Eternity (Eon, 3)

by Greg Bear

  “Yes, yes.” Olmy almost wished they had never had Tapi. The weight of responsibility now, with his researches also heavy on him, was too much. He simply did not have time.

  “I don’t know whether to be mad at you or not,” she said. “You’re facing something difficult. I suppose a few years ago I could have guessed what it is…” Her voice was rich and even, well-controlled, but she could not hide concern mixed with irritation at his quiet obtuseness. “I value you enough to ask what’s bothering you.”

  Value. They had been primary lovers for more decades than he cared to count. (seventy-four years, his implant memory stores reminded him, unbidden), and they had lived through—and taken part in—some of the Hexamon’s most turbulent and spectacular history. He had never seriously courted any woman but Ram Kikura; he had always known that wherever he went, whomever else he established a brief liaison with, he would always return to her. She was his match—a homorph, neither Naderite nor Geshel in her politics, lifelong advocate, one-time senior corprep for Earth in the Nexus, champion of the unfortunate, the ignored and the ignorant. With no other would he have made a Tapi.

  “I’ve been studying. That’s all.”

  “Yes, but you won’t tell me what you’ve been studying. Whatever it is, it’s changing you.”

  “I’m just looking ahead.”

  “You don’t know something I’m not privy to, do you? Coming out of retirement? The trip to Earth—”

  He said nothing and she pulled back, lips tightly pressed together. “All right. Something secret. Something to do with the re-opening.”

  “Nobody seriously plans that,” Olmy said, an edge of petulance in his voice unseemly in a man over five centuries old. Only Ram Kikura could get through his armor and provoke such a response.

  “Not even Korzenowski agrees with you.”

  “With me? I’ve never said I support re-opening.”

  “It is absurd,” she said. Now they had both probed beneath armor. “Whatever our problems, or shortages, to abandon the Earth—”

  “That’s even less likely,” he said softly.

  “—And re-open the Way…. That goes against everything we’ve worked for the past forty years.”

  “I’ve never said I wanted it,” he reiterated.

  Her look of scorn was a shock to him. Never had their distance been so great that either could have felt intellectual contempt for the other. Their relationship had always been a mix of passion and dignity, even in the years of their worst dispute…which this showed signs of equaling or surpassing, though he refused to admit disagreement.

  “Nobody wants it, but it sure would be exciting, wouldn’t it? To be gainfully employed again, to have a mission, to return to our youth and years of greatest power. To open commerce with the Talsit again. Such wonders in store!”

  Olmy lifted one shoulder slightly, a bare admission that there was some truth in what she said.

  “Our job here isn’t finished. We have our entire history to reclaim. Surely that’s labor enough.”

  “I’ve never known our kind to be moderate,” Olmy said.

  “You feel the call of duty, don’t you? You’re preparing for what you think will happen.” Suli Ram Kikura uncurled and stood, taking him by the arm more in anger than affection. “Have we never truly thought alike? Has our love always been just an attraction of opposites? You opposed me on the Old Natives’ rights to individuality—”

  “Anything else would have damaged the Recovery.” Her bringing the subject up after thirty-eight years, and his quick response, showed clearly that the embers of that dispute had not died.

  “We agreed to differ,” she said, facing him.

  As Earth’s advocate in the years after the Sundering and in the early stages of the Recovery, Ram Kikura had opposed Hexamon efforts to use Talsit and other mental therapies on Old Natives. She had cited contemporary Terrestrial law and taken the issue to the Hexamon courts, arguing that Old Natives had the right to avoid mental health checkups and corrective therapy.

  Eventually, her court challenge had been denied under special Recovery Act legislation.

  That had been resolved thirty-eight years before. Now, approximately forty percent of Earth’s survivors received one or another kind of therapy. The campaign to administer treatment had been masterful. Sometimes it had overstepped its bounds, but it had worked. Mental illness and dysfunction were virtually eradicated.

  Ram Kikura had gone on to other issues, other problems. They had stayed lovers, but their relationship had been strained from that point on.

  The umbilicus between them was very tough. Disagreements alone—even this—would not cut it. Ram Kikura could not, and in any event would not cry or show the weaknesses of an Old Native, and Olmy had given up those abilities centuries ago. Her face was sufficiently evocative without tears; he could read the special character of a Hexamon citizen there, emotions withheld but somehow communicated, sadness and loss foremost.

  “You’ve changed during the past four years,” she said. “I can’t define it…but whatever you’re doing, however you’re preparing, it diminishes the part of you that I love.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “You won’t talk about it. Not even with me.”

  He shook his head slowly, feeling just another degree of withering inside, another degree of withdrawal.

  “Where is my Olmy?” Ram Kikura asked softly. “What have you done with him?”

  “Ser Olmy! Your return is most welcome. How was your journey?” President Kies Farren Siliom stood on a broad transparent platform, the wide orb of the Earth coming into view beneath him as Axis Euclid rotated. Five hundred square meters of stressed and ion-anchored glass and two layers of traction field lay between the president’s conference chamber and open space; he seemed to stand on a stretch of open nothingness.

  Farren Siliom’s dress—white African cotton pants and a tufted black sleeveless shirt of Thistledown altered linen—emphasized his responsibility for two worlds: Recovered Earth, the Eastern hemisphere of which rolled into morning beneath their feet, and the orbiting bodies: Axes Euclid and Thoreau and the asteroid starship Thistledown.

  Olmy stood to one side of the apparent void in the outer shell of the precinct. The Earth passed out of view. He picted formal greetings to Farren Siliom, then said aloud, “My trip was smooth, Ser President.”

  He had waited patiently for three days to be admitted, using the time for the awkward visit to Suli Ram Kikura. Countless times before, he had waited on presiding ministers and lesser officials, fully aware, as centuries passed, that he had developed the old soldier’s attitude of superiority over his masters, of respectful condescension to the hierarchy.

  “And your son?”

  “I haven’t seen him in some time, Ser President. I understand he is doing well.”

  “A whole crop of children coming up for their incorporation exams soon,” Farren Siliom said. “They’ll be needing bodies and occupations, all of them, if they pass as easily as I’m sure your son will. More strain on limited resources.”

  “Yes, Ser.”

  “I’ve invited two of my associates to attend part of your briefing,” the president said, hands folded behind his back.

  Two assigned ghosts—projected partial personalities, acting with temporary independence from their originals—appeared a few meters to one side of the president. Olmy recognized one of them, the leader of the neo-Geshels in Axis Euclid, Tobert Tomson Tikk, one of Euclid’s thirty senators in the Nexus. Olmy had investigated Tikk at the start of his mission, though he had not met with the senator personally. The image of Tikk’s partial looked slightly more handsome and muscled than his original, an ostentation gaining favor among the more radical Nexus politicians.

  The presence of projected partials was both old and new. For thirty years after the Sundering, the separation of Thistledown from the Way, orthodox Naderites had controlled the Hexamon and such technological displays had been relegated to situations
of extreme necessity. Now the use of partials was commonplace; a neo-Geshel such as Tikk would not be averse to casually scattering his image and personality patterns about the Hexamon.

  “Ser Olmy is acquainted with Senator Tikk. I don’t believe you’ve met Senator Ras Mishiney, senator for the territory of Greater Australia and New Zealand. He’s in Melbourne at this moment.”

  “Pardon the time delay, Ser Olmy,” Mishiney said.

  “No fear,” Olmy said. The audience was purely a formality, since most of Olmy’s report was contained on record in detailed picts and graphics; but even so, he had not expected Farren Siliom to invite witnesses. It was a wise leader who knew when to admit his adversary—or adversaries—into high functions; Olmy knew little about Mishiney.

  “Let me apologize again for disturbing your well-deserved retirement.” Earthlight flooded the president. As the precinct rotated, the Earth again seemed to pass below them. “You’ve served this office for centuries. I thought it best to rely on someone with your experience and perspective. What we’re dealing with here, of course, are largely historical problems and trends…”

  “Problems of cultures, perhaps,” Tikk interposed. Olmy thought it brash for a partial to interrupt the president; but then, that was neo-Geshel style.

  “I assume these honorables know the task you set for me,” Olmy said, nodding at the ghosts. But not the whole task.

  The president picted assent. The moon slipped beneath them, a tiny bright platinum crescent. They all stood near the center of the platform now, the partials’ images flickering slightly to indicate their nature. “I hope this assignment was less strenuous than the ones you’re famous for.”

  “Not strenuous at all, Ser President. I’ve been afraid of losing touch with the details of the Hexamon—” or indeed the human race, he thought, “—living so calmly and peacefully.”

  The president smiled. Even for Olmy, it was hard to imagine an old warhorse like himself living a life of studious leisure.

  “I sent Ser Olmy on a mission around the Recovered Earth to provide an independent view of our relations. This seemed necessary in light of the four recent assassination attempts on Hexamon officials and Terrestrial leaders. We in the Hexamon are not used to such…extreme attitudes.

  “They might be the last vestiges of Earth’s political past, or they might indicate breaking strains we are not aware of—reflections of our own ‘belt-tightening’ in the orbiting precincts.

  “I asked him to bring me an overview on how the Recovery was proceeding. Some believe it is finished, and so our Hexamon has designated the Earth itself ‘Recovered,’ past tense, job accomplished. I am not convinced. How much time and effort will be necessary to truly bring the Earth back to health?”

  “The recovery goes as well as could be expected, Ser President.” Olmy consciously altered his speaking and picting style. “As the senator from Australia and New Zealand is aware, even the Hexamon’s vast technologies cannot make up for a lack of resources, not when you wish to accomplish such a transformation in mere decades. There is a natural time required for Earth’s wounds to heal, and we cannot accelerate that by much. I estimate that about half the task has been accomplished, if we say that full recovery is a return to economic conditions comparable to those preceding the Death.”

  “Doesn’t that depend on how ambitious we are on Earth?” Ras Mishiney asked. “If we wish to bring Terrestrials to a level comparable with the precincts or Thistledown…” He did not finish his sentence; it was hardly necessary.

  “That could take a century or more,” Olmy said. “There’s no universal agreement that Old Natives want such rapid advancement. Some would doubtless openly resist it.”

  “How stable are our relations with Earth just now?” the president asked him.

  “They could be much improved, Ser. There are still areas of strong, overt political resistance, Southern Africa and Malaysia among them.”

  Ras Mishiney smiled ironically. Southern Africa’s attempted invasion of Australia was still a sore memory, one of the greatest crises in the four decades of the Recovery.

  “But the resistance is strictly political, not military, and it’s not very organized. Southern Africa is subdued after the Voortrekker defeats, and Malaysia’s activities are unorganized. They do not seem worrisome at the moment.”

  “Our little ‘sanity plagues’ have done their job?”

  Olmy was taken aback. The use of psychobiologicals on Earth was supposed to be highly confidential; only a few of the most trusted Old Natives knew of them. Was Ras Mishiney one such? Did Farren Siliom trust Tikk so much that he could mention them casually?

  “Yes, Ser.”

  “Yet you’ve had qualms about these mass treatments?”

  “I’ve always recognized their necessity.”

  “No doubts whatsoever?”

  Olmy felt as if he were being toyed with. It was not a sensation he enjoyed. “If you’re referring to the opposition of Earth’s former advocate, Suli Ram Kikura…we do not necessarily share political beliefs even when we share beds, Ser President.”

  “These are past matters now. Forgive my interruption. Please continue, Ser Olmy.”

  “There’s still a strong undercurrent of tension between most Old Natives and the ruling parties of the orbiting bodies.”

  “That’s a painful puzzle to me,” Farren Siliom said.

  “I’m not sure it can be surmounted. They resent us in so many ways. We robbed them of their youth—”

  “We pulled them up from the Death!” the president said sharply. Ras Mishiney’s assigned ghost gave a faint smile.

  “We’ve prevented them from growing and recovering on their own, Ser. The Terrestrial Hexamon that built and launched Thistledown rose from just such misery, independently; some Old Natives feel perhaps we’ve helped too much, and imposed our ways upon them.”

  Farren Siliom picted grudging agreement. Olmy had noticed a hardening of attitude against Old Natives among Hexamon administrators in the orbiting bodies the past decade. And the Old Natives, being what they were—many still rough and uneducated, still shocked by the Death, without the political and managerial sophistication earned through centuries of experience in the Way—had grown to resent the firm but gentle hand of their powerful descendants.

  “The Terrestrial Senate is quiet and cooperative,” Olmy said, avoiding Ras Mishiney’s eyes. “The worst dissatisfactions, outside those already mentioned, seemed to be in China and Southeast Asia.”

  “Where science and technology first rose after the Death, in our own history…willful and strong peoples. How resentful are the Old Natives overall?”

  “Certainly not to the point of worldwide activism, Ser President. Consider it a prejudice, not a rage.”

  “What about Gerald Brooks in England?”

  “I met with him, Ser. He is not a threat.”

  “He worries me. He has quite a following in Europe.”

  “At most two thousand in a recovered population of ten million. He’s vocal but not powerful. He feels deep gratitude for what the Hexamon has done for the Earth…he merely resents those of your administrators who treat terrestrials like children.” Far too many of that kind, he thought.

  “Resents my administrators.” The president paced on the platform. Olmy watched this with a deep, ironic humor. Politicians had certainly changed since the days of his youth—even since the Sundering. Formal deportment seemed an art of the past. “And the religious movements?”

  “As strong as ever.”

  “Mm.” Farren Siliom shook his head, seeming to relish bad news to fuel a smoldering irritation.

  “There are at least thirty-two religious groups which do not accept your administrators as temporal or spiritual rulers—”

  “We don’t expect them to accept us as spiritual rulers,” Farren Siliom said.

  “Some officials have tried several times to impose the rule of the Good Man on Old Natives,” Olmy reminded him. “Even on the hon
orable Nader’s contemporaries…” How long ago had it been since a fanatic orthodox Naderite corprep had recommended using an illegal psychobiological to convert the faithless to Star, Fate and Pneuma? Fifteen years? Olmy and Ram Kikura had helped suppress that notion before it had even reached a secret Nexus session, but Olmy had almost converted overnight to her radical views.

  “We’ve dealt with these miscreants,” Farren Siliom said.

  “Perhaps not harshly enough. Many are still in positions of influence and continue their campaigns. At any rate, none of these movements advocate open rebellion.”

  “Civil disobedience?”

  “That is a protected right in the Hexamon,” Olmy said.

  “Used very seldom the past few decades,” Farren Siliom countered. “And what about the Renewed Enterprisers?”

  “Not a threat.”

  “No?” The president seemed almost disappointed.

  “No. Their reverence for the Hexamon is genuine, whatever their other beliefs. Besides, their leader died three weeks ago in the old territory of Nevada.”

  “A natural death, Ser President,” Tikk said. “That’s an important distinction. She refused offers of extension or downloading to implants—”

  “Refused them,” Olmy said, “because they were not offered to her followers.”

  “We do not have the resources to give every citizen of the Terrestrial Hexamon immortality,” Farren Siliom said. “And they would not be socially prepared, at any rate.”

  “True,” Olmy acknowledged. “At any rate…they never opposed Hexamon plans beyond their immediate territory.”

  “Did you meet with Senator Kanazawa in Hawaii?” Ras Mishiney asked with a hint of distaste. Olmy suddenly understood why the senator was attending. Ras Mishiney was heart and soul in the camp of the orbiting bodies.

  “No,” Olmy answered. “I wasn’t aware he had been anything but cooperative with the Hexamon.”

  “He’s gathered a lot of power to himself in the past few years. Particularly in the Pacific Rim.”