Ultima

by Stephen Baxter

  Beth laughed. “I remember we had to haul tons of it with us when we moved.”

  “I even had a miniature womb in my lost body, within which earthworms and other necessary creatures could be grown from stem cells. Of course I used these facilities to buy us acceptance with the Romans, on the planet of Romulus.

  “But I was designed for Per Ardua. That was then. Now look at what we find. A soil that is evidently neither Arduan nor terrestrial, a soil that is evidently capable, still, of supporting Arduan life, like the stems, and yet an earthworm that might have been airlifted from a Kansas farm wriggles through it without hindrance.”

  Beth was wide-eyed, looking down at the worm with new understanding. “You know, when I was digging my fields I forked over these things without even thinking about it. Yet here they are.”

  “Colonel Kalinski, how long do you think it would take for earthworms to permeate the continents of Per Ardua? How long for the two ecologies to mesh in this way?”

  “I’m a physicist,” Stef said, faintly baffled. “Not a biologist. A hell of a long time, I’m guessing.”

  Beth said, “A lot more than the few decades since humans first got here—the few decades I remember anyhow.”

  Stef said slowly, “In previous jumps through the Hatches—previous jonbar hinges—we jumped from location to location, maybe reality to reality, but without a jump in time. Correct? That’s aside from lightspeed delays. If you took the Hatch from Mercury to Per Ardua, it was like a teleport from world to world, with a signal taking four light-years to get to its destination—so you’d emerge four years later.”

  “And when we passed through the jonbar hinges,” the ColU said, “save for lightspeed delays, as you say, as near as I could determine the calendars always synchronized. Given some common starting event like the founding of Rome, we could always synchronize our chronologies—”

  “Have we crossed through time, then?” Mardina asked, a little wildly. “Is that what you’re saying? Are we off in some future? How far? What would happen if we tried to go back through the Hatch? And—why should it be this way?”

  “I have only tentative answers to those questions,” the ColU said gently. “We must wait to learn more.”

  “OK,” Beth said. “Then come and learn about this . . .”

  • • •

  She led them farther away from her camp, down a slope toward the narrow, fast-flowing stream that provided her fresh water. Here, by the stream bank and in the water, stems grew more thickly.

  Beth paddled out into water that lapped over her boots, and knelt to touch a broken stem, almost tenderly. “One reason I came back to the substellar to live is because Earth life seems to prosper best here. Well, the stuff I could see—I wasn’t searching for earthworms. And I needed that, of course, to survive, the food crops. But if you go farther out there are stretches that could be the Ardua we used to know, Stef, ColU. Stem banks and Arduan forests and stromatolites. But there are no builders. Not a trace of them. No middens and dams . . . No kites. None of the complex forms we saw when I was growing up—hell, that helped us survive.”

  “No more Mister Sticks,” said the ColU gently.

  “What happened to it all, ColU?”

  Stef asked, “Could it have been another jonbar hinge? I was there when you were debriefed, remember, Beth. When you first came through the Hatch to Mercury. You’d seen evidence of a much higher civilization constructed by the builders.”

  “Yes. We found a map, a parchment in a Hatch. A global canal network—”

  “None of which you saw evidence of on the ground, or which subsequent human exploration turned up. Wiped out by a hinge, maybe. Is it possible that’s happened again, ColU?”

  “Unlikely. We’ve seen that the jonbar hinges tend to redirect the destiny of an intelligent species, rather than eliminate it altogether.”

  “You mean,” Beth said sourly, “they’re made into better Hatch builders. Just as happened with humans, whatever the cultural cost.”

  “Precisely. Of course it’s not a neat process. The builders we saw seemed to have fallen away from that capability, somewhere in their own past. But I think what we’re seeing here is not the product of a jonbar hinge but—”

  “The result of time,” Stef said, looking around, beginning to understand. “And worlds too, the framework for life, change with time. I’m being slow here, slow to pick up your hints, ColU. I am, or was, a physicist—not an astrophysicist, but I ought to be able to think about huge spans in time, as they did.

  “With time—a lot of time—as dwarf stars like Proxima age, they settle down. Become more quiescent. Planets too lose their inner heat. Volcanism, tectonic shifts tend to seize up. Per Ardua was a pretty active place when we knew it, Beth, and Prox helped too by serving up star winters, flares. But now, it’s evidently much more quiescent. A quieter world under a quieter sky. And on a quiet world—”

  “You can live a quiet life,” the ColU said. “Beth Eden Jones, a big brain is expensive, energetically. On a more static Per Ardua, such luxuries have long since been evolved out. They just weren’t needed any more, you see? Instead all you need to do is find a sunny rock, spread out your photosynthesizing leaves, and bask forevermore.”

  Beth stared around. “So that’s what became of the builders? If they devolved—broke back down to the stems they were made of—how long would that take?”

  “So,” Stef said, “we come back to time again, ColU. And a hell of a lot of it, it seems.”

  “A clock is ticking,” the ColU said now. “I saw this when I was able to study the universe, aboard the Malleus Jesu, in the gulf between the stars. Echoes in the sky, of past events and future.”

  “What clock?” asked Stef, growing exasperated. “What events?”

  “Beth Eden Jones, you have done a fine job of survival here. But our mission is to do more than survive. We must find Earthshine—while we still have time to do so. And I can’t see the sky from here. Not in this permanent day. I must see the sky, I must . . .”

  “Why?” Stef snapped.

  “Because that is my ticking clock.”

  “We’ll have to leave here, then,” Beth said.

  “Yes. We need to follow Earthshine, we must make for the antistellar . . . We must cross the darkened face of the world. We’ll need to prepare—warm clothes, food. It will take some time—but we must do this as soon as we can. I will tell you more when I know for sure myself,” the ColU said patiently. “But for now, let’s begin to plan. We have a long journey ahead . . . Come, Chu Yuen, if you please.”

  As Chu turned to begin the walk back to Beth’s camp, Stef saw Mardina’s hand slip into his, and squeeze tightly.

  61

  When Stef and the others returned to the camp, and began the discussion about leaving for the antistellar, Ari drew Inguill aside.

  They walked away from the others, on the pretense of inspecting the latrine ditch they had been working on. When they were out of earshot, Ari plucked out his earpiece. “I can speak Latin,” he said in that tongue. “Can you?”

  “A little.” Inguill removed her own earpiece. “I studied it in the course of my historical surveys. And my grasp has been refreshed by my contact with your group.”

  Ari took the earpieces and set them down some distance away. “Then let us communicate in that way. I would prefer not to have our conversation passed through Collius.”

  She smiled. “I think I know why.”

  He eyed her. “You and I are not like these others—”

  “‘These others,’” she said drily, “include your daughter and her mother.”

  He smiled back. “That’s a long story. Nevertheless, you and I see further than the rest. We would not have come on this astonishing journey across the reality sheaves otherwise. Indeed I was blocked, once, from progressing even faster, from following this Earthshin
e into mystery, through a Hatch on a different Mars. And now we are here, in this place, wherever it is—”

  “Wherever and whenever.”

  “We are not here to dig ditches.”

  “I agree with that,” she said.

  “Or to grow potatoes, or build lean-tos. Or to wait around until my daughter and Clodia Valeria rip each other to pieces over the Xin boy.”

  She laughed. “You noticed that too. Then why are we here, Ari Guthfrithson?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? We are fascinated by the jonbar hinges. Whole histories are being wiped away, as if by the wave of a hand. To have such power—”

  “You think that is what this Earthshine has gone to seek.”

  “Isn’t that obvious too?” His eyes glittered. “Now my wife and the rest, goaded by the ColU, are considering an expedition. We will all march off into the dark and the cold. But first we will grow more root vegetables, so that we won’t be hungry. Even then we will move at the pace of the slowest of the group. And all the time we will be in the control of the ColU—”

  “What are you suggesting, Ari?”

  He stepped closer to her, close enough to whisper. His face was hard, determined. She could smell boiled potatoes on his breath.

  “I’m suggesting that you and I should leave, now.”

  She’d known this proposal was coming, yet her heart beat faster in response. “You’re talking about walking around the world. How—”

  “There may be ways to move more quickly. We can follow the trail Earthshine left.” He pointed to the southeast. “It’s clearly visible. As for food, the store my wife has built up should be enough to sustain two.”

  She grinned. “If stolen from her.”

  “If stolen, yes. The pressure suit she has preserved since she came through the Hatch from Mars would provide enough warmth for us, I believe—it is a thing of multiple layers, a thing designed for the harshness of Mars, which, even if separated out, could protect the two of us from the chill of this place, Per Ardua. There are tools, even weapons we could take.”

  “You would betray your wife?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think of it that way. Perhaps I am saving her from her own foolishness.”

  “Why should we do this?”

  “Because of the power this Earthshine pursues. Huge power, for those brave enough to grasp it. And worthy of it.”

  She took a breath. “I feel—intoxicated. As I have ever since I started to uncover the strange mystery of this weaving of history. As if I were a child, plummeting down a hub-mountain glacier, out of control . . . We have both already walked away from our worlds, the very reality we knew, the history, the culture. Now here we are speaking of walking off into the dark. To our deaths—or unknowable glory.” She looked at him. “Do you believe that when your history died, your gods died?”

  He shrugged. “In the Christian tradition, Jesu died and lived again. And in the tradition of my ancestors, all the gods die, in a final war at the end of time, but another cycle begins.”

  She nodded. “Our priests also talk of cycles of calamities that punctuate time. Perhaps on some deep level we, our ancestors, already knew this is true, this meddling by the Dreamers—whoever and whatever they are.”

  “So,” he said, “will you come with me? Will you dare outlive your gods?”

  Again, a breath. “When do we leave?”

  62

  Titus Valerius, like Ari and Mardina and some of the others, had trouble adapting to the unending day of Proxima, Stef saw. The legionary found it difficult to structure his day, to sleep at night.

  But he was in his element when it came to planning the trek to the antistellar. Even the betrayal of Ari and Inguill, who had taken so much of their stock and supplies with them, seemed to make no difference. He had a way of defeating problems just by waving them away.

  “So we must walk around this empty world. Pah! In my time I have participated in marches the length and breadth of Europa, Africa, Valhallas Inferior and Superior, and deep into Asia. Marches across hostile territories, into the frozen tundra where wild horsemen still lurk at the fringes of continent-spanning forests—and through Valhallan jungles where every leaf conceals a scorpion, where every shadow is likely to turn out to be a skinny little warrior with a blowpipe. What dangers do we face here? That we will trip over an earthworm? We will do this. I will lead you. We will march—and that is what the Roman army is for, above all else: marching. And if we have the spare energy, I might have you all build a road while we’re at it, to ease the journey back. Why, I remember once on campaign—”

  “I’m enjoying this performance, Titus Valerius,” Stef said with a grin, “but I don’t believe a word of it. For one thing, you’re not a surveyor, or a mapmaker. There’s going to be nothing to wage war against on this trip. This will be an exercise in planning, Titus Valerius. In logistics. In survival.”

  “Survival? In a country where potatoes and beets grow wild? Why, it will be like a stroll through the estates of the Emperor Hadrian.”

  She eyed him. “ColU, do you think he really understands what he’s taking on?”

  The ColU sat on the ground beside the two of them, on a blanket spread out over the rusty dirt outside the shelter. Nearby, a low fire flickered, slowly boiling up another pot of water. “Titus Valerius is a brave man and we are lucky to have him at our side.”

  Stef grinned. “Tactfully put.”

  Titus Valerius scowled. “You tell me, then, star lady. Describe what it is about this journey that I don’t understand.”

  “I have done this before, Titus. To begin with, we are going to have to travel all the way around half a circumference of the world.” With a broken stem she sketched a circle in the dirt, alongside a bold asterisk to which she pointed. “Here’s Proxima, the star. The circle is Per Ardua, the planet. Per Ardua keeps one face to the star at all times. So—” She cut Per Ardua in half with a bold stroke, and scribbled over the hemisphere turned away from the star. “One half is always in daylight, one side is always in shadow—in endless night. The substellar, the point right under the star in the sky, is here.” A thumb mark, on the world’s surface right beneath the star. “Which is where we are. And that’s why the star is always directly over our heads. The antistellar is on the other side of the world.” Another thumb mark. “It couldn’t be farther away from this spot. And to travel there . . .” She sketched a broken line stretching around half a circumference of her planet, from substellar to antistellar. “You see? The shortest possible distance we have to travel is half of a great circle—I mean, if we just head straight for the antistellar. That’s without detours, for such details as mountain ranges and oceans and impenetrable forests and ice caps. And the distance—ColU?”

  “Per Ardua is a little smaller than Earth. Around twelve thousand Roman miles.”

  “And, can you see, Titus? Half of that will be in daylight, and half in the dark. Six thousand miles across icebound lands and frozen oceans.”

  “In the dark?” Titus was frowning now. “Where nothing will grow?”

  “Nothing but icicles on your beard. Exactly. Now do you see the challenge? We had a vehicle, motorized. It was still gruelling. Beth has been building a cart.”

  Titus nodded. “Even if we completed it, we would have to pull it. We have no engines, no draft animals. On the march, without vehicular transport, we expect to cover around twenty miles a day. So the journey would take us . . .”

  Stef smiled. “Leave the mental arithmetic to me. Six hundred days. The best part of two years!”

  “And one of those years in the dark and cold, where nothing grows.”

  She nodded. “It’s easy for us to express an ambition to reach the antistellar, Titus. But it may not be physically possible.”

  He grinned. “You should be a centurion, Colonel Kalinski.”

  “Really?”<
br />
  “You never tell a Roman something isn’t possible. Romans know no limits.”

  “We have one advantage,” the ColU said. “Ari and Inguill went ahead of us, as you say—and Earthshine went ahead of them. There ought to be a trail we can follow, easily visible on the surface of this static world. For, even if Ari and Inguill can have had little idea what they were walking into, Earthshine will have known what he was doing. I have no doubt he would have carried a full information store on Per Ardua, as explored by our people, Stef, in our home reality.”

  Titus frowned. “You mean, he had maps of this world?”

  “More like a memory of maps.”

  Titus pointed at the ColU. “And you, demon. Do you have a memory of such maps too?”

  “In my humble way, I was one of the pioneers of Per Ardua myself. And after humanity’s large-scale emigration to Per Ardua I made sure I kept track of the latest survey data, the exploration results. Yes, I ‘remember’ the maps—at least of Per Ardua as it was.”

  “Very well.” Titus lifted the ColU bodily, and set it at the edge of the blanket, facing an unmarked stretch of dirt. “Together, you and I will draw a map of this world—the parts I need to know about—so that I understand. Then I will take my daughter, Clodia, with light packs, and we will follow the tracks of Earthshine, and Ari and Inguill, to scout out a route. Meanwhile, you, Stef, will organize the preparations here. Get that cart ready to travel. Gather potatoes and beets. Grow more potatoes! It may be some weeks before we are ready to leave. And as for the dark side—let us get there first, and then we will plan anew.”

  She saluted him Roman style, fist to chest and then arm raised. “Yes, Centurion! You’re right, you know.”

  “I am?”

  “If anybody can get us to that damn antistellar, you can. I have faith in you, Titus. Maybe not as much as you have in yourself . . . Tell me one thing, though. Why are you taking Clodia on this scouting trip?”