“The bogeys,” Ruby said, referring to their unknown foes. “They’re uniting on a lambda band now, fourteen hundred megacycles … with what looks like a Koonin-style metric-impedance match. Beta’s responding! Damn, will it—no! Alex came in from below and blocked ’em. Yeah! Bought us some time. Take that, assholes!”
Stan appreciated the young Canadian’s colorful commentary. It lent those abstract symbols verve and emotion appropriate to combat. Stan balled his fists and tried for the adrenaline rush one expected in a situation like this. Only what is a situation like this? Maybe if there were bombs going off or visible foes …
The sky was so peaceful and blue though, with a bracing, wintry breeze coming off the continent of ice. He felt incongruously comfortable and calm with gloved hands jammed into his jacket pockets.
“Uh-oh … Alex has run out of excited states along any path between Rapa Nui and us. I see nothing in reach for ten minutes!”
“Ten minutes?” Someone nearby sighed. “Might as well be forever.”
Stan read the display. Sure enough, the gleaming filaments along one entire sector had gone dim—still pulsing, but now exhausted, banked back, almost contemplative compared to the glittering ferment going on elsewhere. Until they replenished, Alex’s team would be unable to render any help warding off attacks on Greenland.
“Lustig signals he’s going onto the attack meanwhile.… Says good luck and godspeed.… Now he’s gone.”
Stan nodded. “Same to you, Alex. Don’t worry about us. Go get ’em.”
He and the other evacuees turned their attention to the distant white dome they had left just a little while ago. Even this far away they were still in danger. In this new, terrifying type of warfare, the ground beneath you might suddenly turn liquid with color, or vanish in a titanic flash, or propel you toward far galaxies. Whatever happened, he wanted to share jeopardy with those brave technicians over there across the moraine valley. He planned on staying when the crane-zep returned for another pickup.
All my life I believed science was a revelation co-equal to scripture. A more advanced text—the Infinite offering us His very tools, now that we’re older, like apprentices learning their-Father’s craft.
So isn’t it only right to stand watch over what I helped create with those tools?
Ruby exclaimed, grabbing her headphones. She laughed. “I don’t believe it!”
“What is it?”
“Alex. He’s taken out the Siberian machine!” she announced in triumph. “Vaporized ’em! That’s one enemy down and two to go. Oh eh? Oh no!”
Stan felt the others gather even closer. Ruby’s gleeful expression turned to despair. “What now?” he asked.
“Another one’s come on line to replace it! A new one! Joined in soon as Siberia blew out. It’s … in the Sea of Japan. Damn, they must’ve been holding it in reserve. Where’d all these bastards come from!”
In the display, Stan saw a new triggering beam replace the one Alex had just destroyed, making a total of three foes once more.
“They’re still after us!” she cried, reading the traces.
“Sometimes it’s smarter to take out the weaker opponent first,” he commented. “If they knock Greenland out, Alex’s crew will have to face them all alone.” The Danes and others sighed and nodded. They didn’t have the full picture. (Who did?) But some things were obvious.
“The gor-suckers have hooked a really good band this time,” Ruby said. “Lots of energy. Beta’s responding, and twelve … fifteen threads are active.… Beam on target!”
Stan looked around for any sign that coherent pencils of gravitational radiation were hurtling through the Earth nearby. But no symptoms could be perceived. It wasn’t likely there would be any, not until their assailants found a proper coupling with surface matter.
“They’re hunting for a contact resonance. Our guys are trying to parry …” Then Ruby groaned as her instruments flashed fateful crimson. “No good. Here it comes!”
“Everybody down!” Stan shouted. “Lie flat and turn away!”
But even as the others dove to the ground, Stan ignored his own advice. He watched the NATO buildings and knew the very instant the beam matched frequencies with the rock-air boundary. Oval patches of tundra seemed to throb like tympani. Then, within one of those boundaries, the encampment suddenly sank into the ground, like an express elevator called down to hell. It was over in an eyeblink.
At least, the first part was over. Stan mourned good people who had become friends. Dr. Nielsen got up and moved next to him. Together they listened to the continuing rumble of a new tunnel boring straight into the Earth. The growling continued for some time, vibrating their soles.
“Maybe we’d better try to get out of here,” the paleogeologist suggested at last. “The magma in these parts is far below a heavy plate, but it’s not very viscous. Even on foot, a little distance could make a lot of difference right now.”
Mankind had passed yet another milestone today, Stan thought. But then, maybe Nielsen was right. He didn’t have to be exactly at ground zero in order to bear witness when molten rock flooded up that new channel from deep, high-pressure confinement. Watching from further away wouldn’t lessen the spectacle much at all.
Like everyone else aboard the company ship, Crat watched and listened to the hurried, frantic reports. He soon tired, though, of trying to follow events he didn’t understand. And so he left them all in the comm room and went out on deck alone to wait for sunrise.
Partly, he was still numb. His adventure with the underwater shaft of light hadn’t worn off yet—the enchantment of that strange music, the transient contact with something warm and accepting, or so it seemed at the time. He hadn’t expected his bosses to believe his story when he emerged from the water. But they had, questioning him about every detail, testing his blood and other fluids, putting him next to machines that tugged at his limbs as the light had, though not as pleasantly. At one point as they worked on him, Crat had felt his sense of smell enhance out of all proportion. The company execs’ fine colognes bit into his sinuses and made his nose itch.
That had seemed to satisfy them. He’d been released to rest and perform easy chores aboard a company support ship while the wary tech types hurried back to their secret labs. Crat had wondered how they could be so concerned about such matters at a time like that … and even more so two days later, when people spoke of whole chunks of the planet being blasted into space! Such dedication seemed far beyond him.
Still, all seemed peaceful on deck. From the railing he saw the gangly towers of the Sea State town. Soon the muezzin would be calling Muslim citizens to first prayer, dawn kites would rise to catch the stratospheric winds and solar arrays would catch even the reddish dawn.
Tepid currents lapped the cruiser’s hull, leaving the usual faint scum of surface oils and powdered styrofoam in a pebbly sheen. Phosphorescent, dying plankton gave off iridescent colors. Crat sighed as moonlight broke through the ragged overcast to brighten some obscure patch of sea. That bright beam reminded him of another. It made him hope with the focused intensity of a prayer that he might be lucky again. Maybe next time he met that special light, or heard that music, he wouldn’t be too dumb, too tongue-tied to reply.
“Yeah,” he said, in bittersweet sureness that he had been both blessed and abandoned. “Sure you would, boy-oh. Ever’body’s waitin’ in line just to hear what you have to say.”
To Logan Eng, the chaos in the Net felt like having one of life’s underpinnings knocked out. What had been a well-ordered, if undisciplined, ruckus of zines, holochannels, SIGs, and forums had become a rowdy babel, a torrent of confusion and comment, made worse because in order to be noticed each user now sent out countless copies of his messages toward any node that might conceivably listen. A million hackers unleashed carefully hoarded “grabber” subroutines, designed to seize memory space and public attention. Even “official” channels were jammed half the time with interlopers claiming their right to comm
ent on the crisis facing the world.
“… it is a plot by resurgent Stalinist elements and pamyat mystics …,” claimed a ham operator who had been listening to one mysterious site in Siberia.
“… No, it’s schemes by money-grubbing polluters …”
“… eco-freaks …”
“… little green men …”
Normally, the weirdest scenarios would have stayed ghettoed in special interest forums. But that unspoken consensus broke down as bizarre fantasies suddenly seemed no less reasonable than the finest science punditry.
Then, adding to the overload, worried governments suddenly began pouring forth reams—whole libraries—of information they’d been hoarding, stumbling over themselves to prove they weren’t responsible for the sudden outbreak of gravitational war. Each denial met fresh suspicions, though. Accusations flew in the halls of diplomacy and on ten thousand channels of comment and opinion.
The largest chunk of raw disclosure came from NATO-ANZAC-ASEAN—a spasm of data that stunned already dizzy Net traffic handlers. Suspicious voices accused Washington and its allies of masking culpability under a tidal wave of bits and bytes. But Logan was shocked by the extent of this sudden candor. To demonstrate their innocence, Spivey’s bosses had spilled everything, even his own first conversation with the colonel, in the big limousine! This tsunami of forthrightness swamped normal channels and flooded into unusual places. Classified studies of knot singularity physics got dumped into a channel normally reserved for cooking hobbyists and recipe exchanges. The secrets of gazerdynamic launching systems filled corridors meant for light opera, situation comedies, and golfing.
The cat’s out of the bag now. Even if the present crisis waned, the world would never be the same.
Despite disclosure, however, despite scurrying arms inspectors and tribunes, events sped ahead of all governance. Paranoia notched up with each strange tremor, each awful disappearance. Caroming rumors spoke of national deterrence weapons being wheeled out of storage—of peace locks being hammered off ancient but still deadly bombs. Sneezes were heard in Budapest—and someone decried bioplagues. Hailstones struck Alberta—and someone else proclaimed the wrath of God.
A winking light dragged Logan from the latest report, in which one of the brighter pundits cited new evidence pointing away from the bad old nation states, toward some new, unknown power.… Logan blinked at the intruding lines of text crossing his portable holo—a priority override using his personal emergency code. Not even Glenn Spivey knew that one.
The words manifested with shocking, glacial slowness. One by one, they seemed to pry their way through the panicky crush. He read the message and then brought up his hand to cover his eyes.
DADDY … CAN’T GET MOTHER TO BUDGE. LOCKED IN HER ROOM. ACTING CRAZY … COME QUICK. WE NEED YOU!
—LOVE, CLAIRE
It is a fairly typical refugee camp, one of thirty allocated Great Britain under the Migration Accords. Along the trim lanes of Bowerchalke Village, the poor continue their day in, day out labors. Great drums of grain and fishmeal arrive and are disbursed by elected block committees. Blackwater must go to the septic ponds, graywater to the pulp gardens; every bit of cardboard or plastic or metal has value, so the streets are spotless.
As long as order is kept and every baby accounted for, a few luxuries are included in each week’s aid shipment—sugarcane cuttings for the children, from plantations in Kent … toilet paper instead of dried kudzu leaves, to make life a little softer for the old ones … and some real work for those in between, those not already lost in ennui, staring all day at cheap holo sets like disembodied souls.
Yet, some of the brighter ones cruise that data sea, associating with others far away who don’t even know their status as poor refugees. Some do brisk, software-based business from the camp. Some get rich and leave. Some get rich and stay.
For most, the sudden chaos on the net means a delay in their favorite shows. But to others, It threatens the only world that ever offered them hope.
• EXOSPHERE
Teresa wished she could help Alex. But all her skills were useless in this battle, a conflict as intricate as a No play, fought with the deadly delicacy of weaving, bobbing Siamese fish.
At least she could help watch the prisoner, freeing some security boys to stand guard against saboteurs. And she’d see to keeping Pedro out of Alex’s hair.
Fortunately, those two jobs coincided as the big Aztlan reporter eagerly questioned June Morgan. He forced her to look toward the holo display, where each thrust and parry translated into more deaths, more local catastrophes. “It wasn’t supposed to go this far,” the blonde traitor answered miserably. “They never intended all-out war.”
“They hardly ever do,” Manella commented. “Big, destructive hostilities nearly always used to come about when one side thought it knew just how the other would react to a show of force, and miscalculated their opponents’ resolve.”
Teresa watched June wince as roiling changes lit up the many-layered Earth. Nearby, Alex Lustig tapped rapid commands with a keypad-glove, adding muttered amendments quicker than speech with his subvocal device. Others hurried about their tasks with similar crisp efficiency … the only trait that might help the last Tangoparu team in its desperate, one-sided struggle to survive.
“It’s all my fault,” June said with a despairing sigh. “If I’d only done my job, they wouldn’t have had their bluff called. Not yet, at least. Now, though, all their plans are messed up. They’re in a panic. Far more dangerous than if they’d won.”
The patent rationalization made Teresa want to spit. “You still haven’t said who they are!”
Earlier June had refused to answer, as if the direct question terrified her. Now she seemed to decide it didn’t matter anymore.
“It’s kind of hard to explain.”
“Try us,” Manella urged.
With a sigh, June regarded them both. “Pedro, Teresa, haven’t either of you ever wondered? I mean, why do people assume the Helvetian War put an end to the world’s oldest profession?”
Teresa blinked. “Are you being snide?”
June laughed without mirth. “I don’t mean prostitution, Terry. I’m talking about parasites, manipulators who thrive on secrecy. There have always been schemers and plotters—since before Gilgamesh and the pyramids.
“Come on, you two. Who do you think poisoned Roosevelt and had the Kennedys shot? Or arranged for Simyonev’s plane to crash? What about Lamberton and Tsushima? Are you sure those were accidents? Didn’t they work out rather conveniently for those profiting in the aftermath?
“Teresa and I are too young, but Pedro, you remember how things were during the weeks before the Brazzaville Declaration, don’t you? Back when delegations started flying in spontaneously from all over the world to declare the antisecrecy alliance? How many people died of mysterious accidents before the delegates overcame all the obstacles and ideological distractions and at last built a momentum that was unstoppable? Then how many world leaders had to be deposed before the masses had their way and the Alps were finally put under siege?”
“Half the presidents and ministers had secret bank accounts to protect,” Pedro replied. “So naturally they tried to obstruct. But in the end they failed—”
“They didn’t fail. They were used. Used up in delaying actions.” June’s eyebrows lowered. “Why do you think the war lasted so damn long, hmm? The Swiss people sure didn’t want to take on the whole damn planet! They never imagined all those generations spent digging tunnels and bomb shelters had a purpose beyond mere deterrence.
“And even when it ended at last, you don’t actually think the bank records that U.N. forces finally dug out of the rubble were the real ones, do you?”
Manella shook his head. “Are you implying whole levels of conspirators we missed? That all the drug lords and bribe takers and commissar billionaires we caught—”
“Were just expendable flunkies, thrown down to appease the mob. Yes, that’s
exactly what I’m saying, Mr. Reporter.” June’s voice was bitter. “The real manipulators wanted Helvetia completely destroyed. The war had to cost so many lives, so an exhausted world would exult in victory and desperately want to believe it was over.”
“This is ridiculous,” Teresa told Pedro. “She’s sounding like a bad Lovecraft novel now. What’s next, June? Dark Unspeakable Unnameable Horrors from Before the Start of Time? Or how about something out of those wonderful, paranoid Illuminati books? Who are your bosses, then? Freemasons? The Trilateral Commission? Jesuits? The Elders of Zion?” Teresa laughed. “How about Fu Manchu or the Comintern …?”
June shrugged. “Those were useful distractions in their day—glitter and window dressing designed to attract fools, so conspiracy theories in general would get a bad odor with normal, honest folk.”
To her dismay, Teresa found herself drawn by June Morgan’s frankness. The woman clearly believed what she was saying. And she’s right in a way, Teresa thought, suddenly aware of her own reaction. Look at me now. Refusing to believe, even as proof tears the world down around me
Pedro chewed one end of his moustache. “You aren’t referring to the aliens are you? The makers of Beta? Are they your—”
June looked up quickly. “Oh heavens no!” She gestured at the big display. “Do the assholes who sent me here seem that competent to you? Look how badly they screwed up their attempted coup. Would Beta’s makers have let Alex jerk them around like he has?”
As they all looked that way, a trio of yellow rays caused Beta’s purple dot to throb with incipient power, but once again they were foiled by a slender rapier from Easter Island, sending their pent-up force spiraling off uselessly in some other direction.