by David Walton
It was thrilling to be part of such a plan, though Catherine knew it would be dangerous. She believed in the cause, believed that Mary's religion and union with King Philip were destroying England, and that she needed to be stopped. Matthew was just as motivated, though Catherine knew his reasons were different. He didn't care about the religion. He wasn't convinced that Protestantism was necessarily any better than Catholicism for England. But he trusted Elizabeth, and knew she cared about truth more than tradition. That was enough for him.
Catherine looked around at the gathered colonists. Each of them probably had their own reasons for following Elizabeth. Nearly all were Protestants, so of course they supported the Protestant princess, but they had different goals, different visions for what England should be. Some probably just wanted to get home to their families and be able to live in their own country without fear of persecution.
Matthew opened up the void and let it grow large to accommodate so many people. Even though she knew Matthew had gone through it and come back only yesterday, it was frightening to look into that black nothingness and consider leaping into it. There was no indication that it would lead to England or anywhere else. What if the link on the other side had been destroyed? Would they fall through the void forever?
Suddenly, it was time to go. Catherine wasn't ready for it. She clutched her parents, crying. Matthew came and wrapped his arms around all three of them.
Finally, they released each other, and Catherine's father shook Matthew's hand. "When you get there, you must destroy the link. Cut the thread or burn the bone, whatever you need to do to make sure no one can come through it again."
"No!" Catherine said. "If we do that, we can never come back. I'll never see you again."
Her father put a hand on her arm. "It has to be this way. The link is a secret now, but it won't stay that way. Someone will be captured, someone will talk. If it falls into the wrong hands, we'll have armies coming through here. The only way to protect the island is to cut the link entirely."
Catherine felt fresh tears coming, but she held them back. Her father was right, and she knew it. She couldn't risk the lives of countless manticores for her own personal wishes. She had done that often enough already. If Horizon was really going to be a manticore nation, then they had to be in control of who came and went. Even if it meant keeping her from her own parents.
She hugged her father again, and then her mother. "Thank you," she said. "I'll think of you every day."
"It's time," her mother said. "Now go."
Most of the colonists and all of the baggage was already through. Catherine took Matthew's hand, and together they stepped into the void.
THE END
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I hope you enjoyed this book! You can read more about me and my work at http://www.davidwaltonfiction.com/.
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Also available from David Walton
TERMINAL MIND
Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for best paperback science fiction novel of the year
CHAPTER 1
Daddy sent me a message. He gave me a job to do but he said don't do it yet. He said just wake up and be ready. I'm awake but there's nothing to do. He left me in the dark. He said he'd come but that was seconds and seconds ago. I can do it Daddy I really can. Let me try. Where are you Daddy?
MARK McGovern would have traded his inheritance to escape this party. Any political event meant flashy mods and petty gossip, but this one seemed worse than most. Out here on the balcony, he found some momentary relief; the night air cooled his face, and the sliding glass door muted the sounds of the party inside. Below him, the Philadelphia Crater sparkled like a bowl of diamonds. Mark switched his eyes to a higher magnification and watched headlights chase each other up and down Broad Street.
The door slid open.
"Tenny, there you are," said his father.
Mark grimaced. Tennessee—his real name—sounded pretentious, but "Tenny", his family nickname, was even worse.
"Tenny," said his father, "there's someone I'd like you to meet."
"Yes, come here, dear," said Diane, his father's latest, a woman with no more right to call him "dear" than his landlord. Mark followed them inside.
Bejeweled and betuxed ladies and gentlemen stuffed the room, sintered into a living mosaic of high-class biological modifications. He squeezed past a woman with earlobes molded into ringlets that draped over her shoulders, past a man with violet skin, past a woman who'd traded hair for a moist moss wreathed with tiny white flowers. They all held wine glasses with wrists at the same angle. They all looked at him.
Mark flashed the requisite smile. He hated this song and dance, the perpetual games of ambition and insincerity. None of these people had any interest in him beyond the attention they could bring to themselves. He spotted his great-grandfather at the bar, his arm snaked around a woman swathed in what looked like designer plastic wrap. Great-granddad was well over a hundred now, but with regular mod treatments, he seemed to age in reverse. His choices in women had grown younger, too, though for all Mark knew, that shrink-wrapped floozy might be sixty.
Jack McGovern, Mark's father, dominated the room, a wide-shouldered giant with a ferocious smile. He was the reason Mark was here. The press expected it, his father had said. The heir-apparent to the McGovern fortune must make appearances.
Mark's father crushed him in a one-armed hug and waggled fingers at those closest. "Tenny, you know Councilman Marsh and his wife Georgette, and this is Vivian DuChamp from Panache, but this—I don't believe you've met our newest artist, Dr. Alastair Tremayne. The man's a genius. With mods obviously, but he's made a few heads turn with some of his inventions as well. Patented a process to give net mods to a fetus, if you can believe that. Teach your unborn baby to read, show him pictures of his family, monitor his health, that sort of thing. Quite a hit with the maternal crowd. But I'm sorry—Dr. Tremayne, this is my son, Tennessee."
Over two meters tall, with silver hair shimmering like Christmas tinsel, Tremayne seemed hyper; he kept bouncing on the balls of his feet. Mark wasn't impressed. Tremayne would be like all his father's new discoveries: a fad for a time, then forgotten. He noticed his younger sister, Carolina, eyeing Tremayne like a hooked fish. Another fad for her then, too.
Mark worried about Carolina. At eighteen, she had a perfect figure, clear skin, golden smart-hair that arranged itself becomingly in any weather, and the very latest in eyes. Her eyes glistened, as if constantly wet with emotion, and their color—gold—shone with a deep luster like polished wood. But mods like that attracted men who were only interested in her appearance. Or her money.
Who was this Dr. Alastair Tremayne? It was impossible to tell his age. He looked twenty-five, but he could be as much as seventy if he was good at his craft.
"Councilman McGovern!” Three men crowded Mark aside and surrounded his father. A cloud of drones hovered over each shoulder, identifying them as reporters. "Mr. McGovern, we hear you're sitting on a new revelation, some synthesis of mod and fabrique technology."
Mark's father beamed. "You won't wring any secrets from me. Come to Friday's demonstration at the South Hills construction site."
Mark caught Carolina's eye, smiled, and flicked his eyes at Tremayne. She shrugged.
Isn't he cute? she sent. The words passed from her implanted Visor to his, allowing him to hear the words in his mind.
How old is he? Mark sent back.
What does that matter?
I don't want to see my sister mistreated. There are things more important than cute.
Carolina's lips puckered into a pout. You're no fun. Stop playing the big brother.
Mark blew her a kiss, pretending it was all just banter, but he made a mental note to find out something about this Dr. Tremayne. He loved Carolina, but that didn't mean he trusted her judgment.
". . . a stunning fractal filigree," Mark's father was saying, "Insouciant, yet unfeigned. Don't you think so, Tennessee?"
Mark s
napped around, trying to figure out what he was supposed to be agreeing with. Everyone was staring at Diane, so he did, too. That's when he noticed her skin. It seemed to be alive. Looking closer, he saw the pigment of her skin was changing, subtly, in shifting spiral patterns. He'd never seen anything like it. How was it done? A bacterium? He couldn't look at her too long; the patterns made his eyes swim.
"Very nice," he managed.
"Very nice? It's an unrivaled tour-de-force of neoplasticism!"
Mark thought his father had probably practiced those words ahead of time for the benefit of the writer from Panache. He needed to get away from this circus.
"Come now, Tenny. You can do better than 'very nice.'" His father's goatée had turned black. Mark watched it kaleidoscope through brown and gray, then back to blond. His father's mood changed accordingly, and he laughed for the crowd. "Well, well, we can't all have taste."
"That's quite a mod you have yourself," Mark ventured, nodding at the goatée, which rippled into blue.
"That's Tremayne's work. Took two liters of celgel—it probably has more smarts than I do.” Appreciative laughter. He turned to Mark. "What do you think of that?"
Mark glanced at the gaggle of cognoscenti and their sycophants, then back at his father, and decided: why not? He was twenty-four years old; he could say what he pleased.
"I think the Metropolitan Hospital ER could have made better use of it," he said.
The goatée blackened. For the first time in Mark's memory, his father opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Dr. Tremayne spoke instead. "Idealism is so charming in the young."
Carolina said, "Daddy, leave him be. You know he has that Comber friend."
She caught Mark's eye. That's your cue, she sent.
Mark frowned, then understood. "Oh yes, Darin Kinsley," he said loudly. "I spend lots of time with him, down in the Combs."
His father's goatée turned a surprising shade of pink. "Wonderful, Mark, very nice. Now perhaps you could . . . ah . . . retire for the evening? Yes?"
Mark sighed in relief and nodded his thanks to Carolina.
You owe me one, she sent.
Out the door, he broke into a run. At the back of the house, where the arches and terraces faded into shadow, he lifted his jetvac off a hook and unfolded it into aluminum seat, handles, footrests. The vacuum motor whispered to life, lifting him off the ground. He squeezed the throttle, and the jetvac shot forward, skimming up the slope behind the house.
Finally free. Darin would have been waiting for half an hour now, and he wasn't likely to find Mark’s Rimmer party a good excuse. Darin railed against Rimmers almost as often as he breathed—how they prettified themselves with technology better used to cure disease, how they controlled ninety-five percent of the resources while doing five percent of the work. Yet he refused to accept anything Mark tried to give him—even a ticket for the mag. Darin despised charity, thought it weakened those who accepted it. Once, he'd even stopped Mark from giving money to a beggar in the Combs. "Leave him some dignity," he'd said. When Mark asked if the man was expected to eat his dignity, Darin had responded, "Better to starve than to cower." It made Mark ashamed of his wealth, but what could he do?
Mark's night-vision kicked in, illuminating the top of the hill: he saw Darin first, lounging back against the hillside. Another figure hunched over Darin's telescope, and Mark recognized Praveen Kumar. He had known Praveen since they were boys; their families traveled in the same circles of society, but whereas Mark had always chafed against his family privilege, Praveen was a model son: hard-working, obedient, polite. So what was he doing here joining in a cracker's prank?
Mark touched down, refolded his jetvac, and slung it over his shoulder. Darin, spotting him, jumped up with arms spread wide.
"Prince Mark," he said. "You honor us with your presence."
Mark ignored the jibe. "What's he doing here?"
"I invited him."
"You didn't ask me," said Mark. "What if he tells someone?"
"Stop worrying," said Darin. "He'll be fine."
"This isn't exactly legal," said Mark.
"But what fun would it be if we didn't show it to anyone?"
Mark sighed. He'd long since given up on winning an argument with Darin.
"Praveen knows more astronomy than either of us," Darin continued, "and he can video the fireworks while we make them happen. Of course, I still didn't tell Praveen what's going to happen."
Mark allowed a smile. He wanted to ask what Darin had told Praveen, but by that time Praveen joined them.
In recent years, Praveen had darkened his skin and hair to accentuate his Indian heritage. A double row of lithium niobate crystals studded his brow: a state-of-the-art Visor that rivaled Mark's own.
"And here's the genius in person," said Darin. "Can you actually be seen with us, Praveen, or will your agent bill us for the time?"
"You flatter me," Praveen said in a musical Indian accent he never had when they were young.
"Nonsense. Apparently you wrote quite a paper. You deserve the praise."
Praveen waved aside the compliments, but he was obviously pleased. His physicist grandfather, Dhaval Kumar, had established some of the theoretical principles behind non-attenuating laser light, the applications of which made Visor technology and the world-wide optical network possible. Praveen, who idolized his granddad, had recently been published himself in a prominent physics journal—one of the youngest ever to do so. Most of his peers didn't recognize what a triumph it was for him.
"You brought your camera?" Mark asked him.
"Yes, of course. But for what? Darin did not tell me."
Darin crouched in the grass, ignoring the question.
He unzipped a pouch at his waist and began laying out his netmask and its sensory apparatus—a cumbersome bio-electronic interface that connected eyes, ears, and mouth to a net interface. Mark had offered, more than once, to pay for a Visor, but of course Darin wouldn't hear of it.
Mark busied himself with the telescopes. The zoom mods in his eyes were no more adequate to view an astronomical event than one of those tiny camera drones was to holograph it. He snapped a memory crystal into the back and worked to calibrate the lenses. On the far side of the crater, he could see the hydroelectric dam that provided most of the city's power shining white in the darkness. Above it, a few stars twinkled faintly.
"Had a little trouble getting here," said Darin. Something in his voice caused Mark to turn around.
"Why?"
"Merc at the corner of 28th and Hill," said Darin. "Almost wouldn't let me pass."
"Were you polite?"
"As a politician. I guess he didn't like the look of my telescope."
"He's just there to keep the peace."
"He wouldn't have stopped you," said Darin. "He only stopped me because I'm a Comber, not because I was doing anything wrong. Rimmers are too attached to their comfortable lifestyle—you hire mercs to protect it, and call it 'keeping the peace'."
"They're preventing violence, not causing it. That's peace-keeping in anyone's book."
"Who causes violence,citizens who stand up for their rights, or those who take them away?"
Mark let it drop. Lately, Darin argued social philosophy at any provocation. They'd been school friends long before they understood the class differences, Mark's father having chosen public school over private tutors for political reasons. Even now, Mark agreed with Darin's perspectives more than his Rimmer peers', so it frustrated him when Darin's accusative pronouns shifted from 'they' to 'you'.
"Please," said Praveen, "I must know what am I photographing. I can not set my light levels unless I can estimate intensity and contrast."
Mark glanced at Darin, who was busy louvering a sticky lens into one eye. The back of the lens bristled with tiny fibers that Darin labored to keep free of tangles., "Tell him," he said.
"It's a flare," said Mark. "A NAIL flare."
He watched, amused, as Praveen's f
ace went through a series of confused expressions. Praveen certainly knew more than they did about the various NAIL constellations of satellites. NAIL stood for Non-Attenuating Infrared Laser, and accounted for almost all of the optical net traffic in the country. The satellites were renowned for their half-mile-wide main antennas, umbrella-like dishes coated with a reflective material. When the angles between sun, satellite, and observer were just right, a burst of sunlight was reflected: a flare, lasting up to ten seconds and reaching magnitudes between minus ten and minus twelve—much brighter than anything else in the night sky. Amateur astronomers scrambled around the world to the sites the flares were predicted to appear.
Praveen rolled his eyes. "Just because it flies over does not mean you will see a flare. I cannot believe you dragged me out here. The next good flare is not for months, and I think it is only visible from Greenland."
"Don't put that camera away," said Mark. "Darin and me, we don't like to wait for months. And Greenland's too cold."
"Ready," said Darin.
Praveen's face changed again. "You're hackers? I don't believe this."
"We're nothing of the sort," said Mark. "Hackers are criminals. Hackers break into nodes to steal or destroy. Crackers, on the other hand, are in it for fun, for the thrill of the race, for the intellectual challenge. And this," he smiled, "is a crackerjack."
"A fine distinction."
"No time to argue," said Mark. "Just man that camera."
Darin sat up, a grotesquerie of celgel-smeared fibers protruding from eyes, ears, and throat. Mark simply relaxed against the hillside and unfocused his eyes. Billions of information-laden photons, careening invisibly around him, were manipulated into coherence by the holographic crystals in his Visor. The feed from the crystals spliced directly into his optic nerve, overlaying his normal vision with the familiar icons of his net interface.
