Sea of Silver Light o-4

by Tad Williams

  "What about you, Mr. Sellars?" she asked, stilling the last of the questioning voices. "I believe you are a good man. Do you feel comfortable taking on so much responsibility? You can call us a trust, but in the end it's you we will all be trusting. Because we don't have the power you have. You will be God in this new universe."

  "Only for a while," he said. "Because I am working even now to put myself out of a job." He held up a gnarled hand. "Have you wondered why, with all the resources of the Otherland network, I haven't chosen a more attractive appearance? Because this is the real Patrick Sellars—burned, twisted, all but dead. Or it was, until I found a way to lose my crippled body. But I don't want to forget it. You won't see me manifesting as Jove, throwing thunderbolts." He grinned. "Please! I'd kill myself laughing. But it's a serious question, Renie, and the only real answer is . . . no, I don't trust myself with so much power, even if it is power over a universe very few people will ever know about. But I don't know anyone else I would trust with such singular power either. That's why I need you all to help me make decisions."

  "Why me?" asked Bonnie Mae. "I'm not one of your volunteers."

  "You're not only a person of faith, you're a person of good faith," he said. "We need to hear what you bring. In fact, I hope you can convince Nandi Paradivash to come to the next meeting. We need him, too."

  "He's hurting, Mr. Sellars." She shook her head. "He told me he was going back to the burning ground, whatever that means. That he was going to start over."

  "We need him," Sellars said firmly. "Please tell him so." He raised his scarred head. "As I said, I really do want to make myself obsolete. Once things are up and running, these new worlds won't need another God—neither the twisted sort the Grail Brotherhood made or a caretaker deity like me. Besides, I have other ambitions."

  Even Kunohara and Ramsey seemed puzzled by this. "Other ambitions. . . " asked Hideki Kunohara.

  "You saw where the others went," Sellars said. "The new creatures. How they rode the light out into the great unknown. Well, I'm information now, too. One day, when I'm not needed anymore, it will be good to be free to fly again."

  Renie wasn't sure why Catur Ramsey laughed. She thought what Sellars said was very touching. "So . . . so what does this Otherland Trust do?" she asked. "Vote on things?"

  "Yes—in fact we have something to vote on now." Sellars looked over at Sam and Orlando, who were whispering. "Orlando—would you please rise?"

  Renie could not hide a smile. He sounded like a schoolteacher.

  Orlando stood, a strange mixture of barbarian grace and teenage awkwardness. "Have you decided on what you want to call yourself?" Sellars asked him.

  "I think so."

  "But he's already got a name!" It was clear Sam Fredericks had not known this was coming, whatever it was.

  "It's not another name he needs," Sellars told her, "but a title. Whatever happens, the worlds of the network will need lots of supervision, especially at first as we bring them back online. I can't do it all. I considered Kunohara, but he has made it clear he does not wish such an active role. Also, I need to train someone for the long term, teach them some of my responsibilities, as a maintenance man if not as a god—especially if I hope to ride the sky-river-of-light someday, as our absent friends called it. So I need an . . . apprentice, I suppose. Orlando?"

  "I think I want to be called . . . a ranger." Renie thought she saw a blush beneath the deep tan. "I plan to travel a lot, so it makes sense. And to kind of have responsibility for the place, too—like a forest ranger. And . . . and it has another meaning. From a favorite book of mine."

  Sellars nodded. "An excellent choice. But may we at least dignify it with the little 'Head Ranger'?" He Smiled. "Considering that this network was largely the province of one astounding mind, that adds another layer of meaning, too." He turned to the table. "Let us vote. All in favor of Orlando Gardiner as the first Head Ranger of the Otherland network. . . ."

  All the hands went up.

  "Wow, Gardino," Sam Fredericks said in a loud stage-whisper. "Now you're Assistant God!"

  "Yeah, and I never even got a high school education."

  "Enough jokes, you two," Sellars said kindly. "I believe you have another meeting to attend?"

  "Oh, yeah." Orlando's good cheer suddenly evaporated and he was pure nervous adolescent. "Yeah, we do." He and Sam stood up. "Mr. Ramsey, are you coming?"

  "I'm ready," the lawyer told them.

  "But we have come to no conclusion about the network itself," Martine protested. "Surely it is too important a question simply to abandon."

  "It is indeed," Sellars said. "But we have days, perhaps even weeks, to make our decisions. Try to get Nandi Paradivash to come to the next meeting. Let's say in two days, shall we?"

  Renie almost complained that two days was too soon, that some of them had to find jobs, but then she remembered. "About that money. . . ." she said.

  Sellars shook his head, "There's no one to give it back to—I'm dead, remember? If you don't want it, I'm sure you can find a worthy cause that will accept a large donation." He seemed to enjoy her frustration. "And if you remind me, I'll arrange a better way for you to get online next time. You might want to consider getting a neurocannula, unless you have some religious objection."

  By the time Sellars moved off, summoned by Hideki Kunohara for a private chat in one of the adjoining rooms, Orlando, Sam, and Catur Ramsey had already left and the others were all talking—all but Martine, who still sat apart as though she were a stranger at the gathering. Renie squeezed !Xabbu's hand before moving around the table toward her. Martine looked up, but it was impossible to glean anything about the woman's emotional state from her featureless sim.

  "So does the money upset you, too?" Renie asked. I am grateful, I suppose, but it does seem a little highhanded. . . ."

  Martine seemed surprised. "The money? No, Renie, I have scarcely thought of it. I was wealthy already, from my settlement, and . . . and I have few needs. I have already earmarked my share to go to children's charities. It seems appropriate."

  "You can see now, can't you? Is it strange?"

  "A bit." She sat motionless. "I will grow used to it. In time."

  Renie searched for something to keep the conversation going. "There's something I've been thinking about. Emily. And Azador."

  Martine nodded slowly. "That had occurred to me as well."

  "I mean, if she was really a version of Ava—and Azador was really Jongleur. . . !"

  The Frenchwoman could not show it with her face, but there was a sour tone in her voice. "It is stranger than incest, when you consider that Ava was a clone—and strangely accurate as well, when you consider the child she was meant to bear. I suppose it was a subconscious expression of Jongleur's ultimate vanity." She sighed. "It was all as haunted and ugly as the House of Atreus. But they are dead now. All of them . . . every one . . . dead."

  "Oh, Martine, you seem so sad."

  The featureless sim shrugged. "There is little in it worth talking about."

  "And you seem very angry about Paul."

  She did not reply immediately. On the other side of the table, Bonnie Mae Simpkins laughed at some remark of !Xabbu's, although the small man looked entirely serious.

  "Paul Jonas was very unhappy . . . at the end," Martine finally said. "He was devastated to realize that he was a copy, as he put it. That he could never have the things he wanted most of all—that he was separated forever from the life he remembered. Yes, I am angry. He was a good, good man. He did not deserve that. Sellars had no right."

  Renie thought that somehow, Martine felt the same kinds of things Paul had. "Sellars was doing his best. We all were."

  "Yes, I know." The edge was gone and only listlessness remained. Renie almost missed the anger. "But I cannot get it out of my mind. His loneliness. That feeling of being exiled from your own life. . . ."

  Renie was trying to think of something reassuring to say until she noticed that the quality of Martine'
s silence had changed. Even without a facial expression to read, Renie could see a certain tension, an alertness in the woman's sim that hadn't been there before.

  "I have been a fool," Martine said suddenly. "A selfish fool."

  "What. . . ?"

  "I'm sorry, Renie. I have no more time to talk. We will speak later, I promise." With that, she disappeared.

  Troubled, Renie wandered back around the table.

  "Javier is criticizing my appearance," Florimel announced.

  "Chance not!" T4b said. The glyphs of light on his cheeks dimmed when he blushed. "Just saying that the patch looks chizz. She only did some other stuff, could be major scorchery."

  "Like what?" Florimel gave him a severe look. "Buy my sim some gigantic breasts?"

  Javier shook his head vigorously. "Didn't say that, me—not all unrespectful like that! Just meant you could get some sub-Ds. Like your initials, something. . . ." He trailed off and his own subdermals became even harder to see. "Oh. You molly-dupping me, huh?"

  "If that means teasing, Javier, then yes." Florimel shared an amused glance with Renie. "But why are you so dressed up? I'm assuming that is what you really look like today. Such nice clothes just for old friends like us?"

  He shrugged. "Got an interview, me."

  "For a job?" Renie asked.

  "Chance not. Tryin' to get back into school. AGAPA."

  "Arizona General and Pastoral Academy," Mrs. Simpkins elaborated.

  "Seen. It was Bonnie Mae's idea, like." He suddenly looked like he wanted to back away from the gathering. "Well, mine too."

  "Tell them what you want to do, Javier," Mrs. Simpkins said.

  He scowled, "Thought . . . thought after all the things happened, I might try to be . . . a minister, like. Youth minister, seen? Work with micros." His shoulders came up as if to protect him from a beating. He looked at Florimel out of the corner of his eye.

  Renie and !Xabbu congratulated him, but he was waiting for something.

  "Well," Florimel said after a moment. "I think that is a wonderful idea, Javier. I really do." Smiling, she leaned forward and carefully kissed him on his glowing cheek. "I hope your dream comes true."

  Even as his subdermals threatened to disappear entirely, another kind of light stole onto his face. "Make it through all that sayee lo stuff, can make it through anything, me," he promised.

  "Amen," said Bonnie Mae.

  CHAPTER 53

  A Borrowed House

  SUBSCRIBER NOTICE: SERVICE ENDING

  (visual: Netfeed Marketing VP Salaam Audran)

  AUDRAN: Your subscription to Netfeed News Service is about to end. We hope you've enjoyed our exciting blend of news and features keyed to your individual interests, and we'd like to tell you about what we think is a very exciting offer. If you resubscribe now, not only will you receive a year's worth of Netfeed for half the standard price, but we'll include this wonderful all-weather Netfeed logo jacket made with miracle nanotechnology fibers, and one of our handsome plasmaglyph Netfeed coffee cups. . . .

  "Are you ready?" Catur Ramsey did his best to keep his voice calm. His stomach was full of small active flutterings, and he of all of them had the least reason to be nervous. Jet lag didn't help. "I think it's time."

  "I don't know." Vivien Fennis looked around their living room as if she might never see it again. "I don't know what to do."

  "Should we say something?" asked Conrad Gardiner hoarsely. He had been pacing for half an hour while the other two made sure the gear for his wife's new neurocannula was working properly, and now he could hardly sit still on the couch. "Or is there some . . . button we have to push?"

  "No." Ramsey smiled. "If you're ready, just let me and Mr. Sellars do the rest."

  The transition was instantaneous: one moment they were in a well-furnished California house in a gated community, the next on a path at the edge of a dark and ancient forest.

  "Oh my God," said Vivien. She turned away from the trees and surveyed the meadowed hills, the grass glinting with dew in the morning sunshine. "It's . . . it's so real!"

  "Not quite up to the network's earlier standards," said Ramsey. "But yes, it's still pretty impressive, isn't it? I haven't got used to it myself."

  "Who's that?" asked Conrad. "Is that. . . ?"

  Ramsey squinted at the figure coming down the curving hill path. "No, it's Sam Fredericks, right on time."

  She waved, then walked briskly toward them, a little incongruous-looking in her pants and dark shirt. Ramsey could not help an inward flinch of embarrassment as he remembered her reaction when he suggested that for such a special occasion she could wear a dress if she wanted to. Still, he had to admit that other than the workaday teenager clothes, she looked like someone who belonged in a storybook setting like this, her eyes bright, her cloud of fluffy brown hair wrapped but not contained by a bright scarf.

  She stopped in front of them, suddenly shy. "You're . . . you're Orlando's parents, right?"

  "Yes. I'm Vivien and this is Conrad." Ramsey had to admire the woman's aplomb. After all, in the impatient hours leading up to this he had seen almost all of the emotions she was now hiding so effectively. "And you must be Sam. We've met your folks." She hesitated, then swept Sam into a trembling hug. Both of them hung on for a moment as though unsure what to do. "We feel like . . . we feel like we know you, too," Vivien said, releasing her.

  Sam nodded. Her own careful composure was also threatening to come undone. "Well, I guess we oughta go," she said after a moment. "He's waiting."

  As the four of them made their way up the curving, stone-lined path, Ramsey saw that Orlando's parents were holding hands. They've had too much horror to practice on, he thought—but maybe it helps now.

  Still, how could anyone be ready for this?

  "What . . . what is this place?" Vivien asked. They had almost reached the top of the hill. A river splashed down beside the path, loud among the reeds, the water so musical it almost chimed. Behind them the forest spread like a shadowy, frozen ocean. "I've never seen anything like it."

  "It's from Orlando's favorite book," Sam said. "Somebody had made it already. He could have lived in a castle or something, one of the fancy parts, but he liked this part better." She turned her gaze down to the ground; her smile was strained.

  "Somebody . . . made this?" asked Conrad. "I guess I knew that, but. . . ."

  "There's more than this," said Ramsey. "Lots more. You can see it all someday if you want."

  "You should see Rivendell!" Sam offered. "It's so chizz! Even without the elves."

  Conrad Gardiner shook his head in bafflement, but his wife was no longer listening. As they neared the crest of the low hill they could see the next rise. On a knoll above them stood a low house made of stone and wood surrounded by trees, simple in construction but somehow perfect for its setting. "Oh my God," Vivien said quietly as they reached the bottom of the short slope and started up again. "Is that it? I didn't know I'd be so nervous."

  A figure appeared in the doorway. It looked down on them but did not smile or wave.

  "Who is that?" asked Conrad Gardiner. "That doesn't look anything like. . . ."

  "Oh, Conrad, don't you listen?" Her voice sounded like something about to rip at the edge. "That's what he looks here. Now." She turned to Ramsey eyes wide. "Isn't that right? Isn't it?"

  Catur Ramsey could only nod; he no longer trusted himself to speak. When he turned back the figure was making its way down the path toward them.

  "He's so big!" Vivien said. "So big!"

  "You should have seen him before he got younger." Sam Fredericks laughed—a little wildly, Ramsey thought. He stopped and touched Sam's arm, reminding her. They let Orlando's parents walk the rest of the short distance to meet him by themselves.

  "Orlando. . . ?" Ramsey could hear sudden doubt in the woman's voice as she looked at the tall, black-haired youth before her. "Is that . . . are you. . . ?"

  "It's me, Vivien." He lifted his hands, then suddenly clamped them ove
r his nose and mouth for a moment as though to keep in something that wanted powerfully to escape. "It's me, Mom."

  She closed the distance in a step and threw her arms around him so hard that they both almost toppled onto the turf beside the path. "Hey, careful!" Orlando said, laughing raggedly, then Conrad had grabbed them both. The threesome did stumble then, and fell to the grass in awkward stages. They sat holding each other, babbling things that Ramsey could not quite hear.

  Vivien was the first to lean back, but she kept one hand against Orlando's face and gripped his arm with the other, as if afraid to let him go. "But how . . . I don't understand. . . ." Her hands not free to wipe her face, she could only shake her head and sniff loudly. "I mean, I understand—Mr. Ramsey explained, or tried to, but. . . ." She pulled his hand against her own cheek, then kissed it. "Are you certain it's you?" Her smile was crooked, her eyes bright with fear and hope. "I mean, really you?"

  "I don't know." Orlando watched her as though he had forgotten what she looked like and might have only this small time to rememorize her features. "I don't know. But I feel like me. I think like me. I just . . . I don't have a real body anymore."

  "We'll do something about it." Conrad Gardiner had a fixed, miserable grin on his face and was holding Orlando's other arm with both hands. "Specialists . . . somebody must. . . ." He shook his head, suddenly speechless.

  Orlando smiled. "Believe me—there are no specialists in this stuff. But maybe someday." His smile faded a little. "Just be glad for what we have."

  "Oh, Orlando, we are," said his mother.

  "Think of it . . . think of it like I'm in Heaven. Except you can visit me whenever you want." Tears were running down his cheeks again. "Don't cry, Mom! You're scanning me out."

  "Sorry." She let go of him for a moment to blot away her own tears with the arm of her blouse, stopped to stare at it. "It . . . feels like it's real. This all does." She looked at her son. "So do you, even if I've never seen . . . this version of you before."

  "It feels real, too," he said. "And this is what I look like now. That other me—well, he's gone. You don't ever have to look at him again and feel sorry because . . . because he looked like that."