Macrolife

by George Zebrowski

  Janet took off the bulerite jewelry and threw it toward the house.

  Sam got into the driver’s seat of Richard’s large rented car. Richard and Janet got in next to him. They sat still suddenly, looking at the house.

  Sam had never felt comfortable in it; now the house was an open threat, and he expected it to strike out at any moment.

  He pulled the wheel out from the panel. The car started and he drove away, glancing back nervously every few seconds. When he reached the road, Sam stopped the car, and they all gazed at the house among its trees, lights blazing in the darkness.

  “Get us out of here,” Richard said.

  Sam accelerated.

  There was a bright flash of light somewhere overhead.

  “The orbital factory,” Richard said.

  The brightness faded. Sam peered up through the windshield at the band of stars arching across the sky and down behind the snowy peaks on the horizon. Where the bright, man-made star should have been moving toward the mountains, there was nothing now.

  “Did they get away?” Janet asked.

  “I don’t know,” Richard answered. “The evacuation had started.”

  Sam regarded Janet. She sat next to him, looking down, her hands together in her lap.

  He drove until he reached the automated highway, and then he braked.

  Again they turned to look at the house. It was completely hidden by trees now, but its lights shone through like ghosts congregating on high ground.

  “It will happen,” Richard said.

  “I don’t want to see it,” Janet said.

  Sam put the car on automatic and let the road take it.

  As the vehicle shot across the desert, Sam sat back and tried to think. Where could they go?

  “What’s the worst that can happen?” Sam asked.

  “Only the worst can happen,” Richard said. “The world’s urban areas will go from any of the variations of bulerite’s instability. The oldest bulerite structures will go first—all the city mayors have known that since last week. But that will be nothing compared to the magma tap that transmits heat energy to the Caribbean power stations. When that goes, there may be earthquakes and volcanic activity, and a steam cloud that might affect the world’s weather. The survivors will have decades of ruination to look forward to, until the last piece of bulerite is gone.”

  Sam tried to imagine the political strife during that time.

  “Let’s hope that this is all bulerite can do,” Richard added, “and that there won’t be any more surprises.”

  “One thing is sure,” Janet said.

  “What’s that?” Sam asked.

  “Buleros are not going to be liked very much.”

  “We may be in danger,” Richard said. “I think it might be prudent for us to get off the earth, maybe to the moon, where some of the cities are not built up with bulerite. Besides, a lot of the stuff there is younger and may take longer to fall apart. Maybe Blackfriar and I can arrange for us to stay on Asterome.”

  “As long as only a few people know the truth,” Janet said, “things can still be arranged.”

  We’ll be criminals, Sam thought, noting the bitterness in Janet’s voice. He wondered about Mars, Ganymede City, the outposts. Would life be any better there?

  “I think we might be safe at the old house in Ecuador,” Richard said. “It’s outside the earthquake zone.”

  “What kind of heart does Orton have?” Janet asked suddenly.

  Sam looked at her. “Why, I don’t know. It might be bulerite, or older. We’ll call him.”

  “The phone in this car is out of order,” Richard said. “We’ll have to stop at the first booth we see.”

  Janet began to check the roadmap screen for the nearest drive-in phone. She pushed a few buttons, programming the car to pull off the road when the time came.

  Could we have foreseen all this? Sam asked himself. Jack could have done more. There was nothing to be done now except help himself, and those close to him, to survive. He looked up and saw two falling stars whisper across the sky and fade. He noticed an earthwatch satellite, which circled the earth every ninety minutes, climbing toward the zenith. It was also made of bulerite, growing heavy with the forces that would soon tear it apart.

  Traffic outside Santa Fe was growing heavier. There were a dozen cars on either side of them, floating backward and forward as Central adjusted the road flow.

  “Richard,” Sam asked, “can any of this be an exaggeration?”

  “The longer we ran the computer simulations, the worse things looked.”

  5. Doomwatch

  The house sat among sparse trees, high in the stony foothills above the valley; behind it the mountains reached skyward, their summits lost in a haze of blue-white clouds. Sam turned and leaned over the stone wall of the terrace, remembering when he and Jack had last gazed out at the green Andean valley; it had been summer, more than thirty years before, but the view was unchanged. He took a deep breath of the thin, cool air, marveling at the clarity of the morning view.

  In the sturdy houses of the village below, men and women who did not belong to the twenty-first century were already up and readying to start their farm work on the slopes. Many of them did not belong to the twentieth century, much less the twenty-first; a few had been born in the late eighteen hundreds. The longevity of Vilcabamba’s people was a gift of heredity, diet, and way of life. The outside world’s achievement of extended life through other means, however, had come too late to save the exiles, Sam’s grandfather, Juan Bulero, and Carlos. Even now, Sam knew, he was not as strong as men his own age living here.

  A hundred yards below the house, the copter sat on its landing block, a giant dragonfly with knife-blade wings; it was an obsolete model, with a simple-minded landing and takeoff program, but its manual controls were good.

  The morning sun grew hotter on Sam’s face. He thought of Juan standing here before going down among the villagers to practice his folk medicine, together with the remedies of the northern doctors he had outlived. He saw Juan returning to the lights of the house, where Isabel Samuels, the impatient American woman who loved him, was planning to make Juan leave the valley. Sam and Jack had visited their grandfather Juan long after he had come back here. He had looked like Carlos, except bald and bearded, standing perfectly straight until he died—five years after his son’s private jet slammed into a Canadian glacier. Juan had taken the news quietly, accepting a new companion into his life, expressing grief to no one; that would have been a defeat, a betrayal of Carlos, Juan had thought. Sam remembered his stern face at the funeral.

  Sam closed his eyes and tried to see his mother, a large-boned woman with large black eyes, whom he had seen twice in his childhood. Carlos had told his sons the whole truth as soon as they were old enough to understand. Sam remembered his father’s nervousness that summer, here by the wall, as he had explained his life. “I came back and married Ricardina to please Juan, mostly. I stayed for two years, doing theoretical work while you were born, my sons, but I was anxious to return to my experimental work in physics. My youth was slipping away. I took both of you with me, because I did not want you to grow up buried here in the valley. Ricardina refused to come along, sensing that I would be ashamed of her. It became easier to keep you with me when I became wealthy and forgot the past. By the time I returned to do something for Ricardina here, she had died of pneumonia. I could not really have given her anything from the outside anyway….”

  Carlos had cried in front of them. “I visited her only two or three times in ten years, and always she refused to come to Chicago with me.”

  Sam wondered if he and Jack might have been happier here, living a simpler life with their mother; certainly the world would have been better off if Carlos had stayed home with his bride….

  It was a sturdy stone house with a wooden floor. The handmade furniture would last forever. Sam had turned on the generator and stocked the kitchen for two months. The hydrogen tanks would provide
heat and electricity for six months, with care.

  Orton and Richard would arrive by noon, bringing Margot with them. Richard had insisted on taking her under the family’s protection, and Janet had not objected. It was not my place to offer an opinion, Sam thought. A vertical lander would drop them in the village, and Janet would pick them up with the copter. It was an hour’s walk up from the village otherwise.

  Looking across the valley, Sam tried to fill the great space under the sky and fell back into himself, content with having tried to encompass it. The sun was more than an hour past sunrise. He turned and went back up into the house.

  The fire was almost out. He crossed the large room and opened the bedroom door. Sunlight spilled over the textures of the floor and bed, brightening the colorful quilt covering Janet. He went to the window and opened the other shutter, flooding the rest of the room with light. Then he knelt by the large wooden bed, reached under the quilt, and stroked Janet’s stomach. She smiled and took a deep breath. He remembered the chilly night of their arrival and how they had huddled together in the old bed.

  “Can’t be safe in my own bed.” She stretched and opened her large brown eyes.

  “You’d better get up. It’s well past sunrise and they may be early. You’re sure you don’t want me to go with you?”

  “I want to meet her first.” She was quiet for a moment, looking up at him anxiously. “Is there any news…from outside?”

  “I haven’t gotten the old tube out to see.”

  “Don’t, until after we’ve all met.”

  He remembered Janet’s conversation with Richard. She had asked him whether he loved Margot. Why her? Sam had asked himself. Why not any stranger who might need help? Margot was very lucky—they were all lucky to have a place to hide.

  “I do love her,” Richard had said vehemently.

  “I’m glad,” Janet had said, seeing a potential friend, if not the daughter she had always wanted.

  “I don’t care what I have to do to help her.”

  But would you save her if you did not love her? Sam had asked himself.

  “I would keep her with me even if I didn’t love her,” Richard had said. “She’s my friend—how could I live with myself?”

  Janet motioned for Sam to sit down on the bed.

  “Are you afraid you won’t like her?” he asked.

  She sat up. “Sam, what are we going to do? We can’t live here forever. “

  “One thing at a time.”

  “I’m sorry, Sam, for what’s happening.”

  “We’ll know more later.” He smiled, knowing that it was an obvious, uninspired smile. “Get dressed while I see about that tube.” The bed creaked as he stood up.

  He went out into the main room, knowing that she would have liked company while dressing, but he was afraid that she would sense his fears.

  He went to the small alcove in the corner and opened the door to the basement. Turning on the lights, he slowly descended the stone steps. A day at a time, he told himself. The stairs went deep into the earth, into the empty wine cellar. A day at a time; there was no other way.

  Sam hung the old picture-frame screen on the wall and plugged the cord into the socket by the bedroom door. He turned the set on and fine-tuned to World Channel 1, picking up the signal from the synchronous station above the Western Hemisphere. He heard the copter landing outside and hurried with the adjustments.

  The color picture was quite good, despite the age of the receiver. The program was a rerun of Fantasia. He turned up the sound and recognized Stravinsky’s music blaring from the small, inadequate stereo speakers. Newer sets were receiving the program on full three-dimensional holo rechanneling or on large wall screens, but the forty-inch picture would be enough to serve as their link with the outside world. He turned the sound off and faced Janet as she came in the front door. She seemed nervous.

  A shy-looking girl stepped into the room, followed by Orton, who looked winded from the walk up from the copter block. They all stood a bit awkwardly, dark outlines in the daylight from the curtained windows.

  “Sam, this is Margot Toren,” Janet said, putting her arm around the young woman’s shoulders. Sam looked at her carefully as she took his hand and held it. Her hair seemed black in the daylight; her eyes were brown with slivers of gold. She smiled as she took her hand away. Sam noticed an Asian slant to her eyes, realizing that she had a subdued beauty which would surprise the eye even after long familiarity.

  “I’m very happy to meet you,” she said.

  Sam smiled at her, afraid that she would take his scrutiny to be unfavorable.

  Orton stepped forward and Sam shook hands with him. The television speakers crackled with static. Sam turned around and saw that the Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence was in full swing, the brooms marching silently.

  “I hope I’m welcome,” Orton said.

  “I’m sorry, Orton,” Sam said. “I was fiddling with that set.”

  Janet walked over to the front entrance and switched on the overhead light. Suddenly the daylight silhouettes were gone, and Sam was looking at distinct faces. Margot seemed even more exotic in the glare of the old incandescent bulb.

  Sam surveyed the room. “Where’s Richard?” he asked, looking to Janet.

  “He went back to Chicago,” Orton said, “to find Carlos’s records. Basil thinks there may be some old cassettes—“

  “We can’t raise him on the copter radio,” Janet said. “I tried to patch through on the way here.”

  “He’ll follow as soon as he can,” Margot said.

  No one spoke for a few moments.

  “Is there any danger?” Sam asked.

  “He didn’t think so,” Orton said. Janet turned away to the window.

  As it grew dark outside, a few lonely lights appeared in the valley below. Sam stood with Orton by the window. Janet had gone to the copter radio half a dozen times, but there was still no word from Richard.

  She expects him to die, Sam thought, sensing that she was preparing for the possibility.

  “It’s not good to retreat like this,” Orton said.

  “What can we do? We may be here a long time. By the way, what about your heart?”

  “It was not a bulerite implant,” Orton said. “The new one was cloned without a full embryo, I’m told. I feel fine.”

  Sam turned and looked at Janet, who was sitting with Margot on the old wooden bench. Both women had grown very nervous toward evening. It was obvious that Janet liked Margot, but Margot seemed to be holding back.

  “News time, I think,” Sam said.

  Janet got up and turned on the set. Sam motioned Orton to the two wicker chairs. The picture brightened as Janet returned to her seat. Orton pulled his chair back a little and sat down. Sam remained standing when he saw the red letters appear on the screen:

  NEW YORK EMERGENCY PLEASE STAND BY

  A commentator appeared, seated behind a plain desk in an empty room. “The bulerite supports of New York have collapsed,” he said. “That report has been confirmed.”

  Air monitoring showed smoke rising for miles into the sky. The three levels were caved in at the center.

  “No official explanation has been released. We have no reports of conditions at the old street level….”

  Sam felt the room grow warm and unreal.

  “Millions are certainly dead….” The reporter’s eyes showed dismay.

  A new scene appeared, revealing a huge artificial island slowly sinking into the sea.

  “The pylons of Atlantic Arco One have failed, leaving the island of two million people to sink off the coast of North Carolina….”

  Farewell, Atlantic City, Sam thought, remembering when the old town’s remains had been moved aboard at the turn of the century.

  “Ships are picking up thousands of refugees, but two disasters of this size at once are too much for East Coast rescue operations….”

  The screen failed suddenly, leaving only the audio.

  Janet got u
p and hit the set, but with no result. She sat down quickly.

  Sam listened, conjuring up in his mind a terrifying vision of what was happening.

  “…without warning at seven AM. There—another section is collapsing into what has become a huge crater. Thousands of structures, some of them hundreds of years old, preserved with love in the shelf tiers, are gone…. A dream is dying…. The smoke is making it hard to see. Moments ago the Empire State Building became exposed for the first time in decades….”

  Sam thought of a broken bone jutting out of the dying leviathan of New York.

  The sound went dead. Sam’s stomach knotted. Janet got up and hit the set again, again with no result. She hesitated for a moment, then went into the bedroom and closed the door. Margot followed her, pausing to knock at the door. There was a faint answer and Margot went inside.

  The television blared static and voices for a moment.

  “We should prepare to leave,” Orton said. “It’s worse than I thought. If the magma tap goes, the whole hemisphere will feel the shocks. They’ll never draw it out in time, I’m afraid.”

  “You saw how Janet feels. She feels responsible.”

  “We’ve got to get out, Sam. People still don’t know what’s going on. When they do it’s going to become a political mess on earth, in addition to the physical dangers. Money and power may not help us.”

  “You’re right, of course.”

  “You’ll have to get Janet not to think about it. Assigning responsibility is for future historians.”

  Sam thought of the mountains outside. The house was solid, secure. He could not imagine any danger here.

  “Janet would say that we have an unfair advantage in knowing about the danger.” He thought of the people in the valley.

  “It was hard to see this coming,” Orton said.

  “I guess. We were making the earth over,” Sam said with tears in his eyes, “and we were doing fairly well.”

  Blackfriar was silent.