Dryland's End

by Felice Picano

  The priest was now clearly outraged by hearing his God explain itself – albeit he couldn’t understand why – to strangers.

  “I find it ingenious,” P’al said, “And furthermore, the use of methane fuel you devised has begun to take hold in residences and streets on the Trapezoid Isle. It’s only a matter of years before it spreads to the other communities.”

  “Thank you,” the Voice & Eyes replied.

  By now the priest knew an impertinence when he heard one, even though he might not understand its exact meaning. He decided to shoo them all out of the room.

  “Thank you, Balphor,” the Voice & Eyes stopped the priest. “You may leave.”

  The priest sputtered but dared not disobey.

  “See that no one else comes in while we’re talking,” it added. Then: “It took years to develop this methane-collection system. As you may already have guessed, we faced enormous logistical problems, not to mention the vast reorganization as a place of worship and general records. The hiring and training of staff was a nightmare at first. Even now … Not to mention the built-in disadvantages.”

  “Fungal rot, for instance,” P’al suggested.

  “Only the worst of the problems. It’s insidious,” it complained. “Gets into everything. Stone walls and metal didn’t stop it. Even the sealant caves in to it after a while.”

  “Explaining the slowdowns, the need for more and more energy,” P’al said.

  “To keep it clean. I do the best I can. But I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. But… you’re from the Aldebaran Five?” it asked suddenly.

  “Do you remember Aldebaran?” Ay’r asked.

  “Triple red sunsets. Yes. I remember.”

  “We’re not from Aldebaran,” Alli Clark spoke up.

  “Yet from what these Ib’rs told me before,” it said, “and the fact that several of you are bonding together … is Consolidation come so soon?”

  “If by Consolidation you mean the joining of Pelagia to the rest,” Alli Clark answered, “no. Not yet.”

  “The Matriarchy?” it replied quickly. “It still exists?”

  “Yes, but not as you knew it. The First Matriarchy fell and was replaced by a federation, which eventuated in a second Matriarchy.”

  “Which now totters in what may be its death throes,” Ay’r said.

  The Voice & Eyes was silent another longish time.

  “I understand, I think. Your purpose here then … ?”

  “Does not concern you directly,” Ay’r said. “Yet you might be of … some help to us.”

  “Regarding these three inhabitants of Monosilla Valley,” it now said, “I take it they know enough about the three of you to be included in further conversation? For example, they know exactly how far you have come?”

  “Not exactly,” P’al said. “Perhaps –”

  Ay’r interrupted, “I believe all three of our Ib’r hosts know, if not exactly how far away, then at least that it is quite beyond their knowledge. They should remain while we speak, especially since several of us are bonded. Alli?”

  “I agree,” she said.

  “May we call you Maxwell 4500?” Ay’r asked. “I believe that’s how you were called.”

  “You may call me that, or Max for short, although in truth I’m more a concatenation of whichever of my sort escaped the catastrophes and managed to gather together. It was thought that survival was the prime directive, given the parlous situation, and so we built this bastion and slowly melded ourselves together until Hume attendants could be found and trained.”

  “We applaud your decision in what must have been a difficult situation,” Alli Clark said. “It seems rational and furthermore has worked to benefit Pelagia.”

  “I’d like to think so, although you must realize that fewer and fewer of the folk come to record or consult us. Most of the inhabitants of the Old River communities still send their refuse, but not their youths. As for the Boglanders … they send nothing.”

  “Even so,” Alli Clark said, “you’ll remain and persevere and continue to develop until the Consolidation occurs. Won’t you?”

  “Naturally, ma’am. That is my program, which although I’ve had to extemporize a bit, I continue.”

  “Are you aware of the – may I say unnatural – progress of your charges?” P’al asked.

  “Again, a result over which I had little influence, but to reevaluate constantly and attempt to keep pace with. I don’t think the three of you could possibly understand the conditions under which I have labored. Natural disasters of great size and extent. The near extinction of the seedlings. I doubt if any other A-Five Guide has had quite so many travails, and if I may say so myself, my constructors back in the Aldebaran system little prepared me for quite so rigorous a testing.”

  Ay’r thought the poor Cyber would complain at length if he didn’t interrupt. “You said before that you’re unfamiliar with my name. Obviously it doesn’t exist in your files. Could you check through for any variations?”

  “I have been doing so all this while and have found nothing.”

  “The reason I ask is that part of our purpose here is to locate my father, believed to be on Pelagia.”

  To make it official, Alli said, “The Matriarch Herself sent us on this purpose.”

  “Alas, ma’am, but I cannot help you.”

  “He might be one of the Gods,” Ay’r prompted. “What do you know of them?”

  “Only what the people have told me. They are obviously visitors like yourselves, yet from where, or why they came, I don’t know.”

  “And this” – Ay’r pulled the little object out of his tunic – “what is this?”

  Another long silence. Then Max asked, “Where did you get that?”

  “An infant Truth-Sayer gave it to me.”

  Now ’Harles spoke up, “The same Truth-Sayer who made many predictions for my family predicted an even greater future for Ay’r.”

  “The object?” Ay’r continued to hold it up. “What is it?”

  “My key. Although how an infant got it …”

  “He knew its significance,” P’al said. “He said to present it here.”

  “Clear away the lichen on the carved panel, and you will see how it fits,” Max said.

  Ay’r did as instructed. There was a narrow slot exactly the shape of the key. He removed its lacing and inserted it. Immediately the carved panel backed in, revealing the complex drives of the machine.

  “Do you understand what this means?” Ay’r turned to the Ib’rs.

  “It’s not a God, but a mechanism of some sort,” ’Dward said.

  “Do you understand what a mechanism is?” Max asked him.

  “We saw one attached to a wagon in Bog Bay. It moved the wagon without using any animals,” ’Dward said, evidently impressed.

  “This is the finest mechanism on Dryland,” Ay’r said. “Almost as fine and far more complicated than any of the people.”

  “Placed here by your people, generations ago,” Oudma now said.

  “To help the people of Pelagia,” ’Dward said. “But why would your people do such a thing?”

  “I know the answer,” ’Harles said.

  “There is no ‘our people’ and ‘your people,’ ’Dward. We are all one people. But although they come from a far-distant place, we are the same. Which is why we can love each other so easily. Yet we Drylanders are to them as spores are to trees, as seeds are to plants. We are their children. And as a spore must leave to grow, so we were sent here to grow, guided and helped by this … mechanism.”

  Ay’r turned to the panel. “Do you see now, Max, why I asked them to remain with us?”

  “They understand a great deal. But not all the people are so full of wisdom yet!”

  “No, they aren’t. But all it takes is a few to lead the way,” Alli Clark said.

  “I still don’t understand what I’m doing inside you,” Ay’r said.

  Max guided his hand to a spot. “Do you see that smal
l, flat, ecru object. It’s attached by a simple V-jack so that it wouldn’t lose energy while it was here, but remain charged. Whoever possesses the key may remove it.”

  Ay’r held it in his hand. It seemed solid, could be easily held in the hand, and didn’t resemble anything he had ever seen before. He handed it to P’al and Alli Clark, who between them had seen most of the Matriarchy’s weapons and communications elements.

  “What is it?” Ay’r asked.

  “I haven’t a clue. All I know is that it was placed there several generations ago, and only after I was blinded temporarily. I was reprogrammed not to reject it, to keep it charged and ready for use, and to tell whomever held the key how to obtain it.”

  ’Harles and ’Dward were now looking it over. They had never seen its like either.

  “Keep it,” Max said. “It’s never done me any good. Perhaps you’ll find its match, or its use.”

  Ay’r pocketed the small, flat object. “One more question, Max,” he said. “How do we find the Recorder?”

  “The Recorder?”

  “Yes, Oudma told me that, next to yourself, the Recorder is the wisest on Dryland.”

  “The last Recorder I noted – well, wait a minute – he might still be alive. Yes, possibly. An apprentice never arrived here to … it is possible. You’ll have to go to the Mountains of Capin. Find the three peaks, and amid them is where his observatory will be.”

  “At an observatory?” P’al tried.

  “An observatory high over the clouds of Dryland. From which he looks out, observing the skies and ocean.”

  Ay’r had had enough mystery today. “Max, are you programmed to produce holograms?”

  “Why, yes, I believe I am, although I haven’t produced one in ages.”

  “Project a hologram of continental Pelagia which includes this site as well as that of the observatory.”

  “Three-dimensional,” P’al put in. “In relief. A meter cubic. With appropriate coloring and demarcation of all salient features.” And as he saw it beginning to form at the bench, and Alli Clark got up, “Sharpen and focus it, and provide us with orange lines for the easiest route.”

  It was a rectangular section ranging from the Delta down across the widest section of New River plain to steeply ascending mountains right at the continent’s southernmost edge. Clear passage was demarcated in orange until the foothills, where it became quite complicated, although the three high peaks with the observatory were clearly marked out.

  “It’s like looking down from the Monosilla Plateau!” ’Dward observed. “Only from higher up.”

  “I only wish we could take a holo of that section with us into the mountains,” Ay’r said.

  “Let ’Dward remember it,” Oudma said. “He has a wonderful memory for sights and places.”

  “Truly” ’Harles agreed. “As a boy, he would bury a toy in a lichen pasture and go directly to it weeks later, without faltering.”

  So both P’al and ’Dward memorized the section of the holo.

  By now there was a considerable ruckus outside the room. Max admitted that it was his acolytes, whom he had locked out.

  “We’d better get going then,” Ay’r said. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Anytime,” Max responded. “It’s been a real pleasure to talk to someone … who could talk back. It’s been years!”

  Then, as the hammering on the door increased, the doors were unlocked, slapped open, and the Voice & Eyes boomed, “These visitors are under my express protection. Make certain they have what they wish for their journey.”

  “Grand to the last,” Ay’r murmured, and the others tried not to snigger as a chastened guerdon of acolytes and priests accompanied them out of the sanctum, down the conveyance stairs, and up the avenue to the gatehouse.

  Chapter Six

  There was something almost mocking about the serenity of this evening on Melisande. For the fifth time in an hour, Gemma Guo-Rinne snapped off the Inter. Gal. Comm. before flinging herself onto a floating chaise.

  It had been over a week Sol Rad. since Diad had been deported to Hesperia, since she had returned to her apartments, packed, grabbed Jenn-Four, and arrived back at the Fast port, on her way to Deneb XII, only to discover that no flights were going there. Since then, no commercial flights had left Melisande for the resort world. Naturally, Rinne had immediately used whatever influence her position and reputation had supposedly accumulated to wrest passage on one of the several MC Security flights to the now-controversial planet. Without success. She’d even tried Wicca Eighth Herself. But the Matriarch had simply snorted that typical contemptuous half laugh and said, “The situation is well in hand without you, Councilor Rinne. Concentrate on the business We have decided for you.”

  She had concentrated upon it, to little avail. Was ever a Cyber put through so many permutations before? Poor Jenn-Four had scoured the molecular structure of virtually every female who had stepped into the Arcturus System containing the Mammalogical Institute; then had turned her calculations upon a half dozen worlds where Ferrex Sanqq’ had been in the years before to just after his tenure at the institute. Operation Needle in a Haystack, the Cyber called her work, and it was all the more galling to Rinne because every time she looked at a holo of Ay’r, she knew without being able to put her finger on it that she had once known whom he resembled.

  Naturally, there had been other projects to collate for the Matriarchy. She was now able to put together and relate to one another virtually all of the vast network of attempts to find a cure for the microvirus, using a link to the MC’s own giant banks of computers, and she was able to report, if not success, then at least a minimum of duplicated efforts and wasted energy. And she was able to follow those so-called secret projects the MC was continuing.

  The one she had watched most closely was Eden-Breed, the Matriarchy’s final effort at self-preservation by sending a few hundred women untouched by the virus out of the galaxy itself, presumably to a star in one of the globular clusters far beyond the spiral. That project continued apace, naturally, given the emphasis placed on it by the Maudlin Se’ers and certain elements within the MC itself.

  Not that Rinne – or anyone else connected to the project – was working without distractions. Since that first, stunning holo from Hesperia, the Inter. Gal. News Service seemed to be going haywire. Rinne couldn’t remember the last time that Matriarchal news had been so constant, so provocative, or of so much content.

  The deportation of the Hesperian nationals from Melisande had been decried by the Quinx and the Orion Spur Federation, but also, and more surprising, by some voices within the Matriarchy itself, who called it an unwarranted provocation. When, a day later, a universal Trans. Gal. Comm. had gone out from Wicca Eighth, hinting at the need to eliminate all possible sources of espionage, another notch of excitable galactic furor had been raised. As a result, the Quinx itself now regularly took over the airwaves whenever it wanted, with transmissions of its own propaganda to counter those of the Matriarchy. Seldom in Rinne’s rather long memory had there been so many transmissions, so much news on so many different fronts, available to the inhabitants of the Matriarchal worlds.

  The most sensational had been a series of reports from Deneb XII itself, where Hesperian holo-journalists – unhindered as Rinne herself had been by the MC bureaucracy – ranged freely over the resort world, throughout its towns and cities, within meters of Alpheron Spa itself, now heavily guarded by contingents of MC Security forces. Those transmissions had been watched with fascination by every woman on Regulus Prime eager to know what exactly was going on at the spa, and exactly how much the Matriarch was hiding. Denied entrance to the spa itself, the journalists had tried various ruses to gain entrance. All of them transmitted, no matter how ludicrous or dangerous. Stopped on every side, the journalists then focused upon the population of Deneb XII. And struck a rich vein of both news and propaganda. Following the Bella=Arth. War, the planet had been slowly settled by Humes, among them more than a few fo
rmer warriors and their families, and eventually by returned Bella=Arth.s who had been offworld at the time of the great defeat.

  Although Hesperia had tried for years to sell the place as a resort world and had built a variety of resorts, as well as funding the gigantic Hymenoptolis Museum, the population of Deneb XII had remained low, its demographics constant – resembling far more what one expected from a recently discovered “pioneer world” than a resort world.

  Light industry and dry agriculture accounted for the bulk of Deneb XII’s GNP, and the inhabitants – male and female, Hume and Arth. – interviewed by the Hesperian news team expressed the conservative – even reactionary – viewpoints of any pioneer world population. Looked like them, too: the broad tall women in sand-pitted, stained Plastro agro. air-suits, their spare and work-worn spouses of both genders, and their gaggles of sunburned, labor-hardened children.

  When they spoke, they did so quietly, but with strong conviction, often referring to the Treaty of Formalhaut and even more frequently to the rights of settlers and freeworlders. Their words were as spare as the landscape against which they were always holographed, the inevitable ancient Bella=Arth. city-nest ruins in the background, the orange and blue suns casting an unforgiving white light upon their hard and handsome faces. All of them – Hume or Arth. – were pained by the allegations of interspecies breeding, by the possibility that their most cherished beliefs were being betrayed in their midst by their own government. It was fine reportage, Rinne had to admit, and did more for the Hesperian cause than anything the Quinx might say or do.

  But she had had enough comm.s from Deneb XII and Hesperia and Melisande; she had had enough rumors along the MC grapevine. Rinne needed to discover for herself the truth to the rumors and be able to report it back to the semiannual council when it met a week Sol Rad. from now, where she was certain Wicca Eighth would be already well prepared with Her own denials.

  Rinne knew it was foolish, possibly suicidal to her career in the MC. But did that matter so much now? She had never been as ambitious as many women around her to begin with. Perhaps that was how she had risen so fast, so far. Unwatched by the others as they constantly jostled and undercut one another in MC politics, she had been given enough time and space to do her work freely, and thus a bit more thoroughly than others. And, after a while, she had come to be valued by some of those other, more ambitious women because she didn’t take sides, but held aloof, couldn’t be bothered by politics. That was why Wicca Eighth had chosen her for the current post – because of Rinne’s impeccable ethics – without in the least realizing that same sense of ethics could be turned, laserlike, against Herself and Her policies.