by Sarah Zettel
Basante’s little smile grew uneasy. “You almost make it sound like he does not trust his family.” He turned his head just a little, so that he was looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “Or that you do not trust your birth brother.”
“I would never say such a thing,” Dionte told him, a little shocked. “But the fact is, Basante, it may be up to you and I to protect Pandora.”
The smile faded away. “Dionte, that isn’t possible. We can’t work without the family’s support.”
It will only be for a little while, I promise. Dionte took Basante’s hand. The smooth touch of his data display activated the sensors under the skin of her palm. Basante plus, she subvocalized to her own implant, and the preset commands she had encoded under that name flowed down the filaments in her arm, through her palm, into the biosilicate of his display, and to his implant.
“The family has decided not to protect Pandora from the Authority,” she said. “You see it as well as I do. You know this is true.”
The human body was a hot, acidic, constantly shifting environment. Anything inorganic planted inside it had a tendency to simply wear away over time. Although the Conscience implants were primarily organic, they each contained inorganic materials to assure the necessary precision of memory and consistency of output. Those inorganics needed monitoring and adjustment if they were to continue to function across the lifetime of their host.
The monitoring and adjustment were taken care of by Guardians like Dionte. Once a month Aleph downloaded any incidents each Conscience’s tiny AI had thought were matters of concern, so that the family member could be counseled or advised. At that same time, Dionte performed maintenance checks, injected alpha viruses loaded with fresh stem cells for the organic filaments, and worked with a needle laser and a hair-thin probe to lay in fresh connections or etch new patterns into the chip itself.
The solution of how to bring the family closer together turned out to be simple. It was a matter of a few new connections and a few new filaments, creating a new junction between the implant’s simple data-handling functions that connected the implant to the display on the back of the hand and the Conscience functions that connected the implant to the mind.
“They are trying to compromise with the Authority the way they’d compromise with other members of the family and it isn’t going to work,” she went on, keeping his gaze captured with her own.
If her own Conscience had been fully functional, she never would have been able to make the adjustments required, in herself or in anyone else. She would have been overwhelmed by a guilty need to tell her kin what she had planned and why she thought it would be a good idea. But that had not happened, and during Basante’s last appointment with her, she had made it possible for her implant to speak directly to his.
If she had made no mistakes, Basante’s implant would respond to the signals it was receiving from hers with endorphins and positive scents. Her own implant whispered in her mind, raw percentages and unfiltered numbers that made up the chemical analysis of Basante’s mind. Dionte could not catch them all. She would have to work on that. Obviously, she needed a subprogram to perform the analysis automatically and give her data she could use on the spot. Despite that, Dionte had to hold back a smile, because the numbers told her that her adjustments were working. Basante would hear her words and feel safety and security, not guilt. He would be able to answer her without contradiction from his Conscience. Even better, his implant spoke to hers, telling her what it was doing, allowing her to order adjustments or reversals as they were needed. The method was crude now, but she could improve on it. She would improve on it.
“You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Basante? You see that I’m right?”
Basante stared at her, confused, but only for a moment. “Yes,” he said, sounding a little surprised. “I do.”
“I am not saying we should give up speaking in the meetings and gathering our support,” she said, grasping his hand even more tightly. “Indeed, I am saying that changing the family’s mind must be our primary goal. But”—she held up her free hand to stop any interruption he might be thinking to make—“we also must get ourselves ready in case that support doesn’t come, or in case it comes late.”
A light came into Basante’s eyes and spread into his face as fresh confidence took hold of him. “We need Helice Trust.”
“We need the child she can provide us.”
“Yes.” He squeezed her hand, confidence blossoming into eagerness.
“So, you will help me? I can count on you?” Say yes, say yes, Bas-ante. This has to work, or we’re all going to die. All of us, and Pandora with us.
Basante’s smile was warm and genuine and Dionte felt the warmth of it thawing her fears. “Always.”
“Thank you, Basante,” she whispered. It was going to work. They could still do it. The future had not been stolen from them yet.
Was the change permanent? Despite herself, Dionte searched his face, looking for some sign. Would he be able to think about these matters once she had left him? There was no way to know that yet. Yet.
“If you have doubts,” she said earnestly, “if you change your mind, you will tell me, won’t you?”
“Of course I will.” He squeezed her hand once again. “But I know you are right.”
“Thank you,” she said again. Then she made herself let go of his hand and stand up. “Now we both have our work to do. We will talk about the steps we must take after the administrators’ meeting.”
“I will see you there.”
They bowed to each other, and Dionte started down the path, her heart singing. It worked, it worked! The system was not complete yet. Time would reveal flaws and required additions, but there was still a little time. With Basante’s help she’d be able to make it all right. She could make them understand what was really going on. She could show them directly, without clumsy words, what they needed to do to protect their world and their family from the treachery of the Authority and the Called.
Smiling, she called up her schedule on her data display. Hagin Bhavasar, her birth uncle and the senior tender for the city-mind, was coming in for his check next week. She could review his records easily before then and make her preparations. There would soon be much work that they needed to do directly with Aleph, and it would be a great help to have Uncle Hagin in agreement with them before then.
CHAPTER FIVE
Stem
By the time she made it out of the forest, Chena was glad Mom had insisted she wear the stupid hat and carry a water bottle.
For a long time, the woods had looked just like they did around Off-shoot—an endless succession of thick, gnarled tree trunks hung with cablelike vines. Here and there, one of the giants had fallen and turned into a moss-covered hillock overgrown with ferns and saplings straining to reach the sunlight. She saw deer, squirrels, and quail. Once she even thought she saw a bear, but she couldn’t be sure.
Gradually the trees became smaller and more slender. The ground between them filled with all kinds of bracken and underbrush, turning the forest floor into a mosaic of greens and yellows dotted here and there with blue or white flowers. Sunlight brightened the world and started Chena sweating. Insects flew in clouds out of the undergrowth, but she seemed to be moving too fast for them to settle on her. Something else she was glad of. Bugs could be amazing to look at, but some of them bit.
Just one more thing nobody warns you about living on a planet.
She’d spent most of her free time during the month hanging around Offshoot’s tinky little library, trying to find a decent map of where the railbikes went and how far away the villages were from each other. But there didn’t seem to be a single complete map anywhere. She had to piece together the information she found, but there were still big gaps where she hadn’t been able to find out anything.
She talked to Sadia about it at lunch one day, but Sadia had mostly shrugged and told her that’s the way it was, and what did she want to go wand
ering around for anyway? There wasn’t anywhere better than Offshoot.
“What do you think you know about it?” asked Chena, leaning across the table. “You’ve never been anywhere.”
“Dad took me and Shond to Stem once,” she said, poking at her bowl of vegetable stew. “There’s a market, and we watched the dirigibles fly over that big lake.” For a minute, Chena thought she was going to say something else, but Sadia just scowled at her food. “Nothing to it.”
Chena straightened up and watched Sadia dig a piece of potato out of the stew and pop it into her mouth. “You were there once, you couldn’t have seen everything. There’s supposed to be a theater too.”
Sadia gave her a you’re-joking look. “It’s all the same people running the place. You think they’re going to let anybody have anything good?”
Which, Chena had to admit, made a certain amount of sense, but it still wasn’t the whole story.
Whatever that story was, though, Sadia wasn’t telling. So Chena guessed she’d just have to see for herself.
From her pieced-together map, it looked like Stem was about one hundred kilometers away from Offshoot. Chena had a decent idea of how long a kilometer was. Athena had been three kilometers from tip to tip and she had been able to run up a whole arm and back down again since she was eight.
On top of that, it turned out that riding was easier than walking. The railbike didn’t look much like the bicycles she’d seen in the rig games, or even the ones that were used to turn the compost drums. It had two wheels, all right, but they were clamped to the rail. A weird outrigger kind of extension clamped to a second rail to the right of the bike. But if you sat on the seat, held on to the handlebars, and pedaled, it went much faster than she could ever run. It practically flew down the ravines that had been cut by small streams flowing down toward the river. The movement pressed a fresh wind against her face, so she felt cool, at least in the beginning, even though the day was warm and still.
Better than that, Chena felt free. She could almost pretend she could go anywhere, that the rails weren’t lined with fence posts and that the whole world really was opening up around her.
When Teal had heard about Chena’s trip, she, of course, had wanted to come. She’d followed Chena around in the miniature library, with its two terminals that didn’t even have any input jacks, begging Chena to let her come along. When Teal finally hit the tears and the I-don’t-get-to-do-anything! stage, Chena was afraid Mom was going to give in. But Mom cut the scene short by saying that while Chena was “gallivanting around the world,” she and Teal would have a special day together scrounging stuff for the new house.
They had a house now. Mom had been able to get an advance on her salary to make the rent. The place was dark and had roots coming through the roof, they were still sleeping on the floor, and they had to take baths in a big copper pot, but it was all theirs. They got to learn how to cook on the woodstove and do all kinds of things that did not involve shit, compost, or cleaning up after other people. Now that Mom was making money and paying at least something into the village fund, they only had to put in three hours a day on shift instead of six. When they got enough together so Chena and Teal could go to school, they’d only have to put in two hours.
Chena had really known Teal was over her snit when Teal rolled up close to her in the dark and whispered in her ear, “You’re really going to look for spies, right? Because the poisoners are trying to divert messages from Dad.”
They hadn’t shared a Dad story in weeks. Teal had been too pouty. Relief had rushed through Chena. She’d have her day.
“Right. Stem is a bigger town,” Chena had whispered back. “They’re bound to have more information there about what’s going on. I need to scope the place out. See who we can trust there.”
“I’m starting a record of who comes and goes from other towns,” said Teal eagerly. “There’s this kid on my shift, Michio, he talks about the boat schedules all the time. I think it’s like a game with him. I could talk to him.” Then she added quickly, “But I wouldn’t tell him why I wanted to know.”
“That’s a go plan,” said Chena. “But mostly you’ve got to keep an eye on Mom while I’m gone. Let me know if there’s anybody sneaking around watching her or anything like that.”
“Because Dad’s got enemies,” added Teal solemnly. “Which means we’ve got enemies, and the spies may be watching Mom to see if they can find him through her.”
“Right.” Chena nodded, even though Teal couldn’t see her in the dark. “So, we’ve got to look out for her, okay?”
“Okay.”
Teal had curled up and gone straight to sleep then, but Chena had lain awake for a while, thinking about the stories they told about their father, and the spy game. Sometimes she wondered if it was a good idea.
I mean, if he was coming back, he’d be back by now, wouldn’t he? If he was coming back, Mom wouldn’t even have left Athena.
Unless we’re right… unless the stories are true.
Or unless Dad had just run out on them. Chena had squirmed under her blanket, making Teal stir sleepily like an echo of the restless movement. Sadia and Shond’s mom had left them. She just got onto a boat one day, Sadia said, and she didn’t come back. Sadia wouldn’t talk about what happened to their dad.
She wondered if Teal ever thought about that, if Dad had just left them, because he’d gotten tired of them, or he didn’t like being poor anymore, or they were just too much of a hassle to stay with when he could have been out flying around with the Authority. They never talked about it, and Chena realized she didn’t really want to. She wanted to tell the stories and believe he was coming home, even when she knew he wasn’t.
Chena pushed down hard now on the pedals, trying to put some distance between herself and that idea. Ahead of her, the light made a white wall with just a thin screen of trees in front of it. Another half dozen pedal strokes, and she broke free of the forest into the full sunlight.
In front of her stretched a sea of pale blond grass undulating gently toward a misty blue horizon. A riot of birdsong replaced the rush of wind in the branches. Chena gasped and forgot to pedal for a moment. Her bike glided to a gentle halt.
Birds clung to every stem of grass, all of them singing, chattering, or calling. The noise was deafening. They were all different colors, from browns and blacks to vivid reds, blues, and golds, and even one little one that was deep purple. Even the butterflies fluttering between the grass stems didn’t come in more colors.
Then in the distance something big and brown leapt out of the tall grass. All the birds launched themselves into the air in a great black cloud, blotting out the sky. Chena’s heart hammered in her chest, but startled fear rapidly turned to astonishment, and then awe. It was a long moment before she was able to tear her gaze away from the tattered cloud of birds and look for the big thing that had caused the mass exodus. Images of wolves and dinosaurs from the games flashed briefly through her mind, and she felt glad of the fence posts for one split second. But whatever it had been, it was as gone as the birds.
Eventually Chena remembered what she was supposed to be doing and applied her feet to the bike pedals again.
After a while, this new part of the world became even more monotonous than the forest. She couldn’t see past the thick growth of the grass on either side. The long and steep hills were fun to glide down, but they were a pain to pedal up. The sun’s heat was smothering and she was almost out of water. But she kept on going. If her estimates were even close to right, using one of the turnaround points and heading back would make for a longer ride before she got back to people than if she just kept going. She glanced at her comptroller: 11:24. She’d been riding for four hours.
She hadn’t ever expected to see the wrist computer again, let alone have her shift supervisor give it to her. But, as she was showing up for her shift, this time to start emptying “night soil,” which was as disgusting as Sadia had predicted, that week’s guy-with-a-scanner had handed
her a paper-wrapped bundle the size of her fist.
“I was told this was yours,” he said as he handed it over.
Chena unfolded the paper and saw her comptroller lying inside. Written neatly on the paper itself were the words, Thank you for the loan, station girl. Come back for your tea.
Chena had stuffed the paper in her pocket, strapped the comptroller back on her wrist, and tried not to think about it. Part of Mom’s month of perfect behavior included having nothing at all to do with Nan Elle, ever again. Regan the cop had not been able to turn up anything against her, or at least nothing that he could prove to get the village court to act against her rather than the guy they’d pinned the murder on in the first place. That was not enough to clear her in Mom’s eyes, though. Somehow Chena didn’t think anything would ever be enough.
Chena was panting by the time her bike crested the highest ridge. At the top, the grass was only knee-high and she could finally see all around her. The river to her left spread out wide, brown, and slow. The forest was a curving shadow behind her. In front of her waited the end of the world—a ragged semicircle of land that dropped off into a lake of blue and silver that stretched out until Chena could not tell water from sky. A tree-crowned promontory thrust out into the water, allowing her to see the rippling red cliffs that lined the shore.
The rails did not lead to the cliffs, however. They wound the long way down to a curving beach and a cluster of sand dunes.
She couldn’t see the actual town from here, but she didn’t expect to. It was probably as well hidden in the dunes as Offshoot was in the trees.
Chena kicked off the rail and let the bike cruise down the slope.
“Hhhheeeeee-yaaaaah!” she cried, giddy with success and gathering speed.
Momentum carried her straight through the dunes. She caught glimpses of windows and saw boardwalks crowded with people. Chena waved, although no one was looking at her.
