The Water Bear

by Groucho Jones

  This was what he’d signed up for, although he hadn’t visualized it ending this way. His fathers had warned him. He’d waved them away.

  Now, he was scared.

  If he died, he’d be killing his friends.

  Alois was locked in the innermost cage, brutally beaten. They’d gotten through his field, eventually. Macro was free to roam in the cell outside Alois’s.

  Cells inside cells. Spheres within spheres. What was this place for?

  Why did the Tung abandon him?

  Who was his mysterious Navigator?

  Where were his oxygen pills? An Avalon day, Pfft. said they’d last for. How long had he been here?

  Fear was giving way to confusion.

  And gnawingly, the immanence of drowning.

  His wetware whispered into life, just as he felt the first worrying itch in his larynx. There was a feeling of spaciousness, like a sixth sense coming online, then malware intervened.

  [I’m Sybil,] it said.

  It spoke Ruby, the finger-tapping language of the bank. Ruby was efficient, with 2^9 phonemes, or 2^4 when spoken one-handed.

  It was a voice-interlocutor, the simplest form of AI. Its intelligence was an emergent property of loops in its code.

  [Do I know you?] he signaled.

  [You met my original, in the {undecipherable},] it said.

  [In the bar? Why are you here?]

  [I’m sorry.]

  [You’re an apology?]

  [No, I’m here to prepare you.]

  [Prepare me for what?]

  [For dying.]

  He’d watched Alois die. First, the return of his instinct to breathe. Then a convulsion.

  It seemed easy.

  [It is easy,] said Sybil.

  [Where’s the rest of my wetware?] asked Macro.

  [There’s not enough space for it here.]

  [Where?]

  There - a tickle.

  [How do you feel about dying?] asked Sybil.

  [What?]

  [What do you feel?]

  [What are you, a disaster voyeur?]

  [Is this a disaster?]

  [It is for me.]

  Macro had sometimes thought about dying, as an event in an unimaginably distant future. He knew it could be unpleasant. Death was neutral. He didn’t care about death. He cared about dying. He cared about fucking this mission.

  He cared about the things he’d never get to see.

  [I think dying is holy,] said Sybil.

  [Good for you,] said Macro.

  [Freeing your space on the wheel.]

  [Why don’t you help me?] he said. He wanted to scream, but there was nothing to scream with. Instead he finger-tapped, tersely.

  [I can’t,] said the voice-interlocutor. [I only exist in your mind.]

  He studied the exterior spheres. There were eight, making ten spheres in total, although the nesting made it hard to be sure. He tried pulling the bars. No movement. He tried squeezing through. No way. How did they open? He searched for a lock, and found nothing.

  Why had they put him here? Alois was their intended victim. Macro was likely collateral damage.

  Pathogen, they’d said.

  This was a biocontainment facility.

  What kind of biocontainer had open cages, five meters apart?

  One for observing the interpersonal transmission of a disease.

  What disease?

  The Thespian disease.

  The Magellanics believed Alois was infected with the Thespian disease.

  They weren’t doing epidemiology now. If they were, there’d be victims in the other cages, waiting to be infected.

  He was here to drown.

  He was being euthanized.

  This Thespian disease must be much worse than anyone was letting on.

  Drowning was fast, and surprisingly easy. First his will to breathe returned, then a quick gasp, and a moment of panic, then peace. His fingers tore at the bars, injuring them, but that had nothing to do with him. He slipped into an abyss, like falling into the arms of a lover.

  He was a dot, in a cathode ray screen, fading to gray.

  Then he was nothing.

  Then he became the voice-interlocutor. There was no need for tapping. He and Sybil were the same.

  This is weird, he thought.

  They were floating in space. Real, interplanetary vacuum. Alois and he, in a bubble of water, falling through the drops of the Waterfall system.

  [I thought you might like to see this,] ze said.

  For the first time in his life, Macro could see the whole Milky Way galaxy, a blazing wheel of stars.

  [I’ve enhanced it for you,] said Sybil.

  I’m no longer a member of that set, he thought.

  The set of the living.

  He had no feelings. No anger, no pain. He was executing only a miniscule set of instructions.

  I could learn to live like this, he decided.

  [How long have I been dead?] he asked.

  [Too long. There’ll be some damage, but we’ll repair you.]

  [Alois?]

  [He has retreated into his alien sensorium,] said Sybil.

  He had so many questions. Such as, if he was dead, how was he able to see things?

  Did sensation persist this long after death?

  [Why did the slugs hurt Alois?]

  [They were protecting the people.]

  [From what?]

  [Kronus.]

  [Who’s Kronus?]

  First, he was in the grip of a seizure. Water was gushing out of his mouth, and he was drowning again.

  Then he was fully awake, on a table, shaking with terror. He couldn’t think straight. The lights were dazzling his eyes. He was naked, being prodded by humans.

  Then he was relaxed in a modern, well-equipped medibay. A screenwall looked onto a reef. Fish darted through coral like neurons. He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror. He looked alright. Good, considering. No visible injuries.

  Except for his fingers.

  Alois looked like a motor accident victim.

  “That so sucked,” he complained. Something inside him was already softening the experience, like the natural brainware that wipes away dreams.

  It occurred to him he was in air. He took an experimental breath of it.

  His Magellanic friend was here.

  “I’m sorry,” said Sybil.

  “Everyone’s sorry,” said Macro. “Thanks for the voice-interlocutor. Who’s Kronus?”

  “The creator of the Thespian disease.”

  “It’s a weapon?”

  “Yes”

  Sybil explained that the thousand worlds military strategy was mistaken.

  That the real attack vector was the Thespian disease.

  Macro tried to take it all in. He wasn’t aware the thousand worlds had a military strategy. It felt like his mind was wrapped in bandages. Maybe it was. The medibay told him he had a brain injury; to be patient.

  “Why am I here?”

  He made an exploratory poke at his wetware. Nothing.

  “Why all the mystery?” he asked, getting angry. “Where is my wetware?”

  “There’s someone I want you to meet,” said Sybil.

  He was Macro’s age, maybe a year older. Macro’s height, maybe five kilos heavier. A lithe athlete. Dressed in dusty combat nano of a Magellanic commando. A holy warrior.

  “I’m impressed,” said Macro. This was his first holy warrior. Maybe he should be kneeling.

  The young Pursang easily fit the mythology. He had lurid scars, presumably earned in battle. One curled over his arm and disappeared into his dreadlocks. He must have nearly been cut in two.

  He looked as though he hadn’t slept in days.

  He shook his head. “No, it’s you who should be praised. My name is Totoro.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  “Yes, I’m my sister’s brother.”

  18 ∞ Bunjil, the Eagle

  314

  The town of Eagle clung t
o narrow arêtes, peering down through couloirs to the valley below. Dawn caught the mountains above, so they shone rose and gold in the sunlight. Long lines of people were moving by lamplight up a long switchback trail, that led to the town from the valley.

  “Something’s happening,” said Iris.

  “I must see to the children,” she said.

  Box and Kitou were given a whirlwind tour of the town, as Iris delivered her charges to their parents. There were rumors of war. Like a beast awakening, the Gray army had stirred in the East.

  There was wilder talk. They’d reached the centerline train. They were in the valley below.

  Iris explained it’d take them days to reach the trainline, if that’s what they wanted. Longer, if they hoped to keep the ground they traversed. It would be a week before they were here.

  Or it could be a blitzkrieg.

  [How far west are we?] Box asked the ship, but she got no answer.

  Eagle was a stereotypical high-mountain bolthole, with steep gabled roofs huddled close to the rock, and doglegged streets that ended in nothing. Unlike the Horu Chancery, this was a Blue place. It was Blue farmers who were coming up the trail, and the streets were packed with Blue riders.

  While Iris was delivering Mae and Mia to their home down a lane, a soldier rode up beside them. She was Helen, she said, the Marshall of the West, and Ride of the Eagle.

  “Welcome to High Eagle,” she said. “I wish I could give you a better welcome, but as you can see, we’re about to be in a war. Unfortunate timing. You must be the Red Lady.”

  The Blue woman carried herself like the warfighting generals of history newsreels. She reminded Box of a FARC revolutionary, unifying comunistas in the defense of some Bolivian hill town. She wore her wars in the scars on her face: an eye covered by a patch, and part of a cheekbone missing.

  She certainly looked like she could kill people.

  “Do you run this place?” asked Box.

  “I do now,” she said.

  “We have to get back to the Chancery.”

  “Yes, I can help you.”

  Iris emerged from the laneway; the children safe in their houses. Helen threw her a spear with a flag, which she caught and fixed to her saddle.

  “How far away are the Enemy?” asked Box.

  “Hard to say,” said Helen. “There are marginally credible reports of Grey infantry already on the train. I don’t believe it. Iris?”

  “I have no better information.”

  “Nothing from the ghost?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Unsurprising. Alright, to the Mousehole.”

  The Mousehole was a Horu teahouse, hanging over a tumbling moraine, deserted except for its owner, who served them tea then vanished.

  “This is my headquarters,” said Helen. “The walls are acceptably deaf. The owner’s a spy, but we both know it. Red Lady, we’ve been trying to raise the Chancery, but their psi is offline.”

  “Do they know it has started?” asked Iris.

  “We have no way to know,” said Helen. Box could get a better look at her now. She appeared to be in her late fifties, the oldest Blue soldier she’d seen. A survivor. She was draped in a greatcoat, with pieces sewn in where it’d been hacked into.

  “What are the facts?” asked Box.

  “Kronus’s armies are on the move,” said Helen. “Maybe a million soldiers. Maybe half coming here, to this town.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we intend to bring them here. Eagle’s a difficult place to win, unless they plan to blow us off the mountainside. We’ll make our stand in these mountains.”

  “Bring them here, how?”

  “They’ll follow the path of least resistance. We’ll resist least in the middle.”

  “How many soldiers do you have?”

  “I’m the Marshall of nine Rides. Five thousand trained riders, and five thousand more who will fight.”

  “Ten thousand versus half a million?”

  “No, there are more Blue armies. We number about twenty thousand in total.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fifty to one?”

  “About.”

  “How can you win?”

  “In the mountains we have the advantage. The enemy will struggle to find us. Do you see that cirque valley below? All bogs and lakes. Our rangers in the hills on all sides, killing and slipping away. We’ll terrify them with our savagery. We need to invent a new type of fighting.”

  “It’s already been invented. We call it an insurgency.”

  “You come from such a place?”

  “Oh yes, we’ve pretty much been at it since we started.”

  The owner appeared with fresh tea. Helen waved him away.

  “Look,” said Box. “I’m a military historian. I know the exact tactics of the war you’ve described. I can help you.”

  “No,” said Helen. “Your place isn’t here. Iris?”

  “I’d planned to take them on the centerline train.”

  “Impossible now. The Greys will reach it before you do, or worse, while you’re on it. You’ll take the high road. It’s a bilaterally symmetrical, parabolic airwave. That means it runs high. Between five and ten thousand meters. You’ll need suitable clothing, more than what you have now.”

  “Won’t we get altitude sickness?”

  “Mountain sickness? No, not enough time, but it won’t be easy.”

  She turned her attention to Kitou. “You, girl,” she said. “You’re barefoot.”

  Kitou tossed her head. Box could sense a new wildness in her. It’d been coming since Fluxor. Box didn’t mind it. It was a hot kind of madness. They were all going mad, in this place.

  “I’m not your girl,” she said.

  “Ah, a spirited one. Can it fight?”

  “She can fight,” said Iris.

  “She still needs the correct footwear. Go and get it for her. Now.”

  “Kitou,” said Box. “Are you alright?”

  “It’s begun, Dr Box. I want to be part of it.”

  “You’ll get your opportunity. We have to get back to Ito.”

  “I can fight with these people. I also understand the principles of asymmetric war.”

  “Kitou, no. I can’t get through this without you.”

  Kitou looked defiant, then apologetic. “I’m sorry. What was I thinking?”

  “You really want to fight?”

  “Of course. These are my people. I swore an oath to protect them.”

  Would there ever be an end to young people, heedlessly going to war?

  “Then we’ll stay,” Box said, to see how it sounded.

  “You’ll fight with us?” said Helen.

  “Of course,” said Kitou, and the woman sighed.

  “No,” she said, not unkindly. “We’re going to lose. Make no mistake. We propose to make it difficult for him. What use is one extra sword, and - with respect - a scholar of war? You two can only make a difference with the prophet.”

  “But,” said Box and Kitou together.

  “No, I forbid it.”

  After Iris left with Kitou to find winter gear, Box asked more questions.

  “You said one million soldiers,” she said, “I’ve heard there are two. Where are the rest?”

  “They’re staged in the high east, preparing to go outside.”

  “Outside where?”

  “To your world, I think. To the Real. That’s what the spaceships are for.”

  “How many spaceships?”

  Helen shrugged. “Thousands?”

  “How do you know this?”

  “We have spies.”

  “Do you know what they’re planning?”

  “Horu mythology tells us about a last battle. It’s a story the Enemy favors. We intend to avoid it.”

  “Helen, what happens when the worldsingers leave this place?”

  Helen made a hand gesture, like a balloon being popped.

  “It implodes, and takes
the Enemy along with it.”

  “You can’t believe that.”

  “No. Kronus means to destroy us. He intends to escape. The events are not unrelated.”

  “So by dying, you play into his hands.”

  “By dying quickly, we play into his hands. What we can give you is time.”

  The innkeeper poured them tea.

  “Red Lady, Kronus might seem mad, or a fool sometimes, but the truth is, he’s a good enough general. Not as good as he thinks he is, but enough, while he has as overwhelming advantage in numbers. That’s why you’re here. You must find a way. You’re our last hope, and our best chance.”

  “This first step is bitey,” said Iris.

  “Don’t worry,” said Box. “We’ve done this before.”

  “Right,” said Iris, and stepped out over two vertical kilometers of granite. Seabiscuit followed, and then they were soaring, effortlessly skywards, like sailplanes.

  “This wave is deceptively fast,” Iris shouted. “Try to keep up. Don’t stray to the sides or you’ll finish up elsewhere.”

  They were in the grip of a rising column of air, and not just air. Box could feel the alternate realities curving around her. It wasn’t overly cold, at first. The air from the valley was tens of degrees warmer than in the town, but as they rose, and the spiraling thermals abandoned them, the temperature dropped. Iris had kitted them out in coveralls made from skins lined with fur, with similar rugs for the horses. The suits were expertly made, but soon her exposed skin was stinging.

  [How cold is it now?] she asked the ship, but again she got no answer.

  [She’s gone,] said Kitou.

  [Just ours, here?] asked Box.

  [I don’t know,] said Kitou.

  They watched the town fall away, until it was a sprinkle of dots in the landscape. Now she could see the size of the country, and it was impressive. It was hard to believe this world was smaller than Earth. The sheer granite walls over Eagle were just the beginning. To the north and the south were rows of serrated giants, like the Karakorum on Earth, but higher. Box began to discern the upwards curvature of the helix. It was like rising out of a bowl of mountains.

  “Do you have mountains like this where you come from?” asked Iris, through a thick scarf wrapped round her face.

  “We have the Aø, the Curtain Wall on Fluxor,” said Kitou. “But not like this.”