Spin

by Robert Charles Wilson

  “There was one in my mother’s kitchen.”

  “There are so many kinds of time. The time by which we measure our lives. Months and years. Or the big time, the time that raises mountains and makes stars. Or all the things that happen between one heartbeat and the next. It’s hard to live in all those kinds of time. Easy to forget that you live in all of them.”

  The metronomic clanging went on.

  “You sound like a Fourth,” I said.

  In the dim light I could just make out her weary smile.

  “I think one lifetime is enough for me,” she said.

  In the morning we woke to the sound of an accordion door rolled back to its stops, a burst of light, Jala calling for us.

  I hurried down the stairs. Jala was already halfway across the warehouse floor and Diane was behind him, walking slowly.

  I came closer and said her name.

  She tried to smile, but her teeth were clenched and her face was unnaturally pale. By then I had seen that she was holding a wadded cloth against her body above her hip, and that both the cloth and her cotton blouse were vivid red with the blood that had leaked through.

  Desperate Euphoria

  Eight months after Wun Ngo Wen’s address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, the hypercold cultivation tanks at Perihelion began to yield payload quantities of Martian replicators, and at Canaveral and Vandenberg fleets of Delta sevens were prepped to deliver them into orbit. It was about this time that Wun developed an urge to see the Grand Canyon. What sparked his interest was a year-old copy of Arizona Highways one of the biology wonks happened to leave in his quarters.

  He showed it to me a couple of days later. “Look at this,” he said, almost trembling with eagerness, folding back the pages of a photo feature on the restoration of Bright Angel trail. The Colorado River cutting pre-Cambrian sandstone into green pools. A tourist from Dubai riding a mule. “Have you heard of this, Tyler?”

  “Have I heard of the Grand Canyon? Yes. I think most people have.”

  “It’s astonishing. Very beautiful.”

  “Spectacular. So they say. But isn’t Mars famous for its canyons?”

  He smiled. “You’re talking about the Fallen Lands. Your people called it Valles Marineris when they discovered it from orbit sixty years ago—or a hundred thousand years ago. Parts of it do look a lot like these photographs from Arizona. But I’ve never been there. And I don’t suppose I ever will be there. I think I’d like to see the Grand Canyon instead.”

  “Then see it. It’s a free country.”

  Wun blinked at the expression—maybe the first time he’d heard it—and nodded. “Very well, I will. I’ll talk to Jason about arranging transportation. Would you like to come?”

  “What, to Arizona?”

  “Yes! Tyler! To Arizona, to the Grand Canyon!” He might have been a Fourth, but at that moment he sounded like a ten-year-old. “Will you go there with me?”

  “I’ll have to think about that.”

  I was still thinking about it when I got a call from E. D. Lawton.

  Since the election of Preston Lomax, E. D. Lawton had become politically invisible. His industry contacts were still in place—he could throw a party and expect powerful people to show up—but he would never again wield the kind of cabinet-level influence he had enjoyed under Garland’s presidency. In fact there were rumors that he was in a state of psychological decline, holed up in his Georgetown residence making unwelcome phone calls to former political allies. Maybe so, but neither Jase nor Diane had heard from him recently; and when I picked up my home phone I was stunned when I heard his voice.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” he said.

  Which was interesting, coming from the man who had conceived and financed Molly Seagram’s acts of sexual espionage. My first and probably best instinct was to hang up. But as a gesture it seemed inadequate.

  He added, “It’s about Jason.”

  “So talk to Jason.”

  “I can’t, Tyler. He won’t listen to me.”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  He sighed. “Okay, I understand, you’re on his side, that’s a given. But I’m not trying to hurt him. I want to help him. In fact it’s urgent. Regarding his welfare.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “And I can’t tell you over the goddamn phone. I’m in Florida now, I’m twenty minutes down the highway. Come to the hotel and I’ll buy you a drink and then you can tell me to fuck off face-to-face. Please, Tyler. Eight o’clock, the lobby bar, the Hilton on ninety-five. Maybe you’ll save somebody’s life.”

  He hung up before I could answer.

  I called Jason and told him what had happened.

  “Wow,” he said, then, “If the rumors are true, E.D.’s even less pleasant to spend time with than he used to be. Be careful.”

  “I wasn’t planning to keep the appointment.”

  “You certainly don’t have to. But…maybe you should.”

  “I’ve had enough of E.D.’s gamesmanship, thanks.”

  “It’s just that it might be better if we know what’s on his mind.”

  “You’re saying you want me to see him?”

  “Only if you’re comfortable with it.”

  “Comfortable?”

  “It’s up to you, of course.”

  So I got in my car and drove dutifully up the highway, past Independence Day bunting (the fourth was tomorrow) and street-corner flag merchants (unlicensed, ready to bolt in their weathered pickups), rehearsing in my mind all the go-to-hell speeches I had ever imagined myself delivering to E. D. Lawton. By the time I reached the Hilton the sun was lost behind the rooftops and the lobby clock said 8:35.

  E.D. was at a booth in the bar, drinking determinedly. He looked surprised to see me. Then he stood up, grabbed my arm, and steered me to the vinyl bench across the table from him.

  “Drink?”

  “I won’t be here that long.”

  “Have a drink, Tyler. It’ll improve your attitude.”

  “Has it improved yours? Just tell me what you want, E.D.”

  “I know a man’s angry when he makes my name sound like an insult. What are you so pissed about? That thing with your girlfriend and the doctor, what’s his name, Malmstein? Look, I want you to know I didn’t arrange that. I didn’t even sign off on it. I had a zealous staff working for me. Things were done in my name. Just so you know.”

  “That’s a poor excuse for shitty behavior.”

  “I guess it is. Guilty as charged. I apologize. Can we move on to other things?”

  I might have walked out then. I suppose the reason I stayed was the aura of desperate anxiety seeping out of him. E.D. was still capable of that brand of thoughtless condescension that had so endeared him to his family. But he was no longer confident. In the silence between vocal outbursts his hands were restless. He stroked his chin, folded and unfolded a cocktail napkin, smoothed his hair. This particular silence expanded until he was halfway through a second drink. Which was probably more than his second. The waitress had cycled past with a breezy familiarity.

  “You have some influence with Jason,” he said finally.

  “If you want to talk to Jason, why not do it directly?”

  “Because I can’t. For obvious reasons.”

  “Then what do you want me to tell him?”

  E.D. stared at me. Then he looked at his drink. “I want you to tell him to pull the plug on the replicator project. I mean literally. Turn off the refrigeration. Kill it.”

  Now it was my turn to be incredulous.

  “You must know how unlikely that is.”

  “I’m not stupid, Tyler.”

  “Then why—”

  “He’s my son.”

  “You figured that out?”

  “Because we had political arguments he’s suddenly not my son? You think I’m so shallow I can’t make that distinction? That because I don’t agree with him I don’t love him?”

  “All I
know about you is what I’ve seen.”

  “You’ve seen nothing.” He started to say something else, then reconsidered. “Jason is a pawn for Wun Ngo Wen,” he said. “I want him to wake up and understand what’s happening.”

  “You raised him to be a pawn. Your pawn. You just don’t like seeing someone else with that kind of influence over him.”

  “Bullshit. Bullshit. I mean, no, all right, we’re confessing here, maybe it’s true, I don’t know, maybe we all need some family therapy, but that’s not the point. The point is that every powerful person in this country happens to be in love with Wun Ngo Wen and his fucking replicator project. For the obvious reason that it’s cheap and it looks plausible to the voting public. And who cares if it doesn’t work because nothing else works and if nothing works then the end is nigh and everybody’s problems will look different when the red sun rises. Right? Isn’t that right? They dress it up, they call it a wager or gamble, but it’s really just sleight-of-hand for the purpose of distracting the rubes.”

  “Interesting analysis,” I said, “but—”

  “Would I be here talking to you if I thought this was an interesting analysis? Ask the appropriate questions, if you want to argue with me.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, who exactly is Wun Ngo Wen? Who does he represent, and what does he really want? Because despite what they say on television he’s not Mahatma Gandhi in a Munchkin package. He’s here because he wants something from us. He’s wanted it from day one.”

  “The replicator launch.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Is that a crime?”

  “A better question would be, why don’t the Martians do this launch themselves?”

  “Because they can’t presume to speak on behalf of the entire solar system. Because a work like this can’t be undertaken unilaterally.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Those are things people say, Tyler. Talking about multilateralism and diplomacy is like saying ‘I love you’—it serves to facilitate the fucking. Unless, of course, the Martians really are angelic spirits descended from heaven to deliver us from evil. Which I presume you don’t believe.”

  Wun had denied it so often that I could hardly object.

  “I mean look at their technology. These guys have been doing high-end biotech for something like a thousand years. If they wanted to populate the galaxy with nanobots they could have done it a long time ago. So why didn’t they? Ruling out explanations that depend on their better nature, why? Obviously, because they’re afraid of a reprisal.”

  “Reprisal from the Hypotheticals? They don’t know anything about the Hypotheticals we don’t know.”

  “So they claim. Doesn’t mean they’re not afraid of them. As for us—we’re the assholes who launched a nuclear strike on the polar artifacts not that long ago. Yeah, we’ll take the responsibility, why not? Jesus, look at it, Tyler. It’s a classic setup. It could hardly be more slick.”

  “Or maybe you’re paranoid.”

  “Am I? Who defines paranoia this far into the Spin? We’re all paranoid. We all know there are malevolent, powerful forces controlling our lives, which is pretty much the definition of paranoia.”

  “I’m just a GP,” I said. “But intelligent people tell me—”

  “You’re talking about Jason, of course. Jason tells you it’ll all be okay.”

  “Not just Jason. The whole Lomax administration. Most of Congress.”

  “But they depend on the wonks for advice. And the wonks are as hypnotized by all this as Jason is. You want to know what motivates your friend Jason? Fear. He’s afraid of dying ignorant. The situation we’re in, if he dies ignorant, it means the human race dies ignorant. And that scares the living shit out of him, the idea that a whole arguably intelligent species can be erased from the universe without ever understanding why or what for. Maybe instead of diagnosing my paranoia you ought to think about Jason’s delusions of grandeur. He’s made it his mission to figure out the Spin before he dies. Wun shows up and hands him a tool he can use to that end and of course he buys it: it’s like handing a matchbook to a pyromaniac.”

  “Do you really want me to tell him this?”

  “I don’t—” E.D. looked suddenly morose, or maybe it was just his blood alcohol peaking. “I thought, because he listens to you—”

  “You know better than that.”

  He closed his eyes. “Maybe I do. I don’t know. But I have to try. Do you see that? For the sake of my conscience.” I was startled that he had confessed to having one. “Let me be frank with you. I feel like I’m watching a train wreck in slow motion. The wheels are off the track and the driver hasn’t noticed. So what do I do? Is it too late to pull the alarm? Too late to yell ‘duck’? Probably so. But he’s my son, Tyler. The man driving the train is my son.”

  “He’s in no more danger than the rest of us.”

  “I think that’s wrong. Even if this thing succeeds, all we stand to get out of it is abstract information. That’s good enough for Jason. But it’s not good enough for the rest of the world. You don’t know Preston Lomax. I do. Lomax would be more than happy to tag Jason with a failure and hang him for it. A lot of people in his administration want Perihelion closed down or turned over to the military. And those are best-case outcomes. Worst case, the Hypotheticals get annoyed and turn off the Spin.”

  “You’re worried Lomax will shut down Perihelion?”

  “I built Perihelion. Yes, I care about it. But that’s not why I’m here.”

  “I can tell Jason what you said, but you think he’ll change his mind?”

  “I—” Now E.D. inspected the tabletop. His eyes went a little vague and watery. “No. Obviously not. But if he wants to talk…I want him to know he can reach me. If he wants to talk. I wouldn’t make it an ordeal for him. Honestly. I mean, if he wants that.”

  It was as if he had opened a door and his essential loneliness had come spilling out.

  Jason assumed E.D. had come to Florida as part of some Machiavellian plan. The old E.D. might have. But the new E.D. struck me as an aging, remorseful, newly powerless man who found his strategies at the bottom of a glass and who had drifted into town on a guilty whim.

  I said, more gently, “Have you tried talking to Diane?”

  “Diane?” He waved his hand dismissively. “Diane changed her number. I can’t get through to her. Anyway, she’s involved with that fucking end-of-the-world cult.”

  “It’s not a cult, E.D. Just a little church with some odd ideas. Simon’s more involved with it than she is.”

  “She’s Spin-paralyzed. Just like the rest of your fucking generation. She took a nosedive into this religious bullshit when she was barely out of puberty. I remember that. She was so depressed by the Spin. Then suddenly she was quoting Thomas Aquinas at the dinner table. I wanted Carol to speak to her about it. But Carol was useless, typically. So you know what I did? I organized a debate. Her and Jason. For six months they’d been arguing about God. So I made it formal, like, you know, a college debate, and the trick was, they each had to take the side they didn’t support—Jason had to argue for the existence of God, and Diane had to take the atheist’s point of view.”

  They had never mentioned this to me. But I could imagine with what dismay they had approached E.D.’s educational assignment.

  “I wanted her to know how gullible she was. She did her best. I think she wanted to impress me. She repeated back what Jason had been saying to her, basically. But Jason—” His pride was obvious. His eyes shone and some of the color crept back into his face. “Jason was absolutely brilliant. Just stunningly, beautifully brilliant. Jason gave back every argument she had ever offered him and then some. And he didn’t just parrot this stuff. He’d read the theology, he’d read biblical scholarship. And he smiled through the whole thing, as if he was saying, Look, I know these arguments backward, I know them as intimately as you do, I can make them in my sleep, and I still think they’re contemptible. He was absolutely fucking rel
entless. And by the end of it she was crying. She held out until the end, but the tears were streaming down her face.”

  I stared.

  He registered my expression and winced. “Go to hell with your moral superiority. I was trying to teach her a lesson. I wanted her to be a realist, not one of these fucking Spin-driven navel gazers. Your whole fucking generation—”

  “Do you care whether she’s alive?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “No one’s heard from her lately. It’s not just you, E.D. She’s out of touch. I thought I might try to track her down. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  But the waitress had come with another drink and E.D. was rapidly losing interest in the subject, in me, in the world around him. “Yeah, I’d like to know if she’s all right.” He took off his glasses and cleaned them with a cocktail napkin. “Yeah, you do that, Tyler.”

  Which is how I decided to accompany Wun Ngo Wen to the state of Arizona.

  Traveling with Wun Ngo Wen was like traveling with a pop star or a head of state—heavy on security and light on spontaneity, but briskly efficient. A neatly timed succession of airport corridors, chartered planes, and highway convoys eventually deposited us at the head of Bright Angel trail, three weeks before the scheduled replicator launches, on a July day hot as fireworks and clear as creek water.

  Wun stood where the guardrail followed the canyon’s rim. The Park Service had closed the trail and visitor center to tourists, and three of their best and most photogenic rangers were poised to conduct Wun (and a contingent of federal security guys with shoulder holsters under their hiking whites) on an expedition to the canyon floor, where they would camp overnight.

  Wun had been promised privacy once the hike began, but right now it was a circus. Media vans filled the parking area; journalists and paparazzi leaned into the cordon ropes like eager supplicants; a helicopter swooped along the canyon rim shooting video. Nevertheless Wun was happy. He grinned. He sucked in huge gulps of piney air. The heat was appalling, especially, I would have thought, for a Martian, but he showed no signs of distress despite the sweat glistening on his wrinkled skin. He wore a light khaki shirt, matching pants, and a pair of children’s-size high-top hiking boots he’d been breaking in for the last couple of weeks. He took a long drink from an aluminum canteen, then offered it to me.