Strength of Stones

by Greg Bear

  “More than that, even. I think and act and feel just like the original. To myself, I am Kahn. But my time here is short. I only have about thirty days.” He looked between Arthur and Nan. “Certainly not enough time to try to convince everyone.”

  Arthur stacked the cups and carded them into the kitchen, dropping them into a dry washtub. “Crazy people say they’re Robert Kahn.”

  Kahn looked up.

  “They say it all the time. Especially if they are crazy for being beat up. That sort of thing.” He refused to face Kahn. “You don’t sweat in the heat—maybe you’re sick. Where you get clothes like that, I don’t know, but I don’t travel much, either. Maybe you’re crazy and from a place I’ve never been.”

  “I don’t do magic tricks,” Kahn said. “I’m not claiming to be a god, or a ghost.”

  “I’d believe a ghost,” Nan said.

  “When I was stored in the block’s memory, there was a universal program in the cities. They have to let me inside. Take me to a city that’s still alive—”

  “There aren’t any here,” Arthur said. “They’re dead and the Chasers and Founders tried to burn them. We fought city parts.” He pointed to a heavy-bore rifle sitting alone in a gun-rack next to the fireplace. “I was conscripted. Twenty-four years ago, they gave me that, and took six years out of my life because they were afraid of polises taking all of us over. Then I came home to my family, got back to farming—that’s been eighteen years.” He paced across the creaking floor. “Back then, the Founders were just soldiers and hotheads. Now they’re bankers, merchants, farmers, engineers.”

  “You mentioned Chasers. What are they?”

  “Hunh!” Nan said, incredulous.

  “They used to worship polises, chase after them. Didn’t respect them—peculiar type of worship. They’d just as soon burn a polls down if they could, and when the polises got weak, they burned them, sure enough. Now the Founders hire Chasers as soldiers, police.”

  Kahn shook his head. “It’ll take years just to catch up on the history.”

  “History! History is dead people and crooked Founders and no laws any more—”

  “Founders have laws, Father,” Nan said patiently. “They’re a government like any other.”

  “A touch more harsh,” Arthur said sharply. “They’re expolitans like all the rest of us, but they don’t like that word now. No more talk of exiling, of polises. The old government just accepted the fact we weren’t worthy, lived with it, made good laws. Then the Synedrium converted itself into the Syndine to handle bigger problems, more land and people, and the Syndine couldn’t keep people from getting angry. You can’t sit around thinking you’re weak and sinful all the time. A thousand years is enough. So the Founders said we weren’t weak, we’re better than the polises! Tear them down, wipe out their memory, start over?”

  Kahn nodded. “Why did the cities kick everybody out?”

  “Because we’re sinners,” Arthur said. “Some of us still believe that. Founders can’t kick it out of us. So now they make their own guilt. I fought side by side with them, watched them die, and I still don’t like them. Arrogance. Mine, theirs.” Arthur was growing more and more agitated. “They take whatever they want, now. No guilt. That’s where my wife and daughter are—other daughter. I told you about them.” Arthur’s face was dark and deeply lined with sun, hard work, worry.

  “Why aren’t you one of them, if you fought for them?” Kahn asked.

  “I’m an independent sort. They want complete cooperation. Bunch of young, skinny men and women run things now, chase the old out—more guilt in the old.” He made a wry face. “Not my sort at all. If you join and don’t cooperate, you’re in even worse trouble than if you just mind your own business.”

  “Why do they leave you alone?”

  “They don’t, not entirely. I don’t have much they want, though, now they have two of my family. Nan is the only one who stayed with me. The land here isn’t worth much, but they’ll come and take that when they please.”

  “When did the farm start to go bad?”

  “Four years ago. Weather heated up, not as bad as now, but enough to wither the corn. Founders offered seed for other crops, tents to cover them during the heat, if you became a Founder and handed over your land, tenant farmer sort of thing. I didn’t go along. Jorissa—that’s my wife—she said I was a fool. I suppose I was. Everything burned off. Couldn’t get the seed or tents yourself unless you joined.”

  “Is that when the sun started getting brighter?”

  “That’s when it started getting noticeable. But this is all talk about us, and we haven’t settled anything about you, yet.”

  Nan nodded her agreement.

  “I can’t convince you,” Kahn said. “My clothes are some evidence. Feel the fabric.” He removed his coat and offered it to the woman. She looked it over carefully, then passed it to Arthur. “Father does as much knitting here as I do,” she said dourly. “Some things the Founders did weren’t too bad. Women are better off in some places.”

  “Syndine did that during the Reform,” Arthur said. He turned a sleeve inside out. “No seams. Fabric stretches two ways. Doesn’t feel like fabric. So you could be from someplace far away—or from a polis. They had clothes like this in the polises.”

  “Yes, but I’m not a city part.”

  “We’re no judges,” Nan said. “We’re not that educated, we don’t know what to make of you. You have to go to the Founders.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that, daughter,” Arthur said. “They’ll think he’s a city part for sure.”

  “If the Founders know more, I’ll have to go to them. Have you heard any people talking about the star being a variable?”

  “Star?” Arthur asked.

  “The sun, he means, Father,” Nan said.

  “Not that I know.”

  “Do you know what a variable is?”

  Arthur hesitated, then shook his head, looking levelly at Kahn.

  “A variable is a star that gets brighter or dimmer periodically. If it’s a long-term variable, it’s hard to determine the period, or even to tell if the star is stable over millennia. If it truly is hotter now than it was just four years ago—or in my time—” He stopped, If the star was a long-term variable, his problem was far worse—and it was already monumental. “Are there any cities still alive?”

  “Yes,” Arthur said slowly. “Resurrection, it’s called.”

  “Can I get there?”

  “It isn’t too far, maybe a hundred kilometers. Across the border. The Founders don’t touch Expolis Ibreem proper, it has its own government—last of the Syndine states. Too powerful. So the polis stands.”

  “If I could go there—”

  Arthur struck an attitude of listening, then shook his head firmly. “No, dammit!”

  Nan went to the window and peered out.

  “I hear them goddamn scooters again,” Arthur said. He stood behind her and pulled aside a ragged blind. Kahn could hear voices and a weak putt-putting.

  “Who is it?”

  “Founders, six of them, a tail, curly-haired spindly fellow in the lead. I know his type. I know his goddamn type. You stay in here; whether you’re crazy or what you say you are, you shouldn’t mess with them. And if they get in, say you’re visiting from Ibreem, hiking on a sabbat march. And your name isn’t Kahn—it’s Cohen, Azrael Iben Cohen, something like that. They have treaties with Ibreem, can’t mess with religious people.”

  “Be quiet!” Nan warned, opening the door for her father and shutting it behind him.

  Arthur stood on the porch, hands buried in his torn pockets, expression grim.

  The tall leader dismounted his gas engine tricycle and strolled up to the steps, looking down at a pad of paper. “Arthur Sam Daniel, son of Julius Sam Daniel, son of Giorgio Sam Daniel?”

  “You know all that,” Arthur said. “Wife tells you all that, all you want to know.”

  “We’re here to account for your crops, take cens
us, that’s all. No trouble, now friend.”

  “No crops, just me and my daughter. Easy enough.” Three of the six were women, wearing the grey and black that Founders wore almost without exception, smiling and talking with each other as the leader looked mildly at Arthur. “The Canaan Founders just have your best interests in mind. You living alone now?”

  “I told you, just my daughter and I. You don’t need more facts than that.”

  “We’ve been told a stranger came to your house earlier today. I thought he’d like to meet us and be welcomed to New Canaan West.”

  “He’d rather not,” Arthur said, throat bobbing.

  “Now,” the leader began, his voice rising faintly, “don’t you think it’s more polite to let your guest answer for himself?”

  Kahn stood, but Nan vigorously gestured for him to stay put and resumed peering through the curtains.

  “We like to keep track of visitors, give them information that will help them get around New Canaan West. Mind telling us where your friend is from?”

  “I don’t see any need—”

  The tall man walked up the steps and put his hand firmly on Arthur’s shoulder. “You’re making me very suspicious, neighbor.” He smiled, showing snaggled teeth and a gold crown. “We need to see your visitor.”

  Kahn stood again and ignored Nan’s gestures. He opened the front door. “Can I ease your day?” he asked, hoping his language was up to the confrontation.

  “Perhaps,” the leader said. “I’m Frederik Bani Hassan. We need to know your origin, destination and intentions.”

  “No trouble at all. I’m hiking from Ibreem.”

  “Long hike. Your family and name?”

  “Azrael Iben Cohen.”

  “Lots of Cohens in Ibreem,” the leader said. “But you weren’t born there. Where were you born?”

  Kahn blinked, then said casually, “Here, originally. In New Canaan.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” the leader said. “They don’t have clothes like that in Ibreem—or here, for that matter. I think you’d better come with us.”

  Kahn nodded and followed the leader to his motorbike. Arthur said nothing, but his fists were clenched tightly.

  The bike sputtered off. Arthur stayed on the porch for several minutes, watching the trail of dust. Then he walked back into the house and stood in the filthy kitchen, looking around, his lips trembling. “We’ve been living here like dust in a snail shell. They aren’t going to let us stay much longer. They want the land. They want everything we have.”

  “Now, Father—”

  “They do,” he said quietly. “Poor, crazy man.”

  Jeshua’s footsteps echoed in the empty halls. They had spent more than a week in the dead city, exploring, trying to find something useful to them. All they found was decay and defilement.

  “They destroyed it,” Thinner said as he was lifted around to see the crumbling walls of the third level gardens. “It let its guard down and they destroyed it.”

  “It was probably dead when they came in,” Jeshua said.

  “I went through Fraternity once, before I met you. It was a quiet place. They’d built it for seminarians and it was less fancy than some of the polises. It had a huge collection of books—real books.”

  “I hope they didn’t burn the books, too,” Jeshua said.

  The silence settled over them. Thinner made a noise like a sigh. “You looked around the upper levels?”

  “Yes,” Jeshua said, frowning. “I took you with me.”

  “I’m growing forgetful,” Thinner said. “No spare parts?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, of course not. Then we move on.”

  As they left Fraternity, an early evening drizzle settled on them. They turned west.

  Thinner talked of the days in Mandala before Jeshua’s return. Jeshua had heard it many times before, but the sound of the bead’s voice was soothing, rising above the hiss of rain on the hot, dry dirt and grass. A thin ground-fog crept around his legs and he walked between thin, skeletal trees, tall and shadowed, the head clutched in his ann.

  Four men on horseback saw him that way. The horses reared in terror and the men, quite agreeing, gave them their reins, hanging on as they galloped into the foothills.

  It was late evening and two moons were up above the mountains behind them when Jeshua stopped. The land was cooling now and a thick, moist breeze was falling out of the hills. The rain had stopped and the ground was dry again.

  They spent the night in a copse of withered mulcet trees. Jeshua laid Thinner delicately on a prepared bed of dry grass and leaves, making sure his mouth was pointing up. Then he sat with his back against a trunk, thinking. Thinner was getting more and more forgetful each day. Jeshua wondered if his nutrients weren’t enough for the head—if Thinner needed something only the internal working of a full body could produce. He hoped they would make it to Resurrection before the head gave out completely. Jeshua did have much in the world to lose, little more in fact than his existence—which he wasn’t too concerned with—and his companion.

  He wished he could sleep. Thinner lay with his eyes open, in a kind of stupor, but Jeshua had long since abandoned the human habit.

  He was quite aware, then, when a crowd of men on horseback surrounded the copse and began to close in.

  Kahn tried to shout above the noise of the motor tricycles, leaning forward toward the ear of the thin curly-haired man. “I need to talk to people in your city…”

  The Founder shook his head.

  “It’s very important,” Kahn said. “I need to talk with meteorologists—with weather men, with astronomers—with land managers.”

  “You’re not talking to anybody,” the Founder shouted back over his shoulder.

  Kahn wriggled his wrists reflexively to loosen the bonds fled to the rear cushion of the trike.

  The town of New Canaan was busy, prosperous-looking, and—to Kahn—painfully primitive. He was removed to a two-story stone and concrete building, square and ugly, and taken into custody by a burly officer in a loose-fitting black uniform.

  “We have reason to believe you’re a mimic,” the officer said, walking around Kahn and tapping him lightly with a thin wooden dowel. “We’ve had problems with mimics in the past. We still find them now and then. You know how we tell if you’re a mimic?”

  Kahn shook his head.

  “We cut you open.”

  The room was small. Through a tiny barred window, Kahn could hear the grind of internal combustion engines and the hiss of steam vehicles.

  “I’m not a city part,” Kahn said. “I have to speak to—”

  “You don’t know anything about us, do you? Like most mimics. Ignorant. Locked up in cities, never bothering about us, here in the dirt and flies.”

  “I come from Fraternity, but I’m not a city part.”

  The officer pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. “You came from a city. That’s good enough for us.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Whatever you are, we don’t need you. We have laws here, and I think you should be glad. If I had my way, we’d dismantle you right now. Find out what you work. Not that you’d care, I suppose. Mimics don’t feel pain, don’t eat, don’t sleep.” The constable shook his head. “But then, you’re probably lying. You probably came from Ibreem, crept out of the city there. Hide your tracks. Well, we’re a democracy. We have treaties with Ibreem, we can’t just go in and clean them out. The borders aren’t nearly as fight as they should be.” He motioned with his hand.

  Kahn was taken by two guards to a concrete pit. He walked down a flight of wooden steps into the cell and iron bars were lowered over. He barely had room to squat. “If you shit, maybe we let you loose,” one guard said. “Maybe not. Mimics can shit, too, they say.”

  He settled in to make himself as comfortable as possible. After a few minutes, he pinched himself on the inside of his left arm, then tried to indent the skin with his fingernail. What would they find if they cut him? His
knowledge of simulacra was slight, ironically. Except for the brain, he had heard, the interior structure was pretty amorphous. Not at all like a city-part.

  Could they disable him? He wasn’t sure.

  No one had considered the possibility a simulacrum would have to face such circumstances.

  He didn’t think he could sleep, though he could close his eyes. He certainly couldn’t shit. There was no way he could convince his captors he was human.

  After an hour, he shut his eyes and began running numbers and architectural images across the darkness. Soon he had a Romanesque cathedral mapped out. Then he began to change the types of stone, working out strength of materials problems and redesigning accordingly.

  To his surprise, something like sleep cam along shortly after—dreamless, dark, not very comfortable, but much better than useless thought.

  He was stirred out of the darkness by the squeal of the bars being raised. “Inside, hunker down,” said a guard. It was dark and the guard carried a dim electric lantern. A large shadow descended into the pit with him, brushed up against his legs—he curled them tighter—and settled into silence.

  The guard’s light pointed down into the pit and Kahn saw it briefly touch on his companion’s chest. The light moved a few centimeters, then stopped. The guard took a deep breath, flicked the light off and locked the bars.

  Whoever his companion was, it carried a head under its arm, and the head had blinked at him.

  Kahn didn’t sleep or meditate for the rest of the night. Dawn threw a vague orange glow into the cell, outlining the figure.

  It was human-like, and it did indeed carry a head, but the head’s eyes were closed. As the glow brightened, coming through a skylight above the cell, Kahn saw that the large figure was a man, terribly wounded. Shafts of arrows stuck out all over him, most broken off. There were bullet holes in his ragged shirt, and brown and green stains around the holes. His free arm appeared to have been sliced open.

  Beneath the flap of skin was not muscle, but glassy green tubes and a purple, foam-like filler. Beneath the filler was metallic bone. The figure was not human—he was a city part, a mimic.