As smoothly as they moved, they sounded loud in the otherwise nearly complete silence. The floors were even and almost slippery. Here in the dark of a cave in the far reaches of re-wilded Lym, he didn’t have access to any more data than he carried with him. Still, that was more than he’d yet been able to explore. Before they left to come here, the Jhailing who had trained them had sent them libraries of data. Yi combed through the historical databases.
Nothing.
He started in on his memories. After all, everyone had to take history classes when they were young. The memories his human self had forgotten still existed inside of him now, and could be traced far more completely than when he breathed. It did take some backtracking. He pulled up a classroom setting he’d been in once on the High Sweet Home, where he’d been born. He’d liked the professor, a tall man with a fake eye. He had loved history so much he came alive when he taught, though at any other time he seemed bland and uninteresting.
Yi spoke the lesson out loud to Jason as he remembered it, even using his old professor’s nuanced voice. “As I told you yesterday, the age of explosive creation ended in fear. There were more than two sides, but if you had to place people above and below an axis, that axis would be about humanity. Above the line was all that was acceptable to the eventual winners of the wars at the end of that age. They had ingenuity and grand design and long life. They had changed their bodies to make them longer and more colorful, lighter or stronger; whatever they wanted that could be sculpted in flesh and blood. They traveled between stations and planets, trading goods and art and ideas. They glowed with health. They created flexible materials, but not thinking materials, which were left below the line of acceptance, which then became the Ring of Distance.
“They shoved many rights below the line. The right to become a machine, and the right to allow anyone else to become a machine. Those who wanted to think with anything more than a naturally augmented human brain were shoved below the line, as were all forms of immortality.
“Fighting occurred, but of course wars in space are short and final, or all about running and being caught or not being caught. Neither side had invested in enough warships for any great space battles to take place, although there are some of note that we will cover tomorrow.”
Yi realized he must sound a little ridiculous, but the memories flowed best when he took them just as they had happened, practically living them again.
They ran past the light into darkness. He adjusted his vision as finely as possible, and the edges of the corridor appeared very faintly as darker spots. “Be careful,” he told Jason.
“I’m okay. Keep going.”
Seeing the lecture replayed with all that he knew now illuminated nuances he hadn’t caught as a young man. Inside his head, he saw the professor rise and pace in front of the class, heard his voice speeding up. Yi continued to use the professor’s diction, exactly as he had heard it, fascinated that he had the facility to do so. “The greatest battles happened on the planets Lym and Mammot. There were great industries on both places. Mammot had already become what it is today, a place where everything is managed by man, and man is the only wild thing left. Lym was both more and less damaged. It has vaster continents and more wild places, and some of these were already being protected. But the atmosphere was turning to poison, and there were manufacturers of what would eventually become the Next there. These fought for the right to keep living on the planet.
“Before the end of the war, the machines had destroyed most of the beautiful cities on the planet. They broke the seaport Neville and let the ocean in through its great gates. They leveled the mountaintop city of Haraii and drowned the seaports around Gyr Island.”
Yi’s voice echoed, unnaturally loud in the confines of the cave.
“The humans—who were losing at that moment—went underground and hid from the machines in caves. All of the other humans fled into orbit, and the fighting intensified until a great battle in the skies gave the humans victory.
“This is why Lym is a symbol today, a place where the people on the planet work to make it as far from machine as possible, as wild as possible, as untouched as possible. This is where the great defining battle of the ages took place.”
“No wonder I like it here,” Jason said.
The narrow and dark corridors stopped abruptly at a great door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NONA
Nona approached the Wall, holding up a hand to touch its surface. Smooth, smoother even than glass, and ever so faintly slippery. Some ambient light in the material dimmed around her fingers. The dark outline remained for just a moment after she withdrew her hand. She searched for a door or for some way to communicate.
The Wall seemed as impenetrable as ice. She looked to her right; nothing. Just the Wall and the ground it rested on, a path in front of the Wall, and darkness beyond the part of the Wall that lit up.
Surreal.
On the shuttle down, a seat mate had told her about a colony that camped outside the walls, a place full of aspiring Next and humans who had come to serve the Next in a variety of ways, of journalists, and even of refugees from Manna Springs. If it existed, it wasn’t here.
She looked left. Maybe beyond the place where the ship material flowed into the Wall and added to it? She walked left toward that glowing line.
She expected guards, but instead there was only the line of material, like a tightly controlled river throwing out a sparse, warm light. It screamed of inhumanity, of technology far beyond anything she had seen.
A break in the light looked like it might be a doorway or a wall, but as she approached it she realized it was a slender bridge. A path led toward the bridge, which soared in soft curved loops above the slow river.
She ascended a steep, curling ramp up to a thin walkway. There were no handholds, just the walkway, and the river below.
She took a deep breath and walked as quickly as she could. She stopped at the apex of the curved bridge and glanced down. A soft wind plucked at her, bringing a slight metallic smell that could be from the artificial river below her or from the Wall itself.
The material wasn’t as homogenous as she had thought. Darker and slower ridges held a brighter and faster substance inside, a glittering line of what might as well be magic.
How did beings who had lived so far from light know how to use it so effectively? There had been no visible trace of the Next when she first came to Lym less than two years ago, and now they owned this part of the planet and looked as if they had always been here.
She swayed, slightly dizzy. She should have been selfish enough to ask Amica for food, even if it would have been taking it from children. Other than a few nuts Jean Paul had encouraged her to eat, her last meal had been on the transport here. Hours ago. Maybe fourteen or sixteen hours. Maybe a few more.
As she descended on the far side she almost slipped, unbalanced and bereft of a handrail.
A silver pillar waited for her on the far side. Her certainty that it was Next bore itself out as it unfolded into a vaguely humanoid shape. It created eyes for her, and the faintest intimation of a mouth, although it didn’t bother to try and speak through the mouth. Rather, the voice just filled the air around her. “Nona Hall. It is a pleasure to see you.”
She stiffened. How did it know her? “I don’t recognize you. Did we meet when you were docked at the Satwa?”
“The Bleeding Edge is now orbiting Lym. I have been told about you by some of the people that you met there.”
A visceral, uncontrollable fear shook her. “I’m looking for someone. Manny. He . . .” She hesitated. “He runs Manna Springs. Someone told me he might be here.”
“No human may pass into our city.”
She hadn’t expected that. “What about the ones who want to become you?”
“Do you?”
“Never.” A quick certain answer. “But do you know where Manny is?”
“Yes. Go to Hope. The town is past the road from the spaceport
and through the Mixing Zone and on to where humans live.”
Hope. The name surprised her.
The Next pointed in the direction she had been going. Although they were a long way away, there were lights, a few stationary white lights and a few lights that moved, perhaps the lights of vehicles. What must be a skimmer took off from near the base of the Wall.
It looked like a good hour’s walk. “Do you have any food or water?”
It went silent for a moment, erasing the fake mouth but keeping its eyes. This was nothing like Yi or Jason or Chrystal, who were human souls trapped in humanoid bodies that looked like their old ones. After the first shock of the subtle difference had worn off, Nona had never doubted Chrystal was herself.
However, it was impossible to see the seed of humanity that the Next claimed existed inside every one of them in this being. She watched it, certain that its stillness meant it was calculating something.
She regretted asking it for such a flesh-based thing as water.
It re-created its face, this time more fully, more human. “I will take you.”
Its arms hardened and became longer, and it scooped her up with them.
She bit her tongue to keep from screaming.
The arms folded tight, making it just the tiniest bit hard to breathe. It was strong enough to kill her with no thought whatsoever.
It didn’t. It carried her as gently as if she were a baby, its gait smooth and flowing. A low hum emanated from it, an intentional sound like a lullaby.
Above her, the top of the Wall gleamed and grew. Nonetheless, the near stars outshone the Wall. She spotted familiar constellations, and a few of the orbiting stations.
The Next walked at least twice as fast as Nona herself could have, and it rocked. If she had been easy in its arms, she would have dozed as it walked the Wall. As it was, she got lost in stray thoughts about Charlie and Satyana, about Lym and the Diamond Deep.
A light flashed on them, shocking Nona attentive. All she saw were a few scattered buildings, some that looked quite official. Nothing that looked like homes. “Are we in Hope?”
“This is the Mixing Zone. Humans and Next are visit each other here, deals happen, people are hired, choices made.”
“There aren’t a lot of people mixing,” Nona observed.
“You humans are too busy fighting each other to talk to us,” it said.
True enough. “So this isn’t Hope?”
“Not yet. We’ll be there soon.”
She relaxed again. It was hard to see, the way the robot was carrying her, sort of like a human mother would carry a child with an arm supporting her back and another one just under her bent knees.
A skimmer hummed above them, flying toward town.
“Do you know what’s happening in Manna Springs?” she asked.
“Only that there is still fighting. We don’t know why.”
Rage, she thought. Rage and fear. But there was no point in trying to explain that to the Next. Either it understood such emotions or it did not.
The Next put her down beside a gate. “This is the way into Hope. You will have to explain your business. The guardians of Hope are human.”
She felt like laughing at that, both at the idea and at how silly it sounded. She wondered if the Next understood the pun. When she turned to ask it, it was already walking away.
“Thank you,” she called after it.
It held up a hand as if in acknowledgment, and then the hand disappeared and a simple cylinder traveled back the way a humanoid robot had come.
The gate in front of her was simple metal, with the word Hope printed on it in huge letters, and a smaller script below that said, “Gather Hope in great measure and here become More than Human.”
Strange.
The wall around the gate was a small thing compared to the great Wall of Nexity, almost but not quite small enough for her to just pull herself up and over.
Before she could knock, the gate opened and a redheaded woman asked her, “Why have you come?”
“I’m looking for a friend.”
“A Next brought you. But there are no Next here except for soulbots.”
“My friend is human.” She saw no reason to hide her mission, but she wasn’t at all sure she should mention Charlie. “I’ve been sent to find Manny.”
“Do you wish him harm?”
Nona felt affronted. “Of course not!”
“No one comes inside without being searched.”
Nona didn’t like it, but the other alternative available seemed to be to lie down and give up. She was tired enough to stop, and hungry enough, but she had to keep going. “Okay.”
The woman ushered her through the gate and into a long narrow room with a door at the far end, as if an airlock had been designed to keep Hope from the outside world. “Stop here.” She ran her hands up and down Nona’s arms and legs and through her hair and along her back and belly. After that, she used a scanner, which hummed quietly.
Nona barely managed to hold her tongue and submit.
When the woman finished, she asked, “Are you all right?”
“I’m tired, hungry, thirsty, and a bit overwhelmed.”
The woman stopped and looked more closely at her. “I bet you are. Poor thing.” She called through the doorway. “Marilla? Please bring water.” She turned her attention back to Nona. “Did you come from Manna Springs? Is it still awful there?”
“Yes.”
A hand popped through the door with a glass of water, which the woman took and handed to Nona. “So why do you want Manny? He doesn’t have anything to do with becoming.”
Nona drank half of the water before answering. “Becoming?”
“Becoming. A Next.”
Nona felt confused. “I don’t want to do that.”
“What’s your name?”
“Nona.”
The woman called over her shoulder. “Marilla? Can you go ask Manny if he’s willing to see a Nona? I’ll have her wait here.”
A slight woman with dark hair and big black eyes rimmed in gold poked her head around a corner and waved at the redhead. “I’ll be right back.”
The guard directed her to wait on a bench, and then returned to simply standing by the gate, silent.
Nona finished the water in three controlled sips, savoring every mouthful. It made her feel more alert and hungrier, and still thirsty enough to drink a gallon more if it were available. She set the empty glass down with regret.
Marilla came and led her away from the gate. They went through the door and then down a long corridor with closed doors on both sides and a locked door at the end.
Once the door closed behind them, Marilla led Nona through a series of booths that were covered with bright textiles. From the smells of spice and old stim that still lingered in the air, Nona guessed that it was an open-air market in the daytime. At the far side, there was a patio that led into a tavern named Hope’s Despair.
Inside, a vast room led all the way to the glowing Wall of Nexity. Twenty-five or so tables sat very close together, with a bar at each end of the room. People filled half the tables, and Nona had no trouble picking Manny out. Even though he’d grown thinner since she last saw him, he was still a big man, with distinctive red hair and bright blue eyes.
He looked up as Marilla led her to him. “I thought that would be you,” he said. His brow was furrowed. “Is Charlie okay?”
“He was when I left him. Can I join you?”
“Of course.”
She sank gratefully into the chair opposite Manny. “Amfi is okay, but Davis is dead. Manna Springs is a mess, and your compound is burning.”
“Burning?” He blinked a few times, perhaps chasing tired tears back inside of himself. “Did they burn the gardens?”
She startled. “I don’t know. I hope not. We didn’t land.”
Manny looked at Marilla. “Thank you for bringing her. I’m safe enough—you can leave her.”
The slight, dark woman looked unhappy,
but she turned and went back the way she had come.
“Thanks,” Nona called after her. That’s just how it was—the Next had brought her, then abandoned her, and now the human was doing the same thing.
“Are you all right?” she asked Manny.
“I have a few scratches.”
“And your family?”
“They are probably safe.”
“But you don’t know?”
“Do you know that Charlie’s safe?” he countered.
She fell silent.
“We wait,” he said. “There’s nothing to do right now except sit down and wait. I spent the first hour here trying for news, but no one in Hope cares much about Manna Springs.” He looked more closely at her, and then called a waitbot. “I’ll pay for whatever she wants.”
“I’ve got credit,” she said. “Plenty of it.”
He looked at her with what she could only label as compassion. “Perhaps we’ll need that later. In the meantime, let me buy you a cup of soup.”
Nona’s stomach reacted to the idea of food, reminding her how weak she felt. “I’m starved.”
Manny smiled at her. “Then maybe we can have bread with our soup.”
“I hope so.”
The waitbot apparently took that as an order, since it disappeared.
“And then we sleep.”
“But the whole planet seems to be fighting!”
“And you and I have both been ejected from that fight. I’m a politician, as are you. We’re diplomats. We live to fight another day, and there will be one. There always is. We will do better if we’re rested when it comes.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
YI
Yi and Jason stared at the huge door in front of them. It had to be a door. It was the full size of the corridor, metal, with unrecognizable symbols etched around the outside. Its smooth gray-green surface was unmarred, rustless, and had no apparent handle. Yi only knew it was a door was because there was a small window cut into it, about as big as his hand. Through the window, he could see a vast open space, full of objects that he couldn’t identify.
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