Worldmakers

by Gardner Dozois

  “I do,” she said simply. “And now you do.”

  “I think you had better tell it from the top.”

  She did, and it all stood up, bizarre as it was.

  Dorothy and Jubilant’s mother (my mother!) had been members of a religious sect called the First Principles. I gathered they had a lot of screwy ideas, but the screwiest one of all had to do with something called the “nuclear family.” I don’t know why they called it that, maybe because it was invented in the era when nuclear power was first harnessed. What it consisted of was a mother and a father, both living in the same household, and dozens of kids.

  The First Principles didn’t go that far; they still adhered to the One Person–One Child convention—and a damn good thing, too, or they might have been lynched instead of queasily tolerated—but they liked the idea of both biological parents living together to raise the two children.

  So Dorothy and Gleam (that was her name; they were Glitter and Gleam back in Luna) “married,” and Gleam took on the female role for the first child. She conceived it, birthed it, and named it Jubilant.

  Then things started to fall apart, as any sane person could have told them it would. I don’t know much history, but I know a little about the way things were back on Old Earth. Husbands killing wives, wives killing husbands, parents beating children, wars, starvation—all those things. I don’t know how much of that was the result of the nuclear family, but it must have been tough to “marry” someone and find out too late that it was the wrong someone. So you took it out on the children. I’m no sociologist, but I can see that much.

  Their relationship, while it may have glittered and gleamed at first, went steadily downhill for three years. It got to the point where Glitter couldn’t even share the same planet with his spouse. But he loved the child and had even come to think of her as his own. Try telling that to a court of law. Modern jurisprudence doesn’t even recognize the concept of fatherhood, any more than it would recognize the divine right of kings. Glitter didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. The child belonged to Gleam.

  But my mother (foster mother, I couldn’t yet bring myself to say father) found a compromise. There was no use mourning the fact that he couldn’t take Jubilant with him. He had to accept that. But he could take a piece of her. That was me. So he moved to Mercury with the cloned child, changed his sex, and brought me up to adulthood, never saying a word about First Principles.

  I was calming down as I heard all this, but it was certainly a revelation. I was full of questions, and for a time survival was forgotten.

  “No, Dorothy isn’t a member of the church any longer. That was one of the causes of the split. As far as I know, Gleam is the only member today. It didn’t last very long. The couples who formed the church pretty much tore each other apart in marital strife. That was why the court granted my divorce; Gleam kept trying to force her religion on me, and when I told my friends about it, they laughed at me. I didn’t want that, even at age ten, and told the court I thought my mother was crazy. The court agreed.”

  “So … so Dorothy hasn’t had her one child yet. Do you think she can still have one? What are the legalities of that?”

  “Pretty cut-and-dried, according to Dorothy. The judges don’t like it, but it’s her birthright, and they can’t deny it. She managed to get permission to have you grown because of a loophole in the law, since she was going to Mercury and would be out of the jurisdiction of the Lunar courts. The loophole was closed shortly after you left. So you and I are pretty unique. What do you think about that?”

  “I don’t know. I think I’d rather have a normal family. What do I say to Dorothy now?”

  She hugged me, and I loved her for that. I was feeling young and alone. Her story was still settling in, and I was afraid of what my reaction might be when I had digested it.

  “I wouldn’t tell her anything. Why should you? She’ll probably get around to telling you before you leave for the cometary zone, but if she doesn’t, what of it? What does it matter? Hasn’t she been a mother to you? Do you have any complaints? Is the biological fact of motherhood all that important? I think not. I think love is more important, and I can see that it was there.”

  “But she’s my father! How do I relate to that?”

  “Don’t even try. I suspect that fathers loved their children in pretty much the same way mothers did, back when fatherhood was more than just insemination.”

  “Maybe you’re right. I think you’re right.” She held me close in the dark.

  “Of course I’m right.”

  Three hours later there was a rumble and the violet glow surrounded us again.

  We walked into the sunlight hand in hand. The rescue crew was there to meet us, grinning and patting us on the back. They filled our tanks, and we enjoyed the luxury of wasting oxygen to drive away the sweat.

  “How bad was it?” I asked the rescue boss.

  “Medium-sized. You two are some of the last to be dug out. Did you have a hard time in there?”

  I looked at Jubilant, who acted as though she had just been resurrected from the dead, grinning like a maniac. I thought about it.

  “No. No trouble.”

  We climbed the rocky slope and I looked back. The quake had dumped several tons of rock into quicksilver gully. Worse still, the natural dam at the lower end had been destroyed. Most of the mercury had drained out into the broader valley below. It was clear that quicksilver grotto would never be the magic place it had been in my youth. That was a sad thing. I had loved it, and it seemed that I was leaving a lot behind me down there.

  I turned my back on it and walked toward the house and Dorothy.

  Shall We Take a Little Walk?

  GREGORY BENFORD

  Gregory Benford is one of the modern giants of the field. His 1980 novel Timescape won the Nebula Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award, and the Australian Ditmar Award, and is widely considered to be one of the classic novels of the last two decades. His other novels include a terraforming novel, Beyond Jupiter, as well as The Stars in Shroud, In the Ocean of Night, Against Infinity, Artifact, and Across the Sea of Suns, Great Sky River, Tides of Light, Furious Gulf, Sailing Bright Eternity, and Cosm. His short work has been collected in Matter’s End. His most recent books are a new addition to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, Foundation’s Fear; a major new solo novel, The Martian Race; a nonfiction collection, Deep Time; and a new collection of his short fiction, Worlds Vast and Various. Benford is a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine.

  Here he takes us along with some men toiling to terraform the frozen surface of Ganymede, men out on a routine inspection tour who run into a lot more trouble than they could possibly have bargained for … and make a find that could change the future of humanity forever.

  Salutations! I am asked to recall certain events of my youth. This recording is made solely for historical purposes; any commercial exploitation is forbidden by the Laws covering the Plentitude of the Artifact.

  The distant time I shall describe will seem odd indeed, to those not schooled in such matters, so the Hosts have asked me to permit a cerebral tap. I am told this will enable this ferrofax to plumb my dim, distant past directly. Delicate magnetic fields will probe the ancient cells of my cortex and coax forth the Matt Bohles who still lives on there.

  Yet another wonder! The Historiographers have many tools. I need hardly point out, I hope, that the tap is yet another device we have gained from the Plentitude.

  Before the tap begins, I remind you that my youth was spent on a Ganymede vastly different. As our shuttle ship dropped toward the surface, the young Matt Bohles gazed down upon blue ice, and frost that clung to the poles. At the equator was a thick belt of bare brown rock. Rivers sliced across the vast plains cutting through the rims of ancient icy craters. The carved valleys were choked with a pale ruddy fog, and naked peaks jutted above them.

  The Ganymede atmosphere building had
just begun. A group of us was sent down for both relaxation and training. We had been in the orbiting laboratory—the Can—long enough. Sadly, Jupiter exploration was being cut back. There was open competition for the remaining permanent posts. Soon the Argosy would sail for Earth, and those who did not qualify would go on her.

  There was only one position open in my area. Several contested it. In particular, Yuri Sagdaeff.

  Yuri I can recall with ease, without the tap. He was beefy and tall. He swaggered. He had narrow pig eyes and a perpetual little smirk, as if …

  No, no, I fear some of the old emotions still stir in me. Let me merely say that Yuri and I were in competition, and Yuri was making it easy to let the matter become personal. Yet the luck of the draw assigned us to the same Walker. We were ordered to carry out routine maintenance on the automatic stations dotting Ganymede. We were to spend cramped weeks together.

  I … ah, but I see the engineer with his coils and lattices, beckoning. The tap should begin …

  —glittering blue sprinkling of light—

  —crunch of boots on pink snow—

  Suited, I walked through the scattered ceramic buildings of Ganymede base. The Walker squatted on its six legs, seven meters off the ground. Ruddy light shone through the big, curved windows of the bubble on top. I could see the driver’s seat through the largest one. Beneath, almost lost in the jumble of hydraulic valves and rocker arms, the entrance ladder was folded down.

  The Walker was bright blue, for contrast against the reddish-brown dirty ice. Beneath the forward antenna snout was a neatly printed Perambulatin’ Puss. Everybody called her the Cat.

  “Morning!” I recognized Captain Vandez’s voice even over suit radio. He and Yuri walked up to the Cat from the other side of the base. I said hello. Yuri made a little mock salute at me.

  “Well, you boys should be able to handle her,” Captain Vandez said. He slapped the side of the Cat. “The ole Puss will take good care of you as long as you treat her right. Replenish your air and water reserves at every way station—don’t try to skip one and push on to the next, ’cause you won’t make it. If you fill up at a station and then go to sleep, be sure to top off the tanks before you leave; even sleeping uses up air. And no funny business—stick to the route and make your radio contacts back here sharp on the hour.”

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Bohles?”

  “It seems to me I’ve had more experience with the Walker than Yuri, here, so—”

  “Well, more experience, yes. You have taken her out before. But Sagdaeff practiced all yesterday afternoon with her and I have been quite impressed with his ability. He has more overall experience, as well. I think you should follow his advice when any question comes up,” he said impatiently.

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t say anything.

  Captain Vandez didn’t notice my deliberate silence. He clapped us both on the back, in turn, and handed Yuri a sealed case. “Here are your marching orders. Follow the maps and keep your eyes open.”

  With that he turned and hurried away. “Let’s move it,” Yuri said, and led the way to the ladder. We climbed up and I sealed the hatch behind us.

  This would be home for the next five days. It was crammed with instruments and storage. There were fiber optics in the floor so we could check on the legs. Sunlight streaming in lit up the cabin and paled the phosphor panels in the ceiling.

  We shucked our suits and laid out the maps on the chart table. I took the driver’s seat and quickly went through the board check. The lightweight nuclear engine mounted below our deck was fully charged; it would run for years without anything more than an occasional replacement of the circulating fluid elements.

  “Why don’t you start her off?” Yuri said. “I want to study the maps.”

  I nodded and slid over to the driver’s place. I clicked a few switches and the board in front of me came alive. Red lights winked to green and I revved up the engine. I made the Walker kneel down a few times to warm up the hydraulic fluids. It’s hard to remember that the legs of the Cat are working at temperatures a hundred degrees below freezing, when you’re sitting in a toasty cabin. It can be dangerous to forget.

  While I was doing this I looked out at the life dome rising in the distance. I could pick out people sledding down a hill, and further away a crowd in a snowball fight. A scramble like that is more fun on Ganymede than on Earth; somebody a hundred yards away can pick you off with an accurate shot, because low gravity extends the range of your throwing arm. We don’t have anything really spectacular on Ganymede in the way of recreation—nothing like the caverns of Luna, where people fly around in updrafts, using wings strapped to their backs—but what there is has a lot of zip.

  I engaged the engine and the Cat lurched forward. The legs moved methodically, finding the level of the ground and adjusting to it. Gyros kept us upright and shock absorbers cushioned our cabin against the rocking and swaying.

  I clicked on the Cat’s magnetic screen. The life-dome area has buried superconductors honeycombing the area, creating a magnetic web. As the Cat left the fringes of that field, we needed more protection from the steady rain of energetic protons. They sleet down on Ganymede from the Van Allen belts. A few hours without protection would fry us. Cat’s walls contained superconducting hydrogen threads carrying high currents. They produce a strong magnetic field outside, which turns incoming charged particles and deflects them.

  I took us away from the base at a steady thirty klicks an hour. We cast a shadow like a marching spider on the slate-gray valley wall. Jupiter squatted square in the middle of the sky, like a striped watermelon.

  “By the way, that little maneuver back there didn’t get you any points with Vandez,” Yuri said dryly.

  “What?”

  “Skip the crap. Listen, you try to undermine me again and I’ll take you off at the knees.”

  “Ummm. Just seemed to me that if you don’t know much about Walkers, you shouldn’t be running one.”

  “What’s to know? I picked up the whole thing in a few hours’ practice. Here, get out of the seat.” He waved me away gruffly.

  I stopped the Cat and Yuri slid into the driver’s chair. We had reached the end of the valley and were heading over a low rise. Here and there ammonia ice clung to the shadows.

  Yuri started us forward, staying close to the usual path. The whole trick of guiding a Walker is to keep the legs from having to move very far up and down on each step. It’s easier for the machine to inch up a grade than to charge over it.

  So the first thing Yuri did was march us directly up the hill. The legs started straining to keep our cabin level, and a whining sound filled the air. The Cat teetered. It lunged forward. Then it stopped and died.

  “Hey!” Yuri said.

  “Shouldn’t be surprised,” I said. “She’s just doing what any self-respecting machine does when it’s asked to perform the impossible. She’s gone on strike. The automatic governor cut in.”

  Yuri said something incoherent and got up. I took over again and backed us off slowly. Then I nudged the Cat around the base of the hill until I found the signs of a winding path previous Walkers had left. Within fifteen minutes we were in the next valley, its hills lit with the rosy glow of the sun filtering through a thin ammonia cloud overhead.

  We made good time; I did most of the driving. We stayed overnight at way stations. They were automatic chem separators, pulling water and ammonia molecules apart to make air plus useful working gases. I took care of the hoses, filling A and B and C tanks while Yuri took local samples and kept the Walker in shape.

  Our route ran through the old Nicholson Region. We wove through wrinkled valleys of tumbled stone and pink snowdrifts, keeping an eye open for anything unusual. Ganymede was a huge snowball, steadily tugged by Jupiter. The tidal effects stir the slush interior. The churning fluids inside push the surface. Great slabs of frozen ice and ammonia slide over each other, trying to compensate and never getting it
right: ice tectonics. They grind and butt and send shuddering quakes rippling all through the moon.

  Ganymede is heating up. It’s not all ice, of course—billions of years of meterorites have salted the crust, and there was a lot of rock to start with. Otherwise, we’d melt the whole world.

  We avoided the areas near the fusion plants. The big ones burn hell-for-leather; you get flash floods and churning rivers. The warm water carries heat to neighboring areas and they melt too.

  There’s a limit to the method, though. If you’re not careful, your fusion plants will melt their way into Ganymede and get drowned. Ganymede is a big snowball, not a solid world at all. It’s mostly water. There’s an ice crust about seventy klicks thick, with rock scattered through it like raisins in a pudding. Below that crust Ganymede is slush, a milkshake of water and ammonia and pebbles. There’s a solid core, far down inside, with enough uranium in it to keep the slush from freezing.

  So the fusion plants don’t sit in one place. They’re big caterpillars, crawling endlessly outward from the equator. Their computer programs make them seek the surest footing over the outcroppings of rock—only they run on tracks, not feet. We saw one creeping over a ridgeline in the distance, making about a hundred meters in an hour, sucking in ice and spewing an ammonia-water creek out the tail. It carried a bright orange balloon on top. If it melts its surroundings too fast and gets caught in a lake, it will float until a team can come to fish it out.

  A few decades and there will be a thick atmosphere. A few more and there’ll be a Hilton, and it’ll be time to move on.

  Things got worse with Yuri. He rubbed me the wrong way. He was big and clumsy and the cabin was small. Worse, he was careless.

  The third day, we went out to check a sensor package. It monitored ecochanges from the melting. Something had made it stop sending.

  When we got to within hiking distance Yuri and I went out. The Walker couldn’t scale the steep grade. We came up on the sensor and the trouble was obvious. A fist-sized chunk had lodged in the collector, probably thrown there by some distant shifting among the hills.