“They’re already famous, you know, in some circles. Three archetypes, come from the future to save us.”
“Samppo said that,” said Box.
“I wonder,” said Jaasper, “which ones you’re intended to be? We Pursang believe there are twelve; twelve human archetypes, after the twelve first humans.”
He rose to tend the fire.
“Did you see that snow-capped mountain range in the north?” he asked. “That’s called the Aø, the Curtain Wall. Past Aø is the Aør, the Freezer, which runs straight to the pole. Beneath Aø is Jura, and the twelve stones it’s built on.
“Then we’ll see,” he said with a smile.
“Which ones you are.”
As the conversation wound down, and silvery blankets were being laid out in the fast-cooling air, a howl split the night. In her sensorium, Box saw a feline carnivore, inspecting the perimeter field.
“One reason we’re good fighters on Fluxor,” said Jaasper, “is that we have real things to fight. Those big felines are about as smart as we are.”
The mottled blue cat, which was about the size of an Earthly puma, stared directly at Box, raised its hackles and snarled.
“And fuck you too,” said Brin.
The following day, they climbed into a high mountain pass, with granite sentinels towering on every side, beneath a sky of pure cobalt. Patches of snow lined the trail: first pillows then sheets of it, until they were bouncing over a domed plateau, like the roof of the world; surfing through deep powder. A truck came the other way, and rows of incandescent diodes flashed hello.
“The Freezer has its own microclimate,” explained Jaasper. “The work of the Xap, ages ago. The cool air of the north is kept bottled up inside the Curtain Wall, keeping the temperate parts mild.”
“Geoengineering,” said Box.
“On a geological timescale,” said Jaasper.
Then they were descending a wide couloir, three thousand meters down a switchback trail to the sea, and Box was unnerved by the drop. The balloon tires scrabbled, and bit, and Box regretted taking a front-row seat. Falling through space had become commonplace for her, but this truck ride was too close to her lived experiences, of buses speeding through high Andes passes, stopping to see where other buses had crashed into the ravines.
It was colder up here, in the door to the Freezer. The blustered sea below was milky green. Pack ice flecked the sea to the horizon.
Fresh, Box would call it.
A city appeared in the mist, directly below them.
“We have a Jura in Scotland,” said Box.
“What’s it like?” asked Jaasper.
“Not like this.”
The Archetypes of Jura were twelve pillars of stone, rising out of a wild tidal race. All twelve were built up, and burrowed into, by buildings carved into every surface. The white of the rock was so luminous, and the facades so bright, against the wild sea, that it was like they shone from within.
Jaasper Huw pointed out a worn nub of rock, the last of the twelve, almost lost in the mist. “The Scholar,” he said.
“That’s me all right,” said Box.
[Also known as the moonlit bridge,] said the Water Bear, in Box’s private sensorium. [The bridge that connects logos and mythos.]
“The world,” said Box, “and the sea.”
The switchback trail deposited them with disconcerting suddenness onto a sweeping coast road, which became a multilane highway, which dipped under the ground, into a network of tunnels and transportation halls, where they drove beside fast-moving trains. From time to time they burst into clear light between two of the pillars.
Jura had none of the bombastic futurism of Praxis. It was simply good urban design. Everything connected, simply and without fuss. What was new, was frankly new. What was old was conserved. The place was a product of its story.
What a story that must be, thought Box. This city was likely here before her people climbed down from the trees.
With Jaasper sat relaxed behind the wheel, they were delivered to their destination, the Land Bank, where robot arms started to unload Jaasper’s cargo. He showed them an amenities block, where they could wash away the dust of the road trip. The crew of the Water Bear emerged in their best uniforms, while Jaasper was transformed from a farmer, with dirt under his fingernails, into a prosperous businessman.
Box, delighted, savored being dressed up as a regimental soldier. Po dress grays were a masterclass in military understatement.
She felt like the queen of the universe.
They set off, to find the government of Fluxor.
[I see you looking at him,] said Brin, in Box’s private sensorium, as they made their way through the cafês and shops of the Angel, Jura’s main pedestrian precinct.
The city was larger than it looked from a distance. Each of the rocks was a town, with its own distinct flavor.
[So what?] said Box. [He’s adorable.]
[They all are,] said Brin. [Haven’t you noticed? It seems to be a racial characteristic.]
[Races have characteristics?]
[All ethnicities have characteristics.]
They are adorable, thought Box. Strangers smiled at them in the street. Happy children ran up to Jaasper, hoping to be introduced to the Po soldiers. They were especially fascinated by Kitou.
Box spoke to some of them, then parsed her own words.
“I just realized,” she remarked. “I’m speaking Pursang.”
“Yes,” said Jaasper. “You have been since you arrived. We have no wetware.”
“But I heard you, in my sensorium.”
“Heard what?”
“I heard you singing, when you were fighting with Kitou.”
“Really? That’s surprising.”
“Then you spoke to the Bat.”
“He spoke to me.”
“What is it with you and the Bat?”
“Oh, we go back a way.”
The office of the Recorder was situated in the Innocent, the second-to-last of the islands, in an emerald tower, whose scintillating appearance was due to cascading gardens and parks, refracted in its trapezoidal exterior. Once inside, there was a constant pitter-patter of rain in a forest. Rainbow-colored birds screeched as they dived through the vertical spaces. Inside its atrium was a wiry woman, dressed in denim workwear, trapped in a scrum of young people. Jaasper caught her attention, and she politely extricated himself from her interlocutors.
“Sama,” said Jaasper.
“Ah, my Po sleuths are here. Welcome. Please. My home is your home, and that sort of thing.”
Sama was a political type - to an historian, instantly recognizable. The Aurelian populist. A good kind of leader in a crisis.
She twinkles like Samppo, thought Box. They could be siblings.
“See me later, upstairs,” she said.
And then she returned to her audience.
“That’s more than I usually get,” said Jaasper.
The tower’s innermost core rose in a disorderly double-helix, disconnected from the exterior walls, floating free in the cylindrical space. “This is our seat of government,” said Jaasper. “Where the work is done. We also have a Parliament, where gasbags can talk.”
“It’s called politics,” said Box.
“The Regular is elected by our Parliament,” said Jaasper, “and Sama has been in the same role for thirty-nine years. In some respects, she is the government.”
“A benevolent dictatorship?”
“We think so.”
The elevator consisted of a disc without handrails, that spiraled up through leafy helical tunnels, with the sound of falling water all around them.
“This is thousand worlds technology,” said Pax.
“This tower was a gift from your people,” said Jaasper. “Six hundred years ago, when we decided to experiment with representative government.”
“Has it been a successful experiment?” asked Box.
“We’re still getting used to it.”
/> “I’ll get to the point,” said Sama.
They were gathered in a wild ceiling space. Grasses, ferns and vines spilled everywhere. Night had fallen, and the public had departed. They had the building to themselves, and the creatures that lived there. The cathedral void was lit by the moon, refracted and intensified by the Fresnel effect of the building’s exterior. The birds were bigger up here, and impressively clawed. They preyed on smaller birds below, and on fauna in the cantilevered gardens. Box watched a crimson-colored raptor disappear into the night with a snake in its beak. Outside, spume from the highest waves spattered against lenses.
“I believe you,” she said. “We believe you. Consider us forewarned. What does that mean in military terms? Jaasper?”
“We can probably defend ourselves against a frontal attack,” he said. “By calling in favors from friends.”
“Probably?”
“We face an unknowable force. The Horu are a rumor from antiquity. How many ships do they have? What technology do they possess? We don’t know. How long is a blade of grass?”
“What do we know?”
Jaasper shrugged. “They store their dead in digital necropolii. Their drive is called a geometry drive. It unfolds space in peculiar ways.”
Sama snorted. “How do we know it’s the Horu?”
“We know it was Horu ships,” said Pax.
“They deny everything,” said Box.
“They would,” said Sama.
“I doubt any of this is as it seems,” said Pax.
“Someone should go to Horax and ask them,” said Sama.
“Easier said,” said Pax.
“We can help with that,” said Jaasper.
“How?”
“Old backdoors. Secret lines of communication. The Pursang and Horu go way back. I’m sure I can conjure up a Horu or three.”
“Do it,” said Sama.
She held up her hands. “Navigator Lo,” he said. “What is your real mission here?”
“To prevent the genocide at Fluxor.”
“And what of the end-time war? Isn’t your job also to prevent that?”
“The priorities merge. By preventing one, we act to prevent the other.”
She frowned. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” Pax admitted. “We don’t. The job is just started. Later, we might have to go deeper.”
“To where your friend is? Ito Nadolo?”
“Ito doesn’t need our help. Even if he did, Fluxor is our mission.”
“So it’s Fluxor, then humanity, then your friend, in that order? There’s no conflict there? No moral dilemma?”
“There are no moral dilemmas,” said Pax. “Only a lack of moral clarity. The needs of the many must always outweigh the needs of the few.”
“It goes differently for us,” said Jaasper. “A holy warrior will always try to do the right thing.”
“Then it depends on what the right thing is.”
“And if it comes down to a choice?” asked Sama. “How will you choose?”
“I give you my word that we won’t sacrifice your world, in pursuit of a different strategy.”
She nodded. “Then your word I will have. You’re mine now, Navigator.”
She glanced up into the atrium, where the apex predators roamed, and frowned. She turned to leave, then turned to face them again.
“You have my blessings,” she said. “And our thanks. It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Take whatever you want from us here. Were a small world, but not without resources. We won’t forget this.
“Meantime, Jaasper Huw, call the thousand worlds, request their assistance. I want state-of-the-art warships, tomorrow. Call in whatever favors you must. Threaten them, if need be. In that sequence.”
“May we have Jaasper?” asked Pax. “We’re short a fast pair of hands in a corner.”
“You may,” said Jaasper. “This is obviously more interesting than hauling cabbages. But before we begin, I must borrow young d Atwusk’niges here.”
“She’s to be tested?”
“Yes, the child eluded me in a fair fight.”
“You’re growing old,” said Sama.
Kitou returned from her testing, two days later, in a haze of contentment. Box and Brin took her to a woodland park, nestled in the labyrinthine halls of the Wizard, the most ornate of the twelve, that twisted like a candlestick into the sea, and as they trained, they asked her about her experience.
“Did you have to fight?” asked Brin.
“No, nothing like that at all.”
“Then what?” asked Box and Brin together.
“They measured my character,” she said.
“How?” asked Box.
“We talked, and there was a test of courage, which I thankfully passed, although it was hard, and I made a friend.”
“What kind of test of courage?” asked Brin.
“I can’t say,” said Kitou.
“What kind of friend?” asked Box.
Kitou opened her hand, and there was a silvery distortion, and then a dancing point of light. She blew lightly on her palm, and a salt breeze lifted the leaves in the nearby trees.
“He’s a sea spirit,” she said.
“Does he have a name?” asked Brin.
“No, he’s just a newborn. We have to learn his name together.”
The pressure for Kitou to visit her family had become unbearable. They’d found out, as they always were going to, that their little girl had come from the future to save them.
“Please, come with me,” she said to Box.
“I’m there,” said Box.
The journey to Atwusk’niges took nineteen hours. They drove through the night. The holy mountain Lhotse swung into view, long before the forest did, a soaring triangle of rock, rose-gold in the first sunlight.
“Oh, this is too much to bear,” said Kitou.
“You know what that is?” asked Box. “That’s the fear of happiness.”
She nodded. “I’m frightened it will be given to me, and taken away again.”
The great rift valley of Fluxor, called Algoma’aa, meaning the valley of the flowers, ran arrow-straight for five thousand kilometers, from the balmy equator to the Freezer, where Pursang still lived the old life in its sheltered valleys. At Atwusk’niges, the straight line from Lhotse’s summit to the valley floor was almost nine kilometers.
“Holy fuck,” said Box.
Jaasper laughed. “You could say that.”
“Ah, I’m sorry, that was culturally insensitive.”
“No,” said Kitou. “It is apt.”
Atwusk’niges was a high montane rainforest; a mysterious world, shrouded in mist, cascading down a mile-high tooth of rock. The village of Atwusk’niges clung to its roots, a kilometer above the valley floor. They were looking down on it from across the Algoma’aa valley, where the road from Jura ended.
“How do we get down?” asked Box.
“In the usual way.” said Kitou.
“I’ll wait for the freight plane,” said Jaasper.
Kitou and Box stood on the edge, and jumped.
Kitou at six was a faithful miniature of the sixteen-year-old one. She darted out of the crowd to see her new sister for the first time, wide-eyed with astonishment. Box burst into tears before Kitou did, but it was a close-run thing.
“A beautiful entrance,” said a craggy, green-eyed man.
“Oh, father,” said Kitou.
Then Kitou was in the middle of a tangle of humans.
“Dr Box,” she said after a few minutes of this. “I’d like you to meet my family. This is my mother Vanja, and my father Akito, and my little sister, also called Kitou.
“This is Ophelia Box, my friend.”
“Welcome,” said Vanja, a woman of rare beauty, with her daughter’s warm smile. “Our home is your home, now and for always.”
“Two Kitous,” said a grinning Akito. “Who would have thought it? Ophelia, please come inside, and we’ll make you
some tea.”
“Our friend Jaasper is coming,” said Kitou.
“On the descender?”
“That fat thing?” asked Box, squinting at a glider, banking steeply, like a plump fly beneath the west wall of Lhotse.
“That’s the one,” said Akito.
Kitou was showing Kitou her sea spirit, and was teaching her how to make a fresh sea breeze, when Jaasper appeared at the door.
“Jaasper Huw d Strategos,” said Akito.
“You know each other?” asked Box.
“We know of each other,” said Jaasper. “I’m honored to visit you and your family, Akito Gorgonza d Atwusk’niges.”
“The honor is ours, Jaasper Huw. Please come in. Now for that tea.”
Box found Pursang traditional tea to be disgusting. Not only was it rank with animal fat, but this festive version had strong alcohol in it. Vanja smiled at Box’s involuntary reaction. “Give the poor woman a sensible drink,” she commanded, and the tea was replaced by a cup of the sour vanilla beverage, softened and sweetened with cream.
The men drank the tea, and the older Kitou had a cup, and made a face.
“I’d forgotten that vile stew,” she laughed.
They were sitting comfortably in the open living space of the Gorgonza’s home, which had the simple construction of all Pursang architecture. Kitou had stopped playing with little Kitou, who was now slouched on her knee. They were both piled up bonelessly against Vanja, a pose Box had seen a hundred times before.
“So, Jaasper Huw,” said Vanja, “What brings you to Atwusk’niges?”
Jaasper leaned forward. “Kitou’s been tested.”
“We can see that,” said Vanja.
“Normally we’d counsel a family first.”
“Then counsel us now.”
“She was chosen by a water spirit.”
“Not just any water spirit.”
Jaasper nodded. “An undine.”
“What does that mean?” asked Box.
“It means she’ll fight,” said Vanja.
“I already fight,” said Kitou.
“Undines kick ass,” piped young Kitou.
“Shush,” said Vanja.
Akito laughed. “It’s true though,” he said. “Undine are wild, like the sea itself is.”
The Water Bear Page 18
