Permanence

by Karl Schroeder

  He was dressed in typical Oculus fashion, in a brocaded jacket over a tuned-down chameleon cloth shirt and loose leggings reminiscent of the practical cold weather gear the first settlers had made. He looked comfortable and a bit rumpled, like an older version of Max.

  "Can I help you?"

  "Yes, I…" She wasn't sure where to begin.

  "Captain Cassels, isn't it?" he said before she could decide.

  "Yes." Rue felt herself blushing. "Everybody seems to know me. I–I've come to ask you about NeoShintoism."

  He showed no surprise. "What would you like to know?"

  "Well, I have a friend. He's a NeoShinto monk. He's told me a little bit about it, but I… just want to know more."

  The old man nodded. "You're Michael Bequith's captain."

  "You know him?"

  "In a way." The old man smiled enigmatically. "We've never met. Oh— where are my manners. My name is Vogel." He held out his hand to shake.

  "Come with me," said Vogel. "I'll show you what we're all about." He led Rue and her guards through a side door into another lounge, this one windowless. The walls were covered in shelves, like an old-style library. Instead of books, the shelves held black data storage units. They looked familiar.

  She walked over to the shelves and drew out one of the units. "Mike totes one of these around."

  Vogel nodded. "These are containers for kami. Most of them are kami from our own world— primarily the kami of the glaciers and deep ocean. Very prosaic, from our point of view. But some! Some of these units hold kami from other worlds and the best, the very best of those, are the ones captured for us by Michael Bequith."

  He went to the back of the room. There, a broad set of shelves sat nearly empty, except for a line of about a dozen data units. "These are his," said Vogel, running his finger along the units' spines. "I've entered their presence many times, Captain Cassels. They have brought more hope and inspiration to our order than the whole of this library."

  "Why?" She came to stand by him. Her Mike a religious celebrity? It was hard to picture. "What's so special about Mike?"

  "Brother Bequith has had opportunities the rest of us only dream of," said Vogel. "He has been able to capture the kami of the most exotic places in the galaxy. We have learned more about the limits of human reverence from his recordings than from any one else's."

  Rue frowned at the data units, then said, "I guess I just don't understand what it is about these things that's so precious."

  Vogel chuckled quietly. "You're seeing only their shells. You have to experience the kami directly to understand. That's the whole point."

  "How can I do that?"

  "With these." Vogel pointed to the armchairs scattered about the lounge. On each rested a fine, filigree cap, attached by data ribbons to a dock just the right size to hold one of the data units. "Michael would have no use for these, any more than I do," said Vogel. "Our implants allow us to meet the kami directly. These headsets are for people who don't have the implants. You can use one of these to experience what he's experienced."

  "And that is what, exactly?"

  "Transcendence of life, death… time itself," said Vogel without irony. "Truth."

  Rue smiled, a little sadly. Her mother had warned her about movements like this. Transcendence, mother had said, is another word for escape. But escape to where? This life is all we have. To desire escape from life is to desire death.

  "It sounds wonderful," she said wistfully. "I wish I could believe in it."

  Vogel laughed. "Belief is entirely unnecessary," he said. "None of us believe anything. NeoShinto is a method, not an ideology."

  "Huh?"

  "NeoShinto is part of the philosophy of Permanence," said Vogel. "Permanence is the attempt to create a human culture that can survive indefinitely here in deep interstellar colonies. NeoShinto is a Permanence program that explores the limits of human neurological programming.

  "Humans think metaphorically. Most of our thoughts are built up of more primitive metaphors. Our most atomic metaphors are hard-wired in as a result of where we evolved. One of those hardwired metaphors is something we commonly call 'I. It's the metaphor of self-as-object.

  "Religions throughout history have tried to replace this primary metaphor with self-as-world, but it's very difficult unaided. Takes years of effort by specialists, because you're operating on basic neurological programming. By the twentieth century they had drugs that could explode the 'I' metaphor, but they didn't have the conceptual framework to understand what they were doing. We have it.

  "NeoShinto is just a technology for replacing your 'I' with a perceived Other— what we call the kami. We attach no mythology or dogma to the experience. You're free to interpret it however you'd like." There was irony in his smile now.

  "I don't understand," she confessed.

  "Of course not," said Vogel. "You can't until you've met the kami. Would you like to try?" He gestured to the armchairs.

  She didn't like the idea of undergoing some procedure here, under this man's power. But… "Can I take one of these headsets with me? And… a kami to try?"

  "Of course. You can take a headset now. I'll have some kami copied for you— including the best of Brother Bequith's. That will take some hours; I'll have them delivered to your suite."

  "Thank you."

  "But tell me," said Vogel. "Why has Brother Bequith not come to visit us yet? We've received no communication from him since he arrived."

  "I… I don't know," she said sincerely. "But I will ask him."

  Vogel's question stayed with her as she rejoined Rebecca in the street and it distracted her from the rest of day's shopping.

  * * *

  "RUE, WHERE ARE you?" asked Michael.

  She smiled to hear his voice. Through inscape, it seemed to thrum inside her head, nice and intimate. "I'm in the city," she said, looking around for a landmark. There were too many of them— minarets, domes, faery bridges between glittering towers. "How did your meeting go?"

  "That's what I'd like to talk about. Listen, we're still in the ice caves, we should be back in the city in half an hour. Can you meet us at Pier 47?"

  "Well, if it's urgent…"

  "It's very urgent. I think we've found evidence of what Crisler is up to. We translated the Chicxulub message and, well— I'll tell you when we meet."

  "Um, all right."

  Michael disconnected. Well, that was odd, she thought. Rue was suddenly aware of her guard, who scanned the crowd unceasingly. The bustling streets didn't look so peaceful as they had moments ago.

  "Rebecca, could you head back to the keep? Max and I are going to meet the boys at the docks."

  The doctor was visibly tired from hiking around all day. "Sure," she said. "Want me to take this stuff?"

  "If you could."

  They went their separate ways, Rebecca toward the distant monastery and Rue and Max through narrow streets in the direction of the docks.

  At the center of Lux, roads and maglev tracks entered into a whirlpool-like spiral that led down. They walked through underpasses and over bridges as traffic zipped by and finally reached the edge of an immense, round shaft that punctured the ice. The roads spiraled down its outer walls, then disappeared as the shaft opened out into a gigantic domelike cavern half a kilometer below. As their elevator fell past the roof of this dome, the roads reappeared, hugging the curve of the roof as they continued their way down to the dark ocean water below.

  Dozens of warehouses and docks clung to the base of the cavern walls. Trucks and maglev cars were loading and unloading cargo within clusters of freighters at the docks. Dark cave entrances opened off the cavern at intervals and ships came and went through these.

  It was a long walk from the elevators to Pier 47. Rue was tired and the crowds and growling machinery that raced back and forth here began to give her a headache. She sat down gratefully on a bench and rummaged through the one bag she hadn't given to Rebecca. This held some jewelry and the NeoShinto head
set Vogel had given her. She toyed with this as she waited.

  "Think that's them?" asked Max. He had become positively jovial in the past few minutes. As if new possibilities had opened for him, she thought. Where he pointed, a rust-streaked freighter was edging its way toward their pier. The only other vessel here was a battered looking lozenge-shaped thing that she thought might be a submarine.

  Rue was not so happy. She found herself dwelling on the idea that the man Mallory could himself be responsible for the abuses of her past. And the idea that this place might become her home was equally disquieting, though she couldn't have said why. She didn't snap back to attention until she heard a gangplank thump down, and Mike ran up to her. Herat was sauntering down the gangplank behind him.

  "Oh!" She leaped to her feet and hugged Mike. "How did it go?" she asked.

  The freighter pulled away from the docks. Professor Waldt was still aboard; he waved from the deck, then turned to go inside.

  Michael waved back and laughed. "We had as much fun as alien-hunters are likely to have. But listen, we know what the message on the Lasa habitat says. We've got to inform the abbot as soon as possible; can you get us in to see him as soon as we get back?"

  "Sure, but what—?"

  Rue stumbled over the words and stopped. Something weird had just happened; she shook her head, thinking for a second that her ears had popped.

  The sounds of the crowds and machinery had stopped, as though cut off by a switch.

  She started to say something about it to Mike, but he was staring past her open-mouthed. Rue turned.

  The docks were empty. Not just their pier, but all the other piers as well. And the freighters, roadways, the maglev tracks, and the distant elevators. In a split-second and with no warning, the thousand or more people sharing the docks with them had vanished.

  So had their bodyguard. The only people in this gigantic cavern, it seemed, were Rue, Mike, Max, and Herat.

  "Oh shit," said Mike, "they've messed with the ins—"

  "Get down!"

  The figure appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the pier: a running man, his arms cradling a large laser gun. "Get down!" he shouted again. "Ambush!"

  Now Rue heard the vicious hissing that accompanied laser fire. She threw herself to the ground and Mike landed on top of her.

  "It figures." It was Max's voice. Rue looked up.

  He stood there with a vaguely disappointed expression on his face. He was looking at the black-edged hole that had appeared magically in the center of his chest. He started to say something else, but blood suddenly gouted from his mouth and he crumpled to the ground. His head hit the bench on the way down, but he didn't make another sound.

  The man who had shouted wavered and disappeared, reappeared a few meters away. He was aiming his laser somewhere down the pier. "Get moving!" he yelled.

  His words made no real impression on Rue; she was staring at Max. Her cousin lay on his side, his face turned toward her. His eyes were open, but she knew he couldn't see her. Still, she started to crawl toward him. He couldn't be comfortable in that position, she needed to help him lie more comfortably…

  Hands clamped around her wrists and Rue was dragged away from Max. She screamed and fought to get away. He needed her, she wasn't going to abandon him.

  Words fluttered around her: "Can't keep the system frozen for long. You've got to get out before they get it—"

  "Professor! Are you okay?"

  "It's just a singe. Where are we going to—"

  "Down there!"

  Rue was thrown over somebody's shoulder. Dimly, she realized it was Michael who was carrying her. She didn't care. Every step he took put her farther away from her cousin.

  Why was Mike jumping off the pier? Rue went flying and landed on her back. Her head bounced off something really hard and she tasted blood in her mouth.

  The pain made her mad and she rolled to her feet, narrowly missing a tumble into dark waters. She found herself standing on a long, rounded gray thing barely above the level of the waves. Mike was a few meters away, trying to open some kind of hatch. Herat sat next to him, his left hand clutching his right arm.

  The man who had yelled at them was still crouched on the pier. He was shooting at something. Flames burst out of the concrete next to him and he rolled out of the way, then fired again. "Is it open?" he yelled over his shoulders.

  "No… Yes!" Mike raised the metal hatch and gestured to Herat. The professor needed no urging, but almost fell into the opening.

  "Come on, Rue!"

  She staggered over to Mike. Before she reached him, the man with the gun cursed and rolled backward off the pier. Rue smelled burning cloth and then he'd hit the icy water and splashed her.

  She knelt down and put out her hand, even as Mike did the same. The man floundered for a moment, abandoned his gun to the water and reached out.

  She found herself staring into the face of Barendts, one of Crisler's marines.

  "Come on!" urged Mike. They hauled Barendts out of the water and all three threw themselves at the hatchway. Rue went down first, lost her footing and banged her chin against a rung of the ladder before hitting the deck below.

  Barendts was the last in. He stayed on the ladder to close the door. "Can you lock it?" asked Mike.

  "Don't know. Have to override the ship's system." The marine reached into his sleeve, bringing out a tangle of wires. He pressed these against the door control and they writhed into life, twining themselves into the cracks around the door mechanism.

  Footsteps thudded through the ceiling. "They're here," muttered Barendts. "Think I've got it, though." He withdrew the wires and stepped down off the ladder.

  "Can we call for help?" asked Herat. He was slumped against one wall of the narrow space they were in.

  "No, the whole area's jammed. It'll take them a while to burn through that, though," said the marine.

  Herat laughed. "They won't burn through it at all, young man. If this is a deep-dive sub, then its walls are made of diamond."

  Barendts brightened. "Good."

  "Of course, they can always put explosives against the hull and kill us with the shockwave," pointed out Herat.

  Rue turned away from the discussion. This place was more cramped than any shuttle she'd ever been in. Its ceiling was low and pipes ran everywhere. She stalked past the men to the nose, where big windows showed a view of rich blue water flecked with drifting motes. Several comfortable-looking couches faced these windows. She dropped into one of them and just sat there.

  "Got to get command of this thing…"

  "They won't answer? You're sure?"

  Max was dead.

  "— They can't keep the system hacked for long. The local police will be down here any minute."

  He had been all she had of family and home. If he was gone, so were they, forever.

  "What's that!"

  A smell of burning wafted up from behind Rue. She craned her head around the side of the seat.

  A roving patch of fire was moving in loops and arcs across the ceiling. Behind it, charred paint dropped to the floor and what was left behind glowed with outside light, like foggy glass.

  "Or they could do that," said Herat. "Shine the lasers right through the hull. It's transparent, after all."

  "We have to get out of here!" shouted Mike. "Take control of this sub, now!"

  "I'm trying," snapped the marine. The smoke was everywhere.

  Rue leaned back and shut her eyes. Maybe it didn't matter anymore. They were all about to die.

  Something exploded with a bang!; she jerked in surprise and pain spiked her ears from sudden overpressure. Now she heard sizzling sparks and a cracking sound.

  "I've got partial control," said Barendts. "Taking us down." The decking lurched under Rue. She kept her eyes closed, her fists balled at her ears. One last bang sounded and Barendts cursed lividly.

  The seconds dragged and no new sounds issued from the back. After a while she opened her eyes, found th
ick, smarting smoke in them and turned to look behind her.

  The three men were all alive. They were sitting on the deck looking at one another grimly. Herat coughed once or twice and shut his eyes. "Gotta rest," he said.

  Rue cleared her throat. "What's happening?" she asked.

  Barendts glanced at Mike, then gestured to a blackened, half-melted box against the wall. "That's the ship's computer," he said and coughed. "I told it to dive just before the boys upstairs got a lucky shot and took it out. We're still diving and we're out of touch with anybody."

  Rue looked around herself. "Aren't there manual controls?" she asked.

  "Maybe. Yeah, there must be," said the marine without much optimism. He came forward and eased himself into the seat next to hers. "These look like they might be…" He pulled on a joystick that jutted up next to the seat. Nothing happened. "Well, that's great."

  The blue light outside was rapidly fading to black. Barendts fiddled with some switches and succeeded in turning on some internal lights and external floodlights. These showed an irregular wall of ice some meters away, rising steadily out of darkness below and into darkness above.

  Darkness… Rue shut her eyes and let herself cry.

  21

  RUE AND PROFESSOR Herat were resting on cots at the back of the sub. Michael sat next to Barendts, watching the wall of ice slide inexorably upward.

  They'd been dropping for nearly an hour. Every now and then the sub creaked from the pressure; every time it did Michael tensed, waiting for the walls to collapse around them. The walls of the sub were icy cold now; little heaters under the seats were working overtime, but without much success, to keep the cold at bay.

  Michael and Barendts had been trying to slow their descent, with even less success. They'd gone over every instrument and switch in the narrow space, finding nothing that might help. They had control of a set of manipulator arms outside the craft, but there was nothing for them to grab onto. It seemed as if the sub's cruising controls were centralized through the computer. With it gone, they were helpless.