by Dan Simmons
“Yes,” whispered my friend, hugging me fiercely, “I love you, Raul. Together. Time. Yes.’
We quit talking then. I tasted wine and the salt from her tears in our kisses. We made love for more hours, then drifted off to sleep together, floating entwined in the other’s embrace like two sea creatures, like one wonderfully complex sea creature, drifting on a warm and friendly tide.
26
he next day we took the Consul’s ship out toward the sun.
I had awakened expecting to be feeling some sort of enlightenment, overnight satori from the communion wine, a deeper understanding of the universe at the very least, omniscience and omnipotence at best. Instead, I awoke with a full bladder, a slight headache, but pleasant memories of the night before.
Aenea was awake before me and by the time I came out of the toilet cubby, she had coffee hot in the brewing bulb, fruit in its serving globe, and fresh, warm rolls ready.
“Don’t expect this service every morning,” she said with a smile.
“Okay, kiddo. Tomorrow I’ll make breakfast.”
“Omelet?” she said, handing me a coffee bulb.
I broke the seal, inhaled the aroma, and squeezed out a drop, taking care not to burn my lips or to let the globule of hot coffee get away. “Sure,” I said. “Anything you like.”
“Good luck in finding the eggs,” she said, finishing her roll in two bites. “This Startree is neat, but short on chickens.”
“Pity,” I said, looking through the transparent pod wall. “And so many places to roost.” I changed tones to serious. “Kiddo, about the wine … I mean, it’s been about eight standard hours and …”
“You don’t feel any different,” said Aenea, “Hmm, I guess you’re one of those rare individuals on which the magic doesn’t work.”
“Really?”
My voice must have sounded alarmed, or relieved, or both, because Aenea shook her head. “Uh-uh, just kidding. About twenty-four standard hours. You’ll feel something. I guarantee it.”
“What if we’re … ah … busy when the time comes?” I said, wiggling my eyebrows for emphasis. The motion made me float free a bit from the sticktite table.
Aenea sighed. “Down, boy, before I staple those eyebrows in place.”
“Mmm,” I said, grinning at her over the coffee bulb. “I love it when you talk dirty.”
“Hurry,” said Aenea, setting her bulb in the sonic washer bin and recycling the eating mat.
I was content to munch my roll and look at the incredible view through the wall. “Hurry? Why? Are we going somewhere?”
“Meeting on the ship,” said Aenea. “Owr ship. Then we have to get back and see to the last provisioning of the Yggdrasill for departure tomorrow evening.”
“Why on our ship?” I said. “Won’t it just be crowded compared to all these other places?”
“You’ll see,” said Aenea. She had slipped into soft blue zero-g trousers, pulled tight at the ankle, with a tucked-in white shirt with several sticktite-sealing pockets. She wore gray slippers. I had gotten used to going barefoot around the cubby and in the various stems and pods.
“Hurry,” she said again. “Ship’s leaving in ten minutes and it’s a long vine ride to the docking pod.”
IT WAS CROWDED. AND ALTHOUGH THE INTERNAL containment field held the gravity to one-sixth-g, it felt like a Jovian pull after sleeping in freefall. It seemed strange to be crowded in on one dimensional plane with everyone, letting all that airspace overhead go to waste. On the library deck of the Consul’s ship with us, seated at the piano, on benches, in overstuffed chairs, and along holopit ledges, were the Ousters Navson Hamnim, Systenj Coredweli, Sian Quintana Ka’an resplendent in her feathers, the two silver, vacuum-adapted Ousters Palou Koror and Drivenj Nicaagat, as well as Paul Uray, and Am Chipeta. Het Masteen was there, as was his superior, Ket Rosteen. Colonel Kassad was present—as tall as the towering Ousters—and so were the Dorje Phamo, looking ancient and regal in an ice-gray gown that billowed beautifully in the low gravity, as well as Lhomo, Rachel, Theo, A. Bettik, and the Dalai Lama. None of the other sentient beings were there.
Several of us stepped out on the balcony to watch the inner surface of the Startree fall behind as the ship climbed toward the central star on its pillar of blue fusion flame.
“Welcome back, Colonel Kassad,” the ship said as we gathered on the library level.
I raised an eyebrow at Aenea, surprised that the ship had managed to remember his passenger from the old days.
“Thank you, Ship,” said the Colonel. The tall, dark man seemed distracted to the point of brooding.
Climbing away from the inner shell of the Biosphere Startree gave me a sense of vertigo quite distinct from watching the sphere of a planet grow smaller and fall behind. Here we were inside the orbital structure, and while the view from within the branches of the Startree had been one of open gaps between the leaves and trunks, glimpses of starfields on the side opposite the sun and everywhere great spaces, the view from a hundred thousand klicks and climbing was of a seemingly solid surface, the huge leaves reduced to a shimmering surface—looking for all the world like a great green, concave ocean—and the sense of being in some huge bowl and unable to escape was almost overwhelming.
The branches were glowing blue from the trapped atmosphere within the containment fields there, giving thousands of klicks of vinous wood and flickering leaves a sort of blue, electric glow, as if the entire inner surface were charged with voltage. And everywhere was life and motion: Ouster angels with hundred-klick wings not only flitted among the branches and beyond the leaves, but were hurled deeper into space—inward toward the sun, more quickly outward past the ten-thousand-klick root systems; a myriad of smaller life-forms shimmered in the blue envelope of atmosphere—radiant gossamers, faery chains, parrots, blue arboreals, Old Earth monkeys, vast schools of tropical fish swimming along in zero-g, seeking, out the comet-misted regions, blue herons, flights of geese and Martian brandy fowl, Old Earth porpoises—we passed out of range before I could categorize a fraction of what I was seeing.
Farther out, the size of the largest life-forms and swarms of life-forms became apparent. From several thousand klicks “up,” I could see the shimmering herds of blue platelets, the sentient Akerataeli traveling together. After our first meeting here with the creatures from my cloud planet, I had asked Aenea if there were any more on the Biosphere Startree than the two in the conference. “A few more,” my friend had said. “About six hundred million more.” Now I could see the Akerataeli moving effortlessly on the air currents from trunk to trunk—hundreds of kilometers apart—in swarms of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands.
And with them came their obedient servants: the sky squids and zeplins and transparent medusae and vast, tendriled gas bags similar to the one that had eaten me on the cloud world. But larger. I had estimated that original monster as perhaps ten klicks long—these zeplinlike work beasts must have been several hundred klicks long, perhaps longer when one factored in the countless tentacles, tendrils, flagella, whips, tails, probes, and proboscises the things sported. I realized as I watched that all of the Akerataeli’s giant beasts of burden were busy with tasks—weaving branches and stems and pods into elaborate bio-designs, pruning dead branches and city-sized leaves from the Startree, wrestling Ouster-designed structures into place or hauling material from one part of the Biosphere to another.
“How many zeplin things are the Akerataeli controlling on the Startree?” I asked Aenea when she was free for a second.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s ask Navson.”
The Ouster said, “We have no idea. They breed as needed for tasks. The Akerataeli themselves are a perfect example of a swarm organism, a hive mind … none of the disc-entities alone is sentient … in parallel, they are brilliant. The sky squids and other ex-Jovian-world creatures have been reproducing as needed here for more than seven hundred standard years. I would venture that there are several hundred million working
around the Biosphere … perhaps a billion at this point.”
I stared down at the tiny forms on the dwindling Biosphere surface. A billion creatures each the size of the Pinion Plateau on my homeworld.
Farther out and the gaps between the branches a million klicks overhead and a half million klicks underfoot became apparent enough. The section from which we had come was the oldest and densest, but far along the great inner curve of the Biosphere there were gaps and divisions—some planned, others yet to be filled in with living material But even here space was busy and filled with motion—comets arcing between roots, branches, leaves, and trunks on precise trajectories, their gift of water being volatilized from the surface by Ouster-aimed and erg-powered heat beams from the trunks and from genetically adapted reflective leaves creating mirrors hundreds of klicks across. Once turned to water vapor, the great clouds drifted across the trailing roots and misted the billion square klicks of leaf surface.
Larger than the comets were the scores of carefully placed asteroids and shepherd moons moving a few thousand or tens of thousands of kilometers above the inner and outer surface of the living sphere—correcting for orbital drift, providing tides and tugs to help the branches grow correctly, throwing shadow on the Biosphere’s inner surface where shade was needed, and serving as observation bases and work shacks for the countless Ouster and Templar gardeners who watched over the project from decade to decade and century to century.
And now, a half a light-minute out and accelerating toward the sun as if the ship were searching for a Hawking-drive translation point, there appeared to be even more traffic in the vast hollow of the green sphere: Ouster warships, all obsolete by Pax standards, with Hawking-drive blisters or giant ramscoop containment fields, old-fashioned high-g destroyers and C3 ships from a long-gone era, elegant sunjammer cargo craft with great curved sails of gleaming monofilm—and everywhere the individual Ouster angels, wings flapping and shimmering as they tacked in toward the sun or hurtled back out toward the Biosphere.
Aenea and the others stepped back inside to continue their discussion. The topic was important—still trying to find a way to stall the Pax from attacking, some sort of feint or distraction that would keep the massing fleet from hurling itself this way—but I had more important things on my mind.
As A. Bettik turned to leave the balcony, I touched the android’s right sleeve. “Can you stay and talk a minute?”
“Of course, M. Endymion.” The blue-skinned man’s voice was as gentle as always.
I waited until we were alone on the balcony, the drone of conversation from within affording us privacy outside, and leaned on the railing. “I’m sorry we haven’t had more chance to talk since arriving here at the Startree,” I said.
A. Bettik’s bald scalp gleamed in the rich sunlight. His blue-eyed gaze was calm and friendly. “That’s perfectly all right, M. Endymion. Events have proven quite hectic since our arrival. I do concur, however, that this artifact does cause one to find opportunities to discuss it.” He waved his remaining hand at the huge curve of the Startree to where it seemed to fede away near the central sun’s brilliance.
“It’s not the Startree or the Ousters I want to talk about,” I said softly, leaning a bit closer.
A. Bettik nodded and waited.
“You were with Aenea on all of the worlds between Old Earth and T’ien Shan,” I said. “Ixion, Maui-Covenant, Renaissance Vector, and the others?”
“Yes, M. Endymion. I had the privilege to travel with her during all the time she allowed others to travel with her.”
I chewed my lip, realizing that I was about to make a fool of myself but having no choice. “And what about the time when she did not allow you to travel with her,” I said.
“While M. Rachel, M. Theo, and the others remained with me on Groombridge Dyson D?” said A. Bettik. “We carried on with M. Aenea’s work, M. Endymion. I was especially busy working on the construction of …”
“No, no,” I interrupted, “I mean what do you know about her absence?”
A. Bettik paused. “Virtually nothing, M. Endymion. She had told us that she would be away for some time. She had made provisions for our employment and continued work with her … students. One day she was gone and she was to stay away for approximately two standard years …”
“One year, eleven months, one week, six hours,” I said.
“Yes, M. Endymion. That is precisely correct.”
“And after she returned, she never told you where she had been?”
“No, M. Endymion. As far as I know, she never mentioned it to any of us.”
I wanted to grab A. Bettik’s shoulders, to make him understand, to explain why this was of life and death importance to me. Would he have understood? I didn’t know. Instead, attempting to sound calm, almost disinterested—and failing miserably—I said, “Did you notice anything different about Aenea when she returned from that sabbatical, A. Bettik?”
My android friend paused, not, it seemed, out of hesitation to speak, but as if laboring to remember nuances of human emotion. “We left for T’ien Shan almost immediately after that, M. Endymion, but my best recollection is that M. Aenea was very emotional for some months—elated one minute, absolutely wracked with despair the next. By the time you arrived on T’ien Shan, these emotional swings had seemed to have abated.”
“And she never mentioned what caused them?” I felt like a swine going behind my beloved’s back like this, but I knew that she would not talk to me about these things.
“No, M. Endymion,” said the android. “She never talked to me about the cause. I presumed it was some event or events she experienced during her absence.”
I took a deep breath. “Before she left … on the other worlds … Amritsar, Patawpha … any of the worlds before she left Groombridge Dyson D … had she … was she … had there been anyone?”
“I don’t understand, M. Endymion.”
“Was there a man in her life, A. Bettik? Someone she showed affection for? Someone who seemed especially close to her?”
“Ah,” said the android. “No, M. Endymion, there seemed to be no male who showed any special interest in M. Aenea … other than as a teacher and possible messiah, of course.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And no one came back with her after the one year, eleven months, one week, and six hours?”
“No, M. Endymion.”
I gripped A. Bettik’s shoulder. “Thank you, my friend. I’m sorry I’m asking these stupid questions. It’s just that … I don’t understand … somewhere there’s a … shit, it doesn’t matter. It’s just stupid human emotion.” I turned to go in to join the others.
A. Bettik stopped me with a hand on my wrist. “M. Endymion,” he said softly, “if love is the human emotion to which you refer, I feel that I have watched humankind long enough during my existence to know that love is never a stupid emotion. I feel that M. Aenea is correct when she teaches that it may well be the mainspring energy of the universe.”
I stood and watched, gaping, as the android left the balcony and went into the crowded library level.
• • •
THEY WERE CLOSE TO MAKING A DECISION.
“I think we should send the Gideon-drive courier drone with a message,” Aenea was saying as I came into the lounge. “Send it direct and within the hour.”
“They’ll confiscate the drone,” said Sian Quintana Ka’an in her musical contralto. “And it’s the only ship we have left with the instantaneous drive.”
“Good,” said Aenea. “They’re an abomination. Every time they are used, part of the Void is destroyed.”
“Still,” said Paul Uray, his thick Ouster dialect sounding like someone speaking through radio static, “there remains the option of using the drone as a delivery system.”
“To launch nuclear warheads, or plasma weapons, against the armada?” said Aenea. “I thought that we had dismissed that possibility.”
“It’s our only way of striking at them before they strike
at us,” said Colonel Kassad.
“It would do no good,” said the Templar True Voice of the Startree Ket Rosteen. “The drones are not built for precise targeting. An archangel-class warship would destroy it light-minutes away from target. I agree with the One Who Teaches. Send the message.”
“But will the message stop their attack?” said Systenj Coredwell.
Aenea made the little gesture that I knew so well. “There are no guarantees … but if it puts them off balance, at least they will use their instantaneous drive drones to postpone the attack, it is worth a try, I think.”
“And what will the message say?” said Rachel.
“Please hand me that vellum and stylus,” said Aenea.
Theo brought the items and set them on the Stein way. Everyone—including me—crowded close as Aenea wrote:
To Pope Urban XVI and Cardinal Lourdusamy:
I am coming to Pacem, to the Vatican.
Aenea
“There,” said my young friend, handing the vellum to Navson Hamnim. “Please set this in the courier drone when we dock, set the transponder to ‘carrying hardcopy message,’ and launch it to Pacem System.”
The Ouster took the vellum. I had not yet developed the knack of reading the Ouster’s facial expressions, but I could tell that something was giving him pause. Perhaps it was a lesser form of the same sort of panic and confusion that was filling my chest at the moment.
I am coming to Pacem. What the goddamn hell did that mean? How could Aenea go to Pacem and survive? She could not. And wherever she was going, I was certain of only one thing … that I would be at her side. Which meant that she was going to kill me as well, if she was as good as her word. Which she always had been. I am coming to Pacem. Was it just a ploy to deter their fleet? An empty threat … a way of stalling them? I wanted to shake my beloved until her teeth fell out or until she explained everything to me.
