by Linda Nagata
Lot looked at him in sharp surprise. “No! I don’t know.” His own defensiveness startled him. “You think … this is what happened to them?” He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t supposed to be like this… .” His voice trailed off. In truth, he didn’t know anything. Jupiter had never really said what life would be like in the Well. He’d talked about the mitochondrial analog, two life-forms blending into one. He’d said there’d be harmony. An infinite union. Nirvana. Words as vague as the faces on the phantoms.
Lot stared at the drifting fog, willing it to move off so he could see the old roadway once more. Surely for every phenomenon there must be an explanation awaiting discovery. “Let’s get closer.”
With instructions from the commandant, he switched to observer status, allowing the warden’s resident Dull Intelligence to assume motor function. Under the DI’s guidance, the little warden slipped through the bedewed vegetation, as quick and quiet as any small jungle creature. It ducked around several large mounds of upthrust soil, and in less than six minutes he was on the old roadway—but the phantoms were gone.
Twenty minutes later Urban stood in the rain, shaking his head in frustration. “No scent trails. No footprints.”
Lot tramped in a slow circle just off the roadway, watching the warden’s tiny feet. They left almost no impression in the spongy mulch of leaves and rotting bark that carpeted the ground beneath the trees.
“If they’re projections, then what’s producing them?” Urban asked, of no one in particular.
The commandant shrugged.
Lot pressed his warden toes into the cold humus. “How long has this been going on?”
Kona answered—too quickly. “Not quite a year.”
Lot gave him a sharp look, but could read nothing in the warden’s marbled interpretation of his face. Still, he sensed some unspoken factor.
Urban asked, “Have you tried to identify the images as individuals? Do they match any data in city records?”
“No, no,” the commandant said. “The resolution is too poor.”
Urban crouched on the road bed, his gaze following its rise out of the valley. “This has to be something left from Old Silk. After all, the elevator column’s still here. It’s possible some other branch of their technology survived too.”
“No.” The commandant shook his head. “The wardens have been in this valley two hundred fifty years. If there was something here, they would have found it.”
LATER, THEY SAT ON THE WHITE CARPET in Kona’s apartment, sunlight falling around them while they drank beer and talked about the Well. Kona waved his hand, indicating the sprawling planet beyond the city’s horizon. “This land … it’s the most valuable thing in the system,” he told them, “if only it could be made livable.”
Lot stared at the golden bubbles rising in his beer. Though his fingers were steadily gaining strength, he didn’t trust himself to hold the glass. So Urban had dropped a straw into it. Bubbles clung to the straw, huddling together on the column like refugees. No one alive today in Silk had ever intended to make this city their home. He shook off the thought, and forced himself to look at Kona. “Could you do that?” he asked. “Could you subdue the governors and make the Well livable?”
“Maybe. We need to move slowly. We need to look at all options. You understand?”
“I don’t know.” Though Kona seemed open, and ready to include them both in his deliberations, still Lot sensed something had been left unsaid.
“Try,” Kona said. “We’re facing difficult decisions. I won’t pretend I wanted you to be part of the decision-making process, but you are, and that means you have a responsibility to act in the best interest of the people—all the people. You could help hold us all together, Lot, or you could plunge this city into chaos.”
Urban scowled. “Nobody wants that. All we’re asking for is a vote, a voice. You could help us get it. Daddy?”
Kona stretched, cleansing his body with a long sigh. “I’ll do what I can, Urban. All right? No promises. But I’ll do what I can.”
CHAPTER
15
“THE OFFICIAL ESTIMATE IS OUT TODAY,” THE MEDIOT SAID, his smile faint, his mood somber. “Authority predicts we have eight months, at current levels of use, before shortages become evident. Do you have any comment on that?”
“Eight months?” Lot echoed the mediot’s question. It startled him to hear their remaining time summed in concrete measure. Eight months. He glanced at the faces of the watching ado pack. Camera bees buzzed over the blooming azalea bushes in Splendid Peace. Already, the ritual of the interview seemed old to him. He’d been through so many. Over the last nine days he’d become the nominal leader of a significant political party, though nearly all his supporters lacked voting rights. That would change with tomorrow’s election. Urban’s initiatives had easily gathered the signatures necessary to appear on the ballot. It was only a matter of time.
“Eight months will be enough,” Lot said in a confident voice that called on people to sit up and listen, “if we work together. If we give an equal voice to all. If the distinction between ados and real people is forgotten. We’ll find a consensus.”
“You’re confident the election tomorrow will give you the vote?”
Lot smiled. “Not me personally. I won’t be twenty for two more years.” A ripple of laughter ran through the quiet ados. “But for many people in this city, yes. In the past, it’s sometimes been forgotten that real people and ados are not different species. We’re the same. The real people know that, and they’ll remember it tomorrow when they vote.”
BACK IN THE REFUGEE QUARTER, LOT STEPPED UP to Alta’s apartment door for the ninth time in as many days. Her majordomo acknowledged him. “Greetings, Master Lot Apolinario.”
“Alta, may I see you?” he asked the door’s blank face. “I would very much like to see you.” He waited, but for the ninth time in as many days, she refused to answer him. She had not stirred from her apartment since learning of her mother’s death. Lot had sent Urban to talk to her, but she wouldn’t acknowledge him either. Gent had seen her, but he revealed no details of their conversations, saying only that she was grieving, but rational, give her time.
Lot could not bring himself to do it. Every afternoon he slipped loose from the ado packs and came alone to her door. He could not say exactly why. Part of it felt like love. She’d gotten inside him that day in the tunnel. He felt bonded to her and in consequence he desired to see her, care for her, share her grief and her joy. But love was an easy and nonexclusive emotion for him. He felt similar things for other girls in a shifting, adolescent version of Jupiter’s own group marriage.
If it were only love he could step away. But his hurt was more complex than that. He’d felt the silvery touch of her faith the night of the rally. Her belief had ignited the crowd. The loss of that belief felt like a chink in the silver armor of his influence, a weakness that could grow like rot if he didn’t patch it quickly. He leaned against her door for several minutes, considering. “Alta, please talk to me.” The door remained stubbornly closed, the majordomo silent. Finally he sighed and straightened. “I’ll come back tomorrow.” But the election was tomorrow. Perhaps he wouldn’t have time. “I’ll try to come back tomorrow,” he amended. He took a step away; but then he turned back. “I’m sorry for your mama, Alta. I never desired for Captain Antigua to come to any harm. It was an accident.” He pressed his palm against her door, striving to see her, to sense her beyond the opaque barrier. “I wish that you would forgive me.”
He waited several seconds, but the door remained stubbornly closed. He turned away again, feeling stupid. She’d probably switched off the majordomo’s audio pickups as soon as he’d shown up, leaving him to talk to an insensate door. Great cult leader, oh yeah.
GENT WAITED IN THE STREET OUTSIDE. LOT MET HIM with a cursory nod, still distracted by his failure with Alta. “I have an appointment,” Lot told him.
“Where?”
“Library.”
> “You’ve been spending many hours at that.”
“Sooth.” The election’s persistent questions had awakened Lot to his own ignorance. He’d been profoundly shocked at the scope of it. “Authority says we only have eight months.”
“More time than we need, I think.”
Yulyssa’s story about the phantoms had swept the city, creating a special stir in the refugee quarter. Gent would not account them yet as evidence of the Communion, but many in the quarter did.
They fell into step with one another, leaving the walled refugee quarter via the narrow lane that wound through the neighborhood of Nine Turnings. Here the small apartment buildings had rounded prows that seemed to push the lane into a sharp sine wave. Ancient tulip trees shaded the streets, their branches twining overhead, huge orange flowers catching the sunlight so that it seemed as if they walked under a winding river of fire.
Gent broke the silence. “Let me hear you say Jupiter’s name.”
“What?” Lot looked at him, abruptly conscious of the discordant tone of Gent’s mood. “Why?”
“You haven’t said his name in days.”
Lot felt himself flush. “Gent—”
“Jupiter’s name is not forbidden, and it’s not profane.” There was judgment in his voice.
Lot sought to defuse that. Softly: “That’s not what this election’s about.”
“If you’ll forgive me, sir, that’s a polite lie.”
“Gent!” Lot stopped in the street, a hot point of panic suddenly awake in his belly. If he couldn’t hold Alta, if he couldn’t even hold Gent, how could he expect to convince more than a handful of real people to vote for the initiatives?
Gent watched him closely. “Have you abandoned him?”
“No! You know that’s not possible.”
“But you doubt him.”
Lot stiffened. “I have questions,” he admitted.
Gent nodded somberly. He started walking again. Lot leaped after him. “I do believe in him! I intend to follow him someday.”
Gent’s eyebrows rose in mock surprise. “Do you?”
Lot stopped again. A camera bee buzzed into sight. It glinted metallic orange, reflecting the color of the flowers overhead. Lot watched it slow, seeking the best camera angle. “Go on!” he shouted at it. “Leave me alone.”
The city’s privacy laws required the mediot to obey. Gent watched the bee until it was out of sight. Then he spoke. “The Silkens like you, Lot. They say you have a pleasant aspect. But they don’t trust you.”
Lot could feel miserable truth descend around him. The campaign had been going well; he’d had some confidence. But now: “You think we’re going to lose the election.”
Gent shrugged. “If you do, it’ll be because you’re supporting a lie.”
“What lie? Gent, all we’re asking for is to vote.”
“That’s a surface issue. You’re asking the Silkens to accept you—by denying Jupiter.”
He winced. Miserable truth indeed. “Sooth,” he whispered, his arms stiff at his sides. “But what else can I do? They’re afraid of him.”
Gent shook his head. “You’re the one who fears him. You’ll never recover your faith by foraging through the library. Everything you need to know, you’ll learn in the Well.”
Lot considered that, then smiled. “You know, it’s a bit easier to get to the library then to get to the Well … unless you’ve convinced the Silkens to allow us down?”
“You don’t need permission. You could go there now.”
Lot stepped back, stunned at this pronouncement. He sought some hint of deceit, but found none. Gent crossed his arms over his broad chest and nodded. “I could take you to the Well. I’ve been ready for a long time.”
“But … how?”
“Silken security is naive, at best.”
“I don’t understand. If you have the means, why haven’t you—”
Gent’s patience snapped. “Our people are still here! You’re still here.”
Lot turned away, thinking, I’m not ready for this. The orange light around him seemed garish and hot. “I’m going to the library.” He started again up the lane. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“Later. Sure, Lot. There’s time.”
THE LIBRARY WAS A PLACE OF ADOS. It had been inherited from Old Silk, whose people had used no atriums, living as detached from the city’s information flow as modern youth. Constant access or accessibility had not been important to them—though neither had they cherished isolation. Their city had been designed with myriad social centers, the library being one of the most frequented.
It was a vast, half-round building that seemed to shore up the grand walk as it stepped down the city’s slope in three neat levels. Lot crossed the first enclosed courtyard. Here the afternoon light was softened by the lush green leaves and pale blossoms of the white garden: roses, bougainvillea, jasmine, lilies, salvia, protea, and a host of others, all in milky monochrome. Flower scents mixed with the lusher smells of the cabana restaurants where ados clustered in knots of small talk. Lot slipped past them, out of the sunlight and into the calmly lit lobby. From the corner of his eye he saw the gold flash of Ord’s small body, following him inside.
The lobby was crescent-shaped, at least a hundred yards from end to end, with a vaulted ceiling that soared some forty feet overhead. Aside from the glass entry, stacked shelves lined the walls, each supporting a swarm of hanging racks and boxes for storage of original works in degradable media. He crossed the ruby carpet, threading a path around clusters of couches and arm chairs, nearly all of them occupied. He slowed, his gaze scanning the patrons, all the while responding with unconscious grace to the soft greetings, the glances that ever marked his progress. Perhaps one in five of those present seemed real.
Why had they come here?
The library’s resources could be accessed through their atriums from any point in the city. Had something else drawn them, then? A need for community …
Ord tapped his hand. Lot smiled at the little robot, then hefted it up so it could climb onto his shoulders. He presented himself at the librarian’s station and was greeted by a guiding bee that hummed ahead of him, leading him through the tangled caverns beyond the lobby. Archival access booths hung at short though uneven intervals on the wending, intersecting maze of corridors, the whole laid out in the common chaotic fashion of Old Silk, as if that people had some deep fear of order, or predictability, of efficiency or the dictates of a central authority. Within seconds Lot knew he was hopelessly lost. But the bee plowed on, leading him finally to the black membranous door of a booth isolated at the end of a short cul-de-sac.
He pushed his way through the forgiving membrane. “Yulyssa?”
The room on the other side was dimly lit, the gray walls shimmering faintly, like stone in ring light, an impression that deepened and grew in detail until he felt himself to be in a walled garden, with vines crawling over the stonework and the dark bulk of a tree looming overhead, silhouetted against the backdrop of the nebula, while the glow of the swan burster filtered through its leaves. Yulyssa manifested then, as part of the holographic display. She sat cross-legged on a wooden bench, her antique diamond clips winking in her black hair.
Lot felt a sudden dark rush of disappointment. “I’d hoped you’d be real.”
Her smile seemed apologetic, though he couldn’t be sure. The projection failed to replicate the breath of her emotive mood—a minor flaw in the senses of most, but for Lot it felt like an amputation. “It’s better this way,” she said. “I can access library systems much faster.”
“And besides, you don’t want to be near me.”
She sighed. “No, that is not true. But as we agreed once before, I’m old enough to know better.”
Unhappily, he nudged a wooden armchair with his foot, and when it proved solid he sat down in it. Ord slid off his shoulders, dropping softly to the ground. He remembered his manners at last and said “Thank you for coming.”
“I hope I can help.”
Crickets chirped in the rampant shrubbery. In the cool, nocturnal setting, intimacy should have been easy—would have been, if she were real. “I’ve been wondering,” he asked hesitantly, “what happened a year ago? Kona said the phantoms first started appearing then. Why? Did anything significant occur, that might have inspired it? The librarian helped me search the archives, but I’ve found nothing in the public files.”
She frowned. “Secure files aren’t within my reach … but I can petition the council for you.”
“I’d hoped you would.”
Her diamond clips glittered with the slight movement of her head. “That’s done. And next?”
“I’ve been thinking about Old Silk. Who were the people who built this city? Why did they die?”
“But that’s well documented. Their own histories say they came to study the swan burster… .”
“There’s history, all right. But little interpretation.”
“Oh.” She leaned back, her gaze seeking the thin light of the projected nebula. “You’re after reason, not mechanism.”
“Both, I guess.”
“Their death is documented.”
“Though not at all understood. We blame the governors and pretend that explains it.” He could see uneasiness on her face, but it didn’t move him. He felt isolated. Sealed away from the resonant influence of human presence, he felt as if his emotions were slowly settling over the base of his brain in nonreactive layers, leaving his cerebrum unencumbered, slick with a machinelike efficiency. “The Old Silkens lived freely on the planet for ten years, without incident. They must have felt themselves safe.” He watched Yulyssa closely. “Now Kona wants to make the planet ‘livable.’ How? If he can’t dominate the governors, how could he ever be sure we were safe?”
She nodded slowly. “You’re fearing a new plague might arise, even after decades.”
“No. I only wonder what method Kona would use to insure that couldn’t happen.”
She closed her eyes. “All right. The librarian is searching for suggestions.”
“I’ve done that already.”
