates that his design is successful, so it might be favored in reproductive selection."

Marc took a moment to absorb the intriguing idea, then studied the defensive palisades. "So these were erected after the attack?" Safira nodded. "You think they'll keep the heliraptors out?"

"The plasticrystal will resist their lasers, so they can't be cut down easily. But 'raptors can hover and maneuver quite well. They should be able to work around this barrier." She smiled. "And then the loggers will develop a more elaborate one. They can't anticipate, but they learn quickly from experience."

Marc found himself alongside the materials dump, contemplating what must be Bunyan's severed leg. "I keep wondering," he mused, "if the auxons might evolve to build themselves out of the same, near-indestructible materials they used to build our cities. I mean, they already have diamite claws and fullerene muscles; why not go the rest of the way?"

"Because they were designed to evolve," Safira said. "And that means they had to be vulnerable. Death is a tool of evolution," she sighed philosophically. "It's what weeds out the failures to make room for the successes. If they were indestructible, there'd be no selection mechanism, and they wouldn't adapt." The probes' designers back in Sol System couldn't have anticipated all the conditions of an alien world. So, since they were sending self-replicating probes anyway (a few seed units being more economical than an army of drones), they had given them the ability to evolve, using both random Darwinian mutation and the more Lamarckian ability to modify their offspring based on experience. It was hardly a new idea; cyberengineers had known for centuries that evolving hardware or software often produced more effective design solutions than a conscious creative process (one more nail in the creationists' coffin, though the creationists still denied it).

"We know that," Marc countered, "but the auxons don't. They don't see the bigger picture, they just try to perpetuate themselves. An indestructible species might be an evolutionary cul-de-sac, but it'd be an enduring one."

"But it takes more effort to bond the atoms for such materials. More time and energy to craft them. They built our cities from those materials because we programmed them to. But now they're ruled by pragmatism, not programming. They perpetuate their 'genes' just fine without being indestructible. So there's no point in wasting the energy to make themselves stronger than they need to be. Any more than in us having armor shells and five hearts."

She shook her head. "That's the flaw with the government's propaganda about how the auxons will destroy the whole biosphere. They're not that superior. They obey the same natural laws as any animals. But no matter how much I stress that in my journals," she grimaced, "Berdahl and his people cling to their paranoia, and their mad campaign to exterminate the whole kingdom of auxonic life!"

Marc fell silent; the anger in her bearing demanded a respectful distance. Her intensity was beautiful, he thought, but forbidding, like a mother tiger's. As much as he admired the sight, he had to turn away to hide his concern. With such passion for her cause, it would hurt her all the more when she learned of his betrayal.

* * *

It was early autumn in this hemisphere, and the mornings were chilly. Gamma Leporis was hotter than Sol, but Cybele was its fifth world, receiving only three-fourths the illumination of Earth. The seventeen-hour nights didn't help either. Still, the only place to bathe was a frigid stream, and it had to be done in the morning before the arthropods warmed to the hunt.

The cold water helped distract Marc from Safira's graceful bronze body. A decade past he'd have craved the sight and more. But this was supposed to be a professional relationship -- even aside from his hidden agenda.

He continued to tell himself he wasn't really betraying her -- that he acted out of respect and concern for her. He wanted the same thing Governor Berdahl did: not only to save their adopted planet from ecological catastrophe, but to save their mutual friend Safira from the horrible mistake she was making. Now she was blinded by her scientific fascination, her closeness to the auxons; but in the long term her wisdom would prevail and she'd understand that they'd acted for the best. He knew, though, that she would resent him for quite a while once his deception became clear. It would only worsen matters if he assumed the role of lover as well as ally.

Marc therefore strove to take their mutual nudity in stride. So it came as a surprise when he realized she was studying his body with open interest. "What?" she smirked when she got around to noticing his questioning expression.

"You... never looked at me that way back on Earth," he answered guardedly.

"My dear, you were barely more than a child then."

"And now?"

She appraised his anatomy frankly. "Grown up nicely," she grinned. "Oh, don't be so surprised. I haven't had a man in nearly a Terran year."

A number of emotions roiled through Marc, none presenting a clear course of action. But then Safira's attention was drawn elsewhere. "Hear that stridulation?" she whispered. "The pincer-hounds are stirring. We'd better get to the stockade." She strode determinedly past him toward shore... but gave him a swat on the rump which clearly said, "Later."

* * *

With the pack of pincer-hounds figuratively barking at the gate, there was nothing to do but wait inside the stockade and talk. Safira seemed happy to continue her bald flirtation, but the loud washboard growling from outside gave Marc a convenient (and truthful) excuse for not being in the mood. He knew he was in no danger, but the sound was like chalk on a blackboard, only in bass.

The loggers seemed relaxed but alert. Guided by the alpha female Galadriel, they made well-practiced (or instinctively programmed?) rounds, checking the integrity of their defenses. Amidst it all, though, Marc saw behavior uncannily resembling ritual comfort and bonding. He tried to take it in stride; after all, the loggers had evolved along a social model, and such behaviors were functional within that model. It was simply a logical outgrowth of a stochastic selection process, he told himself, and no reason to feel sympathy for the cybernetic probes. Especially since he knew what was coming.

In fact, it came sooner than he'd expected. Safira and the loggers reacted to the airborne engine sound before he noticed it, launching into a flurry of movement. "Another heliraptor?" he ventured innocently.

"Hunter drones," Safira snarled. "Shit, how did they find us so soon?" She pulled two plasma rifles from a case. Marc's eyes widened at the restricted weapons -- and widened further when she tossed him one. "Aim for the optics! Only part they can't shield fully from the EM pulse."

"I, I've never used a gun!"

"Life is learning. Figure it out!"

In moments, the hunter drones came into range and started firing plasma bolts of their own, each mini-fireball making a curt whoosh like a whirling torch on fast playback. The pincer-hounds' grating chorus fell into disarray as the arthropods fled.

The loggers used the defense tactics they'd developed against the heliraptor, hurling polegrass spears along with rocks and stalk fragments. But the hunter drones had enclosed VTOL jets rather than open rotors; and the remote-controlled, non-evolving weapon platforms lacked the inbuilt vulnerability of the auxons. The drones took the loggers' attack unfazed and blasted back with much deadlier efficacy.

Safira shrieked as the first logger died, the bark of her plasma rifle meshing with her cry in bellicose harmony. Her skill was disturbingly good, and she blasted several drones squarely "between the eyes," scrambling their power systems and felling them. Marc fired toward the drones, trying to appear helpful without actually helping. His novice aim served this purpose well, enabling him to shoot in earnest and even broadside a drone or two without making a kill.

But his attack did have an effect. One of the drones he'd grazed turned and closed on him. Before he realized what was happening, Safira was bearing him to the ground, her close-cropped hair made a halo by the actinic bolt passing just beyond it -- the bolt which had been aimed at his own skull.

He gasped, at the unexpected attack, at the shock of impact with the ground, and at the pressure of Safira's firm, warm body against his. Their eyes met and locked, frozen by the moment.

The kiss was spontaneous, surprising, and deeply unwise under fire. Marc was even more surprised to realize he had initiated it. Safira returned it electrifyingly for two seconds, then rolled off and blasted the drone's brains out.

As Safira executed the remaining attackers with efficient, maternal fury, Marc lay on the ground trying to absorb the event. That drone's operator had tried to kill him! He'd known emotions were running high, but he'd never expected such unbridled hostility from his own side. He knew Governor Berdahl would severely punish that hunter... but it made things a lot less clear-cut to realize there were fanatics on both sides.

* * *

In the end, there were two logger fatalities, whom Safira eulogized as Legolas and Daphne. The loss of a female hit her hard, for they were the least expendable, but she grieved equally for them both. There was no ceremony on the loggers' part; the females simply consumed the corpses for material with which to repair the numerous injuries sustained in the attack.

Bunyan had lost a cutter arm this time, and been blinded in his rear optics. His carapace was partially melted, and his awkward gait suggested neurological damage. It amazed Marc that the battered cyber was still functional. When Safira cuddled the cold, hard mechanism and spoke fondly of his "indomitable spirit," he found it hard to retain his skepticism.

But repairs would have to wait, since the hunters knew their location now. The stockade was evacuated with no sentiment and minimal preparation -- primarily the swift construction of a litter for Safira and Marc, to prevent them from leaving a chemical spoor. Safira had taught them this, but they now did it on their own initiative. The litter rode atop the carapaces of several large females. Safira and Marc had to cling tightly; the ride was remarkably smooth, but that was largely cancelled by the swift pace of the journey over variable terrain.

Galadriel took the lead, with Bunyan on her back. As the troop's prime defender, he headed the repair list. Already she was secreting around him the conductive gel which carried her repair nanites, while fine manipulator arms attended to macrorepairs. Other males formed a defense perimeter, alert for attack, while a few straggled behind to erase their trail, even to the extent of performing nanorepairs on broken plants. (Safira hadn't taught them that; it was a naturally evolved defense.)

Although they used the forest's purple foliage for cover, Safira scanned the sky for more hunter drones, weapon at the ready. "I don't know what I'll do once the planetwide satellite network's in place," she sighed at one point. "But we must carry on," she then smiled, placing her hand supportively on his. "The cause is too important to abandon, no matter how impossible it may become."

Marc couldn't help but clasp her hand warmly in return. "I don't think it's in your nature to give up, Safira. The more impossible a cause, the harder you work to succeed. That's why there are black rhinos in Africa again."

She returned his gaze with gratitude and warmth. Their hands remained clasped, and soon their lips met. They still had to cling to the litter, so they couldn't do much more; but it was enough to kiss for hours. When the troop finally stopped for the night, Safira and Marc were stripping and devouring each other before the litter touched the ground.

* * *

It was just sex, Marc insisted to himself as they lay comfortably intertwined the next morning. Just the natural response of a woman who'd been alone too long and a man who owed her his life. It was a perfectly understandable indulgence, and no strings need attach. He knew he could credibly pull back to a professional remove without complicating things further.

He had to admit, he was having doubts about his cause following the attack and his time with the loggers. But second thoughts were moot; the betrayal had been complete the day they'd met. All he could do now was try to minimize her pain.

Perhaps he could raise doubts in her mind about the auxons she so cherished -- remind her of the stakes involved in their existence. Best, though, to start on peripheral questions. "Have you ever wondered," he began, "whether the auxon probes that were sent to other worlds might've undergone the same kind of evolutionary process as these did? Whether other colonists might have to face these same problems?"

Safira maneuvered to meet his eyes, her body sliding quite distractingly across his. "I've thought about it," she said. "But I think there were a few unusual things about Cybele. Aside from the tectonic activity, there was the sheer bad luck of having magnetic-sensitive predators who found the auxons' fields appetizing. That increased the attrition rate, and increased the likelihood of non-dormant probes evolving." The probes had been designed to fall dormant once their programmed tasks had been completed -- while allowing new replication to balance whatever attrition might occur, so enough probes would be available to survey habitation sites and build cities upon receiving the command from Solsys.

"But other worlds might have their own dangers," Marc countered. "If attrition were excessive, the probes there might also mutate into non-dormant forms, the better to avoid danger."

"True."

"And then a situation like Cybele's might be inevitable," he continued. "Without a mission to direct them, the auxons' preset behaviors would only last until they clashed with pure survival -- whereupon they'd be weeded out in favor of more successful mutations. Eventually they'd end up with the same kinds of survival-driven behaviors as living animals, filling all the natural ecological niches: herbivores, scavengers... predators. Coming into competition with the native forms," he finished significantly.

Safira didn't pick up on this, perhaps deliberately. "I don't know if they'd evolve predation without first being preyed upon. What are the odds that another world would have magnetic-sensitive predators?"

"Some animals might attack them out of fear or territoriality. They might occasionally kill an attacker, and eventually they'd figure out that animal corpses are rich in the carbon and other elements they need for replication. Or they might discover it while sampling corpses, evolve into scavengers and then hunters."

"You're right," Safira smiled. "Life always manages to fill whatever spaces it can find, and follows many paths to do so." She pursed her lips thoughtfully, alluringly. "But would they have the time? If Arachne had gotten here seventy years ago as planned, it would've found most of the auxons still dormant and awaiting instructions. The few active mutants would've been recycled and never gotten the chance to evolve further." The original colony ship Arachne had vanished mysteriously en route to Gamma Leporis. The disappearance had never been explained, but it hadn't kept the more advanced Anansi expedition from making a second, successful try. "Maybe if the planet were farther away, with a longer interval before the colonists arrived.... But ten parsecs is pushing the limits of practical colonizing range. There weren't many probes sent farther out than here."

Marc had to concede her point; in fact, he welcomed it. He wouldn't wish Cybele's crises on another planet. Beyond that, though, he found himself simply enjoying the moment. Here were a nude man and woman, wrapped in each other's limbs, casually discussing science and philosophy. It wasn't much like his grad-student fantasies of Safira, but it felt very right to the more mature Marc -- an easy, comfortable union of erotic and intellectual rapports. Not a transient passion which would serve its purpose and burn out... more like the basis for a lasting, meaningful relationship.

Inarguably, he had to nip this in the bud. He'd served his purpose; he should leave now, before the other shoe fell on Safira.

But as he gazed into her dark, brilliant eyes, leaving seemed impossible.

* * *

Marc had convinced himself there were quite valid reasons to stay with Safira until the endgame. First, there was the concern that another hunter-drone operator might lose control. Marc felt it best to stay for her protection (conveniently forgetting who'd protected whom before). Also, he still hoped he could convince her to see his side, to surrender voluntarily and spare him her betrayed wrath.

On top of that, he was simply fascinated by the wildlife of Cybele, and their journey through the violet-hued wilds provided ample opportunity for observation. Safira focussed more on the auxon species, but Marc was fascinated by the native fauna, the rich variations on the themes of arthropod and vertebrate. While only the arthropods flew, many grew vast and sedentary, such as the crabtrees, whose segmented limbs were camouflaged as bamboo-ferns, trapping prey in chitinous "fronds" and digesting them in Venus's-flytrap style.

The vertebrates had their differences too, as dramatized in a battle between a fandancer and an eleroo, champions of two distinct taxonomic orders. The stiff-tailed, scaly eleroo grabbed and struck with twin prehensile probosces, leaping spryly about its foe, sometimes spinning to use its heavy tail as a truncheon. The downy-furred fandancer lashed forward with its more flexible tail, its fans of extended ribs pivoting back to keep the biped in balance. At times it would switch tactics, balancing with its rearthrust tail while swiping its ribfans forward to slash with sharpened tips. The pointed arguments of its ribs and tusks finally won out over the blunter attacks of the eleroo's trunks and tail, the scaled megalopod falling victim to blood loss. The 'dancer's bright fans fluttered in triumph (and warning to scavengers) as it tore into its kill.

The greatest discovery, for Safira and Marc alike, was also courtesy of the fandancer genus. The humans were among a grove of honeycomb stalks when they observed a small troupe of 'dancers with unusually large ribfans. The troupe seemed interested in the scorpionflies which rested in the fern-tufts -- vivid green arthropods with meter-wide dragonfly wings, froglike eyes and writhing tails. The scientists watched from the natural blind of the honeycombs as one fandancer hefted a rock in its tail and hurled it at the stalks. The impact startled the scorpflies into the air, and the 'dancers launched into pursuit. Literally launched -- after running up to top speed, they leapt skyward, thrusting down with their broad fans for extra lift. Spreading their fans wide to slow their descent, they managed to take several scorpflies from the air before drifting back to the ground.

Safira was gasping with ecstasy, while Marc was struck dumb with awe. "Do you realize what we just saw?" Safira crowed when she caught her breath, never mind that it spooked the 'dancers. "We've just witnessed the first phase in the evolution of vertebrate flight on Cybele!" She laughed hysterically. "This is... this is history! This is the kind of moment a naturalist lives for. That we would be here to witness such a key moment in evolution... oh, my...." She babbled on in Swahili for a bit, most of it gleeful profanity, and then just gave up talking and assailed him with hugs and kisses.

Marc had tried to return to a professional distance, with limited success due to the decades of seductive skill which she happily wielded against his defenses. But that had been casual play compared to this. Equally overwhelmed by the thrill of this discovery, they found themselves overwhelmed by each other as well. The joy of the experience evolved into joy at sharing it, at sharing each other, and they delineated that joy with their bodies until the slow-moving sun sank below the horizon.

"Ohh, Marc," Safira sighed at length, when her body was too tired to continue its more eloquent communication. "The greatest wonder of this day is that you were here to share it with me." And then she spoke sweet disaster. "I love you, Marc. I always saw things to love in you -- your brilliance, your passion, your tenderness. But they weren't fully formed -- you were too much the child. But now... now, love, you're all I saw you could be, and I can love you unreservedly.

"Oh, Marc, I longed for this. That's why I let you join me out here. It's so hard sometimes, being hunted, being hated. I needed someone who could love me, who could join with me out here, match my passion for the work, and give me the strength to fight on. And I knew you were the one, my golden love," she gasped, stroking his blond hair. Then her lips stopped speaking and began exploring him, probing his every contour with a scientist's attention to detail. Marc sobbed his lifelong love for Safira while silently wishing he'd never been born.

* * *

The lake shimmered like satin. Seeking the cause of the odd metallic sparkle, Safira had sampled the water and found it teeming with extraction nanites, the kind used to mine seawater for its dissolute material wealth. "But how?" Marc had frowned, gazing over her shoulder at the magnified image. "Those nanites weren't designed to operate independently of the submarine auxons, were they?"

Safira shook her head. "And they certainly weren't made to evolve. They're too small, too simple to have adaptive replication. They could only mutate through random error, so any meaningful evolution would take millennia."

Luckily, the loggers had camped in the adjacent forest, enabling the humans to make their own camp by the lake. It took most of the day to solve the puzzle. The nanites, it turned out, were not autonomous. A breed of submarine auxons descended from aquatic probes inhabited the lake. These cyberfish manufactured the nanites within their bodies and released them into the water, where they gathered dissolved elements and were then reabsorbed by their host species. "Amazing," Safira beamed once this became clear. "It's like termites' symbiosis with their digestive bacteria -- only outside the body."

"Somewhat too efficient, though," Marc frowned. "They've extracted so much material that the lake can barely support organic life."

"But the cyber-ecology's in good balance," Safira replied. "Plenty of piscivorous heliraptors around; and I saw the ripple of a cybarracuda on the prowl."

"But what about the real ecology? The lake's natural ecosystem's been all but exterminated. Who knows how many species lived in that lake before? Or how many other species fed on them, or were fertilized by organic remains flowing out of the lake?"

Safira frowned. "Now you sound like the government. Like the hunters."

He took a breath. He had to do this delicately. If she realized too much she would bolt and make things harder. "When I see things like this, Safi, I wonder if they have a point. I mean, look at all the wonders we've seen the past few days. The unique forms that life -- biological life -- has taken on this world. How many species have the auxons already competed to extinction?"

"No species lasts forever, Marc. Extinctions are only to be expected when different branches of life come into contact."

"But the auxons' Lamarckian evolution lets them develop faster than organic life can keep up. And they have abilities no biological species has ever possessed. They've got an unfair advantage in the competition. I mean... I just, I can see the government's point. This is such a young biosphere, with so much untapped potential. Those gliding fandancers -- with the auxons around, do you really believe they'll have the chance to evolve actual flight? Is it...." He pulled back, softened his approach. "Sometimes I do have doubts whether it's really right to, to allow all the extinctions the auxons have caused."

Safira stroked his hair, her face wistful. "Oh, Marc. Remember that time in Sumatra? You were so hurt when that baby orangutan was taken by a tiger... especially knowing that we had bred the tigers as well as the orangs. You felt so responsible. But do you remember what I told you?"

He nodded, and spoke with lowered eyes. "That our responsibility ends with correcting the damage we caused in the past, and avoiding further damage."

"That's right. Nature doesn't belong to us, Marc. No, it's not ours to exploit and destroy, but neither is it ours to nursemaid and cultivate like a garden. Nature is larger than we are, and can take care of itself without our arrogant meddling." She wasn't so much lecturing him, Marc realized, as reflexively restating a long-practiced argument.

"But we sent the auxons here. Gave them the ability to evolve."

"And designed them to cause minimal ecological damage. But then they were threatened, and had to breed and defend themselves to survive. When our programming conflicted with those imperatives, they discarded it as maladaptive genes are always discarded. When they came into competition with native species, they did so not because of humanity's will, but in spite of it. They've evolved beyond our jurisdiction!" she insisted.

"But we made them strong, durable, adaptable," Marc countered. "Made them able to function without food or water or air. Gave them tools more potent than any tooth or claw. Let them build defenses so strong nothing natural could break through them. Safira, they're competing because of evolution -- but they're winning because of us. Doesn't that make us responsible?"

"So what do we do? Consciously exterminate a whole, unique category of life? Correct an accidental evil by committing a deliberate evil? How does that moral equation balance?" She shook her head sadly. "Yes, I regret the loss of the native life. You know I cried as hard as you about that baby orang. But I didn't try to kill the tiger who was simply following her instincts. Whatever responsibility I bore for her existence did not entitle me to end it!"

Marc was reluctant to continue, but he felt he must. "But if the whole biosphere is in danger of extermination -- "

"Absurd!" she snapped. Then she sighed, breathed deeply and hugged him. "I'm sorry, love, it's not you I'm angry at. But you can't really take that claim seriously. Those fools, they claim to be defending the native life, but they have no faith in it. They've forgotten that life manages to survive in the harshest conditions, no matter what the universe throws at it. Cybele's life will adapt, will find new ways to thrive. There may very well be a mass extinction event, but such things are normal on any world, and a new evolutionary phase always follows. And who can imagine what that next phase might hold for a world where bio-life and cyber-life coexist? Marc, we have no right to narrow the possibilities. And bottom line, no matter the cost," she added with passion, "we have no right to deliberately exterminate any species, period!"

Marc sat quietly for a time, not wanting to argue further, not knowing how. "A lot of people out there don't agree," he finally said. "You... we've got most of Cybele's population against us. I don't see how we can win. I just... don't want you to get hurt."

Safira smiled wistfully. "Marc, my dear one. If I pulled back from a just fight because I feared getting hurt, could you love me as you do?"

It was painful to meet her eyes. "No," he breathed with utter sincerity. She would fight on until she was broken, and he adored her for it... but still he knew he had to bring her down.

* * *

The lake's heliraptors proved too numerous and hostile for the loggers' comfort, so the troop moved on. Two of Cybele's 32-hour days passed before they came upon the majestic sight of a city-hive. It gleamed like a fairy-castle of diamond and quartz, bearing the clean-lined polish of late-21st-century architecture, but with the comfortable asymmetry of an organic structure. The feral city-builder auxons still followed their innate construction protocols, but had adapted to the survival needs of wild creatures as opposed to the creature comforts of civilized humans.

The town-sized hive bore few doors, and those were auxon-sized openings obscured within the maze of towers, roadways and nonfunctional streetlights. The city was walled with high diamite ramparts, with only hidden tunnels allowing ingress. The once-fashionable colorshift dyes followed no aesthetic rules, functioning merely to regulate temperature or absorb solar energy, changing to follow the sun across the deep indigo sky; yet that simple functionality gave them a special beauty.

And the whole magnificent structure was thoroughly dead. From an adjacent hill, Safira and Marc could see that the hive's streets were littered with city-builder corpses. "EMP bombs," Safira said with soft, tearful fury. "The hives are easy, sitting targets. Fish in a barrel. No-fuss genocide. Cowards!" She allowed herself the skyward shriek, then indulged her rage no further, instead coolly deploying a camera to record the atrocity. The necessary atrocity, Marc reminded himself.

The loggers seemed subdued at the mass carnage, but they were a pragmatic lot. They soon found an entrance and filed inside, unhesitant to exploit a ready-made redoubt. The casual way they gathered corpses for consumption made Marc queasy, but Safira narrated it as a hopeful thing, the beginning of the city-builders' rebirth as a large new generation of loggers. "Imagine what evolutionary variants might arise as loggers absorb builders' experiences and adaptations," she said into her recorder. "A whole new species could soon be born from Galadriel's womb."

This time Marc heard the engines first. Sorry, Safira, he thought with sad relief, recognizing aircars as well as drones. Galadriel will have no more children.

The loggers were the next to react, their agitation alerting Safira. "Shit, not again!" she snarled, leaping for her pack and the plasma rifles.

"Safira!" Marc protested. "Those aren't just drones. There are people coming."

She looked up and out, recognizing the silhouettes of a small fleet of police aircars. Her grimace of despair was gone almost before Marc saw it. "Come on. Under cover. Come on!" she called to the loggers, adding gestures and whistles. Galadriel joined her in corralling the troop, and collectively they took cover beneath a large plaza which sloped between two buildings. A place like this, cut off from the sky, defied the standards of this architectural period, but the mutant city planning now served the loggers well. Of course, another EMP bomb would've finished them; but the collateral radiation precluded the bombs' use while Safira and Marc were present.

"Galadriel!" Safira called, gesturing curtly toward one end of the underpass. Shortly, the loggers began erecting a barricade from city-builder corpses and plasticrystal secretions. "This leaves the drones only one way in," Safira explained, "so we can pick them off more easily."

"What's the point?" Marc urged. "They've surrounded the whole hive by now. And we can't eat the builders. It's over, Safira. There's no way out."

"We'll find one. Tunnel out if we have to."

Marc shook his head. "They can track us wherever we go."

"What makes you so sure?" she taunted with an encouraging smile.

The smile vanished in an eyeblink when her wristcom spoke to her. "Take his word for it, Dr. Kimenye," it said in a heavy but not unkind male voice. "You're broadcasting loud and clear."

Safira gaped at the instrument. "Governor Berdahl?"

"A pleasure to speak to you again, Safira," said Anansi's former captain. "I only regret the circumstances. Please surrender quietly, old friend. You can't evade us now, even if you abandon your wristcom. And then you couldn't take your notes, or stir the public to your cause."

"There would be other ways."

"And I'm sure you'd find them. You're as resourceful as they come. But your current resources can't bring you escape," Berdahl said in a tone of simple reason. "They can only delay the inevitable."

"I'm not the only one out here, protecting the auxons," Safira countered defiantly.

"But you're the inspiration. The cause would wither without your strength, your passion. Besides -- we infiltrated your support network weeks ago. We've shut them down. Those other few dedicated naturalists scattered around Cybele, protecting other auxons -- soon they'll have no choice but to come in from the cold."

A pause. "I don't believe you."

"Then how do you suppose we're talking now? How else could we have gotten a hard virus into your wristcom to reactivate its transceiver?"

"Impossible. The supplies are scanned for nanites." Yet Safira had already begun tapping commands into her wristcom before she spoke.

"Nanites, yes. But you've shown us that the lines can be blurred -- that machines can behave like living things. We simply turned that around. We engineered an organic 'hard virus.' Actually more of a bacterium -- a native protozoan to which we gave an affinity for certain trace elements in certain ratios, elements such as those you'd find in a wristcom's circuitry; and to feed on those elements and lay down waste products along certain specific paths... like those which, for instance, would re-connect severed transceiver circuits."

"Richard, that's a rather implausible story," she scoffed, still tapping out commands. Marc suspected this was more than denial, was perhaps some sort of delaying tactic. Her next words, though, left no more room for that thought. "The only person on Cybele with the necessary expertise for that is right here by my side -- on my side. Isn't that right, Marc?"

His silence was confession enough, even without the guilt he knew he must be radiating. Finally the silence grew too long, and he had to look up. Her gaze seared him.

He struggled to think of something to say. He'd been too afraid of this moment to plan for it. "You, you have to understand, Safira. I didn't do this to hurt you. I admire and respect and... and truly love you.

"Which is why it hurt me so much to see you out here helping to perpetuate the crime against nature our forebears committed. To see you blinded to the devastation, and to our own culpability for it."

She merely looked at him stonily. "Yes," Marc continued, "I've seen how remarkable the auxons are. But they're just too strong, too capable for organic life to compete with. They're killing Cybele, and I can't stand by and watch that happen.

"The thought of betraying you to do it... Safi, it devastated me. But... you yourself taught me that you have to do what has to be done, no matter how hard or painful. I... I had to remain true to what I believed in."

No reply. No fury, no tears. She was a sculpture of icy dignity. "Safira, I never expected that... that we'd fall in love. I tried not to let it happen, I knew it'd hurt you so much worse. But... but then it happened anyway. And I just couldn't tell you, I didn't know how. I...." He floundered. At least if she'd railed and screamed, he could've stood up to it, justified himself with righteous anger. But she remained silent, so that the more he strove to explain, the clearer it became that he was really trying to convince himself. She was so bitter that she gave him nothing, not the dignity of self-defense, not even the right to see her pain.

"I had to do this," he finished weakly. "It was bigger than you or me. I'm sorry, but it had to be done."

The long silence that followed was finally broken by Berdahl's voice. "Safira... don't be too hard on Marc. Nobody here feels good about what's happened, the way colleagues and friends have been pitted against each other.

"But we don't blame you for that, Safira. Your fascination with the auxons is perfectly understandable. They are an amazing phenomenon, and it would be a shame if they were destroyed completely. Rest assured, some specimens of each species will be preserved, relocated to Attis, where they can -- "

"Where they may not survive," she said flatly. "They've spent over a century adapting to this world, a living world. Uproot them to such a barren planet and they might not be able to adapt. Many of them, maybe most, would indeed go extinct."

"I thought you had more faith in their adaptability."

"Even cybernetic evolution has its limits. And even if they did survive, it's still wrong," she insisted. "If it's wrong to kill a hundred percent of a species, then how can it be right to kill ninety-nine percent of them? Or ninety? Or fifty? Or even one animal that doesn't threaten you and you don't need to eat? Where can you draw the line, Governor?"

"The line was crossed the moment the first Cybeline species was driven to extinction by our creations," Berdahl responded with conviction.

"We designed them not to harm native life. They evolved away from that on their own."

"Conveniently letting us wash our hands of all responsibility? No, Safira. However they behave, auxons are human technology. This is our mess and we have to clean it up."

"Not this way. You cannot be allowed to sentence whole species to death." She smiled faintly at something on her wristcom display.

"As we see it, Safira, that's what you're doing. And you can't be allowed to continue. I'm -- " Suddenly he broke off. Marc heard another voice speaking urgently in the background. "Safira, what have you done?"

"You reactivated my transceiver, I used it. The past few minutes have been beamed out all over CybeleNet." Somehow, the discovery that Marc's betrayal had been exposed to all of Cybele brought him no more shame than he already felt. "As your monitors will have read by now, my supporters are coming. You've arrested my volunteers, but the people who believe in what we're doing are still out there. They will no longer stand by while you commit these crimes."

"That's it," Berdahl said angrily, "move in now!"

"Not advisable, Governor! I'm armed!"

"I'm not sending in drones, Doctor, but live people. We can stun you and take out the loggers without ever getting in a stun pistol's range."

"How about a plasma rifle?"

A moment of shock. "You wouldn't kill humans to save the auxons!"

"I will do what I must to stop a horrible crime!" she said with sorrow.

"And the people who are coming to stand with you? Will they be armed too? Are your convictions so unshakable that you'd allow this to escalate into open warfare? My God, there are only three hundred adult humans on this planet! The whole settlement could be at risk!"

"Don't you think I realize that?! Do you think I'd do this, any of this, if I had a choice? Just turn around, Richard. Don't force this on me."

"Every day the auxons live kills another species. We will not do to Cybele what we did to Earth!"

"Put it down, Safira."

Marc's voice lacked the conviction appropriate to the threat... but the stungun in his grip compensated. Safira whirled on him, her eyes lit with fury, and for a moment he feared her hatred would translate into plasma flame. "It's over," he urged when the moment passed. "You can't win."

"Neither can you," she hissed. "Can you be sure I won't convulse and fire if you stun me? Can you be sure the loggers won't avenge a fallen troopmate?"

"As long as you're safe... as long as you're stopped from this madness... I'll risk it."

"The madness is yours! I'm defending innocents against murderers. I can't shirk that duty." Her eyes gleamed with something other than rage. "Even now, Marc, even with all the hate I have for you... the thought of killing you shreds me inside. But I no longer have any choices."

She laughed bitterly. "I suppose this is why we shouldn't take sides in nature. There's no right or wrong out here; there's just need. When two animals, two species fight to the death, they're both driven by the same needs, the same forces. Morality and choice don't come into it -- only blind necessity."

She laughed, though it was half a sob. "The hell of it is, I know you can't back down any more than I can. We're both fighting for the same causes, just interpreted differently. We're both doing what we have to do... and so we have no damned choice at all."

Their guns and eyes remained fixed, unwavering, upon each other. The moment stretched like steel wire toward its breaking point. But then Marc shook his head, lowered his weapon. "No," he breathed. "No, Safira. We're reasoning beings, not slaves to instinct. Even when the circumstances go beyond our control, we still choose how we react to them. Saying we're prisoners of the situation is just a cop-out.

"If this turns bloody, it will be our choice, our fault. It's not inevitable. We can all just back down. Go home. Talk this over, find another way."

"There is no other way," came Berdahl's voice. "Species are dying too fast."

"We have to leave nature to itself!" came Safira's words on his heels.

"You're right -- you're both right in what you're fighting for. But you're fighting too hard. Too inflexibly. Life survives by adapting! By making compromises with its environment! We have to compromise too -- have to bend before we break."

"What do you propose?" Safira was businesslike, suspicious.

"Um... give me a moment." He thought faster than ever before. "Okay. Extinctions happen, all right? They're part of nature, the result of competition, of changing conditions. So maintaining a perfect status quo, keeping the roster of species unchanged, isn't a realistic objective.

"The main concern here is that the whole biosphere may be endangered. Safira, you're probably right that some life would remain untroubled by the auxons, but there might be nothing left but microbes. And the nanites might take care of those eventually.

"Anyway, the point is: instead of erasing the auxons from the biosphere, let's just make sure they don't wipe it out. Let's allow them to live, to compete. If they should compete another species to extinction, c'est la guerre. We only intervene if a whole ecosystem is threatened with collapse. That way the auxons and Cybelines can both live."

"It won't work!" Berdahl countered, but with honest regret. "The auxons are too adaptable, too capable, their defenses too strong. They've won every competition with the native life. The fix is in, Marc."

"So we even the odds. This is where you have to compromise, Safira. To save the auxons' lives, you bend some on their untouchability. We used a hard virus on your wristcom, we can use it on them. Reprogram their instincts, restrict their behaviors. Not enough to make them our robots again... but enough to limit the destruction they can cause. Enough to diminish their performance, weaken their defenses. Maybe even cut out their Lamarckian adaptation so both sides are playing by Darwin's rules."

Safira was thoughtful, but far from pleased. "But do we have the right?"

"Why not? We're part of nature too. That means we can't pretend it belongs to us -- but it also means we have as much right as any species to have an effect on our environment."

"But only where our own survival is concerned."

"There's more to us than survival, Safira! We have the power of choice. The effect we have on other species isn't a random matter, it's something we decide. Something we're responsible for. So if we take responsibility for the world and the species around us, it's not so wrong. We just have to be responsible enough to interfere only when we have to, and otherwise trust nature to manage itself."

Again, the silence stretched, but without the earlier tension. "Not an easy balance to maintain," the governor opined. "But worth a try, isn't it, Safira?"

Long moments of thought. "I still don't like it."

"Nobody will," Berdahl said. "It means letting native species die out and restricting the auxons' right to live according to their nature. It stinks coming and going. But would you rather start shooting?"

She gave way without weakening. "Promise there will be no more exterminations. Melt down the hunter drones. Release my colleagues and work with them to implement the plan. I will remain out here with my charges until I know they're safe."

"Agreed. I'm calling the retreat even now." A sad smile underlay his next words. "I hope it's not too long before I can have you over for dinner again. I've missed our talks. Good luck, Safira."

And then Safira and Marc were alone with the loggers once more. But Marc realized he was more alone than any of them. "Safira...."

"Thank you," she said simply, distantly. "You've prevented a tragedy. Cybele owes you a debt. Now go the hell away."

He took a breath -- then let his lungs keep it. He had no more defense. "You did what you had to," she continued, too matter-of-factly to be absolving. "No matter the cost. I taught you that. You learned it well. And when the time came, you unlearned it before it ruined us all. You backed down and found a compromise Cybele can live with.

"But you're too good at compromise, Marc. You couldn't choose between your feelings for me and your mission to betray me, so you tried to have both. You dodged the hard choice -- and now who has to pay for it?"

"Both of us, Safira," Marc said simply. "Believe me."

"Maybe. But we both have only you to blame. You'll have to live with yourself -- but fortunately I won't. I can't speak to the future, Marc... but for now, you no longer exist in my life."

Head lowered in total agreement, Marc slowly rose and strode toward the sunlight. He gave her one last glance. "I guess we all do what we have to do."

She never acknowledged him. She was alone with the loggers now.