Permanence

by Karl Schroeder

  They weren't falling very fast, luckily. They'd only dropped four or five kilometers and so far, the sub shrugged the pressure off. If they were five kilometers down, there were still fifteen kilometers of empty water to fall through before they hit bottom. Michael had no illusions that the sub would survive those depths. Thousands of atmospheres of pressure awaited them at the bottom of the abyss.

  After yet one more run-through of their checklist of possible fixes, Barendts sat back with a frustrated sigh. "I should have acted earlier," he said.

  Michael looked at him appraisingly. "You're the saboteur," he said. He didn't mean it as an accusation, just a statement of fact.

  The marine shrugged. "Card-carrying member of the rebels, that's me."

  Michael seized on the distraction. "Tell me about that."

  "I had been ordered into deep cover two years ago. Told to get close to Crisler, which I did." Barendts seemed relieved to be talking. "When the Envy showed up, it seemed like a pointless distraction. I didn't pay much attention until Crisler moved us all to Chandaka and hired Linda Ophir. He needed some Chicxulub inscriptions translated. She agreed to that and then the whole matter was dropped. That's the way it looked, anyway.

  "One night my contact at Chandaka called me. Ophir had been trying to get out, he said. She had some kind of information about the Envy— something that had scared the hell out of her. That was two days before you and Herat showed up.

  "I didn't get a chance to find out what she'd discovered. She was murdered— well, you know about that. Crisler went into overdrive. I guess he looked calm in public, but boy he was on the edge the last day or so. Wanted us to get the hell off Chandaka in a hurry.

  "And that's why the rebels attacked the city," said Michael. "But not the Redoubt. Why?"

  Barendts grinned mirthlessly. "They did. You didn't see that attack, and you weren't told, on Crisler's orders. The attack failed. Crisler put a lockdown on all news about the war after we left. Well, he got those orders from higher up, I guess. The fact is, the R.E.'s losing."

  Michael put his head back and stared out at the dark water. "Unbelievable," he muttered. He was remembering the riot he'd been caught in during the attack. Years ago, he had helped instigate such chaos. Was Kimpurusha still part of the R.E.? Or had it been liberated while he was away? The thought filled him with a pang of something— regret, loss, he wasn't sure. He scowled at the dumb metal of the sub's controls. Maybe if he'd stayed there, he might have been able to help…

  "What do you think that is?" Barendts was pointing through the window.

  Something long and threadlike rose past the sub. It couldn't have been more than a few millimeters thick and when the floodlights hit it, it shone pale white. But outside the lights, it glowed pale green against the darkness.

  "Is there supposed to be indigenous life here?" asked Barendts.

  "I have no idea. We never got to that part of the tour." They watched as more of the threadlike things passed. They seemed benign enough.

  "Anyway," said Barendts, "The R.E.'s taking a beating. They can't exempt their own ships from the economy, after all: even the Banshee has to keep up her micropayments for all the shipboard systems. They're living on credit right now, but if the ship stays here in slow space too long, they'll run out of credit… and the whole ship'll just shut down."

  Michael stared at him. "You're joking."

  "If a ship can operate without oversight from the Economy, it can be used to set up an independent colony," said Barendts with a shrug. "Lots of military ships would join us in a second, if they weren't utterly dependent on the Economy."

  Michael laughed without humor. It made sense, in a sick sort of way. "They used to say, back home, that the R.E. only survives by continuing to expand. The core worlds are utterly dependent on revenue from the colonies to function."

  "Yeah. An ecologically sustainable economy can't require surpluses. The R.E. does. So it has to keep growing to exist. If places like Chandaka join us, the core worlds stop dead just like the Banshee would. The Rights Owners would either have to give up their franchises, which they won't do, or else… no money, no transactions, no operating machinery."

  "Billions would die," said Michael.

  "If we don't get to them in time, yes." Barendts didn't look too concerned. "They made their bed, they'll have to lie in it. But you see, that's what Crisler's trying to prevent. If we win, everything unravels. The R.E. will collapse more completely than Rome.

  "But Crisler seems to think he's discovered a secret weapon to beat us with."

  "He has," said Michael. "Or he may have, anyway." He told Barendts about the von Neumann machines of the Chicxulub. The marine's eyes widened as the implications sank in.

  "But how are the things supposed to recognize rebel worlds? We all use alien technology, we have to until we set up our own industries…"

  Michael nodded. This was the conclusion he had come to on the way back to the city; it had fuelled his urgent need to collect Rue and the others and go straight to the authorities. "It all depends on how the Chicxulub systems identify ships and worlds. Herat thinks they would have to be sneaky, nosing around the outskirts of a system and sniffing out enemy action. Because they can't get in close, they have to rely on fairly crude detection methods to tell who's who. Basically, anything that's not broadcasting R.E. integration codes would be suspect. Presumably the rebels encrypt all their transmissions, so the von Neumann's couldn't even tell if those were of human origin or not.

  "So because you use alien technology, the von Neumann machines would have to treat all alien worlds as possible rebel worlds. The only worlds that would pass muster would be those using nanotags and Rights payments— those inside the Economy. Everyone else— everyone— would be suspicious."

  "So," said Barendts, "in order to guarantee wiping out the rebels, Crisler's machines would have to wipe out every alien world."

  Michael nodded. "We just found this out. We were on our way to tell the Compact when the ambush happened."

  For once, Barendts looked abashed. "I'm really sorry I didn't get to you guys sooner. I wasn't sure whether you were sympathizers or what. I was basically on my own when we were at the Envy," he said disconsolately. "I wanted to force the Banshee to turn around, so I blew the life-support stacks. Of course, Captain Cassels turned out to be a lot more resourceful than I'd counted on." He grimaced.

  "When we got here to Oculus, it took us totally by surprise when it turned out there were autotrophs here. And then you and the professor lit out for autotroph territory… Crisler went ballistic. I gather you went to get the Chicxulub stuff translated?"

  Michael nodded.

  "We got our orders an hour ago," Barendts went on. "It was all I could do to set up a hack on the inscape spoofers, so that the other guys' aim would be off for a few minutes. That's why you're still alive: I ghosted you, threw their aim off."

  "Except for Max."

  "Yeah… a lucky shot, I guess."

  They were silent for a while.

  Michael frowned out at the dark water. "We seem to be slowing down." The giant wall of ice was passing at a slower rate now. It was also sloping away from them, an uneven inverted landscape.

  "You're not telling me everything," said Michael. "There's something else going on: Crisler didn't just come along on this trip to chaperone Rue, did he? He had people to meet at Colossus. For instance, why weren't all of you at the ball the other night?"

  "Oh, that. There's a local politician, Mallory, who wants to bring the halo worlds into the R.E. It'll never work, but that's why Crisler had us ride the beam down here; some big political maneuvering's going on here between his supporters and the Compact. Mallory wanted the Envy's ring changed to pass by his home world…" Barendts glanced over his shoulder. "You think she refused? And Mallory got Crisler to order the hit?"

  Michael nodded. "Crisler might be taking us out of the picture so he can control the Envy directly and throw Mallory a bone," Michael said. "But it
hardly matters at this point."

  "There's some consolation," said Barendts. "For you guys, anyway."

  Michael laughed humorlessly. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"

  "The Envy was designed for slower-than-light travel. The original Chicxulub ships must have been designed for FTL and Crisler's going to want the new ones to be built that way too. His enemies are all in High Space; he doesn't care about the halo worlds, so odds are his von Neumann machines won't be visiting the halo."

  Small consolation. Still, as Michael sat back and listened to the creaking of the sub, he found himself wondering whether the Chicxulub had held the same attitude sixty-five million years ago. Had they exempted the halo worlds from their genocide?

  The idea seemed important somehow, but he was too exhausted to think about it. He leaned forward and stared at the spare instrumentation that dotted the nose of the sub. "Why don't we run through this stuff one more time," he suggested. "Maybe we missed something last time."

  "And the time before that?" Barendts sighed, but nodded. "Okay. Starting with this panel…"

  * * *

  IT WAS RUE'S turn to sit in the command chair and stare out at the ice, which was now passing overhead in a slow procession of bizarre forms. Mike and the marine had gone to the back to snatch some sleep; Herat was under the influence of some healing nano from the sub's first-aid kit and slept soundly in the chair beside hers. Rue was alone with her thoughts.

  It was unbelievable that Max was dead. She made herself face the fact, though doing so brought all kinds of really bad conclusions home.

  She shouldn't have taken Max up on his mad plan to chase the Envy. He'd given her a chance to play cycler captain and she'd taken it up eagerly, not realizing what it meant. Max obviously hadn't realized either; he was dead now and it was all her fault.

  Rue knew she had willfully ignored the danger when they'd set out to catch the Envy. Even at the time, she hadn't been able to explain why to herself or anyone else. All her explanations had been excuses, really. Why had she knowingly embarked on a suicidal quest?

  The ice passing overhead reminded Rue of stories she'd heard of the boatman who transported the dead to the underworld. Here they were. She hugged herself and looked down.

  The bag she'd brought with her from the marketplace lay crumpled at her feet. Absently she picked it up and rummaged through it. Jewelry— how pathetic, she thought.

  She was about to drop it when her fingers touched the NeoShinto headset. She'd forgotten all about it. Now Rue drew it out, turning it over in her hands.

  Religion had never interested her. She had accepted the simple message of the Supreme Meme: no matter how infinite the universe, time circles back around to here and now, to this very second. No matter where you went after you died, you'd end up back in this life again. Paradise was no more permanent than this very second. So your responsibility was to this life, not any afterlife.

  But where did that leave Max? Was he fixed like a bug in amber, forever living out a life of depression and disappointment, dying again and again in the same pointless way? The thought filled her with horror.

  And for herself? Rue had always felt herself swept through life by currents of incident way out of her control. When had she ever owned her own life? Certainly not when she'd been growing up on Allemagne.

  Her eyes blurred with tears as Rue realized that it had been that control she had been fleeing when she agreed to go after the Envy. She wasn't used to running her own affairs; when she walked the hills of Penumbra North, sowing seeds, she had been a completely independent woman. And the experience was foreign to her, strange and threatening. She had leaped at the chance to throw away her options.

  By committing to chasing the Envy, she'd deliberately thrown away her freedom. From the moment they embarked, she had been swept up again by forces beyond her control. That was what she was used to and she was happy in it.

  She put her hands over her mouth, afraid she was going to throw up. Shame burned so deeply in her that she doubted she could ever face Michael Bequith, or even Dr. Herat again. And her willingness to throw away her own freedom had doomed Max and probably all of them.

  The minutes dragged on. Nothing was happening except that the ice continued to pass overhead: the visible underside of the world-spanning glacial continent of Oculus. Occasionally, long tendrils of something organic-looking drifted by.

  She had to do something— anything, to escape her own thoughts. A faint notion at the back of Rue's mind was growing in volume, steadily more and more loudly: This botched life was hers, infinitely. She would live the same mistakes over and over and there was no escape and nothing she could do to prevent the repetition. Even if over the aeons, a billion versions of Rue lived and died— some triumphant, some wise— given enough time this one would always return. She would always be here, in this crippled vessel, drifting slowly into the darkness.

  Rue stood up and stared around at the interior of the sub. Maybe she could raid the rations in the meager galley— fix breakfast for the men. Anything to keep her hands and mind busy.

  Her gaze fell on Mike's sleeping form and Rue felt a pang of regret and guilt. He shouldn't be here, he was an innocent in so many ways. Then she noticed his beltpack, which lay on the deck below the cot.

  Jutting from the pack was one corner of a datapack. Of course; he always carried that thing with him. She hadn't really understood its significance until her visit to Vogel.

  Rue wiped at her eyes and knelt next to the cot. She wanted to throw herself onto Mike and cry, but his sleep was precious. She took out the datapack and crept back to her seat in the front.

  This was completely stupid, she thought as she connected the leads from the headset to the datapack. Then she slipped the headset over her ears.

  A simple inscape menu blossomed into being in front of her. It listed several titles:

  Kimpurusha Dawn

  Kadesh Sea Gods

  Dis

  Spirits of Ember

  Voice of the Cataract

  Only the name Kimpurusha was familiar. Rue hesitated, then reached out and tapped the half-real words Kimpurusha Dawn.

  The sub disappeared. Disoriented, she felt weightless for a second and relaxed into it. Then Rue was standing on a high mountain slope.

  This place was not like the Penumbral mountains of Treya. These peaks reared thousands of meters into the predawn sky and were clothed in virginal snow along their flanks. Strong black rock patched the night-blue of the snow. The simulation was so complete that Rue felt the thin cold air in her lungs and shivered at the icy breeze that flowed down to her from the peaks. She stood on a spur of rock jutting out from a cliff. How had Michael gotten to this place?

  The silence and height were awe-inspiring, but Rue was disappointed. Was this all that the famed kami were: postcards of particularly beautiful places? How could Mike have devoted his life to simple virtual realities like this?

  Then she heard a distant rumble. Rue turned and saw that a jagged line of peaks in the distance were glowing with a gorgeous rose light. The rising sun had touched them and the echoing thunder that rolled up and down between the peaks came from six or seven avalanches that the hot light had touched off.

  She watched the tumbling snow, enrapt, and the sound seemed to swirl around her and pick her up and then with a jolt Rue was gone. There was only the peaks and the avalanche and where she had been there was a great clap of sound that raced from peak to peak.

  The sound stood up over the mountains and felt their shapes, their ancient solidity, in the standing waves of echo that crashed between them. Each peak proclaimed its millennial sovereignty to the others.

  She rose, trembling, to touch the lower clouds. The reality of this place, this moment, was so overwhelming it erased any doubt. A million years these peaks had stood and in a million more they would still be here. Years nor light-years could erase them.

  And way down there, all the parts of the mountains were as real: the tumbled ro
cks, the straggling trees, the lichen, and, on a jut of stone halfway up one peak, a standing woman— a woman as real as the mountains and as much a part of them as the stone and ice. They, as much a part of her.

  The sound broke and fell back to sleep in the stones and snow. Rue blinked, felt herself spinning and then she was sitting in the sub again.

  The echoes went on and on in her head. She reached out a trembling hand and touched the cold wall of the sub. It was hard to say what was her and what was outside her. For a few seconds, Rue had the hallucinatory sense that she was both herself and the ocean around her. The distinction between the two had been shattered.

  The sensation faded gradually, but Rue sat still, in shock, for a long time. Then, half in fear and half in eagerness, she summoned up the menu again.

  None of the other names on the menu were familiar, so she chose one at random.

  She tapped the word Dis and blackness and stars bloomed around her.

  * * *

  MICHAEL AWOKE FEELING groggy. Somewhere nearby, he heard Herat talking. He opened his eyes; metal pipes formed a bizarre ceiling above his head.

  Rolling over, he found there was no more bed under him suddenly and he crashed to the floor— to the deck, rather, for he was still in the submarine. Remembering that brought everything else back to him.

  "Rue?" He stood up, rubbing his shoulder. She sat facing away from him in one of the two chairs at the front of the sub. The marine, Barendts, sat next to her and Herat was leaning over his seat and pointing out into the dark water.

  Michael went to crouch next to Rue's chair. She looked up and smiled wanly. Putting her hand on his, she turned away again. She was turning her little medallion over and over in her fingers, touching it and examining it as though it held some secret.

  Keeping hold of her hand, Michael turned to the others. "But why would they grow so long?" Barendts was asking.

  Herat shrugged. "A very long organism might be able to trap the electrical current that Colossus pumps through this planet. Maybe that's their alternative to photosynthesis."