On the Razor's Edge

by Michael Flynn

  In the silence, though, he heard a faint sound—a skritch-skratch, a chattering as if by gravel upon stone. He turned and looked behind him and saw nothing. An insect? But it was like no insect-sound he had ever heard before.

  The block was uncomfortable. A crack as wide as his little finger ran diagonally across its top surface. He stood and wrapped the remainder of his snack in a kerchief, stuffed it in his scrip. Inner Child had a sudden desire to run from this place.

  The Brute sniffed the air, listened, took both eyes and searched carefully in all directions. The onetime streets were choked with grass and formed yellow-green rivers around the islands of broken buildings. Bundles of tumbleweed rolled along them. He watched for ripples that disobeyed the wind, a sign that something moved through the grass. Nuthin’, he decided. But …

  But you feel it, too…, said the Silky Voice.

 

  “I came here,” said the Fudir, “to find the Hall of Suns, and I will not leave until I have set my eyes upon it.”

  The natural sound of his footfalls and his own breathing covered the faint cracklings, and so he began to walk more briskly. He pushed his way through the grass, hunting for one of the five broad avenues that tradition claimed led to the Hall. From the air, he had marked three likely locations; but landscapes looked different on the weed-grown ground.

  He had expected the crackling to fade behind him, but he soon learned that they whispered from all directions.

  “Who is?” demanded the Fudir. “There is nothing out there. Step up to any vantage point and you can see for leagues across the savannahs.”

 

  Made tasty and docile meat animals of them, suggested the Pedant.

 

  Donovan came to one of the five grand concourses and turned right toward the city center. From left and from right he heard the buzzing like cicadas on a hot summer’s day. He kept one hand on the butt of his teaser.

  It’s not following us, the Sleuth decided. It’s in situ. We’re only walking through their midst.

 

  Before him, though the savannah grasses that partially skirted it, Donovan saw a broad, low building in white marble. It sat on a stone platform, through the blocks of which grasses struggled toward the sun. The platform was reached by a series of shallow ramps alternating with short stairways, and the building façade was lined by pillars in a variety of styles: plain, fluted, intricately decorated, with capitals scrolled, palmate, or historiate. The array ought to have clashed, but it did not. The stylistic cacophony somehow achieved harmony.

  In the entablature was in inscription in the old Taņţamiž: Here Are All At Home.

  “Do you think it is…?” the Fudir asked himself.

  I’m sure it is, sang the young girl in the chiton.

  As he rushed up the stair to the patio, Inner Child wondered.

  It woulda made more sense, the Brute agreed, to demolish this ’un and leave the rest of the city be.

  The snap-crackle-pop seemed louder as he entered the Hall of Suns and found himself on the top tier of a semicircular amphitheater dug into the farther hillside. Seats and desks lined the concentric tiers facing a dais on the floor below. Columns rimmed the theater, and between them stood bases for statues. Above, a dome extended toward the center, where a gaping hole spoiled its wholeness.

  So there had been an attack, but one that had succeeded in no more than smashing through the dome.

  Where is the rubble from the dome? the Sleuth asked. It should litter the floor below the hole.

  “Scavanged, most likely,” said the Fudir. “There may be villages nearby with hovels built of stone.”

  Most of the niches lining the walls were empty, but a few held the stubs of statues and one held a statue entire. Drawn to it, Donovan looked into the smiling and delighted countenance of a man wearing a bulky environment suit. He cradled his helmet in his arm and seemed to have just taken a very deep breath. On the base beneath, Donovan read: Tau Ceti Two: Yang huang-ti, and below that a single line: “We have a second home!”

  No other statues were intact, but most of the bases were. A nearby plinth read: New Mumbai: Chettiwan Mahadevan. “Then we have never been alone!”

  Donovan hastened to the far left of the semicircle.

  Cevvay: Jacinta Rosario. “So this is Barsoom!”

  Donovan had always thought Rosario a figure out of myth; but the Commonwealth would have known—unless she had become myth even by then. The first two plinths bore names he did not recognize, even from myth.

  Cantiran: Neil Armstrong. “One Small Step for Man!”

  And the first plinth …

  Akalitamkou: Yuri Gagarin. “I see Earth! It is so beautiful!”

  These niches, Donovan decided, had once borne the statues of the great captains of old, the first to set foot on the various and sundry worlds of the Commonwealth. Cantiran was the old name of Terra’s moon, Luna. Akalitamkou he had never heard of and its root meaning seemed to be “globe running-around.” Earth-orbit, thought the Pedant. The first man to pilot a spaceship, the Sleuth deduced. But Donovan still wondered how many of the older names were true and how many the crust of legend. You could make a statue of a myth as easily as of a man.

  He made his way through the crescent tiers. Each seat had a small white-stone podium and on the fronts of the podia were inscribed the weathered names of worlds. In the back row, he found Henrietta on one podium. Farther down, Ashbanal graced another; and about midway to the floor Yuts’ga was inscribed on two adjacent podia.

  But he ignored the rest and hurried toward the cluster of seats on the dais, set behind tiers of long benches and facing out toward the rest of the room.

  Behind the first bench he found Beta Hydri, 82 Eridani, and Delta Pavonis. Behind the higher bench sat Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, 61 Cygni, and Epsilon Indi. Each of them had three seats. The third bench, adorned on its façade with the great starburst of the Commonwealth of Suns, held the five seats of Terra herself, one set higher and in the center. The presider, he assumed.

  Sleuth examined the ancient names. Delta Pavonis was obviously Delpaff and 82 Eridani was Old 82. At the second bench, Tau Ceti must be Dao Chetty. The others puzzled him a while longer, but he decided that Alpha Centauri must be one of the Century Suns and Beta Hydri must be Bhaitry. So one of the other two was undoubtedly New Vraddy and the other New Mumbai, although as to which was which he was unsure.

  Everything seemed arranged in order of precedence. The Century Suns had lain nearest to Terra, and so had been settled first, and so her seats stood in the center of the upper bench. That would mean that the two flanking her—“Dao Chetty and Epsilon Indi”—were next settled. The next bench down, a little later; and then the mass of suns in the facing rows all the way up to Henrietta-by-the-Rift in the last row.

  Donovan could not resist the lure. He could not come all this distance and fail to climb those last few steps.

  He found the stairs behind the dais that went to the highest seat, the presider; and there he eased himself onto the hard quasi-marble chair and gazed over the assembled amphitheater. His first thought was not some grand remembrance of the Commonwealth, not some thrill of ancient spectacle. His first thought was that these hard stone seats must have once had cushions.

  Only then did he pick up an imaginary gavel and strike the desktop. Will the Assembly of the Suns please to be coming to order. He imagined a cacophony o
f voices slowly diminishing and the—what had they called them? Grand Senators? Delegates? Representatives?—drifting toward their seats.

  What had this assembly done? he wondered. In those days, when communication had been only as swift as the fastest packet ship, disparate stars tended toward self-government. If this assembly passed a law, it would be weeks or even months before other worlds would hear of it. Perhaps it had adjudicated disputes, settled trade agreements, orchestrated the exploration and terraformation of new worlds, directed the struggle against the prehumans.

  He remembered what Peacharoo, that fortuitously surviving automaton on the old terraforming Ark, had said: Tau Ceti is a valued and important member of the Commonwealth. They stand shoulder to shoulder with our comrades against the People of Sand and Iron.

  Symbolism, he decided. This gathering had been mostly symbolic. The rituals of unity mattered. Hence, the array of statues and very likely other more perishable regalia. Banners, medallions, standards, ballads, all now forgotten, all of it geared to say: We Are One. A hundred worlds or more, from the old home-planet to the newest hardscrabble colony, were one in mind and resolve and brothers and sisters each to the other.

  Patriotism meant love of a place, of the patria, and this of a place no larger than one could embrace as whole. But in the new world of the Commonwealth, men had gone from world to world, weakening ties, forging new fortunes, forming a new allegiance to a broader empire, while the stay-at-homes would have preserved their own particularities and celebrated their own festivals. And this would have been most true on the longest-settled worlds, and in particular on Terra herself. Was that why the Exiles, scattered to the Periphery, had so diligently re-created lost particularities?

  He looked again at the worlds arrayed before him. Most of them with one seat—one vote? A few—more populous?—with two. The Old Home-Stars with three and Terra alone with five. Had that been in rough proportion to population? Or had the Home-Stars been loathe to dilute their power? He recalled also that Peacharoo had sounded slightly condescending: This dormitory is reserved for Terrans. Colonists from the Lesser Worlds are housed elsewhere.

  So as Terra cooled and dried and its population grew sparser, Dao Chetty must have asked why Terra retained five votes when her now-more-populous colonies held but three.

  The breeze outside the colonnade freshened and a ball of tumbleweed rolled through the amphitheater, caught on one of the seats, broke loose, and rolled out the other side.

  Maybe Gidula was right, Donovan thought. Maybe at the end a desperate Terra had tried to use the Commonwealth to sustain itself, tithing the wealth of the colonies to replace what she could no longer produce, even while her own sons and daughters fled for more prosperous worlds. What had been the blackmail? You owe it to your Mother World? But one day a generation arose who knew no such debt of sentiment, who did not keep St. Patrick’s Day or Cinco de Mayo, Navratri or Lunar New Year, and for whom Terra was just another planet.

  Donovan stood and made his way down the dais and when he left the Hall of Suns he did not look back.

  * * *

  Quite by instinct, he took a different route back to where he had left the hopper, but the geometry of the ruins forced him through the same intersection where he had earlier stopped for lunch. The sun was lower in the sky and the mysterious crackling had subsided a little, though he could still hear it distantly from across the entire city.

  But Inner Child was constantly alert to alterations in his environment and the Brute was keen to all his senses, and between the two of them they brought the scarred man to a halt by the block upon which they had earlier sat.

 

  The Brute remembered that the crack had made the block uncomfortable to sit on. Donovan went to his knees and the Sleuth studied the stone closely. He ran their fingers across it.

  I can feel where it was. Like a scar.

  “It’s been spackled,” said the Fudir.

 

  He turned suddenly and looked down the empty avenue behind him. The freshening evening wind stirred the grasses.

  “Who?” scoffed Donovan. “A stealthy stonemason who creeps through the ruins patching up the cracks?”

  The wind drove pebbles and grit before it, stinging Donovan’s cheek. They rolled across the surface of the foundation block like a miniature barchan. A grain found the slight groove where the crack had been and nestled within it.

  There’s your answer. Windblown grit has simply filled in the crack. He reached out to dislodge the grain—to free it, as he thought—and found that it was fused with the stone. When he put pressure on it, he experienced a sudden wave of foreboding, as if the entire city would tumble itself upon him and bury him.

  He pulled his hand away, stood, withdrew a pace from the wall.

  Certain materials of the Commonwealth, called metamaterials, were said to be self-repairing. Like the self-sealing hulls and pressure suits we have.

  “But,” said Donovan, “self-repairing stone?”

  It is not true stone, said the Pedant, but some sort of Commonwealth material.

  Donovan looked out over the ruins. The Capital of All the Worlds has been rebuilding itself all these centuries, the Sleuth decided. Listen to that sound, that unending rustle.

  The young man in the chlamys thought it sounded like the rustle of leaves on the ground of autumn, and thought how lonely the stones must have been over the ages.

  “And after all this time,” the Fudir said, “this is as far as it’s gotten?”

  After all this time, the Sleuth agreed. One pebble at a time. Starting from rubble. You remarked how well preserved the city is. Imagine what it looked like after the Dao Chettians had finished with it! Do you imagine for a moment that they left the Hall of Suns so nearly intact? No, the whole complex is rebuilding itself, but the Hall came first.

  And when it is finished, said the Silky Voice, when it stands once more the Capital of All the Worlds, then will the Ulakaratcakan appear.

  “No, Silky,” said Donovan buigh. “Then will the fleets of Dao Chetty appear, and flatten the place once more.”

  “If they know this is happening,” said the Fudir. “Terra is a backwater now, and even the Terran natives avoid this place. How much might this place change in the span of a life? If the grandchildren see a city less ruined than their grandparents saw, would they realize it?”

  The city will rebuild itself, said the young woman in the chiton, but there will be no one to come live in it.

  For Pollyanna, of all of the Donovans, to say a thing like that filled them all with deep sorrow.

  Imagine, said the young man, waiting for wind and chance to bring materials to it. Ah, the patience of a stone …

  A shiver ran through Donovan. Once before, he had dealt with a stone of surpassing patience, and the stone had very nearly won. He stared into the gathering dusk, listened to the busy dust and grit. Had any of them changed their shape? Were they twisting stones? It was too dark to tell, nor did he linger to learn.

  * * *

  He hastened through the deserted streets, guided by the Brute’s instinct for directions, haunted by the rustling sounds of the restless ruins, until he came at last to the open field where he had landed with his hopper.

  Naturally, Gidula was waiting for him—with five magpies and Khembold Darling.

  “Time to come home, Gesh,” said the Old One.

  The Silky Voice stilled the inchoate fear that had driven Donovan from the city, gathered it, and with a proper mix of enzymes put it aside. He drew a breath. “You always knew I would come here.”

  Gidula shrugged, as if not to belabor the obvious. “You needed a vacation. I had people at each of the villages hereabouts to tell me when you arrived.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I was on my way back.”

  Gidula nodded. “Ah. Then you have remembered? You hoped the trip would clear your mind.”

  Inner Child grew sudd
enly cautious. “Some things have become clear, but other matters remain obscure. But I am this close to it. I can feel it.”

  Gidula nodded as if he had expected such an answer. “I believe that when we return to the Forks, your last hesitations will vanish. Two,” he called, “run ahead of us in Gesh’s hopper and send the packet drones off to Dawshoo and the others. Tell them it is time to gather.” He turned with the other magpies to his own coaster, but Donovan called out.

  “Two?”

  The short woman in the black shenmat did not turn, as she needed but a portion of her attention for Donovan. “What?” that part of her replied.

  “Don’t forget to turn the hopper in to the State rental consortium. I don’t want to pay late charges.”

  This time, the head did turn to look at him, but the blank, flickering goggles revealed nothing.

  When he boarded the coaster with Gidula and Khembold, after a secret wink, had taken the pilot’s saddle, Donovan said, “Have you ever come here, Old One?”

  The aged Shadow grimaced. “To these old ruins? Of course not. What interest do they hold for me?” He frowned over the grass-grown remnants. “Ancient history, Gesh. What does it matter anymore?” He turned his back on the Capital of All the Worlds and repeated more quietly, “What does it matter anymore?” Then, brusquely, “She must have been lush and verdant once, this world, to support the population she did. But that was a long time ago, and it will not be again.”

  XI. THE PLAY OF THE CORAL SNAKE

  It is in the geometry of spheres that the spanned area outruns the diameter, and even so sparse a world as Terra has more sky to it than can reasonably be patrolled. It wants wealth to maintain a 360 Space Traffic Control net, and wealth was no longer Terra’s to have. Whole regions were unscanned. Why would anyone want to land on the Ice? Why indeed would anyone want to land on Terra? And so Ravn, by clever piloting through holes in the coverage, arrived on the meadowlands north of Kojj Hill without appearing on anyone’s monitors.