by Greg Bear
We passed three women in red chadors; a woman herding five blue dogs, followed by an arbeiter carrying a waste can; five men in single file, nude, not that it mattered — their bodies were completely smooth, with featureless tan skin; a male centaur with a half-size horse body, perfectly at home cantering along the sidewalk, man's portion clothed in formal Edwardian English wool suit and bowler; jaguar-pelted women, furry, not in furs; two young girls, perhaps ten Earth years, dressed in white ballet gowns with fairy wings growing from their backs (temp or permanent? I couldn't tell); a gaggle of school-children dressed in red coats and black shorts, escorted by men in black cassocks ("Papal Catholics," Kite said); more of the mineral-patterned designer bodies; a great many people who might have fit in without notice on Mars; and of course the mechaniques, who replaced major portions of their bodies with metal shells filled with biorep nano. That, I had heard, was very expensive as an elective. Complete body replacement was much cheaper. Neither could be done legally unless one could prove major problems in birth genotype; it spun too much of the Eloi and Ten Cubed.
"After lunch, we're going to Central Park," Orianna said. "And then . . . "
Kite laughed. "Orianna has connections. She wants to show you something you just don't have on Mars."
"An Omphalos!" Orianna said. "Father owns shares."
We ate in the delicatessen and it smelled of cooked meat, which I had never smelled before, and which offended me all the same, whether or not meat was actually being cooked. Customers — chiefly drive folks, a high proportion of transforms — lined up before glass cases filled with what appeared to be sliced processed animals. Plastic labels on metal skewers pronounced the shapes to be Ham, that is, smoked pig legs, Beef (cows) corned (though having nothing to do with corn) and otherwise, something called Pastrami which was another type of cow covered with pepper, smoked fish, fish in fermented dairy products, vegetables in brine and vinegar, pig feet in jars, and other things that, had they been real, would have caused a true uproar even on Earth.
We stood at the counter until the clerk took our order, then found a table. Martian reserve kept me from expressing my distaste to Orianna. She ordered for me — potato salad, smoked salmon, a bagel, and cream cheese.
"The stuff here is the best in town," she said. "It was set up by New York Preserve. History scholars. They have a nano artist design the food — he's orthodox Gathering of Abraham. They have state dispensation to eat meat, for religious reasons. He quit eating meat ten years ago, but he remembers what it tastes like."
Our food arrived. The salmon appeared raw, felt slimy-soft, and tasted salty and offensive.
"You have imitation meat on Mars, don't you?" Kite asked.
"It isn't so authentic," I said. "It doesn't smell like this."
"Blame the drive for history," Shrug said. "Nothing unmoral about imitation. It doesn't hurt, it doesn't waste, it teaches us what New York used to be like . . . "
"I don't think Casseia's enjoying her lox," Kite said, smiling sympathetically. My heart sank in hopeless attraction, simply looking at his face.
"Maybe it's turned," I said.
"It does taste rank," Kite said. "Maybe it's the fake preservatives. Things don't turn any more."
"Right," I said, embarrassed at my inability to enjoy the treat. "Tailored bacteria. Eat only what they're meant to."
"The Earth," Shrug said portentously, "is a vast zoo."
They fell to discussing whether "zoo" was the right word. They settled on "garden."
"Do you have many murders on Mars?" Shrug asked.
"A few. Not a lot," I answered.
"Shrug's fascinated by violent crime," Orianna said.
"I'd love to defend a genuine murderer. They're so rare now . . . Ten murders in New York last year."
"Among fifty million citizens," Kite said, shaking his head. "That's what therapy has done to us. Maybe we don't care enough to kill any more."
Orianna made a tight-lipped blat.
"No, really," Kite said. "Shrug says he'd love to defend a murder case. A real one. But he'll probably never see one. A murder. It chills the blood just to say the word."
"So what's passion like on Mars?" Shrug asked. "Murderous?"
I laughed. "The last murder I heard about, a wife killed her husband on an isolated station. Their family — their Binding Multiple — had suffered pernicious exhaustion — "
"Love the words!" Shrug said.
"Of funds. They were left alone at the station without a status inquiry for a year. The BM was fined, but couldn't pay its fine. It's pretty unusual," I concluded. "We therapy disturbed people, too."
"Ah, but is murder a disturbance?" Kite asked, straining to be provocative.
"You'd think so if you were the victim," I said.
"Too much health, too much vigor — too few dark corners," Kite said sadly. "What is there left to write about? Our best LitVids and sims use untherapied characters. But how do we write about our real lives, what we know? I'd like to make sims, but sanity is really limiting."
"He's opening his soul to you," Orianna said. "He doesn't tell people that unless he likes them."
"There's plenty of story in conflicts between healthy folks," I suggested. "Political disagreements. Planning decisions."
Kite shook his head sadly. "Hardly takes us to the meaning of existence. Hardly stretches us to the breaking point. You want to live that kind of life?"
I didn't know how to answer. "That's what I'm doing now," I finally replied.
"Up your scale," Shrug advised Kite. "She's right. The clash of organizations, governments. Still possible. GEWA against GSHA. Might make a bestseller."
"They're even taking that away from us," Kite said. "No wars, nothing but economic frictions behind closed doors. Nothing to make the heart pound."
"Kite is a Romantic," Orianna said.
That seemed to genuinely irritate him. "Not at all," he said. "The Romantics wanted to destroy themselves."
"Spoken like a true child of our time," Shrug said. "Kite pushes healthy as they come. Passion — life to the limit — but no risk, please."
Kite grinned. "I never met a passion I didn't like," he said. "I just don't want to be owned by one."
An actor portraying a waiter took my dish away.
* * *
The Omphalos stood on five hectares at the southern end of Manhattan, near Battery Park. It looked immensely strong, a cube surrounded by smaller cubes, all gleaming white with gold trim.
At the gate, on the very edge of the compound, Orianna presented her palm and answered a few questions posed by a blank-faced security arbeiter. A human guard met us, took us into an adjoining room, sat behind a desk, and asked our reasons for taking the tour.
"I'd like to talk in private with a resident," Orianna said. I looked at her in surprise; this had not been her stated purpose earlier.
"I'll need your true names and affiliations even to apply for a clearance," he said.
"That leaves us out," Shrug said. Kite nodded agreement.
"We'll wait outside." Orianna said we wouldn't be more than an hour or two. An arbeiter escorted them to the front gate.
The guard quickly checked our public ratings for security violations and mental status. "You're Martian," he said, glancing at me. "Not using a Vernor."
I admitted that I was.
"Terries trying to impress you?" the guard asked, glancing pointedly at Orianna.
"Are you Martian?" I asked him.
"No. I'd like to go there some day." He referred to his slate and nodded approval. "I have your CV and pictures from a hundred different LitVid sources . . . You're a celebrity. Everything clears. Welcome to Omphalos Six, your first glimpse of Heaven. Please stay with your assigned guide."
"What are your connections, besides your father owning shares?" I asked Orianna as an arbeiter took us through an underground tunnel to the main cube.
"I have a reservation for when I turn two centuries," Orianna said. "I don't know
if I'll use it. I might just die instead ..." She grinned at me. "Easy to say now. I might go Eloi and end up on Mars or in the Belt . . . Who knows what things will be like then?"
"Who are we going to talk to?" I asked.
"A friend." She held her finger to her lips. "The Eye is watching."
"What's that?"
"The Omphalos thinker. Very high-level. Not at all like Alice, believe me — the best Earth can produce."
I quelled my impulse to defend Alice. No doubt Orianna was right.
The interior of the building was equally impressive. An atrium rose twenty meters above a short walkway. The walkway ended on an elevator shaft that rose to the apex of the atrium, and sank below us through a glittering black pool. Nano stone walls, floors isolated from the walls by several dozen centimeters, sprung-shocked and field-loaded to withstand external stress — and damage repair stations in each corner. Conservative and solid.
"Above us are the apartments," Orianna said. "About ten thousand occupants. One hundred apartments are full-size, for those folks who want to log in and out every few weeks. The uncommitted, you might say. The rest are cubicles for warm sleep."
"They spend their time dreaming?"
"Custom sims and remote sensing. Omphalos has androids and arbeiters all over the Earth with human-resolution senses. Omphalos can access any of them at any time, and there you are — they are. The occupants' can be anywhere they want. Some of the arbeiters can project full images of the occupant, fake you're talking to someone in person. If you just want to retire and relax, Omphalos employs the very finest sim designers. Overdrive arts and lit fantasies."
From my reading, and from Orianna's description on Tuamotu, I knew that most of Omphalos's residents stayed in long-term warm sleep, their bodies bathed in medical nano. Technically speaking, they were not Eloi — they could not walk around, occupy a new citizen's space or employment opportunities — but their projected life spans were unknown. Omphalos served as refuge for the very wealthy and very powerful who did not want to be voided to the Belt or Mars, yet wanted to live longer. Medical treatment that cleansed and purified and exercised and toned and kept body and mind healthy and fit — medical treatment unending — slipped through a legal loophole.
This Omphalos, and the forty-two structures like it around the world, were not beloved by the general population. But they had woven their legal protections deep into the Earth's governments.
"Why wouldn't you want to come here? The guard called it Heaven."
Orianna had skipped ahead of me. She hunched her shoulders. "Gives me the willies," she said. She called the elevator, which arrived immediately.
The elevator stopped. Orianna took my hand and led me down a hallway that might have belonged in a plush hotel, retro early twentieth. Flowers filled cloisonne vases on wooden tables; we walked on non-metabolic carpet, probably real wool, deep green with white floral insets.
Orianna found the door she wanted. She knocked lightly and the door opened. We entered a small white room with three Empire chairs and a table. The room smelled of roses. The wall before the chairs brightened. A high-res virtual image presented itself to us, as if we looked through glass at a scene beyond. A black-haired, severely handsome woman of late middle years sat on a white cast-iron chair in the middle of a beautiful garden, trees shading her, rows of bushes covered with lovely roses red and blue and yellow marching in perspective off to a grand Victorian greenhouse. Tall clouds billowed on the horizon. It looked like a hot, humid, thundery day.
"Hello, Miss Muir," Orianna greeted the woman. She looked familiar, but I couldn't place her face.
"Hello, Ori! How nice to have visitors." She smiled sunnily.
"Miss Muir, this is my friend, Casseia Majumdar of Mars."
"Pleased to meet you," the woman said.
"Do you know Miss Muir, Casseia?"
"I'm sorry, no."
Orianna shook her head and pursed her lips. "No enhancements. Always leaves you at a disadvantage. This is President Danielle Muir."
That name I had heard.
"President of the United States?" I asked, my face betraying how impressed I was.
"Forty years ago," Muir said, cocking her head to one side. "Practically forgotten, except by friends, and by my goddaughter. How are you, Ori?"
"I'm high pleased, ma'am. I apologize for not coming sooner . . . You know we've been away."
"To Mars. You returned on the same ship with Miss Majumdar?"
"I did. And I confess I've come here with a motive."
"Something interesting, I hope."
"Casseia's being jammed, ma'am. I'm too ignorant to speck what's happening."
Ex-President Muir leaned forward. "Do tell."
Orianna raised her hand. "May I?"
"Certainly," Muir said. A port thrust from the wall, and Orianna touched her finger to the pad, transferring information to Muir.
I specked the former President lying in warm sleep behind the screen, bathed in swirling currents of red and white medical nano like strawberry juice and cream.
Muir smiled and adjusted her chair to face us. The effect startled me — even ambient sound told us we were with her, outdoors. The walls of the cubicle gradually faded into scenery. Soon we, too, were in the shade of the large tree, surrounded by warm moist air. I smelled roses, fresh-cut grass, and something that raised the hair on my arms. Electricity . . . thunderstorms.
"You work for a big financial Binding Multiple. Rather, you're part of the family, right, Casseia?" Her voice, colored by a melodious southern accent, drifted warm and concerned in the thick air.
"Yes, ma'am," I said.
"You're under pressure .... You've been summoned to testify before Congress, but for one reason or another, you've been shunted to another rail."
"Yes, ma'am," I said.
"Why?"
I looked at Ori. "I really can't reveal family matters here, ma'am. Ori — Orianna brought me here without, telling me why. I'm honored to meet you, but . . . " I trailed off, embarrassed.
Muir tilted her head back. "Someone in the alliances has decided Mars is an irritant, and I can't guess why. You simply don't mean that much to the United States, or to GEWA or GSHA or Eurocom or any of the other alliances."
Orianna frowned at me and looked back at Muir's image. "My father says there isn't a politician on Earth you can trust, except Danielle Muir," Orianna said.
My level of skepticism rose enormously; I've always bristled when people ask for, much less demand, trust. Face to face with a ghost, an illusory representative of someone I had never met in person, I simply would not let myself bestow trust it was not my right or station to give.
On the other hand, much of what we were doing was public knowledge — and there was no reason not to carry on a conversation at that level.
"Martians have stood apart from Solar System unification," I said.
"Good for you," Muir said, smiling foxily. "Not everybody should knuckle under to the alliances."
"Well, it's not entirely good," I said. "We're not sure we know how to unify. Earth expects full participation from coherent partners. We seem to be unable to meet their expectations."
"The Big Push," Muir said.
"Right," Orianna said.
"That seems to be part of it."
Muir shook her head sadly. "My experience with Martians when I was President was that Mars had great potential. But this Big Push could get along nicely without you. You'd hardly be missed."
I felt another burn. "We think we might have a lot to contribute, actually."
"Unwilling to participate, but proud to be asked, proud to have pressure applied, is that it?" Muir said.
"Not exactly, ma'am," I said.
Her face — the face of her image — hardened almost imperceptibly. Despite her warm tone and friendly demeanor, I sensed a chill of negative judgment.
"Casseia, Ori tells me you're very smart, very capable, but you're missing something. Your raw materials and
economic force count for little in any Big Push. Mars is small in the Solar System scheme of things. What can you contribute, that would be worth the effort Earth seems to be willing to expend on you?"
I was at a loss for an answer. Bithras, I remembered, had been wary of this explanation, but I had swallowed it uncritically.
"Maybe you know something you can't tell me, and I don't expect you to tell me, considering your responsibilities and loyalties. But take it from an old, old politician, who helped plant — much to my regret — some of the trees now bearing ripe fruit. The much-ballyhooed Big Push is only a cover. Earth is deeply concerned about something you have, or can do, or might be able to do. Since you can't mount an effective military operation, and your economic strength is negligible, what could Mars possibly have, Casseia, that Earth might fear?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Something the small and weak can do as well as the large and the strong, something that will mean strategic changes. Surely you can think of what that might be. How could Mars possibly threaten Earth?"
"We can't," I said. "As you've told me, we're weak, insignificant."
"Do you think politics is a clean, fair game played by rational humans?"
"At its best," I said lamely.
"But in your experience ..."
"Martian politics has been pretty primitive," I admitted.
"Your uncle Bithras . . . Is he politically sophisticated?"
"I think so," I said.
"You mean, compared to you, he seems to be."
My discomfort ramped. I did not like being grilled, even by my social superiors. "I suppose," I said.
"Well, politics is not all muck, and not always corrupting, but it is never easy. Getting even rational people from similar backgrounds to agree is difficult. Getting planets to agree, with separate histories, widely different perspectives, is a political nightmare. I would hesitate to accept the task, and yet your uncle seems to have jumped in with both feet."
"He's cautious," I said.
"He's a child playing in the big leagues," Muir said.
"I disagree," I said.
Muir smiled. "What does he think is really going on here?"
"For the moment, we accept that Earth needs Mars . . . prepared for some large-scale operation. The Big Push seems as likely as anything."
