by Ian Whates
Lu gave a tight smile. “A dilemma, isn’t it?” Through the windscreen he saw Titans at work in the fields of blue, green and yellow. From this height, the robots looked like dung beetles.
“That’s why the box was so beautifully carved. It was a genuine gift. But my father still hid an HPM unit in the base of the box and I still brought it from him.” He sensed confusion washing over Hope and wondered if he should have trusted her with the facts sooner.
“My father and I cannot communicate openly. I have had to distance myself from the great unclean of Pig Town in order to be taken seriously as a Fuel Transporter. But I still try to help when I can.” He glanced across at Hope. “You were right. 900 newyen was too much. But I wasn’t really paying for the box. I was providing my father with money to live off.”
“What are you telling me, Mister Lu?” She bit her bottom lip while Lu really hoped he hadn’t made a mistake in his choice of apprentice. He needed someone who’d become as jaded with the system as he was. He needed a fellow soldier.
“What’s an HPM unit?” she asked suddenly.
Lu liked that question. His lies were less important to her than the details of that deception.
“High-powered microwave weapon. The unit inside the music box emits bursts of electromagnetic energy. Harmless to humans but capable of burning out the circuitry of all crop giants within a 200 kilometre radius. To avoid detection, the transmission stops working after 24 hours. Enough time to do a farmstead damage but not long enough to arouse suspicion.”
Hope stared out the windscreen. They were still flying over Gun’s vast estate. It was difficult to tell from this altitude, but the Titans would already be grinding to a halt, their insides seizing. The build up of biogas in the algae-fed boilers would do the real damage. A design flaw would be cited as the cause of the problems, putting a dent in the seemingly impenetrable armour of the Titan SLS crop giant model.
“But what’s the point? They’ll only fix them or buy more,” said Hope, voicing the same frustration in the pointlessness of it all that he had felt so often over the years.
“The point is quiet rebellion,” he said carefully, as much to remind himself as explain to Hope. “We remind a Fuel Prospector like Gun that the machines taking the place of the human workers can go wrong and are nowhere near as cost effective. Just as importantly, we remind the PAP that we have a voice and their law is not absolute.”
“You’re a Yellow Scarf.” Hope said it simply, without fanfare and apparently without fear.
“As was my mother before me.”
It was enough. As he had hoped all along, he saw a look of complex pain and anger on Hope’s face. Same one he’d seen reflected in the mirror every day since his mother paid for her commitment to freedom in the Heat Zone. Hope had lost her mother and siblings to poverty. Her father hadn’t the strength to fight back. But she did.
“Quiet rebellion?” She appeared to mull over the idea. “A war without bloodshed.”
“For now.” Lu held her gaze.
The strength he’d witnessed in front of Gun returned. Hope sat up straight in the co-driver seat and tilted her chin to meet the glow of the Scarlet Star.
“Then that is one trade I am eager to learn,” she said firmly.
Lu nodded. Suddenly he needed to be free of Twelve and its poisoned atmosphere. He wanted to be cocooned in the black velvet of outer space.
“I want to show you what you’ll be fighting for,” he told the girl, adding, “Hold on.”
Lu drove the Eighteen Wheeler into a steep vertical trajectory.
THE SPIRES
OF GREME
KAY KENYON
Kay Kenyon’s latest work is a sci-fantasy quartet. Book One, Bright of the Sky, was one of Publishers Weekly’s top books of the year. It is a free Kindle book. The series has twice been shortlisted for the American Library Association Reading List awards. Writer’s Digest recently featured her fiction blog, Writing the World, at www.kaykenyon.com
OUTSIDE THE SPIRE, the phages emerge from their cocoon. Everyone in the spire is watching from a window if they can fight their way to one; most of us have never seen phages hatch. The size of grown pigs, the sacs press against the birthing cocoon and then burst out, hovering among their siblings. They are waiting to catch a breeze to begin their drift through the forest, hunting.
Kammy, who is only twelve and has never seen these creatures before, pronounces, “They stink!”
I roll my eyes. The sensors pick up the smell, but all we get is numbers on the computer screens. Are numbers a smell? Depends on who you ask. Crow says that everything is a number, and I know what he means, but I still would like to stand outside on solid ground and smell the never-ending Forest of Greme, stink or not. I would like to open the sealed doors of the mini-decks and feel the forest breeze blow hard against me, feel the mist silver my face.
This is not going to happen. Not even when I cross over. They have a tube for crossing over.
My name is Sark Highspire, just for the record. I am fifteen years old, and the bride select. That’s how come the crossing over. I’ll go over to another spire and submit to the sexual domination of one of their males. Despite what my mother wants me to believe, I find the prospect grotesque.
As Highspire sails off, the phage bags follow in the trail of our tree ship. Maybe they’re detecting the scent of our exhaust. As people see them bobbing along after us, they emit a collective moan of dismay. We are afraid of the phages, of course. They spit toxins, and if necessary, explode. But they’ll lose interest after a few miles. With our chemical make-up, clean hydrogen drive and biomolecular imprint – we have pretty good camouflage. The forest can’t detect us as a foreign body.
If it could, we’d be dead.
IT’S SIXTY-SIX STEPS up the central spiral to my cabin. I count them every time, an old habit from childhood. I loved numbers then, back when I thought I would go for science. Now I’m going for making babies. It’s why Crow has given up on me. Why teach science to a bride elect? I want to answer: Because after I have my four babies, I’ll be free to have a real job.
What kind of jobs does my new home have? I know nothing about the place where I’ll spend the rest of life: Deepspire. Our library has only a few ancient references. Spires don’t communicate by radio, of course. That’s only for emergencies, and maybe not even then. Greme homes in on transmissions. It’s like announcing “Here I am!” The way we’ll meet up with Deepspire is that we have meeting points based on an established web of path lines. This was all decided long ago. Every spire has its own secret path. But every few years spires cross paths and share DNA. This time I’m the DNA.
Why are the web paths secret? Because we’re hunted, and not just by phages. The forest may be smarter than we realize. In the old days, the virus that the ecofreaks released helped the remnant forests to join and spread. They say Greme now stretches from old Vermont all the way to the Long River. As it spread, it wiped out its enemies: people. Has the forest continued to evolve its defenses? Crow thinks so. But he’s a bit strange. You’ll see.
At the top of the spiral, I race around to the port side and nearly bash into Captain Harliss. He protects himself by putting his hands on my shoulders, as though I could do real damage to this big, balding slab of a man. “Well, Sark! The bride herself,” he chuckles.
I try to pull away without meeting his eyes, but he holds on to me. He’s getting rid of me because I’m Crow’s ally, and one by one he’s making sure Crow doesn’t have any. Harliss thinks that science doesn’t have a place on the spire; not during these hard times.
“I dropped off a present for your hope chest,” he says.
My despair chest. But “Thanks for nothing,” is all I can think of to say. I yank away and head down the corridor to the cabin I share with Branish. I’m mad at my mother for letting Captain Harliss send me to Deepspire, but I’m still eager to share the big phage bag sighting with her.
When I get to our cabin, outside the do
or I find Branish entwined with Ezzard Truespire. They are pressed against each other, his hands locked on her hips as he sucks on her face. Branish is a big, heavily endowed woman, and Ezzard is old and stringy. Imagine, if you can, a great cow being mounted by a ferret. That is what we have here. Mother sees me and pushes Ezzard away. As she adjusts her clothes, Ezzard ducks a bow at me. He’s ridiculous: at least seventy years old. The whole scene is beyond ghastly.
As Ezzard slinks away, mother fans her face with her hand. This is supposed to mean that Ezzard has aroused her. I am going to be sick, and to make matters worse, she’s not even embarrassed. I blurt that out.
“Why should I be ashamed? I’m not dead yet, Sarkila.”
She waves me to follow her into our cabin, which I do, uncertain now whether I will share the phage sighting with her. When she turns around, I register with disgust the smeared lipstick, the eyeblack leaking into her creases. But then I notice the room has changed.
The wall that separates her cabin from mine. It’s gone.
My look prompts her to say, “You don’t need a cabin anymore.” She smiles happily. “You’re going to be married!” She spreads her arms. “Doesn’t it look all roomy and open?”
I’m outraged and astonished. But in the end, I’m crying. “You couldn’t even wait until I’m gone.”
I turn and rush away as her voice trails after me: “Everything is such a drama with you!”
WE JOURNEY ON. Our spire floats through the forest, buoyed by grav annihilators. We cross a slow moving river, plowing a wave as we go. As Highspire sails into a region of heavy mist, through the window I see swags of hemlock creep by, branches stuffed with pine cones, bird nests, pollen and tufts of fog. It’s all ghostly silent, muffled by the tough outer skin of the spire.
I lie in Dry Storeroom Number Three on the floor, near the tiny crack in the old outside deck door. Highspire is busy repairing. I can see the crystalline structure flaking together under the door, obeying its molecular engineering.
I wonder if the freaks from the old days would like what the forest has become. I know they’d like how successful the virus was in speeding up forest evolution, allowing it to protect itself. Once the first toxins emerged, the forests began to recover and thrive; people weren’t welcome. Greme was becoming dangerous.
At first the ecofreaks attacked the science stations in what they called Green. (I think we call it Greme to spite them, but no one’s sure.) They thought the researchers were trying to eradicate the virus, but it was much too late for that; scientists were just studying things. Humanity was dying, but science marched on. After a while the research stations had to become mobile, and finally, unattached to the ground (avoiding sensing roots). After the virus raged through the forests and farmlands, most people died from starvation, something the ecofreaks must have approved. They weren’t afraid to die. You have to admire that.
What they wouldn’t like is this: the spires have a refuge in the forest. Because when civilization went down, it went way down. Out there, all that’s left of humanity are savages. They don’t dare enter the forest, so it’s a good thing Greme hates people. It protects us, like a shark protects the nursery fish that ride on its back.
When Crow finds me, I’m still lying on my side watching the crack fill up.
“Sark.” He stands in the door, frowning, his black hair falling to his shoulders, his big nose a beak that gives him his nickname. “Why didn’t you report the leak?”
I sit up. “It’s not my job,” I say because I’m hurt that he can’t even say hello.
“I heard about your mother and Ezzard.” He doesn’t really look at me. Crow isn’t great at the interpersonal. “You can sleep in the lab.”
That’s a relief. I’m never going back to her little love nest. A curl of outside air slides over my ankles. “We used to be interested in the forest,” I muse. “Now we’re just afraid of it.”
Crow blinks at this. “I have a couple of blankets I could spare.”
He looks out the window and chuckles at some Crow-thought, something complicated and ironic, no doubt. “We’re just a germ to Greme. And what’s worse? The grasslands. Grass is all interconnected.” And as though I didn’t know, he adds, “Under the ground.” He slides a finger across his throat.
“Right,” I say, getting to my feet. “We’re a germ to the prairie, too.”
“Amber waves of pain,” he says, smirking. He turns away, muttering. “I’m going to eject Littlespire this morning, if you want to watch.”
I follow him down the corridor to the lab. This is a bad day for Crow. Littlespire was his pet project, and the least I can do is bear witness.
In the lab, Andergeesen Farspire is sitting at the central console, his short legs propped up on the counter, picking at his hangnails. He’s the science deck manager, if you can believe it.
“Goose,” I say, nodding at him in passing. He glares in response to the hated nickname.
At the nutrient station, Crow explains that Littlespire is attached to the outside by only a few crystalline tubes, so once we set off the tiny charges, it will just fall to the forest floor. Captain Harliss has changed course so that Highspire will be moving in the right direction to avoid any collision against the lower decks.
Andergeesen saunters over. “All ready?” He wants to be the one to order the separation charges. He has nothing else to do, no science role. He’s got the job Crow should have had.
Crow turns to the people watching from the other science stations. Everyone feels bad for him. “I would like to propose a toast,” he says, holding up his cup of deadfall tea. He waits until all have raised their cups.
“To the triumph of mediocrity over discovery. To the victory of moronic fiscal cutbacks, when an eight-year science project is sacrificed for the captain’s fancy new conference room.” He raises his cup higher. “To the murder of Littlespire.” He takes a furious gulp of tea, nearly choking on it.
This will all be reported to Captain Harliss. No one is supposed to mock or, in the captain’s term, “suborn” the mission. What is the mission? Depends who you ask. Crow would say research. Captain Harliss would say survival. Me? I don’t have a mission except to avoid being a bride.
“Sark, please throw the switch.” Crow points with ominous flair to the lever.
“That’s my job,” Andergeesen snaps. He reaches in quickly before I can usurp his authority.
Everyone crowds around the starboard windows to see the pod fall. It’s already one and a half decks high, so the crash should be impressive.
As Andergeesen cranks down the lever, the light on the console flickers but goes out.
“Shit,” Crow says.
Andergeesen yanks the switch up and down once more. Nothing.
Somebody titters. Andergeesen swings around. “Who laughed?”
“God damned toxic luck,” Crow mutters, ripping up the panel to look underneath. He wanted to make a political statement about ruin and murder, and all we’ve got is a tech malfunction.
“No cause to swear,” Andergeesen says primly.
Crow slowly turns and burns a stare into him. “Of course there’s every fucking reason to fucking swear, Goose. I had planned a ceremony.”
The ejection had been on the docket for weeks. The scavenging has gone poorly all year; we’ve all suffered cutbacks. Let the bigger spires with more resources calve new spires. We can’t afford to. But Crow thinks cancellation of Littlespire was directed against him personally. He’d already been admonished for poor performance in deadfall conversion – as though this was his fault! But the management types like Harliss and Goose hate the science types like Crow. It’s always been that way, and now the captain is using hard times to consolidate his power.
Andergeesen waves his hand at the wall behind which the proto-spire is still attached. “Well,” he says, stalking off, “eject it when the charges are ready. No more grandstanding.”
A thought occurs to me. “Crow, maybe we can’t jettison Litt
lespire.”
He glares at me. “Might as well dump it. We haven’t fed it for months. It’s dead, Sark. It hangs on to us like a dead baby.” Crow inspects the circuitry, muttering and swearing.
At the window, I can see the proto-spire, still attached. A sickly color, it appears to be sagging. Maybe it’ll just fall off like a scab.
As Crow checks his computer programs, I see a stack of blankets under the console. There’s a pillow on top.
I LOVE IT on the science deck at night. The computer screens throw an eerie light on the walls as screensavers kick on and off like dreaming thoughts. There’s just enough room under Crow’s main console so I can fully stretch out.
I’m almost asleep when I hear a pinging sound. At the next ping, I get up and squint at the console. I hear it again. It’s coming from one of the screens. When I lean in, I see that someone has written a line. Send me your pic.
I stare at this a long while.
Another line: Well?
Who are you? I type.
Jonn is the answer.
He is answering in the fewest possible words, because Greme might hear. This insight comes to me like a needle in my flesh. This is from Deepspire.
I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at the screen while I argue with myself. Then I adjust the screen to a good angle and peel off a shot of me staring into the little eye. I don’t smile. I probably look grotesque with my hair uncombed and having forgotten to brush my teeth.
A moment later, a tiny picture shows up on the screen. His face is narrow, his eyes very black. Jonn, I figure. He’s not exactly good-looking but he has a good chin. We must both be staring at each other. Maybe this is the night duty tech on Deepspire who figured out we’re in range for a little forbidden communication.
I erase the picture and the lines we have exchanged. Despite not knowing for sure, I know who I’m hoping Jonn is. He’s young and has a good chin. This is enormously comforting. Not that I’m going to let them marry me off. I still plan to get out of this. Somehow.
