Crucible

by Nancy Kress

  “Alex. We need more silicon allotment from both Mira Corp and SecSun. Right away.”

  “Hello, Savannah. This is Commander Julian Martin from Terra. Julian, my cousin Savannah Cutler, chief energy scientist for Mira City.”

  “Hello,” Savannah said, barely glancing at Julian. A real live Terran didn’t deter her. Nothing deterred Savannah. “Alex, we’re simply not using this technology to its fullest because we can’t get enough silicon for the dense-array cells. That idiot at SecSun doesn’t have his new mining company organized enough to produce in the quantities we need, and you aren’t allowing us a big enough share of what Mira Mining produces. If we could get a ration increase of only sixteen percent and a corresponding amount of boron for the P-cells…”

  She launched into a long, precise, monotone recital of projected figures that Alex did not follow. Savannah never offered explanations of technicalities. She assumed that everyone understood them, and, if they didn’t, they should. Alex waited her out.

  “Savannah, put it in a three-page requisition argument addressed directly to me.” She had learned over time that this was the only response, other than capitulation, that Savannah would accept.

  “You’ll have it in an hour,” Savannah said, turned, and strode back to her foamcast bunker.

  Julian gave Alex his faint, aloof smile. Alex said helplessly, “I know it only postpones the refusal. I can’t allocate any more mining equipment. We need it elsewhere.”

  “You’re basically a capitalist society?”

  “A mixture. We’re ’in transition,’ Jake says. Still. Anyway, the shortfalls are why new companies like SecSun are starting up. They see a need and a chance to make money, and they’re right. The problem is that every new mining company needs mining equipment, and the original stuff is worn out, and so that means a new company to make mining equipment. Which in turn needs things made by new companies, and the most basic resources, including manufacturing facilities and people, are limited.”

  “So you get the job of deciding who gets what. You know,” Julian added thoughtfully, “that’s not so different from wartime rationing. Greentrees may not be as alien to me as I expected.”

  ’’We’re not at war,” Alex said shortly.

  “Why don’t you have solar power satellites in orbit? Their collection efficiency on Earth was eighty-two percent, and you could beam the energy down here in either microwaves or laser.”

  “Let’s get in the car,” Alex said, “I’m already running late. Solar power satellites have to be run by computers. Our computer system is old and unreliable, and that’s a really intricate manufacturing process that I’m postponing a bit longer. A strong and eco infrastructure comes first. With a Greentrees-based system, we don’t absolutely have to have the computers.”

  Julian stared at her. “You track the dishes to follow the sun by hand?”

  “No, but we can if we must. Any computer failure won’t take down the energy system.”

  “I see. That’s good.”

  She felt irrationally warmed by his praise. The warmth made it easier to explain the situation at Hope of Heaven, where she now headed the car.”… and so Lau-Wah’s been dealing with the dissident crimes. He’s there now with Yat-Shing Wong, or Wong Yat-Shing as he now calls himself. Ashraf is coming, too. I don’t think you should be present at this meeting, Julian. It’s not the sort of thing open to anyone.”

  “Of course not. Don’t you have a justice system to deal with crimes? Courts and judges?”

  “Of course we do. But Lau-Wah says this isn’t a usual crime, or series of crimes, and we need to look at it more deeply.”

  “He’s right.”

  Julian didn’t say more, and Alex didn’t ask what he meant. But after a moment she burst out, “The whole situation at Hope of Heaven doesn’t make sense to me! We have so much still to do on Greentrees, and we need everyone to do it, and here these kids are destroying instead of building? And for what?”

  “You really don’t understand power, do you?”

  That stopped her. She realized she never thought about power, not in the abstract. Energy, yes, but not power. You did what was needed to get a job done, and so did everybody else. Didn’t they? Apparently, there was a lot more to it that she hadn’t considered.

  Why did Julian make her feel like such an innocent? She was not that.

  Julian said quietly, “Alex, you need security at the solar array. I looked and there wasn’t any. It would make a good target for your Chinese dissidents.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Precisely.”

  “I’ll discuss it with Lau-Wah.”

  They drove in silence after that. Alex followed the river northwest. For the most part, the terrain heading toward the coast was gentle, and the rover didn’t bump too much. She watched Julian note the herds of grazing teelies, heavy and slow and stupid, endlessly munching groundcover. Wildflowers, peasies and colburn and lacy moonrushes grew along the banks.

  “A purple Eden,” he said finally, and she was first pleased to recognize the Terran reference, and then irritated at her own pleasure. What did Terran references matter? This was Greentrees.

  He added, “Why didn’t you put Mira City downriver, on the coast? For sea fishing, for future shipping.”

  “Ground too marshy there. Hope of Heaven is situated at about the last stable ground before the river turns brackish and then spreads out into delta. There, that’s Hope of Heaven straight ahead.” Julian sat up straighten “Beautiful, isn’t it? That’s what Mira City will look like one day.”

  “How so?”

  “That’s the third-generation design for Greentrees buildings. We started with inflatables: instant and imported from Terra. Then foamcast—durable, sprayed from Greentrees materials with Terran equipment. These structures here are all our own, in completely eco designs. Recyclability, comfort, and beauty.”

  She stopped the rover at the edge of the village, which consisted of maybe fifty houses, some community centers, and the small manufacturies of new companies like Chu Corporation. The buildings were asymmetrical, to take advantage of prevailing winds and shifting light. Roof gardens of compost and mulch reduced storm runoff and cooled interiors. Power for the houses, although not yet the factories, was mostly solar. All plastics, including those for the many windows, were made of biodegradable plant kernels. Even the toilets were eco, using very little water and creating compost that, thanks to genemod microbes, actually smelled sweet. The entire town was light, airy, fragrant, an improbable cross between a latticed crystal and a garden soaring skyward in flashing windmill and graceful com tower.

  Julian said quietly, “And I thought Mira City was beautiful,” but for once Alex felt no pleasure at his compliment. Too much tension about what was happening here. Whatever it was.

  “I’ll just walk around and look at things,” Julian said. Alex nodded.

  The community center had been cleared of its usual activities. In the open central atrium, walled with lattices made of living tangmoss vines, Lau-Wah waited with Ashraf, Yat-Shing, and three other young Chinese. All wore the cheek tattoos recently adopted by Hope of Heaven, two stars and a crescent moon. Along the wall stood three of Mira City’s security team, alert and grim. One of them, Alex noted, was Jade Liu, Guy Davenport’s second-in-command.

  Alex spoke to Ashraf and Lau-Wah. “Are these three under arrest for the burning of the research camp? Or for anything else?”

  “No,” Lau-Wah said. His peeled-egg face showed no emotion. “There isn’t enough evidence linking them to the crime.”

  “Not enough evidence! MiraNet said there was a metal rod in the rubble, twisted into the Chinese character for ’hope’!”

  “Anyone could have left that rod there,” Lau-Wah said.

  “But everyone knows—”

  “We don’t convict on rumor,” Lau-Wah said, and now the knife in his voice, so at variance with his face, stopped her. Lau-Wah was right, of course. Alex struggled to master her o
utrage.

  Ashraf, rubbing bis ear, said, “Isn’t Julian with you?”

  “Commander Martin has no place here,” Lau-Wah said.

  “I agree,” Alex said. She looked for the first time at the four young dissidents. Instead of the smirks she expected, they gazed back at her with a blank calm that struck her as far more deadly.

  Lau-Wah said, “Even though there are no criminal charges, I have asked Mr. Wong to tell us anything at all that might be useful in solving this problem. He has declined.”

  Alex couldn’t resist. “No political polemics, Wong?”

  “We do not talk when no one listens,” Wong said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “You are incapable of actually hearing. All of you.”

  Ashraf said gently, “You could try.”

  “I do not lower myself to try.”

  “Lau-Wah,” Alex said, “did Mr. Wong offer anything useful before you arrived?”

  “No,” Lau-Wah said.

  “Not true,” Wong said. “I told you what you yourself are. A traitor to your people, a tool wielded by the Anglos and Arabs, a man of secondhand visions and selfish actions, their selfishness exceeded only by their triteness.”

  Lau-Wah did not change expression. But Wong did; all at once his young face burst into such fiery hatred that Alex took an involuntary step backward. Wong spat something at Lau-Wah in Chinese, and then all three turned their backs on the triumvirate and bowed their heads toward the floor. It had been rehearsed, Alex realized. A perfect gesture of personal contempt.

  She couldn’t look at Lau-Wah. Ashraf said, “No,” hesitantiy and pointlessly. Only Lau-Wah kept his composure. How could he, in the face of such hatred?

  “Major Liu, these men are not under arrest. They are free to go. Mr. Wong, even if you will not speak to me, remember that I have spoken to you. Remember my words.” He strode toward the door.

  Alex, trailed by Ashraf, trotted to catch up. Outside, she said, “What were your words? I don’t like this unilateral dealing, Lau-Wah.”

  “It is not unilateral dealing. I merely told him that on behalf of the Chinese citizens of Greentrees, I will permit no more violence. Not because of Mira City but because violence of this sort always creates a backlash, and the hardworking Chinese here do not deserve that. No matter what injustices he thinks exist. I will not sacrifice the many to the misguided idealism of the few.”

  Misguided idealism.

  “Lau-Wah—” she began heatedly, but he had outpaced her, leading for her car. By prearrangement, he would drive it back to Mira and she would fly in the skimmer to the Avery Mountains.

  Alex looked after him, her stomach twisting. And not into the shape of hope.

  In the foothills of the Avery Mountains, Jon McBain bubbled with enthusiasm. Alex had seldom seen him otherwise, but today he practically foamed. “You’ve never seen anything like this, Alex. We thought yesterday that it was a type-six biomass, but it’s not. We don’t know what it is. It… who’s this?”

  “Commander Julian Martin, Dr. Jon McBain, xenobiologist.”

  “Welcome to Greentrees,” Jon said perfunctorily. “Alex, this will astonish you. Over there … come on!”

  Alex was in no mood to be astonished. The skimmer ride had only worsened her stomach. It had been a silent ride; Julian had not been waiting for her outside the Hope of Heaven community center. He had showed up half an hour later with no explanation, no apology. And Jon McBain, now burbling on about microbes, was the replacement for the dead Donald Halloran. Jon had sent his regrets about the defense meeting because of these microbes. Alex wasn’t even completely sure that Jon realized the unknown ship had turned out to be Terran and commanded by Julian, or that Jon would care if he did know. And this was Mira’s defense admin!

  Alex struggled to hold on to her temper. She followed Jon, who moved so fast he was almost running, across a broad flat field. Somewhere in the distance she could hear the river, but could not see it. It ran more swiftly here in the foothills, digging itself channels with many overhangs and shallow caves. Beyond, the Avery Mountains loomed against the sky.

  Jon stopped by a low foamcast building. Beside it, a drilling rig squatted above a narrow hole from which protruded a shining metal rod.

  “You won’t believe this!” Jon burbled, oblivious to Alex’s mood. “We sunk this shaft down a mile and a half, and there’s apparently some sort of anaerobic microbes down there that don’t use any form of photosynthesis. Well, that’s not so odd, the literature records those even on Earth. They oxidize sulfide, methane, iron, or hydrogen, if there’s any water, for energy. Some of them pump out really weird molecules. But these! Alex … listen!”

  Jon pushed a button on a small piece of equipment that Alex couldn’t name. Squinting, she saw that a very fine filament ran from the equipment to the top of the shining pole sunk in the shaft. The machinery began to emit regularly spaced, discordant tones. Jon waved his hand and the unpleasant noise grew louder, then very loud. Alex clapped her hands over her ears.

  “Turn it off!”

  He did. His eyes shone. “That’s the sound of some sort of crystallization. The Elliner amp turns molecular action into sound. The microbes down there are acting on the pole. It took us three different alloys before we got one it didn’t just eat through.”

  “Jon—”

  “We have no idea what they’re doing down there,” he said happily. “But all our initial sims indicate some sort of basic catabolism we’ve never seen before!”

  “That’s wonderful,” Alex said sarcastically, “but not wonderful enough to ignore a summons to the defense meeting in Mira.”

  “Oh, but it is! We might be dealing here with a whole new division of basic life. It isn’t—”

  “It isn’t what this research station is supposed to be working on, Jon. What about the—”

  “We have a Mira Corp grant for basic science, Alex.”

  “I know you do,” she said, as evenly as possible. “But as a sideline. What about the battery?”

  “Oh, that’s coming along,” Jon said. He didn’t seem rebuked. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  He led the way to the foamcast building. Inside, two vast clear vats filled with grayish sludge churned quietly.

  “This is a microbially powered battery, a prototype,” Jon explained to Julian, the visitor. “A genetically altered form of E. coli converts sucrose into CO2 and water. We snatch the freed electrons created by oxidation before they can be seized by intermediate compounds. We’ve altered the bacteria to allow constant contact between cell’s interior and a microscopic mesh screen that—”

  Alex stopped listening. Nothing new here; Jon had been this far along on her last visit. It was clear that all the team energies had gone into his new discovery, not the battery that was supposed to eventually provide a natural, safe, recyclable power for Mira City.

  “… goal of two million liters of liquid and perhaps twenty thousand tons of microbes, producing power at a rate of—”

  As tray-o, Alex’s job was to make Jon concentrate work on the battery, not on the unknown and irrelevant biomass. The problem was that Jon’s concentration, a formidable force when focused, was not easy to direct. It went its own way, independent as a lion. And just as perverse.

  “… problem of microbial waste, which tends to turn the soup acidic, so we—” Alex said abruptly, “Jon, I want you to report to Mira tomorrow afternoon for a defense meeting.”

  “But I—”

  “No arguments, please.” She turned and walked away. Rude … she was being very rude. Well, so what? She hated being rude.

  Another silent ride back to Mira. As the city came into view, Julian said, “Alex, stop the car.”

  Surprised by his urgent tone, she did.

  He sat still so long that she grew alarmed. Finally he twisted in his cramped seat and turned on her the full brilliance of those green genemod eyes.

  “I want you to listen to me carefully. Sometimes t
he observations of an outsider can be valuable in assessing a situation. Mira—”

  “I know we’re a bit disorganized,” she snapped. “I’ll take care of it!”

  “I’m not talking about disorganization. I’m talking about total stupidity.”

  Alex gasped. “How dare you just—”

  “Now you’re angry. Do you see how easily I angered you? I want you to see it. I want you to see that you—all of you—are just reacting to each event as it comes along, without any remote idea of how it fits into the overall situation. Savannah Cutler, Jon McBain, Yat-Shing Wong, even you… everyone is interested in a single goal, constructive or destructive, but not working together for the good of Mira as a whole. I called that stupidity, and it is stupidity. Willful blindness is always stupid.”

  Rage boiled up in her, but then he took her hand and held it in a hard, impersonal grip that compelled her to listen.

  “You’re blind to at least three things, Alex. First, you don’t see the necessity for clear authority. You let Savannah Cutler and Jon McBain and even Lau-Wah Mah decide issues that you should decide. Like all democratic meritocracies, you’re afraid to exercise actual power. But you’re at war with the Furs, or will soon be. War does not go well if leaders try to lead by letting every talented person have control over the ends, not just the means, of his own fiefdom.”

  “They’re not—”

  “They’re running them as if they have fiefdoms. Second, you’re blind to an inherent problem with meritocracies. They always breed aggression.”

  Alex blinked, too surprised to answer.

  Julian gave her his half smile. His fingers still gripped hers. “You thought the opposite? That in a meritocracy, where everyone has a chance to rise from sheer talent, aggression is minimized? No. A meritocracy means competition, and the less you mitigate that competition with universally accepted norms of inherited privilege, the more aggressive and nasty the competition becomes.”