by James Gunn
* * *
The trip was long, through three nexus points and the interminable distances between them, and he had to practice the patience that he had urged on Rory. But at last Earth’s solar system appeared in what passed for the red sphere’s vision screen, and he navigated the alien ship through the vast areas of empty space separating the small globs of matter that were the planets and their satellites. He was glad that Mars was on the other side of the sun and that he was not tempted to mourn over the war-devastated ruins of his birthplace, of his mother’s sacrifices, and of his father’s dreams. He approached Earth’s orbit, but he maneuvered the ship to stay in the shadow of the moon, hoping that being thus shielded from the direct surveillance of Earth’s monitoring systems and with the aid of what he hoped were antisurveillance technologies embedded in the red sphere itself, he would escape discovery and challenge. He was not yet ready for the revelation of the artifact of ancient technologies that the red sphere embodied, or his own identity. It was not that he would be welcomed as a hero of the recent war—there were too many veterans who had done more than he and returned to celebration and renown, or slunk back, ignored and forgotten—but his past would be researched and recounted in the context of the treasure he had brought back, and the people he had tried to avoid might discover him before he was ready. And through him, Asha.
It seemed to work, and Riley thought that this was another technology of the Transcendental Machine civilization that would be worth vast treasures to Federation worlds, and perhaps even more to Earth, the junior and still upstart member. It made sense: If the ancients’ plan was to place secret receivers around the galaxy, they would not want the arrival of their engineers to be identified by potential spacefaring species.
He centered on what had once been called the dark side of the moon. It was a misnomer revealed as soon as humanity’s first primitive exploratory vessels had circumnavigated the moon: The dark side, though never exposed to Earthshine or to human view, faced merciless exposure to the sun and its radiations more than the near side. It was dark enough, to be sure, when it turned its face away from the sun and looked toward the distant stars, but these two opportunities, to see solar phenomena unsullied by Earth’s obscurations and, even more when on the other side of Earth from the sun, the planets and the stars, made the dark side the favored place for research installations. In addition, the moon was where research took place on projects too dangerous to perform on Earth.
Riley had known all that when he was still a boy on Mars, and even more when he was a student in the Solar Institute for Applied Studies, but he had never known precisely where the research projects were located. If he had not volunteered for service, if he had continued his studies, he might well have interned in one of them and pursued knowledge rather than enemy ships. Now, however, he monitored transmissions from the far side. He did not have the time to analyze the transmissions for content, even if he could have harnessed the as yet unlimited and undiscovered abilities of the red sphere, but he could use them for location, and he put the alien ship down in a crater a couple of kilometers from one of them. He chose one in the twilight zone. Two kilometers were not a difficult hike, but in the full glare of the sun even the magical qualities of red-sphere material might not be enough to protect him, and the near-absolute-zero of the full dark could be almost as deadly.
He put on the material the red sphere provided for him and stroked it down over his body so that it covered him to the soles of his shoes, took a deep breath, and headed out through the air lock that the ship automatically provided. Moon dust was gritty under his feet and the sun hung on the horizon of a black sky like a cyclop’s eye glaring at him. But the red sphere’s covering held and provided protection from the cold of space and air for him to breathe, and he set out toward the research installation.
The trip was even worse than he had anticipated. Even in the twilight zone, the red-sphere material had to work hard to protect him from the cold and the airlessness, and the limited light made it difficult to see the rocks and pockmarks in his path. Air got stale, and he found himself struggling for breath. Even in the improved physical condition that the Transcendental Machine had conferred upon him, he was panting and exhausted when he reached the research project set into a lunar cave. It had an oval entrance insulated on each side by mounds of lunar dust and closed by a solid, apparently impenetrable metal barrier.
Riley’s eyes were blurred but he could make out on the barrier printing that had been bleached and fragmented by the lunar cold and solar winds: Lunar Research Project No. 2. In his state of exhaustion he hoped that it had not been abandoned, and then he remembered the transmission he had traced to this location, and he looked quickly around the barrier and to the sides until he found a panel with the faded inscription “Emergency,” and he banged upon it, once, twice, and three times before it finally depressed, the barrier moved aside with a sigh he could feel as vibration through his encased fingers.
He pushed his way past the barrier and into a metal-encased air lock, hit the panel next to the barrier with his fist, and felt the barrier close against the cold and void of space. For a moment he was in the dark, and then in channels at the top of the side walls lights came on, and he could see moon suits hanging on hooks on each side of the entrance space, another, more traditional, air-lock door ahead, and heard the sound of rushing air. It had the smell of spaceship air—human effluvia recycled too many times. Moisture began to freeze upon his garment and then to melt. He brushed the drops away, and finally, as the air-lock space warmed, stripped the red sphere material from his body and stuck it in his pocket.
He would, he knew, be an enigma to the people inside the project cave—a mysterious human emerging, impossibly, without protection from instant lunar death, from a lunar surface where no unprotected human can exist. But there was no denying the fact of his arrival, and he would have to use that mystery for his purposes.
A voice came out of the ceiling as soon as the air was thick enough to carry sound. “Who are you?” it said in a tone that could not hide its incredulity. “And what are you doing here?”
* * *
The incredulity increased when the inner doors opened and a pair of people clad in coveralls looked at him as if he were some supernatural manifestation. One was a tall, lean man, past middle age, with a face marred by radiation burns and the scars of skin cancers; he had dark eyes and a scalp devoid of hair, either through baldness or depilation. The other was a woman, younger, with long, dark hair coiled into a braid at the back of her head, dark eyes, and a pleasant, inquisitive expression.
“You’re our first visitor,” she said. “Ever!”
“That’s what ‘first’ means,” her companion said.
“I know what it means,” she said. “That’s what’s called emphasis.” She turned to Riley. “It is a bit of a shock.” She looked sideways at her companion. “That’s what’s called an understatement.” She turned back to Riley. “There’s no way you got here the way you are. There’s no way you’re standing here in front of us. And yet here you are.”
“I can explain,” Riley said. “But first maybe I could sit down somewhere. It’s been a difficult trip.”
“Of course,” the woman said. “Forgive our manners. We don’t have much chance to exercise them. Come in. I’m Bel and this is Caid.” She gave her larger companion a gentle push to signal that he should move aside.
The living quarters of the research facility were primitive but a welcome reminder of human habitation that Riley had not experienced since his days on Mars and the regimented surroundings of students at the Institute. There was a table improvised out of packing crates and pneumatic chairs easily transported from Earth. Riley settled into one and accepted a plastic mug of coffee, which he sipped with noises of appreciation. It had been a long time since he had tasted real coffee.
Finally he said, “I’m Riley. I’m an ex-soldier, returning at last from Federation space, and I need information.”
“Of course you do,” Riley said. “So let’s trade.”
“As long as it doesn’t involve research in progress,” Bel said. “Not that we have any secrets—we publish as soon as our results are confirmed—but we do exercise discretion until then.”
“As I said,” Riley continued, “I’m just back from Federation space, and I came into possession of some extraordinary technology that I would like to see explored.”
“Federation technology?” Caid said.
“Older than the Federation,” Riley said. “Really old.”
“People are always coming up with discoveries on first-contact worlds,” Bel said. “Most of them fakes, and those that aren’t turn out to be impenetrable or inscrutable.”
Riley dug the red-sphere material out of his pocket. “Like this?” he said.
Bel took the material out of his hand. It was red and slick and rested in her hand like a swatch of something like silk. “So?” she said.
“I call it intelligent matter,” Riley said. “It’s like a magic cloak. It turns into whatever you need when you need it.” He took the material from her and smoothed it over his arm. It became a sleeve, and as he continued to stroke, the material became a jacket, a coverall, and finally a full covering. Riley stripped it down again and gave the material back to Bel. She hoisted it in her palm and then handed it to Caid.
“That’s a great trick,” Caid said. “But I’ve seen magicians do better ones.” He put the material on his arm and stroked it the way he had seen Riley do it. The material lay on his arm, quiescent. “What’s the trick? Is there some magic word?”
“The material is keyed to me in some way that is part of the technology and the mystery,” Riley said. “Maybe you can figure it out. But it’s what got me through the deadly lunar environment to your door. Which is the answer to your question.”
“One of the answers,” Bel said. “To one of the questions.”
“It’s the only answer I’m prepared to give now. Maybe more later. But right now I’m prepared to offer a trade. Intelligent matter for information and one of your moon suits.”
“What kind of information?”
“The location of the research project of a scientist I know only as ‘Jak,’” Riley said.
Bel looked at Caid and back at Riley. “You mean ‘Jak Plus’”?
“Plus?” Riley said.
“There’s a rumor that he took the name from a fictional hero of long ago,” Bel said.
It was more likely, Riley thought, that the name came from Jak’s experiments in cloning himself.
“But why Jak?” Bel asked. “He’s a paranoid fraud.”
“He’s come up with some remarkable gadgets and claimed some discoveries that have yet to be confirmed. Including the terraforming of Ganymede. No one has been able to check on his claims about Ganymede or to duplicate the results of his other self-proclaimed discoveries,” Caid said.
“I get it that he’s not very likable,” Riley said, “but he may be the kind of paranoid fraud that I need. I’m a bit paranoid myself.”
“And a fraud?” Caid said.
“That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” Riley said. He pointed at the material in Caid’s hand. “Well, is it a deal?”
Caid tossed the material as if estimating its weight and maybe its value. He looked at Bel, his scarred face twitching.
“I wouldn’t ask for the moon suit if I weren’t giving up my own.” Riley gestured at the material in Caid’s hand. “And I am here as proof that it works.”
“Okay,” Bel said, “but we’d rather do the research on the rest of the technology—we presume there’s more—ourselves.”
“I’ll tell Jak that if I get to see him,” Riley said.
* * *
Jak’s research project turned out to be more than five hundred kilometers distant, no trip for a ship that had already traveled across spans of time measured in periods of stellar evolution and of space measured in thousands of light-years. And the moon suit he had obtained from Bel and Caid, though primitive compared to the magical technology of the red sphere, was equipped with air tanks, temperature-control units, and a faceplate that could be darkened against solar radiation. Nevertheless, there was the moment when the red sphere remained closed to his approach until he stripped a hand free from the moon suit and the ship apparently recognized him and allowed him to enter before his hand could freeze. And the moment when, after concealing the red sphere farther from the location of Jak’s project than he would have liked and trekking across the sun-blasted terrain to the spot where Bel had indicated the project was located, with his air growing low and the temperature conditioning of the suit laboring under the sun’s merciless bombardment, he failed to find any sign of Jak’s laboratory.
He scouted the area, wondering if the moon suit still had enough reserves to get him back to the red sphere and wondering, as well, if Bel and Caid had deliberately given him false coordinates, when, at last, he came upon a doorway set like a trapdoor into the lunar surface and partially obscured by dust that had drifted down upon it, not because of wind, of which there was none, but the bombardment of solar particles over time; the door had not been opened in many cycles. He scuffed the lunar dust away and looked for a panel marked EMERGENCY, as he had found at Lunar Project Number 2. There was none.
He stomped on the metal door. It remained unmoved and unmovable. He stomped again. Something red glowed across the surface of the door. He bent over to see what it was and decreased the suit’s shield against the sun.
In glowing letters the door said, “Go away!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The climber slowed to a stop at the base of the beanstalk on the island once known as Sri Lanka. Although it was the base of the space elevator, according to Latha it was the top of a mountain that was called Sri Pada. It had been chosen for the beanstalk location because of its location near the equator and its elevation of nearly 2,550 meters, over the strenuous objections of several religious groups that considered the mountaintop sacred. When Asha asked what was sacred about it, Latha told her about a rock formation near the summit that the religious groups said was a nearly two-meter footprint of Buddha, according to one group; of Siva, according to another; of a Saint named Thomas, according to a third; or of the first person the Christian God created, Adam, according to a fourth. Steps had been built into the side of the mountain so that pilgrims could climb to the top to see the footprint and the sunrise.
“Of course,” Latha said, “that was many thousands of years ago, and people aren’t as passionate anymore about symbols. Though there is a bit of a nostalgia movement, and the steps have been rebuilt.”
Asha pulled herself out of the chair that had been her habitat for the past week, serving as support while the climber’s passengers were awake and as a bed while the passengers slept—she needed little sleep, but she respected the needs of others and occupied the sleep time by thinking through scenarios in which she could be reunited with Riley and what they would do after they got back together. Now she joined with the others as they lined up to leave their enforced companionship, eager to be liberated in spite of efforts by climber personnel to make their trip pleasant. Latha was just ahead of her.
As they emerged from the elaborate waiting room into the monorail station, Latha motioned for Asha to look out the window toward the rock that had given Sri Pada the name “sacred footprint.” When the space elevator had been built, the indentation and its accompanying decorations had been preserved at considerable expense to ease local objections, though the compromise pleased nobody. But they continued to exist, side by side, as a contrast between the old and the new, the superstitious past and the scientific future, the footprint of the ancient gods as the launching pad for the stars.
“I have commented about that,” Latha said. “And how the ancient village of Nallathanniya, where the stairs began, was transformed into a city by the monorail built beside th
e stairs.” At first it had been the construction crews that flooded the village, and then it was the travelers who came to use the space elevator. “Always the old making way for the new.”
What was not new was the wind that blew gusts of rain against the windows of the monorail and made it rock on what seemed now like a flimsy support, so much more dangerous than travel through space. Latha didn’t seem alarmed. “This is the rainy season,” she said, “when pilgrims would not have come up the stairs.” The Pedia had solved many climate problems, including bringing rain to areas troubled by drought or forest fires, but it had not been able to eliminate hurricanes or monsoons.
Asha and Latha emerged onto a sheltered platform, not far from the entrance to a high-speed subway train to Ratnapura and other urban areas. Now that human labor was a choice and not a necessity and most of what labor still performed was done by individuals living far from each other, cities were useful only as cultural centers for people attracted to the ancient traditions of real-time, real-person art. But cities were still Asha’s best possibility for getting information about Riley without alerting persons or Pedias to her or Riley’s return to Earth.
The rain was still coming down heavily and being blown in gusts. Asha hesitated about crossing to the subway entrance. “I’m being met,” Latha said. “Can I offer you a ride to somewhere a little more convenient?”
“You’ve put up with me for too long,” Asha said.
“Nonsense,” Latha said. “Here they are now.” As she spoke an antique, yellow, fossil-fuel-powered bus pulled up in front of the platform, and a band of brown-faced young people, male and female, bounced out through the side door and into the downpour, as if they were part of the elements. They surrounded Latha and Asha and pulled them toward the bus and into the rain, laughing and hugging each of them in turn. Asha would have been overwhelmed by their joyous enthusiasm, but she felt trapped, as if all this were a charade set up to conceal an abduction. But concealed from whom? It was too late to get free without pushing her way through them, physically assaulting some, and creating an incident that would surely alert watchers and probably the Pedia.
