by Linda Nagata
“Shit.”
Lot gave it up for the moment, and looked around. They’d come into a small lobby. The carpets and walls were a wash of light yellow, a bright contrast to his own disquiet. An elevator opened on one side. Beside it, a wide sweep of stairs went down. Lot looked at the stairs in surprise. He’d never seen a building with access below ground. Silk was a surface city, and only utility engineers were permitted in the inner levels. Urban’s mood shifted as he took some pleasure from Lot’s surprise. “You’ll like this,” he said. “It’s cute.”
They trotted down the stairs, the impact of their footfalls absorbed by the carpet. The stair bent back on itself and descended another flight. Lot caught her presence while he was still on the landing. “Alta!”
He bounded after her trace. At the bottom of the stairs stood a second set of double doors cast in the sun symbol they’d seen above. Her presence teased him. “Alta?”
One of the doors swung open. Alta looked out past it, seeming a little surprised to see him. “Lot. Hello. I didn’t think you’d come.”
She’d had ten years to finish growing. Lot had watched her at the task, following her at a distance whenever he chanced to see her about in the city. She’d become an ado girl of extremes: black hair, black eyes, pale skin. No shading and no bright colors to distract from her elemental nature.
Lot had missed her sorely and he had always imagined she felt the same way, so he’d been ready to grab her, hug her, maybe hold her hands and dance—but those intentions evaporated as he ran up against the slick surface of her aura.
I didn’t think you’d come.
With painful abruptness—like running into a wall—he understood that Alta had not been missing him, though she smiled at him now in a friendly way. “You look like Jupiter. Almost exactly like him.”
“Sooth. It gives the monkey house fits.” That earned him a short laugh. But he couldn’t enjoy it. He was remembering how he’d abandoned her when panic had ignited in the tunnels. “I looked for you that day.”
“We all did our best.” She pushed the door open wider. “Come. Time’s short. You should hurry.”
He followed her into the dimly lit chamber. Immediately he felt a difference in the atmosphere, a soft, moist warmth, as if the air had been freshly made in the cells of tropical plants. It reminded him of the air aboard Nesseleth. He smiled. It reminded him of the air in his own breather; it felt good to know he wasn’t the only one who remembered.
The room appeared small, though it was hard to be sure because the light was sculpted, and deceptive. The walls were hidden behind opaque interference patterns manifesting in shifting silver curtains that destabilized any attempt by the eyes to focus, so that the walls didn’t seem fixed, but instead floated in the consciousness with the fluidity of dream images, moving slowly in, pulling away. Isolation and communion in a slow holographic dance.
Jupiter had been seeking isolation when he’d first chanced upon the Well. That had been over 120 years ago, when he’d left the Committee with his first crew of faithful, bent on finding a world of his own somewhere beyond the Chenzeme Intersection. A fossil plague ended those plans. The virus got into Nesseleth’s systems, overwhelming her defensive Makers and sweeping through her crew. By the time she sought help at the Well, Jupiter was the only person left alive.
The Silkens had greeted him with cautious sympathy, offering their own index of defensive Makers, even as their asteroid defense system fixed on Nesseleth. A plague ship could not be allowed to dock.
Nesseleth had assumed a stately orbit in the trail of the swan burster. Adrift in his terminal fever, Jupiter had gazed on the ring, while listening to Silken stories of the Well and its curious amalgam of genetic systems. His mind engaged the puzzle while his body failed. How could traces of plague exist on the planet without destroying all life there? How had the swan burster been tamed? And what would happen if a new plague was brought to the planet surface? Might it be subdued too?
The Silkens believed the Well fatal to humans, but Jupiter was already dying. He persuaded Nesseleth to let him take a shuttle to the planet’s surface. There he stayed for nearly a month, while a molecular war raged inside his body, and dreams of aliens, human-aliens, and nirvana filled his mind. He found his cure. But more than that, he uncovered the force that had finally abolished the warring civilizations of the ancient world.
Now Alta took Lot’s hand, leading him deeper into the holographic maze. Lot felt himself descending. Just slightly. The angled floor soft beneath his feet. When he looked back, Urban and Gent could not be seen, only the silvery walls with tiny vertical flaws of black embedded in them, and he knew they were a miniature reflection of himself and Alta, repeated over and over and over.
Within the enclosing walls the flaw became beautiful.
Why not? That was Jupiter’s philosophy: that every individual could be contained within the Communion, there to change, to transcend the limits of their separate lives without losing selfhood.
Jupiter had drawn an analogy to the structure of cells. Somewhere, he’d met a designer, and for him the encounter had been resonant with implication:
“She showed me a cell diagram, pointing out the various parts—the nucleus, the reticulum, the mitochondria. ‘The mitochondria,’ she said, ‘appear to be descendants of bacterial life-forms which were captured by some ancestral cell. Drawn into the cellular body, they became an essential part of its metabolic system. And here they are still: protected, nourished, widespread, and still with their individual DNA. The cell couldn’t live without them, and they couldn’t live without the cell. Here then, are two life-forms which have become one.’ Her words re-echoed in my mind, though at the time I didn’t know why. Only later did I come to understand that we could make a similar synthesis with the Well. Each of us a small but valued organelle in that ancient vastness.”
In the Communion they would yield themselves to the unknowable computations of a purposeful biological system armed with thirty million years of experience. The Communion had ended the ancient war. The Communion had absorbed Jupiter’s plague and changed it, tamed it, without destroying it. The Communion would sublimate them in the same way—or so Jupiter had preached.
Believe in me.
Lot shuddered. Doubt filled him, and he wondered—briefly—if Jupiter really had been running on a plan. He’d convinced everyone it was so, he’d seemed to always be pushing for its outcome. But what if he’d just been acting? Delivering up the faith because that’s what people wanted, what they lived for, truth be damned, truth’s too ugly, give us some illusions and we’ll die for you.
“I’ve seen enough,” he said softly. “I don’t want to be here.”
Alta’s disappointment carried the weight of stones. “It’s not a thing to be afraid of, Lot. It’s just a place for reflection.”
“You’ve been scared too,” he said. “You left the tunnel that day.”
“They took me out. My mama found me.”
Captain Antigua. Alta remained a refugee, but her mama had gotten Silken citizenship. Captain Antigua was the only refugee who had. “Your mama lied about Jupiter.”
“I know and I’m sorry.” Her graceful fingers touched her breast just above her heart. “I know he’s still with us. I feel him every day.”
The weird light in the room had cast a sheen of silver on her hair and skin. It was color he could breathe, pulling part of her inside himself. “I don’t remember it like this.”
“You’re older now.”
“Was it like this with Jupiter?”
He caught from her a tiny trace of surprise, and … something like fear, understated. “You know it was,” she said quickly. “Now go. You have to be done before the shift change.”
Alta turned, and was swiftly enfolded by the walls, lost to view. He heard her speaking with Gent at the door, though he couldn’t make out the words. A wall receded, and Urban appeared close beside him, shaking his head. “That Alta is one crazy ado.” He loo
ked at Lot again, closely, this time. “Oh, fury. She got you, didn’t she?”
“No.”
“She’s crazy, Lot. Don’t fall for her.”
Lot moved his head slowly back and forth, letting his sensory tears harvest traces of her from the air. “Why are we down here anyway?”
“So they can mess with your mind. Besides, there’s an access tunnel, down at the lowest point of the floor.”
So they followed the slope down, while the black reflective darts in the walls became things with inherent volition, mating, blossoming into complex patterns composed of darkness as much as light. The symbology struck Lot as obvious and oppressive and he was relieved when, in a few steps, they’d found the hatch, and Urban unlatched it.
“When did you come here before?” Lot asked.
“Last night. But I haven’t been below.”
“How do you know Alta?”
“I don’t know her, fury. She was with Gent last night. She’s not my girl, so don’t snarl at me.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Just forget it.” Urban lifted the hatch, exposing a dark pit. Lot could make out a ladder descending into it.
“Go on,” Gent said, from close behind them. “It’s a maintenance tunnel. The lights will come on.”
“Sooth.” Lot remembered the tunnels. Sweat slicked his hands. Fear pressed like a spike against his belly, holding him back.
He wasn’t in the mood for that. Not anymore.
He crouched on the hatch rim, taking a moment to gather his courage.
She was with Gent last night.
He jumped, plunging past Urban, feet first through the hatch, preferring to impale himself on his fear than to let it control him again.
The lights flashed on. He caught the hatch rim to slow his fall, then dropped to the ground, hitting solid, his knees bending to absorb the shock. His chest grabbed for air in a loud wheeze while his irises strained to clamp down against the brilliant light. I hate this. He could feel his face wet with sweat, but his heart rate had already begun to slow. He looked around.
A tangle of pipes ran along the floor and walls. He saw that it hadn’t been too smart to drop blind through the hole. He could have hit a pipe and pitched himself good. Dumb ado then. Urban dropped silently beside him. He would be resenting Lot’s rush to be first. But he knew how Lot felt about tunnels. He didn’t say anything.
Gent climbed carefully down the access ladder, burdened by a loaded backpack. How well did he know Alta? Lot wondered. She wasn’t a kid anymore. Aboard Nesseleth she would have been married. He rubbed at his sensory tears, wanting more of her. Gent’s hand clasped his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Sure. How’s security down here?”
“Everywhere. Just like above.”
Urban took a long, slow look up and down the corridor. “But Gent’s fixed it so nobody’s watching this shift. Have you caught on to that yet, fury?”
“Not quite yet. Guess I’m slow.”
Gent’s eyes twinkled in amusement. “Jupiter still has friends in this city. Don’t forget he once lived in Silk.”
“Sooth,” Lot said. “But that was over a hundred twenty years ago.” How could anybody remain constant for so long? He didn’t understand real people, and he wondered sometimes if they were real at all, or only dumb programs running over and over and over.
Urban nudged him in the ribs. “You could ask Gent for names. It’d be good to know who’s on your side.”
He looked at Gent. He seemed to expect it; maybe he’d been offering. But Lot only shrugged. “I’m not asking. Not now.” He felt a faint blush across his cheeks. He could ask for names, and Gent would tell him. He could ask about Alta too. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Gent shrugged. From his backpack, he produced three thick beige vests. He hefted one and passed it to Lot. It was heavy, but supple. Lot noticed the nub ends of two small plastic tubes poking out from either side of the collar. “Put it on,” Gent said. He patted the fabric. “It’s a rebreather rig, with supplementary oxygen squeezed in the cells. We’ll need it farther inside. You remember how it was, Lot? Captain Aceret had to pump up the pressure in the industrial corridors before anyone could disembark.”
Lot looked at him, trying to see through the remark. “I didn’t know that, Gent. I was asleep most of the time we were in the control room.”
Gent considered that briefly. It couldn’t sit well in his personal mythology. But he just shrugged. “Anyway, the pressure’s kept low in the core. It’s a conservation measure that doubles for security. We’ll need the oxygen.”
Lot slipped the vest on. It pulled snug around his shirt, sealing down the front. Gent gave him a transparent oxygen mask and showed him how to link it to the vest’s tubing. The unit would function as soon as he put the mask on. For now though, he let it dangle at his chest.
THE CORRIDOR RAN LEVEL. THEY FOLLOWED IT for two hundred yards, moving quickly but carefully over the crisscrossing pipes. Nanotech drizzles ran sideways along the wall: tiny portage streams a few meters long, made up of a procession of Makers carrying some recovered element to a collection point. Lot smelled the sour rot of a gutter doggie as they passed the opening of a narrow crawlway.
Finally, Gent stopped before a locked hatch. It was oval, only about a meter high. “When were you here before?” Lot asked as Gent punched in a security code.
“You don’t know?” He looked hurt. “We received permission last year to hold a memorial service in cold storage. Twenty of us, plus an escort. Authority wouldn’t let you come. I asked. I thought you’d hear about it, though.”
“No.”
The hatch opened onto a small lock. Gent ducked in first. Lot followed. Urban squeezed in behind and closed the door. They took a moment to fix their oxygen masks over nose and mouth, then Gent bled the pressure and opened the opposite hatch. The air on the other side was very cold; the tunnels, too familiar. Lot stepped outside. His lungs hurt. His teeth hurt. His vest started to heat up.
Gent left the hatch open. The corridor curved in a familiar slow spiral, rising to the left, descending to the right. They jogged upward for almost twenty minutes. Finally, Gent stopped beside another hatch. He punched a code into the pad, then cracked the seal. No pressure differential this time. They climbed through. “These locks are new,” Lot said, his voice muffled by the mask. “Since that day.”
“Yeah. Bad element in town, you know?”
Lot grinned, and that helped. He felt better. “I remember that day, when it was all over—Captain Antigua warned me I’d wind up in cold storage if I stepped out of line. Guess she was right.”
Gent chuckled. “We’ve got Placid Antigua’s soul stashed on ice too, against the day she’s ready to reclaim it.”
A short passage took them to another hatch. Gent coded it, then swung it open. “This is it,” he said. “Cold storage.”
CHAPTER
7
LOT PEERED THROUGH THE LAST HATCH. THE CHAMBER on the other side was low, only about eight feet to the ceiling. It appeared to be toroidal in shape, wrapped around an immense central pillar, and where walls and ceiling met, the corners were deeply rounded. It seemed to be completely empty.
He stepped through, feeling a gust of disappointment. Gent stepped up close beside him. “Storage is beneath the floor,” he said, pointing beyond the narrow apron of decking on which they stood. “See?”
Lot nodded. The floor was a polar grid of black panels laid down on a gray frame. Lot stepped onto the first panel. It lit up with a red display of amino-acid codes running in parallel lines, appearing at one side of the panel, vanishing at the other. Gent said, “Each panel codes for one of us.”
Lot frowned at the frantic display. “Is this the only identification?”
Behind his transparent oxygen mask, Gent looked apologetic. “In the city library each individual’s biological map is linked to a four-digit identification number, but we can’t access that. The best we
can do is look for a familial match with your own genetic pattern.”
“How?”
He slipped off his backpack and reached into it. Out came a waferlike instrument, some four by six inches, mounted on a short handle. Embedded in its black surface was a sculpture of a scarlet anthurium, its heart-shaped red bract freshly opened around a thick, erect white spike. Just above the flower, a miniature pair of finely sculpted androgynous lips—recessed, so they didn’t protrude from the surface—smiled slyly. Lot took one look at the thing and burst out laughing. “A mate finder?” he croaked. “Come on, Gent!”
Even Urban lost his sour look. He grinned at Lot, quoting commercial scripture: “‘Hunlo’s Mate Finder: Whether you’re seeking millennial marriage, a one night affair, or anything in between, we can help you find the perfect …’” His grin faded, as his voice trailed off in surprise.
“‘We can help you find the perfect genetic match,’” Lot finished for him. He turned to Gent, suddenly anxious. “Will it work?”
Gent held the device in two hands. “Why not? It has an optical scan that can access the data in the panels. We’ll just tell it to look for familial similarities.” He pointed to the smiling lips. “Put your finger here. Let it take a cell sample.”
Lot had seen ados play this game in the drunken hours after midnight. He pressed his finger against the lips. They mouthed his fingertip and moaned suggestively, touching him with a hint of warmth and moisture, though there was no tongue. When he took his finger away, the lips moved, and a low, androgynous voice cooed, “You’re in me now. Would you like to define a personality file? Or are you a bioexclusivist?”
Gent touched the vox tab. “Bioexclusivist. Look for a mate with at least fifty percent genetic similarities.”
“Ah.” The mate finder seemed intrigued. “There’s no place like home.”
“Did you have any other relatives?” Urban asked.
Lot smiled faintly. “Dozens.” He glanced at Gent. Group marriage had been the custom aboard Nesseleth. Gent had lived in Jupiter’s household as a full adult partner, one of seven spouses in the family warren. “But not by blood.”
