He zoomed the image until he was only looking at the end of the massive structure. From far away, the thing looked delicate and fairylike, a crystal web-work of gossamer threads. Close up, the scale of it became clear. Those gossamer threads were pillars the diameter of one of the Wisconsin’s habitats, and they wove together into a braid that formed the ridge on top of the kilometers-long spine.
Buried in that ridge, barely visible at this distance, was a tiny hole that was probably a hundred meters across at least. It drilled into the end of the spire as if it was the barrel of a massive gun.
And that would be a pretty accurate description of what the object was.
As he watched, a tiny speck emerged from the hole. Fired down the length of the spine, it had a speed ten times the moon’s escape velocity, and a trajectory that would take it out of Bakunin’s orbit as well. On the schematic holo of the system, he could see a new blue dot emerge from the vicinity of Schwitzguebel’s orbit.
It traveled out, safely beyond most of the other blue dots, and winked out—taching to somewhere in the outer system.
Lieutenant Valentine’s suggestion had given birth to an entirely new class of weapon. Copying the drives, and more importantly the navigational systems, of the new Caliphate tach-ships, the Proteans had shrunk the disparate elements as much as possible until they had a dense silver sphere about fifteen meters in diameter—nothing but sensors, computers, and an unshielded tach-drive. It didn’t even have the reaction mass to maneuver itself; it relied only on the precision of its tach-drives and its navigational computers. And the sensors on board would be able to detect another ship like the Voice taching in and aim for it based solely on the tachyon radiation released by its reappearance in the real universe, and in theory it would be able to anonymously jump to the site of the target long before the light of its appearance reached it.
That last capability meant that the whole system could be effectively covered by a number of ships several orders of magnitude smaller than could be done with conventional mines. In fact, it took several hundred hunter-killer satellites for the PSDC to deny low orbit over the one strip of a continent on Bakunin.
They were looking to create a denial area out to 15 AU.
Another small speck shot out of the spine on the moon below. They were shooting out one every thirty seconds. Nearly three thousand in a day.
Maybe they could do this.
But for how long?
He folded his hands in front of him, and prayed for wisdom. He understood the Protean strategy. Adam had the whole rest of the universe to plan, regroup, attack as many times as he deemed necessary. However impressive their defenses became, Adam could afford to test them until he found a weakness.
Mallory couldn’t see a way out.
“Mallory?”
He turned around and saw the ghostly figure of Alexander Shane standing there. Now that the man, if he was still truly a man, wore clean clothes and didn’t have the stooped posture of the wounded and infirm, he more resembled someone who might have once been at the helm of a whole planet’s political system.
Mallory nodded an acknowledgment as he silently concluded his prayer.
“Yes, Mr. Shane?”
“I came to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For abusing you and your people on Salmagundi.” He walked over and sat on a chair next to Mallory, looking up at the holo of the spine, shooting out another shiny tachyon mine. “I disregarded my own society’s norms to do what I did. And by taking your own living minds into my own, I ironically gained an exhaustive understanding of what a violation that was for the rest of you.”
Mallory’s hand unconsciously went to the back of his neck. The implant at the base of his skull, where Shane had connected him to the Hall of Minds, was no longer raw. But the scabbed scar tissue was painfully inflamed after his space walk. He winced and said, “You are welcome to what forgiveness I have left.”
Shane shook his head and said, “Joining the Proteans, accepting their change, it is no small thing.”
“I expect not.”
“I don’t believe I was aware of how mercifully clouded my thinking was before they remade me. All of me. Dozens of selves, all now equally present, equally clear. And many are unhappy with the choices I have made. The part of me that is you has convinced me, us, to act in some measure to redeem ourselves in our own eyes.”
Mallory looked at Shane and tried to imagine what it must be like to have so many individuals trapped in one brain, one of them himself. Could it be anything but hellish? Was there really anyone that could be called Alexander Shane, anyone inside himself that he could identify as himself, or was all of him only pieces of others?
“I was as dissatisfied with the Protean answers about Parvi’s mission as you were. By definition. Perhaps more so, since I bear some responsibility for setting those people on that path.”
“It was the Protean’s own words,” Mallory said.
“And mine.”
“And Dörner and Brody.”
“Mine as well. The Protean answer was not satisfactory—”
Mallory nodded. “Only death remained in the Dolbrian caverns.”
“It seems that that was only half of the truth.”
Mallory leaned forward. “There’s more to it?”
“Not as much as I would wish. The parts of me that mirror those who left, Brody and Dörner, weren’t satisfied with the answers I gave you. Why would the Protean on Salmagundi send people to certain death?”
“Why?”
“Logically, because that poor doomed creature came from here at a time when the barrier did not exist.”
“What, you told us the Dolbrians left the barrier here . . .” He trailed off because Shane was shaking his head.
“They never actually said that, did they? I figured out that much on my own, but your comrade Miss Tsoravitch was able to dig out the actual story for me.”
Mallory stared at him and said quietly, “The barrier you spoke of, the Dolbrians did not leave it behind. The Proteans did.”
“Yes.”
“What’s it protecting, then? What were we being sent to?”
“They don’t know—”
“How can you not? If the Proteans built this wall, they must know what’s behind it.”
Shane shook his head. “At one time they did, but not now.”
“What do you mean?”
“When they placed the barrier, every soul in Proteus purged their own memories of what lay beyond it.” He shook his head. “They also purged all knowledge of how to penetrate or disable the barrier.”
“Why?”
“Fear. Those who existed when the decision was made are still barely able to speak of it, despite their incomplete memories. They did not even trust themselves to own the knowledge of what it was.”
Mallory shook his head. Fear? What does Proteus fear that much?
“Do they know you’re telling me this?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“I made no secret of my interest, or why. I am just . . . uncertain how my new peers think. After centuries like this, they have changed.”
More so than you from Salmagundi?
“Proteus sees itself as a guardian of its knowledge. They have restrained themselves, prevented their existence from bleeding beyond their own self-imposed boundaries. They know what damage can be wrought were they to defer to the base instinct they inherited from their human progenitors.”
“What instinct is that?”
“The instinct to power.” Shane turned toward the schematic holo where the tiny tachyon mines floated away from their lunar orbit to vanish into tach-space. “The most basic and necessary feature of intelligence is the desire to control the environment, to make it more favorable to oneself, one’s family, one’s tribe. Without that, no species would pull itself out of the mud that spawned it, much less reach the stars. But that will to control does not cease when it reache
s another person. That will is why we have language, mathematics, science, and can be sitting on a space platform orbiting a moon sixteen light-years from the planet that birthed us.”
He turned to look back at Mallory. “It is also why we have slavery and murder and war, and a creature named Adam that will not stop short until every voice in the universe praises his name as a god.”
“Not a god,” Mallory said.
“Proteus saw the seeds of Adam within itself, and built itself to prevent that from ever happening. And what I see when I look at the Proteans, is to some extent they have crippled themselves. And for all they see Adam as an abomination, they have self-limited to the point where I wonder how effective they will be in stopping him. But I think they know this, and I think they may accept that their new converts may have differing ideas.”
“What kind of ideas?”
“I think some of us should return to Bakunin.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Ascension
“Unless you love yourself, you cannot love another.”
—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom
“Take away love and our earth is a tomb.”
—ROBERT BROWNING
(1812-1889)
Date: 2526.8.13 (Standard) 350,000 km from Bakunin-BD+50°1725
Toni II’s sister found her near the air lock where they had made their last stand before Stefan. There was no sign left of the battle, the corridor had been rebuilt by the Proteans, changed so that her only indication that this was the place where she and Mallory launched themselves into the vacuum was the schematic of the Wisconsin’s core.
She was sitting, leaning against a curving semicrystalline wall, when Toni approached her. She looked up into her sister’s face, her face, looking for some recognition of where they were.
She was comforted when she saw some echo of her own emotions. She was still in there. Whatever heretical powers had claimed her other self, she was still in there. A version of her, anyway.
“How are you doing?” her sister asked.
Toni II almost responded, “You know how I’m doing.” But did she? They had started from exactly the same place, at one point had been the same person. Their experiences since she had come back from the wormhole had been mostly shared. Before Stefan, they had still occasionally finished each other’s sentences; each had known what the other was thinking.
Now, they were no longer the same ...
She told her sister, “I was just wondering how many Rubicons one person can cross.”
Her sister knelt down and placed a hand on her shoulder. This time she didn’t flinch at the touch.
“Only as many as we need to,” Toni said.
“It frightens me,” she said. “You frighten me.”
“I know.”
“You’re no longer me.”
“No, I’m not. But I never was, not since we became separate people.”
Toni II reached up and placed her hand on Toni’s. It was warm, and felt human. “What is it like?”
“It is scary. You have to concentrate to keep your identity enclosed within itself, and part of the deal is they have the right to copy you, take everything you are and reproduce you somewhere else.”
“God knows, we wouldn’t want that to happen.”
When her sister laughed, Toni II felt a small weight lift off of her heart.
“And there are rules,” Toni said, “what can and cannot be done.”
“The whole consent thing.”
“More than that. The only reason Proteus can move as it has been doing is because Adam has poisoned the well—”
“Poisoned the well?”
“He brought the ‘Change’ here, however unwillingly. Beyond simple self-defense, moving as they have done in the world of men is taboo. Their highest commandment is to never grant mankind the means to destroy itself.”
She looked up at her sister and tried to understand herself. “But they’re leaving us to him. There isn’t going to be a mankind left—”
“They aren’t omnipotent, and they are much fewer than Adam’s host. They are working to stop him the best way they know.”
She realized something in what her sister was saying. “You keep saying what ‘they’ are doing. Aren’t you a part of them?”
“Come with me, I want to show you something.”
“Oh, my God,” Toni II’s voice caught, barely a whisper.
Her sister’s hands were on her shoulders and she whispered into her ear, “I wanted you to see this.”
They had walked out an air lock, an extreme measure of trust for Toni II, and into a small craft that seemed little more than a featureless white sphere with one slightly flattened wall. When the entry seamlessly sealed itself behind them, the sphere accelerated until the flattened wall became the floor.
Then, after a few more seconds, the color, the walls themselves, drained away, leaving nothing but the space beyond.
She stared out at the universe, gaping. There seemed to be nothing between them and the stars. To their right, the surface of Schwitzguebel was dark but still faintly visible in the reflected light from Bakunin, a ghostly landscape in blue-black. To their left, the planet Bakunin glowed blue-white, showing a hemisphere of ocean to reflect Kropotkin’s light toward them.
Around everything was a near painful spread of stars.
“It’s beautiful.”
“I wanted to remind us why we left Styx in the first place.”
Toni II bit her lip and stared out at the blackness. There were too many stars to make out Sigma Draconis, or even to tell if she was looking in the right direction. “It really is all gone,” she whispered, “Not just the wormhole, but Styx as well. Everyone, everything . . .”
The starscape blurred, and Toni squeezed her shoulders and whispered, “Not everything.”
Toni II realized that she was blushing as well as crying. “We always enjoyed the view from space, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
“I’d forgotten it. Nearly a year orbiting that damned wormhole.”
“The damned loneliness.” Toni’s arms lowered, to embrace her from behind. Her chin rested on her shoulder, looking out at the stars with her. “We’re not alone.”
“But—”
“You asked why I keep saying ‘them’ when I mention Proteus.”
The question on Toni II’s lips had been, but you’re no longer human. Of course, Toni would know that.
“Yes.”
“Proteus can no longer contain its own. It governed by consensus for centuries. Consensus by a small elite, self-selected group that infinitely propagated itself—but this past battle they not only took me, but thousands of others, all recently human. Proteus is changing in spite of itself.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” The way she held her, chin on her shoulder, Toni II felt Toni’s cheek against her own, felt the warmth of her breath against the side of her face. Whatever she had done, whatever bargains she had made, Toni still felt human. “I don’t know what any of this means. I think anyone who does is lying to themselves.”
“Why . . .” Toni II trailed off, unable to finish the question.
Toni’s response was to turn and lightly kiss the side of her neck, below her ear. Even though she had expected the response to her barely spoken question, the light touch of her other self’s lips on her skin send a ripple of fire down the whole length of her body.
She swallowed a painful doubt and whispered, “I don’t know if I can join you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“But what you’ve become?”
Toni turned her around to face her. She reached up and gently wiped a tear off of Toni II’s cheek. “I won’t leave you. Leave us.”
She stared into Toni’s face for several long moments. Her skin was bluish silver in the light reflected from Bakunin’s ocean. She had never been particularly vain, but somehow, seeing her face on another person—on Toni—made it beautif
ul.
Toni’s expression seemed to collapse into a vulnerable sadness that made Toni II’s heart ache for her. She began to say, “I never wanted to—”
She grabbed Toni’s shoulders and pulled her into a sudden, impulsive kiss. Toni stiffened a bit in surprise, and then fell into the embrace as if it had been her idea. Which it had been.
They kissed each other, holding on as if they could become one person again; every touch incredibly alien, and incredibly familiar; the motion of each tongue mirroring the other. With their tongues’ mutual caress, Toni II felt aches awaken in her body that she hadn’t known existed.
They pulled away from each other at the same moment, and Toni II saw her own bemused expression staring back at her.
They both said, simultaneously, “I know this is weird, but...”
The words trailed off as they both realized that, for all that had happened since Toni II had popped out of Wormhole Sigma Draconis III, they were still enough the same that their thoughts still echoed each other. Echoed each other enough that they moved in silence as the sphere-ship’s motion caused Bakunin’s orb to set behind Toni’s left shoulder.
They removed each other’s clothes, allowing the brief touches of hand to skin to send warm shudders through the other. They both slowed as the excitement built, until their motion had a near ritualistic gravity. When they stood to face each other’s nakedness, they both quietly said, “I love . . .”
Again the simultaneous statement trailed off, this time more in a mutual embarrassment for the narcissism of the words. They both reached for the other’s face, thumbs tracing lower lips, and they both responded by kissing the other’s hand, taking the thumb into their mouth. Both closed their eyes and shuddered at the contact of tongue on skin.
Then they embraced, pressing the whole length of their naked bodies together, kissing each other again. When the kiss broke, Toni II allowed herself to realize that she held a naked woman in her arms. Some part of herself that still lived on Styx prompted her to quietly say, “When did we become gay?”
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