P’al went on, “The next conjunction, of five moons, because it occurred in a more concentrated area of orbits, would have pried loose a larger chunk of ice and pulled it deeper into the orbital area. Thus the ‘murder’ of the fourth moon. Tonight’s conjunction of four moons will pry loose another icesteroid and this time it will be even larger and will be drawn even closer to the planet. Note that the periods between grand conjunctions shorten as the factor of their conjunction is shortened. The first was approximately four thousand years ago, the second fifteen hundred years ago. The next will be three hundred years in the future.”
“Yet the combined gravitational pull of the moons is decreased each time one is destroyed!” Alli Clark protested. “Why isn’t it that the icesteroids pried loose and drawn in are smaller.”
“You forget that Pelagia is virtually the only gravitational object in their system. With each moon gone, not only does Pelagia receive more water and thus more mass, but the lunar system is rebalanced closer to the planet itself, to reflect its increased mass relative to the satellites remaining.”
“So following the conjunction to come in three hundred years, we can probably posit that the icesteroids drawn will be even larger or more in number, and they will no doubt enter orbit between the innermost moon and the planet.”
“Capin will be knocked out of orbit.”
“And the conjunction of the two remaining moons will be about ninety years after that. The icesteroids more numerous. They should fall directly onto Pelagia.”
“After that, ice falling onto the planet should become regular. The planet will grow with water, increasing in mass, pulling the other moons ever closer, drawing even more ice, until all the moons are destroyed, all the ice drawn in – a constant bombardment – which won’t end until the entire ice ring is gone.”
“It will become a gigantic fountain,” Alli Clark mused.
“Until the heavy hydrogen outer ring is completely used up.”
“Which will take scores of centuries. Meanwhile, there will be water for billions. For trillions!”
“And the end of this Hume culture,” Ay’r reminded them. “The most rapid Seedling culture ever developed. A unique ecologically modified Hume culture.”
“It will mean the end of all the land,” P’al added. “Save for a few mountaintops, it will become a water world.”
“Dryland’s end.” Ay’r intoned the dark words.
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But not of all the people on this world. A completely maritime culture might be devised for the survivors.”
“It hasn’t happened so far. How would it happen in so short a time?”
“One may already be in place,” P’al declared. “The Gods. Why are they stealing children? Perhaps they know what’s about to happen. Perhaps they’re saving them.”
“The jury is still out on these so-called Gods,” Ay’r said. “Let’s rest. I don’t want to miss this conjunction.”
“I wouldn’t miss seeing the moons tonight for anything!” Alli Clark said and, lest she sound too girlish, added quickly, “Think of the experience for ’Harles!”
“Think of the experience for all of us,” Ay’r said.
Ay’r hadn’t been aware that he had dozed off. Only now, as he awakened with a start did he realize it. The others were spread out on the comfortable sofa-seats: Oudma, Alli Clark, ’Harles. Like him, they must have fallen into the temptation of such luxury, following days of hard sleeping places, to nap after the dinner given in their honor at the underground lodgings of the Mycophages. ’Dward, of course, had wanted to remain a bit longer with Oo-lol-oo to try the drugged mushroom which could allow him to communicate fully with the Myco.-folk. He was probably still there, fatigued from the experience, asleep.
At night the observatory was as transparent as during the day: dim yet not black. And now Ay’r saw why. One moon was almost directly overhead, small, gleaming white. That would be the distant Filoscop, which they had seen rising earlier, at the time of their arrival. Not far from it was another satellite, larger, darker. Could that be Jatoto? No, the Recorder had told them Jatoto was spotted; it must be Trilufu, the Henchman. Yes, because there was the spotted moon, its darker features – craters most likely – displayed clearly. All three moons occupied only ten degrees of the heavens, and they all appeared to lie upon the same ecliptic. Yet, to Ay’r, their placement made it seem unlikely that they could form the true conjunction, the four-part eclipse the Recorder had declared would occur tonight. Perhaps there was some distortion in Pelagia’s atmosphere that explained why it all seemed so improbable. P’al would know the reason. But P’al was not here.
Ay’r got up quietly and moved away from the others so as not to awaken them. The Recorder was visible at the far end of the observatory – a silhouette against the night – tipped back in his chair to look up at the moons. P’al wasn’t anywhere here.
The Recorder must have heard Ay’r’s footsteps. He repositioned his chair and gestured. Almost in a whisper, he said, “Your friend left an hour ago Sol Rad.”
“Did you see where he went?” Ay’r asked.
The Recorder spun his chair and pointed almost due west. “If any of the Myco.-folk saw him, none remarked on it,” the Recorder offered. “I found him after a search. Do you want to see?”
Ay’r knew that P’al must be at his T-pod again. But just to make certain, he watched as the Recorder unsnapped the oddly shaped prismatic visor, lifted it off the chair, and showed Ay’r how to place it over his own head.
It seemed oddly lightweight for such thick-looking glass or plastic. Ay’r followed the Recorder’s directions. The visor sat lightly on the very tips of his ears. He had to close his eyes. When he opened them, he saw that the bright glare was strongly reflected light on phosphorescence: foam on the waves out in the ocean, magnified so greatly that he could see the shapes of the tiny algae which illuminated the foam. He told the Recorder what he was seeing.
“Your eyes are far stronger than mine. I’ll adjust it down a bit. Now turn left slightly – more – there. Now what do you see?”
Exactly what Ay’r had thought to see: P’al inside the webbing of the T-pod, as though asleep, his fingers working the wrist control.
He told the Recorder what he was seeing and added, “I wish I knew what he was reporting.”
“I believe those signals can be intercepted,” the Recorder said.
“Without his knowledge?”
“For days now, this Cyber has been afflicted with signal noise. I’ve spent much time and effort blocking it out. Surely I ought to be able to make it audible.”
“Try at forty-five thousand megahertz,” Ay’r suggested.
Instantly he heard the familiar voice of the Fast’s mind speaking, saying, “... will be attempted; but without exact information as to the precise nature and timing of the mechanism involved, naturally, no results can be guaranteed.”
And P’al answering back, “Given all that’s been outlined to you, can’t you make a probability chart and extrapolate from that?”
“The curve is too wide. Too many inexplicable factors,” the Fast’s mind replied.
“Work on it!” P’al ordered curtly. “This information is vital for the mission. Convey all this new data to your base. I’ll check back.”
He ended the conversation.
Ay’r watched him detach his wrist from the T-pod’s connection to the Fast, exit, close the T-pod, and watch as it ascended out over the cliff where it had alighted and toward the ocean, obviously up to the Fast. P’al was already loping back along the ridge that enclosed the promontory, headed back to the observatory – hoping, no doubt, that his absence hadn’t been noticed.
It was time P’al became aware that his absence had been noted.
Ay’r returned the visor to the Recorder and climbed the webwork ladder down to the outside. He wanted to confront P’al away from the observatory, where the others couldn’t hear.
Despite the triply bright m
oonlight upon the landscape, P’al was only a few meters away when he saw Ay’r.
“What’s your hurry?”
Before P’al could respond, Ay’r said, “Please don’t demean both of us by telling me you were out for a moonlight stroll.”
“The fourth moon has risen.” P’al turned and pointed in the direction he’d come from. Ay’r now saw Capin, the innermost moon, gibbous and blue-white, rising over the ocean.
“You’ve been in contact with the Fast’s mind ever since we landed,” Ay’r said. “You report in every night. Don’t deny it. I saw you do it while we were in Bogland.”
P’al remained silent.
“Once,” Ay’r went on, “I asked you what your mission was. Who you were working for. At that time, you put me off. No more.”
“There is much to this mission you may not understand,” P’al said.
“Alli Clark told me a great deal,” Ay’r countered. “About the Cyber Rebellion. The microvirus. The search for a cure. The reason for our presence here – which has nothing to do with water.”
P’al was silent.
“I know why we’re searching for my father. I also know that Alli Clark suspects you and your motives. She doesn’t believe we’re all working toward the same end.”
“The same end, definitely,” P’al said.
“But not for the same side, “Ay’r made the distinction.
“How can there be sides when all Humeity is at stake?”
Ay’r refused to deal with that nonsense. “Answer me straight out, P’al. Are you working for the Cyber Rebellion?”
“Why would I?”
“Why? Or how?” Ay’r asked. “The why is irrelevant. The how is clear: You join our mission to find a cure for the microvirus; then you make sure it is never delivered.”
“There is no cure,” P’al said. “In all likelihood, a simple serum exists that the Cyber rebels possess. I suspect it merely keeps the virus from being activated in the first place. But with an infinitely mutating virus, there is no cure – can be no cure.”
“Is it your mission to find the serum and destroy it?”
“No. If the serum is found, it will be accidental,” P’al said.
“You seem very certain of that,” Ay’r remarked.
“Given the flatness of the probability curve in this situation, it’s the only way a serum can be found.”
“Then what are we doing here?”
“We’re looking for an alternative reproduction method. After all, that was what your father and his colleagues were working on. That was why he was discredited and forced to flee.”
“An alternative?” Ay’r asked. “How?”
“Let me ask you a question, Ser Kerry. You told me that, back in Bogland, you witnessed an abduction by the Gods. You said they injected something into all of the youths but one. That one was deemed almost right for their purposes and was taken away. Have you wondered what was injected into those youths?”
Ay’r had wondered and watched ’Dward for any outward signs of its effect; he hadn’t been able to discover a connection.
“No signs at all?” P’al probed. “’Dward is in no way different from how he was before the injection?”
“If so, I don’t know how.”
“Haven’t you’ve noticed how he looks at you?” P’al said. “How he can’t take his eyes off you?”
Ay’r had noticed. “He’s thrilled by the adventure. He told me –”
“And what of his sister? ’Dward and she almost never speak these days. And when they do, he criticizes her, snaps at her.”
“Are you telling me that ’Dward and those other youths were injected with a love potion?" Ay’r scoffed. “Or with an aphrodisiac?”
“Do you recall Varko, the youth abducted under your paralyzed gaze, Ser Kerry,” P’al asked. “The one deemed ‘ready’ for abduction.”
Ay’r remembered Varko, and said so.
“I spoke to his family at great length about Varko after he was taken,” P’al said. “They all said that Varko had become much changed in the past months and especially in the weeks before he was taken. Before, Varko had been a slender lad, quick moving, quick thinking, given to mischief and pranks, a leader among his set, and very flirtatious with females. But lately Varko had slowed down considerably. His weight hadn’t changed, yet the distribution of his weight had altered markedly, according to his father, who had watched the youth dressing and bathing. In the last weeks before he was kidnapped, Varko had become softer. His previously loose clothing had become skintight on his legs and arms, and he had gone from being agile and athletic to sensual, voluptuous. As I was leaving, Varko’s father had whispered to me of his recent difficulty in keeping his hands off Varko; his difficulty keeping himself from sexual thoughts about his son – who, in turn, seemed to encourage them. You already know from the Ib’rs that same-sex love is frowned upon on Pelagia. So this was quite disturbing to Varko’s father. As was the fact that the youth had lost all interest in females and kept close to only two male friends.”
As Ay’r listened, he remembered more: Varko flirting with ’Dward, how almost femininely pretty he had seemed to Ay’r, and what the others on the peat wagon had said about him, laughing, half embarrassed, half accepting their old friend, yet unsure what to make of him. As though they, too, were sharing Varko’s new feelings, yet ...
“I spoke to the fathers of other sons kidnapped in the Bogland,” P’al went on. “They all reported the same circumstances: their sons changing physically and emotionally – flirting with them, daring them, sometimes cajoling and even forcing them to touch their bodies, causing fights among older men ... no longer active and rowdy, but as though ... as though, one father said to me, his son had become a daughter.”
“Are you suggesting that the injections are female hormones?”
“More than hormones. A complex DMA-constructed neural-hormonal mixture. Recall that in Bogland all the male youths were thicker bodied and sturdier than their mountain valley brothers. All of us noted it. Next, think about their enclosed and limited range, compared to Monosilla youths. And how easy it would be if someone like the so-called Gods were experimenting on them. It would be much easier to locate them again within the confines of the bowl. Then consider the benefits of that method, Ser Kerry, as opposed to kidnapping the boys and having them around for months before they’re ready.”
“Your points are well taken, but ready? Ready for what?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You do have an idea, don’t you?” Ay’r asked. “With all the females in Dryland, why make the males more feminine? Is there some Relfian principle at work here? Precisely what aspect of mammalian reproduction was my father working on when he disappeared?”
“I don’t know, but whatever it was Wicca Eighth thought it sufficiently dangerous when the idea was still theoretical that She had your father discredited from the Mammalian Institute on Arcturus and hounded out of all Matriarchal scientific establishments. Let me remind you: that occurred long before any experiments were known to have taken place.”
“But if that’s so, then why would She send us to find him now?” Ay’r asked.
“That’s a question you will have to ask Mer Alli Clark. I have no idea what the secret nature of her mission is. Perhaps it’s merely to discover if your father followed through on Relfi’s theories. Perhaps, if he has been successful, her mission is to destroy him and his work once and for all.”
“And not use it to save the species?” Ay’r asked and stopped. “Why am I arguing with you? Either you know as little as I do, or you’ve extrapolated something so radical from a few suggestive data that you don’t want to tell me. Possibly because I’d find it incredible. And furthermore, you still haven’t answered my original question. Do you work for the Cyber rebels?”
“Unequivocally no!”
“For the Matriarchy?”
“Although that is what the Matriarchy has always thought, again, no.”
/> Who else was there? The Oppos., Alli Clark had suspected. Meaning Hesperia and the Orion Spur Federation, which together had checked the Matriarchy for centuries, keeping it from going too far, becoming too extreme. But of course that could simply be official Matriarchal paranoia.
“You’re a high MC Official, aren’t you?” Ay’r tried. “Yet you admit you don’t work for the Matriarchy.”
“I have and I still might have, had I ever known the true purpose of this mission,” P’al said without emotion.
“How did you get onto the mission in the first place?”
“On the basis of my loyalty and experience and problem-solving skills. And on the precise basis that I never know the mission’s true purpose.”
“But ... whom do you serve?” Ay’r asked.
“Since the moment we met,” P’al said with the tiniest of bows, “I serve you, Ser Kerry. And shall serve you until you tell me not to.”
“Me? Of all the Humes in the galaxy, why me?”
“Because, like the Monosilla Truth-Sayer, I believe you to be the most important Hume born in three thousand millennia.”
“That’s no answer!” Ay’r protested.
“Apologies! It’s the only one I have. The others are awake. I hear them calling,” P’al said, and left Ay’r standing there as he loped toward the web ladder.
Oudma had gone down the ladder and was waving. Now she shouted, “Ay’r! The Recorder said the time is approaching. Would you find my brother and bring him back? Gratitude!” She blew him a kiss and ascended into the observatory before P’al.
“The most important Hume born in three thousand millennia, and I’m sent on an errand to find a sleeping boy!” Ay’r sneered, then laughed at the absurdity of it all.
“Let’s not go inside yet!” ’Dward said, once they had emerged from the Mycophages’ underground shelter.
“I thought you didn’t want to miss the conjunction!” Ay’r argued.
“We can see it from out here,” ’Dward insisted.
“Are you sure that Myco.-drug has completely worn off?” Ay’r’ asked.
Dryland's End Page 42
