Sea of Silver Light

by Tad Williams

  She could hear the smile in his voice. "Very well, Olga. It's a pleasure to talk to you again, whatever the circumstances. Did you have any problems with the hiring interview?"

  "I don't think so. It all went very smoothly. How did you arrange all that?"

  "We'd better save the details. Were you able to get your bag in with you?"

  "Yes. I don't have it right this moment, but I can get it again, I'm pretty sure."

  "Call me when the shift's over, and when you have it. We'd better not keep you in there too long, so I'll save the rest of what I have to say until then. Oh, except for one very important thing. Can you hold your badge up near the jack on your neck? Just uncover it for a moment—if you think you're being watched, try to make it look like you're cleaning the spot under the bandage. I think I can pick up the encoding that way." When she had done it to his satisfaction, he said, "Good. Thanks. Now Mr. Ramsey wants to talk to you."

  A second later Ramsey's voice was in her ear again. "Olga? I just wanted to say, be careful, okay?"

  Now she did laugh, but there was real pleasure in it. "All right, sonny. And you dress warmly and eat your vegetables."

  "I'm sorry—Olga, what exactly. . . ?" he was saying as she rang off, still grinning.

  She was more physically tired than she had been in months when the shift came to an end, staggering after ten hours on her feet. Friday night had crept round to Saturday morning, although only the chronometers on the wall testified to that, sunk as she was in the sunless depths of the building. She could almost sense the massive mountain of plasteel and fibramic above her, separating her from the day's light, as though she were lost in some underground cavern or dungeon.

  And the real work begins now, she thought. God, I just want to sleep.

  She made weary chitchat with Esther and the others as they put away their cleaning supplies and began the march back to the dock. Then, heart beating fast now, frightened and also full of a weird, unexpected exhilaration, she pulled up short.

  "Oh, no!"

  Esther turned. There were circles under her eyes, and Olga found herself for the first time wondering what the other woman went home to. A loving family and a kind husband? Or at least something a little better than this numbing labor in Pharaoh's mines? She hoped so. "What is it, sweetie? You look like you see a ghost."

  "My backpack! I forgot my backpack!"

  Esther shook her head. "I told you you shouldn't have brought it. It's okay—you get it on Monday when we come back."

  "I can't. It's got my medicine in it. I have to take my medicine." She took a step backward, putting up her hand to wave the other woman off, praying that fatigue would keep her from volunteering to accompany her back. "I'll go get it. I'll be right back. You go ahead."

  "The boat leaves in a few minutes."

  "I'll run. If I miss you on the boat, have a good weekend!" Then, feeling surprisingly sincere, she added, "Thanks for all your help!" before she turned and began breasting the tide of gray-clad workers, until Esther and her worried exhortations were out of sight and earshot. Now I have to hope she won't look for me on that crowded boat, or after it docks, at least not very hard. She had planted a seed earlier, saying she would have to be picked up by her daughter still in her work clothes because of a medical appointment. And if Sellars did what he promised with that information off the badge, it will look like I got on the boat and then got off on the far end. Which will give me, what—until Monday evening, if I'm lucky?

  Two and a half days to discover the heart of the beast. It seemed so long. It seemed so brief.

  The big room with the cubbyholes was empty except for a single male janitor swabbing the floor with a mop and a bucket. She nodded to him and took her backpack, then walked back in the direction of the hovercraft landing, but instead made a turn into one of the stairwells and climbed back down to B Level, which was now comparatively familiar ground. She knew that Sellars and Major Sorensen had arranged some tricks with the security cameras, but she knew they could do nothing if she ran into any flesh and blood company management, so she moved quickly to her planned destination, a utility closet off one of the maintenance corridors. After testing to make sure she could open it again from the inside, she pulled the door shut behind her and slumped on the floor, in the dark. Her heart was beating very fast and she was trembling.

  When she had recovered a bit, she spoke the code again and Ramsey's voice was in her ear, reassuringly familiar in the midst of so much that was strange.

  "Olga? How are things going?"

  "Pretty well, as long as my supervisor doesn't look for me too hard on the boat. But the poor woman looked ready to drop. This is hard work, you know. All my joints are aching, and my hands are cracked—just from one day!"

  "I'll give my cleaning lady a much bigger bonus this year, I promise," Ramsey said, but he could not pull off the joking tone very convincingly. So serious, Olga thought, Even if it really is the end of the world, so serious.

  "You should have been born a Jew, like me," she said. "You learn how to deal with these things."

  The pause was deafening. "I have no idea what you mean, Olga. You have completely stumped me. But I'm glad you're safe. And I'm proud of you. Sellars wants to talk to you."

  "Hello, Olga," the old man said. "I echo Mr. Ramsey's sentiments. I may not have much time to talk, so I'm going to give you as much as I can now. Don't write anything down, just in case someone grabs you."

  "Don't worry," she said, sitting in the dark, talking silently to people who might as well be on another planet. "I don't have the strength to lift even a pencil right now."

  "You'll need at least enough to lift what's in that backpack of yours. Will you get that now?"

  "The package?"

  "That's right."

  She fumbled in the backpack until she found her flashlight, then took out and carefully piled the military rations Ramsey—or really Sorensen, she supposed—had provided, several days worth of food that took up less space than an ordinary box lunch. There was also a bottle of water, which seemed a bit redundant in a building that probably contained a thousand drinking fountains. At the bottom of the pack she found the wrapped box bearing the label of a common thyroid medicine and a note in Olga's own hand that said, "Two after each meal."

  "I found it."

  "Just open it please. I need to perform a little test."

  She unwrapped the box carefully so she could return it to its innocent appearance afterward, and drew out a slim gray rectangle the size of her palm. It was oddly heavy and she viewed it with some distrust. "I have it."

  "Just tell me what happens," Sellars said in his soft voice. A moment later a tiny red light sparked on the side.

  "A red light turned on."

  "Good. Just needed to be sure. You can wrap it back up and put it away now, Olga."

  She was still troubled as she returned it to the depths of the backpack, along with the rations, and pushed her sweater back on top of them. "Is that thing . . . is it a bomb?" she asked at last.

  "A bomb? Goodness, no." Sellars sounded quite astonished. "No, we don't want to destroy anybody's system—we have friends alive in there. It would be like putting a bomb on a house where someone's being held hostage. No, Olga, that's what used to be called a vampire tap—a special sort of information shunt that the major helped me obtain. If we do find what we're looking for, I suspect that I'm going to need to send and receive at much faster speed than what I'm using now if I'm going to accomplish anything."

  "I feel better."

  "Now the water bottle—that is a bomb." He chuckled, a soft hooting noise. "But a very small one, just to make smoke. As a diversion. Goodness, I almost forgot to tell you."

  I've stepped out of reality, Olga decided. I thought the dream-children were crazy? This is crazier still.

  "All right," Sellars said, "listen carefully and I'll explain what you should do next. We have less than three days before they begin to figure out something's wrong—that's
if everything goes perfectly. There are still people in that building and you shouldn't let any of them see you from this moment on. I'll do my best to help you with the surveillance, but even so, this will be more difficult than you can possibly imagine, and in all honesty probably hopeless. But we have no other choice."

  Olga considered. "Now you I could believe were Jewish, Mr. Sellars."

  "I'm afraid I don't follow you."

  "Never mind." She sighed and stretched her aching legs as far as the tiny closet would allow. "Go ahead—I'm listening."

  CHAPTER 24

  Getting out of Dodge

  * * *

  NETFEED/BUSINESS: Bad Year for Executives

  (visual: Dedoblanco funeral, Bangkok, Thailand)

  VO: The death of Krittapong Electronics' Ymona Dedoblanco pointed up once again that it has been a bad year for business executives. Several moguls, perhaps the richest and certainly the most famous being Chinese financier Jiun Bhao, have died during the last few months. Little has been seen of several others, including Felix Jongleur, the aged Franco-American entrepreneur, who seldom leaves his Louisiana compound.

  (visual: business journalist She-Ra Mottram)

  MOTTRAM: "Yes, there have been several significant losses in the business community, and it's made the markets a bit shaky. Of course, most of these people were extremely old. That's why it's ironic that two of the oldest, Jongleur and Robert Wells, are still alive and kicking. They must get a certain pleasure out of seeing their younger rivals dropping by the wayside. . . ."

  * * *

  Paul stared at the lithe, dark man trussed on the floor of the cavern. The prisoner stared back, eyes narrowed as though he were a dog about to bite; Paul had no doubt that, given the chance, he would indeed cheerfully rip out their throats. "A thousand more? What do you mean?"

  Bat Masterson shoved the prisoner with the toe of his boot, earning a look of even more tightly focused hatred. "Just as I said, friend. When they came down on us, we thought they were an ordinary war party of Comanche or Cheyenne. We didn't have much chance to get acquainted, though—we were too busy getting killed—so we only noticed after a while that they all look just the same. It's a ticklish mystery, sure enough. I reckon it's some tribe that's been inbreeding too long." But he did not look confident in his solution.

  "They're devils," the mustached man who had been guarding Dread suggested. "Simple as can be. Ground opened up. Hell busted out."

  "But, shit, Dave why would hell be full of octoroons?" Masterson tugged at his mustache. "Oh. Begging your pardon, ladies."

  Martine, for one, was paying little attention to what was being said. "It is Dread," she murmured dreamily, "but also it is less. I can feel that now. He has copied himself somehow—used something as a framework, perhaps one of the Indian tribes, then replicated himself."

  "Ma'am," Masterson told her, "I have to say that I can't figure out what in blazes you're talking about. Have you met these fellows before?"

  Paul shrugged, tried to think of something to say. "Not really. It's hard to explain."

  "Met him, yeah," T4b said. "Sixed him, too," he added unhelpfully.

  As Masterson stood perplexed, scratching his head beneath the plug hat, Paul put his hand on Martine's shoulder. They needed to do something, it was clear, but it was pointless trying to explain the devolution of the network to the sims who lived in it. "Now what?"

  "Even if a million of these waited for us," she said softly, "we would still have to make our way past them. We have no other way out of here." She turned to Masterson. "Can you lead us to Dodge City? Or at least tell us something of what to expect? We do not want to go there, but we have no choice."

  "If'n you folks just want to get killed," the man named Dave offered, "you all oughta just walk off the cliff yonder. Be quicker and a lot cleaner."

  "Mysterious Dave doesn't talk much," Masterson said with a sour smile, "but when he does, it's usually to a purpose. He's right. You go down there, you'll all die. No question about it. No, you stay here with us and stay alive—we could use a few more hands."

  "We can't," said Paul, wishing fervently that it were otherwise. He'd heard enough about Dread to thoroughly terrify him, a monster as bad as Finney and Mudd, but with brains. The idea of a thousand of them, waiting. . . . "We can't. God, I wish we could stay. But we have to go."

  "But why, blast it?" Masterson almost shouted. "Where are you from? And more importantly, didn't your mothers have any children with brains?"

  Florimel, who had been watching the Dread sim with a mixture of horror and disgust, finally spoke up. "We cannot stay. We have a need to go to your Dodge City. It cannot be explained any more than that."

  "It's . . . it's religious, I guess you could say," Paul said, reaching desperately. "We've sworn an oath."

  Masterson fell silent for a moment, eyeing them all. "I suppose I should have known, seeing those queer outfits you're wearing. But it's still a bad bargain all around. We lose your help, you lose your lives." He spat in disgust, missing the snarling face of Dread only by mischance.

  "Can you tell us the best way to reach the place?" Martine asked. "We do not know these mountains, and we don't want to meet any more of the monsters who caught us before."

  "You'll find that this fellow's kin are worse than any jackalos." Masterson growled. "As far as finding your way down into that hellhole. . . ."

  "I'll take 'em as far as the river," a voice said.

  Paul turned to see the black man named Titus, who had been leaning on the cavern wall listening. "Thank you. That's very kind."

  "See if you feel that way when they're taking your scalp off," said Titus. "I think you're fools, but I got me another long patrol to do so I might as well keep you out of trouble until you're closer. But it'll have to wait until dark."

  Masterson had walked a short distance across the cavern; he returned with the pistol Paul had carried earlier. "Take this," he said. "It's reloaded. I hate like sin to see it lost and the bullets wasted, but I've got a Christian duty of sorts, I guess."

  Paul stared at the ivory handle and dark steel barrel as though it were a snake. "I said I didn't want to carry it anymore. Besides, if there are a thousand of them, what good will six bullets do me?"

  Masterson shoved it into his hands and leaned close to Paul's ear. "I thought you had at least a little sense, friend. You think I'm going to let you take women down into that place without a gun to do the honorable thing? Do you think when they catch you they're just going to kill you?"

  Paul could only swallow what felt like a stone in his throat and accept the gun.

  Only a few people saw them off. The rest of the refugees seemed to have decided that there was not much point in wasting time on a group of doomed fanatics. Of the half-dozen who stood at the cavern's outer edge, only Annie Ladue seemed genuinely sad.

  "I can't believe you're going off to . . . that you're going off without even taking a meal with us."

  Paul frowned. How to explain that they needed no food and could not afford to waste time eating? All this prevarication, not being able to tell people the truth about their own existences. . . . It was something like being a god among mortals, but he doubted most gods ever felt so miserable. "It's our religion," he said, by way of an explanation.

  Annie shook her head. "Well, I'm not the most Christian woman you'll meet, I suppose, but Godspeed to you all." She turned abruptly and walked back inside.

  "I'll not offer you my hand," Masterson said. "I can't abide such foolishness as this. But I will echo what Annie said, and add 'good luck.' I can't imagine where anyone could find that much luck, though. Titus, make sure you at least come back safely."

  "What . . . what are you going to do with the prisoner?" Paul asked.

  "Let's put it this way," said Masterson, "in consideration of tender sensibilities. We're not going to be giving him a testimonial dinner. But it'll be a lot quicker than what you'll get down in Dodge if his kinfolk catch hold of you." He nodded hi
s head, tipped his hat to Martine and Florimel, and led the rest of the silent farewell party back into the cavern.

  "Well, on that cheerful note," Titus said, "I reckon we should get going. Y'all follow me close and quiet. If I hold my hand up like this, just stop—don't say nothing, just stop. Got me?"

  The river was already hidden in shadow below them as they set off, and evening shadows ran purple down the far mountains. Bringing up the rear, Paul could barely see his companions, although the nearest was only a few meters in front of him.

  How many worlds? he wondered. How many worlds are falling under shadow right now?

  It was not a question he could ponder very long or very thoroughly while making his way down the steep mountain slope, a thousand feet or more above the river valley.

  Even with the confident Titus leading the way, they did not make very fast time. Florimel's bad leg slowed them, and T4b did not seem to like heights anywhere near so much when he wasn't imagining himself playing a familiar game. Almost half the night passed before they felt the moisture of the river in the air, although they had heard its thrashing roar for some time.

  Titus was sparing of conversation, but during their stops for rest he told them a little of his life, of his childhood in Maryland as the son of a freed slave and his own escape westward. He had spent much of his adulthood as a trail hand—Paul had never known that there were black cowboys, but Titus said there were thousands like him all over the southwest. He had been riding herd on a shipment of shorthorns that had come up from Texas to the Dodge City railhead, and was in town spending his pay on the night the earth began to move.

  "The most frightening thing I ever saw." He was almost invisible in the moonlight, but his pale, crooked teeth showed for a moment as he put a wad of tobacco into his mouth. "Worse than all those hundreds of same-looking fellows on horseback that came later, screaming and hollering. Everything was shaking, then the land just folded up—at first I thought we were sinking into the middle of the Earth, then I saw that it was mountains growing right up out of the ground all around us, shooting up like a cane-brake. I thought it was Judgment Day, like my mama taught me. Maybe it was. Maybe this is the End of Days. Lots of others think so."