Meanwhile, the thrumming sound was growing louder, causing vibrations to be felt through the soles of their feet. "We must go," intoned the big sailor. Despite fascination with the view outside, Maia nodded. "Yeah, let's hurry."
They hastened with the light now on their backs, striving to reach the far end before the desperate reavers, with their long rifles, came into sight behind them. Yet it took some will to approach the growling sounds ahead. There were now two tones, one a grumbling, urgent, bone-shaking basso; and another climbing in pitch and penetration with each passing second.
The cabin boy banged through the far set of doors and light spilled around him. More sunlight, this time pouring down from above. They stared across a vast, cylindrical volume, its stone walls lined with machinery. Overhead, the source of the rumbling grew apparent—an iris made of crimson metal was widening with each passing second.
But what had the four fugitives transfixed was an object filling the center of the room—a vertical multi-twined spiral coil of translucent crystalline material, which started high overhead and plunged downward into a central cavity. The coil throbbed with imprisoned lightning. Inside those windings, they glimpsed a slender, pointed shape, burnished gold, which had already begun descending slowly down the tube. In moments, its tip vanished from sight. "Come on!" Maia called to the others, and rushed, limping, ahead.
They reached the coil but were held back by a force they could not see, which palpably resisted all efforts to approach closer. Their hair-stood on end. Maia could now see that the pit plunged vertiginously some indeterminable distance, girdled all the way by spiral coil. Within that tight embrace, the slender javelin-shape continued its descent.
"Wait!" she screamed. "Oh, wait for us!"
It was almost impossible to hear her own voice over the rising keen. Someone yanked her arm. She resisted, then blinked in surprise as a strange, tiny object entered view. A tapered cylinder of metal, no larger than her smallest toe, had arrived from her left, pushing forward into the unyielding field, decelerating rapidly. It came to rest, then reversed course, accelerating swiftly the way it came, to be expelled with a report of riven air.
The same thing happened again. This time, Maia's brief glance recognized a bullet, before it, too, was ejected backward toward its source. She stopped fighting the tug on her arm. Accompanied by a roar and swarming vertigo, the four of them ran tangentially to the coils and the surrounding, impenetrable field. To her left, Maia glimpsed kneeling markswomen, firing at them, while others, armed with trepps and knives, approached cautiously, their flushed faces alive with conflicting emotions—wrath versus frightened astonishment.
"Uh!" the big sailor cried, and foundered, clutching his thigh. Maia and the cabin boy took his arms and helped him stumble toward another set of doors at the far end of the chamber. While more bullets pinged around them, they could feel awesome power building nearby, intensifying toward some titanic climax.
The doors were still thirty meters distant when the big sailor collapsed again. "Gowon!" he cried hoarsely. "Get 'er outta here!" he urged the other males. But already bullets were striking the metal doors. Maia pointed. "Over there!"
They towed the wounded man toward what appeared to be a junk pile. A midden of boxes, crates, broken and discarded machines. Detritus of whatever project had created this incredible, mysterious edifice. As they, were about to dive behind the nearest hulking mound of debris, Maia cried out. A searing stroke of pain had brushed the back of her right calf, like a hot poker.
The doctor dragged her the rest of the way. A bullet had grazed her skin, plowing a long red trail. "Never mind that!" she urged the physician. "Take care of him!" The sailor was clearly much worse off.
Ignoring her own bleeding, Maia cast around for anything to use as a weapon. There were bits of metal, but none in any useful shape. For lack of an alternative, she drew from her jacket pocket the small paring knife she had found aboard the Manitou. The cabin boy helped her rise, and they both crouched behind the pile of debris. They heard shouts. Approaching footsteps.
Suddenly, the keening noise halted. The growling had stopped moments before, as the roof-iris finished opening.
The abrupt silence felt pregnant with expectation. Then, as if Maia had known it all along, there came a combination of sound and sight and every other sensation that felt like the clarion of Judgment Day. The world shook, while powers akin to, but violently more potent than she had experienced near the coil, tried to fill all space. That included space she had formerly occupied alone, forcing each of her molecules to fight for right of tenancy. Air needed for breath blew out as a presence passed nearby at terrible speed, streaking toward the sky.
From her back, Maia blearily watched as a sleek object tore through the heavens, leaving a blaze of riven, flaming air in its wake.
A fire arrow ... she thought, blankly. Then, with but a little more coherence, she cast after it a silent call.
Renna!
Air returned, accompanied by a sound like thunder clapping. The debris mound shook, and then collapsed, tumbling rough, heavy shards over her battered legs. Yet she was left able to continue staring upward. Undistracted by distant pain, Maia had a clear view of the streaking, diminishing sparkle in the sky, wishing with all her heart that she was part of it . . . that he had waited only a little while longer, and taken her with him.
But he did it! she thought, switching over to exultation. They won't have him. He's out of their reach now. Gone back to—
Her rejoicing cut short. Overhead, almost at the limits of vision, the sparkling pinpoint abruptly veered left, brightened, and exploded in radiance, splitting apart amid an orgy of chaos, scattering fiery, ionic embers across the dark blue firmament of the stratosphere.
PART 4
Is ambition poison? Is Phylum society's headlong rush to power and accomplishment synonymous with damnation?
Ancient cultures warned their people against hubris, that innate drive within human beings to seek God's own puissance, whatever the cost. Wisely, early tribal folk restrained such fervid quests, save via spirit and art, adventure and song. They did not endlessly bend and bully Nature to their whim.
True, those ancestors lived just above the animals, in primeval forests of Old Earth. Life was hard, especially for women, yet they reaped rewards—harmony, stability, secure knowledge of who you were, where you fit in the world's design. Those treasures were lost when we embarked on "progress."
Is there an inverse relation between knowledge and wisdom? At times it seems the more we know, the less we understand.
I am not the first to note this quandary. One scholar recently wrote, "Lysos and her followers chase the siren call of pastoralism, like countless romantics before them, idealizing a past Golden Age that never was, pursuing a serenity possible only in the imagination."
His point is well-taken. Yet, should we not try?
The paradox does not escape me—that we mean to use advanced technical tools to shape conditions for a stable world . . . one which, from then onward, should little need those tools again.
So we return to the question at hand. Are human beings truly cursed to discontent? Caught between conflicting yearnings, we strive to become gods even as we long to remain nature's beloved children.
Let the former pursuit be the chaotic doom of frantic, driven Phylum Civitas. We who depart on this quest have chosen a warmer, less adversarial relationship with the Cosmos.
—from My Life, by Lysos
26
Loss of consciousness was not the result of her injuries, or even the gassy, pungent odor of anesthesia. What made her let go this time was a morale sapped beyond exhaustion. Distant sensations told her that the world went on. There were noises—anxious shouts and booming echoes of gunfire. When these ceased, they were followed by loud cries of both triumph and despair. Sounds intruded, swarming over her, prying at windows and doors, but none succeeded in making her take notice.
Footsteps clattered. Hands touch
ed her body, lifting objects away so that a hurt of ministration replaced that of crushing injury. Maia remained indifferent. Voices rustled around her, tense and argumentative. She could tell, without caring, that more than two factions engaged in fierce debate, each too weak or uncertain to impose its will, none of them trusting enough to let others act alone.
There was no tenor of vindictiveness in the manner she was lifted and carried away from the bright, ozone-drenched chamber within a hollow mountain-fang. Rocked on a stretcher, moaning at each jostling shock to her stretched-thin system, she knew in abstract that her bearers meant her well. They were being gentle. That ought to signify something.
She only wished they would go away and let her die.
Death did not come. Instead, she was handled, prodded, drugged, cut, and sewn. In time, it was the simplest of sensations that brought back a partial will to live.
Flapjacks.
A redolence of fresh pancakes filled her nostrils. Injury and anomie weren't enough to hold back the flood that faint aroma unleashed within her mouth. Maia opened her eyes.
The room was white. An ivory-colored ceiling met finely carved white moldings, which joined to walls the color of pale snow. Through a muzzy languor left over from chemical soporifics, Maia had difficulty fixing clearly on the plain, smooth surfaces. Without conscious choice, her mind begin toying with one blank expanse—imagining a laying thereon of grainy, abstract, rhythmic patterns. Maia groaned and closed her eyes.
She could not shut her nose. Alluring smells pursued her. So did growls from her stomach. And the sound of speech.
"Well now, ready to join the livin' at last?"
Maia turned her head to the left, and cracked an eyelid. A petite, dark-haired figure swam into focus, wearing a wry grin. "Now didn't I say to stop gettin' conked, varling? At least this time you weren't drowned."
After several tries, Maia found her voice. "Should’ve . . . known . . . you'd make it."
Naroin nodded. "Mm. That's me. Born survivor. You, too, lass. Though you love provin' it the hard way."
An involuntary sigh escaped Maia. The bosun-policewoman's presence wrested feelings that hurt, despite her body's drugged immobility. "I guess you . . . got through to your boss."
Naroin shook her head. "When we got picked up, I decided to take some initiative. Called in favors, swung deals. Too bad we couldn't arrive sooner, though."
Maia's thoughts refused to center clearly. "Yeah. Too bad."
Naroin poured a glass of water and helped Maia lift her head to drink. "In case you're wonderin', the docs say you'll be all right. Had to cut an' mend a bit. You've got an agone leech tapped into your skull, so don't thrash or bump it, now that you're awake."
"... leech . . . ?" With leaden inertia, Maia's arm obeyed her wish to rise and bend. Fingers traced a boxy object above her forehead, smaller than her thumb. "I wouldn't touch it if I was—" Naroin started to advise, as Maia gave the box a spastic tap. For an instant, all that seemed muddy and washed out snapped into clarity and color. Along with vividness came a slamming force of pain. Maia's hand recoiled, hurling back to the coverlet.
"Did I warn ya? Hmp. Never seen a first-timer who didn't try that, once. Guess I must've, about your age."
The dulling murkiness returned, this time welcome, spreading from Maia's scalp across her body like a liquid balm. She had seen injured women with leeches before, though most hid them in their hair. I must be hurt much worse than I feel, she realized, no longer' resenting the numbness. That fleeting break in function had briefly revealed another blocked sensation, more fearsome than physical pain. For an instant, she had been overwhelmed by waves of all-consuming grief.
"Makes ya feel like a zombie, eh?" Naroin commented. "They'll crank it down as you improve. Should already be gettin' back some of your senses."
Maia inhaled deeply. "I ... can smell ..."
Naroin grinned. "Ah, breakfast. Got an appetite?"
It felt odd. Her insistent stomach seemed unaware of the blunt nausea pervading the rest of her body. "Yes. I—"
"That's a good sign. They serve quite a table on the Gentilleschi. Hang on, I'll see to it."
The policewoman stood up and started to go, her movements too quick and blurry for Maia to follow clearly. Maia tracked them in a series of receding glimpses as her eyes flickered shut for longer and longer intervals. She fought to hold the lids apart as Naroin stopped, turned back, and spoke once more, her voice fading in and out.
"Oh . . . almost forgot. There's a note from . . . young boyfriend an' sister over . . . table by your bed. Thought ... ike t'know they made it all right."
The words carried meaning. Maia felt sure of it as they crested over her, soaked in through her ears and pores, and found resonance within. Somewhere, a crushing burden of worry lapsed into gladness. That much emotion was too exhausting, however. Sleep swarmed in to claim her, so that Naroin's final words barely registered.
"Not a lot of others did, I'm afraid."
Maia's eyes stayed closed and the world remained dark for a long, quiet, unmeasured time.
She next awoke to find a middle-aged woman leaning over her, gently touching the top of her head. There were faint clicking sounds, and Maia's vision seemed to clear a bit. Swells of rising sensation caused her to tense. "That's not too bad, is it?" the woman asked. From her manner she must be a physician.
"I ... guess not."
"Good. We'll leave it there awhile. Now let's look over our handiwork."
The doctor briskly pulled back Maia's gown, revealing an expanse of purpled skin that they both regarded with dispassionate interest. Livid stitches showed where repairs had been made, including a semicircle near her left knee. The doctor clucked earnestly, making soothing, patronizing, and ultimately uninformative noises, then departed.
When the door slid open, Maia glimpsed a tall woman of soldierly bearing standing watch in the uniform of some mainland militia. Beyond lay the jet, fluted panels of solar collectors. Maia heard the soft rush of water along a laminar-smooth hull. The vessel's rock-steady passage spoke partly of the weather, which was brilliantly fair, and also of technology. This was a craft normally devoted to transporting personages.
But the personage it was sent for did the unexpected. He made his own transportation arrangements, and nearly got away.
That wound was still too raw, too gaping to bear. What hurt most about the image seared in her mind was how beautiful the explosion had been. A wondrous convulsion of sparks and dazzling spirals, which scattered glowing shards across a sky so chaste and blue. It had no right being so beautiful! The memory triggered a welling of tears, which brimmed her lower eyelids, spilling salty, silent streamlets down her cheeks..
Her last waking episode felt no more real than an unraveling dream. Had she really met Naroin? She recalled the ex-bosun saying something about a letter. Turning to look at the side table, Maia saw a neatly folded piece of heavy paper, sealed with wax. By heavy, conscious effort, she reached over to take it in one clumsy hand, slumping back amid receding waves of pain. Lifting the letter, she recognized her own name scrawled across the front.
From Brod and Leie, Maia recalled. She was able to feel gladness, now ... a colorless, abstract variety. Gladness that two people still lived whom she loved. It helped ease the sense of desolation and forfeiture lodged in her heart, ready to emerge as soon as the doctor turned down the agone leech some more.
Her vision was still too blurry for reading, so she lay quietly, stroking the paper until a knock came at the door. It slid open, and Naroin leaned into the room. "Ah, back with us. You missed breakfast. Ready to try again?"
She was gone again without waiting for Maia's answer. So, I didn't imagine it, Maia thought, starting to wonder about the implications. Why was Naroin here? Where was here? And why was Naroin helping look after her? The policewoman surely had more important things to do than play nursemaid to one unimportant summerling.
Unless it has to do with all the laws I've broke
n ... the places I've been that I wasn't supposed to. . . . Things I've seen that the Council doesn't want widely known.
Another knock on the door. This time a young woman entered, bearing a covered tray. Maia wiped her eyes, then opened them wide, staring in surprise.
"Where do you want this, ma'am?" the girl asked. Her voice was softer, a little higher, but otherwise almost identical to the last one Maia had heard. The face was a younger version of the last one Maia had seen. Realization came in a rush.
"Clones . . ." Maia murmured. "A police clan?"
The youngster wasn't even Maia's age. A winterling fiver, then. Yet there was something in her smile. A hint of Naroin's relaxed self-confidence. She put the tray on the side of the bed, and occupied herself propping pillows, helping Maia to sit up.
Brin, David - Glory Season Page 62
