by Greg Bear
“You should enjoy this,” Ram Kikura told them as the bus rolled off the white pavement onto a broad, brick-colored road. ”We’re going to the beach.”
The Frant world, she explained, served as a resort for humans and several other oxygen-breathing beings in the Way.
Because the level of ultraviolet from the bright yellow-dwarf star was higher than humans were used to, an atmospheric shield had been erected over several thousand square kilometers.
The resort lay in the shield’s shadow.
“The ocean has few large carnivorous life forms—none that would want to eat humans, anyway—and the environment is clean. It’s ideal. The vacation spot of choice for all who can afford to go—which is virtually any corporeal citizen.”
The resort’s long, low main building was in an ideal location, fronting a broad white quartz-sand beach on one side of a half-moon harbor.
Each room had a patio and transparent doors with a choice of undisguised real scenery or various illusart displays. The furniture, in keeping with the Old Terrestrial motif of the resort, was real and unchangeable.
They ate lunch, their first meal on the Frant world, in a restaurant decorated in late-twentieth-century style, the food served by homorphs. Mechanical workers were not in evidence.
After lunch, they walked to the resort buildings and Ram Kikura inspected their rooms carefully before letting them enter. They still wore their belts, though Lanier felt he was up to doing without. He would only remove his when Heineman did, however, and Heineman seemed content to leave it on.
Patricia looked around her room, then joined the others on Lanier’s patio. Ram Kikura told them they could rest and swim for a few hours, and that she and Olmy would be nearby if they were needed.
“They’re taking a room for themselves upstairs,” Carrolson said in a confidential tone after she had left. “I think they’re lovers.”
Patricia opened the patio’s metal gate. ”I’m going to take a walk,” she said. She glanced at Lanier. ”Unless you think we should stick together all the time.”
“No, We’re probably safe enough here. Go ahead.” Lanier watched her walk down the beach, stiff-legging through the sand past homorphs and even a few belted nemorphs. Nobody paid her much attention. He shook his head, smiling. ”Could be Acapulco,” he said, “with a few odd balloons drifting around.”
Farley put her arm around him. ”I’ve never been to Acapulco, but I don’t think it had a sky that color.”
“Lovebirds,” Carrolson sniffed, glanced reproachfully at Heineman. “You never treat me that way.”
“I’m an engineer,” Heineman said. ”I don’t pamper, I just make things run right.”
“You do indeed,” Carrolson said.
“My God, listen to us, we’re cheerful,” Lanier said.
“Patricia isn’t,” Carrolson said. “we’ve seen her putting on her stern look when she sees you two. I think she’s jealous, Garry.”
“Christ.” Lanier sat down in a patio chair and stared across the dazzling beach and intense green-blue sea to the knife-sharp horizon. “She’s been an enigma since I first met her.”
“Not to me,” Farley said. All faces turned to her. ”I understand her at least a little,” she continued. ”I was like her--less brilliant, but inner-directed. Stubborn. My life was miserable until I was twenty-five or twenty-six, and I decided to be more normal—exterior normal, anyway.”
“She’ll be twenty-four tomorrow,” Carrolson said.
“That’s her birthday?” Farley asked.
Carrolson nodded. “We’ve told Olmy and explained about birthday parties. He thinks it’s a good idea. Apparently they don’t have birthdays here-so few people are actually born, biologically speaking. There are naming days, maturity celebrations--mostly in Axis Nader. I gather that age doesn’t mean as much to them as it does to us.”
“So what kind of party will it be?”
“I suggested we keep it small—ourselves, Olmy, Ram Kikura. He agreed.”
“Lenore, you’re a marvel,” Lanier said, unconsciously adopting Hoffman’s tone of voice. Carrolson curtsied and dimpled her cheeks with her twisting index fingers.
“We’re more than cheerful,” Heineman said, staring at her. “We’re absolutely nuts.”
Patricia had gone about half a kilometer down the beach when she saw Oligand Toiler standing on the sand ahead of her. He wore shorts, revealing blond-haired, well-shaped legs slightly bowed, and a loud Hawaiian-print shirt. ”Do you like it?” he asked, modeling for her.
She gawped, not knowing what to say.
“Well, I tried,” he said, seeming chagrined. ”I’d like to talk with you, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m not sure—” she said.
“It might be important. For all of you.”
She stood her ground, head bowed slightly, staring up at him, but said nothing.
“We can keep on walking,” Toiler said. ”I’d like to explain some things before you meet with the President—if he can make time for us.”
“Let’s talk, then,” she said, walking past him. He took two running strides to catch up with her.
“We’re not your enemies, Patricia,” Toiler admonished. “Whatever Olmy may have told you—”
“Olmy’s said nothing against anybody,” Patricia said.
“This is just my way,” she said. ”We’re—I’m not very happy these days, for obvious reasons.”
“Most understandable,” the advocate said, keeping pace with her.
None of the other bathers or flouting neomorphs seemed to find it unusual for the President’s advocate and a woman from centuries in their past to be walking together. They were casually ignored.
”I find the resort here wonderful. I come often. Reminds me of what it is to be human ... do you understand?”
“To see things that are real,” Patricia said.
“Yes. And to get away from the problems for a while. Well, this is obviously a working vacation, and brief at that—we can’t stay more than two local days. But we thought it worthwhile to show you how our system works. We are trying to enlist your support—Patricia? May I call you that?”
She nodded.
“Because of the way things have worked out, you people can be very influential. We won’t force you into our ways or opinions, that’s not how our government works. Modeled on your own, after all.”
They stopped at a natural basalt breakwater pointing out to sea.
Patricia turned and saw a small, bright meteor pass across a few degrees of the horizon. No beams reached out to destroy it—it was small enough to disintegrate harmlessly on its own.
“We helped the Frants install their Sky Lance,” Toiler said. “When we opened the gate, they were still in the early atomic age. We arranged for some exchanges of information, set up a client-patron relationship and gave them what they needed to protect their world against the millennial comet sweeps.”
“What did you get in return?”
“Oh, they received much more than Sky Lance for what they gave. We opened the Way to them. They’re full partners in three gates now, commerce with three worlds and the normal-space trading systems around them. In return, they leased raw material and information rights to us. But the most valuable commodity they contribute is themselves.
You met Olmy’s partner. We find them ideal to work with—resourceful, reliable, unfailingly pleasant. And as far as anyone can tell, they genuinely enjoy working with us.”
“Makes them sound like good pets,” Patricia said.
“Yes, there is that aspect,” Toiler admitted. ”But they’re at least as intelligent as we are—unsupplemented, of course—and nobody treats them as if they were second-class citizens, or pets. You may have to drop some of your past prejudices to see our situation clearly, Patricia.”
“My prejudices are dropped,” she said. ”I’m just being ...”
She raised her hands and shook her head. Not once since their meeting had she loo
ked directly at Toiler’s face.
“Before we came, every thousand years, Tunbl would pass through a sweep of old comets. They’d regularly lose more than half their population. All this ocean is cometary water—gathered across billions of years. Apparently, there was a long lull about a million years ago, and in that time the Frants evolved to their current form and built up basic cultures. Then the sweeps began again. Gradually, the individual Frants became more and more alike, passing information and personality traits on through chemical messengers, then through cultural means. They became a holographic society, the better to absorb the shock of the sweeps. But they had never realized their potential, and weren’t about to, until our gate was opened. Now they have some of our own technologies—using high-speed pictors to update each other, or even exchanging partial personalities. All in all, I’m not sure who was the more lucky—the Frants, or ourselves. We might have lost to the Jarts centuries ago if the Frants hadn’t helped us.”
Patricia listened intently; filling in what she hadn’t had time to research in the data service. ”Why can’t you establish some sort of client-patron relationship with the Jarts?” she asked.
“Ah! The Jarts are quite another story. You know, of course, that we found them occupying the Way when we first connected it to the seventh chamber.”
“So I’ve heard,” she said, remembering what the rogue had told her.
“The Engineer had the misfortune of opening an experimental gate on the Jart home world. Time in the Way was not yet matched with our own time. They were able to spend about three centuries in the incomplete Way, making it their home, even learning to open crude gates. When the Way was connected and opened, there they were--much as they are today. Strong, intelligent, aggressive, absolutely convinced they’re destined to populate all universes. We fought a violent war with them and pushed them back in the first decades. Then we opened selected gates and filled the first segment of the Way—down to one ex five—with soil and air. All the time we were building the Axis City, we fought skirmishes with them, pushing them back farther and farther, closing their gates. Finally, they retreated to two ex nine, and we established a barrier at that point. We tried reasoning, making exchanges. They wouldn’t have it. We knew we couldn’t rid the Way of them—we weren’t strong enough.”
Patricia sat on the lowest step of a stairway leading to the top of the breakwater. ”And how can we help you?”
“That’s a complicated question, actually,” Toiler said. “You can best help us by supporting us. Or—by not opposing us.”
“You can all go home now,” Patricia said. ”Such as it is.”
Toiler paused for a moment, puzzled by the abruptness of her leap of ideas. ”Exactly.” He sat beside her, and she edged a few centimeters away. ”Such as it is. Personally, despite Ser Lanier’s most heartfelt plea, I see little reason to return to Earth now.”
“You could help the survivors.”
“Patricia, they—you become us. I see nothing iniquitous with letting a world heal itself. The fact that we’ve made a causal loop—that we can return to the worst point in our world-line—is not what I would consider an opportunity. At the moment, it’s a handicap. Has Olmy explained how we hope to push the Jarts from the Way? For good?”
She shook her head.
“It’s an ambitious plan. You’ve heard rumors about secession—having the Axis City divide in two?”
She decided to play dumb and shook her head again.
“Our flaw research group discovered, years ago, that the Axis City could be accelerated to near c—to near light-speed. There would be no damage to the city itself, and the citizens would experience only minor discomfort—”
“I think we should all hear about this,” Patricia decided suddenly, standing up.”I mean, all of my group. Not just me.”
“They can learn as much as they want. You can guide them when they get back to the Axis Citymit’s all available in City Memory. Or Olmy can explain it to you.”
“Why hasn’t he told us already?”
“Patricia, our world is extremely complex, as you know perhaps better than I. I doubt Olmy has had the opportunity to educate you on a thousandth of the more important things there are to know about us.”
“Okay,” Patricia said, stepping onto the sand and facing Toiler. “I’m listening.”
“It would take over a day to approach that velocity, accelerating at about three hundred g’s—which is very close to the theoretical limit for the inertial damping systems, and for something as large as the Axis City, traveling on the flaw. The flaw would be seriously stressed, producing hard radiation and heavy particles ... But within the Way, even a velocity of one-third light-speed would create a space-time shock wave. We would reach that velocity at about one point seven ex nine. We would pass through the territories held by the Jarts with devastating effect. The relativistic distortions within the Way would be incredible. The shape of the Way itself would be altered as we passed, and whatever gates the Jarts have opened would be smoothed out of existence”—he slid his hand in a flat-out gesture--”like ironing a piece of fabric in one of your world’s laundries.”
Patricia’s eyes became distant. Her mind was racing now to absorb the idea of a relativistic object within the Way—and the realization that within the Way, an object traveling at only one-third c would be relativistic.
“A grand scheme, don’t you think?”
She nodded abstractedly. ”How far would you Iravel down the Way?”
“That’s still being debated.”
“And what are the alternatives?”
“The conference is considering the alternatives even now—and have been for over three weeks. We believe the Jarts will break though our barriers in a matter of years, perhaps months. They’ll overrun our most extended gates--we’ll shut them down and withdraw, of course—and eventually, by the end of the decade, they’ll push us back into the Thistledown. We’ll have to evacuate, and to keep them from following us, we’ll have to destroy the Way. That would be an incredible calamity.”
“You’re certain about this?”
Toiler nodded once. ”We cannot hold them for long. They’ve grown quite strong, and they’ve enlisted the help of other world:, by opening gates all up and down their segment of the Way.”
“Couldn’t you do the same?”
“As I said, they’ve occupied the Way for several centuries longer than we have. They’re more familiar with it, in some ways, than we are, even though we created it.”
Toiler wasn’t telling her about one of the alternatives the rogue had mentioned--blowing the Thistledown from the end of the Way and “cauterizing’ it, sealing it closed so it would continue to exist, independently of the sixth chamber machinery.
She decided not to ask him about that possibility. ”It’s fascinating,” she said. ”Gives me a lot to think about.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure I’ve violated all the rules of etiquette, Patricia. You’ve been very kind to listen to me. Our time is quite limited, as you see, and you’ve brought an additional element into the equation ... “
“I’m sure we have,” Patricia said. Perhaps more than you know ... “I’d like to walk back now.”
“Certainly. I’ll accompany you.”
She smiled at him, eyes still distant. Toiler said very little as they retraced their steps up the beach to the resort buildings, and that suited Patricia.
She was already slipping into the state, her mind working, conjuring up her personal notation. Passing quickly through Lanier’s room, she made a few excuses and retired to her own quarters, lying down on the bed and closing her eyes tightly.
Toiler greeted the others and spoke with them for several minutes, explaining he had had a good conversation with Patricia concerning subjects of importance to all of them.
After he left, Lanier knocked on Patricia’s door, and received no answer.
“Patricia?” he called.
“Yes,” she said softly, scrunch
ing up her face.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m resting,” she said. ”I’ll join you for dinner.”
He looked at his watch; their second meal on the Frant World, ostensibly supper, would begin in an hour. He returned to his room.
“How is she?” Carrolson asked.
“Fine, she says. She’s napping.”
“Not likely,” Farley said. ”I wonder what Toiler told her?”
Chapter Fifty-eight
The meeting between the three men who had taken Mirsky’s mantle of authority began and ended in half an hour. It was held in Pletnev’s private cabin, with Annenkovsky standing guard outside to make sure nobody listened in.
The topic was Mirsky’s message to Garabedian. The solution to the problem they now faced, Pletnev insisted, was simple.
At first, Garabedian and Pogodin were hesitant. Pletnev had insisted they had no other choice, however. ”Look, they tried to kill Mirsky, and they were locked away,” he said. ”Now they’ll be released. Isn’t it obvious? It’s what the American woman thought. It makes sense to me.”
“So what do we do?”
Pletnev hefted his Kalashnikov. Most of the laser weapons had long since run out of charge, and besides, he had always preferred bullets.
“Won’t we be locked up?” Garabedian asked.
“Was anyone locked up after all the fighting?” Pletnev asked.
Pogodin shook his head.
“Then we’ll just kill them away from the city.”
“I don’t like the idea of killing them without a trial.”
“We don’t have any choice,” Pletuev said. ”Shit, Mirsky left you the message, but I’m the one who understands what he was really saying. Vielgorsky still has his supporters. Without Mirsky, the three of us can rule reasonably, but if the Zampolits return, we’ll all be shot. We meet them, and we do what we must. Agreed?”
Pogodin and Garabedian agreed.
“Then let’s go,” Pletnev said. ”We’ll wait them out. Better to be early than to miss them.”
Mirsky had abandoned the truck on the water’s edge and walked inland with his backpack filled with dry rations.
