by Greg Bear
She smiled a dismayed, sad smile and nodded.
“Are you going to be all right?”
She thought about that for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “I’d like to speak with my daughter, as soon as possible…”
“Of course,” the technician said. “I suggest you sleep in the infirmary for a while. We’ll call you.”
“Thank you,” she said. She looked around the room and prepared to lie down on an examination table.
Andia.
61
Thistledown City
Korzenowski walked across the park that bore his name, a relic come back to view his own monument; a brilliant anachronism.
He had come to meet with Olmy and talk, arriving an hour early to survey this old work, visited only once since his reincarnation. For the time being, there was little for him to do in the sixth chamber and bore hole; whenever the defense forces had finished their work, and the evacuation of Thistledown was accomplished, he was ready to open another, more discreet test link with the Way.
Korzenowski Park covered one hundred acres in Thistledown City. Green and quiet, covered by immaculate fields of mowed and rolled grass, dotted with flower gardens and forests of oaks and elms and other, more exotic trees, it had been one of the few parks to maintain itself perfectly over the centuries of the Exiling.
Korzenowski, before his assassination—before the completion of the Way—had designed this place on practical yet utopian principles, using plant and animal, insect and microorganism, as harmonious pieces in an isolated perfection. He had given himself one constraint: that all living things within the park would be unaltered and natural. The utopian artifice had come from keeping certain species separate, and limiting the park’s ecology to a few well-chosen and complementary combinations.
The result had been peace.
One could walk through the park at any time of the year—the weather mimicked Earth’s seasons from the point of view of England in the late eighteenth century—and see nothing but growth. Remote gardeners groomed the park regularly, trimming away dead growth and mulching it on the spot. Insects and microorganisms did not prey on plants so much as work with them.
Here was topiary on a grand scale, arranged across Hilbert rather than Euclidean space; its shape was not that of animal or geometry, but of perfect biology, a kind of living heaven. Eden, as it might have been seen by an English gardener; certainly as Konrad Korzenowski saw it.
He had done this. He hardly knew who or what he was now; was he the Engineer, living history, animated legend, accorded formal respect and informal suspicion by both neo-Geshels and Naderites? Was he Konrad Korzenowski, natural-born human being, brilliant son of orthodox Naderite parents, mathematician and designer? Was he a container for the unhappy spirit of Patricia Luisa Vasquez?
It didn’t matter much; he was a mote of dust in a high wind, and what he had been or done in the past seemed more than remote. It seemed irrelevant.
Soon, the Hexamon would try to push back into the Way. There was a good possibility the current claimants to the Way would force them to destroy Thistledown; if that happened, very likely he would be annihilated in the firestorm.
Powers, forces, dominations.
He could barely remember the time he had spent working on the park. Those memories had been poorly represented in the partials that had been gathered and archived after his assassination.
He had been murdered by orthodox Naderites.
Shunned by his own parents for forcing the Exiling.
Troublemaker.
That just about summed it up.
He entered a circular hedge maze at the geometric center of the park. The waist-high outer hedges wandered in uneven tessellations, following no particular radiant or arc of the circle; some angles were in fact projections of three-dimensional figures, which made the outer maze particularly troublesome. Humans with implants had little difficulty riddling the maze, since they could easily visualize and manipulate it in their heads; without implants, it was a substantial brain-bender.
He remembered building it with the hope that those with implants would not use them…But most did. That had taught him something about human nature, that challenge and difficulty mattered less to the great majority than accomplishment and gain, even in the Hexamon.
Korzenowski glanced up toward the center of the maze and saw a man standing there, a hundred meters distant. The man began to work his way outward; Korzenowski, as if challenged, began to work inward. The sport was diverting, relaxing; he did not look at the man directly, choosing instead to remember his own design, and riddle what he had forgotten or lost.
They were still some meters apart, on separate concentrics of the easier central maze, when Korzenowski looked up and stared the man full in the face. For a moment, it seemed as if no time at all had passed since the Sundering, forty years gone and the early hours of his reincarnation fresh in memory…
The man was Ry Oyu, chief gate-opener for the Infinite Hexamon. His presence was as impossible as Mirsky’s; both had gone with the Geshel precincts down the Way.
“Hello,” the gate-opener greeted him, lifting a hand. He nodded at a point behind Korzenowski, alerting him that they were not alone. Korzenowski reluctantly turned away from Ry Oyu and saw Olmy on the maze’s periphery.
Abruptly, the Engineer laughed. “Is this a conspiracy?” he asked the gate-opener. “Are you in league with Olmy?”
“No conspiracy. He isn’t expecting me. This seemed like an opportune moment to talk to you both. Shall we meet Ser Olmy on the outside?” the man asked. “This is a wonderful maze, but no place for comfortable conversation. Too many distractions and problems to solve.”
“All right,” Korzenowski said, his tone deliberate and measured.
“You don’t seem surprised,” Ry Oyu said.
“Nothing surprises me now.” Korzenowski waited for the gate-opener to join him. As they moved together through the maze, following the pathway, he asked, “Are you also an avatar, prophesying doom?”
“No prophecy. I’m afraid I’m here to be a hard taskmaster,” Ry Oyu said. “Would you like to question me, to confirm my reality?”
“No.” Korzenowski waved his hands, brushing the suggestion away. “You’re the Ghost of Christmas Past. Clearly, the gods themselves take a great interest in all our affairs.” He laughed again, this time a small, exhausted laugh.
“You’re convinced I am what I appear to be?”
“No, not that,” Korzenowski demurred. “But I’ll accept that you are whatever Ry Oyu has become.”
The former gate-opener picted approval of that judgment. Korzenowski noted that Ser Oyu did not appear to wear a torc or any other kind of projector; the picts emanated out of nothing, a talent interesting in itself.
“I have a difficult request to make of both you and Olmy,” the gate-opener said.
“More a command, I suspect,” Korzenowski said.
“I’d like the opportunity to convince both of you of a certain necessity.”
“I agreed with Mirsky,” Korzenowski said, feeling vaguely guilty. At least part of me did. “I supported his efforts.”
Ry Oyu smiled knowingly. “You’ve worked exceptionally hard to re-open the Way.” His tone was not accusatory, but in the Engineer’s present mental state, under the present Dickensian circumstances, the gate-opener did not need to directly accuse.
Korzenowski waved one hand again, as if to shoo the gate-opener away. “I perform my duty before the Hexamon.”
“You have no other motives?”
Korzenowski did not answer. He had no other motives; whatever stained his personality like a dye, he could not answer for.
“You contain a duplicate of the Mystery of a very singular woman. I myself arranged for the transfer. You’re working for her now, aren’t you?”
“If you put it that way…”
“I do.”
“I suppose I’m working on her behalf, yes. But what she wants doesn’t cont
radict my duty.”
“A mystery is not a complete personality. When something goes wrong during a transfer—if motivations or basic obsessions are copied as well—then the mentality resulting is not a responsible, integrated individual.”
Korzenowski felt a hollow, dismal despair.
“I am haunted,” he admitted. “I have been…pushed, compelled…” He couldn’t finish.
“Don’t be distressed. It can all work out for the best.”
Korzenowski wanted to shrink away, to consider whether he should in fact resign from his duties, appoint someone who was accountable, responsible.
“You can use her brilliance, what you have of it,” Ry Oyu suggested as they exited the maze. The gate-opener picted greetings to Olmy, who accepted his presence without comment.
“Nobody’s surprised to see me,” the gate-opener observed wryly.
“It’s the season of miracles,” Olmy said, his voice oddly inflected, strained. Outwardly calm, inwardly tormented—Korzenowski wondered what compelled him now.
“Have you two confided in each other yet?” Ry Oyu asked.
“I’ve confided nothing,” Olmy said. “But I suppose we have no secrets from the Final Mind.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s obvious the time is right for a long talk.”
Korzenowski thought Olmy looked at least as haunted as he did. “This is as safe a place as any,” he suggested. “No monitors, no remotes. We can pict in tight-beams.”
“Speech will be difficult,” Ry Oyu said. “It’s time to bring the nonsense to an end. Ser Mirsky’s approach was not firm enough, I gather…or devious enough. I have a proposition for both of you, something that could resolve all of our difficulties—though not the Hexamon’s. Earth and the Hexamon are going to have to learn to live with each other. Are both of you willing to listen?”
“I am obedient,” Olmy said, his tone even more strained. “You are from descendant command.”
“What does that mean?” the Engineer asked.
They sat down in a circle of stone benches surrounded by tree roses. “You’re not the only one who’s haunted,” Ry Oyu said. “Time for Ser Olmy’s explanation, and then my proposition…”
62
Thistledown
There had been nothing like it since the Sundering. The four million inhabitants of Thistledown were being removed from the asteroid’s five populated chambers with every vehicle available in the Earth-Moon vicinity. Even with ten thousand shuttles of all sizes and utility, the evacuation went slowly; there was a great deal of resistance. Some infighting had broken out between the various factions that had made new homes on Thistledown.
In the last four decades, Thistledown had become the bulwark and nerve center of the Hexamon, taking over many functions from the orbiting precincts, which were considered much more vulnerable. Transferring these functions was an enormous task, simplified only slightly by the Hexamon’s ability to move mountains of data in very small packages.
Olmy stood in the first chamber bore hole, wrapped in an environment field, watching shuttles pass back and forth in ordered array. Four shuttles had been taken out of service and as gaps occurred in the steady stream, were being guided below the rotating docks into the staging areas for repair. Four out of ten thousand…Hexamon technology was still wonderfully efficient in some areas.
Olmy’s master witnessed these actions without comment, leaving Olmy, for the time being, to follow a previously agreed-upon routine of working with the evacuation effort and preparing, in secret, for the theft of a flawship.
He had made his confession; the expression on Korzenowski’s face had been particularly painful. But the distinctions between failure and defeat, and compliance with an authority higher than any of them, were dim indeed now…
Olmy had put down some of his burdens. Now he assumed a greater burden: the realization that even were he not Jart-ridden, he would be doing the same things, making the same plans, opposing the will of the Hexamon’s leaders and the mens publica.
Some would undoubtedly believe that that made him a true traitor, not just a defeated and foolish soldier.
Korzenowski made his preparations just nine hours before the next link, this time neglecting his ceremonial red sack-robe and wearing black overalls, more utilitarian, more suited to the adventure—or misadventure—on which they would soon embark. As he absorbed the reports of automated remotes and partials, all saying that the sixth chamber machinery and projectors were functioning properly, his natural mind gave in to a bit of wandering.
He clearly remembered the early years, after the first opening, when unexpected instabilities had four times threatened complete collapse. Those had been very difficult times, when the Hexamon had faced not only his awesome, temperamental creation, but the threat of the Jarts.
At first, there had been stand-off. Neither Jarts nor humans had known what to make of each other. Attempts at communication with the Jarts had been rebuffed. The first attacks by the Jarts—more like sorties with intent to inflict damage—had come just after his first instability crisis. The seventh chamber had sustained minor damage. In those early times, Korzenowski had worried that damage to a buried projector node could cause disastrous pinches in the Way…
His worries then had been unfounded. But through other means, such a pinch or crimp could be the very technique he would use in a short time—perhaps within twenty-four hours—to begin the Way’s dismantling. The crimp, if properly formed, could be accelerated along the Way’s “length” in superspace, causing it to coil, knot, form fistulas, and eventually disintegrate.
“Coil” and “knot” meant something quite different when applied to such higher dimensions. Korzenowski had worked out what that ripple of destruction would look like from within the Way, and from without.
While the Way intersected an infinite number of points in space and time—and a smaller infinity of points in other universes—each intersection was not in itself eviternal, of infinite duration.
Each gate opened would have a finite existence, no greater than the total duration of the Way’s existence as measured internally; no single gate would be in existence longer than the Way itself. The total number of gates that could be opened in the Way was huge, but not infinite; the Way could not give access to all possible points of intersection.
It would take years, perhaps centuries, for the ripple of destruction within the Way to complete its work. Much of the Way’s length would be accordioned as the crimp passed by, and a number of spontaneous fistulas—interconnections between different segments—would close off long sections, in effect creating closed loops. The fistulas could redouble and make connections between themselves, cutting the looped segments and letting them drift free.
When the crimp had completed its journey along the Way, there would be only a small tail remaining, connected to the “balloon” of the aborted universe mentioned by Mirsky.
All of this, in a way difficult even for him to understand, was reflected in the character of the far-distant segments of the Way as they had been viewed by Ry Oyu before the Sundering. Had Ry Oyu—or Patricia—even suspected such an unlikelihood, they would have seen the effects immediately.
Korzenowski finished receiving the reports and retired to sit in his restored spherical quarters within the bore hole. He closed his eyes, losing himself in contemplation and a deep melancholy that was not entirely unpleasant.
He had nobody, and everybody, to leave behind. No offspring but the Hexamon itself. Having died once already, he certainly did not fear extinction. What he feared was overstepping limits.
He had already intruded upon beings vastly superior to humanity with the creation of the Way. That they bore him no ill will was remarkable, and perhaps a hallmark of their superiority. Or it was possible that any emotion, or description, of the predicament—even the projections of Mirsky—were gross simplifications suited for limited minds.
Now, he was betraying his duty to the Hexamon to ma
ke amends for that overstepping of bounds. Would the Hexamon find sufficient flexibility and ingenuity to do without the Way forever?
Would they try to make another? What, if anything, would stop them?
In all his explorations through the clavicle, in all the explorations of all the gate-openers throughout the Way’s history, they had found no other construct like it…in this universe. Mirsky had hinted that other artificial constructs similar to the Way had been made in other universes, but no new Way would be made here.
Korzenowski was fully aware of his capabilities, but did not doubt that others could match them. He had failed to find a method of opening gates without an intermediary construct like the Way; perhaps others had succeeded, and that explained the lack.
Another possible explanation for the Way’s uniqueness was interference, prevention by the forces of which Mirsky and Ry Oyu were but the tiniest representatives. But why would those forces allow even one Way, if its effects were so obstructive?
If they followed Ry Oyu’s plan, and succeeded—there seemed enormous risk involved—perhaps in due time the Final Mind, what the Jart within Olmy called descendant command, could explain it all to them directly.
Within him, the Mystery of Patricia Vasquez was quiet. Ry Oyu’s plan did not forget her needs.
63
Earth
Before receiving her duty assignment in Christchurch, Karen made sure that the mentality of her daughter was being given the best of care. The equipment required to fully expand Andia’s mentality was not available in New Zealand, as it turned out; because of the evacuation, and confusion all around the Earth, it would not be available for weeks. That would delay Andia’s reincarnation; it also meant that Karen could not speak with her. For the time being, she could only work and be patient.
